@TheDailyPioneer facebook.com/dailypioneer Follow us on: MONEY 8 ‘INDIA'S UNION BUDGET CREATES BUZZ AMONG GLOBAL INVESTORS’ ANALYSIS 7 IS THE DELIVERY OF JUSTICE A MYTH OR REALITY? SPORTS 11 SWING IT LIKE JIMMY VIJAYAWADA, WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2021; PAGES 12 `3 } 17TH CENTURY CHARMINAR SET FOR PAWAN’S NEXT Page 12 www.dailypioneer.com RNI No. APENG/2018/764698 *Late City Vol. 3 Issue 90 *Air Surcharge Extra if Applicable Established 1864 Published From VIJAYAWADA DELHI LUCKNOW BHOPAL RAIPUR CHANDIGARH BHUBANESWAR RANCHI DEHRADUN HYDERABAD { VIJAYAWADA WEATHER Current Weather Conditions Updated february 10 , 2021 5:00 PM ALMANAC TODAY Month & Paksham: Paush & Krishna Paksha Panchangam Tithi : Chaturdashi: 01:08 am (Next Day) Nakshatram: Uttara Ashadha: 02:12 pm Time to Avoid: (Bad time to start any important work) Rahukalam: 12:30 pm – 01:55 pm Yamagandam: 08:14 am – 09:39 am Varjyam: 06:10 pm – 07:46 pm Gulika: 11:04 am - 12:30 pm Good Time: (to start any important work) Amritakalam: 07:55 am – 09:29 am Abhijit Muhurtham: NIL Forecast: Sunny Temp: 33/18 Humidity: 52% Sunrise: 06:45 am Sunset: 06:15 pm Violence in Afghan a cause for concern: PM 5 Telugu CMs want to be in the good books of Modi! 2 Rupee remained among better performing curren- cies in 2020 8 Jagan’s party distances itself from Sharmila's TS plunge PNS n VIJAYAWADA YS Sharmila's brother, YS Jaganmohan Reddy's YSRCP has distanced itself from her political ambitions and plans in Telangana. Government advi- sor and Chief Minister Jagan's top aide Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy on Tuesday had categor- ically said his party had noth- ing to do with Sharmila's polit- ical plans in the neighbouring state. He added Jagan tried to persuade her not to float any party as it may jeopardise interests of the people of Andhra. He also said that the brother and sister didn't have any personal differences or rivalry. Reddy however, said that YSRCP doesn't have any plans to expand to the neigh- bouring states or any national ambition. "It is not necessary that members of the same family shall think alike; they can have contrasting views on the issue of expansion of the party, but it is not true that there is a wedge between the brother and the sister and differences in the family. There is a talk that YS Sharmila has political ambitions, which is doing its rounds in social media. We did try to convince her. YS Sharmila is a leader in her own right and is well known to the people as sister of YS Jaganmohan Reddy and she comes from the political fam- ily of Dr YS Rajasekhar Reddy, who has a mass following," Ramakrishna Reddy told reporters. Answering to questions, the party General Secretary said that YSRCP had no intention of expanding to other states and Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy had cate- gorically stated that the party would confine itself to Andhra Pradesh and would maintain cordial relations with the neighbours. "The decision of meeting leaders of Telangana is that of YS Sharmila alone and we have no intentions of backseat driving or such exercise as is being propagated. SNV SUDHIR n VIJAYAWADA On Tuesday, the state govern- ment had issued orders laying out a procedure to be adopted by all the government depart- ments while issuing GOs and key policy documents. As per that procedure every policy document/GO of all the departments has to be reviewed by the office of the Advocate General to check if it stands legal scrutiny. Other guidelines were also issued detailing the procedure that has to be followed from now on. After many setbacks and backlashes from the courts, the Jaganmohan Reddy govern- ment finally appears to have woken up from the deep slum- ber. Majority of the state gov- ernment's policy decisions had come under legal scrutiny that had unleashed a bitter rivalry between the judiciary and the Jagan government. The rivalry had peaked to such a level that Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy had written to the Chief Justice of India, accusing the then AP High Court Chief Justice J K Maheswari and a few other judges, a senior-most judge in Supreme Court, Justice NV Ramana, of political bias and try- ing to destabilise his government. Now, after so many months of coming to power, chief minister appears to have taken a plunge to make some course correction at the fundamental level and avoid any further embarrassment. Many of the flagship and prestigious government schemes like the introduction of English medium in govern- ment schools, distribution of house site pattas to the poor were either inordinately delayed or never seen the light of the day. Vijayawada: Expressing confidence that good gov- ernance of YS Jaganmohan Reddy will reflect in the ongoing elections, YSRCP has said that the party had proposed to turn the State SEC into a multi-member body on the lines of Central Election Commiss- ion which would keep a check on misuse of power by any single individual. Government Advisor Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy said, despite the cheap pol- itics of TDP Chief N Chandrababu Naidu, the welfare schemes of Jagan would speak for themselv-es in the Gram Panchayat polls, which were being held in a party-neutral process. SEC should be multi-member body, says Jagan's top aide Sajjala Ramakrishna ‘Protein behind slow spread of Covid in Asia’ PNS n NEW DELHI Deficiency of a lung-protecting protein in the Caucasian pop- ulation may have made Europe and North America more sus- ceptible to the spread of a coro- navirus variant as compared to Asia, suggests a study by Indian scientists which also reveals how mutant forms of the virus may find new ways to infect people. The study, published in the journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution, assessed the global spread of the coronavirus vari- ant with the D614G mutation, which is the predominant lin- eage infecting North America and European populations. This variant spread so rapid- ly that in just 10 weeks between February and March 2020 over 64.11 per cent of globally infected individuals were iden- tified to carry the mutant virus starting from only 1.95 per cent in January. However, the researchers, including those from the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) in Kalyani, West Bengal, said this subtype took a significantly longer time to reach a 50 per cent relative fre- quency in East Asia -- 5.5 months -- compared to the 2.15 months it took in Europe, and the 2.83 months it took in North-America. According to the scientists, a deficiency of the protein Alpha-anti-trypsin (AAT) across the populations of Europe and North-America is one of the main factors that explain the rapid spread of this variant in the two continents compared to its transmission in Asia. "For the coronavirus to enter cells, its spike protein binds with the ACE2 receptor in human cells, and the human enzyme TMPRSS2 cleaves at the junction of two subunits S1 and S2 of the protein, enabling the virus to fuse with the cell," said study corresponding author Nidhan K Biswas from NIBMG. "But due to the D614G mutation in the spike protein, the virus gained an additional cleavage site which enables it to fuse better with cells," Biswas told PTI. In lineages of the coron- avirus carrying the D614G mutation, the 614th molecule of the virus spike protein -- aspartic acid -- denoted by D is replaced by the molecule glycine, noted as G. "Instead of one cleavage site, the mutated virus has two such sites, and it can take dual advantage of this and enter cells more easily," Biswas explained. SC to hear Amaravati land probe stay on Mar 5 PNS n NEW DELHI The Supreme Court Tuesday said it would hear on March 5 a plea filed by the Andhra Pradesh government challenging the HC order which stayed SIT probe into alleged irregularities in land deals in Amaravati Capital Region during the previous TDP regime of N Chandrababu Naidu. PNS n VIJAYAWADA State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar expressed his satisfaction on the completion of first phase elections to gram panchayats in the state peacefully on Tuesday. In all, 81.78 per cent of polling was recorded across the state. Krishna district record- ed the highest voting percent- age of 85.06. In a statement, the Commissioner expressed sat- isfaction over the huge turnout of voters who exercised their franchise with enthusiasm. Barring a few stray inci- dents, the election process was largely peaceful when com- pared to the previous elections. SEC appreciated the Collectors, Superintendents of Police, poll observers, district election officials and poll staff for making necessary arrange- ments and discharging duties with zeal and diligence. He congratulated the police person- nel for providing excelent secu- rity cover. SEC hoped that the same trend would continue in the subsequent phases as well. PNS n VIJAYAWADA Consul General of Japan in Chennai Masayuki Taga has called on Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy at the camp office here on Tuesday. During the interaction, the Chief Minister said that the state has taken the governance to the doorsteps of the public in a most transparent and effi- cient manner. Likewise, the government is also providing the best busi- ness opportunities for the investors and entrepreneurs in the State. The government is further inviting investments and business partnerships to provide employment opportu- nities to youngsters, said the CM. He added that the State secured first rank in the Ease of Doing Business which was jointly announced by DPIIT, Central Government and World Bank, and thus many leading companies were look- ing forward to start their busi- ness operations in the state. PNS n VIJAYAWADA Union Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur said that a total of 503 infrastructure projects in Andhra Pradesh have been included in the National Infrastructure Pipeline of the Government of India. National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) is a first-of-its- kind, whole-of-government exercise to develop world- class infrastructure across India and improve the qual- ity of life for all citizens. Replying to a star question by BJP leader GVL Narasimha Rao in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Thakur said the total cost of 503 pro- jects to be implemented over the next five years till 2020 is 8.17 lakh crore. No relaxation of age limit, Centre tells SC PNS n NEW DELHI The Centre Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it is against granting one-time relaxation on age limit to UPSC civil service aspirants, including those who had exhausted their last attempt in 2020 exam amid the Covid and would get one more chance this year provided they are not age barred, as it would be discriminatory to other candidates. The Centre told this to a bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar which reserved its verdict on a plea which had sought one more chance in the civil services exam to those aspirants who could not appear in their last attempt in 2020 due to the pandemic. 503 AP infra projects worth Rs 8.17 L cr in NIP 81.78% turnout in first phase panchayat polls State government’s bid to insulate GOs from legal battle Procedure will ensure policy decisions don’t suffer legal infirmities, says CS Vijayawada: Chief secretary, Adityanath Das on Tuesday said to ensure that the policies of the government do not suf- fer from legal infirmities, it is considered necessary that a procedure be in place so as to ensure that the policy deci- sions of government are in consonance with due process and the requirements of law. "The policy documents of the government arrived at after due consultations with- in government departments, be circulated to the Law Department for securing an opinion on the processes involved leading to the formu- lation of the policy framework and taken to Council of Ministers as per Business Rules. After securing the clear- ance within the government, in accordance with the Business Rules, the concerned line Department and the law Department shall finalise the draft GO/ Policy document and the draft legislations in consultation with the Office of the Advocate General in con- cluding the said process before issuing of such orders on pol- icy and draft legislation of the government," said the GO. AP offering best avenues for bizmen: CM tells Masayuki Total poll % of 1st Phase SI No. Name of the district % of poll 1 SRIKAKULAM 75.77 2 VIZIANAGARAM -- 3 VISAKHAPATNAM 82.86 4 EAST GODAVARI 82.80 5 WEST GODAVARI 80.29 6 KRISHNA 85.06 7 GUNTUR 83.04 8 PRAKASAM 80.92 9 SPS NELLORE 80.62 10 YSR KADAPA 78.00 11 KURNOOL 82.14 12 ANANTHAPUR 82.03 13 CHITTOOR 83.47 Total percentage of 12 districts 81.416 GOVT TO ISSUE OTT GUIDELINES SOON: MINISTER JAVADEKAR T he government will soon issue guidelines for regulation of OTT (over the top) platforms that will address issues such as sensitive content, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday. Replying to a Zero Hour mention, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said a lot of suggestions and complaints on the regulation of OTTs have been received. "Guidelines and direction are almost ready. It will be soon implemented," he said in his brief submission. Earlier, raising the issue through a Zero Hour mention, Mahesh Poddar of the BJP said the content and language on OTT platforms was discriminatory and offensive. FIRM WITH ALMOST NO REVENUE POSTS 3,000% GAIN IN 8 MONTHS, BEATS TESLA T here is nothing about the finances of Blink Charging Co. that would suggest it's one of the hottest stocks in America. It's never posted an annual profit in its 11-year history; it warned last year it could go bankrupt; it's losing market share, pulls in anemic revenue and has churned through management in recent years. And yet a hot stock it is. Investors have bid Blink's share price up 3,000% over the past eight months. Only seven stocks -- out of about 2,700 that are worth at least $1 billion -- have risen more over that time. The reason: Blink is a green- energy company, an owner and operator of charging stations that power up electric vehicles. PETROL, DIESEL PRICES TOUCH FRESH RECORD HIGHS ACROSS INDIA P etrol and diesel prices touched new highs across the metros on Tuesday February 9 after oil marketing companies increased the rates by 35 paise after a 3-day lull. The price of petrol was hiked by 35 paise from ` 86.95 per litre to ` 87.30 per litre, and diesel rate was increased by a similar amount from ` 77.13 to ` 77.48 per litre in Delhi, according to Indian Oil Corporation, the country's largest fuel retailer. Meanwhile, in Mumbai, the revised petrol and diesel rates stood at ` 93.83 and ` 84.36 per litre respectively, the highest among all four metros.Petrol and diesel prices have recorded an upswing since January 6, 2021 after staying unchanged for almost a month. NO INDICATION OF COVID VIRUS IN WUHAN BEFORE DEC 2019: WHO TEAM T he WHO mission to China to uncover the origins of the coronavirus has failed to identify the animal source, scientists said Tuesday. Experts believe the disease -- which has gone on to kill more than 2.3 million people worldwide -- originated in bats and could have been transmitted to humans via another mammal. While transmission from animals was the likely route, so far "the reservoir hosts remain to be identified", Liang Wannian, head of the China team, told reporters. He added that studies showed the virus "can be carried long-distance on cold chain products." 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 AFTER MULTIPLE SETBACKS... Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan and senior leader Nadendla Manohar met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and submittted a memorandum requesting not to privitise Vizag Steel Plant on Tuesday in New Delhi.
Transcript
@TheDailyPioneer facebook.com/dailypioneerFollow us on:
MONEY 8‘INDIA'S UNION BUDGET CREATES
BUZZ AMONG GLOBAL INVESTORS’
ANALYSIS 7IS THE DELIVERY OF JUSTICE
A MYTH OR REALITY?
SPORTS 11SWING IT LIKE
JIMMY
VIJAYAWADA, WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2021; PAGES 12 `3
}17TH CENTURY
CHARMINAR SETFOR PAWAN’S
NEXT
Page 12
www.dailypioneer.com
RNI No. APENG/2018/764698
*Late City Vol. 3 Issue 90*Air Surcharge Extra if Applicable
Established 1864Published From
VIJAYAWADA DELHI LUCKNOW BHOPAL RAIPUR CHANDIGARH
BHUBANESWAR RANCHIDEHRADUN HYDERABAD
{
VIJAYAWADAWEATHER
Current Weather ConditionsUpdated february 10 , 2021 5:00 PM
Jagan’s party distances itself from Sharmila's TS plungePNS n VIJAYAWADA
YS Sharmila's brother, YSJaganmohan Reddy's YSRCPhas distanced itself from herpolitical ambitions and plans inTelangana. Government advi-sor and Chief Minister Jagan'stop aide Sajjala RamakrishnaReddy on Tuesday had categor-ically said his party had noth-ing to do with Sharmila's polit-ical plans in the neighbouringstate. He added Jagan tried topersuade her not to float anyparty as it may jeopardiseinterests of the people ofAndhra. He also said that thebrother and sister didn't haveany personal differences orrivalry. Reddy however, saidthat YSRCP doesn't have anyplans to expand to the neigh-bouring states or any nationalambition.
"It is not necessary thatmembers of the same familyshall think alike; they can havecontrasting views on the issueof expansion of the party, butit is not true that there is awedge between the brotherand the sister and differencesin the family. There is a talk
that YS Sharmila has politicalambitions, which is doing itsrounds in social media. We didtry to convince her. YSSharmila is a leader in her ownright and is well known to thepeople as sister of YSJaganmohan Reddy and shecomes from the political fam-ily of Dr YS Rajasekhar Reddy,who has a mass following,"Ramakrishna Reddy toldreporters.
Answering to questions, theparty General Secretary saidthat YSRCP had no intention
of expanding to other statesand Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy had cate-gorically stated that the partywould confine itself to AndhraPradesh and would maintaincordial relations with theneighbours.
"The decision of meetingleaders of Telangana is that ofYS Sharmila alone and wehave no intentions of backseatdriving or such exercise as isbeing propagated.
SNV SUDHIRn VIJAYAWADA
On Tuesday, the state govern-ment had issued orders layingout a procedure to be adoptedby all the government depart-ments while issuing GOs andkey policy documents.
As per that procedure everypolicy document/GO of allthe departments has to bereviewed by the office of theAdvocate General to check if itstands legal scrutiny. Otherguidelines were also issueddetailing the procedure that hasto be followed from now on.
After many setbacks andbacklashes from the courts, theJaganmohan Reddy govern-ment finally appears to havewoken up from the deep slum-ber. Majority of the state gov-ernment's policy decisions hadcome under legal scrutiny thathad unleashed a bitter rivalrybetween the judiciary and theJagan government.
The rivalry had peaked to sucha level that Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy had writtento the Chief Justice of India,accusing the then AP HighCourt Chief Justice J K
Maheswari and a few otherjudges, a senior-most judge inSupreme Court, Justice NVRamana, of political bias and try-ing to destabilise his government.
Now, after so many monthsof coming to power, chiefminister appears to have takena plunge to make some coursecorrection at the fundamentallevel and avoid any further
embarrassment. Many of the flagship and
prestigious governmentschemes like the introductionof English medium in govern-ment schools, distribution ofhouse site pattas to the poorwere either inordinatelydelayed or never seen the lightof the day.
Vijayawada: Expressingconfidence that good gov-ernance of YS JaganmohanReddy will reflect in theongoing elections, YSRCPhas said that the party hadproposed to turn the StateSEC into a multi-memberbody on the lines ofCentral Election Commiss-ion which would keep acheck on misuse of powerby any single individual.
Government AdvisorSajjala Ramakrishna Reddysaid, despite the cheap pol-itics of TDP Chief NChandrababu Naidu, thewelfare schemes of Jaganwould speak for themselv-esin the Gram Panchayat polls,which were being held in aparty-neutral process.
SEC should bemulti-memberbody, saysJagan's top aide
Sajjala Ramakrishna
‘Protein behind slow spread of Covid in Asia’PNS n NEW DELHI
Deficiency of a lung-protectingprotein in the Caucasian pop-ulation may have made Europeand North America more sus-ceptible to the spread of a coro-navirus variant as compared toAsia, suggests a study by Indianscientists which also revealshow mutant forms of the virusmay find new ways to infectpeople.
The study, published in thejournal Infection, Genetics andEvolution, assessed the globalspread of the coronavirus vari-ant with the D614G mutation,which is the predominant lin-eage infecting North Americaand European populations.
This variant spread so rapid-ly that in just 10 weeks betweenFebruary and March 2020 over64.11 per cent of globallyinfected individuals were iden-tified to carry the mutant virusstarting from only 1.95 per cent
in January. However, theresearchers, including thosefrom the National Institute ofBiomedical Genomics(NIBMG) in Kalyani, WestBengal, said this subtype tooka significantly longer time toreach a 50 per cent relative fre-quency in East Asia -- 5.5months -- compared to the2.15 months it took in Europe,and the 2.83 months it took in
North-America. According tothe scientists, a deficiency ofthe protein Alpha-anti-trypsin(AAT) across the populationsof Europe and North-Americais one of the main factors thatexplain the rapid spread of thisvariant in the two continentscompared to its transmission inAsia. "For the coronavirus toenter cells, its spike proteinbinds with the ACE2 receptor
in human cells, and the humanenzyme TMPRSS2 cleaves atthe junction of two subunits S1and S2 of the protein, enablingthe virus to fuse with the cell,"said study correspondingauthor Nidhan K Biswas fromNIBMG.
"But due to the D614Gmutation in the spike protein,the virus gained an additionalcleavage site which enables it tofuse better with cells," Biswastold PTI.
In lineages of the coron-avirus carrying the D614Gmutation, the 614th moleculeof the virus spike protein --aspartic acid -- denoted by Dis replaced by the moleculeglycine, noted as G.
"Instead of one cleavage site,the mutated virus has twosuch sites, and it can take dualadvantage of this and entercells more easily," Biswasexplained.
SC to hear Amaravatiland probe stay on Mar 5 PNS n NEW DELHI
The Supreme Court Tuesday said it wouldhear on March 5 a plea filed by the AndhraPradesh government challenging the HC
order which stayed SIT probe into allegedirregularities in land deals in AmaravatiCapital Region during the previous TDPregime of N Chandrababu Naidu.
PNS n VIJAYAWADA
State Election CommissionerNimmagadda Ramesh Kumarexpressed his satisfaction onthe completion of first phaseelections to gram panchayatsin the state peacefully onTuesday.
In all, 81.78 per cent ofpolling was recorded across thestate. Krishna district record-ed the highest voting percent-age of 85.06. In a statement, theCommissioner expressed sat-isfaction over the huge turnoutof voters who exercised theirfranchise with enthusiasm.
Barring a few stray inci-dents, the election process waslargely peaceful when com-pared to the previous elections.
SEC appreciated theCollectors, Superintendents of
Police, poll observers, districtelection officials and poll stafffor making necessary arrange-ments and discharging dutieswith zeal and diligence. He
congratulated the police person-nel for providing excelent secu-rity cover. SEC hoped that thesame trend would continue inthe subsequent phases as well.
PNS n VIJAYAWADA
Consul General of Japan inChennai Masayuki Taga hascalled on Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy at thecamp office here on Tuesday.
During the interaction, theChief Minister said that thestate has taken the governanceto the doorsteps of the publicin a most transparent and effi-cient manner.
Likewise, the government isalso providing the best busi-ness opportunities for theinvestors and entrepreneursin the State. The governmentis further inviting investmentsand business partnerships toprovide employment opportu-nities to youngsters, said theCM. He added that the Statesecured first rank in the Easeof Doing Business which was
jointly announced by DPIIT,Central Government andWorld Bank, and thus manyleading companies were look-
ing forward to start their busi-ness operations in the state.
PNS n VIJAYAWADA
Union Minister of State forFinance Anurag Thakur saidthat a total of 503 infrastructureprojects in Andhra Pradeshhave been included in theNational Infrastructure Pipelineof the Government of India.
National InfrastructurePipeline (NIP) is a first-of-its-kind, whole-of-governmentexercise to develop world-class infrastructure acrossIndia and improve the qual-ity of life for all citizens.
Replying to a star questionby BJP leader GVLNarasimha Rao in RajyaSabha on Tuesday, Thakursaid the total cost of 503 pro-jects to be implemented overthe next five years till 2020 is8.17 lakh crore.
No relaxationof age limit,Centre tells SCPNS n NEW DELHI
The Centre Tuesday told theSupreme Court that it isagainst granting one-timerelaxation on age limit toUPSC civil service aspirants,including those who hadexhausted their last attemptin 2020 exam amid the Covidand would get one morechance this year providedthey are not age barred, as itwould be discriminatory toother candidates.
The Centre told this to abench headed by Justice A MKhanwilkar which reservedits verdict on a plea whichhad sought one more chancein the civil services exam tothose aspirants who couldnot appear in their lastattempt in 2020 due to thepandemic.
503 AP infraprojects worth Rs 8.17 L cr in NIP
81.78% turnout in firstphase panchayat polls
State government’s bid to insulate GOs from legal battle
Procedure will ensure policy decisionsdon’t suffer legal infirmities, says CSVijayawada: Chief secretary,Adityanath Das on Tuesdaysaid to ensure that the policiesof the government do not suf-fer from legal infirmities, it isconsidered necessary that aprocedure be in place so as toensure that the policy deci-sions of government are inconsonance with due processand the requirements of law.
"The policy documents ofthe government arrived atafter due consultations with-in government departments,be circulated to the LawDepartment for securing anopinion on the processesinvolved leading to the formu-
lation of the policy frameworkand taken to Council ofMinisters as per BusinessRules. After securing the clear-ance within the government,in accordance with theBusiness Rules, the concernedline Department and the lawDepartment shall finalise thedraft GO/ Policy documentand the draft legislations inconsultation with the Office ofthe Advocate General in con-cluding the said process beforeissuing of such orders on pol-icy and draft legislation of thegovernment," said the GO.
AP offering best avenues forbizmen: CM tells Masayuki
GOVT TO ISSUE OTT GUIDELINESSOON: MINISTER JAVADEKAR
The government will soon issue guidelinesfor regulation of OTT (over the top)platforms that will address issues such as
sensitive content, the Rajya Sabha was informedon Tuesday. Replying to a Zero Hour mention,Information and Broadcasting Minister PrakashJavadekar said a lot of suggestions andcomplaints on the regulation of OTTs have beenreceived. "Guidelines and direction are almostready. It will be soon implemented," he said inhis brief submission. Earlier, raising the issuethrough a Zero Hour mention, Mahesh Poddarof the BJP said the content and language onOTT platforms was discriminatory and offensive.
FIRM WITH ALMOST NO REVENUE POSTS3,000% GAIN IN 8 MONTHS, BEATS TESLA
There is nothing about the finances of BlinkCharging Co. that would suggest it's one ofthe hottest stocks in America. It's never
posted an annual profit in its 11-year history; itwarned last year it could go bankrupt; it's losingmarket share, pulls in anemic revenue and haschurned through management in recent years.And yet a hot stock it is. Investors have bidBlink's share price up 3,000% over the past eightmonths. Only seven stocks -- out of about 2,700that are worth at least $1 billion -- have risenmore over that time. The reason: Blink is a green-energy company, an owner and operator ofcharging stations that power up electric vehicles.
PETROL, DIESEL PRICES TOUCHFRESH RECORD HIGHS ACROSS INDIA
Petrol and diesel prices touched new highsacross the metros on Tuesday February 9after oil marketing companies increased the
rates by 35 paise after a 3-day lull. The price ofpetrol was hiked by 35 paise from ` 86.95 per litreto ` 87.30 per litre, and diesel rate was increasedby a similar amount from ` 77.13 to ` 77.48 perlitre in Delhi, according to Indian Oil Corporation,the country's largest fuel retailer. Meanwhile, inMumbai, the revised petrol and diesel rates stoodat ` 93.83 and ` 84.36 per litre respectively, thehighest among all four metros.Petrol and dieselprices have recorded an upswing since January 6,2021 after staying unchanged for almost a month.
NO INDICATION OF COVID VIRUS INWUHAN BEFORE DEC 2019: WHO TEAM
The WHO mission to China to uncoverthe origins of the coronavirus has failedto identify the animal source, scientists
said Tuesday. Experts believe the disease --which has gone on to kill more than 2.3million people worldwide -- originated inbats and could have been transmitted tohumans via another mammal. Whiletransmission from animals was the likelyroute, so far "the reservoir hosts remain tobe identified", Liang Wannian, head of theChina team, told reporters. He added thatstudies showed the virus "can be carriedlong-distance on cold chain products."
22
2 2
2 2
2
2
AFTER MULTIPLE SETBACKS...
Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan and senior leader Nadendla Manohar met UnionHome Minister Amit Shah and submittted a memorandum requesting not toprivitise Vizag Steel Plant on Tuesday in New Delhi.
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vijayawada 02VIJAYAWADA| WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 10, 2021
EGG
RATES
` 48, 710 (10 gm)
` 640
GOLD
` 75, 200 (1kg)
` 2100
VIJAYAWADA 413
HYDERABAD 395
VISAKHAPATNAM 410
RREETTAAIILL PPRRIICCEE `̀44..1133
SILVER
VIJAYAWADA
BULLION RATES
`̀//110000
CHICKEN
RATES
Dressed/With Skin `148
Without Skin `168
Broiler at Farm `102
`̀//KKGG
(IN VISAKHAPATNAM)
AP offering best avenues for...Continued from Page 1
So far, Adani Enterprises hascome forward to set up a 200MW data centre park, a skilluniversity and an IT park,which will provide employ-ment to about 25,000 people.Also, an establishment offootwear industries in theIntelligent SEZ is underprocess and is estimated toprovide employment for about12,000 people. The ChiefMinister stated that the gov-ernment has identified the ITand electronics industry asone of the fastest-growing sec-tors, where the smartphoneand spare parts manufacturingsectors are expected to reach800 million in the country inthe next two to three years. Inthis context, the governmenthas focused on investing in this
sector and thus brought specialpolicies for IT and Electronics.
As part of this, the state gov-ernment has decided to set upan integrated technology park,high-end IT skills university,incubation centres, centres ofexcellence, labs, co-workingspaces, iconic IT towers, andstate data center.
He said that AndhraPradesh will become a hub forinvestment by providingworld-class infrastructure withskilled technicians. Further,the Chief Minister said thestate government was planningto develop IT concept citieswith all resources in 1,000 to2,000 acres. He said the gov-ernment is also formulatingpolicies to provide digitallibraries, high-speed internet atthe village level, make video-conferencing accessible to over
15,000 village panchayats, setup over 90,000 workstations,and bring government ser-vices closer to people in remoteareas. He said the governmentwas encouraging manufactur-ers in the Electronic sector bysetting up a world-class elec-tronic manufacturing cluster atKopparthi in YSR Kadapa dis-trict. The government is mak-ing arrangements to provideland, electricity, water, roads,railway connectivity, air cargofor the establishment of indus-tries in this cluster.
He further added that thestate government is planningto set up a high-end IT SkillUniversity in Visakhapatnamto prepare skilled IT and elec-tronics technicians.
The government will also setup 30 Skill DevelopmentCentres across the state.
‘Protein behind slow spread of Covid in Asia’Continued from Page 1
Based on the current study, hesaid this site in the virus iscleaved by the host proteinneutrophil elastase which isnormally involved in clearingup bacterial infections in thelungs.
The levels of the elastasemolecules in the body are nat-urally kept in check by AATwhose main function is toprotect the lungs from inflam-mation and tissue damage, thestudy noted.
"The issue is that if we havehigh neutrophil elastase then italso creates more damage tothe lung cells. So there is a bal-ance mechanism via the AAT
enzyme that already exists bynature in everyone's lungs,"Biswas explained.
According to the study, AATdeficiency is highly prevalent inEuropean and North-Americanpopulations, but much less in EastAsia.
Specifically, Biswas said AATdeficiency in the general popu-lation is very high in Italy andSpain.
He explained that the lack ofthis protein makes it much eas-ier for the neutrophil elastasemolecule to act on the virus spikesubunits, resulting in a signifi-cantly faster spread of this mutant.
"The issue is that individualswith AAT deficiencies have highneutrophil levels and if they are
infected with the SARS-CoV-2virus with the D614G mutation,their cells can quickly take thevirus up and into the whole sys-tem," the NIGMB scientistexplained.
The researchers believe thisfinding, along with other socialfactors may explain the differen-tial geographical/ethnic spread of614G.
While the findings offer cluesabout the transmission of thevirus variant, Biswas cautionedagainst any interpretations ofthe study on disease severity andmortality caused by the strain.
He said the research also pro-vides some clues on the spread ofother variants of the coronavirussuch as the ones first reported in
the UK and South Africa whichare "built on the backbone of theD614G mutation."
"The UK and South Africanvariants also have this mutationbackbone so they may have asimilar transmissibility pattern,and probably they may haveadditional capabilities that scien-tists need to find out," Biswasadded.
However, he said furtherexperimental studies on lab-cul-tured cells are needed to validatethese conclusions.
The scientists believe the find-ings open up the possibility forconsiderations of AAT supple-ments in the prevention of infec-tion with the D614G subtypeSARS-CoV-2 virus.
Good turnout in panchayat pollsC PRADEEP KUMAR
n VIJAYAWADA
The first phase gram panchay-at polls were held peacefullywithout any majour incidentsin 12 districts on Tuesday.Total voting percentage of 81.67was recorded across the statewith rural voters showing inter-est in excising their franchise.
Reports suggest that the rul-ing YSRCP is likely to winmore than 90 per cent of thesarpanch and ward memberposts.
People working in urbanareas and other cities returnedto their villages to take part inthe elections and elect theirdesired sarpanchs and wardmembers.
Krishna district registeredthe highest voting percentageof 85.06 per cent, while the
lowest voting percentage of75.77 per cent was recorded inSrikakulam district.
The polling started at 6.30am in 2,723 panchayats and20,157 ward members in 12districts of AP.
In majority villages, the vot-ers were seen coming to pollingbooths from 7 am. The voterturnout increased after 8.30 amand the trend continued till3.30 pm with the completion ofpolling time.
The elders took the help offamily members and relativesto reach the polling booths andpolice were seen taking aproactive role and helped theelderly people in exercisingtheir franchise at a few places.
The ruling YSRCP and themain opposition TeluguDesam Party took non-politi-cal gram panchayat elections as
a prestigious issue and fieldedtheir supporters.
According to the sources,the candidates with the supportof their political parties luredsmall, middle and big familiesby offering packages.
It is learnt that aspirantsoffered money, sarees andexciting offers to middle andbig families with six to 20 votesin a house.
The migrants were offeredtravel charges and other pack-ages to ensure they return totheir native places to cast theirvote. Despite strict measures, afew stray incidents were report-ed in the state during elections.The police were deployed tocrack any untoward incidentsand to curb distribution ofliquor and money to attract thevoters.
While conducting checks in
Avanigadda, the police foundtwo people carrying Rs 15.66lakh cash on a motor bike atKothapalam main road.Avanigadda CI BB Ravi Kumarquestioned the two personsabout the money and as theycould not provide any proof,the money was handed over tothe election returning officer inAvinagadda.
In another incident a boothagent died in Kakumani man-dal of Prathipadu constituen-cy in Guntur district onTuesday. The deceased wasidentified as Noor Basha Vali,44, booth agent and support-er of YSRCP sarpanch candi-date K Subhashini.
He complained of chest andlocals immediately shifted himto Ponnuru for treatment.However, he breathed his laston the way to hospital.
Vijayasai apologises to ChairPNS n VIJAYAWADA
YSRCP senior leader andRajya Sabha member, VVijayasai Reddy on Tuesdayoffered regrets to the RajyaSabha Chairman and VicePresident, M Venkaiah Naidu.Reddy on Monday made someremarks against VenkaiahNaidu attributing partial atti-tude to the chair. Irked withReddy's remarks, VenkaiahNaidu had expressed displea-sure and said the remarkswould be expunged. Naidualso said that he had beenimpartial, non-partisan eversince he assumed the chair.Reddy also said he would notrepeat such utterances again.
Soon after the laying of thepapers in Rajya Sabha onTuesday morning,Parliamentary Affairs MinisterPralhad Joshi said that what-ever happened on Monday in
the House was not acceptable.The minister said that he hadconveyed the same to VijaysaiReddy and asked him to apol-ogise. To which VenkaiahNaidu said one can't request onsuch issues.
"I never intended to bringdisrepute or make the chairdysfunctional. I'm none tomake the Chairman of RajyaSabha dysfunctional.Yesterday's episode took placebecause I was in a state ofanger and therefore I wish totake back my words. I sincere-ly regret for the commentsmade by me yesterday. Theywere unintended and made ina spur of anguish. I hadbecome emotional. I assureyou sir that I had no intentionto hurt the chair or cast asper-sions on the chair. I thereforeregret once again. I will assureyou sir it will not happen onceagain," said Vijaysai Reddy.
"This chapter is closed here,"Venkaiah Naidu later said.
Pandemonium prevailed forsometime on Monday in RajyaSabha as Vijaysai Reddy hadquestioned the 'impartiality' ofM Venkaiah Naidu.
While Reddy raised thepoint of order seeking actionagainst TDP memberKanakamedala Ravindra Babufor his speech on February 4,Venkaiah Naidu turned itdown saying he would consid-er it if given in writing.
At that point of time Reddyquestioned Naidu's impartial-ity and stated he had been sup-porting TDP indirectly whilehe was associated with BJP.
Objecting to Reddy'sremarks Congress member,Jairam Ramesh had demand-ed action against the YSRCPmember. A few more membersjoined Ramesh and also rushedinto the well of the House.
AP can help Japanese firms to ventureinto South Asian markets: Minister PNS n VIJAYAWADA
Industries minister MekapatiGoutham Reddy invited theJapan companies to invest inAndhra Pradesh.
Addressing at a round tablemeeting with senior officialsorganised on the occasion ofConsul General of Japan inChennai, Masayuki Taga's visitto Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday,the industries minister said thatAP can serve as a conduit forJapanese companies to venturein to South Asian marketsbecause of its long coastline,infrastructure and logisticsadvantage. Masayuki Taga,
who is on a two-day visit to theAndhra Pradesh, met ChiefMinister YS JaganmohanReddy and discussed about theavenues for collaboration totake the relations between APand Japan to the next level.
The round table meetingwas organised to appriseMayasuki Taga about the poten-tial avenues for collaboration inthe state like opportunities ininfrastructure financing, part-nership with Japan for skilldevelopment and others.
Gowtham Reddy said thatgovernment led byJaganmohan Reddy was keenon attracting long term
investors into the state and thatJapan was an important coun-try for the industrial partner-ships. "With its long coastline,infrastructure and logisticsadvantage, AP can be a conduitfor Japanese companies to ven-ture into South Asian markets,"he said.
Explaining about theplanned concept cities inAnantapur, Tirupati, andVisakahapatnam, the Ministerinvited Japanese companies topartner with the state for theirdevelopment.
The concept cities develop-ment integrates residential,manufacturing, services,
leisure and social infrastructureto form a self-sustaining eco-system.
The presentation deliveredby APEDB CEO JVNSubramanyam focussed on thesteps taken to reduce cost ofdoing business and risk ofdoing business and the poten-tial for Japanese investors in thekey sectors such as electronics,automobiles, pharma and tex-tiles and food processing.
He had also apprised aboutthe infrastructure push of thegovernment through devel-opment of industrial corridors,ports, fishing harbours andairports.
Jagan’s partydistances itself from Sharmila's...Continued from Page 1
"Yes, there was a discussion inthe party, on the expansionissue three months ago andYS Jaganmohan Reddy hadsaid that he would not leavethe state, in the larger inter-ests of the people. There aremany issues between the twostates which need to beresolved on the government-to- government basis and thiswill not be possible if weexpand the party to the neigh-bouring state," he said.
Reddy further said thatthere was no need for us torun the party from behind thescenes and our leader hadmade it very clear that theparty would stick to AndhraPradesh and maintain goodrelations with Telangana inthe better interests of thestate.
"Though the party has wona landslide victory in 2019
elections, our leader has con-fined it only to the state with-out showing any nationalaspirations. In 2014 as wellour party won six percentvote share in Telangana butour leader is firm on confin-ing the party to AndhraPradesh. YS Sharmila mighthave thought differently andshe wanted to explore thepolitical options in Telangana,going by what she said today.
Our party has emergedout of very different and dif-ficult situations, especiallyafter the sudden death of DrYS Rajasekhar Reddy, with agroundswell of peopleextending support to thenewly formed party with oneMP and one MLA and laterYS Sharmila undertakingpadayatra in Telangana andwith people's support allthrough we have come to theposition we are now in," hesaid.
SC to hear Amaravati land probe...Continued from Page 1
The apex court said it wouldalso hear on March 5 the sep-arate petition filed by the stategovernment against anotherhigh court order in a matterwhich relates to alleged illegalland transactions during shift-ing of the state capital toAmaravati.
These petitions came up forhearing before a bench com-
prising Justices AshokBhushan and R S Reddy.
The Andhra Pradesh HighCourt on September 16 lastyear had granted a stay on theactions of the SIT constitutedby CM Y S Jagan MohanReddy-led government to con-duct a comprehensive probeinto various irregularities, par-ticularly the land deals in theAmaravati Capital Region.
The top court had onNovember 5 agreed to hear thestate's plea challenging thehigh court order and hadsought responses includingfrom two Telugu Desam Party(TDP) leaders -- VarlaRamaiah and Alapati RajendraPrasad, a former minister -- onwhose petitions the high courthad stayed the probe initiatedby the SIT.
SEC should bemulti-memberbody, says Jagan'stop aide Continued from Page 1
"Though the TDP is trying togive a distorted picture todivert attention from thereality nothing of that sorthas happened and the firstphase election has been heldpeacefully, like never before.With the overtures of SECclearly leaning towardsOpposition, the state has senta proposal to adopt a multi-member SEC, as it was doneearlier in CEC, so that deci-sions can be taken by amajority vote.
Discussions are takingplace at a national level inregard to establishing a multi-member commission in thestate," he said.
Continued from Page 1
There were many instanceswhere the High Court hadsummoned senior govern-ment officials like the ChiefSecretary for appearance.
"It is noticed that the poli-cies of the government couldbe a subject matter of litiga-tion whereupon the govern-ment would be called upon tojustify the decisions includingthe processes underlying thesaid decisions, in a court oflaw. Government is of theview that a formal structure beput in place to ensure that duediligence is undertaken on allparameters of various policydecisions of the government,more particularly with regardto the legal framework insupport of the said initiativesof the government," said ChiefSecretary, Adityanath Das inthe government order issuedon Tuesday.
After multiplesetbacks, APgovt. takesstep to legallyfoolproof GOs
Procedure will...Continued from Page 1
"The decision-makingprocess involves extensiveconsultations within the var-ious departments of the gov-ernment including examin-ing the legality of theprocesses involved as well assmooth and unhinderedimplementation of the poli-cy," said a senior official ofthe government.
503 AP infraprojects worth Rs 8.17 L cr in NIP Continued from Page 1
Infrastructure sectorsincluded cover the fields oftransport and logistics, ener-gy, social and communityinfrastructure (includingwater & sanitation) and com-munications.
Out of these 503 infra-structure projects, 362 pro-jects with a total outlay of Rs6,78,709 crore for FY 2020-2025 will be taken inEngineering, Procurement,and Construction (EPC)mode by the CentralMinistries/ State of AndhraPradesh, whereas 111 projectswill be taken up in PublicPrivate Partnership (PPP)mode with a total outlay ofRs. 96,338 crore for FY 2020-2025.
Regional parties, notwith-standing their influ-ence at the state level
and beyond, can sustainthemselves only by con-sciously being on friendlyterms with the ruling dis-pensation at the Centre. Nowonder, the Chief Ministers ofAndhra Pradesh and Telangana,YS Jaganmohan Reddy and KChandrasekhar Rao respectively,are following this unwrittennational code in their respectivestates. Both are trying to be onthe same page with the NarendraModi government at the Centre,which has become very power-ful by building on BJP’s brutemajority in the Lok Sabha.
The Bharatiya Janata Party,which is heading the NDA gov-ernment at the Centre, has beenboasting that its huge majoritycomes three and a half decadesafter Rajiv Gandhi bagged 400-plus seats in the Lok Sabha.Rajiv’s score may have been dueto the sympathy wave in favour
of the Congress partyin the aftermath of hismother Indira Gandhi'sassassination just twomonths before the
advanced GeneralElection. It is now clear for
non-BJP parties that clashingwith the Union government
would be futile since PrimeMinister Narendra Modi hasbecome the 'Bahubali ' of Indianpolitics.
In TS, despite brushing asiderumours of possible anointmentof IT Minister K T Rama Rao asthe new boss of state's adminis-tration, Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao might belooking for an opportunemoment for the eventual corona-tion. Since his government is fac-ing the heat from various sectionsof society, KTR may have decid-ed to continue in the present postfor some more time. Congressand BJP are struggling to estab-lish their presence in TS byexposing the omissions and com-
missions of the TRS govern-ment.
Further, the political situationin the country presents a scenariowhether there is room for apolitical force involving non-Congress and non-BJP parties.The presence of such a third forcemight weaken anti-BJP com-bine. Hence, other political par-ties are keeping themselves awayfrom attempts to form a ThirdFront of the kind envisaged byKCR, who too has occasionallyflexed his muscles in this regard.So, KCR appears to have shelved
his idea of bringing like-mindedregional parties on one politicalplatform. His idea is to replicatewhat his political guru and TDPfounder NT Rama Rao did in thelate eighties that saw the unfold-ing of the National Front. But thepresent political atmosphere inthe country is not conducive forhim. The present situation hascompelled him to redraw hispolitical plans, including the oneto make KTR his successor.
The BJP TS unit, with the sup-port of its national leadership, hasbeen expanding its base in
Telangana with the target ofassuming power in the 2023General Election. KCR has to runthe show on the strength of hisown image and return to power.But BJP national leadership's'NOC' might strengthen KTR'sfuture role in state's politics. So,a give and take policy may workfor TRS and BJP in the future. BJPwill be completing 10 years of its
rule; so, anti incumbency factorcould be there. In such circum-stances, BJP might not get a hugemajority in the Lok Sabha andsuch a situation would force BJPto go with an 'inclusive policy 'that would bring more parties likeTRS and YSRCP into the fold ofNational Democratic Alliance(NDA). Well-settled regionalparties like TRS and YSRCP willactually be looking for such apolitical situation that gives themleeway to 'effectively deal' with theUnion government. So, TRS andYSRCP are trying to impress theModi government by supportingthe farm laws, against whichthousands of farmers have beenagitating for over three months.
In Andhra Pradesh, ChiefMinister YS Jaganmohan Reddyhas shown a soft corner for theUnion government led by Modi.Jagan is currently out on bail,though he is facing several casesfiled against him by CBI & ED.The situation will be unimagin-able if his bail gets cancelled by
the CBI court. Therefore, Jaganis monitoring developments inTamil Nadu, where the Modigovernment is trying to gain anupper hand in governmentaffairs, particularly after thedemise of J. Jayalalithaa. TheJagan government is also runningfor cover in the backdrop of themove to pivatise Vizag SteelPlant, which was achieved follow-ing an agitation and after thesupreme sacrifice of 32 personsalmost five decades ago. Jaganpreferred to write a letter toPrime Minister Modi requestinghim to drop the privatisationmove. Everybody can guess thefate of the letter! The YSRCP gov-ernment is red-faced because ofthe Modi government’s firmdecision on Vizag Steel Plant.People are asking about thou-sands of acres of land that wasgiven by farmers then.
Those lands, worth more thanone lakh crore rupees, will go intothe hands of private firms. Theentire issue becomes even more
complicated if one considers thefact that Vizag is going to becomethe executive capital of AP underthe three-capital formula ofJaganmohan Reddy.
YSRCP is seriously thinking ofkeeping its principal politicalrival -- TDP -- away from the BJPgovernment at Centre. TDPsupremo Chandrababu Naiduhas conceded that it was not righton his part to leave the NDA afterthe last elections.
Since then he has maintainedsilence, while keeping himselfaway from anti- Modi rant at thenational level. He appears to bedesperate to forge an allianceagain with Modi for the next elec-tions as TDP thinks that it can-not take on YSRCP by goingalone in the state. Noticeably, APand TS Chief Ministers did notvisit farmers agitating at Delhiborders. They want to strike adeal with BJP, saying apna timeayega! In local parlance, it is called‘Delhi mein dosti, aur galli meinkusti!
M D RATNA KUMAR
Senior Journalist
In TS, despite brushing aside rumours
of possible anointment of IT Minister
KT Rama Rao as the new boss of
state's administration, Chief Minister
K. Chandrasekhar Rao might be
looking for an opportune moment for
the eventual coronation.
PIN
POINT
Telugu CMs want to be in good books of Modi!
vijayawada 03VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 10, 2021
PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM
After examining the footagesof over 200 CCTVs installed inthe locality, the robbery at agold workshop at Kurupammarket on February 2 wassolved by the Vizag city police.
The police arrested threepersons, including a gold-smith, and recovered thestolen gold items from theirpossession.
The arrested have beenidentified as Pheer ZaelhaSayyed Navazis Hussain,28,Chalapaka Lakshman, 30, andSariki Sagar, 30, all residents ofTown I area in Vizag city.
The trio entered the goldworkshop of K VenkataSatyanarayana, a goldsmith,
cutting the door lock with ahacksaw and made away with552 gm of gold ornament, saidDCP (Crimes) V Suresh Babu.
The police formed two spe-cial teams to crack the case and
examined the footages of morethan 200 CCTVs installed inthe locality.
The police finally nabbedthe accused and recovered thestolen gold jewellery.
The investigation hasrevealed that the trio has beeninvolved in two more cases.The cops recovered 18 gm ofgold jewellery and two tigernails from the duo.
PNS n VIJAYAWADA
Chief Minister YS JaganmohanReddy on Tuesday instructedthe officials to strictly followthe laws brought for the ben-efit of farmers in the state andensure that they are not cheat-ed. Addressing a review meet-ing held at camp office here,the Chief Minister directedthe officials to take steps tosupport farmers and ensurethey are not cheated. He alsoasked them to consider theplans to set up special policestations for farmers.
The CM said that the policedepartment should coordinatewith agricultural departmentin this regard.
Stating that awarenessshould be created among thetenant farmers underPolambadi programme onCultivator Rights Acts, hedirected the officials to installposters with the information atRythu Bharosa Kendras.
The Chief Minister said thathoardings should be placed atRBKs, village clinics andVillage Secretariats with detailsof services being providedunder them so that awarenesswill be created among peopleon it. He asked the officials totake steps for setting up ainsurance company on behalfof the government for cropinsurance and a special officershould be appointed for it.
Asking the officials to takesteps for the payment of insur-ance amount for Kharif 2020-2, he directed them to releasethe first tranche of RytuBharosa Scheme in May.
The CM said that specialfocus should be laid on organ-ic farming and that the cropsshould be purchased underRBKs. He added that regularmonitoring should be done onthe same.
Millers should come direct-ly to RBKs to buy the crop andthe message should be strong-ly conveyed, he said.
He also reviewed the APAmul Project, setting up ofaqua hubs, fund pooling andsetting up of multipurposefacility centres.
Reviewing the JanathaBazaars, the Chief Ministersaid that proposals were madeto set up Janatha Bazaars in anarea of 500 sq ft to 5,000 sq ft.
Janatha Bazaars would beconstructed for a population of5,000 in first phase and build-ings should be constructed forthem, he added.
The Chief Minister said thatquality items should be avail-able in Janata Bazaars at lowerprices. He said farmers shouldget minimum support price fortheir items and the sameshould be made available toconsumers at lower prices ben-efitting both farmers and con-sumers.
‘Follow norms to ensurefarmers are not cheated’
PNS n VIJAYAWADA
The three-day annualGunadala Mary Matha festivalbegan on a grand note on thepremises of Bishop Grassi HighSchool on the foot of theGunadala hill shrine here onTuesday.
The celebrations began withVijayawada Diocese Bishop TJoseph Raja Rao led the concel-ebrated holy mass andMonsignor M Prasad, Fr MGabriel, Fr Y William Jayaraju,
Fr P Thomas, Fr M Balaswamy,Fr V Vijaya Jojibabu and oth-ers took part and offeredprayers.
Speaking on the occasion, FrVijaya Jojibabu said that in2018, the present Vatican cityPope Francis announced thatMother Mary feast shall be cel-ebrated on a grand note everyyear on February 11.
He said that the holy ladywill shower blessing on peoplewho are in difficult times. Hesaid that many devotees had a
doubt that due to Covid, thethree-day feast would be can-celled.
However, with the blessingsof the holy lady, there were nohurdles to the celebrations.
Bishop Raja Rao said thatGunadala Mary Matha was ashrine of wonders and laudedthe services of Fr M Balaswamyand Fr V Vijaya Jojibabu whoare celebrating their Goldenand Silver jubilees.
The festival is being celebrat-ed as per the instruction of the
government following Covidguidelines.
Meanwhile, devotees fromvarious places visited the shrineat the foot of the Gunadala hill.They scaled the hill to offerprayers to Mother Mary calledas 'Statue of Our Lady' and seekher blessings. Mother Mary'sstatue was installed in a grot-to on the hill shrine in 1925.
Some of the devotees alsotrekked to the top of the hilland offered prayers at the hugecross of Jesus Christ.
Mary Matha fete begins on a grand note
PNS n VIJAYAWADA
A team of APSRTC led by vice-chairman and managing direc-tor RP Thakur is on a three-day visit to Ahmedabad andVadodara to study the bestpractices and PPP modelemployed by the GSRTC(Gujarat State Road TransportCorporation) for developingbus terminals of internationalstandards.
The team interacted withGSRTC vice-chairman andmanaging director SJ Haiderand other senior officials.
Chief Engineer Srinivas,Andhra Pradesh UrbanInfrastructure AssetManagement Ltd. CEO
The team, on Tuesday, vis-ited BRTS Command andControl Station and bus depotof electric buses operating onBRTS Corridor in Ahmedabadon PPP model.
The team studied in detailthe operation of electric busesand infrastructure needs.
Private operator had provid-ed the buses and developedelectric infrastructure as well.The electric buses helped thecity in sustainable developmentby reducing pollution and giv-ing better riding quality to citypassengers.
The GSRTC team, onMonday, had given a detailedpresentation on operationsand best practices adopted byGSRTC and development ofseven bus terminal as busports covering Ranip andGeeta Mandir in Ahmedabad,CBS and MakarpuraVadodara, Surat, Mehsana andRakjot.
Team also visited Ranip andGeeta Mandir bus ports inAhmedabad to study variousfacilities developed by PPPdeveloper.
APSRTC is planning tointroduce electric buses inAndhra Pradesh and is learn-ing best practices employed bythe GSRTC.
RTC team visits Gujarat to study operation of e-buses
PNS n VIJAYAWADA
TDP chief N ChandrababuNaidu on Tuesday warned ofserious consequences if theruling YSRCP leaders contin-ued to target and harass theleaders from BackwardClasses.
Naidu said that the rulingparty would have to pay heav-ily if it continued harassing BCleaders without respectingtheir democratic rights to free-dom of expression and equalopportunity.
False cases were filed againstAP TDP presidentAtchannaidu out of politicalvendetta, he alleged.
Addressing a teleconfer-ence with party leaders here,Naidu said that the YSRCPMinisters and MLAs wereresorting to arm-twisting tac-tics by illegally arresting rivalcandidates and their support-ers. "The ruling party leadersare indulging in unlawfulactivities and violating theelection code only out of fearof defeat. The police force isbiased in favour of the YSRCP-supported candidates in theHome Minister's Assemblyconstituency," he alleged.
Naidu enquired from theparty leaders about the
progress of the polling in thefirst phase panchayat elec-tions across the state. He askedthe TDP local leaders to sendthe information regarding thepoll-related events immediate-ly to the party office.
The TDP chief lauded theparty leaders and the peoplefor facing the intimidationtactics of the YSRCP.
"The ruling party leaderstried to ensure forced unani-mous elections at many placesbut the public revolted againstthe ruling party. The nomina-tions of the candidates sup-ported by opposition partieswere cancelled at some places.The Election Commissionshould take corrective steps,"he added.
YSRCP will pay heavy price forharassing BC leaders: Naidu
PNS n VIJAYAWADA
TDP chief N ChandrababuNaidu on Tuesday com-plained to the State ElectionCommission (SEC) that theelection officials connivedwith the ruling YSRCP lead-ers and withheld the releaseof the final lists of contestantsfor panchayat elections inThamballapalle Assemblyconstituency.
Naidu wrote a letter to theSEC seeking stringent actionagainst the officials whoaccording to him wereindulging in irregularities inconducting panchayat pollsin Thamballapalle segmentin Chittoor district.
"Action should be takenagainst MPDO DiwakarReddy, S-I Saha Devi, YSRCPMLA's relative Bhanu and hisPA Hemanth Kumar," hesaid.
The TDP chief said thatthough the deadline expired,the officials did not releasethe final lists of contestants.This was done only as per theinstructions of MLA P
Dwarakanath Reddy in anattempt to force opposition-supported candidates towithdraw from the contest.
The MPDO did not pub-lish the final lists only to ben-efit the YSRCP-supportedcandidates.
Naidu complained to theSEC that S-I Saha Devi wasopenly threatening the can-didates supported by oppo-sition parties to make themwithdraw from the elec-tions.
The SEC should takeimmediate steps to ensurethe release of the final lists ofcandidates.
Naidu alleges irregularities bypoll staff in Thamballapalle
Naidu complained to the SEC that SahaDevi was threateningthe candidatessupported byopposition parties tomake them withdrawfrom the elections
PNS n VIJAYAWADA
The Central government hasdoubled the allocation offunds to Andhra Pradeshunder the Jal Jeevan Mission(JJM) for the financial year2020-21 when compared tothe previous year.
The Centre had allocatedRs 372.64 crore in FY 2019-20 under JJM and hasincreased it to Rs 790.48crore in FY 2020-21.
Replying to a questionraised by Rajya Sabha mem-ber Parimal Nathwani,Minister of State for Jal ShaktiRatanlal Kataria said that JalJeevan Mission has provided6.26 lakh tap water connec-tions in Andhra Pradesh.
The entire amount to thetune of Rs 372.64 crore, allo-cated in FY2019-20 by theCentral government, hasbeen released to the state.
For the FY2020-21, of thetotal Rs 790.48 crore allocat-ed, the Centre has released Rs162.59 crore as on February4, 2021.
Nathwani sought informa-tion about the total numberof houses that have beenprovided with tap connec-tions under the Jal JeevanMission in the last two yearsand the number of housesthat have been provided tapconnections in the state ofAndhra Pradesh during thesame period.
According to the state-ment of the minister, out ofthe total fund released underJJM, Andhra Pradesh hasreported total utilisation of Rs372 crore as on February 4,2021.
Centre doublesallocation offunds to APunder JJM
PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM
RINL-Visakhapatnam SteelPlant, in its endeavor to gen-erate more renewable energyresources, took up the instal-lation of solar power panels onthe rooftops of the big build-ings where there is scope tocapture abundant sunlight.
A rooftop solar power plantat Administrative Building wasinaugurated by KishoreChandra Das, Director(Personnel) and KK Ghosh,Director (Projects) on Tuesday.
Speaking on the occasion,Kishore Chandra Das appreci-ated the work done by VSPCollective and 'Clean Max'.
He said that RINL was plan-ning to introduce furtherrooftop solar power plantsunder Corporate SocialResponsibility /Corporate
Environment Responsibilityin the school buildings inTownship and also at the areaswhere there was unusable landfor setting up such plants.
R Srinivasa Rao, CGM(Projects) I/c, Shri Ajith Kumar,CGM (D&E) and Senior offi-cers of Projects and PersonalDivision are also present.
The rooftop solar plants onthe Town AdministrationBuilding and Visakha SteelGeneral Hospital (VSGH) were
also inaugurated on Tuesday. With this, the installation of
solar power plants of a totalcapacity of 500 kw on rooftopsis completed. RINL is alreadyrunning a 5 MW solar powerplant. The projects are designed,supplied and commissioned byM/s Cleanmax Enviro Energysolutions Pvt ltd, Mumbai, aspart of power purchase agree-ment for a period of 25 yearswith RINL for setting up 500kwrooftop solar projects.
Vizag cops examine 200 CCTVfootage to crack gold robbery case
The Vizianagaram police havesolved the theft of over 150 gm ofgold jewellery and arrested threepersons in connection with thecase. The police said that one DSuryavathi, 65, ofVenugopalpuram of Vizianagarammandal came to VizianagaramTown on February 6 for somework. Later, she boarded an auto-
rickshaw to reach her hometown.After reaching her home, sherealised that 150 gm of goldornaments and cash worth Rs9,300 in her bag were missing.The victim approached theVizianagaram Rural police. Basedon the complaint, the policeformed a special team and nabbedthe three people R Yellaramma, M
Ravi and S Yerri Naidu, an auto-driver by profession. Theinvestigation revealed that the trioformed a gang to loot the innocentand lonely passengers, who boardinto their auto-rickshaw. The triowas involved over 10 cases inVizag and Vizianagaram districts.The police recovered the goldornaments from the trio.
Auto-rickshaw robbery gang held
Rooftop solar plant inaugurated
MP Nathwani
PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM
The Nimmada panchayat inSrikakulam district was in thespotlight in gram panchayatelection as the TDP state pres-ident Kinjarapu Atchannaiduwas arrested for allegedlyintimidating YSRCP-backedcandidate and his close relativefor contesting for the sarpanchpost.
On Tuesday, after beingreleased from the Ampolusub-jail in Srikakulam district,the TDP leader got a rousingreception from his supporters.
TDP Srikakulam MPKinjarapu Rammohan Naidu,TDP SrikakulamParliamentary wing presidentKuna Ravikumar and otherleaders received him. Later, heproceeded to Nimmada village.
As the Atchannaidu familyhas a stronghold in the district,Nimmada sarpanch was beingelected unanimously for sever-al years.
However, one of his relatives,Kinjarapu Appanna, contestedthe election with the supportof YSRCP triggered tension.
Atchannaidu along with 20others allegedly threatenedand prevented KinjarapuAppanna from filing nomina-tion for sarpanch post atNimmada village, the home-town of the TDP leader.
Atchannaidu breaks down,calls all cases fake
K Atchannaidu, while speakingto the media, burst into tears. "Iwas jailed for no reason. I amnot scared of going to jail andno one can threaten us like this.Kinjarapu family has beenserving people for decades. I amsad because the system in thestate has totally deteriorated," hesaid. He also lashed out at thesenior cops for blindly followingthe direction of the politiciansforgetting their duty. "TDP would fight against thefake cases being filed againsttheir leaders by the YS Jagan-
led government. The Andhra Pradesh government is filing falsecases against TDP leaders after not being able to digest theresponse of voters to TDP in the panchayat elections," he added.
TDP-backed candidateKinjarapu Suresh wonsarpanch post inNimmada. Suresh defeatedYSRCP candidate KAppanna by a majority of1,700 votes.
‘I am not scared’
After winning, Kinjarapu Sureshsaid that the people ofNimmada have placed moreresponsibility on their family."With the blessings of all, I willsolve public issues with thehelp of Atchannaidu andRammohan Naidu. The wholeKinjarapu family was put in jailand tortured," he said.
Appanna gotonly 170 votes
TDP backedcandidate Kinjarapu Suresh wins
PNS n VIJAYAWADA
The state High Court hasadjourned the matter of usageof e-Watch app to February 17stating that the app developedby the SEC can anyway not beused now until the security cer-tificate is obtained and direct-ed the SEC to reply to thequeries raised by the AndhraPradesh Technology Services.
The PILs in relation to the e-Watch app, developed by theSEC, was taken up by the HighCourt on Tuesday. The matterwas heard by the first courtcomprising of Chief Justiceand Justice Praveen Kumar.
On behalf of the state gov-
ernment, C Suman, submittedthat based on the request madeby the SEC to the APTS, whichhad conducted preliminarytests, a report had been sent tothe SEC on flaws and the secu-rity concerns found in the app.
The most glaring securityconcern was that the sourcecode of the AP Social Welfaredepartment was used in thedevelopment of the e-Watchapp of the SEC. It was furthersubmitted by Suman that theSEC had not produced any doc-ument to show that the SocialWelfare department had givenits permission to use its sourcecode for developing the e-Watch app of the SEC.
AP HC directs SEC to hold backits ‘e-Watch' app till February 17
K VENKATESHWARLUn HYDERABAD
YS Sharmila, daughter of thelate YS Rajasekhara Reddy, hasstirred up hornet’s nest byindirectly hinting at floating anew party in Telangana.
The news has become ahot top for discussions acrossthe State, as nobody wasexpecting the emergence of anew party assuming that thereis no political vacuum in theState as of now.
But, politicians never leavea chance to make their pres-ence felt if they feel that thereis an opportunity to expandtheir party, or launch a newparty to be in power in theirrespective States, or otherStates.
Discussions are going onacross the State as to who wasbehind Sharmila’s party. Frompolitical leaders to the com-mon man are indulged indeliberations curiously wasthere anybody, or any politi-cal party behind her proposedparty.
The BJP supporters are stat-ing that the TRS is behind theSharmila’s new party to ensurethat the votes of anti-incum-bency in the next electionsshould not go to the BJP,which became almost an alter-native party to the ruling TRSparty by winning the Dubbakbypoll and GHMC elections.They are saying that it is a
strategy by the TRS mas-terminds to see that theleaders of the TRS didnot go towards the BJPin the future.
However, Ministerfor Civil SuppliesGangula Kamalakarstated that no othernew political partywill survive in theState. Split of votesin the next electionswould help the TRS.They were also giv-ing the main reasonfor the TRS backingSharmila is that theTRS will get a chanceto raise the Telanganasentiment once again toregister a hat-trick vic-tory by winning thenext Assembly elec-tions.
While the TRSsupporters are stat-ing that the BJP isbehind Sharmila’snew party. Theywere giving rea-sons saying thatthe BJP will best rengthenedfurther in caseSharmila dis-tances minori-ties and Reddyc om mu n i t i e sfrom the TRSby attractingthem towardsher new party.
Already, the BJP showed itsimpact in the GHMC electionsby raising the MIM issue.
However, some politicalanalysts are stating that theYSRCP was there behind YSSharmila’s new party propos-al. They are stating that Jaganhad given an assurance toSharmila that he will make herfloat a new political party inTelangana State and ask theYSRCP leaders fromTelangana to join Sharmila’snew party.
Head of MassCommunication andJournalism of OsmaniaUniversity Prof Stevenson
opined that Sharmila andJagan may have a difference ofopinion on accommodatingBrother Anil Kumar for theRajya Sabha. Hence, it may beone of the reasons behind herdecision on floating a newparty.
However, one cannot ruleout the backing of politicalparties vying to expand theirbase in Telangana. But thewriting on the walls says thatbuilding an organisationalnetwork and sustaining thecadre is not an easy task. Suchindividual-centric parties havenot fared well and vanishedinto thin air, he said.
Khammam Police CommissionerTafseer Iqbal said that the armedpolice were playing a key role inmaintaining peace and securitywhile maintaining theirprofessionalism and reflectingthe dignity of the police force. Hewas speaking at the the closingceremony of the City ArmedPolice Force mobilisation held atthe District Police ParadeGround on Tuesday. AdditionalDCP (Admin) Injarapu Puja,Additional DCP Law & OrderMuralidhar, Additional DCP, RIsCIs Anjali and Sambaraju werepresent on the occasion
DANCING AAROUND BBONFIRE
VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 10, 2021 telangana 04
PNS n HYDERABAD
The Life InsuranceCorporation of India (LIC)asks its policyholders to sub-mit medical tests as a proof torenew the policies that werelapsed. But during the Coronatime, several companiesrelaxed the rules especially forsenior citizens to ensure theirsafety. Strangely, the LIC stuckto its norms and asked theelderly, too, to undergo med-ical tests to renew their lapsedpolicies during the Covid timealso.
In one such case, a seniorcitizen V Subash, whose pol-icy was lapsed, as he wasunable to pay the premium byvisiting the LIC office for thefour months starting fromOctober 2020.
The policyholder made sev-eral trips to the agent and then
to the LIC CB-III branchlocated at Nampally, but invain. Finally, he approachedthe senior divisional managerof the LIC headquarters officewith a request to enable himto pay the due premium, alongwith the interest, but hedeclined his request. He wastold to undergo tests to con-sider the premium payment.
“When the policy is due forthe maturity and the policy-holder could not pay the pre-mium for various reasons,senior citizens should be givenrelaxation for lapses,”bemoaned Subash, a policy-holder. He said that he hadspent around Rs 5,000 for themedical tests. He lamented theapathy of LIC officials as theybelieved in the third party,which conducted medical testsand made him run from pillarto post to renew his policy.
LIC apathy towardssenior citizens deplored
CAPSULE
TRS ex-MLCRavinder quitsPNS n HYDERABAD
In a shocking development,TRS former MLC PoolaRavinder tendered hisresignation to the party. OnTuesday, Ravinderannounced his decisionwhen he participated in theteachers’ dharnademanding the release ofPRC at the Collectorate inBhongir. He said that hehas been tenderingresignation following thepressure from the teachers.He also made it clear thathe will make other MLCstender their resignation insupport of teachers’demands.
Ranulu Naik,Chinna Reddynominees forMLC pollsPNS n HYDERABAD
The Congress hasannounced its MLCcandidates for the GraduateMLC elections for Nalgonda-Khammam-Warangalconstituency and Hyderabad-Rangareddy-Mahabunagarconstituency. In acommuniqué released byAICC general secretaryMukul Wasnik said thatCongress president SoniaGandhi has approvedRamulu Naik’s candidaturefor Nalgonda-Khammam-Warangal constituency and GChinna Reddy’s candidaturefor Hyderabad-Rangareddy-Mahabubnagar constituencyfor the ensuing biennialelections to the TelanganaLegislative Council from theGraduate constituencies.
ACB raidsJagtialmunicipal officePNS n JAGTIAL
The ACB sleuths carriedout raids on the Jagtialmunicipal office onTuesday. The municipalemployees were caughtred-handed while takingbribes. The details of theraid by the ACB officials areyet to be ascertained. Anti-corruption officials arecontinuing theinvestigation. Civil engineerand Jagtial municipal TPOwere accused of taking abribe of Rs 95 lakh forgranting permission for theconstruction of anapartment.
PNS n HYDERABAD
Former minister MohammedAli Shabbir demanded a high-level probe into the observationsmade by 15th FinanceCommission on Telangana gov-ernment in its report submittedin Parliament last week.
Addressing a press conferenceat Gandhi Bhavan here onTuesday, Shabbir Ali said that the15th Finance Commission hasexposed several instances offinancial irregularities commit-ted by the TRS government. "The15th Finance Commission madeserious comments on many
issues, including theKaleshwaram project. It vindicat-ed the stand of the Congress thatKaleshwaram project was notfinancially viable and it wouldnot benefit the farmers," he said.
It has been observed that, "Atan estimated cost of Rs 80,000crore, the Kaleshwaram lift irri-gation project aims at irrigatingover 18 lakh acres. Lift irrigationinvariably notches up a massiveelectricity bill, bringing to ques-tion the financial viability of theproject in the absence of a guar-anteed revenue stream." It hasalso directed the Telangana gov-ernment to ‘generate adequate
revenue (say, through usercharges) to at least cover theoperations and maintenancecost of the project.”Referring toother observations made by the15th FC, Shabbir Ali said that theState government was not strict-ly complying with the constitu-tional provisions of constitutinga State Finance Commission.After the creation of the newState, the first SFC was constitut-ed in 2015. However, its reportis yet to be submitted. He allegedthat the SFC was deliberatelyavoided by the Chief Minister asit would have stopped fudging ofbudget figures.
Telangana needs ‘RajannaRajyam’ as the people havebeen facing many problems inthe State, asserted YSRCP gen-eral secretary Konda RaghavaReddy. The present govern-ment is not implementingwelfare schemes properly,he alleged.
Speaking to the mediaafter Sharmila's first reviewmeeting with Nalgondaleaders at Lotus Pond hereon Tuesday, Konda saidthat Sharmila had a review
meeting with the leaders of Chevellaand Nalgonda and she will completeall districts review meetings one afterthe other in 30 days and then onlyshe will announce a future course ofaction plan.
He felt that the Telangana peoplewould support Sharmila’s decision offloating a new political party. He saidthat there were no disputes betweenJagan and Sharmila. He warned say-ing that countdown had started forthe KCR government as it wasalready proved in GHMC elections.He has been actively participating inthe activities of Sharmila for the pastseveral days.
PNS n HYDERABAD
Chief Minister KChandrasekhar Rao is behindthe new party proposal of YSSharmila, alleged TPCC work-ing president and MalkajgiriMP A Revanth Reddy. He saidthat Sharmila has to spell outher stand on the Pulichintala,Pothireddypadu andSangameshawaram projectsbefore launching her party.
He asked Sharmila to enterTelangana politics only afterfiling a case in the court againstAndhra Pradesh for construct-ing the Pothireddypadu,Sangameshwaram projects. Healso demanded Sharmila totender apologies to those whosacrificed their lives for the for-mation of Telangana for stat-ing ‘No Telangana…onlyUnited State’ during theTelangana movement.
YSR had become the ChiefMinister being in theCongress only and he hadintroduced all schemes as aCongress leader. TheTelangana society has respecttowards him, however, theydon’t agree if Sharmila floatsa new party. He said that thepeople had achievedTelangana State to be ruled byTelangana leaders, but notRajanna’s daughter. He saidthat he will offer ‘Saare’ to her,but people won’t accept
Sharmila floats a new outfit.He said that Sharmila has tosettle her dispute with herbrother in Andhra Pradesh.
Speaking to the media onTuesday during his padayatra,which was going on for thepast three days, Revanth Reddysaid that KCR would notbecome Chief Minister again.
He said that he will extendsupport to her if she had anyproblem, however, Telanganawould not accept her to rule
the State. He asked Sharmila totell whether she will stand bythe side of Telangana peoplefacing her brother. Not toinsult the sacrifices ofTelangana people, he said.
It is time for the YSR fansfrom Telangana to take a clearstand regarding Sharmila. Heasked the people to decidewhether their own State lead-ers should rule the State, orfrom other States.
He said that the Sharmila’sparty will not survive here. Hesaid that the people, who insultsacrifices of 1,200, will wel-come Sharmila. He allegedthat KCR slept at his farm-house and was not respondingto Sharmila's party. He askedKCR to tell whether he hasbeen encouraging the newparty to see the split of KCR’santi-incumbency votes. Hecalled upon the Telanganapeople not to fall prey to KCR’sconspiracy.
KCR behind Sharmila's new outfit, alleges Revanth
n TPCC working president and Malkajgiri MP A RevanthReddy asked Sharmila to enter Telangana politics onlyafter filing a case in the court against Andhra Pradeshfor constructing the Pothireddypadu, Sangameshwaramprojects
n He also demanded Sharmila to tender apologies tothose who sacrificed their lives for the formation ofTelangana for stating ‘No Telangana…only United State’during the Telangana movement.
PNS n WARANGAL RURAL
Minister for Agriculture SNiranjan Reddy has assured toget Soil Testing Centre, marketyard, warehouses sanctioned toPedda Kodepaka village inWarangal rural district.
Speaking in connection withinauguration of panchayatbuilding and Rytu Vedika,along with Errabelli DayakarRao, here on Tuesday, NiranjanReddy said that he would striveto get warehouses sanctionedto the village with a capacity tostore 10,000 tonnes as the gov-ernment has plans to buildwarehouses in the State tostore 40 lakh tonnes.
The government wants toprotect the interests of thefarmers. Discussion on farmlaws is going on. Under thenew laws, farmers can maintainstocks of agricultural produceup to any extent. Similarly, any-
one can take any land on lease.However, there is a risk of los-ing soil fertility in the exercise.The farmers of the country areaccustomed to disposing oftheir crops in their farmyards.As per the new laws, the farmershould sell his crop at theprice fixed by traders and thefarmer should buy his needs atthe price fixed by traders.Prime Minister Narendra Modisaid that agrarian reforms arenecessary.
During the regime of LalBahadur Shastry, he constitut-ed a committee in 1964 andobtained a report from it on theMSP. In 1976, When Jagjivan
Ram was the AgricultureMinister, the MSP for maizewas granted. Over a period oftime, the MSP was announcedfor over 29 crops. But, the farmlaws are silent on MSP forcrops, the minister said askingthe farmers to take note of this.If corporate firms enter theagricultural field, too, the farm-ers would suffer. Lack of theMSP, anyone can sell his pro-duce in any market and anyonecan buy them did not findfavour with the farmers.
He said that the lands inTelangana turned into fertile.Therefore, he asked the farm-ers of the State to raise crops in
tune with the climatic andgeographic conditions. Thegovernment wants to encour-age oil palm cultivation in 20lakh acres. The oil palm needswater less than the waterrequirement of paddy andslightly more water than the
water used to irrigate maize.The Centre identified 25 dis-tricts suited for oil palm culti-vation. In all, 20 lakh acres aresuitable for the cultivation ofpotatoes. The CM is keen ongrowing potato seeds in theState.
Agri Minister promises Soil Testing Centren Panchayat Raj Minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao outlined the
pro-farmer schemes of the TRS government, including24x7 power supply to agriculture sector free of cost. Healso highlighted the programmes like Rytu Vedika, PallePragati and Pattana Pragati programmes
Minister for Agriculture S Niranjan Reddy and Minister for Panchayat Raj ErrabelliDayakar Rao riding a bullock cart at Pedda Kodapaka village in Warangal district onTuesday
PNS n KARIMNAGAR
Minister for BC WelfareGangula Kamalakar has daredthe BJP leaders to mount pres-sure on the Centre to set up BCWelfare Ministry provided theBJP is sincere in BC welfare. Healso dared the BJP MPs to raisetheir voice in Parliament forquota for BCs in Legislative bod-ies. He demanded that theCentre order BC Census at leastthis year as the BCs lived the lifeas vassals in the undivided State.
The BCs have been leading adignified life in the new State ofTelangana. The site meant forconstruction of Atma GouravBhavan in Uppal in Hyderabadbecame desecrated as the BJPleaders set their foot on the site.The TRS government wouldcleanse it.
He reminded how the TRSgovernment allotted 83 acresand Rs 95 crore funds to con-struct Atma Gourav Bhavans tobenefit 75 BC communities.
The credit for allotting themost valuable site which costs Rs40-50 crore goes to CM KChandrasekhar Rao.Construction of Atma GouravBhavans for Mudiraj and Yadavcommunities has begun inKokapet.
Tenders have been called tobuild these Bhavans to com-mence works in the first week ofMarch. In Telangana, 260 resi-dential schools for BCs havebeen started with a total studentstrength of over 1.13 lakh as
against 19 set up in the regimeof undivided AP with a totalstrength of over 6,600.
He said there is no alternativeto the TRS in the State. As longas Chief Minister KCR is alive,there is no other party wouldcome to power in the State.People of the State are also notready to give their vote to them.
On procurement of paddyduring the Rabi, the ball is inFCI’s court. The government isready to procure paddy provid-ed the FCI gives its orders.
BC WELFARE MINISTRY
Minister for BC Welfare Gangula Kamalakar addressing the media in Karimnagaron Tuesday. TRS leaders are also seen
PNS n HYDERABAD
The Pragati Bhavan hasissued directions to the TRSleaders asking them not torespond on the political out-fit to be floated by YSSharmila soon fuels doubts inthe minds of political punditswhether the TRS is behindshe floating the party.
The TRS social mediateam became alert followingthe orders from the PragatiBhavan and has been remov-ing the messages posted onsocial media againstSharmila. Earlier, flexis car-rying the image of Sharmilagarlanded with chappals wasmade viral on the Internet.Acting on directions fromelders in the party, the socialmedia activists have beenremoving such messages.
The political analysts feelthat the latest move of theTRS has been lending sup-port to the debate.
Keep mum on Sharmila’sparty, TRS leaders told
PNS n RAJANNA SIRICILLA
Mahashivaratri celebrationswill be held from March 10to 12 at Sri RajarajehshwaraSwamy temple inVemulawada.
A meeting with the firedepartment, police, rev-enue, municipal and templeofficials was convened hereon Tuesday at the templechairman's guest houseunder the chairmanship oflocal DSP Chandrakanthto discuss security mea-sures to be taken to ensurethe safety of devoteesattending theMahashivaratri fete.
Karimnagar joint districtfire officer Venkanna saidthat precautionary mea-sures will be taken to pre-vent any untoward inci-dent. DSP Chandrakant,AEO Sankepalli Harikishan,Karimnagar joint districtf ire of f icer TagaramVenkanna, municipal com-missioner, MRO, along withtemple employees, werepresent at the meeting.
Shivaratri feteat Vemulawada
PNS n HYDERABAD
Chief Minister KChandrasekhar Rao hasbeen inventing new politicalequations in Telangana tosave his chair, said formerMLA and BJP state unitv ice-pres ident NVSSPrabhakar.
Responding on a newpol it ica l out f it of YSSharmila at a media confer-ence at state BJP headquar-ters here on Tuesday, hesaid that Sharmila is floatinga political outfit as part ofKCR’s grand plan to save hischair.
To save KCR from thecrisis , senior leader ofC ongress KVPRamachandra Rao has beentaking steps and makingSharmila f loat a party.Launching of the party istaking place under thewatchful eyes of KCR and asper the ideas of KVPR amachandra R ao, healleged.
The people of the State are
in no mood to believe inKCR, who, he said, is unveil-ing new political equationsbecause of the pressuremounted on him by KTR’skitchen cabinet. To with-stand the pressure, KCR hasbeen seeking support fromthe C ongress and a lsoCommunists, he alleged.
In spite of KCR makingseveral attempts to save hischair, the people ofTelangana would not believehim, he predicted. The TRShas come under a cloud, hesaid.
KCR has been involvingthe Communists to stemthe problem that cropped upin the TRS, he said.
Prime Minister NarendraModi on Tuesday expressedconcern over increasing vio-lence in Afghanistan andcalled for a comprehensiveceasefire for ending the hostil-ities, while assuring India's fullsupport in the developmentjourney of the war-ravagedcountry.
In a virtual meeting withAfghan President AshrafGhani, Modi said as closeneighbours and strong strate-gic partners, both India andAfghanistan want to see theregion free of extremism andterrorism.
The Prime Minister alsosaid no "outside force" will beable to stop Afghanistan'sjourney towards developmentas well as its friendship withIndia.
Referring to the Afghanpeace process, he said unitywithin the country was impor-tant and hoped that a "unitedAfghanistan'' will be capable ofdealing with any challengefacing it.
"We are concerned overincreasing violence inAfghanistan....we support a
comprehensive ceasefire inthe country," the prime min-ister said.
The online meeting washeld to finalise an agreementunder which India will con-struct a dam in Kabul riverbasin to supply water to theAfghan capital city.
In his remarks, Ghani saidIndia's development assistanceto Afghanistan is iconicallymarked on the country's land-scape.
India has been a majorstakeholder in the peace andstability of Afghanistan and it
has already invested USD twobillion in aid and reconstruc-tion activities in the war-rav-aged country.
In November last, Indiaannounced a new package ofover 100 high impact commu-nity projects worth USD 80million for Afghanistan at aglobal conference onAfghanistan.
The Shahtoot Dam in Kabulis part of the new developmen-tal package.
The agreement was signedby foreign ministers of the twocountries.
People told to register as cybercrime volunteers
VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 10, 2021 nation 05
INDIA CORNER
Sustained fall in activecases in country: Ministry
NEW DELHI: India's dailyCOVID-19 cases continue tomanifest a downward trend,the Union Health Ministry saidon Tuesday underscoring thatlow number of daily cases andrising recoveries have ensured
a sustained fall in active cases. India's average daily deaths alsocontinue to sharply decline. From a high of 211 in the sec-ond week of January, average daily deaths have reduced to 96 inthe second week of February, registering a decline of 55 per cent, itsaid. India's total active cases has also dropped to 1.43 lakh whichnow consists of just 1.32 per cent of India's total infections. A totalof 1,05,48,521 people have recovered so far with 14,016 patientshaving recuperated in a span of 24 hours. "The difference betweenthe recovered patients and the active cases continues to progres-sively grow. It is pegged at 1,04,04,896 today," the ministry said.
Bengal's cultureunder threat: Nadda PNS n BIRBHUM (WB)
BJP national president JPNadda on Tuesday slammedthe TMC for dividing commu-nities by branding people asinsiders and outsiders, and saidthe rich culture of West Bengalis under threat in MamataBanerjee's rule. Nadda, whileflagging off the second phase ofthe ‘Parivartan Yatra' fromTarapith in Birbhum district,alleged that the state govern-ment "criminalised politics,institutionalised corruption andpoliticised the police".
The BJP chief also said the"cut money government" will bedefeated by people in theupcoming assembly elections.
"Under Mamata Banerjee'srule, the rich culture and her-itage of West Bengal are underthreat. Only the BJP can protect
these. The insider-outsider cul-ture is not the real culture ofBengal. "The TrinamoolCongress is pitting peopleagainst one another by brand-ing them as outsiders. This isshameful. It is not the culture ofthe land of Swami Vivekananda,Gurudev RabindranathTagore," Nadda said.
The TMC's slogan of 'Maa,Mati, Manush' (mother, landand people) has been reduced to"dictatorship, tolabaji (extor-tion) and appeasement", he said.
5 rescued after housecollapse in DelhiNEW DELHI: Five people were rescued after a house collapsed in theSadar Bazar area of north Delhi on Tuesday, fire services officials said. Acall about the incident was received at around 10.30 am and six firetenders were rushed to the spot, Delhi Fire Services Director Atul Gargsaid. Five people have been rescued, of whom three are in a criticalstate, he added. The injured have been shifted to the Bara Hindu Raohospital. The rescue operation was stopped at 2.31 pm, officials said.Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted about the incident and expressedhis concern. "Deeply worried to hear about collapsing of a residentialbuilding in Sadar Bazar area. The rescue & medical teams and districtadministration are present at the spot. Rescue operations are underway,I am constantly monitoring the situation," he said in the tweet.
PNS n JAMMU
In a bid to keep an eye on thecyber world in a "coordinatedand comprehensive manner",the government has askedcommon people to register ascyber crime volunteers to helpcheck posts against the sover-eignty of the nation, on childand women abuse andattempts to disturb the law andorder situation.
The project known asIndian Cyber CrimeCoordination Centre (I4C) isan initiative of the UnionMinistry. It was started inmilitancy-hit Jammu andKashmir last week where thepolice issued a circular askingcitizens to register themselves
as volunteers. The volunteersare asked to keep an eye onposts which are against thesovereignty and integrity ofIndia, against the defence ofIndia, against the security ofthe State, against friendly rela-tions with foreign States, con-tent aimed at disturbing pub-lic order, disturbing commu-nal harmony and child sexabuse material.
A spokesperson of Jammuand Kashmir police said thatany Indian citizen can getassociated with this pro-gramme by registering in anyof three categories of cybervolunteers -- Cyber VolunteerUnlawful Content Flagger,Cyber Awareness Promoterand Cyber Expert. While the
first category will help identi-fy illegal and unlawful onlinecontent like child pornogra-phy, rape, gang rape, terror-ism, radicalisation, anti-
national activities etc, the sec-ond category will help createawareness about cyber crimeamong citizens, including vul-nerable groups like women,
children, the elderly, ruralpopulation etc. Cyber Expertcategory volunteer will helpdeal with specific domains ofcybercrime, forensics, net-work forensics, malwareanalysis, memory analysis andcryptography.
While there is no prior ver-ification required for the firstcategory, a background verifi-cation of volunteers of othertwo categories will be done asper the norms of Know YourCustomers (KYC) by therespective state governmentsand union territories.
The volunteers are requiredto furnish personal particularslike full name, father's name,mobile number, email address,residential address.
PNS n NEW DELHI
Congress MPs from Punjabwill move a private member'sbill in Lok Sabha to repeal thethree contentious new farmlaws.
Congress leader and LokSabha member Manish Tewaritold reporters that theRepealing and AmendmentBill 2021 will be moved in theLower House by a group ofparty MPs from Punjabincluding himself, PreneetKaur, Jasbir Singh Gill andSantokh Chaudhary.
Tewari said they will seekthe support of fellow MPsfrom other parties who havesympathies for the farmers andsupport their stand on the newlegislations.
Asked whether a similarbill could be introduced inRajya Sabha, he said they willrequest their counterparts inthe Upper House to do so.
For over two months now,thousands of farmers havebeen protesting at Delhi bor-ders against the three farmsector reform laws which wereenacted in September last year.
PNS n NEW DELHI
Actor-activist Deep Sidhuwanted in connection withthe Red Fort violence onRepublic Day has beenarrested by the Delhi Police,officials said on Tuesday.
The arrest was made by ateam of Delhi Police's SpecialCell, said DeputyCommissioner of Police(Special Cell) Sanjeev KumarYadav.
Later, Yadav told PTI thatthat Sidhu was arrested fromKarnal Bypass at 10.40 pmon Monday, adding that hewas wanted in connectionwith the case of instigatingthe crowd at the Red Fort onRepublic Day.
"The Crime Branch willinvestigate his role in detail,"the DCP said.
Asked where he was hid-ing after the January 26 vio-lence, Yadav said the inves-tigation is in an initial stage.
The police had announceda cash reward of Rs 1 lakh forinformation leading toSidhu's arrest.
After the Republic Day 26
violence that had left over500 security personnelinjured and one protestordead, Sidhu was postingvideos on social media.
"Sidhu was in contact witha woman friend who lives inCalifornia. He used to makevideos and send it to her, andshe used to upload them onhis Facebook account,"police sources said.
Sidhu kept changing hislocations to evade arrest,they said.
On January 26, thou-sands of protesting farm-ers who reached ITO fromthe Ghazipur b orderclashed with the police.Many of them drivingtractors reached the RedFort and entered the mon-ument, where a religious
flag was also hoisted.In the FIR registered in
connection with the RedFort violence, police saidtwo magazines with 20 livecartridges were snatchedfrom two constables by pro-testors who also damagedvehicles and robbed anti-riotgear.
"The mob later hoisteddifferent flags there. Theyalso started creating nui-sance on the rampart. Theunruly mob was asked tocome downstairs. They wentto Meena Bazar area toenter the into Red Fort.When the police tried totake them out of LahoreGate, the mob became vio-lent and attacked personnel.The mob thrashed thepolice personnel and threwthem in the wells," policehad said in the FIR.
"They damaged a bus, agovernment gypsy andother vehicles. The mobrobbed the anti-riots gears -- cane stick, shields, bodyprotectors, helmets etc fromthe police personnel," it hadalso said.
Cong MPs to move private member’sbill in Lok Sabha to repeal farm laws
ACTOR-ACTIVIST DEEP SIDHU ARRESTED
PNS n NEW DELHI
The Upper House ofParliament on Tuesdaypassed the National CapitalTerritory of Delhi Laws(Special Provisions) Second(Amendment) Bill, 2021 toregularise unauthorisedcolonies in Delhi.
The bill replaces theNational Capital Territory ofDelhi Laws (SpecialProvisions) Second(Amendment) Ordinance,2020 which was promulgat-ed by President Ram NathKovind on December 30,2020.
"1.35 crore people ofDelhi, those living in unau-thorised colonies, they willget their ownership right,"Minister of State(Independent Charge) ofHousing and Urban AffairsHardeep Singh Puri said inRajya Sabha. He said thattenders have been floated for"Jahan Jhuggi WahanMakaan".
Bill to regulariseillegal coloniesin Delhi passed
““We are
concerned over
increasing
violence in
Afghanistan....
we support a
comprehensive
ceasefire in the
country,” said
the Prime
Minister
Maha: Tiger found dead at Tadoba Andhari reserve
NAGPUR: A tiger was found dead ina buffer range of Tadoba AndhariTiger Reserve (TATR) in Chandrapurdistrict of Maharashtra on Tuesday,a forest official said. The carcass ofthe big cat, aged around three years,was recovered from Mudholi beat ofMoharli buffer range of the reserve,
field director of TATR Jitendra Ramgaonkar said. The carcass wasintact, but bore signs of external injuries, the official said, addingthe cause of death will be ascertained after post-mortem. All pro-cedures are being carried out as per the standard operating proce-dures of the National Tiger Conservation Authority, he said.
ED raids premises of newsportal, its promoters in Delhi NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday con-ducted searches on the premises of a news portal and its promot-ers here on charges of alleged money laundering, official sourcessaid. They said the premises of the website -- Newsclick -- and itspromoters in South Delhi's Saidullajab and some other areas arebeing searched. The action is being undertaken to collect addition-al information to probe money laundering charges against thenews company and its promoters, the sources said.
PNS n PATNA
The much awaited expansion ofthe Nitish Kumar cabinet inBihar took place on Tuesdaywith the induction of 17 mem-bers, including Syed ShahnawazHussain, the high-profileMuslim face of the BJP whichwalked away with the lionsshare.
The former union ministerand party national spokesman,who got elected to the legisla-tive council in a surprise movelast month, was the first to beadministered oath of office byGovernor Phagu Chauhan.
He was among nineinductees from the quota of theBJP which now has 20 membersin the state cabinet.
The Chief Ministers JD(U),which has suffered diminutionin clout because of its poor per-formance in assembly polls,settled for eight and has beenleft with 12 members in the cab-
inet. As per norms, the statecabinet can have up to 36members including the chiefminister.
With the expansion cabinetstrength has risen to 34. Onemember each was inductedfrom the quotas of smallerallies Hindustani AwamMorcha (HAM) and VikassheelInsaan Party (VIP) when thecabinet was formed inNovember last.
"Decision about the alloca-tion of portfolios has beentaken. You all will get to knowabout the same once the noti-fication is issued", the chief min-ister told reporters, smilingly,after the ceremony.
With the exception ofPramod Kumar who held keyportfolios in the previous gov-ernment, the BJP placed its trustin "fresh faces".
Other BJP leaders who tookoath were Nitin Nabin, SamratChaudhary, Neeraj Kumar
The JD(U) gave preference toexperienced hands though therewere also a handful of debutants,including Zama Khan who gotelected on a BSP ticket butjoined the party recently, andIndependent MLA Sumit Singhwho has pledged full support tothe chief minister.
Others from the JD(U) whotook oath included SanjayKumar Jha and Shravan Kumar,both known to be trusted aides
of the chief minister who heldkey portfolios in the previousgovernment.
JD(U) leaders Madan Sahniand Lesi Singh also returned as ministers. Sunil Kumar, a for-mer IPS officer who joined theJD(U) last year shortly afterretiring from DG rank, andJayant Raj, a 35-year-old who isamong the youngest partyMLAs, have also been givenministerial berths. Sunil Kumaris an alumni of St Stephen'sCollege, Delhi.
Lesi Singhs induction hasraised the number of women in
the cabinet to three. Earlier,BJPs Renu Devi and JD(U)sSheela Mandal had been swornin and the former was elevatedas a Deputy CM. The NDA hadbeen facing flak from the oppo-sition over the absence of aMuslim in the cabinet. With theinduction of Hussain and Khan,it now has ammunition in itsarmour to counter the charge.
Nitish cabinet gets 17 new members
PNS n JAIPUR
Former Rajasthan deputy chiefminister and Congress leaderSachin Pilot said on Tuesdaywhile the BJP governmenthas promised to double farm-ers' income, the saffron partyis "standing against" the tillersin a time of crisis.
He reiterated the demand ofwithdrawal of the Centre'sthree contentious farm laws,saying the Congress is in sup-port of the farmers. "Apromise was made to farmersthat their income will be dou-bled, but when there is a cri-sis, the entire BJP is standingagainst them. Farmers of thecountry want to remind theparty of its promises," Pilottold reporters in Dausa.
"Raising farmers' voice isnot a crime in a democracy.The Congress is with farmersand will continue to supportthem,” he said.
Pilot finds faultwith BJP onfarmers’ issue
PNS n SRINAGAR
PDP president MehboobaMufti alleged on Tuesdaythat senior officers in theadministration and policeare helping the BJP in violat-ing the people's mandate inthe elections to the posts ofchairpersons of the districtdevelopment counci ls(DD Cs) . "S o much for
Vajpayee j i ' s v is ion ofinsaniyat, Kashmiriyat &jamhuriyat. Not surprised at all by recentDDC Chairmanship results.Two months were given tobuy & intimidate the DDCmembers," Mufti wrote onTwitter, referring to a slogancoined by former primeminister Atal Bihar iVajpayee.
The former Jammu andKashmir chief minister saidthe Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) had already murdered"insaniyat" (humanity) and"Kashmiriyat" by scrappingArt ic le 370 of theConstitution in August 2019and now, by "manipulatingthe DDC election results", ithas put "the final nail in thecoffin" of democracy.
J&K admin helping BJP violate
people's mandate: Mehbooba
PNS n CHANDIGARH
A SAD delegation met PunjabGovernor VP Singh BadnoreTuesday and alleged the rul-ing Congress was "misusing"the government machineryto influence the February 14civic polls, and demandedthe paramilitary forces bedeployed for free and fairelections. The delegation com-prising senior party leadersPrem Singh Chandumajra,
Maheshinder Singh Grewaland Daljit Singh Cheema alsoalleged the State ElectionCommission has "surren-dered" to the state governmentin run-up to the civic pollsand "failed" to perform itsduty. Addressing the mediahere, Chandumajra allegedthe state government had"hijacked" the civic polls andwas "misusing" the Statemachinery to win the elec-tions.
He claimed that the nomi-nation papers of many AkaliDal candidates were rejectedand several candidates wereprevented from filling thepapers.
"The system has collapsedand the State ElectionCommission has surrenderedto the state government,"alleged Chandumajra. "Wetold the governor that we donot have faith in the Statemachinery."
PNS nMUMBAI
Actor-director Rajiv Kapoor,son of celebrated filmmaker-actor Raj Kapoor, died onTuesday due to heart attack. Hewas 58. Neetu Kapoor, wife oflate actor Rishi Kapoor, was thefirst to confirm the news onInstagram.
She wrote "RIP" alongside apicture of her brother-in-law.Brother Randhir Kapoor saidRajiv Kapoor died due to heart
attack. "He passed away about1.30 pm due to heart attack,"Randhir Kapoor said.
Rajiv Kapoor made his actingdebut with 1983 film "Ek Jaan
Hain Hum", but made firstappearance as a leading man inblockbuster "Ram Teri GangaMaili" (1985), which was RajKapoor's last directorial venture.He went on to feature in filmslike "Aasmaan", "Lover Boy","Zabardast" and "Hum To ChalePardes". Rajiv Kapoor's last filmas a leading man was 1990's"Zimmedaar". A lesser knownface from the famous Kapoorfilm clan, he then made a switchto production and direction.
‘Ram Teri Ganga Maili’ actor Rajiv Kapoor dies
PNS n LUCKNOW
Laying emphasis on organicfarming, Uttar Pradesh ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath onTuesday said laboratories cer-tifying organic agricultureproducts should be establishedat divisional levels in the state.Chairing a high-level meetingof various departments at theLok Bhavan here, Adityanathsaid that people were giving pri-ority to organic farm products.
Labs to certifyorganic farmproduce
PNS n CHANDIGARHV
A 28-year-old farmer fromHaryana's Rohtak district,who was providing volun-tary services at Tikri borderprotest site, died after sus-taining ser ious headinjuries when he fell off atractor-trolley, police saidon Tuesday. Deepak washospitalised at PGIMS,Rohtak where he died dur-ing treatment on Monday,Kuldeep Singh, SHO,Aasoda Police Station inJhajjar district, said overthe phone.
Fatal fall for Haryanafarmer
Violence in Afghan acause for concern: PM
‘Cong in Punjab misusing govt machinery’
alies in defence spending prob-ably because it is anti-nationalto question it, especially whenthe BJP Government — veryvocal on defence and nationalsecurity — makes hollow fundallocations. On Budget day,the armed forces would attractthunderous applause from thelawmakers for their sacrificeswhen the Finance Minister,after announcing the defenceallocation, would predictablyadd: “More funds would beprovided, if needed.” Since2019, there is deafening silenceon defence on Budget day.Surprisingly, the oversight wasquestioned this year by many.The aggregate defence budget,revenue and capital heads; allthree reflected a decline in theallocation as compared to theprevious year’s revised esti-mates (RE). The allocation fordefence modernisation, whichis at the heart of deterrence andcapacity building and whichwas acclaimed by DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh as thehighest increase of 19 per centin 15 years, was actually ̀ 2,700crore less than in the RE of2020-21. Even as GDP percent-age, defence has declined to 1.5per cent from 1.6 per cent theprevious year.
What we do not know iscommitted liabilities underthe modernisation head of
the three services though wedo know that last year, the AirForce, the highest recipient thisyear, was allotted nearly ̀ 3,000crore less than committed lia-bilities, leaving no money fornew projects. Other negativesthis year in the Budget arelower GDP, higher rupee todollar rate, higher fuel costs,higher internal and externalinflation and substantial addi-tional costs for maintaining theadditional 50,000 troops inLadakh along with costs for re-balancing of forces followingthe belated recognition ofChina, which spends thricemore than India on defence, asthe primary threat.
It is mystifying that evenafter yielding ground on theLAC, now convoluted by GenVK Singh’s not-so-usefuladmission on transgressions,Singh has made lofty claims toIndia’s deterrent actions, CDSGen Bipin Rawat waved themilitary option, Army chiefGen MM Naravane warned(the PLA) not to test India’spatience and the Chief of AirStaff, Air Chief Marshal RKSBhadauria, noted that theRafale had unnerved theChinese. These are undoubt-edly signs of resolve but with-out capability backup to restorethe adverse situation created bythe PLA. Equally intriguing
was Singh last week at theIndian Ocean Region DefenceMinisters’ Conclave, referringto India as a net securityprovider when it has formida-ble security challenges on twofronts. Singh also made exag-gerated claims about raisingdefence exports to a staggering`35,000 crore in 2024 from theexisting `10,000 crore.
Taken together, China sep-arating the border issues frombilateral relations and India’sfailure to accelerate Defencemodernisation amount toBeijing’s continued bullying ofIndia and its rapidly-expand-ing PLA Navy posing a secondfront in the Indian Ocean.Zhao’s blunt response toJaishankar’s missive of interde-pendence of border and bilat-eral relations indicates China’shardline posture will stay till atleast July next year, the comple-tion of 100 years of the ChineseCommunist Party. Withoutboosting combat capacitiesdovetailed in a Defence strat-egy factoring the primacy ofChina threat, New Delhi willkeep shadow-boxing.
(The writer, a retired MajorGeneral, was Commander,IPKF South, Sri Lanka, andfounder member of the DefencePlanning Staff, currently theIntegrated Defence Staff. Theviews expressed are personal.)
If the temperatures in January are anything to go by, the nation should brace itselffor a sizzling summer ahead. Because, despite a few cold days that left India shiv-ering, the minimum temperature recorded in the country last month was the warmest
January in 62 years. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) says that South Indiaexperienced the warmest January in 121 years, with temperatures touching 22.33°C.Earlier, the South had experienced 22.14°C in 1919 and 21.93°C in 2020, makingthese the second and third warmest months. Central India was the warmest at 14.82°C
in the last 38 years after 1982 saw the mercurytouching 14.92°C, while 1958 with 15.06°C was thewarmest between 1901 and 2021. However, themaximum temperatures in January were below nor-mal, the IMD said, and this January could not breakthe record of 1919 because, at 15°C, it remains thewarmest January recorded. But this is hardly anyreason to rejoice as, slowly and surely, we are begin-ning to feel the effects of climate change. Forinstance, the summers have been hotter than everbefore because the country’s average temperaturerose by around 0.7°C between 1901 and 2018.
It is projected to rise further by approximately4.4°C by the end of this century, if a 2020 report
by researchers from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, is tobe believed. Worryingly, this increase in surface temperatures will reportedly resultin droughts for some regions and intense rainfall and severe cyclones in others, caus-ing floods in large parts of India. Experts are of the opinion that these changes in cli-mate will have a long term socio-economic impact on the lives of citizens and alsoaffect the country’s relations with its neighbours. Given all these warnings, one wouldexpect that the Government and the people would be a lot more aware of their respon-sibility towards the environment but that hardly seems to be the case. So we mustthen be prepared to bear the consequences, like the one we had to face recently inChamoli, where the impact on the environment in a sensitive zone was ignored at ourown peril. If we continue to pinch environmental pennies, we will continue to incurthe wrath of nature, which has the power to eventually rid itself of one of the mostdestructive yet vulnerable species to walk the Earth.
There was nothing unusual in Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeting about his inter-action with US President Joe Biden but POTUS choosing to remain silent on the micro-blogging site entails a message. Gone are the days of “Howdy, Modi” and “Namaste,
Trump” when Modi and the former American President hugged each other, walked handin hand and their informal bonding was the bedrock of Indo-American relations. India willnow have to deal with a seasoned and astute politician in Biden and not someone as unpre-dictable as his predecessor who was nothing more than a “butt of a joke” because of hisposturing and scattershot policies. New Delhi should keep in mind that in his first diplo-matic address, Biden did not mention India even once though he hinted that he would turn
the heat on arch-rivals China and Russia. India mustnot consider his aggressive posturing towards Beijingas something that will favour its interests in the regionas Biden, at the same time, asserted that Washingtonis ready to work with China if that is in its own inter-est. In his first official interaction with Biden, Modi dis-cussed at length a host of issues including the COVID-19 pandemic, regional matters, climate change, glob-al economy, terrorism and so on. The leaders agreedto continue the close cooperation between the nationsto promote a free and open Indo-Pacific. Modi eveninvited Biden and the First Lady to visit India at theirearliest convenience. All of this points towards the soft
diplomacy that is being undertaken at this stage by both the countries.But instead of Biden tweeting like Modi, the White House released an official state-
ment detailing the interaction. The message it carries is that the days of “tall talk” on socialmedia are now over with Trump’s era and Indian policymakers should not expect Bidento behave and act in the manner his predecessor did. It also seems likely that the worldwill no longer witness the US President and the Indian Prime Minister seconding each other’sstatements and praising each other on Twitter. During the interaction, the two leaders resolvedthat the democratic process must be upheld in Myanmar. It simply implies that POTUSwants to see New Delhi playing a pivotal role in restoring the democratic regime in erst-while Burma. The US well understands that Myanmar’s junta may join hands with com-munist China for currying favour in the United Nations Security Council and, if that hap-pens, the continuation of the military regime in Burma will only strengthen Beijing in theregion. The growing influence of China, which pursues an expansionist policy both on landand in sea, will be against the interests of both New Delhi and Washington. As per theWhite House note, the “leaders agreed to stay in close touch on a range of global chal-lenges”; however, we should not take it without a pinch of salt and this “closeness” wouldcertainly be a bit different from what it was with Trump. Now India needs to make somesmart moves as dealing with the American President looks like serious business.
Serious business
IS THE PM AFRAID OF PROTESTS? Sir— It is very unfortunate that PrimeMinister Narendra Modi has used the word“andolan-jivi” for protesters. The questionwhy is our Prime Minister so afraid ofprotests and demonstrations? The PM mustunderstand that these are indispensablerights and a healthy democracy cannot sur-vive without these. However, Modidescribed a group of people who tend tohijack every protest or movement that hastaken place in the country in the recent past.Even if he referred to those who hijack everyprotest and not every protester, doubts ariseover whether he really meant what he said.
It is strange that Modi who began hispolitical journey through “NavnirmanAndolan” or Navnirman movement fromGujarat is now targeting the protesters. Evenin America, the United Kingdom, Germanyand other democracies, protests are verycommon and help keep rolling the wheelsof democracy. These are like checks and bal-ances and remind the Government of anyunpopular or wrong policy decision. Theprotest acquires more importance whenthere is a weak Opposition, like in India,which is not capable of pushing the popu-lar viewpoint or public opinion contrary tothe wish of those who are in power.Instead of blaming the protesters, theGovernment must strive to resolve theproblem.
N Nagarajan | Secunderabad
INDIA MUST INTERVENE IN MYANMAR Sir —The coup by the military in Myanmaris dangerous for democracy and a threat tocivilians, who voted Aung San Suu Kyi’sparty to power in the November polls. Theinternational community, especially Indiabeing its next-door neighbour, needs to stepup and engage with all stakeholders so asto restore normalcy and democracy in theerstwhile Burma before it gets too late.
American President Joe Biden hasalso expressed concern with Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on the issue. It’s high timefor India to take some concrete measuresand mature diplomatic steps and put pres-sure on Myanmar’s Junta, or military
regime, to vacate the power corridors.Merely issuing statements by the Ministryof External Affairs (MEA) won’t suffice orserve any purpose. The coup has given agreat opportunity to China and the Westto enter the South Eastern nation. The for-mer is already calling it merely a “Cabinetreshuffle”. Bridging the rift between Suu Kyiand military may not be an option forMyanmar’s civilians, who appear to resistthe coup. India, America and other globalpowers should work together to ensure thatthe tenets of democracy are protected andstrengthened in countries like erstwhileBurma.
Nischai Vats | Sultanpur
INDIA WILL LEAD THE WORLD SOON Sir — It’s good news that the number ofpeople who have recuperated from theCoronavirus surged to 1,05,34,505 pushingthe national COVID-19 recovery rate to97.20 per cent, while the fatality ratestands at 1.43 per cent.The Health Ministry
stressed that more than 70 per cent of thedeaths occurred due to comorbidities.
With the vaccination process in fullswing, we can flatten the curve and therewill be a remarkable recovery rate, whichaugurs well for a huge country like ours.Even though there were adverse commentsfrom the Opposition about handlingCOVID-19 cases, both State and CentralGovernments did their best to keep peo-ple safe by imposing strict rules and pro-tocols. All were made to follow precautionslike wearing face masks and sanitisinghands.
The inoculation has already started andwe are also supplying vaccines to nationsacross the globe. India is emerging as a glob-al leader and will soon play a lead role inworld economy, defence and other sectors.
Warm winterWe just had the warmest January in 62 years. Isn’t it
time to show more responsibility towards nature?
The Government has missed a legitimate opportunity to repair the frailDefence Budget which is unfit to meet the Pakistan-China dual threat
PICTALK
Police use water cannons to disperse protestors in Mandalay, Myanmar AP
THE GOVERNMENTSAYS THAT INDIA
WOULD INVEST$130 BN IN
DEFENCEMODERNISATIONOVER THE NEXT
EIGHT YEARSWHICH, IN REAL
TERMS, WILLAMOUNT TO A FLAT
TRAJECTORY FORDEFENCE
MODERNISATION.
LETTERS TO TTHE EDITOR
ASHOK K MEHTAWith Trump gone, it is in India’s interest now
to modify its approach towards the US
The exact reason or cause for the Uttarakhandtragedy will only come after a detailed inves-tigation by scientists and Government agen-
cies. However, one thing is clear that we muststop interfering with the environment and the frag-ile Himalayan ecology. Several studies that havebeen conducted in the past point to human inter-ference in the Himalayan region leading to loss
of biodiversity and balance of the ecosystem. However, nothing concrete has been done
by either the State Governments or the Centre todeal with it. It is very sad that common people— like mining workers, power plant employeesand poor villagers — are the victims of suchcalamities while the bureaucrats and politiciansremain unaffected. A huge amount of money iswasted every year in organising conferences, hold-ing seminars and workshops on environment con-servation. All these efforts are useless unless theseare executed or realised on the ground.
When it comes to implementation, theGovernment machinery shows utmost passive-ness and appears to suffer from paralysis. Merelygiving monetary compensation to the kith and kinof those who die in such catastrophes is likeadding salt to the injury. The politicians who spareno time in announcing the compensation are theones who are first-hand responsible for not tak-ing the required steps to prevent it.
Ramesh G Jethwani | Bengaluru
Corrupt politicians and babus
Time to set ourhouse in order
China’s pithy, almost dis-missive, response toExternal Affairs MinisterS Jaishankar’s connect
between the border and bilateralties has escaped notice. In reply toJaishankar’s multiple complaintsabout China’s erratic behaviour inaltering the status quo along theLine of Actual Control (LAC) inbreach of existing protocols andviolations of peace and tranquili-ty, Beijing simply repeated itsmantra that Indo-China relationshave to be de-coupled from theborder dispute. At the all-India con-ference on China Studies in NewDelhi last month, Jaishankar sum-marised his various commentsacross eight months on the borderissue into three “mutuals”:Recognition of mutual respect,mutual sensitivity and mutualinterest; and eight broad principlesas key to mending Indo-China rela-tions. He emphasised that a peace-ful border was the pre-requisite forstable relations. Chinese ForeignMinistry spokesperson Zhao Lijiansaid: “We have noted MinisterJaishankar’s remarks and appreci-ate the importance India attachesto ties with China. But we stress theboundary issue shall not be linkedwith overall bilateral relations.”
At one stroke, China segre-gated its aggression along theLAC from bilateral relations andbracketed its territorial encroach-ments to outstanding claims to allof Ladakh, not just the 300 kmspread of intrusions. China’sclaim to Ladakh was articulatedin 2008 through its denial of itswestern border covering Jammuand Kashmir with China andexcising 1,597 km of the 3488-kmLAC. When this was pointed outto an MEA mandarin at the time,he responded: “They can dowhat they like but we have troopson the LAC.” What happened inmid-May last year was a failure ofthe institutional memory ofChinese intent. If the way for-ward, as noted by Jaishankar, isthe Sumdorong Chu route, it willcost India dearly both opera-tionally and financially.
Last week, India missed alegitimate opportunity to repairthe frail defence budget unfit tomeet the Pakistan-China dualthreat despite aggression inLadakh. Few point out the anom-
SOUNDBITEParty MPs fromPunjab have decidedto bring privatemembers' Bill inParliament to seekthe repeal of threenew central farm laws opposed bythe farmers.
Congress leader — Manish Tewari
When it works well,the UN HumanRights Councilshines a spotlighton countries withthe worst human
rights records and can serve as abeacon for those fighting againstinjustice and tyranny.
US Secretary of State —Antony Blinken
I realised it's incon-ceivable for us tounderstand how onecan so vehementlyclaim the largestprotest ever, in history, is all paid actors.
Adult star—Mia Khalifa
CM Kejriwal hadpromised hundreds ofsubsidised canteensfor the poor. But itwas only for adver-tisements. Nothing is there on theground. BJP MP
—Gautam Gambhir
There was a bit ofreverse swing andwe managed to get abit of bounce andwe got a good start.
It was huge for us. It helps you getthat sort of movement in the air.
Cricketer —James Anderson
Is the delivery of justice a myth or reality?
A NEW TYPE OF PEOPLE HAVE PROPPED UP. THEY ARE
‘ANDOLAN JIVI.’ PROTEST IS THEIR LIFE SOURCE AND
THEY CAN BE SPOTTED AT EACH PROTEST SITE.
—PRIME MINISTER
NARENDRA MODI
THEN WHAT SHOULD I CALL THE PEOPLE WHO GO OUT
TO COLLECT DONATIONS? ARE THEY NOT MEMBERS
OF ‘CHANDA JIVI SANGATHAN’ THEN?
—SAMAJWADI PARTY MP
AKHILESH YADAV
The Chief Justice of India (CJI) recently saidthat January 28 must be celebrated as theSupreme Court Day to mark the occasion
when the highest court of Independent India firstassembled in chambers, then situated in theParliament complex in 1950. The Supreme Courtwas established on January 26, under Article 124of the Constitution, however, its first sitting was heldon January 28. Several media reports from that dayshow how this institution was remarked upon as the“guardian of liberty” and one that would exerciseits powers without any influence, bias, fear or favour.
The apex court, which is often regarded as themost powerful top court in the world, took up thisrole of the “sentinel of human rights” in a new demo-cratic India and it exercised its powers to deliver sev-eral landmark judgments upholding the basic fun-damental rights of citizens against the State’s arbi-trary, unfair and unjust actions. The court also ush-ered in an era of “constitutional dynamism” whichhelped the Constitution evolve with society and itschanging circumstances.
Whether it was the ruling in the Maneka Gandhivs Union of India case, where the apex court heldthat not just procedural due process but also sub-stantive due process had to be followed by the Stateand that its actions must pass the “just, fair and rea-sonable test”, or the ruling in the KeshavanandaBharati vs State of Kerala case, wherein the top courtrestricted the power of the Parliament to amend theConstitution and held that the “basic structure ofthe Constitution” could not be abrogated even bya constitutional amendment.
When the 39th Constitutional Amendmentsought to place the election of the President, thePrime Minister, the Vice-President and the Speakerof the Lok Sabha beyond the scrutiny of constitu-tional courts, it was the Supreme Court that struckdown the law, thereby upholding the basic struc-ture doctrine. In cases like Olga Tellis, BandhuaMukti Morcha, Vishaka vs State of Rajasthan,Common Cause vs Union of India, NALSA vsUnion of India, Navtej Singh Johar, Joseph Shineand the Sabarimala judgment among others, theSupreme Court time and again reiterated its com-mitment to the goal of building a “just society”, onewhere every individual irrespective of their caste,creed, sex, religion or place of birth has the rightto live with dignity and freedom. The court has hada glorious history of making positive interventionsand initiating revolutionary changes in India’s demo-cratic culture. Celebrating its foundation day isindeed a step in the right direction.
But right when you thought that all is good withthe courts in India, there’s a caveat. First, deliver-ing justice isn’t a duty solely entrusted to the judi-ciary and second, it cannot be conducted in isola-tion. The justice delivery mechanism is dependenton several factors and cooperation among the threemajor organs of the State: The executive, legislaturesand the judiciary along with certain non-State actorsas well. Unless all these institutions collaborate toachieve a common goal, delivering justice willremain a distant dream.
The India Justice Report, an initiative of TataTrusts and several others does a commendable jobin highlighting the gaps and areas that needreform within our justice delivery system. The reportassesses the performance of our institutions basedon four pillars i.e., police, judiciary, legal aid soci-
eties and the prison system. It interalia highlights several glaring prob-lems in these institutions. It states thatwomen make up just 29 per cent ofsitting judges in India, whilst in HighCourts (HCs) their strength is just 11per cent on the Bench. Moreover, atleast five HCs are functioning with-out a single woman judge. Sadly,vacancies of judges in our HCsstand at 33 per cent. Even though 80per cent of our population is entitledto receive legal aid, only 1.5 crorepeople have received it since 1995.Our prison occupancy is at 119 percent and two-thirds of our prisoninmates are undertrial prisoners andover four crore cases are pending inseveral courts across the country.
Access to institutions of justiceremains skewed for the entirety ofour rural population even today. Thereport also shows how the judiciaryhas not been able to efficiently utilisefunds that were allocated to it by the13th and 14th Finance Commissions.The 13th Finance Commission, forinstance, allocated ̀ 5,000 crore to thejudiciary, out of which only 20 percent was utilised.
These data point at uncomfort-able trends in our justice administra-tion and towards intersectional issuesof institutional failure and perpetra-tion of oppression for every stake-holder. We all remember when the43rd CJI, TS Thakur, cried beforePrime Minister Modi in 2016, dur-ing a public conference, while high-lighting several issues plaguing thejudiciary. He had said that judges areforced to work in pitiful circum-
stances and stressful conditions withminimum infrastructure.
The Attorney-General of Indiaalso recently called for setting up ofa “Court of Appeals” to reduce theworkload of the apex court. The IndiaJustice Report also makes several sug-gestions to interrupt the status quo.Ensuring doorstep delivery of justiceby making it an essential service,enforcing a planned budgeting mech-anism, upskilling legal aid and Nyayapanchayats, prioritising cases basedon their urgency and impact andmeasuring public satisfaction are fewof the suggestions. Justice MadanLokur, a former Supreme Courtjudge, during the release of thereport said that a cost-benefit analy-sis and continuous social auditing iskey to ensuring institutional andadministrative efficiency.
However, there is a silver liningtoo. According to the report,Chhattisgarh has emerged as a trend-setter. It began with a notificationreleased by the Chhattisgarh HC in2017 which required the lower courtsto dispose cases pending for morethan five years on a priority basis. Amonitoring committee headed by asitting judge was set up at the HClevel. For district-wise monitoring,respective District Courts were askedto form their monitoring committeesand a weekly review of the progresswas mandated. All compoundablecases where parties were willing tocompromise in Lok Adalats were dis-posed-off. For this purpose, LokAdalats were organised daily afterregular court hours. The monitoring
committee at the District Court-levelwould conduct meetings with the dis-trict and police administration reg-ularly to ensure timely enforcementof summons and warrants issued bythem. New Magistrates were assist-ed and trained by senior judges toensure fair trial and adherence to lawsand procedures. To incentivisejudges, appropriate units were award-ed to them for disposing off casesbefore five years. Bail petitions weredealt with within a week and casesof undertrial prisoners were decid-ed in a time-bound manner.Infrastructural development wasensured by building new court-rooms in major districts like Raipurand Durg. All this cumulatively ledto a decline in the percentage ofpending cases, from 10 per cent in2019 to four per cent in 2020.
The apex court might certainlyhave a past worth glorifying, but itscredibility isn’t going to remain forlong if it sells its history as a sooth-ing balm for the damages done by itand other organisations in currenttimes. India ranks 69th in the Ruleof Law Index, 139th in the GlobalPeace Index, 112 in Global GenderGap Report, 51 in Democracy and142 in World Press Freedom Report.
We are forced to ask: Has justicebeen delivered or is it a myth in thetimes we live in? This question war-rants the attention of all citizens ofIndia. Losing hope in the judiciaryisn’t a solution, as in the words ofRabindranath Tagore: “Faith is thebird that feels the light and singswhen dawn is still dark.”
This question warrants the attention of all citizens of India. Losing hope in thejudiciary isn’t a solution to all that plagues our justice delivery system
OMKAR RAI
DELIVERINGJUSTICE ISN’T A
DUTY SOLELYENTRUSTED TOTHE JUDICIARY
AND IT CANNOT BECONDUCTED INISOLATION. THE
JUSTICE DELIVERYMECHANISM ISDEPENDENT ON
SEVERAL FACTORSAND COOPERATIONAMONG THE THREEMAJOR ORGANS OF
THE STATE: THEEXECUTIVE,
LEGISLATURESAND THE
JUDICIARY ALONGWITH CERTAIN
NON-STATEACTORS AS WELL.
UNLESS ALL THESEINSTITUTIONS
COLLABORATE TOACHIEVE A
COMMON GOAL,DELIVERING
JUSTICE WILLREMAIN A DISTANT
DREAM
The Economic Survey projects that India’s real Gross DomesticProduct (GDP) would register a growth of 11 per cent in 2021-22. It reflects a faster recovery for the economy which has been
crippled by the pandemic. Driven by the visible dynamism of econom-ic activities with the roll out of the Corona vaccines, the survey high-lights that the growth will further be reinforced by various reforms andeasing of regulations, rising infrastructural investments, spur in man-ufacturing sector through the productivity linked incentive schemes.
The survey also underlines how India’s rapid surge on the GlobalInnovation Index (GII) from 81 in 2015 to 48 in 2020 among 131 coun-tries was realised during the last five years. It also reflects the corre-lation between high-income economies and the high innovation index,which corroborates the Solow model on endogenous economic growth.Drawing reference to the GII 2020 report, the survey further drills downon sub-parameters of the overall innovation index, capturing how Indiafares on the seven parameters of innovation like 61st in institutions,60th in human capital and research, 75th in infrastructure, 31st in mar-ket sophistication, 55th in business sophistication, 27th in knowledgeand technology outputs and 64th in creative outputs.
This indicates that barring knowledge and technology outputs, weare lagging across other parameters. We must invest more and workin a synergistic mode to enhance our global positioning in institutions,human capital and research, infrastructure and business sophistica-tion. Moreover, India’s spending in Research and Development (R&D)has been low at around 0.7 per cent of the GDP, which is noticeablylower than the top five R&D spenders globally in 2017. Like 4.3 percent for the Republic of Korea, 4.2 per cent for Israel, 3.3 per cent forJapan and 3.2 per cent for both Switzerland and Finland and even lowerthan the R&D spend by other BRIC countries. This must be raised toa reasonable level of two per cent to rev up innovation momentum inthe country.
The more contrasting factor according to the survey is that theGovernment spends 56 per cent of the gross expenditure on R&D, whichis three times the average contributed by governments in the top teneconomies, while the private sector contributes much less (about 37per cent) in comparison to their counterparts in the top ten economies(68 per cent). In terms of the share of total R&D personnel, public sec-tor contributes 36 per cent, the highest among top 10 economies, whilethe private sector’s contribution to the total R&D personnel is 30 percent, which is far less than the average 50 per cent of the top 10economies. The hallmark of India, according to the GII 2020 survey,is the knowledge diffusion sub-pillar, which ranks 10, of knowledgeand technology outputs. And the most prominent dimension under thissub-pillar is the ICT services exports where India ranks first in the world.
While the Indian IT industry has displayed a tremendous perfor-mance among global counterparts, the other industries are falling backon scores. The other industry verticals should focus on research andinnovation, adopt emerging technologies, infuse process and businesssophistication. It’s imperative now to empower startups to co-createinnovations in collaboration with the industry in a more synergistic man-ner. The Indian startup ecosystem has defied the pandemic and cre-ated a record number of 12 unicorns in 2020. This is a testimony tothe innovation mettle of Indian startups. What’s critical for India nowis to bring in synergy between the Government and the private sectorto collaborate and build a systemic innovation culture across the boardto foster translational R&D by increasing investment, connecting acad-emia and industry to address real-life industrial challenges.
(The writer is Director General, Software Technology Parks of India.The views expressed are personal)
Given the socio-econom-ic impact of the pandem-ic, all eyes were on the
Finance Minister (FM) and herhandling of the twin challengesof stimulating demand andsupply, amid falling revenues.Since monetary stimulus has notbeen effective in boosting invest-ment demand, the onus ofrecovery is now more on fiscalmeasures and supply-inducingreforms. A V-shaped econom-ic recovery requires promotingdemand in sectors such as infra-structure and the rural econo-my. While agriculture and ruraldevelopment have understand-ably been given a big push in theUnion Budget, rather regrettablyeducation has not received thesame priority.
This is despite the fact thatthe education sector was severe-ly impacted by the pandemic,too. The contagion hamperedthe teaching-learning process-
es across all age groups as ped-agogy went online. As per theAnnual Status of EducationReport (ASER), 2020, thoughthe percentage of rural childrenowning a smartphone went upfrom 36.5 per cent in 2018 to61.8 per cent in 2020, nonethe-less it indicates that a large dig-ital divide still exists.
Similarly, schools and col-leges remain deficient inInformation Technology (IT)-enabled infrastructure. Withhybrid teaching-learningexpected to be the new normal,undoubtedly enormous expan-sion in digital technology isenvisaged. Additionally, to avertthe possibility of India’s demo-graphic dividend becoming adevastating catastrophe, impart-ing quality education remainsimportant. The new NationalEducation Policy (NEP), 2020,reinforces the viewpoint.
With the evolving future of
work, human potential for life-long learning has assumedgreater importance. Skilling,reskilling and upskilling hasbecome mandatory for the exist-ing workforce. Undoubtedly,investment in education is cru-cial for human capital forma-tion. Despite being a meritgood, necessitating Governmentprovision and active interven-tion, the education sector hasbeen largely neglected. For thefinancial year (FY) 2021-2022,there has been a 6.13 per centdecline in allocation of fundstowards it as compared to theBudgeted Estimates (BE) of2020-21. However, compared tothe Revised Estimate (RE) of2020-21, there has been a 9.5 percent increase in allocation for2021-22. Of the total allocationof `93,224 crore to the sector,`54,874 crore is allocated to theDepartment of SchoolEducation and Literacy (a drop
of 8.31 per cent) and the remain-ing `38,350 crore to highereducation (a drop of 2.83 percent in comparison to the BE ofthe previous year). Further, theRE for expenditure on educa-tion for 2020-21 witnessed adecline of 14.32 per cent vis-à-vis the BE.
Additionally, while the NEPhad strongly propagated expen-diture on the sector to be at leastsix per cent of the GDP, thesame has been between three-four per cent in India. For com-parison, expenditure on educa-
tion relative to the GDP is sixper cent or more in Australia,Chile, Israel, New Zealand,Norway, the UK and the US. Itlies between three-four per centin the Czech Republic, Hungary,Ireland, Italy, Japan and theRussian Federation. The averagefor the Organisation forEconomic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD) coun-tries is 4.9 per cent. For OECDcountries, it is about11 per cent.For Chile, Brazil, Mexico,Switzerland, New Zealand,Korea, and Denmark, it is ashigh as 17 per cent.
With hybrid education setto become the new normaleven in a post-Corona world,simply investing in technologyis not sufficient. A technologyroad map needs to be designedfor planned action to enableinstitutions to evolve from thestage of “doing digital” to“being digital.” Despite its
importance, the Budget does notpromote digitalisation per se. Infact, allocation to IT and the tele-com sector declined as a propor-tion of the total expenditurefrom 1.95 per cent (2020-21 BE)to 0.93 per cent (2020-21 RE).However, for Digital India e-learning, the funds earmarkedhave gone up by over 100 percent and stand at `645 crore.Further, under this scheme,‘National Mission on EducationThrough ICT’ as well as MassiveOpen Online Courses envisagedan overwhelming rise of over200 per cent and 167 per centrespectively and stand at `150crore and `200 crore each.Nonetheless, a greater thrustwould be required in the yearsahead. In addition to allocations,both total and compositional,what matters for productivity isgovernance. In terms of policyreforms, the proposal to amendthe Apprenticeship Act is com-
mendable and can generateopportunities for employabilityand financing of higher educa-tion. The Government’s focuson increasing collaboration withforeign institutions in Japanand the UAE for skill trainingpartnerships is also praisewor-thy. Additionally, setting up ofa single higher education regu-lator to streamline governancestructures in higher educationis commendable. Also, the allo-cation of ̀ 50,000 crore over fiveyears will encourage research,development and innovation.
To impart holistic develop-ment, new models of engage-ment such as learning consor-tiums and coalitions comprisingof diverse stakeholders need tobe established for scalable, sus-tainable and inclusive blendededucation. Hopefully, anenabling policy environmentshall make this a reality in theyears to come.
While the NEP had strongly advocated expenditure on the sector to be at least six per cent of the GDP, the same has been three-four per cent
India must strengthen R&D for leveraging the fruitsof innovation-led endogenous economic growth
ANURAGTIWARY
POINTCOUNTERPOINT
Tiwary is from theNational Law University,
Visakhapatnam, and Dewangan is from the
National Law University,Raipur.
The views expressed are personal.
Allocations to education sector need V-shaped recovery too
SIMRITKAUR
Kaur is Principal andSarna is Assistant
Professor, Shri RamCollege of Commerce,
University of Delhi. The views expressed
are personal.
VIKRAMADITYA DEWANGAN
KAMALDEEPSARNA
VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 10, 2021 Money 08
MONEY MATTERS
Amassive 45 per cent plunge inLife Insurance Corporation's
(LIC) individual annual premiumequivalent (APE) in January cappedthe industry growth at 8 per centfor the month, according to areport. Industry leader LIC saw its
individual APE growth plummet to 45 per cent, due to a massivelyhigh base of 99 per cent growth in January 2020. Yet, at 8 per cent,individual APE for the life insurance industry in January is higherthan the 3 per cent it had managed to grow in December and 7 percent decline in November 2020, according to the report by KotakSecurities. However, this pick-up in individual business indicates agradual increase in demand for Ulips, which has been the bane ofthe industry for quite sometime, said the report. Moderation ingrowth of protection business from peak levels seems to have beenarrested, as individual non-single sum assured to individual non-single premium for private players was 25 times in January. It was23 times in December but stood lower at 31 times in January 2020and 35 times in the second quarter 2020-21.
Massive drop in LIC's individualbiz caps growth in Jan at 8 pc
British premium motorcyclemaker Triumph Motorcycles
on Tuesday said it has launchedTiger 850 Sport in India priced atRs 11.95 lakh (ex-showroom).The 888-cc bike is the latestaddition to the company'spremium adventure motorcycle
line-up, taking the overall number to four. It already sells Tiger 900Rally Pro, Rally and GT in the country. The Tiger 850 Sport is aimedtowards urban adventure enthusiasts, apt for daily commuting, longrides as well as for weekend adventure runs, the company said."Triumph Motorcycles have been dominating the premium adventuresegment in the country since the first Tiger made its way to the Indianshores and now with the launch of the new Tiger 850 sport, we extendthe Tiger portfolio to four purposefully different motorcycles, at thesame time strengthening our commitment to catering to premiumadventure motorcyclists in the country," Triumph said.
Triumph drives in Tiger 850Sport in India priced at `11L
Realty portal Housing.com onTuesday said it has tied up
with Gurugram-based propertyand rental managementtechnology firm Propdial tostrengthen its rent servicesbusiness. The tie-up will help thecompany to provide propertymanagement services such as
renting/leasing, tenant background verification, rental agreement andrent collection/bill payment, Housing.com said in a statement. Thecompany would also offer support like quarterly property inspectionwith pictures and regular maintenance needed for the house to keepit running smoothly, without the landlord having to intervene. "All ofthis will enable Housing.com to act as a one-stop shop for itslandlord customers, seeking dedicated property managers andrelated services," the statement said. While most of the services areavailable in Delhi, Bengaluru, Gurugram, Mumbai, Hyderabad,Chennai and Pune, plans are underway to offer these services inseveral other cities.
Housing.com tiesup with Propdialto strengthen rental services
State-owned Central Bank ofIndia on Tuesday reported a
6.5 per cent rise in its net profitto Rs 165.41 crore in the thirdquarter ended December. Thebank had posted a net profit ofRs 155.32 crore in thecorresponding year-ago period.
Total income, however, fell to Rs 6,556.98 crore in October-December period of 2020-21 as against Rs 7,278.29 crore in sameperiod of 2019-20, the bank said in a regulatory filing. Interestincome for the quarter under review was down to Rs 5,782.61 crorefrom Rs 6,028.88 crore in the year-ago quarter. The bank's assetquality improved with gross non-performing assets(NPAs) falling to16.30 per cent of the gross advances as of December 31, 2020, from19.99 per cent by end of December 2019. In value terms, grossNPAs or bad loans stood at Rs 29,486.07 crore as against Rs33,259.59 crore.
Central Bank of India net profitup 6.5pc at `165 cr in Q3 FY21
Rupee remained among betterperforming currencies in 2020
PNS n MUMBAI
Snapping their six-sessionwinning streak, equitybenchmarks Sensex andNifty ended marginally loweron Tuesday amid profit-booking in IT, FMCG andauto stocks.
After rallying 487 points totouch its lifetime intra-dayhigh of 51,835.86, the 30-share BSE Sensex pared allgains to end 19.69 points or0.04 per cent lower at51,329.08.
Similarly, the broader NSENifty slipped 6.50 points or0.04 per cent to 15,109.30. It
touched a record peak of15,257.10 during the day.
M&M was the top laggardin the Sensex pack, sheddingaround 4 per cent, followedby Bajaj Finance, ITC, SunPharma, Bajaj Auto, BajajFinserv and TCS. On theother hand, Asian Paints,ONGC, Titan, L&T and AxisBank were among the gainers.
Domestic equit iesremained buoyant for mostof the session with bench-mark indices making freshhighs. However, high volatil-ity was seen towards the endof the session and profit-booking was witnessed in a
large number of stocks,experts said.
Broad-based rally was notseen and only select large capcounters supported market,said Binod Modi, Head -Strateg y at Rel ianceSecurit ies . Midcap andsmallcap indices underper-formed sharply and barringfinancials most of the keysectoral indices were in red.
Elsewhere in Asia, bours-es in Shanghai, Hong Kongand Tokyo ended with gains,while Seoul closed lower.
Stock exchanges in Europewere trading on a negativenote in mid-session deals.
Snapping six-session winning run,Sensex, Nifty end marginally lower
PNS n WASHINGTON
India's Union Budget present-ed by Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman has gen-erated a buzz among interna-tional investors, especiallyamong American companies,according to the head of anIndia-centric American busi-ness advocacy group.
Finance Minister Sitharamanon February 1 proposed asharp increase in expenditureon infrastructure, doubling ofhealthcare spending and rais-ing the cap on foreign invest-ment in insurance in herBudget for the next fiscal in abid to pull India's pandemic-hiteconomy out the woods.
“Overall, I thought it was agreat budget. Markets havereacted,” Mukesh Aghi, presi-dent of US-India Strategic and
Partnership Forum (USISPF),told PTI in an interview.
“I think they (US compa-nies) are excited. They feelthat for the first time in many,many years you have a budgetwhich provides less govern-ment fine-tuning… It is aclearly defined budget whichattracts a lot of InternationalInvestment,” Aghi said, reflect-ing on the feedback the USISPFhas been receiving from itsmember companies.
American companies, hesaid, see an opportunity forthem in India's healthcare sec-tor, as there has been a substan-tial increase in the budget. Same is the case in investmentin the infrastructure sector,which has generated a largeinterest among the US compa-nies, Aghi said.
The government has pro-
posed a budget outlay of Rs2,23,846 crore for health andwellbeing in 2021-2022, anincrease of 137 per cent fromthe previous year, with Rs35,000 crore earmarked forCOVID-19 vaccine in theupcoming fiscal.
The US companies havebeen buying assets in India,now they can be more aggres-sive, he said.
“So overall there are tremen-dous opportunities for the UScompanies to participate bothon a short-term and long-term
investment perspective,” Aghiadded.
Aghi said the farsighted bud-get will put India on a trajec-tory of double-digit growth inthe next few years.
Responding to a question, hesaid that earlier budgets of theModi government were fiscal-ly very conservative in thesense that they did not want thedeficit to go beyond three percent. “So right there the gov-ernment was trying to handi-cap itself by not being able toexpand the pie. If you aregoing to revive the economywhich contracted 20-30 percent, you need to spend andcreate demand. You need tobring in capital to create sup-ply,” Aghi said. As such, thereis a massive shift in approachof the Modi government fromthe previous budgets to the lat-
est one, which is much morefocused on reviving thedemand and attracting invest-ment to create the supply.
“Also, I would say this is lessof a micromanagement,” Aghisaid, adding that this fits intoPrime Minister NarendraModi's slogan of basically min-imum government and maxi-mum governance.
The budget reflects the “dra-matic shift in the philosophy”of the Modi government whenone compares this with the pre-vious annual budgets, he said,adding that policy changes insectors like insurance wouldattract large institutionalinvestors. Noting that increas-ing the fiscal deficit lets thegovernment borrow USD 164billion, he said the focus onspending a lot on infrastructurewill create jobs, create demand.
‘India's Union Budget creates buzz among global investors’
PNS n NEW DELHI
Minister for State for FinanceAnurag Singh Thakur onTuesday said the Indian rupeewas one of the better perform-ing Asian currencies in 2020.
"In the financial year 2020-21, the Indian rupee (INR) hasappreciated by 3.53 per cent tillFebruary 2, 2021, as per theinformation provided byReserve Bank of India," Thakursaid in a written reply to RajyaSabha. He also said Indiaenforced one of the most strin-gent lockdowns during April-June, 2020, compared to otherkey Asian countries and thecontraction in GDP is consis-tent with the effect of thestringent lockdown.
"Owing to stringent lock-down measures, India was ableto significantly contain thedeath rate from Covid. Withgradual unlocking of the coun-try, the economy made a sig-nificant V-shaped recovery," hesaid. Sharing various stepstaken by the government dur-ing 2020-21 to revive growthhit by COVID-19 pandemic,the minister said the govern-
ment announced a special eco-nomic and comprehensivepackage under AatmaNirbharBharat including measurestaken by RBI amounting toabout Rs 27.1 lakh crores –more than 13 per cent ofIndia's GDP – to combat theimpact of the Covid and torevive economic growth.
The package included,among others, in-kind andcash transfer relief measuresfor households, employmentprovision measures underPradhan Mantri Garib KalyanRojgar Abhiyaan and increasedallocation under MGNREGS,credit guarantee and equityinfusion-based relief measuresfor MSMEs and NBFCs andregulatory and compliancemeasures, he said.
PNS n NEW DELHI
The government will soonbring a bill on crypto curren-cies as existing laws are inad-equate to deal with issuesconcerning them, Minister ofState For Finance AnuragThakur told Rajya Sabha onTuesday.
Replying to a question inthe Upper House, Thakursaid regulatory bodies likeRBI and Sebi do not have anylegal framework to directlyregulate crypto currencies asthey are not currencies,assets, securities or com-modities issued by identifi-able users.
"The existing laws are inad-equate to deal with the sub-ject," he said.
The government hadformed an Inter-MinisterialCommittee which has givenits report on issues related tovirtual currencies. There wasalso a meeting of theEmpowered TechnologyGroup. The Committee ofSecretaries chaired by theCabinet Secretary has alsogiven its report.
"A bill (on crypto curren-cies) is being finalised and itwill soon be send to theCabinet. We will soon bebringing a bill," Thakur said.
In view of the risks associ-ated with Virtual Currencies(VCs), including Bitcoins,the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) through a circular inApril 2018, had advised allthe entities regulated by it notto deal in VCs or provide ser-vices for facilitating any per-son or entity in dealing withor settling VCs.
However, Supreme Court,vide judgement dated March4, 2020, had set aside theRBI's circular.
To another questionregarding Chinese compa-nies in the country, the min-ister said as of now, there arearound 92 companies regis-tered in the country. Out ofthem, 80 Chinese compa-nies are actively working inIndia.
Govt to soonbring Bill oncrypto currencies
PNS n NEW DELHI
Max Financial Services Ltd(MFSL) on Tuesday reported 54per cent jump in its consolidatednet profit to Rs 227 crore in thethird quarter ended December2020. The company's net profitstood at Rs 147 crore in theyear-ago period. The
consolidated revenues soared toRs 8,990 crore, growing 68 percent year-on-year due to higherinvestment income, MFSL said ina release. During Q3 FY21,MFSL's sole subsidiary Max Lifereported gross written premiumof Rs 4,629 crore, up 19 per centover the previous year, it added."MFSL has had a solid quarter
with our subsidiary Max Liferegistering impressive VNB(value of new business) andindividual adjusted sales. Thishas been a consequence of aconsciously diverse product mixwherein Non-Par and Protectionproducts continue to lead insales growth and marginexpansion.
Max Financial net profit jumps 54 pc to `̀227 cr
PNS n NEW DELHI
An expert committee set up todevelop the criteria for iden-tifying significant comorbidi-ties present in a person, whichwould make that person pri-ority individual for COVID-19 vaccination, will finalise itsreport in the next few days,Niti Aayog Member (Health)V K Paul said on Tuesday.
Apart from Oxford-AstraZeneca 's Covishield vac-cine and Bharat Biotech'sCovaxin vaccine, there areother vaccines that are in thepipeline, Paul stated.
"The criteria (to identifypeople with comorbidities)has been developed by a com-mittee. We are expecting thefinal report in the next fewdays," he told PTI.
Paul, who is also the chair-man of the National ExpertGroup On VaccineAdministration for COVID-19
(NEGVAC) said this commit-tee has gone deeply into it andlooked at which comorbidities-- the presence of two or morediseases or medical condi-tions in a patient -- should bekept in mind.
"They are also looking athow to ascertain this, who willcertify it, where will the per-son has go to get the priorityvaccine," he said, adding thatso the procedural and processissues have also been dis-cussed.
‘Rhizen’s cancerdrug Umbralisibgets USFDA nod’
KIAL achieves closure of new realty fundPNS n NEW DELHI
Kotak Investment Advisors onTuesday said it has successful-ly achieved closure of its newUSD 380 million-real estatefund, which will target a rangeof real estate financing oppor-tunities across key cities in thecountry.
The fund is anchored by aclutch of leading global finan-cial investors and is one of theleading real estate financingfunds closed in recent times inIndia, particularly during theCovid-19 pandemic.
The new fund will targetboth early stage and late stagereal estate projects in residen-tial, commercial, retail, ware-housing and hospitality sec-tors, Kotak InvestmentAdvisors Ltd (KIAL) said in astatement.
"Our new real estate fundhas been closed at an oppor-tune time. We have a flexibleinvestment mandate enablingus to provide much-neededcapital to address the short-term financial dislocation inthe real estate financing mar-ket as well as long-term capi-
tal to address the liquidityissue," KIAL ManagingDirector Srini Sriniwasan said.
Vikas Chimakurthy, CEO,Kotak Realty Fund said thenew USD 380 million fund isthe 11th fund in the company'sreal estate fund series, since thefirst fund raised in 2005.
"With this fund, we crosstotal raise of USD 2.2 billion.This demonstrates strong con-fidence of global investors inour longstanding track recordand our ability to source,underwrite and manage realestate investments," he added.
PNS n NEW DELHI
Adani Ports and SpecialEconomic Zone Limited(APSEZ) on Tuesday reporteda 16.22 per cent increase in itsconsolidated profit to Rs1,576.53 crore for the thirdquarter ended on December31, 2020. The country's largestintegrated logistics player hadclocked a consolidated profit ofRs 1,356.43 crore in the corre-sponding period a year earli-
er, the company said in a reg-ulatory filing to the BSE.
Its total consolidated incomeincreased to Rs 4,274.79 crorefor the third quarter, as againstRs 3,830.43 crore in the year-ago period.
The company's total expens-es during the quarter underreview increased to Rs 2,258.62crore, compared to Rs 2,091.40crore in the year-ago period.
Karan Adani, CEO andWhole Time Director ofAPSEZ said, "The strong andlasting recovery at APSEZ hasbeen the cornerstone of ourjourney in the recent past. It'sa proven certitude that ourbusiness now operates closer toa pure-play utility.”
APSEZ consolidated profit up 16%
PNS n NEW DELHI
Equity mutual funds wit-nessed an outflow of Rs 9,253crore in January, making itthe seventh consecutivemonthly withdrawal, primar-ily due to massive pulloutfrom the newly created flexifund category. Also, investorspulled out Rs 33,409 crorefrom debt mutual funds lastmonth after investing Rs13,863 crore in December,data from the Association ofMutual Funds in India.
Overall, the mutual fundindustry witnessed a net out-flow of Rs 35,586 croreacross all segments during theperiod under review, com-pared to Rs 2,968 crore inflowseen in December on invest-ment from hybrid and otherschemes.
As per the data, the out-flow from equity and equity-linked open-ended schemeswas at Rs 9,253 crore inJanuary compared to Rs10,147 crore in December.
Equity MFs seeoutflow for 7thstraight monthin January
PNS n NEW DELHI
Gross non-performing assets(NPAs) of public sector banks(PSBs) declined from Rs 8.96lakh crore in March 2018 to Rs6.09 lakh crore in September2020 due to various measurestaken by the government,Minister of State for FinanceAnurag Singh Thakur informedRajya Sabha on Tuesday. Therewas record recovery of Rs 2.54lakh crore during March 2018and September 2020 and 11 outof 12 PSBs reported profit in thefirst half of 2020-21 amountingto Rs 14,688 crore, he said in awritten reply to Rajya Sabha.Provision coverage ratio of PSBsis at over 8 years high at 85.06per cent at the end of September2020. Asset quality review(AQR) initiated in 2015 forcleaning up banks' balancesheets revealed high incidenceNPAs, he said. As a result ofAQR and subsequent
transparent recognition bybanks, he said, stressedaccounts were reclassified asNPAs and expected losses onstressed loans, not provided forearlier under flexibility given torestructured loans, wereprovided for. Further, all suchschemes for restructuringstressed loans were withdrawnin 2017-18. "Primarily as a resultof transparent recognition ofstressed assets as NPAs as perRBI data on global operations,gross NPAs of PSBs rose fromRs 2,79,016 crore as on March31, 2015, to Rs 8,95,601 croreas on March 31, 2018, and as aresult of government's strategyof recognition, resolution,recapitalisation and reforms,have declined to Rs 6,09,129crore as on September 30,2020," he said. Replying toanother question, Thakur saidPSBs have raised Rs 50,982crore in the form of both equityand bonds during 2020-21.
‘Gross NPAs of PSBs decline toRs 6.09 lakh crore in Sep 2020’
PNS n NEW DELHI
Automobile dealers' bodyFADA on Tuesday said passen-ger vehicle (PV) retail sales inJanuary witnessed a year-on-year decline of 4.46 per cent to2,81,666 units, as semicon-ductor shortage impacted thesegment.
According to the Federationof Automobile DealersAssociations (FADA), whichcollected vehicle registrationdata from 1,273 out of the 1,480regional transport offices(RTOs), PV sales stood at2,94,817 units in January2020.
Two-wheeler sales declined8.78 per cent to 11,63,322 unitslast month, as compared to12,75,308 units in January2020.
Commercial vehicle sales
also slipped 24.99 per cent to55,835 units, as against 74,439units a year ago.
Similarly, three-wheeler salesfell 51.31 per cent to 31,059units last month, from 63,785units in the year-ago period.
Tractor sales, however, grewby 11.14 per cent to 60,754units last month, against 54,662units in the same month theprevious year. Total sales acrosscategories declined 9.66 percent to 15,92,636 units last
month compared to 17,63,011units in the year-ago period.
Commenting on the salesdata, FADA President VinkeshGulati said after witnessing aone-off growth in December,January registrations fell onceagain by 10 per cent year-on-year.
"Auto industry clearly mis-judged the demand whichreturned post lockdown.Industry's underestimation ofpostcovid rebound along withchipmakers prioritising higher-volume and more lucrativeconsumer electronics markethas created a vacuum for semi-conductors," he noted.
This has resulted in a short-age in supply for all categoriesof vehicles, especially passen-ger vehicles, even thoughenquiry levels and bookingsremained high, Gulati said.
PV sales dip as semiconductorshortage impacts vertical
Two-wheeler salesdeclined 8.78 per centto 11,63,322 units lastmonth, as comparedto 12,75,308 units inJanuary 2020
Expert panel report soon onpriority individual for COVID vax
PNS n NEW DELHI
Drug firm Alembic Pharmaon Tuesday said its associatecompany Rhizen Pharmaceut-icals AG's novel drug Umbr-alisib has received acceleratedapproval from the US healthregulator for treatment of can-cer of the lymphatic system.
In a regulatory filing,Alembic Pharma said, RhizenPharmaceuticals AG's,"...Umbralisib, which waslicensed to TG Therapeuticshas secured United StatesFood and DrugAdministration (USFDA)accelerated approval for thetreatment of adult patients,with relapsed or refractorymarginal zone lymphoma(MZL) and follicular lym-phoma (FL)".
Umbralisib was earliergranted BreakthroughTherapy Designation (BTD)for the treatment of MZL and
orphan drug designation(ODD) for the treatment ofMZL and FL, the companyadded. In 2014, RhizenPharmaceuticals and TGTherapeutics entered into alicensing agreement as a partof which TG Therapeuticsobtained worldwide rights andRhizen has retained commer-cialisation rights for Indiawhile also being the manufac-turing and supply partner forUmbralisib.
"Umbralisib is a productinvented by Rhizen Pharmac-euticals and then we outli-censed it to TG Therapeut-ics...," Rhizen PharmaceuticalsPresident and CEO SwaroopVakkalanka said in a virtualmedia conference.
Umbralisib's approval offersMZL and FL patients a newtreatment option and is ahuge validation of Rhizen'sdrug discovery and develop-ment capabilities, he added.
am Asghari,27, has reactedto the FramingBritney SpearsFX documen-tary by releas-
ing a supportive statementfor his girlfriend, BritneySpears. “I have alwayswanted nothing but thebest for my better half,and will continue to sup-port her following herdreams and creating thefuture she wants anddeserves,” Sam told Peopleon Feb. 8, a day after thedocumentary aired ontelevision. In response tothe many fans concernedfor Britney amid the popstar’s conservatorship con-trolled by her father JamieSpears — which was a hottopic in the new docu-mentary — Sam added, “Iam thankful for all of thelove and support she isreceiving from her fans allover the world, and I amlooking forward to a nor-mal, amazing futuretogether.”
Fans were convincedthat Britney had taken asubtle jab at the FX docu-mentary about herself,which she did not autho-rise. In an Instagramvideo posted on Monday,fans thought Britney wasnot just talking about theSuper Bowl — whichaired two days after thedocumentary — when shesaid, “I was so excited buthonestly, I was rooting forKansas City but I was alsorooting for the other teamso it was a little confusingfor me.” The video thendid a jump-cut and with a
sly expression, the “Toxic”singer mysteriously said,“I love sharing.” Like withmany of her videos, fansinsisted the clip was codefor a larger controversy athand. Of course, thisremains purely fan specu-lation. The documentaryalso revealed footage ofBritney admitting that shewould feel “liberated” ifshe wasn’t controlled byher conservatorship,which she has been undersince 2008.
“If I wasn’t under therestraints that I’m underright now — you know,with all the lawyers anddoctors and peopleanalysing me every dayand all that kind of stuff -like, if that wasn’t there,I’d feel so liberated andfeel like myself,”Britney once said ina clip from the 2008MTV documen-tary Britney: Forthe Record, whichthe documentaryresurfaced.Britney even
made legal moves to makemajor changes to her con-servatorship in the fall of2020. In August, sherequested it to be“changed substantially inorder to reflect the majorchanges in her currentlifestyle and her statedwishes,” according tocourt documentsreviewed byHollywoodLife at thetime.
Then, in Nov. 2020,Britney requested that theBessemer Trust Companyreplace her father as “thesole conservator of herestate,” according to othercourt documents that wealso reviewed. However, ajudge reportedly denied
this request.
9
Vijayawada Wednesday February 10, 2021what’s brewing?
Rules
ARCHIE
GARFIELD
SUDOKU
REALITY CHECK SPEED BUMP CROSSWORD
GINGER MEGGS
NANCY
l Each row and column cancontain each number (1 to 9)exactly once.
l The sum of all numbers inany row or column mustequal 45.
The actress, who is mar-ried to Dino Lalvani andhas two sons, is preg-nant with her thirdchild.
“Coming this June,”she captioned her videoand said, “So I’ve actual-ly been meaning to geton here and chat withyou all, and to catch youall up with stuff that’s
been happening lately.”“Can you tell everyonewhat’s inside mummy’stummy?” she asked herson and he replied, “Ababy sister!”
Lisa Haydon got mar-ried to Dino Lalvani andwelcomed her son Zackin 2017 and her son Leoa few years later.
On the work front,Lisa Haydon was lastseen in Ae Dil HaiMushkil with RanbirKapoor and AnushkaSharma. The film wasdirected by Karan Johar.
fter completing 20 years in the enter-tainment industry, Priyanka Choprahas released her much awaited memoir‘Unfinished’. In her book, she dis-cusses about her life, what ithas been like working for the
past 20 years and made some shockingrevelations about how young actors aretreated in the industry.
During her initial years of work, shemet someone who suggested that sheshould get a ‘boob job’ and fix her ‘pro-portions’ and her then-manager hadagreed to this sentiment. “After a fewminutes of small talk, the direc-tor/producer told me to standup and twirl for him. I did.He stared at me long andhard, assessing me, and thensuggested that I get a boobjob, fix my jaw, and add alittle more cushioning tomy butt,” she penned in herbook, according to MetroUK.
“If I wanted to be anactress, he said, I’d need tohave my proportions“fixed,” and he knew agreat doctor in LA hecould send me to. My then-manager voiced his agree-ment with the assessment. ‘Ileft the director/producer’soffice feeling stunned andsmall. Was he right that Icouldn’t be successful unless Ihad so many body parts“fixed”? I thought of howindividuals in the media andothers in the industry hadreferred to me as “dusky” and“different-looking,” and I
wondered if I was cut out for this business afterall,” Chopra mentioned in her book.
Speaking to Metro UK, Priyanka further said,“It’s so normalised that it doesn’t come up in
conversation. I talked about a movie that Iwalked out of because of how I was spo-
ken to by the director.” She furtherrevealed, “It was early in my career,but I never told him why I walkedout. I never had the courage tostand up for myself, and actuallyadmit it. Because I heard so often,
“Don’t be a nuisance, you’re newin the industry, you don’t want tohave a reputation that you cause
trouble or you’re not easy towork with.”
Now on the other side of35, I know that’s a nor-malised thing that girlshear so often. I fell for ittoo, even though I con-sider myself a forward-thinking, smart girl. Ilearned from that overtime, but then, I was ter-rified. Yes I faced thatthen, I faced that like
everybody elsewhen you’re inpatriarchalindustries,which ours hasbeen for a verylong time.”Meanwhile, onthe work front,Priyanka wasrecently seenin We Can BeHeroes andThe WhiteTiger.
PeeCee: Was asked to fix myproportions early in my career
Paris Hilton says she was abused as teen at Utah school
aris Hilton testi-fied about abuseshe says she suf-fered years ago ata boarding schoolin Utah, as she
lobbied Monday for a billseeking to regulate the state’stroubled teen industry.
Hilton was sent to ProvoCanyon School for 11months at age 17 where shesays she was abused mental-ly and physically, recallingthat staff members wouldbeat her, force her to takeunknown pills, watch her
shower and send her to soli-tary confinement withoutclothes as punishment. Thesocialite and reality TV staralso spoke about the abusein a documentary titled Thisis Paris that was releasedthis fall.
Hilton testified at a stateSenate committee hearing atthe Utah Capitol in favor ofthe bill that would requiremore government oversightof youth residential treat-ment centers and requirethem to document whenthey use restraints. The
measure passed unanimous-ly following emotional testi-mony from Hilton and sev-eral other survivors.“Talking about somethingso personal was and is stillterrifying,” Hilton told thecommittee. “But I can notgo to sleep at night knowingthat there are children thatare experiencing the sameabuse that I and so manyothers went through, andneither should you.” The 39-year-old said the treatmentwas so “traumatising” thatshe has suffered nightmares
and insomnia for years.The Provo institution is
now under new ownershipand the administration hassaid it can’t comment onanything that came beforethe change, includingHilton’s time there. A state-ment on the school websitesays the previous ownerssold the school in 2000.
Since the documentarywas released, other celebri-ties have spoken out abouttheir experiences at theschool or others like it,including Michael Jackson’s
daughter Paris Jacksonand tattoo artist KatVon D. During her tes-timony, Hilton calledon President Joe Bidenand leaders in Congressto take action and saidshe intends to pursuefederal legislation.
“This is just the firststep,” Hilton toldreporters. “This bill isgoing to definitely help alot of children but there’sobviously more work to do,and I’m not going to stopuntil change happens.”
Sam speaks out after BritneySpears documentary airs
A
A
S
p
alentine’s Day marksthe celebration oflove. It is that time ofthe year when loveand romance blossomin every heart and in
every corner of the world.Couples explore new waysto express their emotionsand make their partner feelspecial. There are manythings that you can do tomake someone feel special,yet there are some peoplewho want to wear theirhearts, literally, on theirsleeves by getting a perma-nent tattoo on their skin!
Couple tattoos havegained tremendous popular-ity in the last few years.Getting a beautiful piece of
art tattooed on your body todedicate it to yourspouse/partner is somethingthoughtful and cherishable.Both ink and love requirelifelong commitments asthey never fade, regardlessof how much time passes.So if you want to show yourpartner that you’re prettyserious about the relation-ship and it’s a ‘forever’ kindof love, then matching tat-toos are the new, modernway to reveal how much thisbond matters to you!
There are a variety of tat-too styles that are trendingthese days. People havebecome creative and arefinding different ways ofinking their love. Some
designs include, king andqueen crowns, connectingpuzzle tattoo, partner’sname, name initials, zodiacsymbols, infinity sign, orwedding date etc. Award-winning tattoo artist,Lokesh Verma, founder ofDevil’z Tattooz lists trendspopular among couples:
Name or date
Many couples tend to gettoo romantic on this specificday and get each other'snames inked to show howmuch they love each other.The most popular exampleof this was Saif Ali Khan'stattoo for his lady love,Kareena Kapoor Khan. Onecan also get special dates
inked, such as weddinganniversary or the first timeyou met. These are specialmemories and moments tocherish.
Identical ones
For an everlasting bond, alot of people prefer to findthat one common thingwhich both the partners canconnect with such as wordor phrase, musical notes orany symbol. Having thesame tattoo links youtogether for life. Even,Priyanka Chopra Jonas andNick Jonas marked theirfirst anniversary of theirengagement by gettingmatching tattoos to cele-brate that.
Connecting tattoos
Connecting or half andhalf tattoo is completeonly when the couple istogether. Thus, depictingthat they are incompletewithout each other. Oneexample is the heartbeattattoo that runs from oneto the other. Coupleswho are in a long-distancerelationship also get con-necting tattoos to representhow you and your partnermay be miles apart but stillconnected.
Minimalistic designs
To make a big impact, gosmall! A lot of people like tokeep things personal, superdiscreet, nothing to elabo-rate, visible, flashy or bold.For such private and simple
people, the minimalistic tat-toos are the best options -small tattoos to define thelarge amount of love youfeel.
Ink the fingerprint
This is something quirkyand unique — getting thefingerprint of your partnerprinted on yourself. It's likea signature of love inked onyou, which is the ultimateseal of love.
V
orn with twinklingtoes and alwaysready to bust amove with hisfamous signaturestyles, Punit. J.
Pathak had dreamt of being acricketer but destiny hadsomething else in his kitty.From being an ace choreog-rapher to now stepping intoanother performing artsshowground with majorscreen-space, it’s very rarethat we see a dancer transi-tioning into the world of act-ing. The newly marriedgroom is immensely talentedand with this he's all set toenter in!
He seems excited to adaptto the changing times ofentertainment platforms asthe country moves along.When asked about his show,he said, “LSD — Love,Scandal & Doctors talksabout five medical interns inthe KMRC medical college inDelhi, a premier medicalinstitute. The story startswhen they suddenly findthemselves in the middle of amurder investigation strug-gling between right andwrong and fact versus fiction.They are tested on both per-sonal and professionalaspects. I am playing theinstrumental role of inspec-tor Tavish Singh. I love itbecause no one knows whathe feels since he always filtershis emotions. Sometimessmiling, sometimes smoking,sometimes serious, some-times sarcastic, so it is multi-layered. Usually, charactersare just two or three-facedbut this man has many faces.He has a personal equationand reaction with every doc-tor, so that is the best partand I loved playing this char-acter with the equipped teamof great writers and directors.I am looking forward to theaudiences’ reaction to thesame.”
When asked about whatbrought him aboard thisweb-series, he says, “Theexcitement of this multilay-ered character, plus me wear-ing a uniform gave me a dif-ferent feeling and attitude toplay Tavish. I loved wearing apolice uniform. The wholeUSP of this series is that it isa thriller and very well writ-ten, it leaves you in a cliff-hanger mode after everyepisode which makes theaudience want to watch theconsecutive episodes soon-est.”
A country where talent issoaring high, Punit couldn’tstay behind. In order to lookfully altered for the role, hecut down a lot on his physi-cal transformation. He was ina phase where he wanted totake care of himself and wasalready in the process and heknew the uniform would betight-fitting so he did tonedown. Currently, he is prettymuch convinced with hislook! Talking more about thepreps for the character, headds, “Tavish being the roleof a dashing cop, I felt like Ihave a responsibility as an
artist so I made sure I didn’tmug up the lines, I said myown way, there is always apersonal touch. Here I aminterrogating 5 medicalinterns who are suspects of amurder, they are my juniors’age, and experience-wise Ialways pictured them as mystudents or assistants check-
ing if what they are doing isright or wrong. The lines andscript and storyline are fromthe story writer as Tavish butthe feeling is of Punit-thechoreographer. I loved work-ing with all of them; I had adifferent equation off camerawith them. All are amazing,beautiful, and truly talented
and they will have brightfutures and are yet to reachtheir maximum potential,they will definitely shine.”
With 2020 bringing largetheatres to our living room,the couch epoch of entertain-ment has already been ush-ered in and even thoughaudiences are returning to
cinema halls, viewers are alsoaccustomed to the new cine-matic wave. “OTT platformsare the future; the way thingsare going is very close tobecoming the present. Ourgeneration and people inmetro cities are used to it. Itjust needs to reach ruralareas a bit more, but it will
soon be there. How the showis going to be received is notin our hands and I am fromthe school of thought thatyou give your hundred per-cent and there is no pointworrying about somethingthat isn’t in your hand. I dowant the show to be fabulous,I want it to be trending. Iwant people to love it somuch that a sequel is imme-diately done. Many shows aregetting that love and respectand I want this to be one ofthem. We have given ourhundred percent and that isall that we could’ve donesince it was shooting theshow with all the necessaryprecautions and limitedunits, it is a tremendous teameffort,” he adds.
Bollywood is goingthrough a tough turf thesedays, having to manoeuvrefor ranking outsiders and starkids, but what does Punithave to say about the whole‘having it relatively easy’debate? The champion chore-ographer steers that everyoneis in a highly competitiveworld but “if my son wants tobe a choreographer ordancer, he has the genes andI have the experience to doeverything I can to do whatwould help him.” He feelsnepotism is overrated; “forexample, a shop owner willhand over his business to hisson only,” he believes.
Bringing the conversationto a close about how thedancer-turned-actor spenthis lockdown and what’s lifelike after getting married, hetells, “Like everyone else dur-ing the lockdown, I was alsotrying everything the worlddid — Yoga, meditation,cooking, Dalgona coffee,work out, jhaadu pocha, try-ing to read, watch series,cleaning wardrobe, etc. I alsogot engaged, got some timeto think for myself and givemyself a reality check andrealised it was time to takethe next step. While this washappening, I got a call fromthe makers saying they aredoing this show and this isthe script where there is thischaracter we want you toplay. I gave the audition overthe phone and actually, therewas another show of theirsfor which I got selected. Ithen spoke with the makersof the show and they con-vinced me it was necessary. Ithought it will help me in mycareer so I liked that it wasnot one way. I enjoyed beinga part of it because when theshow came in, it was chal-lenging, it was new, and thisrole had nothing related todancing but being a cop,being in character so I lovedevery aspect of it. As far asmy marriage is concerned, sofar it’s going very good, Ihonestly don’t think it hassunk in. It is still me spend-ing time with my best friendand that’s the best part. Thenicet thing about us is thatwe both give each otherspace. It is beautiful to comeback home and have yourloved one next to you.”
Youmay
know thiscelebrity for his
dancing, choreographyand a diminutive bit ofacting in dance films.
Nevertheless, at the moment, well-knownfigure Punit J. Pathak is all set to make his OTT
debut as a lead in LSD - Love, Scandal & Doctors.He talks to The Pioneer's SHIKHA DUGGAL
about his journey, current role, and more.
‘Nepotism is
overrated'
b
ith the aim —fashion exhi-bition with apurpose,FashionYathra is all
set to be held onFebruary 13 at TajKrishna, Banjara Hills,Hyderabad. It will beone of the first few fash-ion and lifestyle exhibi-tions that will be held inthe city post the pan-demic. It raises a lot ofcuriosity among thefashion-conscious peo-ple and will shed somelight on how the pan-demic will shape thefashion world. The pro-ceedsfromtheshowwillbecon-tributedto ‘Teachfor
Change’ — an initiativefor educating the under-privileged.
Fashion trends duringand post-pandemic:what is trending? Theexhibition will answerthese and many morequestions. Over 60 topdesigner labels fromacross India and abroadwill be showcasing theircollection. Fashionentrepreneurs, socialenterprises, start-upsand lifestyle brands,designer labels willshowcase their products.Some of the exhibitorsinclude Ghanasingh,The Blooming Lily,Sanam Tamanna, Dubai;Tasuvure by Sonal Saraf;Preevin Designs;Anshikaa Jain; PinkPolka; Kaveri; AmazingJewel; Alok Baid; SiddhCouture by Deepa Goel;Aida by Priyanka Jain;Soup by Sougat Paul;
brainchild ofKamini Saraf whosaid that thefuture of fashionwill be natural,sustainable,durable andbiodegradable.“Over the years,Fashion Yatrahas a trackrecord of suc-cessfully con-ducting showsin all majorcities. At thisexhibition, weare featuringdesigner gar-ments, jew-ellery andlifestyleproductsfrom acrossIndia.”
Fashion for a cause
Heart onyour sleeve
Couple tattoos have gained tremendouspopularity in the last few years. Here are some
creative ideas to express your love by gettinginked together this Valentine's Day. — PNS
W
WednesdayFebruary 10, 2021
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sport 11VIJAYAWADA | WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 10, 2021
JAFFER RESIGNS AS UTTARAKHAND COACH New Delhi: Former India opener Wasim Jaffer hasresigned as Uttarakhand's head coach due to “interferencein team selection”, days before they were to compete inthe Vijay Hazare Trophy, beginning on February 20. CricketAssociation of Uttarakhand (CAU) has accepted hisresignation. “I feel really sad for the players as I genuinelythink that they have lots of potential and can learn so muchfrom me but are denied this opportunity because of somuch interference and bias of selectors and secretary inthe selection matters for non-deserving players,” Jafferwrote in an e-mail to the association.
MUMBAI GETS NEW COACH IN POWAR Mumbai: Former India off-spinner Ramesh Powar hasbeen appointed as Mumbai team's coach for the VijayHazare Trophy. Mumbai Cricket Association secretarySanjay Naik confirmed the development on Tuesday.Powar got the charge after former domestic cricketerAmit Pagnis, who was initially appointed as Mumbaicoach, quit from his position following the team'sdismal show in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. “I'mthankful to the CIC (Cricket Improvement Committee)and MCA for trusting my coaching abilities and I amlooking forward to the Vijay Hazare Trophy.”
TENDULKAR TO BE BACK IN ACTION Mumbai: Cricket legends such as Sachin Tendulkar,Virender Sehwag, Brian Lara and Muttiah Muralitharanwill take the field once again as the ‘Unacademy RoadSafety World Series T20’ gets underway in Raipurfrom March 2 to 21. The first edition of the series wascalled off after four games on March 11 last year dueto Covid-19 pandemic. The organisers on Tuesdayannounced that all the remaining matches will beplayed in the newly-built 65,000 capacity ShaheedVeer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur.
LEEDS INTO PREMIER LEAGUE TOP 10 Leeds: Leeds climbed into the Premier League top 10after beating Crystal Palace 2-0. Jack Harrison'sdeflected shot gave the home side a flying start, andPatrick Bamford tucked home a rebound for his 12thleague goal and 100th of his career early in the secondperiod on Monday. “After being out of the league for 16years it is important for a club like Leeds to get afooting and build from that,” Bamford said. “This is nomore than we've deserved. It bodes well for the future.”
KOHLI UNHAPPY WITH SG TEST BALLS QUALITY New Delhi: India captain Virat Kohli on Tuesday joinedteammate Ravichandran Ashwin in voicing hisdispleasure over the quality of SG Test balls used duringthe first Test against England as they went completelysoft by the 60th over with stitches coming off theirseam. “Quality of the ball (SG-Test) was also not whatwe were very pleased to see as that was also the case inthe past. Just the ball completely being destroyed in 60overs is not something that you experience as a Testside and any side could be prepared for,” Kohli said.
OLY QUALIFYING MARATHON ON MARCH 7 New Delhi: The New Delhi National Marathon 2021, aqualification event for the Tokyo Olympics andrecognised by Athletics Federation of India, will he heldhere on March 7. Rashpal Singh and Jyoti Gawte wonthe men's and women's titles respectively in the 2020edition with timings of 2:23:29s and 2:50:37s. TheTokyo Olympics marathon qualifying timings for menand women are 2:11:30s and 2:29:30s resp. Agencies
PTI n CHENNAI
Veteran James Anderson’s artis-tic spell of reverse swingtrumped Virat Kohli’s show of
grit as England decimated India in theopening Test by a comprehensive227-run margin here on Tuesday.
A target of 420, with 381 left ona fifth day worn out Chepauk track,was always a tough ask going by crick-eting logic and Anderson’s mid-morning burst blew away the Indianmiddle-order. In the end, the hostscould manage only 192 in 58.1 overs.
That spell ensured that there was-n’t a Sydney like heist or the magic ofBrisbane final day which many hadhoped for despite the world recordtarget.
Kohli (72 off 104 balls) seemedlike a lonely general standing on aburning deck as he showed his col-leagues how to bat on a difficult track.
He covered the swing and shuf-fled towards the off-stump to counterAnderson, ran purposefully andscored his runs against spinners.
But there was that one ball thatwas always going to keep low and hegot that from Ben Stokes.
DOUBLE ALIKE BLOWCourtesy Anderson (11-4-17-
3), the match became a mismatchwithin an hour and India now needto win two out of the next three Teststo qualify for the World TestChampionship final in June. Theplayer of the match honours went toEngland skipper Joe Root for hismatch-defining double hundred inthe first innings.
It was left-arm spinner JackLeach (26-4-76-4), who after hisfirst innings humilation at the handsof Rishabh Pant, finished with thebest figures but the effort paled incomparison to the effect thatAnderson had on the psyche of the
Indian team.Anderson sowed doubts among
rank and file of the home line-up,whether they had the technique toplay the moving ball which swings theother way round. Kohli can but canhis colleagues do it will be the bigquestion going forward.
The man from Burnley, in his19th Test match season, showed hisartistry with a semi-new ball, on afifth day track and sapping Chennaiheat, far removed conditions from thegrey skies and cool breeze that OldTrafford gives him.
But then Anderson is a devoteeand best practitioner of Test matchethos and doesn’t need to take refugein conditions because of his supremecontrol over his craft.
ANOTHER FIFTY FOR GILLGill (50, 83 balls) once again
looked dazzling till the time he was
at the crease. The sinewy wristswere in play as he hit seven fours anda six, dealing with spinners comfort-ably.
Even Cheteshwar Pujara’s (15 off38 balls) dismissal off Jack Leach’s“peach” didn’t unfaze the young manfrom Punjab as he along with Kohlicalmly went about their business.
It was the 27th over whenAnderson first came into the attackand the second ball was a perfectreverse inswinger which had Gill ina daze as the off-stump went for awalk.
The way the shiny part on theinside tailed in was a sight to behold.
Rahane (0), for all the apprecia-tion coming his way, was in very poorform for the better part of theAustralia series, save a hundred atMCG where he was dropped thrice.
The first ball he faced on Tuesdaywas another one that came back a
shade and it was hitting the middleof the middle stump with theUmpires’ Call saving the vice-captainof what looked like a plumb legbefore.
The wily Anderson realised thatan out-of-form Rahane’s feet are notmoving.
The next time he just went ashade wide off the crease and deliv-ered another reverse inswinger.Rahane knew that there was nocomeback. Pant (11) has had three
great knocks but he was facing abowler with supreme game awarenessand immaculate understanding ofconditions.
Against a left-hander, he pre-dictably came round the wicket andangled a few in with a busy Pant hit-ting a boundary.
By then, Anderson had gaugedthat Pant could be hurried on thedrive.
So the master changed his tacticand bowled a slower one enticingPant to go for a drive.
Pant tried his best to check it butthe bowler had asked his skipper JoeRoot to specifically stand at shortcover for that particular shot.
From 92 for 2, it was 110 for fiveand Kohli cut a lonely figure at theother end.
Washington Sundar (0) was thenpicked by Dom Bess with the one thatturned away leaving India in completetatters.
AFP n DOHA
Bayern Munich advanced to theClub World Cup final after goals
in each half by Robert Lewandowskisealed a 2-0 victory over Africanchampions Al Ahly in Monday’ssemi-final.
The European champions faceTigres in the final on Thursdayafter the Mexican club saw offBrazilian giants Palmeiras inSunday’s other semi-final.
“It was a very good matchand we’re ready for the final,”Lewandowski said.
He gave Bayern thelead with just 17 minutesgone at the Ahmad BinAli Stadium, a hostvenue for the 2022World Cup inQatar.
The Polandstar then headedhome a pinpointLeroy Sane cross four min-
utes before the whistle to bookBayern’s place in the final.Lewandowski, the Bundesliga’s topscorer, has now scored 29 goals in 27club matches this season.
Bayern are bidding to becomeonly the second team after Barcelonain 2009 to win all six domestic andinternational titles up for grabs inone season. The German giants
lifted the Bundesliga, GermanCup, Champions League,German Cup and UEFA SuperCup trophies in 2020.
“We want to claim anothertitle — title number six during
this season,”Lewandowski added.
“This is a WorldCup, which isalways somethingspecial. “I hopewe can play evenbetter in the finaland that we will
have moregoalscoring chances.”
AFP nMELBOURNE
Rafael Nadal’s injured back didn’t slow his bidfor a record 21st Grand Slam title on Tuesday,
as women’s world number one Ashleigh Bartyromped to a 6-0, 6-0 ‘double bagel’ at theAustralian Open.
On a day when women’s champion SofiaKenin also reached round two, but two-time win-ner Victoria Azarenka lost after breathing prob-lems, Nadal and Barty were the headline acts atthe coronavirus-delayed Slam.
Spanish great Nadal, who pulled out of lastweek’s ATP Cup with back problems, beatSerbia’s Laslo Djere 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 in one hour and52 minutes on a sun-kissed Rod Laver Arena.
“It’s been a tough 15 days for me,” said the2009 champion, whose back stiffness first flaredduring an exhibition match last month.
“I needed to survive today and that’s what Idid. I’m happy to be through and I think I did agood job today. Straight sets is what I needed.”
Nadal, 34, is attempting to outstrip his old rivalRoger Federer, who is out with injury, and take soleownership of the all-time record for Grand Slamtitles. After world number one Novak Djokoviceased through late on Monday, Russia’s DaniilMedvedev extended his winning streak to 15matches with an emphatic 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 victoryover Canada’s Vasek Pospisil.
The 2019 US Open finalist is raising hopesof a maiden Grand Slam title with his unbeatenrun, which includes winning the Paris Masters,ATP Finals and last week’s ATP Cup with Russia.
Russian seventh seed Andrey Rublev also con-tinued his winning start to the year with a straight-sets victory over German Yannick Hanfmann 6-3, 6-3, 6-4.
And Greek fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipasmade short work of French veteran Gilles Simon,winning 6-1, 6-2, 6-1 in 92 minutes.
BARTY STARTEDBarty also outclassed Montenegro’s Danka
Kovinic, losing only 10 points as she raced intoround two in just 44 minutes.
With the win Barty, last year’s semi-finalistwho sat out most of the 2020 season, ramped uphopes of a first Australian women’s winner in 43years.
Women’s champion Kenin was less convinc-ing and she audibly vented her frustrations dur-ing her 7-5, 6-4 win against Australian MaddisonInglis, who is ranked outside the top 100.
Two-time major-winner Garbine Muguruza,who was stunned by Kenin in last year’s final, hadlittle trouble beating Russia’s Margarita Gasparyan6-4, 6-0.
But there were distressing scenes as an ailingAzarenka, the 2012 and 2013 champion, went outto Jessica Pegula.
Elsewhere, fifth seed Elina Svitolina waspushed hard by Czech Marie Bouzkouva beforecoming through 6-3, 7-5 (7/5).
She will next play 16-year-old American CocoGauff, who beat Venus Williams and NaomiOsaka last year and enjoyed a straightforward 6-3, 6-2 win over Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann onTuesday.
Madrid: Atletico Madrid slipped upin La Liga for the first time in ninegames on Monday as Celta Vigosnatched a late equaliser to delivera ray of hope to Barcelona and RealMadrid. Luis Suarez scored twice atthe Wanda Metropolitano to over-turn Santi Mina’s opener for Celta,with Atletico on course to restoretheir 10-point lead at the top of thetable. But Facundo Ferreyra slid into score in the 89th minute to earna deserved 2-2 draw for the visitors,meaning Atletico’s advantage at theend of the weekend is reduced toeight, still with a game in hand. AFP
Lewa takes Bayern in final
Atletico stumbleagainst Celta Melbourne: India’s Sumit Nagal exited the
Australian Open with a first-round defeat, strug-gling to cope with the power-packed game ofLithuanian Ricardas Berankis, here on Tuesday.
Nagal’s challenge deflated in a matter of min-utes as Berankis’ powerful ground strokes provedto be too good for the Indian, who lost 2-6, 5-7,3-6 in two hours and 10 minutes.
Nagal had lost to the world number 72 in thelast week’s tune-up event too.
The 23-year-old Nagal reeled off four straightgames in the second set in his bid to stage a come-back but the initial dominance by Berankis large-ly dictated the outcome of the match.
India’s singles challenge is over and now alleyes will be on doubles players — RohanBopanna, Divij Sharan and Ankita Raina. PTI
Barty bagels, Rafa magicPTI n CHENNAI
England have set a benchmarkfor themselves with their mon-
umental victory against India inthe first Test, gushed captain JoeRoot while admitting that com-peting on spin-friendly tracks inSri Lanka prepared them nicelyfor this tour.
England inflicted on India ahumiliating 227-run defeat to go1-0 up in the four Test series butthe visiting skipper has no doubtthat the home team has the kindof players who can exact revenge.
“I'’m very proud of the waywe’ve played this week. We haveset a benchmark now, we’ve gotsomething to work for to compareourselves. Still there are areas wecan improve on. We can still getbetter,” Root said at the post-match press conference.
“We know that India are anextremely good team, especially inthese conditions. And they’re avery proud nation as well. They’vegot some exceptional players sothey’ll come back hard.”
The skipper, who made abrilliant 218 which was the cor-nerstone of England’s massivefirst innings total, mentioned therole played by the Sri Lanka seriesahead of India assignment.
England had won that series2-0 with Root leading from thefront with his big hundreds.
“It certainly served us well,coming out here, having faced thevolume of spin that we have,having the confidence of winning.And playing on a similar kind ofwicket, wasn’t the same by anystretch, but the tempo of thecricket that you play in the sub-continent I think served us real-ly well coming into this game.”
“The pleasing thing for me
was to set a big first innings run,and we delivered it. We said weneeded to be smart about howwe’re going to take 20 wickets, andwe delivered it.”
Root said the challenge beforethem now is to repeat the magnif-icent performance.
“Can we replicate that, can wego one better, can we keep look-ing to improve as a team and canwe take it on individually thatmakes a difference.”
About not declaring and notaccelerating the scoring duringthe second innings on day fourwhich drew criticism from somequarters, Root said the idea wasto not give the home team anychance of winning the game
“I wanted to make sure thatmore than anything there wereonly two possible results. It wouldhave been damaging had we lostthis game.
“I knew that the way that itdeteriorated the last three days inparticular that coming into todayit was gonna happen even quick-er again. All we needed to do, berelentless with the areas we werebowling.
“Put the ball in good areas fora long period of time and thewicket will do the rest. It was justabout holding on,” Root added.
We’ve set a benchmark now: Root
England skipper Joe Root ECB/Twitter
Dubai: India on Tuesday slipped tofourth position in the World TestChampionship rankings after their227-run defeat to England in theopening Test as the visitors kept alivetheir hopes of making the final of theinaugural event.
New Zealand have already qual-ified for the WTC final, to be heldat Lord’s later in the year, winning70.0 per cent of their matches (withno other series scheduled).
The victory at Chepauk liftedEngland to first place and 70.2 per-centage points on the table and theyhave improved their chances of
securing one of the three seriesresults in their favour that could seethem through to the final — 3-1, 3-0 or 4-0. India grabbed the top spotafter their incredible series winAustralia last month.
India, who have slipped to fourthposition with 68.3 percentage points,will now be looking to win at leasttwo of the remaining three matchesto secure a 2-1 or 3-1 result and aplace in the final.
Australia will get to feature in aTrans-Tasman summit clash if theIndia-England series is drawn or ifEngland win 1-0, 2-1 or 2-0. PTI
India slip to 4th spot
PTI n CHENNAI
India’s underwhelming battingperformance in the first innings
gave England the decisive advan-tage, skipper Virat Kohli said onTuesday and defended the deci-sion to play rookie left-arm spin-ner Shahbaz Nadeem instead ofa more experienced KuldeepYadav.
After losing the first Test,Kohli admitted that the teamwas always under the scoreboardpressure after England’s mam-moth first innings total of 578 butalso said that he has no regretsabout picking Nadeem overKuldeep.
“I think, Test probably shift-ed in their favour when we bat-ted in the first innings. We werelooking to bat better but I don’t
think there was enough applica-tion shown by us as a battingunit,” Kohli said at the post-match press conference refer-ring to India’s 337 all out firstessay score.
“Even if someone got a hun-dred in either innings, still we werepretty much behind in the game.There’s not one way to play thegame and we understand thatquite well and our endeavour in thefuture games is going to be longpartnerships,” said Kohli.
Kuldeep’s absence was a talk-ing point through the Test butKohli gave his reasons as to why hewouldn’t like to revisit his decision.
“...When you are playing two
off-spinners, Kuldeep more or lessbecomes a similar kind of spinner(bringing it into the right-han-ders). So, we needed variety. Wewere quite clear what combinationwe wanted to play, and there areno regrets whatsoever.”
However he hinted that themanagement could rework thecombination in the comingmatches. The second Test is alsoscheduled to be held here fromFebruary 13.
“Moving forward, we willlook at combinations, that bringus variety in the bowling attackand not (be) one-dimensional,where the ball is only turningaway from the bat.”
t has been almostfive years since KLDamodar Prasadhad a release andhe attributes the
gap in producing films to hisattention to scripts. “I don’tbegin work on a movie unlessI am absolutely confident thatthe script is unique and inter-esting. I also am picky aboutthe directors I work with. I
look at their commitment towork and their experience invarious crafts,” the producer,who is looking forward to therelease of his next productionventure, Father-Chitti-Uma-Karthik (FCUK), a romantic-comedy, says.
He is introducingVidyasagar Raju as a directorwith the film. “He is a talent-ed director but has beencrushed in the industry. Ifound his script to be capti-vating and we worked on thedetailing. I am very happywith the end product. Iextend my thanks toJagapathi Babu garu for intro-ducing him to me,” Damu, as
he is fondly called in theindustry, notes.
Didn’t he feel the titleFCUK will alienate familyaudiences from visiting thecinemas? He responds, “Thestory revolves around fourmain characters. It is the rea-son why we named it asFather-Chitti-Uma-Karthik.Since it’s a lengthy name weare using its acronym FCUK.I understand that a smallspelling change will changethe entire meaning but thefilm is devoid of any form ofvulgarity. It will only offerwholesome laughter.”
Co-starring Ram Karthik,Tamil actress Ammu
Abhirami (Asuran fame) andbaby Sahasritha, the film willgrace theatres this Friday.While there have been ahandful of Telugu releaseswhich chose to opt for adirect-to-web release duringthe lockdown, Damu chose towait for theatres to reopen.Explaining his reason, hepoints out, “I love movies andI don’t see movies just asbusiness. FCUK was made forthe audience to enjoy in thetheaters. As a product, I wantto take it to the maximumpeople. If the product isgood, it will give a name andcareer to everyone associatedwith it.”
nlike her co-starVaisshnav Tej inUppena, Krithi Shettyalways had interesttowards acting butnever thought she
would make a career out of it.She had acted in a couple ofcommercials out of interest butalways harboured dreams ofbecoming a surgeon.
During his search for a lead-ing lady, Uppenadirector BuchiBabu Sana garusaw some pho-tographs of Krithiand felt that shewas fitting for therole of Baby.“Initially, I wasaverse to the ideaof making thetransition to filmsas I was stillstudying. Themakers kept talking to methrough texts for three monthsbefore I finally came down toHyderabad for the narration. Ifound the story to be real. Iconnected to it and even wept.I accepted to do the projectlater.”
Smiling, she continues, “Theunit treated me with a lot ofrespect when I first met them.It was something which wasamiss in Mumbai when I shotads there. So I was very sur-prised but liked it. I could feelthe positive vibes of the indus-try as I was on my way to thenarration. Turns out, the indus-
try is very good.”Shedding light
about her part, sheshares it has similari-ties to her real life per-sonality in terms ofbeing a livewire andthe only child of herparents. “So essaying itcame to me naturally,” shemaintains, crediting thedirector and cinematogra-
pher Shamdutt during difficultportions. “Sham sir doled out alot of tips and it reflected on myperformance. Yes, some sceneswere difficult but once I under-stood the emotion in them, itwas easy. I still remember beinga depressed lot for my introduc-tion scene as it had lengthy dia-logues. But Buchi sir shifted itto the next day and I used thetime to learn my lines. I reeledit perfectly the next day.”
For someone who is makingher debut with the project,Krithi, a Mangalore girl, speaksgood Telugu. She goes on tomention that the four-five days
workshop before theywent to sets came in
handy to improve her Teluguspeaking skills. “On sets, thedirector always spoke to me inTelugu. Assistant directorsVivek and Raman were speciallyassigned to train me in the lan-guage. And they went abouttheir job with a lot of patience,”she smiles.
Vijay Sethupathi played herfather in the film and sheadmits that she had butterfliesin her stomach when she had toperform a lengthy monologuewith him.
“Firstly, he made me at easeand later advised me on how todo it. The scene has come out
extremely well,” she states,revealing that the acclaimedTamil actor is good-humoredon sets but once he faces thecamera, he sinks his teeth intothe role effortlessly.
Her most poignant me moryof the whole shoot remains see-ing the unit cry after she acedone particular emotional scene.“The cinematographer saw thescene on the monitor and wept.As an actor, I felt proud. Theteam too shed tears. That day, Iwas very happy. In fact, I had awhale of time shooting for thefilm. I would wait for the shootnext day because I enjoyed thewhole process and everyone wasnice on sets,” she reminisces
fondly.Even before Uppena, a period
love story, made it to thescreens, Krithi Shetty hasgained a lot of following onsocial media and admittedly shewas surprised to see it, as sheherself is a big fan of many peo-ple.
“It is so overwhelming and Ifeel really nice that I can takeup this opportunity tospread happiness. I want tothank them. After themovie I felt the need toconcentrate on my studies;I was confused. But theirconfidence and supportmade me sign morefilms,” she concludes.
12
U
tollywoodVijayawada Wednesday February 10, 2021
The debutante speaks toNAGARAJ GOUD on landingUppena and why she was in twominds to accept it, learningTelugu, making the unit crywith her performance, and fanfollowing
Uppena team treated me with a lot ofrespect when I first met them. It wassomething which was amiss in
Mumbai when I shot ads there. So I was verysurprised but liked it. I could feel thepositive vibes of the industry as Iwas on my way to the narration
Krithiha co-owner Allu Aravind on Mondayevening said that they’ve achieved the tar-get they’ve set out for themselves in justone year of the platform'slaunch. “We’ve fixed a dead-line of March 2022 for
some numbers but we achieved themin the first one year itself,” Aravindexulted. He was speaking at the TeluguOTT’s first anniversary in Hyderabad.Lauding the Aha team which is work-ing round the clock and CEO AjitThakur for leading them, Aravind saidthat if it wasn’t for Ajit’s aggressiveness,they wouldn’t have reached theposition where they are today.“We will increase our speedin the next one year. Krack’sdigital debut helped us togrow a lot,” he noted.He further added thatmore exciting featurefilms will be makingtheir digital debuts onAha in the coming oneyear, so will be some bigshows. He also appealedto aspiring writers and film-makers who are close to landingfilm opportunities that Aha’sdoor is open for their talent to beutilised. Ram Jupally, co-owner, statedthat it’s a big thing for a regionalOTT platform to garner suchreaction within a year. “We willmarch ahead with aggressiveplans. We are planning to expandAha into other languages as well,”he said.
ctress Nandita Swetha is thelatest celebrity whose socialmedia account has came underthe scanner of hackers. OnTuesday, the actress, taking toTwitter, announced that her
Instagram account has been compro-mised. “My @instagram account ishacked. Kindly beware if you get-ting any messages,” the actress,who is a popular face onInstagram, posted.
Nandita is presently awaitingthe release of her films likeKapatadhaari and Akshara.Both the films are releasingthis month within a space ofone week.
Nandita'sInstagram
account hackedefore he beganshooting forAyyappanumKoshiyum remakelast month, PawanKalyan shot briefly
for Krish’s period dramaset in 17th century. Andnow it looks like the
actor will be balancingboth the films moving
ahead. According toa source, Pawan willbe shooting forKrish’s film againafter February 20,and it is for the first
time in his career heis doing the juggling
act. “He has allotted 10 days forthis schedule. A replica of 17thcentury Charminar is being erect-ed for the shooting. After theHyderabad leg of filming, Krishhas considered locations inRajasthan and Gujarat to shootsome other portions but thoseschedules are far away,” said asource.
The as-yet-untitled film isbelieved to be the biggest budget-ed affair of Pawan’s career.Produced by AM Ratnam underMega Surya Productions, it fea-tures Nidhhi Agerwal, JacqulineFernandez and Arjun Rampal inother pivotal roles. MMKeeravani is rendering music.
I'm picky about my
directors: Damodar Prasad
17th century Charminarset for Pawan’s next
Aravind promises ‘moreexciting feature films' on Aha
