T he penultimate round of the fast and furious seven- phase Lok Sabha poll on Sunday would witness 59 con- stituencies voting in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Haryana and West Bengal with heavyweights like Digvijaya Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia (Congress), Union Ministers Maneka Gandhi, Narendra Singh Tomar and RK Singh (BJP) and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav (SP) testing their ballot popularity. Much is at stake for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which had won 45 of these 59 Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 elections, pocketing all eight seats from Bihar and winning 13 of 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh. Of the 59 seats, 14 are in UP, 10 seats in Haryana, eight each in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, seven seats in Delhi and four in Jharkhand. The Trinamool Congress, which is locked in a eyeball- to-eyeball poll confrontation with the BJP, had lifted all 8 seats from Bengal in this phase in 2014 poll. The TMC too will have to put its best foot forward in this round to retain its tight grip in the State. The Congress had won two and the Samajwadi Party and the LJP one seat each in this round five years ago. After the sixth round, anoth- er 59 seats would go to polls in the last phase on May 19. As things stand, Sam Pitroda, a close associate of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, has given a handle to the BJP to beat the Congress with seven seats of Delhi, 13 of Punjab and one of Chandigarh having a sizeable population of Sikhs to go for polls. Just like Mani Shankar Aiyar did with his ‘neech’ com- ment before the 2014 polls, Pitroda seems to have stirred the poll pot this time round in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP with his “hua to hua” (so what) comment for the Sikh riots of 1984. Modi and the BJP have since then came down heavi- ly on the Congress by saying that these words are the “char- acter and mentality and inten- tions of the Congress”. Though Pitroda later apologised, the BJP seems to have made most of the controversial comments before Punjab, Chandigarh and Delhi votes. The 6th round goes to the floor with the eye-catching contest between former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya and Malegaon terror accused Pragya in Bhopal which has been a BJP stronghold and won by it previously. The poll bout between the two has also been seen as a litmus test for BJP’s assertion that Digvijaya was acting against the interests of the majority community and tainting it with a “terror tag”. Digvijaya has matched Sadhvi’s saffron credibility with his own by organising a ‘havan’ of ‘sad- hus’ in Bhopal. Among other poll fights, Akhilesh is contesting from Azamgarh, the seat won last time by his father Mulayam Singh Yadav against Bhojpuri filmstar Dinesh Lal Nirhaua. Union Minister Maneka Gandhi, who has changed her seat from Piliphit to Sultanpur, is pitted in a good fight with Congress leader Sanjay Singh and BSP’s Chandra Bhadra Singh alias Sonu who is the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ candidate. Other prominent candi- date from UP contesting is State Minister Rita Joshi Bahuguna from Prayagraj (Allahabad). Besides Bhopal, Guna in Madhya Pradesh has Scindia seeking re-election and Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar from Morena are other contestants from a total of eight seats going to poll on Sunday in the State. In Haryana, of the 10 Lok Sabha seats voting BJP had contested eight seats in 204 and won seven, INLD two and Congress one. Union Ministers Krishan Pal Gurjar and Rao Inderjt Singh (BJP) too are in the fray. Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda (Congress) is trying to enter the lower house from Sonepat while his son and sitting MP from Rohtak, Deepender Singh Hooda, is again contesting from the same seat. In West Bengal, Maoist hotbed Jangal Mahal — the forested region of Bankura, West Midnapore, Jhargram and Purulia, would go to poll. The ruling TMC, the BJP, the Congress and the Left Front con- stituents - the CPI(M), the CPI and the AIFB — are the main contenders in the eight seats, where the fate of 83 candidates will be decided by a 1,33,69,749- strong electorate. Manas Ranjan Bhunia is TMC’s candidate who is con- testing against BJP’s State presi- dent Dilip Ghosh from Medinipur Lok Sabha seat. The Bankura seat will witness a tri- angular fight because the Congress did not put up any can- didate there. The high-voltage campaign saw poll meetings by Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Congress presi- dent Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister and her Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu. In Jharkhand, Giridih, Dhanbad, Jamshedpur and Singhbhum (ST) constituency are to witness voting on Sunday. A s many as 164 candi- dates, including 18 women, are in the fray for the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi which goes to polls on Sunday. It is expected to be three-cornered fight involv- ing the BJP, AAP and the Congress in all the seats. The Congress is looking to bounce back after ending up at the third spot in the 2014 elections while the BJP is trying to retain all the seven seats. The AAP is con- testing the election on the agenda of full Statehood, hoping to give a tight fight to both the national parties. Voting will begin at 7 am on May 12 and it is sched- uled to go on till 6 pm. A total of 13,819 polling stations will be set up at 2,700 locations in Delhi, with one model polling station in each of the 70 Assembly segments. Seventeen polling stations will be staffed only by women. As many as 523 polling locations have been identified as critical and 60,000 per- sonnel, including those of the Delhi Police, Home Guards and paramilitary, will be on their toes to ensure that there is no untoward inci- dent. According to the sum- mary of the electoral roll published on April 23, there are over 1.43 crore voters in Delhi, 78,73,022 male and 64,42,762 female, while 669 belong to the third gender. While 2,54,723 voters are in the age group of 18 and 19, there are 40,532 electorate with disability who would be provided pick up and drop facility. Nearly 270 FIRs and daily diary (DD) entries were registered against political parties and others here till date for violation of the poll code. The general election 2019 election witnessed acrimo- nious exchanges between the AAP and the BJP over alle- gations of horse-trading, rivals jabbing at one another over alleged discrepancies in affidavits and even a candi- date of the ruling party in Delhi breaking down at a Press conference and attack on Delhi Chief Minister and national convener of AAP Arvind Kejriwal. The campaign which got off to a slow start as alliance talks between the AAP and Congress lingered on till the last days of nomination, gained momentum over the last fortnight with senior leaders drawing huge crowds at mega rallies and road shows in the national Capital. The campaign reached a crescendo in its last lap with Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a massive rally at the Ramlila Maidan , Congress president Rahul Gandhi addressing two pub- lic meetings, while his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tak- ing out two roadshows in the city. BJP’s incumbent MP Manoj Tiwari is up against Sheila Dikshit for the Northeast Delhi seat and has already said her entry has made the poll contest “one of the most interesting in the country”. AAP’s Dilip Pandey is also in the fray from the seat. Other prominent candi- dates in the race include vet- eran Congress leader Sheila, Olympian boxer Vijender Singh, who is making his electoral debut from South Delhi, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan from Chandni Chowk, and cricketer-turned- politician Gautam Gambhir. W ith arrest of three for- eign nationals, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday claimed to have made country’s highest seizure of over 1,800-kg pseu- doephedrine kept outside a factory in Greater Noida. The estimated value of the seized chemical, along with about 2 kgs of party drugs cocaine, is around 25 crore. A senior NCB official said it stumbled on the narcotics after grilling a South African woman arrested on May 9 from the IGI Airport. She was carrying 24.7 kg of pseu- doephedrine, siad officials. “The woman was first intercepted by the Central Industrial Security Force. Pseudoephedrine is a pre- cursor used for the manufac- ture of Methamphetamine, a drug widely used in Europe and South East Asia. This is the biggest ever seizure of pseudoephedrine in India kept outside factory premis- es. As per our records, this is the highest ever seizure by any agency,” the senior NCB officer said. “During interrogation, the woman led the officials of the Delhi zonal unit of the NCB to a house in Greater Noida from where a total of 1,818 kg of pseudoephedrine and 1.9 kg of Cociane were seized on May 10,” said the senior NCB official. Two Nigerians, a man and a woman, have been arrested from the house apart from the South African apprehended earlier, they said. The arrests were made under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. S tating that Congress party and its leaders have no hatred, Congress president Rahul Gandhi asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep offering hate claiming he would contin- ue to hug him in return. Amid assaults on him and his family from the PM, Gandhi switched to a different pitch say- ing Congress party or its lead- ers possess no hatred. “The hatred is filled in BJP, RSS and in the heart of PM Narendra Modi,” claimed the Congress national president who was addressing an election rally in Shujalpur of Madhya Pradesh. “Our job is to fight this hatred,” added Rahul. He also addressed public rallies in Dhar and Khargone. Referring to PM Modi’s repeated assaults on Gandhi family, the visiting leader said Modiji talks of my father, grand- mother and great grandfather with hatred and anguish but I offer him hugs. The Congress president said he kept telling the Prime Minister for five years that he was a PM and had all the power of this country behind him so he should work with lover and not hatred. Before Goods and Services Tax was to be implemented, we had sent P Chidambaram to convey a message that he (Modi) was making a mistake as India was a vast country and an ill- planned policy would land you in trouble. But our leader was sternly told that a decision has been made and would be imple- mented by midnight, recounted Gandhi. The Congress further said he (Modi) did not ask anyone about demonetisation. “You could have asked this from any small shopkeeper.” P olling will be held in 8 par- liamentary constituencies of Morena, Bhind (SC), Gwalior, Guna, Sagar, Vidisha, Bhopal and Rajgarh from 7 am to 6 pm on May 12 in the third phase of Lok Sabha Election- 2019 in State. A total of 45 thousand 53 security personnel including 85 companies of Central Armed Police Force, 30 companies of State Armed Police Force and officers- employees of State Police have been deployed to ensure unin- terrupted voting. To deal with any kind of situation, 446 Quick Response Teams have been formed. As many as 101 inter-state and 128 inter-district check posts falling under this phase have been sealed. More than 11 thousand vehicles will be used for transportation of polling teams, sector officers and police force. Polling workers have been sent to the polling booths on May 11. As many as 4024 critical polling centres have been iden- tified in the Lok Sabha election constituencies in the third phase and more than 3600 polling centres will be moni- tored by webcasting / CCTV cameras. In this phase, total 1720 vulnerable areas have been identified and 3096 sus- picious persons have been identified. On the day of polling, special monitoring of vulnerable areas will be done by the sector officers. Prohibitory action has been taken against 2 thousand 273 persons in Lok Sabha con- stituencies of the third phase of the state to maintain law and order. One lakh 48 thousand 616 licensed weapons have been deposited and 9409 ille- gal weapons have also been seized. T he Congress Delhi unit on Saturday has filed a com- plaint with the Election Commission alleging recorded phone calls are "being used to spread misinformation in an attempt to influence the elec- torate" by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). According to the com- plaint, "false" survey results propagating through phone calls to voters during the 48- hour election silence period" Romila Dhawan, the election agent of the party's northeast Delhi candidate and former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said in a complaint. Addressing media persons, AICC spokesperson Pawan Khera said that the AAP has committed a criminal offence. He alleged that these were tac- tics adopted by the AAP since it knew it was losing in the polls as the battle is between the Congress and the BJP. Khera claimed the AAP was using a call centre to make such calls to voters. "These calls have gone to voters in seven parliamentary constituencies and started at 5.10 pm. Initially, when the call is received a recorded message is played asking voters which party they will vote for. After one-and-a- half-hours they again receive a call telling them the AAP is get- ting 40 per cent or 52 per cent votes," Khera told reporters. "This has never happened. When you know after 5 pm (when the campaigning ends) that you are nowhere in the contest, you resort to such tac- tics. We demand criminal action in the matter. These are serious allegations," he said. He said this "kind of politics" has not been seen before and everybody knows their reality. The complain said that members of the public have been receiving phone calls from various numbers, which when picked up, play an auto- mated message purporting to be the result of a survey in which the person receiving the call has participated. "The message names polit- ical parties and completely random and inexplicable per- centages against their particu- lars. The message conveys that the result of the survey in which the receiver of the call has ostensibly participated is that AAP got 47 per cent, BJP 37 per cent and Congress 11 per cent votes," it said. RNI Regn. No. MPENG/2004/13703, Regd. No. L-2/BPLON/41/2006-2008 C M Y K C M Y K
The penultimate round ofthe fast and furious seven-
phase Lok Sabha poll onSunday would witness 59 con-stituencies voting in UttarPradesh, Bihar, MadhyaPradesh, Delhi, Jharkhand,Haryana and West Bengalwith heavyweights likeDigvijaya Singh andJyotiraditya Scindia(Congress), Union MinistersManeka Gandhi, NarendraSingh Tomar and RK Singh(BJP) and former ChiefMinister Akhilesh Yadav (SP)testing their ballot popularity.
Much is at stake for theBJP-led National DemocraticAlliance (NDA) which hadwon 45 of these 59 Lok Sabhaseats in the 2014 elections,pocketing all eight seats fromBihar and winning 13 of 14seats in Uttar Pradesh. Of the59 seats, 14 are in UP, 10 seatsin Haryana, eight each in Bihar,Madhya Pradesh and WestBengal, seven seats in Delhiand four in Jharkhand.
The Trinamool Congress,which is locked in a eyeball-to-eyeball poll confrontationwith the BJP, had lifted all 8seats from Bengal in thisphase in 2014 poll. The TMCtoo will have to put its bestfoot forward in this round toretain its tight grip in theState. The Congress had wontwo and the Samajwadi Partyand the LJP one seat each inthis round five years ago.After the sixth round, anoth-er 59 seats would go to pollsin the last phase on May 19.
As things stand, SamPitroda, a close associate ofCongress president RahulGandhi, has given a handle tothe BJP to beat the Congresswith seven seats of Delhi, 13 ofPunjab and one of Chandigarhhaving a sizeable population of
Sikhs to go for polls. Just like Mani Shankar
Aiyar did with his ‘neech’ com-ment before the 2014 polls,Pitroda seems to have stirredthe poll pot this time round infavour of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and the BJPwith his “hua to hua” (so what)comment for the Sikh riots of1984. Modi and the BJP havesince then came down heavi-ly on the Congress by sayingthat these words are the “char-acter and mentality and inten-tions of the Congress”. ThoughPitroda later apologised, theBJP seems to have made mostof the controversial commentsbefore Punjab, Chandigarhand Delhi votes.
The 6th round goes to thefloor with the eye-catchingcontest between formerMadhya Pradesh ChiefMinister Digvijaya andMalegaon terror accusedPragya in Bhopal which hasbeen a BJP stronghold and wonby it previously. The poll bout
between the two has also beenseen as a litmus test for BJP’sassertion that Digvijaya wasacting against the interests ofthe majority community andtainting it with a “terror tag”.Digvijaya has matched Sadhvi’ssaffron credibility with his ownby organising a ‘havan’ of ‘sad-hus’ in Bhopal.
Among other poll fights,Akhilesh is contesting fromAzamgarh, the seat won lasttime by his father MulayamSingh Yadav against Bhojpurifilmstar Dinesh Lal Nirhaua.Union Minister ManekaGandhi, who has changed herseat from Piliphit to Sultanpur,is pitted in a good fight withCongress leader Sanjay Singhand BSP’s Chandra BhadraSingh alias Sonu who is the‘Mahagathbandhan’ candidate.
Other prominent candi-date from UP contesting isState Minister Rita JoshiBahuguna from Prayagraj(Allahabad).
Besides Bhopal, Guna in
Madhya Pradesh has Scindiaseeking re-election and UnionMinister Narendra SinghTomar from Morena are othercontestants from a total ofeight seats going to poll onSunday in the State.
In Haryana, of the 10 LokSabha seats voting BJP hadcontested eight seats in 204 andwon seven, INLD two andCongress one. Union MinistersKrishan Pal Gurjar and RaoInderjt Singh (BJP) too are inthe fray. Former Chief MinisterBhupinder Singh Hooda(Congress) is trying to enter thelower house from Sonepatwhile his son and sitting MPfrom Rohtak, Deepender SinghHooda, is again contestingfrom the same seat.
In West Bengal, Maoisthotbed Jangal Mahal — theforested region of Bankura, WestMidnapore, Jhargram andPurulia, would go to poll. Theruling TMC, the BJP, theCongress and the Left Front con-stituents - the CPI(M), the CPIand the AIFB — are the maincontenders in the eight seats,where the fate of 83 candidateswill be decided by a 1,33,69,749-strong electorate.
Manas Ranjan Bhunia isTMC’s candidate who is con-testing against BJP’s State presi-dent Dilip Ghosh fromMedinipur Lok Sabha seat. TheBankura seat will witness a tri-angular fight because theCongress did not put up any can-didate there. The high-voltagecampaign saw poll meetings byModi and BJP president AmitShah, Union Home MinisterRajnath Singh, Congress presi-dent Rahul Gandhi, West BengalChief Minister and her AndhraPradesh counterpart NChandrababu Naidu. InJharkhand, Giridih, Dhanbad,Jamshedpur and Singhbhum(ST) constituency are to witnessvoting on Sunday.
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As many as 164 candi-dates , including 18
women, are in the fray for theseven Lok Sabha seats inDelhi which goes to polls onSunday. It is expected to bethree-cornered fight involv-ing the BJP, AAP and theCongress in all the seats.
The Congress is lookingto bounce back after endingup at the third spot in the2014 elections while the BJPis trying to retain all theseven seats. The AAP is con-testing the election on theagenda of full Statehood,hoping to give a tight fight toboth the national parties.
Voting will begin at 7am on May 12 and it is sched-uled to go on till 6 pm. A totalof 13,819 polling stations willbe set up at 2,700 locations inDelhi, with one model pollingstation in each of the 70Assembly segments .Seventeen polling stationswi l l be staf fed only bywomen.
As many as 523 pollinglocations have been identifiedas critical and 60,000 per-sonnel, including those ofthe Delhi Police, HomeGuards and paramilitary, willbe on their toes to ensure thatthere is no untoward inci-dent.
According to the sum-mary of the electoral rollpublished on April 23, thereare over 1.43 crore voters inDelhi, 78,73,022 male and64,42,762 female, while 669belong to the third gender.
While 2,54,723 voters arein the age group of 18 and 19,there are 40,532 electoratewith disability who wouldbe provided pick up and dropfacility. Nearly 270 FIRs anddaily diary (DD) entries wereregistered against politicalparties and others here till
date for violation of the pollcode.
The general election 2019election witnessed acrimo-nious exchanges between theAAP and the BJP over alle-gations of horse-trading,rivals jabbing at one anotherover alleged discrepancies inaffidavits and even a candi-date of the ruling party inDelhi breaking down at aPress conference and attackon Delhi Chief Minister andnational convener of AAPArvind Kejriwal.
The campaign which gotoff to a slow start as alliancetalks between the AAP andCongress lingered on till thelast days of nomination,gained momentum over thelast fortnight with seniorleaders drawing huge crowdsat mega rallies and roadshows in the national Capital.
The campaign reached acrescendo in its last lap withPrime Minister NarendraModi holding a massive rallyat the Ramlila Maidan ,Congress president RahulGandhi addressing two pub-lic meetings, while his sisterPriyanka Gandhi Vadra tak-ing out two roadshows in thecity.
BJP’s incumbent MPManoj Tiwari is up againstShei la Dikshit for theNortheast Delhi seat and hasalready said her entry hasmade the poll contest “one ofthe most interesting in thecountry”. AAP’s Dilip Pandeyis also in the fray from theseat.
Other prominent candi-dates in the race include vet-eran Congress leader Sheila,Olympian boxer VijenderSingh, who is making hiselectoral debut from SouthDelhi, Union Minister HarshVardhan f rom ChandniChowk, and cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir.
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With arrest of three for-eign nationals , the
Narcotics Control Bureau(NCB) on Saturday claimed tohave made country’s highestseizure of over 1,800-kg pseu-doephedrine kept outside afactory in Greater Noida. Theestimated value of the seizedchemical, along with about 2kgs of party drugs cocaine, isaround �25 crore.
A senior NCB official saidit stumbled on the narcoticsafter grilling a South Africanwoman arrested on May 9from the IGI Airport. She wascarrying 24.7 kg of pseu-doephedrine, siad officials.
“The woman was firstintercepted by the CentralIndustrial Security Force.Pseudoephedrine is a pre-cursor used for the manufac-ture of Methamphetamine, adrug widely used in Europeand South East Asia. This isthe biggest ever seizure ofpseudoephedrine in Indiakept outside factory premis-es. As per our records, this isthe highest ever seizure byany agency,” the senior NCBofficer said.
“During interrogation,the woman led the officials ofthe Delhi zonal unit of theNCB to a house in GreaterNoida from where a total of1,818 kg of pseudoephedrineand 1.9 kg of Cociane wereseized on May 10,” said thesenior NCB official.
Two Nigerians, a manand a woman, have beenarrested from the house apartfrom the South Africanapprehended earlier, theysaid. The arrests were madeunder relevant sections ofthe Narcotic Drugs andPsychotropic Substances(NDPS) Act.
Stating that Congress partyand its leaders have no hatred,
Congress president RahulGandhi asked Prime MinisterNarendra Modi to keep offeringhate claiming he would contin-ue to hug him in return.
Amid assaults on him andhis family from the PM, Gandhiswitched to a different pitch say-ing Congress party or its lead-ers possess no hatred. “Thehatred is filled in BJP, RSS andin the heart of PM NarendraModi,” claimed the Congressnational president who wasaddressing an election rally inShujalpur of Madhya Pradesh.
“Our job is to fight thishatred,” added Rahul. He alsoaddressed public rallies in Dharand Khargone.
Referring to PM Modi’srepeated assaults on Gandhifamily, the visiting leader saidModiji talks of my father, grand-mother and great grandfatherwith hatred and anguish but Ioffer him hugs.
The Congress president said
he kept telling the PrimeMinister for five years that hewas a PM and had all the powerof this country behind him so heshould work with lover and nothatred.
Before Goods and ServicesTax was to be implemented, wehad sent P Chidambaram toconvey a message that he (Modi)was making a mistake as Indiawas a vast country and an ill-planned policy would land youin trouble. But our leader wassternly told that a decision hasbeen made and would be imple-mented by midnight, recountedGandhi.
The Congress further saidhe (Modi) did not ask anyoneabout demonetisation. “Youcould have asked this from anysmall shopkeeper.”
Polling will be held in 8 par-liamentary constituencies
of Morena, Bhind (SC),Gwalior, Guna, Sagar, Vidisha,Bhopal and Rajgarh from 7 amto 6 pm on May 12 in the thirdphase of Lok Sabha Election-2019 in State. A total of 45thousand 53 security personnelincluding 85 companies ofCentral Armed Police Force, 30companies of State ArmedPolice Force and officers-employees of State Police havebeen deployed to ensure unin-terrupted voting. To deal withany kind of situation, 446Quick Response Teams havebeen formed.
As many as 101 inter-stateand 128 inter-district check
posts falling under this phasehave been sealed. More than 11thousand vehicles will be usedfor transportation of pollingteams, sector officers and policeforce. Polling workers havebeen sent to the polling boothson May 11.
As many as 4024 criticalpolling centres have been iden-
tified in the Lok Sabha electionconstituencies in the thirdphase and more than 3600polling centres will be moni-tored by webcasting / CCTVcameras. In this phase, total1720 vulnerable areas havebeen identified and 3096 sus-picious persons have beenidentified. On the day ofpolling, special monitoring ofvulnerable areas will be done bythe sector officers.
Prohibitory action hasbeen taken against 2 thousand273 persons in Lok Sabha con-stituencies of the third phase ofthe state to maintain law andorder. One lakh 48 thousand616 licensed weapons havebeen deposited and 9409 ille-gal weapons have also beenseized.
The Congress Delhi unit onSaturday has filed a com-
plaint with the ElectionCommission alleging recordedphone calls are "being used tospread misinformation in anattempt to influence the elec-torate" by Aam Aadmi Party(AAP).
According to the com-plaint, "false" survey resultspropagating through phonecalls to voters during the 48-hour election silence period"Romila Dhawan, the electionagent of the party's northeastDelhi candidate and formerDelhi Chief Minister SheilaDikshit said in a complaint.
Addressing media persons,AICC spokesperson PawanKhera said that the AAP hascommitted a criminal offence.
He alleged that these were tac-tics adopted by the AAP sinceit knew it was losing in the pollsas the battle is between theCongress and the BJP.
Khera claimed the AAPwas using a call centre to makesuch calls to voters. "These callshave gone to voters in sevenparliamentary constituenciesand started at 5.10 pm. Initially,when the call is received arecorded message is playedasking voters which party theywill vote for. After one-and-a-half-hours they again receive acall telling them the AAP is get-ting 40 per cent or 52 per centvotes," Khera told reporters.
"This has never happened.When you know after 5 pm(when the campaigning ends)that you are nowhere in thecontest, you resort to such tac-tics. We demand criminal
action in the matter. These areserious allegations," he said. Hesaid this "kind of politics" hasnot been seen before andeverybody knows their reality.
The complain said thatmembers of the public havebeen receiving phone callsfrom various numbers, whichwhen picked up, play an auto-mated message purporting tobe the result of a survey inwhich the person receiving thecall has participated.
"The message names polit-ical parties and completelyrandom and inexplicable per-centages against their particu-lars. The message conveys thatthe result of the survey inwhich the receiver of the callhas ostensibly participated isthat AAP got 47 per cent, BJP37 per cent and Congress 11per cent votes," it said.
Student of the Year starringthree newcomers —Varun Dhawan,
Siddharth Malhotra and AliaBhatt — had done well foritself and KJo decided to gofor a sequel. A lot was ridingon SOTY 2 starring TigerShroff with newbies TaraSutaria and Ananya Panday.
The sequel comes withboth good and bad. The good,girls are pretty, clothes chic.Action is awesome. Fans ofTiger Shroff are going to loveall the back flips and jumps.He is quick on his feet too.One should also not forget hispecs and the abs.
Then there are somecliches. A middle class familywhere there is love. A richfamily where the membershave a disconnect. Then thereare friends who get offendedat the drop of a hat andsuddenly all is well.
The bad? There is way toomuch action. We were hopingthat SOTY 2 would besomewhat in the same vein asit’s prequel — more rivalry,less fighting and no bloodynoses.
Director Punit Malhotraspent time in ensuring that weare surrounded with prettythings. While there is nothingwrong with watching a filmthat is pretty it is a bit farremoved from reality. India’seducation system has notevolved so much that sportstakes centrestage. And whichcollege in India do girls wearwhat our lead protagonistswere wearing?
Then like the directors ofGame of Thrones forgot toremove the Starbucks Coffeecup, there are a couple ofmisses here too. Take thisexample. In one scene theyshow a boy with bandage onhis head, the second it ismissing. In the third shot, thebandage is back. So is thebandage on or off?
As for the acting,
unfortunately Shroff is unableto emote. His expressionsremain the same throughout.The girls have nothing toshow for themselves exceptlook pretty. The saddest part isa precisely two-secondappearance by Will Smithwhere he comes to shake a leg.We all know that he is notdesperate for screen presence.Wonder what made him dothis?
If only the director hadrealised that the audience isnow looking for content thathas a story to it as well.
Though a couple ofdialogues warm the heart —Shroff says that his dream is toensure that he is able to fulfillhis girlfriend’s dream. It is atad different take from theusual where it is the girl whohas to follow the man and notthe other way round.
Overall, SOTY 2 hasnothing new to offer butmakes for a good time pass ifyou are a fan of actionsequences.
For all those people who have notbeen following this hero fromDholakpur who loves to eat
laddoo and gets his powers from thismithai, Chhoto Bheem Kung FuDhamaka is the fourth movie. The firstthree in the order: Chhota Bheem andthe Curse of Damyaan (2012), ChhotaBheem and the Throne of Bali (2013)and Chhota Bheem: HimalayanAdventure (2016). Such is the fanfollowing for Bheem by toddlers andover the years, over 25 movies thatwere made just for TV.
What makes these movie fun towatch besides the adventure that thefriends go on, there is fun, frolic andlaughter. The antics by Kalia andDholu and Bholu, his two minions willcrack up adults as well.
In Kung Fu Dhamaka, the friendsfind themselves in China and go on amission to save Princess Kia. It is goodto see Kalia fully clothed instead of theusual langot that he otherwise favours.
The quality of the animation hassomewhat improved even though wehave a long way to go before we can becompare ourselves with Hollywoodreleases. But it is good to see that aneffort has been put.
The summer holidays are roundthe corner and it is time to treat yourtoddlers to this latest adventure thatBheem and his friends go on.
>:�.@A;��@�&.�B,+;B��)�+���;+"-�Tell us about your character in Cityof Dreams?
I play Wasim Khan, a policeofficer. He has had a glorious past. Herealises that at some point of time aGovernment servant becomeliabilities. His journey will be shownin the series. People will get to see whathe does to get back into the game andwhat City of Dreamsmakes him into.The storyline isexciting and setin Mumbaiagainst thebackdrop ofIndian politicsand election. Itwas great
working with the team of ApplauseEntertainment. �How have you evolved as an artist?
I was a professional dancer before.But somehow ended up acting.Thoughout my journey, the mostimportant thing that I have learnt is toreact and not act. In City of Dreams,I have done method acting and havetried to be in the shoes of the character.Nagesh sir (Kukunoor) has alwaystaught me not to act, but be as real aspossible and that is what I try to do inall my projects. �You have worked for TV, films andnow web. Where do you find yourselfmost comfortable working in?
Platform doesn’t matter much,but the kind of work you are doing and
the characters that you are playingmakes a difference. While I wasdoing TV, I find myself tied up.It is more hectic. In films, thereis more luxury but lot of hardwork. The most challenging forme is working on a digitalplatform. Here we have toshoot for a longer time. Wehave to keep a track of thewhole character because theinter-dyanamics of everycharacter changes in everyepisode and it becomesscary. �What kind of roles attractyou?
The grey characters. Idon’t know the reasonbehind this. I have realisedthat the world is not only fullof good people, there are badones too. It is good to be theway you like to be. A lot of
people have taught me that youare a villian in somebody’s story.So grey characters add a sense ofrealism in the story. You can’t
whitewash all the characters with thesame brush — good.�What is there in your check listwhen it comes to signing projects?
First, the script should be goodand compelling enough. Second, I lookwho the director is. He is the captainof the ship. The whole mood of a filmor series is triggered by the director.It is important for me to get along withthe director and understand himmore than my family. Because I haveto portray a life and it is important tobe as real and as true as possible, so Ineed to understand the director well. �Was there a moment when youthought of quitting?
Not at all. I am the kind of personif someone pushes me away, I’llcome right back at him.�Was it hard for you to make a placein the industry?
The hard part for me wasconnecting with myself. I am stilltrying to do that. It is now that I haverealised that how important self-loveis. It has been very difficult for me tobe comfortable with myself and fightall the fears of being in the industry.But now, I have been doing it and Ibelieve it will reflect in my acting skillsalso. �Apart from acting, what else keepsyou busy?
I try not be busy. We have beengiving a lot of importance to beingbusy all the time. But sometimes, youneed not to do anything. As an actor,we need to experience everything. Butmy daily routine is to water my plantand take care of my 14 dogs.�What is there in the pipeline?
Right now I am only doing City ofDreams but I believe my pipe shouldbe full after this project. I believe allmy dreams will come true after doingthis web series.
The verbal spat over farmloan waiver now shifted to
twitter in Madhya Pradesh asformer Chief Minister ShivrajSingh Chouhan continuedattacking Kamal NathGovernment saying the loanwaiver was merely an eye-wash.
Nath too resorted sayingChouhan is unaware that loansof his kin have been waived offand he was talking about theentire state.
Starting the assault,Chouhan had wrote on twitterthat Kamal Nath governmentshould stop lying claimingthat his brother did not applyfor loan waiver so how somehis loan was waived off. Healso pointed out the state gov-ernment had made it clearthose filing Income Tax won’tbe extended benefits of thescheme so how the loans of hisbrother was waived off.
He was replying to Nath’stweet in which the ChiefMinister claimed that Congress
government had waived offloans of 21 lakh farmers andeven Shivraj Singh Chouhanhad accepted that his brother’sloan was waived off.
Meanwhile, Chouhan con-tinued his assault saying firstorder of loan waiver was wrongas the state government hadannounced to waive off allloans upto Rs two lakh whilelater it emerged that crop loansupto Rs two lakh would be
written off. The former ChiefMinister who is extremely crit-ical of Congress loan waiverfurther tweeted that KamalNath was yet to furnish nodues certificates and loanwould not be consideredwaived off unless no dues cer-tificates is offered to farmers bythe banks.
He also asked Kamal Nathto furnish UTR numbers ofbank transactions which are
used to transfer money to thebank accounts. He also warnedthe Chief Minister sayingfarmers are basis of state’sprosperity and if you wouldcheat them, then the state andcountry won’t forgive you.
Nath on Friday also hadtweeted that farm loans ofChouhan’s kin –Nirnajan andRohit, have been waived off butthe latter had no idea aboutthis.
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Bhopal STF have busted ainter-State vehicle lifter
gang and nabbed two gangmembers of Jabalpur who weretrying to sell a SUV and recov-ered two more vehicles whichwere stolen by gang; two of theaccused are wanted accused inmurder cases and were havinga reward of �20,000.
Acting on a tip off regard-ing a tip off about two men try-ing to sell Ford Ecosport whichwas brought from Jabalpurwere nabbed and when theywere quizzed they confessedstealing vehicles and sellingthem in different areas usingfake documents.
The nabbed accused wereidentified as Sajid Khan (42)and Aleem alias Sonu (32) ofJabalpur who were wanted inmurder cases in Jabalpur andSatna in the year 2014 and2017. Police nabbed VinodRai of Bhopal who used to pro-
vide shelter and help in dis-posal.
From the accused FordEcosports bearing registration
number MP07CF1406 wasseized and registration numberwas found fake. During inves-tigation two more vehiclesScorpio bearing registrationnumber MP07CB4632 andMaruti Swift Dzire bearingregistration numberMP09CM9047 were recoveredfrom their possession.
After the preliminaryinvestigation the police regis-tered a case under sections 379,420, 467, 471 and 212 of theIPC and later nabbed theaccused. The gang used to sellstolen vehicles and financedvehicles by using registrationnumbers of damaged vehiclesin other states.
The gang has also soldheavy loading trucks inNagpur and Mysore. Theyhave also stolen and sold vehi-cles in Maharashtra, Gujaratand Rajasthan. Details of vehi-cles stolen and disposed wouldbe revealed in the further investigation.
Bhopal: The MP Nagar policehave booked a rape accused formolesting and assaulting 24-year-old victim at district courtpremises on Friday.
Police said that the accusedBhagat Singh Malik molestedand assaulted the victim afterhearing at the court in the dis-trict court premises.
Notably, a case of rape wasregistered with Govindpurapolice and in the same case thetwo came for hearing but afterthe hearing victim was on herway back accused molested herand assaulted her and victimalerted for help accused escapedthe spot. Earlier, when victimwas sports teacher in RohtakHaryana and a case of sexualassault was registered in Rohtakand later the victim was alsosexually assaulted in the Bhopaland a case was registered withthe Govindpura police.
Police have registered acase of molestation and startedsearch for the accused.
Meanwhile Hanumanganjpolice booked a man for sexu-ally assaulting and exploiting a26-year-old married woman atGhora Nakkas for the past oneyear. The accused had threat-ened to kill her family if shelodged any complaint to police.
Police have booked Yogeshalias Yogendra Kushwaha forsexual exploitation. The victim,in her complaint, stated that shewas acquainted with theaccused and last year in themonth of June he took her toa hotel in Ghora Nakkas areaand sexually assaulted her.
The accused lured her ofmarriage continued sexualexploitation of victim. The vic-tim asked the accused to marryher but accused refused tomarry her few days ago afterwhich the victim lodged com-plaint with the Hanumanganjpolice and based on the com-plaint after preliminary inves-tigation police have registereda case under section 376(2) ofthe IPC. After the complaint,hunt for the accused is on. PNS
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The Election Commissionhere on Saturday issued
guidelines to candidates andpolitical parties for voting dayon Sunday.
On the day of polling in thethird phase of the state in theLok Sabha elections in 2019,the candidates will be able touse one vehicle each for them-selves, their agents and theirworkers / party workers. Thesevehicles will not have morethan five persons, including thedriver. If the candidate is absentin the parliamentary con-stituency, then no other personwill be able to use these vehicles.
Candidates or parties willneither be able to campaign norput up promotional materi-
al/posters within 100 metreradius of the polling centres.Candidates or parties will notdo any activity to lure andintimidate voters. In additionthey will not be allowed to useloud speaker, mobile phoneswithin 100 meters of pollingcentre.
Stalls can be put up by can-didates outside 200 metreradius of the polling centre.They will be able to use onetable, two chairs and 3 x 1.5 feetbanner. For this, prior permis-sion from local body will bemandatory. The expenses willbe included in the candidate'selectoral expenditure. The can-didate or party can distributethe voter slip on plain whitepaper to the voters, but this willnot have the name of the can-didate or the party's name orthe election symbol.
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Bhopal Branch of TheInstitute of Chartered
Accountants of India hasorganised a one day Seminaron GST on Saturday at HotelAtishay, Bhopal.
The Programme wasattended by CharteredAccountants from Bhopal andnearby areas in large numbers.CA Mayank AgrawalChairman, & other members ofBhopal Branch enlighten thelamp and address the memberspresent about the issued rele-vant in GST.
It is to be noted that dur-ing the programme there wereTwo Technical Sessions con-ducted by Expert Faculties ofGST being CA. Arun Chhajerfrom New Delhi and CA.Navneet Garg from Bhopal.
Later, during the sessionCA Arun Chhajer briefed thedelegates about the proceduresto be followed by CAs for con-ducting GST Audit. Heinformed about the penaltieswhich will be levied over non-compliances of Audit which ison daily basis.
CA Navneet Garg guidedthe members present about
the manner present about themanner in which GSTR-9 formis to be filed and the manner inwhich irregularities of 2017-18in GST-3B can be removed. Headvised the members present toguide the business communi-ty for filing the required returnsto avoid penalties and to rec-oncile their GSTR-3B withGSTR-9 to avoid various non-compliances resulting to strictstatutory actions against theassesses.
CA Zuber Ullah Khan,Vice Chairman, CA SamankMohabe Treasurer, CA AnshulAgrawal, Chairman CICASA,CA Pradeep Mutreja and CAAditya Shrivastava ExecutiveCommittee Members also par-ticipated the seminar. As manyas 200 members were presentin the seminar
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The Ruskin Bond Festivalbegan on Saturday at Swami
Vivekananda Library. The fourday festival received a won-derful response on the first day.The festival is organised bySwami Vivekananda Library,Youth Literary Enthusiast Cluband Club Literati.
About 100 participantstook part in this event.Beginning at the festival,Rushariak Goyal, the founder ofLiterary Cottage, presented thepresentation and a small videoabout Ruskin bonds and inter-esting personal information.
He told that the Ruskin
bond is also called IndianWordsworth and he wroteabout 500 short stories, novelsand poems. Dr. Amita Singhalso gave interesting informa-tion related to the life of theRuskin bond, saying that theRuskin bond was born inKasauli.
After this there was a dis-cussion on a Ruskin bond andsome things related to his lifewere shared by the partici-pants. In the end, a quiz dynastywas made by the Uppal, whosewinner was Lavnya Kapoorand Adi Shrivastav.
Keeping the theme inmind, the favorite peanut but-ter and chocolate cookies and
the famous bakery lingerie ofMint Flavored Ice Tea Mussooriwas also kept in the RuskinBond.
Next event will be organ-ised on Sunday i.e. May 19 from2 to 5:30 pm. The event Ghostand Hills will be organised.
The time spent on them bythe mountains will be dis-cussed and their nature towardsthe mountains and the GhostStories created by them will bediscussed.
On this day, discussions onsuperstation stories and trea-sure hunt will also be organised.This is his 85th birthday too, sohis birthday will also be cele-brated.
Ashoka Garden police stationarea and fled away with valu-ables over �90,000; victimlodged complaint on Fridayafter he returned fromChennai.
Police said that the victimRajni Kumar had gone toChennai on May 5 and whenhe returned on May 10 valu-ables were found burgled.
A complaint was lodgedwith the police by the victim inwhich the victim stated that healong with the family had goneto visit Chennai on May 5 andwhen he returned valuables
were found burgled andThe CCTV cameras
installed will be investigat-ed.The neighbours haveexpressed ignorance over theburglary. In the incident, goldjewelry and other valuables
worth �70000 and �25000 cashwere burgled. The total loss inthe burglary is around �90000.
Meanwhile, valuablesworth �70000 were stolen fromSiddharta Lake City underAnand Nagar police station
area on Friday. The victimAnand Dubey had gone tooffice and when he returnedthe valuables were found bur-gled.
After the victim found thatthe valuables were burgled acomplaint was lodged with thePiplani police stating that hehad gone for work in the morn-ing and when he returnedlocks were found broken andvaluables were burgled.
Gold and silver jewelryand �8000 cash were burgled.The total loss in the burglarywas around �70000.The policehave registered a case undersection 454 and 380 of the IPCand have started further inves-tigation.
nessed at Hamidia hospitalwhere post mortem of 6-year-old boy was conducted onSaturday. The body died ofmultiple bites by stray dogs inthe evening on Friday at ShivSangam Nagar underAwadhpuri police station area.
After people protested atthe hospital, officials fromadministration reached to paci-fy with compensation of Rs250000. The BMC also starteddrive to catch stray dogs whichare found in scores at severalplaces.
The locals have made sev-eral complaints still no actionfor resolving issue of straydogs has been taken by BMC.
In the evening on Fridaysix year old Sanju was attackedby over a dozen stray dogs ataround 6 pm and when hismother spotted him she triedto save but failed and laterwhen he was rushed to hospi-tal he died during treatment.
The father of the deceasedreached home at around 6 inthe evening and asked forSanju but his mother failed tofind his as he had gone todump garbage around half anhour ago. The death occurreddue to multiple injuries acrossthe body of the boy.
The family which hailsfrom Silwani Raisen lives in arented house in Shiv SangamNagar. Head of the familyHarinarayan works with acatering service provider.
Sanju was eldest amongthree siblings and lone boyamong the siblings.
As many as 1.80 crore voterswill seal the fate of 233 can-
didates including political big-wigs contesting on 10 LokSabha seats in Haryana, whichgoes to polling on Sunday.
Among the total candi-dates in Jatland-Haryana, 40are from national and state levelrecognised parties whereas 99candidates are from registeredparties and 84 are indepen-dents. This time, only 11women candidates includingfour from national and statelevel recognised parties andseven independents are in thefray.
The stakes are high forboth the ruling Bharatiya JanataParty and its main challengerCongress on 10 parliamentaryseats in Haryana, which willalso witness the State Assemblypolls to elect 90 legislators laterthis year.
In the last three generalelections, the people of the statehave reposed faith in eitherCongress or BJP. In both 2004and 2009 general elections, theCongress had managed to winnine seats. However, in 2014Lok Sabha polls, the saffronparty had turned the tables onthe Congress, which couldretain only one constituency.Riding high on Modi wave andwith the help of several politi-cal turncoats, the BJP hadmanaged to win seven seatswhile the Indian National LokDal had won two seats in 2014
general polls.The BJP had registered
victory on Lok Sabha seatsincluding Gurugram,Faridabad, Kurukshetra,Karnal, Ambala (reserved con-stituency), Bhiwani-Mahendragarh and Sonipat,INLD had won on Sirsa(reserved constituency) andHisar seats while Congress hadwon only on Rohtak seat.
Later that year, the BJP hadalso managed to make its maid-en State Government under theleadership of Chief MinisterManohar Lal in Haryana.
In 2019 Lok Sabha polls,the political scene has taken aninteresting turn in Haryana,which is witnessing a multi-cornered contest with theemergence of new politicalparties and new alliances.
The grand old Jat-centricINLD has divided and its splin-ter group Jannayak Janta Partyis contesting the general elec-tions in an alliance with AamAadmi Party of Delhi ChiefMinister Arvind Kejriwal.Another fledgling outfit—Loktantra Suraksha Party— ofrebel BJP MP Raj Kumar Saini,has forged an alliance withBahujan Samaj Party of formerUttar Pradesh Chief MinisterMayawati to woo the dalit andbackward classes voters in thestate.
Even as the BJP, Congress,INLD, JJP-AAP, LSP-BSP com-bine are the mainstream polit-ical parties contesting on 10parliamentary seats inHaryana, the political pundits
believe that the electoral con-test is mostly confined to BJPand Congress except on one ortwo seats.
“The poll outcome on May23 in Haryana will set the tonefor State Assembly polls due tobe held later this year. Any gainin Congress’ tally this time willindicate that it is on a revivalpath in Haryana while gain inBJP’s tally will suggest furthersurge in saffron wave and thatpopularity of PM NarendraModi and CM Manohar Lal isstill high in the state,” saypolitical analysts.
“The performance of INLD,JJP-AAP and LSP-BSP alliancewill decide their future in theregional politics,” they say.
Exuding confidence inBJP’s poll prospects, ChiefMinister Manohar Lal said thathis party will win on all 10 par-liamentary seats in Haryana.People are happy with thedevelopment works undertak-en in last five years in Haryanaunder BJP’s leadership at theCentre and the state. Theyhave made up their mind toelect Narendra Modi as theirPrime Minister again to ensurenational security and develop-ment of the country, he said.
The poll outcome inHaryana will put an end todynasty politics and corruptregimes of Congress and INLD,he added.
Former Chief Minister andCongress veteran BhupinderSingh Hooda said that peopleare fed up with the BJP, whichhas failed to deliver on its poll
promises. All sections of thesociety including women,farmers, youth are sufferingunder the BJP’ regime andthey will teach a lesson to theBJP in the elections, he said.
Political bigwigs in thefray
In the high-stakes elec-tion, many political heavy-weights including former ChiefMinister Bhupinder SinghHooda, his son three-time MPDeepender Singh Hooda,Union Ministers Rao InderjitSingh and Krishan Pal Gurjar,Rajya Sabha MP Kumari Selja,Haryana Congress chief AshokTanwar among others face anacid test in the Jatland.
In Sonipat Lok Sabha con-stituency, two-time formerChief Minster and Congress’prominent Jat face BhupinderSingh Hooda is pitted againstBJP’s outgoing MP RameshKaushik and Jannayak JantaParty- Aam Aadmi Party’s joincandidate Digvijay Chautalawhile his son, three-time MPDeepender Singh Hooda, whois seeking a mandate for thefourth time is taking on BJP’sArvind Sharma, a former MP.
Union Minister RaoInderjit Singh is seeking re-election from Gurugram whilehis colleague Krishan PalGurjar is facing a tough fightagainst Congress’ Avtar SinghBhadana in Faridabad parlia-mentary seat.
In Sirsa constituency,Haryana Congress chief AshokTawar is taking on BJP candi-
date Sunita Duggal, a formerIRS officer and INLD’s outgo-ing MP Charanjit Singh Rori.
A prominent woman Dalitface of Haryana, Kumari Selja,who is a Rajya Sabha MP iscontesting against BJP’s outgo-ing MP Rattan Lal Kataria.
The Hisar Lok Sabha seats,is witnessing an electoral con-test among three scions frominfluential political families ofHaryana. The Jannayak JantaParty-Aam Aadmi Party’s jointcandidate and outgoing MPDushyant Chautala, great–grandson of former DeputyPrime Minister Devi Lal islocked in a tough triangularpoll battle against two politicalgreenhorns --BJP's BrijenderSingh, former IAS officer andgreat grandson of acclaimedfarmer leader Sir Chhotu Ramand Congress’ nominee BhavyaBishnoi, grandson of formerChief Minister Bhajan Lal.
In Chief Minister ManoharLal’s hometurf- Karnal, theCongress has fielded formerSpeaker and MLA KuldeepSharma against CM’s confidantSanjay Bhatia.
Key factors in elections
In the state, which is bit-terly divided on caste linesfollowing the violent Jat reser-vation agitation 2016, the casteis seen as the X-factor in shap-ing the poll outcomes.
The divide between Jat andnon-Jat communities willdecide the fate of key candi-dates on all 10 seats.
In the election season, theviolent Jat agitation 2016 is akey issue with all political par-ties trying to provoke thestrong caste sentiments amongthe voters. More than 30 peo-ple had died and over 250 wereleft injured in the quota stir thathad made to internationalheadlines. In the agrarianmilieu of Haryana, Jats arecounted as the dominant votebank constituting about 29percent of state’s population(around 25 percent of the elec-torate) and stated to havealways polarized behind afavoured Jat leader in the mazeof state politics. While around25 percent of total electorate inHaryana are Jats, the remain-ing 75 percent are non-Jats,which include Dalits,Brahmins, Yadavs, Gujjars,Baniyas, Rajputs among others.Dalits voters form around 20percent in the state. As per theelection trends, the Jat votebank has traditionally voted forthe Congress and rival IndianNational Lok Dal. After INLD’ssplit, its splinter groupJannayak Janta Party is furthersegregating the Jat votes.
While the BJP is bankingon strong polarization of non-Jat vote bank, the Congress ishopeful of consolidation of Jatvote bank to capture maximumseats in Haryana.
The popularity of PMNarendra Modi and his nation-alism plank may also work inHaryana, from where youthhave significantly contributedin the armed forces.
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The death toll due to the very severeCyclone Fani, which hit the State’s coast
on May 3, rose to 43 with two more casual-ties being confirmed by the Government onSaturday. According to Special ReliefCommissioner Bishnupada Sethi, the twomore bodies were recovered at two differentplaces.
Out of the toll, the highest 21 is in Puridistrict, six in Cuttack, five in Khordha, foureach in Mayurbhanj and Jajpur and three inKendrapada district.
According to the SRC, three persons wereinjured and hospitalised in Bhubaneswar, fourgrievously injured in Kendrapada and 74 inJajpur district. A total of 1,65,30,900 peopleof 16,659 villages under 159 blocks and 52urban local bodies spread over 14 districtshave been affected in the cyclonic storm.
The affected districts are Angul,Baleswar, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Dhenkanal,Ganjam, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Kendrapada,
Keonjhar, Khordha, Mayurbhanj, Nayagarhand Puri.
Besides, 5,08,467 houses and 87,39,657livestock have been affected in the calami-ty. As many as 34,56,362 domestic animalshave died in the storm, said a situation reportreleased by the State Emergency OperationCentre (SEOC).
Clearing of roads and power restorationprocess are in full swing in Bhubaneswar cityand all affected districts. In Puri district, themarine drive, Nimapara-Satsankh road,New Jagannath Sadak, Gop-Balighai Road,Pipili-Konark, Patnaikia-Khordha road andPipili-Jatni road have been cleared. AllPWD roads have been cleared inBhubaneswar and other parts of Khordha dis-trict. The SRC said 100-per cent power sup-ply has been restored in Cuttack city.
SRC Sethi has written to the Khordhadistrict Collector asking him to ensureimplementation of the Chief Minister’spackage to the families who do not have aration card.
He asked the Collector to provide assis-tance to families living in slums under theBhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC)even if they do not own a ration card underthe National Food Security Act and the StateFood Security Scheme.
The decision was taken after several slumdwellers expressed unhappiness over notbeing paid Government assistance eventhough they have suffered a lot due to Fani.
According to the package, the familiesliving under the BMC who do not possess aration card would receive �2,000 as mone-tary assistance, �500 for polythene and 50 kgof rice.
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The hearing over theMahanadi water dispute
between Odisha andChhattisgarh was postponed toJuly 13 by the Mahanadi WaterDisputes Tribunal in NewDelhi on Saturday.
As soon as the proceedingsstarted in the tribunal, bothOdisha and ChhattisgarhGovernments pleaded for aperiod of four weeks becausethe third joint meeting betweenthem couldn’t take place owingto Cyclone Fani hitting Odishaon May 3.
The tribunal accepted thepleas and fixed the next date ofhearing on July 13.
“For the Cyclone Fani,State officials are busy in reliefand rehabilitation works inthe affected districts. Thus,the Government couldn’t holdanother joint meeting andfailed to undertake site visit.Therefore, we pleaded for moretime to conduct site visit, pre-pare a report and submit it tothe tribunal,” informed OdishaAdvocate General Surya PrasadMishra.
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Three jawans of the elite Special Operations Group(SOG) were martyred in a landmine explosion trig-
gered by Maoists in Malkangiri district on Saturday.The incident occurred at the Bogapadar hill under the
Mathili police station when a team of SOG personnel were carrying out acombing operation based on intel-ligence inputs about the presence ofRed rebels in the area.
Sources said that around 30 to40 ultras, who were in a hideout, hadplanted the landmine suspecting asearch operation by security forces.Later, they triggered the landminewhen they spotted the SOG per-sonnel. Following the landmineexplosion, a gun battle also ensuedbetween the jawans and Maoists.
The injured security personnelhad been rushed to the nearby BSF
camp for treatment, but they succumbed to the injuries,the sources added.Later, a joint combing operation by theSOG and the anti-Maoist forces of Chhattisgarh was con-ducted in the area.
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Passengers of the New Delhi-BhubaneswarRajdhani Express were panicked as
smokes emerged in the power car of the trainat the Khantapara railway station here onSaturday afternoon. However, no passengercoaches were affected.
Following the incident, the train halted at the Khantapara station for abouttwo hours. The train service resumedonly after the affected coach was detachedfrom it. An expert team from theKharagpur railway division visited thestation. An official of the East CoastRailway said three fire extinguishingengines reached the spot and doused theflames. Overhead electric wires were imme-diately switched off for safety reason andthe generator car was also disconnectedfrom the rest of the train. The train left forBhubaneswar at around 3 pm.
According to reports, the smoke wasdetected in the unit of power car that sup-plied power to the coaches.
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Responding to the appeal by NalcoCMD Dr Tapan Kumar Chand in
the aftermath of the Cyclone Fani, allemployees of Nalco have donated oneday’s salary to the Chief Minster’sRelief Fund (CMRF).
A cheque of �2.53 crore washanded over by top Nalco officials,including Chand, to Chief MinisterNaveen Patnaik at the State Secretariaton Saturday.
Immediately after the cyclone, theNalco has been working round theclock for providing relief to the affect-ed people of Bhubaneswar, Cuttackand Puri.
Seven dedicated teams comprisingplumbers, wood cutters, electriciansand volunteers have been put to workin different localities. Also, more than8,000 families have been providedrelief packets.
Also, several water tankers drawnfrom the Nalco’s production units at
Angul and Damanjodi have beenpressed into service at Bhubaneswarfor providing water.
In another development, NalcoCMD Dr Chand has been appointedas the chairman of the Confederationof Indian Industry’s (CII) cyclonemanagement committee. Dr Chand,who is also the chairman of theAluminium Association of India, hasappealed to all corporate bodies tohelp in the relief and restorationworks in the cyclone-hit areas.
fourth election rally inJharkhand on May 15 atDeoghar’s College Ground asthe Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)gears up for a faceoff withJharkhand Mukti Morcha(JMM) in the latter’s bastion,Santhal Pargana.
“Modiji will land at theBirsa Munda Airport in Ranchion May 15 and take a chopperto Deoghar. He will address thepeople of Deoghar at 12pm,”said Pradeep Sinha, a memberof the BJP’s media cell inRanchi.
The fourth and final phaseof General Elections inJharkhand, in which Dumka,Rajmahal and Godda will go topolls on May 19, is likely to bea litmus test for the BJP. Despitethe overwhelming Modi waveof 2014, which swept the entirecountry, the BJP lost to theJMM in two of three con-stituencies in Santhal Pargana.The BJP won 12 of 14 LokSabha seats here, the highestever by one political party, butcould not defeat JMM SupremoShibu Soren in Dumka andVijay Hansdak in Rajmahaldespite fielding a JMM turn-coat Hemlal Murmu againstHansda.
The BJP is expectingModi’s rally, scheduled daysbefore the polling, will help theparty garner support of the
largely tribal voters of SanthalPargana, party insiders said. Inthe ongoing election season,Modi has addressed rallies inLohardaga, Singbhum andGiridih. He also attended aroad show in Ranchi.
“Last time, we lost Dumkaand Rajmahal by a whisker.Santhal Pargana was cut offfrom the rest of the State for along time. The BJP starteddevelopment works in theregion and it will reflect in thepolls,” said BJP spokespersonPratul Shahdeo.
In his term as the PrimeMinister, Modi paid at leasteight official visits to Jharkhandsince the landslide victory in2014 Lok Sabha polls. Theparty here claims that no otherPrime Minister has paid asmany visits to Jharkhand insingle tenure. During his lastofficial visit to Jharkhand as thePrime Minister of India, Modiinaugurated three medical col-leges in Hazaribag, Daltonganjand Dumka. This election,BJP’s Sunil Soreng is taking onJMM’s veteran leader ShibuSoren in Dumka, while BJP’sHemlal Murmu is set to chal-lenge JMM leader VijayHansdak’s incumbency. On theother hand, in Godda, BJP’sincumbent parliamentarianNishikant Dubey will have afaceoff against Jharkhand VikasMorcha-Prajatantrik’s PradeepYadav, who happens to be a for-mer minister and is represent-ing the ‘Mahagathbandhan’.
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Jharkhand Mukti Morcha(JMM) today alleged that
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)is using every ways and meansto win the election but the peo-ple of the State understandtheir gimmick and the partywill be wiped out form theentire State this year.
Addressing a press meet,General Secretary of JMMSupriyo Bhattacharya said onSaturday that JMM supportedGrand Alliance will performbetter in this election and willall 14 seats of the State.
Mocking at BJP Nationalpresident Amit Shah, he saidthat Shah started street meet-ings because his rallies are notwitnessing enough foot-fall.Very few people attended therally held at Agrico Ground inJamshedpur. “A large numberof star campaigners of BJP arecamping in Kolhan region to
ensure victory of their candi-dates but they are not gettingsupport. Chief MinisterRaghubar Das is holdingnumerous meetings but it isbenefiting Grand Alliance aspeople of the region are not lis-tening to him. As PrimeMinister Narendra Modi willvisit on May,15 it will also ben-efit us and we inviting the PMthat he should come on May,19also,” he added.
Bhattacharya said that theleaders of BJP are talking onwater, forest and land but theyhave plundered the resourcesand given those to Adani for itspower plant. “They are onlytalking on futile issues. Theydon’t have guts to talk on issuessuch as unemployment, issue ofdisplacement and others,” headded. Bhattacharya asked thePM and the national presidentof BJP as to what are theirpreparations to plunder thetreasure of Kolhan region.
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Chief Minister RaghubarDas on Saturday said that
the BJP is ready for third andfourth round of polls in theState. After holding the StateBJP core committee meeting inDumka on Saturday morningthe CM said that their party
will win in all three seats ofSanthal Pargana.
“People of Godda hadmade us win the 2014 LokSabha polls. This time peopleof Rajmahal and Dumka willgive way to lotus, because theyhave assessed the works doneby MPs of the two constituen-cies and are grossly unhappy
with their work,” he said.The CM said that tribals
and people of all communitiesknow the fact as to who gave
them benefits under PMAY,who gave them LPG cylinders
and toilets. These all thingsare in the memory of people.“As far as there is a questionof winning other seats, theBJP won 12 seats in 2014 elec-tions, but in 2019 the peopleof the State will make us winon all 14 seats. The people arewell aware that the election infor country,” he said.
After students, now CRPFjawans are getting addict-
ed to the online gaming appPUBG (PlayerUnknown'sBattlegrounds), which is posinga threat to their operationalperformance and aggressionbesides leading to attitudinalissues.
The addiction to PUBG isalso minimising the interactionbetween the jawans and lead-ing to less camaraderie andbonding, sources said. TheCRPF's Bihar unit has direct-ed all DIGs and company com-manders to ensure that thegaming app is deleted from allphones and conduct randomchecks on all such phones atregular intervals, they pointedout.
PUBG has become a rag-ing point of discussion in Indiawith cases of mental harm tokids or teenagers being report-ed due to the online gamingaddiction.
In January this year, theGujarat Government hadissued a new circular statingthat district authorities shouldnow ensure that there shouldbe a ban on students for play-ing PUBG in schools. The
notice said that the PUBG banwas necessary as children arenow getting addicted to theonline multiplayer battle royalewhich was "adversely affectingtheir studies".
Senior CRPF officers said,"Addiction to online gaminghas impacted the operationalcapabilities of jawans. Many ofthem have withdrawn them-selves from socialising withtheir fellow jawans. Besides, ithas also led to sleep deprivationowing to less physical activityin the wake of addictive hook-ing up to the game."
An order issued by theCRPF's Bihar unit on May 6,said that CRPF troops, youngpersonnel, are addicted to thePUBG app. It's affecting theirops performance and posingaggressive and attitudinalissues, it outlined.
Lesser interaction with col-leagues is affecting bondingand comradeship between theforce's personnel, it said.
"All Deputy InspectorsGeneral to ensure and instructall unit/company personnelunder your command to get itdeleted/deactivated from theirmobile phones. All companycommanders will ensure thatthis app is deleted in all phonesand random check of phonesshould be done," added the cir-cular sent to all the formationsof Central Reserve Police Forceand Combat Battalion forResolute Action (CoBRA).
CRPF is the lead Centralparamilitary force for counter-insurgency, anti-terrorist andanti-Naxal force deployed in amajor way in Jammu andKsshmir, Naxalism-hit Statesand the Northeast.
In a significant step to mod-ernise the helicopter fleet, the
first Apache attack helicoptermanufactured by US aerospacemajor Boeing was handed overto the IAF on Friday. India hadinked a nearly 1.5 billion dol-lar deal for 22 Apaches in 2015to enhance its capabilities todestroy enemy tanks, armouredpersonnel carriers and fortifiedenemy positions. At present,the IAF has Russian originMI-35 helicopters.
The first of the 22 Apachehelicopters was formally hand-ed over to the IAF at Boeingproduction facility in Mesa,Arizona, the US on May10,officials said here onSaturday adding the helicopterhas been customised to suitIAF's future requirements andwould have significant capa-bility in mountainous terrain,they said.
The AH-64E Apache is aleading multi-role attack heli-copter and is flown by the USArmy. It is an advanced all-weather attack helicopter thatcan engage both air and groundtargets with relative stealthusing low-altitude obstacleslike trees and hills as cover. AirMarshal AS Butola represent-ed the IAF and accepted thefirst Apache in a ceremony.Representatives from the US
government were also present,the IAFsaid.
The IAF signed the con-tract in September 2015 for 22Apache helicopters and thefirst batch of these helicoptersis scheduled to be shipped toIndia by July this year."Selected aircrew and groundcrew have undergone trainingat the training facilities at USArmy base Fort Rucker,Alabama. These personnel willlead the operationalisation ofthe Apache fleet in the IAF," theIAF said in a statement.
The helicopter has thecapability to carry out precision
attacks at standoff ranges andoperate in hostile airspace withthreats from ground. Moreover,the ability of these helicopters,to transmit and receive the bat-tlefield picture, to and from theweapon systems through datanetworking makes it a lethalacquisition. "These attack heli-copters will provide significantedge in any future joint oper-ations in support of landforces," the IAF added.
Since the attack helicoptersprovide cover to its own armytanks and infantry during bat-tle by taking out enemy tanksand artillery guns, the defence
ministry in 2017 approved theprocurement of six Apachehelicopters along with weaponssystems from Boeing at a costof �4,168 crore for the Army.This will be its first fleet ofattack helicopters exclusivelyoperated by the Army.Fuselages for this Army orderwill be produced by TataBoeing Aerospace Limited, ajoint venture between Boeingand Tata Advanced Systems inHyderabad.
India has already boughtthe Chinook transport heli-copter, made by Boeing, fromthe US. The Chinook is a
multi-role, vertical-lift plat-form, which is used for trans-porting troops, artillery, equip-ment and fuel. The IAF hadinked a deal for 15 Chinooks.
These top of the line induc-tions follow similar efforts bythe Government to sustain themomentum of modernisationand inaugurating a joint ven-ture in Amethi, Uttar Pradeshin March for manufacturing7,50,000 AK-203 rifles. It is anadvanced version of the icon-ic AK-47 and OrdnanceFactory Board in collaborationwith Russia will manufacturethe rifles in India. The overallproject cost is more than �7,000crores as the factory will latermanufacture these rifles for thepara-military forces and statepolice after meeting the armedforces requirements.
Similarly, a deal worth over�700 crores was inked earlierthis year for buying 72,4000 SigSauer rifles for meeting imme-diate operational needs of thearmy. The rifles will start com-ing in within a year after thecontract was signed in February.These rifles made by a UScompany will enhance the fight-ing capabilities of infantry sol-diers deployed on the Line OfControl(LOC), Line of ActualControl(LAC) and engaged incounter insurgency operationsin Jammu & Kashmir and theNorth-East.
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The BJP on Saturdayaccused the author of the
Time magazine article thatcalled Prime MinisterNarendra Modi "divider inchief " of pursuing Pakistan'sagenda and termed it anattempt to malign Modi'simage.
BJP spokesperson SambitPatra told a press conferencethat article's author was aPakistani and that nothingbetter can be expected fromPakistan. He also took a swipeat Congress president RahulGandhi for retwitting thestory.
The piece, a sharp criticismof Modi's leadership, has beenwritten by Aatish Taseer, son ofIndian journalist Tavleen Singhand late Pakistani politicianand businessman SalmaanTaseer.
Patra said several foreignmagazines had written storiescritical of Modi in 2014 as well.
Calling the Prime Ministera unifier, the BJP spokespersonlisted a number of welfaremeasures started by the Modigovernment to claim that thecountry was heading towardsa new India under his "reform-ing, performing and trans-forming" agenda.
Patra also slammedCongress leader Navjot SinghSidhu for his barbs at Modi,accusing Sidhu of making
racist and sexist remarks.Taking a swipe at Sidhu,
Patra said he keeps making allsort of loose statements but hasnot spoken a word againstCongress leader Sam Pitroda's"so what" remarks on 1984anti-Sikh riots.
Pitroda, a close aide ofGandhi and OverseasCongress' head, on Thursdaysaid, 'hua to hua' (So what, ithappened) about the anti-Sikhriots. He made this remark inresponse to a question on theriots by a newsman inDharamshala in HimachalPradesh.
Patra claimed Sidhu was
targetting Modi at the behestof Madhya Pradesh ChiefMinister Kamal Nath who, healleged was also involved in theriots.
Sidhu at a poll rally hadasked people to defeat "kaleangrez", in an apparent attemptto liken the Modi Governmentto the British rule before inde-pendence.
The Congress leader hadalso claimed that Modi was likea bride who makes noise fromher bangles to give an impres-sion that she was workinghard but did not really work.
Patra said these remarksshowed the Congress' mindset.
In fresh trouble for Congressleader Navjot Singh Sidhu,
the Election Commission hasagain issued a showcausenotice to him for prima facieviolating the Model Code ofConduct by allegedly makingdisparaging remarks againstPrime Minister NarendraModi.
He was given a day to replyto the notice that was issuedFriday by the commission.
The poll panel hadreceived a complaint from theBJP that Sidhu, during a rallyin Madhya Pradesh on April
29, had made disparagingcomments about Modi.
He had reportedly accusedthe Prime Minister of "makingmoney in the Rafale jet deal"and also "allowing" the rich toescape the country after "rob-bing" nationalised banks.
The poll panel had in Aprilcensured Sidhu for allegedlywarning the Muslim commu-nity that efforts were on todivide their votes in Bihar andit barred him from campaign-ing for 72 hours.
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Union Finance Minister ArunJaitley on Saturday termed
as “absolutely incorrect” reportsof differences between AttorneyGeneral KK Venugopal and theGovernment over the sexualharassment case against theChief Justice of India.
“The motivated news itemof differences between theAttorney General and theGovernment is absolutely incor-
rect. As one of the senior mostmembers of the Bar, he(Venugopal) certainly has hisviews on some issues. TheGovernment respects him forthe objectivity of his advice,”Jaitley said in a tweet.
Venugopal had written to allthe Supreme Court judges to setup a committee of three retiredjudges of the apex court to lookinto allegations of sexualharassment made against CJIRanjan Gogoi by a dismissed
woman employee of the court.The matter, however, was
scrutinised by a panel of threesitting judges of the SupremeCourt.
Venugopal said he had writ-ten the letter on April 22, beforethe three-member in-housecommittee headed by Justice SA Bobde was set up to hold aninquiry into the allegations.
The three-judge panel hasgiven CJI Gogoi a clean chit inthe matter.
Clarifying on a news report,Venugopal Friday said: "I admitthat I had written a letter beforethe appointment of an in-houseinquiry committee seekingappointment of three retiredjudges of the Supreme Court."
The law officer also said hewrote a second letter clarifyinghis position that the earlier onewas written in his personalcapacity as a senior bar memberhaving an experience of 65years.
for IPL matches from theDelhi District CricketAssociation (DDCA), theGovernment has curtailedthe Central deputation ofsenior bureaucrat GopalKrishan Gupta and hasrepatriated him back to hiscadre — the Railway Ministry.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC),headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved pre-mature repatriation of Gupta with immediate effect, an orderissued by the personnel ministry said without mentioningany reason.
Gupta, a 1987 batch officer of the Indian Railway Serviceof Mechanical Engineers (IRSME), is posted as the JointSecretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
He had in March sought complementary passes of an IPLmatch from DDCA president Rajat Sharma's office, accord-ing to an official communique.
After not getting the desired response from the DDCA,Gupta wrote a letter to Sharma on April 3, giving the sequenceof events. Gupta mentioned telephonic discussion betweenSharma's executive assistant Sapna Soni and his personal staff.
"I do not know whether this episode and the sequenceof events as narrated above has been brought to your noticeand whether your executive assistant had informed you aboutmy call and my request for arrangement of passes," Guptasaid in a letter to Sharma.
"May I request that your office staff may show courtesyin such matters and give timely feedback even if the responseis not affirmative. I think, we must have mutual respect forthe positions being held by us," his letter reads.
The ACC's decision on curtailing Gupta's tenure is saidto have been taken after the copy of this letter was sharedon a public platform.
19-year-old college student ina village near Virudachalam inCuddalore district, substanti-ates the fear among social sci-entists and psychologists thatthere is something abnormalwith the youth in the State.Tilakavati, ailing from a poorfamily was a graduate studentand wanted to take up a civilservice job to help her father,a tea vendor who was strug-gling to meet both the end oflife.
Dr S Tamadoss, founder ofthe PMK asked the State andCentral Governments toaddress the grey areas in thelaw concerning safety of girlsand women in the State. "Thisis not an isolated incident andTamil Nadu has been witness-ing such murders over the lastso many years. There is a def-inite pattern in all these mur-ders which is dangerous to allwomenfolk in the State," saidDr Ramdoss.
Tilakavati was murderedby Akash, a school drop out ofthe same age, for rebuffing hisadvances towards her. Both ofthem were class mates in schoolbefore Akash dropped out ofstudies and started movingwith his friends for a carefreelife. When the boy sounded
about his love for her,Tilakavati told him that her toppriority was to complete herstudies in order to find out ajob to minimise the hardship ofher parents, according to one ofher close relations.
When Akash continuedwith his pleas and requests , sheblocked his number from hermobile phone which seems tohave infuriated the boy. Thisled him to her house wherethere was a verbal altercationbetween the two and this cul-minated in Akash stabbingTilakavati many times leadingto her death.
Though he made a quickretreat from the scene, policenabbed him and has beenremanded to judicial custody."This is a strange phenomenonin Tamil Nadu and the numberof such murders have increasedover the years. The boys fail tounderstand the reality that thegirls have a right to tell no totheir advances and this leading
to murders. The last threeyears have seen many suchgirls falling prey to the evildesigns of the boys," said ChitraRaghulan, a Chennai basedactivist .
What has upset the resi-dents of the village was the apa-thy of political leaders andsocial activists towards theincident. G K Mani, presidentPMK, the political outfit ofVanniyar community to whichthe girl belonged was the onlypolitician to visit her house andconsoled her parents. The vil-lagers staged a road block onFriday demanding a compen-sation of Rs one crore to thefamily of Tilakavathy
K Balu, PMK spokesman,called for an investigation intothe murder which he saidwould reveal a major conspir-acy. "The youth have beendeployed by certain politicalparties to forcibly marry girlsfrom some particular castes asa strategy to abolish the castesystem. While we are notagainst love marriage or intercaste marriage , what we areopposing is the targeting of cer-tain communities by theseyouth," said Balu. TheVanniyars, a dominat com-munity in northern TamilNadu is upset over the murderas they feel let down and alien-ated by the indifference ofmajor political outfits in con-demning the murder.
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Jammu: Several leaders of theJammu & Kashmir CongressSaturday staged a protest here againstPrime Minister Narendra Modi andGovernor Satya Pal Malik for theirremarks on former Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi.
"We have assembled here toexpress our anger over the insult tothe former Prime Minister who laiddown his life for the country 28 years ago. It is most unfortunate thatthe State Governor has joined the vilification campaign of BJP and Modi,"J&K Congress chief spokesperson Ravinder Sharma told reporters.
On Thursday, the Governor had said in Srinagar that Rajiv Gandhiwas not initially corrupt but, under the influence of some people, hegot involved in the Bofors corruption case.
During a rally in Uttar Pradesh on May 4, Modi had targetedCongress chief Rahul Gandhi, saying, "Your father (Rajiv Gandhi) wastermed Mr Clean by his courtiers, but his life ended as 'bhrashtachari'no 1 (corrupt number 1).
Besides, Modi on Wednesday accused the Gandhi family of usingwarship INS Viraat as its "personal taxi" when Rajiv Gandhi was theprime minister.
"Over the years, the BJP left no stone unturned to implicate him(Rajiv Gandhi) but nothing could be proved against him and he cameout clean in the judicial process. But the BJP continued its vilificationcampaign against him and entire Gandhi family, till date which is abuseof judicial process and insult to the martyr, who got assassinated dueto lack of foolproof security by then BJP supported Government at theCentre," Sharma alleged.
Criticising Malik for his remarks, state unit senior vice presidentRaman Bhalla said, "He made the statement to please his bosses in Delhi.It is better if he resigns from the constitutional post and work as aspokesperson of the BJP," he said.
Sharma accused Modi and BJP president Amit Shah of bringing the election campaigning to the lowest level by using abusivelanguage and hurling expletives on the opposition leaders, includingformer prime ministers.
The agitated Congress leaders protested outside the party head-quarters at Shaheedi Chowk and raised anti-BJP slogans. PTI
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Bengal has been warned of apossible Fiadayeen attack in
the election season. Accordingto sources, the CentralIntelligence Bureau has warnedof such an attack in a temple onthe Buddha Purnima.
The attack could be carriedout either by the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh orIslamic State (ISIS) either inBengal or Bangladesh, com-muniqué from the IB says. Afortnight ago, a message wasreleased by the pro-ISIStelegram channels, warning ofan attack in West Bengal orBangladesh, sources said
The State IB has beefed upsecurity with Naka checkinggoing on in "likely locations,"police sources said. JMB hadset up a strong base in this sideof the border with one suchmodule getting busted inOctober 2014 following a blastat Khagragarh in Burdwan dis-trict.
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New Delhi: Actor and singerArun Bakshi joined the BJP hereon Saturday in the presence offormer Chhattisgarh ChiefMinister Raman Singh.
Bakshi has acted and sungin several films and tele-serials,including 'Mahabharat'.
He said he has always sup-ported the BJP's ideology andexpressed his admiration forPrime Minister Narendra Modi,saying he has been serving thenation diligently with hard workand honesty.
Bakshi said there was noone like Modi and the countryhad seen such a leader after AtalBihari Vajpayee in 1990s. Singhsaid many actors and artistes ingeneral have been voicing theirsupport for the BJP. PTI
Deveshwar, who transformedthe cigarette major into a diver-sified player with interests inFMCG, hospitality, IT and othersectors, passed away Saturdaymorning after a brief illness.
Deveshwar (72), whostepped down from executiverole as chairman and CEO in2017 but remained as a non-executive chairman, breathedhis last at a private hospital inGurugram.
“We deeply mourn thepassing away of YC Deveshwar,Chairman ITC,” ITC ManagingDirector Sanjiv Puri said in astatement. Deveshwar pas-sionately championed the causefor sustainable and inclusivegrowth and the transformativerole businesses could play increating larger societal value.This vision drove ITC to pur-sue business models that todaysupport over 6 million liveli-hoods, many among the weak-est in society, Puri added.
He leaves behind his wifeand two children — a son anda daughter. Deveshwar joinedITC in 1968 and was appoint-ed as a director on ITC’s boardon April 11, 1984. He rose tobecome its chief executive andchairman on January 1, 1996.
One of the longest servingtop executives of a corporateentity in India, he was respon-sible for transforming ITC frommainly a cigarettes maker intoa diversified entity with interestsin FMCG, hospitality, paper,agri business and informationtechnology, among others.
When Deveshwar tookcharge at the helm of the com-pany in the mid-1990’s, ITCwas confronted with formida-ble challenges, with diversifi-cation efforts either failing orlanguishing. The company’srevenue was less than Rs 5,200crore and Profit Before Tax(PBT) stood at Rs 452 crore.
In 2017-18, the companyposted revenues of Rs 44,329.77crore and net profit of Rs11,223.25 crore. “His leadershiptransformed ITC into a valuableand admired multi-businessconglomerate with a robustportfolio of front-ranking busi-nesses in FMCG, hotels, paper-boards and paper, packaging
and agri-business.“His vision to make soci-
etal value creation a bedrock ofcorporate strategy also led ITCto become a global exemplar insustainability and the onlycompany in the world to becarbon positive, water positiveand solid waste positive forover a decade,” Puri said.
An alumnus of IIT Delhiand Harvard Business School,Deveshwar had also led AirIndia as chairman and manag-ing director between 1991 and1994. When ITC split the roleof the Executive Chairmanbetween Chairman and ChiefExecutive Officer with effectfrom February 5, 2017, as partof succession planning in thecompany, Deveshwar contin-ued as chairman in non-exec-utive capacity and played therole of mentor to the executivemanagement led by Sanjiv Puri.
A recipient of PadmaBhushan — one of the highestcivilian awards in the country— in 2011, Deveshwar alsoplayed his part in nation build-ing, taking up various roles inseveral institutions. He servedas a director on the CentralBoard of the Reserve Bank ofIndia, as a member of theNational Foundation forCorporate Governance andmember of the governing bodyof the National Council ofApplied Economic Research.
“Inspired by a patrioticfervour, manifest in his clarioncall of ‘Lets Put India First’, heled ITC’s strategic thrust to cre-ate an exemplary Indian enter-prise dedicated to servingnational priorities,” Puri said.
Deveshwar was also amember of the Board of Trade,Ministry of Commerce andIndustry, and a member of theNational Food ProcessingDevelopment Council, Ministryof Food Processing Industries,Government of India.
Well respected by his peersin the industry, YCD, as he waspopularly known in corporatecircles, was also a past presidentof CII, besides being on theNational Executive Committeesof some of India’s premier tradeand industry bodies.
He also served as a mem-ber of the UK-India CEOForum and US-India CEOForum instituted by the respec-tive Governments.
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US President Donald Trumpordered a tariff hike on
almost all imports from Chinaafter the latest round of talks toend the trade war between theworld’s two largest economiesended on Friday without adeal even as Beijing said thenegotiations have not brokendown and it is cautiously opti-mistic to reach an agreement.
Expected to further esca-late the trade war between theUS and China, Trump’s latestmove came less than a day afterhe ramped up punitive dutieson $200 billion worth ofChinese imports, raising themto 25 per cent from 10 per cent,and Beijing vowed to retaliate.
The new increase applies toan even greater value of goods— put at about $300 billion.
US Trade Representative
Robert Lighthizer said in astatement Trump had “orderedus to begin the process of rais-ing tariffs on essentially allremaining imports from China.”
“Earlier today, at the direc-tion of the President, theUnited States increased thelevel of tariffs from 10 per centto 25 per cent on approximately$200 billion worth of Chineseimports,” Lighthizer said.
“The President alsoordered us to begin the processof raising tariffs on essentiallyall remaining imports fromChina, which are valued atapproximately $300 billion,”he said.
The process for publicnotice and comment will bepublished shortly in the FederalRegister. “The details will be onthe USTR website on Mondayas we begin the process prior toa final decision on these tariffs,”
Lighthizer said.The latest Trump move
came as China’s top trade nego-tiator, Vice Premier Liu He, onFriday concluded his two daysof trade talks with the USteam led by Lighthizer.
The 11th round of talks inWashington ended on Fridaywith no deal, but the Chinesevice premier said the negotia-tions have not broken down.
“Negotiations have not bro-ken down. Quite the opposite. Ithink they are normal. Small set-backs are inevitable in bilateralnegotiations. Looking ahead, weare cautiously optimistic aboutthe future,” the Hong Kongbased South China MorningPost quoted him as saying.
“Both sides agree they willmeet again in Beijing in thefuture and keep pushing for-ward the negotiations,” he saidwithout giving a date.
In a series of tweets, Trumpdescribed the talks as candidand constructive, but indicat-ed taking a tough approachagainst massive imbalance oftrade with China.
“Over the course of the pasttwo days, the United States andChina have held candid andconstructive conversations onthe status of the trade relation-ship between both countries,”Trump said, praising his rela-tionship with Chinese PresidentXi Jinping and saying the nego-
tiations would carry on.“In the meantime, the US
has imposed Tariffs on China,which may or may not beremoved depending on whathappens with respect to futurenegotiations!” Trump said.
He said tariffs will bring in“far more” wealth to the USthan even a phenomenal dealof the traditional kind. Trumpsaid he is in no rush to con-clude trade talks with China.
“Talks with China contin-ue in a very congenial manner— there is absolutely no needto rush — as Tariffs are NOWbeing paid to the United Statesby China of 25 per cent on 250Billion Dollars worth of goods& products. These massivepayments go directly to theTreasury of the US...,” he said.
“We have lost 500 BillionDollars a year, for many years,on Crazy Trade with China.NO MORE!” Trump said.
In a transcript of the pressinterview published on thewebsite of Phoenix Television,a Hong Kong-based broad-caster, Chinese Vice PresidentLiu said there were severalissues on which the two sidesstill disagreed.
“China believes tariffs arethe starting point of the bilat-eral trade disputes. If a deal isto be reached, the tariffs shouldall be eliminated. This is thefirst point,” Liu said.
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The Civil Aviation Ministryhas told Air India that it
should prepare 2018-19 finan-cials for itself and its sub-sidiaries by end of June as thePrime Minister’s Office (PMO)has decided to speed up the dis-investment process of three ofits wings, according to an offi-cial document.
After a botched attempt tosell Air India in May last year,a panel led by Finance MinisterArun Jaitley had decided inJune to scrap the stake-sale planfor the time being. It was thendecided to infuse more fundsinto the carrier and cut downdebt by raising resources byselling land assets and othersubsidiaries.
Air India has a total debtburden of around Rs 55,000crore. On April 1 this year, ameeting was held in the PMOunder the chairmanship ofNripendra Misra, the principalsecretary to the Prime Minister,to discuss matter regardingstrategic disinvestment of AirIndia and its subsidiaries.
“A meeting was held onApril 1 under the chairmanshipof the Principal Secretary toPM in which it was, inter-alia,decided to speed up the processof disinvestment of AIATSL,AIESL and AASL,” civil avia-tion secretary Pradeep SinghKharola told Air India’sChairman and ManagingDirector (CMD) Ashwani
Lohani in a letter dated May 6.
Air India Air TransportServices Limited (AIATSL),Air India Engineering ServicesLimited (AIESL) and AirlineAllied Services Limited (AASL)are subsidiaries of the nation-al carrier. Kharola said in orderto proceed with disinvestmentprocess of Air India and its sub-sidiaries, audited financials for2018-19 will be required.
“I would, therefore, requestyou to kindly get financials ofAir India and its subsidiariesfor the financial year 2018-19finalised by end of June,”Kharola said.
Aviation secretary also saidthat since the accounts for2018-19 would form the “basisof bidding”, it is necessary thatthey are prepared with “utmostcaution so as to reflect the cor-rect financial status”.
He added that contingentliabilities must be thoroughlyverified. Moreover, he addedthat “account receivables” and“account payables” must beverified and confirmed fromthe other parties.
“A physical verification ofthe inventories need to bedone so as to ensure that thevalue of inventories shown onthe balance sheet matches withthe assets physically,” Kharolatold Lohani.
The secretary also told AirIndia CMD that a list of allpending litigations have to bedrawn up.
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Facebook is actively creatingnew terror content on the
website with its auto-generationfeature, alleges a whistleblow-er who analysed over 3,000Facebook profiles of individu-als expressing affiliation withterror or hate groups.
The social networkinggiant last year claimed that withthe use of advanced ArtificialIntelligence (AI) technologyand a growing team of experthuman reviewers it could nowblock 99 per cent of the ter-rorist content of ISIS, al-Qaeda,and affiliated groups before itwas reported by users.
The study by the anony-mous whistleblower workingwith the US-based non-profitNational Whistleblower Centershowed that terror and hatespeech content are proliferatingon Facebook. The whistle-blower found that 317 profilesout of the 3,228 surveyed con-tained the flag or symbol of aterrorist group in their profileimages, cover photo, or fea-tured photos on their publiclyaccessible profiles.
San Francisco: After settling abitter multi-billion dollar legalbattle with Apple, the CEO ofUS-based chip-makerQualcomm received a heftybonus of $3.5 million.
Qualcomm CEO SteveMollenkopf received 40,794shares of Qualcomm stock,which works out to just under$3,501,757 at Friday’s closingprice of $85.84, CNBC report-ed. In an official filing with theUS-based Securities andExchange Commission, thechip-maker noted that theentire executive team atQualcomm received bonusesfor settling the legal war withthe iPhone-maker.
The two tech giants lockedhorns in courts around theworld over how muchQualcomm charges for the intel-lectual property inside of thechips that enable devices like theiPhone to connect to cellular net-works. Apple settled the legal bat-tle earlier in April at an undis-closed amount and as part of thedeal agreed to use Qualcommchips in its upcoming 5G-enabled iPhone, scheduled to belaunched in 2020. IANS
Mumbai: Two of the SpiceJet’sBoeing passenger planes —one from Mumbai and otherfrom Bengaluru — sufferedmid-air technical glitches, forc-ing their pilots to terminatejourneys with one flight land-ing back in Mumbai and sec-ond diverted to Nagpur onSaturday.
SpiceJet flight SG-611,which departed from Mumbai’sChhatrapapati Shivaji MaharajInternational Airport forChennai around 7.30 am,returned to the city airport dueto a mid-air technical glitchafter being airborne for about16 minutes, a source said. ASpiceJet spokesperson con-firmed the return of itsChennai flight to Mumbai dueto a “technical” issue.
“The aircraft has alreadydeparted back for its destina-tion around 10 am after the theengineers rectified the glitch,”the spokesperson said. In asimilar incident, the airline’sNew Delhi-bound flight SG8720 from Bengaluru wasdiverted to Nagpur after thepilot reported some issue to theATC and sought a diversion.
“SpiceJet flight SG 8720operating on Bangalore-Delhiroute was diverted to Nagpurdue to a technical issue.Passengers were served refresh-ments at Nagpur. An alternativeaircraft was sent to Nagpur andthe passengers have nowboarded the flight to Delhi,” theairline said in a statement.
The spokesperson, howev-er, did not share the number ofpassengers on board the twoBoeing 737 planes. PTI
Islamabad: Talks between cash-strapped Pakistan and the IMFwill continue over the weekendafter the parleys between the twosides reached a deadlock due toPrime Minister Imran Khan’sreservations over heavy taxationthe people will have to bear,according to a media report.
Head of IMF Mission toPakistan Ernesto Rigo is cur-rently in Islamabad as the coun-try hopes to strike a deal with theglobal lender for a three-yearbailout package totalling around$6.5 billion. “We have madegood progress in our discussionswith the visiting IMF Mission.Consultations will continue overthe weekend,” Khaqan HasanNajeeb, spokesman of theFinance Ministry said. PTI
says the failure to strike a dealin the tariffs war with the USwas “just a small setback” andnegotiations will continuedespite increases in importduties on American importsfrom China.
In comments to reportersbefore he left Washington forBeijing on Friday, Vice PremierLiu He said he was cautiouslyoptimistic but that a dealwould require the Trumpadministration to agree to endthe punitive tariffs it hasimposed on billions of dollars’worth of Chinese goods.
In comments carried byChina’s state-run CCTV, Liusaid the remaining differencesare crucial ones having to dowith principles, “and we willmake no concessions on mat-ters of principle.”
Still, he said he did notbelieve the negotiations hadbroken down. “On the contrary,I think it is just a small setbackin the talks between two coun-tries, which is inevitable,” Hong
Kong’s Phoenix TV showedhim as saying.
Liu said it was “China’sopinion that the tariffs are thestarting point of the trade fric-tion and must be totally liftedif a deal is reached.” TheTrump administration raisedtariffs on billions of dollars ofChinese goods to 25 per centfrom 10 per cent on Friday.
US Trade RepresentativeRobert Lighthizer said the USwas preparing to expand thosetariffs to cover USD 300 billionof Chinese products that aren’talready facing import taxes, orvirtually everything importedfrom China.
Liu also said the two sideswere disagreeing over theamount of goods China wouldpledge to purchase from theUS to help reduce theAmerican trade deficit.
“We think this is a veryserious issue and we cannoteasily change our minds,” hesaid. Liu sought to downplaythe scale and impact of the dis-pute, saying that China was astrong nation and would sur-mount any problems caused bythe conflict.
doled the death of businesstycoon and ITC Group chair-man YC Deveshwar, saying hemade a strong contribution tothe Indian industry.
Deveshwar, 72, whopassed away at a private hos-pital in Gurugram near herethis morning after a brief ill-ness. “Shri YC Deveshwarmade a strong contribution toIndian industry. His effortshelped ITC become a profes-sionally-run Indian companywith a global footprint.Saddened by his demise. Mythoughts are with his family,friends and the ITC group inthis hour of grief,” the PrimeMinister said in a tweet.
Condolence messages alsopoured in from other politicaland business leaders. FinanceMinister Arun Jaitley tweeted:“Saddened by the death of YogiC Deveshwar, Chairman ITC.Yogi excelled as a corporateprofessional and an entrepre-neur and took his company togreat heights. May God renderpeace to the departed soul &give to his family strength tobear this loss.”
In a statement, the
Confederation of IndianIndustry (CII) expressed itscondolences at the demise ofDeveshwar, terming it a greatloss for the Indian industry.Deveshwar was the presidentof CII in 2005-06.
In a tweet, AssochamPresident BK Goenka said hewas a “tall leader of India Incwho immensely contributed tothe industry and society”.Chairman of RP-SanjivGoenka Group, SanjeevGoenka, said, “Yogi was a tallleader and a visionary. I have lost a friend. I am deeplysaddened.”
Ambuja Neotia GroupChairman Harsh Neotia saidDeveshwar was an extraordi-nary professional, who steeredthe company in “troubledtimes and diversified it fromtobacco to FMCG and hospi-tality. He has been a familyfriend for two generations.”
Keventer Agro CMDMayank Jalan creditedDeveshwar for putting Kolkataon the global business map.
Srei Infrastructure FinanceCMD Hemant Kanoria said,“He built a great company likeITC and diversified it into somany areas, all with sustain-able long-term business andsocial models.”
Three heavily-armed terror-ists on Saturday stormed a
luxury hotel in Pakistan's portcity of Gwadar in the restiveBalochistan province, leadingto a fierce gunbattle in whichfour persons including theattackers were killed, policesaid.
The armed men enteredthe upscale Pearl Continental(PC) Hotel and opened ran-dom firing, a senior policeofficial said.
They shot dead a guard atthe entrance, the army's mediawing Inter-Services PublicRelations (ISPR) said.
A shootout between themilitants and the security forcesbroke out at the hotel as theanti-terrorism force, the Armyand the Frontier Corps were
called in, Gwadar StationHouse Officer (SHO) AslamBangulzai said.
Balochistan HomeMinister Ziaullah Langov saidthat all the three attackers werekilled by the security forces.
He said that some of theguests in the hotel were alsoinjured but their number wasnot immediately known.
The outlawed BalochistanLiberation Army (BLA)claimed responsibility of theattack which it said was carriedout by the militants linkedwith its Majeed Brigade group.
Locals said several gun-shots were heard after the ter-rorists entered the luxury hotel.
Gwadar port is one of thefocal points of the USD 50 bil-lion China-Pakistan EconomicCorridor (CPEC) with manyChinese workers from other
provinces of Pakistan workingat the port.
The hotel, frequented bybusiness as well as leisure trav-ellers, is located on the Koh-e-Batil hill, south of West Bay onFish Harbour road in Gwadar.
All foreign and local guestsstaying at the hotel had beensafely evacuated, ExpressTribune quoted BalochistanInformation Minister ZahoorBuledi as saying.
“At around 4:50 pm (localtime) we got reports that thereare two to there armed men inPC Hotel,” SHO Bangulzai said.
“Two to three gunmen hadfirst fired at and then enteredthe hotel,” Inspector General ofPolice (IGP) Mohsin HassanButt said.
“A clearance operation wasgoing on,” a spokesman of theArmy said.
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Amid escalating tensionswith Iran, the Pentagon has
announced that it is deployinga warship and a Patriot airdefence missile system in theMiddle East to deter the threatsof possible operations againstUS forces in the region byTehran.
The USS Arlington, whichtransports amphibious vehiclesand aircraft, and the Patriot airdefence system will join theUSS Abraham Lincoln CarrierStrike Group and a B-52bomber task force in theMiddle East region in responseto “indications of heightenedIranian readiness to conductoffensive operations againstUS forces and our interests,” thePentagon said on Friday.
The approval to deployadditional military asset againstIran has been done at therequest of US CentralCommand, it said, adding thatthe Pentagon continues to
closely monitor the activities ofthe Iranian regime, their mili-tary and proxies.
The Pentagon said the USdid not seek conflict with Iran,but that Washington was “readyto defend US forces and inter-ests in the region”.
“The Department ofDefense continues to closelymonitor the activities of theIranian regime,” it said in astatement.
“Due to operational secu-rity, we will not discuss time-lines or location of forces,” thePentagon said.
USS Arlington is a San
Antonio-class ship that trans-ports US marines, amphibiousvehicles, conventional landingcraft and rotary aircraft withthe capability to supportamphibious assault, specialoperations or expeditionarywarfare missions.
It also provides a high-quality command and controlcapability and improved inter-operability with our allies andpartners in the region. APatriot battery is a long-range,all-weather air defense systemto counter tactical ballisticmissiles, cruise missiles andadvanced aircraft.
Senator Jim Inhofe, chair-man of the Senate ArmedServices Committee, welcomedthe move. “By proactively mov-ing the USS Arlington and aPatriot system to the region tojoin the USS Abraham Lincoln,the United States is sendingIran a clear message: standdown or we will stand up,” hesaid.
US President Donald
Trump last year unilaterallywithdrew from a landmarknuclear deal America and othernations had agreed with Iran in2015. Under the accord, Iranhad agreed to limit its sensitivenuclear activities and allow ininternational inspectors inreturn for sanctions relief.
White House last monthsaid it would end exemptionsfrom sanctions for five coun-tries — China, India, Japan,South Korea and Turkey — thatwere still buying Iranian oil.
The US also blacklistedIran’s elite Revolutionary GuardCorps, designating it as a for-eign terrorist group.
Iran on Wednesday threat-ened to enrich its uraniumstockpile closer to weapons-grade levels if Europe, Chinaand Russia fail to deliver sanc-tions relief within 60 days.
Early this week, US CentralCommand CommanderGeneral Kenneth McKenziealleged that Iranian regimedirectly engages in far reaching
terrorist activities. “We know that the Iranian
regime knows what our mili-tary capabilities are and wehave a healthy respect for them.And that’s good. And whilethey have avoided direct mili-tary conflict with the UnitedStates and our partners theyhave demonstrated the will-ingness and ability to attack ourpeople, our interests and ourfriends and allies in the con-fusing, complex zone just shortof armed conflict,” he said.
In his address to theFoundation of Defence andDemocracies, McKenziealleged that the Iranian regimehas smuggled ballistic missilesinto Yemen and assisted withtheir construction and deploy-ment.
And they’re employed bythe Hufis against the King ofSaudi Arabia as well as againstthe United Arab Emirates,threatening US partners aswell as Americans who live andwork there.
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Pakistan Government hasbanned 11 organisations
for having links with the pro-scribed outifts Jaamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), Falah-e-InsaniatFoundation (FIF) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), an officialstatement said Saturday.
The decision to ban theseorganisations was taken duringa meeting between Pakistan’sPrime Minister Imran Khanand Interior Minister Ijaz Shahon Friday.
After the February 14Pulwama attack, in which 40Indian security personnel werekilled by a suicide bomber ofthe Pakistan-based JeM, Khanhad said Islamabad would notspare any group involved inmilitancy or using Pakistani soilfor any kind of terror activityagainst other countries.
Pakistan’s National
Counter Terrorism Authority(NACTA), which works underthe Ministry of Interior,announced on its website thatseven groups have been bannedfor their affiliation with theJuD, which was proscribed inMarch by the Pakistan gov-ernment.
The organisation whichhave been proscribed are Al-Anfal Trust, Idara Khidmat-e-Khalaq, Al-Dawat ul Irshad,Mosques & Welfare Trust, Al-Medina Foundation, Mazz-Bin-Jabel Education Trust andAl-Hamad Trust, the state-ment said. All these groups areLahore-based.
Pakistan’s Ministry ofInterior took the action on thegovernment’s directive to speedup implementation of theNational Action Plan of 2015 toeliminate militancy andextremism from the country’ssoil.
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Sudan’s military rulers have invitedprotest leaders for a new round of
talks on transferring power to a civilianadministration, the protest movementsaid Saturday.
The call came as thousands ofdemonstrators remain camped outsidearmy headquarters in central Khartoum,vowing to force the generals to cedepower just as they forced veteran pres-ident Omar al-Bashir from office exact-ly a month ago.
Talks on the protesters’ key demandfor a civilian-led body to oversee a four-year transition have been deadlocked fordays, with the military insisting on hold-ing a majority in any new ruling body.
“We received a call from the mili-tary council to resume negotiations,” theAlliance for Freedom and Change saidin a statement.
Late last month, the alliance, whichbrings together protest organisers andopposition and rebel groups, handed thegenerals its proposals for a civilian-ledtransition.
But the generals have expressed“many reservations” over the alliance’sroadmap, They have singled out itssilence on the constitutional position ofIslamic sharia law which was the guid-ing principle of all legislation underBashir’s rule but is anathema to seculargroups like the Sudanese CommunistParty and some rebel factions in thealliance.
“We have identified the points ofcontention with the military council and... Decisive talks will revolve around(them) in each meeting,” the alliancesaid in its statement.
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Theresa May could beforced to set an exact
date for her resignation asConservative Party leaderto make way for a newBritish Prime Minister in thecoming days, a senior ToryMP has said.
Sir Graham Brady, whochairs the influential back-bench 1922 Committee ofthe Conservative Party, toldthe BBC that he expects a
“clear understanding” ofMay’s departure timetableonce she has met the com-
mittee on Wednesday.“It would be strange for
that not to result in a clearunderstanding (of when shewill leave) at the end of themeeting,” said Brady.
The 1922 Committeehas asked for “clarity” abouther plans for the future, andshe “offered to come andmeet with the executive”, hesaid.
May has alreadyannounced back in Marchthat she would step down as
British PM once the Brexitprocess has been finalisedbut the pressure from with-in her party has only mount-ed for her to actually namea specific end date for hertenure.
On why the PM had sofar been unwilling to set adate to step down, Bradysaid: “I don’t think it’s aboutan intention for stayingindefinitely as prime minis-ter or leader of theConservative Party.
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Ajournalist critical ofPresident Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s Government and itsnationalist allies has been hos-pitalised after being attackedoutside his home.
The Yenicag newspapersays Saturday that columnistYavuz Selim Demirag was beat-en up by about five or six peo-ple with baseball bats afterappearing on a TV showFriday.
The reason for the attackwas not known but it comesamid tensions over the topelectoral authority’s decision tocancel the results of the March31 mayoral race for Istanbul,which was won by the opposi-tion, and order a revote to takeplace June 23.
Erdogan’s party says theIstanbul vote was marred byfraud but the opposition saysthe electoral board was pres-sured by the government,which desperately wants tohold on to power in Turkey’slargest city.
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Sri Lankan authorities onSaturday announced a
three-day deadline for public toinform and handover all illegalexplosives to the nearest policestation as part of a crackdownon suspects following theEaster Sunday bombings inwhich over 250 people werekilled.
The move came a weekafter authorities directed peo-ple to deposit swords and othersharp-edged weapons to thenearest police station, afterpolice recovered sword s andother weapons from mosquesduring search operations fol-lowing the April 21 blasts inwhich over 250 people, includ-ing 44 foreigners 10 of whom
were Indians, were killed and500 others injured.
“A three-day period hasbeen announced from 6.00a.M. Today (Saturday) toinform and handover all illegalexplosives material to the near-est police,” Police spokespersonSP Ruwan Gunasekara said.
“Individuals in possessionof such explosives shouldinform the nearest police sta-tion before 6.00 a.M. OnTuesday (May 14),” he added.
On Saturday last, the SriLankan police asked the pub-lic to hand over swords andlarge knives to the nearestpolice station after a large haulof weapons, including swords,and camouflaged materialswere recovered during search-es of mosques and houses.
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An Afghan official says thatunidentified gunmen have
shot and killed a female jour-nalist and adviser to the coun-try’s parliament in the capitalKabul.
Nasrat Rahimi, aspokesman for the interiorministry, says that MenaMangal, a cultural adviser forthe lower house of the parlia-ment and former TV presenter,was killed when she was on her way to work onSaturday morning.
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Robert Mueller, the US spe-cial counsel whose report
on Russian election interfer-ence has shaken a dividedWashington, will not testifybefore Congress next week, atop Democrat said on Friday.
House Judiciary Committeechairman Jerry Nadler hadwanted Mueller to testify onMay 15, but he said a date forthe highly anticipated appear-ance before lawmakersremained under discussion.
“It won’t be next week,”Nadler told reporters. “But we’renegotiating with him, we’retalking to him and the JusticeDepartment.” Nadler has saidthat the committee would sub-poena Mueller if necessary, butexpressed hope that such a stepcould be avoided.
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Venezuela bracedSaturday for another day
of nationwide protests afterPresident Nicolas Maduroclamped down further onOpposition leader JuanGuaido, locking up hisdeputy in a military prisonfollowing a dramatic arrest.
Edgar Zambrano, deputyspeaker of the opposition-majority National Assembly,is being held in preventivedetention for “the flagrantcommission of the crimes oftreason, conspiracy and civilrebellion,” the SupremeCourt said in a statementannouncing the verdict of alower court.
Zambrano was arrestedby Maduro’s SEBIN intelli-gence service in dramatic cir-cumstances on Wednesdayfor supporting the April 30revolt organised by US-
backed Guaido.Maduro also accused his
sacked intelligence chief ofbeing a CIA “mole” and thearchitect of the failed militaryuprising.
He said GeneralChristopher Figuera was “theone who orchestrated thecoup d’etat” by contacting thegroup of around 30 membersof the armed forces whojoined Guaido’s massdemonstration.
“He was captured by theCIA a year ago and wasworking as a traitor, moleand infiltrator,” Maduro saidof Figuera, whose defectionto the opposition saw himrewarded earlier this week bythe US, which removed him from its sanc-tions list.
The latest regime actionsratcheted up tensions aheadof a national demonstrationGuaido called for Saturday to
reject measures taken by theSupreme Court againstopposition lawmakers.
Zambrano is one of 10charged by the SupremeCourt for participating in theApril 30 movement.
He was transferred to theCaracas headquarters of themilitary police, Fort Tiuna,the court said.
One of the other chargedlawmakers, Luis Florido,announced in a video onFriday that he had fled toneighbouring Colombia,“sheltered from a regimethat is willing to imprisondeputies,” he said.
Three others — RichardBlanco, Mariela Magallanesand Americo De Grazia —have sought refuge in theArgentine and Italianembassies in Caracas.
Zambrano’s lawyer LiliaCamejo denounced the pro-cedure under which
Zambrano, a civilian, wassent to a military prison, andsaid his rights had been vio-lated.
“From the moment ofthe arrest, they have violat-ed the deputy’s rights. We didnot have access to the file,nor could we be appointed inhis defense,” Camejo toldreporters.
Guaido said onThursday the arrests werepart of a bid by Maduro todismantle the NationalAssembly legislature,Venezuela’s sole opposition-controlled institution butone which had already beenrendered powerless by thepro-Maduro Supreme Court.
“If we can talk about acoup d’etat in Venezuela,here it is: the dismantling ofthe national parliament,”Guaido told a news confer-ence, accusing Maduro’sregime of “state terrorism.”
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Girls freed from the clutch-es of human traffickers
worldwide are given shelterby nuns from the Talitha Kumnetwork, which is marking its10th anniversary with supportfrom Pope Francis.
“We have sisters who gointo the streets, but also torefugee camps, schools, teaplantations, (and) prisons,” theinternational network’s coor-dinator, Sister Gabriella Bottanitold AFP.
“We can identify situa-tions, do prevention work,offer help,” she said.
Efforts to help thosetrapped in prostitution are reg-ularly lauded by the 82-year oldpope. The Argentine choose ananti-trafficking Italian nun towrite the Way of Cross medi-tations this Easter, with sea-soned campaigner EugeniaBonetti slamming public“indifference” as the main rea-son girls are still on the street.
On Friday, Francis openedan exhibition at the Vatican ofphotographs by Lisa Kristine ofthe US, portraying nuns work-ing with victims.
Trafficking in women is“an octopus with many tenta-cles,” said Sister YvonneClemence Bambara, who runsa rehabilitation centre inBurkina Faso.
“We have to work togeth-er in many ways to overcomeit and mitigate the conse-quences as much as possible,”she added.
Many convents have beenactive in fighting prostitutionsince the 19th century.
Their efforts were broughtunder one umbrella in 2009
with the creation of TalithaKum — Aramaic words fromthe bible that mean “Young girl,rise up”.
The network has hundredsof members in India, where sis-ters train young people in vil-lages and slums to be vigilantand work together to find chil-dren who have been sold topimps or abducted by traffick-ers.
“If a child goes missing, wesend the message out,” SisterPrema Chowallur from AssamState in India told AFP bytelephone.
The nuns have differenttypes of shelters ready for thosedetermined to get off thestreets, offering both firstresponse care and help withreintegration into society.
Sister Luisa Puglisi lives injust such a shelter in Valenciain Spain: “What matters mostis our presence with them ona daily basis,” she said.
“Doing the dishes togeth-er, watching television... Wegive them something for free ina world where everything canbe bought and sold”.
As well as helping thosewho want to denounce theircaptors, or return to their homecountries, the nuns also raiseawareness in societies that maybe reluctant to acknowledge the
problem.In the US, Sister Jean
Shafer — who ran a shelter forsix years — publishes a month-ly newsletter on the phenom-enon that is widely read with-in the Catholic Church there.
“We are able to talk withpeople of influence, money,education, to get theminvolved,” she said.
“We can mingle amongthe poorest of the poor andamong the richest of the rich.”
In Australia, Sister ColleenJackson spends one week a yearmeeting with lawmakers.
“We are generally trusted:some victims will speak to sis-ters before law enforcement,”she said. While many non-reli-gious social workers appreciatetheir dedication, some worryabout the Church’s position onabortion.
“We are all against abor-tion, but none of us will put agirl who has made that choiceout on the street,” Bottani said.
Living with nuns does notnecessarily come naturally to allof the girls, she admits, but sheinsists the human warmth andsupport they are offered meansthe world to many.
“The most importantthings are captured in a look.How we look at them, how theylook at us,” Bottani said.
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Nearly every country in theworld has agreed upon a
legally binding framework toreduce the pollution from plas-tic waste except for the UnitedStates, UN environmental offi-cials say. An agreement ontracking thousands of types ofplastic waste emerged onFriday at the end of a two-weekmeeting of UN-backed con-ventions on plastic waste andtoxic, hazardous chemicals.
Discarded plastic clutterspristine land, floats in hugemasses in oceans and rivers andentangles wildlife, sometimeswith deadly results .
Rolph Payet of the UnitedNations Environment Programsaid the “historic” agreementlinked to the 186-country, UN-supported Basel Conventionmeans that countries will haveto monitor and track the move-ments of plastic waste outsidetheir borders. The deal affectsproducts used in a broad arrayof industries, such as healthcare, technology, aerospace,fashion, food and beverages.
“It’s sending a very strongpolitical signal to the rest of theworld — to the private sector,to the consumer market — thatwe need to do something,”Payet said.
“Countries have decided todo something which will trans-late into real action on theground.” Countries will have tofigure out their own ways ofadhering to the accord, Payetsaid. Even the few countriesthat did not sign it, like theUnited States, could be affect-ed by the accord when theyship plastic waste to countriesthat are on board with the deal.
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A26-year-old man in theUK has been charged with
murder in connection withthe killing of an Indian-originman who was stabbed to deathin a supermarket parking area.
Nadeem Uddin HameedMohammed, 24, was formallyidentified by Thames ValleyPolice as the victim of theattack in Slough, near London,on Friday, when Aqib Pervaizwas produced before ReadingCrown Court charged with hismurder.
Nadeem, from Hyderabad,was living in south-westLondon with his parents andseven-month pregnant wife.The family is being supportedby specially-trained officersfrom the police force.
“Aqib Pervaiz, aged 26, ofRochford Gardens, Slough, wascharged this evening (Friday)with one count of murder,”Thames Valley Police said in astatement.
“It is in connection with anincident in Slough at 12.32 PMon Wednesday, which resultedin the death of 24-year-oldNadeem Uddin HameedMohammed, from Southall, inthe car park of Tesco inWellington Street. MrMohammed had been stabbedin the chest and taken to hos-pital where he died,” the state-ment said.
A post-mortem examina-tion confirmed the cause ofNadeem’s death as a stabwound to the chest.
Pervaiz, believed to haveknown Nadeem from his workas a shop manager in Slough,was arrested in Birminghamand has been remanded incustody.
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The final preparatory meet-ing for next year’s review of
the Nuclear NonproliferationTreaty ended Friday with deepdivisions, and US AmbassadorRobert Wood said reachingagreement at the 2020 confer-ence “will be an incredibly dif-ficult task.”
But he told the closingsession of the two-weekpreparatory conference that “itis a task we cannot abandon.”The NPT is the world’s singlemost important pact on nucleararms, credited with preventingtheir spread to dozens ofnations since entering intoforce in 1970.
It has succeeded in doingthis via a grand global bargain:Nations without nuclearweapons committed not toacquire them; those with themcommitted to move towardtheir elimination; and allendorsed everyone’s right todevelop peaceful nuclear energy.
Treaty members — everynation but India, Pakistan andNorth Korea who possessnuclear weapons, and Israelwhich is believed to be anuclear power but has neveracknowledged it — gatherevery five years to review howit’s working.
Familiar foes and the two mostsuccessful teams of the IPL —Mumbai Indians and Chennai
Super Kings — clash in a mouth-watering final here at Rajiv GandhiInternational stadium on Sunday, fol-lowing a rather eventful season thatproduced some unprecedentedmoments on the field.
It can't be disputed that Mumbaigo into the final as the favourites, hav-ing beaten CSK as many as threetimes earlier in the tournamentincluding in the Qualifier 1 atChennai on Tuesday.
However, statistics count for lit-tle going into the title fight with bothteams being in the situation beforemultiple times.
Rohit Sharma-led Mumbai cancertainly take confidence out of thefact that they have won three out ofthe four finals they have been part of,including the two against CSK in2013 and 2015.
For three-time champions CSK,who have entered their eighth final,it has been another remarkable sea-son after last year when they made atriumphant return having serving atwo-year suspension.
Whatever the outcome may be,the final here will add another mem-orable chapter to their longtimerivalry.
The way the entire seasonunfolded will also not be forgottenanytime soon by the fans and expertsalike.
With World Cup beginning rightafter the IPL, the league had addition-al significance for tainted Australianstars — Steve Smith and DavidWarner — who made a successfulreturn after serving out one-year bansfor their role in the ball-tamperingscandal.
Warner especially made a roar-ing return by amassing 692 runs and
formed the most dangerous openingpairing this season alongside JonnyBairstow. The left-handed opener,who is back in Australia for the WorldCup preparation, is set to end as thetournament's highest run-getter.
For India's very own, HardikPandya and K L Rahul, it was also atournament to remember with bothhitting top-gear ahead of the WorldCup.
Pandya is not done yet andexpect him to deliver a match-win-ning performance for Mumbai in thefinal. He and KKR's Andre Russellelevated power hitting to anotherlevel with their sensational strokeplay.
Besides producing plenty of on-field moments to savour, IPL 2019
had its fair share of controversies.Amongst the ones that stood outinvolved KXIP skipper RavichandranAshwin and talismanic CSK captainMahendra Singh Dhoni.
Early into the competition,Ashwin triggered a massive 'spirit ofcricket' debate in the entire cricket-ing fraternity by 'Mankading' JosButtler who was backing up at thenon striker's end.
Two weeks later, none otherthan Dhoni's conduct was ques-tioned after he stormed onto the pitchfrom the dugout to dispute a no-ballcall. It was a rare sight of Dhoni los-ing his cool.
Bringing the focus back to thefinal on Sunday, CSK will have toredraw their plans against Mumbai,who have beaten them convincinglythree times this season.
Rohit and Co have dealt withCSK's spin threat smartly while otherteams' batsmen struggled againstthe experience trio of Imran Tahir,Harbhajan Singh and RavindraJadeja. CSK pacer Deepak Chahar toohas been impressive with 19 wicketsso far.
Going into the Qualifier 2, thelack of runs from Shane Watson's batwas a concern but he regained histouch with a 32-ball 50 against DelhiCapitals.
Mumbai, on the other hand,will be well rested following a four-day break and backing themselves fora fourth win over Dhoni's side thisseason and fourth IPL title.
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Rahmat Shah hit 113 while HashmatullahShahidi and Mohammad Shahzad made half-
centuries as Afghanistan defeated Scotland by tworuns in a rain-hit ODI.
Scotland made 325 for seven from their 50overs with Calum MacLeod hitting 100 and cap-tain Kyle Coetzer supporting him with 79.
Afghanistan reached 269 for three with 31 ballsremaining when rain forced the players off the fieldand they were eventually declared the winners onthe Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method on Friday.
Hashmatullah Shahidi finished with anunbeaten 59 while opener Mohammad Shahzadhit 55.
The first match that was scheduled forWednesday was called off without a ball beingbowled because of rain.
Afghanistan are one of just 10 teams takingpart in the World Cup which gets underway inEngland and Wales on May 30.
�� ��.���Scotland 325 for 7 (MacLeod 100, Coetzer 73)vs Afghanistan 269 for 3 (Rahmat 113,Hashmatullah 59 not out, Shahzad 55).Afghanistan won by two runs (DLS method).
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Supernovas produced a clin-ical bowling display to
restrict Velocity to 121 for 6 inthe summit clash of theWomen's T20 Challenge hereon Saturday.
Sent into bat, Velocity suf-fered a batting collapse asthey were reduced to 37 for 5in the eighth over beforeAmelia Kerr (36) and SushmaVerma (40 not out) stitched 71runs in 10.5 overs for thesixth wicket to take their sideto a respectable total.
But for the superb latefightback by Kerr and Verma,Velocity would not have evencrossed the 100-run mark.
Wicketkeeper batswomanVerma top-scored for Velocitywith a 32-ball 40 not outwhich was lashed with threefours and a six.
Kerr, who holds the recordof scoring highest individualruns (232 not out) in ODIs, hit36 off 38 deliveries which hadfour boundaries in it.
Velocity made a disas-trous start, losing a wicketeach in the first three overs tobe reduced to 14 for 3.
New Zealand pacewomanLea Tahuhu swung the secondball of the innings away fromHayley Mathews who edged itto the keeper for a duck.Danielle Wyatt (0) went for apre-meditated shot in the nextover bowled by Anuja Patil butfailed to connect with the balldue to a late drift and wasstumped.
Shafali Verma (0) hit thefirst four of the innings in thethird over bowled by Tuhuhuwho, however, had the lastlaugh by dismissing thebatswoman the next delivery
with Anuja Patil taking thecatch.
A brief period of recoveryintervened with captainMithali Raj (12) and VedaKrishnamurthy (8) stitching a23-run partnership for thefourth wicket before both thebatswomen fell in a heap in thespace of four deliveries with-out addition of any run.
It left the Velocity inningsin a mess at 73 for 5 in theeighth over before Kerr andVerma rescued their side witha superb partnership.
For Supernovas, Tuhuhutook two wickets for 21 runswhile Patil, Devine andPoonam Yadav grabbed awicket each.
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Jos Buttler's stunning 50-ball centurytook England to 373 for three against
Pakistan in the second one-day inter-national at Southampton on Saturday.
Buttler's 110 not out featured ninesixes, including a straight drive offHasan Ali that took him to three figures.
Such was his command thatButtler's second fifty took him a mere18 balls, with new father Buttler mak-ing a 'rocking the baby' gesture to cel-ebrate bringing up a century that alsoincluded four fours.
An extraordinary 'inside out' six offHasan over long-off was arguably thepick of his shots, although a pull offShaheen Shah Afridi that cleared therope and took him into the 90s wasalmost as impressive.
Together with England captainEoin Morgan (71 not out) he shared anunbroken partnership of 162.
It was an encouraging display by theWorld Cup hosts just a few weeks fromthe start of the tournament and furtherproof of their progress as an ODI side.
Saturday's total was the 35th timesince their miserable first-round exit atthe 2015 World Cup that England, nowtop of the ODI rankings, had posted atotal in excess of 300 — a feat they hadachieved only 34 times in total prior tothat tournament.
A Pakistan attack missing the illMohammad Amir took a pounding,with Hasan conceding 81 runs from hismaximum 10 overs and Afridi 80.
Earlier, Jason Roy (87) and JonnyBairstow (51) laid a platform for theinnings with an opening stand of 115after Morgan won the toss.
Roy, fit following back trouble thatkept him out of Wednesday's washedout opener of a five-match series at hisOval home ground, hit medium-pacerFaheem Ashraf for two huge sixes -- adrive over long-on followed by anextravagant uppercut over extra-cover.
But the return of left-arm quickAfridi for a second spell saw Pakistanmake the breakthrough.
Bairstow pulled him for a bound-ary to complete a 44-ball fifty. But thenext ball saw Bairstow fail to pulldown and a leaping Fakhar Zaman atdeep backward square leg held a goodcatch at the second attempt.
Following a brief rain break, Roy fellin sight of what would have been hiseighth ODI hundred when he miscueda pull off Hasan to mid-on. Test captainJoe Root made 40 before he holed out,his exit paving the way for Buttler's blis-tering innings.
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Summing up Delhi Capitals'performance this season,
skipper Shreyas Iyer said everyplayer took initiative andresponsibility before they felljust short of making their firstever IPL final, going down toChennai Super Kings inQualifier 2.
Playing under a new namein this edition, Delhi Capitalsmanaged to turn their for-tunes around with coach RickyPonting and advisor SouravGanguly at the helm.
"There are a lot of positivesto talk about. At the start of theseason with half of us young-sters in the team (but) Ricky,Sourav Ganguly came in andgave their views regarding howwe would be going this season.Everyone was really enthusias-tic to take forward from thereon.
"The way we started...Rightfrom the Mumbai game,Rishabh (Pant) started with agreat knock and from there onevery individual took respon-sibility. In the league phase wedid amazing. Last season wasreally disappointing for us andthe way we came out this year,everybody took that initiativeand responsibility till thisgame," Iyer said at the postmatch press conference.
"Off the field also, we havegelled as a team and and nowit's time to grow from here on.I am really of proud the way weplayed this season. We've gota lot more to come next sea-son," he added.
Delhi Capitals ended theleague stage with 18 points,similar points as finalistsMumbai Indian and ChennaiSuper Kings. They also man-aged to win their Eliminatoragainst Sunrisers Hyderabadbut could not cross theQualifier 2 hurdle against thedefending champions, losing bysix wickets on Friday.
The 24-year-old said thatDelhi players were lucky tohave Ponting as their coach.
"Ponting is definitely a leg-end. Whenever he talks in thedressing room, no one has totalk after that. Because if some-one does that, it's of no use.The way he talks, it's just likea song or a rap. He's got thatflow and he's been doing it for20 years.
"As youngsters, we are real-ly happy and lucky to have himas our coach. The positivity thathe spreads, the freedom that hegives to every player is some-thing out of the box. That'swhat we need as youngsters.We need someone to supportus and back us. That's what weget from Ricky," said Iyer.
According to Christian belief, it wason the Easter day that the world sawthe death of death. Death, hithertounconquered and unassailable, sur-rendered to death and thus we got
the Resurrection Sunday. The tomb of death wasblown to smithereens as the saviour of humanityresurrected. While the world that had been fast-ing and praying for the return of the saviourwatched in awe, the son of the Lord appearedbefore them, giving the message that theirprayers had been answered. And they rejoicedby singing “hallelujah”. Since then, the world hasbeen surviving because of the ResurrectionSunday, a day which Christians all over theworld observe and celebrate as the Day of Hope.
Not anymore. The 2019 ResurrectionSunday saw hopes and dreams getting blown topieces as a group of Islamic human bombswalked into the Easter congregations being heldin many churches in and around Colombo inSri Lanka, resulting in death and destruction,leaving more than 250 dead and 500 maimedfor the rest of their lives. The suicide bombersowing allegiance to the Sri Lankan NationalThowheed Jamaat did not leave even some ofthe five-star hotels in Colombo owned andoperated by the Christian community.
The murder and mayhem, which shook theglobal conscience, was not for money and goldstored in the churches or hotels, the scenarioportrayed in the Spaghetti Western. All terroristattacks unleashed by various Islamic outfitsaround the world were perpetrated as part ofthe “clash of civilisations” described by SamuelHuntington, the Harvard University professorand social scientist in the book, The Clash ofCivilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
“For the first time in history, global politics is both multi-polar and multi-civilisa-tional; modernisation is distinct fromWesternisation and is producing neither auniversal civilisation in any meaningful sensenor the Westernisation of non-Western soci-eties,” said the professor, who pointed out thatIslam can never co-exist with other religionsin the world because it teaches its followers tokill all non-believers. “The Koran and otherstatements of Muslim beliefs contain few pro-hibitions on violence, and concept of non-violence is absent from Muslim doctrine andpractice,” wrote Huntington.
Osama bin Laden and those who tookover from him the leadership of globalIslamic terrorism have declared that their aim
is to create a Darul Islam (pure Islamic State)and unite Muslims all over the world. Theyhave also declared Christians, Jews, andHindus as their main enemies. All terroristacts which have taken place in the worldsince the emergence of bin Laden and his fol-lowers have been targeted against these three“enemies” of the Muslim world.
Why Sri Lanka and why Colombo? Theanswer is simple. The Sri Lankan Government,which came to power in the 2015 Elections,dumped all stringent security measures andlaws brought in by its predecessor, the MahindaRajapaksa Government. It became easy forIslamist terrorists to operate freely all over theisland nation. The LTTE remnants, who wereon the run from the Sri Lankan laws, made useof this interregnum to recover and recoup forfuture attacks. The statement issued by thetransnational Government of the LTTE con-demning the Sri Lankan Government orderbanning the Muslim niqab is proof of thisunholy alliance between the Tigers and terror-ists. Visvanathan Rudrakumaran, the “PrimeMinister” of the Transnational Government ofTamil Eelam operating from New York, saidthe decision of the Sri Lankan Government wastantamount to violation of the right to religiousfreedom. We must remember here that theLTTE had butchered 173 Muslims in aBatticaloa village in 1990.
The truth is that the LTTE and the IS havecome together in their mission to establish sepa-rate Tamil Eelam in the north of Sri Lanka,while the Islamists would strive for a Caliphateincorporating a part of the island nation. Thechoice of Colombo and the churches should beseen in this backdrop. Northern Sri Lanka has aTamil majority, while the Christians in Colomboare seen as friendly with the Government of theisland nation. The Christians and Buddhistsenjoy camaraderie dating back to centuries.Most of the present day Christians in Sri Lankaare the descendants of the Kauravas of theMahabharata, who migrated to the shores ofthe island nation after they were defeated in theKurukshetra War by cousins Pandavas. Thename Kaurava itself has its origins in Kauravarand the Coromandel Coast of India, fromwhere they set sail to Lanka.
Not only Sri Lanka, even the neighbouringIndia would not be the same after the Colomboblasts. There is no guarantee for life in thesecountries as terrorists, especially Islamic terror-ists, have expanded their areas of operation
from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan to the SouthAsian region that includes Sri Lanka and India.If the versions of the official secret servicespursuing the pattern of attacks carried out bythe Islamic terrorists are to be believed, moresevere attacks are on the anvil. The disciples ofOsama bin Laden are adapting themselves tonew situations and horizons, which are yet tofall in the radar of the intelligence and spyagencies. Their modus operandi changes on adaily basis. The proposed Islamic Caliphatevisualised by bin Laden and company extendsfrom West Asia to Indonesia and includesmajor parts of the Indian subcontinent.
The attitude of the self-styled secular, liberalintelligentsia towards the barbarians, too, haschanged — from love and respect to that of pas-sion. One was shocked when a Left liberal secu-larist wrote a lengthy article in a Tamil Nadubased newspaper (popularly known as thePeople’s Daily of Chennai), questioning and lam-basting those who linked the Easter Sundayattacks to the Islamic State. This despite theclaims by the IS itself that it was behind theblasts and had extended salutes to the suicidebombers who made the mayhem possible.
The attacks happened in Colombo, anhour’s flight from Chennai. The moment TVchannels flashed about the attack, this writer’sfirst reaction was to contact Siri Fernando, a 78-year-old devote Catholic in Colombo, who overthe years has assumed the role of an elderbrother. “We are fine and safe at home,” saidSiri, who also disclosed that the IS was behindthe cruel act. It took another three days for theIS to come out with video statements claimingresponsibility for the attacks.
But by the evening of Resurrection Sunday,it turned out that the Sri Lankan ThowheedJamaat, the module of the IS in the islandnation, was behind the attacks. It was also dis-closed that the Indian spy and intelligence agen-cies had warned the Sri Lankan Police about thesuicide bombs at least 10 days in advance. Butthe President and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka,who were busy with shadow-boxing and thegame of one-upmanship, paid scant regard tosuch crucial information. It was the haplessdevotees, who thronged the churches withprayers on their lips and hopes in their hearts,who had to bear the brunt.
The repercussions of the Sri Lankan blastswould definitely be felt in India. Those whohave been following the pattern of the Islamicextremists are surprised over the delay in such
attacks in the Indian subcontinent. Since May 2014, theIslamic terrorists have split themselves into variousorganisations bearing unique and strange names and hadlowered their hoods to gear up for the big operations.Their targets would be crowded temples, market places,shopping malls, and other public places. India is nostranger to acts of terrorism by Islamic extremists.
According to P Chidambaram, the former Financeand Home Minister, the country was completely safeunder Dr Manmohan Singh’s Government (2004 to2014). “Borders were secure, infiltration came down,civilian and security forces’ casualties came downdrastically. The numbers will tell the story,” saidChidambaram. But studies released by the GlobalTerrorism Database and National Consortium for theStudy of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism throwmore light on these figures, in sharp contrast toChidambaram’s claims.
According to the data released by these agencies,5,788 people died in terrorist attacks in India from2004 to 2013. Most of the international agencies spe-cialising in terrorism related studies say India experi-ences more terrorist incidents annually (3,500) and ter-rorist related deaths (3,100) per year than any countryother than Iraq, wrote Dr Subramanian Swamy in thebook, Terrorism in India, published in 2008. Quotingvarious agencies, including the Union Home Ministry’sAnnual Report (2004-05), Dr Swamy wrote: “Of the 35States of today’s India, 29 are afflicted by terrorism.India is thus today a seriously terrorist challengednation which has profound national security implica-tions.” This was written in 2008 and the country hasundergone many political changes since then.
Even as the repercussions of the Colombo blastsare felt in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, an organisationcalled the Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath has startedrunning for cover. It issues daily statements claiming itdoes not have any ties with the National ThowheedJamaat of Sri Lanka. But R Abdur Razik, the GeneralSecretary of Sri Lanka’s National Thowheed Jamaat, ison record declaring that the two organisations arebound by common ideology and are promoting trueIslam unadulterated by non-Islamic influences. Theintelligence agencies in India have gathered details ofhow the Thowheed Jamaats in Tamil Nadu and SriLanka mobilised billions of rupees from Saudi Arabiato propagate Wahhabi Islam.
In January 2013, the then Chief Minister of TamilNadu, Jayalalithaa, had disclosed during a press meet thatthe Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath had 7.5 lakh activemembers. Jayalalithaa was no ordinary politician andwhatever she said would be based only on facts and figureswhich she had gathered from the intelligence agencies. Shealso cautioned the media from terming Thowheed Jamaatas a fringe element. But strangely enough, the media didnot report about the startling disclosures made by her.Since then, the Thowheed Jamath has gone from strengthto strength in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
General Mahesh Senanayake, Sri Lanka’s Chief ofArmy Staff, recently told a global news agency thatsome of the suicide bombers behind the Easter Sundayblasts had travelled to Kerala, Karnataka, and Kashmir.The General, true to his reputation as an officer with astiff upper lip, also said that the trip could have beenmade as part of a training programme.
The world’s biggest elections are on. India, after all, isthe world’s largest democracy and the over 900 mil-lion eligible voters spread across 29 States and seven
Union Territories are in the process of electing a newGovernment in a seven stage election. A huge event by anystandards. Moreover, this year’s elections may also prove tobe the world’s costliest with mindboggling advertising spend-ing to the tune of several billions being invested by differ-ent political parties to allure voters through all kinds of mediacampaigns, propaganda, and gimmicks. Not just the con-ventional print and electronic media, but the now notori-ous social media and even the contrived biopics by manyfilmmakers are going the whole hog to prove their point bytrying to suggest to the electorate who is the “fairest of themall”. But amid this deafening cacophony of sound and lightsand advertisement blitzkrieg, the Indian voter is to watchout for. Though baffled and beleaguered, angry and con-fused, the voter is keen to vote. But how will he vote is thebillion dollar issue? While the so-called pollsters and psephol-ogists, the soothsayers and the astrologers, and even the datascientists are all throwing their wisdom in the ring, the votercontinues to keep the cards close to his chest. Yes, he maybe wondering who he should vote for. Nevertheless, hisdemeanour has also kept the so-called ivory tower thinktanks at their wit’s end, wondering what the voter is goingto do. Certainly then, the voter is standing tall to prove hispoint, like in the past: “Catch me if you can”. But this timearound, we are witnessing, perhaps, the most unpredictableof the elections, which many have already named as themother of all elections. Not just because the results are hardto predict, but also because the stakes are high for the world’slargest democracy. However, these issues notwithstanding,there is a need to raise the basic question that matters mostfor the success as also the survival of a democracy. That cru-cial question of the wisdom of the voter. The Indian voter,who has been delivering most unplayable of the googliesto even the most formidable of the challengers on even themost placid of the wickets. “Will he, won’t he” is the ques-tion this time. Will he defy all those predictions to provethat he has a mind of his own? Or will he prove to be thegullible simpleton some politicians assume? The advertise-ments, the claims and counter claims of marketers, the blamegame, the charlatans and turncoats, who think they are omni-scient have all made this election hard to gauge. Naturally,we need to figure out whether the voter can keep his cooland apply his mind. We will have to wait for some more time.But who wins or loses is not the question. The question iswhether the voter entity is intact.That is, if there is votermind that transcends castes and communities and discrim-inates between issues and non-issues, some kind of a col-lective unconsciousness that proves the strength of unity indiversity. We certainly would come to know about that ina few days. But there is a popular saying which suggests thatVox Populi, Vox Dei — that is the voice of people — is thevoice of God. The onus, of course, is on the Indian voterto prove this Latin proverb right or wrong.
Most parents will say thatthey do. Do they really?My answer is no. I will
explain why I made such anassertion and you will agree.When a child is born, who doesthe child see most of the time, ifnot all the time, especially intoday’s nuclear family culture?The child’s parents, of course.Then, the child will learn from orape his parents only, because we,human beings, mostly learn byseeing, especially as far as ourbehaviour goes. I am talkingabout the formative years of achild when the foundation forbehaviour is laid. Now the impor-tant question: Are the parents onperfect behaviour? What do youthink the answer is?
You know the answer but Iwill still like to remind everyoneabout what we actually do. Let mestart with speaking. How many ofus can claim to be truthful all thetime? The answer will be: “We trybut it is not always practical.” Isthis what the child should learn,ie speak lies when it suits him.Same is true about honesty. Arewe really honest in our dealings.I will admit that many are butthat still leaves a large chunk ofthe population. How about rais-ing our voice or getting angrybetween parents? What are weteaching our young wards? Thatit is alright to get nasty with yourloved ones? The child does thatas he grows up; there are goodchances of it.
Somebody may like to chal-lenge me on my assertion thatyoung children learn mostlyfrom their parents as far asbehaviour goes. What does the
Gita inform us? That whatevera superior person does, in ourcase a parent, other people, inour case children, follow that.Whatever standard a commonman establishes, a child tries toemulate that. (3.21) I don’tthink that there can be a betterproof than that.
So now we can continuewith what parents mostly do.Let me take up eating. Whatdetermines what people most-ly eat? The answer is taste.There is nothing wrong with it.The Gita also recommends it,when it tells us, “Tasty, deliciousfoods, which enhance life-span;promote vitality; give strength,health, joy; and which are con-ducive to cheerfulness are dearto people in goodness.” (17.8)However, there is an importantdifference. We are supposed toeat those foods which do a lotof other good things, as men-tioned, besides being tasty. Doparents follow such wisdom?The child learns what parentsdo and is burdened with bad
habits for the rest of his life.What do parents watch on
television? Are they selective inwhat they see? Or they seesomething which is full of pas-sion, even hate, sensuous, hor-ror, etc? Yes, children start withcartoons but the foundation hasbeen laid for what they willwatch later in their lives. Does itnot place a lot of responsibilityon parents to be role models fortheir beloved children? Shouldn’tthey be highly disciplined inwhatever they do? Living togeth-er rubs off a lot on one another.
Let me take up anotherimportant activity, ie exercising.Why are children in Indiabecoming obese in larger num-bers like in the West? Becauseparents simply do not care. Ifthey were doing asans,pranayam, etc regularly, will thechildren not be influenced bysuch practices and benefit for therest of their lives? How aboutdoing your own work? I blamemothers for this; they are in toomuch love to act sensibly.
Whether we like it or not,our role as parents is crucial tomake a success of the lives of ourchildren. The growing childsees his parents as samplehuman beings. Does it not placea lot of responsibility on parentsto act sensibly at all times? Ifthey are really keen on the wel-fare of their wards, they must setgood examples. This is expect-ed if they really wish the verybest for their loved ones. And ifthe parents make connectionwith God, sky is the limit.'��� ���������������������������������������������D�(����� 8� �
For as long as I can remember,I was seized by a sense of dis-contentment, which sprungfrom a rather abstract source.This is what triggered my
spiritual quest. That’s when I startedlooking around for a master. Ofcourse, finding a master is a rare for-tune and it was a good many yearsbefore I finally met Osho, my master.I used to be a BSc student atTrichandra College in Kathmanduand I had gone to Janakpur, myhometown, for some familial chore. Bythen, I had been initiated by a fewgurus and was trying many differenttechniques of meditation withoutmuch success. Countless times I hadbeen praying to existence to bring areal guide for me.
One morning, I woke up to finda yogi standing silently at our gate,seeking alms. Such a sight is not thatuncommon in Janakpur. Janakpurused to be the capital of the kingdomof Mithila and the centre of Mithilaculture. I noticed that this yogi hadan exceptionally bright countenanceas though he was dripping withradiance. I went to the kitchen andfilled a handkerchief with rice andcame outside to give the pouch to theyogi. The yogi was in silence soinstead of speaking he took out a slatefrom his bag and wrote down, “I don’thave anything to carry the rice in, soit would be better if you could giveme some money.”
I fished into my pocket andfound a quarter, which I gave to theyogi. He accepted the offering grate-fully. We did not exchange words. Hewas about to leave when he sudden-ly turned back and started scribblingon his slate again. His English wasnotably good, as was his handwrit-ing. “What kind of meditation doyou practise?” I was taken off guardby this rather strange exchange andtold him that I didn’t practise anymeditation. But he insisted, “Yourvibrations tell me that you are try-ing hard to meditate.”
Surprised by his clairvoyance, Itold him how I had been trying dif-ferent techniques of meditation with-out much success. “My meditation isnot going well at all. Although I havelearnt many things from many gurus,I am not able to practise somethingthat is meaningful,” I told him withutmost honesty. He again wrote on theslate, “If you are ready, I am willing tohelp you.” After hearing that, I cordial-ly invited him into my house, madehim comfortably seated, and startedsharing my queries. He started writ-ing the answers in perfect English andHindi on his slate. After a while it wastime for lunch and I asked him whatI could serve him. He said, “Anything
vegetarian which has been made inthe house is good for me.”
We had a tradition of eating allour meals together, so my familymembers joined us too. After lunch,I invited him to my room. He sharedsome of the most insightful analysesof Aurobindo’s integral yoga,Vivekananda’s karmayoga andgyanyoga, as well as RamanMaharshi’s silence. His presence wasso pleasurable that I lost all track oftime. When the time came for theyogi to leave, he wrote on his slate,“You have all my blessings. Now Ishall leave.” I was enchanted by hispresence and didn’t want him to leave,so I requested him to come the nextday. The next morning, the yogiarrived as he had promised. After alight breakfast, we again sat togeth-er. As I mentioned earlier, I was strug-gling with my meditation and askeda great deal of questions.
His answers reflected the depthof his own meditation, inspiringfresh reverence in me. I was intriguedby his answers and insisted on know-ing more about him. He wrote thatbefore taking sannyasa, he used to bea professor in South India. Gradually,it dawned upon him that no outwardexcellence or accomplishment couldsatiate his deepest longing. When thisrealisation crystallised within him, hetook the jump and became an ascetic.Initially, he had taken a vow of
silence for 12 years. Those 12 yearsgave him the taste of solitude andbeatitude. By the time his vow wasover, he had immersed himself toodeeply in the blissful world of silenceto ever utter another word again.Whenever necessary, he communi-cated through his slate.
The yogi also gave me a shortmantra and a beautiful technique ofRajyoga. I pleaded with him to be myguru, but he refused. “I am not des-tined to be your guru. You will findyour guru at the right time.” I hadcome to inaugurate a yoga school inSiliguri. There I heard your cry forhelp and came to Janakpur just to helpyou. Whenever you have a real questand pray for it, someone will appearto help you. I am happy with yourthirst and this thirst will lead you toyour guru in right time.”
I got the darshan of Osho threeyears later. On the third day, the yogiarrived at my house as usual. Thatmeeting was to be our last one. Witha cryptic precision, he told me to fetcha diary, and wrote his answers on it.I brought a small notebook and start-ed asking him questions:
Which sect are you from and who isyour guru?“I don’t belong to any sect and Ihaven’t been initiated by anyone.God himself is my guru and human-ity is what I believe in.”
How can I meet you?“I don’t have an ashram. I am a wan-dering monk. I go wherever existencetakes me.”
What shall I call you?A yogi’s past has no meaning and wedon’t usually talk about it. And sinceI wasn’t initiated by anyone, I don’thave a name either. Due to God’sgrace, I am usually blissed out, so youcan call me Mastaram (the divinelyintoxicated one).
Is it true that yogis have variousmiraculous powers? Do you alsopossess such powers?“The mind starts to become pure andsharp once meditation takes hold ofyou. A silent mind becomes very pow-erful. A lot of miracles start happen-ing. These miracles are not necessaryon the path of samadhi, rather they arehindrances. I do experience suchpowers but discussing them will nothelp you in any way. You are veryinquisitive about such spiritual pow-ers. Begin practising meditation as Ihave taught you and soon you willexperience these powers by yourself.But it is not good to think andenquire about them. A lot of medita-tors go astray this way.”
There are many yogis, such as you,who have a lot of spiritual powersbut misery and injustice is only
growing in this world. Why don’tthe yogis make this world a betterplace to live in? Why do theyescape from the world?“The world has always been like this.There was injustice and misery evenin the time of Ram, Krishna orBuddha. Ram himself had to live inthe forest for 14 years in exile. Sita wasalso kidnapped. Buddha had to beara lot of humiliation. During his ownlifetime, he saw the end of the Shakyaclan and Kapilvastu. Krishna could-n’t stop the Mahabharata war or thedemise of his Yadav clan. The warbetween good and evil has beengoing on since eternity and will go onfor eternity. The desire for freedomfrom this world arises only after youunderstand that absolute justice,peace or system is not possible here.This world is a school. Learn your les-son and be free of it. This is not aplace where you should live forever.I see a strong wish in you to changethe world. This is a good wish, butyou will not be able to change theworld. We come here with limitedtime and energy, which should beused for self-transformation. Firstrealise God, then whatever the divinewishes for you will be the best for youand the world at large. After enlight-enment, God made Buddha roamaround villages for 45 years, while hemade Raman Maharshi sit silentlybelow the Arunachal hill.”
It is said that not even a leaf on a treecan move without divine will. If thisis true, then why do you tell me tomake constant effort in my medita-tion? Will my meditation not hap-pen naturally if He wishes? “It is probably not happening nowbecause He doesn’t wish it to be so.On the surface, your question lookslike the ultimate philosophical querybut underneath it shows the lethar-gic tendency of the mind. It is myunderstanding that even a leaf does-n’t move without God’s wish. I amtelling you to make effort in medi-tation so that you realise this byyourself. Through constant medita-tion when your ego melts and yourealise that you are not the doer butjust the watcher, only then will yousee that this whole world is a divineplay and runs exactly according toHis wish. When you say this now, itonly aids your laziness.”
Soon the time came for the depar-ture of the yogi and although we wereboth unwilling, we bid farewell to eachother. For the next three years beforeI met my master, his words becamemy pathfinder, always challenging andassuring me at the same time.
����&�"�� �����&�%��������#�$���.�4�����/��.�-.�� ��5�%#����-#�� ����/�349�� ���1�4��4���!--3��"�1$%�40��.3��#�� ���1�/�����-..����-.�5�� �-39�4/���4�� ��%�1��9�5����4��6���')�+��������It is an open secret that Kerala
and Tamil Nadu are safe havensfor Islamic terrorists and membersof other extremist organisationslike the Maoists, Liberation Tigersof Tamil Eelam, and Kashmiri mil-itants. Pon Radhakrishnan, theUnion Minister of State forFinance, has been warning theState Government about the pres-ence of Islamic terrorists andMaoists in Tamil Nadu. Some ofthe Islamic outfits have their ownarms training camps in places likeTheni, according to a group ofsecurity experts who undertook arecent survey on the vulnerabilityof Tamil Nadu to extremists andterrorists. They point out that theheavily guarded Arivakam is theepicentre from where all conspira-cies are hatched for Love Jihad aswell as murder of Hindu leaders.
Sources in the NationalInvestigation Agency, probing theattempt to murder on ArjunSampath, the Hindu leader inTamil Nadu, said they got theleads to the Thowheed Jamathplan to attack Sri Lankan churcheswhile interrogating the suspectswho had been taken into custodyand this was instantly relayed tothe authorities. Both Tamil Naduand Kerala are ticking time bombsand the day is not far when we willsee blasts of much higher magni-tude rocking the States.
While Islamic terrorists haveestablished their base camps allover Kerala allegedly in con-nivance with some political partiesvying with one another to appeasethe minority vote bank, organisa-tions like the Thowheed Jamathare having a free run in southIndia as a prelude to demand andestablish the Islamic Caliphate by
incorporating parts of Kerala,Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka, and Telangana. Theyear 2020 will see various Islamistorganisations demanding the for-mation of the State of Malabarbecause the next year marks thecentenary of the MoplahRebellion, which ravaged theMalabar province of Kerala.Thousands of Hindus werebutchered by the maraudingIslamists and their temples plun-dered. The mainstream politicalparties accepted the demand byvarious Muslim organisations anddeclared the Moplah Rebellion ablatant communal riot as part ofIndia’s freedom struggle. Thosewho took part in the rebellioncontinue to draw freedom fighters’
pension from the UnionGovernment to this date.
Chandmal Chopra of Kolkatahad in 1985 filed a petition in theCalcutta High Court, stating that“publication of Koran attractsSections 153A and 295 A of theIPC because it incites violence,disturbs public tranquillity, pro-motes on ground of religion feel-ings of enmity, hatred, and ill-willbetween religious communitiesand insults other religions or reli-gious beliefs of other communitiesin India”. The petition was disal-lowed by the High Court and thepetitioner was incarcerated oncharges of inciting different reli-gions. Sita Ram Goel brought outa compendium, The CalcuttaQuran Petition, detailing theentire episode in 1986, but themodern, liberal, and secularmedia blacked out the entire inci-dent and published a differentversion altogether. The woundstill remains unattended to andhas become more infected.
The latest information is thatcolleges in Kerala have allegedlybecome breeding grounds torecruit, train, and deploy jihadisfor the establishment of theCaliphate. The CH MohammedKoya College of Arts and Scienceat Thiruvananthapuram recentlysaw students dressed as Islamicwarriors with guns and wavingthe black IS flags, undertaking avehicular parade around the city.The same spectacles were repeatedin many places in Kerala andTamil Nadu. Eternal vigilance isthe price we have to pay for liber-ty. For that to become a reality, wemust have stringent laws and pun-ishments. Extraordinary situationsdemand extraordinary measures.
rate sense but through the lensof our own needs, goals, andprior experience. Still, we takea lot of pride in being a ratio-nal person. This is evident inour endeavour to get the high-est degree of educational qual-ification from topmost educa-tional gatekeepers — a signal-ing effort on our part to makeus look smarter and rational.
Therefore, when it comesto voting, we expect every per-son to exercise this democrat-ic right with a lot of rationali-ty, but alas, that expectation isoften misplaced. Because avoter in general never subjectshis/her decision to even a con-servatively moderate level ofanalysis. That is why voting isinherently irrational, and con-trary to popular belief, this irra-tionality has nothing to do withthe educational qualification ofthe voter.
Do you think any voter canafford to analyse what per-centage of promises made by apolitical party were fulfilled? Isthere any plausible reason fornot delivering on their promis-es? Is there threadbare analy-sis to identify the party whichhas a higher chance of deliver-ing on future promises?
Looks like a lot of work toarrive at a decision that mightnot always be conclusive.
The educated voter doesn’twant to use their intelligence toresearch and determine thebest candidate, but they dowant their candidate to demon-strate a relatively adequate levelof intelligence and capacity. Forpolitical candidates, it is farmore easy to stoke base emotions in potential voters
rather than developing a water-tight case for themselvesthrough demonstrating theirintelligence.
Today, politicians manip-ulate the electoral process byinfluencing voters much beforethey make an entry to thepolling booth. Contrary topopular belief, voting is not anindividual but a group behav-ior — this behavioral responsefrom the potential voter issomething well known to thepolitical class.
For millions of years, peo-ple have been part of group,commonly known as tribes.
Whether the groups are reli-gious, ethnic or political, wecan’t seem to have enough of it— humans need to belong to agroup identity more significantthan them.
Tribes are everywhere; andwhether you know it or not,you also are a member of atleast one of them — as anemployee of your organisa-tion, as a member of your reli-gious community or a castegroup. Being a member of thisexclusive group, you end upinternalising a lot of peculiarcharacteristics of the group.
All tribes share three com-
ponents: a group of people, acommon cause and at least oneleader who represents andorganises the tribe. However,the most important featurehere is the shared cause. It’s theshared cause that leads itsmembers to internalise thetribe’s values and ideas as theirown; turning group membersinto believers instead of merefollowers.
In India, caste is an essen-tial and sacred group identity.Time and again, in most of thecases, caste identity has provento be more potent than that ofreligious identity. Politicians
have somehow intuitively man-aged to decode this social iden-tity for their political gains.That is the very reason theyproject their candidates assomeone who could be trust-ed to fight for the commoncause of these particulargroups.
This is quite evident in theway most political parties selecta candidate belonging to one ofthe largest religious or castegroup from the constituency.And this is normally doneafter a meticulous grassrootsanalysis of unique caste demog-raphy prevalent in each con-
stituency that is slated toundergo the hammer of elec-toral verdict. Time and again,it has been proven beyonddoubt that emotional connectthrough group identity is ofgreat value and that it could never go out of fashionduring elections.
The political class in thiscountry, irrespective of thecolour of their ideologicalundergarments, do have thisknack of weaving a reasonablybelievable narrative aroundcomplex issues to focus acute-ly only on a topic that succeedseither in polarising or unitingthe potential voters. It isbecause an air of polarisationcreates an immediate environ-ment where voters tend toconveniently forget the mostobvious mistakes of their lead-ers. As a result, every election,including this one, has wit-nessed an attempt by repre-sentatives of people to indulgein politics of polarisation.
Whenever the polarisationalong identity lines succeeds infinding its victim among thepotential voters, even the mostself-proclaimed rational voterfinds it a bit too difficult toentertain a perspective thatlies on the other side of the faultline. Any digression is oftenperceived as disloyalty againsttheir peers and interest groups.
Be that as it may, everypolitical party is well aware ofthe active role of news media(including social media plat-forms) in influencing publicopinion. The parties are verymuch aware that media iscapable of playing an indirectbut persuasive role in shapingthe contours of public percep-tion by giving selected issues
and facts better coverage thanother issues and events.
It is this coverage thatleads audience — by virtue ofthe greater attention theydevote to specific topics — todecide that these are the mostimportant ones to be taken intoconsideration when adopting aposition.
Therefore, every politicalparty wants to have a definitesay in deciding those selectedissues and facts that could getthem maximum coveragethrough different media plat-forms, because the amount ofnews coverage can make a bigdifference in the perceived sig-nificance of an issue amongpotential voters. During anelection, whichever politicalparty is seen by voters to havea superior stance on the issuehighest on the media’s agendaat the moment gets a distinctadvantage.
Steven Pinker, the famousthinker and evolutionary psy-chologist of the modern era,said that one function of themind might be to hold beliefsthat bring the belief-holderthe most significant possiblenumber of allies, protectors ordisciples, rather than ideas thatare more likely to be true.Therefore, even if you belongto a group of a selected fewwho could see through allthese elaborate facades, optingto go against the grain bychoosing to use your intelli-gence might not find many tak-ers. It is so because in the end,everyone wants to contribute toa winning side by affirmingone’s identity.
(The writer is an IRS officer.Views expressed are personal)
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Islamist terror in the Sahel is nota new phenomenon. It has been
gaining ground for long. Whilefighting major wars in West Asia,Afghanistan and Syria — catalysedby democratic deficit and fastdecline of liberal world order — theWestern powers have hardly paidserious attention to the Sahel terror.Today, for many of the global pow-ers, jehad in this part of Africa is “aforgotten war”. Despite an onslaughtof deadly attacks coming from amatrix of Islamist radicals, theregional Governments are either notbeen able to counter them or attimes not willing to nip the terror-ist organisations in the bud.
The Sahel, a vast sub-Saharnscrubland, has witnessed the emer-gence of a number of jehadi groupsover the years. By early 2007, a localSalafist group in Algeria was brand-ed as al-Qaeda in the IslamicMaghreb (AQIM). Gradually,AQIM has become the centre of var-ious disruptive activities across theregion. Afterwards, some other ter-rorist groups emerged in the Sahel,such as Mokhtar Belmokhtar’sKatibat (battalion) al-Murabitun(Those who remain steadfast), theMovement for Unity and Jehad inWest Africa (MUJAO), Boko Haramand its breakaway faction, Ansaru.So far it has been observed that allthese groups have their own strate-gies and dynamics, but they havemaintained communications witheach other. Further, in all of them,as they are increasingly posingthreat to Western interests, twotypologies demand attention at themoment: borderless criminals kid-napping for ransom, and highlypolitically motivated terrorism. Infact, following the coup d’etat in Maliin 2012, the Sahel has come at theforefront of the US foreign policy.
Some of the security and intel-ligence experts opine that as theIslamist militants are fast losing theirhold in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan,they may look for new operationalgrounds with local designs. After the
conduct of French military’sOperation Serval from January 11,2013 to July 15, 2014, three of thefive Islamist leaders —AbdelhamidAbou Zeid, Abdel Karim and OmarOuld Hamaha — were killed.Unfortunately, Mokhtar Belmokhtarfled to Libya and Iyad Ag Ghali leftfor Algeria. The French mission waslargely successful in pushing thejehadis out of the main centres.
The Sahel consists of parts ofNorthern Senegal, SouthernMauritania, Central Mali, NorthernBurkina Faso, the extreme South ofAlgeria, Niger, the extreme North ofNigeria, Central Chad, Central andSouthern Sudan, the extreme Northof South Sudan, Eritrea, Cameroon,Central African Republic and theextreme North of Ethiopia. This vastexpanse of Africa is mainly plaguedby misrule and abject poverty. It has
broad and open lands, weak centralGovernments and porous borders.These things work as catalysts forjehadis to operate transnationally,often with absolute freedom.
Today, what is happening on theground is that the US, the UK andFrance, along with other Westerncountries, are trying to assist thelocal forces, both in the form ofoffering training in advanced war-fare and financial aid to fight thegrowing menace of Islamist jehad inalmost 16 African nations. But todate, these efforts are hardly bring-ing any result.
Besides, ordering for troopwithdrawal from Syria andAfghanistan, the American militaryis cutting back its forces in Africa by25 per cent in its western front.Around the same time, the jehadisare mounting their attacks on
Northern Burkina Faso and movingtowards South along the border withNiger. It is disheartening to note thatnew jehadi elements are fast spread-ing to areas such as Ivory Coast,Ghana, Togo and Benin.
Amid the gloom and a completeU-turn in the US global strategiesand priorities under the TrumpAdministration, initiatives like“Flintlock” were carried out inBurkina Faso in February. Thecounterterrorism exercise drew2,000 military personnel from morethan 30 African and Western coun-tries. This kind of vigil and counterterror steps might be helpful, but asustained strategy is on highdemand to secure this impoverishedregion from the grip of Islamist ter-ror. The US is only providing airpower or at most intelligence assis-tance to its European and African
allies in the name of the so-calledglobal war on terror (GWOT).
On record, this year so farAmerica has conducted 24 airstrikes against al Shabab in Somalia,compared to 47 such operations in2018. At the moment, only 6,000 UStroops and 1,000 Defence expertswork throughout Africa. Their pri-mary task is to impart training andconduct exercises with localGovernment forces. Under Trump,no one knows who are America’sallies and who are friends. Nothingseems stable for Trump, includinghis own presidency. He is only cre-ating chaos and bringing the wholeliberal institutions into limbo.
France, the erstwhile colonialpower in West Africa, is todaymaintaining 4,500 troops in the areato fight the jehadis in countries suchas Mali, Niger and Chad. France
very successfully routed al-Qaedaaffiliates from the North of Mali in2013. But is it enough to offer a safe-ty cover to such a vast expanse ofland from these disgruntled and ina way dislodged firepower ofIslamist jehadis? Absolutely not. Itis a growing threat. It is spreadingfast beyond Sahel region.
Islamist jehad is not dead. It isonly retreating from Syria and Iraqfor the time being. In disguise, rem-nants of al-Qaeda, ISIS and theirlocal variants are appearing acrossthe world. Recently, when localoffshoots of the ISIS massacred hun-dreds of Christians in Sri Lanka inApril, the reclusive caliph of the ISIS,Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (believed tobe dead), issued his first videomessage in five years showeringpraise on his followers in Africa.
He said, “Your brothers inBurkina Faso and Mali…We con-gratulate them for their joining theconvoy of the Caliphate”, as report-ed by the SITE intelligence groupthat monitors communication net-works of the jehadi organisations.This shows how the ISIS in WestAsia is connecting to their follow-ers in Africa and considering thecontinent as a fertile ground forfuture course of action.
The jehadis in Africa havemainly been fighting their ownGovernments, but generally they areaverse to westerners coming totheir lands. Some like Boko Haramin Nigeria, which is known as theIslamic State in West Africa, is byprinciple completely againstWestern learning and it is virtuallycreating chaos in that country.Whereas the groups such as the al-Shabab in Somalia is deep into theteachings of the al-Qaeda and it ismostly targeting major populationcentres in the capital city ofMogadishu.
This is how a strong tendencyof establishing a proto-Caliphate isspreading in some parts of Africa.
To conclude, imparting trainingto local Government forces and
eliminating regional jehadis may notharbinger peace and stability tothese poor African nations. Whatcomes worse is that some of theGovernments are giving a free handto the local ethnic militias to fightthe jehadis. Instead these groups areturning on the locals and their ownenemies and becoming a big threatto peace and stability.
At this hour, Bob Dylan’sprophetic words must serve as thesole guideline to the Westernnations while countering Islamistterror in this part of the world. Hewrote in 1963, “Come you mastersof war. You build all the guns. Youbuild the death planes. You build allthe bombs. You hide behind walls.You hide behind desks. I just wantyou to know I can see through yourmasks. You never done nothing. Butbuild to destroy. You play with myworld.”
Most of the African nations arefighting the worst of the evils thatwere simply left behind either bytheir former colonial masters or themisguided policies and programmesdesigned by leading global powersin the name of GWOT. And whatadds fuel to fire is long lasting mis-rule, corruption and mayhembrought by many of the Africanleaders and their ilk. Hence, thejehadis, ethnic militias and localgoons are constantly gaining groundboth to exploit rich reservoirs ofresources and inflict torture on thecommon citizenry. To put thischaos to an end or to minimise it,the local governance system mustfight the evils first, instead of blam-ing former colonial powers and topglobal players operating in theSahel region.
To bring peace, stability anddevelopment back, it is time for theSahelians to think glocally. Theymust propel good governors asalmost no governance is the root ofall their evils.
Awoman concerned about contin-ued struggle in her husband’s life,came asking the other day:
“What is wrong in his destiny that hehas been subject to unwanted twists andturns in his career all through his life?So far, he lost his job nothing less than adozen times. In between, many a times,he has to be out of job also. He is hon-est, truthful, and hardworking and yet,he has to suffer. His health, too,becomes a matter of concern every nowand then. We have got done so manypujas, as suggested by the pundits toward off the evil, but to no avail. Whyso? Is there no remedial measure thatcould grant him ease and comfort?”
In the above context, let us firstexamine whether heavenly beings couldgrant boons in return for transactionalpujas offered in their praise, to mitigateour sufferings. Had it been so, noresourceful person would have ever suf-fered in life. That is, however, not inevidence. At best, such pujas can bringin psychological satisfaction, which mayhelp restore your own faith.
It may not be out of place to men-tion here that the Upanishads, whichserves as the premise on which the
Indian philosophy stands, does talk ofvarious deities engaged in cosmic man-agement. That, however, doesn’t meansome heavenly beings like us, who couldselectively respond to our prayers. They,in fact, symbolise various forces playingthrough the cosmos, vital to life cycle,and available in equal proportion to all.It is difficult to digest that forces wouldbe imbued with some mind-like organ-ism to respond to our individual call,and that too mediated by pundits. It isagain an established fact that our livesare driven by the laws of karma — asyou sow, so shall you reap — and whichdefines the course of our destiny. And itworks in a self-automated mode, almostlike a software programme. There is noscope for any external agency adjudicat-ing our course of destiny.
The question now is: How doesdestiny play upon in our lives? Goingby the Indian philosophy’s concept,human life is structured in three layers— causal, astral, and gross bodies. Ondeath, it is just the gross body that dis-integrates. The causal and astral bodies,that are pure energy platforms, do notwither away. They carry over memoryimpressions pertaining to the past life
and make it available to the freshlyincarnated body as thought seeds.These thought seeds set the trends ofmind — indwelling desires, virtues andattributes, habits and attitudes, likesand dislikes, prejudices and obsessions.They, however, do not define in finiteterm specific events due in emergingtimes. They rather just offer a lead toproceed with. It needs to be remem-bered here that unless ground suited togermination of seeds is available, theymay never bear fruit-bearing plants.Invariably, guided by indwelling desires,we take off in life. Their fruition, how-ever, would need qualitative effort,which, in the first place calls for creat-ing the ground necessary for fruition.Second, assess the environmental con-straints as well as challenges posed bycompeting interests. Accordingly, artic-ulate ways and means to intelligentlypursue the task in hand. The irony isthat our mind, blinded by indwellingdesires, doesn’t allow time and space toinvoke our own empowerment tool —buddhi — for due diligence, before tak-ing the final call. And when we fail,instead of trying to find our own fault-lines, we take refuge in our destiny.
The most potent remedy, therefore,is that your husband reflects upon his
own mind-trends and makes necessaryamends. In this context, let us look atastrological pointers of the man con-cerned. The main marker is hisSagittarius lagna, with its lord Jupiter,though in exaltation, but placed adverseto Uranus, Sun, and Moon. It implies, inthe first place, an undiplomatic and tact-less person. He would be known for hisindiscrete and ill-timed instinctive out-bursts, often offending those around.Second, he is headstrong and opinionat-ed and may try to force his viewpoint.Third, he has a swaggering ego, oftenout of touch with reality that makes himstuck to his beliefs and not open to look-ing beyond to explore better options.The Sun also ill-disposed off to Moonmakes him vulnerable to conflict anddisharmony with others on the slightestpretext. Intelligence signifying Mercurysandwiched between headless Ketu andmischievous Neptune accounts for hisinner confusions and insensible reason-ing. And the result is there to see.
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