SAMBALPUR 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 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 ■ 200 took over Hizbul Mujahideen in may ■ 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 | P8 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 Over `1 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 S e r v i c e @ New Delhi With the Goods and Service 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 GST revenue had crossed the `1 lakh crore milestone was in February 2020, wh e n i t t o t t e d u p `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, correspondingly, 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 companies must have carried out a yearly reconciliation and asked their 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 total revenue earned by Central and the state governments after regular settlement in October is `44,285 crore and `44,839 crore respectively . The compensation cess collection rose to `8,011 crore as against `7,124 crore the previous month. Of this, `932 crore was from imports as against `788 crore in September. 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 m e 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  Number of votes in electoral college Georgia 16 96,116 0.99 Florida 1,28,735 0.68 29 Odisha has continued to show positive trends in gross GST collection for the second month in a row, recording a growth of 21.79 per cent (pc) in October as compared to the corresponding month last year. The total collection was `2,428.27 crore last month against `1,993.84 crore in October 2019. The collection in September had also picked up by 18.3 pc in comparison to the period last year. While `2,383.99 crore was collected in September this year, it was `2,015.04 crore during the month in 2019. The State GST component also recorded a positive growth of 5.16 pc for the second consecutive month in October, up from 3.42 pc in September. However, the progressive Odisha GST collection during the April to October period continued to be negative 8.48 pc owing to the setback in the first quarter effected by the nationwide lockdown. The total collection was population 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 What polLsters say 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 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 WITH THIS ISSUE THE ESSENTIAL CAMPUS DIGEST YOUR LIFE COACH 28 PAGES, INCLUDING 16 OF edex (TABLOID) `4,309.29 crore against `4,708.39 crore during the same period of the preceding year. Similarly the progressive gross GST , collection during April-October has been `14,701 crore as compared to `17,020 crore during the corresponding period last year. The VAT collection from nonGST goods has also been growing with reasonable consistency since last month due to increase in consumption as well as the decision to shift to monthly returns for all petroleum dealers instead of quarterly return period prescribed previously The collection from petroleum . dealers in September and October has been `464.25 crore and `514.29 crore against `431.04 crore and `369.40 crore during the corresponding months of 2019 with a growth of 7.6 pc and 39 pc respectively . Overall, the non-GST revenue has witnessed a healthy growth of 36.05 pc in October as compared to the same month last year. A senior official at the Commissionerate of Commercial Tax and GST said the gross GST collection has been significant after relaxation of lockdown restrictions. “We hope the collection in November will be more as there has been significant growth in economic activities during the festive season. Sale of vehicles has also seen an encouraging trend,” he reasoned. The turnaround was due to improvement in economic activity as well as the regular persuasion and follow up by field staff duly supported by data analytics for targeted intervention and effective implementation, he added. The settlement of IGST for Odisha during October was `480.83 crore as against the receipt of `307.69 crore in the corresponding months last year, recording a growth of 56.27 pc. Similarly, the collection under cess has witnessed a growth of 57.55 pc last month. PM attacks Rahul, Tejashwi, calls them ‘double-yuvraj’ of jungle raj Rajesh Kumar Thakur @ Chhapra, Bagha, Samastipur Campaigning for the second phase of Bihar Assembly polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashawi Yadav, calling them the “double yuvraj” who stood for “jungle raj”. “Beware, that yuvraj (Rahul Gandhi) is now in Bihar, lending his support to ‘jungle raaj ke yuva yuvraaj’. On the one hand, there is development brought in by the double engine government of the NDA which has pulled Bihar out of the darkness of the lantern age,” the PM said at Chhapra. “On the other side, there is this double-double yuvraj with the sole agenda of saving their thrones,” Modi said referring to the two young leaders.  % of Indirect voting Voters don’t directly vote for the president but for a group of people known as electors Odisha records 21 pc growth in GST collection E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar  IndianAmerican population The double-yuvraj of dynastic politics is not worried about the people and their problems. They are worried only about their family developments Narendra Modi, Prime Minister On the last day of campaigning for the second phase of the Bihar polls, the PM addressed four back-to-back r a l l i e s i n s u p p o r t o f N DA candidates. Speaking in a sharp tone, the PM lashed out at the “dynastic politics” of Congress and RJD. “Has any relative of Nitish Kumar been sent to Rajya Sabha? Do you find any relative of Modi in Parliament?” Modi , who shared stage with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, asked his audience in Samastipur. Hitting back, Tejashawi asked Modi why he did not speak about Bihar’s unemployment rate, which he claimed has hit 46.6%. “Why is migration from every other house in Bihar? Why Bihar tops in NCRB statistics of crime?” Tejashawi asked Days after he promised 10 lakh jobs to the unemployed youth, Tejashawi on Sunday said if elected, his government will increase retirement age of govt workers 50 to 60. 127 Indian-American factor in battleground states P u s h k a r B a n a 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, Minn e s o t a , N o r t h C a ro l i n a , 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 Republican-leaning, so Indian-Americans could possibly play a marginal yet decisive role there. The prosperous IndianAmerican 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 Americans make up only 0.82% of the eligible voters, which is not much. But 91 million votes Already cast 58 million 66% of the total 139 mail-in 33 million in-person 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 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 the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Citing her institute’s tally, she said the Indian-American population is 1,56,000, 1,25,000 and 37,000 respectively in these three 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 she added. ,”  Continued on: P7 Race factor Percentage of voters likely to vote for Biden/Trump  biden trump 4 30 50 50 90 44 Latino Black White Source: The New York Times/Siena College poll on Oct 20