India

Chandigarh, Sep 16 (IANS) The Chandigarh Police Cyber Cell has busted an illegal instant loan app racket with the arrest of a Chinese national who was the kingpin and was running the racket with 60 people under him, Superintendent of Police Ketan Bansal said on Friday.

Twenty-one accused, including 34-year-old Chinese national Wan Chengua, have been arrested till date in a 10-day operation spanning across five states.

As per the police investigation, the accused were working on online loan applications i.e. Hugo Loan, Coin Cash, AA Loan, AK Loan, Win Credit. The police have requested Google to delete the applications from Play Store.

It was found that they were using virtual number for contact. "We are trying to trace the origin of these virtual numbers as well as other suspects. The accused were using social media applications - Dingtalk, Wechat and GB Whatsapp. Request to obtain the information about the social media accounts of accused have also been sent to verify the IP details and other information about the suspects of the case," Bansal said.

Most of the arrested people were employees of Gurugram-based PC Finance, having some Chinese nationals on top position. "We have verified the previous facts of PC Finance and found that Peter, Tray and Nicoholson were on the top positions and this company was shut down in 2020. Now they have changed their working method and they are running their syndicate from China and have made Parvej Alam, alias Jitu Bhadan and alias Sonu Bhadana, as boss, who is already arrested, of online loan syndicate."

Jeffery Jhu from China, who left India in 2020, is involved in the syndicate and he is managing finance of the online loan application scam.

Arrested accused Anshul Kumar is the main associate of Jhu in India and he is involved in money laundering of about Rs 100 crore.

Also arrested Chinese accused Wan Chengua was working under Jeffery and he paid approximately Rs 35-40 lakh to Kumar, who further delivered the money to Parvej Alam.

The visa and passport of Chengua had expired in 2020.

During the investigation it was revealed that the accused instead of using regular WhatsApp, Facebook or Instagram, they were using GB WhatsApp. Similarly, Dingtalk and WeChat applications were used by the fraudsters to commit frauds.

All online loan applications were cheating the money through UPI ID's and they connected with bank accounts. During the investigation some of these accounts were verified and found that transactions in bulk amount are made out in these accounts. Twenty accounts with Rs 50 lakh have been freezed.

It can also assumed that these suspected accounts are involved in money laundering. "We have written to the Enforcement Directorate, the Financial Intelligence Unit and the CBI regarding this. These accounts are opened on the name of companies and enterprises. On verification, some of them were found shell companies and registration has been done by using fake documents," he said.

All accused were produced in a local court on Friday and 18 of them were sent in judicial custody.

DGP Parveer Ranjan met Superintendent of Police Ketan Bansal and DSP (Cyber) A. Venkatesh and appreciated both officers.

He also rewarded the investigation team comprising Inspector Ranjit Singh, Sub-Inspectors K.D. Singh and Parminder Singh, Assistant Sub-Inspector Balwan Singh, Head Constables Rajender Singh, Bahadur Lal, Balwinder Singh, Sunit, Rampal, Gurmeet Singh and Vikas Bastara, Senior Constable Sachin, Constables Pramjeet, Vikas Dahiya, Sonit, Baljeet, Sarvind, Veer Davinder, Ashok, Dinesh, Ombir, Manpreet and Kavita with Rs 75,000 cash and first class certificate for good work.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Samarkand on the sidelines of the 22nd meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

According to a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs, discussions between the two leaders, apart from centering around issues pertaining to bilateral cooperation, also focussed on energy security, global food security and availability of fertilisers in the context of the challenges emanating from the current geo-political situation.

The meeting between Modi and Putin assumes significance in the context of Russian crude forming a significant 13 per cent share of India's overall oil import basket, amid increased supplies from there.

Meanwhile, the statement further said that the leaders appreciated the sustained momentum in bilateral ties, including contacts at various levels.

"President Putin expressed appreciation for Prime Minister's video-message at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok earlier this month," the statement said.

In the context of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Prime Minister Modi reiterated his call for an early cessation of hostilities and the need for dialogue and diplomacy.

This was the first meeting of both leaders this year, which marks the 75th anniversary year of establishment of diplomatic relations. They agreed to remain in touch, the statement said.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) With the declaration of CUET-UG results, various Central and other universities are all set to prepare merit lists for the undergraduate admissions.

According to the University Grants Commission (UGC), the merit list to be released by the unversities will be based on normalised scores and not on the percentile.

UGC Chairman Prof M. Jagdish Kumar told IANS, "The CUET score card contains both percentile and normalised marks of the student in each subject. Percentiles indicate the relative performance of a student among a set of students who wrote the test in a given shift in a subject. Using the equipercentile method, the percentiles of the students are converted into normalised marks taking into account the difficulty levels of multiple sessions."

"The difficulty levels vary from session to session in the same subject. That is why it is quite possible that in the score card you may see that in a subject the percentile is higher than the normalised marks and in another subject, the percentile is lower than the normalised marks," he explained.

"Students need not to worry about these differences as the CUET normalisation formula was decided by a panel of experts from Indian Statistical Institute, IIT Delhi and Delhi University," the UGC Chairman elaborated.

Universities can use these normalised marks for preparing the rank lists for admissions, he added.

The National Testing Agency said that the results of candidates are being shared with the universities where the candidates had applied.

"Candidates are advised to be in touch with the respective universities and institutions for further details."

The CUET-2022 was scheduled for approximately 14,90,000 candidates, with approximately 8,10,000 candidates in the first slot and approximately 6,80,000 candidates in the second slot.

The entrance test provided access and flexibility as the candidates have applied for 54,555 unique combinations of subjects across 90 universities. The total number of question papers was 2,219 while the number of questions was 50,476.

The medium of the question paper was in 13 languages (English, Hindi along with regional languages i.e. Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu) so that the candidate from different regions could attempt in their own medium and feel comfortable to write and understand the pattern/method of the examination.

In addition to 259 cities in India, CUET examination was also conducted in 10 cities outside India in Manama, Doha, Dubai, Kathmandu, Muscat, Riyadh, Sharjah, Singapore, Kuwait City, and New York.

The test was conducted in remote areas like Navsari, Itanagar, Barpeta, Nalbari, Araria, Arrah, Begusarai, Bettiah, Bhabua, Buxar, Jammui, Samastipur, Bilaspur, Deoghar, Kargil, Leh, Morena, Behrampur, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Sriganganagar, Balia, Basti, Chandauli, Ghazipur, Mau, Sonbhadra, Srinagar (Uttrakhand) also in addition to other cities.

--IANS
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Kolkata, Sep 16 (IANS) The Calcutta High Court on Friday refused to pass any interim order in the contempt of court petition filed against Enforcement Directorate (ED) by Maneka Gambhir, the sister-in-law of Trinamool Congress's national General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

Gambhir had been interrogated by the ED in connection with the agency's ongoing enquiry in the multi-crore coal smuggling scam.

In her petition filed before the single-judge bench of Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya, she alleged that the ED, by stopping her from traveling to Bangkok on the night of September 10, had resorted to contempt of court by violating an earlier order of the same bench that stayed the Central agency from taking a strong action against her client till further orders.

However, Justice Bhattacharya refused to accept the argument of Gambhir's counsel, saying that this bar on letting her board a flight to Bangkok can be "a matter of inconvenience" but under no circumstances, was it "a strong action".

Thereafter Justice Bhattacharya refused to pass any interim order in the matter and said that any order will only be passed after hearing the central agencies involved in the matter. Legal experts feel that this means that the bar on her overseas visit without the permission of the central agency remains until further orders are passed in the matter.

Gambhir's counsel, Shaptangshu Basu informed the court that the ailing mother of his client stays in Bangkok and hence, she might have to go there. However, the ED's counsel, Billwadal Bhattacharya informed the bench that the summons to Gambhir has been sent by the Union Revenue Secretary and he needs more time to present his case in detail before the bench.

The next hearing in the matter is scheduled on September 28.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) With inflation remaining beyond the RBI's tolerance level of 6 per cent for the past eight months, the central bank has noted that this underscores the need for the monetary policy to keep second order effects contained and inflation expectations firmly anchored.

The RBI's monthly bulletin for September 2022, in its chapter on the "State Of Economy" has said that the loss of momentum in global economic activity may be taking the edge off inflation.

At the same time, it noted that the economy is poised to shrug off the modest tapering of growth momentum in the first quarter of 2022-23.

"Aggregate demand is firm and poised to expand further as the festival season sets in. Domestic financial conditions remain supportive of growth impulses," it said.

India's retail inflation touched 7 per cent in August fuelled by sky rocketing food prices as food inflation touched 7.62 per cent.

In another article on "Sensitivity of Output Prices to Input Prices: An Empirical Analysis for India", the RBI bulletin noted that "Input prices have seen a broad-based rise following the repeated waves of the pandemic and the war in Europe. With output prices not rising proportionately due to persistent slack in the economy during the period, the gap between input and output prices have widened".

The third article which focusses on the "Impact of Covid-19 on Economic Activity across Indian States", said that there was considerable variability in the extent of mobility restrictions across states during the pandemic. Also, trends in economic activity varied across states, it noted further.

The chapter said that those states which are more dependent on agriculture, "saw a relatively benign impact of mobility restrictions on economic activity".

States with high share of manufacturing and services in their gross state value added (GSVA), however, witnessed relatively higher impact on economic activity, it noted.

"Therefore, economic activity responded differently to mobility restrictions across states and the varied impact could be attributed to different economic structures. This underscores the role of state-specific interventions, tailored to their economic structure, in supplementing the national level policy response," it said.

--IANS
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Ahmedabad, Sep 16 (IANS) An Ahmedabad court on Friday convicted Congress leader Jignesh Mevani and 19 others guilty in a 2016 vandalism case and sentenced them to six months imprisonment.

The Metropolitan Magistrate awarded three different sentences under the three different sections of IPC - six months jail under one, Rs 500 fine under another, and Rs 100 fine in the third.

It has stayed the operative part of the order, so Mevani and others can appeal the order before the sessions court.

In 2016, Mevani and others were leading protests demanding to name Gujarat University's Law Department as Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Bhavan. The protest turned violent and the premises were vandalised. All protestors were arrested and produced before the court.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) The Delhi High Court on Friday granted more time to the Centre to file a detailed response to a petition seeking a declaration that the PM CARES Fund is "state" under Article 12 of the Constitution.

Seeking a detailed reply in the matter from the government, a division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said: "It is an important issue requiring a proper response."

The matter will be further heard on January 31 next year.

In the previous hearing also, court had asked the Centre to file a "detailed and exhaustive" reply following a one-page affidavit response filed by the PMO Secretary.

The court was hearing the plea filed by Samyak Gangwal, seeking a declaration that the fund is "state" under Article 12 of the Constitution and to restrain it from using Prime Minister of India or Prime Minister, including its abbreviations, in its name and on its website.

According to the Centre's earlier submissions, PM CARES Fund is not a "public authority" under the ambit of Section 2 (h) of the RTI Act, further clarifying that no government money is credited to the PM CARES Fund and only unconditional and voluntary contributions are accepted in it.

"It is reiterated that the Trust's fund is not a fund of the Government of India and the amount does not go in the Consolidated Fund of India," said an earlier affidavit filed by the PMO.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) Former Punjab chief minister and Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) chief Amarinder Singh will join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on September 19.

PLC spokesperson Pritpal Singh Baliawal said that Singh will also announce the merger of his party with the BJP the same day.

He said that a few former MLAs will also join the BJP along with Singh on September 19.

Speculations of Amarinder Singh joining the BJP had grown stronger after he met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on September 12.

"Had a very productive meeting with Hon'ble Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Discussed various issues pertaining to national security, the rising cases of narco-terrorism in Punjab and the future roadmap for the overall holistic development of Punjab," Singh had tweeted after meeting Shah.

Singh had floated his own party after quitting the Congress last year citing humiliation by the grand-old party.

The two-time chief minister of Punjab had fought the assembly elections in the state earlier this year in alliance with the BJP as well as Akali Dal (Sanyukt).

His party - Punjab Lok Congress - though had failed to get even a single seat during the assembly elections.

Singh himself had lost from his home turf Patiala urban constituency.

--IANS
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Itanagar, Sep 16 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi, responding to Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu's request, has agreed to inaugurate 600 MW Kameng Hydro Electric Project. This is northeast India's largest power plant and the region's first greenfield airport at Itanagar, officials said on Friday.

A official of Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said that Khandu apprised Modi about the Kameng Hydro Electric Project, executed by the state-owned North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) with an estimated cost of around Rs 8,000 crores and about the greenfield airport, commissioned by the Airport Authority of India at a cost of Rs 650 crore.

The Chief Minister told the Prime Minister that the 600 MW Kameng Hydro Electric Project is the largest in the northeastern region and it would be a boon for the power sector in the country, especially the northeastern states and provide power for grid stability.

The Chief Minister said that the Director General of Civil Aviation has issued the necessary licence on September 7 to operationalise the greenfield airport, which was recently renamed by the state government as "Donyi Polo Airport".

The Donyi Polo Airport is the first airport in Arunachal Pradesh with capabilities of landing big aircraft, he added.

"With the operationalising of this airport, Arunachal Pradesh would be connected directly with New Delhi. The long - cherished dream of the people of my state to see the state Capital in the air-map of India has ultimately come true," Khandu said in a statement.

The Donyi Polo Airport airport in Itanagar would be Arunachal Pradesh's third airport after Pasighat and Tezu airports, and northeast's 16th airport.

--IANS
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Hailakandi, Sep 16 (IANS) Cyber criminals in Assam's Hailakandi town targeted a district and sessions judge by creating a fake Whatsapp account using his name and picture.

Impersonating District and Sessions Judge Sanjay Hazarika, the fraudsters demanded money through the WhatsApp account claiming that he is sick.

The cyber criminals created a WhatsApp account with judge Hazarika's picture on the profile and demanded money from various court staff including his acquaintances.

On Thursday, Hailakandi court manager Arindam Sharma received a message on WhatsApp from a number which has a profile picture of judge Hazarika.

In the message, he was instructed to buy and send 25 Amazon e-gift cards worth 10,000 rupees. Sharma found the matter a little mysterious, and he discussed it with his colleagues.

On discussion, it was found that the court's system officer Praveer Sutradhar also received such a message on his WhatsApp number. They immediately reported the matter to the district judge.

Later, judge Hazarika filed a case in this regard at Hailakandi Sadar Police Station.

The police have started an investigation into the incident.

Superintendent of Police, Gaurav Upadhyay told IANS, "Upon receiving the complaint, we immediately blocked the number and launched surveillance to catch the culprits."

--IANS
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