Top Stories on 1st June in a capsule

Govt to reward Rs 5 crore for disclosing black money

The Income Tax department on Friday in order to encourage informants announced a Benami Transactions Informants Reward Scheme, 2018, under which any person, including foreigners, can inform Joint or Additional Commissioners about benami transactions and properties which can be tried under the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016. Under the scheme, a person can get a reward of up to Rs one crore for giving specific information to tax officials about benami transactions and properties while the same for undisclosed black money stashed abroad could fetch up to Rs 5 crore. Besides, the ‘Income Tax Informants Reward Scheme’ has also been amended under which a person can get reward up to Rs 50 lakh for giving specific information about substantial evasion of tax on income or assets in India.
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Major Visa network crash sparks payment chaos in UK & Europe

Millions of people all across the UK and Europe are unable to pay for their goods and services in shops, petrol pumps and railway stations after major Card giant Visa network crashed due to a technical glitch on Friday. Shoppers and travellers were unable to use their debit and credit cards when the meltdown began at around 2.30pm on Friday across Europe. Visa issued a statement saying it was experiencing “a service disruption”, without identifying the cause. Even shoppers not using Visa have been unable to make purchases because the network provides payment systems for a range of shops and financial institutions. The card network operates card payments to the majority of banks in the UK as well as millions of businesses. £1 in every £3 spent in the UK is made on a Visa card. There are fears that the outage could cause long queues at cash points as the British people try to access their money.
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Kerala High Court allows live-in relationship of teenager couple

In a landmark decision, the Kerala high court on Friday allowed an 18-year-old boy and a 19-year-old girl to live together without being married. The court said that it can no longer shut its eyes to live-in relationships. The decision came in a month after the Supreme Court stated that adults were allowed to be in a live-in relationship despite not attaining the legal age of marriage. A division bench comprising Justice V Chitambaresh and Justice KP Jyothindranath disregarded a petition filed by Muhammed Riyad of Alappuzha, who is the girl's father. In his petition, the girl's father alleged that his daughter was in the illegal custody of the boy. Both the girl and the boy are Muslims and hail from Alappuzha district. The bench, while considering the fact that she stayed with the boy for quite some time and she is a major, allowed her to continue living with the youth.
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Trump agrees for summit after Kim Jong Un's top man delivers letter to White House

Kim Yong-chol, a former spy chief and four-star general, hand-delivered a letter from the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to US President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday. After reading the letter concerning the prospects of the historic Nuclear summit, Trump agreed to go ahead with the June 12 meeting in Singapore as originally planned. While admitting that dealing with North Korea was "going to be a process," Trump said he believed that process would ultimately be "successful." Trump said the letter from Kim, hand-delivered by Kim Yong Chol, was "very nice" and "very interesting," without immediately disclosing its contents. Kim Yong-chol became the first top North Korean official to visit the White House in 18 years. The content of the letter was not immediately apparent, however, as reported by the US media it simply expressed Kim’s interest in going ahead with the Singapore summit and does not change North Korea’s negotiating positions.

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Congress and JD(S) to contest 2019 Lok Sabha polls together

Congress and Janta Dal Secular (JDS) will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections together, party leader KC Venugopal said in a press conference on Friday.  Flanked with JD(S) chief and newly sworn in Chief Minister of Karnataka HD Kumaraswamy,  Venugopal announced the new cabinet allocation for the state assembly. The announcement came a day after Congress handed over the crucial finance ministry to the regional party. The home department and the Bengaluru city development department will be held by the Congress. "We (Congress-JDS) have come to a conclusion regarding cabinet expansion and portfolio allocation. JDS will be holding the finance portfolio. Everything is settled," said KC Venugopal reaffirming that the two partners will form a coalition coordination and monitoring committee that will meet once every month.

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Farmers protest by dumping vegetables, thousands of litres of milk on roads

The first day of the 10-day protests by farmers began on Friday with peasants from several states dumping fresh vegetables and thousands of litres of milk on the streets across the country in a bid to seek a one-time farm loan waiver. Farmers’ unions from Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana and Chhattisgarh shut milk, vegetables and essential farm produce supplies to cities to press the government on their demands. The farmers are also demanding a higher minimum support price and prices for their produce in general. Farmers have vowed to prevent the supply of agricultural produce and other essentials to cities in the state as part of the agitation, dubbed as the ‘gaon bandh’. However, city-dwellers can buy directly from the villages if they so choose. Farmers unions have decided not to do rasta roko this time, however, they will be sitting on a dharna on 30 major highways.

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Denmark becomes 5th European country to ban Burqa, Niqab

Denmark on Friday became the fifth European country to ban garments that cover the face, including Islamic veils like Burqa and Niqab in public spaces. In a 75-30 vote, Danish lawmakers approved the law which is to come into effect from August 1, 2018. Denmark joins Austria, Bulgaria, France and Belgium in the list of countries which ban clothes that cover the face. However, the country’s govt said that its purpose is not to aim at any particular religion and it does not ban headscarves, turbans or the traditional Jewish skullcap. The punishment for violating the new law comes at a hefty price as well. First-time offenders will have to pay a fine of 1,000 kroner (Rs 8,209), whereas repeat offenders will have to pay 10,000 kroner (Rs 1,05,480) or jailed for up to six months.
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ONGC officials booked in 80 crore scam

The CBI on Friday booked 13 serving and retired officials of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in an 80- crore rupees scam. According to the preliminary reports, the officials are accused of alleged irregularities in giving contracts to a defunct company. They have been accused of abusing their official position in giving a contract worth Rs 312 crore to Deep Industries Limited, another accused in the case. It pertains to supplying the gas dehydration units (GDUs), causing a loss of Rs 80 crores to ONGC. The agency claimed that the only budgetary quotation was from Deep Industries of Rs 219 crore for the hiring of the GDUs for three years. The company then raised the cost from Rs 219 crores to Rs 312 crores on false grounds, the CBI alleged.
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Kerala: Doctors, nurses asked to go on leaves after Nipah virus scare

Nurses and doctors of a hospital in Kerala's Balussery have been asked to go on leave from Friday as a safety precaution after 2 more people died from the Nipah Virus taking death toll 17. A senior health official said the health staff, including four doctors and nurses, of Balussery hospital who were in contact with the patients, were asked to go on leave for a week as a precautionary measure. Meanwhile, as part of ‘Nipah alert’, state health authorities asked those who visited Kozhikode Medical College casualty, CT scan room and waiting room on May 14 to contact the state Nipah cell immediately. So far, a total of 196 samples have been tested for Nipah, of which 18 have tested positive. Several media reports suggest that a total of 1300 people from the state are being monitored for symptoms and timely action.
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21 killed in two separate road accidents in Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh

At least 21 people were killed and 24 were injured in two separate road accidents in Yavatmal in Maharashtra and Chhaila in Himachal Pradesh on Friday. While eleven persons, including six women, were killed when their car collided with a truck at the Kosdani ghat in Maharashtra's Yavatmal district on Friday morning. The victims were travelling for a wedding function when their car passing through the Kosdani ghat section collided with a speeding truck killing 10 people on the spot. A girl, who sustained critical injuries, later died in the hospital during treatment.
In another incident, at least 10 people were killed and twenty-one others injured after a bus travelling from Shimla to Tikkar fell in a 500-ft deep valley. The Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) bus was carrying 30 passengers when the bus fell into the gorge at Chhaila, 45 km from Shimla. While five people died on the spot, three were declared dead at nearby Shimla's Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC). The driver of the bus also lost his life in the accident.
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