Two days after nine people died after the bus they were travelling in was shot at by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Raesi district, a person was killed in a terrorist attack on a house in the Union Territory’s Kathua district, close to the International Border. A terrorist has also been killed.

In a post on X, Union Minister Jitendra Singh, who is the MP from Udhampur, said, “I am in continuous online contact with DC (district collector) #Kathua Sh Rakesh Minhas in the wake of terrorist attack on a house in village Saida in Hiranagar sector close to the International Border. I am also in touch with SSP Kathua Sh Anayat Ali Choudhary who is on the spot.”

“The owner of the house that was attacked (name not to be disclosed) is also in touch on mobile phone. Joint police & para military operation is going on. One terrorist neutralised so far. I and my office are in constant touch and keeping a close watch on the development,” he added.

After the terrorists attacked the house, a joint operation was launched by security forces to track them down, and one of the attackers was killed. 

This is the second attack in Jammu in three days. On Sunday, nine people were killed and 33 injured after a bus carrying pilgrims was attacked by terrorists and it plunged into a gorge.

The bus was on its way to the Shiv Khori cave temple when the terrorists opened fire. 
 

The big test for Nirmala Sitharaman, who has retained the finance ministry in the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will be the upcoming budget, where she has to lay the roadmap for the next year, Finance Commission chairman Dr Arvind Panagriya has said. He also disagreed with the view that there is a need for job creation, arguing that the capital in the market is enough for jobs, but they are tied up in sectors that are not labor intensive. What is needed, he said, is to reassign the capital, so it generates more jobs.

“You have got machinery. You got pharmaceuticals. You got petroleum refining. These are absorbers of capital, but they don’t absorb enough workers,” Dr Panagariya told NDTV in an exclusive interview.

Job creation, he said, has to do is with the composition of the industry, particularly manufacturing. “I think this is where you create good jobs and perhaps where the focus could shift a bit more than has been the case so far,” he said.

“So some industrial structure has to move a little bit more towards industries that employ more workers per unit of capital. I think that’s our challenge,” he added.

Asked about the Opposition allegation that the government has been unable to generate enough jobs and that, in turn, has cost them electorally, he said  the country’s problem is not unemployment.

The unemployment figures, he said, have been consistently dropping. “Our problem is the productivity,  the labour productivity per worker, has been low. That is a long-term problem,” he said, tagging it “under-employment” — meaning a job that can be done by one worker, is being done by two or three.

As for Ms Sitharaman, the upcoming budget will be a test for her, he said.

This budget, he said, is not just finance but a “statement of policy”. “She has to bring together various constituencies on board and show the roadmap for economic policy, since this is going to be a foundational budget,” he added.

Jammu and Kashmir police offer a Rs 20 lakh reward for information on the Reasi terror attack. A sketch of one of the terrorists involved has been released.