C handrayaan-2’s lander Vikram is unbroken but lying tilted on the surface of the Moon after a hard landing very close to the scheduled touchdown site, an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official said on Monday. Efforts are underway to see whether communication can be re-established with the lan- der but chances of that could be bleak with full system func- tionality a prerequisite to restoring contact, officials explained. Contact with Vikram, which encases the rover, Pragyan, was lost in the early hours of September 7, when it was just 2.1 km above the lunar surface and seconds before touchdown. “The lander is there (on the Moon) as a single piece, not broken into pieces. It’s in a tilt- ed position,” an official associ- ated with the mission said. Images sent by the orbiter’s on-board camera shows that though the lander hit the lunar surface hard while landing, it is still very close to the scheduled touchdown site. “We are mak- ing all-out efforts to see whether communication can be re-established with the lan- der,” the official said. “An ISRO team is on the job at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC),” he added. The Chandrayaan-2 mis- sion involved an orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan). The mission was aimed at the Vikram module making a soft landing on the Moon’s unchart- ed south pole. The mission life of the lander and rover is one lunar day, which is equal to 14 Earth days. ISRO Chairman K Sivan said on Saturday that the space agency would try to restore link with the lander for 14 days. He reiterated the resolve on Monday after the orbiter’s cam- era spotted the lander on the Moon. However, another ISRO official said chances of restor- ing a link with the lander were bleak since system functional- ity was a prerequisite. “Unless and until every- thing is intact (in the lander), it’s very difficult (to re-establish contact). Chances are less. Only if it had a soft-landing, and if all systems functioned, could communication can be restored. Things are bleak as of now.” Another space agency offi- cial added that there might be some chances of restoring com- munication but there are lim- itations too. He recalled ISRO’s experi- ence of recovering a spacecraft that went out of contact in geo- stationary orbit but said the Chandrayaan-2’s lander case was different. In this case, “that kind of operational flexibility is not there” since it is already on the lunar surface and cannot be reoriented, he said. A vital aspect is the posi- tioning of antennas and these have to be pointed towards either the ground station or the orbiter, he said. “Such an operation is extremely difficult,” he said, adding that we will have to keep our fingers crossed. The lander’s generating power is not an issue since it had solar panels all around it and encompasses internal bat- teries as well which are not used much, the official said. Vikram carried three pay- loads — Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive Ionosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA), Chandra’s Surface Thermo-physical Experiment (ChaSTE) and Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA). Had the lander operation been successful, India would have been the only country to land on the Moon’s unexplored south pole as part of the 978 crore Chandrayaan-2 mission conceived a decade ago. A s Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday affirmed in the meeting of North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), an ally of National Democratic Alliance (NDA), that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB) has not been consigned to oblivion and will be brought again, some of NEDA members —Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram — expressed serious concerns over the possible demo- graphic changes that could affect their States following CAB’s imple- mentation. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016, introduced in the Lok Sabha on July 15, 2016, seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to provide citizenship to those illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. The Bill also reduces the requirement of 11 years of contin- uous stay in the country to six years to obtain citizenship by naturali- sation. The Bill, which was passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8, could not be tabled in the Upper House on account of resistance from all major Opposition parties as also BJP allies in the N-E. Speaking at the NEDA meet- ing, attended by all the Chief Ministers of the N-E States, in Guwahati, Shah said the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill will be brought again but sought to soothe the concerns of the N-E States, insisting special laws specific to the region will not be touched. Shah was responding to con- cerns voiced by the CMs — Conrad Sangma of Meghalaya, Neiphu Rio of Nagaland and Mizoram’s Zoramthanga — who raised their apprehension that the Bill may impact the demography of the N-E States with migrants from foreign countries accorded citi- zenship. Sangma urged Shah to take all the States of the region into confi- dence before bringing in the Bill again. “What will happen after CAB? Will people continuously come from Bangladesh? Will there be any deadline or a continuous flow? We in Northeast have such fears,” Sangma said. Addressing the conclave, the three CMs voiced fears about the consequences of reintroducing the CAB and wanted that their States be kept out of the purview of the CAB. Visiting the Assam capital for the first time since the vexed final National Register of Citizens (NRC), which validates Indian cit- izenship of the residents of Assam, was published on August 31, the BJP chief also sought to quell apprehensions about scrapping of Article 371 of the Indian Constitution. Article 371 applies to several States in the northeast and grants them special powers with regard to religious and social practices, and observance of law and order. “We will ensure that existing laws of all States of the region remain as they are even after the introduction of the CAB. We have no intention to touch any of these laws applicable to different States of the region,” Shah told a meeting of BJP’s allies who are part of the NEDA. The Home Minister also asserted that the cut-off date for CAB will remain December 31, 2014. “It is very clear from our side that there will be no other date and Article 371 along with the Inner Line Permits (ILP) will not be touched,” he added. The Inner Line Permit (ILP) is an official travel document issued by the Government of India to grant permission for inward trav- el to an Indian citizen into a pro- tected area for a limited period. It is obligatory for Indians residing outside those States where the ILP is in force to obtain prior permission to enter protected areas. Shah also asserted that the Centre intends to expel all illegal immigrants not just from Assam but the entire country. The BJP president also accused successive Congress Governments of having alienated the region from the rest of the country. He alleged the prolonged mil- itancy in the northeast was because the Congress hardly cared for the region. Shah also sought to re- emphasise the distinction between Article 370 of the Constitution per- taining to Jammu & Kashmir that the Centre revoked to strip the restive State of its special status, and Article 371. “Article 371 is a permanent provision, while Article 370 was temporary,” he said. “I hope, with these assurances, all apprehensions of the Chief Ministers of the northeast regard- ing the CAB and the special pro- visions have been allayed,” he said. After addressing the conclave, the BJP chief held a meeting with the chief ministers of all the eight States of the northeast. Speaking to journalists, Assam minister and NEDA convener Himanta Biswa Sarma said Shah had addressed many concerns voiced by the chief ministers. He said one of their foremost concerns was about the Inner Line Permit. “Shah made it clear that the new CAB will ensure that its pro- visions do not override the 6th schedule of the Constitution,” he said, adding that it effectively meant that unless a person got the ILP or the 6th Schedule Authority allowed one to stay in a particular state, nobody from outside could go there. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu said Shah made it clear that laws protecting indigenous people will not be touched. Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said the State Government is in favour of imple- mentation of NRC and will approach the Centre for it in line with the one in Assam. I t’s time the world said good- bye to single-use plastic which threatens to render vast stretches of land unproductive and unfit for agriculture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday, days after he called on Indians to shun single-use plastics and to pledge on October 2 to eliminate these items in the country. The Modi Government aims to phase out disposable plastic by 2022. Addressing delegates from nearly 200 countries at the 14th conference of parties to United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the PM expressed concern over land degradation being caused by climate change among other reasons and announced that India would try to reclaim 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. “Another form of land degradation, which if not pre- vented, would become impos- sible to reverse. This is the menace of plastic waste. Apart from having adverse health implications, this is going to render land unproductive and unfit for agriculture. “My Government has announced that India will put an end to single-use plastic in the coming years. I believe time has come for even the world to say goodbye to single- use plastic,” the Prime Minister said. Modi also announced that India would restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. The earlier target was 21 million hectare. The Prime Minister also said India would take pride in using remote sensing and space technology for multiple appli- cations, including land restora- tion. “I am happy to state that India would be happy to help other friendly countries devel- op land restoration strategies through cost-effective satellite and space technology,” Modi said. The PM’s speech at the COP, which India is hosting, highlighted his administra- tion’s eagerness for South- South cooperation in fighting problems like land degradation, desertification and droughts. S ome southern States, including Kerala, have sounded an alert after the Army said on Monday terror attacks could take place in south India citing recovery of abandoned boats in Sir Creek in Gujarat some days ago. The security grid was also tightened in Jammu region and an alert sounded following intelligence inputs that the Pakistan Army may push in terrorists from Sialkot into RS Pura and Hiranagar sectors to stoke violence. Intelligence inputs indicated a group of ten to 12 terrorists were poised to sneak into this region to carry out terrorist strikes. The Kerala Police went on high alert after Southern Army Command chief Lt General S K Saini in Pune warned of ter- rorist attack in southern part of the country. “We have got many inputs that there may be a terrorist attack in southern part and the peninsular India,” the Lt General said. He also said the Army has taken precautionary measures in the Sir Creek in Gujarat region keeping in mind the enhanced threat perception. “There have been some aban- doned boats also which have been recovered in the area of Sir Creek,” the top officer said. The boats were found some days back in the area and secu- rity agencies suspect the boats are of Pakistani origin. Investigations are on to ascer- tain if the boats were used for infiltrating into India through the sea route, sources said. The Army has undertaken measures for capacity building and capability development in the Sir Creek area, the Southern Command chief said while replying to a question related to terror inputs and Pakistan’s enhanced deployment close to the Sir Creek area. “We are taking precau- tions to ensure that any designs of the inimical elements or ter- rorists are stalled and they do not get the success which they are wishing,” Saini said, on the sidelines of the commence- ment of Phase II infrastructural development at the Army Law College near Kanhe. The ports in Gujarat were recently put on high alert after intelligence agencies received inputs that Pakistani com- mandos were likely to infiltrate into Indian waters through the Kutch area via sea route to incite communal trouble or carry out a terror attack in Gujarat. T wo Road Romeos received the shock of their lives when their target, a girl, decid- ed to hit back on Sunday afternoon in the city. The two Romeos were slapped and forced to do sit- ups in full public view at Jagannath Nagar in the Bomikhal area. The incident came to light after a video of the incident went viral on social media. The girl, identified as Bebina Mohanty, alleged that the two motorbike-borne youths passed comments at her while she was going to market at around 3 pm; and when situation crossed the limit, she decided to teach them a lesson of their lives. Speaking to media, Bebina said the two youths followed her for about 10 minutes and passed vulgar comments at her despite her protests. She drove her scooty to a crowd- ed place and started thrashing them after waylaying their bike. But the passersby remained silent spectators; and instead of coming to her rescue, recorded the incident on their smartphones. So, she decided to settle the matter alone. She slapped the two eve-teasers and forced them to do sit-ups. Only after they pleaded for mercy, she let them go. She urged every girl to strongly protest such behav- iour towards them. I n a sigh of relief for people protesting against hefty penalties under the amended Motor Vehicle Act, they now have an additional three months time to get their vehi- cle documents updated. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday made a partial relaxation for the com- muters from paying fine for violation of traffic rules. Patnaik directed transport and police officials to handle the situations sympathetically instead of being harsh with the motorists who fail to produce necessary documents.“The Chief Minister has directed the enforcement agencies not to aggressively go on an overdrive but rather counsel and handhold the public to facilitate compliance with the amended provisions of MV Act,” the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said in a release. Patnaik also asked the Transport Department to aug- ment public services, strengthen the facilitation centres, open extra counters, and conduct camps in public institutions to enable the motor vehicle users to update their compliance status. “This process would con- tinue over the next three months so that adequate time is made available to the public to ensure compliance, Massive Road Safety awareness cam- paign would be carried out to sensitise public on the new norms,” the release stated. Patnaik also appealed to motor vehicle users to obey traffic rules and desist from dangerous driving which would endanger their lives and that of others. In a related development, Commerce and Transport Minister Padmanabha Behera on the day admitted that the penalties are hefty and said the State Government is contem- plating to bring in some changes in the Rules under the new Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Act- 2019.Behera said the State Government is weighing options to lessen the amount of fine imposed on traffic viola- tors.The changes in the new fine amounts may be decided after a review meeting to be held on Tuesday, sources said. “We realised that the fine amounts are too high. Though we cannot change the Act as it has been introduced by the Centre, we might change some Rules under the Act and there- by bring some relaxation for the people,” said the Minister. T he Congress would now be a cadre-driven party to counter the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Biju Yuva Vahini, said AICC general secretary and party Telangana in-charge Rama Chandra Khuntia at a Press meet here on Monday. Khuntia said the party would choose youths, who would be known as ‘Preraks’. These Preraks would be chosen for the national level, State –level to block level to act as think tanks for the party. He said the party membership drive would link Voter IDs of the new member and anyone can be a member by paying Rs 5 for five years. Sources said the move is to build Congress with an army of fulltime workers at the grassroots to win over the people to the party fold. Besides, some leaders feel that it would usher in democracy in the organisation. In reaction, BJD leader Pratap Keshari Deb said that from this it is known that the Congress’ organisational strength has dwindled. The people are waiting to see what the out- come is. BJP leader Prithviraj Harichandan said it is good that the other parties are following their party.
lying tilted on the surface of theMoon after a hard landingvery close to the scheduledtouchdown site, an IndianSpace Research Organisation(ISRO) official said on Monday.
Efforts are underway to seewhether communication canbe re-established with the lan-der but chances of that could bebleak with full system func-tionality a prerequisite torestoring contact, officialsexplained.
Contact with Vikram,which encases the rover,Pragyan, was lost in the earlyhours of September 7, when itwas just 2.1 km above thelunar surface and secondsbefore touchdown.
“The lander is there (on theMoon) as a single piece, notbroken into pieces. It’s in a tilt-ed position,” an official associ-ated with the mission said.
Images sent by the orbiter’son-board camera shows thatthough the lander hit the lunarsurface hard while landing, it isstill very close to the scheduledtouchdown site. “We are mak-ing all-out efforts to seewhether communication canbe re-established with the lan-der,” the official said.
“An ISRO team is on the
job at the ISRO Telemetry,Tracking and CommandNetwork (ISTRAC),” he added.
The Chandrayaan-2 mis-sion involved an orbiter, lander(Vikram) and rover (Pragyan).The mission was aimed at theVikram module making a softlanding on the Moon’s unchart-ed south pole. The mission lifeof the lander and rover is onelunar day, which is equal to 14Earth days.
ISRO Chairman K Sivansaid on Saturday that the spaceagency would try to restore linkwith the lander for 14 days. He
reiterated the resolve onMonday after the orbiter’s cam-era spotted the lander on theMoon.
However, another ISROofficial said chances of restor-ing a link with the lander werebleak since system functional-ity was a prerequisite.
“Unless and until every-thing is intact (in the lander),it’s very difficult (to re-establishcontact). Chances are less. Onlyif it had a soft-landing, and ifall systems functioned, couldcommunication can berestored. Things are bleak as of
now.”Another space agency offi-
cial added that there might besome chances of restoring com-munication but there are lim-itations too.
He recalled ISRO’s experi-ence of recovering a spacecraftthat went out of contact in geo-stationary orbit but said theChandrayaan-2’s lander casewas different.
In this case, “that kind ofoperational flexibility is notthere” since it is already on thelunar surface and cannot bereoriented, he said.
A vital aspect is the posi-tioning of antennas and thesehave to be pointed towardseither the ground station or theorbiter, he said.
“Such an operation isextremely difficult,” he said,adding that we will have tokeep our fingers crossed.
The lander’s generatingpower is not an issue since ithad solar panels all around itand encompasses internal bat-teries as well which are notused much, the official said.
Vikram carried three pay-loads — Radio Anatomy ofMoon Bound HypersensitiveIonosphere and Atmosphere(RAMBHA), Chandra’s SurfaceThermo-physical Experiment(ChaSTE) and Instrument forLunar Seismic Activity (ILSA).
Had the lander operationbeen successful, India wouldhave been the only country toland on the Moon’s unexploredsouth pole as part of the �978crore Chandrayaan-2 missionconceived a decade ago.
���� +*/�0*-12
As Home Minister Amit Shahon Monday affirmed in the
meeting of North-East DemocraticAlliance (NEDA), an ally ofNational Democratic Alliance(NDA), that the Citizenship(Amendment) Bill (CAB) has notbeen consigned to oblivion and willbe brought again, some of NEDAmembers —Meghalaya, Nagaland,Mizoram — expressed seriousconcerns over the possible demo-graphic changes that could affecttheir States following CAB’s imple-mentation.
The Citizenship (Amendment)Bill 2016, introduced in the LokSabha on July 15, 2016, seeks toamend the Citizenship Act 1955 toprovide citizenship to those illegalmigrants who are Hindus, Sikhs,Buddhists, Jains, Parsis orChristians from Pakistan,Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.
The Bill also reduces therequirement of 11 years of contin-uous stay in the country to six yearsto obtain citizenship by naturali-sation. The Bill, which was passedby the Lok Sabha on January 8,could not be tabled in the UpperHouse on account of resistancefrom all major Opposition partiesas also BJP allies in the N-E.
Speaking at the NEDA meet-ing, attended by all the ChiefMinisters of the N-E States, inGuwahati, Shah said theCitizenship (Amendment) Bill willbe brought again but sought tosoothe the concerns of the N-E
States, insisting special laws specificto the region will not be touched.
Shah was responding to con-cerns voiced by the CMs —Conrad Sangma of Meghalaya,Neiphu Rio of Nagaland andMizoram’s Zoramthanga — whoraised their apprehension that theBill may impact the demography ofthe N-E States with migrants fromforeign countries accorded citi-zenship.
Sangma urged Shah to take allthe States of the region into confi-dence before bringing in the Billagain. “What will happen afterCAB? Will people continuouslycome from Bangladesh? Will therebe any deadline or a continuousflow? We in Northeast have suchfears,” Sangma said.
Addressing the conclave, thethree CMs voiced fears about theconsequences of reintroducing theCAB and wanted that their Statesbe kept out of the purview of theCAB.
Visiting the Assam capital forthe first time since the vexed finalNational Register of Citizens(NRC), which validates Indian cit-izenship of the residents of Assam,was published on August 31, theBJP chief also sought to quellapprehensions about scrapping ofArticle 371 of the IndianConstitution.
Article 371 applies to severalStates in the northeast and grantsthem special powers with regard toreligious and social practices, andobservance of law and order.
“We will ensure that existing
laws of all States of the regionremain as they are even after theintroduction of the CAB. We haveno intention to touch any of theselaws applicable to different Statesof the region,” Shah told a meetingof BJP’s allies who are part of theNEDA.
The Home Minister alsoasserted that the cut-off date forCAB will remain December 31,2014. “It is very clear from our sidethat there will be no other date andArticle 371 along with the InnerLine Permits (ILP) will not betouched,” he added.
The Inner Line Permit (ILP) isan official travel document issuedby the Government of India togrant permission for inward trav-el to an Indian citizen into a pro-tected area for a limited period.
It is obligatory for Indiansresiding outside those States wherethe ILP is in force to obtain priorpermission to enter protected areas.
Shah also asserted that theCentre intends to expel all illegalimmigrants not just from Assambut the entire country.
The BJP president also accusedsuccessive Congress Governmentsof having alienated the regionfrom the rest of the country.
He alleged the prolonged mil-itancy in the northeast was becausethe Congress hardly cared for theregion. Shah also sought to re-emphasise the distinction betweenArticle 370 of the Constitution per-taining to Jammu & Kashmir thatthe Centre revoked to strip the
restive State of its special status, andArticle 371.
“Article 371 is a permanentprovision, while Article 370 wastemporary,” he said.
“I hope, with these assurances,all apprehensions of the ChiefMinisters of the northeast regard-ing the CAB and the special pro-visions have been allayed,” he said.
After addressing the conclave,the BJP chief held a meeting withthe chief ministers of all the eightStates of the northeast.
Speaking to journalists, Assamminister and NEDA convenerHimanta Biswa Sarma said Shahhad addressed many concernsvoiced by the chief ministers.
He said one of their foremostconcerns was about the Inner LinePermit.
“Shah made it clear that thenew CAB will ensure that its pro-visions do not override the 6thschedule of the Constitution,” hesaid, adding that it effectivelymeant that unless a person got theILP or the 6th Schedule Authorityallowed one to stay in a particularstate, nobody from outside couldgo there.
Arunachal Pradesh ChiefMinister Pema Khandu said Shahmade it clear that laws protectingindigenous people will not betouched.
Manipur Chief Minister NBiren Singh said the StateGovernment is in favour of imple-mentation of NRC and willapproach the Centre for it in linewith the one in Assam.
���� +*/�0*-12
It’s time the world said good-bye to single-use plastic
which threatens to render vaststretches of land unproductiveand unfit for agriculture, PrimeMinister Narendra Modi saidon Monday, days after he calledon Indians to shun single-useplastics and to pledge onOctober 2 to eliminate theseitems in the country. The ModiGovernment aims to phase outdisposable plastic by 2022.
Addressing delegates fromnearly 200 countries at the14th conference of parties toUnited Nations Convention toCombat Desertification, thePM expressed concern overland degradation being causedby climate change among otherreasons and announced thatIndia would try to reclaim 26million hectares of degradedland by 2030.
“Another form of landdegradation, which if not pre-vented, would become impos-sible to reverse. This is themenace of plastic waste. Apartfrom having adverse healthimplications, this is going torender land unproductive andunfit for agriculture.
“My Government hasannounced that India will putan end to single-use plastic in
the coming years. I believetime has come for even theworld to say goodbye to single-use plastic,” the Prime Ministersaid.
Modi also announced thatIndia would restore 26 millionhectares of degraded land by2030. The earlier target was 21million hectare.
The Prime Minister alsosaid India would take pride inusing remote sensing and spacetechnology for multiple appli-cations, including land restora-tion. “I am happy to state thatIndia would be happy to helpother friendly countries devel-op land restoration strategiesthrough cost-effective satelliteand space technology,” Modisaid.
The PM’s speech at theCOP, which India is hosting,highlighted his administra-tion’s eagerness for South-South cooperation in fightingproblems like land degradation,desertification and droughts.
sounded an alert after theArmy said on Monday terrorattacks could take place insouth India citing recovery ofabandoned boats in Sir Creekin Gujarat some days ago.
The security grid was alsotightened in Jammu regionand an alert sounded followingintelligence inputs that thePakistan Army may push interrorists from Sialkot into RSPura and Hiranagar sectors tostoke violence. Intelligenceinputs indicated a group of tento 12 terrorists were poised tosneak into this region to carryout terrorist strikes.
The Kerala Police went onhigh alert after Southern ArmyCommand chief Lt General SK Saini in Pune warned of ter-rorist attack in southern part ofthe country. “We have gotmany inputs that there may bea terrorist attack in southernpart and the peninsular India,”the Lt General said.
He also said the Army hastaken precautionary measuresin the Sir Creek in Gujaratregion keeping in mind theenhanced threat perception.“There have been some aban-doned boats also which havebeen recovered in the area ofSir Creek,” the top officer said.
The boats were found somedays back in the area and secu-rity agencies suspect the boatsare of Pakistani origin.Investigations are on to ascer-tain if the boats were used forinfiltrating into India throughthe sea route, sources said.
The Army has undertakenmeasures for capacity buildingand capability development inthe Sir Creek area, the SouthernCommand chief said whilereplying to a question related to
terror inputs and Pakistan’senhanced deployment close tothe Sir Creek area.
“We are taking precau-tions to ensure that any designsof the inimical elements or ter-rorists are stalled and they donot get the success which theyare wishing,” Saini said, on thesidelines of the commence-ment of Phase II infrastructuraldevelopment at the Army LawCollege near Kanhe.
The ports in Gujarat wererecently put on high alert afterintelligence agencies receivedinputs that Pakistani com-mandos were likely to infiltrateinto Indian waters through theKutch area via sea route toincite communal trouble orcarry out a terror attack inGujarat.
when their target, a girl, decid-ed to hit back on Sundayafternoon in the city.
The two Romeos wereslapped and forced to do sit-ups in full public view atJagannath Nagar in theBomikhal area.
The incident came to lightafter a video of the incidentwent viral on social media.
The girl, identified asBebina Mohanty, alleged thatthe two motorbike-borneyouths passed comments ather while she was going tomarket at around 3 pm; andwhen situation crossed thelimit, she decided to teachthem a lesson of their lives.
Speaking to media, Bebinasaid the two youths followed
her for about 10 minutes andpassed vulgar comments ather despite her protests. Shedrove her scooty to a crowd-ed place and started thrashingthem after waylaying theirbike.
But the passersbyremained silent spectators;and instead of coming to herrescue, recorded the incidenton their smartphones.
So, she decided to settlethe matter alone. She slapped
the two eve-teasers and forcedthem to do sit-ups. Onlyafter they pleaded for mercy,she let them go.
She urged every girl tostrongly protest such behav-iour towards them.
���� )1.)"+*�/"�
In a sigh of relief for peopleprotesting against hefty
penalties under the amendedMotor Vehicle Act, they nowhave an additional threemonths time to get their vehi-cle documents updated.
Chief Minister NaveenPatnaik on Monday made apartial relaxation for the com-muters from paying fine forviolation of traffic rules.
Patnaik directed transportand police officials to handle thesituations sympatheticallyinstead of being harsh with themotorists who fail to producenecessary documents.“The ChiefMinister has directed theenforcement agencies not toaggressively go on an overdrivebut rather counsel and handhold
the public to facilitate compliancewith the amended provisions ofMV Act,” the Chief Minister’sOffice (CMO) said in a release.
Patnaik also asked theTransport Department to aug-ment public services, strengthenthe facilitation centres, openextra counters, and conductcamps in public institutions toenable the motor vehicle users toupdate their compliance status.
“This process would con-tinue over the next threemonths so that adequate timeis made available to the publicto ensure compliance, MassiveRoad Safety awareness cam-paign would be carried out tosensitise public on the newnorms,” the release stated.
Patnaik also appealed to
motor vehicle users to obeytraffic rules and desist fromdangerous driving whichwould endanger their lives andthat of others.
In a related development,Commerce and TransportMinister Padmanabha Beheraon the day admitted that thepenalties are hefty and said theState Government is contem-plating to bring in somechanges in the Rules under thenew Motor Vehicle(Amendment) Act-2019.Behera said the StateGovernment is weighingoptions to lessen the amount offine imposed on traffic viola-tors.The changes in the newfine amounts may be decidedafter a review meeting to beheld on Tuesday, sources said.
“We realised that the fineamounts are too high. Thoughwe cannot change the Act as ithas been introduced by theCentre, we might change someRules under the Act and there-by bring some relaxation forthe people,” said the Minister.
Union Minister of State forShipping, Chemicals and
Fertilisers Mansukh Mandaviyaon Monday claimed that the BJP-led Government at the Centrehas given special focus on Odishaand provided highest-ever assis-tance of Rs 16,605.20 crore to theState during the first 100 days ofits second term.
The Minister stated this at aPress meet held here on “100 daysof NDA Government 2.0”.
“A total of Rs 4678.22 crorehas been sanctioned to Odishafor undertaking restoration
works post Cyclonic Fani. TheState has received the highest allo-cation of Rs 5933.98 crore underthe Compensatory AfforestationFund Management and PlanningAuthority (CAMPA Fund). Inthe Union Budget, an all-timehigh amount of Rs 5993 crore hasbeen allocated for the railway sec-tor in the State,” he said.
To justify his claim,Mandaviya said two BJP leadersfrom the State have been allottedtwo portfolios each in the UnionGovernment while BiswabhusanHarichadan has been appointedas the Governor of AndhraPradesh during this term.
He requested Chief MinisterNaveen Patnaik to implement theAyushman Bharat scheme tosafeguard good health of people.
He said the port city ofParadip would be developed asa Smart industrial city.
He said many historic deci-sions were taken and imple-
mented during the period.“Abrogation of Article 370
and 35A for the betterment of thepeople in Jammu and Kashmirand Ladakh, three per cent reser-vation for the Defence personneland legislation against TripleTalaq are a few major decisionstaken by the Government duringthis period,” he said.
He said the UnionGovernment has also decided todeposit Rs 6,000 to eligible farm-ers’ bank accounts and to provideRs 3,000 pension per month toevery retired farmer.
The Minister inaugurated a‘Jan Connect’ booklet on 100 daysof performance. Leader ofOpposition in State AssemblyPradeep Nayak, Deputy LeaderBishnu Charan Sethi, OppositionChief Whip Mohan ChandraMajhi, MP Aparajita Sarangiand Rajya Sabha memberAshwiniVaishnaw were present.
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Senior journalist DilipSatpathy passed away here
late on Sunday night. He was56. He suffered cardiac arrestat around 12.30 am and wasrushed to a private hospital,where doctors declared himbrought dead.
Long back, he had beendiagnosed with bone marrowcancer, which had relapsedthree years ago. He chose toremain single all his life due tothe health issues.
Satpathy was the ResidentEditor of ‘Business Standard’Bhubaneswar edition. Theentire media fraternity isshocked and saddened at hissudden demise. He was ami-able and fun-loving. ChiefMinister Naveen Patnaik andUnion Minister DharmendraPradhan took to Twitter toexpress their deep condolencesover the demise of Satpathy.
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Even as hefty fines are beingimposed on commuters for
flouting traffic norms acrossthe State, an Additional RTO(Regional Transport Officer)violated the rules in Ganjamdistrict.
In a video, which is doingthe rounds on social media,Chhatrapur Additional RTOShantanu Kumar Parida wasseen travelling by an SUVwithout fastening seat belt.Furthermore, the driver of thevehicle hadn’t put seat belt on.
Being questioned by locals,who recorded the incident withtheir mobile phones, the offi-cial claimed that he vehicle wasstationary, for which he didn’tfasten the seat belt. The driver
immediately put seat belt onafter realising that locals weremaking videos of the inci-dence.
However, locals said thevehicle was in motion as theAdditional RTO was returningby it after conducting a vehiclechecking drive.
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The National Human RightsCommission (NHRC) has
directed the OdishaGovernment to take appropri-ate steps towards suspen-sion/cancellation of registrationof Apollo Hospitals,Bhubaneswar for breachingthe provisions ofTransplantation of HumanOrgans and Tissues Act.
“The Chief Secretary,Government of Odisha isdirected to take this matterbefore the appropriate author-ity for taking action within fourweeks, under Section 16 of theTransplantation of HumanOrgans and Tissues Act, 1994,with regard tosuspension/can-cellation of registration ofApollo Hospitals,Bhubaneswar, Odisha, as it hasbreached the provisions of thesaid Act, and submit a reportwithin eight weeks before theCommission,” the notice read.
It was alleged that the pri-vate hospital had taken out thekidney of one Anil KumarSwamy through deception.
“In this matter, theAuthorization Committee con-stituted by the Government ofOdisha has approved/grantedNOC for transplantation ofkidney from Jayaram Dora(donor) to Raghaba Ram Dora(recipient) without verifying orconducting proper enquiry inthis matter and subsequentlythe kidney of Anil Swamy wasremoved and transplanted intothe body of Raghaba RamDora. Also, it appears thatthere is a connivance of ApolloHospitals for obtaining theNOC for transplantation ofkidney of Jayaram Dora,whereas the kidney of AnilKumar Swamy was taken out
and transplanted into the bodyof Raghaba Ram Dora. This isa serious lapse on the part ofthe Authorization Committeeconstituted by the StateGovernment as it has grantedthe NOC in a very routinemanner. Hence, theGovernment of Odisha is vic-ariously liable for such lapse ofthe Authorization Committee,”it further said.
The commission furtherissued a show cause to theGovernment seeking replywithin eight weeks as to whythe commission should notrecommend Rs 2,00,000 ascompensation to be paid to thevictim.
Sports and Youth ServicesSecretary Vishal Kumar Dev
flagged off the fourth BijuPatnaik Himalayan Expedition2019 at the Kalinga Stadiumhere on Sunday.
“The expedition is going tobe exciting and challengingfor the young climbers,” Devsaid wishing the team of youngclimbers a successful expedi-tion.
The Biju Patnaik
Himalayan Expedition, anannual programme, started bythe State Government in 2016
to commemorate the BijuPatnaik birth centenary cele-brations.
The Expedition to Mt StokKangri (20,187 ft) in Leh regionis planned to be held fromSeptember 12 to 24. The TataSteel Adventure Foundation(TSAF) provides technical sup-port.
The team consisting of 10boys and 05 girls led byEverester Ganesh Chandra Jenawill on the expedition, to beguided by PadmashreeBachendri Pal, first Indianwoman to climb Mt Everest.
Sports and Youths ServicesProgramme Officer HareshKumar Mishra will alsoaccompany the team up tobase camp in Leh.
Out of total 97 applicants,65 youths (53 men and 12women) were selected for test.However, 15 of them werefinally selected.
Adelegation of Invest Odishaled by Minister, Industries,
MSME, Energy and HomeDibya Sankar Mishra and com-prising officials of his depart-ment and industry representa-tives from Tata group, IndianOil Corporation Limited,Haldia Petrochemicals partic-ipated in the India SingaporeBusiness and InnovationSummit at Marina Bay SandsExpo and Convention centre,Singapore on Monday.
The event was being organ-ised by the High Commissionof India in Singapore.
Union Minister of ExternalAffairs Dr S Jayashankar andMinister Foreign Affairs,Singapore Dr VivianBalalkrishnan graced the occa-sion as guests.
Minister Industries Odishagave a plenary talk about
investment opportunities inOdisha and urged the investorsin Singapore to explore theindustry ready State of Odisha.
In the afternoon in theOdisha State session Dr NitinJawale gave a presentation on10 reasons to Invest in Odisha,which caught the imaginationof the corporates present at theevent.
Arun Mishra and PrashantMallik of Tata Group made apresentation on GopalpurIndustrial Park and SEZ andspoke about the support theGovernment has renderedthem all through.
Dr Dhananjay Srivastav ofIOCL and SubhashenduChatterjee of HaldiaPetrochemicals were also partsof the Odisha delegation.
The Odisha delegation willalso visit Jurong Petrochemicalarea and some start up incu-bators in Singapore.
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The Odisha Government hasurged the NITI Aayog to
include State-specific indicatorswhile ranking the States on var-ious development indicatorslike health, education and othersocial sectosr.
The NITI Aayog is pub-lishing reports on develop-ment indicators and rankingthe State Governments, butState Specific indicators arenot being taken into consider-ation, while preparing thereports.
Recently, the NITI Aayogwhile preparing Healthy StatesProgressive India Report Cardand Ranking the States, sever-al issues pertaining to health-care sector were not taken intoconsideration, officials pointout.
Chief Secretary AsitTripathy is in touch with theNITI Aayog in this regard,sources said. With long servicein Government of India andhaving experience in formu-
lating national policies atUnion Government level,Tripathy has advised the Aayogin this line, said official sources.
Take for example, Odishatops in the Malaria EradicationProgramme. The State has beensuccessful in brining remark-able decline of malaria during2017 and 2018, which has beenappreciated by the Governmentof India in the Ministry ofHealth and Family Welfare.
Union Secretary Healthand Family Welfare PreetiSudan was on record whileappreciating Odisha and shepointed out that malaria caseshave significantly declined by22.32 per cent in 2017 as com-pared to 2016. Same decliningtrend is evident from thereports received from States in
2018 as well.The Union Secretary said,
“From January to October,2018, there has been a 55 percent decline in malaria casesand 66 per cent decline in fal-ciparum malaria cases, as com-pared to the correspondingperiod in 2017.”
“I would like to congratu-late you and your team for con-tributing to the national effortsas the biggest decline of 84 percent has been observed in yourState in 2018 as compared to2017,” said Sudan.
The progress in malariacontrol in Odisha has alsobeen quoted as one of the bestmodels in the recently releasedWorld Malaria Report 2018.
After all such apprecia-tion, when the NITI Aayog pre-pared the Health StatesProgressive India and rankedthe States, it missed the pointand Odisha did not got theweightage, which has been ableto reduce morbidity and mor-tality due to malaria in a bigway.
So the State Governmenthas suggested to give weightagefor the State, which has per-formed exceedingly well incombating one of the mostkiller diseases.
A senior official said thatthe National Health Policy ofGovernment of India has thegoal for universal health cov-erage.
However, the StateGovernment strongly feels thatuniversal health coverage isneeded with the universality ofpopulation coverage and it isneeded to be included as healthdevelopment indicators, whilemapping the ranks of the State.
Senior officials feel thatwhile mapping SocialDevelopment Index includinghealth development or educa-tion development and childdevelopment sectors, theMinistries concerned are need-ed to take up the matter joint-ly so that more vigorous andcharacteristic HumanDevelopment Index will beachieved.
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The National Confederationof Dalit Organisation on
Monday demanded that theGovernment arrest all the landmafias who have encroachedGovernment lands belongingto Adivasis.
“While the Governmenthas not provided land to land-less Dalits and tribals for thelast 20 years, land mafias,administrative officials andpoliticians have encroachedlands belonging to Adivasis incapital city and other placesacross the State,” alleged con-federation State presidentAshnok Kumar Mallick.
Taking an example, Mallicksaid even as about 200 Adivasifamilies are undertaking culti-vations on lands inBudhapanka village underCuttack district’s Badmba tehsilfor voer 100 years, theGovernment is yet to issuepatta to concerned tribalsdespite repeated requests. Hesaid some land mafias comingfrom other districts are terror-izing tribals to grab their lands
now. Local tehsildar is alsohand in glove with the mafiasand trying to issue pattas intheir names. The Tehsildar isalso threatening to arrest thevillagers. Land mafias havealready taken a hill to their pos-session.
Tribals of Budhapankaexpressed these at a meetingheld by the confederation here.
Mallick demanded that theGovernment arrest thosemafias and issue pattas to trib-als of Budhapanka village inseven days’ time.
Dalit leaders LaxmanMallick, Seikh Abdulwali,Sanjulata Mallick and manytribal leaders were present.
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Agroup of yoga practition-ers from far off Hong
Kong will come to Puri to joina two-day national festivalbeginning from September14.
Around five hundred par-ticipants from India wouldjoin the festival and enrol in yoga competition tobe held at the Duduwala
Dharmasala near the GrandRoad.
Under the banner of Hong
Kong-based ONLYOG, vari-ous yoga-related activitieswould be held.
Jameswar Khuntia, a Puriservitor who is working as ayoga trainer in Hong Kong, isplaying a lead role for theevent. Besides, the silverjubilee of his long career wouldbe observed by showcasing hischarisma in the field of yogaand Pranayam.
From age of nine years to60, persons can enrol them tojoin the competition, which isfree of cost.
The winners in categorieswould be awarded. BySeptember 13 evening personsinterestedneed to apply fortheir enrolment.
Besides, from 6 am to 7am every day, pubic is allowedto join the yoga camp for free, said the event’s organisers.
novel, “Prapteshu Pruthibi” wasreleased on Sunday amidst agalaxy of writers, readers andher fans in an exclusive functionorganised by the Pratibha RayFoundation Trust.The novel
explores the psycho-social fac-tors of religious terrorism, in theviolent by-lanes of the world, inthe most unusual way. It is apost-modern novel about reli-gious and ideological factional-ism and the search for globalpeace, a sequel to her widelyacclaimed novel “Sesha Ishwara”.
A creation based on con-
temporary times, it analyses thecomplexities of Triple Talaqand Article 370. Vice-Presdentof the Trust, Dr Adyasha Dasgave the welcome address. Thespeakers of the occasion wereSitakant Mahapatra, DrPrafulla Mahanty, BamapadaTripathy, Editor, The Samaja,and Basant Kumar Panda.
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In the wake of implementa-tion of the new traffic rules,
the Assistant RegionalTransport Office, located in theold Collectorate, is witnessingheavy rush of driving licenceapplicants from 7 am to 7 pmevery day nowadays.
As a result, people visitingoffices of the Regional LabourCommissioner, District SocialWelfare Officer, ExciseDepartment and DistrictSupply Office due to rush of DLapplicants and parking of hugenumbers of motorcycles in thepremises. Official works havealso been disrupted.
Keeping heavy rush inview, Dalals have also beenactive in the ARTO office.Dalals are taking Rs 800 to Rs1,000 to facilitate applicants geta DL for motorcycle and Rs
Following reports of flashfloods in Elagol village of
Ganjam district, BrahmapurSub-Collector SindheDatatreya Bhaosaheb rolled uphis sleeves and headed towardsthe far-flung areas crossingriver and wading throughknee-deep water.
Notably, tribal people inthe region have been facingseveral difficulties due to lackof road communication fol-lowing commencement of amedium irrigation project atBaghalati under Patrapur tehsil.Cyclone Titli had further wors-ened their situation. Adding totheir woes, incessant rains onAugust 31 triggered flash flood
in Elagol.The IAS officer accompa-
nied by Patrapur Tehsildarreached Beheraput village bycrossing Baghalati reservoirthrough a powerboat. Afterdiscussing with the locals abouttheir problems, the bureaucratagain left for Shrigonda villageto take stock by crossing the
Bahuda river.Thereafter, he headed to
Elagol crossing a nullah andlater wading through waterand held a meeting with the vil-lagers to discuss their problems.The Sub-collector also identi-fied a land near Jhagadapalli forrehabilitation of affected vil-lagers of Elagol.
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It was a close shave for at least18 people in a ferry when
their boat by which they werecrossing the Budhabalangariver capsized on Sundayevening.
The passengers werereturning to their villages afterattending weekly Sunday mar-ket in Kalyanpur village ofRemuna block.
Although no loss of life wasreported, yet some alleged thattheir bicycles fell in the waterwhich were yet to be recovered.NDRF and ODRAF teamsrushed to the site, Haldia inPadampur village underKalyanpur panchayat. Despite
darkness, they provided allhelps to the passengers.
The vessel overturned los-ing control when it had hard-ly moved 7-8 metre away fromthe ghat. Remuna PS IICSubhranshu Nayak informedthat all the passengers weresafe.
People of local pocketsincluding residents of villagesGanipur, Mandarpur, Badpal,Kalyanpur and Durgadevidepend on the ghat as theyhave no other mode of com-munication. They alleged thata bridge which is under con-struction since 2012 is movingin a snail’s pace despite timeoverrun.
Completion target for thebridge with estimated cost Rs8 crore was 2016. Localsdemanded that the bridge becompleted at the earliest for thesafety and convenience of about65,000 people. Notably, lastyear in August a person haddrowned in the Budhablanga.
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ATHAGARH: A first year stu-dent of the RP +2 ScienceResidential College in theAthagarh area has died undermysterious circumstances.
The deceased, identifiedas Suryakant Samal ofDhenkanal, was a hostel inmatein the college. The collegeauthorities said Suryakantattempted to commit suicideon Sunday, following which hewas admitted to the
Maniabandha hospital, wheredoctor declared him dead.
The Principal of the collegesaid a suicide note was foundin which it was mentionedthat the student took theextreme step due to familydisturbance.
However, Suryakant’s fam-ily members alleged that he wasmurdered and lodged an FIR inthis regard with theManiabandha police. PNS
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Awoman killed her two sonsby slitting their throats
and also ended her life inKalahandi district on Sundaynight.
The woman was identifiedas Bimala Majhi. While her twosons were lying dead withthroat slit at home, her bodyalong with decapitated headwas found on a railway track.
The three bodies wererecovered on Monday morn-ing.
The incident was reportedfrom Singajharan village underthe Bhawanipatna Town policestation. Bimala, in her hus-band’s absence, allegedly slitthroats of her sons Rabindra (4)and Dushmant (6) with a sharpweapon while they were sleep-ing with her. As her head wasfound decapitated from bodyand lying on railway track, itprima facie suggested that shemight have been run over by atrain.
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Ayouth was thrashed todeath for opposing misap-
propriation of his family’smoney by a co-villager atBaghmara in the Nilgiri area ofBaleswar district.
The deceased was identi-fied as Baburam Singh.According to reports,Baburam’s grandmother, who isan under-trial prisoner, hadgiven Rs 5,000 to one Budu Singh of the locality to give the
cash to his family members.However, Budu Singh mis-
appropriated the amount.When Baburam confrontedBudu Singh over the matter, thelatter thrashed him, leavinghim critically injured.
The victim was undergoingtreatment, but he succumbed tohis injuries on Monday. Actingon a complaint lodged by thebrother of the deceased, policestarted investigation into theincident.
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Ayouth was killed being runover by a bus at
Kunjakanta of Dhenkanal townon Monday. Keshab Dehuri(28) was on his way to watchthe immersion ceremony ofGanesh idols during which hemet with the accident.
When Keshab was riding atwo-wheeler, he was hit by thebus going towards Angul fromCuttack. Keshab fell down andthe bus ran over him, killinghim on the spot. Tension erupt-ed in the town after the mishapwhen locals staged a blockadeon the main road and damagedthe bus.
The bus driver and con-ductor fled from the spot.
Police reached the site andpersuaded the agitators to with-draw their strike.
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JAJPUR: At least threepersons were killed and threeothers seriously injured whenan ambulance rammed into astationary truck at ChhatiaChhak in Jajpur district late onSunday night.
According to sources, a108-ambulance carrying apatient and four others fromDasarathpur to Cuttack metwith the tragedy as it dashedagainst the truck, which wasparked on roadside.While twooccupants of the ambulancedied on the spot, four others,including the driver, were crit-ically injured. The victims wererescued by Fire Services per-sonnel and admitted to the SCBMedical College Hospital inCuttack.Later, driver GaganMohanty succumbed to hisinjuries at the hospital. PNS
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The farmers everywhere inNuapada district are
aggrieved over nonavailabilityof urea in crucial season forcrops.
"Urea is not available inthe district since last one anda half months. Farmers areforced to buy urea in exorbi-tant price from traders ofBalangir district," allegedSanjay Tiwari, a farmer leaderof the district.
"Being informed by one of
my relatives that urea is avail-able in Bhalumunda andBelpada villages of Balangir dis-trict, I had gone there, but afterseeing cotton farmers paying
Rs 450 per packet of 45 kg, Ireturned," said Nurtan Sabar, asmall farmer of Chhatrang vil-lage.
"Urea was supplied toBalangir district recently, butNuapada was spared. Theadministration advises us toprocure urea from Balangir, butwe denied, because the trans-port cost would be more andwe will incur loss," said a fer-tilizer sale agent of Khariar.
"We will be forced toresort to agitation if urea is notsupplied to the district in nexttwo three days. The DDA hasassured that he would take thematter with the DistrictCollector and we are waitingfor their response," saidTiwari.
abandoned house near Sijukalavillage under the RairangpurTown police station inMayurbhanj district.
Based on a complaintlodged by the victim’s mother,police on Monday arrested theaccused, identified as PungaSoren of the village.
Reports said the victimhad on September 4 gone toRairangpur town for shop-ping. While she was waiting fora bus to return home in theevening, Soren offered to dropher home by his motorcycle.
But instead of taking herhome he forcibly took her to an
abandoned house near the vil-lage and allegedly raped herafter tying her hands and legs.
The accused was arrestedunder the POCSO Act and var-ious Sections of the IPC.
In another incident in thedistrict, a Grade-IV police staffwas arrested by police forallegedly molesting a school girlin Baripada town on Sunday.
The arrested copJawaharlal Behera was latersuspended by Mayurbhanj SPParmar Smit Parshottamdas.
Earlier, angry locals hadtied Behera to a tree andthrashed him black and blue.Getting information, BaripadaTown police rushed to the spotand rescued Behera from theclutch of villagers.
Sources said when a ClassVIII girl was returning fromtuition classes alone in theafternoon, Behera, a resident ofTanki Sahi misbehaved withher near the Collector’s resi-dence. Later, he later draggedher to a pump house and triedto outrage her modesty. But,the girl managed to escapefrom the spot and informed herordeal to her family members.
Soon after, her familymembers and locals detainedBehera, tied him to a tree andthrashed him severely. A casewas lodged against him atBaripada Town police stationunder Sections 354 and 506 ofIPC and Section 8 of Protectionof Children from SexualOffences (POCSO) Act.
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Members of the OdishaMedical Employees’
Association held a meetingwith Brahmapur MP ChandraSekhar Sahu and MLA BikramPanda here on Sunday.
In the meeting, the mem-bers presented their demandsbefore the public representa-tives which included providingthe hiked salary to the out-sourcing employees of theMKCG Medical CollegeHospital, jobs to the heirs ofdeceased employees, pension tothe retired employees, reap-pointment of the employeeswho were retrenched in 2001,forming new cadre for Group-D employees and opening ser-
vice book of permanentemployees. Sahu andPanda assured that they wouldput the demands before HealthDepartment officials in a meet-ing to be held on September 12in Bhubaneswar.
Among others, MKCHMedical College Dean andPrincipal Prof Radha MadhabTripathy, MKCH MedicalCollege HospitalSuperintendent Prof CharanPanda, Administrative OfficerSachida Nanda Nayak, associ-ation advisor Rabi Rath, VPSukant Mukhi, secretaryLalumohan Behera, joint sec-retary Ajit Patra, Rabi NaranyaBehera, Keshav Behera,Chandru Patra, S Niranjan andRahu Chinna were present.
In a development in theBrahmani river boat capsize
incident on Sunday, the body ofa person was recovered from aghat of the river in the district,on Monday.
The deceased was identifiedas Biswajit Acharya ofKundandeipur village. The bodywas found floating in the riverat Panigengutia ghat under theParjang police station in themorning. It was later fished outof the river.But three missingpersons Ramesh Sahu, SushantSahu and Lulu Sahu are yet to betraced. Fire Service personneland ODRAF teams are engagedin tracing them.Notably, a coun-try boat ferrying nine personshad overturned midway in theriver on September 7 night nearKhadagprasad. Five personsmanaged to swim and reach theshore safely.
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Recent months have wit-nessed a sound growth and
planning in the development ofthe Rayagada Municipality. Asan Urban Level Body (ULB), itis a part of District UrbanDevelopment Agency(DUDA). Amrit Rituraj is theProject Director of DUDA.
The municipality councilhas been dissolved by theGovernment as its tenure wasover. There is no chairpersonand councilor to resolve onday-to-day issues of the town.
Instead, the presentCollector Pramod KumarMeherda as administratoralongwith SachidanandaSatpathy, Executive Officer,has made a team of officialsaccountable to redress griev-ance ward-wise. Behera, Riturajand Satpathy trio has takenefforts to take the town to agreater height.
Because of several indus-tries like Indian Metals andFerro Alloys Limited (IMFA),JK Paper Mills Ltd (JKPM),Utkal Alumina InternationalLimited (UAIL), Vedanta andtheir several ancillaries, thearea has turned into a businesshub. There are four engineer-ing colleges namely GIACR,MITS, GIST and RITAM.Adding to this there are sever-al ITIs, a Govt Polytechnic, fewnursing schools apart fromeducational institutions of gen-
eral nature.The GOI’s recent
announcement of putting abottling plant and a DivisionalRailway Manager’ s (DRM)office, the locality's develop-ment is expected to get a bigpush.
In the context of this, onecan now behold the widenedtwo ways NH-326 with LEDstreet lights having under-ground wiring. A dozen ofvehicles with segregated com-partments for dry and wetwastes go around all the wardscollecting wastes from indi-vidual houses and hundreds ofdustbins of green(wet waste)and blue(dry waste) colours arekept at roadsides. In the mainroad, the commercial shops areprovided with enough use andpay dustbins. The waste col-lection vehicles are fitted withloudspeakers to sensitize theinhabitants of the town to seg-
regate the waste at source.A solid waste management
plant has been planned in a 12acres plot at Antariguda village.Besides this, two micro com-posting centres will be set upnear Jayaramaguda andGurumguda villages as a partof the solid waste manage-ment design. The segregatedplastics will be sold to localentrepreneurs and Toshalicement at Ampavalli, Pottangi,Koraput to financially supportthe sanitary workers.
The old drains of the townhave been renovated, desiltedand broadened to check over-flow. A marketing complex atKasturi Nagar is slowly gettingoccupied. Vending zones atdifferent places with fabricatedshops are provided to rehabil-itate the street vendors. A JatriNivas within the compound ofthe new bus stand has beenrecently unveiled by Saraka.
Assistance for IndividualHousehold Latrines(IHL) hasbeen aggressively done to checkopen defecation. Communitytoilets at strategic points havebeen established to strengthenthe process of ODF munici-pality.
Several parks are beingmaintained. In Gandhi Park,amusement for children and agym for all are eye catchers.Greeneries at places like forestpark, graveyards, avenues, etcare the joint effort ofMunicipality and ForestDepartment. On a regular basisit seizes polythenes from theunauthorized stockists andshopkeepers and levies fines.
PMAY(U) houses havebeen distributed in slums witha geo-tagging process. Duringthe recent summer, safe drink-ing water contained in waterpots were kept in each ward forthe commuters. The digital
face of the municipality is alsoencouraging. It has a Facebookpage to exhibit transparency.
EO Satpathy, who joinedthe municipality six monthsback, is always online in hisWhatsApp and responds toeven trivial issues in his juris-diction. It is thus no lookingback for him.
A well planned new grave-yard at Siriguda is under con-struction. Work for a mini sta-dium and a town hall besidethe municipality office is pro-gressing. There is a plan for yetanother Kalyan Mandap at SaiPria Nagar where Rajya SabhaMP Bhaskar Rao and SC-STMinister Jagannath Saraka laidthe foundation stone recently.The walls of the boundaries atmain road, a part of NH-326,going through the town, arewall-painted aesthetically tobeautify the city.
With the mediation ofCollector Behera, a shoppingcomplex under Gundicha tem-ple with a lift for senior citizensand differentially abled personsto pay darshan to deity LordJagannath during Car festivalhas been agreed upon by thepromoter.
Similarly work has startedfor a much awaited by-passdiverting from Siriguda villagevia CDMO’s office, OMC office,Sri Aurobindo IntegratedSchool, GIACR, SaiInternational Hotel. This was aprime demand of local denizens.
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The Reserve Bank of of India(RBI), Bhubaneswar,
organised an ElectronicsBanking Awareness andTraining (eBAAT) programmehere on Friday. AGM, RBI,Bhubaneswar, Sanjib KumarBasak joined as chief guest andinaugurated the camp.
Among others, SatishKumar Patra,LDM of banksfrom Jagatsinghpur andBiswabhusan Mohanty, DistrictDevelopment Manager(DDM), NABARD attendedas the guests.
The aim of the programmewas to facilitate increased usage
of electronic banking productsand digital banking channelslike internet and mobile bank-ing by creating awarenessamong the bank customers.
The RBI has been reachingout to the masses and educat-ing them about the changes in
the banking space. Conductedfor the first time in the port andindustrial city of Paradip, theeBAAT event saw overwhelm-ing attendance of over 115people from the business com-munity and the bankers of thecity.
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In a deeply shocking incident,a man has allegedly killed his
one-month-old son at Gelatuaunder the Bhadrak Rural policestation in the district andburied the body.
The baby’s mother hadlodged a police complaint inthis regard on September 7, onthe basis of which the accused,identified as Tiku Munda, wasarrested on Monday.
Police sources said the cou-ple had a quarrel on the nightg August 30, following whichthe woman’s husband killed thebaby and later buried the body.
Kelucharan Mohapatra AwardFestival 2019 showed amazingHindustani music recital fol-lowed by Odishi performanceson Sunday.
The first performance ofthe evening was the Hindustanivocal recital of IndraniMukherjee, an accomplishedexponent of the BenarasGharana. She was accompaniedon the Tabla by the creative andversatile musician, ApurbaMukherjee and on the harmo-nium by Gourab Chatterjeeand Sachidananda Sahoo onthe Tanpura. She presentedthree compositions throughthe course of the evening. Thefirst was a khayal in RaagKedar. The second presentationwas a Kajri in Raag Pilu and thefinal presentation was a Bhajan.
Following this was the firstOdishi group presentation ofthe evening by Soor Mandirfrom Cuttack, led by JyotsnaRani Sahoo. They presentedRasanuraga. Set to Ragamalika
and Talamalika, the dancerspresented the production withgood stage presence andexpressions.
The final performance ofthe evening was by notedOdishi exponent GajendraPanda's group Tridhara.Tridhara presented three dancepieces, Mangalacharan, KirvaniPallavi and Ram Bhajan.
This Mangalacharan fea-tured the hallmark Sabda SwaraPata, a key feature of the GuruDeba Prasad Das gharana, andwas set to the music composi-tion of Dr Gopal Chandra
Panda, rhythm compositionof Dr Banamali Moharana anddance choreography of DrGajendra Panda.
This was followed by apure dance or pallavi, set toRaag Kirvani, composed byLaxmikant Palit andDhaneswar Swain on musicand rhythm respectively andthe dance choreography of DrGajendra Panda. The presen-tation concluded with a RamBhajan, drawn fromNagarakirtana tradition ofsouth Odisha.
September 2 with great pomp.Though it rained most of
the days since the beginning ofthe festival, still thousands ofvisitors from in and aroundthronged the various pandalsdaily. The whole of the townfrom Talcher Town area toHandidhua Chowk has beendecorated with dazzling andcolourful lights. There are morethan 70 puja pandals located inthe town.
There is also competitionamong the Puja Committees tobag awards for the best deco-rated pandals and idols thisyear. The celebrations willcome to an end on September14 on the occasion of InduPurnima. To maintain peaceand discipline during the fes-tive occasion, security arrange-ments have been stepped up inthe city, led by Angul SPJagmohan Mina. Police havemade necessary arrangementsto ensure the smooth conduct
of the event. The TalcherSDPO, six inspectors and fiveplatoon forces remaindeployed. Besides, provisionsfor foot and mobile patrollinghave been made.Specialarrangements have been madefor traffic management.
A special vehicle is movingin different places of the townto take out the drunken youths,said Talcher SDPO HemantKumar Panda. To attract thevisitors, cultural programmesare being held in the eveningthrough Central Puja
Committee at By pass andHandidhua Chowk daily.Announcements throughmikes by the committee arealso made to alert visitorsagainst pickpockets and chainsnatchers. The famous AngyanMalla and Ladu will be auc-tioned on the immersion day inthe presence of Talcher MLABrajakishore Pradhan and pres-ident of Central PujaCommittee Talcher SubCollector Paresh ChandraNayak and other committeemembers.
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Local MLA Sushant Rout onMonday visited Veer
Surendra Sai (VSS) Nagar andtook stock of various problemsin the locality.
Rout visited the subwayconstructed under NH 16 tolink VSS Nagar to SaheedNagar and expressed unhappi-ness over its ‘unmotorable’condition.
Then, members of the VSSNagar Unayan Parishadbrought to his notice thatstreetlights were yet to beinstalled on the Rail overBridge (RoB) connecting theVSS Nagar to MancheswarPostal Colony even after threeyears of inauguration by ChiefMinister Naveen Patnaik.
The MLA paid floral trib-utes at the statue of freedomfighter Veer Surendra Sai hereand listened to the longstand-ing demand of establishment ofa life-size statue of Sai.
Rout, during his visit to thehospital at the Veera SurendraSai (VSS) Nagar, marked thatthe every-day healthcare ser-vices were hit due to lack ofequipments in the hospital.
Later, he attended a meet-ing of Parishad members wherehe was told about the regions’demand of a good sewerage system, setting up a permanent VSS Nagar policeoutpost and availability of citybuses. He assured that hewould look into the matterssoon.
Niladri Nagar under JharpadaMouza here and held discus-sions with the residents aboutvarious problems in the local-ity.
Sarangi went around thearea and found that due to lackof roads, electricity and sewer-age system the people have aharrowing time.
Niladri Nagar Welfare Trustpresident Gorachand Mangarajsaid that the trust has been
demanding declaring the areaas a yellow zone, but in vain.
Later, a meeting was organ-ised where Sarangi listened tothe problems of the trust andassured that she would presentthe demands before the StateGovernment.
Among others, trust sec-retary Purshotam Paikray, BJPleader Jagannath Pradhan, for-mer Basuaghai PanchayatSarpanch Kailash Jena, ShivPrasad Mishra, SukantAcharya, PK Padhy and SashiBhusan Mahapatra were pre-sent.
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The Fatehgarh police onMonday launched a spe-
cial awareness drive here onthe new rules under theamended Motor Vehicles Act.
An awareness rally wasalso taken out from the BeatHouse under the leadership ofFatehgarh police station IICNiranjan Kishore Dhir. Hesaid the awareness drivewould be undertaken in everyarea of Bhapur block in com-ing days.
The commuters were sen-sitised against drunken dri-ving, use of mobile phones during driving, dri-ving on wrong side of road,triple riding and non-usage ofhelmets and seat belts.
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The Quality CircleFederation of India (QCFI),
Bhubaneswar Chapter in col-laboration with the BhilaiChapter organised a ChapterConvention on QualityConcepts (CCQC–2019) onthe theme ‘Quality Conceptsfor Cultural Breakthrough’ hereon Sunday.
The mega event, promot-ed by the Odisha MiningCorporation, witnessed asmany as 72 QC teams with372 participants representing
13 leading industries whoshowcased their creativeefforts to build a total qualityculture.
The Agrasar team of BhilaiSteel Plant and Quick Kadamteam of BALCO were adjudgedas the best of convention andsecond best of conventionsrespectively whereas 56 teamswon gold, 13 teams won silverand three teams won bronze inthe event.
QCFI ED DK Srivastav,NINL Vice-Chairman and MDSS Mohanty, OMC Director(Personnel) Dr Santanu Rath
and QCFI, Bhilai ChapterDirector GP Singh attended asguests.
They highlighted theimportance of inculcating qual-ity orientation and institution-alising total quality culture toimprove competitiveness topave way for business excel-lence in a rapidly changingbusiness landscape.
Teams winning gold andsilver will participate in the33rd edition of the NationalConventions on QualityConcepts in Varanasi inDecember 2019.
An Odisha-born Indian AirForce pilot has made it to
the next level of selection ofastronauts for the ambitiousGaganyaan mission scheduledto take off in 2022.
Wing Commander NikhilRath, a resident of Balangir dis-trict, has been selected among25 test pilots in preliminary listof astronauts at the Institute ofAerospace Medicine inBengaluru to undertake train-ing for Indian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO)’s firstmanned mission to space in2022.
All 25 shortlisted test pilotswill undergo training in Russia
for one year for country’sambitious Gaganyaan mission.If the Air Force officer Rathgets selected into final list, hewill be among three astro-nauts to go to the space for aseven-day mission flying aspacecraft up to an altitude of300 to 400 km.
The Indian Air Forceshared a tweet on completionof first level of selection, whichcomprised of extensive physi-cal and clinical tests held at theInstitute of AerospaceMedicine.
Nikhil Rath is the son ofAshok Rath, a Balangir-basedsenior lawyer and Kusum Rath,a member of WomenCommission.
“It is a matter of pride notonly for me but also forBalangir as well as Odisha. Hehas been selected to undergoptraining for the space project.Our honourable PrimeMinister Narendra Modi on
August 15, 2018, had declaredthat three Air Force personnelwill be finalised for ISRO’sspace mission for which he hadsanctioned Rs 10,000 crore.Nikhil qualified the first levelof selection process for the pro-ject,” said Nikhil’s father AshokRath.
Born in a family of free-dom fighters and martyrs,Nikhil had the inclination toserve the country. After com-pleting his schooling fromKendriya Vidyalaya in 1998 inBalangir, he completed hisintermediate studies fromDelhi Public School in 2000.
In the first attempt itself hecleared the entrance examina-tion and joined National
Defence Academy (NDA) as acadet. After passing out, hejoined Indian Air Force in2003.
“Going to space is defi-nitely a risky job. But our fam-ily has been serving the nation.My father was a freedom fight-er; and my elder brother, whowas a commandant in CRPF,was martyred in Mizoram. Itoo had a desire to join Defenceservice. Unfortunately, it didnot happen. Now my son, whois a wing commander, is serv-ing the country,” the proudfather said.
“He will definitely qualifyand be selected in next level forthe space project,” said hismother.
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At a time when the wholecountry is talking about
the importance of nutritionduring the ongoing Poshanmonth, Angul district held aunique competition in six vil-lages to highlight the crucialrole of eggs in nutrition.
Children and mothers whoare beneficiaries of the supple-mentary nutrition programme(SNP) under the ICDS
(Integrated Child DevelopmentServices) took part in an eggrelay competition in six villagesincludingPurunakote, Barasahi,Baliposi, Kunjam, Karadapaland Saida in Angul districtfrom September 6 to 8.
There were 10 teams ineach village with one child andone mother as team members.Sarpanch and frontline healthworkers including Anganwadiworkers (AWW) and ASHAswere also present at the event tostress the relevance of eggs. Thecommunity came together toacknowledge Odisha’s initia-tive to provide the benefitunder the ICDS.
The competition was notonly meant to highlight theimportance of egg as a super
food to fight malnutrition, butalso the significance of theintended beneficiary consum-ing it.
Odisha is one of the fewStates to provide eggs to com-bat under-nutrition. TheGovernment provides five eggsa week for children inAnganwadi Centres and threeeggs a week each to pregnantmothers, lactating mothers andchildren aged between sixmonths and three years astake-home ration under SNP.
Consumption of eggs notonly leads to better nutritionfor children but also helps inproducing nutrient-rich breastmilk for mothers.
The Angul Pusti AdhikarAbhiyan (APAA), a people’s
movement against malnutri-tion in Angul district, has beenworking towards demand gen-eration such that the benefi-ciaries receive the entitlednumber of eggs under the sup-
plementary nutrition pro-gramme and that the intendedconsume the eggs.“Eventhough the AWC provides 12eggs for the mother’s con-sumption, the whole household
ends up eating those eggs. Wewant to ensure that the com-munity understands the impor-tance ofmother and child con-suming those eggs,” said APAAconvenor Bidyut Mohanty
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The Literacy Week was cel-ebrated by the Department
of English of the DAV PublicSchool Pokhariput here withnumerous activities and com-petitions from September 4 to7 in the school.
On the concluding day,students of Classes-XI and XIIrecited self-composed poemson literacy. In order to motivatestudents towards the pleasureof reading books, theDepartment of Library Sciencein collaboration withScholastics organised a four-day book exhibition in thekid’s den.
For the tiny tots, a story-telling session was staged onSeptember 6 in which the emi-nent storyteller Prachi TaraMishra of the BakulFoundation enthralled the kids
with two magnificent stories.Several competitions like
story telling for Classes III-V,literary quiz for Class VI-VII,story writing for Classes-IX andX, poster making and self-composed poems for Classes-XI and XII were conductedduring the week to identify andnurture the literary talents ofthe students. The winners werefelicitated in the valedictoryfunction.
Eminent academician andwriter Dr Gopa Ranjan Mishraattended as chief guest of thevaledictory ceremony laudedthe efforts of the teachers andstudents in spreading the mes-sage of literacy.
He advised the students tomaintain the record of theirdaily experiences in the formof diary entries and other lit-erary forms like poems andstories.
Chidambaram on Mondaytweeted through “familymembers” wondering whyhe alone was arrested inINX Media case, whilemany officers signed inthe file of the controversial FDI clearance.
He said, he was only a last
signatory in the file passedthrough a dozen of officers. Ina second Tweet, he said that noofficer done anything wrong and
he don’t anyone to bearrested.
“I have requestedmy family to tweet onmy behalf the following:-People have asked me ‘If
the dozen officers whoprocessed and recommendedthe case to you have not been
arrested, why have you beenarrested? Only because you haveput the last signature? I have noanswer,” said Chidambaram.
“No officer has done any-thing wrong. I do not want any-one to be arrested,”Chidambaram said in anothertweet. He tweeted the samematter in Hindi also.
CBI has already filed sanc-tion to prosecute four seniorofficers in this case.
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The Centre has constituted athree-member committee
to look into distribution ofassets and liabilities of Jammu& Kashmir between two suc-cessor Union territories, whichwill come into existence onOctober 31.
While former defence sec-retary Sanjay Mitra will be thechairman of the committee,retired IAS officer Arun Goyaland retired Indian CivilAccounts Service (ICAS) offi-cer Giriraj Prasad Gupta will beits members.
“...In exercise of the powersconferred by Section 84 and
Section 85 of the Jammu &Kashmir Reorganisation Act,2019, the Central Governmenthereby constitutes the adviso-ry committee,” the home min-istry notification said.
As per Section 84 of theAct, the assets and liabilities ofthe existing state of Jammu &Kashmir have to be appor-tioned between the Union ter-ritories of Jammu & Kashmir,and Ladakh. On August 5, theCentre announced the abroga-tion of the special status givento Jammu & Kashmir underArticle 370 and bifurcation ofthe State into the two UTs.
The apportionment of theassets and liabilities of theexisting State of Jammu &Kashmir shall be subject to therecommendations of a com-mittee constituted by theCentral Government, it said.
According to Section 85 ofthe Act, the CentralGovernment, by an order, canestablish one or more adviso-ry committees for apportion-ment of assets, rights and lia-bilities of the companies andcorporations constituted forthe existing State of Jammu &Kashmir between the twoUnion territories.
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Facing the prospect of losingtheir national party status,
the CPI, TMC and the NCP onMonday urged the ElectionCommission (EC) to considertheir key role in national politicsand their years in existenceinstead of just taking their recentelectoral performance intoaccount.
The three parties sought afresh opportunity to improvetheir electoral performance.While TMC saw its traditionalstronghold Bengal being raidedby the BJP, the NCP sufferedmajor reverses in itsMaharashtra bastion even as theCPI has been almost wiped out.
The three parties appearedbefore the Commission for apersonal hearing on Monday.The EC had earlier issued themnotices asking why their ‘nation-al party’ status should not berevoked following their perfor-mance in the Lok Sabha elec-tions.
According to the ElectionSymbols (Reservation andAllotment) Order, 1968, a polit-ical party can be recognised asa national party if its candidatessecure at least six per cent ofvotes polled in four or morestates in Lok Sabha or assembly
elections, and, in addition, it hasat least four members in LokSabha.
As of now, the IndianNational Congress (INC), BJP,BSP, CPI, Communist Party ofIndia (Marxist), TMC, NCPand the National People’s Partyof Meghalaya have nationalparty status.
The CPI is learnt to havesaid that after the Congress, it isthe oldest party in the countrywhich had been the principalopposition party in Lok Sabha.
The Left party said thoughit may not have fared well in therecent Lok Sabha elections, it hasbeen in power in several statesand has played a key role instrengthening the Constitution.
The TMC is learnt to havesaid that it was given nationalparty status in 2014 and itshould be allowed to continuewith it at least till 2024.
The CPI, BSP and the NCPwere facing the prospect of los-ing their national party statusafter their dismal performancein the 2014 Lok Sabha electionsas well.
However, they got a reprievewhen in 2016 the EC amendedits rules, whereby national andstate party status of political par-ties are to be reviewed every 10years instead of five.
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In these tough times for agri-culture in Northern belt on
account of non-remunerativereturns and increasing inci-dences of crop loss owing towild animals, Himachal Pradeshis flexing its flower power.
It has become the largestproducer of high quality wildmarigold essential oil (4 tonnesper annum) in the country tomeet the demand of perfume,flavouring, and condimentindustries.
The CSIR-Institute ofHimalayan BioresourceTechnology (IHBT), Palampurin the Himalayan State is doingits bit in this regard by helpingand training farmers introducehigh value aromatic crops suchas wild marigold, damask rose,lavender, rosemary, lemongrassand mushkbala under CSIRAroma mission.
Dr Sanjay Kumar, Director,CSIR-IHBT said to promotecultivation of these aromaticcrops among the farmers, acomplete package of agro andprocessing technologies hasbeen developed and executed inthe farmers’ fields to help themrealize the profits.
In fact, in the last two years,CSIR-IHBT has brought morethan 500 hectares area underthese crops. Cultivation of wildmarigold has resulted in theproduction of 7.6 tonnes ofessential oil in HimachalPradesh alone with revenuegeneration of Rs. 5.56 croresbenefitting 861 farmers.Different small societies of pro-gressive farmers have beenformed in different states byCSIR-IHBT. Nineteen process-ing units have been set up forthese societies to empower thefarmers for production of essen-tial oils, said Dr Kumar.
Aromatic crops are widelycultivated around the worlddue to its high-revenue earningessential oil which is utilized in
agrochemical, food, flavoring,perfumery and pharmaceuticalindustry like wound healing andtreatment of eczema, diaperrash, psoriasis and for skinointment. Increasing demand ofnatural personal care productsand aromatic cleansing agents isalso favouring the essential oilmarket.
“The global essential oilsmarket demand was 226.9 thou-sand tons in 2018 and project-ed to expand at a CAGR of 8.6%from 2019 to 2025. To promotecultivation of these aromaticcrops among the farmers, acomplete package of agro andprocessing technologies hasbeen developed and executed inthe farmers’ fields to help themrealize the profits.
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The 4,000-year-old burialsites at Sanauli in Uttar
Pradesh’s Baghpat district,about 80 km from here, whichmade waves in archeologicalcircle following the excavationof underground “sacred cham-bers”, chariots, decorated“legged coffins” as well as fas-cinating artifact might get the“national importance” tag soon.
The country’s premier con-servation body, ArcheologicalSurvey of India (ASI) under theUnion Culture Ministry hasissued a preliminary notificationin this regard showing its inten-tion to tag the site as ‘nationalimportance’.
The aim is to protect the site
from encroachment, temperingand destruction. Around 28.67hectares of land mostly belong-ing to the locals in the region hasbeen earmarked for notification.
The draft notification saysthat the Central Government isof the opinion that, the ancientsite, namely, archaeological site
and remains in the locality ofSadikpur Sinauli, districtBaghpat, Uttar Pradesh is ofnational importance.
“Now, therefore, in exerciseof the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 4 of theAncient Monuments andArchaeological Sites and
Remains Act, 1958 (24 of 1958),the Central Government herebygives notice of its intention todeclare the said ArchaeologicalSite and remains to be of nation-al importance.”
The ASI has sought objec-tions in this regard from thepublic.
“Sanauli is an important sitefrom archeological point of viewas artifacts found from the venueare not only of national impor-tance but of international impor-tance too. Much remain yet tobe explored,” said archeologist SKManjul who is credited for theunearthing coffins and sacredchambers important artifactsfrom the site in 2018.
Sanauli is located on the leftbank of the River Yamuna, 68
km north-east of Delhi whichbrought to light the largestnecropolis of the late Harappanperiod datable to around earlypart of second millennium BCE.
Manjul said that theunearthed chariots, somecoffins, shields, swords andghelmets points towards theexistence of a “warrior class inthe area around 2,000 BCE”.
“These findings are impor-tant to understand the culturepattern of the Upper Ganga-Yamuna doab. We found copperswords, helmets, shields andchariots,” Manjul said.
He claimed that the discov-ery of chariots put India on a parwith ancient civilisations inMesopotamia and Greece, wherechariots were used extensively.
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The Congress has reachedout to the Bahujan Samaj
Party (BSP) to forge an alliancefor the Assembly electionsscheduled in Haryana to stopthe ruling BJP from returningto power in the State.
The newly-appointedHaryana Congress PresidentKumari Selja and formerHaryana Chief MinisterBhupinder Singh Hooda metBSP chief Mayawati inLucknow onSunday in thisregard after the lat-ter reportedlyexpressed herunhappiness overthe seat-sharingformula withD u s h y a n tC h a u t a l a ’ sJannayak JanataParty (JPP).
The formerUttar Pradesh CMeven took toTwitter toannounce to go italone and conteston all the seats.Her party also saidit will have notruck withCongress or any other party.“We will not have alliance withCongress or anybody else,”BSP’s Rajya Sabha MP SatishMisra said on Monday.
“Soon after the BSPannounced to go it all alone inHaryana, the new office bear-ers of Haryana Congress decid-ed to approach Behenji as herparty has a great influence inthe state and together withCongress the Jat-Jatav votebase could be strengthened,”said a senior AICC leader.
However, some sections ofthe Haryana Congress leadersdenied reports of a possible tie-up with the BSP, saying theCongress was strong enough inthe State to go it alone in the
assembly polls.The BSP had earlier
snubbed the Congress in UttarPradesh in the Lok Sabha elec-tions and joined hands withAkhilesh Yadav’s SamajwadiParty. The then Congress pres-ident Rahul Gandhi had criti-cised the move, saying the SP-BSP alliance had “underesti-mated” the grand old party.
The Haryana assemblyelections is likely to be inter-esting this time as the mainopposition INLD has beenreduced to a minority as sev-
eral party MLAs andleaders have joinedthe BJP.
On the otherhand even afterchanges were effect-ed in the State unitof the Congress byinterim PresidentSonia Gandhi lastweek, infightingcontinues in thecadre. While Seljawas appointedHaryana CongressPresident and shehas for long beenone of the leadingDalit faces of theCongress, Hooda isa prominent Jatleader. Hooda was
the CM of the state for two con-secutive terms till 2014 andafter that the Congress has lostall elections badly.
Congress finished thirdand even failed to secure theLeader of Opposition’s postthough Hooda was appointedas CLP by Sonia after he hadthreatened to quit the grand oldparty and launch an outfit ofhis own.
BJP won 47 seats out of the90 seats while Congress 15 seatsand BSP just one seat. INLDhad 19 legislators. However, itsplit into two factions with theJJP coming into existence. BJPhad a vote share of 33.3 percent,the INLD’s 24.2 percent andCongress 20.7 percent.
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Clearing the air on the con-tentious issue, the RSS on
Monday backed the continua-tion of reservation till its ben-eficiaries feel it is needed.
Dispelling any ambiguitythat may have risen in the paston it stand on reservation, theRSS joint general secretaryDattatreya Hosabale said reser-vation is required because thereis social and economic dispar-ity in society, and should con-tinue till its beneficiaries feel itis needed.
RSS head Mohan Bhagwathad stirred a controversy in2016 during Bihar Assemblypoll campaign when hebroached the reservation issue.He again spoke on the issue in2018 saying that should be aconversation in “harmonious
atmosphere” between those whofavour it and those against it.
Hosabale was speaking atthe end of three-day RSS coor-dination meeting (SamanvayBaithak) at Pushkar, Rajasthan,which was attended by 200members of 35 RSS outfitsand BJP leaders including itsworking president J P Nadda.
Hosabale also said that theorganisation strongly felt thattemples, cremation groundsand water reservoirs should beopen for all and not restrictedto any specific caste.
“There is social and eco-nomic disparity in our societyand therefore reservation isrequired...We totally supportthe reservation as mandated bythe Constitution,” he said at apress conference at Pushkar.
A Dalit organisation, hesaid, had written to Bhagwat
applauding the Sangh’s standon ending discrimination insociety. The RSS strongly feelsand has been working towardsthe belief that temples, crema-
tion grounds and water reser-voirs should be open for all, hesaid.
The RSS meeting also dis-cussed the issue of National
Register of Citizens (NRC) inAssam issue at length and con-cerns were raised on severalgenuine citizens, especiallythose who settled in Assamfrom the neighbouring states,being left out.
The RSS leaders alsoexpressed concerns claimingthat majority of the 1.9 millionpeople excluded are Hindus,sources said.
The RSS furtherannounced that it will start apublic campaign across thecountry for water conservation,tree plantation and reducinguse of plastic. The announce-ment comes weeks after PrimeMinister Narendra Modi inhis Independence Day speechhad appealed to people to shunsingle-use plastic.
The Sangh will also organ-ise a one-day workshop for its
workers on these three themesin Agra and Pune.
“Planting trees, water con-servation and reducing use ofplastic were also discussed andhow these can be made a masscampaign across the country,”he said.
Hosabale said Sangh work-ers will reach out to villages andpeople across the country andmotivate them to plant moretrees, conserve water andreduce plastic use.
According to sources,Nadda also briefed the meetingon abrogation of special statusto Jammu & Kashmir.Describing the Centre’s move asa “grand step” for develop-ment of the Valley, Hosabalesaid, “Abrogation of Article370 has opened door for devel-opment of Jammu & Kashmir,and it was required.”
Monday asked manufacturersof packaged drinking water, tocome up with suggestions ofalternative packaging bySeptember 11 as it favoured aban on plastics because of itshealth and environmentalimpact.
Union Food andConsumer Affairs MinisterRam Vilas Paswan on Mondayheld a meeting with bottledwater industry and variousgovernment departments tofind a suitable alternative forsingle-use plastic bottles fordrinking water. During themeeting various alternatives to
plastics were discussed includ-ing Glass, Metal, Paper andNatural Polymers.Representatives of big privatemanufacturers such as Bisleri,Kinley and Pepsi Co were alsopresent at the meeting.
Consumer AffairsSecretary A K Srivastava andsenior officials from environ-ment and chemical ministeriesas well as Bureau of IndianStandard, FSSAI, IRCTC werepresent in the meeting. Paswanalso made it clear that the banwould not affect employmentas the ‘alternative to plastic’would create jobs.
“Plastic has a big role toplay in damaging environ-ment as well as health ofhuman beings and animals. We
have seen reports of hugequantity of plastics found instomach of cow,” Paswan toldthe reporters.
Stating that recycling is nota permanent solution, Paswansaid there is a need to find analternative, which is equallyaffordable and reliable. He said
even pure paper bottle is not analternative as some plastic ismixed.
“We have not got any con-crete alternative of packageddrinking water during thismeeting. Therefore, I haveasked all manufacturers tosend their suggestions by
September 11,” the ministersaid, adding that these recom-mendations would be sent tothe inter-ministerial panel andthe Prime Minister’s Office(PMO) . Paswan said the finaldecision would be taken by thegovernment.
During the meeting, thestatus on various plastic mate-rials presently allowed forpacking of drinking waterincluding restrictions, both atnational and international lev-els were discussed. Speaking onthe sidelines, All IndiaAssociation of Natural MineralWater Industry SecretaryBehram Mehta said the pack-aged bottle water industry usesPET (polyethylene terephtha-late), which is 100 per cent
recyclable and even used glob-ally. He said the industry hasachieved 92 per cent recyclingand will soon achieve 100 percent.
The meeting was attendedby several stakeholders includ-ing Secretary, ConsumerAffairs Avinash K Srivastava,DG, Bureau of IndianStandards (BIS), Food Safetyand Standards Authority ofIndia ( FSSAI), CentralInstitute of PlasticsEngineering and Technology(CIPET), The Council ofScientific & IndustrialResearch (CSIR) along withofficials from the Ministry ofEnvironment and Forest, JalShakti, Petroleum andRailways.
Having put its 100 smartcities plan in place in its first
term, the Modi Governmenthas now set an ambitious targetof making all urban local bod-ies (ULBs) ‘smart’ by the end ofits second term in 2024.
The Government is collect-ing data from all agencies to pre-pare an online urban data baseof all urban local bodies whichcontains all type of information.The Ministry has also set a newtarget of �2 lakh crore investmentunder the smart city scheme.Presently, 21 Command andControl Rooms in 21 smartcities have been set up so far.
As per Smart City Missionofficials, India will have anonline database of all ULBs by2024 on infrastructure, sanita-tion, water, education, and healthfacilities among others as it aimsto create a
“culture of data” to addressurban challenges of the country.The database, which will includedata on infrastructure, traffic,education, health, sanitation,safety and population, will becreated on a single platform ina phased manner. There will bean ‘Open Database’ that can beaccessed by everybody free ofcost and an ‘Exchange ofDatabase’ under which agenciesmight charge for commercial useof data’, as per a plan by theUnion Housing and UrbanAffairs (HUA) Ministry.
In the first phase, a databasefor 100 cities under the Centre’sflagship ‘Smart City Mission’will be created by March 2020,while in the second phase, 500cities will be brought under theproject by 2022.
HUA Joint Secretary andDirector of the Smart CityMission Kunal
Kumar said 100 “data officers”are being trained and they willbe responsible for better coordi-nation between governmentagencies and providing infor-mation on the single platform.“We will have a database of over4,000 cities by 2024. We arebuilding a database of thesecities. Data storage will be avail-able at one place,” he said.
For instance, a person look-ing for a property in a particu-lar area can utilise the online datato see what civic amenities areavailable nearby. People can usedata on the ‘Open Database’ plat-form for their needs according-ly, Kumar said. Streets which arein crime prone areas can also beidentified through the platform,as per officials. Under the pro-ject, the Government planned toset up an online ‘Swachh Kashi’platform for the people of
Flawless and precise launchand efficient management
of the Chandrayaan-2 mission— till the lander ‘Vikram’ lostcommunication with ground-stations — has paid rich divi-dends to the ISRO on theorbiter front.
The 2,379 kg orbiterwhose mission life wasdesigned to be one year willnow be able function foralmost seven years.
“Enough fuel is availablewith the orbiter. Up to(lunar) orbitinsertion, wedid not haveany flaw.Additionalfuel whichwas anticipated
was not used at all. Every thingwent as per the plan. Additionalfuel is available with us (on-board the orbiter),” an ISROofficial said.
Another ISRO officialadded, “One of the limiting fac-tor is on-board fuel availabili-ty. Because the performance ofGSLV-MK III (which launchedthe spacecraft) and efficientmission management, we haveenough fuel for continuing itforward for seven years.”
The space agency also said,the precise launch and missionmanagement has ensured along life of almost seven yearsinstead of the planned one
year for the orbiter.ISRO said 90 to 95
per cent of theChandrayaan-2 mis-sion objectives havebeen accomplishedand will continue to
contribute to Lunarscience, notwith-standing the lossof communication
with the landerwhich hit lunarsurface after fail-
ing in its planned
attempt to soft-land in theearly hours of Saturday.
Pointing out the orbiter has
already been placed in itsintended orbit around theMoon, ISRO said, it shall
enrich our understanding ofthe moon’s evolution and map-ping of the minerals and water
molecules in the polar regions,using its eight state-of-the-artscientific instruments.
“The orbiter camera is thehighest resolution camera (0.3metres) in any lunar mission sofar and shall provide high res-olution images which will beimmensely useful to the glob-al scientific community,” it said.
The Chandrayaan-2 orbiteris healthy and safe in the lunarorbit, an ISRO official hadsaid after the ‘Vikram’ landerlost contact with ground sta-tions minutes before the touch-down on Moon’s surface.
Stating that Chandrayaan-2 mission was a highly complexone, which represented a sig-nificant technological leapcompared to the previous mis-sions of ISRO, the space agencysaid, it brought together anorbiter, lander and rover toexplore the unexplored southpole of the Moon.
This was a unique missionwhich aimed at studying notjust one area of the Moon butall the areas combining theexosphere, the surface as wellas the sub-surface of the moonin a single mission, it added.
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Mathura’s famous ‘ChhappanBhog’ this year on
September 12 will be dedicatedto the Chandrayaan-2 projectand ISRO scientists involved inthe moon mission, an officer-bearer of the organising com-mittee said on Monday.
Murari Agrawal, thefounder-president of Sri GirirajSeva Samiti, which organises thecommunity offering event, saidthey would also pray for thesuccess of the country’s futureendeavour to explore the Moon.He said they have extended invi-tations to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, the IndianSpace Research Organisation(ISRO) scientists associatedwith the Chandrayaan-2 andChandrayaan-3 projects andtheir family members.
“We have decided to giveChandrayaan-3 shape to theimprovised sanctum sancto-rum of the temple with gems
and jewels. Brijwasis wouldpray for the success ofChandrayaan-3,” Agrawal said.
For preparing 21,000-kilo-gram “Prasadam (offering)”with cow ghee and other items,expert religious cooks fromLucknow, Agra, Hathras,Indore, Ratlam and Maduraiare working for about 10 hoursdaily, Agrawal said.
He said religious cooksfrom Bengaluru, the city thathouses the ISRO headquarters,and Kolkata have prepared themodel of what he calledChandrayaan-3 and its rover.
Chhappan Bhog is a part ofa three-day programme thatbegins on Tuesday, September10, with a 23-km circumambu-lation around the Govardhanhillock, with lord Krishna on achariot. While the MahaAbhishekam of the deity wouldtake place on September 11, theChhappan Bhog has been slat-ed for the following day, Agrawalsaid. The organisers expect thatat least four lakh pilgrims arelikely to join the programme onat least one of the days, he said.
The Samiti is a group ofover 100 people which organisesthe Chhappan Bhog every year.Often they dedicate their prayerto some special causes.Chhappan Bhog — prasad(offerings) made with 56 dif-ferent items — is a communityoffering organised to please thedeity for the welfare of thesociety. According to Hindu tra-ditions, such offering was organ-ised to please lord Krishna dur-ing the Dwapar period.
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Raising questions about theBJP Government’s longevi-
ty in Karnataka, senior Congressleader Siddaramaiah onMonday claimed Chief MinisterB S Yediyurappa is like an“unwanted child” as his partyscentral leadership was not inter-ested in him taking the top job.
The former Chief Ministeralleged Yediyurappa came topower through the backdoorwithout the public mandate.
“He has come to powerthrough the backdoor withoutpublic mandate and againstprinciples of democracy.. Theydid not have public mandate asthey had only 105 MLAs out of113 required for simple major-ity,” Siddaramaiah said.
Speaking at the Congressoffice here, he said the partywould have had no objection ifhe had become Chief Ministerwith the mandate of the people.
“Unlike Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, Yediyurappahas become CM without pub-lic mandate...How long he willbe CM I dont know...Yediyurappa is like an unwant-ed child, BJP had no interest inhim becoming CM..,” the con-gress leader claimed.
Siddaramaiah on severaloccasions recently had predict-ed the imminent fall of theYediyurappa government, lead-ing to mid-term polls inKarnataka. Following the col-lapse of the Congress-JD(S)coalition Government,Yediyurappa was sworn in as theChief Minister on July 26, andsubsequently he proved major-ity on the floor of the Assemblyon July 29. Absence of 17Congress-JD(S) MLAs duringthe trust vote had led to the col-lapse of the HD Kumaraswamyheaded coalition Governmentand helped BJP come to power.
Siddaramaiah, who is theleader of the Congress legisla-ture party, accused Yediyurappaof indulging in transfer of offi-cials and vendetta politics sincetaking over.
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Former Uttar Pradesh ChiefMinister Kalyan Singh
rejoined the BJP on Mondayafter completing his term as theRajasthan Governor, a constitutional post which offered him immunity fromtrial for criminal conspiracy in the Babri Masjid demolitioncase.
The 87-year-old leaderaccepted the party’s member-ship in the presence of UP BJPchief Swatantra Dev Singh.
His son Rajveer Singh, LokSabha MP from Etah, andgrandson Sandeep Singh,Minister of State for Finance inUttar Pradesh, were also pre-sent at the party office here.
Kalraj Mishra was sworn inas Rajasthan Governor onMonday after Singh completedthe five-year term as Governorof the State.
Singh could face trial forcriminal conspiracy in theBabri Masjid demolition case asthe immunity he enjoyed whileholding the constitutional postdoes not now exist.
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The Bombay High Courtwhich is hearing petitions
on the cutting of 2,600 trees inAarey for a metro rail car shedsaid on Monday that it wouldhave to go into the issue ofwhether monetary value can beplaced on environmental lossand degradation.
A Bench of Chief JusticePradeep Nandrajog and JusticeBharati Dangre said the issuepertains to the debate betweenenvironment and development.
“We need both environ-ment and development. Hence,we need to contrast and com-pare the two. The world overscientists and ecologists areresearching the issue of how tovalue environmental loss,”Chief Justice Nandrajog said.
“Can monetary value beplaced on environmentaldegradation? What is the eco-nomical value to environmen-tal loss? We need to see that,”the court said.
The court said it had col-
lected research material on theissue and gave copies of the saidmaterial to advocates repre-senting the petitioners, BMC,the MMRCL and the StateGovernment.
The Bench also sought toknow if it should hear all peti-tions pertaining to the Aareyissue together. Apart from thepetition filed by activist ZoruBathena challenging the TreeAuthority’s approval given onAugust 29 for felling the treesfor the Metro car shed, anoth-er petition was filed in October2018 seeking a direction todeclare Aarey a forest area.
BMC counsel Aspi Chinoy,however, said the petitions
should be heard separately.“The issues are separate. If thecourt starts hearing the petitionpertaining to whether Aarey isa forest area or not, then theissue regarding the cutting oftrees for the Metro project willbe sidelined,” Chinoy said.
The Bench said it wouldpost all the petitions onSeptember 17 and decide, onthat date, the sequence in whichto hear them. As perBathena’s petition, on August 29this year, the Tree Authoritytabled and approved a propos-al made by the MMRCL to cuttrees in the Aarey area to makeway for a car shed for theMumbai Metro III project.
The Tree Authorityapproved the felling of 2,185trees and transplanting (uprooting trees from the orig-inal spot and replanting themat an alternate spot) 461 treesfrom the area.
The Aarey Colony in sub-urban Goregaon is among theprime green lungs of themetropolis.
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BJP leader Mukul Royattacked Mamata Banerjee
Government for hatching polit-ical conspiracy against himand warned that history wasalways prone to repeat itself.
This, even as the BengalPolice on Monday interrogat-ed him for more than twohours in a graft case.
The former RailwayMinister who was on Mondayevening interrogated atThakurpukur Police Stationfor more than two hourscharged the TrinamoolCongress with “hatching polit-ical conspiracy against me.”
He said “They (TMCGovernment) have framed 24criminal cases of fraud againstme but in each of these 24 casesthe complainants have affirmedthrough affidavit that they havebeen forced to bring chargesagainst me... Still thisGovernment is continuouslybringing false charges againstme, but they must be remind-ed of the fact that harsh histo-ry repeats itself.”
Roy said, “I have replied toall the questions to the best ofmy knowledge and capacity.”On whether he was asked toappear before police again hereplied in the negative.
“This is definitely a case ofpolitical conspiracy and I onceagain iterate that the way she(Banerjee) is bringing falsecases.... history is prone torepeat itself,” he said.
While Roy would not clar-ify as to what he meant bydrawing the analogy of histo-ry repeating itself his party col-leagues said “those who aredoing this today should keep inmind that two years from nowBJP will be in power.”
Roy was summoned with-in a month of one Baban Ghoshwas arrested by the police for
taking �46 lakh from a personpromising him to get him themembership of the RailwayBoard. Roy said he had noconnection with any such cases.
Meanwhile, the CBI hassummoned senior TMC leaderand State Minister SubhenduAdhikary in Sharada case.”
Elsewhere, BJP nationalgeneral secretary KailashVijaybargiya charged ChiefMinister Mamata Banerjeewith doing politics of “appease-ment and terror.”
“Three months back BJPworker Pradeep Mandal andSukanto Mandal were attackedby almost 400 persons. Theattackers were the men of asmuggler. Ninety days havepassed and police have arrest-ed no one while accused areroaming free and creating ter-ror,” Vijaybargiya said aftervisiting Sandeshkhali in North24 Parganas where a fewmonths ago two BJP workerswere allegedly attacked byTMC workers.
He said such acts were aresult of Banerjee’s appease-ment politics.
have a social media account andthat all such information sharedon them was not authentic.
The space agency gave theclarification after some socialmedia accounts in the name ofSivan did the rounds. “It hasbeen noted that social mediaaccounts in the name ofKailasavadivoo Sivan (alongwith photographs of K Sivan)is operational and active on
social media plat-forms.
This is toclarify that KSivan, Chairman,
ISRO, does not have anypersonal account on anysocial media platforms.
Hence all the infor-mation on all suchaccounts are not authentic,”ISRO said in a statement.
“The official account ofISRO on all social media plat-forms are as follows:https://www.Twitter.Com/isroand https://www.Facebook.Com/ISRO, Youtube ISROOfficial, it said.
A few fake social mediaaccounts in the name of Sivanand also ISRO are active on thesocial media, including twitter,with updates on the countryssecond lunar mission‘Chandrayaan-2’, quoting them.
India’s bold missionto soft-land on the moonsuffered a setback with the
landing module ‘Vikram’losing communication withground stations, just 2.1 kmfrom the lunar surface duringits final descent in the earlyhours of Saturday.
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Seeking the Moon godChandran’s blessings for
Indian space agency estab-lishing communication linkswith the Chandrayaan-2 moonlander Vikram, special“abhishekam” was held at theChandranaar Temple in TamilNadu’s Thanjavur district, atemple official said.
“In the morning we hadspecial abhishekam for theblessings of Chandran so thatcommunication link can beestablished with Vikram,” V.Kannan, Manager at the SriKailasanathar Temple orChandranaar Temple said.
He said it was unfortunatethat Vikram had some prob-lems. According to him,Monday is a special day forChandran God. Chandran isalso known as ‘Thingal’ inTamil and Monday in Tamil is
‘Thingal’.Early on September 7,
Vikram while on its descent tosoft land on the lunar’s southpolar region apparently lostcontrol and crash landed onthe lunar surface snappingcommunication links.
On September 8, IndianSpace Research Organisation(ISRO) said it has found itsmoon lander Vikram on thelunar surface.
“The lander seems to havehit the lunar surface and is inan upturned position,” an offi-cial told IANS preferringanonymity. He also said thereis a possibility of the landergetting broken on impact.
The pictures were taken byIndia’s Chandrayaan-2 orbiterthat is orbiting the Moon.
The Orbiter camera is thehighest resolution camera(0.3m) in any lunar mission sofar, and shall provide high
resolution images which willbe immensely useful to theglobal scientific community,ISRO had said.
A special puja was alsoorganised for the success ofChandrayaan-1 before therocket lifted off in 2008,Kannan said.
“We didn’t offerany special prayersbefore July 15w h e nChandrayaan-2was first planned tobe launched. Owing to sometechnical problem, the launchwas postponed,” Kannan said.
“We thought the technicalsnag may be due to the non-offering of prayers to the MoonGod. Hence, prior to theChandrayaan-2 launch on July22, special prayers,‘abhishekam’ and ‘annad-hanam’ were conducted,”Kannan said.
On September6, the day prior toVikram’s scheduled
landing on the lunar surface,special prayers and‘abhishekam’ were held at thetemple. Kannan said the spe-cial prayers were their contri-bution for India going forwardin its scientific programme.
While the presiding deityat the temple is Soma (Moon),the main deity is Lord Shiva.The Chandranaar Temple isone of the Navagraha temples,
all located nearKumbakonam, anddevotees pray atthese temples to getrid of negative
planetary influence on them.According to Kannan,
around 500 devotees come tothe Chandranaar Temple dailyand on Mondays the numbergoes up to 5,000.
The nine Navagraha tem-ples are: Suryanaar (Sun),Chandranaar (Moon),Angaragan (Mars), Budhan(Mercury), Guru (Jupiter),Sukran (Venus), Shani(Saturn), Rahu and Ketu.
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The Nagpur Police is win-ning the internet with a
moving tweet urgingChandrayaan-2’s lander‘Vikram’ to respond andpromising not to challan theISRO module for breakingthe signals!
In the early hours ofSaturday, ‘Vikram’ lost com-munication with ground sta-tions, just 2.1 km from thelunar surface during its finaldescent. On Sunday, ISROchairman K Sivan said effortsto establish contact with thelander were continuing.
“Dear Vikram, Pleaserespond. We are not going tochallan (fine receipt) you forbreaking the signals!” said theNagpur police through theirofficial Twitter handle.
The heartwarming tweetwith a touch of humour was
appreciated on socialmedia andalso shared
by twit-ter-
attis. The tweet grabbed atten-tion of netizens and got morethan 17,700 likes and 5,400retweets within two hours.
The ISRO has said‘Vikram’ is intact and lyingtilted on the moon, but notcommunicating with groundstations. Another interest-ing tweet, shared by theNagpur Police, juxtaposes afamous dialogue from block-buster Hindi movie Sholaywith ISRO’s historic missionand praises the Indian spaceagency.
“Dusron ne kitne attemptkiye.. Sardar 9.. Aur ISROne..Sardar 1. Dusro ne 9 AurISRO ne 1..Fir bhi itni successmil gayi. Bahut garv ki baathai yah (It’s a matter of pridethat ISRO achieved so muchsuccess with its very firstattempt whereas others madeso many attempts),” it said.
The Maharashtra Policetweeter handle, which usual-ly posts memes for people’sawareness, shared a messagepraising the ISRO.
“You have 100% left amark on the heart of each oneof us! Jai Hind”.
The Mumbai Police hadalso congratulated the ISROfor successfully placing
Chandrayaan 2 into thelunar orbit and said ithad been orbiting thecity since 1669.
Subrahmanyam on Mondayannounced stage is set forprocuring nearly 12 lakh MTsof apple produce this seasonfrom the apple growers ofKashmir division at remuner-ative prices.
It is for the first time,
60 per cent of the estimatedannual apple production,which last year stood at 20 lakhMTs will be procured from theapple growers nearer theirdoor steps. The scheme isexpected to enhance theincome of the growers inKashmir Valley by about�2,000 crore.
During the day, he alsochaired a video con-ference with DeputyC o m m i s s i o n e r s(DCs) of KashmirDivision to discussthe roll out of theSpecial MarketI n t e r v e n t i o nPrice Scheme(MISP) ofGovernment ofIndia (GoI),being introduced
to procure nearly 12 lakh MTsof Apple produce.
Divisional Commissioner,Kashmir, DirectorHorticulture, Kashmir,Director, Agriculture, Kashmir,Director, Jammu & KashmirHorticulture Process andMarketing Corporation (JKH-PMC), representatives ofNAFED and other senior offi-cers attended the meetingthrough video conferencing.
The period of procure-ment would be fromSeptember 1, 2019 to March 1,2020. The fund requirement forthe scheme has been estimat-ed as �8,000 crore.
Under the scheme, theDepartment of Agriculture andCooperation, GoI and theNational AgricultureCooperative Marketing
Federation of India (NAFED)will procure apple in J&K fromthe growers/aggregators so asto ensure remunerative pricesfor the apple crop.
While the nodal procure-ment agency from Governmentof India will be NAFED, theNodal procurement agencyfrom Government of Jammu &Kashmir will be the Directorateof Horticulture, Planning andMarketing, supported by theDirectorate of Horticulture andthe JKHPMC.
The apple will be procuredfrom the growers/aggregatorsat Fruit Mandis situated inSopore (Baramulla), Parimpora(Srinagar), Shopian andBatengo (Anantnag).Necessary facilities and infra-structure is being created atthese Mandis for smooth oper-
ationalisation of the scheme.Chief Secretary asked the
DCs to gear up their adminis-trative machinery to ensurethat apple growers reap thebenefits of the special market
intervention scheme. He direct-ed DCs to launch a sustainedcampaign to generate awarenessamong the fruit growers aboutthe scheme and also start theprocess of their registration, col-
lecting their Aadhaar and BankAccount details so that afterprocurement of the apple, pay-ment can be made directly intotheir Bank Accounts within aperiod of 48 hours.
After targeting minor chil-dren, fruit merchants, and
local shopkeepers, terroristoutfits in Kashmir Valley havenow started pasting posters atcommon places warning themagainst resuming routine activ-ities in their day-to-day lives.
These posters first sur-faced in areas of South Kashmirand on Monday a poster, issuedby the Al-Badr terror outfit,surfaced in Lal Cowk areawith clear warning to localbusinessmen, transporters andothers against resuming nor-mal activities.
Terrorists had earlier tar-geted family members of anapple merchant in Sopore andalso killed a shopkeeper inParimpora as they refused toadhere to their verbal diktats.Even after tight security restric-tions were eased out, by securi-ty agencies from major parts ofKashmir Valley, markets con-tinued to wore deserted lookwith shops remaining closed andpublic transport remaining off.
Meanwhile, strict restric-tions remained in place in
parts of Srinagar and across dif-ferent parts of Kashmir Valleyahead of Ashura — 10th day ofMuharram — on Tuesday.
In another related develop-ment, local police in Soporearrested eight over ground work-ers and close aides of Pakistaniterrorists behind attack on applemerchant in which 30-month-
old minor girl Asma Jann andher father received bullet injuries.
Superintendent of Police,Sopore, Javaid Iqbal told ThePioneer, “Eight over groundworkers who were responsiblefor pasting posters and threat-ening local shop keepers fromresuming their normal activi-ties were arrested by police”.
Police officer said these eightpeople were close associates ofterrorists behind the attack.
In Rajouri, DC Rajourialong with senior police officersvisited forward villages wherehalf a dozen houses were dam-aged/partially damaged in Pakfiring on Sunday. DC, RajouriMohd Aijaz Asad told
reporters, “During firing localresidents took shelter insidebunkers and loss of human liveswas prevented”. He said dead-line of one month has beengiven to project executing agen-cies on ground zero to completeconstruction work of around3,000 bunkers so as to hand itover to local villagers.
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The officials in the civicbodies in three districts of
Maharashtra have come underthe scanner over the killing anddumping of the bodies of 90stray dogs on the outskirts ofGirda forest in Buldhana dis-trict of eastern Maharashtra.
Puzzled by the mysteriousmass killing and dumping ofthe bodies of 90 stray dogs inthe Girda forest in Buldhanadistrict, the local police havelaunched an intense investiga-tion into the incident.
Talking to The Pioneer onMonday evening, Buldhana’s SPDilip Patil-Bhujbal said, “Wehave still not got any clues as towho is behind the killing anddumping of 90 stray dogs. Aspart of the investigations, ourteams are questioning the offi-cials of various bodies in thedistricts of Buldhana, Jalna,
Aurangabad or other placeswho had been engaged in dri-ves against stray dogs”.
The incident came to lighton Friday after a police patilalerted the forest officials aboutthe foul smell emanating fromthe forest area located along theGirda-Savaldabara Road. Theforest officials rushed to thespot and found 100 dogs withtheir muzzles and legs tied upwith strings, and thrown on theroad. “Of the dogs, 10 werefound to be alive. These dogs
are being care of by the forestofficials,” Investigating OfficerMansab Satdive of BuldhanaRural police said.
After the Girda forest offi-cials lodged a complaint withthe local police on Sunday, theBuldhana police have registereda case against unknown per-sons under the relevant sec-tions of Prevention of Crueltyto Animals Act, 1960, section429 (Mischief by killing ormaiming cattle etc) of IndianPenal Code (IPC) and section119 Bombay Police Act, 1951,(Maharashtra) Section 119which deals with cruelty toanimals.
“We have sent the visceraof the carcasses of dogs forautopsy. We are awaiting thereport. As of now, we are notsure as to how these dogs werekilled — whether they werepoisoned or starved to death,”Patil-Bhujbal said.
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Azamgarh district magistrateon Monday ordered a probe
into the arrest of a journalistallegedly after he took pho-tographs of some children mop-ping the floor in their school.
The journalist was arrestedon false charges of extortionand obstructing public ser-vants from discharging theirduty, alleged a fellow journalistSudhir Singh, who, along withother journalists met Districtmagistrate NP Singh to apprisehim of the alleged illegal arrest.
“No injustice will be metedout to the journalist. We willlook into the matter,” saidAzamgarh DM NP Singh.
Singh also ordered a probeinto the matter. Local journalistSantosh Jaiswal was arrestedhere last week on Friday after hetook photographs of school chil-dren, mopping the floor andcalled up police to apprise themof the illegal practice by schoolauthorities, said Sudhir Singh.
Journalist Singh said thepolice, responding to Jaiswal’scall reached the school andtook both Jaiswal and principalRadhey Shyam Yadav of the
Oodpur primary school to thepolice station.
At the Phulpur police sta-tion, the school principallodged a complaint againstJaiswal on the basis of which anFIR was registered against himand he was arrested, said Singh.
The FIR No 237, registeredon September 6, 2019, againstthe journalist, quotes the schoolprincipal as saying that Jaiswaloften visited the school andmisbehaved with both maleand female teachers and stu-dents and tried to persuadethem to subscribe to the news-paper published by him.
Yadav said in the FIR thaton the day of the incidentJaiswal came to the school andordered some children to mopthe floor to facilitate him taketheir photographs. Yadav saidhe objected to his act, follow-ing which Jaiswal fled theschool premises leaving hisvehicle there and later demand-ed money from him.
Sudhir Singh, who works asa stringer for a New Delhi-based national news agency,refuted the charges against thearrested journalist, saying thelocal police nursed a grudgeagainst him. He said Jaiswal hadin May this year posted on hisTwitter handle a photograph ofPhulpur Police Station HouseOfficer Shivshankar Singh’sSUV with tinted window andwithout number plate.
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Amid public uproar overthe hefty fines for violation
of traffic regulations under thenew Motor VehiclesAmendment Act, UnionTransport Nitin Gadakriadmitted here on Monday thathe too was fined for speedingon the Bandra-Worli Sea Link(BWSL) in Mumbai.
“Even I paid fine once forover-speeding on the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. Even (Ministerof State for Transport) VKSingh saab was also fined... Itonly goes to prove that be itpolitical leaders, actors, jour-nalists, lawyers or even socialworkers, they are all samewhen it comes to traffic viola-tions,” Gadkari said, whiledefending the stringent provi-sions under the new Act.
Talking to mediapersons onthe occasion of the NDA 2.0 gov-ernment completing 100 days inoffice, Gadkari said that thenew law had brought in trans-parency in the system. “Peopleare saying that hefty fines willlead to corruption. How can yousay like that? In a city likeMumbai, people get caught onCCTV cameras installed on var-ious roads. No one can erase thefootage. They will have to payfine... High fines will lead totransparency, and will not resultin corruption,” he said.
Gadkari said theAmendment of Motor VehicleAct would improve road safe-ty. “Two per cent of the nation-al GDP is being wasted on acci-dents. Nearly 5 lakh accidentshappen, 1.5 lakh die everyyear on our roads and 2.5-3lakh people become handi-capped. This will come downdue to the amendment”.
“Projects worth �14,000crore are being implemented toremove black spots on roads;786 black spots have beenidentified already. Licensingand road safety rules will be
strictly implemented. Earlier,30 percent licenses were bogus.Multiple licenses for one per-son is not possible now due tore-registration,” he said.
Gadkari said the NarendraModi Government had beenworking in a decisive and trans-parent manner, with the visionof development and with thegoal of making India a super-economy in the world. “Our 100days in office is just the begin-ning. Many more decisiveactions and bold initiatives aregoing to be made in the comingyears,” the Minister said.
Gadkari said the repeal ofArticle 370 of the Constitutionand the re-organisation ofJammu & Kashmir had openeda new chapter of developmentin the region and would put anend to terrorism. He saidhunger, poverty and unem-ployment in the region werebecause of Article 370 whichcame in the way of even imple-menting reservation he said thedevelopment issues of Leh andLadakh had also been solved.
Averring the banning ofteen talaq was a big achievement,he said the decision had pro-vided justice to Muslim womenon humanitarian grounds. Hesaid that even opposition partiessupported it and the Parliamentdiscussed it thoroughly. “Forgetteen talaq, there used to be eventalaq on WhatsApp. Teen talaqis now a crime and it has beendecided to give jail and fine forit,” he said.
The Minister said the roadtransport projects worth �60,000crore were being executed. “Weare trying to build all-seasonroads. By signing MoU betweenPunjab, Kashmir and Haryana,we are trying to utilize water ofthree rivers in the region. Sevenpending projects are being com-pleted and water will go to thefag end of Rajashtan, benefitingeight districts,” he said.
Reiterating the Gove-rnment’s commitment to pro-
mote e-vehicles, Gadkari said,GST on e-vehicles has beenreduced from 12 to 5 per cent.We are incentivising ethanolmaking from sugar, maze etc.because it is import-substituting,cost-effective and pollution-free.We import �7 lakh crore worthof petroleum products. Usingethanol will save �40,000 crore.Recently, a bike run on ethanolwas inaugurated, soon we will try running autos and busestoo on ethanol.”
Among other things,Gadkari said that in Nagpur, weare selling waste water for �180crore. “We will extract methaneand CO2 from it and mix it withvegetable, meat waste and solidsludge and will run 400 buses,150 cars and 100 trucks on it.Bhandara, Wardha, Gondia,Chandrapur, Gadchiroli andNagpur will be made diesel-freeduring the next five years,” theMinister added.
Gadkari added trains onDelhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes would s run atthe speed of 160 km/r in thenear future. “Delhi Mumbaihighway with cost of 1 lakhcrore is being built which willmake Delhi-Mumbai travelpossible in just 12 hours byroad. �50,000 crore are beingspent to remove pollution fromDelhi,” he said.
When we look at the histo-ry of democratic institu-tions in the country, wecome across severalinstances of MPs and
MLAs in the Opposition who work hardto pin down the Government. But rarelydo we find a ruling party MP firing all gunsin his effort to expose a scam and to insiston transparency and accountability in thefunctioning of his Government. One suchMP was Feroze Gandhi of the Congress, acrusader against corruption and India’s firstand undoubtedly the best investigative par-liamentarian whose birth anniversary fallson September 12.
Feroze Gandhi must be remembered formany things — his participation in the free-dom struggle which resulted in jail termsmore than once; his painstaking researchand commitment to probity in public lifewhich cost Jawaharlal Nehru’s FinanceMinister TT Krishnamachari his job; thenationalisation of life insurance; and forbringing in a law to insulate the media fromdefamation and libel suits when theyreported the proceedings of Parliament.
Incidentally, since the Congress nevertakes the name of such an impassioned cam-paigner against corruption, the youngergeneration may not know that he was IndiraGandhi’s husband, Sonia Gandhi’s father-in-law and Rahul Gandhi’s grand father. FerozeGandhi was inspired by Kamala Nehru to jointhe national movement for independence inthe late 1920s. He was jailed on more than oneoccasion and even led an undergroundmovement. He became a member of theProvisional Parliament in 1950 and was elect-ed to the Lok Sabha in 1952 and in 1957.
Initially Feroze relished his role as abackbencher but became an instant hit withhis maiden speech in the Lok Sabha inDecember 1955. Everyone was compelled tosit up and take notice when he spoke on theInsurance (Amendment) Bill. He held theHouse in thrall for close to two hours as heexposed the nefarious activities of privateinsurance firms and built an iron-clad casefor the nationalisation of the life insurancebusiness. He demanded strong measures toprotect public funds that had been invest-ed in these companies.
By the time he ended his speech, everymember felt that private insurance companieswere doomed. His arguments were so com-pelling that within two months the Presidentpromulgated an ordinance nationalising lifeinsurance. Congratulating the Government,Feroze said: “To hold a horse you need a rein;to hold an elephant you need a chain.” In thewords of his biographer, Tarun KumarMukhopadhyay, Feroze’s maiden speechsounded the death-knell for the private lifeinsurance business. Following nationalisation,the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) cameinto being. This was a signal achievement foran MP but more was to come when in the lat-ter half of 1957, Feroze Gandhi received a tip-
off about a scam in the FinanceMinistry. He heard that LIC hadsuddenly bought shares of com-panies owned by HD Mundhra,an industrialist close to theCongress, at inflated prices. Thisprompted him to intervene dur-ing Question Hour and seek aspecial debate.
The Finance Minister’s disin-genuous response put Feroze onfull alert and he sought a specialdebate on this issue. Initiating adiscussion he said: “A mutiny inmy mind has compelled me toraise this debate. When things ofsuch magnitude, as I shalldescribe to you later, occur,silence becomes a crime.”
To put it briefly, the story wasthat Mundhra, a businessmanwith a dubious record and whohad funded the Congress’ elec-tion campaign, ran into financialproblems and wanted the NehruGovernment to bail him out. Heasked the Government to investa crore of rupees in the shares ofsome of his companies. Althoughnone of the Mundhra companieswere doing well, the Governmentagreed to do this via the LIC.
However, while the negoti-ations were on, Mundhra boughtup shares of his own company inthe Calcutta Stock Exchangeand artificially jacked up theprices of his shares. Therefore,eventually, when the LIC went tothe market, it bought them atprices much higher than whatprevailed when Mundhra firstapproached the Government for
help. This is what is called theLIC-Mundhra scandal.
Feroze Gandhi deployed histruly extraordinary investigativeskills to track share prices ofMundhra companies over a fort-night to expose the Government.The then Finance Minister,Krishnamachari, tried to defendthe deal by saying that LICdecided to enter the market tobuild up its portfolio and so,bought these shares. But FerozeGandhi was not convinced. Whydid you take a fancy only toMundhra companies and whydid you buy them at inflatedprices? How can public money besquandered in this manner, heasked, pointing out that theprices of these shares slumpedafter LIC bought them.
The Government had noconvincing answers. Anyway, tocut a long story short, Nehru wasforced to institute a commissionof inquiry which heldKrishnamachari morally respon-sible for the questionable deci-sion, leading to his resignation.
Feroze Gandhi had severalmore achievements in his parlia-mentary career, including the Billhe introduced to insulate themedia from defamation suitswhen it covered Parliament.Journalists told him that whileMPs had the privilege to speakfreely in Parliament, reporting theproceedings faced defamationand libel suits. Given his deep andabiding commitment to democ-racy and Press freedom, he felt
that the media should have noconstraint while reportingParliament and the people mustget a faithful account of whattranspires in legislative chambers.
Feroze Gandhi introducedthe Parliamentary Proceedings(Protection of Publication) Bill toinsulate the media. And in anextraordinary gesture, theGovernment adopted this Billand saw it through in the twoHouses. In each of theseinstances, Feroze Gandhi’s metic-ulous collection of data and factshelped him to almost singlehand-edly carry the debate on hisshoulders until it reached its log-ical conclusion.
A variety of factors enabledFeroze Gandhi to effectivelypursue his goals as a represen-tative of the people. The firstwas his crusading nature andhis commitment to public wel-fare and democracy. Second,the diligence with which hegathered information to arguethis case and the ease withwhich he connected with hissources deep within theGovernment. Lastly, his parlia-mentary prowess. That is whyhis fellow MPs and ministers inJawaharlal Nehru’s Governmentdescribed him as “a dangerous-ly well-informed man”.
India needs to do a lotmore to remember this MP-extraordinaire!
(The writer is an author specialising in democracy studies.Views expressed are personal)#�)*+��,���������������
Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Onwards and upwards”(September 9). The inability ofVikram, the lander, to make theneeded and expected “soft land-ing” on the moon’s hithertouncharted “South Pole” broke abillion and more hearts. Still, whatthe Indian Space ResearchOrganisation’s (ISRO’s) complexlunar mission achieved is notsmall given that the orbiter is safeand is revolving the moon. Thisis remarkable enough to fill uswith pride.
It is not for nothing that theChandrayaan-2 mission has comein for praise from NASA. The lastminute glitch caused by “hardbrake” that possibly spun the lan-der out of control was not a fail-ure but a deferred success. It isonly a matter of time beforeISRO clears the final hurdle. Toquote Rabindranath Tagore, its“tireless striving stretches its armstowards perfection.” It is a mis-nomer to call the faltering in thelast leg a “setback” as there isnothing called “setback” in therealm of science.
G David MiltonMaruthancode
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Sir — This refers to the editorial,“Onwards and upwards”(September 9). A landing to themoon is not easy. A total of 38
attempts have been made by manyother countries to land a rover onthe moon and they have succeed-ed only in a little more than halfthe time. While China toucheddown on the lunar far side toexplore the South Pole-Aitken
basin, India’s Chandrayaan-2 mis-sion was special in the sense thatit was exploring an unknown ter-rain — the moon’s South Poleregion. Our propulsion, algo-rithms and software were superbto follow the scripted trajectory.
Our payloads were indigenous.The velocity of the lander was suc-cessfully controlled from 6,000 kmper hour at the start of its descentat 35 km altitude to a few metresper second before communicationwas lost. We may be disappoint-ed today but we ain’t disheartenedas 90-95 per cent of the mission’sobjectives have already been“accomplished.” In their quest fornew frontiers of knowledge, mostnations opt for selective silence butby laying open our every endeav-our in space, we seek to serve thelarger cause of science.
R Narayanan Navi Mumbai
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Sir — India scored a goal by con-vincing the international commu-nity and the UN about theinevitability of its move in Jammuand Kashmir. But how will it jus-tify the fact that peace seems tobe elusive even a month after theabrogation of Article 370 anddivision of the State?
In science, there is no such thing as failure.There are only experiments and efforts.” Withthese words, Prime Minister Narendra Modi
consoled a crestfallen nation after India’s moonlander Vikram was unsuccessful in descendingon the lunar surface smoothly. Some may ques-tion the �970 crore ($140 million) price tag ofthe Chandrayaan-2 mission. But this investmentwill eventually pave the way for India to tap intothe trillions of dollars of mineral wealth on themoon and near-earth asteroids.
To many, this may sound like science fiction,but several national space agencies including theUS’ National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration (NASA), the European SpaceAgency, Chinese Space Agency, Russia’sRoscosmos, the Japanese Japan AerospaceExploration Agency (JAXA), are already map-ping and exploring the lunar surface and near-by asteroids.
Many private players like Moon Express,Astrobotic Technology, Blue Origin, iSpace andso on have serious commercial plans for lunarprospecting as well. The Indian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO), too, completed our firstmission to the moon, Chandrayaan-1 in 2008,with great results and now Chandrayaan-2 isexpected to take it forward with a mission lifeof up to seven years. The moon isn’t so far outof our reach after all. Actually, it’s only a two-three day journey, which is shorter than the 79-hour journey on the Kanyakumari-DibrugarhVivek Express!
The technology to exploit lunar resources,though immature, is around the corner. The firstlunar rover was launched in 1970 by the erst-while Soviet Union, a year after the first humanlunar landing by the USA. Safely landing andremotely driving a car-sized eight-wheeledvehicle on the moon’s surface back in 1970 wasa gigantic achievement. The technology was re-used in 1986 to clear radioactive debris insidethe Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the after-math of the nuclear disaster there. In 1997,NASA’s Sojourner rover became the first roveron Mars, followed by rovers Spirit in 2004,Opportunity in 2004 and Curiosity in 2012.China landed two of its rovers on the moon,Yutu in 2013 and Yutu-2 in 2018.
India started its moon exploration missionwith Chandrayaan-1, announced by PrimeMinister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003 andlaunched in 2008. ISRO’s Moon Impact Probeconfirmed the presence of water in the lunar soil,whereas NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapperinstrument on-board looked for minerals acrossthe moon’s surface. Interestingly, Chandrayaan-1 was also looking for Helium-3. This specificform of Helium, scarce on earth, is abundant onthe moon’s surface. But why are ISRO and otherspace agencies looking for it? The answer ispotentially abundant, safe and clean nuclearenergy hidden in it. While Helium-3 fusion tech-nology is laboratory-proven, it isn’t yet commer-cially viable. Helium-3 also finds applications incryogenics and medical imaging.
Rare Earth Metals (REMs) are indispensablefor modern electronics. China has already cor-nered 90 per cent of the supply and is aggres-sively capturing more. While only limitedsources of REMs have been found on the moon,
NASA still considers it important to be able tomine it, given its critical importance. Further,the moon also has concentrated deposits of tita-nium, a metal critical for advanced weaponry.
However, the big question remains if lunarmining will ever become commercially viable?For that, we need to look at other maturingknowhow that will benefit lunar mining tech-nology. Reusable rockets, as demonstrated bySpaceX and Blue Origin, are set to disrupt thelaunch industry. Other Government and privateagencies are furiously trying to emulate the sameto remain competitive. Space transportationcosts are expected to go down significantly. Withequipment delivered to the moon, advanced con-struction robots will assemble mining facilities.
Also, 3-D printing technologies will allowforging smaller parts and replacements.Autonomous vehicle technology being pioneeredby the likes of Google, Tesla and Uber can bere-purposed for automated prospecting, extrac-tion and movement of lunar mining vehicles.Advances in industrial robotics will lead to auto-mated ore refineries, with lunar mining vehiclesdumping raw ore at one end and refined prod-uct coming out of the other. Human supervi-sors would stay in habitats built into the lunarcaves, similar to the International Space Station.
It is not just one technology in isolation, norjust one mineral that will seal the deal. Whentaken together, we can see a reasonably positivepicture emerge. The likely trajectory of lunarmining will probably start with surveying andsmall sample-return missions. These will even-tually grow in scope with small factories andminor human settlements, before growing intoa large industry.
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the firstsatellite in orbit. Just six decades later, globalspace activities are valued over $350 billion asrevealed by a Morgan Stanley report, with pro-jections to reach over a $1 trillion by the 2040s.NASA estimates that the present lunar resourcesare worth hundreds of billions. But the moonis just a test bed of sorts for asteroid mining and
Mars colonisation, where there are even moreresources to be harnessed. The website Asteranklists several near-earth asteroids and theirpotential financial value. Asteroid Ryugu, thatis orbiting between the Earth and Mars, has anestimated $80 billion worth of minerals. Japan’sHayabusa 2 touched down on it earlier this yearand is expected to return with a sample next year.
In the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata,after the devastating war between the Pandavasand the Kauravas, the oldest of the 100 Pandavabrothers, Yudhisthira laments over his deplet-ed treasury. However, Ved Vyas tells him of thegreat Mount Meru (the sacred five-peakedmountain of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cosmol-ogy that is considered to be the centre of all thephysical, metaphysical and spiritual universes)in the inhospitable reaches of the northernHimalayas that has an abundance of gold.Yudhishthira launches an expedition to mine themountain and thus replenishes his kingdom’scoffers.
We are an ancient yet continuing civilisa-tion. For centuries, India was at the forefront ofseveral technologies, especially metallurgy, tex-tile, civil engineering and agro-tech. While large-scale space mining and colonisation are stilldecades away and are fraught with millions ofdangers and hurdles, no civilisation can prop-agate itself unless the present generation plansand invests for the future.
In 2018, the Modi Government restarted theambitious Indian Human SpaceflightProgramme by announcing budgetary fundingfor the programme and Gaganyaan, an Indiancrewed orbital spacecraft, is intended to be thebasis of the project.
The programme will eventually help estab-lish a domestic space tourism sector and per-haps decades later, lead to an Indian moon base.We owe it to our descendants to give them a headstart when they take over the reins of India.
(The writer is Telangana BJP spokesperson,economist and Director, Centre for Leadership andGovernance, Hyderabad)
On the occasion of theInternational Tiger Day,Prime Minister Narendra
Modi released the 2018 TigerEstimation report with great fanfareand broke the news of a significantincrease in the tiger population ofIndia. He termed the success of tigerconservation efforts in India as“baaghon mein bahar hai,” a take onthe popular Hindi film song fromyesteryears. According to the estima-tion report, the tiger population hasincreased from 1,400 in 2014 to 2,967in 2019, a solid growth of 34 per cent.It is a remarkable achievement for thecountry that in spite of several hic-cups in conservation, it has three-fourth of the world’s tiger population
and has emerged as the safest habi-tat for the big cat. HighlightingIndia’s conservation efforts, Modisaid that the target to double the tigerpopulation by 2022, which was set in2010 in St Petersburg by the interna-tional community, was achieved byIndia four years in advance.
The tiger census, one of theworld’s largest, was carried out overan area of 3,91,400 sq km in 3,17,958sample habitat plots. As many as26,838 camera traps located at 141sites covered over 1,21,337 sq km offorests and snapped more than76,000 pictures of the big cats.
This estimation seems quite reli-able given the meticulous planning,use of cutting-edge technology andanalytical tools. This time humanerrors were minimised and figureswere based on recording of actualfield data digitally through themobile phone application M-STrIPES (Monitoring System forTiger-Intensive Protection andEcological Status). The sighting oftigers and other animals was record-ed and geo-tagged. One of the keysto success was the adoption of a land-
scape approach across five tigerhabitats, i.e. the Shivaliks and Indo-Gangetic Plains, Central India andEastern Ghats, Western Ghats, theNorth-East and the Sunderbans.National Geographic prepared a doc-umentary on this census, highlight-ing the hard work done by the fieldstaff and other officers.
The increase in tiger numbers inthe country has basically been due tothe hard work put in by the forestersand positive attitude of villagers
apart from policy thrust and prior-ity attached to conservation by theCentre and State Governments.
The impact of improvement inoverall forest management and tech-nological back-up was also felt.However, we must also rememberthat the tiger is a prolific breeder andonce its numbers started growing, agood prey base and habitat ensuredthat the population would registergood growth. But the nation mustgive equal credit to villagers situat-
ed near tiger habitats as without theircooperation, protecting the felinespecies would have been a pipedream, as is the case in many othercountries. However, the increasedtiger population has brought with itmore responsibility and challengesfor forest departments as tigers canonly prosper in healthy environs thatwould support their prey base.
Incidentally, the highest numberof tigers, 526, was located in MadhyaPradesh (MP), followed by 524 inKarnataka and 442 in Uttarakhand.
Sadly, Chhattisgarh witnessed abig decline from 46 tigers in 2014 to19 in 2019 and is a cause for concern.Similarly the results in Bihar, Goa,Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Mizoramand Arunanchal Pradesh are not veryencouraging and the situation maybecome critical in other areas also.Shockingly, no tigers were reportedin Buxa, Palamu and Dampa tigerreserves.
However, a word of caution forMP, Uttarakhand and Karnatakawhich have shown a boost in big catnumbers. They must control theincreasing man-animal conflicts as
a larger tiger population meansincreasing competition for food,water and space. Issues like condi-tions of forests, prey base, livelihoodof fringe forest dwellers, tribals andso on, need to be taken up on a pri-ority basis so that the big cats don’tcome in conflict with people. Further,water sources will have to beimproved on a war footing to com-bat climatic vagaries.
The Ministry of Environment’sCompensatory AfforestationPlanning and ManagementAuthority (CAMPA) recentlyreleased �47,000 crore to States. Evenif the annual interest earned on thisamount is used in a well-plannedmanner, it can solve the monetaryand resource crunch faced by the for-est department.
There is also dire need to syn-chronise the working of forests,rural, tribal affairs and Jal ShaktiMinistries. The time is ripe to makesome innovative and forward-look-ing changes in the governance ofthese subjects.
India on Monday said it hasreservations on joining the
proposed RegionalComprehensive EconomicPartnership with the ASEANcountries and its six FTA part-ners, due to concerns, includ-ing the “enormous” tradedeficit with China, which hasballooned to over $57 billion.
The RegionalComprehensive EconomicPartnership (RCEP) agreementis being negotiated among 10ASEAN members (Brunei,Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,Malaysia, Myanmar, thePhilippines, Singapore,Thailand, and Vietnam) andtheir six trade partners —Australia, China, India, Japan,Korea and New Zealand to cre-ate a free trade pact covering athird of the world’s economy.
External Affairs Minister SJaishankar, speaking during apanel discussion at the inau-gural session of India-SingaporeBusiness & Innovation Summithere, said India remained con-cerned over the unfair” marketaccess to Indian products andthe “protectionist policies” ofBeijing that have created a sig-nificant trade deficit betweenthe two nations.
The trade deficit with Indiain 2018, according to officialChinese data, climbed to$57.86 billion from $51.72 bil-lion in 2017 in about $95.54total bilateral trade.
The Indian industry hasraised concerns over the pres-ence of China in the groupingwith which India has a hugetrade. Various sectors, includ-
ing dairy, metals, electronics,chemicals, and textiles, haveurged the government to notagree on duty cut in these seg-ments.
“The big concerns of Indiaare of course, one, its relation-ship with China because wehave an enormous trade deficitwith China,” Jaishankar said inresponse to a question on theongoing negotiations for theRCEP.
At the session, also attend-ed by his Singaporean coun-terpart Vivian Balakrishnan,Jaishankar said India fears thatthe RECP deal, which wouldcall for a lowering of tariffs,would lead to a flood of goodsfrom China while not assuringIndia of an equal access to theChinese markets, therebywidening its large trade deficit.
On Sunday, the 16 RCEPparticipating nations that arenegotiating a mega free tradeagreement have agreed to worktogether to iron out outstand-ing issues which are funda-mental to conclude the talksthis year, a joint statementsaid. The statement was issuedafter the 7th RCEP ministeri-al meeting in Bangkok.Negotiators have expressedhope that the RCEP would bedelivered by the end of the year.
India has registered tradedeficit in 2018-19 with as manyas 11 RCEP countries, includ-ing China, South Korea andAustralia.
Jaishankar also raised con-cerns that India’s forte, its tradein services, was less wellenforced through regulationsthan the trade in goods.
The deal had the geo-
strategic objective of holdingthe line against protectionistand unilateral policies, heagreed. Even so, it had to makeeconomic sense, he said.
“RCEP, at the end of theday, is an economic negotia-tion. It has a strategic implica-tion but the merits... Have to beeconomic,” he said.
Balakrishnan called thedeal a “game-changer” thathad the potential to secure theprosperity of its members inthe face of a push-back againsttrade and globalisation.
“For India, China andSoutheast Asia, the key politicalquestion is, can we arrive at aformula that would expand arising middle class and give theirchildren a sense of optimism,”he was quoted as saying by TheStraits Times newspaper.
Balakrishnan saidSingapore, the largest foreigninvestor in both India andChina, hoped the two Asiancountries would eventually tideover their differences.
“In the next decade or two,China and India are going to bein significant trading relation-ship. This is something theywill have to sort out. In duecourse, bilateral arrangementswill be made,” he said.
“But even as this rap-prochement occurs, what weare trying to offer with RCEPis a multilateral model, a pan-regional model, the centre ofgravity in the Indo-Pacific.And if we can sort out the fairrules which will promote tradeand economic integrationbetween India, China andSouth-east Asia, there is enor-mous opportunity.
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The Government hasimposed countervailing
duty on Saccharin, a kind ofsweetener, from China for fiveyears, a move to guard domes-tic players from cheap imports.
The Department ofRevenue imposed the dutyafter it was recommended bythe Commerce Ministry’sinvestigation arm DGTR.
In its probe, the DirectorateGeneral of Trade Remedies(DGTR) concluded thatSaccharin has been exported toIndia at subsidised value, whichhas resulted in subsidisation ofthe product. Due to this,domestic industry has sufferedmaterial injury.
After considering thesefindings, “the designatedauthority, hereby imposesdefinitive countervailing duty”on the goods “originating inand exported” by China, anofficial notification said.
The product would attract20 per cent duty, which wouldbe imposed on the base of CIF(Cost, Insurance and Freight)value. The CIF value is theactual value of the goods whenthey are exported.
While the DGTR recom-mends duty, Finance Ministrytakes the final call to imposethe duty.
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Chinese Taipeihas dragged
India into WTO’sdispute settlementmechanism overimposition ofimport duties oncertain ICT prod-ucts, includingmobile phones,alleging breach of global tradenorms.
The country claims thatIndia has imposed these dutieson 11 categories of ICT prod-ucts in excess of India’s boundduty rates for the goods.
According to a WTO state-ment, Chinese Taipei hasrequested dispute consulta-tions with India regardingduties imposed by India onimports of certain informationand communications technol-ogy (ITC) goods.
The request was circulatedto WTO members on Monday.
In October last year, Indiahiked import duty on certaincommunication items, includ-ing base stations, to up to 20 percent as part of efforts to checka widening current accountdeficit by curbing imports.
Chinese Taipei has claimedthat these measures “appear tobe inconsistent with India’sobligations” and “through those
measures, India accords lessfavourable treatment to thecommerce of the SeparateCustoms Territory of Taiwan,Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu ofcertain information and com-munication technology goods”.
It said they are looking“forward to receiving India’sreply to this request and toagreeing to a mutually accept-able date and place for consul-tations”.
The European Union hasalso filed a similar complaintagainst India in the WTO.
The request for consulta-tions formally initiates a dis-pute in the WTO.Consultations give the partiesan opportunity to discuss thematter and to find a satisfactorysolution without proceedingfurther with litigation.
After 60 days, if consulta-tions fail to resolve the dispute,the complainant may requestadjudication by a panel.
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The rupee pared initial gainsto settle almost flat at
71.71 against the US dollar onMonday as rising crude oilprices kept investors edgy.
Rising crude oil pricesand foreign fund outflowsweighed on the domestic cur-rency, forex dealers said.
Crude oil spurted 0.44 percent to $61.81 per barrel inanticipation that new Saudienergy minister, PrinceAbdulaziz bin Salman, wouldpush for production cuts.
At the interbank foreignexchange market, the localunit witnessed heavy volatili-ty. During the day, the domes-tic unit shuttled between ahigh of 71.50 and low of 71.73.
The rupee finally settled at71.71, higher by just 1 paiseover its previous close. Therupee has extended gains forthe fourth day in a row. Therupee had settled at 71.72against the US dollar onFriday.
Foreign institutional
investors (FIIs) remained netsellers in the capital market,pulling out Rs 188.08 crore onMonday, according to provi-sional exchange data.
Forex traders said marketinvestors were optimisticabout cut in interest rates bythe US Federal Reserve.
“Market participants havebeen pricing in some form ofa monetary easing as yieldcurves have inverted in the lastmonth in the US and abreather is very much neededon the cards,” Rajesh Cheruvu,The Chief Investor, ValidusWealth.
Cheruvu further said that“there have been some com-forting signs of the trade warsimmering down and theBrexit and Hong Kong protestshave eased somewhat though,remains to be seen whetheroptimism persists.”
Going ahead, theEuropean Central Bank (ECB)rate decision, the US CPI andretail sales would be closelywatched metrics for forextraders this week.
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The year-long liquiditypains of shadow bankers
are set to linger on through therest of the fiscal year at leastgiven the deepening slump inthe overall economy whichwill pull down their growth to10-12 percent from a high 15percent, warns a report.
The domestic ratingagency India Ratings Mondayalso revised the outlook on thesector to negative from stable.
“We have cut our growthforecast for NBFCs for FY20 to10-12 percent from 15 in viewof the funding challenges andthe general economic slow-down, as evident from thedeep fall in auto sales, slow-down in rural infra activitiesand challenges that small unitsare facing,” the agency said.
NBFCs have been facingliquidity crisis after a series ofdefaults by segment majorIL&FS last September.
It said with the liquiditycrisis being accompanied bypossible asset-side headwindsin light of slowing demand,NBFCs will continue to grap-
ple with a double whammy.Noting that the balance-
sheets of many systemicallyimportant NBFCs are largerthan those of mid-sized banks,with significant fundingrequirements, the report said,“as NBFCs are primarilywholesale funded, they needto plan their liquidity farmore prudently, given thatthey do not have access to thelender of last resort, unlikebanks.”
The report said amongNBFCs, the retail assetfinancers with long trackrecords have been able tomobilise funding owing tothe granular nature of theirloan books and the controlthey have exhibited in main-taining asset quality.
However, wholesale andsemi-wholesale NBFCs in realestate, corporate lending andlarge ticket housing segmentshave seen challenges in mobil-ising liabilities, largely becauseof the asset-side perceptionrisk arising from the slow-down in real estate and mod-eration in refinancing oppor-tunities, it said.
Within asset classes, it hasmaintained a stable-to- nega-tive outlook on commercialvehicle and tractor loans. Italso has a negative outlook forthe large housing players dueto funding challenges and ris-ing inventory levels.
The agency said it seessome asset quality pressure forNBFCs on their real estatebook going ahead when themoratorium period ends overthe next 12 months.
NBFCs have given mora-torium of 18-24 months on theprincipal amount lent to realestate developers. NBFCs havean outstanding of Rs 1 lakhcrore to the real estate devel-opers.
Agency’s associate directorPankaj Naik said 65-80 percentof this book is originated inthe last 18 to 24 months, andthe moratorium period will beending in the second half ofFY20 or first half of FY21.
“If the same kind of refi-nancing pressure persists inthe market as is prevalentnow, there could be seriousasset quality challenges forthese lenders,” Naik said.
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The NCLAT has set asideinsolvency proceedings
initiated against Bharat RoadNetwork Ltd, and directed theNCLT-Kolkata bench to closethe matter.
A three-member NCLATbench headed by ChairmanJustice S J Mukhopadhayaobser ved that corporatedebtor (Bharat RoadNetwork) has settled its dueswith its financial creditorReligare Finvest.
The appellate tribunal alsoobser ved that CoC(Committee of Creditors) wasnot formed and promoters hascleared the amount claimed bythe financial creditor.
“Taking into considera-tion the fact that the CoC hasnot yet been constituted andthe parties have settled thematter, we set-aside theimpugned order dated August28, 2019 and dismiss theapplication under Section 7 ofthe I&B Code f i led byReligare Finvest,” the NCLATsaid.
Poshtik aahar provides yourbody with important nutri-ents in proper quantity. When
you take Poshtik Aahar it helps youto remain fit and counter all dis-eases. Probably everyone has heardabout Poshtik Aahar but very fewknow that which nutrients need tobe taken in what quantity.
Basically, poshtik aahar is acombination of various nutrients.They consist of vitamins, minerals,protein, fats, and carbohydrates.These nutrients are mainly obtainedthrough a combination of the fivemajor food groups — fruits andvegetables, cereals and pulses, meatand dairy products and fats andoils.�What is balanced diet?
Normally, half of your totalcalories of the day should comefrom carbohydrates you need toremember they should not berefined carbs. Similarly, proteinsshould consist 30 to 35 per cent ofyour diet. With fats making 20 percent of the diet while all these nutri-ents can be combined with varioussources of vitamins such as A, E,B12, and D.
�Choose wisely: To keep yourbody running efficiently, you needthree main meals along withhealthy snacking to curb cravings.As a rule, breakfast should be theheaviest meal of the day but withyour busy schedules, all you man-
age to do is chug a glass of milk andhave a toast. When your day beginson a light note followed by a hur-ried lunch, you finish up eatingmuch more for dinner than need-ed. Whereas dinner should be thelightest.
Breakfast: A good morningmeal must comprise three things.These are dietary fiber or carbohy-drates (whole-grain bread, oatmeal,etc.), proteins (eggs and egg whites,dahi, milk or sprouts) and nuts(almonds, walnuts, and khubani).
Lunch: Make it a mixture ofhigh-fiber whole grains like brownrice, barley or jau, whole wheat, ragi,bajra, jowl, amaranth and someexcellent source of proteins like cot-tage cheese, dals, chicken or fish.Include some probiotics like curdand fiber from fresh salads to com-plete your meal.
Dinner: To maintain a healthybalanced diet, select foods with ahigh satiety value that keep youfilled for longer and curb midnightbingeing. Fill your plate with greenvegetable to load up on vitaminsand minerals. Restrict carbohy-drates but don’t cut them off. Eatthem with some healthy fats likefish, nuts and seed oils. Your bodycan use them for regeneration andrepair overnight.
$��� �/���#,��&Just like a ringing bell used for a warning, continuous ringing
in your ears is the signal to pay attention to your ears. Ringingin your ears, or tinnitus is the sensation of hearing ringing, hiss-ing, whistling or other sounds. It is not a disease rather it is asymptom of an underlying condition such as ear infection or hear-ing loss which happens due to continuous exposure to the loudmusic or noise. About 90 per cent of people with tinnitus havesome level of noise-induced hearing loss.
Tinnitus can be present in different ways in your ears, around56 million people in India and 7 per cent of the world popula-tion is affected by the Tinnitus. Tinnitus is considered one ofthe major ailments in the upcoming years and demands for imme-diate treatment.�Causes: There are a variety of conditions and illness that cancause tinnitus:
�Exposure to loud music by earphones or hearing loss.�Frequent air travel.�The buildup or loss of wax in your ears or a benign tumor
of a nerve can be the cause. �Tinnitus is cited as a side effect of several antibiotics, anti-
inflammatories, antidepressants,sedatives etc.
�Medical conditions suchas sinusitis, irregular blood pres-sure, diabetes and others. �Treatment: There are cures forTinnitus, an increasing numberof treatment options are avail-able with the help of reliefdevices which can be used toregain your quality of life. ATinnitus patient needs to gothrough several treatments asone treatment may not work, itstarts with uncovering whatmay be causing it. Effectivetreatment includes the use oftherapies and sound-generat-ing devices.
� Sign up forNeuromodulation Therapy:With the use of latest technolo-gy called as NeuromodulationTherapeutic devices such asTinnitusrelief, patients get
instant relief as this innovative therapy takes up 20 minutes twoto three times a day. Neuromodulation Therapy has a successrate of 90 to 95 per cent. Within a few days of treatment, patientscan observe the improvement in headache, dizziness, hypera-cusis, heaviness, etc. Sounds start to decrease and improve patient’slistening.
�Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: A therapist with expe-rience treating tinnitus patients uses a combination of cognitive-behavioural therapies to control your physical and mental symp-toms.
�Masking: Masking therapy is as an effective treatmentmodality for tinnitus. Professionals offer masking devices toreduce tinnitus perception and produce residual inhibition.
All these mentioned medicated therapies and devices aregiven to patients according to their age and type of tinnitus theypose. Symptoms of tinnitus will go away with time if we take careof our diet, stress level, and noise exposure. Start protecting yourhearing with the noisy world. Noise is the root cause of tinni-tus and also it makes it worse.
������� A papaya is a yellow-coloured fruit which is sweetin taste. It is rich in Vitamin C and has various health
benefits.Papaya is rich in fibre, Vitamin C and antioxidants which
prevent cholesterol build up in your arteries. It also helps inweight loss because the fibre content in papaya leaves you feel-ing full and clears your bowel movement. It is also great for boost-ing immunity.
Papaya is a rich source of antioxidants, phytonutrients andflavonoids that prevent your cells from undergo-ing free radical damage. Some studies have alsolinked the consumption papaya to reducedrisk of colon and prostatecancer.
The presence ofvarious vitamins andnutrients also helpin preventingthe skin fromfree radicald a m a g ethereby keep-ing all the signsoF ageing at bay.
lifestyle diseases in their30s, women tend to developthem a couple of decades later — in their50s, says a study.
Indian men between the ages of 30-44 years have a high incidence of high LDL—low density lipoprotein, or the so calledbad cholesterol — one of the major caus-es for a variety of lifestyle diseases, showedthe findings from the survey. However, forwomen this high risk becomes a realityonce they cross the age of 50 — the riskbeing highest between the ages of 50-59.“These disturbing statistics force us tofocus on the sorry state of our work force,”Deepak Sahni, founder-CEO ofHealthians, said in a statement.
“India's biggest economic strength ishaving one of the youngest working pop-ulations in the world. However, the healthof this valuable asset seems to be balancedon a knife's edge,” Sahni added.
According to a joint report preparedby the WHO and the World EconomicForum, lifestyle diseases account foralmost 60 per cent of deaths worldwideand are responsible for almost 44 per centof premature deaths. The silver lining onthis gloomy cloud is the fact that lifestylediseases are mostly controllable. Somechanges in diet, adequate and appropriateexercise and most importantly, regular pre-ventive health check-ups can go a long wayin making such statistics far more palat-able. —IANS
8����� ���1�����
Are you tired of the openpores on your face?Besides making the skin
look dull, it can be the causeof rashes. While there are sev-eral products availablein the market, theyare expensive.However, a fewsimple ingre-dients in yourkitchen canhelp reducethe pores.
Honey :Apply it onthe pore zoneon the face.leave it on for15 minutes. First,rinse it with luke-warm water and thencool water. Honey containsastringent which will make theskin look healthy and tightenthe pores.
One can use sugar as well.
Take a tablespoon of brownsugar and honey and mix itwith a teaspoon of lemonjuice. Clean the face withwater and gently scrub this
mixture for five min-utes. Rinse face
with warmwater.
B e s a n :Take a table-spoon ofgram flour,a teaspoonof turmericpowder, atablespoon
of yogurtand few drops
of olive oilMix all the
ingredients to get apaste. Apply this on the
face. leave it on for 15-20minutes
Rinse face with cool waterand apply a moisturiser.
Open pores on the face can beproblematic; more so if one has
an oily skin. It makes the skinlook dull and aged.
ROSHANI DEVI shares homeremedies that can reduce them
India ranks at a dismal 145th in qualityand accessibility of health services glob-
ally where as many as one-third of thedeaths are preventable with timely com-munication about and availability ofmedicine. But this is going tochange as Medicus, a uniqueapp-based solution, aims toutilise the flourishing digitallandscape in India to connectall the stakeholders in thehealthcare sector — doctors,pharmaceutical companies,social sector organisations, med-ical association and Governmentbodies — to ensure that people in remoteareas can access round-the-clock and qual-ity health services.
The start-up, currently connects over40,000 doctors to more than 18,000 pincodes across the country.
“Doctors can access healthcare news,new medicines, industry trends, peer
opinions and discuss their clinical chal-lenges with other doctors on this platform.They can also access an exclusive digitalmedical library where they can compare
the medicines online and choose thebest one for their patient. For a
new medicine not yet availableat their location, doctors canconnect with the pharmacompanies for samplesthrough the app, which is acrucial enabler of access to
new medicine and reducedependence on medical represen-
tatives. Doctors will be able to sharetheir feedback with the manufacturingcompanies directly. We are very carefulabout the security of patient data and othersensitive information that might be avail-able on the app and have robust securitymeasures in place to make it foolproof andreliable,” Bhavesh Shah, founder ofMedicus, said.
����������
When it comes to the rainy season, what is thefirst thing that pops into your mind? Is it
the beautiful weather, the smell of the mud orinsects, mosquitoes, and humidity? Monsoon facil-itates the growth of bacteria, fungi and viruses thatcan cause several diseases. So, you need to takecare of yourself. For babies, this season is danger-ous. Lack of proper hygiene can help develop manydiseases in infants.
Here are 10 effective tips that you can imple-ment to protect your baby during monsoon.
�CleanlinessYour kid should be dry and clean at all times.
If bathing is not an option, you can try spongingthe baby with a warm towel. Make sure that theirjoints and folds are not itchy or wet.
�ClothesDuring the monsoon season, the temperature
keeps changing. Clothe your baby with fabricsmade of soft cotton. Make sure that these are full-sleeved. Do not overdress your baby as it will causesweating that will eventually lead to moisture,which is the perfect place for germs to breed.
�Home-cooked foodIf your kid has started eating solids, he/she
should be fed home-cooked food. Boiled food isconsidered most suitable for kids. If your kid ison formula, boil the water first and then cool itoff. Inert utensils that are easy to clean like steel,silicone are preferred. Food rich in antioxidantslike yellow fruits, amla, ginger, garlic and nuts mustbe included as feasible.
�HygieneYou need to keep your baby and yourself clean.
If any member is coming from outside, they shouldremove their shoes outside and wash their handswith soap and water before coming near to thebaby.
�HouseDuring monsoons, the house can get really
dirty. Clean the floors daily. Do not store wateranywhere inside or around the house. Keep a shoerack outside the house so that no dirt comes inside.
�Private partsClean and dry the private parts of your baby
thoroughly. Do not use talcum powder at all.Change the diapers frequently. Letting your babystay in the dirty diaper can lead to cold, rash, andeven infection. If your baby does not pee frequent-ly, or is toilet trained, you can avoid diapers.
�Crowded placesTry to avoid taking your baby to a crowded
place. It is an open invitation to seasonal flu.During the monsoon season, bacteria are in theair making your kid vulnerable to several diseases.
�Oils and SpraysMonsoon is the multiplying season for mos-
quitoes. While you are away from home, disin-fect your home with a mosquito repellent. For yourbaby, use lavender, eucalyptus oils to keep themsafe when you are outside.
�HydrationFluid intake is the key to good health. Make
sure you and the infant get adequate intake ofwater. Try not to make it straight out of the refrig-erator.
�It reduces the risk of chronic dis-eases like heart disease, diabetes,stroke and cancer�It reduces high blood pressure�It lowers the high cholesterol�It improves well-being in a longterm
�It improves immunitysystem and prepares you to
fight off illness�It helps the body to
recover from ill-ness or anyinjury�It increasesthe stamina. #��%�������� ����-.��� �� � �������
Deficiency of iron in yourchild can affect development
and lead to anaemia. Iron is anutrient which is essential for yourchild’s growth and development.If your child’s diet lacks iron,he/she may develop a conditioncalled iron deficiency. Iron defi-ciency in children can happen atmany levels, from depleted ironstores to anaemia, a condition inwhich body lacks sufficienthealthy red blood cells.
It is very important to notethe symptoms of iron deficiencyin kids like, when the skin lookpaler, if the child or teenager com-plains tiredness and fatigue with-out sufficient physical activities orif the physical growth is slowamong children, if the child fre-
quently suffers infection and oth-ers.
It is quite possible that yourchild may turn out to be a fussyeater. So, it is important that youmust ensure that your kid is get-ting the sufficient iron in everypossible form. Here are some ofthe best:
For six months to 18 monthschildren
Fruits like apple, banana,watermelon, grapes, pineapple,and pomegranates are a wonder-ful source of iron. You can also,include fruits in the form of juiceto feed your kids.
Dry fruits can also be provid-ed to your kids as they are most-ly smaller in sizes and are greatsource of iron. Almonds, apricots
(khubani) and dates (khajoor) aresome of the best forms of dryfruits.
For children more than 18months to three years old
One can give fruits to the kidsboth at home and at school.Particularly the taste of berries ispreferred by the kids. You canserve strawberries, raspberries,and cranberries. Similarly, you canalso provide vegetables that arerich in iron such as spinach,beetroot, tomato and radish leavesin the form of a sandwich orstuffed paranthas. Subsequently,you can also include cereals inyour child’s diet such as rajma,choley, oats, barley (jau).
#��%�������������" ��
Ablood type diet is one thatmakes health and nutrition
recommendations based on yourunique genetic individuality.Eating as per the blood type andbody’s specific requirements is akey to good health. Based on yourtype of blood group A, B, AB orO, the nutritional plan can be cus-tomised accordingly.
Here are some of the diet rec-ommendations according to theBlood type:
�Type O blood: Peoplewith this type of blood groupshould choose high-protein foodsand eat lots of meat, vegetables,fish, and fruit but limit grains,beans, and legumes. O bloodtyped is advised to choose high-
intensity aerobic exercise.�Type A blood: People with
this type of blood group shouldchoose fruit, vegetables and wholegrains but avoid meat. A bloodtyped people should select low-intensity activities and includemeditation as part of their rou-tine.
�Type B blood: People withthis type of blood group shouldpick a diverse diet including meat,fruit, dairy, seafood and grains.
�Type AB blood: Peoplewith this type of blood groupshould eat dairy products, lamb,fish, grains, fruit, and vegetables.
Monday that Iran is preparingto use more advanced cen-trifuges, another breach of lim-its set in the country’s unrav-elling nuclear deal with majorpowers.
Iran had alreadyannounced the step, its latestviolation of the 2015 agreementas it tries to pressure Europeansignatories to find a way tomaintain oil shipments andease the toll of US sanctions onthe Iranian economy.
The International AtomicEnergy Agency reported itsinspectors verified the instal-lation of new centrifuges.
The agency said all hadbeen “prepared for testing” butnone yet tested at the time ofthe September 7-8 inspection.
The nuclear deal wasmeant to keep Tehran frombuilding atomic weapons inexchange for economic incen-tives.
Its collapse started with the
United States unilaterally with-drawing from the deal lastyear and imposing increasedsanctions.
The other signatories —Britain, France, Germany,China and Russia, as well as theEuropean Union — have beenstruggling to salvage the agree-ment and find a way to meetTehran’s demands.
To put pressure on them,Iran has already pushed pastlimits in the deal, known asJCPOA for short, on nuclearenrichment purity and stock-piles of enriched uranium.
A centrifuge is a device thatenriches uranium by rapidly
spinning uranium hexafluo-ride gas.
The IAEA said the ones itsinspectors saw included 30advanced IR-6 and three IR-6smodels, as well as multiple IR-4 and IR-5 models.
Under the atomic accord,Iran has been limited to oper-ating 5,060 older model IR-1centrifuges.
Russia’s permanent repre-sentative to internationalorganisations in Vienna,Mikhail Ulyanov, downplayedthe development, saying afterIran revealed its step about cen-trifuges that the move “should-n’t be overdramatised.”
making his way to Germany onMonday after he was releasedfrom a brief spell in custody fol-lowing a mistake in his bailconditions, his party con-firmed.
Wong, 22, was among mul-tiple prominent democracyadvocates who were detainedlate last month in a roundup bypolice as the semi-autonomouscity reels from more than threemonths of unprecedented pro-democracy protests.
He was accused of “incit-ing others to take part in unau-thorised assembly” amongother charges and later releasedon bail.
On Sunday, he said he wasdetained at Hong Kong airport
for “breaching bail conditions”after returning from Taiwanand as he then tried to makeanother overseas trip toGermany.
He also planned to travel tothe United States after.
But he was released by acourt on Monday after itemerged the detention was aprocedural error and that hisbail requirements allowed himto take any overseas trips thathad been arranged before hisarrest, local news station RTHKreported.
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President Donald Trump’sweekend tweet canceling
secret meetings at Camp Davidwith the Taliban and Afghanleaders just days before theanniversary of the September11 attacks is the latest exampleof a commander in chief will-ing to take a big risk in pursuitof a foreign policy victory.
What had seemed like animminent deal to end the warhas unraveled, with Trumpand the Taliban blaming eachother for the collapse of near-ly a year of US-Taliban nego-tiations in Doha, Qatar.
The insurgents are nowpromising more bloodshed.The Afghan governmentremains mostly on the sidelinesof the US effort to end war.
And as Trump’s reelectioncampaign heats up, his quest towithdraw the remaining 14,000US troops from Afghanistanremains unfulfilled — so far.
Trump said he axed theCamp David meetings andcalled off negotiations becauseof a recent Taliban bombing nearthe US Embassy in Kabul thatkilled a US service member, eventhough nine other Americanshave died since June 25 inTaliban-orchestrated violence.
Ouagadougou: At least 29 peo-ple were killed in two attacks innorthern Burkina Faso onSunday, in a region prone tojihadist violence, the govern-ment said. One vehicle trans-porting people and goods “rodeover an IED in the Barsaloghoarea” leaving at least 15 pas-sengers dead, governmentspokesman Remis FulganceDandjinou said in a statement.
A security source said mostwere traders.
Meanwhile, around 50kilometres (30 miles) away, 14people were killed when foodvans travelling in convoy wereattacked, the spokesman added.
Local sources said many ofthe dead were the drivers of thethree-wheeler vans, which werecarrying provisions for peopledisplaced by fighting. AFP
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Rescuers scoured theGeorgia coast on Sunday
for four missing crew membersof a cargo ship that overturnedand caught fire, but the effortsran into trouble amid theflames and instability of theship, the US Coast Guard said.
The Golden Ray cargo ship’sproblems began early Sundaymorning when it listed heavilyand rolled on its side in St.Simons Sound near the Port ofBrunswick with 23 crew mem-bers and one pilot on board.
Coast Guard Capt. JohnReed said 20 were safely evac-uated from the ship beforerescuers determined the situa-tion, as smoke and flamesappeared, was too risky to gofurther inside the vessel. Thevessel was just offshore in viewof beachgoers on the shoreline.
Reed said rescue teamsSunday were trying to stabilizethe 656-foot (200-meter) vehiclecarrier to continue their searchfor the missing crew, but theyhave been unable to determineif the fire has been extinguished.
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The UK could be bracing forone of the coldest winters
in 30 years, scientists havewarned.
The scientists made thisprediction after analysing cur-rent sea temperatures andweather systems over the NorthAtlantic, The Daily Mail said inthe reported.
The team, led by professorMark Saunders, told TheSunday Times: “This wouldrank the 2020 January-February central England tem-perature as the coldest wintersince 2013 and January-February 2020 as the seventhcoldest winter in the past 30years.”
Freezing Arctic air is set todescend on the UK in the firstmonths of next year as the Gulfstream will sidestep Britain,leaving the country without therise in temperature it normal-ly brings to the British Islesfrom the Atlantic andCaribbean sea.
Bangkok: Pakistan on Mondaysubmitted detailed answers to125 questions posed by theFinancial Action Task Force(FATF) on moves taken by it tostrengthen anti-money laun-dering and combat financing ofterrorism, as Islamabad seeks tomove out of the FATF Greylist.
The report was submittedby Pakistan’s Minister forEconomic Affairs HammadAzhar who is heading the 15-member delegation to Bangkokfor the FATF negotiations,which will continue tillSeptember 13.
The Asia Pacific JointGroup of the FATF began itsfour-day meeting on Mondayin Bangkok to review the com-pliance report of Pakistan,besides other countries. IANS
that the European Union hadnot received from Britain anyalternatives to the so-calledbackstop provision in the Brexitdivorce deal.
“We haven’t received suchproposals to date,” Varadkarsaid during a visit by UK PrimeMinister Boris Johnson aheadof their first face-to-face talkssince the British leader tookpower in July.
“No backstop is no deal,”
he added, noting the meetingbetween the pair was “anopportunity to see where there might be commonground”.
The backstop is a provisionin the withdrawal agreementJohnson’s predecessor TheresaMay struck with Brussels tokeep the Irish border openregardless of the outcome ofBritain’s future relationshipwith the EU.
It would keep the countryin the bloc’s customs unionuntil a long-term solution totrade terms is agreed.
John Bercow, the speaker ofBritain’s House of Commons,
announced Monday that hewould step down within weeks,amid criticism by Brexit hard-liners who say he has twistedparliamentary rules to under-mine them.
Bercow said he would notstand again if MPs vote laterMonday in favour of an earlygeneral election — and if theydo not, as seems likely, hewould resign on October 31:the scheduled date for Brexit.
Bercow has served asspeaker of parliament’s lowerchamber for 10 years, oversee-ing heated debates on Brexitand making decisions as towhat the house should do,based on centuries of prece-dent.
“If the house votes tonightfor an early general election,my tenure as speaker and MPwill end when this parliamentends,” Bercow told the cham-ber.
“If the house does not sovote, I have concluded that theleast disruptive and mostdemocratic course of actionwould be for me to stand down
at the close of business onThursday, October 31.”
Bercow is best known forpresiding over debates, bel-lowing “Order! Order!” atunruly lawmakers and humor-ously chastising MPs who irkhim.
He has sought to mod-ernise parliament, abandoningthe speaker’s traditional robesfor a simple gown over a suit,and seeking to make it easierfor female MPs with newbabies.
But critics say he ispompous, biased in favour ofanti-Brexit MPs, and overlyfond of the sound of his ownvoice.
Bercow said the timing ofhis departure would mean thatMPs would have some knowl-
edge of the candidates toreplace him.
He also said it would bebetter than after a general elec-tion, when new MPs may comeunder party influence in theirchoice of the next speaker.
“I have sought to increasethe relative authority of this leg-islature, for which I will makeabsolutely no apology,” Bercowtold MPs.
“This is a wonderful placefilled overwhelmingly by peo-ple who are motivated by theirnotion of the national interest,by their perception of the pub-lic good, and by their duty, notas delegates, but as representa-tives to do what they believe isright for our country.
“We degrade this parlia-ment at our peril.”
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<������������������������<��9����������London: Prime Minister BorisJohnson insisted on Mondaythat a new Brexit deal can bereached to ensure Britain leavesthe European Union by theOct. 31 deadline, as he pre-pared to suspend Parliamentand send rebellious lawmakershome until two weeks beforeBritain is supposed to leave theEuropean Union.
Lawmakers used the hoursbefore the suspension to deliv-er new blows to Johnson’s tee-tering authority. An opposi-tion-backed measure designedto stop Britain from crashingout of the EU on Oct. 31 with-out a divorce deal became lawafter receiving the formal assentof Queen Elizabeth II. Thatcame hours before legislatorswere set to reject Johnson’sdemand for a snap election to break the politicaldeadlock engulfing the gov-ernment.
Meanwhile, Speaker JohnBercow, whose control of busi-ness in the House of Commonshas made him a central playerin the Brexit drama, announcedhe would step down after adecade in the job. AP
It is not usual to see two actionsuper stars against each other
doing jaw-dropping stunts thou-sands of feet above the groundwith guns blazing all around. Thismakes it quite evident that theUSP of the film, War is the lookof the actors and the extraordi-nary action enacted by them.However, director SiddharthAnand says that the storyline isthe actual USP because eventual-
ly that decides the fate of the film. His last film, Bang Bang, was
also of a similar genre. So whenyou question if this repetition isa conscious effort, he says, “Yes.The story of War was such that Icouldn’t ignore it. This genrefills me with excitement.” Hethen emphasises on the fact thatit was not only the story but thecast too that excited him. “I was
sure enough to cast two actionheroes and fortunately they(Hrithik Roshan and TigerShroff) agreed to it. I have got adream cast. It enhances the scaleof the film altogether. It is a veryunique film, the audience won’tbe able to take their eyes off thescreen,” adds he.
War revolves around thestory of two secret agents (played
by Hrithik and Tiger). Out of thetwo agents, one is a mentor andthe other is his protege. Initially,they both loved each other butslowly and gradually they land upon the opposite ends of the spec-trum.
The film has been set on sucha scale that Anand says it was noteasy to bring everything togeth-er. “Weaving the cast, action,
dance and drama together insuch a manner that it fulfills theexpectations of the people wasvery challenging,” adds he.
Of course, the film itselfreveals that a lot of thought andpreparation has gone into it. “Imade sure that I bring all thenuances of action very sharply sothat the audience gets a “first-time-ever” kind of experience. Idon’t want to let them down,” saysAnand.
It took him one year to designthe action sequences of the film.He shares that not only this butthe location too is likely to makethe film exclusive. It isBollywood’s first film that hasbeen shot on the Positano beachand Amalfi coast. “As it is anaction film, it was obvious that wewill bring it in its best form. But
we also wanted the songs to beunique in a way that it justifies thescale of the film. Positano is oneof the most exclusive destination.Shooting there was an unparal-leled experience,” adds he.
In the current scenario, moreand more films are being madeon real life incidents or inspiredfrom one. There is a fever of real-ism around us. Even the digitalspace stresses on original storiesmostly rather than paying heed todrama. So how will an action-thriller survive? “We can gauge itfrom the reaction of the people.They are loving it. I think there’sa dearth of action films but whenyou come with one, people loveit,” says he.
The title of the film is suchthat you won’t get any points forguessing what the film is about.Anand says, “Whenever their isa face off, be it India-Pakistan orAustralia-New Zealand people getexcited. They like to tag it as“war.” So I thought there can beno better title than this as it givesan insight into the film in justthree letters.”
(The film releases on October2.)
Afew people are shooting at a TigerReserve, in a gorge, 40 to 50-metres deep, with a green and sky-
blue landscape surrounding the area. Ababy elephant slips off the edge and fallsdown the cliff. Since it’s a tropical forest,the elephant is lucky enough to not havelanded on the rocks but some bushes. Thebaby elephant is terrified and constantlytrying to make efforts to get out of its near-deadly situation. Forest guards gatheraround to put it back to its designated areawhen suddenly, the mother elephantarrives. It’s standing at the top of the hillfrom where the baby elephant had fallendown. It is screaming and terrified too.Everyone is worried that what if it rush-es and in the process falls down in a bidto rescue her baby? They would all bekilled.
Filmmaker Krishnendu Bose tells usabout this situation that he had encoun-tered at the Pakke Tiger Reserve while hewas shooting for his forthcoming docu-mentary series, Heroes of the WildFrontiers. It was one of the most frighten-ing yet thrilling and memorable momentsof his life. “A rare sight I will never forget.”
Through the series, he brings storiesof forest guards and management teams,which go through several difficult andinhospitable terrains, scorching sun andraging fires. Shot in some of India’s majorNational Parks and Reserves likeKaziranga, Andaman, Sundarbans, Hemis,North Bengal and Pakke, Bose takesviewers on a fascinating journey throughthe wild India. From unusual wild land-scapes from the Mahatma Gandhi MarineNational Park in the Andamans to thediversity among the corals and the chal-lenges they face due to climate change, thedocumentary series will make the view-ers witness the multi-layered work that theforest guards here do underwater andabove. It shows how they ensure that thecurtains on the various endangered speciesare not brought down. They are the firstones which defense against wildlife poach-ing, forest fires, timber and ivory smug-gling, and various other activities thatdegrade species and their habitats. Theyhave the greatest stories of conservation.However, not one of them are ever talkedabout or heard. The episodes pay a trib-ute to these unsung heroes of the wild.
After being a part of immense researcharound wildlife protection in India andcreating a number of documentaries likeHarvesting Hunger, The Tiger Who Crossed
the Line, The Forgotten Tigers, and manymore, Bose says that it’s after 25 years ofresearch work and filmmaking, that he feltthat forest guards are no less than the war-riors on the borders. “I have encounteredmany forest guards and conservationists,whose gut and hard work have inspiredme. I have seen them put in their every-thing to work for the cause. They havebeen a part of many life-threatening sit-uations. And I have been near such expe-riences for a long time now. So I thoughtto make a film that could show their sto-ries. Their courage is absolutely unknownto the world. Nobody knows that it actu-ally takes real heroes to keep that one tigeralive or the corals from getting decayed.So this series will tell how these peoplestand at the edge for the flora and fauna,”says he.
Well, wildlife filmmaking is never easyto break into. It’s replete with challenges— unprecedented and countless. However,the experiences one takes home areunparalleled too. While one would ques-tion, ‘Tumne kya dekha?’ (What did yousee?) Bose would rather exclaim, ‘Ask, kyakya nahi dekha!’ He narrates how whileshooting, they scheduled a visit to theAndamans deliberately in January, whichis the expected time for leatherback tur-tles to appear for mass nesting. “We wereat the Marine National Park. We went tothe beach at various intervals from 2 pm
to 2 am. We waited at night for some time.And finally, we saw that rare sight ofleatherback turtles who had come for nest-ing in a pitch-dark background as it was2 ‘o’ clock in the night. We already had ourcameras ready and it was an absolutely fan-tastic sight. I have been very lucky that waythat I could see that beautiful phenome-non with bare eyes,” says Bose.
Well, another such was spotting theSnow Leopard at Hemis National Park inLadakh. He says, “Our photographer,Pankaj Raina was constantly able to trackthe animals and was able to see the real-time data of the movements of the SnowLeopard through a technological tool.There was one very close by our team andwe could track it and shoot it too. It wasamazing.”
So what are these advanced technolo-gies? A major revolution that has comeabout in wildlife conservation and researchtoday is due to the changing technology.“Today, a small chip can be embeddedinside an animal, be it anything, a tiger ora leopard, through which its actions andmovements could be constantly trackedfrom anywhere in the world through yourphone. You can actually see where the tigeris going. And there is some really fantas-tic data which is coming. Forest scientistBilal Habib at the Wildlife Institute of India(WII), once told me about a particulartiger which they were following. And he
showed me some real-time data aboutwhen the tiger actually breaks out of theforest and goes to a village. They couldtrack how he crossed the roads and thehighway, which could have been a conflictzone for it. I was blown by that technol-ogy and how it works. The informationthat they get can actually be a proof andbe shown to the government about howthese species cross their particular zonesto reach human habitats. Otherwise, it’squite difficult to convince to the govern-ment,” says he.
So how does the tracking of these ani-mal movements actually help in the con-servation? It’s actually a way to get to knowabout their schedules. “Everything — thecub’s time to be fed by the mother, theirtime to leave their dens to get food, aboutthe interaction between the tiger with itsother family members, and much more.There is a complete evidence of where doesthe tiger go when it steps out of its home.We it goes to a certain place. This is evengood for wildlife tourism where theguards could tell the tourists to not go toa place at a particular time since it couldbe a place of visit for a tiger at that hour.We actually have shown this bit in ourepisode of Ladakh, which talks about howtechnology is helping the forest manage-ment teams in various ways.”
Infrastructural development and envi-ronment never go hand in hand. Bose saysthat developing countries like India arealways under a huge pressure and in con-stant conflict with the environment. “In2010 in Delhi, when the CommonwealthGames were about to happen, there wasimmense construction and infrastructure-building going on as stadiums and flyoverswere being built. At the time, around200,000 trees were cut in the capital itselfand there’s no record for that. Thereweren’t much protests against that too.”
However, talking about how this sce-nario has changed, he points at the World
Trade Centre building, which was plannedto be constructed in Nauroji Nagar in NewDelhi in 2018. He says, “There werearound 14,000 trees which were supposedto be cut. The entire nearby communitystarted protesting against it and went tothe court and got a stay order. It’s been ayear now that the construction stoppedand no deforestation activity has takenplace. The point here is that in a countrylike India, the conflict between environ-ment and development will always be therehowever, now with more awareness, theconflict is building up in the people as well.The consciousness is rising. Even the lawhas become stronger and stricter withyears.”
In another instance — 20 years ago,he was shooting in Gujarat, when a sanc-tuary was denotified. He informs thatsince nobody even had the information,no one protested against it. “However, hadit happened today, there would have beena huge human cry. There would havebeen multiple protests. So it is no longerthat easy to just order some deforestingactivity in an area like that,” says he andadds that surprisingly, due to the grow-ing awareness, we still have 40 per centof landmark in these wildlife-protectedareas, 50 per cent of tiger population andelephants in their habitats, “which ishuge.” Contrastingly, if we go down toother parts of Asia, “they have actuallycleared all their lands and killed the ani-mals. India still has a strong hold on bio-diversity. However, of course, that does-n’t mean we go down to wasting natur-al resources or deplete our forests,” hechuckles.
It’s rightly said, ‘Maintaining healthyforests takes much more than plantingtrees.’ And Bose explains why. Quite inter-estingly, planting trees is a complete “hog-wash.” He says, “Especially, when politi-cians say that we are working to plantmore trees. Trees are a community of life.You can’t just clear a thousand trees some-where else and plant a few for compen-sation at some other place. A tree lives forages. How many people actually moni-tor plants? If some 20,000 saplings areplanted somewhere, who will look afterthem from the next day? You plant andleave. They need time and years to stayand grow. You certainly can’t replace acommunity of life (trees) by planting aforest of saplings.”
(The film will premiere on September16 at 9 pm on Animal Planet.)
Understanding the phenomenon ofIndian contemporary art is nomore confined to the experienced
or middle-aged artists only. Now theyoung ones are equally participating inanalysing, experimenting, innovating andengaging culturally with the Indian con-temporary movement as they find it veryinteresting.
Art Alive’s debut of three young artistsbrought forth a number of experiences andevocations. The most engaging of all arePurvai Rai’s explorations in jute and cot-ton that create an island of textural terrainsin her journey, which could be comparedto a pliable plane. A student of design, herinterest in exploring the relationshipbetween textiles and architecture, andexamining its nitty-gritty intonationsresults in a series of works that becomeintegral to architectural design.
It is the smallest room at the far endof the gallery, where she explores the pos-
sibilities of using jute and cotton threadsas a modernist medium.
�!�"������������“My works are born from my interest
in the chakra,” she states with a charmingrobust innocence. But one look and youknow that it is also deeply rooted in a lucid-ly sophisticated and ancient design tradi-tion. Purvai creates a series of abstractionsthat hinge on textile-related concerns —colour, texture, pattern, surface qualitiesand other aspects of ‘textile language’, assimple as knotting.
Instantly you get to know that she hasstudied the material qualities of yarns, aswell as different ways of working withthem. By combining yarns and tech-niques she creates multi-faceted pieces thatare rich in the texture of the jute threadsshe places on paper. Using a technique —floating weft she integrates additionalthreads as free lines. She then intensifiesthe impact by drawing these threads intothe structure of her pictorial designs.
����#���������Initially, you are drawn into the strik-
ing newness of conception with regard touse of colour and compositional ele-ments. The meditative mooring finds itsown distinctive language, emphasisinghaptic as well as tactile qualities.
The beauty of her work lies in the free-dom that she gives to her ‘design dictates’.She lets the jute threads be articulate andindividual so that they can find a form forthemselves and are looked upon as indi-vidual entities. This is the most importantreason for the existence of her pictorialweavings.
Purvai, the younger daughter of Raghu
Rai, develops a language of abstraction thatexpresses emotions without the use ofwords. Her choice of colours and patternsare simple and graceful, yet born out of anIndian aesthetic that dwells deep into pri-mordial principles. Her ‘memory graph’s’are amongst her finest suite. They seem tobe far more meditative as they provide aunique longevity and depth of experiencewhich is rarely seen in young, emergingartists.
��������#��������#�����Suman Chandra creates dialogues out
of his rumination of coal miners and theirexistence. He has a large watercolourseries that has light yet subtle handling.He manifests a multi-hued palettedemonstrating his understanding of thetechniques. He does that through themultiple emotive and performative pos-sibilities of colour and contour in thegraph of tonalities. He creates semi-abstract images, which are tranquil but arecomposed of finely-drawn lines and pla-nar divisions that link phases of quiet andlatent energy. It resembles a landscape ofvarious moods that lie within the surcae.Yet the understanding of the place and
pictorial quality of his imagery could bedescribed as intricate as the beauty of abutterfly’s wing.
The movement and softness generat-ed by the lines recall the futurist aesthet-ic of “universal dynamism.” Although ide-ologically, he is drawing our attentiontowards the plight of a labour intensivepastorale and various dimensions ofabject desolation and despair. While hiswatercolours are deeply driven by a cer-tain solitary solace, it is his sculpture thatattracts an inner resonance in terms of thepoetics of intensity and allegory. This darkraven toned relief work of coal, dust, mud,cement and glue is about the intricatehuman haunts that visit civilisations pastand present.
The finesse and phrasing of narrativescan be assumed as a matrix of unspokendialogues, or it can be read as an abstrac-tion, implies a kind of arena, a central nar-rator speaking to a larger audience.
Striking in its examination of mono-chromatic interaction, the coal versionreveals the multiple trajectories of Suman’sobject-oriented approach to the image,which is born out of a keen observationof the natural world of coal miners.
Using the motif of fish, both as anindividual entity and as a collective
force, artist Shelly Jyoti, in her solo exhi-bition — Bound by Duty: An Idea ofSwaraj and Collectiveness — exploresthe biggest challenge that mankindfaces today — the disconnect betweeneconomic development and ecologicalwell-being. “Ecology is understoodboth as man’s outer and inner environ-ment. Economic progress of the kindbeing pursued in India and elsewherein the world has become an end in itself.It has been separated from ethics andrighteousness. It stands in conflictwith man’s responsibility towards ecol-ogy, nature, his own community andother communities of the world,” shesays.
The artist uses the imagery ofmicro-organisms in water, such as tril-lions of tiny fish collaborating togeth-er, displacing water to create oceaniccurrents, waves and turbulence in anundersea environment. She examinesthe idea of ‘collectiveness’ and ‘collec-tive impact’ that can bring about a socialchange with evolved and spiritually self-aware communities.
The exhibition includes a 80-feet-long site-specific installation of fourpanels, 30 new Ajrakh art scrolls onKhadi, multimedia spoken word poet-ry and a short film on making of Swarajand collectiveness.
Speaking about the majestic instal-lation, she says, “The 80-feet longinstallation represents sequential move-ment and alludes to the nature of timeitself. It calls to mind the endless ebband flow of tides, the continuous rev-olution of the sea and its state of per-petual motion. The gradually folding offish and an amalgamation of indigo andblue represents water as the beginningand end of life. Civilisation andCollective Forces are inspired by the ideaof collective community emphasisinghuman worth in comparison to mod-ern civilisation, where the principle ofPurusartha (Dharma, Artha, Kama,Moksha) becomes a search for fulfill-ment in the present materialistic world,which emphasises on luxury and com-forts.”
Another site specific work in paper,The Print: Hind Swaraj, seeks to reachout to masses with a text that was writ-ten 100 years ago and exploring its rel-
evance today.She says, “These works are inspired
by Gandhi’s seminal anti-imperialisttext Hind Swaraj, written in 1909.This exhibition examines elements ofGandhi’s critique of modern civilisation,noting his emphasis on an evolved eth-ical and spiritual self for creating analternative perspective of a betterworld. To bring social revolutions, forcreating peaceful societies, the idea ofself-rule or self-control needs to beexperienced uniquely by each individ-ual and ultimately achieve self-trans-formation.”
Jyoti focusses on Gandhi’s ideol-ogy of nation building for creatingmoral and peaceful society, relevanteven in the 21st century. Inspired bythe idea of social responsibility, shetries to understand the meaning andimportance of the relationshipbetween self, societies and socialtransformation in our fast-paced tech-nology-driven world.
“I was seeking a response to the
idea of swadharma as a notion ofpatriotism. I also wished to under-stand the ways in which a moderncivilisation such as India, that hasachieved so much economically andhas become such a significant cultureglobally, could still connect with sev-enty per cent of the rural populationthat remains illiterate. It is in this con-text that I eventually decided to re-read key writings of Gandhi forinsights, as in his world the ethical andspiritual self is embedded in therealm of political struggles for justice,”she says.
Mahatma Gandhi’s timeless ide-ologies have been at the core for morethan a decade now. Using Khadi ascanvas, Ajrakh printing and dyeing aspalette and intricate needlework as herbrush strokes, Jyoti continues herexploration of Bapu’s concept ofSwaraj.
(The exhibition is on fromSeptember 14 to 27 at IndiaInternational Centre.)
When the Holocaust museumin Dallas opens the doors to
its new building, visitors will be notonly learning about the massmurder of Jews during WorldWar II but also other genocidesthat have happened around theworld, as well as human rightsstruggles in the US.
The newly renamed DallasHolocaust and Human RightsMuseum is the latest in the US tobroaden its permanent exhibitand embolden its efforts to inspirevisitors to take action to make theworld a better place.
“We’re hoping that in themoments that they finish thisjourney they will be thinking:What can I do? How can I makea difference in my community?”said Mary Pat Higgins, the muse-um’s president and CEO.Expanding the focus to includemore recent atrocities and humanrights struggles helps draw inmore visitors to be reminded thatthe lessons from the Holocaust arestill relevant.
The museum, opening onSeptember 18 in Dallas, is fivetimes bigger than its previouslocation — a jump from 6,000square feet (557 sq. metres) to55,000 square feet (5,110 sq.
metres). Museum officials hope for2,00,000 visitors a year — morethan double the previous figure.
The Holocaust MuseumHouston has already seen a jumpin visitors since reopening in Juneafter a renovation and expansionthat more than doubled its size.The primary focus of the originalmuseum was the Holocaust but itnow details other genocides andhas tributes to human rights lead-ers including Nobel Prize laureateMalala Yousafzai, who as a childin Pakistan began advocating forgirls’ education. “We look at it likeas if we can get them in the doorand attract them on — it might besomething like a social activism —then they can also benefit fromlearning about the Holocaustwhen they’re here,” said KellyZuniga, CEO of the Houstonmuseum.
In Cincinnati, the Nancy andDavid Wolf Holocaust andHumanity Centre’s move inJanuary into Union Terminal trainstation meant that it could includea gallery showcasing people whohave made positive changes intheir community. “We examineindividuals who stood up and whoseized the moment and we talkabout their character strengths,”
said Jodi Elowitz, the center’s edu-cation director.
Two years ago the IllinoisHolocaust Museum and EducationCentre in Skokie opened as part ofits permanent exhibit the Take aStand Centre, which is focussed onhuman rights. “Hopefully they’regetting knowledge, they’re findingtheir passion or their particularcause or issue that they’re interest-ed in,” said Kelley Szany, vice pres-ident of education and exhibitionsfor the museum.
The Dallas museum’s orienta-tion video asks the question, whyshould visitors care? “The rest ofthe museum goes on to not answerthe question, because we don’t pro-vide answers. We do providedirection. We expect you to be ableto answer the question howeveryou were impacted,” said EddieJacobs, who designed the exhibitwith fellow Berenbaum JacobsAssociates founder MichaelBerenbaum.
The gallery detailing geno-cides that happened before andafter the Holocaust uses sculptureand graphic novels to help visitorsunderstand the tactics that led tothe mass killings. The sculpture onthe mass murder of Tutsis by theHutus in Rwanda in 1994 includes
machetes and victims’ racial iden-tification cards. A graphic novelnotes that polarisation tactics thatled to the genocide included Tutsisbeing referred to as cockroaches,pointing out that the Nazis por-trayed Jews as rats and poisonousmushrooms.
The last stage of the visitturns to the US for an explorationof how American ideals compareto reality, Berenbaum said. Visitorsuse interactive touchscreens toexplore their own attitudes andbiases. As they end their visit, theycan learn about volunteer oppor-tunities.
“The Holocaust is remem-bered. The question then becomesdeeper: How is it remembered andwhat are we to do with that mem-ory?” Berenbaum said.
Max Glauben, who as Jewishteenager from Poland spent timein Nazi concentration camps,where his parents and brother werekilled, helped found the Dallasmuseum. Glauben, who immigrat-ed to the US after WWII, hopesthe museum inspires people totake inventory of their own lives.“Maybe after seeing all this theyrealise that maybe we shouldbecome better,” said Glauben, 91.
Rashid Khan claimed 6-49and completed his maid-en 10-wicket haul as
Afghanistan defied rain andfading light to beat Bangladeshby a massive 224 runs in theone-off Test in Chittagong onMonday.
Rashid grabbed three ofthe remaining four wickets asAfghanistan took 17.2 overs onthe fifth day to bowl outBangladesh for 173 in the sec-ond innings after the hostsresumed with 136-6.
Play started on the fifth dayat 1:00pm local time after rainwiped out the first session.
It returned in abundanceafter the visitors bowled just 2.1
overs without being able toinflict any damage on the homeside.
Play resumed again at4:20pm and Afghanistan weregiven 18.3 overs to bowl outBangladesh, which was chasinga target of 398 runs.
Left-arm chinaman ZahirKhan dismissed overnight bats-man Shakib Al Hasan in the firstball after the resumption, deal-ing a serious blow to the homeside.
Afsar Zazai took a sharpcatch behind the stump toremove Shakib for 44 and thenRashid did the rest.
Rashid trapped MehidyHasan dead in front for 12 anddismissed Taijul Islam in thenext over for a duck to leave the
last wicket pair of SoumyaSarkar and Nayeem Hasan tosurvive 7.3 overs.
Soumya was the last mandismissed when he flickedRashid to Ibrahim Zadran atshort leg with 20 balls left in thegame as Afghanistan completedtheir second win after playingjust three Tests.
Rashid, who made his debutas the youngest-ever Test captainin this match, finished the gamewith 11 wickets which includeda first innings haul of 5-54.
The Afghan skipper, whoalso made 51 and 24 runs in twoinnings, was named man of thematch.
“We won this game againsta side like Bangladesh,” Rashidsaid after the match.
“We are new to this format,so credit goes to the coachingstaff for their support. Everyoneapplied themselves and stuck totheir plans.
“The four-day structureback home is helping the play-ers. We had the best preparationfor this game and it was chal-lenging for the batsmen.
Bangladesh skipper Shakibwas full of praise forAfghanistan.
“They deserve this victory.After playing for 20 years, wecan’t say it’s a build-up process,”he said.
“It’s been a while since weplayed our last Test match, butAfghanistan kept the pressure onus, credit goes to their hardwork.”
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Mumbai stalwart AmolMuzumdar was on
Monday appointed battingcoach of the visiting SouthAfrican team for the Test seriesagainst India beginningOctober 2.
The 44-year-old, whomade 11,167 first-class runs atan average of 48.13 but nevergot to play for India, con-firmed the appointment.
“I was approached last
week and I have accepted thechallenge. It is a great oppor-tunity for me. To be associat-ed with an international side,that too a team like SouthAfrica, is a huge honour,”Muzumdar, who played mostof his cricket for Mumbai said.
Appointed only for theIndia series, Muzumdar has atough task at hand as he joinsa team in transition for thethree-Test series beginning inVisakhapatnam.
The touring South Africa
side was hammered in thefour Test series 0-3 in 2015.
“No doubt it is a big chal-lenge and big responsibility butI am really looking forward toit. Playing India in India isalways a huge challenge,” saidMuzumdar.
Muzumdar, who tackledspinners really well in his play-ing days, said there is no pointlooking back at South Africanteam’s performance in 2015.
“It is a team in transitionwith the retirement of some
senior players and the presenceof youngsters. That brings newchallenges and fresh ides tothe side.”
Asked how he plans to pre-pare the South African bats-men for the spin challenge inIndia, Muzumdar added: “I amyet to speak to the players butthere would be some work todo. What happened last timewas four years ago and this isa fresh start. Every game is anew game and I believe inthat.”
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Ten Sri Lankan players,including T20 skipper
Lasith Malinga and formercaptains Angelo Mathews andThisara Perera, have pulled outof an upcoming tour ofPakistan citing security con-cerns, officials said on Monday.
The Sri Lanka Cricketboard said in a statement thatplayers in a preliminary squadwere briefed on securityarrangements for the six-matchlimited over series, and giventhe freedom to decide if theywanted to travel.
Following the briefing, tenplayers “chose to stay away”from the series of three One-Day Internationals and threeT20 games, scheduled to begin
on September 27 in Karachi, itsaid.
The other seven whoopted out were NiroshanDickwella, Kusal Perera,Dhananjaya de Silva, AkilaDananjaya, Suranga Lakmal,Dinesh Chandimal andDimuth Karunaratne.
The tour was seen asanother step towards revivinginternational cricket inPakistan after years of isolation.
Batsman DanushkaGunathilaka said he believedsecurity would be adequate.
“From what they told us, Ithink there will be very tightsecurity,” Gunathilaka said.
Sri Lanka are also to playtwo Test matches againstPakistan, but the dates and thevenue are yet to be announced.
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Young Shubman Gill wasback in form with an
unbeaten 66 after bowlersset the platform, dismissingthe visiting side for 164 on thefirst day of the ‘Unofficial’Test here on Monday.
Gill, who has been anopener for Punjab in thelonger format, played outLungi Ngidi’s (1/18 in 6 overs)first spell as he faced 108 balls,hitting nine fours and a six asIndia A were in commandreaching 129 for 2 at stumps.
With India looking outfor an opener who can replacean out-of-form KL Rahul, abig innings from Gill, will puthim in contention alongsideAbhimanyu Easwaran andPriyank Panchal.
The youngster had twosteady partnerships — 48 forthe opening wicket withRuturaj Gaikwad (30) and 56for the second wicket withRicky Bhui (26).
This was after the bowl-ing attack performedadmirably demolishing theSouth Africans for a meagrescore in 51.5 overs.
Pacer Shardul Thakur (3for 29) and off-spinnerKrishnappa Gowtham (3 for64) were the pick of thebowlers. Left-arm spinnerShahbaz Nadeem was steadyas ever (2/37).
Sent in to bat by thehost, the visiting side was jolt-ed early when senior teamopener Aiden Markram wascaught behind by wicket-keeper Kona Bharat offMohammed Siraj in the firstover of the match.
After Siraj got the prizedscalp of Markram, Thakurtook over, dismissing theother opener Pieter Malan(0), Khayelihle Zondo (6)and the dangerous HeinrichKlaasen (0).
With South Africa ‘A’ tot-tering at 22 for 5 and the hostbowlers being on target,Markram’s side looked indanger of being bundled outfor a double-digit score.
Some late resistance fromyoung paceman MarcoJansen (45 not out, 69 balls,4 fours, 2 sixes) and spinnerDane Piedt (33, 45 balls, 6fours) helped them cross the150-run mark.
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England will assess starall-rounder Ben
Stokes’ fitness to bowl inthis week’s fifth Test withAustralia at the Oval asthey look for a consola-tion win after failing toregain the Ashes.
Stokes was includedin an unchanged 13-manEngland squadannounced on Mondayfollowing a 185-rundefeat in the fourth Testthat ensured Australiawould keep hold of theAshes at 2-1 up with oneto play in the five-Testseries.
Durham pacemanStokes, England’s vice-captain, did not bowl inAustralia’s second inningsat Old Trafford followinga shoulder injury sus-tained during his 11thover in the tourists’ firstinnings.
If Stokes is unfit tobowl at the Oval, wherethe fifth Test starts onThursday, he is expectedto play as a specialistbatsman — it was hisstunning 135 not out thatsaw England to a dramat-ic one-wicket win in thethird Test at Headingley.
In that case, Englandwould look to bring in abowling all-rounder fromwithin the squad in eitherSam Curran, who wouldbe playing on his Surrey
home ground, or ChrisWoakes.
Both Curran andWoakes missed out atOld Trafford.
If either of the pairplay should Englandcoach Trevor Bayliss, inwhat will be his last Testbefore he stands downfrom his post, and captainJoe Root make a changeto the side, it would like-ly mean one of the hosts’struggling specialist bats-men having to make way.
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World junior championHima Das was on Monday
named as 4x400m relay runnerin India’s 25-member squad forthe World AthleticsChampionships to be held inDoha from September 27.
The number of athletesannounced after a meeting ofAFI selection committee will,however, increase after the inter-national body (IAAF) gives con-firmation of the likes of WorldUniversity 100m championDutee Chand, who did not meetthe qualification mark but iswithin the required number ofcompetitors for the event.
Hima could not qualify forher pet event 400m but she hasbeen named to run in thewomen’s 4x400m relay and themixed 4x400m relay races. TheAFI is even hoping that themixed 4x400m relay team cancome in the medal bracket or atleast close to it.
The name of star javelinthrower Neeraj Chopra, who isundergoing rehabilitation afteran elbow surgery, was also dis-cussed but was not named in theteam.
“The selectors decided to
discuss the case of javelin throw-er Neeraj Chopra, who is under-going rehabilitation programmeafter an elbow surgery at a laterstage,” a press release from theAFI said.
Sources in the AFI, howev-er, said that Neeraj, who hasqualified for the WorldChampionships before hissurgery, is more or less ruled outof the marquee event.
“Neeraj is unlikely to makeit to Doha Worlds as he isundergoing rehabilitation. Wethink it is better for Neeraj to
recover properly as we see himas a bright prospect for theTokyo Olympics,” the sourcesaid.
“The selection committeealso approved the names ofsprinters Dutee Chand (100mwomen), Archana Suseentran(200m women) and high jumperTejaswin Shankar subject toinvitation from the IAAF.
“The committee also decid-ed to conduct confirmatory trialfor quarter miler Anjali Devi forselection in the team in individ-ual women’s 400m. The trial will
be conducted on September21st at the NIS Patiala,” the AFIrelease added.
An AFI official said thatTejaswin will be asked to cometo India and undergo a trial if hewants to take part in the WorldChampionships.
“If the IAAF sends an invitefor Tejaswin, we will ask him toat least jump 2.25m if not theWorld Championships qualifica-tion standard of 2.30m,” theofficial said.
The personal best forTejaswin is 2.29m, which is also
the national record.The AFI said that the
4x400m relay teams will performbetter than they did in theWorld Relays in Yokohama inMay last.
“We have invested a lot oftime in the 400m runners, get-ting them to train underrenowned coach GalinaBukharina. We believe that thesquad has been well prepared todeliver the best results on theworld stage,” AFI PresidentAdille Sumariwalla said.Men: Jabir MP (400m Hurdles),Jinson Johnson (1500m),Avinash Sable (3000mSteeplechase), KT Irfan andDevender Singh (20km RaceWalk), Gopi T (Marathon),Sreeshankar M (Long Jump),Tajinder Pal Singh Toor (ShotPut), Shivpal Singh (JavelinThrow), Muhammed Anas,Nirmal Noah Tom, Alex Antony,Amoj Jacob, KS Jeevan, DharunAyyasamy and Harsh Kumar(4x400m Men’s & Mixed Relay).Women: PU Chitra (1500m),Annu Rani (Javelin Throw),Hima Das, Vismaya VK,Poovamma MR, Jisna Mathew,Revathi V, Subha Venkatsan,Vithya R (4x400m Women &Mixed Relay).
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Joe Root is in no doubt he should remainas England’s Test captain despite pre-
siding over their first failure to win a homeAshes series in 18 years.
England were looking to regain theAshes after a humiliating 4-0 loss underRoot in Australia in 2017/18.
But Australia’s 185-run victory in thefourth Test at Old Trafford on Sunday leftthem with an unassailable 2-1 lead in thefive-match series ahead of next week’sfinale at the Oval.
Root, whose tactical acumen hasbeen questioned this series, may beEngland’s best batsman but three of hislast five Test innings have ended in ducks.
Nevertheless, he had no doubtsabout continuing in the often stressful roleof England captain.
“Definitely, yes,” the 28-year-old saidwhen asked if he still felt he was the rightman for the job.
“Whenever you lose a series it hurtsand I have to take that on the chin. It’s stillvery raw.
“You have to look at areas you wantto get better at, both in yourself and as ateam.
“But I have been given a fantasticopportunity to captain the Test side andwill continue to work very hard doing mybest at that. That is in my control and Ihave to make sure I keep getting this teamin the best shape to win as many gamesas possible.”
This was England’s first defeat in anOld Trafford Test since 2001 and Root,one of several players also involved in thisseason’s World Cup triumph, has littletime in which to revive flagging spirits
ahead of Thursday’s start at The Oval.England, however, could still end this
series all square at 2-2 and gain valuablepoints in the inaugural World TestChampionship with a victory in southLondon.
“It’s important to look at next week,”said Root.
“We have an important Test matchagainst Australia and we have to makesure we finish this summer strong: do notlose this Ashes series.
“We have the Test championship toplay for, do not lose this Ashes series. Itmatters to me, it matters to everyoneinvolved.
“I know the Ashes are not cominghome but in terms of the Test champi-onship, at the end of the two-year cyclethose points could be crucial. “Every gameagainst Australia matters.”
Head coach Ravi Shastri saysfocus will be on investing in
youth during his second stint inthe top position as India beginpreparations for next year's WorldT20 and the later stages of theongoing World TestChampionship.
The former India all-rounderis pretty clear about the kind ofcomposition he would like in thecoming days.
"The path should be thatknowing well you have got 12months to go for the T20 WorldCup and you have about 18-20months to go for the World TestChampionship," Shastri told the'Gulf News' on his return from thetour of Caribbean.
"Getting youth in during thattransition period by keeping aneye on the youth is important sothat they can mix with the expe-rience and give us a really solidside."
The coach stressed on theconsistency and developing benchstrength.
"The vision is to keep the con-sistency level going. It will be ateam in transition and one has tokeep an eye out for the youth andalso keep an eye on developing thebench strength as far as battingand bowling goes across all threeformats.
"We should, at the same time,be never losing sight of the factthat you play to win. Never losingthat angle but yet at the same time,investing in youth," said Shastri.
At the same time, Shastri saidthat with points at stake, WorldTest Championship is a seriousbusiness.
"We are playing at home(against South Africa) and it is theWorld Test Championship - sonow there is even more reason onwhy you have to play the way youshould. There are now points tobe accumulated.
"We are the No 1 team in theworld and we have been for thelast three years, so there is prideat stake as well. So we want to keepthat consistency going and ensur-ing that we are placed nicely in thetable for when the time comesfrom them to decide who plays inthe final."
Shastri was pleased as punchthat his team was able to maintainan unbeaten record in the WestIndies, the first team to do so inthe assortment of island nation.
"To beat the West Indies inWest Indies across all three for-mats, especially the limited overformats and Test matches, I thinkthis must be unprecedented. Ateam going to the Caribbean andnot losing a single game, I don'tthink it has happened in the pastand it will not happen that easilyin the near future," he added.
Delivering one of his most dra-matic major final performances,Rafael Nadal captured his 19th
career Grand Slam title on Sunday bywinning his fourth US Open, outlast-ing Russia’s Daniil Medvedev 7-5, 6-3,5-7, 4-6, 6-4.
The 33-year-old Spanish left-han-der moved one shy of Roger Federer’sall-time men’s record 20 Grand Slamtriumphs and became the second-oldest New York champion in the Openera after Ken Rosewall in 1970 at age35.
“Has been one of the most emo-tional nights in my tennis career,” Nadalsaid.
A video tribute in the wake of hisgritty triumph moved Nadal to tears.
“The way that the match becamevery dramatic at the end, that makesthis day unforgettable,” Nadal said.
“Watching all the success, all themoments that came to my mind, I triedto hold the emotion, but somemoments was impossible.”
It took a supreme effort from theSpanish maestro, who nearly becamethe first player to drop the final afterleading by two sets since Ted Schroederin 1949 before winning a near five-hourthriller.
“This victory means a lot,” Nadalsaid. “And the way it happened. It washard to control the nerves. The nerveswere so high after having the matchalmost under control.”
World number two Nadal took thetop prize of $3.85 million at ArthurAshe Stadium and added to his USOpen trophy haul from 2010, 2013 and2017.
Nadal, who was in his fifth USOpen championship matchand 27th Grand Slam final, isthe first man to claim fivemajor titles after turning30.
Nadal, who rose to 22-12 in five-set matches, onlylost once at a Slam when up two sets,to Italy’s Fabio Fognini in the 2015 USOpen third round.
“I more or less had the matchunder control,” Nadal said. “The wayhe was able to fight, to change therhythm of the match, was incredible.”
UNBELIEVABLE, OUTRAGEOUS'At four hours and 50 minutes, the
match finished four minutes short ofequaling the longest final in US Openhistory from Mats Wilander’s 1988 winand Andy Murray’s 2012 title.
It was the second Slam title of theyear for Nadal after taking his 12thFrench Open crown in June.
In addition to reaching the brinkof Federer’s mark, Nadal moved one shyof the Open era record five US Opentitles won by Federer, Jimmy Connorsand Pete Sampras.
“A 19th Grand Slam title is some-
thing unbelievable, outrageous,”Medvedev said.
Nadal, who won his onlyprior meeting with Medvedev
in last month’s Montreal final,stretched his win streak over
Russians to 20 matches since losing toNikolay Davydenko in the 2011 Dohasemi-finals.
Fifth seed Medvedev, 23, wouldhave been the youngest men’s GrandSlam champion since Juan Martin delPotro at the 2009 US Open.
Medvedev, who rise to a career-bestfourth in the rankings on Monday, wasa champion at Cincinnati and runner-up at Montreal, Washington and theOpen.
“His summer was one of the bestsummers I ever saw,” Nadal said.“People saw why he is already numberfour in the world.”
Medvedev, who saw his career-best12-match win streak snapped, wouldhave been the first Russian to win aGrand Slam title since Marat Safin atthe 2005 Australian Open and the firstRussian to win the US Open since Safinin 2000.
ELECTRIC FIFTH SETOn a knife’s edge at 5-5 in the third
set, Medvedev reeled off eight of the lastnine points to force a fourth, breakingNadal in the 12th game with a back-hand winner.
“To be honest in my mind, I wasalready thinking, ‘What do I say in thespeech, it’s going to be in 20 minutes,”
Medvedev said.“I was like, ‘I have to fight for every
ball,’ and it went further but it didn’t gomy way.”
Nadal was broken in the 10th gameof the fourth set to force a fifth whenMedvedev blasted a sterling backhandreturn winner.
Nadal rescued three Medvedevbreak chances to hold in second gameof fifth set, fired a backhand volley win-ner to break Medvedev in the fifth gameand seized a 5-2 edge when Medvedevhit an overhead smash long.
Serving for the match, Nadal wasbroken when umpire Ali Nili issuedNadal a time violation for his first serveand the Spaniard sent his second long,the crowd booing Nili for his call.
Nadal squandered two break andmatch points in the ninth game as thedrama intensified.
Again serving for the match,Nadal rescued a break point then hita forehand drop volley for his thirdmatch point chance and Medvedevsent a forehand return long to end mat-ters.
Nadal screamed and fell to thecourt on his back in joy and exhaus-tion.
‘FOUGHT LIKE HELL’Medvedev has experienced a love-
hate relationship with fans at FlushingMeadows after an obscene gesture ina third-round match prompted loudboos, to which the Russian laterresponded with a taunt of his own.
But the 23-year-old won the crowdover during his run to the final.
“It’s because of your energy that I’mhere in the final. I mean, tonight isgoing to always be in my mind becauseI played in the biggest court in the ten-nis world.
“You guys were pushing me to pro-long this match because you want tosee more tennis. Because of you guys,I was fighting like hell.
“It’s electric. You were booing mefor a reason. I can also change becauseI am a human being and I can makemistakes. Thank you very much fromthe bottom of my heart.”
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Spain and Italy moved to withintouching distance of Euro 2020 on
Sunday after respective wins over theFaroe Islands and Finland saw themmaintain their perfect qualifyingrecords for next year’s tournament.
Rodrigo and Paco Alcacer bothscored twice in an easy 4-0 victoryover the Faroes in Gijon, ona night when captain SergioRamos equalled IkerCasillas’ national appear-ances record with his 167thcap.
It was their sixth win from six inGroup F and put them on a perfect18 points, seven clear of Sweden,who drew 1-1 with Scandinavianrivals Norway.
With two teams qualifying fromthe group, they are also a furtherpoint ahead of third-placed Romaniafollowing their 1-0 win over Malta.
Italy also kept their 100 percentrecord thanks to Jorginho’s latepenalty, which fired Italy their ownsixth straight win, 2-1 at nearest
rivals Finland.Chelsea midfielder Jorginho’s
79th-minute winner in Tamperesent Roberto Mancini’s side sixpoints clear of the second-placed
Finns in Group J, after in-formNorwich City striker Teemu Pukkihad levelled Ciro Immobile’s firstItaly goal in two years with apenalty of his own six minutesbefore.
Four-time world championsare flying high with a maximum 18points with four qualifying gamesto play, nine points ahead of third-placed Armenia despite theirthrilling 4-2 win over Bosnia andHerzegovina earlier on Sunday.
They could now secure quali-fication for the tournament, whichkicks off in Rome next June, againstGreece or Liechtenstein — who sur-prisingly drew 1-1 in Athens —next month.
Switzerland kept their hopes ofqualifying from Group D alivewith a 4-0 thumping of Gibraltar,who are yet to pick up a point orscore a goal after five games.
They are also just a point awayfrom second-placed Denmark, whocould only manage a goalless drawat Georgia, and have a game inhand on both their rivals.
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Aheart-breaking loss in the cam-paign-opener has dented their
chances of moving ahead and theIndian football team faces anotheruphill task when it takes on Asianchampion Qatar in its most difficultmatch of the World Cup secondround qualifiers here today.
India let in two goals in the lasteight minutes after taking an earlylead to lose their opening matchagainst Oman on September 5 inGuwahati.
Ranked 62nd in the world,Qatar will start today’s Group Ematch against 103-ranked India asoverwhelming favourites. They willlook to claim their second consec-utive win after crushing Afghanistan6-0 in their opening match onSeptember 5 here.
The World Cup hosts haveimproved by leaps and bounds in thelast few years. They won the AsianCup in the UAE earlier this year andthey gave good competition to the
top South American sides in therecent Copa America where theytook part on invitation.
India have also shown improve-ment in recent times as was seen dur-ing the Asian Cup in January wherethey gave scares to the likes of theUAE and Bahrain and missed qual-ifying for the knock-out round by a
whisker.Historically, Qatar have been the
dominant side, having won three outof four official matches playedagainst India. One match ended ina draw.
The last time the two sidesplayed an official match was inSeptember 2007 in the World Cup
qualifiers where Qatar had thrashedIndia 6-0.
India defeated Qatar 2-1 inDoha in 2011 in a friendly but thatmatch was not considered an officialgame as India made more substitu-tions than the rules allowed.
Head coach Igor Stimac, whoprefers possession-based footballby building from the back, sought todwell on the positives from theOman match and said that his sidehas nothing to fear against Qatar.
“Qatar is strongest team in thegroup and playing them will not beeasy. However, it’s a great opportu-nity to learn from. There is no rea-son to fear and we shall look to scoregoals and play good,” Stimac said.
Qatari players are also not tak-ing India lightly and they are expect-ing a stern test from the visitors.
“India had a good match againstOman, despite the defeat. They alsoperformed well in the Asian Cupand they are always improving. Weknow that they are a good team,” saiddefender Pedro Miguel.
Sabalenka captured their firstGrand Slam title on Sundayby winning the US Openwomen’s doubles final overAustralia’s Ashleigh Bartyand Belarus’ VictoriaAzarenka 7-5, 7-5.
The fourth-seeded duodropped only one set in thetournament in reaching theirfirst Grand Slam final.
“I can’t believe we won aGrand Slam,” Mertens said.“It’s all so new. Thanks toAryna. I keep her going.She keeps me going.”
Sabalenka’s overheadsmash produced a break to
win the first set and it was anAzarenka overhead smashbeyond the baseline thatended matters after 97 min-utes.
“It’s like somethingunbelievable this year hap-pened, especially in dou-bles,” Sabalenka said. “I’veenjoyed every second on thecourt.”
Barty, who takes over asworld number one in singles,won last year’s US Opentitle with American CoCoVandeweghe.
The Aussie could havebecome the first woman withback-to-back US Openwomen’s doubles titles sinceFrance’s Nathalie Dechy in2006 and 2007.
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US Open winner BiancaAndreescu, 200th in the world
rankings a year ago, leapt into the topfive on Monday, while AshleighBarty knocked Naomi Osaka off topspot.
Eliminated in the first qualifyinground in New York a year ago,Andreescu rose 10 places to numberfive after beating Serena Williams inthe final on Saturday.
The 19-year-old Canadian isone place behind Osaka, whose
defence of her US title ended in thequarterfinals.
Barty was also knocked out inthe last eight but, since she wasknocked out in the fourth round in2018, increased her ranking pointstotal.
The Australian is just over 400points ahead of the Czech KarolinaPliskova, who climbed one place tosecond.
The top two have opened a sub-stantial gap over Elina Svitolina, whorose two spots to third after reach-ing the semi-finals.
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Afirst round appearance at the US Open has propelledIndia’s Sumit Nagal to career-high 174 in the ATP rank-
ings released on Monday.The 22-year-old from Haryana leapfrogged 16 places
after his first-round exit in the US Open.He became only the fourth Indian to win a set in the
main draw of a Grand Slam in the last 20 years.Meanwhile, Prajnesh Gunneswaran continued his run
in the top-100. He rose three places to be world No 85. He,like Nagal, also suffered a first round exit at the hands ofUS Open runners-up Daniil Medvedev.
Ramkumar Ramanathan moved up one spot to be176th, rounding up the top-three Indian’s in the men’s sin-gles.
In doubles, Rohan Bopanna dropped four spots to 43rdposition while Divij Sharan and Leander Paes occupy the49th and 78th place respectively.
In the WTA rankings, Ankita Raina continues to beIndia’s top-ranked player at 194 and was followed byPranjala Yadlapalli, who is placed at 338.
