kozhikode l monday l november 02, 2020 l `7.00 l PAGES 28 l city EDITION J&K chief of hizb saifullah liquidated in encounter His killing, just months after he took over as Hizbul commander, comes as a huge success for the security forces one of the last members of burhan group took over Hizbul Mujahideen in may Acting on a tip-off about the presence of terrorists in Rangreth, near Srinagar, a search party comprising members of CRPF, Army and the local police launched a joint operation. As they closed in on the hiding terrorists, they came under fire, and an encounter ensured. Saifullah was killed on the spot. He was one of the last surviving members of the Burhan Wani group ■ ■ Saifullah had succeeded Riyaz Naikoo as the Hizbul chief soon after Naikoo was killed by security forces in Pulwama in May He is the third Hizbul leader to be eliminated since the 2016 killing of Burhan Wani. Saifullah was involved in many attacks on secuirty forces and played a key role in attracting youth to militancy 200 terrorists killed in kashmir so far this year: Police CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ WARANGAL ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Why swing states matter Indian Americans stats 28.4 lakh To t a l 1% of population 0.82% p o p u l a t i o n of eligible voters I n d i a n A me r i ca n s i n s w i n g s t a t e s Michigan 16 77,132 0.78 Wisconsin 10 22,899 0.4 Minnesota 10 33,031 0.52 Pennsylvania 20 1,03,026 0.8 North Carolina 15 57,400 0.6 Arizona 11 36,047 0.56 Florida 29 1,28,735 0.68  Number of votes in electoral college Georgia 16 96,116 0.99  IndianAmerican population  % of population Indirect voting Voters don’t directly vote for the president but for a group of people known as electors Electoral College figures Each elector represents one vote in the electoral college, Every state has a certain number of electoral college votes, partly based on population Total number of votes Magic number 538 270 Votes of swing states 127 Indian-American factor in battleground states Pu s h k a r B ana k a r @ New Delhi At under 1% of the US population, Indian-Americans don’t count for much in the country’s November 3 presidential elections. But which way they will swing in eight key battleground states — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — could impact the final outcome, as these states collectively hold 24% of electoral college votes (see box). The candidate who gets at least 270 electoral college votes wins the jackpot, not the one who bags the highest popular votes, as the 2016 experience showed. Needless to say every , vote counts in swing states. Unlike in the rest of the US, these swing states are not clearly Democrat- or Republicanleaning, so Indian-Americans could possibly play a marginal yet decisive role there. The prosperous Indian-American community is so thinly spread out in the 50 US states that in almost all of them, they number less than 0.5% of the average population. But in the swing states, their numbers are better. According to the 2010 US Census, Indian-Americans make up 0.66% of the population on an average in the swing states with Georgia having the highest, 0.99%, and Wisconsin the lowest, 0.4%. “Indian 91 million votes Already cast What polLsters say mail-in 33 million in-person It’s going to be a very interesting Tuesday. You have a big red wave that has formed. Nobody’s ever seen anything like this - Donald Trump million votes cast in 2016 have already been cast in early voting, with the Election still two days away We’re done with the chaos, the tweets, the anger, the failure, the refusal to take any responsibility - Joe Biden Trial court ignored Manju Warrier’s major disclosure, state govt tells HC In a major revelation in the actor abduction case involving actor Dileep, the state government has told the Kerala High Court that the Additional Special Sessions Judge did not record a major disclosure of Manju Warrier, who is one of the prime witnesses. The government raised the allegation in its petition seeking to transfer the trial to another court. The High Court will consider the plea on Monday . In the petition, accessed by TNIE, the government pointed out that on February 27, 2020, when Manju Warrier — the former wife of eighth accused Dileep — was cross-examined, the defence asked her several questions with the intention of ch a r a c t e r a s s a s s i n at i o n . “There were questions asked to prove that she hadn’t contacted her daughter for years. In the re-examination, the special prosecutor asked her when she had last contacted her daughter. Manju Warrier deposed that her daughter had contacted her over the phone on Febru- ary 24, 2020, and requested her not to depose anything against her father. Manju Warrier also said she replied to her daughter that she was duty bound to reveal the truth before the court. This disclosure was not recorded by the Special Judge saying such a statement in the re-examination was inadmissible. The court rejected the special prosecutor’s request in this regard,” said the government. The petition said the victim had deposed certain important facts about the crime, which were also ignored.  ● More on P4 Plea to be considered The High Court will on Monday consider the petition filed by the government seeking to transfer the case to another court. e x p r e ss r e a d Ezhuthachan Award for Paul Zacharia T’Puram: Writer Paul Zacharia has won the 28th Ezhuthachan Award, the highest literary honour instituted by the state. A recipient of both the Kerala and the Kendra Sahithya Akademi awards, his body of work includes the critically-acclaimed Oridath, Arkkariyam, Oru African Yatra and so on. P5 Bineesh gets back pain during quizzing Back in the net Forest veterinary officer Dr Arun Zachariah examines the 10-year-old tigress after it was tranquillised and captured at Neyyar Safari Park on Sunday afternoon. The big cat brought from Wayanad had escaped from its enclosure on Saturday | Express | P5 Bengaluru: Bineesh Kodiyeri, who was arrested as part of the probe into money laundering angle in the drug case in Bengaluru, was taken to a city hospital on Sunday after he complained of severe back pain. Sources say Bineesh was subjected to grilling sessions lasting over 10 hours a day, which was negatively impacting his health. P4 WITH THIS ISSUE THE ESSENTIAL CAMPUS DIGEST YOUR LIFE COACH 28 PAGES, INCLUDING 16 OF edex (TABLOID) f oot i n t h e m o u t h Mullappally at it again, kicks up row Women’s Commission registers suo motu case The state Women’s Commission has registered a suo motu case against Mullappally over his remarks. “Mullappally’s comment is totally unacceptable. Rape is an act which is the worst crime that a man can perpetrate on a woman. I strongly condemn his remark,” said commission chairperson M C Josephine. Race factor Percentage of voters likely to vote for Biden/Trump E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @T’Puram KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran on Sunday found himself in the eye of a storm yet again following his shocking remark that a rape victim will die if she has self-esteem. Addressing the protest meeting of the UDF, which observed the Kerala Formation Day as a betrayal day , in front of the state Secretariat, Mullappally said: “When the government is drowning, Pinarayi shouldn’t believe that he can go scot-free by bringing in an adulteress. A rape victim with self-respect will die. Otherwise, the victim will at least see to it that she is not subjected to it again,” he said. The KPCC chief was referring to the solar case accused, who on Saturday gave a new statement to the police against a Congress leader. However, within minutes, he backtracked and tendered an apology at the ● More on P4 same venue.   biden trump 4 58 million 66% of the total 139 Biden is leading in both national and state-wide opinion polls. Even Trump-supporting Fox News said in its latest poll on Sunday that Biden has a clear 8% lead over the US president, with the majority of voters trusting Biden more than Trump to handle Covid-19 better P Ra m da s @Kochi Americans make up only 0.82% of the eligible voters, which is not much. But they are significant for a few reasons. First, because of their presence in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin,” said Kriti Upadhyaya, a researcher at Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Citing her institute’s tally, she said Indian-American population is 1,56,000, 1,25,000 and 37,000 respectively in these states. “In these states where the 2016 victory was achieved through rather narrow margins, each vote counts and the Indian Americans make up a vote bank that can make or break a candidate’s chances of victory,”said. Continued on: P7 30 50 50 90 44 Latino Black White Source: The New York Times/Siena College poll on Oct 20 Over L1 lakh cr GST yield after eight months Finance ministry sees it as an indicator of economic recovery but experts are wary E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi With the Goods and Services Tax (GST) mop-up in October crossing `1 lakh crore for the first time in the current fiscal, mainly on account of the current festival season, the finance ministry saw in it an indicator of economic recovery though experts continued to be wary . The overall October collection was `1,05,155 crore. The last time G S T r e ve n u e h a d crossed the `1 lakh crore milestone was in February 2020, when it totted up `1,05,366 crore. The total number of GSTR-3B returns filed till October 31 is 80 lakh. “The growth in GST revenue as compared to that in months of July, August and September, 2020 of -14%, -8% and 5% respectively clearly shows the trajectory of recovery of the economy and, cor- respondingly, of the revenues,” the finance ministry said in a statement. However, experts warned it is too early to predict recovery . “Given the festivities, collections in November could also be robust. We would need to see if this trend continues after November,” PwC India partner Pratik Jain said. Eight million returns were filed as the last date for claiming input tax credit for 2019-20 was September 30 and a lot of firms must have carried out a yearly reconciliation and asked vendors to file returns or report missing transactions, among other factors, he reasoned. Of the total GST collection in October, CGST was `19,193 crore, SGST `25,411 crore, IGST `52,540 crore and cess `8,011 crore. The revenue earned by Centre and states after settlement in October is `44,285 crore and `44,839 crore.