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India rejects China's LAC claim, Beijing questions Ladakh status
India and China on Tuesday exchanged sharp statements blaming each other for the continuing border tensions, with New Delhi describing China's Line of Actual Control (LAC) claims as "untenable" and Beijing saying it "did not recognise" the Union Territory of Ladakh. "India has never accepted the so-called unilaterally defined 1959 Line of Actual Control (LAC)," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said, in response to a statement from China's Foreign Ministry that the LAC was "clear" and that "it is the LAC of November 7, 1959". The LAC of 1959 was first referenced in a letter from then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to Jawaharlal Nehru — an idea rejected then by Nehru and subsequently never accepted by India. A South Block official said China had, this summer, gone even beyond this 1959 claim line. "While we don't recognise the 1959 claim line, even going by their own 1959 line which runs near Patrolling Point (PP) 14, the clash in Galwan Valley happened approximately 800 metres west of PP14," the official said. "So they are violating their own claims". India's position that it never accepted the 1959 line was "consistent and well known, including to the Chinese side," the MEA said in a statement, adding that both sides had, in previous bilateral border agreements, "committed to clarification and confirmation of the LAC to reach a common understanding of the alignment of the LAC." In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry, in response to a question on India's border infrastructure projects in Ladakh, said it did not "recognise" Ladakh, reiterating its statements from last year that described the creation of the union territory as "illegal" because it included Aksai Chin, currently occupied by China, within its boundaries. "China has not recognised Ladakh Union Territory, illegally set up by the Indian side," spokesperson Wang Wenbin said. The statements came amid a continuing stalemate along the border. Both sides agreed to not add troops to an already tense LAC following the sixth round of talks between Corp Commanders on September 21, but there has not yet been agreement on disengagement and returning to the status quo prior to May's transgressions by China. Amnesty International halts India operations Amnesty International India (AII) on Tuesday said the government had frozen all its bank accounts, leading to all of its work in the country coming to a halt. "The complete freezing of Amnesty International India's bank accounts by the Government of India which it came to know on September 10, 2020, brings all the work being done by the organisation to a grinding halt. The organisation has been compelled to let go of staff in India and pause all its ongoing campaign and research work," a statement by the human rights organisation said.  A view of Amnesty International India office at Indiranagar, in Bengaluru, Karnataka on September 29, 2020. The freezing of accounts was the latest in the "witch-hunt" of human rights organisations, the statement said. "The continuing crackdown on Amnesty International India over the last two years and the complete freezing of bank accounts is not accidental. The constant harassment by government agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate, is a result of our unequivocal calls for transparency in the government, more recently for accountability of the Delhi Police and the Government of India regarding the grave human rights violation in Delhi riots and Jammu & Kashmir. For a movement that has done nothing but raise its voices against injustice, this latest attack is akin to freezing dissent," AII's executive director Avinash Kumar said. Reacting to Amnesty's statement, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that "human rights cannot be an excuse for defying the law of the land." In a statement, the MHA said that "the stand taken and the statements made by Amnesty International are unfortunate, exaggerated and far from the truth." 60 million Indians may have been exposed to coronavirus: ICMR survey The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) today released the results of the second sero-survey, conducted in the same 700 villages and (urban) wards from 70 districts across 21 states that were covered in the first. The survey was held between August 17 and September 22. According to the survey results, around 7% of India's adult population, or 60 million people, may have been exposed to the coronavirus. This is roughly a 10-fold jump from the first serosurvey, where scientists said that 0.73% of adults—or about 6.4 million—across the country were likely infected.  A health worker takes a nasal swab sample to test for COVID-19 in Hyderabad on September 29, 2020. During the first survey, it emerged that there were 82-130 infections for every confirmed covid positive case. That number has dropped to 26-32 infections, which according to by ICMR Director General, Dr Balram Bhargava, was the result of a ramp-up of testing and early case detection. The average prevalence in major cities in India ranged from 50% in Mumbai to 29% in New Delhi, 22% in Chennai, and 7.8% in Indore. The sero survey, because it aims to capture national prevalence, samples many more from rural India than cities to reflect the population spread in India. On May 3, there were 49,720 confirmed cases in India, and by September 1, this had risen to 3.7 million cases -- a 74-fold increase. Sero-surveys are conducted by drawing blood samples and checking for a specific class of antibodies called IgG that appear within two weeks of an infection. Because it is still unclear how long antibodies to the coronavirus detectably persist in the body, their presence only indicates past exposure—and not presence—to the virus. Hathras gang rape victim dies in Delhi hospital A 19-year-old Dalit girl, sexually assaulted and tortured by four upper caste men in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras district two weeks ago, succumbed to injuries at Delhi's Safdarjang hospital in the early hours of Tuesday. The incident happened on September 14 when the girl went to collect animal fodder from the field. She was allegedly gang-raped and later strangulated with her dupatta.  Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest inside the premises of Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi on September 29, 2020 after the death of a rape victim from Uttar Pradesh. She was shifted to Delhi from Aligarh's JN Medical College on Monday on the request of her father. Members of the Azad Samaj Party alleged that the administration delayed referring her to Delhi and that the facilities in Aligarh were inadequate. "From delay in the arrest to dilly-dallying in shifting her to Delhi, the administration's role is questionable," said Harpal Singh, head of the Agra division of Azad Samaj Party. Hathras police have arrested the four accused — Sandip, Ramu, Lavkush and Ravi — on charges of attempt to murder and gang rape. SSP Vikrant Vir had transferred the SHO of Chandpa police station to police lines for failing to act promptly in the case. Supreme Court asks J&K administration how long it can detain Mehbooba Mufti The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Jammu and Kashmir administration to clarify how long they intend to detain former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti under the Public Safety Act. "You should address us on two issues: What is the maximum period for which a person can be detained, and how long do you propose to continue the detention," Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, heading a Bench, addressed Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and listed the case for October 15. The court was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Mufti's daughter, Iltija, represented by advocates Nitya Ramakrishnan and S. Prasanna. Mufti was detained on August 5 last year following the scrapping of provisions of Article 370 that had accorded special status to the erstwhile State. Iltija said the grounds of her mother's detention were "vague, stale and have no rational nexus with disturbance to public order. They are based on extraneous material". She contended that her mother had no access to any form of public speech and expression, and there was no reason or material to show that she would act in a manner "prejudicial to maintenance of public order". Apple vendors may invest $900 million in India Three of Apple Inc.'s top contract manufacturers plan to invest a total of nearly $900 million in India in the next five years to tap into a new production-linked incentive plan, according to two sources. Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron all plan to make investments under the scheme. The $6.65 billion production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme offers firms cash incentives on any increase in sales (compared with 2019-20 levels) of locally-made smart phones over the next five years. The scheme aims to make India an export manufacturing hub. Foxconn has applied to invest about ₹4,000 crore, while Wistron and Pegatron have committed to invest close to ₹1,300 crore and ₹1,200 crore respectively under the scheme. It is unclear whether all of the investment will go into making Apple devices, but industry insiders said much of it would be focussed on expanding iPhone manufacturing. RBI reschedules Monetary Policy Committee meeting The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a rescheduling of its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting that was scheduled to take place from September 29 to October 1. The terms of three external members on the six-member MPC ended last month, and the government is yet to name their replacements. The rules of the panel require at least four members to be present at the meeting. The RBI is for waiting for the government to appoint the new external members to the committee. Reacting to the development, former finance minister P Chidamabram put out a series of tweets slamming the government for "negligence". "How much the government and PM care for the economy is illustrated by the fact that the Monetary Policy Committee will be defunct tomorrow. Consequently, RBI cannot hold a meeting of the MPC ahead of its monetary policy announcement, and has been forced to postpone the meeting. This is unprecedented," he tweeted. "The market, bankers, analysts, borrowers and every other stakeholder is shocked by the utter negligence of the government." Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 62,19,788 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 97,504. In Brief: Noted filmmaker Shekhar Kapur was on Tuesday appointed president of the Pune-based Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Society and chairman of the institute's governing council. FTII director Bhupendra Kainthola said the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has announced that Kapur has been appointed to these posts. The 74-year-old filmmaker's tenure will be till March 3, 2023. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. | 
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