Rush Hour: 36 dead in North East rains, Centre notifies new domicile rules in Ladakh, & more

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2 days ago

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Thirty six people have died in incidents related to the heavy rainfall in the North East since Friday. Eleven of the deaths were reported in Assam, 10 in Arunachal Pradesh, six in Meghalaya, five in Mizoram, three in Sikkim and one in Tripura.
More than 5.5 lakh persons have been hit by the severe rainfall across the northeastern states. In Mizoram alone, over 550 landslides have been reported over the past 10 days. They have damaged more than 150 homes.
In Manipur, over 56,000 persons were affected by flash floods. While 156 villages in 23 districts of Arunachal Pradesh were inundated and more than 10,000 persons remained in relief camps in Tripura. Read on.
The Union government has notified rules of a new reservation and domicile policy in the Union Territory of Ladakh in response to protests by political, religious and social groups since 2019. Now only those who have stayed in Ladakh continuously for 15 years, beginning in 2019, will qualify as domiciles. This means that non-native persons living in Ladakh will be considered domiciled only after 2034.
Besides, the government also announced an 85% reservation for Scheduled Tribes in government jobs in Ladakh, addressing the fear that non-natives would corner employment opportunities. More than 97% of the population in the Union Territory belongs to Scheduled Tribes. Earlier, only 80% of government jobs were reserved for them.
In August 2019, the residents of Ladakh lost exclusive rights to own immovable property and get government jobs in the region. This was an outcome of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government's decision to rescind the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution and divide the state into the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. Read on.
Actor Kamal Haasan's production house has told the Karnataka High Court that it will not seek to release Tamil film Thug Life in Karnataka for now. The production house will hold with the state's Film Chamber of Commerce about the actor's remark that Kannada was 'born out of Tamil', which led to protests from pro-Kannada groups.
Haasan on Tuesday refused to apologise, saying he had 'no malice' behind the remarks. However, the judge who heard the case said that his remarks had caused disharmony, and urged him to apologise.
The film, directed by Mani Ratnam, is scheduled to be released on June 5. Read on.
Active Covid-19 cases in India have risen to 4,026, with five new deaths being reported over the last 24 hours. This marks an increase of 65 active infections since Monday.
Two of the deaths were reported in Maharashtra and one each in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Of the five persons who died, four were elderly individuals with pre-existing health conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.
The number of active cases has seen a surge since May 22, rising from 257 to more than 4,000.
However, the variants leading to the current rise in cases are not severe and are sub variants of Omicron, Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research Rajiv Behl said. Read on.