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Hindustan Times
17 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
NIA court convicts 3 men for smuggling fake Indian currency notes from Malaysia
Mumbai, Three accused have been convicted and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment by the National Investigation Agency court here for involvement in smuggling of high-quality counterfeit notes from Malaysia into India, an official statement issued on Thursday said. NIA court convicts 3 men for smuggling fake Indian currency notes from Malaysia Danish Haji Mohammed Petiwala and Sarasvati Dattaram alias Muskan have been sentenced to five years, six months and two days of RI and a fine of ₹6,000 each, it said. J Kaleel Rahman will undergo RI of five years, five months and 18 days along with a fine of ₹5,000, according to the orders of the court, which held all three guilty under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities Act, said the NIA statement. The 2020 case emanated from information received by the Customs Department, Mumbai, regarding the import of a parcel from Malaysia containing fake Indian currency notes of a total face value of ₹68,000 , it said. The parcel was addressed to one Sangita Kapoor at her Goregaon , Mumbai, address, the NIA said. Investigations revealed the involvement of Danish Haji, a resident of Mahim, Mumbai, and his girlfriend Sarasvati, along with a Malaysian resident, Amir Mirza alias Rafiq Shaikh, a wanted absconder against whom a non-bailable warrant was also issued in September 2020. The Customs officials also recovered one FICN from Hotel Adya International, Andheri East, where Danish and Sarasvati had stayed before their arrest, the NIA said. After taking over the case, which exposed the use of banking channels and postal services to transfer FICNs in exchange for genuine currency, the NIA found that Danish and Sarasvati had conspired with Amir and Kalil to smuggle high-quality counterfeit currency from Malaysia to India, with the intent of destabilising India's financial system, it added. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Hindustan Times
17 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
HT Archive: A call to forge a sense of national identity
I propose to speak bluntly and sincerely about the state of the nation 50 years after Independence. I would be dishonouring the memory of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and of his mentor, Mahatma Gandhi, if I try to be economical with the truth. Citizens celebrate India's independence from British rule in the streets of erstwhile Calcutta. (Getty Images) Those of us who have lived through the earlier days of free India, when the entire nation was looking forward with zeal and fervour and with a sense of national pride, cannot but look upon the present times with deep anguish and distress. The only achievement of Indian democracy has been that it has survived unfractured for 50 years. The achievement is all the more creditable, since no other democracy has had such diversity in unity, or was such a mosaic of humanity. All the great religions in the world have flourished in India. We have 15 major languages written in different alphabets and derived from different roots and for good measure, our people whom you can never call taciturn express themselves in 250 dialects. In 1950, we started as a Republic with three inestimable advantages. First, we had 5,000 years of civilisation behind us –– a civilisation which had reached 'the summit of human thought' in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson. We had a superb entrepreneurial spirit, honed over a century of obstacles. Secondly, whereas before 1858, India was never a united political entity, in that year, the accident of British rule welded us into one country, one nation; and when Independence came, we had been in unified nationality for almost a century under one head of state. Thirdly, our founding fathers, after two long years of laborious and painful toil, gave us a Constitution which a former Chief Justice of India rightly described as 'substance'. Unfortunately, over the years we dissipated every advantage we started with, like a compulsive gambler bent upon squandering an invaluable legacy. For the first 40 years, successive governments imposed mindless socialism on the nation, which held in thrall the people's endeavour and enterprise. They respected the shells of socialism state control and state ownership while the kernel, the spirit of social justice, was left with no chance of coming to life. We shut our eyes to the act that socialism is to social justice what ritual is to religion and dogma is to truth. The most persistent tendency in India has been to have too much government and too little administration, too many laws and too little justice, too many public servants and too little public service; too many controls and too little welfare. The picture that emerges is that of a great nation in a state of moral decay, of which corruption and indiscipline are two of the several facets. In the land of Mahatma Gandhi, violence is on the throne today. Mobocracy has too often displaced democracy. The contribution of modern India to sociology has been Bandh –– the closure of an entire city by militant rowdies. If I am asked to name one curse which deserves to be regarded as the greatest curse of India, I would say it is casteism. Unfortunately, divisiveness has become the Indian disease: Communal hatred, linguistic fanaticism, regional fealty, and caste loyalty are gnawing at the vitals of the unity and integrity of the country. To the growing army of terrorists and professional hooligans, caste or clan, creed or tongue, is a sufficient ground to kill their fellow citizens. National integration is born in the hearts of the citizens. When it dies there, no army, no government can save it. Interfaith harmony and consciousness of the essential unity of all religions is the very heart of our national integration. The soul of India aspires to integration and assimilation. The day will come when the 26 states of India will realise that in a profound sense they are culturally akin, ethnically identical, linguistically knit and historically related. The major task before India today is to acquire a keener sense of national identity, to gain the wisdom to cherish its priceless heritage, and to create a cohesive society with the cement of Indian culture. Edited excerpts of an article written by eminent jurist and author Nani A Palkhiwala that appeared on August 15, 1997.
Hindustan Times
17 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
How India's demographic profile has changed over last 8 decades
Independent India turns 78 today with an estimated 1.46 billion population compared to just 346 million in 1950. To be sure, it's not just the number of Indians which has changed in the last almost eight decades. The demographic profile of Indians has also changed significantly. Here is how. How India's demographic profile has changed over last 8 decades The median age of an Indian is nine years higher than in 1950 The median age of India's population is estimated at 20 years in 1950 (the earliest estimate from UN's World Population Prospects report) and is 29 years in 2025. In fact, there's more to the change in India's demographics than just ageing. In 1950, each five-year age group had a lower share in population than the preceding five-year group. In other words, children under the age of five were the most populous five-year age group. In 2025, the 20-24 age group is the most populous. It is because of this shift towards the middle that India is said to possess a demographic dividend, where the share of the working-age population is much higher than the children and elderly, both of whom need care. But there are certain dynamics at play here. India's dependency ratio has fallen despite a rising population share of elderly The dependency ratio, which is defined as the population outside the 15-64 age group as a percentage of the 15-64 population, has decreased from 70% in 1950 to 46% in 2025. However, this decline is completely on account of children. The 65 years and older population is now 11% of the 15-64 age group compared to 5% in 1950. How will these trends change in the future? With declining fertility, the ageing of the population is expected to continue. The largest age-group in 2050, for example, is expected to be the 45-49 age group. As expected from this ageing, the dependent population will shift further towards the 65 and older group. This is expected to increase the dependency ratio from 46% in 2025 to 48% in 2050, with slightly less than half of that dependent population coming from the 65 and older group. This is what makes the period from now till 101st Independence Day in 2047 crucial for India's economic fortunes. This demographic sweet spot will not come back. To be sure, despite peaking in absolute terms in 2049, India's working age population will fall below the 2025 number only in 2082.
