Cong, BJP begin war of words on Pulwama ‘Unusual activity by Pak along LOC’

PM did not call off film shoot on Feb 14, says oppn party; BJP hits back saying Cong stands exposed

NEW DELHI: A week after a suicide car bomber killed 40 Central Reserve Police Force troopers in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, the opposition Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) shook off their self-imposed restraint on Thursday and flung themselves into a political slugfest over the deadliest terror attack in three decades of insurgency in the state.

The Congress alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had continued to shoot for a documentary in Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand for his “propaganda and publicity” the same evening after the attack had taken place on the Jammu-srinagar highway in the afternoon of February 14. It also wondered whether an intelligence failure was responsible for the attack.

The BJP hit back, with Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and party president Amit Shah rising to the defence of the party and the Prime Minister. The Opposition party has shown its “true colours” after maintaining a “facade” of standing alongside the government following the terror strike, Prasad said. JAMMU:THE Line of Control (LOC) is “seeing unusual activity” since the Pulwama suicide attack that left 40 troopers of the CRPF dead, a senior official in the security establishment who did not wish to named said.

Pakistani troops are using flares, fire at prominent LOC features (such as the crevasses that line it) intermittently all through the night “just to ensure that we [India] troops aren’t lurking around,” he added. “This is becoming increasingly common on the LOC.” ››P8 NEW DELHI: The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the retirement fund manager under the Union labour ministry, on Thursday raised interest rate on deposits for its 60 million subscribers to 8.65% for the current fiscal, paring its reserves to the lowest level in three years.

This is a 10 basis point increase from the 8.55% rate announced by the retirement fund for 2017-18. It is the same as the 2016-17 level, but less than the 8.8% it paid out in the previous years.

In an election year, the EPFO’S rate hike is seen as a sop for the salaried middle class and marks a continuation of the central government’s efforts to keep key vote banks happy ahead of Lok Sabha polls. “We have been working for the working class and this rate hike shows that we do respect their faith in us,” said labour minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar after a meeting of the central board of trustees (CBT) of EPFO.

FEBRUARY 21

repor e on February 21 that the government may increase the rate of EPF ahead of Lok Sabha polls