The Evening Wrap: Centre expresses regret over Nagaland firing incident: Amit Shah

Expressing regret over the Nagaland firing incident, Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said that a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) will be completed within a month and asserted that all agencies must ensure such happenings do not recur while taking action against insurgents. In his statement in Lok Sabha, Shah offered condolences to the families of those killed in the incident on December 4. Security forces opened fire on civilians killing 14 and injuring 11 more in Nagaland’s Mon district in three consecutive episodes, the first of which was a case of mistaken identity, police said on Sunday. One soldier also died in the rioting which followed. Narrating the sequence of events, Shah said the Army received information on the movement of insurgents in Nagaland’s Mon and ‘21 Para Commando’ unit laid an ambush. A vehicle was signalled to stop but it tried to speed away and suspecting the presence of extremists in the vehicle, the security personnel opened fire, he said. Six out of eight occupants of the vehicle died as a result of the firing by security forces, Shah said, adding that later, it was found to be a case of mistaken identity. He said local people on getting news of firing surrounded and attacked the troops and one soldier was killed in violence while several others were injured. Shah said that in self defence and to disperse the crowd, the troops had to open fire in which seven civilians were killed. He said that on Sunday evening, an agitated crowd targeted Assam Rifles company operating base and forces had to open fire in which one civilian was killed. It has been decided all agencies must ensure such incidents do not happen in the future during action against insurgents, the minister said. Expressing dissatisfaction with the statement, opposition parties including the Congress, DMK, SP, BSP and the NCP walked out of the House. Earlier in the day, Lok Sabha members condemned the Nagaland incident and demanded an impartial probe. Members also called for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Rajya Sabha: Protests over suspension of MPs to intensify Opposition parties have decided to intensify protests inside the Rajya Sabha on the suspension of 12 House members, overruling a view that House disruption should be calibrated to allow them to have their say but to stop the government from having its way. Opposition leaders have decided that the protests in the Upper House should not spill over to the Lower House. It has been a week since the 12 MPs have been on a sit-in at the Gandhi statue in Parliament during its working hours. The government wants an individual apology on the floor of the House from them for their “misconduct” during the monsoon session but they are not willing to relent. The first adjournment on Monday came within 10 minutes after the House sat down for the day in the morning. At 12:00, when the House reconvened, it worked for 18 minutes amidst cacophonous protests from the Opposition. Later in the day, the House saw two more adjournments before winding up for the day at 4:00 p.m. The Opposition did not participate in a debate on price rise that was listed for the day. The Opposition parties had two rounds of meetings before the session and another one during the lunch break. According to sources, a section of Congress leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma and Jairam Ramesh, wanted the House to run to allow the Opposition to seek clarifications on Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement on Nagaland. But the other Opposition parties and a section of Congress leaders vehemently opposed the idea. Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’ Brien said the House functioning could not return to normal till the return of the 12 MPs. He questioned the government’s sincerity in organising the debate on price rise, dismissing it as a cheap stunt. “The government is accountable to Parliament and Parliament is accountable to people. If Modi and Shah do not let Parliament function, then they are not accountable to anyone,” he stated. DMK’s Tiruchi Siva said it was wrong to say that the Opposition is shrugging off its responsibility. “We are not giving up on issues of public importance. The Lok Sabha is functioning and each party in the Rajya Sabha is also present there. They are raising these issues and asking the necessary questions to the government,” he observed. CPI(M)’s Elamaram Kareem, who is one of the 12 suspended MPs too made this distinction between the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. “We will continue our struggle in the Rajya Sabha over the undemocratic and arbitrary suspension and in the Lok Sabha, our colleagues will ask questions and raise other issues,” he said. India signs military deals with Russia, raises ‘unprovoked aggression’ from China India had faced ‘unprovoked aggression’ on its northern borders for more than a year, said Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday during the first-ever India-Russia ‘2+2’ dialogue here. Both sides renewed the military-technical cooperation agreement for another 10 years till 2031, and also signed the deal for the manufacture of Ak-203 assault rifles, a defence official said. The deal for 6.1 lakh Ak-203 assault rifles is estimated at over ₹5,000 crore and will be manufactured by a Joint Venture, Indo-Russian Rifles Private Ltd. (IRRPL) at Korwa, Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. The IRRPL was set up jointly between the erstwhile OFB [now Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited and Munitions India Limited] of India and Rosoboronexport and concern Kalashnikov of Russia. The deal has been stuck over the high cost of each rifle and the high incidental costs of the Ordnance factory. As part of efforts to bring down costs, Russia dropped the royalty to be charged in the deal, officials confirmed. With the $5.43 bn S-400 as well as other big ticket deals, defence trade between India and Russia has crossed $15 bn since 2018. A bilateral logistics support deal Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics Agreement, as well as a Navy-to-Navy cooperation MoU are also in the works. Russia has also begun deliveries of the S-400 long range air defence systems, the shipments of which are en route. They should arrive in the next 10 days, a senior defence official said. Two teams of Indian Air Force personnel have already been trained to operate the system and the first unit to be deployed in north west India is expected to be operational within the next two-three months. With Omicron, third wave projected to hit India by Feb. but may be milder than second, says IIT scientist With Omicron, the new variant of SARS-CoV2, the third wave of coronavirus could hit the peak by February with cases likely to be reaching up to 1-1.5 lakh a day in the country, but it will be milder than the second wave, Manindra Agarwal, IIT scientist involved in the mathematical projection of trajectory of COVID-19, said. He said in the new forecast, the new Omicron variant has been factored in. “With the new variant, our current forecast is that the country could see the third wave by February but it will be milder than the second wave. So far we have seen that the severity of Omicron is not like the one seen in the Delta variant,” Agarwal told PTI. He, however, said a close eye is being kept on cases in South Africa where many cases of this variant have been recorded. Agarwal added that as of now South Africa has not seen a rise in hospitalisation. He said a fresh set of data on the virus and hospitalisations would help in getting a more solid picture. “It looks like although the new variant has shown high transmissibility, its severity is not like the one seen in the Delta variant,” Agarwal said. Ex-Waqf Board chief in U.P. Wasim Rizvi converts to Hinduism The controversial former chairman of the Shia Waqf Board Wasim Rizvi on Monday converted to Sanatan Dharm at a religious ceremony performed at the Dasna temple of Ghaziabad. The rituals were conducted by the priest of the temple, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, who is also the Mahamandleshwar of the influential Juna Akhada. After the ceremony, Rizvi was renamed as Jitendra Narayan Singh Tyagi. Tyagi said it was his choice what religion to follow. “I was being pushed out of Islam. There was prize money on my head. So, I opted to embrace the oldest religion of the world.” The former Waqf official was in the news for filing a petition in the Supreme Court demanding the removal of 26 verses from the Koran, which he alleged taught violence. While Muslim clerics flayed the move, the top court threw out his petition and imposed a penalty of ₹50,000 on him, describing his petition as “absolutely frivolous.” Later, he wrote a controversial book on the Prophet Muhammad that also faced the ire of clerics. Since then, Tyagi has claimed that his life was under threat. Narsinghanand Saraswati, who is known for his hate speech against Islam, said Tyagi had approached him in November for embracing Santana Dharm and had said he wanted his body to be cremated after death. Myanmar court sentences ousted leader Suu Kyi to 4 years in prison A special court in Myanmar’s capital sentenced the country’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to four years in prison on Monday after finding her guilty of incitement and violating coronavirus restrictions, a legal official said. The sentencing was the first in a series of cases in which the 76-year-old Nobel laureate is being prosecuted since the army seized power on Feb. 1, preventing her National League for Democracy party from starting a second five-year term in office. The incitement case involved statements posted on her party’s Facebook page after she and other party leaders had already been detained by the military, while the coronavirus charge involved a campaign appearance ahead of elections in November last year which her party overwhelmingly won. The army, whose allied party lost many seats in the election, claimed massive voting fraud, but independent election observers did not detect any major irregularities. The court’s ruling was conveyed by a legal official who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities. Suu Kyi’s trials are closed to the media and spectators, and her lawyers, who had been the sole source of information on the proceedings, were served with gag orders in October forbidding them from releasing information. The cases against Suu Kyi are widely seen as contrived to discredit her and keep her from running in the next election. The constitution bars anyone sent to prison after being convicted of a crime from holding high office or becoming a lawmaker. Opposition to military rule remains strong 10 months after the army’s takeover, and the verdict may inflame tensions even further. There were protest marches on Sunday against the military government and calling for the release of Suu Kyi and other detained members of her government. An army truck deliberately sped into a march by about 30 young people in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, and at least three of the protesters may have been killed, according to unconfirmed reports. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 3,46,41,572 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 4,73,537. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 06 DECEMBER 2021 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Centre expresses regret over Nagaland firing incident: Amit Shah Expressing regret over the [Nagaland firing incident, Home Minister Amit Shah]( on Monday said that a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) will be completed within a month and asserted that all agencies must ensure such happenings do not recur while taking action against insurgents. In his statement in Lok Sabha, Shah offered condolences to the families of those killed in the incident on December 4. Security forces opened fire on civilians killing 14 and injuring 11 more in Nagaland’s Mon district in three consecutive episodes, the first of which was a case of mistaken identity, police said on Sunday. One soldier also died in the rioting which followed. [Union Home Minister Amit Shah speaks in the Lok Sabha during ongoing Winter Session of Parliament, in New Delhi, Monday, Dec. 6, 2021.]  Narrating the sequence of events, Shah said the Army received information on the movement of insurgents in Nagaland’s Mon and ‘21 Para Commando’ unit laid an ambush. A vehicle was signalled to stop but it tried to speed away and suspecting the presence of extremists in the vehicle, the security personnel opened fire, he said. Six out of eight occupants of the vehicle died as a result of the firing by security forces, Shah said, adding that later, it was found to be a case of mistaken identity. He said local people on getting news of firing surrounded and attacked the troops and one soldier was killed in violence while several others were injured. Shah said that in self defence and to disperse the crowd, the troops had to open fire in which seven civilians were killed. He said that on Sunday evening, an agitated crowd targeted Assam Rifles company operating base and forces had to open fire in which one civilian was killed. It has been decided all agencies must ensure such incidents do not happen in the future during action against insurgents, the minister said. Expressing dissatisfaction with the statement, opposition parties including the Congress, DMK, SP, BSP and the NCP walked out of the House. Earlier in the day, Lok Sabha members condemned the Nagaland incident and demanded an impartial probe. Members also called for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). [underlineimg] Rajya Sabha: Protests over suspension of MPs to intensify Opposition parties have decided to [intensify protests inside the Rajya Sabha on the suspension of 12 House members]( overruling a view that House disruption should be calibrated to allow them to have their say but to stop the government from having its way. Opposition leaders have decided that the protests in the Upper House should not spill over to the Lower House. It has been a week since the 12 MPs have been on a sit-in at the Gandhi statue in Parliament during its working hours. The government wants an individual apology on the floor of the House from them for their “misconduct” during the monsoon session but they are not willing to relent. The first adjournment on Monday came within 10 minutes after the House sat down for the day in the morning. At 12:00, when the House reconvened, it worked for 18 minutes amidst cacophonous protests from the Opposition. Later in the day, the House saw two more adjournments before winding up for the day at 4:00 p.m. The Opposition did not participate in a debate on price rise that was listed for the day. The Opposition parties had two rounds of meetings before the session and another one during the lunch break. According to sources, a section of Congress leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma and Jairam Ramesh, wanted the House to run to allow the Opposition to seek clarifications on Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement on Nagaland. But the other Opposition parties and a section of Congress leaders vehemently opposed the idea. Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’ Brien said the House functioning could not return to normal till the return of the 12 MPs. He questioned the government’s sincerity in organising the debate on price rise, dismissing it as a cheap stunt. “The government is accountable to Parliament and Parliament is accountable to people. If Modi and Shah do not let Parliament function, then they are not accountable to anyone,” he stated. DMK’s Tiruchi Siva said it was wrong to say that the Opposition is shrugging off its responsibility. “We are not giving up on issues of public importance. The Lok Sabha is functioning and each party in the Rajya Sabha is also present there. They are raising these issues and asking the necessary questions to the government,” he observed. CPI(M)’s Elamaram Kareem, who is one of the 12 suspended MPs too made this distinction between the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. “We will continue our struggle in the Rajya Sabha over the undemocratic and arbitrary suspension and in the Lok Sabha, our colleagues will ask questions and raise other issues,” he said. [underlineimg] India signs military deals with Russia, raises ‘unprovoked aggression’ from China [India had faced ‘unprovoked aggression’ on its northern borders for more than a year]( said Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday during the first-ever India-Russia ‘2+2’ dialogue here. Both sides renewed the military-technical cooperation agreement for another 10 years till 2031, and also signed the deal for the manufacture of Ak-203 assault rifles, a defence official said. The deal for 6.1 lakh Ak-203 assault rifles is estimated at over ₹5,000 crore and will be manufactured by a Joint Venture, Indo-Russian Rifles Private Ltd. (IRRPL) at Korwa, Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. The IRRPL was set up jointly between the erstwhile OFB [now Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited and Munitions India Limited] of India and Rosoboronexport and concern Kalashnikov of Russia. The deal has been stuck over the high cost of each rifle and the high incidental costs of the Ordnance factory. As part of efforts to bring down costs, Russia dropped the royalty to be charged in the deal, officials confirmed. With the $5.43 bn S-400 as well as other big ticket deals, defence trade between India and Russia has crossed $15 bn since 2018. A bilateral logistics support deal Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics Agreement, as well as a Navy-to-Navy cooperation MoU are also in the works. Russia has also begun deliveries of the S-400 long range air defence systems, the shipments of which are en route. They should arrive in the next 10 days, a senior defence official said. Two teams of Indian Air Force personnel have already been trained to operate the system and the first unit to be deployed in north west India is expected to be operational within the next two-three months. [underlineimg] With Omicron, third wave projected to hit India by Feb. but may be milder than second, says IIT scientist With [Omicron, the new variant of SARS-CoV2, the third wave of coronavirus could hit the peak by February]( with cases likely to be reaching up to 1-1.5 lakh a day in the country, but it will be milder than the second wave, Manindra Agarwal, IIT scientist involved in the mathematical projection of trajectory of COVID-19, said. He said in the new forecast, the new Omicron variant has been factored in. “With the new variant, our current forecast is that the country could see the third wave by February but it will be milder than the second wave. So far we have seen that the severity of Omicron is not like the one seen in the Delta variant,” Agarwal told PTI. [Photo used for representation purpose only. File]  He, however, said a close eye is being kept on cases in South Africa where many cases of this variant have been recorded. Agarwal added that as of now South Africa has not seen a rise in hospitalisation. He said a fresh set of data on the virus and hospitalisations would help in getting a more solid picture. “It looks like although the new variant has shown high transmissibility, its severity is not like the one seen in the Delta variant,” Agarwal said. [underlineimg] Ex-Waqf Board chief in U.P. Wasim Rizvi converts to Hinduism The [controversial former chairman of the Shia Waqf Board Wasim Rizvi]( on Monday converted to Sanatan Dharm at a religious ceremony performed at the Dasna temple of Ghaziabad. The rituals were conducted by the priest of the temple, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, who is also the Mahamandleshwar of the influential Juna Akhada. After the ceremony, Rizvi was renamed as Jitendra Narayan Singh Tyagi. Tyagi said it was his choice what religion to follow. “I was being pushed out of Islam. There was prize money on my head. So, I opted to embrace the oldest religion of the world.” The former Waqf official was in the news for filing a petition in the Supreme Court demanding the removal of 26 verses from the Koran, which he alleged taught violence. While Muslim clerics flayed the move, the top court threw out his petition and imposed a penalty of ₹50,000 on him, describing his petition as “absolutely frivolous.” Later, he wrote a controversial book on the Prophet Muhammad that also faced the ire of clerics. Since then, Tyagi has claimed that his life was under threat. Narsinghanand Saraswati, who is known for his hate speech against Islam, said Tyagi had approached him in November for embracing Santana Dharm and had said he wanted his body to be cremated after death. [underlineimg] Myanmar court sentences ousted leader Suu Kyi to 4 years in prison A [special court in Myanmar’s capital sentenced the country’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi]( to four years in prison on Monday after finding her guilty of incitement and violating coronavirus restrictions, a legal official said. The sentencing was the first in a series of cases in which the 76-year-old Nobel laureate is being prosecuted since the army seized power on Feb. 1, preventing her National League for Democracy party from starting a second five-year term in office. The incitement case involved statements posted on her party’s Facebook page after she and other party leaders had already been detained by the military, while the coronavirus charge involved a campaign appearance ahead of elections in November last year which her party overwhelmingly won. The army, whose allied party lost many seats in the election, claimed massive voting fraud, but independent election observers did not detect any major irregularities. The court’s ruling was conveyed by a legal official who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities. Suu Kyi’s trials are closed to the media and spectators, and her lawyers, who had been the sole source of information on the proceedings, were served with gag orders in October forbidding them from releasing information. The cases against Suu Kyi are widely seen as contrived to discredit her and keep her from running in the next election. The constitution bars anyone sent to prison after being convicted of a crime from holding high office or becoming a lawmaker. Opposition to military rule remains strong 10 months after the army’s takeover, and the verdict may inflame tensions even further. There were protest marches on Sunday against the military government and calling for the release of Suu Kyi and other detained members of her government. An army truck deliberately sped into a march by about 30 young people in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, and at least three of the protesters may have been killed, according to unconfirmed reports. [underlineimg] Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 3,46,41,572 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 4,73,537. [underlineimg] Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. Today's Top Picks [[The 13 years that shaped India-China relations | The Hindu On Books podcast] The 13 years that shaped India-China relations | The Hindu On Books podcast]( [[Watch | R. Madhavan and Surveen Chawla on ‘Decoupled’] Watch | R. Madhavan and Surveen Chawla on ‘Decoupled’]( [[News analysis | Nagaland probe and 1997 Supreme Court judgment] News analysis | Nagaland probe and 1997 Supreme Court judgment]( [[Nagaland killings underline AFSPA pitfalls] Nagaland killings underline AFSPA pitfalls]( Copyright @ 2021, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. If you are facing any trouble in viewing this newsletter, please [try here]( If you do not wish to receive such emails [go here](