C iting safety concerns, the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday announced ban on manufacturing, sale or distrib- ution of 328 Fixed Dose Combinations (FDCs) drugs with immediate effect. This includes brands like Piramal’s Saridon, Macleods Pharma’s Panderm Plus cream and Alkem Laboratories’ Taxim AZ. The Ministry has also restricted the manufacture, sale or distribution of six FDC drugs subject to certain condi- tions. The ban follows recom- mendations from its technical advisory board Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB). FDC drugs are two or more medicines combined in a fixed ratio into a single dosage form. Experts allege that FDCs are developed to escape price control measures. Market players pointed out that the banned combinations on the list belong to several therapeutic areas like cough and cold syrups, gastrointesti- nal and anti-infective formu- lations, and dermatological medicines. The respiratory portfolio will bear the highest impact, followed by anti-diabetic and anti-infective drugs. They also said the move means that around 6,000 med- icine brands belonging to dif- ferent companies and with a combined market size of 2,000-2,500 crore may soon vanish from the drug market in the country. The Centre in March 2016 had prohibited the manufac- ture for sale and distribution of 349 FDC drugs. However, the move was challenged by the affected manufacturers in High Courts and the Supreme Court. Complying with the December 2017 Supreme Court judgment, the DTAB examined the matter and in its report to the Centre recom- mended prohibition of the FDCs saying there was no therapeutic justification for the ingredients contained in them and that these FDCs may involve risk to human beings. Earlier, an expert committee appointed by the Centre had made similar observations. Considering the recom- mendations of DTAB and the expert committee, the Health Ministry, through a gazette notification, banned the FDCs. The ban has been called for by DTAB since the 328 com- bination of medicines, also known as FDCs, are unjustified as far as their therapeutic potential is concerned. DTAB said these combi- nations may lead to overuse. According to the technical body, there is no need to expose the patients to that many ingre- dients when one will do the work. The notification stated, “Hence in the larger public interest, it is necessary to pro- hibit the manufacture, sale or distribution of this FDC…any kind of regulation or restriction to allow for any use in patients is not justifiable.” According to the notifica- tions, the Ministry also plans to clamp down on the manufac- ture, sale and distribution of six FDCs, two of which are used in the treatment of diabetes. The 59th report of the Parliamentary Committee on Health and Family Welfare too had pointed out that in 2012 the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) had, by various acts of omission and commission, failed to restrict the number of irrational FDCs. A glaring omission point- ed out was that many FDCs were being marketed after receiving approval from State regulatory agencies, whereas marketing approval can only be provided by the CDSCO. Amit Sengupta, national convener of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, said that inappropri- ate use of FDC medicines poses a major threat to public health. The combinations can lead to additional toxicity, limit choice of prescribing physicians, increase treatment cost, lead to under or overdosing. In the case of antibiotics, FDC med- icines can contribute to more rapid development of antimi- crobial resistance, said the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan convener. S uicide deaths have risen in India over the years, but the trend of killing self is alarm- ingly higher among Indian women. India accounts for at least 37 per cent of global sui- cide deaths among women, according to a report pub- lished in the Lancet Public Health journal. India also accounts for 24 per cent glob- al suicide deaths among men in 2016. The report — The Global Burden of Disease Study 1990- 2016 — which was released on Wednesday, said the suicide death rate for women in India is 15 per one lakh women, dou- ble than that of the global sui- cide rate for women in 2016, which was 7 per one lakh women. Contrary to the popular belief, marriage was found to be less protective against sui- cide as married women account for the high proportion of suicide deaths in India, the study stated. The reason cited by author of the study, Professor Rakhi Dandona from Public Health Foundation of India, are arranged and early marriage, young motherhood, low social status, domestic vio- lence, and economic depen- dence. In what should come as a wake-up call for the health authorities, the report said sui- cide ranked first in India as the cause of death compared to its third rank globally in the 15-39 age group. At least 63 per cent of all suicide deaths reported in India were in this age group. Dandona said there was an increase of 40 per cent in the number of suicide deaths between 1990 and 2016, with an estimated 2,30,314 deaths in 2016 indicating that “dispro- portionately high suicide deaths in India are a public health crisis”. The study found wide vari- ations in suicide death rate across States in India. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Tripura had high suicide death rates for both men and women, in addi- tion to Kerala and Chhattisgarh which had high suicide death rates for men. “The trends in SDR in women in this study suggest the need to further assess the complex relationships between gender and suicidal behaviour to facilitate women-specific suicide prevention strategies,” Dandona said. W ith criticism mounting over sky-rocketing petro- leum fuel prices, the NDA Government on Wednesday took a slew of measures to reduce burden on petrol and diesel by announcing to incen- tivise ethanol production in the country and approving 100 per cent electrification of rest of the 13,000 km of the broad gauge railway tracks at a cost of 12,000 crore. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the hike in ethanol price by 25 per cent. Now, the Oil Marketing Companies will buy ethanol from sugar mills at 52 per litre from 47.5 per litre. Ethanol has long been approved as an alternate fuel that can be blend- ed with petrol to bring down its cost along with reducing car- bon emissions. The move is part of a bid to encourage sugar mills to divert production of sugar to ethanol. The Government also aims to cut down crude oil import by raising the blending of ethanol by 10 per cent. To cut down usage of diesel, the CCEA also gave nod for electrification of more than 13,000 route kilometres of rail- way tracks at a cost of 12,000 crore. Addressing the media, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said the project is expected to finish by 2022, and it involves the conversion of existing diesel engines to electric. He said after the completion of this electri- fication project, the Railways will save over 13,500 crore annually on fuel expenses. In another significant deci- sion to ensure that farmers growing 23 kharif crops get minimum support prices (MSP) announced by the Government ahead of the Assembly elections in five States and Lok Sabha elections next year, the CCEA approved a 15,053 crore new procure- ment policy Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan (PM-AASHA) allow- ing States /Union Territories to choose a compensation scheme and rope in private agencies for procurement to ensure a profitable price to farmers even when market prices are lower. The Government also decided to give additional Government guarantee of 16,550 crore making it 45,550 crore in total. The procurement of kharif crops is beginning from next few weeks. T he claim of embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya on Wednesday that before leav- ing India in 2016 he met the Finance Minister and offered to settle the debt issue with the banks has been rubbished by Arun Jaitely, who was Finance Minister at that time. Jaitely said he never gave the businessman an appoint- ment since 2014 but the fugi- tive liquor baron misused his position as Rajya Sabha mem- ber to accost him in Parliament. Latching on the Mallya’s claim, the Congress has alleged that the Modi Government was fully complicit in the flight of people like Mallya and oth- ers from the country. The party has also asked the Centre to explain how and why Mallya was allowed to leave India. Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal too have jumped into the con- troversy. While Sinha has demanded that the entire BJP leadership, not just Jaitley, must come clean on its ties with the liquor tycoon, Kejriwal has termed Mallya’s disclosure “shocking”. New agency PTI reported from London that the 62-year- old former Kingfisher Airline boss, who arrived to appear before the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London, told reporters that he had met the Minister and offered to set- tle the issue with the banks. “I left India because I had a scheduled meeting in Geneva. Before leaving I met the Finance Minister and offered to settle (the issue with the banks), Mallya said, without naming the Minister. Mallya has been on bail on an extradition warrant since his arrest in April last year and is fighting extradition to India on charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around 9,000 crore. In a Facebook blog, Jaitley said Mallya’s statement was “factually false” and “does not reflect truth”. “Since 2014, I have never given him any appointment to meet me and the question of his having met me does not arise,” he wrote. “He ( Mallya) misused that privilege on one occasion while I was walking out of the House to go to my room. He paced up to catch up with me and while walking uttered a sentence that ‘I am making an offer of settlement’. “Having been fully briefed about his earlier ‘bluff offers’, without allowing him to pro- ceed with the conversation, I curtly told him ‘there was no point talking to me and he must make offers to his bankers’,” Jaitley said. The Finance Minister said he did not even “receive” the papers that he was holding in his hand. T he Chhattisgarh Assembly passed the 2,433 crore supplementary Budget with voice vote on Wednesday. The budget was tabled in the House by Chief Minister Raman Singh, who also holds the finance portfolio. The budgetary demands include contingency expendi- ture of 91,200 lakh and 880 lakh for distribution of bonus this Kharif season during pro- curement of paddy. The demands also includ- ed 1,055 lakh for creating awareness among voters for upcoming elections, under this purpose, a contingency fund of 205 lakh and for adjustments of other expenditure a fund of 205 lakh was demanded. For travelling expenses during the upcoming elections, a need of 400 lakh was raised. Similarly, for use of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) 1,920 lakh was demanded for procuring nec- essary material. C hief Minister Raman Singh would be chief guest at the ‘State Sports Award Decoration Ceremony’ organised by Sports and Youth Welfare Department on Friday (September 13) at the newly-constructed Atal Bihari Vajpayee Auditorium in Government Medical College premises here. This year Shahid Rajiv Pandey Award wouldalso go to archery, badminton, fencing, rollball, softball, soft tennis and Paralympic-Deaf category. The players would be given 3 lakh cash prize each. Shahid Kaushal Yadav Award which carries 1.50 lakh cash prize would be given in category of Badminton, Kayaking-canoeing, basketball, fencing, karate, softball and Paralympic swimming. The coaches , game judges and umpires would also receive cash prize of 1.50 lakh which includes badminton and Wushu sports. Shahid Pankaj Vikram Award has been announced for volleyball, beach volleyball, tennicoit, power lifting, base- ball, football, kabbadi, wushu, swimming, karate, hockey, para-athletics, judo, wheelchair fencing, para-swimming, kho- kho, basketball, weight lifting, Kayaking-canoeing, handball and netball. Each player would get 25,000 cash prize. Continued on Page 4 F or smooth, peaceful and fair conduct of Chhattisgarh State Assembly Election 2018, District Collectors, Superintendents of Police of Chhattisgarh and Odisha organised a joint meet- ing to discuss on different issues on Wednesday. The key issues came up for discussion was pre- venting illegal sale of liquor, distribution of cash and movement of criminals from both States. It was decided that from both sides, joint block- ades, better coordination between the police officials of bordering areas, arresting the warrantee criminals and coop- eration in their arrests includ- ing exchange and sharing of information regarding Naxal movements in bordering areas would be done. It was also decided that taking assistance from local public representatives and village heads, the suspicious elements would be identified after checking and then action would be taken. Discussion was also held on pending arrest warrants in different police stations along with ensuring implementation. The officials also reviewed the earlier LS, State Assembly, vil- lage Panchayat and local civic body election related incidents. The other points discussed was pending criminal cases against public representatives and their supporters along with resolution, deputing more security personnel in sensitive and hyper sensitive polling centres and Naxal affected areas, holding district level meeting of political leaders before election and monitoring along with imposing restriction on local political associates of public representatives. Continued on Page 4 C M Y K C M Y K RNI Regn. No. CHHENG/2012/42718, Postal Reg. No. - RYP DN/34/2013-2015
Transcript
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Citing safety concerns, theUnion Health Ministry on
Wednesday announced ban onmanufacturing, sale or distrib-ution of 328 Fixed DoseCombinations (FDCs) drugswith immediate effect. Thisincludes brands like Piramal’sSaridon, Macleods Pharma’sPanderm Plus cream and Alkem Laboratories’ Taxim AZ.
The Ministry has alsorestricted the manufacture, saleor distribution of six FDCdrugs subject to certain condi-tions. The ban follows recom-mendations from its technicaladvisory board DrugsTechnical Advisory Board(DTAB).
FDC drugs are two ormore medicines combined in afixed ratio into a single dosageform. Experts allege that FDCsare developed to escape pricecontrol measures.
Market players pointed outthat the banned combinationson the list belong to severaltherapeutic areas like coughand cold syrups, gastrointesti-nal and anti-infective formu-lations, and dermatological
medicines. The respiratory portfolio
will bear the highest impact,followed by anti-diabetic andanti-infective drugs.
They also said the movemeans that around 6,000 med-icine brands belonging to dif-ferent companies and with acombined market size of�2,000-2,500 crore may soonvanish from the drug market inthe country.
The Centre in March 2016
had prohibited the manufac-ture for sale and distribution of349 FDC drugs. However, themove was challenged by theaffected manufacturers in HighCourts and the Supreme Court.
Complying with theDecember 2017 SupremeCourt judgment, the DTABexamined the matter and in itsreport to the Centre recom-mended prohibition of theFDCs saying there was notherapeutic justification for the
ingredients contained in themand that these FDCs mayinvolve risk to human beings.Earlier, an expert committeeappointed by the Centre hadmade similar observations.
Considering the recom-mendations of DTAB and theexpert committee, the HealthMinistry, through a gazettenotification, banned the FDCs.
The ban has been called forby DTAB since the 328 com-bination of medicines, also
known as FDCs, are unjustifiedas far as their therapeuticpotential is concerned.
DTAB said these combi-nations may lead to overuse.According to the technicalbody, there is no need to exposethe patients to that many ingre-dients when one will do thework.
The notification stated,“Hence in the larger publicinterest, it is necessary to pro-hibit the manufacture, sale ordistribution of this FDC…anykind of regulation or restrictionto allow for any use in patientsis not justifiable.”
According to the notifica-tions, the Ministry also plans toclamp down on the manufac-ture, sale and distribution of sixFDCs, two of which are used inthe treatment of diabetes.
The 59th report of theParliamentary Committee onHealth and Family Welfare toohad pointed out that in 2012
the Central Drugs StandardControl Organisation(CDSCO) had, by various actsof omission and commission,failed to restrict the number ofirrational FDCs.
A glaring omission point-ed out was that many FDCswere being marketed afterreceiving approval from Stateregulatory agencies, whereasmarketing approval can only beprovided by the CDSCO.
Amit Sengupta, nationalconvener of Jan SwasthyaAbhiyan, said that inappropri-ate use of FDC medicines posesa major threat to public health.The combinations can lead toadditional toxicity, limit choiceof prescribing physicians,increase treatment cost, lead tounder or overdosing. In thecase of antibiotics, FDC med-icines can contribute to morerapid development of antimi-crobial resistance, said the JanSwasthya Abhiyan convener.
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Suicide deaths have risen inIndia over the years, but the
trend of killing self is alarm-ingly higher among Indianwomen. India accounts for atleast 37 per cent of global sui-cide deaths among women,according to a report pub-lished in the Lancet PublicHealth journal. India alsoaccounts for 24 per cent glob-al suicide deaths among men in2016.
The report — The GlobalBurden of Disease Study 1990-2016 — which was released onWednesday, said the suicidedeath rate for women in Indiais 15 per one lakh women, dou-ble than that of the global sui-cide rate for women in 2016,which was 7 per one lakhwomen.
Contrary to the popularbelief, marriage was found tobe less protective against sui-cide as married womenaccount for the high proportionof suicide deaths in India, thestudy stated. The reason citedby author of the study,Professor Rakhi Dandona fromPublic Health Foundation ofIndia, are arranged and early
marriage, young motherhood,low social status, domestic vio-lence, and economic depen-dence.
In what should come as awake-up call for the healthauthorities, the report said sui-cide ranked first in India as thecause of death compared to itsthird rank globally in the 15-39age group.
At least 63 per cent of allsuicide deaths reported in Indiawere in this age group.
Dandona said there was anincrease of 40 per cent in thenumber of suicide deathsbetween 1990 and 2016, withan estimated 2,30,314 deaths in2016 indicating that “dispro-portionately high suicidedeaths in India are a publichealth crisis”.
The study found wide vari-ations in suicide death rateacross States in India.Karnataka, Tamil Nadu,Andhra Pradesh, Telangana,West Bengal and Tripura hadhigh suicide death rates forboth men and women, in addi-tion to Kerala and Chhattisgarhwhich had high suicide deathrates for men.
“The trends in SDR inwomen in this study suggestthe need to further assess thecomplex relationships betweengender and suicidal behaviourto facilitate women-specificsuicide prevention strategies,”Dandona said.
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With criticism mountingover sky-rocketing petro-
leum fuel prices, the NDAGovernment on Wednesdaytook a slew of measures toreduce burden on petrol anddiesel by announcing to incen-tivise ethanol production in thecountry and approving 100per cent electrification of restof the 13,000 km of the broadgauge railway tracks at a cost of�12,000 crore.
The Cabinet Committeeon Economic Affairs, chairedby Prime Minister NarendraModi, approved the hike inethanol price by 25 per cent.Now, the Oil MarketingCompanies will buy ethanolfrom sugar mills at �52 per litrefrom �47.5 per litre. Ethanolhas long been approved as analternate fuel that can be blend-ed with petrol to bring down itscost along with reducing car-bon emissions.
The move is part of a bidto encourage sugar mills todivert production of sugar toethanol. The Government also
aims to cut down crude oilimport by raising the blendingof ethanol by 10 per cent.
To cut down usage ofdiesel, the CCEA also gave nodfor electrification of more than13,000 route kilometres of rail-way tracks at a cost of �12,000crore. Addressing the media,Railway Minister Piyush Goyalsaid the project is expected tofinish by 2022, and it involvesthe conversion of existing dieselengines to electric. He said afterthe completion of this electri-fication project, the Railwayswill save over �13,500 croreannually on fuel expenses.
In another significant deci-sion to ensure that farmersgrowing 23 kharif crops getminimum support prices(MSP) announced by the
Government ahead of theAssembly elections in fiveStates and Lok Sabha electionsnext year, the CCEA approveda �15,053 crore new procure-ment policy Pradhan MantriAnnadata Aay SanrakshanAbhiyan (PM-AASHA) allow-ing States /Union Territories tochoose a compensation scheme and rope in privateagencies for procurement toensure a profitable price tofarmers even when marketprices are lower.
The Government alsodecided to give additionalGovernment guarantee of�16,550 crore making it�45,550 crore in total. Theprocurement of kharif crops isbeginning from next fewweeks.
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The claim of embattledliquor tycoon Vijay Mallya
on Wednesday that before leav-ing India in 2016 he met theFinance Minister and offered tosettle the debt issue with thebanks has been rubbished byArun Jaitely, who was FinanceMinister at that time.
Jaitely said he never gavethe businessman an appoint-ment since 2014 but the fugi-tive liquor baron misused hisposition as Rajya Sabha mem-ber to accost him inParliament.
Latching on the Mallya’sclaim, the Congress has allegedthat the Modi Governmentwas fully complicit in the flightof people like Mallya and oth-ers from the country.
The party has also askedthe Centre to explain how andwhy Mallya was allowed toleave India.
Former Finance MinisterYashwant Sinha and Delhi
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwaltoo have jumped into the con-troversy. While Sinha hasdemanded that the entire BJPleadership, not just Jaitley, mustcome clean on its ties with theliquor tycoon, Kejriwal hastermed Mallya’s disclosure“shocking”.
New agency PTI reportedfrom London that the 62-year-old former Kingfisher Airlineboss, who arrived to appearbefore the WestminsterMagistrates’ Court in London,told reporters that he had metthe Minister and offered to set-tle the issue with the banks.
“I left India because I hada scheduled meeting in Geneva.Before leaving I met theFinance Minister and offered tosettle (the issue with the banks),Mallya said, without namingthe Minister.
Mallya has been on bail onan extradition warrant since hisarrest in April last year and isfighting extradition to India oncharges of fraud and moneylaundering amounting toaround �9,000 crore.
In a Facebook blog, Jaitleysaid Mallya’s statement was“factually false” and “does not
reflect truth”.“Since 2014, I have never
given him any appointment tomeet me and the question ofhis having met me does notarise,” he wrote.
“He ( Mallya) misused thatprivilege on one occasion whileI was walking out of the Houseto go to my room. He paced upto catch up with me and whilewalking uttered a sentence that ‘I am making an offer of
settlement’.“Having been fully briefed
about his earlier ‘bluff offers’,without allowing him to pro-ceed with the conversation, Icurtly told him ‘there was nopoint talking to me and hemust make offers to hisbankers’,” Jaitley said.
The Finance Minister saidhe did not even “receive” thepapers that he was holding inhis hand.
The budget was tabled inthe House by Chief MinisterRaman Singh, who also holdsthe finance portfolio.
The budgetary demandsinclude contingency expendi-ture of �91,200 lakh and �880lakh for distribution of bonusthis Kharif season during pro-curement of paddy.
The demands also includ-ed �1,055 lakh for creatingawareness among voters forupcoming elections, under thispurpose, a contingency fund of�205 lakh and for adjustmentsof other expenditure a fund of�205 lakh was demanded.
For travelling expensesduring the upcoming elections,a need of �400 lakh was raised.Similarly, for use of VoterVerifiable Paper Audit Trail(VVPAT) �1,920 lakh wasdemanded for procuring nec-essary material.
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Chief Minister Raman Singhwould be chief guest at the
‘State Sports Award DecorationCeremony’ organised by Sportsand Youth Welfare Departmenton Friday (September 13) at thenewly-constructed Atal BihariVajpayee Auditorium inGovernment Medical Collegepremises here.
This year Shahid RajivPandey Award wouldalso go toarchery, badminton, fencing,rollball, softball, soft tennisand Paralympic-Deaf category.The players would be given �3lakh cash prize each.
Shahid Kaushal YadavAward which carries �1.50lakh cash prize would be givenin category of Badminton,Kayaking-canoeing, basketball,fencing, karate, softball andParalympic swimming.
The coaches , game judgesand umpires would also receivecash prize of �1.50 lakh whichincludes badminton and
Wushu sports.Shahid Pankaj Vikram
Award has been announced forvolleyball, beach volleyball,tennicoit, power lifting, base-ball, football, kabbadi, wushu,swimming, karate, hockey,para-athletics, judo, wheelchairfencing, para-swimming, kho-kho, basketball, weight lifting,Kayaking-canoeing, handballand netball. Each player wouldget �25,000 cash prize.
Chhattisgarh State AssemblyElection 2018, DistrictCollectors, Superintendents ofPolice of Chhattisgarh andOdisha organised a joint meet-ing to discuss on differentissues on Wednesday.
The key issues cameup for discussion was pre-venting illegal sale ofliquor, distribution ofcash and movement ofcriminals from bothStates. It was decided thatfrom both sides, joint block-ades, better coordinationbetween the police officials ofbordering areas, arresting thewarrantee criminals and coop-eration in their arrests includ-ing exchange and sharing ofinformation regarding Naxalmovements in bordering areaswould be done.
It was also decided thattaking assistance from local
public representatives andvillage heads, the suspiciouselements would be identifiedafter checking and then actionwould be taken.
Discussion was also heldon pending arrest warrants indifferent police stations alongwith ensuring implementation.The officials also reviewed theearlier LS, State Assembly, vil-lage Panchayat and local civicbody election related incidents.
The other points discussedwas pending criminal casesagainst public representativesand their supporters alongwith resolution, deputing moresecurity personnel in sensitiveand hyper sensitive pollingcentres and Naxal affectedareas, holding district levelmeeting of political leadersbefore election and monitoringalong with imposing restrictionon local political associates ofpublic representatives.
Ahead of the Assembly elec-tions in five States later this
year and Lok Sabha polls in2019, the Union Cabinet onWednesday approved a�15,053-crore new procure-ment policy ‘Pradhan MantriAnnadata Aay SanraksHanAbhiyan’ (PM-AASHA) toensure that farmers growing 23kharif crops get minimum sup-port price (MSP) announced bythe Government.
The policy allows States/Union Territories to choose acompensation scheme and ropein private agencies for pro-curement to ensure a profitableprice to farmers. The Cabinetalso decided to give addition-al Government guarantee of�16,550 crore making it�45,550 crore in total. Theprocurement of kharif cropswould begin in the next fewweeks.
The new scheme will be amix of sub-schemes which willinvolve direct procurementfrom farmers (price support
scheme or PSS), paying themfor losses incurred whenwholesale market prices arelower than announced MSPs(price deficiency paymentscheme or PDPS), and Pilot ofPrivate Procurement StockistScheme (PPSS) — to undertakeprocurement when prices ofcommodities fall below theMSP level.
The performance of PM-AASHA will be critical in a yearwhen several agriculturally-important States like MadhyaPradesh, Rajasthan andChhattisgarh, which grow puls-
es and oilseeds, will go to polls.Over the past two years, drivenby higher production, whole-sale prices of these crops fellsharply, often lower than MSP,forcing farmers to sell at a loss.
According to UnionAgriculture Minister RadhaMohan Singh, the new pro-curement policy will ensurethat the farmers get the MSP ata time when the market pricesfall below the benchmark pricesset by the Government.“Under the new policy, theState Governments will begiven an option to choose mul-
tiple schemes to protect farm-ers when prices fall below theMSP. This will mark a signif-icant departure from the cur-rent mechanism, under whichthe crops are purchased by theGovernment and the MSPprice is transferred to farmers’account through Direct BenefitTransfer,” Singh said. Onescheme will focus on compen-sating oilseeds farmers if ratesfall below the MSP, and anoth-er will allow States to rope inprivate players for procure-ment.
The Modi Governmenthad announced a new pro-curement policy in July short-ly after the Governmentannounced the biggest everhike in MSP for 23 kharifcrops. The new mechanism isexpected to be crop specific.According to officials, the newscheme ‘Price DeficiencyPayment Scheme (PDPS)’ hasbeen framed on the lines ofMadhya Pradesh Government’sBhavantar Bhugtan Yojana(BBY) to protect oilseeds farm-ers only.
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The Cabinet Committee onEconomic Affairs, chaired
by Prime Minister NarendraModi, on Wednesday, approvedthe last-leg electrification ofmore than 13,000 route kilo-meters of railway track at a costof �12,000 crore.
Addressing mediapersons,Railway Minister Piyush Goyalsaid the project which isexpected to finish by 2022 alsoinvolves the conversion ofexisting diesel engines to elec-tric. He said after completionof this electrification project,Railways will save more than�13,500 crore annually fromthe fuel expenses.
The remaining un-electri-fied broad gauge routes com-prising 108 sections, covering
13,675 route kilometers (16,540track kilometers) at a cost of�12,134.5 crore, has beenapproved, said Government instatement.
“Considering the require-ment for seamless operation ofrail traffic across the network,it is necessary that the bottle-necks created by the need tochange traction are done awaywith. “The proposed electrifi-cation, which is mainly formissing links and last mileconnectivity, will increase theoperational efficiency, enhanceline capacity and improve theaverage speed of trains,” thestatement said.
Detailing the electrificationproject, Goyal said that thisproject would eliminate thepollution related issues andthe Railways is planning to
convert the existing dieselengines to covert to the elec-trical engines. Diesel enginesmay be shifted to border areasand will consider the stakeholders concerns also, he said.
“The approved electrifica-tion will reduce the use ofimported fossil fuels therebyimprove energy security to theNation. After the planned elec-trification, there would bereduction in the consumption ofhigh speed diesel oil by about2.83 billion litres per annum anda reduction in GHG emissions.This will also reduce environ-mental impact of Railways,”said the Railway Minister.
“Currently, around twothirds of freight and more thanhalf of passenger traffic inIndian Railways moves on elec-tric traction.
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Facing criticism over risingfuel prices, the Narendra
Modi Government onWednesday announced that itwill incentivise ethanol pro-duction in the country in a bidto reduce crude oil dependence.
The Union Cabinet onWednesday approved the hikein ethanol price by 25 per cent.Now, the Oil MarketingCompanies (OMCs) will buyethanol from sugar mills for�52.43 per litre, up from �47.49per litre, an increase of 25 per-cent.
After the Cabinet meeting,Petroleum MinisterDharmendra Pradhan said thatthe Cabinet approved theincrease in the procurementprice of ethanol produced from100 percent sugarcane juice to�59.19 per litre from the current�47.13 per litre and that pro-duced from B-Molasses (partialsugarcane juice) molasses to�52.43 per litre from the exist-ing 47.49 per litre. In June, theUnion Cabinet —for the firsttime — fixed a separate price forethanol produced from B-heavymolasses and C-heavy molasses.
Ethanol has long beenapproved as an alternate fuelthat can be blended with petrolto bring down its cost alongwith reducing carbon emis-sions. The move is part of a bidto encourage sugar mills todivert production of sugar toethanol. The Government alsoaims to cut down crude oilimport by raising the blendingof ethanol in petrol by 10 per-cent.
One of the primary reasonsfor the rising fuel prices is thefact that India imports morethan 80 per cent of its oil needs.With the rupee depreciating andcrude prices going up, India’simport bill has been on the riseas well.
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Amid the raging controversyover the Rafale fighter jet
deal, IAF Chief B S Dhanoa onWednesday justified the pro-curement citing precedentswhen such “emergency” acqui-sitions were made to meet oper-ational requirements and to fillcritical gaps.
He made this observation inthe backdrop of questions raisedover the decision to buy only 36jets against the original propos-al of 126 aircraft. His commentsalso come a day after BJP rebelsArun Shourie and YashwantSinha alleged Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s “personal cul-pability” in the Rafale dealwhich they dubbed as the coun-try’s “biggest defence scam.”
Dhanoa asserted that earli-er such deals too followed the
Government-to-Governmentroute to meet security chal-lenges. The IAF Chief said threesuch deals also involved procur-ing two squadrons(onesquadron has 16-18 jets) like theRafale contract.
The Air Force is reelingunder a severe shortage of fight-er aircraft at a time India facessecurity challenges from twonuclear-powered neighbours,he said during a seminar onIAF’s force restructuring addingthe purchase of 36 Rafale jets willhelp the force deal with the sit-uation.
“Whenever theGovernment felt the air powerelement of the defence forces islikely to be in a disadvantageousposition, it has gone in foremergency purchases of the air-craft under the umbrella of theinter-Governmental agreement,”
Dhanoa said. “The history isthat the Government had under-taken emergency purchase offighter aircraft on several occa-sions in the past,” he said.
In 1983, when Pakistaninducted the first lot of F-16s,India got two squadrons ofMig-23MF air defence inter-ceptors from Soviet Union.Later, in 1985 India also got twosquadrons of Mirage-2000 andalso two squadrons of Mig-29sfrom Soviet Union. It is perti-nent to note that all those pro-curements are for two squadronsof aircraft and under the umbrel-la of Inter-GovernmentalAgreement(IGA), Dhanoa said.
Justifying the decision to gofor two squadrons of Rafalethrough the government to gov-ernment route, the IAF Chiefsaid acquisitions under IGA are“faster” and the quickest means
of achieving operational capa-bility of the IAF.
Elaborating upon the threatperception, he said the force cur-rently has 31 squadrons of fight-er jets against the sanctionedstrength of 42 squadrons. “Evenwhen we do have 42 squadrons,we will be below the combinednumbers of two of our region-al adversaries,” he said in obvi-ous reference to China andPakistan. The IAF chief alsopointed out that India’s neigh-bours are not sitting idle andcountries like China are mod-ernising its air force signifi-cantly. China has approximate-ly 1,700 fighter aircraft of which800 are fourth generation jets. “Alarge number of these can beexpected to be brought againstus in the Tibet AutonomousRegion in case of hostilities,” hesaid in his address.
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New Delhi: Keen to transformthe Army to fight modern war-fare, the top echelon of theArmy “in principle” has agreedto restructure the ArmyHeadquarters by shifting theRashtriya Rifles(RR) head-quarters from New Delhi tosomewhere near NorthernCommand in Jammu &Kashmir as RR is exclusivelyengaged in anti-insurgencyoperations there.
Similarly, DirectorateGeneral of Military Training willnow move to Army TrainingCommand (ARTRAC), Shimla
from the national capital. TheARTRAC looks after all theaspects of training and workingphilosophy and the shifting ofMilitary Training headquarterswill help the force to have amore cohesive approach.
The two proposals includ-ing shifting of RR and MilitaryTraining Headquarters werefirmed up during a day- longmeeting on Tuesday herebetween Army Chief GeneralBipin Rawat and seven topcommanders to review reportsof study groups formed to rec-ommend ways to restructure the
Army and make it “lean andmean,” officials said here onWednesday. Explaining therationale for moving the RRheadquarters to NorthernCommand, which looks afterJammu and Kashmir, they saidit will provide faster and moreco-ordinated approach to dealwith anti-insurgency opera-tions. Moreover, the head-quarters of Assam Rifles, whichtackles insurgency in the North-East, are based in Shillong andit makes sense to have the RRoffices in Jammu and Kashmir,they said. PNS
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In the backdrop of criticalcomments made by Congress
president Rahul Gandhiagainst the RSS, the outfit willbe setting the record straight inits three-day lecture seriesbeing organised here nextweek. The meet, among others,will be addressed by RSS headMohan Bhagwat.
Religious leaders, filmstars,sportspersons, businesstycoons, retired judges, formerchiefs of the armed forces,ambassadors of over 60 coun-tries, besides the leaders of allthe major political parties areexpected to attend the meetbeginning September 17.
A list of about 500 digni-taries was prepared for theevent titled — “Future ofBharat: An RSS perspective” —to be held at ‘Vigyan Bhawan’,the main venue for nationaland international Governmentconferences.
An interactive session willalso be held on the third day ofthe event.
It will be a first-of-its-kindevent to explain the Sangh’sperspective on various issues
and clear misconceptions aboutits working and ideology.Therefore, it was felt that peo-ple from all walks of life shouldbe invited to it, a Sangh func-tionary said.
The RSS had indicated itwould invite all key politicalleaders including Congresspresident Rahul and CPI(M)general secretary SitaramYechury .
The lecture series is beingorganised in the context of thefuture of India with Bhagwatpresenting the Sangh’s views onvarious contemporary issues ofnational importance.
The decision to organisethe event was taken at an AllIndia Prant Pracharak meetingheld at Somnath in July.
The conclave is part of RSS’out-reach programme initiatedby Bhagwat, who has takenupon himself to clear certainmisgivings created against theorganisation internationally.
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To mark the 150th birthanniversary of Mahatma
Gandhi, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Wednesdayannounced the launch of‘Swachhata Hi Seva Movement’from September 15. In a videomessage, he called upon peo-ple to join the movement onSaturday morning. The move-ment will be launched to markthe commencement ofMahatma Gandhi’s 150th birthanniversary on October 2. ThePrime Minister further urgedeveryone on Wednesday to bea part of this movement andstrengthen the efforts to createa ‘Swachh Bharat’.
In a series of tweets, PrimeMinister Modi said, “OnOctober 2, we mark the start ofGandhi Ji’s 150th birth anniver-sary. It is also the day SwachhBharat Mission completes 4years of being a historic massmovement aimed at fulfillingBapu’s dream of a Clean India.I salute all those workingtowards a Swachh Bharat!”
“The ‘Swachhata Hi SevaMovement’ commences on15th September. This is a greatway to pay tributes to Bapu.
Come, be a part of this move-ment and strengthen the effortsto create a Swachh Bharat!” hetweeted.
‘Swachhata Hi SevaMovement’ will begin on themorning of September 15 withPrime Minister Modi’s inter-action with the people con-nected with the Clean IndiaMission.
“I look forward to inter-acting with those who haveworked assiduously on theground to strengthen theSwachh Bharat (Clean India)Mission after which swachha-ta (cleanliness) activities willbegin,” he said.
The ‘Swachhata Hi SevaMovement’ (cleanliness is trueservice) is a great way to paytribute to Mahatma Gandhi, he
said.Launched in 2014 by the
Modi Government, theSwachh Bharat Mission aims atmaking a clean and OpenDefecation Free India byOctober 2, 2019. Till date,4408279 individual toilets and404359 public and communi-ty toilets was constructedunder the Swachh BharatMission. Under the scheme,2767 cities have been madeopen defecation free till date.Besides, 67085 wards acrossthe country have achieveddoor to door waste collection.Under the scheme, 88.4 megawatt electricity is being pro-duce from waste while waste tocompost production hasreached 1506500 metrictonnes.
Six labourers died while twoothers were seriously injured
in an explosion in a boiler of apetro-chemical factory hereon Wednesday, police said.
According to the police,one labourer is still missing.
The blast took placearound 8 am when the boiler ofthe factory producing ethanolwas being repaired.
“There was a blast in theMohit Petro-Chemical Factorylocated on Nagina Road. In theblast, labourers Balgovind,Ravi, Lokendra, Kamalveer,Vikrant and Chetram died.Two labourers were brought toa hospital in a serious condi-tion. One labourer is said to bemissing.” Superintendent ofPolice Umesh Kumar Singhtold PTI.
UP Relief CommissionerSanjay Kumar in Lucknow said,“The injured labourers are outof danger.”
“As per information gath-ered so far, the boiler of the fac-tory was not functioning for
the past few days. Today, whileit was being repaired, there wasa blast in the boiler whilewelding work was going on,”the Superintendent of Policesaid.
Singh said efforts are on totrace the owner of the factory.
Uttar Pradesh ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanathexpressed grief over the loss oflives in the accident, and con-veyed his condolence to thefamily members of thedeceased.
The UP Chief Ministeralso instructed officials thatproper medical treatmentshould be given to the injuredpersons, a Governmentspokesperson said in Lucknow.
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India has witnessed an alarm-ing rise in the occurrence of
non-communicable diseasessuch as heart disease, stroke, dia-betes and cancers in the past 25years, a series of new studiespublished on Wednesday inThe Lancet and its associatedjournals have revealed.
Highlighting some crucialpolicy-relevant points in thesepapers, Professor BalramBhargava, Secretary to theDepartment of Health Research,Health Ministry, and DirectorGeneral, ICMR, said, “Thesepapers through detailed analy-sis have elucidated disease andrisk factor trends of major NCDsand suicide in every state over26 years. While it is known that
NCDs have been increasing inIndia, a major finding of concernis that the highest rate of increasein ischemic heart disease anddiabetes is in the less developedstates of India.
The proportional contribu-tion of cancers to disease burdenin India has doubled since 1990,but the incidence of individualcancers varies widely betweenthe states, the reasons for whichneed to be understood better toguide prevention and control ofcancer, he said at a press con-ference here.
Professor Vinod Paul,Member, NITI Aayog,said, “Theinsights provided by these find-ings are very timely for the plan-
ning of Ayushman Bharat, theNational Health ProtectionMission announced recently bythe Prime Minister.
In a move aimed to spare tensof thousands of pet animals
from being abused in the indus-try, the Centre has notifiedrules to regulate pet shopsunder which such establish-ments will have to get a certifi-cate of registration from theState Animal Welfare Board.
Under the Prevention ofCruelty to Animals (Pet Shop)Rules, 2018 notified by theUnion Environment Ministry,every pet shop registered underit will have to submit a report tothe state board annually withinformation regarding the totalnumber of “animals sold, trad-ed, bartered, brokered, givenaway, boarded, exhibited, died
or euthanised,” during the pre-vious year.
“No person shall carry onor continue the business of saleor trade in pet animals, whetherretail or wholesale; or establishor operate a pet shop, or anyother establishment engaged insale, purchase or exchange of petanimals by whatever namecalled, without obtaining a cer-tificate of registration,” the newRules said.
Welcoming the rules,Women and ChildDevelopment Minister ManekaGandhi who is animal rightsactivists tweeted, “I am gratefulto Union Minister HarshVardhan for formulating andpublishing the Pet Shop Rules2018, which will act as a major
deterrent to animal cruelty intrading of pets.”
The Environment Ministryhad floated the draft Rules inDecember 2016 and invitedobjections and suggestions fromvarious stakeholders. The Ruleswere notified after consideringthese suggestions. The thenEnvironment Minister AnilDave had in 2016 said the ruleswill be notified factoring in theneed to rein in pet businesswhich is mushrooming with“little or no accountability”.
A series of representationswere also made by various bod-ies including Humane SocietyInternational/India and Peoplefor Animals, (PFA) apprisingthe Ministry of the cruelty in petshop industry.
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The Central AdministrativeTribunal (CAT) has said
the widow of a deceasedGovernment servant is eligiblefor family pension even afterremarriage.
Administrative memberPraveen Mahajan orderedrestoration of the family pensionto Delhi resident Renu Gupta(47), wife of late Pawan KumarGupta, an employee of theDefence Ministry at the time ofhis death, saying Gupta hadrequested for transfer of thefamily pension in the name ofher son after her re-marriagewithout understanding the con-sequences.
The CAT asked theMinistry of Defence to transferthe pension claim to her fromher son’s name within fourmonths.
“Without understandingthe consequences, she request-ed for transfer of the family pen-sion in the name of her son afterher marriage. However, the saidfamily pension will becomeinadmissible after the son attainsthe age of 25 years,” the tribunalsaid, adding that, “It has beenheld by the Government thateven in the case of remarriageof a widow, family pension canbe given”.
The bench rejected the con-tention of the Ministry andsaid that she was “legally enti-tled for family pension underCCS (Pension) Rules, 1972”and there seems to be “no legalbar in re-transferring the pen-sion in her name”.
The Defence Ministry hadappointed Gupta as store keep-er in 1998 on compassionateground after the death of herhusband the year before.
She was also granted fami-ly pension in accordance toCentral Civil Services (Pension)Rules, 1972 and other retiralbenefits were offered.
Gupta remarried after,which at her own request, thefamily pension was sanctionedafresh to their son, Karan Guptain 2002. However, in 2013, shehad sent multiple requests forrestoration of her family pen-sion, which was subsequentlyrejected every time
and she was informed thatshe cannot be granted the pen-sion since she had re-married.
micro-level, necessary correc-tive steps have to be taken forbetter fiscal management, BijayKumar Mohanty, ChiefAccountant General (Audit)said on Wednesday.
The State departments arenot even spending their budgetary allocation; whileloan taken is not being recorded against which it isproviding security. TheGovernment has to tightencontrol over it, he said while
briefing media persons on theComptroller General ofAccounts (CAG) report tabledin Chhattisgarh Assembly onWednesday.
He said that Governmenthas taken loan of around�11,880 crore out of whicharound �8,800 crore is goingfor repayment of debts whileonly balance of �3,000 crore isremaining with it.
Mohanty pointed out thatChhattisgarh State PowerDistribution Company Limited(CSPDCL) availed loanamounting to �1,955 crore forimplementation of Krishak
Jeevan Jyoti Scheme for providing free electricity toBPL consumers and agriculturepump sets in 2016-17 in whichthe State Government took theliability but it is not mentioned in the accounts.
He further said that 24.26percent of overall savings thatis �19,743.38 crore against totalbudget provision of �80,202.32crore during 2016-17 is point-ing towards non-expenditure ofbudgetary allocations bydepartments.
On question of supplementary budgets,Mohanty said it is not a good
fiscal procedure adopted byGovernment. Supplementarybudget was of �3,000 crore butonly �1,958 crore was spent.
He said that the legislature
is yet to regularise excessexpenditure of �3,257.55 croreover provisions for the years2000-01 to 2016-17. Utilisationcertificates amounting to
�5,016.79 crore were out-standing as of March 31, 2017.
The Public Works andIrrigation departments had 145incomplete projects with
cumulative expenditure of�5,936.68 crore, out which 48projects initially valued at�2,623.21 crore have now beenrevised to �5,059.03 crore.
He said it is unfortunatethat State Government has notmade its matching contributionof �23.98 crore under the NewPension Scheme as on March31, 2017 to the NSDL/Trustee
Bank. Similarly, arrears of taxrevenue were �2,698.93 crore inseven departments of which,�975.84 crore has remaineduncollected for more than fiveyears. Mohanty said out ofgender budget provision of�1455.87 crore for 25 schemesexclusively for women centricworks, only �883.38 core (60.68per cent) was spent.
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Union Minister of State forTourism (Independent
Charge) K J Alphons willinaugurate the ‘Tribal TourismCircuit’ at Gangrel in Dhamtaridistrict of Chhattisgarh onSeptember 14.
The Minister will be arriving at the SwamiVivekananda Airport in Raipuron September 14 at 8 am in ascheduled flight and later trav-el by car to reach Dangi Machain Dhamtari district at 10.15am. He will inaugurate theTribal Tourism Circuit at 11 amat Gangrel.
The Minister will startfrom Dhamtari at 5 pm andreach Raipur by 7 pm beforetaking a scheduled flight forNew Delhi at 8.05 pm.
Notably, the CentralGovernment has put up theanticipated timeline for com-pletion of the Tribal Tourism
Circuit in Chhattisgarh to be2019-20.
The Tribal Tourism Circuitwill provide an opportunity tothe tourists to witness andexperience tribal culture andtraditions in State,officials informed. The keycomponents for developmentunder the project are ‘EthnicTourist Village’ and ‘EthnicTourist Development’,Destination Development andWayside amenities.The pro-ject is being developed byChhattisgarh Tourism Board.
The Tribal Tourism Circuitcomprises Jashpur-Kunkuri-M a i n p a t - A m b i k a p u r -Maheshpur -Ratanpur-Kurdar-Sarodadadar Gangrel-Kondagaon –Nathyanawagaon-Jagdalpur Chitrakoot -Tirthgarh in Chhattisgarhunder Swadesh DarshanScheme. The ChhattisgarhGovernment had been makingstrenuous efforts to improve
the quality of infrastructureand provide basic amenities inthe tourism circuits, officialsinformed. Notably, the UnionTourism Ministry had allocat-ed �99.94 crore to developTribal Tourism Circuit to high-light tribal culture to thedomestic and foreign tourists inthe year 2015-16.
The districts to be devel-oped are- Jashpur, Kunkuri,Maipaat, Ambikapur,Maheshpur, Ratanpur Kurdur,Sarodha Dadar, Gangrel,Kondagaon, Nathiyanwagaon,Jagdalpur, Chitrakoot andThirthgad.
The Tribal Theme is beingimplemented in these districtsand the project will be com-pleted in a phased manner.
Similarly, other tourist cir-cuits are also being developed.
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Terming the move to dis-tribute bonus on paddy
procurement at MinimumSupport Price (MSP) a ‘lolly-pop’ before polls, Congressmembers blamed the StateGovernment of cheating thefarmers of the State on the issuein the Chhattisgarh Assemblyon Wednesday.
During discussions on sup-plementary budget, some heat-ed exchange of words were wit-nessed over the issue of distri-bution of bonus on paddy.
Congress MLA MohanMarkam said when theGovernment had promisedearlier of giving �2100 MSPand �300 bonus on it, why notit provided it earlier. It is pro-viding it now in a bid to getpolitical mileage in the upcoming elections, he said.
Replying to the member,BJP legislator Shivratan Sharmasaid the Congress party does-n’t want that the Governmentshould distribute bonus tofarmers. Even being in powerfor decades they had donenothing in the interest of farm-ers, he alleged.
The Congress is sitting in
the Opposition since past 15years and if they didn’t changetheir attitude they will be therefor the next 15 years too, he said.
“Our Government is regu-larly distributing bonus to farm-ers and earlier we have given�150, �180 and �250 respec-
tively and now we are providingthem �300 bonus as promised”,he said. The people of the Stateare aware enough and they willgive a befitting reply to theCongress for their opposition ofbonus during the upcomingelections, he added.
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Congress legislators onWednesday chose a unique
way to protest the steep petro-leum price hike, as several ofthem arrived in bullock carts atthe Chhattisgarh StateAssembly. The protest was asymbolic display on how petroland diesel prices have reachedoutside the budget of the com-mon citizens.
A decision to use bullock
carts instead of cars was takenafter a meeting of CongressLegislative Party (CLP) washeld on Tuesday afternoonunder the leadership of theLeader of Opposition, TSSinghdeo.
Later, the Congress legis-lators created chaos in theHouse over them beingstopped by police on way to theChhattisgarh Assembly at sev-eral points.
They were also stopped
for a while at the entrance andthe Congress legislators termedit a ‘breach of privilege’.
The agitation by theCongress legislators was stagedjust a couple of days afterCongress led opposition partiesorganised a shutdown toprotest the rising fuel pricesand the softening of the rupee.As many as 21 opposition par-ties, both regional and nation-al, extended their support tothe Bharat Bandh.
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Chhattisgarh GovernorAnandiben Patel appreci-
ated the efforts made by theState Government in making aSchool, Anganbadi Centrepremises in Temri village onDharsiva Development Blockas ‘Smart’.
She was on a visit to havea look at the ‘Smart AnganbadiCentre and School’ establishedat Temri village in DharsivaDevelopment Block onWednesday.
During the visit, theGovernor heard poems fromchildren and distributed them
books and fruits.Addressing villagers, the
Governor said that children arethe country’s future and it is ourresponsibility to ensure theirgood health and education.
She said diseases spreadfrom unclean surroundingsfrom within the premises than them spreading from outside.
That is why one shouldkeep their premises clean.
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Chhattisgarh will take up‘Zero Budget-Natural
Farming’ in five acres of landavailable with the AgricultureDepartment, ChhattisgarhState Seed and AgricultureDevelopment Corporation andthe Agriculture ScienceCenters, State AgricultureMinister Brjmohan Agrawalannounced on Wednesday.
He was addressing a two-day Workshop on ‘ZeroBudget-Natural Farming’ atthe Indira Gandhi AgricultureUniversity here.
The Minister said that the‘Zero-Budget Natural Farming’is a technique which does notinvolve use of any chemical fer-tilizer or insecticides.
He said that more than 75per cent of the farmers inChhattisgarh are either mar-ginal or small farmers whohave limited funds for invest-ment. These farmers cannot
afford expensive resources forfarming that is why ‘ZeroBudget-Natural Farming’ is aviable option.
Agrawal directed the offi-cials to organise a training ses-sion for 5,000 farmers in theState before October 15 thisyear. Agriculture ProductionCommissioner Sunil Kujur saidthat ‘Zero Budget-NaturalFarming’ is a good conceptwhich can bring maximumprofit to farmers with mini-mum investment.
Padamshree SubashPalekar said that farming using
chemical fertilisers involvescost which also destroys farmsand has detrimental effect onthe environment, humans andanimals.
He said that natural farming is getting popular dayby day and about 30 lakh farmers in Maharashtra,Karnataka, Telangana, AndhraPradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala,Punjab, Haryana, UttarPradesh, Madhya Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, WestBengal, Rajasthan and Gujaratare practising ‘Zero-BudgetNatural Faming’.
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The State Government willsoon be adding 63,000 new
beneficiaries in the ‘SancharKranti Yojana’, officialsinformed.
The 63,000 new beneficia-ries include 30,000 beneficiariesfrom National Rural LivelihoodMission besides 27,000 lawyersand 6,000 third gender benefi-ciaries.
Under this scheme, ChiefMinister Raman Singh hadearlier launched the free smartphone distribution.
The registration of all thenew beneficiaries will startnext week.
It may be recalled thatPresident Ram Nath Kovindhad inaugurated the schemeduring his visit to Chhattisgarhabout one-and-half monthsback from Jagdalpur in Bastar.
About 40 lakh women ben-eficiaries under the schemewill be receiving smart phones.
Chhattisgarh InfotechPromotion Society (CHiPS)CEO Alex Paul Menoninformed that more than 12lakh phones out of 40 havealready been distributed.
At the college level, fivelakh phones will be distributedto the students and the distri-bution will start on September23.
The increased mobile pen-etration through ChhattisgarhSanchar Kranti Yojna (CG-SKY) will also help the stateleverage it as spinoff for DirectBenefit Transfer (DBT)scheme, officials informed.
The DBT scheme will leadto better targetting of benefi-ciaries. Cutting out leakagewill lead to savings that mayeven be enough to helprecover the cost of CG-SKYscheme, they informed.
The State was earlierunable to make much headwayin DBT because of its lowmobile penetration, officials
informed.The poor connectivity is
attributable largely to someunique realities in Chhattisgarhrelating to poor affordability ofthe people and economic via-bility for the operators.
The Northern districts ofSurguja and the Southern dis-tricts of Bastar division have adifficult, hilly terrain. Besides,48% of Surguja and 56% ofBastar are forested.
As a result of the terrain,these two divisions are alsosparsely populated. Compared
to the national average of 382,Chhattisgarh has a populationdensity of 189 per sq km.
Six districts in Bastar andSurguja have a population density of less than 100 per sqkm. Narayanpur has popula-tion density of just 20 per sqkms.
Approximately a third ofthe State’s population is tribal.According to telecom opera-tors, the above reasons lead tolack of critical mass requiredfor economic viability for pro-viding telecom services.
Therefore, improving themobile penetration in the Stateby distributing a mobile phoneto each rural householdthrough PDS will help alleviatethis gap and bring them intothe mainstream, officials stated.
Provision for budget for thescheme is to be made availablein State Budget or other sourcesto the Department ofInformation Technology.
The Department will fur-ther provide the budget to theCHiPS for implementation ofthe scheme, they stated.
CHiPS will be responsibleto provide UtilisationCertificate for the funds dis-bursed to them for the imple-mentation of the scheme.Provision for contingency andPMU would be made for meet-ing administration and man-agement cost.
CHiPS would be able tospend this money on effectiveproject management.
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In a major step towards ensuring health of age-ing Gas Line, the Energy Management
Department (EMD) has successfully replaced 28metres of High Pressure Mixed Gas line feed-ing to Rail and Structural Mill, Wire Rod Milland Merchant Mill, a Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP)press release informed on Wednesday.
The job required high degree of skills andsafety precautions at site due to the height.
The positioning of the crane and itsmanoeuvrability was an uphill task. The dismantling and erection of new pipe line wassafely executed during the on-going capital repairof Rail & Structural Mills using 120 tonnescapacity Crane, it informed.
Entire job was critically planned, executedand commissioned by Gas Safety (EMD). Thesupport of COCCD (for providing Crane), RSM(Elect) and Bhilai Fire Services was highly com-mendable in executing the job safely, the pressrelease informed.
The gas line was successfully commis-sioned on September 11. A highly committedand coordinated effort was displayed by GasSafety & Operation (EMD) during commis-
sioning of gas line. The entire workforce showed good involve-
brief of the manifesto which itwould be placing before thepublic as ‘affidavit’, which hasbeen duly certified by theNotary to fulfill the promisesmade to the people said AAPState Coordinator SanketThakur while addressing mediapersons here on Wednesday.
The issues for differentState Assembly constituencieswould be different for whichseparate affidavits would begiven, he said.
This apart, Raipur (West)candidate Uttam Jaiswal,Raipur (South) candidateMunna Bisen, Raipur (North)candidate Yogendra Sen andRaipur (Rural) candidate DrSanket Thakur also released 12-point affidavit at the pressconference.
For spending the MLAfund, ‘Swaraj Model’ would beadopted for which ‘StreetCommittee’ and VillagePanchayat would be strengthened; each housewould have water, cleanlinessalong with skill centre, Thakursaid.
The key points of the affi-davit are free power in each village, PESA and Forest RightAct in 5th Schedule, paddy pro-curement at rate of �2,600 perquintal on Minimum SupportPrice (MSP), compensation of�20,000 per acre in case of croploss, tribal development, stringent laws for protection of forest, water and land, totalprohibition in State, develop-ment of small, cottage, forestand agriculture based industries along with trainingto youth in these sectors forunemployed youth to ensureemployment.
The other promises are �2lakh interest free loan, �415minimum wages for labourers,establishing and re-introducingState Transport in lines of NewDelhi reduction of electricity
bills to half, free water upto20,000 litres, to raise oldagepension from �300 to �2,500,appointment of Lokayukta forending corruption, seizure ofassets of chit fund companies
and corrupt to repay the victims, in lines of DelhiGovernment for education andhealth services in each villageschool and Village Clinic wouldbe opened.
If AAP forms Governmentthen Sarpanch to get �20,000,Deputy Sarpanch �10,000,Panch �5,000 and all corporators to get �20,000 eachas honorarium and immediatefilling of vacant posts in Government departments toend contract system withimmediate effect, he said.
He said that the partywould, from September 15,commence door to door cam-paign in all the State Assemblyconstituencies and motivatethem for bring up a change.
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Bharatiya Janata Party KisanMorcha has thanked Chief
Minister Raman Singh for having concern for the farmersto provide them bonus on timefor which the supplementaryappropriation bill of �2,433crore was passed in theChhattisgarh Assembly onWednesday.
The party’s Farmers’ Celltermed the protest by Congressparty on the issue as ‘unwar-ranted’.
Morcha State PresidentPoonam Chandrakar andGeneral Secretary YudhistirChandrakar in a statementsaid that decision of the StateGovernment to provide thehiked Minimum Support Priceon paddy along with providingthe bonus of �300 per quintalbefore the Diwali festival,shows its farmer friendly con-cerns.
It is a revolutionary
decision. That is why the State
Government has brought supplementary budget andcleared it in a special session,they said.
Now the farmers would getthe price of their produce alongwith their bonus, they said.
Attacking Congress leaders, the duo said that eventhough Congress party hasbeen doing politics in the nameof farmers, but they are unableto do anything in favour offarmers.
The BJP Governmentthinks about farmers’ eco-nomic progress along withtheir self-reliance which is cre-ating problem for the Congressleaders, they said.
The Congress leaders areconcerned that if Governmentcontinues to favour the farmers, then they would notbe able to do politics which is generating sense of fear amongthem, they said.
Choubey Samman would go toTT, handball, Master Athletics,Volleyball and baseball. Theaward carries �25,000 cashprize. Special cash awardswould also be given to playershaving won medals in nation-al competitions.
In 20 events, 371 playerswould be given total of �45 lakhcash prize.
The State SportsDepartment is also felicitatingpersons having recorded spe-cial achievements. Award is forRahul Gupta for scaling MountEverest, Chief-de-Mission of
Indian team to CommonwealthGames Vikram Singh Sisodiaand Olympian Renuka Yadav’strainer Bushan Sao.
For promoting sports inrural areas, Kondagaon ITBPcommandant S.S. Khatri andHead Constable TrilochanSingh Mahato, for service tosports sector Bashir AhmedKhan, for construction ofsports infrastructure DeputyInspector General of PoliceAkbar Ram Korram andRamakrishna Mission,Vivekananda VidyapeethNarayanpur for training tribalyouths in sports would also befelicitated.
From page 1This apart, to prevent smuggling of narcotics, explosives
and arms, the borders would be monitored through regularchecking on National Highways, State Highways among otherareas. The licensed arms holders would be asked for verifica-tion of their arms before election.
In setback for Punjab TourismMinister Navjot Singh Sidhu,
the Supreme Court has agreedto re-examine the sentenceawarded by it to the cricketer-turned-politician in a 30-year-old road rage case.
The apex court had onMay 15 set aside the Punjab &Haryana High Court orderconvicting him of culpablehomicide and awarding himthree-year jail term, but heldhim guilty of minor offence ofcausing hurt to a senior citizenand spared him of jail term.The Supreme Court had, how-ever, imposed a fine of �1,000on Sidhu for the offence underSection 323 (voluntarily caus-ing hurt) of the IPC.
A Bench of Justices AMKhanwilkar and Sanjay KishanKaul agreed to examine areview petition filed by familymembers of deceasedJaswinder Singh and issuednotice to Sidhu in the case.
“Issue notice restricted toquantum of sentence quarespondent no. 1 — NavjotSingh Sidhu,” the Bench said inan order which was uploadedon the SC website onWednesday.
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With mercury levels risingand abnormal drying up
of rivers and wells reported inflood-hit Kerala, the StateGovernment has decided toconduct scientific studies onthe post-flood phenomenonin the State.
Chief Minister PinarayiVijayan has directed the StateCouncil for Science,Technology & Environment tocarry out studies on the phe-nomenon after floods acrossthe State and suggest possiblesolutions to the problems.
A series of issues includingsoaring mercury level,
unprecedented dip in waterlevel of rivers, sudden drying-up of wells, depletion ofgroundwater reserves and massperishing of earthworms havecaused widespread concern invarious parts of Kerala after thedevastating deluge last month.
The f lood-batteredWayanand district, known for
its rich biodiversity, recentlywitnessed the mass perishing ofearthworms, causing concernamong farmers who attributedit to the rapid drying up ofearth and change in soil struc-ture. Many rivers includingPeriyar, Bharathapuzha, Pampaand Kabani, which were in aspate during the days of flood,
are now getting dried up andtheir water level has decreasedabnormally. Besides the dryingup of wells, their caving in wasalso reported in many dis-tricts. The flood had altered thetopography of the land in manyplaces and km-long cracks hadbeen developed especially inhigh range areas of Idukki andWayanad which had witnesseda large number of landslides.
After floods, drought con-dition was also predicted byexperts in many districts of thesouthern State.
“The Centre for WaterResources Management hasbeen assigned the task of study-ing fall in water levels, changes
in groundwater and landcracks,” Vijayan, who is undertreatment in US, said in aFacebook post.
��������������� ����-� ��9:��������� �� �����Kochi: Amid mounting pres-sure and continued protestsdemanding action against himover a nun’s allegation of rape,Bishop Franco Mulakkal ofJalandhar diocese has beenasked by the Kerala Police toappear before the investigatingteam on September 19.Announcing the decision tosummon the clergyman after ameeting where the probe in thecase was reviewed, inspectorGeneral of police Vijay Sakhareon Wednesday said the delay incompleting it was due to “con-tradictions” in the statementsgiven by the victim, the wit-nesses and the accused. He alsosaid a decision on arrest couldbe taken only after ironing outthe contradictions in the state-ments. The meeting, chaired bySakhare, was also attended byKottayam DistrictSuperintendent of PoliceHarisankar and VaikomDeputy Superintendent ofPolice K Subhash, who is head-ing the Special InvestigationTeam probing the case. PTI
launch action against theHungarian Government ofPrime Minister Viktor Orbanfor allegedly undermining thebloc’s democratic values andrule of law. Hungary called thevote fraudulent and vowed tochallenge it.
The lawmakers voted 448-197 in favor of a report rec-ommending the launch of a so-called Article 7 procedure,which could lead to the sus-pension of Hungary’s EuropeanUnion voting rights.
It is the first time in EU history that the EuropeanParliament had initiated andapproved such a motion, whichneeded a two-thirds majority topass and was approved by 69.4percent of the lawmakers.
For years, Orban had beenable to deflect much of theinternational condemnationthrown his way.
Critics say that Hungary’selectoral system is dispropor-
tionate; media freedoms andjudicial independence aredwindling; asylum-seekers andrefugees are mistreated andthere are limits placed on non-governmental organisations.
Hungarian ForeignMinister Peter Szijjarto, echoing Orban’s longtime posi-tion, called the Wednesday’svote “petty revenge” against
Hungary for its tough anti-migration policies.
“This decision condemn-ing Hungary and theHungarian people was madebecause we Hungarians havedemonstrated that migration innot a necessary process andthat migration can be stopped,”Szijjarto told reporters inBudapest.
He also claimed that the
vote involved “massive fraud”since abstentions weren’tcounted into the final tally,which made it easier to reachthe needed majority.
There were 48 abstentions,so the 448 in favor exceeded thetwo-thirds needed only becauseit was based on 645 votes.
If the abstentions werecounted into the final tally,there would have been a total693 votes, so the 448 in favour wouldn’t have reachedtwo-thirds.
Szijjarto said Hungary wasconsidering legal options toappeal the result because of theway the vote was tallied.
But Judith Sargentini, whopresented the report preparedby the European Parliament’sCommittee on Civil Liberties,Justice and Home Affairs, wel-comed the outcome.
“Viktor Orban’sGovernment has been leadingthe charge against Europeanvalues by silencing indepen-dent media, replacing criticaljudges, and putting academiaon a leash,” Sargentini said.
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Russia’s Defence Minister saysMoscow and Beijing intend
to regularly conduct joint wargames similar to the massiveones being held this week.
Sergei Shoigu and hisChinese counterpart, Gen. WeiFenghe, on Wednesday visitedthe Tsugol firing range in east-ern Siberia where nearly3,00,000 Russian troops andabout 3,200 Chinese troopsare participating in joint exer-cises.
The weeklong Vostok (East)2018 maneuvers launchedTuesday span vast expanses ofSiberia and the Far East, theArctic and the Pacific Oceans.They involve 1,000 Russian air-craft and 36,000 tanks.
China sent 900 combatvehicles and 30 aircraft to jointhe drills at Tsugol. The signif-icant deployment reflects itsshift toward a full-fledged mil-itary alliance with Russia amidtensions with the United States.Mongolia also has sent a mili-tary contingent.
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Russian President VladimirPutin on Wednesday said
North Korea must be givensecurity guarantees in exchangefor steps towards denucleari-sation. “North Korea, in returnfor its denuclearisation, wasafter all promised securityguarantees. Clearly it is waitingfor some sort of signal inresponse,” Putin told an eco-nomic forum in the far easterncity of Vladivostok.
“It seems to me counter-
productive if we demand every-thing from the North Koreanside and in response they aregiven nothing,” he said at anevent with China’s Xi Jinpingand Japan’s Shinzo Abe.
He said international guar-antees will be “appropriate”along with US offers, follow-ing summit between Trumpand Kim Jong Un in June.Then, Trump and Kim signed a vaguely worded agree-ment on denuclearisation but little progress has been madesince then.
Washington: President DonaldTrump is signing an executiveorder authorising sanctionsagainst foreigners who meddlein US elections.
Trump has drawn wide-spread criticism for not takingthreats to the US electoral sys-tem seriously enough, particu-larly Russian interference in the2016 presidential race.
National Security AdviserJohn Bolton and NationalIntelligence Director DanCoats told reportersWednesday that the executive
order is evidence the Presidentis making election security apriority.
Bolton says the executiveorder will work to stem disin-formation campaigns or anyattempt to manipulate the out-come of ballots.
Coats says the US is notcurrently seeing the intensity ofRussian intervention that wasexperienced in 2016, but did-n't rule it out. He said the USis also worried about the cyberactivities of China, North Koreaand Iran. AP
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The “highly successful” first2+2 Dialogue between
India and the United States wasa “defining moment” and thedefence co-operation betweenthe two countries is on the righttrack, US Defence SecretaryJames Mattis said.
External Affairs MinisterSushma Swaraj and DefenceMinister Nirmala Sitharamanheld the crucial talks withMattis and US Secretary ofState Mike Pompeo in NewDelhi on September 6.
“Last week I did go toIndia for what could only beconsidered highly successfulconsultations between theworld’s two largest democra-cies. There was no difficultiesthat we uncovered there inmoving forward on a numberof pragmatic steps to drawourselves closer together interms of security,” Mattis toldreporters at the Pentagon here.
“It was a very hearteningtrip, historic I’d even say, as youlook at where we’ve been overso many years as we’ve growncloser and closer together,”Mattis said. He specificallypointed to the COMCASAagreement, the communica-tions compatibility and secu-rity agreement, which he saidopens a lot of doors in “termsof defense cooperation”.
“Probably we will look backon the 2+2, where SecretaryPompeo led the two of us in
there as our senior diplomat.Probably a defining momentfor the relationship between theUS and India, and one that wethink is absolutely on the righttrack in terms of defence coop-eration,” Mattis said.
Mattis was echoed by theUS State Department later inthe day. “Last week’s 2+2Ministerial Dialogue was a his-toric milestone in the US-Indiarelationship and an indicationof the deepening strategic part-nership between the UnitedStates and India, and India’semergence as a global powerand net security provider in theregion,” a State Departmentspokesperson told PTI.
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For the first time, Pakistan’sSupreme Court will hire
two transgenders to give themtheir rights in the Muslim-majority country, the ChiefJustice said.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar onTuesday said two transgen-ders would be provided jobs inthe Supreme Court.
The remarks came as hechaired a bench to hear a caseregarding transgenders’ rights.
“In our society transgen-ders are subjected to ridicule.It is our top most priority togive them their rights,” he wasquoted as saying by Geo News.
The chief justice said thecourt would issue notice toNGOs and the government ofKhyber Pakhtunkhwa while it
hears the case related to basicrights of transgenders.
“Court wants to bringthem into mainstream. It wantsto resolve their issues,” he said.
National Database andRegistration AuthorityChairman Usman Mobin whoappeared during the hearing,informed the court upon beingasked whether identity cards toall transgender applicants havebeen issued, that his organisa-tion is issuing cards and also initiated a facilitation campaign.
The Chief Justice lament-ed that the community was fac-ing threats and ridicule inKhyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The court also took excep-tion to a website that he wastold is involved in spreadingmisleading materials againsttransgenders.
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The US will be “very sup-portive” if conditions can
be created for productive talksbetween India and Pakistan, asenior Trump administrationofficial has said, underling thatWashington understands NewDelhi’s position that “demon-strable reduction” in cross-bor-der terrorism would create theconfidence for such a dialogue.
The US welcomes thepositive messages that wereexchanged between PakistanPrime Minister Imran Khan
and Indian Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and “how thetwo Governments can build onwhat is already existing struc-tures, whether it’s the nationalsecurity advisor dialogue orthe DGMO channel or thepeople-to-people ties that havebeen sustained through the busservice,” Alice Wells, thePrincipal Deputy AssistantSecretary of State for South andCentral Asia told reportersduring a conference call onMonday.
On August 20, PrimeMinister Modi had sent a let-
ter to Khan, conveying thatNew Delhi was looking forconstructive and meaningfulengagement with Islamabad
Khan also expressedPakistan’s willingness to re-start the stalled India-Pakistanpeace process and said the twocountries must engage in dia-logue to resolve their differ-ences, including on theKashmir issue, and start trade.
Responding to a question,Wells said in general the USsupports a dialogue betweenIndia and Pakistan that canreduce tensions.
Russia had identified two menBritain suspects of poisoningformer spy Sergei Skripal witha military-grade nerve agent,saying they were civilians.
“We know who they are,we have found them,” Putintold an economic forum in thepresence of Japan’s Shinzo Abeand China’s Xi Jinping in thefar eastern city of Vladivostok.
“They are civilians, ofcourse,” he said, apparentlyresponding to a claim by theBritish authorities that the twosuspects are members ofRussia’s military Intelligenceagency.
Last week, Human Rights Watch(HRW) released a 117-page reporttitled, ‘Eradicating Ideological Viruses— China’s Campaign of RepressionAgainst Xinjiang’s Muslims’, which
gave fresh evidence of Beijing’s “mass arbitrarydetention, torture and mistreatment, and theincreasingly pervasive controls on daily life,” inthe restive Province. The US based agencyaffirmed: “Throughout the region, the TurkicMuslim population of 13 million, is subjectedto forced political indoctrination, collectivepunishment, restrictions on movement andcommunications, heightened religious restric-tions and mass surveillance in violation of inter-national human rights law.”
The HRW report is based on interviews with58 former residents of Xinjiang, including fiveformer detainees and 38 relatives of detainees.Bloomberg, citing a United Nations’ assessment,
had earlier reported that the Chinese authoritieshave detained ‘upwards of one million’ Uighurs:“As its mosques are shuttered and travel acrossits borders restricted, Xinjiang — once at theintersection of ancient Silk Road trade routes —threatens to become a black hole in President XiJinping’s effort to build new ones.”
The fact that China would like Xinjiang tobe the hub of its mega project compounds theissue. The Uighurs being badly treated byBeijing is, however, not new. In a report datedMay 1950, the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) states: “On the pretense of suppressingguerrillas, the Chinese Communist troops havebeen going systematically from valley to valley,burning tents and looting cattle, thus deprivingthe inhabitants of the means of livelihood.”
Another CIA dispatch from January 22,1951, affirms: “Muslims in Sinkiang [Xinjiang]are discontented with the Communist regime.Officially, there are no restrictions on prayers,but orchestras play for dancing at evening-prayer time to distract the young, and youngmen enlisted as soldiers have no time to attendreligious services. Gatherings of more than fourpeople are prohibited.”
Interestingly, the Chinese propaganda keptrepeating that the Communists had come onlyto help the Uighurs and once their economy wason track, they would withdraw. Sixty-eight yearslater, the Turkic population is still waiting forthe Chinese withdrawal.
Incidentally, the same CIA report asserts:“Propaganda in Sinkiang is stating that theChinese ought to take the Ladakh airfieldbecause the Americans intend to use it in theirinvasion of China via Kashmir and Tibet. TheLadakh road was closed in early December1950.” It was probably part of Mao’s plans toinvade Ladakh.
Last month, The Global Times, the mouth-piece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),admitted that the party imprisons ‘extremists’, to
educate them and reform their religious thoughtsin Xinjiang. It was a rare admission.
Ma Pinyan, a research fellow at the XinjiangAcademy of Social Sciences and vice presidentof the Xinjiang Prison Association, told theparty tabloid that the state had invited religiousexperts “to reform the extremists’ thoughts. …inprison [they] need to transform their thoughts.”
Another ‘expert’, La Disheng, former vicepresident of the Xinjiang Academy ofGovernance remarked: “As a multi-ethnicregion, Xinjiang has proven that prosperousdevelopment can only be achieved through eth-nic unity, while ethnic conflicts and separatismmay lead to disasters.”
Today, a large majority of the population ofthe restive Muslim Province is considered‘extremist’. In an opinion piece in The New YorkTimes, Rian Thum, a historian who has beenconducting research in Xinjiang, observed:“What does it take to intern half a million mem-bers of one ethnic group in just a year?Enormous resources and elaborate organisation,but the Chinese authorities aren’t stingy. Vastswathes of the Uighur population in China’swestern region of Xinjiang — as well asKazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic minorities —are being detained to undergo what the state calls“transformation through education”.
Since last year, a large number of studiesdetailed the proliferation of re-educationcamps in Xinjiang that appeared in the Western
Press. China Digital Times, which collectedinformation from different sources, explained:“Ever since former Tibet Party Secretary ChenQuanguo was installed in Xinjiang to replicatehis perceived successes [in Tibet where he wasposted earlier], Xinjiang’s re-education systemalone grew to overshadow China’s officially-abolished re-education through labor system.…Individuals can land in the camps for reasonssuch as contacting friends or relatives abroad,worshipping at mosques, or possessing Quranicverses on their phones.”
Even the Chinese Press realises that the sit-uation is grim. On July 6, The People’s Dailynoted that Beijing has relocated “461,000poverty-ridden residents to work in other partsof the region during the first quarter of the year,”in a bid to “improve social stability and allevi-ate poverty.” The report asserted that theXinjiang Government planned to furthertransfer 100,000 residents from southernHotan and Kashgar prefectures by 2019, to getemployed somewhere else.
Yu Shaoxiang, another ‘expert’ at the ChineseAcademy of Social Sciences, told The GlobalTimes: “Poverty alleviation in Xinjiang is moredifficult compared to other places because, asidefrom poverty, Xinjiang also faces ethnic issues.”
In 2017, Xinhua announced “occupation-al education programs” covering 1.26 millionpeople in Kashgar and Hotan, where 47,000poor people found jobs while 317,400 individ-
uals and 331 villages were lifted out of pover-ty. It is obviously an excuse in an area whichis the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
In June, Beijing had announced that theXinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region’sGovernment planned to teach “standard spo-ken and written Chinese language to all 2.94million students during their free and compul-sory education period.” Free and compulsory!
Is there a terrorist threat in Xinjiang? Thereis no doubt that China faces serious challengesnot only from infiltration from its all-weatherfriend in the south, but also from the Syrian-trained Uighurs returning to Xinjiang.
It is, therefore, a legitimate concern forBeijing; some sources estimate that 5,000Uighur jihadists were fighting in Syria. A Dubai-based media outlet reported that 10,000 to20,000 Uighurs were supporting the IslamicState, mostly in Idlib Province.
Whatever the number is, the issue is thatferocious repression or forced assimilation, asit is happening today in the restive region, canonly make the situation worse. The future ofthe Province is not bright, but the most surpris-ing aspect is that Muslim nations around theworld are keeping mum about the fate of theirUighur brothers and sisters; nobody dares toquestion China about its Muslim policy. Isn’tit amazing? This is called double standards.
(The writer is an expert on India-China rela-tions and an author)
���������������� �������Sir — This refers to the editorial,“Purana Pakistan” (September 11).Pakistani liberals, along with theirIndian counterparts, were hoping thatnewly-elected Pakistan Prime MinisterImran Khan would move his countryaway from confrontation towardscooperation with India. Khan’s firstbroadcast to the nation talked of a newera of peaceful relations, including set-tlement of the Kashmir issue by wayof a dialogue — a clear commitmentto a new, inclusive Pakistan.
However, in a major decision,
Imran Khan sacked a leading Pakistanieconomist, who was appointed toextricate the nation’s economy fromdoldrums, allegedly due to pressurefrom the mullah-military alliance, ongrounds that he was an Ahmedia, acommunity that has been declared asnon-Muslim in the Constitution.
Moreover, Army Chief GeneralQamar Javed Bajwa, in his latest state-ment made in the presence of the PrimeMinister, instead of supporting ImranKhan’s plea for friendly ties with India,called for “avenging the blood of thesoldiers killed on the border in theIndian firing”, and supporting “the
Kashmiri brothers in their struggleagainst India”.
Thus, there should not be any roomfor doubt that the Army calls the shotsand the Pakistan Prime Minister is sub-servient to the General. Hence, anyhope of a breakthrough in neigh-bourly relations will be foolhardy.
M Ratan Via mail
���� ��������������Sir — This refers to the article, “Fueleconomy and Modinomics”(September 12) by Sanju Verma. Onthe one hand, the Union Government
is unwilling to cut excise duty on fuel,on the other State Governments areunwilling to slash sales tax on fuel.
The Centre’s argument is that fis-cal deficit would be impacted in caseof cut in fuel prices. StateGovernments are indifferent to theplight of the public, saying that a cutin fuel prices would impact the rev-enue earned from taxes.
In such a scenario, it appears thatthe consumers are left with no otheroption but to suffer until fuel pricesmoderate.
Devendra KhuranaBhopal
���������������Sir — This refers to the article, “Fueleconomy and Modinomics” (September12) by Sanju Verma. Never mind theslugfest over how successfully theBharat bandh called by the Congressover rising fuel prices was, it is a fact thatrising oil prices have hit the commonman. Sustained efforts are required togoad the Government into action.
Why is it that Rahul Gandhi, who is quickto hug the Prime Minister, runs a mile
when it comes to an Income-Tax officer?—Union Minister
SMRITI IRANI
Irani has been out of favour with the PrimeMinister for too long. She is levelling
charges against Rahul to become relevant.—Congress spokesperson
RANDEEP SUJREWALA
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The recently concluded Bayof Bengal Initiative forMulti-Sectoral Technicaland EconomicCooperation (Bimstec)
Summit 2018 in Kathmandu, Nepal,has robustly reiterated the idea ofbuilding a ‘multi-modal connectivi-ty’ across countries surrounding theBay of Bengal. The ‘KathmanduDeclaration’ emphasised on the needto build Bimstec as a more effectivemultilateral organisation for region-al integration, wider economic coop-eration and promoting multidimen-sional connectivity networks amongmember states.
The ‘18-point Declaration’ signedduring the Summit also sought toaddress transnational challenges ofnon-traditional security threats with-in the region, like terrorism and vio-lent extremism, and also the problemof organised transnational crimes.The deliberations and agenda of theSummit are poised to transformBimstec into a more ‘effective multi-lateral organisation’ in the region,based on the promoting peace, pros-perity and sustainable development.
Established in 1997 as theBangladesh, India, Sri Lanka,Thailand Economic Cooperation(BIST-EC), the grouping becameBimstec after Myanmar joined theorganisation in December 1997 as afull-time member.
Later on with the joining ofNepal and Bhutan in February 2004,the grouping was renamed as the Bayof Bengal Initiative for Multi-SectoralTechnical and EconomicCooperation or Bimstec. Despitebeing devoid of any ‘bilateral tensions’among its member states, the organ-isation has made ‘slow progress’.Only three Summits were held - inThailand (2004), India (2008) andMyanmar (2014) - in the last 20 yearsof its formation. This was mostly dueto a lack of strong leadership and fail-ure to identify the collective vision forthe future.
However, after the establish-ment of its permanent secretariat atKathmandu, Nepal in 2014, whichhappened after a after of 17 years, theorganisation identified 14 priority
sectors of regional cooperation andalso signed a Free Trade Agreement(FTA) in 2004.
The ‘geographical leverage’ of thisorganisation forms a prudent linkbetween South Asia and South EastAsian countries. This also findsdirect resonance with India’s effortsto build greater regional economicengagement and partnership betweenits north-eastern region and south-eastern economies.
The scope for direct connectiv-ity, anti-insurgency cooperation andpotential access to energy resourceareas has evoked India’s interest tomake this platform active in the lastyears. India’s ‘renewed interest’ inBimstec also finds convergence withthe country’s foreign policy efforts toestablish its ‘Neighbourhood first’ and‘Act East policy’. It is also an outcomeof the Brics-Bimstec outreachSummit held in October 2016 at Goa,India, where leaders from the mem-ber countries collectively pledged towork to make Bimstec stronger andeffective.
On the 20th anniversary of thisorganisation, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi described Bimstec asa “natural platform” for India’s east-ward engagement. In March 2017,India chaired a meeting of BimstecNational Security chiefs in NewDelhi. This allowed India to take theleadership role based on the promo-tion of cogent economic interests forthe region under the collective visionfor growth and development for all.
For other member states, likeMyanmar, stakes are high given its‘strategic positioning and howBimstec could be the possible gate-way to Asean. It also allows augment-ing wider economic cooperationbetween India and Thailand as keystakeholders in regional connectivi-ty network. India-Myanmar-Thailand (IMT) Trilateral Highwayis expected to boost trade and com-merce between Asean and Indiaand Bimstec, as a sub-regional group-ing, forms concurrence with India’s‘Look East’ and Thailand’s ‘LookWest’ policy.
For land-blocked countries, likeNepal and Bhutan, Bimstec holds theprospect for enhancing connectivity.On the other hand, for Sri Lanka,Bimstec provides an opportunity toengage with booming SoutheastAsian economies. Nepal, too, underthe new regime, is keen to build rela-tions with India and other regionalplayers. Given its position,Bangladesh remains the lead coun-
try for Bimstec, especially for coop-eration in trade and investment,energy corridors and blue economyand climate change as well.
First, the Summit was importantin seeking to build connectivity linksin the region. The declaration under-scored the importance of developingmulti-dimensional connectivity in theregion to enable economic integra-tion for shared prosperity and collec-tive development. To quote PrimeMinister Narendra Modi, Bimstecoffers “a big opportunity” forstrengthening connectivity in termsof trade, economy, transport, digitaland promoting people-to-peoplelinkages.
The Summit witnessed the sign-ing of a Memorandum ofUnderstanding (MoU) to establish‘Bimstec Grid Interconnection’ toenhance energy cooperation in theregion which has much hydroelec-tricity potential. Connectivity holdssignificance for Bimstec in terms ofcooperation in areas like transportand communication, tourism promo-tion, flow of trade and commerce andalso for the promotion of civil soci-ety linkages.
Second, in order to strengthensub-regional cooperation on combat-ing terrorism and trans-national
crime, the declaration reiterated tofight collectively against “terrorism,terror organisations and terror financ-ing”. It called for a “comprehensiveapproach” to tackle the menace of ter-rorism and organised crime with themember states. In his speech, PrimeMinister Narendra Modi underlinedthe significance of the Bay of Bengalfor security and development of allmember countries.
Third, the declaration empha-sised on a more “institutionalised andstructural cooperation” among mem-ber states towards more effective andresult-oriented functioning of theorganisation. It sought to identifystrengthening coordination amongthe law enforcement, intelligenceand security agencies of the memberstates, holding meetings at the levelof Bimstec Home Ministers andBimstec National Security chiefs. Tomake the Bimstec more visible andprudent, regional organisation theseare key positive developments.
The establishment of BimstecNetwork of Policy Think Tanks(BNPTT) is a good step to built linksbetween academic communities andknowledge network. On the eco-nomic front, we need to expedite theFTA process to boost intra-region-al trade and commerce. The Summit
also reiterated faith in multilateral-ism and emphasised to establish fair,just and equitable internationalorder. The member nations called foreffective implementation of the‘Bimstec Poverty Plan of Action’ inline with the UN Agenda forSustainable Development by 2030.
The grouping accounts for 22 percent of the global population, and hasa combined Gross Domestic Product(GDP) of $2.8 trillion. As we look for-ward to make it an enabler forregional cooperation, it must primar-ily seek to establish trade and connectivity across the region, basedon common aspirations for growth,development, commerce and technology.
Connectivity holds the key foreconomic integration of this regionand this must evolve based on iden-tifying regional synergies and bot-tom-up approach. This process mustalso explore specific areas of cooper-ation among the member states,transforming the Bimstec into amuch stronger organisation and dri-ver to make this region a hub of eco-nomic activities and cooperation.
(The writer holds PhD from EastAsian Studies, Jawaharlal NehruUniversity and teaches at theUniversity of Delhi)
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A shining India and a prosperouseconomy bring to mind sprawlingmegacities replete with skyline dot-
ted with skyscrapers amid a labyrinth ofsuper-smooth roads and high quality resi-dences. These aspects of the city havebecome showpieces for any Government toregister their achievements. But seldom isthe question asked: Are megacities beingvisualised and given shape taking into con-sideration the ecological sensitivities of theregion and the consequences of rapidurbanisation? The cities of today are an aptexample of ‘development on the go’ where-in the speed, and not the direction and costof development, is given importance.
The megacities are only on the rise.More than half of the world’s populationnow lives in cities, and the number ofmegacities with populations of more than10 million has risen from three in 1975 toaround 20 today and still growing. As aresult, the megacities of today have becomethe hotspots for emissions that have seri-ous implications in air pollution and climatechange. Moreover, these population hubshave caused severe strain on vital naturalresources such as water and soil quality.These impacts are felt not just locally butregionally as well as globally. For this rea-son, the environmental impact of megaci-ties is a phenomenon that needs to beaddressed by policy-makers.
But for the policy-makers to preparecity and ecology-specific regulations, thereis a need for a better scientific understand-ing of the exact processes at work andimpact areas. This is possible only throughan efficient collection of quality primarydata. This can be attained by using a mixof satellite and ground-based observationsand computer models with which first-hand data on urban area atmosphere canbe collated. This includes essential infor-mation on reductions in air quality andhealth effects resulting from air pollutionin megacities and ecosystem damage
caused by emissions.The Government needs to expedite a
wider variety of policies which can coverand regulate the impact of the megacitieson climate change as well. Emissions to theatmosphere of trace gases and aerosolspecies such as carbon dioxide (CO2), nitro-gen oxides (NOx), and volatile organic com-pounds (VOCs), ammonia (NH3), sulphurdioxide (SO2) and black and organic car-bon (BC, OC) are emerging as the promi-nent by-products of human activities inmegacities. These emissions of greenhousegases and pollutants impact both, the com-position of the atmosphere and the climate.This in turn is expediting climate changeand its adverse impacts.
The actual problem is that many fast-growing cities are urbanising before they getindustrialised — this is changing the speedwith which megacities are developing. Asa result, most cities today don’t have theinfrastructure, employment base or produc-tivity to manage this rapid growth. One cansee a maze of informal settlements amidcompletely overloaded infrastructure. Citiesare generating a challenge on a resourcelevel never seen before. The fastest grow-ing cities may be hit the hardest eventual-ly as these mega-hubs are fast becomingungovernable and too unwieldy to adapt fast
enough to rising temperatures, sea levels,pollution, water shortages, and ill-health ofinhabitants. Megacities, once seen as theproud achievements of the modern world,now seem to be the biggest problem of therecent times.
India too specifically has been reelingunder the phenomena of stratospheric riseof the megacity and the equally spectacu-lar fall of the same. Bangalore is an aptexample of this scenario. Bangalore,renowned for its trees, lakes and pleasantair only 25 years ago, is now almost a deadcity that has sacrificed its environment forsome of the fastest economic growth seenanywhere in the world.
The ambient temperature in the city hasincreased by 2 to 2.5 °C (3.6 to 4.5 °F) andnow reaches 38 to 40 °C (100 to 104 °F). Thewater table has declined from 28 metres (92feet) to 300 metres (984 feet)deep in places and there has been an 88 percent decline in vegetation accompanied bya 79 per cent decline in wetlands. All thisin addition to frequent flooding, evenduring normal rainfall. This is the price paidby Bangaloreans for city, which knew nolimits on progress.
The Bangalore situation can get repeat-ed across every Indian city. India, which isexpected to be the most populous countryin the world with over 1.5 billion people by2050, is projected to see an increase in theurban population to nearly 600 million in30 years. Megacities like Mumbai andDelhi are not expected to grow much more.Instead, smaller cities are rapidly expand-ing, and that too, at a cost. India’s air pol-lution is now as bad as China with 1.1 mil-lion people dying prematurely in 2015 alonefrom poor air quality linked to the hyper-development taking place in many cities.
Given these threats and challengesposed by megacities, it is now crucial morethan ever that the cities of today must beput through an ecological redefinition. Thisalone can improve city governance andurban management, which is in consonancewith the environment. The reality is that ifwe get the future cities wrong, the conse-quence will be a diminished and pollutedworld for everyone. The choices made todaywill determine whether cities are ultimate-ly the problems or solutions.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)
The megacity problem
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Bimstec: Making some headwayAfter remaining dormant for almost a decade, the recently held Bimstec Summit has offered fresh hope for the integration of
economies. Economic integration based on enhanced connectivity holds key to success for the grouping
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj SinghChouhan, who is leading the BJP into a do-or-dieelectoral battle with a resurgent Congress in theState is being poorly served by his cops. Womenpolice personnel apparently confiscated the black-coloured dupattas which are part of the uniform oflocal students who were attending a programmeaddressed by the CM fearing they could be con-strued as a ‘protest’. Paranoia, pure and simple.
The worst ever road accidentin the history of Telangana
and Andhdra Pradesh, whichclaimed 57 lives on Tuesday hasdrowned Jagtiyal district andsurrounding areas into sea oftears and gloom.
More than 24 hours afterthe accident in which theTelangana Road TransportCorporation bus overturnedand fell into a gorge nearJagtiyal town the people wereyet to recover from shock as thebereaved families were cremat-ing their near and dear ones.
The worst affected wasShanivarampeta from wherethe bus had originated. 15 peo-ple of this village were killed inthe accident. Many other vil-lages like Tirumalapur,Himmatraopet, Ramsagar andDabbutimmayapally were alsomourning their dead as thebodies were handed over by theauthorities at Jagtiyal hospitalto the kith and kin.
Facing an unprecedentedtragedy neither the medicalcare facilities were equipped toface a disaster of this magnitudenor they had wherewithal topreserve so many dead bodies.The district ran out of the coldstorage facility and the air con-ditioned coffins to keep thebodies. As a last resort the staffof Government hospital keptthe bodies on the ice blocks tokeep them safe till they werehanded over for cremation.
The administration and
the local people were extend-ing a helping hand to thebereaved families in perform-ing the last rites.
Meanwhile medical teamsand experts were dispatchedfrom various hospitals ofHyderabad to Jagtiyal andKarimnagar where more than30 injured were being treated.These teams will help the localdoctors in giving better treat-ment to the injured.
The mortuary at theJagtiyal hospital was presentinga nightmarish picture as the airwas thick with the wailing andcries of the family members ofthe victims. Thousands of peo-ple thronged the place eversince the dead bodies werebrought there from the scene ofaccident on the Ghat Roadcoming from Kondagutta. Mostof the victims were the pilgrimsreturning after performing pujaat the Hanuman temple.
Majority of the victimswere women, 23 of them in theage group of 50 to 75. Also apregnant lady E Neeraja,25,succumbed to injuries atKarimnagar hospital. Anotherpregnant woman was alsoinjured and she was undergo-ing treatment.
Meanwhile the worst acci-
dent has brought the State ofaffairs in the Telangana stateroad transport corporation into sharp focus as the poor con-dition of the bus was alsobeing blamed for the tragedy.
Those in the know of thehappenings in the RTC allegethat many buses were not fit tobe run. “While ultra modernand luxury buses are run on themajor routes linking importantcities and towns, the buses onrural routes are pathetic”,admitted a retired official ofRTC. “Every part of such busmakes sound”, he said.
While the top officials insistthat buses were run only whenthey are certified as fit for oper-ation, others allege that suchcertificates were “managed”.
Principal Secretary, RTCSunil Sharma admitted thatthere were at least 1,000 buseswhich were a decade old butadded that they were main-tained regularly and run afterthey are certified as fit.
Another allegation was thatduplicate, cheap quality and oldspare parts were fitted in thebuses on rural routes. Many dri-vers also complain of the condi-tion of buses as well as the roads.“Our complaints fall on deaf earsand are ignored”, a driver said on
condition of anonymity.While the real cause of the
accident was expected to comeout in the probe which wasunderway, many in the RTCsuspect that the brakes of theill fated bus might not haveworked effectively. The bushad started operating in 2007and it had logged nearly 15 lakhkms against the maximumlimit of 12 lakh kms.
The Ghat road fromKondagattu was also picture ofapathy as there were no prop-er sign to warn about the con-dition and sharp turns. Therewere no barricade even wherethere were deep gorge and thespeed breakers lacked propercolor to highlight them.
Rules were frequently bentand corners were cut in thename of savings. With the fuelbill skyrocketing the bus on theparticular route fromKondagattu was encouragedto take a detour. Instead of asafer bypass the bus was beingrouted through the Ghat roadwhich was shorter by 5 kmsand could have saved somefuel, drivers said.
Human error was alsoblamed for the Tuesday morn-ing horror. It was said that thedriver M Srinivas was inexpe-rienced and recently trans-ferred to the route.
Now it has turned out thathe was a senior driver with 30years experience and was recip-ient of Safety Award onIndependence Day last monthfor his driving skills. Srinivaswho had applied for leave onhealth ground could not get itsanctioned and attended theduty for the last time. He lostboth his legs in the accidentand later died in the hospitaldue to loss of blood.
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Lynching has become a wayof imparting instant justice
in Bihar. The State has not seenany stance of killing by cow vig-ilantism, but the mobs havelynched at least six-seven crim-inals in the recent weeks.Alarmed by the menace, ChiefMinister Nitish Kumar held ahigh-level review meeting onWednesday.
Chief Minister NitishKumar, perturbed over risingcrime graph and back to backlynching incidents, onWednesday held a marathonmeeting with top police andcivil officials. The meeting wasgiven name of review of lawand order with district officialsbut insiders claimed thatreports of lynching in the lastfew days, which claimed at leastsix lives, was on top of themeeting agenda.
The peoples’ mentality tocatch the criminals and doinstant justice a la kangaroocourt is growing and therecent incidents showed theiractive involvement in takinglaw into their own hands.Even policemen rushing tocontrol the situation are com-ing under their attack.
It appears that CharlesLynch and William Lynch,the two 18th CenturyAmericans, who coined thephrase Lynch Law and whosetitle was borrowed to describe
the incidents of killing of thepersons through the mob vio-lence, are on prowl in Biharshowing they have lost faith inpolice and they are fed up withrising crime.
Three history-sheeterswere killed by the villagerswhen they stormed a primarygirls school a Chhaurahi inBegusarai district on Fridaylast. With an intention to kid-nap a girl, they inquired abouther from school principalNema Kumari. When she saidthe girl has not come theywhipped out revolver andpointed at her head.
The school girls startedrunning and shouting.Hearing their shouts somewomen working in the near-by fields rushed and chal-lenged the armed criminals. Inthe meantime villagers also
charged and confronted them.Then started attack on themfrom all sides with lathis. Apolice team from ChhaurahiOP reached and locked threein a classroom. But the vil-lagers disapproved policeaction and they forced thepolice to beat a hasty retreatand broke open the lock andstarted thrashing them.
By the time police rein-forcement arrived they were asgood as dead. Two died at theSadar hospital and one died onthe spot.
Additional DirectorGeneral of Police(Headquarters) S K Singhalhowever claimed it was notlynching. “The villagers rushedto help the principal and girlswho were at risk of being hurt.It was a self defence move. Thearmed criminals were injured
and later succumbed to theirinjuries,” he claimed.
As per the police dossierthe three were hardened crim-inals and one of them MukeshMahto was facing 24 criminalcases while other two were toowanted in some cases of mur-der, kidnapping and loot.
A day later at Ramnagravillage in Sitamarhi district analleged road robber was caughtwhile confronting a pickupvan driver and villagersthrashed him badly and alsodamaged his eye. The personhad come out of jail a fewmonths back.
Another history-sheeterPankaj Giri was lynched inSasaram near a bank branchwhen three criminals attempt-ed to snatch bag containing�25 lakh from two railway offi-cials who were going todeposit the money. Duringscuffle with officials one crim-inal hit his head with revolverbutt and injured another withfire. A crowd chased them andcaught hold of Giri. He wasthrashed and someone hithead with a rock.
Only last fortnight all thedistrict SPs had been directedthrough videoconferencingon containing the increasingincidents of mob lynching.Each SP had been made nodalofficer of that district. Thedirectives were made follow-ing a Supreme Court order onmob lynching.
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In a major development,Karnataka is organising a
conclave of all the Dravidianlanguages in December whichis seen as politically to pushagainst imposition of Hindi insouth of India. This is also anopportunity to bring all the 40-odd languages together fromKarnataka, Tamil Nadu andKerala to the Dravidian plat-form for an understanding ofits roots. This first ever con-clave is the initiative of theKannada DevelopmentAuthority (KDA), a StateGovernment run organisationwhich is promoting Kannadaacross the State.
According to Professor SGSiddaramaiah, Chairman ofthe KDA, this conclave is anacademic exercise and anopportunity to bring all theDravidian languages togetherfor better understanding. Hesaid “this is purely an academ-ic exercise. This is to under-
stand the common threadwhich runs through these lan-guages. We have invited manyscholars, academics, writersand others to this conclavewhich is significant.”
The conclave will alsodemand UNESCO status tothese languages. “These lan-guages have same history andcommon roots. We have for-gotten the history of these lan-guages. However this is anattempt to re look into the his-tory,” he said.
Even though the conclaveis to trace the root of theProto-Dravidian languagesand its scripts to help thefuture generations to under-stand their linguistic historythis conclave appears to bepart of efforts to strengthenthe Dravidian languages toresist the alleged impositionof Hindi, which has in thepast triggered several protestsand movements in the south-ern States.
He said talking about the
significance of this conclave,One of the Dravidian lan-guages declared dead in Indiais Brahui, which is, however,still spoken in the Balochistanregion of Pakistan. The con-clave will be discussing thenative languages of Karnataka,Konkani, Tulu, Beary andother tribal languages fromother States.He said developing and pro-moting languages is constitu-tional right and India does notbelong to one religion, one lan-guage, one culture or one region.“We are a multi-cultural nationthat believes in unity in diversi-ty," Siddaramaiah said.According to ChandrashekarPatil a renowned thinker andwriter in Karnataka feels thatfewer people from southernstates are getting jobs because ofone can’t opt for any state lan-guage other than Hindi. “Webelieve that strengthening theDravidian languages will helpwin back jobs," he said. he is alsomember of the KDA.
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Tamil Nadu Chief MinisterEdappadi Palaniswamy
has the Madras High Courtbreathing down his neck in acase filed against the formerby a DMK leader alleginglarge-scale corruption inawarding civil contracts by theHighways Department. Theportfolio of HighwaysDepartment is held by theChief Minister in addition tohis other responsibilities.
Justice A D JagdishChandra of the Madras HighCourt on Wednesday askedthe Directorate of Vigilanceand Anti-Corruption (DVAC)probing the charges againstthe Chief Minister to keep thecourt posted about theprogress of the case on adaily basis.
The complaint of graftagainst Palaniswamy was filedby R S Bharati, the organisingsecretary of the DMK . TheCourt had asked the DVAC toprobe the charges of corruptionagainst Palaniswamy filed byBharati on June 13.
The DVAC in its affidavitstated that it had held a pre-liminary investigation basedon Bharati’s petition andfound that there was no primafacie case against the ChiefMinister. According toBhatrati, Palaniswamy mis-used his position as a Ministerwhile he was a member of theJayalalithaa cabinet and nowas the Chief Minister. He hadawarded contracts for fiveroad projects to his friendsand close relatives therebycausing huge lose to theexchequer, alleged Bharati.
The widening of 70.2 km longOddanchatram-Dharapuram-Avinashipalayam stretch into afour-lane facility has been sitedby the DMK leader as a mas-sive scam. “The original esti-mated project cost was �713.34crore, but subsequently it gotescalated to �1,515 croreincluding a cash grant of �315crore,” Bharati had stated in hispetition.
He charged that the costof the project would notexceed �200 crore if it was cal-culated on the basis of mar-ket norms of �2.2 crore forwidening every kilometre.
Similarly, the cost of widen-ing the Tirunelveli-Kollamstretch of 45.64 km waspushed up from �407.6 croreto �900 crore and the contractwas awarded to a close rela-tion of the Chief Minister.
Though the DVAC hadsubmitted the findings of thepreliminary probe to thecourt, the DMK leaderaccused that the report hadbeen diluted by the investiga-tion agency to save the Chief Minister.
Judge Chandra after hear-ing the lawyers of both Bharatiand the DVAC, asked the lat-ter to submit a detailed inves-tigation report to the court bySeptember 17 and also tokeep the court informed aboutthe progress of the case on adaily basis.
O Panneerselvam, thedeputy Chief Minister is alsounder the scanner of theDVAC following the directiveof the Madras High Court ina case of disproportionate assetfiled against him by a DMKoffice-bearer.
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Astudent of the IndianInstitute of technology
Guwahati (IITG) was foundhanging inside her hostelroom on Wednesday morning,police said.
The deceased student,identified as Nagashri SC, wasa first semester MechanicalEngineering student of theprestigious Institute. IIT G offi-cials said that she hails fromShimoga town in Karnatakaand she joined the prestigiousinstitute only in July this year.
“She did not go the institutetoday. Her roommate came backto the hostel around 9.30 am andsar the door locked from inside.Although she shouted the nameof her roommate several times,there was no response,” saidIITG PRO, Labanu Konwar.
“On informed, the IITGsecurity intimated this to thepolice, who came and openedthe door by force but only tosee Nagashri’s body hangingfrom ceiling fan,” Konwar said.
Nagashri was a border ofDhansiri girls’ hostel in IITG.
Police from the NorthGuwahati Police station regis-tered an unnatural death caseover this. “Our investigationindicated it to be a suicidecase. We have recovered anote from inside the roomwhich we believe written bythe deceased. However, theexact cause of death will beknown only after postmortem,” said the police.
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Though his three majordemands have not been
accepted by the StateGovernment, the 25-year-oldPatel quota stir leader HardikPatel abruptly ended ‘fast-unto-death’ agitation on Wednesdayby consuming coconut water,lime water at the hands ofPatidar community leaders.
To mark third anniversaryof mega-rally organised in theyear 2015, Hardik set on indef-inite agitation from August 25with three major demands –reservation to Patidar commu-nity in Government jobs andeducational institutions underOBC category, debt waiver forfarmers and release of his jailedclosed aide Alpesh Kathiriawho is facing sedition charge.
After consuming food onthe 19th day of his fast agitation,the convener of Patidar AnamatAndolan Samiti (PAAS) claimedthat he ended fast agitation outof respect for Patidar commu-nity leaders who were request-ing him over the past one week.“Patidar community is united.Since leaders of the communi-ty are with PAAS, I don’t needto worry. The decision to endfasting was taken on the beliefthat if we live, we can fight andif we can fight, we shall live,” saidHardik claiming that all themajor Patidar organisations havefirst time united as fast agitationhelped to bridge the deep gorge
among these organisations.Divulging future course ofaction Hardik said that he wasnot going to enervate. In fact hewent on to say that he has beenrecharged by 19-day long fast-ing and can protest for anoth-er 19 years and keep on raisingissues related to farmers andPatidar community. Comparingthe BJP ruled Government withBritish Government duringpre-independence era he saidthat in coming days, he willtravel across the State and visitmore than 12,000 villages tooust BJP government not onlyfrom Gandhinagar but alsofrom Delhi.
Hardik compared his agita-tion against the BJP with that ofJayprakash Narayan andRammanohar Lohia’s movementand said that farmers of Gujaratneeded to unit in order to savedemocracy. He trained his guns
on Prime Minister NarendraModi and BJP president AmitShah saying that there was nodemocracy in the State (Gujarat)which gave Mahatma Gandhiand Sardar Patel to the nation.
Leaders of both the sub-castes of Patidars – Leuva andKadava Patels who are repre-senting highest religious organ-isations Khodaldham andUmiyadham respectivelyreached at Hardik’s residenceand persuaded him to end thefast agitation. Head ofKhodaldham, Naresh Patel saidit was important to remainhealthy to fight for the com-munity. Another Patidar leaderCK Patel, who is associatedwith Umiyadham, said thatfasting was not the only optionto raise issue, if Hardik’s healthremained in good shape, hewould be able to do better workfor the community.
Thiruvananthapuram: TheKerala Government will com-plete on Thursday giving awaycompensation of �10,000 eachto families affected by the flooddisaster, Minister for IndustriesEP Jayarajan said onWednesday.
The Minister announcedthis after a meeting of theCabinet sub-committeeformed to oversee the floodrehabilitation operation.
“By yesterday (Tuesday),5.01 lakh families had beengiven �10,000 each and theremaining 96.500 families willreceive the money by tomor-row (Thursday). The distribu-tion of kits containing essentialitems to the families have beencompleted," he said.
Heavy rains received inthree segments from May 29claimed 491 lives, with 14 per-sons still missing.
At the height of the deluge,there were 14.50 lakh people inover 3,000 relief camps. A totalof 4,778 persons are still housedin 120 relief camps.
The Minister said that bynow 6.89 lakh homes had beencleaned. "The local selfGovernments have been doingthis. What remains to be cleanedare 3,501 more homes. A totalof 3.19 lakh wells have also beencleaned and 4,213 tonnes of bio-degradable waste have beendisposed of," said Jayarajan.
Meanwhile, theGovernment has sanctionedan interest free loan of �1 lakhto buy household appliancesthrough the Kudhumbhasreeprogramme.
"We expect a detailed reportfrom agencies like World Bank,ADB... Once they submit theirreports, we will know how muchaid these agencies will be giving,"added Jayarajan. IANS
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Manipur may ban auto-rick-shaws and other vehicles
which are 15 years old or more.L Radhakishore, Chairmanof the Manipur PollutionControl Board, said onWednesday that health haz-ards posed by the polluted airwould be discussed in thenext cabinet meeting.
"There is an immediateneed to ban such vehicles ongrounds of health hazard," headded. According toRadhakishore, more than 70per cent of the diesel-run auto-rickshaws were unfit to oper-ate. "These vehicles need to bedisposed of as scraps."
He said there was a need tocontrol noise pollution inmajor towns including Imphal.
Officials say that for somedecades Manipur has been thedumping ground for used carsand other vehicles which cannotbe used in any city, includingDelhi. There is a sudden increasein the number of vehicles inManipur as an used car is avail-able as cheap as �1,00,000.
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High alert has been sound-ed along the Jammu-
Srinagar National Highwayand Katra base camp of MataVaishno Devi shrine after threeheavily armed terrorists,trav-elling in a Srinagar boundtruck, managed to gave a slip tothe security forces near famouspicnic spot of Jhajjar Kotliearly Wednesday morning.
Before vanishing in thethick forested area these ter-rorists opened indiscriminatefiring on the security forcesinjuring one of the employeesof Sericulture department.Driver of the truck and hisaccomplice were both taken into custody by the police fromthe spot.
Eyewitness reports claimedthe incident was reportedaround 8 am near Sai cafeterialocated close to famous picnicspot of Jhajjar Kotli.
Traffic on the busy stretchof the national highway washalted for several hours leadingto long jams on both sides ofthe only surface link connect-ing Kashmir valley with the restof the country.
Police said the three ter-rorists were travelling in a truckbearing registration numberJK03F 1476, registered in the
office of Regional TransportOffice, Anantnag. Police alsorecovered a bag containing 1AK-47 rifles, 3 magazines andgrenades.Two magazines werelater recovered during thecombing operations.
A close relative of a cafete-ria owner present at the time offiring told reporters, "The truckdriver had placed an order topack three plates of break fastand serve two separate plates ofbreakfast at the cafeteria. Butbefore he could break the breada police party stopped nearbyparked truck for randomchecking of vehicles. As one ofthe police jawans was about tolift the tarpaulin hiding ter-rorists opened fire and jumped
out of the truck". As chaos pre-vailed people present at thespot ran for cover.
Eye witness reportsclaimed the three terrorists, oneof them dressed in Pathan suitwhile two others in Pant shirt,wearing pithu bags, rantowards the thickly forestedarea after which reinforce-ments were rushed in and highalert was sounded in the area.Army authorities also pressedsniffer dogs and drone camerasin the area to track down thehiding terrorists.
The local population inthe area were also alerted by thesecurity forces to stay indoorsand not to respond to doorknocks by any unknown per-
son. The security check pointsalong the highway and in near-by Katra township were beefedup to prevent any terror attackin the area.
Inspector General ofPolice, Jammu zone Dr SDSingh Jamwal who visited thearea late Wednesday eveningtold reporters, " joint teams ofsecurity forces including jawansof the Indian army, CRPF andState police were combing thearea to track down the hidingterrorists. This is a challengingtask for us as we have to min-imise the collateral damagewhile neutralising these hidingterrorists", he added.
IG, Jammu police whileresponding to a straight ques-tion about the whereabouts ofthese terrorists said, thorough
investigations were going onthe basis of interrogation of dri-ver and his accomplice. I can-not divulge further details orthe identity of the arrestedpersons, he added.
He, however, confirmedthe fact that the terrorists wereheading towards Srinagar.Unconfirmed reports claimedthese terrorists could havesneaked inside the Indian ter-ritory from across theInternational border and hadcracked a deal with the Srinagarbound truck driver to dropthem in Srinagar. The truckdriver, according to police wascoming from New Delhi alongwith supply of JK Wall puttyand may have been directed todrop these three terrorists inKashmir valley.
� February 10, 2018 Sunjwan Army camp on bypass road con-necting National Highway
� November 29, 2016 on Army camp near Nagrota
� August 5, 2015 on BSF convoy near Samroli in Udhampur
� July 20, 2016 on CRPF camp near Kud
� May 3, 2011 Car bomb explosion near Northern commandheadquarters in Udhampur
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Moving a step ahead, thenewly-formed Samajwadi
Secular Morcha announced itsfirst list of spokespersons, inLucknow on Wednesday.
A total of nine formerSamajwadi Party leaders whowere either marginalised orshown the door by SP chiefAkhilesh Yadav in 2017, fig-ure in the l ist of SSMspokespersons.
They include former SPMLA and Ministers ShardaPratap Shukla, Shadab Fatima.The others are Nawab AliAkbar, Deepak Mishra, SudhirSingh, Dileep Yadav, AbhishekSingh Ashu, MohammadFarhat Raees Khan andArvind Yadav.
Shukla said that the panel-lists would now take onSamajwadi Party in debates atvarious forms, including TVchannels, and expose the deedsof Akhilesh Yadav.
Earlier on Tuesday, speak-ing at a function in Lucknow,SSM founder Shivpal SinghYadav had compared SP chiefAkhilesh Yadav to Kauravs inthe epic Mahabharat.
"Pandavs had asked for
five villages from the Kauravs.Likewise, I had only asked forrespect. I have taken this stepafter waiting for two years andafter consultation with Netaji(Mulayam Singh Yadav). Nowthere is no turning back,"
Shivpal said."I never wanted infight-
ing. But some people werehelping my opponents. Peoplegenerally get arrogant whenthey taste power, just likeRavana. I came into politicsafter Netaji told me. I wouldhave been a farmer otherwise.Had I been given a ticket in1980, I would have won, butI got the ticket in 1996 whenNetaji joined national poli-tics," he said.
Shivpal also ruled out anypatch up with his nephew andformer Chief Minister AkhileshYadav and stressed that he wasgoing for a 'dharma yuddh'against the evil.
icharge on children inSonebhadra and charged thatChief Minister YogiAdityanath had lost the moralright to remain in office.
The children were protest-ing against poor quality of themid-day meals served to themin their school and wanted tobring the anomaly to theChief Minister’s attention dur-ing his visit to the district onWednesday, after which thepolice cane-charged them.
“Is it a crime or treason orany subversive activity to reg-ister one’s ire before the ChiefMinister over poor quality ofmid-day meal at a primaryschool that the police merci-lessly beat up the students andprevented them from coming
before the Chief Minister?"asked UP Congress spokesmanOmkar Singh.
He said the administrationcould have convinced the kidsafter redressing their problemsinstead of using cane.
"Yogi Adityanath has lostthe moral right to remain ChiefMinister after overlooking suchinsensitivity of the administra-tion. Both the Centre and StateGovernment have snatched therights of citizens to even peace-fully protest against misgover-nance," Singh said.
"Lucknow University stu-dents have still not forgotten howthey were assaulted and laterlodged in jail after rustication formustering courage to waveblack flags at Yogi for not hold-ing university students' unionelections. In fact, there is a Stateof undeclared emergency acrossthe country," Singh added.
The UP Congressspokesman also highlightedthe poor condition ofGovernment schools and poorquality mid-day meal servedto students.
"The Bharatiya JanataParty Government has notime to look into the welfare ofcitizens and it is only makingfalse promises to win elec-tions," he said. Singh also high-lighted the death of a pregnantwoman in Hardoi, who died forwant of treatment as she did nothave an Aadhaar card.
"The incident only expos-es how insensitive the medicalstaff has became in Yogi raj," hecharged. "Medical service inthe State has been paralysedwith the deaths of 300 chil-dren in Bareilly division in thelast one month. This includes114 causalities in Bareilly dis-trict itself," Singh said.
into limelight for opposing therecent amendments toScheduled Castes, ScheduledTribes (Prevention ofAtrocities) Act by Parliament,received life threats from anunknown man who claimed tobe an activist of Bheem Army.
Thakur filed a complaint inMathura against the unidenti-fied caller.
The man, in a video clip,threatened to chop Thakurinto pieces. The video wentviral on social media.
Thakur, who is presentlystaying in an ashram inMathura, told reporters onWednesday that he was notafraid of such people and wasready to face them.
He said that a complaintwas filed on the issue.
Earlier on Tuesday, thespiritual leader was arrested bythe police in Agra for leadingan agitation against the amend-ments to SC/ST Act.
The police said that Thakurmade provocative speech lead-ing to his arrest from a hotel inKamlanagar in new Agra policestation area.
Thakur was, however,released after some time andallowed to go to Mathura.
The police also banned amahapanchayat called byThakur at Khandauli over theSC/ST Act issue.
two groups clashed over a pujapandal set up to celebrateGanesh Chaturthi, leaving halfa dozen women injured.
The situation could be con-trolled only after a heavy policeforce reached the spot.
A case was registered andthree women were taken intocustody. As per reports, membersof two communities at Nanparalocality of Bahraich had a disputeover setting up a puja pandal forcelebrating Ganesh Chaturthi.One of the groups opposed thepandal claiming that the areawould be used to take out a pro-cession during Moharram.
The other community was,
however, adamant maintainingthat both communities shouldbe able to perform their reli-gious functions.
On Tuesday morning, sub-divisional magistrate of Nanpara,Siddharth Yadav, and circle offi-cer VP Singh summoned bothparties and asked them to reacha compromise so that both func-tions could be held peacefully.
However, on Tuesdayevening, the situation took anugly turn when members of acommunity started putting upbarricades at the demarcatedsite for celebrating GaneshChaturthi without any hurdle.
In the meantime, MunniBegum of Nai Basti locality ofNanpara reached there andobjected. She hurled abusesafter which two policemen
deployed at the spot forced herto leave the spot.
However, Munni Begumreturned soon, accompanied bydozens of other members,identified as Annu Begum,Bibi Begum, Munda Begum,Salman, Razzan, Shahnawaz,Akram, Zaved, Harun, andothers, and they attacked theother group leaving Santosh,Manju Devi, Neelu, Ragini,Meera, Bhagyarani and Sanjaywith serious injuries.
It was only when seniorofficers rushed to the spotwith additional force that thetroublemakers left the spot.
Later, Moharram commit-tee in-charge, NaseemChaudhary, and Ganesh PujaCommittee head Deepak
Srivastava confirmed thatMunni Begum created theentire trouble. A case was reg-istered against her and a heavypolice force was deployed toavert fresh trouble.
Meanwhile in Gonda, threekanwariyas drowned in theKuano river on Wednesdaymorning. The deceased wereidentified as Himanshu (14),Shekhar Shukla (13) and VikasKumar (14)
On Monday morning, thevictims along with their twofriends went to the Kuano riverto get some water for jalabhishekand slipped into deep waters.The locals tried to save theyoungsters but by that time theyhad drowned. The bodies weresent for autopsy.
toric low of 72.91 to end high-er by 51 paise at 72.18 againstthe dollar after the financeministry assured of steps toavert its fall to ‘unreasonablelevels’.
The rupee had crashed toan all-time low of 72.91 inmorning trade tracking high-er crude oil prices thatincreased concerns of wideningtrade deficit at home.
The forex sentiment bol-stered after the Governmentsaid all steps will be taken toensure the domestic currencydoes not depreciate to ‘unrea-sonable levels’, amid reportsthat Prime Minister NarendraModi will take stock of the eco-nomic situation over the week-end.
‘Government and RBI willdo everything to ensure thatrupee does not slide to unrea-sonable levels. Today's correc-tion seems to reflect that real-isation,’ Economic AffairsSecretary Subhash ChandraGarg tweeted.
Adding to the bullishmode, the country's trade
deficit for August softened to$17.4 billion against near five-year high of $18.02 billion.
The rupee hit a day's highof 71.86, showing a sharp jumpof 105 paise from the historiclow, in the afternoon trade onpositive sentiment.
The currency pared somegains in the last hour of tradeto settle at 72.18 to the US dol-lar, revealing a smart rise of 51paise or 0.70 per cent — thebiggest one-day gain for thedomestic unit since May 25.
The RBI intervened heav-ily in the foreign exchangemarket after the rupee tookanother plunge to threatened tobreach the 73-mark, currencydealers said.
Traders and investors werealso awaiting inflation and IIPdata due today and could be abig trigger for the batteredcurrency, a forex dealer said.
India's benchmark 10-yearsovereign yield also eased to8.13 per cent.
The Indian currency hasbeen caught in a free fall for lastfew sessions and tagged amongthe worst performing curren-cies in Asia having weakenedby a steep 13.81 per cent sincethe beginning of the year.
Asia's third-largest econo-my is battling with deluge ofheadlines covering from arange of fundamental con-cerns to deteriorating macroenvironment against the grimbackdrop of surging globalcrude prices and sustainedcapital outflows.
Besides, multiple factorsincluding - inflation fears anda widening current accountdeficit along with escalation inglobal trade war tensions havealso gripped forex sentiment.
This year has also seen a sus-tained outflow of foreign fundsfrom equity and debt markets.
Meanwhile, crude pricesturned little weak, havingneared the $78-mark after adrop in US crude inventoriesand the prospect of supplydisruption from Iran.
Benchmark Brent crudefutures were trading at $78.83a barrel in early Asian trade.
The Financial BenchmarksIndia private limited (FBIL),meanwhile, fixed the referencerate for the dollar at 72.7549and for the euro at 84.3244.
The forex and money mar-ket will remain closed tomor-row on account of 'GaneshChaturthi'.
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The Government will intro-duce a bill in Parliament to
amend National Institutes ofDesign (NID) Act, 2014 toinclude four new such centreswithin the ambit of this law,and to declare them as institu-tions of national importance.
The decision regarding thiswas taken by the UnionCabinet chaired by PrimeMinister Narendra Modi onWednesday.
The four new NIDs, whichwill be included, are inAmaravati, Bhopal, Jorhat, andKurukshetra.
‘The Union Cabinet hasgiven its approval for intro-duction of Bill in Parliament foramendment of NID Act 2014’to include the four new NIDswithin the ambit of the Act andto declare them as Institutionsof National Importance (INIs)
at par with the NIDAhmedabad, an official state-ment said.
It said that some minoramendments to the Act willinclude re-naming of NIDVijayawada as NID Amaravatiand nomenclature of principaldesigner as equivalent toProfessor are also proposed inthe bill.
According to the state-ment, establishing new NIDs asinstitutions of nationalImportance in different regionswill help produce skilled man-power.
It will also help create jobopportunities, both direct andindirect, by providing sustain-able design interventions forcrafts, handloom, rural tech-nology, small, medium andlarge scale enterprises; andoutreach programmes forcapacity, capability and insti-tution building, it added.
An Institute of NationalImportance in India is definedas one which serves as a pivotalplayer in developing highlyskilled personnel within thespecified region of the countryor state.
To bolster its evidence-gath-ering mechanism, watch-
dog Sebi is considering seekingpowers from the Governmentto intercept calls and electron-ic communications of thosesuspected of serious econom-ic offences like insider trading.
Acting on recommenda-tions made by a high-poweredcommittee on fair market con-duct, the capital markets regu-lator has prepared a proposal forits board to seek these powers bymaking necessary amendmentsin the concerned laws and reg-ulations, a senior official said.
The committee, headed byformer law secretary and LokSabha’s ex-Secretary General TK Viswanathan, had suggestedlast month that Sebi may seekdirect power to intercept callsand electronic communicationby ensuring proper checks andbalances, like some other reg-ulatory agencies.
After putting up the sug-gestion for a public consulta-tion process, Sebi (Securitiesand Exchange Board of India)has listed recommendationsfor its board meeting schedulednext week to approach thegovernment for these powers,which the regulator wants toexercise while following nec-essary protocols for maintain-
ing right to privacy.During the consultation
process, it was pointed out bysome entities that call intercep-tion is a direct encroachment ofa person's liberty, which is guar-anteed in the Indian constitu-tion and therefore Sebi needs totake specific order from theGovernment for it.
Another feedback wasabout Sebi approaching judicialauthorities on case-to-casebasis, while some asserted theproposed powers should beseen vis-a-vis privacy laws andnot be misused.
The committee had madethe recommendation consid-ering the difficulty faced ininvestigating serious cases, par-ticulary relating to insider trad-ing and front running -- whichrefer to benefitting throughtrading with prior access toprice-sensitive informationabout listed companies.
Justifying its proposal toseek phone-tapping powers,Sebi has said it could investigateand recommend action only inaround 40 cases pertaining toprevention of insider trading inthe last three years, out ofwhich action like disgorge-ment or impounding of ill-got-ten gains could be taken onlyin 12 cases of trading by insid-ers and the rest were disclo-sure-related.
Besides, criminal prose-cution for insider trading hasbeen filed only in 12 cases tilldate and even in those the mat-ter has not reached the evi-dence stage and there has notbeen any conviction so far.
‘For a serious offence likeinsider trading, Sebi has notbeen able to successfully pur-sue criminal prosecution due tolack of conclusive evidence.Therefore, there is an urgentneed to have powers for callinterception,’ the official said,while adding it would be usedwith adequate safeguards anddue diligence to address priva-cy concerns.
While there could be chal-lenges in terms of multiplephone numbers used by a per-son, the regulator feels phone-tapping will help it gatherstronger evidences in cases ofinsider trading, particulary forrepetitive offenders.
Sebi currently has powersto seek call data records (list ofpeople in touch with the caller)of those being probed, but itcannot intercept calls.
However, a few foreignregulators have powers to inter-cept calls and some of thebiggest cases globally of allegedfraud have been unearthedwith the help of phone-tapping,including in cases of RajatGupta and Raj Rajaratnam.
Wednesday filed chargesheet ata designated court here againstPACL and its Directors NirmalSingh Bhangoo and others in amoney laundering case relatingto a Ponzi scam worth over��48,000 crore.
The ED report filed in thecourt relates to attachment ofproperties in Australia worth�472 crores belonging toaccused firm PACL Ltd.
The ED probe has revealedillegal and fraudulent activitieson the part ofPromoters/Directors of PACLand group company PGF. Thesefirms collected funds over�48,000 crores from theinvestors all over the countrythrough a collective investmentscheme in the garb of sale anddevelopment of agriculture land.
Out of this fund, PACLinvested the ‘proceeds of crime’worth �164 crore in groupfirm Pearls InfrastructureProjects Limited (PIPL) foracquiring 25.37 per cent sharesand the remaining 74.63 percent shares of PIPL wereacquired indirectly by PACLthrough its 43 front companies
for an investment of �493.18crore. PIPL received �657.18crore from PACL during theperiod 2009 to 2014.
‘PIPL further invested pro-ceeds of crime worth �147.38crore in 2010 for acquiring 50per cent of shares of MiiresortsGroup 1 Pty Ltd and �459.23crore from 2009 to 2014 foracquiring 99.24 per cent sharesof Miigroup Holdings Pty Ltd,Australia; which further invest-ed �147.38 crore in MiiresortsGroup 1 Pty Ltd for acquiring50 per cent of shares. �25.07crores were remitted toAustralia to Hicky LawyersTrust for purchase of immov-able property (Sanctuary CoveProperties),’ the ED said in astatement.
In May 2010, MiiresortsGroup 1 Pty Ltd purchasedSheraton Mirage Hotel for aprice of approximately 62.5million and sold the same toAustralian Wattle DevelopmentPty Ltd and the proceeds of sale(AUD 87.37 million equivalentto �447 crores) by the order ofthe Federal Court of Australiawere received by McCulloughRobertson Lawyers and invest-ed in an interest bearingaccount with an Australiantrading bank.
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With the oppositiondemanding that the
Government slash fuel prices,the BJP Wednesday said ‘knee-jerk reactions’ will not help andmay end up harming the econ-omy by worsening the fiscaldeficit and pushing up infla-tion.
Union Minister PiyushGoyal put up a strong defenceof the Government amid theopposition’s attack on it overspiralling fuel prices, saying itis working with a holistic viewof the economy and has fullconfidence that people willsupport and respect the deci-sions taken in the nationalinterest.
At a press conference, healso sought to explain therelentless fall in the value ofrupee, saying it was over 68.86during the United ProgressiveAlliance (UPA) Government,but it was ‘artificially’ strength-ened by infusion of billions ofdollars in the market throughloans which the ModiGovernment had to pay.
QG���2/��0���������R��������+��������$�!���������$9�%=4� ��� &5&%" Reversing a two-day melt-
down, equity indices stageda smart pullback Wednesdayas investors scooped uprecently-hammered FMCG,metal and capital goods stocksamid a recovery in the rupee.
Sentiment was bolsteredafter the Government said allsteps will be taken to ensure thedomestic currency does notdepreciate to ‘unreasonablelevels’, amid reports that PrimeMinister Narendra Modi willtake stock of the economic sit-uation over the weekend.
The BSE Sensex, whichopened in the green, surged inlate afternoon trade to finishhigher by 304.83 points at37,717.96. The broader NSENifty too jumped 82.40 pointsto end at 11,369.90.
The rupee reboundedfrom its historic low of 72.91(intra-day) against the dollar to71.86 in afternoon trade, whiledata showed that India'sexports grew by 19.21 per centto $27.84 billion in August.
The rupee had closed atyet another record low of72.69 Tuesday.
Economic Affairs SecretarySubhash Chandra Garg said theGovernment and the RBI will
do everything to ensure that therupee does not depreciate to‘unreasonable levels’.
The 30-share BSE Sensex,after a positive opening at37,546.42, advanced to theday's high of 37,752.58 on aflurry of buying by DIIs andretail investors.
It finally settled 304.83points, or 0.81 per cent, high-er at 37,717.96. Intra-day, it alsoslipped into the negative zoneto hit a low of 37,342.
The gauge had plungedabout 977 points in the previ-ous two sessions as global tradewar tensions rattled investoroptimism.
The broader NSE Nifty, ina volatile session, recapturedthe key 11,300-mark. It endedat 11,369.90, up 82.40 points or0.73 per cent. During the day,it moved between 11,380.75and 11,250.20.
Brent crude oil prices alsoeased to some extent afterbreaching the $79 a barrel mark.
Buying activity picked upahead of IIP and inflation datadue later in the day as domes-tic investors accumulatedrecently-battered stocks amid ahigher opening in Europeanmarkets.
growth of 13% this quarter withloan assets at �2,84,848 crs asagainst �2,52,746 crs in Q1 ofprevious year.
It continue to make effortsin refinancing commissionedprojects and financing greenfield renewable projects. Theseefforts had already led to strongdisbursements in FY 2017-18.
On profitability front,Corporation’s profit in Q1FY18-19 has shown a growth of22% with profit at �1,373Crs asagainst �1,122 crs profit inQ1FY17-18 based on Ind-ASreporting. Its Q1 spread is2.49% as against spread of2.65% in previous quarter i.e.Q4 of FY2017-18. The fall inspread is due to increase inrefinancing and renewablebusiness with lower spreadsandcompetitive pressures.
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The Central InformationCommission (CIC) has
directed the Reserve Bank ofIndia (RBI) to disclose theamount deposited in Jan Dhanaccounts of various banks inthe form of demonetised cur-rency.
Launched in August 2014,Pradhan Mantri Jan-DhanYojana is a national missionfor financial inclusion toensure access to financial ser-vices — banking or savingsand deposit accounts, remit-tance, credit, insurance, pen-sion in banks.
Jan Dhan accounts hadcome into focus after demon-etisation on November 8, 2016,when the deposits witnessed ameteoric rise, touching anapproximate �80,000 crore inApril this year.
Information CommissionerSudhir Bhargava ordered theRBI to disclose details ofdemonetised currency deposit-ed in Jan Dhan accounts toactivist Subhash Agrawal, whohas also demanded some otherdetails related to demonetisa-
tion.The Union government
demonetised �1,000 and�500 notes on November 8,2016.
Bhargava directed the RBIthat in case the informationwas not available with it, thebankers' bank will file ‘an affi-davit with the commission’disposing that no record relat-ed to the information soughtwere available with it.
The Commission alsodirected the respondent to pro-vide information on the totalamount of demonetised cur-rency notes exchanged withnew notes.
Besides Jan Dhan accounts,the CIC directed the RBI to dis-close the total amount deposit-ed in the form of demonetisednotes in savings and currentaccounts of banks.
Agrawal had filed an RTIapplication with the RBI, seek-ing to know details related tothe demonetisation exercise,complaints against bank offi-cers, money deposited in var-ious accounts, and the totalquantum of demonetised cur-rency exchanged by people.
Virat Kohli the batsman exorcisedthe ghosts of a horrendous 2014series but his captaincy left a lot
to be desired in the just-concluded seriesagainst England which again turned outto be a case of ''what it could have been''.
Kohli is, in fact, right when he saysthat barring Lord's Test, they were nottotally outplayed but England playedbetter cricket during key moments dur-ing the 1-4 loss.
The series was testimony that bats-man Kohli is heads and shouldersabove his peers not just in India but inworld cricket.
The 593 runs, with two hundredsand two half centuries, and his battle ofattrition with old nemesis JimmyAnderson will remain stuff of legends.
The difference was stark with thesecond-highest scorer being KL Rahul— 299 runs, 149 of those coming in adead rubber when the pressure was off.
Where Kohli erred was not realis-ing that his teammates were not as pre-pared for testing English conditions ashe was. The Indian team reduced theduration of its lone practice gameagainst County Champions Essex, amove that was criticised by none otherthan Sunil Gavaskar.
Kohli, however, differed stating thatpractice matches are worth it only ifthere is a good opposition to competeagainst and pitches of Test quality.
The biggest problem that plaguedIndia was dodgy team selection.
Cheteshwar Pujara, who played asignificant role in the Trent Bridge vic-tory and scored a determined hundredwas dropped from the first Test basedon his poor county form.
The Test specialist ended with 278runs in the series.
Kohli's over-dependence on HardikPandya's all-round abilities in red ballcricket can also be questioned. A totalof 164 runs including a half century ata time when India was about to declareand a five-wicket haul in Trent Bridgewere his only tangible contributionsacross four Tests.
That he never possessed the defen-
sive technique to bat at No 6 was evi-dent and he was ill at ease against theswinging deliveries.
His opposite number Sam Curranbecame an x-factor in the series with twomatch winning all round performances— at Edgbaston (1st Test) and the series-clinching fourth game at Southampton.
The skipper's persistence withShikhar Dhawan, who has been a walk-ing wicket outside the sub-continent,also created problems at the top of theorder.
Since the 2013 South Africa tour,Dhawan has shown both lack of tech-nique and temperament in top Test play-ing nations.
A total of 162 runs in eight inningsprobably will shut doors on his Testcareer for the time being as Prithvi Shaw
and Mayank Agarwal are waiting in thewings for their opportunity.
While Kohli was unlucky to lose allfive tosses but his reading of the pitch-es and the team combinations left a lotto be desired.
Not picking a second spinner inEdgbaston, where the pitch offeredturn and bounce, was an error. It wascompounded by the choice of a secondspinner at the Lord's where conditionsaided seamers.
While India inarguably have the bestset of fast bowlers who used the condi-tions well, they were often guilty of notbeing able to get rid of the England lowerorder that showed depth and character.
It happened in second innings atEdgbaston, both innings atSouthampton and also at the Oval.
But it was nonetheless a decent per-formance from Ishant Sharma (18),Jasprit Bumrah (16) and MohammedShami (14) who gave it their all duringthe series.
Ravichandran Ashwin lacked thebite when he had the most helpful con-ditions in Southampton, a pitch thatcould have been ideal for someone likeRavindra Jadeja.
Just that Broad and Anderson werea bit more relentless with fine support
from Curran, Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali.The communication regarding
where individuals stood also cameunder scanner after Karun Nair, an orig-inal selection was made to warm thebenches even as Hanuma Vihari pippedhim in playing eleven.
Vihari scored a gutsy 56 but wouldhave bagged a pair had Stuart Broadappealed for DRS for a plumb legbefore decision in the first innings.
The silver lining will certainly be KLRahul and Rishabh Pant's hundreds inthe fourth innings chase.
But Pant's glovework was par andRahul finally got his mojo back afternine consecutive failures.
To sum it up, India have lost sixaway Test matches this year at a timewhen the chief coach Ravi Shastri saysthat this is the best travelling team.
Facts are sacrosanct and they tell adifferent story even though skipperKohli was a touch irritated when a scribeasked him a question about the sup-posed tall claims made by the coach.
Come December, Kohli's India willhave a shot at Australia, a team thatwon't have David Warner and SteveSmith, the two game changers.
Kohli would be hoping for a merryChristmas Down Under.
to make the Australia Testsquad for their tour againstPakistan left former captainRicky Ponting and ex-coachDarren Lehmann baffledWednesday.
Selectors named fiveuncapped players ahead ofMaxwell for the two-Test tourin the United Arab Emiratesnext month, despite theVictorian being one of thefastest scorers in world cricketwith a handy off-spin option.
Coach Justin Langer saidthe 29-year-old needed regularbig scores to be in contention,but Ponting questioned why hewas not given the opportunityto do just that on the ongoingAustralia A tour of India.
"If I was Maxi I'd be think-ing, 'why didn't you give me thechance to actually go there (toIndia) and push my case to getmyself into the team?" he toldcricket.Com.Au.
"That's all a bit bizarre tome. If I was Maxi and I hadn'tbeen given the chance to playfor Australia A, I'd be ropeable."
In contrast, uncappedbatsmen Marnus Labuschagneand Travis Head were taken toIndia and rewarded with aspot in the 15-man Test squad.
While Head is Australia'sleading run-scorer on that tour,Labuschagne hasn't faired sowell with an average of barely24.
"I'm not sure what themessage is, but it's a bit con-fusing to me," added Ponting.
Lehmann, who Langerreplaced after their scandal-plagued tour of South Africaearlier this year, was also baf-fled at Maxwell's treatment,noting that he had performed
well in sub-continental condi-tions before.
"I would have picked him,"he told Macquarie Sports Radio.
"It was a tough one withGlenn, he made a ton the lasttime they toured India and hemade a lot of runs in theSheffield Shield. He plays spinquite well and it was an inter-esting decision."
Lehmann suggested selec-tors were looking to the futureas they work to turn a cornerafter the ball-tampering row inSouth Africa that saw SteveSmith, David Warner andCameron Bancroft suspended.
"They see (Travis) Headand young Marnus(Labuschagne) fromQueensland as real long-termprospects," he said.
Despite missing out—along with middle orderbatsmen Peter Handscomb andJoe Burns — national selectorTrevor Hohns said the doorwas not completely closed.
"All three remain on ourradar for Test cricket, but wewant them to perform for theirstates and continue to pushtheir case ahead of what isgoing to be a big Australiansummer," he said.
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Former cricketer Aamir Sohail has backedhis Pakistan compatriot Fakhar Zaman to
play a vital role in the upcoming Asia Cupbecause of his "positive approach" to batting.
"The reason behind Zaman's success hasto be his positive approach. No matter whatthe situation, he goes out and bats positive-ly," Sohail, an expert with official Cup broad-casters Star Sports, said.
Indian bowlers will also be wary ofZaman, who had scored a match-winninghundred against them in the ChampionsTrophy final last year, when the arch-rivalsclash on September 19 in a league clash ofAsia Cup to be held in the United ArabEmirates.
Zaman had later scored a blistering dou-ble hundred, smashing 210 off just 156 deliv-eries against Zimbabwe in the fourth ODI atBulawayo in July.
En-route to his double ton, Zaman alsoposted the highest individual score forPakistan, bettering Sohail's former openingpartner Saeed Anwar's brilliant 194 againstIndia in 1997.
Sohail, who forged a successful partner-ship with Anwar, stressed that the key forZaman was playing aggressive cricket.
"He (Zaman) doesn't allow any bulls tofight in his head and knows that going out andplaying positive cricket is what's best for him.That has been the key to his success," empha-sised Sohail, a veteran of 156 ODIs and 47
Tests.Pakistan would open their campaign
against Hong Kong in Dubai on September16 in the continental show-piece to be playedin the 50-overs format.
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Skipper Joe Root paid richtribute to James Anderson for
becoming the most successfulfast bowler in Test history andhoped he will continue to spear-head the English attack and ter-rorise batsmen in future.
"What Jimmy has achievedand what he's capable of achiev-ing still is astounding really. Helooked very determined - andwhen he's in that mood, youwant to just keep him going aslong as possible," Root said onTuesday.
"For him to be in the sameleague as McGrath, and nowchasing the big two spinners, isphenomenal. I think the mostexciting thing is he's bowling athis best and I can see that car-rying forward for a long timestill.
"I hope there's going to be anumber of series in the futurewhere he is leading the attack,and terrorising batters," Rootsaid.
Root said the series win overWorld No 1 India signifiesEngland are on an upward curveand hoped his Test team willemulate the ODI side and showconsistency during the wintertours of Sri Lanka and WestIndies.
"I think we are on anupward curve and have showna lot of improvement through-out this summer. When wehave had tough days and toughmoments we have respondedwell to that," he said.
"This winter will pose a lotof challenges and we can showsome growth as a team and showsome consistency like the one-day side have. It is a greatchance to do that now. It has
been a brilliant summer of Testcricket and it's been a fabulouswin.
"There are always areaswhere you are looking atimprovement. Both sides toporder have found things very dif-ficult. It proves more than any-thing it has been challengingagainst the new ball on thesesurfaces. We have been verysmart and made sure we havegot to totals," he added.
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He listed weaknesses aplen-ty but a combative India
captain Virat Kohli insisted thatneither is the 1-4 Test series lossto England all that hard to takenor does his side require any"massive" course correction.
India were mostly outplayedby what was being considered arelatively weak England team,which had its own share of bat-ting woes throughout the series.
"We understand why thisseries has gone the way it hasand we don't see a massive-mas-sive portion that we need to cor-rect. If you are competing inevery game, and you have anupper hand in every game atsome stage or the other, you aredoing something right," said adefiant Kohli after the 118-runloss in the fifth and final TestTuesday.
Speaking about the manyweaknesses of the team that laythoroughly exposed, Kohli said
the inability to capitalise onpositions of strength stood out.
"We created pressure. Wewere not able to hold that pres-sure for long enough with thebat and the ball as well...They(England) took advantage ofthose situations better than us,"he said.
Praising the Indian bowling
attack, Kohli said, "I would liketo offer specials congratula-tions to them for the way theyhave bowled.
"Because of them only wewere in competitive situationsbecause they were dismissingthe opposition twice in thematches. That's a big boost forus."
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India captain Virat Kohlifinished as the number-one
ranked batsman in the worldin the latest ICC PlayerRankings for Test Batsmenafter the completion of thefive-match series againstEngland at London.
Kohli had first reached thetop of the world after theEdgbaston Test and thenreclaimed the top spot afterthe Trent Bridge Test. He willnow defend his number-oneranking in the two-Test homeseries against the West Indies,which starts on October 4.
India's Lokesh Rahul andRishabh Pant also made biggains in the latest rankingswith the opener advancing 16places to 19th position afterhis knock of 149. Pant alsomoved up 63 places to 111thposition after his 114 in onlyhis third Test match.
Ravindra Jadeja's unbeat-en 86 in the first innings hashelped him gain 12 places toreach 58th among batsmenwhile he has also moved upone place in the all-rounder'slist to second position.
Among others, Englandopener Alastair Cook signedoff from international cricketon a remarkable note, movinginto the top-10 of the ICCPlayer Rankings for TestBatsmen after a Player of theMatch performance in thefinal Test at The Oval.
His memorable perfor-mance lifted the 33-year-old11 positions to 10th in the lat-est rankings, which werereleased on Wednesday morn-ing.
In other movementsamongst the batsmen, captainJoe Root has moved up oneplace to fourth position aftera fine knock of 125 in the sec-ond innings while otherEngland batsmen to gain inthe rankings include JosButtler (up nine places to23rd) and Moeen Ali (up fiveplaces to 43rd).
In the ICC PlayerRankings for Test Bowlers,England fast bowler JamesAnderson started and fin-ished the series in number-one ranking. After the Lord'sTest, Anderson reached acareer-high 903 points. Hehad started the series with 892points and finished just onepoint shy of the coveted 900-point mark.
��+���� �33���� ��India continued to be at
the numero uno position butEngland grabbed the fourthspot in the ICC Test TeamRankings after completing a4-1 series victory at The Ovalon Tuesday.
The Virat Kohli-led sidehad started the series at 125points but the series lossmeant it is now on 115 points.
England begun the seriesin fifth position and 97 pointsbut the emphatic victory overtop-ranked India has resultedin a big gain of eight pointsand lifted them to 105 pointsas they surpassed NewZealand.
Joe Root's England sideare now just one point behindSouth Africa and Australia,who are both on 106 pointswith the former marginallyahead on decimal points.
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James Anderson says he has noplans to hang up his boots yet
after overtaking Glenn McGrathto become the most prolific fastbowler in Test history as theAustralian challenged theEnglishman to reach 600 wick-ets.
Anderson went pastMcGrath's tally of 563 wicketswhen he knocked outMohammed Shami's middlestump as England bowled outIndia for 345 to seal a 4-1series victory at the Oval onTuesday.
The Lancashire swingbowler, with 564 scalps, nowtrails just the spin trio of SriLanka's Muttiah Muralitharan(800 wickets), Australia's ShaneWarne (708) and India's AnilKumble (619) in the all-time list.
The 36-year-old downplayed his personalachievement, saying he was more focused onhelping England win the final match of theseries.
"When I sit down at the end of my career,when I finish, it will mean a hell of a lot to meto be able to see what I've achieved," he said.
"But right now it's hard when you put all
your energy into the presentand trying to perform well forEngland. That's all I reallyfocus on."
While, Australian pacelegend Glenn McGrath hasbacked James Anderson tobreach the 600-wicket barri-er.
He is now behind thespin trio of MuttiahMuralitharan (800), ShaneWarne (708) and India's AnilKumble (619) in the list of Testbowlers with most wickets.
"Just to see Jimmy now, helooks fit and keen and run-ning around, it depends onwhat he wants to do. He hasgone past me and I think thenext bar is 600 Test wickets,"McGrath was quoted as sayingby the 'BBC'.
"If he can get to 600 Testwickets, that's an incredible
effort, and if he is still got that drive, that pas-sion to get yourself up, to put the hard work inoff the field to carry you through on the field...If he has still got that desire, then he can playas long as he wants," he said.
McGrath finished his career with 563wickets from 124 Tests, and coincidentally, hislast Test wicket was none other than Anderson.
The Asian Games setback still freshin his mind, Indian hockey team
chief coach Harendra Singh is deter-mined to start afresh with a positivemindset and make amends in theupcoming international assign-ments.
Going into the Asiad as thedefending champions, Indiaended its campaign on a dis-appointing note with aBronze medal after beatingarch-rivals Pakistan in thethird-place game.
"The Bronze medal wasa consolation and there is noexcuse for not making it tothe final of the 18th AsianGames Jakarta-Palembang,"Harendra said.
"There is no pointlooking back at the loss butnow it's critical for us tolook ahead with a fresh,positive approach," headded.
Hockey India onWednesday named a 25-member core group for anational camp inBhubaneswar fromSeptember 16 as part ofpreparation for the AsianChampions Trophy and theWorld Cup.
"The idea of training inBhubaneswar was to getacclimatised to the condi-tions. We are also looking atplaying on the newly-laid turfat the Kalinga Hockey
Stadium which will host the WorldCup," Harendra said.
"This is a very important phase inthe lead up to the season finale start-
ing on November 28 and we intendto critically analyse our mistakesduring the 18th Asian Games notjust in our match against Malaysiabut the other matches too.
"Asian Champions Trophywill be one tournament where we
will be executing the changesmade during this national
camp," he added.In the probables, the for-
wards who have made thecut are SV Sunil,Akashdeep Singh, GurjantSingh, Mandeep Singh,
Dilpreet Singh and SumitKumar.
The players will report toHarendra for a month-longtraining that concludes onOctober 14 ahead of the 10-dayAsian Champions Trophy,which will begin on October 18in Muscat, Oman where Indiawill defend its title.
The core group includesthree goalkeepers PR Sreejesh,
Suraj Karkera and Krishan Pathakwhile the defenders are
Harmanpreet , Rupinder Pal ,Gurinder , Varun Kumar, KothajitSingh , Surender Kumar, Jarmanpreetand the young Pardeep Singh.
Among midfielders, ManpreetSingh, Chinglensana Singh Kangujam,Sumit, Simranjit Singh, Nilakanta
Sharma, Hardik Singh, Lalit KumarUpadhyay and Vivek SagarPrasad have been selected.
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Error-prone Ferrari will have to exe-cute a perfect race in the Singapore
Grand Prix this weekend to narrow thewidening gap between Sebastian Vetteland championship leader LewisHamilton.
Lead Mercedes driver Hamiltontopped an intense battle with Vettel inthe early stages of the Italian Grand Prixon September 2 before passing pole-sitter Kimi Raikkonen to win on thehigh-speed Monza track, extending hischampionship lead to 30 points withseven races remaining.
Ferrari have had the faster car thanthe Mercedes of late but they have failedto come up with the consistencyrequired to win titles. However, it is stillfar from over for the Italian outfit whichis 25 points adrift of leader Mercedesin the team standings.
What should give Ferrari additionalconfidence going into the night race onSunday is that they have been the fasterthan Mercedes on the slow and twistyMarina Bay Street Circuit in recenttimes. Red Bull too have been strongon the high downforce track.
Vettel was on pole here last year buta freak accident saw him, Raikkonenand Max Verstappen being taken outof the race on the very first lap.
It was a sudden disaster for thefour-time world champion and Ferrarias Hamilton won the incident-packedrace to create a 28-point cushion in thedrivers' standings from a tiny three-point advantage over Vettel before thestart of that weekend.
Ferrari will have to make a con-scious effort to stay out of on tracktrouble and will also be hoping for theluck to go their way in a race that hasseen a safety car intervention at least
once since 2008.Hamilton, on the other hand, will
be gunning for his fourth win in the lastfive races, bringing him a step closer toa fifth world championship crown.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff knowsthat Singapore will be a stiff test for theirpower-friendly cars but is not ruling outa hat-trick of victories here afterHamilton and Nico Rosberg won in2017 and 2016 respectively.
"Singapore has features that we'vestruggled with in the past. The shortstraights, the slow, tight corners and thebumpy surface all make the Marina BayStreet Circuit one of the trickiest tracksof the season for us," said Wolff.
Another strong contender will beDaniel Ricciardo, who will leave RedBull for Renault at the end of the sea-son.
"As everyone knows, I love streetcircuits. The feeling of driving on theedge, so close to the walls, is somethingyou just can't get enough of. It's the orig-inal night race and the schedule isalways pretty hectic but there is some-thing kind of romantic about going tothe track at night and then to bed at fouror five in the morning," said theAustralian.
Indian men's doubles pair of Manu Attriand B Sumeeth Reddy stunned Olympic
Silver medallists Goh V Shem and Tan WeeKiong of Malaysia to enter the quarterfinalsof the $ 700,000 Japan Open badmintontournament here on Wednesday.
National champions Manu andSumeeth, who had defeated the Malaysianpair at Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold in 2015,saved a match point in the second game andcame back from a 17-19 deficit to upsetworld number 10 V Shem and Tan Wee 15-21, 23-21, 21-19 in a 54-minute battle.
"I feel we are playing well now. In today'smatch we played really well in the 2nd and3rd game especially at the ending. We werecalm and we knew what to be done," Manusaid.
"Over all I think we are coordinatingwell on court and this win will be a goodboost up for the future matches."
Manu and Sumeeth had lost narrowly
to Chinese pair of Li Junhui and LiuYuchen at the Asian Games individual event.
The Indian pair will face China's HeJiting and Tan Qiang next in the BWF WorldTour Super 750 tournament.
On a day when only the men's doublesand women's doubles matches were held,Indian pairs of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy andChirag Shetty and Ashwini Ponnappa andN Sikki Reddy bowed out of the tournamentafter losing their respective matches.
Commonwealth Games Silver medal-lists Satwik and Chirag went down 12-21,17-21 to third seeded Japanese pair ofTakeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda, whileAshwini and Sikki lost 17-21, 13-21 toKorean combination of Chang Ye Na andJung Kyung Eun in women's doubles.
Olympic Silver medallist P V Sindhuand Indian men's singles duo of KidambiSrikanth and H S Prannoy will play onThursday.
In the pre-quarterfinals, Sindhu will faceChina's Gao Fangjie, while Prannoy will takeon Indonesia's world No 10 AnthonySinisuka Ginting.
Former world No 1 Srikanth too will beitching for a revenge when he meets HongKong's Wong Wing Ki Vincent on Thursday.Wong Wing Ki had defeated the Indian atthe Asian Games last month.
Indian mixed doubles pair of PranaavJerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy will faceMalaysian combination of Chan Peng Soonand Goh Liu Ying.
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With uncertainty hovering overIndia's participation in next
month's Artistic Gymnastic WorldChampionship, top gymnast RakeshPatra feels not taking part in the com-petition will affect the country'spreparations for the TokyoOlympics.
Indian gymnasts were left inthe lurch after reportsemerged that the sportsministry refused to clearthe team for the WorldChampionship.
The 48th ArtisticGymnastics WorldC’hips will be held inDoha from October 25to November 3.
Patra, who had
finished fourth in the ring event at theFIG World Challenge Cup in Turkeyin August, said if India can't partici-pate it will be a huge blow to theirpreparation for the Olympics.
"If we are not able to participatein the Doha World championship wewould never know where we standin the global ranking chart. We needto test ourselves against the best tounderstand where we need to
improve ahead of theOlympics," Patra said.
"Next year there is thequalifying event (WorldC’ship in Stuttgart) for2020 Tokyo Games and ifthis issue continues itwill affect our chances. Itwill affect India's repu-
tation in the glob-al stage," he added.
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Spain's identity crisis looks to be welland truly over after Marco Asensio
inspired a 6-0 thrashing of World Cuprunners-up Croatia in the UEFA NationsLeague on Tuesday.
Defeat to Russia in July prompted achange of coach and doubts about theSpanish passing style but after animpressive win over England atWembley, Luis Enrique has now over-seen a demolition of Croatia too.
Asensio's two long-range shots, thesecond cannoning in off goalkeeperLovre Kalinic, had Spain three up beforehalf-time in Elche, after Saul Niguez hadearlier headed home.
Croatia, abject at the back, were nobetter after the break. Asensio firstthreaded Rodrigo Moreno through tofinish before supplying the corner for an
unmarked Sergio Ramos to nod in num-ber five. Isco then flashed a sixth into thetop corner, again Asensio the provider.
Two victories in four days meanSpain sit top of League A's Group Two,with a six-point gap over both Croatiaand England.
���� �"���<�3�
Neymar earned a yellow cardfor yet another dive.He had already converted a
penalty kick and assisted on twogoals when he took on defenderBryan Tamacas in the 44thminute of Brazil's 5-0 rout of ElSalvador on Tuesday night.
With a slight touch with hisright foot, Neymar pushed the ballto his left just past Tamacas, wholooked to have gotten a bit of theforward right leg. Neymar fell tothe ground.
Jair Marrufo, one of theAmerican referees at this year's
World Cup, gave Neymar animmediate yellow card after theminimal contact.
Neymar converted a penaltykick for the second straight gameand assisted on three goals beforea crowd of 28,511 at FedEx Field.
"We know we suffered after
the World Cup, myself in partic-ular, so to be back with the teamis an honor," Neymar said throughan interpreter. "And to be backwinning, making goals, and help-ing my squad mates in the bestway possible."
Richarlison got his first twointernational goals, and PhillipeCoutinho also scored for Brazil.
Neymar converted a penaltykick in the fourth minute afterRicharlison was taken down.With 59 goals in 92 internation-al appearances, Neymar is third inBrazilian history behind Pele (77)and Ronaldo (62). Neymar hasnow equaled Pele in appearances.
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Manvir Singh struck twicein the second half before
Sumeet Passi headed home aclinical pass as defending cham-pions India breezed pastPakistan 3-1 to sail into the finalof the SAFF Suzuki Cup, hereon Wednesday.
After a goalless first-half,Manvir scored his first in the49th minute only to double thescore-line twenty minutes later.Substitute Passi sealed the fateof the match in the 83rdminute. For Pakistan HassanBashir reduced the margin inthe 88th minute.
India will now meetMaldives in the summit clash
on Saturday. Maldives madeshort work of Nepal 3-0 in thefirst semi-final.
The first goal came off abrilliant counter-attack.Ashique Kuruniyan ran pasteveryone down the left andunleashed a low cross which
was gleefully tapped in byManvir to set the Indian fansberserk.
If that was good, the secondgoal was even better.
Lalliazuala Chhangte whoreplaced Nikhil Poojary in the68th minute made an immedi-
ate impact as India doubled thelead. The super-sub made ablistering run down the middleof the pitch, sidestepped twodefenders and passed it to VinitRai.
The midfielder on turnrolled it to Manvir who blast-ed it home from top of the box.
However, following a chal-lenge, Manvir was substitutedas Stephen Constantine broughtin Sumeet Passi.
The former AIFF Academycadet took less than a minute tojoin the party as he found thetarget in the 83rd. Ashique, thearchitect of the first goal, madean identical run down the flankto deliver it for Passi whoheaded the ball in.
.�������� ��>�6����� ��� ��������
Former India hockey captain SardarSingh on Wednesday decided to calltime on his illustrious career, saying
he had played enough in the last 12 yearsand now it's time for the youngsters to takeover.
Sardar said he made the decision aftera disappointing Asian Games where Indiafailed to defend its title and returned witha Bronze medal.
With age and speed not on his side,Sardar's performance in the Games cameunder the scanner.
"Yes, I have decided to retire frominternational hockey. I have played enoughhockey in my career. 12 years is a long time.Now it's time for the future generation totake over," Sardar said.
"I took the decision after consultationwith my family in Chandigarh, HockeyIndia and my friends. I think it's the righttime to think about life beyond hockey," headded.
Interestingly, during the Asian Gamesin Jakarta, Sardar said he still has hockeyleft in him and desires to play one lastOlympics in 2020 Tokyo.
However, he had a change of heartamid speculation that he was forced toretire after his name was dropped from the25-strong core group of national campersannounced by the Hockey India onWednesday.
Asked about the dropping from thecamp, Sardar evaded the question and saidhe would formally announce his retirementduring a press conference in the nationalcapital on Friday.
Sardar made his senior debut for Indiaagainst Pakistan in 2006 and since then hehas been a vital cog in the Indian team'smidfield.
The 32-year-old made over 350 inter-national appearances for India and cap-tained the national team for eight longyears from 2008 to 2016 before handing theresponsibility to PR Sreejesh.
Sardar was also the youngest player tocaptain the Indian team when he led theside at the 2008 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup. Hereceived the Arjuna award in 2012 and
Padma Shri in 2015.Sardar has represented India in two
Olympics.Sardar will leave behind a rich legacy
in the sport. A fighter to the core, he cameback strongly after being dropped from theGold Coast Commonwealth Games squad.
He worked hard on his fitness to roarback into the national team for theChampions Trophy, where India won aSilver medal.
With age, he slowed down a bit butSardar still is considered as one of the fittestplayers in the Indian team.
"Fitness is not the reason behind mydecision. I am fit enough to play hockey forsome more years. But there is always a timefor everything and I feel it's time for me tomove on in life," he said.
Sardar said he has conveyed his deci-sion to chief coach Harendra Singh, addinghe will continue to play hockey in thedomestic circuit.
Hailing from Sirsa in Haryana, Sardar'scareer was not devoid of controversyeither.
Sardar was accused of rape by anIndian-origin British woman, a chargewhich he vehemently denied and was alsogiven a clean chit by the special investiga-tion team of Ludhiana Police.
