News Wrap

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The nail-biting stand-by time of lakhs of Central government workers and beneficiaries would be reaching a conclusion from July 1. As was by and large formally affirmed by Minister for State for Finance, Anurag Thakur, the Central government workers will get full advantages of dearness recompense beginning July 1, with every one of the three forthcoming portions being re-established tentatively.

The three portions of dearness allowance for focal government representatives and DA for retired people, due on January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020, and January 1, 2021, were frozen taking into account the COVID-19 pandemic. The choice presently to re-establish it from July 2021 would profit around 50 lakh government workers and more than 65 lakh retired people. Notwithstanding, any increment in DA from July 1 may be compelling from that day, which means the representatives would not get any back payments on non-update of DA for the past period.

Release Of Cobra Commando
The five-year-old daughter of a CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) commando appealed for the release of her father Rakeshwar Singh Manhas, a resident of Jammu and Kashmir, who was captured by the Maoist Guerrillas in the April 3 gunfight in Sukma forest in the state of Chattisgarh. Initially the CPI (Maoist) wanted to bargain with the government over Singh's release but later they released him unconditionally on humanitarian ground.

Arrest In China
Zhang Zhan is an independent journalist who travelled from Shanghai to Wuhan in early February 2020 and, until her arrest in May, documented, through videos shared to YouTube and Twitter, hospital corridors of patients on oxygen and other realities of Covid-19 in China. That exposed as a lie the official line that, under the strong, wise leadership of Xi Jinping, China had stopped the pandemic cold. She was sentenced on December 28, 2020 to four years in prison on the regime's one-size-fits- all charge against dissidents of " picking fights and provoking trouble".

Zhang was one of several journalists detained for exposing the life-and-death reality for patients while the official line remained that the party and government had protected the population.

She had refused cooperation with arresting authorities, and began a hunger strike shortly after arrest.

The Chinese authorities have also arrested 12 people for aiding the escape attempt of prominent dissidents. Sixty years ago Mao's China allegedly crimnalised thousands of youth who fled famine by swimming from the mainland to Hong Kong, where they joined the working class there.

War Of Assassination
Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a brigadier general of the Revolutionary Guards, was assassinated as his car convoy passed through the town of Absard on November 27, 2020.No suspect was apprehended. Speculation fell on Isreal, the US and Iranian opportunists.

This was a renewal of the war of assassination and sabotage that had been waged under Bush and Obama administrations, during which a number of Iranian physicists were killed.

Half The Way To Fascism
French President Emmanuel Macron, facing opposition from neo-fascist Marine Le Pen, has also tilted right-ward. He has adopted an anti-immigrant rhetoric that echoes her Rassemblement National party in order to teal her voters. A bill to exempt police from public scrutiny has angered civil libertarians.

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Frontier
Vol. 53, No. 43, Apr 25 - May 1, 2021