The Union government has approved health coverage to everyone who is 70 and above under the national insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat.

The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a statement said the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) will benefit 4.5 crore families with six crore senior citizens. The free cover is worth Rs 5 lakh and will be on a family basis.

Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, amid a torrent of criticism over remarks that have been perceived as anti-reservation, issued a clarification today, saying his party would “take reservation beyond the limit of 50 per cent”. “Yesterday someone misrepresented my statement that I am against reservation. But let me make it clear – I am not against reservation. We will take reservation beyond the limit of 50 per cent,” he said during an interview at the National Press Club in the US.

The comment that sparked controversy was made during an interaction with the students and the faculty of Georgetown University in Washington DC yesterday.

The Congress will “think of ending reservation when India is a fair place,” he said, and added, India is not a fair place at the moment
“The elephant in the room is that 90 per cent of India — OBCs, Dalits and Adivasis don’t play the game,” Mr Gandhi had said.

“Caste census is a simple exercise to know how the lower castes, backward castes and Dalits are integrated into the system…Out of the top 200 businesses in India, there is almost no ownership of 90 per cent of the population of India. In the highest courts of the country, there is almost no participation of 90 per cent of India. In media, there is zero participation of lower castes, OBCs, Dalits,” he said.

Then, explaining the idea behind the caste census, he said, “We want to understand what their social and financial position looks like…We also want to look at the Indian institutions to have a sense of India’s participation in these institutions.”

But Mr Gandhi’s comments on this and other issues had stirred a hornet’s nest back home, with the BJP accusing him of habitually making anti-national remarks abroad. This, the party said, is a more serious issue now that he is the Leader of the Opposition.

“Rahul Gandhi’s statement lays bare the Congress’s politics of causing rifts on the lines of regionalism, religion, and linguistic differences,” said Union minister Amit Shah.

“By speaking about abolishing reservations in the country, Rahul Gandhi has once again brought the Congress’s anti-reservation face to the forefront. The thoughts that were in his mind eventually found their way out as words,” he added.

“Rahul Gandhi’s statement lays bare the Congress’s politics of causing rifts on the lines of regionalism, religion, and linguistic differences. By speaking about abolishing reservations in the country, Rahul Gandhi has once again brought the Congress’s anti-reservation face to the forefront. The thoughts that were in his mind eventually found their way out as words,” he added.
 

After trying and failing to impose their will on a fellow student, some students from a private university in Himachal Pradesh kept him confined to a room for the entire night, thrashed him and whipped him with a belt. His crime? The students wanted him to drink alcohol and he refused. 

The assault on the student was caught on camera and five of his college mates, most of whom are younger than him, have been arrested. 

According to the first information report (FIR) filed in the case, 22-year-old Rajat Kumar, a first-year MBA student at Bahra University in Himachal Pradesh’s Solan, who lived in the university hostel, was asked by two of his fellow students to accompany them to another room on Saturday. When Kumar refused, they dragged him to the room, where a few other students were present. The students asked Kumar to consume alcohol and beat him up – raining kicks and punches and whipping him with a belt – when he refused. 

A video, which appears to be shot by a student on his cellphone, shows Kumar sitting on a chair, facing a few other students. A conversation takes place and when the word complaint is mentioned, one of the students stands up menacingly, moves close to Kumar and slaps him. He is made to sit down by another student, who has his arm around Kumar.

The apparent saviour turns into an assaulter himself soon after, however, launching a volley of abuses at Kumar and slapping him. The second student slaps Kumar again and the first gets up, picks up a belt and starts whipping him. The video shows Kumar also being punched by the students as the other people in the room remain mute spectators. 

As the conversation and the assault continues, one of the students approaches Kumar with a bottle of liquor and a glass and offers him a peg, directing him to drink it and then become a ‘murga’ (sit in a semi-squatting posture as a punishment). Kumar refuses to have the drink and says he made a mistake, but one of the assaulters asks him to have a beer if he does not want hard liquor. The student instructs one of the people in the room to get the beer quickly and warns him that he would be beaten up if he did not comply.

Arrests

The university initiated an inquiry against Kumar’s assaulters and the anti-ragging committee asked them to appear before it, but the students refused. Solan Suprintendent of Police Gaurav Singh said Kumar filed a complaint at the Kandaghat police station, which registered a case against the students under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Himachal Pradesh Educational Institutions (Prohibition of Ragging) Act, 2009.

Three students – Chirag Rana, Divyansh and Karan Dogra, all aged 19 – were arrested after the complaint was filed and two more – Kartik, 19, and Saksham, 22 – were taken into custody on Wednesday. Officials said all of them will be produced in court.  

(With inputs from Yogesh Sharma)