WASHINGTON: India, at 49th place, has been listed the third most dangerous country to drive, according to a report by a US-based driver training company based on research in 53 countries.
According to the report, the report has been released by Zutobi.com, the international driver’s education company with courses in multiple countries.
South Africa has been named the world’s most dangerous country to drive in the annual report.
For the fourth year in a row, Norway is the safest country in the world for driving, while South Africa maintained its last position in the list for the second consecutive year.
The Zutobi statement said it analysed countries based on indicators including motorway speed limits, blood alcohol concentration limits for drivers and road traffic death rates, to determine the world’s safest and most dangerous countries to drive.
The average number of estimated road traffic deaths per 1,00,000 across all countries has decreased since the previous year from 8.9 to 6.3, while there has been no change in national speed limits and blood alcohol concentration limits in each country, it said.
Al Jazeera sheds light on how Modi govt’s bulldozer drive targets waqf properties
The Modi-led BJP government has escalated its crackdown on Waqf properties across India, seizing assets worth an estimated $14.22 billion on lame excuses.
According to Kashmir Media Service, an Arab television, Al Jazeera, released a detailed report citing the BJP government’s grab of waqf land for the expansion of a Hindu temple in Ujjain City, Madhya Pradesh, reflects a larger pattern.
Here is how Al Jazeera reports goes:
In January this year in Ujjain, a city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, authorities bulldozed nearly 250 properties, including homes, shops and a century-old mosque, to clear a sprawling 2.1 hectares (5.27 acres) of land.
The land belonged to the Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board. Derived from Arabic, “waqf” refers to moveable or immoveable properties – mosques, schools, graveyards, orphanages, hospitals and even vacant plots – donated by Muslims for religious or charitable purposes to God, thereby making such property transfers irrevocable and prohibiting sale and other uses.
India, home to more than 200 million Muslims, has the largest number of waqf assets in the world – more than 872,000 properties, spanning nearly 405,000 hectares (1 million acres), with an estimated value of about $14.22bn. They are managed by waqf boards in every state and federally-run territory.
Together, waqf boards are the country’s largest urban landowners and the third-largest overall, after the army and the railways respectively.
The Indian parliament is expected to discuss – possibly this week – amendments to the decades-old Waqf Act that has governed these waqf boards, and which has, over the years, entrenched more and more power in their hands. The amendment bill, proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), could give the government unprecedented control over what happens with waqf properties.
Muslim groups allege that the Modi administration is using its parliamentary strength to further marginalise the minority community.
