D ays after the Lok Janshakti Party served an ultimatum on the BJP to end the logjam over seat-sharing in Bihar, the NDA big brother made a major compromise by agreeing to contest five seats less than they won in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in Bihar, allotting 17 seats to the Janata Dal(U) and six to the LJP. The BJP will contest 17 of the 40 seats in the State. While the BJP and the JD(U) had already agreed to contest equal number of seats, but till the LJP mounted pres- sure, there were indication that the BJP wanted the junior part- ner to agree to contest 4-5 seats only. However, the LJP clinched a good bargain as besides the six seats it will get to contest, party chief Ram Vilas Paswan will also be sent to the Rajya Sabah as a NDA nominee. The present strength of the BJP in Bihar is 22, while the JD(U) has only two member in the Lok Sabha. The LJP had contested seven seats in the 2014 polls and barring one, all its candidates had won. BJP’s decimation in seat arrangements prompted the RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav to take a jibe at the BJP for agree- ing to contest only 17 seats in Bihar in the Lok Sabha polls next year despite having won 22 in the last general elections. Addressing a joint Press conference with Paswan and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, BJP president Amit Shah asserted that the NDA will win more than 31 seats it had in 2014 and expressed confidence that it will come back to power in 2019. The deal suggests a victo- ry of sorts for the LJP, which had adopted an aggressive stand seeking a better bargain from the BJP after the exit of Upendra Kushwaha-led RLSP from the ruling alliance. Shah said all allies will soon decide on distribution of Lok Sabha constituencies among them for fielding their candidates in 2019. Paswan, whose son Chirag had created a flutter with his comments seen as critical of the BJP and the Central Government, on Sunday claimed there was never a problem in the alliance as he has nurtured the “NDA tree” for five years under Modi’s leadership. A Government under Modi will be formed again, he said. The Dalit leader also thanked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who played a role in brokering peace between his party and the BJP. In his comments, the Bihar Chief Minister, who enjoys good equations with Paswan, noted that the NDA had won 32 of the 40 seats in Bihar in 2009 even though results across the country had gone against it. “This time we will do better than that,” he said. He was a BJP ally in 2009 before parting ways with it in 2013. He joined the NDA again in 2017. Commenting on the deci- sion to send Paswan, present- ly a Lok Sabha member from Hajipur in Bihar, to the Rajya Sabha, Nitish Kumar said it is a recognition to his long service to the country and also thanked the BJP for the decision. Paswan is a nine-term member of the Lok Sabha and the deci- sion means that the 72-year-old leader is unlikely to contest any more popular election and will be handing over the reins of the party to his son. On his part as leader of the Mahagathbandhan, Tejashwi claimed that the BJP gave in to arm-twisting by Nitish and Paswan. His remark was a ref- erence to Paswan’s son and LJP Parliamentary Board chief Chirag Paswan recently writing to Jaitley and requesting him to elucidate the benefits of demonetisation so that his party could explain the same to its voters. Taking a dig at the BJP, Tejashwi tweeted that despite having achieved power through the back door in Bihar and hav- ing 22 sitting MPs, the party agreed to give an equal num- ber of seats to Nitish, who had returned with a tally of only two seats. “Now you can under- stand the dire straits the NDA is in,” the RJD leader said. Ending its 17-year-old alliance with the NDA, the JD(U) had contested 2014 Lok Sabha polls alone. Following its poor performance, it forged the “mahagathbandhan” with the RJD and the Congress and the alliance achieved a handsome victory in 2015 Bihar Assembly polls. Nitish, who had in the meanwhile taken over as the JD(U) president, walked out of the alliance last year following corruption allegations against Tejashvi, his then deputy. The JD(U) chief stitched a new alliance with the BJP, which had been smarting under its humiliating defeat in the Assembly polls. The grand alliance, of which the RJD is the largest constituent, was left truncated and it suffered set- backs like former State Congress president Ashok Choudhary joining the JD(U) along with his supporters. It received a shot in the arm recently with the RLSP, a former NDA ally, joining the alliance. T he national Capital on Sunday witnessed its cold- est December temperature in the past 12 years with mercury sinking to 3.7 degrees Celsius even as a moderate cover of fog surrounded the city, dropping visibility. Rubbing salt into people’s wounds, pollution level on Sunday deteriorated to the second worst of the year. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data showed the overall air quality index at “severe” level of 446. The highest pollution level was recorded on November 8, a day after Diwali, when the AQI touched 571. In the past 12 years, the second lowest minimum tem- perature for the month was recorded on December 29, 2007, at 3.9 degrees Celsius, according to data from the Met department. The Sunday’s minimum temperature was four notches below the season’s average, a Met department official said. The all-time lowest tempera- ture in the national Capital for the month of December was 1.1 degrees Celsius recorded on December 26, 1945. The morning also wit- nessed a moderate cover of fog around the city with visibility dropping to 300 metres at Palam and 400 metres at Safdarjung, said the MeT department official. The official predicted the maximum temperature on Monday is expected to hover around 22 degrees Celsius. However, as the day will progress, it is likely to become partly cloudy. Haze will appear in the evening, said the official. Continued on Page 4 W ith just four days left for the culmination of the first phase of the annual Sabarimala pilgrimage, a group of 11 women of menstruating age on Sunday made an unsuc- cessful bid to offer prayers at the Lord Ayyappa shrine as they were forced to return by protesting devotees. Accompanied by police personnel, the members of Chennai-based women empowerment outfit “Manithi” could barely move 100 metres through the traditional forest path towards the temple when hundreds of devotees rushed down to the valley to chase them away. The women and the police had to virtually run from the scene to the safety of a nearby guardroom, abandoning the trekking plan. Defying prohibitory orders, hundreds of devotees thronged the forest path here blocking the way of the women, who reached in the early hours from Chennai. Police tried to remove the protesters by force as they were not ready to budge despite their repeated announcements to disperse leading to the arrest of some of the protesting devotees. Before returning, Selvi, the co-coordinator of the outfit, told reporters here that the police had forced them to abandon their plan to visit the hill shrine and return. However, rejecting the charge, the police said that the activists had came back on their own due to security issues, adding that two cases were reg- istered against the protesters based on the complaint lodged by Manithi members. Earlier, braving several protests on their way, the 11- member team, all belonging to the traditionally-barred age group, reached here by 3.30 am through the Idukki- Kambamedu route on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. Of the 11, six carried the traditional irumudikettu which is mandatory to climb the “pathinettam padi” (holy steps leading to sanctum sancto- rum). But, the women could not move forward and had to wait at the entry of the forest path for over six hours follow- ing “namajapa” (chanting sacred hymns) protests staged by hundreds of devotees. The BJP and other right- wing activists too staged nama- japa protests across the State including before the Cliff House, the official residence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Thiruvananrhapuram. Kerala-based Dalit activist, Ammini, who announced to trek to Sabarimala, returned after reaching Erumely, over 50 km from here. Continued on Page 4 D espite India’s advantageous geographical position in Doklam and its infrastructure push post its standoff with China, Beijing still holds an edge in terms of connectivity. While many Indian roads cannot withstand the pressure of military traffic even 46 years after China took advantage of it in the 1962 war, a number of important sectors continue to be dependent on “single access routes” that could be “risky in times of conflict”. A parliamentary panel that took a first-hand stock of the ground situation in Doklam has strongly pitched for “enhancing the level of priori- ty to border roads”. The panel, chaired by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, said it was “per- turbed…that despite a marked progress in recent years, the border road infrastructure on the India-China border is grossly inadequate, as con- firmed by its own observations from its visits”. In several important sec- tors, India is “dependent on sin- gle access routes, a risky propo- sition in times of conflict. Worse, many roads are not built to withstand military traf- fic. China had specifically taken advantage of this in the 1962 war and therefore we ought to draw lessons from the past on this matter, it added. During their visit, the panel members realised only some of the border posts are connect- ed by all weather roads. “The panel members were shown pictures of infrastructure devel- oped on both the sides of the border and major discrepancies were clearly visible. The sorry situation has accumulated over the year. Some roads in Guwahati, Tawang and Gangtok were constructed under the Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY). Continued on Page 4 W ith the recent successes achieved in the fight against terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir, including the killing of six terrorists of Zakir Musa’s outfit on Saturday, the securi- ty establishment is confident of stabilising the situation for the first time in five years. Having accounted for encounter of nearly 250 ter- rorists this year, the highest in the last 10 years, the tempo of operations against terrorism will continue even during the harsh winter months with the hope that it may create possi- bility of holding Assembly elec- tions along with Lok Sabha polls. As of now, apprehensions are there about a spike in ter- rorism related violence in the run up to the announcement of poll schedule. The security establishment wants to have a firm grip on the situation before giving the nod for hold- ing elections. Sharing this assessment, sources said the recent months have seen a spate of successful operations against terrorists in which the top leadership of all the terrorist organisations active in the Kashmir valley were killed. Giving an example, they said almost every two days, the security forces have managed to achieve success in the fight against terrorism since October. Given this factor, the momentum will continue dur- ing the ongoing winter months and, if the trend of drop in lev- els of violence continues, offi- cials are hopeful of stabilising the situation in the strife-torn State by March for the first time in five years. However, they admitted that there are still 250 terrorists active in the Valley besides 190 new recruits who have joined the terrorist ranks this year as compared to 128 for the entire last year. This spike in recruit- ment is despite the fact that new untrained fighters are being eliminated routinely 15- 20 days after jumping the fence. Stressing the point that the security forces have the lim- ited task of fighting terrorism, sources said once situation sta- bilises, the political outreach should begin immediately. The security establishment is hope- ful of creating conducive atmosphere for the political process to commence in full swing by March, they said. Recently, nine-phase long panchayat polls were conduct- ed successfully in the State after local bodies elections. Meanwhile, several main- stream political parties are demanding early Assembly polls even as the President’s Rule is now on in the State. But till date the security grid is yet to give its formal nod fearing spike in terrorism related vio- lence in the run up to the announcement of poll schedule. Continued on Page 4 T he ruling BJP comfortably won the bypoll from Jasdan Assembly seat in Gujarat on Sunday, taking its tally in the House to 100, while the Congress won the Kolebira(ST) Assembly bypoll in Jharkhand. With this victory, the Congress increases its tally to 8 in the 82-member Jharkhand Assembly. The bypoll was necessitated after Enos Ekka of Jharkhand Party, who repre- sented the constituency in the Assembly, lost his membership following his conviction in a murder case. Babulal Marandi’s Jharkhand Vikas Morcha had supported the Congress. In Gujarat, BJP candidate Kunvarji Bavaliya defeated Congress nominee Avsar Nakiya by a margin of 19,979 votes, officials said. The by- election was necessitated after Bavaliya, an influential Koli community leader who had won the seat on a Congress ticket in 2017, resigned from the party and also the Assembly, and joined the BJP. With this, the BJP now has 100 MLAs in the 182-member Gujarat Legislative Assembly, while the Congress tally has come down to 76. Continued on Page 4
Days after the Lok JanshaktiParty served an ultimatum
on the BJP to end the logjamover seat-sharing in Bihar, theNDA big brother made a majorcompromise by agreeing tocontest five seats less than theywon in the 2014 Lok Sabhapolls in Bihar, allotting 17 seatsto the Janata Dal(U) and six tothe LJP. The BJP will contest 17of the 40 seats in the State.
While the BJP and theJD(U) had already agreed tocontest equal number of seats,but till the LJP mounted pres-sure, there were indication thatthe BJP wanted the junior part-ner to agree to contest 4-5 seatsonly. However, the LJP clincheda good bargain as besides thesix seats it will get to contest,party chief Ram Vilas Paswanwill also be sent to the RajyaSabah as a NDA nominee.
The present strength ofthe BJP in Bihar is 22, while theJD(U) has only two member inthe Lok Sabha. The LJP hadcontested seven seats in the2014 polls and barring one, allits candidates had won.
BJP’s decimation in seatarrangements prompted theRJD leader Tejashwi Yadav totake a jibe at the BJP for agree-ing to contest only 17 seats inBihar in the Lok Sabha pollsnext year despite having won22 in the last general elections.
Addressing a joint Pressconference with Paswan andBihar Chief Minister NitishKumar, BJP president AmitShah asserted that the NDAwill win more than 31 seats ithad in 2014 and expressedconfidence that it will comeback to power in 2019.
The deal suggests a victo-ry of sorts for the LJP, whichhad adopted an aggressivestand seeking a better bargainfrom the BJP after the exit ofUpendra Kushwaha-led RLSPfrom the ruling alliance.
Shah said all allies willsoon decide on distribution ofLok Sabha constituenciesamong them for fielding theircandidates in 2019.
Paswan, whose son Chiraghad created a flutter with hiscomments seen as critical of theBJP and the CentralGovernment, on Sundayclaimed there was never aproblem in the alliance as hehas nurtured the “NDA tree”for five years under Modi’sleadership. A Governmentunder Modi will be formedagain, he said.
The Dalit leader alsothanked Finance MinisterArun Jaitley, who played a rolein brokering peace between hisparty and the BJP.
In his comments, the BiharChief Minister, who enjoysgood equations with Paswan,noted that the NDA had won
32 of the 40 seats in Bihar in2009 even though results acrossthe country had gone against it.“This time we will do betterthan that,” he said. He was aBJP ally in 2009 before partingways with it in 2013. He joinedthe NDA again in 2017.
Commenting on the deci-sion to send Paswan, present-ly a Lok Sabha member fromHajipur in Bihar, to the Rajya
Sabha, Nitish Kumar said it isa recognition to his long serviceto the country and also thankedthe BJP for the decision.Paswan is a nine-term memberof the Lok Sabha and the deci-sion means that the 72-year-oldleader is unlikely to contest anymore popular election and willbe handing over the reins of theparty to his son.
On his part as leader of the
Mahagathbandhan, Tejashwiclaimed that the BJP gave in toarm-twisting by Nitish andPaswan. His remark was a ref-erence to Paswan’s son and LJPParliamentary Board chiefChirag Paswan recently writingto Jaitley and requesting him toelucidate the benefits ofdemonetisation so that hisparty could explain the same toits voters.
Taking a dig at the BJP,Tejashwi tweeted that despitehaving achieved power throughthe back door in Bihar and hav-ing 22 sitting MPs, the partyagreed to give an equal num-ber of seats to Nitish, who hadreturned with a tally of onlytwo seats. “Now you can under-stand the dire straits the NDAis in,” the RJD leader said.
Ending its 17-year-oldalliance with the NDA, theJD(U) had contested 2014 LokSabha polls alone. Following itspoor performance, it forged the“mahagathbandhan” with theRJD and the Congress and thealliance achieved a handsomevictory in 2015 Bihar Assemblypolls. Nitish, who had in themeanwhile taken over as theJD(U) president, walked out ofthe alliance last year followingcorruption allegations againstTejashvi, his then deputy.
The JD(U) chief stitched anew alliance with the BJP,which had been smartingunder its humiliating defeat inthe Assembly polls. The grandalliance, of which the RJD is thelargest constituent, was lefttruncated and it suffered set-backs like former StateCongress president AshokChoudhary joining the JD(U)along with his supporters. Itreceived a shot in the armrecently with the RLSP, a former NDA ally, joining thealliance.
��������������� 3�9� �:8*
The national Capital onSunday witnessed its cold-
est December temperature inthe past 12 years with mercurysinking to 3.7 degrees Celsiuseven as a moderate cover of fogsurrounded the city, droppingvisibility. Rubbing salt intopeople’s wounds, pollution levelon Sunday deteriorated to thesecond worst of the year.
The Central PollutionControl Board (CPCB) datashowed the overall air qualityindex at “severe” level of 446.The highest pollution level wasrecorded on November 8, a dayafter Diwali, when the AQItouched 571.
In the past 12 years, thesecond lowest minimum tem-perature for the month wasrecorded on December 29,2007, at 3.9 degrees Celsius,according to data from the Metdepartment.
The Sunday’s minimum
temperature was four notchesbelow the season’s average, aMet department official said.The all-time lowest tempera-ture in the national Capital forthe month of December was1.1 degrees Celsius recorded onDecember 26, 1945.
The morning also wit-nessed a moderate cover of fogaround the city with visibilitydropping to 300 metres atPalam and 400 metres atSafdarjung, said the MeTdepartment official.
The official predicted themaximum temperature onMonday is expected to hoveraround 22 degrees Celsius.However, as the day willprogress, it is likely to becomepartly cloudy. Haze will appearin the evening, said the official.
Continued on Page 4
����� 2-1&-
With just four days left forthe culmination of the
first phase of the annualSabarimala pilgrimage, a groupof 11 women of menstruatingage on Sunday made an unsuc-cessful bid to offer prayers atthe Lord Ayyappa shrine asthey were forced to return byprotesting devotees.
Accompanied by policepersonnel, the members ofChennai-based womenempowerment outfit “Manithi”could barely move 100 metresthrough the traditional forestpath towards the temple whenhundreds of devotees rusheddown to the valley to chase
them away.The women and the police
had to virtually run from thescene to the safety of a nearbyguardroom, abandoning thetrekking plan.
Defying prohibitory orders,hundreds of devotees throngedthe forest path here blockingthe way of the women, whoreached in the early hoursfrom Chennai. Police tried toremove the protesters by forceas they were not ready tobudge despite their repeatedannouncements to disperseleading to the arrest of some ofthe protesting devotees.
Before returning, Selvi, theco-coordinator of the outfit,told reporters here that the
police had forced them toabandon their plan to visit thehill shrine and return.
However, rejecting thecharge, the police said that theactivists had came back ontheir own due to security issues,adding that two cases were reg-istered against the protestersbased on the complaint lodgedby Manithi members.
Earlier, braving severalprotests on their way, the 11-member team, all belonging tothe traditionally-barred agegroup, reached here by 3.30 amthrough the Idukki-Kambamedu route on theKerala-Tamil Nadu border.
Of the 11, six carried thetraditional irumudikettu whichis mandatory to climb the“pathinettam padi” (holy stepsleading to sanctum sancto-rum). But, the women couldnot move forward and had towait at the entry of the forestpath for over six hours follow-ing “namajapa” (chantingsacred hymns) protests stagedby hundreds of devotees.
The BJP and other right-wing activists too staged nama-japa protests across the Stateincluding before the CliffHouse, the official residence ofChief Minister Pinarayi Vijayanin Thiruvananrhapuram.
Kerala-based Dalit activist,Ammini, who announced totrek to Sabarimala, returnedafter reaching Erumely, over 50km from here.
Continued on Page 4
��1��2������� 3�9� �:8*
Despite India’s advantageousgeographical position in
Doklam and its infrastructurepush post its standoff withChina, Beijing still holds anedge in terms of connectivity.
While many Indian roadscannot withstand the pressureof military traffic even 46 yearsafter China took advantage ofit in the 1962 war, a number ofimportant sectors continue tobe dependent on “single accessroutes” that could be “risky intimes of conflict”.
A parliamentary panel thattook a first-hand stock of theground situation in Doklam
has strongly pitched for“enhancing the level of priori-ty to border roads”.
The panel, chaired byCongress leader ShashiTharoor, said it was “per-turbed…that despite a markedprogress in recent years, theborder road infrastructure onthe India-China border isgrossly inadequate, as con-firmed by its own observationsfrom its visits”.
In several important sec-tors, India is “dependent on sin-gle access routes, a risky propo-sition in times of conflict.Worse, many roads are notbuilt to withstand military traf-fic. China had specifically taken
advantage of this in the 1962war and therefore we ought todraw lessons from the past onthis matter, it added.
During their visit, the panelmembers realised only some ofthe border posts are connect-ed by all weather roads. “Thepanel members were shownpictures of infrastructure devel-oped on both the sides of theborder and major discrepancieswere clearly visible. The sorrysituation has accumulated overthe year. Some roads inGuwahati, Tawang andGangtok were constructedunder the Prime MinisterGram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY).
Continued on Page 4
��2��������72�������2�����3�9� �:8*;<-114
With the recent successesachieved in the fight
against terrorism in Jammu &Kashmir, including the killingof six terrorists of Zakir Musa’soutfit on Saturday, the securi-ty establishment is confident ofstabilising the situation for thefirst time in five years.
Having accounted forencounter of nearly 250 ter-rorists this year, the highest inthe last 10 years, the tempo ofoperations against terrorismwill continue even during theharsh winter months with thehope that it may create possi-bility of holding Assembly elec-tions along with Lok Sabhapolls. As of now, apprehensionsare there about a spike in ter-
rorism related violence in therun up to the announcement ofpoll schedule. The securityestablishment wants to have afirm grip on the situationbefore giving the nod for hold-ing elections.
Sharing this assessment,sources said the recent months
have seen a spate of successfuloperations against terrorists inwhich the top leadership of allthe terrorist organisationsactive in the Kashmir valleywere killed. Giving an example,they said almost every twodays, the security forces havemanaged to achieve success in
the fight against terrorism sinceOctober.
Given this factor, themomentum will continue dur-ing the ongoing winter monthsand, if the trend of drop in lev-els of violence continues, offi-cials are hopeful of stabilisingthe situation in the strife-tornState by March for the first timein five years.
However, they admittedthat there are still 250 terroristsactive in the Valley besides 190new recruits who have joinedthe terrorist ranks this year ascompared to 128 for the entirelast year. This spike in recruit-ment is despite the fact thatnew untrained fighters arebeing eliminated routinely 15-20 days after jumping the fence.
Stressing the point thatthe security forces have the lim-
ited task of fighting terrorism,sources said once situation sta-bilises, the political outreachshould begin immediately. Thesecurity establishment is hope-ful of creating conduciveatmosphere for the politicalprocess to commence in fullswing by March, they said.
Recently, nine-phase longpanchayat polls were conduct-ed successfully in the Stateafter local bodies elections.
Meanwhile, several main-stream political parties aredemanding early Assemblypolls even as the President’sRule is now on in the State. Buttill date the security grid is yetto give its formal nod fearingspike in terrorism related vio-lence in the run up to theannouncement of poll schedule.
The ruling BJP comfortablywon the bypoll from Jasdan
Assembly seat in Gujarat onSunday, taking its tally in theHouse to 100, while theCongress won the Kolebira(ST)Assembly bypoll in Jharkhand.
With this victory, theCongress increases its tally to8 in the 82-member JharkhandAssembly. The bypoll wasnecessitated after Enos Ekka ofJharkhand Party, who repre-sented the constituency in theAssembly, lost his membershipfollowing his conviction in amurder case. Babulal Marandi’s
Jharkhand Vikas Morcha hadsupported the Congress.
In Gujarat, BJP candidateKunvarji Bavaliya defeatedCongress nominee AvsarNakiya by a margin of 19,979votes, officials said. The by-election was necessitated afterBavaliya, an influential Kolicommunity leader who had
won the seat on a Congressticket in 2017, resigned fromthe party and also theAssembly, and joined the BJP.
With this, the BJP now has100 MLAs in the 182-memberGujarat Legislative Assembly,while the Congress tally hascome down to 76.
masquerading as media personfrom Haridwar. The manallegedly used to cheat peopleby making false ID’s on variousmatrimonial sites. To woo vic-tims, the accused used to pre-sent himself as the owner of amedia house and also posed asan affluent businessman.
The accused has been iden-tified as Abhishek Vashisht a res-ident of Pehowa, Kurushtera(Haryana). Abhishek was want-ed in a case of cheating and mis-appropriation registered at policestation Barakhamba Road, NewDelhi. Earlier, Delhi Police hadalso announced a cash reward of�50,000 on information leadingto his arrest.
According to PramodSingh Kushwaha, DeputyCommissioner of Police(DCP), Special Cell, specificinputs were received regarding
the hideout of the accused inHaridwar following which ateam laid a trap and appre-hended the accused fromHaridwar.
“The accused had adopteda new way of cheating peopleby creating profiles on differ-ent matrimonial sites. He pre-sented himself as a wealthyunmarried man; owning BMWCar, house in Sector-06,Gurugram with an annualincome of �20-25 lakhs,” saidthe DCP.
“In the beginning of 2018,he came in touch with a Delhibased girl from a respectablefamily to whom he introducedhimself as owner of AkshayaDeep Media House. He toldthem that his parents weredead and he had no survivingrelatives. Believing, his mis-representation, the victim gotmarried to him in March 2018.He stayed with the victim fortwo weeks and then elopedwith all the jewelry and cash
which he and his newly wed-ded wife had received as gifts,”said the DCP adding that a casewas registered on the basis ofcomplaint given by the victimat Barkhamba road.
“After cheating the victim,the accused in order to cheatmore people shifted his basefrom Delhi to Haridwar wherehe also posed himself as ownerof ‘ADN star news channel’ andlured many people inUttarakhand on pretext of giv-ing them franchise of the fakenews agency,” said the DCP.
“During interrogation itwas revealed that the accusedis still in contact with around21 girls and women on thematrimonial websites such asJeevanSathi, Shadi.com, BhartiMatrimonial, DivorceMatrimony. He has been luringthese women with the sametactics used earlier,” said theDCP adding that further inter-rogation of accused is going onin this regard.
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To redress the grievances of the residents on
the spot, the New DelhiMunicipal Council (NDMC)organised its second ‘SuvidhaCamps’ at Palika Kendra inNew Delhi. The camp whichwas organised at the NDMCheadquarters to Second SuvidhaCamp for information, facilita-tion and redressal of publicgrievances saw as many as 125public grievances. Among 125complaints, 39 were verbal and86 written grievances were sub-mitted in the second camp.
“The most of the grievanceswere about the Enforcement,Public Health, CivilEngineering, Accounts/Finance,Personnel and TaxDepartments. The 26 teams ofvarious departments of NDMChad been deputed to sort outthe grievances across the tablein the camp,” said an official.
Out of 125 grievances,around 115 complaints weresolved by the council at one go.“The remaining ten unresolvedgrievances were of such anature, which takes a littlemore time due to official pro-cedure. However, the com-plainants were informed aboutthe timeline to sort out suchcases,” said another seniorNDMC official. The represen-tatives of Resident WelfareAssociations, Market TradersAssociations and other resi-dents attended the camp andappreciated the step beingundertaken by the Council.The next Suvidha Camp will beorganised on January 12, 2019.
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In order to make religious andhistorical places clean, South
Delhi Municipal Corporation(SDMC) carried a special san-itation drive in different areasunder its jurisdiction and alsoissued 146 challans for litteringin public places.
The corporation conduct-ed the sanitation drive at var-ious monumental and templeareas such as Qutab Minar,Purana Qila NizamuddinDargah,Chhattarpur MandirLotus Temple, Zoological Park,Kalkaji Mandir, Dilli Haat inJanakpuri, Ghodawala Templein Raghubir Nagar, AyyapaMandir in RK Puram andother areas to ensure cleanli-ness.
During the drive, aroundtotal 146 challans were issuedfor littering in public places. Inwest zone 61 challans, centralzone 29 challans, in south
zone 19 challans and inNajafgarh 37 challans wereissued for littering in publicplaces.
“SDMC Mayor, Narendra Chawla has directedthe Department ofEnvironment ManagementSystem (DEMS) department to ensure cleanliness at all the public places, religiousplaces and historical placesand other important places forgatherings.
He has underlined theneed of keeping all theseareas/places neat and cleans bycleaning and managing theexpected high quantity ofgarbage,” said an official.
Official of SDMC further added that the corpo-ration will conduct more san-itation drives in its jurisdictionespecially around the monu-mental, religious and historicalplaces religious and marketareas.
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Whereas Delhi witnessedseason’s second highest
pollution level on Sunday whileDelhi Government claimed tohave taken many steps to dealwith the alarming pollution inthe city which has resulted in 10-20 per cent reduction in pollu-tion level.
A senior Government offi-cial said that it is observed thatair pollution levels are risingagain during this extreme cold
winters primarily due to adverseclimatic conditions but role oflocal sources cannot be denied.
To address this problem,Chief Secretary, Delhi has cre-ated a Whatsapp Group of theofficers including top officialsand field official to monitoridentified hot spots in the cityand keep a continuous vigil onviolations. Chief Secretary further warned all officers thatthe responsibility would befixed, if any laxity is detected onany ones part,” said the seniorpolice official.
The official further saidthat in order to mitigate air pol-lution in Delhi, mechanisedsweeper were used, roads weresprinkled with water, paving-/greening of unpaved portion ofroad done at a large scale.
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Stepping up in providingbasic amenities as part of
Smart City project of theGovernment, the New DelhiMunicipal Council (NDMC)has installed around 50 DigitalInteractive Displays at severalspots in Connaught Place.Other than having a chargingpoint these smart display willalso guide tourist about varioushistorical places of the city.
According to a seniorNDMC official, the InteractiveDigital Display also provides themap of Connaught Place as well
as other places of Delhi throughwhich tourist can take help to
search any historical or otherplaces situated across the city.
The official also said thatthey are also planning to intro-duce Wi-Fi connection facili-ty at the digital displays by midof January 2019.
Highlighting the structureof the interactive LED dis-plays the official said that oneside of each screen is kept foradvertisement while on theother side, information relatedto various Government web-sites and its departments will bedisplayed. Apart from that,many other people were alsoseen referring to the maps onthe screens in order to knowtheir locations.
10th, 12th Board Exam 2019date sheet has been released.The 12th and 10th BoardExaminations are beginningfrom February 15 andFebruary 21, 2019 respectively.
The date sheet has beenreleased seven days prior to thecommencement of exams togive students sufficient timebetween consecutive papers.
The Board has ensuredthat the exam dates do notcoincide with the dates of com-petitive exams. In 2017, theClass 12 Physics paper had tobe rescheduled as it clashedwith JEE Main exam date.
The timings for the examwill be from 10.30 am to 1.30pm. As per the rules, the stu-dents will be given answersheets at 10 am and the ques-tion papers will be handed tothem at 10:15 am.
The board has also kept inconsideration the admissionschedule of the DelhiUniversity, while framing theexam schedule.
The exams for vocational
subjects will begin earlier, whilefor the core subjects, the examswill be held in March.
The results will be held inJune, according to the CBSEofficials.
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Delhi Congress presidentAjay Maken demanded
that the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) Government shouldimmediately call a special ses-sion of Delhi Assembly toremove the name of the formerPrime Minister Rajiv Gandhifrom the record of the DelhiAssembly proceedings.
Delhi Chief MinisterArvind Kejriwal and otherleaders of the party do notknow the sacrifices and con-tribution of Rajiv Gandhi as aPrime Minister for the devel-
opment of the country, he said.Maken said that it was
Rajivji who gave voting rightsto 18-year-old youth and intro-duced computer learning in thecountry. "The DelhiGovernment should first callthe 2002 Gujarat riots as "geno-cide" before terming the 1984riots as "genocide", he said.
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Annoyed over rampant seal-ing drive undertaken by
the municipal corporations inNational Capital sinceDecember last year, the mem-bers of Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) trade wing on Sundaystaged angry demonstrationsoutside BJP MP MeenakshiLekhi's residence.
The sealing drive againstviolations of Delhi Master Planis going on since last year fol-lowing the directions of theSupreme Court mandatedmonitoring committee.
The protesters, accompanied by affectedtraders facing fines, sealingand demolition of their estab-lishments, raised slogansagainst the BJP outside the New
Delhi MP's residence onMahadev Road.
As part of their campaign, the AAP TradeWing members will protestoutside the residences of all theseven BJP MP's in Delhi.Convener of AAP trade wingBrijesh Goyal said the protestwas held to give the BJP MP anidea of how the traders feltwhen facing action under thesealing drive.
The sealing drive wasstarted on December 22, 2017."None of the seven BJP MPsdid anything to save the tradersfrom the onslaught of the seal-ing drive," he alleged.
The protesters demandedthe saffron party to bring anOrdinance or Bill in theParliament to stop the sealingdrive.
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Delhi Government hasjoined hands with OP
Jindal Global University (JGU)to deal with the pollution inthe national Capital.
Speaking at the seminar "Air Pollution inDelhi NCR: What can bedone?", organised by OP Jindal Global University (JGU) onSaturday, Delhi ChiefSecretary Vijay Kumar Dev said there was a need forjoint efforts by theGovernment and citizens andsuggested a two-prongedstrategy to deal with the prob-lem.
He said the strategyincludes fixing accountability of f ield level staff responsible for combating pol-lution along with convergenceof efforts made by variousstakeholders from the policymaking to implementationlevel.
"We have developed somuch that Delhi is hardly liv-able. Indices of ParticulateMatter (PM) are our severestconcern," he said.
He also emphasised that community groups and resident welfare associa-tions (RWAs) should beempowered and made part-ners in enforcement of law andstandards and "harsh mea-sures" must be taken wherev-er required.
Expressing serious concern over the ill effects of air pollution which, he said, the high pollution level canreduce life span by 10 years,JGU founding ChancellorNaveen Jindal said the seminarwas organised with the aim tofind practical solution to thisproblem.
"This is not the responsi-
bility of the Governmentalone. Every citizen must playhis or her role to curb pollu-tion.
The purpose of this consultation is to bring together all stakeholders witha view to develop a clear understanding and imple-mentable set of measures totackle air pollution in Delhi,"said Jindal.
Addressing the gatheringat the session, C Raj Kumar,founding Vice-Chancellor ofJGU, said examples can bedrawn from across the worldto tackle the crisis of air pol-lution in Delhi.
"We need an informedunderstanding of air pollutionand its problems to arrive atsolutions. Many cities in SouthKorea, China and the USA have set amazing exam-ples to curb this menace andit's our turn now to makeDelhi pollution free.
We really wish to be asociety that respects the envi-ronment.
The first and foremost step that we have to take is to change the way of life and develop the essence of col-lective consciousness so thatpeople become much moreenvironmentally sensitive," hesaid.
Dr Bhure Lal, chairman ofEnvironment Pollution(Prevention and Control)Authority said a culturalchange is needed to deal withthe issue.
He said though laws werepassed and hefty fines wereimposed on stubble burning,the farmers burnt it.
"There is a need for an effi-cient public transport policyand that the number of busesmust be increased and publictransport promoted. Carsmust be disgraced," said Lal.
Balasore (Odisha): India onSunday successfully test-fired itsnuclear-capable long-range bal-listic missile Agni-IV, with astrike range of 4,000 km, as partof a user trial by the army.
The strategic surface-to-surface missile was flight test-ed from launch complex-4 ofthe Integrated Test Range (ITR)at Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Island,earlier known as WheelerIsland, at about 8.35 am,defence sources said.
Describing the trial as a“complete success”, they said allmission objectives were metduring the test-fire. All radars,tracking systems and range sta-tions tracked and monitored theflight performance of the mis-sile, which was launched withsupport of a mobile launcher.
Radars and electro-opticalsystems had been positionedalong the coast of Odisha fortracking and monitoring allparameters of the missile, thesources said, adding two navalships were anchored near thetarget area to witness the finalevent.
This was the 7th trial ofAgni-IV missile. The last trialconducted by the strategic forcecommand (SFC) of the Indian
Army from the same base onJanuary 2, 2018 was successful.
The indigenously devel-oped sophisticated Agni-IVhaving 4,000 km strike range isa two-stage missile. It is 20meter long with a weight of 17tonnes, they said.
“The state-of-the-art mis-sile is equipped with modernand compact avionics to pro-vide high level of reliability andprecision,” Defence Researchand Development Organisation(DRDO) sources said.
Agni-IV missile is equippedwith advanced Avionics, 5thgeneration On Board Computerand distributed architecture. Ithas the latest features to correctand guide itself for in -flight dis-
turbances, they said.The accurate Ring Laser
Gyro-based Inertial NavigationSystem (RINS), supported byhighly reliable redundant MicroNavigation System (MINGS),ensures the vehicle reaches thetarget with accuracy.
The re-entry heat shieldcan withstand temperatures inthe range of 4000 degrees centi-grade and makes sure avionicsfunction normally with insidetemperature remaining lessthan 50 degrees centigrade.
Ballistic missiles like Agni-I, II and III and Prithvi havebeen included in the arsenal ofthe armed forces, giving Indiaan effective deterrence capability. PTI
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The DMK, the principal Oppositionparty in Tamil Nadu, launched its
Lok Sabha election campaign, thoughunofficially, late Saturday evening byorganising a Christmas celebration inwhich heads of most of the Churches inthe State participated with enthusiasm.Party President MK Stalin was the starof the evening and he celebrated in styleby cutting the Christmas cake and join-ing the bishops and pastors in singingsongs.
Though the Dravidian major doesnot organise any Hindu religious func-tions, it is in the forefront in celebrat-ing Ramzan and Christmas. Stalinreturned from the grand Christmas galaafter getting the assurance from leadersof all Churches that the Christian com-munity would vote en mass for theDMK led alliance.
The DMK chief entertained thegathering by unleashing a no-holdsbarred attack o Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and the BJP. “It is theDMK that keeps the BJP at bay in TamilNadu. We have to ensure that theHindutwa party is kept away frompower at the Centre,” said Stalin whileaddressing the Christmas gathering.
Stalin described Prime MinisterNarendra Modi as a “sadist” andexhorted the community members totake a vow to defeat the BJP at thenational level. Ezra Surgunam, bish-op Evangelical Church of India,termed as the DMK’s own bishop,along with bishops, vicars and pastorsof various factions of the Churchtook part in the Christmas celebra-tions.
The bishops came out openly sup-porting the DMK in the forthcomingLok Sabha election. It may be remem-bered that the letter written by the pres-ident of Tamil Nadu Bishops Councilduring the 2016 Assembly electionasking the community members to votefor the DMK-led alliance had created afurore across the State.
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The day after KarnatakaChief Minister HD
Kumaraswamy expanded hissix-month old Cabinet byinducting eight members fromthe Congress, the discontentamong the aspirants has hit thegrand old party and sparked offa rebellion.
The new Ministers wereadministered the oath of officeand secrecy on Saturday at theGlass House at Raj Bhavan byGovernor Vajubhai Vala amidopen expression of dissent byseveral Congress legislatorswho were left out of the exer-cise. The new Ministers areSatish Jarkiholi, MB Patil, CSShivalli, MTB Nagaraj, E
Tukaram, PT ParameshwarNaik, Rahim Khan and RBThimmapur, with seven ofthem picked from northKarnataka to address con-cerns of the region andcounter the BJP in its area ofinfluence.
The disgruntled MLAs andtheir supporters came outopenly and protested the moveof the Congress. SowmyaReddy, an MLAs fromJayanagara , Bengaluru anddaughter of senior CongressMLA and former MinisterRamalinga Reddy, expressedresentment over her father notbeing considered for the post,pointing out his contributionfor the party's growth inBengaluru city.
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Three persons were killedand eight others injured
when an under-constructionbuilding collapsed at Goregaonin north Mumbai on Sundaymorning.
A three-storey structure,which was under-construc-tion, gave way and came crash-ing down at Goregaon'sMotilal Nagar locality at 9.15
am, trapping under the debriseleven labourers. They wereengaged in the construction ofa building undertaken by theState-run MaharashtraHousing and AreaDevelopment Authority(MHADA).
The fire brigade personneland teams of National DisasterResponse Force (NDRF)brought out three bodies andrescued eight persons from
the under debris. The rescuedpersons, all of whom had suf-fered injuries, were rushed tothe nearby Sidharth Hospital.
Of the three killed, twowere identified as ShravanKumar Goremandal (27) andSubhash Chavhan (38) andefforts were on to identify thethird deceased.
Later in the afternoon, theNDRF personnel completedthe debris clearance operation.
New Delhi: An Indian womanwas on Sunday rescued byauthorities in Bahrain after aBahraini “enslaver” allegedlythreatened to keep her for atleast 25 days.
The Indian Embassy inBahrain announced her rescueon Twitter hours after ExternalAffairs Minister SushmaSwaraj, in a tweet, directed theIndian Ambassador in theGulf nation to intervene in thecase.
The Indian mission saidthe woman has been rescued byBahraini authorities.
On Saturday, humanitari-an organisation ‘Justice Upheld’had tweeted that an Indianwoman has been enslaved byher employer in Bahrain andshe feared for her life.
The organisation, quotingthe “enslaver”, Sunday said hewas going to keep her for atleast 25 days as he had paid 'lotsof money for her'.
“He is extremely annoyedthat the matter has been report-ed to the Indian authorities. Weare concerned about her safe-ty,” the organisation said.
Soon after the IndianEmbassy in Bahrain, headed by
Ambassador Alok Kumar,tweeted that the Mission hasinitiated action to rescue her.
However, Swaraj askedKumar for immediate inter-vention, saying the situationappeared to be serious.
“Alok - I know you areworking for her rescue. The sit-uation appears to be serious.This requires immediate inter-vention on your part. Pls keepme informed,” Swaraj tweeted.
Details of the case as wellas about the woman are notimmediately available.
In a separate case, Swarajasked the Indian Embassy inWashington to assist an Indianfamily which sought her helpsaying their passports andother belongings were stolenfrom their hotel room inChicago.
“Dear @SushmaSwaraj Ji,an unusual incident of theft hasleft us devastated here inChicago while returning backto India. All our belongings,including passports were stolenfrom our hotel room booked atEdward Hotel and there's noone willing to help. Pleaseintervene,” Jyoti, a member ofthe family, tweeted. PTI
Former PrimeMinister ChaudharyCharan Singh, UttarPradesh ChiefMinister YogiAdityanath unveiledthe statue of formerPM at Patla town nearGhaziabad.
Addressing thegathering on Kisan Diwas, theCM said that he had waived off�36,000 crore farmers’ loanafter assuming power.
He also felicitated selectedfarmers for their achievementsin agriculture production. Heclaimed that criminals have leftthe State after the BJP assumedpower in UP.
He declared that no com-munity is to be worried fortheir safety. His Government isfully responsible for their safe-ty. The Chief Minister also
inaugurated 20 projectsamounting to �310 crore forGhaziabad.
Among them aGovernment degree college isbeing set up in Sara village forwhich �176 crore has beengranted. The Union Minister ofState for HRD, Satyapal Singhwho is the local MP fromBaghpat requested CM to takestrict actions against Modisugar mill owner UmeshKumar Modi for not paying farmers’ sugarcane dues of the
previous year. The farmers
groups presentedmemorandum to theCM in which theyrequested him tomount a pressure onthe Modi Sugar Millto release the pay-ment which is duefor months.
The Yogi assuredthe farmers that hewill look after theirinterests. The birth
anniversary function ofChaudhary Charan Singh wasmarked as the Kisan Divas inPatla.
The Union Minister of State for Agriculture GajendraSingh Shekhawat andGhaziabad MP and UnionMinister of State for ExternalAffairs General VK Singh also attended the celebration of116th birth anniversary of for-mer Prime Minister and thefarmer leader ChaudharyCharan Singh.
4������& ����� �����������������������Kathmandu: Nepal Army chief
General Purna Chandra Thapawill visit India next monthwhere he will be conferred thetitle of honorary general of theIndian Army, a senior NepalArmy official said on Sunday.
It is a customary practicebetween the two neighbouringnations to award the honorarytitle to each other’s army chief.
Chief of Army StaffGeneral Purna Chandra Thapawill be leaving for India, hisfirst international tour sincetaking charge of the NepalArmy, on Junary 11, NepalArmy spokesperson Brig GenGokul Bhandaree said.
During his six-day tour,General Thapa will be hand-ed over the insignia of thehonorary chief of the IndianArmy by President Ram NathKovind at a function to be heldat the Rashtrapati Bhawan,he said.
General Thapa will alsomeet Defence MinisterNirmala Sitaraman and visitsome of the defence traininginstitutes. He will return on
January 16, Bhandaree said.The Nepal Army chief,
who took charge of theHimalayan nation's defenceforce on August 9, is visitingIndia on the invitation of hisIndian counterpart GeneralBipin Rawat.
Earlier in July, GeneralRawat was in Nepal to receivethe similar honour fromNepal's President Bidya DeviBhandari.
The practice of exchangingthe title of honorary chief hasbeen going on since 1950.
Similar to the practice fol-lowed by Nepali PrimeMinisters, there is a tradition inthe Nepal Army that sees itschiefs make New Delhi theirfirst international destinationafter taking command of thedefence force.
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From Page 1Relative humidity at 8.30 am on Sunday
was 99 per cent. The CPCB-led task has advised people
to minimise outdoor exposure for the nextthree to five days and avoid using privatevehicles, with Delhi’s air quality slipping intothe “severe” category on Sunday.
Several areas like Ashok Vihar, AnandVihar and Wazirpur, among others, inchedtowards the ‘severe plus emergency’ catego-ry, the data showed.
In NCR, Ghaziabad recorded the worstair quality with an AQI of 473. Faridabad andNoida also recorded ‘severe’ air quality, theCPCB said.
The India Meteorological Department(IMD) said prolonged period of light windsand low temperature are likely to continuefor next three to five days, resulting in poordispersion of pollutants and the air qualitymay continue to remain in the ‘severe’ cate-gory for the next two to three days.
Officials said they are closely monitoringthe situation and if the pollution conditionspersist for 48 hours, then stringent actionwould be taken. Stringent action includesemergency measures like car rationing anda ban on construction activities.
From Page 1The police’s attempt to take
Manithi members to the shrinealso triggered a political rowwith the Opposition Congressand the BJP lashing out at theruling CPI-M-led LeftDemocratic Front.
BJP State president PSSreedharan Pillai said the LeftGovernment was trying to turnthe hill top shrine into a “warzone” and alleged that therewere no devotees among theManithi members whoattempted to trek to the shrine.
He also sought a probe intothe matter by the NationalInvestigation Agency (NIA)
and announced that his partywill observe a daylong protestin the state on Monday.
Congress leader RameshChennithala alleged that thePinarayi Vijayan Governmentwas attempting to destroy theAyyappa temple. Joining theattack, the Pandalam royalfamily, attached to the Ayyappatemple, accused the left gov-ernment of taking “activistwomen” to the hill shrine withpolice escort .
However, refuting thecharges, senior Minister EPJayarajan told reporters that“the Government is committedto protect the belief of devotees.
We want peace at Sabaraimala.”Meanwhile, heavy rush of
devotees continued to pour inat the Sabarimala temple withthe auspicious Mandalapujabeing just four days away. Thefirst phase of the 41-day longannual pilgrim season at theLord Ayyappa temple wouldculminate on December 27with the puja.
Kerala had witnessed mas-sive protests by devotees oppos-ing the apex court verdict onSeptember 28 permittingwomen of all age groups intothe shrine. Over a dozenwomen including a journalistand an activist of menstruatingage had earlier tried to trek tothe shrine, nestled in theWestern Ghats forests, butcould not make it due toprotests by devotees and right-wing activists.
From Page 1For the time being even the
Election Commission of India(ECI) is closely monitoring theground situation and has nottaken any final decision in thisregard. Former Chief Ministerand National Conference vicepresident Omar Abdullah hasappealed to the Prime Ministerto hold Assembly polls on time.
Recently Omar Abdullah ina tweet said, “Sir, please also com-mit your Government toAssembly elections in J&K.Vested interests, including someoccupying positions of authori-ty in J&K, are trying to engineera delay. Your Government’s han-dling of J&K will be judged bywhether Assembly elections areon time or not sir”.
In another tweet Omar said,“6 months from the date of dis-solution means a return to elect-ed Government before the end ofMay 2019. We look forward toyour personal commitment tokeeping to that schedule jenabPM sahib”.
From Page 1These roads are being used
for military purposes. Theseroads are inadequate for mili-tary purposes but they can def-initely be envisaged as a backup access route in times of exi-gencies it is imperative fornational security that weshould not be dependent onsingle point access,” it said.
In its report on India-China ties, Parliament’s stand-ing committee on externalaffairs referred to inadequateinfrastructure including roadsalong the border and saidthere is a “distinct feeling thatBRO as an organisation withantiquated rules of delegationneeds a thorough overhaul”.
It was pointed out that one
of the main reasons for weakborder infrastructure is lack ofimplementation of projects andthereby unused funds. Theother issue is the bureaucraticclearances that are required forinfrastructure development inthe border areas including inter-ministerial clearances. There isalso the problem of lack ofmonitoring of the implemen-tation of projects.
“The main reasons attrib-uted to the delay as stated bythe Ministry of Defence is dif-ficult terrain, delay in gettingenvironment clearances, inad-equate infrastructure withBorder Road Organisation(BRO),” the panel added.
The BRO, which draws itsofficers and personnel from the
Army, is responsible for build-ing and maintaining roads inborder regions. The committeerecommended the BRO shouldwork to “achieve full connec-tivity” and Government should“significantly enhance the levelof priority it gives to borderroads” in view of last year’sstandoff with Chinese troops atDoklam.
A decision to improveinfrastructure along the Chinaborder was made in 2005-06but progress had been “veryslow”. Minister of State forHome Kiran Rijiju had recent-ly told Parliament that theGovernment has undertakenconstruction of 73 roads ofoperational significance alongIndo-China border. “Out of 73
roads, 48 roads are being con-structed by the Ministry ofDefence (MoD) and 25 roadsby Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA). Out of 73 roads, 34roads have been completed,”Rijiju had said.
The panel suggested thatMinistry of Defence shouldcoordinate with the respectiveState Governments along theIndia-China border to suitablyenhance the design and standardspecifications of the PMGSY.
According to officials, inthe absence of motorable roadsconnecting borders to impor-tant military establishments,around 120 soldiers had towalk for 19 hours to reach thespot and then they took posi-tions against the Chinese.
From Page 1At the end of the counting
of votes, Bavaliya secured atotal 90,262 votes as againstNakiya’s 70,283, the officialssaid.
A total 2,146 votes werecast as NOTA, they said.
Polling for the JasdanAssembly seat was held onDecember 20 and a voterturnout of 71.27 per cent wasrecorded.
The bypoll became a bat-tle of prestige between the rul-ing BJP and the OppositionCongress in the wake of thelatter winning the just heldAssembly elections in MadhyaPradesh, Rajasthan andChhattisgarh.
Bavaliya, who quit as anAssembly member on July 2,was made a Cabinet Ministerin the BJP Government thesame day. As the Congresscandidate in 2017, Bavaliyahad won over BJP’s BharatBoghara by a margin of 9,277votes.
electoral reforms with theGovernment, including makingfiling of false declaration aground for disqualification andputting a cap on expenditure bycandidates in LegislativeCouncil polls, in the comingdays.
According to highly-placedsources in the poll panel, theEC top brass, at the plannedmeeting with LegislativeSecretary G Narayana Rajuafter the end of the WinterSession of Parliament, will alsoask the Government to makebribery during poll period acognisable offence.
The Winter Session ofParliament will end on January
8. While the Law Ministry isthe administrative Ministryfor the EC, the LegislativeDepartment is the nodal unitfor issues related to the pollpanel.
The sources said, theCommission would also ask theMinistry to take a call on itsdemand to extend constitu-tional protection to the twoelection commissioners on thelines of the Chief ElectionCommissioner.
The President appoints theChief Election Commissionerand Election Commissionersafter the Law Ministry initiatesthe file for their appointment.
A Chief ElectionCommissioner can be removedfrom the office only throughimpeachment by Parliament.The President can remove the
ECs based on the recommen-dation of the CEC.
In its report on electoralreforms submitted in March,2015, the Law Commissionhad proposed extending con-stitutional protection to the twoECs. The EC had been pushingto extend constitutional pro-tection to the election com-missioners.
Another proposal that theEC would press for is makingelectoral law gender neutral forarmed forces personnel.
As of now, an Armyman’swife is entitled to be enrolled asa service voter, but a womanArmy officer’s husband is not,according to the provisions inthe electoral law. But a Billpending before the Rajya Sabhaproposes to replace the term‘wife’ with ‘spouse’, thus mak-
ing the provision gender neu-tral. Members of the armedforces, central armed policeforces, personnel of State policeforces posted outside theirState and employees of theCentre posted outside India areeligible to be enrolled as servicevoters.
“Much depends onParliament. The Bill has beenpassed by the Lok Sabha... It isa major electoral reform forservice voters ahead of theLok Sabha polls... We wantGovernment to get it passed atthe earliest,” an EC officialsaid. Referring to the issue offiling false declaration, thesources said, as of now, itattracts a six months’ jail term.But the EC wants to make itinto an “electoral offence”, they said.
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Tourism in Jammu &Kashmir is facing the brunt
of double whammy of ‘negativepublicity’ and GST on tourism-related activities in the region,a Parliamentary panel hasnoted.
Concerned at the decliningtourism in the picturesqueState, the committee headed byRajya Sabha member KanwarDeep Singh has asked theGovernment to hold talks withthe countries which have issuedadvisories against travel to J&Kand also reconsider imple-mentation of the GST ontourism sector in the State.
“It (GST) must be done ina cautious and phased mannerin order to ensure that the del-icate State of tourism in theregion is not adversely affect-ed,” said the report on‘Development of Tourism inJammu & Kashmir’ which wassubmitted in Parliament recently.
The panel noted with con-
cern that the implementation ofthe GST on tourism has amanifold effects, mostly nega-tive on the economy of theregion. The committee wasinformed by the stakeholdersthat sourcing of products andmaterials is an issue. Unlikeother States, the residents ofJ&K and its business ownersspend huge amounts of moneyon procuring essentials, most ofwhich have to be flown in,which increases their capitalexpenditure.
“Most wholesale tradersinsist on payment in cashwhich is a major issue, as thesupport from the Governmentmust be processed via thePublic Financial ManagementSystem (PFMS) payment sys-tem which insists on digitaltransactions.
“Furthermore, the com-mittee was informed that smallbusiness owners for small scalehotels, bed and breakfasts andhome stays cannot list theirproperties on various travel
intermediary websites as thereis a levy of an 18 per cent ofGST, which cuts across the lit-tle profit that they might make,making their venture unsus-tainable,” said the report.
In this regard, the com-mittee recommended that theimplementation of GST ontourism related activities inthe State must be reconsidered.
It also took serious note ofthe negative publicity of theState, which it said were basedon incorrect facts, was result-ing in lesser tourist arrivals,causing financial losses to hote-liers as well as travel agents,who have to pay idle wages andfixed bills, causing huge finan-cial burden on them.
The panel urged theMinistry to initiate dialoguewith the countries which hadissued travel advisories againstthe State for their withdrawal.“The advisories issued by var-ious countries were based onill-informed facts and unnec-essary assessment of local con-ditions and acted as an imped-
iment in attracting foreigntourists. The print and elec-tronic media, both domesticand international, have animportant role in projecting thefavourable situations existing inJ&K.
“The Ministry should alsoinvolve its counterparts inInformation and Broadcastingand External Affairs for theremoval of advisories imposedby various countries againsttravel to the hill State.”
To counter the negativepublicity, the committee, rec-ommended that the Ministry ofTourism should organize theirown publicity campaign andalso engage Youtube and socialplatforms like Instagram andSnapchat and social mediainfluencers to promote a morepositive image of the State.
Furthermore, the StateGovernment must engage withbusiness chambers such asASSOCHAM, CII and FICCIto invite and encourage com-panies to host meetings andvisits in the region, it said.
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Atri-services delegation ofsenior Indian military offi-
cials on Sunday left forMyanmar as part of a first everexchange programme, aimed atenhancing mutual trustbetween the forces of the twocountries guarding a frontier of1,640 km.
A group of 120 defencepersonnel from Myanmar arealso visiting India as part of theexchange programme, a brain-child of Army Chief Gen. BipinRawat. The 78-member Indiandelegation will interact withsenior officials of Myanmarmilitary, officials said.
The Indian Air Force willbe facilitating the travel of theMyanmarese military officials,some of whom are accompa-nied by their spouses, theysaid.
Myanmar is one of India’s
strategic neighbours and sharesthe 1,640-km border with anumber of Northeastern statesincluding militancy-hitNagaland and Manipur.
Gen. Rawat has been push-ing for deeper coordinationbetween the armies of the twocountries.
The simultaneous visits bythe personnel of the armedforces of the two countries areaimed at ensuring ground-level military cooperation.
The move comes at a timewhen China has been trying toexpand its influence over NayPyi Taw even as both Beijingand New Delhi are the onlypowers who have backedMyanmar amid internationalpressure for the so called atroc-ities against the Rohingyas.
India has been raising withMyanmar its concerns overcertain insurgent outfits ofNorth Eastern region havingbases inside its territory andasked that country to takeaction against them. Myanmar,on its part, has been assuringIndia that it would not allowany insurgent group to use itsterritory against India.
In June, 2015, the IndianArmy had carried out an oper-ation in areas near the Indo-Myanmar border against theNSCN (K) terrorists, days afterterrorists had killed 18 Armypersonnel in Manipur.
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Distancing himself from theSangh Parivar’s demand
for a law to build the Ram tem-ple in Ayodhya. BJP ally andBihar Chief Minister NitishKumar on Sunday said thetemple issue should be resolvedeither through a court judge-ment or mutual understanding.
“We have maintained for along time that this issue shouldbe resolved either through acourt judgement or mutualunderstanding,” he toldreporters. Kumar said everyparty has its own views but hisparty’s stand has been the sameover the matter for long.
BJP’s another ally fromBihar, the Lok Janshakti Party,has also opposed the demandfor brining a legislation tobuild the Ram temple atAyodhya. LJP chief and UnionMinister Ram Vilas Paswan hasrepeatedly said that everyonemust await the Supreme Courtjudgement on this issue.
Among the NDA allies,only Shiv Sena has backed thedemand for brining an ordi-nance to construct the pro-posed Ram temple.
Nitish also took a dig atOpposition parties, who havebeen targeting his Government
over alleged deterioration oflaw and order, among othermatters, saying their propa-ganda will have no impact inBihar.
“We are committed todevelopment with justice... Idon’t have the habit of speak-ing unnecessarily. Some peoplehave the habit of only talkingwhile I do my work,” he said.
Hindutva groups, includ-ing BJP’s ideological parentRSS, have been pressing theCentral Government to bringa legislation to pave the way forconstruction of the temple atthe site where Lord Ram isbelieved to have been born.The case of the Ram templeland dispute is presently in theSupreme Court.
the website of the CyberCoordination Centre as a one-stop shop on all cyber relatedissues, whether it is cybercrime or cyber security. Theportal launched at the conclu-sion of the DGPs conferencewould also act as a bridgebetween law enforcement agen-cies on the one hand, andacademia and private cybersecurity professionals on theother.
The PM also announcedthe institution of a new nation-al honour for National Unityon the pattern of PadmaAwards, the Government saidin a statement.
The annual award wouldbe given to any Indian who hascontributed to national unity inany manner, it said, adding thatthe PM drew inspiration fromiconic Congress leader SardarPatel’s contribution towardsunification of the country.
The three-day Conferencealso focused on improvingcyber security in the countryand on preparing the Policeforces to prevent and investi-gate cyber crimes and financialfrauds.
The announcement of the
new awards came at the con-clusion of the annual confer-ence of Director Generals ofPolice and Inspector Generalsof Police held at Kevadiya inNarmada district of Gujarat,near the statue of SardarVallabh Bhai Patel, country’sfirst Union Home Ministerwho is dubbed to have unifiedclose to 600 princely States intothe Indian Union.
Modi also released a com-memorative postal stamp onthe National Police Memorialand a special issue of IndianPolice Journal on police mar-tyrdom, published by theBureau of Police Research andDevelopment (BPR&D).
The PM also advised thetop police brass that a nation-al level parade may be organ-ised by police forces of aboutthree to four states near Patel’sstatue at Kevadiya every yearon Patel’s birthday on October31, observed as National UnityDay.
It was Patel, who, as thehome minister of the country,had inaugurated the first con-ference of Inspector Generals ofPolice in Delhi in 1948. Forthis reason, Patel’s message ofnational unity was the under-lying theme of this year’s con-ference, it said.
At the conclusion of the
conference, Modi lauded thecontribution of the policeforces in maintaining internalsecurity and directed the headsof police forces to take stepstowards creating a moreresponsive and sensitive policeforce, the statement said.
The PM further stressed onthe need for coordination ofCentral Armed Police Forces(CAPF) and Central agencieswith the state police forcesand amongst neighbouringstates was absolutely essentialfor successfully dealing withcomplex issues of crime pre-vention and management oflaw and order in the country,it said.
Modi advised the DGPs tomake imaginative use of infor-mation technology to reach outto all sections of societythrough websites and apps toprovide various police relatedservices and safety advisories.
He highlighted the misuseof social media by anti-nation-al forces for creating massunrest and for radicalising vul-nerable youth in this context.
A large number of issuesconcerning internal security,criminal justice system, ter-rorism, left wing extremismand bridging the gap betweenpolice and public were dis-cussed at the conference.
The BJP on Sunday claimedthat interception of calls
and emails were done illegallyduring the Congress-led UPAgovernment while Modi dis-pensation has adopted legalmeans with its order designat-ing 10 agencies to do so.
In an order on Thursday,the Union Home Ministryauthorised 10 central agenciesto intercept, monitor, anddecrypt “any information gen-erated, transmitted, received orstored in any computer”. Thecentre’s order had come underattack from the Oppositionwho said that the move was“unconstitutional and anassault on fundamental rights”and demanded its immediatewithdrawal.
BJP spokesperson SambitPatra showed that in two RTIreplies the UPA Government inAugust 2013 had said that onan average its agencies inter-cepted 9,000 telephone callsand 500 emails a month.
It had also listed 10 agen-cies which did the monitoring— Intelligence Bureau,Narcotics Bureau, EnforcementDirectorate, CBDT Directorateof Revenue Intelligence, CBI,NIA, RAW, Directorate ofSignal Intelligence, DG Police
of concerned state andCommissioner of Delhi.
“Tell me how is this differ-ent from the December 20order? The only difference isthat the December 20 (order)was legally notified by the cen-tral Government while theUPA had not notified it andupon an RTI they had releasedthe list. These 10 agencies wereworking even at that time.They were snooping on 9,000telephone calls and 500 emailsevery month and Congress isaccusing others of snooping?
“The political party whichenforced emergency, the partywhich brought the post officeamendment Bill how can thatpolitical party level suchcharges against another party?The Congress party for itsopportunism has gone to theextent of playing with nation-al security” he alleged.
The decision to interceptanybody’s computer can beinvoked only in matters ofnational integrity and security,public order and friendly rela-tions with other countries, theGovernment has said.
Commission (KVIC) hasdecided to pay a uniquetribute to MahatmaGandhi’s as part of theyear-long 150th birthdayanniversary celebration.Befitting Bapu’s vision ofempowering villagers.Towards this, the KVICwill install in New Delhi alarge wall mural of Bapusymbolising the culturalintegrity and unity of thenation.
Inaugurating a two-day workshop-cum-train-ing programme‘Technology for ModernPottery’ at Bishampur vil-lage of Sewapuri in Varanasidistrict, KVIC Chairman VinaiKumar Saxena said that in ajoint effort of highly skilled 150potters from all over the coun-try, the KVIC will install 150square meters (15 meters longby 10 meters wide) wall mural,using ‘chai kulhads’.
“While Each chai kulhadwill be one pixel of the entireimage, small terracotta partswill come together to form theentire image. This mural willbecome a finite entity formedby a simple unit of larger gen-erality. The e KVIC will show-case it in some prominentplace in New Delhi,” he said.
Saxena further said theKVIC has already started iden-tifying 150 potters from dif-ferent parts of the country toproduce the chai kulhads forthis very purpose.
“The selected potters willproduce the chai kulhads instipulated size, shape and fin-ish them as India has a greatpottery tradition and different
parts of the country has diver-sified techniques of productionof clay articles. AnAhmedabad-based firm theClay Club that specialises interracotta and ceramic prod-ucts, will design the artworkand will manage the produc-tion by engaging with the iden-tified potters,” he said.
To make the life of muralweather proof, these kulladswill be glazed and baked inhigh temperature at Gujarat’sMorbi, which is world famousfor terracotta and glazed clayarticles. The KVIC has so far inthis financial year distributed4,700 electric potter wheels indifferent parts of the countryand plans to distribute addi-tional 7,000 electric potterwheels by March 31 next year.
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In a move that would helppropel Indian traditional
medicinal system on the glob-al stage, the Government is intalks with the World HealthOrganisation (WHO) toinclude AYUSH terminologylike ayurveda and Unani in itsInternational Classification ofDiseases (ICD)-11, a systemthat allows health profession-als to share health informationacross the globe.
ICD-11 is the new classifi-cation of diseases released inJune 2018 by the global healthagency.
“In a recent meeting whichwas attended by ambassadors/high commissioners of 15nations, it was acknowledgedthat there was a need for dili-gent integration of traditionaland complementary systems ofmedicines in the healthcare ofpeople with respect to com-bating non-communicable dis-eases and promotion of healthalongside the modern medicineacross the world with very low cost.
“In this regard it was alsofelt that, induction of IndianMedical systems like Ayurveda,Unani and Siddha in theInternational Classification ofDiseases (ICD) of the WHOwould be desirable,” said anofficial from the Union AyushMinistry.
Chaired by Union Ministerof AYUSH, Shripad Naik, themeeting on globalisation oftraditional and alternative sys-tems of medicine was attend-ed by Ambassadors/Highcommissioners of Bhutan,UAE, Cuba, Iran, Ghana,Hungary, Trinidad, Oman,Equatorial Guinea, Sri Lanka,Nepal, Switzerland, Mauritius,Bangladesh and The United
Kingdom, the official added.There was consensus in the
meeting that all stake holdingcountries should come togeth-er to work for the globalizationof traditional medicine systemswhich are already finding wideacceptance.
Over the past few years,India has been aggressivelypromoting AYUSH on thedomestic as well as interna-tional stage both for expandingits global influence and for ashare of the estimated US$50-billion global market.
Efforts are also on toensure better manufacturingpractices and scientifically val-idated herbal drugs are madeavailable. For instance, CSIR’stwo labs-the Central Institute ofMedicinal & Aromatic Plants(CIMAP) and the NationalBotanical Research Institute(NBRI) have jointly developedanti-diabetes herbal drug BGR-34 which is being sold by theAIMIL Pharma across thecountry.
Similarly, research to devel-op cost-effective cannabisbased drugs for treatment ofpain in cancer, epilepsy andsickle cell anaemia is being con-ducted by Council of Scientificand Industrial Research -Indian Institute of IntegrativeMedicine (CSIR—IIIM) in col-laboration with Bombay HempCompany (BOHECO).
Medical-tourism hotspotsin India too are drawing for-eigners in good number. Indiahas established AYUSH chairsin more than two dozen citiesto raise awareness about theAYUSH systems of medicineabroad. These countriesinclude Malaysia, Trinidad &Tobago, Mexico, Cuba,Hungary, Russia (two cells),Indonesia (two cells), Mauritiusamong others.
DMK chief M K Stalin’s lastweek ‘Chennai Declaration’
that Rahul Gandhi would be thePrime Ministerial candidate ofthe united Opposition has failedto enthuse the main Oppositionparties not only in other Statesbut also the outfits in TamilNadu. Sources close to theDMK’s top leadership told ThePioneer that Stalin’s surprisedeclaration did not have theendorsement of even his ownparty colleagues. It may benoted that Durai Murugan, theparty treasurer who is the defacto number two in partyhierarchy has not responded tothe announcement made by hisparty boss.
Except the leaders of fringeoutfits like VCK and MuslimLeague, no major allies of theDMK has come out in supportof the “Rahul for PM” slogan.A veteran Congress leader in
the State said that he washappy with the name of anyCongressman proposed by theDMK chief.
Though Stalin endearedhimself to Sonia Gandhi andRahul Gandhi by the declara-tion, it has failed to enthuse thespirit of the Communist par-ties. “They are in a dilemmabecause in neighbouring
Kerala, the Communists (boththe CPI-M and the CPI) areengaged in a direct battle withthe Congress and do not like tobe seen n public as allies of theCongress,” said G Satyamurthy,columnist and commentator.
He further stated thatStalin’s out-of-turn statementwas proof of the politicalimmaturity of the DMK chief.
“If he had planned to play aKarunanidhi, it has ended as amishap. Stalin is no match forKarunanidhi who was cun-ning and intelligent,” addedSatyamurthy.
Both Satyamurthy and SamRajappa, veteran journalist, areof the view that Tamil Naduwas still in a state of fluid fol-lowing the death of Jayalalithaaand Karunanidhi, the bosses ofthe AIADMK and the DMK.“They were a class apart andthere are no leaders in both theparties to take their positions,” said Sam Rajappa.
Even TTV Dhinakaran,founder of the AMMK , thebreakaway faction of theAIADMK, ruled out projectingRahul Gandhi as PrimeMinister. There are some onTamil Nadu who views Stalin’smove as a pre-emptive strikeagainst a senior Congressleader from Tamil Nadu whohas been secretly pushing him-self for the post of Prime
Minister. “This leader feelsthat the National Herald caseand the Augusta Westlandhelicopter case would putspokes in the way of the moth-er-son duo becoming thePrime Minister and he beingthe senior most leader of theparty stands a chance toemerge as a person acceptableto all,” said another seniorCongress leader.
His statement might havemade him a favourite with theNehru-Gandhi family but whatStalin lost in the process is therespect he enjoyed amongother Opposition leaders likeMamta Banerjee, chief minis-ter of Bengal, Chandra BabuNaidu, Chief Minister ofAndhra Pradesh, said Rajappa.“Many senior leaders of theOpposition parties stayed awayfrom the swearing in of thethree Congress chief ministers,”he pointed out. The ‘ChennaiDeclaration’ has remained anon-starter.
Lucknow: Rebuffing allega-tions that intolerance was ris-ing in the country, UnionHome Minister Rajnath Singhsaid on Sunday no nation in theworld was as tolerant as India.
Singh made the remarkstwo days after actorNaseeruddin Shah hadexpressed concern over "intol-erance" in the country whilereferring to the killing of apoliceman in a mob violence,triggered by alleged cowslaughter, in Bulandshahr ear-lier this month.
Singh, who was here toattend the 114th foundationday of King George's MedicalUniversity (KGMU), toldreporters, "The tolerance thatexists in India, I don't think canbe found in any corner of theworld."
"India is the only country
in the world where peoplefrom various prominent reli-gions co-exist peacefully... Theyhave contributed in makingIndia empowered, self-reliantand prosperous and will con-
tinue to do so," he added.The veteran actor had
Friday said that the death of acow was being given impor-tance over killing of a police-man in the violence.
Asked about the cyber sur-veillance order, the home min-ister, who is also the Memberof Parliament from Lucknowsaid, "The Ministry has alreadygiven its clarification in thisregard. Since, Parliament is insession, I cannot speak any-thing outside... Whatever Ihave to say, I will say inParliament."
Ten central agencies wereon December 20 authorised bythe Centre to intercept, moni-tor and decrypt all the datacontained in any computersystem.
The move set off a politi-cal storm with the Oppositionaccusing the Government oftrying to create a "surveillancestate".
The Centre, however, saidthe rules for intercepting andmonitoring computer data
were framed in 2009 when theCongress-led UPA was inpower and its new order onlynotified the designated author-ity which can carry out suchaction.
While addressing the foun-dation day programme at theuniversity, Rajnath Singh said,as far as public health spend-ing is concerned, the govern-ment has not been able tospend enough on the sector.
He said, "The spending ofthe Government on the healthsector is 1.16 per cent of theGDP, and it is our effort to takeit to 2.5 per cent".
On the demand forAIIMS-like status for KGMU,Singh said, he held discussionin this regard with the HealthMinister, but some policychanges have to be brought infirst. PTI
Dibrugarh (Assam): Bogibeel,Asia's second longest rail-cum-road bridge that will be openedto traffic by Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Tuesday,has a serviceable period ofaround 120 years, senior officialssaid here.
The 4.9 km-long BogibeelBridge on the Bramhaputrariver is India's only fully weld-ed bridge for which europeancodes and welding standardswere adhered to for the first timein the country, said ChiefEngineer Mohinder Singh.
Singh said a fully weldedbridge has a low maintenancecost. The bridge, constructed atan estimated cost of Rs 5,900crore, has a "serviceable periodof around 120 years", he said.
The bridge reduces traveltime from Assam to ArunachalPradesh to four hours and willcut out the detour of over 170km via Tinsukia.
It will also reduce Delhi toDibrugarh train-travel time byabout three hours to 34 hours asagainst 37 hours presently.
Modi will open the bridge totraffic, 16 years after it wasannounced by then prime min-ister Atal Bihari Vjpayee.
The bridge has a two-linerailway track on the lower deckand a three-lane road on the topdeck. For the first time in Indian
Railways, the girder has steelfloor system for railway tracksand concrete for road.
"Early flood in the riverBrahmaputra restricted theworking season to a very shortperiod of approximately fivemonths (from November toMarch) and demanded hugemobilisation of constructionequipment," said Singh.
Transportation of concreteacross river channels of 600metre to 900 metre width fromboth the north and south bankswas the biggest challenge, hesaid. To overcome this, concretewas pumped through pipelinelaid over buoys.
"Eighty-thousand tonnes ofsteel plates was delivered for theproject via a combination of railand road transport, while a1,000 tonne hydraulic jack andstrand jacks linked with the sub-structures were used for movingsteel truss over the pillars," hesaid. PTI
Kolkata: CPI(M) general sec-retary Sitaram Yechuri onSunday alleged that PrimeMinister Narendra Modi wasresorting to manipulation ofstatistics to paint a rosy pictureof his Government's achieve-ments.
Yechuri claimed Modi'sannouncement that 99 per centgoods will now attract 18 percent or lower GST as a "posttruth", since 97 per cent of mer-chandise or services alreadyattract 18 per cent or less GST.
"The method adopted byModi surpasses Goebells," hesaid, drawing a parallel withHitler's Propaganda Ministerduring the Nazi rule inGermany.
"Statistics are manipulatedto distort facts," Yechuri said,speaking at a seminar on KarlMarx's 200th birth anniversarycelebrations, organised by theCommunist Party ofIndia(Marxist) here.
He also claimed that thePrime Minister and theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP)were resorting to such manip-ulation to suit their interest andpaint a rosy picture of theNational Democratic Alliance(NDA) Government's achieve-ments, when the ground real-ity was otherwise.
Modi had on Tuesday saidin Mumbai, "Today, the GST
system has been established toa large extent and we are work-ing towards a position where 99per cent items will attract thesub-18 per cent GST slab."
The GST Council onSaturday reduced tax rates on23 goods and services, includ-ing movie tickets, TV andmonitor screens and powerbanks, and exempted frozenand preserved vegetables fromthe levy.
With this cut, only 28goods are now left in the high-est 28-per cent tax bracket.
Yechury said in order todivert and dilute protests grow-ing against the Governmentover "miseries of people, theruling BJP and similar otherorganisations are resorting tosharpening of communalpolarisation."
Likening PM Modi andBJP national president AmitShah with characters from theMahabharata, the former RajyaSabha member said, "Of the100 Kauravas, we know thenames of Duryodhan and
Dushashan, just as in the BJP,we know of Modi and Shah."
"The Kauravas said howcan five Pandavas defeat 100 ofthem, but eventually that hap-pened; likewise the BJP claimsto be invincible, but the statepolls have shown they can bedefeated," Yechury said.
He said the Government'smove to authorise 10 Centralagencies to intercept any infor-mation on computers was anindication that the countrywas moving "towards a policestate."
Alleging that the Centrewants to gag dissenting voice,he said people talking againstthe Government are termed'urban Naxalites'.
Yechury also criticised theTrinamool Congress (TMC)for taking different stands inWest Bengal and at the nation-al level on upholding democ-ratic rights.
He said that West BengalChief Minister and TMCsupremo Mamata Banerjee was"murdering democracy inBengal and speaking ofupholding it in the rest of thecountry."
The CPI(M) politburomember said in the run up tothe 2019 Lok Sabha elections,one has to be clear who are thereal allies in the fight againstthe saffron party. PTI
Jaipur/New Delhi: As many as23 newly elected legislators — 22Congress and one RLD — areexpected to take oath asMinisters in the first RajasthanCabinet formation on Monday.
Chief Minister AshokGehlot and Deputy ChiefMinister Sachin Pilot, who tookoath on December 17, returnedto the State Capital on Sundaynoon after spending three daysin New Delhi for a meeting withpresident Rahul Gandhi andsenior party functionaries.
The names of council ofministers have been finalised bythe State Congress leadersincluding Gehlot and Pilot afterrounds of discussion with RahulGandhi and other senior lead-ers, sources said.
The swearing in ceremonyis expected to be held in Jaipurat 11.30 AM on Monday, theysaid. AICC general secretary incharge of Rajasthan, AvinashPandey and Congress observerfor the State on Government for-mation, K C Venugopal, besidesAICC secretaries for the statewere also involved in the delib-erations for deciding on theMinisters, the sources said.
Rahul Gandhi intends tofocus on having a Cabinet witha majority being fresh faces,sources said, adding the Cabinetwill be a blend of the old andnew guard and will give an
opportunity to those who havenot held ministerial portfolios inthe past.
They said over a dozen ofthem will be seen in tomorrow'scabinet expansion.
Meanwhile, Gehlot has sofar initiated a few transfers ofofficials with the likelihood of athorough reshuffle of bureau-crats after the cabinet formation.
"As many as 22 Congressand one alliance partner RLD'sMLA are likely to take oath atRaj Bhawan on Monday," aparty leader informed.
Those who are likely totake oath are BD Kalla, RaghuSharma, Shanti Dhariwal, LalChand Kataria, Pramod JainBhaya, Parsadi Lal Meena,Vishvendra Singh, Harishchoudhary, Ramesh ChandMeena, Bhanwar Lal Meghwal,Pratap Singh Khachariyawas,Udai Lal Anjana, SalehMohammad and Govind SinghDotasara. Mamta Bhupesh,Arjun Singh Bamaniya,Bhanwar Singh Bhati, SukhramVishnoi, Ashok Chandna,Tikaram Jully, Bhajanlal Jatav,Rajendra Singh Yadav andRLD's Subhash Garg are alsolikely to take oath, he said.
Rajasthan can have a total of30 Ministers including the ChiefMinister and the Gehlot cabinetwill have some vacancies leftwhich will be filled later. PTI
Ahmedabad: Eight childrenwere among the 10 peoplekilled when a bus in which theywere returning, after enjoyinga picnic, fell into a 200-feetgorge in Gujarat's Dang district,police said on Sunday.
Around 80 people, mostlystudents of a coaching class inSurat, were travelling in thebus, which was on its way toSurat when the incidentoccurred on the Mahal-Bardipada road near Ahwatown, 380 km from here, onSaturday evening, the policesaid.
Over 24 people wereinjured when the driver appar-ently lost control of the bus.The deceased included eightchildren and two adults, saidSuperintendent of Police (SP)Shweta Shrimali.
Seventeen students withserious injuries were shifted tohospitals in Surat. The rescueoperation continued till lateon Saturday night, the SPsaid.
All the students, who were
in the age group of 10-16 years,are residents of Amroli area inSurat. The students werereturning after visiting theSabri dam in Dang. The picnicwas sponsored by their tuitionclass. PTI
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With its chances of a dealwith the Trinamool
Congress coming to a nil afterMamata Banerjee’s public pro-nouncement of solo fight in allthe 42 Lok Sabha seats in thenext year’s general elections, theCongress national leadershiphas asked its Bengal unit tostrengthen its organisation andprepare for a go-alone contestin the State.
Party national presidentRahul Gandhi has asked BengalPradesh Congress presidentSomen Mitra to oil the party’sorganisational machineryinsiders said interpreting theinstruction as a measure to
augment the Congress’ brandvalue ahead of any alliance talkswith the Left Front should itcrop up.
Gandhi told Mitra andGaurav Gogoi the AICC leaderobserver for Bengal to “prepareto fight on our own,” sourcessaid. Mitra who held a 15-minute parley with theCongress president briefinghim about the ground realitiesin the State said “we have beenasked to strengthen our partyorganisation in the State andprepare the party to fight onour own in the upcoming LokSabha elections.”
When asked as to whetherthe national Congress leader-ship would attend the
Trinamool Congress-spon-sored grand Opposition rally atthe historic Brigade ParadeGround in Kolkata, Mitra said“we have only reported theground realty to the leadership.As a regional leader I could nothave given any advice to thenational leadership on thiscount. I only told him (Gandhi)that the ground situation inBengal is such that the grass-roots workers do not want theCongress to join the rally.
“At the ground level the
workers are fighting theTrinamool’s misrule and fallingvictims to their attacks everyday. So they will be hurt and theparty will suffer immensely ifthey see our leaders with thosewho are responsible for destroy-ing the Congress in Bengal.Now it is their decision and wecannot interfere with that.”
The PCC president said hehad briefed Gandhi about theTrinamool misrule and thethreat of a rising BJP. “We havealso told him how theTrinamool is trying to ignorethe Congress’ achievements inthe Hindi belt where we recent-ly won the elections. He gave usa patient hearing and asked usto strengthen the organisationwith a view to fight the elec-tions alone.”
On whether there was anychance of the Congress’ hold-ing the Marxist hand another
PCC leader OP Mishra said adecision had not been takenbut added “we have beenopposing both the Trinamooland BJP in Assembly jointlyand also we have been facingthem together out on the field.”
Meanwhile in a meaning-ful development CPI(M) Statesecretary Suryakanto Mishraon Sunday said that it would bean act of folly if the peoplethought that the TMC wouldfight the BJP and vice versa.
“These two parties are infact complementary to eachother because they survive ondifferent kind of communalismand suppression of theOpposition: Tripura andBengal are two glaring exam-ples,” he said adding the othersecular minded parties shouldcome together “to fight outthese fascist forces as a primenational duty.”
Patna: The BiharGovernment's decision to rede-velop Patna's prestigiousPMCH by demolishing its his-toric buildings has upset thealumni of the State's first med-ical college, who have appealedto Chief Minister Nitish Kumarto save the heritage of the 93-year-old institution for theposterity.
Born in 1925 as the Princeof Wales Medical College, setup to commemorate the visit ofthe then Prince of Wales,Edward VIII, its iconic, old her-itage building are now pro-posed to be dismantled inmultiple phases as part of aredevlopment plan.
The Prince of Wales hadvisited Patna on December 22-23 in 1921 as part of his royaltour of India and the collegewas established four years laterto perpetuate the memory ofhis visit to what was then a
young provincial capital ofBihar.
The college, renamed a fewdecades after Independence,as the Patna Medical Collegeand Hospital, popularly knownas PMCH, is dotted with his-torical buildings, including theBankipore General Hospitaland Women Hospital, whichwere equipped with special liftsin that era, the main adminis-trative building, and physiolo-gy and anatomy departments,among other structures.
The new project of theBihar Government has notgone down well with thePMCH alumni, living in Biharor abroad, who have suggestedrestoring and preserving thehistoric institution in its orig-inal form and developing"extension centres" in periph-eral areas of Patna, like Bihta orFatuha, on the lines of AIIMSextension centres.
"All historic institutionsendeavour to preserve theirheritage for the next generation.And, the coming generationwill be robbed off seeing theheritage of Bihar's first medicalcollege. The Governmentshould preserve it," PMCHAlumni Association presidentDr Satyajeet Kumar Singh said.
Patna-based Singh, whohad worked for several years inthe UK after completing hisgraduation, rued that the cam-pus buildings had some neglectover the last few decades, butit would be "grossly unwise" todemolish them and such amassive hospital in a congest-ed area meant it would lead to"traffic nightmares" in streets.
The State Cabinet had inNovember given its nod for theredevelopment of the PMCHinto the world's-largest 5462-bed hospital at an estimatedcost of �5540 crore. PTI
Amaravati (AP): AndhraPradesh Chief Minister NChandrababu Naidu onSunday dubbed Prime MinisterNarendra Modi as a “hollow”man who has “done nothing”for the country.
He also accused the ModiGovernment of “denying” spe-cial category status to AndhraPradesh, despite promising it inParliament.
Naidu said Modi did noth-ing even for his home stateGujarat as its Chief Minister for12 years, but made everyonebelieve he did "great things".
"We all believed this. Thewhole country believed this butwere left cheated", the chiefminister said in a continueddiatribe against Modi.
He also released a 'whitepaper' on "implementation" ofAndhra Pradesh ReorganisationAct, 2014 and the "connectedassurances", here, targeting pri-marily the PM.
"A leader makes all the dif-ference. We believed what allNarendra Modi said. What isNarendra Modi today...Hollow," Naidu remarked.
The Prime Minister hadbeen campaigning that therewas no great leader than him,he alleged, adding "but he is nogood". PTI
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Chennai: Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Sundaylashed out at the proposedmega party coalition or amahagathbandhan to take onthe ruling BJP at the Centre,terming it an "unholy alliance"of various political parties for'personal survival.'
People will see throughthe 'incoherent alliance' of 'richdynasties,' Modi said during hisinteraction with booth workersfrom Chennai Central,Chennai North, Madurai,Tiruchirappally and Tiruvallurconstituencies in Tamil Nadu.
The Prime Minister saidthe key constituent of the megaalliance — Telugu Desam Party— was formed against the very'high- handedness' of theCongress by the veteran, lateChief Minister N T Ramarao,but that the party was now keento join hands with Congress.
Further, some parties in themahagathbandhan claimed to
be inspired by the socialistleader Ram Manohar Lohia,but the veteran himselfopposed Congress and itsideaologies, Modi said.
"Today several leaders aretalking about a grand allianceor a mahagathbandhan. Thisalliance is for personal survival,not idealogy based support.This alliance is for power, notfor the people. This alliance is
for personal ambitions, notpeople's aspirations," hecharged.
He recalled Lohia as sayingthat Congress is a 'compromiseparty' which has made com-promises on many ideologicalissues, national interest issues".
Further, many leaders inthe coalition were "arrestedand tortured" during theEmergency, the Prime Minister
said without referring to any-one.
DMK President MK Stalin,who had recently proposedCongress chief Rahul Gandhias Opposition's PrimeMinisterial candidate for the2019 Lok Sabha polls, was oneof the leaders incarcerated dur-ing the Emergency.
"Corrupt and criminal ele-ments are supreme when theseparties govern. It is commonknowledge how the Congressharassed Mulayamji (SP leaderMulayam Singh Yadav) withcases. Have these parties donejustice to the ideals of DrLohia," he said, adding theanswer was a 'resounding' no.
Further, the Congress andits 'ecosytem' spared none,Modi said and pointed out atthe dismissal of the AIADMKgovernment of the late chiefminister M G Ramachandranin 1980.
Recalling the past rivalry
between Congress and itssouthern ally DMK, Modi saidnone had forgotten where thetwo parties stood on the JainCommission.
"That time Congress saideither it is DMK or it is us. Buttoday they are together. If notopportunism, what explainstheir alliance," he asked.
Taking on BJP's formerally Telugu Desam Party,helmed by Andhra PradeshChief Minister N ChandrababuNaidu, he said it was floated bythe veteran N T Rama Rao"who faced the anger and high-handedness of the Congress."
"He formed a party for thepride and respect of the Telugusat a time when the Congresshumiliated a chief minister ofAndhra Pradesh. Yet today theparty of NTR wants to ally withthe Congress. How can peopleof Andhra Pradesh accept this,"he said.
Taking a swipe at the Left
parties, he said while they werepassing resolutions againstCongress "not long ago," call-ing it "pro-imperialist", respon-sible for price rise, agriculturecrisis and much more, nowthey were praising each other.
In an apparent dig atSharad Pawar's NCP, Modisaid "another party based inMaharashtra was formed insevere opposition to theCongress leadership."
"The truth is that this so-called grand alliance is a clubof rich dynasties. They areonly to promise family rule.People can see through theiropportunism and will neveraccept such an incoherentcoalition. India wants democ-racy, the alliance wants dynasty.India wants growth for all, thealliance wants growth only fortheir families." he said lam-basting the opposition group-ing.
To a question from a party
worker, Modi charged that theCongress tried to spread liesamong people about BJP.
"They spare no effort tomislead people about theprogress our party is making.Almost every poor householdin the country has a Jandhanbank account but the Congresswill mislead people saying thattheir money is not safe inbanks.
"About six crore peoplehave got gas connection. Butthose who have been rejectedby people spread all types of lieson it. They will mislead thepeople on the Awas yojana(Housing scheme)...", he said.
During his interaction, thePrime Minister highlightedIndia's recent achievements,especially in 2018, such as thecountry gaining rankings inthe ease of doing businessindex.
He also referrred to thelaunch of the comprehensive
Modicare healthcare, the fastpace of construction of publicand individual toilets and gov-ernment spending on sustain-able transportation such as thechennai metro rail, among oth-ers.
Year 2018 was a "greatyear" for the country and wasa "watershed" one, he added.
The government has alsobeen working for the senior cit-izens' welfare and among otherthings, slashed their IncomeTax slabs, reduced prices ofstents and knee implants andprovided subsidised medicinesthrough Jan Aushadi centres.
The process for providinglife certificate for pensionershas also been simplified withthe launch of an Aadhaar-based online facility, he said,and urged the party workersto highlights these to theelders at various locationsincluding their morning walksand temples.
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The theory of a separateDravidian ideology as
claimed by the Dravidian par-ties in Tamil Nadu has been
demolished again, this time bythe findings of late BGL Swamy,a scholar from Karnataka.
Swamy who was a formerprofessor and principal ofPresidency College in Chennai(1953- 1978) has found thatRobert Caldwell, founder ofDravidian ideology, had saidthat Tamil literature originat-ed only in the 10CE while theDravidians claim that it datedback to 1800 BCE.
The edifice of Dravidianidentity and related politics hasbeen built on an ideologyintroduced by Caldwell, anIrish evangelist who came toIndia in 1838 to spread theWord of Gospel and madeTamil Nadu his home till hedied in 1891. Caldwell hasbeen accorded the status of theFather of Dravidian ideologyby diehard Dravidians.
"A Comparative Grammarof Dravidian or South IndianFamily of Languages" authoredby Caldwell is considered as aseminal volume on the identi-ty of the South Indian lan-guages. He claimed in his workthat the South Indian lan-guages of Tamil, Malayalam,Telugu, Kannada, Tulu andthe Brahui language spoken inPakistan and Afghanistanbelonged to the distinctDravidian family and had no
relation with Sanskrit or Hindispoken in North India.
The notes chronicled bySwamy, which were examinedand translated into English byauthor Sandeep Balakrishnabased in Karanataka provesthat the original work ofCaldwell has been tampered byMadras University.
“Caldwell’s book was firstpublished in 1856. Its secondedition saw light in 1857. It con-tained an elaborate preface(154 pages) in a book totalling608 pages. In 1936, the MadrasUniversity published anabridged version of this book inwhich the preface was choppedoff in several places. TheDravidianists are smart. Ifsomeone shows them evidencethat goes against their currenttrain of opinion, they ensurethat such evidence vanishescompletely. They have ensuredthat the first and second edi-tions of Caldwell’s book havesimilarly vanished in order toprotect the current and futuregenerations of innocent Tamilsfrom being corrupted,” readsthe noting made by Swamy.
Caldwell says in his bookthat ‘beginning of Tamil litera-ture is not earlier than 10CE . MS Purnalingam Pillai, aDravidian ideological scholar,dates the Third Sangam litera-ture to a period between 1750
BCE and 100 CE while M.Srinivasa Aiyangar places itbetween 5th Century BCE and6th Century CE. Still others dateit variously from the 2ndCentury BCE and the 1stCentury CE’, says Swamy’s notes.
The deleted pages fromthe preface of the bookauthored by Caldwell holdsthe key to the whole Dravidiantheory, according to Swamy. Hewrote to British MuseumLibrary where the original edi-tions of Caldwell’s books arekept, photocopied the originalpages and distributed the sameamong hardcore Dravidians ofPresidency College and MadrasUniversity.
‘Their response: “You’revery tough! You have managedto fool even the officials of theMuseum!” ,’Swamy wrote in hismemoirs. Swamy had authoredan academic paper “The Art ofMaking Things Disappear”based on his studies.
This is not the first timeCaldwell’s efforts to divide Indiaon the Aryan and Dravidianlines are being exposed. RajivMalhotra and AravindanNeelakandan, in their work“Breaking India” has quotedwhat Timothy Brook andAndre Schmid mentionedabout Caldwell in their work“Asian Elites and NationalIdentities”.
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Mumbai’s former Sheriffand founder of Giants
International Nana MansinhChudasama, known for hiswitty “Talk of the Town” ban-ners along Marine Drive insouth Mumbai, died here onSunday, following brief illness.
Chudasama, better knownin the recent years as the fatherof fashion designer-turned-BJP spokesperson Shaina NC,was 86.
Chudasama, who throughhis thought-provoking bannershad earned sobriquets of beingthe "conscience keeper ofMumbai" and "voice of thecommon man", had over theyears penned hundreds ofbanners on topical issues ofpublic importance.
Put up at a vantage “Talkof the Town” point along theMarine Drive, his bannerswould draw the attention ofthe office goers in the late sev-enties eighties, nineties andeven 2000s. A compilation of500 such witty banners wasbrought out in the form of abook in 2010.
Chudasama, whom manyMumbaikars would call asMumbai’s original “tweeter”,had come up several eye-
catching banners like “Idiot:Man who did not vote”, “LetYour never die, Donate Eyes” ,“Indrani Saga: Reality MakesFiction Fake”, “Promoting
Marathi Welcomed, Diktat NotWelcomed” , “We Prayed forRains, Rains Gave us Potholes.God now save us fromPotholes”, “PM in Japan, Soonwe shall have pure Gangajal”,“Our Cricket Team TestsNation’s Patience”. “Tsunami ofCorruption: Only God CanSave Us”, “Jai Hind, Jai Modi”,“Small Cabinet, let’s hope forbig impact” and “Football madeBrazil, Zinta made cricket”.
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Debunking the ruling BJPdemand for an apology
from Congress president RahulGandhi for Madhya PradeshChief Minister Kamal Nath’scomment that MP's "youth"were losing jobs to migrantsfrom Uttar Pradesh and Bihar,Shiv Sena on Sunday demand-ed to know from its senioralliance partner as to why it didnot apologise for the manner inwhich north-Indians were beat-en up and driven out of Gujarata few months ago.
In a signed article writtenin Shiv Sena’s mouth-piece“Saamana”, the Sena spokesper-son and newspaper’s ExecutiveEditor Sanjay Raut ridiculedthe manner in which the BJP
made an issue of Kamal Nath’sdecision to accord priority injobs to local people and makeit mandatory on new industriesto reserve jobs for local people.
Raut wondered as to whatwrong Kamal Nath had done instating MP's "youth" were los-ing jobs to migrants from UttarPradesh and Bihar. “A contro-versy broke out after the newCM of MP made a statement tothis effect. The BJP made anissue of it even in Parliament.The BJP men demanded anapology from Rahul Gandhi. Afew months ago, hundreds ofyouths from north India werebeaten up and driven out of theBJP-ruled Gujarat on the issueof north-Indians corneringjobs there. At that time, the BJPdid not tender any apology”.
Known for his candidness,Union Minister and senior
BJP leader Nitin Gadkari putshis foot in mouth once again bysaying that the BJP-ledMaharashtra Government haddisproved the apprehensionthat, even a eunuch, if is mar-ried, could beget a child, but alocal irrigation project wouldnever be completed.
Speaking at a farmers’ rallyat Sangli in westernMaharashtra, Gadkari said “Wehad an apprehension that evena eunuch, if is married, canbeget a child, but irrigation pro-jects in Maharashtra wouldnever be completed. But, ourGovernment has disproved ourapprehension and completedthe long-pending Tembu irri-gation project in Sangli district”.
“The Tembu irrigation pro-
ject was stuck for some manyyears. Even we had thought itwould never be completed.But, this project has been com-pleted during the tenure ofour Government in the State,”Gadkari said.
Gadkari said that the MahaGovernment had completedmany pending irrigation pro-jects during the last four years.
Gadkari’s reference toeunuchs is bound to spark acontroversy in the State. The“eunuch begetting a child” con-troversy comes on the heels ofanother controversy over acomment reportedly made dur-ing a conversation with a mediachannel.
It may be recalled thatsometime in October this year,a video surfaced in whichGadkari is quoted as saying inMarathi that the BJP "was con-fident it could never come to
power. So some leaders sug-gested, just make tall promises.If we do not come to power, wewon't be responsible anyway."Rahul Gandhi shared the pur-ported video on his twitterhandle and commented: "Youare right. The public alsobelieves that the Govt exploit-ed their dreams and their trust."
On his part, Gadkari clar-ified latter that he did notname PM Modi, the BJP nordid he speak of giving �15 lakhto people. Alluding to the video,Gadkari said: “During theMaharashtra State Assemblypolls (late BJP leader) GopinathMunde ji and (Chief Minister)Devendra ji (Fadnavis) hadtold him to announce that tollwould be abolished the BJPcomes to power. I said let's notdo it because this action willlead to problem as it will be dif-ficult to implement it.
Shillong: The man, who wasarrested in connection with themine mishap in Meghalaya'sEast Jaintia Hills district a fort-night ago, has admitted that hewas the owner of the 370-foot-deep illegal quarry, police saidon Sunday.
Fifteen miners were trappedin the "rat-hole" mine onDecember 13 after water fromnearby Lytein river gushed intoit. All efforts to trace the labour-ers have turned futile as thewater level in the mine showedno signs of receding in the past11 days. Krip Chullet, who wasarrested on December 14,admitted during interrogationthat the mine in Lumthari villageof Khliehriat area — around 80
km from Shillong — belongedto him, Superintendent of PoliceSylvester Nongtynger told PTI.
Two mine managers,Mohesh and James Sukhlain, arestill on the run, he said.
Sukhlain facilitates mineoperations, while Mohesh is theperson responsible for bringinglabourers from West Garo Hillsdistrict and Assam, the SP said.
Earlier, the police had saidChullet was involved in hiringlabourers and sending themdown the shaft. Around 20miners had entered the 370-footmine on Dec 13. After reachingthe bottom of the pit, theyentered the horizontal tunnels,often termed "rat-holes", as eachjust about fits one person. PTI
First things first, I would like to wishall the readers of The Pioneer amerry Christmas and a HappyNew Year. We all know that 2019will be a very dramatic year for
India because in less than 10 weeks, theElection Commission will announce theschedule for the next general election. Andwe will, hopefully, by the end of May, havethe next Government in power. I do nothave a crystal ball and I cannot gaze intothe future and tell you who will be sworninto the office by President Ram NathKovind. But I can predict that the upcom-ing elections will be a dirty battle, full ofinnuendoes, unsubstantiated rumours andallegations of wrongdoings — whether trueor false.
It is not as if these shenanigans havenot taken place in elections before. Indeedever since the Athenians invented the con-cept of democracy, elections have beendirty. But 2019 in India will be differentbecause it will be the first truly digital elec-tion process. Yes, the Bharatiya Janata Partyand Prime Minister Narendra Modi pio-neered the usage of social media and onlinemessaging applications in 2014. But in thepast five years, as dramatically lower dataprices and access to cheap Chinese-mademobile devices have enabled more than300-350 million Indians access to a smart-phone — a three-fold increase since the lastelections — things will be very different.
First and foremost, levels of digital lit-eracy in India are very poor. Keep in mind,this does not equate with literacy. A lackof digital literacy affects the highly educat-ed people as well who tend to believe what-ever they read on the internet. While thereis some evidence to prove that people areless likely to believe images on the inter-net — as they now know images can bemanipulated — there are studies thatshow that people tend to believe informa-tion they read on the internet, especiallyone from a formal sounding uniformresource locator (URL) or web address.
The cynical among you and digitalnatives would always take a close look atthe URL and see if it is real or fake, espe-cially when it comes to financial transac-tions. But the rampant cases of phishing,where personal and financial informationis stolen using fake websites that lookdeceptively like that of a real bank, are com-mon. There are job hoaxes that are distress-ingly common online, especially in India.
And the problem is worst when itcomes to news — it does not take muchto create a fake or even malicious news siteor video. With some snazzy editing andheadline writing, along with stolen content,one can create a fake website for even awell-known media brand. For example,someone can create a dailypioneerr.comwebsite and one’s brain might not evenprocess the second ‘r’ in the domainname. And being a fake of an old and trust-
ed brand, one might believewhat he/she will read on sucha fake website.
There is also a problemwith ‘news apps,’ often embed-ded on a smartphone when oneacquires it. These applications,which may or may not havebeen certified by a third partysuch as Google, can easilyspread fake information in theguise of news to derive politi-cal benefit.
Now we know which coun-try manufacturers all thesedevices. So, the pertinent ques-tion is: Can China manipulatethe Indian electorate by spread-ing fake news? Short answeryes. Of course, the currentproblem with many of theseapplications, which unlike ser-vices of WhatsApp, Facebookor Twitter, where there areredressal systems no matterhow slow, is that they have nocontrol. Some of them are alsohiring hundreds of contentcreators to curate informationthat can move markets, such asspreading fake news on fooditems, cures for diseases andIndian politics.
And even if there is aredressal system, the timelinefor an election, the actual phys-ical voting day, is quite short.What if a fake video about a sexscandal of a popular politiciangot into your device at 8 am onthe polling day, the exact timewhen the booths open?
Being a secondary scandal,
the likelihood of such a videobecoming viral, that is spread-ing rapidly, is extremely high.And what is known as ‘deepfake’ video technology existstoday. You genuinely cannotmake out if video or speechpatterns have been faked. Andwhen you add a fake logo of arespectable news organisation,the trust value goes up.
Even if such a video is dis-credited in two-three hours, athird of the polling day is over,and retractions take a lot longerto spread in the news cycle. Thedamage is done. You mighthave been disgusted with thesaid politician for being moral-ly corrupt and might evenhave changed your vote. Onedoes not need to look at justforeign powers for this. Thepropensity of political party’sinformation technology cell, tospread such information direct-ly or through surrogates suchas news websites in their con-trol, is happening right now.
Given that many seats areclose, even if a few thousandvoters change their mind, voteor do not vote or even press the‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA)button, it can swing a seat. Andsince most predictions have2019 as a frightfully close elec-tion in the present scenario,this could dramatically alter theresult of who comes to power.
So we know the problem,what can be done about it? Firstthings first, some action has to
be taken against smartphonenews applications that are clear-ly being run out of China. Onecannot check the veracity ofevery single news item andevery single website. But therehas to be some way of checkingthe ownership and editorialleadership of websites, just likeprint publications fall under thePress Council of India and aresubject to defamation laws.Even television channels needclearance from the HomeMinistry. There has to be someway of verifying informationfrom websites.
The problem here, ofcourse, is that some websitesare clearly run by surrogatesbased abroad, and free speechabsolutists would rather slittheir wrists than allow moder-ated content in India. And thisalso leads to the question: Whomoderates the websites? Can aGovernment stop access towebsites and information itfeels distinctly uncomfortablewith even if the news items aretrue? Or do we take the nuclearoption and restrict internetaccess 48 hours before polling?
There are no easy answersand frankly, it might be too lateto do much ahead of the 2019elections. But this is a problem.A problem that we must allaccept and so should theElection Commission of India.
Sir — This refers to the editorial,“A demon called waiver”(December 21). It is an irony thatpolitical parties promise loanwaivers to strengthen their hold onpower and to please the farmingcommunity. One doubts whetherthey are genuinely concernedabout the farmers’ interests. TheCongress promised loan waiversin their election manifesto tocome back to power. And even-tually, they did come to power.
But the drain on the exche-quer as a result of loan waivers islarge. This can affect the econo-my. This because the money,which should actually be used fordevelopmental purpose, is divert-ed towards fulfilling waiverpromises. How then will theState Governments manage fundsthat are essential for infrastruc-ture and development projects?
Devendra KhuranaBhopal
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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “A demon called waiver”(December 21). The agenda of
loan waivers as pursued by theCongress will not benefit eitherthe farming community or theeconomy as a whole. Congresschief Rahul Gandhi said, “We willnot let Modi sleep till he waivesoff all farm loans”. Increasing loanwaivers will mean a greater fiscalburden on the economy as well asthe Government. This may inreturn slow down overall growth.Besides, the Government, too
may face a lot of problems. Thus, it is for the
Government to chalk out aprocess that can make the eco-nomic system strong. Otherwise,GDP growth will be stable ormight even take long time. In thepursuit of power, the country’seconomic development shouldnot be sacrificed.
Najmul HalimeeMumbai
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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Kamal Nath’s faux pas”(December 20). Every citizen ofIndia has the right to live an workanywhere in the country. MadhyaPradesh Chief Minister KamalNath’s argument that the youth ofhis State have been deprived ofjobs because of migrants from
Bihar and Uttar Pradesh is real-ly an unfortunate one. It may bethe case that Nath’s viewpointmay find favour with the youthof his State, but it does not real-ly bode well for the country.Selection of jobs must be made onthe basis of one’s qualities and tal-ent and not on one’s identity. Ifevery State Government makesefforts to improve employmentopportunities in its own State,why would the youth need to seekjobs elsewhere?
Mohd UmarMadhya Pradesh
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Sir — The Indian Space ResearchOrganisation made the countryproud with the launch of GSAT-7A, a geostationary communica-tion satellite, from the SatishDhawan Space Centre inSriharikota. This new satellite,along with GSAT-7 and GSAT-6,dubbed the ‘Indian Angry Bird’, willform the band of communicationssatellite for use by the military.
You could write a heart-warmingfairy tale about the turbulentevents in the island nation of Sri
Lanka in the past two months. It wouldinvolve a conniving President, whoabruptly and illegally dismisses theelected Prime Minister, and replaceshim with a corrupt and blood-soakedformer despot who was the President’sold boss. The despot, now claiming tobe the real Prime Minister, tries tostrengthen his position by offeringMembers of Parliament jobs asMinisters in his new Government. Ifenough accept, he would have a major-ity in the Parliament and could claimto be sort of legitimate. But most of theMPs turn down the political bribes onoffer, and Parliament twice votes toreject his claims.
Finally, after 50 days of chaos, the
judges of the Supreme Court say thatthe President has acted illegally and theex-despot can’t claim that he is thePrime Minister. At this point, thedespot resigns and the President grudg-ingly ‘re-appoints’ the legitimate PrimeMinister. Virtue triumphs, and joy isunconfined. Maybe they even livehappily ever after. It’s an engaging tale,and the basic outlines are true, but inthe real world, the historical and socialcontext that surrounds the eventschanges the tone of everything.
Sri Lanka is only 10 years awayfrom the end of a brutal civil war thatlasted for a quarter-century, and the‘despot’ is the man who won it by beingmore brutal than anybody else. Hisname is Mahinda Rajapaksa. The warwas about race and religion. Most of SriLanka’s people speak the Sinhalese lan-guage and identify with the Buddhistreligion. A minority several millionstrong, concentrated in the north andeast, speak Tamil and are mostlyHindu in religion (with a significantChristian minority). Tamils have beenin Sri Lanka for at least 2,000 years, butthe Buddhist majority tends to see them
as alien and even as newcomers.The Tamils did well under British
colonial rule, when most BuddhistSinhalese refused to collaborate withtheir new political masters. There wasrevenge-taking after independence,when Buddhist-dominatedGovernments removed the officialstatus of the Tamil language andimposed restrictions on higher educa-tion for Tamils. There were even anti-Tamil pogroms. Buddhist intolerancetowards non-Buddhist minorities is notunique to Sri Lanka, as the Rohingyaminority in Burma can readily attest,
but in Sri Lanka, the Tamil minoritywas big enough to fight back. It did so,starting in 1987, in a guerrilla and ter-rorist war that sought an independentTamil state in the north and east of theisland.
Up to 100,000 people died in thewar, which ended with an orgy ofkilling (40,000) in the final five monthsof battles in 2009. Mahinda Rajapaksawas the President who directed thosebattles, in which Tamils trying to sur-render were often killed, and heemerged from the war as a nationalhero. With his populist, nationalist style
making him a favourite with theSinhalese masses, he seemed set for avery long run in power. HisGovernment continued to torture andmake opponents ‘disappear’ and hisfamily grew rich from corrupt deals.But in 2015, one of his Cabinet min-isters, Maithripila Sirisena, defectedfrom the Government, ran against himfor the presidency — and won. To hiscredit, Rajapaksa accepted his defeat.Sirisena found a new ally in RanilWickremesinghe, whose business-friendly United National Party had wona majority in Parliament, and appoint-ed him as the Prime Minister. However,the new allies had little in common andestrangement between them grew.
The key issue that broke thealliance was trade: Sirisena preferred tomake deals with China,Wickremesinghe with nearby India. OnOctober 25, 2018, Sirisena sackedWickremesinghe (illegally) andappointed Rajapaksa as Prime Ministerinstead. Wickremesinghe pointed outthat Sirisena didn’t have the power todo that and barricaded himself intoTemple Trees, the Prime Minister’s offi-
cial residence. Rajapaksa couldn’t getenough members of Parliament toswitch sides. They voted twice toremove Rajapaksa, so Sirisena dis-missed Parliament and called for new elections.
That was illegal, too, and thestruggle continued until December 13,2018, when the Supreme Court ruledthat Sirisena could not dissolveParliament. At that point Rajapaksaresigned, and later, an angry Sirisenagrudgingly swore Wickremesingheback in as the Prime Minister. Anencouraging outcome, in whichParliament, the courts and the gener-al public behaved better than anybodyexpected, but of course the story isnever really over. Sirisena canConstitutionally dismiss Parliament 15months from now, and Rajapaksamay well win the next election.Meanwhile, Wickremesinghe’sGovernment may be almost paralysedbecause relations between Sirisenaand him are poisonous. The fairy-taleis to be preferred whenever possible.
(The writer is an independent journalist)
Follow the sage’s advice
NEW DELHI | MONDAY | DECEMBER 24, 2018
I FEAR FOR THE SAFETY OF MY CHILDREN IN INDIAWHERE THE LIFE OF A COW IS MORE SIGNIFICANT
THAN THE LIFE OF THE INDIANS.— ACTOR
NASEERUDDIN SHAH
THIS IS THE SECOND ACTOR WHO SAID SO AFTERENJOYING ALL THE BENEFITS THAT THIS COUNTRYHAD TO OFFER. HE SHOULD GO TO PAKISTAN.— SHIV SENA LEADER MANISHA KAYANDE
POINTCOUNTERPOINT
On December 22, 1901, history was cre-ated in Indian education whenRabindranath Tagore inaugurated hisschool in Shantiniketan. Variousaspects of education and learning
were churning his mind all along ever since he, asa child, experienced what went on in the schools.Gradually, he evolved his own perception of theprocess of acquisition of knowledge and startedplanning to give it a practical shape. He started byteaching his own children but realised that sporadicinitiatives would not work. As Tagore’s biograph-er, Krishna Kripalani, put it: “Having suffered frombad teaching in his childhood, Tagore had thoughtmuch, and written, too, on the fundamentals ofteaching, and now, he gained a new insight byputting his principles into practice. But teachingone’s children haphazardly is not enough. He need-ed a wider field for systematic experimentation. Hethought, why not shift to Shantiniketan and starta small experimental school there?” His thoughtprocess was already influenced by the ancientgurukula system and the way knowledge was dis-pensed and acquired there, naturally.
Sages and saints lived with their pupils, present-ed the ideals of simple living and universal think-ing. Tagore was convinced that the best teacher wasnature. He wanted to recreate the joyful, soulful andinspiring environment of Tapovan that could addgrace and beauty to the entire process of learning,internalising knowledge and acquiring skills to utiliseit for the welfare of the people. Revival and inclu-sion of the basics of ancient Indian system were theonly way out of the soulless and mechanical systemthat had replaced it.
Tagore summarised the essence of his education-al ideas when he declared that the great use of edu-cation was “to know man and to make oneself knownto man.” And towards this, everyone must get achance to learn the language of intellect and also the‘language of art’ that is essential for overall person-ality development. His own experiences of school-ing were indeed highly uninspiring. Hard benches,dull prison-like walls and the ‘master’ who ‘lookedlike a cane incarnate.’
Tagore once said, “As soon as I entered the class-room, the benches and tables forced themselves rude-ly on my attention, elbowing and jostling their wayinto my mind. They were always the same — stiff,cramping and dead.” Things, it is officially claimedat this juncture, have changed — at least in princi-ple — but the overall environment in most of theschools remains more or less unattractive and uninvit-ing as in the times of Tagore’s childhood. It is stillthe same painful, overstressing and creativity-killing environment that maintains the regime of“cram and exam.”
Even at home, learning has become a ‘task’ thatmust be performed mechanically. “As I read, I nod,then jerk myself again with a start but miss far morethan I read. When finally I tumble into the bed, Ihave at least a little time to call my own.” His unpleas-ant experiences, both in school and during privatetuition at home, convinced him that it was not thesystem that encouraged flowering of human talentand personality. Whatever time he spent in school-ing and his initial earning gave him the knowledgeof the wrongs suffered by children. The so-called dis-cipline in schools practically debarred students fromparticipating in activities that naturally attracted them
— they felt fettered and imprisoned.Tagore could never reconcile to the ideaof children being made to sit like “speci-men of some museum in classrooms,while lessons are being pelted at themfrom high-like hailstorm on flowers.”
All that he experienced and disliked,fired the imagination of young Tagoreto visualise better ways to educate. Andthis thought process that began ratherearly and resulted in the creation of thepersona of the gurudev. His search fora universal humane approach to theexisting system of imparting and receiv-ing education, knowledge and wisdomwas a lifelong process.
As the scion of a zamindar family,with a very sensitive and compassion-ate mind, his life-long passion was notonly education, culture and art, but alsothe economic rehabilitation of theIndian village. His consistent and life-long interest was the welfare of Indianpeasants. Simultaneously, the sensitivepoet was keenly observing the peopleof India, their miseries, strengths, self-ishness, readiness to sacrifice, patience,heroism and sense of resignation to fateand in the process accepting injusticewithout manly retaliation.
Tagore understood India — its peo-ple and its tradition of knowledge quest— its contemporary relevance and defi-ciencies that grew due to the lack ofdynamisms and reluctance to move withcurrent times. While his outstanding con-tributions in the intellectual arena arerecognised and revered throughout Indiaand abroad, his singular and sensitivity-filled initiatives for the masses are oftenovershadowed. Not many know that hehad, along with Shantiniketan, alsofounded a parallel institution — Sriniketan— for the welfare of the peasants.
These farm labourers needed sup-port, including inputs of new ideas, skillsand outputs of new experiments andinnovations that were feasible because ofdevelopments in science and technolo-gy. He donated a part of the Nobel Prizeamount to his school in Shantiniketan
and invested a substantial portion in acooperative bank that was created by himto help needy peasants on his familyestate. He realised that people needed tobe inspired about their inner potentialand ways to manifest it, moving out ofthe shackles of despondency and rejuve-nate their lives through regeneration ofself-assurance and acquisition of requi-site levels of knowledge and skills.
It was the sensitivity to the lives of thecommon man around which a consider-able number of his stories were woven;mostly his narratives revolved aroundtheir lives, times and travails. Tagore wasconvinced that the objective of educationmust be constructed around bringingabout excellence in human lives by edu-cation that would dispel the darkness ofignorance. His idea of education did notmean a pedantic acquisition of knowledgebut true wisdom: “We have to keep inmind the fact that love and action are theonly media through which perfect knowl-edge can be obtained, for the object ofknowledge is not pedantry but wisdom.”Once an individual expands his /her can-vas of outlook and awareness througheducation, s/he can express himself/her-self with self-assurance, and that wouldgive him/her the sense of complete free-dom that everyone wishes to achieve.“Apathy and ignorance are the worst formsof bondage for man; they are the invisi-ble walls of confinement that we carryaround us when we are in their grip.”
Once the cloud of darkness is dis-persed through the light of the right kindof education, given and received in a con-genial and sensitive environment, itwould be easy to comprehend the ‘unityof truth.’ This is one aspect that has beencreating so much turmoil in human exis-tence at this stage. It manifests in the shapeof war, violence, distrust, fundamentalism,insecurity, misery, hunger and poverty.
To move ahead to ameliorate inhu-man trends and tendencies, educationsystems should focus not only on theintellectual aspect, but equally on phys-ical, intellectual and emotional charac-
teristics. The need for this is in some waybeing acknowledged and accepted interms of ‘spiritual quotient.’ It requiresserious consideration by policy-makersof current times: “The young mindshould be saturated with the idea that ithas been born in the human world whichis in harmony with the world around it.And this is what your regular type ofschool ignores with an air of superior wis-dom, severe and disdainful. It forciblysnatches children away from a world fullof mystery of God’s own handiwork fullof the suggestiveness of personality.”
It is evident that Tagore liked everylearner to be well aware of his/herresponsibility to strengthen the sensi-tive bond between man and nature.And that would be possible and prac-tical only when human beings learn torespect each other, realise the unity indiversity, appreciate the beauty of mul-tiplicity of every conceivable variety,including the religious plurarism.
Familiarity with the basics ofTagore’s philosophy of education can goa long way in re-orienting the presentsystem that is causing much concern toevery thinking mind. Inadequacies inpersonality development, internalisationof values of social cohesion and religiousamity, human responsibility in maintain-ing sensitive human-nature relationshipare now appearing before us in fright-ening proportions. The system Tagoreenvisioned is universally applicable. Itcould also be interpreted as a total accep-tance of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam inpragmatic terms. It’s time India recon-siders the basics of its education policyand systemic structures on this count:Is it nurturing the power of ideas andimagination among the learners, orstunting them? It’s time to consider howcuriosity and creativity is encouragedand inspired to flourish without anyshackles. It has an organic link to theprocess of growth and development ofthe country and its people.
(The writer is the Indian Representativeon the Executive Board of UNESCO)
Sri Lanka story may not end happily
Rabindranath Tagore’s vision of education was one that is universally acceptable. It'stime India reconsiders the basics of its education policy and systemic structures
One could write a heart-warming fairy tale about the turbulent events in the island nation in the past two months. But the story is never really over. The fairy tale will be preferred whenever possible
Most of us love talking. As our level of agitation grows, webreak away from our mother tongue and switch to English.The voice gets shriller, arguments become incoherent,
and soon, intimidation enters the strategic options of the two con-tending parties. So long as both sides play dumb charades, there’sno significant resolution of issues and no serious anxiety. Troublebegins when one side escalates unreasonableness, which usu-ally ends in abuses. The other side may begin by keeping calmbut ultimately succumbs to retaliation in face of continuous aggres-sion. When this happens to people below 30 years of age, it canbe written off, maybe wrongly, as immaturity. Beyond 30 years,it can only be foolhardiness and an invitation to the other partyto dare. The bluff gets called sooner rather than later and thenall hell is let loose. Even newspapers, dotted with tales of con-flict, which began as verbal duels and punishments to some, havenot helped others to learn from the sorry twist to sordid tales ofinvectiveness.
One might ask, why do two people of this description everget together? Reasons can be many — they may be staying underthe same roof, their communities and work may bring them togeth-er, in short it may be just about anything. The urge to commandand have things one’s way leads not only to counter-productiveverbal duels, but at times, as indicated in earlier lines, to phys-ical violence or even worse. What is narrated above is neitheruncommon nor can it be laid at the doors of youthfulness. Nobodygains and yet very few, if anyone, learn. Such scenes are com-mon everywhere. Looking at all this, one may well wonder if humanbeings are capable of significant evolution. Community life is nodifferent — there it is called freedom of speech. Elections to fiveStates are barely over, and the president of a national party hasset the standards high on intimidation by claiming that he willnot let the leader of the ruling party sleep. If that is his ambition,who can grudge it? Yet, it holds to reason that if perpetrators ofsuch abuse had really nothing to gain, then such petty intimida-tions would hardly have been made. The fact is, given a con-tentious situation, election or otherwise, wild rhetoric without anyobvious agenda does seem to give some advantages to the dem-agogue of the day.
This is not a good example for the generation in a forma-tive phase. Almost 15 or 20 years later, when they graduate tounbridled adulthood, they may even find vile invectives as nor-mal or useful weaponry. In an era of lumpen assertiveness, mis-construed formulations on gender parity and search for identi-ty without the responsibility to carry one’s identity can be a sui-cidal proposition. It is not just a coincidence that endemic domes-tic and street violence is escalating. People, who would calmlydrive past an accident-hit victim gasping for breath, or overlooka woman being physically harassed, suddenly become cham-pions of reasonableness once their own interests are hurt. It maynot be fashionable anymore to read religious texts for their sheerliterary beauty or philosophical insights but to convert them intoa denominational proposition of a campaign. However, the truthis that everyone is interested in finding out the truth and it hurtswhen one realises that s/he was wrong all along. It is preciselythese double standards of running with the hare and hunting withthe hound that can be disastrous. It is only when one realisesthe unreasonableness of one’s logic that he/she will make amend-ments. There is no formula to cause this awareness. Decision-making in communities, organisations and the nation seems tobe a victim of this malaise.
The outcome is for everyone to see. The individual is struckwith hypertension, communities are embroiled in sub-terraneantug-of-war, larger communities in vilification and the nation at largewith unprecedented foul public discourse. This is a road tonowhere. A movement of self-analysis, introspection and objec-tive thinking would clearly be in order. The trouble is our nationis so possessed with talks of piety, religiosity and fear of the divine,there seems to be few takers of personal growth, self-improve-ment with clear thinking. Pilgrimages will be undertaken and vowsoffered in anxiety or aspiration. Religious places spawn their ownculture of petitioning the almighty. This covers everything fromtying threads around the trees to making offerings in places ofworship but one simple thing which can be done goes by default— and that is to think straight. One should simply hold one’speace and not talk in a manner in which he/she doesn’t want tobe talked to. The ironies of life, when they stop tickling, some-times also cause tears to dry. Yet, life goes on.
(The writer is a well-known management consultant)
analysis 09F I R S T C O L U M N
Invectives, angerand chaos
VINAYSHIL GAUTAM
GWYNNE DYER
Our nation is so possessed with talk of piety andreligiosity that there seems to be few takers
of self-improvement with clear thinking
JS RAJPUT
F O R E I G N E Y E
In choosing Mattis as hisDefence Secretary, Trumpsent a reassuring signal thathe would be relying on anexperienced leader. Mattis’resignation suggests thathe now thinks Trump isbeyond persuasion, whichis frightening. It also raisesthe question of how Trumpcan be influenced to replaceMattis with someone willingto try to argue the Presidentout of impulsive decisions.(Los Angeles Timeseditorial)
MATTIS’ RESIGNATIONINDICATES BEGINNINGOF THE END
www.dailypioneer.com
TAGORE WASCONVINCED THAT
THE BEST TEACHERWAS NATURE. HE
WANTED TORECREATE AN
INSPIRINGENVIRONMENT OF
TAPOVAN THATCOULD ADD GRACE
TO THE ENTIREPROCESS OF
LEARNING. REVIVALAND INCLUSION OF
THE BASICS OFANCIENT INDIAN
SYSTEM WERE THEONLY WAY OUT OF
THE SOULLESS ANDMECHANICAL
SYSTEM THAT HADREPLACED IT
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India Inc on Sunday cheeredthe GST Council’s decision to
slash tax rates on 23 goods andservices and said the move willpush demand and boost theeconomy.
The council reduced taxrates on goods and servicesincluding movie tickets, TVand monitor screens and powerbanks, and exempted frozenand preserved vegetables fromthe levy.
The reduced rates are like-ly to come into effect fromJanuary 1, 2019, FinanceMinister Arun Jaitley toldreporters after the 31st meetingof the Goods and Services Tax(GST) Council here Saturday.
“At a time when strongerdemand can speed up growth,the reduction in tax rates foritems used by different sectionsof society can be expected toimpart a necessary boost to theeconomy,” CII Director GeneralChandrajit Banerjee said.
Rajeev Talwar, president,PHD Chamber of Commerceand Industry said consistentindirect tax revenue growthalong with reduction in highGST rates indicate that taxbase is widening and econom-ic activity is expanding.
Ficci President SandeepSomany said the GST Councilhas followed a pragmatic policyby bringing down rates gradually,taking into consideration the rev-enue realisation and affordabil-ity, and this will stabilise andstrengthen GST further.
The 28 per cent slab is nowrestricted to only luxury andsin goods apart from auto-partsand cement — the tax rate onwhich could not be cut due tohigh revenue implication.
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The GST Council is likely toconsider lowering GST on
under-construction flats andhouses to 5 per cent in its meet-ing next month, an officialsaid.
Currently, the Goods andServices Tax (GST) is levied at12 per cent on payments madefor under-construction prop-erty or ready-to-move-in flatswhere completion certificatehas not been issued at thetime of sale.
However, GST is notlevied on buyers of real estateproperties for which comple-tion certificate has been issuedat the time of sale.
An official said that this 12per cent GST rate ideally wouldhave been partially offset byway of taxes paid on inputs bybuilders and hence the actualincidence of GST on under-construction home buyerswould have been around 5-6per cent. However, buildersare not passing on the input taxcredit (ITC) benefit to con-sumers.
“One of the proposalsbefore the Council is to lowerthe GST rate to 5 per cent forbuilders who purchase 80 percent of inputs from registereddealers,” an official said. Theofficial said that currentlybuilders are paying for theinputs for construction in cashand are not passing on benefitsto consumers and hence, thereis a need to bring them to the
formal chan-nel.
M a j o rconstructionmaterial, cap-ital goods andinput servicesused for con-struction offlats and hous-es attract 18per cent GST,while cementattracts 28 percent tax. Prior to GST rollout,under-construction housingprojects attracted 4.5 per centservice tax and a value addedtax (VAT) of 1-5 per centdepending on the state. Alsoinputs used in constructionattracted 12.5 per cent exciseduty in addition to 12.5-14.5per cent VAT. Besides, entrytax was also levied on theinputs.
After adjusting for creditson inputs used, the effectiveper-GST tax incidence on suchhousing property was 15-18 percent. The Finance Ministryhas time and again asked realestate dealers to pass on GSTrate cut benefits to buyers, butto no avail. Briefing reportersafter the GST Council meetingon Saturday, Finance MinisterArun Jaitley had said thatbuilders can adjust some por-tion of the 12 per cent GSTagainst the taxes paid on inputslike cement which attract 28per cent levy.
“The potential homebuyersfeel they are not getting bene-
fited under GST. Certain pro-posals have come before theCouncil and the law and fit-ment committee will look intothe matter and the matter willcome up in the next councilmeeting. There was a totalconsensus that somethingneeds to be done,” Jaitley hadsaid.
Currently, in case of afford-able housing projects likeJawaharlal Nehru NationalUrban Renewal Mission, RajivAwas Yojana, Pradhan MantriAwas Yojana or any other hous-ing schemes of state govern-ments, GST is levied at 8 percent, which can be adjusted bybuilders against its accumulat-ed ITC.
The Finance Ministry hadearlier this month said that forsuch affordable housing pro-jects, after offsetting ITC, thebuilder or developer in mostcases will not be required to payGST in cash as the builderwould have enough ITC in hisbooks of account to pay theoutput GST.
Christmas and the beginning of2019 behind bars after a Tokyocourt on Sunday extended hisdetention through to January 1.
The court’s decision is thelatest twist in a rollercoastersaga that has gripped Japan andthe business world since theauto sector titan was arrestedout of the blue in Tokyo onNovember 19.
“Today, a decision wasmade to detain (Ghosn). Thefull term of the detention willexpire on January 1,” the TokyoDistrict Court said in a state-ment to media.
This does not howevermean that Ghosn can expect totaste freedom on New Year’sDay, as prosecutors can applyfor a further 10-day extensionas they quiz him on allegationsof financial misconduct.
Authorities are pursuingthree separate lines of enquiryagainst the 64-year-old Franco-Lebanese-Brazilian executive.
They suspect he conspiredwith his right-hand man, USexecutive Greg Kelly, to hideaway around half of his income(some five billion yen or $44million) over five fiscal yearsfrom 2010.
They also allege he under-reported his salary to the tuneof four billion yen over the nextthree fiscal years — apparent-ly to avoid criticism that his paywas too high.
The third allegation is thathe shifted a personal invest-ment loss made at the height of
the financial crisis worth morethan $16 million to theJapanese automaker with helpfrom a Saudi acquaintance.
Prosecutors have pressedformal charges over the firstallegation but not yet over theother accusations.
Ghosn reportedly denies allthe allegations, saying thetransactions were done legally.
In connection with thethird suspicion, local media sayGhosn is not contesting thatpayments from Nissan totalling$14.7 million went to the Saudiperson, whom he has knownfor some three decades.
But Ghosn has maintainedthat the money was for the per-son’s work to help Nissan in theregion.
Ghosn’s case has seen sev-eral twists and turns since hisstunning arrest on the night ofNovember 19 as his private jettouched down at Tokyo’sHaneda Airport.
On Thursday, observerswere caught wrong-footed asthe court threw out a requestfrom prosecutors to extendhis detention over the secondset of allegations (under-reporting his salary between2015 and 2018) in an almostunheard-of move.
This raised his hopes of arelease in time for Christmasand he was reportedly gearingup to hold a news conferenceto put his side of the story forthe first time.
But those hopes were thendashed on Friday when prose-cutors sought and obtainedhis re-arrest over the new accu-sations of breach of trust. “The
accused was responsible formanaging Nissan’s overall oper-ations and for dutifully fulfill-ing his role as CEO not to causedamage to Nissan and its sub-sidiaries... But he took actionthat betrayed his role andcaused financial damage toNissan,” prosecutors alleged ina statement on Friday.
Since his arrest, the oncejet-setting executive has lan-guished in a tiny cell in adetention centre in northernTokyo, where he has com-plained about the cold and therice-based menu.
Ghosn has told embassyvisitors he is being well treat-ed and sources at French cargiant Renault have describedhis frame of mind as “combat-ive” as he fights the chargesagainst him.
His lengthy detention — inJapan, suspects can be “re-arrested” several times over dif-ferent allegations — hassparked criticism, especiallyfrom abroad.
After his arrest last month,Nissan and Mitsubishi Motorspromptly sacked Ghosn aschairman but Renault kepthim on and appointed an inter-im boss as it waited to assessthe legal procedures againsthim.
In addition to chargesagainst Ghosn and Kelly, pros-ecutors had also indictedNissan itself, as the companysubmitted the official docu-ments that allegedly under-reported the income.
Kelly, who was also arrest-ed last month, could bereleased as early as next week.
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Foreign investors havepumped in close to �4,000
crore in the Indian capitalmarkets this month so far onstrengthening rupee and eas-ing global crude oil prices.
This comes following a10-month high net inflow ofover �12,266 crore in thecapital markets (equity anddebt) by Foreign PortfolioInvestors (FPIs) in November.
According to data avail-able with the depositories,FPIs infused a net amount of�1,332 crore in equities and�2,552 crore in the debt mar-kets, taking the total to�3,884 crore dur ingDecember 3-21.
Marketmen attributed theinflow to persistent fall incrude oi l pr ices , whichdropped to over 15-monthlows, and strengtheningrupee against the dollar.
However, till December 7,FPIs were net sellers in theequity market, pulling outfunds to the tune of �383crore. However, they had putin �2,744 crore in the debtmarkets during the periodunder review.
The sell-off by FPIs wastriggered after Chinese tele-com giant Huawei’s CFOMeng Wanzhou, who is alsothe company founder’sdaughter, was arrested inCanada for extradition to theUS for suspected Iran sanc-tions violations.
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Close to 1 million employeesof various banks, including
private lenders, have called fora one-day strike on December26 to protest against the pro-posed amalgamation of VijayaBank and Dena Bank withBank of Baroda.
The strike call comes onthe heels of an officers union ofstate-run banks observing aday-long strike last Friday onsimilar grounds along withdemand for immediate settle-ment of their wage negotia-tions.
In September, Governmenthad announced merger of state-owned Vijaya Bank and DenaBank, both under the promptcorrective action (PCA) frame-work of the RBI, with largerpeer Bank of Baroda, creatingthe third largest lender.
“This amalgamation is notin the interest of banks orbank customers. It is ratherdetrimental to both,” theUnited Forum of Bank Unions(UFBU) said.
The UFBU is an umbrellaorganisation of nine unions,including the All-India BankOfficers Confederation, theAll- India Bank EmployeesAssociation and the NationalOrganisation of Bank Workers,
among oth-ers.
T h eunions claimthat govern-ment wantsbanks togrow in sizeby this amal-g a m a t i o nbut even ifall publicsector banksare bundledinto one, themerged enti-ty cannot find a place amongthe top 10 globally.
The unions say post-merg-er, a large number of brancheswill be closed and customerswill be have to face hardshipsas already banks are burdenedwith various governmentschemes such as Jan DhanYojana, Mudra, social securityinsurance, and PM’s housingscheme, among others.
On December 26, theunions will take out a rally andhold a demonstration at theAzad Maidan in SouthMumbai.
Around 3.20 lakh officersfrom various state-run bankswere on a one-day strike onDecember 21, seeking imme-diate wage revision and oppos-ing the proposed merger.
The nation-wide strike hadpartially impacted bankingoperations affecting serviceslike deposits and withdrawal atbranches, cheque clearancesand issuance of demand drafts,among others.
Bank managements havemandated the industry lobbyIndian Bank Association (IBA)to negotiate for scale 1-3 butunions want this to be raised upto scale 7.
The wage talks are on forthe past 13 months between theunions and IBA, the latter hasoffered a wage revision of 8 justper cent.
In the past wage settle-ment, which was for the peri-od November 1, 2012 toOctober 31, 2017, the employ-ees got a 15 per cent hike.
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The ONGC board hasopined that it is not the
right time to list the firm’s over-seas investment arm ONGCVidesh on the bourses, sourcessaid.
The board of Oil andNatural Gas Corp (ONGC) onDecember 21 considered theGovernment demand for list-ing its profitable overseasinvestment arm ONGC VideshLtd (OVL).
The board deliberated onthe demand from theDepartment of Investment andPublic Asset Management(DIPAM) for the listing ofOVL but felt that the marketconditions are not right for anoil and gas exploration and pro-duction company to list, theysaid, adding that there were sev-eral complexities involved ingetting the firm listed.
OVL, sources said, hasassets in countries likeVenezuela, Iran, and Sudan,which are exposed to some orother Western sanctions.
These assets will have to befirst separated from the com-pany. While this may not be adifficult task, it would involveissues of capital gains and tax
thereon, they said.Also, OVL is heavily under
debt and such a move wouldrequire taking approval of allthe lenders — yet anothertedious job.
A third of its $28.45 billion(�1.51 lakh crore) investmentin 41 projects in 20 countrieshas been financed by loans.
More importantly, OVLhas been only in acquisitionmode till now and has not yetreached an economic modelwhere it can stand on its ownfeet. The company is depen-dent on its parent for evenguarantees for taking loans.
OVL has great assets and itwould reach that economicmodel once couple of its assetslike the giant gas field inMozambique starts produc-tion, they said.
OVL projects are in thedevelopment stage and an IPOwill get the best value whenthese projects are monetised,they said.
OVL’s giant gas field inMozambique will start pro-duction sometime in 2022when two LNG trains of 12million tonnes per annumcapacity are set up and gasexported in cryogenic ships.
Its Farzad-B gas field in
Iran is on hold in view of USsanctions on the Persian Gulfnation. Also, its Venezuelan oil-fields are producing much lessthan their potential.
According to a letterDIPAM wrote to ONGC man-agement in August, the listingof OVL would help unlockvalue by improving its corpo-rate governance and efficiency.
ONGC had helped theGovernment meet its disin-vestment target last fiscal whenit bought a 51.11 per centstake in state-owned HindustanPetroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL)for �36,915 crore.
After failing to find a buyerfor Air India, DIPAM is againlooking at ONGC to meet the�80,000 crore revenue mobili-sation target set out for it in theBudget for 2018-19 from thesale of Government stake inPSUs.
In the letter, DIPAM saidPSUs with a positive net worthand no accumulated lossesshould be listed to unlockvalue.
It, however, did not statehow much stake in OVLshould be sold for its listing.
Market regulator Sebi callsfor a minimum 25 per centpublic float for a listed com-
pany.Sources said proceeds of a
potential listing of OVL wouldaccrue to its parent ONGC butthe Government would seek aspecial dividend to reap that.
The Government owns67.45 per cent in ONGC. IfONGC were to declare entireproceeds of OVL listing as aspecial dividend, the govern-ment would get 67.45 per centof the amount.
The Government had in2015 as well asked ONGC tolist OVL. But the State-ownedfirm had at that time told theGovernment that it was not theright time to list as oil priceswere subdued and the compa-ny would not get the rightvalue.
Oil prices have sincerebounded and theGovernment is looking to cashin on that. Under its portfolio,OVL has reserves of 711 mil-lion tonnes of oil and oil equiv-alent natural gas.
In 2017-18, it produced9.35 million tonnes of crude oil,up from 8.43 million tonnes inthe previous year. Togetherwith natural gas, the output was14.16 million tonnes of oilequivalent, up from 12.80 mil-lion tonnes in the previous year.
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Finance Minister Arun Jaitleyand two of his Union
Cabinet colleagues are likely totravel to Switzerland’s snow-laden resort town of Davosnext month for the WorldEconomic Forum (WEF)Annual Meeting, which wouldalso be attended by three ChiefMinisters, including MadhyaPradesh’s Kamal Nath and over100 Indian CEOs.
Microsoft’s Indian-originCEO Satya Nadella and WorldBank President Jim Yong Kimwill be among the co-chairs ofthe 2019 edition of this annu-al congregation of world lead-ers from January 21-25.
Nadella and Kim would bejoined by six young leadersunder the age of 30 as co-chairs— Basima Abdulrahman fromIraq, Juan David Aristizabalfrom Colombia, Sweden’s NouraBerrouba, Julia Luscombe fromthe US, Mohammed HassanMohamud from Kenya andJapan’s Akira Sakano.
US President DonaldTrump is expected to join thiselite jamboree, to be attendedby over 3,000 global leadersfrom business, politics, gov-ernment, civil society, arts andmedia, for the second consec-utive year
The theme of the eventwould be ‘Globalization 4.0:Shaping a Global Architecturein the Age of the FourthIndustrial Revolution’, whilethere would be several India-focussed sessions. Besides, thecountry’s political scenario mayhog the limelight, with theevent taking place after fivestate polls and ahead of thenational election.
“Globalisation as we knowit may have peaked, but glob-al integration will continue. Itis fueled by the technologies ofthe Fourth IndustrialRevolution and the urgent needto address challenges such asclimate change and biodiversi-ty, job loss through automationand a threatening breakdownin global collaboration,” WEFFounder and ExecutiveChairman Klaus Schwab saidin a statement.
“All those changes will par-ticularly affect the next gener-ation. For this reason, it isessential to integrate their voiceprominently in building a newsustainable and inclusive glob-al architecture,” he added.
Besides Jaitley, the regis-tered participants from Indiainclude Commerce MinisterSuresh Prabhu and Petroleumand Natural Gas MinisterDharmendra Pradhan.
Organization (WTO) bytaking on board the views ofdeveloped as well as devel-oping countries, which isexpected to be discussed inD avo s , C om m e rc e an dIndustry Minister SureshPrabhu said.
Key trade ministers fromcountries including fromIndia would meet nextmonth on the sidelines of theWorld Economic ForumSummit at Davos to discussthe road ahead for the WTO.
“We are in the process ofpreparing an agenda forWTO, which will be accept-able to most of the countries,and which will take on boardthe views of developing anddeveloped countries,” Prabhutold.
“We (key trade ministers)are meeting on the sidelinesof Davos for mini-minister-ial on WTO, where we wouldlike to present this proposal,”he added.
The move assumes sig-nificance in the backdrop ofgrowing protectionism in theglobal trade. Several coun-tries are raising customs
duties to protect their indus-try.
Duty hike by the US oncertain steel and aluminiumproducts has triggered atrade war kind of situation.
The rich nations areforming groupings to prepareground for pushing newissues such as investmentfacilitation, preparing rulesfor e-commerce, promotinggender equality and reducingsubsidy on fisheries.
India has been keenlypushing agricultural issuesat the WTO. It has also beenraising its voice againstbringing new issues, espe-cially those which are notdirectly linked to trade, tothe negotiating table.
The talks at the WTO’s11th ministerial conferencecollapsed after the US wentback on its commitment tofind a permanent solution tothe public food stockholdingissue, a key matter for India.
The four-day conferencein Argentina, which endedwithout a ministerial decla-ration or any substantiveoutcome, did manage tomake feeble progress on fish-eries and e-commerce byagreeing to work pro-grammes.
Surface Go, Microsoft’sSurface device is now avail-
able in India on Flipkart at astarting price of �38,599.Weighing at just 522g, the 10-inch device offers laptop per-formance and tablet portabili-ty for individuals seeking a ver-satile form factor. Fitting snug-ly in most bags, the Surface Gois ideal for everyday tasks.
Powered by an IntelPentium Gold Processor 4415Y,users can expect to seamlesslylaunch an application likeOneNote, or stream videos fromNetflix. The processor, whichhas been chosen to manageperformance, battery life andthinness, provides the portablepower to get stuff done.
Surface Go offers full ver-satility that fulfils users’requirements, regardless ofmode. The built-in kickstand,a signature of Surface devices,has a full friction hinge whichextends to 165 degrees. Thehinge design helps users findthe perfect angle for any task:from adjusting the device angleon the plane to pushing thekickstand down to ink on aphoto to share with yourfriends.
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India needs to open up itsdredging market to boost
trade by its major ports whichat present cannot handle verylarge vessels in absence ofproper draft depth,Government think tank NitiAayog has said.
More competition mainlyfrom global players in dredgingactivities would help increaseand maintain draft depth atports and attract large vessels,enabling them to become hubports, the Aayog mentioned.
At present, the DredgingCorporation of India (DCI)and a limited set of private ven-dors serve the Indian dredgingmarket, limiting competition.
“The Government needs toopen up the dredging marketto attract more players, partic-ularly international players, indredging activities to increaseand maintain draft depth atports to attract large vessels andenable them to become hubports,” Niti Aayog has said.
Foreign players will be
attracted to the market if theGovernment takes measuressuch as consolidating dredgingcontracts across cohorts of portsand withdrawing, at least tem-porarily, the right to first refusalgiven to Indian vendors, it said.
To enable major ports tohandle large vessels, theGovernment has already madean action plan to increase thedraft depth of ports.
Most major ports havealready achieved a draft depthof 14 metres or more exceptKolkata Port, where deeperdraft has not been feasiblebecause of the riverine natureof the port.
Some major ports are striv-ing to achieve deeper drafts upto 18 metres. The outer har-bour in Visakhapatnam hasvery deep draft of more than 18metres. Work is in progress tocreate a draft of more than 18metres in Mormugao andKamarajar Port.
The Government current-ly holds 73.44 per cent inDredging Corporation of IndiaLtd (DCIL).
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Oil ministers from leadingOPEC nations said Sunday
they expect prices will arresttheir recent slide and rebalanceearly next year, when a deal onnew production cuts takeseffect.
Oil prices have shed morethan 36 per cent since earlyOctober to trade at $54 (47euros) per barrel, due to fearsof oversupply and weak glob-al demand.
But president of OPECand UAE Energy MinisterSuhail al-Mazrouei said that thesurplus in the oil market wassmall compared to 2017 andexpected it to vanish in one ortwo months.
“Based on available fig-ures, we have around 26 mil-lion barrels of surplus ...Compared to 340 million bar-rels in early 2017,” Mazroueitold a press conference inKuwait City.
“I think that we can easilydo with this surplus and reachmarket rebalance in one or two
months... In the first quarter ofnext year,” he said.
OPEC — a cartel of pro-ducer countries that has longmanipulated output of thecommodity, to influence glob-al prices in members’ favour —and non-OPEC membersagreed in early December totrim production by 1.2 millionbarrels a day from January 1, ina bid to shore up saggingprices.
Mazrouei said that therehas been higher than antici-pated supply on the market inrecent months, as US sanctionson Iran have had a less pro-nounced effect on the country’soil exports than had beenexpected.
Iraq’s Oil Minister Thameral-Ghadhban said that there isa consensus among OPEC andnon-OPEC producers to com-ply with the new agreement totrim output in a bid to stabilisethe market.
He said the new agreementis valid for six months and theministers will meet in April toassess the impact of the cuts.
people dead and hundredsmore injured after slammingwithout warning into beachesaround Indonesia’s SundaStrait, officials said on Sunday,voicing fears that the toll wouldrise further.
Hundreds of buildingswere destroyed by the wave,which hit the coast of southernSumatra and the western tip ofJava about 9:30 pm (1430GMT) on Saturday after a vol-cano known as the “child” ofKrakatoa erupted, national dis-aster agency spokesman SutopoPurwo Nugroho said.
Dramatic video posted onsocial media showed a wall ofwater suddenly crashing into aconcert by pop group“Seventeen” -- hurling bandmembers off the stage andthen flooding into the audi-ence.
In a tearful Instagram post,frontman Riefian Fajarsyahsaid the band’s bassist androad manager had been killedand his wife was missing.
Search and rescue teamswere scouring rubble for sur-vivors, with 222 people con-firmed dead, 843 peopleinjured and 28 missing,Nugroho said. Tsunamis trig-gered by volcanic eruptions arerelatively rare, caused by thesudden displacement of wateror “slope failure”, according to
the International TsunamiInformation Centre.
Unlike those triggered byearthquakes, they give author-ities no time to warn residentsof the impending threat.
The destructive wave left atrail of uprooted trees anddebris strewn across beaches. Atangled mess of corrugatedsteel roofing, timber and rub-ble was dragged inland atCarita beach, a popular spot forday-trippers on the west coastof Java.
Photographer OysteinAndersen described how hewas caught up in the disasterwhile on the beach taking pho-tos of Anak Krakatoa.
“I suddenly saw a bigwave,” he wrote on hisFacebook page.
“I had to run, as the wavepassed the beach and landed15-20m inland. (The) nextwave entered the hotel areawhere I was staying anddowned cars on the roadbehind it.” Asep Perangkat said
he was with his family whenthe wave surged throughCarita, carving a swathe ofdestruction.
“Cars were dragged about10 metres and so were con-tainers,” Perangkat told AFP.
“Buildings on the edge ofthe beach were destroyed, treesand electric poles fell to theground.
In Lampung province, onthe other side of the strait, LutfiAl Rasyid said he fled thebeach in Kalianda city, fearing
for his life. “I could not start mymotorbike so I left it and I ran...I just prayed and ran as far asI could,” the 23-year-old toldAFP.
Kathy Mueller from theInternational Federation ofRed Cross and Red CrescentSocieties said the toll was like-ly to rise as the conditions onthe ground became clearer.
“The situation, and thedeath toll, will remain fluidover the next days and evenweeks,” she told AFP.
Teams of aid workers werehelping to evacuate the injuredand bring in clean water, tar-paulins and provide shelter, sheadded, saying the group waspreparing for the possibility ofdiseases breaking out in thetsunami zone.
Anak Krakatoa, whichforms a small island in theSunda Strait between Java andSumatra, emerged around 1928in the crater left by Krakatoa,which erupted in 1883 killingat least 36,000 people.
“The cause of the undersealandslide was due to volcanicactivity of Anak Krakatoa,which coincided with a hightide due to the full moon,”Nugroho told reporters inYogyakarta.
He also said the death tollwould likely increase.
Indonesian authorities ini-tially claimed the wave was nota tsunami, but instead a tidalsurge and urged the public notto panic.
Over 45,000 people fromnearly 14,000 families have
been hit by flash floods trig-gered by heavy rains in SriLanka’s northern province.
No deaths or disappear-ances have been reported so far,disaster management officialssaid on Sunday. The five affect-ed districts are Mullaithivu,Kilinochchi, Mannar, Vavuniyaand Jaffna.
Some areas in the affecteddistricts received more than350 mm of rainfall last night,causing flash floods.
The officials said that over8,500 people have been shel-tered in 52 welfare camps.
The search and rescueteams have been mobilisedtogether with boats.
The Navy and the Armypersonnel have also beenengaged in the relief and rescuemissions.
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French President EmmanuelMacron called for “order”
on Sunday after a sixth week-end of “yellow vest” anti-Government protests markedby dwindling participation anda violent attack on police inParis.
Speaking during a visit tothe central African state ofChad where he was visitingFrench troops serving in acounter-terrorism forceMacron said: “There must beorder now, calm and harmony.Our country needs it.”
“It needs harmony, unity,sincere commitment to strongcollective causes and we mustheal the divisions,” said the 41-year-old centrist, who hasstruggled to tamp down theanger of the working poor insmalltown and rural Franceover falling spending powerand policies seen as tiltedtowards the rich.
A total of 38,600 peopletook part in a sixth round ofnationwide protests onSaturday, according to the inte-rior ministry — around half thenumber that demonstrated aweek earlier.
In Paris, the scene of fierceclashes and widespreaddestruction in previous weeks, the protests were main-ly peaceful.
But as evening fell, violence broke out again on the iconic Champs-Elyseesavenue.
In one incident that caused widespread outrage, agroup of three police officers on motorbike were forced tomake a hasty escape after coming under attack near the Champs-Elysees from agroup of demonstrators, whothrew electric scooters, pavingstones and other objects atthem.
A video of the incident,which was widely shared on social media, showed oneofficer pulling his gun andpointing it at the advancingprotesters.
He and his two colleagues— one of whom had his motor-bike knocked to the ground —then made their getaway.
The video showed that,seconds before the attack, the police had lobbed stun grenades at a group of protesters, who were some dis-tance away.
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Apartial US Governmentshutdown that entered its
second day on Sunday was setto stretch through Christmas,after Congress adjourned for theweekend with no deal in sightto end an impasse over fundingfor President Donald Trump’swall on the US-Mexico border.
Due to the shutdown -- inwhich several key US agenciesceased operations at 12:01 am(0501 GMT) Saturday -- Trumpsaid he would remain inWashington over Christmasinstead of going to Florida.
“I am in the White House,working hard,” the Republicanpresident tweeted. “We arenegotiating with the Democratson desperately needed BorderSecurity (Gangs, Drugs, HumanTrafficking & more) but it couldbe a long stay.”
Trump has dug in on hisdemand for USD5 billion forconstruction of the border wall,a signature campaign promise
and part of his effort to reduceillegal immigration. Democratsare staunchly opposed, and theabsence of a deal meant feder-al funds for dozens of agencieslapsed at midnight Friday.
The House ofRepresentatives and the Senateheld sessions on Saturday, butboth chambers adjourned with-out agreement, and no voteswere expected until Thursday.
Visitors to the capital’s park-like National Mall, home toattractions including warmemorials and the toweringWashington Monument, criti-cized the shutdown whichadded to an air of chaos in acapital still reeling from DefenseSecretary Jim Mattis’s resigna-tion last week over Trump poli-cies.
The uncertainty also helpedpushed Wall Street into anoth-er rout on Friday, ending itsworst week in a decade.
“Oh I think it’s ridiculous.It’s unnecessary,” Philip Gibbs,a retired business professor
from South Virginia, said of theshutdown.
Jeffrey Grignon, aWisconsin healthcare worker,said the politicians “need to stopacting like children” and do thework they were elected to do.
“It isn’t just one or two peo-ple. It’s all them,” he said.
Another visitor, HowardVander Griend, 57, predictedTrump will come out a winnerfrom the budget impasse.
“I don’t think the shut-down will pressure presidentTrump at all,” said VanderGriend, of Tennessee. “So Ithink he will get what he wantsand I think that’s a good thing.”
Although tourists could stillstroll along the Mall and visit itsopen-air sites, they found pub-lic restrooms closed. Some otherWashington tourist sites includ-ing the White House VisitorCenter, National ChristmasTree, and National Archives —home to the US Constitutionand other historic documents —were closed.
tion that brought Christmasgetaway flights to a standstill atLondon’s Gatwick Airport werereleased without charge onSunday, police said.
A 47-year-old man and a54-year-old woman from thetown of Crawley, near Britain’ssecond-busiest airport, werearrested on Saturday.
The police swooped afterthree days of disruption fromWednesday to Friday, affecting140,000 passengers.
“Both people have fullyco-operated with our enquiriesand I am satisfied that they areno longer suspects in the droneincidents at Gatwick,” SussexPolice detective chief superin-tendent Jason Tingley said in astatement.
Drones were sightedbuzzing around the airfieldmore than 50 times, forcing thegovernment to bring in spe-cialist military resources to
help counter the threat.The dangers posed by
drones include the possibility ofa device smashing into a pas-senger plane or being suckedup into an engine where itshighly flammable lithium bat-tery could cause a catastrophe.
“Our inquiry continues ata pace to locate those respon-sible for the drone incursions,and we continue to actively fol-low lines of investigation,” saidTingley.
“We ask for the public’scontinued support by reportinganything suspicious, contactingus with any information in rela-tion to the drone incidents atGatwick.”
The airport has offered a50,000 (USD 63,000, 56,000euro) pound reward for infor-
mation leading to the arrestand conviction of those respon-sible for the disruption.
Under recently-introducedlaws in Britain, drones cannotbe flown near aircraft or with-in a kilometre of an airport, orat an altitude of over 400 feet.
Violators face up to fiveyears in prison for endangeringan aircraft.
Gatwick, around 50 kilo-metres south of the Britishcapital, is the eighth-busiest air-port in Europe and sits behindMumbai as the world’s busiestsingle-runway air hub. On itswebsite, Gatwick said its run-way was open and it aimed torun a full schedule over theweekend.
Passengers were warnedto expect some delays and can-cellations as their airport triedto recover its operations.
“Safety is Gatwick’s toppriority and we are grateful forpassengers’ continued patienceas we work to get them to theirfinal destination in time forChristmas,” the airport said.
replace Defence Secretary JimMattis with his deputy PatrickShanahan, days after the out-going Pentagon chief quit whileciting key policy differenceswith the US president.
"I am pleased to announcethat our very talented DeputySecretary of Defense, PatrickShanahan, will assume the titleof Acting Secretary of Defensestarting January 1, 2019," theRepublican leader tweeted,accelerating Mattis's planneddeparture by two months.
"Patrick has a long list ofaccomplishments while servingas Deputy, & previouslyBoeing. He will be great!"
fragile ceasefire in Yemen’sport city of Hodeida arrived inthe rebel-held capital of Sanaaon Sunday, an AFP photogra-pher said.
Retired Dutch generalPatrick Cammaert is heading ajoint committee includingmembers of the governmentand the Huthi rebels, in chargeof monitoring a truce in theRed Sea city and its surround-ings.
Cammaert was greeted byhead of the Huthi delegation,Ali al-Mushki, and a number ofother members of the UNteam at Sanaa internationalairport. He did not commentupon arrival.
He is making a stop inSanaa before heading toHodeida, a lifeline port city thatserves as the entry point for themajority of imports to war-tornYemen, a UN official said,after holding talks Saturdaywith Yemen government offi-cials in Aden.
On Saturday, Cammaerturged the government and theSaudi-led coalition backing theloyalists to uphold the ceasefirethat came into effect last week,said UN spokesman StephaneDujarric.
He also “sought their com-mitment and cooperation tosecure the unhindered flow ofhumanitarian aid”, saidDujarric, adding thatCammaert will “convey similar messages” to the Huthis
in Sanaa.On Friday, the UN Security
Council unanimously approveda resolution authorising thedeployment of observers toHodeida, which is held by therebels and has been subjectedto an offensive by pro-govern-ment forces.
A halt to fighting in thestrategic port city followsintense diplomatic effortswhich culminated in peacetalks earlier this month inSweden, where the warringparties agreed to the trucewhich came into force onTuesday.
The ceasefire remainedshaky, however, with both sidesaccusing each other of viola-tions in Hodeida province.
The UN monitoring teamaims to secure the functioningof Hodeida port and supervisethe withdrawal of fighters fromthe city.
The text approved by the Security Council “insists onthe full respect by all parties ofthe ceasefire agreed” forHodeida.
It authorises the UnitedNations to “establish anddeploy, for an initial period of30 days from the adoption ofthis resolution, an advanceteam to begin monitoring” theceasefire, under Cammaert’sleadership.
Around 10,000 people havebeen killed since the Saudi-ledintervention, according to theWorld Health Organisation,although rights groups say thedeath toll could be five timeshigher.
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Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu sought
on Sunday to calm domesticconcerns over US PresidentDonald Trump’s decision towithdraw from Syria, saying hiscountry will still act againstIran there.
Netanyahu will also report-edly meet US Secretary of StateMike Pompeo when he travelsto Brazil for the January 1 inau-guration of new president JairBolsonaro.
The prime minister’s officehas not confirmed the meetingreported by Israeli media.
Trump last week said theIslamic State group had beendefeated and he was with-drawing the United States’2,000 troops from Syria.
Israel has seen the US pres-ence in neighbouring Syria as abulwark against its main enemyIran and a counterweight toRussia. Both Russia and Iransupport Syrian President Basharal-Assad’s regime in the coun-try’s civil war.
“The decision to removethe 2,000 US soldiers fromSyria won’t change our consis-tent policy,” Netanyahu said atthe start of a cabinet meeting.
“We will continue to actagainst Iran’s attempt to estab-lish a military presence inSyria, and if the need arises, wewill even expand our activitiesthere.” He added that he want-ed to “calm those concerned”.
“Our cooperation with theUnited States continues full-force, and takes place in manyfields -- the operational field,
the intelligence field, and manyother security fields.”
Separately, Israel’s militarychief of staff Gadi Eisenkot tolda conference on Sunday thatthe US decision was “a signif-icant event but it should not beoverstated”. “For decades we’vebeen handling this front alone,”Eisenkot said.
Trump’s decision to with-draw from Syria -- as well asreduce forces in Afghanistan -- led US Defence Secretary JimMattis to quit in disagreement.
The US special envoy to
the coalition fighting theIslamic State group, BrettMcGurk, has also resigned.
The withdrawal abruptlyends American influence in thewar-ravaged country and givesTurkey an opening to attackUS-backed Kurds in Syria.
But Israel is particularlyconcerned about the presenceof Iran there as well asHezbollah, the Lebanese Shiitegroup backed by Tehran. Israelhas carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria against what itsays are Iranian military targets
and advanced weapons deliv-eries to Hezbollah.
A friendly fire incident inSeptember that led to a Russianplane being downed by Syrianair defences during an Israelistrike has however complicat-ed Israeli operations there.
Russia subsequentlyupgraded Syrian air defenceswith the delivery of theadvanced S-300 system, whichDamascus had said wouldmake Israel “think carefully”before carrying out further airraids.
sexual abuse of a male childwithin his family has beenstripped of his British citizen-ship and faces deportation toIndia.
The man, who can only beidentified as RSD for legal rea-sons, came to the UK fromIndia in 1997 and was grantedBritish citizenship in 2004. In2011, he was found guilty ofgrooming and raping a 7-year-old child.
According to a ‘SundayTelegraph’ report, a UK courtsentenced him to 14 yearsimprisonment and placed himon the sexual offenders’ regis-ter for life after finding him tohave groomed and raped theboy between 2003 and 2010.
In what is believed to bethe first case of its kind, the UKHome Secretary removed his
citizenship on the grounds thatwhen he applied to be a UK cit-izen he lied about the fact hewas sexually abusing a child.
The man won an appealagainst that decision but asenior judge has ruled in favour of the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, uphold-ing the decision to strip RSD ofhis passport this month, whichmeans he now faces being
deported to India.An Upper Tribunal of the
Immigration and AsylumChamber judge said in ajudgement published recently:“It is my conclusion that theappellant obtained naturalisa-tion in 2004 by deliberatelyconcealing material facts.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Any BritishCitizen may be deprived of hisor her citizenship if theSecretary of State is satisfiedthat it would be conducive tothe public good. It is a powerused for extreme and excep-tional cases.
“Deprivation on conducivegrounds can be used whereindividuals pose a threat tonational security, or have beeninvolved in war crimes, seriousand organised crime, and unac-ceptable behaviours such asextremism or glorification ofterrorism, unless to deprivewould render them stateless.”
Terror group al-Qaeda is ona resurgent mode and may
be plotting major terroristattacks on airports and airlin-ers, Britain’s security Ministerwarned on Sunday.
The terrorist group behindthe 9/11 attacks on the WorldTrade Center in New York in2001 poses a growing threatthat is keeping ministers“awake at night”, Ben Wallacetold The Sunday Times.
“The aviation threat isreal,” he warned, adding thatBritish intelligence hadrevealed that al-Qaeda wasdeveloping technology to bringdown passenger jets.
“Aviation is still a blueriband event for these terror-ists. Al-Qaeda are resurgent.They have reorganised. Theyare pushing more and moreplots towards Europe and have
become familiar with newmethods and still aspire toaviation attacks,” he said.
The minister said the gov-ernment had pumped in 25million pounds into a joint UKHome Office and Departmentfor Transport research pro-gramme on how to protectplanes even more from new chemicals, different meth-ods of explosion and insiderthreats.
He noted that the declineof the Islamic State (ISIS) ter-rorist group meant al-Qaedawould seek to reassert itself asthe world’s leading terror groupand an aviation attack could beits calling card.
“al-Qaeda sat quietly inthe corner and tried to workout what the 21st centurylooked like, while ISIS becamethe latest terrorist boy band, butthey have not gone away —they have reorganised. You’re
seeing al-Qaeda appear in areaswe thought were dormant,”Wallace told the newspaper.
Al-Qaeda and its affiliatesare now believed to be active inSyria, Afghanistan, Yemen,Libya and other countries inthe Middle East.
The UK minister saidimprovements in airport secu-rity meant terrorists were lesslikely to smuggle explosivesthrough terminal security sys-tems.
“They have explored otherways of getting bombs onplanes. We’ve talked publiclyabout an insider threat issue. Ifyou can’t get in the front door,you’re going to try to get in theback door,” he said.
“In 2019 we should bealert to al-Qaeda. They are re-energising some previous linksand support and their ambitiontowards aviation is real,” headded.
Every relationship has abreaking point. Even yourswith Facebook. There’s a
way out, though the social net-work will try to win you backwith promises to do better.Maybe even flowers.
For some users, though, thepast two years of privacy scan-dals, election manipulation byRussian trolls, executive apolo-gies and even the political dis-agreements with friends and rel-atives have become too much.The latest, an alarming NewYork Times report detailing themassive trove of user data thatthe company has shared withsuch companies as Apple, Netflixand Amazon.
A growing number of peoplesay they are deleting Facebook,or at least considering it.
While Facebook has tried toaddress some of these prob-lems, it’s not enough for someusers. Hard as it might seem toquit , especial ly for thoseentwined with it for years, it canbe done.
��������� �!� Before deleting your
account, rescue your posts andphotos. Facebook lets you down-load the data you’ve shared with
Facebook since you joined. Thisincludes your posts and photos,as well as the “activity log” — thehistory of everything you’vedone on Facebook, such as likesand comments on posts, use ofapps and searches. The down-load also includes your profile,messages, list of friends and adsyou’ve clicked on.
This process should give youa good — perhaps scary idea ofwhat Facebook has on you.
What you won’t get are pho-tos other people shared with you,even if you’ve been tagged. Youneed to save those individually.And some stuff will remain,including what others have post-ed about you, your chats withothers and your posts inFacebook groups (though yourname will be grayed out). Todelete all this, you’ll need to siftthrough your “activity log,”
accessible through your profilepage, and delete each item indi-vidually.
Once you’ve saved every-thing and gone through youractivity log, sign in one lastt ime. Go tohttp://bit.ly/198wIoIand click on theblue button.Facebook says theprocess couldtake a few days.Your deleterequest will becancelled if you logback in during thistime. Facebook says itmay take up to 90 days forall the data associated with youraccount to be wiped, but youcan’t change your mind after thefirst few days are up.
If you used your Facebookaccount for third-party apps and
sites, you’ll need new usernamesand passwords for each.
" #$���%$ $"#�&If you’re not quite ready for
a divorce, deactivating youraccount is an option. To
do this, go to youraccount settings.
Deactivatingmeans other peo-ple won’t be ableto see your pro-file, but if you logback in, the whole
thing is canceledand you are “active”
again. Ditto if you loginto an outside app or site
using your Facebook account.
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Depending on whether youwere a full-time Facebook addict
or an occasional lurker, the psy-chological separation couldprove harder or easier than thephysical one. Facebook hasbecome a one-stop shop for somany things. You can keep upwith friends and family, find outabout or create local events, buyand sell stuff, keep up with thenews, raise money for a cause orjoin groups of like-minded peo-ple such as parents, porch gar-deners and people with a raredisease.
There are other places to domany of these things. There’sEventbrite for events, Letgo forbuying and selling stuff, Peanutfor moms to connect, Meetup tofind and meet like-minded peo-ple, GoFundMe for raisingmoney and Twitter, or, gasp,your local newspaper’s websitefor the news. The difference isthere’s no single other place to do
all these things, and your friendsmight not be there.
If you find your mind wan-dering back to Facebook as yougo through your day, thinkinghow you might craft a postabout a thought you’ve just hador an article you came across, it’sOK. Let it go. It’s all part of thebreakup process.
And while you may not seeupdates about near-forgottenschoolmates or that randomperson you met six years ago, thepeople who matter most willstick around. For them, there’semail, the phone, and meeting inperson for coffee.
$��)""+����"+� $%%�If your boycott of Facebook
has more to do with your viewof the company than with tiringof the Facebook service, youmight consider deletingInstagram, WhatsApp andMessenger as well — they are allowned by Facebook. Deletingyour Facebook account won’taf fect your Instagram orWhatsApp account. If you wantto keep using Messenger, you cancreate an account using yourphone number instead of yourFacebook profile.
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With the current year wrap-ping up, 2019 is all set tomark new travel habits
and trends that will blend the desireto head to unexplored and off-beatdestinations in the coming year.Indians are travelling like neverbefore. And these travellers havevaried aspirations to explore newerdestinations across the world, bothon shoe-string and lavish budgets.
One of the hottest trends in2018 was Cross Generational Travel.As travelling with an extendedfamily, in-laws or grandparentsbecame ‘cooler’, this led to a newtrend of cross-generational trips,that takes everyone in a family to anew aspect of a destination. Andthis has rewards in the form ofstrengthened bonds and memories.
Another hot trend was Multi-Destination Travel. Many travellersprefer clubbing destinations to theirexisting itinerary as it helps them tostrike off several places at one gowhich proves to be cost effective.For example, experiencing TheGreat Barrier Reef in Queenslandand performances at the OperaHouse in Sydney, clubbed withBungee Jumping at the KawarauBridge in Queenstown or experienc-ing the night safari in Kenyaclubbed with the pristine beaches atSeychelles would be cheaper thandoing each separately.
Since the release of DilDhadakne Do, a full-length Hindifilm shot on a cruise, experiencingthe sea aboard a luxury liner becameextremely popular with Indian trav-ellers. Once considered to be tooexpensive, cruise holidays are nolonger the reserve of the rich andwealthy only. This trend has gainedmomentum among all age groups in2018 as the experience to board acruise has great aspirational valueamong Indian travellers. Also keep-ing the Indian value-seekers inmind, a cruise holiday is a greatvalue for money — owing to all-inclusive packages. Asian waterscontinue to remain as cruisehotspots due to air connectivity andpricing. However, Alaska Cruises,Bahamas and Florida Cruises, SouthAmerican and Transatlantic cruis-es along with River cruises inEurope continue to garner increas-ing interest.
An unusual trend that gotnoticed in 2018 was Glamping —luxurious camping. These trav-ellers love to combine adventurousdestinations with luxurious accom-modations in camps with high-endservices and amenities. For exam-ple — Luxury Safari Tent stays inMasai Mara, Kenya saw an enthu-siastic response from Indian trav-ellers.
Business mixed with leisure,Bleisure, continued to change theIndian workplace culture in 2018,where travel for work was perceivedmore as an experience rather thanroutine. The key elements con-tributing to the rise of Bleisure not
only included growing work stressamongst employees or maintaininga work-life balance, but also a cer-tain technological advance enabling“work from anywhere”, which cre-ated a win-win situation for bothemployers and employees.Destinations like the New York,London, Singapore, Malaysia andTokyo were top of their Bleisureappeal in 2018.
Sports Tourism gained popular-ity too in the year 2018, owing to the2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia,and will surely continue to grow in2019 with the ICC World Cup inEngland and Wales. Sports enthu-siasts plan months in advance tovisit host countries to not justenjoy the game live, but also traveland explore a new country.
A powerhouse of Long-Weekends, 2018 witnessed a never-seen-before boost to weekend get-aways and staycations. Destinationsthat are a mere short-drive or aflight away make for a perfectWeekend Getaway. Goa, Alibaugand Lonavala were extremely pop-ular amongst Mumbaikars. ForDelhiites, Agra, Jaipur, Shimla,Mussoorie and Dehradun werefavored destinations for short stays.Staycations were extremely popularamongst Indians who wanted toavoid travel but at the same timewanted to enjoy the luxuries of a starhotel, primarily giving them the feelof a holiday without getting out ofthe city.
Sleepcations turned out to be agrowing trend amongst Indianstravellers. Exclusively designed forsleep deprived travellers with highpressure jobs, ‘sleepcators’ oftenend up in mountains or at beachesfor a relaxed time and, of course, tocatch up on their sleep. Kerala, Goaand Gokarna were the most pre-ferred locales for a sleepcation.
While travelling in large groupscontinues to remain a prominenttrend amongst Indian travellers,2018 also dedicated a fraction ofitself to the young Solo Travellers.Solo Tours are the best outlet fortravellers who desire privacy andfreedom to explore locales at theirown pace. Cities that are rich in his-tory and culture such as Berlin,Rome, Florence, Krakow are thebest spots for some soul-searching.With the growing demand ofunconventional accommodationoptions such as Airbnb and hostels,solo Travel will continue to soar in2019 too.
All in all, 2018 has been a yearthat saw Indian travellers steppingout of their comfort zone to exploreactivities and destinations that tra-ditionally have not been donebefore. As 2018 comes to an end,many of these trends will continueto grow in the coming year as trav-el enthusiasts will always be on alookout to explore new opportuni-ties and destinations.
(The author is the ManagingDirector of a travel company.)
Most people mightbelieve thatNucleya has beenaround only forthe past few
years. But the phenomenon thatis Udyan Sagar, who is betterknown by his stage name, cameabout bit by bit since the 1990s.Today, he is the face of thebeginning of electronic dancemusic (EDM) in India. And asif to acknowledge that he hasfinally arrived, a luxury andlifestyle magazine recently calledNucleya a force to be reckonedwith.
So how did he first decide tomake music through mixingsome Indian Desi and interna-tional Rock beats? He laughs andanswer that he always had theurge to find his own tunes. So hestarted using Indian, Western,Classical, Jazz, Electronic, Rock,together. He says, “The idea wasjust to make a new sound. It wasvery unintentional. I mademusic for myself. Like-mindedpeople started getting attractedto it and that’s how it perhapsgained momentum.”
What really worked forUdyan was becoming a part ofthe musical group, The BandishProjekt which “completely trans-formed” his understanding ofmusic. However, he parted waysas he wasn’t expecting anythingbig but wanted to go in a con-trastingly different directionand hence, started experiment-ing. It was at this time that“street music caught my inter-est.”
It was only after his album,Koocha Monster, released in2013, attracted masses thatNucleya became a favouriteamong electronica fans in India.Koocha means ‘street’ in Urdu.
Success came through a cir-cuitous path, he acknowledges,“I am not a trained musician. Mycreative process has been anopen-ended one but at the sametime exciting too.”
The Laung Gawacha com-poser talks about how he man-aged to bring the style of inter-national EDM artists to Indian
music thus making a mix that avery few artistes have done inthe country. He says, “EDMmusic is very repetitive andhence, it is challenging to give ita new-looking sound every-time. The trick is to find whatspace can be filled within thepalate of the Indian taste ofmusic.”
Only a few of his fans knowabout Udyan’s projects duringhis teenage years in Ahmedabad.There was one known as theLocal Ahmedabad Dance Musicthat he had launched as a genremore than 20 years ago. He rem-inisces about the past whenasked about how he and hismusic evolved over time. He saysthat not just him but the over-all music industry has evolvedmanifolds, including the audi-ence. “There’s a much largeraudience to reach out to today.The industry is massive now andis also full of opportunities. Ipersonally feel that I havebecome more of a musiciannow as I have gained moreawareness about diverse thingsand music.”
He feels that even thoughthere is still a long way to go, hehas found multiple means toalways keep enhancing his musicand be much more experimen-tative.
He highlights that when hefirst started, “there were lessernumber of night clubs or partyhouses. People partied less.There was no concept of a ‘nightlife’ or ‘night culture.’ We onlyhad some farm house parties toperform at. But today, it hasevolved to become an industry.It’s grown huge. And it is not justlimited to India or its music, butis also actively gathering inputsfrom international music aswell. Clubs have today dedicat-ed their regular music to thisgenre. Many of them have spe-cial ‘EDM nights.’”
The musician is now allgeared up for his Sunburn Arenatour in six cities of India, whichwould also mark the launchingof his new album, Tota Myna.The tour will be travelling to
Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru,Guwahati, Jaipur, before culmi-nating in Kochi.
He tells us that the album isthe result of his long pendingideas of bringing Indian bass,reggae and dance music togeth-er along his profound love forexperimental sounds of pop.The album has many collabora-tions including ones with actressand singer Shruti Hassan andsinger and rapper Raftaar, alongwith indie artists, RashmeetKaur, Avneet Kurmi and VibhaSaraf.
Udyan reveals the signifi-cance of the title of the album,Tota Myna, “My mother calledSmriti (wife) and me Tota Mynawhen we were younger. Wewere inseparable, like the lovebirds.”
He says about the album, “Itrepresents the special place thatlove songs and pop music has inour lives. It is nostalgic as itreminds me of the time whenwe were not married.”
The album art is inspired bythe love birds seen on the trucksin India.
There are always somestereotypes and stigmas associ-ated with different music gen-res. There are some related toEDM music as well. Many stud-ies have discussed the drugused at rave parties, which hasled to the inevitable assumptionthat it is ‘drug music.’ It isknown to be linked to substanceabuse and escapism. However,Udyan would like to stronglydisagree and insists that it is a“myth.”
He says, “I don’t agree thatEDM is linked to drug or sub-stance abuse. Due to some peo-ple, such activities are creatinga harmful image of those whoare passionate about the musicas an art form. Associating thetwo things negate the artisticvalue and the creativity ofmusic. It not only trivialises theculture around it but also spoilsthe fun for those who actuallyonly came for amusement.”
(The musician also per-formed in the city yesterday.)
We all remember how2018 started withviolent clashes
between people from variouscastes in western region ofIndia, which incidentally isknown for its rich culturalheritage. The question thatcontinues to baffle people iswhat was the need to clashover an event that took placemore than hundreds of yearsago? More importantly, doesit makes any sense? But it was not as if India wasthe only place which wasplagued by senseless violence.It also occurred across theworld and points to the needof paying due attention to thevalues which have erodedover a period of time. It is alsoessential that we understandthe nature, the scope and thefunctional aspects of thesevalues. Take for example, theworld-wide protests against abook written by an authorwho has won a Booker prize,or against a dictator’s call tokill that writer. It is being said,in this context, that one has,no doubt, the right to freedomof expression but one has alsothe duty to respect the feelingsof others. In other words, onehas the right to enjoy one’sfreedom of expression in away that it does not infringeon the freedom of faith of oth-ers. This, therefore, meansthat freedom of expressionand, for that matter, everyother value is not absolute. On the other hand, just asrights and duties put limits oneach other, values also delim-it each other’s functional areaand scope. If we neglect thisaspect of values in the present-day world, then also we findmany kinds of dissonance anddissensions in our society.Further, we may find dis-agreement among individualsor among communities intheir value-judgements. In theabove case, for example, someconsider ‘freedom of expres-sion’ while others are con-cerned about the respect forothers’ religious feelings, as ahigher value. In such cases, itis tolerance and non-violencethat can maintain peace, pre-vent further erosion of valuesor restore stability to the soci-ety. We must bear in mind thaterosion in values takes placeif there is no reciprocity. Forexample, if one is an honest,
hard-working and sincereworker but one does not geteconomic justice at the handsof the employer, one’s mindceases to have love and regardfor his employer whom henow considers as selfish andexploitative. Thus, love andregard, as values, lose theirstrength and are unable to sus-tain themselves, if they are notresponded or reciprocatedwith economic or social jus-tice. A similar explanation can begiven for the tangled problemof a southern state whosehead became estranged fromthe central governmentbecause he felt that the latterdid not meet their justifieddemands to act with a spirit offairplay, justice and good-willtowards him and his state. All these examples and expla-nations show that not only arethere certain values, such as tol-erance, patience, steadfastness,non-violence and more whichare prerequisite to the firmestablishment of values in asociety, but also that in order tobuild a society based on values,a sizeable group of people whoare steadfast in their commit-ment to values and whoobserve tolerance, patience andnon-violence are needed evenwhen they find that there is noreciprocity to their observanceof the values of love, respectand so on. And, such a sizeablegroup, which observes moraland human values in the faceof provocations and tempta-tions, can come into existenceonly when spiritual values andgoals, which have their originin and direct support and sus-tenance from God inspirethem.
The recent years havewitnessed the evo-lution of the DigitalEra in our country.Slowly and steadily,
the market culture is shiftingfrom offline to online in ourcountry, which is quite evidentfrom the fact that online shop-pers have quadrupled inrecent years. From everydayessentials to your favouriteluxury brands, everything isavailable online these days.
This new age trend in themarket is the result of variousfactors, the biggest one ofthem being the high penetra-tion of smartphones, whichhas led to increased accessibil-ity to the internet across thecountry. Around five yearsago, the trend of online shop-ping was majorly popular andavailable in the metropolitancities only, but in the last two
years, we have witnessed amajor shift in the shoppingsegment — from offline toonline in tier two and threecities as well.
The demonetisation drivein November 2016 changedthe dynamics of the luxuryspace in two major ways.When 86 per cent of the cashwas removed from circulation,customers became more cau-tious about what they arepaying for the items. Earlierthe customers who were hap-pily shopping luxury brandsoffline and paying full pricefor them made a considerableshift to try online playersranging from internationalwebsites like Net-a-porter,Neiman Marcus to domesticwebsites like Darveys.com,which offer more brands,newer styles and better prices,all on one platform. It also
pushed the customers to trythe online payment methodand trust it like never before.
According toDarveys.com’s annual report2017-18, 28 per cent of regu-lar COD customers made arepeat purchase via onlinemode after demonitisation,and 67 per cent of new onlinetransactors, who earlier pre-ferred COD (cash on delivery)mode have continued to usethe online mode after theirshift to the online payment forthe first time. At the entireindustry level, in terms of lux-ury, there has been a jump of22 per cent from cash ondelivery to online transac-tions in the last two yearsacross the industry.
Online websites havegiven an increased access to awider variety of luxury brandsand collections to the Indian
consumers, which could neverbe available offline as thephysical stores face the issueof extremely high rentals andspace constraints in our coun-try which leads to smallerstores. This is turn meansthat there are only limited col-lections at their stores.
The online shopping cul-ture and in turn sector hasbeen booming at an exponen-tial rate in our country and isdirectly affecting the offlinesector. Online portals havebeen studying this behaviour-al change of the Indian con-sumers. In order to be on thetop of their game, they havebeen offering amazing ser-vices, simplif iedreturn/exchange policies andfaster delivery timelines. Theyare constantly improvingthemselves to compete withthe physical stores in order to
increase their presence in themarket and provide the bestexperience to the end con-sumer. The new age trend ofonline shopping has been ableto break the psychologicalbarrier of experiencing aproduct via touch and feel.Therefore, the luxury pay-masters who are looking fordiscounts are now comfort-able in splurging online. Evenpeople who are not lookingfor discounts on luxurybrands prefer shopping onlinebecause of the wider selectionof products available.
The ease of shopping lux-ury brands in the comfort oftheir home gives the shoppersa better way to explore anextensive variety at betterprices, as compared to theoffline stores. The customerscan easily access multiplebrands all at one place withjust a few clicks. People nolonger have to travel abroad inorder to get steal deals becausethe domestic portals givethem the convenience to shopinternational luxury brandsanywhere, anytime withoutany hassle. As we have seen inthe past, the majority of lux-ury online shoppers in ourcountry consisted of millenni-als in the age group of 21-30,who wanted luxury items ondiscounts. But the year 2018saw the non online shoppersin the the age group of 30-50coming on board and makinga shift. These were the oneswho earlier didn’t prefer tomake big purchases online.
There has been a greatrealisation of the benefits ofonline shopping in this partic-ular segment, which previous-ly never came online to pur-chase anything. The hecticlifestyle, ever-growing depen-dence on smartphones, theimpact of western culture andincreased brand awarenessthrough various mediums arefew of the reasons why theolder generation also caughtonto the trend.
Looking forward to theyear 2019, the online luxury seg-ment is expected to providegreater accessibility to brandsand collections in tier two andtier three markets of the coun-try. Luxury fashion sector shallbe one of the first sectors where-in online sales shall surpassoffline sales in our country.
(The author is the Directorof a luxury brand.)
Idon’t often write about mytholo-gy. It’s today’s stories that engageme. Yet I found myself suddenly
drawn to an ancient story. Whatdrew me in was how relevant thequestions it raises are today. Especiallytoday.
One of the stories around why theRiver Saraswati is subterranean goeslike this, Brahma gave birth toSaraswati from his forehead. As sheleapt out, he was so taken up by herbeauty that he “fell in love” and start-ed to pursue her. Horrified at theadvances of her father, Saraswati fledand disappeared underground. Shemay or may not have made a briefappearance, there are different ver-sions of that story. But all versionsagree she had to disappear onceagain. Never to surface again.
So, what’s the connection of amythical river with what’s happening
today? For me, it is the fact thatBrahma continues to be worshippedas a god (yes, let’s put that in a small‘g’ and not dignify it with a reverentcapital letter). And she, poor thing,spent her life fleeing the lustful gazeor worse of her own father. And, grad-ually, had to hide herself away alto-gether and almost cease to exist. Somuch so, that people began to won-der if she ever was.
The question that is so relevant iswhy does the burden of “shame” restupon the victim, especially one who hassuffered sexual advances? Why does theperpetrator of sexual excesses contin-ue to be whatever he was ordained tobe, attain whatever his life’s goals wereand the victim becomes defined by thecrime she suffered till she is forced toprotect herself by negating whatever shewas or wanted to be?
If men cannot control their urgesupon seeing a beautiful girl, let themwear blindfolds. Why should womenhide themselves behind ghungats andburkhas? If men get so excited seeinga woman alone at night, let them beindoors before sunset — why do thewomen have to do so? I cannot helpbut think that our morality is upsidedown and inside out.
Some time ago, I had written anarticle on the need for stories aboutsexual assault and rape for youngreaders, for that is the group of peo-ple who I work with and for. I had anoverwhelming response from totalstrangers and dear friends urging meto write it and wishing they had sucha story when they were being sexual-ly victimised.
Many confessed for the very firsttime that this had happened to them— they had no platform to talk.Others had actually told an adult,sometimes a mother, about the assaultand they had been told to be quietabout it and make sure that they werenever alone with the man again.
Again, the burden of protectionand shame became the victim’s tocarry. The criminal, because surelythat is what he is, went scot free muchof the time.
And yes, I don’t believe in trial bysocial media either. The converse sit-uation is also true. Men who are beingnamed in the #MeToo storm shouldalso get equal recourse to tell their sto-ries. I don’t agree with giving one halfvoice by taking away the others’ voice.But let’s take away the burden of shameand silence from victims and helpSaraswati flow free and wild again.
Barcelona held off Atletico Madrid toensure they will be three points clear at thetop of La liga going into the winter break
after beating a spirited Espanyol 2-0 at the CampNou on Saturday.
First-half goals from Ousmane Dembele andLionel Messi were enough to move ErnestoValverde's side up to 37 points and keep themone step ahead of Atletico, who earlier drew levelwith Barca with a 1-0 win over Espanyolthanks to an Antoine Griezmann penalty.
"In the first half we got behind theirdefence well, we saw that with any play, play-ing with the space (left behind) we could score,"said Valverde.
Dembele put the hosts into the lead after justnine minutes when he lashed home on therebound after Messi's first-time shot was pushedinto his path by Celta keeper Ruben Blanco.
Messi doubled his side's advantage justbefore half-time, bursting through competelyunmarked to meet the excellent Jordi Alba'sthrough ball and wrong-footBlanco as he slotted in his 15thleague goal of the season.
The Argentine and Albalinked up nicely throughout,with the left-back providing thepass for the Messi shot that ledto Dembele's opener.
"They (Messi and Alba) are a duo that havebeen working together for some time, theyunderstand each other perfectly," addedValverde.
"Let's hope they carry on working well."Luis Suarez missed a great opportunity to
put the result beyond any doubt on the hourmark when he flashed wide after being foundby Alba with another fine pass, but despite fre-quently testing Barca keeper Marc-Andre terStegen, Celta could not find the goal that wouldhave put the Catalans under real pressure.
����a�������������Earlier, Griezmann smashed home from
the spot 10 minutes after the break to giveDiego Simeone's side three points from a hard-fought match with mid-table Espanyol thatextended Atletico's unbeaten league run to 14matches.
"It was important to win regardless of howwe did it," said Atletico captain Diego Godin.
"We go into the (two-week) winter breakhappy with the three points."
The 27-year-old Griezmann, who missed
out on a Ballon d'Or despite winning theEuropa League with Atletico last season andthe World Cup with France in the summer, ison a fine run of form after having saved hisside with a late winner at Real Valladolid lastweek.
His winner on Saturday was his fourth inthree games after bagging a brace last week andscoring in Atletico's 3-0 hammering of Alavesa fortnight ago.
"Antoine is an excellent goalscorer," addedGodin. "He works for the team brilliantly andhelps with his his goals."
Sevilla can join Atletico on 34 points witha win at Leganes on Sunday late night clash.
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Ole Gunnar Solskjaerinsisted having "good
players" was the key to hisinstant impact as ManchesterUnited caretaker manager ina 5-1 thumping of Cardiff onSaturday.
Not since Alex Ferguson'sfinal game in charge in 2013had United scored five goalsin a single Premier Leaguegame and the Red Devilslooked a side transformedfrom the turgid football ofJose Mourinho's final days incharge.
"They are very good play-ers, talented players, they'veapproached the game proper-ly and worked hard. A ManUtd team should never be out-worked," said Solskjaer.
The Norwegian has beenput in charge until the end ofthe season after Mourinhowas sacked on Tuesday andcould not have asked for a bet-ter start in the Welsh capital.
As well as gett ingSolskjaer off to a flying start,victory also sees United cru-cially close the gap on thePremier League top four toeight points thanks toChelsea's 1-0 homedefeat by Leicester earli-er in the day.
"We're eight pointsbehind, so our job is totake one game at a time,"added Solskjaer.
"We always play wellin the second half of the sea-son."
Paul Pogba was forced towatch the full 90 minutesfrom the bench last weekendas Liverpool inflicted the finalblow to Mourinho's time incharge with a 3-1 win that leftUnited 19 points off the topafter just 17 games.
The French World Cup-winner was restored from thestart for the first time in fourleague games and looked farmore like the player Unitedsplashed a then world-record£89 million ($113 million)on in 2016 than the one thatclashed with his former bossoff the field and disappointedon it for much of the past twoseasons.
<��2��������b�"The performance of the
team was great and we arehappy that the first game ofthe manager starts like this,"said Pogba. "It's importantnow to carry on like that.
"We cannot play like thisand win with five goals and
then the next game lose."The visiting fans enthusi-
astically chanted Solskjaer'sname throughout and wereenjoying their side moving theball around with a speed andaccuracy more reminiscentof his days as a player at OldTrafford when United domi-nated English football.
"It's nothing like they havebeen playing," said Cardiffboss Neil Warnock. "Weexpected that from theteamsheet."
Pogba was at the heart ofUnited's best work and havingbeen fouled for the free-kickleading to Marcus Rashford's
opener, his intelligentpass picked out AnderHerrera, whose shotf l icked off GregCunningham to loopover the helpless NeilEtheridge to make it 2-0 inside half an hour.
If Solskjaer's sidewere fortunate then, it wasCardiff who got a break nineminutes later when the assis-tant referee adjudgedRashford to have handledrather than control the ballwith his shoulder inside thearea.
Victor Camarasa's per-fectly-taken penalty couldhave sparked a collapse for ateam short on confidence inrecent times.
Instead, United respond-ed resoundingly with a fan-tastic team goal as a quickinterchange of passes betweenPogba and Jesse Lingard freedAnthony Martial to score hisninth goal of the season.
Lingard took responsibil-ity from the spot just beforethe hour mark after anothersoft penalty was awarded fora foul by Sol Bamba on theEngland international.
And Lingard was the ben-eficiary of another defence-splitting pass from Pogba aminute from time as herounded Etheridge and slottedinto an empty net.
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Mario Mandzukic scoredthe only goal for
Juventus to dump furtherhurt on crisis club Roma andkeep the champions unbeat-en and on track for an eighthstraight Italian league title.
The Croatian World Cuprunner-up headed in thewinner 34 minutes into thematch in Turin to putJuventus back eight pointsclear of Napoli.
The defeat could havebeen harsher but for Romagoalkeeper Robin Olsendenying Cristiano Ronaldo,with Douglas Costa having alate goal ruled out followinga video assistant referee checkbecause of a foul in the build-up.
"We are doing goodthings, we have reached theChampions League last six-
teen and we're winter cham-pions," said coachMassimiliano Allegri, refer-ring to the name given toteams top before Christmas.
Serie A is however hold-ing a round of fixtures on
December 26 and 29, beforepausing for three weeks.
"We haven't won any-thing yet," added Allegri."The important thing is to bea few points ahead of Napolion the 29th of December."
Juve — who have onlydropped points against Genoa— travel to Atalanta and hostSampdoria in their final twomatches before the end of theyear.
Roma, after finishing
third last season, are now 25points behind Juventus anddrop to 10th after their eighthdefeat in as many trips to theAllianz Stadium. They have
won just twice inthe league sincethe end ofSeptember.
���������'Inter Milan
were held 1-1 atbottom club Chievo to falleight points behind Napoli,with the two clubs goinghead-to-head in the San Siroon December 26.
Inter looked set for vic-tory when Ivan Perisic scoredthe opener six minutes beforethe break, but the evergreenSergio Pellissier, 39, gave hisside an early Christmas pre-sent when he lobbed Intergoalkeeper Samir Handanovica minute into injury time.
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Kylian Mbappe grabbed the winner as Paris Saint-Germain beat Nantes 1-0 to go into the winter
break unbeaten in Ligue 1, as Thierry Henry'sMonaco suffered defeat by rock-bottom Guingampon Saturday.
World Cup star Mbappe stole in at the far postin the 67th minute for his 13th league goal of the sea-son, making him France's top scorer with Neymaraway on holidays in Brazil.
PSG coach Thomas Tuchel can also go on hol-iday relaxed with his club on 47 points, as second-placed Lille, 13 points adrift, lost 2-1 at home toToulouse.
"I'm very happy because we can see the progressof the team," said Tuchel. "You can feel the energy;it's a good thing to build on next year."
With Neymar away, Angel Di Maria was in theline-up and came closest to making it 2-0, forcing afine save from Nantes goalkeeper Ciprian Tatarusanu,who then watched the Argentine hit the crossbar fromthe rebound.
Meanwhile, third-placed Lyon drew 1-1 atfourth-placed Montpellier after opening the scoringthanks to their captain Nabil Fekir before a great head-er from Ruben Aguilar gave the surprise-packagesoutherners a share of the spoils.
Henry's Monaco were dreadful and the formerArsenal striker spat on the ground after Nolan Rouxof Guingamp made fools of the Monaco defence tomake it 2-0.
"I'm not going to have a good holiday," bemoanedHenry. "Now you have to work and make do withwhat you have.
"It's necessary to work and work. There are stilla lot of points to play for and that's the only positivething about this evening."
Monaco were champions in 2017 but now have13 points from 18 matches, just two more thanGuingamp, and vice-president Vadim Vasilyev saidthe club needs to dip into the January transfer mar-ket.
"Until tonight, I thought we didn't need new play-ers, but we do," Vasilyev told Canal+.
"It's difficult to analyse right now as I'm upset likethe supporters. I understand the disappointment, it'sup to us to act and draw the right conclusions."
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The evergreen Franck Riberyscored for the third time in four
days as reigning champions BayernMunich moved up to second in theBundesliga table on Saturday witha 3-0 win at Eintracht Frankfurt,leaving them six points behindleaders Borussia Dortmund.
After more than a decade atBayern, Ribery, 35, made anotherstrong argument for an extensionto his contract, which expires inJune, with a double in Frankfurthaving also scored in Wednesday's1-0 victory over RB Leipzig inMunich.
"The last few games haveshown what Bayern can do — Iwant to praise Franck, he didexceptionally well," said coachNiko Kovac with Bayern havingwon their last five league games,scoring 13 goals.
Ahead of the four-week winterbreak, Rafinha scored a late thirdas Bayern trimmed the gap toDortmund, who beat BorussiaMoenchengladbach 2-1 on Friday.
It was also a winning return toFrankfurt for Kovac, who master-minded Eintracht's shock 3-1 defeatof Munich in the German Cup finallast May in his last match beforetaking charge of the Bavariangiants.
After an intense opening half-
hour when both sides had clearchances, Bayern brokethrough when ThomasMueller found RobertLewandowski in the box andthe Poland striker flicked theball onto Ribery to tap homeon 35 minutes.
Mueller hit the crossbar justbefore the break while ThiagoAlcantara had a penalty appeal forhandball turned down with 20minutes left as Bayern maintainedthe pressure.
Ribery netted for the secondtime when he casually fired in offthe post after exchanging passeswith Joshua Kimmich on 79 min-
utes.Rafinha scored a
minute from time when hiscross-shot flew over Trapp'sreach and into the Frankfurtnet.
Bruma helped fire his team backinto the Bundesliga title race witha dramatic late winner in a 3-2home victory over Werder Bremen.
Fourth-placed Leipzig are nowjust two points behind third-placedMoenchengladbach, after Brumastruck three minutes from time atLeipzig's Red Bull Arena.
Luka Modric scored one goal and set upanother in leading Real Madrid to the Club
World Cup title by easing past host side AlAin 4-1 on Saturday.
Ballon d'Or winner Modric struck fromlong range in the 14th minute after a promis-ing start by the underdog Al Ain. He thenplaced a corner kick for Sergio Ramos to putthe result beyond doubt at 3-0 in the 79th.
Midfielder Marcos Llorente also scoredfrom outside the area for Madrid's second goalto help the European champions claim arecord-extending seventh worldtitle. Losing 3-0, Al Ain defenderTsukasa Shiotani headed in a con-solation goal, then teammate YahiaNader scored an own goal in stop-page time.
Madrid, which has won the lastthree Champions Leagues, has alsowon the last three Club WorldCups. They now have three more world titlesthan the next best, AC Milan.
"It's been an unforgettable year for me,"said Modric, who led Croatia to the WorldCup final in July.
"It's been perfect. We won theChampions League, I had a spectacularWorld Cup with Croatia, and now I have wonanother title with Madrid. It's been a dreamyear."
Al Ain reached the final after proving tobe the surprise of the short tournament. Thelocal club from the United Arab Emiratesupset South American champion River Platein the semifinals on penalties.
"This title is merited by my players,"Madrid coach Santiago Solari said.
Of Llorente, he added: "He has beenworking hard, even when no one was watch-ing." Earlier, River beat Kashima Antlers 4-0 for third place.
Ace spinner RavichandranAshwin remains an injurydoubt for the third Test
against Australia, India coachRavi Shastri said on Sunday ashe demanded his opening bats-men step up to ease pressure onVirat Kohli.
Ashwin was sidelined withan abdominal strain for the sec-ond Test in Perth and was sore-ly missed as Australia, led by off-spinner Nathan Lyon, won by146 runs to level the series 1-1.
Need to develop world classdrag-flickers: Tirkey"As far asAshwin is concerned, we aregoing to take a look and evalu-ate over the next 48 hours,"Shastri said.
Left-arm off-spinning all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja is alsocarrying a niggle, but experi-enced batsman Rohit Sharma,who also missed Perth afterhurting his lower back, is fitagain.
"He has made a very goodimprovement but then againwe have got to see how he pullsup tomorrow. But he looks goodas of today," said Shastri.
India go into the Melbourneshowdown with Kohli and num-ber three Cheteshwar Pujara isfine form, effectively carryingtheir team during the Adelaideand Perth games.
But the opening pair of KLRahul and Murali Vijay havestruggled for runs and Shastrisaid that needed to change.
"It's a big concern," he saidwhen asked about the failure ofthe openers to get a big score.
"It 's obvious and thatresponsibility and accountabil-ity has to be taken by the top
order."They've got the experience,
they've got the exposure overthese last few years to get outthere and deliver. It's about howstrong you are in the mind."
There is no guarantee thatRahul and Vijay will retain theirplaces with in-form MayankAgarwal called up to the squadas a replacement for injuredyoung opener Prithvi Shaw, whohas been ruled out of the series.
Superstar captain Kohliscored a battling century inPerth but he came under criti-cism for his sledging and heat-
ed exchanges with Australiancounterpart Tim Paine.
His animated wicket cele-brations were also frowned
upon, but Shastri said he didn'thave a problem with his skipper.
"What's wrong with hisbehaviour? As far as we are con-cerned, he is an absolute gen-tleman," he said.
Shastri also denied India'smorale had taken a hit by losingin Perth after their tense victo-ry in Adelaide -- their first Testwin on Australian soil in adecade.
"Absolutely not. 1-1in a series in Australia andwe know we had ourchances in Perth as well. They'reready," he said.
"It's not often that we'vebeen in a position where we'vewon one (on an overseas tour).It's 1-1. The boys know whatthey can do, what they're capa-ble of and the potential that liesahead."
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West Indies Twenty20 skipperCarlos Brathwaite blasted the
match umpires for giving "50-50decisions" to Bangladesh eventhough his side won the thirdTwenty20 international to wrap upthe series.
West Indies, who won Saturday'smatch by 50 runs, were victims of anerroneous no-ball call that could notbe overturned by review andBraithwaite was critical of the umpir-ing throughout the tour though heinsisted he was not alleging "cheat-ing".
In the fourth over of theBangladesh innings, Bangladeshumpire Tanvir Ahmed called a no-ball against West Indies pacemanOshane Thomas when batsmanLiton Das spooned a catch toShimron Hetmyer at mid-off.
A television replay showed the
delivery had been legal, andBrathwaite and his teammates werefurious after seeing the big screenimages in the Dhaka stadium.
Brathwaite asked for a reviewand ran to the boundary for talkswith match referee Jeff Crowe, halt-ing the game for around 10 minutes.
The match officials had touphold the decision despite a clearmistake as the rules do not allow areview against an on-field no-ballcall.
West Indies, who made 190,were charged up after the incidentand bowled out Bangladesh for 140in 17 overs with medium-pacerKeemo Paul picking up 5-15.
"The rule is that if a no-ball iscalled it cannot be reviewed orreversed. But if it isn't called, it canbe reversed checking the video.
"Everyone saw that it was not ano-ball," Brathwaite said after thegame.
Brathwaite went to the matchreferee after Thursday's 36-run defeatin the second match as he felt closedecisions throughout the series wentagainst his side.
"I didn't think the 50/50 deci-sions were going in our favour.
Those decisions went forBangladesh," he said.
"I never ever want to accusesomeone of cheating. I will stop shortof that. They are professionals as well.
"I didn't accuse them of cheat-ing but I made my point clear to the
match referee that every 50-50 deci-sion in the ODI series and T20 seriesup to that point went against us."
In the second match, the sameBangladeshi umpire calledBrathwaite for a wide whenBangladesh skipper Shakib al Hasanclearly edged the ball and wicket-keeper Shai Hope took a catch.
Shakib, who was then on 20,went on to score 42 off 26 balls, guid-ing Bangladesh to 211-5 before his5-21 completed a series-levellingwin.
In the decisive third and finalone-day international, the umpiresruled West Indies captain RovmanPowell out when it should have beena no-ball as Bangladesh illegally hadsix fielders on the leg side.
Brathwaite, who did not play thegame, went on the field with drinksafter the Powell dismissal andbecame involved in an argumentwith the umpires.
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Anuj Rawat hit a brilliantcounter-attacking hundred to
nullify Avesh Khan's six-wickethaul as Delhi looked set for an out-right win against Madhya Pradeshin a group league encounter here onSunday.
Wicket-keeper batsman Anujscored 134 off 183 balls as Delhiscored 261 in their first innings inreply to MP's modest 132.
A first innings lead of 129 maywell ensure full points for thehome team.
The day belonged to left-hand-ed Anuj, who played by far the mostimpressive innings of his nascentcareer so far.
Delhi were reduced to 36 for 5,courtesy Avesh (6/51), who workedup brisk pace to unsettle the likesof Kunal Chandela (0), DhruvShorey (0), Nitish Rana (0) andHiten Dalal (0).
Coached by Rajkumar Sharma(Virat Kohli's coach), young Rawatshowed admirable temperamentand proper game sense as he firstconsolidated with Lalit Yadav (25)in a 60-run sixth wicket stand.
Once Lalit was dismissed,Rawat found an able ally inShivam Sharma (39),adding 118 runs for theseventh wicket.
Once Delhi got thelead, Rawat batted morefreely hitting on both sidesof the wicket.
He repeatedly reverse-sweptleg-spinner Mihir Hirwani off therough and for good measurehooked Kuldeep Sen for a six. Healso hit a couple of sixes off left-armspinner Kartikeya Singh.
Another former U-19 player,who hogged limelight during thefirst half was Avesh, who is havinga dream Ranji season so far withclose to 35 wickets.
����������������'��Uttar Pradesh reducedTripura to 33/4 after piling up 552/7declared in their Elite Group Cmatch.
Uttar Pradesh rode on a dou-ble century by middle order bats-man Priyam Garg (206).
Garg hammered a listlessTripura attack all over the park ashe stuck 23 boundaries and one sixin his 371-ball knock, which helpedthe hosts pile up a mammoth first
innings total.Uttar Pradesh skipper Aksh
Deep Nath (106) and Rinku Singh(149) also struck hundreds as thehosts dominated the second day ofthe four-day match.
For the visitors, Saurabh Das(4-164) was the pick of the
bowlers.But in their first
innings, Tripura had a dis-astrous start with theiropeners B B Ghosh (7) and
J R Banik (9) falling cheaply.From 2-16, they were strug-
gling at 4-33 as another two wick-ets fell in quick succession.
������2������������������Table toppers Saurashtraand former champions Mumbaiwere involved in a keen tussle forthe first innings lead on day two oftheir Elite Group A match at theWankhede Stadium.
Saurashtra bowled out Mumbaifor 394 in the first innings in themorning and then replied with 213for five wickets at close, still adriftof the home teams total by 181 runsafter weathering an early collapsethat saw them slumping to 37 forthree.
At stumps, Prerak Mankad (56in 106 balls) was at the crease afterputting on a stand of107 runs forthe fifth wicket with Jackson whowas dismissed by Minad Manjrekarwith the penultimate ball of the65thover.
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Former captain Dilip Tirkeyon Sunday said India
missed a golden chance torewrite history in the just-concluded Hockey World Cupand stressed on the need todevelop world class drag-flick-ers.
In the absence of RupinderPal Singh, India had threedragflickers in youngHarmanpreet, Amit Rohidasand Varun Kumar but theirconversion rate was poor,recording just 30.7 per cent.
India failed to convertthree of the five penalty cornersthey got in their 5-0 mauling ofSouth Africa in their WorldCup opener in Bhubaneswarlast month.
"We need to have worldclass flickers. We presentlyhave Harmanpreet, AmitRohidas and Varun. We have to
pay focus on them. We have tohave a 60-70 per cent conver-sion rates in important match-es," Tirkey said.
Having topped their poolfeaturing eventual championsBelgium, the hosts made aquarterfinal exit, going down tothe Netherlands 1-2 in theWorld Cup.
Tirkey said the youngstersfailed to live up to the expec-tations against the Netherlandsas they missed a golden chanceto win the World Cup.
"I feel our youngsters couldnot play as per their stan-dards. Otherwise team's per-formance was very good. Therewas some good tackling. It's
bad luck that we could not liveup to the expectations in thequarter-final. Overall it was agood show. I feel we missed theWorld Cup," he said.
"After a long time, we sawdevelopment in Indian hockeyteam. With a lot of talentedyoungsters, we looked fit. Wedrew with Belgium in the
league stages," he said referringto their 2-2 draw against thechampions.
He further said India coachHarendra Singh is doing a finejob.
"Harendra Singh is doingextremely well with team. Welost to Australia in the shoot-out (in the Champions
Trophy). It was an impressiveshow (at the World Cup).
"All the foreign coacheshave their contribution for theIndian team but as of now,Harendra Singh is the bestcoach for the Indian team. Weneed to work on this Indianteam," he said hailing the 2016Junior World Cup winningcoach.
"The coach has done well.Definitely there has been adevelopment in the standardsof coaching."
Tirkey further lavishedpraise on the Naveen Patnaik-led Odisha government forhosting a successful WorldCup. "It was a grand success.Stars of every field be it in sportor glamour world wereinvolved in making of thetournament. It's time thateveryone including the corpo-rate sector to come forward andsupport hockey," he concluded.
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Injured Australia opener Aaron Finch saysthe only way he can miss out on the home
Boxing Day Test against India is, if someonewere to "cut off " his finger.
Finch was batting on 25 in Australia's sec-ond innings during the second Test in Perthwhen he was hit on his right index finger bya Mohammed Shami delivery. The impact ofthe hit was so serious that bones were liter-ally visible in his finger from a deep cut.
Incidentally, it was the same finger whichhe had broken earlier and the Australian ODIand T20 captain said the impact was so severethat he felt "it was going to explode".
"It was a bit of a shock, just the initial painwas the thing that got me. It felt like it wasgoing to explode, which was quite funny. I
think just being hit a few times inthe last month, a couple timesby Starcy (Mitchell Starc) attraining then Shami out inthe game, but it's also an old
break."I broke the same
finger in Sri Lankaa couple of yearsago, so I've gotto start eithercatching themor use my batinstead of mygloves. It was upthere (as themost painful). I
think snappingmy hamstringtendon (in April2015) was proba-bly the most overthe last few years,"he said.
But Finch isadamant to play inthe Boxing Day Testafter being clearedby Australia's medicalteam.
"With a BoxingDay Test, being fromVictoria (state), it'sgoing to have to becut off (not to play),"Finch said.
"It's going to be acatch and bat today andreassess, but it feelslike it's improved 100per cent over the lastcouple of days.
"I got sent some new bats, so I've beenwalking around the lounge room and wavingthem around. It feels okay," he added.
Desperate for a big score to cement hisplace in the top-order of the Australian bat-ting department, Finch said he would continueto review his finger over the next 48 hourseven though he is sure of his participation inthe match.
"But at this stage, it's still business as usualand I plan to field at slip and do whatever elseis needed," said the 32-year-old.
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Australia opener Marcus Harrishas warned against getting car-
ried away by the grass on theMCG pitch, saying the track doesoffer runs to those who showpatience.
Harris cited example of aSheffield Shield match betweenVictoria and New South Wales onthe same pitch, where he thoughtthe match would be over in "a dayand a half " but ended up raising anunbeaten 250.
"Pre-match when I saw thewicket I was really freaked out andI thought 'this game's going to beover in a day and a half and we'vegot blokes trying to vie for Testspots', so I went into the game with
no expectations on myself and thewicket actually played pretty well,"Harris told ESPNcricinfo.
"It was relatively slow andstayed together."
"I saw this morning the wick-et will probably be more similar tothe South Australia game, where ithad a bit more green grass on it,nipped around a bit but it was oneof those wickets where if you playwell you can make runs but if youbowl well you can take wickets."
Harris suggested patience is thevirtue to have on the pitch for theBoxing day Test, startingWednesday.
"I think it'll be the same oldthing of patience, the MCG isnever a really quick scoring groundanyway, so that'll be the key, just
realising things will take a while toevolve. Not sure the wicket willbreak up too much, but we'll justhave to wait and see.
"Fortunately we've probablygot the best bowling attack in theworld so that looks after itself a lit-tle bit, but I think as batters apatience game will be the key andrun rates won't be as quick as whatyou'd like, but that's the way it willbe."
MCG curator Matt Page alsosaid that the track will offer some-thing to everyone. "We want to pro-vide an opportunity for everyone.Whether it's the spinners, it's thepace bowlers, or the batters.Providing them opportunities to beable to produce their world-class[skills] throughout a game."
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