MP panchayat dept employee sacked as sarpanch not allowed to unfurl tricolour over caste
Bhopal (PTI): The authorities have terminated the service of a panchayat department employee after a sarpanch was not allowed to unfurl the national flag at a village in Madhya Pradesh's Rajgarh district on Republic Day due to his caste.
The alleged incident took place in Tarena village panchayat under Biaora tehsil of Rajgarh district on Friday, following which Congress Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh alleged the sarpanch faced discrimination for being a Dalit.
District Panchayat's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Akshay Temrawal on Saturday night said Tarena gram panchayat's employment assistant Lakhan Singh Sondhiya got the flag unfurled by another person, instead of the village sarpanch, on Republic Day.
The matter pertaining to depriving the sarpanch of his rights has come to light, he said.
The service of employment assistant Sondhiya has been terminated with immediate effect, Temrawal said.
After the incident, sarpanch Man Singh Verma had alleged that employment assistant Lakhan Singh got the national flag unfurled by another person during an event in their village on January 26.
"It happened because I am a Verma," he claimed.
The sarpanch subsequently complained to Biaora Janpad Panchayat's CEO Ishwar Verma.
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh had demanded action against the employee who unfurled the flag in place of the sarpanch, and asked if it was a crime to be from the Scheduled Caste.
"Does the sarpanch not have the right to hoist the flag in the Panchayat Bhawan? I request the chief minister that such guilty Rojgar Sahayak Lakhan Singh should be immediately suspended and action should be taken under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act," Singh said in a post on X on Saturday.
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Los Angeles county wildfires could be costliest in US history, early estimates say
Los Angeles, Jan 11: The wildfires that erupted this week across Los Angeles County are still raging, but already are projected to be among the costliest natural disasters in US history.
The devastating blazes have killed at least 11 people and incinerated more than 12,000 structures since Tuesday, laying waste to entire neighbourhoods once home to multimillion-dollar properties.
While it's still too early for an accurate tally of the financial toll, the losses so far likely make the wildfires the costliest ever in the US, according to various estimates.
A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far between USD 135 billion and USD 150 billion. By comparison, AccuWeather estimated the damage and economic losses caused by Hurricane Helene, which tore across six southeastern states last fall, at USD 225 billion to USD 250 billion.
“This will be the costliest wildfire in California modern history and also very likely the costliest wildfire in US modern history, because of the fires occurring in the densely populated areas around Los Angeles with some of the highest-valued real estate in the country,” said Jonathan Porter, the private firm's chief meteorologist.
AccuWeather factors in a multitude of variables in its estimates, including damage to homes, businesses, infrastructure and vehicles, as well as immediate and long-term health care costs, lost wages and supply chain interruptions.
The insurance broker Aon PLC also said Friday that the LA County wildfires will likely end up being the costliest in US history, although it did not issue an estimate. Aon ranks a wildfire known as the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, in 2018 as the costliest in US history up to now at USD 12.5 billion, adjusted for inflation. The Camp Fire killed 85 people and destroyed about 11,000 homes.
The LA County wildfires, which were fuelled by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds and an extreme drought, remained largely uncontained Saturday. That means the final tally of losses from the blazes is likely to increase, perhaps substantially.
“To put this into perspective, the total damage and economic loss from this wildfire disaster could reach nearly 4 per cent of the annual GDP of the state of California,” AccuWeather's Porter said.
In a report Friday, Moody's also concluded that the wildfires would prove to be the costliest in US history, specifically because they have ripped through densely populated areas with higher-end properties.
While the state is no stranger to major wildfires, they have generally been concentrated in inland areas that are not densely populated. That's led to less destruction per acre, and in damage to less expensive homes, Moody's noted.
That's far from the case this time, with one of the largest conflagrations destroying thousands of properties across the Pacific Palisades and Malibu, home to many Hollywood stars and executives with multimillion-dollar properties. Already, numerous celebrities have lost homes to the fires.
“The scale and intensity of the blazes, combined with their geographic footprint, suggest a staggering price tag, both in terms of the human cost and the economic toll,” Moody's analysts wrote. The report did not include a preliminary cost estimate of the wildfire damage.
It could be several months before a concrete tally of the financial losses from the wildfires will be possible.
“We're in the very early stages of this disaster,” Porter said.
