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| 7. Virtual rallies & campaigns to be the flavour of election season? |
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- Setting the tone for Bihar Assembly polls, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday said the BJP-JD(U) alliance in the state will get a two-third majority in the state Assembly polls under the leadership of chief minister Nitish Kumar. This even as the former BJP president asserted that his virtual rally — where he addressed workers at 72,000 booths in the state — had nothing to do with the Bihar poll campaign and was aimed at connecting with people during the fight against Covid-19. “This rally is aimed at connecting people with the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat‘ campaign. The BJP will have 75 such meetings,” he said.
- Next up, Shah will be addressing people of Odisha via the digital platform today. The objective, again, will be to reach out to people at the booth levels and apprise them of the achievements of the Modi government in its first year of the second term and steps taken by the Centre to deal with the pandemic, said state BJP president Samir Mohanty. He added that the party will organise more such virtual rallies at the district level in the coming days.
- And though the West Bengal Assembly polls are less than a year away, the ruling TMC and principal challenger BJP are looking to connect with people in the virtual space as well. While chief minister Mamata Banerjee held a virtual meeting with functionaries and public representatives on June 5, outlining the party’s strategy for the polls, TMC’s public representatives have begun conducting virtual meetings in their Assembly constituencies. Its online team has been circulating videos and pictures of the apparent “mishandling” of the pandemic in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh as well.
- The Bengal BJP takes the plunge tomorrow, with Shah kicking off a virtual rally. The saffron camp, which had last week released a “nine-point charge-sheet” against Banerjee’s rule of as many years, has recently floated a social media drive christened ‘Aar Noi Mamata‘ (no longer Mamata’s rule) as well. According to state BJP sources, the party is planning to conduct more than 1,000 virtual rallies, covering every nook and corner of the state.
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| 5 THINGS FIRST |
Malls, places of worship to open in non-containment zones; Delhi to reopen its borders with Haryana, UP; Jharkhand to airlift stranded migrant labourers from Leh; Sovereign gold bonds open for subscription; World Oceans Day
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| 1. 10,000+ cases for 2nd straight day, national tally past 250,000 |
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- A day before malls, shrines and several other public places are set to open in many parts of the country, fresh Covid-19 infections surged to a new high with over 10,700 cases reported on Sunday, even as India’s overall count of cases went past the 250,000 mark and fatalities crossed 7,000. India’s tally of Covid-19 cases stood at 257,334 after 10,785 new infections were added on Sunday, per the latest data from state governments. It took five days for the count to rise from 200,000 cases (on June 2) to 250,000.
- It was the second straight day when the country added more than 10,000 cases in a 24-hour period, having recorded 10,434 new infections on Saturday. To put it in perspective, it had taken 74 days for Covid-19 infections to rise from 1 to 10,000. The country’s first case was confirmed on January 30, while the count crossed 10,000 on April 13.
- Deaths from the virus remained over 250 for the fifth consecutive day, although Sunday’s toll, at 262, was lower than those on Saturday and Friday, when 297 and 295 fatalities, respectively, were recorded. The overall toll stood at 7,201.
- The spurt in cases on Sunday was led by Maharashtra, which reported 3,007 new infections, the second highest single-day number in the state after 3,041 cases recorded on May 24. At least four states/UTs reported their highest single-day jump in cases — Tamil Nadu (1,515 new cases), Jammu & Kashmir (620), Haryana (496) and Bengal (449). In an indication of the spread of the coronavirus in the country, as many as 32 states/UTs reported new cases on Sunday while 18 reported deaths from the virus.
- The government has also announced the opening of 821 centrally protected monuments under the ASI that house places of worship from today. All 3,691 ASI-protected sites in the country were shut on March 17 in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.
- Finally, the government is monitoring the pandemic situation before exploring a revised Census-NPR schedule, but some experts, including two former Registrars General of India & Census Commissioners, say reworking of Census time-line may be inevitable.
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| 2. When India pays less tax … |
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- What: India’s corporate and income tax collection for 2019-20 fell for the first time in at least two decades. The gross direct tax collection in 2019-20 dipped by 4.92% to Rs 12.33 lakh crore (from Rs 12.98 lakh crore in 2018-19), the Income Tax Department said on Sunday. The corporate tax and personal income tax revenue mop up stood at Rs 6.78 lakh crore and Rs 5.55 lakh crore, respectively.
- Why: The government said the fall was on account of the reduction in corporate tax rate, increased standard deduction and personal income tax exemption limit. It also said that in 2019-20, refunds worth Rs 1.84 lakh crore were given, a 14% increase over Rs 1.61 lakh crore given in 2018-19. However, th
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