B JP president Amit Shah on Tuesday flagged off party’s Jana Raksha Yatra in Kerala against Red and Jehadi terror at Payyannur in Kannur district by unleashing a scathing attack against the CPI(M) and its Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for killing of scores of BJP-RSS men in the State, especially in Kannur. Eighty such murders have taken place Kannur. Launching the Yatra by handing over the BJP flag to State BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan, who is captaining the 15-day march, Shah said this Yatra was not being held by the Kerala unit alone but by the 11 crore partymen in the country. “I want to tell Mr Vijayan that the blood of 84 BJP men killed in your native district Kannur by your partymen is on your clothes. Who is going to answer for that blood? If you can’t tell us who is responsible for these killings, we can. It is you, Mr Vijayan. You are responsible for these murders,” Shah said at the public meeting in Payyannur. “There may be people who may ask why we have chosen Kannur to begin this Yatra. This is the dis- trict of the Chief Minister. It is the district of the State CPI(M) secretary (Kodiyeri Balakrishnan). It is also the dis- trict in Kerala that has seen the maximum number of deaths of RSS-BJP men in Marxist vio- lence since the communists came to power,” Shah said. Making it clear that the BJP campaign against Marxist terror would not be confined to Kerala, he said partymen would take out marches to AKG Bhavan, the CPI(M) headquarters in New Delhi, on a daily basis till October 17, and that the Yuva Morcha would organise protests at all State capitals in India. New Delhi: Bowing to public pressure, the Government on Tuesday cut excise duty on petrol and diesel by 2 per litre each to moderate the relentless rise in fuel prices witnessed for the last three months. Petrol and diesel will cost 2 a litre less from Wednesday after the first excise duty cut by the Modi Government comes into effect. Petrol currently costs 70.88 per litre in Delhi while a litre of diesel is priced at an all-time high of 59.14. The excise duty cut would cost the Government 26,000 crore in annual revenue and about 13,000 crore during the remaining part of the cur- rent fiscal year that ends on March 31, 2018, an official statement announcing the reduction said. “Govt of India has reduced Basic Excise Duty rate on petrol and diesel by 2 per litre,” the Finance Ministry said in a tweet. PTI Detailed report on P10 H oneypreet Insan, the adopted daughter of jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, was finally arrested from the Zirakpur-Patiala highway in Punjab, while she was travelling with a woman associate in a SUV on Tuesday. The arrest came hours after Honeypreet’s interview to two news chan- nels, where she claimed to be “innocent” and rejected all insinuations about her illicit relationship with Ram Rahim. In the interviews, she also promised to surrender before the court. The Haryana Police had been looking for her since the “Papa’s angel” went under- ground on August 25 following the large-scale violence by Dera supporters in protest against Ram Rahim’s conviction in rape cases. Panchkula Police Commissioner AS Chawla told the media that police received inputs, following which Honeypreet was arrested by SIT in-charge Mukesh Malhotra from Zirakpur-Patiala road in Punjab. Chawla clarified that Honeypreet did not surrender but was chased, intercepted and then arrested by the Haryana Police on Tuesday around 3 pm. We need to investigate her role in the Panchkula violence on August 25 and hence we will seek her police remand on Wednesday, said Chawla. After her arrest, Honeypreet was questioned at Chandimandir Police station in Panchkula. In TV interviews telecast early on Tuesday, Honeypreet claimed that she was falsely implicated in a sedition case as she accompanied Ram Rahim to the court only after Government’s consent. She claimed her relationship with the Dera chief is like father- daughter and rubbished all allegations made in a section of the media. Earlier, the Haryana Police claimed that search operations were carried out in New Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Nepal to nab Honeypreet, who had been booked on sedition charges for inciting violence following the conviction of Ram Rahim on August 25. The arrest has come as a great relief for the Haryana Police, which had been facing severe criticism from several quarters for not being able to nab Honeypreet, who topped the list of 43 people “wanted” in connection with the August 25 violence. The Delhi High Court on September 26 had dismissed Honeypreet’s anticipatory bail plea. A court in Panchkula had last month issued arrest war- rants against top Dera func- tionaries — Honeypreet, Aditya Insan and Pawan Insan. Dera chief Ram Rahim has been sentenced to 20 years rigorous imprisonment and slapped with a fine of 30 lakh following his conviction in the rape cases. T hree Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) fidayeen were killed as troops of the Border Security Force (BSF) repulsed a suicide attack on their camp adjacent to the highly fortified Srinagar International Airport on Tuesday. However, one junior BSF officer succumbed to fidayeen’s bullets at Army’s Base Hospital in Srinagar. Three other security officers injured in the attack are recu- perating in the hospital. The deceased BSF officer has been identified as ASI BK Yadav. The 10-hour long gun- battle began around 4.30 am after terrorists stormed the camp of 182 Battalion of the BSF. The troops of the camp are entrusted with the security of airport tarmac in the capital city. This is the second suicide attack targeting security for- mations in Kashmir valley in last five weeks. Sources said the merce- naries stormed the BSF camp from Gogo village and carried out several blasts inside the camp before being detected by troopers. One fidayeen was killed in the initial round of gunfight. Later, two other fiday- een were shot dead. Automatic rifles and other ammunition were recovered from the gun- fight site. Addressing the media about the details of the attack, Kashmir-range Inspector General of Police Muneer Ahmad Khan said the slain ter- rorists were from the same JeM, which carried out attack on dis- trict police lines in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on August 26 that culminated into the death of 11 people, includ- ing 3 fidayeen, 4 CRPF per- sonnel, and 4 policemen. “They breached the BSF camp by cutting a fence between Friends Colony and Gogoland,” the IGP said. Several influential people, including serving and former bureaucrats, police officials and politicians, reside in Friends Colony area. The IGP, flanked by IG BSF Sonali Mishra, said such attacks will keep happening till terrorists are roaming in Kashmir. The IGP confirmed that the terrorists belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e- Mohammed. “The attack was carried out by a group that had infiltrated during August, I believe. The terrorists were 16-17 in number. We will ver- ify this,” he said, adding that the ten among those terrorists have been neutralised. Khan added, “There has to be different strategies to neu- tralise the terrorists as they usu- ally come up as fidayeen attack- ers.” Khan termed the opera- tion as a paragon example of coordination among security forces. “The operation was delayed to ensure zero collateral damage. The operation ended at 1 pm,” he told the media. Jammu: An Army jawan was killed on Tuesday as Pakistani forces violated the ceasefire by firing from across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu & Kashmir’s Poonch district, an official said. “The Pakistan Army initiated unprovoked firing on Indian Army posts in the Krishna Ghati sector around 1250 hours today. Indian Army retaliated strongly and effectively. In exchange of fire, Naik Mahendra Chemjung was grievously injured and suc- cumbed to injuries,” a Defence spokesman said. Detailed report on P7 Srinagar: Terrorists on Tuesday night shot dead a for- mer panchayat member affil- iated with the ruling PDP in Anantnag district of Jammu & Kashmir, police said. Ghulam Rasool Ganai (52) was shot at and injured by militants at his shop in Mattan area of Anantnag, a police offi- cial said. He said Ganai succumbed to his injuries while being shifted to a hospital. T he dissent in the BJP camp is out in the open after its Bargarh district president Narayan Sahu and his sup- porters have been left dissat- isfied with the joining of for- mer BJD MLA Ashok Panigrahi in the party ahead of the Bijepur by-poll and the talk that he may be fielded as the nominee. The absence of the district president in the much hyped ‘Mishran Parba’ of the BJP on Monday where all the party heavyweights were present to welcome Panigrahi amply makes it clear. Though the party successfully made Panigrahi to hold a lotus in his hand, it couldn’t keep the dis- trict president of the party happy. Meanwhile, Sahu keeps his mobile switched off and has not cleared his next course of action. However, during a short conversation on Tuesday, Sahu said, “I have not left BJP as of now. But I am interested to leave the post of the district president.” He further said that he would continue in the party as a disciplined worker. But the party seniors are still doubtful of his statement since a highly hurt Sahu can go up to any extent since he was personally interested to contest the by-election from Bijepur because of his long attachment with the party and also his immense contri- bution for victory in the Zilla Parishad election. Moreover, he also per- sonally objected to the deci- sion of the party to bring Panigrahi to the BJP as he was a hardcore anti BJP politician from the beginning of his political career. However, the national sec- retary of BJP Suresh Pujari has denied all speculations. “The loyalty of Narayan Sahu towards BJP is beyond doubt. He will definitely contin- ue as a BJP leader in the dis- trict,” Pujari boasted. “Rather a dozen of BJD senior leaders including few MLAs are wait- ing to join BJP. But the anti defection law coming in their way,” Pujari mantained. But still there are many leaders in district who are also dissatisfied with the decision of the party seniors to bring Panigrahi to the BJP fold. “We always claim that ours is a party with a differ- ence. But taking Giridhar Gamang, Jayaram Pangi and finally Ashok Panigrahi to the party hardly differentiates us from any other,” a few said. But the supporter of Panigrahi who again didn’t want to be quoted, said where was Sahu before joining the BJP. “Was he not a BJD mem- ber?” they asked. A rrested BJD MLA Pravat Ranjan Biswal on Tuesday moved the Orissa High Court seeking bail on the ground of ill health. He was arrested by the CBI last month for his alleged role in the Seashore chit fund scam. Ever since his arrest, the 50- year-old political leader was complaining of bad health. From the Jharpada jail in Bhubaneswar, where he was remanded in judicial custody, Biswal was shifted to the Capital Hospital in Bhubaneswar. When his condition further deteriorated, he was shifted to the SCB Medical College Hospital here, where he is cur- rently undergoing treatment. Meanwhile, the CBI Court in Bhubaneswar and the Khurda District and Sessions Court in Bhubaneswar have already rejected his bail appli- cations earlier. Sources in the High Court said the bail appli- cation of Biswal has not been listed yet for hearing. S tating that the recently- introduced country-wide Goods and Services Tax (GST) system is mired in controver- sies and creates confusion among traders, the All India Association of Tax Lawyers and The Berhampur Tax Bar Association filed a PIL in the Orissa High Court on Tuesday seeking a rollback of the tax law that was introduced in July this year. Sources said the High Court has not yet taken note of the PIL. The petition challenges the levy of Central GST (CGST) and the State GST (SGST) on the grounds that the levy is “invalid” and “unconstitution- al” as it violates the Federalism feature of the Constitution, particularly the financial fed- eralism. The petition further said the levy of CGST encroaches upon the financial autonomy of the States. Filed on behalf of the sec- retaries of both the associa- tions, the petition challenges the GST, saying it seriously affects the fundamental right of a citizen to carry on business or trade as per Article 19 (1) (g) and also violates Article 21 of the Constitution to earn his livelihood because a registered buyer is prohibited from procuring goods from an unregistered trader. The petition also points out that the new tax regime is causing extreme hardship and agony to the taxpayers as well as to the consultants as the tax law was introduced in haste without any prior preparations and is full of glitches resulting in pandemonium and chaos among the traders. The petitioners have urged the High Court for a direction to all the respondents for an immediate rollback of the GST on the ground that the tax law is arbitrary and unfeasible for the small traders and business houses. Apart from the finance and law departments of Centre and State, at least four other departments including the GST Council and the GST Network have been made respondents in the petition. R eacting to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s remark of some political parties spreading false propaganda against his Government, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday said Patnaik has turned arrogant after staying in power for a long period. “It is natural that a per- son becomes arrogant after remaining in power for a long time. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik now thinks that he is the only person to show dreams to people and none can see dreams. Doing this, he betrays a feudal mentali- ty and thinks democracy as his feudalism,” Pradhan said at a Press meet here. Pradhan put many ques- tions and wanted to know whether opposing Government inefficiency and failures are termed as false propaganda against the con- cerned Government. “I wanted to know if raising questions over under- construction bridge/flyover collapse incidents in Veden block in Bargarh district (over Jeera river), at Bomikhal in Bhubaneswar, at Gurupriya bridge in Malkangiri and at Netapur, Buguda and Nuapatna are false propaganda? Is the CAG report on irregularities in Anganwadi services and financial irregularities in Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) are false propaganda?” Pradhan want- ed to know. Continued on Page 4 T he BJP after its State exec- utive meeting here on Tuesday announced to hold agitation from October 12 to 18 in its 1,001 Mandals across the State making the rampant cor- ruption in the BJD Government at the grassroots an issue. Speaking to reporters, BJP State general secretary Prithviraj Harichandan said though the BJD is ruling the State with an absolute majori- ty, the common people have been deprived of justice. The lion’s share of funds of welfare schemes for poor being allot- ted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being pock- eted by BJD leaders through PC, bribes and corruption, he alleged. Harichandan said BJD MPs Tathagata Satpathy and Baijayant Panda have directly termed the Ministers and offi- cers as ‘Chors’. The State Contractors’ Association has levelled serious allegations of PC culture. The media have repeatedly exposed various scams of the State Government. The CAG report has also pointed out instances of cor- ruption in the State Government. The Chief Minister in the Collectors’ con- ference also admitted of the rampant PC culture and urged to immediately stop it, Harichandan said. Continued on Page 4
BJP president Amit Shah onTuesday flagged off party’s
Jana Raksha Yatra in Keralaagainst Red and Jehadi terror atPayyannur in Kannur districtby unleashing a scathing attackagainst the CPI(M) and itsChief Minister Pinarayi Vijayanfor killing of scores of BJP-RSS men in the State,especially in Kannur. Eightysuch murders have taken placeKannur.
Launching the Yatra byhanding over the BJP flag toState BJP presidentKummanam Rajasekharan,who is captaining the 15-daymarch, Shah said this Yatra was not being held by theKerala unit alonebut by the 11 crorepartymen in thecountry.
“I want to tellMr Vijayan that theblood of 84 BJP menkilled in your nativedistrict Kannur byyour partymen is onyour clothes. Who isgoing to answer forthat blood? If youcan’t tell us who isresponsible for thesekillings, we can. It isyou, Mr Vijayan.You are responsiblefor these murders,”Shah said at thepublic meeting inPayyannur.
“There may bepeople who may ask
why we have chosen Kannur tobegin this Yatra. This is the dis-trict of the Chief Minister. It isthe district of the State CPI(M)secretary (KodiyeriBalakrishnan). It is also the dis-trict in Kerala that has seen themaximum number of deaths ofRSS-BJP men in Marxist vio-lence since the communistscame to power,” Shah said.
Making it clear that theBJP campaign against Marxistterror would not be confinedto Kerala, he said partymenwould take out marches toAKG Bhavan, the CPI(M)headquarters in New Delhi, ona daily basis till October 17,and that the Yuva Morchawould organise protests at allState capitals in India.
New Delhi: Bowing to publicpressure, the Government onTuesday cut excise duty onpetrol and diesel by �2 per litreeach to moderate the relentlessrise in fuel prices witnessed forthe last three months.
Petrol and diesel will cost�2 a litre less from Wednesdayafter the first excise duty cut bythe Modi Government comesinto effect. Petrol currentlycosts �70.88 per litre in Delhiwhile a litre of diesel is pricedat an all-time high of �59.14.
The excise duty cut wouldcost the Government �26,000crore in annual revenue andabout �13,000 crore duringthe remaining part of the cur-rent fiscal year that ends onMarch 31, 2018, an officialstatement announcing thereduction said. “Govt of Indiahas reduced Basic Excise Dutyrate on petrol and diesel by �2per litre,” the Finance Ministrysaid in a tweet. PTI
Detailed report on P10
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Honeypreet Insan, theadopted daughter of jailed
Dera Sacha Sauda chiefGurmeet Ram Rahim, wasfinally arrested from theZirakpur-Patiala highway inPunjab, while she was travellingwith a woman associate in aSUV on Tuesday. The arrestcame hours after Honeypreet’sinterview to two news chan-nels, where she claimed to be“innocent” and rejected allinsinuations about her illicitrelationship with Ram Rahim.In the interviews, she alsopromised to surrender beforethe court.
The Haryana Police hadbeen looking for her since the“Papa’s angel” went under-ground on August 25 followingthe large-scale violence by Derasupporters in protest againstRam Rahim’s conviction inrape cases.
Panchkula PoliceCommissioner AS Chawla toldthe media that police receivedinputs, following whichHoneypreet was arrested by SITin-charge Mukesh Malhotrafrom Zirakpur-Patiala road inPunjab. Chawla clarified thatHoneypreet did not surrenderbut was chased, interceptedand then arrested by the
Haryana Police on Tuesdayaround 3 pm. We need toinvestigate her role in thePanchkula violence on August25 and hence we will seek herpolice remand on Wednesday,said Chawla.
After her arrest,
Honeypreet was questioned at Chandimandir Police stationin Panchkula.
In TV interviews telecastearly on Tuesday, Honeypreetclaimed that she was falselyimplicated in a sedition case asshe accompanied Ram Rahim
to the court only afterGovernment’s consent. Sheclaimed her relationship withthe Dera chief is like father-daughter and rubbished allallegations made in a section ofthe media.
Earlier, the Haryana Policeclaimed that search operationswere carried out in New Delhi,Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, andNepal to nab Honeypreet, whohad been booked on seditioncharges for inciting violencefollowing the conviction ofRam Rahim on August 25.The arrest has come as a greatrelief for the Haryana Police,which had been facing severecriticism from several quartersfor not being able to nabHoneypreet, who topped thelist of 43 people “wanted” in connection with the August25 violence.
The Delhi High Court onSeptember 26 had dismissedHoneypreet’s anticipatory bailplea. A court in Panchkula hadlast month issued arrest war-rants against top Dera func-tionaries — Honeypreet, AdityaInsan and Pawan Insan.
Dera chief Ram Rahimhas been sentenced to 20 yearsrigorous imprisonment andslapped with a fine of �30 lakhfollowing his conviction in therape cases.
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Three Jaish-e-Mohammed(JeM) fidayeen were killed
as troops of the Border SecurityForce (BSF) repulsed a suicideattack on their camp adjacentto the highly fortified SrinagarInternational Airport onTuesday. However, one juniorBSF officer succumbed tofidayeen’s bullets at Army’sBase Hospital in Srinagar.Three other security officersinjured in the attack are recu-perating in the hospital. Thedeceased BSF officer has beenidentified as ASI BK Yadav.
The 10-hour long gun-battle began around 4.30 amafter terrorists stormed thecamp of 182 Battalion of theBSF. The troops of the camp areentrusted with the security ofairport tarmac in the capitalcity. This is the second suicideattack targeting security for-mations in Kashmir valley inlast five weeks.
Sources said the merce-naries stormed the BSF campfrom Gogo village and carriedout several blasts inside thecamp before being detected bytroopers. One fidayeen waskilled in the initial round ofgunfight. Later, two other fiday-een were shot dead. Automaticrifles and other ammunitionwere recovered from the gun-fight site.
Addressing the mediaabout the details of the attack,Kashmir-range InspectorGeneral of Police MuneerAhmad Khan said the slain ter-
rorists were from the same JeM,which carried out attack on dis-trict police lines in southKashmir’s Pulwama district onAugust 26 that culminated intothe death of 11 people, includ-ing 3 fidayeen, 4 CRPF per-sonnel, and 4 policemen. “Theybreached the BSF camp bycutting a fence between FriendsColony and Gogoland,” theIGP said.
Several influential people,including serving and formerbureaucrats, police officials
and politicians, reside inFriends Colony area. The IGP,flanked by IG BSF SonaliMishra, said such attacks willkeep happening till terroristsare roaming in Kashmir.
The IGP confirmed thatthe terrorists belonged toPakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed. “The attack wascarried out by a group that hadinfiltrated during August, Ibelieve. The terrorists were16-17 in number. We will ver-ify this,” he said, adding that theten among those terrorists havebeen neutralised.
Khan added, “There has tobe different strategies to neu-tralise the terrorists as they usu-ally come up as fidayeen attack-ers.” Khan termed the opera-tion as a paragon example ofcoordination among securityforces.
“The operation wasdelayed to ensure zero collateraldamage. The operation endedat 1 pm,” he told the media.
Jammu: An Army jawan was killed on Tuesday as Pakistani forcesviolated the ceasefire by firing from across the Line of Control(LoC) in Jammu & Kashmir’s Poonch district, an official said.
“The Pakistan Army initiated unprovoked firing on IndianArmy posts in the Krishna Ghati sector around 1250 hours today.Indian Army retaliated strongly and effectively. In exchange offire, Naik Mahendra Chemjung was grievously injured and suc-cumbed to injuries,” a Defence spokesman said.
Detailed report on P7
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Srinagar: Terrorists onTuesday night shot dead a for-mer panchayat member affil-iated with the ruling PDP inAnantnag district of Jammu &Kashmir, police said.
Ghulam Rasool Ganai(52) was shot at and injured bymilitants at his shop in Mattanarea of Anantnag, a police offi-cial said.
He said Ganai succumbedto his injuries while beingshifted to a hospital.
The dissent in the BJP campis out in the open after its
Bargarh district presidentNarayan Sahu and his sup-porters have been left dissat-isfied with the joining of for-mer BJD MLA AshokPanigrahi in the party aheadof the Bijepur by-poll and thetalk that he may be fielded asthe nominee.
The absence of the districtpresident in the much hyped‘Mishran Parba’ of the BJP on
Monday where all the partyheavyweights were present towelcome Panigrahi amplymakes it clear. Though theparty successfully madePanigrahi to hold a lotus in hishand, it couldn’t keep the dis-trict president of the partyhappy.
Meanwhile, Sahu keepshis mobile switched off andhas not cleared his next courseof action.
However, during a shortconversation on Tuesday, Sahusaid, “I have not left BJP as ofnow. But I am interested toleave the post of the districtpresident.”
He further said that hewould continue in the party asa disciplined worker.
But the party seniors arestill doubtful of his statementsince a highly hurt Sahu can
go up to any extent since hewas personally interested tocontest the by-election fromBijepur because of his longattachment with the partyand also his immense contri-bution for victory in the ZillaParishad election.
Moreover, he also per-sonally objected to the deci-sion of the party to bringPanigrahi to the BJP as he wasa hardcore anti BJP politicianfrom the beginning of hispolitical career.
However, the national sec-retary of BJP Suresh Pujari hasdenied all speculations.
“The loyalty of NarayanSahu towards BJP is beyonddoubt.
He will definitely contin-ue as a BJP leader in the dis-trict,” Pujari boasted. “Rathera dozen of BJD senior leaders
including few MLAs are wait-ing to join BJP.
But the anti defection lawcoming in their way,” Pujarimantained.
But still there are manyleaders in district who are alsodissatisfied with the decisionof the party seniors to bringPanigrahi to the BJP fold.
“We always claim thatours is a party with a differ-ence. But taking GiridharGamang, Jayaram Pangi andfinally Ashok Panigrahi tothe party hardly differentiatesus from any other,” a fewsaid.
But the supporter ofPanigrahi who again didn’twant to be quoted, said wherewas Sahu before joining theBJP.
moved the Orissa High Courtseeking bail on the ground ofill health. He was arrested bythe CBI last month for hisalleged role in the Seashore chitfund scam.
Ever since his arrest, the 50-year-old political leader wascomplaining of bad health.From the Jharpada jail inBhubaneswar, where he wasremanded in judicial custody,
Biswal was shifted to the CapitalHospital in Bhubaneswar.When his condition furtherdeteriorated, he was shifted tothe SCB Medical CollegeHospital here, where he is cur-rently undergoing treatment.
Meanwhile, the CBI Courtin Bhubaneswar and theKhurda District and SessionsCourt in Bhubaneswar havealready rejected his bail appli-cations earlier. Sources in theHigh Court said the bail appli-cation of Biswal has not beenlisted yet for hearing.
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Stating that the recently-introduced country-wide
Goods and Services Tax (GST)system is mired in controver-sies and creates confusionamong traders, the All IndiaAssociation of Tax Lawyersand The Berhampur Tax BarAssociation filed a PIL in theOrissa High Court on Tuesdayseeking a rollback of the tax lawthat was introduced in July thisyear. Sources said the HighCourt has not yet taken note ofthe PIL.
The petition challenges the
levy of Central GST (CGST)and the State GST (SGST) onthe grounds that the levy is“invalid” and “unconstitution-al” as it violates the Federalismfeature of the Constitution,particularly the financial fed-eralism. The petition furthersaid the levy of CGSTencroaches upon the financialautonomy of the States.
Filed on behalf of the sec-retaries of both the associa-tions, the petition challengesthe GST, saying it seriouslyaffects the fundamental right ofa citizen to carry on business ortrade as per Article 19 (1) (g)
and also violates Article 21 ofthe Constitution to earn hislivelihood because a registeredbuyer is prohibited fromprocuring goods from anunregistered trader.
The petition also points outthat the new tax regime iscausing extreme hardship andagony to the taxpayers as wellas to the consultants as the taxlaw was introduced in hastewithout any prior preparationsand is full of glitches resultingin pandemonium and chaosamong the traders.
The petitioners have urgedthe High Court for a direction
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to all the respondents for animmediate rollback of the GSTon the ground that the tax lawis arbitrary and unfeasible forthe small traders and businesshouses. Apart from the financeand law departments of Centreand State, at least four otherdepartments including the GSTCouncil and the GST Networkhave been made respondents inthe petition.
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Reacting to Chief MinisterNaveen Patnaik’s remark
of some political partiesspreading false propagandaagainst his Government,Union Minister DharmendraPradhan on Tuesday saidPatnaik has turned arrogantafter staying in power for along period.
“It is natural that a per-son becomes arrogant afterremaining in power for a longtime.
Chief Minister NaveenPatnaik now thinks that he isthe only person to showdreams to people and nonecan see dreams. Doing this,he betrays a feudal mentali-ty and thinks democracy ashis feudalism,” Pradhan saidat a Press meet here.
Pradhan put many ques-tions and wanted to knowwhether opposingGovernment inefficiency and
failures are termed as falsepropaganda against the con-cerned Government.
“I wanted to know ifraising questions over under-construction bridge/flyovercollapse incidents in Vedenblock in Bargarh district(over Jeera r iver), atBomikhal in Bhubaneswar, atGurupriya bridge inMalkangiri and at Netapur,Buguda and Nuapatna arefalse propaganda? Is the CAGreport on irregularities inAnganwadi services andfinancial irregularities inBhubaneswar MunicipalCorporation (BMC) are falsepropaganda?” Pradhan want-ed to know.
The BJP after its State exec-utive meeting here on
Tuesday announced to holdagitation from October 12 to 18in its 1,001 Mandals across theState making the rampant cor-ruption in the BJDGovernment at the grassrootsan issue.
Speaking to reporters, BJPState general secretaryPrithviraj Harichandan saidthough the BJD is ruling theState with an absolute majori-ty, the common people havebeen deprived of justice. Thelion’s share of funds of welfareschemes for poor being allot-ted by Prime MinisterNarendra Modi is being pock-eted by BJD leaders throughPC, bribes and corruption, healleged.
Harichandan said BJDMPs Tathagata Satpathy andBaijayant Panda have directlytermed the Ministers and offi-cers as ‘Chors’. The StateContractors’ Association haslevelled serious allegations ofPC culture. The media haverepeatedly exposed variousscams of the State Government.
The CAG report has alsopointed out instances of cor-ruption in the StateGovernment. The ChiefMinister in the Collectors’ con-ference also admitted of therampant PC culture and urgedto immediately stop it,Harichandan said.
We celebrate various WorldDays throughout the year
across the globe; yet celebrationof the World Animal Day onOctober 4 may sound unfa-miliar to us.
In fact, the history of the
World Animal Day, an annualevent, dates back to 1925 whenHeinrich Zimmermann- aGerman writer and publisher –originated the day on March 24of same year at the SportsPalace in Berlin. The proposalof Zimmermann to makeOctober 4 the World AnimalDay universal was unani-mously accepted and a resolu-tion adopted in May, 1931 at ameeting of the InternationalAnimal Protection Congress inFlorence, Italy. Since then, itbecame a worldwide celebra-tion commemorating the feastday of Saint Francis of Assisi,
patron saint of ecology.The mother earth is the
most beautiful planet in theuniverse and is home to allkinds of living things, plants,animals including humans oraquatic life etc. Good earththrough her enormous bene-diction sustains our lives and allliving creatures have a symbi-otic relationship but amongstthem humans, unfortunatelyare most destructive but at thesame time are most intelligentand innovative.
Ellen Degenereshad said,“If we’re destroying our trees,destroying our environment
and hurting one another and allthat stuff, there’s got to be a verypowerful energy to fight that.I think we need more love inthe world. We need more kind-ness, more compassion, morejoy and more laughter. I defi-nitely want to contribute tothat.” In the same vein, let all ofus pledge on this day to con-tribute our might to make ourenvironment more pleasurableand humane by rememberingthe important role played bywildlife or domesticated ani-mals and trees in our lifearound the world and thosepeople who dedicate their lives
solely in protecting and caringthose animals. Therefore, themission of the World AnimalDay should chiefly be to raisestatus of animals besidesimproving their welfare stan-dards globally by massiveawareness programmes.
The celebration of the dayshall make the world a betterplace for all animals to live inby uniting and mobilizing theanimal welfare movement intoa global force irrespective ofnationality, religion, faith orpolitical ideology. In Indiathere are many animal welfareorganisations, including
Government agencies workingindependently or in tandem toprotect the rights and welfareof animals.
An important thing toremember is that from timeimmemorial we have revered theanimals and plants aligningthem to certain gods or god-desses- elephant and owl withGoddess Lakshmi, mouse withLord Ganesh, lion with GoddessDurga, cow with LordSrikrishna, bull and snake withLord Shiva, peacock withKartikeya, swan with GoddessSaraswati, buffalo withDharmaraj, monkey with Lord
Hanuman etc., and host of oth-ers depicted in “Dasha Avatar’.Let us make a humble beginningby rekindling our heritage to loveanimals/plants at the primaryschool level and igniting theyoung minds about our goldentreasure of animals and theirconservation, many of whomhave either become extinct or onthe verge of extinction.
(Dr Mohanty is a member,Odisha Livestock DevelopmentSociety and Indian Red CrossSociety M-9437113581 andDashsharma is a member,Indian Redm Cross Society, M-9938537600)
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Chief Minister NaveenPatnaik’s assets, including
immovable properties, rose byonly Rs 1 lakh in a year. Thisis as per his declaration of hisproperties in 2017.
The total assets of Patnaikwere valued at �49,22,21,637this year, a hike by only�1,05,212 compared to lastyear’s �49,21,16,425.
While his movable prop-erties, including bank deposits,jewelleries and an oldAmbassador car, were valued at�26,87,637 as on March 31,2017, the valuation of hisimmovable assets -- farmlandmeasuring 22.7 acres and
building situated at Tikrikheravillage in Faridabad, NaveenNiwas in Bhubaneswar andproperty situated at APJ AbdulKalam Road in New Delhi –was made at �48,95,34,000 ason March 31, 2014.
Patnaik’s assets, includingimmovable properties, wereregistered at �49,21,16,425 onMarch 31, 2016. In a statementlast year, he had declared mov-able assets worth � 25,82,424 asbank deposits, jewelleries andthe Ambassador car.
The movable properties ofPatnaik were registered at
�26,87,637 in 2017. Hence,there is no change in valuationof his immovable assets in thepast three years. The valuationremained the same at�48,95,34,000.
He availed � 15 lakh as loanfrom his sister Gita Mehta thathe has not yet returned.
Apart from the CM, hisfour Cabinet Ministers PradeepMaharathy, MaheswarMohanty, Bijayshree Routrayand Damodar Rout are also inthe crorepati list.
Maharathy’s propertiesrose by � 4.10 lakh in six years.His own assets were valued at�2.75 crore while his wife, whois a college Lecturer, has assetsworth �1.33 crore.
Maheswar Mohanty’s wifehad owned three buses earlier.Now she has purchased a newbus on a bank loan.
Damodar Rout andBijayshree Routray’s propertiesalso increased in the past oneyear. They became richer withassets worth crores.
dying due to the continuingman-animal conflict in theState every year. Time hascome for us to end this conflictand to live in harmony withanimals.
This is what speakerspointed out at the WildlifeWeek programme held here onMonday by the OrissaEnvironmental Society (OES)in association with the SaveElephant Foundation Trust.
“We have to accept theconcept of living in harmonywith animals in very positiveways. Efforts should be madeat both the Government andprivate levels to make peopleaware about importance of
animals,” said the speakers.They lamented that while
many animals have beenextinct; many others are on theverge of extinction only for theso-called developmental activ-ities undertaken by humanbeings. Negative changes inanimal habitations, poachingand massive exploitations havecaused of rapid dwindling intheir numbers, they said.
“Though laws and guide-lines have been enforced acrossthe world for protection andsafety of the wild animals, yetthey are not being implement-ed properly due to lack ofinterest in human beings,” theysaid.
The programme presidedover by society president Dr
Sundar Narayan Patra wasattended by Additional PCCFDr Anup Kumar Nayak andformer Wildlife ConservatorJitashatru Mohanty as guests.
At the outset, society sec-retary Dr JayakrushnaPanigrahi delivered the wel-come address and spoke aboutthe obsevacne of the WildlifeWeek and vice-president DrLala AK Singh introducedguests.
Among others, former VCProf Madhab Chandra Dash,Prof Satyananda Acharya, for-mer PCCF Dr Bijay KetanPatnaik, former MLABibhudhendra Pratap Das andEr Wadha Jha spoke. All pre-sent supported the society’sproposal to the StateGovernment to give the secondbiosphere status to theMahandragiri mountain rangesof the State.
The programme conclud-ed with a vote of thanks pro-posed by the ElephantFoundation Trust’s Er PrakashChandra Jena.
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Sir,
In the last few months itwas the two national parties,the Congress and the BJP,which have made tall claimsthat their party would reach themagic number to win the nextAssembly elections inOdisha. The regionalparty BJD has alsoclaimed that it will toocome to power for a fifth con-secutive time. Let us try toanalyse the ground realitiesand see which party reallystands a chance to cross thehalfway mark, but before doingthat, let us give all the partiesa thumbs-up. In my view, this
time, none of them will be ableto get an absolute majority. TheBJP’s slogan of a BJD-freeOdisha will not be a reality pre-cisely because of the party’sown doing. The BJP’s overambition of winning on its ownwithout making any kind of
pre-election pact orunderstanding is a mat-ter of surprise. The nextbest contender is the
Congress, but the party’s lack ofdiscipline is one factor thatcould hamper its chance. Now,it is the turn of the voters towait and watch.
meeting at the Secretariat hereon Tuesday reviewed thedrought-like situation in theState due to erratic rainfalland asked all district Collectorsto submit reports on rainfalland crop condition in their dis-tricts by October 15.
The Chief Minister said theState Government would assess
the drought situation afterscrutinising the reports sub-mitted by the Collectors andtake suitable action.
He also directed to makeall lift irrigation points func-tional in the areas havingscanty rainfall and ensure prop-er utilisation of canal water.The Chief Minister alsoinstructed that people in therural area should be assured oftheir livelihood through MGN-REGS. The review meetingrevealed that 114 blocks in theState have been affected byscanty rainfall.
Revenue MinisterMaheswar Mohanty said “TheChief Minister reviewed thedrought situation today. Earlier
the report was of 102 blocks inthe State having receivedscanty rainfall. In the latestreport it goes up to 114 blocks.As no report has been receivedfrom the Collectors yet, noaction has been taken,”Mohanty said.
The Collectors have soughtmore time because they havebeen asked to submit reportgram panchayat-wise. Hence,they have been asked to submitGP-wise report by October 15and State Government willtake action accordingly, addedMohanty.
Special ReliefCommissioner (SRC)Bishnupada Sethi said, “It wasfound out that this year the
State received 10 per cent lessthan the normal rainfall. Deficitrainfall has been recorded in114 blocks and nine districts.
“Dry spell has beenmarked in 97 blocks as 50 percent less rainfall has beenrecorded in consecutively threeweeks. Collectors have beendirected to submit reports byOctober 15 and StateGovernment may formallydeclare drought situation bas-ing on all aspects by October30,” added Sethi.
Among others,Agriculture Minister DamodarRout and Food Supplies andConsumer Welfare MinisterSurjya Naryan Patro were pre-sent.
Senior citizens are assets of acountry as they show right
path for leading peaceful life tothe next generation, viewed mayo n the occasion of theInternational Day of OlderPersons held here by theAssociation for the Social Serivceand Rehabilitation of the Aged(ASSRA) here on Sunday.
Members lamented thatmany cases have come to the forewhere sons and daughter-in-lawsare not taking care of their old
parents and either sending themto the geriatric homes or leavingthem behind on roadsides.
An ASSRA Team underguidance of social workerSushant Sahu distributed clothes,fruits and sweets among seniorcitizens undergoing treatment atthe IDH Ward in the CapitalHospital. Among others, socialworker Bharat Chandra Sahoo,centurian blood donor GopinathPatnaik, Priyabrat Panda, ShreeSatyasaid Sevadal’s SubratKumar Rout, Rabindra NathSahoo and Narayan Pradhantalked to senior citizens andenquired about their healthconditions.
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The State Selection BoardLecturers’ Association,
Odisha held a state-level meet-ing under the chairmanship ofassociation founder YudhisthirKhatua here on Tuesday.
In the meeting the associ-ation has demanded the StateGovernment to provide threeadvance increment to Ph.D
degree holders of selectionboard lecturers and one to theM.Phil degree holders as perthe Education and YouthServices, to provide gratuity ofsixteen and half month as perthe High Court judgment andto provide house rent andmedical allowances.
Among others, SankarPradhan Mohanty,Deshbandhu Sahu, PramodKumar Rout, Dilip KumarKhuntia, Nikunj Dash,Harekrushna Panda andKupasindhu Karan were pre-sent.
environmentalist ChandiPrasad Bhatt on Tuesdayemphasised the need to expandthe green cover to counter cli-mate change.
“The extreme heat condi-tions we are experiencing nowcan only be countered by plan-tation of trees. It is the answer,”he said after planting twosaplingsRudraksha andTermanalia in the SOAUniversity campus here.
Pointing out thatKalahandi district in Odishafigured among the hottest areasof the country during summer,the 83-year-old social activistknown for the Chipko move-
ment said vigorous attempt toextend the green cover wouldrecharge the groundwater and
counter the effect of risingheat.
The mindsets of the peo-
ple need to change and theyouths shall have to come for-ward to work for protection ofthe environment,” he said.
Recalling his experiencewhen he visited the areas dev-astated by the 1999 SuperCyclone in Odisha, Bhatt saidit worried him much as a lot ofgreenery had been wiped outby the natural calamity.
“The city of Bhubaneswarwas also badly affected in the300-kmph storm and scores of
big trees had got uprooted. Butit made me happy when I sawthat the city has reclaimed a lotof greenery,” he said.
I am also glad that the areaunder mangrove vegetation inthe Odisha coast, which cov-ered an area of 193 sqkm in1999, has increased to 231sqkm as per the latest ForestSurvey Report,” Bhatt said,adding that the mangrovesacts as a buffer againstcyclones.
supporters from differentplaces joined the BJP at theparty’s head office here onTuesday.
Union MinisterDharmendra Pradhan, partyState president Basanta Pandaand BJP Legislature PartyLeader KV Singh Deo wel-comed them.
Khodha Assembly con-stituency’s BJD leader and for-mer Kampur GP Sarpanch KaluCharan Khandayat and manyother leaders along with their
supporters joined the BJP.Cuttack district’s BJD
leader and Niali PanchayatSamiti Chairman NyayabratRout and Kantapada PS formerchairperson BishnupriyaPradhan along with their sup-porters joined the BJP.
Similarly, Puri district’sNimapara BJD leader AjayMishra, Brajendra Jena andDwijabar Baral and Congressleaders like Bhimasen Mallickand Ugresena Biswal joined thesaffron party.
Besides many villagers ofKapileshwar village underWard 59 of the BMC joined theparty.
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Odia singer Adyasha Dasreleased “A Song for the
Chausathi Yoginis, Hirapur”,her latest musical venture, atthe ancient tantric seat of wor-ship, the hypaethral ChausathiYogini Temple at Hirapur onthe auspicious occasion ofDussehra.
The first-ever song depictsrare qualities of all ChausathiYoginis and is a unique con-tribution to the preservation ofthe cultural legacy.
In a rare morning ritual,
recreating the age-old ancientera, the song venerating theChausathi Yoginis was releasedin the temple premises in thepresence of the writer of thelyric, Jnanpith laureate PratibhaRay and renowned music com-poser Omprakash Mohanty.
The Hirapur residents, afew tourists and priests, wit-nessed the first rendering of thesong. The chanting of tantra,shlokas, Yogini mantras, divineeffect of ghanta, musical bells,mahuri, powerful lyrics anddivine composition all createda magic of transcendence.
Jadu Bag of Larka village inBoden block of Nuapada dis-
trict committed suicide onTuesday. He died at the MissionHospital of Khariar whileundergoing treatment.
Jadu's family members saidhe committed suicide beingdisheartened by failure of cropdue to lack of rain. The rainfallin Boden block was 31% less inJune, 55% less in July and 27%less in August, which drasticallyaffected the crops. By the endof August, the crops in the fieldhad already turned grey.
"My husband had taken �30,000 as loan from privatesources to invest in agriculture.
The crop failure forced him tomigrate to Mumbai, but hecould not earn much there torepay the loan. So, he returneddistressed and committed sui-cide after a few days," saidJadu’s wife Dula.
Crops in almost all agri-culture lands of Larka villagehave failed this year. Most farm-ers have incurred loan to spendin agriculture. Some of themhave already taken advancefrom labour brokers (Sardars) tomigrate to brick kilns inHyderabad, Mumbai and othercities. "The situation is worst thisyear as the drought occurredconsecutively," said villagers
The BJP and the Congressheld a road block at Khariardemanding adequate compen-sation to Jadu’s widow, who hadmarried a few months ago.
"This is the 17th case of
farmer suicide in the district.The Government has not com-pensated anyone yet. We wouldnot leave the road unless Jadu’swidow is given compensation,"said Sanjay Tiwari of the BJP.The same demand was echoedby the Congress agitators.
The Additional Tehsildarof Khariar arrived at the dhar-na spot with police appre-hending law and order situa-tion and gave a support of �10,000 to the widow of Jadu. Healso assured that Dula would beprovided a house under theBiju Pacca Ghar Yojana (spe-cial) within a month.
Pruthwiraj Mahanti, AjitChallan, Belu Mahapatra,Goutam Tandi and ParamaBhoi of the BJP and KamalCharan Tandi, GobardhanSuna and Satpal Singh of theCongress were present.
Very recently, there was aState-level seminar on the
working of Gram NyayalayaAct-2008 held under the aus-pices of two established vol-
untary organisations.Opinions have been
expressed that theGovernment should takeactive steps to establish 16other Gram Nyayalayas indifferent panchayats of theState so as to popularize theconcept of justice at thedoorstep of the poor, needyand downtrodden at the grassroot level.
As a matter of fact therewas constitutional amend-ment and Article-39(A) wasadded to the chapter ofDirective Principles of StatePolicy which mandates theprovisions of free legal aid forproviding access to justice tothe citizens at their door steps.
It also emphasizes thatopportunities for securing
justice are not denied to anycitizen by reason of social,economic or other disabilities.
As a matter of fact, theconstitution in Article-14assures every citizen of equal-ity before law and equal pro-tection to the laws.
Therefore, in this back-drop of constitutional pre-scriptions, it is duty of theState to provide free legal ser-vices to the members ofSC/ST, OBC, the physically-challenged, women, childrenand persons affected by flood,famine and earthquake whoare deprived of approachingthe corridors of justice due totheir indigence or otherwise.
Therefore, in this con-text, the establishment ofGram Nyayalaya is a necessi-
ty of the time. Article 40 of theConstitution speaks of organ-ising gram panchayats and tointroduce Panchayati Raj sys-tem for people’s participationin the governance at the grass-roots level which otherwise iscalled self-rule.
Panchayati Raj was intro-duced by to 73rd amendmentof the constitution and Article– 243 has conferred powers togram panchayats to governthemselves.
The Central Governmenthas also issued directives tothe States to introducePanchayati Raj system.
Therefore, in view of theConstitutional mandate forfree legal services and inex-pensive justice at thedoorsteps, the Gram
Nyayalaya Act-2008 waspassed and became opera-tional in the country.
Odisha has also framedthe Gram Nyayalaya rulesand staffing pattern rules-2010. In Odisha so far, 15 suchGram Nyayalayas are workingin different panchayats.
The main objective of theGram Nyayalaya is to decidepetty civil and criminal casesof the villagers. The practiceand experience shows thatthe Gram Nyayalayas adoptthe same customary practicesof lengthy trial procedure andprocedural wrangling.
The objective of suchNyayalaya is to settle the disputeof the villagers more by way ofconciliation, third party arbi-tration, mediation and through
Lok Adalat without always andadhering to conventionalmethod of trial procedure.
By this method of alter-native dispute resolutionmechanism, the villagers atthe grassroots level couldsecure inexpensive justicewithout wastage of time andenergy by running to thecourt. As a matter of fact, verysimple nature civil and crim-inal cases are solved by theGram Nyayalaya.
It is felt that the‘Nyayadhikari’ of such courtsshould be invested with morepowers to decide differentnature of cases under the spe-cial laws as they have thepowers of Magistrate FirstClass and Civil Judge.
The Gram Nyayalaya
Nyayadhikari is vested withthe power to dispose of pettycriminal cases summarilyunder Section – 260 of thecode of criminal procedure.They are also authorizedunder the law to make amemorandum of the sub-stance of the evidence of thewitnesses.
This procedure wouldfacilitate the Nyayadhikari tosettle the case quickly whichis a very good approach toprovide inexpensive justiceto the rural population attheir doorstep.
This would inspire confi-dence in the mind of the vil-lagers about the efficacy of thejustice deliver y systemthrough Gram Nyayalayas atthe panchayat level.
In the ultimate analysis,the functioning of 15 GramNyayalayas in different pan-chayats by and large isencouraging.
However, to popularizethis method of justice deliverysystem at the grassroots level,the State Government shouldtake prompt steps to establishanother 16 such GramNyayalayas under differentpanchayats.
Reportedly, a policy deci-sion has already been taken inthis regard and sufficientfunds have been provided bythe Central Government.Hence, the ball is in the StateGovernment’s court.
(The writer is a formerJudge, CBI Special Court, Mob:9437022723)
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Odisha boy Roshan KumarRana was presented an
award by Prime MinisterNarendra Modi as the winnerat a painting competition heldunder the ‘Swachhta Hi Sewa’movement on the occasion ofGandhi Jayanti in New Delhi.
Roshan, a Class-V studentof the Bhangawari UpperPrimary School under Sadarblock in Kalahandi district,secured the first position at theevent making a beautiful paint-ing on Swachh Bharat onMonday.
He received the awardalong with a Rs 1-lakh cashprize and other gifts fromModi at the Swachh BharatDiwas function at the Bigyan
Bhawan.With winning the prize,
Roshan became the first to havebeen awarded in the junior cat-egory in a national level draw-ing competition.
The competition onSwachh Bharat was held undervarious categories includingessay, painting and film.
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Amajor train mishap wasaverted late Monday night
due to the alertness of a gangman and a train driver and hisco-driver in Rayagada district.
Sources said a railway gangman spotted a crack on the rail-way track near Muniguda sta-tion in the district before theVisakhapatnam-Korba Expresswas scheduled to pass throughthe railway line.
The gang man showed redlight to the train which was ata slow pace ahead of approach-ing the Muniguda station. Thetrain was halted and repair
work of the railway track wasundertaken after other railwaystaff reached the spot.
For two and half hours, thetrain was stopped near thestation before it left for its des-tination.
Sambalpur DivisionalRailway Manager (DRM) saidthe driver, co-driver ofVisakhapatnam-Korba Expressand patrolling gangman will befelicitated for averting themishap with their alertnessand timely intervention.
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The Manav AdhikarSurakhya Manch’s mass
agitation demanding perma-nent solutions of the problemsof the MKCG Medical Collegeand Hospital has reached the12th week.
On the occasion of GandhiJayanti and Sashtri Jayanti, aprocession was taken out andit reached the hospital, afterwhich discussion were heldwith patients and their relativeson the problems affectingthem.
The Manch’s demandsinclude immediate functioningof a trauma care department,installing CT scan and digitalX-Ray machine, a separateICU Department andGaeriatric Department for
senior citizens and to stopembezzlement of user feefunds.
Among others, Manchcoordinator Abani KumarGaya, Bansidhar Bhuyan,
Maguna Nahak, Kali Das,Rabindra Kumar Nayak,Maheswar Badatiya, ParsuramSahu, Gauri Shankar Mohantyand Sukanta Gauda were pre-sent.
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The Odisha State HumanRights Commission
(OSHRC) has directed theDhenkanal district Collectorto submit a report to thecommission on how much exgratia was paid to the next ofkin of the boat mishap onMarch 7, 2016 in the districtin which six people died.
The Collector has beenasked to submit the reportwithin four weeks.
The petitioner HumanRights Watch secretary SangitaSwain in her petition to theNational Human RightsCommission (NHRC) had
alleged that a Governmentboat carrying around 60 devo-tees to Shiva temple fromChandipal Ghat capsized inthe Brahmari river inDhenkanal district resulting inthe death of one Rubina Routand five others.
Swain prayed for com-pensation and for takingaction against the concernedpublic authority for their fail-ure in preventing such amishap.
However, the NHRCtransferred the petition toOSHRC stating that the griev-ance raised in this petitionrelates to the matter, which issubject of the State.
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Afinal preparatory meetingof the Madhumaya
Panigrahi Foundation and sou-venir release ceremony fororganizing the 8th KumarPunei Jahna Lo-2017 here washeld on Monday.
Foundation member andchief coordinator of KumarPunei Jahna Lo, advocatePrafulla Jagannath Padhipresided. Joining the event aschief guest, social worker AratiDevi in her brief address appre-ciated the efforts of the foun-dation for organising the megaevent every year for the girls,
students and women to popu-larize rural-based traditionalarts and sports.
The prominent figuresinvited to join the event includesaint of Uttarakasi(Uttarakhand) SwamiRamaswarupananda as chiefguest, singer and artist BinodiniDevi, Maharastra Odiya KalyanSangh president BhagabanPanda. Besides, Odishi danceexpert Reena Jana of Kolkata,Bharatnatyam expert andnational awardee KabyaLakshmi Muralidharan ofTamilnadu, Kalbalia danceartist from Rajasthan Albaretc.
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ABJP team led by State sec-retary Bhibhuti Bhusan
Jena recently met RailwaysMinister Piyush Goyal in Delhiand urged him to take earlysteps for making a halt for pas-senger trains in the IndustrialEstate area in the city.
Ganjam district presidentKanhu Charan Pati and Stateexecutive member Saroj Sabatwere in the team.
Besides, they brought tothe notice of the Ministerabout the importance of exten-sion of the BrahmapurPassenger train up to theGolanthara railway station andmaking stoppages for the Puri-Tirupati Express train atGolanthara station and otherexpress trains at Rambha rail-way station.
the day of Kumar Purnimaand Laxmipuja, and concludeon October 9. This year, theorganisers would open about
100 Government and non-governmental stalls at thefestival ground.
The festival would beinaugurated by FinanceMinister Sashi Bhusan Beheraand Energy Minister PrafullaMallick. On other evenings,
Ministers Dr Damodar Rout,Pratap Jena, Nrusimha Sahoo,Prafulla Samal and Usha Devihave given their consent tograce the event.
The organisers havearranged to perform severalcultural programmes every
evening like folk dances ofWest Bengal, Sambalpuri,Dulduli of Balangir, Gotipuaof Puri, Ghodanacha, PaikaAkhada and melody.
Illustrious personalitiesof Banki would be felicitatedon the occasion. In a Press
br ief ing, MahotsavCommittee secretar yGaneswar Swain spoke onthe detai ls of the pro-grammes.
The MahotsavCommittee’s president isBanki MLA Pravat Tripathy.
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In a major breakthrough,police on Monday night bust-
ed an inter-State gang of dacoitsand arrested six of its membersat Military Chhack under theJajpur Road police station whilethey were planning to commita dacoity in a nearby village.
Out of the six arrestedpersons, three hailed from theneighbouring State ofJharkhand. The six criminals
were identified as PrafullaLarka of Sambalpur, DeepakBaburam Eka and Arjun Patraof Sundargarh, Papu Khan,Ziaul Haque and Jamil Akhtarof Jharkhand.
The police seized fourrevolvers, seven loaded maga-zines, 80 rounds of live bullets,six mobile phones and twofour-wheelers from the crimi-nals’ possession, said JajpurSuperintendent of PoliceCharan Singh Meena.
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The BJD held Aaama GaonAaama Vikas padyatra in
Ganjam block here on Mondayin which thousands of men andwomen led by senior BJD leaderand member of State PlanningBoard Rama Chandra Pandajoined.
They moved on foot fromthe Ganjam NAC town toKainchapur village informingthe locals of the myriad benefitsof different pro-people projectsand welfare schemes initiated bythe BJD Government in theState and the anti-people mea-sures taken by the BJP-ledCentral Government. A publicmeeting was held in Kainchapur
village. Addressing the gathering,Panda said that the BJP-ledNDA Government betrayed theconfidence of the people.
Prominent among thosewho joined the rally include localBJD MLA Dr PriyanshuPradhan, BJD district generalsecretary Jagannath Sabat, ZillaParishad Chairman Subash
Chandra Behera, former GanjamBlock Chairman and senior BJDleader Surath Pahan, Youthleader Manu Mohapatra, BJDState observer Prafulla Singh,former Chairman of GanjamBlock Raghunath Sahu, formerChairman Ganjam NAC GopalTarai and Zilla ParishadMember Shanti Devi etc.
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With the arrest of threeaccused on October 2,
the Keonjhar police have so fararrested a total of five in con-nection with a sensational gangrape case of a minor girl in thedistrict.
Sources revealed that onNovember 27, one minor girl ofTelkoi along with her relativeswho is the brother- in -law of hersister and and another had cometo visit Sanghagra waterfall. Justafter seeing Sanghagra ,at about2.00 pm ,they were proceedingtowards Badghagara ,anotherwater fall .On the way about 300metres from Anjar Dhaba situ-ated by the side of NH- 6, the girlwas forcibly taken away insidethe forest by some miscreants,who overpowered her compan-ions. Another two culprits joinedthem and gang raped the girl.The relatives of the victiminformed the matter to theSuakathi Truck OwnerAssociation members who werehaving feast in the forest. Theyimmediately came and rescuedthe victim and caught two mis-creants and handed over them tothe police. Notably, the miscre-ants also filmed the scene in theirmobile what the police seized.Besides, two motor bikes wereseized.
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The MGNREGA Employees’Association held a demon-
stration in front of theKandhamal districtCollectorate here on Mondaydemanding fulfilment of their12-point-charter of demands.
The demands includedequal pay for equal work as perthe Supreme Court’s order, toappoint ACPs and N. Assts onpermanent basis, to stop out-sourcing, special provision inbudget, to provide monthlysalary to DEOs, provide 30 per
cent posts to APOs, providepromotion to GRS, implementno work in holidays except innatural calamities, open EPFpassbooks and provide pen-sion, in case of accidental deathprovide security and to regu-larise jobs in six years.
The association threatenedthat they would continue theirstir for an indefinite period.
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The sanitation campaign,‘Swachhta Hi Sewa’, start-
ed on September 15 by theParadip Port Trust (PPT) aspart of the national drive cul-minated here on Tuesday.
PPT Secretary UR MohanRaju presented a visual displayon various activities undertak-en by different departments
during period like cleaning ofcolonies, schools, stadiums,weeding out of old records, fur-niture, repairing of potholesand cleaning of roads, removal
of unwanted vegetation, paint-ing of buildings, upgradationand cleaning of public toilets tokeep the surroundings neatand clean. Chief guest PPTChairman Rinkesh Roy saidthat apart from conductingcleaning programmes, citizensshould inculcate a habit ofbeing clean and all shouldunite in the effort to makeParadip a clean city.
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Former BJD MLA AlekhJena at a public meeting in
Rajnagar on Tuesday accusedthe ruling party of neglectinghim and hinted at joining theBJP.
At the meeting, the formerRajnagar MLA’s supportersshouted slogans in favour of theBJP and said the date of join-ing the saffron party would bedecided after consultationswith the Union Minister.
Jena said he and his sup-
porters have worked dedicat-edly worked for the party in theconstituency.
Many people were rehabil-itated by the party in differentposts. But he was sidelined.Whatever decision his partyworkers and supporters take hewould abide by that. This hasled to apprehension that hemight quit the BJD and join theBJP.
Notably, during theAssembly elections in 2014,Jena was deprived of the partyticket at the last moment.
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In another big jolt to theArtha Tatwa (AT) Group
chief Pradip Sethy, theEnforcement Directorate (ED)on Tuesday attached propertiesworth �12.64 cr of the group,in connection with the chitfund scam.
The properties includeassets of AT Group and itsemployees that were trans-ferred to several unrelated enti-
ties and individuals.Earlier, properties worth
�120.55 crore in the name ofAT Group and its officials wereattached by ED.
The AT Group chief isaccused of duping gullibleinvestors by collecting moneypromising them lucrativereturns.
Later, the money waspumped into procuring mov-able and immovable propertiesin several parts of the State.
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From Page 1He also wanted to know
whether protesting against inci-dents of pregnant women beingcarried in cots and slings andgiving births in open air is afalse propaganda?
He said it is the responsi-bility of an opposition party toprotest and raise questionsover irregularities and corrup-tion activities of a Government.He said the Chief Minister hasno guts to submit replies toquestions put by oppositionparties and is taking false pleasonly.
Notably, the CM whilelaunching Jansampark Padyatrahere on Monday had urged hisparty workers to stronglycounter ‘opposition parties’false propaganda against theState government. He had alsostated that parties already dis-carded by people are buildingcastles in the air.
daughter’s lover, surrenderedbefore the police on Monday.He took the step since herdaughter and her lover contin-ued their love relationshipagainst his wish.
Sources said minor daugh-ter of one Johan Tirkey (53), anative of Kusumdegi villageunder Kutra block had report-edly developed intimacy with
one Himansu Behera (24), anative of Dandajamira village,also under Kutra block. WhenJohan came to know aboutthis, he had warned his daugh-ter to refrain from the activities.However, despite repeateddenials by Johan, when hisdaughter and Himansu did notbudge, Johan reportedly hadtaken a decision to finishHimansu.
Johan, thereafter, had madea plan and after talking with hisdaughter, he initially had given
consent to her relationship withher lover. As per his plan, hehad also told her girl to inviteHimansu to their house for din-ner to formally approve theirrelationship. The girl wasextremely happy to hear thatthing from her father and hadimmediately informed her loverover phone about the invitation.Himansu had reached at about7 pm near the KusumdegiAnganbadi center on Sunday,where daughter of Johan waswaiting to receive her.
questioned independent MLAfrom Jammu & Kashmir SheikhAbdul Rashid, popularly knownas Rashid Engineer, in a caserelated to the funding of terroractivities in the Valley, officialssaid.
Rashid, who represents theLangate assembly seat fromnorth Kashmir, was questionedfor nearly six hours and hasbeen asked to appear againtomorrow, the officials said.
Coming out of the NIAheadquarters, Rashid did nottake any questions from thewaiting media persons saying,"I do not wish to comment onan ongoing investigation.
"Thank you for waitingbut it will be inappropriate onmy part to talk about theprobe," Rashid, who is the firstmainstream politician to havebeen summoned by the NIA inthe case, said.
Earlier, before entering theNIA headquarters, Rashid saidthat he had nothing to hide."After trial in the media start-ed about my name, I hadapproached the speaker of theJammu and Kashmir Assemblyto initiate a probe and find outthe truth," he had said earlierin the day.
The MLA said he had fullfaith in the justice system.Rashid's name had cropped upduring the interrogation ofbusinessman Zahoor Watali,who was arrested by the NIAfor allegedly supplying moneyto terror groups and sepa-ratists in the Valley.
The NIA had registered acase on May 30 against sepa-ratist and secessionist leaders,including unknown membersof the Hurriyat Conference,who have been acting in con-nivance with active militants ofproscribed terrorist organisa-tions Hizbul Mujahideen,Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other outfitsand gangs, officials said.
The case was registeredfor raising, receiving and col-lecting funds through variousillegal means, including hawala,for funding separatist and ter-rorist activities in Jammu andKashmir and for causing dis-ruption in the Valley by pelt-ing the security forces withstones, burning schools, dam-aging public property andwaging war against India, theprobe agency said in the FIR.
Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the front of theLashker-e-Taiba, has beennamed in the FIR as anaccused.
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The decision to deportRohingya Muslims will not
be decided on emotive argu-ments but on the basic premiseof respecting humanity, said theSupreme Court on Tuesdaywhile posting the matter forfinal hearing on October 13.
With the Governmentterming the continuance ofRohingya illegal migrants to bea national security threat inseeking their deportation, thepetitioners led by senior advo-cate Fali S Nariman on Tuesdayurged the Government not topaint all Rohingyas as terroristswith the same brush as manyof these persons who havecrossed over from Myanmar(Burma) included children,woman and even Hindus.
The bench of Chief JusticeDipak Misra, Justices AMKhanwilkar and DYChandrachud said, "We will notdecide the issue on emotivearguments but on the need forshowing respect for humanity."The Court said, "We are firsttime hearing the case of thisnature. The concept of childrenand women, if they are reallysuffering, the proposition putforth by petitioners is thatIndia should live up to its
commitment (underInternational Conventions) andtake steps such to give themprotection."
Additional SolicitorGeneral (ASG) Tushar Mehtaappearing for Centre raised twopreliminary objections ques-tioning the locus of the peti-tioners (two Rohingya refugeesand Democratic YouthFederation of India) andwhether the subject matter ofdeportation was "justiciable" byCourts keeping in view the factthat deportation of illegalmigrants based on determina-tion of national security threatfell squarely within the execu-tive domain.
Senior advocate RajivDhavan who appeared forNHRC opposed the Centreclaiming that the law officer
was confusing justiciabilitywith discretion and said suchissue cannot deprive Courtsfrom examining an issue ofdeportation linked to humanrights. Further, Narimanexplained that Article 21 (Rightto Life) in the IndianConstitution provides is anindividual-centric right avail-able not to citizens alone but"persons" in general.
He pointed out that inOctober 2016, the IndianGovernment had committeditself to the principle of "non-refoulement" which preventsIndia from turning awayrefugees. On a lighter vein,Nariman remarked, "I am theonly refugee from Burma.Nobody else can claim to beone." He had migrated fromBritish Burma to British India.
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The Congress on Tuesdaydenounced the Centre over
the militant attack on a BSFcamp near the Srinagar airport,accusing it of compromisingnational security. AICC chiefspokesperson Randeep SinghSurjewala alleged theGovernment had proved to bea "total failure".
He asked Prime MinisterNarendra Modi when hisadministration would formu-late a policy to deal with ter-rorism emanating fromPakistan. "The attack is evi-dence of how the ModiGovernment has compromisedand toyed with national secu-rity. The question is what areModiji and his Governmentdoing? When will we see the56-inch chest?" Surjewalaasked.
Security forces gunneddown three Jaish-e-Mohammed militants whostormed a BSF camp near thehigh-security Srinagar airport.An assistant sub-inspector ofthe force was also killed in the
gunfight. The party recalled that
apart from Tuesday's incident,the Udhampur attack on a BSFconvoy in August 2015, thePampore attack in June 2016, aseries of attacks in June 2017where 14 people died includingsix policemen and one ArmyJawan; and the cowardly attackon Amarnath Pilgrims on July10, 2017 reflected a sinister pat-tern that the Modi Governmentwhich has failed to tackle.
"Under the watch of theBJP Government- 253 person-nel of our brave security forceshave been martyred and 124civilians have died in 102 MajorTerror Attacks in last 40months. India's security isimperiled by terrorism.
The days of lip service andmere condemnation of such areover. It is high time that thePrime Minister and hisGovernment lay down aroadmap to deal with Paksponsored terrorism and pre-vention of repeated terrorattacks on our security forcesand civilians," Surjewala said ina statement.
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Worried over the slow paceof work despite pumping
in �5 lakh crore in the newurban missions, the Housingand Urban Affairs (HUA)Ministry has decided to reviewall the projects once in 15days.
Union HUA MinisterHardeep Singh Puri onTuesday directed senior offi-cials that he would reviewprogress of all projects of newurban missions, launched inlast three years, once in 15 dayson every first and third Tuesdayof a month.
He also directed that theNational Rental Housing Policyand the Model Tenancy Act,under consideration for long,should be finalised at the ear-liest and that the DDA shouldimmediately notify the LandPooling Policy cleared by theMinistry long back.
Sources in the Ministrysaid despite approving invest-ment and expenditure of about�5 lakh crore in the past threeyears, nothing is visible on theground till date. As per statis-tics of HUA Ministry, a totalinvestment of �1,89,256 crore
has been approved in the pasttwo years under smart citiesproject but nothing is visible onthe ground. Similarly, �77,640crore has been sanctioned forimproving water supply andbasic amenities in urban areasunder Atal Mission forRejuvenation and UrbanTransformation (AMRUT).Sources said that this has wor-ried a lot to the minister as onlytwo years have been left for thenext general elections in 2019.
Sources said that aftercompleted one month in office,the Minister has made it clearto all the senior officials of theMinistry. He also prioritisedthe outcomes to be monitoredunder each mission like thenumber of Waste-to-Wealthprojects made functional andtoilets built during the fortnight
under Swachh Bharat Mission(Urban) vis-à-vis targets State-wise, number of water supplyconnection provided underAMRUT , projects completedin each of the first batch of 20smart cities, affordable housessanctioned and built underPradhan Mantri Awas Yojana(Urban), number of personsgiven skill training and place-ments enabled besides numberof individual and group enter-prises provided with subsidisedbank loans under Deen DayalAntyodaya-NULM.
According to sources, Puritermed his first month in officeas 'quite eventful' havingannounced the PPP Policy topromote private investments inaffordable housing, directed atime bound review of FSI/FARnorms in 53 cities with a pop-ulation of above on millioneach and State capitals andrelease of the New Metro RailPolicy.
He particularly referred tohaving addressed letters to thou-sands of Resident WelfareAssociations (RWAs) in thenational capital urging them toensure segregation of solid wasteat source besides decentralisedprocessing of such waste.
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Even as the H1N1 influenzahas taken 5,000 more peo-
ple in its grip in just a fortnight,since September 10, taking thetotal cases to 35,523 this year,the Union Health Ministryexpects the numbers to swell aspeople having participated inlarge gatherings on the occa-sions of Durga Puja, Dussehra,Muharram and Garba in vari-ous parts of the country run therisk of getting infected.
So far, over 1,873 peoplehave died due to Swine influen-za which spreads from personto person, either by inhalingthe virus or by touching sur-faces contaminated with thevirus, through coughing orsneezing.
National Centre forDisease Control (NCDC)director AK Dhariwal said thatthe number of cases will con-tinue to rise in some stateswhere festivals like Dusherra,Muharram and Garba wereobserved.
"As usually people do notobserve precautions, there arechances that they might getinfected with the disease," headded.
However, he said that thecases are on the decline in mostof the states except in a fewsuch as Rajasthan and MadhyaPradesh.
There has been sharp surgein the H1N1 cases in the coun-try this year, taking the totalcases to 35,523 till September24. This is 34 times more thanthe cases recorded last year.Total 1,873 people have died sofar which is nine times moredeaths registered last year.
Maharashtra continue toreport highest number ofdeaths at 595 followed byGujarat (428), Rajasthan (202)and Uttar Pradesh (122),according to the latest data pro-vided by the Union HealthMinistry.
Experts attributes spike inthe cases to the erratic rains andintense humidity. Prevalence ofSwine flu is more serious inGujarat (See Box)
The H1N1 swine flu pan-demic spread in 2009-2010,from central Mexico to 74other countries including India.An estimated 2,84,000 peoplewere killed, according to the USCenters for Disease Control
and Prevention.In India, the Swine Flu out-
break in 2009-2010 claimedmore than 2,700 lives whilearound 50,000 people wereaffected.
Symptoms are similar tothose produced by standard,seasonal flu - fever, cough,sore throat, body aches andchills.
Dr AK Gadpayle, directorof RML Hospital said, Swineflu is more aggressive this yeareven as vector-borne diseasessuch as dengue, malaria andchikungunya are also stalkingthe city
Dhariwal added thattreatment is being provided
based on health ministryguidelines. We have asked allthe states to be alert and vac-cine the vulnerable groupslike frontline health workers,pregnant women, old peopleand children, he said.
Some of the same antivi-ral drugs that are used to treatseasonal flu also work againstH1N1 swine flu. Oseltamivir(Tamif lu), peramivir(Rapivab), and zanamivir(Relenza) are the drugs avail-able to treat the condition.
Pregnant women, chil-dren under five, the over-65sand those with serious med-ical conditions are easy preyto the disease.
"Swine flu often mani-fests like the normal influen-za infection, with symptomslike cold and cough, runningnose, fever, among others.The problem begins whenthe patient starts feelingsevere breathlessness,headache, lose motions andgastrointestinal symptomslike abdomen pain", explainedDr. Ashish Khattar,Consultant, InternalMedicine, VenkateshwarHospital, Dwarka. He addedthat triple antigen vaccinationfor swine flu is available andgetting vaccinated is the bestpreventive measures.
New Delhi: Adding a newdimension to the alleged lovejehad case from Kerala underinvestigation by the NationalInvestigation Agency (NIA),the Supreme Court on Tuesdaysought to get behind the valid-ity of the Kerala High Courtorder which annulled the mar-riage between a 24-year old girland her Muslim husband.
The apex court had so farproceeded on the basis that theHC rightly annulled the mar-riage after talking with the girland drawing conclusions asalleged by the girl's father thatshe was forcibly convertedfrom Hinduism to Islam as partof an organised racket. It was onthis basis the top court haddirected NIA to get to the bot-tom of the case and investigatewhether there was a patternemerging from similarinstances where girls fromHindu background were beingconverted and married toMuslim men, alleged to havelinks with international terror-ist outfits.
However, on Tuesday, abench headed by Chief JusticeDipak Misra felt there was noneed to expand the scope of theappeal filed against the KeralaHC decision as only two ques-tions of law emerged for its con-sideration. One, it said, whetherHC was justified to annul themarriage of the girl and second,whether NIA investigationcould be ordered into a specif-ic case.
Senior advocate DushyantDave, who appeared for theMuslim husband, sought recallof the earlier apex court orderby which NIA was asked toinvestigate and submit report toCourt. Dave made a politicalargument by claiming that topBJP leaders from Muslim com-munity too had married fromHindu community and ques-tioned whether these mar-riages would also be reopened.
The Court posted the mat-ter for hearing on Mondayassuring Dave as well as thecounsel for NIA that it will hearboth sides. PNS
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With untrained teachersaffecting the quality of
school education, the HRDMinistry on Tuesday made itmandatory for every teacher toundergo training and seek cer-tification from a Central agencyto remain in the profession.
A quality programme ofNational Institute of OpenSchooling (NIOS) for in-serviceuntrained teachers trainingDiploma in ElementaryEducation (D.El.Ed) waslaunched by HRD MinisterPrakash Javadekar. Javadekarsaid that the all untrained teach-ers are to be trained by 2019.
"Teachers and quality edu-cation are the rights of the stu-dents. Innovation and best prac-tices will ensure that the bestminds are able to innovate in thecountry and therefore NIOS hastaken a step in this direction toget engaged at the grass rootlevel. He added, the Governmentis committed to improve theeducation system and will betraining approximately 15 lakh
untrained teachers by March 31,2019," Javadekar said.
The Teacher TrainingProgramme is designed for alluntrained Government/Government-aided/Private-unaided recognised in- serviceuntrained teachers of ElementarySchools and 15 lakh (approx)teachers have been enrolled sofar. The teachers will get diplo-ma after the successful comple-tion of the course. "It is an ini-tiative in Online and DistanceLearning (ODL) mode of NIOSfor upgrading the professionalcompetence and Information,Communication based capacitybuilding for teachers. With anobjective of enhancing quality,NIOS is focusing its attention onthe quality and excellence in thetraining aspects of in serviceteachers of Govt/Govt aided/Private unaided recognisedschools across the Country. It isimportant that trainings are putin place to help develop skillsthrough their job and to retainknowledge, skills need to berefreshed on regular basis," saidHRD Ministry official.
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India on Tuesday lodged astrong protest with Pakistan
through diplomatic channelsover the killing of civiliansalong the border.
"Pakistan Deputy HighCommissioner Syed HaiderShah was summoned today anda strong protest was lodged atthe death of three Indian minorchildren in unprovoked ceasefireviolation by the Pakistan forcesin the Poonch sector on 2October," Ministry of ExternalAffairs said in a statement.
The MEA added that it wasconveyed to Pakistan that suchdeliberate targeting of civilianswas not acceptable and wasagainst humanitarian normsand practices. "Strong concernwas also expressed at continuedunprovoked firing by Pakistanforces across the Line of Controland the International Boundaryin violation of the 2003Ceasefire Understanding. 503such violations have been car-ried out by Pakistan forces so farduring 2017," the MEA said.
party’s Jana Raksha Yatra inKerala against Red and jehaditerror at Payyannur in Kannurdistrict by unleashing a scathingattack against the CPI(M) andits Chief Minister PinarayiVijayan for the killing of scoresof BJP-RSS men in the State,especially in Kannur where 84such murders have taken place.
Launching the Yatra byhanding over the saffron-greenflag to State BJP presentKummanam Rajasekharan,who is captaining the 15-daymarch, Shah said this Yatra wasnot being held by the Keralaunit alone but by the 11 crorepartymen in the country. Healso announced that the waragainst Marxist terror wouldnot be limited to Kerala but itwould be waged across India.
“I want to tell Mr Vijayan:The blood of 84 BJP men killedin your native district Kannurby your partymen is on yourclothes. Who is going to answerfor that blood? If you can’t tellus who is responsible for thesekillings, we can. It is you, Mr
Vijayan. You are responsible forthese murders,” Shah said at thepublic meeting in Payyannur atwhich he flagged off the Yatra.
“There may be people whomay ask why we have chosenKannur to begin this Yatra. Thisis the district of the ChiefMinister. It is the district of theState CPI(M) secretary (KodiyeriBalakrishnan). It is also the dis-
trict in Kerala that has seen themaximum number of deaths ofRSS-BJP men in Marxist vio-lence since the communistscame to power,” Shah said.
Making it clear that the BJPcampaign against Marxist terrorwould not be confined to Kerala,he said partymen would take outmarches to AKG Bhavan, theCPI(M) headquarters in New
Delhi, on a daily basis tillOctober 17, and that the YuvaMorcha would organise protestsat all State capitals in India.
“I want to assure the BJPleaders and activists in Keralaof one thing: The BJP will fightthis war to the very end and itwon’t stop till victory isachieved,” Shah said. The JanaRaksha Yatra will conclude in
Kerala’s capital city,Thiruvananthapuram, onOctober 17after covering elevenof the 14 districts in the State.
“Violence and murdershave taken place in whicheverState the CPI(M) has come topower. This is true aboutKerala, in West Bengal earlierand in Tripura. Whenever theLeft has come to power inKerala under the leadership ofthe CPI(M), there has been vio-lence. The CPI(M)’s violencecan be stopped only by endingits supremacy in Kerala poli-tics,” Shah opined.
The BJP chief also lashedout at the human rights activistswho were allegedly in the habitof whipping up controversiesover incidents outside Kerala.“Why is it that you don’t con-sider the killing of our party-men by the Marxists in Keralaas condemnable? Are such inci-dents less serious? You shouldshed your hypocrisy and intol-erance,” he said.
“I want to tell the so-calledhuman rights activists…Violence does not have anycolour. That the perpetrators’colour is Red does not give anysanctity to violence. We have lostmore than 120 workers in Kerala.Why were they killed? Was it forworking for this country andsociety and the ideology that theybelieved in?” he asked.
“It is time the communistsdid some serious introspection.
Why is it that their movementhas disappeared on the globallevel? Why is that they are get-ting weaker in the country aswell? The Congress also is fastdisappearing in India whilethe BJP is now in power in 80percent of the country’s terri-tory,” Amit Shah said.
The BJP president laterparticipated in the Jana RakshaYatra by joining the Yatris inthe Padayatra (foot march) onits nine-kilometer first leg fromPayyannur to Pilathara. Hewill join it again on Thursdaywhen it covers the stretch fromMambaram to Thalasserythrough Pinarayi, the native vil-lage of Chief Minister Vijayan.
Earlier, Shah offered paidfloral tributes to the 84 BJP-RSSworkers who had lost lives inMarxist attacks in Kannurbefore their portraits at thepublic meeting’s venue, namedafter Vadikkal Ramakrishnan,the first RSS worker to bekilled by Marxists in Kannur in1969, at Payyannur. ORajagopal, BJP’s lone memberin the Kerala Assembly,presided over the meeting.
The BJP chief also inter-acted with the families and rel-atives of these Balidanis. The15-day Yatra, in which 300 per-manent members includingfour State BJP general secre-taries are participating, willtake four days to cover Kannurdistrict.
retain the party’s symbol underhim and maintain his RajyaSabha seat by repeatedly apply-ing to the ElectionCommission of India (ECI)but party chief Nitish Kumar’sclose aide RCP Singh saidYadav should resign from theParliament instead of invitinghumiliation. Singh hasreplaced Yadav as leader of theJD(U) in Rajya Sabha.
Saying that Yadav wasmaking tactical moves beforethe ECI only to save his mem-bership of the Parliament,Singh said the ECI has twicerejected his pleas still he ismaking a third attempt andseeking time to furnish sup-portive documents. The JD(U)has already moved to the RajyaSabha chairman for disquali-fication of Yadav on groundthat he violated the legalities ofthe anti defection law and quitthe party on his own.
Launching a vitriolicattack on Yadav, JD(U)spokesman Neeraj Kumar said,“Sharad has a hidden agendabehind getting closer to RJDchief Lalu Prasad. By becom-ing the political uncle of TejPratap and Tejashwi Prasad
Yadav, he is eyeing on the lead-ership of the RJD. Once Laluand his sons are jailed he willbecome custodian of the RJDand the family’s properties. Healso wants to establish his sonand son-in-law in politics.”
The former bureaucratand JD(U) leader in RajyaSabha Singh said the onlypurpose of keeping his appli-cation pending in the ECI is toescape disqualification. Hesaid Yadav first applied to theECI staking claim on JD(U) onAugust 25 but submitted nodocumentary evidence andhis petition was rejected by theECI on September 12 becauseneither the petition was signednor any evidence in support ofhis claim had been enclosed.
Again Yadav applied to theECI on September 14 seekingone month time to submit theevidence. But the ECI onceagain trashed it asking him toapply only with evidence. Now,Yadav is planning to move theECI once again.
Yadav loyalist Javed Razaretaliated by saying thatSharad Yadav is a tall leader ofthe country and he did notneed a Parliament member-ship to remain in politics. “Hehas already resigned fromParliament twice,” said Razaand added that Singh was abureaucrat and politicalnovice.
JD(U) spokesman Kumarsaid it was right that Yadavresigned his Parliament seat inorder to fight the corruptionbut what was happening now.“Today he is not only standingwith but also shielding LaluPrasad who is accused in aseries of corruption cases,” healleged. The JD(U) is quitehopeful that Yadav would losehis Rajya Sabha membershipeven as five years of its termstill remaining. The party haspleaded that Yadav attendedthe rally called by RJD despitea warning by JD(U) secretarygeneral KC Tyagi. ‘He has andis indulging in anti-partyactivities,” he added.
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Ousted All India AnnaDravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (AIADMK) leaderVK Sasikala’s parole plea appli-cation to meet her estrangedailing husband Natarajan hasbeen rejected by Karnatakajail authorities on technicalgrounds on Tuesday. Sasikala,who is serving a jail term afterbeing convicted in a dispro-portionate assets case at thehigh security ParappanaAgrahara prison on the out-skirts of Bengaluru has soughtthe parole to meet her husbandwho is in a Chennai hospital.
In a late night decision theprison authorities have rejectedher parole plea for inadequateinformation. However, theauthorities have rejected herplea as it was not backed by alegally approved health certifi-cate stating that her husband wasunwell. According to Sasikala’slawyers she would be filinganother plea for parole with allthe supporting documentssought by the prison authorities.
According to sources,Sasikala’s husband has beenhospitalised in Chennai forthe last nine months due to kid-ney and liver ailment.
A source confirmed thatJail SuperintendentSomashekhar has rejected herparole plea citing inadequaciesand sought more details andaffidavits. He has also askedthem to make a fresh plea.
Sasikala has been lodged inBengaluru high security prisonsince February 2017. 74-year-oldNatarajan a former GovernmentPRO has expressed his willing-ness to see Sasikala. ThoughSasikala and Natarajan had beenliving separately since 1991, hehad accompanied her when shesurrendered before the prisonauthorities in Bengaluru.According sources her advocat-ed will submit another pleawith all the documents andexpecting to get a 15 day paroleby October 5.
In a major development aheadof the State Assembly polls,
the Gujarat Government onTuesday gave assurance to agi-tating pro-quota Patidar leadersthat it will withdraw casesagainst Patidar youngsters.
Addressing a Press confer-ence, Minister of State forHome Pradeepsinh Jadeja saidthat instructions to withdraw109 cases related to pro-quotaagitation registered against
Patidars was given to relatedpolice stations.
An important decision wastaken to withdraw all the casesagainst Patidars, which wouldfall within the purview of theState Government, said Jadeja,adding that a commission hasbeen formed chaired by retiredHigh Court judge KA Puj toprobe police highhandednesson Patidars post mega rally on25th August, 2015 at GMDCground in Ahmedabad.Member of Gujarat State
Human Rights Commissionand retired district judgeMahendra Shah too has beenincluded as member of thecommission headed by JusticePuj. Meanwhile, the StateGovernment has also formeda commission for non-reservecategory or upper castes. In thepermanent commission chair-man, vice-chairman, a membersecretary and four other mem-bers will be appointed for thewelfare of non-reserved category.
Moreover, the StateGovernment will also formEducation and Economicdevelopment Board for themembers of non-reserved cat-egory. According to Jadeja pro-vision for �600 crore would bemade for the proposed board.Due to formation of the bard asmany as 58 castes comingunder non-reserved categorywould be benefitted, he saidadding that members of non-reserved category would getopportunities for employments.
Of the �600 crore, �100 willbe kept as share capital and �500to for the purpose of finance.The board will give soft loans tothe economically weak peoplecoming under non-reservedcategory to initiate their ownbusinesses. Financial assistanceto the bright students comingfrom the category would begiven by the board.
The State Government willshortly appoint chairman, vice-chairman and seven non-gov-ernment directors in the board.
Malayalam movie superstarDileep, arrested in July for thealleged conspiracy behind theabduction of and brutal attackon a frontline actress inFebruary, after 85 days ofdetention in a sub-jail in judi-cial custody.
The superstar’s success ingetting bail came after fourfailed attempts. The HighCourt itself and the JudicialMagistrate Court in Angamalynear Kochi, where the trial inthe case is to take place, hadearlier rejected his bail pleastwice each. “I am feelingimmensely relieved though thebail has come very late,” he wasquoted as saying after comingto know about the verdict.
Relatives and friends,dozens of film personalities anda huge crowd of his fans andlocal people cheered the super-star as he came out of theprison after completing therelease procedures three-and-a-half hours after the court readout the order granting him bail.His fans accorded a warmreception to him at the prisongates by showering flowers onhim.
The High Court’s order
granting bail to Dileep camejust when the police werepreparing to submit thechargesheet against him onFriday or Saturday, before theexpiry of the 90-day periodfrom his arrest. Superintendentof Police AV George, seniorofficer in the special probeteam, said the court verdict didnot in any way reflect the fail-ure of the Prosecution.
Dileep, arrested on July 10on the charge of giving a‘quotation’ to Sunil Kumaralias Pulsar Suni, f irstaccused, to abduct, sexuallyassault the actress and video-graph her in the awkward sit-uation, had been lodged at theSub-Jail in Aluva, his home-town near Kochi, since then.Presently he is 11th accusedin the case but could benamed as second accused inthe chargesheet.
The court came to theconclusion that the superstarcould be granted bail — despitethe strong objections from theProsecution — as the investi-gation had almost been com-pleted. The Prosecution hadargued that Dileep could not bereleased before the completionof 90 days of custody since hefaced serious charges includingabduction, gang rape and crim-inal conspiracy.
Tuesday clarified that thepolice’s move to register a caseagainst a retired Army officialis a case of mistaken identityand that the mistake took placedue to the close similarity in thenames of retired Army officialand a suspected foreigner.
Sahay on Tuesdayaddressed a hurried Press con-ference at the Assam Policeheadquarters and said that thepolice’s notice was intended tobe served on Md Azmal Haque,son of Lt Maqbool Ali, villageKalahikhas, police station
Boko, and district Kamrup(Rural). His wife’s name as perthe case records is Mrs MazrulBibi, he has two sons namelyMajribur Ali and Aabur Ali andone daughter Asmina Khatun.
“Prime facie it appears thatthe notice has been served onthe Junior CommissionedOfficer (JCO) Md AzmalHaque, son of Mqkbul Hussainwhose wife is namely MomtazKhanam. His son’s name isElias Hoque and his daughter’sname is Shadida Yasim. Thisclearly shows that the case wasregistered against a differentperson and not against theretired Indian Army officer,”Sahay said adding that due to
the close similarity in thenames, the notice appears tohave been wrongly served onthe retired JCO.
It is unfortunate, the DGPsaid.
It may be mentioned herethat Md Md Ajmal Haque,had served the Indian Army for30 years before retiring as aJunior Commissioned Officerin 2008. Haque, was commis-sioned by the President of
India in the regular Army inthe rank of Naib Subedar inJanuary 2003.
“The matter is looked intoby Director General (DG)Border and Superintendent ofpolice (SP) of Kamrup,” hesaid adding that while the localpolice could not serve thenotice in the first attempt andbrought it back to Boko policestation, the retired JCO on hisown collected the notice from
police station through hisbrother despite border policeposted in Boko suggesting thatthe instant notice was ‘perhaps’not meant for him.
The DGP said that theoriginal proceeding relates to2008 and has not originatedduring the present regime.
Assam Chief MinisterSarbananda Sonowal has direct-ed that the matter must beinvestigated expeditiously andaccountability fixed for lapses,if any, resulting in the wrongserving of the notice. DG bor-der and SP have been directedto investigate the matter andsubmit findings, fixing theaccountability within a week.
he is ready to face any seditioncharge slapped on him by theGovernment, as registeredagainst sidelined AIADMKleader TTV Dinakaran.
Speaking to reporters atCoonoor in Nilgiris district,hesaid there was every possibili-ty of such a case being filedagainst him and he was readyto face it as he had also criti-cised the functioning of theGovernment.
In yet another provocative act,Pakistan Army on Tuesday
targeted patrolling party ofIndian Army along the Line ofControl (LoC) in Balakote areaof Poonch in which one Indianjawan attained martyrdom.The Indian side too retaliatedstrongly and reportedly causedheavy damages across the LoC.
According to policespokesman, “The Army jawanidentified as Naik MahendraChemjung was deployed atChera forward post under thejurisdiction of Mendhar policestation where he was targetedby a sniper fire from across theLine of Control by PakistanArmy around 1 pm.”
However, Indian Armymaintained Naik MahendraChemjung was grievouslyinjured in the exchange of fireafter Pakistan Army initiated‘unprovoked’ firing on IndianArmy posts around 12.50 pmin Bhimber Gali sector.According to Defencespokesman, the jawan latersuccumbed to his injuries.
Ground reports also sug-
gested the Indian Army is onceagain gearing up its defencesand revisiting their strategy tocounter the Pakistan aggressionin an appropriate manner.
The officers on groundzero want to give ‘shock treat-ment’ to their counterpartsacross the Line of Control asthey have been repeatedly tar-geting civilian areas andspreading panic among thelocal population.
The Indian Army had ear-lier fired heavy guns including120 mm mortars to demolish‘notorious’ posts across theLine of Control when hostili-ties surged post surgical strikesin 2016.
The ‘ghatak’ platoons arealso kept in a state of readinessto thwart any strike by BorderAction Team of Pakistan Army.
Meanwhile, followingheavy shelling in Kerni,Shahpur area of Poonch the sit-uation remained tense in thearea. The schools were alsoclosed down by the districtadministration in the forwardareas to prevent any loss of lifedue to shelling. Large numberof people were seen cleaningtheir bunkers and making safeshelters to ensure their ownprotection.
Deputy Commissioner,Poonch also visited forward vil-lages and handed over reliefcheque to the next of kin ofdeceased children who becamevictims of Pakistan shelling.
According to Defencespokesman, Naik MahendraChemjung aged 35 years,belonged to Chilingdin, Nepaland is survived by his wifeNayan Kala Chemjung andone son. Senior officers of theNorthern command andNagrota based 16 corps com-mander also paid homage tothe brave soldier.
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At least three MPs and a“bunch of MLAs and
councilors” are in touch withrebel Trinamool Congressleader Mukul Roy who enjoys“most numbers of contacts inthe party rank and file afterMamata Banerjee,” sources say.
Though the Trinamoolleadership has chosen to“ignore” Roy, former RailwayMinister and Trinamool all-India general secretary, whowas suspended from the partya few days his activities areclosely being watched.
“All those who are in touchwith someone who is involved
in anti-party activities will alsobe closely watched and theirfuture will be decided accord-ingly,” said State MinisterPartho Chatterjee adding nowould risk going with someonewho had no mass base.
Out of the three who are intouch with the Roy two MPs arefrom Rajya Sabha, sources saidadding most of the MLAs whoowed their rise in the party tothe former “number two man”have expressed their sympathywith the senior leader but havenot given any commitment onwhether they would quit theparty immediately, sources said.
Other than the MPs andMLAs there are a number of
councilors from civic boardsparticularly in Kolkata andTrinamool Congress blockpresidents who have been intouch with Roy and had alsobeen helping him from behindto expand the base ofNationalist TrinamoolCongress a party that was float-ed by a Roy-confidant a coupleof years ago reportedly at thebehest of the Rajya Sabha MP.
Roy is known to have toldhis confidants that he had beenreceiving large number of tele-phone calls expressing soli-darity with him.
The suspended Trinamoolleader a onetime blue-eyed boyof Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee had co-founded the out-fit in 1998 along with her and hadbeen instrumental in expandingits organisational base.
Known as Trinamool’s ownChanakya fell out of Banerjee’sfavour after he was interrogat-ed by the CBI in the Sharadachit fund case during which hereportedly extended his full“cooperation” with the investi-gating agency.
Roy reportedly revealed alot of Trinamool’s dark under-belly to the CBI thereby incur-ring the wrath of the leadership,insiders say. He was promptlyremoved from the party generalsecretary’s post.
Successive attempts at
rebuilding the bridge betweenBanerjee and Roy came a crop-per and he was stripped of allthe parliamentary committeeposts and also was removed asthe vice president of the partyleading to his resignation fromthe Trinamool Congress corecommittee.
Subsequently he expressedhis intention to quit the partylast week and within hours athree-member committee ofsenior leaders suspended himfrom the Bengal ruling outfit.
Meanwhile, on whetherthe BJP would open its door forRoy, leaders in the saffron out-fit said they no decision hadbeen taken in this.
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Even though police sourcesclaim there is no break-
through, Karnataka HomeMinister Ramalinga Reddy onTuesday claimed that the SpecialInvestigation Team(SIT) formedto probe journalist-turned-activist Gauri Lankesh’s coldblooded murder has identifiedthe killers.
He told the media that thekillers of Gauri has been iden-tified but refused to give anydetails as it would hamper theprobe. He also said that the SITis collecting more evidence toprove their guilt in the murder.He said, “We have definite clueabout the killers but I can’t revealmore in this as it would ham-per the further investigation.”
The 55-year-old GauriLankesh, a journalist-turned-activist, who voiced againstright wing ideologies was bru-tally murdered in front of herRajarajeshwarin Nagar house
on the outskirts of Bengaluruon September 5.
This is the second timeHome Minister has said aboutdefinite clues in the murderwhich was denied by thesources in the police. Gauri wasthe editor of Gauri LankeshPatrike, a tabloid, which wasvery much critical of rightwing and Hindutva politics.
According to sources inthe SIT they have questionedover 500 people and scannedall possible records of about 60mobile phones. They are alsolooking at right wing andMaoist angles in their probe.Gauri was shot dead as she
entered her house in the IThub of Bengaluru onSeptember 5. A man wearinga helmet to conceal his facewas recorded on security cam-eras as he shot her in the chest.
The Special InvestigationTeam working to crack the casewould neither confirm nordeny the Home Minister’sclaim. The ruling CongressGovernment led by ChiefMinister Siddaramaiah hascome under severe criticismfor failing to make any progressin the murders of rationalistMM Kalburgi, who was killedin 2015 and now GauriLankesh.The KarnatakaGovernment has constituted aSIT headed by InspectorGeneral of Police (Intelligence)BK Singh and a team of offi-cers. The SIT has alsoannounced a reward of �10lakh to anyone who gives cluesabout the murder of Gauri.The murder had widespreadprotests across the country.
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The Union Minister of RoadTransport and Highways,
Shipping and Water Resources,River Development and GangaRejuvenation Nitin Gadkaridescribed Polavaram multi-purpose project as a lifeline forthe country.
Along with Chief Ministerof Andhra Pradesh NChandrababu Naidu, he inspect-ed Polavaram project site worksand Pattiseema Lift Scheme onTuesday taken up on Godavaririver in West Godavari District,Andhra Pradesh. Polavaram isbeing taken up for regulation ofGodavari as well as to divertflood waters to drought proneareas. As Polavaram is an gigan-tic project, to protect the cropsof Krishna Delta andRayalaseema region, the StateGovernment completedPattiseema LI scheme in a recordtime of one year to divertGodavari flood waters toKrishna River.
They inspected thePolavaram spillway, concreteworks and gates manufacturingfacility at the Polavaram project
site. Chief Minister briefed theUnion Minister about theprogress of project works. Afterinspection, Nitin Gadkari said,Polavaram project is importantfor the country. He expressedsatisfaction over the Projectworks. “We will find new waysto further speed up the works”,Nitin Gadkari promised. “Ihope that Polavaram will becompleted by December 2018”,he expressed. “I have personal-ly inspected the Polavaramproject works over 20 times andmade 40 virtual inspections sofar”, Chief MinisterChandrababu Naidu told. “Wewill complete the first phase of
Polavaram by December 2018”,he reiterated. Naidu sought fullco-operation from the CentralGovernment for the project.
Governor of AndhraPradesh and Telangana ESLNarasimhan, Union Minister ofState for Science andTechnology and Earth SciencesSujana Chowdhary, SpecialSecretary to Union Waterresources Ministry AmarjitSingh too accompanied themduring the visit.
Polavaram is the presti-gious multi-purpose irrigationproject which has been accord-ed national project status by theUnion Government.
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Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu termed Andhra Pradesh asa connecting point of South and North India. He inaugu-
rated seven important projects in Andhra Pradesh alongsideNational Highways on Tuesday. Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari,YS Sujana Chowdary, the Chief Minister of Andhra PradeshChandrababu Naidu and others participated in the inaugura-tion. The Vice President has inaugurated the first Muktyala —Vijayawada Inland Water Way in Krishna River. Chief MinisterChandrababu Naidu indicated the scope of Andhra Pradeshbecoming as Logistic Hub. “Between Kakinada — Pondicherryand Chennai — Calcutta, water transportation can be devel-oped via Andhra Pradesh at cheaper prices protecting envi-ronment”, the Chief Minister advised Central Government.
on Tuesday charged thatMaharashtra would in no waybenefit from the bullet trainproject, despite making a stag-gering investment of �35,000crore as its share on the project.
Dubbing the bullet trainproject as an “impractical pro-ject”, Pawar said that the hugeamount being invested on thebullet train project would bewell spent if the money were tobe used for improving subur-ban train services in Mumbaiand also for upgrading thefacilities at railway stationsacross the country.
Pawar also charged thatPrime Minister Narendra Modihad gone with the project “tohelp Japan come out of the eco-nomic recession it is facing”.
Addressing a news confer-ence here, Pawar made nobones his displeasure over themanner in which the bullettrain project had been thrust onMaharashtra, Pawar said, “Weare not opposed to moderni-sation and import of new tech-nology. But, we feel that thenew technology being broughtinto the country should bepractical one. I think a bullettrain is required betweenMumbai and Delhi or Delhiand Kolkata or Mumbai andChennai. But, a bullet trainbetween Mumbai andAhmedabad is impractical”
“While on one hand theGovernment ignores the safe-ty issues like it happened in thecase of Elphinstone Road stam-pede, on the other it chooses tomake such a huge investmenton the bullet train project......Instead of investing such ahuge sum on the bullet train
project, the Governmentshould have spent the moneyimproving the suburban ser-vices in Mumbai and forupgrading the facilities at rail-way stations across the coun-try,” the NCP chief said.
Elaborating on how thebullet train project would in noway benefit Maharashtra,Pawar said, “There are in allten railway stations in the bul-let train route between Mumbaiand Ahmedabad. Of the sta-tions, three are in Maharashtra,while seven are in Gujarat. I donot mind if Gujarat benefitsfrom the project... But, thetravel time of bullet train inMaharashtra is just 35 minutes,while the train traverses oneand 25 minutes in the Gujaratstretch of the route. However,both Maharashtra and Gujarathave to make an equal invest-ment of �35,000 crore each. ...I don’t think this project is ben-eficial for Maharashtra”.
To drive home the pointthat the Prime Minister wasmore interested in showcasingthe bullet train project to theworld than being concernedabout its usefulness or other-wise, Pawar played out a videoclip of Modi, in his earliercapacity as the chief minister ofGujarat, was seen saying that abullet train was just to show-case the country’s strength andthat he knew nobody wouldtravel in the train.
Taking a dig at RailwayMinister Piyush Goyal, Pawarsaid, “I thought he would havemore knowledge overMumbai’s local train issues ashe belongs to the city. LalBahadur Shastri had resignedafter a train accident. I expect-ed the same action from theRailway minister but it did nothappen”.
that the Congress has had in a while. Hisvagabonding across the United States lastmonth amply displayed how he synthesisedand blended in himself all these qualitiesor non-qualities, as one would say. HadRahul Gandhi lived or attained his present‘stature’ during the era of Tolkien andSatyajit Ray, we would have had a charac-ter blending in himself the traits of‘Gollum’ ‘Barfi’ and ‘Maganlal’, if such acoalition of characters is at all possible!
In his embodiment and manifestationsof these negative traits, Rahul Gandhi is per-haps surpassed only by the rotund andincreasingly senile Mani Shankar Aiyar —whose only positive contribution to India’swell-being and to its future was his label-ing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as achaiwalah. Aiyar, as his habit, meant it tobe an expletive, but the people of India, fromwhom both Aiyar and his master, RahulGandhi are cut off, understood it different-ly and were galvanised into ushering a trans-formative change in 2014.
But then, Aiyar, unlike Rahul Gandhi,never led the Congress, the party’s futureand existence did not depend on hiswhims and articulations and, therefore,Aiyar could afford the luxury of freethink-ing and spend his days as a useful idiotwithin the party system. In short, what hesaid did not matter to his party and to theworld at large except the ‘Khan Market’ and‘Gole Market’ caucus. With Rahul Gandhithat is not case, he and his hangers on, hismother and sister seriously believe that hecan lead the party and rule India.
But we are not discussing Aiyar, whyspoil the sacred space of my column withrepeated allusions to this Congress leaderwho goes abroad, especially to the land ofhis soul, Pakistan, and from their calls foroverthrowing Narendra Modi. However,Aiyar comes in the context here whilepointing out how the Congress underRahul Gandhi is announcing a new era inIndian politics, this era, if flows unabated,will only serve to put together a dismal andfalse narrative of India, a narrative thatmany self-servers across the world will bequick to latch on to and propagate.
By repeatedly denigrating PrimeMinister Modi on foreign soil, by deliber-ately painting a misleading canvas of Indiawith false and poisonous colours, RahulGandhi’s destructive brand of politics isactually demeaning our collective con-sciousness as Indians, and displays his neo-colonial mindset, which exaggerates ourchallenges before a foreign audience in orderto earn cheap accolades and approbation.
In this unthinking action of his, Rahul
Gandhi is being promoted and propped upby a section, whose interest and objectivehas been to see an India stymied and chal-lenged, unable to move ahead and claim therightful status of a great power. This, theytry to do so by heaping imagined and unjus-tified calumny on Narendra Modi, the oneleader they see capable of pulling India outof the crevice that it had been pushed intoby decades of Congress policies designedby Rahul Gandhi’s ancestors and his moth-er. In order to stymie India’s chances toachieve great power status, these elements,have thus taken recourse to the most non-reflective political leader of our age — RahulGandhi. His blabbering helps them puttogether a narrative which feeds into theirlarger grand narrative of an India in decay.
In essence, what stands out in RahulGandhi’s prattles is that the people of Indiaare fools, they have been duped, they haveno power of thinking, have no will to expresstheir choices and by rejecting his party andfamily, they have done a great disservice tothemselves and shall, thus, pay and repentfor it. Rahul Gandhi casts aspersion on thecollective will of the people of India; he abus-es their choice, questions their capacities andbelittles their democratic choice of electingNarendra Modi and of endorsing his visionof what he wishes to do for India. As UnionFinance Minister Arun Jaitley once aptly putit, “The first family of the Congress takesdefeat very personally”. Hence, its membersand their courtiers have been unable to extri-cate themselves from the defeated mindset,the only occasion, which momentarilyrejuvenates them, is when their sub-supremeleader heaps abuse on Modi and disparagesthe people of India.
Rahul Gandhi’s recent interview toNicolas Berggruen, Chairman of theBerggruen Institute, one needs to recallBerggruen’s payment to a former FrenchDefence Minister who had to resign for mis-using facilities — others have written aboutin detail. I mention this here for the simplereason that the platforms or people, throughwhich Rahul Gandhi chooses to denigrate thepeople of India and to abuse its PrimeMinister, to defame its constitutional insti-tutions, are themselves dubious, agenda dri-ven and of shady objective. His latest inter-view to the World Post and Berggruen fall inthat category and, therefore, augurs ill for thefuture of our political discourse both in thecountry and beyond its shores.
In his interview to this foreign publica-tion, Rahul Gandhi calls the entire duly elect-ed Parliament of India as “a debating soci-ety without any power”, with members ofParliament only “talking to each other.” In onewide sweep, he as poured scorn on our entireparliamentary structure and its spirit.
While Prime Minister Modi looks atParliament as the temple of democracy andis never tired of reminding members fromhis party and across, of the need to beaccountable to the mandate conferred uponthem by the people, while Modi bows downon the steps of the Parliament, Rahul Gandhidisparages and downgrades the IndianParliament as a talking shop and a powerlessdebating society. But since it is RahulGandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi fam-ily, it hardly generates outrage, the scion is“entitled to”, so it seems, to such views. Hisparty men, those among them who have risenthrough the ranks by interpreting RahulGandhi’s haikus will quickly swagger out with
explanations and justifications, which willmake his statements, look like the utterancesof a formidable statesman and thinker!
Rahul Gandhi spoke of India beingmore centralised today than China, isn’t hisassertion laced with irony? One needs to justrecall that Rahul Gandhi’s grandmothermastered the art of political centralisation,trampled on democratic rights and treat-ed regional leaders like doormats, that eversince the days of his great grandfather RahulGandhi’s party had championed the use ofArticle 356 and dismissed duly elected StateGovernments with relish, that RahulGandhi’s father ensured that democratical-ly elected Chief Ministers of Provinces car-ried his footwear — a practice that RahulGandhi continues to occasionally indulgein even today — and that Rahul Gandhi’smother’s locked up the then octogenarianpresident of the Congress in the toilet andthen effectuated a coup de toilette.
Rahul Gandhi’s knowledge of history, hisunderstanding of India, his knowledge of hisown party’s past and the past of his far andimmediate ancestors is weak. He does notunderstand India; he fails to connect with itspeople and, therefore, glibly disparagesthem. He fails to gage India primarilybecause, as BJP president Amit Shah recent-ly observed, he insists on seeing Indiathrough tinctured foreign spectacles…
A look at his interview in some detail dis-plays Rahul Gandhi’s colossal multi-dimen-sional illiteracy when it comes to India.However, we keep that for another day.
(This is the first article in a two-part serieson Rahul Gandhi. The writer is Director, DrSyama Prasad Mookerjee ResearchFoundation, New Delhi)(
Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Infrastructural apathy”(October 2). On the one hand,tehre are a few natural disasters,cyclones, wildfires, heat waves,earthquakes and landslides etc,where we cannot do much butthen there are few man-madedisaster like the stampede at theParel-Elphinstone footoverbridge in Mumbai, where blamesquarely lies with us. On the onehand, we are targeting smartcities, on the other, we see oururban infrastructure crumblingin front of our eyes.
We need to wake up our con-science and need to put someprice on our lives and make ourGovernments responsible forsuch tragedies. If ourGovernment can not providethis basic safety to our citizenseven in metro cities, then we canconclude what would be thestate of affairs in smaller towns.
Disaster management andmock drill should be part of basicinfrastructure in our cities andcitizens must know how tobehave and act in such situation.For that continuous awarenesscampaign needs to be held.
Bal Govind Noida
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Sir — This refers to the article,“Sensitise society to empowerwomen” (October 2) byAbhishek and Valentina Brahma.The writers have done well toemphasise the role of the societyin taking the lead to create con-
ditions in order to ensure safetyand security of women ratherthan dismissing it purely as lawand order problem.
Unfortunately, it is the latteraspect that gets predominance inthe political blame-game, leavingno time for anyone amongst thepolitical or even the so-called lib-eral socialite class to go into theroot cause of the evil that isgrowing day-by-day.
The Indian society, as is thecase with many developing societies in the world, is in a stateof flux, caught as it is in the webof two cultures. On the one handis what is being labeled as theWestern culture, on the other is theperceived Indian traditional cul-ture. Added to this is the chang-ing face of urban areas with large-scale migration from villages andabsence of bondages and controlof local level civil communities inthe din of urban life.
Over and above, is the influ-ence that is being exerted on theraw human mind by television,through a particular type of por-trayal of men, especially of womenin the programmes followed bythe dynamic and attention grab-bing sex stimulating advertise-ments. This has resulted in con-veying to the viewers a very dif-ferent world view of sex and rich-es than what really exists in nor-mal world. Considering all theseaspects in their totality, it appearsnecessary for the general civil soci-ety to play a more pro-active rolein studying these issues and advisethe Government suitably.
Two Tamil superstars —Rajinikanth and KamalHaasan are all set to enter pol-
itics. There have been intense spec-ulations about their entry since thedeath of All India Anna DravidaMunnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)supremo Jayalalithaa in Decemberlast year, although Rajinikanth haskept his fans under suspense foralmost two decades now. The ques-tion is whether they will succeed.
While the ruling AIADMK isbattling to sort out its internalproblems, with different factionspulling in different directions, theentry of two more players mightadd to the confusion. In TamilNadu, there has always been aclose nexus between politics and
cinema. At least four ChiefMinisters — CN Annadurai,Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK) supremo M Karunanidhi,MG Ramachandran and JJayalalithaa (AIADMK) — haveruled the State since 1967. Anothersuccessful movie star, CaptainVijayakanth, launched his partyDesiya Murpokku DravidaKazhagam (DMDK) but he has notbeen able to sustain.
South India had producedmany actor-turned politicians. Inthe neighboring Andhra Pradesh,NT Rama Rao became the ChiefMinister in 1982. Tamil Nadu gaveactors like Sivaji Ganesan, Napoleonand Vyjayanthimala Bali, whileAndhra Pradesh gifted MohanBabu, Dasari Narayana Rao,Chiranjeevi and Jaya Prada. FromKarnataka came actors l ikeAmbressh and Ramya.
Tamil Nadu is a State where theDravidian ideology has been deep-rooted for decades. Dravidian pol-itics propagated Tamil identity andlanguage, as theatre and movies
became the most effective tools tomobilise and influence the masses.
In fact, since 1967, when theCongress lost power to the DMK,the State has been ruled alternate-ly by the DMK and the AIADMK.MGR was able to successfully launchhis AIADMK, breaking away fromthe DMK, and became the ChiefMinister because of his film rolesand his pro-poor social messages.As for Jayalalihtaa, she was a suc-cessful heroine of MGR and afamous actress in her own right.
Therefore, what is the newthing these two superstars can offerwhich will appeal to the people?Haasan and Rajinikanth are two dif-ferent personalities. Rajinikanth isa spiritualist, while Haasan callshimself as an atheist. They haveacted together in some films.Haasan acted and directed critical-ly acclaimed films, including sevenofficial Oscar entries. He has a fol-lowing from the thinking class,while Rajinikanth is a poor man’shero with many box office hits. Hehas also tried to play Robin Hood
kind of roles like MGR. Rajinikanth’s popularity with
the voters in the State is tested,unlike that of Haasan. Rajinikanth’sfamous statement before 1996 elec-tion, that even god could not saveTamil Nadu if Jayalalithaa wasvoted to power, resulted in theDMK sweeping the polls. WhileRajinikanth has been mulling overthe idea of joining politics sincethen, Haasan is a recent convert,claiming that his entry was out ofcompulsion and not choice.
Second, the DMK and theAIADMK have base and good partynetwork even in rural areas. Withjust about 18 months to go beforethe 2019 Lok Sabha poll, how willthey build up their new parties?Their fan clubs might pitch in butthat may not be enough.
Third, what will be their newnarrative? Both are talking about cor-ruption and Tamil Nadu is one of themost corrupt States, but how effec-tive will that issue be? “This is theright time for me to come into activepolitics because everything that can
possibly go wrong is going wrong,”Haasan said, claiming, “We need bet-ter governance. I am not promisingswift remedies. But I promise to startthe process of change.”
He hinted a broad frameworkfor his party, which will have a driveagainst corruption and aspire to beprogressive. Rajinikanth, in hisrecent comments, has also said thatalthough he had no wish to join pol-itics, if he did, he would show thedoor to all “money-minded” people.
Fourth, to run a party, oneneeds a lot of money and where willthey get these crores of rupees?Most of their fans are from the poorclasses and neither of them mightspend their own money. Unlessthey get some rich backers, the newoutfits might become non- starters.
Fifth, in a State like TamilNadu, which has literally got rid ofthe Brahmin dominance, how willHaasan, who is a Brahmin, get othercaste votes unless his new partyaligns with other caste-based par-ties? Rajinikanth has no problembecause the BJP is ready to adopt
him.Sixth, while the BJP is willing
to offer the chief ministerial post toRajinikanth, it is not clear whichside Haasan will go. When hecalled on the Kerala Chief Minister,Pinarayi Vijayan recently, therewas speculation about his Leftleaning ideology. But he stated in aninterview, “I want to be in the mid-dle of things, not leaning to anyside.” Killing the speculation afterhis much publicised lunch with theAam Aadmi Party chief ArvindKejriwal recently, Hasan said, “I willtake lessons from the Aam AadmiParty but there is no partnership.”
It is nobody’s case that justbecause they have succeeded in thefilm world they might do so in thereal world. Rajinikanth acknowl-edged this when he said, “Fame andmoney are not enough to win inpolitics. There is something else. Idon’t know what it is.” It is DameLuck, Rajini, and if she smiles atyou, you are sure to win.
(The writer is a senior political com-mentator and syndicated columnist)
One often hears aboutthe saffronisataion ofhistory but never aboutits churchif ication.However, for some
1,500 years, Western history waswritten exclusively by Christianpriests. Their stated goal was to con-vert the whole world to Christianity.Did they speak about the unbiasedtruth of history? Hardly.
The first church historian,Eusebius, extravagantly glorified theRoman emperor, Constantine theGreat, who enabled the church tomarry the state — a marriage whichswelled the coffers of the church. Toenforce a profitable monopoly, theChristians waged a war against the sur-viving ‘pagans’; they burnt down theGreat Library of Alexandria. The nextchurch historian, Orosius, wrote dur-ing this religious war. The very title ofhis book, History Against the Pagans,shows it was a war propaganda. He con-stantly belittled and denigrated ‘pagans’.
This became the model of futurechurch history, glorifying itself anddenigrating all ‘others’. With therise of the Abbasid Caliphate,Constantinople (Istanbul) became atributary of Baghdad, which invest-ed heavily in knowledge, gatheringit from all parts of the world, espe-cially India and China. The BaghdadBayt-al-Hikma seeded a culture ofbooks, and huge libraries sproutedacross the Islamic world fromTimbuctoo to Tashkent.
Many of these Arabic bookswere translated into Byzantine Greek,in Istanbul. The translators (allpriests of the Greek church) inject-ed their chauvinism into the trans-lated texts, planting stray remarks,attributing authorship to Greeknames, real or imaginary. Few peo-ple are aware that unlike the Rhindpapyrus, or Iraqi clay tablets, thereare no original Greek sources for thepurported achievements of Euclid,Archimedes, Claudius Ptolemy, etc.
Unlike also the Indian case, thereis no continuous chain of intermedi-ate commentaries which reproducethe original in full. The ‘evidence’ forclaims of Greek scientific achieve-ments comes from stray remarks indiscontinuous and late ByzantineGreek texts from over a thousandyears after the purported event. In fact,we do not actually have even those‘early’ Byzantine Greek sources (whichare only a thousand years late) butonly purported copies and translationsof them from several centuries later.
This method of falsifying histo-ry by attributing all early knowledgeto Greeks turned virulent during theCrusades. Militarily the Crusades(after the first) were failures. A keyreason for this failure, as reported byChristian spies like Adelard of Bath,
was that the Christians were deficientin knowledge compared to Muslims.Hence, the church now soughtknowledge from Muslims. An oppor-tunity arose when Toledo fell, and itshuge library of Arabic books cameunder Christian control. But thechurch dithered. Why?
The earlier church policy was toburn non-Christian books as hereti-cal. But now it wanted to learn fromthe books of the religious enemy. Thattoo during a religious war! Therefore,an excuse had to be invented tomake the translations of Arabic booksseem theologically correct.
It was claimed that all secularknowledge in Arabic books was anexact replica of what the early Greeksdid. Since there were no early Greeksources, this claim was faith-based.It is contrary to commonsense thata scientif ic text would stayunchanged for a thousand years. Butevidence or commonsense did notmatter to the church, what matteredwas that Eusebius had declared theearly Greeks as the (sole) “friends ofChristians”. Hence, attributing thesource of knowledge to early Greeksmade it a Christian inheritance!This flimsy excuse of Greek originsenabled the mass translations ofbooks in the Toledo library, thoughmany of these books were neverthe-less initially placed on the index.
Such acts of faith are not histo-ry. As David Fowler, a leading experton Greek mathematics, explained,the earliest source for Archimedes is
a Byzantine Greek text supposedlyfrom the ninth century. Alas, eventhat was lost! What we actually haveis a 16th century Latin text assertedto be a translation of it, whereas itprobably reflects 16th century.knowledge. That is, all the evidencefor Archimedes comes from a 16thcentury text in another languagefrom another place, 1,800 years afterthe purported date of Archimedes!
To call this ‘evidence’ is as fan-ciful as claiming that a modern texton aerodynamics in English, fromLondon, is an exact replica of anunknown Sanskrit source from thethird century CE! The fanciful‘Archimedes palimpsest’ is hardlyworth discussing.
The Greeks could not have donescience because they lacked sophis-tication in mathematics. Thus, theGreek/Roman system of numerationwas so primitive they had no system-atic way to represent fractions.Hence, there was no way Archimedescould have done anything on thesphere and cylinder (as Egyptiansdid). This inability to work with pre-cise fractions is seen also in the cal-endar. Though the Romans laughedat the Greek calends, and JuliusCaesar reformed the calendar withgreat fanfare, the Julian calendarremained defective just because theRomans had no way to write the pre-cise fraction (not 365 ¼ days) for theduration of the (tropical) year.
This churchified history of Greekorigins was later systematically pro-
moted by racist historians who por-trayed the Greeks (even fromAlexandria in Africa) as white.Colonial historians further advancedit, linking the ‘Hellenic’ civilisationto the West. This claim facilitatedcolonial education: The filtered his-tory written by losers in an earlierwar, helped to consolidate colonialpower. Those who wrote a biasedversion of history became victors.
We received this slanted historythrough colonial education, failing tosee it was church education. It wasintended to create a sense of inferior-ity among the colonised, whetherIndians or blacks in Africa.Nevertheless, even 70 years after inde-pendence, we continue to glorifythose mythical Greeks and their imag-ined achievements in our present-dayschool math texts from NCERT andvarious States. This false history isharmful in other subtle ways: Ourentire teaching of math is premised onthe false history of ‘Euclid’, and masksthe demand to imitate church practicesrelated to its theology of reason.
The colonised mind is comfortablewith churchified history, even withoutevidence, but objects vociferously toany modification. Our school textsmust be changed, but enforcing achange is counter-productive. Thisresults in a flip-flop in the school textsevery time the Government changes.A sustained public debate is needed toexpose the complete lack of evidencefor churchified history.
In a move to provide safetyand security for school kids,
heads, parents and adminis-trators of the several schoolsand educational institutions inthe country, IT solutionprovider EnergywinTechnologies has launched‘SkoolSmart’ to address theirconcerns.
“SkoolSmart solution cov-ers all the parents, transportdepartment and schooladministration requirementscomprehensively thus keepingthe students safe and secure,and alerting their whereaboutsfor smarter parents andsmarter schools all in onesingle integrated solution. Ourprime concern and vision is tomake SkoolSmart the firststop for child safety solu-tions,” said Anant Nahata,Chairman of EnergywinTechnologies & ExicomTelesystems Ltd.
SkoolSmart is a productfrom EnergywinTechnologies, headquarteredat Bangalore. It is founded bytechnocrats with wide range ofexperiences in the design anddevelopment of asset man-agement RFID products/remote monitoring productsand efficient power manage-ment products and manage-ment expertise.
into one integrated solution.SkoolSmart is an automatedRFID student tracking withmobile DVR-smart live viewfacility based system for stu-dents from home to schooland back home while on thebus or at the school withappropriate alerts triggeredto the parents onboarding/reaching/leaving
and alighting from the bus.The solution is for both
the bus and non-bus users andfor all students of the schoolas a whole. This also helps theschool administration withautomated campus attendanceand the transport departmentwith useful features whichcare for the safety and securi-ty of their students and dis-cerning parents.
“We provide theSkoolSmart web portal and aone-point contact manager,thereby maintaining hard-ware, web page, mobile app incentralised secure servers tothe authorised person of theconcerned educational insti-tution to view the real timeupdates and reports,” saidNahata. Being a niche telecominfrastructure product,Energywin Technologies, asubsidiar y of ExicomTelesystems Ltd, which pro-vides solutions in power andinfrastructure to all the lead-ing telcos, industrial and ITsectors in India, South EastAsia and Africa.
The revenue of ExicomTelesystems has grown from�50 crore in FY 2011 to �440crore in FY 2016. Nahata isa true visionary and an entre-preneur with keen interest innurturing and promotinginnovative new age tech-nologies and serving theneeds of corporate and retailconsumers as well.
Bowing to public pressure, theGovernment on Tuesday
cut excise duty on petrol anddiesel by �2 per litre each tomoderate the relentless rise infuel prices witnessed for the lastthree months. Petrol and dieselwill cost �2 a litre less fromtomorrow after the first exciseduty cut by the ModiGovernment comes into effect.
Petrol currently costs �70.88per litre in Delhi while a litre ofdiesel is priced at an all-timehigh of �59.14. The excise dutycut would cost the Government�26,000 crore in annual revenueand about �13,000 crore duringthe remaining part of the cur-rent fiscal year that ends onMarch 31, 2018, an officialstatement announcing thereduction said.
The Government, which
had between November 2014and January 2016 raised exciseduty on petrol and diesel onnine occasions to take awaygains arising from plummetingglobal oil prices, has been crit-icised for not cutting excise dutydespite a sustained rise in fuelprices since early July. In all,duty on petrol was hiked by�11.77 per litre and that ondiesel by 13.47 a litre in those 15months that helpedGovernment's excise mop-upmore than double to �242,000crore in 2016-17 from �99,000crore in 2014-15.
Retail fuel prices have beenon the upswing since July 4. OilMinister DharmendraPradhan's predictions of a dropwere short-lived as rates fell forjust three days and reverted totheir upward trajectory. Whilepetrol prices have increasedby �7.8 to reach �70.88 a litre
in Delhi, the highest sinceAugust 2014, diesel rates haverisen by �5.7 to touch an all-time high of �59.14. While thecostliest petrol was sold inSeptember 2013 when it waspriced at �76.06 a litre in Delhi,the previous highest rate fordiesel was also during the BJPrule in September 2014 when itwas priced at �58.97 per litre.
“Govt of India has reducedBasic Excise Duty rate on petroland diesel [both branded andunbranded] by �2 per litre w.E.F.
4th October,2017,” the financeministry said in a tweet. Onpetrol, the Government cur-rently levies excise dutiestotalling �21.48 per litre whilethat on diesel is �17.33 perlitre. “This decision (to cutexcise duty) has been taken bythe Government in order tocushion the impact of risinginternational prices of crudepetroleum oil and petrol anddiesel on retail sale prices ofpetrol and diesel as well as toprotect the interest of common
man,” the statement said. Therise petrol and diesel price, itsaid, also reflected in wholesaleprice inflation, which hasincreased to 3.24 per cent inAugust 2017, as compared to1.88 per cent in July. “This alsoprompted the Government toact swiftly in this regard,” it said.
India relies on imports tomeet 80 per cent of its needs andso domestic fuel rates have beenaligned to movement of equiv-alent product prices in the inter-national market since April2002. Previously, the rates werechanged every fortnight butsince June 16 they are reviseddaily to immediately pass on anymovement in international oilprices to consumers and avoidsharp spikes by spreading themin small doses.
The windfall from theexcise duty hikes helped thegovernment bridge its bud-
getary deficit. Normal orunbranded petrol currentlycommands a basic excise dutyof �8.48 per litre, special addi-tional excise duty of �7 a litreand additional excise duty of �6.The total excise incidence onbranded petrol is �22.66 per litrewith basic excise duty is chargedat higher rate of �9.66.
Unbranded diesel attractsbasic excise duty of �10.33 perlitre, special additional exciseduty of �1 and additional exciseduty of �6 per litre. Brandeddiesel attracts �12.69 per litrebasic excise duty, �1 a lire addi-tional excise duty and �6 specialadditional excise duty. State-owned oil companies in Junedumped the 15-year old prac-tice of revising rates on 1st and16th of every month andinstead adopted a dynamicdaily price revision to instant-ly reflect changes in cost.
NEW DELHI: Helped byrobust performance of coal,natural gas and electricity, theeight core sectors recorded afive-month high growth rate of4.9 per cent in August, officialdata showed on Tuesday.
These eight infrastructuresectors -- coal, crude oil, nat-ural gas, refinery products,fertilisers, steel, cement andelectricity -- had witnessed 3.1per cent expansion in Augustlast year.
The infrastructure growthwas 2.6 per cent in the previ-ous month of July. The coresector growth in August is thehighest since March, when itgrew by 5.2 per cent. The pro-duction of coal, natural gas andelectricity rose by 15.3 percent, 4.2 per cent and 10.3 percent, according to the officialdata released on Tuesday.
However crude oil, fer-tiliser and cement recordednegative growth in the monthunder review. The productiongrowth of refinery productsand steel slowed down to 2.4per cent and 3 per cent inAugust as against 2.5 per centand 16.7 per cent respectivelyin the same month last year.
Cumulatively, the eightcore sectors in April-Augustrecorded a growth rate of 3 percent as against 5.4 per cent inthe same period a year ago.Healthy growth in key sectorswould have positive implica-tions on the Index of IndustrialProduction (IIP) as these seg-ments account for about 41 percent to the total factory output.
Commenting on the data,rating agency ICRA said:“Given the favourable baseeffect and the expected
rebuilding of inventories priorto the festive season, we expectthe IIP (index of industrialproduction) growth to improvein August relative to the initialestimate of 1.2 per cent for July2017.” PTI
NEW DELHI: Shares ofReliance Communications(RCom) on Tuesday ended near-ly 11 per cent down on thebourses, eroding as much as�523 crore from the marketcapitalisation of the company.Shares of the company openedon a weak note at �18.70 on theBSE, then lost further groundand fell to an intra-day low of�16.75. At the end of today'strading session the stock settledat �17.10, down 10.94 per centover its previous close on BSE.
Following the downtrendin the stock, the market capital-isation of the company fell by�523 crore to �4,256.16 crore. Onthe National Stock Exchangesimilar trend was seen where thestock opened at �18.65, thenslumped to an intra- day low of�16.75 and finally settled at �17.15, down 10.68 per cent. The
significant decline in the stockwas largely a knee jerk reactionpost the collapse of the Aircelmerger deal.
Reliance Communications,on October 1, had called offmerger talks with Aircel, citing‘legal and regulatory’ delays.RCom and Aircel had signedbinding agreements inSeptember 2016 for the mergerof mobile business. RCom,which is reeling under a debt ofabout �46,000 crore, has outlinedan alternative plan for debtreduction by selling real estate aswell as tower and fibre business.
“Legal and regulatoryuncertainties, and variousinterventions by vested inter-ests have caused inordinatedelays in receipt of relevantapprovals for the proposedtransaction,” RCom had saidin a statement. PTI
NEW DELHI: State-ownedCoal India produced 231.87million tonnes (MT) of coal inApril-September period thisfiscal, missing the output tar-get by 4.69 per cent or 11.43MT. The production targetfor the first six months of2017-18 financial year was setat 243.3 MT, Coal India (CIL)said in a filing to BSE. Theseare provisional figures of CoalIndia and its subsidiary com-panies, the miner said.
On individual basis, twosubsidiary companies -- CentralCoalfields Limited (CCL) andNorthern Coalfields Limited(NCL) -- have produced morethan their respective targets, thedata showed. CCL productionwas at 20.84 MT in April-September, higher than the tar-
geted 15.50 MT. NCL produced42.80 MT of coal against the tar-get of 41.83 MT in April-September. During September,Coal India produced 38.77 MT ofdry fuel, a little above the targetof 38.32 MT set for the month.
The company's also missedits offtake target of 279.66 MT forApril-September by achieving269.02 MT in the period.
For September, the offtakewas higher at at 43.58 MT thanits target of 42.34 MT. Othersubsidiaries of Coal India areEastern Coalfields Limited(ECL) Bharat Coking CoalLimited (BCCL) WesternCoalfields Limited (WCL) SouthEastern Coalfields Limited(SECL) Mahanadi CoalfieldsLimited (MCL) North EasternCoalfields (NEC). PTI
MUMBAI:Stocks hit all the rightnotes after a long weekend andremained well above the baselinethroughout the day as the Sensexon Tuesday jumped 214 pointsahead of the outcome of the RBImonetary policy meet. The Niftytoo did not disappoint, whichagain settled above the crucial9,800-mark. Interest rate sensitiveauto stocks in particular turnedfavourites on robust sales data forSeptember amid expectations offavourable policy action from thecentral bank, analysts said.
The decision of the six-mem-ber monetary policy committee(MPC) is due Wednesday. Trueto their form, domestic institu-tional investors (DIIs) carried on
with buying, which saw the 30-share BSE barometer settle at31,497.38, up 213.66 points, or0.68 per cent. It had advanced123.91 points in the previous twosessions. A similar push helpedthe broader NSE Nifty takecontrol of the 9,800 level againbefore ending up 70.90 points, or0.72 per cent, at 9,859.50. Theflagship index moved between9,895.40 and 9,831.05. PTI
NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet islikely to approve setting up of the anti-profiteering authority under the Goodsand Services Tax (GST) regime onWednesday. Prime Minister NarendraModi-headed Cabinet may also approvecreation of the post of chairman and fourtechnical members of the authority onWednesday, officials said. To keep a tabon businesses that have not passed on toconsumers the benefit of lower tax ratesunder the GST regime, the GST Councilhad approved setting up of a 5-member
National Anti—Profiteering Authority.The authority will have a sunset date oftwo years from the date on which thechairman assumes charge. The chairmanand the four members of the authorityhave to be less than 62 years.
The chairman, who would be a sec-retary level officer, shall be paid a month-ly salary of �2.25 lakh plus other allowancesand benefits of similar ranking officers. Ifa retired officer is selected as chairman, hewill be paid a monthly salary of Rs 2.25 lakhreduced by the amount of pension. The
technical members will be paid a month-ly salary of over �2.05 lakh plus allowancesand benefits as applicable to an addition-al secretary rank officer. The officers whoare or have been commissioner of state taxor central tax or have held equivalent postunder the excise, Customs or VAT laws willbe eligible for appointment as technicalmembers in the authority.
The additional director general in theDirectorate General of Safeguards (DGS)will act as secretary to the anti-profiteer-ing authority. The chairman and members
of the authority will have a term of twoyears or until they attain the age of 65 years,whichever is earlier, and shall be eligiblefor reappointment. As per the structure ofthe anti-profiteering mechanism in theGST regime, complaints of local nature willbe first sent to the state-level 'screeningcommittee' while those of national level willbe marked for the ‘Standing Committee’.If the complaints have merit, the respec-tive committees would refer the cases forfurther investigation to the DirectorateGeneral of Safeguards (DGS). PTI
The Prime Minister NarendraModi laid the foundation stone
for the All India Institute ofMedical Sciences (AIIMS) atBilaspur in Himachal Pradesh onTuesday. This 750 bed hospitalalong with the Medical College willbe built at a cost of approximatelyRs 1350 crore. In addition tohealthcare, it will also providemedical education at the under-graduate and post-graduate level,besides nursing. The Governor ofHimachal Pradesh, AcharyaDevvrat, the Union Minister forHealth & Family Welfare, JPNadda, the Chief Minister ofHimachal Pradesh, VirbhadraSingh and other dignitaries are alsopresent during the event. GyaneshPandey, CMD of HSCC along with
CK Mishra, Secretary, Health,Govt of India briefed the PrimeMinister and the other dignitariesabout the project.
The establishment of new AllIndia Institute of Medical Sciencesat Bilaspur in Himachal Pradeshunder Pradhan Mantri Swasthya
Suraksha Yojana(PMSSY) aims atproviding affordable and reliabletertiary level healthcare in thecountry in general and to augmentfacilities for quality medical edu-cation in various states.
The institution would have ahospital with capacity of 750 beds
which will include Emergency/Trauma beds, AYUSH beds, andPrivate beds along with ICUSpeciality & Super Specialty beds.In addition there will beAdministrative and AYUSHblocks, Auditorium, Night Shelter,Hostels and residential facilities.
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NEW DELHI: Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Tuesdayinaugurated a steel processingunit of SAIL in Kandrori nearBilaspur, Himachal Pradeshwhere high-end special steelTMT bars will be produced, thestate-owned company said. In astatement released here, SteelAuthority of India Ltd (SAIL)said its steel processing unit(SPU) will produce TMT bars. Itwill also be able to produceearthquake-resistant and othergrades of TMT (thermo-mechanically treated) bars. PNS
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MUMBAI: The Monetary PolicyCommittee headed by RBI gov-ernor Urjit Patel started two-daydeliberations on Tuesday withindustry and the Governmenthoping for interest rate cut tospur growth which fell to 3-yearlow of 5.7 per cent in the Junequarter, while experts expectstatus quo.
The fourth bi-monthlymonetary policy statement for2017 -18, to be released tomor-row, is being keenly awaited byall stakeholders -- especially theindustry which has beendemanding for lower interestrates. Bankers however are of theview that the Reserve Bank ofIndia (RBI) would maintain sta-tus quo as inflation has risen.
According to a SBI report,the RBI is likely to maintain sta-tus quo on key lending rate intomorrow's policy review as it is‘stuck in a conundrum’ of lowgrowth, mild inflation and glob-al uncertainties. It said thatagainst the background of flex-ible inflation targeting, the obvi-ous question that arises is choos-ing between moving towards the
4 per cent inflation target swift-ly or just staying within the infla-tion band of plus/minus 2 percent.
“We expect the RBI to stayon hold at the upcoming meet-ing as rising incoming inflationand projections of further accel-eration in inflation ahead willmean that there would be limit-ed space for further easing,”Morgan Stanley said in theresearch note.
On the other hand, a topfinance ministry official saidlast week that there is scope foran RBI rate cut at the next poli-cy review as retail inflation con-tinues to be low. “There is scopefor monetary easing because ofinflation projections,” the officialhad said, adding that all theGovernment analysis is made onthe basis of inflation remainingunder 4 per cent in the mediumterm. Industry body Assochamhas written to the MPC to cut theinterest rates at least by 25 basispoints, given the challengesbeing faced by the economywhich needs immediate mea-sures for revival of growth. PTI
NEW DELHI: Telecom regula-tor Trai plans to strengthen itsMySpeed app, which measuresmobile data speeds, and will alsomake its evaluation methodmore transparent after consul-tation with operators, its chair-man RS Sharma said.
Some operators had com-plained about methods andresults of the Trai's MySpeed app,and the regulator will soon comeout with a white paper on under-lying methodology and algo-rithms used by the said app forcalculating data speeds of vari-ous service providers.
“We have also contactedOokla and others. We are tryingto understand what their meth-ods are ... We would like allstakeholders to sit together andcome to a conclusion over mostappropriate methodology,” theTrai chairman said. The regu-lator will also take suggestionsfrom operators on the issue, hesaid.
“We will sit together with theoperators and take their sugges-tions as what should be anagreed methodology so there areno such complaints,” Sharmasaid on the sideines of the Trai’sopen house discussion on ‘dataspeed under wireless broadbandplans’. After strengthening theservice quality norms for voice
calls, the Telecom RegulatoryAuthority of India (Trai) is nowfocusing its attention on bench-marks for data experience ofconsumers. Trai hopes to finalise,by month-end, views on para-meters for measuring dataspeeds for wireless broadband.
“There were large number ofquality of service (norms) forvoice (offerings) like call drops.Data has recently started becom-ing prominent, and voice is nowan application on top of data. Sothere is a need to have much bet-ter grip on the QoS in the dataworld,” he added. Sharma saidthat both Trai's views on the dataspeed issue and its white paperon MySpeed app will be out bythe month-end.
“Work on both the aspectswill happen simultaneously," hesaid. While operators had pre-viously stated that having a min-imum guaranteed data speedwould be difficult in the wirelessworld, Trai is looking at suitableparameters, say average speed,that could serve as a benchmark.
In its consultation paper onwireless broadband data speeds,Trai has also sought industry'sviews on whether informationon wireless broadband speedscurrently being disclosed isenough for consumers to makeinformed choices. PTI
UNITED NATIONS: Top Indianeconomist Arvind Panagariyahas told the United Nations thatthe world export market worthnearly $22 trillion is extremelylarge to have any adverse impactof protectionism. In a keynoteaddress yesterday to the SecondCommittee of the UN GeneralAssembly, Panagariya, 65, alsoplayed down the fears thatautomation would kill jobs.
Panagariya, who steppeddown as the NITI Ayog vice chair-man recently, is now back in the USas Professor of Economics andJagdish Bhagwati Professor ofIndian Political Economy atColumbia University. “My own per-sonal view on this (automation) isthat we often overstate, because wecan see what jobs automation wedestroy. But we cannot see what jobsautomation will actually create,” hesaid, arguing that never in the his-
tory technological advancement hasactually ended up cutting jobs. “Ithas made us all get busier and busierand where automation is the most,in industrialised countries, peopleare busier,” he said and added: "sohistorically, automation has neverbeen able to made people less busyor labour markets more slack.”
To a question on the issue ofrising protectionist threat,Panagariya said his own take isthat the global market is extreme-ly large. For instance, he said, themerchandise export market is $17trillion, and another $5-6 trillionis the services export market, thusa total $22 trillion worth of mar-ket is the global market. Whathappens tomorrow to the size ofthis market -- it becomes $22 tril-lion or 25 trillion of 20 trillion -- is much of less valance than whatindividual countries can do to geta larger share, he noted. PTI
The Trump Administration views Indiaas “a leading power and a true friend
whose influence internationally is impor-tant and growing”, Kenneth Juster, nom-inee of President Donald Trump to be thenext US Ambassador to India, said at aSenate hearing on Tuesday.
“A strong India and a strong US-Indiarelationship are in America’s interest,” Jus-ter said at the hearing for confirmation ofhis nomination, noting that the two nat-ions “share common values and a com-mitment to democracy, pluralism and therule of law”. Juster referred to the “excel-lent meeting” that President Trump andPrime Minister Narendra Modi had lastJune, adding the Trump Administrationwill seek to deepen the US-India part-nership for the benefit of the people ofboth countries.
“If confirmed, I look forward to work-ing with each of you to advance our strate-gic partnership with India — a relation-ship that is critical to promoting US nati-onal security and economic interests,” hesaid.
A former Under Secretary ofCommerce in the George W. BushAdministration and someone who hasplayed a key role in developing the NextStrategies in Strategic Partnership betweenthe two countries, Juster said the “remark-able evolution of US-India relations hastruly been a bipartisan undertaking andhas benefited from strong leadership andsupport in the Congress”.
As part of the efforts to expand andenhance the strategic partnership, Justerhighlighted deepening the bilateraldefence and security cooperation, build-ing on the US recognition of India as aMajor Defense Partner.
“Together, our countries seek toensure freedom of navigation, overflight,and commerce, and advance a rules-based, democratic order throughout theIndo-Pacific Region,” he said
Lauding the Modi Government forIndia’s recent push on economic reforms,he highlighted the “landmark Goods andServices Tax”, liberalization of foreigndirect investment in several sectors andthe ongoing work to improve the ease ofdoing business.
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US President Donald Trumpand Thai junta leader chief
Prayut Chan-O-Cha have reaf-firmed their shared commit-ment to maintaining peaceand stability in the disputedSouth China Sea amidst flexingof muscles by China.
Underlining the impor-tance of a peaceful and stableSouth China Sea, US PresidentDonald Trump and Thai juntaleader chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha have reaffirmed theirshared commitment to peace-ful resolution of the dispute.
The two leaders, who heldtalks at the White House, in ajoint statement, highlighted theimportance of a peaceful and sta-ble South China Sea, a vital wat-erway for global commerce, andfreedom of navigation and over-
flight. They reaffirmed theirshared commitment to peace-ful resolution of disputes,including full respect for legaland diplomatic processes, inaccordance with universallyrecognised principles of inter-national law and the 1982United Nations Convention onthe Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Welcoming the adoption ofthe framework of Code ofConduct in the South ChinaSea (COC), they called for anearly conclusion of the COC.
Trump and the Thai leaderalso concurred on the need fora cooperative approach to ensur-ing a peaceful, stable and sus-tainable South China Sea. Trumpand Prayut also expressed graveconcern about North Korea’sunprecedented number ofnuclear and ballistic missile testsover the last year.
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Nawaz Sharif was on Tuesdayre-elected as the president of
the ruling PML-N, allowing theousted PM to stage a politicalcomeback with “full force”.
Sharif soon after his re-election as the chief of thePakistan Muslim League-Nawaz(PML-N) demanded that thosewho disqualified him shouldrespect the people’s mandateand democracy. Sharif, 67, hadto step down as PML-N chiefafter he was disqualified as theprime minister by the SupremeCourt on July 28 in the PanamaPapers scandal. Addressing agathering of party members atthe Convention Centre here,Sharif said his supporters keptreelecting him to power despitehis ousters from the office.
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Several thousand protesters gathered on Tuesdayoutside the Barcelona headquarters of Spain’s
National Police to protest alleged brutality by policeduring a disputed referendum on Catalonia’s seces-sion that left hundreds of people injured.
The crowd gathered in the Catalan capital,shouting slogans calling Spanish police an “occu-pying force” and urging them to leave the north-eastern region. The protest came as several smalllabor unions and grassroots pro-independencegroups urged workers throughout Catalonia to goon partial or full-day strikes and as the region’s lead-ers ponder a possible declaration of independence,two days after the referendum that turned violentand that Madrid deemed illegal and invalid.
“People are angry, very angry,” said JosepLlavina, a 53 year old self-employed workerwho had traveled to Barcelona from a nearbytown to participate in the protest outside thepolice building.
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An honour bestowed onMyanmar leader Aung
San Suu Kyi by the city ofOxford has been withdrawn asa reaction to her perceivedinadequate response to theplight of Rohingya Muslims inthe country.
The ‘Freedom of Oxford’had been granted to the defacto leader of Myanmar in1997 for her “long struggle fordemocracy” by the OxfordCity Council.
A cross-party motion wasunanimously passed by thecouncil on Monday which saidit was “no longer appropriate”for her to hold the honour.
Oxford City Council leaderBob Price supported themotion to remove er honourand confirmed it was an“unprecedented step” for the
local authority.The city council will hold
a special meeting to confirmthat the honour is removed onNovember 27.
Suu Kyi, winner of theNobel Peace Prize, has closelinks to the city of Oxford,having lived in Park Townwith her family and earlierattended St Hugh’s Collegefrom 1964 until 1967.
The city council’s movecomes days after her almamater, St Hugh’s, removed herportrait from the main collegeentrance.
While the exact reasons for
the portrait’s removal wereattributed to a new replace-ment, there is a wider view thatthe allegations of ethnic cleans-ing of the Rohingya Muslimsfleeing their homes toBangladesh is likely to bebehind the move.
Nearly 500,000 peoplebelonging to Myanmar’sRohingya minority have beendisplaced after violence alleged-ly instigated by the country’smilitary, causing a majorhumanitarian crisis.
It was a veritable arsenal thatthe man behind the Las
Vegas massacre possessed — asmany as 42 firearms, with 23 ofthem in his 32nd floor hotelroom and 19 more with thou-sands of rounds of ammunitionand other explosives at hishome in a quiet retirementcommunity 125 km away in theNevada countryside.
The chilling facts aboutStephen Paddock, the killerwho turned out to be a wealthyman and a high-flying gambler,emerged on a day when themuch-loved “Sin City” of casi-nos and nightclubs mournedthe dead with candle light vig-ils and people lined up outsidehospitals for hours to donateblood for the injured.
At least 12 of the 104injured admitted to the city’spremier hospital and traumacentre — University MedicalCentre —remained in criticalcondition. The overall death
toll in the carnage as of earlyTuesday was put at 59 dead and527 injured, with many ofthem admitted to other cityhospitals.
The law enforcementauthorities were still clueless onthe motive behind the massacreas the killer did not appear tohave any criminal record untilSunday night. Quizzed on theissue, Sheriff Joseph Lombardosaid dismissively that he couldnot “get into the mind of a psy-chopath at this point”.
The shooter’s brother, EricPaddock, who appeared bewil-dered at the turn of events, toldmedia networks that StephenPaddock had no political orreligious leanings, but was arich man who made money inreal estate deals and someonewho spent much of his timegoing on cruises and playingvideo poker.
“We’re still just completelybefuddled. Dumbstruck,” EricPaddock said in Orlando,Florida, saying his brother “hadnothing to do with any political
organisation, religious organisa-tion, no white supremacist, no-thing, as far as I know. And I’veonly known him for 57 years.”
The Federal Bureau ofInvestigation, disputing theclaim of ISIS, also said thatthere was no evidence so farthat the shooter had ties to anyinternational terrorist organi-sation. “Right now, we believeit’s a sole actor, a lone-wolf type actor,” Sheriff Lombardotold reporters.
While Paddock himself didnot have a prior criminalrecord, reports say his latefather was a convicted bankrobber, who escaped fromprison in the 1960s and wasadded to the FBI’s list of “TenMost Wanted Fugitives” list. Hewas someone described as“psychopathic” with suicidaltendencies, according to theArizona Republic.
The twice-divorced
Paddock and his longtime girl-friend, Marilou Danley, hadlived together in at least threedifferent retirement commu-nities. Neighbours were quot-ed as saying that the couplewould leave the propertiesempty for long stretches asPaddock visited casinos.
Although Danley, current-ly away in Japan, was not being
sought as “a person of interest”in connection with the mas-sacre investigation, officialsindicated she will be questioned in respect ofPaddock’s activities.
The Vegas carnage and thearsenal that Paddock hadassembled once again revivedthe debate on America’s gunculture and the loose gun con-trol laws that the US Congressnever addresses in meaningfulfashion because of the sharppolitical divide on the issue.
Democrats have all alongattacked the Republicans forthwarting the effort to beef upgun control laws.
-�����!����������������??Los Angeles:Veteran rockerTom Petty haspassed awayafter suffering acardiac arrest.He was 66. Petty’s longtimemanager confirmed the singer’sdeath and said that the the Rockand Roll Hall of Famer took hislast breath at his home in Malibu,reported People magazine.
“On behalf of the TomPetty family we are devastat-ed to announce the untimelydeath of our father, husband,brother, leader, and friendTom Petty.
“He suffered cardiac arrest athis home in Malibu in the earlyhours of this morning and wastaken to UCLA Medical Centerbut could not be revived. He diedpeacefully at 8:40 pm surround-ed by family, his bandmates, andfriends,” the singer’s managersaid in a statement.
The news of Petty’s deathcapped a whirlwind day after hishospitalisation following car-diac arrest. PTI
Innovation recently brought togeth-er the local start-up community withits students to discuss and deliberateon innovation challenges and collab-orate with the GIM faculty andexperts. Their event titled ‘inDialogue’offered a platform to the start-up com-munity to connect, share their workand explore avenues for collaborationand mentorship. The day-long sum-mit saw entrepreneurs who havetransformed innovative ideas intostart-up ventures and academicianscome together and acknowledged
the importance of a co-evolutionaryapproach of academicians and de-novo firms in today’s times.
The ‘inDialogue’ start-ups eventidentified the issues that start-ups arecurrently facing and areas in whichacademic and expert inputs would becritical contributors to further growth.Speaking about the learnings gainedat ‘inDialogue’ Abhay Bhamaikar,CEO, Vibrant Skills Sets Solutionssaid: “The professors addressed var-ious issues that start-ups face, theappropriate solutions to overcomethese problems and the manner inwhich we can analyse and improve theproductivity of the company.”
The JP International School isbeing ranked as top three schoolsof Greater Noida by the Times
School Survey 2017 on various para-meters like infrastructure and facilities,sports facilities, cultural and extracur-ricular activities, medical facilities, fac-ulty, the potential to network, exchangeprogrammes and global exposure,awards etc. Standing high and mightyin the league of India’s top 300 schools,JP International School, Greater Noidaranked amongst the top five co-ed des-tinations in this region in a survey con-ducted by Education World Indiaschool rankings for the ongoing acad-emic year.
The JP International School hassecured top position in Greater Noidaalong with DPS, Samsara, Somerville on
parameters of academic reputation,community service, competence of fac-ulty, individual attention to students,leadership and management quality, lifeskills education and conflict manage-ment, co-curricular education, inter-nationalism, parental involvement,teachers’ welfare and development andvalue for money.
A total of 12,367 parents, teachers,principals, educationists and seniorstudents in 27 cities countrywide wereinterviewed over a period of fourmonths by 127 field researchers of thewell-reputed market research, and opin-ion polls company Centre for
Forecasting and Research Pvt Ltd (CFORE), Delhi to rate and rank 1,000 ofthe country’s most well-known schoolsagainst 14 parameters of educationexcellence.
Roshan Agarwal, Chairman of JPInternational School said that “I wouldlike to dedicate this recognition to allthe faculty, staff, parents and childrenof JPIS and it’s an important milestonein our journey”.
Heema Sharma, the Principal ofJPIS has also expressed her happinessover the ranking and thanked team andmanagement for their wonderful sup-port and dedication.
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The Young India Fellowship(YIF), a one-year post-
graduate programme in LiberalStudies at Ashoka University,announced the first call forapplications for the eighth batch.This has become one of themost sought-after programmesin India, fostering academic,social and business leaders of tomorrow througha multidisciplinary liberal education.
The admission process is split into two rounds.The first round of admissions has begun fromAugust 25 and will close on December 17, 2017.The second round of admissions will begin onDecember 18 and end on March 4, 2017. Theselection process for the Young India Fellowshipincludes an application assessment, interview onthe telephone, a comprehension test and a per-sonal interview.
Selection process: Candidates who arescreened through application assessment, will beinterviewed over the telephone about the infor-mation furnished on their application. The laststage would include a comprehension test followedby a personal interview. Final selection will bebased on the cumulative score of all the threerounds. The final offers to selected candidates forthe first round will be from February 1 to March25, 2018 and the second round will be from March26 to June 15, 2018. The Programme begins onJuly 16, 2018.
The programme is delivered in collaborationwith University of Pennsylvania’s School ofEngineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS),Carleton College, University of California Berkeley,University of Michigan, King’s College London,Trinity College Dublin, Sciences Po Paris, Yale
University and WellesleyCollege. YIF offers full andpartial scholarships to suc-cessful applicants and thereis no fee for applying to the
programme.Eligibility: The YIF pro-
gramme is open to thosewith a recognised under-graduate or postgraduatedegree and who are no morethan 28 years of age on May
31, 2018. Interested applicants can apply onwww.youngindiafellowship.com.
�����2��-��������������The University of Sheffield, UK, is inviting
applications for MSc Advanced Control andSystems Engineering (with IndustrialManagement) course starting in September 2018.This course is an exciting mix of theory, practiceand research, with the added benefit of learninga range of industrial management techniques toallow students to put their knowledge and expe-rience into practice. The core modules provide stu-dents with the range of skills a control and sys-tems engineer needs, and students will learn aboutfundamental and advanced concepts of model-ling, simulation, control, optimisation and systemsengineering. Students will also learn a range ofmanagement techniques, including project man-agement, risk management, professional skills andeffective management of innovative development.Students will be assessed on examinations,coursework assignments & project dissertation.
Eligibility: First or upper second class hon-ours degree (or international equivalent). OverallIELTS grade of 6.5 with a minimum of 6.0 in eachcomponent, or equivalent.
Fee: £21,450 for the 2018/2019. For furtherinformation contact [email protected].
/@���!����6After the success of Festival of
Education, a two-day festi-val by Government of Rajasthanalong with GEMS Educationthat had national as well as inter-national speakers and guests giv-ing insight into education sec-tor and future of education, theUniversity of Southampton hassigned the Memorandum ofUnderstanding (MoU) withDepartment of HigherEducation, Government ofRajasthan. As the facilitatingpartner, GEMS Education initi-ated this partnership focused ontraining and leadership pro-gramme and a new collabora-tion between the Governmentand university.
The MoU was signed byKiran Maheshwari, Minister ofHigher Education, Governmentof Rajasthan and Professor ColinGrant, University ofSouthampton in the presence ofGuest of Honour, The LordKamlesh Kumar Patel ofBradford and dignitaries includ-ing Professor Vicky Vass, MD,Stapleton International and DrBharat Thakur, founder andCEO, Artist Yoga among others.Speaking about the MoU,Amreesh Chandra, group pres-ident, GEMS Education, Indiasaid: “This is a very prestigious
moment that the University ofSouthampton is signing anagreement of partnership withthe Department of HigherEducation, Government ofRajasthan. It is a great honourthat GEMS Education has beenable to facilitate such largeknowledge partners to cometogether and sign this MoU”.
The University ofSouthampton is a publicresearch university located inSouthampton, England and isa research-led founding mem-ber of the prestigious RussellGroup. The latest MoU showsthe impact of Festival ofEducation across the worldand portrays Government of
Rajasthan’s vision for the bet-terment of education and soci-ety as a whole.
Speaking about the occa-sion The Lord Kamlesh KumarPatel of Bradford said: “This isthe first time in many years thatI have met a state Governmentwho is so proactive towardschildren, people and want tomove forward to create a brightfuture. University ofSouthampton’s higher acade-mics wants to use their high-level research to make animpact on people’s lives. ThisMoU comes as a perfect col-laboration between a universi-ty of this stature and a govern-ment who wants to see action.”
#����&�����������The Nippon Paint, India,
calls registrations for AsiaYoung Designer Award
(AYDA) contest in India. Thecontest aims to identify talentamong students of Architectureand Interior Design across 15countries in Asia includingIndia. The theme for this year’scontest is “You for Tomorrow”.The theme aims to challenge theforesight and technical ability oftoday’s designers to create adesign concept that is relevant,meaningful and meets the needsof tomorrow’s dwellers and soci-eties.
The contest is open to allfourth and fifth-year students ofArchitect and Interior designinstitutions across the country.A maximum of one project canbe submitted per student are
allowed. The final date for reg-istration and sending in yourentry is November 26, 2017.
The shortlisted nationalwinner from the 15 countrieswill compete for the AYDA2017 Platinum Award and USD$1,000 cash prize at the MalaysiaLearning Programme and Tripin 2018. Students interested inparticipating can register on:www.nipponpaint-ayda.co.in.The entries will be judged by ajury including – Ravi Sarangan,director of Edifice, Mumbai;Sharukh Mistry, founder ofMistry Architects, Bengaluru;Abin Chaudhuri, founder ofAbin Design Studio, Kolkata;CN Raghavendran, MD ofCRN, Chennai, & AnkurChoksi, founding principal ofStudio Lotus, New Delhi.
The first thing parents often ask us when theywant to explore options for higher studiesabroad is: “How much will it cost?” Last year,
State Bank of India (SBI) announced that the ceil-ing limit for its foreign educational loans wouldbe raised from �30 lakh to �1.5 crore. Parents look-ing for financing options welcomed the scheme,which took a load off their heads.
According to statistics, about45 per cent ofinternational students in US alone comprise ofChinese or Indian students. While SBI is the oldstalwart, other reputed banks such as HDFC, andfinancial loan companies have equally viable andattractive financing schemes. Here’s a quick lookat the financial loan options other than SBI:�The Indian Government has installed the por-tal ‘Vidya Lakshmi’ that allows students to checkout various loan options and fund providers.Loans are provided in four slabs — Below �4 lakhs,between �4 lakhs and �7.5 lakhs; and above �7.5lakhs with differing interest rates for each slab. �Credila, an HDFC Ltd. Company, India’s firstdedicated educational loan company, offers loanapprovals before you secure admission. You canget loans up to �2.5 crores.�Prodigy Finance offers competitive loans whichdoes not need a co-signer or collateral. Studentscan start repaying six months after graduation, andthere are no penalties for early repayment. Youcan also avail of their $10,000 scholarships, whichis being given away this year to mark their decadeof business.�GyanDhan, India’s first educational loans mar-ketplace, offers 100 per cent financing for top B-Schools and engineering schools. They offer loanswith collateral starting as low as 9.1 per cent.
�Avanse Educational Loan covers100 per cent of study abroadexpenses on a floating interest of12 per cent to 17 per cent. �Nationalised banks are offeringa comparatively lower rate ofinterest between 9 per cent to 13per cent on an average.
Students are advised to stayupdated with the latest on fund-ing options. Many of these fund-ing options keep changing overtime to time. Make sure to do yourdue diligence in researching theauthenticity and reliability of theinformation as well as the fund.
��� ��������������Education abroad varies for
different universities, countries,and the chosen course. Forinstance, an UG education abroadcan cost between $30,000 and$60,000 per year, whereas an MBAor PG can set you back by $40,000to $60,000. With the upper cap onloan limits raised, applicants nowhave an additional avenue to fundtheir education. They can nowfully fund their education with theloan, if required, instead of intovarious resources.
Many students make the mis-take of taking financial loans forgranted. In the fine print, you willfind the conditions and clauses that
may later come to bite, if you are not vig-ilant. Before signing up for an education-al loan, keep these seven points in mind:
Consider the option of an overseas edu-cational loan: You can avail of education-al loans at both public as well as and pri-vate banks and organisations. Approachyour local bank for details. Most banks offerattractive EMI options too. Apply for onethat offers comprehensive coverage ofstudy abroad costs. These loans will gen-erally require collateral like property orassets or a co-signor.
Compare loan options to narrow downyour choice: Don’t be penny-wise, poundfoolish. It is important to understand all thefeatures of different loans, and how it willimpact your studies abroad. So be discreetin your selection. Make a comparativeanalysis to understand whether your needsare met in the loan profile or not, and don’tforget to read the fine print.
Find out the eligibility criteria for loans:Before signing on for a loan, learn aboutthe essential grounds on which it will besanctioned. The pre-requisites might varyacross organisations; however, the basic cri-teria are:
�You are eligible to apply for educa-tional loan if you are between 18-35 yearsold
�An Indian national and�Secured a confirmed place in a pres-
tigious institution abroad.Stay updated about the lat-
est entries as well as the statusof your chosen programme in
the list of the eligible courses.
Evaluate your security or collater-al options: Each organisation will have
a policy of a security or collateral againstthe loan they would be sanctioning. The
nature of the collateralvaries acrossp r ov i d e r s
ranging fromLIC policy to immovable
assets etc. It also dependson the amount that you are borrowing.
For instance, if you are applying for below �4 lakhs,you do not need to pay a security deposit.Furthermore, many leading organisations name-ly SBI, HSBC etc have exceeded the loan limit tobe collateral free.
Don’t forget that you can also apply for finan-cial aid: Loans are not the only way to finance yourchild’s education. You can apply for financial aidtoo. Universities offer two types of aid— need-based, and merit-based.
�Merit-based scholarships are granted on thebasis of special skills, talents, or abilities. Your uni-versity may have merit based scholarships basedon academic record, artistic, musical, or athleticabilities. Merit-based scholarships are usually verycompetitive.
�Need-based scholarships are awarded basedon financial need. You will be required todemonstrate need at a predetermined level to beeligible.
You can fund your education through work-study: Universities abroad may allow you to workon campus and opportunities include tutoring,research assistant, a desk job in the library oradministrative office. For example, in the US,international students are generally only allowedto work a maximum of 10-20 hours a week dur-ing term time. Though this option really providesvery minimal support, it can help supplement yourliving expenses and reduce the loan amount.
Repayment of Loans: Don’t miss out on the fineraspects of loan repayment. Make sure that you arecompletely aware of the loan repayment sched-ule and the options available to you. Also, find outhow the loan repayment will affect you ifexchange rates change, or you choose to either pre-pay or delay your loan installment. Do a thoroughresearch and make a detailed plan on how to repayyour loan. This will also have to be done keep-ing in mind the job prospects at the time of appli-cation.
If you plan your finances well, your educa-tion will not seem like a burden. Play cautious andavoid redundant expenses by being minimalistic,and practical, and you will never feel the burdenof finances while studying abroad.
*�������������������The Rubique, India’s leading fintech company, is leveraging its
expertise to co-certify courses in fintech at SP Jain School ofGlobal Management. The two category leaders will collaborate andco-operate in an assortment of areas such as content, mentoringand research to enable the B-school students to widen their hori-zons and be fully ready to capture the possibilities of the fintechspace. The course content, mutually developed by Rubique and thefaculty members of SPJGlobal will involve practical knowledge thatwill help the students in inculcating an understanding of financialservices, fintech business models and the application of technol-ogy in the financial services domain. Apart from the aforementionedareas of collaboration, Rubique may also participate in SPJGlobalonline campus placement programme. Rubique envisions thisopportunity as a chance to enrich the traditional academic learn-ing landscape as well, with industrial insights and global innova-tions in the fintech domain.
The Minister of State for Skill Development and EntrepreneurshipAnantkumar Hegde, recently inaugurated the fourth Pradhan
Mantri Kaushal Kendra (PMKK) at Kirari in North-West Delhi.IACM Smart Learn Ltd., a Delhi-based training company, will beoperating the training partner under Skill India. Udit Raj,Member of Parliament, North-West, Delhi, was also present dur-ing the event. Speaking on the occasion, Hegde said: “In our questto fulfill the Prime Minister’s vision of a Skilled India, Ministry ofSkill Development and Entrepreneurship is committed to estab-lishing state-of-the-art Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras (PMKKs)in every district of India, ensuring coverage across regions and easyaccess to youth for skill trainings. Delhi being a hub for industries,the centres here will cater to the heavy skill training requirementthat the market demands.”
“As on September 25, 2017, 545 PMKKs have been allocatedto 34 Training Providers (TPs) covering 503 districts (416Parliamentary Constituencies) in 26 States of India,” he furtheradded. The newly launched PMKK has the target to impart train-ing to 2260 candidates in FY 2018 in the following eight job roles— beauty, plumbing, retail, construction, electronics, furniture fit-tings, domestic workers and security. Including this center, nowDelhi has four Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras at Okhla,Najafgarh, Mandir Marg and Rohini. The PMKK programme pro-vides financial support in form of a soft loan up to 70 lakhs to cre-ate training infrastructure and supports delivery of training underthe Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PMKVY).
The Obama Foundation isoffering Obama FellowshipProgram to support outstand-ing people from around theworld to inspire civic innova-tion.
Eligibility: Applicants mustbe 18 or older. Individuals whoare working to solve importantpublic problems in creative andpowerful ways. People workingfrom all angles and with differ-ent perspectives to strengthentheir communities and civiclife. Successful applicants havealready demonstrated mean-ingful impact in their commu-nities, gaining recognitionamong their peers for theircontributions. A strong moralcharacter is essential for thestrength of this community, theintegrity of the programme,and the longevity. Fellows fromall over the world are eligible toapply. Entrance Requirement:Applicants musts have previousdegree. English LanguageRequirement: Fellows must befluent in spoken and writtenEnglish as all programmingwill be conducted in English.
How to apply: The mode ofapplying is online.
Application deadline: Theapplication deadline is October6, 2017.
Macquarie University ispleased to offer scholarships forinternational students in 2018academic year.
Eligibility: Havemet the University’s academ-
ic and English requirements forthe course to be considered fora scholarship. Have achieved aminimum GPA of 5.0 out of 7.0for PG applications and mini-mum requirement of an ATARequivalent of 90 out of 100 forUGs. Have applied for a pro-gramme that is longer than onesession. Commence study insession and year indicated in thescholarship offer letter. Haveapplied for a course which hasa full-time study load.International students otherthan Australian or New Zealandstudents can apply.
Entrance Requirement:Applicants must have achieveda minimum GPA of 3.0 out of4.0 for Postgraduate applicationsand minimum requirement ofan ATAR equivalent of 90 out of100 for undergraduate applica-tions. English LanguageRequirements: Meeting stan-dard English language require-ments (ie equal to IELTS 6.5)
How to apply: Applicantsmust complete an online courseapplication form. Applicantsmust complete an online schol-arship application form andtype Vice-Chancellor’sInternational Scholarship in theScholarship Name field.
Once you have completedthe online scholarship applica-tion form, a confirmation emailwill be sent to you at your nom-inated email address.Incomplete applications willnot be considered.
Application deadline:Application deadline is January31, 2018.
The devastating stats that discuss howpoorly our graduates fare in terms
of job readiness exhibit the ever widen-ing cracks in our education system. Lackof experiential learning, skill basededucation, flexibility in curriculum andmany other factors were more or lessbound to cause this epidemic; we havebeen witnessing in terms of graduateshaving real skills. The most disappoint-ing part is that the old system isengrained in our minds as well the edu-cation ecosystem so that changing thewhole seems to be a Herculean task tosay the least.
While it’s easy to complain andblame the system for the lack of job skillswe are seeing among the young ones inour society, the harder part is to under-stand the macro trends that are causingand well define these problems and solu-tions that might be suited for thoseproblems.
To add to the misery is the chang-ing nature of work and job roles.Recent job cuts in the IT sector provethat not only do we need to be skilledenough at the beginning of our careerbut we need to keep learning new thingsand build expertise even as we move fur-ther on our career path. There are somemajor flaws because of which our edu-cation system is struggling today.
The same content, same curriculumapplied to all philosophy. What studentswant to learn is dynamism and so thatmust be taught to them. This opens upspace for personalisation and comput-erised systems that are adaptive innature. Personalisation is not new, evenin our old systems when children usedto be sent to a guru would personalisehis teachings based on the child’s inter-est and capabilities.
However personalising everythingfor each individual might seem like animpossible task but that is whereadvancements in the field of big data andartificial intelligence can be utilised.From understanding macro trends likewhere engagement drops off regardinga particular course or subject among stu-dents to devising a personalised curricu-lum for each student, AI has certainlyadvanced enough to do that. Althoughagain, just like most of the ideas, the exe-cution though looks desirable, wouldrequire a lot of hard-core efforts.
One thing that can be executed eas-ily and is indeed the need of the houris skill based education and experien-
tial learning. The government has def-initely taken some important steps likethe Skill India initiative in the rightdirection and is continuing to do so, butthe situation currently is so grave thatthe execution needs to pull up the socks.There are many recruiters in the recentdays, and their lament is exactly whathas been represented in stats as well -we have an enormous amount of grad-uates, but lack of actual talent.
There is not lack of talent. The prob-lem is that the talent is either not appre-ciated enough or not streamlined andchannelised. To continually stay relevantand successful in an industry, oneneeds to continuously learn especiallythrough self-initiated efforts. One canonly self-initiate such efforts when oneis intrinsically motivated.
The solution for all this needsimplementation on the grassroots level,experiential learning. Learning by doingthings in a hands on manner as thisshould be the default method of peda-gogy rather than an add-on because it’snot about just creating a skilled work-force but rather creating a mindsetamong the young ones that enablesthem to adapt, understand how theworld around them actually works andimplement what they learn in real lifelike a savant. Having said that, thiswould require changes in the coursematerial as well which needs to be morebased on practical. If students won’t feeland experience in practical what theylearn then how can we expect them toimplement those things in their real life.
Even in terms of content, there ishigh hope from the field of augmentedreality and virtual reality. Simulations ofreal world experiences in VR, engagingexhibition of the pictures in booksthrough AR, the present advancementsin technology is going to provide end-less opportunities. What we need is toidentify the problems, acknowledgethe faults in our system and at least startthe execution bit.
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QUERY: My name is KhushiRajpoot. I am a Commerce grad-uate but not getting right job. Mydate of birth is April 5, 1995,What should I do and what is thebest option for me according tomy planets in astrology?
BHATT: Governed by the Fireelement, you are a passionate girland a fearless warrior. You are anatural leader and have a charis-matic, energetic, and dynamicpersonality. The positive aspect ofyour personal trait is, you try to doyour best to get what you want, buton the negative side, you frown andsulk if you are ignored or thingsdon't turn out as per your expec-tations.
You are not a person who cansit still when there is something todo. You also have an artistic bentas per your planetary conditionhence you can do well in any cre-ative field. Sometimes you havesome trouble in making up mindabout what kind of work youshould do because at times you areinterested in so many things andcan handle them all reasonablywell.
Your job or career must bechallenging because you are high-ly competitive, daring, assertiveand independent, you must haveaction or you'll get restless, impa-tient and dissatisfied. Hence fol-lowing career options are bestsuited for you.
Adventure Sport: You have amarvellous sense of adventureand can be extremely playful. Youbelieve in looking forward to newchallenges and novel situation,and is up at the crack of dawn eachday, raring to go.
In any sport, adventure sportyou can make a mark in the soci-ety. If you do job related to this
field, you can dovery well.
Fitness/PersonalTrainer: Anything having to dowith competition or physicality isright up your alley. You can be agood renowned fitness and person-al trainer.
Banker/Finance Officer:Ruled by the planet Venus, you cando very well as bankers, capitalists,financiers and moneylenders.
Income Tax Inspector/Officer:Strong condition of Mars in youkundali showing signs of getting into Income Tax . Hence would rec-ommend you to apply for AllIndia Level competitive exameither online or offline for IncomeTax Department
PR/Marketing: With yourkind of creativity, you can also takeup assignments in advertising, PRor marketing communicationbecause other combinations arealso supportive. There is also a tal-ent for promotion and sales with-in Sagittarius.
Event Manager: You are ableto conceive of special events andprograms and then take the stepsto pull everything together andmake it work. You can be a won-derful facilitators and are able tomultitask easily.
Manager: The aggressive Marsin your planetary also open doorsfor you to be strong, fierce, ruth-less albeit conscientious leaders.Mars makes you uncomfortable insubordinate roles, and even ifthere, they like to take projectshead-on, often leaving a blazingtrail for their colleagues to follow.
Entrepreneurship is all aboutexploiting an opportunityregardless of the resources
currently available,” says HowardStevenson, Professor of BusinessAdministration at the HarvardBusiness School.
The concept of franchisinghas caused much commotion inthe business world, as it offers anabundance of business opportuni-ties to the young, budding entre-preneurs to realise their dreamsand climb the ladder of success.Franchising is being in business foryourself, but not by yourself.Joining a franchise is a provenroute to success as this way theentrepreneurs can work on anestablished method of doing thebusiness, which is both stress-freeand tested over a period of time.
The aspiring franchise ownersare never left entirely on their own,to face the fierce competition andother harsh challenges of the indus-try by the franchisee, but, at thesame time, they can enjoy the free-dom of taking the final decisionsfor their franchise and thus, fulfilltheir desire of being their own boss.
The concept of franchising isbeneficial for all, but it especiallyattracts the people who haveabsolutely no prior experience ofrunning a business. By presentinga proven business model, coupledwith hands-on training, the art offranchising is capable of com-
franchising surely becomes hisown boss as he need not wastetime, money and efforts to createsomething that already exists andis already a success. The concept offranchising makes sense for anentrepreneur as it ultimately resultsin greater success opportunitiesthan if the entrepreneur was tooperate independently.
���� �2������ �)�������One the entrepreneur has joined
a franchising brand, he gets legallyentitled to exploit the franchisor’sproven, verified and well-researched,ready-made model of business andcode of conduct. Therefore, theentrepreneur can easily garner all thevarious benefits of a proven trackrecord of the franchisor.
������One of the several key advan-
tages of a franchising businessmodel that really draw the atten-
tion of a wannabe entrepreneur isthat it has a reduced risk factorinvolved. It is rather logical obvi-ous that, compared to launchingonce own individual venture, therisk of failure is lower in a franchis-ing setup. The reason is that whenan entrepreneur buys a franchise,he/she has a clear knowledge ofwhat works with the potentialcustomers (and what doesn’t).
��������When an entrepreneur takes
the decision to join a well-estab-lished franchise, the challengeposed by financial constraints isone thing that he needs not worryabout. In fact, the franchisor canmake the arrangements with thebanks and other financial institu-tions to lend money to the newfranchisee. However, the responsi-bility for the repayment of the loanamount shall be borne by thefranchisee only.
�����������The foremost profit that an
entrepreneur can reap from fran-chising is that it requires much
lower investment than comparedto the option of setting up one’sown business. The most importantsavings and thus reduction incosts are made from the set admin-istration patterns and already well-promoted franchise brand. Unionwith a recognised brand nameensures guaranteed revenue earn-ings and returns on investmentsand ultimately ensures faster cashflow for the entrepreneur.
����������The moment one enters a
franchisee system, all the supportand guidance from the mentor vizthe franchisor as well as from thepeers viz other franchisees is madeavailable for the new franchiseowner. This not only trains him inoperating the franchise successful-ly but also makes him competentas an entrepreneur.
�����������������-When a person associates with
a franchise as a new partner, thefranchisor makes sure of providinga predetermined territorial regionto the franchisee. This relieves theentrepreneur from not having tocompete with another franchiselocation of the parent company andgives him more than a fair chanceof reaping success in that area.
Brad Hogg will be 47 come Februarybut the Australian Chinamanbowler says the thought of
announcing retirement from interna-tional cricket has not yet crossed hismind.
While he is "not done yet", Hoggremains realistic about his chances ofmaking another comeback for Australia.
He is currently commentating in thelimited-overs series between India andAustralia and if it was not for a surgeryon his left knee, he may well have beenpreparing back home to make anotherFirst-Class comeback for WesternAustralia.
"I am not worried about my agemate. I am still trying to play First-Classcricket for Western Australia. I don'tthink I will ever announce my retirementfrom international cricket because it isa privilege to play for your country andif I am doing well enough I would neversay no," Hogg tells.
The boom in T20 cricket has pusheda host of cricketers to stretch theircareers. Hogg is a prime example of thatalongside India's "ageless" Ashish Nehra,who, at 38, has earned a recall to theIndian team for the three T20s againstAustralia beginning October 7.
Hogg was 44 when he last played forAustralia in 2014 and still thinks he isgood enough to bowl at the highest level.He also remains a regular at the Big BashLeague and even played the IPL asrecently as last year.
"If I get the opportunity to play again(for Australia), I would take it. Becauseonce you are long time retired (it is dif-ficult to comeback). If it stops now, itstops now, I know I won't get to playagain.
"I am fortunate that at my age I amstill wanted. Whether it happens or not,it is another matter but yeah I am notdone yet," he says.
Hogg says the constant curiosity overhis age doesn't bother him and he isfocused on getting back to full fitness,having undergone a knee surgery threemonths ago.
"While I am doing that (recovering),I am using the time to do commentary.I feel at a very fortunate place to be hon-est and thoroughly enjoying it. The
recovery is taking longer than expectedbut I should be back on the ground soon"
Is it tough to maintain fitness as onegrows older? "Not at all," says Hogg.
"If you look after yourself, it is notan issue. But as sportsmen, a lot of ushave wear and tear. Sometimes it hap-pens early in your career, sometimes ithappens late. I am very lucky that it islate in my career.
"In fact I would not call it (injury lay-off) a difficult period. I have beenextremely lucky to play the game. I am
grateful for that. You rather think aboutthe things you have."
While commentating, he has alsofound time to help fellow ChinamanKuldeep Yadav, who calls the Australianhis mentor with both having spent a lotof time together at the Kolkata KnightRiders in the IPL.
Yadav has been making rapid stridesin international cricket ever since mak-ing his Test debut against Australia inMarch, and Hogg is not at all surprised.
"Everyone's career graph is different.We all go through different phases andhe has got a great foundation. Now hehas just to make sure he keeps his headon his shoulders, don't think too farahead and keep working on his game.
"He has just got to make sure he isreliable when the captain calls him tobowl. The best cricketers in the world areconsistent and reliable, they do thejob," feels Hogg adding Yadav's accura-cy remains one of his biggest strengths.
"You rather first work on yourstrengths than focus on your weakness-es. That is what I all good bowlers do,"he adds.
�����������������Former India opener Virender
Sehwag today said that Australian play-ers are more concerned about bagginglucrative IPL deals during next year'sauction which prevented them fromsledging their Indian counterparts dur-ing the recently concluded series thathosts won 4-1.
"They (Australian players) are scaredbecause of the next year's mega IPL auc-tions. If they had sledged the Indian play-ers in the ODI series, then the Indianfranchise owners might think beforebidding high for the Australian players.This can also be a reason for them notto get involved in sledging with theirIndian counterparts," Sehwag told IndiaTV.
Sehwag also observed that Australianteam is overtly dependant on Steve Smithand David Warner, which has also putthem under pressure.
"I think the Australian team wasplaying under pressure because theydon't have all the great players now. Theirteam was dependent on two or threeplayers - David Warner, Steve Smith andAaron Finch," he said.
����� 7;2�.
India have remained static atNo 4 position but gained
three significant points to reach116 in the ICC Women's TeamRankings for the first time fol-lowing the annual rankingsupdate.
The Indian women's team,which had reached the final ofthe ICC Women's World Cup inJuly, has closed in the gap withthird-placed New Zealand.
New Zealand maintainedtheir third position with theirpre-update tally of 118 points.
India captain Mithali Rajsaid her team is aiming to climbup to No 3 position.
"Gaining these valuablepoints is no mean achievementand have come after some fineperformances over the past year,including at the World Cup. I'msure this will inspire our team inmatches ahead," said Mithali.
"We are now close to New
Zealand in the rankings and willaim to be number three," sheadded.
The table is headed byEngland, who have dethronedAustralia from the top position.
England are now level withAustralia on 128 points butahead on decimal points afterthe annual update, followingwhich results from the 2013-14season are no longer included.
The rankings now take intoaccount 2014-15 and 2015-16seasons at 50 per cent each whilethe 2016-17 season accounts for100 per cent.
England and Australia arethe only sides to see a change inthe rankings.
The Windies are in fifthposition but have lost fourpoints to be at 101, South Africaat sixth are on 93 points,Pakistan have lost one point andare on 72 while Sri Lanka too areunchanged in points to be ateighth position.
���� 23.:.48
Rafael Nadal needed to savetwo match points before
advancing to the second roundat the China Open.
The top-ranked Spaniard,playing for the first time sincewinning the US Open title lastmonth, rallied to beat LucasPouille 4-6, 7-6 (6), 7-5Tuesday.
Pouille held two matchpoints while leading 6-4 in thesecond-set tiebreaker. ButNadal reeled off four straightpoints to take the set and turnthe match around.
"Was a very tough firstround, as I say the other day,"said Nadal, who lost to Pouillein five sets at the 2016 US.Open. "He played well, I think.Very aggressive. He's servingwell. For me was little bit dif-ficult at the beginning. Then Istarted to play better, I think.
"But still, I didn't have thecontrol of the match for almostall the time."
In the final set, Nadalbroke Pouille's serve to take a6-5 lead and then served outthe match.
Nadal is 57-9 this seasonand leads the tour with fiveATP singles titles, includingthe French Open. He won theChina Open title as a teenag-er in 2005 and has a 21-5record in Beijing. He nextplays Thursday against Karen
Khachanov, who beat Chinesewild-card entry Wu Di.
Earlier, Juan Martin delPotro advanced by beatingPablo Cuevas 7-6 (4), 6-4.
"It was enough to win. Iplay good in importantmoments of the match, that'sthe tiebreaks and the last gameof the second set," said the2009 US Open champion, whoreturned to professional tennislast year after wrist surgery.
Third-seeded GrigorDimitrov, sixth-seeded JohnIsner, eighth-seeded NickKyrgios and Leonardo Mayeralso advanced.
In the women's tourna-ment, Maria Sharapova ralliedto defeat Ekaterina Makarova
6-4, 4-6, 6-1."She definitely picked it up
in the second. But I felt likealthough she won that secondset, I was really motivated tostart the third," Sharapovasaid. "I was questioning how Iwould feel physically, but I feltreally good going into thethird set."
The former top-rankedRussian will next face second-seeded Simona Halep onWednesday.
"We know each other'sgames very well. That's nosecret. They've always beenvery challenging, tough, com-petitive, emotional," Sharapovasaid. "Any time you're able toface an opponent that's done
something and well, it's greatto see where you are and whereyour level is."
Halep advanced afterMagdalena Rybarikova retiredfrom their match while trailing6-1, 2-1.
Other winners includeKarolina Pliskova, ElenaVesnina, Petra Kvitova, DariaGavrilova, Sorana Cirstea,Darla Kasatkina and BarboraStrycova.
�����)��������-����-��After returning to theATP Tour in style by beatingViktor Troicki 6-3, 6-4 at theJapan Open on Tuesday,Milos Raonic called for areview of the tennis circuit.
It was Raonic's first matchfollowing a seven-weekabsence after left-wrist surgery.The big-serving Canadian haswithdrawn from five eventsthis year, and concededwalkovers at two others.
"It's been very frustrat-ing," said Raonic, who startedthe year at No 3 and hasslipped to No 12 in the rank-ings. "I've had more than adozen different injuries andreasons that have kept meaway from tournaments. Thathasn't been fun because Ihaven't been able to focus ontennis, I've been focusing on'Can I play today or can't I?'rather than, 'What do I need todo with my tennis game?'"
����� )-344�.
Ignored for India's Twenty20series against Australia, off-
spinner Ravichandran Ashwinwas on Tuesday named in the15-member Tamil Nadu Ranjisquad along with Test openerMurali Vijay for the season-opener against AndhraPradesh, starting Friday.
The team, to be led byAbhinav Mukund, would missthe services of the experiencedbatsman-wicketkeeper DineshKarthik and all-rounder VijayShankar.
Karthik has been picked forthe T20 series against Australiawhile Shankar features in theBoard President's XI to face
New Zealand.The team includes exciting
all-rounder WashingtonSundar, who has impressedwith his recent performancesincluding in the Duleep Trophyfinal.
Baba Indrajith, who scoreda double ton on his DuleepTrophy debut, would beMukund's deputy.
The team also featuresaggressive wicketkeeper-bats-man N Jagadeesan and anoth-er gloveman in R Rohith, whoshone in the recent Tamil NaduPremier League (TNPL).
In the absence of TNatarajan and Aswin Crist dueto fitness issues, the pace attackwould be led by K Vignesh,who did well in his debut sea-son with 30-plus wickets asTamil Nadu made the semifi-nals.
L Vignesh and VLakshman are the other pace-men named in the squad.
While African teams are usu-ally overshadowed byEuropean and South
American sides in the senior FIFAWorld Cup, the under-17 version ofthe event has seen them take the cen-tre-stage often. One prime exampleof this is Ghana
Known as the 'Black Starlets', theGhanian team, coached by Paa KwasiFabin are making an appearance inFIFA Under-17 World Cup after a gapof ten years. But they have a solidrecord in the event and through the1990's, they were one of the best sidesin the tournament, emerging as win-ners in 1991 and 1995 and as runners-up in 1993 and 1997.
The 'starlets' qualified for the 2017edition of the prestigious event byvirtue of being the runners-up in theAfrica Under-17 Cup of Nations(Under-17 AFCON) earlier this year,losing to Mali in the Final.
� �������������In order to regain their old glory
in this tournament the starlets will behoping for a good show from theirvery capable attacking players.
Leading the charge would beforward Eric Ayiah who has alreadydrawn the attention of the majorEuropean club FC Porto through hisperformance in Gabon.
Ayiah leads an attacking quartet,which also includes Gabriel Leveh (hisstrike partner, also dubbed a'Wonderkid'), Mohammed Iddris (leftwinger) and Emmanuel Toku (rightwinger), known for their fierce paceand physical strength.
Ibrahim Sulley is another versa-tile midfielder in the squad, who is alsoadept at playing up the field as a wingerand impressed with his performancesin Gabon.
Ghana honed some famed defen-sive midfielders such as Michael Essien,Sulley Muntari, Emmanuel Frimpongfor the national team. Young mid-
fielders Gideon Acquah and RashidAlhassan could be the next addition tothe hierarchy. Both play key role inguarding the defensive line behindthem.
���������Paa Kwasi Fabin, who has been
with the team since 2011, is oozing withconfidence going into the tourna-ment.
"In India, we'll be out to show we'rethe best, we've been handed a verytough group. We're up against the sortof sides who need no introduction, butwe're ready," KwasiFabin was quoted assaying by FIFA.
But he is not simplylooking for a decent effortfrom his colts but insteadhas set his sights on gettinghold of the trophy.
"We put in a big effortto get to the U-17 WorldCup again. Qualifying wasvery tough, but our hardwork paid off and weachieved our goal, the timehas come for us to reap thebenefits of everythingwe've done so far. Our aimis to get to the Final andwin it," the head coachasserted.
He dropped sevenplayers from the squadthat reached the Final ofUnder-17 AFCON. Atough decision taken by thecoach. He explained hisposition thus: "The most dif-ficult thing in my coaching career is todrop some players for a competition.This is because you will be with themfor a while and unfortunately, they getdropped. In fact, it was difficult for mebut the requirement demands that wepresent 21 players to FIFA out of thelot. The whole technical team conferredon the final selection of the players butI must admit it was a very difficulttask."
��-��������-Ghana play a traditional 4-4-2 and
then shift to 4-2-4 while attacking.
Kwesi Fabin plays a double pivot closeto the defence line, who are always will-ing to help the attacking fullbacks.
As mentioned earlier, having a lotof pace in attack, most of the damageis done through the flanks. Centrebacks — Abdul Razak and NajeebYakubu — are often seen sprayingpasses to the forwards and wingers.
The evident weakness of theGhana team is the lack of midfield
maestro, which limitstheir creative option inthe middle and exposethem as a team with no
alternatives. This weaknessultimately led to theirdownfall in the Africancup of nations Final againstMali.
Indian coach LuisNorton de Matos sees thestarlets among favourites toreach the Final.
"Ghana is another teamin contention for the Final,"Norton de Matos said.
"The Africans teamsplay with a lot of freedomand improvisation. Not toforget their overwhelmingphysical strength. This teamwon by big margin againststrong African teams likeIvory Coast andCameroon," he further
added.Indeed, the African sides
are known for mixing their superbskills with physical strength. In fact, thelatter may be the reason for their suc-cess at this level.
The Ghanaian side may have theexperience of playing in a major tour-nament when they took part in the U-17 AFCON but in order to prepare forthe World Cup, the team spent twoweeks in UAE.
Whether that will help themremains to be seen but with the con-fidence that their coach has shown inthem, they would be expected to lightup the World Cup as only starlets can.
� ��-������� ���� 43=73<-.
When India won the bid to hostthe FIFA Under-17 World
Cup in December 2013, questionmarks still remained on the state ofthe football stadiums in the coun-try. But now, all the six venues —in Kolkata, New Delhi, Margao,Kochi, Guwahati and Navi Mumbai— are cleared to host the WorldCup matches by the world footballgoverning body FIFA.
Tournament director of localorganising committee Javier Ceppigave us a vivid picture of howthings were at the start.
"There is not a point of com-parison, to be honest, infrastruc-ture has improved vastly," saidCeppi. "The amount of criticalitems that have been renovated onthe facilities has been exciting.Focus has not been on decorativepart while renovating. Focus hasbeen on critical items; many sta-diums didn't have fire certificationand proper fire fighting systems -- and that's a death trap, some sta-diums had electrical wiring from1984. Stadiums had sewage system
which was completely unfit toreceive a tournament; stadiumswithout bucket seats. It will stilltake a lot of time to make them 100per cent perfect but they have donequite a bit," he explained.
Ceppi informed that main con-cern for them was providing thespectators the best of facilities andpriority was always their safety first.
"There have been a lot of trans-formations into making the stadi-
um more spectator-friendly andsafer. That's why having properelectrical system, safe evacuationgates in case of emergency, fire-fighting system, CCTV installa-tions were necessity," said the FIFArepresentative.
Ceppi confirmed that the corework has matched the require-ments. He gave all the credit to thegovernment, All India FootballFederation (AIFF), and other private
bodies for completing the work onschedule for the World Cup and saidFIFA only played the role of advi-sor. "The onus is on the governmentfederation, and private people whohave renovated the stadium. We dohave people who state what therequirements are and how to makethe best use of limited resources butno matter how many calls we madeor nagged, work was to be done bythem and they exceeded our expec-tations," he said.
Despite other cities have morefootball-loving fanbase, Javierexplained why the capital was cho-sen to host the matches.
"It's the first World Cup in thecountry and Delhi has a specialposition in the country, it is cap-ital of the countr y. It 's anextremely important city from theeconomic, sporting, political,geographical point of view. Thereare plenty of things that youhave to take into consideration toselect a venue and Delhi was theright selection. If you look at theother World Cups, mostly finalsare played in the capital of thecountry,” he said.
��������� 43=73<-.
India's first-choice goalkeeperDheeraj Singh on Tuesday
expressed confidence that the hardwork he has put in and the sacrificeshe made will be rewarded in the formof impressive performances in theFIFA U-17 World Cup.
The marquee tournament startsOctober 6, and the Manipuri boy isexcited to be a part of India's first-ever World Cup team.
"All my days of sacrifice and hardwork will be rewarded and I am verymuch excited to be a part of the firstIndian team to feature in a FIFAWorld Cup," Dheeraj said three daysbefore the start of the tournament.
Dheeraj, who hails from Moirangin Bishnupur district, said he prefersto strike a balance between aggres-sive goalkeeping and composed goal-keeping.
"You have to pick your momentsand chose what type of goalkeepingwill suit the moment. Sometimes theaggressive goalkeeping can lead todifficulties and even conceding a goalwhereas composed goalkeepingcould work and vice versa. For a goal-keeper, both ways of goalkeeping areimportant."
Asked how tough is a goalkeep-er's job, he said, "Staying in themoment is the job of a goalkeeperand a slight lack of focus or concen-tration can easily lead to a goal.
"Goalkeepers are the last barriersand it makes the job all the moretough when there is a pressureof performing in every singlegame associated with it."
India will be up againstsome of the top teams inthe world, but Dheeraj isprepared for the chal-lenge.
"It is a challengethat I am preparedfor. We respect ouropponents but asa goalkeeper it ismy job to be thehardest barrierthe opponentsface and I will tryto be the hardestbarrier that they willever face in scoring a goal."
)�(��C��������������������������Chile goalkeeperJulio Junior Borquez wants touse the FIFA U-17 World
Cup platform to prove a point andbe in the reckoning for senior teamcall-up.
Borquez was voted best goal-keeper at the South American U-17Championship in March, when Chilebooked their place at the FIFA U-17World Cup.
"I want to make this opportuni-ty count and try and break into thesenior national team. It's a dream,"Borquez told reporters after Chilehad their first practice sessions underfloodlights here on Monday evening.
Chile have been drawn in GroupF alongside England (who they playon October 8), Iraq (October 11) andMexico (October 14). They will playtheir matches at the revamped SaltLake Stadium.
"We are all looking forward to thetournament. We have pressure but weare a good team and everyday I havebeen preparing to get better for thismeet," Borquez, 17, said.
Chile coach Hernan Caputoadded that he is one player team-mates look upto.
"He is an inspiration for theplayers," Caputo said.
The key performance forBorquez was the 1-1
draw with Colombiain the group phaseof South AmericanQualifiers. As hesaved penalties to
salvage a point forhis country despite
conceding agoal earli-
er.
���� 2�6)3<"4�
Barcelona is joining a strike toprotest against the Spanish gov-
ernment's actions in Catalonia's inde-pendence vote.
Also, outspoken defender GerardPique was jeered by spectators atSpain's training camp in Madrid onMonday.
Barcelona said none of its profes-sional or youth teams will practice onTuesday, and the club headquarterswill be closed as a reaction to gov-ernment attempts to stop the refer-endum on Sunday. Officials said morethan 890 civilians and some 430members of the police force wereinjured.
Girona also suspended practice onTuesday, and Espanyol, the otherCatalan club in the Spanish league, willhave its players undergo physicalactivities behind closed doors at itstraining camp.
Pique, who supported the refer-endum, was booed constantly asSpain practiced. He endured chants,sometimes laced with expletives, of"Spain is your nation." Some held cards
against him, including one that read"Out Pique." Policed deemed one ofthe cards too offensive and removedit. Pique is often jeered by fans whenSpain plays outside of Catalonia.
He was in tears on Sunday afterthe Spanish league game against LasPalmas as he talked about confronta-tions between Catalan voters andpolice, who used batons and fired rub-ber bullets to try and stop voters acrossthe northeastern region. He criticizedpolice again on Monday on Twitter.
Pique said after on Sunday that ifthe national team considered him anuisance, he would have no problemstepping aside.
Spain is preparing for World Cupqualifiers, the next on Friday againstAlbania in the southeastern city ofAlicante.
Barcelona tried to postpone itshome match on Sunday during the ref-erendum but the league denied itsrequest, so it closed Camp Nou tospectators to send a protest messageand avoid losing points and beingsanctioned. It beat Las Palmas 3-0.
Barcelona president JosepBartomeu said the decision to playbehind closed doors was one of thehardest he had to make at the club. Heconsulted club officials, coaches andplayers.
"We knew that an empty CampNou would send a powerful message,"he said in a news conference onMonday. "Everybody would be askingabout what was happening inCatalonia. The game was broadcastaround the world. It was an extraor-dinary measure for an extraordinarymoment."
mitment to the national teamand called on the squad to befocused only on football despitethe crisis involving Catalonia'spush for independence.
Pique, the outspokenBarcelona defender highly sup-portive of Catalans, washarassed by fans Monday whenhe reported to the nationalteam's training camp in Madridahead of upcoming World Cupqualifiers.
Lopetegui said in a radiointerview with local radio stationCOPE on Monday night that thecentral defender remained"motivated" despite the abusefrom fans. He said he talked toPique and didn't think he wasaffected by it. He said Pique's"behavior with the nationalteam has always been very
good" and there was no reasonnot to have him on the team."We don't analyze the player'spolitical opinion," Lopeteguisaid. "Gerard is an extraordinarycentral defender and he has beenplaying with the national teamsince he was 16. His commit-ment is tremendous. I don't seewhy I shouldn't bring him to theteam. He is available and hewants to play. I know it's not aneasy situation, but I am a foot-ball coach and I have to priori-tize."
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"Capitals play a predomi-nant role because the reality isthey have the connectivity,transport facilities. They usu-ally have the best of services inthe country, hotels and facili-ties for people to come, includ-ing foreigners. It's a completepackage," concluded Ceppi.
