Feature
Germanwings crash: Search operations resume
Paris/Berlin: The search operations for an Airbus A320 of a German budget airline with 150 people on board which crashed on Tuesday in southern France while flying from Spain’s Barcelona to Germany’s Dusseldorf, resumed on Wednesday.
A plane operated by Germanwings, the budget carrier of Germany’s Lufthansa airlines crashed in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in the southern French Alps on Tuesday, killing all 150 on board — 144 passengers and six crew members.
French investigators will comb through the wreckage of Germanwings flight 4U9525 to recover remains and attempt to locate the aircraft’s second black box, Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.
Recovery crews suspended their operations late Tuesday night in the remote Alpine region conditions became too difficult.
“The weather report is saying they are expecting snow in the early morning and that of course will keep the helicopters on the ground if it is too heavy,” a Deutsche Welle official said.
“The place where the crash happened is about a two hour hike on foot.”
Civil aviation investigators from France’s Bureau d’Enquetes are scheduled to hold a news conference on the crash Wednesday afternoon.
The aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder was recovered at the crash site on Tuesday and Lufthansa is working on the assumption that the crash was an accident, The Local quoted a senior airline official as saying.
“For the time being, we say it’s an accident, anything else would be speculation,” Lufthansa vice president for sales and services in Europe, Heike Birlenbach, said at the Barcelona airport from where the plane took off.
Birlenbach said the Airbus A320 has passed its last routine check on Monday and could not explain why it took off 20 minutes late.
“Only if those checks are ok, aircrafts are allowed to fly,” Birlenbach added.
French MP Christophe Castaner, who flew over the crash site, tweeted: “Horrendous images in this mountain scenery.”
“Nothing is left but debris and bodies. Flying over the crash site with the interior minister — a horror — the plane is totally destroyed.”
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said tthat here were no survivors, adding that the authorities “can’t rule out any theory” on the cause of the disaster.
According to a BBC report, 67 of those aboard the plane were German citizens including 16 school children from one high school — Joseph Koenig Gymnasium on their way back from an exchange trip as well as two opera singers, Maria Radner and Oleg Bryjak.
Radner was travelling with her husband and baby.
Forty-five of the passengers had Spanish names, Spain’s deputy prime minister said.
The flight was also carrying citizens of Australia, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Sandrine Boisse, a tourism official from the ski resort of Pra Loup, told the BBC that she believed she had heard a strange noise in the mountains.
“At first we thought it was on the ski slopes, an avalanche, but it wasn’t the same noise,” she said.
Media reports indicated that the A320 jetliner was one of the oldest in Germanwings’ fleet and had served for over 24 years. It had flown to Barcelona from Duesseldorf earlier on Tuesday before meeting with the accident on the return flight.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel along with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and French President Francois Hollande will visit the crash site later in the day.
Germanwings and Lufthansa have set up a free hotline with number 0800-11335577 for families of passengers involved for care and assistance.
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.
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