A “large part” of the ₹65,000 crore of transitional credit claims received by the government under the Goods and Services Tax re- gime are ineligible for re- funds, a senior Finance Min- istry official told The Hindu. The official said the in- vestigation of all such claims is under way. Firms can claim trans- itional credits for inputs bought and taxes paid be- fore GST rollout. The official pointed out that even where claims were accepted, re- funds would be done in a staggered manner over months, and not as a single lump sum. He explained that this was because the accumulated credit was more than what could be claimed on manu- facturing output in a single month. “The investigation and audit of these [₹65,000 crore worth of] transitional credit claims are under way, but we have already found that a large amount of them are not eligible for refunds,” the senior official said on condition of anonymity as the audit was still on. ‘Chunk of GST claims ineligible for refunds’ Investigation is under way, says Ministry ocial TCA Sharad Raghavan New Delhi CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 The Madras High Court on Wednesday extended its stay on conducting a floor test in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly until further or- ders and also restrained au- thorities from conducting by-elections to 18 constituen- cies, which were declared vacant, pursuant to the dis- qualification of dissident AI- ADMK MLAs. Counsel for the Governor, the Chief Minister and the petitioners consen- ted to it. Common interim order Justice M. Duraiswamy passed the common interim order on a batch of writ peti- tions filed by the 18 affected persons challenging Speaker P. Dhanapal’s decision and another writ petition filed by DMK working president M.K. Stalin seeking a direction for a floor test at the earliest. The judge passed the or- der after senior counsel Aryama Sundaram, repres- enting Mr. Dhanapal, sought time till October 4 for filing a counter affidavit. Referring to an interim or- der passed on Friday, in Mr. Stalin’s case, staying a floor test till Wednesday, the judge said the authorities con- cerned “shall not conduct floor test for the trust vote until further orders of this court.” Further Justice Duraiswamy said: “There shall not be any election no- tification for conducting the election for the 18 Legislative Assembly constituencies pursuant to the impugned order [the Speaker’s de- cision published in the gaz- ette] dated September 18, 2017, which is the subject matter in the writ petitions, until further orders of this court.” Earlier, when the judge wanted to know whether such an order could be passed without the Election Commission being a party before the court and espe- cially when the Assembly Secretary had declared all 18 seats vacant, Mr. Sundaram replied in the affirmative. No oor test, no bypoll for 18 constituencies in T.N.: HC Speaker’s counsel seeks time till October 4 for ling counter adavit Mohamed Imranullah S. CHENNAI Prayer time: Edappadi K. Palaniswami takes a holy dip in the Cauvery in Mayiladuthurai on Wednesday on the occasion of Maha Pushkaram. * A. MURALITHARAN CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 Keen to tap into the next big advance in computing technology, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) is planning to fund a project to develop quantum computers. A quantum computer, still largely a theoretical entity, employs the principles of quantum mechanics to store information in ‘qubits’ instead of the typical ‘bits’ of 1 and 0. Qubits work faster because of the way such circuits are designed, and their promise is that they can do intensive number- crunching tasks much more efficiently than the fastest comparable computers. For instance, to sort a billion numbers, a quantum computer would require 3.5 million fewer steps than a traditional machine, and would find the solution in only 31,623 steps, says a Morgan Stanley analysis last August. Solving other problems, many having to do with computing physics, becomes possible on quantum machines, the authors say, whereas they might never be possible on traditional computers. While the Physics departments at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the Harish Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, have only forayed into the theoretical aspects of quantum computing, a DST official said that “the time has come to build one.” Experts from across the country are expected to gather this month in Allahabad for a workshop to develop such a computer. Internationally, Canada’s D-Wave Systems, is a pioneer in developing quantum computers and has sold machines to Lockheed Martin and Google. Experts, however, say that ‘true quantum computers’ are still years away, and existing systems use principles of quantum computing to solve very limited problems. CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC India joins quantum computing race DST to fund development of machines that run faster than traditional computers Jacob Koshy NEW DELHI A leap ahead: A D-Wave 2X quantum computer in the Quantum Articial Intelligence Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. * REUTERS NEARBY M.S. Dhoni has been re- commended by the Board of Control for Cricket in In- dia (BCCI) for the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third highest civilian hon- our. Apart from the Padma Shri, Dhoni has received the Arjuna Award and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna. While India’s highest decorated cricketer is Sachin Tendulkar (Bharat Ratna, 2014), Dhoni is likely to join a group of il- lustrious cricketers who have been awarded the Padma Bhushan— Col. C.K. Nayudu, Vinoo Mankad, Prof. D.B. Deodhar, Lala Amarnath, Chandu Borde, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Rahul Dravid, among others. Give Padma Bhushan to Dhoni: BCCI G. Viswanath MUMBAI REWARDS & AWARDS PAGE 15 Taking on the Opposition’s criticism over rising fuel prices, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday dared the State governments led by the Congress and the CPI(M) to reduce VAT on petroleum products and forgo their share of the Centre’s revenue from fuel taxes. PAGE 11 Jaitley dares States on fuel VAT DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD REPORT ON PAGE 12 Combining a social agenda for harmony and an eco- nomic agenda that is fo- cussed on job creation is his vision for India, Con- gress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday. Interacting with stu- dents and faculty at the Princeton University, Mr. Gandhi, who is on a two- week tour of the U.S., said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s politics is achieving neither and people’s anger was growing against him. “The anger is building up in India right now,” Mr. Gandhi said. Rahul: Anger growing against Modi Varghese K George Princeton CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 RAHUL MAY HELM PARTY FROM NOVEMBER PAGE 10 DELHI METRO 6 PAGES CM YK A ND-NDE thursday, september 21, 2017 Delhi City Edition 24 pages ₹ 10.00 Printed at . Chennai . Coimbatore . Bengaluru . Hyderabad . Madurai . Noida . Visakhapatnam . Thiruvananthapuram . Kochi . Vijayawada . Mangaluru . Tiruchirapalli . Kolkata . Hubballi . Mohali . Malappuram . Mumbai . Tirupati . lucknow follow us: thehindu.com facebook.com/thehindu twitter.com/the_hindu A portion of a water canal, built at a cost of ₹828.80 crore, collapsed in Bhagalpur district of Bihar on Wednesday, hours before it was to be inaugurated by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The incident triggered a spate of allegations and counter allegations between the State’s ruling and Oppos- ition parties. Water Resources depart- ment officials said the wall of the Bateshwarsthan Ganga Pump Nahar Yojna (Bateshwarstahan Ganga Pump Canal Project) breached on Tuesday even- ing “when river water was pumped into the canal on a trial basis before the inaug- uration.” Mr. Nitish Kumar, along with Water Resources Minis- ter Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, was to inaugur- ate the canal on Wednesday morning at Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur, but he had to cancel the programme due to “technical reasons.” Started in 1977 with an initial investment of ₹13.88 crore, the project took 40 years to complete. By then the second revised estimate had risen to ₹828.80 crore. It was expected to irrigate 27, 603 hectares in Bhagalpur and the adjoining district of Godda in Jharkhand. The BGPNY is a “lift irrig- ation project.” The canal in Bihar was built at a cost of ₹828.80 crore Amarnath Tewary Patna An embarrassment: The Bateshwarsthan Ganga Canal that breached at Kahalgaon on Tuesday. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT A portion of canal collapses a day before its inauguration Rahul Gandhi interacts with students at Princeton University. * PTI Tripura television journalist murdered AGARTALA Persons allegedly owing allegiance to the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura murdered a young television journalist at Mandwai, 25 km east of Agartala, on Wednesday. Santanu Bhowmik, 27, was attacked with sharp cutting weapons while covering a road blockade agitation of the IPFT. NATION PAGE 7 DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Gallows for hooch deaths in UP mooted LUCKNOW The UP government has recommended capital punishment for those found guilty of causing deaths due to consumption of illicit liquor. NATION PAGE 6 DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Transcript
A “large part” of the₹65,000 crore of transitionalcredit claims received by thegovernment under theGoods and Services Tax re-gime are ineligible for re-funds, a senior Finance Min-istry official told The Hindu.
The official said the in-vestigation of all such claimsis under way.
Firms can claim trans-itional credits for inputsbought and taxes paid be-fore GST rollout. The officialpointed out that even whereclaims were accepted, re-funds would be done in astaggered manner overmonths, and not as a singlelump sum.
He explained that this wasbecause the accumulatedcredit was more than whatcould be claimed on manu-
facturing output in a singlemonth.
“The investigation andaudit of these [₹65,000crore worth of ] transitionalcredit claims are under way,but we have already found
that a large amount of themare not eligible for refunds,”the senior official said oncondition of anonymity asthe audit was still on.
‘Chunk of GST claimsineligible for refunds’ Investigation isunder way, saysMinistry o�cial
TCA Sharad Raghavan
New Delhi
CONTINUED ON A PAGE 10
The Madras High Court onWednesday extended its stayon conducting a floor test inthe Tamil Nadu LegislativeAssembly until further or-ders and also restrained au-thorities from conductingby-elections to 18 constituen-cies, which were declaredvacant, pursuant to the dis-qualification of dissident AI-ADMK MLAs. Counsel for theGovernor, the Chief Ministerand the petitioners consen-ted to it.
Common interim order
Justice M. Duraiswamypassed the common interimorder on a batch of writ peti-tions filed by the 18 affectedpersons challenging SpeakerP. Dhanapal’s decision andanother writ petition filed byDMK working president M.K.Stalin seeking a direction for
a floor test at the earliest.The judge passed the or-
der after senior counselAryama Sundaram, repres-enting Mr. Dhanapal, soughttime till October 4 for filing acounter affidavit.
Referring to an interim or-der passed on Friday, in Mr.Stalin’s case, staying a floortest till Wednesday, the judgesaid the authorities con-cerned “shall not conductfloor test for the trust vote
until further orders of thiscourt.”
Further JusticeDuraiswamy said: “Thereshall not be any election no-tification for conducting theelection for the 18 LegislativeAssembly constituenciespursuant to the impugnedorder [the Speaker’s de-cision published in the gaz-ette] dated September 18,2017, which is the subjectmatter in the writ petitions,until further orders of thiscourt.”
Earlier, when the judgewanted to know whethersuch an order could bepassed without the ElectionCommission being a partybefore the court and espe-cially when the AssemblySecretary had declared all 18seats vacant, Mr. Sundaramreplied in the affirmative.
No �oor test, no bypoll for18 constituencies in T.N.: HCSpeaker’s counsel seeks time till October 4 for �ling counter a�davit
Mohamed Imranullah S.
CHENNAI
Prayer time: Edappadi K. Palaniswami takes a holy dip in the Cauvery in Mayiladuthurai on Wednesday on the occasion of Maha Pushkaram. * A. MURALITHARAN
CONTINUED ON A PAGE 10
Keen to tap into the next bigadvance in computingtechnology, the Departmentof Science and Technology(DST) is planning to fund aproject to develop quantumcomputers.
A quantum computer, stilllargely a theoretical entity,employs the principles ofquantum mechanics to storeinformation in ‘qubits’instead of the typical ‘bits’ of1 and 0. Qubits work fasterbecause of the way suchcircuits are designed, andtheir promise is that theycan do intensive number-crunching tasks much moreefficiently than the fastestcomparable computers.
For instance, to sort abillion numbers, a quantumcomputer would require 3.5
million fewer steps than atraditional machine, andwould find the solution inonly 31,623 steps, says aMorgan Stanley analysis lastAugust. Solving otherproblems, many having todo with computing physics,
becomes possible onquantum machines, theauthors say, whereas theymight never be possible ontraditional computers.
While the Physicsdepartments at the IndianInstitute of Science,
Bangalore, and the HarishChandra Research Institute,Allahabad, have onlyforayed into the theoreticalaspects of quantumcomputing, a DST officialsaid that “the time has cometo build one.”
Experts from across thecountry are expected togather this month inAllahabad for a workshop todevelop such a computer.Internationally, Canada’sD-Wave Systems, is a pioneerin developing quantumcomputers and has soldmachines to LockheedMartin and Google.
Experts, however, say that‘true quantum computers’are still years away, andexisting systems useprinciples of quantumcomputing to solve verylimited problems.
India joins quantum computing raceDST to fund development of machines that run faster than traditional computers
Jacob Koshy
NEW DELHI
A leap ahead: A D-Wave 2X quantum computer in theQuantum Arti�cial Intelligence Laboratory at NASA AmesResearch Center in Mountain View, California. * REUTERS
NEARBY
M.S. Dhoni has been re-commended by the Boardof Control for Cricket in In-dia (BCCI) for the PadmaBhushan, the country’sthird highest civilian hon-our. Apart from the PadmaShri, Dhoni has receivedthe Arjuna Award and RajivGandhi Khel Ratna.
While India’s highestdecorated cricketer isSachin Tendulkar (BharatRatna, 2014), Dhoni islikely to join a group of il-lustrious cricketers whohave been awarded thePadma Bhushan— Col. C.K.Nayudu, Vinoo Mankad,Prof. D.B. Deodhar, LalaAmarnath, Chandu Borde,Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Devand Rahul Dravid, amongothers.
Give PadmaBhushan toDhoni: BCCIG. Viswanath
MUMBAI
REWARDS & AWARDS A PAGE 15
Taking on the Opposition’scriticism over rising fuelprices, Union FinanceMinister Arun Jaitley onWednesday dared the Stategovernments led by the
Congress and the CPI(M) toreduce VAT on petroleumproducts and forgo theirshare of the Centre’srevenue from fuel taxes.A PAGE 11
Combining a social agendafor harmony and an eco-nomic agenda that is fo-cussed on job creation ishis vision for India, Con-gress vice-president RahulGandhi said on Tuesday.
Interacting with stu-dents and faculty at thePrinceton University, Mr.Gandhi, who is on a two-week tour of the U.S., saidPrime Minister NarendraModi’s politics is achievingneither and people’s angerwas growing against him.“The anger is building upin India right now,” Mr.Gandhi said.
A portion of a water canal,built at a cost of ₹828.80crore, collapsed inBhagalpur district of Biharon Wednesday, hours beforeit was to be inaugurated byChief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The incident triggered aspate of allegations andcounter allegations betweenthe State’s ruling and Oppos-ition parties.
Water Resources depart-ment officials said the wallof the BateshwarsthanGanga Pump Nahar Yojna(Bateshwarstahan GangaPump Canal Project)breached on Tuesday even-ing “when river water waspumped into the canal on atrial basis before the inaug-
uration.” Mr. Nitish Kumar, along
with Water Resources Minis-ter Rajiv Ranjan Singh aliasLalan Singh, was to inaugur-ate the canal on Wednesdaymorning at Kahalgaon inBhagalpur, but he had tocancel the programme dueto “technical reasons.”
Started in 1977 with an
initial investment of ₹13.88crore, the project took 40years to complete. By thenthe second revised estimatehad risen to ₹828.80 crore. Itwas expected to irrigate 27,603 hectares in Bhagalpurand the adjoining district ofGodda in Jharkhand.
The BGPNY is a “lift irrig-ation project.”
The canal in Bihar was built at a cost of ₹828.80 crore
Amarnath Tewary
Patna
An embarrassment: The Bateshwarsthan Ganga Canal thatbreached at Kahalgaon on Tuesday. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
A portion of canal collapsesa day before its inauguration
Rahul Gandhi interacts with students at PrincetonUniversity. * PTI
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DELHI Timings
Thursday, September 21
RISE 06:09 SET 18:19
RISE 06:58 SET 19:15
Friday, September 22
RISE 06:09 SET 18:18
RISE 07:55 SET 19:52
Saturday, September 23
RISE 06:10 SET 18:16
RISE 08:50 SET 20:28
0DISCLAIMER: Readers are requested to verify and make appropriate enquiries to satisfy them-selves about the veracity of an advertisement before responding to any published in this news-paper. Kasturi & Sons Limited, the Publisher & Owner of this newspaper, does not vouch for theauthenticity of any advertisement or advertiser or for any of the advertiser’s products and/orservices. In no event can the Owner, Publisher, Printer, Editor, Director/s, Employees of thisnewspaper/company be held responsible/liable in any manner whatsoever for any claims and/ordamages for advertisements in this newspaper.
The Punjab government onWednesday gave its nod tonotify the crop loan waiverscheme announced by ChiefMinister Capt. AmarinderSingh in the State Assemblyearlier in June this year.
The Cabinet in its meetingheld here decided that be-sides taking over the entireeligible loan amount of thefarmers covered by the debtwaiver scheme, the govern-ment would also take overthe outstanding interest from
April 1, 2017, till the date ofnotification.
“The entire amount wouldbe defrayed to the banks in aphased manner, except forthe cooperative credit insti-tutions,” said an officialspokesperson, adding thatthe proposed notificationwill pave the way for theState government to take upthe issue with respectivebanks as a one-timesettlement.
The spokesperson saidthat the scheme, based onthe recommendations of an
expert group headed by em-inent economist Dr. T.Haque, will directly benefitnearly 10.25 lakh farmers
across the State.“The notification envis-
ages that in case of marginalfarmer (less than 2.5 acres)
the entire eligible amount ofthose farmers who have totaloutstanding crop loan liabil-ity up to ₹2 lakh shall beprovided as debt relief and incase of eligible amount ofmore than ₹2 lakh, only₹2lakh shall be provided asdebt relief. In case of smallfarmers (from 2.5 acres toless than 5 acres), the entireeligible amount of thosefarmers who have total out-standing crop loan liabilityup to ₹2 lakh, shall beprovided as debt relief,” saidthe spokesperson.
In line with the SupremeCourt judgement of July 11,2017, the Punjab Cabinet ap-proved an amendment to thePunjab Excise Act to allow li-censed liquor vends in thelimits of municipal areas tosell liquor even if they arelocated within a distance of500 metres from the na-tional and state highways.
The Cabinet also cleared aproposal for amendment tosections 72, 78 and 81 of thePunjab Excise Act, 1914, tocheck smuggling of liquor inthe State.
Punjab okays crop loan waiver schemeLikely to bene�t nearly 10.25 lakh farmers across the State; the amount to be defrayed to the banks in phases’
Punjab CM Amarinder Singh and others paying homage toMarshal of IAF Arjan Singh on Wednesday. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
CHANDIGARH
Seven index points havebeen identified for review ofprogress of the NationalUrban Health Mission(NUHM) in Rajasthan. TheState Medical and HealthDepartment has organised aseries of outreach campsand nutrition days, espe-cially for the underpriv-ileged sections in the urbanareas.
NUHM State DirectorNaveen Jain said here that768 outreach camps and17,532 nutrition days hadbeen organised till last
month, while preparationshad been made to start thepayment to accredited so-cial health activists onlinethrough a new softwarefrom October 2.
Mr. Jain said the new in-dex points for review wereestablishment of MahilaArogya Samitis, role of dis-trict officers in their per-formance, holding of out-reach camps and nutritiondays, land allotment forPHCs, monitoring ofBhamashah health insur-ance scheme and its phys-ical and financialperformance.
7 index points identi�edfor urban health missionSpecial Correspondent
JAIPUR
Days after the forensic re-port stated that the DNA ofthe newborn baby girl of the10-year-old rape victim didnot match that of the ac-cused (the victim’s uncle),the Chandigarh police hasmade another arrest in thecase.
Manjit Singh, who is thelawyer of the first accused,on Wednesday told The
Hindu that the police haverequested a second bloodsample from the accusedafter his DNA did not matchthat of the baby.
“The matter is up forhearing on September 21where we would contest giv-
ing of blood sample for thesecond time. The court hasallowed the police to invest-igate further in the case, notre-investigate the case.Hence, there is no reasonblood sample should be col-lected again,” Mr. Singhsaid.
The police on Tuesdayevening arrested the seconduncle of the victim, re-portedly the first accused’syounger brother, who isalready facing charges ofrape.
A police official said thatthe latest arrest was madeafter the victim mentionedthe name of the second ac-cused during her coun-selling session.
One more arrested inChandigarh rape caseHe is younger brother of �rst accusedSpecial Correspondent
Chandigarh
Published by N. Ram at Kasturi Buildings, 859 & 860, Anna Salai, Chennai-600002 and Printed by S. Ramanujam at HT Media Ltd. Plot No. 8, Udyog Vihar, Greater Noida Distt. Gautam Budh Nagar, U.P. 201306, on behalf of KASTURI & SONS LTD., Chennai-600002. Editor: Mukund Padmanabhan (Responsible for selection of news under the PRB Act).
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CMYK
A ND-NDE
EAST
Mukul Roy returns ‘Z’category securityKOLKATA
Senior Trinamool Congress
leader Mukul Roy on
Wednesday returned the ‘Z’
category security provided to
him by the West Bengal
government. “I have verbally
communicated (to the
government) that there is no
need to provide me with a
security cover. I have told my
guards not to come,” Mr. Roy
said. PTI
IN BRIEF
Assam CM’s brotherpasses awayGUWAHATI
Assam Chief Minister
Sarbananda Sonowal’s elder
brother Girish passed away in
Delhi on Wednesday due to a
protracted illness.Girish
Sonowal (69) has been
unwell for some time and was
admitted to AIIMS for over
three months. He is survived
by wife, two daughters and a
son, the release said. PTI
Body of BengalMinister’s kin foundASANSOL
Divers after carrying out
search operation throughout
Tuesday night fished out
70-year-old Ashim Ghatak’s
body from the Damodar river
on Wednesday morning,
police said. Ashim Ghatak
was the elder brother of West
Bengal Labour and Law
Minister Moloy Ghatak. He
went missing while offering
‘Tarpan’ on the occasion of
Mahalaya. PTI
HNLC cadresapprehended DIPHU
A joint team of the Army and
police busted a hideout of
Hynnietrep National
Liberation Council, a militant
outfit and apprehended five
cadres with arms and
ammunition in West Karbi
Anglong district, a Defence
release said on Wednesday.PTI
Hours after the Central Bur-eau of Investigation (CBI) ar-rested Biju Janata Dal legis-lator Pravat Ranjan Biswalfor his alleged links with achit fund firm, the rulingparty on Tuesday accusedthe Bharatiya Janata Party ofusing the agency to pursuepolitical vendetta.
The BJP’s vendetta hasbeen proved with Mr. Bisw-al’s arrest happening daysafter BJP chief Amit Shahthreatened to send BJD lead-ers to jail at a rally in the city,senior Ministers MaheswarMohanty and Sashi BhushanBehera and Rajya SabhaMembers Prasanna Acharyaand Pratap Keshari Deb saidat a press conference.
The arrest of Mr. Biswalhas raised suspicion as theCBI had not arrested himdespite questioning him sev-eral times since 2014, theysaid.
Alleging that the CBI wasconducting investigationinto the chit fund scam asper the orders of the BJPbosses, the BJD leaders saidthat they would fight the saf-fron party politically.
Hundreds of supporters of
Mr. Biswal also gathered out-side the CBI office inBhubaneswar. They allegedthat the BJP for misusing theinvestigating agency forpolitical gains.
Another chit fund scam
BJD MP from MayurbhanjRamachandra Hansda, whowas arrested by the CBI in2014 for his alleged linkswith another chit fund firm,is still in judicial custody.
Another BJD legislatorPravat Kumar Tripathy, whowas also arrested in 2014 forhis alleged links with a separ-ate ponzi firm, has sincebeen granted bail.
Correspondent adds fromCuttack: Mr. Biswal was onTuesday remanded in fivedays of CBI custody by thespecial CBI court inBhubaneswar after rejectionof his bail application. TheCuttack-Choudwar MLA was
taken into custody by theCBI sleuths on Mondaynight.
Three-time MLA
The three-time MLA and hiswife Laxmibilasini, a formerZilla Parishad President,were quizzed several timesin past three years by the CBIover a controversial landdeal between Laxmibilasiniand the chit fund companyM/s Seashore Group.
BJP using CBI for politicalgains, say BJD leadersBJD legislator Pravat Ranjan Biswal remanded in judicial custody
Demonstration: BJD supporters block a road during a protest in Bhubaneswar on Wednesdayagainst Pravat Ranjan Biswal's arrest. * PTI
Special Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR
Senior Congress leader K.S. Thanga was on Wednes-day sworn in as a new min-ister in the Lal Thanhawlagovernment.
Mizoram Governor Lt.Gen. Nirbhay Sharma(Retd) administered theoath of office and secrecyto Mr. Thanga in the swear-ing-in ceremony held at theRaj Bhavan.
With Mr. Thanga, the LalThanhawla governmenthas now 11 ministers.
Thanga joins
Mizoram
government
Press trust of India
AIZAWL
Questioning the West Bengalgovernment’s curbs onDurga idol immersion, theCalcutta High Court on Wed-nesday said the State cannothinder a citizen’s right topractise religion on the basisof a mere assumption of lawand order disruption andmust provide sound reasonsfor doing so.
“Let them (Hindus andMuslims) live in harmony, do
not create a line betweenthem,” Acting Chief JusticeRakesh Tiwary said, askingthe government to provide a“concrete ground” for its de-cision to stop the immersionof Durga idols after 10 pm onSeptember 30 (VijayaDashami day) and on Octo-ber 1 on account ofMuharram.
Hearing three PILs chal-lenging the restrictions onimmersion of idols at the endof the five-day Durga Puja
festival, a Bench, also com-prising Justice Harish Tan-don, said a mere assumptionthat a law-and-order situ-ation might arise, owing toVijaya Dashami and Muhar-ram falling one after theother, could not be the basisof imposing curbs on immer-sion timings.
CM’s remark
Observing that Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee had herselftold a public meeting that
Hindus and Muslims lived to-gether in harmony in theState, the Bench said, “Listento what the head of the Statesays and not a police officer.”
“People have the right topractise their religious activ-ities, whichever communitythey may be of, and the Statecannot put restrictions, un-less it has a concrete groundto believe that two com-munities cannot live to-gether,” the acting ChiefJustice said.
Provide concrete reasons on immersion curbs: HC ‘Let them (Hindus and Muslims) live in harmony, do not create a line between them’
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SOUTH
The Supreme Court on Wed-nesday reserved its judg-ment on the appeals filed byTamil Nadu, Karnataka andKerala against the finalaward of the CauveryTribunal in 2007 on the al-location of the river water tothe three States.
In the final day of thehearing before a SpecialBench of Chief Justice DipakMisra and Justices AmitavaRoy and A.M. Khanwilkar,Tamil Nadu reiterated its de-mand that the SupremeCourt should itself appointthe authority and frame thescheme for sharing and man-agement of the water amongthe three States.
Tamil Nadu submittedthat the court should notleave the dispute open forKarnataka to take advantageof. Though the Centre ar-gued that it is Parliamentwhich has to finalise thescheme under the Inter-StateWater Disputes Act of 1956,
the court responded that itdoes also have a right.
Before wrapping up theday-long hearing, the courtindicated that it would passorders in this regard.
Centre chidedOn Tuesday, the court hadchided the Centre for not im-plementing the final award.
The court had questioned
the reluctance shown by theCentre to set up the CauveryManagement Board andframe a scheme for imple-mentation of the tribunalaward despite it having beennotified in 2013.
Solicitor-General RanjitKumar, for the Centre,reasoned that the Centre didset up the Cauvery River Wa-ter Authority and Supervis-
ory Committee following theSupreme Court’s direction.Mr. Kumar submitted that ithad been waiting for thecourt to clarify its positionon the tribunal award.
The Centre had arguedthat Section 6 (2) of the 1956Act empowered the govern-ment to frame a scheme forimplementation of thetribunal award.
Legislative act: CentreThe scheme, once prepared,would have to be placed be-fore both Houses of Parlia-ment for approval. Thus, Mr.Kumar argued that finalisingthe scheme was a legislativeact.
However, the court hasbeen of the consistent opin-ion that the Centre shouldnot have let a vacuum re-main for so long – thetribunal award was notifiedin 2013 – in the Cauvery dis-pute as regards the settingup of the Cauvery Manage-ment Board and a schemefor sharing of water.
SC reserves Cauvery verdict Appeals were �led by three States on �nal award of Tribunal
Water woes: A �le picture of Cauvery river in spate in Mandyadistrict of Karnataka. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Legal Correspondent
NEW DELHI Kannada writer K.S.Bhagavan, under threat fromHindutva forces, said he wasnot afraid of death, despiteefforts by hardcore elementsto silence liberal thinkersand humanists.
The killing of GauriLankesh early this monthhas created a scare and, gen-erally people are afraid ofdeath, said the academicand author. The killers havesucceeded at least briefly intrying to create an atmo-sphere of fear but ideas can-not be killed or freedom ofexpression suppressed, hesaid.
He was speaking to re-porters at the Sree Shank-aracharya University ofSanskrit, Kalady, before re-leasing the controversial uni-versity magazine ‘Mere PyareDesh Vasiyon.’
Big divide He said there was a big di-vide among the writers andintellectuals under the
present political and socialatmosphere. The cause of in-tolerance was minds thatwere narrow or closed. Theyhad not read anything unlikeSwami Vivekananda, whoknew the essence of all reli-gions. He condemned thenarrow views in all religions.
Mr. Bhagavan said he wasneither a leftist nor a rightistbut a humanist, who wantedeveryone to live in peace andharmony. It was Buddhawho was the essence ofopen-mindedness and toler-ance. He asked his followersto question everything andnot to believe what their reli-
gion said.On the issue of national-
ism, he said it was narrowerwhen compared to interna-tionalism. But nationalismmeant living in peace witheveryone else. To live and tolet live was the essence ofnationalism, he said.
On the question of at-tempts by the ruling party toimpose a ban on eating beef,he said no one had the rightto impose their views onothers. People ate the foodthat was available to them.The Vedic people ate meatbut the number of animalsdwindled and a ban was im-posed on killing them be-cause they were not avail-able for agriculture andother priorities.
Mr. Bhagavan, a strongcritic of the philosophy ofShankaracharya, said hisstand did not change despitebeing in the university.
He said that Shank-aracharya preached one-ness but was a strong sup-porter of the upkeep of thecaste system.
The Kannada writer says ideas cannot be killed
Special Correspondent
KOCHI
K.S. Bhagavan
Not afraid of death: K.S. Bhagavan
7 die in Telangana asirrigation tunnel caves inRAJANNA-SIRCILLA
Seven labourers, including six
migrants, were killed and two
others sustained injuries
when the irrigation tunnel in
which they were working
caved in on the outskirts of
Thippapur village of
Illanthakunta mandal on
Wednesday. It was being
constructed as part of the
Kaleshwaram lift irrigation
project, the police said.
IN BRIEF
Four Kerala policeofficers to get DGP rank THIRUVANANTHAPURAM
The Kerala Cabinet has
cleared the way for elevation
of four senior police officers
to the DGP rank. Additional
DGPs Arunkumar Sinha,
Tomin J. Thachankary, R.
Sreelekha and Sudesh Kumar
would get the DGP rank
against arising opportunities.
Cracking the whip on the‘sale’ of minor girls from oldcity of Hyderabad to ArabSheikhs in the guise of mar-riages, the police arrested 20persons – including fiveOmanis and three Qataris –here on Wednesday.
While the eight foreignersarrested were presented be-fore the court and remandedin judicial custody, the ante-cedents of eight moreOmanis, who allegedly hadcome to Hyderabad to marryminors, were being verified.“They are suspected to have
landed here to marry thegirls on a contract basis bypaying off Qazis andbrokers,” Hyderabad PoliceCommissioner M. MahenderReddy said.
Three qazis, includingchief qazi from MumbaiFarid Ahmed Khan, fourlodge owners who used toprovide accommodation toforeigners, and five brokerswere arrested. The Hydera-bad police kept tabs on thebrokers, qazis and foreign-ers coming to old city afterthe instances of marriage ofminor girls to Arab Sheikhswere reported a month ago.
“We found that manybrokers from the Gulf coun-tries, especially Oman andQatar, are maintaining linkswith Arab Sheikhs to arrangeminors from poor familiesfor marriages,” Mr. Reddysaid. Some such agents evenmarried women from Hy-derabad and used their con-nections in the city toidentify girls who could besold to Arab Sheikhs in thename of marriage.
“These Arab Sheikhs takethe married girls to the Gulfcountries where they aresexually exploited by oth-ers,” the Commissioner said.
20 held for child marriagesinvolving Arab SheikhsHyderabad police crack the whip on ‘sale’ of minors
Special Correspondent
HYDERABAD
A 50-year old woman, whohad left her home near Cud-dalore in Tamil Nadu after aquarrel over two-and-half-a-years ago, was reunited withher relatives, thanks to so-cial workers in the village ofNarasimharajapura (N.R.Pura) in Karnataka'sChikkamagaluru district.Selvi Venkateshan had trav-elled on foot to differentplaces over the last 30months and reached N.R.Pura two weeks ago. She atewhen passersby offered herfood and slept in publicplaces.
“She was seen in front of
a shop in the market placein N.R. Pura two weeks ago,alone, and she remainedthere for a day. Some youthsspoke to her in Kannada,but she replied in Tamil. I
spoke to her as I know Tamiland understood that shewas from Melakuppam nearVirudhachalam in Cud-dalore,” said Jubeda, a hu-man rights activist, who en-
sured Selvi had a bath andnew clothes.
FB account“I put up a post on my Face-book account with her pic-ture on September 12, ap-pealing to my friends tospread the word so that,somehow, her relativescould be found. My class-mate Vinod, who works fora bank in Chennai, saw thepost and asked a colleaguein Cuddalore to help,” Ms.Jubeda said. Her delightedfamily — had given her upfor dead and performed thelast rites after waiting formonths — was traced withthe efforts of many in both
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.Selvi’s brother VijayaRaghavan and sister Vas-antha Kumari contactedJubeda over phone andreached N.R. Pura onMonday. Her husband hadpassed away; the couplehave no children.
N.R. Pura police person-nel arranged shelter forSelvi in a vacant shop. RaviNidaghatta, Police Sub In-spector of N.R. Pura, toldThe Hindu on Wednesday:“The woman was taken careof by the local social work-ers. When her relatives ar-rived here, we recordedtheir statement and allowedher go with them.”
30 months on, missing T.N. woman reunites with kinLeft home near Cuddalore after a quarrel; reached Chikkamagaluru in Karnataka by foot
Sathish G.T.
Chikkamagaluru
Happy ending: Selvi Venkateshan, centre, with her familymembers. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
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CMYK
A ND-NDE
NATION
BJP leader for law toprotect stray cowsDHARAMSHALA
Sanitation experts here onWednesday laid emphasison bringing about a sus-tained behaviour change inthe local communities toachieve the target of makingthe villages, towns and dis-tricts Open Defecation Free(ODF) in Rajasthan. Theharmful impacts of open de-fecation on people’s healthand children's nutritionshould be brought to theirnotice, they said.
The occasion was theState-level inauguration of“Swachhta Hi Sewa: SwachhYuva Diwas” on the Ra-jasthan University campus
here. State Rural Develop-ment Minister RajendraRathore said six districtshad so far been declaredopen defecation free, while10 more would be given theODF status by Decemberthis year.
‘Onus on youth’“Of the 9,851 village pan-chayats in the State, 6,375have been declared opendefecation free,” Mr.Rathore said. The SwachhBharat Abhiyan would suc-ceed if the youth adopted itas a movement, he added.
UNICEF-Rajasthan chiefIsabelle Bardem said thatagainst the access of 27.3%
households to sanitary toi-lets in 2012 in the State, 87%households had sanitary toi-lets built in their premisestill this month. “Stoppingopen defecation will restorewomen's dignity and pro-tect them against harass-ment and sexual offences,”she said.
A massive rally of the uni-versity and college studentswas organised on the cam-pus and the theatre artistesstaged a presentation on thecommunity-led total sanita-tion process.
The event was organisedjointly by UNICEF and theuniversity's Centre for MassCommunication.
Behaviour change needed tostop open defecation: Experts ‘Harmful impacts of the practice should be highlighted’Special Correspondent
JAIPUR
The Uttar Pradesh govern-ment has recommendedcapital punishment for thosefound guilty of causingdeaths due to consumptionof illicit liquor.
The BJP-ruled State Cab-inet approved changes to theexisting laws to incorporatethe extreme punishment incases of hooch deaths.
Cabinet approvalIn a meeting headed by ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath, theUP Cabinet approvedchanges to the UP ExciseAct, 1910 and incorporatedthe harsher punishment, agovernment spokespersonsaid on Wednesday.
With the addition of Sec-tion 60A into the Act, thoseguilty of causing death orpermanent disability due toillicit liquor could face a lifesentence, a fine of Rs 10 lakhor both, or death sentence.
The BJP government saidsince the provisions of the
UP Excise Act, 1910, wereold, it felt that if it brought inharsher punitive clauses,there can be “effective con-trol” on trafficking and man-ufacturing of illicit liquor.
The government arguedthe prevalence of illicit li-quor not only caused harmto life but also dented theState’s excise revenue.
The government has beenfailing to meet its target rev-enue over recent years and a
major reason for it was thetrafficking of illegal liquorfrom neighbouring states, inparticular Haryana, aspokesperson said.
In 2016-17 UP earned arevenue of Rs 14, 272 crorefrom excise.
The measure would act asa deterrent, UP Excise Minis-ter Jai Pratap Singh said.
After Delhi and Gujarat,Uttar Pradesh will becomethe third state where boot-
leggers may be sent to thegallows if consumption ofspurious liquor leads to lossof life.
“Since the state legislatureis not in session, an ordin-ance will be brought andwhen the House meets, a billcan be passed,” Mr Singhsaid.
Through ordinanceHe explained that to curb themanufacture of spurious li-quor, provisions of life im-prisonment and death pen-alty will be incorporated inthe existing law through theordinance.
The death penalty provi-sion will be applied depend-ing upon the intensity of thecase, he said.
The minister also said anew state excise policy wason the drawing board andwould be ready in the nextsix months.
Incidentally, on Wednes-day, the state police appre-hended a truck in Etah dis-trict and seized 350 cartons
of liquor supplied from out-side UP. The liquor wasworth Rs 12 lakh.
A 315 bore country pistoland two live cartridges wererecovered from the truckdriver, identified as KalyanSingh, a police spokespersonsaid.
Hooch tragedies take aheavy toll every year in UttarPradesh.
In July, 17 people died inAzamgarh after they con-sumed spurious liquor.Earlier 28 people died in asimilar tragedy in the Mali-habad area of Lucknow in2015.
The National HumanRights Commission (NHRC)had taken cognisance ofhooch deaths in Etah andFarrukhabad districts lastyear and issued notices tothe State chief secretary andthe director general ofpolice.
The NHRC intervenedafter over 30 people losttheir lives in hooch tragediesin the districts.
Gallows for hooch deaths mooted‘Prevalence of illicit liquor not only causes harm to life but also dented UP’s excise revenue’
Potion of death: Women mourning a victim of hooch tragedyin Datli village near Lucknow. * FILE PHOTO
Omar Rashid
Lucknow
At least six people werekilled and two others in-jured on Wednesday follow-ing landslides triggered byincessant rains in south dis-trict of Sikkim, officials said.
Houses collapseA house collapsed after alandslide hit it followingrainfall at around 2 am.While three occupants ofthe house were killed, twoothers were seriously in-jured, they said.
In another landslide, twopersons were killed aftertheir house collapsed atabout 3 am at Upper Bok-
rong ward under KatengNamphok Rateypani.
In a landside at RamaramKhorlong a house was dam-aged and one person waskilled, the officials said.
Senior Superintendent ofPolice (SSP) Pratap Pradhansaid that a control room hadbeen set up at Namchi Po-lice Station.
Deputy Commissioner ofSouth district Raj Yadav saidthe district administrationhas sought additional forcesfor search and rescueoperation.
The district administra-tion has evacuated familiesfrom vulnerable areas, theofficials said.
Rain triggers landslidesin Sikkim; six killed
More forces sought for rescue operation
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
GANGTOK
Weather Watch
Rainfall, temperature & air quality in select metros yesterday
Temperature Data: IMD, Pollution Data: CPCB, Map: Skymet (Taken at 18.00 Hrs)
Forecast for Thursday: Heavy to very heavy rain is likely at a fewplaces west Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Uttar Pradesh, eastMadhya Pradesh, Bihar, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, An-daman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam,Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, north centralMaharashtra and Konkan & Goa
Particulate matter in the air you are breathing Yesterday
CITIES SO2 NO2 CO PM2.5 PM10 CODE
In observation made at4.00 p.m., Jaipur,recorded an overall airquality index (AQI) scoreof 255indicating an unhealthylevel of pollution. In contrast, Haldia, WestBengal recorded ahealthy AQI score of 30
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Around 500 followers ofDera Sacha Sauda, a sectheaded by Gurmeet RamRahim Singh, scattered theashes of their relatives in thefields inside the Deraheadquarters in Sirsa aftercremation as part of their“faith,” a senior Dera SachaSauda functionary has toldthe Special InvestigationTeam.
Dera Sacha Sauda seniorvice-chairperson Prithivi RajNain was grilled for over twohours on various issues re-lated to Dera on Tuesdayevening.
Kuldeep Beniwal, whoheads the SIT, said the sect’sfollowers were told to scat-ter the ashes in the fields fol-lowing claims by a Germany-based scientist that thephosphorous in the boneswas good for the growth ofthe plants. “We need toverify this and all otherclaims made by Mr. Nainduring interrogation,” said
Mr. Beniwal. He, however,dismissed media reportssuggesting that skeletonswere buried inside the Deraas “factually incorrect.”
Vipassana questionedMr. Nain heads the agricul-ture department of the DeraSacha Sauda. Mr. Nain wasquestioned about his where-abouts on the day the courtannounced the verdict inthe rape case and on reports
that money was paid to in-stigate the violence that fol-lowed the verdict. He wasalso cross-examined on thedisclosures made by DeraSacha Sauda chairperson Vi-passana Insan.
Ms. Vipassana was ques-tioned by the SIT onMonday. It wanted to knowwhether she was still in con-tact with Ram Rahim Singh’sadopted daughter Hon-eypreet among other things.
Sect followers scattered ashesof relatives in Dera’s �eldsDera vice-chairperson Prithivi Raj Nain grilled for over two hours
Act of ‘faith’: Followers of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh arrivingat Dera Sacha Sauda Dham, in Sirsa. * SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
Ashok Kumar
GURUGRAM
Soon, it will be possible tocruise along theBrahmaputra along whiledoing some serious science.
The Department of Bio-technology will commissiona two-tiered barge that willroughly be the size of twolarge conference rooms andhost scientists and a full-fledged lab that will allowthose on board to collectsamples from variousstretches of the river, per-form tests on water qualityand biodiversity of thewider ecosystem. The pro-posed vessel, now onlyknown as the BrahmaputraBiodiversity Biology Boat(B4), would also be linked tosmaller boats and researchlabs, said Union ScienceMinister Harsh Vardhan at apress conference.
The first experiments willlikely begin this Decemberand will have the boat — are-purposed one — trawlPasighat, Dibrigarh,Neemati, Tejpur and Guwa-hati in Assam and managedby the Indian Institute ofTechnology, Guwahati. The“B4” will also have a teach-ing laboratory for schooland college children.
Specifying that thiswouldn’t be just a showboat, officials said therewould also be ‘mobile labs’that would run along the
tributaries of theBrahmaputra to feed in datato the B4.
“For a river of the sizeand diversity of theBrahmaputra, there is verylittle research done to un-derstand its hydrology, wa-ter quality and biodiversity,”said K. Vijay Raghavan, Sec-retary, Department of Bio-technology. “The idea for itcame from a scientist who’sof Chinese and Indian-originand based in Shillong.”
‘A few precedents’He added that a boat of thisnature would be one of itskind in the world thoughthere were a few precedentsin China and mobile laborat-ories that studied theAmazon river.
He didn’t specify abudget for the boat but saidthe government aimed tospend ₹200 crore across arange of programmes.
Focus on hydrology and water quality
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI
A ‘Boat Lab’ tostudy Brahmaputra
Harsh Vardhan
In a significant move thatmay impact the ongoing agit-ation in the Darjeeling hills,West Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee on Wed-nesday reconstituted theGorkhaland Territorial Ad-ministration (GTA) and ap-pointed rebel Gorkha Jan-mukti Morcha ( GJM) leaderBinoy Tamang as itschairperson.
The GTA is a regionalautonomous body set upafter a tripartite agreementamong the Centre, the Stateand the GJM in 2011.
GJM president BimalGurung was elected its chiefexecutive in 2012, but he andother office-bearers resignedon June 23, 2017 when theagitation for a separate
Gorkhaland State gainedmomentum in the hills.
“Today we have taken avery important decision…Under Section 65 of the GTAAct, we have appointed aboard of administratorscomprising eight membersto look after the functioningof GTA,” Ms. Banerjee said inKolkata.
Ms. Banerjee said she hadtried to accommodatepeople from all regions inthe hills.
Anit Thapa, a close aide ofMr. Tamang, has been elec-ted vice-chairman.
Both Mr. Tamang and Mr.Thapa were expelled fromthe GJM after they an-nounced withdrawal of theDarjeeling shutdown.
They are both consideredclose to Ms. Banerjee.
The eight-member bodyincluded GJM MLA from Dar-jeeling Amar Singh Rai andpresident of the Gorkha Na-tional Liberation Front(GNLF) Mann Ghising.
Move criticisedThe development triggeredstrong reactions not onlyfrom the GJM, but also otherpolitical parties and groupsin the hills.
General secretary of theGNLF, Mahendra Chettri,said the Chief Minister hadpicked Mr. Ghising withouthis consent.
The newly set up NationalGorkhaland Committee,which comprises civil soci-ety members, said the “ar-rangement does not addressthe aspirations of thepeople.”
GTA reconstituted, rebel GJMleader Tamang is chairperson Govt. move may impact ongoing Darjeeling agitation Special Correspondent
Final arguments heard in Dera murder case PANCHKULA
A special court of the Central
Bureau of Investigation here
on Wednesday began hearing
the final arguments of the
defence counsel in the
murder case of former Dera
Sacha Sauda manager Ranjit
Singh, allegedly involving
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.
The defence counsel read out
the statement of two of the
23 witnesses. PTI
Maoists have abducted 10villagers, including thesarpanch of Chintagufa vil-lage in the Sukma districtof south Chhattisgarh. Dis-trict police said the abduc-tion was carried out on theintervening night ofSeptember 15 and 16.
Maoists abduct
10 villagers
Special Correspondent
Nagpur
Persons allegedly owing al-legiance to the IndigenousPeople’s Front of Tripura(IPFT) have murdered ayoung television journalistat Mandwai, 25 km east ofAgartala, on Wednesday af-ternoon. Santanu Bhowmik,27, was attacked with sharpcutting weapons while cov-ering a road blockade agita-tion of the IPFT, which is de-manding a separate tribalState called Tipraland.
The murder of the journ-alist, who was working for alocal television channel, oc-curred amid continuingclashes between supportersof the IPFT and the Com-munist Party of India-Marx-ist (CPI-M) in the Khowai,Teliamura and Jirania subdi-
visions. Scores have been in-jured, houses burnt, policevehicles torched and police-men attacked in the secondday of tension in Tripura.
Police recovered Santanuin a critical state after hewas attacked by a group ofpersons at Mandwai.
Doctors declared himbrought dead after he wasshifted to the GBP Hospitalhere. He had received injur-ies on his head.
Tripura televisionjournalist murdered
He was covering an IPFT blockade
Syed Sajjad Ali
Agartala
Santanu Bhowmik
Torrential rain batteredMumbai and its suburbs forthe second day on Wednes-day, causing massive disrup-tion in flight operations,delaying suburban trains andforcing a large number ofpeople to stay indoors.
No deaths or major dam-age to property were repor-ted, but schools and collegesremained closed.
Flight operations at theChhatrapati Shivaji Interna-tional Airport remainedcrippled, with 185 flights can-celled and many diverted.
Plane overshootsrunwayThis was largely due to themain runway being closedfor over 24 hours after aSpiceJet flight from Varanasiskidded and overshot therunway before resting in softwet soil, which made its re-trieval difficult. Efforts are onto tow it away and clear therunway for operations.
The airport is the coun-try’s second busiest after
New Delhi’s IGI Airport, andhandles 930 flights per day.An average of 48 aircraft landor take off every hour.
Dabbawalas, known fortheir clockwork efficiency,took the day off. SubhashTalekar, spokesperson,Mumbai Dabbawala Associ-ation, said, “We had a bad ex-perience on August 29. It’sdifficult for a person carrying40 tiffin boxes, so we de-cided to not work today.”
The BMC received com-plaints of waterlogging fromHindmata, Sion Road in the
city, Veera Desai Road, AirIndia Colony, Milan andAndheri subways, NationalCollege in Bandra, and Ko-hinoor City Mall, Dahisar inthe western suburbs,Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar,Shell Colony Chembur andMankhurd in the eastern sub-urbs. There were also reportsof partial building collapsesin the eastern and westernsuburbs. Sudhir Naik, BMCDeputy Commissioner,urged citizens not to believein rumours.
Deluge again: The rain caused �ooding near the King’s Circle at Matunga in Mumbai on Wednesday. * EMMANUAL YOGINI
Rain fury leaves Mumbaishell-shocked again
Aam Aadmi Party nationalconvenor and Delhi ChiefMinister Arvind Kejriwal islikely to meet actor KamalHaasan, who has recentlysaid he was thinking of en-tering political life, inChennai on Thursday, AAPsources said here on Wed-nesday.
While speculation aboutMr. Haasan's entry intopolitics has been rife formonths, the Tamil actorlast week said he was con-sidering floating his ownpolitical party.
Sources in the AAP de-clined to comment on theagenda of Mr. Kejriwal’smeeting with Mr. Haasan.
However, the latter’sentry into politics maycome up for discussion,they said.
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CMYK
A ND-NDE
EDITORIAL
The decision by the Ministry of Corporate A�airs to
crack down on so-called ‘shell companies’, dis-
qualify select directors in these entities and debar
them from taking board positions for a speci�ed period
of time cannot be faulted. This would begin the clean-
up of the Augean stables of �rms set up in many cases
with less than bona �de intent and having virtually no
business operations. However, the Union government’s
move to publicise the identities of some of these indi-
viduals with a view to ‘naming and shaming’ them is
fraught with risk; the devil, as always, is in the detail.
While the underlying motive for this action, as cited by
the ministry, of “breaking the network of shell compan-
ies” in the government’s �ght against black money is
laudable, there is a real danger of inadvertently tainting
genuine �rms and individuals. This was in evidence
when the Securities Appellate Tribunal recently gave
relief to some entities over trading curbs hastily im-
posed on them by SEBI. Also, given the sheer scale of
the task at hand, with the ministry identifying more
than 1.06 lakh directors for disquali�cation, it is imper-
ative that there be great care and diligence to ensure
that the authorities do not penalise anyone who for
non-mala �de reasons failed to comply with the relev-
ant provisions of the Companies Act. After all, when the
intention is to create “an atmosphere of con�dence and
faith in the system” as part of improving the climate for
ease of doing business, the onus must be on taking to
task only those who intend to subvert the law.
At a broader level, the Centre and the regulatory
arms need to address the underlying systemic short-
comings that have allowed so many companies, both
listed and unlisted, to become vehicles of malfeasance.
For one, as so many entrepreneurs establishing me-
dium, small or micro enterprises have found to their
chagrin, it is far easier to register a �rm than it is to dis-
solve or wind it up. Similarly, in the case of public lim-
ited companies, a major portion of the extralegal activ-
ities including price rigging of shares, insider trading
and other questionable practices have been found to
occur in the large mass of smaller companies. The prob-
lems of acute illiquidity, weak governance and regulat-
ory oversight have combined with the di�culty in del-
isting to make these �rms prime targets for �nancial
fraudsters and money launderers. The solutions, there-
fore, need to be targeted at addressing the deep-rooted
maladies rather than just the symptoms, making it
easier for entrepreneurs to deregister and/or delist a
company. The government has already shown it is pre-
pared to act in terms of enacting the necessary legisla-
tion to address banking sector stress by adopting the In-
solvency and Bankruptcy Code. A simpli�ed process,
possibly online, to dissolve or delist would usher in sig-
ni�cant bene�ts, including improved governance, and
ensure that all stakeholders from small retail investors
to corporate promoters have an enabling atmosphere
to operate freely by remaining compliant with the law
or risk facing stringent penal action.
A big broomEach shell company must be duly investigated,
instead of a ‘name and shame’ data dump
U.S. President Donald Trump’s opposition to the
Iran nuclear deal is not new. But by choosing his
�rst address at the UN General Assembly, in
which he listed his administration’s foreign policy pri-
orities, to slam Tehran and the nuclear accord, he has
put to rest any hope for improvement in ties with Iran.
In his tirade on Tuesday, he called the Iran deal, which
the U.S. and �ve other countries had signed with
Tehran two years ago, an “embarrassment”, and “one
of the worst and most one-sided transactions the
United States has ever entered into”. Unsurprisingly, it
triggered a reaction from Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister
Javad Zarif called out Mr. Trump’s “ignorant hate
speech”, which he said belonged to “medieval times”.
The message from the Trump administration is clear
and consistent: the Obama-era pragmatism was an ab-
erration and the decades-old hostility between the U.S.
and the theocratic regime in Tehran stands resumed.
The real test before Mr. Trump and the Iranians comes
in less than a month. According to U.S. law, the adminis-
tration must certify the Iran deal every 90 days. The
Trump administration has twice done so, and the next
deadline is October 15. Mr. Trump has already signalled
that he would withdraw the certi�cation next time. If he
does so, it would be the beginning of the unravelling of
an agreement that was forged after intense negotiation.
Failure of the U.S. to respect an international agree-
ment it’s a signatory to would set a dangerous preced-
ent. For all its shortcomings, the Iran nuclear deal is a
multilateral agreement. And it has shown results. What
had appeared to be an irresolvable issue only three
years ago is now settled. International agencies have re-
peatedly certi�ed that Iran is fully compliant with the
terms of the agreement, which means the country is not
pursuing any nuclear weapons programme. In plain
terms, the deal is a success as it prevented a country
with potential nuclear capabilities from developing
weapons, and all this without a shot being �red. If the
U.S. is serious about non-proliferation, it should use the
Iran deal to resolve other complex international con-
�icts. What’s happening is just the contrary. Iran has
been slapped with more sanctions by the U.S. over its
missile programme. If Iran is not spared even after it
agreed to give up a substantial part of its nuclear pro-
gramme under a multilateral agreement, what message
does it send to other countries about international dip-
lomacy? No doubt, Mr. Trump’s continued attack on the
Iran deal pleases hard-line supporters at home as well
as Arab allies and Israel in West Asia. But it is undermin-
ing the global non-proliferation regime and interna-
tional institutions.
Nuclear deal in dangerTrump’s continued tirade against Iran
undermines the non-proliferation regime
Of late, it’s become almost amatter of conventional wis-dom that the 2019 Lok Sabha
elections are the Bharatiya JanataParty’s for the taking. The only un-known, apparently, is the marginof victory. If the party’s ambitious‘Mission 350-plus’ plan proves suc-cessful, we could soon have a Par-liament that is practically‘Opposition-mukt’.
In such a scenario, does it stillmake sense to hope for a meaning-ful Opposition in the run-up to2019 and after? If yes, what mightbe the contours of a politicalstrategy that would enable it topose a credible challenge to the BJPjuggernaut?
Reams have been written aboutthe failures of the Oppositionparties. Far from holding the gov-ernment to account, they haveeither been dormant or busy �ght-ing for survival. The BJP, on theother hand, has been steadily ex-panding its footprint. It was inpower in �ve States before the 2014polls. Today the National Demo-cratic Alliance is in power in 18 outof the 29 States. Thirteen of thosehave a BJP Chief Minister.
Some have argued that the In-dian polity has reverted to a state ithas witnessed before — that ofsingle-party dominance, with theBJP taking the place of the Con-gress. While this is true in a formalsense, there is a big di�erence insubstantive terms, one that couldseal the fate of Indian democracyas we have known it.
The Congress systemFor more than two decades afterIndependence, political competi-tion in Indian democracy tookplace within the con�nes of whatpolitical scientist Rajni Kotharitermed ‘the Congress system’. It
denoted a polity marked by single-party dominance. Until the onsetof the ’70s, the Congress incorpor-ated oppositional drives into itselfby way of multiple factions at theregional and national level thatmirrored the extraordinary plural-ism and diversity of a complexnationhood.
In a traditional society where apolitical culture centred on demo-cracy was yet to strike roots, it wasthe accommodative pluralism ofthe ‘Congress system’ that allowedthe normative modernity of theConstitution to slowly achieve afragile social hegemony. More thanthe ‘steel frame’ of the bureau-cracy, it was the elastic frame of the‘Congress system’ that held thecountry together by respecting itspluralistic genotype.
Subsequently, as the Congresswent into decline, regional con�g-urations came to power in Stateafter State, and India entered thecoalition era. As it lost ground inState politics, the Congress wasforced to play ball with smallerparties at the national level. Seenanother way, the intra-party coali-tions within the ‘Congress system’became externalised into an inter-party dynamic in the coalition erathat began with the ninth LokSabha in 1989, and continued tillthe 2014 elections.
Political competition being whatit is, the vacuum at the nationallevel caused by the shrinkage of theCongress has now been �lled bythe BJP. It did so by scripting an al-ternative national narrative
around three elements: aHindutva-infused nationalism;turning elections into a referen-dum on national leadership, spe-ci�cally Narendra Modi’s leader-ship; and framing the electoralcompetition in all-India termsrather than engage with State-levelissues.
If the Opposition has �ounderedso far, it is because it has tried,without much conviction, to chal-lenge the BJP on its narrative homeground. Not surprisingly, its at-tempts have failed to strike achord.
Debating nationalism ends upgiving more oxygen to chauvinism.The Opposition does lack a politi-cian who can match Mr. Modi’s ap-peal. And regional leaders are bet-ter o� sticking to State-level issueswhere they are on stronger polit-ical ground than trying to reinventthemselves overnight for a nationalrole. In other words, the Opposi-tion needs to stop being reactiveand formulate its owncounter-narrative.
Lessons from the pastMuch has been made of the Con-gress being reduced to 44 seats inthe Lok Sabha. It is taken as a signof structural weakness in the Op-position camp. Yet, after Inde-pendence, in the �rst �ve LokSabhas, the highest number ofseats held by an Opposition partywas 44 seats. Did that mean Indiawas ‘Opposition-mukt’ for aquarter of a century?
History shows us that the Con-
gress’s own fall from dominancewas sparked by challenges at theState-level, not by a national rival.But that was possible because ofthe space for political pluralismo�ered by the ‘Congress system’.
The fundamental di�erencebetween the ‘Congress system’ andthe ‘BJP system’ of one-party dom-inance is the latter’s determinationto eliminate this pluralistic space.Politically, this is the toughest chal-lenge facing the Opposition, as wellas the biggest weakness of the BJP,one that could be tapped to con-struct an alternative narrative.
Put simply, the Opposition’scounter-narrative would need todwell on two aspects. One, it mustconvey that the 2019 polls areabout choosing between two op-tions: a coalition regime structur-ally constrained to protect the val-ues of pluralism and federalism,and a stable majority under an au-thoritarian leadership unlikely toentertain democratic niceties.
Second, the Opposition needs toframe the election as a referendumnot on leadership but on demo-cratic values. A massive win for theBJP in 2019 would certainly pose athreat to the historical consensus,established at the time of Inde-pendence, which institutionalisedpluralism, a degree of federalautonomy, and a democraticframework for nation-building.The Opposition has the simple butonerous task of using its politicalimagination to bring this threat tothe centre of the electoral agenda.
Onus on regional partiesIts political strategy, therefore,must aim for a hung Parliamentand a coalition government. Anideal outcome would be one whereno party gets more than 170-180seats. A ‘Mission 180 minus’, as itwere. With such numbers, even aBJP-led coalition governmentwould be a victory for the Opposi-tion, as the objective of safeguard-ing India’s pluralism would havebeen achieved.
Regional parties are best placedto take the lead here, for they arethe ones which would be hardest
hit by a creeping centralisation ofpower. If they could come to-gether, with or without the Con-gress, over a single point agenda ofprotecting India’s pluralism, itwould obviate the need for aformal pre-poll or seat-sharing ar-rangement. There is no other waythat, say, a Trinamool Congressand a Communist Party of India(Marxist) would come together tobattle a common rival that couldprove more lethal to both than theyhave been to each other. Given thatthe BJP has always struggled moreagainst non-Congress, regional op-ponents, it is also a more cannyelectoral strategy.
And in case they still lose badly,they can take heart from the factthat India’s political traditions givethe Opposition an institutional roledisproportionate to their actualnumbers in Parliament, throughmandatory membership of keycommittees, appointments panels,and so on. So, regardless of howthey fare in 2019, Oppositionparties would continue to have amajor role to play.
All said and done, Indian demo-cracy has never fared well underpowerful parliamentary majoritiesled by a charismatic Prime Ministerunchecked by coalition dynamics.We have two examples, in IndiraGandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Whileone brie�y downed the shutters ondemocracy, the other gave a �llipto Hindu fundamentalism andtried to muzzle the press.
The Opposition’s success wouldultimately hinge on how e�ective itis in convincing the people that ifthey value their nation’s demo-cratic traditions as much as they dodevelopment, they must eitherelect a coalition government in2019, or force the ‘BJP system’ tobecome more like the ‘Congresssystem’, not by importing Con-gressmen, but by imbibing the val-ues of pluralism and respect fordissent that the Congress standsfor in its Nehruvian vision of itself,if not always in reality.
States of the OppositionPolitical parties must frame their campaign as a referendum not on leadership but on democratic values
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India pulled out all the stops lastweek to welcome JapanesePrime Minister Shinzō Abe on
the occasion of his fourth annualsummit with Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi. The India-Japan “Spe-cial Strategic and Global Partner-ship” — a designation and statusNew Delhi accords to no otherpartner — has reached new heightsunder the stewardship of the twoleaders.
The rise of China and questionsabout America’s commitment inAsia have drawn them into a deep-ening security-cum-economic rela-tionship. How deep is it? As Mr.Abe wrapped up his visit lastThursday, speculation arose on thepossibility of an evolving “alliance”between the two countries givenjust how much their interests con-verge. Such analyses, thoughpointing in the right direction, maynot capture the true nature of theIndia-Japan “strategic partner-ship.”
The India-Japan synergy has twokey elements. Japan is investingheavily in strengthening its critical
infrastructure to enhance its eco-nomic and potential defence cap-abilities. Simultaneously, the twocountries have begun working on ajoint infrastructure developmentand connectivity drive traversingthe Indian Ocean, from Myanmarto Sri Lanka to Iran and encom-passing the Asia-Africa GrowthCorridor. On defence matters, Ja-pan and India have agreed to estab-lish regular consultations in the“2+2” format of their defence andforeign ministries. Their navies ex-ercise regularly together with theU.S. Navy. And negotiations onarms sales — notably, the Shin-Maywa US-2i amphibious aircraft —are on. Japanese investment in thestrategically placed Andaman andNicobar Islands is likely to helpNew Delhi establish a major secur-ity sentinel in the eastern IndianOcean.
Strategic partnershipsBut this is not an alliance in themaking. Alliances are passé andonly a few continue gingerly fromthe Cold War era. We live in a worldtoday driven by “strategic partner-ships”. States �nd themselves in aninterdependent system where thetraditional power politics of yes-teryear doesn’t quite �t. After all,every major relationship charac-terised by strategic tension such asU.S.-China, Japan-China, India-China is simultaneously one of eco-nomic gain. The U.S. and China are
each other’s chief trading part-ners, while China ranks at the topfor Japan and India. Besides, Indiamight confront China at Doklambut it also wants Chinese invest-ment.
Strategic partnerships carry cer-tain characteristic features fallingshort of alliances. First, unlike alli-ances, they do not demand com-mitments to a partner’s disputeswith other countries. New Delhidoes not take a strong position onJapan’s territorial disputes withChina and Russia. Likewise, Tokyodoes not openly side with India inits quarrels with China andPakistan. For instance, Japan’s re-action to the Doklam stand-o�,though critical of China implicitly,did not go beyond saying that “allparties involved should not resortto unilateral attempts to changethe status quo by force.” India’s re-action to the verdict of the arbitraltribunal on the South China Sealast year, urging “all parties to
show utmost respect for the UN-CLOS”, re�ected a similar dispens-ation despite Japan’s push for astronger statement. There was alsono explicit mention of the SouthChina Sea in the latest jointstatement.
Strategic partnership means,�rst, that both retain the �exibilityto continue political engagementand economic cooperation withtheir common adversary. Second,they avoid “entrapment”, or beingdragged into a partner’s disputesand potentially into con�ict, whichhappened in the First World War.Third, regular high-level politicaland military interactions facilitatea collaborative approach to stra-tegic policies over a range of eco-nomic and military activities. Indiaand Japan, for instance, are notonly moving forward on economicand defence cooperation but arealso cooperating on other import-ant issues such as civil nuclear en-ergy and Security Council reform.
Given that resort to war is un-desirable owing to economic inter-dependence as well as the pres-ence of nuclear weapons, the aimof major strategic partnerships isto strengthen defences againstmarginal con�ict, convey a de-termination to stand up to a stra-tegic adversary and, overall, gener-ate a persuasive environment thatdiscourages potential intimida-tion. Occasionally, as between In-dia and China, a “strategic partner-
ship” is a way of opening a channelof communication and minimal co-operation intended to stabilise anddevelop the potential for a détenteand conceivably somethingwarmer. In this particular case, notmuch has been accomplished thusfar, but it remains a low-cost optionfor expanding cooperation in theevent the political fundamentals ofthe relationship show an upwardswing.
Looking aheadIndia’s two main strategic partner-ships, with the U.S. and Japan, aredovetailing nicely. For New Delhi,the U.S. will remain its chief backerboth to enhance India’s conven-tional defence capabilities and todraw political support in globalpolitical institutions, for examplein components of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Japan, in themeantime, is becoming its primarycollaborator in developing its eco-nomic sinews and for building ageostrategic network that o�ers In-dian Ocean states an alternative todependence on China. Together,the emerging structure of triangu-lar cooperation should give Beijingpause to think.
Rajesh Basrur is Professor ofInternational Relations and SumithaNarayanan Kutty is Associate ResearchFellow at the S. Rajaratnam School forInternational Studies, NanyangTechnological University, Singapore
A time of strategic partnershipsAlliances are passé and only a few continue gingerly from the Cold War era
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The Rohingya issueThe Centre has taken theright stand in expressing itsapprehension over thein�ux of refugees. Empathyand a humanitarian outlookapart, we should notoverride sensitive securityconcerns. Following therecent in�ux of refugees andthe surge in terrorist attacksin France, Spain, the U.K.,Belgium and otherunsavoury incidents inGermany, the EuropeanUnion is shutting downborders and erecting bordercontrols. The Rohingya refugee crisisis an issue involvingMyanmar and Bangladeshand needs to be settled onan amicable basis, if need bethrough backchannelinitiatives by India (Editorial– “Targeting refugees”,September 20). India canadditionally extend �nancialand moral support. O�eringthe Rohingya refuge in India
is a sensitive issue given thelarger dimension of securityand the demographic pro�leof the Northeast. India hasserious concerns aboutmigration and relatedissues. Refugees have beenmoving out of theircountries due to economic,political and social reasons.The fear, as a leadingacademician has said, is that“democratic and nationalistmovements can be takenover by transnationalterrorist groups”. India isrelatively a safe nation butthat does not mean it has tospend its scarce resourceson large security and socialservices which bona �decitizens need more urgently.H.N. Ramakrishna,
Bengaluru
n The stand taken by agovernment on any issuerelated to national securitycannot be and should not bechallenged. It is the
executive which knows thestate of a�airs better thanordinary people who aremoved by emotions.Obligations underinternational conventionand humanitarianconsiderations aresubservient to nationalsecurity interests. However,the government can extendits good o�ces in settling aninternal issue of itsimmediate neighbourwithout endangering its ownnational security (“InVivekananda’s country?”,September 20).Suresh Rangarajan,
Thiruvananthapuram
n The Centre’s hard-linestance, that it perceives theRohingya to be a potentialthreat to national security, isunfortunate. India has overthe decades built areputation for giving asylumto persecuted refugees onhumanitarian grounds. To
arbitrarily brand thesestateless refugees as havinglinks with terror out�tsde�es logic and rationale.The photograph of childrenat a Rohingya refugee campin New Delhi evokes pity.Also, the Rohingya arereluctant to return to theirhomeland, traumatised asthey are, despite assurancesby Myanmar leader AungSan Suu Kyi (“Suu Kyipromises to resettle‘veri�ed’ Rohingyarefugees”, September 20).India needs to adopt aholistic and humaneapproach. P.K. Varadarajan,
Chennai
n Aung San Suu Kyi has letdown the internationalcommunity by neitheraddressing their concernsnor coming up with aconcrete solution to theongoing Rohingya crisis. Asa de facto leader, this was
the chance she had to proveher credentials as a worthylaureate for peace.Unfortunately, in her stint asState Counsellor ofMyanmar, she hasperformed dismally belowthe mark and dashed thehopes of her well-wishers.Baquir Sadar,
Kochi
Sorabjee interview The hallmarks of formerAttorney General SoliSorabjee’s interview weredispassion, empathy andlimpidity of a high order(The Wednesday interview –“If dissent is not allowed,it’ll take di�erent forms”,September 20). He mincedno words in deridinggrowing intolerance and agagging of dissent while hede�ned the contours ofsedition and privacy withconsummate ease and skill.His wise words againstdeporting the Rohingya, it is
hoped, will not fall on deafears. Ayyasseri Raveendranath,
Aranmula, Kerala
Safer drivingThe use of technology toenable a safe drivingexperience is alwayswelcome, and in this regardthe move to install laser-enabled speed detectors bythe Tiruvallur police inTamil Nadu is appreciable(Some editions, “Laser-enabled detectors to checkspeeding on highways”,September 18). But datashow that drunk driving is amore serious issue thanoverspeeding, with �guresrising every month. Drunkdriving is a major reasonbehind accidents. Thepolice should look at ways tomonitor drunk driving.W. Cathryn Shirly,
Chennai
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters emailed to [email protected] must carry the full postal address and the full name or the name with initials.
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Mysore has rejected the World Bank aid for the Cauveri watersupply project for augmenting Bangalore City’s water supplysystem. The Mysore Government feels that the terms of theWorld Bank aid are stiff and not capable of acceptance withoutputting Bangalore’s civil population to hardship in the shapeof a higher cost of water supply. A communication conveyingthe Mysore Government’s unwillingness to avail of the WorldBank aid is being conveyed to the Government of India. TheCauveri water supply project is estimated to cost about Rs. 38crores. For more than two years now, negotiations had beengoing on in connection with the projected World Bank aid.One of the conditions of the World Bank aid is stated to be thatthe Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board shouldcharge Rs. four for every 1,000 gallons of the water suppliedunder the projected Cauveri water supply project so that a re-turn of 10 per cent on the investment was ensured. The StateGovernment has not found it easy enough to accept the sug-gestion.
The arrival of Mrs. Annie Besant, Mr. Wadia and Mr. Arundalein Madras this morning [September 21] was announced in thedaily papers last evening. The happy event was lookedanxiously forward to by the people of Madras who had threemonths ago bid them farewell with anger on their brow andtears in their eyes. Madras had not apparently slept last night.The usually quiet City streets, were alive with singing crowdswending their way towards the Central Station throughout thenight. When the day broke out about fifty Bhajana partieswere singing outside the Central Station compound. “Mrs.Besant arrives in Madras to-morrow” was the chief talk amongmen in the City. Thousands of College students had assembledon the road side to witness the procession this morning.
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO SEPTEMBER 21, 1917
Mrs. Besant in Madras.
There has lately been a revival of the clas-sic debate on how subnationalism is goodfor social welfare, triggered by the con-troversy surrounding the long-standingdemand for an o�cial State �ag forKarnataka. None of India’s 29 States ex-cept Jammu and Kashmir have a �ag of
their own. The matter is complicated by the fact that the Con-stitution maintains a conspicuous silence on the issue. Theclamour for a separate �ag among a section of the Kannadigasthus assumes wider political salience, insofar as the assertionof underlying subnational identities is concerned. A multi-ethnic polity sharply polarised along linguistic, reli-
gious and caste lines, India is no stranger to subnationalist im-pulses. Initially wary of accommodating regional demands,primarily owing to the bitter experience of Partition, India’scentral leadership embarked on an audacious project to recon-�gure the country’s political map based on linguistic criteria:Telugu-speaking areas coalesced into Andhra Pradesh, Malay-ali-speaking areas into Kerala, Kannada-speaking areas intoKarnataka, etc. in the 1950s. More and more states were addedto this kitty — Maharashtra and Gujarat joined in 1960, followedby Punjab and Haryana in the mid-1960s. This project has con-tinued up till today, with Telangana being the most recent addi-tion. Most of these states are creations of hard-fought politicalstruggles waged around the idea of a shared ethnic identity.The tenacity of civic bonds among the members of a politicalcommunity, some scholars maintain, explains why some stateshave fared well on social development indicators while othersstill struggle to break out of their vicious trap of backwardness.However, new research in political science shows that not allcivic associations are benign; some help foster the democraticethos while others endanger democracy by reinforcing its ma-joritarian impulses. This is true as much at the level of the re-gion as it is at the level of the nation.
Fuelling majoritarian impulsesHigh levels of subnationalism may have driven higher levels ofsocial welfare in the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, but theyhave also spawned violent ethnic con�ict in many others: Gu-jarat and Maharashtra have witnessed some of the worst ethnicriots unleashed against their religious minorities and immig-rants, respectively, in post-Independence India; Assam hasperiodic bouts of xenophobic violence targeting allegedBangladeshi settlers.
One only needs to �ip the pages of history to realise how na-tionalism, by its very nature, has the idea of exclusion built intoit. How nations or subnations deal with these exclusionary as-pects is a question that the subnationalist argument shies awayfrom addressing. It is important to ask whether Gujarat’sMuslims are part of the Gujarati asmita (pride), or whether mi-grants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar feel a close a�nity to theMarathi manoos. The ‘othering’ of those who do not form an in-tegral part of the subnation warns us of the dangers of subna-tionalism, and how it can engender serious democratic de�citsin an otherwise vibrant and plural democracy.
Shashwat Dhar is associated with the Lokniti Programme for ComparativeDemocracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), NewDelhi
A double-edged sword The subnationalist argument shiesaway from addressing how to deal with majoritarian impulses
“It is better to be roughly right thanprecisely wrong.” These words ofBritish economist John MaynardKeynes best sum up the wave of re-forms in the domain of tax adminis-tration in India in the last few years.While tax administration has seensome paradigm shifts both in the do-main of direct and indirect taxes, thetaxpayer still seems to be wanting forgreater certainty and fairness in thelevy, assessment and collection oftaxes. This is where an internation-ally recognised concept such as tax-payer rights holds well even in the In-dian context.
The Central government has devel-opment strategies in the form of cam-paigns like ‘Make in India’ and ‘Star-tup India’. The recent introduction ofthe Goods and Services Tax (GST),which is the most significant overhaulof the taxation system in India ever,also aims to achieve a unified marketacross the nation for the first time.The intent of the government is clear.It wants to transform India into amanufacturing, investment and re-search and development hub andconsequentially, there would also bean increase in revenue generation. Inthe light of such economic aspira-tions, a fair balance between tax-payer rights and obligations will onlyensure a higher degree of trustbetween the tax collector and tax-payer, thus leading to a higher taxyield. But one may ask, isn’t the levelof trust already there? Well, notentirely.
Epicentre of tax disputesIndia has seen key tax disputes eversince a similar growth-oriented roadmap was adopted by the governmentin the early 1990s. For instance, in or-der to attract investments, the gov-ernment signed Double TaxationAvoidance Agreements (DTAAs) withstates like Singapore and Cyprus onsimilar treaty terms as the India-Mauritius DTAA signed in 1983. Asambitious as these agreements were,they proved to be detrimental in thelong run for India. Multiple disputesrelating to capital gains surfaced dueto exploitation of legal loopholes inthese DTAAs. Another example is of‘transfer pricing’ mechanism (the
rules and methods for pricing trans-actions between enterprises undercommon ownership or control),where there was little clarity with re-spect to international transactionsbetween associated enterprises be-fore April 2001. Even after the intro-duction of a dedicated transfer pri-cing segment in the Income Tax Act,the chaos could not be curtailed asthe determination of arm’s lengthprice (the price of such internationaltransactions in open market condi-tions) would almost always be a con-tentious exercise. India ended up be-ing party to more than half of theglobal transfer pricing disputes by2014.
After the debacle the governmenthad to face when it lost to Vodafoneon a capital gains dispute in the Su-preme Court, it came up with an ag-gressive set of corrective measuresnot only to augment its revenue gen-eration capabilities but also tocounter any such abusive avoidancestrategies by taxpayers henceforth.Retrospective amendments weremade to the Income Tax Act to super-sede the adverse judgment of the Su-preme Court in 2012, which were notlimited in effect to only Vodafone butseveral such disputes relating to taxa-tion of capital gains and deemed in-come of numerous MNCs having theirinterest or investments in India, dir-ectly or indirectly. A step further was
the implementation of General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) in India. TheGAAR provisions have been made ef-fective in India from April 1, 2017, andthey can be considered as the latestchapter on the mismatch betweentaxpayer rights and obligations. Somemajor concerns with respect to tax-payer rights are left grossly unad-dressed. A major example is the re-vocation of ‘presumption ofinnocence’ of the taxpayers. It is nowa burden ab initio on these businessentities to prove that their tax mitiga-tion techniques do not qualify as ‘im-permissible avoidance arrange-ments’. This goes against thefundamental principle of ‘innocentunless proven guilty’.
As for the GST, while the govern-ment has apparently achieved a bal-anced model of fiscal federalismthrough a dual GST system, the pathahead is simple neither for the tax-payer nor the tax collector. For ex-ample, the GST Network will processbillions of invoices every month, withits concomitant economic and fiscalimpacts of technical glitches andother such situations. These snagswill impact traders with genuinetransactions, as the processing oftheir tax collections, input tax creditclaims and tax refunds might get af-fected. A precedent is the GST inMalaysia which was implemented in2015: cash crunch woes due to the
delayed refunds were among theprominent grievances of the tradingcommunity.
Service-based strategiesClearly, the whole economic percep-tion of India is at stake due to somefault lines in its fiscal administration.What is positive to note though is theconstructive approach of the govern-ment, aiming to improve tax adminis-tration and as a result ensuring bettertax compliance. The recommenda-tions of the Tax Administration Re-form Committee, submitted to theFinance Ministry in 2014, tried to re-introduce a fair balance between therights and obligations of taxpayers.Several of these recommendations,such as improvement in taxpayers’service, enhanced use of informationand communication technology, ex-change of information with otheragencies, expansion of tax base, com-pliance management, etc. have eitherbeen accepted or implemented to en-sure a better relation between thetaxpayer and the tax collector.
Tax administrators in India havefor long implemented enforcement-based strategies and it is only in re-cent years that there has been a shiftin stance to service-based strategies.They have further propagated thesame intent by the introduction of acitizen’s charter in both direct and in-direct tax statutes of India. Thoughthe charter does not by itself createnew legal rights, it surely helps in en-forcing existing rights. India has alsorenegotiated the much-abused provi-sions in some of its DTAAs, namelywith Switzerland, Mauritius, Cyprusand Singapore. Capital gains-relatedissues and exchange of informationon taxation matters have been betteraddressed in these amendedagreements.
Taking everything into account, atleast the awareness on taxpayers’ ob-ligations and rights seems to beclearer than before. While attemptsare there to increase the rights and toprovide better service for genuinetaxpayers, the taxpayers who deliber-ately abuse tax provisions should notexpect much leniency. A quest forbalance between the rights and oblig-ations of a taxpayer is evidently on,though it still needs to be seen whenthe right equilibrium between thetwo is achieved.
Kinshuk Jha is Assistant Professor andAssistant Director, Centre for Comparativeand International Taxation, Centre forInternational Trade and Economic Laws,Jindal Global Law School
Shifting tax administration from an enforcement to a service-based model will lead to higher yields
Taxpayer rights and obligations
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On September 4, the Cell for IPR Promotionand Management (CIPAM) under the aegis ofthe Department of Industrial Policy and Pro-motion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce andIndustry, launched a social media campaignto promote Geographical Indications (GIs)with the hashtag #LetsTalkIP.
The press release says that GIs are of ut-most importance to the country as they arean integral part of India’s rich culture andcollective intellectual heritage and that theirpromotion is in line with the Government’s‘Make in India’ campaign. It adds that it is anarea of strength and optimism for India asthe “GI tag” has accorded protection to sev-eral handmade and manufactured products,especially in the informal sector. CIPAM pro-poses to talk about interesting facts and stor-ies on GIs using social media.
Can boost rural development With legislation enacted in 2003 — the Geo-graphical Indications of Goods (Registration& Protection) Act, 1999 (the GI Act) — fortheir protection and 295 names re-gistered with the Geographical Indic-ations Registry, GIs today need no in-troduction.
The proposed campaign is cer-tainly heartening because goodsbranded as GIs can be made indigen-ously by local communities inde-pendently and in a self-sustainingmanner. And India, with its rich cultural her-itage and diversity, has GIs. It is an added ad-vantage that if protected the correct way, GIscan promote rural development in a signific-ant manner and could be fitted in as themost ideal intellectual property right to bol-ster a programme such as ‘Make in India’.
But there is a catch. A GI is supposed toconvey to a consumer the assurance of a cer-tain quality, reputation or other characterist-ics of the goods on which it is applied, whichare essentially attributable to its geograph-ical origin. For example, when you see thename Scotch for whisky, a registered GI un-der the GI Act, on a bottle of whisky, you ex-pect it to originate from Scotland and pos-sess certain qualities that you would notassociate with other whiskies. Does the GIAct ensure that all the GIs registered there-under meet such expectations?
The keywords here are “quality control”.This is the sine qua non of any GI protection.In fact, the European Community Regulation1151/2012 for the protection of GIs is titled asa regulation “on quality schemes for agricul-
tural products and foodstuffs”. The em-phasis laid on quality must be underscoredhere. Recital 46 of this regulation states thatthe added value of GIs is based on consumertrust and that it is only credible if accompan-ied by effective verification and controls.Further, the quality schemes should be sub-ject to a monitoring system of official con-trols to ensure verification of compliancewith the law and rules relating thereto, andshould include a system of checks at allstages of production, processing and distri-bution.
The Indian contextIn the Indian scenario, the question ariseswhether the GI Act provides for quality con-trol measures and verification of compli-ance. The word ‘quality’ itself appears in theGI Act only in two instances, first in Section2(1)(e) which defines a GI, and second, inconnection with Section 11(2) that stipulatesthat the application should state as to howthe GI serves to designate the goods in re-spect of, inter alia, quality. Unlike theEuropean Regulation, the GI Act does notprovide for monitoring mechanisms at mul-tiple levels. In fact, there is no single refer-ence to an inspection or monitoring struc-ture in the Act. Though there is a mention ofit in Rule 32(1)(6)(g) which lists what shouldbe the content of the statement of case, it isquite perfunctory in that it states, “particu-
lars of the inspection structure, ifany, to regulate the use of the geo-graphical indication”. In contrast,the European Regulation stipu-lates multiple monitoring meas-ures, both within the GI-con-trolling body and outside it.
Currently, there is a prolifera-tion of GI registrations in India
without any legal provisions stipulating post-registration quality control measures thatare to be employed in the production ofgoods branded as GIs. This is detrimentalnot only to the protection process of GIs inIndia but also to the very existence of theseGIs, because prolonged failure to meet con-sumer expectations would dilute thepremium and credibility of GI-brandedgoods. Why would a customer pay apremium to a GI branded product if there isno difference in quality as compared to sim-ilarly placed goods?
While the campaign is a wonderful idea topromote awareness, there is more work thatis required at the legislative level to ensurecredibility of the GI protection process in In-dia. To make such efforts more meaningfuland worth the passion put in by bodies suchas CIPAM, we need to first fill the legislativegap in ensuring quality control throughmonitoring mechanisms.
Latha R. Nair is a partner with the IP law �rm K&SPartners. E-mail: [email protected]
Beyond social mediaMore regulation is required to ensure the credibility of the GI protection process
latha r. nair
GE
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Y IM
AG
ES
Short squeezeFinance
This refers to the rapid risein the price of a stock, orany other financial secur-ity for that matter, whenshort sellers buy it inheavy volumes to covertheir short positions. Thesudden increase in de-mand for the stock causesits price to shoot up tem-porarily in the absence ofadditional supply. Sometraders keep a close eye onthe level of short interestin a security to take profit-able long positions expect-ing a short squeeze todrive up its price. A shortsqueeze might happen formany reasons. An increasein the price of a stock, forinstance, might causeshort sellers to rush to buythe stock in order to pre-vent further losses on theirshort position.
What is blockchain? Block-chain is the backbone tech-nology on which bitcoinsrun. Simply put, it is a di-gital public ledger that re-cords every transaction.Once a transaction isentered in the blockchain,it cannot be erased ormodified. Blockchain re-moves the need for using atrusted third party such asa bank to make a transac-tion by directly connectingthe customers and suppli-ers. Each transaction is re-corded to the ledger afterverification by the networkparticipants, mainly achain of computers, callednodes. Blockchain todaymay be compared to whatthe Internet was in theearly 1990s. While we havewitnessed how the ‘Inter-net of Information’ haschanged our society overthe past two decades, weare now entering a phasewhere blockchain may dothe same by ushering in anew paradigm comprising‘Internet of Trust’ and ‘In-ternet of Value’, as per aDeloitte and Assocham
study.
Where did it originate? While the origin of thetechnology is not clear, it iswidely believed that a per-son or group of people bythe pseudonym Satoshi Na-kamoto, who invented bit-coins, released the techno-logy to supportcryptocurrency.
What are the use cases? Bit-coin is just one of the ap-plications for the techno-logy, whose use is beingtested across industries. Itis witnessing a lot of trac-tion within India, in sec-tors such as banking andinsurance. In most of theseindustries, players arecoming together to form aconsortium to realise thebenefits of blockchain atan industry level.
The Institute for Devel-opment and Research inBanking Technology(IDRBT), an arm of the Re-serve Bank of India (RBI),is developing a model plat-form for this technology.
What are the benefits? The
benefits of using block-chain will vary from caseto case. However, accord-ing to a Deloitte and As-socham report on the is-sue, blockchain becomes agood fit when there is a lotof data that is sharedacross multiple partieswith no trust mechanismamong the participants.
Financial players are thefirst movers to capitaliseon this technology. Non-financial players too havebeen looking for ways toleverage the opportunitiesthat blockchain offers, thereport adds, pointing outthat the front runnersamong them are retail,travel, health care, tele-communications and pub-lic sector industries.
What is happening inIndia? A high-level com-mittee is currently deliber-ating on the issue whetheror not cryptocurrenciesshould be banned in India.However, the discussionstill now are said to be insupport of encouraging theuse of blockchaintechnology.
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NEWS
FROM PAGE ONE
events are being organisedby Mr. Pitroda.
In a candid self-reflec-tion, Mr. Gandhi said theUPA governments from2004 to 2014 also could notachieve the required num-ber of jobs that the growingpopulation of India needs.
He said anxiety aroundjobs and economic insecur-ity led to the rise of politi-cians such as Mr. Modi andDonald Trump in America.
The Congress leader saidhis party’s biggest achieve-ment has been in creating avision of India that everyonein the country could share.“These days, many groups,such as tribals, some Statesthat are opposed to a partic-ular vision of India, andminorities are feeling leftout of the vision that PrimeMinister Modi is represent-ing, he said.
“We can sense it. So to me,the challenge is how to solvethe problem in a democraticenvironment,” Mr. Gandhisaid.
He did not specifically re-spond to a question on hisfuture role in the party amidspeculation that he wouldbe taking over as president,succeeding his mother So-nia Gandhi within weeks.
Mr. Gandhi’s close associ-ate Sam Pitroda, the U.S.-based development thinkerwho is credited with pion-eering India’s telecomgrowth, said he should takecharge immediately.
“He is ready, and there isnothing to wait for. My viewis that he must take chargeimmediately. We have 18months to the next generalelection, and he can make adifference,” Mr. Pitrodasaid. Mr. Gandhi’s U.S.
Rahul: Anger growingagainst Modi govt.
Mr. Sundaram sought an ad-journment till October 4when senior counsel Dushy-ant Dave, representing fourdisqualified MLAs, was onhis feet arguing the case onmerits. He said there was nopossibility of by-electionsbeing held before October 4.
Concurring, senior coun-sel C.S. Vaidyanathan, ap-pearing for the CM, saidthere was no need for in-terim orders on the issue offloor test too since his clienthad not placed any such re-quest with the Speaker. Im-mediately, senior lawyerKapil Sibal, representing Mr.Stalin, rose from his seat tostress the need for an in-terim order in the case.
Objecting to it, Mr.Sundaram accused Mr.Stalin of espousing thecause of the disqualified AI-ADMK MLAs. “This is clearcollusion,” Mr. Vaidy-anathan added, promptingMr. Dave to retort: “There isa clear collusion onlybetween you (CM) and theSpeaker.” The packed courthall, filled with a huge num-ber of lawyers, broke intolaughter on hearing this.
Mr. Dave suggested thatthe court could stay the op-eration of at least the lasttwo lines of the governmentgazette notification whichstated “that the seats heldby them (18 disqualifiedMLAs) in the Tamil Nadu Le-gislative Assembly shallthereupon fall vacant ac-
cording to the provisions ofArticle 190(3)(a) of the Con-stitution of India.”
However, Mr. Sundaramurged the court to insteadorder that the election noti-fication for those constitu-encies should not be issueduntil further orders and re-cord it as an order passedwith the consent of all theparties before the court. Healso agreed to the extensionof the interim order re-straining the Speaker fromconducting the floor test.
Mr. Dave earlier arguedthat the withdrawal of sup-port to the Chief Ministerand not the government assuch by the 18 MLAs “wouldby no stretch of imagina-tion” call for disqualificationon the ground of defectionsince they had not with-drawn from the party.
They had made a specificstatement in their letters tothe Governor that they hadnot given up their AIADMKmembership. They wereonly expressing lack of con-fidence in Mr. Palaniswami.
Mr. Dave contended thattheir letters were a verbatimreproduction of a lettergiven by 13 MLAs inKarnataka on October 6,2010 to the then Governorof that State expressing noconfidence in their ChiefMinister B.S. Yeddyurappa.The Supreme Court had in2011 struck down their dis-qualification by theKarnataka Speaker.
No �oor test, nobypoll for 18 seats: HC
sion in the minds of sometaxpayers,” M.S. Mani, Part-ner at Deloitte India, said.
“During the September 6GST Council meeting, it wasdecided that the last date forthe submission of theTRAN-1 form would be ex-tended to October 31,”Sachin Menon, NationalHead of Indirect Tax atKPMG India, said.
“But in implementation,the original deadline of 90days from the rollout of GST[September 28] was re-tained, and it was decidedthat those who meet thatdeadline will be allowed torevise their forms up to Oc-tober 31.”
Tax experts say that thereason behind so many in-eligible claims being submit-ted was the constantly chan-ging rules and deadlinesrelating to the form for theavailing of transitional credit— the TRAN-1 form — andthat the audits being con-ducted so far were causingundue panic among busi-nesses since the deadline torevise the filings is still morethan a month away.
“The multiple changesmade in respect of theTRAN-1 form both on timelines and ability to offset thetransition credits against theinitial GST liability wouldhave created some confu-
‘Chunk of GST claimsineligible for refunds’
Close to five years afterRahul Gandhi was appointedCongress vice-president inJaipur in January 2013, hewill take on the top job inthe party later this year,probably in November, inDelhi, senior party sourcestold The Hindu.
It will also be a year afterhe had told the party’s apexdecision-making body, theCongress Working Commit-tee (CWC), that he was readyand willing to be itspresident.
Longest termThis will bring to an end So-nia Gandhi’s 19-year presid-ency of the party, the
longest in the Congress’s 132-year-old history, 10 years ofwhich the party led theUnited Progressive Alliancegovernment at the Centre.
She is only the fourth wo-man — after Annie Besant,Sarojini Naidu and IndiraGandhi — to be Congresspresident.
But these sources saidthat Ms. Gandhi would notretire from politics after shestepped down as president.
She will continue to be amember of the CWC andwill, in all likelihood, bechairperson of the party’sParliamentary Board.
Elections will be held for10 of the 21 CWC seats, 10will be nominated, and the21st seat will be that of the
president. Once the trans-ition takes place, partysources said, Mr. Gandhi willcomplete appointing histeam for 2019.
Though it will see many
fresh faces, some of theolder leaders will survive.But the pattern of senior ap-pointments has already beenestablished: no general sec-retary will be in charge ofmore than one State, and he— or she — will be assisted bya few secretaries.
Complaints raisedIn the past few years, thoughMs. Gandhi had graduallybegun to hand over most ofthe organisational tasks toher son, there were oftencomplaints from thosearound Mr. Gandhi that hewas being prevented frommaking appointments or de-cisions by Ms. Gandhi’steam.
After the change of guard
takes place, the tensionbetween the older leadersand Mr. Gandhi should end,as he will have the finalword.
Organisational pollsBy the time the AICC sessiontakes place, the organisa-tional elections under waywill be completed, except inGujarat and Himachal Pra-desh, where the party is fo-cussing on preparing for thecoming elections.
Once Mr. Gandhi returnsfrom his trip to the U.S. laterthis week, he will get busy inthe poll-bound States. Hehas been interacting withstudents and others in vari-ous universities in the U.S inthe past few days.
Rahul may helm party from Nov.Sonia will continue to be CWC member and is likely to stay on as parliamentary board chairperson
Sonia Gandhi
Smita Gupta
New Delhi
India on Tuesday reaffirmedits commitment to the land-mark Paris climate changeagreement, saying it waswilling to “work above andbeyond” the pact to reducegreenhouse gas emissions.
External Affairs MinisterSushma Swaraj, during a UN‘Leadership Summit on En-vironment Pact’, said Indiahad been at the forefront ofthe debate on environmentand development.
Her remarks came amiduncertainty over the U.S.role in the deal after Presid-ent Donald Trump in Juneannounced that Americawas withdrawing from theParis deal, arguing that itgave undue advantage tocountries like India andChina.
India, which is the world’sthird largest carbon polluter,reached a pact, along withmore than 190 nations, inDecember 2015 with an aimto prevent an increase in theglobal average temperatureand keep it well below 2 de-grees Celsius.
The deal, which replacedthe 1997 Kyoto Protocol, was
ratified last October.Participating in the UN
meet hosted by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres,Ms. Swaraj said India waswilling to work “above andbeyond” the Paris agree-ment. “Understanding ourresponsibility towards Planet
Solar allianceThe summit was presided byFrench President EmmanuelMacron. India takes the cli-mate change issue very seri-
ously, Mr. Kumar said.“We also mentioned that
India and France are work-ing together on the interna-tional Solar Alliance,” hesaid.
During the day, Ms. Swarajhad a series of bilateralmeetings with leaders fromMexico, Norway and Bel-gium. She also called onMauritius Prime MinisterPravind Jugnauth.
“There were some discus-sions on the possibility of ahigh-level visit from Belgiumto India later this year,” Mr.Kumar said.
Later in the evening, Ms.Swaraj attended a receptionhosted by British Prime Min-ister Theresa May for theCommonwealth Heads ofGovernment delegations.Ms. Swaraj is scheduled tohold meetings with hercounterparts from SanMarino, Brazil, Morocco andMoldova and call on AfghanPresident Ashraf Ghani. Sheis also scheduled to particip-ate in several multilateralmeetings including that ofthe G-4 (Brazil, Germany, In-dia, and Japan) and theShanghai Cooperation Or-ganisation Foreign Ministers.
Bound by Paris deal, says IndiaWe are willing to work above and beyond the pact to reduce emissions: Sushma
Press Trust of India
United Nations
Committed to a cause: External A�airs Minister Sushma Swarajaddresses a UN General Assembly meeting on Tuesday. * AP
A recent letter by a U.S.business body to the De-fence Ministry expressing itsreluctance to transfer pro-prietary technologies couldcomplicate India’s efforts tobuild a fighter jet locallywith technology transferfrom abroad. Both the com-peting aircraft have signific-ant U.S. components.
This is a test for the ambi-tious new Strategic Partner-ship (SP) model for promot-ing domestic defencemanufacturing under whichmulti-billion dollar deals areabout to be initiated.
The letter was writtenearly last month by the US-India Business Council (US-IBC) to then Defence Minis-ter, Arun Jaitley, in whichthe companies raised the is-sue of having control overproprietary technologies.
“Without real technologytransfer, the whole idea ofSP will fall apart. We willonce again be doing assem-bling as has been happeningfor the past four decades,”one industry official said.
In the next couple ofmonths, the Air Force is ex-pected to initiate the pro-cess to select a single-enginefighter jet under the SPmodel which will be built inIndia with significant tech-nology transfer. The deal forover a 100 jets is estimatedto cost over ₹60,000 croreby present projection, butthe final order could end upat around 200 jets.
Twin contendersThe contenders in the raceare Lockheed Martin withits F-16 and Sweden’s SAABwith its Gripen. While theF-16 is a U.S. military plat-form, the Gripen is poweredby engines built by GeneralElectric of the U.S. In addi-tion, the same engines havebeen selected to power theindigenously developed Te-jas Light Combat Aircraft,123 of which have beenalready ordered by the IAF.
While SAAB has prom-ised full transfer of techno-logy, it would still requireU.S. government clearancefor transferring specificcomponents.
Plan to build �ghterjets hits air pocket
U.S. group reluctant to transfer tech
Dinakar Peri
New Delhi
Uttar Pradesh Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath and hisdeputy Keshav PrasadMaurya will resign from theirLok Sabha seats, Gorakhpurand Phulpur, in the nextcouple of days, and thesearch for candidates to beput up in these constituen-cies will begin in earnest.
Before that, the BJP willkeenly watch the State andnational executive meetingsof the Samajwadi Party inthe next couple of weeks.The former Uttar PradeshChief Minister, Akhilesh Ya-dav, is expected to be elev-ated as party chief at themeetings, and a resolutionsetting forth the political line
for the party for the 2019elections is also likely to bepassed. Future alliances maybe discussed.
BJP sources said they willtrack whether the SP and theBahujan Samaj Party (BSP)will put up a joint candidate
in Phulpur or fight thebyelection separately. “As faras we can assess, it seemsunlikely that a joint candid-ate will be put up as we don’tsee the BSP gaining anythingfrom it. It’s a seat where theScheduled Castes may not
vote with the Yadavs [theSP’s core vote bank],” asenior office-bearer of theparty said.
For Gorakhpur too, theparty will have to cast its netwide as it will be for the firsttime in many years that theleadership of the Gorakh-nath Math (headed now byMr. Adityanath) will not beavailable as a candidate. Be-fore Mr. Adityanath, his guruMahant Avaidyanath used torepresent this Lok Sabhaconstituency.
“November and Decem-ber will be crucial for theState government as that iswhen the byelections may becalled, and the local bodieselections in the State are tobe held,” the source said.
Two star U.P. seats up for grabsBJP to begin hunt for candidates for Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls
Nistula Hebbar
NEW DELHI
Yogi Adityanath with his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya. * PTI
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)chief Mayawati on Wednes-day raised questions on en-counter killings in UttarPradesh under the YogiAdityanath government.
“Blowing the trumpeton police encounters in thelast six months in the nameof crime control raisesquestions of whether onlymembers of a particularclass or community engagein crime or are history-sheeters,” Ms. Mayawatiasked.
Since March 20, a dayafter the Yogi Adityanathgovernment took oath inUP, 18 accused criminalshave been gunned down inalleged police encounters.Among them were eightMuslims, two Yadavs and atleast two Dalits. This wasperhaps the basis for Ms.Mayawati’s inquiry, al-though she did not nameany particular group.
MayawatiquestionsencountersOmar Rashid
Lucknow
Belying all expectations, theBahujan Samaj Party, theSamajwadi Party and theCongress are unlikely to joinforces for the Phulpur LokSabha byelection, as sourcesindicate that the SP is tryingto convince BSP rebel Indra-jeet Saroj, who will join itsoon, to contest the seat.
Phulpur was vacated afterKeshav Prasad Maurya, theincumbent, joined the YogiAdityanath government asDeputy Chief Minister.
Mr. Saroj, a former Minis-ter and four-time MLA, wasexpelled on August 4 after heaccused party chief May-awati of extorting moneyfrom leaders and directingevery MLA and defeated can-didates to collect ₹9 lakh to₹22 lakh from every As-sembly constituency. He lostthe 2017 election by a smallmargin.
He confirmed that hewould join the SP soon, butdenied contesting thePhulpur byelection.
He said if SP presidentAkhilesh Yadav desired, hewould contest the 2019 LokSabha election from Mohan-lalganj, adjoining Lucknow.“Why will I fight for just oneyear? If it is Akhilesh Yadav-ji’s wish, I will contest fromMohanlalganj in 2019 or theAssembly election in 2022from my traditional seat,Manjhanpur,” Mr. Saroj toldThe Hindu.
Ms. Mayawati is expectedto contest the byelectionafter her sudden resignationfrom the Rajya Sabha in July.She has not yet made it offi-cial. The Phulpur byelectionwas widely expected to bethe first experiment of ajoint Opposition unity aheadof the 2019 Lok Sabha elec-tions, and was expected toset the tone for a wider col-laboration.
In the 2017 Assembly,three parties, the SP, the BSPand the Congress got 1.5 lakhmore votes than the BJP, giv-ing them a fair chance toscore a morale booster vic-tory against BJP before thegeneral elections.
“There were definitelytalks between us and theBSP soon after the U.P. As-sembly election results (inMarch). Senior bureaucratswere brokering the talks.However, it soon fizzled out.
As of now, the communica-tion channels between thetwo parties aren’t open,” asenior SP leader said.
BSP chief selfish: rebelMr. Saroj is not too hopefulthat Ms. Mayawati will alignwith Mr. Yadav. Calling her“selfish”, he said she was un-trustworthy in any alliance.“She will ask for such highnumber of seats, say 60 outof 80, that an alliance willnot be possible,” he said.
Mr. Saroj, who comesfrom the Passi community,was the BSP’s non-Jatav face.The Passi community is thesecond largest Dalit caste inU.P. after Jatavs, the groupwhich Mayawati belongs to.
India’s first Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru represen-ted Phulpur thrice. It is alsothe seat which saw the firstjoint Opposition experimentin 1988, when former PrimeMinister V.P. Singh foughtfrom here.
Opposition unity unlikely in PhulpurSamajwadi Party trying to rope in BSP rebel Indrajeet Saroj to contest bypoll
Sobhana K. Nair
Omar Rashid
New Delhi/Lucknow
Mayawati
Former Union MinisterN.D. Tiwari was admittedto a private hospital hereon Wednesday after hesuffered a brain stroke, hisson Rohit Shekhar Tiwarisaid.
Sources at Max Hospitalin Saket said the conditionof 91-year-old Tiwari, aformer Chief Minister ofUttar Pradesh and Ut-tarakhand, was serious andhe was being kept underobservation in the Intens-ive Care Unit (ICU). A teamof doctors was attending tohim, they said.
Rohit said his father fellunconscious in the morn-ing while having tea.
N.D. Tiwari in hospitalafter strokePress Trust of India
New Delhi
The Central Bureau of In-vestigation has registered acorruption case against aretired Orissa High Courtjudge, I.M. Quddusi, andfive others for an allegedconspiracy to get “settled”in the Supreme Court thecase of a Lucknow-basedmedical institute that wasbarred from admitting stu-dents.
Apart from Mr. Quddusi,the agency has namedBhawana Pandey, B.P. Ya-dav, Palash Yadav, SudhirGiri and BiswanathAgrawala in the First In-formation Report.
Conducts searches“On Wednesday, the CBIconducted searches ateight locations in Delhi, in-cluding the premises of theretired judge in Uttar Pra-desh’s Lucknow andOdisha. In all, ₹1.91 crore incash has been seized. How-ever, rumours that CBI car-ried out searches on thepremises of a sitting OrissaHigh Court judge are base-less,” said a senior CBI offi-cial.
The case pertains toPrasad Institute of MedicalScience of Prasad Educa-tion Trust that was one ofthe 46 colleges barred bythe government from ad-mitting students for one totwo years, owing to sub-standard facilities and non-fulfilment of set criteria,the official said.
SC orderAccused B.P. Yadav andPalash were pursuing thematter in Delhi and hadchallenged the debarmentin the Supreme Court,which directed the govern-ment to consider the factsafresh. The government,after hearing the petition-ers, issued an order on Au-gust 10 debarring the col-lege from admitting freshstudents for two years.
CBI booksretired HCjudge,5 others
Special Correspondent
New Delhi
The West Bengal Commis-sion for Protection of ChildRights (WBCPCR) has fileda writ petition in the Su-preme Court against theCentre’s notification to theStates to deport all Ro-hingyas from the country.
In a release issued byWBCPCR on Wednesday, italleged that the Rohingyaswere being “systematicallytortured and killed inBurma [Myanmar].” “Inthis situation, deportingthe Rohingya children andtheir mothers staying inshelters and correctionalhomes of West Bengalmeans to throw them intothe jaws of death,” it said.
The Thane Police’s probeinto extortion accused IqbalKaskar’s alleged links withpolitical figures has identi-fied at least three corporat-ors from Thane, who arenow under the police scan-ner.
An officer said that thenumber is likely to increaseover the next few day.
Dawood’s name usedExtortion Iqbal, the youngerbrother of wanted fugitiveDawood Ibrahim Kaskar,was arrested late on Mondaynight for allegedly extortinga Thane-based builder by
using Dawood’s name. Two others, Mumtaz
Sheikh and Israr Ali Sayed,were also arrested for aidingIqbal in the racket.
“Interrogation of extor-tion accused Iqbal Kaskarand the co-accused has re-vealed that they were in reg-ular touch with at leastthree corporators fromThane. They are from differ-ent political parties, indicat-ing that Iqbal’s nexus is notlimited to just one party,” asenior officer with theThane Police Crime Branchsaid.
Many corporators inThane, the officer said, arein the real estate business.
Corporators underThane police radarGautam Mengle
Mumbai
Taking on the Opposition forits criticism over rising fuelprices, Finance MinisterArun Jaitley on Wednesdaydared the State governmentsled by the Congress and theCPI(M) to reduce VAT on pet-roleum products and forgotheir share of the Centre’srevenue from fuel levies.
“All those who are raisingtheir voices about inflationtoday — when they were inpower, inflation was at 10-11%,” Mr Jaitley said.
“Today, they are raisingtheir voices over 3.36% [in-flation]. The statutorily fixedmonetary policy target forinflation is 4%. And in themonsoon months, due to ve-getable prices, there is aspike period. And in thisspike period, it is 3.36%; so itis in keeping with traditionalIndian standards.”
Briefing the media on theCabinet decisions on Wed-nesday, he said many Stateswere talking about high pet-rol prices. But how muchwere those States ruled bythe Opposition taking intaxes on petrol?
“Two years ago, when oilcompanies used to reviewthe [petrol] prices every fort-night, and often reducedthem, on the same night asthe reduction, the govern-ments of Delhi, Haryana,Punjab, Himachal Pradeshused to increase their VAT bythat same amount,” he said.
Lion’s share“And of the Central tax re-ceipts from petrol, 42% ofthat goes to the States,” Mr.Jaitley said. “So, where theCongress and the CPI(M) arein power, they should saythey don’t want taxes frompetrol, either from the Cent-ral share or from the StateVAT.”
He said the recent hur-ricanes in the U.S. had
greatly affected refining ca-pacity, which had led to atemporary spike in global oilprices due to the demand-supply mismatch.
“That temporary spikewill be limited, as the Petro-leum Minister had pointedout,” he said.
“To run any country, thegovernment needs revenue.How will highways be built,”he asked.
Commenting that the bulkof investment in the countrycurrently is being driven bypublic investments and for-eign direct investment, hesaid the public investment
was coming from these rev-enue sources, includingcentral excise duties on pet-roleum products, and thatwhatever growth was beingexperienced was due to thatrevenue.
“To cut such investmentmeans cutting spending onsocial sector and infrastruc-ture projects,” Mr. Jaitleysaid.
Stimulus ahead?He also said that he had overthe past two days held meet-ings with other Ministers,Secretaries, and expertswithin the government on
the state of the economy.“We have taken note of allthe economic indicators thatare available,” Mr. Jaitleysaid.
“This has been a pro-act-ive government. In terms ofour own reform agenda andreacting to situations as andwhen they demand, we havebeen active. So we havetaken note of all the indica-tions that are coming. Andover the last two days, I havehad a series of discussionswith my ministerial col-leagues and officials andother experts within thegovernment.”
Let States cut fuel tax: JaitleyChallenges those ruled by Congress and CPI(M) to do so and forgo Central share of revenue
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NEWS
decision. This payment willbe made before Dasara/Pujaholidays, bringing a smile tolakhs of families ahead ofthe festive season,” thegovernment said in arelease. “The payment ofPLB would serve as anincentive, and result inmotivating a large number ofrailway employees,particularly those involvedin execution and operationsof railways, to improve their
The Union Cabinet onWednesday approved thepayment of productivity-linked bonus equivalent to78 days of wages to eligiblenon-gazetted railwayemployees (excluding RPF/RPSF personnel) for thefinancial year 2016-17.
“About 12.3 lakh non-gazetted railway employeesare likely to benefit from the
productivity and ensuresafety, speed and service forRailway customers.” Thegovernment said that thefinancial implication of thisPLB has been estimated tobe Rs. 2,245.45 crore.
“The wage calculationceiling prescribed forpayment of PLB is Rs. 7,000a month,” the release added.“The maximum amountpayable per railwayemployee is Rs. 17,951.”
Bonus for railway employeesSpecial Correspondent
NEW DELHI
17 printing pressesto be mergedNEW DELHI
The Union Cabinet on
Wednesday approved the
merger of 17 government
printing presses into five
entities, which would result
in 524.75 acres of land being
transferred to the Central
and State governments.
“The Union Cabinet has
given it for rationalisation/
merger and modernisation
of 17 Government of India
Presses (GIPs)/Units into
five Government of India
Presses (GIPs) at
Rashtrapati Bhavan, Minto
Road and Mayapuri, New
Delhi, Nashik, Maharashtra
and Temple Street, Kolkata,
West Bengal,” the Union
government said in a press
release.
Centre exiting fromthree ITDC hotelsNEW DELHI
The Union Cabinet on
Wednesday approved the
government’s exit from
three premier Indian
Tourism Development
Corporation (ITDC) hotels in
Jaipur, Mysore and Itanagar
for expected revenues of
over ₹25 crore. The Cabinet
gave its nod to the transfer
of a 51% stake in Hotel
Jaipur Ashok to the
Rajasthan government, in
Lalitha Mahal Palace Hotel
in Mysore to the Karnataka
government, and in Donyi
Polo Ashok in Itanagar to
the Arunachal Pradesh
government, Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley said on
Wednesday. The
disinvestment of ITDC’s 51%
equity in Donyi Polo Ashok,
Itanagar, in favour of the
Arunachal Pradesh
government, was approved.
Mr. Jaitely said the
valuations were at ₹14 crore
for the Jaipur property,
₹7.45 crore for Mysore, and
₹3.89 crore for Itanagar.
Union Environment MinisterHarsh Vardhan has indicatedthat a decision on releasinggenetically modified (GM)mustard commercially is un-likely anytime soon.
“There are compelling ar-guments from those whosupport it and those againstit,” he said responding to aquery from The Hindu. “Thegovernment, however, willonly take a decision basedon common good.”
Dr. Harsh Vardhan, whoholds the Science portfolio,took over the EnvironmentMinistry after the death ofAnil Dave. That makes himthe final government arbiteron allowing GM mustard tobe made available commer-cially.
GM mustard was de-veloped by scientists at Delhi
University and the projectwas part-funded by the De-partment of Biotechnology,a division of the Science Min-istry.
‘No conflict’Dr. Harsh Vardhan said therewas “no conflict” in his posi-tion as a Science and Envir-onment Minister.
In June, he said he would
have a fresh consultationwith environmental groups,scientists and farmers’ bod-ies before taking a call on therelease of GM mustard. Mul-tiple officials have since con-firmed to The Hindu that thishas not happened.
The Genetic EngineeringAppraisal Committee, India’sregulator for geneticallymodified seeds, had on May12 this year cleared GM mus-tard for environmental re-lease and use in fields.Though it was cleared by sci-entists, the Minister’s ap-proval is required.
The Centre told the Su-preme Court last week that itwas considering various as-pects and was still to take afinal call on the commercialrelease of GM mustard.
“We are looking into allreports by experts and thoseof the Rajya Sabha sub-com-
mittee before a final decisionis taken,” said Additional So-licitor-General P.S.Narasimha, representing theCentre.
A Parliamentary StandingCommittee, headed by Re-nuka Chowdhary of the Con-gress, last month said thatthere was a paucity of stud-ies on the impact of GMcrops on human health.
Should the Minister’s con-sent be obtained, GM mus-tard would be the first trans-genic food crop to beallowed for commercial cul-tivation in India.
It could pave the way forseveral other GM food cropsin the country. Dhara Mus-tard Hybrid (DMH -11), thetransgenic mustard in ques-tion, has been developed bya team of scientists at DelhiUniversity under a govern-ment-funded project.
GM mustard in for a long waitMinister says decision unlikely soon as groups make arguments for and against it
Jacob Koshy
NEW DELHI
Many activist groups areagainst GM Mustard.
Every morning, the Su-preme Court Bench led bythe Chief Justice of Indiagives leeway to lawyerswho appear in cases thatrequire an urgent hearing.Lawyers must convince thetop judge, very briefly, thatwithout an urgent hearing,the rights, even the funda-mental rights, of their cli-ents may suffer a grievousharm.
So, in keeping with theSupreme Court’s long tra-dition as a people’s court,the Chief Justices have al-lowed lawyers to “men-tion” cases for an early orout-of-turn hearing. Thecourt uses its discretion toallow or dismiss the plea.
On Wednesday, ChiefJustice of India Dipak Misrabarred senior advocatesfrom make any such urgentmention before his Bench.
The constitutionalcourts designate a lawyeras senior advocate in re-cognition of his or her su-perior professional abilit-ies.
However, a PIL petitionfiled by advocate IndiraJaising in the SupremeCourt has demanded trans-parency in the designation.
Advocates-on-record Chief Justice Misra de-clared in a crowdedcourtroom that only advoc-ates-on-record wouldhenceforth make urgentmentions.
This was aimed atproviding a level playing-field, and assuring the legalcommunity that the case inquestion, and not the ad-vocate, would guide thecourt’s discretion to grantan early hearing.
Under the SupremeCourt Rules, an advocate-on-record can plead for aparty. The Rules mandatethat only advocates-on-re-cord file an appearance oract for a party.
New rule onout-of-turnhearingsKrishnadas Rajagopal
NEW DELHI
On a day when the Interna-tional Labour Organisation(ILO) released new globalestimates of modernslavery, a group of over 40activists and academicsfrom different parts of theworld have released a 25-point signed statement ur-ging India to implement la-bour law protections moreeffectively to eliminatemodern slavery and forcedlabour in line with the Sus-tainable Development Goals(SDGs).
Noting that “dominantinternational discourses onmodern slavery do not ad-equately reflect the extremeexploitation and precariousnature of employment in In-dia today”, the statementsaid “an undue emphasison sensationalist accountsof modern slavery deny thewidespread prevalence ofeconomic exploitation,even now based on socialcustoms, cultural traditionsand hereditary obligations,and obfuscate the con-tinuum between extremeand ‘everyday’ forms ofsuch exploitation”.
“A multi-prongedstrategy that responds tothe needs of all affectedconstituencies, includingbonded labourers, contractworkers, domestic workers,intra- and inter-State as wellas international migrantworkers, and sex workers isnecessary in order toachieve SDG 8.7,” the state-ment said.
Observing that “the cur-rent targets and indicatorsproposed by the Statisticsand Programme Imple-mentation Ministry as ofMarch 8, 2017 for the real-isation of SDG 8.7 arewholly inadequate”, thestatement said “a more ro-bust labour governance sys-
tem in the form of in-creased inspections andbetter resources for the la-bour inspectorate is essen-tial for the realisation ofSDG 8.7”.
The SDG 8.7 calls for “im-mediate and effective meas-ures to eradicate forced la-bour, end modern slaveryand human trafficking, andsecure the prohibition andelimination of the worstforms of child labour, in-cluding recruitment anduse of child soldiers, and by2025-end child labour in allits forms.”
Collective bargaining The most effective and dur-able way to prevent allforms of extreme exploita-tion lies in the self-organisa-tion of workers and in theirefforts at collective bargain-ing, especially throughtrade unions and workers’collectives, the statementsaid
Expressing concern overthe proposed anti-traffick-ing law, the academics poin-ted out that “the problem oftrafficking can only be ad-dressed through a multi-fa-ceted legal and economicstrategy that strengthensthe implementation of la-bour protections such asthose guaranteed by theConstitution”.
Among the signatories tothe statement are activistsfrom organisations such asAid et Action, the Global Al-liance Against Traffic in Wo-men, Open Democracy,Self-Employed Women’s As-sociation (SEWA), and Na-tional Network of SexWorkers.
Call to wipe outmodern slaveryActivists seek plan to meet SDG 8.7
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI <> The current targets
and indicators
proposed by the
Ministry are wholly
inadequate
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announcing the Cabinet decisions on Wednesday. * R. V. MOORTHY
Indicating a firm commit-ment, India on Wednesdaydeclared that it would in-tensify work on the Iranianport of Chahbahar where itwas developing facilities aspart of regional connectivityplans.
At a press conferencehere, Shipping Minister NitinGadkari said that his prioritywas to complete the work ontime, allowing India to over-come the lack of land accessto Central Asia and Russia.
“Chahbahar is a good op-portunity for the Indianmarket. Top five companiesof India have good presencein Iran and they are having adialogue with their Iraniancounterparts. Iranian in-vestors are also going to be-nefit immensely. Our gov-ernments and investors havealready started discussion totake advantage of the pro-ject. My priority is to com-
plete the work at Chahbaharat the earliest,” Mr. Gadkarisaid.
His comments on India-Iran ties came a day afterU.S. President DonaldTrump said that the Irannuclear deal, which openedup the Iranian economy forinvestment, was “embarrass-ing”, casting a shadow on Ir-an’s emerging global statureand its international part-nerships.
Mr. Gadkari, however,
played down any threat tothe Indian project in Chah-bahar and said, “There is nodifficulty. We have finalisedthe order and I feel thatthere is no problem beforethe project.”
He said India had histor-ical ties with Iran and Afgh-anistan and after Chahba-har, the region wouldemerge as a growth enginefor Afghanistan, India andIran.
Wide access“Not just Central Asia, evenRussia can be accessed bytruck through Chahbahar,and Europe too can be ac-cessed through Russia,” hesaid.
The Minister indicatedthat the port for which Indiaand Iran signed an MoU inTehran on May 6, 2015would help India find a se-cure all-weather connectionbetween India and theEurasian continent.
Will complete Chahbaharport fast, says GadkariPlays down any threat to project over Trump stand on Iran
Kallol Bhattacherjee
NEW DELHI
Nitin Gadkari
Punjab Pradesh CongressCommittee president SunilJakhar is the party’s can-didate for the October 11by-election in the Gur-daspur Lok Sabha constitu-ency, which fell vacantafter the death of actor-turned-politician VinodKhanna in April.
“Congress president So-nia Gandhi has approvedthe candidature of SunilJakhar,” AICC general sec-retary Janardan Dwivedisaid in a statement. The ECissued the notification onSept 15. The last date for fil-ing of nominations is Sept22. Vote-counting will beheld on October 15.
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WORLD
Ghani urges dialoguewith PakistanUNITED NATIONS
Afghan President AshrafGhani appealed on Tuesdayto Pakistan to work togetherto curb extremists, seeing anopportunity as the U.S. sendsin more troops. “I call uponPakistan to engage with us ona comprehensive state tostate dialogue on peace,security and regionalcooperation leading toprosperity,” he said. AFP
ELSEWHERE
$700-billion defencebill passed by SenateWASHINGTON
The U.S. Senate hasoverwhelmingly approvedthe nearly $700-billiondefence spending bill for2018, which seeks to developa strategy for Indo-U.S.defence cooperation and asksPakistan to take actionagainst terror out�ts like theHaqqani network and theLashkar-e-Taiba. PTI
Visits to Israel earlier thisyear by Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi and U.S. Presid-ent Donald Trump were“two… truly historic” onesfor his country, Prime Minis-ter Benjamin Netanyahusaid on Tuesday, mentioningboth in the same breath inhis address to the UN Gen-eral Assembly.
“In July, Prime MinisterModi became the first IndianPrime Minister to visit Israel.You may have seen the pic-tures. We were on a beach inHadera. We rode together ina jeep outfitted with a port-able desalination device thatsome thriving Israeli entre-preneur invented.
“We took off our shoes,waded into the Mediter-ranean and drank seawaterthat had been purified onlya few minutes earlier. Weimagined the endless possib-
ilities for Israel, India, for allhumanity,” Mr. Netanyahusaid.
He said Mr. Trump’s de-cision to include Israel in hisfirst visit abroad in May wasequally historic. “PresidentTrump stood at the WesternWall, at the foot of theTemple Mount, where theJewish people’s templesstood for nearly a thousandyears. When the President
touched those ancientstones, he touched ourhearts forever,” he said.
Taking potshots at the UNand its affiliated bodies forallegedly biased views on Is-rael, he asked: “So is thereno limit to the UN’s absurdit-ies when it comes to Israel?,”adding that the world bodyhas been for years the “epi-centre of anti-Semitism”.However, with Israel’s im-proving ties with manymember nations, the UN isbeginning to change, hesaid.
Mr. Trump’s speechearlier in the day was a clearmessage in support of Israel,he added. “President Trumprightly called the nucleardeal with Iran, he called itan embarrassment. Well, Icouldn’t agree with himmore,” Mr. Netanyahu said,alleging that Iran was follow-ing North Korea’s path tonuclear weaponisation.
‘UN remained the epicentre of anti-Semitism for years’
Varghese K. George
New York
Visits by Modi, Trump weretruly historic: Netanyahu
Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu.
Bangladesh’s Prime MinisterSheikh Hasina called uponmembers states of the Or-ganisation of Islamic Cooper-ation (OIC) to take a unitedstand to resolve the Ro-hingya issue “before it is toolate” and placed a set of pro-posals.
The proposals, placed atthe OIC Contact Group at theUnited Nations headquarterson Tuesday, included a callfor an immediate end to at-rocities against RohingyaMuslims, the creation of‘safe zones’ in Myanmar forthe protection of civiliansand an immediate and un-conditional implementationof the recommendations putforward by the Kofi AnnanCommission.
Stating that that the crisishas its roots in Myanmar andhence its solution also has tobe found in Myanmar, shesaid, “We want to see an end
to the ‘ethnic cleansing’.”“It’s an unbearable hu-
man catastrophe. I myselfhave visited them andlistened to the stories oftheir grave sufferings, partic-ularly of women and chil-dren... We have continuedour diplomatic efforts to re-turn all the Rohingya to theirhomeland, but Myanmar isnot responding,” she said.
She also criticised Myan-mar for labelling Rohingya as“illegal migrants” and“Bengalis from Bangladesh”.She said historical recordsclearly suggest that the Ro-hingya have been living inRakhine for centuries.
“Myanmar is forcibly driv-ing out the RohingyaMuslims through a plannedand organised process. First,
they were excluded from thelist of recognised ethnicgroups of Myanmar. Then in1982, they were denied theirright to citizenship. Later,they were sent to IDP campsin their own country,” shesaid.
Referring to her recentvisit to the Cox’s Bazarrefugee camps, she said itwas reminiscent of 1971.“When the Pakistani forcesburned down our housesand killed our people,around 10 million peoplecrossed the border into In-dia. Now they (Rohingya) arein danger and we definitelyneed to give them shelter.”
Also, Bangladesh’s ruling14-party alliance rejected thespeech of Myanmareseleader Aung Sang Suu Kyi.The alliance’s spokespersonMohammad Nasim said onWednesday that it was unfor-tunate that Ms. Suu Kyi didnot even mention the word‘Rohingya’ in her speech.
Hasina proposes ‘safe zones’ for RohingyaCriticises Myanmar for calling them ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘Bengalis’Haroon Habib
Dhaka
No man’s land: Some Rohingya refugees living in concretepipes in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. * REUTERS
Rescue workers scrabbledthrough rubble as dawnbroke on Wednesday,searching for dozens of chil-dren feared buried beneath aMexico City school, amonghundreds of buildings des-troyed by the country’s mostlethal earthquake in ageneration.
The magnitude 7.1 quakeon Tuesday killed at least 225people, nearly half of themin the capital, 32 years to theday after a devastating 1985quake. The disaster came asMexico was still reeling froma powerful tremor that killednearly 100 people in thesouth of the country lessthan two weeks ago.
Among the twisted con-crete and steel ruin of theEnrique Rebsamen school,soldiers and firefightersfound the bodies of at least21 children and two adults,while another 30 childrenand 12 adults were missing,President Enrique Pena Ni-eto said. The school is forchildren aged 3 to 14.
School destroyedHundreds of emergencyworkers spent the nightpulling rubble from the ruinsof the grade school withtheir bare hands under theglare of floodlights. Threesurvivors were found ataround midnight as volun-teer rescue teams known as“moles” crawled deep underthe rubble.
The earthquake toppleddozens of buildings, tore gasmains and sparked firesacross the city and othertowns in central Mexico. Fall-ing rubble and billboardscrushed cars.
In a live broadcast, onenewsreader had time to say“this is not a drill”, beforeweaving his way out of thebuckling studio.
Parts of colonial-erachurches crumbled in thestate of Puebla, where the
U.S. Geological Survey(USGS) put the quake’s epi-centre some 158 km southw-est of the capital, at a depthof 51 km.
As the earth shook, Mex-ico’s Popocatepetl volcano,visible from the capital on aclear day, had a small erup-tion. On its slopes, a churchin Atzitzihuacan collapsedduring mass, killing 15people, Puebla GovernorJose Antonio Gali said.
In Rome, Pope Francistold pilgrims he was prayingfor the victims, thewounded, their families andthe rescue workers in themajority Catholic country.“In this moment of pain, Iwant to express my close-ness and prayers to all thebeloved Mexican people,” hesaid.
U.S. President DonaldTrump said in a tweet: “God
bless the people of MexicoCity. We are with you andwill be there for you.”
Residents of Mexico City, ametropolis of some 20 mil-lion people, slept in thestreets while authorities andvolunteers distributed foodand water at tented collec-tion centres.
Other volunteers, soldiersand firefighters formed hu-man chains and dug withhammers and picks to finddust-covered survivors anddead bodies in the remainsof apartment buildings,schools and a factory.
Some volunteers in Mex-ico City expressed frustra-tion at the disorganisationamong military and civilianemergency services, whichcompeted over who wouldlead the rescue efforts.
With power out in muchof the city, the work was car-
ried out with flashlights andgenerators. Rescue workersrequested silence as theylistened for signs of life.
Volunteers arrivedthroughout the night, follow-ing calls from the civil pro-tection agency, the Red Crossand firefighters.
11 aftershocksWhile the USGS said onTuesday that 11 aftershockswere registered following theinitial quake at aroundlunchtime on Tuesday, themost powerful measuring4.9. The temblers were lessfrequent and smaller thanthose after the earthquake insouthern Mexico this month.
The quake killed 86people in the capital by earlyWednesday morning, ac-cording to Civil Protectionchief Luis Felipe Puente,fewer than he had estimated
earlier. In Morelos State, justto the south, 71 people died,with hundreds of homes des-troyed. In Puebla at least 43died.
Another 17 people werereported killed in the Statesof Mexico, Guerrero andOaxaca. The Governor ofMorelos State declared 5days of mourning.
As many as 4.6 millionhomes, businesses and otherfacilities lost electricity, ac-cording to national powercompany Comisiūn Federalde Electricidad, including40% of homes in MexicoCity.
“We’ve re-established(power) to 90% of the areasaffected by the earthquake,”Jaime Hernandez, chief exec-utive officer of national elec-tricity company CFE, toldbroadcaster Televisa earlyWednesday morning.
Powerful Mexican quake kills 225The disaster came as the country was reeling from another high-intensity quake two weeks ago
Season of nature’s discontent: Rescuers, �re�ghters, policemen, soldiers and volunteers remove debris from a �attenedbuilding in Mexico City as they search for survivors. * AFP
Reuters
Mexico City
Even as sections within SriLanka criticise the govern-ment for its apparentlydelayed efforts on post-warreconciliation, PresidentMaithripala Sirisena hassought the internationalcommunity’s support for a“slow and successful”journey.
Addressing the 72nd ses-sion of the UN General As-sembly in New York onTuesday, Mr. Sirisena saidhaste would not yield goodresults and stated that a slowand steady path is the mostsuitable one to restore reli-gious and communal har-mony. “We all have heardthat speedy journey is a dan-gerous journey. Therefore, Ibelieve that you will under-stand the complex nature ofissues that hinder the in-stant and radical solutionsthat some impatient groupsare asking for,” he said.
While critics are frus-trated with the govern-ment’s pace on reconcili-ation and accountability, Mr.
Sirisena is also facing pres-sure from his political rivalsopposed to such efforts.
Allegations of abuseMr. Sirisena said a huge for-eign debt and allegations ofrights abuses during warwere two main challengesthat his government faced.In addition to evolving aneconomic plan to service themassive outstanding debt,the government is “payingserious attention” to the al-legations and is working onsolutions as a matter of pri-ority, he told the UNGA.
He also urged the interna-tional community to sup-
port his government’s “mod-erate but steady path” tofind solutions.
Mr. Sirisena’s appeal to in-ternational actors for moretime comes weeks after theUN High Commissioner forHuman Rights Zeid Ra’ad AlHussein urged the govern-ment to act on its commit-ment to establish a cleartimeline and benchmarksfor implementation. InMarch, the UN HumanRights Council had given SriLanka a two-year extensionof deadline to fulfil its assur-ances on post-warreconciliation.
While countries, includ-ing the U.S., have commen-ded the Sri Lankan govern-ment for its efforts so far,human rights organisationsremain critical of its pace.“Setting up various recon-ciliation offices and talkingof progress is not the sameas implementing the 2015[Geneva] resolution,” Hu-man Rights Watch observedrecently, pointing to “scantprogress” on the UNresolution.
Says a slow, gradual process process will be fruitful
Meera Srinivasan
Colombo
Sirisena seeks support for a‘moderate’ reconciliation
Sri Lanka’s PresidentMaithripala Sirisena atthe UNGA. * REUTERS
Iran vowed on Wednesdaynot to be the first nation toviolate the 2015 Iran nucleardeal. U.S. President DonaldTrump said he had made uphis mind whether to aban-don the accord but declinedto disclose his decision.
Speaking at the UN Gen-eral Assembly of world lead-ers, Iranian President Has-san Rouhani responded
forcefully to Mr. Trump’spugnacious speech on Tues-day by saying Iran would notbe pushed around by a relat-ive newcomer to the worldstage. But he also said Irandesired to preserve its ac-cord with six world powers.
“I declare before you thatthe Islamic Republic of Iranwill not be the first countryto violate the agreement,”Mr. Rouhani said, addingthat Iran would respond “de-
cisively and resolutely” to aviolation by any party.
“It will be a great pity ifthis agreement were to bedestroyed by ‘rogue’ new-comers to the world of polit-ics,” he said in a dig at Mr.Trump, who had called Irana “rogue” state. On Wednes-day, U.S. envoy to the UNNikki Haley said Mr. Trump’sspeech signalled his unhap-piness but not a decision toabandon the accord.
We won’t be the �rst to violatethe nuclear pact, says Rouhani‘However, Iran would respond decisively to any violation’
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SBI Life Insurance Com-pany has allotted 3.18 croreequity shares aggregatingto ₹2,226 crore as part ofthe anchor allocation. Theshares were allotted at theupper end of the priceband at ₹700.
The anchor allocationsaw participation of a totalof 69 investors that in-cluded HDFC Mutual Fund,Canada Pension Plan In-vestment Board, ICICIPrudential Mutual Fund,Government of Singapore,Abu Dhabi Investment Au-thority, Wells Fargo Emer-ging Markets Equity Fund,Aranda Investments Pte,Reliance Mutual Fund,Birla Sun Life Mutual Fundand Kuwait Investment Au-thority Fund among oth-ers. A total of 14 mutualfunds applied through 49schemes for the anchorportion.
Retail portionMeanwhile, the public is-sue of SBI Life, whichopened on Wednesday,was subscribed 0.9 timeson the first day with bidsreceived for 83.66 lakhshares against 8.82 croreshares on offer in the priceband of ₹685 to ₹700 pershare. The IPO will closefor subscription on Friday.
At the upper end of theprice band, the issue willmop up ₹8,400 crore. Postthe public issue, the pro-moter stake will comedown to 84.1% from thecurrent 96.1%. Since 2010,SBI Life has been the coun-try's largest private life in-surer, in new businesspremium generated eachfiscal. According to HDFCSecurities, in fiscal 2016-17,the company had a marketshare of individual ratedpremium of 20.69% amongprivate life insurers and11.16% of the entire life in-surance industry in India.
SBI Life allots
shares to
69 anchor
investors
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
MUMBAI
Terming telecom regulatorTRAI’s decision to cut mo-bile termination charges by57% “retrograde”, leadingtelecom operators BhartiAirtel and Vodafone onWednesday said the movewould benefit just one oper-ator and would worsen thefinancial health of thealready stressed industry.
“We are extremely disap-pointed with the latest regu-lation on the IUC, especiallyat a time when the industryis facing severe financialstress,” the country’s largesttelecom services providerBharti Airtel said in astatement.
Bharti added that the in-terconnect usage charges(IUC) rate of 6 paise fixed byTRAI had “been arrived at ina completely non-transpar-ent fashion and benefitsonly one operator which en-joys a huge traffic asym-metry in its favour.” Thesharp drop in the rate wouldonly help transfer part of“its [the beneficiary operat-or’s] cost to other operators,thereby further worseningthe financial health of theindustry.”
Commenting on the TRAImove, Vodafone said it wasconsidering its options.
“This is yet another retro-grade regulatory measurethat will significantly benefitthe new entrant alone whileadversely affecting the rest
of the industry as a whole,”it said in a statement. Unlessmitigated, the decisionwould have serious con-sequences for investment inrural coverage, undermin-ing the government’s visionof Digital India, Vodafoneadded.
Separately, Reliance Jiosaid, “There is no questionof any advantage from thenew IUC regulation to Jio asit has already passed on allthe benefits to customers.”
‘Level playing field’Reliance Communicationsalso welcomed the move.
“With voice calling be-coming free, TRAI’s movewill provide a level playingfield,” it said in a statement.
While the top operatorshad pitched for doublingmobile termination charges(payable by the operatorwhose subscriber makes acall to the operator whosesubscriber receives the call)“to recover their cost,” thenewer rival had suggestedzero charges and shifting tothe bill-and-keep regime.
Asked about the impactthe move may have on thestressed telecom sector, Fin-ance Minister Arun Jaitleysaid, “I have not had the be-nefit of reading the full reas-oning, so it wouldn’t be ap-propriate for me tocomment... It is for the con-cerned players to explorewhatever remedies arethere for them.”
‘Cutting terminationcharge retrograde step’
It bene�ts just one operator, say telcos
Ringing in unison: Top operators had pitched for doublingthe mobile termination charge to recover costs. * REUTERS
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IN BRIEF
Car sales in India to grow9% in 2017: Moody’s NEW DELHI
Car sales in India are
expected to grow by 9% this
year riding on the back of the
goods and services tax (GST)
regime as well as new
product roll-out, Moody’s
Investors Service said on
Wednesday. “Indian car sales
will remain robust, growing
9% this year and 7% in 2018,
supported by the impact of
GST as well as new model
launches,” Moody’s said in a
global report. PTI
Final hearing of India taxrow in Aug. 2018: Cairn NEW DELHI
British oil explorer Cairn
Energy on Wednesday said
the �nal hearing in the
international arbitration it
has initiated against a
₹10,247 crore retrospective
tax demand raised by India
had been pushed back by
about six months to August
2018. Cairn initiated
arbitration against the Centre
— which used a new law to
slap the demand — on a
decade-old internal
reorganisation of the
company’s India unit. PTI
Tata Steel is set to forgeahead with a long-awaitedmerger of its European as-sets with Germany’sThyssenkrupp AG after thefirms signed a memorandumof understanding to createan equal joint venture.
The move — the path forwhich had been eased afterTata Steel reached agree-ment with U.K. authorities toreduce its U.K. pensionscheme liabilities — endsmonths of uncertainty overthe fate of a potential trans-action and underlines thesignificance of the develop-ment to the two companiesas they chart the difficult wa-ters of Europe’s steel market,including overcapacity andcheap competition fromabroad. The merger, if it goesthrough, would createEurope’s largest steel com-pany after top-ranked Ar-celorMittal.
“Today’s announcementmarks the latest step in build-ing a future for Tata Steel’sactivities in Europe which issustainable in every sense,”Tata Steel Europe ChairmanAndrew Robb said on Wed-nesday, following the signingof the MoU for the 50:50 ven-ture. To be named Thyssenk-rupp Tata Steel, the mergedentity would annually supplyabout 21 million tonnes offlat steel productsworldwide.
Non-cash transactionThe company — created bythe non-cash transaction —would generate pro formasales of about €15 billion ayear, with about 48,000 em-ployees across 34 locations.The companies estimate themerger would generate up to€600 million in synergies ayear through the integrationof research and develop-ment, and commercial func-tions, and optimisation of
procurement and logistics.Tata Steel and Thyssenk-
rupp anticipate concludingthe deal in 2018, and closingit by the end of that year, fol-lowing a period where fur-
ther detailed negotiationstake place on the shape ofthe final agreement. Thetransaction would also besubject to shareholders’ ap-proval and the scrutiny of
competition authorities. Production at the joint
venture would be subject toreview in 2020, generatingfurther synergies, whichwould be determined by anumber of currently inde-terminable factors such asBrexit and the regulatory en-vironment at the time.
Job reductionsFor now, up to 2,000 jobs inadministration and 2,000jobs in production are expec-ted to be cut as a result of thedeal — split equally betweenthe two companies — thoughThyssenkrupp insisted thatthe cuts would have been ne-cessary even without thedeal, and could have beenworse.
“By combining our steelactivities the burden for eachpartner are lower than theywould have been on a stan-dalone basis,” said HeinrichHiesinger, CEO of ThyssenK-rupp, pointing to the pres-
sures on the industry from“structural overcapacity insupply and constantly highimport pressure.”
He added that the com-panies had a complementaryfit: with Thyssenkrupp’sstrength in working with ori-ginal equipment manufactur-ers and Tata Steel’s in itswork with industrial custom-ers, while restructuring car-ried out by both had createdsome of the most efficient fa-cilities in Europe.
Cautious welcomeBritain’s Unite, GMB andCommunity Unions cau-tiously welcomed the MoU.In a joint statement, theysaid the deal delivered “in-dustrial logic… as always, thedevil will be in the detail andwe are seeking further assur-ances on jobs, investmentand future production acrossthe UK operations.” The uni-ons said they were seekingan urgent meeting with Tata
Steel to ensure Thyssenk-rupp’s pension liabilitieswould be ring fenced.
European steel makershave been opting for consol-idation to combat the persist-ent challenges facing the in-dustry includingovercapacity and pricing,particularly amid competi-tion from China and beyond.Earlier this year, an ArcelorMittal-led consortium bid forIlva, a large Italian national-ised steel plant.
The development marks aturnaround from last Marchwhen Tata Steel announcedit was looking for a buyer forits U.K. steel business.Months later the companyconfirmed it was in talks withThyssenkrupp over the mer-ger of assets. In August, TataSteel U.K. got the go ahead toseparate its £15 billion pen-sion scheme from the busi-ness, in a deal that cost thecompany £550 million and a33% equity stake.
Non-cash transaction would create Europe’s No. 2 steelmaker generating pro forma sales of about €15 billion a year with some 48,000 employees
Vidya Ram
London
Forging ahead: The merged entity would supply about 21million tonnes of �at steel products worldwide annually. * AP
Tata Steel set for Europe venture with Thyssenkrupp
The U.S. Food and Drug Ad-ministration (USFDA) hasmade six observations afteran inspection of Divi’sLaboratories’ Unit-2 inVisakhapatnam.
On completion of the in-spection, which the U.S. reg-ulator had conductedbetween September 11 and19, the pharma company re-ceived a Form 483 citing sixobservations.
The observations are“procedural and the com-pany will be responding tothese within the stipulatedtime,” Divi’s Laboratoriessaid in a filing to the stockexchanges on Wednesday.
This inspection was for“full cGMP and verificationof all corrective actions pro-posed against the previousinspection observations. Di-vi’s Laboratories announcesthat all previous observa-tions have been confirmedas completed and resolved,”the company said.
The USFDA had issued animport alert, under clauses99-32 and 66-40, in Marchthis year and a warning let-ter in May for the Vi-sakhapatnam facility. In July,the company had said theregulator had informed itthat the import alert, underclauses 99-32, would be lif-ted. Divi’s shares rose 9.13%to ₹942.75 on Wednesday.
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.(M&M) has signed a definit-ive agreement with Turkey’sArmagan family for acquir-ing 100% of Erkunt TraktorSanayii A.S., the fourth-largest tractor manufacturerin Turkey.
M&M, the global tractorindustry’s number onemaker by volume and fifth-largest in terms of revenue,also agreed to acquire 80%-100% equity in ErkuntSanayii A.S, a foundry unitbelonging to the same Turk-ish group.
While the tractor firm hasan enterprise value of $76million (₹479 crore), thefoundry unit’s value hasbeen estimated at $51 million
(₹321 crore). The final trans-action value would be estim-ated at the close of the deal,expected in about two and
half months.The Turkish companies
have some debt which wouldcontinue and would be re-
paid by them, top M&M offi-cials said. M&M would fundthe acquisition through in-ternal accruals, they added.
The deal, which followsthe Hisarlar acquisitionearlier this year in Turkey,would help M&M expand itsfarm equipment business inthat country, a strategic mar-ket for farm equipment glob-ally, the firm said.
‘Eyes exports’Erkunt would export tractorsto the neighbouring marketsof West Asia, CIS andEurope. The Ankara-basedcompany, which currentlyhas a 6% share of Turkey’s$1.7 billion tractor market, isexpected to gain businessafter the acquisition, M&Mofficials said.
“Our strategy is to global-ise aggressively and also ex-pand our portfolio to includevarious new categories oftractors and farm ma-chinery,” Pawan Goenka,MD, M&M, said while an-nouncing the deal. This isthe company’s fifth acquisi-tion in the farm equipmentspace. “Turkey is a very im-portant market in our global-isation journey and we wishto participate in its entireagri mechanisation land-scape,” he said.
M&M will retain Erkunt’sbrand. The Turkish firm,which sold 4,700 tractorsworth $88 million last year,has 353 employees. Thefoundry, a service providerfrom castings to machining,had revenue of $47 million.
M&M to buy Turkey’s Erkunt Traktor, foundry Mahindra eyes farm mechanisation market in the European nation, where tractor sales total $1.7 bn
Lalatendu Mishra
MUMBAI
Spreading tentacles: Erkunt will export tractors toneighbouring markets of West Asia, CIS and Europe.
Hindustan Coca-Cola Bever-ages, the largest bottlingpartner of the Atlanta-basedCoca-Cola Company, plansto open its ₹450-crore facil-ity in Sanand in Gujarat byJanuary as it tests more than20 new products made loc-ally in a bid to make Indiaamong its top three globalmarkets, Christina Ruggiero,CEO, said on Wednesday.
“We will be kicking offshortly our next new green-field facility in Sanand in Gu-jarat in the last week ofDecember or first week ofJanuary,” Ms. Ruggiero toldcorrespondents inBengaluru, where its corpor-ate headquarters is situated.“The phase I of the project isestimated to cost about ₹450crore. It will have lots ofgreen initiatives, automationand robotics involved.”
It will have multiple bot-tling lines for carbonatedbeverages such as Coca-Cola,Sprite, Fanta, Limca,Thumbs Up, juices and juice-
based drinks like MinuteMaid, Mazza, and, bottledwater and Kinley soda.
According to EuromonitorInternational, increasinghealth awareness amongconsumers and their prefer-ence for health and wellnessproducts are the likely reas-ons for strong growth expec-ted in juices. Carbonates,both cola and non-cola car-bonates, were likely to see
sustained slowdowns involume growth rates, ac-cording to an April report.
India’s food industry is es-timated at ₹14,500 crore.The non-alcoholic beveragesmarket is worth about $5 bil-lion, according to IndianBeverages Association. Thehealth beverages market is$300 million and is the fast-est growing. The fruit drinksmarket is ₹6,000 crore.
“Aerated and carbonatesare actually growing,” Ms.Ruggiero said. “It is an inter-esting thing because aeratedand carbonated from an in-dustry standpoint is grow-ing. It has grown about 5% inIndia. It accounts for 60-65%of our business. Our aspira-tion is to have double-digitgrowth. Prior to my comingin July, we were having asingle-digit growth. AfterJuly, we are seeing double di-git growth.”
‘Local products work’“In India, local works. Differ-ent customers need differentproducts. Hopefully, thenext will be mosambi (sweetlime). Juice industry in Indiais seeing explosive growth asmore Indians are switchingfrom fresh to packaged juice.More Indians are enteringthe non-alcoholic, ready-to-drink segment,”she said.“We will be pushing the ex-isting factories to see how tomake new juices, carbon-ated drinks and newproducts.”
“We currently have a pilotproject running inBengaluru called PerfectFruit. It is just 25 machinesand we are doing a test tosee how it goes. Local fruitswe buy to make our juices goin to a machine and is turnedinto frozen fruit. No sugarsbut just the fruit.”
If it works, the companywill introduce a combinationof local fruits in other mar-kets, she said. “I have apipeline or ‘fantasy list’ of220 products across all re-gions and flavours. Only asmall percentage of it maywork. Typically, 5% of theseideas may work,” Ms. Rug-giero said.
“Out of these 220products already 20 are invarious stages...they are indifferent parts of India.” Partof the reason why Coca-Coladid not succeed much in In-dia was that it did not havethe right product at the rightprice point, she said. “Firsthalf of the financial year westruggled,” Ms. Ruggiero saidwithout elaborating.
Hindustan Coca-Cola testing 20 local products ₹450 crore facility in Sanand to open by end of year; juice industry seeing explosive growth, says CEO
Special Correspondent
BIDADI, Bengaluru
Ideas abound: Christina Ruggiero has a ‘fantasy list’ of 220products across all regions and �avours. * K. MURALI KUMAR
Following a slump in real es-tate business, realty majorOlympia Group has startedmonetising some of its ex-cess assets in Chennai to de-velop ecosystems to pro-mote occupancy ofresidential homes, a top ex-ecutive said.
“We are building threeschools, co-living apart-ments, luxury and high-endvillas,” said Ajit Kumar Chor-dia, managing director,Olympia Group. “Buildingschools in residential areaswill attract new admissions,which, in turn, will increaseour occupancy rate. We aretrying to get some rentalfrom these properties,which we were unable tosell.” Admitting that therewas no land bank or newproject, he said: “We had ac-quired these lands some 10years ago. Two new IT parksin Guindy (Tecknos and Na-
tional Tower) will be readyby October 2017 and March2018 respectively. The totalconstructed area is about 2lakh sq.ft and the invest-ment is about ₹82 crore.”
Luxury projectsMr. Chordia, also the presid-ent of CREDAI Tamil Nadu,said the real estate markethad been flat for 12 months.But there had been somemoments in the luxury pro-jects in the last six months,post demonetisation. “Gen-
eral buyers are coming back.Expensive houses areselling, while sale ofpremium apartments isstatic. There is a marginal in-crease in prices of raw ma-terials due to implementa-tion of GST. It might be a 6%increase for customers,” hesaid. As per the proposedplan, Olympia Group will beinvesting close to ₹90 croreon co-living apartments, ₹50crore for villas, ₹36 crore onindustrial warehouse and₹100 crore for three schools,including land. This calls foran investment of ₹350 crore,which will be met mainlythrough bank finance.
“Last year, we earned arental revenue of ₹97 crorefrom Olympia Tech Park andthis year, it should touch₹100 crore. Our goal is todouble it by March 2022. Weexpect the rentals from newsegments such as schools,and co-living to be about ₹22crore,” he said.
Olympia Group startsmonetising excess assetsExpects to double rental revenue to ₹200 crore by 2022N. Anand
CHENNAI
Ajit Kumar Chordia
Notwithstanding the loss ofexports on account of theprolonged closure of theDarjeeling tea estates, India’stea exports have increased4.6% by volume in the firstseven months of 2017, statist-ics showed.
Interestingly, two coun-tries where Indian teas mademajor inroads were Chinaand Sri Lanka — among In-dia’s top rivals in the globaltea arena. Exports increased150% to the island nationand by 71% to China accord-ing to Tea Board statistics.“We hope to maintain thetrend,” S. Soundararajan,secretary at the Board toldThe Hindu.
Total exports stood at 121.1million kg in January-July2017, against 115.8 million kga year earlier. India exported227 million kg last year.
The more than 90-dayclosure of the Darjeeling tea
industry by the Gorkha Jan-mukti Morcha, which is de-manding a separate state,has harmed the interests ofthe premium and specialityteas but has not hamperedIndia’s overall tea exports,either by volume or byvalue.
Darjeeling producesabout 8 million kg annually,of which about 6 million kg
is exported. Productionbetween January and June,in the 87 tea estates in Dar-jeeling halved from 4.1 mil-lion kg a year earlier to 2.1million kg. No export figuresare available, but exportersare facing order cancella-tions, enquiries revealed.
Three countries haveplayed a prominent role inthe current year’s export
scenario — China, Sri Lankaand Egypt. An erstwhilegreen-tea consumer and pro-ducer, China has, of late,taken to black tea produc-tion, of which there is in-creased demand from theyouth segment. Sri Lankahas increased imports of In-dian tea for blending, it waslearnt.
Egypt’s imports riseEgypt, a traditional marketfor Indian teas has almostdoubled its imports in theperiod. India has also seen arise in exports to Ukraineand Kazakhstan. Taken withRussia, the CIS region is In-dia’s single-largest block fortea exports.
The Tea Board has facilit-ated several international ex-positions and delegationsthis year. While there was adelegation to Moscow thismonth, there were two del-egations to the U.S. and toChile in June.
Jan.-July tea export volumes rise 4.6% Imports by competitors Sri Lanka and China increase; Darjeeling impact muted
Indrani Dutta
KOLKATA
Tasting success: Egypt, a traditional market for Indian teashas almost doubled its imports in the period.
State-owned Oil and Nat-ural Gas Corp. (ONGC) hasmade a significant oil dis-covery to the west of itsprime Mumbai High fieldsin the Arabian sea, asenior official said onWednesday.
The discovery in thewell WO-24-3 is estimatedto hold an in-place reserveof about 20 milliontonnes, he said. MumbaiHigh, India’s biggest oilfield, currently produces205,000 barrels of oil perday ( just over 10 milliontonnes per annum) andthe new find would add tothat production in lessthan two years time.
“In all, nine objects orzones were tested and all
of them were found to behydrocarbon bearing. Thelast object tested flowed3,300 barrels of oil,” hesaid.
Further appraisal ONGC is carrying out a fur-ther appraisal of the dis-covery and has intimatedupstream regulator Direct-orate General ofHydrocarbons.
“This is a mid-sized dis-covery but a significantone,” the official said.
The new find, whichcomes almost 50 yearsafter ONGC began produc-tion in Mumbai High, willhelp the company main-tain production levelsfrom the basin for a longertime than currentlyestimated.
ONGC discovers oil in Arabian sea Find estimated at 20 million tonnes
Press Trust of India
New Delhi Peer-to-peer lending (P2P)platforms will be treated asnon-banking financial com-panies (NBFCs) and thusregulated by the RBI, thecentral bank said.
P2P lending is a form ofcrowd-funding used to raiseloans which are paid backwith interest. It can bedefined as the use of an on-line platform that matcheslenders with borrowers inorder to provide unsecuredloans.
“The Reserve Bank of In-dia...specifies a non-bank-ing institution that carrieson ‘the business of a peer topeer lending platform’ to bean NBFC,” the RBI said in anotification.
As per the RBI, the busi-ness of a P2P lending plat-form is defined as the ser-
vice of loan facilitation, viaonline medium or other-wise, to “the participantswho have entered into an ar-rangement with that plat-form to lend on it or to availof loan facilitation servicesprovided by it.”
The RBI had floated aconsultation paper in April2016 on such lendingplatforms.
‘Peer-to-peer lendingplatforms are NBFCs’
RBI to regulate P2Ps henceforth
Press Trust of India
New Delhi
RBI had �oated aconsultation paper in 2016on such lending platforms.
No GST on �rms cedingfoodgrain brand claims NEW DELHI
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SPORT
‘Raging Bull’ Jake LaMottapasses away MIAMI
Jake LaMotta, the brutish
former middleweight
champion whose life in and
out of the ring was depicted
in the film Raging Bull,for
which Robert DeNiro won an
Oscar, has died, his fiancee
said on Wednesday. He was
95. The ‘Bronx Bull’ compiled
an 83-19-4 record with 30
KOs in a career stretching
from 1941 to 1954. AGENCIES
Kraigg Brathwaite’s actioncleared by ICCDUBAI
The International Cricket
Council (ICC) on Wednesday
cleared the bowling action of
West Indies off- spinner
Kraigg Brathwaite, who had
been reported last month. An
independent assessment of
Brathwaite’s bowling action
was performed at the
Loughborough testing centre
in England on August 31. PTI
India vs Australia: 2nd ODI,STAR Sports 1 (SD & HD), 1.30p.m.England vs West Indies:2nd ODI, SS Select 2 (SD &HD), 5 p.m.Premier Futsal: Sony TEN 1,3 (SD & HD), 7.30 p.m. & 9p.m.
TV PICKS
IN BRIEF
West Indies: 204 for nine wkts.in 42 overs.England: J. Bairstow (not out)100, A. Hales c Lewis b Taylor19, J. Root b Williams 54, E.Morgan c Hope b Williams 10,B. Stokes (not out) 23; Extras(w-4) 4; Total (for three wkts.in 30.5 overs): 210.Fall of wickets: 1-31, 2-156,3-175.
West Indies bowling: Taylor 7-0-46-1, Holder 3-0-18-0, Wil-liams 6-0-50-2, Nurse 8.5-0-48-0, Bishoo 6-0-48-0.
Toss: West Indies
Man-of-the-Match: JonnyBairstow
(England won by seven wick-ets; leads five-match series1-0).
SCOREBOARD ENGLAND VS WEST INDIES, 1ST ODI
It appears that not all in theBoard of Control for Cricketin India (BCCI) areconvinced about the acting-president C.K. Khannaestablishing an office inNew Delhi.
On Monday, the BCCICFO’s office, based at theCricket Centre here, sent amail to acting-secretaryAmitabh Choudharyseeking his approval forKhanna’s office expensesfor the months of June, Julyand August. The amount is₹11,25,745.
Khanna’s office hasclaimed an expense of₹1,11,806 for June,₹5,54,840 for July and
₹4,59,099 for August andthe particular mail is alsoaddressed to the BCCI CEORahul Johri.
Expenses not approvedThe Ranchi-basedChoudhary has notapproved the expenses, sofar. Instead, in his replyaddressed to the BCCI CFORangnekar, Johri, his office-bearer colleagues includingKhanna and AnirudhChaudhry (treasurer), theacting-secretary hasremarked: “What purposeis the office serving? Let usdo an audit.”
The BCCI office in Delhiwas used by formerpresident Anurag Thakur.The office was closed once
the Supreme Courtremoved him by its order ofJanuary 2, 2017.
“Most of the BCCIagreements and contractswere signed in Delhi then.But since the BCCI’s headoffice is in Mumbai, wehave to pay taxes and leviesto the MaharashtraGovernment.
“Now all agreements aresigned in Mumbai. Sowhat’s the need for anoffice in Delhi,” asked aBCCI official, keenlywatching all action relatedto BCCI’s responses to theLodha Committeerecommendations.
Johri, though, has put aremark: “Approved asrecommended.”
BCCI secretary seeks audit in president’s Delhi o�ce G. Viswanath
Mumbai
Overcast skies and persistentrain put paid to the secondday’s play in the DuleepTrophy match at the GreenPark here. India Green wasto resume at 100 for three inreply to India Blue’s first in-nings total of 177.
As the 40-strong groundstaff, who rarely get credit,toiled vainly to get the gamegoing, the players watchedthe action from the dressingroom.
A tweet from India Greencaptain Parthiv Patel putthings in perspective.
“U have to give it to thegroundsmen here in Kanpur-..they are trying their bestbut unfortunately one can’tfight with nature,” saidParthiv in a sporting tweet.
Loss of play hurts histeam’s chances of qualifying
for the final because only avictory can take India Greenpast India Blue, which hasthree points to its creditfrom the draw against finalistIndia Red.
Led by Shiv Kumar andhis trusted colleagues RaviShukla, Haji Asad and Bhu-pendra Singh Chauhan, theground staff galvanised itselfinto drying the field but
bowed to nature. “We triedour best,” said Shiv Kumar.“Our aim first was to restrictwater logging and ensurethat the field can be fit toplay tomorrow if it doesn’train further.”
The ground-staff haddone a wonderful job a dayahead of the match onMonday when it had rainedfor a much longer period.Thanks to their work therewas a full day’s play possibleon Tuesday.
With better drainage facil-ity, the Green Park couldhave seen some play onWednesday.
India Blue skipper SureshRaina had slammed the localassociation for its tardy re-sponse to a similar situationin the last match. But evenhe would have appreciatedthe hard working groundstaff this afternoon.
Duleep Trophy — second day washed out Ground sta� toil in vain to get the match started
Vijay Lokapally
KANPUR
The ground sta� at the Green Park, from left, Ravi Shukla, HajiAsad, Bhupendra Singh Chauhan and Shiv Kumar, came in forpraise from India Green captain Parthiv Patel. * VIJAY LOKAPALLY
The five-time World cham-pion Australia seemed to becaught in a curious bind as itprepared to meet host Indiain the second ODI of the bi-lateral series, at Eden Gar-dens on Thursday.
Capricious weather condi-tions, more than a supercili-ous opposition, appeared tobe keeping the visitor preoc-cupied ahead of the match asrain caused persistent inter-ruptions to its schedule eversince it arrived here onMonday. There is more fore-cast on match day.
The Australians, definitelyone of the most professionalsides in the sport, betrayed ahint of resentment havinghad to miss the opportunityto warm up on the Eden turfwhich has remained undercover for three successivedays.
Little consolationThey needed some practiceto reorganise themselves fora winning return against a
strong Indian side, but twodays of restricted training atthe indoor facility hardlyoffered the visitors enoughconsolation.
The Australian captainSteve Smith had a view of thepitch once the groundsmenbriefly lifted the covers at thecentre and was evidentlymystified at the discovery ofa decent grass cover on it.
“The wicket had a little bitof grass on it; probably morethan I have seen in India for awhile,” Smith said.
The Australian captainmay have been enthused atthe prospect of beingprovided a grassy strip andthe the advantage it will offerto his pacers like Pat Cum-mins and Nathan Coulter-Nile.
“They might cut it (grass)in the morning (of thematch). I will have anotherlook tomorrow and see howthe weather is doing; andalso, if there is any change inthe wicket,” said Smith whohad every reason to becircumspect.
The depth in India’s bat-ting order and the good formof its two wrist spinners —left-armer Kuldeep Yadavand leg-spinner YuzvendraChahal — combined well tohand Australia a defeat in therain-curtailed match inChennai.
Topic of strategyThe wrist spin has alreadybecome a topic of strategicimportance to the visitors asa few of their batsmen arefinding it difficult to negoti-ate. On of them is DavidWarner who has repeatedlybecome a victim to the guileof Kuldeep.
“I guess he takes pressurewhile batting against me andI enjoy bowling to him. I al-ways feel that I would gethim out and set my plans ac-cordingly,” said Kuldeep whohas got the gutsy opener outrepeatedly.
Backed by good form anda streak of successful outings(the last seven ODIs), Indiadefinitely has the confidenceon its side.
The resilience in the teamwas to the fore as it went onto construct a big total evenafter losing five wickets for87 in the first ODI throughthe experienced M.S. Dhoniand mercurial HardikPandya.
It now remains to be seenhow India continues its goodrun at this venue which hadseen the host lose to Englandin January this year.
Australia: Steve Smith (capt.),Ashton Agar, Hilton Cartwright,Nathan Coulter-Nile, Pat Cum-mins, James Faulkner, TravisHead, Glenn Maxwell, MarcusStoinis, Matthew Wade (wk),David Warner, Adam Zampa andPeter Handscomb.
Match starts at 1.30 p.m.
Time Aussies repaired faultlines and regrouped India will look to keep its A-game going and extend the advantage; weather a big part of the equation againAmitabha Das Sharma
KOLKATA
Smooth shooters: The Indians will have reasons to smile as long as they manage to keep theAussies from demystifying the wrist spinners Yuzvendra Chahal, middle, and Kuldeep Yadav,right. * K.R. DEEPAK
On the eve of the second ODIagainst India here, SteveSmith shrugged off questionsabout the quality of his cap-taincy, saying he was fo-cussed on getting his teamback on the winning track.
“I don’t think I am in abad place with my captaincy.Obviously, the results havenot been the way we’d haveliked for a little while, andthat’s something we are try-ing to rectify,” Smith said onWednesday.
“We had a disappointingstart to the series the otherday but we will try and turnthe game around tomorrow.”
Need to adaptComing off the defeat atChennai, Australian captainsaid the unpredictableweather was making teamselection difficult, and ex-pressed hope that the teamwould adapt better to a rain-hit game this time around,should the need arise.
“It is certainly somethingto think about. We will turnup tomorrow and expect tobe playing 50 overs. If thingschange from there, then wehave to adapt and do whatneeds to be done.
“We were not goodenough in the 21 overs in thelast game and that is some-thing we got to do lot better,”Smith said.
The Australian captainsought to dispel the notionthat his batsmen are unable
to tackle the Indian wrist-spinners, attributing the de-feat in Chennai to the raininterruption.
“The other day, it wasmore like a T20 for us. Ithink, in 50 overs we get a lotlonger to see the bowlersand knock them to the menin the outfield, and get anopportunity to balancethings,” he said.
For Smith, the match herewill be a personal milestone;it will be his 100th ODI. “Ithink I have evolved a lot as awhite ball player. When Istarted playing ODI cricket, Iplayed more as a bowler inthe first 30 odd games,” hesaid.
“I have been batting at No.3 for a while now. I had tofind the right tempo —whether it is hitting it deepor knowing the right time tohit a boundary.”
He picked the 105 hemade against India in the2015 World Cup semifinal atSydney as his most memor-able innings.
Smith hopes for a turnaround at Eden The second ODI of the series will be the 100th match of his career
Under scrutiny: Steve Smith attributes the defeat at Chennainot to his side’s weakness against wrist spin but to his batsmennot getting enough of a look at the bowlers. * PHOTO: K.R. DEEPAK
B Best bowling: 3 for 16DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
The Australians are speak-ing about the lethal effect ofwrist spin. One of the menwho are making the visitorssay about this art of spinbowling is the 22-year-oldleft-arm chinaman bowlerKuldeep Yadav.
“Conventional spinnershave only one or two vari-ations but wrist spinnershave the quality to deceivethe batsmen. There aremore options to take wick-ets,” Kuldeep said.
Defensive side“Wrist spinners offer the at-tacking option to the cap-tain. But I am also learningto work the ball the otherway and add a defensiveside to my bowling,” he saidwhen asked how he wouldlike to be more versatile.
Kuldeep said he is enjoy-ing the combination withleg-spinner YuzvendraChahal who is the otherwrist spinner in the side. “It
is a good experience to havetwo wrist spinners in theteam, both are of attackingtype and the chances of tak-ing wickets are more.”
The young spinner feltthat success brings greaterexpectations and responsib-ility, especially in the ab-sence of the experiencedspinners of the team like R.Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.
“There are already of lotof expectations. There arelot of things to learn and Ihope our partnership willkeep maturing with everyseries,” he added.
While saying that he rel-ishes bowling against theAustralian opener DavidWarner as the latter comes‘under pressure’ playinghim, Kuldeep appreciatedthe Australian captain SteveSmith’s technical ability.
“He (Smith) is thetoughest to bowl to in theAustralian line-up. He is agood reader of spin andknows how to work thesingles,” he said.
‘Wrist spinners o�erattacking option’ Special Correspondent
KOLKATA
England opener Jonny Bair-stow’s maiden One-Day In-ternational century ensuredWest Indies suffered aseven-wicket defeat at OldTrafford on Tuesday thatmeant it could no longergain direct entry into the
2019 World Cup.Sri Lanka thus has be-
come the eighth and lastteam to earn a direct quali-fication for the World Cup.
West Indies cannot moveahead of Sri Lanka (86points) by September 30,the cut off mark for directentry.
Bairstow powersEngland home Agence France-Presse
Manchester
A brace each from CarlosCorvo Gonzalves and RicoZulkarnain led MumbaiWarriors to a 5-3 win overChennai Singhams on daytwo of Premier Futsal here.Ronaldinho and JonathanSilva scored hat-tricks asDelhi Dragons drew 5-5with Bengaluru Royals.
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SPORT
SUDOKU
Solution to puzzle 12117 Solution to yesterday’s Sudoku
While dwelling on the influence and effect of the gunas onindividuals, Krishna says that depending on the predomin-ant guna prevailing in a person at the time of his death, heattains a corresponding place or state.
Those in satva reach higher worlds such as heaven oreven regions above it; those in rajas are reborn in this worldinto conditions of intense work and attachment while thosein tamas reach regions lower than the earth called thenether regions.
There are many instances in the Gita where the state ofmind of the jivatma at the moment of death is shown to be acrucial factor that decides its future, pointed out SwamiOmkarananda in a discourse.
Earlier, Krishna had stated that one who departs fromthis world thinking of the Lord alone undoubtedly reachesHis status of being. So, if one is engaged in this sadana, it isvery likely that at the time of death, his mind would bedwelling on the supremacy of God.
Arjuna is diffident about the success of such a sadanasince the human mind is fickle and always restless. Whathappens to the jivatma who attempts and fails in this spir-itual exercise if, for instance death intercepts his efforts.Again, many may not be totally involved in the SupremeTruth though they may be partially aware of it.
Krishna reassures him that there is no permanent defeatin any sincere attempt. No one who leads a sincere and hon-est life comes to grief. No good man can come to an evil end.God is aware of every effort and weakness in every jivatmaand no effort goes waste.
If one dies in the midst of yoga practice, he attains theworld of the righteous and dwells there for some time. He isthen born in a house of such as are pure and prosperous andcontinues his sadana.
FAITH
Krishna explains sadana 2 Such trains arrive at the
railway station (7)
3 Vehement, the man pushed
date away (6)
4 Flat proceeding stopped short
(4)
6 It's plain he's adopted mantra
to get dame disguised (8)
7 Gush over one who operates
(7)
8 With this, all the commercial
pitch fails (5,10)
9 Indignant son joined forces
(7,2)
14 Studying race hotly gone
wayward (9)
17 Rural city needs rain to fall (8)
19 Clear — vie maniacally to
make a bit of progress (7)
21 A primarily terrible crime by
non-believer (7)
22 Deposit of soft, soft material
at bottom of river (6)
25 Author leads to some
atrociously killer instincts (4)
13 Not being attractive, Chennai
leader leaves and is quite safe
(8)
15 List of tasks of tribal, not ace,
getting old (2-2)
16 Full gathering, at 10, has a ball
(10)
18 No US goalie would buckle and
be smarmy (10)
20 Indian garment — it's trim
without borders (4)
23 Fitting — a lawyer's put in
large hotel room (8)
24 What may be thrown off one's
head as out-of-date (3-3)
26 Gap in job available (7)
27 Caution about a kind of sale
(7)
28 Area covered once by the big
top (6)
29 Tie great made-up feathery
ornament (8)
n DOWN
1 Basically it's laid to start
building up (10,5)
(set by Gridman)
n ACROSS
1 Spook not left in marsh (8)
5 Dissertation of the relative is
cut by half (6)
10 One takes this to show offence
(7)
11 At �rst tipping lumber off cart
(7)
12 Damned — two cards come
together (6)
THE HINDU CROSSWORD 12118
Kevin Durant sorry for ‘idiotic’ tweets SAN FRANCISCO
Golden State Warriors’ Kevin
Durant apologised on
Tuesday for exchanges with
fans on Twitter about his
departure from Oklahoma
City Thunder, branding his
comments “childish” and
“idiotic.” “He didn’t like the
organisation or playing for
Billy Donovan,” Durant wrote
in the third person. “His
roster wasn’t that good, it
was just him and Russ
(Russell Westbrook).” AFP
IN BRIEF
Benzema extends Real contract to 2021MADRID
Karim Benzema became the
latest Real Madrid star to sign
a new bumper four-year
contract with the European
champion to 2021, the club
announced on Wednesday.
Coach Zinedine Zidane’s
renewal is also imminent
after the Frenchman repeated
on Tuesday that his deal is
“done”. AFP
Injured Neuer out till January BERLIN
Bayern Munich predicts its
Germany goalkeeper and
captain Manuel Neuer will be
out until January after he
underwent another operation
on Tuesday after again
fracturing his left foot.
“Survived the first shock and
the operation, thanks for the
many recovery wishes,” he
wrote on Twitter with a
picture of him in a hospital
bed and his left foot in a
protective cast. AFP
P.V. Sindhu, Saina Nehwaland K. Srikanth advanced tothe second round of the Ja-pan Open Super Series bad-minton on Wednesday.
Sindhu edged past Min-atsu Mitani 12-21, 21-15, 21-17
to set up a second-roundface off with World cham-pion Nozomi Okuhara.
Saina beat PornpaweeChochuwong 21-17, 21-9 andwill next take on Olympicchamp Carolina Marin.
Srikanth overcame TianHouwei 21-15, 12-21, 21-11.
Other results: Men: H.S. Pran-noy bt Anders Antonsen (Den)21-12, 21-14; Sameer Verma btKhosit Phetpradab (Tha) 21-12,21-19; Lin Dan (Chn) bt SourabhVerma 11-21, 21-15, 21-13; LeeDong Keun (Kor) bt B. Sai Pra-neeth 21-23, 21-17, 21-14.Doubles: Marcus FernaldiGideon & Kevin Sanjaya Sukam-uljo (Ina) bt SatwiksairajRankireddy & Chirag Shetty 27-25, 21-15; Lee Jhe-Huei & LeeYang (Tpe) bt Manu Attri & B.Sumeeth Reddy 21-18, 21-15.
Women: Chang Ye Na & Lee SoHee (Kor) bt Ashwini Ponnappa& N. Sikki Reddy 21-17, 21-12.
Sindhu, Saina advanceThe former meets Okuhara while the latter takes on Marin
Press Trust of India
TOKYO
Good start: K. Srikanth dished out a superlative performance toovercome China’s Tian Houwei. * AFP
JAPAN OPEN
MYSURU: Integrated, who hasbeen well tuned, is expected toscore in the F.K. Irani MemorialTrophy (1,400m), the featureevent of the races to be held hereon Thursday (Sept. 21).
False rails (width about 6m from1,600m to the winning post) willbe in position.
1 S. HAJEE MEMORIAL PLATE
(Div. II), (1,400m), rated 00 to25, 2-00 pm: 1. A Crown (10) S.John 60, 2. Mystical Shadow (2)Kiran Rai 59.5, 3. Calico Star (3)Arshad Alam 57, 4. High Voltage(5) Nazerul Alam 57, 5. Now UKnow (9) D. Patel 57, 6. Senator(8) R. Manish 56.5, 7. PerfectPrince (14) Irvan Singh 56, 8.Young Gallant (7) Md. Akram 56,9. Fioroloco (12) M. Prabhakaran55.5, 10. Skybound (1) A. ImranKhan 55.5, 11. On Her Own (4)Rajesh Kumar 55, 12. Gift Of Para-dise (6) A. Vishwanath 53.5, 13.Noble Princess (11) Rayan Ahmed52 and 14. My Valentine (13)Jagadeesh 51.5.1. A CROWN, 2. SKYBOUND, 3.
NOBLE PRINCESS
2 T. DOUGALL MEMORIAL PLATE
(1,600m), rated 20 to 45, 5-y-oonly, 2-35: 1. Golden Diamond (5)Kiran Rai 60.5, 2. Gran Turismo(13) Rajesh Kumar 58.5, 3. Yel-lowzone (6) Jagadeesh 57.5, 4.Czar Rule (2) Suraj Narredu 57, 5.James Bond (10) T.S. Jodha 57, 6.Opening Act (4) M. Prabhakaran
57, 7. First Step (12) P.P. Dhebe56.5, 8. Masters Glory (3) IrvanSingh 56, 9. One Of A Kind (11) A.Baandal 56, 10. Indian Legend (1)Arshad Alam 55, 11. Arziki (7)Nazerul Alam 54.5, 12. Freestyle(8) A. Imran Khan 54.5 and 13.Amazing (9) S. Waseemuddin53.5.1. CZAR RULE, 2. JAMES BOND, 3.
GOLDEN DIAMOND
3 S. HAJEE MEMORIAL PLATE
(Div. I), (1,400m), rated 00 to25, 3-10: 1. Passing Star (2) P.Surya 62.5, 2. Irish Prince (12) S.K.Paswan 62, 3. Loveisintheair (8)Kiran Rai 62, 4. Boysterous (6)Syed Imran 61, 5. Indian Fury (5)T.S. Jodha 61, 6. Smile Of Peace (7)Rayan Ahmed 61, 7. Declarationo-flove (14) Nazerul Alam 60.5, 8.Extremelydangerous (13) A. Qure-shi 60.5, 9. Croziet (9) R. Pradeep60, 10. She’s Stylish (11) Adarsh60, 11. Golden Opinion (3) SunilSamson 59, 12. Karod Pati (4) Ir-van Singh 59, 13. One Man Show(10) Raja Rao 58 and 14. Magnifi-cent Mary (1) P.P. Dhebe 57.1. INDIAN FURY, 2. LOVEIS-
Rafa (5) Rayan Ahmed 58.5, 6.Downton Abbey (11) S. John 57.5,7. Arrogant Approach (8) T.S.Jodha 57, 8. Let The Lion Roar (2)Nazerul Alam 55.5, 9. Integrated(4) Srinath 55, 10. Goldberg (3) Ar-shad Alam 53 and 11. Murcilago (7)Sunil Samson 53.1. INTEGRATED, 2. ARROGANT AP-
PROACH, 3. SMILE STONE
5 CIVIL SERVICES TROPHY
(1,200m), rated 40 to 65, 4-20:1. Abderus (11) A. Velu 62.5, 2.Oceanic Storm (5) Ajay Kumar 59,3. Nikka (1) Arshad Alam 58.5, 4.Tobin (10) Rayan Ahmed 58.5, 5.Dreamliner (14) Antony Raj 58, 6.Chase The Ace (8) P. Mani 56, 7.Saigar (12) Nazerul Alam 56, 8.Skyjet (13) R. Manish 55, 9. Bey-ond Thankful (2) A. Baandal 54.5,10. Castlebar (9) P.P. Dhebe 54.5,11. Amaris (4) Suraj Narredu 54,12. Amazing Connection (6)Rajesh Kumar 53.5, 13. Country’sPrincess (7) J. Paswan 53.5 and 14.Spinning Chakram (3) S. Mubarak53.5.1. NIKKA, 2. AMARIS, 3.
DREAMLINER
6 K. THAMMANNA GOWDA ME-
MORIAL TROPHY (1,400m),rated 40 to 65, 5-y-o & over, 4-55:1. Fair Game (9) Nazerul Alam 62,2. Storming Home (2) A. Velu 62,3. El Fenix (11) Srinath 61.5, 4.Silsila (14) A. Baandal 60.5, 5.Ravelnation (5) Rayan Ahmed 60,6. Silver Legend (12) S. John 60, 7.
Bonfire (4) T.S. Jodha 58.5, 8.Kaguya Himei (6) Madhu Babu57.5, 9. Color Proof (10) R. Manish57, 10. Campeon (13) Santosh Ku-mar 56.5, 11. Majestic Style (7)Jagadeesh 55, 12. I’ve Got Clout (8)Arshad Alam 54, 13. Colour OfGold (1) P.P. Dhebe 53.5 and 14.Virat (3) Rajesh Kumar 51.5.
1. RAVELNATION, 2. FAIR GAME, 3.
EL FENIX
7 SIDAPUR PLATE (1,200m),rated 20 to 45, 5-30: 1. Six Ace
Red (10) Nazerul Alam 60, 2. Be-stow (6) M. Prabhakaran 59.5, 3.Intrepid Warrior (9) Santosh Ku-mar 58.5, 4. Quick Angel (12) Ir-van Singh 58.5, 5. Reach The Stars(2) S. John 58.5, 6. Ice Brown (7)Madhu Babu 56.5, 7. Angel Guard(14) Ajeet Kumar 56, 8. CatchyCharger (1) S. Mubarak 56, 9.Stella Mari (8) Antony Raj 56, 10.Space Invader (5) P. Surya 55, 11.Bonito (3) A. Baandal 54.5, 12.Stolen Kis Issweet (4) ArshadAlam 54.5, 13. Engelberg (11) S.Manohar 53.5 and 14. Wylde (13)P.P. Dhebe 53.
1. WYLDE, 2. REACH THE STARS, 3.
BESTOW
Day’s best: RAVELNATION
Double: CZAR RULE — NIKKA
Jkt: 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7; Tr (i): 2, 3 and4, (ii): 5, 6 and 7.
Integrated for feature event
The Union Cabinet, chairedby the Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi, has approved atotal budget of ₹1,756 crorefor the next three years forthe revised project of ‘KheloIndia’, which would aim tocombine ‘sports for all’ and‘sports for excellence’.
As part of the drive, every
year 1,000 talented young-sters, in specific sports dis-ciplines, would be identifiedand given a financial supportof ₹5 lakh each per year, foreight consecutive years.
In a release issued hereon Wednesday, the UnionGovernment stressed that 20universities across the coun-try would be nominated ashubs of sporting excellence,
and help the students pur-sue both education andcompetitive sports simultan-eously.
The programme aims tocover about 20 crore indi-viduals between 10 to 18 in anational physical fitnessdrive and support them suit-ably to achieve the target.
The attempt would alsobe to tune the standard of
competition at the schooland colleges level, and helpthe interested students gainaccess to competitive sports.
Technology would be putto maximum use for sportspromotion through mobileapps and interactive web-sites towards achieving max-imum utilisation of sports in-frastructure, among otherthings.
₹1,756 crore for revised ‘Khelo India’20 universities to be nominated as hubs of sporting excellenceSpecial Correspondent
NEW DELHI
Army Boys Sports Companybecame the first team to as-sure itself of a quarterfinalspot in the under-17 boys’competition of the 58th Sub-roto Cup football tourna-ment after a 5-0 win againstAir Force Bal Bharti School(New Delhi) in its last leaguegame at the Ambedkar Sta-dium here on Wednesday.
In another match, SKORagunan of Indonesiathrashed Hiramani HSS (Gu-jarat) 7-1 even as the rest ofthe matches were dull, de-fensive affairs with fewgoals.
The Indonesian sideplayed attacking football,outplaying the Gujarat sidein all departments of thegame. Deuarico and Raihanscored twice each whileFiroz Hansari managed thelone goal for Gujarat in the50th minute.
Manipur’s JawaharNavodaya Vidyalaya scoredthe lone goal of its match
against Shaheen School,Bangladesh, throughWorchuirin in the final fewseconds of injury time at theNew Wellingdon Campground.
Sainik Awasiya Mahavidyalaya 1(Bhunon Pandey) bt KujidahHSS (Assam) 0; JawaharNavodaya Vidyalaya (Manipur)1 (Worchuirin) bt ShaheenSchool (Bangladesh) 0; ArmyBoys Sports Company 5 (M.Haokip 2, Tony Hoidrom, P.Linthoingamba Singh, Sh.Yaiphaba Meitei) bt Air ForceBal Bharti School (Delhi) 0;Afghanistan 1 (Asadullah) drewwith Minerva Public School(Punjab) 1 (Md. AjaruddinShah).
Army Boys seal last-eight berthSPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI
Battling it out: Uttam Shahi, right, of Nepal’s Sainik AwasiyaMahavidyalaya and Rupamjyoti Patar of Kujidah HSS (Assam)vie for possession. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
AFC U-16 Qualifier: Indiablanks Palestine NEW DELHI
India rode on a stirring second
half show to blank Palestine
3-0 in the AFC U-16
Championship 2018 Qualifiers
at the Halchowk Stadium in
Kathmandu on Wednesday. The result: India 3 (Givson 51,Bekey 72, Vikram 79) btPalestine 0. PTI
Clement Larriere beatthird seed YuriiDzhavakian 7-6(8), 6-3 inthe second round of the$15,000 LMW-ITF Futurestennis tournament here onWednesday.
Larrierebooks last-eight berth Special Correspondent
Coimbatore It is back to square one atthe Delhi and DistrictsCricket Association (DDCA).
By rejecting most of theLodha Committee recom-mendations in the electionsat the Extraordinary GeneralMeeting held on Sept. 15, therecalcitrant members of theassociation have risked pos-sible disaffiliation of theDDCA from the Board ofControl for Cricket in India(BCCI).
The DDCA has seen twocourt-appointed adminis-trators — Justice (Retd.)Mukul Mudgal and Justice(Retd.) Justice Sen, the latternow saddled with the unen-viable task of cleansing thesystem. Having accepted theresponsibility, Justice Senhas been gallantly involvedin blunting the hold of some
well-entrenched officials atthe Ferozeshah Kotla.
“Cricket is never the pri-ority at the Kotla,” has beenthe firm opinion of Mo-hinder Amarnath, whobrought glory to the Statewith his astounding deedson the cricket field.
Bishan Singh Bedi hasbeen relentless in his cam-paign to expose the currentset of DDCA office-bearers.“Cricket changes, the play-ers come and go, but the of-ficials are never displacedfrom their exalted posi-tions,” avers Bedi.
Cricketers have been atthe receiving end for yearsand things improved firstunder Justice Mudgal’s ten-ure and now Justice Sen hasassured the players of un-stinted support in their pre-paration for the forthcomingseason.
Extraneous pressureshave been mounting on theselectors in all age groupseven as the Cricket AdvisoryCommittee (CAC) has beenengaged in a furious exerciseto retain Gautam Gambhir ascaptain of Delhi for the sea-son.
The CAC is learnt to haveorganised a meetingbetween Gambhir and coachK.P. Bhaskar to bring about arapprochement between thetwo.
Madan Lal, as the CACchairman, is the one manDelhi cricket is looking upto. “I’ll not allow any com-promise to be made in selec-tion matters. Delhi cricketcan’t be run by the whimsand fancies of a select fewanymore,” he had told thisreporter.
Action is now awaitedfrom Madan Lal.
The result of rejecting most of the Lodha recommendationsVijay Lokapally
NEW DELHI
DDCA faces disa�liation
Goalkeeper Vikas Dahiyawill lead an 18-member In-dia-A men’s team at theAustralian Hockey League(AHL), starting on Septem-ber 28 in Perth.
This will be the secondconsecutive season thatteams from India and NewZealand will feature in theAustralian Hockey League.
The team:
Goalkeepers: Vikas Dahiya(Capt.), Krishan B. Pathak.Defenders: Amit Rohidas(Vice-Capt.), Nilam SanjeepXess, Gurinder Singh, AnandLakra, Baljit Singh, VikramjitSingh
Midfielders: Harjeet Singh,Ashish Kumar Topno, HardikSingh, Santa Singh, NilakantaSharma. Forwards: ArmaanQureshi, Mohd Umar, Sim-ranjit Singh, Affan Yousuf, Tal-winder Singh.
Dahiya to lead India-A Press Trust of India
New Delhi
Three share lead
Tvesa Malik, Siddhi Kapoorand Afshan Fatima, all ofwho shot two-over 74,shared the lead onWednesday after the firstround of the Hero Women’sPro Golf tour’s New Delhileg here.
The top scores:
74: Tvesa Malik, Siddhi
Kapoor, Afshan Fatima. 77:
Gaurika Bishnoi, Gursimar
Badwal. 79: Mehar Atwal. 81:
Ayesha Kapur.
SAI-Kurukshetra makes the grade
SAI-Kurukshetra andCentral Secretariat bookedtheir slots in the leaguestage of the Maharaja RanjitSingh hockey tournamentafter winning theirrespective final knockoutmatches on Wednesday.
The results: SAI Centre 5(Hansraj 2, Deepak, Mohit,Munish Rana) bt PNB Jr 4(Sumit Pal 2, Lovepreet 2); C.Sec 6 (Hassan Basha 2,
Rajat Mishra’s triple strikehelped Shaheed BhagatSingh Evening Collegedefeat Sri AurobindoCollege (Evening) 5-2 in aCollege boys’ match of theReliance Foundation YouthSports football tournamenthere on Wednesday.
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SPORT
Lionel Messi added fourmore goals to his soaringearly season tally as a much-changed Barcelona main-tained its 100 % start to LaLiga by routing Eibar 6-1 onTuesday.
Paulinho and DenisSuarez also netted for thesecond consecutive game asBarca stretched its lead atthe top of La Liga to sevenpoints over Real Madrid.
Earlier, Valencia movedup to third as Simone Zazascored a seven-minute hat-trick in a 5-0 thrashing ofMalaga.
Messi opened the scoringin nonchalant fashion fromthe penalty spot on 21minutes after NelsonSemedo had been felled byan ungainly challenge fromAlejandro Galvez.
The five-time world playerof the year completed his43rd career hat-trick justafter the hour mark by prod-ding through Dmitrovic’slegs from Paulinho’s pass.
And he added his 12th
goal in just eight games thisseason three minutes fromtime after a neat one-twowith Aleix Vidal.
Barca lead second-placedSevilla, by five points withValencia now just a pointfurther adrift as its unbeatenstart to the season undernew coach Marcelino GarciaToral continued at Mestalla.The results: La Liga: Barcelona6 (Messi 21-pen, 59, 62 & 87,Paulinho 38, Denis Suarez 53)bt Eibar 1 (Enrich 57); Valencia
Defence, what defence? Lionel Messi does what he does best — make the opposition playerslook like cones. Here, he weaves his way past four Eibar defenders. * DAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES
Barca hits Eibar for six Messi scores four in Eibar rout; Zaza’s treble blanks Malaga
EURO LEAGUES
Agencies
Madrid
Gokulam FC has won a dir-ect entry for the Hero I-League.
The bid evaluation com-mittee of All-India FootballFederation (AIFF), whichmet in New Delhi, decidedto award the Kerala-basedSree Gokulam Group theright to field a team in theHero I-League from 2017-18onwards.
Gokulam FC, which waslaunched with much fan-fare earlier this year byKerala Chief Minister Pin-arayi Vijayan, will be basedin Kozhikode and willprobably play its homematches at the CorporationStadium.
It becomes the first teamfrom Kerala after StateBank of Travancore (SBT)to figure in the league. SBTplayed three seasons.
AIFF general-secretaryKushal Das welcomed Gok-ulam FC’s entry into the I-League and expressedhope that the club will ig-nite an interest among thefans in Kozhikode.
I-League:direct entryfor Gokulam Special Correspondent
Thiruvananthapuram
Prajnesh Gunneswaranwas beaten in two tie-breaks by wild card MartinJoyce of the USA in the firstround of the $75,000 Chal-lenger in the USA.
In the $25,000 ITF wo-men’s event in the USA,Karman Kaur Thandi madethe pre-quarterfinals ofsingles and the doublesquarterfinals.
Rutuja Bhosale madethe quarterfinals in Thail-and, but Y. Pranjala lost intwo tie-breaks to second-seeded Jia-Qi Kang ofChina.
Pranjala had beaten theChinese in their previousmeeting last year.
$15,000 ITF women, HuaHin, Thailand: Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Julia Glushko(Isr) bt Natasha Palha 6-2,6-2; Rutuja Bhosale bt JiaxueZang (Chn) 6-3, 6-4; Jia-QiKang (Chn) bt Y. Pranjala 7-6(7), 7-6(4). Doubles(quarterfinals): Ni MaZhuoma & You Mi Zhuoma(Chn) bt Sowjanya Bavisetti &Rishika Sunkara 7-6(1), 6-2.
Prajneshloses Sports Bureau
NEW DELHI
Gujarat Fortunegiants con-solidated its position on topof the Zone ‘A’ standings as itoverpowered U Mumba 45-23 in a ProKabaddi League(PKL) match on Wednesday.
Chandran Ranjit andSachin emerged the match-winners for the Gujarat side,which rode on the fine raid-ing ability of the twoattackers.
U Mumba enjoyed the ini-tial exchanges and led 9-7 tillthe ninth minute after whichFortunegiants started mak-ing incisive raids.
Ranjit and Sachin tookturns to make a series ofraids and foxed the UMumba defence with theiragility and craft.
Fortunegiants doubledthe lead to 24-12 at half-timeand continued with thesame intensity till the end.
Fortunegiants made 16successful raids and picked
up 23 points in the process.Ranjit scored 11 points andSachin collected 10 to re-main the architects of thevictory.
The Gujarat team didequally well in defence withits Iranian defender Fazel At-rachali collecting six tacklepoints.
U Mumba failed to bringmuch in attack as key play-ers Kashiling Adake andAnup Kumar returnedempty-handed from most ofthe raids. Anup picked upseven points for his side butmost of them came from the
three tackles he made.
Gujarat Fortunegiants tal-lied 56 points from 15matches to continue on topof Zone ‘A’ while U Mumbairemained fourth with 39points from 15 matches.The results:
Not clicking: U Mumba’s Anup Kumar returned empty-handedfrom most of the raids he made. * MANOB CHOWDHURY
It seems like SerenaWilliams has finallyunderstood what it is like tobe in her mother’s shoes.
After giving birth to herfirst child, daughter AlexisOlympia Ohanian, Jr., thetennis ace has written anendearing letter to her ownmother, Oracene Price,about what it has been liketo see life through her pointof view, reports TheWashington Post.
She began the lettersaying, “Dear Mom, You areone of the strongest womenI know. I was looking at mydaughter (OMG, yes, I have adaughter ) and she has myarms and legs!
“My exact same strong,muscular, powerful,
sensational arms and body. Idon’t know how I wouldreact if she has to gothrough what I’ve gonethrough since I was a 15 yearold and even to this day.”
In the letter, Williamsrecalled the times she waslikened to a man because ofher strong stature or falseaccusations that herperformance on the courtwas the result of drugs.
The letter continued,“I’ve been called manbecause I appearedoutwardly strong. It hasbeen said that that I usedrugs (No, I have always hadfar too much integrity tobehave dishonestly in orderto gain an advantage).
“It has been said I don’tbelong in women’s sports,that I belong in men’s,because I look stronger thanmany other women do.”
The former worldnumber one concluded bywriting, “Your youngest offive, Serena.”
Serena’s heartfelt letter ofadmiration to her mom ANI
Washington DC
Serena Williams and hermother Oracene Price. * AP
Leicester’s Shinji Okazakisent Liverpool crashingout of the League Cup,while Tottenham edgedpast Barnsley to reach thefourth round on Tuesday.
Okazaki came off thebench to fire Leicesterahead in the second half ofits 2-0 win at the KingPower Stadium.
Important results (thirdround): Bristol City 2(Diedhiou 50, Taylor 60) btStoke 0; Crystal Palace 1(Sako 13) bt Huddersfield 0.
Leicester 2 (Okazaki 65,Slimani 78) bt Liverpool 0;Reading 0 lost to Swansea 2(Mawson 52, Ayew 83).
West Ham 3 (Ogbonna 4,Sakho 31, Masuaku 90) btBolton 0; Tottenham 1 (Alli65) bt Barnsley 0.
Top-seed in Asia-OceaniaZone, India has been givena first-round bye in nextyear’s Davis Cup competi-tion.
According to the drawmade here on Wednesday,India will take on the win-ner of the first-roundmatch between China andNew Zealand.
Away matchEither way, India will playthe match — scheduled forApril 6-8 — away, havinghosted China (March,2005) and New Zealand(February, 2017) the lasttime it played them.
Davis Cup:�rst roundbye for India Press Trust of India
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 201718EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
LIFE
DiCaprio declares $20 mndeal for green grantsLOS ANGELES
Hollywood star Leonardo
DiCaprio has awarded $20
million in grants through his
environmental foundation.
The actor, who founded The
Leonardo DiCaprio
Foundation, announced that
the sum is to be spread
across over 100 organisations
committed to environmental
sustainability. PTI
IN BRIEF
Sindoor may containunsafe lead levels: study WASHINGTON
Sindoor, a powder widely
used in Hindu religious
ceremonies, may contain
unsafe levels of lead, which is
associated with lower IQ in
children, a study of samples
has found. Researchers
reported that 83% of the
samples collected from the
U.S. and 78% from India had
at least 1 mg of lead per gram
of the cosmetic powder. PTI
This muscle can lift 1,000times its own weightNEW YORK
Scientists have developed
3D-printable synthetic soft
muscle that can push, pull,
bend, twist and lift 1,000
times its own weight, paving
the way for lifelike robots.
The artificial tissue with
intrinsic expansion ability
does not require an external
compressor as previous
muscles did. PTI
A pet parrot managed toplace an online shopping or-der by mimicking its owneron a voice-controlled smartspeaker, a British newspa-per reported on Wednesday.
Buddy the parrot ordereda £10 set of gift boxes viaAmazon’s Alexa voice-con-trolled system, The Sunreported.
The mystery ordertriggered an inquest in Cori-enne Pretorius’ house insoutheast London, but afterruling out her husband andson, she figured out Buddywas to blame after hearinghim interact with thespeaker.
“I couldn’t believe itwhen I realised that Buddyhad made an Amazon or-der,” the South African said.
Users can shout com-mands to the Amazon Echospeaker to access a host of
services. It responds to thename Alexa.
Footage on the Sun’s web-site shows the parrotsquawking “Alexa!” and thedevice next to his cage light-ing up blue, indicating thatit is listening for commands.
“Buddy said ‘Alexa’ andsome gibberish, and the ma-chine replied, ‘What is ityou want to order?’” Ms.Pretorius said.
She thought nothingmore of it until she got a no-tification that an order hadbeen placed for somegolden gift boxes.
“I laughed out loud be-cause I knew then that itwas Buddy.”
Amazon said customerswere asked to confirm a pur-chase by saying ‘yes’, andthe settings can be adjustedto turn off voice purchasing.
"Buddy is hilarious. Wehave a cat and he mimicsthat, too. ,” his owner said.
Parrot ‘shops’ onlineby mimicking owner
Pet orders a £10 set of gift boxes
Agence France-Presse
London
Feel-good: A visitor experiences Snoosphere, an interactive and multi-sensory installation, during the media launch of the BigAnxiety Festival in Sydney on Wednesday. It creates a responsive, sensory environment to roam, touch and explore. * AFP
Consuming cranberryproducts may be a low risk,cheap and effective way toprevent recurrent urinarytract infections (UTIs), astudy claims.
The study, published inThe Journal of Urology, sug-gests that doctors may re-commend cranberryproducts as first line of de-fence against the disease.
Researchers conducted acomprehensive meta-ana-lysis and assessment of hu-man clinical trials and 28studies on nearly 5,000 pa-tients. They found that over-all, the use of cranberryproducts led to a statisticallysignificant risk reduction inrepeat UTIs.
The medicinal propertiesof cranberries may be attrib-uted to their unique poly-phenol, proanthocyanidins,
researchers said.Their ability to keep in-
fection-causing bacteriafrom sticking to the urinarytract walls may be the majorreason for their effective-ness in limiting infectiongrowth and recurrence,they added.
“Our investigation sup-ports that cranberryproducts can be a powerfultool to fight off frequentUTIs,” said Angelo Luis,from the Universidade daBeira Interior in Portugal.
Fruit helps against bacteria: study
Press Trust of India
London
Cranberry contains uniquepolyphenols and proantho-cyanidins.
Cranberries �ghturinary infections
An exotic island paradise inFrench Polynesia bought byMarlon Brando in the sixtiesis using its Hollywood imageto tackle environmental is-sues — with a little help fromits jet-set visitors.
The tiny, palm-fringedatoll of Tetiaroa was once afavourite holiday spot forTahitian royalty before thelate American movie star fellin love with it while filmingMutiny on the Bounty in 1961on islands close by.
Brando married co-starTarita Teriipaia and thecouple raised a family on Te-tiaroa, now home to a luxuryeco-resort that bears the re-clusive actor’s name and reg-ularly pampers A-list cli-entèle such as Hollywoodactors Leonardo DiCaprio,Johnny Depp and formerU.S. President BarackObama.
Guests at ‘The Brando’help fund research projectsby paying up to $10,000 anight to stay in the elegantthatched villas overlooking aturquoise lagoon.
As Pippa Middleton soaksup the rays on honeymoonor Mr. Obama seeks inspira-tion to write his memoirs,scientists quietly go abouttheir work testing oceanacidification to study the ef-fects on coral bleaching.
Behind the butler serviceand Michelin-star cuisine,the resort has built onBrando’s own vision for asustainable environment, tobecome one of the most eco-friendly hotels in the world,running on solar power andcoconut oil. Luxury eco-tourism is a growing sectorof the travel industry withbig name hotel brands suchas Alila and Aman investingheavily in ensuring theirgreen credentials.
Boutique resorts thatpride themselves on sustain-ability and giving back to thelocal community, such asSong Saa private island inCambodia, Nihiwatu in In-donesia, and the Soneva ho-tels in Thailand and the Mal-dives, are also increasingly indemand.
But Tetiaroa, where le-gend has it that British sail-ors who seized control of the
fuelled by coconut oil. Its air-conditioning is powered bydeep seawater — a brainwaveof Brando’s.
Mosquitoes are dying outat the resort where research-ers have found a way to ster-ilise an invasive species cap-able of carrying dengue andZika virus. Brando previ-ously ran a modest eco-lodgeafter buying Tetiaroa wherecelebrity buddy Robert DeNiro, a guest in the late1980s, once amused himselfby waiting on tables.
Brando died in 2004, butTetiaroa, located some 4,345km south of Hawaii, hasbeen preserved in line withhis ecological vision — resortstaff even keep a pet catcalled Marlon in homage.“He was passionate,” saidTumi. “He was dragged hereby Hollywood, thengrandma made him comeback.”
Following Brando’s blue-
print, naturalists at the is-land’s research centre mon-itor its countless tropicalbirds and turtle sanctuary,ready to rescue clumsyhatchlings before they canbecome a meal forpredators.
Luxury eco-resorts offerhigh-rollers a chance to off-set any guilt they might feelover their carbon-heavylifestyles.
Ecological researchTetiaroa is ideal for ecolo-gical research, according toFrank Murphy, executive dir-ector of the Tetiaroa Society,to which Mr. DiCaprio andMr. Depp donate.
“We’re perched here onone the most vulnerablespots on earth. It’s kind ofthe canary in the coal minefor climate change so we bet-ter be doing our damnedestto figure out what’s goingon,” he said.
Bounty in 1789 foundvestiges of a pagan sex cult,has the added bonus of oldHollywood glamour.
Brando’s granddaughterTumi grew up on the island,fishing for snapper andgrouper in the lagoon, hometo juvenile lemon and blacktip sharks, which glide lazilyamong the corals as guestssnorkel.
The 29-year-old works as
the chief communications of-ficer for the non-profit Te-tiaroa Society, a scientific or-ganisation devoted tomarine wildlife founded bythe Brando estate, whichowns the atoll.
Coconut power“Our aim is to raise aware-ness,” she said, as marinebiologists studied shark pop-ulations inside the 4.8-km-wide lagoon, which containsat least 167 species of fish, in-cluding parrotfish and spot-ted eagle rays.
“First among local people,because we want to protectour environment. MaybeAmerica or China — theycome to my mind first be-cause they’re the biggest pol-luters — can emulate us.”
Opened in 2014, the ho-tel’s electricity comes frommore than 2,000 solar pan-els that line the island’s tinyrunway and generators
Exotic island in French Polynesia bought by the movie star in the sixties is using its Hollywood image to tackle environmental issues
Agence France-Presse
Tetiaroa
Ideal location: Marlon Brando married co-star Tarita Teriipaiaand the couple raised a family on the Tetiaroa island. * AFP
Marlon Brando’s Tahitian paradise, the godfather of eco-resort
The humble bicycle is gradu-ally shedding its grim associ-ation with Cuba’s economiccrisis that followed the fall ofthe Soviet Union, and mak-ing a comeback buoyed bydemand from tourists andCubans frustrated by poorpublic transportation.
Bicycles rattle by every-where on the flat cobble-stone streets of Cardenas, anindustrial city on the northcoast where a giant iron bi-cycle monument greetsvisitors.
Bikes have long been thefavoured mode of transporthere, but in Havana andother cities, the bike is com-ing back into vogue.
Reliable wayModern bike shops withtheir smell of rubber andgear-oil are springing up tomeet demand from touristsas well as Cubans simplylooking for a reliable way toget around.
Osvaldo, a computer tech-nician, sweats over an old So-viet-made MB3 with back-pedal brakes, handlebars
shorn of handgrips — thebike itself a collection ofspare parts. “Everybody getsaround by bicycle in Carde-nas, and I use it also to carryall sorts of things, anything Ican manage,” he says.
The odd slick mountainbike with swishing dérail-leurs is a rarity among thetraditional rusty bone-shakers used by ordinaryCubans heading to work, orto the bakery.
Hairdresser Kenia LisPulido said she uses her bikefrom morning to night, fromthe moment she takes her
children to school.“At night, if we are going
anywhere, we’ll pick up ourbike and we’ll have spent thewhole day on the bike.”
In some ways, Cardenas isa constantly moving, living
in Cuba’s make-do culture,and bikes are often equippedwith baskets, as well aswooden seats for extra pas-sengers. Some even havelawnmower engines fitted.
Ordinary mattress foam orplastic is used to renovatetired saddles. Often a pieceof sponge wrapped in vinyldoes the trick.
Fidel Castro encouragedCubans to get on their bikeswhen the Soviet cash-cowran dry, but greater prosper-ity as the 21st century loomedbrought a new reliance onmotorised transport.
moving the island’s source ofcheap oil imports, and cut-backs in public transporta-tion led nearly everyone toseek a reliable alternativeduring the so-called ‘SpecialPeriod.’
To cope with demand,Cuba began producing itsown model, the Minerva.
They were “poor quality”,remembers Lazaro Pereira, abike-repair specialist inCardenas. “The forks splitand when this happened,passers-by would mockpeople falling off their bikes.”
Customisation is common
museum of mostly-commun-ist bike transport over thelast 50 years, with examplesgalore of the Chinese-built‘Forever’ model and the ‘Fly-ing Pigeon’ that flooded theisland during the shortagesin the 1990s.
One can still find a fewfolding MB3s from the 1980s,and rarer still, the American‘Schwinn’ of the 1950s.
Made-in-Cuba ‘Minerva’In the early 1990s, bikeswere the preferred way to getaround in Cuba. The SovietUnion had just collapsed, re-
In Cuba, the humble bicycle is riding back in vogue Once associated with country’s economic crisis after fall of Soviet Union, the simple mode of transport is now buoyed by demand from tourists
Agence France-Presse
CArdenas
Fidel Castro encouragedCubans to ride bikes whenthe Soviet cash cow ran dry.
Death isn’t always tragic, atleast not in this Romaniancemetery, where the deadbeguile visitors with tales oftheir lives.
The Merry Cemetery inthe northwestern village ofSapanta is a collection ofmore than 1,000 elaboratewooden Orthodox crossesetched with colourful epi-taphs and childlike draw-ings.
There are few secrets inthis small community andwhatever flaws someone hadwhen they were alive areturned into “grave art” whenthey die.
This darkly humorous andmatter-of-fact approach,rooted in the traditionalpeasant culture of the re-gion, intrigues visitors.
Despite its remote loca-tion some 600 km northwestof the Romanian capital,Bucharest, the cemetery isone of the country’s top
tourist attractions. “I’ve seen what touches
[tourists]. This cemetery... isnot just a cemetery. Peoplerealised that this indeed is aplace where you can laugh atdeath itself,” said sculptorDumitru Pop Tincu, 62, whocrafted many of the crosses.He was speaking in his work-shop, dressed in a traditionalcostume of an embroidered
smock, loose trousers and astraw hat.
Outdoor museumOne recent morning, Ger-man tourists were taking inthe rows of intricatelycarved blue, yellow, greenand red crosses, looking atthe cartoon-like drawingsand limericks written in aquirky language used by loc-
als. Some consider the placeless a graveyard and more anoutdoor museum.
Romanian-born GerhardSchuster, 63, who lives inKempten, southern Ger-many, said: “Ever since I wasa child, I heard stories aboutthis. My parents were talkingabout the Merry Cemeteryand I’ve always wanted tocome and see it but wasn’table to until now. ”
One of the drawings fea-tures a young man and asubway carriage the manwas run over by a train. Hisepitaph reads: “I enjoyed lifeso much, I went to westernEurope; may it be cursedalong with the Paris metro. Iused to be a gambler, and Idied in 2001 when I was 16years old.”
Some of the crosses re-semble modern-day moralitytales.
One epitaph for a truckdriver warns the living aboutthe perils of working toohard.
Romania’s Merry Cemeteryo�ers visitors dark humour Orthodox crosses here are etched with colourful epitaphs and childlike drawings
On the bright side: A child walks by the painted crosses at theMerry Cemetery, Sapanta, northwestern Romania. * AP
Associated Press
SAPANTA From telegrams about hunt-ing parties to anguished let-ters over the Bolsheviktakeover, a trove of docu-ments detailing the privatelives of Russia’s Romanovfamily has returned home100 years after the 1917 re-volution.
The archive, containingletters, photographs anddrawings, was taken toEurope by members of theroyal family who fled thechaos and persecutions ofthe revolution. In July, thestate-owned Russian bankSberbank bought thearchive for $84,000 after itsowner, who did not want tobe identified, put them upfor sale.
Now, as the countrymarks the centenary of theend of royal rule, the collec-tion has gone on display at amuseum in Tsarskoye Selo,the former summer resid-ence of the tsars on the out-
skirts of Saint Petersburg.“These letters and tele-
grams reveal the everydaylife of the imperial family,whose members truly lovedeach other,” Irina Raspop-ova, a conservationist at themuseum, said.
‘Huge interest’“These archives are of hugeinterest to researchers. Wewere lucky to find them,”she said.
The collection, which
counts over 200 pieces dat-ing from 1860 to 1928, fea-tures letters written by TsarNicholas II, Russia’s last, aswell as his wife AlexandraFyodorovna, his father Al-exander III and severalother Romanov familymembers.
The documents, writtenin Russian, French and Eng-lish on paper yellowed bytime, show the pampereddaily lives and leisure of theRussian royalty.
A century on, royal family’sletters return to RussiaTrove of documents detail private lives of the members
Agence France-Presse
Saint Petersburg
Family matters: A part of the collection of documents of theimperial Romanov family on display at a museum. * AFP
Scientists have discoveredOctlantis — an underwatersite built entirely by oc-topuses, where they com-municate with each otherby posturing, chasing orcolour changes.
Researchers from theUniversity of Illinois in theU.S. found the site in thewaters off the east coast ofAustralia, that is the homeof up to 15 gloomy oc-topuses. It is the secondgloomy octopus settlementfound in the area, and thediscovery lends credenceto the idea that octopusesare not necessarily loners.
The first gloomy oc-topus site was found in Jer-vis Bay off the east coast ofAustralia in 2009. The newsite is located just a fewhundred meters away fromthe first site, and has beendubbed Octlantis.
Underwater‘city’ built byoctopusesPress Trust of India
‘A progressivestudent body’National in-charge of the
NSUI Ruchi Gupta speaks
about recent success in
DUSU polls Page 2
AAP protestsfuel price hikeParty leaders stopped
outside Petroleum
Minister’s office, taken to
police station Page 4
A smoothgrindKamal Swaroop’s documen-
tary on celebrated artist Atul
Dodiya occupies both the
mind and the eye Page 5
Time to Czechout PragueWalking along the green
river and appreciate the old
world dressed in baroque &
Gothic architecture Page 6
Woman plots robbery to frame �ancé, heldNEW DELHI
Robbery at a house in north-east Delhi was planned byvictim’s daughter who hadsecretly married and wantedto frame her �ancé, chosenby her family, for the crime.
On July 11, the body of anine-year-old boy, withseveral puncture wounds,was found in a DDA park inPul Prahaladpur. Twomonths on, the investigatorshaven’t made a headway inthe case and the father hasnow decided to approachthe Central Bureau ofInvestigation (CBI).
Ravi James, the father ofthe victim, Izik James, saidhis son’s killers haven’t beenfound yet because he isn’t“rich and powerful”.
Mr. James, who has beenclosely following the case ofthe seven-year-old boy killedon the premises of RyanInternational school inGurugram, said his son’sbody was found with torturemarks but still no promptaction was taken to trace his
murderer.“The killer in the Ryan
International murder casewas arrested in two days, butit’s been two months and theDelhi Police haven’t foundanything in my son’s case. Iwill approach the CBI now,”he said adding “mere baccheko us se bhi buri tarah semara gaya tha (my child wasmurdered more brutallythan in the other case)”.
Deputy Commissioner ofPolice (South East) RomilBaaniya maintained that thepolice haven’t found anyclue in the case so far.
Broken familyIzik’s murder, meanwhile,has taken its toll on familyties. Sitting inside the houseof her bed-ridden father inNajafgarh, Izik’s motherSantosh James said she andher husband separated a
week ago because Mr. Jamessuspected her involvementin their son’s murder.
“He was in a lot of painbecause of the murder. Weboth were. But he would getdrunk regularly and tell me‘tune marwaya hai merebacche ko (you got my sonkilled)’,” she said. “How cana mother do that to her
child,” she asked.Mr. James said he has his
reasons for suspecting hiswife’s involvement. Nowliving in a makeshiftarrangement in Jaitpur, nearhis workplace, he said, “Iwas angry when I said it butmy suspicion is notmisguided. She returnedhome after six months on
June 30. Eleven days later,my son was murdered.”
Ms. Santosh admitted thatshe left for Jammu with aman she met in December2016 at Safdarjung Hospitalwhere her father, JagdishSharma, was admitted. “Iwas unhappy with mymarriage. Ravi used to beatme up and abuse me. I leftfor Jammu with the man andreturned in April 2017,” shesaid.
Daughters stay away The allegations levelled bythe husband were reportedto the police by Ms. Santoshherself in a complaintagainst Mr. James. The policesaid her background wasthoroughly checked in Delhiand Jammu , but nothingrelated to the murder wasfound against her so far.
Ms. Santosh said her two
daughters -- Shikha (22) andIshika -- have stopped talkingto her. Shikha is married inAgra and Ishika in PulPrahladpur. “My elderdaughter’s in-laws don’twant her to talk to usbecause of the murder in thefamily. The youngerdaughter too sides with thefather and blames me forbreaking us apart,” Ms.Santosh said.
Living in Pul Prahaladpurbecame difficult for thefamily after the murderbecause the landlordallegedly asked the Mr.James to vacate the house.“Nobody wants to give aroom to people who areassociated with a murder.There are vacant flats but noone is willing to offer thembecause they don’t want toget into police investigation,”he said.
‘Why don’t they probe my son’s murder like Ryan case?’Asks father of a 9-year-old whose body was found with torture marks in a park in Pul Prahaladpur two months ago
Hemani Bhandari
New Delhi
Looking for justice: Santosh (left) and Ravi James, parents ofnine-year-old Izik. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
A 21-year-old man was killedand his friend was severelyinjured when a car allegedlyhit their bike in the smallhours of Monday followingan argument with thevehicle’s driver in SafdarjungEnclave.
The accused, who was ar-rested on Monday itself butwas released on bail, wasagain held on Wednesdayafter charges of intention ofmurder were framed againsthim, said the police.
According to the police,around 4 a.m., deceased Gur-preet Singh and his 22-year-old friend Maninder Singh,residents of Shahbad Dairy,were doing a recce for theircollege project near AIIMSand Safdarjung Hospitalwhen accused Rohit KrishnaMahanto started quarrellingwith them.
‘He threatened to kill us’“We were working on our‘Life of people on footpath inDelhi’ after which westopped to eat something.This man was drunk and star-ted blowing cigarette smokein our face. We objected aswe are Sikhs and smoking isagainst our religious beliefs,”said Maninder.
“He got into an argumentand said that if we were in As-sam, he would kill us and noone would get to know,” headded. Police later confirmedthat the accused was drunk.
Gurpreet’s family said thatthe duo decided to leavewhen the accused threatenedto kill them.
As the duo got on theirbike and left, the accused al-legedly followed them and hitthem from behind. Thespeed of the car was suchthat it also hit an auto-rick-shaw and a cab that were infront of the bike.
Accused inebriatedAll the injured were immedi-ately rushed to AIIMS
Trauma Centre where Gur-preet battled for life for twodays but succumbed to his in-juries on Wednesday.
Maninder, though out ofdanger, is undergoing treat-ment. Based on the cabdriver’s statement onMonday, the police registereda case under Section 279(rash driving) and 337 (Caus-ing hurt by act endangeringlife or personal safety of oth-ers) against the driver.
Mahanto, who was caught
right after the incident, wastaken to AIIMS where hismedical examination wasconducted and he was foundto have consumed alcoholbeyond permissible limitsafter which Section 185 of theMotor Vehicle Act was alsoadded to the FIR.
Murder charges addedOn Wednesday — after the de-ceased’s family demanded aprobe — the police recordedManinder’s statement.
“In his statement,Maninder alleged that Rohithad a heated exchange withthem just before the incidentand had threatened them ofdire consequences,” said Ad-ditional Deputy Commis-sioner of Police (South) Chin-moy Biswal.
This led the police to addSection 302 (punishment formurder) and 307 (attempt tomurder) against the accused.
According to the police,Mahanto, a resident of De-fence Colony, is a lawyer un-der the Standing Counsel ofAssam government and hisfather Anil Kumar is a doctor.
Gurpreet and Maninderhad come from Bhatinda toDelhi in 2016 for a year-longcourse at Delhi School ofPhotography, which was dueto end in October.
Objection to smoking costsyouth his life, friend injuredDrunk driver rams car into bike after heated argument; arrested for murder
Relatives of Gurpreet Singh(right) in mourning on Wed-nesday. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Staff Reporter
New Delhi
The Delhi High Court onWednesday termed as “veryserious” the alleged conceal-ment of criminal record byrecently-elected Delhi Uni-versity Students’ Union(DUSU) president RockyTuseed.
The court issued a noticeto Mr. Tuseed, who ran onthe National Students’ Unionof India (NSUI) ticket, basedon allegations levelled by hisopponent Akhil BharatiyaVidyarthi Parishad (ABVP)candidate Rajat Chaudhary.
Filing an impleadment ap-plication, Mr. Chaudharyclaimed that Mr. Tuseed didnot disclose to DU authorit-ies that an FIR was lodgedagainst him in 2014 at Ra-jouri Garden police station inwest Delhi for alleged of-fences of causing hurt, at-tempt to murder, trespassand common intention andthat he had remained in judi-cial custody from August 28
to September 15, 2014. A charge sheet was also
filed in the case.The RSS-backed ABVP
candidate said in his pleathat there was “deliberatesuppression and misrepres-entation of facts and narra-tion of false facts by the peti-tioner [Mr. Tuseed] in theproceedings”.
Mr. Chaudhary said that asper guidelines of the Lyng-doh committee, the candid-ate shall not have a previouscriminal record, nor tried or
convicted of any criminal of-fence and shall not havebeen subject to any discip-linary action by the univer-sity authorities.
Next hearing on Nov. 15“It is very serious. It is con-cealment,” Justice Inder-meet Kaur said. The courtsought Mr. Tuseed’s and theuniversity’s responses onthe plea and listed the mat-ter for November 15.
The application was filedin a pending petition by Mr.Tuseed in which he has chal-lenged the DU Election Com-mission’s order rejecting hisnomination for the students’polls on the grounds that dis-ciplinary action had beentaken against him.
Mr. Chaudhary’s plea alsoasked for recall of the court’sSeptember 8 and September12 interim orders by whichMr. Tuseed was allowed tocontest the polls and DU wasallowed to announce theresult.
ABVP says newly elected DUSU president ‘suppressed facts’
Press Trust of India
New Delhi
Rocky Tuseed
Allegations on Tuseed hidingcriminal record serious: HC
A young woman pursuingMBA from Amity Universityhere allegedly committedsuicide at her home inNoida on Wednesday.
A handwritten suicidenote recovered from the wo-man’s apartment stated thatshe had decided to end herlife as a man had refused tomarry her.
Tannu Malik, a native ofDehradun, was foundhanging from a ceiling fan ather home in Amrapali Sap-phire, a residential high-risein Sector 45, Noida.
The victim had been liv-ing in the society with hermother and had enrolled inthe MBA course this year.
‘She was depressed’Police said that Ms. Malik’smother was the one whofound the body. “She imme-diately called the PCRaround 7 a.m. The body hasbeen sent for postmortem,”said Abhinandan, Circle Of-ficer -1, Noida police.
The victim, who lost herfather a while ago, was un-dergoing severe mentalstress and had shifted toNoida from Dehradun forher education, said the po-lice. “In the note, she men-tioned that she wanted tomarry a man named Sunnybut he had refused to marryher. She was depressed,”said the officer.
According to a senior po-lice official, Sunny has beenasked to join the investiga-tion and his statement hasbeen recorded.
MBA studentkills herself over marriagerejection
Staff Reporter
Noida
Angry over the remains ofhundreds of Lord Ganeshidols lying on the banks ofthe Yamuna, the NationalGreen Tribunal (NGT) onWednesday asked the Delhigovernment and the civicbodies to explain why dis-carded material from GaneshVisarjan had not been re-moved in a timely manner.
On Monday, The Hinduhad reported how hundredsof semi-dissolved idols fromthe festival had not beencleared by the municipal au-thorities in violation of strictorders from the NGT. Takingcognizance of the report, apetition was filed in the NGTthrough advocate UpamaBhattacharjee.
“It has also been pointedout that the biological oxygendemand (BOD) of the river – ameasure of organic pollution– reached dangerously highlevels during GaneshChaturthi. It is humbly sub-mitted that the Yamuna isalready dying a slow deathand the continuous and un-abated immersion of idols is
causing complete choking ofthe river, and is a violation ofrules” read the petition.
‘Damage to ecology’A Bench headed by NGTChairperson JusticeSwatanter Kumar issued no-tices to the Aam Aadmi Partygovernment, the Delhi JalBoard, the Delhi Develop-ment Authority (DDA) andthe municipal corporations.
The Bench asked the au-thorities to show cause as towhy the river banks had not
been cleared despite consid-erable passage of time sincethe festivities ended.
“This situation cannot bejustified. Is it fair that idolswill be lying in the mud? Whywas it not cleaned even aftera month of the GaneshChaturthi festival?” askedJustice Kumar.
Advocate Sanjay Upad-hyaya, appearing for the peti-tioner in the case, said thatthe authorities were not en-forcing Central PollutionControl Board Guidelines,
2010, on idol immersion andvarious orders of theTribunal banning immersionof non-biodegradable idols.
“It is humbly submittedthat such indiscriminate im-mersion of idols into the nat-ural water body not only pol-lutes the river but alsoseverely damages the ecologyin the area,” read the plea,which also sought directionsfor an action plan with re-spect to immersions that willtake place during the upcom-ing Durga Puja.
NGT raps govt over litter on Yamuna banks Issues show-cause notice; asks why discarded festive materials haven’t been removed
Shinjini Ghosh
NEW DELHI
Sorry state: Remains of idols of Lord Ganesh along the banks of the Yamuna. The picture wastaken on September 16. * SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
Thousands of office-goerstrying to get home on Wed-nesday faced delays of overan hour after the Delhi Met-ro’s Blue Line suffered atechnical snag, which havebecome a recurring affairover the past few months.
The glitch, which was re-ported around 5.40 p.m.,slowed down train opera-tions till about 7 p.m.
“The contact wire of theOverhead Equipment (OHE)was found broken betweenDwarka Mor and Dwarkasection,” the DMRC said in astatement. The glitch oc-curred on the ‘up line’ — that
is the line going from RajivChowk towards Dwarka.Massive crowds were seen atthe Rajiv Chowk station.
‘Bird to blame’“This resulted in bunching/hold up of trains on Line-3around 5.40 p.m. as serviceswere running on single linebetween Janakpuri West andDwarka section,” the state-ment added.
A DMRC spokespersonsaid that train services onLine-3 were affected from 6p.m. to 7 p.m.
The OHE wire was“broken as a bird haddropped a metallic wire onit, resulting in flashing/snap-
ping,” he added.“Immediate restoration
work was undertaken by theOHE team. Single line ser-vice continued through the‘down line’ on this section towork as shuttle service tokeep the entire line runningand prevent impact on therest of the line,” the state-ment added.
The DMRC said that ser-vices on the rest of Line-3,between Janakpuri West toNoida section & Dwarka toDwarka Sec-21 section, werenormal during this period.
“Normal movement onboth lines was restored by6.50 p.m,” the statementread.
Services disrupted for an hour during evening peak time
Staff Reporter
New Delhi
Nightmare commute: Rajiv Chowk metro station saw massive crowds due to the snag on theBlue Line (Dwarka Sector 21-Noida City Centre/ Vaishali) on Wednesday. * SANDEEP SAXENA
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AICC joint secretary and national in-charge of the Na-tional Students’ Union of India (NSUI) Ruchi Gupta speaksto The Hindu about NSUI’s success in Delhi University Stu-dents’ Union (DUSU) elections, and its future plans to-wards being an organisation that runs active, liberal andprogressive students’ unions. Excerpts from an interview.
The NSUI won the postof president and vice-pres-ident in DUSU electionsafter a gap of four years.What do you feel wentright this time?
n This year, we launchedour manifesto a month in ad-vance as we wanted to runan issue-based campaign andset a clear agenda aboutwhat we wanted to do if wecame to power in DUSU. Wewent from college to collegedistributing our manifesto —a very important culturalshift in the way we were do-ing our politics.
Earlier, the manifestolaunch would happen alongwith the launch of ballotnumbers as we wanted thestudents to remember theballot numbers before goingin to vote. The issues that we
raised were issues that arenot common currency. Wefound that issues like metroconcession, university spe-cial buses and hostels werein the manifestos of everyparty every year. The issueswe raised this year werethings like equal opportunit-ies for all college in DU as wehave seen that “elite” col-leges corner all benefits.
I feel the issues that reson-ated with the students weretransparency in DUSU andmaking a participatorybudget. Several studentswere unaware that contribu-tion to the DUSU budget waspart of their college fee andwere shocked to find that ₹22lakh of ₹26 lakh allotted toDUSU was spent on miscel-laneous expenditure likephotocopying and tea.
What will the NSUI do tostop students from feelinga sense of alienation fromDUSU politics and increaseparticipation?
n There is a sense of alien-ation. We realised that if wetalked about the role of stu-dents in governance of a uni-versity, we could reclaim thecredibility of DUSU and saythat students’ unions do mat-ter. We also made efforts toincrease voter turnout andtold students that the univer-sity will become a placewhere violence plays a role
in settling arguments if theydo not vote. We also spokeabout what happens when astudent does not come tovote. We educated studentsthat the ABVP is RSS and thatwhen the RSS comes into stu-dent space it takes over thespace and there is impositionon people’s personalfreedoms.
The NSUI has been criti-cised for its cadre not be-ing seen on campus andemerging only during elec-tion time. What are you
doing to change this in DUand across the country?
n Now that we have DUSUand Punjab University, andrepresentatives in leadershiproles in several universities,the challenge is to convertthese wins into a crediblemodel that we can showcasegoing forward. A model of anactive, liberal and progress-ive students’ union. Also,this election was not aboutan individual candidate whocame out victorious based oncaste but it was team NSUI.Similarly, we want tostrengthen our voice in thepolicy space and take a standon various issues with regardto education. We have a
stand on issues but we needto articulate it better so thatwe develop a strong inde-pendent voice. This needs tohappen not only where thereis electoral politics but cam-puses where there is nounion as well.
You had spoken abouttrying to change the cul-ture of DUSU elections inthe run-up to the polls. Doyou think the LyngdohCommittee recommenda-tions need to be reviewedin the case of DUSUelections?
n I feel the Lyngdoh Com-mittee recommendations areimpractical and a little apolit-ical. The recommendationssay that a candidate cannotparticipate in an election ifthere has been any “discip-linary action” against him/her, without caring to defineit. If a student leader showsdissent against authority, dis-ciplinary action will be takento silence him/her. But doesthat mean that the leadercannot stand for elections?By that definition, [formerJawaharlal Nehru UniversityStudents’ Union president]
Kanhaiya Kumar, who is seenas the biggest student leadertoday, will not be allowed tostand for elections. Any stu-dent leader will come intoconflict with the administra-tion and the easiest way tokill someone’s career is totake some form of disciplin-ary action so that they can-not contest. If we see stu-dents as future politicians,then the same standards thatare applied to politiciansneed to apply to studentleaders as well.
What about the use ofmoney and muscle inDUSU elections? How doesthe NSUI plan to changethat?
n DU needs to step in tocreate an atmosphere inwhich this is possible. Theuniversity gives us three daysto fight the election. How is acandidate supposed to reachout to over 1.20 lakh votersin three days without puttingup posters? Also, anotherrule is that a candidate can-not contest an election forthe second time. So the can-didate does not have thetime to mature as a leader.
‘We want to run an active, liberal, progressive students’ union’NSUI wants to strengthen its voice in the policy space and take a stand on various issues with regard to education, says its national in-charge
Jaideep Deo Bhanj
New Delhi<> We made e�orts to
increase voter
turnout and told
students that the
university will
become a place
where violence plays
a role in settling
arguments if they do
not vote
Ruchi Gupta
AICC joint secretary and national in-chargeof the National Students’ Union of India
INTERVIEW | RUCHI GUPTA
Batting for change: Ruchi Gupta, the AICC joint secretary andnational in-charge of the National Students’ Union of India,during an interview in New Delhi on Wednesday. * R.V. MOORTHY
The National Consumer Dis-putes Redressal Commission(NCDRC) on Tuesday direc-ted Unitech Limited to paytwo buyers approximately₹76 lakh and ₹77 lakh with10% interest after the real es-tate developer failed to givepossession of the flats withinthe stipulated period.
Litigation costsDirecting Unitech to refundthe entire amount investedby the buyers, the commis-sion ordered payment of₹10,000 as litigation costs toeach complainant. RohitMehrotra and Rakesh Kumarhad alleged they had notbeen given possession of
their respective flats, bookedin a project called ‘The Resid-ences’ in Noida, despite hav-ing paid a considerableamount to the developer.
They claimed that posses-sion was supposed to takeplace within 36 months fromthe date of allotment, timefor which had already lapsed.Unitech argued that the pro-ject had to be stalled due tounforeseen circumstances.
“The complaint has been res-isted by the opposite party,which has alleged that thedelay was caused on accountof circumstances beyond itscontrol such as agitation byfarmers in Noida and GreaterNoida,” read the reply.
The NCDRC said, “Thegrounds on which the com-plaint has been opposed haverepeatedly been rejected bythis panel in a large numberof consumer complaints andtherefore need not be dealtagain. More importantly,even today, when more thanthree years have already ex-pired from the date stipu-lated for commencement ofpossession, completion ofconstruction is nowhere insight.”
Unitech told to pay two buyers over ₹75 lakh each
Staff Reporter
NEW DELHI
Refund original amount paid by�at buyers, forum tells developer
<> The grounds on
which this
complaint has been
opposed have
repeatedly been
rejected by this
commission...
National Consumer Disputes
Redressal Commission
Over 100 home buyers whohad booked flats with theAmrapali Group moved theSupreme Court on Wednes-day seeking that their in-terests be safeguarded bytreating them as securedcreditors like banks and fin-ancial institutions.
The home buyers, whohave neither received pos-session of the flats nor a re-fund, had booked homes inAmrapali Centurian Park(low rise), Amrapali Cen-turian Park-Terrace Homesand Amrapali TropicalGarden in Uttar Pradesh’sGreater Noida. More than5,000 flats were to be built innearly 40 towers in a phasedmanner by the embattledgroup.
The fresh plea, filed byBikram Chatterjee and 106others, has sought quashing
of a National Company LawTribunal (NCLT) orderpassed on a plea by the Bankof Baroda seeking initiationof insolvency proceedingsunder the Insolvency andBankruptcy Code, 2016,against Amrapali Silicon CityPrivate Limited.
Consumer foraConsumer and recoverycases, and decrees passed bycivil courts and consumerfora in favour of home buy-ers against real estate firmscannot be executed once in-solvency proceedings beginat the NCLT.
The plea has sought thateither home buyers betreated on a par with banksand financial institutions, orprovisions of the bankruptcycode, which give priority tolending institutions, be heldultra vires to the Constitutionas being violative of funda-
mental rights like the right toequality and right to life.
The petition, filed throughlawyer M. L. Lahoty, allegedthat insolvency proceedingsagainst Amrapali Silicon CityPrivate Limited affectedhome buyers of AmrapaliCenturian Park Private Lim-ited. The plea also claimedthat thousands of buyers hadbooked apartments during2010-14 by paying bookingamounts running into sev-eral crores, after which they
were made to sign “one-sided” allotment agree-ments.
‘Unreasonable’Objecting to the terms andconditions contained in theagreement, the buyersclaimed they were “oppress-ive and unreasonable” asthere was a clause on timelypayment by the buyer butnothing on timely comple-tion of the project. It claimedthat the contract was one-sided as it allowed thebuilder to raise loans fromany bank by mortgaging theflats being sold but the buy-ers could not object.
“Giving a serious jolt tohome buyers who have paidtheir hard-earned moneyand life savings into fundingthe purchase of their dreamhomes, respondents 3 and 4[Amrapali] were found inserious breach of their oblig-
ation to deliver the flatswithin 36 months, that is by2013 and in some cases itwas 2016,” the petition said.
No compensation for thisfailure to deliver flats hasbeen paid to the buyers, it al-leged. The NCLT had onSeptember 4 ordered liquid-ation of the builder on a pleaby the Bank of Baroda seek-ing initiation of the same un-der the Bankruptcy Act. Be-sides the two Amrapalifirms, the plea has made theUnion Ministries of Financeand Corporate Affairs, theUttar Pradesh Government,the Bank of Baroda and theReserve Bank of India partiesto the case as well.
Earlier, the SupremeCourt had taken note of asimilar plea by home buyersof real estate major JaypeeInfratech Ltd and revived in-solvency proceedings againstthe firm.
107 home buyers of Amrapali move apex court They have neither received possession nor refund of �ats booked in Greater Noida
Press Trust of India
New Delhi
After the new Delhi Univer-sity Students’ Union (DUSU)was elected recently, severalstudent groups during apublic meeting at the ArtsFaculty in North Campus onWednesday focused on thework done by the union.
‘False promises’Besides discussing problemsfaced by students in the pastyear, the groups felt thatDUSU should representthem instead of the adminis-tration.
They said after the all-consuming election cam-paign that tempted studentswith money, alcohol, pizza,lip glosses, stationery andNAMO power pepper spray,
what lies ahead is a ‘flurry offalse promises’.
Addressing the publicmeeting, Abhinash D.C. ofRamjas College said, “Whatwe learnt from the Ramjasincident in February is howinstitutionally we are de-prived of a place to speak.”
Discrimination alleged Alleging discrimination, dif-ferently-abled student AnujGoyal from the Delhi Schoolof Economics (DSE) pointedout how DU only has 26 liftswith three people workingfor their maintenance.
Mr. Goyal said, “There’s aspecial path made of yellowtiles constructed for us,which is never cleaned. Thepath is not a disabled-friendly path as it has turns.”
He spoke about how aseminar the students of DSEwanted to conduct on theright to privacy was rejectedby various authorities as thetopic was not “economics-re-lated or perhaps they fearedanother Ramjas incident”around election time. Ironic-ally, he said, a seminar onculture was held at the samevenue as the proposed pri-vacy seminar.
‘Fest organising body’Devika Shekhawat of PinjaraTod said, “We have gatheredhere to talk about the polit-ical imagination in DU andunitisation against students’problems because we don’twant our students’ union tobe just a fest organisingbody.”
Public meeting on ‘ideal DUSU’Students discuss problems faced by them over the past year
Nabiha Siddique
New Delhi
The Supreme Court on Wed-nesday directed embattledreal estate firm Unitech Res-idential Resorts Limited topay ₹80,000 each as com-pensation to 39 home buy-ers towards litigation costand for causing harassment.
NCDRC orderA Bench comprising ChiefJustice Dipak Misra andJustices Amitava Roy and A.M. Khanwilkar disposed ofthe appeal filed by the realestate company against theorder of the National Con-sumer Disputes RedressalCommission (NCDRC) andasked it to pay the costwithin eight weeks to thehome buyers.
Thirty-nine home buyershad booked flats inUnitech’s Vistas project inGurugram and sought a re-fund of the principalamount or ₹16.55 crore withinterest, after the developer,who had promised to give
possession by 2012, delayedit. The court modified theNCDRC’s order on the issueof compensation and awar-ded a compensation of₹80,000, besides refund ofthe money invested by thehome buyers, who said theydid not want the flats.
Earlier, the firm had toldthe court that it had com-plied with directions on re-fund of principal and in-terest to home buyers of itsGurugram project. Prior tothis, the court had directedthe firm to deposit 14% in-terest on ₹16.55 crore inves-ted by the 39 buyers andwarned it that failure to paycould invite attachment ofthe realtor’s property.
Over two dozen homebuyers of Unitech’s projectsin Noida and Gurugram hadapproached the NCDRCafter the builder failed togive possession of flats asper schedule. The forumhad asked Unitech to refundthe money to the home buy-ers with interest.
Compensate 39 home buyers, SC tells UnitechReal estate major had appealed against order of National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission
Press Trust of India
New Delhi
Getting his share: A man o�ers a banana to a monkey in the Delhi University area of the Capital.* SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
The National Green Tribunal(NGT) has directed the Delhigovernment to inspectmosques in east Delhi andcheck whether the noiselevels generated by loud-speakers during azaan (callto worship) exceeded per-missible limits.
A Bench headed by NGTChairperson JusticeSwatanter Kumar asked theAam Aadmi Party (AAP) gov-ernment and the Delhi Pollu-
tion Control Committee(DPCC) to take appropriateaction against them in caseof violation.
Prescribed parametersThe Tribunal passed the or-der as it disposed of a pleaby non-government organ-isation Akhand BharatMorcha alleging that illegaluse of loudspeakers at suchplaces adversely affected thehealth of the residents livingin the vicinity.
The counsel for various
mosques submitted that theyused loudspeakers withoutexceeding the prescribedparameters.
The plea had alleged thatthe activities of somemosques were in violation ofthe Environment (Protec-tion) Act, 1986, and theNoise Pollution (Regulationand Control) Rules, 2000.
It had claimed that theseplaces of worship were loc-ated in silent zones housingschools and hospitals andtheir loudspeakers sur-
passed the laid down decibellevels.
No action takenThe plea by NGO had allegedthat the residents of the areahad informed the authorit-ies, but no action was taken.
“Direct the police to en-sure no noise pollution iscaused by the respondentmosques and that the use ofloudspeaker if any is withinthe prescribed limits of thelaw,” the petition stated fur-ther.
Inspect mosques to check noise levels: NGT Delhi govt, pollution panel told to take appropriate action in case of violation Press Trust of India
New Delhi
Observing that rights ofstreet vendors are being“grossly affected”, the DelhiHigh Court asked the AamAadmi Party government toexpeditiously set up vendingcommittees through elec-tions to address theirgrievances.
A Bench headed by JusticeG. S. Sistani asked the Delhigovernment to set up a TownVending Committee (TVC) ineach municipality and con-
sider representations ofstreet vendors in the Capital.
The court gave the direc-tion after Congress leaderAjay Maken, along withsome NGOs and traders’ as-sociations, alleged that thelaw on setting up of TVCshad been violated by the gov-ernment as these bodies donot comprise elected repres-entatives of vendors.
The court said, “The mat-ter may be looked into ex-peditiously as the number ofcases are increasing, and on
the other hand we find thatthere are obstructions onroads and pavements aswell. In the absence of form-ation of TVCs, rights of streetvendors are being grossly af-fected.”
‘Fair and just’“Prima facie, we find thestand taken by the petition-ers to be fair and just for thereason that as a general prin-ciple of law, a rule cannotoverride the basic provisionsof the Street Vendors [Pro-
tection of Livelihood andRegulation of Street Vend-ing] Act, 2014. We requestthe respondents [the Delhigovernment and civic bod-ies] to consider the repres-entations of street vendorsand the submissions madeand recorded in the orderpassed,” the Bench said.
A batch of petitions havechallenged the StreetVendors Act, which was en-acted to regulate streetvendors in public areas andprotect their rights.
‘Form panel for street vendors through polls’HC asks Delhi govt to set up Town Vending Committee in each municipality
Press Trust of India
New Delhi
‘DUSU candidates oweapology for defacement’NEW DELHI
The High Court on
Wednesday castigated the
Delhi University Students’
Union (DUSU) poll candidates
for defacing the city, saying,
“You owe an apology to the
city. It is only because of a
patient city that you are not
yet sent to jail. It is not a
joke. This is violence against
the city and its people. We
shall have a clean Diwali.
Come back in a week and
show us a cleaned DU.” PTI
IN BRIEF
HC to hear plea on JNU’sdecision on GSCASHNEW DELHI
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Dance: `Chetna - An insight into con-sciousness’. Presentation of two dancechoreographies in Bharatanatyam andcontemporary styles: Mrigtrishna cho-reographed by Aparajita Sarma andPritpal Singh and Jai Ganesh conceptand choreography by Guru Smt KanakaSudhakar. Artists: Aparajita Sarma,Rashmi Mohan, Sandhya Hari, Arti Ra-man, Upasana Gagneja, Tanya Gambhirand Anusha Ramachandran at C.DDeshmukh Auditorium, India Interna-tional Centre (IIC), 6:30 p.m.
Dance: Lalit Arpan Festival 2017 - AnOde to Bahuda (The Spirit of Plurality)
The 16th edition is inspired by the Upanishad verse ‘Ekam Sat Viprah BahudaVadanti’. “Shadowed Colours” bySanchita Abrol (Kathak); “View on theMahabharata” by Radha Anjali & NatyaCo, Austria (Bharatanatyam); “ChhandPravah” by Gangani Parivar at TheStein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre(IHC), 7 p.m.
Exhibition: Finland 100 Years - Landof Northern Lights - a Finland photo-graphy exhibition by various �nessephotographers by Finland Embassy atOpen Palm Court Gallery, India HabitatCentre (IHC), 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Exhibition: Terra Firma - a group
painting exhibition by Milind Nayak,Gurudas Shenoy, Shirley Mathew andPraveen Kumar at Visual Arts Gallery,India Habitat Centre (IHC), 11 a.m. – 7p.m.
Exhibition: "Age No Bar" a group showby paintings curated by Joyattam Duttaat All India Fine Arts & Craft Society(AIFACS), 1 Ra� Marg, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Screening: "Fool Circle (TristesseClub)" French �lm screening with Eng-lish subtitles at M.L. Bhartia Auditor-ium, Alliance Francaise De Delhi, 72,Lodhi Estate, 6:30 p.m.(Mail your listings for this column [email protected])
DELHI TODAY
A probe into a robbery at ahouse in north-east Delhi’sWelcome has unearthed a‘plot’ that has left the victimshorrified.
According to the police,the robbery was planned bythe victims’ daughter,Shabana, who had secretlymarried a man and wantedto frame her fiancé, chosenby her family, for the crime.
Cash and jewelleryamounting to ₹30 lakh wererobbed from the house onTuesday when all membersof Shabana’s family wereaway, except for her youngersister.
Marriage in 2 monthsThe police said Shabana con-spired with her “husband”,Md. Anish, to commit thecrime as her family was pre-paring to marry her to a doc-tor two months later.
“She and her husband,Md. Anish, planned that theywould carry out a robbery ather house and then plant thebooty in the house of thedoctor to prove to her familythat the groom and his fam-ily were behind the crime.She even had plans to goahead and marry the doctor,despite being married to An-ish, so that she could framethe former in the case,” saidDeputy Commissioner of Po-
lice (North East) A.K. Singla.Shabana (22) secretly mar-
ried Anish (34), a marriedman, in 2015. Anish’s family,including his first wife, alsodid not know about thismarriage.
Wrong number“Anish fell in love withShabana when they got con-nected through a wrongnumber. They didn’t revealtheir relationship to theirfamily members. Their nikah
was solemnised at Shahdarain 2015,” said a police officer.
As per their plan, Shabanacalled Anish and locked hersister in her room. She alsoprovided keys of the lockerto Anish to execute the plan.
To convince her sister thata robbery had taken place,she asked Anish to come at a
time when only she and hersister were at home.
“On Tuesday, Shabanamade a PCR call around 5.30p.m. and claimed that twounknown persons had com-mitted a robbery at herplace. According to her state-ment, the duo knocked thedoor of her house and askedfor her father. When she toldthem he was not at home,the two men said that theyhad come from Kabir Nagarand wanted to deliver themarriage invitation cards.She opened the door think-ing they were genuinepeople,” said Mr. Singla.
‘Husband’ arrestedShabana told the police thatthe men asked her for a penand when she turned back,both of them barged into thehouse and one man coveredher mouth. The other onebolted the room of thesecond floor where heryounger sister was studying,she claimed.
This sequence of eventsraised the police’s suspicionand they quizzed Shabanastrictly following which sheallegedly broke down con-fessed to having committedthe crime. The police also ar-rested Anish for his allegedinvolvement in the robberyand are trying to ascertain ifsomeone else was also aparty to the crime.
Woman plots robberyto frame �ancé, heldShe secretly married another man, conspired to loot house
The accused in policecustody. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Shubhomoy Sikdar
New Delhi
A local court here dismissedthe bail application of an ac-cused in the Junaid murdercase. Rameshwar, a muni-cipal corporation employeefrom Delhi, is accused ofstarting an argument over aseat in a local train leading tothe murder of the teenagerearlier this year.
Four of the six accused inthe case are out on bail afterthe police dropped chargesof rioting, unlawful assemblyand common intentionagainst them.
Rameshwar, 50, hasmoved the bail applicationthrice over the past threemonths. “His counsel with-drew the application on thefirst occasion. The court dis-
missed the application thesecond time saying that itcould be decided after theevidence was produced be-fore it,” Nibrash Ahmed, thecomplainant's lawyer, toldThe Hindu.
Third attemptRameshwar moved the bailapplication for the third timea fortnight ago, but it was
again rejected by the court.Opposing the plea, Mr.Ahmed contended that theargument over the seat wasinitiated by the accused,who had boarded the train atOkhla along with his accom-plices. He further contendedthat Rameshwar was presentin the train all through thescuffle and deboarded thetrain at Asaoti railway sta-
tion, where the murder tookplace.
Junaid was stabbed todeath on June 22.
Rameshwar and his threeaccomplices, arrested in thecase, belong to Khambi vil-lage in Palwal. Another ac-cused, Ramesh, belongs toJodhpur in Palwal. Prime ac-cused Naresh, 27, is a resid-ent of Bhamrola in Palwal.
Junaid murder: bail plea of one accused rejected Ashok Kumar
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Additional DTC busesduring Navratri NEW DELHI
Special DTC buses will ply
during Navratri to facilitate
devotees visiting famous
temples in the city. The
special buses will operate in
the evening shift.
Supervisory DTC staff will be
deployed at strategic places
to help commuters, the
official said. Navratri begins
on Thursday and ends on
September 30. PTI
Where will the effigymakers go: HC to SDMCNEW DELHI
How will Dussehra be
celebrated if there are no
effigies, the Delhi High Court
asked the SDMC while pulling
it up for calling effigy-makers
encroachers of public land.
An HC bench observed the
authorities allow construction
of buildings for "rich" people
but remove the "poor",
calling them encroachers. PTI
A group of Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) MLAs and supporters,who had gone to submit amemorandum against therising prices of petrol anddiesel to the Union Petro-leum Minister DharmendraPradhan at Shastri Bhawan,were detained by the DelhiPolice on Wednesday.
Leaders detainedAround 12:30 p.m., the pro-testers reached ShastriBhawan, but were stopped atthe gate. The MLAs wearingthe AAP caps raised slogansagainst fuel hike, “Ye dekhoModi ka khel, ₹80 ho gaya tel(look at Narendra Modi’s
game, fuel is now ₹80)” and‘Bohut hui mehangai ki maar,nikammi hai Modi sarkar’(Have had enough of risingprices, the Modi governmentis useless).
"Our MLAs who had goneto the Petroleum Ministry atShastri Bhawan to submit amemorandum against thehigh prices of petrol anddiesel were detained,” AAP’sDelhi convenor Gopal Raitweeted.
"This was a peaceful at-tempt to meet the Minister,as it is the democratic rightof every citizen. Our MLAswere stopped at the entry,"he wrote.
The legislators werepicked up and detained at
the Parliament Street policestation and let go inhalf-an-hour.
Deregulated pricesThe AAP’s memorandum ad-dressing Mr. Pradhan said,“We are drawing your urgentattention towards the steephike in prices of petrol anddiesel, which have nowreached an unprecedentedhighest level in three yearssince your party’s govern-ment was formed at theCentre in May 2014.”
It also blamed the Centrefor distancing itself from theskyrocketing prices, statingthat these have been deregu-lated and now it is the re-sponsibility of the oil com-
panies to control fuel prices.“…Now with criticism
mounting, the Centre haschanged tack and is statingthat other options can be ex-plored, but instead of ad-dressing the problem, it istrying to put the onus on theStates,” the memorandumread. “We request the Petro-leum Minister to give strictinstructions to the oil com-panies to bring down pricesand fix them as per interna-tional rates,” Mr. Rai said.
‘Why no rate cut?’Standing outside the gate ofShastri Bhawan, AAP legis-lator Alka Lamba said that allof the party MLAs, alongwith supporters, have parti-
cipated in the protest to getanswers from the Centre asto why the prices of fuel havenot come down despite lowbuying price.
“Who is pocketing theprofit? Is it the governmentor is it the private players inthe market,” she asked.
The AAP on Tuesday hadannounced at a press confer-ence that it will launch acampaign against the risingprices of commodities, espe-cially petrol and diesel.
Party leaders said thatthere was no reason tocharge the customers suchhigh rates when the price ofcrude oil in internationalmarkets has been slashed byhalf.
AAP leaders picked up outside Minister’s o�ce, allowed to leave police station after half-an-hour
Taking a stand: Security personnel stop AAP members from entering Shastri Bhawan during theirprotest against rising prices of petrol and diesel, on Wednesday. * V. SUDERSHAN
MLAs protest fuel price hike, detained
Soumya Pillai
New Delhi
Fine for encroachment at ISBTs hiked 10 timesNEW DELHI
The Delhi Transport
Infrastructure Development
Corporation Limited has
increased the fine for people
encroaching the inter-State
bus terminus premises 10
times to ₹5,000, an official
said on Wednesday. The hike
came after complaints that
vendors were illegally
occupying ISBT spaces. PTI
IN BRIEF
A robber was gunned downand a policeman was in-jured in a late-night en-counter on Tuesday at Bis-rakh in Greater Noida.
According to the police,a Delhi-based businessman,Vinod, was returning toDelhi from Dasna in his car,when three bike-bornemiscreants held him at gun-point near Sector 62, andmade off with his car andthe cash he was carrying.
“The bike-borne miscre-ants intercepted Vinodnear Sector 62 and stole hiscar and ₹1.5 lakh cash atgunpoint late and fled.Soon after the incident, heinformed the PCR aboutthe robbery and the policeswung into action.” saidLove Kumar, Senior Super-intendent of Police,Gautam Budh Nagar.
Accused open fireAfter receiving the informa-tion, Sector 58 police sta-tion in-charge Anil PratapSingh and his team startedchasing the robbers whowere speeding towardsGreater Noida. The policealso alerted Greater Noidapolice about the robbery.
Bisrakh Police intercep-ted the robbers at CherryCounty in Tech Zone-4 inGreater Noida and signaledthem to stop. After beingsurrounded, the robbers
opened fire at the policeparty, who returned fire.
“During the crossfire,one of the robbers sufferedinjuries to his chest, stom-ach and leg, while a policeconstable was shot in hisleft arm. The other twomiscreants fled the spotleaving behind the car andcash robbed from the busi-nessman,” Mr. Kumar said.
Car, cash recoveredAt least 20 rounds werefired from both sides in theencounter. According to thepolice, the injured personswere rushed to district hos-pital in Noida, where the in-jured robber was declareddead. A police constable,Subodh Kumar, who in-jured his arm is undergoingtreatment at the hospital.
The deceased miscreanthas been identified as Bal-winder, a native of Aligarhin Uttar Pradesh.
The police seized an il-legal weapon and re-covered the car and cashfrom the spot after the en-counter. The police havealso launched a search op-eration to nab the abscond-ing criminals.
Robber killed, cophurt in shootout Incident after chase following theft
Staff Reporter
Greater Noida <> The bike-borne
men had stolen ₹1.5
lakh and a car from
a businessman
near Sector 62
Love Kumar
SSP,Gautam Budh Nagar
Come winter 2017, Delhi 6could have its own culturalhub, with the governmentnow starting work on trans-forming a neglected amphi-theatre that had become aden for drug addicts into aperformance space.
An amphitheatre on thepremises of a night shelterrun by the Delhi Urban Shel-ter Improvement Board onShanker Gali in Old Delhiwould be renovated and re-claimed, as per instructionsby Deputy Chief MinisterManish Sisodia. Along withDUSIB officials, Mr. Sisodiainspected the site on Wed-nesday.
Cultural activitiesBipin Rai, DUSIB Member(expert), said that Mr. Siso-dia, who is also Delhi’s Art
and Culture Minister, hadasked DUSIB officials tocome up with a proposal toconvert the space into a cul-tural centre.
“The aim of the projectwill be to transform thespace so that residents in thearea can enjoy cultural activ-ities there. We hope to haveit ready by the winter. TheDeputy CM has asked for theproposal as soon as pos-sible,” said Mr. Rai.
In addition to the amphi-theatre, one floor of thebuilding, which has the nightshelter on the top floor,could be used by the UrduAcademy and PunjabiAcademy to house libraries,said Mr. Rai.
He added that apart frommusic, dance and drama per-formances, the amphi-theatre could be used toscreen films for locals. Apart
from strengthening the ex-terior wall and installing newlights, the plan would in-clude short and long-termmeasures to make better useof the space.
Law & order problemsCurrently, the space is beingused as a dumping groundby locals and as a spot fordrug and alcohol addicts tocongregate. As reported inThe Hindu on Wednesday,locals had been complainingabout the law and orderchallenges around the com-plex.
Mr. Rai said that this wasalso addressed during ameeting of DUSIB officialsand Mr. Sisodia following theinspection. He said with theinvolvement of locals andregular events at the amphi-theatre, the security aspectwould also be addressed.
Amphitheatre may be redone by winterSisodia visits rundown space in Old Delhi; proposal to turn it into cultural hub to be submitted soon
Damini Nath
NEW DELHI
In disrepair: The space is now being used as a dumping ground, often attracting drugs and alcoholaddicts; Deputy CM Manish Sisodia during the inspection. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Returning to work after 10days away, Chief MinisterArvind Kejriwal on Wednes-day took stock of all majorprojects of the AAP govern-ment during a review meet-ing with Ministers.
Mr. Kejriwal, who was inMaharashtra for a medita-tion course till Tuesday, re-viewed the AAP govern-ment’s flagship projects,including the mohalla clin-ics project. He asked offi-cials to “fast-track the nextphase” of the project, whichincludes setting up the clin-ics at government schools,according to a governmentstatement.
Mohalla clinicsHe also reviewed the func-tioning of the existing mo-halla clinics and asked theHealth Department to ad-dress any problems arisingout of those by the end ofthe month. All the dia-gnostic tests that are sup-posed to be offered by theclinics should be started atthe earliest and any short-age of doctors should be re-solved, he said.
Reviewing the work of
the Education Department,Mr. Kejriwal asked the offi-cials to study the New DelhiMunicipal Council’s projectof installing CCTV camerasin schools. The EducationDepartment said the blue-print for the plan to installCCTV cameras in all schoolswas being drafted and thework would start soon. Asper the statement, the CMasked the Education Depart-ment to come up with a spe-cial campaign to aid stu-dents who are completingtheir studies through corres-pondence, having failed inthe regular system.
In addition, the CM alsoasked for details of all socialwelfare schemes of the So-cial Welfare Department inorder to review theirimplementation.
CM returns, reviewsmajor govt projects Meets Ministers after 10-day break
Staff Reporter
NEW DELHI
Arvind Kejriwal
The Delhi police on Wednes-day claimed to have arres-ted four men in connectionwith a road rage incident inGeeta Colony this past weekwhere a young man wasstabbed to death and hisfriend was injured.
The incident happenedon September 16. NishantArora (29) was declaredbrought dead at the GTBHospital after being stabbedby a group of men outsidean eatery. His friend GauravSharma (27) was injured inthe incident. The two hadintervened in a fightbetween the accused andanother man over a parkingissue.
During the investigation,the police examined theroute taken by the accusedand questioned locals. Sub-sequently, the four accused
were identified as Deep-anshu Chabra (24), De-vender Sharma (24), Rohanalias Gagan Vermani (22)and Gufran (22), the policesaid. They were nabbedfrom Haridwar.
Parking issueAshish Tyagi, a friend of thetwo victim who escaped un-hurt, told the police that he,along with Mr. Arora andMr. Sharma, were going to-wards Jheel Chowk, GeetaColony on a scooter.
When they reached neara dhaba, they found threemotorcyclists quarrellingwith a car driver asking himto give space for them topass, the police said. Theduo tried to pacify bothparties. Meanwhile, one ofthe motorcyclists took out aknife and stabbed Arora andSharma several times andfled the spot.
4 held over road ragedeath in Geeta ColonyVictim stabbed in �ght over parking
Staff Reporter
NEW DELHI
Nabbed: The accused were held from Haridwar days afterthe incident on September 16. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
There was ruckus during ameeting of the South DelhiMunicipal Corporation(SDMC) on Wednesday, afterthe Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)in the opposition allegedlydisrupted the proceedingsdemanding that a discussionbe held on illegal construc-tions in the civic body’sjurisdiction.
Terming the behaviour ir-responsible, uncalled forand against all democraticvalues, South Delhi MayorKamaljeet Sehrawat said theAAP continued to interruptthe House’s discussions des-pite being provided a replyto a query raised by them.
“We have always madesure that every representat-ive in the House gets achance to speak and ques-tion, irrespective of which
party they belong. Whenthe opportunity has beengiven for all discussions inthe Zero Hour, this seemedlike a deliberate attempt towaste the House’s time,” Ms.Sehrawat said.
Stating that such beha-viour will not be tolerated inthe House, she claimed thiswas an attempt by the AAPcouncillors to gain “cheappublicity”.
‘Disrespectful’A statement was issued bythe SDMC, where the beha-viour of the AAP councillorswas called “disrespectfuland unruly, tarnishing the
image and dignity of theHouse”.
However, AAP’s Leader ofthe Opposition Ramesh Ma-tiala said the BJP-ruledSDMC was trying to divertthe public’s attention fromthe nexus of illegal con-structions that have mush-roomed under their nose.
“For the past 10 years,the BJP is in power in themunicipalities and theyhave done nothing to con-trol illegal constructionsthat happen without thefear of law. When we raisedthis question for discussionin the House, we were si-lenced and the Mayor hadno answer,” added Mr.Matiala.
He alleged that theSDMC’s Building Depart-ment had no records of thenumber of buildings underits jurisdiction.
Mayor says party’s behaviour ‘against democratic values’
Staff Reporter
New Delhi
AAP disrupts SDMC meeting
<> This seemed ike a
deliberate attempt
to waste the
House’s time
Kamaljeet Sehrawat
South Delhi Mayor
A public interest litigation(PIL) petition, which has ac-cused several power genera-tion companies of chargingunjustifiably high tariff fromconsumers, and of cheatingbanks and their sharehold-ers, was heard by the DelhiHigh Court on Wednesday. Atwo-judge Bench has ad-journed the case to October25.
The plea, filed by theCentre for Public Interest Lit-igation and Common Cause,has sought the appointmentof a Special InvestigationTeam (SIT) to investigate theentire gamut of alleged cor-ruption around import ofpower equipment and coal.Among the companiesnamed in the PIL petition areAdani group and Essar.
Advocate PrashantBhushan, who appeared for
the petitioners, said therewere four alleged victims ofthe fraud: electricity con-sumers, banks, shareholdersof those companies and thegovernment that is cheated ofits legitimate share of tax.
Written note“The companies are inflatingcost of both equipment andcoal and have thus burdened
millions of electricity con-sumers with higher tariff.Secondly, they are takingloans from banks on the basisof this inflated cost, andmany of it is ending up asNPAs. Finally, they are cheat-ing their shareholders be-cause they are siphoning outmoney from shareholders topromoters,” Mr. Bhushantold The Hindu.
The court asked the peti-tioners to file a written notedetailing the various show-cause notices issued by theDRI (Directorate of RevenueIntelligence) and their status.
“The DRI did a good in-vestigation initially and inMay 2014 issued notice toAdani, and in March 2015 toEssar, and later issued alertfor 40 coal importing com-panies, including many fromthe Adani and Ambanigroups,” he pointed out. Allprobes had either beenscuttled or stalled, he said.
“The rampant corruptionand crime in high places inthe country, and the manifestunwillingness of the execut-ive to take requisite action inorder to ensure that the cul-prits are punished, gravelyimpairs the right of thepeople to live in a corruptionand crime-free society,” thePIL has claimed.
PIL seeks SIT probe into power �rms Accuses several companies of charging high tari�, cheating banks, shareholdersJosy Joseph
NEW DELHI
Power play: The DRI has issued an alert �nding 40 companiesindulging in rampant overpricing. * FILE PHOTO
Two men were gunneddown and one injuredwhile trying to resist a rob-bery at Ecotech area inGreater Noida on Wednes-day evening.
According to the police,the incident took placearound 8:30 p.m. when 4men in a car overtook a vanthat was carrying the salesmoney from liquor shops.The accused got the van tostop and shot at the collec-tion agents when they res-isted.
The deceased have beenidentified as Omprakash(guard) and Chandraba-hadur(driver) while an-other guard, Ambuj, was in-jured. The miscreants,around four of them, lootedaround ₹8 lakh from thevan and fled from the spot.
2 shot deadby robbers in Gr. NoidaStaff Reporter
Greater Noida
A nine-year-old girl was al-legedly raped by a man incentral Delhi’s Karol Baghwhen she had gone to getfood from a hotel in thearea, the police said onWednesday. The accused isyet to be identified.
The girl’s family said theaccused tried to strangu-late her and left her as heassumed her to be dead.The police, however, saidthat this angle has notemerged in their probe sofar. The incident was re-ported on Tuesday night.
The girl’s family said shehad gone to the hotel andwas told by the hotelowner that her orderwould take some time.When she went to take aseat on a nearby bench, aman, who had come to thehotel, lured her on somepretext and took her to thestairs outside the hotel, thepolice said.
He then allegedly forcedhimself on her. The vic-tim’s family alleged that theaccused tried to strangu-late her and after she lostconsciousness, he left herassuming her to bedead.After she regainedconsciousness, the girl re-turned home and narratedher ordeal, followingwhich the police were in-formed. The victim wastaken to a hospital and waslater discharged.
9-year-oldraped inKarol Bagh Press Trust of India
New Delhi
Terra Firma
Reflecting on the urge of humanity to co-exist in
the natural, the body of works by four artists of
Karnataka, relates to the existing urban scenario.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2017 5EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
CMYK
B ND-NDE
SHOWCASE
Award winning filmmakerKamal Swaroop’s 55-minuteAtul on the grandmaster ofcontemporary Indian artAtul Dodiya looks at the evol-ution of Dodiya's multifa-ceted career in which Dodiyaturns narrator andstoryteller. The film wasscreened at the PSBT’s OpenFrame Festival at India Inter-national Centre in NewDelhi.
It is the result of aseasoned and sensitivelyhandled collaboration andemerges as an original andcoherent work of artistic in-sight. Dodiya as Dodiya isnatural, cinematically astuteas he reveals a deep intensitythat stuns visually.
Childhood memoriesDodiya begins his narrativewith the memory of an acci-dent with an uncle and an in-cident of retinal detachment– the loss of vision in one eyeand gets into small imagesand symbols and places andthen takes us into the com-plexity of vibrant western in-fluences and eastern tradi-tions that he drew from.
Swaroop captures with afish lens an enormous range,from early photorealistpaintings depicting middle-class life to ingenious as-semblages that brilliantlyfuse European and Indianartistic styles, history, andcultural references. In addi-tion to some close ups ofDodiya's colourful art, thefilm works more as a flash-
back and was conceptualisedby Swaroop in 2012.
The sweeping cameramovements gives us a fluidaspect of the cultural integ-rity of the narrative. Thesoundtrack follows the quiet-ude of the camera’s elo-quence, combining ambientsounds, and dialogue loadedwith quotations fromDodiya’s favourite gleaningsto create a limpid sequentialsoundscape.
The recurring grindstoneWe are shown several im-
ages of the grindstone(chakki) – a primordial In-dian reference to Dodiya'sneighbour, an old widow,who would prepare picklesand paapad at the old wadiin Ghatkopar where Dodiyalived. “Every morning and af-ternoon she would work onher grindstone. That soundwould put us to sleep. That
chakki takes different formsin my work. It not only sym-bolises memories of mychildhood, but also symbol-ises hard work,” says Dodiya.
Letters and booksDodiya links his works to
his travels with precision andpassion. The sound of hisspoken Gujarati and Hindialong with English adds tothe subtext of the beauty ofthe vernacular. “Letter froma Father” (1994), oil and ac-rylic on canvas, is a memoirof the artist’s first overseastrip – in this case – Paris.Dodiya unconsciously lets usinto his world of books andlanguage and letters. Dodiyaexplains his evolution ofthought in “Lamentation”,with devotion and clarity to-wards the end.
“In ‘Lamentation’ half thepainting is divided with animage of Gandhi walkingaway on an empty railway
platform and half the paint-ing draws inspiration fromPicasso’s well-known paint-ing of the girl and the motherduring the civil war. I put animage of Shiva below her,which was inspired by theKalighat painting. When Icreated this work, it was1997, and India completed 50years of independence. Itwas a moment of great celeb-ration, but my painting wastitled ‘Lamentation’,” ex-plains Dodiya, “After creatingthis work, my obsession withGandhi began.”
For those of us who havefollowed Dodiya over thepast 25 odd years, there aresome precious moments tocherish. When Dodiyaspeaks of his visit and stay atRamakrishna Mission hiswork “Bed of DakshineshwarHouse” becomes a signpostof the past.
Dodiya’s paintings be-
come vignettes of visualpunctuation. One wishedthere were more specially hisSabari works done at Singa-pore Tyler Print Institute.
Music and musings“Mohd Rafi and Geeta Duttare my most favourite sing-ers. I’d like to be re-membered as Mohd Rafi ofIndian painting,” when hesays this, we are looking atAtul Dodiya as a completehuman with finer aesthetics,maybe a hint of romanticism.
Dodiya, the voraciousreader, thinker and philo-sopher, also creeps into littleplaces when he talks of ab-stract expressionist PhilipGuston, and uses his quotefor a painting – “What is free-dom for an artist – it’s a longlong preparation for a fewmoments of innocence.”
Dodiya says he startedreading the poetry of Lab-
shankar Thakar when he was15 or 16. He speaks aboutthree people whose work heloved and was influenced by.“I was stunned and amazedby the link between threecreative minds – Jasper Johnsat New York in the 1960s,Jean Luc Godard, the FrenchNew Wave Director in Franceand Labshankar inAhmedabad. ”
Background ScoreAfter the screening,
Swaroop spoke about how hetreated Dodiya with rever-ence. “When I shot the film itran into four hours, Icouldn’t prolong it and hadto finish it in stipulated time.Yes, I was deeply fascinatedby the beauty of his thoughtsand his intellectual worth. Ifelt like a fool in front of him.After I finished, I was in-spired to find out more andwork on another film thatwould look at Atul with twoartists and his wife Anju. ”
Swaroop sustains the nar-rative in the first person,with a study of few works.“In the background score, Iincluded the sound of thesloshing of water, the chatterof women, handmills, andaudio tracks from films suchas Satyajit Ray’s Pather Pan-chali and Ingmar Bergman’sSilence. There is chorale mu-sic and classical piano piecesbecause I wanted a subtlecounterpoint in effect – bothAtul and Anju love Bergman,that is why I used that,” saysSwaroop.
He used sound and silenceto give us references of re-flections in reality. For ex-ample, Dodiya’s Night Studiowas partially inspired by hismemories of hearing thesound of handmills at his oldhome. “I wanted the film tofloat on the principle of mul-tiple references.”
Swaroop’s film reflects afervent knowledge and com-prehensive understanding ofhuman philosophy, a pro-found insight into the fragil-ity and strength present inan artist’s world.
A smooth grind Kamal Swaroop’sdocumentary oneminent artist AtulDodiya occupiesboth the mind and the eye
Deft touch: Atul Dodiya in a still from the �lm * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Uma Nair
Navratra Thali at Kathputli
Enjoy the festival of Navratra with food. The
menu features special Navrara thali, Shikanji,
fresh fruits, raita, shakarkandi chat, paneer
tamatar wala. Also kuttu parantha and dudhiya
halwa to satisfy sweet tooth.
Venu: 35, Defence Colony Market
Time : 12: 30 p.m. to 4 p.m.; 7: 30 p.m. and
11: 30 p.m.
FOOD
5 EVENTS WORTH-YOUR-WHILE
Special platter
An appetising Vrat food awaits foodies, who can
enjoy eating Phalahari Kheer, made with milk,
samak rice, Saboodana Khichdi and Kuttu ki roti,
Wonder Aloo Chaat, Courtesy by Cottage Cheese
and Pina Raita (Pineapple Raita) are other items
served during the festival.
Venue: Cafe Delhi Heights, Shop No. SF 12 - 13,
Pacific Mall Tagore Garden
Time: 11 a.m. to Midnight
FESTIVAL
Director Apoorva Lakhia,who has made crime filmslike Shootout at Lokhandwalaand Zanjeer, is ready withHaseena Parkar, based on Da-wood Ibrahim’s sister withthe same name. He assertsthat he has not glorified thecharacter in the film and hastried to portray the story of awoman who emerged out ofdifficult circumstances to be-come Aapa, as everybodyknew Hassena in later part ofher life. Here he talks abouttreatment of the subject, is-sue of self censorship andworking with ShraddhaKapoor.
Excerpts:How relevant is a biopic
like Hassena Parkar intoday’s politically chargedenvironment?
I think even the politiciansunderstand that we are film-makers who are working toentertain people but it be-comes over hyped on socialmedia because of the sub-ject.
It is very easy for a personwho is sitting 2,500 km awayand abusing my film. I seethem as cowards. Everybodykeeps asking me did I receiveany sort of threat from theunderworld and I keep
telling them that I did not. Itis a film about the life of awoman who was not provenguilty in any court of law. Imade a film which I thoughtwas interesting with peoplesurrounding me. In the Con-stitution, it is clearly men-tioned that the person is in-nocent until proven guilty. Ithink the judgements on thefilm should also come afterthe film is screened.
But the question of rep-
resentation does arise.Also, there is a very thinline between glorificationand showing reality…
I have not glorified anyonein the film nor was any inten-tion of doing that. I thinkthere is no thin line. If a per-son has done certain thingsin her life and we are show-ing that, it is not glorifica-tion. It shows how her owndreams shattered due to thetragedies that happened to
her. That led her to becomewhat some people call agangster, some a godmotherand others a grey character.Can I not make any film thatis politically charged or dealwith a subject about whichsome people have certain re-servations?
Of course, you can, youhave right to self-expres-sion. But do you think atsome point of time as afilmmaker you have to ex-
ercise self-censorship?Obviously, you have to
self-censor because you haveto be a model citizen first. Ihave a mother, cousins,brothers who have daugh-ters, friends who havedaughters and you have totake care of all these factors.My upbringing does not al-low me to disrespect or ab-use any women and I do notuse abusive language in myfilms. I agree that my films
are basically on violent sidebut they provide clean enter-tainment. I do not intend tohurt any sentiments. But atthe end of the day, we aremaking a commercial filmwith songs, the larger thanlife portrayal, not a docu-mentary.
How different is yourtreatment of HaseenaParkar from your otherfilms?
It is different. Shootout atLokhandwala was a pure ad-renaline rush film while Zan-jeer was a total action film.Haseena Parkar has got moredrama than violence. It is ajourney of a woman from theage of seventeen to forty-fiveand in that journey in Mum-bai went through lot ofchanges. After the blasts, shewas questioned for 45 days.They did not find any proofagainst her and she was theonly one in the family whostayed back. The film is dif-ferent as it is a film about agirl who was born in a poorfamily, her father was a po-lice constable, they were liv-ing in a twelve by twelve footchawl with fourteen of them.
Any recollection of hermannerisms…
I still remember when Ifirst went to her I was twohours late and she made me
wait two hours. Sometimespeople see (film) industrypeople as someone not trust-worthy as they sometimesdramatise the real eventsand change some of thefacts. People want to be surein which light you are goingto show them. She startedtrusting me after six-sevenmonths and her family madeit easier for me. We met a lotof police persons, looked at alot of old police files and talk-ing to the family helped in re-search.
What about films withwomen as central charac-ters? Tell us about your ex-perience of working withShraddha Kapoor.
Films made on women ascentral characters are open-ing entirely new avenues forfilmmakers now. They cantell a story without thinkingabout other issues. You cannow get the heroine and thenlook for the hero. Shraddhais a good actor and I knewthat she can manage the per-formance. The main advant-age was that she can play aseventeen-year-old girl aswell as forty-five year old. Iwatched her performance inHaider which was differentfrom her earlier films and Ibecame a fan while shootingwith her.
Aapa’s storyApoorva Lakhia on his �rst meeting with Haseena Parkar and how the biopic is di�erent from his other crime thrillers
Fascination for real characters: Apoorva Lakhia; ShraddhaKapoor as the protagonist
Atif Khan
<> I was deeply
fascinated by the
beauty of his
thoughts and his
intellectual worth.
I felt like a fool in
front of him. After I
�nished, I was
inspired to �nd out
more and work on
another �lm...
Kamal Swaroop
‘R K Studios will
be rebuilt’Veteran actor Rishi Ka-
poor says the iconic R KFilms and Studios, Mum-bai, which burnt down inan accident, will be rebuiltwith “a state of the art stu-dio.” Rishi expressed hissadness and added that the“scars” of the incident,that took place on Septem-ber 16 in Chembur, shall re-main.
The 65-year-old alsoshared an old photographof the studio being readiedfor an inauguration withthe film Awaara starringRaj Kapoor and Nargis.“1950. R K Studios stageNo: 1 being readied forDusserah inaugurationwith the film Awaara.Dream sequence was to beshot,” Rishi captioned theimage.
The blaze gutted one ofthe main shooting venues— the set of dance realityTV show Super Dancer Sea-son 2, but the shooting wasnot underway. The studiowas the venue for movieslike Jis Desh Me Ganga BehtiHain (1960) and Bobby(1973)
IANS
SHORT TAKES
Exploring Aussie cuisineFoodie duo Rocky Singh
and Mayur Sharma takeviewers on a trip to Aus-tralia with their latest showwhich will premier on Liv-ing Foodz on September22.
Speaking about “Rocky& Mayur’s Offbeat Aus-tralia”, Rocky said: “Wehad an exciting Aussie ex-perience right from taking-on new adventures to en-joying amazing cuisine.”
