Feature
Yogi Adityanath transfers 41 administration officers
Lucknow: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh administration today transferred 41 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, among them six District Magistrates.
Those transferred included Rakesh Kumar Singh I, who has been named the new District Magistrate of Kanpur rural; Narendra Shankar Pandey (DM Jalaun); Narendra Kumar Singh (DM Shahjahanpur) and Vimal Kumar Dubey, who has been posted as District Magistrate of Mirzapur.
Pulkit Khare, who was posted as the Chief Development Officer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi, has now been made the Vice Chairman of the Varanasi Development Authority (VDA).
Kanchan Verma, who was District Magistrtate of Mirzapur, has been made the Vice Chairman of the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA).
Rajan Shukla has been shifted out as Divisional Commissioner (DC) of Allahabad and replaced by Ashish Kumar Goyal. K. Rammohan Rao has been made the new DC of Agra, while Amit Gupta is the DC of Jhansi and Alok Kumar II is the new DC of Chitrakoot.
Sanjay Agarwal, who enjoyed the plum posting of Additional Chief Secretary at the Power Department has been divested of the additional charge of Chairman Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA).
Prabhat Kumar, the Resident Commissioner of Uttar Pradesh posted in New Delhi, has been named the new Divisional Commissioner of Meerut and has been handed the additional charge of Chairman Greater Noida Authority and the YEIDA.
Himanshu Kumar has been made the new DC of Devipatan, and Pramanshu is the new Panchayati Raj Secretary.
This is the second major reshuffle of the bureaucracy by the Yogi Adityanath government, which completes one month in office on Wednesday.
In the first rejig, Adityanath had shifted 20 IAS officials, which included close aides and favourites of former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, including Navneet Sehgal and Anita Singh.
Entertainment
Meghalaya Reserves Legalized Gambling and Sports Betting for Tourists
The State Scores Extra High on Gaming-Friendly Industry Index
Meghalaya scored 92.85 out of 100 possible points in a Gaming Industry Index and proved to be India’s most gaming-friendly state following its recent profound legislation changes over the field allowing land-based and online gaming, including games of chance, under a licensing regime.
The index by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure the level of legalisation on gambling and betting achieved by a state based on the scores over a set of seven different games – lottery, horse racing, betting on sports, poker, rummy, casino and fantasy sports
Starting from February last year, Meghalaya became the third state in India’s northeast to legalise gambling and betting after Sikkim and Nagaland. After consultations with the UKIBC, the state proceeded with the adoption of the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 and the nullification of the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970. Subsequently in December, the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021 were notified and came into force.
All for the Tourists
The move to legalise and license various forms of offline and online betting and gambling in Meghalaya is aimed at boosting tourism and creating jobs, and altogether raising taxation revenues for the northeastern state. At the same time, the opportunities to bet and gamble legally will be reserved only for tourists and visitors.
“We came out with a Gaming Act and subsequently framed the Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021. The government will accordingly issue licenses to operate games of skill and chance, both online and offline,” said James P. K. Sangma, Meghalaya State Law and Taxation Minister speaking in the capital city of Shillong. “But the legalized gambling and gaming will only be for tourists and not residents of Meghalaya,” he continued.
To be allowed to play, tourists and people visiting the state for work or business purposes will have to prove their non-resident status by presenting appropriate documents, in a process similar to a bank KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure.
Meghalaya Reaches Out to a Vast Market
With 140 millions of people in India estimated to bet regularly on sports, and a total of 370 million desi bettors around prominent sporting events, as per data from one of the latest reports by Esse N Videri, Meghalaya is set to reach out and take a piece of a vast market.
Estimates on the financial value of India’s sports betting market, combined across all types of offline channels and online sports and cricket predictions and betting platforms, speak about amounts between $130 and $150 billion (roughly between ₹9.7 and ₹11.5 lakh crore).
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi are shown to deliver the highest number of bettors and Meghalaya can count on substantial tourists flow from their betting circles. The sports betting communities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are also not to be underestimated.
Among the sports, cricket is most popular, registering 68 percent of the total bet count analyzed by Esse N Videri. Football takes second position with 11 percent of the bets, followed by betting on FIFA at 7 percent and on eCricket at 5 percent. The last position in the Top 5 of popular sports for betting in India is taken by tennis with 3 percent of the bet count.
Local Citizens will Still have Their Teer Betting
Meghalaya residents will still be permitted to participate in teer betting over arrow-shooting results. Teer is a traditional method of gambling, somewhat similar to a lottery draw, and held under the rules of the Meghalaya Regulation of the Game of Arrow Shooting and the Sale of Teer Tickets Act, 2018.
Teer includes bettors wagering on the number of arrows that reach the target which is placed about 50 meters away from a team of 20 archers positioned in a semicircle.
The archers shoot volleys of arrows at the target for ten minutes, and players place their bets choosing a number between 0 and 99 trying to guess the last two digits of the number of arrows that successfully pierce the target.
If, for example, the number of hits is 256, anyone who has bet on 56 wins an amount eight times bigger than their wager.