Feature
13 students dead, 30 injured in Spain’s coach crash
Barcelona:At least 13 students aged between 22 and 29 were killed and 30 were injured in a coach crash in northeastern Spain on Sunday.
The crash took place in the town of Freginals, Spain’s province of Tarragona, northeastern region of Catalonia, xinhua quoted reports by local media as saying.
Catalonia’s regional minister of interior Jordi Jane has confirmed the figures, saying 13 people were dead and 43 survived.
The official added that 30 of them were taken to different hospitals in the area with eight people being seriously injured and 13 were taken to a hotel in Tortosa.
Jane said earlier that most of the dead were Erasmus students, some of them from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) but he said he could not confirm neither that all of the passengers were students nor their nationalities.
The bus, from the company Autocares Alejandro Tours, based in Mollet del Valles, province of Barcelona, was carrying 57 people from Valencia to Placa Espanya, Barcelona. Passengers had been to Valencia, where the Fallas Festival took place.
Jane said the bus went towards the right and then to the left colliding with a car and overturning afterwards. The two people in the car were injured. Firemen are at the place, along with 12 ambulances and a crane is going to move the coach so that those who are trapped can be assisted.
Jane said that the cause of the accident could be a human error but he could not confirm it.
Jane said that the bus driver was at a police station declaring about the accident, which took place at 6:00 local time (0400 GMT) at km 323 on the motorway AP-7.
The crash is one of the most serious accidents in Spain involving a coach since July 6, 2000, when a coach collided with a truck killing 28 people and causing 13 injured.
Carles Puigdemont, the president of the regional government of Catalonia, has called off his trip to Paris, went to Tortosa and decreed two days of official mourning.
Spain’s acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and other political leaders such as Pedro Sanchez, from the Socialist Party, Pablo Iglesias from Podemos and Albert Rivera from Ciudadanos have expressed their condolences.
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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