16
C ongress chief Rahul Gandhi on Monday once again made it clear to senior party leaders, including the Congress Chief Ministers, that he would not take back his res- ignation amid indication that veteran Sushilkumar Shinde, a dalit leader from poll-bound Maharashtra, may be given the chance to lead the party. The Congress’ first family is believed to have agreed on Shinde’s name after another veteran AK Antony declined the offer to lead the party cit- ing health conditions. Other Congress leaders whose names were doing the rounds as probable choice for the post of Congress president were Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ashok Gehlot, Mallikarjun Kharge, Janardhan Dwivedi and Mukul Wasnik. However, Shinde emerged as the front- runner for the post as he is con- sidered as a loyalist of the Gandhi family since 1971 and a well-known dalit face. AICC sources said the Gandhi family has reportedly given a green signal to Shinde’s appointment as the next Congress chief. The develop- ment comes as Rahul has reit- erated that there is no going back on his decision, despite requests by leaders from his party and outside to continue in the post. Rahul also chaired a meet- ing of top leaders of J&K in Delhi and discussed the over- all political and security situa- tion of the State and advised the State leadership to launch an offensive against the BJP for its “failure” on various fronts. The meeting was attended by top Congress leaders like Gulam Nabi Azad, Ambika Soni, KC Venugopal, AICC secretary incharge J&K, Shakeel Ahmed, and JKPCC chief GA Mir. Chief Ministers of five Congress ruled States led by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot urged the latter to continue leading the party. The Chief Ministers met the Gandhi scion at his residence and analysed the Lok Sabha poll debacle, while taking moral responsibility for the party’s defeat. “It was a good meeting that lasted around two hours. We conveyed and apprised him about the feelings of Congress workers across the country and urged him to continue to lead the party. We hope he will positively view our request to him to contin- ue as Congress president,” Gehlot said after the meeting. Sources said while the Chief Ministers made a last effort to persuade Rahul Gandhi to continue as Congress chief, Rahul report- edly told them that he has already conveyed his decision to the CWC and would not relent. The sources also said that the Congress Chief Ministers took moral responsibility for the party’s defeat in Lok Sabha elections and some also offered their resignations. “In elections, victories and defeats happen. But the high command decides on future course of action. This issue has already been resolved as all Chief Ministers have offered their resignations at the meet- ing of Congress Working Committee on May 25,” Gehlot said when asked about their offer to resign at the meeting. Gehlot was flanked by Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath, Chhatisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel and Puducherry CM V Narayanasamy, later to be joined by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. This was Rahul’s efforts to reach out and continue meet- ing his leaders, particularly from the poll-bound States and serving States. T he President’s Rule in Jammu & Kashmir has been extended by another six months after the Rajya Sabha passed the related Bill pre- sented by Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday. The House also passed the Reservation (Amendment) Bill that pro- poses to give quota benefits in jobs and educational institu- tions to people living near the State’s International Border. The State has been under Central rule since June 2018, when the BJP ended its alliance with Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party. Elections will be announced later this year, but before that President’s Rule, which is applicable for six-month peri- ods, has to be renewed. On use of Article 356 to impose President’s rule in the State, Shah said he agreed with the spirit to minimise the use of the constitutional provision and added that democracy in the State should not be restrict- ed to three families. He also attacked Congress of misusing the Article 356 by invoking the constitutional provision to dismiss State Governments led by rival par- ties in the past. Shah said Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the State could not happen simul- taneously because security to all candidates could not be given. Shah said the Government will not delay elections in the State even for a day the moment Election Commission agrees to hold polls. “Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of the country and no one can separate it from India. The Narendra Modi Government has a zero-toler- ance policy towards terror- ism. The Government is com- mitted to Jammu & Kashmir’s development. We will move forward in the spirit of Kashmiriyat, Jamuriyat, insaniyat...” the Home Minister said in Rajya Sabha. A 55-year-old doctor (PhD holder) allegedly killed his wife and two children and later committed suicide at his flat in Uppal South end in Sector 49, Gurugram, said police on Monday. Though the incident took place on Sunday night, the neighbours reported the mat- ter to police on Monday morn- ing when they did not get any response from the family after knocking on their door. “A police team, along with forensic experts and dog squad, reached the spot and broke open the house with the help of plumber provided by Resident Welfare Association (RWA) of society and found the dead bodies of all the four family members. As per the initial investigation, Prakash Singh is suspected of killing his wife Komal alias Sonu Singh (49), daughter Aditi (21) and Aditya (12) with a sharp weapon and hammer while they were sleep- ing,” said a senior police officer. The family was staying in Gurugram for the past twelve years and was a native of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. A suicide note reportedly was written by Singh was found from his pocket in which he had written, “he was not able to handle his family and was responsible for the incident”. Singh later hanged himself from the ceiling fan, said police, adding all the family members, except Singh, had multiple stab wounds. Their throats were also slit, police said. The family had four dogs which were sitting nearby the bodies. A source said Singh first killed his daughter Aditi, whose body was found on the bed after which he killed his wife Komal, whose body was found on the floor of the room and then he killed his son Aditya and left his body behind the door of the room. The three bodies were recovered from the same room. C hanging times which had earlier caused RSS to replace its iconic “khaki” half pants with full trousers have again played its role in influ- encing top Sangh office-bear- ers, including its head Mohan Bhagwat, to make their debut on microblogging site Twitter. Besides Bhagwat, six other RSS leaders, including Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi, Sangh’s general secretary, its three joint general secre- taries Suresh Soni, Krishna Gopal, V Bhagaiah, Sangh’s publicity head Arun Kumar and another senior func- tionary Anirudh Deshpandae have joined Twitter. “The accounts have been created to stop the spread of misinformation by parody accounts of the Sangh’s office bearers. But they are unlike- ly to use it,” said RSS sources. Twitter is not the plat- form where the RSS would like to engage in a dialogue with the public, they said. “Our ‘pracharaks’ (full time workers) always stay in touch with the public,” they said. T he State BJP euphoric with Lok Sabha election results has started preparations for year-end Assembly elections, with the party setting a target to win more than 65 seats in Assembly poll. The State BJP in this connection held Assembly- level core committee meet on Monday which was attended by State BJP president Laxman Gilua, Chief Minister Raghubar Das and leaders from different Assembly segments. The CM asked the BJP cadres and Assembly core com- mittee members to strength- ened the party at booth level with giving special importance to Santhal Pargana and Kolhan region—the two regions in State where BJP is relatively weaker than other regions. Das said, “In Lok Sabha elec- tion, Guruji lost from JMM stronghold Dumka, this time in Assembly election, Guruji’s son (Hemant Soren) and daughter- in-law (Sita Soren) will face the same fate.” Both Hemant and Sita Soren are MLAs from Santhal region. The CM asked the Assembly core committee members to reach out to peo- ple addressing their problems. At the meeting the BJP mem- bers were asked to reach out to people across the State high- lighting the various develop- mental schemes launched by Modi Government at Centre and State Government scheme. Special emphasis has been given to fair sex (women), farmers and youths. Das said, “The BJP work- ers should reach out to fair sex (women) highlighting how the Modi Government Ujjwala Yojana, toilets and State Government’s scheme of prop- erty registration on Rs 1 for women have become game changer for women.” Das further said, “The Centre and State Government is committed to double farm- ers income by 2022 and in this connection Centre and State Government have launched PM Kisan and Mukhyamantri Ashirwad Yojana, under which farmers will get 6000 per acre on yearly basis. The two installments have already reached to farmers.” The party has also decided to hold laab- huk sammelan (beneficiary summit), where beneficiaries of various centre and State Government schemes will attend. To strengthen party at booth level, the CM said that membership drive of the party will be given the required pace with each booth having at least 100 members from BJP. The Saffron party presently has 23 lakh members and the party in its new membership drive to be launched from this month has set a target to make 22.45 lakh new mem- bers.BJP national president, Amit Shah to oversee the party poll preparation is going to visit Jharkhand this month. The CM on the occasion also called upon the BJP work- ers right from panchayat to district level to come forward in water conservation. From July 1 to September 15, the BJP will hold function at Panchayat (village) level on the issue of water conservation. During the period, there will be par- ticipation of any senior leader right from ministers to MLAs to MPs at any Panchayat urg- ing the people to come for- ward in water conservation. Das’ diktat on water con- servation assumes importance as Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his monthly ‘Maan Ki Baat’ on Sunday stressed on water conservation. The PM on the occasion also gave tips on water conservation. The BJP Assembly core committee meet was attended by BJP state president Laxman Gilua, BJP organisational sec- retary Dhrampal Singh, Saudan Singh, Anant Ojha, Deepak Prakash and others. Around 350 BJP assembly core committee members attended the meet. A t least 35 people died and 17 others were injured when an overcrowded bus skid- ded off a hilly road and fell into a deep gorge in Jammu & Kashmir’s Kishtwar district on Monday, officials said. The minibus, which was on its way from Keshwan to Kishtwar, skidded off the Keshwan-Thakrai road and rolled down into the gorge around 7.30 am, officials said. Kishtwar Deputy Commissioner A S Rana told PTI that the 28-seater bus was carrying 52 passengers when the accident happened, adding that a probe would be ordered. Thirty-five people died and 17 others were injured, district Senior Superintendent of Police Shakti Pathak told PTI. Police, security agencies and locals helped in rescuing the injured. Sixteen injured people were airlifted to hospi- tals from the spot, officials said. Nine of them were admit- ted to Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu. Detailed report on P9 C hief Minister Raghubar Das on Monday said that after implementation of Mukhyamantri Sukanya Yojana, the awareness about education has increased among girls in rural areas of the State. Talking about the problem of malnutrition in the State, Das said that a Run for Nutrition marathon will be organised in the month of September across Jharkhand. Reviewing the work of Women and Child Development and Social Security department Das said, "If the girls in villages are edu- cated, migration would reduce and malnutrition can be con- trolled." He directed the officers of the department to link maxi- mum number of beneficiaries to this scheme. There is a plan of linking 2,90,169 girls to this scheme in year 2019-20. Under this scheme, till a girl reaches the age of 18 she is given a total financial support of Rs. 40,000 in seven installments. He directed the officers to ensure that Anganwadi Sevikas organise meeting with villagers, especially pregnant women, at least twice a week to discuss issues of malnutrition. "Get the women linked with Pradhan Mantri Matri Vadana Yojana. Around one lakh women in the State are still to be linked with this scheme. Pay special attention on dis- tricts where there are higher cases of child marriage," the CM Directed. Talking about Tejaswini Yojana Das said that that the scheme would be very benefi- cial for the adolescent girls and it should be started in all the 17 targeted districts. "Under this scheme the girls will be trained and linked to livelihood," he said. To this, the department officials informed that till date 52,793 adolescent girls have been linked with this pro- gramme in Ramgarh and Dumka and 576 Tejaswini Clubs have been created. They also informed that the scheme will be launched in all the dis- tricts by July 3 under which 10 lakh girls would be benefitted. The CM said that there is an immediate need to find a solution to the problem of human trafficking in the state. "A separate residential campus will be constructed in Ranchi for the trafficking survivors in which girls over the age of 18 will be given skill training and provided jobs in Jharkhand itself. This way they will not have to leave the State in search of work. Meanwhile, the sur- vivors below age of 18 will be linked to education and given cycles," he announced. Das also directed the offi- cials to procure blankets for distributing among poor by the month of September. "Do not wait for the winters, ensure dis- tribution of blankets by October," he said. The meeting was attended by department minister Louis Marandi, Secretary Amitabh Kaushal, chief secretary DK Tiwari, principal secretary to the CM Sunil Barnwal and other department officials.

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Congress chief RahulGandhi on Monday once

again made it clear to seniorparty leaders, including theCongress Chief Ministers, thathe would not take back his res-ignation amid indication thatveteran Sushilkumar Shinde, adalit leader from poll-boundMaharashtra, may be giventhe chance to lead the party.

The Congress’ first familyis believed to have agreed onShinde’s name after anotherveteran AK Antony declinedthe offer to lead the party cit-ing health conditions.

Other Congress leaderswhose names were doing therounds as probable choice forthe post of Congress presidentwere Ghulam Nabi Azad,Ashok Gehlot, MallikarjunKharge, Janardhan Dwivediand Mukul Wasnik. However,Shinde emerged as the front-runner for the post as he is con-sidered as a loyalist of theGandhi family since 1971 anda well-known dalit face.

AICC sources said theGandhi family has reportedlygiven a green signal to Shinde’sappointment as the nextCongress chief. The develop-ment comes as Rahul has reit-erated that there is no goingback on his decision, despiterequests by leaders from hisparty and outside to continuein the post.

Rahul also chaired a meet-ing of top leaders of J&K inDelhi and discussed the over-

all political and security situa-tion of the State and advised theState leadership to launch anoffensive against the BJP for its“failure” on various fronts.

The meeting was attendedby top Congress leaders like

Gulam Nabi Azad, AmbikaSoni, KC Venugopal, AICCsecretary incharge J&K,Shakeel Ahmed, and JKPCCchief GA Mir.

Chief Ministers of fiveCongress ruled States led by

Rajasthan Chief MinisterAshok Gehlot urged the latterto continue leading the party.The Chief Ministers met theGandhi scion at his residenceand analysed the Lok Sabhapoll debacle, while taking

moral responsibility for theparty’s defeat.

“It was a good meetingthat lasted around two hours.We conveyed and apprisedhim about the feelings ofCongress workers across the

country and urged him tocontinue to lead the party. Wehope he will positively viewour request to him to contin-ue as Congress president,”Gehlot said after the meeting.

Sources said while theChief Ministers made a lasteffort to persuade RahulGandhi to continue asCongress chief, Rahul report-edly told them that he hasalready conveyed his decisionto the CWC and would notrelent.

The sources also said thatthe Congress Chief Ministerstook moral responsibility forthe party’s defeat in Lok Sabhaelections and some alsooffered their resignations.

“In elections, victories anddefeats happen. But the highcommand decides on futurecourse of action. This issue hasalready been resolved as allChief Ministers have offeredtheir resignations at the meet-ing of Congress WorkingCommittee on May 25,”Gehlot said when asked abouttheir offer to resign at themeeting.

Gehlot was flanked byMadhya Pradesh CM KamalNath, Chhatisgarh CMBhupesh Baghel andPuducherry CM VNarayanasamy, later to bejoined by Punjab ChiefMinister Amarinder Singh.This was Rahul’s efforts toreach out and continue meet-ing his leaders, particularlyfrom the poll-bound Statesand serving States.

����� 045�43�6

The President’s Rule inJammu & Kashmir has

been extended by another sixmonths after the Rajya Sabhapassed the related Bill pre-sented by Home Minister AmitShah on Monday. The Housealso passed the Reservation(Amendment) Bill that pro-poses to give quota benefits injobs and educational institu-tions to people living near theState’s International Border.

The State has been underCentral rule since June 2018,when the BJP ended its alliancewith Mehbooba Mufti’sPeople’s Democratic Party.Elections will be announcedlater this year, but before thatPresident’s Rule, which isapplicable for six-month peri-ods, has to be renewed.

On use of Article 356 toimpose President’s rule in theState, Shah said he agreed withthe spirit to minimise the useof the constitutional provisionand added that democracy inthe State should not be restrict-ed to three families.

He also attacked Congress

of misusing the Article 356 byinvoking the constitutionalprovision to dismiss StateGovernments led by rival par-ties in the past.

Shah said Assembly andLok Sabha elections in theState could not happen simul-taneously because security toall candidates could not begiven. Shah said theGovernment will not delayelections in the State even fora day the moment ElectionCommission agrees to holdpolls.

“Jammu & Kashmir is anintegral part of the country andno one can separate it fromIndia. The Narendra ModiGovernment has a zero-toler-ance policy towards terror-ism. The Government is com-mitted to Jammu & Kashmir’sdevelopment. We will moveforward in the spirit ofKashmiriyat, Jamuriyat,insaniyat...” the Home Ministersaid in Rajya Sabha.

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A55-year-old doctor (PhDholder) allegedly killed his

wife and two children andlater committed suicide at hisflat in Uppal South end inSector 49, Gurugram, saidpolice on Monday.

Though the incident tookplace on Sunday night, theneighbours reported the mat-ter to police on Monday morn-ing when they did not get anyresponse from the family afterknocking on their door.

“A police team, along withforensic experts and dog squad,reached the spot and brokeopen the house with the help ofplumber provided by ResidentWelfare Association (RWA) ofsociety and found the deadbodies of all the four familymembers. As per the initialinvestigation, Prakash Singh issuspected of killing his wifeKomal alias Sonu Singh (49),daughter Aditi (21) and Aditya(12) with a sharp weapon andhammer while they were sleep-

ing,” said a senior police officer.The family was staying in

Gurugram for the past twelveyears and was a native ofVaranasi in Uttar Pradesh. Asuicide note reportedly waswritten by Singh was foundfrom his pocket in which hehad written, “he was not able tohandle his family and wasresponsible for the incident”.

Singh later hanged himselffrom the ceiling fan, said police,adding all the family members,except Singh, had multiple stabwounds. Their throats werealso slit, police said.

The family had four dogswhich were sitting nearby thebodies.

A source said Singh firstkilled his daughter Aditi, whosebody was found on the bedafter which he killed his wifeKomal, whose body was foundon the floor of the room andthen he killed his son Adityaand left his body behind thedoor of the room. The threebodies were recovered from thesame room.

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Changing times which hadearlier caused RSS to

replace its iconic “khaki” halfpants with full trousers haveagain played its role in influ-encing top Sangh office-bear-ers, including its head MohanBhagwat, to make their debuton microblogging site Twitter.

Besides Bhagwat, sixother RSS leaders, includingSuresh Bhaiy yaj i Joshi ,Sangh’s general secretary, itsthree joint general secre-taries Suresh Soni, KrishnaGopal, V Bhagaiah, Sangh’spublicity head Arun Kumarand another senior func-t ionar y Anir udhDeshpandae have joinedTwitter.

“The accounts have beencreated to stop the spread ofmisinformation by parodyaccounts of the Sangh’s officebearers. But they are unlike-ly to use it,” said RSS sources.

Twitter is not the plat-form where the RSS wouldlike to engage in a dialoguewith the public, they said.“Our ‘pracharaks’ (full timeworkers) always stay in touchwith the public,” they said.

����� 7$0��6

The State BJP euphoric withLok Sabha election results

has started preparations foryear-end Assembly elections,with the party setting a targetto win more than 65 seats inAssembly poll. The State BJP inthis connection held Assembly-level core committee meet onMonday which was attended byState BJP president LaxmanGilua, Chief Minister RaghubarDas and leaders from differentAssembly segments.

The CM asked the BJPcadres and Assembly core com-mittee members to strength-ened the party at booth levelwith giving special importanceto Santhal Pargana and Kolhanregion—the two regions inState where BJP is relativelyweaker than other regions.Das said, “In Lok Sabha elec-

tion, Guruji lost from JMMstronghold Dumka, this time inAssembly election, Guruji’s son(Hemant Soren) and daughter-in-law (Sita Soren) will face thesame fate.” Both Hemant andSita Soren are MLAs fromSanthal region.

The CM asked theAssembly core committeemembers to reach out to peo-ple addressing their problems.At the meeting the BJP mem-bers were asked to reach out topeople across the State high-lighting the various develop-mental schemes launched byModi Government at Centreand State Government scheme.Special emphasis has beengiven to fair sex (women),farmers and youths.

Das said, “The BJP work-ers should reach out to fair sex(women) highlighting how theModi Government UjjwalaYojana, toilets and State

Government’s scheme of prop-erty registration on Rs 1 forwomen have become gamechanger for women.”

Das further said, “TheCentre and State Governmentis committed to double farm-ers income by 2022 and in thisconnection Centre and StateGovernment have launchedPM Kisan and MukhyamantriAshirwad Yojana, under whichfarmers will get 6000 per acreon yearly basis. The twoinstallments have alreadyreached to farmers.” The partyhas also decided to hold laab-

huk sammelan (beneficiarysummit), where beneficiariesof various centre and StateGovernment schemes willattend.

To strengthen party atbooth level, the CM said thatmembership drive of the partywill be given the requiredpace with each booth havingat least 100 members from BJP.The Saffron party presentlyhas 23 lakh members and theparty in its new membershipdrive to be launched fromthis month has set a target tomake 22.45 lakh new mem-bers.BJP national president,Amit Shah to oversee theparty poll preparation is goingto visit Jharkhand this month.

The CM on the occasionalso called upon the BJP work-ers right from panchayat todistrict level to come forwardin water conservation. FromJuly 1 to September 15, the BJP

will hold function at Panchayat(village) level on the issue ofwater conservation. Duringthe period, there will be par-ticipation of any senior leaderright from ministers to MLAsto MPs at any Panchayat urg-ing the people to come for-ward in water conservation.

Das’ diktat on water con-servation assumes importanceas Prime Minister NarendraModi in his monthly ‘Maan KiBaat’ on Sunday stressed onwater conservation. The PMon the occasion also gave tipson water conservation.

The BJP Assembly corecommittee meet was attendedby BJP state president LaxmanGilua, BJP organisational sec-retary Dhrampal Singh,Saudan Singh, Anant Ojha,Deepak Prakash and others.Around 350 BJP assemblycore committee membersattended the meet.

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At least 35 people died and17 others were injured

when an overcrowded bus skid-ded off a hilly road and fell intoa deep gorge in Jammu &Kashmir’s Kishtwar district onMonday, officials said.

The minibus, which was onits way from Keshwan toKishtwar, skidded off theKeshwan-Thakrai road androlled down into the gorgearound 7.30 am, officials said.

Kishtwar DeputyCommissioner A S Rana toldPTI that the 28-seater bus wascarrying 52 passengers whenthe accident happened, addingthat a probe would be ordered.

Thirty-five people died and17 others were injured, districtSenior Superintendent of PoliceShakti Pathak told PTI.

Police, security agenciesand locals helped in rescuingthe injured. Sixteen injuredpeople were airlifted to hospi-tals from the spot, officialssaid. Nine of them were admit-ted to Government MedicalCollege Hospital in Jammu.

Detailed report on P9

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Chief Minister RaghubarDas on Monday said that

after implementation ofMukhyamantri SukanyaYojana, the awareness abouteducation has increased amonggirls in rural areas of the State.

Talking about the problemof malnutrition in the State,Das said that a Run forNutrition marathon will beorganised in the month ofSeptember across Jharkhand.

Reviewing the work ofWomen and ChildDevelopment and SocialSecurity department Das said,"If the girls in villages are edu-cated, migration would reduceand malnutrition can be con-trolled."

He directed the officers ofthe department to link maxi-mum number of beneficiariesto this scheme. There is a planof linking 2,90,169 girls to thisscheme in year 2019-20. Underthis scheme, till a girl reachesthe age of 18 she is given a totalfinancial support of Rs. 40,000in seven installments.

He directed the officers toensure that Anganwadi Sevikasorganise meeting with villagers,

especially pregnant women, atleast twice a week to discussissues of malnutrition.

"Get the women linkedwith Pradhan Mantri MatriVadana Yojana. Around onelakh women in the State are stillto be linked with this scheme.Pay special attention on dis-tricts where there are highercases of child marriage," theCM Directed.

Talking about TejaswiniYojana Das said that that thescheme would be very benefi-cial for the adolescent girls andit should be started in all the 17targeted districts. "Under thisscheme the girls will be trainedand linked to livelihood," hesaid.

To this, the departmentofficials informed that till date52,793 adolescent girls havebeen linked with this pro-gramme in Ramgarh and

Dumka and 576 TejaswiniClubs have been created. Theyalso informed that the schemewill be launched in all the dis-tricts by July 3 under which 10lakh girls would be benefitted.

The CM said that there isan immediate need to find asolution to the problem ofhuman trafficking in the state."A separate residential campuswill be constructed in Ranchifor the trafficking survivors inwhich girls over the age of 18will be given skill training andprovided jobs in Jharkhanditself. This way they will nothave to leave the State in searchof work. Meanwhile, the sur-vivors below age of 18 will belinked to education and givencycles," he announced.

Das also directed the offi-cials to procure blankets fordistributing among poor by themonth of September. "Do notwait for the winters, ensure dis-tribution of blankets byOctober," he said.

The meeting was attendedby department minister LouisMarandi, Secretary AmitabhKaushal, chief secretary DKTiwari, principal secretary tothe CM Sunil Barnwal andother department officials.

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Under the Government ofIndia’s Startup India ini-

tiative, a total of 19,351 startupshave been recognised so far outof which 158 startups are fromJharkhand. The highest num-ber, recognised at 3,661 star-tups, is from Maharashtra,then comes Karnataka with2847 startups, followed byDelhi with 2,552. UttarPradesh, Telangana, Haryana &Tamil Nadu follow in thatorder and Jharkhand is rankedat number seventeen. UnionMinister of Commerce &Industry Piyush Goyal provid-ed the information on June 28in Rajya Sabha, while replyingto the questions raised by RSMP Parimal Nathwani.

Under the Fund of Fundsfor Startups set up by GoI,Alternative Investment Funds(AIFs) have made an aggregateinvestment of �1,625.73 crorein 247 startups so far. Thelargest amount of �499.85 crorehas been invested by AIFs in 75startups from Karnataka, fol-lowed by �440.38 crore spreadover 68 startups fromMaharashtra.

Parimal Nathwani wantedto know about the salient fea-tures of the Startup IndiaScheme and the number of reg-istrations done under thisscheme since its inception

across the country, the detailsof the funds sanctioned, allo-cated and utilised and the tar-gets set/achieved under thisscheme so far. Also, the detailsof the State Governments,which have formulated start-uppolicies in their respectiveStates at present, and the topfive States in the country withhighest number of registra-tions.

According to the respons-es provided by the Minister,Startup India initiative waslaunched on 16th January 2016,consists of 19 Action Pointsthat act as a guiding documentfor the initiative. Since itsinception, 19,351 Startupsacross the country have beenrecognised by Department forPromotion of Industry andInternal Trade (DPIIT) as on24.06.2019.

The Minister also said thatthe GoI had established Fundof Funds for Startups (FFS)with corpus of �10,000 crore tomeet the funding needs ofstartups. DPIIT is the moni-toring agency and SmallIndustries Development Bankof India (SIDBI) is the operat-ing agency for FFS, he said.

The total corpus of �10,000crore is envisaged to be pro-vided over the 14th and 15thFinance Commission cyclesbased on progress of thescheme and availability offunds.

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A24-year-old jilted loverstabbed a girl to death

and also injured her motherwhen she tried to protect herdaughter at Hardiyamo villageunder Gomia police stationhere late on Sunday evening.

According to police,Ravindra Manjhi (24) enteredthe house of Ankita Kumari(17), where her father andmother were present.

He stabbed Ankita andwhen her mother tried toprotect her, he stabbed hermother too, police said.

Sources said that AnkitaKumari succumbed to herinjuries at Gomia hospital inBokaro, while her mother isundergoing treatment andstated to be out of dangernow, police said.

According to policesources, Ankita and RavindraManjhi were known to eachother for some time.

Ravindra wanted tomarry Ankita but she haddenied and therefore, he wasannoyed with her.

After the incident, theaccused escaped and policewere trying to trace himarresting, police said.

Police said that the girlwas declared brought dead onarrival at a nearby hospital.

She sustained stab injurieson her neck and stomach.

The accused attacked onher by traditional weaponand girl died soon after, saidthe Officer-in Charge.

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City’s leading health hub,Tata Motors Hospital is

gearing up to add new facili-ties to cater to the growingneeds of the patients. On theoccasion of Doctors’ Day, thesenior management of thehospital interacted withmedia and shared their futureplans.

Dr Sanjay Kumar, headmedical services, Tata Motorssaid that they are working ona project to increase IntensiveCare Unit (ICU) beds fromeight to 20 beds.

Moreover, Dialysis unitswill be increased from sevento 12 beds. The hospital willalso add new male medicalward.

“These projects are part ofour ongoing expansion plans.We are confident of com-pleting these projects in nextfour months. Tata MotorsHospital recently also openedthe doors to a new state-of-the-art facility eye-operation

theatre. The facility is cater-ing to the employees and alsoto the local residents.

Dr Kumar added that theeye-operation theatre enablesthe hospital to offer the bestand the latest in technology.All the components of thetheatre system are fully inte-grated and designed to carryout advanced surgeries with aquality which can be bench-marked with any interna-tional standard.

Tata Motors Hospital is a404 bedded multi-specialtyhospital in Jamshedpur, whichwas established in 1968. Thishospital has been continu-ously striving to offer thehighest standard of services topatients with great empathyand humanity.

“We have a wonderfulteam of doctors in all depart-ments who give the best pos-sible clinical care to ourpatients. We have state-of-the-art Pathological andRadiological units havingequipment like 3/5 partHematology Analyzer, ColorDoppler, CT scan etc. to sup-port our clinicians,” notedthe head.

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Inner Wheel Club ofJamshedpur West embarked

on tree plantation at UchatarMadhyamik Vidyalaya atChilgu in Chakulia. A total of102 saplings were planted.President of the club ReemaAdesara, secretary NikitaMehta, vice president ChandniMehta, ISO Neha Sanghari andParul Vagadia were present.The students were also given atalk on the importance ofplanting trees for our environ-ment and how to protect trees.

The tree plantation pro-gramme was launched today,this year, after assuring that the

soil hadreceivedadequater a i n f a l lw h i c hw o u l dhelp toimprovethe sur-vival ofthe newlyp l a n t e dsaplings.T h esapl ingswould benurturedby stu-dents who are thinking of fur-ther beautifying the place with

flower beds, fruits and a green belt.

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The 2019 Lok SabhaElections displayed a

remarkable increase in thenumber of differently-abledvoters in the State.

Kejriwal Institute ofManagement andDevelopmental Studies(KIMDS), aided by JharkhandDisabled Forum or JharkhandViklang Jan Forum, organised aworkshop on ‘The participationof Specially Challenged peoplein the election procedure’ in thecity.

“An event like this is a firstof its kind in the State. Theincrease in voter count isindeed the beginning of inclu-sion in elections. But a lot ofwork has to be done in thisdirection to ensure 100 per centparticipation of the differently-abled people in elections,” saidconvener of JharkhandDisabled People Forum, RahulMehta.

In the light of ‘Sabka Sath

Sabka Vikas’, past Lok SabhaElections proved to bring alandmark change in the votercount of differently-abled citi-zens in the State. TheGovernment as well as theElection Board didn’t leave anystone unturned to ensure justvoting rights for the different-ly-abled people.

“We had conducted a sur-vey in all the 24 districts of thestate to analyse voter turn-out.A total of 105 differently-abledrepresentatives from all aroundthe State, shared their votingexperiences in the event,” saidMehta.

Chief Electoral Officer, L.Khiyangte, explained electoralfacilities and the necessaryimprovements that must bebrought in them. In addition tothis, he guaranteed the imple-mentation of the various sug-gestions given in the workshop.

Blood Bank,Representative, Binay Pattnaik,said, “In the past elections, thevoting percentage of different-

ly-abled people was between60-80 per cent in every districtof the State. The report of thisstate-level research will beshared soon with theGovernment.”

In the event, various mea-sures for ensuring participationof majority of the differently-abled people were taken.

“We are planning toindulge NGOs for this cause. Inaddition to this, there is also aneed of voting personnel inevery district dedicated to thiscause. We are also planning tospread awareness regarding thisissue via campaigns. Provisionsfor issuing voter cards for dif-ferently-abled people will alsobe made,” said Mehta.

Director of RKDF, SKSingh, Director of the Institute,A. K. Singh, Diwakar Pandey,Gopika also took their views inthe workshop. Anoop Rajput,Sandeep, Vijayalakshmi,Navneet etc. had made aremarkable contribution to theworkshop too.

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In a major breakthrough,Lohardaga Police arrested

two hardcore Maoists alongwith one arms supplier onMonday from Lohardaga townin Lohardaga District.

The Police also recoveredbullets of AK 47 Rifle and lit-

erature related to Maoism.L o h a r d a g a

Superintendent of Police (SP),Priyadarshi Alok, said that inan attempt to eliminateextremism from the State,the police constituted a teamto raid extremists in the area.“The Police got informationthat notorious zonal com-

mander, Ravindra Ganjhu,with his team, is staying in theforest area of Serendag inLohardaga district and theywere planning to give result toa big incident,” he added.

“Acting on the tip off,Lohardaga police constitutedfour teams of flying squadswith the help of Gumla

District Police and nabbedAshok Bhagat, a resident ofGuni under Serendag PoliceStation in Lohardaga District,on Saturday when he wascarrying bullets of AK 47 forGanjhu. On Ashok’s infor-mation, the flying squadarrested Pratap Bhagat, a res-ident of Chaapal under

Serendag Police Station inLohardaga District and ShakilAnsari resident of Tolijuria inLohardaga with bullets of AK47, SLR with Maoism relatedliterature.

Ashok Bhagat and PratapBhagat were close aid ofGanjhu and Shakil Akhtarwas arms supplier,” said Alok.

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As the State Government isplanning to tighten noose

around Para teachers over theirappointment issue, the StatePara teachers association havedecided launch an agitation insupport of their variousdemands. The Para teachersunder the banner of ParaTeachers Sangharsh Morchahave decided to observe day-long dharna at all block head-quarters of State on July 6(Saturday) in support of theirdemands.

The Para teachers, whoare said to be backbone ofState elementary educationin State demand, include reg-ular payments, salary regu-larisation among others. ParaTeachers Sangharsh Morchamember, Sanjay Dubey said,“On January 17 this year in ameeting between StateEducation Minister NeeraYadav and members of ParaTeachers association it wasdecided that the Governmentwill set up a committee forsalary regularization of Parateachers, but even after pass-ing of more than six monthsthe State Government is yet toset up a committee.”

Dubey said that apartfrom forming committee forsalary regularisation, the asso-ciat ion other demandsincludes release of pendingfour months payments of Parateachers, compensation forfamily members of dead Parateachers among others.

The day-long demonstra-tion of Para teachers will beheld across the State in all 260blocks.

While the Para teachershave decided to intensify theiragitat ion, the StateGovernment is planning totighten screw on Para teach-ers over their appointment

issue. The State Educationdepartment after detectinganomalies in appointment ofPara teachers in Palamu dis-trict is planning to direct allDCs to set up a committee toprobe the appointmentprocess of Para teachers.

As per the guidelines setup by State Government forappointment process, theappointment of Para teachersis to be carried out by on therecommendations of VillageTeachers Committee, BlockTeachers Committee andDistrict-level committee. AtNaudiha and Chatrpur blockof Palamu district, it was dis-covered that appointmentguidelines were not followedin appointment process andin these two blocks 458 teach-ers appointment is under thescanner. Similarly, anomaliesin appointment process inPalamu, Garhwa, Chatra,Sahibganj and Deoghar dis-trict too been discovered.

However, the ParaTeachers Sangharsh Morchamembers claim that they arenot afraid of such threat ofGovernment. Dubey said,“Whenever the Para Teachersplans to launch their agitationthe State Government tointimidate Para Teachers issuesuch threat, but this time thePara teachers are not afraid ofsuch threats.”

Dubey wondered whyonly Para teachers should beunder the scanner, the Parateachers appointment wascarried out under the super-vision of Block EducationOff icer and Distr ictEducation officer, if Parateachers are found of fur-nishing wrong documentsthan these Government offi-cials should also been broughtunder the radar as theappointment process wasfinalised by these officials.

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2� ������ ����������$� � 7�-���+����� ������������!���#+�7���� ��������������� � ���� ����������������.1(?K/* ������������� ���� � �0������ "������������� �����������!������� �����$���� �� ������������� ������$6�2�����������26�4��������������������$���� �� ��"#� �� ����7��+ ������������������������������������� ���� �����"

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In a bid to save water in theState, the Government has

started ‘Jal Shakti Abhiyan’from Monday that will contin-ue till September 15. ChiefSecretary Dr DK Tiwari todayinstructed DeputyCommissioners of all 24 dis-tricts through video confer-encing to undertake steps tomake the water conservationcampaign successful in theirdistricts.

The CS instructed to stopthe wastage water, thereby lift-ing the ground water level andensure the smooth flow of rainwater to the reservoirs. Hesaid that about 92 per cent ofthe rain water in the State iswasted. State can become anexample of water power by pre-serving it. Explaining the needto work in awareness and mis-

sion mode for this, he sharedthe draft of the Jal ShaktiAbhiyan with the DeputyCommissioners and instructedthem to ensure execution atevery point. The CS instruct-ed all the departments involvedin the campaign to work incoordination and said that itsnodal department would beRural Development

Department.Dr Tiwari emphasised on

the need for connecting the JalShakti Abhiyan with the mass-es and from the employees toofficials and said that the ChiefMinister has given compre-hensive instructions about thisin the meeting with all theBlock Development Officers.He informed that the Central

Government has selected fiveblocks of Bokaro and Dhanbaddistricts of the State for this, butconsidering the need for waterconservation, the State gov-ernment has directed it to runthe campaign till the Panchayatlevel in the entire State. Underthe campaign, the ChiefSecretary instructed the peopleto work hard for water conser-vation by covering every levelof officials, personnel, peopleand people's representatives,organizations and organiza-tions for comprehensive pub-lic awareness on July 7. On theother hand, for the success ofthe entire campaign, to giveresponsibility to one officerfrom the district, block to thePanchayat level.

At every level, he empha-sized on filling the feelingamong people that everyonefelt that the rain water wastheirs. It has the right to useand conserve it. On the otherhand, he also directed to takevarious publicity measures tospread awareness about water

conservation.The CS instructed the

DCs to make a water harvest-ing structure in all govern-ment buildings in the Stateand said that it should startfrom the CollectorateBuildings. Explaining theimportance of reaching thewater supply campaign fromcity to village, he stressed onthe need to add every classand institution for this. Healso gave instructions fororganising meetings withthem and implementing ben-eficial suggestions.

Dr Tiwari has instructedthe effective work done inevery district under the JalShakti Abhiyan to share thesuccess story on the portalmade for it.

He said that to promotewater conservation, three dis-tricts will be rewarded withbetter results at the State level.At the district level, two blocksthat perform better at thedistrict level will also berewarded.

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State Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) on Monday alleged

that the Opposition partiesalways keep quiet on the reser-vation issue of Sarna commu-nity in Scheduled Tribe cate-gory.

Attacking the Oppositionparties, State BJP SpokespersonPratul Shahdeo said that out oftotal reservation of ScheduledCast category in the class 1 andclass 2 of Government’s job, 85per cent goes to convertedtribal. “Sarna Community ofScheduled Tribe, which prop-agates tradition of tribal onlygets 15 per cent benefit inGovernment jobs. Surprisingly,leaders from Opposition par-ties keep quiet on the issue.Other than BJP, no politicalparties openly talk for Sarnas.When BJP talks for benefits ofSarnas, then these Opposition

parties raise questions,” headded.

Hitting hard on Oppositionparties, Shahdeo said that nowthe tribals have become awareabout their rights and they willnot come under opposition’strap. The 65 plus target set bythe National DemocraticAlliance will be achieved, headded.

Appealing to theOpposition, Shahdeo said that

they should leave negative pol-itics. “The Government hasdone several welfare works butOpposition is always findingloopholes in it. People havegiven them befitting reply bygiving thumping victory toNarendra Modi but theOpposition not learned yetand doing still politics ofappeasement,” he added.

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From being the first State tointroduce land registration

in Re. 1 for women to forma-tion of Tana BhagatDevelopment Authority,Minister of Revenue,Registration and LandReforms, Amar Bauri onMonday informed about thevarious achievements of theState government in the lastfour and a half years.

Addressing media personshere on Monday Bauri said, “Asmany as 1,52,521 women of theState have registered propertieson their name since 2017 tilldate on a token amount of Re1. This is major step towardsempowerment of women.”

He also said that the gov-ernment has doubled themonthly honorarium ofManaki, Munda, GramPradhan and Dakuas to moti-vate them for better working.

Talking about the varioussteps taken for welfare of TanaBhagat, Bauri pointed out thatthe Tana Bhagat DevelopmentAuthority was formed for tak-ing important decisions forthe community. “The cesspayable by Tana Bhagats fortheir land which has beenpending since 1956 has beenrevoked and it has been decid-ed that no cess would be col-lected by them in the futuretoo,” he said.

The Minister also informedabout admission of 60 stu-dents from Tana Bhagat com-munity in police science cer-tificate course in Raksha ShaktiUniversity for academic year2018-19, while 125 students ofthe community were enrolledin residential schools. Otherfacilities including providingelectricity to 17,398, LPG con-nection to 781 and toilets to1052 Tana Bhagats and muchmore were also given.

The minister also informedabout digitisation of landrecords of all circles, construc-tion of modern record roomsat 20 places and digitization ofmaps has been completed.

Bauri said, “Land has beentransferred to various depart-ments for development at atoken amount of Re. 1 includ-ing construction of airports,highways, plantation undercoal project, smart city, powerplant installation, constructionof educational institutions,Ganga Bridge, various railwayprojects, industrial area devel-opment and much more.”

The Minister alsoinformed about simplifica-tion of various policies by thegovernment and introductionof new Acts and Rules for thebenefit of citizens. At least 10new Acts and Rules wereintroduced by the department

in the last four and a halfyears.

Talking about the func-tioning of registration direc-torate, Bauri informed that theentire process right from pre-registration to payment ofcourt fee has been made onlineto ensure transparency. Also,integration of Aadhar and PANwith e-registration applicationhas also been made compulso-ry to prevent forgery.

“New district registrationoffice has been created inRamgarh and Sahibgunj. Also,a number of vacant posts in thedepartment were filled,” Baurisaid.

Revenue collection fromthe department has been thehighest in the last four years in2018-19 with the annual rev-enue collected being Rs. 346.22crore. The revenue collection in2017-18 was Rs 156 crore, in2016-17 the revenue collectedwas Rs. 180.2 crore while in2015-16 it was Rs. 164.35crores.

Talking about the futureplans of the department Bauriinformed that 60 Tana Bhagatstudents will be enrolled inRaksha Shakti University foracademic year 2019-20, enroll-ment of Tana Bhagats as ANMand GNM, completion of dig-itization and scanning of reg-istration documents from 1947to 1970 by October this year,among others.

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Free diabetic retinopathyresearch and eye checkup

camps was organised at DrSanjay Rai’s diabetes clinic andSS High School Ormanjhiunder the aegis of All IndiaOphthalmological Society,Jharkhand OphthalmologicalSociety and Kashyap memori-al Eye Hospital, Ranchi onJune 30 and July 01. In thecamp people, who are losingeyesight due to diabetes, werechecked and those who needtreatment will be treated atKMEH under the AyushmanBharat scheme.

The tests were conducted byAIIMS, Delhi trained RetinaSurgeon Dr Bibhuti Kashyap.For other eye ailments includingcataract and other diseases thetests were conducted by DrBharti Kashyap, Dr Nidhi G.Kahyap and the team of KMEH.All those found to be sufferingfrom cataract will be treatedunder Ayushman Bharat schemeat KMEH.

It was found during theresearch that the people fromrural areas were more affectedfrom diabetic retinopathybecause they did not have con-trol over their sugar levels. At Dr

Sanjay Rai’s clinic 202 diabeticpatients were tested out of which20 per cent were affected withdiabetes induced retinopathy.On Monday 207 rural patientswere checked out of which 52were found to be affected withdiabetic retinopathy.

Chairman of the ScientificCommittee of JharkhandOphthalmological Society, DrBharti Kashyap said that AllIndia Ophthalmological Society

has started research on diabet-ic retinopathy in coordinationwith the State OphthalmologicalSocieties. Under this pan Indiaresearch every State has to sendpictures and data of 1000 dia-betic patients’ eyes to All IndiaOphthalmological Society. Outof these 1000 patients, two thirdwill be from rural and far offareas and one third will beurban diabetic patients.

Dr Bibhuti said that he is

happy that he started theresearch from Ranchi andOrmanjhi. After the completionof the research diabetes patientswill be immensely benefitted bythe same. The managementprotocol based on the researchwill be beneficial for the patientsbecause it is totally based on thepeople of the country. Most ofthe protocols followed in thecountry are made after researchon foreign nationals, he added.

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After several months of itsinauguration Atal Smriti

Vendors’ Market started func-tioning as hundreds of streetvendors opened their shops attheir allotted space at the mar-ket on Monday. The marketwas constructed in order toremove the encroachers fromroad between Kutchery chowkto Sarjana chowk.

A total of 416 vendorsclassified under three cate-gories have been allottedspace in the market complex.Out of 416 vendors 302 are inthe single occupancy catego-ry, 102 are in two-in-one cat-egory and 12 are in the three-in-one category.

The Ranchi MunicipalCorporation conducted lot-tery system to allot shops in

the market to the street ven-dors according to their cate-gory wise. Informing about

the process of allotment ofshops to the vendors RMC,City Manager, Niraj Kumarsaid that the vendors havebeen categorised according totheir trade as garment, blan-ket , leather items, andfootwear among others. Alottery has been done accord-ing to their categories toavoid any confusion on allot-ment of shops, he added.

At the first time the civicbody received 660 applica-tions from vendors for gettinga shop in the newly con-structed market. It didn’t notmaterialize because the townvending committee of RMCwhich given approval to 448vendors for allotment of spacein the market but after that it

decreased the numbers 416 asseveral were eliminated due tofault in papers such as AadharCard, Voter ID and others.

Ajay Kumar Keshri, ashopkeeper who opened hisshop in the market said thatnow they have no fear ofpolice, rain and other prob-lems, which they were facingon the road. But, the sale isdown, he added.

Another shop owner offootwear shops Naim Ansarisaid that finally we have gotpermanent place for our shop.“In the first list of RMC myname was not shortlisted butin the next list they haveincluded my name. I am veryhappy and I am thankful tothe civic body,” he added.

The building cover a car-pet area of 2,94,240 squarefeet with basements and thereare also a banquet hall, acafeteria, 23 offices, 472kiosks, 108 shops is the firstand the biggest VendorsMarket of the State with allState-of-the- Art facilities.Constructed at a cost of Rs. 54crore granted by theGovernment of Jharkhand(GoJ) has advance facilitiesranging from CCTV cam-eras, fire extinguishers, pub-lic announcement systems,advance parking service,landscaping and fountainshave been equipped inside thebuilding for better crowdmanagement and mainte-nance.

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In accordance with the guide-lines of the National Tiger

Conservation Authority(NTCA), the Betla NationalPark under Palamu TigerReserve (PTR) will remainclosed for tourists for the nextthree months- July 1 toSeptember 30. Visitors to thepark will be allowed entryfrom October 1 onwards.

“This is breeding time forall wild animals, so the park isclosed during the rainy seasonevery year. For this time onlythe officials are allowed entryto the park so as not to disturbthe animals. It is very importantto close the park as it’s thebreeding time and too muchdisturbance can hamper thewildlife population,” said YKDas, Field Director, PTR.

Featuring a luxuriant forestcover and a rich variety of

fauna, Betla is home to tiger,elephant, deer, leopard, wildboar, flying squirrel and bison.More than 180 species of resi-dent birds can be spotted in theforest.

“There is a confirmedmovement of two tigers in thereserve- male and female whilethere are two others whichkeep moving betweenJharkhand and Chhattisgarh.The population of all the ani-mals has increased in the pastsix months,” Das further added.

The animals are generally

fed a mixture of prepared saltand soil throughout the yearwhich is high in minerals andis good for their nutrition.This concoction is hung atvarious places in the reserveand is consumed by all varietiesof animals.

“After this mating season,a substantial increase in thewildlife population is expect-ed. When the reserve isreopened in October, thetourists are sure to have agreat experience. During thistime, the on- going infra-structure work will also getcompleted,” the officialremarked.

The construction work fortourist lodges, souvenir shops,ticket counters is likely to getcompleted before the park isreopened.

A building for NatureInterpretation Centre (NIC) isalso being constructed.

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Deputy Commissioner,Ranchi, Rai Mahimapat

Ray, on the occasion of fourthanniversary of Digital Indiahighlighted the growth in self-employment due to digitiza-tion. “It’s not only the anniver-sary of digital India but that ofself-employment too,” said Ray.

On the successful comple-tion of 4 years of Digital India,Ranchi District administrationconducted a programme here onMonday. The moderators ofPragya Kendra were felicitatedfor their respective contributionsin this programme. The DCgave away appreciation letters tothem and also urged them towork with the same amount ofdetermination in future too.

Ray pointed out the impor-tance of ‘Jal Shakti Abhiyan’ andurged all the VLEs to carry outproper awareness campaigns

for the same. “All the VLEs areassociated with the public insome or the other way. This con-nection with the public willhelp them to carry out theirawareness campaign in a betterway,” he said.

The importance of workinghand in hand was also high-lighted by Ray in the pro-gramme. He urged the both theVLE and CSC members to co-

operate with oneanother and workwith full determina-tion. He said, “Boththe members of VLEand CSC are parts ofthe Government aswell as the public. Allof you should worklike a bridge andensure public wel-

fare.”Kinjela Mishra,

Hatma, Kanke andRajiv Kumar, Itki were

amongst the differently-abledVLEs to get felicitated in theevent. In addition to this bothmen and women and severalother members were felicitatedfor their work in this program.The DC appreciated the work ofthe people who have not beenfelicitated. He also said thattheir contribution was added onto the successful completion of4 years of Digital India.

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The Urban Developmentand Housing Department

Secretary, Ajoy Kumar Singh,reviewed the cleanliness workand development schemesunder Ranchi MunicipalCorporation (RMC) onMonday and gave variousinstructions.

During the meeting, Singhissued instructions on moni-toring the day to day cleanli-ness work.

The officials were alsodirected to supervise the workat all the wards and zones.

On behalf of RMC,Municipal CommissionerManoj Kumar demanded thepurchase of some machinesfrom the Department.

The Secretary gaveinstructions of buying a watertanker but not a tractor basedtanker. Driver and conductor-both are to be involved in doorto door garbage collection.

Installation of semi under-ground dustbins on roadswhere as mechanised sweep-ing of Mahatma Gandhi Margand Harmu bypass.

A separate cleaningarrangement to be made func-tional at the airport, railwaystation and bus stand andallotment of shops at thenewly constructed vendorsmarket was also directed.

Kumar also spoke aboutthe beautification of lakes andponds around the State capi-tal. Widening of the roadleading to the Harmu crema-tion ground and construc-tion of a new bridge overHarmu River were also direct-ed.

The Secretary alsoreviewed the ongoing work atBada Talab, Karamtoli Talab,sewerage drainage andNagababa Khatal and gavedirections of planting treesaround the various water bod-ies.

State Urban DevelopmentAgency (SUDA) DirectorAmit Kumar, Joint SecretarySanjay Bihari Ambashta,Deputy Secretary ManishJoseph Tigga, AdditionalMunicipal CommissionerShankar Yadav were also pre-sent among others.

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Atusker was electrocutedafter coming in contact

with a high-tension line atKharsawan jungle underSeraikela forest division inSeraikela-Kharsawawn district,on the wee hours of Monday.

The tusker which was in aherd came to the jungle nearTinagora village and whilecrossing the stretch it came incontact with 11,000 KV over-head power line belonging toJharkhand Bijli Vitran NigamLtd (JBVNL). Seraikela divi-sional forest officer, AshishNarayan confirmed the inci-dent of electrocution of thetusker.

"It is really a sad incident.We are probing the mishap asper our information the tuskerwas electrocuted while movingtoward a pond at Tinagora, andthe fatal mishap took place dueto the high-tension line," saidthe DFO.

Narayan said they will geta post-mortem of the carcassfor which they are makingarrangement. The forest officersaid they will conduct anenquiry regarding the electro-cution of the tusker and lodgea complaint against the powerdepartment regarding this all.

An official of JBVNL when

queried, expressed hisunawareness about the elec-trocution of the elephant, butsaid that he would get itinquired soon. He had soonsent the sub-divisional officer(Electrical), Kharsawan divi-sion, Sandeep Kumar Paswanto the spot for inspection.

Villagers, includingwomen, assembled at the farm. Some women smeared ver-million on the trunk and fore-head of the elephants. Somealso placed coins on the carcassand performed customary rit-uals.

An official of the forestdepartment said that it's thebeginning of the Monsoonseason and so is the elephantmenace.

At several parts of the twindistricts of Singhbhum, paddycrops were destroyed by herdsof tuskers that have beguntheir annual migration throughthe villages. Rampaging herdsof tuskers in the villages areforcing innocent tribal to spendsleepless nights. In an areathat boasts of a forest cover of30 percent, the human-ani-mal conflict is major concernof the people. In past one weekcases of elephant’s regularlydamaging standing crops haveshot up.

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Chas Municipal Corporation(CMC) officials started the

inspection of buildings to assessthe condition of rainwater har-vesting (RWH) structures,informed Mayor Bholu Paswan.

Flouting norms to adoptrainwater harvesting systems(RWH) erection of private aswell as government buildings ison the rise here in Bokarodespite the fact that theGovernment had made the sys-tem mandatory for each build-ing across the State, he said.

Groundwater is very fastdepleting in the CMC area, ear-lier in the year 2000 the ground-water level was at 60 feet andlater started depleting consis-tently. In 2005 it reached at 100feet and in 2015 it comes to 150feet and presently the ground-water level in CMC area is at185 feet, said an official.

In 2016, the Governmentmade it mandatory for a build-

ing constructed on a 30 x 40square feet site and above toinstall rainwater harvesting sys-tems to tackle with the deplet-ing groundwater level but over90 percent household underCMC area till date have adopt-ed this system, sources said.

Beside houses in the CMCarea several government build-ings in Bokaro are yet to adoptrainwater harvesting systemincluding administrative build-ings, Sadar Hospital, ANMtraining Centre and others. It ishappening due to the lack ofgroundwater recharge. The risein concrete jungles and rapidurbanization are another reasonbehind it.

Except few, over thousandsof households are yet to set upa rainwater harvesting system.Regardless of the repeatedattempts of the MunicipalCorporation to make the pub-lic understand the need andimportance of rainwater har-vesting, said Paswan.

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The ERP (Enterprise ResourcePlanning) system named as

Project PRAGATI went live onMonday morning at IISCO SteelPlant. While launching the sys-tem CEO A V Kamlakar calledit a “quantum leap” for ISP. Theinternationally acclaimed systemintegrating various businessprocesses will help in improvingproductivity, quality, supplychain and is in line with the SteelPlant’s long term vision to estab-lish a seamless production, qual-ity and customer experiencechain. The system initiallyimplemented at ISP are sixmajor business processes viz.

PM, FICO, MM, PP, QM andSD. It was launched in the pres-ence of all Executive Directorsof the Plant, General Managers,the ERP team, officials fromTCS - the implementing partnerand PWC – the consultant of theproject. The product has beenlicensed from SAP and is host-ed on a Cloud Server. M H Siraji,GM (Electrical & ERP) and theProject Head congratulated theentire ERP team for timelyimplementation of the crucialproject. Enterprise ResourcePlanning (ERP) is businessprocess management softwarethat typically integrates variousbusiness processes of an organ-isation in a single database,application and user interface.

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Awoman and youth died intwo separate incidents

within 24 hours in the district.First incident took place at

Ranka where a woman NasiraBibi died and her husbandand son were injured when atruck dashed them near forestcheck post at Ranka.

According to police,Sohrab Ansari, his wife NasiraBibi and son were coming

towards Garhwa. When theyreached near forest check post,they were hit by a truck. Allthree fell on the road andtruck crushed both leg ofNasira, 45. She died on way toGarhwa hospital. The fatherand son are undergoing treat-ment at Garhwa hospital.

In another incident one 22years old youth Muslim Khanwas electrocuted while remov-ing the charger from mobile.

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In the backdrop of all 13personnel on board dying

in an AN-32 air crash inArunachal Pradesh in June,Defence Minister RajnathSingh on Monday sought toallay fears about the aircraftsaying it was completely air-worthy. Terming the accident as unfor-tunate, he, however, said the accident rateof aircraft of IAF had gone down over theyears.

Making this assertion during theQuestion Hour in the Rajya Sabga, he saidnearly 52 AN-32 aircraft were upgraded.However, it was not correct to assume thatthe non upgraded transport planes werenot air worthy, Singh said. India andUkraine had inked a 500 million dollarpact in 2009 to upgrade the nearly 100-strong fleet of the AN-32 inducted into theIAF in the mid 1980s. The plane whichcrashed recently was not upgraded.

In a bid to allay apprehensions about

the safety record of the var-ious types of planes operat-ed by the IAF, the defenceminister informed the housethe accident rate per 10,000flying hours has come downfrom 1.04 in 1999 to 0.33currently.

“I want to assure theHouse that our AN-32 fleetis airworthy and there was

no problem. But this incident happened,which is very unfortunate,” he told thehouse. The average accident rate hasreduced from 1.04 per 10,000 flyinghours in 1999 to 0.52 in 2004. This has fur-ther reduced to 0.46 in the next five yearsand currently the accident rate is 0.33 per10,000 flying hours, he said.

He also said if there was no improve-ment, the rate of accidents per 10,000 fly-ing hours would not have come down.There must have been many improve-ments brought about, the minister saidwhile replying to a question on whetherany steps have been taken to prevent airaccidents.

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The HRD Ministry onMonday approved a new

‘Scheme for Trans-disciplinaryResearch for India’s DevelopingEconomy’ (STRIDE) to providesupport to research projectsthat are socially relevant, local-ly need-based, nationallyimportant and globally signif-icant.

To function under the aegisof University GrantsCommission (UGC), STRIDEwill support research capacitybuilding as well as basic,applied and transformationalaction research that can con-tribute to the national interest.“STRIDE will support creation,development, and integrationof new ideas, concepts, andpractices for the public goodand strengthening civil society,”said HRD Minister RameshPokhriyal Nishank.

The Minister said thatSTRIDE scheme will strength-en research culture and inno-vation in colleges andUniversities and help studentsand faculty to contributetowards India’s developingeconomy with help of collabo-rative research. He also addedthat focus on Humanities andHuman Sciences will boostquality research on Indian lan-guages and knowledge sys-tems. Trans-disciplinaryresearch is a team effort ofinvestigators from differentdisciplines to create new con-ceptual, theoretical, method-ological innovations that inte-grates and transcends beyonddiscipline-specific approachesto address a common problem.

The main objectivesinclude identifying young tal-ent, strengthen research cul-ture, build capacity, promote

innovation and support trans-disciplinary research for India’sdeveloping economy andnational development and tofund multi institutional net-work high-impact researchprojects in humanities andhuman sciences.

While component-1 willendeavour to identify the moti-vated young talents withresearch and innovation apti-tude in universities and collegeswith grant upto �one crore,under component-II collabo-rations between universities,government, voluntary orga-nizations and industries will beencouraged under grant upto

� 50 lakh - �one crore. The component-III will

fund high impact research pro-jects in the identified thrustareas inhumanities and humansciences through national net-work of eminent scientistsfrom leading institutions.

Grant available for thiscomponent is upto Rs onecrore for one higher educa-tional institutions it will be�five crores for multi institu-tional network.

HRD Secretary R.Subrahmanyam said that theNational InnovationFoundation has a database ofover three lakh technologicalideas from over 608 districtswaiting to be explored. UGCChairman Prof D.P. Singh saidSTRIDE will provide support tothe innovative research projectsthat are Socially Relevant,Locally Need-based, NationallyImportant and GloballySignificant.

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The Supreme Court onMonday dismissed a plea

seeking direction to the Centreto declare Pakistan-occupiedKashmir (PoK) and Gilgit astwo Lok Sabha seats andimposed �50,000 fine on aformer intelligence officer forfiling it.

A bench headed by ChiefJustice Ranjan Gogoi termedthe PIL filed by Ram KumarYadav, the former official ofResearch and Analysis Wing(RAW), as “not tenable” anddismissed it with a fine.

“Is this a PIL. You are liv-ing in Delhi. What is yourinterest in PoK,” the bench,which also comprised justicesDeepak Gupta and AniruddhaBose, said, adding, “we arenot inclined to entertain this(PIL).”

“These are officially partsof India,” the counsel for Yadavsaid. The plea referred to thefact that India has the ownership over the areascalled PoK and Gilgit and thereare as many as 24 assemblyseats earmarked for these ter-

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Ateam of scientists at theBangalore-based Indian

Institute of Science (IISc) hasfound a method to measurewhether the yogic asanas arebeing performed in a correctmanner or not. They havedeveloped a new mathematicalmetrics to quantify the exper-tise in terms of stability andsteadiness.

The metrics is based onsEMG or Surface electromyo-graphy (sEMG) signals. ThesEMG signals are a measure ofmuscle activity which recordsand differentiates between theelectric activity of groups ofmuscles at rest and duringactivity.

The procedure is per-formed using a single or an

array of electrodes placed onthe skin surface over the mus-cles to be tested. Recording canbe made using a hand-helddevice, which is applied to theskin surface at different sites.

Electrical activity isassessed by computer analysisof the frequency spectrum,amplitude, or root mean squareof the electrical action poten-tial. In the IISC study, the datacaptured from instrumentcalled 3-axis Accelerometers isbeing used in qualitative vali-dation of the muscle activityresults obtained from proposedsEMG analysis.

The study supported byDepartment of Science &Technology’s (DST) SATYAMprogramme was conducted inthe Biomechanics Lab of theIISc.

Around 60 healthy partic-

ipants between 21-60 yearsincluding male and female hadparticipated. Before conduct-ing the experiment, each sub-ject was given clear knowledgeabout the asana to be per-formed and the orientationwas verified before mountingthe sensors.

The data was collected forapproximately 110 seconds and

subjects stayed in final positionfor 20 seconds with normalbreathing and relaxed mind.Yogasanas such as Trikonasana,Vrikshasana, Veerabhadrasana-1, Veerabhadrasana-2,V e e r a b h a d r a s a n a - 3 ,Parsvakonasana were testedusing the method and thesEMGs of experts and novicestested.

Yoga asanas need to be per-formed with near perfection inorder to derive maximum ben-efits. The method proposedand tested in this project helpsassess the correctness of per-formance.

This paves way for makingappropriate corrections, thusenabling practitioners to derivemaximum benefit from theasanas. The method helps dis-tinguish between an expertand a novice in the field ofyoga, according to an officialfrom the DST.

With subsequent researchand analysis, this method canbe used for generating a quan-titative measure of the ‘exper-tise’ of any subject being mon-itored, which would be essen-tial considering the increasingpopularity of yoga around theworld.

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Aday after Prime MinisterNarendra Modi in his

‘Mann ki Baat’ made an appealto save water amid a growingcrisis in the country, the Centreon Monday launched a waterconservation campaign, ‘JalShakti Abhiyan’, with anemphasis on 1592 stressedblocks in 256 districts.

The campaign will focuson five aspects — water con-servation and rainwater har-vesting, renovation of tradi-tional and other water bodies,reuse of water and rechargingof structures, watershed devel-opment, and intensiveafforestation, said Union JalShakti Minister Gajendra SinghShekhawat while launching themission.

Modi in his monthly pro-gramme had pitched for con-servation of rain water, sayingthere is a pressing need to makeit a mass movement on thelines of the cleanliness drive.

Drinking Water SanitationSecretary Parmeswaran Iyersaid that officers from the cen-

tral Government, led by addi-tional secretaries and joint sec-retaries, have been assigned tothese 256 districts.

The district administra-tion will also nominate twomembers to join these teams.

The conservation effortswill be supplemented by ini-tiatives like developing blockand district water conservationplans and ‘krishi vigyan kendramelas’ to promote efficientwater use for irrigation and bet-ter crop choices.

In urban areas, plans withtime-bound targets will bedeveloped for waste water reusefor industrial and agriculturalpurposes.

Plans will be developedfor at least one urban waterbody for groundwater rechargein the block or the city.Scientists and IITs will also be

mobilised at the national levelto support the teams, he said.

The Government plans torun a water conservation, similar to the Swachch BharatAbhiyaan as suggested byModi.

In his first address in thesecond edition of monthlyshow ‘Mann ki Baat’, the PrimeMinister also said ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is not required inconservation of water.

A Niti Aayog report inJune last year had rung alarmbella saying that 600 millionpeople in India face high toextreme water stress in thecountry. About three-fourths ofthe households in the countrydo not have drinking water intheir premises. With nearly70% of water being contami-nated, India is placed at 120thamong 122 countries in thewater quality index.

In its Composite WaterManagement Index report, thegovernment think-tank cate-gorised all the states in threecategories - high, medium andlow - based on their respectiveperformances in managing thewater resources.

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Taking note of the assault ona woman forest officer in

Telangana, the Governmenton Monday said in the RajyaSabha it views the incident ona serious note and said it can-not be tolerated. Giving thisassurance, EnvironmentMinister Prakash Javadekaralso said “we as a regulator willdo whatever possible.”

Other issues to figure in theUpper House related to con-cern over climate change andwater crisis in the country,drought in many parts, plightof Andhra tobacco farmersand poor working conditions ofworkers in the backdrop of 15labourers dying in Pune due towall collapse.

On the attack on thewoman officer, Javadekar saidthe Government has taken aserious note of the assault on aforest department official inTelangana and will do whatev-er possible as a regulator.

The Telangana Police onSunday arrested rulingTelangana Rasthra Samithi’sMLA Koneru Kannapa’s broth-er Krishna Rao for assaultingForest Range officer C Anithain Komaram Bheem inAsifabad district over a landissue.

“We are taking it very seri-ously because this cannot be

tolerated. We, as a regulator,will do whatever possible,”Javadekar said. Condemningthe attack, TRS working pres-ident K T Rama Rao had saidno one was above the law evenas Opposition Congress andBJP slammed the KChandrasekhar Rao govern-ment.

Drawing the attention ofthe house to fast receding glac-iers in Indian Himalayas,Jairam Ramesh(Congress)saidthere are about 10,000 glaciersin that region.

Referring to a recent USreport, he said the rate of melt-ing of glaciers had doubled inthe last 15 years as comparedto the previous 15 years andurged the Government to takeimmediate remedial measuresas it could lead to water crisis.The entire opposition associ-ated with Ramesh’s assertion.

Assuring the House thatthe Government is serious inaddressing the issue of climate

change and pollution,Javadekar said India is pro-gressing well in achieving goalsunder the Paris pact to checkclimate change. He also saidwhile India is not responsiblefor the problem of pollution atthe global level but wants to bepart of the solution.

The issue of plight oftobacco farmers of AndhraPradesh was raised by G V LNarasimha Rao(BJP)whourged the government to helpthe distressed growers.

He said quality of tobac-co crop, including in the WestGodavari district, was poordue to consecutive five-year drought in the areaand farmers were not gettingreasonable price for their pro-duce.

Rajya Sabha Chairman MVenkaiah Naidu said the World HealthOrganisation(WHO)has high-lighted evil effects of consum-ing tobacco. He said the Health

Ministry and other wings of theGovernment were trying toimpress upon people to see thatarea under cultivation of tobac-co gets reduced and progres-sively farmers go for alternativecrops.

Binoy Viswam (CPI) raisedthe matter of death of poorpeople due to heat wave. Hesaid about 500 people have dieddue to heat wave and expressedapprehension that many woulddie during the cold wave inwinters. Jharna DasBaidya(CPM) talked aboutdrought like in many statesincluding Jharkhand, TamilNadu, Telangana and someother states.

Manoj Jha(RJD)soughtstringent laws to protect work-ers in the backdrop of 15labourers who died in Punesome days back after a wall col-lapsed on their abode.Javadekar informed the housethat two builders were arrest-ed and appreciated the need forstrict laws to ensure safety ofworkers.

Tiruchi Siva (DMK)raisedthe issue of drilling of wells toexplore oil and natural gas inTamil Nadu leading to watertable going down and creatingserious problems for farmers.Naresh Goyal (SAD) raisedthe issue of growing gun cul-ture in the country, withfirearms being used withimpunity.

New Delhi: Gradual reduc-tion in the interest rates ofsmall saving schemes, themainstay of retiring employ-ees, was brought into focus inthe Lok Sabha by Congressleader Adhir RanjanChowdhury who hit out atthe Modi Government forgiving lip service to the causeof the common man.

The Congress leader, whoraised the issue in the zerohour, accused the BJPGovernment of being “anti-common man”.

Chowdhury read out thecomparative list of post officeschemes including senior cit-izen saving schemes andPublic provident fund withhigh interest rates prevailingduring the UPA regime andthe reduced ones under theModi Government.

He said the interest rateof small savings schemes was“very important” for the com-mon man but the govern-ment reduced it without tak-

ing care of the interest of peo-ple.

The Central Governmenthad said last week that inter-est rates on small savingsschemes will be furtherreduced by 10 basis points(bps) for the July-Septemberquarter. Post office seniorcitizens saving scheme carriesinterest rate of 8.7 per centnow which was 9.2 per centduring UPA’s time.

Congress has beendemanding a reversal of thereduction in the interestrates.During the Congress-led UPA Government, inter-est rates on two-year depositscheme, five-year depositscheme, public providentfund and senior citizens’ sav-ing scheme were 8.4, 8.5, 8.7and 9.2 per cent, respective-ly. The rates for these schemescame down drastically underthe BJP rule at 6.9, 7.7, 7.9and 8.6 per cents respective-ly, the Congress has said.

PNS

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In an effort to give a fillip toindigenous ship building,

the Defence Ministry onMonday issued tenders orRequest for Proposal(RFP)worth over �15,000 crores foracquisition of various and shipsfor the Navy and the CoastGuard. A tender for AirCushion Vehicles (ACV) wasalso floated for the Army.

Giving details of the ten-ders, officials said here theRFP for six Next GenerationMissile Vessels (NGMVs) wasissued to seven shipyards, RFPsfor 8 Fast Patrol Vessels (FPVs)and 12 Air Cushion Vehicles(ACVs) and eight Missile-cum-Ammunition Barges wereissued to shortlisted Indianshipyards. The RFP for ACVsalso includes the initial require-ment for six ACVs of the

Indian Army. In order to make the

process of qualifying the ship-yards for the issue of RFPs forshipbuilding projects of variousships and craft of the Navy andthe Coast Guard more objec-tive and to encourage partici-pation by a larger number ofIndian shipyards, an exercisewas undertaken by theMinistry along with IndianNavy and Coast Guard.

This led to rationalisationof guidelines for capacityassessment of shipyards thathave been promulgated recent-ly.

Rationalisation and pro-mulgation of financial selectioncriteria have paved the way forissue of RFPs for a large num-ber of shipbuilding projectsthat have been pending.Further, in a significant moveto encourage smaller ship-yards, participation in the pro-

jects with the anticipated annu-al outflow of less than �75 crorehas been restricted to smallershipyards having an averageannual turnover less than �500crore.

As regards ACVs, in addi-tion to a wide application inmilitary and coastal surveil-lance, these vehicles have sub-stantial potential in the com-mercial sector like civil trans-portation, disaster manage-ment and tourism. Consideringthe need for absorbing the rel-evant design and constructiontechnology for building thesecraft in India at affordablecost, a feature to encouragejoint development of design byIndian shipyards in collabora-tion with a foreign designhouse of ACVs or by sourcingthe design for construction ofACVs with substantial Indiancontent has been included inthe RFP for ACV, they said.

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AS many as 45,749 casesinvolving revenue of

�1,04,718crore were pending inthe Central Excise appeals atthe end of 2018. In Service Tax,43,718 cases involving revenueof �1,20,907 crore were pend-ing in the appeals at the end of2018.

According to the audit bythe Comptroller and AuditorGeneral of India (CAG ), totalarrears had increased from�1,17,904 crore in 2017 to �1,66,553 crore in 2018 in ser-vice tax. Similarly, total arrearshad increased from �84,200crore in 2017 to � 96,496 crorein 2018 in central taxes.

“Further, recovery as percent of gross arrears hadreduced from 1.19 per cent in2017 to 1.02 per cent in 2018for service tax. Similarly, recov-ery as per cent of gross arrears

had reduced from 1.85 per centin 2017 to 1.27 per cent in 2018for central excise,” the CAGsaid.

The closing balance ofgross arrears was�1,66,553crore and �96,496crore for service tax and cen-tral excise, respectively, as onMarch 31, 2018.

“However, the closing bal-ance of arrears as per TaxArrear recovery reports forMarch 2018 was �1,27,809crore and �85,158 crore forService Tax and Central Excise,respectively. One of the reasonsfor difference was that closingbalance of Tax Arrear Recoveryreports of June 2017 was nottaken correctly in the openingbalance of July 2017”, the CAGsaid.

The audit examined andfound shortcomings in moni-toring mechanism for appealcases in CBIC.

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Following the directions of thePrime Minister Narendra Modi,

a high powered committee of ChiefMinisters has been constituted for‘Transformation for IndianAgriculture.

The committee will submit itsreport within two month.Maharashtra Chief MinisterDevendra Fadnavis will be theConvenor of the committee andNITi Aayog member Ramesh Chandwill be member secretary. The ChiefMinisters of Karnataka, Haryana,Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, UP,MP and Union Minister ofAgriculture, Rural Development andPanchayati Raj will be other mem-bers.

Officials of aAgriculture Ministrysaid that the Committee to discussmeasures for transformation of agri-culture and raising farmers’ income.The committee will also suggest themodalities for adoption and timebound implementation of agriculturesector reforms.

Prime Minister Narendra Modihad announced setting up a high

powered committee on structuralreforms in agriculture at the NITIAayog’s governing council meetingon June 15.

According to the Terms ofReference (ToR), the Committeewould discuss measures for trans-formation of agriculture and raisingfarmers’ income and suggest modal-ities for adoption and time boundimplementation of following reformsby States/UTs; to examine variousprovisions of Essential CommodityAct (ECA), 1955 and situations thatrequire ECA and to suggest changesin the ECA to attract private invest-ments in agricultural marketing andinfrastructure; to suggest mecha-nism for linking of market reformswith e-NAM, GRAM and other rel-evant Centrally Sponsored Schemes.

The Committee will also proposeany other relevant reforms for trans-formation of agriculture sector andraising farmers’ income and willsuggest measures to upgrade agri-technology to global standards andimprove access of farmers to quali-ty seed, plant propagation materialand farm machinery in agricultural-ly advance countries.

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Recently, I held a meeting in Delhiwith a US delegation, consisting ofabout a dozen members —lawyers, journalists, teachers, acommunications specialist, a spe-

cialist on women’s issues and a Deputy Sheriffamong others — a majority of whom werewomen. The topic of discussion was theIndian criminal law system, though other sub-jects were discussed, too.

About the criminal law system, I men-tioned about the great delay in dispensationof justice in our country. There are about 33million cases pending in Indian courts today,a majority of them being criminal in nature.Judges are often blamed for not deciding casesexpeditiously but the public does not knowabout the problems of the judiciary. Forinstance, the Allahabad High Court (my par-ent High Court) had set a norm that a judgeof the subordinate judiciary should not havemore than 300 cases pending before him atone time. But as informed to me, there were20,000 or more cases pending in this courtalone. This makes it abundantly clear that theIndian judiciary has been staggering underimmense pressure. The situation is akin toplacing an elephant on a man carrying 100pounds of weight. What happens to the man?Obviously, he will collapse and this is whathas happened with the judiciary. In theAllahabad High Court, for instance, crimi-nal appeals filed 30 years ago are coming upfor hearing today!

To a question as to why there was sucha huge backlog of cases (some say it will take300 years to clear it even if no new case werefiled), I cited two main reasons. First, witha huge population of 1,350 million people,it is but natural that there will be a largenumber of cases. Second, we have not as yetadequately developed alternative disputeresolution mechanisms (mediation, concil-iation and arbitration among others) dueto which the entire burden falls on thecourts. In America, about 93 per cent of thecases are diverted.

Apart from that, a judge has to decide acase on the basis of evidence gathered by thepolice; he cannot himself investigate the crime.Criminal investigation is a science, as we learntfrom the numerous stories of SherlockHolmes. In America, when a crime is com-mitted, the police goes to the spot and col-lects evidence — fingerprints, bloodstains,ashes and cloth fibres among other things —and sends them to the laboratories for studyand analysis. There, DNA tests are done andfingerprints are fed into a national fingerprintnetwork. This helps in solving the crime andapprehending the real criminal.

In India, on the other hand, mostpolicemen are not adequately trained in sci-entific investigation, nor do they have thescientific equipment for this. And yet, thereis pressure on them to solve the crime. Theresult is that the policemen often charge aperson on the basis of mere suspicion andthen fabricate evidence or resort to the

time-tested method of usingtorture to get a “confession.”Not to forget, the large-scaleshortcomings of the police —corruption. In most cases, noteven proper investigation isdone. Eye witnesses are reluc-tant to give evidence for fear ofreprisal. All of this has madethe Indian criminal law systema mockery of justice.

The delegation then dis-cussed other topics on whichthere were some sharp differ-ences between the members andme. Most of the delegation mem-bers were anti-President Trump,but I was of the view that heshould be supported. I referredto my article titled, ‘Trump’sOpposition To ChineseImperialism Overshadows HisDefects’ published late last year inoutlookindia.com. I pointed outthat today, the greatest danger toworld peace comes from Chineseimperialism, just as Hitler’s impe-rialism was at one time. Thisbecause like Hitler’s imperialism,Chinese imperialism, too, isexpanding. Hence, since Trumpis calling the Chinese bluff, weshould support him on this frontinstead of focussing on hisdefects.

The next topic for discussionwas about the condition of theBlacks in America. The membersof the delegation, who were allWhite, were quite critical of the

unfair treatment meted out to theAfrican-Americans. However, Imentioned that one should notoverlook the progress made bythem too. At one time, even longafter the decision of the USSupreme Court in Brown vsBoard of Education (1954),African-Americans could noteven go to restaurants, get a roomin hotels or enter swimmingschools or beaches. Today, the sit-uation has changed for the bet-ter.

In Mark Twain’s famousnovel, Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn, when there isan explosion, Aunt Sally asks:“Was anyone hurt?” to whichHuck replies “No Ma’am, onlya nigger killed.” The moot pointhere is that there was a time inhistory when an African-American man was not evenregarded a human being.Contrast this situation to theone now when Iowa, a statewhich is 95 per cent White,voted for an African-American,Barack Obama, in the pri-maries of a presidential electionwhich launched him on hispath to the White House. Wasthis even conceivable 25 yearsago? It must, however, beadmitted that racism still rulesin some parts of America andit needs to be opposed.

Next, we discussed aboutgay relationships. I was of the

view that though the IndianSupreme Court’s decision todecriminalise gay sex was wel-come, one should not just focuson gay rights but look at humanrights holistically. The moreimportant issues in India areunemployment (the recentNational Sample Survey Reportsaid that it is at a 45-year high,with 12 million youth enteringthe job market every year butjobs are declining), farmers’distress (300,000 farmers havecommitted suicide and thetrend is continuing unabated),child malnourishment (47 percent of the Indian children aremalnourished, as mentionedby Global Hunger Index, whichis one of the highest in theworld), the non-existence ofhealthcare and quality educationfor the masses.

I was particularly critical ofthe US Supreme Court’s deci-sion in Obergefell vs Hodges(2015), which directed all Statesin America to validate gay mar-riages. To my mind, this direc-tion amounts to judicial legisla-tion, which is not proper sincethere is a separation of powersin the Constitution. Judgesshould exercise restraint and nottake over the functions of thelegislature. Judicial legislation, tomy mind, is an oxymoron.

(The writer is a former judgeof Supreme Court of India)

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Sir — In the run-up to theAssembly election, the BJP-ledGovernment in Maharashtrahas surely received a shot in thearm after the Bombay HighCourt upheld the reservation forthe polit ical ly inf luentialMaratha community. But then,by showing the existence of“exceptional circumstances andextraordinary situations”, wherethe 50 per cent cap on quotasimposed by the Supreme Courtin the Indra Sawhney case canbe breached, the judgement hascleared a path for sundry otherreservation demands.

The Maratha community isthe most dominant communityin Maharashtra. Actually theMarathas are not one caste buta cluster of castes — some werewarriors or Kshatriyas in BritishIndia, others were agriculturists.

The uppermost class com-prises the Maratha Gadhivarchaswho owned sugar factories, edu-cational institutions, banks andwere polit ical ly powerful.Wadyavarcha, or the middlewell-off strata, are land owners,transporters and contractors.Wadivarcha or the lowest strata

is made up of small farmers. Inrecent years, erstwhile dominantcommunities — Marathas, Jats,Patidars, Gujjars and Kapus —have launched mass movements,seeking a share of the totalreservation pie.

Instead of addressing theunderlying causes of such move-ments — the crisis in agricul-ture, limited educational oppor-tunities, the lack of jobs in theformal economy — the politicalelite decides to take short-cuts

and provides quotas. Sooner orlater the balloon that is squeezedat one side to inflate another endwill burst. Only the SupremeCourt can save it now.

JS AcharyaHyderabad

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Prepare for Day Zero” (July 1).While Tamil Nadu is witnessingprecarious water problems, thingsare not smooth in other States aswell. In fact, the entire country isfaced with outrageous shortagestoday. And if we fail to tackle thesituation, the day is not too faraway when we will regret doingnothing.

Israel, a country with a poolof talented people, is makinggood use of technology to counterthe water scarcity problem. Israelisolutions could help India comeout of the abyss of water shortage.One major innovation that hashelped Israel battle its waterproblem is effective application ofthe drip irrigation system.Second, it has trained its farmersto meticulously focus on reusingsewage water. India must take aleaf out from Israel’s book totransform itself from a water-deficient country to being a watersurplus nation.

Darshan Kankariya Ujjain

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The images of Dayanidhi Maran andKanimozhi, the newly-elected DravidaMunnetra Kazhagam (DMK) members of

the Lok Sabha, leading a protest march inChennai the other day against the Tamil NaduGovernment for its “indifference” to waterscarcity evoked laughter instead of sympathy. ForMaran, whom DMK leaders themselves describeas the “Amul baby” of the party, this was his firstouting as a protester. In his previous avatar asan MP (2004-2013), he was a Union CabinetMinister, wielding enormous power for almosteight years and Tamil Nadu is yet to hear anyof his adventures to resolve the water problem.His aunt, Kanimozhi, was a Rajya Sabha leaderfor 12 years before she was elected to the LokSabha this General Election. The DMK itself waspart of the Union Government (almost unin-terrupted) from 1996 to 2014 and is yet to come up with any progress card for its achieve-ments.

The All India Anna Dravida MunnetraKazhagam (AIADMK), which has been rulingthe State since 2011, too, cannot escape chargesof complacency and indifference to the water cri-sis that is haunting Tamil Nadu. All politiciansknow well that it is a rain-deficient State and ithas no major rivers of its own exceptThamirabarani. The only major river flowingthrough Tamil Nadu is Kaveri (Cauvery), a riveroriginating at Tala Kaveri in the Western Ghatsin Karnataka and flowing through Tamil Naduand Puducherry before merging with the Bayof Bengal. If the southwest monsoon fails, it iscertain that there won’t be any water in this river,which is known to be the lifeline of the south-ern State. The dispute between Tamil Nadu andKarnataka for a few more thousand millioncubic feet (TMCft) of water is about 50 years old.A case pertaining to this matter is with the Supreme Court and it is a never-end-ing legal saga.

Farming operations in Tamil Nadu dependon the northeast monsoon (October-December).Tamil Nadu does not get much rain from thesouthwest monsoon (June-September) and isdependent on Kerala and Karnataka — the maincatchment areas of this edition of the weathercycle. If the southwest monsoon fails to bringrain in Kerala and Karnataka, normal life inTamil Nadu loses its rhythm. The State is out-side the rain shadow area and only if the raingods are generous will it get its due share ofwater. Political leaders did not see the writingon the wall and failed to take corrective mea-sures. They were dependent on the Centre topush Karnataka to release water from Kaveri.

Another aberration was the MullaperiyarDam, which is owned by Tamil Nadu but situ-ated in Kerala. Now, the neighbouring Statewants to construct a new dam in place of the150-year-old one, citing longevity and safetyissues. A committee appointed by the SupremeCourt, that included KT Thomas, a retired judgeof the apex court, found the dam to be safe andstrong. But authorities in Kerala are not con-vinced and the dispute continues.

Tamil Nadu is having another battlefrontwith Andhra Pradesh as the latter is construct-ing a series of check dams across Palar River.Tamil Nadu is apprehensive that the check dams

would deny it water from Palar, thoughthe quantity is less.

Over the years, successiveGovernments in Tamil Nadu — be itfrom the AIADMK or the DMK —have failed to chalk out a permanentsolution to this recurring water scarci-ty. Both the AIADMK and the DMKfailed to push the Centre to take stepsto divert the surplus water fromHemavathi and Nethravati inKarnataka to Kaveri, which are otherwise discharged into the Arabian Sea.

Hydrologists like Prof PMNatarajan found out that 1,000 TMCft of water from Godavari is dischargedinto the Bay of Bengal every year. If apart of this water is diverted to Tamil Nadu, inter-linkingthe peninsular Indian rivers, waterwoes of the State could be solved foronce and forever.

“It is a win-win situation for bothKarnataka and Tamil Nadu. The sur-plus water from Hemavathi andNethravati could replenish Kaveri,which flows through Karnataka andTamil Nadu. Farmers in both Statesstand to benefit with this link,” saidProf Natarajan and G Kishore Babu,editor, World Focus, who has studiedthis topic for almost two decadesnow.

The other day, Congress leaderAdhir Ranjan Chowdhury was heardsaying in the Lok Sabha that inter-lik-ing of rivers is not viable and isdoomed to fail. He belittled Sir ArthurCotton, the person who conceived theidea of linking the major rivers in thecountry, so that the surplus flood waterof north Indian rivers could be shift-

ed to the water-deficit rivers of southIndia. The National WaterDevelopment Agency (NWDA), underthe Ministry of Water Resources, hasprepared a great detailed project reportabout the inter-linking of rivers.Chowdhury may not be aware of thefact that the Common MinimumProgramme of the UPA had assuredthe people of the country that itwould initiate steps to inter-link thepeninsular Indian rivers. (Page 13,National Common MinimumProgramme of the Government ofIndia, May 2004).

The Department of Atomic Energyhas designed desalination plants, whichuse the reverse osmosis technology toconvert sea water into pure drinkingwater. This is not a costly technologyas made out by a section of environ-mentalists. Those, who doubt the fea-sibility of the RO technology, shouldcome to Kalakkam near Chennai,where the Atomic Energy Commissionoperates desalination plants at anunbelievably low cost. These plantssupply the entire water required by theMadras Atomic Power Stations, IndiraGandhi Centre for Atomic Energy(IGCAR) and the residential townshiphousing the entire staff of Kalpakkamestablishment.

During the last 22 years, one hasnot seen any political party in TamilNadu pass any unanimous resolutionin the legislative Assembly, asking theCentre to speed up the inter-linking ofrivers. Yet another proof of official apa-thy is the Tamil Nadu Government’sfailure to execute the works of a canalconnecting Chennai with SrisailamDam in Andhra Pradesh, which would

have addressed the water shortagefaced by the capital city. As per anagreement worked out by the thenPrime Minister Indira Gandhi, thethree riparian States of Maharashtra,Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh wereto contribute five TMC ft of water eachto Tamil Nadu, which the latter coulddraw from the Srisailam Dam.

The three Chief Ministers signedagreements too. The task of con-structing a canal between Chennai andthe Srisailam Dam was left to TamilNadu. But for reasons known only tothe Tamil Nadu Government, it did notshow any interest in building thecanal and instead dug up a canal toKandaleru, a stormwater lake in neigh-bouring Chittoor district of AndhraPradesh, which is able to supply justone TMCft of water every year.

The fact is parties lack the politi-cal will to solve the water scarcity prob-lem. Scientists at the Indian Instituteof Technology, Madras, have developeda process using nano-technology topurify sewage water in Cooum Riverand Buckingham Canal. ProfSundararama Prabhu, head of thePhysics Group of IIT, Madras, had helda demonstration in front of the mediaand other policy makers way back in2009. Since it costs only a few hundredsof crores, there are no takers for thetechnology innovated by Prof Prabhu.The solutions are here, right inChennai. Fact is, once the problem ofwater scarcity is solved, our politicianswill lose an issue to agitate and demon-strate over. Who cares about the com-mon man?

(The writer is SpecialCorrespondent, The Pioneer)

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India is making great strides in dig-ital revolution. While advancedtechnologies such as Artificial intel-

ligence, Internet of Things andblockchain are making Indian ITbehemoths ambitious, the Governmentis more concerned about putting thetier-II and tier-III cities on the IT rev-olution map. Metro cities in our coun-try have attracted big domestic andinternational players from the IT fieldby leveraging pro-active policies of theGovernment, huge engineering talentpool and IT grade infrastructure. Thesuccess is evident from the growth ofthe IT industry — its turnover in 1991was just $1 billion and two and a halfdecades later, in 2019, it stands at $177billion.

While the IT industry has seenphenomenal growth during the lastthree decades, unfortunately, it was lim-ited to leading metropolitan hubs likeDelhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru andKolkata. Consequently, these citieswitnessed a spurt in urbanisation asmassive populations from the country-side and smaller towns migrated tothese cities in search of jobs. Thisunchecked migration resulted inmounting significant pressures oninfrastructure and sustainability ofbigger cities. While migrating labour-ers could secure a job in metro cities,they were not able to cater to the fam-ily needs in a holistic manner.

Moreover, metropolitan cities havealready reached a saturation point forBPOs because of high cost of infrastruc-ture and civic amenities. Tier-II andtier-III cities, including the likes ofAhmedabad, Patna, Varanasi, Ranchi,Imphal, Nashik Jaipur and Chandigarhamong others, have proven theirstrength for a very long time as an effec-tive alternative to already developedmetropolises such as Bengaluru,Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune,Hyderabad and Delhi. A demograph-

ic shift is required to plug the digital gapbetween the metro cities and smallercities.

In order to resolve the underlinedissues and challenges faced by theyouth, the Government envisaged twoBPO schemes — the India BPOPromotion Scheme (IBPS) and theNorth East BPO Promotion Scheme(NEBPS) — under the PrimeMinister’s Digital India programme.With a total budget outlay of �543crore, the two BPO schemes envisageemployment of 1,50,000 youth in tier-II and tier-III cities.

Under the above mentionedschemes, the Government provisionedvarious incentivisation strategies such

as financial support towards capital andoperational expenditure, special incen-tives for employing women and differ-ently-abled people, additional incentivefor employment beyond target andwider dispersal within the State beyondthe capital cities to attract the localentrepreneurs. Such strategies have inturn encouraged local entrepreneurs toleverage associated benefits and join thebandwagon of dispersal of the BPOindustry to smaller towns.

In addition to this, the provisionof joint venture between two or morecompanies has also lifted the spirit oflocal entrepreneurs to participate insuch schemes and reap benefits so asto generate employment opportunities

in their respective regions. After three-and-half years of their

launch, the schemes are thriving suc-cessfully. The nodal agency in chargefor implementing them has left nostone unturned in achieving theGovernment’s vision. Today, 52,972seats have been allocated out of a totalof 53,300 seats. Around 42,830 seats areoperational across 120 cities by employ-ing over 28,579 local youth, including9,340 women being employed. As aresult, small cities like Muzaffarpur,Deoghar, Vidisha, Balasore, Unnao,Siliguri, Hazaribagh, Sopore, Tumkurand Guntupalli are getting their right-ful place on the IT map.

Employment opportunities forthe local youth, too, have been creat-ed in smaller towns. Moreover, throughsuch schemes, a significant number ofwomen have been employed. In somecompanies, the percentage of womenemployment is even more than 50 percent.

Currently, these BPO units are pro-viding services in 16 languages likeArabic and Spanish in around 18domains, including but not limited tohealthcare, KPO, e-commerce, e-learn-

ing, technical support, medical tran-scription and digital marketing tointernational clients from the US, theUK and Canada.

Once such BPO centres are set upin small towns and cities and they startoperations, they will not only createdirect employment for the local youthbut also generate further opportunitiesfor ancillary sectors to operate and cre-ate indirect employment. Eventually,BPO centres are creating a holisticecosystem for economic growth of thelocality, which is the core objective ofthe such schemes.

Moreover, the strong foundationlaid by the Indian IT industry is alsobeing leveraged for an all-inclusivegrowth of smaller/mofussil townsthrough such schemes. With employ-ment and economic dividend toregional players, these programmeshave been significantly reducing therural-urban divide, alleviating theload of migration to metros andpaving the way for a resurgent Indiathat echoes inclusive development forall citizens.

(The author is director-general ofSoftware Technology Parks of India)

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Today, the Goods andServices Tax regime enters

its third year. The monumen-tal restructuring of one of theworld’s clumsiest indirect taxsystem was not an easy task.The challenges to implementthe GST were compounded bysome outlandish and exagger-ated comments of the not sowell-informed. It would, there-fore, be only fair to look backthe last two years and analysethe implementation and theimpact/ consequences of the GST.

The pre-GST regimeIn a federal structure, both

Centre and States were entitledto impose indirect tax ongoods. The States had multiplelaws which entitled them toimpose taxation at differentpoints. There were twin chal-lenges. Firstly, to get the Statesto agree because some of themfelt they were losing their fis-cal autonomy to tax and, sec-ondly, to develop a consensusin the Parliament. The Stateswere scared of the fear of theunknown. The critical pointwhich enabled the Governmentto persuade the States was tocushion them with a 14%annual increase from the taxbase of 2015-16 for a period offive years.

The GST merged all theseseventeen different laws andcreated one single taxation.

The pre-GST rate of taxation asa standard rate for VAT was14.5%, excise at 12.5% andadded with the CST and thecascading effect of tax on tax,the tax payable by the con-sumer was 31%. The enter-tainment tax was being leviedby the States from 35% to110%. The assessee had to filemultiple returns, entertain mul-tiple inspectors and addition-ally face the inefficiency -trucks being stranded at theState boundaries for days alto-gether.

The GST changed this sce-nario completely. Today, thereis only one tax, online returns,no entry tax, no truck queuesand no inter-state barriers.

Consumer and assesseefriendly

After two years, one canconfidently argue, without fearof contradiction that GSTproved to be both consumerand assessee friendly. Thehigh taxation of pre GST erapinched the consumers’ pock-et and acted as a disincentiveagainst tax compliance. Thelast two years have seen eachof the meetings of the GSTCouncil reducing the tax bur-den on consumers as the taxcollections improved. An effi-cient tax system certainly leadsto better compliance. The 31%tax, which was temporarily28%, has seen the largest sin-gle reform. Most items of con-sumer use have been brought

in the 18%, 12% and even 5%category. Only luxury and singoods remain in addition tosome white goods. A suddenreduction of all categories canlead to a massive loss ofGovernment revenue leavingthe Government withoutresources to spend. This exer-cise had to be done in a grad-ual manner as the revenuesincreased. The Cinema tick-ets, earlier taxed at 35% to110%, have been broughtdown to 12% and 18%. Mostitems of daily use are in thezero or 5% slab. The loss tothe revenue on account ofthis reduction collectively hasbeen more than �90,000 croreannually.

Widening tax base andhigher revenue

The assessee base in the lasttwo years has increased by84%. The number of assesseescovered by the GST were

around 65 lakh.Today, they are at1.20 crores. Thisobviously leads tohigher revenue col-lections. In theeight months of2017-18 (July toMarch), the aver-age revenue col-lected per monthwas �89,700 croreper month. In thenext year (2018-19), the monthlyaverage has

increased by about 10% to�97,100 crore. The fear of theStates today is that for the firstfive years they get a guaranteed14% increase. The lurkingdoubt is as to what will happenafter five years? Every State hasbeen paid its share of tax as alsofrom the compensation fund, ifnecessary. We have just com-pleted two years of GST.Already after the second year,twenty States are indepen-dently showing more than a14% increase in their revenuesand the compensation fund intheir case is not necessary.

Simplification and com-pliance

Businesses upto an annualturnover of �40 lakh are GSTexempt. Those with a turnoverupto �1.5 crore can make useof the composition schemeand pay only one percent tax.There is now a single registra-tion system which works online

and the procedures for thetrade and business are reviewedand simplified regularly.

A response to certain mis-conceived ideas

Many warned us that itmay not be politically safe tointroduce the GST. In severalcountries, governments lostelections because of the GST.India had one of the smoothesttransformation. Within thefirst few weeks of the imple-mentation, the new systemsettled down. There were a fewprotests in Surat. The issueswere resolved. The BJP won allthe Assembly seats in theGujarat poll in Surat. In 2019,the BJP won the Surat seat bythe highest margin in the coun-try. Those who argued for asingle slab GST must realisethat a single slab is possibleonly in extremely affluentcountries where there are nopoor people. It would beinequitable to apply a singlerate in countries where thereare a large number of peoplebelow the poverty line. Thedirect tax is a progressive tax.The more you earn, the moreyou pay. An indirect tax is aregressive tax. In the pre-GSTregime, the rich and the poor,on various commodities, paidthe same tax. The multipleslab system not only checkedinflation, it also ensured thatthe Aam Aadmi products arenot exorbitantly taxed.Illustratively, a Hawai chappal

and a Mercedes car cannot betaxed at the same rate. This isnot to suggest that the ratio-nalisation of slabs is not need-ed. That process is already on.Except on luxury and singoods, the 28% slab has almostbeen phased out. Zero and 5%slabs will always remain. Asrevenue increases further, it willgive an opportunity to policymakers to possibly merge the12% and 18% slab into one rate,thus, effectively making theGST a two rate tax.

The Role of the GSTCouncil

The GST Council is India’sfirst statutory federal institu-tion. The Centre and theStates jointly sit and decide.Both have pooled their fiscalrights in a collective forum tocreate one common market.My own experience of twoyears while chairing the GSTCouncil, was that FinanceMinisters’ of States, notwith-standing the political positiontheir parties take, have dis-played a high level of states-manship and acted with matu-rity. The Council worked onthe principle of consensus.This has added to the credibil-ity of the decision makingprocess. I am sure this trendwill continue in future.

(The writer is formerFinance Minister of India. Viewsexpressed in the article are per-sonal.)

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The Indian rupee surren-dered most of its early

gains and settled for the day 9paise higher at 68.94 against theUS dollar on Monday asinvestor sentiments wererevived by US-China tradetruce.

At the interbank foreignexchange (forex), the domesticcurrency opened at 68.96 a dol-lar and gained further strengthto touch a high of 68.82 duringthe day.

The domestic currency,however, could not hold on tothe gains and fell to 69.09. Therupee finally settled at 68.94 adollar, higher by 9 paise over itsprevious close.

The Indian unit had settledat 69.03 against the US dollarFriday.

The dollar index, whichgauges the greenback’s strengthagainst a basket of six curren-cies, rose 0.27 per cent to96.39.

Forex traders said the

rupee appreciated in themorning trade as ChinesePresident Xi Jinping and hisAmerican counterpart DonaldTrump at the G20 summitagreed to re-launch the stallednegotiations to end the trade war.

“Indian rupee started theday on positive note amidrecord foreign-exchangereserves, narrowed current-account deficit and start of US-China Trade talks. But rupeegave away intra-day gains astraders rushed for dollar buy-ing amid higher crude oilprices,” said V K Sharma,Head-PCG & Capital MarketStrategy, HDFC securities.

Brent crude futures, theglobal oil benchmark, rose 2.33per cent to $1.51 per barrelahead of the OPEC+ meeting.

A meeting of theOrganization of the PetroleumExporting Countries, Russiaand other producers, analliance known as OPEC+, isscheduled to be held on

Monday and Tuesday to discusssupply cuts.

Amid soaring US produc-tion and weak global economy,OPEC+ has been reducing oiloutput to prevent prices fromsliding.

Meanwhile, the 10-yeargovernment bond yield was at6.88 per cent on Monday.

Foreign institutionalinvestors (FIIs) remained netsellers in the capital markets,pulling out Rs 513.19 croreFriday, provisional datashowed.

The 30-share BSE Sensexsettled 291.86 points, or 0.74per cent, higher at 39,686.50.The broader NSE Nifty toojumped 76.75 points, or 0.65per cent, to end at 11,865.60.

Meanwhile, FinancialBenchmark India Private Ltd(FBIL) set the reference rate forthe rupee/dollar at 68.9180and for rupee/euro at 78.3579.The reference rate forrupee/British pound was fixedat 87.3476 and for rupee/100Japanese yen at 63.97.

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In signs of sluggish momen-tum in tax collections,

Goods and Services Tax(GST) receipts in June fell to�99,939 crore, down fromover �1 lakh crore in the pre-vious month, the FinanceMinistry said Monday.

While the GST collec-tions in June were lower than�1,00,289 crore in May, theywere higher than �95,610crore receipts in the samemonth of the previous year.

“The total gross GST rev-enue collected in the monthof June, 2019 is �99,939 croreof which Central-GST is�18,366 crore, State-GST is�25,343 crore, Integrated-GST is �47,772 crore (includ-ing �21,980 crore collectedon imports) and cess is�8,457 crore (including �876crore collected on imports),”the ministr y said in a statement.

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Atotal of over 6.8lakh compa-

nies have beenclosed across Indiatill date, the LokSabha was told onMonday.

The number ofclosed companiesaccount for 36.07per cent of the total 18,94,146companies that are registeredunder Registrar of Companies.

Out of the total 6,83,317companies that have been shut,over 1.42 lakh were inMaharashtra, more than 1.25lakh were in Delhi, over 67,000were in West Bengal while nocompany was closed in Sikkim,the data showed.

Responding to a Lok Sabhaquery, Minister for Financeand Corporate Affairs NirmalaSitharaman said theGovernment has undertakenspecial drive for identification

and striking off of the regis-tered companies which havenot filed their financial state-ments or annual returns in twopreceding financial years.

Regarding details on stepstaken by the Government tocancel the registration of fakecompanies, she said “the termfake company is not definedunder the Companies Act.”

In a written response to aseparate question, Sitharamansaid a total of 2,448 companieswere registered in the northeastern region between finan-cial years 2016-2019.

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Power Finance CorporationLimited (PFC) has success-

fully raised equivalent $300Million through 3 YearSyndicated Loan from StateBank of India, Hong Kongand MUFG Bank Limited,Singapore.

This is PFC’s second foreigncurrency borrowing in the cur-

rent Quarter. Earlier, PFC raised$1 Billion through issuance ofReg-S bonds which was thebiggest bond issuance overseasby a Government. owned NBFC.

By concluding the current$300 million deal, PFC hasalready mobilized $1.3 Billionindicating investor’s confidencein PFCpostacquisition ofGovernment shareholding of52.63% in REC Limited.

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State-owned Oil and NaturalGas Corp (ONGC) has dis-

covered over 230 million tonnesof in-place oil reserves in thelast three years, PetroleumMinister Dharmendra Pradhansaid Monday. In a written replyto a question in the Lok Sabha,he said India’s top oil and gasproducer ONGC as on April 1,2019, has in place oil reservesof 459.84 million tonnes.

These reserves are spreadover 16 assets it currentlyextracts oil from, he said.

“ONGC has established230.29 million tones of oil ini-tial-in-place during the lastthree years,” he added.

The company produced21.11 million tonnes of oil in

the fiscal year ended March 31(2018-19). In last three years, itproduced a cumulative 65.66million tonnes of oil.

To a separate question,Pradhan said the governmenthad constituted a committeefor preparing a road map toreduce the dependency onenergy imports by 10 per centby 2021-22.

The panel suggested “five-pronged strategy broadly com-prises of increasing domesticproduction of oil and gas, pro-moting energy efficiency andconservation measures, givingthrust on demand substitution,capitalizing untapped potentialin bio-fuels and other alternatefuels/renewables and imple-menting measures for refineryprocess improvements,” he said.

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An overloaded 28 seaterminibus, ferrying at least

55 passengers on Monday,rolled down into a deep gorgeafter it skidded off the roadresulting in the death of at least35 people in Kishtwar districtof Jammu province.

The ill fated minibus bear-ing registration number JK-17/6787 was on its way fromKeshwan to Kishtwar when itmet with an accident.

Around 20 passengerskilled in the accident werebelow 25 years of age and wereheading for work.

Confirming the total num-ber of fatal injuries DeputyCommissioner, KishtwarAngrez Singh Rana told ThePioneer, “35 passengers werekilled and 20 others receivedcritical injuries when a minibusplunged deep in to a gorge earlyMonday morning nearSirgwari area of Kishtwararound 7.30 a.m”.

Rana said, “spot verifica-tion of the accident site hintedthe accident was caused due tosheer negligence of the driverof the minibus”. He said, “theroad condition was okay andthere was no curve either at theaccident site”.

12 injured passengers were

airlifted to Jammu by the MI-17 helicopters of Indian AirForce while 4 injured personswere ferried in a separatePawan Hans chopper.Amongthese, 7 year old Arjun Singhwas still battling for life in theemergency ward of theGovernment Medical collegehospital. He was travelling inthe minibus along with hismother and maternal aunt. Helost his mother in the fatal acci-dent Jammu & KashmirGovernor, Satya Pal Malik hasannounced an ex-gratia of Rs5 lakh each to the next of thekin of the deceased and direct-ed the administration to pro-vide best medical treatment tothe injured in Kishtwar roadaccident. In New Delhi, PrimeMinister Narendra Modiexpressed grief over the loss oflives in Kishtwar accident.

Taking to Twitter, PMModi wrote, “The accident inJammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwaris heart-wrenching. We mournall those who lost their lives and

express condolences to thebereaved families. May theinjured recover at the earliest.”

Meanwhile, Union HomeMinister Amit Shah said,“Extremely saddened to learnabout the loss of lives due to aroad accident in Kishtwar,Jammu & Kashmir. My deep-est condolences to the familiesof those who lost their lovedones. I pray of the speedyrecovery of those injured.’’

Former Chief MinisterOmar Abdullah, sharing hisconcern tweeted, “Terriblenews coming in about the highdeath toll in a bus accident inKishtwar. Condolences to thefamilies of the deceased andprayers for the swift recovery ofthe injured.”

Mehbooba Mufti alsotweeted, “Saddened to hearabout the tragic accident inKishtwar. Deepest condolencesto families of the bereaved.”

On June 27, 11 studentsfrom Poonch died in a roadaccident on Mughal Roadwhen an overspeeding TempoTraveller skidded off the roadand plunged into a gorge.Among the 11 dead, nine weregirls.

The students were on anexcursion from Surankotetehsil in Poonch district toMughal road.

Bengaluru: Karnataka BJP chief B SYeddyurappa on Monday said VijayanagaraCongress MLA Anand Singh's resignationreflects large-scale unease in the rulingcoalition and the Government will collapseunder its own weight, after which his partywill explore the constitutional provisionsto form the new Government.

Ruling out the possibility of freshpolls, the former Chief Minister said thosein the BJP were not “sanyasis” (seers), andthe future of the Government is based onthe decision taken by over 20 disgruntledCongress-JD(S) legislators.

“About the political developments, I amyet to know about the resignation ofAnand Singh. The only thing is that his res-ignation shows there is large-scale uneasein Congress. We are not bothered about theresignations, our first concern is the peo-ple and drought,” he said.

“We will keep watching the situation.

Anything may happen. If the Governmentcollapses, we are not responsible. It will col-lapse under its own weight,” he toldreporters.

“Only after the collapse of this gov-ernment we can explore the constitution-al provisions to form the new Government.There is no question of elections. We area strong force of 105 members and we haveevery right to make a claim for forming thegovernment if the present one collapses,”he added.

Congress MLA Anand Singh Mondayannounced his resignation, opposing theState Government's decision to sell 3,667acres to JSW Steel at Ballari, his home dis-trict.

He had also demanded thatVijayanagara be made a district.Speculations are rife that Singh, who wasa minister in the BJP Government, may goback to the saffron party's fold. PTI

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Using expletives and refer-ences to dance bars,

Samajwadi Party MP AzamKhan has kicked up anotherrow and said a society that hon-ours the vulgar cannot progress.

The Rampur MP, who isknown for his vitriolic outburstsparticularly against his one-time colleague and now BJPmember Jaya Prada, on Sundayused a victory speech to vent hisire.

“We have not opened adance bar here...” the RampurMP said in his speech inHindustani without naminganyone. Khan, who also usedabusive language, was address-ing the electorate for the firsttime since his win in the gen-eral election.

“People know whom it isbeing referred to. In a societywhere this word is classified asrespectable, how will it progressand keep its head high?” heasked. “Will those who dragdown the respectable tell uswhat to do? They will takethemselves as gods and god-desses.” “You saw what theresult was. How much moneywas spent and power was usedto defeat me? They said thatthey will be humiliated if AzamKhan wins,” the SP leader said.

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The Bengal BJP is expectinga large number of

Trinamool Congress leadersto join its side within a matterof a few months.

Referring to a number oflower level TMC leaders join-ing the BJP leading to the col-lapse of a number ofTrinamool-controlled pan-chayat and municipal boards inthe past couple of weeks StateBJP president Dilip Ghosh said“already half a dozen of TMCMLAs and scores of its coun-cilors have joined the BJP. Inthe coming few months largenumber of their leaders includ-ing people’s representatives aregoing to join us.”

Soon there will be noTMC, he said adding the partywill soon be left with the auntand the nephew. “Soon therewill be none in the TMC which

will be left with the aunt(Mamata Banerjee) and thenephew (Abhishek Banerjee)only.”

Alleging that the TMCGovernment had posted policein front of the houses of theMLAs and other people’s rep-resentatives so that they wereunable to contact the BJP,Ghosh said “in spite of thatmany councilors and legislatorsare calling us and expressingtheir wishes to quit that party.”

Claiming that the BJPoffices across the State wereflooded with phone calls fromthe TMC leaders willing toswitch over to the saffron party,Ghosh said “we will take all ofyou in because we are theworld’s largest party and wehave plenty of space to accom-modate you.

But in order to join ourparty you will have to comewith a clean image.”

Attacking the TMC leaderswho had taken cut moneyfrom the people to help themget the benefit of various gov-ernment schemes, Ghosh said,“Today under pressure fromthe villagers these people aretrying to join the BJP. But Iwant to tell them that we willinduct them in our party onlyafter they have refunded thebribes they took. They will haveto come after returning the cutmoney that they had takenfrom the common people orotherwise we will not sparethem for the offence they havecommitted.”

The local level TMC lead-ers are being every day accost-ed and attacked by thousandsof villagers who are askingtheir money back from them.

Attacking Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee for givingBengal a corrupt Governmentand converting many employ-ees including the police brassinto thieves, Ghosh said, “you(Chief Minister) were voted topower by huge majority butafter coming to power youforgot everything and con-verted the police administra-tion into a force of extortion-ists.

Today the situation is thatthe police who took cut moneyare being chased by the people.”

Warning the dishonestofficials he said “time is com-ing for those who were in thehabit of extorting money fromthe people. They should mendtheir habits or else there will be

consequences for them whenwe come to power.”

Pooh-pooing Banerjee’sefforts to invoke election strate-gist Prashant Kishore --- whois also a JD(U) leader --- for an

image-building exercise so thatshe can win the 2021 Assemblyelections, the State BJP presi-dent said, “she has to bring inprofessionals because she haslost connect with the people.

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Patna: Bihar Chief Minister NitishKumar broke his silence onMonday over the deaths of morethan 150 children due acuteencephalitis syndrome inMuzaffarpur district, saying anintegrated approach would beadopted for the upliftment of thepoor who suffered the most.

Kumar expressed profoundgrief over the matter that drewrage against his Government fromacross the country and addedthat not much was known aboutthe disease.

“It's a very very unfortunateincident. We just cannot expressour regret (towards the incident),”he said in the assembly. “It's a veryserious issue.... It was quite evidentafter meeting the attendants ofpatients and victims during myvisit to the SKMCH that most ofthe victims belonged to poor fam-

ilies.”Kumar, who had visited the

Shri Krishna Medical College andHospital (SKMCH) inMuzaffarpur when the AES deathcounts had mounted last month,had faced protests and avoided thevolley of questions from themedia. The outbreak has claimed154 lives so far.

“People are still clueless as to

what the disease is all about as itis still being called a syndrome,” hesaid. “It (incidents of childrendeaths) pains and affects otherworks in the Government too.”

The Chief Minister was mak-ing an intervention during theGovernment's reply on theadjournment motion on the issuemoved by the Opposition.

Kumar rued the “patheticcondition” of the SKMCH, sayinghe was pained with the state ofaffairs of the hospital and took adecision to enhance its capacity to2,500 beds from the 610.

He said the Government hadordered a socio-economic surveyto ascertain the economic condi-tion of the victim's families, addingthat it would be ensured thatthey get the benefits of the StateGovernment's various schemes.

PTI

Hyderabad: Telangana forestdepartment officials onMonday lodged a complaintagainst a ruling TRS legislatorfor allegedly “obstructing” theirwork, police said.

The MLA, VanamaVenkateswara Rao, has refutedthe allegations. This comes aday after a woman forest offi-cial was attacked by some peo-ple, allegedly led by the broth-er of a Telangana RashtraSamithi (TRS) legislator inKB-Asifabad district over aland issue.

According to a police offi-cial, the forest departmentlodged a complaint againstKothagudem TRS MLAVanama Venkateswara Raosaying that he along with fouror five of his supportersobstructed construction of awall for protection of forestland near Yellandu town onJune 29. “We have received acomplaint today (July 1) againstthe MLA and others that theywere obstructing the forestdepartments work. We

are inquiring into the com-

plaint,” the official said.Refuting the allegations,

Venkateswara Rao said heapproached the forest depart-ment officials on behalf of agroup of Adivasis to sort outtheir land issue. “The Adivasishave documents supportingtheir claim that the land isbeing cultivated by them since1956. I told the forest depart-ment officials that I will requestthe CM (K ChandrasekharRao)tosort out the Adivasisland issue. I have notthreatened anybody and I did

not obstruct any work also,” hesaid.

KB-Asifabad policeSunday arrested Sirsilla MLAKoneru Konappas brotherKrishna and his followers forallegedly assaulting C Anitha,a woman Forest Range Officer(FRO) in Sarasala village in thedistrict. Anitha, along withher staff and police, had goneto the village for undertakingtree plantation on a land as partof the Governments afforesta-tion programme when she wasattacked. PTI

�����5%�����������������'�������������#���� ����������������$���������������������<:�0&�����%�����Lucknow: BSP chief Mayawation Monday attacked the UttarPradesh Government forincluding 17 Other BackwardClasses (OBC) in theScheduled Caste list, termingthe move a “big fraud” anddemanded its immediate with-drawal.

Mayawati claimed that asimilar “unconstitutional andillegal” move was made by theprevious Samajwadi Party gov-ernment to cheat these castes,but her party had opposed iteven then.

“This is a big fraud withthe members of these 17 castes.They will neither be able toreceive benefits under 27 percent quota of the OBC, nor

under the SC category as theState Government cannot listor remove them from any ofthe categories through itsorders,” she said.

She said that in 2007 herGovernment had requested theCongress dispensation at theCentre to include the 17 castes in the ScheduledCaste list.

“We had demanded thatSC quota be increased so thatbenefits for the category do notget harmed due to the inclusionof the 17 castes. It is unfortu-nate that neither the Congress,nor the BJP Government at theCentre did anything about it,”she said.

PTI

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Chennai: Deficit rainfall and adip in the water table has led toscarcity in Tamil Nadu, despitewhich the government was sup-plying 7,508 Million Litres PerDay across the state, ChiefMinister K Palaniswami toldthe Assembly Monday.Municipal AdministrationMinister S P Velumani said theactual rainfall till date this yearwas only 48 mm against the aver-age normal rainfall of 149 mm.

Last year, the actual rainfall

was 811 mm against the totalnormal average rainfall of 960mm, which makes the deficit 68per cent, he added.

Palaniswami, interveningCongress Legislature Partyleader K R Ramasamy, whodemanded steps to address thesituation, said water bodies likelakes and ponds have dried updue to deficit rainfall and thewater table has tumbled, leadingto a shortage of water for dailyuse. PTI

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Mumbai and many parts ofMaharashtra continued

to reel under intense wet spellfor the fourth consecutive dayon Monday, with incidents ofelectrocution and lightningclaiming four lives and inces-sant heavy rain hits normal lifein the metropolis and neigh-bouring Thane and Palghardistricts.

While one MohammedAyub Kazi (30) was electro-cuted at his Shivajinagar-Govandi home in north-eastMumbai, three persons ---Parvati Kore (55) ChatursinghRajpu (41) and SanketChormule (17) were fatallystruck by lightning when theytook a shelter in a shed atMandrup village near Solapurin western Maharashtra. Twoothers, who were injured in thesame lightning incident, wererushed to the district hospital.

While the Island city ofMumbai received an averagerainfall of 64 mm till 6 pm onMonday, the eastern and west-ern suburbs registered 74 mmand 88 mm rainfall respectivelyduring the same period. Heavybattered north-eastern suburbof Chembur and north-westernsuburb of Bandra, with bothareas recording a maximumrainfall of 188 mm and 194 mmrespectively. During the 24hours ending at 8 am, the cityand suburbs received an aver-age rainfall of 91.9 mm and92.6 mm respectively.

A maximum rainfall of298 mm to 361 mm wasreported in Dahanu region inPalghar district.

Mumbaikars and theircounterparts will have norespite from rains for the nexttwo days. The IndianMeteorological Department,Mumbai, has forecast inter-mittent rains/showers withheavy and very heavy falls at afew places, during the 48 hours.

The continued heavydownpour crippled normal lifein Mumbai and suburbs.Following overnight rains,inundation was reported fromas many 137 spots, Matunga,Sion, Dadar, Parel, Wadala,Mahim, Santacruz, Andheri,Jogeshwari, Malad and Dahisar,bringing to halt traffic move-ment at several places. Majortraffic jams were reported fromacross the metropolis.

The arterial roads like

Eastern Express Highway,Western Express Highway,Ghodbunder Road, Sion-Panvel road witnessed massivetraffic snarls with vehicles mov-ing in snail's pace.

Heavy rains led to majordisruptions in the suburbantrain services of the Westernand Central Railway. “Duringthe last 48 hours, an unprece-dented heavy rainfall coupledwith high tide was observed inMumbai suburban area. Thetotal rainfall was 545 mmwhich is a record in a decade.All the stations and sections arebeing manned for 24 hours byofficers.. Heavy duty pumpshave been installed along withstaff deployed round the clockto monitor the water levels,” aCentral Railway spokespersonsaid.

Heavy water logging waswitnessed in the Kurla-Sionarea. As a result, many subur-

ban trains ran behind theschedule and the authoritiesdiverted the Up slow line andrestricted the speed of trains onboth the lines. They cancelledscores of trains and ran the ser-vices cautiously by bunchingtrains.

Tracks near the Sion,Matunga and Kurla railwaystations on Central Railway andPalghar on Western Railway layunder thick sheets of water.During peak hours of themorning, stranded railwaycommuters were seen at manywater-logged places disem-barking from their trains andwalking to nearest railway sta-tions along the trains to eitherhead to their offices and homeusing some other availablemeans of transport.

However, as televisionchannels went to town aboutthe disruptions caused heavyand the consequent water-log-ging at many places across themetropolis, Mumbai MayorVishwanath Mahadeshwar puta foot in his mouth by claim-ing that there was no inunda-tion in any part of the metrop-olis. “Everything is normal inMumbai. There are no trafficbottlenecks or jams. Normallife has not been affected as isbeing claimed by the media”.

“I don't see any problem,offices are running, schools areon. Wherever there was inun-dation , water was pumpedout. Traffic issue is a daily prob-lem in Mumbai,” Mahadeshwarsaid.

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On June 18, an inci-dent at Chennai’sQ u e e n s l a n dAmusement Parkbrought attention to

the issue of negligence of safety inamusements parks. Steel cablesholding one of the platforms of aride named Free Fall Towersnapped and came down crash-ing, leaving one dead and 15injured. A similar collapsing inci-dent took place at Chennai’sKishkinta Amusement Park in2016. The elevated merry-go-round ride called Disco Dancercollapsed into three pieces due toa mechanical fault and flung itsriders into the air. Twenty peoplewere injured in the mishap

From mechanical glitches tofaulty execution, there are numer-ous reports of accidents at amuse-ment parks that elicit shock andprovoke anger for some time buttheir essence might soon get dil-luted. Albeit there are height andage restrictions, however, howmuch could mishappenings beavoided even then? What is theprobability of assurance of safe-ty? The parks are for amusementand a fun escape from the usualmonotony. People go for joy ridesbut face horrible consequencesinstead. Such cases of mishapstem from lenient norms and neg-ligence governing the amuse-ment industry as well as outdat-ed equipment. All of this calls for

a deeper attention to their safetypolicies and regulations. Theuntrained professional and obso-lete equipment creates safety gapsin the long run.

� �!�"#��$"��$�% �&'(�$)�In 2018, a Facebook post of a

Delhi girl went viral when sheshared about a horrific incidentat the Worlds of Wonder, Noida.In the first flip of the ride, theshoulder safety harness gotunlocked and a man fell off theride hitting his head to an ironrod on the step down. This clear-ly indicates towards the negli-gence of the park machinery.They are desserted for a whileafter such accidents but bounceback to their operations when thecases start fading.

Experts claim that one of themajor causes that leads to suchsevere cases of mishap at amuse-ment parks in the country is thatthey are still in their buddingphase and require significantinvestment on both infrastructureand machinery up-keep. As perthe data, they require at least �700crore for mega parks and �100crore for mid-sized ones. There isalso high operational expenditure.Also, although it’s a highly season-al business, the parks have tooperate at full capacity even dur-ing off-seasons, which in turnpulls down their scope of anyimprovement.

Furthermore, even thoughpark owners and operators mightgenerally check the working oftheir rides periodically or whenthere is a breakdown — thiscould be too late. The parks areusually governed by laws in moststates but the ability of each stateto monitor if these laws are beingfollowed is hampered by a state’sfinancial and personnel con-straints. This is one of the majorfacts that contribute to negligenceas it may leave many parks to self-monitor and also make a profit.

It was on a winter evening in2011 when Amritsar-based NehaSaini went for go-karting (openwheel car meant for high-pow-ered racing) at RohiniAmusement Park. She shares,“They gave me a loose helmet andwhen I requested one of my size,they denied. The ride started

with a jerk. My waist-long hair gotpulled into the axle of the car’swheel and my entire scalp gotpulled apart.” There were noimmediate ambulance facilitiesand she had to wait for 15 min-utes for it to arrive at the venuewhile she was bleeding. The parkauthorities and contractors hadclaimed that it was not their faultand blamed her instead. It hasbeen nine years since Neha filedtwo cases against the park author-ities. However, the final judge-ment has only been stretching.

Months later, in a similarincident, a woman passed awaywhile riding a go-kart at anamusement park near YadavindraGardens, Pinjore.

On the contrary, Imran Rana,director, Atlantic Water Worldsays, “Every morning a team ofguards and operations managercheck the functioning of eachride. They brief lifeguards andassistants about the loadingcapacity and time frame. We callvarious rides manufactures togive training to our staff. They aretrained for 10-15 days beforeoperating the rides.” On beingquestioned about the medicalassistance and ambulance facili-ties, he says, it is parked outsidethe park till the time the amuse-ment park is open. He also talksabout their public insurance pol-icy which covers any accident thathappens. But such claims are

debunked by every mishap thathappens subsequently.

*(+$ '(�,��$"#�--'"( �-In most of the accidents,

there have been complaints aboutthe staff, who were not competentenough to ride the rides and hadno safety measures laid down onhow to operate them. Neha feelsthat she should have been guid-ed by the professionals before get-ting on to the ride. “As the casu-alty took place, the staff there hadno clue about what to do. Theysaid that their work was only toload and unload the riders. Theywere not even given any trainingor instructions on how to ride,”says she.

A resident from Mayur Vihar,Rohan Mehra shares his experi-ence of the break dance ride.“During the ride, a woman got asprain in her neck. Her familyasked the riders to stop the ridebut they were unable to do sopromptly. Instead, it took them sixmore minutes to finally end theride,” he says. It was because theywere unable to control the ride asit was too fast. However, one ofthe other reasons one can cite forthis unwelcoming behaviour isthat they often load people morethan the capacity in order to makemore money. Not only shouldthey be provided proper training,instead should be taught how tohandle the situation in case ofsuch accidents too.

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If you intend to set up anamusement park then you need toobtain a premises licence under

the Regulations for Licensing &controlling places of PublicAmusement, 1980. To furtherunderstand the process and howthese parks get the permission tooperate when they are not wellequipped and lack professionaltrainers, we had a conversationwith Pradeep Singh, Inspectorfrom licensing department. Hesays, “We ask NOCs, reports andno-objection certificate from allthe concerned departments. Inturn, the operators are required toget a license from various localauthorities, such as the publicworks department, the firedepartment, the police and oth-ers. If the park is well equippedand has trained professional onlythen we grant them the permis-sion.” He further tells that SportsAuthority of India (SAI) checksand reports the parks, withoutwhich the license is not grantedor renewed. They send theirswimming coaches to inspect thepremises and also check the func-tionality of the equipment. Onbeing asked if medical assistanceand ambulance facilities areincluded under the norms, he saysyes. Further, on being questionedabout the mishap, he says, “Wetake strict action against suchparks and cancel their license iftheir explanation to the happen-ings is not satisfactory. In case ofany casualty, whoever reports tous, be it local police or anyagency we act accordingly.” ThePolice Commissioner, Sub-Divisional officer, Station houseofficer and Inspectors processthe complaints right from themoment any mishap takes place.

The government licences andperiod safety audits are mandato-ry but the main concern that lieshere is that, there are no specificlaws governing amusement parksin India which would ensure thatthe safety standards are met.There are no guidelines to adhereto. However, a detailed set ofguidelines is formulated by theIndian Association ofAmusement Parks and Industriesbut the parks are not bound toabide by them. All of this calls fortighter safety norms. India is indire need of a national law gov-erning amusement parks andtheir safety. People can no longerrely on fun enveloped in accidentsso frequently.

Anand Kumar recalls spending one ofthe many evenings with actor HrithikRoshan, talking to him about his var-

ious life events. Apparently, the actor failedto realise that he was walking barefoot to theother end of the road when he went to seeAnand off, so engrossed he was in their con-versation. The result of that dialogue is Super30, a film that traces the life of the mathe-matician and ex-IITian, who through an edu-cational programme in Patna, named Super30, that began in 2002, selected 30 merito-rious students from the underprivileged sec-tions of the society and trained them for freefor IIT-JEE (Joint Entrance Exam).

He says, “He was full of questions andcuriosity. He constantly used to ask me ques-tions on how I went about the struggles inmy life, what did I do when I faced backlashfrom the government at so many levels, howdid I work them out and many more. Evenafter reading about me and watching someof my videos, he wanted to know all thosedetails from me. And most of the times, heused to get so lost in the conversations thatonce when he came down to see me off, hisstaff pointed out that he was barefoot. Thelevel of love and respect I saw in him wasenough to make me realise that in the filmhe will portray me in the best way pos-sible.”

And evidently, both Hrithikand Anand didn’t shy away fromcontroversies. Recently, therehave been numerous reportsand allegations against Anandand he has been accused ofprojecting inflated success ratefor his coaching institute and formisleading IIT aspirants. In a recentPIL (Public Interest Litigation) inGuwahati High Court by four stu-dents of IIT-Guwahati, it wasalleged that Anand charges �33,000from IIT aspirants for the coach-ing. The petition also says that heclaimed 26 out of 30 of his stu-dents cleared IIT entrance in 2018but never disclosed their names.Another PIL in Patna High Courtalso accused Anand of claiming stu-dents from other institutes as hisown or taking cuts from othercoaching centres. In 2018, a localdaily labelled him as fraud andquoted former Super 30 studentswho said that fascinated IIT aspi-rants would land in Patna seekingadmission in Anand’s institute, butmuch to their surprise and shock, theywere asked to take admission in theRamanujan school classes, whichwere paid.

Talking about the allegations,Anand defends himself by say-ing that after the film, the caseat Guwahati HC was the lastone, which everyone heard about in detail.

“But before that, there were a lot of mafia andfeudal politicians, who had made an allianceto pull me down. Hamla hua tha mujhpe (Iwas physically attacked). I asked for my pro-tection from the Bihar Police and four com-mandos were appointed for it. My brotherwas purposely hit by a truck. A volunteer,who worked for our social media, waspushed into jail for no reason and theyalleged that he wrote something on Facebookwhich was unacceptable. When I spoke tothe senior authorities to look into the mat-ter, they investigated the case for threemonths and found out that he was innocent.There was no such post. And then he got abail. Later, they collected four IIT-G studentsand they filed a litigation against me sayingthat I charge students heavy fees. However,I never taught those kids who were allegingthat,” says he. When we ask him that whywould then the kids accuse him, he flips thequestion and says, “Even I wanted to know

why. Because I never taught them.None of them is an AnandKumar kid. None of them evenappeared for my entrance testwhich I take to select the batch.”He adds that the list of names isalways released on Facebook

after the result. “We did thatthe previous year too.”

However, now, hav-ing waded through it all,Anand is happy that atleast most students have

seen hope. He is glad tosee the level of curiosity

and excitement in peoplewhen he looks at so manyjournalists waiting for hisinterview. “I am happybecause they will be able tosee what my struggles havebeen throughout my life. Itwill reach maximum peopleand help make an impact byinfluencing others,” says he.

So how did he first getthe idea for such an initiative?What were his struggles? Didhe have enough funds toteach 30 students for free?

Even though the filmwould answer just that, henarrates, “I had got an admis-sion in the CambridgeUniversity in 1994. My fatherwas an employee in postalservices and used to scheduleletters for posting so we did-n’t have enough money tofund my education and trav-el fee. Apart from my educa-tion, he had other responsibil-

ities too as my chacha’s (uncle)children were also dependenton him since he was paralysed.

In the midst of all this tension, he

passed away. Post that, all the responsibili-ties came on our heads — on me and mybrother. Now I couldn’t have gone toCambridge. I had written many papers at theundergraduate level, which even got pub-lished. But that wish to become a scientistor a mathematician became a distant dream.I was offered his government job. My moth-er gave me the liberty to choose what I wantto do with my life and I didn’t take up thatjob.”

His mother then started making papadsand selling them for a livelihood and hisbrother sold violins in Patna. Anand wouldhelp the two during the day and study atnight. They went about the same pattern fortwo years until he finally realised that heshould do something to be near to his dreameven if he couldn’t go abroad. “I realised thatbeing a teacher was my final goal and Ishould work out something related to it. Istarted teaching slum kids for free. It was thenwhen we developed the concept of Super 30where we could select a given set of studentsand help them get through top colleges, espe-cially IIT. It was in 2002, we kept around 30selected students at our home even thoughour financial conditions weren’t that stable,”he adds.

While the programme became a rageamong the people within a few years, did hefeel the need to expand it further? He did-n’t. He says that it was all about delivering amessage in the society that “education couldbe free too and most importantly, availablefor those who can’t afford it. This also influ-enced other people to create centres likeSuper 30. And now that a film is being madeon it, it is only growing.”

Talking about his reaction when he wasfirst approached by the filmmakers whowanted to adapt his life story into a movie,Anand says he had conditions. “I didn’t wantanything to go or be showcased without myconsent as I couldn’t have let a wrong mes-sage or image be delivered about me in thesociety. The condition was that the filmshouldn’t send any wrong message or createa faulty image of mine in the society. Yes, abit of creative freedom is allowed when itcomes to films but it couldn’t have elementsof fiction. That is why I had read and madechanges in the script 13 times,” he says andgoes on to add, “Uske baad laga ki haan abkahaani sahi hai (then I felt that the story wascorrect).”

Anand hasn’t watched the film butwhen he first saw the trailer, he felt “it wasme, not Hrithik. Mera hi image tha voh. Ihave seen Hrithik work very hard to get intomy skin. I have seen him following my wayof walking and my body structure. Merestrong muscles (laughs). I have seen himpractising my Bihari accent aur trailer medikh raha hai ki kitna perfectly aaya hai (itsperfection is evident in the trailer).”

(The film releases on July 12.)$������$����!�"����

Far from the madding crowd, inthe seclusion of the Nilgiriplateau in Tamil Nadu, the Toda

tribe has found a haven in the intri-cate art of embroidery. The traditionhas been passed from generation togeneration, carrying their distinctivehistory in every thread. However, tothis day, even as the tribe engages inthis laborious artwork, which hasfound a place in the people’swardrobes, the alarming loss of cul-ture clouds them. Trespassing on thenative soil of the tribals has pushedtheir cultural identity to the edge ofdisappearance. Political ambition hasfurther vandalised their attempts tomaintain their culture and skill. Thatis why they channel anguished voic-es in their artistry, which is purelyhand-crafted and their tradition andhistory echoes in every intricatedetail of the product.

‘By the Tribals, for the Tribals andthrough the Tribals’ is the root of ‘GoTribal Campaign’, a collaborativeendeavour of TRIFED, Ministry ofTribal Affairs and Amazon Global togive the community, about eight percent of country’s population, a domes-tic and international market for trade.

Combating radical transforma-tion in their culture, Pravir Krishna,managing director, TRIFED, sharesthe idea behind the monumentalcampaign, “In the last two years, theprocurement from tribals witnessedan impressive high from 500 to 3,600lakh, which encouraged us to for-malise it on a larger scale. The suc-cess was the fact that we were able toprovide work to 13 lakh adivasis.” Thiswas not only a crucial but also anencouraging result from which thedynamics of the campaign were born.But what makes this initiative’s lan-guage different from the ones that pre-ceded it — will it benefit the tribals?“It aims at beating the competition at

its game through a combination of fairand aggressive marketing strategies,which are normally not expected fromgovernment agencies,” he says.

Consequently, the distance thattribals travel to sell their products hastremendously reduced due to theonline market. Through Amazon,their contact reaches about 190 coun-tries. The campaign ensures that “thecustomers pay the rightful price.” Theacceptance of tribal goods in the mar-ket corresponds to the customer’sdemand. The consumers want natur-al items with good quality. Tribalshave targetted two birds with theircollection like Madua, Jowar, Bajra.

But what about the longevity ofthe impact? Krishna says, “It aims todouble the turnover every year andhas a five-year perspective toenhance tribal livelihood. We pro-pose to raise tribal man-days fromthe present 13-50 lakh over two yearsand so on.”

While the campaign counterseconomic instability of adivasis, theother facets of their livelihood can-not be ignored. “Promoting tribaltrade provides the right economicimpetus for all social developments,”explains he. The tribals also fear thecrisis of eviction. He responds, “Wellearning tribals will manage to fightall their battles. The VanDhan cam-paign aims to promote processingand marketing of forest productsthrough setting up 60,000 SHGs(Self-Help Groups).”

The initiative works within adetailed framework where both cus-tomers and tribals are facilitated.There might be an inkling of fear foryet another bout of tribals’ exploita-tion here, but such insinuations aredismissed, “Their hard work will betranslated to a high economic har-vest. They will receive 60 per cent ofthe profit from these sales,” says he.

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The world of classical music cancome across as a fairly insularone. The chances of having a suc-cessful performing career isdoubtful, until and unless you are

a famous Pandit or an Ustad’s son or daugh-ter or their prime disciple. There was a timewhen your musical qualities were assessedby which gharana or school of musical train-ing you belonged to. Today, anyone can tagthemselves to any gharana and join thebandwagon. For an outsider, the gharana tagbecomes a friendly key into the world ofexclusivity. But once in a while you findmusicians, who grow with their own mer-its and become an inspiration for others.

Born in a lower-middle-classMaharashtrian family, Anupam Joshi’sprime focus always remained on studies.“There was no musician in the family butmy parents had a good taste,” he says.Because of his father’s government job, thefamily had to migrate to Jabalpur. However,thanks to the ubiquitous GandharvaMahavidyalayas, they found a teacher inDaithamkar. Anupam was sent to tablaclasses while his sister was sent for vocaltraining. “Even though I learnt tabla, I wasalways interested in vocal music,” he recol-lects. At the age of nine, he heard a tradi-

tional sufi qawwali by Ustad Nusrat FatehAli Khan saheb. Something stirred within.His search for a guru began. “I was 13, whenI first heard Ustad Ali Akbar Khan sahebplaying Sarod on the radio. I instantly fellin love with it and decided I had to learnthat. However, still in school, I had no accessand support to actually find myself a men-tor. After schooling, I began learning underlate Pandit Sudhir Phadkeji,” he adds.

Phadke was a disciple of the iconicVidushi Annapurna Devi of the Maihar lin-eage. All along Anupam’s search continued.“I then came across Ken Zukerman, a seniordisciple of the legendary Ustad Ali AkbarKhan, who was also a faculty at eponymousinstitute in Switzerland. Lessons sustainedunder Pandit Sohan Neelkanth, anothersenior student of Khan saheb , inAhmedabad. From there on, Anupam con-tinued his further studies.

Gaining knowledge from so manyteachers at such a young age, one wondershow did a student of music find his stabil-ity in terms of musical thought. “PanditPhadke wasn’t able to show me the tech-niques of the Sarod. I have been taughtunder the strict regime of guru ShishyaParampara. The teaching sessions are most-ly one on one. The guru plays a phrase and

I repeat them. The sessions could go on formany hours. There is very little scope fordiscussion at the time of the sessions,” saysAnupam. Each teacher comes with his setof rules and regulations. For instance,Rajiv Taranath believes in teaching early

morning, before sunrise. “Pandit Taranath’sstyle is much more orthodox. Lessonsbegan at four in the morning and he need-ed pin-drop silence and deep concentrationwhile teaching. He would get exceedinglyoffended if I tried to speak. Lessons withPandit Sohan were of a great help tounderstand Taranath’s style of teaching andplaying,” shares Anupam about his growingprocess as a student.

With all this training, he was bound toprove his worth. It was the Guru Purnima,which gave him the opportunity to debutto a group of fellow musicians. “I can stillrecall playing two compositions in RaagKhamaj followed by Jhala,” he says. Butmusical inspiration can come in from anycorner and here was another such case. “Acomplimentary audio tape that I receivedon purchasing a sound system includedmusic by the Shehnai maestro UstadBismillah Khan saheb on one side andVidushi Kishori Amonkarji on the other. Itwas like my gospel of music,” he says.

Through his musical temperamentand training, Anupam identifies himselfwith the Senia Maihar gharana founded byAcharya Allauddin Khan saheb. The gha-rana has produced some of the most illus-trious Hindustani classical musicians likeSitar maestros Bharat Ratna Pandit RaviShankar and Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, Sarodmaestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Bansurimaestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia.Chaurasia, son of a wrestler, with nomusic in his family has already been a greatexample of hard work. Joshi now not onlyfalls into his gharana but also follows hisfootsteps.

While staying in his classical tradition,Joshi has also ventured into other genres.“I have been very fortunate to play for adocumentary produced by Hollywood onPakistan, Amongst The Believers. I have aldoperformed with storytellers. I try to con-nect my music to the emotion of the story.Till date I have played for stories likeMeghdoot by Kalidas and stories by CalcuttaCarvan. I have also jammed with contem-porary, tap and hip-hop dancers”, he says.

As Joshi continues his journey, heinspires many along the way. “Good thingshappen but they take time. As first-gener-ation musician, one must have a highdegree of patience at all times. There areno shortcuts in music”, he says.

That you need to belong to any musi-cal family is a thing of the past. Today, withgood merit and strong training, musicianslike Anupam Joshi are good examples forthe 21st century-generation of classicalmusicians.

Trees have always been themost penetrating preachersand at Vriksha, six ceramic

artists create works that celebrate thepower and the beauty of trees in allits manifestations.

Standing five-feat-tall, created instoneware ceramic is Vipul Kumar’sartwork that heralds tales from yoreand tree spirits. His handling of themedium and the porosity in histechnique is what sets him apart asone of the finest practitioners in themedium of stoneware ceramicstoday. While Vipul’s tall tree likeabstraction creates a stunning state-ment, Saraswati Renata fromPondicherry has an attractive set ofplayful porcelain pieces that showsher perfection of glaze. She also has37 flowers that celebrate procreationand the tensile beauty of flowers inan installation specially recreated bythe artist Mukesh Sharma for theshow.

Shampa Shah from Bhopal, pre-sents two of her nature series in sur-real creations that portray bal-ance, prowess and charis-ma in the placementand f ir ing ofp o r c e l a i n .Shampa’s compo-sition conveys thetechniques of cre-ation. The gaze andShampa’s fingers canfeel the vegetation’sslight relief, the bolderhues and curves of theflowers. The bare whiteglaze behind is flawlesslysmooth.

Keshari Nandan, anaward winning artist atAIFACS this year, createsa tree in stoneware. It isbulky, porous and cer-tainly a piece that invitesa smile and a poetic lyri-cism. Texture and tonal-ity both weave into hispersona as you look atthe fine glaze of terra-cotta tint and themoss hued green thatspeaks of organic botan-ical reams.

Anushka Iris alsofrom Pondicherry, pre-sents a paean to birdsand flowers in the small

wall platters that shecreates. Tensile, tender

and soft hued tranquil-ity scenes bring to the

fore her gentility and herlove for nature as she evokes

the poetic ripples of EmilyDickinson.

The holistic healer, work-shop mentor, architectureprofessor, who decided tostep away and start dabblingin the magic of the momentin firing and glazing. Manjari

Sharma’s Shaman has a hint ofancient tradition as well as

modern innovations. She isa mistress at the figurativegenre, her little elephant atthe bottom is evocative tothe core. The Shamanharnesses earth energies

to invoke procreation andfertility of life through theconcept of virility accordingto Manjari.

(Vriksha opens todayand runs till July 12.)

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Tehran: Iranian ForeignMinister Mohammad JavadZarif said on Monday thatIran has exceeded a limit on itsenriched uranium reserves setunder a 2015 nuclear deal,semi-official news agencyISNA reported.

"Iran has crossed the 300-kilogramme limit based on itsplan," Zarif told ISNA, sayingTehran had set out its inten-tions "very clearly" in May.

The US withdrew fromthe nuclear deal last year andreimposed biting sanctions onIran as part of its "maximumpressure" campaign.

In retaliation on May 8Tehran announced it would nolonger respect the limit set onits enriched uranium and heavywater stockpiles.

It also threatened to go fur-ther and abandon more nuclearcommitments unless theremaining partners — Britain,China, France, Germany andRussia — helped it to circum-vent sanctions, especially to sellits oil.

The EU said on Fridayafter a crisis meeting aimed atsalvaging the deal that a specialpayment mechanism set up tohelp Iran skirt the sanctions,known as INSTEX, was final-ly "operational" and that thefirst transactions were beingprocessed.

But "the Europeans' effortswere not enough, therefore Iranwill go ahead with its announcedmeasures," Zarif said.

"INSTEX is just the begin-ning of (their) commitments,which has not been fully imple-

mented yet," he added. Meanwhile, The UN's

nuclear watchdog confirmedon Monday that Iran hasexceeded a limit on its enricheduranium reserves set by a 2015nuclear deal.

The International AtomicEnergy Agency "verified onJuly 1 that Iran's total enricheduranium stockpile exceeded300 kilogrammes", aspokesperson said, shortly afterTehran announced it hadcrossed the limit in retaliationto new US sanctions. AFP

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Hong Kong: Combative pro-testers tried to break into theHong Kong legislature onMonday as a crowd of thou-sands prepared to start amarch in that direction on the22nd anniversary of the for-mer British colony's return toChina.

With a crowd of a hundredor so people around them, asmall group of people repeat-edly rammed a cargo cart intoa glass panel of the building,wedging the cart partiallythrough the damaged safetyglass.

The unexpected disrup-tion stalled the start of themarch on Monday. The crowdhas started filing out ofVictoria Park but police askedthe marchers to change theirroute or cancel the march.

Both the combative pro-testers and the marchersoppose a Government attemptto change extradition laws toallow suspects to be sent toChina to face trial. The pro-posal has increased fears oferoding freedoms in the terri-tory that was returned toChina in 1997.

The embattled leader ofHong Kong pledged to bemore responsive to public sen-timent in a speech at a flag-raising ceremony.

Carrie Lam has comeunder withering criticism fortrying to push through the leg-islation. She said a series ofprotests and marches that haveattracted hundreds of thou-sands of students and otherparticipants in recent weekshave taught her that she needsto listen better to the youthand people in general.

"This has made me fullyrealise that I, as a politician,have to remind myself all thetime of the need to grasppublic sentiments accurate-

ly," she said in a five-minutespeech to the gathering in thecity's cavernous conventioncenter.

She insisted herGovernment has good inten-tions, but said "I will learn thelesson and ensure that thegovernment's future work willbe closer and more responsiveto the aspirations, sentimentsand opinions of the commu-nity."

Security guards pushedpro-democracy lawmakerHelena Wong out of the room

as she walked backward shout-ing at Lam to resign and with-draw the "evil" legislation. Shelater told reporters she wasvoicing the grievances andopinions of the protesters, whocould not get into the event.

The annual march startingin the afternoon was expectedto be larger than usual becausethe proposed extradition billhas awakened broader fearsthat China is eroding the free-doms and rights guaranteed toHong Kong for 50 years undera "one country, two systems"framework.

Two marches in Juneagainst the legislation drewmore than a million people,according to organiser esti-mates. AP

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$����������@��'�����������������B'�����������������������A$Hong Kong: Anti-governmentprotesters in Hong Kong seizedthe Parliament's main debatingchamber late Monday, daubingits walls with graffiti and fix-ing a British colonial-era flagto the main podium, an AFPreporter on the scene said.

Dozens of masked pro-testers stormed into the cham-

bers after successfully breach-ing the complex's reinforcedglass windows, shouting slo-gans and spraying the city'scoat of arms with black paint.

A black and white bannerhoisted in the chamber readin Chinese: "Bow to protectrule of law. Oppose extradi-tion." AFP

Seoul: North Korea onMonday described the week-end meeting between its leaderKim Jong Un and US PresidentDonald Trump in theDemilitarised Zone as "his-toric" and "amazing".

The two leaders agreed to"resume and push forward pro-ductive dialogues for making anew breakthrough in the denu-clearisation of the Koreanpeninsula", the official KoreanCentral News Agency said.

After a Twitter invitationby the US president onSaturday, the two men met aday later in the strip of land thathas divided the peninsula for66 years since the end of theKorean War, when their coun-tries and their allies fought eachother to a standstill.

Kim and Trump shookhands over the concrete blocksdividing North and Southbefore Trump walked a fewpaces into Pyongyang's terri-tory -- the first US presidentever to set foot on NorthKorean soil.

"The top leaders of theDPRK and the US exchanginghistoric handshakes atPanmunjom" was an "amazingevent", KCNA said, describingthe truce village as a "place thathad been known as the symbolof division".

The meeting took place "atthe suggestion of Trump", itadded.

The impromptu meeting inthe DMZ was full of symbol-ism.

Trump's border-crossing— which he said was uncertainuntil the last moment — was anextraordinary sequel to thescene at Kim's first summitwith Moon Jae-in last year,when the young leader invitedthe South Korean president towalk over the MilitaryDemarcation Line, as the bor-der is officially known."It wasan honour that you asked meto step over that line, and I wasproud to step over the line,"Trump told Kim.

KCNA described it as a"historic moment", markingthe "first time in history" a sit-ting US President set foot onNorth Korean soil.

Analysts have been divid-ed on Sunday's events, some

saying they spurred newmomentum into deadlockednuclear talks, while othersdescribed them as "reality showtheatrics".

The first Trump-Kim sum-mit took place in a blaze ofpublicity in Singapore last yearbut produced only a vaguelyworded pledge about denu-clearisation.

A second meeting inVietnam in February collapsedafter the pair failed to reach anagreement over sanctions reliefand what the North was will-ing to give in return.

Contact between the twosides has since been minimal— with Pyongyang issuing fre-quent criticisms of the USposition — but the two leadersexchanged a series of lettersbefore Trump issued his offerto meet at the DMZ.Trumpsaid after Sunday's meetingthat they had agreed working-level talks on the North'sweapons programme wouldtake place within weeks.

He also floated the idea ofsanctions relief — repeatedlydemanded by Pyongyang —and said he invited the NorthKorean leader to the WhiteHouse.

Such a trip would have tocome "at the right time", Trumpadded. PTI

0�� ��������������%+������ ����>��� ����<Washington: US NationalSecurity Advisor John Boltonlashed out on Monday at areport that Washington mightsettle for a nuclear freeze withNorth Korea, calling it a "rep-rehensible attempt" to box inPresident Donald Trump.

The unsourced report inthe New York Times said offi-cials hope the nuclear freezeidea might create a foundation

for a new round of negotiations.The development came

after Trump and North Koreanleader Kim Jong Un met in theDemilitarised Zone on Sundayand agreed to resume work-ing-level talks within weeks onthe North's nuclear program.

Kim and Trump shookhands over the border line atPanmunjom, the truce villagethat divides the peninsula,

and Trump then walked a fewpaces into North Korean ter-ritory — the first US presidentever to do so.

The Times said thenuclear freeze concept, whichhas been taking shape withinthe Trump administration forweeks, "essentially enshrinesthe status quo, and tacitlyaccepts the North as a nuclearpower." AFP

Toronto: A Canadian cartoonist has lost his jobafter his controversial illustration of USPresident Donald Trump playing golf over thebodies of two drowned migrants from ElSalvador went viral, according to media reports.

Michael de Adder said on Twitter that hehad been let go by a publishing company in NewBrunswick, Canada.

De Adder's illustration depicted Trump ask-ing the two dead migrants, "Do you mind if Iplay through?"

The cartoon refers to the image of OscarAlberto Martinez and his 23-month-old daugh-ter, Angie Valeria, lying face down in water sur-rounded by reeds. The two drowned whileattempting to cross the Rio Grande River to getinto the United States.

"The highs and lows of cartooning. TodayI was just let go from all newspapers in NewBrunswick," De Adder tweeted.

He later clarified that he had technicallybeen under contract to work for BrunswickNews Inc., and was not an employee who couldbe fired, CNN reported on Monday.

Brunswick News Inc. Responded in a

statement on Sunday that "it is entirely incor-rect to suggest" that it canceled a freelance con-tract with de Adder over the Trump cartoon.

"This is a false narrative which has emergedcarelessly and recklessly on social media," thepublishing company wrote.

It said that de Adder never offered theTrump cartoon to the company and hadalready decided to "bring back" another car-toonist it said was popular with readers."[N]egotiations had been ongoing for weeks,"it stated. PTI

Beijing: China on Monday wel-comed as "constructive" the his-toric meeting between USPresident Donald Trump andNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the demilitarised zone(DMZ) dividing the Koreanpeninsula, saying their interac-tion yielded positive outcomes.

Trump stepped onto NorthKorean soil on Sunday and metKim in the DMZ, becoming thefirst sitting US president tocross over the line diving theSouth and North Koreas.

The two leaders agreed toset up teams to resume stallednuclear talks.

This was their third

encounter. Their previous meet-ings at Singapore and Hanoifailed to bring about a break-through to end North Korea'snuclear programme which leadto the imposition of heavy sanc-tions by the UN.

Asked for comments on Trump-Kim meeting,Chinese Foreign Ministryspokesman Geng Shuang toldthe media that China welcomedthe meeting.

"The two leaders had afriendly meeting which shouldbe welcomed. Their constructivemeeting yielded positive out-comes," he said.

Both leaders walked past the

DMZ line between the Southand North Korea, Geng said.

"The meeting is importantspecifically for the US and bothKoreas to discuss re-startingworking-level consultations inthe near future," he said, addingthat China welcomes and sup-ports that move.

Trump's meeting with Kimfollowed last month's surprisevisit of President Xi Jinping toNorth Korea, the first by aChinese leader in 14 years.Trump had accused Xi in thepast of influencing Kim in thefinalisation of the deal for de-nuclearisation of KoreanPeninsula. PTI

Washington: US PresidentDonald Trump has said manyNorth Koreans were literally intears when he stepped intotheir country before his his-toric meeting with Kim Jong-un in the demilitarized zonedividing the peninsula.

Trump travelled to thedemilitarised zone (DMZ)with South Korean PresidentMoon Jae-In and met withtroops stationed there beforemeeting Kim at a markerdelineating the borderbetween the two states.

The North Korean leaderthen invited Trump to crossinto his country. Trumpaccepted his offer and walkedover the demarcation line,becoming the only sitting USpresident to set foot insideNorth Korea.

After posing for photos,Trump and Kim held a bilat-eral meeting at the FreedomHouse in border town ofPanmunjom, South Korea.

"I actually stepped intoNorth Korea and they say it'sa very historic moment," hetold American soldiers at Osan

Air Base after his meetingwith Chairman Kim.

"Many people, I noticed,from Korea were literally intears," he added.

Trump on Sundayreturned to the White House.

The New York Timesdescribed the meetingbetween Trump and Kim as amasterpiece of drama.

"President Trump's large-ly improvised third meeting onSunday with Kim Jong-un,the North Korean leader, wasa masterpiece of drama, thekind of made-for-TV specta-cle that Mr Trump treasures,"the daily said.

Trump and Kim held ahistoric f irst summit inSingapore in June, which con-cluded with a vague jointstatement where Kim pledgedto work toward denuclearisa-tion.

Then they met in Hanoi, Vietnam in February,but talks broke down withoutany joint agreement as Kimpushed for sanctions reliefand the US pushed for denu-clearisation. PTI

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Colombo: Accusing suspendedpolice chief Pujith Jayasunderaand former defence secretaryHemasiri Fernando of com-mitting "grave crimes againsthumanity", the Sri LankanAttorney General on Mondayinstructed the authorities tocharge the duo for their failureto prevent the massive EasterSunday terror attacks thatclaimed 258 lives.

Jayasundera and Fernandowere suspended by PresidentMaithripala Sirisena for theiralleged inaction on the intelli-gence shared by India, whichwarned of an impending attackby Islamic militants, and there-by, failing to prevent the serialblasts on April 21.

In a letter to acting policechief ChandanaWickremaratne, AttorneyGeneral Dappula de Livera said

the duo should be tried for"grave crimes against humani-ty" for their failure to prevent theEaster Sunday bombings.

De Livera also slammedWickremeratne for not takingany action against the two asdirected earlier on June 27.Wickremaratne's inaction wasof a serious nature, he said.

Sirisena had appointed athree-member panel to probethe negligence by the top offi-cials despite the availability ofintelligence inputs on theimpending attacks.

Both Jayasundera andFernando have testified beforean ongoing parliamentary probepanel on the attacks. Both ofthem claimed that there was dis-counting of the seriousness ofthe threat at the very highestlevel. Sirisena is the minister-in-charge of defence. PTI

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Kabul: At least 50 children wereamong more than 100 peoplewounded on Monday whenthe Taliban detonated a pow-erful car bomb in Kabul, offi-cials said, the latest deadlyattack in one of the most dan-gerous countries in the world tobe a child.

Save the Children led inter-national condemnation of theblast targeting a defence min-istry building, which sent aplume of smoke into the air dur-ing rush hour and shook build-ings nearly two kilometres away.

It was followed by gunmenstorming a nearby buildingand triggering a gun battlewith special forces in the PuliMahmood Khan neighbour-hood of the Afghan capital.

Officials said all five attack-ers have been killed and aclearing operation is ongoing.

At least three people havebeen killed, including one child,and 116 wounded, according tothe health ministry, thoughthat figure is expected to changeonce the clearing operationhas been completed.

Among the wounded were50 children, the education min-istry said in a statement, addingthat most had been hurt by fly-ing glass and were in stable con-dition.

Some social media imagespurportedly taken at a hospitalshowed wounded, stunnedchildren in school uniforms,still clutching books as theyarrived for treatment.

In its statement, the edu-cation ministry said five schoolshad been partially damaged,and asked "all sides involved infighting to guarantee the safe-ty of students, teachers, educa-

tion workers and schools".Such an attack was "utter-

ly deplorable", Save theChildren said in a statement,warning that "Children's small-er bodies sustain more seriousinjuries than adults" and thatthe trauma of such attacks canstay with them for years tocome.

The Taliban claimed theattack, which came just twodays after the insurgents begana seventh round of talks withthe US in Qatar as Washingtoneyes a breakthrough beforeAfghanistan's September pres-idential election.

"We were sitting inside theoffice when the world turnedupside down on us," said ZaherUsman, an employee at abranch of the culture ministry,which he said stands just 150metres from the blast. AFP

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Islamabad: Pakistan's anti-corruption body on Mondayarrested jailed former presi-dent Asif Ali Zardari inanother corruption case.

He is already in the cus-tody of the NationalAccountability Bureau (NAB)till July 2 in a multi-milliondollar money laundering casealong with his sister FaryalTalpur.

According to the NAB, theduo made transactions of Rs150 million through allegedfake bank accounts.

The NAB investigators areof the view that if Zardari'sphysical remand, which endson Tuesday, is not extended bythe court, they would requireanother option and could usethe arrest warrants in thePark Lane case to keep him inNAB custody for longer, theDawn newspaper reported.

The 63-year-old co-chair-man of the Opposit ionPakistan Peoples Party (PPP)and husband of the country'sfirst woman prime ministerBenazir Bhutto was this time

arrested in the Park Lane casewhich is related to the allegedproperties in London.

Zardari became the co-chairman of PPP after theassassination of Bhutto in2007.

His arrest came after hewithdrew his interim bailapplications filed with theIslamabad High Court against.

Zardari said that he with-drew the plea as the NABwould come up with morefake cases if he was grantedbail. PTI

)��<��@%)���D����������� ��������� ������� �������� Colombo: President

Maithripala Sirisena onMonday accused the EuropeanUnion of challenging SriLanka's sovereignty by threat-ening with tariffs if capitalpunishment is re-introduced inthe country after 43 years.

Last week, PresidentSirisena signed the death war-rants to hang four drug con-victs, ending a four-decade-longmoratorium on the capital pun-ishment in the country.

Addressing the NationalDrug Prevention Day eventhere, Sirisena underlined theimportance of his campaign tocombat the drug related crimes

in the island nation.The President said that the

28-member European Unionbloc has threatened to withdrawthe EU GSP Plus trade conces-sion if Sri Lanka implementsthe death penalty.

"This is a threat on our sov-ereignty," Sirisena said referringto the EU comments that SriLanka's GSP+ trade facilitywhich was restored after 2015when Sirisena became the pres-ident could be under threat ifSri Lanka hanged people.

"I openly say that what theEU is saying is a threat, Theyshould not issue threats toindependent countries. They

can not interfere in our sover-eignty," Sirisena said.

Sirisena's decision hascome in spite of Sri Lanka sup-porting the UN moratorium onthe death penalty.

He said he had signed fourdeath warrants on drug con-victs who are currently in jailcondemned to death. Theirsentences have been commut-ed to life terms as all Sri Lankanpresidents since 1978 refused tosign death warrants. He did notannounce a date for the hang-ing to take place.

Sirisena also slammed theGovernment of Prime MinisterRanil Wickremesinghe and the

Opposition for opposing imple-menting the death penalty onserious offenders of illegal drugtrafficking.

He said that countries likethe US and China implementthe death penalty.

The last hanging in SriLanka took place in June 1976when Siripala alias Maru Sira,a noted criminal was hanged formurder. The country's lasthangman quit in 2014 withoutever having to execute anyone,citing stress after seeing the gal-lows for the first time. Anotherhired last year never turned upfor work.

Justice Ministry in March

said there were over 450 pris-oners in Sri Lankan jails,including five women. Out ofthat at least 48 are drug con-victs. While 30 of them hadappealed against their deathsentence, 18 of them could behanged, officials said.

Sirisena has said that hewould sign the death warrantsonly for drug convicts.

The EU's GSP+ facilitywhich gave Sri Lanka's exportsto the EU preferred tax statuswas suspended in 2008 whenSri Lanka's human rights recordcame to be questioned underSirisena's predecessor, MahindaRajapaksa's regime. PTI

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India go into their penultimatematch of the first round againstBangladesh amid a sack full of

injury issues, a middle order situationthat is getting serious by the matchand an unhappy chirp around MSDhoni’s unexplained slowness whichtook the match away from Indiaagainst England, a slowed down pitchnotwithstanding.

India need to win both theirmatches against Bangladesh todayand Sri Lanka on July 6 to be in thecompetition with Australia for the topposition, a scenario which will be

clearer only if Australia lose to SouthAfrica. But for now, India need a win,an emphatic one at that, againstBangladesh to seal their spot, mostlikely No 2, in the knockout round.

That’s no easy going, consideringBangladesh has earned a reputation ofunsettling the applecart of many ateam since that one-off big upsetwhich had India travelling back homeearly in 2007. Often, on the big stage,Mashrafe Mortaza’s band has stagedsurprising coups despite the oddsbeing against them. For this one,which Bangladesh must win to survivein the tournament, predictors have putan 84 per cent chance on India over

Bangladesh.But all that apart, Mashrafe’s gold-

en man with the bat and ball, Shakib-ul-Hasan is in sublime form as theCup’s No 3 run-getter and has alsobeen among a rich haul of wickets.Then there is Mushfiqur, Liton andMahmudullah (under physio guidancefor now) to take care of, even ifTamim’s spurty form, is put on theside.

India, whose fiery opener ShikharDhawan left the Cup due to a fracturejust when he had returned to form,now have a another big one goinghome with the team officially rulingout Vijay Shankar from the rest of the

tournament due to an aggravated toeinjury he sustained at nets while try-ing to navigate a Bumrah yorker, a daybefore the Afghanistan match.

Rishabh Pant who skipper Kohlithinks is unstoppable after he gets tohis 20s, and will be playing the nexttwo matches, is still callow for the bigstage and it remains to be seen howhe soaks in the pressure of the bigmoment.

Rohit Sharma, the lone centurionwarrior who scored his third centuryof the Cup in a lost match day beforeyesterday, will be looking for somekeen support to shape the innings atthe other end not just in the first 10overs which the Indians have keptquiet and tidy as a calculated decision,but in the crucial middle overs wherethe No 4 position turns relevant buthas been in the doldrums muchbefore India’s current World Cupjourney.

Assistant coach Sanjay Bangarhas indicated that the team is up fortrying out all combinations whichmight even include BhuvneshwarKumar being taken in as the thirdpacer and Ravindra Jadeja in place ofKedar Jadhav. This will be a happymove to trim the Golden Retrieverkind of long and bushy tail that Indiahas been sporting lately. Also, DineshKarthik is yet to graduate from beingthe 12th man. “All players are avail-able,” Bangar said on the day of thematch against England.

Over and above all these issues,master f inisher Dhoni’s newlyacquired inertia affliction added,Kohli would be looking to win the tossto seize the advantage of batting firston probably the same pitch whichslowed down in the later inningsagainst England. Between the twoWorld Cups India has been putthrough a chase 13 times till now but

has won only thrice.As far as today’s contenders are

concerned, India have convincinglywon their last two World Cup encoun-ters against Bangladesh after the dis-astrous five wicket loss in 2007. It isfor India to forget and Bangladesh toinvoke that long ago Caribbean out-ing before they get into the middletoday when the temperatures will bevery English and summery at 18degrees Celsius, the wind blowing at9 miles an hour and the sun playinghide and seek for most part of the day.

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Just three matches after Vijay Shankarjoined the playing 11 after Shikhar

Dhawan’s injury in India’s second match,to take care of the crucial No 4 spot, all-rounder Vijay Shankar was on Mondayruled out of the ongoing World Cup dueto an aggravated toe injury he had sus-tained at nets on June 19.

The ICC has since approved MayankAgarwal as replacement for the toporder.

Agarwal had a great run inEngland with India’s A seriesunder RahulD r a v i d ’ scoaching butis yet to debutfor ODIs. India Awon the ODI tri-series involvingEngland Lions and WestIndies A with Mayank andPrithvi Shaw topping the bat-ting charts.

“Vijay Shankar was struck onthe left big toe whilst batting in thenets on June 19th in Southampton.He was able to play in an unrestrict-ed manner in the following twomatches against Afghanistan and WestIndies. Following the match on June 27,the condition of his toe worsened and aCT scan showed he sustained a non-displaced fracture of the left big toe.The condition will require a minimumof three weeks to heal. The injury ruleshim out of the ongoing World Cup,”a BCCI statement said.

“The International CricketCouncil has confirmed that the EventTechnical Committee of the ICC

World Cup 2019 has approved MayankAgarwal as a replacement player forVijay Shankar in the India squad for theremainder of the tournament,” an ICCrelease said later in the day.

Shankar did not play in the matchagainst England which India lost and theman in Rishabh Pant is now expected totake guard for the remaining two match-es in the first round. It remains to be seenwho walks in for India at the crucial No

4 start, what with KL Rahul opening tillnow. Rahul, too, had to undergo a

scan for a stressed back after he fellawkwardly while fielding at long-on boundary in the matchagainst England.

Assistant coach Bangarhas spoken about the

team looking atfresh combi-

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Team India could go in for a three-seamer and two spinner option

with Bhuvneshwar Kumar re-joiningthe squad alongside Jasprit Bumrahand Mohammed Shami withRavindra Jadeja, who is yet to playfor India in this edition, coming inas the spinning all-rounder to cutdown the long tail India is sportingfor now.

Speaking right after India losttheir first game in the tournament toEngland, where their spinners wereneutralised against an aggressiveJohnny Bairstow and Jason Roy,assistant coach Bangar said: “If youdon’t have major contributions fromthe middle order then someone likeBhuvneshwar Kumar lower downbecomes really important,” Bangarsaid: “After the England game, themanagement team will be moreopen to various combinations. Threeseamers can play, with Hardik[Pandya] as the fourth, or we canlook at Ravindra Jadeja coming in.Anyone who is handy at No 8, andit could be Jadeja, gives you somefreedom. It takes the pressure offthose batting at six and seven so thatthey can start going at the bowlinga little earlier,” he said.

India lost to England by 31runs which was largely blamed on itsability to score at a healthy run ratein the middle overs. “From that pointof view, it is a tactic we are thinkingabout. There will be a point in thetournament where we have to assessevery combination,” Bangar said.

Bangar was candid to admitthat the middle order and the lowermiddle order lack strength anddepth and need to be reassessed. He

said this lack of depth down theorder forced batsmen to not take toomany risks.

Kumar, Bangar said, was fully fitand available for selection in theBangladesh match.

The till now magic spinning duoof India Chahal and Yadav were

hammered out of shape by theEnglish batsmen and conceded 97runs in their first 10 overs butBangar said there was more to thestory than a poor performance. “Itwas one of their off-days but theyhave been doing really well for us.We need to continue to back themin the next games. They will have acrucial role to play. Playing on thesame track, we know the wicket anddimensions well. We will also learnfrom a bowling perspective, becausein the last six or seven overs againstEngland we gave away a lot of runs.That was an area where the gameslipped away from us a bit so we willlook at that and learn for the nextgame. Every game will be crucial andwe need to learn things for the nextgame,” he said.

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Mashrafe Mortaza has issued arallying call to his Bangladesh

teammates, urging them to drumup the spirit of 2007 in a bid tokeep their World Cup dreamsalive. The Tigers face India atEdgbaston on Tuesday and a repeatof their one of their most famousICC Men’s Cricket World Cupwins, when they overturned RahulDravid’s side by five wickets 12years ago.

Details on Page 2

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Former India cricketer and notedbroadcaster Sanjay Manjrekar

finds it "really unfair" that the crit-ics' focus is on Mahendra SinghDhoni's strike-rate at this stage of hiscareer when younger players like KLRahul should be held more account-able.

Dhoni scored 42 off 31 ballsagainst England and whileManjrekar found it a bit surprisingthat the former India captain didn'tgo for big shots in the end, he feelsothers need to be hauled up too.

"It is really unfair that the focusis only on Dhoni because, if, at thisstage of his career also, there aren'tother batsmen around who canhelp India win matches, then it is nothealthy (sign) for Indian cricket,"Manjrekar told PTI during an inter-action on the eve of Bangladeshgame.

Manjrekar feels it's time forRahul to convert those starts and dojustice to his potential.

"Focus shouldn't be so much onDhoni and it's more a media thing,to talk about Dhoni. If I am a well-wisher of Indian cricket, I will startputting pressure on Lokesh Rahuland others to start delivering andtake the load away from people likeDhoni," said the Mumbaikar, whohas played 37 Tests for India.

However, Manjrekar feels thatDhoni should at least try to score

run-a-ball at the beginning of hisinnings if he is coming to bat after20-25 overs.

"I just loved it when Dhoni wentin to bat in the warm-up matchesand got 30 runs off 30 balls and thelate flourish came. So I would likethe team management to tell him toget a run-a-ball start and see how itgoes.

"If it's 12 for 2, I can understandyou need Dhoni's defence. Once heis in, after 22 to 25 overs, he shouldtry to score at run-a-ball."

A big fan of Mayank Agarwal'sbatting, Manjrekar is delighted forthe Karnataka opener.

"With due respect to VijayShankar and it is very unfortunatethat he got injured, I am delightedthat Mayank Agarwal is in theteam.

"I think Mayank is a class play-er and he made his Test debut inAustralia and is a very good additionto the squad. In England, theapproach to ODIs is closer to Testcricket," he added.

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India are still going to qualify for thesemi-finals – it is just a question of

when and in what position in the topfour.

Defeat to England is certainly nota disaster – it was a fantastic game ofcricket and really you have to say Indiawere totally outplayed by the betterteam.

They have to accept their defeatin a gracious manner and move on totheir final two games againstBangladesh and Sri Lanka.

There are still some problems forIndia to fix, Virat Kohli and RohitSharma are the main run getters at themoment and they need some support.

Jasprit Bumrah and MohammedShami were both superb again withthe ball as well, but the spinners hadan off-day – these things can happen.

England came with a plan toattack – their backs were against thewall and they came out swinging.

Ben Stokes did a fantastic job atthe death to add more runs to the totaland Liam Plunkett was fantastic withthe ball in those middle overs.

I don’t think England will be leav-ing Plunkett out again this tourna-

ment, he performs such an importantjob for them.

But while Stokes and Plunkettwere impressive, the real differencebetween the two sides was undoubt-edly the way Jason Roy and JonnyBairstow went after the spin ofKuldeep Yadav and YuzvendraChahal.

Roy’s return is clearly absolutelyvital to this England team, not just forthe runs he scores but in the way hesets an aggressive tone from the off forthe rest of the batsmen to follow.

In their recent defeats they hadbeen missing those great starts, theplatforms that Roy and Bairstowinvariably build.

They refused to let the spinnerssettle, they played their natural gameand went for the kill and it left Kohliin a very difficult situation.

This is a very important win forEngland, they are in a do or die situ-ation and to win this emphaticallyagainst such a strong India side willget them a massive confidence boostbefore they play New Zealand in theirlast game.

For India, a chase of 338 was

never an easy task, even if it was quitea flat wicket at Edgbaston. It couldhave been even higher if not for themastery of Bumrah in his final fiveovers.

But when Sharma and Kohliwere going along nicely in the mid-dle, they gave England a properscare.

Even when Hardik Pandya andRishabh Pant – who I thought didvery well in his first-ever World Cupgame – were in that partnership thegame was still in the balance.

But in the end England fullydeserved their win while India cantake heart from getting over 300 intheir first proper chase of this tour-nament.

That will stand India in goodstead moving forward and they haveto use this defeat as a learning expe-rience.

There’s no need to panic, everyteam including Australia have lost atleast one game at this tournament.India will bounce back and get theirsemi-final spot.

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� �����"���Continued from Page 1

Mashrafe Mortaza has issued a ral-lying call to his Bangladeshteammates, urging them to drum

up the spirit of 2007 in a bid to keep theirWorld Cup dreams alive.

The Tigers face India at Edgbaston onTuesday and a repeat of their one of theirmost famous ICC Men's Cricket WorldCup wins, when they overturned RahulDravid's side by five wickets 12 years ago,is a must.

Bangladesh are currently sixth in thetable and three points behind fourth-placed England, meaning a defeat wouldend their semi-final chances ahead of thefinal round of games. India, who sit sec-ond, can confirm a semi-final place oftheir own with a win.

India also have history on their side.They have won the last two World Cupmeetings between the teams and lead theoverall ODI head-to-head record 29-5,while Bangladesh have not beaten theirrivals outside of Dhaka since that famouswin in Port of Spain.

However, the Tigers arrive in form,

with two wins from their last threeWorld Cup matches while India sufferedtheir first defeat of the tournamentagainst England on Sunday.

Yet Mortaza, who took 4/38 in that2007 game, is under no illusions as to thesize of the task they face against the top-ranked ODI side in the world.

"I am not surprised we are still in it.We have two matches and we have to playour best. If we manage to win it will begreat but both teams are very strong," hesaid.

"India is very strong in this WorldCup and it is not going to be easy but wehave to play hard and be at 100 per centin every area.

"Are we going to still be in it? Maybe,maybe not. Let's see but we have to playbetter than what we have done so far.

"Every time we have played India,they have mostly been better. The cur-rent side is very strong too. But we go toplay at our best but you never know. Ifwe reach 100 per cent then you neverknow.

"In sport, anyone can beat anyone. Itwill be very hard but we have to be at ourbest."England's win against India was

built on the opening partnership betweenJason Roy (66) and Jonny Bairstow(111).

The pair - who put on a tournament-high 160 for the first wicket - found joyfrom attacking India's spinners butMortaza is hesitant to employ a similartactic.

Instead, he's hoping his own spinking Shakib Al Hasan - who has deliv-ered two centuries and three fifties withthe bat as well as ten wickets with the ball- is the match-winner.

"Shakib has been doing whatever hecan do. He has been doing everything inbatting, bowling and fielding. For me, hehas been the best performer at this WorldCup," he said.

"There is much left and hopefully hecan do whatever he has done and finishon a good level.

"We can't think, just because Englanddid it, we will and get success against theirspinners. Our batting has been very goodand we will stick to the plan.

"England stuck to their plan, we stuckto ours."

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Rishabh Pant has the big game butexpecting the youngster to deliv-

er from the start in an event like theWorld Cup perhaps is not the rightthing to do, feels India's vice-captainRohit Sharma.

The Delhi left-hander's exclu-sion from the playing XI at theexpense of Vijay Shankar had beenhotly-debated and Rishabh did showsome spunk in his 32 even thoughhis inexperience in crunch situationsonce again came to the fore.

Asked if he was surprised to seeRishabh at the critical No 4 positionwhen an in-form Hardik Pandya wasmore suitable for the role, Rohit'sanswer, after a mini pause, was lacedwith sarcasm.

"Not really because all you guyswanted Rishabh Pant to play, right.All you guys, right, from India?Where is Rishabh Pant? Where isRishabh Pant? There he is at Number4," Rohit said, probably conveying asubtle message to the media.

Rohit feels Rishabh certainlydoes need a bit more confidencewhile going for the big hits.

"He just needs confidencebecause, obviously, playing his firstgame, expecting a lot is not right atthe moment from him, but heshould just come and play andenjoy his cricket. When he does that,he will do well," he said.

However, Rohit, who shared ahalf-century partnership withRishabh, is aware that the youngsouthpaw will need a bit of time inthe next few games before somethingbig can be expected of him.

"I think, for someone like him(Rishabh) also to come and play, heneeds to spend some time in themiddle and see what the pitch isdoing, get used to the condition asquickly as possible," he said.

"So I think it was the right movefor him to come at that number (4)because, again, we know what he cando with the bat," the senior pro

added.However, there was some con-

fusion among the media when Rohitsaid Vijay Shankar didn't play thismatch as he hurt his the toe afterbeing hit by a Jasprit Bumrah deliv-ery in the nets.

But in reality, Shankar got hit bya Bumrah yorker before theAfghanistan game and on Sunday hewas seen sprinting with bats anddrinks for the on-field players.

Rohit made the statement whenasked whether he feels uncertainty

has persisted over the crucial no 4position.

"There is no uncertainty. I mean,I thought we made it very clear at thestart that Vijay (Shankar) would play,but before the game he got a toeissue. He got hit on his toe by Jaspritin the net session, so he was not fullyfit for this particular game. Again,every team will have one or two orthree unsettled players. That is whatit is," he reasoned.

Wrist spinners Kuldeep Yadavand Yuzvendra Chahal had their first

poor outing in tandem in the tour-nament but Rohit defended theduo.

"When Kuldeep and Chahalcame to bowl, they already got off toa decent start, and they didn't allowthem to settle down, which was, Ithink, a tactical move from their sideagainst our two spinners," he said intheir defence.

"But it was just an off day forthese two guys. We have seen thembowl in tandem really well and putpressure on the batting unit, theopposition rather. Like I said, theEngland team, they played completecricket. They bowled really well.They batted really well. They got theresult.

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There was a lot of pressure onEngland and they knew thatnothing short of a win

would do so it was a good sign tosee them perform so well. Theywill be delighted.

It was important they got offto a fast start to ease the nervesand Jason Roy, back from injury,did just that. He has been in greatform and his aggression andattitude brings so much to thisEngland team.

Overall, it was a really well-rounded performance. There wereruns for quite a few players andthen the bowlers came out andwere excellent in restricting India’sbatsmen from playing their shots.

The difference between thetwo sides was clear to see in thefirst 10 overs as India didn’t getmany runs, whereas England gotoff to a great start and that easedthe pressure on the middle order.

It did look like England mightfall short of what we were hopingto get after making such a goodstart, so Ben Stokes coming in andproviding that late impetus wasabsolutely key.

Had England finished on 312or something like that then itwould have been a completelydifferent run chase as I think

India would have felt that wouldhave been get-able for them.

Stokes doing what he doesbest changed that and thenEngland’s bowlers really steppedup. They kept changing the paceand India really struggled tomaintain the rate they needed.

Liam Plunkett has beenunlucky to miss out in a fewgames but he was brilliant. He hasbeen really key with his cuttersand he reads the wicket perfectly,so it was a great performance fromhim.

I was surprised MS Dhonididn’t go for it more towards theend of the India innings but Ithink it was more because of theway England’s bowlers made itdifficult than anything else.

I think England will have towin against New Zealand toqualify for the semi-finals, so theyhave to keep focused as there willbe the same pressure they hadagainst India.

They just need to takeconfidence from the way theyplayed against India. I also expectEoin Morgan will want to bat firstagain if he has the chance againstNew Zealand.

Obviously, it depends on whatthe pitch is like, but England will

not want the pressure of a runchase knowing that they need towin to avoid their tournamentfinishing early.

They just need to remainpositive and I think having Roy inthe team helps with that as heexudes positivity. He has a reallybubbly nature and his aggressionrubs off on the rest of the team.

It certainly helped JonnyBairstow and once they built yetanother 100 partnership togetherat the top of the innings, youalways felt that England were incommand from there.

I’m now preparing for thestart of the women’s Ashes and I’mreally excited. We’ve had a fewdays off following the West Indiesseries and now we’re lookingforward to getting started.

It’s a massive series betweenthe top two sides in the world atthe moment and hopefully it willbe a good one for us, but it will beimportant to get off to a goodstart.

We are in a good place at themoment, with a string of 14 winsin a row, but it’s all about the nextgame and maintaining thatwinning mentality.

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Pushed to the wall, Englandbounced back in style to stay

alive and skipper Eoin Morgansays that the hosts are very muchin contention for a maiden WorldCup trophy, provided they pro-duce their ‘A-game’ in the remain-ing matches.

Back-to-back defeats to SriLanka and Australia threatened toderail England’s World Cup cam-paign but they came up with agreat show when it mattered anddefeated India by 31 runs onSunday to stay afloat.

“Yeah, it is. The closer we canget to playing our A-game, themore of a chance we have of goingthe whole way. If we’re scrapingour way along, not playing thetype of cricket we played in the lastfour years, I wouldn’t be as con-fident,” Morgan said at the post-match press conference.

“I think the manner in whichwe played today, particularly withthe bat, was outstanding. It cer-tainly resonates with everybody inthe change room to the identitywhich we wanted to play with inthis tournament. It’s come at areally good time and against anextremely strong team. So we’redelighted.”

England have jumped to thefourth spot with 10 points fromeight games and will need to beatNew Zealand in their last leaguematch on Wednesday to beassured of a semifinal spot.

The Indian wrist spin duo ofYuzvendra Chahal and KuldeepYadav were taken to the cleanersby English batsmen on Sunday.

Morgan said their strategy toput pressure on Chahal andKuldeep from the onset made thedifference.

“Well, to start, there never isone particular strategy to a bowl-ing attack just simply because onany given day anybody can havea bad day and we can’t account forthat. So we want to put themunder as much pressure as possi-ble,” he said. “That period from 10to 20 overs was probably the dif-ference between the game. I think

we scored about 90-somethingruns in 10 or 11 overs. And it wasquite evident to see, when theseam was run, the ball was notcoming onto the bat, a little bit toopace, a little bit of purchase fromcutters, slower balls.”

Morgan said who better thanJonny Bairstow and Jason Roy toexecute that plan.

“So Jonny and Jason canmake a wicket seem flat at differ-ent stages, and they did throughthat period. So it was a great peri-od for us and obviously got us offto an unbelievable start. So we feltwe were ahead of the game at thattime,” he said.

Highlighting Jason Roy’simportance up the order, Morgansaid Bairstow thrives in the theright-hander’s company.

Opener Roy, who hit 153 inhis last innings againstBangladesh, missed England’sdefeats against Sri Lanka andAustralia with a torn hamstring.

“When he was batting, he gothit on the arm and had quite a bigbruise. It is just a bruise, and heshould be fine. Obviously, havinghim back on the team is quite a bigconfidence booster for every-body, particularly when he playslike the way he did today. He’s veryintimidating, hard to bowl to, andhe’s a gun player,” the skipper said.

“I think they (Bairstow andRoy) complement each other. Ithink today off their partnershipit sort of ebbed and flowed forquite some time. I think Jonny(Bairstow) took a little bit moretime to get himself in but obvious-ly capitalised on the start more sothan Jason, but the two certainlylooked to take the game to India.”

Morgan was also effusive inhis praise for England bowlers forkeeping the famed Indian battingunit in check in the first 10 overs.

“I thought we bowled reallywell, and I don’t think it was aneasy wicket to hit 6s on,” he said.

“I don’t know how many 6swere hit today, but it felt like it wasdown on probably a normalEdgbaston game where the wick-et was normally quite good. Sothat’s a good indicator.”

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Jonny Bairstow knows how to chan-nelise his anger but he doesn’t intend

to change anything about his misinter-preted statement as its value after 24hours is that of “fish and chip”paper.

Bairstow was quoted inthe British media as sayingthat “critics want to seethem lose” and someare paid for the job.

It was widelyreported that the state-ment was aimed at twoformer skippersMichael Vaughanand KevinPietersen.

The opener,who is knownfor his plain-s p e a k i n g ,answered witha hundredagainst Indiaand thenripped themedia apart.

“Look, I’mnot saying Iwant everyone tocome out andabuse me! By nomeans am Isaying that.At no pointhave I

said that public is not behind us. Theinterview (press conference) had takenplace with six, eight, 10 journalists in avery jovial, relaxed manner. To read howit was taken was very disappointing,”Bairstow said during an interaction at

the mixed zone.“But there’s nothing you can

change about thepast...Yesterday's news is today’sfish and chip paper, that's the

saying isn’t it,” he added.However his skipper Eoin

Morgan has no complaints as afired-up Bairstow showed what

he is capable of.“He (Bairstow) doestend to get fired up a

lot, and that suitshim regardless ofwhat’s happenedduring the week,any week,injuries or not.

“He likes abit of fire in his

belly, and I don’tmind that whenhe comes out andplays like that andfeels like the way hedid. I think it’s out-standing. So we’redelighted for him,”

Morgan said.

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South Africa neither knew theirbest playing XI nor had a plan B

for challenging situations and it washardly a surprise that their WorldCup campaign became a series of dis-asters, said Jonty Rhodes in a scathingreview of the team’s performance.

It is only the second time thatSouth Africa, who still have oneleague game to play before boardingthe flight back home, have not madeit to the knock-out stages of theWorld Cup.

“When I was asked a month agowhen they started their campaign.The only thing that was going in theirfavour was no one was expectingmuch from them. Their last 12months have not been pretty withregards to their domestic results orthe international results and they didnot know their best eleven,” Rhodessaid.

“So when you go to a World Cup,and you have still not finalised youreleven, I think you are in trouble.They were generously ranked threeor four at the start of the World Cupbut probably played as per theirstrength on paper,” he said.

Rhodes, who played 52 Tests and245 ODIs and is one of the best field-ers to have played the game, saidSouth Africa also paid the price fornot having an alternate plan for toughsituations.

“In a World Cup you have toconvert your 40s and 60s into hun-

dreds. We did not do that. We did notreally have a Plan B.

“Plan A was to bowl fast, bowlteams out but England has twosummers. One gives you cold andswinging conditions, the other is flatand hot. I think we just went therehoping to bowl people out with sheerpace. There are some good playersand they are not going to succumbto short pitched bowling on goodwickets.” The 49-year-old also had alot to say on AB de Villiers wanting

to make an international comebackwith the World Cup after announc-ing a shock retirement last year.Cricket South Africa did not accepthim back in the team but the entireepisode triggered a massive contro-versy in the middle of the team’sstruggling World Cup campaign.

“You can’t replace ABD and youcan’t accept him back in the lastmoment. He has been retired for ayear so you can’t (have him back). Iam a big fan of ABD and someone

who is wanting South Africa to dowell, it would be amazing to have himin the team but the team needs morethan one player to do well and thatis where India have been reallyimpressive.

“With no ABD in South Africa’spreparation over the last 12 months,it would be a big ask to include himin the 11th hour. Disappointed thathe did not play. Sad that he retiredwhen he did but he is an internation-al player who has had a fantastic

career. It would not have been rightfor him to play having retired foralmost a year,” said Rhodes.

South Africa wicketkeeperQuinton de Kock had recently ratedthe IPL final with Mumbai Indiansas the most emotional game of hiscareer. Asked if South Africa playershave got their priorities misplaced,Rhodes came to de Kock’s defense.

“He has not won a World Cup.So he is talking about a stage in frontof 35,000 people, probably a billionwatching around the world. So fromthat point of view I can understandwhere he is coming from.

“South Africa have not been ina World Cup final. From his point ofview it (IPL final) is the biggest gamehe has played. Our cricketers don’ttake anything lightly. We have a his-tory with the World Cup and wewant to settle that and you can onlydo that by winning it. If he wouldhave won a World Cup final there isno way he would have chosen IPLfinal over it.”

Picking India and Australia asthe 2019 World Cup finalists, Rhodessaid the Indian team has trans-formed itself in all departments.

“It is not just about their fielding,it is about their fitness and agility andthat comes from their captain.(Mahendra Singh) Dhoni was instru-mental in turning that around as apowerful player himself and now youhave Virat (Kohli) setting the stan-dards himself and insisting everyonebe a part of it.”

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Shoaib Akhtar was left disappoint-ed after India’s loss to England in

the World Cup, denting Pakistan’schances of qualifying for the semi-finals.

“It was for the first time sincepartition that we were supportingIndia. I am sure India must have triedtheir best but their best could nothelp Pakistan and leave us with ahope,” Akhtar said on his Youtubechannel.

“It was for the first time theentire subcontinent, Pakistanis,Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans were pray-ing for India to win against England.However, it feels like the prayerscouldn’t reach India as they lost thematch,” he added. Pakistan were

banking on neighbours and arch-rivals India, who have enjoyed anunbeaten run in the tournament, toget the better of England. Thefavourable result would haveincreased the chances of SarfarazAhmed’s men to make the semifinals.

By defeating Afghanistan onSaturday, Pakistan had made it to thefourth spot, thus displacing Englandand Akhtar had urged his compatri-ots to support India.

However with the win, Englandare back in the top four with 10points, one more than Pakistan.

The 1992 winners, who faceBangladesh in their final groupstage match, have slim chances ofreaching the knock stage shouldEngland win their game againstNew Zealand.

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Under different circum-stances, AvishkaFernando's maiden one-

day international century onMonday would have enhanced SriLanka's chances of reaching theWorld Cup semifinals.

The 21-year-old right-handerscored 104 from 103 balls to guideSri Lanka to 338-6, its highesttotal of the tournament, afterbeing sent in to bat when WestIndies skipper Jason Holder wonthe toss.

Fernando made promisingstarts in his two previous WorldCup appearances, scoring 49 inthe upset win over England and30 in last Friday's loss to SouthAfrica, but went on with it thistime.

Sri Lanka was playing with-out pressure for the first time inthe tournament after its playoffhopes were ended late Sundaywhen England beat India atEdgbaston. That result removedeven the mathematical possibil-ity of Sri Lanka reaching the semi-finals. West Indies was already outof contention after losing four ina row after its confident start tothe tournament.

Fernando went in after a 93-run opening stand between KusalPerera (64) and DimuthKarunaratne (32) that ended inthe 16th over when Karunaratnegot a thin edge off rival skipperHolder and was caught behind.

Holder hit Fernando on thepads three balls later but the newbatsman was given not out. TheWest Indies referred the decisionto the TV umpire, but lost the

review when replay technologyshowed the ball was going downleg side.

Perera reached his third half-century of the tournament from38 balls but was needlessly dis-missed soon after, run out at thenon-striker's end in the 18thover when he was sent back afterturning for a second run.

Fernando continued tosteadily build the innings in part-nerships of 85 with Kusal Mendis(39), who was spectacularlycaught-and-bowled by FabianAllen, 58 with Angelo Mathews(26) and 67 with LahiruThirimanne (45 not out) until hewas caught off Sheldon Cottrell'sbowling in the 48th over.

Holder, who bowledMathews in the 40th over,returned 2-59.

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Defending championNovak Djokovic got his

campaign for a f ifthWimbledon title off to awinning start on Mondaywith newly-hired coachingteam recruit, and 2001 win-ner, Goran Ivanisevic help-ing steer the ship.

Djokovic, chasing a fifthtitle at the All England Club,saw off 35-year-old PhilippKohlschreiber of Germany 6-3, 7-5, 6-3.

But he had to recoverfrom early breaks in both ofthe first two sets against aplayer who beat him atIndian Wells this year, as wellas a nasty fall on the CentreCourt grass.

Djokovic, chasing a 16thcareer major, will face DenisKudla of the United Statesfor a place in the last 32.

If his victory was rou-tine, there was nothing pre-dictable about the Serb's sur-prise decision to bringIvanisevic into his innersanctum over the weekend.

Djokovic said that heand Ivanisevic have beenlong-time friends.

"I have always looked upto Goran. When he wonhere in 2001, I feel I was partof that as he had trained inGermany at the same base asme when I was 13-14," saidDjokovic.

"I feel as if I contributedto his victory," he joked.

Fourth seed KevinAnderson, runner-up toDjokovic in 2018, eased into

the second round beatingPierre-Hugues Herbert ofFrance 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.

Anderson will now playSerbia's Janko Tipsarevicwho registered his first winat the tournament in sevenyears when he defeatedJapan's Yoshihito Nishioka 6-4, 6-7 (2/7), 6-2, 5-7, 6-2.

In the women's event,third seed Karolina Pliskovamade it through, beatingChina's Zhu Lin 6-2, 7-6(7/4).

Czech former worldnumber one Pliskova, freshfrom winning theEastbourne title, has nevergot past the fourth round atWimbledon.

She will next faceOlympic champion MonicaPuig.

Slovakia's MagdalenaRybarikova, a semi-finalist in2017, caused the first bigupset of the tournamentwhen she put out 10th seed-ed Aryna Sabalenka ofBelarus 6-2, 6-4 in just 70minutes.

It was Sabalenka's sec-ond successive loss in thefirst round

Former French Openchampion Simona Halepovercame an injury scare tomake the second round witha 6-4, 7-5 win overAliaksandra Sasnovich.

Halep, seeded seven anda semi-finalist in 2014, need-ed to have her left anklestrapped after a worrying fallon Court One.

She then slipped at 2-5down in the second set

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!4 � ���� ���� ������������� ���������������������������������&��@��before recovering to beat herBelarus opponent who knockedout two-time Wimbledonchampion Petra Kvitova at thesame stage in 2018.

Later Monday, Japanese sec-ond seed Naomi Osaka, the USand Australian Open winner,starts her campaign againstYulia Putintseva who has a 2-0career hold over the Japanese.

One of those wins came ongrass in Birmingham less thantwo weeks ago.

Osaka has yet to get past thethird round at Wimbledonalthough her two previous vis-its saw defeats to 2018 champi-on Angelique Kerber and five-time champion Venus Williams.

Venus, now 39, first playedat the All England Club in1997.

Her opponent on Court

One on Monday, 15-year-oldcompatriot Cori Gauff was stillseven years away from beingborn.

Gauff is the youngest play-er ever to have qualified forWimbledon and comes into thetournament ranked at 313 in theworld.

She needed a wild card toplay in qualifying while jugglingher high school tests in theevening.

"She's an exciting youngplayer, and she's so cool," saidVenus's sister Serena of Gauff.

"She's a great girl. It's a greatmoment for her and for Venus."

'NextGen' stars AlexanderZverev, seeded six, and seventh-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas faceJiri Vesely of the Czech Republicand Italy's Thomas Fabbianorespectively.

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Argentina forwards LionelMessi and Sergio Aguero

will have to sweat if they’regoing to break down Brazil’swatertight defence in theirCopa America semi-final, saysSelecao striker Gabriel Jesus.

Hosts Brazil have yet toconcede a goal in four match-es at the Copa while Argentinahave improved defensively andkept clean sheets in their lasttwo matches.

Jesus expects a tight contestin Belo Horizonte on Tuesdayand says Brazil’s defence won’tgive Argentina’s forward line aninch.

“It’s tough to get behind adefence that doesn’t concedegoals,” the Manchester Cityforward said of Argentina’s

backline.“It’s also a long time since

we conceded a goal. It’s veryimportant to have a soliddefence.

“But it won’t be easy forArgentina to get behind us.Obviously they have Messiwho is the best player in theworld, and they have Aguero,one of the best center-for-wards, but they’re going tohave to sweat to get in behind.”

Jesus said he was sure“Argentina will attack us” andhe’s looking forward to jokingaround with his City team-mates Aguero and center-backNicolas Otamendi, but onlyafter the match.

What’s clear, though, isthat this is the most keenlyanticipated match on the con-tinent, between the two region-

al giants.Brazil are the most success-

ful team in World Cup historywith five titles to Argentina’stwo, but at a continental level,the roles are reversed asArgentina have won the Copa14 times compared to eight forBrazil.

Should Argentina winagain, they would matchUruguay’s record of 15 titles.

“These are two giants, fromcountries with a lot of history,”said Jesus.

“We’re playing at homeand we have more pressure towin, but it's a ‘clasico’ againstArgentina.”

These two sides’ defenseshave been on top so far butgiven the attacking talent thatwill be on show, a goalless drawwould be unthinkable, even

though there have been threealready in the knock-out stagesout of four matches.

Brazil will likely line upwith Liverpool’s RobertoFirmino flanked by Jesus andthe exciting Gremio forwardEverton, a reported target forManchester City.

Argentina are almost cer-tainly sure to stick to the triothat played their last twomatches — 2-0 victories overQatar and Venezuela — withLautaro Martinez joining Messiand Aguero.

The semi-final has goteveryone excited for what willbe the 106th official FIFA-rec-ognized meeting between thetwo rivals.

Brazil lead the head-to-head record with 41 wins to 38and 26 draws.