Guj sees highest yet single-day jump in cases as death toll nears 3K mark

Haresh Jhala

Gandhinagar: Thir-teen COVID-19 pa-tients succumbed to the disease on Satur-day, bringing the state’s death toll to 2,991. The day also brought the highest single-day jump in terms of new cases, with 1,282 emerging from around the state.

There are now 15,231 active cases in the state,

with 89 patients on ven-tilator support. The state conducted 74,234 tests in the past 24 hours.

As many as 273 cas-es emerged from Su-rat: 181 from the city and 92 from rural ar-eas. The city’s New Civil Hospital and SMIMER Hospital are treating a combined total of 199 COVID-19 patients, of whom 45 are on BiPAP ma-chines and ventilators.

Fourteen workers of a Surat-based dia-mond unit have been admitted for treat-ment after testing pos-itive for the Sars-CoV-2 virus. The Surat Mu-nicipal Corporation has sealed the unit and will disinfect it.

Vadodara city has reported 120 fresh cases, bringing the number of active cas-es to 1,608. Of these, 160 patients are on oxygen support, while 54 are on BiPAP machines and ventila-tors. Turn to P6

24 hours: 1,282 cases, 13 deaths Total: 93,883 cases, 2,991 deaths

RS1 LAKH FOR NCOV TESTSA patient discharged from Neelkanth Hospital in Rajkot was shocked to see that he had been charged Rs1,08,950 just for COVID-19 tests. To reach this fi gure, the designated COVID-19 facility had to have tested the patient a whopping 43 times. The patient’s relatives were confronting hospital management when a committee set up by the Rajkot District Col-lector reached the spot for a surprise check. Prant offi cer Siddharth Gadhvi told the media that the hospital had conducted tests for the novel corona-virus--which are meant to be conducted after a gap of 10 days--on a daily basis. In addition, the hospital had not produced any supporting documents or bills from the pathology laboratory. It did not even have an offi cial bill, just a handwritten note on a piece of blank paper. The committee will conduct an inquiry and take appropriate action, Gadhvi said.

CORONAALERT

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26°C - 33°C

OUR EDITIONS: JAIPUR & AHMEDABAD

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COVID-19 UPDATE

GUJARAT2,991

DEATHS93,883

CONFIRMED CASES

RAJASTHAN 1,030 DEATHS 78,777 CASES

DELHI 4,404 DEATHS 1,71,366 CASES

WORLD8,44,180

DEATHS2,50,67,702

CONFIRMED CASES

INDIA35,38,413CONFIRMED CASES

63,648DEATHS

MAHARASHTRA24,103 DEATHS 7,64,281 CASES

TAMIL NADU7,137 DEATHS 4,15,590 CASES

KARNATAKA5,483 DEATHS 3,27,076 CASES

New Delhi: The Re-serve Bank is unlikely to extend the moratori-um on repayment of bank loans beyond Au-gust 31 as an extension could impact the credit behaviour of borrowers without resolving the issues being faced by them following the out-break of the COVID-19, sources said.

The RBI had an-nounced a moratorium on repayment of debt for six months beginning March 1, 2020 to help businesses and individu-

als tide over the finan-cial problems on account of disruption in normal business activities.

The six-month mora-torium period comes to an end on August 31.

It was only a tempo-rary reprieve to bor-rowers affected by the pandemic, the sources said, adding that a long-

er moratorium period exceeding six months can impact credit be-haviour of borrowers and increase the risks of delinquencies post resumption of sched-uled payments.

It is to be noted that several bankers, includ-ing HDFC Ltd Chair-man Deepak Parekh and

Kotak Mahindra Bank Managing Director Uday Kotak, had asked RBI Governor Shakti-kanta Das not to extend the moratorium as many are taking undue advantage of the facility.

As the various con-tainment measures put in place by the govern-ment begin to ease and

the economic activity gathers pace, continua-tion of temporary meas-ures would not be suffi-cient in addressing cash-flow problems of the borrowers.

A more durable solu-tion was, therefore, needed to rebalance the debt burden of viable borrowers, both busi-nesses as well as indi-viduals, relative to their cashflow generation abilities under the post-lockdown scenario, the sources said.

It was with the above

objective that the Re-serve Bank of India (RBI) recently an-nounced a special resolu-tion window for COVID-19-related stress within the existing Prudential Framework for Resolu-tion of Stressed Assets.

It strikes a balance between protecting the interest of depositors and maintaining finan-cial stability on one hand and preserving the economic value of viable businesses by providing durable

Turn to P6

RBI’S LOAN MORATORIUM TO END ON MONDAY; EMI BURDEN RESUMES

RBI had announced a moratorium on repayment of debt for 6 months from March 1 to help people

tide over financial crunch due to pandemic

New Delhi: The Minis-try of Home Affairs on Saturday issued guide-lines for ‘Unlock 4’ in the country amid the coronavirus disease out-break and allowed the functioning of sports, entertainment, reli-gious, political events.

Metro services, sus-pended since March 22 in the wake of the coro-navirus outbreak, will be allowed to operate from September 7, ac-cording to the guide-lines issued by the Cen-tre Saturday on the fourth phase of ‘Un-lock’. The Ministry of Home Affairs released the set of guidelines for ‘Unlock 4’ to be followed till September 30.

Meanwhile, Jaipur Metro may start from September 7 but pres-ently JMRC is waiting for the permission of state government to re-sume services,

Apart from the re-sumption of Metro ser-vices, public gatherings including social, aca-demic, sports, enter-tainment, cultural and religious will be per-mitted from September 21 with a ceiling of 100 persons.

However, such gather-ings can be held with mandatory wearing of face masks, social dis-tancing, provision for thermal scanning and hand wash or sanitizers.

Besides, open air the-

atres will also be per-mitted to open from September 21.

Schools and colleges will remain closed till September 30, accord-ing to the guidelines. However, states and un-ion territories may per-mit upto 50% of teach-ing and non teaching staff to be called to school for online teach-ing related work. This will only be allowed for areas outside the con-tainment zones with ef-fect from September 21.

Sept 7 Metro chugs; sports & events to start from Sept 21All schools & colleges shut till September 30; Cinema hall, swimming pool, parks to remain shut

UNLOCK 4

New Delhi/Jammu: The Border Security Force (BSF) has detect-ed a tunnel, originating from Pakistan, just be-neath the Indo-Pak in-ternational border fence in Jammu, officials said on Saturday.

The force has launched a major search operation in the area to look for other such hid-den structures that aid infiltration even as it analyses the about 3-4 feet wide structure that could be used for push-

ing terrorists and smug-gling of narcotics and arms, they said.

BSF Director General Rakesh Asthana has di-rected his frontier com-manders to ensure that the anti-infiltration grid is intact and there are no gaps along this front, they added.

The tunnel, about 50 metres from the border fence on the Indian side, was located by a BSF pa-trol on Thursday in the Galar area of Samba sec-tor in Jammu. Turn to P6

50-ft long tunnel found at Indo-Pak borderBSF: Its origin is from Pak side; ends about 20 mt ahead of border fence

BSF men stand near a tunnel, originating from Pakistan, beneath fence, in Samba district on Saturday. —PHOTO BY PTI

Raipur: Congress pres-ident Sonia Gandhi on Saturday said that anti-national and anti-poor forces were spreading hatred and “venom of violence” in the coun-try, and the “influence of dictatorship” on our democracy was rising.

The founding fathers would have never imag-ined that the Constitu-tion and democracy will be in danger 75 years after Independence as freedom of expression is in danger and demo-cratic institutions are

being ruined, she said.Gandhi addressed

the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new Chhattisgarh As-sembly building in Nava Raipur, the up-coming new capital of the state, through a re-

corded video message in Hindi.

“For the past some time, an attempt is be-ing made to derail our country. New challeng-es have come up before our democracy. Today, the country stands at a crossroads,” she said in the message.

“Anti-poor and anti-national forces and those who rule by mak-ing people fight against each other have been spreading hatred and venom of violence,” she said. Turn to P6

Aditi Nagar

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was admit-ted to AIIMS here on August 18 for post-COV-ID care, has recovered and is likely to be dis-charged in a short time, hospital authorities said on Saturday.

“Amit Shah, Union Home Minister, is ad-mitted at AIIMS, New Delhi for post-COVID care. He has recovered and is likely to be dis-charged in a short time,” the AIIMS said in

a statement.On August 2, Shah, 55,

had said on Twitter that he had tested positive for COVID-19. He had undergone treatment for the coronavirus in-fection at Medanta Hos-pital and was discharged after he tested negative for the disease. —ANI

Influence of dictatorship on our democracy is rising: Sonia

Amit Shah recovers, to be discharged soon

First India Bureau

Jaipur: Former Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court and cur-rently serving as Jus-tice in Supreme Court, Justice Arun Mishra is set to retire on Septem-ber 2. Known for his standaway Turn to P6

Justice Mishra set to retire on Sept 2

Haresh Jhala

Gandhinagar: The state will review the COVID-19 situation, and the rele-vant guidelines, and will take a call on whether or not to grant permission for Navratri at an appro-priate time, Minister for State for Home Pradipsinh Jadeja said in Vadodara on Saturday.

Jadeja was in Savli Taluka of Vadodara district to ad-dress a farmers meeting. When on sideline speaking to the media, Jadeja said, “ the state government will first re-view the corona spread, and it will also assess whether it is possible to organise Navratri like events by abiding covid-19 guideline or not. If there is any possibility then the state government will take a call and announce its decision at appropriate time.”

Saturday’s announcement comes at a time when a Va-dodara-based citizen has moved a Public Interest Liti-gation before the High Court seeking permission for Gan-pati Visarjan (immersion) and to organize Navratri fes-tivities. This means that the state will have to take a call—one way or another.

While addressing farmers, Jadeja said that agriculture sector is growing at an annual rate of 9.3%. Per annum, farmers are producing agri-cultural produce worth Rs1.70 lakh crore.

“The agriculture sector has always been a top priority for the state government. So, whenever farmers are in trou-ble the state government lends a helping hand,” he said, add-ing that the state government had last year announced a package of Rs3,975 crore for farmers affected by unseason-al rains, which covered almost 80% of the state’s farmers.

NEWSAHMEDABAD | SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 2020

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EXPANSIVE THINKING

First India Bureau

Gandhinagar: Many government officials are using their social media accounts to promote and publi-cize the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress has al-leged, after the offi-cial twitter handle of the Ahmedabad ru-ral office of the Guja-rat Pollution Control Board retweeted a

post of BJP Gujarat.The Congress has de-

manded immediate ac-tions against the offi-cials in charge of the GPCB’s Twitter handle. Manish Doshi, chief spokesperson of Con-gress said, “I want the officer, who has used a government platform to promote BJP, sus-pended. Persons en-gaged in the govern-ment, semi-govern-ment, or even grant-in-

aid institutions have been punished for post-ing things against the government, so how can this official handle act like a political spokesperson?”

He added that, ac-cording to the Gujarat Government Service Rule Book, no person can be a political agent while holding a government or semi-government job.

“Many government

employees have been suspended because they were demanding their rights. In some cases, the government has initiated a depart-mental inquiry and registered police case also. So this govern-ment officer who has retweeted the post, must be suspended im-mediately,” asserted Doshi.

The retweet has since been deleted.

MOS HOME SAYS GUJ WILL REVIEW THE SITUATION BEFORE DECIDING ON NAVRATRI

CM Rupani decides to increase purview of PASA Act to cover crimes including cyber criminals, loan sharks

First India Bureau

Gandhinagar: Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has decided to amend Prevention of Anti So-cial Activities Act. On Saturday, he also met in-teracted with industry representatives, and shared details of the state’s new industrial policy.

Rupani announced that the amended PASA Act will re-affirm Gujarat’s

identity of a peaceful, safe and secure state. The Act is now expected to also cover those involved in cyber-crime, physical violence and intimidation of weak-er sections, sexual harass-ment and related offences,

as well as loan sharks. So far, the Act, which

has been operational in the state since 1985, is cited in cases involving offences under the IPC and the Arms Act, such as people acquiring private

and government property illegally, drug offenders, bootleggers, gamblers, people involved in prosti-tution and cow slaughter.

Amendments in the PASA Act are expected to curb crime across the state. People committing or abetting cybercrimes will be charged under IT Act, 2000. Earlier, PASA was implemented when a person found guilty of gambling committed the crime again within three years of being convicted. The new provisions re-moves this statute of limi-tations and allows offend-ers to be convicted under the PASA Act if they are caught gambling again, at any point of time.

Other amendments in-clude people violating Chapter-9 of the PASA Act. This includes people engaged in illegal activi-ties related to money lend-ing and all those abetting the same, or those trying to harass and physically abuse borrowers.

Meanwhile, Rupani held a video conference with industrialists, in which he shared high-lights of Industrial Policy 2020, and reiterated the state’s focus on making Gujarat the hub of bulk drug manufacturing and of renewable energy. President of the Federa-tion of Industries and As-sociations, Prakash Var-mora welcomed the policy.

Also assures industrialists of state govt’scommitment to trade & industry

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani —FILE PHOTO

Congress accuses govt officials of using their social media accounts to promoting the BJP

A screenshot of the retweet, which came from an offi cial governmental handle.

GARBA MAY HAPPEN YET

Scenes from last year’s Navratri festivities in Ahmedabad. —FILE PHOTOS

STRICT ACTION

GUJARATAHMEDABAD | SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 2020

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Gargi Raval

Gandhinagar: The tourism department’s decision to initiated preparations for the next Rann Utsav has not gone down well with many. Experts and economists say the annual winter fes-tival held in the Rann of Kutch—usually be-tween November and February—should not

take place this year. Ahmedabad-based

activist Bina Jadav asks how the govern-ment could think of hosting the festival amid a pandemic.

“The number of COVID-19 cases are in-creasing daily. The gov-ernment is asking for Do Gaj ki Doori but that is not being followed, and scores of people—even well-educated

ones—are flouting mask norms. How will the government moni-tor all these norms in such a festival? The gov-ernment must not per-mit or organize such festivals for the greater good,” she said.

Economist and for-mer principal of KH Arts college, Hemantku-mar Shah said that, con-trary to popular belief, such festivals do not

boost the economy. “There is no doubt

that the economy is in a shambles. However, it is important to remember that such mass festivals will not boost the econ-omy but put millions of lives in danger. If it re-ally wants to help the people, the government can give a fixed amount to small business own-ers directly,” he told First India, adding, “Tourism and social distancing are contra-dictory. Such promo-tions of tourism only

invites risk to lives and health. Kutch district received corona cases from those who came from Mumbai.”

Manish Doshi, chief spokesperson of the Gu-jarat Pradesh Congress Committee said that the government should dis-burse small amount di-rectly to the needy if it is really worried about the masses.

“Such festivals will waste public money. The government should help people and not put lives in danger,” he said.

‘Govt should help small businesses rather than host Rann Utsav’EXPERT SPEAK

Kutch Rann Utsav 2019-20. —FILE PHOTO

Mass festivals don’t do much for the economy but can be a hot bed of transmission for the Sars-CoV-2 virus

AMC website fails to keep up with A’bad’s Smart City tag

First India Bureau

Ahmedabad: After his relative died, Gomtipur-resident Mushtaq Ali Shaikh downloaded a ‘Death-Certificate Form’ from the website of the Ahmedabad Mu-nicipal Corporation, filled it out and took it to the civic cen-tre—where he was told that the form was “very old” and invalid. He would have to get hold of the new form and go through the process of filling it out again.

“I don’t understand why it takes years for the civic body to update these necessary docu-

ments. It’s hard enough to deal with the death of a loved one without having to jump through hoops for things like death certificates,” he told First India, add-ing, “The AMC is quick to update information related to politicians and officials but not for anything that the tax-payers need.”

He says the issue is not limited to forms for birth and death certifi-

cates. “The AMC has not uploaded its annu-al reports of the last two years. The website does not even mention any of the areas added under the city limits in the past four to five years,” he said.

He went on to say that the site does not have the right informa-tion on which wards fall into which zones. “Many a time, my CCRS grievance has been not

accepted as the online platform is not clear about my ward. This platform is not user-friendly at all. At a time like this, when the pan-demic has made digital platforms widely used, the AMC’s platform seems severely limit-ed,” he said.

“We get information from various depart-ments. So it is possible that some information has not been collated. I

will get that fixed and make sure that infor-mation will be availa-ble to the citizens,” said Nitin Sangwan, deputy municipal commissioner, AMC.

Dinesh Sharma, leader of opposition said, “We have the la-bel of ‘Smart City’, but the civic body cannot even provide basic amenities without making citizens run from pillar to post.”

Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. —FILE PHOTO

Amdavadis complain that the online forms and other information available on the civic body’s site have not updated for ‘years’

Amul Dairy polls held to decide 11 board members

3.65L cusecs water released from Sardar Sarovar Dam

1 drowns during Visarjan, 3 youth have narrow escapes

First India Bureau

Anand: The election for 11 directors on the board of the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd—popularly recog-nized by its brand name as Amul Dairy—took place on Satur-day. The results from the Anand and Matar blocks will decide whether Union’s sit-ting chairman Ram-sinh Parmar will con-tinue as chairman or if a new face will emerge.

While there are 13 board members, who are elected by the office-bearers of the union’s member cooperatives, Amul’s sitting chairman Ramsinh Parmar was elected unopposed from the Thasra block, and Ranjit Patel is a life-time member of the board. As many as 1,046 of the total 1,049 voters had voted as of 2 pm on Saturday.

Voting is done ac-cording to block, with each block member

elect their representa-tive to the board. The blocks are Anand, Khambhat, Borsad, Pet-lad, Thasra, Balasinor, Kathlal, Kapadwanj, Mehmdabad, Matar, Na-diad and Virpur.

The Congress MLA from Borsad, Rajen-drasinh Parmar is con-testing on the truck symbol, a panel promot-ed by Ramsinh Parmar. A turncoat, Ramsinh was a Congress MLA for a long time before joining BJP just a few years back. Two seats—Khabhat and Kapad-wanj—have been re-served for women.

There is a close con-

test between BJP mem-bers and Congress mem-bers on almost all seats, but two of them—Anand and Matar—will prove kingmakers. On the Anand block, BJP MLA Govind Parmar is con-testing against Congress leader Kanti Sodha Par-mar. Similarly, BJP’s sit-ting MLA Kesarisinh Solanki is contesting against Sanjay Patel in Matar. They are both fac-ing off against Dhirub-hai Chavda, the chair-man of the Kheda Dis-trict Cooperative Bank in a three-way contest.

Amul Dairy’s has an annual turnover of Rs78,000 crore.

First India Bureau

Ahmedabad: As many as 23 gates of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river were opened on Saturday, releasing 3.65 lakh cusecs wa-ter downstream. This followed the release of 5 lakh cusecs of water from upstream Omkareshwar dam in the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh.

At present, the wa-ter level in the Sard-ar Sarovar Dam is at 131.25m. Low-lying areas on the bank of the Narmada river in Bharuch, Vadodara, and Narmada dis-tricts have been put on alert and people in these areas have been asked not to venture out into the river. A total of 10 gates were opened on Friday itself for the release of water.

The state govern-ment has placed a team from the National Dis-

aster Response Force on standby.

Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Depart-ment has forecast heavy rains over the next three days.

On Sunday, heavy to very heavy rains are very likely at isolated places in Surat, Navsa-ri, Valsad, Dwarka and

Kutch districts, as well as in Daman, and Dadra and Nagar Have-li. Heavy rains are very likely at isolated places in Anand, Dahod, Ma-hisagar, Vadodara, Chhota Udepur, Nar-mada, Bharuch, Dang, Tapi, Rajkot, Jamna-gar, Porbandar, Morbi, and Botad districts.

First India Bureau

Kheda: One youth drowned while three others had miracu-lous escapes after they got swept away by the waters of the Shedhi river in Kheda district on Saturday morning. The villagers from Ra-sulpur had gone to the river Ganesh Visarjan (immersion).

According to an eye-witness some elders and youths had to the middle

of the river to immerse the idols of Lord Ganesh, when the four youths decided to show off their bravery. They went out further into the river and were swept away by the current. Some elders rushed to a

nearby bank to help them. Three were lucky enough to be swept near the bank and were pulled out by the locals. The fourth, 24-year-old Alpesh Chavda, was not as lucky.

Later, swimmers from nearby Visnagar village who dived into the river bed and recovered Chav-da’s body. Thasra police station has lodged a complaint of accidental death and sent the body for postmortem.

Almost all of the 1,049 voters had voted as of 2 pm on Saturday. The level of the Narmada rose near the Statue of Unity.

SOLDIER’S FINAL GOODBYE

Crowds gathered to pay their fi nal respects to Army jawan Rajnish Patni, whose body arrived in Ahmedabad on Saturday morning. Sepoy Patni died of cardiac arrest at the military hospital in Meerut on Thursday. —PHOTO BY HANIF SINDHI

SC orders Adani Gas to pay `2.5 crore in service tax penalties First India Bureau

Ahmedabad: The Supreme Court in its order has up-held the decision of the Commission-er of Service Tax to levy service tax on skid equipment in-stalled by Adani Gas Ltd at the us-ers’ end. With this, the company is lia-ble to pay more than Rs2.52 crore in service tax.

The Supreme Court division bench on Friday set aside the order passed by a tribunal, observing, “The tribunal was in error in interfering with the findings and order of the adjudi-cating authority (Commissioner of Service Tax). The judgement of the tri-bunal shall accord-ingly stand set aside. The order of the ad-

judicating authority is restored.”

The adjudicating authority in its order had concluded, “The entirety of the gas connection charges collected at the time of installing the con-nection are not re-funded at the time of discontinuation or termination. So the company is liable to pay service tax of Rs2,52,73526 plus penalties under Sec-tions 77 and 78 of the Finance Act, 1994.

Witnesses say the tragedy occurred

because the youths wanted to show off.

The AMC is quick to up-date infor-

mation related to pol-iticians and officials but not for anything that the taxpayers need. The civic body has not uploaded its annual reports of the last two years. The website does not even mention any of the areas added under the city limits in the past four to five years.

—Mushtaq Ali Shaikh, Resident of Ahmedabad

IN SHORT

OOOSUNDAY LIKELY TO BRING RAIN

� Vol 1 � Issue No. 274 � RNI NO. GUJENG/2019/16208. Printed and published by Anita Hada Sangwan on behalf of First Express Publishers. Printed at Bhaskar Printing Planet Survey No.148P, Changodar-Bavla Highway, Tal. Sanand, Dist. Ahmedabad. Published at D/302 3rd Floor Plot No. 35 Titanium Square, Scheme No. 2, Thaltej Taluka, Ghatlodiya, Ahmedabad. Editor: Jagdeesh Chandra, responsible for selection of news under the PRB Act

PERSPECTIVEAHMEDABAD | SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 2020

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If you falter in a time of trouble, how small is your strength. —Proverbs 24:10

SpiritualSPEAK

TopTWEET

Dharmendra Pradhan @dpradhanbjpAlong with Min. @DrRPNishank ji and VC CUO, Prof. Rambramham virtually laid the foundation stone for academic block, library & staff quarters at Central University of Odisha. Compliments to all the faculty members, staff & students of the university on their 12th Foundation Day.

Mallikarjun Kharge @khargeThe states are already under severe financial stress & non-payment of the GST compensation will only hurt the states further. The Central Govt cannot avoid its commitment by invoking an “Act of God” that never happened. This is a violation of trust in federalism.

MY MEMORIES OF Indira Gandhi & Raja Rao

This column I shall confine to two letters. My letter to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on May 31st, 1981 from Islamabad.

I was then Ambassador (not High Commissioner) to Pakistan.

The second letter is to me from Raja Rao (1909-1997) the novelist. His best novel in my judgment is “Kanthapura”. However, “The Serpent and the Rope” is much better known.

The Chinese PM arrives

tomorrow. Then PV Narasimha

Rao on the 8th. I am most grateful

to you for sending him at this time. The

one obvious plus is that we have

taken the initiative even when the Paks

are busy maligning us.

From 8 June the point of reference

in Indo-Pak relations will be

the visit of Narasimha Rao

K NATWAR SINGH

The author is Former Minister of External Affairs of India

31 May 1981

Dear Madam,

On your 50th birthday I had the good fortune to ride with you to Palam Airport to receive President Novotny of Czechoslovakia. Being at that time thirty-six and thoughtless, I asked you, “how does it feel to be 50?” and you told me the story of a lady who hid under the bed on the eve of her 30th birthday and refused to come out. She looked at me and said, “after 30 I stopped counting.”

I turned 50 on May 16th. Middle age arrived rather silently and I felt none the wiser. Panditji once wrote that wisdom sometimes comes suddenly and unexpectedly. I await its arrival with serenity and till that happens, I intend to feel fine and forty-nine.

You might recall my speaking to you about President Kaunda’s Man Friday- Ranganathan. He will be in Delhi from 5-12 June at Ashoka Hotel. I have asked him to contact Dhawan. If you can spare the time, then do see him. He is a shy little man with a cherubic face but obviously endowed with supernatural gifts. He is also very discreet.

Your visit to the Gulf got the Paks very worked up. They have been deluding themselves by taking the Gulf rulers for granted and the Gulf itself as a Pakistani lake.

The Chinese PM arrives tomorrow. Then PV Narasimha Rao on the 8th. I am most grateful to you for sending him at this time.

The one obvious plus is that we have taken the initiative even when the Paks are busy maligning us. From 8 June the point of reference in Indo-Pak relations will be the visit of Narasimha Rao. More substantially his visit will give heart to the silent majority here- they want good relations with India. It will at the same time, silence those in India, who have been critical of our Pak policy. Finally, it will give the Americans, Russians, Chinese, and the Islamic countries something to ponder over.

At the same time I am not pitching my expectations too high, as I see no immediate prospect of a dramatic or spectacular breakthrough in our bilateral relations. The Zia-ul-Haq, junta is about the worst in terms of quality. It really is very frustrating dealing with such people but I take a long-term view of our relations with Pakistan. I don’t expect too much, nor do I despair of getting anything at all. I remain unimpressed in the face of verbal professions of friendliness. Zia-ul-Haq is a past master at insincere verbalising.

Tomorrow I go to Zia’s dinner for the Chinese Prime Minister. The first thing I shall do is to find out the nearest exit- in case Kashmir is brought up. I hope the need for a walkout will not arise but if it did then I should know how to make a quick and dignified exit.

With respects,

As ever,K. Natwar Singh

The University of Texas at AustinAustin, Texas, 78712

1808 Pearl Street,Austin, Texas, 78701, USA

Dear Natwar,

You must wonder what is happening to me-no, nothing else than that I have been working very very hard on a book, and(you will be happy to hear) it is a novel, the first novel after I wrote The Serpent and the Rope some twenty years ago. This time, however, the novel has become long, very long indeed- some sixteen hundred pages long, and it will be in three volumes (1) The Hunt in the Himalayas. (2) In the Tiger’s Mouth. (3) The Myrabolan in the Palm of your hand. And there will be two appendices, as part of the novel: A letter to Andre Malraux, and a final letter from Michel (a character in the novel) on the presence of good and evil in the world etc. As you see, it is the most ambitious task, but it has been exciting to write. The main theme is, the ultimate dialogue is not between the East and the West but between Brahmin and the rabbi, the Brahmin this time happens to be a mathematician and the story moves backward and forwards between India and Europe(as in The Serpent and the Rope) but this time America is in the picture, mainly Princeton. I have worked so hard on this book for three years that I am well-nigh exhausted, and I will therefore now take a holiday going to Europe and India, and Europe again. Tell me if you will be in London at the end of December or in February, for I would so much like to see you again and talk to you, of my book and of so many other things.

Also, though the book is finished in its first version. I have to verify any facts and add a few more passages, philosophical or mathematical, and again cut a few pages if I can. So the book will not be ready for publication till January 1978, at the earliest. It has been most exalting to write, and this time my work is sadder and my themes more difficult than ever before. However, we might be able to talk of all this when we meet- and I hope we can..

With respects,

Yours affablyRaja

EE & NEET are not just ex-ams but a dream for countless fam-

ilies to improve economic mobility. A large percent-age of students who get into IIT- JEE come from middle class or lower-middle class. Quite a few parents have sold their lands and students are working extra hard to achieve their dream of helping parents after graduation. Most of the parents have spent count-less nights monitoring

performance and build-ing morale for their chil-dren. In addition, if exam is not held, students may be forced to take admis-sion to Colleges other than IITs, NITs, IIITs, IIS-ERs, and pay high fees.

Moreover, Prolonged de-lay is leading to increased anxiety -” why study ” syn-drome which may lead to increased instances of a student’s mental health breakdown. The govern-ment has already put a ban on rumors which is a very positive move.

From a health perspec-

tive, it has been argued that exams will increase the number of corona cases. We have already opened the economy due to economic compulsion. Serological studies in some cities confirm that already 60% of people have developed antibod-

ies. Our esteemed organ-ization’s Supreme court’s honorable judges must have taken the view of experts in this important matter.

If we delay further, we may not be able to even start the academic session and the entire year of the

students will be wasted; it will impact especially those coming from lower and middle-class economic backgrounds. In the histo-ry of IIT-JEE, the JEE exam was cancelled only once in 1997 and led to a de-lay in admission by two months. Professor and stu-dent worked extra hours and ensured that the next semester started on time. If the exam is not held now, we will be too late to even start the academic session. IITs, NITs & Medical Col-leges have limited seats and they would not double the seats for just next year. In addition, there are or-ganizational difficulties for corporates and PSUs re-cruiting from these colleg-es in 2024, when no engi-neer and doctor will gradu-ate from these colleges; and may impact the economy.

To ensure that stu-dents have minimum dif-

ficulty, NTA has already Increased NEET & JEE centers. About 95% of students have already downloaded their card; This shows the eager-ness with which they are waiting for the exam. NTA is ensuring that eve-ry student gets the near-est center. Some states have even made arrange-ments for stay and food.

Just by taking the name of IIT-JEE in any topic, any-one can garner cheap pub-licity. Rajasthan Congress government is seeking per-mission to conduct three examinations in which around 8 lakh students may appear and other hand pro-testing JEE-NEET.

Let’s be consistent in our views and not play with the career of bright students, the future of our nation. Jai Hind.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY

THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

JEE-NEET: A way to improve economic mobility

J

AASHISH CHATURVEDI

The writer is an IIT Delhi alumnus, is a seasoned entrepreneur & mathematician having about 16 years of experience in the education sector. He held various positions in BJP including IT head of BJP Rajasthan twice & at present panelist of BJP Rajasthan & state head of library prakalp of BJP Rajasthan

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3 UNIDENTIFIED TERRORISTS KILLED IN PULWAMA ENCOUNTERPulwama: Three un-identifi ed terrorists were killed in an encounter with police and security forces in the Zadoora area of Pulwama on Saturday, Kashmir Zone Police said.The encounter between security forces and terrorists broke out at 1 am on Saturday. Incrimi-nation materials including arms and ammunition

have been seized from the encounter site and the search operation is under-way. “Pulwama encounter - Update: 03 unidentifi ed terrorists killed. Incrimi-nating materials including arms and ammunition seized. Search going on. Further details shall follow,” the Kashmir Zone Police offi cials tweeted while informing about it.

‘ 83,000 ARRIVALS TOOK PLACE ACROSS NATION ON AUG 27’New Delhi: Over 82,000 passengers took to the skies across the country on August 27, Min-istry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) said. In a series of tweets, the Ministry informed that the over 83,000 passenger arrivals took place across the country on the same day. “Over 870 fl ight departures took place across the country on 27th August. Domestic aviation operations continue to grow steadily,” the ministry further said in a tweet. According to the ministry, over 870 fl ight arrivals took place across the country on Aug 27.

CM SHIVRAJ HOLDS HIGH-LEVEL MEET ON FLOODSBhopal: Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Saturday held a high-level meeting on the rain and fl ood situation in the state, said the Chief Minister’s Offi ce (CMO). In the meeting, the Chief Minister directed the concerned offi cials to pay full attention on the Narmada river and its tributaries as heavy rains are likely to continue in parts of the state for the next 48 hours. “There is a possibility of heavy rains for 48 hours now but there is no need to panic. I am asking you to be careful not to be worried at this hour,” he said.

‘PM MODI TO INAUGURATE ATAL TUNNEL BY SEPTEMBER END’ Sissu/ Lahaul-Spiti: PM Narendra Modi is expect-ed to inaugurate the 9.02 kilometre long Atal tun-nel, the world’s longest tunnel above an altitude of 3,000 metres, con-necting Manali with Leh by the end of September, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said. He visited the south portal of tunnel in

Lahaul-Spiti and held a meeting with offi cials at Sissu about the comple-tion of the tunnel. “PM wants to inaugurate the tunnel by the end of next month. He will visit the spot physically instead of virtually attending the event. This tunnel is go-ing to be very signifi cant. The dream of Atal ji is fi nally coming true.”

‘MODI GOVT COMMITTEDTO NURTURE TALENT’

New Delhi: On the oc-casion of National Sports Day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah greeted sportsper-sons on Saturday and said the Narendra Modi government is commit-ted to promoting sports and nurturing young talents.

He also compliment-ed all sportspersons who have been making India proud by their hard work and passion.

The day is observed to commemorate the birth anniversary of hockey legend Major Dhyan Chand who was born on August 29 in 1905.

“Modi government is committed and playing an instrumental role in promoting sports and nurturing the young

talent through initia-tives like Khelo India and Fit India,” he said in a series of tweets.

Paying tribute to the hockey wizard, on his birth anniversary, the

home minister said Ma-jor Dhyan Chand was a phenomenal legend, who won three Olympic gold medals and mes-merised millions by his magical technique.

Major Dhyan Chand’s talent, achievements and devotion towards the motherland contin-ues to inspire the gen-erations to come, Shah said. —ANI

NATIONAL SPORTS DAY

Major Dhyan Chand’s talent continues to inspire generations to come, says Amit Shah

AMIT SHAH@AMITSHAH

On #NationalSportsDay,

I salute all our sportsperson who have been making

India proud through their passion & hard-

work. Modi govt is committed and playing

an instrumental role in promoting sports and nurturing the

young talent through initiatives like Khelo

India & Fit India.

BJP controls WhatsApp: RaGa

IN THE COURTYARD

New Delhi: Two stu-dents have approached SC through a letter pe-tition to CJI SA Bobde seeking postponement of NEET and JEE on h u m a n i t a r i a n grounds amid the cor-onavirus pandemic.

A third-year law stu-dent and a 12th class student wrote a joint letter petition to CJI Bobde on Friday seek-ing his intervention to quash the decision of

the Government of In-dia to hold the NEET and JEE examination in September amid the ongoing pandemic. The letter said the is-

sues required urgent and kind attention of the court and added that the decision of the government to hold NEET and JEE exami-nations during the COVID-19 pandemic is a “clear violation of Article 21 of the Con-stitution in as much as it forces all students, who wish to partici-pate in exams, to ei-ther endanger their lives health.” —ANI

2 students write to CJI Bobde, seek postponment of exams

BOMBAY HC ALLOWS TAZIYA PROCESSION WITH NOT MORE THAN 5Mumbai: Bombay HC allowed Taziya procession on Muharram in Mumbai with not more than 5 people. No other procession has been allowed anywhere in the state of Maharashtra, Court said. Earlier on Thursday, Supreme Court declined to pass orders to allow mourn-ing processions across the country during Muharram while observing that it will lead to chaos and the target-ing of a particular community for spreading COVID-19. A Bench headed by CJ SA Bobde said it will not pass orders that could risk health of many people.—ANI

NEET, JEE EXAMS

New Delhi: Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) pres-ident JP Nadda chaired a meeting of all the par-ty MPs from Bihar and senior party leaders on Saturday to finalise its poll strategy for the up-coming state assembly elections.

According to sourc-es, all the BJP MPs from Bihar including union ministers Ravis-hankar Prasad, Giriraj Singh, RK Singh, Nity-anand Rai and Ashwini Choubey attended the meeting at the party of-fice to discuss prepara-tions for Bihar elec-tions.

“BJP chief wanted to know the ground reali-ty ahead of the election and discussed the seat-sharing to know the views of the MPs for the upcoming polls. The meeting with MPs is considered to be very important as their feed-back will also be used in seat-sharing for Nation-al Democratic Alliance (NDA),” sources said.

The sources further said that Nadda will start his Bihar tour if lockdown is lifted in the state. National General Secretary Bhupender Yadav was appointed as party’s state in-charge in December last year.

Earlier on August 23, Nadda addressed Bihar BJP State working com-mittee via video confer-encing and said that BJP, and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) will fight elections together un-der the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and win the up-coming Assembly elec-tions in Bihar.

Suttur Math, a movement to establishpeace: Singh

New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said that Suttur Math is an ongo-ing movement towards establishing peace and harmony in the country.

“Jagadguru Rajen-dra Mahaswami dedi-cated his life towards promoting the overall development of society. Sri Suttur Math is an ongoing movement to-wards establishing peace and harmony in our country,” Singh tweeted. The Defence Minister attended the inaugural function of the 105th Jayanti cele-brations of Jagadguru Shiv Rathri Rajendra Mahaswami ji through video conferencing. The celebrations were organised by Suttur Jagadguru Sri Veerasimhasana Math.

Jagadguru Rajendra Mahaswami, a pontiff of the Srimath, was born on August 29, 1916, in Suttur. —ANI

Letter ‘misconstrued’; never sought leadership change: Jitin PrasadaNew Delhi: Congress leader Jitin Prasada, one of the 23 leaders who wrote to party chief Sonia Gandhi seeking organisational changes, said on Satur-day that the letter is be-ing “misconstrued” and he has full faith in the top leadership.

He said the letter was not written with the in-tention of leadership change.

Asked why he chose

to sign the letter, Prasa-da said the “letter was written with the sole purpose of suggesting how to reinvigorate and revitalise the party, and

introspect for galavnis-ing the organisation. It was not to undermine the top leadership. I had stated this at the Con-gress Working Commit-tee meeting as well”.

“The letter is being misconstrued,” the for-mer Union minister as-serted.

“I have full faith in the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gan-dhi and they have full faith in me.” —PTI

Will messenger of Godplease answer?: Chidu

Indian Youth Cong begins ‘Rozgar Do’ Campaign

New Delhi: Taking a jibe at Finance Minis-ter Nirmala Sithara-man over her “act of God” remark, former Union Minister P Chidambaram sar-castically called her ‘the messenger of God’ and asked how should ‘mismanage-ment of economy be-fore pandemic’ be described. “If the pandemic is an ‘Act of God’, how do we de-scribe mismanage-ment of economy

during 2017-18, 2018-19 & 2019-20 BEFORE the pandemic struck In-dia? Will the Finance Minister as the Mes-senger of God please answer?” —ANI

New Delhi: “Congress has been time and again raising issues to remind the govern-ment about promises that they had made when they came into power. Unemployment is an important issue. Even before the COV-ID-19, the state of economy was frightening. A record of 45 years of unemployment was broken,” said Pawan Khera of INC.—ANI

Nadda chairs meet of Bihar BJP MPs to finalise poll strategy

BJP TO USE KAMAL CONNECT APP FOR BIHAR POLLSNew Delhi: BJP is going to use ‘Kamal Connect’ application in a big way during the polls. Through this application, the political leaders in various areas, will make people recall the developmental work they had undertaken in the state and how many people have benefi ted under Prime Minister Narendra Modi government.

NARENDRA MODI@NARENDRAMODIToday, on #NationalSportsDay, we pay tributes to Major Dhyan Chand, whose magic with the hockey stick can never be forgotten. This is also a day to laud the outstanding support given by the families, coaches and support staff towards the success of our talented athletes.

New Delhi: Former Congress President Ra-hul Gandhi has again alleged Modi Govern-ment of controlling so-cial media platforms. Gandhi tweeted a Time Magazine news report and claimed that What-sApp is under control of Indian Government as it needs its approval for payments services to its 40 crore user base in India.

“America’s Time magazine exposes WhatsApp-BJP nexus: Used by 40 Cr Indians, WhatsApp also wants to be used for making pay-ments for which Modi Govt’s approval is need-ed. Thus, BJP has a hold over WhatsApp,” Gan-dhi tweeted. —ANI

CONGRESS WRITES TO ZUCKERBERG ALLEGING BJP-FACEBOOK NEXUSNew Delhi: Congress alleged ‘quid-pro-quo’ relationship be-tween Facebook and the BJP on Saturday and wrote a letter to the social networking platform founder Mark Zuckerberg seek-ing information about steps the company is planning to take to investigate the matter. “We draw your attention to the article in Time magazine dated Aug 27, 2020 that reveals more informa-tion and evidence of biases and a quid-pro-quo relationship of Facebook India with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),” read the letter by Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal to Zuckerberg. Venugopal said the article makes three main points that are “alarming and violate both the spirit and the law of operations of foreign companies in India”.

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Guj sees...The North zone has re-ported 1,971 cases, while the South zone has seen 1,535, and rural areas, 1,736 cases.

Police are currently on the hunt for Mansin-gh Chikligar--who is wanted for theft--after he fled from Sayaji Hos-pital, where he had been admitted for COV-ID-19, on Saturday.

A patient also fled from a COVID-Care Centre in Ahmedabad. The Rajasthan native had tested positive for COVID-19 when he en-tered Gujarat from Madhya Pradesh.

Saturday’s other cas-

es came in from Ahmedabad (164), Jam-nagar (102), Rajkot (115), Bhavnagar (61), Gandhinagar (35), Panchmahal (34), Juna-gadh, Morbi and Kutch (28 each).

Of the 13 deaths re-ported on Saturday, three occurred in Ahmedabad, while Ra-jkot and Surat had two each and Amreli, Gir-Somnath, Mehsana, Morbi, Jamnagar and Vadodara each reported one death.

RBI’s Loan...relief to businesses as well as individuals af-fected by the COVID-19

pandemic on the other, the sources said.

The resolution plans to be implemented un-der the framework may include conversion of any interest accrued, or to be accrued, into an-other credit facility, or granting of moratorium and/ or rescheduling of repayments, based on an assessment of income streams of the borrower, up to two years, the sources added.

While the resolution under this framework can be invoked till De-cember 31, 2020, the lending institutions have been encouraged to strive for early invo-

cation in eligible cases, particularly for person-al loans.Thus, the con-cerns of borrowers are sought to be addressed by the resolution frame-work wherein morato-rium is also a relief op-tion which the borrow-er can avail.

Justice Mishra...decisions, Justice Mishra is known for his historic and superb stint at the apex court where recently he termed sen-ior advocate Prashant Bhushan guilty in a con-tempt case.

It is believed that post retirement, Justice Mishra could be ap-

pointed as the Chair-man of National Com-pany Law Appellate Tri-bunal which is one of the most important tri-bunals in the country. Although as of now it is a speculation, however, word is that the ‘specu-lation’ is fuelled by strong facts standing in Justice Mishra’s favour.

50-ft long...The force found that 8-10 plastic sandbags stuffed in the tunnel’s mouth had “Pakistani markings” on them, of-ficials told PTI.

A senior official said BSF troops got suspi-cious after noticing the

sinking of earth at some places in a farm-er’s field due to recent incessant rains.

An earth moving ma-chine was immediately pressed into service to completely unearth the tunnel that is about 170 metres from the IB on the Indian side, the of-ficial said.

Spot inspection re-vealed that the tunnel was under-construction and about 20 feet-long, officials said.

The tunnel, as per sources, has a depth of about 25 feet at the opening and has been located near the ‘whale-back’ border post of the

BSF. “The date men-tioned on the sandbags suggest that the tunnel has been freshly dug. We are investigating it further,” Jamwal told reporters. The force has been conducting a mega ‘anti-tunnel drive’ in the IB areas of Jammu and other places after five armed infiltrators were recently killed by it along this front in Punjab.

Influence of...“Bad thinking is domi-nating good thinking, freedom of expression is in danger and demo-cratic institutions are being ruined. The influ-

ence of ‘tanashahi’ (dic-tatorship) has been in-creasing on ‘lokshahi’ (democracy),” she add-ed.

Without naming any-one, Gandhi alleged that these elements want to suppress the voice of people.

“What do they want? They want people of the country, our youth, our tribal people, our wom-en, our farmers, shop-keepers and small trad-ers, jawans to keep their mouths shut,” she said.

Two years from now the country will com-plete 75 years of Inde-pendence, the Congress president noted.

FROM PG 1

New Delhi: India has one of the lowest global COVID fatality rates and is working on the coronavirus vaccine de-velopment, Health Min-ister Dr Harsh Vardhan said on Saturday.

The minister, who chaired 20th meeting of Group of Ministers on COVID-19, said health infrastructure in the country has been amply strengthened. Accord-ing to the Health Minis-try, India has reported 26,48,998 total COVID-19 cases and 62,550 deaths.

Dr Vardhan informed the GOM that country's Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is at its lowest at 1.81 per cent and the re-covery rate has climbed to 76.47 per cent.

“As of now, only 0.29 per cent of cases are on ventilators, 1.93 per cent on ICU and only 2.88 percent of cases are on oxygen,” he said.

The GoM was briefed on the current status of COVID-19 in India. The global comparison clearly depicted that In-dia has one of the low-est cases per million (2424) and deaths per million (44) compared to the global average of 3,161 and 107.2 respec-tively.

Dr Vardhan also in-

formed the GoM that more than 338 lakh N-95 masks, nearly 135 lakh PPEs and about 27,000 ventilators have been provided by the Centre to the States and UTs.

According to the Health Ministry, eight States (Maharashtra, Karnataka, AP, TN, UP, WB, Odisha and Telan-gana) have contributed to around 73 per cent of the active caseload as of Saturday. Seven states (Maharashtra, Delhi, TN, AP, Karnataka, UP and West Bengal) ac-count for 81 per cent of total deaths. —ANI

‘One of lowest global fatality rates’India’s tally crossed 34 L mark CFR is at its lowest at 1.81% Recovery rate has climbed to 76.47%

A health worker takes sample from a construction worker for COVID-19 test as others wait for their turn, in New Delhi on Saturday.

Chandigarh: Haryana Power Minister Ranjeet Singh said on Saturday that he had tested posi-tive for the novel coro-navirus. Singh, who is an Independent MLA supporting the BJP-JJP government, had got his test done just before the one-day Assembly session on Wednesday and his report returned negative. However, he developed symptoms af-ter session and got him-self tested again. —ANI

Haryana min Ranjeet Singh tests positive

New Delhi: The BCCI on Saturday revealed that two players are among a total of 13 who have tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of the IPL after it came to light that over a dozen mem-bers of the Chennai Su-per Kings contingent have been infected by the dreaded virus in Dubai.

The two players who have tested positive in-clude a white-ball T20 specialist seamer for In-dia and a top-order India A batsman. the Board

did not reveal any names. The tournament start September 19 and

will be played across three cities in the UAE.

“Thirteen personnel

have tested positive of which 2 are players. All the affected personnel as well as their close con-tacts are asymptomatic and have been isolated from other team mem-bers. They are being monitored by the IPL Medical Team,” the BCCI press release stated.

The release stated that a total of 1,988 RT-PCR COVID-19 tests were carried out be-tween August 20 and 28 across all participant groups in the UAE. —PTI

‘2 players among 13 cases in IPL contingent’

Mumbai: Actress Rhea Chakraborty, who was interrogated by the Central Bureau of In-vestigation (CBI) on Friday for over 10 hours in connection with the Sushant Singh Rajput case, reached the DRDO guest house for the sec-ond consecutive day for questioning by the cen-tral agency. A vehicle carrying Rhea Chakraborty, 28,

reached the guest house complex in Ka-lina, San-tacruz, where the probe team is stationed, around 1.30 pm. Rhea used the Mumbai Police as an es-cort to reach for her second round of CBI questioning in the Sushant Singh Rajput

case following a fracas at her home on Fri-day.

She under-went a 10-hour-long gruelling grilling ses-sion by the CBI sleuths till late Friday, and was again sum-

moned the following day for the next round. As she was preparing

for her maiden appear-ance on Friday, she was mobbed by a large num-ber of media personnel in which a constable sustained injuries.

Thereafter, Rhea de-manded that she and her family should be provided police protec-tion. As a precaution-ary measure, a Mumbai Police team provided Rhea with an escort team. —Agencies

CBI continues to grill Rhea Chakraborty

‘PRANAB STILL ON VENTILATOR’

Rhea Chakraborty

SANJAY BHATIA SWORN-IN AS UPA-LOKAYUKTA, MAHARASHTRA Sanjay Bhatia, former Chairman, Mumbai Port Trust, has been sworn-in as the Upa-Lokayukta of Maharashtra. He is a 1985 batch retired IAS offi cer of Maharashra cadre.

P V RAMASASTRY PROMOTED AS DG, VIGILANCE ESTABLISHMENT IN UPP V Ramasastry has been promoted to the grade of Director General of Police (DGP) and appointed as DG, Vigilance Establishment in Uttar Pradesh with effect from September 1, 2020. He is a 1989 batch IPS offi cer of UP cadre.

FIVE IPS OFFICERS GET NEW POSTINGS IN UPAnand Kumar has been assigned additional charge of Civil Defence, while Ramkumar was posted as ADG, Cyber Crime and Elamaran G is Additional DCP, NOIDA. Besides, Gopal Krishna Chaudhary has been appointed as DCP, Lucknow and Mohammed Mustaq is now Additional SP Railway Agra in Uttar Pradesh.

FOUR IAS OFFICERS GET NEW JOBS IN DELHI GOVT Ms Renu Sharma has been appointed as Addi-tional Chief Secretary, Urban Development, while Rajeev Verma was posted Principal Secretary, Vigilance and H Rajesh Prasad is Principal Secre-tary, Education. Besides, Ms Manisha Saxena has been posted as Secretary-cum-Commissioner, transport in Delhi Government.

FORMER BIHAR DG JOINS JDU IN BIHAR Former DG Bihar Sunil Kumar has joined the JDU on Saturday. He is 1987 batch former IPS offi cer. Kaun Banega TRAI Chairman ? (6) Preeti Sudan One source also mentioned the name of outgoing Secretary Health Preeti Sudan for the post. She is 1983 batch IAS offi cer of Telengana cadre.

KAUN BANEGA TRAI CHAIRMAN ? PREETI SUDAN One source also mentioned the name of outgoing Secretary Health Preeti Sudan for the post. She is 1983 batch IAS offi cer of Telengana cadre.

WILL RAJENDRA KUMAR GET EXTENSION? Rajendra kumar is likely to get three months extension in service.1985 batch ips offi cer of Madhya Pradesh cadre is scheduled to retire on August 31.

DEPUTATION TENURE OF SUSHANT SHARMA EXTENDED The deputation tenure of Sushant Sharma work-ing as Joint Director, Forest Survey of India, has been extended upto June 16, 2022. He is a 1995 batch IFS offi cer of UP cadre.

POWERGallery

By arrangement with : http://whispersinthecorridors.com

New Delhi: In a big step in the backdrop of an ongoing conflict with China in eastern Ladakh, India is likely to convey to Russia that its troops would not be par-ticipating in the Kavkaz-2020 where Chi-nese and Pakistani troops are also going to be there. Authorities have also taken into ac-count the worsening COVID-19 situation. —ANI

New Delhi: In yet an-other blockbuster deal, Mukesh Ambani’s Reli-ance Industries Ltd on Saturday announced the acquisition of busi-nesses of Kishore Bi-yani’s Future Group for Rs 24,713 crore to add to its fast expanding retail business and bolster e-commerce to take on the competition from Jeff Bezos’ Amazon.

“RRVL, subsidiary of

Reliance Industries Ltd will acquire the retail and wholesale business and the logistics and warehousing business from the Future Group

as going concerns on a slump sale basis for lumpsum aggregate consideration of INR 24,713 crore,” the com-pany said in a state-ment.

Reliance Retail will now have access to close to 1,800 stores across Fu-ture Group’s Big Bazaar, FBB, Easyday, Central, Foodhall formats, which are spread in over 420 cities in India. —Agencies

India to skip war game with China, Pak in Russia

Reliance Retail buys Future Group’s businesses for `24,713 crore

Lucknow double murder: Daughter kills mother, brotherLucknow: A 14-year-old daughter of a senior railway minis-try official, who is posted in Delhi, shot dead her mother and teenage elder broth-er when they were taking an afternoon nap inside a bunga-low under the Gau-tampalli police sta-tion limits in Luc-know on Saturday afternoon, police of-ficials said.

After killing the two, the minor girl, who was not in a good mental health, also tried to harm herself by slitting her wrists with a ra-zor, Lucknow com-missioner of police (CP) Sujeet Pandey said.

At the time of the incident, the officer was in Delhi where

he is posted. The girl has been admitted in hospital, the police commissioner said.

The police said the girl, who is a trained shooter and prolific user of weapons, used a .22 bore rifle in the crime. DGP Hitesh Chandra Awasthi visited the spot.

Pandey said the girl fired three bul-lets—one hit a mir-ror and two others killed her mother and brother. He stat-ed that the girl wrote the words ‘disquali-fied mirror’ on the washroom mirror.

This act reflected the girl’s mental in-stability and that she required imme-diate medical assis-tance to recover, he added. —Agencies

Mukesh Ambani

New Delhi: The Su-preme Court will pro-nounce its order on Au-gust 31 on the quantum of sentence for advo-cate-activist Prashant Bhushan, who has been held guilty for contempt of court over two of his tweets.

The bench of Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari had reserved its order on August 25 after

Bhushan refused to apologise for his re-marks. During the hear-ing, the bench expressed anguish over his criti-cism of ‘sitting and re-tired’ judges, and said that while criticism is welcome, one ‘should not attribute motives to judges’ since they can-not go to press to defend themselves and ‘can only speak through our judgments’. —Agencies

BHUSHAN CASE: SC to pronounce order on Aug 31

TALKING POINTAHMEDABAD | SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 2020

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Many respondents, particularly those who had worked at newer companies focused on social media, revealed they had followed the demands of the Face-book algorithm at times. They had piv-oted to video and had focused on share counts. However, respondents working at older media companies also noted that lots of readers still visited their publication’s home page, which chal-lenges the idea that companies depend totally on Facebook. Companies were also exploring different ways of gener-ating revenue. These included placing ads inside content (known as native ad-vertising) and holding events.The stand-out trend, however, was a renewed focus on subscriptions, ensuring that a cer-tain percentage of readers actually paid money for the news product at some

point.The Conversation (which does not charge for access to its content)

was one of the newsrooms that saw a steep drop in traffic as a result of the January 2018 algo-

rithm change. As such, it has piv-

oted its digital strategy to prioritise the channels over which it has the most con-trol, particularly its daily newsletter.

That’s not to say companies have stopped trying to engage with big plat-forms. Many are consciously trying to make their news easy to find via Goog-le search (a process called search en-gine optimisation. Some companies (including The Conversation) have also begun distributing news through Insta-gram (which is owned by Facebook).

Yet although the big platforms are doubtless here to stay, our research re-veals a distinctly changed relationship between news and social media, com-pared with the past decade. Many com-panies, particularly newer ones like Buzzfeed and Vice, previously built huge audiences off the back of social media, and grew at a dizzying rate as a result. Now, companies are more inter-ested in securing a stable revenue stream than in harvesting clicks.

THE FOCUS ON ADAPTING TO GOOGLE AND FACEBOOKS’S ALGORITHMS COMPLETELY CHANGED NEWSROOM PRACTICES

OVER THE PAST DECADE, AS JOURNALISTS HAVE WEIGHED EDITORIAL CONSIDERATIONS AGAINST AUDIENCE METRICS

ARE FACEBOOK& GOOGLE STILL THE FUTURE OF NEWS?Given the recent commentary about the reforms proposed for the news media sector, you would be forgiven for thinking

Google and Facebook are the only game in town. The planned reforms arose from last year’s Digital Platforms Inquiry by the Australian Competition and Con-sumer Commission (ACCC), which fo-cused squarely on the corporate behav-iour of these two tech behemoths.

It is clear Google and Facebook will be the first platforms regulated under the draft mandatory code that will poten-tially force them to pay for content pro-duced by Australian news media compa-nies. The move is a response to what the ACCC describes as “a significant bar-gaining power imbalance […] between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook”. This idea that news companies are essentially stuck with Google and Facebook, for better or worse, is a common view. Yet while that might have been true a few years ago, media companies are realising there are other ways to cultivate readers, and there’s no need to be beholden to tech platforms that generate clicks but don’t want to pay for the privilege.

In the mid-2010s, many news compa-nies seemed to follow Facebook’s every move. When Facebook promoted video, the media invested in video. When it down-ranked clickbait headlines, con-tent writers frantically altered their style to maintain their presence in the news feed. Newsrooms have had a simi-larly dependent (albeit less direct) rela-tionship with Google. The focus on adapting to Google and Facebooks’s algo-rithms completely changed newsroom practices over the past decade, as jour-nalists have weighed editorial considera-tions against audience metrics.

IS THIS STILL THE CASE?This dependency de-veloped at a time when major platforms, par-ticularly Facebook, were engaging sub-stantially with the dis-tribution of news. But in recent years this trend has declined, as governments have be-gun to regulate plat-forms in response to concerns over “fake news”.

Facebook performed perhaps the most pub-lic pivot, changing its algorithm in January 2018 to promote con-tent from users’ friends and family. As a result, traffic to news sites fell, leaving profit-starved media compa-nies to pursue alterna-tive strategies or sim-ply lay off staff.

In our research, pub-lished earlier this year, we spoke to 15 Austral-ian journalists and editors who had collec-tively worked across 11 media companies after the dust had settled from the 2019 crisis.

We asked them whether their compa-nies still depend on Fa-cebook for traffic, or whether they have moved to other plat-forms, or are now do-ing something else en-tirely to cultivate their readership.

THE PANDEMIC EFFECTThis has become even more important amid the economic chaos caused by COV-ID-19. Advertising spending has dried up, lead-ing to another round of media industry layoffs.

This suggests news media are still struggling to secure an alternative income stream to plug the hole in advertising revenue. The big question is whether big tech platforms will step in and help fill the gap by making financial contributions to news providers. Google’s current campaign against the draft mandatory code suggests they are deeply unwilling to do this.

Our research shows the relationship between news media and big tech platforms is far from straightforward. This is supported by a recent survey, which found that while many young people access news through social media, older people still prefer television or news websites. Not every Australian gets their news via social media. There may come a time when platforms become the central access point for news, but it hasn’t happened yet. This doesn’t mean the ACCC should abandon platform regulation, but it does mean news companies are prob-ably wise to find other ways of reaching their readers while they still can. S

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BREAKING UP WITH FACEBOOK

Howsoever busy you might be, to take a moment to appreciate the simple, good things in life which

are so bountiful…

—Jagdeesh Chandra, CEO & Editor, First India

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COVID PATIENT FLEECED BY NEELKANTH HOSPITAL IN RAJKOT

First India Bureau

Rajkot: To increase the number of beds in Rajkot and prevent loss of patients, pri-vate hospitals have been allowed to treat corona patients. The Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) has asked to charge a fixed fee for the treat-ment. However, many hospitals are looking for new strategies to

carry out robberies. In such an agreement, the hospital has taken Rs 4 lakh, including Rs 1 lakh for the co-rona lab test. At pre-sent, the whole mat-ter has been handed over to the inquiry committee.

Siddharth Gadhvi, a provincial officer of the chairman commit-tee, said that the whole matter has been hand-ed over to the commit-

tee for investigation. We will first testify the patient in a hearing, then the hospital, and will be asked for the ex-planation. The whole matter will be investi-gated. It is also said that no complaint has been lodged so far on behalf of the patient’s family.

There were many complaints that pri-vate hospitals were charging more than the prescribed rate for

the treatment. District Collector Rayamya Mohan called a meet-ing and formed a spe-cial team which in-cluded Dr. P Singh and Dr. Patel, who along with a team of doctors were sent to Neelkanth Hospital for a surprise check-up. Where a family was seen argu-ing with the adminis-tration for the bill. Pa-tient relatives said that the hospital has

charged Rs 108,950 for testing and has made a total bill of Rs 4 lakh. The special team real-ized that all the tests that have to be done in a week or after 10 days were reported to be done every day. The misconduct of Neel-kanth Hospital was caught red-handed and the team asked the pa-tient’s son to report the case in the Collec-tor’s Office.

Investigation is underway on the case of Rajkot’s Nilkanth hospital charging ` 4-lakh for the treatment of a Covid Patient

First India Bureau

Gandhinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to inau-gurate a regular Sea-plane service connect-ing Sabarmati River-front in Ahmedabad to Kevadiya Colony, the place where the Statue of Unity, Sardar Saro-var Narmada dam and other tourist interest

places are located. Prime Minister is like-ly to visit Statue of Unity on the occasion of National Unity day which is marked on 31st of October, the birth anniversary of Iron Man of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. It is believed that he will inaugurate Sea-plane service during his this visit.

An important review meeting chaired by State Chief Secretary Anil Mukim was held today in capital Gandhinagar in presence of Secretary and Joint Secretary of Civil Aviation ministry, Government of India, the representatives of Air-ports Authority of India, Spicejet airline and sen-ior officials of Gujarat government regarding

Prime Minister’s dream project – Sea-plane ser-vice, said Gujarat govern-ment note.

The note further added that the first flight will be inaugurated on 31st of October this year con-necting Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad to the Statue of Unity site in Ke-vadiya colony in Narma-da district of Central Gu-jarat. Spicejet will oper-

ate a 19-seater plane on tis route. Ticket fare for each passenger will be Rs. 4800. Daily four flights will be operated on this route.

It’s worth noting that on 22 July, union Civil Aviation ministry, Sports Authority of India and the Government of Gu-jarat had signed Memo-randum of Understand-ing to start Seaplane service in the State.

PM likely to launch Sea-plane service in Guj on 31st October

Prime Minister Narendra Modi. — FILE PHOTO Preparations at Sabarmati riverfront.

Nilkanth hospital with bill (inset).

SHOCKINGMurdered for ` 200

Kumbhar picked up by NIA in ISI spying case

First India Bureau

Surat: A shocking case has come up from Surat in Guja-rat where a person was killed for a transaction of just Rs 200. After the murder, the ac-cused had escaped from the scene and the police followed and took him into custody. This case is of Saroli area in the Punagaam po-lice station, Surat. There was a clash over the money transaction with a person named Sid-dhnath aka Raju Quril. After which Raju was stabbed

to death with a sharp weapon.

Information of the matter was given to the Surat Police Control Room by an unknown person over the phone. On receiving the infor-mation, the control room reached the scene without delay. After which Police Inspector VU Gadari chased the abscond-ed criminal and soon enough took the ac-cused into custody. A video of this entire case has also sur-faced, in which Po-lice Inspector VU Gadaria was seen catching hold of the culprit

First India Bureau

Valsad: National Inves-tigation Agency (NIA) has arrested one Razak Kumbhar from his home in Mundra.

Razak is accused of giving Rs. 5,000 to ISI agent Mohammad Rashid via Paytm and other suspicious litera-ture. Pakistan based In-ter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agent Rashid was arrested from Varanasi in January this year by Military Intelligence and Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh Police. Rashid confessed that he was part of a racket that aims at supplying pho-tographs of the move-ment of armed forces to ISI. Rashid had visited Pakistan twice and ex-changed WhatsApp numbers. He was asked to take a shop on rent near Jodhpur based army camp. NIA had re-ceived evidence that Mundra based Razak had sent Rs. 5,000 via Paytm to Rashid and along with some sensi-tive information.

Police team with the accused.

CONGRESS ENFORCES KAMRAJ PLAN!

Efforts are on in Congress to per-

suade a ‘miffed’ Rahul Gandhi and the exer-cise of implementing Rahul and his congre-gation in the well-thought-out Kamraj Plan Party has begun. As is implied in this plan, that leaders over 70 years of age, should retire from politics but anxious of their role in the organiza-tion, should work in a new role as a separate guide. The develop-ment was reflected in the recent decision when inspite of Man-ish Tiwari and Shashi Tha-roor being in the fold, youth l e a d e r G a u r a v G o g o i was given this re-sponsi-bil-

ity of party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sab-ha. Punjab MP Ravneet Singh Bittu got the responsibility of whip in the Lok Sabha and Jairam Ramesh in the Rajya Sabha. The logic be-hind the implementa-tion of Kamaraj Plan in the party is that there has been a war between Rahul Gan-dhi versus aged lead-ers in the party for the last 16 years, so after the retirement of such leaders, Rahul Gandhi will be able to run his secret rule. Leaders like Gulab Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal, Kamal Nath, Digvijay Singh may also have to say

goodbye to active politics. Ra-jasthan Chief M i n i s t e r Ashok Gehlot will turn 70 in May of 2021, and after his d e p a r -

ture, young Sachin Pi-lot will get a chance to assert his right on his chair.

WHAT IS ON RAHUL’S MIND?

Rahul Gandhi wants the new national

president of Congress to be from outside the Gandhi family. Along with the announcement of such a president, 4 to 5 working presidents should also be made, which Rahul Gandhi did in states like Bihar, Jharkhand and Guja-rat. For example, in

Jharkhand, 5 w o r k i n g p r e s i d e n t s have been ap-pointed in ad-

dition to a full-time state president, Bihar has four working presi-dents and three in Guja-rat. Apart from this, Rahul wants to give the Congress a new narra-tive that this 125 year old party can also give voice to regional aspi-rations again. That is why Ahmed Patel tried and persuaded Mamata Banerjee and got Didi to talk to Sonia Gandhi. It is now likely that Mamta and Congress will contest the likely West Bengal as-s e m b l y elections in April-May to-

gether, this will pave the way for Mamata’s return to power, while the Congress will be able to find its lost sup-port base in the state again. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress and DMK alliance has also got a shape, even though the Congress still has a gov-ernment in Puducher-ry. Since the govern-ment changes every election there and in

course of this change, the

Congress is still try-ing to get t h e r e with the DMK. As s u c h ,

there is a fight for

power in he A I A D M K

a n d swords a r e

stretched between two of the party’s most sen-ior leaders, Panneersel-vam and Palaniswami. With both at battle for supremacy in the party, the prospects of return-ing to power seem eclipsed. The BJP is try-ing to mediate between these two leaders but there are no concrete results as of now. The Congress is expected to perform well in Kerala and Assam as well, and if this happens, efforts to tie these victories to Rahul will be undertak-en.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN BIHAR?

In Bihar, swords are drawn between oppo-

sition parties amid calls for imminent election. Parties involved in the RJD-led Mahagathband-han, are urging Tejash-wi Yadav not to project himselves as CM face on behalf of the Grand Al-liance, rather wait till

after the election results are announced. In a re-cent survey, neither the BJP-Nitish alliance in the state has been shown to get an absolute major-ity nor the grand alli-ance, and in such a situ-ation, the key to power may come in the hands of small parties and in-dependents. There is a lot of excitement among the Dalit voters, as Shy-am Rajak has returned to his old house- RJD. Dalits are being given free rations and thou-sands of rupees every month by the Nitish gov-ernment, but Dalits are not too happy with this and are also ‘looking’ towards RJD with hope-ful eyes. The Mallah caste, coming third in Bihar, is also seeking a bigger stake in power this time, having al-ready tried the eth-nic leadership of leaders like Mukesh Sahni. The encoun-ter of UP is also hav-ing an impact on the Brahmin voters of Bihar, that is, this

time there is a lot of chaos in Bihar, and if the elections are held now, the results could surprise everyone. As the ambitious plan of the Center, to provide clean water to all for which the work of lay-ing water pipes is going on a war footing, in many places where the work has been complet-ed, the pipes have been uprooted again. There is a lot of anger among the people, most of whom are local leaders of BJP, who have been awarded the contract for laying the pipe.The author is a journal-

ist and political com-mentator and views ex-

pressed are his personal

FIRST INDIA SUNDAY SPECIALBY TRIDIB RAMAN

K Kamaraj Rahul Gandhi Tejashwi Yadav

AHMEDABAD, SUNDAYAUGUST 30, 2020

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City First talks about the evergreen Mirror work fashion, which has made a comeback into the fashion industry to

make you look spunky, edgy and eclectic all at once!

irror work, also known as Abhala work, has been an integral part of In-dian fashion herit-age for many centu-ries. I’m sure, we all

must have flaunted mirror work at some point in our lives. This very beautiful type of embroidery has roots back to the 17th century. Although this work was brought by Mughals of Iran, it readily spread into all the traditions across the country. For a very long time, this remained as a lost art. However, in last few years many celebrities were seen donning these bright and blingy styles on the red carpet, which made the come-back of this age-old mirror work and this time with a bang into the fashion arena.

If life is feeling a bit dull, add some sparkle with this underrated style and boom, you’re completely trans-formed. In fact, we have come a long way from the craft be-ing witnessed just on tradi-tional ethnic wear. It creates a fantastic theme of bling, catches light appropriately and makes the wearer look glamorous and pretty as it not only reflects light but also adds glow to your com-plexion.

Walking down the lanes of Jaipur and Gujarat, one can still find little shops selling mirrorwork arti-cles and clothes, includ-ing bright cholis. They may have taken a back-seat in our wardrobe, but are surely making a comeback and this time, it’s not just tradi-tional. While mirror work is one of the most underrated crafts in our country, fashion trendsetters like Sonam Ka-poor have ensured that it re-mains in the limelight.

Over the years, fashion has reincarnated this design into something absolutely aston-ishing. In everyday wear, mir-ror work has shown itself in beautiful combinations. Re-gardless of the type of dress, mirror work adds up the or-namented charm and glam-our to it. You can flaunt mir-ror work dresses on special occasions, ghagra, cholis, skirts, dupattas with mir-ror work are quite popular and now that the top mod-els and actresses have also accepted the mirror work dresses in all its form, the trend seems to boom further.

KARISHMA GWALANIkarishma.gwalani@firstindia.co.in

M

REFLECTION OF

10ETC

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WEEKLYWEEKLYARIES

MAR 21 - APR 20

You could very well fi nd yourself swimming in your deepest feelings and your imagination and appetite to dig deep psychologically will be amplifi ed in a major way around September 1. This moment could call for you to allow yourself to take a time from the daily grind to get in touch with your heart’s desires and deep-rooted emotional needs. You’ll get you the green light to steel yourself, speak up, and share thoughts and wants with your sweetheart, a potential partner, dear friend, or close colleague. This can have a bond-bolstering effect.

LIBRA SEPT 24 - OCTOBER 22

You’ll get a burst of cerebral energy that is perfect for diving into research and socializing with friends, colleagues, and loved . If you’ve been missing your colleagues or tight-knit circle of dear friends, setting up a safely distanced happy hour might be a sweet way to make the most of this energy. You’ll also do well to gather more info on the strategies for hitting your personal goals. And from September 6 to October 2, relationship-oriented Venus in your eleventh house of networking only serves to amplify the social vibe.

TAURUSAPR 21 - MAY 20

Feeling like you’re part of something bigger than yourself will be the key to feeling emotionally centered and productive around September 1. You’ll do well brainstorm alongside friends, neighbors, or colleagues. That “out there” idea might not be as crazy as you initially thought, and laying the groundwork to make it real could prove truly satisfying. A good week for boosting your resolve to dig up information on a new daily ritual that can improve your health. Simple stretching or breathing exercises could prove benefi cial.

SCORPIOOCT 23 - NOVEMBER 22

Feeling like you’ve been putting your own joy, play, and creativity on the back burner in order to tend to the monotonous to-dos of everyday life could be getting to you around September 1. You’ll want to hit the pause button on professional projects in order to take care of yourself self-compassionate way. Spending time just seeing where the moment takes you, especially with a signifi cant otheror close friend, could prove emotionally gratifying. And from September 6 to October 2, social Venus moves through your tenth house of career.

GEMINI MAY 21 - JUNE 21

Don’t be surprised if you’re tapped to step into the spotlight by higher-ups around September 1. Whether you’re taking the reins on a major project, leading the charge on a brainstorm, or taking on more responsibility, this could be a moment that sets you up for the kind of professional advancement you’ve been craving as of late. A week of romance and self-expression, bringing a fun, playful vibe to the way you connect with others. This period could be particularly useful for researching or diving into a creative endeavour.

SAGITTARIUS NOV 23 - DEC 22

You could feel compelled to talk about a tough emotional issue with a loved one around September 1. Getting in the weeds of your feelings together can ultimately help you heal and move forward. Then, you’ll be even more apt to trade notes with colleagues on your biggest, most exciting pitches while communicator Mercury is in your eleventh house of networking from September 5 to 27. This communicative, collaborative vibe can make it even easier to land on brilliant game plans and execute them in a group setting.

CAPRICORNDEC 23 - JAN 20

You might be feeling restless, stretched too thin, and feeling like you need a major time-out from the daily grind around September 1. Finding a quiet moment to journal or let your mind wander can help you zero in on solutions for infusing your day-to-day with more balance. And from September 6 to October 2, romantic Venus moves through your eighth house of emotional bonds and sexual intimacy, amplifying your desire to connect with someone special—ideally in a deep, meaningful way physically and spiritually.

LEOJULY 24 - AUGUST 23

You’ll be meditating on the give and take of your most intimate relationships around September 1. Trusting your heart now can offer valuable insight moving forward. Then, you’ll enjoy a burst of beauty-loving energy and radiance that has you glowing from the inside out, thanks to romantic Venus moving through your sign from September 6 to October 2. You’re ready to step into the spotlight more than usual, given this transit, and come off as especially alluring and attractive to your signifi cant other or potential partners.

AQUARIUS JAN 21 - FEB 19

Around September 1, when the full moon falls in your second house of income, you might fi nd yourself feeling torn between keeping your head down and sticking with the status quo on the job or feeling like you want to try something different that better aligns with your values and long-term goals. Allow yourself to explore what your intuition is telling you, take notes, and you’ll soon know how to proceed. Venus moves through your seventh house of partnership, pumping up your desire to spend quality time with someone special.

VIRGO AUG 24 - SEP 23

Your desire to connect with your current partner or a potential lover is magnifi ed around September 1. Opportunities to embrace romantic, allowing you to take a well-deserved time-out from facts and cold, hard reality. Then, you could be more motivated to research new ways to boost your cash fl ow or ingenious tactics for growing your fi nancial portfolio while communicator Mercury, your ruling planet, moves through your second house of income from September 5 to 27. Don’t underestimate the power of connecting.

PISCES FEB20 - MARCH 20

Around September 1, when the full moon falls in your sign, you might be feeling like you’ve been putting others’ well-being ahead of your own recently and your own self-care has landed on the backburner. No doubt you’ll be frustrated, so this is the time to carve out space to enjoy activities that feel rejuvenating and lift your spirits. You’ll be feeling more centred soon. This week also sets the stage for you to share even more special moments with friends, colleagues, or loved ones on an everyday basis.

CANCER JUNE 22 - JULY 23

If you’ve been feeling like you’re grappling with a case of cabin fever given current circumstances, chances are you might be itching to get out of your comfort zone around September 1. Even if you opt to stay home, you might enjoy planning a future trip, diving into an book, cooking an exotic recipe, or watching eye-opening fi lms. Also be sure to watch out for feelings of loneliness and a need to carve out space to care for yourself, as the next day, romantic Venus in your sign opposes stoic Saturn in your eighth house of emotional bonds.

WEEKLYWEEKLYWEEKLYWEEKLYWEEKLYAUGUST 30 – 5 SEPTEMBER

BEYONCE KNOWLES WILL HAVE A BUSY YEAR ON A MENTAL LEVEL, WITH PERSONAL INTERESTS, STUDIES, EXCITING IDEAS, FREQUENT LECTURES, DEBATES, OR ANIMATED DISCUSSIONS. SHE IS LIKELY

TO ATTRACT LOVING RELATIONSHIPS AND/OR NEW WARM SOCIAL CONTACTS INTO HER LIFE. HER POPULARITY WILL INCREASE AND EFFORTS TO SMOOTH OVER CHALLENGES IN PARTNERSHIPS ARE

MORE LIKELY TO SUCCEED IN THE COMING MONTHS.

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11

The film is a sequel to 1991 film Sadak. But interest-ingly there is no hard-core connection of Sad-

ak 2 to the almost 30 years old film Sadak except the character Ravi Kishore (Sanjay Dutt). The film revolves around Aarya (Alia Bhatt) who wants to de-stroy the empire of Guruji/ dhongi baba (Makrand Desh-pande) who in turn wants to fin-ish Aarya so that his reality is

not disclosed. On the other hand, Aarya’s stepmother and father are staunch followers of

Guruji. Guruji along with Aarya’s father and stepmother plan to prove Aarya to be mentally ill. Aarya runs away from the hospital and meets a taxi driver ( Sanjay Dutt), who helps her in the film to destroy Guruji and Aarya’s enemy, her father. Aditya Roy Kapur plays the character of Vishal who is Aarya’s boyfriend in the film.

It seems the story has not done justice to Alia Bhatt’s character. At times you will find

Alia Bhatt drifting away from her character. Adi-tya Roy Kapur seems to have taken a back seat in the entire film. Except for his good looks, there is nothing much for him to showcase in the film.

Sanjay Dutt is the only good thing about the film. Dutt’s act-ing will get you emotional at times.

Overall the film is depress-ing, boring, awkward and unre-alistic. The direction and story completely fail the film.

KAVITA CHAUHANcityfirst@firstindia.co.in

SADAK 2- NOT WORTH THE RIDE!DIRECTOR

Mahesh Bhatt

CAST & CREWSanjay Dutt, Alia Bhatt, Aditya Roy Kapur, Jisshu Sengupta,

Priyanka Bose, Makrand Deshpande, Gulshan Grover

SADAK 2

RATING:

EXCITED FOR SHOOT

am just excit-ed right now to start work again after lockdown. It is going to be hectic but I

also know it is going to be fulfilling. I am glad I have gotten to be a part of two very interesting projects,” Vaani said.

Besides “BellBot-tom” co-starring Ak-shay Kumar she will also start shooting presently for Ab-hishek Kapoor’s unti-tled next, a romantic drama opposite Ayushmann Khurra-na. There’s the period

drama too, opposite Ranbir Kapoor. How has she been prepar-ing for her immediate assignment, during the lockdown?

“Prepping in lock-down has been all about Zoom calls. It’s been all about getting back in the zone. We are making do with what we have. ” she said. “BellBottom” is inspired by true events. Directed by Ranjit M. Tewari, the film is set in the eight-ies and narrates the story of one of India’s forgotten heroes.

—Agency

I

ENGAGEMENT ANNOUNCED!

“Bindiya (his wife) and I are delight-ed to an-

nounce the engagement of our daughter Nidhi with Binoy. The kids have known each other for many years and are about to be betrothed. It’s a feeling very per-sonal and something we cannot put into words,” Dutta shared.

On Thursday, a small mehndi function was conducted ahead of the engagement ceremony. Nidhi is set to marry Binoy Gandhi, a film-maker. The marriage will probably take place in December. Photos of the function have now

gone viral on social me-dia and in the photos, we can see Sara looking gor-geous in a hot pink suit while Amrita is seen a multi-coloured one, and they both are all smiles as they pose with the

bride Nidhi Dutta and others at the function. For all those who don’t know, Nidhi Dutta is the daughter of veteran filmmaker JP Dutta and she got engaged to Binoy Gandhi. —Agency

Af there is one legendary singer and per-former who redefined music as well as dance with his songs, it is Michael Jack-son. The King Of Pop would have

turned 62 today and on his birth anniversary, several stars have been paying tributes to him.

Speaking of this, Tiger Shroff, who is an ardent lover and fan of MJ, took

to social media to share an old video of him

copying his rou-tine, step by step. Tiger has always

been a fan of Mi-chael and never

misses a chance to express his love for him.On his birth anniversary, Tiger remembered the

legendary dancer and singer with a throwback video. In the video, we get to see how perfectly Shroff

nails every move like Michael and manages to win over his fans. Clad in a blue shirt with pants, Tiger is seen

nailing the moonwalk as well as the dance moves of the King Of Pop. The split-screen video, where on

one side we could see Tiger dancing and on the other, MJ grooving, came as a treat for all fans

of MJ and Tiger. Tiger shared the video and wrote, “Happy birthday king.” Several fans

left comments on the same and were left in complete awe of the superstar as well as

the legendary singer and dancer. Tiger has several times expressed how he has taken inspiration for his dance from Michael and many times at events, he has performed and expressed his admi-ration for the King Of Pop. —Agency

TRIBUTE TO MJ Wakanda Forever...

Actor Chadwick Boseman, best known for his film Black Pan-

ther in the Marvel cine-matic universe, died of cancer, at the age of 43. Taking to Twitter, Chad-wick’s official account shared the news, and his family said in the state-ment. “From Marshall to Da 5 Bloods, August’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bot-tom and several more- all were filmed during and between countless surgeries and chemo-therapy. It was the hon-our of his career to bring King T’Challa to life in Black Panther.” —Agency

Vaani Kapoor

Michael Jackson

Nidhi Dutta

Chadwick Boseman

...poster of the film

...poster of the film

...her post

Kevin Hughes’s post

CITY FIRST

FICCI FLO, Jaipur sparked curiosity amongst its mem-bers in pursuit of

analyzing their signature because signature tells a lot about a person and how they deal with a situ-ation. Considering this, a webinar was conducted by a Graphologist & Sig-nature consultant Shwe-ta Tiwari (Founder of Rising Key from Mum-bai), where she discussed

each letter and some gen-eral rules for enhancing confidence, self-esteem and planning. A very in-teresting tip on attracting

financial opportunities by focusing on a small let-ter ‘Y’ was shared to all the FLO Members.

cityfirst@firstindia.co.in

12CITY BUZZ

AHMEDABAD | SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 2020www.fi rstindia.co.in I www.fi rstindia.co.in/epaper/ I twitter.com/thefi rstindia I facebook.com/thefi rstindia I instagram.com/thefi rstindia

RAJASTHAN: On the auspicious occasion of Muharram, Muslim children were seen praying at Sufi Saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti Dargah in Ajmer on Friday. —PHOTOS BY ANAND SHARMA

GUJARAT: On the occasion of Muharram, people from Muslim Community were seen praying near a Tajiya in Ahmedabad on Saturday. Owing to the pandemic this year, the procession was cancelled as per the Supreme court’s decision. —PHOTOS BY HANIF SINDHI

TIME FOR PRAYERS

SIGNATURE-SESSION

CITY FIRST

The Mangala Oil Field is lead-ing the country towards PM’s

vision of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat. India’s largest private oil & gas explora-tion and the production company, Cairn Oil & Gas, Vedanta Limited, completed 11 years of Mangala oil fi eld opera-tions on Saturday.Cairn’s operations at the Rajasthan block holds signifi cant national importance. The block has contrib-uted a cumulative $18.0 billion to the nation and state excheq-uers. The application of world-class technology and digitalization has helped maintain business continuity and safe op-erations, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.Minister of Mines & Gaupalan, Govt. of Rajasthan, Pramod Jain Bhaya said, “The joint venture by ONGC and Cairn for the exploration and production of oil

and gas has transformed the socioeconomic landscape of western Rajasthan.”Additional Chief Sec-retary, Dept, of Mines & Petroleum, Govt. of Rajasthan, Dr.Subodh Agarwal said, “Barmer oil fi elds have witnessed a phenomenal output not only in terms of the crude oil production but

also the success of the new era of technology.”Speaking on the

occasion, CEO, Vedanta Limited,

Sunil Duggal said, “This milestone is a result of our efforts that have accelerated growth plans, enabling safer oil production to put India on the path to energy security. The economic and social impact of oil production from Ra-jasthan has indeed made Mangala oil fi eld the crown jewel for the state and for India.”

cityfirst@firstindia.co.in

Celebrating 11years of Success

DURING THE DAY!RAJASTHAN: The National Sports Day was celebrated in IIS University, Mansarovar on Saturday, where Vice-Chancellor, Dr Ashok Gupta and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Dr TN Mathur paid the tributes to Major Dhyanchand. During the occasion, Dr Ashok Gupta shared the on-field examples of Major Dhyanchand as an inspiration source for the younger generation who are interested in sports. The registrar, Dr Rakhi Gupta; Advisor, Prof KS Sharma, among others were present on the occasion.

“And one day she d i s c o v e r e d that she was fierce and

strong and full of fire and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears,“ these lines are undoubt-edly perfect interpretation for a rising star like Ayushi Vijay Vargiya also known as Anchor Aish. In an exclusive interview with City First, Ayushi shared her journey of suc-

cess. While talking about her

profession, she said, “It was my destiny that coin-cidently began from a ‘Sangeet’ event as an An-chor and from there to here, it has been a great journey. Today, I can proudly say that I’m one of the popular faces in the in-dustry and a social worker

in society.” She cred-its her father for be-ing supportive in every step of her

life.Aish with her larger

than life spirit has an-chored around 1500 wed-dings, corporate shows, live events and has hosted 100+live shows with celebs like Tiger Shroff, Daisy shah, Tara Sutariya, Karan Kundra, Prince

Narula, Sahil Khan, among others. She has also voiced for more than 300 national and multinational brands.

“I have bravely fought with all the odds, pursued my path of hosting and transformed myself to dif-ferentiate among masses. My journey has just begun and there are still a thou-sand miles to go,” Aish said.

She has been awarded Global Excellence Award 2020 by ‘I can foundation’, Women Achievers Award 2020 by Arya group of col-leges, Women National Award by Sakaar Vikas Sanitizer, Rajasthan Wom-an Achievement Award 2019 By Shakti film pro-duction, Best Female An-chor Award by Subh life-style Awards and many more to come.

KARISHMA GWALANIKarishma.gwalani@firstindia.co.in

HAPPY B’DAY!

RAJASTHAN: On the occasion of Jal Jhulani Ekadashi, Thakur Ji Maharaj was seated in a swing, and the tableau was taken out. Pandit Ramkishore Maharaj shared that Prasadam was given to all the devotees after the vihara was done.

VOYAGEof Multitudinous

(From left to right) IAS Hemant Kumar Gera, IAS Siddharth Mahajan and IPS Yogesh Yadav celebrated their birthdays on 29 August, Saturday. We wish them all the best!

GUJARAT: On the occasion of Jal Jhulni Ekadashi, priest of Kum Kum Swaminarayan Temple, Ahmedabad, performed rituals and decorated the idol of Lord Swaminarayan. —PHOTOS BY HANIF SINDHI

CITY FIRST

Renowned Bolly-wood Actress Mrinalli Shar-ma visited Jaipur on Satur-day to brief about the Pre-

mier Handball league and their further preparations, at Sizzling Scissors Salon, Vaishali Nagar.

“I have always been very interest-ed in sports. Games like football and basketball have been my fitness man-tra, that’s why I am very happy to join this sports league,” Mrinalli said.

During this, Option One CEO Manu Aggarwal also informed about the preparations related to the league. The team will be select-ed from Rajasthan. The matches will be held at the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur. With every match, a Bollywood and tele-vision celebrity will be present in Jaipur to encourage the team.

PREMIERHandball League

Jagdeesh Chandra blessed the to-be Bride and groom, Disha Chhabra and Aakash Juneja on their engagement ceremony at Clarks Amer on Saturday. Seen here with them are the groom’s sister Palak Juneja, Devendra Gandhi and the parents of the groom Neera and Rakesh Juneja. Disha is the daughter of Sunita and Tarun Chhabra. The wedding will be held today. —PHOTO BY SANTOSH SHARMA

Ayushi Vijay Vargiya

Mrinalli Sharma

MEMORABLE TIMES