12
T he trial court on Tuesday permitted the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to interro- gate and arrest, if necessary, for- mer Finance Minister Chidambaram in the INX Media bribery case. Armed with the order, the ED is expected to take Chidambaram in its custody on Wednesday. After this development, even if Chidambaram’s bail petition in the Supreme Court in the CBI case is favourably disposed, he might end up spending Diwali behind bars. Trial court judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar on Tuesday evening passed the order allow- ing the ED to interrogate Chidambaram in Tihar jail on Wednesday and arrest him if necessary. The court said three ED officials can interrogate Chidambaram on Wednesday after 8.30 am and asked the jail superintendent to make arrangements in this regard. The former Finance Minister’s judicial custody in the INX Media corruption case, which was filed by the CBI, ends on October 17. Since his arrest on August 21, he has till Tuesday spent 54 days in custody — both of the CBI as well as judicial — in nine spells. After the court passed the order, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Special Public Prosecutor Amit Mahajan, appearing for the ED, sought permission to question Chidambaram in some space available on Rouse Avenue court premises. The court, however, said, “It’s not in the dignity of this person that you interrogate and arrest him here in public view.” The court also rejected Chidamabram’s peti- tion against the production warrant. Chidambaram on Tuesday sought bail from the Supreme Court in the INX Media cor- ruption case saying the CBI wants to keep him in custody to humiliate him. The court will hear on Wednesday the arguments of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI. Citing his attempts to meet to two crucial witnesses, the agency reiterated that Chidambaram should not be given bail. Justice R Banumathi headed Bench will resume hearing on this petition on Wednesday morning and the ED is expected to make arrest early in the morning. After the trial court’s per- mission to the ED, Chidambaram’s bail petition in the apex court has literally became useless. The ED will get maximum 15 days custody of Chidamabaram following which he may be remanded in judicial custody till he gets bail in the ED’s case. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Chidambaram, told a 3-judge bench headed by Justice R Banumathi that there were no allegations against their party colleague or his family mem- bers of having ever tried to approach or influence any wit- ness in the case. Sibal told the Bench, also comprising justices AS Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy, that Chidambaram is in cus- tody for last 55 days and the Delhi High Court had rejected his bail plea in a “strange way”. Chidambaram, 74, was arrested by the CBI on August 21 and is lodged in Tihar jail under judicial custody in the corruption case. The CBI had registered an FIR on May 15, 2017 alleging irregularities in a Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance granted to the INX Media group for receiving overseas funds of 305 crore in 2007 during Chidambaram’s tenure as the Finance Minister. Thereafter, the ED lodged a money-laundering case in this regard in 2017. Chidambaram moved the top court challenging the Delhi High Court’s September 30 verdict denying him bail in the INX Media case lodged by the CBI. Sibal told the Bench on Tuesday that earlier the ED had argued before the apex court that they want custodial inter- rogation of Chidambaram, but later they opposed his applica- tion filed in the trial court to surrender in the money laun- dering case. “Bail should be granted to him (Chidambaram). They (CBI) want to keep me in jail to humiliate him,” Sibal argued before the apex court. A nother senior Minister from the earlier UPA Government landed in trouble on Tuesday as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned Praful Patel for questioning on October 18 in connection with an alleged property deal between him and Hajra Iqbal, the wife of late Iqbal Mirchi, an erstwhile close aide of Karachi- based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. As it readied itself to arrest former Union Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday for custodial interrogation in the INX Media case, the ED prepared the ground for the questioning of former Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel on allegations of quid pro quo in a property deal with late Iqbal Mirchi’s wife Hajra. Official sources said that at its office in Mumbai on October 18, the ED would record Patel’s statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with a deal between a real estate company promot- ed by him, his wife and late Mirchi’s wife. The ED documents have revealed that Millennium Developers Pvt Limited, a company promoted by Patel and his wife, constructed Ceejay House and transferred its third and fourth floors to Mirchi’s wife Hajra Iqbal in 2007 “towards beneficial inter- est of Mirchi in the land on which the structure is built”. Patel and his wife own a sig- nificant number of shares in Millennium Developers Private Limited. However, Patel dismissed the case, saying, “It is an old case and since I am on election tour, I am not privy to the doc- uments. But I can tell you that the allegations against me are false and unsubstantiated.” Talking to mediapersons here, he said, “Documents may have been leaked to media. Obviously, you are in posses- sion of some papers which may have never been brought to my attention.” The ED is investigating several property deals, includ- ing Ceejay House at Worli in south-central Mumbai, which was reportedly owned by Mirchi’s first wife Hajra Memon. Ceejay House is con- structed on a plot allegedly owned by Iqbal Mirchi. The ED’s contention is that Patel redeveloped Ceejay House in 2005. The ED considers the property as “proceeds of crime”. The ED’s move to question to Patel comes in the wake of the grilling of Mukhtar Memon, an alleged key person who handles various properties of Mirchi in Mumbai. Memon is the brother-in-law of Mirchi. In his interaction with the media, Patel said that the mat- ter was under investigation and the issue is if the “person at Ceejay House is linked with me”. The building, according to Patel, was there in 1970. “After my father’s death, there was dis- pute in the family among 21 co- owners. The Mumbai High Court was asked in 1978 to take charge and look after the prop- erty,” Patel said. According to the list of Mirchi’s properties located in India and the UK, Ceejay House was constructed in 2006-07 as a joint venture (JV) between Mirchi and Millenium Developers Pvt Ltd. The ED probe has revealed Mirchi had bought/developed several properties in India and abroad from the proceeds of crime generated through var- ious illegal offences. The NCP is seeing the action against its leader as “political vendetta” in the run up to the Maharashtra Assembly polls. T he bestowal of “Bharat Ratna” upon social reform- ers Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phhule, and freedom fighter Veer Savarkar, creation of one crore jobs in five years, making Maharashtra “drought-free” in five years and 5 lakh crore investment in infrastructure sector are among the promis- es made by the ruling BJP in its manifesto for the State Assembly polls. In its manifesto “Sankalp Patra” released three days after its ally Shiv Sena released its manifesto “Vachan Patra”, the BJP has also promised houses to all the homeless in the State by 2022, pure drinking water to each household, to set up a grid for Marathwada to solve water problem in the region and to provide job opportunities to one crore women by bringing them under “Mahila Bachat Ghatak” scheme. Releasing “Sankalp Patra” along with the party’s working president JP Nadda, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “On our return to power in the State, we will recom- mend to the Centre a propos- al to bestow ‘Bharat Ratna’ upon social reformers Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phhule, and freedom fighter Veer Savarkar. These three great leaders deserved to be honoured with Bharat Ratna as they spent their whole lives for social activities. The Shiv Sena has also for some time been demanding bestowal of Bharart Ratna upon Veer Savarkar.” The promise to bestow Bharat Ratna upon the Phule couple and Veer Savarkar is being seen as a move to attract Dalit and Hindu votes. “The focus of our mani- festo is three-fold — to address drought, increase availability of water and employment,” the CM said. The project to link various rivers, uninterrupted power supply, education, economic development, health, agricul- ture, social welfare, air trans- port, port development, water supply for irrigation and rural development are the BJP’s other focus areas. In its “Sankalp Patra”, the BJP also promised to seek financial assistance from the Centre to invest to the tune of 1 lakh crore on infrastructural facilities, to generate solar ener- gy in next five years that is enough to supply electricity to farmers for 12 hours in a day and to set up a solar power grid. In a first of its kind imita- tive, the BJP has promised to set up an independent author- ity to repair all kinds of roads. The ruling party said it would connect the entire Maharashtra by internet through Bharat Net and Maha Net. “We will register all kinds of labourers at one place and bring them under the ambit of the social security... We will undertake a special rehabilita- tion programme for the retired soldiers, families of martyred soldiers and officials who died during the call of duty,” the BJP manifesto said. A fter women commuters, two-wheelers have been exempted from the odd-even scheme which will be rolled out from November 4 to 15, Transport Department offi- cials said on Tuesday, adding that the penalty for the scheme violation has been hiked from 2,000 to 4,000. Unlike last year, the private CNG vehicles will not be exempted from the car rationing scheme this year. “The Delhi Government will engage 2,000 private buses during the odd-even period to bear the the additional load at 50 per kilometre. We have also met with Uber and are going to meet other cab operators and strictly warned them for not indulging in indiscriminate surge pricing. Uber has com- mitted to us that they will not permit more than 1.5 times the regular fare during the period,” Transport Minister Gahlot said. Besides, the Government will deploy civil defense employees to make commuters aware about the scheme. According to the scheme, vehicles will ply on the road on alternate days as per the last digit of their number plates. Vehicles with number plate ending with even numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8 and 0 will ply on “even” dates, while vehicles with odd numbers 1,3,5,7,9 will play on “odd” dates. Earlier, on Saturday, the AAP Government had exempted women from the odd-even scheme. “Keeping the security of women in mind, we have decided to exempt women from odd-even scheme. All women driving cars or and those with women drivers car- rying children below the age of 12 will be exempted,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said earlier. T he Reserve Bank of India has not printed a single 2,000 note from April 1 onward this year. The move is seen an attempt to curb stock- piling of black money. The RBI confirmed this in response to an RTI reply in which it said that soon after the demonitisation, the Central bank printed 3,542.991 million 2,000 notes to match with the demand after the existing 1,000 and 500 notes were cancelled in October 2016. As per the RTI reply, the volume of printing of 2,000 notes came down drastically in the following year as the bank went in fast gear to print cur- rency notes of other denomi- nations. In 2017-18, only 111.507 million notes were produced, which was further reduced to 46.690 million notes 2018-19, said the RBI. Earlier, the RBI had refut- ed the reports of withdrawal of 2,000 notes but many experts feel that the stopping produc- tion in the financial year will lead to withdrawal of the high value note in near future. T he police on Tuesday detained a small group of women led by daughter and sis- ter of National Conference president and sitting Member Parliament Farooq Abdullah in Srinagar when they tried to stage an “unathorised” sit-in protest against the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of State into two Union Territories. Farooq Abdullah’s sister Suraiya Mattoo, his daughter Safiya Khan, former J&K High Court chief justice Bashir Ahmad Khan’s wife Professor Hawa Khan and others were detained by the police from Pratap Park area. The women arrived at the busy Lal Chowk area on Tuesday morning wearing black arm badges and holding several placards. Safiya Khan was seen car- rying a banner reading “Kashmiri brides not for sale”, apparently implying to the statement made by some BJP leaders of Haryana and UP after the abrogation of Article 370. Other protesters were seen holding placards which demanded the release of detainees and restoration of civil liberties. As they started assembling inside the Pratap Park, women cops, along with paramilitary forces, prevented them from staging sit-in dharna. The cops also demanded them to pro- duce permission letter, if any, issued by the office of District Magistrate. When these women refused to call off the dharna, women cops pushed them inside the police vans before escorting them to the nearest police station. In a written statement, these women said, “We the women of Kashmir disapprove the unilateral decision taken by the Government of India to revoke Article 370 and 35A and downgrade and split the State of Jammu & Kashmir. We feel betrayed, humiliated and vio- lated as people.” “We demand immediate release of detainees. We express our outrage against the nation- al media for their false and mis- leading coverage of ground realties in Kashmir,” reads the statement. Meanwhile SMS services were withdrawan by the State administration barely hours after the postpaid mobile phone services were restored across the Valley on Monday. The decision was taken after review of the prevailing secu- rity situation arising after the killing of a truck driver hailing from Rajasthan by a group of terrorists in Shopian late on Monday evening. RNI Regn. No. CHHENG/2012/42718, Postal Reg. No. - RYP DN/34/2013-2015

˘ ˇ ˘ˆ · Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI. Citing his attempts to ... Chidambaram should not be given bail. Justice R Banumathi headed Bench will resume hearing on this petition

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Page 1: ˘ ˇ ˘ˆ · Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI. Citing his attempts to ... Chidambaram should not be given bail. Justice R Banumathi headed Bench will resume hearing on this petition

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The trial court on Tuesdaypermitted the Enforcement

Directorate (ED) to interro-gate and arrest, if necessary, for-mer Finance MinisterChidambaram in the INXMedia bribery case. Armedwith the order, the ED isexpected to take Chidambaramin its custody on Wednesday.

After this development,even if Chidambaram’s bailpetition in the Supreme Courtin the CBI case is favourablydisposed, he might end upspending Diwali behind bars.

Trial court judge AjayKumar Kuhar on Tuesdayevening passed the order allow-ing the ED to interrogateChidambaram in Tihar jail onWednesday and arrest him ifnecessary. The court said threeED officials can interrogateChidambaram on Wednesdayafter 8.30 am and asked the jailsuperintendent to makearrangements in this regard.

The former FinanceMinister’s judicial custody inthe INX Media corruptioncase, which was filed by theCBI, ends on October 17. Sincehis arrest on August 21, he hastill Tuesday spent 54 days incustody — both of the CBI aswell as judicial — in ninespells.

After the court passed theorder, Solicitor General TusharMehta and Special PublicProsecutor Amit Mahajan,appearing for the ED, soughtpermission to question

Chidambaram in some spaceavailable on Rouse Avenuecourt premises. The court,however, said, “It’s not in thedignity of this person that youinterrogate and arrest him herein public view.” The court alsorejected Chidamabram’s peti-tion against the productionwarrant.

Chidambaram on Tuesdaysought bail from the SupremeCourt in the INX Media cor-ruption case saying the CBIwants to keep him in custodyto humiliate him. The court

will hear on Wednesday thearguments of Solicitor GeneralTushar Mehta, representingthe CBI. Citing his attempts tomeet to two crucial witnesses,the agency reiterated thatChidambaram should not begiven bail. Justice R Banumathiheaded Bench will resumehearing on this petition onWednesday morning and theED is expected to make arrestearly in the morning.

After the trial court’s per-mission to the ED,Chidambaram’s bail petition in

the apex court has literallybecame useless. The ED will getmaximum 15 days custody ofChidamabaram followingwhich he may be remanded injudicial custody till he gets bailin the ED’s case.

Senior advocates KapilSibal and Abhishek ManuSinghvi, appearing forChidambaram, told a 3-judgebench headed by Justice RBanumathi that there were noallegations against their partycolleague or his family mem-bers of having ever tried to

approach or influence any wit-ness in the case.

Sibal told the Bench, alsocomprising justices ASBopanna and Hrishikesh Roy,that Chidambaram is in cus-tody for last 55 days and theDelhi High Court had rejectedhis bail plea in a “strange way”.

Chidambaram, 74, wasarrested by the CBI on August21 and is lodged in Tihar jailunder judicial custody in thecorruption case.

The CBI had registered anFIR on May 15, 2017 allegingirregularities in a ForeignInvestment Promotion Board(FIPB) clearance granted to theINX Media group for receivingoverseas funds of �305 crore in2007 during Chidambaram’stenure as the Finance Minister.

Thereafter, the ED lodgeda money-laundering case inthis regard in 2017.

Chidambaram moved thetop court challenging the DelhiHigh Court’s September 30verdict denying him bail in the INX Media case lodged bythe CBI.

Sibal told the Bench onTuesday that earlier the ED hadargued before the apex courtthat they want custodial inter-rogation of Chidambaram, butlater they opposed his applica-tion filed in the trial court tosurrender in the money laun-dering case.

“Bail should be granted tohim (Chidambaram). They(CBI) want to keep me in jailto humiliate him,” Sibal arguedbefore the apex court.

����� �������� �0�.�#

Another senior Ministerfrom the earlier UPA

Government landed in troubleon Tuesday as the EnforcementDirectorate (ED) summonedPraful Patel for questioning onOctober 18 in connection withan alleged property dealbetween him and Hajra Iqbal,the wife of late Iqbal Mirchi, anerstwhile close aide of Karachi-based underworld donDawood Ibrahim.

As it readied itself to arrestformer Union Minister PChidambaram on Wednesdayfor custodial interrogation inthe INX Media case, the EDprepared the ground for thequestioning of former CivilAviation Minister Praful Patelon allegations of quid pro quoin a property deal with lateIqbal Mirchi’s wife Hajra.

Official sources said that atits office in Mumbai onOctober 18, the ED wouldrecord Patel’s statement underthe Prevention of MoneyLaundering Act (PMLA) inconnection with a deal betweena real estate company promot-ed by him, his wife and lateMirchi’s wife.

The ED documents haverevealed that Millennium

Developers Pvt Limited, acompany promoted by Pateland his wife, constructedCeejay House and transferredits third and fourth floors toMirchi’s wife Hajra Iqbal in2007 “towards beneficial inter-est of Mirchi in the land onwhich the structure is built”.Patel and his wife own a sig-nificant number of shares inMillennium Developers PrivateLimited.

However, Patel dismissedthe case, saying, “It is an oldcase and since I am on electiontour, I am not privy to the doc-uments. But I can tell you thatthe allegations against me arefalse and unsubstantiated.”

Talking to mediapersonshere, he said, “Documents mayhave been leaked to media.Obviously, you are in posses-sion of some papers whichmay have never been broughtto my attention.”

The ED is investigatingseveral property deals, includ-ing Ceejay House at Worli insouth-central Mumbai, which

was reportedly owned byMirchi’s first wife HajraMemon. Ceejay House is con-structed on a plot allegedlyowned by Iqbal Mirchi. TheED’s contention is that Patelredeveloped Ceejay House in2005. The ED considers theproperty as “proceeds of crime”.

The ED’s move to questionto Patel comes in the wake ofthe grilling of MukhtarMemon, an alleged key personwho handles various propertiesof Mirchi in Mumbai. Memonis the brother-in-law of Mirchi.

In his interaction with themedia, Patel said that the mat-ter was under investigationand the issue is if the “personat Ceejay House is linked withme”. The building, according toPatel, was there in 1970. “Aftermy father’s death, there was dis-pute in the family among 21 co-owners. The Mumbai HighCourt was asked in 1978 to takecharge and look after the prop-erty,” Patel said.

According to the list ofMirchi’s properties located inIndia and the UK, CeejayHouse was constructed in2006-07 as a joint venture (JV)between Mirchi and MilleniumDevelopers Pvt Ltd.

The ED probe has revealedMirchi had bought/developedseveral properties in India andabroad from the proceeds ofcrime generated through var-ious illegal offences.

The NCP is seeing theaction against its leader as“political vendetta” in the runup to the MaharashtraAssembly polls.

����� �������� �0�.�#

The bestowal of “BharatRatna” upon social reform-

ers Jyotiba Phule, SavitribaiPhhule, and freedom fighterVeer Savarkar, creation of onecrore jobs in five years, makingMaharashtra “drought-free” infive years and �5 lakh croreinvestment in infrastructuresector are among the promis-es made by the ruling BJP in itsmanifesto for the StateAssembly polls.

In its manifesto “SankalpPatra” released three days afterits ally Shiv Sena released itsmanifesto “Vachan Patra”, theBJP has also promised housesto all the homeless in the Stateby 2022, pure drinking water toeach household, to set up a gridfor Marathwada to solve waterproblem in the region and toprovide job opportunities toone crore women by bringingthem under “Mahila BachatGhatak” scheme.

Releasing “Sankalp Patra”along with the party’s workingpresident JP Nadda, ChiefMinister Devendra Fadnavissaid, “On our return to powerin the State, we will recom-mend to the Centre a propos-al to bestow ‘Bharat Ratna’upon social reformers Jyotiba

Phule, Savitribai Phhule, andfreedom fighter Veer Savarkar.These three great leadersdeserved to be honoured withBharat Ratna as they spenttheir whole lives for socialactivities. The Shiv Sena hasalso for some time beendemanding bestowal of BharartRatna upon Veer Savarkar.”

The promise to bestowBharat Ratna upon the Phulecouple and Veer Savarkar isbeing seen as a move to attractDalit and Hindu votes.

“The focus of our mani-festo is three-fold — to addressdrought, increase availability ofwater and employment,” the

CM said.The project to link various

rivers, uninterrupted powersupply, education, economicdevelopment, health, agricul-ture, social welfare, air trans-port, port development, watersupply for irrigation and ruraldevelopment are the BJP’s otherfocus areas.

In its “Sankalp Patra”, theBJP also promised to seekfinancial assistance from theCentre to invest to the tune of�1 lakh crore on infrastructuralfacilities, to generate solar ener-gy in next five years that isenough to supply electricity tofarmers for 12 hours in a day

and to set up a solar power grid.In a first of its kind imita-

tive, the BJP has promised toset up an independent author-ity to repair all kinds of roads.The ruling party said it wouldconnect the entire Maharashtraby internet through Bharat Netand Maha Net.

“We will register all kindsof labourers at one place andbring them under the ambit ofthe social security... We willundertake a special rehabilita-tion programme for the retiredsoldiers, families of martyredsoldiers and officials who diedduring the call of duty,” the BJPmanifesto said.

�������(������� �342356#

After women commuters,two-wheelers have been

exempted from the odd-evenscheme which will be rolled outfrom November 4 to 15,Transport Department offi-cials said on Tuesday, addingthat the penalty for the schemeviolation has been hiked from�2,000 to �4,000.

Unlike last year, the privateCNG vehicles will not beexempted from the carrationing scheme this year.

“The Delhi Governmentwill engage 2,000 private busesduring the odd-even period tobear the the additional load at�50 per kilometre. We have alsomet with Uber and are going tomeet other cab operators andstrictly warned them for notindulging in indiscriminatesurge pricing. Uber has com-mitted to us that they will notpermit more than 1.5 times theregular fare during the period,”Transport Minister Gahlot said.

Besides, the Governmentwill deploy civil defenseemployees to make commutersaware about the scheme.

According to the scheme,vehicles will ply on the road onalternate days as per the lastdigit of their number plates.Vehicles with number plateending with even numbers: 2,4, 6, 8 and 0 will ply on “even”dates, while vehicles with oddnumbers 1,3,5,7,9 will play on“odd” dates.

Earlier, on Saturday, theAAP Government hadexempted women from theodd-even scheme.

“Keeping the security ofwomen in mind, we havedecided to exempt womenfrom odd-even scheme. Allwomen driving cars or andthose with women drivers car-rying children below the age of12 will be exempted,” DelhiChief Minister Arvind Kejriwalhad said earlier.

(��� �342356#

The Reserve Bank of Indiahas not printed a single

�2,000 note from April 1onward this year. The move isseen an attempt to curb stock-piling of black money.

The RBI confirmed this inresponse to an RTI reply inwhich it said that soon after thedemonitisation, the Centralbank printed 3,542.991 million�2,000 notes to match with thedemand after the existing�1,000 and �500 notes werecancelled in October 2016.

As per the RTI reply, thevolume of printing of �2,000notes came down drastically inthe following year as the bank

went in fast gear to print cur-rency notes of other denomi-nations. In 2017-18, only111.507 million notes wereproduced, which was furtherreduced to 46.690 million notes2018-19, said the RBI.

Earlier, the RBI had refut-ed the reports of withdrawal of�2,000 notes but many expertsfeel that the stopping produc-tion in the financial year willlead to withdrawal of the highvalue note in near future.

������'��������� 7���0

The police on Tuesdaydetained a small group of

women led by daughter and sis-ter of National Conferencepresident and sitting MemberParliament Farooq Abdullah inSrinagar when they tried tostage an “unathorised” sit-inprotest against the abrogationof Article 370 and bifurcationof State into two UnionTerritories.

Farooq Abdullah’s sisterSuraiya Mattoo, his daughterSafiya Khan, former J&K HighCourt chief justice BashirAhmad Khan’s wife Professor

Hawa Khan and others weredetained by the police fromPratap Park area.

The women arrived at thebusy Lal Chowk area onTuesday morning wearing

black arm badges and holdingseveral placards.

Safiya Khan was seen car-

rying a banner reading“Kashmiri brides not for sale”,apparently implying to thestatement made by some BJPleaders of Haryana and UPafter the abrogation of Article370. Other protesters were seenholding placards whichdemanded the release ofdetainees and restoration ofcivil liberties.

As they started assemblinginside the Pratap Park, womencops, along with paramilitaryforces, prevented them fromstaging sit-in dharna. The copsalso demanded them to pro-duce permission letter, if any,issued by the office of DistrictMagistrate.

When these womenrefused to call off the dharna,women cops pushed theminside the police vans beforeescorting them to the nearestpolice station.

In a written statement,these women said, “We the

women of Kashmir disapprovethe unilateral decision taken bythe Government of India torevoke Article 370 and 35A anddowngrade and split the Stateof Jammu & Kashmir. We feelbetrayed, humiliated and vio-lated as people.”

“We demand immediaterelease of detainees. We expressour outrage against the nation-al media for their false and mis-leading coverage of groundrealties in Kashmir,” reads thestatement.

Meanwhile SMS serviceswere withdrawan by the Stateadministration barely hoursafter the postpaid mobilephone services were restoredacross the Valley on Monday.The decision was taken afterreview of the prevailing secu-rity situation arising after thekilling of a truck driver hailingfrom Rajasthan by a group ofterrorists in Shopian late onMonday evening.

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Page 2: ˘ ˇ ˘ˆ · Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI. Citing his attempts to ... Chidambaram should not be given bail. Justice R Banumathi headed Bench will resume hearing on this petition

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The Lok Sabha Secretariathas sought suggestions

from MPs on changes neededin the present structure of theParliament and the scale ofrenovation required in the newscheme of things whereGovernment is set to remodeland develop the whole area inand around it, to be complet-ed by 2022.

The suggestions weresought in a letter sent to theLok Sabha members onOctober 11. According to theplan, the Government wouldalso redevelop the 3 km-stretchof the Central Vista spanningfrom Rashtrapati Bhavan toIndia Gate.

The letter said, "... There isactive consideration regardingeither renovation of the exist-ing Parliament building orconstruction of altogether anew Parliament building with-in the given premises."

It sought suggestions fromthe members to "rectify thedrawbacks or faulty features"causing inconvenience in theirday-to-day functioning in theexisting building.

They have also been askedto suggest features or facilitieswhich should be provided inthe new building to make it"foolproof ".

The Lok Sabha MPs haveto email their suggestions with-in a week. They have also beenadvised against sending in hardcopies of their responses.

The idea to either constructa new Parliament building or torenovate the present structure,which is over 90 years old, hasbeen floating since UPA 1.The idea was given a fresh pushunder the present Government.

It is also said that the pre-sent dispensation would seek toadd new structures to the exist-ing Parliament building, roundin shape, to make it 'Vastufriendly'.

According to sources in theUnion Housing and UrbanAffairs Ministry, five Indianarchitectural firms have sub-mitted bids for the project to beexecuted by the Central Public

Works Department.Describing the whole exer-

cise as a " dream project" ofPrime Minister NarendraModi, Union Housing andUrban Affairs Minister,Hardeep Singh Puri has maintained that not a singletree will be cut while the rede-velopment takes place until2022.

A committee of expertswill now evaluate the technicalproposals submitted by thefirms. Financial proposals ofonly those bidders whose tech-nical proposals qualify will beopened. As of now there is noestimate as to how much wouldit cost to undertake the entireproject in the area which is thenerve-centre of the powerstructure that controls thecountry.

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Putting further pressure onVIP squatters, the Lok

Sabha Housing Committeechairman CR Patil on Tuesdayissued directions to cut elec-tricity, water and gas supply inthe accommodation illegallyoccupied by MPs. The com-mittee, chaired by BJP MP CRPatil, decided to approachDelhi Police to ensure that theex-MPs vacate the accommo-dation allotted to them inLutyens Delhi.

According to the rules,former MPs have to vacatetheir bungalows within onemonth of dissolution of theprevious Lok Sabha. As manyas over three dozen formerMPs are overstaying in theirbungalows and flats. Despiteseveral notices, they have notvacated their accommodations.

On May 25, President RamNath Kovind dissolved the 16thLok Sabha with immediate effecton the recommendation of theUnion Cabinet after the ModiGovernment was formed for asecond term. With these formerMPs not vacating their bunga-lows, the newly-elected mem-bers of parliament have beenstaying in transit accommoda-tion such as their respective Stateguest houses or the WesternCourt, sources said.The panelhas been unable to allot housesto the MPs despite their repeated requests, they added.

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Amit Shah will demit hispost as BJP president by

the year end and is likely to bereplaced by a new one withworking president JP Naddaexpected to succeed him.

Shah, who is holding the cru-cial portfolio of Union HomeMinistry, would only be stressinghis party's dictum of one-man-one-post by demitting the post ofthe party president once organ-isational polls are completed byDecember. In an interview to anews channel, he said that thenew president would take over byDecember and rejected thenotion that he would remain the"super power" running he partyfrom behind the scene.

"BJP is not the Congressparty and nobody can run itfrom behind the scenes," he saidsaying it will be run as per itsconstitution.Nadda, who isalready appointed party's work-ing president, is expected to takecharge from Shah in December.

To another question, hedenied that his party was look-ing at former cricket captainSourav Ganguly as the face ofthe party in West Bengal. Herejected any involvement in theelection of the next BCCI chiefand that there was any deal withGanguly, who was elected ascricket body's Chief.

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With the BJP inMaharashtra calling for

Bharat Ratna award forHindutva idealogue V DSavarkar, the Congress onTuesday said that if theGovernment considers it on the150th birth anniversary ofMahatma Gandhi, then "Godsave this country".

The opposition party'sresponse came after the elec-tion manifesto of MaharashtraBJP, released on Tuesday, saidthe party will ask the NDAGovernment at the Centre toconfer India's highest civilianaward on Savarkar.

"In a country whereMahatma Gandhi is beingmade to commit suicide inexaminations, anything is pos-sible," Congress spokespersonManish Tewari said at a pressconference, referring to therow over a question in theinternal assessment examina-tion of some schools in Gujarat.

Savarkar had faced criminaltrial in the murder of MahatmaGandhi, Tewari said, adding thathe was later acquitted.

The Congress spokesper-son cited an article whichclaimed that the KapurCommission concluded thatfacts pointed towards a "con-spiracy to murder by Savarakarand his group" in MahatmaGandhi's case.

"If on the 150th birthanniversary of MahatmaGandhi, this Government con-siders any such thing (givingBharat Ratna to Savarkar), thenall I want to say is that God savethis country," Tewari said.

Asked if there was a con-tradiction between the recentpraise for Gandhi by RSS ChiefMohan Bhagwat and thedemand for Bharat Ratna forSavarkar, Tewari alleged that itwas a coordinated and wellthought out strategy "that onone hand keep praisingMahatma Gandhi and on theother hand make such ademand".

"But if what has been writ-ten in the article about the con-clusions of the KapurCommission is correct, thenthe Government should seri-ously think that on MahatmaGandhi's 150th birth anniver-sary, is this step appropriate," hesaid.

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The Ministry of Food andConsumers Affairs on

Tuesday reviewed the sky-rocketing of retail prices ofessential food items and veg-etables. It was informed thatonion prices have stabilised andshowing declining trend withthe arrival of kharif (summersown) crops.

The 18th meeting of thegroup constituted for moni-toring cartelisation, hoarding,speculative trading etc withrespect to essential food itemssuch as pulses, onion, tomatoand oilseeds was held under thechairmanship of Secretary,Consumer Affairs, Avinash KSrivastava. Representativesfrom Ministry of Agriculture,Intelligence Bureau, DelhiPolice, NAFED, DirectorGeneral of Foreign Trade,Ministry of External Affairs,Delhi Government attendedthe meeting. The Ministry hasalso advised the Ministry ofCommerce to extend theimport licensing deadline forpulses from October 31 toNovember 30 in view of theexpected delayed arrivals.

Retail prices of onion andtomatoes have been ruling highin the country due to supplyconstraints. Tomato pricesreached up to �80 per kg whileonion was costing �60 per kglast week. The representatives

briefed the group about theprevailing scenario with respectto essential food items.

"It was informed by repre-sentatives of agriculture sectorthat arrivals of Kharif onionshave started and prices havesince shown stable to decliningtrend." The group decided thatappropriate policy interven-tions might be recommendedat the appropriate time to aug-ment availability of pulsesacross the nation.

"All the Chief Secretarieswill be advised again to holdregular meetings with whole-salers, traders, importers,exporters etc. Of onions, puls-es, edible oils & oilseeds etc atstate and district levels espe-cially during the festive seasonup to December, 2019," thestatement said.

The Committee of Police ofNCR States should hold regu-lar meetings under the chair-manship of a senior DelhiPolice officer to keep watch onhoarding of stock by the tradersnear the State borders of Delhiand take suitable action againstthem.

(��� �342356#

The abrogation of specialstatus to Jammu & Kashmir

under Article 370 is a "decisivebattle" waged by the NarendraModi Government to end yearsof Pakistan-sponsored proxywar and terrorism, and it willbring long-lasting peace inJammu & Kashmir, UnionHome Minister Amit Shah saidat an event of counter-terrorbody NSG's garrison atManesar (Gurugram).

Speaking at the 35thRaising Day celebrations ofNSG as the Chief Guest here,Shah said the recent decision torepeal special provisions in J &K will help "completely eradi-cate" Pakistan-supported ter-rorism from the KashmirValley.

The Minister asserted thathis government is firm on thepolicy of "zero tolerance" onterrorism and to defeat all itsforms.

The National SecurityGuard (NSG) is an importantinstrument to achieve this goal,he said.

"I believe that with theabrogation of Article 370 byPM Narendra Modi, we haveinitiated a decisive battleagainst years of proxy war andterror acts perpetrated by ourneighbour (Pakistan) and thisstep will ensure long-lastingpeace in Kashmir and theregion," Shah said.

India has been facing ter-rorism for many years andthere would be very few coun-tries across the globe who havewaged such a long battle againstterrorism. Terrorism is a curseon any civilised society and thebiggest impediment to devel-opment, he said.

"Hence our Government isfirm on continuing the zero tol-erance policy on terrorism andensuring victory on terroralways," Shah added.

The recent big step ofrepealing Article 370 taken byModi is aimed at completelyeradicating terrorism fromKashmir and to safeguard thecountry from this scourge,Shah said.

Shah also lauded the elitecommando force saying it hasimpressed the world with itscapability to counter any terrorattack as he recounted its stel-lar operations at Akshardhamtemple in Gujarat and the26/11 attacks in Mumbai in2008.

"This inspires confidencein the minds of the citizens thatthey are in safe hands," headded.

��������8!����� �342356#

Indian Scientists have warnedthat a Jamun berries and

seed-eater wasp, scientificallyknown as ‘A. kerrichi’ is fastspreading its wings, threaten-ing to inflict losses on Jamuntree growers.

Commonly found, ever-green Jamun is an economi-cally important tree in India,which also has medicinalproperties. Its berries andseeds are much sought afterfor their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbialand free-radical-scavengingproperties.

However, the tiny but apotential pest of Jamun, A ker-richi, an eulohid seed borerwhich was reported from theagricultural fields in Pune wayback in 1957, has been recent-ly found seriously damagingthe berries in Jamun trees (SCumini) in fields inKarnataka's rural Bangalurutoo.

The result of the studyconducted by the scientistsfrom ICAR-Indian Institute ofHorticultural Research, coun-try's leading institute inBangaluru is published in thelatest journal of the Current

Science.The scientists have called

for spraying botanical pesti-cides as heavy infestation ofjamun fruits by the wasp ren-ders the berries unmarketableand hence loss to the farmers

The authors of the studynoted that A kerrichi was ini-tially reported from Pune,Maharashtra in 1957. "Besidesthis, no reports that highlightthe economic importance andnature of damage of thiseulophid seed borer in Jamunare available, possibly due to itslimited distribution/occurrenceand pestilence.

"However, in the recentpast, several incidences of Akerrichi attacking S. cuminifruits causing extensive croploss have been noticed in farm-ers' fields in rural Bengaluru,"says the study that providesexperimental details of thecritical fruit stages that aresusceptible to the pest for plan-ning management interventions.

"In Jamun both whole fruitas well as seed are economicallyimportant. Considering thevast damage it can cause andthe ability to build up in hugenumbers (85 per fruit) in over-

lapping generations, A ker-richi can become a major prob-lem to Jamun growers. Further,larval feeding affects seed via-bility and rate of germination.As the critical stage for infes-tation is G2, application ofsafe botanical pesticides at thisstage may help reduce seedborer infestation," said the scientists.

They had randomly col-lected A kerrichi infestedjamun fruits in different developmental stages from theinfested trees. The collectedfruits were separated into fivegroups, namely G1-G5 basedon their size, colour and hard-ness. Observations on fruitdiameter, length, mesocarpthickness and seed diameterfrom all the phenological stages(G1-G5) were made andrecorded daily.

It was noted that heavyinfestation of jamun fruits by Akerrichi had rendered the fruitsunmarketable.

The scientists included P DKamala Jayanthi, BR JayanthiMala and AnjanaSubramoniam(Division ofEntomology and Nematology)and A Rekha (Division of Fruit Crops) from theBangaluru based institute.

(��� �342356#

The Indian Council ofAgricultural Research

(ICAR) has developed diag-nostic kits to detect and control'Japanese Encephalitis' (JE)and 'bluetongue' diseases inanimals. These diagnostic kitshave been developed by theIndian Veterinary ResearchInstitute (IVRI) under theICAR. Japanese Encephalitisvirus spreads from pig tohuman.

Talking about JE ELISA kitfor swine, ICAR DirectorGeneral Trilochan Mohapatra,said JE is a re-emerging viralzoonotic disease leading todeath of children every year inthe country." India is import-ing one diagnostic kit for thisvirus at Rs 1,200-1500. Now,ICAR-IVRI have developedthis kit for just Rs 180-200,"Mohapatra said. Earlier thisyear, more than 100 childrendied in Bihar's Muzaffarpurdue to an outbreak of acute encephalitis syndrome(AES).

This diagnostic kit has

been developed as per the 100-day programme of the premi-um research institute, the DGsaid.

The government and ICARwould now work towards mak-ing this kit available in villageand block levels, he said.

Talking about the secondkit to diagnose 'bluetongue',Mohapatra said the disease isfound in cattle and goats and iseven cause of death of theseanimals.

"We are the first country inthe world to develop a diag-nostic kit for bluetongue dis-ease," he said, adding that it canalso provide export opportu-nities in long-term.

Mohapatra, who is alsothe secretary of Department ofAgricultural Research andEducation, said the two kitswould help in controlling thesediseases at very early stageand prevent them from spreading.

The disease is widespreadamong sheep, goats, cattle, buf-faloes and camels in the coun-try and is even cause of deathof these animals.

New Delhi: The SupremeCourt on Tuesday quashed theDelhi High Court's interimorder restraining the IncomeTax (IT) department from tak-ing any action against VVIPchopper scam accused GautamKhaitan, against whom a sep-arate black money launderingcase has been lodged, saying itwas "not sustainable in law".

The apex court set aside theMay 16 order of the high courtwhich had also said that theblack money law cannot beallowed to operate with retro-spective effect from July 1, 2015.

A three-judge bench head-ed by Justice Arun Mishraasked the high court to decidethe petition pending before iton its own merits and unin-fluenced by the observations ofthe top court.

The bench, also comprisingjustices M R Shah and B RGavai, said that the scheme ofthe Black Money Act is to"provide stringent measures forcurbing the menace of blackmoney" and various offenceshave been defined and stringentpunishments have been pro-

vided under the law."It would further be rele-

vant to note that sub--section(3) of section 1 of the BlackMoney Act, itself provides thatsave as otherwise provided inthis Act, it shall come into forceon 1st day of July, 2015. A con-joint reading of the various pro-visions would reveal that theassessing officer can chargethe taxes only from the assess-ment year commencing on orafter April 1, 2016. However,the value of the said asset hasto be as per its valuation in theprevious year," the bench notedin its 13-page verdict.

"As such, we find that thehigh court was not right inholding that, by the notifica-tion/order impugned beforeit, the penal provisions weremade retrospectively applica-ble," the bench said.

It noted that the BlackMoney (Undisclosed ForeignIncome and Assets) andImposition of Tax Act, 2015was passed by the Parliamenton May 11, 2015 and it hadreceived Presidential assent onMay 26, 2015. PTI

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ACongress delegation onTuesday met Chief

Election Commissioner SunilArora and raised the issue ofincome tax raids on some of itsemployees last week. Theyalleged that the tax departmentis behaving like a "departmentof BJP".

The delegation comprisingformer ministers AnandSharma, Kapil Sibal, ManishTiwari and Pranav Jha allegedthat the party was prevented touse its designated bank accountto fund its candidates in theassembly polls in Maharashtraand Haryana. The Congressleaders alleged that the CentralBoard of Direct Taxes (CBDT)officials raiding the oppositionacross the country withoutdocument and warrants.

After the meeting,Congress leader Kapil Sibalsaid "The position is such thatpeople of CBDT have been sit-ting at the homes of ouremployees from Friday toSunday. There is no warrantand no papers. What is this?We know that they are misus-ing ED and other agencies. Ifthis is not an attack on democ-racy then what is it?" TheCongress has demanded to thepoll body to intervene in thematter as their account havebeen paralysed.

"The Congress is required

to transfer, whatever funds ithas, to its candidates inMaharashtra and in Haryana,in their designated bankaccounts by cheque, that iswhat the elections require andwe have been prevented fromdoing that and that is illegali-ty and we have conveyed to theEC that they should inter-vene," Sibal said.

The Congress leader saidthat they have seen it happen-ing in the last elections, it ishappening now brazenly. "Indiacannot be converted into a statewhere democracy is under per-petual seize and the Tax depart-ment of the Government can-not become a department ofthe ruling party, the BJP," Sibaladded.

Party leader AnandSharma said "They have (EC)has the constitutional mandateto ensure free and fair elections.There cannot be targeting usingand abusing. For three daysCongress party's accounts sec-tion was totally paralysed.Whatever meagre funds theCongress party has at its dis-posal considering the BJP is theworld's richest political party."

New Delhi: Army Chief GenBipin Rawat on Tuesdaypitched for greater inclusion ofindigenous technology in thearmed forces and asserted thatIndia will fight and win thenext war with home-grownsolutions.

In his address at the 41stDRDO Directors Conference,he also said the development ofweaponry and other systemsshould be done keeping "futurewarfare" in mind."And, if weare looking at contours of futurewarfare, it may not necessarilybe contact warfare. So, there isrealm of non-contact warfare.We need to start looking atdevelopment of cyberspace,space, laser, electronic warfareand robotics. And, along withthat Artificial Intelligence (AI),"Rawat said."And, if we do notstart thinking on it now, it willbe too late," he said.He praisedthe Defence Research andDevelopment Organisation(DRDO) for its achievements inthe last few decades and saidIndia is making great strides inresearch and development. "Weare confident the services willgreatly benefit from it," he said.

"India is one of the largestimporters of weapons andammunition, and after 70 yearsof Independence, it is not a veryproud statement to make. But inthe past few years, it is changing.DRDO is striving to ensure ourrequirements of services are metwith home-grown solutions,"Rawat said. PTI

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Page 3: ˘ ˇ ˘ˆ · Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI. Citing his attempts to ... Chidambaram should not be given bail. Justice R Banumathi headed Bench will resume hearing on this petition

RAIPUR | WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 16, 2019chhattisgarh 03

STAFF REPORTER n RAIPUR

After a gap of 20 years,corporators have once

again been empowered inurban bodies to elect theirmayors and chairpersons. Thecabinet sub-committeeconstituted by the stategovernment to recommendabout the same has decided onTuesday to amend the existingrules in urban bodies act topave the way for the indirectelections of mayors andchairpersons of civic bodies.

Recently, neighbouringMadhya Pradesh too had takenthe same step to go for indirectelections for mayor andcfhairpersons of unban bodies.

The existing rule of

electing directly the mayor andchairperson was prevailing inChhattisgarh since 1999 whenthe state was part of undivided

Madhya Pradesh. The urbanbodies’ elections in the state areslated to be held in the monthof January next year.

Members of the sub-com-mittee include UrbanAdministration minister ShivKumar Daharia, ministers

Mohammad Akbar andRavindra Chaubey.

After the meeting of thecommittee members whilebriefing media persons abouttheir decision, informed that adraft regarding necessaryamendment in the urban bod-ies act is already prepared andsoon it would be tabled beforethe meeting of state cabinet.

“The roster which hasalready been decided will befollowed and the elected leaderhad to fulfill that criterion ofreservation”, informed Daharia.

Minister Akbar claimedthat the decision of thecommittee will reduce theexpenditure on elections andruled out the possibility ofhorse trading of corporators.

Indirect elections forMayor, Chairperson posts

STAFF REPORTER nRAIPUR

In yet another feat forIndira Gandhi

Agriculture University(IGAU) Raipur, 12 agricul-ture science centres run bythe varsity have received ‘A’grading from IndianCouncil of AgriculturalResearch (ICAR).

“Eight agriculture sci-ence centres have received‘B’ grades and no centres inChhattisgarh run by theuniversity have been grad-ed C or D,” Public RelationOfficer (PRO) IGAU

Sanjay Naiyyar informed.These gradings have

covered only those sciencecentres that were opened in12th five-year plan, officialssaid while adding currently27 science centres are runby the university. Six ofthese were opened during13th five-years plan whichhave not been included inthe list, the officials stated.

IGAU agriculture sci-ence centres at Balrampur,Bastar, Dantewada,Dhamtari, Janjgir-Champa,Korea, Narayanpur,Raigarh, Rajnandgaon,Surajpur and Kanker dis-

trict were graded ‘A’ whilecentres in Bhatapara-BalodBazaar, Bijapur, Bilaspur,Durg, Gariaband, Jashpur,Korba and Mahasamundwere in ‘B’ grades.

The centres are ratedon the basis of work doneby them in past five years.The centres were evaluatedon the basis of infrastruc-ture, technical evaluationdissemination and train-ing, impact on primaryactivities and secondaryactivities. Vice ChancellorIGAU Dr SK Patil hascongratulated the centreson their achievement.

12 agri-science centresrun by IGAU get ‘A’ grade from ICAR

STAFF REPORTER n RAIPUR

The 46th Jawaharlal NehruNational Science,

Mathematics and EnvironmentExhibition for Children wasinaugurated by ChhattisgarhGovernor Anusuiya Uikey onTuesday at B.T.I. Campus,Shankar Nagar, Raipur.

The exhibition will beopen for viewing from 11.00AM to 5.00 PM from October15 to 20.

Around 127 science mod-els have been exhibited from27 states. The Chhattisgarhflagship programme ‘Narva,Gharuva, Ghurva aur Baari’(NGGB’s model is also on dis-play.

Government Girls HigherSecondary School Mungeli,class 11th students DeepanjaliNamdeo and Julie Sonkarmodel ‘Kabaad se Jugaad’(Garib Pump) is drawingattention as it generates elec-

tricity. The model is on ridingbicycle to pull water through apump and it also helps to gen-erate electricity.

Few other exhibits includesewerage system, disaster man-agement robot, robot whichcleans house, Chandigarhbased girls have developed‘Smart Spoon’ for Parkinsonpatients, Madhya Pradesh boyhas developed system to gener-ate biogas from coconut, woodpowder and leaves, making of

bricks from waste, Chandigarhboys developed ropes, paperand bag from banana plant andothers.

Governor and SchoolEducation Minister DrPremsai Tekam could see thehuman body’s internal struc-ture in detail through virtualreality kit and could feel it.Governor Uikey said seeinglive and working model ofhuman body gave a feel ofthrill and was amazing.

National Science exhibition commences

STAFF REPORTER nRAIPUR

As per the instructions ofChief Minister Bhupesh

Baghel, Block, District andState-level Youth Festival isbeing organised on the occa-sion of Swami VivekanandaJayanti, with the objective toprovide special opportunityand platform to youngsters toconnect with cultural activi-ties and polish their talents.

Block-level youth fest willbe organized from October 15to November 15, District-level youth festival will beheld from November 15 toDecember 15, and State-levelYouth Festival will be organ-ized in capital city Raipurfrom January 12-14. ChiefSecretary has issued necessary

guidelines to all the districtcollectors for successfullyorganising of these events.

Youth Festival will bebased on theme 'Gadbo NavaChhattisgarh', reflecting the

basic values of Indian cultureand cultural heritage ofChhattisgarh. Contestantssecuring first position inBlock-level youth festival willbe qualified to participate inDistrict-level youth festivaland the ones securing firstposition in district-levelyouth festival will be qualifiedto participate at State-levelYouth Festival.

District collectors havebeen directed to organizeyouth festival based on theopen-category competitionand ensure participation ofmaximum number of youth.Collectors have been directedto ensure compliance to theguidelines issued by Sportsand Youth WelfareDepartment- the nodaldepartment for Youth Festival.

State-level youth festfrom January 12 to 14

HC stays Khetan Committeeprobe against OP ChaudharyBILASPUR: High Court of Chhattisgarh, Bilaspur on Tuesday stayed a probe byKhetan Committee against bureaucrat turned politician O.P. Chaudhary for allegedland scam in Dantewada during his tenure as a district collector. Notable, Chaudharywas allegedly indulged in irregularity in exchange of land during his tenure as a districtcollector Dantewada. It was during BJP regime in 2016. After Bhupesh Baghelgovernment came to power, it ordered the probe under Commissioner of Enquiry Actagainst Chaudhary and handed over the probe to Indian Administrative Officer C.K.Khetan headed panel in May. Chaudhary challenged this decision in the high court.

Meanwhile, the court of Justice P. Sam Koshi on Tuesday restricted the probe byKhetan committee and had issued notice to the state government. Gary Mukhopadhyayand Vivek Sharma pleaded on behalf of Chaudhary in the High Court.

Hardcore Naxalgunned downSUKMA: A hardcore Naxal car-rying a cash reward of Rs 3 lakhon his head was gunned down bysecurity forces in an encounterthat happened in a forested patchof insurgency-hit Sukma district,police said here on Tuesday. Ajoint team of DRG, STF and dis-trict police from Puspal policestation had launched a searchoperation about 400 km south ofstate capital Raipur. The forceshad a faceoff with armed guerril-las in a forested hilly terrain nearTulsi Dongri village and bothsides engaged in gun battle,Deputy Inspector General(Naxal Ops) Sundarraj P said.“After intense gun fight Naxalsslipped in dense jungle. Whilesearching the area body of a manwas found who was identified asMahupadar LOS (local organis-ing squad) deputy commanderKosa,” the DIG said whileadding, a country-made pistol, alarge number of improvisedexplosive devices (IEDs) andother Naxal materials were alsoseized from the site.

STAFF REPORTER n RAIPUR

During the concluding two-daytraining session of Indian Forest

Service (IFS) on topic ‘Role ofForestry in Sustainable Developmentof People’ organised by State ForestResearch and Training Institute,Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, 22 IFSofficials from 14 states studied thestate government’s flagshipprogramme ‘Narva, Gharuva, Ghurvaaur Baari’ (NGGB).

The officers had arrived fromstates of Tamil Nadu, Tripura,Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Gujarat,Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, MadhyaPradesh, Assam, Uttrakhand,Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka andOdisha.

The workshop had differenttechnical sessions on forestry and alsohighlighted the innovations beingundertaken in the state.

Commissioner and secretary,MGNREGA T.S. Mahawar in hisaddressed spoke on role of the

forestry in human development.Chhattisgarh which has 44 percentforest has around 33 percent oftribal residing in them. The forest

produce and other products not onlyfulfill their daily needs but also asource of their livelihood. He briefedthe participant officials on

importance of innovative project likeNGGB and linking it with livelihoodof local residents.

Panel discussion was also held.

IFS officials from 14 states study NGGB

STAFF REPORTER n RAIPUR

The state Congress has hailedthe decision of the state

government to reinstate indirectelections of mayors andchairpersons in urban bodies ofthe state.

In a statement party’s stategeneral secretary and chairmancommunication wing ShaileshNitin Trivedi said when PrimeMinister and chief ministers inour country are elected byelected members of parliamentand MLAs respectively, whythen there is objection by theopposition over election of

mayors and chairpersons by theelected corporators.

Main opposition BJP verywell knows that it is going toregister a shameful defeat inurban bodies’ elections and thatwas why it is shouting foul play,

Trivedi said.Due to inability to fight in a

larger area because of expensiveelection process of mayor andchairpersons, small leaders andcommon worker lag behind incompetition, he said. Hence, anactive and energetic workerfinds it difficult to fight thedirect election of mayor andchairpersons, he added.

BJP, which is opposing themove of the government, shouldnot forget that the PrimeMinister Narendra Modi himselfhad been elected to the covetedpost by this indirect election, hesaid.

STAFF REPORTER nRAIPUR

Chhattisgarh BJP willhold a day long sit-in-

demonstration and protestunder the theme ‘SaveDemocracy’ near Motigabhon October 16 from 2.00 to5.00 PM against the pro-posed decision of the stategovernment to hold the civicbodies’ election indirectly.

After the protest, a dele-gation will hand over a mem-orandum regarding the pro-posed decision to Governorand urge not to give consentto the ordinance.

BJP leaders said thatCongress government fears itsfailure due to which instead ofdirect election of chairman or

Mayor, it is denying thepeople the right to elect chair-man or mayor of their civicbodies. So, BJP has decided toprotest it at every level.

Meanwhile, Leader ofOpposition and BJP leaderDharamlal Kaushik termedthe decision of the cabinetsub-committee as muddling

with democracy.Kaushik further said

instead of holding pollingthrough EVM, the Congressled government by use ofballot paper is conspiring topollute democracy as it canbe manipulated after thepolls. He alleged for theCongress democracy has novalue and is making allefforts to crush it for itspolitical gains. So, thepeople’s mandate will haveno value in such prevailingsituation, he claimed.

BJP leader said Congresshas got the feel before thecivic bodies’ election that itssupport among the people isweaning and so it’s takingundemocratic steps.

BJP to hold ‘Save Democracy’demonstration today

STAFF REPORTER nRAIPUR

Election Commission ofIndia has extended the

special revision of electoralroll with Electoral PhotoIdentity Card (EPIC)programme to November 18in Chhattisgarh.

The final publicationwill be on January 20. Thoseyouth who will attain 18years of age on January 1,2020 will also be eligible.Earlier, as per programmethe date was October 15,2019.

Chief Electoral Officer,Chhattisgarh Subrat Sahoo,while informing about therevised programme, said the

primary publication of theintegrated electoral roll willbe done on November 25,2019 after which the electorscan make the claims andobjections till December 24,2019. The claims andobjections thus received willbe resolved by January 10,2020 and the supplementaryelectoral roll will beprepared by January 17,2020. The final publicationof electoral roll will be doneon January 20, 2020.

Sahoo in a directive toall the district electoralofficers cum collectors haveurged them to implementthe programme of ElectionCommission as per theannounced schedules.

Special revision period ofelectoral roll extended

BJP fallaciouslyshouting foul playIndirect elections for Mayor, Chairpersons

Page 4: ˘ ˇ ˘ˆ · Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI. Citing his attempts to ... Chidambaram should not be given bail. Justice R Banumathi headed Bench will resume hearing on this petition

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Aweeklong training pro-gramme on Capacity

Building-Demand Based ShortTerm Course onEnvironmental Accounting onSEEA Framework was inau-gurated at IIFM on Tuesday.

The two day event is spon-sored by Directorate ofEconomics and Statistics,Government of HimachalPradesh, commencing fromTuesday will continue tillFriday at IIFM Bhopal.

The genesis of the pro-gramme begins with a requestreceived from Vinod Rana,Economic Advisor,Government of HimanchalPradesh to conduct a oneweek training programme forthe officials of State.

For this programme 15participants were nominated

by the Directorate ofEconomics and Statistics,.Govt. of Himachal Pradesh.Out of 15 participants 13 par-ticipants were registered in thisprogramme.

This training programmewas inaugurated today at IIFMand the occasion was gracedby Pankaj Srivastava, IFS,Director IIFM, Prof. CSRathore, Dean, Prof. SandeepTambe, Chairperson-MDPCell including ProgrammeDirectors, SP Singh, PradeepChaudhry, IFS, Asha Khanna

It was informed by theProgramme Director, this pro-gramme has two importantand integral course module.Course Module-1 deals withthe class room sessions con-sisting of wide dimension cov-ering various aspects ofEnvironmental Accounting onSEEA Framework.

Three days class room ses-sions would be conducted atIIFM and the Module-2 consists of two days FieldWork programme at WorldHeritage site, Sanchi and eco-tourism site at Halali dam and interaction with the villagers, assessing thecost benefit analysis of “gau-kasth” (conversion of cow dung into brikket) onmachine installed at AnarkaliGau-Shala to reduce the fuel-wood dependency fromforests.

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National InvestigationAgency (NIA) DG Jogesh

Chandra Modi has informedthat Bangladeshi nationals areinvolved in terrorism in Odishaand Assam.

The Pioneer published areport on January 11 this yearregarding the Bangladeshi infil-tration residing in the Paradiparea and their involvement incrime in slum areas of Paradipand Chanakana, Sandhakud,Bauriapalanda, Musadiha andUdaybata villages.

The Kendrapara police hadarrested five Bangladeshinationals for establishing aBangaladeshi radio station andmaking fake Indian currencynotes, besides running sexrackets at Gupti and Pitapatavillages in May 2012.

Given their track record, itis surprising to find that the

Paradip Refinery Project(IOCL) authority has permit-ted the Bangladeshi nationalsto stay permanently inside theplant boundary. Near Udaybatavillage the boundary wall hasbeen broken.

The Paradip Municipalityhas constructed a bridge for those inhabitants who are living inside the boundaryby illegally occupying IOCLland.

More than 30 families areliving this way. One inhabitantnamed Bhanu Amity told ThePioneer that his grandfathercame to Paradip fromBangladesh in 1976.

And since then, they have

been living atGhanagalia Salma,which is now inside theport’s prohibited area.His family was shifted toUdayabata village in2000 by allotment a plotby the PPT.

But he sold the plotto a business man. Later,he built a thached housewithout PPT permissionand stayed up to 2009.

Sources said thatunknown persons are

coming here and and stayingfor 1/2 weeks. They areinvolved in smuggling of nar-cotics and gambling.

A resident, Bhanu Maitytold that some unknown youthsare coming from unknownplaces and staying one or twoweeks and going out. Theyspeak in Bengali and Urdu.

The oil refinery is a highsecurity plant. Highly inflam-mable products are here. Buthow the plant authorities are giv-ing chance for illegal people tostay inside, many ask here,demanding that they must beindentified by local police andnecessary action be taken againstthem.

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Members of theOdisha State

Government Employees’C o o r d i n a t i o nCommittee has submit-ted a memorandum toChief Minister Naveen Patanikwith demands, including afive-per cent hike in their dearness allowance (DA) as inthe case of CentralGovernment staffs.

Committee presidentLingaraj Mohanty said, “TheCentral Government recentlyhas hiked the DA by five percent for its employees; and inline with this we have submit-ted a memorandum to the CMrequesting him to hike our DA

by five per cent.”The other

demands includereappointment ofretrenched, outsourc-ing, data entry andcontractual employ-ees working in differ-

ent department like WaterResources, Water Supply andAgricultural Research in thesame departments and intro-duction of a permanent pen-sion system.

Committee leadersBiswamohan Mahapatra,Srimati Sahu, Kahnu CharanMallick, Mahesh Patnaik,Laxmidhar Jena, Sefali Das,Sanghamitra Swain and BasantBehera were present at thePress meet.

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The month of Kartika is con-sidered to be the most aus-

picious time in the Odia cal-endar. In Kartika, also knownas the month of Damodar i.e.Krishna, some distinct annualrituals are observed. Here are afew of the practices thatHabisyalis (those who observethese rituals) adhere to.

Refraining from non-veg-etarian meals, onion-garlicdishes

Odia households areknown to make simple-cookedmeals, without using onionand garlic during this entiremonth. It is a custom in manyfamilies to avoid eating non-vegetarian dishes at this time ofthe year.

Chaura Puja ,AakasadeepaTraditionallywomen and widows wake uppre-dawn and bathe. They prayin front of the chaura (holy basilplanted in small podium or potin front houses) after makingcolourful rangolis using muru-ja around it. They then walkaround the chaura clockwise fornine times to pay respects to RaiDamodar (Radha-Krishna).

Akasadeepa is a lighteddeepa (earthen lamp) filled

with ghee, placed inside anearthen pot and pulled atop anerect pole using a pulley andfastened. It is lighted near thechaura during the evening andburns throughout the night.

Habisa DalmaHabisa dalma is a variant of

the iconic Odia dish, Dalmadevoid of oil, onion, garlic orany other garnishing, preparedespecially for the Habisyalisduring Kartika month. It iscooked using ghee, khambaaloo (elephant foot yam), kandamula (sweet potato), pumpkin,saaru (taro/colocasia), rawbanana, oou (elephant apple),grated coconut, grated gingerand moong dal.

Badabadua Daaka duringDiwali

One of the biggest Hindu

festivals, Diwali, is the occasionfor Odias to pay obeisance totheir ancestors. The ritual calledBadabadua Daka is held in themorning and continues till lateevening at ‘Bada Danda’ (thegrand road) of Puri and is alsoperformed at the villages.

Holding bunches of jutesticks (Kaunria Kathi) in hand,the people set these sticks afireto invoke their ancestors todescend from their heavenlyabode and visit the Earth tobless them.

The invocation processinvolves the chanting of prayer“Badabadua ho, andhaare aasa,aalua re jaa! (Oh hon’ble ances-tors, come in darkness and goback along the lighted path!)”.The eldest male member of thefamily chants these lines andthe other members follow suit.

Anla Nabami, Radha Padadarsana

As per tradition, RadhaPada darshan is observed everyyear on Sukla Nabami, alsoknown as Anla Nabami, in theholy month of Kartika.

This is the only day whenpeople get a chance to look atGoddess Radha’s feet inSakhigopal temple of Puri,which otherwise remains cov-ered throughout the year. It iscalled the ‘Odiani’ besa ofGoddess Radha. It is believedthat whoever witnesses the holyfeet gets Moksha (salvation).

On the occasion of AnlaNabami, anla (gooseberry) inthe form of fruit or juice isoffered to deities. Marriedwomen offer red bangles, ver-milion and sacred thread infront of anla trees for the well-being of their spouses.

PanchukaThe last five days of Kartika

month is called panchaka orpanchuka. For people whocould not follow the rites for anentire month, this is the time tofulfil the customs. Many peoplevisit Lord Jagannath temple inPuri to pay respects to LordVishnu at this time of the year,though many devotees (espe-cially widows) from all cornersof Odisha, flock to Puri andspend the entire duration ofKartika there.

Boita Bandana, Bali JatraBoita Bandanna is observed

on the Kartika Purnima thatmarks the end of the holymonth. It is a colourful andvibrant event that celebratesOdisha’s maritime glory andtrade relations with foreigncountries.

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Back in Haryana for the sec-ond day in a row, Prime

Minister Narendra Modi kepthis campaign pitch focused onnational security and took aswipe at Congress leaders, who,he said, were spreading‘rumours’ about theGovernment’s decision to scrapArticle 370.

He said, “The entire coun-try is standing with Jammu &Kashmir with this decision (toscrap Article 370). But someCongress leaders are spreadingrumours about this decision inthe country and abroad".

“Bangkok, Thailand,Vietnam… You (Congress) arefree to import abuses fromwherever you want, say whatyou want. But please, don’tbackstab India that is movingforward,” PM Modi said.

The Prime Minister did notexplicitly explain the referenceto the south-east Asian coun-tries. But it is seen a referenceto the buzz on social mediaabout Rahul Gandhi’s recenttrip abroad.

Modi also dared theCongress to announce that itwould bring back Article 370when it comes to power if itwas so convinced that the deci-sion to scrap the provisionwasn’t in public interest.

The PM who spoke aboutthe steps that his Governmenthad taken for ex-servicemenand defence personnel, toldfarmers that he had startedworking on stopping waterflowing into Pakistan thatrightfully belongs to the peopleof Haryana and Rajasthan. Hesaid India would not allow itswater to flow to Pakistan. "For70 years, the water whichbelongs to India and the farm-ers of Haryana flowed toPakistan. Modi will stop thiswater (from flowing intoPakistan) and bring to yourhouses," the Prime Ministersaid in an election meeting.

He said the farmers ofHaryana and Rajasthan havethe rights over the water that isflowing to Pakistan and was notbeing stopped by earlier IndianGovernments. "Modi aapkiladai ladega (Modi will fightyour battle)," he assured the

people at the rally.The Prime Minister said

that Chinese President XiJinping during their informalsummit in Mahabalipuram,told him that he had watchedthe Aamir Khan-starrer Dangal"which showcased excellentperformance of daughters ofIndia". "During my recentinformal summit with ChinesePresident Xi Jinping, he said tome that he had seen 'Dangal'which showcased excellent per-formance of daughters of India.I felt really proud of Haryanaon hearing this," he added.

Praising Chief MinisterManohar Lal Khattar, Modisaid: "'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao'campaign would not have beeneffective without the support ofHaryana villages." Playing anemotional card, the PrimeMinister said: "I don't come toHaryana for election rallies, Idon't campaign for the BJP inHaryana, I don't ask for votesin Haryana. Haryana itself callsme. I can't stop myself fromcoming here. You have givenme so much love."

Confident of his party’sreturn to the second consecu-tive term, the Prime Ministersaid the BJP was going to formthe Government again in theState. He said this Diwali shouldbe dedicated to "our daughters".

"We will have two types ofDiwali this time. A 'diya'(earthen lamp) Diwali, and a'kamal' (lotus) Diwali. Weshould dedicate this Diwali toour daughters and celebratetheir achievements."

"It's clear, the BJP hasdecided to serve Haryana

again, these people have decid-ed to let BJP serve them," headded. Haryana has been wit-nessing change due to a "dou-ble engine" of development,according to the PrimeMinister.

"The double engine ofModi in Delhi and ManoharLal Khattar in Haryana hasresulted in unprecedenteddevelopment of the State," hesaid.

In his speech in Thanesarhe said the Centre was makingall arrangements to celebratethe 550th birth anniversary ofGuru Nanak Dev, founder ofthe Sikh faith, across the world.

"The whole country is busywith the 550th birth anniver-sary celebrations of GuruNanak Dev and the Centre ismaking all arrangements to cel-ebrate this event across theworld," Modi said.

"I am happy that theKartarpur Corridor (project) isgoing to complete," he said,adding that his Governmenthad got the opportunity torectify, to some extent, the"political and strategic mis-take" that took place sevendecades ago. "I am hopeful thatParkash Purb will bring joy,"Modi said.

The corridor will connectDarbar Sahib in Pakistan'sKartarpur with Dera BabaNanak shrine in Gurdaspurdistrict in Punjab. It will facil-itate visa-free movement ofIndian pilgrims who will haveto just obtain a permit to visitKartarpur Sahib, which is locat-ed in Pakistan's Narowal dis-trict across the Ravi river.

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Rich tributes were paid byCongress workers to the

former President Dr APJ AbdulKalam on his birth anniversaryon Tuesday.

At Rajiv Bhawan the officeof State unit of Congress party,many leaders and workersassembled on the day andoffered flowers on the portraitof the former President.

The Congress leaderstermed Kalam as a great scien-tist and a great humanist.

The speakers on the occa-sion said the former PrimeMinister Indira Gandhi hadvisualised the potential in a 30-year-old Kalam when sheappointed him the director ofmissile programme of the country.

The Congress leaders whogarlanded Kalam’s pictureincluded Vice-President SuryaKant Dhasmana, spokespersonRP Raturi, Mahanagar PresidentLal Chand Sharma and others.

The activists of the YouthCongress, celebrated the birthanniversary of Kalam by dis-tribting cake and teaching mate-

rial to the students of the BalVanita Ashram located at TilakRoad here.

The national coordinator ofYouth Congress Sonu Hassanled the activists. The spokesper-son of the Youth CongressVikas Negi informed studentsabout life and achievements ofAPJ Abdul Kalam.

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The State Government hastaken the decision to pro-

vide facilities under theIndustrial Promotion Policyfor the establishment of eightnew industrial units and expan-sion of two industrial units inRaisen, Dhar and Damoh dis-tricts of the state. There will bea capital investment of Rs6013.90 crore in the statethrough these industrial units.Out of these units, two indus-trial units will be set up inRaisen district, three in Dhardistrict and one in Damohdistrict. Also, two industrialunits will be expanded inRaisen district.

Under the IndustrialPromotion Policy, aPharmaceuticals and HealthCare Protect Project is beingset up with a capital invest-ment of Rs 175 crore andPersonal Care Product Projectwith a capital investment ofRs 300 crore in Simrai villageof Gauharganj tehsil at Raisendistr ict . A Radial TyreManufacturing unit atPithampur Smart IndustrialPark in Dhar district with acapital investment of Rs. 1788crore 50 lakh, CementManufacturing project with acapital investment of Rs. 425crore 40 lakhs and a BayerRod Manufacturing Projectwith a fixed capital invest-ment of Rs 225 crore will beestablished at Karondia vil-lage. An integrated cementplant of 2.20 million tonnerper year capacity with a fixedcapital investment of Rs 1400

crore is being established inDamoh district. Apart fromthis, the existing unit of M/sProcter & Gamble HomeProducts Pvt. Ltd. is beingexpanded with a capitalinvestment of Rs 500 crore inRaisen district. Along withthis , a project is beingexpanded in Mandideep by M/ s HEG Ltd. with a capitalinvestment of Rs 1200 crores.

In the IndustrialPromotion Policy-2014 (asamended 2018), industrialunits will be provided incentiveassistance of 20 to 40 percenton fixed capital investment onbuildings, plants and machin-ery in the first phase. Theincentive assistance amountshall not exceed a maximum ofRs 200 crores. The benefit ofemployment and exportcounter will be obtained sepa-rately.

The industrial unit will beprovided electricity at the rateof Rs 5 per unit for 5 to 7 yearsfrom the date of starting com-mercial production. The bal-ance amount (if any) of theelectricity bill can be obtainedby the concerned power dis-tribution company fromMPIDC Exemption will also begiven for 7 to 10 years in elec-tricity charges.

On obtaining employmentin the industrial unit, nativeresidents of Madhya Pradeshwill be provided with trainingfacility in the allied courses ofNational Skills QualificationFramework by the Departmentof Technical Education, SkillDevelopment andEmployment.

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Istanbul: President RecepTayyip Erdogan said Tuesdaythat Turkey’s operation againstKurdish militants in northernSyria would not stop until“our objectives have beenachieved”.

Turkey is in the seventh

day of its assault against theSyrian Kurdish People’sProtection Units (YPG), whichit sees as a “terrorist” off-shootof Kurdish insurgents in itsown territory.

“God willing, we willquickly secure the region

stretching from Manbij to ourborder with Iraq and ensurethat, in the first stage, one mil-lion, and then two millionSyrian refugees return to theirhomes of their own free will,”Erdogan said in a televisedspeech in Baku, where he wasattending a regional confer-ence.

He said 1,000 square-kilo-metres of Syrian territory hadso far been “liberated from theseparatist terrorist organisa-tion”.

Turkey plans to establish asafe zone stretching acrossnorthern Syria, to which it canrepatriate many of the 3.6 mil-lion refugees that it is hostingfrom the Syrian conflict. AFP

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Washington: ProtestingTurkey’s military offensive innortheast Syria, US PresidentDonald Trump has announcedsanctions against Turkish offi-cials, raising of steel tariffsand ending negotiations on a$100 billion trade deal.

Trump has signed an exec-utive order that empowers hisadministration to slap sanc-tions on Turkey.

The treasury departmenthas already placed TurkishDefence Minister Hulusi Akar,Interior Minister SuleymanSoylu and Energy MinisterFatih Donmez on its sanctionslist, while Trump in a letter toSpeaker Nancy Pelosi of the USHouse of Representatives hasdeclared the Turkey issue anational emergency.

On Wednesday, Ankaralaunched a cross-border assaulton Kurdish fighters after the USdecided to withdraw troopsfrom Syria, a move criticised bythe Republicans, with someterming it a “betrayal” of theKurds.

“This (executive) order willenable the US to impose pow-erful additional sanctions onthose who may be involved inserious human rights abuses,obstructing a ceasefire, pre-venting displaced persons fromreturning home, forcibly repa-triating refugees or threateningthe peace, security or stabilityin Syria,” Trump said in astatement.

Turkey’s military offensiveis endangering civilians andthreatening peace, security andstability in the region, he said,adding that he has been per-fectly clear with his Turkishcounterpart that his action isprecipitating a humanitariancrisis and setting conditions forpossible war crimes. PTI

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Tal Tamr (Syria): Kurdishforces held out in a key bordertown Tuesday seven days intoa deadly Turkish invasion ofnortheastern Syria that hascaused mass displacement andreshaped the political map.

The United States slappedsanctions on its NATO ally in a bid to stop an assault that its own troop withdrawalfrom the area triggered butAnkara showed no sign ofrelenting.

Using a dense network oftunnels, berms and trenches,Kurdish fighters from theSyrian Democratic Forces(SDF) have been mounting adesperate defence of Ras al-Ain. AFP

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Beijing: China on Tuesdaycalled on Turkey to stop itsmilitary action in northernSyria and “return to thecorrect way of political resolution”, with Ankara’soperation against Kurdishmilitants in its seventh day.

Turkey launched anassault last week against the Syrian Kurdish People’sProtection Units (YPG),which it sees as a “terrorist” offshoot ofKurdish insurgents in itsown territory. AFP

!�����#���Q��'�-�������$������-��������� -�� Doha: Qatar defended its close

ally Turkey’s controversial oper-ation against Kurdish forces innorthern Syria on Tuesday, say-ing Ankara had acted against an“imminent threat”. Turkey hashelped Qatar weather the effectsof a two-year regional eco-nomic embargo led by Riyadhover claims of support for Iranand Islamist extremism, deniedby Doha. But Ankara has facedwidespread condemnation forits deadly incursion, with theUS imposing sanctions onprominent Turkish leaderswhile France and Germanyhave halted arms sales. AFP

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Kabul: Hundreds of peoplewere killed or wounded in vio-lence related to Afghanistan’srecent presidential election sea-son as the Taliban sought toundermine the democraticprocess, a UN agency said onTuesday.

The United NationsAssistance Mission inAfghanistan (UNAMA)reported that 85 people werekilled and another 373 wound-ed in election violence duringthe period from June 8 toSeptember 30.

On polling day alone, 28

civilians were killed and 249injured. Children accountedfor more than one-third of thevictims.

Despite the high toll,Afghan security forces saidelection day was a successbecause the Taliban failed topull off any large-scale attacksthat stole the headlines.

The majority of Talibanattacks involved the use ofrockets, grenades and mor-tars, as well as homemadebombs planted near pollingcentres, including schools, thereport found. AFP

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Human Rights Watchwarned European coun-

tries on Tuesday against trans-ferring foreign jihadist sus-pects from prisons in war-torn northeastern Syria to Iraq.

The New York-basedwatchdog expressed concernthat some countries with sig-nificant contingents of prison-ers in Syria were seeking tomove them across the border.

A Turkish invasion of areascontrolled by Kurdish forceshas sparked deep concern inEurope about the potential formass breakouts by members ofthe Islamic State group.

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Hong Kong: Hong Kong’sleader said on Tuesday that “it’stotally irresponsible andunfounded” to suggest thesemi-autonomous Chinese ter-ritory is becoming a policestate as her Government grap-ples with protests now in theirfifth month.

Carrie Lam has defendedHong Kong’s 30,000-strongpolice force, now widely detest-ed by protesters for its riot-con-trol methods and nearly 2,600arrests.

Responding to criticismfrom visiting US Senators, Lam

also said that she challengesevery politician to ask them-selves what they would do iffaced by the scale of violenceseen in Hong Kong.

The protests started in Juneover a contested extradition billthat would have allowed somecriminal suspects to be sent fortrial in mainland China andhave snowballed into an anti-government, anti-police andanti-China movement.

The protests have increas-ingly ended in violence betweenhardcore demonstrators andpolice. Police on Monday said

a homemade, remote-con-trolled bomb intended to “killor to harm” riot control officerswas detonated as they deployedagainst renewed violence inHong Kong over the weekend.Police say the device explodednot far from a police vehicle, butno one was injured.

An 18-year-old was toappear in court Tuesday facinga charge of intentional wound-ing for a slashing attack Sundaywith a sharp blade, described asa box cutter by Hong Kongmedia, that cut a police officer’sneck and severed a nerve. AP

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Luxembourg: EU Brexit nego-tiator Michel Barnier said onTuesday that a deal with Britaincould be reached this week, butwarned more tough talks are stillneeded.

British and EU officials areracing to reach a deal on Britain’sexit terms before a summit ofEU leaders starting on Thursday,as Prime Minister Boris Johnsonseeks to fulfil his vow to takeBritain out on October 31.

As he arrived inLuxembourg to brief the other27 EU states on the state of the

closed-door talks, Barnier strucka cautiously upbeat note.

“This work has been intenseall along the weekend and yes-terday because even if the agree-ment will be difficult — moreand more difficult to be frank —it’s still possible this week,”Barnier told reporters.

“Obviously any agreementmust work for everyone — thewhole of the United Kingdomand the whole of the EuropeanUnion. Let me add also that it ishigh time to turn good inten-tions into legal text.” AFP

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Jakarta: Indonesian policesaid they have arrested morethan two dozen suspectedmilitants after members of anetwork linked to theIslamic State (IS) group triedto assassinate a GovernmentMinister.

The world’s biggestMuslim majority nation ison high alert ahead ofPresident Joko Widodo’s sec-ond-term inauguration onSunday, with some 27,000troops expected to bedeployed in the capitalJakarta. AFP

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Page 6: ˘ ˇ ˘ˆ · Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI. Citing his attempts to ... Chidambaram should not be given bail. Justice R Banumathi headed Bench will resume hearing on this petition

Former Prime Minister of India IKGujral was one of the most schol-arly and well-read leaders we havehad. At a public function organisedby this writer, he mentioned that the

battle of Panipat took place at that locationonly because it was the southernmost loca-tion, which had an open area suitable forwarfare. According to him, right from theKhyber Pass to Panipat, the entire terrain washeavily forested where conventional warfareof that period was not possible.

A recent news report mentioned that theGovernment is planning to build a 1,400kilometre-long “great green wall” of India.If this project receives official sanction andis backed by innovative institutional arrange-ments for its implementation, it would marka remarkable step forward in greeningIndia because we, as a nation, have failed toseize the importance of greening our degrad-ed and deforested land.

The Green India mission was one of theeight key missions included in the NationalAction Plan on Climate Change. The pur-pose of this operation was to protect, enhanceand restore India’s decreasing forest cover andact on the growing extent of climate changethrough a combination of mitigation andadaptation measures. Unfortunately, the mis-sion has been grossly under-funded. Areport by the Parliamentary Committee, titled,‘Performance of the National Action Plan onClimate Change (NAPCC) pertaining toMinistry of Environment, Forest & ClimateChange (MoEFCC)’, quotes MoEFCC as stat-ing that the “budget allocation of �47.80 crorefor FY 2017-18 is grossly insufficient. Thecommitted liability of FY 2015-16 and 2016-17 is �89.53 crore, which is more than the bud-get allocation of FY 2017-18.”

Expansion of population and encroach-ments by humans on forest land and the habi-tat of other species have not only reduced for-est cover since independence but has also ledto poor forest density even in those areas,which are regarded as forest land. The pro-posed “green wall” of India is planned to estab-lish a green belt from Porbandar to Panipatand would help restore degraded landthrough afforestation, particularly along theAravalli hill range, which covers Gujarat,Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi.

It is well-known that the Aravallis havebeen heavily degraded in several areas, par-ticularly in Haryana, as a result of the nexusbetween politicians and the builders’ lobby.The establishment of the “green wall” wouldprovide an effective barrier for dust comingfrom the deserts in Western India andPakistan. It is now well-established that dustfrom deserts can travel large distances as hasbeen seen with dust from Saudi Arabia trav-elling to northern parts of Europe. This writerhas always advised officials in the Middle East,including a former Saudi Oil Minister,“Please convert your oil wealth to soil health.”

Recently, the Conference of the Parties(COP 14) of the United Nations Convention

to Combat Desertification(UNCCD) was held in India andas a follow-up to that event, Indiacan and should set an example forother countries that are threat-ened with desertification.

The UNCCD is an agree-ment to combat desertificationand mitigate the effects ofdrought, based on long-termstrategies and national pro-grammes, supported by interna-tional cooperation and partner-ship arrangements. It was in2006 that in order to gather sup-port for the convention, the UNdeclared that year as the“International Year of Desertsand Desertification.”

The convention has thus farbeen ratified by 190 States andthe European Union (EU).However, on March 28, 2013,Canada became the first coun-try to withdraw from it butreversed this arrangement onMarch 21, 2017.

In hosting COP14 of theconvention, India made a majorimpact on this expanding prob-lem in different countries of theworld. Prime Minister NarendraModi in his address to this con-ference stated: “I call upon theleadership of UNCCD to createa global water action agenda,which is central to land degra-dation neutrality strategy.”

The IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change (IPCC)recently published a specialreport on climate change, deser-tification, land degradation, sus-tainable land management, foodsecurity and greenhouse gas

fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.The report states, “The level ofrisk posed by climate changedepends both on the level ofwarming and on how population,consumption, production, tech-nological development and landmanagement patterns evolve.Pathways with higher demandfor food, feed and water, moreresource-intensive consumptionand production and more limit-ed technological improvementsin agriculture yields result inhigher risks from water scarcityin drylands, land degradation,and food insecurity.”

It further states: “Many activ-ities for combating desertificationcan contribute to climate changeadaptation with mitigation co-benefits as well as to halting bio-diversity loss with sustainabledevelopment co-benefits to soci-ety...Preventing desertification ispreferable to attempting to restoredegraded land due to the poten-tial for residual risks and mal-adaptive outcomes.”

The UN system, as is wide-ly known, is currently under-funded and is actually facing aserious crisis. For several yearsnow, there has been a growingrealisation that the UN systemneeds to be restructured andreformed, starting, of course,with the composition of thepermanent members of theSecurity Council, of which Indiashould have been admitted as amember years ago.

In the case of the UNFramework Convention onClimate Change (UNFCCC),

the Convention on BiologicalDiversity (CBD) and theUNCCD, there are distinct over-laps. Clearly, actions under oneconvention would have implica-tions for the other two. The dri-vers of change underlying thesethree conventions are common,namely the increase in humansociety’s ecological footprint asGandhiji had warned us aboutall his life. It is to be consideredwhether a comprehensive con-vention, which covers climatechange, loss of biodiversity anddesertification, may be far moreeffective than fragmentedactions being taken under eachof these conventions.

As far as India is con-cerned, the advance of deserti-fication has negative implica-tions for the country as a whole.To that extent, therefore, the“great green wall”, which isbeing considered, would be anexcellent initiative. However,just as in the case of acid rain inNorth America, which crossesnational boundaries and, there-fore, required a regional solu-tion, it would be important forSouth Asian nations to cooper-ate on activities, which involvesimilar initiatives in Pakistan,Afghanistan and Bangladeshas well. Given that naturerespects no political bound-aries, we need to promote com-mon solutions to problems thatare regional in nature. Terrorismshould give way to terra-ism.

(The writer is former chair-man, Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change, 2002-15)

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Sir — A large number of climatestrikes have recently eruptedaround the world, directing atten-tion to issues such as climatechange and global warming. It isalso interesting to note that manyindigenous tribes have been pray-ing for the protection of theAmazon rainforest as thousands ofwildfires continue to destroy it.People often turn to prayer in dif-ficult times. Such prayers notonly lead to positive results butalso strengthen relationshipsamong people. The prayers for theAmazon and the protests haveattracted the attention of the glob-al population. One hopes that suchadmirable activities continue toinspire people around the world.

P SenthilVia email

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Sir — Economists have foreverbeen negotiating between thetwin poles of wealth and pover-ty. In 1776, Adam Smith postu-lated that the existence of eco-nomic prosperity, more than thepersistence of poverty, must be

paid attention to. An eon wasspent on identifying the condi-tions necessary for wealth cre-ation. Then an era was spent onthe distribution of incomebetween capital and labour.

Finally, Nobel Prize-winningeconomist Angus Deaton delvedinto the cause, spread and mea-surement of poverty. But lookslike Indian-American economistAbhijit Banerjee has analysed

the problem with poverty with anexperimental approach. The ran-domised controlled field trials(RCTs) adopted by him hashelped find out what works andwhat doesn’t to fight poverty.

The traditional way of measur-ing wealth on account of the coun-try’s Gross Domestic Product(GDP) is misleading. It probablyfurther skews the distribution ofwealth and accentuates income dis-

parity. We have journeyed longfrom exploring the creation ofwealth to the distribution of incometo now Nobel prize winner AbhijitBanerjee’s treatise on poverty.

Strangely, it is seen that deep-er the democratic mores, as it is inthe US, the sharper has been theturn to the right wing ideology ofwealth inequality. It may takeages for the socio-economists,much less the Governments, to

move away from a trite GDP toeven grasp the concept of creationand distribution of happiness.

R Narayanan Navi Mumbai

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Sir — This refers to the editorial,“Bangla pride” (October 15). Theappointment of former cricketteam captain Sourav Ganguly asthe head of the Board of Controlfor Cricket in India (BCCI) is wel-come. In fact, he may just be theperson the cricket administrationneeds right now to set thingsright. It’s good to learn that on hispriority list are first class players,who are the foundation for astrong pool of talent for the nation-al team. Other issues like theabsence of an Indian umpire in theelite panel of ICC and reducing thegulf between women and men incricket should be given impor-tance. Ganguly must also ensurethat financial management in theBCCI becomes more transparent.He has his task cut out.

Bal GovindNoida

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Page 7: ˘ ˇ ˘ˆ · Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI. Citing his attempts to ... Chidambaram should not be given bail. Justice R Banumathi headed Bench will resume hearing on this petition

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’sannouncement on offering free publictransport to women has sparked off a

debate across the country about the financial per-formance and pricing of public transport. As citiesacross the world struggle to keep the Mass RapidTransit System (MRTS) and other modes of pub-lic transport financially viable, scholars and oper-ators alike are trying to arrive at an economical-ly sound formula for operations.

According to an estimate by the DelhiTransport Corporation and the Delhi Metro,women constitute around 30 to 35 per cent pas-sengers in both buses and the trains. This comesto about 14 lakh women per day on the busesand 800,000 women per day on the metro. TheDelhi Government is assuming that the schemewill see a rise of 50 per cent in female ridership,resulting in a decrease in the number of vehicleson the city’s roads and improved safety for thosevulnerable sections who cannot afford publictransport otherwise.

Impact studies in cities that have experiment-ed with a free public transport policy indicate tan-gible benefits such as higher ridership, less traf-fic congestion, better air quality, savings on print-ing, ticket-punching technology and the peopleengaged in ticket sales. Free public transportpromises intangible benefits, too, such as astronger democracy, higher citizen participation,better liveability and a vibrant economy.

However, it is easier said than done. Cities likeTallinn in Estonia and Châteauroux and Aubagnein France experimented with free public trans-port in the past and achieved positive results fora while. Sustaining the results beyond a few years,however, proved to be a problem. Also, while thecombined effect of free service and happier com-muters can significantly increase ridership, pub-lic transport can also experience a rebound effect,resulting in crowding and poor service quality dueto a large demand response. Such a response canresult in a higher tax burden for the transportagency.

The key to operating a free public transportis to identify alternate sources of revenue tofinance it. Sustaining a free transport policy in thelong-term, especially during times of economicvolatility, can be highly strenuous. The city ofChâteaurouxin, France could generate returns onpublic transport in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007.However, 2008 onwards, the returns declined. Thecity of Hasselt in Belgium had to wind up its freepublic transport policy after a few years as theGovernment could no longer support its financ-ing.

So, the big question is, can Indian cities affordfree transport for their citizens, given the burgeon-ing population of the country?

Cities in India face a severe shortage of pub-lic transport. City peripheries and low-incomeneighbourhoods often remain unserved and evenif a network of buses and local trains and so onexists, the frequency of service is low, renderingit ineffective. Free or otherwise, the absence ofpublic transport results in last-mile connectivi-ty problems for the poor. Addressing the inade-quacies of the country’s public transport networkwill require huge capital investments and consid-ering the amount of expenditure it entails, it could

be too much of a burden on the StateGovernments to then generate funds for operat-ing expenses.

However, the good news is that, though itappears impossible at present, there are solutionsworth exploring. Given that State Governmentsare finding it difficult to provide even partial sup-port in the form of subsidies and grants to pub-lic transport agencies, relying on budgetary sup-port to fund a free transport policy seems verydifficult at present. Running free public transportmay or may not be possible but every city musthave at least an affordable transport system. Thereare a few strategies for long-term funding andcost-cutting that could be explored for achievingthis.

Cross-utility subsidy: Although it’s not verypopular in the country, cross-utility financing isprevalent in many parts of the world, includingEurope and North America.

There are many ways to enforce a cross-util-ity subsidy like imposing a levy on utility use orcross-subsidising a loss-making utility by a prof-it-making one. The loss-making transport depart-ment of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply &Transport (BEST), for instance, was, for a longtime, cross-subsidised by revenues generated bythe profitable electricity department. If imple-mented in a prudent manner, cross-utility sub-sidy can offer a long-term solution for fundingpublic transport.

Targetted subsidy: Grants often fail to ben-efit the desired user groups. So, the solution liesin introducing selective subsidisation for careful-ly identified beneficiaries. It is a difficult thing topull off but one can take heart from the fact thatover 10 million customers in India gave up theirLiquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) subsidy inresponse to the Government’s plea. If people aremade aware about the purpose of a subsidy, therewill be many who will give it up if they don’trequire it. At any rate, the Government shouldexplore targetted subsidies to offer affordable pub-

lic transport to the needy and the vulnerable. Dedicated transport fund: Many experts

have emphasised the need to exempt public bustransport corporations from the motor vehicle tax.For many bus corporations, the operational loss-es are almost equal to what they pay as motor vehi-cle tax. While there is a sound rationale behindtaxing vehicles that generate huge negative exter-nalities like emissions and congestion, imposinga similar tax on public buses is draconian. On a“per passenger kilometre” basis, public transportis more efficient and causes lower emission andcongestion than private vehicles. Moreover, thetax gets directly passed on to the commuters aspart of the fares they pay. Foregoing the tax willalso make fares more affordable and improve thefinancial accessibility of public transport.

New performance indicators: There is alsoa need to develop new performance indicators forevaluating public transport corporations. Theseindicators must mainstream social and environ-mental goals. Currently, public transport opera-tions in the country are guided primarily by finan-cial parameters like earnings and cost-per-kilo-metre. Now, more emphasis needs to be placedon the intangible socio-economic benefits suchas time savings, improved productivity, lower con-gestion and improved livelihood opportunitiesthat public transport enables. Changing the waypublic transport corporations are assessed will alsochange the manner in which they operate and thegoals they prioritise in service delivery.

While financial performance is critical foroperating public transport, increasing the fare isnot the best solution. The approach to the prob-lem will change once it is realised that the objec-tive of operating public transport is not to gen-erate revenue but to offer affordable services tocitizens. The need of the hour is to find innova-tive solutions to make public transport affordablefor all.

(The writer is Area Convenor, Centre forSustainable Mobility, TERI)

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How would the late Sena chiefBal Thackeray have reacted tothe idea of his grandson

Aditya entering electoral politicswhen the Thackeray clan hadscrupulously kept out of it fordecades? He would have chuckled.

So far, the family has run a pow-erful political party in Maharashtrawithout contesting elections. Theyoungest Thackeray, Aditya breaksthat tradition in the forthcomingMaharashtra Assembly elections bycontesting from the Worli seat inMumbai.

Balasaheb had once told me hehad taken three decisions — hewould not contest elections, would

not write his autobiography andwould not take any Government postand he had stuck to them till the endof his life.

After the first Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party Government(BJP) was formed in 1995, Balasaheboften quipped that he ruled theState via “remote control.” Balasaheb’sson Uddhav Thackeray surprisinglynot only kept the party alive but alsofollowed the “remote control” poli-cy of his father.

However, the 29-year-old Adityais different in this sense and he rep-resents the aspirationalMaharashtrian youth. His image-makers are trying to project him asa suave, English-speaking Senaleader. Nine years ago, Balasahebhimself introduced his grandson tothe political world in October 2010and also named Aditya the head ofthe party’s newly-created youth wing.

The timing is perfect for theThackeray scion to make his electoraldebut, with the BJP-Sena alliancepoised to win the Assembly polls thismonth.

Aditya stated the obvious in aninterview recently, “I chose this elec-tion because I thought this was theright time.” There is a vacuum in theyouth leadership in Maharashtra,which he hopes to fill.

As a child, Aditya used to trav-el with his father and grandfather andbecame interested in politics fromthen on. “If you have to do some-thing good for society, politics is theway. I have been thinking of my jour-ney for the last five years. We did sev-eral agitations. How to serveMaharashtra better, Shiv Sena style?I have always thought that I shouldjoin my party legislators”, says Aditya.

Prior to this electoral contest, hehad undertaken a Jan Ashirwad

yatra in July to thank the voters forthe 2019 success but his real inten-tion was to gauge the public moodfor his own debut.

The young Thackeray repre-sents the changing political sce-nario and also the evolving cultureof the Sena. Much has changedsince the days of Balasaheb. Theparty’s clout in Maharashtra politicshas certainly diminished. Politics haschanged, the voters have changedand the Sena, too, has become ajunior partner in the coalition, ascompared to the earlier days ofdominating the Sena-BJP alliance.

Aditya is experimenting with adifferent kind of politics, trying tochange the old narrative. The Sena’simage has been that of a muscularpolitical party and he would have tochange this if he wants to succeed.The Sena is no more a rabble-rous-ing party.

In the past it used to launch agi-tations against the South Indians,Gujaratis, Biharis and Muslims.Today, in a bid to woo non-Maharashtrian voters, his campaign

has multi-lingual posters. He doesnot mention religion or Hindutvaand instead prefers to raise bread andbutter issues like employment anddevelopment.

He talks about the ban on plas-tic, beach cleaning and the environ-ment. Aditya is more cosmopolitan,modern and open to new-age elec-toral politics. He is accused of beingcomfortable with the Page 3 set buthe is also trying to appeal to the ordi-nary youth.

Second, Aditya is emulating hisgrandfather by building a baseamong the youth. The seniorThackeray had a devoted youth fol-lowing all his life. As long as he wasalive, every Vijayadasami day, thou-sands of youth had attended hismeeting at the Shivaji Park. Now,Aditya is targeting the millennial vot-ers. He is being projected as a sen-sitive, modern, young leader, who isflexible and open to new ideas.

Third, it was the family’s consid-ered decision to support Aditya’s elec-toral plunge. Bal Thackeray couldrun the Government through remote

control. Uddhav, too, managed to dothat but Aditya, encouraged by hismother Reshmi, believes that thedays of “remote control governance”are over and one needs to be in thesystem.

Above all, the Sena wants tostrengthen itself on the ground fear-ing that the BJP might subsume theparty. The family feels that thejunior Thackeray’s presence in thenext Cabinet would give them somecontrol.

Aditya is poised to win theWorli seat, if Dame Luck smiles athim, he might even become theDeputy Chief Minister. ThoughUddhav says now, “The first step inpolitics doesn’t mean that you haveto become the Chief Minister of theState. He has just entered politics, thisis just the beginning.” He would pushfor his son when the time comes.

Aditya wants to prove that he isnot just another son of a powerfulpolitical family but a grassrootsleader in his own right. TheAssembly contest will be his acid test.

(The writer is a senior journalist)

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Atotal of 408 people belonging to 88 displaced

Bru families staying in sixrelief camps of Tripura haveleft for their homelandMizoram since the repatriationexercise began on October 3,officials said on Tuesday.

A total of 4,447 Bru fam-ilies, lodged in the relief campsat Kanchanpur and Panisagarsub-divisions of North Tripuradistrict, are scheduled toreturn to the neighbouringstate from where they hadfled since 1997 following eth-nic clashes.

The Bru community, alsocalled Reangs, is among the 21scheduled tribes in the coun-try. They are scattered acrossAssam, Mizoram and Tripura.

Sub-divisional Magistrate

(SDM) of Kanchanpur,Abhedananda Baidya, said 235Bru people of 45 families havebeen repatriated.

His Panisagar counterpartN Darlong said 173 peoplebelonging to 43 families haveleft for Mizoram till date dur-ing the ninth round of repa-triation which is termed as the“final” one.

The repatriation is sched-uled to continue till November30. Mizoram officials said 22Bru families from various reliefcamps have been repatriatedon Monday.

The repatriation is beingcarried out though some Bruorganisations are against theexercise.

On October 4, postersopposing the repatriation anddemand for a separateautonomous district council

for the Bru community werefound in the relief camps.However, no untoward inci-dent was reported then.

Mizoram Bru IndigenousDemocratic Movement leaderPhillip Apeto had said theywere not satisfied with therehabilitation package and adistrict council for the Brus under the sixth scheduleof the constitution must becreated.

A memorandum submit-ted by three Bru organisa-tions to Mizoram HomeMinister Lalchamliana hadalso expressed apprehensionthat the Bru communitywould lose their identity if theyreturn to Mizoram in the pre-sent situation.

During the eighth roundof repatriation, the Ministry ofHome Affairs had warned that

the relief camps would beclosed down from Octoberone 2018 and free ration andmoney doled to the displacedfamilies would be discontin-ued.

However, that phase didnot bear much fruit.

While the MHA did stopthe free ration and cash dolefrom October one, 2018, theCentre restarted it apparentlydue to political reasons asMizoram assembly electionwas nearing.

The Centre has approved�350 crore for the ninth phaseof repatriation and the amountcovers transportation andrehabilitation package expens-es, which include �5,000 permonth for each resettled Brufamily in Mizoram and freeration for them fortwo years.

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In order to provide bettertravel opportunities to

passengers who travel dailyfrom neighbouring cities mainly to earn livelihood andeducation purposes theRailways has initiated nine new‘Sewa Services’ spread acrosseight States of India.

Minister of Railways PiyushGoyal, Union Minister ofPetroleum & Natural GasDharmendra Pradhan, UnionMinister for Health and FamilyWelfare Dr Harsh Vardhan,MoS Railway Suresh C Angadiand Meenakshi Lekhi, flaggedoff the inaugural run of Delhi— Shamli train service in a cer-emony held at New DelhiRailway station on Tuesday.

Indian Railways has alwaysstrived to provide convenientand comfortable service to itsusers.

To provide better travelopportunities to passengerswho have to travel to neighboring towns and citiesmainly for livelihood and edu-cation purposes the Railwayshas initiated nine new SewaServices spread across eightstates of India. These daily or sixdays a week short distance ser-vices will be a boon to the daily

passengers. According to the statement,

“Inaugural runs of train servicesin the other six states were alsoinitiated with the flagging off bythe dignitaries being receivedthrough video conferencing inthe respective venues.

Speaking on the occasionGoyal said that based on thehub and spoke concept thesetrains will provide better railconnectivity between smallerand satellite towns and impor-tant cities. “Railway is workingon how to be an effective engineof growth in the country. The

common passengers will great-ly benefit from these services,”he said.

He also shared thatRailways is not going to use any

new assets in these trains, withefficient planning and byenhancing operational capabilities the lie-over rakes oftrains are to be used for shortservices during the long stationed time between twoservices.

This will not only increasetrips but also earn revenuefrom the otherwise stationedcoaches, he added. Dr HarshVardhan appreciated the workbeing done in all areas with aspecial mention of the up-gra-dation of stations in theNational Capital Region.

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Twenty days after givingbirth to her first child, a 27

year young mother was killedin heavy mortar shelling inNoona Bandi area of Shahpuralong the Line of Control inPoonch on late Tuesday after-noon.

According to groundreports, “27-year-old ShamimAkhtar w/o Mohd Maqsoodwas standing in front of herkitchen when she was directlyhit by a mortar shell around3.45 p.m”. Due to impact of theblast, her head was reportedlyblown off, local villagers in theforward area, claimed.

Her 20-day-old son,miraculously escaped anygrievous injury, as she hadkept him on the floor inside thekitchen.

As heavy shelling contin-ued in the forward areas,another couple hailing fromQasba village of Poonch sectorreceived injuries and wasrushed to the nearby hospital.The injured were identified as

Mnzoor Hussain and NaseemaAkhtar.

Meanwhile, large numberof children remained strandedfor several hours inside a localschool (seminary) run by SainMiran Baksh Educational Trustin Shahpur area of Poonch.

In the wake of intenseshelling, which started earlyTuesday morning around 9.00a.m the children could not berescued. Local villagers andsome parents, later in the after-noon managed to organise twoambulances and ferried chil-dren from the forward area tosafer locations. “None of thechild received injuries duringheavy mortar shelling”,official

sources said.Defence PRO in

Jammu, Lt-ColDevender Anand said,“Pakistan army initi-ated ceasefire viola-tion in Qasba andKirni sectors at about9.30 a.m. by firingsmall arms and mor-tars”. He said, “theIndian Army retaliat-

ed befittingly”. Late afternoon, the Pak

Army also targeted forwardareas of Shahpur and Karmarain the forward areas forcing thelocal residents to stay indoors.

The local villagers ofShahpur—Upper and Lower,Gountrian and Islamabad inPoonch appealed to the districtauthorities to expedite work onbunkers in the area to ensuresafety of school going childrenand local villagers.

A Local villager, ShabirRathore claimed, “these vil-lagers were regularly targetedby the Pakistan army but so farwork on bunker constructionhas not started in the area”.

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Aw e e ka f t e r

much politi-cal hullabaloothe policehave finallyarrested amason forbrutally mur-dering aJiaganj schoolteacher, his pregnant wife and an eight-year-old son.

The mason called PratikBehera had killed the trio outof personal grudge whenvictim Bandhu Paul refused togive him a receipt of �24,000which he had taken from himfor some insurance policy, heisknown to have confessed tothe police.

“There was grudge andthere was a financial angle,”Murshidabad SP Mukesh saidadding the triple murder hadtaken place in a matter offive

minutes.Earlier the police had

claimed that the victim an RSSworker also dealt in some kindof chit fund business in whichhe used to acceptmonetary deposits from the

people. The mason was one of

such depositors who deposited�24,000 with him but failed toprocure any receipt for theamount.

When Paul refused toprovide with any receipt analtercation followed and themason killed the threesome.

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The National Conference(NC) on Tuesday

condemned the arrest of partypresident Farooq Abdullah’ssister and daughter during aprotest in Srinagar, saying suchmeasures would further alien-ate the people and delayrestoration of normalcy in thevalley.

It sought the immediaterevocation of detention ofpolitical leaders and commoncitizens, including Abdullah’skin.

The police on Tuesdayarrested half-a-dozen womenactivists during a march toprotest the abrogation of pro-visions of Article 370 andbifurcation of Jammu andKashmir into UnionTerritories.

Abdullah’s sister Suraiyaand his daughter Safiya, whowere leading a group of womenactivists, were first detainedand later arrested by the police.

The NC said such harshmeasures would further alien-ate the people and delayrestoration of normalcy in

Kashmir, which was reelingunder “fear psychosis and asense of insecurity” among thepeople.

“Being kin of former ChiefMinisters should not entailpolitical victimisation, leadingto curtailment of liberty andfreedom of movement andspeech,” senior NC leaders saidin a joint statement, issued

from party headquarters Sher-e-Kashmir Bhavan here.

The National Conferenceleaders expressed regret overthe continued detention ofpolitical leaders and commoncitizens, saying the situationhad touched the lowest depthsand even the liberty of relativesof those in public life was under severethreat. “The detention ofSuraiya Mattoo and SafiyaAbdullah Khan, respectivelysister and daughter of Abdullahand the aunt and sister ofOmar Abdullah, reflect thesad state of affairs the State isin for the past over 70 days,” thestatement said.

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The West BengalGovernment is working

for the empowerment ofrural women through var-ious self-help groups, ChiefMinister Mamata Banerjeesaid on Tuesday.

On the occasion of theInternational Day of RuralWomen, Banerjee referredto the success of the‘Anandadhara’ scheme aim-ing for poverty alleviationthrough social mobilisation.

The scheme, initiated in2012, is implemented by organ-ising women into self-helpgroups (SHG).

“Today is#InternationalDayofRuralWomen. Our Govt in #Bangla isworking for the empowermentof rural women through self-help groups. The schemeAnandadhara has been verysuccessful in this regard,”

Banerjee tweeted.“We also distribute animals

for rearing by them, ensuringtheir economic prosperity,” sheadded.

The International Day ofRural Women was firstobserved on October 15, 2008to recognise the critical roleand contribution of ruralwomen, in enhancing agricul-tural and rural development,improving food security anderadicating rural poverty.

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Rajasthan Deputy Chief Ministerand State Congress president

Sachin Pilot on Tuesday saidMandawa and Khinwsar Assemblybypolls will be the test of the workdone by his party Government andclaimed it will win both the seatswith “huge” margins.

The bypolls were necessitatedafter Khinwsar (Nagaur) MLAHanuman Beniwal and Mandava(Jhunjhunu) MLA Narendra Kumar(BJP) were elected to Lok Sabha inMay this year.

“The bypolls are the test of thework of the Government and we areprepared for that. We will win theseats with huge margin. When theCongress was in opposition for fiveyears, we won all bypolls and thistime, we are in the Government andthere is no reason for not winningthe bypolls,” Pilot told reporters here.

“The State Government’s firstand foremost priority is to make the

life of people better. We ought to dowhatever is possible to help peopleat personal, social and administra-tive level,” he said.

Pilot said it is important forevery public representative to stayconnected with people.

While Congress has fielded for-mer MLAs Rita Chaudhary inMandawa and Harendra Mirdha inKhimsar, the BJP has given ticket toSushila Sigra in Mandawa and iscontesting the bypolls in alliancewith MP Hanuman Beniwal’sRashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) onKhimsar where Beniwal’s brotherNarayan Beniwal is the alliancecandidate.

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The Uttar Pradesh Government is doingaway with 25,000 home guards, saying

the State cannot afford the new allowancesthe Supreme Court has asked it to pay.

The daily allowance for the homeguards is now �672, up from the �500before the court order in July.

The Government said this would havecost the State an extra expenditure of �10to �12 crore every month.

It, therefore, decided not to deployhome guards meant for security at policestations and traffic signals. The homeguards are not permanent employees andare recruited on a casual basis.

Officials said a large number weretaken on in April. The Supreme Court inJuly, however, meant a hike in the cost ofdeploying them.

According to an order issued byAdditional Director General (ADG) BPJogdand, “The decision not to deploy25,000 home guards was taken on August28 this year in a meeting chaired by theUttar Pradesh chief secretary.”

The home guards were deployedthrough a government order dated April

3.Home Guards do not have any fixed

monthly salary and are paid based on thenumber of days of duty. Till now they havebeen expected to work for 25 days but thegovernment decreased it to 15 days.

Uttar Pradesh Director General ofPolice OP Singh said this step has beentaken due to the extra financial burden onthe police department following theSupreme Court order and it is a temporaryone. “After the Supreme Court order, thepolice department would have had to bearthe extra burden of �10 to �12 crore permonth. This decision of not giving post-ings is a temporary one, and if and whenrequired they will be called for duty,” theDGP said.

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Former President APJ AbdulKalam was remembered

here on his 88th birth anniver-sary with the late scientist’sfamily and the district admin-istration paying tributes at hismemorial here.

The leader’s memorial atPekarumbu was dazzling withelectrical lights and floralarrangements, as there was asteady stream of visitors includ-ing school children who paidhomage to the former president.

Ramanathapuram districtcollector K Veera Raghava Raopaid floral tributes at thememorial while Kalam’s rela-tives led by his elder brother

Muthu MuhammadMeera Maraikkayarheld special prayers.

School childrenalso paid floral trib-utes and took apledge to followKalam’s ideals.

An AmericanIndians Association,

as part of honouring the lateleader’s services, presented aprize for Global Peace, whichwas handed over toMaraikkayar.

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Alleging that Central probeagencies have become

puppets in the BJP’s hands,Congress general secretary KCVenugopal said on Tuesdaythat these agencies were mis-used against party leadersahead of polls.

Venugopal was reacting tothe arrest of Congress MLA DK Shivakumar in a moneylaundering case by the Enforcement Directorate(ED).

“Whenever there are elec-tions round the corner, thedrama of I-T and ED raids arestaged. These agencies havebecome a puppet in the handsof BJP,” Venugopal toldreporters after a meeting withthe party’s election observersfor the December 5 rpt 5Assembly bypolls.

Opposition leader and for-mer Chief MinisterSiddaramaiah, state Congresspresident Dinesh Gundu Raoand senior party functionariesattended the meeting.

Elections are due in 15constituencies after the resig-nation and subsequent dis-qualification of 17 MLAs, com-prising 14 Congress MLAs andthree JD(S) MLAs.

Another Congress MLAand former Deputy ChiefMinister G Parameshwara isunder the Income Tax scanner for alleged irreg-ularities pertainingto medicalseats in the Siddharth Group ofInstitutions linked to him.

IT officials also recentlyraided Jalappa Group ofInstitutions related to Congressleader Jalappa’s son.

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Congress leader RahulGandhi on Tuesday called

Prime Minister Narendra Modia “loudspeaker” of certainindustrialists, and said his strategy was like that of a pick-pocket who diverts attention tosteal.

On campaign trail inVidarbha for October 21Maharashtra Assembly elec-tions, he also targeted the Modigovernment for “waiving” cor-porate tax.

Addressing a rally inYavatmal district, Gandhi saidthe Prime Minister speaks ofthe moon mission and abro-gation of Article 370 in Jammuand Kashmir, but is silent onissues such as farmers’ plightand lack of jobs.

“The Goods and ServicesTax (GST) and demonetisationbroke the back of small andmedium enterprises, farmers,labourers and poor people. As

long as the Modi Governmentis in power, the issue of joblessness will continue tohaunt the country. The prob-lem of joblessness will grow inthe next six months,” heclaimed.

Criticising theGovernment’s decision to“waive” (slash the rates of)corporate tax, Gandhi saidsuch benefits were extended tocertain industrialists, but not tothe poor.

The Congress leader alsoalleged that the UnionGovernment was planning toprivatise National assets such asports, coal mines, and publicsector units such as Air India.

“Modi is the loudspeaker of(industrialists) Adani andAmbani. Just like a pickpock-et, who diverts attention of peo-ple before stealing, his (Modi’s)only job is to divert your atten-tion so that he can pass yourmoney to a select few indus-trialists,” Gandhi said.

While the MahatmaGandhi National RuralEmployment Guarantee Act(MNREGA), Right to Food,land acquisition and laws fortribals were being amended,amendment to the GST act wasnot acceptable to theGovernment, he said.

“When the poor persongets money, he starts purchas-ing, when the demand increas-es, manufacturing gets a boost,”he said, adding that the NYAYminimum income scheme,proposed by the Congressbefore the

Lok Sabha elections, would

have jump-started the econo-my.

The annual budget ofMNREGA is �35,000 croreand the Modi Governmentcut corporate tax worth �1.25lakh crore in a single day,Gandhi said.

Referring to DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh’s Francevisit, he said the latter did apuja of the Rafale fighter jet(while taking symbolic deliv-ery of the first aircraft). “But�35,000 crore were stolen fromthe jet deal. The media will notwrite about this because it isbeing controlled by industrial-

ists. Your money is given to the

media so that they publiciseModi,” he alleged.

Maharashtra has theopportunity to solve all theseproblems by voting for theCongress and NCP, he said.

“We will install a govern-ment which will work for thepoor, farmers, labourers, andsmall and medium businesses,”he added. At a rally at Arvi inWardha district, Gandhiaccused the Modi Governmentof weakening all pro-poorschemes of the UPA regime,including the MNREGA, RTIAct, Right to Food and the landacquisition bill.”BJP made funof MNREGA which had givena boost to the economy,” hesaid.

The GST’s purpose was tofinish off small and mediumbusinesses, the Congress leaderclaimed.”Don’t let this happenin Maharashtra. Let’s stop thishere,” he said.

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The All India CongressCommittee women’s wing

president Sushmita Deb calledthe BJP manifesto released onTuesday for the MaharashtraAssembly polls as a repetitionof old promises.

Creation of one crore jobsin the next five years, providing houses for all by2022 and ushering in USD 1trillion economy are the keypromises made in the rulingBJP’s “sankalp patra”.

“It is a classic case of rep-etition of old promises. Thereason is simple. Promises of2014 remain unfulfilled. Thisexplains why after five years,BJP-Shiv Sena Governmenthas no concrete achievement toshowcase,” she said at a pressconference here.

Deb said agriculture sectorhad worsened, unemploymenthad risen sharply, crimes

against women had seen asevere spike and promise ofclean drinking water remainunfulfilled.

While the BJP-SenaGovernment promised dou-ble-digit growth in agricul-ture, the actual rate was a mea-gre 0.4 per cent, which had ledto eight farmers committingsuicide every day, she claimed. “The BJP’s manifestopromises one crore jobs overthe next five years. This is yetanother jumla given sharp risein unemployment which hastripled under this Government.In fact every third young per-son in urban areas is today job-less,” Deb said. She said 2000factories had shut down andMaharashtra was no longerthe preferred destination andlagged behind Uttar Pradeshand Jharkhand in ease of doingof business.

Crime against women wererising sharply, including a 300

per cent increase in cases ofabduction besides 11 rapes reg-istered every day, Deb stated,adding that the DevendraFadnavis government had notused a single rupee from theNirbhaya Fund.

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Nationalist Congress Party(NCP) MLC Ramrao

Wadkute and former partyMLA Bappu Pathare joinedthe BJP on Tuesday, ahead ofthe next week’s MaharashtraAssembly polls.

Wadkute, a prominentDhangar (shepherd) commu-nity leader from Marathwadaregion, was appointed memberof the Maharashtra Legislative Council in June2014 from the governor’squota.

He submitted his resigna-tion on Monday evening toLegislative Council ChairmanRamraje Nimbalkar who

immediately accepted it.Pathare is a former MLA fromPune.

Both Wadkute andPathare were inducted into theBJP in Mumbai on Tuesday inthe presence of the party’sworking president J P Nadda. Wadkute, a native ofParbhani district inMarathwada, was earlier chair-man of the PunyashlokAhilyadevi Sheli-MendhiVikas Mahamandal (Goat andSheep Rearing DevelopmentCorporation) before

being appointed as the MLC.

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AIMIM presidentAsaduddin Owaisi has said

Bharat is “not a Hindu Rashtra”and they will also not let itbecome so.

His comments came afterRSS chief Mohan Bhagwat lastweek said the Sangh is firm onits vision that “Bharat is aHindu Rashtra”.

Addressing an electionrally on Monday night inKalyan town of Maharashtra’sThane district for party candi-date Aiaz Moulavi, Owaisi said a section of soci-ety wants to paint the entirecountry in one colour, but “wesee Hindustan in multiplecolours, it is the beauty ofHindustan”.

“Bharat is not a HinduRashtra, and Inshallah, we willnot allow it to become so,” hesaid.

Alleging that the Shiv Senawas against the green colour, hesaid, “Change your spectaclesand you will see the greencolour in the National flagalso.”

He said Bharat is uniquebecause of itssecularism andpluralism. There is no othercountry in the world as Bharat and “we are proudof it”. “I want to tell those in theRSS that we are not living hereon your sympathy. If youwant to measure the index ofmy happiness or sorrow, youand we should see what theConstitution has given to us,”Owaisi said.

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Slamming the BJP for moot-ing Bharat Ratna award for

V D Savarkar, Communist Partyof India general secretary DRaja on Tuesday said the rulingparty may even propose thehonour for Mahatma Gandhi’skiller Nathuram Godse.

The election manifesto ofMaharashtra BJP, released onTuesday said the party will askthe NDA Government at theCentre to confer India’s high-est civilian award on VinayakDamodar Savarkar, popularlyknown as Veer Savarkar.

“This is biggest irony of ourtimes that while we are all cel-ebrating the birth centenary ofGandhiji, the BJP is seekingBharat Ratna to Savarkar, whowas an accused in his assassi-nation case,” Raja told PTI here.

“The day may not be far offfor BJP to demand Bharat Ratnato Gandhiji’s assassin NathuramGodse. This is part of theiragenda,” the CPI leader said.

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Opposition parties inMaharashtra have alleged

that some trees located on thecampus of Sir Parshuram (SP)College in Pune were choppedon Monday for Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s October 17rally, which will be held on thecollege ground.

The college authorities onTuesday denied the allegationsaying only certain brancheshanging dangerously were cutfor the safety of students whoplay there, which has nothingto do with the PM’s event.

NCP MP Vandana Chavanalleged some ‘subabul’ treesaround the ground, where therally will be held, were felled bythe college administration.

“As per the informationwith us, trees were cut from thestems which is unacceptable,”alleged Chavan.

She demanded stringentaction against those responsi-ble for the “cruel act”.

Maharashtra Navnirman

Sena (MNS) leader Rupali Patilalso said the trees were hacked.

“They have cut the treesbecause they believed that thetrees would prove hindrancefor the PM rally,” she claimed.

However, Pune BJP unitpresident Madhuri Misal, oneof the trustees of ShikshanPrasarak Mandali (SPM) whichruns the SP College, refuted theallegations saying chopping oftrees had no connection withthe PM’s programme.

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In what came as a snub to theShiv Sena, the Maharashtra

Swabhiman Party (MSP), head-ed by former Chief MinisterNarayan Rane, merged with theruling BJP, in the presence ofChief Minister DevendraFadnavis.

Undeterred by the stiffresistance from its ally ShivSena to the entry of Rane andhis two sons, the ruling BJPwent ahead and allowed theMSP’s merger with it at an elec-tion rally organised for SrRane’s son Nitesh and the BJPcandidate at KankavliAssembly constituency inSindhudurg district.

While Nitesh had joinedthe BJP and filed his nomination from his new partyearly this month, Sr Rane, hisanother son and former MPNilesh and their supporters formally enteredthe BJP.

Speaking at Nitesh’s cam-paign rally, Chief MinisterFadnavis heaped praise on SrRane saying: “Narayan Ranehas a special place inMaharashtra politics. He iswell-versed in many subjects.In way, he has been a part of theBJP ever since he went toRajya Sabha early last yearwith the BJP’s support”.

“All were waiting for this(merger) for a long time. It has

finally happened today. There is hardly any com-

petition here. The BJP willbenefit hugely with the Ranes’entry to the party,” Fadnavissaid.

Meanwhile, the Shiv Senaleadership has not taken kind-ly to the MSP’s merger with theBJP. Sena President UddhavThackeray, who will be campaigning in Kankavliand Savantwadi constituen-cies, is expected to spell out hisstand on the MSP’s merger withthe BJP. On its part, the

Sena – notwithstanding itsalliance with Sr Rane — has putup its candidate against NiteshRane. In ssence, the fight wouldbe between the Sena and BJP in

Kankavli constituency.Fadnavis said that Nitesh

would win the Assembly pollswith a thumping margin. He,however, advised Nitesh,known for his losing his coolon some pretext or the other, torestrain himself and learn toremain calm.

There had been specula-tion in the State political circlesthat he would join the BJPalong with his two son Niteshand Nilesh. His entry to the BJPwas being resisted by its ally Shiv Sena for a verylong.

He had earlier announcedthat he would join the BJP on October 2. Rane made anannouncement about merging

the MSP with the BJP, whilecampaigning for his party can-didate Rajan Teli. “The BJP isgetting strong in Konkanregion. My son Nitesh and hissupporters joined the BJP ear-lier. I will merge my party withthe BJP in the presence ofchief minister DevendraFadnavis on October 15,” hesaid.

Having been associatedwith the Shiv Sena since earlyseventies, Rane had emerged asa senior leader in the party andwas made the chief minister ofMaharashtra, a post he heldbetween February 1, 1999 andOctober 17, 1999 when theSena-BJP alliance was rulingthe State.

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In the gloomy global eco-nomic picture painted by

the International MonetaryFund (IMF), India retains itsrank as the world’s fastest-growing major economy, tyingwith China, with a projectedgrowth rate of 6.1 per cent forthe current fiscal year, despitean almost one per cent cut inthe forecast.

However, the IMF’s WorldEconomic Outlook (WEO)released on Tuesday projectedIndia’s economy to pick up andgrow by 7 per cent in the 2020fiscal year.

The WEO cut India’s

growth rate by 0.9 per centfrom the 7 per cent made inJuly and by 1.2 percent fromthe 7.3 per cent in April.

In contrast to the darkview of the economy withinIndia, when viewed globally,the nation’s picture seemsbrighter despite the cuts.

The world economy is pro-jected to grow only 3 per centthis year and 3.4 per cent nextyear amid a “synchronisedslowdown”, according to theWEO.

Explaining the cut ingrowth projection for India, theWEO said: “India’s economydecelerated further in the sec-ond quarter, held back by sec-

tor-specific weaknesses in theautomobile sector and realestate as well as lingeringuncertainty about the health ofnon-bank financial compa-nies.”

It added that “corporateand environmental regulatoryuncertainty” were other factorsthat weighed on demand.

IMF’s projected growthrate of 6.1 per cent for 2019-20is consistent with the IndianMonetary Policy Committee’sforecast.

About the international

scenario, IMF’s ChiefEconomist Gita Gopinathwrote in the foreword to theWEO: “The global economy isin a synchronized slowdown,with growth for 2019 down-graded again — to 3 per cent— its slowest pace since theglobal financial crisis (in 2007-08). This is a serious climbdown from 3.8 percent in 2017,when the world was in a syn-chronised upswing.”

WEO projected China’seconomic growth to slow downto 5.8 per cent next year.

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The global economy is in a“synchronised slowdown”

amidst growing trade barriersand heightened geopoliticaltensions, the IMF warned onTuesday as it downgraded the2019 growth rate to three percent, the slowest pace since theglobal financial crisis.

“This is a serious climb-down from 3.8 per cent in2017, when the world was in asynchronised upswing,” Indian-American Gita Gopinath, chiefeconomist of the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF) said in the foreword tothe latest World EconomicOutlook.

“With a synchronisedslowdown and uncertain recov-

ery, the global outlook remainsprecarious. At 3 per centgrowth, there is no room forpolicy mistakes and an urgentneed for policymakers to cooperatively deescalate tradeand geopolitical tensions,” she said.

Besides supporting growth,such actions can also helpcatalyse needed cooperativesolutions to improve the glob-al trading system, Gopinathsaid.

Released ahead of theannual meeting of the IMF andWorld Bank, Gopinath in theWorld Economic Outlook saidthat this subdued growth is aconsequence of rising tradebarriers; and elevated uncer-tainty surrounding trade andgeopolitics.

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The jewellery industry islooking at a dark Dhanteras

and Diwali as it expects sales todecline at least 30 per cent overlast year in spite of the ongo-ing price corrections.

The industry’s only hope isin falling prices, which hadscaled a record of �4,000 agram last month, to get betterfootfalls. Currently, the metal istrading at around �3,800 to agram.

In 2018, the industry man-aged to close with flat sales over2017 Diwali season.

“Gold prices have soared to�40,000 per 10 gram lastmonth, just in the beginning ofthe festival season and stillremains high. This has furtherdampened the already weakconsumer sentiment.

“But if prices continue tocorrect during this week theremay be some improvement inretail demand. However, theoverall business will still be 30percent lower than last year,”All-India Gem & JewelleryDomestic Council chairmanAnantha Padmanaban told PTIon Tuesday.

World Gold Council man-

aging director for IndiaSomasundaram PR said thisDiwali is not going to be veryshiny following very high pricesand already poor consumersentiment dented by the deep-ening all-round gloom in theeconomy with every key indi-cators contracting or plungingmonth after month for nearly

a year.“Buying is still happening

at the very high-end, but bulkof purchases, that is the low-to-mid range, are affected badly.Looking at the current trend wemay have to revise the overall2019 demand target, whichwas earlier predicted at 750-850tonne,” he said.

Somasundaram saidimports were much higherthan demand over severalquarters since Q1 of 2017, butJuly and August saw importsplunging 60 per cent, reflectingthe already weak trade sentiment.

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India’s exports remained inthe negative zone for the sec-

ond consecutive month inSeptember contracting by 6.57per cent to $26 billion mainlyon account of significant dip inshipments of petroleum, engi-neering, gems & jewellery andleather products.

Imports too declined by13.85 per cent to $36.89 billionin September, narrowing thetrade deficit to a seven-monthlow of $10.86 billion, accordingto the government datareleased on Friday.

Gold imports plunged62.49 per cent to $1.36 billionin the month. Imports during

the month slipped the mostafter August 2016, wheninbound shipments had con-tracted by 14 per cent. Thetrade deficit stood at $14.95 bil-lion in September 2018.

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A51-year-old city residentwhose deposit of over �90

lakh was stuck with the scam-hit PMC Bank died of a heartattack, hours after taking partin a protest by bank customerswho are seeking their moneyback.

Sanjay Gulati, the deceased,had lost his job at Jet Airwayswhen the airline was ground-ed in April, his famly said. Healso had a specially-abled childto support.

Gulati and his 80-year-oldfather CL Gulati participated in

the depositors’ protest in southMumbai on Monday morning.Later, while having a late lunchat his house in suburbanOshiwara, Sanjay collapsed,his family said.

He was rushed to a hospi-tal where he was declaredbrought dead. The cause ofdeath was given as cardiacarrest.

“He had lost his job recent-ly and was extremely stressedfor the last few days after thebank crisis. He feared we willnot get any of our moneyback,” wife Bindu Gulati toldreporters on Tuesday.

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Mumbai: India’s services exportsrose by 10.4 per cent to $18.24billion in August in the currentfinancial year, data from ReserveBank showed on Tuesday.

The services exports orreceipts were $16.53 billion inthe same month of 2018. PTI

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Page 11: ˘ ˇ ˘ˆ · Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI. Citing his attempts to ... Chidambaram should not be given bail. Justice R Banumathi headed Bench will resume hearing on this petition

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Even as Board of Control forCricket in India presidentdesignate Sourav Ganguly

returned to Kolkata amid a grandwelcome the former Cricket Indiacaptain said there was no politicsto be read into his getting nom-inated as the boss of Indiancricket.

Soon after landing at theNSI Airport the cricketing south-paw said, “there was no politicalpressure on me; neither is thereany political deal,” behind his get-ting the priced post. When askedas to whether he saw a shinningpolitical future ahead of himparticularly after the 2021 BengalAssembly elections, he remainednon-committal saying “there wasno talk with anyone on my polit-ical future.”

Incidentally hours beforebeing tipped off to be the firstcricketer to become a BCCI pres-ident Ganguly had a brief meet-ing with Home Minister AmitShah which many critic saw as aprelude to his becoming theBoard president.

On whether there was anyoffer from any political bench for

him he said “there is nothingwrong if any politician wantsgood people to join politics.There is nothing wrong if MrAmit Shah or Mamata Didi wantgood people to join their parties.”

On his future chemistry withBCCI secretary designate JayShah he said “Jay and I have beenvery good friends.

Both of us are young andboth of us have experience andboth of us want to do somethingfor the Indian cricket. So it willbe a great inning for both of us.There will not be lack of any

effort … whether I will be suc-cessful or not I can’t say but I cansay that I will work to the best ofmy capability for the cause ofIndian cricket.”

Dwelling on his priorities asthe BCCI chief he said “my firstpriority is the whole lot of firstclass cricketers. It is this pool ofcricketers from where the toppayers emerge. But the remaininglot of first class cricketers getsvery little for them. So it will bemy first priority to do somethingfor them. We will work collective-ly and change their lives.”

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Injured India opener SmritiMandhana has lost her

number one status after beingtoppled by New Zealand’sAmy Satterthwaite in the bat-ting chart of the latest ICCODI rankings.

Mandhana, who has 755points, slipped to the numbertwo spot after she missedIndia’s recently concludedODI series against SouthAfrica due to injury.

The 23-year-old suffereda fracture in her right toe afterbeing struck by a ball duringa net session before the startof the ODI series againstSouth Africa which India won3-0.

Among others batters,skipper Mithali Raj moveddown to the seventh spotwhile her Harmanpreet Kaurrose in the rankings to theoccupy the 17th place.

In the bowlers’ rankings,Jhulan Goswami, ShikhaPandey and Poonam Yadavmoved down to be placedsixth, eighth and ninth respec-tively.

Among the all-rounders,Deepti Sharma has moveddown to the third place whileShikha Pandey broke into thetop 10.

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The demoralising defeats atthe hands of India in the

first two Tests has forced SouthAfrican paceman KagisoRabada to think if his side canbe put under more pressure.

India’s top-order fired inunison to bury South Africaunder a mountain of runs inboth the Tests, where theyamassed 500 and 600 in the firstinnings in Visakhapatnam andPune.

“We’ve been put underimmense pressure. I don’t knowif we can be put more pressurethan that,” Rabada toldreporters.

The 24-old year old pace-man acknowledged that notonly Indian batsmen but theirbowlers also outsmarted them.

It’s been a long time whenSouth Africa took 20 wickets in

a Test match and Rabada, whois South Africa’s leading seam-er, only has four wickets fromtwo matches in this series.

“They got the ball toreverse and they bowled well asa collective. Their whole attackput pressure on us in every sin-gle aspect. Their spinnersbowled well and when the ballwas reversing their seamerscould exploit that. We didn’treally get the ball to reverse andthat’s a major weapon of ours,”he explained.

Rabada is hoping that thisphase will be over soon.

“It’s never nice to lose,especially in the manner we’relosing right now but we’regoing through a transition peri-od. Our team is fresh andyoung, so the best thing we cando is look at where we canimprove and remember ourstrengths and build on them.”

(���� 9��� 6#

Head coach-cum-chief selec-tor Misbah-ul-Haq is

extremely disappointed with theattitude of some Pakistani play-ers, who shy away from propertraining, lack discipline anddon’t adhere to professional stan-dards.

Pakistan recently suffered awhitewash against Sri Lanka inthe three-game T20I series athome and Misbah remains verydisappointed at the way the top-ranked side capitulated to SriLanka in front of home crowds.

“What has disturbed Misbahthe most in his first assignmentas head coach and the chiefselector is the reluctance of someplayers to follow directions of themanagement and do propertraining to keep high fitnessstandards,” one source said.

“He is unhappy that someplayers are just too relaxed andtake training lightly and are notworking on improving theircricket discipline. He has also notbeen encouraged by the attitudeof captain, Sarfaraz Ahmedwhom he feels shies away fromtaking responsibility when thechips are down.”

Another source said thatMisbah was surprised by thebehaviour of three senior play-ers — Wahab Riaz, Imad Wasim,and Haris Sohail.

“Several times he felt theywere making excuses to shyaway from training and propernets. He got the feeling they hadsome sort of excuse ready to goeasy on their training,” the sourcesaid.

“Batsman, Haris Sohail hasdeveloped a painful habit ofmaking excuses for having someniggling problem or pain whenasked to push himself in training.

“Another problem whichconfronts Misbah is that most ofthe players don’t appear to havethe cricket discipline to followand execute plans on the fieldwhich are discussed in the dress-ing room.”

The source said at one stageMisbah even felt that the deci-sion of former head coachMickey Arthur to keep left-armpacer Wahab Riaz out of theteam was understandable.

The long-serving formerPakistan captain is also notpleased that some players are alsonot displaying the required pro-fessional standards.

“Two players bluntlyinformed their team’s headcoaches that they would reachfor the National T20Championship matches inFaisalabad on the morning of thegames. When Misbah came toknow about this he told thehead coaches they should bemore firm with the players andensure they joined their provin-cial team a day before the match-es,” one source said.

Misbah is also surprised thatArthur and the ex-support staffdidn’t pay enough attention todeveloping proper batsmen in allformats and didn’t look beyondBabar Azam.

“It is not a very happy situ-ation now and one can expectMisbah to take some hard deci-sions as chief selector whileselecting the T20 and Test squadsfor the coming tour of Australia,”he said.

Zahid Mahmood, a leg-spin-ner who in the past has beenignored by the selectors andcoaches, is now under the consid-eration of Misbah who is not sat-isfied with the form of currentteam leggies, Yasir Shah andShadab Khan.

Similarly, Misbah is also onthe lookout for some new pacebowlers and youngster NaseemShah is under his scanner for theAustralian tour.

The source said it will also beinteresting to see whether Misbahsupports Sarfaraz Ahmed to con-tinue as a Test captain when theboard meets to decide on the cap-tains for the Australian tour.

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With the VIVO ProKabaddi League Season

Seven entering its penulti-mate phase, the semi-finals,all eyes are on the star athleteswho have pushed their teamstowards the coveted title.Defending championsBengaluru Bulls have rode onPawan Sehrawat’s raidingbrilliance all season but theywill be up against Leaguetoppers Dabang Delhi KC,who have with them anotherbrilliant talent in raiderNaveen Kumar. In the secondsemi-final, Bengal Warriorswill face an in-form UMumba side, who outclasseda strong Haryana Steelersunit in the Eliminators.

BATTLE OF RAIDERSFor most parts of this sea-

son, Pawan Sehrawat haslooked the best Kabaddi play-er in the country, and he hascarried that form into thecrucial, knockout stages ofthe competition. His 20-pointperformance was vital inBulls’ comeback victoryagainst UP Yoddha in theEliminators and the defend-ing champions will onceagain be reliant on the High-Flyer for the raid pointsagainst Delhi, especially withRohit Kumar still lookingtroubled by his back injury.Pawan has 328 points from 23matches this season, includ-ing 17 Super 10s, but theraider will be facing a famil-iar foe in Delhi’s left cornerRavinder Pahal. Interestingly,the ‘Hawk’ has a better head-to-head histor y againstPawan in duels (8-7), and willtake belief from NiteshKumar’s performances forUP against the raider fromthe same position.

At the other end, NaveenKumar will be keen to launchthe wrecking ball onto a leakyBulls’ defence. BarringMahender Singh, no defend-er looked convincing in theirgame against UP, and inNaveen they will be facing araider of another class. The19-year-old, a produce of the

Future Kabaddi Heroes(FKH) programme, has 19consecutive Super 10s thisseason (268 points from 21matches), and will be a forceto reckon with. With both theraiding departments lookingstrong, the match will mostlikely be won by the defence.

“WELL-BALANCED” SIDESBengal Warriors,

arguably, have been the mostcomplete side in Season 7,with their defence and attackfiring hand in hand. But theywill be facing a U Mumba,often called a defence-reliantteam, who have discovered anew dimension through twoyoung raiders — AbhishekSingh and Arjun Deshwal.The duo scored 32 points forthe Mumbai side in theirEliminator round, and with UMumba also peaking at theright time, the second semi-final will be a tactical warfare.Baldev Singh (averaging 2.59tackles per match) and RinkuNarwal have been in goodform for the Warriors andthey will be keen to make lifedifficult for Mumbai’s youngraiders. Maninder Singh’sinjury concerns will be aconcern for the Bengal teamthough, especial ly withMumbai corners of FazelAtrachali (top scoringdefender in season seven with

81 points so far) and SandeepNarwal in red-hot form. Butin K Prapanjan andMohammad Nabibakhsh, theWarriors have a great raidingunit to support Maninder.

The eliminator roundswere testimony to the factthat there can be no clearfavourites in a Kabaddimatch. Expect nothing shortof fireworks as the mostfiercely competed season ofVIVO PKL enters the finalstages.

The players had a takeon the semi-final match:

Talking about the semi-finals Pawan Hi-FlyerSehrawat, Captain ofBengaluru Bulls, said “It wasa great match yesterday, Ihave never played such a high

quality match. During myschool days I played a matchwhich ended in a draw andafter that I played a tied gamein the knockout stage yester-day and it was a great experi-ence to be part of it. I had losthope of winning but then ourcoach motivated me and wehad Rohit bhai's support alsothat kept me going. Therewere so many excitingmoments in the match that inthe end turned it turned inour favour. It was a completeteam effort. Our match withDabang Delhi KC is going tobe challenging, they are agood and balanced team withgood quality defenders andraiders and like the previousone it is going to be a closecall. A blockbuster of a Raid

Fest for sure!” Talking about the semi-

finals Fazel Sultan Atrachali,Captain of U Mumba, said“The last match with Haryanawas very difficult as Haryanahad played us very recentlyand they knew our gameplay.They had strategized accord-ingly to ensure the best result.However, it was a very impor-tant time for me because inthe last season, we qualified tothe playoffs and then could-nt go further so I wanted tonot repeat the same mistake.Yesterday's game was reallygood because we won such atough match so the team isvery motivated and confi-dent. We have strategizedfocusing on defence and whenwe have a controlled defencewe perform really well. EvenBengal Warriors has a gooddefence but I think we canovercome that. We need toconcentrate on team workand not depend on any oneplayer during the match,everyone has to support eachother and play as a unit.”

Talking about the semi-finals Joginder Narwal,Captain of Dabang Delhi,said “The season has beentough and the competitionduring the league stage ishigh. The team worked hardand emerged as table toppers,we wish to continue themomentum and give our bestduring the semi-finals. Wehave always taken one gameat a time and will do so evenfor our match againstBengaluru Bulls. Our aim is topick the cup this year, and weare working towards it.”

Talking about the semi-finals Nabibaksh, BengalWarriors, said “U Mumba putup a good game, they were onpoint with their defence andoffence. We are preparing forthe semi-finals and practicingrigorously to make sure wekeep the pressure on ouropponent from the begin-ning. The match against UMumba will be a neck-to-neck battle and we will giveour best to make sure weemerge victorious andadvance to the finals.”

��8���I� Phil Simmons hasreturned to take charge of theWest Indies three years afterbeing dismissed in controver-sial circumstances, CricketWest Indies has announced.

In a statement CWI said onMonday that Simmons wouldbe head coach for the next fouryears. He led the Windies to the2016 Twenty20 World Cupbefore being booted out amidtensions with his paymasters.

“Bringing Phil Simmonsback is not just righting a pastwrong, but I am confidentthat CWI has chosen the right

man for the job at the righttime,” said CWI presidentRicky Skerritt.

Former West Indies all-rounder Simmons, 56, wassacked in September 2016 for“differences in culture andstrategic approach” betweenwith the cricket hierarchydespite their remarkable T20World Cup triumph.

Simmons’ success in theT20 arena however was notmirrored in Test cricket.During his reign the WestIndies won only one of 14Tests. PTI

��(�� 20.�#

Ireland captain GaryWilson wants his side

to ensure they finish"right at the top again" inthe upcoming 2020 T20World Cup qualifyingtournament, but Nigeriaand Jersey are amongthose chasing a "dream"appearance on the glob-al stage.

Scotland are thehighest-ranked team inthe competition, with 14nations vying for sixplaces in the openinground of next year'sWorld T20 in Australia,where they would joinBangladesh and SriLanka in attempting toreach the 'Super 12s'.

Ireland are the onlyTest team having to gothrough qualifying,which starts on Friday inthe United ArabEmirates, and will beexpected to book a sixthstraight appearance inthe tournament.

"We are here to com-pete at the world stage,"said Irish skipper Wilson."We have a great recordin the Middle East andthe boys are looking for-ward to a great tourna-ment and ensure we fin-ish right at the top again."

The winners of eachgroup of seven will qual-ify automatically, withthe four remaining spotsto be decided in playoffs.

Scotland, 11th in theworld T20 rankings,claimed their first-everwin at a global ICC tour-nament in the 2016 edi-tion by beating HongKong, but will be lookingto put the pain of agonis-ingly missing out on the50-over World Cup ear-lier this year behindthem.

They had twochances to secure a placeduring last year's qualify-ing in Zimbabwe, butlost to Ireland before raincut short their tense runchase against two-timeworld champions theWest Indies.

"We know everyteam is dangerous in thiscompetition," saidScotland captain KyleCoetzer. "It is vitallyimportant not only for usas Scotland but for everyteam here."

JERSEY CHASING 'DREAM'The Netherlands,

who reached the 'Super10' round in 2014,Oman, Hong Kong andhosts the UAE will all beamong the favourites toqualify.

But the l ikes ofNigeria, Jersey andSingapore insist they arenot going to just makeup the numbers as theybid to give cricket aboost in their countries.

There was already ashock in the Asianregional qualifiers, withSingapore reaching thisstage ahead of Nepal, theworld's 13th-ranked out-fit.

Island team Jerseyare playing in their sec-ond consecutive qualifi-er, having fallen shortfour years ago despitesurprise victories overHong Kong and Nepal.

"For Jersey, it wouldprobably be the biggestthing that has happenedin our sporting history,"admitted captainCharles Perchard.

"It's a dream of oursto potentially play in aWorld Cup next year...

"We're a small island

and in a lot of sports wedo punch above ourweight, especially incricket and qualificationwould be massive forour country."

Nigeria havereached the final stage ofqualifying for the firsttime as cricket continuesto grow in the Africancountry, with their youthside booking a spot atnext year's Under-19World Cup in SouthAfrica.

"It would be a greatthing to be at the WorldCup. It would be a greathistory for Nigeria," saidtheir skipper AdemolaOnikoyi, after his teamtook the place ofZimbabwe followingtheir suspension by theICC.

"Our juniors will beat the World Cup nextyear in South Africa, sowe want to do that aswell."

Singapore, led byAmjad Mahboob, arealso debutants at thequalifying event, whileBermuda will be lookingto repeat the heroics oftheir side who famouslyreached the 2007 WorldCup.

The qualifiers getunderway on Friday,with Scotland facingSingapore in the openingGroup A game, whileIreland take on HongKong and the UAE playOman in Group B.

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Domestic cricket stalwart andformer India opener Wasim

Jaffer on Tuesday slammed the“unfit” pitches being used inVadodara for the Vijay HazareTrophy.

Jaffer took to Twitter to vent outhis frustration.

“Absolutely unfit pitches to playin ‘List A’ matches in Vadodara,” hewrote.

Later Jaffer, who is the highest-run scorer in Ranji Trophy, said thatthe pitch at the Motibaug ground was“close to being dangerous”.

“Yes, specially the pitch atMotibaug is close to being danger-ous. Two-three players were hit by aball and nobody is scoring more than150-160 runs.

“Our tournament was (sup-pose) to start on 24th (September)but then there was rain for two

weeks. So, I don’t know why theBaroda Cricket Association first of alltook up (the job) to host VijayHazare,” Jaffer said.

All the Group B matches havebeen played in Baroda and Jaffer’steam Vidarbha won only two of theirnine matches, losing four. Three oftheir games had no result. They arelanguishing at the 8th spot in theElite Group B standings and 13th inthe combined Group A and B stand-ings.

“And the matches we are playingon, if you look at the scores, you willget to know what kind of wickets weare playing on. In Bengaluru, Jaipurand Dehradun they are getting goodpitches to play (on), so its just feelsvery sad,” Jaffer said.

A senior member of theVidarbha’s coaching staff believesthat the match-referee should submita detailed report about the conditionof pitches to the BCCI.

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Former India captain SouravGanguly, who is set to be the

new BCCI president, wants theVirat Kohli-led national team toreverse the trend of losing theknock-out games in ICC events.

“India are a good team. Iknow they have not won a bigtournament. But they play well inbig tournaments except the semi-finals and the final. Hopefully,Virat can change it around. He isa champion player,” Gangulytold reporters here on Tuesday.

India have not won an ICCevent since the 2013 ChampionsTrophy. The team finished run-ner-up in the 2017 ChampionsTrophy final after losing toPakistan.

In the World Cup earlier thisyear, India were one of thefavourites to win the title butended up losing the semifinal toNew Zealand.

Page 12: ˘ ˇ ˘ˆ · Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI. Citing his attempts to ... Chidambaram should not be given bail. Justice R Banumathi headed Bench will resume hearing on this petition

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Ukraine beat Portugal 2-1 onMonday to clinch a place at Euro

2020 despite Cristiano Ronaldo scoringhis 700th career goal.

Roman Yaremchuk and AndriyYarmolenko put Ukraine two goals upafter 27 minutes.

Although Ronaldo scored his land-mark goal from the penalty spot in the72nd minute and Taras Stepanenko wassent off, Ukraine held on to secure firstplace in Group B.

Ukraine join already qualifiedPoland, Russia, Italy and Belgium at nextsummer’s finals, while second-placedPortugal, who are eight points behind

Ukraine, have Serbia just a point behindthem with two matches remaning afterthey beat Lithuania 2-1.

“There are days like these, when the

ball just doesn’t want to go in,” saidPortuguese midfielder Danilo. “Noneed to do the maths now: we just needto win the next two games to reach Euro2020.”

Yaremchuk pounced from closerange in the sixth minute. The centreforward reacted fastest after Rui Patriciodived to parry Serhiy Kryvtsov’s head-er from a corner, and poke the ballacross the line.

Yarmolenko added the second whenoutpaced the Portuguese defence to fin-ish a swift counter attack with a low,crisp first-time shot.

Portugal dominated the secondhalf and finally achieved a break-through when Stepanenko blocked ashot with his arm, receiving his march-ing orders before Ronaldo blasted homethe penalty to make it 700 goals for cluband country.

The goal was his 95th for Portugal.The 34-year-old is now just 14 goalsbehind the all-time international recordof 109 held by former Iran striker AliDaei.

While the exact number of goalsscored by some of the game’s legends isthe subject of debate, Ronaldo is agreedto be the sixth player to reach 700 afterAustrian Josef Bican, Brazilians Romarioand Pele, Hungarian Ferenc Puskas andGerman Gerd Muller.

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England manager GarethSouthgate said his side

made a statement by decidingto complete a 6-0 Euro 2020qualifying win over Bulgariaafter the match was twice halt-ed by racist chanting.

The visitors led 2-0through early goals fromMarcus Rashford and RossBarkley when play was firststopped and an announcementmade to supporters that thegame could be suspended ifoffensive chanting continued.

Once restarted, Englandquickly made it 3-0 throughBarkley before a second stop-page as Croatian referee IvanBebek held discussions withplayers and coaching staff fromboth sides.

Raheem Sterling then net-ted twice either side of half-time before Harry Kane round-ed off the scoring to takeEngland to the brink of quali-fication.

“We know it is an unac-ceptable situation,” Southgatetold British broadcaster ITV.

“I think we’ve managed tomake two statements really bywinning the game, but also wehave raised the awareness ofeverybody to the situation.

“The game was stoppedtwice and I know for some peo-ple that won’t be enough, but Ithink we were as a group onboard with that process.”

In a statement, The EnglishFootball Association said theirplayers “were subjected toabhorrent racist chanting” andcalled on UEFA to investigateimmediately.

Tyrone Mings was one ofthose targeted on his Englanddebut. The Aston Villa defend-er believed that stopping thegame did have the desiredeffect of reducing racist abusein the second half.

“The correct steps thatwere taken definitely helped,”said Mings.

“We made the decision athalf-time to come out and playthe game which we thought

was the right decision. If any-thing else happened, we wouldhave taken appropriate action.”

A comprehensive victorywas the perfect riposte forSouthgate’s men to their shock2-1 defeat at the CzechRepublic on Friday and opensup a three-point lead at the topof Group A.

However, the focus wasagain on the stands as anotherEngland match blighted byracism from opposition fans.

After several English play-ers suffered racist abuse in aqualifier away to Montenegroin March, Southgate had pre-pared his side to follow UEFA’sthree-step protocol for report-ing racist incidents that canlead to matches being aban-doned.

A section of 5,000 seats atthe Vasil Levski NationalStadium was already closed

for the game after racist inci-dents during games againstKosovo and the Czech Republicin June.

“I have to say the officialswere onto everything veryquickly,” added Southgate.

“We reported everythingimmediately when we heardthings, we had constant com-munication with the fourthofficial and the referee.”

On the field, Southgate’sdecision to make five changesfrom the side beaten in Pragueon Friday was fully vindicated.

Rashford was one of thoserecalled put his ManchesterUnited woes behind him bysmashing the opener into theroof of the net after just sevenminutes before Barkley tappedhome a second at the back post.

The first stage of UEFA’sprotocol followed as the gamewas temporarily stopped and awarning played over the loud-speaker in both Bulgarian andEnglish that the match could besuspended after monkey chantswere aimed at England players.

That warning was notheeded as after Barkley head-ed home Kane’s cross, there wasa second, longer stoppage inplay.

A number of Bulgarianultras were then ejected fromthe stadium.

When play did got backunderway there were six min-utes of stoppage time addedand the visitors used it toincrease their advantage whenKane crossed for Sterling to thistime apply an easy finish.

Southgate’s men could havescored plenty more in the sec-ond-half against the dispiritedhosts on a terrible night allround for Bulgarian football.

Sterling’s second arrivedmidway through the second-half with Kane again the creatorbefore the England captainfinally got on the scoresheethimself five minutes from time.

England now need just apoint from their final two qual-ifiers against Montenegro andKosovo next month to sealtheir place at next year’s Euros.

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World Champion PV Sindhu made an

impressive start to hercampaign at theDenmark Open, claiminga straight-game win overIndonesia’s Gregoria MariskaTunjung in the women’s singlescompetition here on Tuesday.

Fifth seed Sindhu, who hadmade early exits in China andKorea, got back her bearing as sheovercame former World JuniorChampion Gregoria 22-20, 21-18in 38 minutes to keep her 5-0record intact against theIndonesian.

The Olympic Silver medallistwill now face Korea’s An Se Youngnext.

World Championships Bronzemedallist B Sai Praneeth also madeit to the second round beating thelegendary Lin Dan 21-14, 21-17 ina 35-minute opening round clash.

The Hyderabad shuttler is like-ly to meet world No 1 and two-timeworld champion Kento Momota ofJapan next. He had lost to Momotaat the World Championships inBasel, Switzerland.

Thailand Open championsSatwiksairaj Rankireddy andChirag Shetty also made a goodstart to their men’s doubles cam-paign, beating Korean pair of KimGi Jung and Lee Yong Dae 24-22,21-11 in 39 minutes.

Former CommonwealthGames champion ParupalliKashyap, who had reached thesemifinals at Korea Open, failed tocross the opening round after los-ing 13-21, 12-21 to Thailand’sSitthikom Thammasin in the men’ssingles.

National champion SourabhVerma, who had clinched theHyderabad Open and VietnamOpen this year, also made an earlyexit after going down 21-19, 11-21,17-21 to Mark Caljouw of theNetherlands.

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Amaiden BWF World tour title push-ing him closer to top 50, Dutch

Open champion Lakshya Sen says he willlook to put up a good show in theremainder of the season to break into theworld’s top 30.

The 18-year-old on Sunday clinchedhis maiden BWF World Tour title bywinning the Dutch Open title, beatingYusuke Onodera of Japan 15-21, 21-14,21-15 in the summit clash.

“This is the biggest title of my careerso far. I have reached quarters and asemifinals in the past, so it is good tofinally win a super 100 tournament. Itwill boost my ranking and give me achance to play the super 500 tourna-ments,” Lakshya, who rose to world No52 this week said.

“At the beginning of the year, my tar-get was to reach the top 50 and after thiswin I would be close to that. I still havefew events left in the year. If I can do wellthere, I can go further up. Hope I canbreak into top 30 early next year.”

Lakshya will play the SaarlorluxOpen Super 100 (Oct 29-Nov 3) next,before participating in two InternationalChallenge events at the Irish Open(November 13-16) and Scottish Open(Nov 21-24). He will also play the SyedModi International Super 300 (Nov 26-Dec 1).

It was an impressive week for theteen shuttler, who displayed superbtemperament and skills to outwit hisopponents.

“The first round against Nhat(Nguyen) was tough, the second matchwas okay but again playing (Ygor)Coelho was difficult. I had played himbefore so I was ready for a big match,”said the 2018 Asian Junior Champion.

“The finals was also a long matchand I am happy how I performed over-all in the week,” he said.

��(�� �:2�3:

Australian captain Tim Painehas addressed speculation

over whether Steve Smith willagain lead the team once a banends in March, saying he wouldbe fully supportive if it happens“one day”.

Smith skippered the teamuntil he was suspended for 12months over a brazen attemptunder his watch to alter the ballwith sandpaper in Cape Townlast year.

Part of his punishmentincluded a further year-longexile from any leadership role.Calls have grown for Smith totake over from Paine when theban is lifted, following battingperformances that helpedAustralia retain the Ashes

against England.Paine, who will turn 35 in

December, on Monday brushedoff questions surrounding theAustralian side’s future leader-ship.

“I’m enjoying having thejob at the moment... And I cer-tainly hope Steve Smith doescaptain Australia again one

day, and if he does, I’ll be fullysupportive of it,” he told theDaily Telegraph.

Paine will not play in thissummer’s Big Bash League,instead joining broadcasterChannel Seven’s commentaryteam. But he will almost cer-tainly retain the captaincy forthe home summer Test series

against Pakistan and NewZealand, despite occasional crit-

icism of his form during theAshes.

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India snatched a 1-1 draw fromthe jaws of defeat against muchlower ranked Bangladesh to

dent their chances of qualificationin a Group E Asian Qualifiers forthe FIFA World Cup tie at thepacked Vivekananda Yuba BharatiKrirangan here on Tuesday.

A first-half strike from SaadUddin in the 42nd minute helpedBangladesh take a shock leadagainst India, who are 83 placesabove them and drew 0-0 againstAsian champions Qatar in their lastgame.

The hosts had a flurry ofchances to peg back with AnasEdathodika's shot headed out byMohammad Ibrahim on thegoalline in the second half. It wasonly in the 88th minute that cen-tre-back Adil Khan headed in a goalto equalise.

Bangladesh too, could havedoubled their advantage asMohammad Ibrahim's shot found

the crossbar in the second-half andAdil made a goalline clearance.

The result means India move totwo points from three games afterlosing their campaign opener toOman. Bangladesh, who prior tothis game had lost both theirmatches against Afghanistan andQatar, logged their first point butremained at the bottom of thefive-team group.

India missed defensive main-stay Sandesh Jhingan and holdingmidfielder Rowliin Borges due toinjury and suspension respective-ly.

Chhetri got a chance to getIndia ahead in the 5th minutewhen his first-time volley afterreceiving a pass from AshiqueKuruniyan went straight to visitinggoalkeeper Ashraful Islam.

India enjoyed the lion's share ofball possession and tried hard toopen up the Bangladesh defencebut the away side held firm as thehosts fluffed their lines in the finalthird.

Bangladesh got their firstopportunity in the 31st minutewhen Biplo Ahamed sneaked intothe box only for Anas to interceptat the right time.

Four minutes later, Bangladeshgoalkeeper Ashraful was forcedinto a fingertip save from ManvirSingh's looping header as India keptknocking at the door.

But against the run of play,Bangladesh nosed ahead three min-utes before halftime. Skipper JamalBhuyan swung in a delectable freekick for Saad to nod in pastGurpreet who failed to catch theball.

After the break, Bangladeshmissed a golden opportunity todouble their advantage when SohelRana cut in from the left to set upMohammad Ziban, whose shotwas saved well by Gurpreet.

India then fluffed two gilt-edged chances at and just after thehour mark as Anas' header was firstsaved on the goalline by Ibrahimand then in the 66th minute,

Manvir mistimed his run to spurna header from close range.

At the other end, Adil made anacrobatic clearance to saveGurpreet the blushes after Zibangot behind the defence and lobbedthe ball past India's tall custodian.

Chhetri wasted wide from sub-stitute Brandon Fernandes' cornerin the 76th minute as India threwthe kitchen sink at their lesser fan-cied rivals.

The effort paid off as Adilpowered in a header fromBrandon's corner at the near postto send the crowd into raptures.

Chhetri dribbled past twodefenders soon after but the 35-year- old's shot was weak as the sta-dium reverberated with his chants.

The packed 65,000 spectatorswere left high and dry in the endas India could not record a winwhich was expected. The resultmeans Bangladesh, ranked 187,remain unbeaten in their last threemeetings against India, ranked104.

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Former Australia skipperRickey Ponting believes

Steve Smith should get anoth-er chance to lead the nation-al team once Tim Paine’s timeis up. “It’s the million-dollar ques-tion: when Steve Smith’s banis up will he go straight backinto the captaincy or will henot?” Ponting told 7NEWS.

“To be honest I think it’sup to Tim how long he plays.

He’s the best keeper in theworld. Whether that’s as cap-tain or not that’s up to the hier-archy at Cricket Australia tomake that decision. I’ve beenon record already — whenTim’s time is up I’d like to seeSteve Smith have another go.

“I think he probably feelslike there’s unfinished businessthere as far as his captaincy’sconcerned. He’s got to want todo it and obviously then theauthorities have to say yes orno,” he added.

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