T he hide and seek between former Union Minister P Chidambaram and the CBI ended after his dramatic arrest on Wednesday night. The CBI arrested Chidambaram from his Jor Bagh home minutes after he returned there from the AICC headquarters after addressing a Press conference in the presence of a battery of Congress leaders. Around 8.15 pm, Chidambaram, who was untraceable for over 27 hours, appeared in the party office and told media that he was not evading arrest and asked the CBI to wait till Friday, when his petition is listed to be heard in the Supreme Court. Along with senior Supreme Court lawyers and senior party colleagues Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, he then drove to his residence nearly 10 minutes away from the Congress office. On his trail were CBI and ED officials. A CBI team reached his Jor Bagh residence 115-A within min- utes of his return. The CBI team first knocked at the gates to gain entry but finding no response, they scaled the walls. Once three officers reached inside, they opened the gates to allow other team members waiting outside. Soon a team of officers, identifying themselves as from ED arrived at the scene. Delhi Police personnel were posted to prevent any adverse law and order situation. After his arrest, Chidambaram was taken to CBI headquarters, where doc- tors from RLM hospital took a routine health check up. He will be produced in the trial court on Thursday. In the Press conference, Chidambaram put up a strong defence of himself and his family members, saying none of them has been accused of any offence by the probe agen- cies. “Until Friday and beyond, let’s hope the lamp of liberty will shine bright and illuminate the whole country,” he said, suggesting that the probe agen- cies should not arrest him until the apex court decides on his bail plea. “I will respect law even if applied with an unequal hand by probe agencies,” he said reading out from a written statement. “I am aghast that I was accused of hiding from the law. On the contrary, I was seeking the protection of the law. I was aghast that I was accused of running away from justice. On the contrary, I was engaged in the pursuit of justice,” Chidambaram said while rejecting allegations that he was evading investigating agencies. He said he was working with his lawyers through the last night, preparing his papers for his bail application. “I believe that the founda- tion of a democracy is liberty, most precious article of the Constitution is Article 21 that guarantees life and liberty. If I’m asked to choose between life and liberty, I shall unhesi- tatingly choose liberty,” he said. “To win freedom we must struggle. To preserve freedom too we must struggle,” he said. His son, Karti Chidambaram, who is also accused of “wrongdoing” in the cases by probe agencies, termed the CBI/ED action as “political witch-hunt”. “This is a political witch- hunt. Outrageous media leaks are the preferred tactics of the @dir_ed. I have nothing to do with INX or the FIPB. All my assets and liabilities are duly declared in statutory and regulatory filings. I have repeated this ad nauseam,” he tweeted. U S President Donald Trump has said that he would dis- cuss with Prime Minister Narendra Modi the situation in Kashmir and help ease the India-Pak tensions when they meet at the G7 Summit in France this weekend. But New Delhi has made it clear to the US that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan and there was no role for a third party. Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday while welcoming visiting Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Trump said he was happy to try and help calm the situation in Kashmir amidst fresh India- Pak tensions after India revoked the special status of Jammu & Kashmir. Trump’s comments to a question on the tension between India and Pakistan came a day after he made sep- arate phone calls to Prime Minister Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. Trump said he was happy to try and help calm the situa- tion in Kashmir. “I’m going to be with Prime Minister Modi. I’ll be with him over the weekend in France,” Trump said, referring to the G7 Summit in Biarritz during the weekend. A protest by Dalits against the demolition of the Ravidas temple on Wednesday turned violent in the national Capital, prompting police to resort to “mild lathicharge” and use tear gas to disperse the crowd, an official said. According to police, the pro- testers set two motorcycles on fire and vandalised a police vehicle, causing injuries to a few policemen. Protesting against the demolition of the temple by the Delhi Development Authority on August 10 on the orders of the Supreme Court, thousands of Dalits from various parts of the country wearing blue caps, carrying flags and chanting “Jai Bhim” slogan, marched from Ambedkar Bhawan in Jhandewalan to the Ramlila Maidan in Central Delhi on Wednesday. Dalit outfit Bhim Army claimed their leader Chandrashekhar Azad was detained.Vinod, 53, who came from Faridabad, said thou- sands of religious structures have come up on Government and forest land. “Why only a temple of Sant Ravidas was razed? There should be a fixed policy of the Government and that should be implemented on all the structures whether it is temple, mosque or any other illegal building,” he said. “The Centre should imme- diate allot land to construct the temple. We came here to show solidarity with people of Dalit community. We have been fac- ing discrimination for long and this need to stop now,” said Mahipal, who arrived in the city on Tuesday night from Haryana. Senior AAP leaders, including Delhi’s Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam, Leader of Opposition in Punjab Harpal Singh Cheema, Delhi Deputy Speaker Rakhi Birla, party MLAs Ajay Dutt, Manoj Kumar, MLAs from Punjab Jai Krishna Singh Rody, Manjit Singh Bilaspur, Kulwant Singh Pandori, Azad and spiritual leaders from the community participated in the protest. W ith new Motor Vehicles Act (Amended) in place, be ready to maintain road and traffic discipline as heavy penalties will come into force from September 1. The new MVA provides for strict punishment for various traffic-related offences, includ- ing 10,000 fine for not giving way to emergency vehicles, 10,000 for driving despite disqualification, 10,000 for drunken driving, etc. Over speeding, driving without hel- met, and not wearing seat belt would invite penalty in the range of 1,000-2,000. Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said steps have been initiated to implement provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act 2019. Sixty- three clauses which do not require framing of new rules are likely to be implemented from September 1 subject to clearance from the Law Ministry. These clauses deal with penalties, licences, regis- tration and National Transport Policy, among others. “Subject to clearance from the Law Ministry, these claus- es are likely to be implement- ed from September 1,” Gadkari said at a Press conference. The Road Transport Minister expressed hope that the MVA will help curb road accidents and bring down fatal- ities. Regarding the other claus- es for which rules have to be framed, Gadkari said steps for this have already been initiat- ed by the Ministry, and rules will be notified as and when the due processes are completed. T hree persons aboard a heli- copter that was returning after dropping relief supplies in flood affected Moldi area of Uttarkashi died after the chop- per crashed into a mountain on Wednesday afternoon. The helicopter belonging to Heritage Aviation hit the mountain while trying to avoid overhead wires. There are trol- ley wires also installed by locals to ferry apples from orchards. The mishap resulted in the death of pilot Ranjit Lal, co- pilot Shailesh — both resi- dents of Delhi — and Rajpal Rana, a resident of Kharsali. Detailed story on P3 H undreds of people residing in low-lying areas, who were temporarily shifted to makeshift tents and vacated their houses after water entered their areas, can now breathe easy, as the water level of the Yamuna River started receding on Wednesday. However, the river contin- ues to flow above the danger mark (206.50 metres). Officials said it is expected to go below the danger mark of 205.33 metres by early Thursday morning. Northern Railway spokesperson said rail traffic over the old Yamuna bridge (‘Lohe wala Pul’), which was temporarily suspended on Tuesday night, was restored at 4.25 pm on Wednesday with speed restriction of 20 kmph. The Yamuna had breached the danger mark of 205.33 metres on Monday. Following which the Delhi Governemnt set relief tents in several areas in Yamuna floodplains. “The water level is likely to recede further as Haryana has so far not released water from the Hathni Kund barrage in large quantity,” a Government official said. At 4 pm, only 10,000 cusec water was released from the barrage. Officials said around 23,000 affected people were evacuated from the flood- plains to safer places. Over 18,000 of them were accom- modated in more than 2,700 relief tents set up by the Delhi Government agencies. Some tents still remained vacant as many residents at the Yamuna Khadar didn’t vacate their shanties, claimed resi- dents. Earlier on Wednesday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met people affected by the flood and said the Government will ensure that there is no shortage of relief materials. “Met the flood affected people at the Yamuna bank. Most people have left their belongings in their houses but its good thing that there is no loss of life. Arrangements of tents, food, water and medicine have been made. Let us know if there is any shortage, we will immediately do the needful,” Kejriwal tweeted. The river flows through six districts of Delhi whose low- lying areas are prone to flood- ing. The administration has deployed 30 boats to prevent accidental drowning. In 1978, the water in the river rose to its highest-ever level of 207.49 metres, causing a devastating flood in the national Capital. T he Congress on Wednesday defended its senior leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram, who is facing corruption charges in the INX Media case. While Rahul Gandhi alleged the Modi Government is using agencies like ED, CBI, and sections of a “spine- less media” to character assas- sinate a versatile person like Chidambaram, party general secretary and Rahul’s sister Priyanka Gandhi claimed the former Union Minister was being “shamefully hunted down” because he speaks truth and exposes the failures of the Government. Priyanka said the party will continue to fight for the truth no matter what the con- sequences are. “An extremely qualified and respected mem- ber of the RS, P Chidambaram ji has served our nation with loyalty for decades including as Finance Minister and Home Minister,” she said.
Chidambaram and the CBIended after his dramatic arreston Wednesday night. The CBIarrested Chidambaram fromhis Jor Bagh home minutesafter he returned there from theAICC headquarters afteraddressing a Press conferencein the presence of a battery ofCongress leaders.
Around 8.15 pm,Chidambaram, who wasuntraceable for over 27 hours,appeared in the party office andtold media that he was notevading arrest and asked theCBI to wait till Friday, when hispetition is listed to be heard inthe Supreme Court.
Along with senior SupremeCourt lawyers and senior partycolleagues Kapil Sibal andAbhishek Manu Singhvi, hethen drove to his residencenearly 10 minutes away fromthe Congress office. On his trailwere CBI and ED officials. ACBI team reached his Jor Baghresidence 115-A within min-utes of his return.
The CBI team firstknocked at the gates to gainentry but finding no response,they scaled the walls. Oncethree officers reached inside,they opened the gates to allowother team members waitingoutside. Soon a team of officers,
identifying themselves as fromED arrived at the scene.
Delhi Police personnelwere posted to prevent anyadverse law and order situation.
After his arrest,
Chidambaram was taken toCBI headquarters, where doc-tors from RLM hospital took aroutine health check up. He willbe produced in the trial courton Thursday.
In the Press conference,Chidambaram put up a strongdefence of himself and hisfamily members, saying noneof them has been accused ofany offence by the probe agen-
cies. “Until Friday and beyond,let’s hope the lamp of libertywill shine bright and illuminatethe whole country,” he said,suggesting that the probe agen-cies should not arrest him until
the apex court decides on hisbail plea. “I will respect laweven if applied with an unequalhand by probe agencies,” hesaid reading out from a writtenstatement.
“I am aghast that I wasaccused of hiding from the law.On the contrary, I was seekingthe protection of the law. I wasaghast that I was accused ofrunning away from justice. Onthe contrary, I was engaged inthe pursuit of justice,”Chidambaram said whilerejecting allegations that he was
evading investigating agencies.He said he was working
with his lawyers through thelast night, preparing his papersfor his bail application.
“I believe that the founda-tion of a democracy is liberty,most precious article of theConstitution is Article 21 thatguarantees life and liberty. IfI’m asked to choose betweenlife and liberty, I shall unhesi-tatingly choose liberty,” he said.
“To win freedom we muststruggle. To preserve freedomtoo we must struggle,” he said.
His son, KartiChidambaram, who is alsoaccused of “wrongdoing” in thecases by probe agencies, termedthe CBI/ED action as “politicalwitch-hunt”.
“This is a political witch-hunt. Outrageous media leaksare the preferred tactics of the@dir_ed. I have nothing to dowith INX or the FIPB.
All my assets and liabilitiesare duly declared in statutoryand regulatory filings. I haverepeated this ad nauseam,” hetweeted.
����� � '&/+�01+
US President Donald Trumphas said that he would dis-
cuss with Prime MinisterNarendra Modi the situation inKashmir and help ease theIndia-Pak tensions when theymeet at the G7 Summit inFrance this weekend. But NewDelhi has made it clear to theUS that Kashmir is a bilateralissue between India andPakistan and there was no rolefor a third party.
Speaking to reporters at theWhite House on Tuesday whilewelcoming visiting RomanianPresident Klaus Iohannis,Trump said he was happy to tryand help calm the situation inKashmir amidst fresh India-Pak tensions after Indiarevoked the special status of
Jammu & Kashmir.Trump’s comments to a
question on the tensionbetween India and Pakistancame a day after he made sep-arate phone calls to PrimeMinister Modi and PakistanPrime Minister Imran Khan.
Trump said he was happyto try and help calm the situa-tion in Kashmir. “I’m going tobe with Prime Minister Modi.
I’ll be with him over theweekend in France,” Trumpsaid, referring to the G7Summit in Biarritz during theweekend.
��������������� +,��-,.&/
Aprotest by Dalits againstthe demolition of the
Ravidas temple on Wednesdayturned violent in the nationalCapital, prompting police toresort to “mild lathicharge”and use tear gas to disperse thecrowd, an official said.According to police, the pro-testers set two motorcycles onfire and vandalised a policevehicle, causing injuries to afew policemen.
Protesting against thedemolition of the temple by theDelhi Development Authorityon August 10 on the orders ofthe Supreme Court, thousandsof Dalits from various parts ofthe country wearing blue caps,carrying flags and chanting“Jai Bhim” slogan, marchedfrom Ambedkar Bhawan inJhandewalan to the RamlilaMaidan in Central Delhi onWednesday.
Dalit outfit Bhim Army
claimed their leaderChandrashekhar Azad wasdetained.Vinod, 53, who camefrom Faridabad, said thou-sands of religious structureshave come up on Governmentand forest land. “Why only atemple of Sant Ravidas wasrazed?
There should be a fixedpolicy of the Government andthat should be implemented onall the structures whether it istemple, mosque or any otherillegal building,” he said.
“The Centre should imme-diate allot land to construct thetemple. We came here to showsolidarity with people of Dalit
community. We have been fac-ing discrimination for longand this need to stop now,” saidMahipal, who arrived in thecity on Tuesday night fromHaryana.
Senior AAP leaders,including Delhi’s Social WelfareMinister Rajendra Pal Gautam,Leader of Opposition in PunjabHarpal Singh Cheema, DelhiDeputy Speaker Rakhi Birla,party MLAs Ajay Dutt, ManojKumar, MLAs from PunjabJai Krishna Singh Rody, ManjitSingh Bilaspur, Kulwant SinghPandori, Azad and spiritualleaders from the communityparticipated in the protest.
����� +,��-,.&/
With new Motor VehiclesAct (Amended) in place,
be ready to maintain road andtraffic discipline as heavypenalties will come into forcefrom September 1.
The new MVA provides forstrict punishment for varioustraffic-related offences, includ-ing �10,000 fine for not givingway to emergency vehicles,�10,000 for driving despitedisqualification, �10,000 fordrunken driving, etc. Overspeeding, driving without hel-met, and not wearing seat beltwould invite penalty in therange of �1,000-2,000.
Road Transport MinisterNitin Gadkari on Wednesdaysaid steps have been initiated toimplement provisions of theMotor Vehicles Act 2019. Sixty-three clauses which do notrequire framing of new rulesare likely to be implementedfrom September 1 subject toclearance from the LawMinistry. These clauses dealwith penalties, licences, regis-tration and National TransportPolicy, among others.
“Subject to clearance fromthe Law Ministry, these claus-es are likely to be implement-ed from September 1,” Gadkarisaid at a Press conference.
The Road TransportMinister expressed hope thatthe MVA will help curb roadaccidents and bring down fatal-ities.
Regarding the other claus-es for which rules have to beframed, Gadkari said steps forthis have already been initiat-ed by the Ministry, and ruleswill be notified as and when thedue processes are completed.
����� -,&) -%+
Three persons aboard a heli-copter that was returning
after dropping relief supplies inflood affected Moldi area ofUttarkashi died after the chop-per crashed into a mountain onWednesday afternoon. Thehelicopter belonging toHeritage Aviation hit themountain while trying to avoidoverhead wires. There are trol-ley wires also installed by localsto ferry apples from orchards.
The mishap resulted in thedeath of pilot Ranjit Lal, co-pilot Shailesh — both resi-dents of Delhi — and RajpalRana, a resident of Kharsali.
Detailed story on P3
��������������� +,��-,.&/
Hundreds of people residingin low-lying areas, who
were temporarily shifted tomakeshift tents and vacatedtheir houses after water enteredtheir areas, can now breatheeasy, as the water level of theYamuna River started recedingon Wednesday.
However, the river contin-ues to flow above the dangermark (206.50 metres). Officialssaid it is expected to go belowthe danger mark of 205.33metres by early Thursdaymorning.
Northern Railwayspokesperson said rail trafficover the old Yamuna bridge(‘Lohe wala Pul’), which wastemporarily suspended onTuesday night, was restored at4.25 pm on Wednesday withspeed restriction of 20 kmph.
The Yamuna had breached
the danger mark of 205.33metres on Monday. Followingwhich the Delhi Governemntset relief tents in several areasin Yamuna floodplains.
“The water level is likely torecede further as Haryana hasso far not released water fromthe Hathni Kund barrage inlarge quantity,” a Governmentofficial said. At 4 pm, only10,000 cusec water was releasedfrom the barrage.
Officials said around23,000 affected people wereevacuated from the flood-plains to safer places. Over18,000 of them were accom-modated in more than 2,700relief tents set up by the DelhiGovernment agencies.
Some tents still remainedvacant as many residents at theYamuna Khadar didn’t vacatetheir shanties, claimed resi-dents.
Earlier on Wednesday, Delhi
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwalmet people affected by the floodand said the Government willensure that there is no shortageof relief materials.
“Met the flood affectedpeople at the Yamuna bank.Most people have left theirbelongings in their houses butits good thing that there is noloss of life. Arrangements oftents, food, water and medicinehave been made. Let us knowif there is any shortage, we willimmediately do the needful,”Kejriwal tweeted.
The river flows through sixdistricts of Delhi whose low-lying areas are prone to flood-ing. The administration hasdeployed 30 boats to preventaccidental drowning.
In 1978, the water in theriver rose to its highest-everlevel of 207.49 metres, causinga devastating flood in thenational Capital.
senior leader and formerUnion Minister PChidambaram, who is facingcorruption charges in the INXMedia case.
While Rahul Gandhialleged the Modi Governmentis using agencies like ED,CBI, and sections of a “spine-less media” to character assas-sinate a versatile person likeChidambaram, party generalsecretary and Rahul’s sister
Priyanka Gandhi claimed theformer Union Minister wasbeing “shamefully hunteddown” because he speakstruth and exposes the failuresof the Government.
Priyanka said the partywill continue to fight for thetruth no matter what the con-sequences are. “An extremelyqualified and respected mem-ber of the RS, PChidambaram ji has servedour nation with loyalty fordecades including as FinanceMinister and Home Minister,”she said.
Municipal Corporation Dehradun (MCD)continued the anti-encroachment drive on
Wednesday with the help of local police.Officials concerned said that the major problemis that at most of the market areas street ven-dors start putting their products on display assoon as they see law enforcement authoritiesgoing back.
It is important for citizens also to stop buy-ing from such vendors, only then can the drivecan have effective results. On Wednesday, thedrive was conducted from Inamullah buildingtowards Prince Chowk, from where authoritiesseized several angular tables and other com-mercial products. Dehradun SeniorSuperintendent of Police (SSP) Arun Mohan
Joshi said that in his knowledge re-encroach-ment has reduced considerably. He also said thatpolice stations concerned especially when itcomes to market areas will be responsible forkeeping an eye on any such activity.
One of the MCD officials said that streetvendors especially at Indira Market, Dharmpur,Paltan Bazaar, Moti Bazaar and Dispensary Roadrun or collect their items as soon as they get theinformation about authorities coming and assoon as the drive for the day is complete theyset up their products for sale on the footpathsand roads once again.
This is why the drive has to be a consistentprocess. A street vendor near LansdowneChowk said, “Without providing us with suit-able place to go to and sell our products theyare simply asking us to move.
After protracted dithering,the Municipal Corporation
of Haridwar (MCH) has final-ly woken up to resolve the dis-puted matter of Sati Ghat park-ing area. Sati Ghat is a promi-nent Ghat of the city wherethousands of people come
everyday for doing last rites oftheir deceased ones and theparking generates lots of rev-enue which is being lost by thecorporation on account of thesite being encroached upon byan outfit. A day ago,municipalcommissioner Udayveer Ranaasked the corporation officialsto remove the illegal parking
being run by one so calledleader. Speaking to The Pioneer,Rana said, “My team is work-ing on the same issue and byend of day we will get thereport. They have been asked toremove encroachment and takeover so that revenue from park-ing can once again start com-ing to MCH.”
)� �'�� ���% ��� ����$�������� �������� � �� &�
��
These days whenever some-one insists that I become a
member of his WhatsAppgroup I recoil in terror as if it’san offer to infect me with thedreaded smallpox virus! So,naturally, you’ll expect me todecline the offer with a firmbut polite ‘no,’ right? But,unfortunately it doesn’t happenthat way with me. Despitestrong inhibitions and fullyknowing the ramifications ofmy act, more often than not, Ifind myself walking into awaiting snare lest my rejectionshould offend my friends.
Those who’re part of anyWhatsApp group within Indiaadministered by an Indian forthe benefit of millions of unen-lightened Indians like me willbetter grasp the point I am try-ing to drive home and partnerin my pain. All ugly things, I’mconvinced, often have a beau-tiful start.
The flowers that glisten inthe morning dew lose theirsheen by evening. The sun thatbathes the mountains and val-leys with its gentle rays turninto a punishing monster bynoon. The nectar-like waters ofthe rivers finally dissolve in the
saline seas. The child loses itsinnocent smile as it growsinto an adult. If you want, I cancite any number of examples tojustify my conviction.WhatsApp groups too, workon the same principle.
The groups come aliveearly in the morning withheavy doses of noble thoughts,mostly borrowed, that empha-sise the need for universalbrotherhood and oneness.
These posts often depict aplacid lake, sun that rises overmisty mountain peaks or thedrooping branch of a treeupon which a pretty, colourfulbird is delicately perchedthough it’s an altogether dif-ferent matter that these imageshave been copied with absoluteglee infringing upon everyconceivable copyright laws thatexist internationally and with-in the country.
Any member, who’s new tothe WhatsApp group experi-ence, upon seeing the earlymorning posts, for the firsttime, would even lament withgenuine regret, “Oh! God, whydidn’t I think of joining such anoble platform earlier?” Youcan’t blame the poor fellow.
For, he hardly knows the tor-nado that’s in the offing. Thetornado does not hit himimmediately because till noonthe group members spendtime exchanging plebeian jokesand educating each other aboutsome little known cell phonetricks like dialing 112 to estab-lish contact with any existingnetwork in the event of onegetting stranded in an out ofcoverage area, which anywaydon’t work! In between, youwill also find a health-con-scious member who himself ispot-bellied and obese extollingthe strengths and virtues of bit-ter gourd in killing cancercells citing some professorcalled Chen Hui Ren of BeijingArmy General Hospital, theproof of whose existence canbe authenticated only by twopeople in the world: NandanNilakeni, the Aadhaar apostleand God Almighty! But, itwould be safe to leave the busi-ness of validation to the lattersince the Aadhaar writ doesn’trun inside Chinese territories!
By noon, the new memberis tired and hungry and wouldbe in a mood so desperate thathe would be ready pounce on
any food that doesn’t bite back.Wiping his hands with a towel,he would settle down salivat-ing at the thought of the deli-cacies his wife would’ve pre-pared for his lunch. It’s duringthe interregnum of thisextreme hunger and wild antic-ipation, his cell phone beeps,sounding him out about thearrival of a fresh notification.
He gets tempted and isgreeted with a message thatreads: ‘See the video andyou’ll know how lucky you’reto live in a developed countrylike India!’ followed by the iconof a backhand with index fin-ger pointing down. The unsus-pecting individual opens thevideo.
The damn thing that inusual circumstances takes aneternity to buffer fully opens inan instant and there appears abeggar, old, weak and sick, eat-ing his own feces, drawing yel-low, sticky pieces out of hisanus! When his wife returnsfrom the kitchen with a smilethat contains an unasked ques-tion, ‘Darling! Can you guesswhat special things I’ve madefor you today?’, the man muchto her consternation clutches
his stomach and hurries him-self to the nearest washbasinand bends before it retchingand vomiting, producing someeerie sounds in the process.
He, of course, becomesnormal soon, but then hisappetite is gone missing like aneedle that has fallen into thedepths of a vast ocean never tobe discovered again! He’s nowworried that the video of theold beggar would get replayedin his mind automaticallywhenever he decides to sitbefore a meal plate.
And, for the first time, heposts a message in the group:‘Is there any technique to for-get the unforgettable?’ Thequestion being abstract innature and since most mem-bers owe their existence in thegroup to forwarded messages,it elicits no reply. If you askme, I would say, he committeda mistake. If he’d rather framedthe question ‘is there any wayto censor out wrong images?’,some influential members ofthe group would’ve got intouch with the officials ofCensor Board of India who’readept in the art of editing outthings that they don’t deem fit
for the health of the country orits immature population.
That apart, the periodbetween noon and evening isgenerally dry for anyWhatsApp group. If you thinkthat the members have takenbreak because they’re other-wise busy, you got it wrong.Instead, the fact is that they’reonly saving their energy andbracing up to face the impend-ing storm which they know isbound to ravage the Group bynight. The new member is thelone person who’s not in theloop of things.
The first salvo is fired by amember, a little after the sun-set, who posts a forwardedvideo in which one seesbespectacled, clean-shavenman with a bald pate, whodoesn’t know even the abc ofthe media industry, let alone itsfunctions in a democracy,indulging in a spiel claimingthat most media houses in thecountry are owned and con-trolled either by Christian mis-sionaries, Left-leaning intel-lectuals or Muslims with ques-tionable patriotism.
The post seizes the atten-tion of another member who
says: “Donno how authentic itis. If yes, then it’s a matter ofconcern.” Another membergets irked by the video and thecomment, you know what hisideology is, and retorts: “Ifyou’re so concerned why don’tyou buy a few of them?” Thattriggers a chain of messagesand one member would makea cheeky comment: “Don’tyou, after all, belong to a partythat has a minister whobelieves, cow is the only animalthat inhales and exhales oxy-gen!” The remark leads to anall-out battle as the memberswithin the group divide them-selves into two splinter groups.Now, it’s time for the admin toact and in pure beadledom, hewould remove a member basi-cally because he doesn’t likehim or his ideology. Theparochial action by the adminleads to a chorus of protest andsome members threaten toexit the group in support oftheir removed friend whiletheir rivals insist that adminwould do well in not trying toretain those who want to leave.
Now, the clock showsalmost past ten and it’s time forpeople to hit the beds. But, it’s
at this point, a well-known tip-pler in the group comes alivewith an unsolicited advice:“I’m shelling you…Dishcushsheepfully….May piss be uponyou! Om Brandy! What heactually meant was Shanti butin the inebriated state, it wasexplicit that his mind was toomuch occupied with brandy!His comment, anyway, leads tohearty laughter among mem-bers cutting across party linesand the admin adds back theremoved member and peace isfinally restored, onceagain…till next morning.
As the day’s drama comesto an end, the new member isleft fidgeting. You find himstaring at the exit button withthe seriousness of a country’sruler who is valiantly trying tofend off the temptation topress the nuclear button. Trustme! I’m in a similar situationlike that of the new member.I’m really afraid of allWhatsApp groups. Still, I endup becoming a member! Callme a fool, if you like.
(The writer is a senior jour-nalist, political analyst andcommunication specialist)
‘Dimensions of QualitativeResearch’ started at AcademicActivity Centre, ChaurasCampus, HNB GarhwalUniversity, Srinagar onWednesday. The programme isbeing organised by the FacultyDevelopment Centre of PanditMadan Mohan MalaviyaNational Mission on Teachersand Teaching Scheme ofMinistry of Human ResourceDevelopment.
Speaking on the occasion,the Vice Chancellor (VC) ofthe Veer Madho SinghBhandari UttarakhandTechnical University,Dehradun, N S Chaudharysaid that the role of computeris important for the coordina-tion between multiple dimen-sions of qualitative research.“In the current scenario, theconversion of researches in tothe computer language and itscontinuous updating is animportant aspect of highereducation which needs to becarried out significantly fromtime to time,’’ je said.
In his address in inaugur-al session, the VC of HNBGarhwal University Anapurna
Nautiyal said plagiarismshould be avoided while writ-ing and publishing researchpapers. “We must maintain thequality of research work.
M u l t i d i s c i p l i n a r yresearches are the need of thehour and in such scenario, wecannot afford to take subjectand area specific researches
without connecting it to socialconcerns,’’ she said. FormerDean, School of Humanitiesand Social Sciences in theuniversity, J P Pachauri statedthat the knowledge riddenage requires the systematicresearch based on appropriateresearch methodology andefforts.
The Director, the FacultyDevelopment Centre, IndooPandey Khanduri highlightedthe contents of short termtraining programme.
She elaborated the fun-damentals of qualitativeresearch, ontology and episte-mology, data acquisition andanalysis, methods of interpre-
tation, report writ-ing and issues relat-ed to researchethics. She said thatobjective of thetraining program isto enhance capacityand capability of thefaculty members. Khanduriinformed that 34 faculty mem-
bers from various higher edu-cation institutes from across
the country are participatingthis in programme.
����� -,&) -%+
The secretary to Governor, R KSudhanshu has said that uni-
versities provide a suitable envi-ronment for development of inno-vation and creativity. He wasaddressing a one day workshop onentrepreneurship developmentand awareness at Doon Universityhere on Wednesday.
The workshop was organisedunder the aegis of Central forPublic Policy of the university withthe help of Micro, Small, Medium,Enterprises (MSME) governmentof India.
Sharing success stories ofApple, Oyo and PTM, the secre-tary said that they are the exam-ples of how successful enterpris-es are created with minimum cap-ital.
He said that the state govern-ment has many schemes whichpromote entrepreneurship among
youths. Sudhanshu also elaborat-ed these schemes in detail. Thedirector of MSME, Vijay Kumarsaid that the department helpsyouth in setting up small enter-prises. He said that the departmenthad made the process of registra-tion for setting up a businessonline which is helping the bud-ding businessmen.
Kumar said that there aremany options before the youth tostart business but they shouldchoose the business in which onehas interest. He held an elaboratediscussion on finance and avail-ability of easy loan for setting upindustry.
Speaking on the occasion, theVice Chancellor (VC) of theUniversity C S Nautiyal said thatthe objective of the workshop is tomake the students Job providersfrom job seekers. Large number offaculty members and studentsparticipated in the workshop.
Rights (SCPCR) chairpersonUsha Negi addressed severalissues during a hearing held onWednesday. In the first com-plaint by the Dev RishiEducational Society stating thatCentral Government in 2016asked for proposals under itsSupport to Training andEmpowerment Programme(STEP) Scheme to empowerwomen and girls for employ-ment, but till now state admin-istration has not sent the pro-posals to the centre after phys-ically verifying their authen-ticity.
In answer to that deputydirector of WomenEmpowerment department SKSingh said that total 22 pro-posals were submitted by theinstitutions and a meeting was
also held in November 2018.However, no further direc-tions were received by thedepartment from state admin-istration on this matter. As thematter is pending since the lastthree years, Negi has sent a let-ter to women empowermentsecretary.
In the second complaintAjay Kumar had earlier allegedthat videos and detailed infor-mation on social media regard-ing sex determination duringpregnancy are having negativeeffects on the society. Inresponse, the SCPCR had askedHealth directorate to establisha committee and investigate theissue. The allegations weresubstantiated, after whichSCPCR sent a letter to theMinistry concerned. In thethird complaint, SCPCR chair-person took follow up on thesuicide case of a student in aschool at Clement Town.
���������������������������
����� & )/-� )
Following the instructions ofthe PM Narendra Modi,
banks in the district are gearingup to strengthen the nation’seconomy. The Punjab NationalBank, Haridwar, organised atwo-day seminar to discuss waysto strengthen the economy of thecountry. Senior managers andofficials of 86 branches of thebank participated in the seminar.
Many dream projects forstrengthening the country’seconomy were suggested whichincluded introduction of easyloan systems by the bank,enhancing agricultural loansand encouraging small andmedium enterprises, digitalisa-tion of the banks and improvingATM systems. Addressing theseminar head of PNB Haridwardivision, Neerendra Kumar said,“Punjab National Bank is work-ing towards strengthening theeconomy of the country as perdirectives given by PM NarendraModi. Our senior managersfrom four districts and 86branches participated in theseminar.” He further added thatthe business of PNB in theregion is estimated to be Rs11,000 crore.
were flying in after droppingrelief supplies in disasteraffected Moldi area ofUttarkashi, crashed on amountain on Wednesdayafternoon. Expressing grief atthe mishap, chief ministerTrivendra Singh Rawatannounced Rs 15 lakh for thedependents of each of thethree killed in the crash.
According to officialsources, a helicopter ofHeritage Aviation engaged inrescue and relief in the disas-ter affected Arakot area ofUttarkashi district was on itsway back after dropping reliefsupplies at Moldi.
The chopper reportedlyhit a mountain while trying toavoid overhead wires in thearea. Apart from electricitysupply lines these includedtrolley wires installed by localsto ferry apples to the road-headfrom surrounding orchards.
The mishap resulted in thedeath of the pilot Ranjit Lal,co-pilot Shailesh- both resi-dents of Delhi and Rajpal Ranaa resident of Kharsali. Soonafter the incident the chiefminister Trivendra SinghRawat held a meeting with offi-cials at State EmergencyOperation Centre (SEOC) toreview the situation. Silencewas observed for a minute asa tribute to those killed in themishap. After expressing griefover the incident and takingstock of the sequence of eventspreceding the accident andactions following the samefrom the officials present, thechief minister announced reliefof Rs 15 lakh to next of kin ofthe persons who died in theincident. Meanwhile, reliefefforts continued in the disas-ter affected area where 15 vil-lages with a total population of8,107 have beenaffected.Fifteen persons havedied, three are missing and 10are injured in the area due tothe disaster caused by heavyrains on Sunday. OnWednesday, five medical teamshad provided treatment to 142persons by 4 PM with 300 peo-ple having been treated so far.A team of veterinarians fromDehradun district had earlierreached the affected area onTuesday. A total of 74 domes-ticated animals have died and
three are injured in the area. Ofthe 10 blocked roads in theaffected area, the Public WorksDepartment has reopened fiveroads for traffic. While thenational highway to Arakotwas been opened to traffic, 35
JCBs have been deployed toreopen the other blocked roadsin the district. Out of the 52villages where electricity sup-ply was disrupted, the powersupply to 37 villages has beenrestored. Meanwhile, in
Dehradun, the chief ministervisited the Government DoonMedical College Hospital tocheck on the condition of theinjured people from disasteraffected area undergoing treat-ment here.
���� ������-,&) -%+
In order to put astop on the increas-
ing drug abuse casesin the district,Dehradun SeniorSuperintendent ofPolice (SSP) ArunMohan Joshi said thata full fledged cam-paign will be con-ducted in three phas-es against drug abuse.Initially police will betargeting suppliers and retail-ers who are selling drugs topeople especially students inDehradun. Later on, the policewill issue an advisory to edu-cational institutions in the sec-ond phase and in the thirdstage a detailed awareness cam-paign will be conducted.
It is pertinent to mentionhere that in the past ten daysdistrict police have seized 1.41kilogrammes of hashish, 1.245kilogrammes of smack, 18.910kilogrammes of Ganja and 95injectable drugs under NarcoticDrugs and PsychotropicSubstances (NDPS) Act.
In the excise cases, 223crates and 11 bottles of IndianMade Foreign Liquor (IMFL),224 crates and eight bottles ofcountry liquor, 117 litre oflocally brewed liquor and 22
crates of beer were seized.Regarding this SSP Joshi
said, “We consistently seizesuch items but now we arefocusing on retailers and deal-ers. The idea is to completelystop the import of such drugsin the district. The major focuswill be on narcotics likehashish, smack and other harddrugs which not only affects aperson psychologically but alsobiologically. Then in the secondcategory we have placed ganjawhich can be given up by a userusing will power.”
He further said, “We arealso working on a detailedadvisory for educational insti-tutions in which we will befocusing on three major factorsthat is traffic, drugs and crime.In all three categories we willbe mentioning our expecta-
tions and their accountability.In the third phase we will beconducting a widespreadawareness campaign.”
According to officialsources, Premnagar, Patelnagar,Clement Town and Rajpurareas are seeing rise in drugabuse as these areas have themaximum number of educa-tional institutions.
Station House Officer(SHO) of Premnagar police sta-tion NS Gehlawat said, “Thereare nearly 105 hostels in thisarea, it is next to impossible tokeep track of the activitieshappening in about two thou-sand rooms. However, we arepatrolling consistently in placeswhich are secluded and haveless population. Also, if we findstudents using drugs we coun-sel them and their parents.”
Madan Kaushik met the UnionTransport and Highways min-ister Nitin Gadkari and UnionMinister of Petroleum andNatural Gas, DharmendraPradhan and Union ministerfor Jal Shakti, Gajendra SinghShekhawat in the nationalCapital on Wednesday. Kaushikdiscussed various issues relat-ed to the State’s requirementsfor the Kumbh Mela to be heldat Haridwar in 2021.
Meeting Gadkari, Kaushiksaid that CM Trivendra SinghRawat has accorded top prior-ity to swift completion ofMuzaffarnagar-Haridwarnational highway. To expeditethis work, an agreement wasarrived upon in the meeting todecrease the tender processperiod from 18 months to oneyear. Work on the Haridwarring road is to be undertakenin three phases. To expeditework in view of the Kumbh
Mela, it was decided that thesecond phase work will bestarted first and that a Gangabridge will be constructed onthis route. Gadkari directedthat the state’s additional chiefsecretary Om Prakash shouldhold a meeting with NHAI offi-cials in Dehradun on August 27regarding this. Kaushikinformed that the Kumbh Melawill be held from January toApril 2021 in Haridwar. Duringthe 2010 Kumbh Mela abouteight crore people from acrossIndia and abroad had visitedHaridwar. More than 16 croreare expected to arrive duringthe 2021 Kumbh Mela, he said.Most of the people arriving useNH 58, NH 73 and NH 74.Currently, four-laning, widen-ing, construction of flyoversand other works are beingundertaken on these nationalhighways.
Kaushik requested that thetender process be startedimmediately for constructionof 14 bridges on the 80 kilo-metre stretch of NH 58
between Muzaffarnagar andHaridwar being widened. Thevarious works on NH 58 andNH 74 should be executed onpriority basis before the KumbhMela 2021, he said. Kaushikalso requested that the Puhana-Imlikheda-Bahadrabad roadbe made a national highway toenable its widening as it is animportant route to those trav-elling to Haridwar. Those com-ing from Haryana, Punjab andSaharanpur can be made todirectly enter Haridwarthrough this route which willalso decrease the crowd on NH58. He also requested that theRoshanabad-Biharigarh roadbe made a national highway sothat it can be widened and incase of heavy crowding inHaridwar, traffic can be divert-ed to this road towardsSaharanpur and Dehradun.Gadkari assured that actionwould be taken soon after con-sidering these issues. Unionminister of State, general (retd)VK Singh, State additionalchief secretary Om Prakash
and other officials were alsopresent in this meeting.
Meeting Pradhan, Kaushikdiscussed aspects of a clean andgreen Kumbh. The Union min-ister directed officials to tourHardiwar and hold a meetingtowards facilitating a pollu-tion-free, fire-free and waste-free Kumbh Mela. Kaushiktable proposal related to wastedisposal and gas supply inHaridwar. He also discussed thelaying of PNG and CNG linesfrom Roorkee to Mussoorie. Hesuggested proposal for a PPPmode project to ensure solidwaste management and powersupply in the Kumbh Melaarea. During the Kumbh Mela,biogas and biodiesel andethanol for biogas energy whichwill also aid fire safety.
Kaushik also met theUnion Jal Shakti ministerGajendra Singh Shekhawat. Herequested completion of Ghatconstruction under NamamiGange and modernisation ofthe crematorium in Haridwarbefore the Kumbh Mela.
����� -,&) -%+
The ‘Devbhoomi ManavSansadhan trust’ has
come forward for providingfood to the relatives attend-ing the vic t ims of theUttarkashi disaster undergo-ing treatment at theGovernment Doon MedicalCollege (GDMC) hospital.On Wednesday the Chairmanof the trust and VicePresident of the PradeshCongress Committee (PCC),
Surya Kant Dhasmana metthe victims of the disaster inthe hospital and assuredevery possible help. He saidthat his trust would take overthe responsibility of provid-ing food three times a day tothe attendants of the disastervictims. “ Our trust has madeadvance payment to theIndira Amma Canteen situ-ated in the hospital premisesand asked it to serve food tothe attendants of the disastervictims till they are in the
hospital ,’’ he said. ThePrincipal of the GDMC DrAshutosh Sayana and theMedical Superintendent (MS)of the hospital Dr K K Tamtaaccompanied Dhasmana dur-ing his visit.
Eleven persons who wereinjured in the disaster trig-gered by cloud burst in theArakot area of Uttarkashidistrict are currently admit-ted in the GDMC hospital.The deputy MedicalSuper intendent of the
GDMC hospital, Dr N SKhatri said that al l theinjured are out of dangernow and are responding tothe treatment. He said thatthree female and eight malesincluding a 12 year old boyare undergoing treatment inthe hospital. On Tuesdaysome of the attendants of theinjured admitted in theGDMC hospital had com-plained that they are findingit difficult to find food in thehospital.
dent Pritam Singh and otherCongress leaders left for Delhion Wednesday to participate inthe programme organised tocommemorate the 75th birthanniversary of the former PrimeMinister Rajiv Gandhi.
The programme would beheld at Indira Gandhi Indoorstadium on Thursday. Ahead ofthe important programme inDelhi the morale of theCongress party workers andleaders is high after success of
state level programme held inHaridwar on August 19. Theparty organised a ‘ Sadhbhawnarally’ in Haridwar. The state unitof the party had organised aseries of programmes at blocksand districts from August 14 tomark the 75th birth anniversaryof former Prime Minister RajivGandhi. The spokesperson ofthe PCC Garima MahraDassauni said that apart fromPCC President, the leader ofopposition in Uttarakhandassembly Indira Hridayesh, MPPradeep Tamta, all the MLAs,members of the All IndiaCongress Committee, formerMPs, former MLAs, office bear-ers and members of PCC, pres-idents of district congress com-mittees, chairmen of all ancillaryorganisations of party andsenior congress leaders andmembers would participate inthe programme. Interestingly
the visit of PCC presidentPritam Singh is his first after theUnited Progressive Alliance(UPA) chairman Sonia Gandhiwas nominated as interimPresident of the Congress party.It is expected that during hismeeting with the CongressPresident, the issue of reconsti-tution of the PCC is likely to fig-ure.
It is pertinent to mentionhere that Pritam Singh wasappointed as PCC chief in May2017 after the severe drubbingthe party faced at the hands ofBJP in the assembly elections inthe State.
However in last 27 monthsPritam Singh was not able toselect his new team in the PCC.He has so far worked with theold PCC team that was chosenduring the time when KishoreUpadhyaya was PCC President.
����� -,&) -%+
Anxiety prevails amongthousands of Bachelor of
Education (B Ed), TeacherEligibility Test (TET) qualifiedspecial Basic TeachersCertificate (BTC) primaryteachers of the state as the all
important file about recogni-tion of special BTC course isstuck in union HumanResource Development (HRD)ministry. The jobs of theseteachers were at peril earlier butthey were relieved after the pas-sage of the ‘National Councilfor Teacher Education Bill(Amended) – 2019 in parlia-ment in December last year.The bill provides in retrospec-tion grant of recognition for thespecial BTC course for theseteachers.
In January this year, theunion government had notifiedthe new act. After issue of noti-fication the education depart-ment had applied for in retro-spection permission of recog-
nition for special BTC coursesoffered by it from the year 2000to 2016. However the file of inretrospection approval is pend-ing in New Delhi for last sevenmonths. Understanding theproblem of teachers, the edu-cation minister of UttarakhandArvind Pandey said on Tuesdaythat he would take up the issuewith the Union HRD MinisterRamesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’.
In Uttarakhand there morethan 17000 serving teacherswho were appointed on thebasis of special BTC course.
These Bachelor ofEducation (BEd) qualifiedteachers were imparted an inservice training of special BTCin different District Institutes of
Education and Training (DIET) from the year 2001 to2016 to make them eligible toteach in primary classes.
However in 2016 it wasrealised that the all importantrecognition from NCTE wasnot taken by the educationdepartment of Uttarakhandfor special BTC course. Theplea of the department to grantrecognition in retrospectionwas turned down by NCTE asit violates the very act by whichit was governed.
As per guidelines of theunion Human ResourceDevelopment (HRD) ministryenforced from 2016, only theDiploma in ElementaryEducation (DElEd) qualified
candidates are eligible to teachthe primary students. TheHRD ministry had made itclear that after March 2019, allprimary teachers who don’thave a DElEd degree or BTCcertificate would be removedfrom post of primary teachers.
This order created a situa-tion where thousands oftrained serving teachers were tolose their jobs after March2019. The problem of theseteachers was sorted out bypassage of NCTE amendmentbill in parliament and subse-quent notification byGovernment but it appearsthat a bureaucratic hurdle hascame into way of interests ofthese teachers.
Congress-led PunjabGovernment of deceiving 46lakh families by capping thetreatment of 124 diseases onlyat Government health centersunder its Sarbat HealthInsurance Scheme launched aday before.
Termed the StateGovernment’s health insur-ance scheme as “the biggestfraud played on 46 lakh fam-ilies of the state”, SAD seniorvice president Daljit SinghCheema said that the benefi-ciaries were deceived by the
Government with its “ill-con-ceived” order of providing thetreatment of 124 major dis-eases only at the Governmenthealth centers.
“The people of the State aswell as the State Governmentare well aware of the fact thatexcept a few medical collegesand hospitals situated in bigcities, the standard of medicalcare facilities being provided atthe Government hospitalsacross the state is not consid-ered satisfactory as thesehealth centers are battlingwith acute shortage of faculty,para-medical staff as well asbasic infrastructure,” he said.
Cheema said that the
Government has completelyleft the patients of 124 majorailments at the mercy of theseill-equipped health care cen-ters, besides making this insur-ance scheme useless for thepoor patients who were eager-ly waiting to get free qualityhealth care services.
Despite the fact that thepeople avoid going to govern-ment hospitals even for theminor surgeries, the govern-ment wants to see peopletreating themselves in the gov-ernment healthcare centersfor every ailment includinghigh-risk delivery, cesareansection and removal of uterus,he said.
Memorandum of Agreement(MoA) with the United NationsDevelopment Programme(UNDP) for the implementa-tion of the SustainableDevelopment Goals (SDGs).
As per the agreement,signed in the presence of ChiefMinister Capt Amarinder Singhand Finance Minister ManpreetSingh Badal, by UNDP ResidentRepresentative Shoko Noda andPunjab Government PrincipalSecretary (Planning) JaspalSingh, a SustainableDevelopment GoalsCoordination Centre (SDGCC)would be set up in the PlanningDepartment with UNDP’s sup-port.“The MoA would result inintegration of administrativedepartments to ensure sustain-able and holistic development ofthe state. I hope these goalswould go a long way in achiev-ing the desired results of vari-ous citizen centric schemes anddevelopment oriented pro-grammes in a time-bound man-ner,” said the Chief Minister.
Responding to a brief pre-sentation on Skill Development,Employability and Livelihoodsmade by the UNDP senioradvisor, Capt Amarinder askedthe Employment GenerationDepartment to tie up with theUN agency to explore new pos-sibilities for the skill develop-ment as well as self-employmentand better employability of theyouth in the private sector.Citing the success of his
Government’s flagship pro-gramme ‘Ghar Ghar Rozgar’, heassured the visiting delegationof all possible assistance in giv-ing impetus to SkillDevelopment and Employabilityplans.Earlier, the FinanceMinister thanked UNDP forpartnering with Punjab forimplementing the SDGs, whoseframework has already beenadopted by the PunjabGovernment, which has startedworking on the preparation ofa four-year Strategic ActionPlan, 2019-23 (4SAP).
Besides lying down cleargoals and targets, 4SAP involvesdetermination of the key per-formance parameters (KPPs) forkey functionaries of the depart-ments. Notably, the StateGovernment has alreadyapproved 4SAPs of eight depart-ments after extensive consulta-tions at the level of the SteeringCommittee headed by the ChiefSecretary.
The SDGs are a set of 17goals which universally call foran action to end poverty, pro-tect the planet and ensure thatall people enjoy peace and pros-perity. The SustainableDevelopment GoalsCoordination Centre being setup in partnership with theUNDP would help StateGovernment deliver on theSDGs by working on the fivecomponents — IntegratedStrategic Planning andImplementation, Awareness andCapacity Building, SDG local-ization, Resource Mobilizationand Partnerships andMonitoring and Evaluation.
����������������%)%�) �
The Gurugram MahanagarDevelopment Authority
(GMDA) has developed amobile App and its trial hasalready started. Through this,the residents of Gurugram willget many facilities related tobasic amenities. App will belaunched by September.
Through this App, peoplecan avail several facilities likecomplaints about water, sewer,drainage, waterlogging, city buslocation and road information.Apart from this, there will be an
option of Smart Solution. It isalso being worked on.Information about the city willalso be found on the app.What's new in the city will allbe on the app. Informationabout future plans will also beavailable on the App. This appwill be different for the publicand officials. The deficiencyfound during the trial will berectified and started with theupdated version.
"This app will have thefacility of filing taxes and billsof GMDA. A separate icon willbe on the app for this. The userswill be able to take advantage of
this facility. Initially, this facil-ity will be available for GMDA,later on adding the MunicipalCorporation, Haryana UrbanDevelopment Authority etc.,the bill or tax can be filled here,"said, PK Aggarwal head ofGMDA Smart City Project.
Apart from this, informa-tion and location of ATMskiosk, Metro station, Toilet,Cinema hall, Railway station,Bus stand can be seen on theapp itself. Also, it will alsohave an SOS number for anemergency, on which any kindof information can also, beshared on the number.
Onion prices are on the riseand may leave the con-
sumers in tears in the comingdays. Due to incessant rainsand floods in onion producingstates, the prices of the bulbhave increased from �20-25 to�35-40 per kg in the retail mar-ket. According to onion traders,the wholesale prices haveincreased over the past 15 daysin major markets such asLasalgaon and Bangaluru.
Onion was sold at �20-25per kg till the first week ofAugust, But it is now beingsold at �35-40 per kg in theretail market in Delhi. The sud-den price rise has made home-makers sit up and take controlof the house budget, as onionis an important ingredient forcooking and serving salads.
In a move to keep onionprices under control, theCentre on Wednesday warnedof strict action against hoard-ing of onion amid supply dis-
ruption fears due to floods inparts of major growing states ofMaharashtra and Karnataka.The ministry has also decidedto cap the retail price of onionat Safal (a Mother Dairy outlet)at �23.90 per kg (for Grade Avariety). Safal will receiveonions from the governmentbuffer at the same rate.
Rajendra Sharma, who isthe wholesale onion supplier ofAgricultural ProduceMarketing CommitteeAzadpur, said that the price isexpected to increase further in
the coming days. Sharma saysfarmers mainly in Maharashtra,who are aware of the currentsituation of floods impactingcrops in Karnataka, are holdingback their produce anticipatingbetter prices in the days ahead.In Delhi, wholesale rate ofonion is between �10 and 22per kg while in Lasalgaon, thewholesale rate is �20 per kg.
In Lasalgaon, the largestmarket for onions, prices havemoved up by over 40 per centsince early August. Theincrease is over 50 per cent over
the past one month. APMC,Lasalgaon chairman JaiduttHolkar told The Pioneer thatthis jump in prices will not lastlong as in the next 60 days anew crop will start arrivingfrom the fields.
Maharashtra is the largestproducer of onion, accountingfor a third of the country’s pro-duce, followed by MadhyaPradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat,Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.Karnataka has the second largestarea under the bulb. MadhyaPradesh is the second largestproducer of onions due to high-er yields. Also the sowing waslower in Central Karnataka dueto the delayed start of the mon-soon and its slow progress.
All the concerned stake-holders, including representa-tives of Safal, NAFED (NationalAgricultural CooperativeMarketing Federation of IndiaLtd) and NCCF (NationalCooperative Consumers’Federation of India) were pre-sent in the meeting.
����� +,��-,.&/
After Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s call to
put end on single use of plas-tic, the Ministry of AnimalHusbandry and Dairying onWednesday asked the AMULand Mother Dairy Federationsto formulate action plan/pro-tocol to recycle milk pouchesand share with it for circulation
to other milk federations forimplementation. The LokSabha Secretariat has alsobanned the use of non-reusableplastic water bottles and otherplastic items within theParliament complex.
At a high level meeting, theministry of animal husbandryand dairying asked MajorDairy Federations like GujaratMilk Federation (Amul),
Karnataka Milk Federation(Nandini), Punjab MilkFederation (Verka),Maharashtra Milk Federation(Mahanand) to encouragereuse of plastic milk pouches,in a campaign mode, with 3Rstrategy - Reduce, Rebate andReuse. The meeting alsoreviewed the availability, sup-ply, prices and export/importissues with the milk processors.
����� +,��-,.&/
The HRD Ministry on Wednesdaylaunched the National Initiative for
School Heads’ and Teachers’ HolisticAdvancements (NISHTHA) aimed attraining over 42 lakh teachers across thecountry. The basic objective of the mas-sive training programme is to motivate andequip teachers to encourage and foster crit-ical thinking in students, Union HRDMinister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ saidat the launch.
“The teachers will get awareness anddevelop their skills on various aspects relat-ed to learning outcomes, competencybased learning and testing, learner-cen-tered pedagogy, school safety and securi-ty, personal-social qualities,” he said.
“Inclusive education, ICT in teaching-
learning, including artificial intelligence,health and well-being, initiatives in schooleducation, including library, eco club,youth club, kitchen garden, school lead-ership qualities, environmental concerns,pre-school, pre-vocational education andschool-based assessment in a joyful learn-
ing manner, are among the areas that willbe covered in the training,” he added.
The training will be conducted direct-ly by 33,120 key resource persons (KRPs)and state resource persons (SRPs) chosenby the state and UTs, who will in turn betrained by 120 national resource personsidentified from the National Council ofEducational Research and Training(NCERT), National Institute ofEducational Planning and Administration(NIEPA), KendriyaVidyalayaSangathan(KVS), NavodayaVidyalayaSamiti (NVS),Central Board of Secondary Education(CBSE) and NGOs.
Some of the features of the integratedprogramme are activity-based modules,including educational games and quizzes,social-emotional learning, motivationalinteractions, team building, etc.
����� +,��-,.&/
The BJP has decided to carryout a mass awareness cam-
paign besides a special drive toreach out to 2,000 prominentpersonalities from the fields offilm, sport and academiaamong others on the Centre’sdecision to abrogate Jammuand Kashmir’s special statusunder Article 370 of theConstitution.
The party has startedworking on organising a ‘JanJagran Abhiyan’ (public aware-ness campaign) on the matterand will hold indoor meetingsat state and district levels acrossthe country.
In view of the assemblyelections in four states aroundthe corner, the party is keen tokeep the emotive issue aliveamong the masses as it seeks todraw maximum politicalmileage following the decisionwhich, it believes, has popularendorsement.
At the same time, the partyalso wants to check the oppo-sition’s propaganda on theissue.
Small indoor meetings at370 different locations acrossthe country with 500-1000
opinion makers at the districtlevel, and 35 big indoor meet-ings having gathering of 2,000people will be held at capitalsof all states and Union territo-ries in the country, the partyleader said.
BJP’s top brass, includingits president and Union HomeMinister Amit Shah, may alsoaddress some of these indoormeetings at the state level.
Besides this, a special drivewill be carried out to reach outto 2,000 prominent personali-ties of the country, they said.
A list of such personalitiesis being prepared which willinclude people from differentwalks of life such as film, sport,academia, media and legal fra-ternity.
The party had formed acommittee to carry out thiscampaign. It includes UnionMinisters Pralhad Joshi,Gajendra Singh Shekhawat,Dharamendra Pradhan andJitendra Singh.
Besides them, formerUnion Minister RajyavardhanSingh Rathore, party’s MP fromLadakh Jamyang TseringNamgyal and another MPTejaswi Surya are members ofthis committee.
����� +,��-,.&/
Rejecting the Congress’charge of vendetta levelled
against the Centre over theaction of probe agencies againstP Chidambaram, the BJP onWednesday said the UnionGovernment did not interferein the investigation and hemust face consequences forhis deeds.
“If he has done somethingfishy, he must face conse-quences. Probe agencies donot work at the government’sbehest. They have powers to actindependently,” BJP spokesper-son Shahnawaz Hussain said.
The Congress has strong-ly backed Chidambaram.
On Congress general sec-retary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’sassertion that the party willcontinue to fight for truth nomatter what the consequences,BJP IT department head AmitMalviya took a dig at saying,“Priyanka Vadra’s support for PChidambaram is quite natural.After all she has the experienceof standing by Robert Vadratoo, who is also facing severalinvestigations for serious eco-nomic offences,”
he tweeted, in a referenceto cases of alleged corruptionagainst her husband.
����������2�����$�����+,��-,.&/
Packaged food in India hasbeen ranked lowest in terms
of its healthiness in a majorglobal survey of packagedfoods and drinks, an observa-tion that should come as awake-up call for the govern-ment, which is battling withproviding healthcare to increas-ing patients of non-communi-cable diseases such as diabetes.
The survey — of the pack-aged consumables of 12 coun-tries and territories — con-ducted by The George Institutefor Global Health showed thatIndia has the unhealthiest iehigh levels of sugar, saturated fat,salt and calories in many of thefavorite packaged food items.
The UK tops the chartwith healthiest packaged foodfollowed by the USA andAustralia, says the survey con-ducted by The George Institutefor Global Health. The study ispublished in the latest issue of
‘Obesity Reviews’.Researchers had analyzed
more than 400,000 food anddrink products from 12 coun-tries and territories aroundthe world. Countries wereranked using Australia’s HealthStar Rating system — whichmeasures the levels of thenutrients such as energy, salt,sugar, saturated fat as well asprotein, calcium and fiber andassigns a star rating from ½(least healthy) to 5 (the mosthealthy).
India’s packaged foods anddrinks were found to be themost energy-dense (kilojoulecontent 1515 kJ/100 g) andSouth African products wereleast energy-dense at an aver-age of 1044kJ/100 g. The UKhad the highest average HealthStar Rating of 2.83, followed bythe US at 2.82 and Australia at2.81. India got the lowest rat-ing of just 2.27 preceded byChina at 2.43 with Chile com-ing third from bottom at 2.44.
Lead author Dr Elizabeth
Dunford said the results wereconcerning because packagedfoods and drinks are driving adouble burden of diet-relateddiseases in many low — andmiddle-income countries.
“Globally we’re all eatingmore and more processedfoods and that’s a concernbecause our supermarkets’shelves are full of products thatare high in bad fats, sugar, andsalt and are potentially makingus sick,” she said.
Co-author Professor BruceNeal, Acting Executive Directorof The George Institute,Australia said: “Billions of peo-ple are now exposed to veryunhealthy foods on a dailybasis. The obesity crisis is justthe first ripple of a tsunami ofdietary ill health that is comingfor us. We have to find a waythat the food industry canprofit from selling rationalquantities of quality food,rather than deluging us withunhealthy junk.’’
The report notes that many
of the world’s major food anddrink manufacturers havesigned up to the InternationalFood and Beverage Allianceand made pledges to reduce lev-els of salt, sugar and harmful fatand that these findings couldprovide an impetus for com-panies to improve the healthi-ness of their product ranges.
Reacting to the study find-ings, Prof Vivekanand Jha,Executive Director of theGeorge Institute for GlobalHealth, India, said :Policymakers and the foodindustry needs to work togeth-er to reformulate products toreduce the ever increasing riskof obesity and its conse-quences.”
More than 135 millionindividuals were affected byobesity in India while about50.9 million people suffer fromdiabetes, and this figure is like-ly to go up to 80 million by2025, making it the ‘DiabetesCapital’ of the world, accordingto various studies.
����������2�����$���3�����+,��-,.&/
Despite the Governmentassuring that the interests
of workers will not be harmed,the Ordnance Factory Board(OFB) employees began theirone-month-long strike inresponse to the call given bythree recognised DefenceFederations. The workers areprotesting against the move tocorporatise the factories man-ufacturing weapons andammunition for the armedforces and are the oldest man-ufacturing units in the country.There are nearly one lakhworkers in OFB.
Workers employed in fac-tories in Madhya Pradesh andWest Bengal began their proteston Tuesday followed by moreworkers joining the stir onWednesday even as the gov-ernment emphasised the pro-posed corporatisation is aimedat providing greater flexibilityin day-to-day functioning,increased operational freedomand autonomy in decisionmaking, leading to enhancedproductivity. This will enablethe Ordnance Factories torespond faster to the futuristicneeds of the Armed Forces andprovide an impetus to theexport potential of its products.
Reports from Bhopal said
around 22,000 civilian workersfrom six ordnance factories inMadhya Pradesh have joinedthe month-long nationwidestrike demanding immediatewithdrawal of the government’splans to ‘corporatise’ the OFB,a union leader said onWednesday. The ordnancefactories in Madhya Pradeshare located in Jabalpur, Katniand Itarsi.
All India DefenceEmployees Federation (AIDEF)Additional General Secretary B.Guha Thakurta told PTI fromJabalpur that around 82,000workers from 41 OrdnanceFactories (OFs) across thecountry have struck work sinceTuesday.
The Ministry of Defencehad earlier clarified that it hadno plan to privatise the ord-nance factories. Three feder-ations of workers which havecalled the strike had claimed
that ‘corporatisation’ of theKolkata-headquartered organ-isation will eventually lead to itsprivatisation.
Chairman of OFB SaurabhKumar had said in Kolkata thatthe proposed ‘corporatisation’move by the Centre was aimedat providing greater flexibilityin day-to-day functioning andincreasing autonomy in deci-sion-making.
A committee of senior offi-
cials of the defence ministry,led by additional secretary ofthe Department of DefenceProduction, along with theOFB chairman, had met theoffice-bearers of the federationson August 14 and August 16 todiscuss the matter.
A joint press statementissued by the three recognisedemployees’ federations claimedthat talks with the ministry toresolve the matter have failed toreach a solution. “The strikecommenced at 6 am onTuesday. It is set to continue forone month, till September 20,if a solution is not reachedbefore that.
The federations urge theCentre to reconsider its deci-sion to corporatise the ord-nance factories and withdrawthe same in the interest of thedefence preparedness of ourcountry and also the service lifeof 82,000 employees,” the state-ment said.
Several committees, overthe past two decades, haverecommended the conversionof ordnance factories into apublic sector company, itclaimed. “But the ordnancefactories being war reserve andsolely dependent on the armedforces cannot function as acommercially viable PSU,” thestatement added.
����������2�����$�����+,��-,.&/
With the objective to havea lean and mean Army
capable of fighting a modernday war, the Defence Ministryhas approved the first batch ofreforms including relocation of206 officers from the ArmyHeadquarters (AHQ) to oper-ational areas, setting up of aseparate vigilance cell and hav-ing an umbrella organisation tofocus on human rights issues.The decision comes followingrecommendation by the Armyafter having four in-house stud-ies last year.
The restructuring wasgiven the go-ahead during bythe Army Commanders inOctober last year after Armychief General Bipin Rawatordered review of the presentstructure and ways and meansto make it more modern keep-ing pace with fast changing warfighting the world over.
The four groups also stud-ied proposal to increase theretiring age of JuniorCommissioned Officers (JCO)to have trained men availablefor longer period and cut downexpenditure on recruiting andtraining new recruits. The
other measures on the anvilinclude shifting the RashtriyaRifles head office from thenational capital to NorthernCommand in Jammu andKashmir. The Rashtriya Rifles,a part of the Army, is counter-insurgency force normallyfunctioning in the state.
Announcing DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh’s nod tothe first batch of restructuring,officials said here onWednesday, 206 officers will beshifted from the ArmyHeadquarters to the field andoperational areas. This movewill address the need for fillingthe crucial gaps in the opera-tional areas. The officers to berelocated include three majorgenerals, eight brigadiers, ninecolonels and 186 LtColonel/Major.
Another key approval
given by Singh is to set up aseparate vigilance cell under theArmy Chief with tri-servicesrepresentation. At present,the vigilance department oper-ates through multiple agenciesand there is no single pointinterface.
“An independent vigilancecell will be made functionalunder Chief of Army Staff(COAS). Accordingly,Additional Director General(vigilance) will be placeddirectly under the COAS for it,”the ministry said.
The vigilance cell will havethree Colonel-level officers,one each from Army, IndianAir Force and Navy.
Elaborating upon the needfor having officers from theNavy and IAFA, officials saidthe vigilance branch will nowbe broad based and objective.
As regards the umbrellaorganisation for human rights,they said it will be under theVice Chief of Army.
Officials said it is being setup to accord high priority tohuman rights convention andvalues. A Major General rankofficer will head this organiza-tion.
The organisation will benodal point to examine anyreports of violation of humanrights, officials said adding “toenhance transparency andensure the best of investigativeexpertise is available to the sec-tion, a Police officer of SSP/SPrank will be taken on deputa-tion,” said the ministry.
Besides these measures,some more reforms are now inthe final stages before thedefence ministry approvesthem, sources said. The fourstudies pertained to restruc-turing of AHQ, force restruc-turing which includes creationof Integrated Battle Groups(IBG), cadre review of officersand review of terms and con-ditions of JuniorCommissioned Officers (JCO)and Other Ranks (OR).
An official statement issuedafter the Army Commandersmeet in October last year said“the focus of the studies isholistic integration therebyenhancing the operational andfunctional efficiency, optimisebudget expenditure, facilitateforce modernization andaddress aspirations.”
����� +,��-,.&/
The CBI has booked NDTV,its promoters Prannoy Roy
and wife Radhika Roy besidesformer CEO VikramadityaChandra and unknown publicservants for allegedly violatingForeign Direct Investment(FDI) rules between 2004 and2010. The NDTV has deniedthe CBI allegations.
The accused entity andindividuals have been bookedon charges of criminal con-spiracy, cheating and corrup-tion, according to the FIR. Theagency on Wednesday con-ducted searches at Chandra’sresidence, officials said.
Under the CBI scanner areinvestments made by NCBU, aGeneral Electric company atthe time, in Network PLC(NNPLC), an NDTV companyincorporated in London onNovember 30, 2006.
According to the FIR,
NNPLC allegedly got approvalfrom the Foreign InvestmentPromotion Board (FIPB) boardin violation of FDI rules in 2009.
NNPLC received total FDIworth USD 163.43 million andinvested the amount in variousNDTV subsidiaries through aweb of complex transactions.
It is alleged that duringMay 2004 to May 2010, NDTVfloated around 32 subsidiaryfirms all over the world, most-ly in the tax havens of Holland,the United Kingdom, Dubai,Malaysia and Mauritius amongothers.
The CBI said most of thesecompanies allegedly had nobusiness transaction and weremeant for financial transactionsto bring funds from abroad.
Terming the transactions a“sham”, the agency alleged thatfunds were invested by uniden-tified public servants throughNDTV and laundered back toIndia through multiple layers of
complex transactions and shellcompanies.
“Proceeds of corruption ofunknown public servants wasinvested through NDTV Ltd,”it alleged.
It is alleged that thesetransactions are sham andfunds are invested by unknownPublic Servants throughNDTV Ltd and later laun-dered back to India throughmultiple layers of complextransactions and shell compa-nies.
“NDTV Ltd through itspromoters viz Prannoy Royand Radhika Roy, KVLNarayan Rao (since expired),Vikramaditya Chandra hadentered into criminal conspir-acy with unknown public ser-vants with the object of bring-ing tainted money of unknownpublic servants through a webof complex transactionsthrough the FDI route,” a CBIDeputy SP who is the com-
plainant in the case alleged. The NDTV came out with
a statement saying. “Despite aseries of cases in which theinvestigation is deliberatelystalled, agencies have found noevidence of any corruption byNDTV. Prannoy and RadhikaRoy, the founders of NDTV, asalso the company, have coop-erated in all matters filedagainst them.
“As part of the continuedpersecution of free press, a newCBI case has been filed abouta $150 million investment inNDTV’s non-news businessby NBCU, then owned byGeneral Electric, a massiveAmerican conglomerate. Thecase makes the ludicrouscharge that the transaction,declared to all relevant author-ities in the US and India, laun-dered money for unknownpublic servants,” it said.
“NDTV and its foundershave full faith in India’s judi-
ciary at this crucial time andremain committed to theintegrity of the company’s jour-nalism. Attempts to silencefree and fair reportage throughmalicious and fabricatedcharges will not succeed. Thisis not about a company or indi-viduals but about a larger bat-tle to maintain the freedom ofthe press, something whichIndia has always beenrenowned for, it added.
����� +,��-,.&/
ASupreme Court-appoint-ed one-man panel, holding
inquiry into allegations of“larger conspiracy” to frameChief Justice of India RanjanGogoi, has completed its taskand is likely to submit thereport by mid September.
Sources said Tuesday thatJustice AK Patnaik, a retiredSupreme Court judge who wasappointed by the apex court,examined advocate Utsav SinghBains.
Bains had made severalallegations including fixing ofbenches in the Supreme Court.
“The affidavit filed byBains and other documentswere examined by the panel.Now, the panel will completethe report and submit it to theSupreme Court in a sealedcover by second week ofSeptember,” said a source.
Justice Patnaik examinedthe lawyer from 11 am to 1 pmand his statement was record-ed.
“The lawyer (Bains) wasexamined Tuesday by the panel
for roughly two hours. He hadcome to the office of JusticePatnaik,” the sources said.
The top court had on April25 constituted the panel tohold inquiry into the allega-tions of Bains and had askedthe Directors of CBI andIntelligence Bureau (IB) as alsothe Delhi Police Commissionerto cooperate with JusticePatnaik as and when requiredby him.
A special bench headed byJustice Arun Mishra had saidthat on the completion ofinquiry, Justice Patnaik willfile a report in a sealed coverbefore the court after which thematter will be heard again.
It, however, had said theinquiry will not deal with theallegations of sexual harass-ment against the CJI, levelledby an ex-employee of the topcourt.
On May 6, Gogoi had gotthe clean chit from theSupreme Court’s In-HouseInquiry Committee which“found no substance” in theallegations of sexual harass-ment levelled against him.
There is no one in the TamilNadu Congress Committee
or in Shivaganga who are nothappy with the Delhi HighCourt order refusing to enter-tain the anticipatory bail appli-cation filed by former UnionFinance and Home Minister PChidambaram who is alwaysportrayed as the party’s strong-man in the State.
“All good things have tocome to an end and this is whathas happened to Chidambaramand his family,” a seniorCongress leader in TNCC toldThe Pioneer. The former FinanceMinister who was the country’sHome Minister for fairly longtime is one of the most unpop-ular politician in Tamil Nadu,said the Congress leader whodid not want his name to bequoted for obvious reasons.
“You have been writingabout the weakness of theCongress in Tamil Nadu forquite some time.Chidambaram is the root causeof the pathetic situation of theparty in Tamil Nadu. He isalways known as a weekendpolitician and has no accept-ability among the people of theState,” disclosed the leader.
S Rangaraj, author andproprietor of Rare Books, saidChidambaram could bedescribed as a paper tiger . “It
is the media in Tamil Naduwhich portrayed him as theState’s strongman. ForChidambaram, what matters ishis family and nothing morethan that,” said Rangaraj.
The electorate inShivaganga, the home con-stituency of Chidambaram ,said has alienated the votersbecause of his arrogance andintimidating nature. “He didnot contest the 2014 Lok sabhaelection fearing defeat. Pleaseremember that he manipulat-ed to get elected to the UpperHouse from Maharashtrabecause of his close associationwith Sonia Gandhi and RahulGandhi,” said Rangaraj.
Narayanan Thiruppati, theBJP spokesman said the soli-darity shown by some of thesenior Congress leaders in NewDelhi was just a façade. “In theheart of their hearts, all of themare happy because it is an opensecret that Chidambaram’santecedents are not above theboard. He camouflages hiscrimes with the help of thatidiomatic English with whichhe hopes to hoodwink thepublic,” said Narayanan.
Chidambaram’s woes arefar from over. He has to appearbefore the Madras High Courton August 30 to face the crossexamination in an electionpetition filed against him by theAIADMK candidate immedi-ately after 2009 LS election.
New Delhi: Khadi and Village IndustriesCommission (KVIC) which is in the fore-front of popularising Khadi has come outwith a novel way to bestow dignity on thehumble ‘mochi’. Acting on the principlesof Mahatma Gandhi and call of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi, KVIC hasdecided to give recognition to the peo-ple from the marginalised shoe-makingcommunity popularly known as Mochi.
In this first kind of such initiatives inthe country, the KVIC decided to re-chris-ten ‘mochi’ as ‘Charm Chikitsak’ at the train-ing programme at the KVIC’s e GandhiDarshan premises in Delhi on Wednesday.
When KVIC Chairman Vinai KumarSaxena addressed the inaugural session of100 leather artisan trainees of Delhi as‘Charm-Chikitsak’, some of the shoe-makers broke into tears. For 60-year-oldRamsevak, it was simply unbelievable .
“We are getting a sense of recognitionand security with this encouragingaddress of the KVIC Chairman, what we have not ever dreamt of in ourlives,” he said.
Saxena said that KVIC had alwaysshown its commitment to uplift the socialand economic status of the marginalizedcommunities. “After the overwhelmingsuccess in Kumhar Sashaktikaran Scheme,we planned to launch this Leather ArtisansDevelopment Scheme, in which small timeshoe-makers, mostly sitting on footpaths- polishing and repairing shoes and chap-pals, from all corners of the country, wouldfirst be given proper training and thenmodern Shoe-tools Kit worth Rs 5,000.The kits will be equipped with all neces-sary articles needed to cure and beautifyshoes and chappals,” he said.
Saxena said earlier this month, 50artisans of Sirohi district — one of theaspirational districts identified by theNeeti Aayog — in Rajasthan had beengiven training with the Shoe-tool Kits.
“We hope to distribute at least 10,000such kits among our ‘charm-chikistak’ bythe end of this year,” he added. PNS
���� ������� �%�� /
In further boost to the rulingShiv Sena ahead of the
Maharashtra Assembly polls,sitting Congress MLA NirmalaGavit on Wednesday joined theSena in the presence of its pres-ident Uddhav Thackeray.
In a development that camefour days after former MLADhanraj Haribahu Mahale —who had quit the Shiv Sena andjoined the NCP and contestedthe recent Lok Sabha polls —returned to the Sena, Nirmalajoined the Shiv Sena.
Welcoming Mrs Gavit intohis party, Uddhav said that withGavit’s entry to the Sena would strengthen the party inNashik district of northernMaharashtra.
A sitting Congress MLAfrom Igatpuri, Nirmala is thedaughter of veteran congress-man from north Maharashtra.
Nirmala, who had ten-dered her resignation to StateAssembly Speaker HaribhauBagade on Tuesday, had saidthat she was quitting theCongress and resigning as anMLA to ensure development inhis constituency.
Nirmala’s entry to the ShivSena came amid speculationthat the Congress’ former min-ister and sitting MLA fromIndapur Harshvardhan Patilmight also join the BJP.
The Shiv Sena and BJPhave been poaching leadersfrom the Congress and NCP inrecent months in the run-up tothe State Assembly polls.
First, it was NCP’s formerminister and once Pawar’sclose-confidant JayduttaKshirsagar from Beed districtin Marathwada who quit theNCP and joined the Shiv Senaon May 22, 2019. later on July10, sitting MLA from ShahpurPandurang Barora quit theNCP and entered the Sena.Later, NCP’s Mumbai unit pres-ident Sachin Ahir quit theparty and joined the ruling ShivSena on July 25.
Subsequently, former MLADhanraj Haribahu Mahale —who had quit the Shiv Sena andjoined the Sharad Pawar-ledparty and contested the recent Lok Sabha pollsfrom Dindori constituency —had returned to the Sena on Friday.
The Sena might field himas its candidate from Dindor inthe State Assembly polls.
Similarly, the NCP’s threesitting MLAs ShivrajendraBhosale (Satara), VaibhavPichad (Akole in Ahmednagardistrict) and Sandeep Naik(Airoli in Navi Mumbai) andCongress’ sitting MLA KalidasKolumbar (Wadala in south-central Mumbai) joined theBJP on July 31, 2019.
���� ������� �%�� /
After the Opposition Congress andNCP, the ruling Shiv Sena on
Wednesday came out in support of MNSchief Raj Thackeray on Wednesday, a dayahead of his appearance before theEnforcement Directorate (ED) for ques-tioning in connection with a loan defaultprobe case.
A day after the MNS chief said that hewould “honour” the summons issued tohim by the ED and exhorted his partyworkers to maintain calm and restraint onAugust 22, Sena president UddhavThackeray threw his weight behind hiscousin Raj, by saying that he did not thinkanything would come in the case in whichthe latter was investigated.
At a news conference convened to wel-come sitting Congress MLA NirmalaGavit into his party, Uddhav reacted to thenews reports about the summons issued byRaj in a loan default case and said: “I don’tthink anything will come out in tomorrow’squestioning ( of Raj Thackeray)”.
Reacting to the Sena president’s com-ment, MNS spokesperson SandipDeshpande — who had earlier dubbed theED’s summons to his party president as an“act of vendetta” — said, “All the people inthe state are aware that there is nothing tothe case. I am confident that my presidentwill unscathed from this case”.
The Opposition Congress and NCPleaders had earlier slammed the BJP-ledNDA Government for “misusing” theinvestigating agencies to “target” its critics.They had said that Raj was being “target-ed” as he had campaigned against theNarendra Modi Government in the recentLok Sabha polls.
Raj, it may be recalled, had alsobrought the Opposition parties together onone platform on the issue of Electronic
Voting Machines (EVMs) and demandedthat instead of EVMs, ballot papers be usedto hold the State Assembly polls inMaharashtra.
The ED is investigating the allegedirregularities in the IL&FS’s loans andinvestments worth over Rs 860 crore in M/sKohinoor CTNL, a company funded byformer Maharashtra CM Manohar Joshi’sson Unmesh Joshi.
M/s Kohinoor CTNL has been underED scanner for being a prominent default-er of IL&FS, amounting to an estimated Rs 135 crore.
Unmesh along with son along withIL&FS and Raj Thackeray-ownedMatoshree Construction had in 2005jointly had made a bid and bought for theNTPC’s Kohinoor Mill’s 4.8-acre proper-ty for Rs 421 crore.
In 2008, the IL&FS reneged from thedeal and surrendered its shares for only Rs 90 crore, as against an invest-ment of Rs 225 crore made in M/sKohinoor CTNL. Following the IL &FS’sexit, Raj exited from the venture after sell-ing his shares.
In a statement put out in Marathi andEnglish through his official twitter handle,Raj had said on Tuesday that like he didseveral other cases registered against him in the past, he would “honour”the summons issued to him and asked hisparty workers not to come anywhere near the investigation agency’s office onThursday.
Miffed by the summons issued to theirparty president, the MNS workers had ear-lier threatened to storm the ED when Rajresponds to its summons on Thursday.
It had also called for a bandh in a satel-lite city of Mumbai, on August 22, in protest against the summons issued bythe ED.
Following Raj’s appeal to its workers tomaintain calm, the MNS has called off itsplans to take out a morcha to ED onThursday and also withdrew its bandh callin Thane.
Srinagar: It was an emotionalreunion for Imran Ahmad withhis family. The 32-year-oldsells Kashmir handicrafts inMumbai and returned home toHawal here on Monday.
He had been unable to getin touch with his family inKashmir since a fortnight, aftersecurity curbs and a commu-nication blockade was imposedin the state following the scrap-ping of Article 370 that grant-ed special status to Kashmirwithin the Indian union.
Ahmad broke down onseeing his ageing parents, andtightly hugged his two andthree year old nephews.
He is getting married nextweek. But the communicationblackout has complicated hiswedding arrangements. Whilemost weddings in Kashmir
stand cancelled given the situ-ation, Ahmad does not intendto do so. Instead, he plans tohave low key celebrations.
“Life has become too diffi-cult without communication.In a sad situation like this, howcan one even think of celebra-tion? It is going to be a verysimple affair,” said Ahmad.
Ahmad’s neighbours arealso angry. “This has neverhappened in Kashmir, we havebeen caged,” lamented GhulamMohiuddin.
Others said the gag orderwas only fuelling anger. “It istriggering frustration inKashmir and is a great provo-cation for the people,” saidMohammad Hafeez.
The Government calls thecommunication blockade“temporary” and has promised
restoration of all landline con-nections. “Out of 96,000 land-lines in the state, 73,000 havestarted functioning,” saidGovernment spokespersonRohit Kansal.
But some like AbdulMajeed, a resident ofFirdousabad in Batamlloo areaof Srinagar, complain that thelandlines which were restoreda couple of days ago, havestopped working altogether.
“It is a joke, the landlineswere restored in our area but were snapped in a mat-ter of few hours. The radiosilence is becoming unbear-able,” he said.
The Government says it isabreast of the situation and thematter is being taken up withservice provider BSNL forquick redressal. IANS
Srinagar: In a significant devel-opment, the J&K Governmenthas decided to accord Ministerof State status to its two may-ors. Junaid Azim Mattu is cur-rently mayor of Srinagar whileChander Mohan Gupta ismayor of Jammu.
With this status, both Mattuand Gupta will enjoy expandedpower and will be able to takeexecutive decisions. As mayors,their roles and responsibilitieswere restricted to their munic-ipal jurisdiction.
Typically, a mayor is con-sidered a ceremonial authori-ty with limited power and stategovernments with all theresources continue to take mostcritical decisions.
Recently, after the abroga-tion of Article 370, the Centrebifurcated the valley state into
two union territories — Jammu& Kashmir with an Assemblyand Ladakh without one.
The Jammu and KashmirReorganisation Bill was passedon August 5 in the Rajya Sabhaand then in the Lok Sabha.
The controversial Article370 allowed special status toJammu & Kashmir for over 70years. Barring matters related todefence, foreign affairs, com-munications and other matterswhich were specified in theInstrument of Accession ofJammu & Kashmir, the Centrerequired the approval of the StateGovernment for other laws.
Life in the Valley is gradu-ally returning to normal. Whileoffices and schools re-openedon Monday, landline phoneconnections have been largelyrestored. IANS
New Delhi: The Information &Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry isplanning several incentives forfilm and television produc-tion companies to take theirprojects to Jammu & Kashmirand Ladakh.
As part of the massivedevelopment push for theregion by the Government, theI&B Ministry has held closeddoor consultations with repre-sentatives of the entertainmentindustry to chalk out a plan toencourage them to look at theregion as a viable centre.
Among the proposals ontable is a corporate package forproduction houses keen to visitJ&K and Ladakh with theirunits for shooting films andtelevision serials.
The Government is alsoopen to amend the radio guide-
lines for setting up new FM sta-tions in the region. Currently,small number of private FMchannels are operating in Valley.A capital investment for erect-ing new screens in the region isalso on the cards along withdeveloping other infrastructurerequired for film making.
Sources said after takinginputs from the stake holders,the government will roll out it’sincentive plan so that the
region, known for it’s beautifullocations, is used extensively forfilm production. The filmcrews had almost stoppedshooting in the region since theearly 1990s when militancydestroyed peace in the Valley.
After the abrogation ofArticle 370 and reorganisa-tion of the state, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi had appealedto film makers to see J& andLadakh as potential work areas.
The Prime Minister hadappealed to the representa-tives of Hindi, Tamil andTelugu entertainment industryto look at Jammu and Kashmiras a destination for their pro-jects. Walking the talk, thegovernment now wants to meetall the infrastructure demandsof the industry to smoothenbottlenecks. IANS
����� �&,++ /
DMK chief MK Stalin on Wednesday backedCongress leader P Chidambaram, facing
action in a money laundering case related toINX Media, and accused the BJP-led centralGovernment of pursuing political vendetta.
“As regards this issue, I have clearly learntthat these (actions) are happening due to polit-ical vendetta,” Stalin, whose party has an alliance with Congress in Tamil Nadu, toldreporters at the DMK headquarters ‘AnnaArivalayam’ here.
Responding to queries, the DMK leadersaid, “Chidambaram is a legal expert. He willfor sure face the case legally.”
As many as 14 parties will take part in aprotest in Delhi to be held by DMK onThursday, seeking the release of leaders underdetention in Kashmir, he said.
The Congress has defended Chidambaram,with Rahul Gandhi accusing the Governmentof using probe agencies and the media to “char-acter assassinate” the former Finance Minister.
������4������� � ��%
While stray incidents ofstone pelting are still
being reported from parts ofSrinagar, the overall situation inKashmir Valley is graduallyshowing signs of improvement.The security grid lifted restric-tions from Lal Chowk area onWednesday permitting localresidents to move aroundfreely. Markets in the area,however, remained closed andscanty traffic was witnessedduring the day.
In Baramulla, a joint teamof security forces eliminated aLashkar-e- Tayyeba (LeT) ter-rorist identified as MominGojri in an overnight opera-tion. A Sub-Inspector of StatePolice and a Special Policeofficer (SPO) received seriousinjuries in the gunfight.
According to policespokesman, SPO identified as
Bilal Ahmad succumbed tohis injuries while SI AmardeepParihar is undergoing treat-ment in the Army hospital.
On the Line of Control,Pakistani Army initiated freshceasefire violation inSunderbani sector of Rajouriaround 3.45 pm.
In response, Indian Armygave befitting reply.
DIG Central Kashmir VKBirdi told reporters in Srinagar,“No major law and order inci-dent was reported from any-where in Kashmir Valley. Hesaid, all those areas whererelaxations was given behavednormally”. He said, in fewpockets stray incidents of stonepelting were reported and theywere dealt with appropriatelyby the law and order machin-ery on ground”.
Local reporters, whilereferring to incidents of con-tinuous stone pelting in differ-
ent parts of Srinagar had askedhim whether more arrests weremade to contain the situation,DIG VK Birdi maintained,“Law and order machinery ishandling the situation andmonitoring it very closely on
ground zero”.Director General of Police
Shri Dilbag Singh onWednesday said effective ini-tiatives have been taken tobring all round improvement inthe law and order situation in
the Valley to ensure security ofthe people. He said stringentaction will be taken againstthose disrupting peace andcreating panic among masses.
Earlier, DGP attended thewreath laying ceremony of
martyr SPO Bilal AhmadMagray who was martyredduring the Ganai Hamam,Baramulla encounter.
Meanwhile, addressingroutine Press conference,Director Information & Public
Relations, Dr Syed SehrishAsgar told reporters, “Withthe opening of middle schoolsacross Kashmir Valley, theteachers’ attendance wasrecorded at 60-80 per cent andGovernment offices also wit-nessed 90 per cent attendanceon Wednesday.”
She said the attendance ofstudents also improved over thepast two days. On Wednesday,the school education depart-ment in Kashmir claimedaround 774 middle schoolswere thrown open in areaswhere primary schools werefunctioning since Monday.
Director School EducationKashmir, Muhammad YounisMalik read out a detailed reportclaiming districts of Kulgam,Bandipora and Ganderbal areshowing marked improvementin terms of attendance inschools.
The presser was also
informed that hospitals, banksare functionally normally,besides ATMs, transport, andother services are adequatelyoperating across the State. Theysaid review meetings are beingheld at district and divisionallevel for harvesting and totransport of horticulture pro-duce to other places. ChiefSecretary BVR Subrahmanyamhimself reviewed the trans-port facilities and establishmentof mandies across the Valley.There was no shortfall of trans-port facilities, the officialsinformed.
The Government urgespeople not to believe inrumours in this regard, thepresser was told.
They also said there was nolaw and order incident report-ed from any area in Jammu and no major law andorder incident from Kashmirwas reported.
In what can be termed as anear-total revamp of the Yogi
Adityanath Government, 23new Ministers were sworn inon Wednesday at the RajBhawan by GovernorAnandiben Patel.
The newly inducted min-isters include six CabinetMinisters, six Ministers of Statewith Independent charge and11 Ministers of State.
The most significant aspectof Wednesday’s reshuffle is thatmajority of the newly inductedministers are first timers withalmost no administrative expe-rience. Yogi Adityanath willface an uphill task in makingthese ministers perform.
Four Ministers of State,who held Independent charge,
have been promoted as CabinetMinisters.
The Cabinet Ministers,who were sworn in areMahendra Singh, Bhupendra
Chaudhary, Anil Rajbhar,Suresh Rana, Kamal Rani andRam Naresh Agnihotri. Exceptfor Kamal Rani and RamNaresh Agnihotri, the remain-
ing four have been elevated.Those sworn in as
Ministers of State withIndependent charge are KapilDev, Ashok Katehria, NeelkanthTiwari, Ravindra Jaiswal, ShriRam Chauhan and SatishDwiwedi — the latter haddefeated former Speaker MataPrasad Pandey in 2017.
Neelkanth Tiwari, who hasbeen given Independent charge,and Ravindra Jaiswal bothbelong to Varanasi, which isPrime Minister Narendra Modi’sparliamentary constituency.
Of the 23 new ministersinducted — six are Brahmins,four Thakurs, three Vaishyasand 10 Dalits. Western UttarPradesh has been given a size-able representation in thecouncil of ministers.
A surprise developmentwas that names of Pankaj Singh,son of Defence Minister RajnathSingh, Vijay Bahadur Pathak,party General Secretary andAshish Patel (Apna Dal) weredropped at the last minute.
The dropping of Ministersincluding Chetan Chauhan,Swati Singh and Mukut BihariVarma was also deferred, fol-lowing a late night meetingbetween the Chief Minister,party State President SwatantraDev Singh and Sangh leaders.
����� �,+� .%)%
ISRO on Wednesday said it hasperformed the second lunar-
bound orbit maneuver forChandrayaan-2 spacecraft thatiscurrently in the lunar orbit forits rendezvous with the Moon.
All spacecraft parametersare normal, the Bengaluruheadquartered space agencysaid after the maneuver.
“Second Lunar bound orbitmaneuver for Chandrayaan-2spacecraft was performed suc-cessfully today (August 21,2019) beginning at 1250 hrsIST as planned, using theonboard propulsion system.
The duration of themaneuver was 1228seconds.The orbit achieved is 118 km x4412 km,” ISRO said.
The next Lunar boundorbit maneuver is scheduled onAugust 28, 2019 between 0530-0630 hrs IST. In a major mile-stone for India’s second Moonmission, the Chandrayaan-2spacecraft successfully enteredthe lunar orbit on Tuesday byperforming Lunar OrbitInsertion (LOI) maneuver.
There will be three moreorbit manoeuvres to make thespacecraft enter into its finalorbit passing over the lunarpoles at a distance of about 100km from the Moon’s surface.
ISRO has said subsequent-ly the lander will separate-from the Orbiter (onSeptember 2) and enter into a100 km X30 km orbit aroundthe Moon. Then it will performa seriesof complex brakingmaneuvers to soft land in theSouth polarregion of the Moonon September 7, 2019.
ISRO Chairman K Sivanhas said the proposedsoft-land-ing on the Moon is going to bea “terrifying” momentas it issomething ISRO has not donebefore, where as LOI maneuver was successfully car-ried out during theChandrayaan-1 mission.
The health of the spacecraftis being continuously monitoredfrom the Mission OperationsComplex (MOX) at ISROTelemetry, Tracking andCommand Network (ISTRAC)in Bengaluru with support fromIndian Deep Space Network(IDSN) antennas at Bylalu, nearBengaluru, the space agency hassaid. India’s GeosynchronousSatellite Launch Vehicle, GSLVMkIII-M1 had successfullylaunched the 3,840-kgChandrayaan-2 spacecraft intothe earth’s orbit on July 22.
Following the landing, therover ‘Pragyan’ will rollout fromlander ‘Vikram’ and carry outexperiments on thelunar surface
for a period of one lunar day,which is equal to14 earth days.
The mission life of thelander is also one lunar day,while the orbiter will continueits mission for a year. Theorbiter carries eight scientificpayloads for mapping the lunarsurface and study the exos-phere (outer atmosphere) of theMoon while the lander carriesthree scientific payloads toconduct surface and subsurfacescience experiments.
The rover carries two pay-loads to enhance the under-standing of the lunar surface.India’s second lunar expedition— would shed light on a com-pletely unexplored section of theMoon, its South Polar region.
According to ISRO, the mis-sion objective of Chandrayaan-2 is to develop and demonstratethe keytechnologies for end-to-end lunar mission capability,including soft-landing and rov-ing on the lunar surface.
On the science front, thismission aims to further expandthe knowledge about the moonthrough a detailed studyof itstopography, mineralogy, surfacechemical composition, ther-mo-physical characteristics andatmosphere, leading to a betterunderstanding of the originand evolution of the moon, thespace agency had said.
����� �,+� .%)%
Aday after the expansion ofthe Karnataka Cabinet
with the induction of 17Ministers, discontent amongthose who failed to secureMinisterial berths refused todie down on Wednesday, evenas Chief Minister BSYediyurappa made attempts todouse the embers.
As the expansion broughtan end to the nearly month longwait for the Cabinet to takeshape, it led to some heartburnin a section of the party as sev-eral MLAs continued to makeno secret of their displeasureafter missing the bus.
Yediyurappa has sought toreach out to the sulking MLAs,specifically eight-time HukkeriMLA Umesh Katti, whom sev-eral legislators who could notmake it to the Ministry report-edly met. “For one hour yes-terday I have spoken to him(Katti) in the presence ofBasavaraj Bommai (Minister).Naturally he is pained at notgetting an opportunity. I willtry to find a remedy,”Yediyurappa told reporters in
Tumakuru.On discontent expressed by
Honnali MLA MPRenukacharya about a formerlegislator Laxman Savadi, whois neither a member of theAssembly nor the Council,being made the Minister,sidelining several sitting MLAs,he said “I will callRenukacharya and friends andtalk to them.”
On his part Katti said he isnot discontended and no otherdisgruntled legislators werewith him. He told reporters thathe met Yediyurappa and that hecannot reveal internal mattersof the party to the media.
�� ����� ����� 61.6 0
Police on Wednesday arrestedclose aide of senior BJP leader
Mukul Roy for taking bribe.Baban Ghosh, a former
TMC Mazdoor Sangh president,was arrested from his southKolkata residence for conninglakhs of rupees from the com-plainant Santu Mandal in thename of getting him a place inthe Railway Board, sources said.
Police acting on an FIRlodged in 2015 by one SantuMandal alleging Ghosh hadextracted about Rs 70 lakh intranches arrested Ghosh whoenjoys considerable influence inthe Tollygunge film city and had
recently played an importantrole in getting a galaxy of Banglacine personalities to join the saf-fron outfit. The BJP promptlyrefuted charges saying it was allbeing done at the behest of theruling TMC to malign the partyand victimise people who werejoining the party.
The complainant is knownto have also named Roy andanother person in the FIRlodged at Sarsuna Police Stationin south-west Kolkata.
According to Mandal, theaccused had lured him into giv-ing lakhs of rupees with apromise of making him aRailway Board member. “I metBaban Ghosh at Nizam Palace
����� 61.6 0
In a stunning u-turn, KolkataPolice on Wednesday arrest-
ed Raghib Parwez, elder broth-er of the original prime accusedArsalan Parwez, for allegedlybeing at the wheel of the Jaguarthat was involved in a gruesomeaccident here last week thatkilled two Bangladeshi citizensand left three others injured.
Raghib’s maternal unclehas also been arrested for help-ing him abscond.
In a hurriedly convenedmedia meet, the city policeclaimed that 21-year-oldArsalan Parwez, scion of thefamily that owns the city’sfamous eponymous restaurantchain, wasn’t driving the car,but it was his elder brother whowas at the wheel at the time ofthe accident.
Arsalan Parwez allegedlytried to mislead the police tosave his brother by claimingthat he was driving.
Police recovered the eventdata recorder (EDR) of theJaguar Land Rover car that wasbeing driven at a speed between100-120 km per hour.
After thorough examina-tion done by the HomicideDepartment, as well as theforensic and cyber teams, thesensational case took a sharp turn.
“After checking the controlpanel of the high-end vehicle,the experts found that theinfotainment data revealed thata person named Raghib Parwezhad interacted with the vehicleprior to the accident.
“After thorough investiga-tion, it was confirmed thatRaghib, Arsalan’s elder broth-er, was driving the car. He hasbeen arrested on Wednsedaynoon near Beniapukur,”Murlidhar Sharma, joint com-missioner of police (crime)told reporters.
����� � / %)
Three IAF personnel werekilled and three severely
injured on Wednesday whenthe truck carrying them fellinto a gorge in Barmer districtof Rajasthan, police said.
“The Indian Air Force hasa camp at the hill top (a heightof 100 feet) as well as at the basein Chouhatan. This truck wascoming down from the campwith six IAF personnel seated
inside when it fell into thegorge. Three people have losttheir lives, while three areseverely injured and have beenshifted to a hospital in Barmer,”said Ajeet Singh, DeputySuperintendent of Police.
“We are investigating if itwas due to brake failure orsomething else,” Singh added.
in Kolkata where I was told Iwill be made Railway Boardmember. Accordingly I wastaken to Delhi several times,”Mandal said, adding he evenvisited Parliament and RailwayMinistry where I was intro-duced to some people.”
Among them was a “statedpersonal assistant of thenRailway Minister SureshPrabhu,” he said. “I was toldthere that I will have to spendsome money in order to becomea Board member. To win mytrust I was also given somepapers. Believing in them I paidthem several lakh of rupeessome even through cheque.”
����� 0&/)%! + +0& %) �
Gone are the days when thepost of a driver in Kerala
State Government departmentsand State owned public sectorundertakings could be filled only by a male. The StateCabinet, on Wednesday, decid-ed to open this post for women also.
After the weekly cabinetmeeting held here, the office ofChief Minister Pinarayi Vijayanintimated that it’s no longer amale domain.
International diplomacy and issues areexpressed in semantics and subtlewordsmithing that require to be care-fully deconstructed and deciphered forits real intent. In any dispute, contrari-
an positions are publically posited by com-peting parties and a virtual race for endorse-ment of either of the competing narrativesensues. The cue to reading the reaction to con-flicting arguments lies in the deployment ofcertain keywords, expressions and tonality thatis expressed by the receiving audience at theend of the conflicting pitches.
In the tense and hyphenated domain ofIndia-Pakistan realm, the ‘K’ (Kashmir)word dominates above all. Herein, the oper-ative library of preferred words from NewDelhi’s perspective has been “bilateral”, “cross-border terrorism” and “internal affairs”among others; whereas, from Islamabad’s per-spective, it has been “international mediation”,“plebiscite” and “UN resolution.” Even the lan-guage syntax, emotions and phraseology inthe war-of-words between India and Pakistanis decidedly more escalatory, shriller andbeseeching when it emanates from Islamabad.
Historically, irrespective of the meritsin the topical India-Pakistan arguments, theaudience would typically respond in favouror against either of the countries — on thebasis of a certain predisposed equation andpreference. It’s only some unrelated coun-try with negligible stakes which would occa-sionally partake an unbiased assessment ofthe arguments involved, as indeed, wouldsome of the multilateral formations.Therefore, the inevitable play of certain“blocs” or realpolitik considerations result-ed in a pre-decided tilt at least till now.
Post the recent revocation of the “specialstatus” for Jammu and Kashmir as well as theplanned bifurcation of the State into two“Union Territories”, diplomats from both sidesof the Line of Control have been expectedlyscurrying across the global capitals to posittheir respective sovereign positions. The linesand angularities of the arguments are stan-dard with Pakistan aggressively goadingother nations into either condemning theIndian action or seeking mediation. Asusual, India has been posturing “bilateral”note, defending its actions as rote “internalmatter”, whilst cuttingly alluding to therecurring concerns of “cross-border terror-ism.” Barring this time, the Pakistanis arecaught by surprise by the unfolding script nottoeing the usual “divide” that accompaniedIslamabad’s earlier pitches on Kashmir.Global reaction has not only tilted heavily inIndia’s favour or at best elicited bored disin-terest and homilies but has hit a new low of“telling silence” or “zero reaction” from thesupposed allies of Pakistan.
Undeniably, Pakistan Prime MinisterImran Khan had inherited a country with itseconomy in shambles and a discredited sov-ereign perception as the “terror nursery” ofthe globe. With traditional allies like the USopenly castigating Islamabad for its duplici-
tous role in the terror industryand multilateral bodies like theFinancial Action Task Force(FATF) breathing down its neckto further “blacklist” it — ImranKhan had gone ahead with osten-sible “course-correction”, auster-ity-drive and personal charm-offensives to posture “NayaPakistan” onto the global stage.
Khan made quick dashes toChina and to the Gulfsheikhdoms and made sure thathe personally drove the visitingPrinces from Saudi Arabia, Qatarand the UAE when they visitedhis country. As money startedtrickling in and the noose of cor-ruption tightened against hispolitical opponents, Khan felteven more confident of his ownposition, success and that of hiscountry. He postured reconcilia-tory accent (whilst still undertak-ing a Pulwama in parallel), yet hiseye on the global map with achanged “Naya Pakistan” wasclearly work-in-progress.
S e r e n d i p i t o u s l y ,Washington’s U-turn inAfghanistan offered yet anotheropportunity to Islamabad tothaw its freeze with the US andleverage its imminent pivot inKabul towards its strategic advan-tage. Suddenly, the move by theIndian Government to revokeArticle 370 and 35A in Jammuand Kashmir put the worth of“Naya Pakistan” and its globalefficacy to litmus test. Islamabadwent into yet another round of
competitive pitching vis-à-visIndia, brandishing the “K” card.
Khan has been running frompillar-to-post and personally call-ing up the leaderships in the Gulfsheikhdoms, Iran, Indonesia andvarious other supposed “allies”.He also sought an emergencymeeting at the United NationsSecurity Council (UNSC). But sofar, it has come a cropper. The US,the UN and the EU have insteadsuggested “maximum restraint”and embarrassingly so fromPakistan’s perspective, “bilateralresolution and engagement”.
Reportage in Pakistan isfull of actions taken by theGovernment to escalate theissue with various Governmentsbut there is a virtual silence,which is attributable directly tothe leaderships in pitched coun-tries. Even nations like the UAEhave invoked the “bilateral”chorus. Amid Pakistani calls forbans, suspension of diplomaticrelations and “solidarity moves”for ostensible concerns inKashmir, Saudi Arabiaannounced mega deals with amajor Indian conglomerate.
Barring China, which hascome out with its loaded state-ments in favour of its “all-weath-er friend” Pakistan, it continuesgrappling with its own implod-ing destiny in Hong Kong.Basically, Pakistan remains stun-ningly isolated and ignored.
Sabre-rattling by thePakistani deep state (military)
and its local political classesnotwithstanding, the reality of apersisting trust deficit and per-ceptions of sovereign incorrigi-bility still abound the Pakistaninarrative. The transactional equa-tion with China is also premisedon the strategic investments ofChina Pakistan EconomicCorridor (CPEC), which neces-sitates that Islamabad remainsreciprocally mum on the fate ofUighur repression in China.
The recent round of tensionsbetween India and Pakistan hasdriven home the importance ofpolitical morality, economic rel-evance and stability as opposedto regressive pandering to co-reli-giosity in forums like OIC orcharm offensives. These are clear-ly not bankable levers in timeslike this.
While China will continue toindulge Pakistan for its ownstrategic rationale, the Pakistani“model” is an inherent anathemato Chinese sensibilities. Eventhe US may pander to somePakistani whims as it will seek toextricate itself from Afghanistan.However, it has been the tellingsilence of all the countries in theimmediate east of Pakistan thathas given a resounding wake-upcall to Islamabad to go beyondchange in nomenclature and itsinsincere concerns in Kashmir.
(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governorof Andaman & Nicobar Islandsand Puducherry)
Sir — The Indian MedicalAssociation (IMA) has rubbisheda Lancet editorial (‘Fear anduncertainty about Kashmir’sfuture’ published on August 17)where the journal expressed con-cerns about the mental health ofKashmiris, saying that it had nolocus standi in the matter and thatits interference was not welcome.It is unfortunate that the reputedmedical journal The Lancet —founded by an English surgeon in1823 — has committed breach ofpropriety in commenting on thispolitical issue. This amounts tointerference in an internal matterof the Union of India.
The vexed Kashmir issue is alegacy that the British Empire leftbehind. The Lancet has unneces-sarily reacted to an internaladministrative decision of theGovernment of India under thegarb of concern of health ofKashmiris. Where was it when theKashmiri Pandits were massacredand driven out of Kashmir? Orthe Uighur Muslims, who arelocked away in China’s anony-mous prisons? Did it study theirmental health, too? At a timewhen there has been a fair
amount of outrage over the dis-ruption of India’s IndependenceDay celebrations in London by ademonstration of PakistaniKashmiris and a handful ofKhalistanis, such a non-medicaleditorial is unwarranted.
Meghna ANew South Wales
��������������������
Sir — Utterances of Zakir Naik,the firebrand Islamic preacherwho fled India in 2016, are notsurprising. Reportedly, he madeoffensive remarks about the loy-alty of Malaysian Hindus, a
minority group. He was rightlygagged for his exertions. As amatter of fact, Malaysia did notinvite him but he sought asylumover there, which was granted tohim along with citizenship.
He embarrassed theGovernment by calling theChinese “old guests” and asked
them to return to their land.Naik is known for making inflam-matory speeches and is also themost wanted man in India for sev-eral money laundering cases.While the Malaysian Governmenthas currently banned him frommaking public speeches, it shouldtake appropriate action againsthim. If charges against him areupheld, his permanent residencystatus could be revoked. Thisbodes well for India.
SC PandaBhubaneswar
�����������
Sir — The man behind some ofHindi cinema’s most celebratedmelodies is no more. Khayyamsahib was truly a musical magician.Unlike today’s composers, wholack skill to fuse Hindustani classi-cal music with Indian film music,Khayyam was an expert with amidas touch. Even today, the sweetmelodies of Khayyam from filmslike Kabhie Kabhie, Noorie andBazaar stir the soul of listeners.
The Indian Defence Minister’s recentstatement, anticipating a possible changein India’s nuclear policy in the future, is
open to interpretation, and what it means forits nuclear doctrine in coming times is contin-gent on how the contours of India’s conven-tional escalation with its neighbour Pakistanshapes up.
The statement by Rajnath Singh signals afacile if not deep thought within the NarendraModi Government for some time now on theneed to revise India’s No First Use (NFU) pol-icy, especially when seen as a corollary to theformer Defence Minister, the late ManoharParrikar’s statement in 2016 about being opento revision of India’s NFU policy.
Rajnath Singh’s recent statement on NFUseems only a step forward, as unlike previous-ly, it does not come with “personal opinion”caveat.
India first adopted a NFU policy after itssecond nuclear tests at Pokhran in 1998. Soonafter, in August 1999, the Indian governmentreleased a draft of the doctrine which assertsthat nuclear weapons were solely for deterrenceand that India would as a nation pursue a pol-icy of “retaliation only.”
The document also maintains that India“will not be the first to initiate a nuclear firststrike, but will respond with punitive retalia-tion should deterrence fail” and that decisionsto authorise the use of nuclear weaponswould be made by the Prime Minister or his‘designated successor(s)’.
That the Defence Minister’s NFU commentcame in Pokhran, the site of the 1998 nucleartests, gives wings to speculation. It also comesdays within the Modi Government’s decisionto change the status of Jammu and Kashmir,but most noticeably, amidst an ongoing diplo-matic and cross-border escalation withPakistan.
If this is any indication, it shows that therungs of conventional escalation betweenIndia and Pakistan may be reaching the fag end,and the Indian government wants to come outof the retaliation-counter-retaliation cyclewith a conventionally inferior power, which ison a quest to gain conventional parity withIndia. Pakistan’s constant threat of battlefieldnuclear weapons further complicates India’sconventional superiority gap assessment vis-à-vis Pakistan, setting foundations of a strate-gically revisionist thought process withinIndia.
Chances of nuclear policy revision seemmore plausible in the light of the BharatiyaJanata Party’s (BJP) historical assessmentsabout making India a credible nuclear powerthrough a directly proportional relationshipbetween the country’s political will to revise itsnuclear policy and deterrence-based postur-ing.
The Vajpayee Government’s decision toconduct the 1998 nuclear tests and projectIndia as a credible nuclear power is a case inpoint. The Pokhran link to Rajnath Singh’scomments further underpins this government’sconviction about the aforementioned propor-tionality.
The Defence Minister’s assertion has
reignited the debate on the need forIndia’s nuclear policy revision butwhether it means that India is ready fora change in its NFU policy and willmove to a First Use (FU) strategy isdebatable.
Currently, there are various techno-logical and financial constraints forNew Delhi in erecting an effective firststrike capability against Pakistan orChina. A credible FU nuclear strikecapability, before anything, wouldrequire significant investments inCommand, Control, Communications,Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance,and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) andTarget Acquisition (TA) capabilities.The essence of FU strike capability ispre-emption and accuracy, and wouldrequire an unfailing intelligence andshorter time-gap in the readinesssequence: passing of intelligence, civil-military decision-making, matingweapons with warheads, leading to finalpre-empting strike on the enemy.
India’s first strike aspirations alsoface structural constraints, particular-ly apropos the decision-making para-digm that exists as of now. The civil-military gap in India’s strategic forcesdecision-making is deliberately madeto create a non-provocative yet puni-tively reassuring second strike stancetowards the enemy and, most impor-tantly, to avert any rash decision lead-ing to catastrophe. Such a doctrinal pos-ture makes a lot of sense when viewedin the light of India’s non-alignmentpast, but is increasingly losing curren-cy in the eyes of a revisionist govern-ment and a rallying nation.
India’s current civil-military gap is
ideal for a country with a NFU policy.It’s a purposeful decoupling to mandatecivilian supremacy in strategic decision-making and create checks and balances.In direct contrast to this, the FU forcestructure would possibly require anever-vigilant and ready strategic posturewith quick and decisive calls for actionwhen needed, which in turn wouldneed a smaller gap between the civil-ian go-ahead and the military’s finalcall, leading to the targeting and firingof the weapons with nuclear warheads.
New Delhi’s lessening of the civil-military gap can be seen in the contextof the government’s recent decision toappoint a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS),a five-star General with possibly aCabinet rank whose role would super-sede the three armed forces chiefs.
The centralization of powerthrough the office of the CDS will notonly consolidate general decision-mak-ing in one office, but is likely to reduceintra-forces rivalry on issues of budgetand government favourability betweenthe three wings of the armed forces.
In the strategic context and in rela-tion to the country’s nuclear force pos-ture, the office of the CDS is likely tobe more in tune with its FU strategythan it will be with its current NFUstrategy. As such, the Defence Minister’sstatement hinting at a possible revisionof India’s nuclear strategy could also beseen in the context of India’s decisionto appoint a CDS.
While it is unlikely that India willgo for a doctrinal alteration anytimesoon, it could serve as an extremelypotent plank to fight the next generalelections in 2024. Given the kind of
investments needed for readying a FUforce structure, a revision anytimesoon will be difficult.
However, to the extent that deter-rence behavior in nuclear states is asmuch psychologically induced as it isfrom concrete, stated and factoredcapabilities, the Defence Minister’sstatement has caused visible concernsin Pakistan.
Locating India’s overall NFU strat-egy, its force posture towards hostileneighbours, the number of warheadsand the escalatory potential in a com-parative context, paints a picture of abenign nuclear giant.
Doing away with NFU will repaintthis picture, besides possibly affectingstability in the region.
That is a price this government isconsidering to pay in the light of NewDelhi’s increasing fatigue with a rapid-ly lessening conventional gap withPakistan, especially with Pakistan’sincreasing tendency to factor TacticalNuclear Weapons (TNW) within con-ventional escalation spectrum, andwith the solidifying China-Pakistanaxis.
If Balakot lowered the threshold forIndia’s conventional response toPakistan and altered the nature ofresponse, a doctrinal shift from NFUto FU might go a long way in usheringan altered deterrence-induced behav-iour in Pakistan, hopefully leading toa better future for bilateral ties betweenIndia and Pakistan.
(The writer is Visiting Fellow at theStimson Center in Washington D.C &Deputy Director Kalinga Institute forIndo-Pacific Studies)
Grasslands across the globe,especially in India, haveplayed a silent but stellar role
in reining in the process of climatechange. But according to a study byProceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences (PNAS) jour-nal, climate change, pollution andvarious environment alterationsacross the globe are changing theiridentity. One of the key contributionsmade by grasslands is their incon-spicuous role in containing carbonlevels in the atmosphere. It is thisstorage capacity for carbon thatmakes grasslands effective warriorsagainst climate change.
Nearly, 30 per cent of the world’scarbon is stored in these grasslands,
which makes them crucial in com-bating climate change. But theirecology is shifting due to humanactivities, says a new study.
The PNAS team conducted 105experiments in different grasslandsaround the world. Each experimentfocussed on particular global changefactors like rising carbon dioxide,hotter temperatures and drought.Grasslands showed resilience tothese factors in the first ten years ofexposure, after that their speciesbegan to alter, the study said.
Half of the PNAS experiments,lasting ten years or more, showed achange in the number of species ingrasslands. The study also found thattheir identity can change rapidlywithout a reduction in the number ofplant species but due to the changein individual plants. Even though thegrasslands are resilient towards glob-al change for around ten years, theyare vulnerable due to the fast pace ofglobal change.
Increasingly, the scientific com-munity across the world is formingthe opinion that the role of grasslandsneeds to be acknowledged. They
should be protected from humanintervention so as to arrest theirdegradation. They occupy morethan 40 per cent of all the ice-freeland in the world. These assets ofnature have sustained humans for thepast 300 million years — right fromthe time when the first homo sapi-ens appeared in Africa. They alsoprovide food and shelter to variousother species, including zebras andgiraffes.
Closer home, grasslands happento be the least understood habitat ofnature. There is also a paucity ofeffective studies on their efficacy.Still, the fact that they play a pivotal
role in keeping a check on climatechange cannot be ignored.
Grasslands in India share theirexistence with some trees, shrubs andherbs. They are found at various alti-tudes and in various geographicalregions under different climatic con-ditions.
Thus, grasslands are also foundin altitudes higher than 2,100metres where the temperature iscold. Some are found at an altitudebetween 150 to 300 metres wherethe temperature is warm. Apartfrom the climatic conditions wherethe grasslands exist, there are othervariants, mainly five major types.
Each of these has its own character-istic. The most widespread grass-land in India are the Imperatatype. Our country has no dearth ofdiversity of greens but there is cer-tainly a shortage of robust policiesto protect them against humanexploitation. This usually happenswhen grasslands are misrepresent-ed as barren lands and usurped byland sharks and land mafia.
In a country where standingtrees in a forest are being felled toencroach land, grasslands naturallydon’t stand a chance. But matters suchas these are of public knowledge. Thisis why it is even more puzzling thatthe National Green Tribunal (NGT)or even the Central Government hasnot come out with a forceful protec-tion policy.
The apathy can be judged fromthe fact that semi-arid open areas arenow being classified as wastelands,leaving them vulnerable to humanintervention and encroachments.These so-called wastelands are, infact, grasslands but neither are theygiven due recognition nor properclassification. The Government must
not shift the burden of land require-ment to cater to a burgeoning pop-ulation onto the grasslands by label-ing them as wastelands. Unless wecourse-correct, we will lose manyhectares of grasslands forever.
Additionally, the wildlife that isfound on these grasslands needs tobe recognised and categorised so thatit get chances for survival. Currently,there is little or no study or data avail-able for the rich flora and fauna avail-able in India. The Government mustalso increase awareness and recog-nise the support of indigenous localpeople so that India can benefit fromtheir efforts to conserve grasslands.In order to do this, we must take acue from other nations where vastsavannahs have been respected andconserved over centuries. The meth-ods and systems followed by thesecountries are in public domain andavailable to be implemented in theIndian context. Grasslands are the lifebreath in the fight against climatechange. They must be protectedand conserved.
back some lost ground toclose at 71.55, up 16paise against the US dol-lar in line with strongeremerging market cur-rencies.
Starting off on abullish note, the rupeesurged to a high of 71.36per dollar during theday before settling at71.55, clocking a gain of16 paise.
On Tuesday, theIndian unit had closed ata six-month low of 71.71a dollar.
The recovery in the Indianunit was seen despite head-winds in form of economicuncertainties, FDI outflowsand rise in global crude oilprices, according to forextraders. Besides, investors con-tinued to fret over long-lastingUS China trade war.
Meanwhile, foreigninvestors pulled out Rs 770.81crore from Indian equities onWednesday, as per exchangedata.
Continuing its rise, theglobal crude benchmark BrentFutures rose 1.6 per cent totrade at USD 60.99 per barrelon Wednesday.
Aiding in rupee recoup, the
dollar index — which gaugesthe greenback's strength againsta basket of six currencies — fell0.01 per cent to 98.18.
The 10-year Indian gov-ernment bond yield was downat 6.57 per cent on Wednesday.
"Despite brent crude pricerising for last four consecutivesessions and higher dollarindex levels, the rupee man-aged to recoup some of thelosses registered in the previoustwo sessions," V K Sharma,Head PCG & Capital MarketsStrategy, HDFC Securities, said.
Emerging market curren-cies advanced as investorsassessed the latest remarksfrom the US on trade talks withChina, he said adding that
trading was muted ahead of theUS Federal Reserve's July meet-ing minutes and Jackson Holesymposium later in the week.
Meanwhile, FinancialBenchmark India Private Ltd(FBIL) set the reference rate forthe rupee/dollar at 71.6483and for rupee/euro at 79.3682.The reference rate forrupee/British pound was fixedat 86.7809 and for rupee/100Japanese yen at 67.27.
Contrary to rupeerebound, the 30-share BSESensex settled 267.64 points or0.72 per cent lower at37,060.37; while the broaderNSE Nifty shed 98.30 points or0.89 per cent to finish at10,918.70.
����� �%�� /
The ongoing economic slow-down has started hurting
corporates as well, with com-panies reporting a sharpdecline in both revenue andprofit growth numbers in theJune quarter, a report said onWednesday.
India Inc's net sales growthfor the June quarter slid to 4.6per cent as against 13.5 per centfor the same period last year,while the net profit growthmoderated to 6.6 per cent ascompared to last year's 24.6 percent.
The findings are based onan analysis of 2,976 companieswhich have reported theirquarterly numbers by domes-tic rating agency Care Ratings.
"The first quarter of the fis-cal year 2019-20 has beenmarked by disappointing andweak corporate earningsindicative of the overall slow-down in various industries andthe economy," it said.
In what can be termed as asilver lining, the broader eco-nomic woes do not seem tohave had an impact on theorgnaised sector jobs, as theemployee expenses growthcontinued to be stable.
Employees compensationgrew 10.6 per cent as comparedto the year-ago period, thestudy showed.
It can be noted that GDPgrowth slid to a five-year lowof 5.8 per cent for the Marchquarter and is widely expectedto come lower for the Junequarter. There have also beenreports of jobless growth and askewed nature of economicgrowth, where the "have-nots"are being left behind.
From the operating profitgrowth perspective, the CareRatings study showed a slidedown to 4.1 per cent in Junequarter as against double digitgrowth last year.
However, the operatingprofit margin was stable atabout 20 per cent level, it said.
Excluding banks andfinancial sector companies, asur vey of 2,574 entitiesshowed tax outgo declining by19 per cent during June quar-ter, as against a robust 52.3 percent growth in the year-agoperiod.
The profit after tax forthese companies fell by 11.9 percent during the same period, asagainst a growth of 52.9 percent registered in the year-agoperiod.
It can be noted that a slewof business leaders, includingdoyens like L&T chairman A MNaik and Bajaj Auto's RahulBajaj have been flagging con-cerns on economic growth andits impact on the corporates aswell.
����� �%)%�) �
German carmakerBMW took the
wraps off the seventh-generation of theirpopular 3-seriessports sedan in India.The latest iteration ofthe global bestsellerwill be available intwo diesel and onepetrol option and willbe priced between�41.4 lakhs to �47.9lakhs. The vehicle willbe assembled at thecarmakers Chennaifacilities and will bethe third generation ofthe 3-series to beassembled in India.Speaking to The Pioneer afterthe launch of the vehicle,Rudratej Singh, the newly-appointed Chief ExecutiveOfficer, BMW Group Indiasaid that the vehicle was a crit-ical one for the carmaker,accounting for almost a third ofannual sales, even for the out-going model and just behindthe X1 Sports-Utility Vehicle.
“India is a strategicallyimportant market for BMW.You can see that in the breadthof investments that we havemade across the country from
the national sales company,the factory, the training centreand in financial services. Wecontinue to believe in the Indiastory, but it is important tounderstand that the Indiagrowth story will be uniquelyIndian with dips and jumps, itwill be an ambiguous growthcurve and I feel ‘Business
Unusual’ will be ‘Business asUsual’ in India,” Singh said dur-ing an interview. BMW whichhad seen sales fall sharply in1016-17 has seen a smart turn-around in sales, but Singhadded that he did not want togrow through the rampant dis-counting that is standard forthe luxury car industry. “Wewant to change the concepts ofluxury and of of value, I do notfeel the Indian consumer is asprice conscious as he or she isvalue conscious and we want tobe the brand that offers that
value, so when the tide turnswe can get a lion’s share of themarket.”
However, Singh reiteratedthat the core aspect of BMW’sgrowth strategy was still build-ing great products, “and thisnew 3-series is a prime exam-ple of that.” Adding that deal-er profitability will play a big
role going forward and howbusiness models will have tochange, “it should not be abouttrying to extract the maxi-mum value from one serviceticket but getting more servicetickets. We have to grow fromthe 80,000 car base we have inIndia today and make it larg-er.” However, he added thatcurrently things for the Indianeconomy were volatile anduncertain and it might take atime for economic growth topick up alongside a commen-surate increase in sales.
����� +,��-,.&/
In the midst of the worst salesslump for pas-
senger cars indecades, Maruti-Suzuki took thewraps off theirnew multi-per-son vehicle(MPV) the XL6.The XL6 whichis a variant of thepopular ErtigaMPV will how-ever be soldthrough the car-makers premiumsales channelNexa, and fea-tures several pre-mium touchessuch as a second-row of individualcaptain seats andfull-LED head-lights in the front.in keepingwith Marutii's decision to stopproduction of small dieselengines, the Ertiga is availableonly in a petrol variant howeverhas both manual and automatictransmission options. Prices
will range from �9.8 lakh to�11.46 lakh.
Addressing the media afterthe launch, Kenichi Ayukawa,Managing Director, MarutiSuzuki India Limited admittedthat the current environmentwhere car sales have beendeclining as much 20 percentcompared to figures from a
year ago, is worrying. Stock lev-els for Maruti dealers is alsorunning 'slightly higher thanusual' he admitted, despiteplants running at lower thanoptimal capacity. However, headded that he expected the
market to show signs of growthduring the festive season as themonsoons have been fairlypositive and because some ofthe uncertainty that surround-ed the industry on issues suchas the changeover to BS6 emis-sion norms and other issuessuch as electrification should becleared.
That said Maruti executivesprivately admitted that they didnot see sales reaching 2017 lev-els until 2021 at the earliest andsaid that the lack of credit ishurting dealers and customersalike.
��� � '&/+�01+
President Donald Trumpacknowledged Tuesday
his aggressive China tradepolicies may mean econom-ic pain for Americans butinsisted they're needed formore important long-termbenefits. He contended hedoes not fear a recession butis nonetheless consideringnew tax cuts to promotegrowth.
Asked if his trade warwith China could tip thecountry into recession, Trumpbrushed off the idea as "irrel-
evant" and said it was imper-ative to "take China on." "It'sabout time, whether it's goodfor our country or bad for ourcountry short term," he said.
Paraphrasing a reporter'squestion, Trump said, "Yourstatement about, 'Oh, will wefall into a recession for twomonths?' OK? The fact issomebody had to take Chinaon." The president indicatedthat he had no choice but toimpose the tariffs that havebeen a drag on U.S.Manufacturers, financial mar-kets and, by some measures,American consumers.
Beijing: Beijing appealed toWashington on Wednesday to"meet China halfway" and enda tariff war after PresidentDonald Trump said Americansmight need to endure eco-nomic pain to achieve longer-term benefits.A foreign ministry spokesman,Geng Shuang, expressed hopeWashington can "get along us"and restore "mutually benefi-cial" trade. AP
����� +,��-,.&/
The National Company LawAppellate Tribunal
(NCLAT) on Wednesday askedlenders of Jet Airways whetherthey would cooperate with theDutch court administrator whois also pursuing insolvencyproceedings against the debt-ridden carrier. A three-memberNCLAT bench headed byChairman Justice S JMukhopadhyay asked theCommittee of Creditors (CoC)of Jet Airways to file an affidavitwithin a week in this regard.
The appellate tribunal hasalso asked the CoC to informwhether they are ready to payfees and bear costs incurred by
the Dutch administrator.Jet Airways is facing
insolvency proceedings inthe Netherlands as well,where it was declared bank-rupt after failing to pay twoEuropean creditors .Subsequently, a bankruptcyadministrator was appointedby the Dutch court.
The appellate tribunal'sdirection came while hearing apetition filed by the Dutchcourt administrator against theorder of the Mumbai bench ofthe National Company LawTribunal (NCLT), which haddeclared overseas bankruptcyproceedings null and void inthe Jet Airways insolvencycase.
Mysore Deep Perfumery House (MDPH) andZedblack, launched "Manthan Zaroori Hai"
campaign for Manthan Dhoop with VeteranBollywood actor Suresh Oberoi as its brand newambassador. The brand campaign urges every soulto awaken his or her consciousness through spir-itual conversations. Today each and everyone ischasing or running behind a goal, be it the mil-lennials with hunger for more or a 40 somethingcommon man who is wanting to give a better lifeto his family.
New Delhi: The Government is planning toboost domestic production of chemicals andpetrochemicals to cut down imports and makeIndia a manufacturing hub for the sector, a topministry official said on Wednesday.
Net imports of chemicals and petrochemi-cals touched a whopping Rs 1.21 lakh crore annu-ally in 2018-19, the official added. Addressingan event organised by the Indian Chamber ofCommerce (ICC), chemicals and petrochemi-cals secretary P Raghavendra Rao said. PTI
New Delhi (PTI): With the closure of open offer, NipponLife Insurance stake in Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management(RNAM) has risen to 54 per cent. The open offer was part of thestake sale process. Nippon Life floated open offer to acquire near-ly 22.49 per cent stake in RNAM for �3,179 crore under a dealwith Reliance Capital which is exiting the mutual funds busi-ness. The mandatory open offer tendering period was from July23 to August 5, sources said, adding that approximately 11 percent shares were tendered in the open offer. Nippon Life paid�230 per share in the open offer.
����� +,��-,.&/
India’s economic growth is setto slow further in the April-
June quarter of this year to 5.7per cent amid contraction inconsumption, weak invest-ments and an under-perform-ing service sector, says aNomura report.
According to the globalfinancial services major, eventhough growth is set to slowfurther in Q2 (April-June) theeconomy is expected to seesome recovery in the July-September quarter.
“High-frequency indica-tors continue to show familiarpain points — a deep contrac-tion in consumption, weakinvestment, a slowing externalsector and an under-perform-ing services sector,” Nomurasaid in a research note.
The report added that someindicators are showing earlysigns of bottoming out. Data sofar for July show that 53 per centof indicators have improvedcompared with 31 per cent inJune, the report noted.
Nomura’s CompositeLeading Index (CLI) for Q3(July-September) has tickedmarginally higher to 99.9 from99.8 in Q2, led by higher indus-trial production growth, animprovement in visitor arrivalsgrowth, equity markets andlower policy rates.
“While the concurrent stateof the economy remains quiteconcerning, nascent signs ofgreen shoots and positive per-formance of leading indicatorsprovide some signs that a recov-ery may be slowly materialis-ing,” the Nomura report said.
India’s economic growth
slowed to 6.8 per cent in 2018-19 — the slowest pace since2014-15. There are ominoussigns showing that slowdownmay be deep. Consumer con-fidence is waning, foreigndirect investment has plateauedand international trade andcurrency war is further aggra-vating the problem.
To take stock of the situa-tion, Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman held several meet-ings with officials and industryleaders who have asked forstimulus measure to boost con-sumer demand and privateinvestments.
Though there are increas-ing signs of the governmenttaking stock of the slowdown,and possibly announcing someshort-term measures to buoybusiness confidence, Nomuraassesses limited fiscal space
for any substantive stimulus.“We currently expect GDP
growth in Q2 to slow to 5.7 percent YoY from 5.8 per cent inQ1, before improving to 6.4 percent YoY in Q3 and 6.7 per centin Q4,” it said, adding that itwas closely watching for signsof sustainability of the growthturnaround.
The Central StatisticsOffice will come out with theGDP figures for the first quar-ter (April-June) on August 30.
Meanwhile, the automobilesector is facing its worst crisisin two decades and reports sug-gest thousands of job losses inthe auto and ancillary industry.
In the real estate sector, thenumber of unsold homes hasincreased, while fast-movingconsumer goods companieshave reported a decline in vol-ume growth in the first quarter.
�������� �%�� /4&1+��61+�
Benchmark equity indexSensex slumped 268points on Wednesday,
dragged by losses in ITC,HDFC, L&T and ICICI Bank asinvestors remained wary of aneconomic slowdown.
After plunging 305 points,the 30-share Sensex settled267.64 points, or 0.72 per cent,lower at 37,060.37. It hit anintra-day high of 37,406.55and a low of 37,022.52.
The broader NSE Nifty tooended 98.30 points, or 0.89 percent, down at 10,918.70. Duringthe day, it swung between ahigh of 11,034.20 and a low of10,906.65.
Tata Motors was the biggestlaggard in the Sensex pack,plummeting 9.29 per cent, fol-lowed by Yes Bank at 8.21 percent. Other losers includedTata Steel, ONGC, IndusIndBank, SBI, L&T, ITC, Vedanta,HCL Tech, ICICI Bank andM&M, which declined up to4.26 per cent.
Hero MotoCorp, Infosys,Tech Mahindra, HUL, BajajAuto, Maruti, NTPC andHDFC Bank bucked the weakmarket trend, rising up to 1.78per cent.
Meanwhile, the Indianrupee appreciated 22 paise to
71.49 against the US dollarintra-day.
Brent crude futures, theglobal oil benchmark, spurted1.28 per cent to USD 60.80 perbarrel.
������4������������������2����2����������
Equities stuttered in Asiaon Wednesday as investorstook a step back after recentgains, with focus now turningto a key speech by FederalReserve boss Jerome Powell atthe end of the week.
Rising hopes for China-UStrade talks have provided amuch-needed lift to marketsover the past two days but withfew fresh catalysts, dealers arekeeping their powder dryahead of Friday’s address.
After positive signals fromDonald Trump and some of histop advisers on Monday overprogress in the talks withBeijing, and an olive branchwith the delay of a ban onHuawei purchases, there havebeen few developments fortraders to buy on.
“Our trade-war headline-inspired relief rally appears tohave run its course as I suspectthere is still a lot of nervousnessamong US investors as theglobal economic realities arejust too hard to ignore,” said
Stephen Innes at ValourMarkets.
Hong Kong added 0.2 percent, Shanghai was barelymoved and Tokyo ended down0.3 per cent. Sydney fell almostone percent, Singapore shed 0.3per cent and Wellington was0.9 per cent lower. Taipei fin-ished flat and Seoul added 0.2per cent.
In early trade, London rose0.5 per cent, Paris added 0.8percent and Frankfurt was up0.5 per cent.
The Fed releases minutes ofits July meeting later onWednesday which will pro-vide an insight into its delib-erations when cutting interestrates for the first time since thefinancial crisis.
But Powell’s talk at thecentral bankers’ gathering inJackson Hole, Wyoming, is thekey event and will be closelypored over for clues about thebank’s plans for next month,with experts unable to agree onwhether or not he willannounce further cuts.
There has been increasedspeculation that central banksand governments will step inwith stimulus support to headoff a global downturn, butanalysts warn they could bedisappointed by what Powellhas to say regarding Fedaction.
����� +,��-,.&/
Gold prices on Wednesdayappreciated �50 to hit a
new high of �38,820 per 10gram at the bullion market hereon account of consistent buy-ing support from jewellers,according to the All-IndiaSarafa Association. Silver alsosoared by �1,140 to �45,040 perkg on fresh offtake by industrialunits and coin makers.
Traders attributed the gainin gold to increase in the domes-tic spot market demand.However, a weak trend in theinternational market restrictedthe gains, they said. Besides, thedecline in equity markets alsoaided the rally in the preciousmetal as investors movedtowards safe-haven assets suchas gold, they added.
Gold prices traded weakwith international spot goldprices but continue to hoveraround USD 1,500 an ounce.
In the national capital, goldof 99.9 per cent and 99.5 per centpurity rose �50 each to �38,820and �38,650 per 10 gram,respectively Sovereign goldadvanced by �200 at �28,800 pereight grams. Silver ready surged�1,140 to �45,040 per kg, whileweekly-based delivery gained�210 to �43,632 per kg. Silvercoins were in good demand andtraded higher by �2,000 to�91,000 for buying and �92,000for selling of 100 coins.
�3�DE���&�$#�.<=E>�#!New Delhi (PTI): Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health
Care (P&G) on Wednesday reported a 36.45 per cent rise in netprofit at �60.79 crore for the June quarter. The company hadposted a net profit of �44.55 crore in the year-ago quarter. Totalincome in the quarter under review stood at �646.98 crore, up21.73 per cent from �531.48 crore in the same quarter last year,P&G said in a regulatory filing. “In a challenging market envi-ronment, we delivered strong double-digit growth for the yearand the fourth quarter... We will continue to focus on deliver-ing balanced and sustained growth in a challenging and com-petitive macroeconomic environment,” Procter & GambleHygiene and Health Care MD Madhusudan Gopalan said.
Bangladesh said on Tuesdaythat revoking the special
status to Jammu and Kashmiris India's internal matter andmaintaining regional peaceand stability should be a pri-ority for all countries.
Bangladesh' reaction onthe issue came a day afterExternal Affairs Minister SJaishankar visited the countryand held talks with the topleadership, including PrimeMinister Sheikh Hasina.
"Bangladesh maintains that the abrogation of Article 370 by the IndianGovernment is an internalissue of India," the Ministry ofForeign Affairs said here in astatement.
"Bangladesh has alwaysadvocated, as a matter of prin-ciple, that maintaining region-al peace and stability, as well asdevelopment should be a pri-ority for all countries," it said.
Tensions between Indiaand Pakistan spiked this monthafter New Delhi abrogated pro-
visions of Article 370 of theConstitution to withdrawJammu & Kashmir's special sta-tus and bifurcated it into twoUnion Territories.
New Delhi has made itclear to the US that Kashmirwas a bilateral issue betweenIndia and Pakistan and therewas no role for a third party.
G<������������������
�������-��������"����!����%��-'
��� �����)����������������������������"
����:
����� � '&/+�01+
President Donald Trump hasindicated that the US forces
will not completely withdrawfrom warn-torn Afghanistanand America will have "some-body there" to make sure thatTaliban does not regain control.
During the presidentialelection campaign in 2016,Trump had pledged to with-draw US troops fromAfghanistan and end America'slongest war.
The Trump administra-tion has intensified its efforts toseek a negotiated settlement ofAmerica's longest war inAfghanistan where the US haslost over 2,400 soldiers sincelate 2001, when it invaded thecountry after the 9/11 terrorattacks.
"We will always have intel-ligence, and we'll always havesomebody there," Trump toldreporters at his Oval Office on
Tuesday.He was responding to
questions on the ongoing peacetalks with the Taliban inAfghanistan. Trump said hewould like to look at variousalternatives.
"One of the alternatives isgoing on right now. We're talk-ing about a plan -- I don't knowwhether or not the plan is goingto be acceptable to me. Maybeit's not going to be acceptableto them. But we are talking. Wehave good talks going, and we'llsee what happens.This is morethan other Presidents havedone," he said.
"We have brought it down.We are bringing some of ourtroops back. But we have tohave a presence," Trump said,ruling out a complete with-drawal of troops fromAfghanistan.
He was asked, "Could webe back to where we were pre-9/11 with the Taliban in com-
plete and total control ofAfghanistan?"
"Well, that's what we haveto watch," Trump responded.
And if the Taliban were"really right" in what they'resaying, they would stop thatfrom happening, because theycould stop that from happen-ing very easily.
Trump said, right now, theUS is negotiating with theAfghan government and withthe Taliban.
"We will see what happensfrom it, what's coming from it,"he said.
"The Taliban would like tostop fighting us...They've lost alot. But we'll see what hap-pens," he said.
Afghanistan, he said is atough place.
"The Soviet Union becameRussia because of Afghanistan.That's what happened. Verysimple. They became Russiabecause of Afghanistan.
,����$� �� ����������$�-����� � ��1�*��$
���� ',1%.
The United States is ready tosit down with North Korea
to resume long-awaited work-ing-level nuclear talks, a USenvoy said Wednesday. Nucleardiscussions between Washin-gton and Pyongyang have stalledsince a second summit in Hanoiin February ended without anagreement over differences onthe extent of denuclearisationand sanctions relief in return.
But anticipation for reneweddialogue has been on the riseafter the US and its security allySouth Korea wrapped up theirtwo-week joint military drillon Tuesday. "We are prepared toengage as soon as we hear fromour counterparts in NorthKorea," said Stephen Biegun, theUS special representative forNorth Korea, after his meetingwith South Korean counterpartLee Do-hoon in Seoul.
The comments come amidspeculation that Americanscould meet with North Koreansat the demilitarised zone divid-ing the North and South to kickstart working-level talks duringBiegun's three-day stay in Seoul,which began Tuesday. The USenvoy denied media reports hewould soon take a diplomaticposting in Russia, saying heremained "focused on makingprogress" with North Koreansand "fully committed" to the goalof the denuclearisation in theNorth.
Pyongyang considers thejoint military exercise by theallies a rehearsal for invasion andhas routinely expressed anger atthe war games. The drills are a"grave military provocation"and a "challenge to and mock-ery of our efforts for peace", theNorth's official Rodong Sinmunnewspaper said Wednesday in acommentary.
Howdy, Modi!", the commu-nity event to be addressed
by Prime Minister NarendraModi here next month has beensold out with over 50,000 peo-ple registering for the pro-gramme, the organisers said.
"Howdy", short for 'How doyou do?', is a friendly greetingcommonly used in southwesternUnited States.
Over 50,000 supportershave already registered for themega community summit inSeptember at the NRG Stadium,the host Texas India Forum(TIF), a Houston-based non-profit body, said. The live audi-ence will be the largest ever foran Indian Prime Minister inNorth America and also thelargest for a foreign leader in theUS other than Pope Francis.
Potential attendees can stillregister for the free event.However, new registrants will beon a waiting list. Registration forthe university students is openuntil August 29th as part of aspecial allotment, they said.
Prime Minister Modi isscheduled to visit the US nextmonth to attend the UnitedNations General Assembly onSeptember 27, prior to which hewill travel to Houston to meetthe leading businesses, politicaland community leaders here inHouston, the fourth largest citywith a population of over130,000 Indian-Americans.
The summit, with thetagline of 'Shared Dreams,Bright Futures' will highlight thecontributions of Indian-Americans to enrich theAmerican life as well as the keyrole it has played in strengthen-ing relations between the twonations.
"On behalf of the hundredsof thousands of Indian-Americans in Texas, and as co-chair of the Senate India Caucus,I welcome Prime Minister Modito Houston," said US SenatorJohn Cornyn.
Canada does not intend torepatriate the Muslim con-
vert dubbed "Jihadi Jack," whois being held in northern Syriaafter joining the Islamic Stategroup, Public Safety MinisterRalph Goodale has confirmed.
Jack Letts, 24, who was adual UK-Canadian national,was captured by Kurdish forcesin Syria in 2017 and is lan-guishing in jail there.
Goodale's statement comesa day after Britain strippedLetts of his citizenship, placinghis fate in Canada's hands.
"We have no obligation tofacilitate his travel from his pre-sent circumstances, and wehave no intention of facilitatingthat travel," Goodale said in aninterview with the CBC onTuesday.
Goodale had tweeted thesame sentiment Monday before
officially confirming it in thetelevised interview.
"This individual and othershave made the calculated deci-sion to leave the comfortableconfines of Canadian democ-racy, to travel halfway aroundthe world to associate them-selves with the most evil andviolent terrorism in severalgenerations," Goodale said.
"They need to assume theconsequences for their respon-sibility."
In a recent interview withITV News, Letts said he hadthought that Canada wouldhelp him.
"I never grew up being accepted as a Britishperson," he said, adding thatlosing his British citizenshipwas "not something I recog-nise." "But, in the same wayBritain hasn't helped me fortwo and a half years, Canadahas done nothing.
Pakistan has submitted com-pliance report on its 27-
point action plan to theFinancial Action Task Force(FATF), as three separate eval-uations currently in progress willdetermine the country's possi-ble exit from the grey list of theanti-money laundering watch-dog by October, according to amedia report.
The Asia-Pacific Group —the regional affiliate of the FATF— is currently conducting inCanberra (Australia) five-yearmutual evaluation of Pakistan'sprogress on upgrading its sys-tems in all areas of financial andinsurance services and sectors,a senior government officialtold Dawn.
This round is not directlylinked to Pakistan's performanceon its commitments with theFATF on money launderingand terror-financing, but itsassessment report can indirect-ly impact the country's positionto move out of the grey list.
The assessments, repre-
sented from Pakistan by StateBank of Pakistan GovernorBaqir Reza, will conclude onAugust 23, the daily said.
Pakistan has submitted itscompliance report on 27-pointaction plan committed with theFATF to the APG, which isreviewing its compliance onabout seven areas mostly relat-ing to financial and insuranceservices and facilities as part ofan ongoing five-year reviewcycle.
These areas cover safeguardsagainst money laundering andterror financing by banned out-fits and non-government entitiesthrough banking and non-bank-ing jurisdictions, capital markets,corporate and non-corporatesectors like chartered accoun-tancy, financial advisory ser-vices, cost and managementaccountancy firm, jewellers andsimilar related services.
The official aid that thefive-year review by the APG,which had been under way fornearly two years, would con-clude on August 23. As part ofthis process, he added, the coun-tries were given future targets inview of changing technologies,practices and latest techniquesand scopes.
This will be followed byanother round of mutual eval-uations by the APG startingSeptember 5 in Bangkok(Thailand) that would becomea key basis of Pakistan's finalreview by the FATF at its plenaryand working group meetingsscheduled for October 13-18 inParis. The Paris plenary will alsotake up a separate assessment bythe US Treasury Departmentregarding Pakistan's compli-ance with global commitmentsagainst money laundering andterror financing.
As newer dance forms make their wayinto the art industry, it is important
to revive these traditional dance formsand teach the younger generation abouttheir richness too. Ustad Bismillah Khanawardee and Kuchipudi dancer ArunimaKumar feels the urge to fill this void andtakes dance to places it has never beenbefore.
She practises dance therapy with can-cer patients in hospitals as she is a keenbeliever of inclusive art. “We tell themstories through dance, do chants, slokasand a lot of rhythm and footwork nextto their beds. This brightens them up andhelps them validate their existence,”says she.
Arunima recalls one of the incidentswhen a girl, who could sing well, sangwith them and the entire ward joined her.It was a treat to their eyes. Such positiveactivities help them regain their confi-dence in life. And in a similar way, shemakes the cancer survivors dance as theystart getting better. Everyone has a stateof distress in life at some stage or theother but Arunima feels that when youare involved in art, it has the capacity tolift you up and teleport you to a very dif-ferent world altogether, where you for-get the worries of life.
She believes that art deserves to trav-el places rather than sticking to the stage.“There shouldn’t be any restrictions indance. It should encompass a diverserange of human activities and their waysof expression,” she says and adds, “Folkdance culture began from farmers whodanced and celebrated the harvest sea-son. And people enjoyed that togetherirrespective of the age gap or the differ-ences in financial status between them.”But things are different today. She pointstowards the rigid structure that we areslowly getting accustomed to and it needsto break down. Her first step towards this,she says, was “visiting villages and slumsand teach the natives about dance and itsdiverse applications across the world.When I interact with them and answertheir questions, the kind of happiness Isee in their eyes is unparalleled.”
She is trying to change the dynam-ics of Kuchipudi and Indian classicaldance across the globe by organising fes-tivals that would showcase its richness.
She will be organising the third editionof the Kuchipudi International Festivalin November in London, which wouldprovide a platform to 80 to 100 artists toshow their talent. It will include her stu-dents ranging from the age of four to 60,
Natayanjali group from Cambridge,Bharatanatyam group and various oth-ers. She says, “It is a festival where we pro-mote different dance forms and musicbut the focus remains on Kuchipudi. Wealso invite guest artists and facilitate inno-
vative collaborations.” Through this shewants to inspire children as they seeamazing artists perform so beautifully.This generates curiosity in them toknow the dance form and its roots.“Otherwise they just perform with eachother and get bored after a few years.Through this, they are not just lookingamong themselves but their seniors aswell,” she adds. It also helps to inspiretheir parents and tell them how impor-tant it is to teach the child about our tra-ditions and dance forms at an early age.The audience consists of a lot of foreign-ers also, this in turn is taking Indian clas-sical beyond the borders. The festival alsoincludes dances on mythological tales,the tales of Vishnu and Kalangan Rathna.
Talking about one of the most inno-vative collaborations with a step chainstudio, she says, “They have dancers whoperform Latin American style on wheel-chair. This year I have integratedKuchipudi with it.” She explains the ideabehind this that such a dance form chal-lenges the perception of body. When itcomes to a disabled person, we look atthem with sympathy as they can’t dance.But, sometimes we cannot fathom theirpotential. “The way they dance with theirchallenge surprises me because they do
it so beautifully,” Arunima adds.She has collaborated with Baluji
foundation, the world’s only blind orches-tra and created a piece called antardrishti(inner vision) with them. It is a blind castof musicians and four dancers who couldsee. She did that show in darkness as shewanted the audience to feel it andunderstand how it feels when yourworld is dark. Citing the experience asan amazing one, she says, “While I wasworking with them they could sensewhen I am well and when I am not. Theycould figure out my mood.”
She developed her love affair withKuchipudi while she was learning it fromJayarama Rao and Vanashree Rao.Arunima says she found a home in termsof her dance school because she learnt alot of tradition and history from them.Along with this she used to have make-up and abhinay session too. Talking abouther journey, Arunima says, “It was abeautiful journey initially but was diffi-cult to manage with my studies but Iclinged onto it. I would skip a film withmy friends but never skip the danceclass.” She feels it is this commitmentwhich helped her step the ladder of suc-cess.
Talking about the strong identityIndia is gaining at an international level,Arunima says, “I am very proud of that.I proudly wear my Indian outfits andbindi but I am extremely contemporaryin my outlook. I understand the aesthet-ics of my society so that I stay relevant.”But there is a huge gap to promote clas-sical Indian art in the UK and Arunimawanted to fill this gap. She is trying toembed her art in the DNA of the Britishsociety. Indian art can surpass barriers,even if people don’t understand our lan-guage they know what we do. She wantsto make this art accessible to the globalaudience. Arunima feels that just likeyoga, an entire ecosystem needs to be cre-ated to revive dance forms as well. Shesays, “Indian dance has music and tech-niques and is an extension of yoga. Ourposes, postures and rhythm coupled withmythology offers so much altogether.”
She works on social issues likemental illness and domestic violence asit affects her deeply and is close to herheart. Arunima shares further that sheloves to integrate with anything thataffects her and her performances aremaking a difference. Arunima says, “Iam glad that at least I am provokingdebate, I am breaking barriers. It’salways difficult for me to do it, when Istart I don’t know how it will go, but atthe end of the day when the artist andthe audience have something to sayabout the performance, I think I havedone my bit.”
Ordering food online or gettingheavy discounts on meals duringa dinner at some outlet has
changed the definition of how we look ateating out today. And certainly, Zomatoand the likes of it have a huge role to playhere. However, even though this mighthave made ordering and deliveries easi-er and even increased the popularity ofthe outlets associated with such platforms,it never gave a clear picture of who actu-ally raked in the profits and who stoodat the other end.
Well, picture this. A person called Xhas started his own venture, conceptual-ising a tiny, cloud kitchen tucked in thecorner of the city, which serves the foodonly through deliveries via various foodapps online. He listed his outlet onZomato and Swiggy. However, a fewmonths later, the advent of a set of newrules by Zomato, which restricted thefood preparation time for restaurants to15 minutes, disappointed X. He and histeam prepare the dishes from the scratchand cannot finish working on them insuch a short span. Zomato, to keep up thedelivery game, also instructed the restau-rants that fines would be levied on themif they delay the acceptance of orders ormiss the deadlines. This might have ben-efitted the food delivery service app inincreasing its popularity but X certainlybelieves that such apps cannot dictatewhat and how he should sell to his cus-tomers. Another factor that hurts himand many like him in the industry is theconcept of deep-discounting by foodaggregators that has made many restau-rants realise that they are losing morethan they’re gaining. And it has startedto hurt the margins.
Launching a logging out campaignagainst the dine-in schemes, around1,200 restaurants in major cities havedelisted themselves from food aggrega-tor apps like Zomato Gold, Dineout,Magicpin, NearBuy, etc. The campaign isled by the National RestaurantsAssociation of India (NRAI). PresidentRahul Singh recently said, “It’s decidedthat all aggregators will rejig their features,which will allow the restaurant-cus-tomer ecosystem to detox from theaddiction of deep discounts that has crip-pled the industry.” As per the data,Zomato has said that it would considerredesigning its Gold membership, whichallows users to avail one or two dishes ordrinks free at the associated restaurants.It will also put on hold its Zomato Infinityoffer, which enables the ‘Eat As Much AsYou Can’ offer. Over the past six days,Zomato has lost one per cent of its restau-rant partner base of its membership-based dining-out scheme service, Gold.Zomato founder and chief-executiveDeepinder Goyal had tweeted against thecampaign, urging restaurant owners tostop it and rather plan out sustainableoptions together. The tweet also addedthat the aggregator will make modifica-tions to Zomato Gold, “which will resultin a win-win situation for restaurants andconsumers.”
The online food delivery and dine-in aggregators, including Zomato, havenow agreed to tone down and rationalisetheir offers and heavy discounts. Ankit
Mehrotra, co-founder and CEO, Dineout,tells us that the follow-up decision hadbeen taken after they had an “insightful”meeting with the NRAI and restaurant-owners regarding the campaign. He saysthat NRAI has acknowledged their“restaurant-first approach,” and points outthat over the past eight years, “we havealways believed in sustainable discount-ing. Each of our 18,000 restaurant part-ners across 17 cities are free to decidetheir own promotions depending uponthe day of the week and the time of theday and we do not believe in enforcinga common discounting strategy.”
He draws comparisons and says thatGourmet Passport acts as a discovery pro-gramme for their curated list of 1,700restaurants, “which restricts the unlim-ited 1+1 offer to three free dishes everyrestaurant per year, whereas, other plat-forms offer 1+1 every day of the year.” Hesays that however, they are currently inconstant discussion with restaurant-owners to create a “win-win” situation forall.
Zorawar Kalra, founder and manag-ing director at Massive Restaurants, says,“In an industry with already razor-thinmargins, the deep discounting beingoffered by some of the aggregators cre-ates huge pressure on the industry.” Hepoints out how the adoption rates wereinitially high to get on to this aggregate
of platforms due to competitive pressures.“The picture that was initially shown wasthat of an increasing size of the industry.However, what started out as somethingthat would increase footfalls to therestaurants and in general, increase rev-enues, enhance the guest experience, hasturned into massive discounts that ren-der unprofitable sales. In many cases, itends up costing the restaurant to servicethese offers. The restaurant lives andbreathes due to its patrons and will go tothe ends of the earth for them. We believein a sustainable ecosystem wherebyaggregators help increase the size of theindustry in a sustainable manner byfocussing on quality rather than discount-ing,” he says and suggests that only thencan restaurants and aggregator plat-forms jointly thrive.
Savar Malhotra, managing partner ofThe Embassy Restaurant, ConnaughtPlace, believes that it is a great initiativetaken by NRAI and they are supportingthe campaign because “we feel aggrega-tors are misusing their powers and dic-tating business terms to us.”
Certainly, aggregators have builttheir products without taking into countany inputs from the restaurants. “Theyneed to understand that the restaurant isthe star. They are using our products tosell discounting addiction to the customerwhich is dangerous. Addiction of any
kind is poor and especially, if you give dis-counts, it only has a negative effect on theindustry in the long run,” says Kalra andgoes on to add that a typical margin ofthe restaurant is 15 to 18 per cent andsome of these discounts amount to morethan 25 to 30 per cent. Says he, “Andsometimes it is even 50 per cent, whichmeans the restaurant is losing moneyevery time they serve a customer, whichcomes through one of these platforms.”
Pointing towards the GST reforms,where the input tax credit was removedfrom the restaurant industry, he says, ithad even bigger “delusionary and defla-tionary pressure” on the industry and asa result, restaurants are finding it diffi-cult to stay afloat. “One also needs tounderstand that the industry is the sec-ond largest employee of human capital inthe country and contributes to almost twoper cent of country’s GDP. A few yearsago before these aggregator platformscame on, their growth graph was good.The industry was growing at 21 per centannually, which means every four years,it was doubling and margins were good,”he says. It was the time when customersused to be happy when they were givena “complementary dessert or a cocktail.”
However, today, the difference hascome. Even if the customers liked theplace but didn’t get a sop, they would walkout. “And restaurants simply cannot
afford this. If the margin is 15 per cent,how can I pay a 25 per cent discount? Itwould mean I am losing out 10 per centon every dish that I serve,” adds Kalra.
Talking about how they can redesigntheir schemes, Malhotra says,“Restaurants don’t have heavy margins toafford the ‘buy one get one free’ concept.Also, we are here to make money and notto work for aggregators. Hence, anyscheme that will be introduced shouldtake the cost of products in account.”
Kalra suggests that the restaurantscan serve better only if these platforms“do not come in the way” becauseIndians love eating out and it’s alwaysbeen a source of entertainment for them.He says, “We spend the highest amountof disposable income in eating out thanany other form of entertainment. Therestaurant industry is 40 times larger thanBollywood. The removal of discountsmight create certain interim problems ofsome short-lived issues, where peoplewho were addicted to discounts mightstart eating out less. But this will definite-ly change because people inherentlylove going out. Moreover, since therestaurant will be more profitable, it willbe able to focus more on high qualityrather than dilute quality to serve the dis-counted customers.”
However, there are two questionswhich arise here. First, if these platformsare completely put away, many people anddelivery partners would be left unem-ployed. What would happen to them?Second, there are many food outletswhich had never associated themselveswith these food apps. They have run ontheir original prices. Why did the regis-tered restaurants then accept them in thefirst place, knowing that this might landthem in losses?
The Marvel Cinematic Universe will no longer pro-duce Spider-Man films, after negotiations fell
through between Disney and Sony Pictures.The two studios have been sharing the brand
Spider-Man across a plethora of films since 2015. Aspart of the previous agreement, Marvel had also beenacting as producer of the 2017 and 2019 standaloneSony Spider-Man films starring Tom Holland. Bothfilms were blockbusters.
However, Disney and Sony recently broke the dealas they are unable to reach new terms for funding offuture films. Marvel president Kevin Feige, who servedas creative lead in the two latest films of the franchise— Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man:Homecoming, will not have the same role in the twomovies reportedly in the works, unless an agreementis reached.
A statement has been issued on behalf of SonyPictures on their official Twitter handle. “Much oftoday’s news about Spider-Man has mischaracterisedrecent discussions about Kevin Feige’s involvement inthe franchise. We are disappointed, but respectDisney's decision not to have him continue as a leadproducer of our next live action Spider-Man film. Wehope this might change in the future, but understandthat the many new responsibilities that Disney hasgiven him - including all their newly added Marvelproperties - do not allow time for him to work on IPthey do not own. Kevin is terrific and we are gratefulfor his help and guidance and appreciate the path hehas helped put us on, which we will continue," the state-ment read.
The news left many Spider-Man fans in shock.Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds also expressed grief.One fan tagged Tom Holland and Reynolds in a tweet,asking them for a crossover film featuring Spider-Manand Deadpool.
“Can we get a Spider-Man and Deadpool movienow,” the person wrote. Responding to the tweet,Reynolds said, “You can. But you can only see it in myheart.”
Not only this, actor Jeremy Renner, who playedHawkeye in the Marvel films so far, tweeted, “Hey SonyPictures, we want Spider-Man back please.”
The tourism minister ofUttarakhand, Satpal Maharaj,talks about his plans for
enhancing Uttarakhand tourism inthe coming years. He is exploringpossibilities for broadening the trekroute and upgrading the infrastruc-ture to facilitate the process oftourism.
Uttarakhand is becoming a des-tination for winters. Maharaj says,“We will make an Alpine villageduring winters. At that time manytourists come who are interested ininvesting.” This will help the state inmeeting its demands. He has suggest-ed the ministers to hold the nextmeeting in Kashmir so that they canwork together and exchange theirinputs which will help each othergrow. He has been to Kashmir but wasalways in between the Armed Forcesas the chairman of DefenceCommittee.
Uttarakhand is hit by landslidesand floods too often. Therefore, it isthe need of the hour to work on dis-aster management. Maharaj is mak-ing efforts to make the tourism of thestate world class. But there are vari-ous things that hold him back. Hesays, “We need to have skilled peopleand expertise. How many peopleunderstand the potential ofUttarakhand?” They need to be awareof its future prospectives and there isa dire need to develop the equipmentfor the training of various watersports too.
To add to the process he has writ-ten letters to his MLAs and askedthem about “haunted or old housesand hot water springs nearby” so thathe can develop and utilise them forsome useful purpose. He shares abouthis idea of air balloons in Kumbh butthe authorities denied. “They felt that
it will collide but it will not. They don’thave an understanding of the employ-ment that it will generate,” he adds.Talking about the void in the systemhe shares that he interacted with the
film council and requested them tocome for shoots in the state. But whenthey came, they were questioned byforest authorities. “We need to erodethis loophole at various levels. When
people from other states come, weshould try to give them a personaltouch. It will add charm to the beau-ty of the state. Local tourism is a goodway to open local avenues for employ-
ment but infrastructure and waterissues still needs to be worked upon,”says he.
The state is looking for alternateChar Dham routes so that it becomesaccessible to everyone and willincrease tourists also. He has contact-ed the ropeway firms to provide theirfacilities at more places and also madea point that Ramnagar andVikasnagar can become the routes forthe yatra. The arrangements arebeing tightened up and work on infra-structure is being carried out heavi-ly so that pilgrims do not face any dif-ficulties.
Uttarakhand is gradually becom-ing a high end tourist state. It is plan-ning to introduce mobile caravanswhich will offer various facilitiesand give a new sense of tourism cou-pled with luxury homestays. And astrekking routes are becoming moreadvanced, it will help in attractingdomestic and international tourists aswell. The efforts are clearly evidentthrough Uttarakhand TourismDevelopment Board’s (UTDB) cam-paign, #DoTheNew, which suggests todo something that would connectwith the nature. This has helped thestate to grab eyeballs from all across.The state is also geared up to hold thecar rally and white water rafting in theforthcoming months.
The 48-member Indian teamrepresenting the country at
the WorldSkills was given agrand send-off at a ceremony.It was organised by NationalSkill Development Corporation(NSDC) under the aegis ofMinistry of Skill Developmentand Entrepreneurship (MSDE)to motivate the participants asthey gear up to pit their skillsagainst the best in the world.India is the sixth largest teamthat will take part in the com-petition.
Nearly 1,500 competitorsfrom 60 countries will competein 56 skill competitions at thismega event in Kazan, Russia,which is on till August 27. Ourteam will participate in 44skills, including mobile robot-ics, prototype modelling, hair-dressing, baking, confectionaryand patisserie, welding, bricklaying, car painting, floristryand so much more.
Addressing the candidates,
Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey,Minister for Skill Developmentand Entrepreneurship, said,“My heartiest congratulationsto the 48 of you. You all willnow represent the country atthe world’s biggest skill compe-tition. My advice to you is tocompete in the true spirit ofparticipation and make Indiaproud on the global platformand at the same time learnfrom your international peerscompeting with you.Participating at events of suchscale adds to the larger cause ofskill development, which isintegral to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s vision of askilled India.”
Around 75 per cent ofparticipants come from tier IIand tier III cities, with 25 percent from rural areas.Candidates have been exposedto international training withindustry support from over 100companies.
The month long strike in response tothe call given by the three recognised
Defence Federations commenced onTuesday. The strike has been undertak-en to oppose the proposed corporatisa-tion of the Ordnance Factories.
It is, however, emphasised that theproposed policy of corporatisation ofOrdnance Factories by the Governmentof India is aimed at providing greater flex-ibility in day-to-day functioning,increased operational freedom and auton-omy in decision making, leading toenhanced productivity. This will enablethe Ordnance Factories to respond fasterto the futuristic needs of the ArmedForces and provide an impetus to theexport potential of its products.
CISF Wives WelfareAssociation, Sanrakshika,
has been playing a significantrole in helping the families andwards of CISF personnel toattain their full potential andthereby empowering them tocontribute in growth of theirfamily and society at large.
The association celebratedits sixth foundation day at SiriFort Auditorium. Sonal Shah,wife of Union Home Minister,was the chief guest on theoccasion.
Ranjeeta Ranjan, presi-dent of the association, said
that it has been our endeavourthat every member of theCISF family should becomeindependent and capable sothat a strong society can becreated. “Since its inception,the association has carriedout many activities such as,DG’s merit award in acade-mics, DG’s scholarship exclu-sively for wards of martyrs,financial assistance to spe-cially-abled wards of CISF,opening of computer centersand skill development centersat various locations,” sheadded.
petitive domain to tradi-tional Industry drivencompanies, SRM Instituteof Science and Technologyplans to set up a college ofagriculture inAcharapakkam inChengalpattu district. Thechancellor Dr TRPaarivendhar announcedon Monday. The chancel-lor Dr TR Paarivendhar,who is also the MP ofPerambalur, said that 200
acres has been reserved forthe college, where studentscan cultivate their ownland in a rural ambience toemerge as agri-entrepre-neurs instead of pursuinga career in an MNC.
“You have to apply
your mind on how to doagriculture and horticul-ture with modern technol-ogy and earn five timesmore than what you wouldearn in an MNC or by pur-suing a career in otherfields,” he said.
BHEL has installed 4x180 MWMangdechhu hydroelectric project at
Thimpu, Bhutan. It was inaugurated byNarendra Modi in the presence of Bhutan’sPrime Minister, Dr Lotay Tshering.
With this, it has demonstrated its engi-neering and project management skills anda commitment to undertake challenging jobsas part of its responsibility towards relationbuilding with neighbouring countries. TheMangdechhu Hydroelectric ProjectAuthority (MHPA) officials have appreciat-ed this effort.
BHEL has executed the electro-mechan-ical package for the project which includesdesign, manufacture, supply, transportation,storage, erection, testing and commission-ing of generating units and associated aux-iliaries including pelton turbines, generators,governors, MIV, etc along with balance ofplant items — bus duct, DC system, EOTcranes etc. The equipment have been sup-plied from BHEL’s manufacturing units atBhopal, Bengaluru, Rudrapur, Hyderabad,Jhansi and Mumbai, while erection andcommissioning on site was carried out bythe company’s power sector in easternregion, Kolkata.
The run-of-the-river hydroelectric plantconstructed on Mangdechhu river in Bhutanhas a gross head of 692 metre, with fournumbers pelton turbines generating 720MW from the project. The project has beenexecuted under difficult terrain conditionswith limited road connectivity as well as fre-quent disruptions during monsoons. Thispelton turbine is the highest rating verticalturbine, designed, manufactured and sup-plied by BHEL outside India. The state-of-the-art valmet DNA-based plant controlshave also been deployed by BHEL for thefirst time for a hydro power project outsideIndia.
The Government of India hastaken major initiatives to bring
development in the UnionTerritories of Jammu & Kashmirand Ladakh. The Institute ofCompany Secretaries of Indiaaligning with the initiatives of theGovernment of India haslaunched a special fee waiverscheme for the students there.
Launching the scheme,Jamyang Tsering Namgyal,Member of Parliament (LS),Ladakh, appreciated the efforts ofthe Institute and said, “This ini-
tiative will immensely contributetowards bringing the students ofLadakh to the main stream.”
Informing about the scheme,CS Ranjeet Pandey, president ofICSI said, “The Institute ofCompany Secretaries of India hasalways considered itself a proudpartner in the varied initiatives ofthe Government of India. Though
inclusive growth has been anagenda for the Government forlong, we at ICSI firmly believe thatthe achievement of such a goalfinds foundation in making avail-able quality education to one andall. We are hopeful that this ini-tiative shall open doors of educa-tion and opportunity for theyouth of the nation.”
Students belonging to J & Kand Ladakh, who have clearedtheir 12th or bachelor’s degreeshall be eligible for fee waiverwhile registering for CSFoundation Programme and CSExecutive Programme respective-ly.
It is expected that the aboveinitiatives will not only play sig-nificant role in promoting excel-lence but will also empower theyouth of J & K and Ladakh andbring them to the mainstream bynurturing their brilliance.
R|Elan, the next-gen fabricsfrom RIL (Reliance
Industries Limited), has joinedhands with fashion retailer NevaGarments, based out ofLudhiana.
The arrangement willenable R|Elan and Neva to offerthe best quality solutions to con-sumers across the country andmeet their ever growingdemand for comfortable appar-el in activewear, athleisure,sportswear, sleepwear andinnerwear.
Speaking about the partner-ship, Nirmal Kumar Jain, man-aging director, Neva GarmentsLimited said, “Neva has been acotton dominated brand in allits segments. For the last threeto four years, we have diversi-fied into active wear category,which is growing at a rapid rate.”
Further Niti Jain, director ofNeva, added, “Our quilted ther-mals are well appreciated andhave a strong presence acrossthe country with a loyal cus-tomer base.”
R|Elan has made a strongimpression by bringing in newgeneration of micro-polyesterswith various functional proper-ties like moisture management,wicking, odour-free antimicro-bial and more. The products likekooltex, feelfresh, airtherm havea great potential to combinewith cotton and also on a stand-alone basis to form great gar-ments with aesthetics and ataffordable prices. Thus there isa great synergy between boththe brands.
Injured by the negative and mali-cious behaviour of some council-
lors, additional municipal com-missioner Shiv Pujan Yadav hastransferred himself to the Lucknowdirectorate. The transfer is consid-ered a major setback for some BJPcouncillors and the mayor. This isthe first time in the history ofGhaziabad municipal corporationthat an officer had written to the UP
government and expressed hisdesire to transfer.
Ghaziabad is considered askamdhenu district for officers ofUttar Pradesh. Officers use politicalaccess to get the goods there. A fewdays ago, some BJP councillorsaccused Yadav of taking �78 lakh asscam, including financial irregular-ities in appointments of goods. Thecommittee was made in which the
allegations were found malicious.Despite getting a clean chit from theinquiry committee, some BJP coun-cillors tried to keep the matterintact. Therefore, Yadav wrote to theUttar Pradesh directorate about histransfer, and the government trans-ferred him. This shows that somecouncillors keep making ungratefulcomplaints against the officers totake them under pressure.
ensured they stayed in thelead and didn’t allow NewZealand to break throughtheir defense throughout thematch.
India’s at tack ingapproach in the match paidoff as they walked off thepitch as winners of the com-petition.
EVES EDGE PAST JAPANThe Indian women
hockey team also won theOlympic Test event withNavjot Kaur andLalremsiami leading the sideto a 2-1 win over Japan inthe final.
Navjot Kaur (11thminute) opened the scoringto put India ahead but the
lead was neutralised withina minute as Minami Shimizu(12’) scored for the hosts.
Lalremsiami (33’) struckthe winning goal for India.
India dominated the first10 minutes, and finally man-aged to find the break-through when For wardNavjot kept her ner vesunder pressure and pro-duced a fine finish in frontof the goal.
However, the nextminute saw Japan strike backimmediately with a well-crafted field goal which wasput into the back of the netby Shimizu to make it 1-1.
The second quarter sawboth the teams focus ontheir defensive structure and
tread carefully in the attack-ing third.
It was an aggressive startfrom the Indian team afterthe half-time break as theywon themselves a penaltycorner in the 33rd minute.
India’s prolif ic drag-flicker Gurjit Kaur steppedup to take the execution, buther shot was saved by theJapanese Goa lkeeperMegumi Kageyama.
However, the reboundfell to India’s young ForwardLalremsiami, who did notmake a mistake in puttingthe ball into the back of thenet to make it 2-1 for India.
It was a huge blow to thehosts who were finding itdifficult to cope up with
India’s rhythm, but aftersome tough battles in themidfield, the Japanese teamearned themselves back-to-back penalty corners in the42nd minute.
However, India’s defensewas up to the task, and madesure that they protected theirlead. India also had a penal-ty corner in the 45th minute,but could not extend theirlead.
The first chance of thelast quarter came India’s waybut Kageyama made a divingsave. Japan too got back-to-back penalty corners butIndian Goalkeeper Savitamade a great save on the sec-ond attempt to make surethat India saw out a 2-1 win.
����� � ',.�
Two-time Silver medallist P VSindhu produced a com-
manding performance in heropening match at the BWFWorld Championships here onWednesday.
Sindhu, who had reachedthe finals ofIndonesia Open lastmonth, looked ingood touch as shecontrolled the ralliesand outsmartedChinese Taipei's PaiYu Po 21-14, 21-14 in a 43-minute contest.
The fifth seeded Indian,who received a bye in the open-ing round, is likely to face USA’sBeiwen Zhang, seeded ninth, inthe pre-quarterfinals.
Sindhu, an Olympic Silvermedallist, had lost to Zhang atthe India Open finals last year.
In the first game, Sindhumoved ahead from 5-5 to slow-ly create a gap and entered theinterval with a 11-7 lead.
After the break, Sindhu con-tinued to surge and grabbed sixgame points when Pai made anerror in judgement at the back-
line. The Indian sealed it with across court return.
Sindhu zoomed to a 6-1 leadin the second game before Paistarted constructing the ralliesand narrowed the deficit to 5-7.
Sindhu’s unforced errorsalso made life easy for theTaiwanese girl, who showed
some greatskills andmanaged toenter theinterval witha 11-10 leadafter Sindhu
found the net.The Indian, however,
changed gears after the break,dishing out some good-lookingstrokes to eventually entermatch point at 20-14 when herrival missed a shuttle at thebackline.
She sealed the match nextwith a precise on-the-linereturn.
Among others, the Indianpairing of Jakkapudi Meghanaand Poorvisha S Ram wentdown 8-21, 18-21 to eighthseeds Shiho Tanaka and KoharuYonemoto of Japan in thewomen’s doubles competition.
�����D&������������������� "������� ������ !
����� 016;1
The Indian men’s hockeyteam won the Olympic
Test event here onWednesday, beating NewZealand 5-0 to avenge the lossit endured in their roundrobin clash.
Captain HarmanpreetSingh (7th minute) set theball rolling before ShamsherSingh (18th minute) ,Ni lakanta Sharma (22ndminute), Gursahibjit Singh(26th minute) and MandeepSingh (27th minute) scoredfor India at the Oi HockeyStadium here.
India had lost 1-2 to NewZealand earlier in roundrobin league-stage.
“We played very well. Wemanaged to score our oppor-tunities at the start of thegame,” Harmanpreet saidafter the triumph.
“I think the final wasalways going to be tough, we
lost to New Zealand earlier.But we had been having prac-tice sessions after that andworked on our mistakes towin today,” he added.
Both teams began thematch on a cautious note byturning over the ball in themid-field. India won a penal-ty corner in the seventhminute, but couldn’t capi-talise on the opportunity.
However, sk ipp erHarmanpreet didn’t miss outon a re-awarded penalty cor-ner. He executed a perfectdragflick to put India in thelead.
The Indian team contin-ued to hold possession andput tremendous pressure onthe New Zealand defense asthey ended the first quarter at1-0.
Shamsher scored India’ssecond goal through a penal-ty corner in the 18th minute.
New Zealand managed tomake only two circle entries
in the second quarter as theIndian team scored threemore goals.
Nilakanta found the backof the net in the 22nd minuteb efore Gursahibj i t andMandeep scored in quick suc-cession.
Vivek Prasad interceptedthe ball brilliantly to assist agoal for Gursahibjit andMandeep converted a penal-ty corner just before the half-time whistle.
After an action-packedf i rs t ha l f , the intens itydropped from both sides.New Zealand tried to make afew inroads in the third quar-ter as they took a shot in the37th minute which went wideof the post.
Jarmanpreet Singh saveda penalty corner in the nextminute as India and NewZealand played out a goallessquarter but the former heldthe lead at 5-0.
In the last quarter, India
�����.1+-1+�
England batsman Jason Roy haspassed a concussion test after
being hit in the nets ahead of the thirdAshes Test against Australia atHeadingley.
The 29-year-old opener wasstruck by a throw-down from ex-England international MarcusTrescothick, working with the teamin a temporary coaching capacity,during practice on Tuesday.
Roy was assessed after taking theblow and was able to continue batting.But he also required a follow-up checkon the eve of the match onWednesday to determine any delayedsymptoms.
Roy, 29, will be assessed againbefore the third Test starts onThursday.
Meanwhile Ollie Pope, a Surreyteam-mate of Roy's, has been placedon standby.
The 21-year-old Pope, who hasplayed two Tests, is now on his wayto Leeds.
But England captain Joe Root saidhe expected Roy to play, tellingreporters at Headingley onWednesday: "Jason's been monitoredquite closely as you'd expect.
"He's undergone a couple of con-cussion tests so far and scored reallywell. So as it stands, I fully expect himto be fit and ready to go tomorrow."
Roy averages just 10 in fourinnings this series, having only made
his Test debut earlier this season afterstarring at the top of the order inEngland's victorious World Cup win-ning campaign.
England coach Trevor Bayliss
said Roy may be more suited to themiddle-order in Test cricket but Rootinsisted he could be a success as anopening batsman.
"I obviously think he should
open, otherwise he'll be batting atfour," said Root.
"I think there's a lot of talk aboutthe batting order because of the vari-ety of options we have.
"At no stage are we trying to rein-vent the wheel.
STRUGGLING"But we've got to play to our
strengths and be quite flexible overthe course of the series. But I feelJason can have a real big impact at thestart of an innings.
"It might not have happened justyet but we fully expect him to go outand do that."
Meanwhile Australia captain TimPaine, whose Ashes-holders are 1-0up in the five-match series, said hisside were not taking Roy lightly.
"Opening the batting in Testcricket in England is difficult," he said.
"I know our guys are struggling alittle bit as well to get the runs theywould like. It's international cricket,it's tough," the wicketkeeper added.
"We've seen Jason Roy play amaz-ing innings in one-day cricket, we'veseen David Warner do the samething in the early days of his career,and sometimes it takes a little bit oftime to get used to Test cricket andthe differences in that.
"We've seen that Jason is a high-ly-skilled batsman and on his day hecan take a game away from you so atno point do we think or treat him likewe've got the wood over him."
���� .,,-'
Australia captain Tim Painesays the tourists will not be
intimidated by England fastbowler Jofra Archer and hasbacked misfiring batsmanDavid Warner to hit form inthe third Ashes Test atHeadingley.
Paine was full of praise forArcher, whose raw pace elec-trified the drawn second Testas he took five wickets andpeppered the Australians withbouncers, leaving Steve Smithwith concussion that has ruledhim out of the match in Leeds.
But Paine said Australia’sbatsmen were used to facingpace and had a few usefulspeedsters of their own.
“It’s fantastic to see a youngcricketer with so much talentcome onto the scene and it wasa bit of a buzz to face him atLord’s,” Paine wrote in a col-umn for the Australian news-paper.
“He’s fast for sure, but inAustralia we’ve been broughtup facing guys of his pace.
“Every time we have a net(session) we have MitchellStarc, Pat Cummins and JamesPattinson coming at us like weare the opposition.”
Paine said Smith’s replace-ment Marnus Labuschagne,who scored 59 when he cameon as Test cricket’s inauguralconcussion substitute, showedthe depth of Australia’s squad.
He was unconcernedabout Warner’s lack of form,which has seen the left-handerscore only 18 runs in four
innings. “David Warner hasn’thit his straps yet and I noticepeople getting a bit triggerhappy on that subject, but I amnot worried,” he wrote.
“We are 1-0 up in theseries and he hasn’t got out ofthe blocks. He is a match win-ner... he is also the most men-tally tough cricketer I know. Heis due a score and that is a div-idend I am looking forward to.”
Meanwhile, formerAustralia paceman AndyBichel has labelled Englandcaptain Joe Root a “blatantcheat” over a disputed catch onthe final day of the second Test.
Root took a low catch toend Labuschagne’s innings,with replays suggesting the ballmay have bounced first,although the England skipperlater insisted it had carried.
“It didn’t carry. We can seethat,” Bichel told MacquarieSports Radio.
“It’s ricocheted off theplayer as well so it’s bobbled alittle bit to him, so thereforehe’d know if he’s picked it upon the half volley — it’s blatantcheating.”
'SAME OLD SMITH'Australia captain Tim
Paine is expecting the “sameold Steve Smith” when the starbatsman eventually returns toAshes action.
“Steve Smith’s the bestplayer in the world, he willcome back in the next Test, ifit’s the next Test, or the tourgame and we’re expecting himto be the same old SteveSmith,” said Paine.
“He’s a high-quality play-er and he’ll adapt as he alwayshas.”
Smith, whose Test averageof 63.24 is exceeded only by all-time great Donald Bradman,marked his return to Test dutyafter a 12-month ball-tamper-ing ban with innings of 144and 142 in Australia’s 251-runwin in the first Test atEdgbaston before making 92 atLord’s.
“Steve loves batting, I don’tthink that’s going to change,”Paine told reporters atHeadingley on Wednesday.
“Marnus is strange, heseems to enjoy getting hit onthe head, so he’s a different ket-tle of fish altogether. Marnushas handled himself exception-ally, his innings was unbeliev-able after that happened.”
Smith could return toaction in the three-day tourgame against Derbyshire fromAugust 29-31, with the fourthTest in a five-match series atOld Trafford beginning onSeptember 4.
The wicketkeeper added:“Clearly they are huge shoes tofill and we don’t put all thatpressure on Marnus.”
Meanwhile, England cap-tain Joe Root said he wouldhave no qualms about a play-er withdrawing from a matchbecause of concussion.
“I think you have to givethe responsibility to the doc-tors and if they say he’s not fit,regardless of the situation inthe game, then that has tostand,” said Root during hispre-match conference.
���� �%+/�&
Bayern Munich CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has
suggested that Renato Sanchesand Jerome Boateng may beheading for the exit door atBayern Munich, telling SkyGermany that both players willfind it difficult to break into thefirst team this season.
Portuguese midfielderSanches and German defenderBoateng have both pushed fora move away from Bayern inrecent months. Both havedropped down the peckingorder in their positions.
Sanches, 22, was fined10,000 Euros ($11,100) by theclub after he publicly com-plained of a lack of game timeand stated his desire to leavefollowing a cameo appearancein Bayern's 2-2 draw withHertha Berlin last Friday.
"Renato is a player whowants to play, and I can under-stand that. We need to find asolution that also suits thecoach and the club,"Rummenigge told Sky.
The Bayern CEO expressedsympathy for Sanches, whohas made just 17 starts forBayern since arriving threeyears ago with a winner's medaland Young Player of theTournament award from Euro2016.
"He came to us as a goldenboy and newly crownedEuropean Champion threeyears ago. Now he has lost his
place in the national team, andhe needs to play if he wants toget it back," said Rummenigge.
Yet the CEO admitted thatit would it would "not be easy"for Sanches to compete withnew signing Philippe Coutinho.
He added that the samewas true of veteran defenderJerome Boateng, following thearrival of Lucas Hernandezand Benjamin Pavard.
"(Boateng) will not find iteasy to get regular game time,"said Rummenigge.
"If he wants to leave theclub, he needs to tell us."
Boateng, 30, appeared cer-tain to leave Bayern at the endof last season after club presi-dent Uli Hoeness advised himto "find a new club".
Yet his departure wasthrown into doubt after MatsHummels returned to BorussiaDortmund. Coach Niko Kovacinsisted last week that the 2014World Cup winner remainedpart of his plans.
to world No 30 Benoit Paire inthe second round to crash out ofthe Winston Salem Open ATP250 tournament here.
The left-handed Indian,ranked 89, could convert justone of his five break chances tosuffer a 3-6, 5-7 loss to hisFrench opponent in a match thatlasted one hour and 10 minuteson Tuesday night.
Prajnesh struggled from thebeginning as Paire broke hisserve to take an early 2-0 lead.The Indian could not recoverfrom that, conceding the first settamely.
In the second set, Prajneshheld his serve but faltered in the11th game giving Paire thematch-winning lead.
Serving for the match, theFrenchman made no mistakesand avenged his Indian Wellsloss from earlier this year.
Although Paire committedmore double faults thanPrajnesh, he hit 14 aces com-pared to the Indian’s three.
In the doubles event, wildcard entrants Leander Paes andhis Israeli partner JonathanErlich, crashed out in the firstround.
The Paes-Erlich pair lost tothe duo of Rajeev Ram and JoeSalisbury 2-6, 3-6.
NAGAL IN 2ND ROUND��2����4�Young Indian tennisplayer Sumit Nagal earned hisfirst win at a Grand Slam qual-ifying event, knocking out sea-soned Japanese Tatsum Ito instraight sets at the US Openqualifiers, here.
Nagal, placed at a career-best 190 right now, knocked outthe 133rd ranked and 26th seed7-6 (6), 6-2 in one hour and 52minutes on Tuesday.
Last year, he had competedin the qualifiers of the AustralianOpen, the French Open and theWimbledon Championships butcould not win a round.
This is Nagal’s first attemptat making the Grand Slam sin-gles main draw this season inwhich he enjoyed considerablesuccess and broke into the top-200.
���$��� �(����������������
�����D.������������������� "������� ������ !
������1.1��1�
New Zealand will behoping to add to Sri
Lanka’s poor record at theirown Oval ground and level the series in the second andfinal Test starting today.
Unlike the spinner’s paradise at Galle and the bat-ting heaven that is the SSC, the Oval — the only groundin Asia where Don Bradman played — favours seambowlers.
Sri Lanka have been often exposed here by qualityseam bowlers and one up in the two-match series, theywill have New Zealand’s Trent Boult and Tim Southee— and possibly Neil Wagner — to contend with.
In the last 10 years, Sri Lanka have played sevengames at The Oval and lost five, including once to NewZealand. In that game seven years ago, Southee claimedeight wickets while Boult finished with seven.
“We have some fond memories from last time, andwe managed to win that,” New Zealand wicketkeeper BJWatling said at a pre-match media briefing onWednesday.
Left-arm quick Wagner claimed nine wickets in NewZealand’s last Test match and was unlucky to miss outin Galle as conditions heavily favoured spin. He is expect-ed to make a return possibly at the expense of MitchellSantner.
The opening Test was a lot closer than the six-wick-et margin suggests and the New Zealanders know thatfielding lapses cost them dearly after setting Sri Lankaa daunting task of 268 runs.
Sri Lanka, meanwhile, will leave out off-spinner AkilaDananjaya, whose action was reported to be suspect fora second time by match officials after the Galle Test.
Dananjaya, who claimed a five-wicket haul in theopening game, was forced to remodel his action after itwas first reported in November last year.
Technically he is allowed to play the second Test, buthe is likely to travel to India instead to test his action.Dilruwan Perera has been drafted into the squad and isexpected to play.
Sri Lanka will move up to the number five of theofficial ICC rankings if they win the second Test and theseries.
More importantly, it will give them a strong start inthe World Test Championship.
�� ��.,,-'
Australia coach Justin Langer has toldhis side to avoid being drawn into a
bouncer battle after Steve Smith was ruledout of the third Ashes Test againstEngland.
Star batsman Smith suffered delayedconcussion symptoms after being hit onhis neck by a 92 mph bouncer fromEngland fast bowler Jofra Archer duringthe drawn second Test at Lord’s.
His absence from the third Test atHeadingley starting today leaves Australiawith a huge hole to fill.
Smith marked his return to Testcricket after a 12-month ball-tamperingban with innings of 144 and 142 duringAustralia’s 251-run win in the first Test atEdgbaston.
He also made 92, having retired hurtafter being hit when on 80, at Lord’s whereMarnus Labuschagne, Test cricket’s firstconcussion substitute, made a brave fiftyin the second innings after being hit flushon the grille of his helmet by Archer.
World Cup-winning fast bowlerArcher struck several telling blows on aTest debut that yielded five wickets.
Australia also have plenty of fast-bowl-ing firepower at their disposal in PatCummins, Josh Hazlewood and MitchellStarc. But Langer insisted his side wouldnot be sidetracked from their goal ofbecoming the first Australia side in 18years to win an Ashes series in England.
“We know what our plans are to beatEngland,” Langer told reporters atHeadingley, where the third Test starts ontoday.
“It’s not an ego game,” the formerAustralia opening batsman insisted.
“We’re here to win the Test match, notto see how many bruises we can give.
“I’m sure the bouncer will still be partof every bowler’s armoury, if it helps us getbatsmen out then we’ll use it, otherwisewe’ll keep sticking to the plan.”
England are still without JamesAnderson after their all-time leadingwicket-taker broke down with a calfinjury after bowling just four overs atEdgbaston.
Smith and England opener Rory
Burns apart, both top-orders have strug-gled in the face of some quality fast bowl-ing.
But England have stuck by Jason Roy,even though the World Cup-winningopener averages just 10 in four innings thisseries.
Roy, however, has mainly been a mid-dle-order batsman in first-class cricketwith Surrey. England coach Trevor Baylisshinted at a reshuffle in the batting line-up,if not in personnel.
“We think we’ve got the best seven bat-ters available to us at the moment inEngland... Whether we can change itround and make that (order) any better,I’m not sure, but we’ll certainly have a dis-cussion about it,” he said.
“There’s one or two batting spots inthe wrong positions but we’re trying to dothe right thing by the team,” England’sAustralian coach added.
Now the question is can England, whohad Australia 122-8 in their first inningsat Edgbaston only for Smith to steer hisside to 284, take advantage of his absence?
England will look for more heroicsfrom Archer and hope that, with BenStokes fresh from an unbeaten century atLord’s, someone can give their attackenough runs to play with.
������+1)0&�'1%+-�
Aperfect combination and a winningstart will be foremost on skipper ViratKohli’s mind when India take on West
Indies in their inaugural World TestChampionship opener here on Thursday.
A win in the opening Test will be the27th for Kohli as skipper and will put himon even keel with his predecessor MahendraSingh Dhoni. A century in the game (19thas captain) will place him on par with RickyPonting.
On paper, a batting line-up that hasKohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul, RohitSharma and Rishabh Pant in the ranksshould be termed clear favourites but thisWest Indies team, led by Jason Holder, is nopushover.
England found that out the hard way atthe start of the year when they lost a Testseries 1-2 in some of the most lively pitch-es on the Caribbean islands in recent times.
One such pacer-friendly wicket was atthe Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antiguawhere Kohli and his men will be facing theWindies first up.
The last Test played here saw Englandscoring 187 and 132 but that was a differ-ent time of the year.
Nevertheless, Kohli and head coach RaviShastri, who recently got a fresh contract, willbe wary of the challenge that can be posedby the new ball pair of Kemar Roach andShannon Gabriel along with Jason Holderbowling his steady seam-up spells.
If there is pace and bounce, Kohli is like-ly to go with four specialist bowlers in whichRavichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadavwill be fighting for the lone spinner’s slot.
The three pacers, in all likelihood, willbe Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma andMohammed Shami.
However, it is the batting combinationthat will be the skipper’s primary worry andif he can get it right, that will be consideredas a tactical victory.
In an ideal situation, if Hardik Pandyawas available, Kohli would have been tempt-
ed to drop one among Rohit Sharma andAjinkya Rahane but given the recent recordof West Indies in Tests, he might go in withan extra batsman which means both will fea-ture in the playing XI.
If a green-top is provided and Kohli stillgoes with five bowlers which includesRavindra Jadeja as an all-rounder, it couldwell be a toss-up between the two
Mumbaikars.The other issue will be at the top of the
order as to who will open with MayankAgarwal.
The common logic says KL Rahul, whois a specialist opener, but Hanuma Vihari wassent to do the fire-fighting in Australia andit would be unfair to not give him anotheropportunity against a relatively easier pace
attack.The West Indies team in the Test format
has been an understated one with playerswho have more talent than what the num-bers currently show.
In Shai Hope, John Campbell andShimron Hetmyer, they have the three tal-ented youngsters.
Roston Chase, during the 2016 seriesagainst India, had thwarted Ashwin for awhole fifth day in Kingston after West Indieswere staring at an innings defeat. In addi-tion to that, he is a steady off-spinner with50 Test wickets.
Darren Bravo is their most experiencedbatsman with 52 Tests and nearly 3500 runsunder his belt.
However, the kind of talent he is, anaverage of 38 plus with only eight hundredsdoesn’t justify that.
All eyes will also be on whether, the new“giant” of world cricket, Rahkeem Cornwallis given an opportunity.
His imposing physical structure mayhave grabbed attention but Cornwall has alsobeen a performer with his effective off-breaks and handy lower-middle-order bat-ting.
Former Test captain Anil Kumble’sability to boost confidence of the
players makes him an ideal candidatefor the role of chairman of selectors,said Virender Sehwag, who alsoadvocated a hike in remuneration forthe job.
Never to mince his words, formeropener Sehwag said BCCI needs topay more for heading the selectors’committee.
The current selection panel, ledby MSK Prasad, has faced a lot of flakfor it being a lightweight with a cumu-lative experience of 13 Tests.
“I think Anil Kumblecould be the right candi-date for the chairman ofselectors post. He is some-one who has interactedwith Sachin (Tendulkar),Sourav (Ganguly) andRahul (Dravid) as aplayer and withyoungsters as acoach,” Sehwagtold reportersduring launch ofa new app ‘TheSelector’.
“When Imade a come-back (Australiaseries 2007-08),he (Kumble)came to my roomand said you willnot be dropped forthe next two series.That’s the kind ofconfidence a playerneeds,” said Sehwag.
However, Sehwagalso said that he doesn’tthink that Kumble willagree to do the job rightnow since the chairmangets �1 crore per annum.
“BCCI needs to raisebar as far as pay is con-cerned. Then a lot of play-ers will be interested,” saidSehwag.
Asked if he would alsobe interested in this post,Sehwag said that he doesn’tlike too many restrictions.
“I write columns, appearon TV and being selectorwill mean a lot ofrestrictions. I don’tknow whether Iwould like so many
restrictions,” the former Indian open-er said.
Sehwag, who had lost the race tobe India’s coach in 2017 to RaviShastri, said that he did not apply thistime.
“In 2017, the BCCI secretary and(late) Dr MV Sridhar (GM CricketOperations) asked me to apply so Iapplied. This time no one asked me,so I didn’t apply,” said Sehwag whenasked if he was amused in the man-ner Shastri was re-appointed thecoach.
As the talk veered towards play-ing XI for the first Test against WestIndies, Sehwag’s vote went to AjinkyaRahane if India played five bowlers.
“Ajinkya Rahane has been bat-ting at No 4 (No 5) so if it is a caseof five bowlers then he should play.Rohit Sharma comes in only if you
go with four bowlers,” Sehwagreasoned.
He also felt that“Mahendra Singh
Dhoni should havebatted at numberfive” in the WorldCup semi-finalagainst NewZealand.
“...Players likeHardik Pandya,who can play bigshots should havecome in at number
seven towards theend,” said the for-
mer India captain.He also expressed
his happiness at SSreesanth’s life banbeing reduced to sevenyears.
“I am very happyfor him. He now needsto play domestic crick-et,” he said.
Sehwag wasamused when he wasasked about sugges-tions on wearing neckguards in the wake ofSteve Smith recentinjury.
“Why do youneed to show yourneck to the bowler?You have a bat andyou are wearing ahelmet. In my entirecareer, I never used
chest pads,” Sehwagsaid.
������+,��-,.&/
Celebrated Indian boxer M C MaryKom on Wednesday said proven
performers should not be made toundergo selection trials and asserted thatshe did no wrong by seeking an exemp-tion from the ones for the world cham-pionships.
A controversy broke out over Mary’sselection for the women’s World BoxingChampionships in Russia after her com-petitor in the 51kg category, NikhatZareen, was refused a trial bout. Zareen,in a letter to the Boxing Federation ofIndia (BFI), alleged that she was stoppedfrom competing despite having a sched-uled trial bout.
Mary Kom, a six-time world cham-pion and an Olympic Bronze-medallist,was chosen by the BFI selection panelbased on her Gold medal-winning per-formances at the India Open and a sub-sequent tournament in Indonesia.
“Maybe, the BFI can change the pro-gramme altogether, no trial for boxerswho are performing well, they candirectly get the quota for any champi-onship or tournament,” Mary said on thesidelines of an event arranged by the AllIndia Gaming Federation.
The world championship is sched-
uled to be held in Russia in September-October.
“You look at other games like bad-minton, who gives trials? Did SainaNehwal and P V Sindhu give any trial?”she added.
Mary defeated Zareen in the semi-final of the India Open in Guwahati ear-
lier this year. When quizzed on her deci-sion to approach the BFI with a requestfor exemption, Mary Kom said shemerely left it on the federation and didnot pressurise it to rule in her favour.
“I felt weird about my decision butI had told BFI clearly you decide who isdoing better. If I have to give a trial ornot is not in my hands. The BFI decidesall these things, it’s upto them” she said.
Soon after this furore, Mary Komwas caught in the eye of the storm onbeing picked in the selection panel forthis year’s national sports awards. Thepoint of contention was her personalcoach Chhote Lal Yadav’s application forthe Dronacharya award.
Mary Kom recused herself from theselection committee’s proceedings aftera media storm on conflict of interest.Yadav was eventually not among thenominees finalised this year.
“This was my second time in thecommittee. I have recommended manycoaches and at that time there was nocontroversy. This time I don’t know whathappened, the media created a contro-versy, so I recused myself,” she said.
Mary Kom was part of the awardsselection committee for Dronacharya in2016 as well but her coach was not infray at that time.
����� �&,++ /�
Puneri Paltan registered a31-23 win against defend-
ing champions BengaluruBulls in a Pro-KabaddiLeague match at JawaharlalNehru Indoor Stadium hereon Wednesday.
A heavily bandagedSurjeet Singh at the centrewas the leader (6 tacklepoints) in the defensive unitfor Puneri Paltan, neverallowing the leagues bestraider, Pawan Sehrawat, toweave his magic.
Sagar Krishna came in fora struggling Girish Ernak ascoach Anup Kumar made thechanges to a faltering Puneside while the BengaluruBulls went in with an extradefender in the line-upbuoyed by the performancesof their two raiders in PawanSehrawat and Rohit Kumar.
It was the Pune teamwhich started off well, consis-tently tackling BengaluruBulls raiders, with SagarKrishna justifying his inclu-sion with an incredible bodyblock on Rohit Kumar sixminutes into the match.
The defensive unitsmatched each other tackle fortackle, as the raiders, includ-ing Punes Nitin Tomar strug-gled to impress.
A low-scoring, heavytackling first half, which alsosaw Sehrawat reach 100points for the season, endedwith scores even at 10-10.
Bengalurus decision toplay just two raiders backfired
as Paltans improved defencethwarted any raider who ven-tured into their territory.
Pune inflicted the game'sonly All-Out on BengaluruBulls in the sixth minute ofthe second half to open up an8-point gap.
Manjeets clever raids indo-or-die situations were alsovital for Pune as they raced toa two-digit lead.
The defence held firm, asSurjeet Singh completed apersonal milestone of 250points in Pro Kabaddi League,and secured a very importantvictory that pushed his teamup to 10th in the leaguestandings.
Bengalurus loss meantthey lost out on an opportu-nity to go to the top of thepoints table.
![[i] Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties - Survival Monkey Forums](https://static.documents.pub/doc/80x56/62392ecffe9d3a3bc308283f/i-shelters-shacks-and-shanties-survival-monkey-forums.jpg)
