C M Y K KASHMIR 22 nd Maximum : 25 O Minmum : 09 O Humidity : 85% SUNSET Today 07:23 PM SUNRISE Tommrow 05:32 AM 13 Ramzan-ul-Mubarak | 1440 Hijri | Vol:22 | Issue: 113 | Pages:12 | Price: `3 SUNDAY MAY - 2019 SRINAGAR : CLOUDS & SUN 19 www.kashmirobserver.net twitter.com / kashmirobserver facebook.com/kashmirobserver Postal Regn: L/159/KO/SK/2014-2016 FIQAH JAFARIYA 07:38 03:49 Iftar Sehri Ramazan -Ul-Mubarak TODAY TOMMOROW FIQAH HANAFIYA 07:31 03:50 13 th A woman carries a lamb in her lap on the outskirts of Srinagar. Pix Abid Bhat News In Brief What is done for you - allow it to be done. What you must do yourself - make sure you do it. --Khawwas CEC Arora Denies Rift NEW DELHI: Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora on Saturday denied any controversy in the internal functioning of the Election Commission saying the members of the poll body are not expected to be “clones of each other.” “There have been so many times in the past when there has been a vast diversion of views as it can and should be. But the same largely remained within the confines of ECI after demission of office unless appearing much later in a book written by the concerned ECs/CECs,” Arora said in a statement More On P8 Man Held For Rape Jammu: A 17-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a youth here and the accused has been arrested, police said Saturday. A family lodged a written complaint at police station Janipur Friday, alleging Karan Singh, a resident of Shivalik Puram, allegedly abducted their minor daughter and raped her in captivity, a police official said. He said police lodged an FIR against the accused under various sections of Ranbir Penal Code, (Full report on page 5) ‘Kashmir Issue A 'Myth' Created By Cong, NC’ NEW DELHI: The so-called Kashmir issue is a political "myth" created by the Congress, the National Conference and other such political groups which have a vested interest in the region's electoral vote bank, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said Saturday. He said Jammu and Kashmir is very much like any other state of the Indian union. There is no such issue as "Kashmir issue" and the political leaders who try to rake it up have a deep rooted selfish interest in creating an issue out of non-issue, in order to hoodwink the innocent masses of Kashmir, he said. (Full report on Page 5) 12 / OUTPOST ....... World / 04 SEE BEYOND KASHMIR’S SNOWY SLOPES? Since Kashmir has seldom been given a voice, naturally, it became the burden of its people to tell their stories. I WILL BE KILLED LIKE INDIRA GANDHI: KEJRIWAL ‘SITTING BY PHONE’ AWAITING CALL FROM IRAN "The BJP would get me murdered by my own PSO one day like Indira Gandhi" A senior Trump official says the US is “sitting by the phone” to hear from Iran. ME & MY HOME AN ONLINE STORE PAINTINGS, HOME DECOR, COMFORT & GIFT ITEMS, WOMEN & KIDS WARE SELECT ONLINE & PAY AT YOUR DOORSTEP G|u|l|b|e|r|g Collections www.gulberg.net Gulberg Collections ME & MY HOME [email protected]Cell: 7006034174 FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS & YOUR COPY OF Contact : -0194-2502327 4 Militants Killed In Pulwama, Sopore Police Says, One Among Slain Was Involved In Army Man Aurangzeb’s Killing Observer News Service SRINAGAR: Four militants, three of them affiliates of Hizb- ul-Mujahideen, were killed in an encounter with government forces at Panzgam area of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Saturday, police said. Also, a militant was killed in a gunfight in Sopore in North Kashmir. A police spokesman said one among the slain militants in the gunfight at Panzgam was in- volved in the killing of an army soldier Aurangzeb last year. Police spokesman said a joint team of army’s 55 RR, SOG and CRPF launched a cordon-and- search operation (CASO) at Pan- zgam village at pre-dawn hours. “During the More On P8 Polls End Today, Wait Begins Day 3: Curfew On Without Relaxation In Bhaderwah Protesters Warned in Kishtwar Candidate Figuring Below Wait List Can’t Lay Claim For Selection: HC Observer News Service SRINAGAR: Curfew contin- ued without any relaxation for the third day in Bhader- wah town in Doda district on Saturday. The curfew was imposed on Thursday after one Nayeem Shah was killed allegedly by cow vigilan- tes. The police on the other hand says it was not proper to blame the cow vigilantes for the murder even as it is yet to reveal identity of the behind the murder. "Curfew continued for the third day in Bhaderwah town. There is improvement in the situation More On P8 Jammu: Authorities in Kishtwar district on Saturday warned protesters against disrupting traffic. "Strict action shall be taken against the protesters indulging in blockade More On P8 NEW DELHI: The seven phase Lok Sabha elections, one of the most bitterly fought in recent memory, will come to a close on Sunday when polling will be held in 59 constituencies, including in Varanasi where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking to retain the seat. Polling will be held in all 13 seats in Punjab and an equal number in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and Chandigarh. Over 10.01 crore voters are expected to decide the fate of 918 candidates. The Election Commission of India More On P8 F R O M T H E C O U R T Observer News Service SRINAGAR: Can a candidate fig- uring in merit position below the wait listed candidate lay a claim for selection and appoint- ment against the advertised post if both wait listed candidate does not join against the post when appointment is offered to him on account of non-joining of the se- lected candidate? Responding the query in nega- tive, a bench of Justice Ali Mo- hammad Magrey clarified it by giving an example. Suppose a certain number of eligible candidates, say 10, re- spond to an advertisement no- tice notifying a single post and that the procedure governing the selection process provides that these candidates be put to written test for short- listing for purposes of oral test / viva voice / interview. Also suppose, the court said, the procedure also provides that five of the mer- itorious candidates in the written test out of the 10 candidates be called for interview. “So, five can- didates out of the ten, who do not make the grade to entitle them to be called for interview, are elimi- nated at this stage in fulfilment of their right to consideration guar- anteed under the Constitution,” the court said. Now, these five candidates cannot claim any right to be included in the further process required to be undertaken by the Board to complete the pro- cess of selection, the court said. “Assuming a situation that one of the five candidates, who make the grade and are called for oral test, by any reason, does not, or is not likely to, appear for the oral test, the eliminated candidate possessing the highest marks in the written test in the eliminated group, cannot claim his substitu- tion for the missed out candidate to be called for interview, for, his right to consideration stands fulfilled at the stage of the written test itself.” Now, out of the candidates who are called for and actu- ally appear at the interview, the Board is required to select a sin- gle candidate for the single post advertised, be it on the basis of the performance at the interview alone or on the basis of the aggre- gate merit obtained More On P8W PM Modi can be seen in the picture wearing a saffron robe, characteristic of a hermit, engrossed in meditation inside the meditation cave of Kedarnath temple. Prayers After Polls: Modi Visits Kedarnath, Shah Goes To Somnath NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah were among the leaders who were seen at revered temples on Saturday as they marked the end of a bitter election campaign. Narendra Modi on Saturday reached Dehradun on a two-day visit during which he would pay obeisance in the Himalayan shrines of Kedarnath and Badrinath. Modi visited More On P8 06/ Opinion ‘Pak Seals Offices Of 12 Militant Outfits’ SRINAGAR: Pakistan has sealed offices of all the twelve Kash- miri militant organizations, which have been operating from Pakistan Administered Kashmir from last 32 years, reported In- dependent Urdu. The newspaper reported that offices of all 12 organizations af- filiated with the United Jihadi Council were sealed, while as, the amount of office expendi- ture in these organizations has also been completely stopped. Independent Urdu reported that the action has come in the backdrop of mounting pressure by the Financial More On P8 UAPA: ‘Access To Justice Denied’ Observer news Service SRINAGAR: Former High Court Judge Justice (Retd) Hasnain Masoodi on Saturday demanded government to repeal of SROs 149 and 313, saying fundamental right of access to justice is being denied to people in every nook and corner of the Kashmir Valley. As per SRO-149 of 2019 and SRO- 313 of 2019, the cases of the people detained under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Prevention of Terrorist Act have been More On P8
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FIQAHJAFARIYA 07:38 03:49
Iftar SehriRamazan -Ul-Mubarak
TODAY TOMMOROW
FIQAHHANAFIYA 07:31 03:50
13th
A woman carries a lamb in her lap on the outskirts of Srinagar. Pix Abid Bhat
P10
News In Brief
What is done for you - allow it to be done. What
you must do yourself - make sure you do it.
--Khawwas
CEC Arora Denies RiftNEW DELHI: Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora on Saturday denied any controversy in the internal functioning of the Election Commission saying the members of the poll body are not expected to be “clones of each other.”“There have been so many times in the past when there has been a vast diversion of views as it can and should be. But the same largely remained within the confines of ECI after demission of office unless appearing much later in a book written by the concerned ECs/CECs,” Arora said in a statement More On P8
Man Held For RapeJammu: A 17-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a youth here and the accused has been arrested, police said Saturday.A family lodged a written complaint at police station Janipur Friday, alleging Karan Singh, a resident of Shivalik Puram, allegedly abducted their minor daughter and raped her in captivity, a police official said.He said police lodged an FIR against the accused under various sections of Ranbir Penal Code,
(Full report on page 5)
‘Kashmir Issue A 'Myth' Created By Cong, NC’NEW DELHI: The so-called Kashmir issue is a political "myth" created by the Congress, the National Conference and other such political groups which have a vested interest in the region's electoral vote bank, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said Saturday.He said Jammu and Kashmir is very much like any other state of the Indian union.There is no such issue as "Kashmir issue" and the political leaders who try to rake it up have a deep rooted selfish interest in creating an issue out of non-issue, in order to hoodwink the innocent masses of Kashmir, he said. (Full report on Page 5)
12 / OUTPOST....... World / 04
SEE BEYOND KASHMIR’S SNOWY SLOPES?
Since Kashmir has seldom been given a voice, naturally, it became the burden of its people to tell their stories.
I WILL BE KILLED LIKE INDIRA GANDHI: KEJRIWAL
‘SITTING BY PHONE’ AWAITING CALL FROM IRAN
"The BJP would get me murdered by my own PSO one day like Indira Gandhi"
A senior Trump official says the US is “sitting by the phone” to hear from Iran.
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4 Militants Killed In Pulwama, SoporePolice Says, One Among Slain Was Involved In Army Man Aurangzeb’s KillingObserver News Service
SRINAGAR: Four militants, three of them affiliates of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, were killed in an encounter with government forces at Panzgam area of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Saturday, police said. Also, a militant was killed in a gunfight in Sopore in North Kashmir.
A police spokesman said one among the slain militants in the gunfight at Panzgam was in-volved in the killing of an army soldier Aurangzeb last year.
Police spokesman said a joint team of army’s 55 RR, SOG and
CRPF launched a cordon-and-search operation (CASO) at Pan-
zgam village at pre-dawn hours.“During the More On P8
Polls End Today, Wait Begins
Day 3: Curfew On Without Relaxation In Bhaderwah
Protesters Warned in Kishtwar
Candidate Figuring Below Wait List Can’t Lay Claim For Selection: HC
Observer News Service
SRINAGAR: Curfew contin-ued without any relaxation for the third day in Bhader-wah town in Doda district on Saturday. The curfew was imposed on Thursday after one Nayeem Shah was killed allegedly by cow vigilan-
tes. The police on the other hand says it was not proper to blame the cow vigilantes for the murder even as it is yet to reveal identity of the behind the murder.
"Curfew continued for the third day in Bhaderwah town. There is improvement in the situation More On P8
Jammu: Authorities in Kishtwar district on Saturday warned protesters against disrupting traffic. "Strict action shall be taken against the protesters indulging in blockade More On P8
NEW DELHI: The seven phase Lok Sabha elections, one of the most bitterly fought in recent memory, will come to a close on Sunday when polling will be held in 59 constituencies, including in Varanasi where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking to retain the seat.
Polling will be held in all 13
seats in Punjab and an equal number in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and Chandigarh.
Over 10.01 crore voters are expected to decide the fate of 918 candidates. The Election Commission of India More On P8
F R O M T H E C O U R T
Observer News Service
SRINAGAR: Can a candidate fig-uring in merit position below the wait listed candidate lay a claim for selection and appoint-ment against the advertised post if both wait listed candidate does not join against the post when appointment is offered to him on account of non-joining of the se-lected candidate?
Responding the query in nega-tive, a bench of Justice Ali Mo-hammad Magrey clarified it by giving an example.
Suppose a certain number of
eligible candidates, say 10, re-spond to an advertisement no-tice notifying a single post and that the procedure governing the selection process provides that these candidates be put to written test for short-listing for purposes of oral test / viva voice / interview.
Also suppose, the court said, the procedure also provides that five of the mer-itorious candidates in the written test out of the 10 candidates be called for interview. “So, five can-didates out of the ten, who do not
make the grade to entitle them to be called for interview, are elimi-nated at this stage in fulfilment of their right to consideration guar-anteed under the Constitution,” the court said.
Now, these five candidates cannot claim any right to be included in the further process required to be undertaken by
the Board to complete the pro-cess of selection, the court said.
“Assuming a situation that one of the five candidates, who make the grade and are called for oral test, by any reason, does not, or is not likely to, appear for the oral
test, the eliminated candidate possessing the highest marks in the written test in the eliminated group, cannot claim his substitu-tion for the missed out candidate to be called for interview, for, his right to consideration stands fulfilled at the stage of the written test itself.”
Now, out of the candidates who are called for and actu-ally appear at the interview, the Board is required to select a sin-gle candidate for the single post advertised, be it on the basis of the performance at the interview alone or on the basis of the aggre-gate merit obtained More On P8W
PM Modi can be seen in the picture wearing a saffron robe, characteristic of a hermit, engrossed in meditation inside the meditation cave of Kedarnath temple.
Prayers After Polls: Modi Visits Kedarnath, Shah Goes To SomnathNEW DELHI — Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah were among the leaders who were seen at revered temples on Saturday as they marked the end of a bitter election campaign.Narendra Modi on Saturday reached Dehradun on a two-day visit during which he would pay obeisance in the Himalayan shrines of Kedarnath and Badrinath. Modi visited More On P8
06
/ Opi
nion
‘Pak Seals Offices Of 12 Militant Outfits’ SRINAGAR: Pakistan has sealed offices of all the twelve Kash-miri militant organizations, which have been operating from Pakistan Administered Kashmir from last 32 years, reported In-dependent Urdu.
The newspaper reported that offices of all 12 organizations af-filiated with the United Jihadi Council were sealed, while as, the amount of office expendi-ture in these organizations has also been completely stopped.
Independent Urdu reported that the action has come in the backdrop of mounting pressure by the Financial More On P8
UAPA: ‘Access To Justice Denied’Observer news Service
SRINAGAR: Former High Court Judge Justice (Retd) Hasnain Masoodi on Saturday demanded government to repeal of SROs 149 and 313, saying fundamental right of access to justice is being denied to people in every nook and corner of the Kashmir Valley.
As per SRO-149 of 2019 and SRO-313 of 2019, the cases of the people detained under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Prevention of Terrorist Act have been More On P8
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PcK Invites Hurriyat Leaders To Travel On Kashmir Bus
RAWLAKOT – President Pakistan controlled Kashmir Sardar Muham-mad Anwar Khan has invited leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Confer-ence to travel to 'Azad' Kashmir on the Srinagar'-Muzaffarabad bus service Addressing reporters at Rawalakote Press cub the PcK President said that the bus service was not solution of this core issue between Pakistan and India, However he said that it was a step towards perma-nent solution of this longstanding dispute He said major objective of starting the bus service was to re-unify the divided Kashmiri families to facilitate them in this regard. Anwar added the truck service between that between both parts of Kashmir would be started to boost trade between them. Inviting Hurriyat leaders to visit Islamabad, Anwar said that such consultations among Kashmiri leadership on both sides of the Line of control will help in devising a joint strategy that would be acceptable to Kashmiris on both sides' of the LoC. He said no one he allowed to sell or cash the sacrifices rendered by one lac Kashmiris He said Kashmiri martyrs were heroes of the Kashmiri people and they would realize their mission and will not leave any stone unturned in carrying forward their mission towards a logical conclusion.
(Kashmir Observer, 19 May, 2005)
NC slams 'transfer of 60 kanals of land to CRPF'Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir National Conference on Saturday expressed dismay over 'transfer of 60 kanals of land to CRPF' here. According to a statement, party’s general sec-retary Haji Ali Muhammad Sagar while censuring the incumbent governor administration for the move. “The urban life of Srinagar is already under duress. Services that are hall mark of the urban areas across the globe are yet to be made available to the people of Srinagar,” he said. “The city is already facing land crunch for the development of various facilities to manage the gigantic load of solid waste. The move of transferring land to CRPF will further dent development activities including that of waste management projects in the city. Having a massive chunk of land under security forces will inadvertently put pressure on ecology of wetlands and lakes as people will eventually take over eco-fragile zones of Srinagar,” he said.“The move is imprudent and is bound to affect the long term strategy of state government to provide for the mounting demands of the ever growing population of the city. The move will dent the long term efforts of the state government to make use of the urban periphery of Srinagar for civilian purposes,” he said.
Geelani convenes Shoora meet Migrant employees demand completion of accommodation
Observer News Service
Srinagar: Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Geelani Saturday convened a meeting of the separat-ist group’s Majlis Shoora (Consulta-tive Body) here to discuss the “pre-vailing political situation of Jammu and Kashmir.” “After taking a seri-ous note of the broad discussion, opinions and proposals put forward by Shoora members, Geelani in his presidential address said that the people of Kashmir are engaged in a legitimate democratic and political movement of right to self-determi-nation,” according to a statement.
“We have been subjugated and victimized for our genuine political beliefs,” said Geelani while giving details of the “precious and exem-plary sacrifices rendered by the people of Kashmir since 1947.”
Condemning the use of “brute force and military might to sup-press the freedom sentiments of the
people, he advised Majlis Shoora not to succumb to the repression and suppression used by India to defy the will of the people.”
Reiterating the stand taken by Hurriyat Conference that Kashmir is a political and human issue which needs an early resolution accord-ing to the wishes and aspirations of the people, for a prosperous sub-continent, Geelani urged the United Nations to use its “official position and prevail upon India to display its willingness to resolve this long pending issue in the larger interests of permanent peace and progress of the whole South Asia.”
Hurriyat (G) Chairman also de-manded an “effective check on the gross violation of human rights” in the nook and corner of Jammu and Kashmir, by sending a selected team of United Nations Human Rights Commission, International Committee for Red-Cross, Amnesty International and Asia Watch.
CONTRACTUAL TEACHERS HELD a sit-in protest in Srinagar on Saturday in favour of their demands including regularisation of services
Observer News Service
Srinagar: Kashmiri migrant em-ployees, who were given govern-ment jobs in the Valley under Prime Minister's package for mi-grants, Saturday staged a protest here demanding early completion of residential accommodation for them. The employees, most of them Kashmiri pandits, assem-bled at Pratap Park here to stage the protest in support of their demands. The main demand of the employees was independent accommodation for all 6,000 PM package employees in a stipu-lated time frame. Chairman of All Parties Migrants Coordination Committee (APMCC), Vinod Pan-dit, said nine years have passed since they were employed but the government has failed in provid-ing them accommodation.
“The delay in construction of quarters at Vessu Camp by JKPCC is a perfect example of
government apathy towards our demands,” he said.
“The employees putting up in rented accommodation are worst sufferers of this package as they have been paying huge rent and breaks the backbone of their fam-ily expenses,” he said.
He said the Advisor of Relief and Rehabilitation hasn’t even visited the Transit accommo-dations in valley once. The pro-testing migrants employees threatened to hit the streets again if their demands are not fulfilled.
Observer News Service
Srinagar: Jammu Kashmir Lib-eration Front (JKLF) zonal presi-dent Noor Muhammad Kalwal has been booked under Public Safety Act (PSA) and shifted to Mattan jail Anantnag on Saturday, the party said in a statement.
JKLF chief spokesperson Mu-hammad Rafiq Dar in a state-ment said that Noor Muhammad Kalwal was arrested by police on
30 April 2019 and was lodged at police station Kothi Bagh.
“Early today police informed him of being booked under PSA and immediately shifted him to Anantnag jail,” he said.
Dar added that the PSA of an-other JKLF leader Zahoor Ah-mad Butt who is incarcerated at the same jail for the last many months has also been extended by three months.
Terming the move as “travesty
of justice,” JKLF spokesperson said in the holy month of Rama-dhan and at the eve of Eid like festivals, inmates are freed from jails but in Kashmir jails are be-ing filled with more and more inmates. He appealed the inter-national human rights groups like Amnesty international, Asia Watch, ICRC and United Nations Human Rights Commission to take cognizance of this “Indian hegemonic attitude”.
JKLF zonal president booked under PSA
Meeting held to discuss action plan under PMKSY
Pic Abid Bhat
Observer News Service
Srinagar: Recitation of Quran and special payers across Kashmir marked the com-mencement of “Hafta-e-Shadat” to commemorate the death anniversaries of slain Hurriyat leaders Mirwaiz Moulvi Muhammad Farooq and Khawaja Abdul Gani Lone and victims of Hawal massa-cre of May 21, 1990.
“The main function for the recitation of Holy Quran and offering of special Fateh prayers for the martyrs was held at Jama Masjid Srinagar. Clerics, Imams, Islamic Schol-ars, prominent citizens and locals from various areas of Srinagar participated in the function,” a spokesman for the Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-led Hurriyat Conference said in a statement here.
“Soon after Quranic reci-tation, a Valley wide Husn-e-Qirat Competation was organised by the Anjunam-e-Auqaf Jamia Masjid which was presided over by Mir-waiz Umar Farooq. The Quran
competation assumed more significance owing to the fact that the fasting month of Ra-madan is going on , the same month in which holy Quran descended on the beloved prophet Muhammad (SAW),” the spokesman said.
In the Husn-e-Qirat pro-gram, Qaris from scores of education Instituions and Darul Ulooms from across Kashmir valley participated. The first position was bagged by Qari Gazi Abu Bakar, of Darul Uloom Bilaliya,second position was bagged by Qari Talib Hussain of Darul Uloom Dawoodiya Srinagar, Third by Qari Mushtaq Ul Islam of Markaz Al Maarif Bathendi Jammu, and Fourth by Qari Ajaz Ahmad Bhat of Anwar uloom Lolab. Mirwaiz, who presided over the function, distributed prizes among the winners while as the duties of jury were performed by Qari Inayat Ullah Qasimi, Qari Mu-hammad Ishtiyaq, and Qari Aijaz Ahmad Mir. The function was moderated by Moulana M.S Rehman Shams.
‘Hafta-e-Shahadat’ commences with special prayers
SRINAGAR: Secretary Agriculture Production Department (APD), Man-zoor Ahmad Lone today chaired a State Level Executive Committee meeting of Sub-Mission on Agricul-ture Mechanization and Sub-Mission for Seeds and Planting Material to discuss the Action Plan for approval under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sin-chayee Yojna (PMKSY) here at Agri-culture Complex Lalmandi.
The meeting was attended by Vice Chancellor SKUAST-J Dr K S Risam, Director Agriculture Kashmir Syed Altaf Aijaz Andrabi, Director Agri-
culture Jammu PS Rathore, Direc-tor Horticulture Jammu R K Katoch, Director Horticulture Kashmir, Aijaz Ahmad Bhat, Director Command Area Development Jammu, Dr. Man-mohan Singh, Director Sericulture J&K, Riyaz Ahmad, Chief Executive Officer IWMP, Director Research SKUAST-K, Joint Director Agriculture Extension Kashmir, Head CDAE, AD Planning, Dy. Director Floriculture (P&S) Jammu, Dy. Director Flori-culture (P&S) Kashmir, Dy. Director Planning Kashmir, Dy. Director Com-mand Area Kashmir and other con-
cerned officers. The Secretary while reviewing the Mission on Agricul-ture Mechanization (SMAM) and Sub-Mission on Seeds and Planting material, stressed on the State Agri-culture Universities to work in close coordination with the Heads of the Departments while implementing the various components for purchase of machinery, equipment and seeds. The proposal for high-quality seed, testing laboratories one each for SKUAST-J, SKUAST-K was included in the proposal for which an amount of 468.92 lakhs is earmarked.
Air Vice Marshal meets J&K guvSrinagar: Air Vice Marshal Pankaj Mohan Sinha, Air Officer Commanding, Jammu and Kashmir, met Governor Satya Pal Malik here on Saturday and briefed him on the role and responsibilities of the IAF in the state. The Air Vice Marshall called on the governor at the Raj Bhavan, an official spokesman said. He said the governor appreciated the professionalism with which the IAF is performing its duties here and the valuable support it provides to the civilian population living in remote areas and during emergencies.
Employees body seeks policy for ‘unemployment crisis’Srinagar : Darbar Move Employees Federation, J&K president Owais Wani Saturday appealed the government to form a roadmap policy to overcome unemployment crises in the state.In a statement, he said that where government is supposed to come up with a policy to accommodate educated and skilled, besides creating employment avenues. The educated youth is being compelled to take streets. He added that every day there is different casual and contractual groups of employees taking streets to raise their voice and these days contractual teachers are protesting for extension. It is utter humiliation of teaching profession. He said that irony does not end here professionals and PhD scholars are also suffering in this state. “Recently we came to know that media professionals hired by Department of Information and Public Relation are being humiliated in the de-partment because they are not permanent in the departments.”He said the figures of Jammu and Kashmir are much higher than at all India level figures and highest among all state as per reports of National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) available up to NSS 68th round.
NEWS Sunday| 19-05-2019 4I r a n F M I n S y r I a
Making Sense Of The World Around U s
Press Trust Of India
NEW DELHI: Campaigning in the bitterly fought marathon Lok Sabha elections spread over 38 days drew to a close on Friday as top leaders made a final push in the seventh and concluding phase for the remaining 59 seats that included Varanasi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking to retain the seat.
The high octane campaign marked by vitriolic attacks and counter-attacks by political lead-ers and use of derogatory lan-guage and objectionable remarks
that forced the Election Commis-sion to step in ended at 6 p.m.
Polling will be held on Sun-day in the seventh phase in all 13 seats in Punjab and an equal number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight seats each in Bihar and Mad-hya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and the lone seat Chandigarh.
Violence in BengalIn a first, campaigning in
West Bengal came to an end on Thursday, 20 hours before the scheduled time, on the orders of the Election Commission in the aftermath of violence between
the BJP and the ruling Trin-amool Congress (TMC) in Kolka-ta during BJP chief Amit Shah’s roadshow.
Counting of votes will be taken up on May 23.
In 2014, the BJP got 282 seats, and the tally of the party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was 337.
On the last day of the cam-paign, Bahujan Samaj party president Mayawati termed the BSP-SP-RLD alliance a combine of ideas and said it would not sit silent till it uproots the Yogi Ad-ityanath government from Uttar
Pradesh and the Modi govern-ment from the Centre.
In Punjab, Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh took a swipe at Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal’s efforts to turn the Lok Sabha elections into a battle for su-premacy in the State. “Sukhbir Badal should stop daydreaming of getting back into the seat of power in the State,” the Con-gress leader said. “People would throw the Akalis out much be-fore the 2022 Assembly polls,” he asserted, reacting to Mr. Badal’s reported comments at public ral-lies that the SAD would form the next government in the State.
‘US Sitting By The Phone Awaiting Call From Iran’
Agencies
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah were among the leaders who were seen at re-vered temples on Saturday as they marked the end of a bit-ter election campaign.
Narendra Modi on Satur-day reached Dehradun on a two-day visit during which he would pay obeisance in the Himalayan shrines of Kedarnath and Badri-nath. Modi visited the Kedarnath shrine on Saturday and will pray at Badrinath on Sunday.
This is Modi’s second visit to Kedarnath in the last two years. While granting permission for Modi to visit the shrines, the Elec-tion Commission had “reminded” the Prime Minister’s Office that the Model Code of Conduct was still in effect.
Amit Shah reached the revered Somnath temple in Gujarat on Saturday morning. Shah was seen offering prayers at Som-nath with his family.
BJP leaders were not the only ones spotted in temples after the end of the Lok Sabha poll campaign.
Former prime minister and JD(S) patriarch H.D. Deve Gow-da visited the Venkateswara Temple in Tirupathi on Saturday on the occasion of his birthday. Gowda told mediapersons in Tirupathi that he had been visiting Tirupathi on the occasion of his birthday for the past 35 years. Gowda was accompanied by his son Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy.
Prayers After Polls: Modi Visits Kedarnath, Shah Goes To Somnath
Bitterly Fought Lok Sabha Poll Campaign Ends
Agencies
wAShiNgtoN: A senior Trump administration official says the US is “sitting by the phone” to hear from Iran, but it has yet to receive
any message suggesting Tehran is willing to accept Donald Trump’s overtures for direct talks.
The US has heard no message yet from Iran, but “we’re sitting by the phone,” the senior official, who declined to be identified, told a small group of reporters on Friday.
Back on May 9, Trump public-ly appealed to Iran to call him amid heightened tensions.
On the same day, CNN reported that the White House has contacted Swiss authorities to share a tele-phone number with Iran in hopes that Tehran will contact Trump.
The call for talks came four days after John Bolton, the hawk-ish US national security advisor,
declared the US was sending an aircraft carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in a “clear and unmistakable” message to Iran.
The move, he said, is aimed at
sending a “clear and unmistakable message” to Iran that “any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”
Bolton said the decision was “in response to a number of trou-bling and escalatory indications and warnings.”
Trump, however, later or-dered his administration to avoid a military confrontation with Iran, The New York Times and Reuters reported Friday.
During a Wednesday morning meeting in the Situation Room, Trump sent a message to his hawk-ish aides that he does not want the US pressure campaign against Iran
to explode into an open conflict.“Trump was firm in saying
he did not want a military clash with the Iranians,” read the paper citing five senior officials who de-scribed the administration’s inter-nal debate over Iran.
The report cited anonymous officials informed on the matter as saying that Trump had privately expressed concern that some of his advisers, such as John Bolton, were pushing for war.
Hawks in Trump’s team have reportedly gone as far as drawing up plans for a possible military strike that could involve sending 120,000 soldiers to the Middle East.
The New York Times on Mon-day claimed Acting Defense Sec-retary Patrick Shanahan had pre-sented an updated military plan that envisioned sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack Ameri-can forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons.
‘Fake news media’ responsible for ‘fraudulent’ Iran coverage
The New York Times’ claim was later on Tuesday denied by Trump, who described it as “fake news” and said, “Hopefully we’re not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we’d send a hell of a lot more troops than that.”
Later on Friday, Trump tweet-ed that “the Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran.”
a Muslim worshipper at the al aqsa mosque in occupied Jerusalem
Godse killed Gandhi’s body, Pragya killing soul of India: Kailash SatyarthiPress Trust Of India
New Delhi: Stressing that Mahatma Gandhi is above power and poli-tics, Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi Saturday said people like Pragya Singh Thakur are killing the soul of India and the BJP should expel her from the party.
His comments came after Malegaon blast accused and BJP’s Bhopal Lok Sabha seat candidate Thakur lauded Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse as a “patriot” in an election rally in Madhya Pradesh. She later apologised for her state-ment, saying she respected Gandhi and his work for the country cannot be forgotten.
“Godse had killed Gandhi’s body, but people like Pragya are killing the soul, non-violence, peace, tolerance and the soul of India. Gandhi is above all power and politics. The BJP leadership should forego its interest of any small benefit and immediately take her out of the party in compliance with the Raj dharma,” Satyarthi, a Nobel Peace Prize Winner, tweeted.
Thakur on Thursday had said, “Godse was a patriot, is a patriot, and will remain a patriot. Those who call him a terrorist should look within they will get a reply in this election.”
She made the remarks reacting to actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan’s comments calling Godse as the first Hindu terrorist. Thakur, who is facing trial in the Malegaon blast case that killed six people, has apologised for the statement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday said he will never forgive Thakur for calling Godse a true patriot.
In April, the BJP candidate had claimed that police officer Hemant Karkare had died in the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai as she “had cursed him” due to “years of mental and physical torture” he gave her.
n E W S M a K E r S
Kamal Haasan says ‘Hindu’ not native to India; given by Mughals, endorsed by British
Film featuring Donald Trump as a schoolboy in the works
A young Donald Trump and his real estate mogul father are to appear as characters in a new Hollywood film, accord-
ing to reports at the Cannes film festi-val on Friday.
US director James Gray of The Yard and The Lost City of Z fame will write and direct the film set in the pri-vate Kew-Forest School in Queens in New York. Both the American presi-dent and the film-maker were educated there, although decades apart.
Armageddon Time will be a memoir of Gray’s childhood growing up in Queens where the US president’s father Fred was a powerful member of the school’s board, producer Rodrigo Teixeira told Variety. “It’s a personal story for James,” he said. “You have the whole world of the Trumps dealing with that school and the students who go to that school.”
Earlier this year, the president’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen revealed that Trump threatened to sue his former schools if they ever released his grades.
CHENNAI: Actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan who drew flak from all political quarters and
Hindu groups for his remarks on Nathuram Godse, on Saturday once again stoked a possible controversy by saying that the word “Hindu” is of foreign origin and not native to India.
Taking to Twitter, Makkal Nee-dhi Maiam (MNM) founder Haasan shared a poem on Friday in Telugu
saying “the name Hindu was given by foreign rulers”.
Haasan said the term ‘Hindu’ was given by Mughals or by others who came earlier to rule, adding that the British who later ruled the nation seconded the term.
He said that neither the Alwars and Nayanmars, poet-saints in southern India during the first mil-lennium CE, gave the religious note “Hindu”.
Citing a Tamil proverb - “Living
in harmony has a million benefits”, the MNM chief opined that shrink-ing the nation within religion is commercially, politically and spiri-tually wrong.
“Neither 12 Alwars nor 63 Nayanmars gave the religious note “Hindu”. We were named “Hindu” either by Mughals or those who ruled earlier. British who ruled and returned seconded that adjec-tive. When we have our own iden-tities how ignorant to embrace an outsider given name as our name or religion. Though our identity as “Indian” is recent it would live be-yond times. To think of shrinking our wide nation within religion is commercially, politically and spiri-tually wrong. If we live together we would get crore benefits. How many times this proverb has been told to Tamilians,” he said in his tweet.
Haasan who has been receiving backlash since past few days for his remark that the “first terrorist in in-dependent India was a Hindu” said
US warns airliners flying in Persian Gulf amid Iran tensionsAgencies
WASHINGTON: U.S. diplomats warned Saturday that commercial airliners flying over the wider Persian Gulf faced a risk of being “misidentified” amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
The warning relayed by U.S. diplomatic posts from the Federal Aviation Administration under-lined the risks the current tensions pose to a region crucial to global air travel. It also came as Lloyd’s of London warned of increasing risks to maritime shipping in the region.
Concerns about a possible
conflict have flared since the White House ordered warships and bombers to the region to counter an alleged, unexplained threat from Iran that has seen America order nones-sential diplomatic staff out of Iraq. President Donald Trump since has sought to soften his tone.
In this May 9, 2019 photo re-leased by the U.S. Navy, the Abra-ham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group transits the Suez Canal in Egypt. The aircraft carrier and its strike group are deploying to the Persian Gulf on orders from the White House to respond to an unspecified threat from Iran.
Meanwhile, authorities allege that a sabotage operation targeted four oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, and Iran-aligned rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for a drone attack on a crucial Saudi oil pipeline. Saudi Arabia directly blamed Iran for the drone assault, and a local newspaper linked to the Al Saud royal family called on Thursday for America to launch “surgical strikes” on Tehran.
This all takes root in Trump’s decision last year to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers and impose wide-reaching sanctions.
Google celebrates Persian maths genius Omar Khayyam
GOOGLE on Saturday dedi-cated a creative and special doodle to Persian math-
ematician Omar Khayyam on his 971st birthday. He was best known for his work on the classifica-tion and solution of cu-bic equations.
Apart from his maths skills, he was also a well-known as-tronomer and poet. Born in Nishapur in northeastern Iran, Khayyam spent most of his life near the court of the Karakhanid and Seljuq rulers in the period which witnessed the First Crusade.
His work on the classification and solution of cubic equations is phenomenal of those times as he had provided geometric solu-tions by the intersection of cones. Khayyam was first to give a gener-al method for solving cubic equa-tions. Although he didn’t consider
negative roots, his methods were sufficient to find geometrically all real (positive or negative) roots of cubic equations.
In 2012 as well, Khayyam’s 964th birthday was also celebrated by the search engine with a special doodle which was very well re-ceived by users.
Apart from India, the doodle would also appear to Google users in Russia, the Middle East, North African nations, the US and Chile.
US airstrike kills 8 Afghan police officersAgencies
Kabul: At least eight police-men have been killed in a US airstrike on Afghani-stan’s southern province of helmand in what was seem-ingly an accident.
The air raid was car-ried out by the US forces on Thursday night, said Omar Zwak, a spokesman for Helmand’s governor, adding that it also left 12 other police
personnel wounded.A spokesman for the US
forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Dave Butler, said the aerial attack took place after Afghan forces requested US air sup-port during a firefight with the Taliban militants near the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, calling the casualties a “tragic accident.”
Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi confirmed the death toll but said 11 people had been wounded.
Separately, the head of the Helmand provincial council Ataullah Afghan
put the death toll at 18. He said 14 other policemen had been injured.
The United States has recently stepped up its air raids in Afghanistan in an at-tempt to exert pressure on the Taliban to accept a negotiated end to their 18-year militancy. Civilian casualties have in-creased amid that heightened aerial campaign.
The UN Assistance Mis-sion in Afghanistan recorded
649 civilians casualties as a result of aerial attacks in the first nine months of last year, the highest number in any year since systematic record-ing began in 2009.
The Taliban’s five-year rule over at least three quarters of Afghanistan came to an end in the wake of a US-led invasion in 2001, but the militant group still continues to attack govern-ment and civilian targets as well as foreign forces.
The administration of US President Donald Trump is now negotiating with the Taliban group.
S H O R T S T O R I E S
Sunday | 19-05-2019 05News
Observer News Service
BARAMULLA: Advisor to Gover-nor, Khurshid Ahmad Ganai ac-companied by Principal Secretary Planning, Development and Mon-itoring Department, Rohit Kansal today visited Baramulla and held a meeting to review the progress on various projects under the As-pirational Districts Programme.
The meeting was attended by District Development Commis-sioner, Baramulla, Dr G N Itoo, SSP, ADCs, sectoral officers of var-ious departments viz PDD, PHE, Health, Education, Social Welfare and other concerned officers.
The DDC briefed the chair about the status of various proj-ects and informed that work on several projects has been com-pleted whereas several projects are at different stages of comple-tion. The Advisor took a detailed appraisal of works and stressed upon the concerned officers to obtain the saturated results in different sectors identified under
the programme. He underlined the need for utilizing the resourc-es through convergence and col-laboration besides directing for working with added synergy and enthusiasm for achieving the de-sired targets.
Meanwhile, several deputa-tions called on the Advisor and appraised him about various is-sues and demands with regard to the community welfare. The deputations which met included Greater Baramulla Forum, Gu-rudwara Prabandak Committee, Traders Federation Baramulla and Auqaf Committee Baramulla.
The Advisor gave a patient hearing to the deputations and assured to address all the genuine demands on priority.
Earlier, the Advisor visited the Shailputri Temple, which was partially damaged in 2017 due to land erosion. He interacted with temple management and assured them that all their demands and issues shall be looked into for ap-propriate action.
Advisor reviews Aspirational Districts Programme projects PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: The so-called Kash-mir issue is a political "myth" created by the Congress, the National Conference and other such political groups which have a vested interest in the region's electoral vote bank, Union Min-ister Jitendra Singh said Satur-day. He said Jammu and Kash-mir is very much like any other state of the Indian union.
There is no such issue as "Kash-mir issue" and the political lead-ers who try to rake it up have a deep rooted selfish interest in cre-ating an issue out of non-issue, in order to hoodwink the innocent masses of Kashmir, he said.
"The so-called Kashmir issue is a political myth created by the Congress, the National Con-ference and other such political groups for their vested interest," the minister told PTI.
"The biggest evidence of hypocrisy on the part of the Kashmir-centric leaders is that they underplay the fact that even though Jammu and Kash-mir has a separate Constitution of its own. The Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir itself states that it is an integral part of India," the minister said.
Over a period of time, he said, there has been a deliberate at-tempt to develop a narrative
based on "so-called Kashmir issue" because "it suits certain political leaders for their elec-toral benefits and suits some so-called intellectuals to achieve misplaced recognition as Kash-mir experts".
It is an irony that National Conference patriarch Sheikh Abdullah unconditionally ac-cepted the state as an integral part of India as long as he was in power and even approved the extension of the various provisions of Indian Constitu-tion to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, but whenever he was out of power, he would speak of plebiscite, referendum, etc, Singh said. The same trend, he said, was carried forward by later two generations of the Na-tional Conference who "man-aged to seek political dividends from this stark duplicity".
However, the third generation of Kashmiris born post 1990 have outgrown this "manufac-tured myth".
"Particularly the aspirant youth of Kashmir sometimes seem to be taking a lead over their counterparts in the rest of the country when we see the annual results of prestigious All India Entrance Exams like Civil Services examination, IIT-JEE exam and NEET exam," the min-ister said.
Kashmir issue a 'myth' created by Congress, NC: Jitendra
As May 23 nears, anxiety grows in Kashmir valley
Naseer Ganai/ Outlook
Srinagar: People all over the coun-try are waiting for May 23, when the Lok Sabha election results will be declared. But it is an especially significant day for Kashmiris, many of whom are apprehensive that if a BJP government returns to power, it would take decisions detrimental for the Valley.
In its manifesto, BJP has de-clared that it would annul Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution. The former provides special au-tonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir and the latter endows certain privileges to ‘permanent residents’, such as the right to own property and employment under the state government. During the poll campaign, BJP leaders, includ-ing Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah, repeatedly called for reviews of both the articles and Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi blamed former PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s policies for the current crises in the state.
In response, mainstream politi-cal parties in the Valley talked at length about the importance of the provisions. Former chief min-ister and National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah said that if Article 370 goes, the relationship between India and Kashmir would become just a military one. For-mer chief minister and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti claimed that if the Centre scraps the articles, India’s relation with Jammu and Kashmir would be over.
Political analysts in Kashmir say it is rare for people from the state to keenly watch the parliamen-tary polls, but this time, things are different. “There are many reasons
for it. One is that the BJP made J&K part of its election campaign—as if the elections were all about Kash-mir. People are also worried as the party has created hysteria about Kashmir and has kept the Valley on edge for the past 7-8 months,” declared a political analyst. “Gov-ernor rule in J&K was earlier known for development. But the present regime has only created crisis after crisis. That is why there is anxiety about the outcome of the parliamentary polls.”
Operations of the National In-vestigation Agency have intensi-fied in the past few months. The agency questioned many, includ-ing Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chair-man of Awami Action Committee, at its headquarters in New Delhi. It also arrested separatist leader and JKLF chief, Yasin Malik.
There is also a section in the state which believes that the hardline approach of the BJP gov-ernment has internationalised the Kashmir issue and if it wins an-other term, Kashmir will remain in the focus of Western powers.
Political parties fear that if the Modi government returns to power, there could be a further delay in Assembly elections in the state. The PDP-BJP government was formed in March 2015 after prolonged negotiations between BJP general secretary Ram Mad-hav and former PDP leader Has-eeb Drabu. The parties came up with the Agenda of Alliance that promised hope, but there was no progress on the agenda.
When their government fell in June last year, both parties ac-cused each other of derailing Kashmir. “Statements of main-
stream parties of Kashmir create a separatist psyche and it is not ac-ceptable to ‘new India’,” remarked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. “Unacceptable is a new India where those who kill and lynch in the name of religion are feted and garlanded,” retorted former Me-hbooba Mufti. “If standing up for my people makes me a separatist and anti-national, then it’s a badge I will wear with honour.” In Octo-ber 2015, cow vigilantes attacked a truck near Udhampur on the Srinagar-Jammu highway and im-molated 18-year-old Zahid Rasool Bhat of Anantnag. The suspects were agitated over rumors of cow slaughter in the area.
“The last five years have been a period of immense despair,” says bureaucrat-turned-politician Shah Faesal. “A record number of educated youth picked up arms and got killed. Political dissidents were dealt with a heavy hand. The BJP-PDP coalition government threw the state back into a vortex of instability. A near-war situa-tion developed between India and Pakistan. There was an unprec-edented boycott of the recently concluded parliamentary elec-tions. Kashmiris are desperately waiting for the Union government to free itself from election hysteria and engage with the state afresh.”
“The current government at the Centre looks at killing and maiming as normal in Kashmir,” said Tanvir Sadiq, advisor to Omar Abdullah. “There is a view that if the government changes, there will be some sort of normalcy in the Valley. That is why everyone is waiting for the outcome of the polls.”
Man held for ‘raping teenage girl’
Authorities start installation of truck scanners
Observer News Service
Srinagar: Amid the suspen-sion of cross-Line of Control (LoC) trade, the authorities are working on installing truck scanners at both the trade cen-tres Salamabad in the Kashmir valley and Chakan Da Bagh in Poonch in Jammu. The Minis-try of Home Affairs (MHA) on April 18 had suspended the cross-LoC trade in J&K, saying that it was being used for “fun-neling of illegal weapons, nar-cotics and fake currency”.
“As such there is no order to resume the LOC trade but yes work has started on installing truck scanners at both the trade centres Salamabad in the Kash-mir valley and Chakan Da Bagh in Poonch in Jammu,” a top gov-ernment official was quoted as saying by local news agency.
He said if the trade resumed, the truck scanners will enable the customs department and other agencies to see what is being imported from the other side. After suspending the LOC trade, the MHA had said that the issue will be “revisited” after a “stricter regulatory & enforcement mechanism” that is being worked out is “put in place in consultation with var-ious agencies”.
Cross-LoC traders and oth-ers associated with the trade are demanding the resump-tion of the business. Traders have said that they support
the government’s every move to put strict and transparent regulatory measures in place but suspension of trade that took a decade to establish it-self is no answer.
“Over the past decade, cross-LoC trade has been our only source of income. Suspension of trade has affected our fami-lies. We request government
to implement strict regulatory measures and continue trade simultaneously,” said a trader.
In October 2008, as a con-fidence building measure, India and Pakistan agreed to carry out trade along the Line of Control through the Uri-Muzaffarabad route in Kashmir and the Poonch-Rawalakot route in Jammu. The two countries agreed on a Standard Operating Proce-dure. The defining feature of the initiative was that there
would be no exchange of money between traders – it would involve the barter sys-tem. If a trader in Pakistan sent across goods worth five lakh Indian rupees to a trader on the Indian side, that trader would send back goods of the same value as payment. It is to mention here that the ini-tiative was launched during
the tenure of the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance government, its seed was planted in 2004, in the peace process initiated by the late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf.
Cross-LoC trade was the second confidence-building measure between India and Pakistan after a cross-LoC bus service, which was launched in 2005. – KNS
Press Trust of India
Jammu: A 17-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a youth here and the accused has been arrested, police said Saturday.
A family lodged a written complaint at police station Janipur Friday, alleging Karan Singh, a resident of Shivalik Puram, allegedly abducted their minor daughter and raped her in captivity, a po-lice official said. He said po-lice lodged an FIR against the accused under various sec-tions of Ranbir Penal Code, including 363 (kidnapping), 343 (wrongful confinement) and 376 (rape) and Protec-tion of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The medical examination of the girl was also conducted and she was later handed over to the family, the official said, adding the accused was ar-rested and further investiga-tion is on.
Meanwhile, a university student was allegedly ab-ducted and injured by a youth who was stalking her in Samba district. The girl was admitted in Kathua dis-trict hospital with cuts on her arms and other parts of the body and was later re-ferred to Government Medi-
cal College hospital here for specialised treatment, of-ficials said. They said police has taken cognizance of the case and started investiga-tions. In her statement, the girl said she was abducted by the youth when she was heading to here residence from central university Vi-jaypur. "He slapped me sev-eral times before pushing me into his vehicle and sped away. He tried to molest me and also used a blade to in-scribe his name on my arms and other parts of the body before setting me free in Samba," the girl said adding he also tried to take her to a medical shop but the para-medic refused to treat her saying it is a police case.
She claimed that the ac-cused took away her SIM cards as well. "The girl, who is basically hailing from Kathua, was putting up with her rela-tives in Samba as she was pe-rusing studies in the Central university. Her uncle took her home after the incident and accordingly she was admit-ted in the Kathua hospital," a police official said. He said a police team from Vijaypur police station recorded her statement in Kathua hospital and further action is in prog-ress.
Youth electrocuted to deathPoonch: A 26-year-old youth was electrocuted to death Kalakote area of Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday evening. Station House Officer (SHO) Kalakote Tahir Yousuf said that the youth Mohan Lal (26) son of Tilak Raj, was electrocuted after he was repairing electrical wires at his house. Mohan was immediately rushed to the nearby hospital in an unconscious state, however, doctors present there declared him brought dead on arrival, SHO said. The body of the deceased has been handed over to the family after conducted all legal medico formalities, he said.
Facilities reviewed at new bus yard in GanderbalGANDERBAL: The Deputy Commissioner Ganderbal, Hashmat Ali Khan today visited the newly constructed bus yard in the Ganderbal town to take stock of the facilities for the benefit of commuters. The DDC also reviewed the feasibility of alternative road from bus yard to District Hospital road. Chairman Municipal Committee Ganderbal, Executive En-gineer R&B, EO Municipality and other concerned officers were also present on the occasion. The DDC called for repair of roads, installation of street lights and repairing of passenger sheds in the town. He also directed the concerned of-ficials for dredging and de-silting of Nagpaw nallah. In order to decongest traffic in Ganderbal main town, particularly on Beehama-Duderhama road, DDC asked the Executive Engineer R&B to prepare a comprehensive plan regarding the feasibility of the alternative road which could connect the newly bus yard with District Hospital road.
Qazigund man’s body fished out from Chenab Jammu: The body of a truck driver was fished out from Chenab river along the Jammu-Srinagar national highway in Ramban district in the afternoon. Mohammad Shafi, a resident of Qazigund village of Anantnag, was feared drowned after his truck rolled down a hill into Chenab at Jaishwal bridge on Sunday last, the official said.He said the body of the driver was fished out from the river after a hectic six-day long search by local police and vol-unteers. A team of the NDRF had joined the search on Friday, he added.
Woman, 70, killed in road accidentJammu: A 70-year-old woman was killed and four others were injured Saturday when their car skidded off the road and hit the roadside safety wall in Kathua dis-trict of Jammu and Kashmir, police said. The accident took place apparently due to rash driving near RTO office, Kathua, along the Jammu-Pathankot highway, a police official said. The car was on way to Pathankot in Punjab, he added.Sheela Devi died on the spot, while Sourav, Meena Kumari, Phani and Sunita Mahajan, all residents of Pathankot, were critically injured in the accident, he said.The official said the injured were pro-vided initial treatment at the district hospital, Kathua, and later referred to Pathankot.
PaK resident held in TanghdarSrinagar: A resident of Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PaK) was held by the army along the Line of Control (LoC) in Tanghdar area of Kupwara district of north Kashmir, officials said on Saturday. They said that Shabir Ahmad son of Mir Wali of Manjkote was apprehended near Diler post at Amrohi by army’s 17 Bihar regiment on Friday late evening.
Cross LOC trade suspension
Shortage of subsidized sugar mars Ramadhan festivities
Observer News Service
Srinagar: With public distribu-tion discontinued from gov-ernment ration-depots for last several months, the shortage of sugar has taken a toll on com-mon people, especially during the month of Ramadhan.
The demand of sugar during the month of Ramadhan in-creases manifold as it is used as an ingredient during Iftaar and Sehri preparations..
Compared to the sugar which used to be distributed to people on subsidized prices by the Con-sumer Affairs and Public Distri-bution (CAPD) department, the hefty retail market prices are proving to be a burden on the pocket of common man.
Consumers from various parts of the Valley complained that they were facing severe inconve-nience due to abrupt discontinu-ation of public distribution of sugar. Hilal Ahmad Bhat, an in-habitant of Palpora Sonwar said ration card holders in the area after visiting the supplies depot had to return disappointed.
“The problems being faced by people from the lower economic strata are unimaginable. There are people in our locality who want to prepare some special-ties but cannot afford to do in absence of subsidized sugar,” Bhat said. Prior to Ramadhan divisional administration and CAPD used to conduct review meetings to ensure that there is adequate supply of essentials such as sugar, flour etc. How-ever, these meetings which also used to take place at the district level have not taken into con-sideration the impact of sugar’s distribution being discontinued.
As per sources the import bill for sugar to the state gov-ernment had of late witnessed a steep rise after prices of this commodity increased sharply
in the bulk market and mandis outside the Valley.
Jammu and Kashmir for last several years has been pro-curing sugar from sugar firms based in Maharashtra but has been at loggerheads with these companies due to high prices charged by them. Last year also public distribution of sugar was stopped for a long time after a Maharashtra-based sugar firm pulled out of the contract with the state government due to dif-ferences over prices.
Director Consumer and Public Distribution Department Mu-hammad Qasim Wani, said deci-sion of the state government to
stop distribution of sugar has hap-pened in the past as well. Wani said sugar as a commodity is not in the notified list of essentials to be distributed by the CAPD.
“Sugar was being given in ad-dition to other items and now government has stopped its dis-tribution due to some financial reasons,” Wani said. However, Wani said CAPD has a limited stock of sugar left and if govern-ment takes a decision, it will be distributed to priority households before Eid-ul-Fitr. We intend to at least provide 1 kg to each such household,” he said.— KNO
Family of missing Bandipora teacher hold protestBandipora: : The family members and relatives of a missing government teacher on Saturday held a demonstration here in Mantrigam area of Bandipora district of north Kashmir, demanding his whereabouts.
The family members and relatives of Mushtaq Ahmad Lone blocked Bandipora-Gurez road and staged a demonstration to seek his where-abouts. The government teacher is missing since May 13 after he left home for duty at Govt Hr Sec School Chuntimulla.
Family sources said that they tried to locate him everywhere but couldn’t find any clue about his whereabouts despite lodging missing re-port in Pathkoot Police station. The protesting family urged the interven-tion of government to trace their missing son.
They also urged Deputy Commissioner Bandipora and SSP Bandipora to help in locating their missing son. Meanwhile, a senior police officer said that a missing report in this matter has been lodged in police station Pathkoot and investigation has been taken up.
Srinagar: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Saturday said its worrisome to witness that there is no letup in killings and blood-shed in Kashmir even during the holy month of Ramazan.
In a statement issued here, PDP said the unabated killings of civilians, militants and gov-ernment forces in Kashmir has once again made peace elusive even during the ongoing sacred month of Ramazan. It said the way in which precious human lives are lost in Kashmir, there are apprehensions that the gov-ernment is in no mood to shun the muscular policy that so far has yielded no positive results.
PDP said that it has been the cardinal principal of the PDP that muscular and iron fist ap-proach is bound to fail in Kash-
mir as such measures have in the past only wreaked havoc and in the future also wouldn’t bring any positive change on ground.
It said keeping the sanctity of the holy month of Ramadan in view, PDP President Mehbooba Mufti as the Chief Minister last year played a vital role in mak-ing GOI declare a unilateral ceasefire in Kashmir. “This year also, the PDP President made a fervent appeal to both militants as well to the security grid to de-clare truce and respect the ongo-ing holy month”.
It added: “It is hoped that good sense will prevail and the vicious cycle of violence and bloodshed is stopped at an earli-est so that the people of Kashmir yearning for peace could heave a sigh of relief.”
Unabated bloodshed worrisome: PDPMehbooba played pivotal role in last year's Ramazan ceasefire
Legal Counsel: Tasaduq KhwajaSwitchboard: (0194) 2106304Editorial: (0194) 2502327Email editorial: [email protected] & Published by Sajjad Haider on behalf of the Kashmir Observer LLPPublished from: # 1- Boulevard, Srinagar-190001Printed at: KT Press Pvt. Ltd, Rangreth Ind Area, Srinagar.RNI Registration No: 69503/98Postal Registration No-L/159/KO/SK/2014-16
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Surendra in ‘The Hindu’
Think!Opinion, Analysis, Essays
An anti-rape protestor, Arshid Ahmed Dar, in Kashmir breathed his Wednesday evening because the govt forces used disproportionate force to quell the protests! This is disgraceful. Who does the govt stand with - the rapist or the rape survivor? The person who committed the rape has yet to be punished. He will go through trial, due process of law, etc. But anti-rape protestors are killed on the spot! Shameful how blind and deaf the government has become in dealing with any kind of civilian expression of dissent. Shameful how the template response of authorities in Kashmir to any protest is: a) use force and kill protestors; b) impose curfew; c) reduce internet speed; which is what they’ve done in this case.
Shehla Rashid Shora
Hindutva is less about the hegemony of the Hindu majority but more about the dominance of upper caste Hindu minority. In that sense, its not a majoritarian project but the ultimate dominance of caste minori-ties within Hindus. Hindutva can’t be understood properly without looking at its underlying caste dynamics.
Tariq Jameel
All in A dAys work
.....
Not To Speak Is To Speak T
he Islamic State (ISIS)’s otherwise disas-trous campaign to attain power can claim one indisputable success. ISIS-linked vio-lence has created chaos, destroyed commu-
nal harmony, increased hatred, and made life mis-erable for people of all faiths. The bloody carnage unleashed by suicide bombers, targeting Christians on easter Sunday in Sri Lanka is a recent example. It has resulted in anti-Muslim riots, call to ban the niqab and burqa, monitoring of mosques, and the deportation of suspected radical clerics.
The ruthless attacks by ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other extremist groups, on soft civilian targets like churches and hotels, bolster the negative view of Muslims in the non-Muslim world. It sees the acts of a minority fringe of lunatics, who have carried out bloody acts of terror and violence as part of jihad or ‘holy war’, as the true face of Islam. Blowing up innocents, primarily Chris-tians, in a country like Sri Lanka where Muslims freely practice their faith, meet none of the criteria for legiti-mate jihad. The senseless violence, carried out by ex-tremists, only contributes to the perception that Islam can’t co-exist with other faiths.
Despite the defeats suffered by jihadi groups since 9/11, the information warfare conducted by the global extremist movement continues to win over new ad-herents to their cause. In reality, today, ISIS’s mur-derous talent pool has expanded beyond just the poor, marginalized youth, to include educated and wealthy individuals. Two factors stand out over the rest in the battle against hatred and extremism. One is the failure of mainstream Muslim religious and political leaders to denounce extremism and two, the success of extremists in exploiting the West’s injudicious use of force and ris-ing anti-Muslim sentiment for recruitment and disin-formation.
ISIS atrocities include attacks directly targeting
civilians and civilian infrastructure, executions and other targeted killings of civilians, abductions, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated against women and children, slavery and trafficking of women and children, forced recruitment of children, destruction or desecration of places of reli-gious or cultural significance, wanton destruction and looting of property, and denial of fundamental freedoms.
States are reluctant to challenge the street power of the extremist storm troopers. Extremist groups are free to peddle their rigid and literalist version of Islam
In the profound words of anti-Nazi theologian Diet-rich Bonhoeffer: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” As quick as Muslim leaders are to rebuke western racism, white supremacy, and xenopho-bia, they must unequivocally condemn ISIS’s pure evil. ISIS actions aren’t protecting Islam against enemies as they claim but they encourage people’s base instincts.
We often hear Islamic leaders refer to violence in which implicates individuals or groups who claim an Islamic association as a debasement of the good and peaceful teachings of Islam. Such defensive reactions refuse to acknowledge that violent extremist groups and intolerance exist and often exercises disproportion-ate influence within Muslim societies. In fact, extrem-ism is so deeply entrenched that it will not be easy to root it out. Extremists believe they possess the absolute truth and they go on bullying others through threats, slander, and defamation. They claim to be the only true Muslims motivated, inspired, and even commanded to commit horrific acts of violence in God’s name.
Indeed, there is a broad pattern of tyranny, oppres-sion, misogyny, poverty, illiteracy, and lack of religious freedom prevailing in many Muslim societies. A great deal of it is because of an aversion to democracy. The dismal political and economic situation directly results
from centuries of centralisation of power in the hands of demagogues and dictators. Few Muslim states encour-age pluralism. Islam is synonymous with an unyielding adherence to theology and blind obedience. This is in-compatible with modernity embodied in religious toler-ance and freedom of thought and expression.
States are reluctant to challenge the street power of the extremist storm troopers. Extremist groups are free to peddle their rigid and literalist version of Islam. This includes the demand for imposing sharia law from the 7th century. Extremists see the criminalisation of spou-sal abuse, giving women judicial equality, or the out-lawing of child marriages as contradicting sharia law.
Radicalism is also impacting a minority of immi-grants in western societies, who often led astray by leaders in their own communities, can’t adjust. Howev-er, most Muslim immigrants thrive, compared to their countries of origin, because of democracy and freedom of expression on offer.
We can agree that the contemporary global order is not by any stretch of the imagination, a just one. Howev-er, many non-Muslim societies are prosperous, despite entrenched social injustices, because they encourage democracy and peaceful co-existence. Blaming injustice and misery, solely on western colonialism and imperi-alism, doesn’t take into account the obscurantism and fanaticism blighting Islam.
That said, many in the West are feeding of the many critical and fearful writings about Islam and Muslims. They define Islam as intrinsically violent but ignore the fact that bloodletting and slaughter is part of human history. Rather than demonizing faith and people, we collectively mustn’t allow the extremists among us to derail the path of peace and co-existence.
The writer is a freelance contributor
Saad Hafiz
Indeed, there is a broad pattern of tyranny,
oppression, misogyny, poverty, illiteracy, and lack of religious freedom prevailing in many Muslim societies. A great deal of it is because of an aversion to democracy. The dismal political and economic situation directly results from centuries of centralisation of power in the hands of demagogues and dictators. Few Muslim states encourage pluralism. Islam is synonymous with an unyielding adherence to theology and blind obedience. This is incompatible with modernity embodied in religious tolerance and freedom of thought and expression.
When Will Bollywood See Beyond Kashmir’s Snowy Slopes And Sinister Plots?
For a long time now, the Valley has seldom been given a voice. Naturally, it became the burden of its people to tell their stories.
Manik SHarMa
IN 1964, in a scene from Kashmir Ki Kali, a shy Champa (Sharmila Tagore) looks yearningly at the mountains, turns to Rajiv (Shammi Kapoor) and says, ‘Kitni khoobsurat vadi hain’ (How
beautiful is the valley). Bewitched both by her and the vista behind her, Rajiv replies ‘Tabhi toh soch raha hun yahan par aake dil kisi se pyar karne ko kyun machalta hai’ (which is why I wonder why the heart longs for love here).
In 2019, Ashvin Kumar’s No Fathers in Kash-mir tells the story of a British-Kashmiri teenager in search of her father. It was released last week after an eight-month battle with the censor board. “It took them seven screenings and six hearings to slash, mutilate and compromise this labour of love,” said Kumar. He has since released the uncensored foot-age online.
Between these two films lies a history. Kashmiri nationalism had already begun to take root in the Valley by the time Shakti Samanta made Kashmir Ki Kali. The following year, India and Pakistan fought their first war. The Valley had, however, since Jun-glee (1961), already become the backdrop for love songs and sequences, single-handedly modelled by Kapoor’s fascination for the place. And so, even at the height of the 1965 conflict, Amar Kumar’s Mere Sanam and Suraj Prakash’s Jab Jab Phool Khile were released without the slightest hint of the ten-sions the Valley was being consumed by.
Besides swooning over the snowy peaks or slid-ing down Gulmarg’s slopes, these films did precious little to engage with local culture and language, let alone politics. The Dal lake and its shikaras were regular fare and eulogised in popular songs, but Kashmir’s core identity and its problems were deci-sively sidestepped. A place beyond the reach of most Indians, Kashmir’s spiritual elasticity and visual splendour were fashioned to serve the mainstream purpose — show, don’t tell.
In the years following Kashmir Ki Kali, a num-ber of Bollywood directors ‘toured’ the State, perhaps holidaying more than understanding customs or people. Consequently, Kashmir became more meta-
phor than reality, serving as the trough for romances like Do Badan (1966), Andaz (1971), Bobby (1973) and Kabhie Kabhie (1976). Each of these films reduced the land they stood on to a notion, never hinting at its struggle for identity.
The story on the ground was, of course, radically different. By the 80s, insurgency had begun, a num-ber of plebiscite and separatist fronts had come up. By the time theatres in Srinagar were closed in 1989, India’s perception of Kashmir and Kashmiris had begun to dramatically change. Previously peripheral to the landscape, Kashmiris now began to appear in cinema, albeit on the altar of Indian nationalism.
The border conflict first appeared in Henna (1991), written by K.A. Abbas. It was also India’s entry to the Oscars that year. Though an apolitical love story at its core, the film’s tragic end managed to pose pertinent questions about the war. In 1992, however, mainstream nationalism took over com-pletely as Mani Ratnam’s fervently patriotic Roja was released to near-universal praise. Screened
across Doordarshan and its regional channels, Roja was momentous in the way it cast Kashmiris. In one scene, the terrorist Liaqat (Pankaj Kapoor) tells Ri-shi (Arvind Swamy) that he would not hesitate to kill his own mother and sister for ‘jihad’. ‘It is a holy war’ he says, glibly oversimplifying a problem that had as sophisticated a history then as it now has a conten-tious future. Kashmir’s beauty had worn off, but its reality was still underwritten.
Though films like the Kargil follow-up Mission Kashmir (2000) and the rather more laudable Yahaan (2005) were sincere attempts to untangle Kashmir’s complexity, they largely tread at a safe distance, ro-mancing and self-indulgent.
For a long time now, the Valley has seldom been given a voice. Naturally, it became the burden of its people to tell their stories. Kashmir’s first film made in Urdu, Mainz Raat, came out as early as 1964. The second, Iquilaab, never released. Since the closure of theatres in the Valley, the limited distribution of the few films and documentaries made meant they never
reached their potential.Kashmiri actor Aamir Bashir’s Harud (2010)
was perhaps a watershed moment. It approached the Kashmir conflict from the inside. Released belatedly and quietly, the film compassionately follows Rafiq (Shahnawaz Bhat), a disillusioned local photogra-pher who becomes a victim of the climate he is born into.
The U.S.-based director Musa Syeed’s Valley of Saints (2012), the love story of shikara-owner Gulzar (Syeed actually cast a local boatman Gulzar Ahmad Bhat) and U.S.-based researcher Asifa (Neelofar Ha-mid) is as tenderly woven as it is conscious of its politics. It dawns on Gulzar eventually that of all the things he is prepared to abandon, Kashmir isn’t one.
In 2017, Hussein Khan’s Urdu film Kashmir Dai-ly and Danish Renzu’s Half Widow, the latter based around extra-judicial killings, received neither the publicity nor distribution comparable to Hindi or even other regional films. Many of these films have never been screened in the Valley either.
Through the last decade, Kashmir’s image has descended into a broken paradise, as in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider (2014) and Sajid Ali’s Laila Ma-jnu (2018). In both films, madness, like the reality of Kashmir, becomes a reckoning of sorts. Even in the little known yet smartly made Kaafiron Ki Namaaz (2016), Kashmir, hoisted through its political motifs, gradually descends into mania and frenzy.
This year’s Widow of Silence by Praveen Morch-hale, and Hamid by Aijaz Khan are likely to disappear without a trace. With tensions having re-escalated on the border, the local narrative may well be exiled.
Though mainstream Hindi cinema has evolved enough to consider Kashmir more than the sum of its snowy slopes and sinister agendas, there has never been a greater need for an empathetic eye.
After the Balakot strikes, producers in Mumbai have apparently scrambled to register films around the attack. One can only hope their opportunism doesn’t obscure a land and people that most of India neither sees nor understands.
The writer follows arts and culture.
The Hindu
Sunday| 19-05-2019Think!Opinion, Analysis, Essays
The Endgame of a Dictator
Dr Naazir MahMooD
Now Ayub was beset by all sides, both nationally and internation-ally. Internally, his experiment of absolute presidential system was
failing and finally he was realising this. Internationally, his reliance on the USA right from the 1950s had proved that the USA was not a reliable friend. His disillu-sionment with the USA had prompted him to write his biography Friends Not Mas-ters published in 1967. This book further estranged Ayub Khan from the USA and it became evident that washington was no more interested in supporting Ayub Khan and his ‘controlled democracy’ that was de-spised by the people.
In November 1967, ZA Bhutto formed his Pakistan People’s Party at the residence of Dr Mubashir Hasan, with Bhutto as its chairman and JA Rahim as secretary-general. After his resignation as foreign minister, Bhutto had become immensely popular in West Pakistan thanks to his brilliant oratory, and his prom-ises to disclose the secret behind the Tashkent Agreement. Ayub was increasingly unpopular and under these unfavourable conditions, he decided to celeberate the tenth anniversary of his rule in 1968, some say at the instigation of Altaf Gohar, the information secretary. The celebrations began in January 1968, and people got infuriated at this attempt to fool them.
The beginning of 1968 saw another epi-sode that would have fatal consequences for Ayub’s rule. A 28-person plot for secession of East Pakistan was unearthed. Two CSPs, two Awami Leaguers were among the 28 arrested for anti-state activities. They were charged with conspiring with a First Secretary of the Indian Deputy High Commission and for visit-ing Agartala (capital of Indian state of Tripura) to discuss their plans for East Pakistan seces-sion. Initially Sheikh Mujib was not charged as he was in prison when the conspiracy took place, but on January 18, 1968, Mujib was ar-rested again in connection with the Agartala Conspiracy.
The handling of this case was the folly of the highest order, as it took six months just to begin the trial in June 1968. It began in Dacca before a special tribunal with the prosecution charging the accused with ‘plotting to deprive Pakistan of its sovereignty over a part of its territory by an armed revolt with weapons, am-munitions, and funds provided by India’. The tribunal was headed by the recently retired Justice SA Rahman. By the end of 1968, demon-strations started in West Pakistan too, mostly led by student groups.
In November 1968, students became violent in Rawalpindi, curfew was imposed on the cap-ital and all education institutions were closed for the umpteenth time. In the same month, a fire was shot at General Ayub Khan who was addressing a public gathering in Peshawar. Ayub Khan was unhurt but students’ agitation surfaced in many towns of the NWFP (now KP). Once again the DPR was used against the politi-cians especially targeting the PPP and NAP in West Pakistan, and AL in East Pakistan. Ajmal Khattak, Dr Mubashir Hasan, Rasul Bakhsh Talpur, Wali Khan and ZA Bhutto were all ar-rested. Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) started protest marches in many towns of West Pakistan.
By the end of 1968, the popular demands for the restoration of adult franchise, release of political leaders, and lifting of emergency be-came louder. The ‘stability’ of the Ayub Khan regime can be gauged from the fact that the first four years of his rule were under martial law till 1962, and the last four years were under emergency rule from 1965 to 1969. Throughout his long rule he kept blaming the politicians for causing disturbances. One of the main de-mands of almost all political parties and the people at large was provincial autonomy.
When 1969 started the dusk of Ayub Khan’s rule was already in sight. In January, eight opposition parties formed Democratic Ac-tion Committee (DAC) to intensify struggle for democracy in Pakistan, and announced an eight-point programme for action. These points revolved around the restoration of a federal parliamentary system of government, direct elections based on adult franchise, and freedoms of expression and assembly. As a last ditch effort to survive, General Ayub Khan called a roundtable conference (RTC) with DAC. Now he was ready to sit and talk with the same politicians whom he had been maligning and humiliating for almost two decades. Of course the RTC failed.
There are some very good eye-witness ac-counts of the last months of Ayub Khan in power. For example, Pakistan: A dream gone sour by Roedad Khan, Through the Crisis by S M Zafar, and Pakistan: Qayadat Ka Buhraan by Lt-Gen Jahandad Khan. They tell us about the behind-the-scene shenanigans of the C-in-C Genral Yahya Khan, and his support to the anti-Ayub politicians and the elements within the army. Finally, General Ayub Khan was forced to resign on March 25, 1969. General Yahya Khan took over as the new martial law administrator and later appointed himself as president of Pakistan.
The study of the dictatorial rule of General Ayub Khan spanning over a decade is a must for all those who claim that his rule was the best and a presidential system is the remedy. Apart from some industrial development and some improvement in family laws, Ayub Khan did tremendous harm to the country’s demo-cratic structure. The country has not yet recov-ered from the wrong precedence he set for his successors.
Concluded
Kashmiri Marsiya
Evolution And Transition: The Sustainment Of Grief
Mirza Sharafat huSSaiN Beigh
KASHMIRI elegy natively known as ‘Marsya’ is a well known historical genre in Kashmir's literary culture sustaining grief
from centuries old authentic traditions re-lating to ‘Battle of Karbala.
Marsiya has originally evolved from an Arabic word “Rasa” means “to mourn.” Marsiya in Kashmir is recited by a group of mourners mostly in the month of Muharram led by an elder el-egy vocalist called ‘Zakir’ to commemo-rate the martyrdom of ‘Husayn-Ibn-Ali’. It is based on a title, which determines a larger motif of all separate elements in a Marsiya specially revolving in ac-cordance with the tragedies that befell last Islamic Prophet’s household called Ahlul Bayt.
Before rise of Islam in Arabia, when battles took place, every brave combat-ant was praised with Qasida and every warrior killed in action was glorified with elegies. Origin of Marsiya involves much earlier period when Abel was killed by Cain, that anguished Adam re-sulting in his pain which is historically expressed by couplets today translated into Arabic on the tomb of Abel. Hazrat Hamzah-ibn-Abdul Muttalib, a com-panion and paternal uncle of Prophet of Islam (Pbuh) was martyred in the Battle of Uhud in 3rd hijri/ 625 CE, his martyrdom broke the heart of prophet (Pbuh) as none mourned over his body. As soon Prophet’s sigh reached to Mus-lims, they thronged over Hamza’s body leaving behind their martyred kin. This prompted poets to glorify the mar-tyr thus kindled the genre of Marsiya where poets lamented over the personal loss of Prophet (Pbuh). Then following Prophet’s demise, Caliph's grief over loss of Prophet encouraged poets to write more pieces of lamentation. This continued till Rashidun Caliphs were themselves lamented through poems by noted poets of the time. Yet Marsiya was bound to individuals as they were dedicated and had no standard and es-tablished concrete form till gruesome battle took place in 680CE known as Battle of Karbala. When Yazid I ruth-lessly massacred Prophet's favourite grandson Husayn-Ibn-Ali along with his family and closest aides including his six months old baby Ali Al-Asghar. Yezid’s army unleashed brutality by blocking the source of water to tents of Prophet's family and slitting the men-folk hungry and thirsty and impris-oned the womenfolk. History noted the parched throats of martyrs as same ex-emplifies the utmost oppression in hu-man history.
“The graph of Marsiya is itself
drawn from Battle of Karbala, when Husayn-ibn-ali mourns the death of 18 year old son Ali Al-Akbar, and defines the death of his brother as back break-ing for him” according to Ali Moham-mad Qasimi, one among noted Kashmi-ri elegy reciters and a former lecturer. It is said, all sighs and emphatic calls in battle of Karbala were remembered and that became part of elegies later trans-lated into various languages from Per-sian into many South Asian languages including Kashmiri.
Ja’far al Sadiq, the sixth Shia Imam is widely believed to have promoted Marsiya in eighth century by encourag-ing writers to compose elegies and their recital in order to keep the tragedy of Karbala and supreme sacrifices alive. Author Shibli Nomani states, “If Umayy-ad and Abassid dynasties had allowed poets to write elegies on Karbala, hearts would have blazed with fire of utmost melancholy”. Debal Al Khazai is remem-bered as acclaimed elegist by all elegy researchers who used to draw tears from eyes of Ali Al-Ridha, the eight Shia Imam by his irresistible compositions.
In Kashmir, elegy emerged with the arrival of Mir Sayyid Ali al Hussaini Hamadani and earlier to him Syed Sharafudin Musavi alias Bulbul Shah in 14th century whose missionary cara-van brought mixture of Arabic-Persian poetry that mourned martyrdom of Hu-
sayn-Ibn-Ali. Shaam Bibi a lady disciple of Nund
Rishi writes elegy in memory of his mas-ter Baba Nasr in 15th century, concur-rently to earlier development in genre, is believed to be first elegy in Kashmir dedicated to specific person as per opin-ion of scholars. All such formation till this period was beginning of evolution of Kashmiri elegy called “Waan” yet having no established structure. An ear-liest ‘waan’ attributed to ‘Hassi Bhat’ (1389 CE) is still being recited in mod-ern congregations in Kashmir, whose first couplet reads “Tche bouztam bhe wanyy ras ras maleyn.e / Dapaan chas zinde paan.e qabre was.e maleyne.”
In 1393 CE Sikandar Shah Miri’s regime laid a soft end for propagation of “waan”. In 1518 CE Kaji Chak a Kash-miri ruler, built Imambargah Zadibal, a place in old city of Srinagar for mourn-ers reciting Kashmiri elegies. Following 1541 CE Mirza Haider Dughlat banned recitation of “waan” as per Tareekh-e-Hassan. However, period of Chak dynas-ty beginning from 1553 CE in Kashmir is widely known as Golden Age for Kash-miri Marsiya being promoted as rulers themselves belonged to Shia school of thought. This was the period, Habba Khatoon’s rhyming of romance and sighs of separation were at peak. Unfor-tunately, era of Mughal and Afghan rule till 1819 CE suppressed many writers
and silenced recitation of Marsiya.Last phase of Afghan rule in Kash-
mir, under Sukhjivan; advised by Shia Governors Amir Khan and Kifayat Khan saw again a tolerant period for Marsiya. Sectarian bias subsided and “waan” over decades gradually started to develop into a concrete shape. This deveopled form of standardized subject oriented elegy is surprisingly being recited in Muharram congregations nowadays.
From this period advancing through Sikh and Dogra rule, promi-nent elegy writers like Khwaja Hassan Mir, Hakim Azim till Munshi Muham-mad Sadiq besides Mirza Abul Qasim introduced elegy with multiple inter-nal elements viz Hamd, (Praise of God) Naat, (Epithet in the name of Prophet) Manqabat (Figurative praise for Ali ibn Abi Talib) transiting through les-sons of history, Quranic teachings and relevant facts culminating at descrip-tive lyrical verses mourning tragedy of Karbala which are recited for most of the duration in any congregation. Since Marsiya uses intense figurative lan-guage, simile, symbolism, metaphor, and rhyming scheme accompanied by favorable rhythm suiting a strictly fixed mourning tone is adorned with syllables of fixed-stress, intonation and most of the elements and techniques that comprise the prosody. Each ele-ment in Marsiya has its own sub theme revolving within a dominant motif di-rectly relevant to the title of Marsiya.
In popular culture, Kashmiri Mar-siya has never been challenged by any disruptive genre. However, Mehdi Beigh from Sonwar Srinagar, in mid of 20th century, after Indian Indepen-dence started openly reciting his old written scripts as "Nauha" a Kashmiri short lyrical lament. His recitation is yet remembered and his composition are still recited with Zuljanah proces-sion given equal time span as of Mar-siya. One of his popular verse reads "Aye Gul-e-gulzar ali Akbaram." Since, Nauha being extensively repeated in parallel with Marsiya has not invaded former to any substantial extent. Mar-siya is recited in indoor-congregations to massive Zuljanah contingent on the day of Ashura. Its conduct remains same as rhythm is nevertheless main-tained by “Zakir” and following tone is conducted by quorum of seven mem-bers who form a chorus, following this any available number of mourners can join the congregation and recite a Mar-siya and mourn the martyrs of Karbala.
==================Author is a student of Media Education
Research Centre, University of Kashmir. He can be reached at: beigh.
Since Marsiya uses intense figurative language, simile, symbolism, metaphor, and rhyming scheme
accompanied by favorable rhythm suiting a strictly fixed mourning tone is adorned with syllables of fixed-stress, intonation and most of the elements and techniques that comprise the prosody. Each element in Marsiya has its own sub theme revolving within a dominant motif directly relevant to the title of Marsiya.
Memoirs Of The KabulliwalaaPitaMBer KauShiK
MY family members fondly re-call the instantly agreeable personality and charming, genial, irradiant persona of
the Kabulliwallah, hearty, humorous simpletons who narrated elaborate sce-nic descriptions of distant lands, and unlike the manipulative, adulterating, exploitative native banias of the village, sold goods from original sources, unal-tered in form, pure, uncontaminated and intense, at candid, modest prices. Deriv-ing a sustenance and livelihood, and just that was the sole purpose of their trade; mercantile and monetary materialism never impelled these welcome-transhu-mans, they put impetus on seeing facets of life that prevail the aalam (world) of the parwardigaar (Nourisher, raiser and sustainer of the world: The Almighty), and amassing the treasure of explora-tion, experience, adventures and memo-ries, rather than many. They stressed liv-ing a simple, frugal but eventful, diverse life and emphasised the bond all humans share, notwithstanding nuances and dis-regarding petty sectarian bounds and compartmentalisation, fabricated over time and artificially, unilterally imposed upon us by our respective forefathers, niches we dwell and occupy and blood-lines, in due course of time.
The mountainous passes in the fron-tier provinces were a hub of informal trade and Kashmir was virtually the gateway for valuable Afghani, Uzbek and Samarqandi trade to India. Afghans and Kashmiris forever shared a warmth, Solidarity and par-cordial mutual influ-ence, exerting exchange of lifestyles, en-countered motives, innovations and in-genuities, cultures and stories. Produces, methods, techniques and peculiarities
were traded and salient produce of one side became inalienable commonalities on the other, altering and diversifying lifestyles and schools of thoughts. The ex-change was not just material, but a spiri-tualism invariably accompanied, both in metaphorical and the literal sense of the term.
Akin to a mobile weekly Baazaar, the seasonally recurring transhuman trad-ers, The Kabulliwallahs were traditional-ly the most eagerly-awaited guests in In-dia. Irrespective of the region, terrain or habitat, Indian households urban and ru-ral alike, depended heavily relied on an-nual or biannual or even more frequent visits from these far-fetched yet close-to-heart, warm, genial frontier high-landers. Unlike traditional inmigrants, vagabonds, tramps or drifters, who were met with skepticism or condescension, Afghan traders were warmly welcomed.
Gemstones, predominantly the en-demic lapis lazuli, (long the exclusive source of the coveted regal hue of ultra-marine for imperial livery), Chickpeas (immortalised in its etymology Kaabuli Chanaa i.e. Gram of Kabul), Rock Salt, Black Salt, Traditional herbs, vitality-boosting folk medicines, motley spices were the frequent subject of sale, besides occasional artefacts. Pedling these ar-ticles and items was a vulnerable job and traders were susceptible to motley rogues and vulnerable to wandering bandits, thugees, pindaris, etc whilst trudging the wilderness. Undertaking a perilous journey winding and traversing through tricky mountain passes, arid stretches, badlands vast expanses of hillocks and ravines, and vast thickly forested tracts. Being straightforward, candid, generous and credulous people, they were also soft targets to rumormongers, manipulation and underhanded scapegoating, such as being framed for child abduction and
thievery, often at hands of the native perpetrators themselves. The indigenous conmen would instigates masses against them, and subsequently loot them. How-ever, over time their moral integrity, consistent conscientious sanction and immaculate conduct established a cre-dential of uncompromising virtue, un-dented repute and hard-earned diligence, and they became famous for their impec-cable character and honesty, being aug-mented into vernacular colloquialisms and local parlance, as cultural exemplar-ies, and analogical motifs for virtues of courage, vigour, gallantry, and sincerity. They were popular with children, whom they brought tales of distant lands, and showered with affection and petty novel-ties, the latter often freebies. The Kabul-liwallahs worked hard, earning repute preferentially over money, and amassing experience and tales, that they took back to their coveting families back homes, and perhaps other lands they toured and transmigrated to.
Kabulliwallahs were sparingly, if ever treated as other tramps, ordinary vagabonds, urchin or drifters: being cov-eted visitors, engaging conversators, and capturing folk imagination, trickling into various mainstream literary narra-tives and dins of the ruralfolk. Although eking out a humble living, a popular say-ing in India labels them as having hearts of gold, and as vast as the fields. Though they dwely arid lands, their hearts were teeming meads, pastures and gardens, where tales grazed.
Tales of Indian lands were also fre-quently the subjects of minstrelling and qissagoi of wandering bards, back in the frontiers.
Memoirs of Kabulliwallahs rescuing amd salvaging children and men in need or critical situations, at times, sacrific-ing ownselves have been popular narra-
tives in stories regarding them. Eastern India and Afghanistan shared a relation, bypassing, rather disregarding intermit-tent regions as Pakistan and West India, making it sad that modern cultural ties bear privy and dependance to mediators and liaisions. Afghanis and Indians as far back as erstwhile Bangladesh shared a direct heart-to-heart bond, with a chunk of Afghanistan to be found in every In-dian kitchen (where spices are vital and venerated) and every storyteller's cap-tivating repertoire of enrapturing tales of distant lands. Despite being prone to the myriad dangers if venturing through wilderness, and with only occasional, sporadic local aid to ensure safe passage, the traders loved the land, its diversity, eclectic tehzeeb, and despite, and perhaps because of their cultural dissimilarities were immensely attracted and mutually charmed by respective, vivid cultural descriptions and richness, and resonated with the idea of Universal Brotherhood, Vasudhaev Kutumbakam, resonating with mutual reverence for guests and welcoming warmth, and united by exud-ing strands of generosity, genial conver-sation, and humanism. The interfaith candour bypassed distinctions of nation-ality, regionality and religion, whatso-ever, hence forging the purest and most-selfless of friendships.
This inherent underlying unity of humanity is immortalised in Tagore's short story Kabuliwala, a touching tale of generosity, integrity, transcendental friendship, and pluralism; subsequently adapted into an eponymous 1961 film, widely considered to be an unprecedent-ed cinematic milestone.
----------------------------The author is a physics student,
and a freelance journalist, columnist and activist. He can be reached at:
Sunday | 19.05.2019 08Toyota Rebukes Trump For Sending Message That Carmaker ‘Not Welcomed' In USAgenceis
Toyota Motor Corp. rebuked Presi-dent Donald Trump’s declaration that imported cars threaten US na-tional security, signaling contentious talks are ahead for the White House and America’s key trading partners.
In an unusually strong-worded statement, Japan’s largest auto-maker said Trump’s proclamation Friday that the US needs to de-fend itself against foreign cars and components “sends a message to Toyota that our investments are not welcomed." The company said it has spent more than $60 billion building operations in the country, including 10 manufacturing plants.
Trump earlier Friday agreed with the conclusions of his Commerce Department, which investigated imports of vehicles and auto parts and found they harm national se-curity by having led to a declin-ing market share for “American-owned" carmakers since the 1980s. The White House set a 180-day deadline for negotiating deals with Japan, the European Union and other major auto exporters.
Toyota said it remains hopeful that those talks can be resolved quickly, but warned that curbing im-ports would force US consumers to pay more and be counterproductive for jobs and the economy. The com-pany’s critique comes two months
after its pledge to add $3 billion to a years-long US investment plan.
Representatives for other au-tomakers were more diplomatic but also registered concern about the Trump administration's saber-rattling. The Alliance of Automo-bile Manufacturers, a trade group representing a dozen of the largest domestic and foreign carmakers
with operations in the U.S., warned Friday that higher prices from tar-iffs could put 700,000 American jobs at risk.
``We are deeply concerned that the administration continues to consider imposing auto tariffs,'' the car lobby said in a statement. ``By boosting car prices across the board and driving up car repair and main-
tenance costs, tariffs are essentially a massive tax on consumers.''
The pushback by Toyota marks a break from years of attempting to work its way into Trump’s good graces.
Days after drawing criticism from the then-president elect in January 2017 for planning to build Corolla cars in Mexico, Toyota announced
a $10 billion, five-year investment plan. In August of that year, the company said it would join with Mazda Motor Corp. in building a $1.6 billion factory in Alabama.
But all those efforts have done little to curb repeated threats by the White House to impose tariffs of as much as 25% on imported ve-hicles and auto parts.
Huawei's Backup Plans Leave Experts UnconvincedChip experts are calling out Hua-wei for its claims that it could en-sure a steady supply chain without US help, saying the technology the Chinese telecoms network gear maker buys from American com-panies would be “hard to replace”.
The Trump administration of-ficially added Huawei to a trade blacklist on Thursday, enacting re-strictions that will make it difficult for the tech giant to do business with American firms, in its latest broadside against the company that US officials have labeled a threat to national security.
The head of Huawei’s HiSilicon chip division on Friday shrugged off concerns about disruptions to sup-ply, saying it has long been preparing for this kind of “extreme scenario”.
Huawei will aim to be technolog-ically “self-reliant” going forward, He Tingbo said in a letter to staff.
But that is easier said than done, industry experts say.
“I would be surprised if HiSili-con can make it without any US suppliers,” said Linda Sui, a Strat-egy Analytics analyst.
A China-based source at a US tech company previously told Reuters that none of Huawei’s US suppliers “can be replaced by Chinese ones, not within a few years, at least”.
As an example of Huawei’s reli-ance on US firms, an expert pointed to the high probability that the tech giant uses chip design software from market leaders Cadence De-sign Systems Inc and Synopsys Inc.
Huawei designs its micropro-
cessors and other chips for prod-ucts including the Mate series flagship smartphones.
The U.S firms’ software is con-sidered gold standard, used by manufacturers globally to perfect chip blueprints and test them be-fore committing them to physical silicon, where a single mistake can set back a chip for months.
“It’s hard to replace,” said Mike Demler, a senior analyst with The Linley Group. “Cadence and Syn-opsys pretty much have all the ground covered for anything you would need,” he said.
“I’m sure there’s some equivalent that tries to fill the same roles from Chinese companies, but the Chinese just do not have a presence we’re aware of outside of the country.”
Cadence and Synopsys did not respond to requests for comment. Huawei said it cannot comment.
SPECIALIZED CHIPS, LASERSHuawei also has exposure to US
suppliers of specialty lasers and modules such as NeoPhotonics, Lumentum and Finisar.
The lasers, which are used to send information in the form of light signals through fiber-optic cables, are critical to Huawei’s world-leading telecom network equipment business.
Firms like Finisar, which is being bought by II-VI Inc, and Lumentum have put decades of work into be-ing able to make large quantities of lasers, said Philip Gadd, a re-tired chip executive who once ran Intel’s silicon photonics division.
FROM FRONT PAGE
News
4 Militants Killed search operation, the hiding militants fired on
the search party. The fire was retaliated, leading to an encounter,” the official said.
He said in the ensuing gunfight, three militants were killed and their bodies were retrieved along with arms and ammunition and other “incrimi-nating” materials.
He identified the slain as Showkat Dar of Pan-zgam Awantipora, Irfan War of Wadoora Payeen Sopore and Muzaffar Sheikh of Tahab Pulwama.
The slain trio, according to police records, was affiliated with Hizbul Mujahideen outfit. “They were wanted by law for their complicity in a series of attacks including attack on security es-tablishments and civilian atrocities. Several cases were registered against them”, the spokesman said.
As per police records, the spokesman said Irfan War was part of militant groups responsible for conspiring and executing attacks on security es-tablishments and “civilian atrocities” in the area. “Showkat Dar had a long history of crime records. He was involved in planning and executing a se-ries of attacks in the area and many other civilian atrocities. He was part of a group involved in the killing of Army jawan Aurangzeb. He was also in-volved in the killing of a policeman Aqib Ahmad Wagay last year. Several crime cases were regis-tered against him,” the spokesman said.
On June 14, 2018, Aurangzeb, a rifleman with 44 Rashtriya Rifles was kidnapped and shot dead by militants in south Kashmir's Pulwama when he was travelling in a private vehicle, on his way home in Poonch.
Aurangzeb was part of an officer's team which killed Hizbul Mujahideen commander Sameer Ti-ger on May 1, 2018.
After conducting all legal formalities, the bod-ies of the slain trio was handed over to their re-spective families for last rites.
While Irfan and Muzaffar were not buried yet, Showkat Ahmad Dar was buried amid pro-free-dom slogans and spontaneous shutdown in his native village. Thousands of people attended his funeral.
Militant Killed In SoporeA militant was killed in an encounter with a
joint team of army’s 22 RR, SOG and CRPF at Hat-langoo area of Sopore.
“The joint team of forces tried to persuade the militant to surrender, however, there was no re-sponse from him,” a police officer said. “As such the joint team fired some warning shots, the hiding militant opened fire leading to a gunfight which lasted for a brief time,” the officer said.
During the course of gunfight, the militant was killed and his body was recovered along with a weapon and other warlike stores from under the debris of the house, he said.
Sources said that in the incident, a residential house also got completely damaged.
The officer identified the slain militant as Was-eem Ahmad Naik son of Abdul Gani Naik of Udi-pora Barsoo Awantipora.
According to sources, Waseem was missing since March this year. The family had accordingly filed a missing report in police station concerned.
Meanwhile, authorities suspended internet services in Sopore town as a precautionary mea-sure in wake of this search operation.
‘Pak Seals OfficesAction Task Force or FATF.This is the first time in last 32 years of militan-
cy in Jammu and Kashmir that Pakistan has sealed the offices and also stopped financial assistance.
Polls End Today,(ECI) had set up more than 1.12 lakh polling
stations for the smooth conduct of polls.Assembly bypollsOn Sunday, a bypoll will be held in Panaji, ne-
cessitated due to the death of former Chief Min-ister Manohar Parrikar in March. Bypolls will also be held in four assembly constituencies of Tamil Nadu — Sulur, Aravakurichi, Ottapidaram (SC) and Thiruparankundram.
Counting of votes will be taken up on May 23.An average of 66.88 per cent voters exercised
their franchise in the last six phases. The whole
elections were spread over 38 days.In Uttar Pradesh, all eyes will be on Varanasi,
where besides Mr. Modi, 25 others are in fray. Mr. Modi’s main challengers are Congress’s Ajay Rai and SP-BSP grand alliance’s nominee Shalini Ya-dav.
Union Minister Manoj Sinha and Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey are seeking re-election from Ghazipur and Chandauli respec-tively.
The BJP is contesting 11 Lok Sabha seats in this phase, while its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) is contest-ing Mirzapur, currently held by Union Minister Anupriya Patel, and Robertsganj.
SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and Union Min-isters Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Singh Puri are among the 278 candidates, including 24 women, whose fate will be decided in Punjab on Sunday.
Besides Punjab, more than 6 lakh voters in the union territory of Chandigarh will choose between MP and BJP candidate Kirron Kher and former railway minister and Congress candidate Pawan Kumar Bansal.
Actor-turned-politician Sunny Deol, Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar and Aam Aadmi Par-ty’s Punjab unit chief Bhagwant Mann are among other prominent candidates in the fray.
On most of the 13 seats, the contest appears to be a direct fight between the Congress and Shiro-mani Akali Dal-BJP alliance.
A conglomeration of several political outfits, the Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA), led by AAP rebel Sukhpal Singh Khaira, is also contesting all 13 seats, while the SAD (Taksali), a breakaway fac-tion of the SAD, has fielded one candidate from Anandpur Sahib.
In 2014, the AAP and the SAD won four seats each, the Congress three and the BJP two.
West BengalAn electorate of 1,49,63,064 will decide the
fate of 111 candidates in nine seats of West Bengal — Kolkata North and Kolkata South, Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, Jaynagar (SC) and Mathurapur (SC).
Eight seats, barring Jadavpur, will witness a contest among the Trinamool Congress, the BJP, the Congress and the Left Front. The Congress has given the Jadavpur seat a miss.
The nine constituencies are spread across the three districts of Kolkata, South and North 24 Par-ganas.
The high-voltage campaign for the final phase saw poll meetings by Mr. Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Ad-ityanath, Congress leader Sachin Pilot and West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Ba-nerjee.
Mr. Shah’s roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday was marred by violence and destruction of social re-former Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s bust in a col-lege in north Kolkata.
In a first such action in India’s electoral history, the ECI ordered campaigning in the nine West Bengal constituencies to end at 10 p.m. on Thurs-day, instead of 6 p.m. on Friday, in the wake of the violence between the BJP and the TMC during Mr. Shah’s roadshow.
Union Ministers in frayAs many as four Union Ministers — Ravi Shan-
kar Prasad, Ram Kripal Yadav, RK Singh and Ash-wini Kumar Choubey — are among the 157 candi-dates in Bihar.
Seven of these seats were won by the NDA last time, five by the BJP and two by the RLSP, which is now with the “mahagathbandhan”.
One was bagged by the JD(U) headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, which then fought sepa-rately but is now back with the NDA.
Bypoll will also be held for the Dehri Assembly seat.
The most keenly-watched contest is in Patna Sahib where Mr. Prasad, one of the most promi-nent members of the Modi Cabinet, is seeking entry into the Lok Sabha. He is pitted against Sha-trughan Sinha — the actor-turned-politician who won it on both occasions for the BJP and is now in the fray as the Congress candidate.
Electoral fortunes in JharkhandThe electoral fortunes of 42 candidates, includ-
ing that of former Chief Minister and Union Min-ister Shibu Soren, will be decided on Sunday in
Jharkhand.Mr. Soren, chief of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha
and a eighth term sitting MP is in the fray from Dumka seat once again. He is crossing swords with BJP’s Sunil Soren. The JMM leader had de-feated his BJP challenger twice in 2009 and 2014.
In M.P.Dewas, Ujjain, Mandsaur, Ratlam, Dhar, Indore,
Khargone and Khandwa seats in Madhya Pradesh, all currently held by the BJP, will go to the polls in Madhya Pradesh. Former Union ministers Kan-tilal Bhuria and Arun Yadav are in the fray from Ratlam and Khandwa, the latter seeing a tough fight between Yadav and ex-MP BJP chief Nand-kumar Singh Chauhan.
Polling will also be held in all four Lok Sabha constituencies in Himachal Pradesh where as many as 45 candidates, including five legislators, are in the fray.
Prayers After Polls:the Kedarnath shrine on Saturday and will pray at Badrinath on Sunday.This is Modi's second visit to Kedarnath in the last two years. While granting permission for Modi to visit the shrines, the Election Commission had “reminded” the Prime Minister's Office that the Model Code of Conduct was still in effect.
Amit Shah reached the revered Somnath tem-ple in Gujarat on Saturday morning. Shah was seen offering prayers at Somnath with his family.
BJP leaders were not the only ones spotted in temples after the end of the Lok Sabha poll cam-paign.
aFormer prime minister and JD(S) patriarch H.D. Deve Gowda visited the Venkateswara Tem-ple in Tirupathi on Saturday on the occasion of his birthday. Gowda told mediapersons in Tirupathi that he had been visiting Tirupathi on the occa-sion of his birthday for the past 35 years. Gowda was accompanied by his son Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy.
Day 3: Curfewand we are regularly reviewing it," officials
said.The police have refuted initial reports that
Shah was killed by cow vigilantes. The police have constituted a five-member special investigation team (SIT) headed by a Superintendent of Police to investigate the murder of the civilian who was killed by a gunshot.
Army continues to assist the civilian admin-istration in Bhaderwah to enforce curfew and maintain law and order.
Protesters Warnedand disruption of traffic," District Magistrate Angrez Singh Rana said in a statement.According to a district administration spokesperson, "The initiative has been taken to contain the growing incidents of protests and road blockades by a section of Panchayati Raj Institution members and villagers thus creating public nuisance".Rana has asked the Kishtwar senior superintendent of police to ensure strict action against protesters, the spokesman said.The district has witnessed a series of protests over various demands including inadequate supply of water and electricity.
Candidate Figuringin the written test and interview, the court
said. “Obviously, it has to be one amongst the candidates who appear at the interview who does well at such oral test or who secures an aggregate merit higher than the rest. Once the select list of the single candidate against the advertised post is made, the others in the group are eliminated for the further process of making recommendation to the Government and such elimination, again, takes place by reason of accord of the right of con-sideration to them.”
Now, a situation can be conceived of that the candidate, who is selected, does not turn up to ac-cept the offer of appointment when it is made to him. “In such an eventuality, the whole exercise undertaken in the selection process would be rendered futile.”
To obviate such a situation, the court said, rules provide for a candidate to be kept in waiting and he has to be the one having obtained the mer-
it just below and immediately after the selected candidate amongst the group of candidates who have been called for and have appeared at the in-terview. “Factually, he is not selected, but remains in waiting, and if the selected candidate drops out, the candidate in the waiting is appointed in his capacity not being a selected candidate, but in his capacity as being the candidate in the waiting, i.e., waiting list.” In the event such a candidate, for any reason, also would not accept the offer of appointment, the matter would end there and no other candidate can claim to be substituted for the wait listed candidate, unless, of course, the Rules expressly provide so, the court added.
The court answered the query framed by it in a petition filed by Liyakat Hussain Baniya who had offered his candidature for selection against the post of Accounts Assistant (ST category), Dis-trict Cadre Shopian, advertised by the Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board of its ad-vertisement on 30 December 2014, the intending department being the Finance Department. The Board, at the culmination of the selection process, on 31 August 2016 forwarded the selection list containing the name of a lone candidate along-with a waiting list, also containing the name of a lone candidate, to the Department. Consequent to it, the Finance Department, on 06 December 2016, accorded sanction to the deputation of the selected candidate to the Accounts Training School where he was required to report within 21 days of the issue of the order.
While the Department had yet to act on the se-lection list so forwarded to it by the Board, Liyakat made a representation addressed to the Director-ate General, Accounts and Treasuries, bringing it to his notice that the selected candidate and the candidate figuring in the waiting list had ten-dered affidavits stating that they did not intend to join, and requesting him to direct the concerned authorities to process his case for selection and appointment in accordance with norms.
Later Deputy Director (Central), Accounts & Treasuries, Finance Department on 02 June 2017, wrote to the Secretary of the Board that neither the selected candidate nor the candidate recom-mended in waiting list under ST category had joined against the post, and requested him to recommend another eligible candidate from the category in order of merit so that the resultant va-cancy was filled up. In response thereto, the Board through its Administrative Officer communicated to the Principal Secretary to Government, Finance Department, the particulars of the candidate fall-ing next in order of merit and recommended him for the post. While doing so, it was specifically mentioned in the supplementary waiting list that the panel was recommended purely on the request made by Deputy Director (Central), Ac-counts & Treasuries, Finance Department.
It has been thereafter that Liyakay, who was the candidate named in the supplementary wait-ing list, filed the present petition on 04 October 2017 praying therein that the Commissioner Secretary to Government, Finance Department, and the Director General, Accounts & Treasuries, Finance Department, be directed to act upon the recommendation made by Board in his favour and appoint him on the post of Accounts Assistant in District Cadre, Shopian, under the ST category, with further direction to them not to re-adver-tise the post in question. His case is that since he figured in the merit list after the wait listed candidate, who did not join against the post, and was recommended by the Board in terms of the supplementary waiting list, a right has accrued to him for being appointed against the post, but the respondents were unjustifiably denying him such right. It is averred that government has not shown any legal infirmity in issuing appointment order in favour of Liyakat.
“A candidate in a selection process securing a merit position below the wait listed candidate cannot lay any claim of selection and appoint-ment against the advertised post in the event the wait listed candidate does not join against the post when appointment is offered to him on ac-count of non-joining of the selected candidate,” the court said after hearing both the parties.
Arora also said in the last meeting of the com-mission on May 14, it was "unanimously" decided to form groups to deliberate issues which arose in the course of conduct of Lok Sabha elections.
Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora issues statement on EC Ashok Lavasa's purported letter to him, says, 'an unsavory and avoidable contro-versy reported in sections of media today about internal functioning of ECI in respect of handling of Model Code of Conduct.' (3/3) pic.twitter.com/yuRxOHMaGL
He said the report on Lavasa's decision not to take part in model code related issues comes at a time when the poll watchdog is gearing up for the last phase of Lok Sabha polls and counting of votes.
Lavasa, who has recused himself from meet-ings related to the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), has written a letter to Arora stating that he is forced to stay away from the meetings of the Full Commission since "minority decisions" were not being recorded.
Lavasa, in his letter, insisted that he would at-tend the meetings if his minority decisions were also included in the orders of the Commission.
Reports said that Lavasa has expressed his dis-sent on clean chit to four speeches of PM Naren-dra Modi and one speech of BJP president Amit Shah.
On May 4, the Election Commission said that Modi did not violate the model code in his speech in Gujarat's Patan on April 21. The Prime Minister had said that his government kept Pakistan on its toes to secure the safe release of IAF Wing Com-mander Abhinandan Varthaman.
This was his sixth speech to be cleared by the poll body. The EC also found nothing wrong in Modi's speech in Nanded, Maharashtra, in which he reportedly referred to the Congress as a "sink-ing Titanic".
Earlier, the poll body cleared Modi's April 1 speech in Wardha, where he attacked Congress President Rahul Gandhi for selectively contesting from a minority-dominated seat in Kerala.
The poll body also cleared him for his April 9 appeal to first-time voters in Latur to dedicate their first vote to "the Pulwama martyrs".
UAPA: ‘Access Toordered to be dealt with exclusively by a spe-
cial court at Srinagar. “As a consequence, those detained in every
nook and corner of the Kashmir Valley is per-force made to come to Srinagar (special court). This means that access to justice which is a fun-damental right is denied to them,” Justice (retd) Masoodi, who is National Conference’s candidate from Anantnag Parliamentary seat told reporters.
“Youth from far-flung areas like Chatergul, Lar-noo or other places are made to visit the special court at Srinagar. I demand that both SRO 149 and SRO 313 of 2019 be rescinded and sessions judge in every district shall be given the power to try such cases so that youth who have been implicat-ed or facing such charges get justice within their own district and getting justice is not delayed rather does not become impossible as is the case presently,” he said.
He said UAPA is wide-ranging Act and even ut-tering a word can be encompassed in its domain.
“A case has come to my notice wherein a youth got bail after one month but instead of releas-ing him, he has been booked in 2017 case and he again has to go to Srinagar for the report.”
Asked whether National Conference would do away with such laws, Masoodi responded in af-firmative.
“The vice president of our party Omar Abdul-lah has already announced that Public Safety Act and other such acts will be repealed and only or-dinary laws shall remain in force,” he said, adding, “The Constitution provides for justice and access to justice and that access is being denied.”
Justice (retd) Masoodi said that government has to be conscious about the ground realities and both these SROs should be repealed and sessions judges given powers to try such cases as was the case before March 2019. “Not only is the special court overcrowded, there is also a prolonged de-lay in getting justice and we will launch a struggle so that people get justice.”
Sunday | 19.05.2019Life & Times 09
5 Easy, Healthy Snacks To Help You Shed The Pounds In
RAMAZANThose pakoras and jalebis aren't going to
help you shed that Ramazan weight, but these recipes will - if you stick to them.
Two more weeks to go till Eid and our waistlines are doing us no favours. we got in touch with certified nutritionist Zoha Matin to help come up with recipes that are big on taste, are super healthy and require pretty much zero effort. And even though we thought it would be a task and a half, she proved us wrong.
Zoha broke down the nutritional value of each recipe to help keep track of our calorie intake and we're sold! (These recipes serve one, feel free to adjust them according to the serving size, but be mindful that the nu-tritional value will change accordingly).
P.S. You can even serve these to your chil-dren, they'll love them.
Here are five recipes straight from the nu-tritionist's kitchen.
Protein: 16gBerries are great in smoothies. They're
packed with antioxidants, are high in fiber and low in sugar. The best part is, berries can be frozen and used all year long! This watermelon berry smoothie is the perfect thirst-quenching drink for the hot summer months.
Ingredients1 cup plain, low-fat yogurt2 cups watermelon chopped1 cup frozen strawberries or raspberries1 tsp honeyDirectionsAdd ingredients to a blender and enjoy!2. Peanut Butter and Apple ComboCalories: 322 Carbohydrates: 38g Fat: 18g
Protein: 9gThis delicious snack is the perfect com-
bination of sweet, salty and crunchy and peanut butter is a great way to get your daily dose of heart-healthy monounsaturated fats. Choose all-natural peanut butter if possible.
Ingredients1 apple2 tbsp peanut butter2 tbsp GranolaDirectionsCore the apple and slice into 1 inch discs.
Spread some peanut butter on one side and sprinkle granola pieces on top. The granola will stick easily to the peanut butter.
Protein: 2gSweet potatoes are a great source of Vita-
min A and dietary fiber. Baking these sweet potato fries in the oven instead of deep fry-ing reduces the caloric count of this snack
by at least 300 calories.Ingredients1 large sweet potato2 tbsp Olive oil1 tsp garlic salt1 tsp pepperDirectionsCut sweet potatoes into rectangular
strips. Place them on a baking tray and brush with olive oil. Sprinkle garlic salt and pepper on top. Place the tray into the oven at 350°F for 20 minutes. Serve with ketchup or dip of choice.
spread easily on toast. Not to mention, they're packed with healthy omega-3 fats!
Ingredients1 avocado2 slices multigrain bread1/2 cup pomegranate seeds (1/4 for each
slice)1/2 tbsp cilantroDirectionsPeel off the avocado skin, remove the
seed. Place the avocado in a bowl and mash it with the back of a fork. Spread evenly onto bread and sprinkle pomegranate seeds onto each slice. Garnish with cilantro.
which helps regulate your bowel move-ments and keeps your digestive tract healthy. If you're not a fan of traditional oatmeal, try this smoothie to incorporate oats into your diet.
Ingredients1 frozen banana1/2 cup uncooked oats1 cup plain, low-fat yogurt2 tsp honeyDirectionsBlend ingredients in a blender. Sprinkle
ground cinnamon on top and serve cold. (Agencies
7 ways to get rid of a DOUBLE CHIN
A double chin is the extra layer of fat that develops beneath one’s face. It is also known as submental fat and is generally a result of weight gain but you
don’t have to be overweight to have one.The causes vary, depending from one individual to
another. But for most people, a double chin is a combi-nation of fat deposition, excess loose skin or both.
So, how does one get rid of it? The truth is, just like the rest of our bodies, facial muscles need exercise too. As compiled from Pinkvilla, here are some moves that you can try to tone up and strengthen your jawline.
Ball exercisesThe ball squeeze is best done in a seated position with
a straight back and relaxed shoulders. Place a nine to-10 inch ball under your chin and press it into a firm motion. The ball should be easy to squeeze. Do this for 25 times during each sitting.
Tongue stretchIn this exercise, you need to stretch your tongue out
as far as it goes. This is called the ‘yawning lion’ exercise and it helps to strengthen the muscles of the chin, neck and face.
Be in a relaxed position. If it is done correctly, it’ll work wonders. Push the tongue out for 10 seconds and relax. Repeat this 10 times during each sitting.
Chew gumThis is a minor workout for the face muscles, espe-
cially the jaw. If you chew gum regularly, you may notice an overall fat loss in the chin area. Chewing gum can help people who are losing weight to reduce the num-ber of calories in their diet as well!
Jaw jutTilt your head backwards and look at the ceiling.
Turn your head right and slide your bottom jaw for-ward. Hold this position for five-10 seconds and release. Repeat it with your left side. This exercise is great for strengthening.
Neck rotationsThis helps you move all the muscles around your chin
and jaw. Stretch your neck from side to side. Do this for about 10 times: clockwise and anticlockwise.
Kiss the skyStand straight with your shoulders and arms loose. Tilt
your head backwards and look up at the ceiling. Pucker the lips and try to kiss the sky. Extend them as far as you can go. Make sure the area beneath your chin is stretching while you do this. If done correctly, the muscles through-out the neck and chin should feel flexed but comfortable at the same time. Hold this position for 10-20 seconds and repeat it 10-15 times in each sitting.
Say ‘X-O’All you need to do is say the letters ‘x’ and ‘o’ repeat-
edly. This moves the muscles of your jaws, cheeks and neck and so, burns the fat accumulated around them. Do this for 12 times in three sets. (Agencies)
Epilepsy Closely Linked To Mental IllnessesWASHINGTON: More than one in four patients suffering from schizo-phrenia as well as epilepsy die even before celebrating their 50th birth-day, a study claimed.
"There was an exceedingly high mortality rate among people with these disorders, particularly those who suffer from the combination of epilepsy and schizophrenia. More than 25 per cent of them die be-tween the ages of 25-50," said Jakob Christensen, one of the researchers of the study.
The study published in 'Epilep-sia' hope to spread awareness about the difficulties of living with epi-lepsy and schizophrenia.
"The results are really intended to help healthcare professionals develop new working processes so that this group of patients can get the right treatment. We already know from previous studies, that this group of patients die from a wide range of lifestyle diseases, and that some of these are prevent-able," said Christensen.
"With the way things are now, this patient group can easily fall be-tween two chairs and end up being sent back and forth between differ-ent medical specialists or between hospitals and their general practi-tioner. It appears that people with epilepsy and schizophrenia are particularly vulnerable, and there
is certainly room for improvement in the way the healthcare system deals with them and their treat-ment," Christensen added.
Studies have identified a clear association between epilepsy and mental disorders, including depres-sion, anxiety, schizophrenia, and psychosis. A Danish study has shown that people with epilepsy have a risk of developing schizophrenia that is two-and-a-half times higher than those without epilepsy.
Among the subjects in the study, 18,943 were diagnosed with epi-lepsy, 10,208 were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and 471 were di-agnosed with both epilepsy and schizophrenia before they turned 25.
The mortality rate for these sub-jects at the age of 50 was 3.1 per cent for people who did not suffer from epilepsy and schizophrenia; 10.7 per cent for people with epi-lepsy; 17.4 per cent for people with schizophrenia; and 27.2 per cent for people with both epilepsy and schizophrenia. (Agencies)
Novel Stroke Therapy Could Help Reverse Brain DamageA cancer therapy—considered
to be gold-standard treat-ment—is causing men to lose
muscle mass and gain fat, putting them at increased risk of other
disorders like cardiovascular disease, diabetes and osteoporo-sis, a study has found.
Researchers from Deakin Uni-versity in Australia showed men treated with hormone therapy for prostate cancer often had a dan-gerously high fat to muscle ratio.
The study said while the five-year survival rate for Australian men with prostate cancer was now 95 per cent, side-effects from the intense treatment regi-men were becoming an increas-ing concern.
"Men diagnosed with pros-tate cancer are now living lon-ger due to medical advance-ments, but are susceptible to a range of treatment side-ef-fects," said Patrick Owen, lead author of the study published in the Journal of Cachexia, Sar-copenia and Muscle.
"Prostate cancer survivors are now more likely to die from other conditions, such as cardiovascu-lar disease, than prostate cancer, which may in part be due to our inability to detect and subse-quently treat side-effects of ther-apy," Owen said in a statement.
"It's critical we are able to quickly and easily identify modi-fiable risk factors for these other
conditions," he said. "The amount of muscle we
have relative to fat is one of the biggest indicators for diabetes risk, decreased physical function needed to complete daily tasks, and lots of other adverse health conditions," he added.
The research examined the muscle and fat in 70 men treated with hormone therapy for pros-tate cancer compared to 52 men
with prostate cancer not treated with hormone therapy and 70 healthy men of a similar age.
It found men treated with hor-mone therapy for prostate cancer had the same amount of total muscle mass compared to other men in the study, but four to six kilograms more fat mass.
"When muscle was considered in relation to this fat mass, men treated with hormone therapy
for prostate cancer had lower fat-adjusted muscle mass, which may predispose them to further health issues," Owen said.
"When men are diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer they are often treated with hormone ther-apy to reduce their testosterone levels, which discourages cancer growth.
This is considered the gold-standard of treatment," he said.
"It puts men through the equiv-alent of menopause. There's a loss of muscle and bone, they gain fat, and even start to have hot flush-es," he said.
While men with prostate can-cer treated with hormone therapy may have the same or greater absolute muscle mass than non-treated and healthy men, it's not as functional as the same amount of muscle in otherwise healthy weight men.
Owen said he hoped his re-search would encourage more clinicians to test their patients for muscle mass relative to body fat.
Lifestyle interventions that could be used to help men with prostate cancer reduce body fat and increase muscle.
"Given the current treatment and medical landscape, people are living longer with cancer, so there needs to be a shift in focus towards improving the quality of these additional years of living," Owen said.
ibiotics but health care profes-sionals should recognise that pe-ripheral neuropathy may rarely occur following fluoroquinolone therapy," he said.
"We observed that treatment with fluoroquinolones could in-crease the risk of peripheral neu-ropathy by around 50 per cent and that this risk may last for up to six months following treat-ment," he said. (PTI)
Novel microscope can non-invasively diagnose, treat diseases: StudyTORONTO - Scientists have developed a specialised microscope that has the potential to diagnose dis-eases like skin cancer as well as perform precise surgery without making any incisions in the skin.
According to the study published in the journal Science Advances, the microscope allows medical professionals to pinpoint the exact location of an abnormality, diagnose it and treat it instantly.
"Our technology allows us to scan tissue quickly, and when we see a suspicious or abnor-mal cell structure, we can perform ultra-precise surgery and selectively treat the unwanted or diseased structure within the tissue—without cutting into the skin," said Yimei Huang from the University of British Columbia in Canada.
It could be used to treat any structure of the body that can be reached by light and requires extremely precise treatment, including nerves or blood vessels in the skin, eye, brain or other vital structures, researchers said.
"For diagnosing and scanning diseases like skin cancer, this could be revolutionary," said Harvey Lui, professor at the University of British Columbia.
The study shows that the device allows imag-ing of living tissue up to about one millimetre in depth using an ultrafast infrared laser beam.
Researchers said that this microscope, how-ever, is different from previous technology due to its capability to not only digitally scan living tissue, but also treat the tissue by intensifying the heat produced by the laser.
"We can alter the pathway of blood vessels without impacting any of the surrounding ves-sels or tissues," said Lui.
‘Ultra-processed’ Foods Can Cause Weight GainWASHINGTON: Examining the effects of pro-cessed food, researchers found that, people eating ultra-processed foods consumed more calories and gained more weight than when they ate min-imally processed diet.
Researchers considered foods "ultra-pro-cessed" if they have ingredients predominantly found in industrial food manufacturing, such as hydrogenated oils, high-fructose corn syrup, fla-vouring agents, and emulsifiers.
"Though we examined a small group, results from this tightly controlled experiment showed a clear and consistent difference between the two diets. This is the first study to demonstrate cau-sality that ultra-processed foods cause people to eat too many calories and gain weight," wrote the study's lead author Kevin D. Hall in the study pub-lished in the Journal of Cell Metabolism.
For the study, researchers admitted 20 healthy adult volunteers, 10 male and 10 female, for one continuous month and, in random order for two weeks on each diet, providing them with meals made up of ultra-processed foods or meals of minimally processed foods.
For example, an ultra-processed breakfast might consist of a bagel with cream cheese and turkey bacon, while the unprocessed breakfast was oat-meal with bananas, walnuts, and skim milk.
The ultra-processed and unprocessed meals had the same amounts of calories, sugars, fiber, fat, and carbohydrates, and participants could eat as much or as little as they wanted.
"We need to figure out what specific aspect of the ultra-processed foods affected people's eating behaviour and led them to gain weight. The next step was to design similar studies with a refor-mulated ultra-processed diet to see if the changes can make the diet effect on calorie intake and body weight disappear," Hall said.
"Over time, extra calories add up, and that extra weight can lead to serious health conditions. Re-search like this is an important part of understand-ing the role of nutrition in health and may also help people identify foods that are both nutritious and accessible helping people stay healthy for the long term," said one of the researchers, Griffin P. Rodgers
Sunday | 19-05-2019 10SPORTS
“IT’S GREAT TO WIN THE $9 MILLION but I just don’t want to lose to him and give him the satisfaction because the bragging rights are what is going to be even worse than the money,” Mickelson
Roy ton helps England seal ODI series win over Pakistan
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
NOTTINGHAM, England (Reuters) - England’s Jason Roy hit a superb century and Ben Stokes carried them home as they beat Pakistan by three wickets at Trent Bridge on Friday, surviving a middle-order wobble to take an unassail-able 3-0 lead in the series. Babar Azam’s century helped Pakistan reach a respectable 340-7 in their 50 overs, yet once again a decent total proved inadequate for the tourists as England wrapped up victory after a tense finale with
three balls to spare. Having hunted down a 359-run target with ease in Bristol in the third ODI, England steadily chipped away at Pakistan’s total with Roy leading the charge, bringing up his eighth ODI century in 75 balls. At that point, the hosts looked set for another routine win on a ground where they had twice scored more than 400 in the last three years. Yet when Roy depart-ed for 114 with England on 201-2 their momentum ground to a halt as they lost three further wickets for another 15 runs with Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali departing for ducks.
All-rounder Stokes rode to the rescue, however, smacking 71 not out off 64 balls, assisted by 31 from Tom Curran, who had earlier claimed 4-75 with the ball.
“Tonight will do the dressing room a lot of confidence, know-ing that when we lose a few quick wickets we are still able to come through,” said Stokes.
It was a changed lineup for Eng-land who were without captain Eoin Morgan after he was banned for a slow over rate in the last ODI.
Jonny Bairstow, who smashed 128 in Bristol, was also rested at
the top of the order with James Vince coming in. Yet it was a fa-miliar tale of woe for Pakistan who had Babar Azam’s steady 115 off 112 balls to thank for leading them to a defendable total that was picked off by an England side who have not lost a run chase on home soil in this format since 2015 (18 wins, one draw). England, who will head into the World Cup as fa-vourites on home soil later this month, lead 3-0 heading into the fifth and final ODI in Leeds on Sunday.
“TONIGHT WILL DO THE DRESSING ROOM a lot of confidence, knowing that when we lose a few quick wickets we are still able to come through,” said Stokes.
Refugee footballer votes after getting Australian citizenship
Agencies
A refugee footballer who was detained in Thai-land and threatened with extradition to
Bahrain said he "feels great" af-ter voting in Australia's election Saturday. Hakeem al-Araibi, who
became an Australian at a cer-emony in Melbourne in March, shot to international fame when he was arrested during his hon-
eymoon last year for alleged of-fences in Bahrain linked to the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
Amid a worldwide outcry, Al-Araibi -- who was granted refugee status and residency in Australia in 2017 after fleeing Bahrain -- was eventually al-lowed to return to Melbourne,
where he plays semi-profes-sional football. Al-Araibi posted photos on Twitter and Insta-gram showing him at a poll-
ing station as he made a "V for victory" sign with his left hand, while wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, a backwards baseball bat and sunglasses.
"Today I voted for the first time in my life, it feels great to be able to vote in Australia. I wish the best for Australia," he
wrote on Twitter.More than 16 million Austra-
lians, a record number, have en-rolled to vote in this election.
"TODAY I VOTED FOR THE FIRST TIME in my life, it feels great to be able to vote in Australia. I wish the best for Australia."
Griezmann whistled as Atletico come back to draw with Levante
Agencies
Antoine Griezmann was jeered during his last game for Atletico Madrid and Rodrigo
might have scored his final goal for the club as they came from behind to draw 2-2 against Le-vante in La Liga on Saturday.
Griezmann received whis-tles at the City of Valencia Sta-dium from the visiting fans, who were also heard chant-ing "out, out, out" before goals from Sergio Camello and Ro-drigo ensured Atletico at least ended the season with a draw.
"We had to highlight the work of the gladiators who are leaving," Simeone said after-wards. "Their greatest legacy is not the titles won, it is their commitment and respect. I love them very much."
Simeone has dismissed fears of a mass exodus, despite both Diego Godin and Griezmann already announcing their de-partures, with the likes of Ro-drigo, Juanfran and Filipe Luis all expected to follow.
If this was to be their fare-well outing for Atletico, it was an underwhelming finale as Levante, who only secured safety from relegation last weekend, claimed a deserved
point. They might have been disappointed not to take all three after leading 2-0 at half-time thanks to goals from Erick Cabaco and Roger Marti before then playing against 10 men for the best part of 40 minutes after Angel Correa was sent off.
"We could have won 3-0, but we relaxed." said Levante coach Paco Lopez. Atletico fought back, Rodrigo firing into the top corner before 18-year-old substitute Cam-ello scored his first goal for the club, finishing at the back post. Simeone's side finish second again with 76 points,
three fewer than last season. They come in above Real Ma-drid for a second consecutive year but will end up 13 points behind Barcelona, if the Cata-lans win away at Eibar on Sun-day. Griezmann was unable to add to his tally of 133 goals in 257 games across all competi-tions in what became a bitter end to his five successful sea-sons for the club.
Godin was given a rous-ing goodbye ceremony at the Wanda Metropolitano last weekend but the timing of Griezmann's announcement, perhaps deliberately, meant he avoided a last meeting with the Atleti fans. But those that
made the trip to Valencia were determined to make their dis-pleasure known and it was noticeable that Griezmann made a swift exit after the fi-nal whistle. Camello, born in Madrid and a product of At-letico's academy, delivered a more positive message for the future and a timely reminder of Atletico's ability to endure in recent years, despite the de-partures of their biggest stars.
"Football has no age lim-its," Simeone added. "We will never stop making use of ev-erything we can to ensure the club keeps growing."
Levante took the lead through a brilliant opener from Cabaco, who flicked in with the back of his heel af-ter a header back from Ruben Vezo. Roger doubled the ad-vantage shortly before half-time, intercepting a loose pass from Thomas Partey before skipping over Rodrigo and fir-ing past Antonio Adan, who was standing in for the injured Jan Oblak. Atletico's task be-came more difficult when Cor-rea was sent off for a petulant kick on Chema but Rodrigo gave them hope with a stun-ning strike into the top corner, before Koke's shot fell kindly for Camello at the back post.
Ibrahimovic banned for violent conduct in LA Galaxy victory(Reuters) - LA Galaxy striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic was handed a two-game ban for violent con-duct after he grabbed New York City goalkeeper Sean Johnson by the neck in their 2-0 MLS win last Saturday. The pair were involved in an altercation in the 86th min-ute of the match after Sweden’s Ibrahimovic missed an opportu-nity to score, with Johnson going to ground holding his neck.
“The disciplinary commit-tee has suspended LA Galaxy forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic for
two games and issued an undis-closed fine for violent conduct in the 86th minute against New York City FC on May 11,” the MLS said in a statement. For-mer Manchester United striker Ibrahimovic, who signed a new one-year deal with Galaxy last December, will miss matches against Colorado Rapids on Sun-day and Orlando City on May 24. The 37-year-old was also fined earlier this month for simula-tion in their 3-1 defeat by Co-lumbus Crew.
Marquez matches Rossi pole record, then crashes
Zidane the boss as Bale set for final game at Real Madrid
Agencies
World champion Marc Marquez drew level with Valentino Rossi's
record 55 MotoGP poles with the quickest time in Saturday's qualifying for the French Grand Prix at Le Mans. The session was staged in changeable condi-tions which made tyre choice a complex affair, as underlined by Marquez posting the fastest lap
only to then fall off his Honda.The Spaniard quickly climbed
back on board to continue un-scathed having posted his pole-securing time of 1min 40.952sec early in the session when the circuit was still relatively dry.
He was joined on the front row by Ducati duo Danilo Petrucci and Jack Miller for Sunday's fifth leg of the season.
"Today was one of those days when it wasn't funny to be a rid-er because in these conditions
you don't know whether to stick on wet or dry tyres," said Mar-quez. "With this light rain it's re-ally hard," added the champion-ship leader. He holds a one point advantage over Suzuki rival Alex Rins, who trailed in only 19th.
French fans eager to see home hope Fabio Quartararo replicate his fine performance in quali-fying in Jerez a fortnight ago, when the 20-year-old became the youngest rider to take pole in a MotoGP, were left disap-
pointed. The Yamaha-SRT rookie will set off from 10th on the grid.
The second row of the grid features Italian trio Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati), Rossi (Ya-maha) and Franco Morbidelli (Yamaha-SRT). Riders will be keeping a careful watch on the weather for the race which is due off at 1200 GMT.
In Moto2, Spain's Jorge Navar-ro heads the grid with Scotland's John McPhee (Honda) securing the Moto3 pole.
Zinedine Zidane hinted on Saturday that Gareth Bale could make his last appearance for Real Ma-
drid on Sunday after saying he would make changes this sum-mer ahead of the final match of their miserable La Liga season.
Bale fell out with Zidane to-wards the end of the French-man's first spell in charge and their relationship has quickly soured again, with the Wales attacker starting just five times since the coach's return in March and left out completely for Real's last two matches against Villar-real and Real Sociedad. Zidane said Bale would be in the squad against Real Betis on Sunday but, asked by reporters if it would be his last game for Madrid, he said: "I don't know, I can't tell you. It's the season finale and next year there are going to be changes. But I don't know what is going to happen." Madrid face Betis at the Santiago Bernabeu in their final match of a campaign that will see them finish third, behind both Barcelona and At-letico Madrid, and trophyless after being knocked out of the Copa Del Rey by Barca and the
Champions League by Ajax.Zidane has pledged to make
changes once the campaign is over, with several players in-cluding Bale expected to be sold, and defended his right to make the big calls.
"It's my decision," Zidane told reporters. "That is clear as water. I'm the coach and I will always do what I want to do. If not, I'll leave. "For signings and those sorts of things we have people who work on them but we work together." Zidane took charge with Madrid's season all-but over and their perfor-mances have fizzled out in re-cent weeks. Their defeat by Real Sociedad last weekend means they have lost two of their last three matches and won only three of their last eight. "The message is clear, it is the last game and we want to say good-bye to the fans with a good game and a victory," said Zidane.
"It has been a complicated year and I want to convey that we are looking ahead to next season and to show the fans that we will return with enthu-siasm to make them proud of the team again."
"WE HAD TO HIGHLIGHT THE WORK of the gladiators who are leaving," Simeone said afterwards. "Their greatest legacy is not the titles won, it is their commitment and
respect. I love them very much."
11 | Sunday | 19-05-2019
BusinessSENSEX
GOLD
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HDFC BANKAXIS BANKICICI BANK
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55.6511,407.15
36362.00
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S H O R T S T O R I E S
Farm Distress Among Major Challenges For New Govt
Saudi to supply an extra 2 mn barrels a month to Indian Oil Corp from July
Agencies
New Delhi: Saudi Aramco will supply state-run Indian Oil Cor-poration Ltd (IOC) an extra 2 million barrels of crude a month from July to December, an IOC executive said on Friday, as New Delhi seeks to make up for a loss in supplies from Iran.
Saudi Arabia approached In-dian buyers last month offer-ing them additional supplies to compensate for lost Iranian oil after US sanctions kicked in. The United States, which imposed new sanctions on Iran in No-vember, initially gave Indian and
seven other buyers a six-month waiver to allow them to contin-ue importing Iranian oil. Those waivers have not been renewed.
IOC has a term deal to buy 5.6 million tonnes from Saudi Aramco in the financial year 2019/20 that started on April 1 and an option to buy additional 2 million tonnes. “We have told them we will be taking 2 mil-lion barrels every month for six months from July (about 1.6 million tonnes in total) and they have agreed,” said AK Sharma, IOC finance director.
India, Iran’s top client after China, has close diplomatic ties with Iran but wants to work closely with the United States.
In 2012, when Iran was under
a previous round of sanctions, Saudi Arabia and Iraq raised their Asian market share. Since then, trade has shifted as US and other crude supplies have come to the market. India had bought about 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil under the six-month US sanctions waiver.
Only state refiners, accounting for about 60 percent of India’s 5 million bpd refining capacity, purchased oil from Iran since November. India imported about 304,500 bpd Iranian oil between January and April 2019.
IOC, which was the biggest Indian buyer of Iranian oil in
2018/19, has not signed an an-nual contract to buy oil from Iran this fiscal year. IOC has been diversifying its suppliers.
“We have requested Saudi Arabia for additional oil. We have optional contracts with ADNOC, Kuwait and Mexico. We will ask them also for extra sup-plies if required,” Sharma said.
IOC has signed separate an-nual contracts with Norway’s Equinor and Algeria’s Sonatrach to buy 4.6 million tonnes of US oil in 2019, he said.
“Buying from the US was a message to the market that we are diversifying,” he said, adding that with the lost of Iranian oil “the supplies from US are defi-nitely helping us.”
Blockchain may make e-commerce cheaper, fairer
Agencies
SAN FRANCISCO- A Blockchain-based system that allows buyers and sellers to interact directly can make e-commerce platform for digital goods "cheat proof" and the products cheaper, says a study by India-origin research-ers. Blockchains allow multiple stakeholders to transact money or data virtually over linked peer-to-peer computer networks.
Besides Blockchain, their pro-posed solution involves "smart contracts" and game theory.
"Our scheme offers poten-tially a big improvement over the state-of-the-art in electronic commerce because it allows buy-ers and sellers to interact direct-ly with each other without the need for third-party mediators of any kind," said Bhaskar Krish-namachari, Professor at Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, the US.
"It uses a dual-deposit meth-od, escrowing a safety deposit from both buyer and seller that is returned to them only when they behave honestly. And the verification of who is at fault and who is honest is done auto-matically by the smart contract," added Krishnamachari. This "smart contract" stores a good's digital hash code or "digital fin-gerprint". Krishnamachari cre-ated an algorithm that runs on a programmable Blockchain as a "smart contract" with Aditya As-gaonkar, a recent undergraduate computer science alum at BITS Pilani Here's how the system might work: An author wants to sell her digital book, but she hopes to avoid going through Amazon or some other company that takes a commission.
Instead, she uses Asgaonkar's and Krishnamachari's block-chain-based solution and lists the book's price at $20. An inter-ested buyer contacts her.
To ensure an honest deal, both the buyer and seller agree to pony up a $10 deposit through a programmable Block-chain platform. The author then sends the digital book to the buyer, who could only access it by making a verifiable pay-ment for the correct amount. If the transaction satisfies every-body, then both parties receive their deposits back. But what if someone tries to cheat? What happens, for instance, if the seller intentionally sends the wrong e-book? What recourse does the aggrieved party have? This is where the so-called smart contract kicks in.
The contract stores a good's digital. The buyer has access to that digital hash code before making a purchase. If they re-ceive an item with a different hash code, however, they can dispute the transaction.
In this instance, the seller would forfeit their deposit after the algorithm determined that they had attempted to cheat the buyer. At present, the system works only with digital goods because physical products can't have a cryptographic hash asso-ciated with them.
However, physical goods stored in a safe-box that can be opened with a digital password could be potentially transacted using their system.
Asgaonkar presented the re-searchers' joint paper at the IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in Seoul, South Korea.
NEW DELHI: Once the high-voltage Lok Sabha polls come to an end, the new government will have a major challenge of getting rural economy back on the track, especially, in the wake of forecast of delayed, below normal monsoon this year with chances of drought parts of the country. Despite higher farm out-put in the country in the previous years, the remuneration to farm-ers has lowered due to the wid-ening gap between demand and supply ratio. Poor procurement of commodities owing to inadequate number and delay in the opening of purchasing centres by the gov-ernment agencies forced the farm-ers to make distressed sale in past few years. In case of vegetables, while the retail prices hovered between Rs 20-30 in major cities, the prices received by farmers for semi-perishable commodities such as potato and onion were found to have slumped to Rs 1 per kg.
The fall in crop prices led the agi-tated farmers across the farmers to vent their anger on streets, and five mega rallies by them were held in the national capital alone in 2018.
It had provided the opposition parties of different hues a common ground to rally against the BJP-led government ahead of the ongoing general elections.
Farm analyst Devinder Sharma said the farm sector has been in "terrible distress" for the past few years and immediate steps were needed to arrest the situation from
deteriorating further."First, Farm Commission should
be formed by subsuming Com-mission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) to ensure remunera-tive prices to farmers. In addition, direct income support to farmers should be increased from current Rs 6,000 per year to at least Rs 18,000 per month in order to bring them out of the vicious cycle of in-debtedness," he said.
Sharma also said the govern-ment should allow public invest-ment in the farm sector and come up with 'ease of doing farming' on lines of ease of doing business.
"Over 50 per cent of the popula-tion in the county is dependent on agriculture while what we spent on it is just 2-3 per cent of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Setting up the ease of doing farming would help clear bottlenecks and hurdles in the sector, thus addressing about 80 per cent of the farm distress," he said. Experts and analysts had last year said that the BJP, which came to power at Centre in 2014 mainly on the poll plank of doubling farm income, would see farm distress haunting them in the 2019 elec-tions. However, the Balakot air-strike changed the narrative.
"There were two major issues-- unemployment and farm distress. However, they were success-fully ambushed after the Balakot episode," said Yogendra Yadav of Swaraj India, who is credited for bringing over 200 farm outfits un-der one banner-- All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Commit-
tee (AIKSCC)."These issues were definitely
sidelined and did not become as important as people thought."
One-third of the country wit-nessed drought-like situation last year and not-so-good prediction of monsoon this year means farm dis-tress could aggravate, Yadav said.
"The new government will have to take immediate measures to tackle drought if monsoon turns out to be below average," he said.
He also sought the new dispen-sation to refrain from efforts keep crop prices low so as to control food prices in urban areas under control. "Farmers should not be punished for it," he said.
Economists need to change their outlook as higher production does not mean higher income, Sharma said. "Economists cannot see be-yond what is prescribed in the textbook. Punjab has the highest productivity ratio in the world. However, it has become a hotbed of farm suicides," he said.
He said growth in real farm in-come from 2011-2016 was below 0.5 per cent and it was at stagnant for the past two years. It also im-plies the government's ambitious scheme of doubling farmers' in-come by 2022 cannot be achieved merely through boosting produc-tion. Making credit available to farmers besides expanding agricul-ture market network and building logistics and transport linkages could be some of the short-term and long-term solution to improve the farm sector, the experts said.
GIC to invest Rs 4,000 crore in Indian HotelsMumbai: Tata group-led Indian Hotels Company Limited on Friday signed a strategic partnership with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC for an investment framework to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore over a period of three years. The capital platform will be used to acquire fully operational hotels mainly in the luxury, upper upscale and upscale segments in India. It allows the hospitality company to pursue acquisitions in an asset-light format, with the equity contribution from In-dian hotels at 30 pc and the balance contributed by GIC in the next three years.
Observer News Service
SRINAGAR - Secretary Agricul-ture Production Department (APD), Manzoor Ahmad Lone today chaired a State Level Ex-ecutive Committee meeting of Sub-Mission on Agriculture Mechanization and Sub-Mission
for Seeds and Planting Mate-rial to discuss the Action Plan for approval under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yo-jna (PMKSY) here at Agriculture Complex Lalmandi. The meeting was attended by Vice Chancellor SKUAST-J Dr K S Risam, Director Agriculture Kashmir Syed Altaf Aijaz Andrabi, Director Agricul-ture Jammu PS Rathore, Director Horticulture Jammu R K Katoch, Director Horticulture Kashmir, Aijaz Ahmad Bhat, Director Com-mand Area Development Jammu,
Dr. Manmohan Singh, Director Sericulture J&K, Riyaz Ahmad, Chief Executive Officer IWMP, Di-rector Research SKUAST-K, Joint Director Agriculture Extension Kashmir, Head CDAE, AD Plan-ning, Dy. Director Floriculture (P&S) Jammu, Dy. Director Flori-culture (P&S) Kashmir, Dy. Direc-
tor Planning Kashmir, Dy. Direc-tor Command Area Kashmir and other concerned officers.
The Secretary while review-ing the Mission on Agricul-ture Mechanization (SMAM) and Sub-Mission on Seeds and Planting material, stressed on the State Agriculture Universi-ties to work in close coordina-tion with the Heads of the De-partments while implementing the various components for purchase of machinery, equip-ment and seeds.
Meeting discusses Action Plan under PMKSY
Mumbai: Bharti Airtel offers the highest 4G download speeds in the country, while Reliance Jio continued to have the highest availability of 4G LTE, says OpenSignal’s mobile network experience report.
The report is for the period from December to February. Bharti Airtel offers a download speed of 8.7 Mbps, followed by Reliance Jio
and Vodafone with 6.3 Mbps and 5.9 Mbps download speeds, respectively. Idea and BSNL have down-load speeds of 5.4 Mbps and 2.9Mbps, respectively. The report considered Idea and Vo-
dafone as separate brands as their network integration is yet to be completed. The companies merged, forming Vofafone Idea, effective Aug 31. According to Opensignal, no other operator globally has scored better at a country-level than Reliance Jio.
‘FMCG growth, low food inflation to be hit by fall in monsoon’
Press Trust Of India
New Delhi: A below-normal monsoon this year may im-pact the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry as it would hit rural growth and demand besides destabilising low food inflation, Nestle India Chairman and MD Suresh Nara-yanan said on Friday. According to him, trend in agro commodi-ties prices is clearly going up-wards and would further exac-erbate if the monsoon is not as good as predicted earlier.
"The level of food inflation, which has been low for the past couple of years, is likely to go under change, if the monsoon situation becomes more diffi-cult," he added. "If it's true that monsoon is going to be less than optimal, definitely, there would be dampening effect as far as ru-ral demand is concerned," said Narayanan. "We have already started seeing some of those manifestations happening."
Recently, a private weather service company predicted a below-normal monsoon this year, which was against the pre-vious forecast of normal rains. Moreover, Narayanan said there have been issues of credit flow in the market in some channels, particularly wholesale channels.
"One of the things, which we have noticed in the last two quarters, has been that, for ex-ample wholesale channels, be-cause of the paucity of credit,
level of stocks -- they either were buying or stocking -- and it has come down," he said.
"Now, there has been a gen-eral issue that is talked about which is the overall credit and cash available in the mar-ket. This has probably been a manifestation of that," he added. He, however, said as far as Nestle is concerned the im-pact would be minimal as rural sales accounted for only about 20-25 per cent its total sales. "I must add that it has not been serious enough to impact Nes-tle India's growth because our wholesale footprint is relative-ly small," said Narayanan.
"Presently, rural market is around 10-12 per cent of the industry," he said. "The overall FMCG is growing around 13-14 per cent and the rural growth has outstripped urban growth by 100-200 bps each quarter," he added. "In Q3 of 2018, rural growth has outstripped the ur-ban growth by 500 basis points and that was most coming from food and beverages, which out-stripped the urban growth by 700 basis points," he added.
However, things have changed in January-March quarter this year with those companies, which have higher footprints in the rural areas.
"What is happening now is that rural and urban growth rates are converging back to the earlier norms and averages that we have had," Narayanan said.
Clarity on Jet Airways expected in a week: SBI chief
Agencies
NEW DELHI: It may not be over till it is over. Even as some industry veterans believe that grounded Jet Airways may have hit the end of the road, State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman Rajnish Kumar remains optimistic that clarity over the future course of the airline will emerge in a week's time.
"Various options are being evalu-ated. Legal opinion is being taken. There are many investors who are showing interest. We have to see whether they have the money and the wherewithal. I think the clar-ity should emerge in a week's time," the SBI top boss told news gathering agency on Saturday. Asked if there are
investors other than those who have submitted unsolicited offers, Kumar said that there are some but their seriousness will have to be checked. Lenders of Jet Airways, led by the SBI, are currently in the process of sell-ing the airline to recover their dues of over Rs 8,400 crore. Private equity firm TPG Capital, Indigo Partners, Na-tional Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and Etihad Airways were shortlisted to submit their bids after they put forward their Expression of Interest (EoI). But on May 10, the last date for submitting the binding bids, only Etihad gave its offer and that too in the eleventh hour. The other two bids received for the air-line were unsolicited. Subsequently, the lenders are learnt to have got an
offer from a Mumbai-based business group. While the lenders are vetting various proposals, most of the top Jet executives, including its Chief Execu-tive Officer (CEO), Chief Financial Of-ficer (CFO) and Company Secretary, have resigned from their respective positions citing personal reasons. Close on the heels of the resignation of the airline's whole-time direc-tor Gaurang Shetty, Etihad nominee on the board Robin Kamark stepped down on May 16. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, which holds 24 per cent stake in the crisis-hit Jet Air-ways, is currently the only solicited bidder for a stake in the airline. But experts have found its bid unattract-ive for the lenders given the multiple riders attached to it.
Section of Jet staff seeks financial details to raise $700 mnNEW DELHI - A section of grounded Jet Airways' employees comprising members of airline unions have written to SBI Caps seeking asset and other financial details of the crisis-hit company for raising $700 million (Rs 4,917 crore) from a mix of domestic and foreign investors.
SBI Caps is the transaction advisor for the lenders of Jet Airways and managing the stake sale process for the debt-laden carrier. The State Bank of India (SBI) is the lead lender and currently in management control of the airline. "We would like to assure you that our resources are at your disposal if they can be of any help. Also, as understood by us during the meeting of 2nd May, we are actively working with potential Indian and foreign
investors to secure equity based funding commitment of $700 million," Capt. P.P. Singh, Senior Vice President at Jet Airways, wrote to SBI Caps.
Sensing that the options to revive the grounded airline are fast running out, a group of employees had on April 29 proposed to bid for management control of the airline. They claimed to secure a funding of Rs 3,000 crore from outside investors. The employee group comprises members of Society for Welfare of Indian Pilots (SWIP) and Jet Aircraft Maintenance Engineers Wel-fare Association (JAMEWA). It is being led by Singh. The employee-investor consortium has asked SBI Caps to provide details about the level of debt post haircut by banks and restructuring. Among key financial details, Singh has asked as to how much stake investors will get after infusing $700 million and the fund requirements for running the airline for the next 24 months. Facing a severe liquidity crisis, Jet Airways had suspended its operations on April 17
and remains grounded. The airline lenders are trying to rope in an investor to resuscitate the airline and recover their money. While lenders are vetting various proposals, most of the top airline executives including its CEO, CFO and the Company Secretary have resigned from their respective positions citing personal reasons. Close on the heels of resignation by airline's whole-time director Gaurang Shetty, Etihad nominee on the board Robin Kamark resigned on May 16. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, which holds 24 per cent stake in crisis-hit Jet Airways, is currently the only solicited bidder for a stake in the airline. But experts have found its bid unattractive for the lenders, given multiple riders attached to it. Besides offering to invest just Rs 1,700 crore against the requirement of Rs 15,000 crore to revive the crisis-hit airline, Etihad, has in its proposal, put the onus of finding a majority buyer on the lenders. The Gulf carrier also wants exemption from giving an open offer in case its stake goes beyond 26 per cent.
Kejriwal alleges BJP is after his life, says will be killed like IndiraAgenceis
Alleging that the BJP was af-ter his life, Delhi chief min-ister and Aam Aadmi Party
chief Arvind Kejriwal Saturday claimed that he will be assassi-nated like former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by his personal se-
curity officer."The BJP would get me murdered
by my own PSO (Personal Security Officer) one day like Indira Gandhi. My own security officers report to BJP," Kejriwal told a news channel in Punjab. "The BJP is after my life, they will murder me one day," he added.
Kejriwal was in Punjab to cam-
paign for his party which is con-testing on all seats in the state.
Earlier this month, he was slapped by a man during a road-show in Delhi's Moti Nagar area on Saturday. The Delhi Police had claimed that the culprit was a dis-gruntled AAP worker but the par-ty blamed the BJP for the attack.
Facebook breakup would be solution of last resort
Agenceis
A break-up of US social media company Face-book would be a solu-
tion of last resort that would probably generate long judi-cial procedures, EU Competi-tion Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said on Friday.
The EU antitrust chief was asked about Facebook at the VivaTech technology confer-ence in Paris after leading US Democratic politicians and one of Facebook’s co-founders re-
cently spoke in favor of a break-up of the company.
“Of course it would be a rem-edy of very last resort. I think it would keep us in court for may-be a decade. It is much more direct and maybe much more powerful to say we need access to data,” Vestager told reporters.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s co-founder and former college roommate Chris Hughes this month used a New York Times opinion piece to urge US regulators to break up the tech giant.
US men avoid spending time with female colleagues in the wake of #MeTooLONDON.: Women’s careers are being held back as men in the United States avoid spending time with female colleagues in the wake of the #MeToo movement, women’s rights group LeanIn.org said on Friday.
Nearly two-thirds of male man-agers reported they would be uncomfortable taking part in a common one-on-one work activ-ity with a woman, found a survey by the group and SurveyMonkey, a rise of a third on the number rais-ing such concerns last year.
The findings show women miss out on chances for mentorship and professional links that could lead to promotion, they said.
“A lot of men don’t realise sit-ting on the sidelines is actually continuing to limit the opportuni-ties of women,” Rachel Thomas, president of LeanIn.Org, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“This data really shows that we are moving in the wrong direction at a time when it’s so critical that women are getting mentorship and sponsorship and equal access.”
The #MeToo movement that swept through social media saw women share stories of sexual abuse and harassment, leading to the firing of some high-profile fig-ures and a wider debate over pay, representation, and sexism.
But some suggest it has left men wary of perceived inappropriate
conduct or harassment allega-tions. Thirty-six per cent of men in the survey of more than 5,000 US adults said they had avoided men-toring or socialising with a woman because they were nervous about how it would look.
Senior level men, in particular, appeared less willing to spend time with female junior col-leagues than their male co-work-ers at a similar level.
They were 12 times more likely to hesitate to have one-on-one meet-ings with a junior woman than a man, nine times more likely to have concerns over traveling together and six times more likely to hesitate to have a work dinner with them.
The survey indicated that work-places are stepping up their mis-conduct responses, with 70 per cent of employees say their com-pany has taken action to address
sexual harassment – a significant increase from 46 per cent in 2018.
However, half of men believed sexual harassment claims were more damaging to careers of the alleged perpetrators than their victims, while nearly two-thirds of women said the person making the complaint paid a higher price.
Women’s groups said the find-ings showed the need for more action to ensure equality at work. “#MeToo helped shine a light on just how prevalent sexual harass-ment is in the workplace, and laws and policies have not yet caught up with the social awareness around it,” said Shelby Quast, a spokeswomen for women’s rights group Equality Now.
“We have to encourage a healthy work environment among all employees and perpetrators need to be held accountable.”
World's First Five Seater Self-Flying Taxi Unveiled
Agenceis
German startup, Lilium has unveiled the elec-tric self-flying taxi that
can seat up to five people. While only the prototype was revealed, the taxi finally com-pleted its first test flight in which it soared and landed on the ground, earlier this month.
The device is equipped with 36 all-electric jet engines al-lowing it to take-off and land vertically and can travel up to 300km in just 60 minutes. Lil-
ium claims that the air taxi is capable of flying for one hour when fully charged.
Previously, many other companies have tested self-flying taxis that seat only two people at maximum, Lilium becomes the first company to reveal one which can accom-modate five people.
“Moving from two to five seats was always our ambition as it en-ables us to open up the skies to many more travellers,” said Dan-iel Wiegand, co-founder and chief executive of Lilium told BBC.
After the Moon, people on Mars by 2033...or 2060Agenceis
WASHINGTON: On December 11, 2017, US President Donald Trump signed a directive order-ing NASA to prepare to return as-tronauts to the Moon “followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.”
The dates fixed by the space agency are 2024 for the Moon and Mars in 2033, but according to experts and industry insiders, reaching the Red Planet by then is highly improbable barring a Her-culean effort on the scale of the Apollo programme in the 1960s.
“The Moon is the proving ground for our eventual mission to Mars,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said at a conference this week.
“The Moon is our path to get to Mars in the fastest, safest way possi-ble. That’s why we go to the Moon.”
According to Robert Howard, who heads up the lab develop-ing future space habitats at the legendary Johnson Space Center in Houston, the hurdles aren’t so much technical or scientific as much as a question of budget and political will.
“A lot of people want us to have an Apollo moment, and have a pres-ident stand up like Kennedy and say, we’ve got to do it and the entire country comes together,” he said.
“If that happened, I would ac-tually say 2027. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think
in our current approach, we are going to be lucky to do it by the 2037 date.”
But Howard said if he were to be pessimistic, and assume polit-ical dithering lay ahead, “it could be the 2060s.”
From the design, manufacture, and testing of the rockets and spaceships required to learning the best way to grow lettuce, all the groundwork remains to be done.
Just getting there will take six months at least, as opposed to three days to the Moon.
The whole mission could take two years since Mars and the Earth are closet to each other every 26 months, a window that must be taken.
Key tasks include finding a way to shield astronauts from prolonged exposure to solar and
cosmic radiation, said Julie Rob-inson, NASA’s chief scientist for the International Space Station.
“A second is our food system,” she added. The current plant system ideas “are not packageable, portable or small enough to take to Mars.”
And then there’s the question of dealing with medical emer-gencies, astronauts will need to be able to treat themselves in case of any accidents.
“I actually think a big deal is the suits,” added Jennifer Held-man, a NASA planetary scientist.
One of the major gripes of the Apollo astronauts was their gloves, which were too inflated and prevented them from doing dexterous work.
NASA is developing a new suit, the first in forty years, called xEMU, but it won’t be ready for
its first outing in the International Space Station for a few more years.
On Mars, dust will be even more of a problem than on the Moon. The Apollo astronauts re-turned with huge amounts of lu-nar dust in their modules. Keeping it out of habitats will be critical for a mission that involves spending months on the Red Planet.
Techniques to exploit Mar-tian resources to extract water, oxygen and fuel necessary for hu-mans to live there don’t yet exist and must be tested on the Moon by the end of this decade.
Finally, there’s the most fun-damental question, how will a group of people cope with the psychological stress of being to-tally isolated for two years?
It won’t be possible to commu-nicate in real time with Houston mission control, radio communi-cations will take between four and 24 minutes between the planets, one-way. NASA plans to test out de-layed-communication exercises on board the ISS in the coming years.
Artificial intelligence must also be developed to assist and guide the astronauts. A researcher commis-sioned by NASA to study the likeli-hood of getting to Mars by 2033 con-cluded the objective was “infeasible.”
“It isn’t just budget,” said Bhavya Lal of the Science and Technology Policy Institute. “It’s also organisation bandwidth, how many things can NASA do at the same time?”
The device is equipped with 36 all-electric jet engines allowing it to take-off and land vertically and can travel up to 300km in just 60 minutes.
