A fter its rout in the recent Assembly polls, the Congress is in for fresh trouble as serious infighting has sur- faced in several State units such as Gujarat, Bihar and Punjab. In Bihar, senior party leader Madan Mohan Jha, who held the post of Bihar Congress chief for almost four years, ten- dered his resignation after meeting with former party chief Rahul Gandhi. His resig- nation comes a couple of days after the Gujarat Congress leader Hardik Patel expressed his anguish against the leader- ship of the State unit. The Congress’ plan to rope in the chairman of the Khodaldham Temple Trust Naresh Patel, a prominent Patidar face, ahead of 2022 State polls has apparently angered Hardik, who believes that his clout as Patidar leader will be finished if Naresh Patel joins the Congress party. “You used Hardik in 2017, you want to use Naresh Bhai in 2022 and in 2027 you would use another Patidar leader. Why don’t you support and strengthen Hardik?” he said. “They should take Naresh Bhai, but will they treat him like the way the way they did to me?” he added. “I am more pained because I have represented the situation to Rahul Gandhi many times, but no action has been taken by him against Gujarat Congress leaders,” he said. The Gujarat Congress is also divided over reports that the party high command was considering inducting poll strategist Prashant Kishor to anchor the State unit in the Assembly polls. These two developments have come as a jolt for the lead- ership which is preparing for a Chintan Shivir after rumblings within the party following a series of Assembly elections debacle. AICC national general sec- retary Tariq Anwar said the need for having a new man to head the Bihar unit was being felt for quite some time. “Jha, who is a senior leader, a former State Minister and currently a member of the leg- islative council, has cleared the path by resigning graceful- ly. The party high command is now vetting the names of prospective candidates for the new State president. A final decision will be taken in due course,” Tariq Anwar said. The party recently effected changes in Punjab Congress and Uttarakhand Congress after one of the worst ever per- formances in the just-con- cluded Assembly elections. Other States like Manipur, ear- lier Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh are also beset with factionalism. Continued on Page 9 P rime Minister of Britain Boris Johnson will hold wide-ranging discussions, including defence and strategic affairs and the raging conflict in Ukraine, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi here next week. The two-day visit, likely to begin on April 21, comes after two postponements. Earlier, Johnson was to be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade here last year and had to cancel it due to the rising number of corona cases. The second time the visit was called off in April, the same year as the second wave of the pan- demic hit India. Modi also cancelled his visit to the UK for G-7 in May. Modi and Johnson last met on the margins of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last November, when they reviewed the 2030 Roadmap which they had finalised at a virtual summit in May 2021. India has seen some high profile visits in the last few weeks in the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis. British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss was here last month, while Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with his Indian counter- part S Jaishankar. Moreover, Russian Foreign Sergey Lavrov also visited New Delhi. Earlier this week, Modi held a virtual summit with US President Joe Biden before the 2+2 dialogue between the Foreign and Defence Ministers of the two countries in Washington. Johnson recently made a surprise visit to Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pledging to pro- vide more weapons to Ukraine. As regards the agenda of the upcoming summit between Modi and Johnson, sources said besides Ukraine the two heads will focus on a free trade agreement. The two leaders may firm up guidelines for their respective officials for ongoing negotiations in this regard. Some other pacts are also likely to be inked during the talks. Continued on Page 9 A day after Moscow suffered a stinging symbolic defeat with the loss of the flagship of its Black Sea fleet, Russia’s Defence Ministry promised on Friday to ramp up missile attacks on the Ukrainian cap- ital in response to Ukraine’s alleged military “diversions on the Russian territory.” The threat of intensified attacks on Kyiv came after Russian authorities accused Ukraine of wounding seven people and damaging about 100 residential build- ings with airstrikes on Bryansk, a region that bor- ders Ukraine. Authorities in another bor- der region of Russia reported Ukrainian shelling. Kyiv has gradually dis- played some signs of pre-war life after Russian troops failed to capture the city and retreat- ed to focus on a concentrated assault in eastern Ukraine, leaving evidence of possible war crimes in their wake. A renewed bombardment could return the capital’s residents to sheltering in subway stations and the steady wail of air raid sirens. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed striking targets in Russia, and the reports by Russian authorities could not be independently verified. However, Ukrainian offi- cials claimed their forces struck a key Russian warship with missiles on Thursday. T he leadership of Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) dissolved all the national and regional units of the party on Friday, fueling speculation that Shivpal Singh Yadav has moved closer to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The battle of one-upman- ship between the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle and PSPL supre- mo Shivpal has intensified after the landslide victory of the BJP in UP Legislative Council polls. This latest development has intensified speculation that Shivpal may soon join hands with the BJP. However, neither Shivpal Yadav nor his party said anything officially about their future plan of action. Shivpal on Thursday caused a stir in political circles by endorsing the idea of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), an issue identified with the poli- tics of the BJP. Continued on Page 2 T here are unmistakable signs that Covid-19 is rearing its head again in pockets of the country with active cases increasing to 11,191 and the positivity rate climbing up pro- portionately. In Delhi, the pos- itivity rate has gone beyond two per cent and there has been a rise of nearly 48 per cent in the number of home isolation cases in the last one week, according to official data. The Indian Premier League saw a Covid positive case on Friday when Delhi Capitals physio Patrick Farhart tested positive for the virus. “He is being closely monitored by the DC Medical Team at the moment,” the BCCI said in a media advisory. Delhi’s adjoining Noida saw over 20 students infected with Covid-19 in a week. Covid cases are also on rise in Mumbai and Gujarat. Experts have pointed out that there is no reason to panic at the moment, but they have also advised the public to remain cautious, particularly in view of a forecast by scientists from IIT-Kanpur about the fourth wave in India in June. Haryana has reported over 1,200 fresh Covid cases in over 14 days out of which over 1,000 infections were from Gurugram district, official data showed. The district has been witnessing a rise in Covid cases in the past few days. During the same period, Gurugram added 1,022 fresh cases. Of 170 new Covid cases that the State reported on April 14, as many as 147 were from Gurugram and 19 from Faridabad. The Covid positiv- ity rate in Haryana was 1.27 per cent on February 28, 0.41 per cent on March 31 and 2.72 per cent on April 14. As a precautionary mea- sure amid spurt in Covid-cases in past few days, the Delhi Government has chalked out a blueprint envisaging prepara- tion of at least 65,000 Covid-19 beds, including the ICU beds, to meet the emergency even as India logged 949 new coron- avirus infections taking the total tally of Covid-19 cases to 4,30,39,972. Sharing details about the preparation to combat Covid- 19, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain said about 37,000 beds and 10,594 ICU beds are being set up in the hospitals across the city. Continued on Page 9 P rime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that Government schemes are fast making treatment “acces- sible to all” and the country is likely to get a record number of doctors in the next 10 years thanks to the expansion of medical education. “The goal of having at least one medical college in every district and ensuring that med- ical education is within the reach of everyone will result in the country getting a record number of doctors after 10 years,” the Prime Minister said. Speaking after dedicating to the nation a 200-bed KK Patel multi-speciality Hospital in Bhuj in Gujarat’s Kutch dis- trict via video-conferencing, Modi said Ayushman Bharat scheme has been instrumental in saving lakhs of crore rupees every year in the treatment of poor and middle-class families along with Janaushadhi Yojana. This is the first charitable multi-specialty hospital in the Kutch region, and it has been built by the Leuva Patel com- munity of Bhuj with help from donors based in India and abroad. “Health and Wellness cen- ters and campaigns such as the Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Scheme are help- ing to make treatment accessi- ble to all,” Modi said. In his virtual address, the Prime Minister cautioned that Covid-19 had still not made its exit and people should not take it easy. Modi said Yoga and Ayurveda, which have their origins in India, caught the world's attention during the pandemic. The PM said two decades ago Gujarat had just nine med- ical colleges with around 1,100 MBBS seats, but the medical education scenario has improved vastly in the last 20 years. “Now, the State has one AIIMS and over three dozen medical colleges. Earlier, only 1,000 students used to get admission to medical colleges in Gujarat, now around 6,000 students get admission to these colleges. AIIMS in Rajkot has started admitting 50 students from 2021,” Modi said. Continued on Page 9
Congress is in for fresh troubleas serious infighting has sur-faced in several State unitssuch as Gujarat, Bihar andPunjab.
In Bihar, senior partyleader Madan Mohan Jha, whoheld the post of Bihar Congresschief for almost four years, ten-dered his resignation aftermeeting with former partychief Rahul Gandhi. His resig-nation comes a couple of daysafter the Gujarat Congressleader Hardik Patel expressedhis anguish against the leader-ship of the State unit.
The Congress’ plan to ropein the chairman of theKhodaldham Temple TrustNaresh Patel, a prominentPatidar face, ahead of 2022State polls has apparentlyangered Hardik, who believesthat his clout as Patidar leaderwill be finished if Naresh Pateljoins the Congress party.
“You used Hardik in 2017,you want to use Naresh Bhai in2022 and in 2027 you woulduse another Patidar leader.Why don’t you support andstrengthen Hardik?” he said.“They should take Naresh Bhai,but will they treat him like theway the way they did to me?”he added.
“I am more pained because
I have represented the situationto Rahul Gandhi many times,but no action has been taken byhim against Gujarat Congressleaders,” he said.
The Gujarat Congress isalso divided over reports thatthe party high command wasconsidering inducting pollstrategist Prashant Kishor toanchor the State unit in theAssembly polls.
These two developmentshave come as a jolt for the lead-ership which is preparing for aChintan Shivir after rumblingswithin the party following aseries of Assembly electionsdebacle.
AICC national general sec-retary Tariq Anwar said theneed for having a new man tohead the Bihar unit was being
felt for quite some time. “Jha, who is a senior leader,
a former State Minister andcurrently a member of the leg-islative council, has clearedthe path by resigning graceful-ly. The party high command isnow vetting the names ofprospective candidates for thenew State president. A finaldecision will be taken in duecourse,” Tariq Anwar said.
The party recently effectedchanges in Punjab Congressand Uttarakhand Congressafter one of the worst ever per-formances in the just-con-cluded Assembly elections.Other States like Manipur, ear-lier Madhya Pradesh,Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarhare also beset with factionalism.
Continued on Page 9
���� /12�"13%+
Prime Minister of BritainBoris Johnson will hold
wide-ranging discussions,including defence and strategicaffairs and the raging conflictin Ukraine, with PrimeMinister Narendra Modi herenext week.
The two-day visit, likely tobegin on April 21, comes aftertwo postponements. Earlier,Johnson was to be the chiefguest at the Republic Dayparade here last year and hadto cancel it due to the risingnumber of corona cases. Thesecond time the visit was calledoff in April, the same year asthe second wave of the pan-demic hit India. Modi alsocancelled his visit to the UK forG-7 in May.
Modi and Johnson last meton the margins of the COP26
climate summit in Glasgowlast November, when theyreviewed the 2030 Roadmapwhich they had finalised at avirtual summit in May 2021.
India has seen some highprofile visits in the last fewweeks in the backdrop of theUkraine crisis. British ForeignSecretary Elizabeth Truss washere last month, while ChineseForeign Minister Wang Yi heldtalks with his Indian counter-part S Jaishankar. Moreover,Russian Foreign Sergey Lavrov
also visited New Delhi.Earlier this week, Modi
held a virtual summit with USPresident Joe Biden before the2+2 dialogue between theForeign and Defence Ministersof the two countries inWashington.
Johnson recently made asurprise visit to Kyiv to meetPresident VolodymyrZelenskyy, pledging to pro-vide more weapons to Ukraine.
As regards the agenda ofthe upcoming summit betweenModi and Johnson, sourcessaid besides Ukraine the twoheads will focus on a free tradeagreement. The two leadersmay firm up guidelines fortheir respective officials forongoing negotiations in thisregard. Some other pacts arealso likely to be inked duringthe talks.
Aday after Moscow suffereda stinging symbolic defeat
with the loss of the flagship ofits Black Sea fleet, Russia’sDefence Ministry promised onFriday to ramp up missileattacks on the Ukrainian cap-ital in response to Ukraine’salleged military “diversions onthe Russian territory.”
The threat of intensifiedattacks on Kyiv came afterRussian authorities accusedUkraine of wounding seven people and damagingabout 100 residential build-ings with airstr ikes onBryansk, a region that bor-ders Ukraine.
Authorities in another bor-der region of Russia reportedUkrainian shelling.
Kyiv has gradually dis-played some signs of pre-warlife after Russian troops failedto capture the city and retreat-ed to focus on a concentratedassault in eastern Ukraine,leaving evidence of possiblewar crimes in their wake. Arenewed bombardment couldreturn the capital’s residents tosheltering in subway stationsand the steady wail of air raidsirens.
Ukrainian officials havenot confirmed striking targetsin Russia, and the reports byRussian authorities could notbe independently verified.
However, Ukrainian offi-cials claimed their forces strucka key Russian warship withmissiles on Thursday.
Party (Lohia) dissolved all thenational and regional units ofthe party on Friday, fuelingspeculation that Shivpal SinghYadav has moved closer to theBharatiya Janata Party.
The battle of one-upman-ship between the SamajwadiParty chief Akhilesh Yadavand his uncle and PSPL supre-mo Shivpal has intensified afterthe landslide victory of the BJPin UP Legislative Council polls.
This latest developmenthas intensified speculation thatShivpal may soon join handswith the BJP. However, neitherShivpal Yadav nor his party saidanything officially about theirfuture plan of action.
Shivpal on Thursdaycaused a stir in political circlesby endorsing the idea of theUniform Civil Code (UCC), anissue identified with the poli-tics of the BJP.
There are unmistakable signsthat Covid-19 is rearing its
head again in pockets of thecountry with active casesincreasing to 11,191 and thepositivity rate climbing up pro-portionately. In Delhi, the pos-itivity rate has gone beyond twoper cent and there has been arise of nearly 48 per cent in thenumber of home isolation casesin the last one week, accordingto official data.
The Indian Premier Leaguesaw a Covid positive case onFriday when Delhi Capitalsphysio Patrick Farhart testedpositive for the virus. “He isbeing closely monitored by theDC Medical Team at themoment,” the BCCI said in amedia advisory.
Delhi’s adjoining Noidasaw over 20 students infectedwith Covid-19 in a week. Covidcases are also on rise inMumbai and Gujarat.
Experts have pointed outthat there is no reason to panicat the moment, but they havealso advised the public toremain cautious, particularly inview of a forecast by scientistsfrom IIT-Kanpur about thefourth wave in India in June.
Haryana has reported over1,200 fresh Covid cases in over14 days out of which over1,000 infections were fromGurugram district, official datashowed. The district has been
witnessing a rise in Covid casesin the past few days.
During the same period,Gurugram added 1,022 freshcases. Of 170 new Covid casesthat the State reported on April14, as many as 147 were fromGurugram and 19 fromFaridabad. The Covid positiv-ity rate in Haryana was 1.27 percent on February 28, 0.41 per
cent on March 31 and 2.72 percent on April 14.
As a precautionary mea-sure amid spurt in Covid-casesin past few days, the DelhiGovernment has chalked out ablueprint envisaging prepara-tion of at least 65,000 Covid-19beds, including the ICU beds,to meet the emergency even asIndia logged 949 new coron-
avirus infections taking thetotal tally of Covid-19 cases to4,30,39,972.
Sharing details about thepreparation to combat Covid-19, Delhi Health MinisterSatyendra Jain said about37,000 beds and 10,594 ICUbeds are being set up in thehospitals across the city.
that Government schemes arefast making treatment “acces-sible to all” and the country islikely to get a record number ofdoctors in the next 10 yearsthanks to the expansion ofmedical education.
“The goal of having at leastone medical college in everydistrict and ensuring that med-ical education is within thereach of everyone will result inthe country getting a recordnumber of doctors after 10years,” the Prime Minister said.
Speaking after dedicating
to the nation a 200-bed KKPatel multi-speciality Hospitalin Bhuj in Gujarat’s Kutch dis-trict via video-conferencing,Modi said Ayushman Bharatscheme has been instrumentalin saving lakhs of crore rupeesevery year in the treatment ofpoor and middle-class familiesalong with Janaushadhi Yojana.
This is the first charitablemulti-specialty hospital in theKutch region, and it has beenbuilt by the Leuva Patel com-munity of Bhuj with help fromdonors based in India andabroad.
“Health and Wellness cen-
ters and campaigns such as theAyushman Bharat HealthInfrastructure Scheme are help-ing to make treatment accessi-ble to all,” Modi said.
In his virtual address, thePrime Minister cautioned thatCovid-19 had still not made itsexit and people should nottake it easy. Modi said Yogaand Ayurveda, which havetheir origins in India, caughtthe world's attention during thepandemic.
The PM said two decadesago Gujarat had just nine med-ical colleges with around 1,100MBBS seats, but the medicaleducation scenario hasimproved vastly in the last 20years.
“Now, the State has oneAIIMS and over three dozenmedical colleges. Earlier, only1,000 students used to getadmission to medical collegesin Gujarat, now around 6,000students get admission to thesecolleges. AIIMS in Rajkot hasstarted admitting 50 studentsfrom 2021,” Modi said.
Communal tension flaredup in Agra after two youths
on a motorcycle kidnapped aclass 11 school girl.
The sensational incidenttook place right in front of theschool gate after the girl's uncledropped her off last Mondaymorning.
Agitated over the incident,an angry mob, on Friday, setablaze two houses belonging tothe family of the accused, whois said to be an adult in aninterfaith relationship.
Police said members ofDharam Jagran SamanvaySangh torched the housebelonging to Sajid, a gymowner, in the city’s Runaktalocality.
An adjoining house,belonging to the family, wasalso set on fire.
The mob was demandingthe arrest of the man accusedof kidnapping the girl, whopolice say is 22 years old. Shopowners in the local Runaktamarket also downed shuttersover the demand.
There were no reports ofany injuries in the attack on thegym owner’s home.
The police post inchargewas suspended after the inci-dent for negligence and a probewas ordered against theSikandra station house officer.
“If found guilty, action willbe taken against him as well,”
The girl, who is a class 11student, went missing onMonday. She was traced twodays later by police, but Sajid’swhereabouts were not known.Her family members hadlodged a missing person'sreport, prompting a policesearch for the couple. But in avideo that surfaced on socialmedia, the woman said she wasan adult and had gone willing-ly with the man.
“Both are adults,” SSPSingh told reporters. He saidpolice would produce thewoman in court. He said thiscould not be done so farbecause of the holidays.
The SSP said an FIR hadbeen registered against mem-bers of the group that set thehouses on fire and they wouldbe arrested soon.
The woman's family hasalso filed a police complaintagainst the gym owner.
Meanwhile, in another sen-sational incident, an auto dri-ver and two of his accomplicesgang-raped a Delhi womannear the Nanau area ofAkrabad in Aligarh and alsosnatched her purse containing�20,000, police officials said onFriday.
The incident came to lightwhen the woman reported theissue. The accused raped thewoman as she alighted the
auto-rickshaw on her wayhome. The victim was laterpushed from the auto after therape and the accused fled away.
Investigations were under-way and teams had beendeployed to arrest the sus-pects, police said.
The CCTV footage wasalso being scanned so as toarrest the miscreants at the ear-liest, the police added.
The victim is originally aresident of a village underAkrabad police station area ofAligarh. Currently, she lives inDelhi with her husband andchildren.
She had come to Aligarh bybus from Delhi late onThursday night. She took anauto from Gandhi Park bus sta-tion to reach Akrabad. Apartfrom the driver, three otherpeople were already present inthe auto.
According to the woman, aman got down on the way.After this the auto driver andhis two accomplices gang-raped her and also robbed herpurse containing �20,000.When she protested, theaccused fled after threateningher by throwing her at Nanau,Akarabad.
Somehow, the womaninformed the police late in thenight. After getting the infor-mation, the police team thatreached the spot sent thewoman to hospital for treat-ment.
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Ahmad Murtaza Abbasi, themain accused in the
Gorakhnath temple attack case,attacked Anti-Terrorists Squad(ATS) officials on Friday whenthey were interrogating him.
Reports said that Murtazahad been cooperating with theofficials so far but he suddenlyturned violent on Friday andattacked the officers. Not onlythis, sources said that earlierMurtaza had also misbehavedwith the doctors.
Meanwhile, the UttarPradesh ATS on Friday claimedthat so far eight people had beentaken into custody for interroga-tion.
The ATS team will takeMurtaza back to Gorakhpur onSaturday as his extended five-dayremand will end.
Sources said that prepara-tions were also on to imposeUnlawful Activities (Prevention)Act (UAPA) on Murtaza and totransfer the probe to theNational Investigation Agency(NIA).
Sources said that the policewere also tightening the noosearound Murtaza and had alsogrilled his parents after detain-ing them. It is believed that bothof them have information thepolice about Murtuza's terroristmentality and that they used to
cooperate with him.A servant from Murtaza's
family was also picked up earli-er by the ATS for questioning.Two of Murtaza's associates havealso been detained by the ATSfrom Aligarhwa border inSiddharthnagar. Apart from this,two persons from Bansi, onefrom Siddharthnagar and onefrom Naugarh have also beenpicked up by the ATS for ques-tioning.
Sources said that Murtazahad made many important rev-elations, and had also disclosedwhy he attacked the PAC person-nel deployed in the security ofGorakhnath temple with abanka.
Besides working on to devel-op a jihadi app, Murtaza told theATS during interrogation that hewanted Sharia law to be imple-mented in the country.
The main reason for theattack on the Gorakhnath tem-ple with a banka was to show'cruelty'. He wanted to create ahype with his attack at theGorakhnath temple so that itcould be discussed in a big way.
Murtaza told during interro-gation that the "masters" sittingabroad had given him instruc-tions to attack with a banka ora chapad instead of bombs. Notonly this, Murtaza also admittedthat he deleted important infor-mation from his laptop andmobile phone.
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Unidentified miscreants struckterror in Sultanpur when they
critically injured a hotel owner andescaped after snatching cash bagfrom him. The sensational incidenttook place on Friday morning.
According to reports, twounidentified persons riding motor-cycles shot at the hotel owner on theKudwar Naka overbridge atKaraudian under Kotwali Nagarpolice station on Friday morning.They robbed the cash from the hotelowner and fled.
The doctors at the district hos-pital referred the victim to theKGMU Trauma Centre in Lucknowafter finding his condition critical,
According to Superintendentof Police Dr Vipin Kumar Mishra,Amit Kumar, a resident of VivekNagar, has his own hotel near the busstop. On his way home from thehotel on Friday morning as usual,two unidentified persons on amotorcycle shot at him at theKudwar Naka overbridge. As Amitfell on the ground, the miscreantssnatched the cash bag from him andescaped. He was admitted to hospi-tal by the police. The SP said thatthree police teams had been formedto investigate the incident and arrestthe culprits.
Meanwhile, within a few hours
of the killing of a BTech student inAligarh, in another shocking inci-dent in Saharanpur, a class 10 stu-dent was shot dead by schoolmatesafter a tiff over Instagram.
The deceased was identified asVansh Panwar.
Police said the victim was shotdead outside the school in the city.The victim was studying in GocharKrishi Inter College near DelhiRoad at Rampur Maniharan.
According to police, the disputestarted when one Umesh Chand(name changed) fought with hisclassmate Akhil Kumar (namechanged) over scratching the schoolbag. Following the incident, Akhiltold his friend Vansh Panwar aboutthe fight. Vansh then confrontedUmesh over Instagram. Angry overthis, Umesh asked his 19-year-oldelder brother Vinay to arrange a gun.On Wednesday, Umesh, Vinay andAnil, who is Vinay's friend, reachedVansh’s school and shot him dead.The three were on a motorcycle andwore helmets and masks to concealtheir identities. The three accusedwere later arrested, police con-firmed on Friday. They have beenbooked under sections 120B(Punishment for criminal conspir-acy) and 302 (murder).
“Anil shot at Vansh while Vinaywas the one who arranged a coun-try-made pistol. It was Akhil who
plotted the murder. After the mur-der, the trio tried to flee but theywere tracked with the help of CCTVcamera,” Saharanpur's SSP AkashTomar revealed before local mediapersons. Police also recovered theweapon used in the crime.
The accused have been sent tojail. Vansh was the only son of hisparents. His two sisters are studying.
Meanwhile, the body of a farmerwas found in a pool of blood on thecot in Merapur police station area ofFarrukhabad on Friday morning.Some unknown people thrashedhim to death sometime on Thursdaynight. The local police sent thebody for postmortem.
Reports said that 65-year-oldChhavinath, a resident of villageNaugaon of the police station area,was lying on a cot near Gama Devitemple near his farm on Thursdaynight. On Friday morning, whenChhavanath did not reach home, hissecond wife Krishna Devi went tothe farm and saw her husband's bodylying in a pool of blood. On theinformation of watchman AwadheshKumar, Achra outpost in-chargeShankaranand reached the spot andstarted investigation. According tothe information received from therelatives, the first wife of Chhavanathhas died. He had two sons from hisfirst wife. The second wife has threesons Lalman, Pawan and Nilesh.
Lucknow (PNS): In a bid to give a boost to thefisheries and blue economy sector and create moreemployment opportunities, the Uttar Pradeshgovernment aims to distribute over 2,064 lakh fishseeds among those engaged in fish farming in thenext 100 days across the state.
“The government is encouraging small, microbusiness units in the state. In this regard, it is pro-moting fish farming in the state to give more prof-it with less capital,” a government spokesman saidhere on Friday.
He said to boost the production, quality fishseeds would be supplied to fish farmers fromdepartmental fish farms/hatcheries of UP FisheriesDevelopment Corporation and private sectorhatcheries. “This will increase fish production andwill also provide sustainable livelihood to the peo-ple, who have adopted fish farming,” he said.
The Uttar Pradesh government will also prac-tice river ranching under which about five lakh fishfingerlings of different species will be released intothe river by the Fisheries department in the next100 days. This will generate employment oppor-tunities and boost the income of the fishermencommunity in the state.
"In the next 100 days, around 3,950 samplesof water and soil from various ponds will be test-ed free of cost by the government in the state. Onthe basis of the reports, the investment will be madeto meet the required components, which willreduce the expenditure on unnecessary investment.Along with that, the productivity of ponds will alsoincrease which will benefit the fish farmers in thestate," the spokesman said. He said an addition-al water area of around 750 hectares would be cov-ered for fisheries in the next 100 days.
“Fish seeds will be stored in the allotted pondsof gram sabhas and the ponds constructed in theprivate sector last year. Employment opportunitieswill be available and their means of livelihood willincrease and the total production of the state willincrease,” the official said.
Lucknow (PNS): The brainstorm-ing on the results of the UP assemblyelections was started by the Congressleaders here on Friday.
Addressing media persons,Congress national general secretaryBhanwar Jitendra Singh said that theparty was currently engaged in adetailed review of the election resultsand soon work would be started witha new strategy to strengthen the party.He said that the workers and leadersof the party were giving their opinionon the poor performance of the partyin the elections and the future strate-gy was also being discussed. The for-mer union minister said that the wayissues like inflation and unemploymenthad made the life of the common man
miserable, only Congress could get ridof it. Party spokesperson SanjaySingh said that Bhanwar JitendraSingh, met the workers of Lucknow,Barabanki, Pratapgarh, Amethi, RaeBareli, Bahraich, Unnao, Kanpur,Kanpur Dehat, Hardoi, Sitapur,Shravasti, Balrampur and Gonda unitson Friday and took firsthand accountof the reason for the defeat of the party.
He said that on Saturday, the work-ers of Sultanpur, Basti, Sant KabirNagar, Siddharthnagar, Maharajganj,Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria,Ayodhya, Ambedkar Nagar,Lakhimpur Kheri, Shahjahanpur andPilibhit would share their experiencewith the AICC leader.
Apart from this, Seva Dal, Youth
Congress, Mahila Congress, nationalstudents' organisation along with offi-cials of Congress minorities, ScheduledCastes and Backward Classes depart-ment would meet Bhanwar JitendraSingh. After Lucknow, there will be ameeting with the workers of differentdistricts in Jhansi and Varanasi andlastly in New Delhi after which thereport will be submitted to the highcommand. Bhanwar Jitendra Singhalso claimed that the announcementof the new state president of UP wouldbe made soon. It may be mentionedthat Congress president Sonia Gandhiearlier removed UPCC chief AjayKumar Lallu making him responsiblefor the party's defeat in the last assem-bly polls.
With the aim to keep the people of Uttar Pradesh safe fromcommunicable diseases, including encephalitis, malaria,
dengue, filariasis and chikungunya, the Uttar Pradesh govern-ment on Friday launched the Dastak Abhiyan to prevent thespread of water-borne and vector-borne diseases.
The campaign is scheduled to last till April 30.Speaking about the campaign, Chief Minister Yogi
Adityanath said, “The preparations will help us contain the com-municable diseases which normally erupt during summers andrainy season.”
The chief minister instructed officials to provide facilitiesfor prevention, treatment, and medicines at the Chief MinisterJan Arogya Mela, organised every Sunday.
ASHA and Anganwadi workers have been entrusted withthe responsibility to apprise people about various water-borneand mosquito-borne diseases. They will also be making a listof people running fever.
Stating that any kind of carelessness could spiral into a scarysituation, the government has stated that special efforts shouldbe made to improve surveillance. Along with the Health depart-ment, Rural Development and Child Welfare departments havebeen asked to stay alert.
It is worth mentioning here that Uttar Pradesh, which hasformed the maximum number (more than 60,000) of monitor-ing committees in the country, is playing a vital role in the fightagainst seasonal fever, and mosquito and water-borne diseases.
More than four lakh members associated with these com-mittees have been engaged in making people aware of vector-borne diseases by visiting them from door to door.
To control the spread of vector-borne diseases, aCommunicable Disease Control Campaign has already beenlaunched and weekly Chief Minister Jan Arogya Melas have alsobeen started from April 10.
The government has asked the officials concerned to linkthe communicable diseases campaign and Dastak Abhiyan withJan Arogya Mela so that more and more people can be bene-fitted.
To boost potato cultivation in easternUttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath
government has decided to set up a cen-tre of excellence for potato at Kasya inKushinagar district which will not onlyincrease production of potatoes but alsoincrease the income of farmers.
“The foundation stone of the admin-istrative building of the ultra modernPotato Centre of Excellence at Kushinagarwill be laid soon,” Agriculture MinisterSurya Pratap Shahi said, adding thatthis project has also been included in the100-day action plan of the state govern-ment.
“This will contribute towards provid-ing high quality seeds to the farmers in ahassle-free manner,” he said.
The minister said this centre wouldconduct research on the quality of pota-toes, better varieties and new varieties forindustrial use, and improved seed.
In addition, schemes will also bemade to protect potatoes from diseases.Along with this, farmers will be taught newways of potato cultivation in the centre ofexcellence.
Besides, Shahi said, workshops wouldbe organised from time to time at the cen-tre of excellence in which farmers wouldbe able to discuss issues faced by them withagricultural experts and find out their solu-tions.
Farmers would also be able to getinformation about getting maximum pro-duction by using minimum water in agri-culture, he added.
���� 36�4/72
Chief Minister YogiAdityanath on Friday gave
instructions regarding thestrengthening of law and order,good governance and forensuring peace and order in thestate. He said while establish-ing a clean environment for thegeneral public in each policestation, arrangements shouldbe made for the general publicto sit besides provision of cleandrinking water and toilets etc,so that people may come to thepolice station for disposal oftheir grievances without anyfear.
“To make the police stationclean and beautiful, along witha cleanliness campaign, thework of tree plantation etc.should be done. Along withthis, a security-good gover-nance system should also beensured by running a strictcampaign for women empow-
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Lucknow (PNS): In amajor administrative reshuffle,the state government, onFriday, transferred 14 IndianPolice Services officers, includ-ing nine district police chiefs.
According to an officialcommuniqué released onFriday morning, MoradabadSenior Superintendent of PoliceBablu Kumar and AmrohaSuperintendent of PolicePoonam were removed andkept on the waiting list.
IPS officer Vikas Vaidyawill replace Hathras SP VineetJaiswal, who has been sent toAmroha. Rampur SP AnkitMittal has been posted asCommandant of 8th BattalionPAC in Bareilly and BalrampurSP Hemant Kutiyal has beenmade the SSP of Moradabad.
Ashok Kumar-IV, attachedto the DGP Headquarters, hasbeen made the new SP ofRampur, while Sant KabirNagar SP Kaustubh has beenmade the new SP ofMaharajganj.
Gorakhpur's ASP (City)Sonam Kumar has been madethe new SP of Sant Kabir Nagarand Dhaval Jaiswal has beenmade the SP of Kushinagar.
Maharajganj's SP PradeepGupta has been shifted asCommandant of 37th BattalionPAC in Kanpur Nagar.
Superintendent of Police atKushinagar, Sachindra Patel,has been put in the waiting likeSSP Bablu Kumar and AmrohaSP Poonam.
�����A team of five meritorious students of City Montessori
School, Aliganj Campus I, bagged the state-level ‘EarthianParyavaran Mitra Award’ for their efforts towards envi-ronment conservation. Aliza Siddiqui, Devanshi Verma,Ishita Yashi Pandey, Arya Dwivedi and Bhanu PrakashVerma spread awareness among the general public andurged them to recycle, reuse and reduce pollution in aunique way with their research and presentation underthe guidance of their teachers on the topic, ‘Sustainabilityand Waste’.
�� "�� �"�����The UP Housing and Development Board has
increased the prices of its properties under different groups
for the financial year 2022-23. It was disclosed in a presscommuniqué issued by Housing Commissioner AKChauhan here on Friday. Those who properties registeredtill March 31 this year have to pay more in accordancewith the revised DM circle rates. There will be around 4per cent increase in the prices of properties as comparedto previous year.
��������To celebrate 17th Annual Day, The Richmond
Fellowship Society (India) is organising a workshop on‘Positive Mental Health’ at Shiv Shanti Sant AsudaramAshram on Saturday. MLA Neeraj Bora will be the chiefguest on the occasion and Oudh Gymkhana presidentSuresh Agarwal the guest of honour.
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Original Allotment Letter Dated11/12/2007 of my PropertyNo-A-2/42, Block- Sector-3Scheme Jawaharpuram,Kanpur hasbeen lost some-where. Any use of the sameshallbe illegal. Nisha Rastogiw/o Sanjay Rastogi, 11/243Sutarganj Kanpur, Present R/oFlatNo- 202, B-BlockRamkrishna ApartmentMcrobertganj, Kanpur
NOTICE
I, No. 4190901Y, Hav POOLAGOVINDA RAJULU, 15KUMAON, C/o 56 APO here-by declare that my daughter'sname wrongly mentioned in myservice records as P. NIVEDHAwhich may be corrected there-by considered and known asNIVEETHA G. and my son'sname wrongly mentioned in myservice records as P.DARSHAN which may be cor-rected thereby considered andknown as DHARSAN G.
NOTICE
I, No. 4191372K, HAV, MIRINSAN ALI, 15 KUMAON, C/o56 APO hereby declare that mydaughter's name wrongly men-tioned in my service records asNAFISA PRAVIN may be con-sidered and be known asNAFISA PARVIN.
NOTICE
I, No. 14705454A, NKRAGHUVIR SINGH, 15KUMAON, C/o 56 APO here-by declare that my wife (PINKI)Date of Birth wrongly men-tioned in my service records as01.02.1991 which may be cor-rected thereby considered andknown as 02.01.1991.
NOTICE
NOTICE
I, No. 4193632H, Hav, SurendraSingh Bhati, 15 Kumaon, C/o 56 Apohereby declare that my wife's namewrongly mentioned in my servicerecords as Gayatri Devi may be con-sidered and be known as GayatriKanwar and my wife's (GayatriKanwar) Date of Birth wrongly men-tioned in my service records as22.08.1981 which may be correctedthereby considered and known as22.08.1980 and my sons name wrong-ly mentioned in my service records asKrish Singh and Abhinav Singh whichmay be corrected thereby consideredand known as Krish Singh Bhati andAbhinav Singh Bhati.
NOTICE
I, No. JC-542500F, Sub NarpatSingh Gohil, 15 Kumaon, C/o 56 Apohereby declare that my son's (BhanuPratap Singh) Date of Birth wronglymentioned in my service records as18.07.2005 which may be correctedthereby considered and known as13.07.2005 and my daughter's namewrongly mentioned in my servicerecords as Santosh Kunwar which maybe corrected thereby considered andknown as Seejal Kanwar.
erment and against criminals inthe state,” he added.
Giving these details here onFriday evening, AdditionalChief Secretary (Home)Awanish Kumar Awasthi saidthat the chief minister stressedthat all the police stations inUttar Pradesh should beupgraded in the line of Rajghatpolice station of Gorakhpurwhere the local cops workhard to extend all possiblecomfort to the visitors alongwith facilitating a special deskfor help of women.
Awasthi said that the thenInspector-incharge, RandhirKumar Mishra, took personalinterest in the Rajghat policestation of Gorakhpur district,along with the entire police sta-tion staff, while working witha team spirit with the cooper-ation of the local public. Hesaid work was done for therestoration of the Rajghatpolice station complex, whichresulted in the rejuvenation ofthe police station complex. Hesaid all places like the visitorroom, police station office,women's help desk etc. werewell organised and renovatedby Mishra and in addition, thecampus was thoroughlycleaned and decorated withflowering plants, so that every
visitor to the police stationexperienced a positive energyalong with cleanliness.
He said working in thedirection of women's empow-erment, a women's help deskand women's restroom werealso constructed in the Rajghatpolice station so that womenvisitors coming to the policestation did not face any kind ofinconvenience. Awasthi saidthe work done by RandhirMishra had been highly appre-ciated by all and was exemplaryfor the entire police force so thechief minister wanted everycop to work on the same lines.
Meanwhile, the state gov-ernment is soon going to givebig job opportunities to womenin UP Home Guards, an offi-cial spokesman said on Friday.
Only women will berecruited on 20 per cent of thevacant posts in the UP HomeGuards and the officials havebeen asked to prepare a propos-al to start the recruitmentprocess in 100 days.
These recruitments will bedone in the Home Guards,which has contributed signifi-cantly to maintaining peaceand internal security.
This will drastically reducecrimes against women in thestate and develop an environ-
ment of security. Women of thestate, who dream of touchingthe heights with their courageand passion, will get opportu-nities and they will be helpfulin strengthening the securitysystem of the state as well.Women will show their abilityand efficiency on one hand andwill also be able to serve thepublic, on the other hand. Thegovernment has also issuedguidelines to fill all the vacantposts of Home Guards phase-wise in the next four years. Thegovernment is working fast tofill the vacancies with empow-ered women, able youth and fillall departmental vacanciesquickly and increase the num-ber of women in jobs.
The Yogi Adityanath gov-ernment, which is going to givejobs to more than one lakhpeople in the state every year,is working to make womenstrong and self-reliant. It hasalso stressed on increasing thenumber of women in vacantposts in all government depart-ments. The UP Home Guardshas so far developed the abili-ty to successfully deal with anyodd situations in the security ofthe country by training lakhs ofmen and women members ofthe organisation from everysection of society.
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A mega Covid vaccinationcamp for children in the
age group of 12-14 years willbe held at 253 city schools onSaturday. According to DistrictImmunisation Officer Dr MKSingh, the aim is to jab the34,430 eligible kids in this cat-egory. Vaccines have beenprovided to the schools for thepurpose.
The schools where thevaccine doses will be admin-istered are NKM Public HighSchool, Lucknow PublicCollege, Girls’ Inter College,
Digambar Jain IC (Chowk),Durga Geeta Vidyalaya HigherSecondary School, KaliCharan Inter College, KhunKhunji Girls’ Inter College,City Montessori (Chowk),Laxmi Narain Bhagwati VidyaMandir, St Joseph MontessoriSchool, Siddhartha GlobalSchool, Yashoda Rastogi Girls’Inter College, JagannathPrasad Sahu Inter College, StMary Public School, SwarnimPublic School, PramodiniHigh School, AwadhCollegiate, Sainik School, SethAnandram Jaipuria School, StMeera Public Inter College,Allen House Public School,Bimla International PublicSchool, and PoorvMadhyamik Vidyalaya in NabiNagar, Karora, Balsingh Khera,Nagram etc.
Meanwhile, 34.48 per centof the beneficiaries in the 12-14 years age category in UPhave received at least one dose
so far. A senior health officialsaid that out of a total of8,464,000 beneficiaries in 12-14 years category in the state,2,917,967 have taken at leastone dose even as the seconddose coverage is 0.01%.
Lucknow has covered35,133 out of the total estimat-ed population (194,424) in12-14 years category, which is18.07% coverage.
Shahjahanpur is on tophaving vaccinated 128,127 outof 128,127, which comes at100.61% coverage, followedby Ballia 84.03%,Muzaffarnagar 70.05%, RaeBareli 62%, Ayodhya 61.41%,and Ambedkar Nagar 60.10%.
Covid expert Dr PiyaliBhattacharya from SGPGI saidit is important to expedite thevaccination of 12-14 years cat-egory because it will take threeweeks to develop immunityafter being jabbed.
“Children do not listen
and will only mix with oneanother in schools and alsotend to remove masks, hencevaccination is important.There is a hint of rise in Covidcases in UP. The cases haverisen to 90 in the last couple ofdays. Therefore, it is importantto vaccinate the kids,” shesaid.
Organised Medical Guildsecretary Dr Ishwar Giladasaid that pan-India, the vacci-nation of 12-14 years group isnot drawing too much enthu-siasm. “People must under-stand that it is the best time totake the vaccine because whenyou are not infected, the vac-cine works better. When youare infected and you take thevaccine, it could be counter-productive. In the current sit-uation when the next wavemay be just round the corner,one should get vaccinated.Look at the case of polio vac-cination; even though there are
no cases of polio, the vaccineis being given regularly,” hepointed out. He added thatthere is a dichotomy becausewhen children test positive,parents become concernedbut they do not get their kidsvaccinated. If they are vacci-nated, they would not getCovid in the first place,” headded.
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Fresh Covid cases inLucknow witnessed a slightspike on Friday. An officialfrom the CMO office said thenew cases include eight menand two women. The freshcases included three fromAliganj, two each from Chinhat& Red Cross, and one eachfrom Indiranagar, NK road,and Silver Jubilee. The patientsincluded four travellers, onepre-surgical case and one withinfluenza-like illness.
Lucknow (PNS): ChaudharyCharan Singh InternationalAirport in Lucknow hasundertaken an extensive exer-cise to give a facelift to andimprove passenger conve-nience at the terminals 1 & 2.A spokesperson said here onFriday that they have alteredseating arrangements at thedeparture hall to accommo-date more passengers.
“We have also put artinstallations across terminal 2to bring positive energy andfeel. In order to target andattract the youth, we haveplaced installations like ananti-gravity booth, cultureclock with Lucknow’s destina-tions, and a globe with QRcode providing UP touristplaces.
“This makes the airportlook a little vibrant. We havechanged the design of coun-ters and given them the lookof chikankari design whichLucknow is famous for. Wehave rearranged the positions
of CUSS (common use selfservice) machines to helppassengers do self-check-inand print their luggage tag ifthe weight is within theapproved criteria of respectiveairlines,” he said.
He said they have re-designed retail outlets in thearrival hall to provide a widerspace for passenger move-ment. “These include outletsboth for food as well as shop-ping. It will accommodateadditional passengers,” he
added. He further said thatthey have added more retailbrands like Rene Cosmetics,Forest Essential, Starbucks,KFC, ILE BAR, Wow Momo,Masala Twist in terminal 2.
“There has been an addi-tional parking space for two-wheelers and cars which hasbeen created at the airport.We have added to the X-raymachines at the domesticsecurity check to increasepassenger throughput,” headded.
�������������������$������� ������$���� �)-�����Lucknow (PNS): The use ofcow urine and products hashelped in giving an exception-ally good mango crop atCentral Institute for SubtropicalHorticulture’s own farm in itscampus. Acting director ofCISH Neelima Garg said thaton its Rae Bareli road campus,the institute has a farm of 14hectares totally managed withorganic inputs without usingeven a gram of chemical andpesticides.
“The institute has a smallcow shed which is a source ofcow urine and dung. Variousorganic products like cow urine,jeevamrit, vermicompost,amritpani, agniastra, neemastraand dashparni ark neem oil,lime sulphur, etc were used formanaging various insect pestand diseases,” she said.
“Central opening of trees inDecember facilitates the lightpenetration inside the canopiesand avoids major damage bymango hoppers. The fruit set isexceptionally good seeing theintensity of hoppers and thripsduring the season. This is thefirst of year, the institute isengaged in developing variousprocesses of natural farming ina big way in the years to come.We have been spraying thetrees with cow urine and it hasbrought forth very goodresults,” she said.
She said Lucknow is wellknown for quality productionof Dussehri, which has beengiven the GI tag byGovernment of India.
“This has been a relativelyoff year for the mango crop;with most of the mangoorchards are dominated by newshoot growth. Flowering andfruiting has been in the rangeof 20-40% though fruiting islikely to ensure very good fruitsize and quality. The problemsof thrips and mango hoppershave also been managed wellthrough spray of recommend-ed insecticides,” she said.
She added that the abruptincrease in temperature affect-ed the process of pollinationadversely but at the same timeit has also helped in containingpests and diseases,” she said.
Lucknow (PNS): A farewell ceremony was organised by the NCCcadets of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Degree College for the thirdyear cadets. The chief guest on the occasion was Col Vinod Joshi,Commander Officer of 20 UP Girls Battalion, gave detailed infor-mation to the talented cadets about the commission in the IndianArmed Forces and threw light on the SSB and all the informationrelated to it besides emphasising on women empowerment. Heinformed the cadets about various means of recruitment in thearmed forces. Col Joshi said if the society and nation are to devel-op at a fast pace, women must be given power. “Women empow-erment is improving the social and economic status of women sothat they can get equal opportunities of employment, educationand economic progress and achieve social freedom to progress insociety. This way, women can fulfill their aspirations like men andplay equal partnership with men shoulder to shoulder,” he said.
).. �����������������������������������Lucknow (PNS): LucknowNagar Nigam is going to launcha drive against dairies in cityareas and recently-includedvillage areas in municipal lim-its. These dairies will be shift-ed to Para and other coloniesdeveloped for the purpose. Alarge number of dairies havealready been shifted outsidecity limits but several are stilloperational in city areas and 88village areas recently includedin municipal limits.
“LNN will carry out a driveagainst dairies still operating incity areas. These dairies will beshifted to the Para colonydeveloped for the purpose.However, we usually face prob-lems during drives againstdairy owners in the absence ofpolice force,” an official said.
The enforcement team isnot enough for the purposebecause it is often unable to putthe dairy owners under pres-sure, he said.
5�����������+�������#��������Lucknow (PNS): Police claimedto have arrested a person carrying1.5 kg ganja. He was identified asSuraj Rawat, a resident ofMankameshwar temple and anative of New Delhi. He waspicked up for interrogation nearKukrail bandha in Akbarnagarunder Mahanagar police station.He told the police that he hadbeen jailed several times in thepast.
Thieves sneaked into thehouse of Shreya Singh, a residentof Mayur Residency (A-block)under Gudamba police stationand a native of Gorakhpur, onThursday evening and decampedwith three gold rings, ATM cardsand Rs 40,000 in cash.
The police said Shreya Singh,who is a student of IntegralUniversity, left for her classes at 10am on Thursday. When shereturned home around 4:30 pm,she found the house burgled. Acase was registered in this connection.
-�������&'*������!���!��������� ����!��� Lucknow (PNS): A total of4,16,940 students dropped outof the UP Board examinationswhich concluded onWednesday. Giving this infor-mation, a senior official fromthe Education departmentsaid 1,60,293 class XII stu-dents and 2,56,647 class X stu-dents dropped out of exams.
The official said that thenumber of students who tookHigh School exams were25,25,007 out of total of27,81,654 registered candi-dates. In Intermediate, thenumber of students whoappeared for the exams was22,50,742 out of a total of24,11,035 registered students.
Amongst those caught
using unfair means were 27boys and nine girls in theIntermediate exams while 95boys and 17 girls in HighSchool exams. A total of 148students were caught usingunfair means and 40 FIRshave been lodged so far.
He said that the last examon Wednesday was of English,which was cancelled earlierdue to paper leak in 24 dis-tricts of the state. The officialsaid it has been the average dropout rate sincethe time efforts have beenmade to stop cheating. He saidthat the number of studentsusing unfair means alsodecreased this year as com-pared to last.
tives to prepare an exhaustivework plan for cleanliness of theGanga. It came as an efforttowards revival and restorationof the tributaries of river Gangain the district. In a meeting ofthe District Ganga Samiti heldon Thursday, DM directed theofficials concerned of all thedepartments under the DistrictGanga ConservationCommittee to prepare a planfor cleaning Ganga and keep-ing its flow uninterrupted. Shealso directed to clean riverbed under public awarenessprogramme.
The tributaries of Ganga inKanpur Nagar are Pandu, Rindand Noan rivers. DM asked theofficials to develop a green belton the banks and to ensure thatthe plantation was according tothe river nature. She alsoinformed that there werearound 40 villages on the bankof Ganga in a stretch of 150 kmfrom Araul to Fatehpur border.The residents of these villageswould be connected with the
Earth Ganga project. At pre-sent, organic agriculture wasbeing promoted in these vil-lages and around 1,268 farm-ers in 30 groups were involvedin organic agriculture. Shedirected the officials to involvemore farmers in organic agri-culture programme. She alsopresented a proposal to raise apathway from Atal Ghat toJajmau on the lines of BoatClub. Teams of Irrigationdepartment and KanpurMunicipal Corporation (KMC)will conduct a joint survey,assess the cost of pathway andprepare an estimate so that itcould be sent to NMCG alongwith the proposal. The districtadministration will organisean art, essay and slogan com-petition in schools for aware-ness.
Chief Development Officer(CDO) Mahendra Kumar,General Manager, KMC ShivSharanappa G, District ForestOfficer, officials and membersof Ganga Surakhsha Samitiwere present in the meeting.Ganga Surakhsha Samiti willalso organise a blood donationcamp on April 19.
cials of various other depart-ments held a meeting to discussdevelopment of Kanpur-Lucknow as twin cities. Themeeting was chaired by KDAVice-Chairman Arvind Kumar.Participants discussed about thecity logistics plan in detail forwell planned development ofKanpur city. Addressing theparticipants, Arvind Kumar
informed that the Governmentof India had selected around 175freight smart cities whichinclude seven cities of UttarPradesh — Agra, Kanpur,Varanasi, Prayagraj, Lucknow,Ghaziabad and Meerut. In a bidto finalise framework to preparethe city logistics planning, thestate government had set up acommittee under the chairman-ship of the DivisionalCommissioner. The meetingwas attended by the officials andrepresentatives of the KDA,
RTO, PWD, NHI, Metro Railand Railway. Firm M/s TractableEngineers Pvt Ltd is preparingthe city developmental plankeeping in mind the year 2050.
As per city logistics plan,there was a need for more devel-opment in road, railway and airmediums. Participants statedthat the city had a very low airtraffic and therefore the Chakeriairport should be developedand equipped with a cargo facil-ity which will save time andmake transportation smooth.
IIT Kanpur’s distinguished alumnusand Institute Fellow awardee Jagjeet
Singh Bindra (BT/CHE/1969) inaugurat-ed the Unit Operations and InnovationLaboratory at the Chemical Departmentof IIT, Kanpur, on Friday. Bindra, whoearned his bachelor’s degree in ChemicalEngineering in 1969 has been a long-time supporter of the Institute. Hedonated Rs 1 crore for the upgradationand maintenance of the laboratory. TheLab, named Jeet Bindra Unit Operationsand Innovation Lab, houses state-of-the-art equipment for undergraduate stu-dents of the Chemical EngineeringDepartment to ideate and innovate intheir field of study.
On the occasion Prof . AbhayKarandikar, Director, IIT, Kanpur said,“We are delighted for the generous con-tribution from Jagjeet Singh Bindra inupgrading the laboratory.
Over the years he has been anearnest contributor and an integral partof the growing ecosystem of IIT, Kanpur.This laboratory is now ready and willprovide students with enhanced facilitiesto carry on with their studies andresearch. On behalf of the institute, Iexpress my sincere gratitude to Bindrafor his continuous support.” Bindra said,
“This lab offers two things. Numberone - it offers experiments with the levelof accuracy and teaching opportunitiesthat is easily beyond what was availablein the past. But more than that students
will take ownership of this lab. They willsit around and talk about how they canmake improvements.
How they can innovate and createnew things. To me this is not just ateaching tool, it is a tool to help peoplebe innovative and creative.”
Thanking Bindra for his generosity,Prof Kantesh Balani, Dean of Resourcesand Alumni, said, “Bindra’s generous andcontinued support and multiple contri-
butions via grants, gift programmes,chairship since last two decades havemade a very positive change to the vis-age of IIT Kanpur.
His recent contributions to scholar-ship for female students and moderni-sation of units operations lab highlighthis continued selfless service to the insti-tute.”Expressing gratitude to Bindra forthis generous contribution, Prof JayantK Singh, Head of the Chemical
Engineering Department, said, “Thedepartment of Chemical Engineering isextremely grateful for the generous con-tribution of Jeet Bindra. The Jeet BindraUnit Operations and Innovation Lab willhost close to 240 students every year forconducting numerous experiments andproviding a platform for innovation.
We strongly believe that renovatedlab with a new and upgraded set ofequipment and facility will have animmense impact on the UG curriculum- particularly exposing them to practi-cal problems faced by chemical engineer-ing.
Furthermore, we strongly believethat this JB-UOIL will shape the nextgeneration of leaders and engineers. Onbehalf of the department, I would like tothank Bindra for the generous gift.”Bindra was also felicitated as InstituteFellow 2020 by IIT Kanpur Director, ProfAbhay Karandikar.
Jagjeet Singh Bindra is on the boardof Lyondell Basell Industries NV andHPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd.
He is also the director of EdisonInternational and Southern CaliforniaEdison- one of the United States’ largestelectric utilities.
Bindra has generously contributedto IIT Kanpur over the years by institut-ing faculty chairs, lecture series, gift pro-grammes to name a few. He has beena long time supporter of IITK havingcontributed for various chairs, fellow-ships, scholarships and many other pathbreaking initiatives at IIT Kanpur.
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Kanpur Development Authority(KDA) is planning to sell its
hidden plots and houses con-structed under different oldschemes through auction. Thework for identififying such plotsand houses had started. At thesame time, KDA is preparing planfor construction of affordablehouses with an investment of Rs9.39 crore.
While going through its oldrecords, KDA officials came acrossaround 1,500 plots so far lying hid-den under its different housingschemes. KDA Vice-ChairmanArvind Kumar had conducted asurvey of old housing schemes sit-uated in the city in the recent past.
During the survey, variousplots and houses were identifiedwhich would now be sold throughauction. This is likely to add
crores of rupees to KDA exche-quer. These hidden plots/houseswere meant for residential, com-mercial, industrial, group housingand educational purposes etc.Officials identified vacant plots inParshad Nagar, Jarauli, Sujatganj,Lakhanpur and Indira Nagarhousing schemes.
Besides, vacant commercialplots were identified in PankiGangaganj, Maurang Mandi
(Bingawa), New Transport Nagarscheme and Kidwai Nagar areas.
In Jarauli, one plot meant forsetting up of nursing home wasfound vacant while in Panki, Barraand Jawaharpuram areas, plotsmeant for setting up educationalinstitutions were lying vacant.
KDA is also planning tolaunch sale of industrial plots forsetting up of commercial hub inChakeri also.
Indian Institute ofInformation and Technology(IIIT-Allahabad) organisedan activity to inspire youngstudents for pursuing highereducation in the field of opticsand lights, at KendriyaVidyalaya-IIIT-Jhalwa.
The event was held underthe supervision of assistantprofessor at the department ofElectronics andCommunication Engineer(ECE), IIIT-Allahabad, SunnySharma.
“The purpose of schoolactivity is to encourage stu-dents in the field of researchin optics and light.
The activity was alsoaimed to motivate students,develop scientific tempera-ment and interest in the fieldof STEM (Science,Technology, Engineering,Mathematics)”, said a PhDscholar of the ECE depart-ment of IIIT-A and memberof the student chapter ofOPTICA, Prateek Mishra.
The event benefited thestudents of class 9 and 10 ofKV-IIIT, who not only learntthe basics of the field of opticsand lights but because of thefirst-hand knowledge extend-ed by the experts in the fieldfrom IIIT-A, many of the stu-
dents got inspired and showedtheir interest in pursuing thespecialized field in future.
The presentation andexperimental activity was car-ried out under the presence ofprincipal of KV-Jhalwa,Vijeyesh Pandey, along withthe vice principal SK Guptaand another teacher NeelimaMishra. After the successfulcompletion of activity, meri-torious girl students of class 9and 10 were felicitated withawards.
A quiz activity for stu-dents was also conducted.The questions were from gen-eral life having concepts oflight.
“We are so thankful to theOPTICA society for such amotivational session and theexperiment session and pre-sentation were really helpful tosee the practical side of theoptics that we have learnt inthe theory,” said, Shagun, astudent of class 10.
“Events, such as this,proves to be a milestone inshaping the career of the stu-dents as young minds are fullof intrusiveness and are insearch of mentors.
This field of optics andlights has so much potentialand I am hopeful that many ofour students would pursuePhD’s and further research inthis field,” said principalVijeyesh Pandey.
bai l to 70-year-oldVishwanath Pandey, accusedof raping a girl on the pretextof marriage. The court hasdirected to release him onpersonal bond and twosureties.
The petitioners have beenin jail since 20 December2021. Justice VK Singh hasgiven this order after listeningto advocate Ashwani Mishra.
An FIR has been regis-tered against the petitioner inKotwali Varanasi under
Section-376 IPC. The peti-tioner's advocate said thatVishwanath has been falselyimplicated. There is a contra-diction in the statementsgiven by the victim to thepolice and the court.
The petitioner said thathe would always cooperate.He will be present wheneverthe court calls, he has nocriminal history.
The court said that keep-ing in view the evidence andpossible punishment, correc-tive punishment principle andright to life under Article 21,the petitioner is entitled to getbail. The High Court has
granted conditional bail.Meanwhile, the National LokAdalat will be organized onMay 14. On Thursday,Distr ict Judge NalinSrivastava held a meeting inthe court auditorium in thisregard, in which emphasishas been laid on disposal ofmaximum cases and publici-ty of Lok Adalat so that theycan come and get their casessettled. It was told that in theLok Adalat, the cases relatedto family, motor accident,revenue, bank loan, electric-ity and criminal cases will besettled on the basis of mutu-al settlement.
Liquor mafia Sanjay Singh and Guddu are cur-rently in jail. A year ago, illegal liquor worth
crores of rupees was recovered by the police fromthe Balipur farm house located in Hathigwanpolice station area of Sanjay Singh. Pratapgarhdistrict administration attached the propertiesof liquor mafia Sanjay in Balipur and Lucknowon Friday afternoon.
District Magistrate Dr. Nitin Bansal told themedia that a case was registered against theliquor mafia Sanjay Singh under the GangsterAct. In such a situation, action has been takento attach these properties acquired illegally bythe liquor mafia.
These properties will be confiscated by theadministration after giving notice. After thisaction initiated by the administration led to all
the mafia lost their sleep. Till now they usedto think that with the blessings of the leaders,nothing will spoil them, but due to the strictstand of the Yogi government, panic has arisenin them. Apart from attachment, there is alsothe danger of running the bulldozer.
It is noteworthy that last year there was a stirin Pratapgarh after the death of many people dueto drinking spurious liquor. Then action wastaken against the officers and employees of Policeand Excise.
Along with this, raids were conductedagainst the mafia doing illegal liquor business.Properties of many liquor mafia were confiscat-ed in Pratapgarh and bulldozers also operated.
Some were arrested and some surrenderedthemselves. Now the administration has start-ed the work of causing financial injury to sucha mafia who is in jail.
The Senior Superintendentof Police (SSP) of Pryagraj
has sent three people includingtwo policemen to jail for wav-ing an illegal pistol in a mov-ing car while intoxicated.
On the information ofpassers-by, Ghurpur policearrested constable KushalDwivedi, Abdul Arif Siddiquiand driver Mohsin Siddiqui.Car and illegal pistol wererecovered from their posses-
sion. The SSP suspended boththe constables, then all three ofthem were sent to jail.
This senseless act of thepolicemen was exposed byASP Chirag Jain. Chirag isposted as in-charge of Ghurpurpolice station. Abdul Arif, a res-ident of New Colony Jwalaganj,located in Kotwali police sta-tion area of Fatehpur district,is a 2001 batch constable. WhileKushal Dwivedi is a resident ofMotiyari police station Naraini
district Banda. Both were post-ed in Prayagraj city Kotwalipolice station.
They used to live in a bar-rack above the Shahganj policestation.
Both the constables weregoing in a car of MohsinSiddiqui, a resident of SouthMalaka, on Wednesday night.When passersby saw the con-stables waving pistols on theway, they informed the police.Within a short time, ASP
Chirag Jain started checking forthem by putting up barricadesoutside Ghurpur police stationand then caught the threeincluding the constable in thecar.
A pistol was found fromthe car during the search. TheASP said that the constableswere intoxicated. During inter-rogation, it was told that allthree of them were going toMahoba in a car to see Kushal'sailing mother.
Office of The Superintending Engineer, Kanpur Circle, P.W.D., KanpurNo.: 1522C/131C-KV/2022 Dated : 08.04.2022
E-Tender NoticeThe Superintending Engineer, Kanpur Circle, P.W.D. Kanpur on behalf of Hon'ble Governor of
Uttar Pradesh invites the percentage rate bids from the eligible and approved Contractorsregistered (A, B & C Class) with UP PWD Road Work for following works :-
Sl. District Name of Work Estimated Bid Cost of Bid Time ofNo. Cost (Rs. in Security Documents Completion
Lacs) (Rs. in (Rs.) (With rainyLacs) season)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 Kanpur Construction of Nanhuwapur to 97.50 6.88 2500.00+ 03Dehat Pachlakh Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
2 Kanpur Construction of Thanwapur to 88.80 6.44 2500.00+ 03Dehat Jagammanpur Dera Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
3 Kanpur Construction of Haramau to 119.00 7.95 2500.00+ 03Dehat Anantapur Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
4 Kanpur Construction of Mungishapur 131.30 8.57 2500.00+ 03Dehat Shahjahanpur Road (Nanhuwapur) 450.00 (GST)= Month
to Bahawpur Link Road 2950.00
5 Kanpur Construction of Deengh Bamba to 47.00 4.35 2500.00+ 03Dehat Bamhnauti Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
6 Kanpur Construction of Chaubeypur Bela 68.90 5.45 2500.00+ 03Dehat to Ramgadh Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
7 Kanpur Construction of Gahira Shivrajpur 67.90 5.40 2500.00+ 03Dehat to Pandeyhar Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
8 Kanpur Construction of Nawal Niwada to 97.00 6.85 2500.00+ 03Dehat Kashirampurwa Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
9 Kanpur Construction of Nayapurwa to 64.90 5.25 2500.00+ 03Dehat Kanjrandera Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
10 Kanpur Construction of Karom to 304.50 17.23 2500.00+ 03Dehat Bhitargaon Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
11 Kanpur Construction of Pakdi Shivli to 47.20 4.36 2500.00+ 03Dehat Niwada Devray Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
12 Kanpur Construction of Makrandpur 133.30 8.67 2500.00+ 03Dehat Bantha to Saraiya Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
13 Kanpur Reconstruction of Rampur Shivli 80.50 6.03 2500.00+ 03Dehat to Raniya Maitha Road via 450.00 (GST)= Month
Saraiya Road in Km. 1 to 6 (900) 2950.00
14 Kanpur Construction of Turra to Murra 72.40 5.62 2500.00+ 03Dehat Link Road 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
15 Kanpur Reconstruction of Raipur Pairajor 54.20 4.71 2500.00+ 03Dehat Road in Km 1 to 3 450.00 (GST)= Month
2950.00
16 Kanpur Special Repair of Sukhsaura to 43.90 4.20 2500.00+ 03Dehat Dullapur Road in Km. 1(500) 450.00 (GST)= Month
and 4(500) 2950.00
The Rate adopted in the BOQ including all taxes but excluding GST.Cost of Bid Document : as per coloum 6 (non-refundable) To be deposited in the account of UP e-tender online Account through e-tender portal by Internet Banking only. All concerned please notethat the bidding process will not move onward if the bid document's Cost (Tender Fee) is not paidthrough e-tender portal by Internet Banking.
The bidders are required to submit the following :Cost of Bid Document (Tender Fee) :- Certificate of proof of payment in the a count of UP. E-ten-der online Account by Internet Banking which will be generated when payment made through e-tender portal by Internet Banking.
Bid document/tender details is available on website http://etender.up.nic.in From 28.04.2022to 05.05.2022 (upto 12:00 noon) which can be downloaded from website. Under the Provisionscontained in Government Order No. 14/2020/879/twenty-three-2020-176 (S)/06 dated 25.08.2020contractor has to upload all the documents & records related to the tender by logging in Praharithrough their Chankya login id on webiste http://wms.uppwd.gov.in/Prahari/ & downloaded techni-cal sheet E-1 from prahari and upload the same on the E-Tender website till 05.05.2022 upto 12:00noon. Technical bid will be opened on 06.05.2022 at 12:30 p.m.
All terms & Conditions are available on webiste http://etender.up.nic.in.
Ramji Ambedkar was remem-bered by every section of thesociety across the district on his131st birth aniversary onThursday. In governmentoffices, including the DivisionalCommissioner’s (DC) office,the birth anniversary was cel-ebrated with the garlanding of
the leader’s portrait by DCYogeshwar Ram Mishra, whohighlighted the struggle andcontribution of Dr Ambedkar.At Collectorate office DMPraveen Kumar Laxkar gar-landed the portrait of DrAmbedkar and highlighted hiscontribution to the nation.The birth anniversary of DrAmbedkar was also celebratedby BJP. Member Rajya Sabha JaiPrakash Nishad, who was the
chief guest, said Babasahebwas of the view that everyoneshould be involved in nationbuilding according to the abil-ity and Modi government wasworking in that direction. Otherspeakers stressed on social fra-ternity as the need of the hour.To mark birth anniversary ofLord Mahavir and DrAmbedkar a seminar wasorganised in RSS office. Thespeakers said it is the need of the
hour that we spread the ideol-ogy of Jainism which couldbring peace in the world. Theyunderlined the contribution ofDr Ambedkar who proved thatany goal of life can be achievedthrough strong will power. In theseminar which was conductedby Neelesh and chaired by RamChandra, Shyam, Bhupendraand others were present. Thevote of thanks was proposed byPawan Kumar.
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Climate Agenda, an organi-sation fighting against air
pollution, has demanded todeclare clean air as a funda-mental right and has decided tosubmit a memorandum in thisdirection in the office of pub-lic representatives of the cityand all political parties.
Addressing a press con-ference at Paradkar Bhawanhere on Friday, director oforganisation Ekta Shekhar andSaniya Anwar said an artificial
lung installed at Assi Ghatwhich despite being made ofhigh-efficiency filter turnedblack due to pollution in justthree days. “The turning ofcompletely white lungs to blackin 72 hours is a proof that airpollution as become a seriousissue in Varanasi as well asother cities of the state,” saidEkta Shekhar, adding that thecampaign is being run with aview to create awarenessamong the people and in thenext phase, our team will nowtry to draw the attention of all
mainstream political partiesto the issue of pollution. “Thecampaign team will go to theoffices of all parties, submit amemorandum to them andmotivate them for a permanentsolution to pollution. Thechanges that are being seen inthe field of electric vehicles andsolar energy in the city at pre-sent, are pleasant as well asinsufficient,” she said, addingthat we would also try to sen-sitise the ministries concernedon this issue through a mem-orandum. “Varanasi has open-
ly supported this awarenesscampaign. In the signaturecampaign being run bothonline and offline, in the lastfive days, a total of more than4,000 support online and over20,000 offline has beenreceived,” said Saniya Anwar.“We will continue this supportprocess and our goal is to handover a demand to the union andUP ministries of Forest andEnvironment with a total of50,000,” she said, adding thatthe campaign is mainly led bythe youth of the city.
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Chairman and ChiefExecutive Officer of
Railway Board VK Tripathiand Advisor to the RailwayMinister Sudheer Kumar con-ducted extensive inspection ofvarious shops of BanarasLocomotive Works (BLW)here on Friday. During theinspection, the technicalaspects related to the con-struction of locomotives andimportant new technologyloco projects were discussedin detai l with GeneralManager Anjali Goyal andheads of departments. On theoccasion Tripathi and Kumarconducted a thorough inspec-tion of various shops of BLWWorkshop like Loco FrameShop, Loco Assembly Shop,Traction Assembly Shop,Truck Machine Shop and NewBlock Shop. After the inspec-tion in a meeting held in themeeting room of the LocoAssembly Shop, the membersof Staff Council and the super-visors present discussed theloco production activities in
detail. After that in a meetingorganised with ResearchDesign and StandardsOrganisation (RDSO),Lucknow, including LocoProduction Unit of IndianRailways (IR), BanarasLocomotive Works,Chittaranjan Locomotive
Works (CLW), PatialaLocomotive Works in the Hallof Fame of BLWAdministration Building, dis-cussions were held in detailon projects and future plans,as well as keeping in mind theinterests of the employeesand their skills, security,
training, and basic problemsetc. The issues related to theBLW were also discussed.GM BLW Anjali Goyal, GMCLW Satish Kumar Kashyapalong with principal chiefheads of departments andsenior officers were mainlypresent in the meeting.
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Managing Director Dr. UdaiShankar Awasthi and
Rekha Awasthi received agrand welcome on reachingIFFCO Phulpur unit. ExecutiveDirector Unit Head SanjayKudeshia and Vinita Kudeshia,other JGMs,DGMs,office bear-ers of IFFCO OfficersAssociation and IFFCOEmployees Union welcomedtheir Managing Director andthe First Lady of IFFCO fami-ly in a traditional manner at theguest house.
Chief Security OfficerColonel Dinesh Singh andsecurity guards gave guard ofhonour to the ManagingDirector. Managing DirectorDr. Udai Shankar Awasthi is ona three-day visit to the IFFCOPhulpur unit. In which there isa visit to the renovated ShriRam temple in campus andIFFCO plant. He held a meet-ing with senior officers in theboard room in which technicalpresentation was given to him.After this, Managing DirectorDr. Udai Shankar Awasthi wentto the office of IFFCO OfficersAssociation in which he waswelcomed by the President ofIFFCO Officers AssociationSanjay Kumar Mishra andGeneral Secretary SwayamPrakash. The ManagingDirector praised the officers
doing good work and directedthem to be always ready tomeet the challenges. The offi-cials of IFFCO OfficersAssociation honored him bygarlanding him with a garlandof 51 kg. During this, SonuTiwari, Gautam Kumar, otheroffice bearers of the associationand a large number of officerswere present.After this, BhajanSandhya was organized at 7 pmin the community center inwhich the Agnihotri brothersfrom Lucknow gave a splendid
performance. After this, din-ner was arranged at MatriPark. Managing Director Dr.Udai Shankar Awasthi andRekha Awasthi, ExecutiveDirector Unit Head SanjayKudeshia and Vinita Kudeshia,General Manager GiridharMishra, DGM P&A DanveerSingh, HOD F&A S.K.Singh,JGMs respectively: A.P.Rajendran, Sanjay Vaish, M.D.Mishra, Santosh Kumar Shukla,Dr. Anita Mishra, P.K. Singh,Sanjay Bhandari,Mr. P.K. Patel,
Mr. Arun Kumar,CORDETPrincipal Mr.Rajendra Yadav,ODS Mr. D.P.S.Tomar, all otherDGMs and Heads ofDepartments, and senior officerswere present with their wives.During this, President of IFFCOOfficers Association Mr. SanjayKumar Mishra and GeneralSecretary Mr. Swayam Prakash,President of IFFCO EmployeesUnion Mr. Pankaj Pandey andGeneral Secretary Mr. VinayYadav and other officials werepresent in the program.
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Special prayer, devotionalsongs were held at Yeshu
Darbar Church of SHUATS onthe occasion of Good Friday.Seven Words of God was toldby different speakers. The pro-gramme was live telecasted onYoutube. While telling aboutfirst word “Father, forgivethem…” Rev. Themas Lohatishared that Lord Jesus Christalways did good works, helpedpeople, relieved all kinds ofpeople from suffering. Evenafter he was crucified, heprayed to God to forgivemankind. The second word“Today you will be with me inParadise..” told by Pro VC(PMD) Prof. Rev. SarvjeetHerbert. While sharing theBible verse he said that if youbelieve in the Lord Jesus Christ,you will have eternal life.
Joint Director (HRM) Er.Abhilasha A. Lal shared thirdword “Women, here is yourson...”. She said that we shouldfollow the teachings given bythe Lord in this world andrespect our parents.
Director Campus Ministryand vice president of YeshuDarbar Church Dr. Sudha Lalshared fourth words ““Eloi EloiLama Sabachthani..”. She saidthat Jesus scarified His life inservice of humanity, crucifiedHimself to purify human evilsinculcating love, mercy,humanity, patience, humble-ness and simplicity to spend lifeas believer of God. We shouldgive first place in our life to thecommand given by the God.
Pastor LalchungnungGangte of Manipur shared fifthword “I thirst..” He said that theCreator came among us inhuman form, he suffered tor-
tures, he came to give salvationto mankind. Dr. Sudha Lalshared the sixth word ‘it is fin-ished’. She said that Jesus Christcompleted the work of salva-tion of mankind on earth.Jesus taught men to love oneanother, to walk the path oftruth, not to sin, and to enterinto eternal life. The SHUATSVC and Bishop of YeshuDarbar Church Most Rev. Prof.Rajendra B. Lal while sharingthe seventh word said thatLord Jesus Christ created a newcreation through six words. Hecompleted all the tasks assignedby the God. In the seventhverse Jesus said, 'Father, intoYour hands I commit my Spirit’.He said that God created manin His image so that by believ-ing in the Lord Jesus Christ,humans might be blessed to bechildren of God. Rev. DavidPhillips spoke about
Resurrection Day. Sister ReenaHarul sang a Christian song'Woh Hum Sabke Gunah KaBojh Uthakar Liye Ja RahaHai'. Devotional bhajans 'OMere Khuda Kyun TuneMujhko Chhor Diya’ and‘Poora Hua’ were performed bythe women of the Yeshu DarbarChurch. Ms Mercy sang thedevotional song 'Mere PapDhul Sakenge. Ms. Rehanasang a bhajan “Yeshu TujhePukare” written by BishopMost Rev. Prof. Rajendra B. Lal.
In the program, Pro VC(Academic) Prof. AKALawrence, Pro VC(Administration) Prof. S.B. Lal,Registrar Prof. Robin L. Prasad,Director Administration Mr.Vinod B. Lal, Director IPCProf. Jonathan A. Lal includingSHUATS staffs, Yeshu DarbarChurch members were present.
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With the end of Kharmas,all the auspicious activi-
ties like marriages, grah-pravesh (house warming),Naamkaran (naming ceremo-ny), purchase of new vehiclesand inauguration of new estab-lishments have commencedfrom Thursday. More excitedare the brides and grooms whoare looking forward to tying theknot during the ‘lagan’ seasonbetween April 14 and July 8. Infact, the wedding season hasbrought smiles on the faces ofall the people associated withthe hospitality sector and wed-ding industry who had beenstruggling to make ends meetamid the pandemic for the pasttwo years. Hotels, marriagehalls, banquets, clubs andgrounds in the city are fullybooked for next four months asmany people who cancelledtheir wedding due to Covid
restrictions for the past twoyears, are all set to hold grandevents now. Ashutosh , who istying the knot on April 22, says“ We have planned a series ofevents including mandap,haldi, mathmangra etc., ingrand manner and made book-ings accordingly. With no guestlimitations now, I have decid-ed to share the moments of mymarriage with all my lovedones.” Interestingly, familieswho are holding marriage par-ties in coming four months havegot special marriage cards print-ed from city as well as Delhi toinvite their guests. “The e-inviteseason is over and I am invitingall my friends and relativespersonally through invitationcards,” said SK Dubey, adding“Inviting guests personally holdsa special significance and peo-ple love to be invited on suchoccasion personally,” he added.Moreover, marriage pandalowners, caterers, decorators are
hopeful for brisk business thisseason. A senior manager of acity-based hotel said that, “Wehave no slot left as all the dateshave already been bookedBetween April and July.” He alsoadded that there are some dateswhen pandal organisers willhave hold at least two to threeceremonies in a day and hopedthat his business will bloomafter all the hardship he facedduring the pandemic. Ownersof banquet halls claimed thatbookings for halls, rooms andsuites are almost full. “We stillget lots of queries about theavailability of banquet halls,”said an owner of a hotel at CivilLines. He further claimed thatthe trend of big-fat wedding isback among the clients. Aspeople say that a wedding isincomplete without ‘band-baaja’,they are rushing to make last-minute booking for an orches-tra group. The owner of anorchestra band said that the rate
has been fixed as per the num-ber of artists and duration. “Itcosts anywhere between�25,000 to �50,000 per proces-sion,” he said, adding that thedemand has increased as the‘lagan’ is underway. Meanwhile,city markets are too crowded asthe bride and groom are mov-ing from one shop to another insearch of best dresses, and otheraccessories. Owner of a garmentshop, jewellery shops and evenmakeup studios at Civil Linesare hopeful for brisk business.“Trends have been changingevery day and so, there is a lotof craze of imitation jewellery asthey offer a wide range todesign and pattern,” said jew-ellers.
Besides, salons are alsomaking a brisk business. Themanager of a beauty salon at incity said “ I have to hire morestylists because of the hugenumber of bookings for pre-bridal and bridal make-up.
Promising artiste Dr PreeteshAcharya was felicitated on
completion of seven years whiledischarging the responsibilityof conducting the programmedaily at Subeh-e-Banaras stageat Assi Ghat here on Fridaymorning.
The chief guest and Lokpalmember, Government of India,Justice Abhilasha Kumari hon-oured Dr Preetesh with abouquet. On the occasionfounder of Aashray SevaSanstha Dr Virendra PratapSingh and yoga guru Pt VijayPrakash Mishra also garland-ed Dr Preetesh. For the lastseven years, Dr Preetesh, sonof leading vocalist PadmaShri Dr Rajeshwar Acharya,has always inspired the bud-ding talents and others at thestage while conducting theprogramme.
On the occasion formerVice-Chancellor King George
Medical University(Lucknow) Padma Shri ProfSaroj Chudamani Gopal,Subah-e-Banaras founder sec-retary Dr Ratnesh Verma andtreasurer Sunil Shukla alsoexpressed their best wishes toDr Preetesh and hailed hisefforts to conduct the pro-
gramme for continuous 1,800days and setting two worldrecords. Vice-president oforganisat ion Pt PramodMishra conducted the felici-tation ceremony. On theoccasion Pt Ramesh Tiwari,Pt Deepak Mishra, AjayGupta, Manju Mishra, Uday
Pratap Singh, Vinay Tiwari,Devendra Krishna Mohan,Abhay Srivastava andJaiprakash were also present.
Besides, in the regular pro-gramme of yagya, Ganga Aartiand yoga programmes wereheld apart from cultural events.Young singer Anshu Chauhan,who came from Agra, pre-sented his programme. He wasaccompanied by Chetan Shuklaon tabla and Kumar Vicky onharmonium.
Anshu started singing withthe bandish in the Vilambit EkTaal in Raga Ahir Bhairav‘mora hariya rajdulara aayore…’. He also presented a ban-dish in the Dhrut Teen Taal‘chin chin baat…’ and ‘albelasajan aayo re…’ and concludedwith a Kabir bhajan ‘chadarodhi bahut purani…’. JusticeAbhilasha Kumari presentedthe certificate to the artiste.
Additional District JudgePatna Rajesh Dwivedi was alsopresent.
Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naiduwhen after visiting the ‘City ofLord Rama’ Ayodhya, he cameto this ‘City of Lord Shiva’ onFriday evening.
To welcome him, the entireBanaras railway station ofNorth Eastern Railway (NER)was decorated. Besides, artistesin groups also presented cul-tural programmes there.Earlier, known as Manduadih,this railway station has beenupgraded in a remarkable waywith the addition of interna-tional standard facilities.Earlier, the station also cameinto the limelight when thePrime Minister Narendra Modialong with Chief Minister YogiAdityanath visited it in one ofhis recent visits to his parlia-mentar y const ituency.However, it is rarely seenthese days when VVIPs pre-fer to travel in trains. Vice-President along with his fam-ily came here by a specialtrain. When he reached thestation on his two-day visit,he was warmly welcomed byUP Minister of State(Independent Charge)Ravindra Jaiswal and topadministrative and policeofficers, including DivisionalCommissioner DeepakAgrawal, Commissioner ofPolice A Satish Ganesh,District Magistrate KaushalRaj Sharma and others. Topofficers of Indian Railwaysand NER were also present.Elaborate security arrange-ments were made at the sta-tion.
Later, Naidu directly wentto Dashaswamedh Ghat where
he watched the grand view ofGanga Aarti, an event whichevery visitor wants to see atleast once in their lifetime. Inrecent times the PM attendedthe event on many occasions,including the one when hewatched the Ganga Aarti alongwith his then Japanese coun-terpart Shinzo Abe. After hisstay at the Officers’ GuestHouse in Banaras LocomotiveWorks (BLW) on Saturday hewill visit Kashi VishwanathCorridor and offer prayers atKashi Vishwanath temple.Later, he will visit Pandit DeenDayal Upadhyay Smriti Sthal(Memorial Site) at Parao. In theafternoon he will reach LalBahadur Shastri InternationalAirport, Babatpur, from wherehe will return to New Delhi bya special plane.
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Additional Commissionerof Police (Law and Order)Anil Kumar Singh has issuedan order to implement Section144 Code of CriminalProcedure (CrPC) under pro-hibitory orders in the areas ofthe Police CommissionerateVaranasi which will remaineffective till May 13.
In his order, he said that thearrival/visit/ stay programme ofthe Vice-President of Indiaand Chief Minister, is pro-posed in the Commissionerateon April 15/16. In view of thesecurity of both the Vice-President and CM, the possi-bility of affecting the securityand law and order cannot beruled out if drones are used onthe occasion of the said pro-
gramme. Therefore, using thepower conferred under Section144 of the CrPC, prohibitoryorders have been imposedunder the commissioneratearea. As per orders, neither anyperson nor any attempt influ-encing the security and law andorder of the entire area will beallowed in any way.
The use of drones is strict-ly prohibited by any person ororganisation within the entirearea of the commissionerate.This order has become effec-tive from 12 midnight ofApril 14 till the midnight ofApril 16 in the entire area ofthe commissionerate.Violation of the restrictionsmentioned in the order will bean offence punishable underSection 188 of the Indian PenalCode (IPC).
procession was taken out tocommemorate the crucifixionof Jesus Christ on the occasion
of Good Friday. A processionsymbolising the crucifixion ofJesus Christ was taken outfrom St Mary’s Cathedral. Agood number of localChristians were present. Theyalso offered prayers. Senior
priests and others were alsopresent. Prayers were offered atLal Girjaghar and many otherlocal churches. The Christiansobserved Good Friday withfasting and offered their ser-vices to the churches. The
symbolic scene of the ‘Serviceof the Great Three Hours’Agony’ was also observed until3 pm, the time duration thatthe Bible records as darknesscovering the land to Jesus’ sac-rificial death on the cross.
2008), the fine art of pullingpuppetry strings is critical.Whenever the ‘redlines’defined by Rawalpindi GHQwere breached by the civiliandispensation of the day, thealternatives in theOpposition ranks foundthemselves galvanised bywhat Nawaz Sharif oncecalled ‘Khalai Makhlooq’(invisible aliens or angels).Clearly, Imran got carriedaway by his own cult and wasseen questioning the‘Militiestablishment’, andassuming himself to be anequal of the Generals — acardinal sin with unpardon-able consequences in thenarrative of the powerful‘ M i l i t i e s t a b l i s h m e n t ’.Ironically, the recent benefi-ciary of the meddlesome‘Militiestablishment’ wasnone other than ShehbazSharif, the brother of NawazSharif, who holds the fort onbehalf of his presumablyrelieved (though wary)brother in London. The wilyand the longest servingPrime Minister of Pakistan(3 non-consecutive terms),Nawaz would know aboutthe ways of the‘Militiestablishment’ — hewas after all the product andvictim of the same.
Gen Zia-ul-Haq hadinducted a young industrial-ist, Nawaz Sharif, into the
Punjab Cabinet as FinanceMinister in 1981 (ChiefMinister by 1985). The‘Militiestablishment’ post-Zia’s death punted onNawaz’s then IslamiJamhoori Ittehad (IJI) and‘helped’ him (Supreme Courtruling later confirmed thatIJI was created by ISI)become the Prime Ministerby 1991. The young andoverambitious Nawaz Sharifhad perhaps succeeded toosoon as he showed reckless-ness and impatience withthe power structures — soon,his handpicked Army Chief,Gen Waheed Kakar, ensuredthe dismissal of the SharifGovernment by 1993. In hissecond coming, Nawaz wasdefter in easing out ArmyChief General JehangirKaramat prematurely, andthought he had made a mas-terstroke with the out-of-turn selection of a ‘safe’Mohajir ie, Gen PervezMusharraf. Famously, his-tory repeated itself, and hishandpicked Gen Musharrafdeposed Nawaz in the 1999coup. In Nawaz’s thirdinnings as Prime Minister, hehad to deal with the outgo-ing dictator, Musharraf ’schosen, Gen Pervez Kayani,as his concurrent ArmyChief (Kayani later extendedhis term by three years, uni-laterally)! Finally, when
Nawaz did manage toappoint his own (again, out-of-turn) Gen Raheel Sharif asthe Pakistani chief — Raheelturned out to be his ownman who gave his PrimeMinister many sleeplessnights with his popularityand murmurs of ‘takeover’.Sixth man chosen by Nawazto be Army chief was GenQamar Bajwa (yes, out-of-turn again!) who, instead ofremaining beholden, gleeful-ly upped the ante againstNawaz and allowed him toget disqualified — all six ofSharif ’s selection of Pakistanichief ’s in his tenures ulti-mately dumped him.
In the Pakistani cloak-and-dagger system under thebroody shadows of the‘Militiestablishment’, no one ispermanently good or bad asthe once-deposed (Sharifs)are the chosen ones yet again,temporarily. The defiant andwholly personalised way inwhich a kicking and scream-ing Imran has been literallypushed out of office will fur-ther infuriate the‘Militiestablishment’ whowould not want to surrenderthe mantle of nationalism(never mind the history of1965, 1971 or Kargil) fromitself, that too, to a man whothreatened to upstage themand re-script his own impor-tance by diminishing that ofthe ‘Militiestablishment’.Already the bloodied Sharif-Bhutto dynasts have changedtheir tune after Imran’s ousterand are now singing hosannasin favour of‘Militiestablishment’ — theyknow that the RawalpindiGHQ can swing and bestownationalistic credentials ontowhichever side seems to bedoing their bidding. Imran isperhaps too brash, boastfuland even vain to recognise thefutility of his cavalier grand-standing, that too, in front ofmilitary Generals, in Pakistan.
(The writer, a militaryveteran, is a former LtGovernor of Andaman &Nicobar Islands andPuducherry. The viewsexpressed are personal.)
��������������� �����������Sir — It is disturbing that nowadays sys-tematic efforts are made to create tensionbetween Hindus and Muslims as stoneswere pelted on Ram Navami processions.Provocative acts are done in front ofmosques and residential areas. In socialmedia, we see videos showing lumpenelements holding saffron flags shoutingprovocative slogans in front of mosquesand even putting up saffron flags on theirminarets. A temple priest gives a warn-ing at the front of mosque that he willrape Muslim women and girls. A groupof youth wearing orange scarves van-dalises a poor watermelon vendor’s cartby throwing them all over the road justbecause he is Muslim.
Our PM is talking about Russia andUkraine but hasn’t uttered a word againstpeople creating ruckus in the name ofreligion. On the other hand, an incidenthas touched my heart. In Gujarat’sVadgam taluka, a small village has stoodup for communal harmony. On Fridayevening, a temple has invited Muslimrozedaars to offer namaz and break theirfast at Iftaari. In this small village, theHindus and Muslims help each otherduring Ram Navami and other holy fes-tivals. This small village sets an excellentexample that both communities can livewith love and harmony.
Zeeshaan | Kazipet
������������� ����������Sir — The unprecedented surge inCOVID-19 cases in Shanghai has creat-ed a panicky situation for China and theworld. The 26 million Shanghai residentshave been pushed into lockdown andconfined to their houses. President XiJinping’s zero COVID approach hascompelled them to resort to suicide andshed deep anger and frustration againstthe Government’s harsh and inhumanmeasures to control the infection ofOmicron BA.2 variant. This is possiblythe worst nightmare that has struckChina after Wuhan, specificallyShanghai, where people are fed up withstringent lockdown restrictions and
quarantine measures despite being vac-cinated, pleading the authorities forfood supply.
At this crucial juncture, President Xi’srules have isolated China from the rest ofthe world with strict travel restrictions; heshould immediately heed the pathetic con-dition of the masses who want the curbseased and basic facilities restored. It mustbe a matter of concern for other countriesto gear up for precautions, including India.The recently registered COVID-19 casesin Delhi, specifically in schools, and inKerala and Gujarat must not be ignoredby the authorities and the Governmentmust act with all due seriousness.
Janga Bahadur Sunuwar | Jalpaiguri
����������������������������Sir —The IPL cricket is a competitivegame where each team is vying for thetop honour in the 15th edition of thecash-rich tournament. With the inclu-sion of two new teams, Gujarat Titansand Lucknow Super Giants, the compe-tition has become tougher and there are
upsets all the way. Chennai Super Kings,after losing four games on the trot, cameup trumps to win the fifth game. On theother hand, the champion side ofMumbai lost their fifth successive game,thereby raising doubts about the teamqualifying for the last-four stage. Earlieralso, the Mumbai outfit was on thereceiving side but returned to win.
For this, the Mumbai side was wait-ing for home games to return to theirwinning ways. But this time around, allthe matches are being played in andaround Mumbai but the results are stillnot forthcoming. Mumbai Indians hasbeen the most successful franchise in theIndian Premier League, having won fivetitles — 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020.Mumbai lacks quality spinners in the sideand that affects the talent of their batters.So far, Mumbai Indians has failed toshow its mettle in IPL-15.
Afew years back, coun-terinsurgency expertDavid Kilcullen hadpainted a doomsday
scenario: “Pakistan is 173 mil-lion people, 100 nuclearweapons, an Army bigger thanthe US Army, and Al-Qaedaheadquarters sitting right therein the two-thirds of the coun-try that the Government does-n’t control. The Pakistani mili-tary and police and intelligenceservice don’t follow the civilianGovernment; they are essential-ly a rogue State within a State.”Minor deviations from theprophecy notwithstanding, theprecarious situation in Pakistanwith its eponymous‘Militiestablishment’ (Military‘Deep State’) holds largely true.The Pakistani Generals havejust tripped their erstwhile pro-tégé, Imran Khan Niazi (whoprefers not brandishing the‘Niazi’ bit, owing to infamyassociated with Lt Gen AK‘Tiger’ Niazi)! As the Generalssimply disowned Imran duringthe no-confidence saga withtheir combination of silences,contradictory statements andostensible neutrality, a desper-ate Imran was left beseeching“only animals remain neutral”!Once ‘selected’ (not necessari-ly ‘elected’), Imran was sacri-ficed by the same institution ofthe Pakistani Army, just as it didearlier to all other civilian politi-cians of different partisan per-suasions, without exception.
Imran is not done political-ly as he would still command acertain mass loyalty in the faceof the barely credible alterna-tives in PML-N, PPP or even inMaulana Fazal ur Rehman —but he faces an insurmountablechallenge for now, ie,‘Militiestablishment’. This insti-tution is beyond simplisticaspersions, popular passionsor ideological affiliations as itis purely a self-defensive prod-uct of situational requirementswhich can easily deploy seem-ingly contradictory or evencounter-intuitive instincts toprotect its own relevance.Increasingly preferring to con-trol the reins from the shadows(Gen Musharraf last heldnational leadership position in
The spread of misinformationposes a considerable threat to thelife and lifestyle of the commonpeople as evident from variousstudies. During the pandemic,misinformation related to falsecures and conspiracy theoriescaused panic, anxiety, false hope,mental trauma and fear as thevirus was spreading. Due to spreadof health misinformation, thebusiness of fake healthcare ser-vices and fake medicines alsoincreased. The most prevalentimpact of misinformation thatwere seen during and after thelockdown - suffered differentkinds of socio-psychologicalimpact in different parts of thecountry. Multiple languages andthe diversified socio-cultural envi-ronment have made it more crit-ical to address the problem.
A top World HealthOrganization official in Augustnoted that misinformation aboutCOVID and vaccines was keepingpeople from getting the shots,driving an increase in cases aroundthe world.
Digital media literacy is onewayto help internet users in Indiato identify and disregard misinfor-mation and disinformation, espe-cially in regional languages andrural areas.
One such media literacy train-ing program run by the FactShalaIndia Media Literacy Network, wasconducted across 28 states of thecountry. In early 2021 the Centrefor Media Studies (CMS), an inde-
pendent socialand media researchthink tank, conducted a compre-hensive impact evaluation ofFactShala’s training program. Thisevaluation study also tried to findout the impacts of the misinforma-tion float on social media.
Many respondents in the studyrecalled that how misinformationimpacted their health, communalharmonyin some parts of thecountry and also generated thefear, anxiety, false hope amongmany of them. The spread of mis-information makesmany peoplefeel anxious, depressed, or emo-tionally exhausted. The respon-dents cited examples of posts thatimpacted their physical and men-tal health due to believing inwronginformation on social media.
A young womanexplained thatshe didn’t isolate herself for manydayseven after testing positive forCOVID because she read a postclaiming that ‘if you can hold yourbreath for 30 seconds you aren’tCOVID positive.’The study foundmany such cases where either thetreatment or the preventive mea-sures were delayed or stoppedafter reading misinformation ordisinformation appeared on socialmedia. Many posts were spreadinginformation against vaccination.Few respondents admitted thatthey had read the posts that onecan die also after vaccination. Itcreated a fear among some peopleand boosted vaccine hesitancy.
Communal disharmony wasthe other major impact reported by
respondents from Jharkhand andUttar Pradesh. Posts carrying mis-information related to employmentor cancellation of exams or promo-tion of next class were created falsehope and anxiety among studentsand job seekers. After readingand believing the post appeared ondifferent platform of social mediamany people suffered financialloss. During the interviews manyrespondents admitted that theywere duped and suffered financialloss after reading the posts ofmoney laundering or cheap tick-ets for the flights.
As there is so much informa-tion on the social media andonline in general, identifying use-ful andaccurate sources is decep-tively difficult for average users.Media literacy interventions havean important role as citizens arenot checking online informationfor accuracy and authenticity,largely because of the sheer volumeof messages and low levels of awareness about misinforma-tion, disinformation and fact-checking.
Small, standalone interven-tions targeting school students orinstitutions exist but they tend tofocus either on fact-checking andverification training, or criticalthinking. To make people knowl-edgeable and secure online aneffective mechanism for increasinginformation literacy and buildingresilience to misinformation anddisinformation within communi-ties is required.
(The writer is DirectorAdvocacy, Centre forMedia Studies and a
development journalist.The views expressed
are personal.)
French PresidentEmmanuel Macron wonthe first round of the
presidential election on Sunday,but he’s still in trouble. He knewhe would be. Here’s what hesaid on Saturday.
“Don’t believe the punditsand the pollsters who tell youthat it’s impossible (that the farright will win in the secondround of the election). Look atBrexit and so many elections,all that seemed improbableand yet came to pass. Nothingis impossible.”
In fact, it’s not even unlike-ly. Strategies have consequences,as Macron is now learning.The strategy that made Macronpresident last time (2017) hassucceeded so well that it maycost him the election in the sec-ond round this time (24 April).
Macron’s strategy has
always been to exaggerate thedifference between the centreand the rest. If the left was toofar left and the right was too farright, then the politician repre-senting the centre (him) was theonly rational choice.
It worked for him in 2017,when he waltzed into the pres-idency with a 66% majority ofthe vote despite the fact that hehad never held elective officebefore. Fast forward five years,however, and the fantasy hasbecome the fact.
The traditional moderateleft-wing party, the Socialists,has been devoured by Jean-LucMélenchon’s extreme left ‘LaFrance Insoumise’ (RebelFrance), which advocates withdrawal from NATO andalso, in effect, from theEuropean Union.
The Socialists only got 4.8%
in the first round of voting onSunday, which means they don’teven get their election expens-es reimbursed. The party mayactually declare bankruptcy anddisappear.
The traditional centre-rightparty, the Republicans, is suffer-ing exactly the same fate. It toohas fallen short of the 5% thresh-old and may go broke. Its placeas standard-holder of the right
has been taken by Marine LePen’s National Rally, whichremains ultra-nationalist, racistand anti-immigrant despite acosmetic make-over that down-plays its uglier policies.
Le Pen also benefited fromthe fact that an even harder-rightcandidate, xenophobic televisionpundit Éric Zemmour, made herlook moderate, if only by com-parison. She will inherit all his
votes in the second round of vot-ing, naturally, but Macron’sproblem is that she may alsoinherit some of Melenchon’shard-left supporters on 24 April.
They have a shared hostili-ty to the European Union, forexample, and most left-wing vot-ers can remember that eventhough Le Pen has been down-playing it recently. They bothhave a strong populist tone: LePen may be a woman of theright, but she’s promising thatpeople under 30 won’t have topay income tax, and everybodycan retire on full pension at 60.
Fully half of France’s votingpopulation has just voted forextremist parties, and accordingto the polls Le Pen is headinginto the run-off still holdingmost of those votes. The latestnumbers say Macron 51%, LePen 49%, which is effectively
neck-and-neck.This does not bode well for
Macron, especially because it hasalways been hard for Frenchpresidents to win a second term.And while the other losing par-ties told their supporters to backMacron in the second round,Mélenchon just told his support-ers “You must not give a singlevote to Marine Le Pen.” [But youcould abstain, if you like.]
Despite Covid, France isactually in good shape afterfive years of Macron. Investmentis up, inflation is low, jobs areplentiful, the country is evenopening more factories than itcloses. But the French do not feelgood about their lot, and Le Pencould actually win. If she does,a great deal will change, and notjust in France.
The new-found unity of‘The West’ in the face of Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine will vanish:Le Pen’s campaign pamphletsfeature a picture of her withVladimir Putin, another hard-right icon. She has stopped talk-ing aloud about ‘Frexit’, but it’sstill there in the backgroundsomewhere, as is the anti-immi-grant racism her party hasalways peddled.
She is much more thanDonald Trump in a skirt. She isfar more intelligent than he is,and not at all corrupt. She isracist and Islamophobic, butmuch better at dog-whistling hertrue convictions. If the Leagueof Authoritarian Leaders everneeds an honorary president, shewould be the best candidate forthe job.
Despite all this, I thinkMacron will win, because theFrench aren’t fools. But it may bea near-run thing.
5�2�4�������)�2 In June 2018, two Assam youths, anaudio engineer and a digital artist,were killed brutally in a mob lynch-ing while they were heading for a
vacation. It was an avoidable tragedy thatoccurred due to a misleading socialmedia post. The local people believed apost about child kidnappers moving in thearea and thought that the two were kid-nappers. This wasnot an isolated case. Therumours about child-abduction spreadthrough WhatsApp messages were con-nected to at least 17 murders across Indiain 2018. Such lynching incidents in sev-eral parts of the country due to socialmedia posts shook the nation and demon-strated the devastating impacts of misin-formation.
During the Coronavirus pandemic,thesocial media emerged as a majorsource of misinformation. India emergedas the biggest source of COVID misinfor-mation asone out of six postsabout thepandemic was based on fake information,according toa studyby the University ofAlberta. It found that social media was thebiggest producer of misinformationaccounting for nearly 85 per cent of it.Internet-based sources made up 91 percent of all COVID-related fake news.Among the countries, India was found-to be the biggest source of misinforma-tion (18 per cent) followed by Brazil (9per cent) and USA (8.6 per cent). Thequantity of of misinformation was also thehighest in India.
In fact misinformation is the emerg-ing problem in the media landscape dom-inated by the social media in India. Morethan 400 million Indians have access tothe internet on digital devices like smart-phones. People with affordable phone andbroadband connection have access tonews and information flowing from dif-ferent digital sources, but are notequipped to assess the veracity of claimsusually made in these messages.
As per the latest data, Indians on anaverage spend about 2.36 hours on socialmedia every day. The number of socialmedia users in the country is growing byleaps and bounds due to the deep pene-tration of internet connectivity. Thenumber of Internet users has grown to658 million which is roughly 47 per czentof the total population. Of this, mobileinternet users are about 600 million.Thefalling price of smartphones has driventhe massive increase in the usage ofmobile phones. The availability of inter-net connection at very low prices is anoth-er factor for a large-scale rise of internetsubscribers.
The country’s higher internet pene-trationrate, increasing social media con-sumption and user’s lack of digital liter-acy and regulation has led to increase thevulnerability of social media misinforma-tion.The pandemichas amplified the cir-culation of unverified information - bothunwitting (misinformation) and deliber-ate (disinformation).
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If you are suffering with two or four maincomorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension
or chronic kidney disease and coronary arterydisease and still survived Covid-19 then consideryourself to be lucky!
A study published in BioMed InternationalJournal has said that at least 81 per cent of thepatients afflicted with the above mentioned twoor four Non Communicable Diseases did notsurvive the peak of the pandemic.
For, a study has said that Covid-19 has beenfound to be most brutal for the patients afflict-ed with two or four main co-morbiditiesincluding diabetes, hypertension, coronaryartery disease and chronic kidney disease
The researchers studied the impact of eachdisease individually as well as together with otherco-morbidities and found out that people withalready severe comorbid conditions were vul-nerable and hardly 19 out of 100 such patientscould survive the deadly Covid disease.
The study ‘Prevalence and Impact of pre-existing co morbidities on overall clinical out-comes of hospitalized Covid-19 patients’, ana-lyzed more than 369 individual Covid casesamong which 59.1 per cent had at least one co-morbidity in Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad,between March 2020 and August 2020.
“The research was conducted to certain, theimpact of Covid in patients suffering with exist-ing co-morbidities. Though we knew thatpatients with co-morbidities infected withCovid faced more risk of certain death, we werenot sure which were the existing diseases thatimpacted more on the patients’ health.
“As anticipated we found that the combi-nation of all four co-morbidities including dia-betes, hypertension, Coronary artery diseaseand chronic kidney disease and after getting
infected with Covid-19, the patient was mostlikely to face certain death.
At least 272 (73.7 per cent) patients weremale, and 97 (26.2 per cent) were female. Of theconfirmed cases, 218 (59.1 per cent ) had comor-bidities, and 151 (40.9 per cent) were devoid ofcomorbidities. This study showed that old ageand underlying comorbidities significantlyincrease mortality, hospital stay, and severity dueto Covid-19 infection.
“To ascertain, the study clearly showed that81.8 per cent of patients who had more than onecomorbidity had died. Chronic kidney diseasewas found to be the second most deadly co-mor-bidity accounting to nearly 66.7 per cent ofpatients who did not survive the Covid-19 dis-ease.
It was followed by Coronary artery disease,which accounted for more than 57 per cent ofpatients suffering with CAD and Covid-19 faceddeath during the pandemic.
The chance of survival among Covid-19patients was the highest when there was no co-morbidity and only 9.3 per cent of those whodid not have either of the four comorbidities didnot survive after being severely infected with thedeadly Covid-19 disease during the pandemic.
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The Government has startedworking towards finding a
remedy for chronic pain, whichpresently remains a majorhealth challenge in the countrywith most of the patientsresorting to opoids/morphinemedications leading to seriousadverse outcomes.
The move also aims toprovide relief to the longCovid-19 survivors and it hasbeen constantly felt that clini-cians need to know what toexpect and how to managerelated pain and dysfunction.
Chronic pain has beendefined as a pain that persistsor recurs for longer than 3months, and it exerts an enor-mous personal and economicburden, affecting more than 30percent of people worldwide.
According to reports, atleast 50 per cent of Covid-19survivors are expected to expe-rience Long Covid, or post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and symptoms thatoverlap with those offibromyalgia among others.
An official from theDepartment of Biotechnology(DBT), under the UnionScience and TechnologyMinistry, said that plans areafoot to start a program on“chronic pain Biology’ forwhich the process of mappingthe expertise in the area hasbeen started. The aim is to
To begin with the DBT hasrecently invited Expression ofInterest (EoI) in the area ofchronic pain to map the exper-tise available in the country togain “deeper insight into thepain mechanism and advanc-ing research methodologies fordeveloping targeted effectiveand non-addictive pain treat-ment options.”
Chronic pain is a debili-tating symptom of many dis-eases and causes significant dis-ability and reduces the qualityof life. “But we still do not haveany effective treatment optionsand it remains a major unmetglobal public health challenge.
“The difficulty in under-standing and managing painhas also led to widespreadoveruse of, and addiction toopoids/morphine medications.This can lead to serious adverseoutcomes,” he added.
Pain has been classifiedinto three major groups:
Nonciceptive, Neuropathic andNociplastic. Nociceptive painresults from activity in neuralpathways and is the most com-mon form of the chronic painencompassing arthritis andmost forms of spinal pain whileNeuropathic pain is caused bya damage or disease affectingthe somatosensory nervous sys-tem, typically associated withsensory abnormalities such asnumbness and alloydynia.
Approximately 15-25 percent chronic pains are of neu-ropathic in nature and includediabetic neuropathy, post-ther-apeutic neuralgia and radicu-lopathy. Nociplastic pain is thepain arising from the abnormalprocessing of the pain signalswithout any clear associationwith damage, injury or diseasepathology.
In order to address thischallenge and improve thelives of people affected bypain conditions, better under-standing of the mechanisms ofpain and improved treatmentsare needed.
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The CBI has taken over theprobe into the fraud detect-
ed in the bulk deposit of coinsat a branch of SBI in Karaulidistrict of Rajasthan causing aloss to the public sector lenderto the tune of over Rs 11 crore.The move comes following adirective from the RajasthanHigh Court to the effect.
The preliminary proberevealed a scam worth Rs 11crore involving the coindeposits of the branch.
On July 22, 2021, a profes-sional vendor, Arpit GoodsCarrier, was engaged by thebank to count the total coinsworth Rs 13, 01,71.275 held bythe branch.
Till August 6, 2021, the pri-vate vendor counted 2,350 bagsof coins worth Rs 1,39,60,000and the remaining 600-700bags were estimated to containRs 60 lakh only as against thebook value of Rs 11,62,11,275,leading to the bank’s commit-tee constituted to count the
coins estimating the scam tothe tune of Rs 11 crore in thecoins held by the public sectorlender at Karauli in Rajasthan.
Also, during the penden-cy of the counting, an employ-ee of the private vendor wasthreatened on August 10, 2021by a group of armed men notto go ahead with the countingof the coins. In the event ofcontinuing with the counting,the armed men threatened tokill the private employee whowas staying at a dharamshala(guest house).
The State police had orig-inally registered the case num-ber 370/2021 on August 13 lastyear at police station Todabhimin Karauli district. The SBI,through its Controller,Controller Office, SawaiMadhopur region filed a crim-inal writ petition seeking trans-fer of the case to the federalprobe agency.
The case was registeredunder IPC Sections relating tocriminal conspiracy, criminalbreach of trust and cheating.
The High Court on March4 this year ordered the transferof the case from the Statepolice to the CBI.
Following detection ofirregularities and irregulartransaction of the coins by thethen cashier at the branchRajesh Kumar Meena was sus-pended and a committee con-stituted by the bank undertooka cash audit of the branch.
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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Friday had a tele-
phonic conversation with gen-eral secretary of theCommunist party of VietnamNguyen Phu Trong andexchanged views on regionaland global issues, including theongoing crisis in Ukraine andthe situation in the SouthChina Sea.
The two leaders expressedsatisfaction over the rapid paceof wide-ranging cooperationunder the India-VietnamComprehensive StrategicPartnership which was estab-lished during Modi's visit toVietnam in 2016, the PrimeMinister's Office (PMO) said
in a statement."Spoke with the General
Secretary of the CommunistParty of Vietnam H. E. NguyenPhu Trong, today. We exchangedviews on a range of bilateral,regional and global issues andagreed to promote closer coop-eration in our economic, tradeand defence engagement, "Modisaid in his Tweet.
They complimented eachother on the 50th anniversaryof the establishment of diplo-matic relations between thetwo countries.
Prime Minister Modi reit-erated Vietnam's importanceas an important pillar of India'sAct East Policy and Indo-Pacific Vision, and sought toenhance the scope of the bilat-eral relationship, besides work-ing for expeditious progress onexisting initiatives.
The Prime Minister alsorequested for greater facilita-tion of market access forIndia's pharma and agri-prod-ucts in Vietnam, the statementsaid.
Prime Minister Modihighlighted the historical and
civilisation links between thetwo countries and expressedhis happiness on India'sinvolvement in restoration ofCham monuments in Vietnam.The leaders agreed to enhancedefence partnership betweenthe two countries, the PMOsaid.
They also exchanged viewson regional and global issues ofshared interest, including theongoing crisis in Ukraine andthe situation in South ChinaSea, the statement added.
China claims sovereigntyover all of the South China Sea,a huge source of hydrocarbons.However, several ASEANmember countries, includingVietnam, Philippines andBrunei, have counter claims.
Thakur's "young" and "honestleadership" for the speedydevelopment of the State,Prime Minister NarendraModi on Friday greeted thepeople of Himachal Pradesh onthe State's 75th establishmentday. Himachal Pradesh is toface Assembly polls this year-end.
Recalling the challenges ofthe hilly state at the time of itsformation in 1948, the PrimeMinister complimented thepeople of Himachal Pradesh for"converting the challenges intoopportunities."
He praised the state’sachievements in horticulture,power surplus, literacy rate,
rural road connectivity, tapwater and electricity to everyhousehold. He underlined theefforts to build on theseachievements in the last 7-8years.
“Under the young leader-ship of Jai Ram ji, the ‘doubleengine government’ has takenthe initiative of expandingrural roads, highway widening,
railway network, its results arenow visible.As connectivity isgetting better, Himachal’stourism is entering new areas,new regions”, the PrimeMinister said.
The Prime Minister high-lighted the new strides intourism and new avenues ofopportunities and employmentfor the local people. He espe-cially noted the progress in thehealth sector by talking aboutthe efficient and fast vaccina-tion during the pandemic.
Modi said the need towork hard for unlocking thefull potential of HimachalPradesh.
He said that during theAmrit Kaal, there is a need totake forward the work in thefields of tourism, higher edu-cation, research, IT, biotech-
nology, food processing andnatural farming.
He said the Vibrant Villagescheme, announced in thisyear’s budget will give immensebenefit to Himachal Pradesh.
He also touched uponincreasing connectivity, enrich-ing forests, swachhta and peo-ple’s participation for theseinitiatives.
The Prime Minister com-mented on the expansion ofcentral welfare schemes by theChief Minister and his team,especially in the field of socialsecurity.“Honest leadership,peace loving environment,blessings of gods and goddess-es and people of Himachalwho work hard, all these areincomparable. Himachal haseverything needed for rapiddevelopment," Modi said.
Centre-run Alliance Air saidit will sell tickets with “9I”
code and has shifted to its owncloud-based passenger servicesystem (PSS) from Fridayonwards.
Even though parent airlineAir India’s control was shiftedto the Tata Group on January27, Alliance Air till date wasusing the full-service carrier’sPSS and its “AI” code to selltickets.A PSS is used for vari-ous functions such as ticketreservation and flight schedul-ing.
Regional carrier AllianceAir was not part of the dealwhen the central governmentsold off Air India to the TataGroup on October 8 last year.
“Mr Vineet Sood, CEO
informed that going forwardwith absolute efficiency,Alliance Air will now sell itstickets under Alliance Air ban-ner under flight code 9I-XXX,”the airline’s statement said onFriday.Alliance Air has migrat-ed to cloud based passengerservice system from Friday, itmentioned.
“We now have our ownwebsite www.allianceair.in andthe passenger can start book-ing on it now,” it noted.
“Our new call centre num-bers are +91 44 4255 4255 and+91 44 3511 3511. In case ofany queries passenger can alsoemail us [email protected],” itmentioned.Alliance Air oper-ates a fleet of 18 ATR-72 air-craft, each with around 70seats.
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Ahawker has no right toinsist that he may be per-
mitted to keep his goods andwares at the place of hawkingovernight, the Supreme Courthas said.
A bench of Justices M RShah and B V Nagarathna saidhawkers can be permitted tohawk in markets only in accor-dance with the hawking poli-cy.
"The prayer before the highcourt was that the petitioner,who is a hawker in the SarojiniNagar Market, be permitted toleave his goods and wares at theplace of hawking overnight.The said prayer has been right-ly rejected by the high court,"the court said."The petitioner,
being a hawker, has no right toinsist that he may be permittedto keep his goods and wares atthe place where he is hawkingovernight," the bench said.
The top court was hearinga plea filed by a hawker in theSarojini Nagar Market chal-lenging an order of the DelhiHigh Court.
The hawker had soughtdirections from the high courtto the New Delhi MunicipalCouncil seeking to permit the
appellant-hawker to leave thegoods overnight at the spotwhere he hawks during the day.
The high court noted thatthe prayer sought by the hawk-er goes against the very conceptof hawking to permit himoccupying any given area on apermanent basis.
"The whole concept ofhawking is that the hawkercomes to the allotted/demar-cated area during the hours ofhawking with his or her goodsand wares; undertakes theactivity of hawking and leavesthe area along with his or hergoods and wares at the end ofthe hawking period. In fact,
in respect of mobile hawk-ers even this much is not per-mitted," the high court hadsaid.
ber of people particularlyfrom the remote areas, theGovernment has plans tolaunch tele-consultation facil-ity 'e-Sanjeevani' at 1 lakhAyushman Bharat-Health andWellness Centres (AB-HWCs) from Saturday.
This was stated by UnionHealth Minister MansukhMandaviya on Friday afterchairing a virtual meeting onTuesday with health ministersand senior officials of all thestates and union territories toreview the operationalisationstatus of AB-HWCs and tele-
consultation services."On the occasion of the
4th anniversary of AyushmanBharat Health and WellnessCentres, 'e-Sanjeevani Tele-consultation' facility will belaunched at 1 lakh centres onApril 16. These centres arerealising PM @NarendraModiji's resolve of 'AyushmanBharat'," Mandaviya said in atweet in Hindi on Friday.
As many as 1,17,440 AB-HWCs had been opera-tionalised across the countryby the end of March againstthe target of 1.1 lakh, accord-ing to the Health Ministry.
To ensure wider outreachof telemedicine services,eSanjeevani application has
also been integrated with 3.74lakh Common Ser viceCenters (CSCs) thereby facil-itating access to equitablehealthcare in the remotestareas of the country.
Under ECRP-II, financialassistance has been providedto all States/UTs for strength-ening IT infrastructure forimplementation of telemedi-cine services.
Under e-Sanjeevani plat-form, 56,994 Doctors havebeen registered to provideteleconsultation services. Till,31st January, 2022, around2.33 Cr consultations havebeen conducted througheSanjeevani platform, as perthe data available from the
Ministry.To ensure patient data
privacy and security, requiredfirewalls which monitor andcontrol the access to theapplication is enabled. Onlyvalid tokens are enabled toensure authorized access andthe data is stored in anencrypted form duly usingindustry-standard algorithms,a senior official said
Presently, eSanjeevaniOPD (Patient to DoctorTeleconsultation services) hasbeen rol led out in 25States/UT while eSanjeevaniHWC (Doctor to DoctorTeleconsultation services) hasbeen rol led out in 20States/UT.
Supreme Court that it hasearmarked about 500 law col-leges throughout the countrywhich are sub-standard/belowstandard and a team led bysome former judges/senioradvocates and others plans toconduct surprise visits of suchestablishments and in case ofany deficiencies, steps wouldbe taken for their closure.
In an affidavit filed in amatter related to reforms inlegal education and place-ments of young lawyers, theBCI said that it is constitutinga high powered committeethat would look into the issueof compulsory chamber place-
ment of five juniors by senioradvocates or advocates having25 years of standing at the Bar.
The council said it is pro-posed that the legal educationcommittee of the BCI and theadvisory board would consid-er introducing a State LevelEntrance Test for admissionsto law colleges in its nextmeeting.It said, “the appellant(BCI) has earmarked about500 institutions throughoutthe country who are sub-stan-dard/below standard and ateam led by some formerjudges/senior advocates, notedacademicians and plans toconduct surprise visits of suchinstitutions and if any institu-tion is found to be belowstandard, having neither thesufficient faculty nor infra-
structure then the LegalEducation Committee shalltake immediate steps to closesuch institutions''.
The BCI said that it is notan executive body and reliesupon the universities to closesuch colleges and/or upon thegovernment to close such uni-versities which despite therequests have been casual onthe use of unfair means inLLB/LLM exams and award-ing the LLD.
“Thus as a last resolve theBCI is considering withdraw-ing the approval granted forrunning courses of legal edu-cation to such university”, itsaid and pointed out a slew ofdifficulties faced by the coun-cil in regulating legal educa-tion across the country.
The Indian Air Force onFriday paid rich tributes to
the legendary air warrior lateMarshal of the Air Force ArjanSingh on his 103rd birthanniversary. An icon of India'smilitary history, he had suc-cessfully led a young IAF dur-ing the 1965 Indo-Pak war.
"On this day, we recall thecontribution made by theMarshal to the nation andIndian Air Force," the IAFsaid.
The only officer to attainthe highest post of Marshal ofthe Air Force equivalent to theArmy's five-star field marshal,Singh was a fearless and excep-tional pilot who had flownmore than 60 different types of
aircraft.Singh passed away on
September 16, 2017, at the ageof 98. He had played amajor role in transformingthe IAF into one of the mostpotent air forces globally andthe fourth biggest in the world.
Singh was honoured withthe rank of Marshal onRepublic Day in 2002. SamHormusji Framji JamshedjiManekshaw and K M Cariappawere the only two army gen-erals honoured with the rankof field marshal.
On August 1, 1964, Singhtook over as the Chief of theAir Staff (CAS) in the rank ofAir Marshal at the age of 44.Singh was born on April 15,1919 in Lyallpur (nowFaisalabad in Pakistan). "A
testing time for the nationcame in September 1965 whenPakistan launched OperationGrand Slam, in which anarmoured thrust targeted thevital town of Akhnur," theIAF recalled in a statement.
"When summoned to theDefence Minister's office witha request for air support andasked how quickly the IAF willbe ready for operations, withhis characteristic nonchalance,'...In an hour' was the reply," itsaid.
"And truly, the Indian AirForce struck the Pakistanioffensive in an hour, gained airsuperiority over Pakistan AirForce (PAF) and helped IndianArmy score strategic victo-ries," it added.
He was awarded the
Padma Vibhushan for his lead-ership during the 1965 War.
Singh also continued hisservice to the nation as theAmbassador to Switzerland,the Holy See and Liechtensteinfrom 1971 to 1974, followingwhich he headed the HighCommission of India to Kenyaat Nairobi from 1974 to 1977,the IAF said.
He also served as a mem-ber of The MinoritiesCommission of India from1978 to 1981 and as the LtGovernor of Delhi from 1989to 1990.
"His dynamic personality,professional competence, lead-ership and strategic vision setshim apart as an icon of theIndian Air Force," the IAFsaid
The cycle of violence con-tinues unabated in Kashmir
valley as another elected rep-resentative was shot dead by“unidentified” terrorists in thenorth Kashmir district ofBaramulla on Friday. Thedeceased has been identified bythe police as Manzoor AhmadBangroo, an independentSarpanch from the area.
Kashmir Zone police in atweet clarified that the deceasedsarpanch was not affiliatedwith any political party. Hecontested the Panchayat pollsas an Independent candidate."Terrorists fired upon andkilled one Manzoor AhmadBangroo (an IndependentSarpanch) at Goshbugh area ofPattan, Baramulla. Area hasbeen cordoned off and searchto track the involved terroristsis in progress. Further detailsshall follow".
However, local reports sug-gested Bangroo was targeted inthe nearby orchard barelyhours after the Union HomeSecretary Ajay Kumar Bhallaalong with Director IntelligenceBureau (IB) Arvind Kumarreviewed preparedness forannual pilgrimage of ShriAmarnath Ji and militancyrelated situation in the Valley.
Amid peak tourist seasonin the valley the terrorist han-dlers have been desperatelytrying to disturb peace pre-vailing in the region. Initiallythe terrorists targeted security
personnel and later trainedtheir guns towards non locallabourers and minority popu-lation in the South and CentralKashmir districts of Kashmir.
This is the first incident oftargeted killing in the NorthKashmir area. In the comingdays the security grid would befurther strengthened ahead ofthe 43 day long Amarnath pil-grimage. The UT administra-tion is learnt to have demand-ed additional deployment ofsecurity forces to ensure inci-dent free yatra after a gap ofmore than 2 years.
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Vishu, the traditional agri-cultural festival, turned
out to be a shocking and grue-some experience for the peoplein Palakkad district as Zubair,a 45-year-old Popular Front ofIndia activist was murdered inbroad daylight in front of amosque.
Zubair, who was comingout of the mosque after offer-ing Friday namaaz, wasattacked by a team that arrivedin a car as he was boarding themotor cycle along with hisfather. The PFI activist washacked many times by thegroup which escaped in a wait-ing car.
Though the victim wasrushed to the nearby hospital,he was declared brought deadby the hospital authorities.Father of the victim has beenadmitted to the hospital withinjuries and is said to be out of
danger. Police has launched aman-hunt to nab the murder-ers and have seized the car thatwas used by them as a getawayvehicle.
It may be remembered thatE Sanjith, an RSS activist wasmurdered on November 15 ina similar incident. Sanjith whowas riding a bike in the com-pany of his wife was draggeddown and hacked to deathreportedly by workers of thePopular Front of India.
It is said that Sanjith was ona long drawn out battle withdrug traffickers and it wasdrug pushers who finishedhim off. Zubair was one of thepersons who was interrogatedby the police in connectionwith the murder.
Though the Police is yet todisclose the name of any organ-isation involved in the murder,the locality is full of reports thatthe murder was the handiworkof the Sangh Parivar.
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Samajwadi Party’s RajyaSabha member Sukhram
Singh Yadav met Uttar PradeshChief Minister Yogi Adityanathhere, triggering speculationthat he might switch over to theBharatiya Janata Party.
During the meeting at thechief minister’s residence hereon Thursday, Yadav wasaccompanied by his family,including son Mohit, who hadrecently joined the BJP.
On being asked about thepurpose of the meeting,Sukhram Yadav said on Fridaythat since he could not meet
Yogi Adityanath after hisswearing-in ceremony inMarch, he had gone to con-gratulate him now.
The political circles arehowever rife with speculationsthat the senior SP leader, whohas differences with party pres-ident Akhilesh Yadav, is likelyto switch over to the BJP.
Sukhram Yadav, however,dismissed the speculations. “Idon’t see any strength in thesespeculations,” he said.
The meeting assumes sig-nificance also because Yadavwill retire as member of RajyaSabha in July next and hemight be hoping to get anoth-er stint through the saffronparty. Yadav also denied thisspeculation saying, “The meet-ing with the Uttar Pradeshchief minister was a courtesycall. Since, I could not meet thechief minister after the elec-tions and the oath-taking cer-emony; I met him on Thursday,and congratulated him.”
The 70-year-old Sukhram
Yadav had served as chairmanof Uttar Pradesh LegislativeCouncil from 2004 to 10. Hebecame a Rajya Sabha memberfrom the Samajwadi Party onJuly 5, 2016.
“I have already said earli-er that there are a few differ-ences between me and theparty leadership,” Yadav assert-ed. “The difference is that it wassaid by Akhilesh Yadav duringthe party feud in 2016 thatNetaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav)will be made the national pres-ident of the party after the 2017elections,” he said.
“However, many electionshave passed but no action hasbeen taken in this regard. I onlywant that the respect for Netajishould remain intact,” Yadavasserted. After the SP’s loss tothe BJP in the recently con-cluded assembly polls, some SPleaders have raised voicesagainst the party chief, andSukhram Yadav’s meeting withYogi Adityanath could signalfresh troubles from him.
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In an unusual punishment,the Bombay High Court has
directed a litigant fromKolhapur to pay �25,000 to thelocal prison for purchasingbooks at the local jail library, ascosts for having "done every-thing possible to manipulateand abuse the process of law”.
While imposing a cost of�25,000 on litigant RiyazJahiruddin Mulla, an employeeof MR High School ad JuniorCollege, Gadhinglaj, Kolhapur,a HC bench of Justices G ASanap and Sunil B Shukreobserved in its recent ruling:“We are of the view that this isa case wherein RespondentNo.6 has done everything thatwas possible for him to manip-ulate and abuse the process oflaw and, therefore, it is necessarythat suitable costs are imposedupon Respondent No.6, whileallowing this petition”.
“Respondent No.6 (RiyazJahiruddin Mulla) shall paycost of �25,000 to Prison atKalamba, Kolhapur for the
purpose of purchasing booksfor Jail Library,” the HC benchruled, as it refused to grant himtime to file a file his responseto the averments made in therejoinder to the petition.
The only issue involved inthis Petition is as to whether ornot the Hon’ble Minister couldhave interfered in the adminis-tration of affairs of Zilla Parishadby cancelling the transfer orderof Mulla because he hadapproached the minister by mak-ing a complaint. “In our view theanswer has to be given in the neg-ative,” the HC bench noted as itcited reasons for the same.
Dwelling on the question-able conduct of Mulla who is oneof the six respondents in a peti-tion filed by Sushma Arun Patil,an aggrieved assistant teacher,the judges noted: “At this junc-ture, we would like to dwellupon the conduct of RespondentNo.6 which is unbecoming of aGovernment employee like him.The petitioner had challengedhis transfer from Kolhapur toGadhinglaj. Seeing that hewould not get any relief, the
Respondent No.6 withdrew thepetition and the petition was dis-posed of as withdrawn by thisCourt vide its order dated 17thMarch 2021”
“During the pendency ofthis petition, the RespondentNo.6, however, filed a com-plaint with the Hon’ble Ministeron 23rd February 2020 allegingthat the affairs of Zilla Parishad,Kolhapur were being run andmanaged in highly arbitrarymanner and that the transfers ofteachers were made illegally,” theJudges observed. The HC benchnoted that in his complaint,Mulla did not mention anythingabout filing of Writ Petition byhim questioning the legality orotherwise of his transfer order.“Some way or the other theRespondent No.6 succeeded ingetting his complaint allowed bythe Hon’ble Minister when thelatter issued a direction on 15thJanuary 2021 cancelling thetransfers of teachers made in theyear 2019 and giving a furtherdirection that those teachers beposted after due counselling,” thebench said.
BJP of bulldozing theConstitution and the saffronparty's leaders of "outdoingeach other in strippingMuslims" of their homes andlivelihood.
She was referring to theKhargone district administra-tion in Madhya Pradeshdemolishing at least 50 "illegal"structures of people accused ofpelting stones at a Ram Navamiprocession. A stone thrown ata Ram Navami procession dur-ing which loud music wasbeing played near a mosque inKhargone led to arson andcommunal tension last Sunday.Curfew was imposed in thetown after that.
The BJP government inMadhya Pradesh said the dam-age caused to public and private
properties during the violencewill be recovered from rioters.
"The vengeance with whichthe BJP is bulldozing India'sConstitution has now reachedthe homes of minorities.
"BJP leaders are outdoingeach other in strippingMuslims of everything, be ittheir homes, livelihood anddignity," Mufti said in a seriesof tweets.
The former Jammu andKashmir chief minister said the"silence" of the majority com-munity was "deeply worrying".
"As Kashmiri Muslims, weare often accused of beingsilent spectators whileKashmiri Pandits were forcedto flee.
"But the criminal silence ofthe majority community intoday's India while the BJPwrecks the very idea of India isdeeply worrying and problem-atic," Mufti added.
last leaders who enrolled asCongress members digitallyahead of internal elections nextmonth. Over 2.6 croreCongress workers haveenrolled digitally and another3 crore have used paper enrol-ment system to participate inthe exercise that is being car-ried out for the first time in theparty's 137-year-old history.
The drive was started onNovember 1 last year andRahul Gandhi was among thefirst leaders to enroll as a dig-ital member. Congress GeneralSecretary K C Venugopal saidthe Congress WorkingCommittee had decided toimplement the digital mem-bership drive in addition to thestandard paper membership
process for the period 2022-2027.
"It is a matter of happinessthat the digital membershipdrive has evinced great interestfrom people of the country, spe-cially younger supporters ofthe Congress party," Venugopalsaid. AICC Data AnalyticsDepartment Chairman PraveenChakravarty monitored the dig-ital exercise, he said. Throughthe digital membership drive, hesaid the party has added 2.6crore members across all boothsin all Assembly segments.
“These are all verifiedmembers, enrolled into theparty by a designated enrollerusing a proprietary mobilephone app called CongressMembership App. Every veri-fied member gets a digital IDcard that is QR coded forauthenticity," he said.
Around five lakh party
approved enrollers went doorto door to enrol membersacross the length and breadthof the country.
"Ever since we started thedrive, the key focus has been onquality of membership, notjust quantity. Every member isverified at three levels, voter ID,photograph and phone num-ber. The drive is strictly accesscontrolled and only verifiedenrollers can use the member-ship app," Chakravarty said.
The Congress exercisecomes after a series of electoraldefeats in several states andinternal calls from leaders andworkers for a complete over-haul of the party organisationand leadership at all levels.
Congress launched a mem-bership app in which partyworkers and leaders can enrolthrough a four-tier verificationprocess.
“In case the infection spreads, we already haveinfrastructure ready to increase 100 oxygen beds inevery ward of Delhi within two weeks. We have plansto prepare 65,000 beds, so that no person has to facebed shortage in case of emergency,” said Jain, addingthat all hospitals in Delhi have been advised to remainalert.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also saidthey are keeping a close eye on rising cases of coro-na and hospital admissions are not increasing, so thereis no need to panic.
Jain said though cases of corona have increasedin Delhi, the number of patients admitted to hospi-tals is still normal and contact tracing of patients ison to prevent the spread of infection.
“Apart from this, the XE variant has not beenincluded in the list of 'Variants of Concern' by theWorld Health Organization. So there is no need topanic,” said the Minister.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Disaster ManagementAuthority (DDMA) will meet on April 20 to discussthe spike in Covid cases and measures to contain thespread of the epidemic. The State Government is alsoconsidering bringing back the mask mandate.
Jain said if the cases increase again in the city, thehome isolation system will be implemented and at thesame time, patients with mild corona symptoms willget better treatment at home.
“The CDV teams, along with ANM, ASHA, para-medical workers, will visit the homes of corona infect-ed patients and inform them about being in home iso-lation and taking necessary precautions,” said Jain.
During the second wave Delhi witnessed short-age of oxygen and speaking on the issue, Jain said thecity Government has increased its oxygen capacity.
“We have a capacity of 1363.73 MT of oxygen,including Liquid Medical Oxygen Storage (LMO),Liquid Medical Oxygen Buffer, and PSA Plant. At thesame time, the medical institution has the capacityof oxygen cylinders of up to 217 metric tonnes. Apartfrom this, 6,000 D type cylinders have been kept inreserve for use in an emergency,” Jain shared thedetails.
“Earlier, the oxygen refilling capacity in Delhi waslimited to 1,500 cylinders a day, but now the two cryo-genic plants with a capacity of 12.5 MT will be ableto fill an additional 1,400 jumbo cylinders every day,”said Jain.
In view of reports of Covid-19 cases among schoolchildren and staff members, Delhi's Deputy ChiefMinister Manish Sisodia on Friday said a specific wingin schools or classrooms where a Covid-19 case hasbeen detected should be closed temporarily and clar-ified that the entire school should only be closed inspecific cases.
“We haven't asked them to close schools. Ourguidelines say only a specific wing or classroom wheresomeone was found Covid positive should be tem-porarily closed. Schools can take a decision to closethe entire premises in specific cases where an infect-ed child or staff has been through multiple areas ofthe school…we have made it decentralised,” saidSisodia.
Meanwhile, the Directorate of Education (DoE)issued a fresh advisory for schools in the nationalCapital on April 13, directing them to close the entire
premises or specific wings temporarily if any studentor staff tests positive for Covid-19.
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Party sources claiming to be in the know of thingsasserted that the new Congress chief in Bihar couldbe either a Muslim or a Dalit or someone from theupper castes, preferably a Bhumihar.
This would be in line with the party's strategy torevive itself in a State where it has come to be seenas a spent force and now finds itself isolated follow-ing the short shrift given by old ally RJD, which hasbeen blaming it for the Grand Alliance's failure to winthe 2020 Assembly polls despite performing betterthan expectations.
Meanwhile, Punjab Congress is also in turmoilamid reports that cricketer-turned-politician NavjotSingh Sidhu is trying to propel himself as the captainafter building 'Team Sidhu' by including the Congressparty's “rebel” political players. Sidhu on Thursdayheld another round of meeting with party leaders,including former MLAs - a development that appar-ently did not go down well with the Congress party'snewly-appointed state leadership.
Punjab Congress' new president AmarinderSingh Raja Warring was quick to hint at action againsthis predecessor Sidhu by making it clear that anyoneindulging in making the party “weak” will face strictaction.
Notably, Warring was in Amritsar on Friday,along with Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee's(PPCC) working president Bharat Bhushan Ashu,Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader PartapSingh Bajwa, and Deputy CLP leader Dr Raj KumarChabbewal, to pay obeisance at Golden Temple,Durgiana Mandir, and Ram Tirath.
Later, Warring held a meeting with former leg-islators and councilors of the Majha region. Sidhu, whowas also a former MLA from Amritsar East, was con-spicuous by his absence. Instead, he was meeting rebelparty leaders to build up his “Team Sidhu”.
Sidhu first met Congress rebel and four-timeMLA from Samrala Amrik Singh Dhillon at Ludhiana,former Minister and senior leader Lal Singh, and latermet party stalwart Sunil Jakhar at his Panchkula res-idence.
During these meetings, he was accompanied byformer MLAs Ashwani Sekhri and Navtej SinghCheema.
Notably, the Congress Disciplinary ActionCommittee has issued a showcase notice to Jakhar forhis alleged “objectionable” comments against the SCcommunity, besides indulging in “anti-party activi-ties, asking him to respond in a week's time. On theother hand, four-time MLA Dhillon had contested asan independent candidate in the recently-concludedassembly polls after he was denied a ticket by theCongress party. He has also been expelled fromCongress ahead of elections.
“I will continue to fight for the interests of Punjab.During the meeting held today, we formed “TeamSidhu” to look into the problems raised by partyMLAs. I met the rebel MLAs of the State as well inthis meet,” said Sidhu, after meeting Dhillon.
Warring, during his Amritsar visit, had met for-mer Deputy Chief Minister OP Soni, former MLA Raj
Kumar Verka, Amritsar MP Gurjit Singh Aujla, andPPCC's former working president Sukhwinder SinghDanny. Asked about Sidhu's absence from the meet-ings in Amritsar, Warring said that the former stateCongress chief was away to Samrala. “It could be somepersonal matter,” he said about Sidhu's visit toSamrala.
Warring, who was appointed PPCC chief on April9 after Sidhu was asked to put in his paper followingthe party's shameful defeat in February 20 elections,on Friday maintained that he had reached out to hispredecessor, “but he did not answer my call”.
“I called Sidhu sir but he didn't answer my call...It'ssad when someone is removed from the party. I willrequest leaders to stop supporting the rebels,” saidWarring.
The remarks were made at a party function tomark Ambedkar Jayanti in Lucknow.
“Dr Ambedkar had raised the issue in the con-stituent assembly. Dr Ram Manohar Lohia had raisedthe issue too, and on Ambedkar Jayanti we are rais-ing our voice for a uniform civil code. We are readyto agitate for it and raise our voice for it,” Shivpal Yadavsaid at the function.
After years of bickering between Akhilesh Yadavand his uncle Shivpal Yadav that started before the2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly election as the formerchief minister tried to consolidate his hold over theSamajwadi Party eventually leading to his uncle's exit,the two appeared to have made up before the 2022election. Shivpal Yadav's PSPL formed an alliance withthe SP and he contested the election on SP symbolfrom his stronghold Jaswantnagar and won.
However, the “reunion” was short-lived. Days afterthe SP lost the Uttar Pradesh election; Shivpal Yadavreportedly met the leaders of his PSPL and told themto “be prepared for a big fight”.
He also met Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, rein-forcing speculation that he was close to switching overto the ruling BJP.
The fragile uncle-nephew relationship is at abreaking point over differences that have been get-ting more and more visible since the UP assembly elec-tion results. Shivpal Yadav reportedly met AkhileshYadav on March 24, just a day before Yogi Adityanath'ssecond oath-taking ceremony, and asked for a biggerrole in the SP.
Sources say Akhilesh Yadav reminded his unclethat he was an ally, not a member of the SP.
That point was pressed home once before whenAkhilesh Yadav called a meeting of his party MLAsbut did not invite Shivpal Yadav. When Shivpal Yadavquestioned Akhilesh Yadav, he was told that a sepa-rate meeting of SP allies would be held soon.
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He said the export of turmeric from Indiaincreased after the pandemic as people across theglobe learned about its health benefits.
To spread the message of healthy living, Modi
urged the people of Kutch to set a world record byensuring maximum participation of citizens in the dis-trict during the International Day of Yoga on June 21.
To boost tourism in Gujarat and in the country,the PM sought the help of people from Kutch livingabroad in persuading foreigners to visit attractions likethe White Rann of Kutch during Rann Utsav and 182-meter tall Statue of Unity in Narmada district dedi-cated to Sardar Patel. “This is my appeal to the KutchiDiasporas spread across the world.
“Every year, one such Kutchi family should per-suade at least five foreigners to visit the Rann of Kutchand the Statue of Unity. This will definitely boosttourism activity and also help poor people such as autodrivers and tea sellers in earning livelihood,” saidModi.
He called for constructing 75 lakes per district tomark the 75th anniversary of India's independence.He urged the Diaspora to contribute in building atleast 75 large lakes in the arid Kutch region so thatpeople do not face water shortages.
Modi expressed concern about the Maldhari (cat-tle-rearer) community of Kutch whose members areforced to migrate to other districts with their livestockand family in search of water and fodder after themonsoon months get over and the dry season sets in.
“I want the people of Kutch to convince theseMaldharis to stay back because Kutch is no longerwater deficient,” he said.
The PM appreciated that leaving the devastationcaused by the earthquake behind, the people of Bhujand Kutch are now writing a new destiny for thisregion with their hard work.
“Today many modern medical services exist inthis area. In this series, Bhuj is getting a modern, superspecialty hospital today. This hospital is the first char-itable super specialty hospital of the region which willact as a guarantee of quality medical treatment for peo-ple of Kutch along with lakhs of soldiers, par mili-tary personnel and traders,” the PM said.
The PM elaborated that better health facilities arenot limited only to the treatment of disease, they alsoencourage social justice.
“When cheap and best treatment is available tothe poor, his faith in the system is strengthened. If theyget freedom from the worry of the cost of treatment,they work hard to get out of poverty with more deter-mination,” the PM said.
On the Ukraine issue, Britain is one of the lead-ing nations to impose sanctions against Russia. TheUK Foreign Secretary Truss during her visit here saidRussia's invasion of Ukraine underlined the impor-tance of democracies working together to deter aggres-sors and to strengthen global security. She also high-lighted the importance of all countries reducing theirstrategic dependency on Russia.
Modi and Johnson elevated the bilateral ties toa “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” during thevirtual bilateral summit in May 2021. At the summit,the two sides adopted a 10-year roadmap to expandties in the key areas of trade and economy, defenceand security, climate change and people-to-peopleconnections.
The Thane police are looking for a 76-year-old man who – in a shocking fit
of rage — shot dead his daughter-in-lawfrom his revolver for her delay in serv-ing him breakfast.
The bizarre incident took place onThursday morning when senior citizen andan ex-real estate developer KashinathPandurang Patil, who shot at his 42-0year-old daughter-in-law Seema Ravindra Patilat their home in Vihang ShantivanApartments at Rutu Park of Rabodi in theneighbouring satellite city of Thane.
Quoting a complaint lodged by theyounger sister-in-law of the accusedfather-in-law, the police said thatKashinath Patil, who till recently used tosupply sand at residential building con-struction sites, had absconded from hishome after the incident.
According to the complaint,Kashinath Patil got agitated after his eldestdaughter Seema served him only tea butdelayed in giving him breakfast. Hewhipped out his personal revolver andfired at Seema who sustained severe bul-let wounds.
The injured daughter-in-law Seema,who had been rushed by her family to anearby private hospital, succumbed tobullet injuries on Friday morning.
The police, who had initially regis-tered an offence under section 307(attempt to murder) and 506 (2) (crimi-nal intimidation), have booked KashinathPatil under section 302 for murder. Thepolice have launched a manhunt for theaccused senior citizen.
ABangladeshi teen has been arrestedand put behind bars for illegally
crossing into India to buy chocolate, BSFsaid on Friday.
Eman Hossain, a resident of aBangladeshi village close to Shalda River,which marks the international borderbetween the two countries, regularly swamacross the water body to buy his favouriteIndian chocolate in Tripura's Sipahijala dis-trict. He used to sneak through a hole inthe barbed wire fencing to buy chocolatefrom a shop in Kalamchoura village inIndia, and return home the same way.
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Aday after Moscow suffereda stinging symbolic defeat
with the loss of the flagship ofits Black Sea fleet, Russia'sDefense Ministry promisedFriday to ramp up missileattacks on the Ukrainian cap-ital in response to Ukraine'salleged military "diversions onthe Russian territory."
The threat of intensifiedattacks on Kyiv came afterRussian authorities accusedUkraine of wounding sevenpeople and damaging about100 residential buildings withairstrikes on Bryansk, a regionthat borders Ukraine.Authorities in another borderregion of Russia also reportedUkrainian shelling Thursday.
Kyiv has gradually dis-played some signs of pre-warlife after Russian troops failedto capture the city and retreat-ed to focus on a concentratedassault in eastern Ukraine,leaving evidence of possiblewar crimes in their wake. Arenewed bombardment couldreturn the capital's residents tosheltering in subway stationsand the steady wail of air raidsirens.
Ukrainian officials havenot confirmed striking targetsin Russia, and the reports byRussian authorities could notbe independently verified.However, Ukrainian officialsclaimed their forces struck akey Russian warship with mis-siles on Thursday. If true, theclaim would represent animportant victory.
The guided-missile cruis-er Moskva, named for theRussian capital, sank whilebeing towed to port Thursdayafter suffering heavy damageunder circumstances thatremained in dispute. Moscowacknowledged a fire on boardbut not any attack. U.S. Andother Western officials couldnot confirm what caused theblaze.
The Moskva had the capac-ity to carry 16 long-rangecruise missiles, and its removalreduces Russia's firepower inthe Black Sea. If Ukrainianforces took out the vessel, theMoskva likely represents thelargest warship to be sunk incombat since the FalklandsWar. A British submarine tor-pedoed an Argentine navycruiser called the ARA GeneralBelgrano during the 1982 con-
flict, killing over 300 sailors onboard.
The Russian warship's lossin an invasion already widelyseen as a historic blunder alsowas a symbolic defeat forMoscow as its troops regroupfor an offensive in easternUkraine after retreating fromthe Kyiv region and much ofthe north.
In his nightly addressThursday, Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy said thepeople of his country should beproud of having survived 50days under attack when theRussian invaders "gave us amaximum of five."
Zelenskyy did not mentionthe Moskva by name, but whilelisting the ways Ukraine hasdefended against the onslaught,mentioned "those who showedthat Russian warships can sailaway, even if it's to the bottom"of the sea. It was his only ref-erence to the Moskva.
News about the flagshipovershadowed Russian claimsof advances in the southernport city of Mariupol, whereMoscow's forces have beenbattling the Ukrainians sincethe early days of the invasion insome of the heaviest fighting of
the war - at a horrific cost tocivilians.
Dwindling numbers ofUkrainian defenders inMariupol are holding outagainst a siege that has trappedwell over 100,000 civilians indesperate need of food, waterand heating. David Beasley,executive director of the U.N.World Food Program, told TheAssociated Press in an inter-view Thursday that peoplewere being "starved to death" in
the besieged city.Mariupol's mayor said this
week that more than 10,000civilians had died and thedeath toll could surpass 20,000.Other Ukrainian officials havesaid they expect to find evi-dence of atrocities committedagainst civilians like the onesdiscovered in Bucha and othertowns outside Kyiv once theRussians withdrew.
The Mariupol City Councilsaid Friday that locals report-
ed seeing Russian troops dig-ging up bodies that were buriedin residential courtyards andnot allowing any new burials"of people killed by them."
"Why the exhumation isbeing carried out and where thebodies will be taken isunknown," the council said ina statement posted on theTelegram messaging app.
Mariupol's capture is crit-ical for Russia because it wouldallow its forces in the south,
which came up through theannexed Crimean Peninsula, tofully link up with troops in theDonbas region, Ukraine's east-ern industrial heartland and thetarget of the looming offensive.
Moscow-backed separatistshave fought Ukrainian forces inthe Donbas since 2014, thesame year Russia seized Crimeafrom Ukraine. Russia has rec-ognized the independence oftwo rebel-held areas of theregion.
Although it's not certainwhen Russia will launch thefull-scale campaign, a region-al Ukrainian official said Fridaythat seven people died and 27were injured after Russianforces opened fire on buses car-rying civilians in the village ofBorovaya, near the northeast-ern city of Kharkiv.
Ukrainian law enforcementagencies are working to estab-lish the circumstances of theattack, Dmytro Chubenko, aspokesman for the regionalprosecutor's office, toldUkraine's Suspilne news web-site.
Chubenko said thatUkrainian authorities hadopened criminal proceedingsin connection with a suspect-
ed "violation of the laws andcustoms of war, combined withpremeditated murder." Theclaims of an attack
on civilian buses could notbe independently verified.
The Russian DefenseMinistry said Friday thatRussian strikes in the Kharkivregion "liquidated a squad ofmercenaries from a Polish pri-vate military company" of up to30 people and "liberated" aniron and steel factor inMariupol from "Ukrainiannationalists."
The claims could not beindependently verified.
On Thursday, the DefenseMinistry explained the damageto Russia's Black Sea flagship bya fire had caused ammunitionstowed on board to detonate. Inaddition to the cruise missiles,the warship also had air-defense missiles and otherguns.
The ministry did not saywhat might have caused theblaze but reported that the"main missile weapons" werenot damaged and the crew,which usually numbers about500, abandoned the vessel. Itwasn't clear if there were anycasualties.
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Unbroken by a Russianblockade and relentless
bombardment, the key port ofMariupol is still holding out, asymbol of staunch Ukrainianresistance that has thwarted theKremlin's invasion plans.
More than six weeks afterthe Russian siege began,Ukrainian troops are continu-ing to fight the vastly superiorRussian forces in ferociousbattles amid the ruins of whatonce was a bustling city on theSea of Azov coast.
The Ukrainians' fightagainst all odds has scuttledMoscow's designs, tying upsignificant Russian forces anddelaying the start of a plannedRussian offensive in easternUkraine's industrial heartland,Donbas.
The Kremlin hopes that anattack in the east could reversethe battlefield fortunes forRussia after a humiliating fail-ure of its attempt to quicklystorm the Ukrainian capital,Kyiv.
Mariupol has been a keyobjective for Russia since thestart of its invasion on Feb 24.
Capturing the city would allowMoscow to establish a land cor-ridor to Ukraine's CrimeanPeninsula that Russia annexedin 2014 and deprive Ukraine ofa major port and prized indus-trial assets.
The giant Azovstal steelmill and other industrial plantshave been heavily damaged bythe ferocious Russian bom-bardment that has flattenedmuch of Mariupol, indiscrim-inately hitting homes, hospitalsand other public buildings andkilling thousands.
The victims include about300 people killed in lastmonth's Russian airstrike onthe Mariupol Drama Theatrethat was being used as a shel-ter and had the word "CHIL-DREN" printed in Russian inhuge white letters on the pave-ment outside to ward off aeri-al attack.
Mariupol Mayor VadymBoychenko told The AssociatedPress that at least 21,000 peo-ple were killed in Mariupolwith bodies "carpeted throughthe streets". He said that theRussians deployed mobile cre-mation equipment to Mariupolto methodically dispose of the
victims' bodies in order tohide the evidence of the mas-sacre and prevent internation-al organisations from docu-menting "the horror theRussian army is responsiblefor".
The discovery of hundredsof bodies of civilians apparentlyexecuted by Russian forces inKyiv's suburbs after the Russianretreat from the area has fuelledglobal outrage and accusationsfrom Ukrainians and the West
that Russia is committing warcrimes in Ukraine.
Moscow has deployedfighters from Chechnya,known for their ferocity, towage street battles in Mariupol.Chechnya's Moscow-backedleader, Ramzan Kadyrov, hasrepeatedly boasted on his mes-saging app channel aboutdefeating Ukrainians inMariupol, but the fight has con-tinued.
Boychenko said that sev-
eral Ukrainian units are stillfighting the Russians inMariupol, including the 36thMarine Brigade, the AzovRegiment, some InteriorMinistry troops and borderguards.
The Azov Regiment, a sea-soned volunteer force that iswidely considered one of thecountry's most capable units, isdefending the mammothAzovstal steel plant that coversan area of nearly 11 square kilo-
metres (over 4.2 square miles).It has taken advantage of theplant's sprawling network ofconcrete buildings and under-ground facilities to repel con-tinuous Russian attacks.
The 36th Marine Brigadewas maintaining defensivepositions at the Azovmash andZavod Ilyicha factories until itran out of supplies and ammu-nition and made a desperateattempt to break through theRussian blockade earlier thisweek.
In a post on the brigade'sFacebook page, one of its offi-cers described the unit's hero-ic resistance, saying that "formore than a month, themarines have been fightingwithout replenishing ammu-nition, food and water sup-plies." "The wounded account-ed for nearly a half of thebrigade's strength, but thosewho still had their limbs andwere capable of walking report-ed back to duty," the post said.
Boychenko said that someof the marines managed to jointhe Azov regiment, while oth-ers were captured by theRussians. He didn't give anynumbers.
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Russia's Defence Ministryon Friday promised to
ramp up "the scale of missileattacks" on Kyiv in response toUkraine's "diversions on theRussian territory."
The statement comes a dayafter Russian authoritiesaccused Ukrainian forces oflaunching airstrikes on resi-dential buildings in one of thecountry's regions on the borderwith Ukraine, in which sevenpeople sustained injuries.
According to Russian offi-cials, some 100 residentialbuildings were damaged inThursday's attack on theKlimovo village in the Bryanskregion. The Defense Ministrysaid that the Russian forces inUkraine's
Chernihiv region shutdown a Ukrainian Mi-8 heli-copter that was allegedlyinvolved in the attack on theBryansk region.
Authorities in another bor-der region, Belgorod, alsoreported Ukrainian shellingon Thursday.
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President VolodymyrZelenskyy told Ukrainians
on Thursday they should beproud of having survived 50days under Russian attackwhen the Russians "gave us amaximum of five."
In his late-night videoaddress, Zelenskyy called it"an achievement of millions ofUkrainians, of everyone whoon Feb. 24 made the mostimportant decision of their life- to fight."
Zelenskyy gave an exten-sive and almost poetic listing ofthe many ways in whichUkrainians have helped to fendoff the Russian troops, includ-ing "those who showed thatRussian warships can sail away,even if it's to the bottom" of thesea.
It was his only reference tothe Russian missile cruiserMoskva, which sank whilebeing towed to port.
Zelenskyy said he remem-bered the first day of the inva-sion when many world leaders,unsure whether Ukraine couldsurvive, advised him to leavethe country.
Russia on Friday of making theprecarious food situation inYemen and elsewhere evenworse by invading Ukraine,calling it "just another grimexample of the ripple effectRussia's unprovoked, unjust,unconscionable war is havingon the world's most vulnera-ble."
Linda Thomas-Greenfieldtold a UN Security Councilmeeting on war-torn Yementhat the World FoodProgramme identified the Arabworld's poorest nation as one ofthe countries most affected bywheat price increases and lackof imports from Ukraine.
Russia's deputy UNAmbassador Dmitry Polyanskyshot back saying, "The mainfactor for instability and thesource of the problem today isnot the Russian special militaryoperation in Ukraine, but sanc-tions measures imposed onour country seeking to cut offany supplies from Russia andthe supply chain, apart fromthose supplies that those coun-tries in the West need, in otherwords energy."
"If you really want to helpthe world avoid a food crisisyou should lift the sanctionsthat you yourselves imposed,your sanctions of choiceindeed, and poor countrieswill immediately feel the dif-ference," he said. "And if you'renot prepared to do that, thendon't get involved in dema-goguery, and don't misleadeverybody."
The sharp exchange tookplace a day after a U.N. Taskforce warned that the war
threatens to devastate theeconomies of many developingcountries that are now facingeven higher food and energycosts and increasingly difficultfinancial conditions.
U.N. Secretary-GeneralAntonio Guterres launchedtheir report saying, "As manyas 1.7 billion people -- one-third of whom are already liv-ing in poverty -- are nowhighly exposed to disruptionsin food, energy and financesystems that are triggeringincreases in poverty andhunger."
Thirty-six countries relyon Russia and Ukraine formore than half their wheatimports, including some of theworld's poorest countries, hesaid, and wheat and corn priceshave risen 30% just since thestart of the year.
Rebeca Grynspan, secre-tary-general of the U.N. Agencypromoting trade and develop-ment who coordinated the taskforce, said the 1.7 billion peo-ple live in 107 countries thathave "severe exposure" to atleast one dimension of the cri-sis -- rising food prices, increas-ing energy prices and tighten-ing financial conditions.
The task force said 69 ofthe countries, with a popula-
tion of 1.2 billion people, facea "perfect storm" and areseverely or significantlyexposed to all three crises.They include 25 countries inAfrica, 25 in Asia and thePacific, and 19 in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean.
The United Nations onThursday announced it wasreleasing $100 million from itsemergency fund for sevenhunger hotspots, Yemen andsix African countries --Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya,Sudan, South Sudan andNigeria.
"Hundreds of thousandsof children are going to sleephungry every night while theirparents are worried sick abouthow to feed them," U.N.Humanitarian chief MartinGriffiths said in a statement. "Awar halfway around the worldmakes their prospects evenworse. This
allocation will save lives."U.N. Spokesman Stephane
Dujarric was asked aboutPolyansky's comments andwhether Guterres is concernedthat sanctions are driving upfood prices.
"I think it would be safe tosay that there would be nosanctions if there were no con-flict," Dujarric replied.
����45+,
The head of the UN WorldFood Programme said
people are being "starved todeath" in the besiegedUkrainian city of Mariupol,and he predicted the country'shumanitarian crisis is likely toworsen as Russia intensifies itsassault in the coming weeks.
WFP executive directorDavid Beasley also warned inan interview Thursday withThe Associated Press in Kyivthat Russia's invasion of grain-exporting Ukraine risks desta-bilizing nations far from itsshores and could trigger wavesof migrants seeking better liveselsewhere.
The war that began Feb. 24was "devastating the people inUkraine," he said, lamentingthe lack of access faced by theWFP and other aid organiza-tions in trying to reach thosein need amid the conflict.
"I don't see any of that eas-ing up. I just don't see it hap-pening right now," he said.
The fluid nature of theconflict, which has seen fight-ing shift away from areasaround the capital and towardeastern Ukraine, has made itespecially difficult to reachhungry Ukrainians.
The WFP is trying to putfood supplies now in areas thatcould be caught up in thefighting, but Beasley acknowl-edged that there are "a lot ofcomplexities" as the situationrapidly evolves.
A lack of access is part ofthe problem, he said, but so isa shortage of manpower andfuel as resources are divertedto the war effort.
"It's not just going to be the
next few days - but the next fewweeks and few months couldeven get more complicatedthan it is now," he said.
"In fact, it's getting worseand worse, concentrated incertain areas, and the frontlines are going to be moving."
Beasley expressed partic-ular concern about the portcity of Mariupol, where adwindling number ofUkrainian defenders is hold-ing out against a Russian siegethat has trapped well over100,000 civilians in desperateneed of food, water and heat-ing.
Russian forces that controlaccess to the city have notallowed in aid, even thoughthe WFP has demandedaccess.
"We will not give up on thepeople of Mariupol and otherpeople that we cannot reach.But it's a devastating situation:the people being starved todeath," he said.
Russia is determined toseize the city so its forcesfrom the annexed CrimeanPeninsula can fully link upwith troops elsewhere in theeastern Donbas region,Ukraine's industrial heartlandand the target of the comingoffensive.
The U.N. Food chiefwarned of disastrous rippleeffects due to Ukraine's role asmajor international grain sup-plier.
A global food shortagecaused by the war couldprompt "mass migrationbeyond anything we've seensince World War II," he said,echoing remarks he made tothe U.N. Security Council lastmonth.Russia and Ukraine
together produce 30% of theworld's wheat supply andexport about three-quarters ofthe world's sunflower seedoil.
Half of the grain the WFPbuys for distribution aroundthe world comes fromUkraine.
Some 30 million metrictons of grain bound for exportare unable to be shippedbecause of the war, Beasleysaid.
Ukrainian farmers arestruggling to access fertilizerand seed, and those who canplant may see their harvest rotin the fields if the war drags onand there's no way to ship it,he warned.
The shipping challengeshave forced the WFP to halverations for millions of people,many in Africa, and morecuts may be needed, he said.
"People are going to bestarving to death," he said.
Beasley also visited areasnear Kyiv that were ravaged bythe Russian invasion, includ-ing the town of Bucha, whereevidence of mass killings andother atrocities against civil-ians have shocked the world.
He described neighbor-hoods "completely decimatedby bombings," likening whathe saw to a nightmare that wasimpossible to believe.
But he stopped short ofdescribing the killings a geno-cide, as U.S. President JoeBiden did this week.
"Well, I know one thing.People are dying," he saidwhen asked about Biden'scomments. "But there's nodoubt in my mind this is ahorror story and it is trulyheartbreaking."
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Alarge explosion has struckthe eastern Ukrainian city
of Kramatorsk, the site of a mis-sile strike on a train station aweek earlier that left morethan 50 dead and dozenswounded.
Associated Press journalistsin the city heard the sound ofa rocket or missile and then theblast, followed by sirens wail-ing early Friday afternoon. Itwas not immediately clear whatwas hit or whether there werecasualties.
Witnesses to the south ofthe capital Kjiv earlier report-ed explosions around 2 am, butthe source was not clear.
Seven people died and 27were injured after Russianforces opened fire on buses car-rying civilians in the Ukrainianvillage of Borovaya, near thenortheastern city of Kharkiv, aspokesman for the regionalprosecutor's office toldUkraine's Suspilne news web-site Friday.
Ukrainian law enforcement
agencies are working to estab-lish the circumstances of theattack, Dmytro Chubenko said.He added that investigatorsare also establishing the routesand destination of the vehiclestransporting civilians acrossthe Russian-controlled territo-ry around Borovaya.
Chubenko said thatUkrainian authorities hadopened criminal proceedingsin connection with a suspect-ed "violation of the laws andcustoms of war, combined withpremeditated murder."
The claims could not beindependently verified.
The U.N. Human rightsoffice says at least 1,964 civil-ians have been killed throughApril 13 since the start of theRussian invasion on Feb. 24.The office believes the numberis much higher, informationfrom some areas is delayed byhostilities and other reports arepending corroboration.
Ukrainian officials saythousands and thousands ofpeople have been killed in thewar.
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Mariupol City Council saidon Friday that local resi-
dents report Russian troops aredigging up bodies previouslyburied in residential court-yards and not allowing any newburials "of people killed bythem.""A watchman has beenassigned to each courtyard andis not allowing Mariupol resi-dents to lay to rest dead rela-tives or friends. Why the
exhumation is being carriedout and where the bodies willbe taken is unknown," accord-ing to a statement on the mes-saging app Telegram.The claimcould not be independentlyverified.
Earlier this month,Mariupol Mayor VadymBoychenko told the AP thatRussian forces have broughtmobile cremation equipment tothe city to dispose of thecorpses of victims of the siege.
Relegation-threatened PremierLeague club Burnley on Friday
announced they had sacked long-serv-ing manager Sean Dyche.
The Clarets are 18th in the PremierLeague, four points adrift of safety hav-ing won only four matches all season.
"Results this season have been dis-appointing and, while this was anincredibly difficult decision, with eightcrucial games of the campaign remain-ing, we feel a change is needed to givethe squad the best possible chance ofretaining its Premier League status,"chairman Alan Pace said in a statement.
The 50-year-old Dyche, who signeda new contract due to run until 2025in September, had been the longest-serving manager of any club in thePremier League, having taken charge inOctober 2012.
He twice led the Clarets to promo-tion and brought European football toTurf Moor in 2018 despite a limitedbudget, but his side have been in thebottom three virtually all season and lastweek's 2-0 defeat at fellow strugglersNorwich was a major setback in theirsurvival bid.
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Favourites Barcelona were dumpedout of the Europa League byEintracht Frankfurt in the quarter-
finals on Thursday, while West HamUnited and Rangers joined RB Leipzig inqualifying for the last four.
Serbian international Filip Kosticscored twice either side of a RafaelSantos Borre strike at the Camp Nou forFrankfurt, who survived a late fightbackto win 3-2 on the night and 4-3 on aggre-gate.
Sergio Busquets scored a late conso-lation before Memphis Depay's evenlater penalty for Barcelona but Eintrachtheld on, to the delight of the estimated30,000 German supporters who travelledfor the game.
They go through to their secondEuropa League semi-final in four seasons,having lost on penalties to Chelsea at thesame stage in 2019.
"I am speechless. Nobody expectedthis, if you are honest. Everyone expect-ed us to suffer," said Frankfurt goalkeep-er Kevin Trapp.
Barcelona's recent revival under XaviHernandez has been remarkable butthis defeat means they have won just onceat home all season in Europe, and theircampaign is now set to end without sil-verware.
"It's a hammer blow for us. Theydeserved to go through," admitted Xavi.
After conceding three penalties intheir weekend win over Levante, Barcafell behind to another spot-kick insidefour minutes against Eintracht, as Kosticconverted after a foul by Eric Garcia tothe delight of the enormous away sup-port.
The visitors scored again in the 36thminute as Colombian forward Borre fired
high into the net from range, and Kostic'slow finish into the far corner made it 3-0 midway through the second half.
Busquets had a late goal disallowedfor offside before he found the net witha fantastic strike from 20 metres in thefirst minute of injury time.
The game carried on into an 11thadded minute when Depay netted apenalty after Evan Ndicka was sent off,receiving a second caution for a foul onLuuk de Jong.
�������#�������Yet Eintracht maintained their record
of not having lost to Spanish oppositionsince the 1960 European Cup final againstReal Madrid, and they will face West Hamin the semi-finals.
The English side are through to theirfirst European semi-final since losing the1976 Cup Winners' Cup final toAnderlecht after they outclassed Lyon inFrance, winning 3-0 on the night and 4-1 on aggregate.
The Hammers took the lead in the38th minute of the return when CraigDawson headed in a Pablo Fornals corner.
Captain Declan Rice slotted in theirsecond just before the break, his sidefooteffort from the edge of the area beatingLyon goalkeeper Julian Pollersbeck withthe aid of a deflection.
The outcome was put beyond doubtwhen West Ham scored again three min-utes after the restart as Fornals sent JarrodBowen away to make it 3-0.
"The journey in two years, we weretalking about relegation, and now we'retalking about getting to the semi-final ofa European tournament. It's fabulous, andwe're all going to look forward to it," saidWest Ham manager David Moyes.
�������������� ���There was drama in Glasgow as
Rangers were taken to extra time by Bragabefore winning 3-1 on the night and 3-2on aggregate as the Portuguese side fin-ished the game with nine men.
James Tavernier gave Rangers a sec-ond-minute lead to level the tie onaggregate, and they had another goal dis-allowed and then hit the woodworkbefore winning a penalty just before theinterval.
Vitor Tormena was sent off for a foulon Kemar Roofe, and Tavernier nettedfrom the spot.
David Carmo's 83rd-minute headertook the tie to extra time, but Roofe's101st-minute finish put Rangers back infront on aggregate and Braga then hadIuri Medeiros dismissed.
Rangers will now face Leipzig in theirfirst European semi-final since reachingthe 2008 UEFA Cup final.
French international ChristopherNkunku scored both goals as Leipzig beatAtalanta 2-0 in Italy to win their last-eighttie 3-1 on aggregate.
Nkunku opened the scoring in the18th minute in Bergamo and then addeda late penalty, his 30th goal of the seasonin all competitions.
��� 37/"7/
Leicester battled back to beatPSV Eindhoven 2-1 on
Thursday in the EuropaConference League to reach aEuropean semi-final for thefirst time in their history, wherethey will face Jose Mourinho'sRoma.
After a goalless draw in thefirst leg in England last week,PSV took the lead in the quar-ter-final tie through EranZahavi.
But late goals from JamesMaddison and Ricardo Pereirasent Brendan Rodgers' PremierLeague side through andstunned the Philips Stadioncrowd.
Leicester will play Roma fora place in the final in Tirana onMay 25, after the Serie A side
overturned a 2-1 first-leg deficitagainst NorwegiansBodo/Glimt with a 4-0 thrash-ing.
"We are a team that is soyoung in European football,"Leicester manager Rodgers toldBT Sport.
"PSV have an incrediblehistory in Europe and for us weare so young — these are greatexperiences for us and I am sohappy for the players."
PSV did forge ahead short-ly afterwards the first 25 min-utes
Goetze intercepted YouriTielemans' loose pass just out-side the Leicester box, beforelaying the ball off for Zahavi todrill a fine strike into the bot-tom corner.
The visitors pressed in thesecond half but had to wait until
the 77th minute to equalise.Substitute Ayoze Perez did
brilliantly to get to the bylineand pull the ball back forMaddison, who picked out theroof of the net to score for the14th time this season.
A PSV fan threw a cup atthe celebrating Leicester play-ers, before a two-minute delay.
The Foxes completed theircomeback with just two min-utes of normal time remaining,as Pereira pounced on arebound after Patson Daka'sshot was saved.
�����������Nicolo Zaniolo scored a
brilliant hat-trick as Romacruised past Bodo/Glimt at theStadio Olimpico to win 5-2 onaggregate.
It was revenge for the cap-ital club after an embarrassing6-1 thumping by Bodo/Glimt inthe group stage and the defeatlast week in an ill-temperedclash.
England striker TammyAbraham gave Roma the per-fect start with his 24th goal ofthe season in the fifth minute.
Zaniolo scored three excel-lent finishes with his left foot,all coming at the end of sweep-ing moves from the home side.
Marseille also booked theirplace in the last four as DimitriPayet scored for the secondtime in the tie — a 1-0 victoryover PAOK in Greece sealing a3-1 aggregate success.
Marseille may have to playthe home leg of their semi-finalbehind closed doors after UEFAopened an investigation intoviolence before last week's firstleg.
The Ligue 1 club will takeon Feyenoord in the semis, afterthe Dutch outfit won 3-1against Slavia Prague in theCzech capital after a 3-3 first-leg draw, with Cyriel Dessersnetting twice.
��� 37/"7/
Liverpool will put their unprece-dented quadruple bid on the
line against treble-chasingManchester City on Saturday in anFA Cup semi-final that will makeor break one club's dream of foot-ball immortality.
Jurgen Klopp's men are incontention to become the firstEnglish team to win all four majortrophies in one season.
They lifted the League Cup inFebruary and advanced to the lastfour of the Champions Leagueafter surviving a late scare in theirquarter-final second leg againstBenfica on Wednesday.
With Liverpool expected tosee off Spanish side Villarreal in thesemi-finals of Europe's elite clubcompetition, it is Premier Leagueleaders City who will provide themajor obstacle to their ambitions.
City are just one point aheadof their title rivals in the PremierLeague with seven games left after
last weekend's 2-2 draw.Pep Guardiola's team are also
in the hunt for the ChampionsLeague crown and could faceLiverpool in the final if they beatReal Madrid in the semis.
City have a rare feat of theirown to aim for as they seek tobecome only the second Englishside to win the prized treble of thePremier League, ChampionsLeague and FA Cup.
The grand goals of both Cityand Liverpool mean the stakescould not be higher when theyclash for the second time within aweek, this time at Wembley for aplace in the FA Cup final.
One team will leave thenational stadium on a high, theother having to quickly refocus.
Having closed the gap to Cityfrom a 14-point margin in January,Liverpool are living up to Klopp'sdesire to be as "annoying as pos-sible" to the Premier League cham-pions.
Their two league meetings
this season both ended in 2-2draws and it could take extra-timeand penalties to separate them thisweekend.
As Klopp concedes, Liverpoolwere slightly fortunate to escapethe Etihad Stadium unscathedlast Sunday but they could have asignificant advantage for therematch.
Klopp was able to start withMohamed Salah, Sadio Mane andVirgil van Dijk on the bench forWednesday's 3-3 draw againstBenfica, keeping his three key play-ers fresh for the latest City show-down.
In contrast, City were left bat-tered and bruised after an ill-tem-pered 0-0 draw against AtleticoMadrid in their ChampionsLeague quarter-final second leg.
Although City progressed tothe last four, Guardiola said theyare in "big trouble" after Kevin DeBruyne and Kyle Walker limped offinjured and Phil Foden finishedthe game with a bandaged head.
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Saina Nehwal's decision toskip the selection trials for
the CWG and the Asian Gamescould well be the beginning ofan end to what has been anillustrious journey in interna-tional badminton for morethan a decade and half.
A former world No 1, Sainahas been the torch-bearer ofwomen's badminton in theinternational arena, having rep-resented the country thrice atthe Commonwealth Games inGlasgow (2018), New Delhi(2010) and Melbourne (2006).
While there shouldn't bean iota of doubt that the Hisar-born shuttler can still work hermagic with some stunning per-formances in the professionalcircuit but her reluctance toappear for BAI trials could wellend her chances of represent-ing the flag at multi-discipline
events like CWG, Asiad,Olympics and Uber Cup.
A two-timeCommonwealth Games Goldmedallist, Saina did harbourhopes of defending her title atBirmingham but call it a hastydecision or a miscommunica-tion, the dream is now lookinglike a distant one.
On Thursday, an upsetSaina took to Twitter to slamthe Badminton Association ofIndia for not responding to here-mail, also questioning thelogic behind hosting the trials.
The federation, however,has maintained radio silence,indicating that the transitionphase in women's singles hasstarted and the focus fromnow on will be solely on theyounger crop of players, allow-ing them to showcase their tal-ent at the international stage.
"She has achieved a lot forthe country but in the last two
years, she hasn't done anythingworth mentioning. She hasalso not been able to sort outher injury issues," a formercoach said.
"It is tough to play at theinternational level with consis-tent niggles, so she needs toaccept it and shouldn't gethyper over these issues. No onecan deny her contribution tothe game but I don't want to seeher being so bitter about it," theacclaimed coach said.
BAI seems to have set thewheels of change into motionwhen they called for the selec-tion trials on April 2 to pickteams for CommonwealthGames, Thomas and Uber Cupand Asian Games.
While the top 15 playerswere exempted from the trials,the rest of the top Indian play-ers, including Tokyo OlympianB Sai Praneeth and three-timeCWG medallist Ashwini
Ponnappa, who are rankedfrom 16 to 50, agreed to partic-ipate in the trials which beganhere on Friday.
But Saina, who is current-ly ranked 23rd, pulled out asshe didn't want her body to gothrough the rigours since shehad just returned after playingthree-back-to-back events inEurope and AsianChampionships is set to beginon April 26.
Saina's reasons are valid asshe hasn't been in the bestphysical shape of late.Recurring injuries played itspart in delaying her return topeak fitness and it showed inthe results as she made earlyexits from a series of tourna-ments.
The 32-year-old did showsigns of her old self during hernarrow three-game loss toJapan's world No 2 AkaneYamaguchi in the opening
round of All EnglandChampionships.
Saina is still finding herway back and doesn't want togo through the rigours of play-ing 6-7 matches in the trials.
But it is understood thatBAI doesn't want to make anyconcession for the LondonGames Bronze medallist andmade it clear that participationin the trials is a must to beselected for the big-ticket teamevents.
"She could have taken it asjust another week-long tourna-ment and played. I under-stand two-week time is notideal but where is the windowin a crammed schedule?," theformer coach said.
"It is a new administrationand I don't think they arebeing unfair by hosting the tri-als," he added.
Saina's decision to playIndia Open in January withoutachieving full fitness also back-fired as she suffered a straight-game loss to fast-risingMalvika Bansod.
This along with her recentpoor show raised doubts on
her ability of ensuring a medalat the multi-discipline games.
On the other, BAI, also, iseagar to blood in the next gen-eration of players — theMalvika Bansods, AkarshiKashyaps and Tasnim Mirs,who are waiting in the wingsand are all almost in the samelevel.
While Saina might notwalk on to the court in teamchampionships anymore, buther journey in internationalbadminton is far from over.
"Make no mistakes, shecan still be a formidable play-er. Now she should concentrateon the open events, and if sheis pain free, she can still playwell," the former coach added.
"She had a decent perfor-mance in the first round ofthe All England champi-onship against Akane and itshows that she still has thehunger in her."
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Th i r d - r a n k e dAlexander Zverev beat
Pablo Carreno Busta 6-2,7-5 at the Monte CarloMasters to reach the quar-terfinals of the clay-courtseason opener in Monaco.
Carreno Busta brokeZverev to open the secondset and built a 3-1 leadbefore the German rallied,setting up a quarterfinalmatch against JannikSinner.
Defending championStefanos Tsitsipasadvanced by beating LasloDjere 7-5, 7-6 (1). Thefifth-ranked Greek willmeet Diego Schwartzmanof Argentina in the quar-
terfinals.Sinner beat eighth-
ranked Andrey Rublev 5-7, 6-1, 6-3 to advance,winning six straight gamesin the second set anddominating the deciderbefore wrapping it up withhis seventh break.
"I tried to win every
play, every point," saidthe 20-year-old Italian,who reached the quarter-finals in Miami last monthbefore retiring from thematch against FranciscoCerundolo.
Indian Wells winnerTaylor Fritz reached thequarterfinals by defeatingdoubles partner SebastianKorda 7-6 (4), 7-5.
Fritz will meetAlejandro DavidovichFokina, who stunned top-ranked Novak Djokovicon Tuesday. The Spaniardbeat David Goffin 6-4, 6-1 to advance on Thursday.
Grigor Dimitrov alsoadvanced by upsettingseventh-ranked CasperRuud 6-3, 7-5.
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Barcelona midfielder Pedri sustaineda hamstring injury in his side's
defeat by Eintracht Frankfurt in theEuropa League quarter-finals, theSpanish club announced on Friday.
"Tests on Friday morning haverevealed that Pedri has ruptured thefemoral biceps in his left hamstring,"Barca said.
"It means he will be unavailable forselection until he recovers from theinjury."
According to Catalan media, the19-year-old Spain international willlikely be out for at least one month.
Pedri sustained the injury at theend of the first-half of the shock 3-2defeat to Frankfurt, manager Xavi
replacing him with Frenkie de Jong forthe second-half.
Their winning streak halted by thedefending champions, Royal Challengers
Bangalore will hope Harshal Patel returnsto the playing XI and contribute in bring-ing their campaign back on track when theyface Delhi Capitals in an IPL match here onSaturday.
RCB were flying high with three succes-sive wins before Chennai Super Kings out-witted them by 23 runs in their last outing.It was absence of Harshal which hurt theteam as skipper Faf du Plessis looked out ofoptions to control the rampaging duo ofShivam Dube and Robin Uthappa, who tookthe bowlers to the cleaners as CSK posted
a huge total on board.Known for his variations and death
bowling skills, Harshal is a vital cog in RCB'swheels and Du Plessis had admitted that theteam missed his services after he left the bio-bubble on Sunday following the death of hiscousin.
The 31-year-old from Haryana, whohad taken 32 wickets in the 2021 edition, hasemerged as one of the best T20 bowlers withhis variations, which include off-cutters andslower ones, bowled with variable arm speed.
This season too, Harshal has snappedsix wickets from four games at an economyof just 5.50 and remains the go-to-man fordu Plessis whenever the going gets tough.
Among others, pace duo of Mohammad
Siraj and Akash Deep has been taken forruns, while Wanindu Hasaranga claimedtwo wickets but he bled 35 in three overs inthe last match.
Spin duo of Glenn Maxwell andShahbaz too was blown away and skipperDu Plessis will expect a better show fromhis bowlers on Saturday.
In batting, Du Plessis and young left-hander Anuj Rawat have given the teamgood starts, while Dinesh Karthik hasplayed the role of the finisher well. Engineer-turned cricketer Shahbaz Ahmed too hasimpressed with his batting so far.
Former skipper Virat Kohli has blownhot and cold with two 40 plus scores butlacked consistency.
The Capitals, on the other hand, areheading into the match after a massive 44-run win over Kolkata Knight Riders.
With two back-to-back fifties, openerPrithvi Shaw has been in sensational form,while seasoned Australian opener DavidWarner has provided the team solidity at thetop as he provided the fireworks to set DC'smassive win over KKR.
The number three spot, however,remains a concern with none of the battertried by the team able to grab the chance.Skipper Rishabh Pant too will expect moreruns from his batting.
Spinner Kuldeep Yadav has emerged astheir top bowler with 10 wickets so far, whilepacer Khaleel Ahmed too has taken sevenscalps in three games.
South African Anrich Nortje, wholooked rusty in his only outing, also remainsan option, while Delhi also have plenty ofbowling all-rounders such as Axar Patel,Shardul Thakur and Lalit Yadav to count on.
However, Rovman Powell has lookedsubdued so far and DC would expect morefrom him.
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An auction botched up by poor planning,Mumbai Indians will continue to grope in
the dark in search of an ideal playing eleven withan aim to end their five-match losing streakagainst Lucknow Super Giants in an IPL matchon Saturday.
This is not the first time that MI have hada losing streak of five matches but this is prob-ably the first time that it seems that the team'sthink-tank do not have an idea of how to stemthe rot that has set in.
It is certainly not skipper Rohit Sharma'sfault that the five-time champions had bungledbig time at the auction table with below-pardomestic signings save NT Tilak Varma, whichis coming to bite them.
Against Lucknow in the afternoon Mumbaiheat, Rohit and his chosen ten would have to puttheir best foot forward in order to tame the likesof Quinton de Kock, KL Rahul, Krunal Pandya,Ayush Badoni to name a few.
Krunal and De Kock, in particular, wouldlike to pose some serious challenges for the MIbrigade and may be compel them to thinkwhether not putting enough efforts to get themback in their roster was a prudent enough thingto do.
There had been some inexplicable teamselections and dropping a million dollar plus buylike Tim David after two games is one of them.
Such has been MI's plight that they haven'tbeen able to field their full quota of foreign play-ers in order to have enough bowlers in theirranks.
However, David might be given a go in placeof a Jaydev Unadkat, who has once again comeshort in the highest level of cricket and is anexample of the yawning gap between standardsin domestic cricket and IPL.
One among Unadkat and Basil Thampi needto make way for David as they don't have toomany options at the table.
In case of Murugan Ashwin, the only plau-sible replacement at this time looks to be leg-spinner Mayank Markande, who not so manymoons back had some decent performances forthe five-time champion outfit.
Not having a quality spinner like RahulChahar or Krunal, who can at times stem theflow of runs is also hurting MI.
Head coach Mahela Jayawardene hadalready said and rightly so that Rohit's perfor-mance isn't a worrying factor.
One of the reasons being his touch whichis not out of place but perhaps he needs to cur-tail down on a few shots and bat deep along withSuryakumar Yadav to put up a challenging scorewhich the weak bowling line-up can defend.
For Lucknow, mentor and brains behind thestrategy Gautam Gambhir needs to thinkwhether both Marcus Stoinis and Jason Holdercould be a part of same eleven or they wouldbe better off dropping one of them and playingthe hard-hitting Evin Lewis in the top-orderalongside Rahul and De kock.
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Joe Root resigned as England'sTest captain on Friday after a
five-year term that ended in a tor-rid run of results including anAshes drubbing and defeat in theWest Indies.
The Yorkshireman, appointedas Alastair Cook's successor in2017, holds the record for the high-est number of wins as Englandskipper, his 27 victories puttinghim one ahead of MichaelVaughan and three in front ofCook and Andrew Strauss.
The 31-year-old led his side toa number of notable series victo-ries, including a 4-1 home win overIndia in 2018 and a 3-1 triumphaway to South Africa in 2020.
But the past 12 months havebeen dismal. After winning theiropening three Tests of 2021,England have won just one since,
losing 11 and drawing five oftheir past 17.
Root's decision comes after the1-0 Test series defeat to WestIndies last month, which followeda humiliating 4-0 Ashes loss inAustralia.
"After returning from theCaribbean tour and having time toreflect, I have decided to step downas England men's Test captain,"Root said in a statementreleased by theEngland and WalesCricket Board(ECB).
"It has beenthe most chal-lenging deci-sion I havehad to makein mycareer buth a v i n gdiscussed
this with my family and thoseclosest to me, I know the timingis right.
"I am immensely proud tohave captained my country andwill look back on the past fiveyears with enormous pride. Ithas been an honour to have donethe job and to have been a cus-todian of what is the pinnacle ofEnglish cricket.
"I have loved leading mycountry, but recently it's hit
home how much of atoll it has taken on
me and the impactit has had on meaway from thegame."
Root isa l r e a d yEngland's sec-ond-highestTest runscorer of all
time behind only Cook andscored 14 centuries as captain.
His tally of 5,295 runs asskipper is the highest by anyEngland captain and puts himfifth on the all-time list behindonly Graeme Smith, AlanBorder, Ricky Ponting and ViratKohli.
Root's exit leaves England -- fifth in the Test rankings --without a captain, head coach,and managing director while theECB seeks a new chairman.
Players in the frame to suc-ceed Root include star all-rounder Ben Stokes and veter-an fast bowler Stuart Broad, whowas dropped for the West Indiestour.
England play a three-matchTest series against New Zealandstarting on June 2 before a Testagainst India and a series againstSouth Africa.
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Chennai Super Kings all-rounder Deepak Chahar
was on Friday ruled out of theIPL with a back injury, whileDelhi Capitals physio PatrickFarhart tested positive forCOVID-19.
Chahar had also suffered ahamstring injury during thehome series against the WestIndies in February.
KKR pacer Rasikh Salam isalso out of the IPL with a lowerback injury with young Delhipacer Harshit Rana named ashis replacement.
"Chennai Super Kingsbowler Deepak Chahar hasbeen ruled out of the TATAIndian Premier League (IPL)2022 owing to a back injury,"said the IPL in a statement.
"Kolkata Knight Riders(KKR) have signed fast bowlerHarshit Rana as a replacementfor pacer Rasikh Salam for the
rest of the TATA IPL 2022 sea-son. Salam, who played 2games for KKR this season, hasbeen ruled out owing to alower back injury and will takeno further part in the tourna-ment.
"His replacement, HarshitRana, from Delhi will joinKKR at his base price of INR 20Lakh."
On Farhart, a formerphysio of the Indian cricketteam, the statement added:"Delhi Capitals physio PatrickFarhart has been tested positivefor COVID-19. He is beingclosely monitored by the DCMedical Team at the moment."
With cases gradually rising,COVID threat has increasedduring the two-month-longIPL.
Last year, the tournamenthad to be suspended at the peakof the second wave in May andwas later completed in theUAE.
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Speculations rife about her internationalfuture, India's Test and ODI skipper Mithali
Raj will be turning up for Railways at theWomen's Senior T20 Trophy beginning on April18 in what will be her first competitive eventsince the Women's World Cup.
The future of stalwarts Mithali and JhulanGoswami have been a subject of debate since
India's early exit from the World Cup in NewZealand last month.
While Jhulan is recovering from a side strainthat she suffered during the global event,Mithali will groom the next generation of play-ers in the Railways squad. Both are 39 and areat the business end of their illustrious careers.
"Mithali will be there to guide the youngerplayers. As a senior player, she understands herrole really well. Anyway, she never missesdomestic assignments when not on nationalduty," a BCCI source said.
Mithali, who is the leading run-getter ininternational cricket, had captained the Railwaysteam to the title in the T20 competition last year.Her international T20 career came to an end in2019.
As far has her ODI and Test future is con-cerned, the source added: "There is no interna-tional cricket lined up in the near future. She hasa lot of time to think over her future."
India's next confirmed international assign-ment is in September when they play three T20sand as many ODIs in England after theCommonwealth Games in July-August.
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Hardik Pandya has beenleading from the front
with inspirational perfor-mances and is also going out ofhis way to create a happy teamenvironment leading to a goodstart by Gujarat Titans in itsmaiden IPL campaign, feelsRashid Khan.
Gujarat are now on top ofthe table with four wins fromfive games and Hardik is cur-rently second in list of run-get-ters and is also bowling well inevery game.
"The way he (Hardik) hasled the team, the way he haskept the team environment,inside and outside the field hasbeen amazing so far," Rashidsaid at the virtual post-matchpress conference.
Rashid, the ace spinner
from Afghanistan, said Hardikwas someone who always takesbrave decisions.
"He (Hardik) is someonewho always takes that bravedecision, always has confi-dence and he is someone whois very clear in mind on whathe is going to do.
"This is an important thingas a captain when your mind isclear, and you take right deci-sions, the result will take (care)by itself," added Rashid.
Ability to take right deci-sions at right time makes hima good leader, feels Rashid
"You take right decisionswith confidence, that is some-thing which makes him thebest and he has been deliveringthe best so far and leading fromthe front - (be it) batting,bowling and fielding," saidRashid.
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Rahul Tripathi and Aiden Markram'seffortless batting display along with the
pacers magnificent show formed the cor-nerstone of Sunrisers Hyderbad's comfort-able seven-wicket victory over KolkataKnight Riders in their IPL match here onFriday.
The SRH pace unit comprising the likesof T Natarajan (3/37), Umran Malik (2/27),Marco Jansen (1/26) and BhuvneshwarKumar (1/37) restricted KKR for 175 for 8.
Tripathi, who smashed 71 off 37, andAiden Markram (68 not out of 36) then pro-duced hostile knocks to take SRH to theirthird successive win with 13 balls to spare
For KKR, Nitish Rana scored 54 whileAndre Russell was unbeaten on 49.
SRH now have three wins from fivegames while it was KKR's third loss in sixgames.
With the green track not aiding thespinners, Sunrisers' Tripathi took theKKR's spin-heavy bowling unit to thecleaners.
Playing against his previous fran-chise, Tripathi smashed VarunChakravarthy for a four followed bytwo back-to-back sixes in the eighthover, that yielded 18 runs. He broughthis maiden fifty this season off just 21balls.
Tripathy found an able ally inMarkram, who smashed six fours andfour sixes and when the former was outhe took the onus upon himself to takehis side over the line.
Earlier opting to field, SouthAfrican Jansen used the bounce andswing on offer really well to draw firstblood as he sent Aaron Finch (7), who
is playing his first match of the season,back to the hut in the second over.Natarajan then bowled a sensationalfifth over, snaring two wickets.
Natarajan first bowled a brilliantlength ball, pitching just outside off toaccount for Venkatesh Iyer (6), wholooked unsettled during his stay, withthe flamboyant Sunil Narine (6) follow-ing his teammate a couple balls lateras KKR slumped to 31 for 3.
Kane Williamson introduced spinbut left-armer Jagadeesha Suchith(1/32) looked rusty and struggledwith his line.
Young Malik then struck twinblows, snapping the wickets of ShreyasIyer (28) in the 10th over and SheldonJackson (7).
Noticing Iyer, who looked uncom-
fortable facing Malik's raw pace, shuf-fling across the pitch, the 22-year-oldfired a scorching 148.8kmph yorker inthe blockhole to cut short the KnightRiders captain's innings.
However, Rana kept the scoreboard ticking, hitting singles andboundaries alike in his 36-ball knock.
Rana smashed six fours and twomaximums. He was involved in 39-runstands with skipper Iyer and Russelleach. However, his stay in the middlewas cut short by Natarajan in the 18thover as SRH broke the potentially dan-gerous partnership.
Russell, whose 25-ball inningswas laced with four boundaries and asmany six, including two in the finalover. The West Indian helped KKR add55 runs in the last five overs.
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