CHENNAI  MONDAY  NOVEMBER 02, 2020  `7.00  PAGES 34  LATE 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 | P10 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 p o p u l a t i o n 1% of population 0.82% of eligible voters P U S H K A R B A N A K A R @ New Delhi INDIAN AMERIC ANS IN SWIN G STATE 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 Georgia 16 96,116 0.99 Florida 1,28,735 0.68 29 INDIRECT VOTING Voters don’t directly vote for the president but for a group of people known as electors Each elector represents one vote in the electoral college. Electoral votes are partly based on a state’s population  Number of votes in electoral college  IndianAmerican population  % of population ELECTORAL COLLEGE Total votes 538 INDIAN-AMERICAN FACTOR IN BATTLEGROUND STATES Magic number needed to win 270 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 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: P9 91 MILLION VOTES 127 VOTES CAST BY SWING STATES Already cast in this presidential election WHAT POLSTERS SAY 58 mn 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 mail-in 33 mn 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 66 per cent of the total 139 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 RACE FACTOR % of those likely to vote for Biden/Trump  BIDEN TRUMP Latino 50 Black 90 White 44 @ Chhapra, Bagha, Samastipur PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday launched a fresh attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and RJD’s Tejashwi 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 raj ke yuv yuvraj’. 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-yuvraj with the sole agenda of saving their thrones,” Modi said referring to the two young leaders. 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 Assembly polls, the PM addressed four back-to-back rallies in suppor t of NDA’s candidates. Modi kept up his attack on 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, Tejashwi 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 is Bihar on the top in NCRB’s statistics on crime?” Tejashwi asked Days after he promised 10 lakh jobs to the unemployed youth, Tejashwi said if elected, his government will increase retirement age of government P10 workers from 50 to 60. EXPRESS READ Active cases stay below six lakh Haryana weighs law against ‘love jihad’ New Delhi: For the third day in a row, active cases of Covid-19 in India remained below 6 lakh, comprising only 6.97 per cent of the total caseload, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday. Also, there has been a steady decline in the number of daily deaths in India Chandigarh: Haryana Chief Minister ML Khatar said on Sunday that the state is considering bringing in a new law to address “love jihad”, a day after Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath announced his government’s intention to do the same | P9 BIDEN LEADS IN 4 KEY STATES Biden has a clear lead over Trump in swing states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Arizona, shows the latest New York Times/Siena College poll P11 meets Rajini E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Chennai NOTED political and economic commentator, S Gurumurthy, had an one-on-one meeting with film star Rajinikanth on Sunday triggering a fresh bout of specu, lation about the actor’s political plunge. The meeting, lasting 90 minutes, comes in the backdrop of a note that was in circulation a few days back, hinting that Rajinikanth had made up his mind not to enter politics due to health reasons. According to sources privy to the meeting, Gurumurthy is understood to have impressed upon Rajinikanth that he should reconsider his plans on staying away from politics. Gurumurthy consid, ered close to the BJP reportedly told the , star that he had to play a significant role in the overall context of TN politics. Political observers said today’s development may suggest that the final word is still not out on Rajinikanth ruling out a political role for himself, ahead of the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. The note that had been doing rounds had said Rajinikanth cited the pandemic, his age, health condition and uncertainty over the availability of a vaccine as reasons for his decision to call it quits. A day later, however, the star denied he wrote the statement, but said the point about his health in that statement was true. SOCIAL WORK Finding the meaning of life in serving the needy K V N A V YA @ Chennai FOR Hari Krishnan, the first week of lockdown was all about watching films, spending time with family and indulging in indoor hobbies. But a frantic phone call from an orphanage the following week changed his outlook to life. The 27-year-old Hari Krishnan, who has been engaging in casual social work for over a decade, went to the orphanage after the phone call to hand over relief materials. But seeing the hunger and emptiness in the eyes of the inmates, his heart skipped a beat, and he decided to dedicate his time, and sav- ings to help them overcome their suffering. “When I visited the orphanage, I almost broke down when I saw the inmates had not eaten for days. I didn’t know back then that this journey of service was going to go a long way .” Employed as a senior manager with an online portal, Hari initially used his savings. But he exhausted the funds during the thick of the lockdown period in May He . ‘PERSONS WITH DISABILITY WERE THE MOST AFFECTED’ When Hari Krishnan took the social work plunge, he realised Persons with Disability (PwD) were more affected than others. So he decided to focus his attention on that community. Today, Hari Krishnan looks after 254 families 4 50 Source: NYT/Siena College poll, Oct 20 PM raps ‘double-yuvraj’ of jungle Speculation rife raj; what about jobs, asks Tejashwi as Gurumurthy RAJESH KUMAR THAKUR 30 then began to use the money he had been saving up for marriage. “Over the last five years, I had saved `2.4 lakh. But helping the downtrodden took precedence over a fancy wedding. It gave me immense joy that I cannot explain,” Hari Krishnan, who is yet to be married, says. When Hari Krishnan took the social work plunge, he realised Persons with Disability (PwD) were more affected than others. So he decided to focus his attention on that community Today he looks . , after 254 families, mostly from that community, regularly supplying monthly ration to all of them. P2 WITH THIS ISSUE THE ESSENTIAL CAMPUS DIGEST YOUR LIFE COACH 34 PAGES, INCLUDING 16 OF edex (TABLOID), 4 OF CITY EXPRESS Over L1 lakh cr GST yield after eight months Finance ministry sees it as an indicator of economic recovery but experts are wary EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ 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, 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, 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 missi n g t r a n s a c t i o n s, 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.