VIJAYAWADA, SATURDAY APRIL 17 , 2021; PAGES 12 `3

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Yet another politicalparty in Telangana is

Quixotic

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SNV SUDHIRn VIJAYAWADA

The stage is set for the high stakesbattle for the Tirupati Lok Sabhaseat that will go for polling onSaturday.

All the main political parties whohave concluded their high decibelcampaign by Thursday eveningshifted focus to booth level pollmanagement till Friday.

YSRCP supremo and ChiefMinister YS Jaganmohan Reddy’spersonal physiotherapist MGurumoorthy, former Union Ministerof State Panabaka Lakshmi fromTDP, former bureaucrat K RatnaPrabha from BJP and Congress’sChinta Mohan are in the fray for theTirupati Lok Sabha by-poll.

The by-poll, which was necessi-tated due to the sudden demise ofthe sitting YSRCP MP Balli Durga

Prasad, is perceived to set the tonefor politics in the state in the nearfuture and especially the 2024 polls.

Though he didn’t campaign per-

sonally, Jaganmohan Reddy hadbeen busy with micro-planning andmanagement so that the party can-didate gets a thumping majority.

This will send a strong message tothe opposition, consolidate hisposition and vote bank as he com-pletes two years in office nextmonth.

The by-poll is more importantand prestigious for TDP chief NChandrababu Naidu as Tirupati isin Chittoor district where he start-ed his political career and learnedthe nuances of politics. It is fromthe SV University in Tirupati thatNaidu started his political career asa student leader.

Naidu considers Chittoor, espe-cially Tirupati, as his bastion.However, cracks have appeared inhis bastion as TDP supported can-didates had lost majority of grampanchayats in his home turf inKuppam Assembly constituencythat he has been representing forover two decades.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

In an apparent indication that thegovernment will not impose alockdown in Andhra Pradesh in thewake of rising number of Covid-19cases, Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy on Friday saidimposing such drastic restrictionshad worsened the financial condi-tion of the State and that people suf-fered a lot. He said that Covidshould be controlled withoutimposing a lockdown this time.

Jagan was addressing a videocon-ference with Collectors and SPs of

all the districts on the prevailingCovid-19 situation and vaccinationon Friday. Stating that the onlyeffective weapon against Covid-19is vaccination, he directed the offi-cials to focus on vaccination, testsand preparedness of hospitals.

Jagan directed the officials tofocus on controlling Covid-19through focused testing (testingprimary contacts of those whohave tested positive for Covid).

"Prepare PHCs and sub-centresto collect samples for testing," theChief Minister said, adding thatcomposition of 'positivity cases' was

62 percent in urban areas and 38percent in rural areas.

"However, mortality rate is high-er in rural areas. Deaths in positivecases are higher in rural areas asthey are going to the hospitals toolate," the Chief Minister said.

He said the second wave ofCovid-19 has taken the country inits grip and infections are also onthe rise in the state.

"From December to April, thepositive rate was 7.77 percent.While the rate of infection and pos-itivity is higher in Chittoor followedby Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam,

Krishna, Guntur and Nellore dis-tricts," he said.

The Chief Minister said that 1.55crore tests have been conducted inthe state since last year and 9.37lakh cases have been tested positive.The positivity rate in our state is6.03 percent while the recovery rateis 96.19 percent. At the same time,the national average recovery rateis only 88.9 percent, he added.

While the death rate in the stateis 0.78 percent, it is 1.24 percent atnational level, Jagan pointed out.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

The Andhra Pradesh govern-ment on Friday announced it hasno stock of Covid vaccine even asChief Minister YS JaganmohanReddy wrote another letter toPrime Minister Narendra Modi,requesting that 60 lakh doses beimmediately sent to the state.

On Friday, only about 4,300doses of the coronavirus vaccinecould be administered, the low-est in a day so far, before thestocks completely dried up.

The Chief Minister thanked thePrime Minister for sending 6.4lakh doses of the vaccine to AP(on April 12 and 13) in responseto his letter on April 9.

"I request you, sir, to instructthe officials concerned of HealthMinistry to supply 60 lakh dosesof Covid vaccine to my state toensure that all the populationabove 45 years is vaccinated forthe first dose in the next threeweeks," he said in the letter, thesecond he sent to the PM in aweek.

Jagan said 6,28,961 people werevaccinated in Andhra Pradesh onApril 14, "the highest single dayCovid vaccination numbers byany state in the country".

"We have not only establishedour capability of vaccinating oversix lakh people per day, but alsoset up a model for all the states toemulate. However, we could notcontinue the same drive as thevaccine stocks have completelyrun out," he said.

"The state was poised to makethe dream of vaccinating all vul-nerable people a reality in the nextthree weeks if sufficient stocks ofvaccine were made available,"Jagan said.

DHV SAMBASIVA RAOn KADAPA

The Archaeological Survey ofIndia has ordered some promi-nent temples being administeredby it in the state, including theOntimitta Kodandarama templein Kadapa district, to remainclosed for devotees at least till May15.

This has left in doubt the visitof Chief Minister YS JaganmohanReddy to the temple on April 26to present silk clothes and pearlsto deities on Sri Rama NavamiDay.

The Kodandarama temple was

closed at 10:30 am on Friday andits reopening depends on theintensity of the Covid-19 cases.

For the time being, the Centreordered its closure till May 15 inview of the spurt in the numberof Covid-19 cases.

Similarly, the ArchaeologyDepartment sent letters to EOs ofthree Lord Siva temples inSamalkot and Draksharamam andLord Subrahmanya Swami templein Bikkavolu in East Godavari dis-trict to close them till May 15because of the rising number ofcases.

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Districts, especially those border-ing other states, are facing anincreasing shortage of testing kits.

This is because neighbouringstates have Covid-19 negative testreports mandatory for entry intotheir jurisdiction and asympto-matic people are willing to gothrough the test due to surge incases.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Actor-politician and Jana SenaParty supremo K Pawan Kalyan onFriday confirmed that he has test-ed positive for Covid-19 and isundergoing treatment under thecare of expert doctors.

According to a statement issuedby the party, Pawan Kalyan hadrecently isolated himself aftermany of his staff members andothers working closely with himtested positive.

According to the statement,Pawan Kalyan had on April 3undergone a Covid-19 test onreturning from campaigning inTirupati for the upcoming LokSabha by-election. Although thetest returned negative, he hadbeen in quarantine in his farm-house on the advice of doctors.

However, the actor-politicianhas since been suffering from feverand body ache, the statement said.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Suspended IPS officer and formerstate intelligence wing chief, ABVenkateswar Rao has written to theCBI director, lamenting inaction bythe team of CBI's InvestigatingOfficer (IO) NM Singh intothe murder case of formerminister YS VivekanandaReddy and tardiness incollecting informationfrom him regarding themurder.

In a letter to the CBIchief on Friday, ABV said:"A few months after the CBItook up the case and coming toknow from newspaper reportsthat the case was not yet solved, Icontacted NM Singh telephonical-ly and offered to share whatever

information was available withme related to the case in an effortto help the investigators solve themurder."

In his letter, ABV goes on to saythat NM Singh agreed to take the

information but "therewas no effort from his

team in that direc-tion".

"I called himagain on July 22,2020 at his Delhioffice and

reminded him. Heagreed to direct his

team to gather theavailable information from

me but so far, there's no action," thesenior IPS officer said in his letter.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Chief Minister YS JaganmohanReddy on Friday launched the ‘APAmul Project’ in Guntur district vir-tually from his camp office here.

Speaking on the occasion, theChief Minister said the project wasstarted with a MoU signedbetween Amul and the StateGovernment on July 21 to give afillip to empowerment of womenself help groups by encouragingmilk cooperatives in theGovernment sector.

The ‘AP Amul Palavelluva’Project was started on December2 and milk has been collected in400 villages in Chittoor, YSRKadapa and Prakasam districts. Hesaid the AP Amul Project will startin Guntur and milk will be collect-ed from 129 villages in the districtand also in 174 villages in Chittoordistrict from today.

He said the women in 400 vil-lages are getting Rs 5 to Rs 7 morethan the existing price per litre andadded that milk was being collect-ed in some villages of his ownPulivendula constituency.

The Chief Minister said Amulhas been paying remunerativeprices in the market as it standseighth in the IFCN's rankings andits cooperative unit and the stake-holders are dairy farmers acrossthe state.

Jagan said Amul, which is acooperative movement, pays morethan the existing price per litre andthe profit earned would be distrib-uted among the stakeholders everysix months.

The Chief Minister said Amulproducts have been getting remu-nerative prices as the highest levelof processing of milk is being con-ducted in Amul and chocolates andice creams are produced as theprocessed foods and are beingexported foreign countries. Hesaid 41,44,000 litres of milk wascollected from 10,871 womendairy farmers in 400 villages ofChittoor, Kadapa and Prakasamdistricts from December 2 and Rs18.46 crore has been paid andadded that Amul has paid Rs 3.52crore more than the existing pricebenefiting women dairy farmers.

AP runs out of Covid vax stockn Jagan writes to Modi; officials optimistic 60 lakh doses will arrive by Sunday

ASI closes Ontimitta temple, mayaffect Rama Navami celebrations

Shortage oftesting kits,symptomaticget preference

Jagan launches AP Amul Project

Pawan Kalyan testspositive for Covid

Actor-politician K Pawan Kalyan recuperates after testing positive for Covid-19 on Friday.

No lockdown in AP, hints Jagann CM balances financial constraints and health, tells officials to control spread

ABV offers info onViveka murder to CBI

High stakes Tirupati by-poll today

Poll officials verify the polling material entrusted to them before leaving for their designatedbooths ahead of the Tirupati by-poll, on Friday.

‘STRONG EVIDENCE’ COVID PREDOMINANTLYSPREADS THROUGH AIR, SAYS LANCET STUDY

Anew assessment in the medical journal Lancethas found "consistent, strong evidence" thatthe SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes

Covid, is predominantly transmitted throughthe air. Therefore, public health measures thatfail to treat the virus as predominantlyairborne leave people unprotected and allowthe virus to spread, according to six experts,including Jose-Luis Jimenez, a chemist at theCooperative Institute for Research inEnvironmental Sciences and the University of ColoradoBoulder. The team of experts, led by the University of Oxford's TrishGreenhalgh, reviewed published research and identified 10 lines ofevidence to support the predominance of the airborne route.

PAK ORDERS ‘COMPLETE BLOCKING’OF SOCIAL MEDIA TEMPORARILY

The Pakistan government on Friday orderedan hours-long shut down of social mediaand instant messaging platforms, after

days of violent anti-France protests. In anotice to the Pakistan TelecommunicationAuthority, the Interior Ministry requested a"complete blocking" of Twitter, Facebook,Whatsapp, YouTube and Telegram until 3pm(1100 GMT). It gave no reason for the ban,but it comes a day after French nationals andcompanies in Pakistan were advised by theirembassy to temporarily leave in the wake of the rallies led by anextremist party that paralysed large parts of the country and lefttwo police officers dead.

BS YEDIYURAPPA TESTS POSITIVE,SECOND TIME IN MONTHS, HOSPITALISED

Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappatoday tweeted to say that he had testedpositive for the novel coronavirus. In a

brief post on Twitter, Mr Yediyurappa saidthat he was fine but had been hospitalisedon the advice of doctors. The 78 year-oldYeddiyurappa was earlier hospitalised onAugust 2, 2020 after he tested positive forcoronavirus. "Upon having mild fever, today Igot tested for Covid-19 and my report hascome out positive. Although I am doing fine, I ambeing hospitalised based on the advice of doctors. I request allthose who have come in my contact recently to be observant andexercise self-quarantine," the Chief Minister's tweet read.

‘NEED TO DO BETTER JOB FOR EMPLOYEES’:JEFF BEZOS IN LAST LETTER AS CEO

US tech giant Amazon on Thursdaysounded conciliatory notes as theUS government considers stricter

regulatory measures against America'slargest digital platforms. Founder JeffBezos told investors his e-commerceempire needs a better "vision" for itsworkers, just days after an effort to cre-ate the company's first labor union wasdefeated. Some Amazon executives hadfired off snappy comments at various politi-cians who supported the labor campaign, but their chief execu-tive took a more circumspect approach to the anti-union victoryat its plant in Bessemer, Alabama.

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Ahead of launching herpolitical party on July 8,

YS Sharmila, daughter of for-mer chief minister YSRajasekhar Reddy, sat on fastin Hyderabad on April 15demanding among otherthings, employment to youthin Telangana. She declaredthat she would continue heragitation for the filling up ofthe government vacancies.

Anyone who observedSharmila’s political statementsmade so far referring toTelangana State, will con-clude that she has no clueabout the developedTelangana and the way it hasbeen made a role model byChief Minister KChandrashekhar Rao duringthe last seven years.

Sharmila is merely makingdemands that lack essence,basis or evidence. So far, thereasons present by her onwhy she is launching a partyhave no takers.

At the Khammam publicmeeting, she said she wants toquestion the present dispen-sation. If that be so, Sharmilawill go down in history of thiscountry as the only personwho launched a politicalparty to merely question thestate government.

Which scheme, pro-gramme or project willSharmila question?

Is it the Kaleshwaram pro-ject, considered to be a man-made wonder and which haswon accolades the worldover? Will she question thegovernment on how it turnedTelangana, which was on theverge of power crisis, into apower surplus state?

Will she question the gov-ernment on why it is supply-ing quality and free power tothe agriculture sector anduninterrupted power to allsectors? Will she question theKCR Kits scheme which ishelping pregnant women orthe financial help to youngwomen of all communitiesfor their marriage throughKalyan Lakshmi and ShaadiMubarak schemes?

Will Sharmila question thegovernment on why it ishelping farmers throughRythu Bandhu and RythuBima? Will she question thegovernment for eradicatingillicit liquor and playing cardsclubs? Will she question thefinancial help to all the hered-itary professions in the Stateor the creation of SHE teams?The list is endless.

Unfortunately for

Sharmila, she does not havea single programme, policy orscheme that she can question!

In a vibrant democracylike ours, anybody can ques-tion the government butlaunching a political partycan never be the reason forthis.

No political leader or any-one ever had been successfullaunching a political party allby himself or herself.

In the past, leaders likeNadendla Bhaskar Rao, KEKrishnamurthy, Jana Reddy,Mudragada Padmanabham,Vijayashanti, A Narendra, PIndra Reddy, Devender Goudand others launched politicaloutfits and wound them upsooner or later.

At a time when nationalparties like the Congress andBJP are unable to make gainsagainst the TRS in the State,what will Sharmila gainunder these circumstances?

Why should people orleaders from other politicalparties rally behind her?There is absolutely no senti-ment or a great issue onwhich she can take a politicalride.

Telangana state does notrequire another political partyas there are a dozen alreadyin existence.

Since 1947, the Congresshad total control over thepolitical scenario in the coun-try till 1996, except in 1977-

79 (Morarji Desai) and 1989-90 (VP Singh).

The turning point came in1996 when the people gave afractured verdict.

For the first time, the BJPdethroned Congress andVajpayee became the PM for13 days. After the BJP failedto clear the floor test, 13regional parties formed theUnited Front that ruled fortwo years.

Since 1996, all regimes atthe Centre have been coali-tion governments, led eitherby the Congress or BJP. Sincethen, the days of a single partyforming the government atthe Centre were over till 2019when the BJP led by Modisecured 303 seats.

A cursory look at the riseand success of the regionalparties shows that their exis-tence and ability to come topower was always based onmass issue or sentiment.

In Tamil Nadu, the DMKand later AIADMK came topower and still exist drawingtheir strength from theDravidian movement.

Parties like the SamajwadiParty, BSP came into being onthe issues of SCs, STs,Minorities and BCs; TRS wasborn out of a people’s move-ment for separate TelanganaState.

TDP came to powerappealing to the Telugu prideand sentiment; CPI and CPMwere born out of Communistideology while the AIMIMand Akali Dal were formedon religious lines. AAP rodeto power on the issue ofstatehood for Delhi.

Sharmila’s party definitelydoes not fit into any of thesecategories.

The question remains —for what purpose is Sharmilalaunching her party, and atwhose behest?

Such experiments of start-ing new political parties arenothing but quixotic and endup like Don Quixote de laMancha as described in theSpanish novel written byMiguel de Cervantes.

Yet another political partyin Telangana is Quixotic

VANAM JWALA

NARASIMHA RAO

CHIEF PUBLIC RELATIONS

OFFICER OF CHIEF MINISTER

OF TELANGANA

At the Khammam public meeting,she said she wants to question thepresent dispensation. If that be so,Sharmila will go down in history ofthis country as the only person wholaunched a political party to merelyquestion the state government.Which scheme will she question?

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

The rapid surge in fresh casesof coronavirus in AndhraPradesh continued as 6,096were reported in 24 hoursending 9 am on Friday, a newhigh after October 6, while thestate also saw 20 more fatalities,the highest in a day in about sixmonths.

The number of active Covid-19 cases shot up to 35,592,another six-month high.

From 1,271 on April 1,thefresh daily cases in the secondCovid-19 wave saw a steepascent to 6,096 in the state now.

The (fresh) infection positiv-ity rate that was 4 percent at thebeginning of this month,swelled to about 15 percent inthe first fortnight, governmentdata revealed.

The overall positivity ratealso increased to 6.08 percent,against the national average of5.42 percent, after over 1.56crore tests were completed atthe rate of 2.92 lakh per millionpopulation.

The gross Covid-19 positiveshas now risen to 9,48,231.

In 24 hours, the state also

saw 2,194 recoveries, taking thetotal to 9,05,266.

The overall recovery ratethat once touched 99 percent,has now dipped to 95.8 per-cent, as per government data.

The case fatality rate in thestate slid to 0.78 percent.

Data showed that 62 percentof the fresh cases were beingreported in the urban areas, par-ticularly affecting the middleand above classes of the society.

Urban areas were alsoaccounting for 56 percent ofthe fresh fatalities.

A weekly analysis of thepandemic spread in the staterevealed that 99.7 percent of thecases were reported from exist-ing containment clusters and

only 0.3 percent from outside.In 99.7 percent of the cases,

the source of the infection hasbeen identified.

All the Covid-19 fatalitieswere reported from the existingclusters only, the analysis said.

In 24 hours, Chittoor districtreported 1,024 fresh cases ofCovid-19, the highest in a dayin a district in more than sixmonths, and five fatalities.

Temple town Tirupati aloneadded 339 new cases, makingit the single largest coronavirushotspot in Andhra Pradesh.

Chittoor’s cumulative posi-tives crossed 98,000 and theoverall toll touched 909. After90,695 total recoveries, it has6,428 active cases, the highest

in the state now.In the first 16 days, Chittoor

district added a sum of 8,231new cases and 42 deaths, mak-ing it the state topper.

Srikakulam district crossedthe 50,000 total cases mark andreached 50,214 as it added534 afresh in a day.

Of the 13 districts in AP,only Vizianagaram remainsbelow the 50,000 mark.

In 24 hours, East Godavaridistrict registered 750, Guntur735, Kurnool 550, Prakasam491, Visakhapatnam 489, SPSNellore 354, Anantapur 313,Vizianagaram 299, Krishna246 and Kadapa 243 new cases.

West Godavari district, thenative of Deputy Chief Minister(Health) AKK Srinivas (Nani),continues to report relativelylesser cases, adding only 68 ina day, though in the overall tallyit stands third in the state withclose to 95,000 positives.

In 24 hours, Krishna report-ed three, Anantapur, Kadapa,Kurnool, SPS Nellore,Prakasam and Visakhapatnamtwo fresh Covid-19 fatalitieseach, the health departmentbulletin said.

State records 6,096 Covidcases, 20 more succumb

Panchayat officer in ACB net for assetsPNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

ACB sleuths on Fridayunearthed disproportionateassets from the house of AguruVenkata Rao (52), the secretaryof the Pydibheemavaram pan-chayat, Ranasthalam Mandal inSrikakulam district.

According to the ACB,the officer was unable toexplain how he came to bein possession of dispropor-tionate assets worth Rs 1.38crore.

Accordingly, Venkata Raowas arrested and producedbefore the Special Courtfor SPE & ACB cases ,Visakhapatnam.

A case was registeredagainst him.

Earlier, searches wereconducted at the rentedresidential house of the

officer at Visakhapatnamand office premises of theacc us ed of f i cer atP ydibheemavaram in

Srikakulam.Residences of his relatives

at Arasada, Vangara Mandaland Tangudubilli village,

Nel l imar la Manda l ,Vizianagaram District werealso searched.

According to a release,Venkata Rao was appointedPanchayat Secretary in 1995and was presently workingat Pydibheemavaram ofSrikakulam district. He isalso holding Full AdditionalCharge for the post ofExtens ion Of f i cer,Panchayat Raj and RuralDevelopment.

Assets held in the nameof the accused and his fam-ily members were identifiedas :- one plot in the secondfloor of RK Residency atNaidu colony, Vizianaga-ram, three vacant sites atVisakhapatnam, one vacantsite at Srikakulam and sixvacant s i te s atVizianagaram.

Pawan Kalyan...Continued from Page 1

On taking the test again twodays ago, it returned positivefor the coronavirus.

According to the state-ment, Dr T Suman, a cardi-ologist from Khammam,came to Hyderabad to treatPawan Kalyan. “Necessarytests were also conducted. Hewas given antiviral drugs ashe has suffered infection inlungs, and was also providedoxygen support. His brotherK Chiranjeevi and nephewRam Charan are making nec-essary arrangements for histreatment,” the statementsaid.

“A medical team fromApollo Hospital has exam-ined Pawan Kalyan as well.Medications have been givento reduce fever and nausea inthe lungs. Producer NagaVamsi is staying with PawanKalyan to oversee necessaryarrangements,” the Jana SenaParty said in its statement.

Jagan launches AP Amul Project Continued from Page 1

The Chief Minister said tostrengthen Amul and benefitwomen dairy farmers, throughAP-Amul project, 9899 villagesacross the State will be broughtunder milk production, whereBulk Milk Cooling Units(BMCU) and Automatic MilkCollection Units (AMCU) willbe set up with an expenditure of

Rs 4,000 Crore. The Chief Minister said

quality animal feed will be sup-plied to Dairy farmers throughRytu Bharosa Kendras in com-ing days.

The Chief Minister said heis committed to empower-ment of women and listed outthe women oriented welfareschemes and programmesbeing implemented in the state.

ABV offers info on Viveka...Continued from Page 1

ABV added it was surpris-ing that the CBI investiga-tion team did not taken anyinterest when a DGP-ranked police officer, thattoo one who was serving asDG, Intelligence at the timeof the murder, has been vol-unteering to provide infor-mation to help solve a seri-ous murder case whichremained unsolved formore than a year after theCBI took it over.

"This is to request you todirect the investigating thecase to collect whateverinformation I have andplace it on record. I also

request you to direct theinvestigating team to collectwhatever information wasgathered by the IntelligenceDepartment around thetime of the murder. It canbe obtained from the APIntelligence office and alsoby examining the officersand men concerned," ABVadded.

In the letter Rao also said

that the murder evokedseveral rounds of seriousallegations between politi-cal parties back and forthand the public atmospherewas getting vitiated as aresult.

"Since it was electiontime and there was a like-lihood of breakdown ofpublic order as a result ofthe heat generated by themurder, the IntelligenceDepartment of APdeployed its resources togather information thatmight help the investigatorssolve the murder quickly.And all the informationgathered was shared withthe investigators," he added.

High stakes Tirupati by-poll todayContinued from Page 1

It would be interesting to seeif voters in Tirupati heedNaidu’s call to teach a lessonto Jaganmohan Reddy.

It’s worth mentioning thatPanabaka Lakshmi had lost2019 polls by a massivemargin to YSRCP candi-date.

In 2019, the YSRCP can-didate won with 2.28 lakhvotes and this time around,the party supremo has setthe margin of victory of atleast 5 lakh votes as the tar-get.

If the total polling per-centage and vote share of2019 polls is taken into con-sideration, for YSRCP tosecure more than 5 lakh votemargin, the total voting per-centage had to either go upby at least seven to eight per-cent and there should be atleast 14 percent drop in theTDP’s vote share.

As per the 2019 poll data,of the total electorate inTirupati Lok Sabha segment16,09,668, around 12,87,734exercised their franchisewhich means the pollingpercentage stood at 80 per-cent.

Of the total polled votes,YSRCP candidate secured 56pc of the votes and the TDPcandidate got 38 pc. If thetotal polling percentagedrops to 70 pc, that meanstotal polled votes would be

11.26 lakh. If the 2019 trend is taken

into consideration in thegiven scenario of 70 percenttotal polling percentage,then YSRCP will get 6.3lakh and TDP will secure4.28 lakh votes then themajority of the YSRCP can-didate will be only 2 lakhvotes.

If the TDP’s performancedips and its voting percent-age drops by 9 percent, thenthe YSRCP majority wouldstand at 3.94 lakh votes.

However, if the YSRCPcandidate wants to secure 5lakh votes majority, the totalpoll percentage has toincrease to at least 87 percentto 88 percent and also theTDP’s vote share shoulddrop to less than 24 percentfrom the 38 percent in 2019polls.

It would be interesting tosee how many votes the BJPand Jana Sena combine get.

AP runs out...Continued from Page 1

The state government set atarget of vaccinating 24 lakhpeople during the four-day'Tika Utsav' (April 11 to 14).

However, the target couldnot be accomplished as boththe Covaxin and Covishieldstocks went dry by the firstday of the four-day nation-wide event.

The 6.4 lakh doses sent bythe Centre on April 12 and 13enabled AP to accomplish atotal of 7.15 lakh vaccinationsduring the Tika Utsav.

AP has so far received atotal of 46 lakh doses.

The Medical and HealthDepartment said in a releaseon Friday that 28,677 peoplewere inoculated (first andsecond doses) in the state onApril 15 and, with that, theentire Covid-19 vaccinestocks have been exhausted.

ASI closes Ontimitta temple...Continued from Page 1

Srirama Navami is scheduled tobe celebrated at the temple onApril 26. Annually the celestialwedding of Lord Ram with hisconsort Goddess Sita takes placeon that day.

Since bifurcation of the State in2014, the annual Srirama Navamiis celebrated at Ontimitta Sriramatemple in Kadapa.

Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy is sched-uled to present silk clothes andpearls to deities at OntimittaLord Sri Rama temple on April26 and arrangements for hisvisit were underway.

The Centre took the deci-sion to close temples being rununder the Archaeology depart-ment which have more foot-falls of devotees to preventspread of the virus among the

people. Besides the Ontimitta tem-

ple, the Pushpagiri temple andthe Soumyanatha temple atNandalur have been closed.The ASI has made it clear thatthe orders of the centre willcome into effect immediately.

Last year, the Kodandaramacelestial wedding was con-ducted without the participa-tion of the devotees in the pres-ence of some priests and offi-cials.

K Srivenkateswara Swamy,administrative officer of theASI, Amaravati Circle, onFriday sent letters to the EOsof Sri Kumara BhimeswaraSwamy temple at Samalkot, SriBheemeswara Swamy templeat Draksharamam and SriSubrahmanya Swamy templein Bikkavolu and asked themto close their doors for the

devotees. These temples have high

footfall of devotees. Thoughthe Endowments Departmentruns them, these shrines arevery ancient and are under thecontrol of the ArchaeologyDepartment at the Centre.

The EOs of the temples —Puli Narayana Murty, KNVDPrasad and CHSubrahmanyam — on Fridayconfirmed that they havereceived the letters.

They brought it to the noticeof the deputy commissionerMedepalli Vijayaraju, who clar-ified that the letters would beforwarded to the EndowmentsCommissioner and the templeswould be closed after hisorders. The commissioner’sdecision would be madeknown to the archaeologydepartment, he added.

No lockdown in AP, hints JaganContinued from Page 1

He asked officials to createawareness on Covid-19 usingvolunteers, Asha workers andANMs and conduct tests to thepeople identified with symp-toms during the survey. Hedirected the district collectorsto hold review meetings withJoint Collectors every day onCovid situation and prepared-ness of hospitals.

The Chief Minister said 108hospitals are empanelled forCovid-19 treatment and of the15,669 beds available in thosehospitals, 4,889 are occupied.He directed the officials toincrease the availability of bedsin the hospitals.

Jagan also instructed the offi-cials to ensure oxygen facilities,infrastructure, food quality inhospitals, sanitation, medica-tion, doctors, para medical staffare adequate in hospitals as it's

the responsibility of the govern-ment. He said 13,500 beds areavailable in Covid care centresand they should be increased to50,000 and the patients with noseparate room for isolation intheir homes should be shifted toCovid care centres.

The Chief Minister askedofficials to ensure GO 77 andGO 78 are implemented andtake stringent action against pri-vate hospitals that charge inexcess for Covid treatment. Hesaid the district collectorsshould monitor the availabili-ty of oxygen and added that theHealth Minister and seniorofficials of the health depart-ment will review the situationevery day.

The Chief Minister said thatsix lakh vaccines should beadministered every day in thestate and added that he has writ-ten to the Central governmentseeking required vaccine doses.

Shortage of testing...Continued from Page 1

Consequently, not enough test-ing kits are available at privatehospitals and also at some gov-ernment designated hospitals.

Since the last three days,there has been a huge shortageof testing kits in Vizag.It may benoted that people of manyneighbouring states come toVizag for medical treatment.The Odisha Government hasmade Covid-19 negative testreport (72 hours) compulsory toenter the state from other states.Hence, people of Odisha andeven Chhattisgarh are depend-ing on Vizag for the tests.

Moreover, according to thehospitals, asymptomatic peo-ple are also willing to get test-ed because of the rapid rise inthe cases.

District Medical and Health

Officer, Dr P Suryanarayanaexplained that testing kits areavailable but people with seri-ous symptoms of Covid-19 arebeing allowed to get tested. Hesaid the number of tests con-ducted has been reduced fromapproximately 7,000 to 3,000due to shortage of kits.

“Earlier, we were allowingeveryone and anyone to gettested. But, now only peoplewith symptoms are beingencouraged. This is to ease theworkload on the KGH labwhich is working round theclock,” he said. The DMHOsaid that symptomatic patientsare being given preference.

The health departmentreducing the number of testsalso indicates that the numberof positive cases could bemore than what is beingreported.

vijayawada 03VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | APRIL 17, 2021

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

The state government hasrevived the state Covid com-mand and control centre andassigned various responsibili-ties to as many as 35 bureau-crats across the state as theCovid cases continue to rise inthe state.

"The Covid pandemic beingdynamic in nature, to takeappropriate measures to han-dle the evolving situation in thestate of AP, the governmenthereby revives the state Covidcommand and control centrewith the following officers,"said chief secretary AdityaNath Das on Thursday.

Senior IAS officer MTKrishna Babu has been entrust-ed with the job of food andsanitation quality in Covidhospitals and Covid care cen-tres (CCCs).

Likewise, senior bureaucratM. Ravi Chandra has beenassigned with the job of prima-ry contact tracing, testing andtesting on demand facility.

Similarly, other senior offi-cers have been tasked with the

job of monitoring help deskand CCTVs, effective function-ing of 104 call centres, lab man-agement and Covid services inall Aarogyasri hospitals andprocurement of essential med-icines and supplies to Covidhospitals.

Other duties for the senior

officers include ensuring med-ical oxygen supply, clinicalmanagement protocols, avail-ability of essential drugs andother consumables to Covidhospitals, publicity, media andsocial media and availability ofessential drugs consumables inCovid hospitals.

Given the notorious legacyof profiteering private hospi-tals, an IPS officer, AbhishekMohanty, has been dedicated-ly tasked with the job of mon-itoring complaints about pri-vate hospitals and particularlyon the crime of excessive treat-ment charges.

Likewise, 10 young IAS offi-cers at the level of undersecre-tary have been assigned withthe job of attending 104 callcentres duty.

They include Chahat Bajpai,G. Surya Sai Praveen, Bhawna,Mallarapu Naveen, V.Abishek,Aparajita Singh Sinsinwar, C.Vishnu Charan, Nidhi Meena,Katta Simhachalam and VikasMarmat. Focusing on the dis-tricts, Aditya nath Das said 13officers have been deputed toa district each to monitor andguide the district administra-tion in taking necessary stepsfor coronavirus managementand vaccination.

All the 13 officers havebeen directed to report totheir respective districtsimmediately and attend thechief minister's video confer-ence with district collectors onFriday.

Andhra Pradesh onThursday reported 5,086 newCovid-19 cases, raising thetally over 9.39 lakh, while thestate's active cases breachedthe 31,000-mark to reach31,710.

Govt revives Covid control centreas infections continue to rise

The state government on Fridayissued the list of cappedcharges for Covid treatment inprivate hospitals and a violationof these rules will lead tostringent action. "Please reportgrievances, if any, pertaining tohospitals charging rates overand above the fixed price capsand any other complaintsrelated to Covid at 1902," said

an official.The state government issuedthese price caps under criticaland non-critical Covidtreatment, which include feesfor medical personnel, PPE,disinfection, investigation,medicines, nutrition and others.Covid treatment rate per dayunder non-critical category hasbeen fixed at Rs 3,250.

However, treatment chargesunder critical care treatment hasbeen divided under six heads:ICU without ventilator andwithout NIV (Rs 5,480 per day),ICU with NIV (Rs 5,480), ICUwith NIV (Rs 5,980), ICU withventilator (Rs 9,580), Sepsiswithout ventilator (Rs 6,280),Sepsis with ventilator (Rs10,380) and Septic with

ventilator (Rs 10,380). Onedose of antiviral drugRemdesivir has been capped atRS 2,500. These treatmentcharges apply to all privatehospitals not empanelled underthe Aarogyasri scheme."Jaganna government hasissued an order fixing rates forall relevant medical proceduresso as to reduce the financial

burden on the people," theofficial added. Given thenotorious legacy of profiteeringprivate hospitals, an IndianPolice Service (IPS) officer,Abhishek Mohanty, has beendedicatedly tasked with the jobof monitoring complaints aboutprivate hospitals and particularlyon the crime of excessivetreatment charges.

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

After a Covid-19 patientjumped off from an ICU build-ing as she was depressed overthinking about the conse-quences of the virus, theSuperintendent of KGHappealed to the Covid patientsnot to be afraid of the diseaseas most of the patients arerecovering from the illnessfully without any problem.

“Only few cases are havingcomplications which are alsotreated successfully. Majority ofthe cases are mild and recov-er even without treatment. Sopatients are advised to gettested for Covid-19 if they havesymptoms and get treated in anearby hospital / in home iso-lation after taking medicaladvice,” he explained.

Patients are advised not toget depressed if they are test-ed positive, because free treat-ment is available in all govern-ment hospitals and early treat-ment is advised. Testing and

treatment are easy and avail-able free of cost in all the gov-ernment hospitals. Doctors,nurses, paramedical staff arereadily available in all the cen-tres to help these patients.Patients should attend the hos-pitals without any fear and allthe necessary help will beavailable in government hospi-

tals.“All the people who are

above the 45 years are advisedto take vaccination to preventthis infection and also main-tain Covid-19 appropriatebehavior by wearing the masksand washing hands frequent-ly and using sanitisers,” headded.

KGH superintendent appealsto Covid-hit to shrug off fear

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

The civic officials have madeall necessary arrangements toperform the last rites as per thereligious traditions of thedeceased Covid patients. Asthe Covid cases are on the rise,the government officials swunginto action and made arrange-ments for the last rites as pertheir traditions – Hindu,Muslim and Christian

Vijayawada MunicipalCorporation Health officer DrGeetha Bai said that thedepartment was prepared toprovide all arrangements forperforming last rites to peoplewho succumb to Covid.

She said that there are threecrematoriums besides the newone which would come upshortly. The present cremato-riums can handle about 35bodies a day following strict

Covid protocols.Initially, when Covid broke

out, the family membersrefused to take the bodies ofCovid victims. However, nowthey are coming forward totake the body and perform thelast rites as per their customs.The VMC was providingMahaprastanam vehicles tocarry the bodies to the burialground, she added.

She said that though thenumber of Covid cases arebeing reported in large num-bers, the death rate is verymuch low as of now. However,the department has made elab-orate arrangements for theconvenience of the people in allaspects.

Md Irfan, in-charge ofJannatul Firdous Khabarastan,Governorpet, said that theyhave made arrangements in asystematic way for performing

last rites of the deceased Covidpatients.

Apart from allocating sepa-rate land in the burial fordeceased patients with Covid,they have set up two separategates - one for common peo-ple and other for bodies ofCovid patients.

Following Covid guidelines,they dig a pit with a depth of10-feet and lay the bodymechanically with very lessmanpower. Only a few relativesare allowed during the rituals,he said.

M Koteswari Rao, formercorporator, Vidyadarapuram,said that following bodies ofCovid patients would be sealedin a specialised cover in thecoffin to contain the spread ofthe disease. The rites will beperformed with less number ofpeople, she added.

PNS n KAKINADA

The police on Friday arrestedfive persons within three daysin connection with the van-dalisation of Dr Ambedkar’sstatue here at Pathakottam vil-lage in Kotanandur mandal.

The accused were identifiedas Kunisetti Sairam (19),Kunisetti Anvesh (20),Kunisetti RajasubrahmanyaGanesh (19), Allu Srinivas(19) and Kunisetti Sivaji (21).

The incident took placelate on April 13 and has gen-erated lot of heat with theDalits of the village lodgingprotest seeking stringentaction against the erring.

Basing on the complaintlodged by Tholem Raju of

Pathakottam village, theKotanandur police have reg-istered a case.

SP Adnan Nayeem Asmitook a serious view of the inci-dent and instructed the subdivisional police officer ofPeddapuram AritakulaSrinivasarao to investigateand bring the culprits to book.

The SDPO has constitutedspecial teams led by TuniRural Inspector Kishore Babuwith Kotanandur sub-inspec-tor Ashok, Tuni Rural sub-inspector Ganesh kumar andThondangi sub-inspectorVidyasagar to investigate indepth and nab the culprits.

Basing on the clues avail-able at the site and also thetechnical evidence, the police

teams arrested the fiveaccused who belong to thesame village on Friday morn-ing.

The motive for vandalizingthe Ambedkar statue, accord-ing to police was old rivalrywith the Dalit youths of thevillage. The accused had dis-mantled the statue by hittingwith a boulder. The accusedunderstood to have confessedthe crime and sent to judicialremand. SP Adnan has com-plemented the SDPOAritakula Srinivasarao andhis team of officials for thespeedy detection of the caseand bringing the culprits tobook within a record time ofthree days, police sourcesadded.

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Former Vizag MP K HariBabu and hiswife havebeen test-ed Covid-19 posi-tive. AftershowingC o v i dsymptoms,he and his wifeunderwent medical tests andhave been admitted in a cor-porate hospital.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Sub-collector PrathistaMangain said that the re-surveyprogramme was the permanentsolution for the land issues.

The sub-collector on Fridayinaugurated a two-day divi-sional-level training session fortahsildars, deputy tahsildars,mandal and village surveyorson land re-survey under theYSR Jagananna Shaswata BhuHakku Mariyu Bhu RakshaPathakam scheme.

Speaking on the occasion,Prathista said land re-survey inNuzvid division would becompleted successfully.

For the first time in 100years, land re-survey pro-gramme has been launched ona large-scale in the state ofAndhra Pradesh.

The re-survey programmeis being conducted in the dis-trict for the last two years.Survey teams will take fieldrecords and travel to the field-level to photograph each landby drones.

She said that farmers andthe public have been givenadvance notices about the re-survey of the lands.

The survey will be conduct-ed twice in the presence con-cerned farmers to ensure accu-racy while taking into consid-eration the objections of thefarmers and the people.

The state government hastaken steps to carry out land

survey works with the mostefficient state-of-the-art tech-nology and the programmewill be extended to agricultur-al lands, lands in rural andurban areas.

In order to expedite the landsurvey programme, the con-cerned staff should be fullytrained.

Hence, training should beprovided to the staff on the useof cutting-edge technology,she added.

Tahsildars M Suresh Kumar,Viswanadham, Bharat Reddy,S Narasimha Rao, DivisionalSurveyor Rama Raju, DeputyTahsildars and surveyors par-ticipated in the training pro-gramme.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

TDP MP from VijayawadaKesineni Srinivas (Nani)has been tested positive forcoronavirus. The MP onFriday revealed that he wasdiagnosed with coronavirusthrough Twitter handle.

He said he had devel-oped minor symptoms andquarantined himself. He alsoappealed to all those personswho met him recently to gettested imme diately and stayat home if they have anysymptoms of coronavirus.

The MP tweeted: "Dearall, I've tested positive for#COVID-19 today withmild symptoms. I have quar-antined myself at home andam taking all the necessaryprecautions. I would requestall those who came intocontact with me to isolateand get themselves tested atthe earliest."

There is a surge inCovid positive cases inthe state. During the past24 hours, the state has reported 6,096 positive caseson Friday, while 20 peoplesuccumbed to the virustaking the toll to 7,373. Ina relief, about 2,194patients recovered com-pletely from the disease.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Noted CPI leader and formerlegislator of Vijayawada WestConstituency KakarlapudiSubbaraju died due to heartattack at his residence inVijayawada on Friday.

CPI leaders, politi-cians and otherm o u r n e dSubbaraju's death.The last rites wouldbe held after thearrival of his son anddaughter from the US.

He is survived by wifeDevikadevi, daughterUmadevi and son ArunKumar. The body of Subbarajuhas been shifted to mortuary.

Right from school daysSubbaraju was a student leaderand worked as secretary forstudent union AISF during

college daysHe was CPI Vijayawada

secretary for more than tenyears and became a state leaderduring the undivided AP.

He won as a corporator andwas a floor leader and

opposition leader.Later, he becamedeputy mayor ofVMC for two termsand rendered hisservices as West

Vijayawada MLA.Subaraju worked as

secretary and treasurer ofVishalandra daily. He played akey role in state-wide electric-ity movement during year2000 and sustained injuries inlathicharge and firing inHyderabad. He also led amoment to ensure that poorpeople are given houses andpattas.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

TDP state president KinjarapuAtchannaidu on Friday allegedthat the ruling YSRCP is influ-encing the booth level officers(BLOs) not to distribute voterslips to non-YSRCP voters.

In a letter written to theChief Election Commissioner(CEC), the TDP leaderAtchannaidu said: "The rulingYSRCP has been influencingBLOs to distribute voter slipsonly to YSRCP supporters. Asa result, it has been observedthat the BLOs are not distrib-uting voter slips to neutral vot-ers and to supporters of theTDP in Tirupati parliamentaryconstituency."

He claimed that the ‘govern-ment paid’ village and wardvolunteers are allegedly distrib-uting voter slips instead ofBLOs."Such practice is a grossviolation of the model code ofconduct, discriminatory innature and does not provide anequal level playing field to allthe political parties," high-

lighted the TDP state president.According to Atchannaidu,

many voters in the constituen-cy are not aware of their pollingstation and other details toexercise their franchise onSaturday. He claimed that dueto the alleged non-distributionof voters' slips, many peoplemay not turn up to vote, lead-ing to lower voter percentage.

Hence, the TDP leadercalled on the CEC to ensurethat the voter slips are distrib-uted to all the voters withoutdiscrimination.

He alleged that even thoughthe Election Commission hasissued a memo not to allowoutsiders into Tirupati parlia-mentary constituency after the

end of campaigning at 7 pm onThursday, the ruling party isallegedly harbouring a largenumber of outsiders.

"It has come to our noticethat a large number of out-siders are being brought fromneighbouring Assembly seg-ments and districts in privatebuses during dark hours intoTirupati parliamentary con-stituency," he alleged.

Atchannaidu alleged thataround 300 people are stayingat Nehru hotel in Anjimedu, 50people from Punganuru atSambasiva Reddy's house and100 more from the same placeat BC colony, all in Yerpedumandal, totalling 500 fromPunganuru.

Govt makes arrangements for lastrites of deceased Covid patients

State government caps private hospital charges

Well-known CPI leaderSubbaraju passes away

Vijayawada MPNani tests positive

The state

government has

taken steps to

carry out land

survey works

with the most

efficient state-of-

the-art

technology and

will cover

agricultural lands,

lands in rural and

urban areas.

SUMIT ONKA

n VISAKHAPATNAM

While significant activity in theInformation Technology indus-try in Vizag has been missingfor at least the last three years,a new signboard erected on theKapuluppada hill, coined as ITHill-4 of APIIC KnowledgePark in Madhurawada hasmade the sector optimisticabout the progress now.

Change in the ruling party,delay in the release of new ITpolicy by the government andlater the pandemic had stalledthe IT activities in AndhraPradesh.

There are three IT hills in theMadhurawada IT SpecialEconomic Zone and several

companies have been func-tioning from there.

A signboard spotted on thehill had the names of the AdaniData Park, Franklin Templeton,DRDO and APIIC SentinelTowers on it. This clearly indi-cates that the new IT Hill-4.

Some IT Hill employees said

APIIC is putting up the newboards on the hills and the newone springing up on theKapuluppada Hill.

Kapuluppada hill has around1,400 acres of land. The AndhraPradesh IndustrialInfrastructure Corporation(APIIC) had got permission to

lay the approach road from thepolice department as thedepartment owns a firing rangeon the foothill and was initial-ly hesitant about giving its nod.

In a major thrust to its project,Adani’s solar powered‘Integrated Data Centre Park andTechnology/Business park' was

listed in the stock exchange asVizag Tech Park Ltd (VTPL).The stock market has apparent-ly seen potential in the projectas Adani’s share value increasedsoon after it incorporated VTPL.

Adani Enterprises haspromised an investment of Rs14,634 crore on the data cen-tre project and provide jobs to24,990 people.

After launching its facility inVizag, Franklin Templeton hadproposed to make a full-fledged development centrewith its own campus in the city.And, the signboard shows theland for its permanent facilityhas been allocated here.

A DRDO project is alsoapparently coming up on thenew IT Hill.

TDP alleges bias in voter slips’ distribution 5 held for vandalising Ambedkar statue

Vizag IT Hill-4 gets a shape as activity picks paceA signboard was put up on theKapuluppada hill, naming it as IT Hill 4with names of Adani Data Park,Franklin Templeton, DRDO and APIICSentinel Towers on it. This clearlyindicates that the new IT Hill-4.

Former Vizag MP,wife test Covidpositive

Training session onland survey for staffheld at Nuzvid

Kakarla dies at 94PNS n HYDERABAD

Noted radiologist and formerDirector of Nizam’s Institute ofMedical Sciences (NIMS) DrKakarla Subba Rao passed awayon Friday here. He was 94.The family members of DrKakarla Subba Rao informedthat he breathed his last due tothe current Covid conditions.“Ceremonial meeting will not beheld due to Covid,” Sushrut,Shobharani and Dr SushanthKakarla, the family members ofthe departed soul said.

The renowned hospitaladministrator was well-knownfor his efforts to transformNIMS into a super-specialtyhospital. He was the firstDirector of NIMS between 1985and 1990 and later between

1997 and 2004, before retiring.Held in high regard by his

peers, Dr Rao was admitted toKIMS a month ago with age-related health complications.According to doctors at KIMS,Dr Rao breathed his last, follow-ing health complications.

He was a Professor ofRadiology at Albert EinsteinCollege of Medicine, New York,before he returned to India in1985-86. Influenced by the callof the late Chief Minister ofAndhra Pradesh, N T RamaRao, he joined NIMS andstrived towards its developmentinto a highly specialised hospi-tal. In recognition of his valuablecontributions in the field ofmedicine, the Government ofIndia honoured Kakarla SubbaRao with Padmasri in 2000.

vijayawada 04VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | APRIL 17, 2021

ONGC test-fire causes panic NARSAPURAM : Leakage to the ONGC gas pipeline which caughtminor fire caused panic among the people of neighbouring areas onFriday at Seetharamapuram north panchayat in Narsapuram mandalof West Godavari district. On information, the revenue staff and thelocals reached the spot. When asked, the ONGC officials said that itwas a test-fire carried out by the fire personnel under thesupervision of ONGC production executive engineer adhering tosafety standards. The operation was taken up to find out the level ofgas deposits in the area. They clarified that there was no danger tothe neighbouring people. The test was done following the safetystandards and it would be closed within 2-3 days and need notworry about the test fire, they added.

Three killed in road accident GUNTUR : Three persons were killed andtwo others sustained injuries in a roadaccident that took place in Guntur districton Friday. A mirchi-laden lorry has ahead-on collision slightly with a cement-laden lorry at Gamalapadu village inDachepalli mandal. When the drivers andcleaners of the two lorries had analtercation over the accident, anotherlorry rammed into the two stationary

lorries and people who were arguing over the road rage. Shaik Janiand Pidugu Venkataramaiah of Gamalapadu, Govindarajulu ofPiduguralla died on the spot. Two persons who received injuries wereshifted to the hospital. Police reached the spot and are investigating.

SHORT TAKES

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Kandukuri Veeresalingam occu-pied a unique place in the his-tory of Telugu literature and arthistory of drama as a veteran andhe was popular as the firstdrama writer, a novelist whowrote the first satirical, journal-ist, social reformer and a sociol-ogist, APFDC ManagingDirector T Vijaykumar Reddyhas said.

On the occasion of 174 thbirth anniversary ofVeeresalingam Panthulu,Vijaykumar Reddy and otherstaff members paid rich tributesto him at the APFDC officelocated at the local RTC com-plex administrative buildinghere on Friday by garlanding hisportrait. He said the birthanniversary of Veeresalingamwas celebrated every year as aTelugu Drama Day on April 16.

Speaking on the occasion, theAPFDC Managing director saidVeeresalingam had foughtagainst corruption by estab-lishing a newspaper'Vivekavardhini' and created

awareness among women bywriting articles through his'Satihita Bodhana' magazine.Veeresalingam was a pioneerand an adorable person as afather of modern Andhra soci-ety, he said.

Vijayakumar Reddy saidKandukuri Veeresalingam haddonated all his properties toestablish Brahma Samaj as partof his social service as a socialreformer. He said Veeresalingamhad written as many as 130books in Telugu, Sanskrit andEnglish. Vijayakumar Reddycalled upon the journalists andenthusiastic journalists to study

the books of Veeresalingam andget inspiration from histhoughts.

Kanudukuri Veeresalingam,who was born on April 16,1848, in Rajahmundry in a tra-ditional family, had launched acrusade for women's educationand opened schools exclusive-ly for women. In the laterstages, he was the first personto encourage a co-educationsystem allowing boys and girlsin schools. Despite opposingchild marriages, Veeresalingamwas a great person as he dedi-cated himself to the eradicationof the caste system.

Call to emulate ideals of Veeeresalingam ̈ APFDC observes Telugu Drama Day

MARTHI SUBRAHMANYAM

n TIRUPATI

Tirupati by-election is an acidtest to performance ofMinisters PeddireddyRamachandra Reddy inChittoor district and AnilKumar Yadav and MekapatiGautam Reddy in Nellore dis-trict besides that ofNarayanaswamy, the deputyCM, who hails from Chittoordistrict.

The ministers have been facing a huge challenge in theform of a by-election afterthey successfully helped theYSRCP win majority of seats inthe recent municipal and localbody elections.

The election fever hasreached its crescendo with topleaders of the TDP and BJPcampaigning in the constituen-cy. Jagan Mohan Reddy fixingthe target for ministers toensure the victory of YSRCPcandidate Gurumurthy withover five-lakh majority, TDPcomplaining to the EC irregu-larities, including stone-peltingon Babu, the threat of Covidand sweltering heat affectingthe voting percentage are someof the major hurdles before theYSRCP ministers to reach theirtarget. The constituency hascome under the scanner of theEC following the stone-pelting

incident. Will YSRCP ministers con-

tinue the winning streak in by-election too? Their future isdependent on the victory andthe majority in the by-elec-tions. The election results willdecide their fate as Cabinetexpansion is reportedly on thecards soon.

The campaign, political andfinancial strategies are beingimplemented under the watch-ful eyes of Peddireddy inSrikalahasti, Satyavedu andTirupati Assembly segments.He is responsible for ensuringa huge majority in these seg-ments, while the role ofNarayanaswamy, deputy CM,is stated to be nominal.

Despite the cancellation ofJagan's public meeting becauseof a spurt in Covid-19, minis-ters deployed MLAs from var-

ious castes to woo voters of var-ious communities in all seg-ments.

The campaign by YSRCPveered around the failure ofChandrababu as the formerCM instead of focusing onYSRCP achievements.

Tirupati Lok Sabha hasGuduru, Sullurupet,Venkatagiri and SarvepalliAssembly segments of Nelloredistrict, the onus of ensuringGurumurthy's win restedsquarely on Anil Kumar Yadavand Mekapati Gautam Reddy,ministers from Nellore dis-trict.

As the YSRCP won inNellore and Chittoor Assemblyseats, the by-election will testthe performance of the MLAstoo. The by-election will decidethe people's faith in the YSRCPMLAs and Ministers.

Tirupati by-poll: Acid test for ministers

Crucial for TDP The TDP is fighting the last elec-tions as ZPTC, municipal elec-tions are over. No other electionsare scheduled in the state till thenext Assembly elections.Therefore, the by-elections arevery crucial for the TDP to proveits worth. TDP national presidentN Chandrababu Naidu and hisson Lokesh Naidu toured theconstituency continuously foreight days campaigning in sevenAssembly segments evokingmore than expected responsefrom the people. They focussedmore on corruption in theChittoor district. The TDPsources say the stone-peltingincident on Chandrababu willyield sympathy votes for theparty. Former ministers andMLAs also took part in the cam-paign for the victory of candidatePanabaka Lakshmi, who alsoactively campaigned in all seg-ments. The TDP pinned hopeson voter support from Gudur,Venktagiri, Tirupati andSrikalahasti segments. If the TDPdid not get votes in satisfactoryrange in the three Assembly seg-ments of Babu's native Chittoordistrict, it is sure to cause a dentin his image. It may be recalledthat the TDP tasted defeat in therecent sarpanch and municipalelections.

Pawan Kalyan, the saviour for BJPThe by-elections will test theleadership of Somu Veerrajuand Sunil Deodhar if the BJPcandidate did not get aconsiderable number ofvotes. Under their leadership,the BJP fared badly inmunicipal and sarpanchelections. The BJP leadershave been commenting that asword is hanging in balanceover the heads of the AndhraBJP leadership. SomuVeerraju failed to coast theBJP to victory in his nativeEast Godavari district in thelocal body elections. SunilDeodhar who is officiating asparty in-charge for over twoyears is facing a hugechallenge to his leadership.However, the Janasenasupport to the BJP bringssome solace to the BJP. TheBJP deployed party activistsfrom all districts in theTirupati Assembly segmentas the party has no strongcadre in Chittoor and Nelloredistricts. Announcing thecandidature of Ratnaprabhaas the BJP candidate at thelast minute and lack offamiliarity among people aresome of the hurdles.Criticism against her is thatshe campaigned well, shefailed to give a tough fight inelectioneering to her rivals.Lack of coordination is alsostated to be one of theinherent defects. BJP nationalpresident JP Nadda's publicmeeting ending in a fiascoleft the party cadres highlydisappointed. However, thecampaign by Pawan Kalyaninfused energy into them. TheBJP is highly dependent onJanasena as far as theTirupati by-elections areconcerned.

PNS n TIRUPATI

A total of 1,500 security per-sonnel, comprising bothAndhra Pradesh Police aswell as paramilitary forceswould be deployed for thesmooth conduct of the April17 Tirupati Lok Sabha bypoll,an official said on Thursday.

Chittoor Superintendent ofPolice S Senthil Kumar onThursday said these willinclude district policemen as

well as four companies ofparamilitary forces.

He said 274 polling boothswill be set up at 187 pollinglocations, and of the latter, 87have been identified as sensi-tive. He also said 33 routemobile parties, 11 specialstrike forces and six flyingsquads have also beenarranged.

According to Kumar, 48hours before the election day,no non-voter should stay in

the area and all the hotels,lodges, halls and other suchestablishments have been toldnot to rent out their premis-es to outsiders.Police seizedliquor and vehicles worth Rs1.44 crore in their checkscarried out at 25 inter-districtas well as inter-state checkposts. The police chief shareda Whatsapp number,9440900005, for people toshare polling day and votecounting time violations.

Security beefed up for Tirupati by-poll

PNS n NELLORE

The Telugu Desam leaders onFriday filed a complaint withthe election observer about theruling YSRCP's irregularitiescommitted in the Tirupati LokSabha by-elections.

TDP Nellore parliamentpresident Abdul Azeez, districtgeneral secretary ChejerlaVenkateswar Reddy, PanabakaKrishnaiah, JaladankiSudhakar and others submit-ted a complaint to Electionobserver Dinesh Patil on the

YCP's misdeeds in the elec-tions.

Speaking on the occasion,Abdul Azeez told reportersthat the ruling party has mis-used the voluntary system inthe Tirupati by-poll and usedtheir services for political gain.He alleged that the rulingparty has engaged village vol-unteers from distribution ofpamphlets to money with atarget to win the election byhook or crook. It was unfairand undemocratic. The volun-teers were unable to disobey

the orders of the ruling partyas pressure mounted on them.With the fear of defeat, the YSRCongress party was resortingto irregularities to win theelection. He further said theparty urged the electionobserver to hold the electionsfairly and peacefully and theelection staff has to act as peo-ple's officials. The police werecreating terror among the vot-ers and TDP poll agents and itwould not be tolerated if theydid not change their attitude,he remarked.

TDP complains to pollobserver against YSRCP

PNS n KADAPA

A diagnostic centre was madeready for police personnel inKadapa as part of the policewelfare initiative taken by theState government.Superintendent of policeAmbhurajan Friday inaugurat-ed the diagnostic centre inKadapa, which was set up ina collaboration with SunshineDiagnostics.

The SP said the laboratorywas established with all mod-ern technology and it wouldfulfil the needs of the policeand the general public as wellwith quality service, accuracyand lowest price. Apart fromthe Covid test, all cancer diag-

nostic tests, biochemistry,molecular biology and otherexaminations would be donehere, he added.

Ambhurajan said peopleneed not go to other cities forblood tests as skilled workerswould render services to thepeople at the Centre. Heappealed to the police per-sonnel and their families touse these facilities. ARAdditional SP RishikesavaReddy, Kadapa DSP B Sunil,AR DSP Ramanaiah, Policewelfare hospital doctorSameera, RIs MahaboobBasham George, SomasekharNayak, RSIs, police officialsand others were present onthe occasion.

Diagnostic centreopened for cops

PNS n ONGOLE

The influence of the secondwave of Covid-19 was alarmingin Prakasam district and effortswere on to contain the pandem-ic the state government wascoordinating with the districtadministration, said specialChief Secretary Sisodia, who hasbeen appointed as a specialsenior officer in Prakasam dis-trict to take measures on war-footing to control spreading ofCorona.

The Chief Secretary participat-ed in a review meeting througha video conference with ChiefMinister YS Jaganmohan Reddyalong with district CollectorPola Bhaskar and SP SiddharthaKousal on Friday. Later, speakingto media persons, Sisodia saidabout 65,000 cases were regis-tered in Prakasam district and onFriday there were 2,200 activecases. A task force has been setup under the leadership of the

Joint Collector by the districtCollector, who alerted the man-dal officials. Keeping in view ofthe spurt in cases on a daily basisas people were conglomerating ingroups for functions, a strongsurveillance system was intro-duced. Steps were being taken tocheck people coming from theoutside as cases were spreadingfrom them and the outsiderswould be tested soon they land-ed in the district to prevent thespreading of the pandemic, hesaid.

The Chief Secretary said con-tainment zones have been estab-lished where many cases werereported and movement of peo-ple was restricted in those areas.Experts' opinion has been takento take precautionary measuresand the district administrationwas asked to take strict vigilanceover the cases. He said a quali-ty treatment would be given toCovid patients with facilitieslike oxygen, medicines, availabil-

ity of beds, ambulance and ven-tilator support at the Covid carecentre in the district. Withinthree hours, the beds would bemade available after people call-ing '104' and '1902' numbers andpeople have to call '104' if theywanted to have tests. All thefrontline warriors have beengiven vaccination and suggest-ed people above 45 years take ajab. People should follow Covidrestrictions such as wearing amask and maintain social dis-

tance. The Prakasam districtmachinery was ready to faceCovid challenge, he added.

Sisodia warned the manage-ment of private hospitals andmedical shops that action wouldbe taken action if they sold med-

icines at higher prices morethan the prescribed. If peoplefiled complaints, action would betaken against the erring shopsand hospitals and sought mediasupport in this regard.

He further said the free treat-ment would be given in Covid hos-pital and thermal tests were beingconducted in public places and san-itization has been done in the areas.

Collector Bhaskar said theofficials were all set for facingCovid operation and tests were

conducted for the people in thepublic gatherings and they weresent to hospitals for treatment.Earlier the officials had estab-lished big containment zonesand now micro containmentzones were set up and peoplealerted.

The Collector said there wereonly 1300 beds and it wasincreased to 1800 beds with oxy-gen, ICU and ventilator facilities.The outsourcing employees wereagain taken into service andpatients who were in home iso-lation could come to Covid hos-pital for treatment.

SP Siddhartha Kousal saidcorona would be prevented fromspreading by working togetherwith all departments. Stating thatpeople should not worry aboutcoronavirus, he said it was easyto face the virus with advicefrom doctors. He appealed to thepeople to wear a mask and donot come out unless and untilthere was an emergency.

Prakasam district gears up for Covid-19 treatment

n Spl CS Sisodia reviewshealth situation

n 65,000 cases registered in district

PNS n KAKINADA

The Endowment Departmentis all set to introduce the e-hundi system in all the majortemples in the state. Since thee-hundi system was intro-duced on an experimentalbasis at the Annavaram tem-ple and it became successful.Hence, the officials were plan-ning to introduce the e-hundisystem in six more major tem-ples in the district.

The EndowmentDepartment has taken up thee-hundi system as a pilot pro-ject at AnnavaramDevasthanam. The details ofthe bank account number,IFSC code and other informa-tion was uploaded to the web-site inviting devotees to donatefunds for the temple to per-form daily kalyanams, to ful-fil their vows and other pur-

poses. Many devotees used theopportunity and started send-ing their donations through anonline payment.

The department was contem-plating introducing the same e-hundi system in temples likeTalupulamma Lova, PithapuramKukkuteswara Swamy temple,Kakinada Balatripura Sundaritemple, SarpavaramBhavanarayana Swamy temple,J a g a n n a d h a p u r a mVenkateswara Swamy temple,Gandhinagar VenkateswaraSwamy temple, VenkatnagarVenkateswara Swamy temple,Ramaraopeta Siva temple,Vadapalli, Muramalla, Ayinavilli,Kotipalli, VAdapalli, Mandapalli,Rally and others temples in thedistrict.

The office of theEndowment Commissionerhas gathered informationabout these temples.

PNS n GUNTUR

As many as 12 students ofGurukul School in Tsuduruof Guntur district tested pos-itive for Covid-19 on Friday.The students studying thesixth and ninth standard andthe school watchman testedpositive for Corona. The par-ents expressed concern overincreasing cases in the area.

Six more temples inEG to go for e-hundi

12 Gurukulstudents test+ve for Corona

PNS n HYDERABAD

The Janasena Party has lostthe 'glass' symbol in theTelangana mini civic bodypolls. Not convinced withthe explanation given byJanasena Party, the ElectionCommission has announcedto remove the 'glass' symbolfrom the list of poll symbols.

The Election Commissionmade it clear that the symbolwas removed as the JanasenaParty could not contest evenin 10 per cent of seats in themunicipal elections. TheJanasena Party told EC thatowing to an alliance with BJP,it could not contest in the lastelections.

Janasena loses‘glass' symbolin TS civic polls

PNS n TIRUPATI

The 1005-years of SriRamanujacharya avatarot-savam commenced atAnnamacharya KalaMandiram in Tirupati underthe aegis of Alwar DivyaPrabandha Project of TTD onFriday. Sri Chinna JeeyarSwamy of Tirumala inaugurat-ed the programme.

Alwar Divya PrabandhaProject special officer Prof K

Rajagopalan, AnnamacharyaProject Director SriDakshinamurthy Sharma,HDPP special officer SriHemanth Kumar and otherswere present.

Pushpa yagam: The TTD isorganising the annual Pushpayagam at SriKodandaramaswami templeon April 19 in ekantham (iso-lation) as per Covid guidelineswhile it's Ankurarpanam onApril 18.

As part of the fete, SnapanaTirumanjanam is performedfor the utsava idols whilePushpa Abhishekam to SitaLakshmana along with SriKodandaramaswami in theevening followed by a grandprocession inside the temple.

The purpose of Pushpayagam is to ward off the impactof any lapses in rituals duringthe recently held annualBrahmotsavams from March13-21.

Sri Ramanujacharya avatarotsavam begins

PNS n CHENNAI

Popular Tamil actor Vivek washospitalised here on Friday afterhe complained of chest pain andfainted, film industry and hos-pital sources said. He has beenadmitted to the Intensive CareUnit (ICU) of a city hospital,they said.

The 59-year-old comedian,who had taken the COVID vac-cine on Thursday, complained ofchest pain and fainted and wasrushed to a private hospital, thesources said. His publicist NikilMurugan told reporters that theactor has undergone angiogram(a procedure that uses x-rays totake pictures of blood vessels)

and was "doing fine." "He is con-scious and talking," he added.Vivekh, a Padma Shree recipient,has acted with top Tamil heroesincluding Rajinikanth, Vijay andAjith Kumar. He has alsoappeared as the lead artiste in acouple of movies and has beeninvolved in social causes includ-ing afforestation.

Tamil comedian Vivek hospitalised

VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | APRIL 17, 2021 nation 05

The Mumbai civic body'splan to convert the JaslokHospital here into a

dedicated facility forCoronavirus patients seems tohave hit a roadblock with thehospital saying that it wouldcontinue to treat other criticallyill non-COVID patients as well.The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had on Wednesdayissued a circular, in which it had said that the Jaslok Hospital will nolonger admit non-COVID-19 patients and added that instructions tothis effect had been issued to the hospital's management. It hadtaken this decision in view of the spike in infection cases in the city.However, the hospital issued a statement late night on Thursday,saying that it has increased the number of beds for coronaviruspatients, but it would continue to treat other critically-ill patients also.“Keeping in view the rising cases of COVID-19 in Maharashtra,Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, Mumbai has increased thenumber of beds allotted to the COVID-19 patients from 58 to 150 tosupport the current crisis. But we continue our efforts in treatingother critically-ill chronic patients and (conducting) procedures,” itsaid in the statement.

Acourt here on Fridayremanded police officerRiyaz Kazi, an associate

of suspended cop SachinWaze, in judicial custody tillApril 23 in connection withthe case of an explosives-laden SUV found nearindustrialist Mukesh Ambani'sresidence and the subsequent

death Thane-based businessman Mansukh Hiran. Kazi, an assistantpolice inspector, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency(NIA) on April 11. He was produced before a holiday court here atthe end of his NIA remand on Friday. The court sent him tojudicial custody as the central probe agency did not seek his furtherremand. The NIA has alleged that Kazi is involved in the conspiracyof the case, along with Waze, who is the prime accused. Kazi wasinvolved in destroying the evidence, the NIA has alleged.

INDIA CORNER

Madhya Pradesh would get450 metric tonnes ofmedical oxygen from other

states shortly for treatment ofcritical COVID-19 patients, ChiefMinister Shivraj Singh Chouhansaid on Thursday.The new stockof medical-grade oxygen, whosedemand has shot up due to therising coronavirus cases, is beingarranged after talking to the Centre, he said."I had requested UnionCommerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Petroleum MinisterDharmendra Pradhan for oxygen supply to Madhya Pradesh. A consensushas been reached for supply of 450 metric tonnes (MT) of oxygen fromBhilai, Devri (Chhattisgarh) and Rourkela (Odisha) to the state shortly,”Chouhan told reporters here.“I am thankful to them,” he added. The chiefminister said the private sector is being roped in to transport the life-savinggas in the state, which has been witnessing a surge in COVID-19 cases."Transportation of oxygen is being done on a war footing," the CM said,adding the support of the private sector, too, is being taken. He saidcontinuous efforts are being made to procure Remdesivir, an anti-viral drugused in treatment of COVID-19 cases.

Plan to convert Jaslok Hospitalinto Covid facility hits roadblock

‘MP to get 450 MT of oxygenfor Covid patients soon’

West Bengal CID Fridaytook over the case ofkilling of four people in

firing by the CISF duringpolling in Cooch Behar districton April 10, a seniorgovernment official said. ASpecial Investigation Team(SIT) of the CriminalInvestigation Department

(CID) has been constituted to conduct the probe in the incidentwhich happened during the fourth phase of polling at Sitalkuchi.The incident had set off an acrimonious war of words between theruling TMC and challenger BJP, and triggered public outrage.Investigators will visit booth number 126/5 in Jorpatki in Sitalkuchiassembly constituency where CISF personnel had opened fire afterthey allegedly came under attack from a group of villagers. The TMChas claimed those killed were its supporters who were gunneddown when they were standing in queue to cast their votes.

CID takes over probe intoCooch Behar CISF firing

Cop Riyaz Kazi remanded injudicial custody till April 23

PNS n MUMBAI

Serum Institute of India (SII)CEO Adar Poonawalla onFriday said the US needs to liftits embargo on raw materialexports to help ramp up vac-cine production.

SII is currently manufactur-ing anti-coronavirus vaccineCovishield, developed byAstrazeneca and OxfordUniversity. The vaccine is notonly being used in India, butexported to a number of coun-tries.

Poonawalla had earlieradmitted that SII has been fac-ing problems in sending outrequired number of batches ofvaccines due to the bureaucrat-ic and government-related hur-dles.

Tagging the twitter handle ofthe President of the UnitedStates, Poonawalla said in atweet, "Respected @POTUS, ifwe are to truly unite in beatingthis virus, on behalf of the vac-cine industry outside the U.S.,

I humbly request you to lift theembargo of raw materialexports out of the U.S. so thatvaccine production can rampup. Your administration has thedetails."

Earlier in March, Poonawallahad said that the production ofcoronavirus vaccines and scal-ing up global availability couldbe seriously limited due to theban on exports of critical rawmaterials by the US.

Speaking at an event organ-

ised by the World Bank inMarch, Poonawalla had saidone of the constraints thatneeds to be addressed butnobody is able to address so faris the availability of criticalitems from the US.

"...There are lot of bags andfilters and critical items thatmanufacturers need. I will give

you an example. The Novavaxvaccine that we are a majormanufacturer of, need theseitems from the US...Now theUS has chosen to invoke theDefence Act, in which there isa sub-clause which prevents theexport of critical raw materialsrequired for their local vaccinemanufacturers," he had said.

SII is currentlymanufacturing anti-coronavirus vaccineCovishield, developedby Astrazeneca andOxford University. Thevaccine is not onlybeing used in India, butexported to a numberof countries

SII CEO urges US to liftraw material export ban PNS n MUMBAI

The Union government hasgiven its permission to theMumbai-based HaffkinInstitute to manufactureCovaxin, an anti-coronavirusvaccine of Bharat Biotech, anofficial said on Thursday.

Maharashtra Chief MinisterUddhav Thackeray had earlierrequested the Centre to allowthe Haffkine Institute to pro-duce Covaxin, which is cur-rently produced by theHyderabad-based BharatBiotech, the official from thechief minister's office (CMO)said.Renu Swarup, secretaryof the Union Science andTechnology Department sentthe approval letter to theMaharashtra chief secretarySitaram Kunte, the official said.

"Swarup informed the stategovernment that the Centrehas approved its request of

using infrastructure ofHaffkine Bio-pharmaceuticalCorporation Limited forCovaxin production. It wasdone after approval given bythe experts,” he added.

The Union government hasgranted one year period to the

state to carry out the produc-tion.

Accordingly, the chief min-ister has asked Kunte toappoint a senior officer tomonitor and carry out theproduction in the given time-frame, the official said.

Mumbai's Haffkine gets Centre'snod to produce Covaxin

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Delhi Police has arrest-ed six wanted criminals of agang from three states, offi-cials said on Friday.

The accused have beenidentified as Ankit alias AnkitLagarpur (23), Ravi aliasRavi Jagsi (29), Rajan aliasRajan Jaat (24), SumitBichpadi alias Cheetah (24),Amit alias Chhota (35),Sudhir Mann (29), they said.

According to police, theaccused, belonging to KalaJathedi-Lawrence Bishnoigang, were carrying a cumu-lative cash reward of Rs3,50,000 from Delhi,Haryana, Rajasthan andChandigarh.

"Different teams wereformed and dispatched aftercomprehensive briefing. Theteams raided three differentlocations in three states andarrested the accused per-sons," Deputy Commissionerof Police (Special Cell)Manishi Chandra said.

Delhi Policearrests sixwanted criminals

PNS n KOLKATA

Over one crore voters in WestBengal will decide the politicalfate of 342 candidates onSaturday, when 45 assemblyconstituencies go to polls in thefifth phase, amid a raging sec-ond wave of COVID-19.

Security measures have beenheightened for phase five inview of the violence in the pre-vious phase, which witnessedthe death of five people inCooch Behar, including four inCISF firing.

The Election Commissionhas decided to deploy at least853 companies of central forcesto ensure free and fair voting,an official of the poll panelsaid.

It will also put in placemeasures to ensure strictadherence of COVID-19 pro-

tocols during the votingprocess, he said.

West Bengal on Thursdayrecorded the highest single-day spike of 6,769 coronaviruscases and at least 22 more fatal-ities.

Prominent names in thefifth phase include SiliguriMayor and Left Front leaderAshok Bhattacharya, stateministers Gautam Deb andBratya Basu and BJP's SamikBhattacharya.

PNS n NEW DELHI

Businesses owned by womenentrepreneurs in India are like-ly to grow up to 90 per cent inthe next five years, accordingto a new study which also notesthat the uptake of governmentschemes supporting suchentrepreneurs is quite low.

The study by prominentphilanthropic organisation,EdelGive Foundation, was con-ducted across 13 states andUnion territories (UTs).

The mapping of these areaslisted almost 3,300 womenentrepreneurs who were clas-sified into three categories--those engaged in manufactur-ing, retail and service delivery

enterprises. Out of these, 1,235women entrepreneurs weresampled and interviewed forthe study.

In addition to these entrepre-neurs, their family members,employees and clients were alsointerviewed. Besides in-depthinterviews were carried outwith 20 NGOs that directlysupport women entrepreneurs.

According to the study,around 80 per cent of women,from semi urban and ruralIndia, feel a significantimprovement in their socio-economic and cultural statusafter starting an enterprise.

It also found out that despiteseveral state-run schemes andpolicies supporting women

entrepreneurship, the uptake ofsuch initiatives is quite low.

"Only one per cent of thewomen entrepreneurs sur-

veyed have availed of any gov-ernment scheme and this isprimarily because just about 11per cent are aware of such pro-

grammes," the study says.The multi-faceted study has

focused on a cross-section offactors ranging from societal,financial, personal to familialto understand the overall jour-ney of women entrepreneursalong with looking at the roleof government, NGOs andcorporates in the ecosystem.

While the study reportsimprovement in the socio-cul-tural lives of the women entre-preneurs, it reveals that thereare still significant gaps interms of financial knowledgeand resources available to theentrepreneurs along with mar-keting, production, technolog-ical and socio-cultural chal-lenges faced by them.

Study paints rosy picture for women entrepreneurs

PNS n NEW DELHI

To augment hospital infrastruc-ture for management of severecases of coronavirus, the UnionHealth Ministry has advised allcentral ministries to ask hospi-tals under their control or PSUsto set-up dedicated hospitalwards or separate blocks with-in hospitals for COVID care.

The central ministries havealso been advised that details ofsuch dedicated hospital wards orblocks be provided to the pub-lic.The move comes as India bat-tles a massive surge in coron-avirus cases.

In a letter to the ministries, theUnion Health Secretary hassaid that the surge in COVID-19 cases across the country callsfor similar supportive action aslast year from all such centralministries or departments andtheir PSUs and hospitals undertheir control. To substantially

augment hospital infrastruc-ture for effective clinical man-agement of severe COVID-19patients across the country, theministry has advised all centralministries to issue instructionsto hospitals under their controlor their PSUs to set-up exclusivededicated hospital wards or sep-arate blocks within the hospitalsfor COVID care, as was done lastyear.

These hospitals and blocksshould have separate entry andexit points for management ofCOVID-19 cases, to providetreatment services includingspecialised care for confirmedCOVID-19 cases, the healthministry said.

"Additionally, these dedicat-ed hospital wards or blockshave to be equipped to provideall supportive and ancillary ser-vices including oxygen sup-ported beds, ICU beds, ventila-tors and other amenities,” it said.

PSUs asked todedicate hospitalbeds for Covid-19

PNS n KOLKATA

At least five candidates of dif-ferent parties contesting theongoing assembly election inWest Bengal have tested posi-tive for COVID-19, a healthdepartment official said onFriday.

Out of the five candidateswho tested positive, three arefrom the Trinamool Congress(TMC), and one each from theRevolutionary Socialist Party(RSP) and the Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP), he said.

RSP's Jangipur candidate,73-year-old Pradip KumarNandi, tested positive onWednesday and is now inhome isolation, the officialsaid.

BJP'S candidate forMatigara-Naxalbari seatAnandamay Barman (38),TMC's Goalpokhar nomineeMohmmed Ghulam Rabbani,Tapan candidate KalpanaKisku, and Jalpaiguri candidateDr Pradip Kumar Barma havetested COVID-19 positive, thehealth official said.

5 poll contestantstest positive forCovid in WB

PNS n MUMBAI

The Mumbai police have reg-istered a separate case underthe Scheduled Castes andScheduled Tribes (Preventionof Atrocities) Act against aman who assaulted an on-duty traffic constable here, anofficial said on Friday.

The accused Jatin Satara(35) had allegedly abusedand used foul language, whileassaulting traffic constableDyneshawar Wagh (32), whohad asked him to remove hisscooter, which was obstruct-ing traffic in Mulund (west)on Thursday, the official said.

Satara, who was without amask, started arguing withthe constable and mentioneda particular community whileabusing him, he said.

Following this, a separateFIR under relevant sections ofthe Scheduled Castes andScheduled Tribes (Preventionof Atrocities) Act was regis-tered, he said. A video of theincident had gone viral onsocial media, it was stated.

The accused, who wasarrested under relevant sec-tions of the IPC and DisasterManagement Act (in force dueto the COVID-19 outbreak),was later released on bail.

Mumbai: Man bookedunder Atrocities Act forassaulting traffic cop

PNS n IMPHAL

The Manipur government hasissued an order making itmandatory for all personsentering the state to producea negative COVID-19 testreport, an official said onFriday. The official said theorder shall become effectivefrom April 18.

The order issued by DeputySecretary, Health department,Soiminlian Lengen onThursday said that "All per-sons entering Manipur,

whether by air or by road, andirrespective of place of origin,shall be allowed entry only onmandatory production of a

negative RT-PCR/ TrueNat/CB-NAAT COVID-19 testreport taking within 72 hoursfrom arrival in Manipur."

Manipur makes Covid negativereport mandatory for entering state

PNS n BHUBANESWAR

Odishas COVID-19 caseloadon Friday mounted to 3,61,450after 3,108 more people testedpositive for the infection, hilethree fresh fatalities pushed thedeath toll to 1,938, a healthdepartment official said.

Meanwhile, keeping in viewthe COVID-19 surge, Odishasmajor tourist destination, the SunTemple in Konark, has beenclosed with immediate effect.

The Archaeological Survey ofIndia (ASI) said, due to the pre-

vailing COVID-19 situation, allcentrally-protected monuments,sites, and museums in the statewill remain closed with immedi-ate effect.

It will remain in force till May15, 2021, or until further orders,

an ASI official said.Three prominent monuments

and sites, including ShreeJagannath Temple in Puri, SunTemple in Konark and ShreeLingaraj Temple in Puri, areamong the ASI protected mon-uments.

ASI Odisha circle superintend-ing engineer A K Mallick said theauthorities of Shree JagannathTemple and Shree LingarajTemple have been apprised of theASIs decision for closing themonuments for visitors given theresurgence of COVID-19 cases.

PNS n KOLKATA

In view of the sudden spikein COVID-19 cases, ScienceCity Kolkata will remainclosed for visitors fromFriday till May 15, an officialsaid.

A spokesman of theNational Council of ScienceMuseums (NCSM) said in astatement the decision wastaken following the direc-tives of the Union Ministryof Culture. "In view of the

current COVID situation ofthe country, Science City,Kolkata will remain closedfor visitors till May 15, 2021,"the spokesman said onFriday.

He said this was in conso-nance with the directives ofthe Ministry of Culture,Government of India. TheScience City had opened onNovember 10 last year afterbeing closed from March16, 2020 due to the pandemic.

Science City Kolkata to remainclosed for visitors till May 15

PNS n NEW DELHI

Former CBI director RanjitSinha died here on Fridaymorning in what is believed tobe a COVID-19 related death,senior officials said.

He was 68.It is understoodthat he was confirmed positivefor coronavirus on Thursdaynight and breathed his last at4.30 am on Friday, the officialssaid. Sinha, a 1974-batch offi-cer of the Bihar cadre and whohad cracked the coveted UPSCexamination at the age of 21, hadtaken over as the CBI chief in2012.

Ex- CBI directorRanjit Sinhapasses away

PNS n NEW DELHI

Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal has called a meetingon Friday to review theCOVID-19 situation in thenational capital.

Coronavirus cases inthe city have been spi-ralling with 16,699 freshCOVID-19 infections and112 fatalities reported onThursday. A senior govern-ment official said, "The chief min-ister has called a meeting to

review the COVID-19 situationin Delhi at 4 PM today. HealthMinister Satyendar Jain and

senior government offi-cials will be present

at the meeting atthe DelhiSecretariat."

The Delhi gov-ernment had on

T h u r s d a yannounced sweeping

restrictions, including a weekendcurfew to break the chain ofCOVID infections in the city.

Kejriwal to hold meetingover Covid situation

Odisha logs 3,108 new Covid cases

Bengal elections: 45 constituenciesto go to polls in fifth phase today

per cent of the country’s forestarea while mildly affectingabout 54 per cent, which makesabout two-third of India’sforests vulnerable to fires.

The question is: Why is itso? Lightning is the mostimportant natural cause.Another is the spontaneouscombustion of dried-upleaves and sticks. The one thathas been an increasinglypotent factor, and is set tobecome even more so, isglobal warming. It dries upthe leaves and shrubbery onthe ground, making themhighly inflammable. It alsodries up the soil. Thus, thelack of soil moisture as a resultof rainfall deficiency duringmonsoons — less than 18 percent and 20 per cent in 2019and 2020, respectively — hasbeen an important factor inthis year’s Uttarakhand fires.In fact, it has been a cause notonly in many other parts ofIndia but the entire world —the blazes bedevillingAustralia, California in the USand the Amazon rainforestsin Brazil are examples.

Human activity, however,is responsible for the over-whelming majority of forestfires the world over. In India,these blazes are mainly causedby the slash-and-burn methodof shifting agriculture, known

as jhum in Arunachal Pradesh,Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram,Meghalaya, Tripura and Assam,where it is practised over about15,000 sq km of forest land.The blazes are also set off toclear the ground for mining,timber felling and the construc-tion of human settlements andindustrial units, besides ward-ing off the wild animals.

People burn dry leavesand shrubbery on forestgrounds, believing that itwould lead to the sprouting ofnew and healthier grass.Poachers light fires on threesides to corner fleeing wildanimals in one area as theirconcentrated presence helpskilling. People visiting forestsare often careless and leavebehind lighted butts of ciga-rettes or bidis, besides inflam-mable material.

Things are made worseby the fact that it is difficultto extinguish forest fires. Theabsence of roads preventsfire tenders from reaching thesites and high winds carry thesparks to new areas.Helicopters are pressed intoservice — as in Uttarakhandrecently where two Indian AirForce helicopters, each witha 5,000-litre water tank, weredeployed. There are, howev-er, limits to the number ofhelicopters that can be used

and the availability of largelakes or rivers from whichthese can draw water.

Forest fires wreak havoc inIndia every year. They destroyforests, cause pollution, turnstreams dry or adversely affecttheir water quality, damage soilnutrients and increase the riskof soil erosion. They killwildlife and insects, includingendangered species, anddestroy their habitats, damagenational parks and sanctuar-ies, driving the wild animalslike tigers, leopards and ele-phants towards human settle-ments, thus aggravating thehuman-animal conflict. And,of course, they kill humansand destroy their property.

The question is: What is tobe done? Forest fires are as oldas forests and will continue tooccur as long as forests exist.One, however, can limit theirincidence by firmly dealingwith the timber, builder andmining mafia, and the poach-ers, and simultaneously enlight-ening people not to carelesslyleave incendiary material inforests. The Central and StateGovernments will have tolaunch sustained campaigns tothis end. The consequences ofnot doing so will be severe.

(The author is ConsultingEditor, The Pioneer. The viewsexpressed are personal.)

Chief Justice of India SA Bobde deserves nothing less than the nation’s applauseand compliments for recently stating unequivocally that the time has come whena woman should head the top court. Hinting that the apex court was already

moving along the right path on the issue, he underscored that there was “no needfor a change of attitude” of the Collegium to ensuregreater representation of women in the judiciary.Hearing a plea by a women lawyers’ body seekingconsideration of the “meritorious” lot among themfor appointment as judges in the High Courts, a Benchcomprising Chief Justice Bobde and Justices SanjayKishan Kaul and Surya Kant said: “Why only higherjudiciary? We think the time has come when a womanshould be the Chief Justice of India.” At this junc-ture, it would be pertinent to mention that currentlythere are only 81 female judges in the 25 High Courtsacross the country against 1,078 male judges. Amongthem, the Madras High Court tops the list with 13female judges, followed by Punjab and Haryana with

11, and the Delhi and Bombay High Courts have eight women judges each.Interestingly, while the Supreme Court’s emphasis on gender issues is to be laud-

ed, it would truly have credibility and value if its own actions were consistent on thissubject. Consider this: There is only one female judge among the 34 positions thatcurrently constitute the Supreme Court. With Justice Indu Malhotra’s retirement lastmonth, the Collegium is considering a few women judges for elevation. The nation’stop court has had only eight women judges since it came into existence on January26, 1950. The first one, Fathima Beevi, made it to the elite club only as late as inOctober 1989. Not a single woman judge has figured in the list of 48 CJIs since itsinception. It would perhaps not be out of the context here to mention that the SupremeCourt had recently pointed to the delay in giving women permanent commission inthe military, blaming it on the “systemic bias” within the Ministry of Defence. Whilethere certainly seems to be some truth in what it said, it is a complicated issue, espe-cially the impact of women in combat roles. That said, in either case, there’s no deny-ing that women are up to performing any professional job with panache while bal-ancing with finesse their roles as mother, daughter, sister, wife and homemaker.

India is hunkering down again to battle the second and more virulent wave of theCoronavirus outbreak. It would have been much better for us had we sincerelystuck to the COVID-19 protocols when the numbers were down and, who knows,

we might have been rid of this pesky virus by now! While the average citizen decid-ed that it was “okay” to return to the crowded restaurants, malls, airports and busand railway stations without masks or social distancing, our short-sighted politicospostponed the all-important Board exams but considered it imperative to hold polit-ical rallies and road shows brimming with nonchalant people ahead of the Assemblyelections, because their future depended on it. The religious leaders found it exigent

for us to wash away our sins by bathing in the mil-lions in the holy Ganga. Now, here’s the result ofour collective endeavours: The Coronavirus casesacross the country hit a record 2,17,353 fresh infec-tions in the last 24 hours, the eighth record dailyincrease in the last nine days. In the same period,1,185 people lost their lives due to the viral disease.The numbers coming out of the Health Ministry saythat India registered a steady increase in the num-ber of active Corona cases for the 36th day in arow. Now, we are scrambling to control the dam-age. The Home Ministry has asked its officers upto the level of Under-Secretary to avail the WFH

option while the Deputy Secretary and above-ranking officials have been asked to attendoffice regularly with the option to stagger timings between 9 AM and 10 AM.

Various States, including the Capital, have also come up with local-level restric-tions — ranging from shutting of malls, gyms, swimming pools and auditoriums,prohibiting dining at restaurants, besides imposing a weekend lockdown and nightcurfew. The Government has assured the citizenry that the “test, trace, treat” andvaccination drive will continue unabated and that the national drug controller will takejust three days to process applications of the foreign-made vaccines once they’vebeen approved for emergency use in India. One can only hope that this time around,the Government grits its teeth and stands by the Prime Minister’s words that “wemust learn to live with the virus”. No matter how many restrictions are placed onrecreation and how many weekends are spent imprisoned indoors, the nation’s econ-omy must not be shut down again. The first wave gave us many lessons on howto identify hotspots, impose local lockdowns and create containment zones in orderto keep the wheels of the industry churning. We have to ensure that our march towardsa self-reliant, New India continues; our ailing economy that was just beginning torevive cannot be delivered another body blow in the form of a hard lockdown. Else,we risk having a comatose economy in our hands. So, the nation would do well togird up its loins and prepare for a bumpy road ahead, but the wheels of the econ-omy cannot stop, no matter what.

Bumpy road ahead

P A P E R W I T H P A S S I O N

www.dailypioneer.comfacebook.com/dailypioneer | @TheDailyPioneer | instagram.com/dailypioneer/

VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | APRIL 17, 2021

06

Good omenIt's time for the CJI's wish for a woman judge

to head the nation's top court to come true

Natural causes and human intervention are to blame for the risingnumber of conflagrations not only in India, but the world over

PICTALK

Smoke billows from a forest fire at the Ketli area in Shimla PTI

FOREST FIRES ARE AS OLD AS

FORESTS AND WILLCONTINUE TO

OCCUR AS LONG ASFORESTS EXIST.ONE, HOWEVER,

CAN LIMIT THEIR INCIDENCE

AND ADVERSECONSEQUENCES BY

FIRMLY DEALINGWITH THE TIMBER,

BUILDER ANDMINING MAFIA,

AND THE POACHERS

HIRANMAY KARLEKAR

To avoid having a comatose economy now, we must bear the cross of our earlier negligence

India’s flamingforests play havoc

The surge of forest firesin Uttarakhand onceagain underlines thegrowing incidence of the

phenomenon in India. Therehas been a series of these this yearin Himachal Pradesh, theNagaland-Manipur border,Odisha, Madhya Pradesh andGujarat. According to the IndiaState of Forest Report 2019 (ISFR)— the latest in the line of suchreports — released by the ForestSurvey of India (FSI), Dehradun,over 30,000 forest fires werereported in the country in 2019.The report identified nearly 21.67per cent (7,12,249 sq km) of thecountry’s land area as forested.Another 2.89 per cent (95,027 sqkm) was under tree cover.

The report identified 2,77,758forest fire points across the coun-try, and stated that about 21.40per cent of India’s forests are proneto fires. Of this, 3.89 per centbelonged to the category ofextremely fire-prone, 6.01 percent very highly fire-prone and11.50 per cent highly fire-prone.

The forests in Assam,Mizoram and Tripura are“extremely prone” to conflagra-tions. According to the Ministryof Environment, Forest andClimate Change (MoEFCC)annual report for 2020-21, theStates with large forest areas andfalling under the “very highlyfire-prone” category — includ-ing Andhra Pradesh, Manipur,Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland,Odisha, Maharashtra, Bihar andUttar Pradesh — were turninginto “extremely fire-prone”hotspots; so were regions likewestern Maharashtra, southernChhattisgarh and areas ofTelangana and Andhra Pradesh,along with central Odisha. Areasunder the “highly prone” and“moderately prone” categoriesmake up about 26.2 per cent ofthe total forest cover — a stag-gering 1,72,374 sq km.

A State prone to forest fires isHaryana which suffered at least540 of these from 2016 to 2020.Uttarakhand and HimachalPradesh are witness to the mostfrequent forest fires annually.According to the National ForestInventory under the MoEFCC,the fires severely affect almost 10

SOUNDBITENEGLIGENCE RESPONSIBLE FOR SITUATION Sir —Instead of getting stunned by the ris-ing number of COVID cases in the coun-try, we must admit the fact that we are notmoving towards a second wave but are actu-ally in its grip. As the demand forRemdesivir surges, the Centre has fast-tracked applications from companies tomanufacture the critical anti-viral drug inorder to ensure its smooth availability. Nightcurfews and partial lockdowns are beingimposed in many parts of the country as ameasure to control the deadly virus. Amidthe rising cases, the Centre has announcedthe cancellation of the CBSE Board examsfor Class 10 and has deferred Class 12exams.

On the other hand, lakhs of devoteeshave been taking a holy dip in the Gangaon the occasion of the Kumbh Mela inHaridwar, flouting the COVID norms. It ishowever ironic that while the Governmenthas no compunction about cancelling theBoard examinations, elections in the coun-try are continuing as if nothing has hap-pened. These fears have been magnified allthe more with the dismal disregard shownby various State Governments to clampingdown on mass public events and gatherings.While a proactive approach to control andmanage the crowds when it comes tostonewalling the widely contagious virus,is a remedy to the problem, the completedisregard shown towards the basic safetyprecautions is indeed perplexing!

Pachu Menon | Goa

TROOP WITHDRAWAL WILL CREATE VACUUMSir — The US’ decision to withdraw troopsfrom Afghanistan is not good at the pre-sent moment as the situation on theground is far from satisfactory. The Talibanis still controlling parts of Afghanistan andthere is considerable influence of Pakistanand support from China, too. The chancesof disintegration of Afghanistan are quitehigh. The withdrawal of the US troopsmight create a vacuum which, if acquiredby the disruptive forces, will push the coun-try into turmoil. President Joe Biden hassaid the US troops will be withdrawn from

Afghanistan beginning May 1 and theprocess will be completed by September 11.For his part, Afghan President Ashraf Ghanisaid he spoke to Biden and that his coun-try respects the US decision.

Maybe the US troops might be shiftedto some other regions of the world. The USis also facing domestic problems and is rav-aged by the COVID pandemic. Washingtonneeds a war to run its economy. Theweapons industry needs insecurity amongthe countries to sell weapons and makeprofits. In my opinion, the US troops willbe shifted to another war. Let’s wait andwatch till the withdrawal in September.

Sunil Pradhan | Odisha

BAN SUPER-SPREADER EVENTS Sir — It refers to the editorial ‘Matters offaith’ (April 16). At a time when theGovernment has done away with bridgingtrials for foreign-made vaccines for

COVID-19 to facilitate acceleration invaccination, it should seriously think aboutbanning religious events like the KumbhMela which has become a super-spreader.In just five days, 1,701 people have testedpositive for COVID-19 in the Kumbh Melaarea. The Uttarakhand Police was unableto impose the standard operating proce-dures (SOPs) on the seers of akhadas andthe ash-smeared ascetics crowding the HarKi Pauri on the two shahi snans becauseof time constraints. Now Niranjani Akhada,one of the 13 akhadas of seers participat-ing in the Kumbh, has decided to returnfrom the event in the wake of the deterio-rating COVID-19 situation. But it is too lateas the damage has already been done.

Bal Govind | Noida

Send yyour ffeedback tto:letterstopioneer@gmail.com

Politics over the anti-Coronavirus vaccinestarted the day Prime Minister NarendraModi announced free jabs to the people

of Bihar in the run-up to the Assembly elec-tions in October-November last year. The vac-cine policy suffered from the play of politicsand one-upmanship. Besides, appalling naive-ness in assessing the demand during the sec-ond wave, differing norms for affordingauthorisation for use, inertia in augmenting in-house capacity, exports as a policy andimports in fetters together impacted the avail-ability of vaccines in the country. After the

authorisation of the Oxford-assisted Covishieldand the indigenously-developed Covaxin foremergency use, the authorities soft-pedalledon giving authorisation and import/productionlicence(s) to other popular vaccine candidatesin the world. According to the Lancet,Russia's vaccine Sputnik V had the efficacy of91.6 per cent. While the chronic shortage wasbeing felt, the Government allowed the exportsto showcase India as a powerhouse of vac-cines. To draw an analogy, the US has accu-mulated stocks which could vaccinate its entirepopulation.

In fact, the possibility of a furious secondwave was overlooked. India's daily COVIDcount has crossed 2 lakh now. This surge mustbe viewed against the overloaded hospitals,shortage in oxygen supply, inadequacy in life-saving ventilators and shortfalls in vaccines andmedicines. There is an urgent need to reassessthe situation carefully and honestly to mounta multipronged action to crush the climbingcurve and augment treatment facilities.

Haridasan Rajan | Kozhikode

Politicisation of vaccines Being a tourist State,if we impose nightcurfew, it will create aspin-off effect. Peopleshould remain alert.We have issued anadvisory. We are continuing to create awareness.

Goa Chief Minister — Pramod Sawant

If we were to lift the borderrestrictions, youwould see thesecases increase andAustralians would

have to become used to dealing with1,000 cases or more a week.

Australian Prime Minister — Scott Morrison

I would love to singin films that I amgoing to be a part of,as well as for others,as a playback singer.

Actor— Adarsh Gourav

There is no shortageof Remdesivir drugbut if anyone is tryingto misuse thepandemic situation byblack-marketing, thenall those will be punished severely.

Karnataka Home Minister

— Basavaraj Bommai

He is not the MSDhoni which he usedto be probably four orfive years back, wherehe could just come inand start taking on the

bowlers from the word go.

Former cricketer — Gautam Gambhir

LETTERS TO TTHE EDITOR

Time to turn Noceboto Placebo in India

IF CENTRAL ARMED FORCES ARE ATTACKED

THEN SHOTS SHOULD BE FIRED.

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHO DIES OR LIVES.

—BJP LEADER

RAHUL SINHA

HE HAS UNMASKED THE TRUE

FACE OF THE BJP. PEOPLE WILL

GIVE THEM A BEFITTING REPLY.

—TMC SPOKESPERSON

KUNAL GHOSH

The pandemic and its prevalence have taughtus many lessons in perseverance and patience.We have raced from one decision to the next,

hoping that the latest one will make everything nor-mal again. While the scientists have been workingrelentlessly to understand the virus and come upwith increasingly promising vaccine candidates, thevirus has been playing truant and evolving in newforms to ditch human efforts and survive as morerobust variants. In the wake of the ever-changingvariants, efficacy statistics and reported side effects,the so-called ultimate solution to end the pandem-ic, the anti-Corona vaccine, doesn’t appear to be soattractive anymore. People are hesitant to take theshot, confirming the ‘Nocebo Effect’ to the perceivedsolution of the pandemic that doesn’t seem to begetting anywhere close to its end. The hesitancy isspread across the globe. Some think they will neverget the disease while others believe the virus is onits way out. Social media has been most instrumen-tal in spreading the hesitancy due to varied opin-ions of people who have wide social media presenceand have contributed to turning the solution fromplacebo to nocebo.

Understanding and addressing vaccine hesitan-cy has become very important in the drive towardsnormalising life, avoiding deaths and allowing theeconomy to run to its full capacity. These were thevery reasons why a COVID-19 vaccine was need-ed in the first place. What made the long wait fora solution turn into vaccine hesitancy needs seri-ous thought. As per the World Health Organisation(WHO), vaccine hesitancy is the delay in acceptanceor refusal of vaccines despite their availability.Medical practitioners and scientists have been mak-ing all out efforts to discuss and address the com-mon causes of concern. Fear and hesitancy comefrom the unknown, hence the awareness needs torise. This has led to a negative mindset against thevaccine. The hesitancy has also been triggered bythe side effects reported in some cases as a resultof administering the vaccine. The directions to con-tinue with the safety measures and stay withCOVID-appropriate behaviour along with report-ing of positive cases in some vaccinated individu-als have amplified the vaccine hesitancy.

With many cases of blood clotting reported asa side effect of the AstraZeneca jab and discontin-uation of the vaccine thereafter in at least a dozenEuropean countries before resuming them again,doubts have grown more than ever. The latest newsthat Denmark has totally stopped the use of theAstraZeneca jab in its inoculation drive is not help-ing the cause and instilling confidence in people.

While Governments across the globe have rolledout the vaccine and invited people to get vaccinat-ed at the earliest, the vaccination centres report adifferent story. Dealing with vaccine hesitancy hasbecome the next big challenge, even in a countrylike India, which is now the second-most badly hitnation in the world after the US.

In order to build trust and confidence in the jab,a multi-pronged strategy is required with transpar-ent communication as the key. With the second wavealready in full swing and numerous variants of theoriginal virus here, the danger is far from over. Herdimmunity, as it was being perceived, is nowhere insight as there are people who have reported a sec-ond infection. The diversity of the disease is unfath-omable.

Attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccines have changed overtimeand varied greatly. The theory ofdeveloping antibodies on beinginfected has also led to a decrease inthe relevance of the vaccine. Infectedindividuals feel they have devel-oped antibodies and are immunisedagainst the disease, so they do notneed a shot. However, the protectiveabilities of antibodies in sero-surveysis unknown and their effectiveness inpreventing reinfection is still to bestudied. The belief that the vaccineis rushed and has not been testedproperly is another setback.

That some of the scientists havebeen supporting this belief has alsogiven boost to hesitancy. It is alsoassumed that the efficacy of the vac-cine is being underplayed so thatpeople do not become lax in observ-ing COVID-appropriate behaviour.Another view being expressed is thatthe immunity after vaccination lastsfor only six months, which wronglyimplies that the shot is not effective.People also think that if the survivaland recovery rate is 99.6 per cent,why even bother getting a jab.

All these supposed opinions andviews have stopped people from get-ting vaccinated. Giving compensa-tion for getting vaccinated has alwaysbackfired as people think that theyare being paid because there issomething to hide. The only groupsthat have justifiable concerns are theelderly, people with co-morbidities,pregnant women and those with highallergic reactions to vaccines. Also,

there is no vaccine to protect our chil-dren, as of now. Though getting vac-cinated is a personal choice, the mostsuccessful inoculation drives havebeen built on knowledge exchange,accessibility and successful stories ofthose getting vaccinated.

Sherita Hill Golden, vice-presi-dent, chief diversity officer and aProfessor of Medicine at JohnsHopkins Medicine talks of 12 thingsyou need to know in the wake of thecurrent vaccine hesitancy. The factsand insights into making a person-al choice to get inoculated include thefollowing: Getting vaccinated canprotect you from getting COVID asyour body will be ready to fight theCoronavirus if you are exposed to it;the people of colour are especiallyvulnerable to severe COVID-19 andits risk factors; getting inoculatedhelps others in the community, moreso when people have chronic med-ical conditions; more vaccinationsmean a chance to return to normalafter having to experience closures,cancellations and postponements;though the vaccine developmentwas fast, no steps were skippedwhile testing for safety and efficacy;diversity in vaccine testing helpedassess safety and effectiveness; sideeffects of the COVID-19 vaccine aresparse and temporary, mainly limit-ed to a sore arm, mild fever or bodyaches; it is possible to get the shotdespite allergies except if you havesevere allergic reactions to vaccines;the vaccine is safe for breastfeedingmothers, though pregnant women

should discuss it with their doctorsas the vaccine have not been testedin pregnant women; the jab can giveyou extra protection, if you alreadyhad COVID-19; waiting too longallows the virus to spread in the com-munity, hence, time is of the essencefor the vaccine; the pandemic canonly be shortened if the vaccine iswell-received.

Hence, people have been advisedto do their own research from reli-able sources and take an informeddecision regarding getting vaccinat-ed. Where the issue of the shortageof the vaccine in the country is con-cerned, the Government is doing allit can to ensure that the needs of thepeople are met at the earliest. Whilethe Russian vaccine Sputnik V hasbeen given the go ahead and will hitthe market soon after short trialshere, the Centre is also looking at fastapprovals for vaccines from othernations that have been approved bythe WHO for emergency use. It isonly a matter of time and the short-age will be a thing of the past. But thebig question is will vaccine hesitan-cy, too, be gone soon?

It is time to put resolve into wide-ly propagating the positives of gettingvaccinated, underplaying the sparsenegatives and whole-heartedly sup-porting the Government’s initiativestowards massive vaccination drivesso that the pandemic situation can becontrolled, the economic downturncan be lifted and normalcy restored.Its time we turned this nocebo to aplacebo and support humanity.

We must widely propagate the positives of getting inoculated, underplay the negativesand whole-heartedly support the Govt’s initiatives towards massive vaccination drives

SONAM CHANDWANI

WHILE THERUSSIAN VACCINE

SPUTNIK V HASBEEN GIVEN THE GO

AHEAD AND WILLHIT THE MARKET

SOON AFTER SHORTTRIALS HERE, THE

CENTRE IS ALSOLOOKING AT FASTAPPROVALS FORVACCINES FROMOTHER NATIONSTHAT HAVE BEEN

APPROVED BY THEWHO FOR

EMERGENCY USE.IT IS ONLY A

MATTER OF TIME AND THE SHORTAGE

WILL BE A THING OF THE PAST. BUT

THE BIG QUESTION IS WILL VACCINE

HESITANCY, TOO, BE

GONE SOON?

The pall of gloom over the real estate industry on account of theCOVID-19 pandemic has brought to light several unconvention-al methods being applied to keep the dreams of property buy-

ers alive, while developers strive to stay afloat. A growing numberof Indians are acquiring slices of rent-yielding residential and com-mercial properties in a way that is comparable to investing in the stocksof a company. Fractional real estate, as the concept is known, allowsinvestors to buy, say, one per cent of a vacation home for a mini-mum amount and use it whenever they want, while earning rentalincome, too. While weekend properties are neither essential nor urgent,the outbreak has changed this perception. Such a realty ownershipconcept has arisen predominantly from the Work-From-Home (WFH)culture and the work-vacation culture, attracting NRIs and domesticbuyers alike. Such a property acts like an asset, attracting a pletho-ra of investors, in the end becoming a potential Special Purpose Vehicle-related investment. From the taxation standpoint, the fractional own-ership of a property opens up such owners to a plethora of taxableliabilities, when comparing the yearly taxation related costs of suchinterests, prospective buyers or their counsel/advisors need to be sureof the usage arrangement, location, ownership size, basic amenitiesand other items.

A unicorn investment refers to a startup avenue/venture, occu-pying less than $1 billion of the industry share. Considering the factthat this sort of timeshare arrangement is a novel arena of invest-ment for Indians, the value of such investment could possibly ren-der the whole idea as a potential cash cow for real estate develop-ers adapting to such forms of investment. With the pandemic hav-ing rendered the traditional and conventional real estate an under-yield-ing area of investment in the markets currently, fractional ownershipmight just pave way for a steady boom in the real estate sector. Whilefractional ownership may appear to be an inexpensive mode of invest-ment to potential investors, it has its pros and cons. Procedures involv-ing the investment in such ventures could involve detailed due dili-gences and legal red-tapism. Not paying attention to such procedurescould end up putting stressed properties in the hands of lesser advisedinvestors.

Moreover, expenses considering maintenance and managementof the property and any such costs could essentially tip the scalesagainst the owners should they not be able to actually utilise the prop-erty within their arrangements. Having said that, the benefits accru-ing out of part ownership of vacation properties, while not account-ing monumentally in financial terms, are manifold where it comes toutilisation. Such a property allows the investors to change their work-space surroundings and choose rather inexpensive modes of vaca-tion and even earn some money out of renting it out to other vaca-tioners. Though fractional ownership could lead to a real estate invest-ment boom the sector so gravely yearns for, the legal proceduresinvolved might turn off a certain class of investors. Moreover, a rel-atively-new arena of investment always ends up taking a lot moretime in yielding benefits, even if the time-value of money is ratherunaccountable, since the property provides more leisurely than com-mercial benefits. Timeshare investments, while popular in the West,are considered to be a nascent area of investment, particularly whilefractional ownership is considered. However, given the correct legalframework and taxation incentives, the current status of such invest-ment could be elevated to providing the work-vacation culture thestability that the recent short-lived boom is testament to.

(The writer is Managing Partner KS Legal and Associates. Theviews expressed are personal.)

The Kumbh Mela wasfirst mentioned in theaccounts of Hiuen

Tsang, the famous Chinesetraveller who visited India inthe seventh century. Thegrand event, with a 2,000-year-old history, commencedthis year in January and willcontinue till the end of April.Currently, at over two lakhnew cases, India accounts forone in six of all new COVIDinfections globally. But theserather grim facts did notdeter nearly 13.5 lakh devo-tees, including the membersof the 13 Akharas from tak-ing the holy dip or the ShahiSnan on April 13.

The consequences of theongoing Maha Kumbh uponpublic health have been dev-astating, to say the least. Inthe last 24 hours, Haridwarhas reported over 1,000 freshCorona positive cases. Withthe Indian Railways running

25 special trains to ferry thepilgrims across the country,the Maha Kumbh is all set tobecome a “Maha COVID-19super-spreader.” The situa-tion looks hopeless unlesseither the event is immediate-ly terminated or social dis-tancing norms are strictlyadhered to. But nothing sig-nificant seems to have beendone by the Governmentregarding it.

Health risks aside, theKumbh Mela is also notsomething that is known forenvironment friendliness.The Maha Kumbh is held atfour locations — Nashik,Haridwar, Prayagraj andUjjain — on a rotationalbasis after an interval of 12years.

While the Kumbh, ingeneral, is celebrated fourtimes over the course of 12years, with the site of theobservance rotating between

four pilgrimage places onthe four sacred rivers, name-ly, at Haridwar on the Ganga,at Ujjain on the Shipra, atNashik on the Godavari andat Prayagraj at the conflu-ence of the Ganga, theJamuna, and the mythicalSarasvati.

The Nashik Kumbh Melaheld in 2015 resulted in25,000 tonnes of solid wasteand faecal sludge that creptinto the groundwater tablefrom 33,000 hastily set-upmobile toilets without anyeffective waste disposalmechanism. It took an inter-national outcry triggered bymedia coverage and the even-tual intervention of theBombay High Court to cleanup the Nashik Kumbh Melamess and rescue the environ-ment. The event also causeda spike in river pollutionmaking it unfit for bathingand other purposes. The

maximum permissibleBiochemical OxygenDemand (BOD) for safebathing is 3.0 milligrams(mg) per litre but it rangedbetween 3.4-8.5 mg per litreduring the event. Meanwhilebacterial coliform rangedbetween 3,300 and 39,000Most Probable Number(MPN) per 100 ml while thepermissible limit is 500 MNPper 100 ml for human

bathing. The Maha Kumbh atHaridwar, too, is no differenteither in terms of the colos-sal health risk it poses or theecological collateral damageit brings.

In the run-up to theHaridwar Maha Kumbh, theNational Mission for CleanGanga (NMCG) has beenworking tirelessly to preventecological damage and as apart of its efforts, the NMCGhas diverted one of thebiggest local sewage drains —the Kassawan nullah — to asewage treatment plant. Butit should have been done ayear ago. This nullah hasemptied its effluents into theGanga for years.

A recent study by theDoon University on the pol-lution levels in the Gangaestablishes that in the stretchfrom Rishikesh to Haridwarthe river was high on pollu-tants due to the pilgrim

bathing load and urban wasteeffluent flow.

The study also revealedthat the overall concentrationof Polypropylene Copolymer(PPCP), a form of plastic pol-lutant in the Ganga wasfound to be up to 1,104.84nanograms per litre. Further,the presence of chemicalswas also found to be high inthe river water samples.

The election season, too,symbolised by huge politicalrallies, coupled with unre-strained religious gatheringsare in total defiance ofCOVID-appropriate behav-iour and protocol. Surely theGovernment is not ignorantof the health costs of theseunabated events during theongoing second wave of theCoronavirus pandemic, butpopulist measures andappeasement tactics are thetop priorities during electionsand they seem to score over

environmental and healthconcerns.

This is not surprising, butwhat is unfortunately star-tling is the inaction on thebehalf of the judiciary whichcould have taken a suo motuinitiative to shorten the dura-tion of the Kumbh Mela,thereby, saving lives and theenvironment. In the absenceof this, the Non-GovernmentOrganisations working in thefield of environment protec-tion and other individualscould have filed a PublicInterest Litigation to thiseffect, but unfortunately, thatalso did not happen yet.

It is a classic case of whowill bell the cat? Sadly, thereluctance of people to takeon what is obviously a com-munally-sensitive issue willcost the environment and thehealth and economy of thecountry dearly. Where are thetrue nationalists now?

The Govt is not ignorant of the health costs of these events during the ongoing second wave of the outbreak but populist measures are the top priority during elections

VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | APRIL 17, 2021

07

www.dailypioneer.com facebook.com/dailypioneer | @TheDailyPioneer | instagram.com/dailypioneer/

FIRSTCOLUMN

THE NEW REALTYFOR INDIANS

People are acquiring slices of rent-yielding properties ina way that is comparable to investing in a firm’s stocks

DEEPIKA BHASKAR

POINTCOUNTERPOINT

The writer is Registrar,IIT Delhi.

The views expressed are personal.

The Maha Kumbh of COVID and environmental risks

KOTA SRIRAJ

The writer is an environmental journalist.

The views expressed are personal.

VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | APRIL 17, 2021 Money 08

MONEY MATTERS

Fortis Healthcare on Fridaysaid its subsidiary,

Escorts Heart Institute andResearch Center Ltd, hasreceived a notice fromcapital markets regulatorSEBI in the matter related tothe alleged diversion offunds from the company byits erstwhile promoters.SEBIhas issued a notice under

Rule 4 of SEBI (Procedure for holding inquiry and imposingpenalties) Rules, 1995 read with Section 15-I of Securities andExchange Board of India Act, 1992 in the matter of Fortis HealthcareLimited to, among others, Escorts Heart Institute and ResearchCenter Limited (EHIRCL)," Fortis Healthcare said in a regulatoryfiling. Fortis Healthcare on Friday said its subsidiary, EHIRCL,received the notice on April 15, 2021.

Escorts Heart Institute gets SEBInotice in funds diversion case

Transporters'body AIMTC on

Friday termed therecent 14-16 paiseper litre cut inpetrol and dieselprices acrossmajor cities as"ostentatious", andsaid there is still aroom to reduction

their prices by up to Rs 40 per litre. In a statement, the AllIndia Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC), which claimsrepresenting over 95 lakh truckers and entities, said it is anopen fact that this small cut in the petrol and diesel prices hasa bearing on the election in four states — West Bengal, TamilNadu, Kerala and Assam.All India Motor Transport CongressChairman (Core Committee) Bal Milkit Singh said,

Transporters' body seeksmore reduction fuel prices

Gold prices rose marginallyby Rs 9 to Rs 46,431 per

10 gram in the national capi-tal on Friday, according toHDFC Securities. In the pre-vious trade, the preciousmetal had closed at Rs46,422 per 10 gram. Silveralso gained Rs 53 to Rs67,460 per kg from Rs67,407 per kg in the previous

trade.In the international market, gold was quoting higher at USD1,764 per ounce and silver was flat at USD 25.87 per ounce. "Goldprices rallied supported by dollar decline and fall in US bond yields,"according to HDFC Securities, Senior Analyst (Commodities), TapanPatel. Navneet Damani, VP – Commodities Research, Motilal OswalFinancial Services, "Gold traded higher to a more than one-monthpeak as US Treasury yields slipped despite better-than-expected USeconomic data, pushing investors to bullion as a refuge against pos-sible inflation ahead."

Gold, silver marginally up

Top European Union andBritish officials failed to get a

breakthrough at talks onNorthern Ireland trade rulesand said Friday that contactwould continue over the com-ing weeks. The dinner meeting

late Thursday between European Commission Vice President MarosSefcovic and U.K. Brexit minister David Frost took place a monthafter the EU started legal action against its former member country,arguing that the UK had not respected the conditions of the Brexitagreement and violated international law. A British statement saidthat “a number of difficult issues remained and it was important tocontinue to discuss them.” Frost said that “there should be intensi-fied contacts at all levels in the coming weeks.” The two sides aretrying to find common ground on trade rules in Northern Ireland,where Britain's exit from the EU has unsettled a delicate political bal-ance.

EU-UK talks over Brexit fail toreach breakthrough

Exports rose to $13.72 bn duringApr 1-14: Commerce Ministry data

PNS n NEW DELHI

The country's exports haveincreased to USD 13.72 billionduring April 1-14 this year onaccount of healthy growth rate insectors such as engineering andgems and jewellery, according to theprovisional data of the CommerceMinistry. Exports during April 1-14last year were aggregated at USD3.59 billion.

In April 2020, the outbound ship-ments had contracted by a record 60per cent due to COVID-19 relatedlockdown. Imports during the peri-od under review swelled to USD19.93 billion as against USD 6.54 bil-lion during April 1-14 last year, thedata showed. The final figures forApril 2021 would be released duringmid-May by the ministry.

Exports have surged by 60.29 percent to USD 34.45 billion in March,even as the outbound shipmentscontracted by 7.26 per cent duringthe full 2020-21 fiscal to USD290.63 billion.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The country's largest carmak-er Maruti Suzuki India (MSI)on Friday said it has hikedprices of most of its models byup to Rs 22,500 with immedi-ate effect to partially offset theimpact of the rise in inputcosts.

Barring Celerio and Swift,all the models of the compa-ny will be covered under theprice increase exercise.

"The company is increasingthe price for select modelsowing to increase in variousinput costs," the auto majorsaid in a regulatory filing.

The weighted average priceincrease in ex-showroom

prices (Delhi) across models is1.6 per cent, it added.

The new prices are effectivefrom Friday, MSI said.

The company sells variousmodels ranging from Alto toS-Cross, priced between Rs2.99 lakh and Rs 12.39 lakh(ex-showroom Delhi).

In March, the car marketleader had said that over thepast year, the cost of the com-pany's vehicles has beenimpacted adversely due to anincrease in various input costs.

On January 18 thisyear, the automaker hadannounced to hike prices ofselect models by up to Rs34,000 due to a rise in inputcosts.

Maruti hikes pricesby up to Rs 22,500

PNS n NEW DELHI

Consumer tech productsbrand Boat on Friday said ithas received funding fromQualcomm Ventures, theinvestment arm of QualcommIncorporated. While Boat didnot disclose the quantum offunding received, it said theinvestment will supprt thebrand's plans of rolling outnew audio and lifestyle prod-ucts across geographies aswell as building up R&D andmanufacturing capabilities.

Qualcomm is a world leaderin wireless technologies andBoat has a shared vision ofbuilding world-class productsfor India and the world, Boatco-founder Sameer Mehta saidin a statement.

"As Boat enters the nextphase of growth and innova-tion, we look forward to build-ing a relationship withQualcomm to deepen ourR&D capabilities and furtheraugment our efforts to manu-

facture products in India. Webelieve this relationship willcontribute to greater technol-ogy collaboration,” he added.

Boat has clocked a rapidrevenue growth, witnessingover 100 per cent over the pastseveral years. In the past year,it doubled its employeestrength and built up a localR&D in Bengaluru.

The company also expand-ed into newer categories likesmartwatches, besides launch-ing over 20 new products in theaudio category in 20202-21.

In January this year, Boathad announced raising USD100 million (about Rs 731.6crore) in funding from anaffiliate of Warburg Pincus, aglobal private equity firm.

Boat raises funds from

Qualcomm Ventures PNS n WASHINGTON

Ten liberal senators are urgingPresident Joe Biden to backIndia and South Africa's appealto the World TradeOrganisation to temporarilyrelax intellectual property rulesso coronavirus vaccines can bemanufactured by nations thatare struggling to inoculatetheir populations.

The lawmakers, in a letterdelivered to the White Houseon Thursday evening, wrotethat Biden should “prioritizepeople over pharmaceuticalcompany profits” and supportthe temporary waiver of therules. A waiver could pave theway for generic or other man-ufacturers to make more vac-cines.

The letter was led by inde-pendent Sen. Bernie Sanders ofVermont, along withDemocratic Sens. ElizabethWarren of Massachusetts,Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsinand Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Democratic Sens. RichardBlumenthal of Connecticut,Chris Murphy of Connecticut,Edward Markey ofMassachusetts, Jeff Merkleyof Oregon, Chris Van Hollenof Maryland and RaphaelWarnock of Georgia alsosigned the letter.

“Simply put, we must makevaccines, testing, and treat-ments accessible everywhere ifwe are going to crush thevirus anywhere,” the lawmak-ers say in the letter, which wasobtained by The AssociatedPress. More than 100 nationssupport a temporary waiver,

which could help vaccine man-ufacturing ramp up in poorercountries that are struggling toacquire vaccine supplies. TheBiden administration has saidit is studying the issue.

Opponents, including phar-maceutical companies, worrythat it would set dangerousprecedent in allowing scientistsaround the globe to copyAmerican and European com-panies' research — some ofwhich was funded by the USgovernment — long beforepatents expire. The Trumpadministration had opposedcalls for the waiver.

The White House did notrespond to a request for com-ment on the lawmakers' letter.

The lawmakers' appeal toBiden came after a group of170 former world leaders andNobel laureates earlier thisweek sent a similar letter toBiden urging him to support atemporary waiver of theWTO's intellectual propertyrules.

PNS n MUMBAI

The rupee strengthenedby 58 paise to end at74.35 (provisional)against the US dollar onFriday, supported by pos-itive domestic equitiesamid improving riskappetite.

At the interbank forexmarket, the local unitopened at 74.76 againstthe greenback and wit-nessed an intra-day highof 74.28 and a low of74.76.

It finally ended at74.35 against theAmerican currency, reg-istering a rise of 58 paiseover its previous closing.On Thursday, the rupeehad settled at 74.93against the Americancurrency.

PNS n NEW DELHI

Larsen & Toubro (L&T)on Friday said its con-struct ion arm hasreceived multiple ordersacross business seg-ments in the domesticand international mar-ket.

The company did notprovide the value of thecontracts but said theorders fall under the"significant" category,which ranges betweenRs 1,000 crore and Rs2,500 crore accordingto the classification ofcontracts.

"The construct ionarm of L&T has securedorders from prestigiousclients for its variousbusinesses," L&T saidin a regulatory filing.

The company said itspower transmission anddistribution business haswon orders to designand construct two132/11kV substations inDubai, UAE.

PNS n MUMBAI

The spike in coronavirus casesposes a risk to economic recov-ery, and the GDP is unlikely toachieve the earlier projected 3per cent growth for Marchquarter 2020-21, Wall Streetbrokerage Bank of AmericaSecurities said on Friday.

Noting that a month-longnationwide lockdown canshave off 100-200 basis pointsoff the GDP, the brokerage saidgrowth is still weak, amplifiedby the steep fall in key econom-ic activity indicators and theanaemic loan growth, and thesurging pandemic cases is onlyincreasing the worries on thegrowth front.

However, the report by BofASecurities did not offer a like-ly GDP number for the Marchquarter 2020-21.

The seven-component BofAIndia activity indicator slowedto 1 per cent in February from1.3 per cent in January, thereport said, as 4 of the 7 con-

stituents of the India activityindex slowed in February overthe previous month.

The report also pointed outthat this poses risks to their 3per cent real GVA growthforecast for the March quarter.The index had first time in2020-21 turned positive in

December 2020 after decliningfor nine straight months.

Spike in pandemic casesposes a rising risk to recovery."We estimate that a month ofnational lockdown costs 100-200 bps of GDP," the reportwarned.

The pandemic caseload inIndia has been surging hittingnew records everyday for thepast fortnight. The latest offi-cial number puts the dailyinfections at 2.17 lakh in thepast 24 hours and 1,185deaths-- both are the highestin the world and more than thecombined numbers of the sec-ond and the third most affect-ed countries-- Brazil and theUS.

‘Covid 2nd wave poses risk to recovery’

PNS n BEIJING

China's economic growthsurged to 18.3 per cent over ayear ago in the first quarter of2021 after factory and con-sumer activity returned large-ly to normal following thecoronavirus pandemic.

The figures reported Fridaywere magnified by comparisonwith early 2020, when theworld's second-largest econo-my fell into its deepest contrac-tion in decades.

Manufacturing, auto salesand other consumer activityhave revived to above pre-pan-demic levels since the rulingCommunist Party declaredvictory over the coronaviruslast March and allowed facto-ries and stores to reopen.

The economy “delivered astable performance with a con-solidated foundation and goodmomentum of growth,” theNSB said in a report.

The outsize jump in theheadline number was in line

with expectations by forecast-ers due to the low basis forcomparison in early 2020.

Some warn that despiteChina's impressive recent per-formance, a recovery still isuncertain because globaldemand is weak as some gov-ernments reimpose anti-dis-ease curbs that disrupt busi-ness and trade.

The economy shrank by 6.8per cent in the first quarter oflast year as the rulingCommunist Party took thethen-unprecedented step ofclosing most factories, shops

and offices to fight the out-break that started in the cen-tral city of Wuhan in late2019. It was China's worstperformance since at least themid-1960s.

Growth recovered to 6.5per cent over a year earlier inthe final quarter following theeconomy's relatively earlyreopening while the UnitedStates, Europe and Japan strug-gled with renewed disease out-breaks. China eked out full-year growth of 2.3 per cent,becoming the only majoreconomy to expand in 2020.

China's economic growthsurges to 18.3 per cent

PNS n NEW DELHI

Shares of Wipro zoomed near-ly 10 per cent in morning tradeon Friday after the companyposted a 27.7 per cent jump inconsolidated net profit at Rs2,972 crore for the March2021 quarter, and exuded con-fidence of sustaining stronggrowth momentum in thecoming quarters. The stockjumped 9.51 per cent to Rs 472-- its 52-week high -- on theBSE. At the NSE, it rallied 9.67per cent to Rs 472.35 -- its one-year high. The results wereannounced after market hourson Thursday.

Wipro had registered a netprofit (attributable to equityholders) of Rs 2,326.1 crore inthe year-ago period, as perIndian Accounting Standards(Ind-AS).

Its revenue from operationsrose by 3.4 per cent to Rs16,245.4 crore in the reportedquarter, from Rs 15,711 crorein the same period last fiscal.

Wipro -- which gets a bulk ofits topline from IT services --said it expects revenues fromthat unit to be in the range ofUSD 2,195 to USD 2,238 mil-lion in the June 2021 quarter.This translates into a sequentialgrowth of 2-4 per cent.

Wipro's IT services seg-ment revenue was at USD2,152.4 million in the Marchquarter, a sequential growth of3.9 per cent.

"Our Q4 performance wasbuilt on top of our momentumthat we saw in the last quarter.We have reported a solidgrowth in revenue, healthyorder booking and great exe-cution, resulting in robustmargins.

Wipro shares jump10% after Q4 earnings

PNS n NEW DELHI

Tata Motors on Fridaysaid it is operating itsPune-based manufactur-ing facility with a limit-ed number of employeesas per the guidelines is-sued by the Maharashtragovernment amid surgein Covid cases.

Tata Motors rolls outmodels like Nexon,Harrier, Altroz and Safarifrom the Pune plant.

"The company is run-ning Pune plant in strictcompliance with theguidelines mentioned inthe 'Break the Chain' orderof the Maharashtra gov-ernment. A limited num-ber of employees areattending duties adheringto all safety protocols, dis-tancing norms andhygiene standards," TataMotors said in a statement.

PNS n NEW DELHI

WIMWIsure, AI-enabled insur-ance service platform for on-demand inspection of insurableassets, on Friday said the compa-ny conducted over 2 lakh virtualinspections of passenger and com-mercial vehicles in the financialyear ended March 2021 and alsoturned profitable during the year.

The Indian motor insurancemarketplace has noted a clear shifttowards remote 'Do-It-Yourself 'checks and inspection-as-a-servicebecause of COVID-19 which hasnecessitated moving away from

physical vehicle inspections,WIMWIsure said in a release.

"During the lockdown,Insurtech WIMWIsure has con-ducted more than 2 lakh virtualinspections for passenger andcommercial vehicles through itson-demand artificial intelligence(AI)-enabled video inspectionplatform in the financial year2020-21," it said. The nearly four-year-old company said it saw thebulk of its over 3.5 lakh inspectionstill date during the lockdown, wit-nessing strong demand from tier-II and III cities for mid-rangeSUVs, sedans and hatchbacks.

WIMWIsure conducts2L inspections remotelyin FY21; turns profitable

‘OperatingPune plant asper norms’

Rupee zooms58 paise to settleat 74.35 againstUS dollar

L&T receivesmultiple ordersacross businesssegments

Senators to Biden: Waive vaxintellectual property rules

here were reports thatKartik Aaryan will nolonger be a part of KaranJohar’s Dostana 2. Themovie was announced in2019 but the shoot had to

be delayed due to the pandemic.While no one officially confirmedthe news, a trade source hasannounced that the actor has beenreplaced from the movie and thatDharma will no longer work withKartik Aaryan in the future. Thereason stated behind this decisionis a fallout between Karan Joharand Kartik Aaryan. Along with thecreative differences, it has also beenreported that Janhvi Kapoor andKartik have had a fallout.

The actor initially had problemswith his dates and schedule, lateron, he started having creativeissues. It was earlier reported thatKartik was replaced from the pro-ject for dilly-dallying the shoot formonths now.

He decided to first wrap up RamMadhvani’s film Dhamaka and thatannoyed Karan. A source told us,“For the longest time, Kartik gave agenuine reason of the Covid 19pandemic to not start shoot. Hewanted to ensure safety so Karandidn’t push him much. But whenhe shot for Dhamaka, Karan wasupset. They had an indoor meetingwhere Karan expressed his disap-

pointment.”Kartik later did the

unthinkable and that led tomajor fallout with KaranJohar. “Kartik got upsetwith the banner when theygave Shashank Khaitan’sYoddha to ShahidKapoor. AlthoughShahid soon quit, theynever approachedKartik for the roleanyway. Also, sinceKartik’s dates werenot available forDostana 2, Karandecided to goahead and startMr. Lele with VickyKaushal and JanhviKapoor fromApril. Themoment Kartikgot to knowabout thisdevelopment; heinformed the production housethat the only dates available forDostana 2 this year will be Aprilonwards.

Karan understood what Kartikwas doing and quickly reprimand-ed him for the same. He was gen-uinely upset with Kartik as Janhvihad to pick between Dostana 2 andMr. Lele. The last we heard, Karanand Kartik are not speaking a word

to each other.”Another source said, “The rea-

son for Kartik Aaryan to not con-tinue with the film as stated by himis the creative differences after oneand a half years and completingover 20 days of the shoot. This hasnever happened in the history ofDharma where an actor has walkedout of the film for creative issues.Dharma has decided not to workwith him in the future.”

Karan Johar has decided toreplace Kartik and not work withhim in the future having enough ofhis tantrums. The source furtherinformed, “Dharma is such a pres-tigious banner and KJo is reputedfor launching careers – but never atthe cost of a film’s future and thelivelihoods of its cast and crew.”

There have been no reports as towho will step in for Kartik Aaryan’srole in Dostana 2.

Rules

ARCHIE

GARFIELD

SUDOKU

REALITY CHECK SPEED BUMP CROSSWORD

GINGER MEGGS

NANCY

l Each row and column cancontain each number (1 to 9)exactly once.

l The sum of all numbers inany row or column mustequal 45.

Yesterday’s solution

CALVIN AND HOBBES

FUN

9

what’s brewing?

T

Vijayawada Saturday April 17, 2021Vijayawada Saturday April 17, 2021

KARTIK AARYAN

REPLACED IN

DOSTANA 2; KARAN

DECIDES TO NEVER

WORK WITH HIM?

ctor-producer AjayDevgn hasannounced his newproduction, a comicdrama named Gobar!

along with Siddharth RoyKapur.

The film is to be directed byad-filmmaker SabalShekhawat, who has alsopenned the script along withSambhit Mishra.

The film’s story is about aveterinary doctor who discov-ers a tangled web of corruptionin his state hospital.

Ajay feels people will lovethe story.

“The story of Gobar! is atonce unique, relatable, andincredibly funny, as well asgripping and entertaining tothe point that I’m confident itwill compel people to go to the

theatres,” he says.“We are very clear about the

impact we want to make. Wewant viewers to laugh, relax,perhaps think a little bit and beentertained. The standard thatSiddharth observes in contentcreation and filmmakingmakes this coll aboration veryexciting for us,” the actor-film-maker adds.

Kapur says that the film cen-tres around the journey of acommon man and comes witha simple message.

“Gobar! is a story thatchronicles the seeminglypointless but ultimately heroicjourney of a simple citizenwho deals with corruption in away that will bring on manylaughs, much adventure, andultimately a simple messageabout the power of the com-

mon man,” says Kapur.He adds: “What makes the

film entertaining and unique isthat it is a situational comedythat sheds light on the innerworkings of power. To be col-laborating with Ajay, someoneI have always respected for hiscreative cho ices, and his teamat Ajay Devgn Ffilms on bring-ing this film to life is veryexciting.”

Writer-director Shekhawatsays that the film has beenwritten keeping in mind trueevents.

“Gobar! is a film that willtake viewers back to thecharming days of the ni netiesand the simple life of small-town living. I wrote this storykeeping in mind a few trueevents that unravelled a gamutof issues, the centre of which isa vet whose love for his cowsand animals supersedes every-thing,” says Shekhawat.

“I’m grateful and happy thattwo esteemed producers likeAjay and Sid showed faith inmy vision and offered a sizablecanvas to the storyline. Qualitycinema has come from bothproduction houses, and I'msure tha t the treatment of mydirectorial will be no different.As a filmmaker, I’m absolutelythrilled!” he says.

Produced under the bannersAjay Devgn Ffilms and RoyKapur Films, the film will goon floors at the end of the year.The casting of the film isunderway.

Ajay Devgn, Siddharth RoyKapur to produce Gobar!

hibani Bedi, whois known widelyas Instagram’sPrabha Didi, wasrecently seen in

the feature film Flight. Theonline sensation, who istrying to carve her space inBollywood, says havinglakhs of followers on social

media does not automati-cally guarantee film roles.

“One presumes that one’spresence online helps to getroles but I have realisedthat as far as Bollywood oracting is concerned, all betsare off. No rules apply. Ifthat had to happen then allinfluencers with one or twobillion following wouldbecome Shah Rukh Khanor Kareena Kapoor," shetold a news agency.

The Delhi-based actressadds: “I think there is aclear demarcation in theacting world, wherenobody is impressed by

your presence online. Youhave to prove your mettleand hustle in the rightdirection, so that you areconsidered an actor morethan a YouTuber or anInstagram person.”

“I don’t know what par-ticularly works for peopleto get into OTT platformsand I know that if you are agood actor and you crackan audition, your onlinepresence helps. Channelsnarrow down to taking youas opposed to a socialmedia celebrity, but as Isaid there are no rules,sometimes they actually

prefer not taking popularfaces as long as you are agood actor,” says Shibani,who has been seen in filmslike No One Killed Jessicaand Rang De Basanti.

“Another thing is thatOTT doesn’t have big bud-gets, so if they are getting abig celebrity, everyone elsewho they want should bewithin a budget range,which again becomes oneof the markers to pick pop-ular faces,” the actress toldthe news agency. Shibani iscurrently working on hernext yet-to-be-announcedproject.

Shibani Bedi on why being contentcreator doesn’t guarantee films

S

A

ou must do whatyou love, lovewhat you do, anddeliver more thanwhat you promise!That’s exactly

what member of the IndianAdministrative ServiceJayesh Ranjan did. Before1992, this current PrincipalSecretary of the Industries &Commerce (I&C) andInformation Technology (IT)Departments of theTelangana governmentmoved from Lucknow toDelhi for further studies andthen preferred to navigate tothe city of Hyderabadbecause the world isn’t cus-tom-made. He was selectedto serve the administrativeservices from the thenAndhra Pradesh cadre andhere he is today.

How did he feel when hegot to know he would haveto leave the place he’s livingat and shift to a new one?Well, he was excited! “Aftermy selection in the IAS in1992, I came to Hyderabadas my allotted cadre of erst-while Andhra Pradesh. Ihave been working and liv-ing here since then, so I can

say that more than half of mylife has been spent inHyderabad. The city isextremely supportive of myendeavours! Besides toilingfor the government, I amalso associated with a num-ber of activities includingsocial development projects,sports, arts and culture, liter-ature, etc. In each of these,the city has embraced me toextents I can’t imagine,” heshares.

Jayesh Ranjan regards thiscity's culture as very valu-able. He has shared experi-ences of it as a resident, heviews the city as a patchworkof super cultures. The decca-ni language used here can bevariations of the many lan-guages spoken here andwhat’s even more specialabout it is that the ethnicneighborhoods thrive on it!“I am from Lucknow.Coming to Hyderabad forthe first time, I was moreconcerned and apprehensiveabout the cultural differ-ences, but to my pleasantsurprise, I found thatHyderabad had a very syn-cretic culture which was veryreassuring. The culture offood that exists in the city isquite commendable. What Iappreciate the most aboutthis city as compared to theother three other cities I havelived earlier, is that it is avery liveable city. Social hier-archies are low, livelihoodopportunities are aplenty, thecity is affordable and there issomething of interest foreveryone,” he adds.

He holds a Masters Degreein Psychology from the DelhiUniversity, a degree in

Business Management fromthe Indian Institute ofManagement, Calcutta, and aMasters in PublicManagement from Lee KuanYew School of Public Policy,National University ofSingapore. But little did heknow he’d end up in theneighborhoods of a Nawabicity serving the state govern-ment. The iconic visualscenes of Hyderabad madehim realise the symbolicidentity of the city! The onething that comes to his mindwhen he thinks ofHyderabad is the Nizams.The fascinating lifestyle ledby the Nizams is what leavesthe dignitary in awe of it!From their palaces touchingthe sky, to the fact that theyown one of the most pre-cious diamonds in the worldand stories about all thefancy cars they owned –there is a lot Jayesh has heardabout the opulence and theluxurious lifestyle of theNizams.

Sharing one of his fondestmemories in the city, hereminisces, “I enjoy my earlymorning walk everyday atthe KBR Park! Apart fromimbibing the best of nature

from closed quarters, it alsogives me a chance to plan formy entire day. Although, Iwould definitely prefer amore civic engagement fromthe common people in all thevital matters that concerneveryone.”

Talking elaborately abouthis association with theTelangana government andhis distinct role in the pro-gression of the IT industry,he gives a detailed account ofit saying, “I look after thesubjects of IT and industriesin Telangana governmentand provide close support toour Chief Minister KChandrashekar Rao. Boththese subjects have doneexceedingly well in the lastsix years, and I feel proud ofthe contribution that we havemade. IT is one sector thathas flourished and thrivedafter the new state ofTelangana has come intobeing. In our entire country,Hyderabad has recorded thebest annual growth in termsof IT turnover and numberof new jobs created year afteryear.”

With the many unspokenadvancements of the econo-my vitality and dynamism,Jayesh Ranjan wholehearted-ly wants to continue to settlehere post his servicesbecause the very characteris-tics of people to assimilatewith others is seemingly verybeautiful to see for him.

While his close relativesare so awestruck about theFalaknuma Palace here, theGolconda Fort andCharminar continue toremain their perennialfavourites!

Born inLucknow,

educated inDelhi, Calcuttaand Singapore,

he landed inHyderabad,

and absolutelyloves how his

life pannedout. In a candid

interview, ITSecretary

Jayesh Ranjantalks to The

Pioneer'sSHIKHA

DUGGALabout his life in

Hyderabad,what he loves

most about thecity, how it hasbeen growing,

and more.

‘SOCIAL HIERARCHYIS LOW, LIVELIHOODHIGH IN HYDERABAD'

yderabad’s 17year old teenag-er, Trisha notonly conceptu-alises one the ofearliest thrift

stores in South India butalso runs it successfullyh.The gen Z entrepreneurasks people to shop clothessustainably for a price thatwill not leave a hole in thepocket.

When the Coronaviruspandemic resulted in lock-down, quarantine and shut-ting down of schools, whatwould a 17-year-old girlhave done? Sit back, enjoythe unexpected holidaysand chill? But Trisha Reddy,an 11th grader girl then(currently in 12th grade)studying at OakridgeInternational School in thecity conceptualised andfounded‘ThriftChicByTrish’, anonline thrift store. Threemonths into it, she sharesher success as one of theearliest entrants into onlinethrifting business.

“With the increased con-versation about repurposingpre-loved fashion and sus-tainability, thrift stores aregrowing in popularity par-ticularly those with anonline presence,” says TrishaReddy.

“Thrifting is an age-oldpractice in India. In thedays of my parents' child-hood, unused clothes werealways given to the youngersiblings in the family. It wasa well-accepted practice andnobody minded it. But,

somehow the present gener-ation lost the practice. Iwanted to revive that age-old practice very unique toour country but add a busi-ness element to it. Thus myonline thrifting store‘ThriftChicByTrish’ wasconceived on Instagram,”she informs. So, she becamea CoronaStudentPreneur.Her thrift store that startedjust a few months ago inJanuary, currently hasalmost 1000 followers.

She began with a sum ofRs 35,000/- loaned by herparents. The investment hasgone basically into thepackaging material for thestore, she shares. “I havedone a business of INR70,000/-, having sold 75pieces of garments out of 87on display. Most of thoseclothes are mine and of afew of the people I know,”Trisha adds.

ThriftChicByTrish usesInstagram as a platform andoffers carefully curated pre-loved, trendy, affordable,

pre-owned clothing piecesfor sale on a particular dayof the week and at a giventime that are just a phoneclick away, and encourages

thrifting to become morethan just a passing trend, atrend here to stay.

The good thing aboutthrifting is giving life to

clothes lying unused inwardrobes. It is an onlinesale of pre-used items atdiscounted prices. Thriftingis a new way of selling high-

end clothing well belowretail prices.

When asked about herinspiration for the idea shesaid “Since I’ve always had a

passion to start somethingof my own in the field offashion and have alreadygained an insight into itthrough blogging, I thoughtwhy not combine my lovefor fashion, contemporaryand high street trends andturn it into a business thatenables a sustainable life?So, I introduced‘ThriftChicByTrish.’”

“The new trend in thefashion industry today is‘Sustainable Fashion’.Socially conscious andresponsible fashion is moreimportant today than everbefore. Eco-friendly fash-ion, ethical clothing, afford-able luxury, clothing rental,buying second-hand cloth-ing are the trends the indus-try is witnessing,” saysentrepreneur Trisha.

“I curated the collectionof clothes I sell, style themfor the picture and sport asa model wearing thoseclothes to showcase them tocustomers,” Trisha explainshow a thrift store works. “Ithen promote them throughmy store on Instagram. Ifthere is any defect on theclothes it is mentioned in

the description. I have cus-tomers from Mumbai,Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai butmost of them are fromHyderabad. My sisterAnoushka Reddy helps mewith the photography aspectand conceptualising thebrand name, logo, packag-ing etc. All my pictures aretaken on either an AndroidSamsung phone or aniPhone-11.”

Currently, it carries onlyfemale clothes. Soon she isplanning to add male cloth-ing as well as Indian wear.She doesn’t rule outexpanding further.

Naturally, people aremore inclined to give theirold clothes a second life.Price is now an additionalincentive for them to giveclothes to thrifting stores,says the teenage entrepre-neur. “No one expects anymoney for the discardedclothes. But, my ventureadds monetisation, which isnow encouraging more andmore people to explorethis.”

Trisha is confident ofdoing well, she wants to goslow but leave her mark.

H

Y

ome-made pas-tries are becom-ing a new trendin India. It hasbecome a formof expression, a

stress relief exercise andmost importantly a displayof skills. As a beginner,whether you’re trying totreat your loved ones afterdinner or you want toimpress your friends onsocial media, you can’tafford to go wrong with apretty cake.

Before you decide to gointo a kitchen, start with thelist of baking tools you musthave. We’ll help you set up abaking kit for beginners. Forthose who already ownthese tools, the list may pro-vide motivation that youneed to prepare the yummi-est pastries or cakes.Building your essential bak-ing toolbox starts here:

Pastry brush

This tool is one of themost important and hasuses more than you canrealise. It can be used togrease a pan before pouringcake in it, to coat doughwith melted butter or eggwash or to paint milk on thetop of pie crust. This is amust-have.

Measuring cups

Baking is all about accu-racy, so having a full set ofmeasuring cups and spoonsis a must. One type of cupfor measuring isn’t enoughfor baking. You will needboth dry and wet measuringcups to precisely measure allthe ingredients you’re

putting in your recipe. Mostmeasuring spoons sets havea tablespoon, ½ teaspoon,and ¼ teaspoon, while mostmeasuring cups come in setswith ½ cup, ½ 1/3 cup and¼ cup.

Whisk

Whisk is used to beattogether a few eggs, but it isused for other things too. Inparticular, it’s one of thebest to thoroughly mix vari-ous ingredients but it is alsogreat for stirring together ahomemade custard.

Baking pan

From flat baking trays forcookies and loaf tins forbreads and loaf cakes tosquare tins for brownies andround tins for classic spongecake, the baking pans comein different sizes and shapes.Non-stick aluminum bakingpan is better than a glassone.

While glass one looksmore stylish and pre-sentable, aluminum hashigh heat conductivity sothat you cook evenly.

Stand mixer

An electric stand mixer isexpensive, but once you useit, you’ll wonder how didyou ever manage without it,especially when you make

things like marshmallows,they require beating for 10or more minutes.

It makes your cookingeasier, takes off the physicalload and saves a lot of time.Most importantly, it gives abetter result in the finalproduct.

Icing spatula

It is needed to evenlyspread the cream all overthe cake. It comes in differ-ent sizes and is needed asper the size/height of thecake. If you don’t have anicing spatula, you can usethe back, straight edge of alarge knife to smooth yourbutter cream and then cleanup the bottom of your cakeplate with a paper towel.

Next, take a freezer bagand fill it with your icing.Push the icing into one cor-ner and twist the bag.

Metal bowls

Baking often necessitatesfrostings, caramels, andcreams, which can befinicky if they’re not kept ata steady temperature, aretoo warm. A frosting mightnot whip properly, forexample, if ingredients aretoo warm. Metal bowls arereally helpful as they are abetter conductor of heatthan glass.

Serrated knife

This is the best knife forcutting a cake in half orthirds. It will help maintaina smooth, precise cut that’sperfect for when you wantto add a flavourful layer offruit jam or fluffy butter-cream to a pastry or a birth-day cake.

Pastry decorating kit

If you want to decorateyour pastries with rosepetals or a basketweave tothe top, then you’ll needsome pastry decoratingtools. This kit contains sixdifferent shaped tips andtwo reusable nylon bags,which are more eco-friendlythan disposable plastic bagsbecause they can be usedover and over again.

Gel-based food dye

Gel-based food dye isused to create vibrant pas-tries and cakes. You shouldavoid water-based dyesfound in little tubes at thesupermarket as these dyesare so weak they’ll producepastels in place of bold, sat-urated ones.

Natural dye is great too,but don’t expect the sameresults.

(The list is shared by topchefs from the Academy ofPastry & Culinary Arts.)

BAKERS’TOOL KIT

Whether you’retrying to treat

your lovedones after

dinner or youwant to

impress yourfriends on

social media,you can’t afford

to go wrongwith a pretty

cake. Here aretop 10 pastry

tools everyhome-bakershould have

GIVING LIFE TO

pre-loved clothes

H

SaturdayApril 17, 2021

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PTI nMUMBAI

Deepak Chahar’s superb openingspell stood out as Chennai SuperKings restricted Punjab Kings to

a below-par 106 for eight here on Friday.Tamil Nadu’s power-hitter M

Shahrukh Khan was the only Punjab bats-man to make an impression, with a 36-ball 47 (4X4s, 2X6s) before falling to SamCurran in the final over as CSK was allover their opponent.

Sam Curran (1/12), Moeen Ali (1/17),Dwayne Bravo (1/10) were the otherwicket-takers for CSK.

Aiming to bounce back after beingoutclassed by Delhi Capitals in their open-ing match, CSK bowlers justified skipperMahendra Singh Dhoni’s decision to bowlfirst by reducing Punjab to 26 for four inthe powerplay.

Chahar engineered the Punjab slidein the very first over by sending backMayank Agarwal (0) with a beautywhich nipped away from middle stumpto hit the off stump. Chahar kept up thepressure and increased PBKS’s woeswith his consistency and conceded onlytwo fours in his four-over spell.

In-form Punjab skipper K L Rahul (5)was run-out by a brilliant direct throwfrom Ravindra Jadeja fielding at short-cover as the batsman tried to scramble fora single.

Jadeja was in the act in the fifth overagain, grabbing a superb catch diving full-length to dismiss Chris Gayle for 10 togive Chahar his second wicket.

Nicholas Pooran bagged his secondstraight duck, pulling a short deliverystraight into the hands of Shardul Thakurat long-leg. Deepak Hooda (10), whoplayed a blinder in Punjab's first matchagainst Rajasthan Royals, could notrepeat his heroics, lobbing a simple catchto Faf du Plessis as the team slipped to 26for five in the seventh over.

Shahrukh Khan and Jhye Richardson(15, 22 balls, 2x4s) added 31 runs for thesixth wicket in what was the best partner-ship of the innings. Murugan Ashwin (6)then added 30 runs with his Tamil Naduteammate Khan to help Punjab’s cause inan otherwise nightmare night for them.

PTI n CHENNAI

Getting the combination right would be top-most on Sunrisers Hyderabad’s to-do list

when they take on a qualitatively superiorMumbai Indians in an IPL encounter at Chepaukon Saturday, trying to arrest an early slide afterback-to-back defeats.

To make matters worse, the nature of theChennai track is not great news for the DavidWarner-led Orange Army that failed to chasedown a total which was less than 150.

Chasing has been Sunrisers’ achilles’ heel dur-ing the first two matches, once again bringingunder scanner, their lack of depth in the playingXI and below-par Indian bench strength.

In these circumstances, facing a formidableteam like Mumbai Indians, fresh from theirHoudini Act against Kolkata Knight Riders,would be a difficult proposition.

For skipper Warner, there are some seriousquestions about the choice of the playing XI,which many believe hasn’t been well thought outand the results also back that assessment.

Using two wicketkeepers — Jonny Bairstowand Wriddhiman Saha — in the same XI hasn’tserved any tangible purpose with the veteran Indianlooking completely out of sorts as an opener.

With a seasoned man like Kedar Jadhav inthe dug-out, along with two talented youngstersPriyam Garg and Abhishek Sharma, Saha is onborrowed time as far as his place in the side is con-cerned.

With only Warner and Rashid Khan beingcertainties among the overseas players, a fit KaneWilliamson is a must for SRH, factoring in hisprowess against spin bowling.

The manner in which the likes of ManishPandey and Abdul Samad played cross-batted

shots against RCB left-arm spinner ShahbazAhmed left Warner far from amused.

The other issue hasbeen team’s

bowling with T Natarajan not in the kind of formhe was last season and Bhuvneshwar Kumar alsoon the expensive side. It is unlikely that MI willtinker with their playing XI and more so afterwinning a thriller against KKR. However, theywould like to put up a better account of theirbatting.

11WE WERE 15-20 RUNS SHORT. BUT THERE IS

SOMETHING TO GAIN FROM ROYALS MATCH. THEBOWLERS DID WELL AT THE START. HOPEFULLY

IN FUTURE WE CAN PULL THINGS OFF— RISHABH PANT

CAPTAIN’S CALLVIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | APRIL 17, 2021

VVSS

PLAYER RUNS

1. Nitish Rana (KKR) 137

2. Sanju Samson (RR) 123

3. Manish Pandey (SRH) 99

PLAYER WKTS

1. Harshal Patel (RCB) 7

2. Andre Russell (KKR) 6

3. Avesh Khan (DC) 5

MOST SIXES

1. Sanju Samson (RR) 7

2. Nitish Rana (KKR) 6

3. Deepak Hooda (PBKS) 6

SUMMER SLAM

MOTION PICTURE

NORTJE OUT OF QUARANTINE DC pacer Anrich Nortje on Friday came out of his hardquarantine that was extended by a couple of daysfollowing a false Covid-19 positive report. The Proteasspeedster had tested positive for Covid-19 while inquarantine but was retested and came out negative inthree RT-PCR results. “It's nice to be out of the roomand see everyone at breakfast. Excited to get to trainingtoday,” Nortje said in a video posted by the franchise.

KANE HOPING TO BE FIT WITHIN A WEEKKiwi batsman Kane Williamson, who missed SRH's firsttwo matches due to an elbow injury, is recovering welland is expected to attain full match-fitness “within aweek”. Kane suffered a small tear in his left elbowtendon and was ruled out of the home series againstB’desh in March ahead of IPL. However, the NZ captainon Friday said his “recovery is going really well”.

ISHANT SUFFERING FROM HEEL NIGGLEDC head coach Ricky Ponting has revealed thatexperienced pacer Ishant Sharma, who missed histeam's first two IPL matches, is suffering from a heelniggle. “Coming into the first game, Ishant Sharmaobviously had a heel niggle that we have been trying towork through,” Ponting said on Thursday night.

STOKES OUT FOR UP TO 12 WEEKSEngland all-rounder Ben Stokes will be out of action for“up to 12 weeks” as his fractured left index finger willrequire surgery that will take place in Leeds on Monday.A repeat X-ray and CT scan revealed that the 29-year-old has a fracture in his left index finger. Stokes, who iscurrently in Mumbai will fly home on Saturday.

TODAYTODAYLIVE FROM

7:30PM IST

STAR SSPORTS 11 NNETWORK

POINTS TABLEP W L NRR PTS

1 RCB 2 2 0 +0.175 4

2 MI 2 1 1 +0.225 2

3 PBKS 1 1 0 +0.200 2

4 DC 2 1 1 +0.195 2

5 RR 2 1 1 +0.052 2

6 KKR 2 1 1 +0.000 0

7 SRH 2 0 2 -0.400 0

8 CSK 1 0 1 -0.779 0

Matches 16Mumbai IIndians 08Sunrisers HHyderabad 08

LAST YEAR’S MATCHES

Mumbai Indians beat Sunrisers

Hyderabad by 34 runs in

Sharjah

Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated

Mumbai Indians by 10 wickets

in Sharjah

VENUE: CHIDAMBARAM STADIUM, CHENNAI

Krunal Pandya who took 48

wickets at an average of 32.20 in

71 innings of 73 matches, needs

two wickets to become the sixth

bowler to complete a fifty of

wickets for Mumbai Indians in IPL

David Warner who smashed 196

sixes in 144 innings of as many

matches, needs four more sixes

to become sixth batsman to

complete a double century of

sixes in IPLFaisel FFeatures

48

HEAD TO HEADKEY PLAYERS

SURYAKUMAR YADAV

SKY has performed well in the last

three seasons for MI and he'll be

eager to make it big this time too

RASHID KHAN

He is arguably the best T20 bowler

at present and his performance will

be crucial for Sunrisers success

196

Punjab Kings batsman Mandeep Singh’s wife Jagdeep Jaswaland child Rajveer Singh in stands during IPL game betweenPunjab Kings and Chennai Super Kings in Mumbai @IPL

4s 230

6s 89

boundarymeter

COLEMAN'S SUSPENSION CUTGENEVA: World 100m champion ChristianColeman's two-year ban for missing threedoping tests has been reduced by six monthsto 18 months, the Court of Arbitration forSport said on Friday. But the American willstill miss the rescheduled Tokyo Olympicsthis year as his ban runs until November 14.

TSITSIPAS IN MONTE CARLO SF MONACO: Stefanos Tsitsipas advanced to thesemi-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters onFriday when his quarter-final opponentAlejandro Davidovich withdrew after losing thefirst set 7-5.

ARUNDHATI, CHANU IN QF NEW DELHI: Khelo India Games Gold-medallist Arundhati Choudhary (69kg) andBabyrojisana Chanu (51kg) advanced to thequarterfinals, while three others — AkashGorkha (60kg), Sumit (69kg) and Gitika (48kg)also notched up opening-round wins at theyouth world championships for men andwomen in Kielce, Poland.

HARMAN RECOVERS FROM VIRUS NEW DELHI: Indian women's T20 captainHarmanpreet Kaur on Friday announced thatshe has recovered from Covid-19. She hadtested positive and made it public on March30. After more than two weeks, her RT-PCRreport has come negative. Agencies

shortpasses

OT

HE

R S

PO

RT

PTI n CHENNAI

Mumbai Indiansbowling coach

Shane Bond on Friday praisedthe team’s leg-spinner RahulChahar, saying the 21-year-old isa wicket-taking bowler and his rolenever changes in the star-studdedteam.

Chahar, who hasplayed 3 T20Is forIndia, returned withmatch-winning fig-ures of 4/27 in a low-scoring thrilleragainst Kolkataon Tuesday.

“He isdoing extreme-ly well, if youlook at Rahul(Chahar), he is stillyoung, who hasplayed a fair-bit ofcricket and nowsome high-pressurecricket, and (in)finals and a keymember of our team,so in terms of hisdevelopment, I still

think he is got a long way to go,”Bond said ahead of the gameagainst Sunrisers Hyderabad.

“He (Rahul) is a good lis-tener and is keen to get out

there and implement itin the game and hopethat will continue overthe next few years,” said

42-year-old Bond, whoplayed 18 Tests and 82

ODIs for New Zealand.According to Bond,

Chahar’s role in the teamnever changes and the sidewants him to bowl wicket-taking deliveries.

“Weh a v eg o ts o m e

o u t -standing strike bowlers tobowl in the power-play,Trent Boult, Booms (JaspritBumrah), and whoevercompliments them,Krunal Pandya who is

brilliant for us in thelast game, probablyslightly moredefensive bowler.

“And Rahul is a wicket-takingbowler, you make him bowl thoseballs that are just too good.

“Example is just the powerful(balls he bowled) in the last gamehe bowled absolute jaffa, his roleis to come and spin the ball and ifthe boys are around and createsome pressure, it gives him oppor-tunity to take those wickets, sothat’s the role we look for him todo in the team.”

Against Sunrisers, Bondstressed that it is important to getrival skipper David Warner andJonny Bairstow out.

“Got to get those two guys(Warner and Bairstow) out. Daveyis one of the best batsmen in theIPL, talisman for their team. Weknow how important they are,” hesaid.

“They (Sunrisers) are verydisciplined with the way they goabout their work. They flogged usin the last game (we played againstthem) last season. They playedbeautifully. We plan the same forevery team — how we are going toget them out, how we are going tobest utilize the conditions,” addedBond.

PTI n ALMATY

Dominating the proceedings ina depleted field, Olympic-

bound wrestlers Vinesh Phogatand Anshu Malik won their maid-en Asian Championship titles aftercomfortable triumphs in theirrespective summit clashes here onFriday.

There was no stopping Vineshin the absence of the Chinese and

Japanese rivals as she cruised to thetitle without losing a point in the53kg category.

Vinesh has notched up sevenpodium finishes at the Asian meetover the years, including threeSilver medals before this edition.

Also standing on top of thepodium was Divya Kakran (72kg)while Sakshi Malik (65kg) settledfor a Silver medal, a performancewhich should boost her confi-dence after enduring a longwretched run.

India has a rich haul of sevenmedals from the women’s event asthe country won four Gold, aSilver and two Bronze medals inthis edition.

Sarita Mor (59kg) had wonGold while Seema Bisla (50kg) andPooja (76kg) settled for Bronzemedals on Thursday.

Young Sonam Malik (62kg)unfortunately could not competedue to an injury. She had baggedOlympic quota along with Anshurecently.

Maiden Asian Goldfor Vinesh & Anshu

SCOREBOARDPUNJAB KINGS

KL Rahul run out (Ravindra Jadeja) 5Mayank AAgarwal b D Chahar 0Chris GGayle c R Jadeja b D Chahar 10Deepak HHooda c du Plessis b D Chahar 10 Nicholas PPooran c Thakur b D Chahar 0Shahrukh KKhan c R Jadeja b Sam Curran 47Jhye RRichardson b Moeen 15Murugan AAshwin c du Plessis b DJ Bravo 6Mohammed SShami not out 9Riley MMeredith not out 0Extras (b 0, lb 0, w 4, nb 0, p 0) 4Total (8 wkts, 20 Overs) 106Did nnot bbat: Arshdeep SinghFall oof WWickets: 1-1 (Mayank Agarwal, 0.4), 15-2 (KLRahul, 2.5), 19-3 (Chris Gayle, 4.2), 19-4 (NicholasPooran, 4.4), 26-5 (Deepak Hooda, 6.2), 57-6 (JhyeRichardson, 12.1), 87-7 (Murugan Ashwin, 16.5),101-8 (Shahrukh Khan, 19.1)BowlingDeepak CChahar 4-1-13-4Sam CCurran 3-0-12-1Shardul TThakur 4-0-35-0Ravindra JJadeja 4-0-19-0Moeen AAli 3-0-17-1Dwayne BBravo 2-0-10-1

Shahrukh steers PBKS to 106

I THINK IT WAS MORESEAM THAN SWING ANDWE BOWLED IN THE RIGHTAREAS. WE GOT SOMETIME TO PREPARE ANDTHINGS WENT OUR WAY ASWE EXECUTED WELL Deepak Chahar, CSK pacer

quoteunquote

‘Rahul is MI’s wicket-taking bowler’SRH search right combo

Chennai Super Kings pacer Deepak Chahar celebrates with skipper MS Dhoni and teammate Suresh Raina after Punjab Kings captain KL Rahul’s wicket @IPL

Dhoni plays 200th match for ChennaiPNS n NEW DELHI

Chennai Super Kings skipperMahendra Singh Dhoni on Friday

played his 200th match for the Men inYellow when he took to the field againstPunjab Kings at the Wankhede Stadiumin Mumbai. Dhoni has led the franchisein all but one game (2012 ChampionsLeague T20) when he has been part ofthe XI. Virat Kohli has played 209 T20matches for RCB.

Dhoni has made 176 appearancesfor CSK in the IPL besides having 24outings for the side in the ChampionsLeague T20 tournament in the past. The

former India captain also representedRising Pune Supergiant in 30 IPLmatches in the 2016-17 seasons.

Dhoni, who has led the SuperKings to three IPL titles, is eighth on theall-time IPL batting charts with 4,632runs (4,058 for CSK) at an average of40.63 and a strike rate of 136.67.

In his 24 CLT20 appearances,Dhoni has amassed 449 runs with onefifty while leading CSK to two titles, in2010 and 2014. The 39-year-old veter-an also holds the record of most sixesamong Indians in the IPL with 216,while being the most successful wick-etkeeper with 148 dismissals.CSK congratulate MS Dhoni on his 200th game

AFP n CENTURION

Pakistan beat South Africa by threewickets in the fourth and final T20I

on Friday to win four-match series 3-1.Chasing the target of 145,Mohammad Nawaz finished the gamewith a six on the penultimate ball ofLizaad Williams’ final over of thematch. He remained not out on 25 andtook his side home which looked tohave lost its way in the middle afterFakhar Zaman’s (60) wicket in the 10thover of run chase. From 92-1 in 9.1overs, the tourists were reduced to 129-7 in 18.2 overs, but ice cool Nawazturned the tide in Sisanda Magala’s 19thover to keep Pakistan in fray. Earlier,medium-pace bowler Faheem Ashrafsparked a South African collapse atSuperSport Park in Centurion. Faheemtook three for 17 as South Africa, whowere put into bat after losing the toss,were bowled out for 144 on what is usu-ally a high-scoring ground. Rassie vander Dussen top-scored for South Africawith 52 off 36 balls.

Pak winT20 series

Deepak Chahar's four-wicket spell dismantle Punjab, which couldn't recover from that

12

Vijayawada Saturday April 17, 2021 tollywood

ith increasing Covid cases inthe country, Maharashtra gov-ernment has alreadyannounced further restrictionson public movement in thestate resulting in film and TV

shoots coming to a halt. Much like manyother industries, this is the second timeshowbiz will be going through a majorsetback. Farnaz Shetty, who will be mak-ing her Tollywood debut with InduVadana, is anxious too but trying to staypositive.

Directed by MSR, story, and screenplayby Satish Aketi, the film is produced byMadhavi Adurti along with Giridhar.

“I just finished my second schedule ofthe film in Hyderabad. We started facingcomplications in the last few days butsomehow managed to finish our work.Now only the climax part is left to be shot.I just hope we finish shooting that portionsoon otherwise everything would go for atoss,” Shetty sounds worried.

“The pandemic is far from over andthose who thought ‘corona is gone’ andflouted norms should now learn their les-

son hard”, added the actor.Farnaz shared a pic with a bridge in the

background captioned: “We Build toomany walls, and not enough bridges ??#induvadana”

The actress urges everyone to followCovid protocol.

“You have to understand the gravity ofthe situation and act accordingly. We haveto follow all protocols to break the chain.Panicking is not the solution. I just hopethis pandemic comes to a full stop. Weneed to go back to our normal lives soon.The entertainment industry is facing a cri-

sis of this sort for the first time. 2020shouldn’t get repeated, we must worktowards that. Everyone should get vacci-nated at the earliest,” she adds.

Farnaz is known for shows such as LaalIshq, Kahaan Hum Kahaan Tum andSiddhi Vinayak.

riti Sanon is thebusiest bee of tinseltown currently withmore than six films inher kitty. What makesthese even more

interesting is the range of herfilms in terms of their genres.From a horror-comedy to anaction film, the actor will be seenleading multiple genre films.

Talking about having so manydifferent genres in her lineup theAdipurush girl says, “My work isso exciting because no set, nofilm is like the other. Doing suchvaried genres is helping meexplore different shades of myselfas an actor.”

She adds, “From Bhediya beinga horror-comedy to action inGanpath, mythology inAdipurush, and an entertainer

like Bachchan Pandey, I havemany genres that I am workingon right now, which makes allthe work even more exciting andinteresting. It does also keep meon my toes.”

Sanon has a bag of big-budgetfilms in her lineup for which shehas been shooting non-stop for awhile with all safety measuresbeing taken as per governmentguidelines. She has been shootingin Arunachal Pradesh forBhediya with Varun Dhawan,which is a horror-comedy.

She will be seen playing Sita inOm Raut’s mythological dramaAdipurush with Prabhas. She hasalso signed an entertainer filmBachchan Pandey with AkshayKumar and the drama — Mimi,which will star her as the sololead.

t is all over theinternet that YoungTiger Jr NTR andKoratala Siva iscoming togetheronce again for a big-

budget movie, NTR 30, after

successful venture JanathaGarage, a message-orientedfilm.

According to the latest buzz,in this new film, NTR will beseen playing an innocent, naïveman, who comes to the cityfrom the Himalayas, trying tobring change in the society fora good cause. The actor will beseen in a never-before avatarwhich will surely please fans.

This yet-to-be-titled filmwill be presented byNandamuri Kalyan Ram.Kosaraju Harikrishna of NTRArts and Mikkilineni Sudhakarof Yuvasudha Arts will be co-bankrolling this big-budgetpan-India project.

Koratala Siva is currentlybusy with Acharya starringChiranjeevi and Ram Charanin the lead roles which is onthe verge of the completionwhereas Tarak is working withSS Rajamouli for a pan-ndianfilm RRR, which will bereleased on October 13.

NTR AS AN INNOCENT MAN FOR KORATALA’S NEXT?

hisInternationalAnti-StreetHarassmentWeek, Aditi RaoHydari, proudly

raises her voice againststreet harassment. Via asocial media post on herofficial Instagram page,Aditi asked her followersto take the training andStandUp Against StreetHarassment. In her video,Aditi shares, “StandUp is aprogram that is designedtowards creating awarenessand imparting training tocombat street harassment.Sadly, street harassment issomething that we all havebeen through, whether asbystanders or as victimsand I know that it makesme very angry, it makesme feel very helpless and Iam sure it does that to youas well. So, recently I wentthrough this training pro-gram and I was lucky to

have this opportunity. It iscalled the Stand-Up 5 D’straining created by L’OréalParis in partnership withHollaback! Internationallyand Breakthrough inIndia. It has really openedmy eyes and showed mehow easy it is and how wehave such effective tools soreadily available to us —which is basically our ownmind — our presence ofmind. So that we caneffectively and confidentlycombat street harassment.I would really recommendthat each one of us goesthrough this training pro-gram. It is simple, effec-tive, it builds so muchconfidence and it gives usan amazing solution tohelp someone and to helpourselves. So spread theword, tell your friends, telleveryone. Because I thinkthis one is essential. Let ushelp combat street harass-ment effectively.”

W

T

I

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Aditi voicesagainst streetharassment

‘Busy exploringshades of myself’

it actor Vishwak Sen’supcoming film’s makersannounced his seventhfilm’s title as AshokaVanamlo Arjuna Kalyanamon Twitter. Going by the

film’s poster, the look and name of itreveal that it could be of a romanticgenre.

From Vellipomakey to Paagal, theyoung star has mostly done massaction genres and this could be hisfirst out and out love entertainer.

This new film of Vishwak had itspooja muhurtham on Friday. VidyaSagar Chinta will be directing themovie which is touted to be an emo-tional drama. Ravi Kiran has pennedthe story. Vishwak, it is being said, willundergo a slight makeover for this filmand sport a new look.

To be produced by Bapineedu andSudheer Eedara under SVCC Digitalbanner, Ashoka Vanamlo ArjunaKalyanam will be presented by notedproducer BVSN Prasad.

Vishwak Sen's nexta love entertainer

Hit actor Vishwak Sen’s upcoming film’s makersannounced his seventh film’s title as AshokaVanamlo Arjuna Kalyanam. The film, whose storywas penned by Ravi kiran, will be helmed by VidyaSagar Chinta. Touted to be an emotional drama, thefilm will be produced by Sudheer Eedara.

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NEW BEEFARNAZ ONSHOOTINGAMIDSTPANDEMIC