The Evening Wrap: Sikkim flash floods death toll rises to 14

Fourteen people have died and 102 others, including 22 Army personnel, were missing after the cloud burst over Lhonak Lake in North Sikkim triggered a flash flood in the Teesta river basin, officials said on Thursday. The lake outburst also resulted in the breach of the Chungthang dam, which is the largest hydropower project in the State. The National Remote Sensing Centre, one of the ISRO centres, has conducted a satellite-based study on the outburst of the South Lhonak lake in Sikkim by obtaining temporal satellite images (before & after) over the water body. “It is observed that Lake is Burst and about 105 hectares area has been drained out (28 September 2023 image versus 04 October 2023) which might have created a flash flood downstream,” an ISRO statement said on Wednesday. The National Disaster Management Authority on Wednesday said the possible cause of the flash flood in Sikkim could be a combination of excess rainfall and a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) event at South Lhonak lake in North Sikkim. Action against NewsClick a chilling attempt to silence brave voices, says joint statement by civil society members A group of prominent members of the civil society, including writers and historians, have expressed their shock and concern on the recent raids on the houses of persons associated with the news website NewsClick and the arrest of two, including its editor Prabir Purkayastha under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). In a joint statement, they said the action against persons connected to NewsClick was a “chilling attempt to silence their brave voices”. The statement said all of them were well-known journalists and activists who had a commendable body of work to their credit. The signatories said criticism was essential for a democracy and any attempt to mute voices was an assault on India’s democratic spirit. “By foisting cases under Sections of the UAPA and sealing the office of NewsClick the State is attempting to vilify journalists who have consistently and fearlessly spoken truth to power,” they said. They expressed concern over the news that phones and laptops of many of those questioned had been confiscated by the Delhi Police. This was not merely a violation of their privacy but was also illegal as the confiscation was done without orders from the court and the owners of the gadgets not being informed about the case details, the signatories said. Recalling reports in the past about “manufactured pieces of evidence” getting planted in the confiscated devices of activists detained under the UAPA, they said they were “genuinely worried that similar attempts will be made in the case of journalists of NewsClick”. “At this dark moment, we record our deep appreciation of NewsClick’s stellar work in journalism and stand firmly in solidarity with all its staff and contributors,” they said. The signatories urged other stakeholders and concerned citizens “to speak up against this harassment of NewsClick and its contributors”. The signatories included social activist Aruna Roy, writers Geetanjali Shree, K.R. Meera, Perumal Murugan, journalist P. Sainath, historian Ramachandra Guha, Carnatic musician and writer T.M. Krishna and social historian and writer V. Geetha. Listen to today’s episode of the In Focus podcast Decoding the historic decline in financial savings of Indian households The net financial savings of households in India has fallen to a five-decade low of just 5.1% of the GDP in FY 2023. It was 7.2% in FY 2022. This is a worrying development, because a high savings rate has traditionally correlated with a healthy growth rate. Data released by the RBI also shows that at the same time that household savings have fallen, financial liabilities of households have risen sharply – from 3.8% of GDP in FY 2022 to 5.8% in FY 2023. This is not good news, when viewed alongside the high inflation and high interest rates that we have right now. So, what are the reasons for the historic decline in savings rate? What does this mean for India’s growth and investment targets? And what does the government need to do to reverse this trend of falling savings rate? Court grants remand of Sanjay Singh to ED till October 10 The Rouse Avenue Court on Thursday granted the remand of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Member of Parliament (MP) Sanjay Singh to Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody till October 10 in a case pertaining to the now scrapped Delhi excise policy. The ED had sought 10 days of custody from the court of Special Judge M.K. Nagpal who passed the order after hearing the Judge from both sides at length. Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain who appeared for the ED submitted in the court that an estimated amount of ₹2 crores was exchanged at the residence of Singh in two trenches which has been confirmed to the ED by the businessman Dinesh Arora. He added that custody of Singh is needed by the investigative agency to trace the evidence. Arora, earlier, had turned approved in the case registered by the ED. Responding to the ED’s allegations, Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur who was appearing for Singh maintained that the demand of the agency is absurd and all this is being done as part of harassment. He also put a question mark on the tip off given by Arora who may have implicated Mr. Singh to secure his liberty. Between the arguments, the AAP MP, who was personally present in the court, expressed shock at how the approver in this case randomly decided to implicate him in the case. “I am not that unknown person that Arora have forgotten my name to be added in the multiple statements given during a course of investigation,” Singh added. The ED, on Wednesday, arrested Mr. Singh following several hours of questioning in connection with the Delhi excise policy case, in which former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is already in judicial custody. Singh, who is considered close to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, is the third senior AAP leader to be arrested in less than a year and a half, as former Delhi Public Works Department Minister Satyendar Jain was arrested by the ED on May 30 last year in an alleged money laundering case. The court, earlier this month, allowed Arora and co-accused, Raghav Magunta, who is the son of YSRCP MP Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy, to turn government witnesses in the case. The ED probe is based on a case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation against the then Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and others on August 17 last year, on a Ministry of Home Affairs reference. The case alleges deliberate irregularities in the framing and implementation of the excise policy and undue favours extended to the licencees in the form of waiver/reduction in the licence fee, an extension of L-1 licences without approval, etc. The ED has quantified the alleged “proceeds of crime” in the case to be at least ₹1,934 crore. Ukrainian officials say a Russian attack on a village cafe killed 48 people Ukrainian officials said Thursday a Russian attack on a village in the northeast of the country killed 48 people and injured at least six more. Presidential chief of staff Andrii Yermak and Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov said Russian forces shelled a shop and a cafe in the village of Hroza, in the Kharkiv region, around 1 p.m. A 6-year-old boy was among those killed in the attack, Syniehubov said, and one child was also among the wounded. Russia targeted Ukraine with drones in another major attack early on October 5 as President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Spain to rally support from Western allies at a summit of around 50 European leaders. Ukraine’s air force said that the country’s air defenses intercepted 24 out of 29 Iranian-made drones that Russia launched at the southern Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad regions. Andriy Raykovych, head of the Kirovohrad regional administration, said that an infrastructure facility in the region was struck and emergency services were deployed to extinguish a fire. He said there were no casualties. The attack came as Zelensky arrived in Granada in southern Spain to attend a summit of the European Political Community, which was formed in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. “The key for us, especially before winter, is to strengthen air defense, and there is already a basis for new agreements with partners,” he said in a statement posted on his Telegram channel. Last winter, Russia targeted Ukraine’s energy system and other vital infrastructure in a steady barrage of missile and drone attacks, triggering continuous power outages across the country. Ukraine’s power system has shown a high degree of resilience and flexibility, helping alleviate the damage, but there have been concerns that Russia will again ramp up its strikes on power facilities as winter draws nearer. Ukraine, in turn, has struck back at Russia with regular drone attacks across the border. Roman Starovoit, the governor of Russia’s Kursk region that borders Ukraine, said that Ukrainian drones attacked infrastructure facilities in several areas, resulting in power cuts. Starovoit also said that Ukrainian forces fired artillery at the border town of Rylsk, wounding a local resident and damaging several houses. Nanded hospital deaths: Dean, paediatrician booked for culpable homicide The acting dean and a doctor of Dr. Shankarrao Chavan Government Medical College and Hospital in Maharashtra’s Nanded city, where 37 patients, including 18 newborns, died in a span of four days, were booked on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder after a woman and her infant died. Based on a complaint lodged against Dr. S.R. Wakode and the head, paediatrician department, Dr. Rathod by a person in connection with the death of his daughter and her newborn child at the hospital, a case under Section 304-II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code was registered by Nanded Rural Police, Additional SP Abinash Kumar told The Hindu. He said that there were no allegations of medical negligence in the given complaint. “It was more against individuals and administrative negligence,” he said. A three-member expert committee has been set up to probe the incident. According to Kumar, the FIR will be sent to the Committee and action will be taken based on its recommendations. “Since an expert committee already probing the incident, we are not going to launch an investigation and wait for its recommendations,” the officer said. As per the FIR, accessed by The Hindu, a 21-year-old pregnant woman was taken to the hospital at around 8 p.m. on September 30 and she gave birth to a baby girl at around 1 a.m. on October 1. “Doctors said the mother and the child were fine. In the morning, my daughter started bleeding and the baby was also not well, so doctors asked us to get medicines, blood bag and other required items worth ₹45,000 from outside,” the woman’s father said in his complaint. When the required medical items were brought, doctors were not present in the ward and Dr. Wakode intentionally made me sit and did not send a doctor or a staff nurse to check on my daughter, he said. “The duty doctors declared the newborn dead and handed over the body to the family at 6 a.m. on October 2. Two days later, on October 4 at 10.30 a.m, my daughter was declared dead,” the complaint said, alleging that Dr. Wakode deliberately did not let doctors treat his daughter and his daughter died in front of them due to lack of medical assistance and medicines. On Wednesday, a case was registered by the Nanded Rural Police against Shiv Sena member of Parliament (MP) Hemant Patil for forcing Dr. Wakode to clean a toilet and urinals. A video of the act in which Patil was seen instructing the dean to clean the toilet went viral on social media. It was reportedly circulated on WhatsApp groups by the MP’s aides. The incident took place at Dr. Shankarrao Chavan Government Medical College and Hospital. On Tuesday, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said the government had taken the deaths at Nanded Hospital “very seriously”, and appropriate action would be taken after a detailed inquiry while denying that there were shortages of medicines and staff. “Adequate medicine stock and medical staff were available at the hospital. A significant number of patients who died were old people with heart ailments, underweight infants or accident victims,” he said. In Brief: The 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature is being awarded to Norwegian author Jon Fosse “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”, the Royal Swedish Academy announced on October 5, 2023. Literature laureate Fosse’s magnum opus in prose is ‘Septology’ which he completed in 2021: ‘Det andre namnet’ (2019; ‘The Other Name’, 2020), ‘Eg er ein annan’ (2020; ‘I is Another’, 2020) and ‘Eit nytt namn’ (2021; ‘A New Name’, 2021). Fosse was born in 1959 on the Norwegian west coast. His immense œuvre is written in Norwegian Nynorsk and spans a variety of genres consisting of plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books and translations. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 05 October 2023 [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]( Sikkim flash floods | Schools, colleges to remain shut till Oct 15 as toll rises to 14, over 100 missing [Fourteen people have died and 102 others, including 22 Army personnel, were missing after the cloud burst over Lhonak Lake in North Sikkim]( triggered a flash flood in the Teesta river basin, officials said on Thursday. The lake outburst also resulted in the breach of the Chungthang dam, which is the largest hydropower project in the State. The National Remote Sensing Centre, one of the ISRO centres, has conducted a satellite-based study on the outburst of the South Lhonak lake in Sikkim by obtaining temporal satellite images (before & after) over the water body. “It is observed that Lake is Burst and about 105 hectares area has been drained out (28 September 2023 image versus 04 October 2023) which might have created a flash flood downstream,” an ISRO statement said on Wednesday. The National Disaster Management Authority on Wednesday said the possible cause of the flash flood in Sikkim could be a combination of excess rainfall and a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) event at South Lhonak lake in North Sikkim. Action against NewsClick a chilling attempt to silence brave voices, says joint statement by civil society members [A group of prominent members of the civil society, including writers and historians, have expressed their shock and concern on the recent raids on the houses of persons associated with the news website NewsClick]( and the arrest of two, including its editor Prabir Purkayastha under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). In a joint statement, they said the action against persons connected to NewsClick was a “chilling attempt to silence their brave voices”. The statement said all of them were well-known journalists and activists who had a commendable body of work to their credit. The signatories said criticism was essential for a democracy and any attempt to mute voices was an assault on India’s democratic spirit. “By foisting cases under Sections of the UAPA and sealing the office of NewsClick the State is attempting to vilify journalists who have consistently and fearlessly spoken truth to power,” they said. They expressed concern over the news that phones and laptops of many of those questioned had been confiscated by the Delhi Police. This was not merely a violation of their privacy but was also illegal as the confiscation was done without orders from the court and the owners of the gadgets not being informed about the case details, the signatories said. Recalling reports in the past about “manufactured pieces of evidence” getting planted in the confiscated devices of activists detained under the UAPA, they said they were “genuinely worried that similar attempts will be made in the case of journalists of NewsClick”. “At this dark moment, we record our deep appreciation of NewsClick’s stellar work in journalism and stand firmly in solidarity with all its staff and contributors,” they said. The signatories urged other stakeholders and concerned citizens “to speak up against this harassment of NewsClick and its contributors”. The signatories included social activist Aruna Roy, writers Geetanjali Shree, K.R. Meera, Perumal Murugan, journalist P. Sainath, historian Ramachandra Guha, Carnatic musician and writer T.M. Krishna and social historian and writer V. Geetha. Listen to today’s episode of the In Focus podcast Decoding the historic decline in financial savings of Indian households The [net financial savings of households in India has fallen to a five-decade low of just 5.1%]( of the GDP in FY 2023. It was 7.2% in FY 2022. This is a worrying development, because a high savings rate has traditionally correlated with a healthy growth rate. Data released by the RBI also shows that at the same time that household savings have fallen, financial liabilities of households have risen sharply – from 3.8% of GDP in FY 2022 to 5.8% in FY 2023. This is not good news, when viewed alongside the high inflation and high interest rates that we have right now. So, what are the reasons for the historic decline in savings rate? What does this mean for India’s growth and investment targets? And what does the government need to do to reverse this trend of falling savings rate? Court grants remand of Sanjay Singh to ED till October 10 The [Rouse Avenue Court on Thursday granted the remand of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Member of Parliament (MP) Sanjay Singh to Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody till October 10]( in a case pertaining to the now scrapped Delhi excise policy. The ED had sought 10 days of custody from the court of Special Judge M.K. Nagpal who passed the order after hearing the Judge from both sides at length. Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain who appeared for the ED submitted in the court that an estimated amount of ₹2 crores was exchanged at the residence of Singh in two trenches which has been confirmed to the ED by the businessman Dinesh Arora. He added that custody of Singh is needed by the investigative agency to trace the evidence. Arora, earlier, had turned approved in the case registered by the ED. Responding to the ED’s allegations, Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur who was appearing for Singh maintained that the demand of the agency is absurd and all this is being done as part of harassment. He also put a question mark on the tip off given by Arora who may have implicated Mr. Singh to secure his liberty. Between the arguments, the AAP MP, who was personally present in the court, expressed shock at how the approver in this case randomly decided to implicate him in the case. “I am not that unknown person that Arora have forgotten my name to be added in the multiple statements given during a course of investigation,” Singh added. The ED, on Wednesday, arrested Mr. Singh following several hours of questioning in connection with the Delhi excise policy case, in which former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is already in judicial custody. Singh, who is considered close to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, is the third senior AAP leader to be arrested in less than a year and a half, as former Delhi Public Works Department Minister Satyendar Jain was arrested by the ED on May 30 last year in an alleged money laundering case. The court, earlier this month, allowed Arora and co-accused, Raghav Magunta, who is the son of YSRCP MP Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy, to turn government witnesses in the case. The ED probe is based on a case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation against the then Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and others on August 17 last year, on a Ministry of Home Affairs reference. The case alleges deliberate irregularities in the framing and implementation of the excise policy and undue favours extended to the licencees in the form of waiver/reduction in the licence fee, an extension of L-1 licences without approval, etc. The ED has quantified the alleged “proceeds of crime” in the case to be at least ₹1,934 crore. Ukrainian officials say a Russian attack on a village cafe killed 48 people [Ukrainian officials said Thursday a Russian attack on a village in the northeast of the country killed 48 people]( and injured at least six more. Presidential chief of staff Andrii Yermak and Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov said Russian forces shelled a shop and a cafe in the village of Hroza, in the Kharkiv region, around 1 p.m. A 6-year-old boy was among those killed in the attack, Syniehubov said, and one child was also among the wounded. Russia targeted Ukraine with drones in another major attack early on October 5 as President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Spain to rally support from Western allies at a summit of around 50 European leaders. Ukraine’s air force said that the country’s air defenses intercepted 24 out of 29 Iranian-made drones that Russia launched at the southern Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad regions. Andriy Raykovych, head of the Kirovohrad regional administration, said that an infrastructure facility in the region was struck and emergency services were deployed to extinguish a fire. He said there were no casualties. The attack came as Zelensky arrived in Granada in southern Spain to attend a summit of the European Political Community, which was formed in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. “The key for us, especially before winter, is to strengthen air defense, and there is already a basis for new agreements with partners,” he said in a statement posted on his Telegram channel. Last winter, Russia targeted Ukraine’s energy system and other vital infrastructure in a steady barrage of missile and drone attacks, triggering continuous power outages across the country. Ukraine’s power system has shown a high degree of resilience and flexibility, helping alleviate the damage, but there have been concerns that Russia will again ramp up its strikes on power facilities as winter draws nearer. Ukraine, in turn, has struck back at Russia with regular drone attacks across the border. Roman Starovoit, the governor of Russia’s Kursk region that borders Ukraine, said that Ukrainian drones attacked infrastructure facilities in several areas, resulting in power cuts. Starovoit also said that Ukrainian forces fired artillery at the border town of Rylsk, wounding a local resident and damaging several houses. Nanded hospital deaths: Dean, paediatrician booked for culpable homicide [The acting dean and a doctor of Dr. Shankarrao Chavan Government Medical College and Hospital in Maharashtra’s Nanded city]( where 37 patients, including 18 newborns, died in a span of four days, were booked on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder after a woman and her infant died. Based on a complaint lodged against Dr. S.R. Wakode and the head, paediatrician department, Dr. Rathod by a person in connection with the death of his daughter and her newborn child at the hospital, a case under Section 304-II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code was registered by Nanded Rural Police, Additional SP Abinash Kumar told The Hindu. He said that there were no allegations of medical negligence in the given complaint. “It was more against individuals and administrative negligence,” he said. A three-member expert committee has been set up to probe the incident. According to Kumar, the FIR will be sent to the Committee and action will be taken based on its recommendations. “Since an expert committee already probing the incident, we are not going to launch an investigation and wait for its recommendations,” the officer said. As per the FIR, accessed by The Hindu, a 21-year-old pregnant woman was taken to the hospital at around 8 p.m. on September 30 and she gave birth to a baby girl at around 1 a.m. on October 1. “Doctors said the mother and the child were fine. In the morning, my daughter started bleeding and the baby was also not well, so doctors asked us to get medicines, blood bag and other required items worth ₹45,000 from outside,” the woman’s father said in his complaint. When the required medical items were brought, doctors were not present in the ward and Dr. Wakode intentionally made me sit and did not send a doctor or a staff nurse to check on my daughter, he said. “The duty doctors declared the newborn dead and handed over the body to the family at 6 a.m. on October 2. Two days later, on October 4 at 10.30 a.m, my daughter was declared dead,” the complaint said, alleging that Dr. Wakode deliberately did not let doctors treat his daughter and his daughter died in front of them due to lack of medical assistance and medicines. On Wednesday, a case was registered by the Nanded Rural Police against Shiv Sena member of Parliament (MP) Hemant Patil for forcing Dr. Wakode to clean a toilet and urinals. A video of the act in which Patil was seen instructing the dean to clean the toilet went viral on social media. It was reportedly circulated on WhatsApp groups by the MP’s aides. The incident took place at Dr. Shankarrao Chavan Government Medical College and Hospital. On Tuesday, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said the government had taken the deaths at Nanded Hospital “very seriously”, and appropriate action would be taken after a detailed inquiry while denying that there were shortages of medicines and staff. “Adequate medicine stock and medical staff were available at the hospital. A significant number of patients who died were old people with heart ailments, underweight infants or accident victims,” he said. In Brief: [The 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature is being awarded to Norwegian author Jon Fosse]( “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”, the Royal Swedish Academy announced on October 5, 2023. Literature laureate Fosse’s magnum opus in prose is ‘Septology’ which he completed in 2021: ‘Det andre namnet’ (2019; ‘The Other Name’, 2020), ‘Eg er ein annan’ (2020; ‘I is Another’, 2020) and ‘Eit nytt namn’ (2021; ‘A New Name’, 2021). Fosse was born in 1959 on the Norwegian west coast. His immense œuvre is written in Norwegian Nynorsk and spans a variety of genres consisting of plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books and translations. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [Sign up for free]( Today’s Top Picks [[State of Play | The shift in BJP’s Kashmir approach] State of Play | The shift in BJP’s Kashmir approach]( [[Pat Cummins on World Cup 2023: Australians get a lot of love when we play in India] Pat Cummins on World Cup 2023: Australians get a lot of love when we play in India]( [[Today’s Cache | Google launches Pixel 8 phones and Android 14; Sam Bankman-Fried jury shown FTX celeb ads; X’s U.S. ad revenue still falling] Today’s Cache | Google launches Pixel 8 phones and Android 14; Sam Bankman-Fried jury shown FTX celeb ads; X’s U.S. ad revenue still falling]( [[Explained | What are the implications of Kevin McCarthy’s ouster?] Explained | What are the implications of Kevin McCarthy’s ouster?]( Copyright @ 2023, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. 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