RNI NO.: DELENG/2005/15351REGD. NO.: DL(S)-01/3420/2018-20

VOL.16, ISSUE 211 | Saturday, 31 July, 2021 | New Delhi | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI | KOLKATA

MILLENNIUMPOST.IN

No Half Truths

Delhi visit fruitful, will come back every 2 months: Mamata

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee addresses a press conference in New Delhi MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) recorded the highest ever pass percentage of 99.37 in this year’s Class XII results, declared on Friday, with girls outshining boys by a slender margin of 0.54 per cent.

The pass percentage increased by over 10 points against last year’s 88.78 per cent. The difference between the pass percentage of girls and boys was nearly 6 per cent last year.

The board has announced the results on basis of an alter-nate assessment policy after the

exams were cancelled in view of the aggressive second wave of COVID-19.

According to the pol-icy decided by a 13-member panel of the board, the theory paper evaluation formula is 30 per cent weightage to Class X marks, another 30 per cent to Class XI marks and 40 per cent weightage to marks obtained in Class XII unit test, mid-term, pre-board exams.

“For the implementation of tabulation policy successfully and in the given time frame, it was considered important to facilitate the work to be done by teachers. So, in order to facili-tate schools and help them in

compilation and moderation of results and reduce any inadver-

tent errors on their part, a com-prehensive and feature-rich

system was developed by IT team of the CBSE,” said CBSE Examinations Controller San-yam Bhardwaj.

Bhardwaj noted that there were about a lakh students who were from boards other than CBSE.

“The schools were requested to verify their roll numbers, name of candidates and name of the Board so that their data could be taken from the Boards concerned.

“The system also calcu-lated Class X component based on data taken from vari-ous Boards. It also facilitated schools in uploading of class 10 marks for non-CBSE can-

didates whose data could not be received from board con-cerned and calculation of its 30 per cent component,” he said.

The number of candidates scoring above 95 per cent has increased from 38,686 last year to 70,004 this year. However, the number of candidates scor-ing between 90-95 per cent has gone down from 1,57,934 to 1,50,152. The number of Chil-dren with Special Needs scor-ing above 95 per cent is 129 while 400 students in the cate-gory have scored above 90 per cent. In CBSE-affiliated schools abroad, 99.92 per cent students have passed Class XII.

Continued on P4

Class XII results: CBSE records highest ever 99.37 pass percentage, girls outshine boys

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that she would be visiting Delhi every two months to drive her mission of ‘saving the country by sav-ing the democracy’.

Before she left for Kolk-ata on Friday, she described her five-day visit as “fruitful”, again urging all like-minded parties to join hands to fight against the ruling BJP.

She called the national sit-uation “devastating”. Banerjee alleged that the Centre has collected Rs 3.75 lakh crore by raising fuel and cooking gas prices at an abnormal level, “causing misery to the com-mon man”. Further, the Cen-tral government also failed in controlling the Covid situ-ation in the country.

During her visit to the national Capital, on one side, she met Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi and Union Road and Transport minister Nitin Gadkari to discuss important national issues and to push developmental projects of the state while on the other, the Chief Minister also met Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi and other important Opposition leaders, including her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, Congress veter-ans Kamal Nath and Anand Sharma.

According to Banerjee “democracy must be alive” and “we can save the country only through that”. She fur-ther aims to unite the regional parties and claimed that the general elections of 2024 will be people vs. Modi.

The Bengal Chief Minis-ter had also spoken to NCP chief Sharad Pawar over the phone. There was speculation of a meeting of the two, but, due to the flood-like situation in Maharashtra, Pawar had to go back, Banerjee told media persons.

There is also a flood-like situation in West Bengal simi-lar to other states due to inces-sant heavy rain and Banerjee assured of taking all possible measures to normalise the sit-uation and save lives.

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Friday took suo motu cognizance of the sad demise of a judge in a gruesome incident of being allegedly mowed down by a vehicle while on morning jog on July 28 at Dhanbad and sought a status report within a week from Jharkhand’s Chief Sec-retary and the DGP on the probe into the incident.

While making it clear that the proceedings before the Jharkhand High Court to monitor the probe into the death of the judicial offi-cer would continue, a bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana said it was taking suo motu cognizance of the matter as incidents of attacks on judicial officers and the legal fraternity are happen-ing across the country and the issue requires detailed examination.

We direct the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police (DGP) of Jharkhand to submit a report in a week’s time on the status of investigation on the sad demise of addi-tional district and sessions Judge Uttam Anand, said the bench which also com-prised justice Surya Kant.

The bench said it was concerned with the larger issues such as the nature of the incident and the steps

taken by the state govern-ments for protection of judicial officers inside and outside the court premises.

The bench sought the presence of Jharkhand Advocate General when it hears the case next week and said that it would then consider the issue of issuing notices to other states.

The case, which will be now taken up for hear-ing next week, has been titled as “In Re Safeguard-ing Courts and Protecting Judges (Death of Additional Sessions Judge, Dhanbad)”.

CCTV footages showed that District and Sessions Judge-8 of Dhanbad court, Uttam Anand , was jog-ging on one side of a fairly wide road at Randhir Verma Chowk early on Wednesday when a heavy auto-rickshaw veered towards him, hit him from behind and fled the scene.

Locals took him to a nearby hospital, where the doctors declared him dead on arrival.

NEW DELHI: In a shock-ing revelation, it has come to notice that 63 districts in the country have no blood bank facility. In reply to a question, Union Health Minister Man-sukh Mandaviya told Lok Sabha on Friday that there are 3,500 licensed blood banks in the country and 63 districts are

without the facility.Elaborating on the

steps taken or pro-posed by the govern-ment to set up blood banks in each district

of the country, Mandaviya said the extant policy norm for set-ting up blood banks as per National Blood Policy is to have at least one licensed blood bank in every district while avoiding clustering of the blood banks in urban and semi-urban areas.

The policy also advocates for a hub and spoke approach towards transfusion services, wherein blood is collected and processed in hubs, which are high volume blood banks and distributed through spokes, which are smaller blood banks and blood storage centres. MPOST

63 districts without

blood banks

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: The 12th round of high-level military talks between India and China will take place on Saturday with a focus on achieving some for-ward movement in the disen-gagement in the remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh, sources in the mili-tary establishment said.

The fresh round of Corps Commander talks are sched-uled to start at 10:30 AM at Moldo border point on the

Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in east-ern Ladakh, they added.

The main focus of the talks will be on addressing outstand-ing problems in Hot Springs and Gogra, the sources said.

The latest round of talks will take place after a gap of more than three and a half months. The 11th round of talks had taken place on April 9 at the Chushul border point on the Indian side of the LAC.

India and China have been locked in a military standoff at multiple friction points in east-ern Ladakh since early May last year. Continued on P4

India, China to hold 12th round of Corps Commander talks today

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: As the business of the Parliament has come to a standstill after the end of two weeks of the Monson Session due to the ongoing standoff between the Opposition members and ruling benches over the issue of a debate on alleged Pegasus snoop-ing, the government on Friday softened its stand by saying that the Opposition parties can still seek clarification from IT Minis-ter Ashwini Vaishnaw on his state-ment over the matter.

With ‘softening’ its stand, the government is hopeful that the Monsoon Session, which started on a stormy note on July 19 over the Pegasus and farmers’ issue, may see some brisk business in the remaining two weeks.

While interacting with report-ers, after the Lok Sabha was adjourned, Parliamentary Affairs

Minister Pralhad Joshi said that the government had agreed to them seeking clarification from Vaishnaw after he made state-ments in both the House and these parties can still do so.

As the Opposition members continued their protests over Peg-

asus and farmers’ issue, proceed-ings of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned for the day on Friday. When the Lower House reassembled at 12 pm, two Bills — The Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capi-tal Region and Adjoining Areas

Bill, 2021 and the General Insur-ance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Bill — were intro-duced amid the ruckus.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the government is ready to discuss different issues.

Continued on P4

RS, LS adjourned till Monday amid Oppn protestOpposition can seek clarification from minister on Pegasus issue: Pralhad Joshi

Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, in New Delhi, on Thursday PTI

SC seeks report from J’khand Chief Secy, DGP

Mowing down of judge in Dhanbad

Takeaways » According to Banerjee, “democracy must be alive” and “we can save the country only through that”

» Banerjee alleged that the Centre has collected Rs 3.75 lakh crore by raising fuel and cooking gas prices at an abnormal level, “causing misery to the common man”

City: Pg 2Yamuna swells above ‘danger’ mark, govt sounds flood alert

Nation: Pg 5Oppn seeks JPC probe to ascertain details of farmer deaths during stir

Film: Pg 12Johansson sues Disney for breach of contract

70,004 CANDIDATES SCORE ABOVE 95%

CityGANGSTER KALA JATHEDI HELD 3

NationDESHMUKH, SON SUMMONED AGAIN 6

edit

RETURNING TO NORMAL 7

internationalJAPAN EXPANDS VIRUS EMERGENCY 8

businessFOREX RESERVES FALL TO $611.149 BN 10

sportDJOKOVIC LOSES TO ZVEREV    11

In today’s paper

...

Government will set up centres for women in crisis internationally

Smriti Irani

COVID-19: India registers 44,230 fresh cases, 555 more fatalities

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: With a single-day rise of 44,230 cases, India’s COVID-19 tally climbed to 3,15,72,344 on Friday, while the death toll due to the viral disease shot up to 4,23,217 with 555 more people suc-cumbing to it, the Union health ministry said.

The number of active Coronavirus cases in the country registered an increase for the third consecutive day, according to the ministry’s data updated at 8 am.

The number of active cases has gone up to 4,05,155, accounting for 1.28 per cent of the total caseload, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.38 per cent, the data showed.

An increase of 1,315 cases was recorded in the active COVID-19 tally in a span of 24 hours.

Also, 18,16,277 tests to detect the infection were car-ried out on Thursday, tak-ing the total number of such tests conducted so far in the country to 46,46,50,723, while the daily positivity rate was

recorded at 2.44 per cent. The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 2.43 per cent, according to the ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has gone up to

3,07,43,972, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.34 per cent, the data showed.

Union Science and Tech-nology Minister Jitendra Singh said on Friday that seventy cases of Coronavi-

rus Delta Plus variant were found in genome sequencing by INSACOG, a grouping of 28 laboratories involved in the task.

In a written response to a question in the Lok Sabha, he said so far, 58,240 sam-ples of SARS-CoV2 have been sequenced in the country and of these, 46,124 were analysed.

A majority of these samples — 17,169 — were of Delta vari-ant, Singh said.

The Delta variant of SARS-CoV2 was behind the deadly second wave in the country that killed thousands and infected lakhs from March to May. It is also driving the pandemic in different parts of the world. This variant of coronavirus was first detected in India.

There were 4,172 cases of the Alpha variant, followed by 217 of Beta and just one of Gamma. Continued on P4

70 CASES OF DELTA PLUS VARIANT FOUND IN GENOME SEQUENCING IN INDIA, LS TOLD

Highlights » The number of active cases has gone up to 4,05,155, accounting for 1.28 per cent of the total caseload » The daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.44 per cent » Suspension of scheduled in-ternational passenger flights extended till Aug 31

A health worker collects swab sample of a man for COVID-19 test, at KR market in Bengaluru, on Friday PTI

A BIG PUNCHLovlina Borgohain clenches her fist after winning her bout against Chen Nien-Chin of Chinese Taipei during women’s welterweight (64-69kg) category boxing match, at the Summer Olympics 2020 in Tokyo, on Friday See P11

NEW DELHI: Average prices of edible oils in retail markets have increased by up to 52 per cent in July compared to the year-ago period, according to offi-cial data.

In a written reply to Rajya Sabha on Friday, Minister of State for Food and Con-sumer Affairs Ashwini Kumar Choubey said the government

has taken several measures with respect to essential food items like pulses and edible oil to curb the increase in prices in the wake of the COVID pandemic.

As per the data shared by the minister, the average monthly retail prices of groundnut oil increased by 19.24 per cent in July over the same month last year. Continued on P4

Average retail prices of edible oils rise up to 52% in July: Govt

Students celebrate their success after the announcement of CBSEs class 12th results, at their school in New Delhi, on Friday PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA

File photo

The petition said that in spite of the marriage of the 2nd petitioner being a Muslim marriage and not an interfaith marriage, the couple was being subjected to 30 days’ notice period under SMA

MASTER OF WILL

Children play on a waterlogged road during a heavy shower on Friday PTI

Yamuna swells above ‘danger’ mark, govt sounds flood alert

Evacuations begin as six districts go on high alert

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: Officials in six districts through which the Yamuna flows are now on high alert, feverishly preparing for possible rescue and relief opera-tions as the river swelled above the warning mark on Friday morning with incessant rains already triggering some evacu-ations in North-East Delhi and Shahdara areas.

In the Shahdara district, water started entering a few shanties that were situated at low-lying levels. The residents were shifting their belongings. About 200 persons were evac-uated at Kusaan Basti, Shastri Park and about 150 at Sonia Vihar near the MCD Toll Tax. Teams of Civil Defence Volun-teers are deployed round the clock at Loha Pul, Kisaan Basti, Usmanpur( 2nd & 3rd Pushta) and Sonia Vihar near MCD Toll Tax to maintain vigil and evacuate more people as the need arises.

According to the DM (Shah-dara), they have arranged tents and made necessary arrange-ments. “About 125 families live nearby the river. If the water level crosses the danger mark, they will be evacuated,” the offi-

cial said.Starting from public

announcements to setting up temporary shelters and continuous meetings with residents and police person-nel, officials are readying the infrastructure to move thou-sands of people once the water increases to a certain level. District Magistrate (East) Sonika Singh told Millennium Post that since Thursday morning, people living close to the Yamuna were informed about the increase in water level and they were told not to go near the river.

“Today at some vulnerable points water level reached close to the warning mark, families who are living nearby these points were told to leave the place for their safety,” she said. East DM said they prepared for this from June itself and a con-trol room was already set up and functional since June 15. All the departments are geared up and most importantly they know their roles, she said.

“Engineers predict till night the water level might reach 205.6m. At 206 water level we start the rescue operation,” the official said. As per the official, there are approx 15,000 people who are

living nearby the Yamuna river in the East district and they will be shifted to 15 different locations. DCP (Shahdara) R Sathiyasun-daram said they have deployed their staff nearby the river. In North District, officials from DM central office along with SHO Kashmere Gate held a meeting with RWA officials and residents of the area. They are going door to door to conduct awareness among the people and they are likely to shift 4,000 to 5,000 people. One Uma Shankar, who claimed to be a member of RWA (Yamuna Bazar), said 32 ghats are close to the Yamuna within 12 to 15 meters height from the normal water level.

“Families are shifted to DDA parks and there is also a big cowshed, people are shifted to the terrace of that cowshed with their belongings. There are arrangements for tents, elec-tricity and other important things for the people,” he said. In the North-East district, 85 tents with a capacity of more than 400 people were being installed. And the South-East District is preparing to shift about 200 people living near the river. Officials added that all tempo-rary shelters will be sanitised and fumigated.

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Fri-day said it had registered an FIR into the custodial death of undertrial Shrikant Rama Swami inside Tohar premises, a few days before he was to be released on bail, officials here said. The CBI said it has taken over the case registered in the matter by Delhi Police at the Hari Nagar police station as per directions of the Delhi High Court, which had days ago transferred the case to the CBI after noting that the Delhi Police was being careless with the probe. The court had noted that the post-mortem report of the victim was not filed before it and it had also pointed out that a crucial call between the victim and his sister had been left out of the probe. This call, apparently, divulged the vic-tim’s apprehension that his life might be threatened — a day before the murder took place in May. MPOST

TWO MORE HELD IN MURDER FOR WHICH COP WAS ARRESTEDNEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Friday arrested two people who along with a constable killed a youth in the New Ashok Nagar area. They were identified as Vikas Sirohi (manager with Infinity Studio situation in Noida) and Vineet (property dealer). They were arrested from Jaipur. “Both the accused were known to the accused Monu Sirohi (constable). On the fateful night, they came to see Monu regarding a marriage proposal for Vineet,” the official said. Efforts are underway o trace the deceased’s body.

NHRC CHIEF MAKES SURPRISE VISIT TO CHILDREN’S HOME IN DELHI NEW DELHI: NHRC chief justice (retd) Arun Kumar Mishra on Friday made a surprise visit to a chil-dren’’s home in south Delhi to take stock of the situa-tion there, officials said. He interacted with members of the Child Welfare Committee, children and staff of the home to understand their condition, the NHRC said in a statement.

HC NOTICE TO GOVT, CVC ON PLEA CHALLENGING JMI V-C APPOINTMENT NEW DELHI: The Delhi HC Friday sought response from the Centre, Central Vigilance Commission and JMI on a plea challenging the appointment of the varsity’s cur-rent Vice Chancellor Najma Akhtar. The court was hear-ing an appeal challenging a single-judge’s March 5 order that dismissed the plea challenging the JMI V-C’s appointment saying there was no merit in the petition.

5 HELD FOR DUPING FOREIGNERS NEW DELHI: Five people, including a woman, were arrested for allegedly running an illegal call centre and duping citizens of foreign countries by pos-ing as representatives of a tech support company, police said on Friday. The owner — Pritpal Singh (35) along with his associates Mayank (26), Chandan Gupta (24), Subham Kumar (22), and Kinkini Das (35) were operating the call centre from the third floor of a building in Malviya Nagar, they said.

CBI takes up case of Tihar

UTP’s murder

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: In order to curb rising crime in the Capital, the Delhi Police have now told offi-cers to ensure that pickets are placed on strategic locations based on the crime pattern analysis of the concerned areas.

Sources told Millennium Post that earlier this month, a meeting was held between the top brass of city police in which DCPs were told that no barri-cades should be left in a hori-zontal position unattended on the roads. They were further told by a senior officer that they should also take stock of the resources available to them and make up the shortfall.

“The barricades should be repaired or repainted and if

required requisitioned as per requirement. Proper reflectors, blinkers must be used while deploying pickets, barricades after sunset,” the senior official directed DCPs.

Sources have said there are more than 200 permanent and over 600 temporary pickets in the city. As per officials, tem-

porary pickets were placed to curb street crime, eve-teasing, drug and liquor trafficking. Many times, based on tip-offs, these are also placed to catch gangsters.

In the first week of July, a senior official made observa-tions about picketing. “The official found that in the juris-

diction of one of the police stations, deployment of pick-ets were found to be a routine practice, without any crime data analysis. He also observed that the prevalent system of subdivision patrolling needs to be reviewed,” sources said.

“Deployment of pickets always plays an important role in crime control strategies,” an official said.

The senior official had said pickets should be placed at strategic points and there was a need for a Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Crime (STAC). “STAC should be undertaken to develop more efficient ways to analyse crime patterns, offender mobility and serial offences over time and place,” the official said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: As rains contin-ued to make up for late arrival to the Capital, the water level in the Yamuna breached the danger mark to settle at 205.33 metres, with the administration in Delhi sounding a flood alert and expediting efforts to evacu-ate people living on the banks of the fast-swelling river.

The water level was recorded at 205.34 metres at the Old Rail-way Bridge at 11 am. It was 205.22 metres at 8:30 am, 205.10 metres at 6 am and 205.17 at 7 am, an official said, adding it is likely to rise further given the heavy rains in the upper catch-ment areas of the river.

All the departments con-cerned have been alerted. The irrigation and flood control department has deployed 13 boats in different areas and put 21 others on standby, the official from the irrigation and flood control department said.

With Haryana discharg-ing more water into the river

from the Hathnikund Barrage, the Delhi Police and the East Delhi district administration have started evacuating people living on the floodplains of the Yamuna in the capital.

A flood alert is declared when the Yamuna crosses the “warning mark” of 204.50 metres. The situation is being moni-tored round-the-clock, a dis-trict administration official said. According to the Delhi flood con-trol room, the discharge rate at the Hathnikund Barrage peaked

to 1.60 lakh cusecs on Tues-day afternoon, the highest this year so far.

The river is in spate because of rains in Delhi and the upper catchment areas, a MeT depart-ment official said, adding it may swell further as more rains are predicted in northwest India.

The weather department has also issued an “orange alert” for moderate rains in Delhi-NCR for the third day on the trot on Friday as heavy rains in the city in the evening again hit traffic,

waterlogged many roads and thousands of commuters were stuck in crawling traffic.

Traffic snarls were reported in many areas, and several trees had fallen due to the winds in South Delhi. Waterlogging was reported in areas around Malviya Nagar, Lodhi Road and Kasturba Nagar along with large areas of North Delhi and outer Delhi. Dwarka also reported isolated instances of waterlogging.

The India Meteorologi-cal Department has issued an

orange alert, predicting mod-erate rain on Saturday as well and warning of possible water-logging in low-lying areas of the national capital and major traffic disruptions.

The department has issued a yellow alert for Sunday, and orange alert also for Monday.

The national capital recorded 42.8 mm of rainfall between 8.30 am and 5.30 pm on Fri-day, the weather department said. Between 8.30 am on Fri-day and 8.30 pm on Thursday, Delhi recorded 72 mm of rain-fall, it said.

Humidity was recorded between 98 per cent and 79 per cent, the weather depart-ment said.

The maximum temperature was recorded at 32 degrees Cel-sius, two notches below the sea-son’s average, while the minimum settled at 24.5 degrees Celsius, three notches below normal.

The maximum and mini-mum temperatures are likely to settle around 32 and 25 degrees Celsius, respectively.

MET OFFICIALS PREDICT FURTHER RISE IN TANDEM WITH RAINS

PREDOMINANTLY A SUMMER PHENOMENON, IT HAS BECOME A CONCERN DURING WINTER AS WELL

Don’t let barricades lie on roads, use them in strategic locations, cops told

City Briefs

2 millenniumpostCitympSATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

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‘Muslim marriages are being forced to

register under SMA’; HC seeks govt replyOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Friday asked the Delhi government to reply to a petition alleging that Muslim marriages are being registered under the Special Marriage Act (SMA) and they are not being given the option to do so under the Compulsory Mar-riage Order which provides for immediate registration without any delay or notice.

Justice Rekha Palli issued notice on the petition filed by an NGO and another individ-ual on behalf of an LGBTQ couple (both majors), who had run away from Uttar Pradesh to get married after facing threats from members of their family and community.

The Delhi High Court had earlier directed the Delhi gov-ernment to house them in a safe-house for the time being and also directed the police here to provide them adequate protection.

Justice Palli on Friday said that petitioners have raised a pertinent point and gave the Delhi government three weeks’ time to respond to the peti-tion filed by NGO Dhanak for Humanity.

Advocate Utkarsh Singh, appearing for the petitioners, said that the exclusion of Mus-lim marriages from the Com-pulsory Marriage Order was discriminatory in nature.

“He (Singh) has a point. You can’t discriminate,” the judge responded.

Advocate Shadan Farasat, appearing for the Delhi gov-ernment, stated that he would take instructions in the mat-ter then come back before the court.

The petition said that in spite of the marriage of the sec-ond petitioner being a Muslim

marriage and not an interfaith marriage, the couple, which escaped from their hometown to solemnise the marriage in Delhi, was being subjected to 30 days’ notice period under the Special Marriage Act.

Respondent no 1 (State) specifically does not allow the registration of Muslim mar-riages under Compulsory Reg-istration Marriage Order 2014 and the State is bound by law to register the marriage within one day as per Registration of Marriage under Compulsory Registration Marriage Order 2014, the petition reads.

It is argued that the exclu-sion violates the fundamental rights of the parties and that the requirement of 30 days’ notice period under the Special Mar-riage Act was a very cumber-some process for someone who has come from another place and is precisely trying to pro-tect themselves.

Petitioner 2 has the right to live, which has been threatened and curtailed and respondents should protect the same by reg-istering the marriage immedi-ately, the petition reads. The matter would be heard next on October 4.

Illegal to shutter Khan Market eateries over

FIR: Kalra argues OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Businessman Navneet Kalra, who is an accused in oxygen concentrator black marketing case, Friday informed the Delhi High Court that the registration certificate to run his restaurants ‘Khan Chacha’ and ‘Town Hall’ in upscale Khan Market has been cancelled by the authorities.

The court was hearing Kal-ra’s petition challenging a show cause notice and order sus-pending the registration cer-tificate to run the restaurants following his alleged involve-ment in the case.

Justice Rekha Palli said it would be open to the busi-nessman to assail the cancella-tion order in accordance with law.

The court also clarified that

it has not expressed any opin-ion on the claims made in his plea.

Kalra had challenged the May 11 order-cum-show cause notice issued by the Joint Com-missioner of Police (Licensing) and the subsequent suspension of the registration certificate to run the two eateries in Khan Market here.

His counsel Gurinder Pal Singh submitted that the regis-tration certificate was cancelled by the authorities by an order dated July 23 and nothing sur-vived in the petition.

The businessman had con-tended that the suspension was illegal and contrary to the provisions of the Delhi Eating houses Registration Regula-tions as it did not confer power of suspension at the stage of issuance of a show casue notice.

NEW DELHI: Ozone, a highly reac-tive gas and dangerous for those suf-fering from respiratory conditions and asthma, is becoming more wide-spread in Delhi and the National Cap-ital Region (NCR) across all seasons, according to a new analysis by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released on Friday. The analysis said that contrary to the notion that ozone, produced photochemically from inter-action between gases in the presence of sunlight, is predominantly a sum-mer phenomenon, the gas has emerged as an equally strong concern during winter as well.

“Ozone is now a round-the-year problem requiring urgent attention of

clean air programmes,” said CSE execu-tive director Anumita Roychowdhury.

“The risk from it is often not well understood, as the current regula-tory practice of spatially averaging the data from all monitoring stations blunts the curve, and underestimates the magnitude of threat from the worst affected locations and also during dif-ferent seasons.

“As ozone is a highly reactive gas and even short-term exposure can aggravate respiratory conditions leading to emer-gency hospital admission, it requires a different approach to risk assessment and communication,’ she added.

Another expert said that the num-ber of days not meeting the ozone stan-

dards is increasing even in winters.‘This analysis shows that the num-

ber of days not meeting the ozone standards has begun to increase even during winter months, making the winter smog more toxic,’ said Avikal Somvanshi, programme manager in CSE’s Urban Lab team of the Sustain-able Cities programme.

The assessment has traced trends during different seasons — summer (March-June), winter (October-Feb-ruary) and monsoon (July-Septem-ber), between 2018 and July 18, 2021.

It said that the eight-hourly stan-dard for ground-level ozone exceeded at least in one station in Delhi on 290 days in 2020, which is up by 30 days com-

pared to 2019 and 26 days more than 2018. This year has already recorded 169 days of exceedance, an increase of 21 days for the same period last year, the analysis revealed, adding that in the NCR, Gurugram saw the maximum jump in number of exceedance days between 2019 and 2020 — its tally of 201 days in 2020 was an increase by over 300 per cent from previous year.

‘Noida also registered a 54 per cent jump. Faridabad recorded no change between 2019 and 2020. Ghaziabad and Greater Noida saw a decline, with the latter showing the biggest drop of 28 per cent. Meerut does not have adequate data for 2019 to carry out compara-tive trend analysis, but with 109 days

of exceedance in 2020, it was the least polluted major city in the NCR,’ it said.

The CSE said that granular real time data (15-minute averages) have been sourced from the Central Pollu-tion Control Board’s (CPCB) official online portal Central Control Room for Air Quality Management.

The data has been captured from 81 official stations under the Contin-uous Ambient Air Quality Monitor-ing System (CAAQMS) spread across Delhi-NCR (40 stations in Delhi, four each in Gurugram, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad, three in Meerut, and two in Greater Noida while 20 smaller towns in NCR have one station),’ it said. PTI

‘Ozone becoming more widespread in Delhi-NCR across all seasons’

REPRESENTATIVE PIC

PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA

3millenniumpost

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday praised doctors and HCWs as Assembly passed a resolution seeking Bharat Ratna to “The Indian Doctor” and Padma Award nominees to be just doctors and HCWs

City mpNEW DELHI | SATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021

CBSE: 99.96% 12th graders in Delhi govt schools pass

Faster B&B registrations, GST changes passed in Assembly

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Assembly on Friday cleared amendments proposed in a home stay scheme, which will allow hosts to register for it in a span of 30 days instead of the ear-lier 90-day period. The amend-ment in the ‘Bed and Breakfast Scheme’ will help promote tour-ism in the post-Covid era, the government said in a statement.

Deputy Chief Minister Man-ish Sisodia during the last day of the Monsoon Session of the Delhi Legislative Assembly on Friday moved a motion before the House to amend the ambi-tious scheme to promote tourism in Delhi, which was passed in the Delhi Assembly. Now, under the ‘Bed and Breakfast Scheme’, hosts can get registered in 30 days instead of 90 days, the state-ment said. So far, 1,630 rooms, spanning 347 houses have been registered under the scheme. This number will increase rap-idly now after the change in the rule, it added.

“The Delhi government has come up with an important scheme to promote tourism in Delhi. Under this scheme, tour-ists, especially foreign tourists, can stay at an Indian family’s home for the purpose of expe-riencing Indian familial tradi-tions and culture,” Sisodia said.

“In order to cover more and more households in this scheme, the Delhi government has reduced the entire process of registration from 90 days to

30 days by making changes in it,” Sisodia, who also holds the portfolio of tourism, said.

Also, landlords will not have to go to offices to get certificates, as they will be provided online, he added. Under the ‘Bed and Breakfast Scheme’, those land-lords can apply who have one to six rooms, which are empty, and necessary facilities available for tourists, the statement said. The landlord’s family should be liv-ing in that house and the house should not be in the category of a guest house, lodge, or hotel, it added. This scheme will not only benefit tourists but will also be a source of income for the hosts. With the strengthening of the tourism sector after COVID-19 pandemic, the means of employ-ment of people will also increase with this scheme, the govern-ment said.

Plugging GST fraud: In addi-tion to this, the Delhi Assembly also passed the ‘Delhi Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2021’ to smoothen the GST fil-ing process and to prevent tax

evasion, amid opposition from the BJP over its introduction and passage on the same day.

Small changes have been made in 15 sections of the Delhi GST Act. These have been incor-porated on the basis of experi-ences and feedback from traders, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said.

GST is a new law; it has come to our notice that some people took advantage of it and evaded tax. So, some amendments are aimed at plugging tax evasion, the Deputy CM said.

He said one of the amend-ments does away with the need for a mandatory audit and rec-onciliation of registered traders with a turnover of 1.5 crore and above — which will reduce the dependency of traders on CAs and company secretaries. As the bill was being introduced, BJP MLA Vijender Gupta objected to the government bringing the bill, discussing it and passing it the same day. However, Speaker Ram Niwas Goel said the bill was sent in soft copy to all members a day ago.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Delhi region recorded a pass percentage of 99.83 per cent in the CBSE class 12 results which were announced on Friday.

While girls achieved a pass percentage of 99.95 per cent, it was 99.72 per cent for boys.

The best perfomance in the national capital was by Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs) and Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs) which recorded a pass percent-age of 100 per cent in both the regions.

Private schools marginally performed better in both the regions. While in Delhi East, the performance of private schools increased from 97.68 per cent to 99.95 per cent, those in Delhi West region improved their pass percentage from 97.91 per cent to 99.96 per cent.

Significantly, the Delhi gov-

ernment on Friday announced that 99.96 per cent of students in their schools had passed the examination, with a total of 875 Delhi government schools hav-ing a 100 per cent passing rate - which is double the number of schools that recorded the same feat last year.

According to the Delhi gov-ernment, in 2020, 396 schools had 100 per cent passing rate. This was 203 in 2019, 168 in 2018 and 112 the year before that.

The Department of Edu-cation here said that pass per-centage has also consistently improved in the city. Accord-ing to data compiled by them, the pass percentage rose this year from 97.92 per cent stu-dents passing in 2020. The pass percentage in 2019 was 94.24 per cent.

Announcing the perfor-mance of Delhi government-

run schools, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday tweeted that it was a “historic” result, congratulating Del-hi’s education team, students, teachers and parents.

Education Minister and Deputy Chief Minister Man-ish Sisodia also took to social media to reply to students indi-vidually. He also congratulated his team members and said, “Congratulations Team Educa-tion Delhi! You are rocking for last few years... What a won-derful progress card,” posting a picture of pass percentages in schools over the years.

While the revised evalua-tion criteria have allowed for sky-high marks this year, lead-ing to an increase of over 10 percentage points in the num-ber of students who passed across the country, according to Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) statistics,

Delhi East region improved its pass percentage from 92.78 per cent to 99.4 per cent since last year. Similarly, Delhi West region improved its pass per-centage from 89.80 per cent to 99.40 per cent.

Moreover, the Delhi gov-ernment said that 64 students were put under compartmen-tal category, whereas 5 did not pass. In addition, it added that results for 13 schools are awaited.

OVERALL 99.83% PASS IN CAPITAL | 100% PASS IN 875 DELHI GOVT SCHOOLS

New projects are being added to minimise the waiting period

NEW DELHI: Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel on Friday suspended BJP MLA Om Prakash Sharma for the next session for disrupting proceedings of the House. To protest of this ruling by the speaker, all BJP MLAs walked out of the House.

The second day of the monsoon session of the Delhi Assembly witnessed pandemo-nium after BJP MLA Mohan Singh Bisht made a sarcastic remark about Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator Som-nath Bharti during question

hour of the House. In the commotion that

ensued, several MLAs from both sides of aisle trooped into the well, with the Speaker ask-ing them to take their seats. He asked the BJP MLAs to apolo-gise for the remarks. Sharma did not and was suspended.

However, some news reports suggested that the suspension for the next ses-sion of the Assembly was withdrawn after Leader of Opposition, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri requested the Speaker to do so. MPOST

NEW DELHI: CBSE’s feat of achieving the highest-ever pass percentage in class 12 has grabbed eyeballs of educa-tion experts who say college admissions might become an “uphill task” due to the high scores despite moderation.

Some experts have pointed out that the allegedly “inflated” marks may be detrimental for state board students who will miss out further on chances of college admissions.

Officials at Delhi University

and colleges affiliated with it have already hinted at strong chances of cut-off marks shoot-ing up. In fact, a total of over 70,000 CBSE students across the country have secured over 95 per cent. This is the total number of seats available in UG courses at DU.

Last year, Lady Shri Ram College had topped cut-off marks with 100 per cent requirement in three courses and over 30 courses with 99 per cent cut-off.

Oppn walks out after MLA’s suspension

Univ cut-offs set to soar

Resolution passed seeking repeal of farm laws; AAP

bashes GNCT Act changes

Gangster ‘Kala Jathedi’ arrested: Special Cell

Demand-supply mismatch behind waitlist for AIIMS

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Assem-bly on its last day of the monsoon session on Friday passed a reso-lution to repeal the three farm laws and suggested the central government talk to farmers and resolve their grievances. Delhi Home Minister Satyendar Jain alleged that farm laws are aimed at benefiting big companies and not farmers. The doubling of farmers’ income is a jumla (false promise). These farm laws are passed to benefit some big com-panies and the farmers will turn from owners to labourers. The Centre should withdraw these farm laws immediately without any condition, Jain said.

Farmers, mainly from Pun-jab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting at Del-hi’s borders since November last year against three agri laws, which were enacted in Septem-ber that year.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Jarnail Singh initiated the discussion on the contentious farm laws and said farmers have been sitting in protest at the three border points of Delhi against these laws. He alleged that nearly 600 farmers have died so far but Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not speak a single word on it even though he speaks on small matters.

Responding to the debate, Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri said the farm laws will increase crop production and double the

income of farmers.On GNCTD Act changes:Furthermore, while no par-

ticular resolution was passed in this regard, the changes to the Government of National Capi-tal Territory of Delhi Act were also discussed in the Assembly, where the Home Minister and AAP bigwigs, Raghav Chadha, Atishi and Saurabh Bhardwaj targetted the Centre for “taking away” the rights of the elected government.

Satyendar Jain asserted that a Supreme Court already precluded the Delhi Cabinet from seeking approval for every decision and that such a law will cause harm to anyone who is not in govern-ment at the Centre.

Rajinder Nagar MLA Raghav Chadha said that BJP was trying to exact revenge for not being able to win the 2020 elections here, saying this was an indirect way to take over governments. His colleague, Kalkaji MLA Atishi rose to allege that the BJP does not believe in the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Greater Kailash MLA and AAP chief spokesper-son Saurabh Bhardwaj said, “I believe the Central government is drowning all sorts of govern-ment agencies and institutions. This is just the beginning. Inside the Lok Sabha, we all can see how dignity is being compromised... The BJP is creating new prece-dence and limitations. This will harm our democracy to a great extent in the long run.” MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Special Cell on Friday arrested Delhi’s top gang-ster Sandeep alias Kala Jathedi from Saharanpur. Earlier, it was being claimed that he was oper-ating from abroad.

Meanwhile, Deputy Com-missioner of Police (Special Cell) Manishi Chandra said he was involved in several cases in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and other states. A native of Sonipat, Jathedi’s name cropped up in a high profile murder case of Sagar Dhankar at Chhatrasal sta-dium. Wrestler Sushil Kumar was arrested in the case along with his associates. Police claimed that Kumar thrashed him and

his friend Sonu Mahal who was a relative of Kala Jathedi.

Jathedi was also the main conspirator behind the shoot-out at GTB Hospital to free his associate, Kuldeep Fajja, who was later killed by the Special Cell in an encounter.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: AIIMS, New Delhi faces demand-supply issue, far more patients need hospitali-sation compared to the number of beds available in the hospital, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told the Lok Sabha in a written reply on Friday.

A large number of incoming patients need to wait for at least an year before getting treated at AIIMS, particularly for ailments like cancer, neurology and kid-ney diseases, Mandaviya added.

He said “AIIMS, New Delhi, which is the oldest functional AIIMS, faces a demand-supply mismatch in terms of far more number of patients needing hos-pitalisation vis-a-vis the number of beds available.”

New projects are being added into the premier institute to mini-mise the waiting period of criti-cal diseases, some of the projects are Mother and Child block, the National Centre for Ageing, a surgical block and paid private wards have been added to the premier institute.

Various clinical departments prepare waiting lists according to the severity of the patient’s condition and urgency of the

treatment required. In an emer-gency or a life-saving situation, all efforts are made to admit a seriously-ill patient in the hospi-tal as far as practically possible. Registrations are done accord-ing to the maximum handling capacity of the department con-cerned and 80 per cent of OPD appointments for new patients are provided online for up to 30 days in advance. The remaining 20 per cent OPD appointments are provided to walk-in patients.

In addition, patients given dates by their doctors are pro-vided appointments through a single-window exit counter and departmental nodal persons.

“In order to reduce the load of patients on AIIMS, New Delhi and to correct regional imbal-ances in availability of tertiary healthcare services, setting up of 22 new AIIMS in different parts of the country has been approved under PMSSY. Six of the AIIMS at Bhopal, Bhu-baneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Rai-pur and Rishikesh are already fully functional.

“The current patient load is being treated satisfactorily and in a timely manner in these new AIIMS,” Mandaviya stated in his reply.

Green cover to ‘Switch Delhi’: Deputy CM on ‘crucial steps’ taken by govt to tackle bad air

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday detailed the “crucial steps” taken by the AAP govern-ment to tackle pollution and said 1.31 crore saplings have been planted in the last five years due to which the green cover in the national capital has increased.

Speaking on the last day of the Delhi Assembly’s Monsoon Session, the Delhi government has planted 27 lakh saplings in 2020-21 under its 20-point pro-gram. “In the last five years, the Delhi Government has planted 1.31 crore saplings in Delhi, due to which the green area of Delhi has increased to 21.88 per cent

as per the report of the Forest Survey of India for the year 2019, as compared to 10.18 per cent in 2001,” Sisodia told the House.

He added that anti-smog guns at 56 sites are under con-struction and the process of set-ting up smog towers at Anand Vihar and Connaught Place is also underway.

He said the government also launched the ‘Green Delhi App’ and ‘Green War Room’, where 70 “Green Marshals” deal with pol-lution complaints. Also, to reduce pollution in the city, the Delhi government has begun “Switch Delhi” campaign, under which it has subsidised the purchase of electric vehicles while making it mandatory for all government-

funded institutions to adopt such vehicles.

“Additionally, 85 Electric Vehicle Centres have been set up in Delhi as per 31st April 2021. The Delhi government has further improved the pub-lic transport facility, because of which the fleet of DTC currently includes 6,750 buses. 1,300 new buses are soon to be included in the DTC,” the deputy chief minister said.

To deal with the dust prob-lem in the national capital, Siso-dia said the government has deployed 60 mechanical road sweepers.

“Along with this, the work of cleaning 1,612 km of roads and sprinkling water on 1,302 km of

roads is done everyday,” he said.Another major problem that

clouds the city during winter months -- stubble burning -- was also addressed by the Delhi government, he said.

Sisodia said under the “Green Budget” passed by the Delhi gov-ernment in 2018, it was decided “to convert industries into PNG-operated industries”.

“So far, 1,635 out of 1,636 industrial units have been con-verted into PNG units. Along with this, to deal with the prob-lem of stubble, free spraying of bio-decomposer was done on the agricultural lands in Delhi. 169 teams have also been deployed for pollution prevention,” the senior AAP leader said.

4 millenniumpostNationmpSATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

‘Easing of lockdown, non-adherence to Covid norms led to surge in cases’

MoS FOR HEALTH BHARATI PRAVIN PAWAR SAYS IN WRITTEN REPLY

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Easing of lockdown combined with pandemic fatigue, lack of com-munity adherence to Covid-appropriate behavior, and circulation of more transmis-sible variants of SARS-CoV-2 can be attributed to the surge in new cases in some states and union territories, the Lok Sabha was informed on Friday.

In a written reply, Minis-ter of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar said, according to the WHO, there is some evi-dence to indicate higher trans-missibility for cases infected with variants of SARS-CoV-2 like Delta and Delta plus.

"The ministry of health after expert deliberations has concluded that the existing clinical management proto-col for managing COVID-19 cases suffices for treatment of cases infected with variants of COVID-19 and doesn't war-

rant any change, Pawar said."Easing of lockdown com-

bined with pandemic fatigue, lack of community adher-ence to COVID appropriate behavior and evolution and circulation of more transmis-sible variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses can be attributed for the surge in Coronavirus cases in some states and UTs," the minister said.

Pawar was responding to a question on whether new strains like Delta plus and Lambda are more infectious and the reasons for the recent surge in coronavirus cases in some states and UTs includ-ing Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Manipur.

Elaborating on the steps taken by the government for urgent control and contain-ment measures of the disease, Pawar said, although health is a state subject, the Union government has provided the

required technical support and also provided logistic and financial support to the states to further strengthen the existing health infrastructure to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

A three-tier arrangement of dedicated COVID-19 health facilities [(i) COVID Care Cen-ter (CCC); (ii) Dedicated Covid

Health Centre (DCHC) and (iii) Dedicated COVID Hos-pital (DCH)] has been imple-mented in the country to reduce the risk of cross infec-tion to non-COVID patients as well as to maintain conti-nuity of non-COVID essential health services in the country, Pawar said.

The central government has roped in tertiary care hospitals under other ministries to sup-plement the hospital facilities. Further, many large temporary treatment facilities were estab-lished by the DRDO to manage the surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, the minister said.

The isolation bed capac-ity and ICU bed capacity was also enhanced continuously, Pawar said. The daily liquid medical oxygen (LMO) supply was increased by enhancement of LMO production in steel as well as other plants. Further, restrictions were also imposed on industrial use of oxygen, the minister said.

Online digital solutions like Oxygen Demand Aggrega-tion system (ODAS) and Oxy-gen Digital Tracking System (ODTS) have been developed to ascertain the demand for medical oxygen from all med-ical facilities and to track their transportation, Pawar said.

A BMC health worker collects swab sample of a passenger for COVID-19 test, at Dadar station in Mumbai, on Friday

Three killed as heavy rains lash parts of north India

NEW DELHI: Three people were killed in rain-related inci-dents in Uttar Pradesh, while heavy showers drenched many parts of north India.

The India Meteorologi-cal Department issued a 'red alert' in Rajasthan, predicting very heavy rains in many dis-tricts of the state, while it issued an 'orange alert', warning of heavy to very heavy rainfall in almost half of Madhya Pradesh, which has so far received three per cent more rain than the average.

Three trekkers were reported missing on Friday in Himachal Pradesh where over 200 people remained stranded in Himachal in the state's Lahaul-Spiti following a cloudburst and landslides ear-lier this week, while the district administration of Maharash-tra's Raigad asked 413 fami-lies, comprising 1,555 people, from the villages of Mahad and Poladpur talukas to move to safer places due to the threat of landslides.

The Shimla MeT Centre issued a yellow warning of heavy rains till August 3 as it

advised people to not go near rivers and water bodies as the level may increase to heavy rains in the coming days. It also warned of landslides and predicted heavy rains in the plains and low and mid hills of the state till August 5.

The rescue operation to locate 20 people missing after a cloudburst in a village in Jammu and Kashmir's Kisht-war resumed on Friday after seven persons were found dead and 17 others were res-cued in an injured condition as the remote Honzar village

in Dacchan tehsil was hit by flash floods triggered by the cloudburst in the early hours of Wednesday.

Three persons, including a minor, were killed and four injured when the roof of a house collapsed on them due to heavy rains in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar district.

The incident occurred in Begarajpur village under the Mansoorpur police station area on Thursday night. Light to moderate rain and thun-dershowers occurred at most places in Uttar Pradesh. MPOST

NDRF personnel during a search operation for the people missing after flash floods due to cloudburst 2 days ago, in Lahaul & Spiti district

COVID-19: Meanwhile, aviation regulator

DGCA said on Friday that the corona-virus-induced suspension of sched-uled international passenger flights has been extended till August 31.

“However, international sched-uled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on a case-to-case basis,” the Directorate General of Civil Aviation added.

Scheduled international passenger services have been suspended in India since March 23, 2020, due to the coro-navirus pandemic. But special inter-national flights have been operating under the Vande Bharat Mission since May 2020 and under bilateral “air bub-ble” arrangements with selected coun-tries since July 2020.

India has formed air bubble pacts with around 24 countries including the US, the UK, the UAE, Kenya, Bhutan and France.

RS, LS adjourned

We want the Opposition to raise people-related matters and the govern-ment will reply. It is unfortunate that some members of the Opposition have been creating a ruckus, tearing papers and throwing them at the Chair and ministers,” Joshi said.

After the first two adjourn-ments, the Rajya Sabha proceeding was adjourned till 2.30 pm on Friday. When the House re-assembled, just after a few minutes, the Upper House was adjourned for the day as several Opposition members trooped into the Well. Some of the members of Opposi-tion parties were carrying placards and raising slogans against the government.

In the meantime, the House took up a few of the listed questions and the ministers concerned replied to the members’ queries.

After having a meeting of like-minded Opposition leaders ahead of the start of the tenth day of the Mon-soon Session, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Leader Mallikarjun Kharge said, “We only want discus-sion on the Pegasus issue. For that, PM Modi and Home Minister’s presence is necessary. This (snooping) is treason. If they let us discuss the issue, the House will function properly.”

Meanwhile, slamming the Oppo-sition member, Prahlad Joshi said in Lok Sabha that the controversy was a “non-issue” and the government was ready for discussion on issues “directly related” to the people.

On the passage of some Bills with-out much discussion in the Lok Sabha, he said, “We don’t want to pass Bills without discussions.”

Notably, the IT Minister had dis-missed the reports of the use of Pega-sus software to snoop on Indians by saying that the allegations levelled just ahead of the session were aimed at maligning Indian democracy.

India, China...The two sides completed the with-

drawal of troops and weapons from the North and South banks of Pangong lake in February following a series of military and diplomatic talks.

There was no visible forward move-ment in disengagement of troops in the remaining friction points as the Chinese side did not show flexibility in their approach on it at the 11th round of military talks.

Class XII results: Kendriya Vidalayas and the schools

under the Central Tibetan Schools Administration have achieved a 100 per cent pass percentage as against

98.62 per cent and 98.23 per cent respectively last year.

The Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas have improved their pass percentage from 98.70 to 99.94 this year. The pass percentage of government and govern-ment-aided schools have increased by 4.78 per cent and 7.92 per cent respec-tively. The pass percentage of private schools has increased by over 11 per cent since last year.

Only 6,149 students have been placed under compartment as against 87,650 students last year.

“The compartment examination will be conducted between August 16 to September 15. The exact dates will be announced in some time,” Bhard-waj said.

Average retail prices of edible oils rise up to 52% in July

Prices of mustard oil have increased by 39.03 per cent, vanaspati by 46.01 per cent, soya oil by 48.07 per cent, sunflower oil by 51.62 per cent and palm oil by 44.42 per cent during the period under review.

The latest data is up to July 27, 2021.

“To soften the prices of edible oils, the duty on Crude Palm Oil (CPO) has been cut by 5 per cent from 30th June 2021 until 30th September 2021. This reduction has brought down the effec-tive tax rate on CPO to 30.25 per cent from the earlier 35.75 per cent. Fur-ther, the duty on Refined palm oil/Pal-molein has been reduced to 37.5 per cent from 45 per cent,” Choubey said.

A revised import policy for Refined Bleached Deodorized (RBD) palm oil and RBD palmolein has been put in place from June 30, 2021 under which these items have been shifted from the restricted to the free category, he added.

From Page 1OUR CORRESPONDENT

CHANDIGARH: Hary-ana Chief Minister Manohar Lal said that the government is focussed on spreading the teachings and thoughts of Saints and Great personalities.

The Chief Minister said this while speaking at a pro-gramme organized by the Akhil Bhartiya Aggarwal Samaj to thank Chief Minister held here on Friday.

Agrawal Community of Haryana, Delhi, Punjab and Chandigarh organised this pro-gramme after Chief Minister Manohar Lal announced to

name Hisar Airport as Maha-raja Agrasen International Airport.

During this programme, representatives of various orga-nizations expressed their grat-itude to the Chief Minister by presenting silver mace, shawls, turbans, souvenirs, bouquets etc.

The Chief Minister said that the people of Agrawal Com-munity are selflessly engaged in social service and have been doing social work continuously by taking forward the thoughts and culture as preached and taught by great personalities. Society will always progress

taking inspiration from such people, said Manohar Lal.

The Chief Minister said that the State Government has decided to celebrate birth anni-versary of great personalities at state level so as to take forward their thoughts and ideals so as to inspire the society.

State level functions are being organized on the occa-sion of Maharishi Valmiki, Guru Ravidas, Sant Kabir Das, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar jay-anti. Besides this, the birth anniversaries of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Guru Arjan Dev Ji and Guru Gobind Singh Ji are also being celebrated in the State

with great enthusiasm, added the Chief Minister.

He said that the names of big institutions of the state are also being named after great men. The Horticulture Univer-sity of Karnal is named after Maharana Pratap, Skill Uni-versity of Palwal is named after Lord Vishwakarma. Similarly, it was decided to name Hisar airport after Maharaja Agrasen, said Manohar Lal.

He said that as long as the government has the right to take such decisions of naming institutions and places after great men, their legacy will be carried forward.

Govt focussed on spreading the teachings of saints and great personalities: Haryana CM

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SHIMLA: Himachal Pradesh police have beefed up security for Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, apart from BJP National president J P Nadda and union minister for I&B following pro-Khalistan voice messages to Shimla journalists threaten-ing not to allow Himachal CM to unfurl national flag on August 15.

Pre-recorded voices messages were flashed to journalists in the morning on behalf of Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, the general counsel for Sikh For Justice (SoF) conveying not to allow Chief Minister to hoist tricolour in Himachal Pradesh, a state earlier part of united Punjab.

Panicked journalists informed the police, over a social media group and also posted the pre-recorded threaten-ing messages giving a call to all farmers of Punjab and also Khalistan supporters to block Jai Ram Thakur from perform-ing the national flag hoisting ceremony.

"We will not allow Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to hoist Indian Tricolour," the call further stated that, “Himachal Pradesh was part of Punjab –where we are seeking a referendum. Once we lib-erate Punjab, we will make sure that we take over areas of HP which were part of Punjab,” the caller said.

Director General of Police Sanjay Kundu said the police have taken all pos-

sible steps to investigate and identify the caller, which apparently originated from the USA, where Pannu holds a visa.

“There is a case already registered against him by the NIA but since he hap-pens to be a US passport holder, noth-ing could be done against him so far,” he added.

On our part, said Kundu, we have upgraded the security for the Chief Min-

ister and two other dignitaries –J P Nadda and Anurag Thakur, who hails from Him-achal Pradesh. The SPs in all districts have been informed to take precaution-ary steps in view of the threat calls, and those SPs posted in the border districts should also hold a meeting with their counterparts for limited purposes relat-ing to the calls.

The Police also tweeted saying “We are in receipt of pre-recorded messages from pro-Khalistani elements from over-seas sent to some journalists. HP police is fully capable of securing the state and preventing anti-national elements to thwart peace and security in the state in cooperation with the central security and intelligence agencies.”

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said the police were verifying and investigating the matter but it’s very clear.

He said “he will be hoisting the national tricolour wherever the state gov-ernment decides as venue for next Inde-pendence Day function. We are not the one who will get cowed down by such threats.”

This is the first time when such calls were made to Shimla journalists, includ-ing this reporter.

Only some days back some pro-khalistan slogans were seen written on some road milestones in Chintpurni area of Bilaspur.

Security beefed up after pro-Khalistan voice-messages against Himachal CM

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said the police were verifying and investigating the matter

5millenniumpost Nation mpNEW DELHI | SATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021

Oppn seeks JPC probe to ascertain details of farmer deaths during stir

‘India records highest no. of forest fire alerts in 3 years’

OVER 7,800 PIB ACCREDITATION GRANTED BETWEEN 2018 & 2020, SAYS GOVT NEW DELHI: Over 9,000 applications for Press Infor-mation Bureau accreditation were received between 2018-20, out of which 7,831 were granted, the Centre told Parliament on Friday. In written reply in Lok Sabha, Union Minister for Information and Broad-casting Anurag Thakur also informed that in this year so far, 2,514 media persons residing in Delhi and its periphery were granted accreditation by the bureau. He was asked about Press Information Bureau (PIB) accreditation granted in the last three years. “During 2018-20, 9,220 applications for accreditation were received of which 7,831 have been granted accredi-tation and 227 applications were rejected for non-fulfilment of the eligibility conditions,” Thakur said.

ISRO-NASA JT SATELLITE PROJECT NISER PROPOSED TO BE LAUNCHED EARLY 2023: NEW DELHI: The ISRO-NASA joint mission NISER (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite, aimed at making global measurement of land surface changes using advanced radar imaging, is proposed to be launched in early 2023, Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh said on Friday. In a written response to a question in the Lok Sabha, he said NISAR is a joint Earth-Observation mission between ISRO and US space agency NASA for global observations over all land masses including the Polar cryosphere and the Indian Ocean region.

LEADERS OF SAD AND OTHER PARTIES SET TO MEET PREZ ON SAT

Nation Briefs

SIMONTINI BHATTACHARJEE

NEW DELHI: To check wait-ing list passengers are not dropped, Indian Railways has focused on the production of Vande Bharat, Tejas, LHB, Vistadome types of coaches in trains. It has invited bids for private participation to induct 151 trains (rakes) over 12 clus-ters through Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

In a written reply to Rajya Sabha on Friday, rail minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed

that about five crore dropped waiting list passengers were observed in 2019-20 due to lack of capacity.

"The existing passen-ger train services shall not be affected by the operation of train services through PPP mode and these will be in addition to the existing train services. The list contain-ing details of these train ser-vices spread across the entire Indian Railway network had been uploaded on http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/Indica-

tiveRoutesfor12clusters.pdf.." the reply mentions.

The financial bids for all the 12 clusters for the PPP project have been opened on July 23, the last year. The bids are under financial evaluation.

However, the minister also clarified that there is no pro-posal for the privatization of Indian Railways.

Keeping eye on the current pandemic situation and to con-tain the spread of COVID, the Indian Railways will keep dis-continuation on all regular

passenger trains and on basis of the occupancy and waitlist position of the special trains- it operates "Clone trains", on routes where traffic demand is high, the minister also men-tioned in another reply in the Upper House. The regular pas-senger train services are sus-pended till March 23 last year.

The ministry is also in talks with the state governments and GMs of respective zones over the situation and demand of rail services, a ministry source said.

‘More production of Vande Bharat and Tejas type coaches to accommodate waiting list passengers’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

RAIPUR: "Fishery has been given the status equivalent to agriculture in Chhattisgarh, and now people practising fish farming will be provided ben-efits of electricity supply at sub-sidized rates and zero-interest loan facility, as provided in the agriculture. This will benefit the fishermen and help the ones who could not do fish farming due to their weak economic condition. More and more peo-ple from the fishing commu-nity should also come forward to take advantage of these pro-visions," said Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel while virtually addressing the 'oath-taking cer-emony' of the Vice-Chairman

and members of Chhattisgarh Fishermen Welfare Board from his office located in Vidhan Sabha premises here on Friday.

In the programme, Chhat-tisgarh Fishermen Welfare Board's Vice-Chairman Rajen-dra Dhimar, members Dinesh Futan, Dev Kunwar Nishad, R.N. Aditya, Prabhu Mallah, Vijay Dhimar and Amrita Nishad, took oath of office.

On this occasion, Chair-man of the Board MR. Nishad, Chairman of Chhattisgarh Text Book Corporation Shailesh Nitin Trivedi and former MLA Dilip Laharia were also present.

Congratulating the newly appointed Vice-Chairman and members of Chhattisgarh Fish-ermen Welfare Board, Chief

Minister Baghel said that every district from north to south and east to west in the state have people from fishermen community, rivers, ponds, and drains. Since time immemo-rial, people have been practic-

ing fish farming and vegetable cultivation for their sustenance. Ponds and dams are allocated for fish farming by mak-ing committees. Often it is reported that people from fish-erman community are unable to get the work and some-times even when the work is available, people of the com-munity are unable to do fish farming because of their weak economic condition. They are often forced to work for big traders for small wages. But now with facilities and benefits similar to agriculture, people will be able to do fish farming easily and profitably.

The Chief Minister said that there is good potential for fish-ery in the state.

‘Now, electricity at subsidised rates and zero-interest loan facility for fish farming’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India recorded 3,45,989 forest-fire alerts between November 2020 and June 2021, highest in the last three years and almost triple the number of alerts generated during the same period the pre-vious year, the Centre told Par-liament on Friday.

In a written reply to a ques-tion in the Lok Sabha, Minis-ter of State for Environment Ashwini Choubey said 3,45,989 forest-fire alerts were sent by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) using SNPP-VIIRS sen-sors (including large, continu-ous and repeated forest fires) between November 2020 and June 2021.

According to the details shared by the minister, the number of forest-fire alerts between November 2019 and June 2020 was 1,24,473 and between November 2018 and June 2019, the country recorded 2,10,286 such alerts.

"The number of incidents of forest fire in the country varies from year to year depending on various natural and anthropo-

genic reasons. Forest fires do occur every year during sum-mer due to various natural and anthropogenic reasons, includ-ing accumulation of inflamma-ble materials such as dry leaves, twigs, pine needles etc.

"These factors have also been highlighted in a joint study by the Ministry of Envi-ronment, Forest and Climate Change and the World Bank. Most of the forest fires in the country are ground fires in which ground vegetation etc. get burnt. The Forest Survey of India (FSI) sends forest-fire alerts to all registered users on the alert system," Choubey told the Lower House of Parliament.

According to the figures, Odisha recorded the highest number of forest-fire alerts at 51,968, followed by Madhya Pradesh (47,795) and Chhattis-

garh (38,106) between Novem-ber 2020 and June 2021.

There was a steep rise from last year in the number of for-est-fire alerts generated in these three states. While Odi-sha recorded 10,602 alerts between November 2019 and June 2020, Madhya Pradesh recorded 9,537 in the same period and Chhattisgarh 6,360.

The data showed that Delhi recorded only 14 forest-fire alerts this year, down from last year's 21.

The minister also said the responsibility of forest-fire pre-vention and management lies primarily with the respective state and the ministry sup-ports the efforts of the states and Union territories in pre-venting and controlling forest fire by providing financial assis-tance for various measures.

BAREILLY (UP): With the traditional "Kanwar Yatra" being banned in the wake of the Covid crisis, many devotes are going to post offices in western Uttar Pradesh to buy bottles of Gangajal. In Bareilly city, 350 bottles have been sold in the past six days, an official said.

Post Master General Sanjay Singh, who is the incharge for western UP, said over 300 post offices have been made sales centres in the region.

Due to the ban on "Kanwar Yatra," people will not be able to go to Uttarakhand but Gan-gajal collected from Gangotri is available at select post offices in all major cities, he added.

The postal department has kept the price for a 250 ml bot-tle at Rs 30, he said, adding that the sale is expected to increase on Mondays.

While 190 bottles of Gan-gajal were sold from the head post office, 160 were sold from other post offices in the city, Bareilly's Senior Postmaster P K Singh said. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Shiromani Akali Dal, NCP, Shiv Sena and some other opposition parties, including the Left parties, have written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla for a Joint Parlia-mentary Committee (JPC) probe to ascertain the details of farmer deaths during the "Kisan Andolan" against three agriculture laws.

In a letter to the speaker, leaders of various parties, including SAD, Shiv Sena, NCP, BSP, JKNC, RLP, CPI and CPI-M, have urged his inter-vention in the matter.

The letter came in the wake of Agriculture Minister Naren-dra Singh Tomar's statement that the Centre has no knowl-edge of farmer deaths.

The Opposition leaders said the minister's statement has hurt the sentiments of the farming community across the country and he should apolo-

gise as he has insulted the farm-ers. They said Tomar has stated in Parliament that the Centre does not have any record of the farmers who died during the ongoing Kisan Andolan at Del-hi's borders.

The farmers have been pro-testing against three agricul-ture laws of the Centre and demanding their scrapping since November last year.

Leaders of SAD and other parties are set to meet the presi-dent in this regard on Saturday morning.

"It is shocking that the 'annadaata' was subjected to this insult, despite clear-cut recorded proof of hundreds of farmers being martyred dur-ing the Kisan Andolan. It is even more appalling that the agriculture minister has gone on record to say that neither a study has been conducted to verify the numbers of these farmer deaths nor a study to understand the apprehensions

in the minds of farmers regard-ing the three farm laws," the leaders said.

They said this is a very seri-ous lapse on the part of the minister and alleged that "he has, in fact, misled the nation".

"We urge you to ask the minister to apologise to the farming community for his

intemperate remarks that have hurt their self-respect.

"We urge you to form a Joint Parliamentary Com-mittee led by an Opposition member to probe the entire issue and ascertain details of the total number of lives lost in the ongoing Kisan Andolan and suggest ways and means to

rehabilitate the victim families," the Opposition leaders said.

The JPC could also take feedback directly from farm-ers and their representatives about their reservations vis-a-vis the three agriculture laws and submit the same to the government for necessary action, they said in their letter.

The leaders hoped that the insult meted out to farm-ers and their democratic pro-test is addressed through the speaker's intervention, which will send out a clear signal that the temple of democracy stands with the "annadaata" and will not take any insult heaped on him.

Among the signatories to the letter were Harsimrat Kaur Badal (SAD), Supriya Sule (NCP), Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena), Danish Ali (BSP), Hanuman Beniwal (RLP), P R Natarajan (CPI-M), M Selvaraj (CPI) and Hasnain Masoodi (JKNC).

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Com-mittee on Information Tech-nology, has urged Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to take action over ministry officials' "last-minute refusal" to attend a panel meet, which he said constituted "contempt of the House".

The panel was to hold a meeting on Wednesday to dis-cuss several issues including the Pegasus snooping allegations.

It had summoned officials from the Ministry of Electron-ics and Information Technol-ogy (MeitY), the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Communications (Depart-ment of Telecommunications) on the subject 'Citizens data security and privacy'.

However, the meeting could not take place as the BJP mem-bers of the panel did not sign the attendance register, even though they were present in the meeting room, leading to a lack of quorum. In his letter to Birla, Congress MP Tharoor

said just before the sitting, he was informed by the committee branch of the secretariat that e-mail communications have been received on July 28 after-noon from the three ministries/department that their repre-sentatives would not be able to appear before the committee.

Tharoor said the Ministry of Home Affairs forwarded their mail at 2:33 pm, MeitY at 2:44 pm and the Depart-ment of Telecommunications at 2:52 pm.

Detailing the sequence of events, the parliamentary panel chief said in his letter that MeitY had sought exemption from appearance stating the chairperson of the joint com-mittee on Personal Data Pro-tection Bill, 2019, has desired to have an urgent meeting with the secretary and other senior officers of MeitY for discus-sion/clarification on Bill at 3:45 pm in the chairman's chamber.

The Ministry of Home Affairs sought exemption on account of urgent and press-ing commitments related to the

ensuing Parliament Session, Tharoor's letter read.

Similar communication was received from the Depart-ment of Telecommunications that it will not be possible for the secretary to appear before the committee due to an urgent Parliament-related matter.

Tharoor said that as chair-person of the panel he did not excuse these witnesses from attendance. The notice inform-ing the members of the com-mittee for the sitting was issued on July 20 and the ministries/

department concerned were also informed on that day, he said, adding all the three min-istries/department had con-firmed their participation.

"The last-minute refusal of the ministries/department to appear before the commit-tee has been unprecedented and clearly constitutes breach of parliamentary privilege and contempt of the House. Besides, this has undermined the authority of a parliamen-tary committee," Tharoor said.

He urged the Lok Sabha

Speaker to take serious cog-nizance of this matter and undertake action as deemed appropriate under the rules.

Tharoor has reportedly cir-culated the letter dated July 29 to the members of the panel.

On Thursday, Tharoor had taken a swipe at the BJP members of the parliamentary panel, saying "some elements" have chosen to reduce it to a "ping pong match" that is not in the spirit of Parliament.

An international media consortium has reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers were on a list of potential targets for surveil-lance using Israeli firm NSO's Pegasus spyware.

Opposition leaders includ-ing Rahul Gandhi, two union ministers –Prahlad Singh Patel and Railways and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, business-man Anil Ambani, a former CBI chief, and at least 40 jour-nalists are on list on the leaked database of NSO. It is, how-ever, not established that all the phones were hacked. AGENCIES

Take action over officials’ ‘last-minute refusal’ to attend panel meet, Tharoor urges Birla

NEW DELHI: No death has been reported due to manual scavenging, the Union Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry has told Parliament, drawing sharp reaction from activists who said that those people were being robbed of dignity even in their deaths.

Manual scavenging is banned under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabili-tation Act, 2013.

In response to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Union Min-ister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale has said 66,692 man-ual scavengers were identified.

However, on how many deaths of manual scaven-gers have been recorded, he replied, "No such deaths have been reported due to manual scavenging." The government does not identify deaths due to manual scavenging and instead calls them deaths due to haz-ardous cleaning of septic tanks and sewers.

During the last session of Parliament, on March 10, Atha-wale had said, "No deaths due to manual scavenging has been reported. However, there have been reports of death of per-sons while cleaning sewers or septic tanks."

Activists have described the government's response as a complete lack of apathy.

Bezwada Wilson, the national convener of Safai Kar-

machari Andolan, an organ-isation working to eradicate manual scavenging, said the minister had himself admit-ted that 340 people died while cleaning sewers.

"Now, he is making a state-ment technically and think-ing manual scavenging as dry latrines. So, he must mention in his statement very clearly that in dry latrines people may not die but here in septic tanks people die. The government is denying everything and in the same manner, he is deny-ing deaths due to manual scav-enging," he said. "It is not fair on the part of the government. When we kill these people we must have the courage to say that it is due to some kind of mistake that we are going to prevent. The government is denying the fundamental right of dignity to these people and is not even counting the deaths. It is a modern form of untouch-ability -- ignoring the life of a Dalit," Wilson added.

Sanjeev Kumar, the sec-retary of Dalit Adivasi Shakti Adhikar Manch, told PTI that the number of deaths is anyway underreported and the govern-ment denying it completely is highly condemnable. "In Delhi alone, there have been so many such deaths. It is very sad that the government is not acknowledging their deaths. Those who lost their lives are being robbed of dignity even in their deaths," he said. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Hitting out at the Opposition for stalling proceedings of the Parliament, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who is deputy leader in Rajya Sabha and Union Minister of Minor-ity Affairs, said on Friday that Congress has once again dis-appointed the country as the Opposition party is stalling the government work in the Par-liament on unsubstantiated, baseless and fabricated issue of Pegasus, which has no rele-vance to interests of the people of the country.

“After demanding for the last six months that the session of Parliament be convened for having an elaborate discussion on various issues, including the Covid-19 crisis, the Opposi-tion has not shown any inter-est in joining the proceedings for even a single day during the ongoing Monsoon Session of the Parliament,” he said, add-ing that the Opposition lead-ers have made it clear in their statements that this entire ses-sion has been “washed out” from their side. The country’s ‘Grand Old party Congress, is becoming “champion” of this “irresponsible politics” done by some Opposition parties, he further alleged.

“In May, Leader of the Con-gress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ran-jan Chowdhury had requested the President of India to con-vene a special session of Par-liament immediately. The Congress leader had then said that the session is very impor-tant as all the MPs want to dis-cuss the situation arising out

of the Covid-19 pandemic cri-sis in their respective areas,: he said, adding, “The Congress’ “new friend” Shiv Sena MP and leader Sanjay Raut had also reiterated the demand for the special session of Parliament.

“Even though the govern-ment put in all efforts to control the second wave of the pan-demic, convening a Parliament session at that moment was not advisable as Covid-19 proto-cols, the Opposition mem-bers continued to criticise the government’s stand for several days,” he said. The Monsoon session is underway for more than a week and the Opposi-tion is not allowing the Parlia-ment to work smoothly even for a single day, he alleged.

Besides, when on the first day of the session Prime Min-ister Narendra Modiji invited leaders of the Opposition par-ties for a special meeting to share their suggestions regard-ing the steps taken by the gov-ernment to tackle the Covid-19 and future course of action to deal the pandemic, some lead-ers, including those from the Congress, had questioned the need for a separate meeting citing that House has started, he said.

‘Congress becoming ‘champion’ of

irresponsible politics’

The move came in the wake of Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar's statement that the Centre has no knowledge of farmer deaths

Centre says no death reported due to

manual scavengingActivists decry govt response

In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Environment Ashwini Choubey said 3,45,989 forest-fire alerts were sent by the Forest Survey of India between Nov 2020 and June 2021

Panel was to hold a meeting on Wed to discuss several issues including Pegasus allegations

‘Kanwar Yatra’ banned: Buy

Gangajal from post offices in

western UP

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel

There is good potential for fishery in the state: Chhattisgarh CM

MOMENT OF JOY

Students celebrate after CBSE declared class 12th results, in Prayagraj, Friday PIC/PTI

2 UNDERTRIAL PRISONERS ESCAPE FROM DHANBAD JAIL DHANBAD: Two undertrial prisoners escaped from the highly-guarded Dhanbad divisional jail in Jharkhand on Friday morning, officials said. Both of them were undergoing trial in two different cases of the POCSO Act, they said. The prisoners fled after cutting an iron grill, Jail Superintendent Ajay Kumar said. “CCTV footage of the jail and outside the premises are being screened. District and police administrations have been informed about the incident and police teams are raiding their hideouts,” Kumar said. On being informed about the incident, ADM (law and order) Kumar Tara Chandra and SDM Dhanbad Surendra Kumar reached the jail and inspected the spot.

MAN WANTED IN OVER DOZEN CRIMI-NAL CASES HELD IN UP’S SULTANPUR SULTANPUR (UP): A man wanted in over a dozen criminal cases, including murder, and carrying a re-ward of Rs 25,000 on his arrest was nabbed here on Friday, police said. Ajay Dev Shukla, alias Suryabhan, was arrested by a team of the Special Task Force and the local police of the Jaisinghpur area, Additional Superintendent of Police Vipul Kumar Srivastava said. Shukla was wanted in connection with more than a dozen criminal cases such as murder, attempt to mur-der and loot, he said. He had been on the run since 2018 when he allegedly killed a liquor salesman in Bagia village, the officer added.

HARDSHIPS CAUSED BY FLOODS

ELGAR CASE

Nation Briefs

6 millenniumpostNationmpSATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

NEW DELHI: To tackle the human-trafficking nexus oper-ating globally, the Union gov-ernment has decided to set up centres where women and chil-dren who are in crisis inter-nationally can get protection, said Women and Child Devel-opment Minister Smriti Irani on Friday.

With the passage of the Trafficking in Persons (Preven-tion, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021, the government will enhance cooperation interna-tionally to address cross-border trafficking, she said at the inau-gural session of the national consultation on the elimination of human trafficking.

The event has been organised by the Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foun-dation and its sister group BachpanBachaoAndolan.

"On international nexus with regard to trafficking, in partnership with the Exter-nal Affairs ministry, we have decided to set up centres for

women who are in challenge or in crisis internationally so the women and children get protection.

"I am sure that with the pas-sage of the bill we will enhance that cooperation internation-ally as well so that cross-border trafficking, which is a major concern with regard to traffick-ing of women and children, can also be addressed," Irani said.

About the bill, Irani said it is for the first time that "we are looking at trafficking in its entirety as an organised crime which means that the bill will now propose a comprehen-sive list of different forms of

trafficking which are aggra-vated in nature and accord-ingly enhance punishment for the same".

The Union Minister said that in many conversations it was highlighted how the Indian Penal Code (IPC) does not live up to the expectation of the populace with regard to the stringent punishment when it comes to human trafficking.

"In our conversation with the Home Ministry we are assured that appropriate amendments to IPC will be made to complement the seri-ousness with which the govern-ment proposes the trafficking bill," she added.

"The important one aspect I would like to flag is the issue of mandatory reporting and pun-ishment for those who neglect to report a case of trafficking when it comes before them.

"We have provided provi-sion for closure of premises and eviction of offenders from properties who indulge in pur-

chase from trafficking. In the bill, we have provided for an institutional arrangement to combat trafficking, apart from rescue, recovery, rehabilitation, repatriation and reintegration of victims," she said.

Irani also highlighted that the bill has been drafted with a victim-centric approach to provide for the safety and pro-tection of witnesses and entitle them to basic benefits and ser-vices and prescribe measures for their further care, relief and compensation.

"Special courts designated in districts for speedy trials and justice is delivered within a limited time frame that has also been proposed within the exacts of the bill," she said.

Out of the Nirbhaya Fund, the government has mone-tarily provided support to every state government to ensure that every district has an anti-human trafficking unit spe-cially dedicated to this cause, Irani said. AGENCIES

Irani: Govt will set up centres for women in crisis internationally

PATNA: Bihar Chief Minis-ter Nitish Kumar has agreed, in principle, to take up the issue of a caste-based census with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the opposition Tejashwi Yadav claimed here on Friday. Yadav said this while talking to reporters after calling on the chief minister inside the assembly premises, leading a delegation of leaders of the five-party Grand Alliance helmed by his RJD.

The Centre's recent state-ment in the Parliament that a caste-based census would include only the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes has triggered a fresh demand for inclusion of the OBCs, who dominate the political scenario in Bihar post implementation of the Mandal commission report. "The chief minister told us that he agreed with our demand for a caste based cen-sus. He said he was leaving for Delhi later in the day. Upon his return on August 02 he will write to the Prime Minister and seek an appointment", Yadav said.

The former Deputy CM has been suggesting that the chief minister should meet the PM heading a delegation, which could include the leader of the opposition, to broach the subject.

Notably, Kumar, an OBC himself, too has repeatedly spoken in favour of holding a caste-based census and recently urged the centre to reconsider its stance on the issue.

Besides, resolutions in sup-port of a caste-based census have been passed unanimously

by both Houses of the state leg-islature in the past.

Yadav claimed, "we also proposed that in the event of the centre not agreeing to the demand, the state should con-sider holding such an exercise on its own like Karnataka did a few years ago. The Bihar chief minister said he was not aware of the same but would look into this alternative as well".

A "social and educational survey" was held in the south-ern state way back in 2015.

At present the Congress, which was then in power, is engaged in a tussle with the rul-ing BJP over the latter's appar-ent reluctance to make public the findings of the survey.

The RJD leader sought to give a wide berth to ques-tions about alleged disparaging remarks against Biharis made by an MP of the ruling TMC in West Bengal.

"I have not heard the state-ment myself. Yesterday you (journalists) came to me with a statement purportedly made by a TMC MP who has sought to refute the remarks attributed to him", said Yadav referring to controversial utterances of MohuaMoitra. BJP MP from Godda in Jharkhand Nishikant Dubey has alleged her of call-ing him a "Bihari Goonda" during meeting of Parliamen-tary Committee on Informa-tion Technology Wednesday. Senior BJP leaders like Sushil Kumar Modi and Shahnawaz Hussain besides Hindustani AwamMorcha president Jitan Ram Manjhi have strongly condemned the alleged deroga-tory comment. MPOST

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday granted tem-porary bail to lawyer Suren-dra Gadling, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, to enable him perform certain rituals for his mother who died last year.

Gadling, lodged at Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai, can be out on bail from August 13 to 21, said a division bench of Justices S SShinde and N J Jamadar.

Earlier this year, he had moved the HC through his lawyers R Sathyanarayan and senior counsel Indira Jaising against a lower court's denial of

emergency bail to him to attend his mother's funeral when she died of COVID-19 in August 2020.

His lawyers told the HC last week that as most of his family members were either hospitalized or under home isolation then, the last rites and condolence meeting for his mother were yet to be performed.

The family has decided to perform these rites on her first death anniversary on August 15, advocate Jaising told the court, seeking temporary bail for him. MPOST

NEW DELHI: India and the US on Friday renewed for another five years a global develop-ment partnership agreement that provides for jointly offer-ing assistance to their partner countries in areas of connec-tivity, trade and investments, healthcare and agriculture.

Both sides signed the sec-ond amendment to the State-ment of Guiding Principles (SGP) on Triangular Coopera-tion for Global Development, the Ministry of External Affairs said.

The SGP agreement was signed in November 2014 and the fresh amendment extended the pact’s validity up to 2026.

“Under the agreement, India and US will continue to offer capacity building assis-tance to partner countries in multiple sectors, focusing pri-marily on agriculture, regional

connectivity, trade and invest-ments, nutrition, health, clean and renewable energy, women empowerment, disaster pre-paredness, water, sanitation, education and institution building,” the MEA said.

The US embassy said the SGP between the US and India leverages the com-bined capacities of the two sides to address global devel-opment challenges facing countries in the wider region and the world, particularly in Asia and Africa.

“The US-India partnership is a significant contributor to regional and global stability and prosperity. Today the two countries reiterated their com-mitment, signing a five-year extension to the Statement of Guiding Principles on Trian-gular Cooperation for Global Development (SGP),” it said in

a release.Atul Keshap, the Charge

d’Affaires of the in India, described renewal of the agree-ment as a signal by the two sides to their joint commitment to global prosperity.

“As a signal of our joint commitment to global pros-perity, today, the United States and India renewed our global development partnership agreement, affirming our goals to meet the development aspi-rations of partner countries, particularly in Asia and Africa. #USIndiaDosti,” he tweeted.

The MEA said the second amendment expands the scope of capacity building activities undertaken jointly by India and the US and also provides for a consultative mechanism for biannual monitoring and review of activities undertaken under the SGP. AGENCIES

PUNE/ MUMBAI: Maha-rashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said reha-bilitation of people was the only solution to the hardships caused by floods, and assured that his government would provide every possible help on this front.

Speaking during his visit to Kolhapur district to take stock of the damages caused by last week's torrential rains and subsequent floods, he urged the affected peo-ple to discuss among them-selves and take a decision about their rehabilitation, and also asked the flood-prone vil-lages to unanimously pass a resolution about it.

Later, while addressing a press conference after tak-ing a review of the situation, Thackeray said that strict measures would be taken soon to find a permanent solution to the hardships faced by the people living in the flood-prone areas.

Interacting with the flood-

affected people put up at tem-porary shelters at a village in Shirol tehsil of the district, he said, "If the entire village is ready to get rehabilitated, the state government will provide all the help it needs for the process."

"Rehabilitation is the only solution to the frequent hard-ships caused due to floods. You (people from the flood-affected villages) sit and decide (about the rehabili-tation) and we will provide the help," the chief minister told the villagers.

The government was keen to find a permanent solution to the situation faced by the flood-prone villages in the state, he added.

In Narsinhwadi, villagers talked to him about the 2019 floods, last week’s flood situa-tion and the COVID-19 pan-demic, saying that these things have played havoc in their lives in the last three years. They sought assistance from him in rebuilding their lives. MPOST

JAMMU: The Jammu and Kashmir Police carried out searches in Pargwal area near the International Border (IB) here after local residents alleg-edly spotted a flying object believed to be a drone, officials said on Friday.

The operation was launched in several villages of Pargwal late Thursday evening, shortly after a local resident noticed a blinking light in the sky at around 8.30 pm and alerted fellow villagers, they said.

However, the search opera-tion was suspended late night and resumed at around 5 am this morning. However, noth-ing objectionable was recovered

during the operation.Three suspected Pakistani

drones were also sighted simul-taneously over Bari-Brahmana, Chiladya and Gagwal areas in Samba district around the same time on Thursday.

A massive combing opera-tion was carried out in the areas where the movement of the sus-pected drones was picked up throughout the night and in the morning. However, noth-ing was found on the ground, a police official said.

Personnel of the Border Security Force (BSF) fired a couple of rounds towards one of the drones in Chiladya before it returned to the Pakistani side,

officials said.The other two drones dis-

appeared from the sky shortly after hovering over sensitive security installations at Bari Brahmana and along Jammu-Pathankot highway in Gagwal, they said. The latest sightings were recorded nearly a week after police shot down a Pak-istani drone carrying five-kg Improvised Explosive Device (IED) material in the border belt of Kanachak near here.

There has been a spurt in drone activities, especially after the bombing of Indian Air Force (IAF) Station in Jammu on June 27, resulting in injuries to two security personnel. MPOST

NEW DELHI: The Enforce-ment Directorate on Friday said it has attached a London hotel worth Rs 58.61 crore in connection with a money laun-dering probe against realty firm Unitech Group and its promot-ers Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra. The hotel, named Bed and Breakfast, is owned by a company called Ibourn-shorne Limited, a UK-based associate firm of the Carnoustie group.

A provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laun-dering Act (PMLA) has been issued by the ED to attach the property. The case is based on a number of Delhi Police eco-

nomic offences wing (EOW) FIRs filed by homebuyers against the Unitech Group and its promoters. The agency claimed in a statement issued here that "tainted funds of Rs 325 crore belonging to home-buyers were diverted to Car-noustie group". "Out of this, Rs 41.3 crore was diverted to UK after substantial layering through Carnoustie Group, India and through Indesign Enterprises Pvt Ltd, Cyprus."

These funds, it alleged, were "used for purchasing the shares of Ibounshorne Limited, UK in the name of Carnoustie Man-agement India Pvt Limited, an entity belonging to Carnoustie

group".For attaching an asset

based out of India, the ED approaches its counterpart in the respective country under established international money laundering and other financial crimes cooperation protocols and freezes its sale and transfer.

The ED filed a criminal case under various sections of the PMLA early this year against the Unitech Group and its pro-moters over allegations that the owners -- Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra -- illegally diverted over Rs 2,000 crore to Cyprus and the Cayman Islands. AGENCIES

Rehabilitation only solution: Maha CM

Searches carried out after suspected drone sighting near IB in Jammu HC grants temporary

bail to Surendra Gadling

Money laundering probe of Unitech group: ED attaches London hotel

India, US renew global development partnership deal for 5 years

‘Nitish has agreed to take up with Centre

issue of caste census’

We have provided provision for closure of premises, and eviction of offend-ers from properties who indulge in purchase from trafficking, says WCD Min

Bihar Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha attends all-party legislators meeting with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, Congress leader Ajit Sharma and Deputy CM Tarkishor Prasad and Renu Dev during the Monsoon Session of State Assembly in Patna PIC/PTI

Smriti Irani

MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate on Friday issued fresh summons to former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh and his son to appear before it next week in connection with a money laundering case probe, official sources said.

The development comes on a day the Supreme Court adjourned Anil Deshmukh’s plea, which sought protection from any coercive action by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the criminal case registered under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laun-dering Act (PMLA), and said it would hear his petition on August 3.

The 71-year-old NCP poli-tician and his son, Hrishikesh Deshmukh, have been asked to depose before the investigating officer of the case on August 2 at the ED’s office in south Mumbai. This is the fourth summons to Anil Deshmukh.

The notice has been issued under provisions of the PMLA as the agency wants to further record his statement in this

case, sources said.Anil Deshmukh has

skipped at least three sum-monses of the federal probe agency in the past for question-ing in the case. His son and wife too were summoned and they also did not appear.

He recently issued a video statement stating that he would appear before the ED “after” the apex court’s decision on his petition. “I had received ED’s summons after which I filed a petition in the Supreme Court. I will go to the ED to record my statement after the SC’s decision on my petition,” Anil Deshmukh had said.

The summonses were issued in connection with the criminal case registered under the PMLA related to an alleged Rs 100 crore bribery-cum-extortion racket in the Maha-rashtra police establishment that led to Anil Deshmukh’s resignation in April.

The agency had last month raided his premises in Mumbai and Nagpur apart from that of his aides and some others. AGENCIES

Anil Deshmukh, son summoned again

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: An action plan aimed at strengthening result-oriented cooperation among the BRICS countries to combat ter-rorism, radicalisation and terror financing will be adopted at a meeting of the national security advisors of the grouping next month. The Ministry of Exter-nal Affairs said on Friday that the action plan was finalised at a meeting of the BRICS Coun-ter-Terrorism Working Group (CTWG) that took place virtu-ally on July 28 and 29.

“The BRICS Counter-Ter-rorism Action Plan is one of the key deliverables during India’s chairship of BRICS and will be adopted at the meeting of BRICS National Security Advi-sors scheduled next month,” the MEA said.

BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) brings

together five of the largest devel-oping countries of the world, representing 41 per cent of the global population, 24 per cent of the global GDP and 16 per cent of the global trade.

India has been strongly pitching for deeper coopera-tion among the BRICS mem-ber countries in dealing with terrorism, extremism and radicalisation.

At the CTWG meeting, the

BRICS countries exchanged views on the assessment of the threat from terrorism at national, regional and global level and resolved to further enhance counter-terrorism cooperation in line with the action plan, the MEA said in a statement. It said the countries also condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

The 6th meeting of the CTWG was held under the

chairship of India. “The main outcome of the working group meeting was the finalisation of the BRICS Counter-Terrorism Action Plan containing spe-cific measures to implement the BRICS Counter-Terrorism Strategy adopted by BRICS Leaders in 2020,” the MEA said.

“The action plan is aimed at further strengthening result-oriented cooperation between BRICS countries in areas such as preventing and combating ter-rorism, radicalisation, financing of terrorism, misuse of internet by terrorists, curbing travel of terrorists, border control, pro-tection of soft targets and infor-mation sharing,” it said.

Mahaveer Singhvi, joint sec-retary for counter-terrorism in the MEA, chaired the CTWG meeting while senior coun-ter-terrorism officials from all BRICS countries participated in it.

BRICS finalises action plan to combat terrorismBRICS brings together five of the largest developing countries of the world

7millenniumpost Editorial mpNEW DELHI | SATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021

Log on to write letters to the editor or send them to letter2editor.mp@gmail.com. You can also send your comments to The Editor,

Millennium Post, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002

DearEditor

Folk festivals exhibit the same characteristics irrespective of continental differences. Almost all folk cultures of different communities in the world have something in common. The other day I was reading about our Assamese festival ‘Mohoho which is celebrated in most parts of lower Assam. Mohoho is celebrated on the full moon day of ‘Aghon’ month when cowherds of different villages gather together with bamboo sticks in one hand and a lantern in the other. They go to every family in the village and sing ‘Mohoho’ songs. The whole purpose of this festival is to get rid of mosquitoes and other insects to keep the villagers safe. The villagers offer gifts in the form of money, hen, ducks or whatever is available in the house. Halloween is another folk festival which has its roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain where people would light bonfires and put on weird costumes to ward off the ‘ghosts’. The Celts who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. In the modern form of Halloween, kids knock at the doors of their neighbours and ask a question “trick or treat?” and are offered candies, clothes or other such gifts. Somewhere these two festivals have something in common. While the latter is famous all over the world, the former is still under the blanket of anonymity. I urge the state government and especially the department of culture to put special emphasis on these types of folk festivals to give them a new lease of life. It is seen that Halloween is now celebrated even in Assam which is not a bad thing, we have to inculcate the good, no matter where it comes from but then we will be a laughing stock before the world if we do not know and celebrate our own culture.

— NOOPUR BARUAH, TEZPUR via email

EDITORIALReturning to normal

At the height of global shutdowns last year, 188 countries closed their schools, affecting over a billion children who have been placed at risk of falling behind on their education. Naturally, just

as work-from-home was made a norm at the time, so was learning-at-home or remote learning. UNICEF noted that around 80 per cent of the countries that went for school shutdowns resorted to some kind of remote learning prac-tice. But over a year of remote learning, it has become clear that remote learning cannot automatically be custom-fitted to take the place of learning in a school environment. The single biggest reason for this is the considerable digital gap between students from different backgrounds and countries. UNICEF data shows that around 31 per cent or 463 million school-going children could not be reached through broad-cast or digital media as they lacked the necessary infrastruc-ture at home or because they were not targeted by policies to effectively implement remote learning. With remote learn-ing currently failing to be as comprehensive a solution to the education problem during the pandemic, the focus once again has shifted to swiftly reopening schools and doing so safely. On Tuesday, the UN insisted that schools closed due to the pandemic must reopen. James Elder, spokesman for the UN Children’s Fund told reporters that “schools should be the last to close and the first to reopen”. He added that it was a “terrible mistake” to reopen bars before reopening schools. He also emphasised that “Reopening schools cannot wait for all teachers and students to be vaccinated.” Elder ref-erenced a grim prediction made by the World Bank last year in regards to the 1.6 billion school children whose educa-tion was being delayed, stating that without remedial action, this generation of students could incur as much as $ 10 tril-lion in lost earnings. Back in India, last week, a group of 50 academicians, doctors, lawyers and parents from Maharash-tra, Delhi and Karnataka have written to their respective state CMs to urge them to reopen schools. The argument is one that is increasingly being used worldwide. The pandemic is not going away any time soon and COVID-19 may actu-ally be here to stay. In this case, shutting down to avoid the risk of infections is a strategy with limited effectiveness and the negatives soon outweigh any positive safety benefits. The petitioners stated that children being forced to stay at home not only creates learning loss but also leads to mental distress and reduced social skills. Furthermore, the petitioners have pointed out that despite the scientific consensus that it would be best to reopen schools with restrictions, most education institutes throughout the country remain shut. The sugges-tion from the group is not to blindly dive in however but rather reopen educational institutions in a staggered man-ner, starting with pre-primary and primary sections before moving on to secondary education. At the same time, other measures must also be undertaken such as priority vaccina-tions for teaching staff and reduced number of days for phys-ical attendance of schools. But of course, nothing is quite so simple. While schools are being reopened across the world, new waves of COVID are also causing them to be shut down elsewhere. The general scientific consensus according to the available evidence is that children are less likely to be infected by the virus and even if they are infected, they are less likely to go through more severe illnesses. But it is also important to note that the effect of new COVID variants such as the infectious Delta variant has not been adequately studied as of now. While there is evidence that not only is the Delta vari-ant more infectious but also more likely to cause hospitalisa-tions, there is simply no similar data for younger age groups. What is known is that children can still act as highly effective carriers of the virus precisely because it is less likely for them to exhibit any serious symptoms. This becomes a particular cause for concern with the more virulent Delta variant. At the same time, vaccinations for children are yet to properly kick-off worldwide. But this cannot mean that inaction is the answer. Social distancing, masking, proper ventilation and timely vaccination of everyone around the school going chil-dren from teaching staff to family members are just some of the measures that can be adopted to help children get back to school faster and safer.

millenniumpost.in

SHUTAPA PAULCELEBRATING DIVERSITY

Unequivocal empowerment

Her body, her choice

Dalit Bandhu Scheme is expected to empower the community financially in Telangana and serve as a model for other states to emulate

The Tokyo Olympics has seen female athletes defy sexist clothing rules; this resistance was long overdue

Telangana Chief Min-ister, K Chandrashek-har Rao has come up with yet another

innovative and revolutionary empowerment scheme called the Dalit Bandhu Scheme which is bound to change the life and financial status of Dalits in Telangana forever. In the long run, it will become a model for other states to emulate, which would be left with no alternative except to adopt the same. The scheme, which will be introduced on a pilot basis from Huzurabad assembly constituency in Telangana, could herald a sea change in the lives of Dalits and become a torchbearer for Dalit empowerment elsewhere in the country.

As the old adage goes: ‘Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime’. This is what exactly CM KCR is doing. He is giving the DBT cash required for the Dalit families to start a business of their own so that they can become traders, businessmen, service sector operators etc. to make themselves economi-cally self-reliant and live with dignity which will ensure free-dom for them from all sorts of discrimination they have been facing to date.

Telangana Dalit Bandhu scheme will help Dalits define their own development and become partners in the pro-cess of development. The scheme has three factors — monitoring the implementa-tion of the scheme, evaluation of the results, and creating a security fund for the benefi-ciaries through government’s participation.

Dalit Bandhu is not just a government’s welfare pro-gramme but also a massive people’s movement, aimed at empowering each Dalit fam-ily financially. It can be com-

pared to Telangana statehood agitation initiated and led by KCR with an aim to have a sep-arate Telangana state, which was eventually achieved.

Ambedkar had shown the path for Dalit empowerment and their rightful status in soci-ety. CM KCR, who studied the subject as part of the Centre for Subaltern Studies, understood the problem and found solu-tions. He realised that if Dalits are economically empowered, they would be away from any discrimination. He has been upset that Dalits who have the talent and skills are kept away from the production sector in the name of untouchability. He is also upset that women are confined to the non-produc-tive sector because of existing gender bias.

CM KCR has carefully and innovatively defined, designed and developed the scheme so that it helps Dalits come out of their weak economic situation and directly get into earning money through legal means in a dignified way. In the sec-tors where there is an ample

opportunity to get financially developed — such as fertil-izer shops, medical shops, rice mills, wine shops etc. — the government will provide res-ervations for Dalits. With the Rs 10 lakh per family assis-tance, Dalits could establish themselves without any sup-port from the banks or other such institutions.

Under the scheme, Dalits can set up their choice of business such as power til-ler, harvester, paddy planting machine, autos, tractors, poul-try, tent house, dairy industry, oil mill, grinding mill, cement and bricks businesses, indus-try, hotel, steel, cement and construction material shops, photography, videography, mobile phone shops, mobile tiffin centres, hotels, cloth emporium, furniture shops etc.

Under the scheme, Dalit Security Fund is also being set up on a permanent basis with the government and benefi-ciary participation. This fund will be managed by District Collectors with a committee

of beneficiaries. Every year, a minimum amount will be deposited and it will be con-tinued regularly to further help Dalits become financially strong.

The scheme envisaged Rs 1,200 crore for assisting as many as 11,900 families in 119 assembly segments. The plan is to allot Rs 1,500 crore to Rs 2,000 crore in addition to Rs 1,000 crore budgetary allo-cation under the scheme. In the coming four to five years, the government aims to spend around Rs 45,000 crore on the implementation of the scheme and help Dalits achieve finan-cial freedom. If necessary, the government is even prepared to spend up to Rs one lakh crore.

Like the Rythu Bandhu Scheme, beneficiaries of the Dalit Bandhu Scheme would also get the assistance amount directly into their bank accounts. This would be done by profiling Dalit fami-lies. Since the issues faced by Dalits are not uniform and dif-fer across rural, semi-urban

and urban areas, classification will be done along these cate-gories to implement the Dalit Bandhu Scheme properly.

To track, monitor and supervise the implementation of the scheme, CM KCR put the technology to its best use. Identity cards for Dalit Bandhu beneficiaries will have an elec-tronic chip inserted for each beneficiary. The transactions will be monitored through a bar code.

In the Huzurabad con-stituency, 20,929 families — Huzurabad Mandal (5,323 families), Kamalapuram Man-dal (4,346 families), Veena-vankamandal (3,678 families), Jammikunta Mandal (4,996 families), Illanthagunta Man-dal (2586 families) — would be scrutinized for selection of the beneficiaries. For the eli-gible Dalit families, according to the guidelines, Dalit Bandhu Scheme would be implemented in the saturation mode.

The light emanating from the success of the scheme in Huzurabad will spread not only in Telangana but country-wide. As the CM said, “Inspira-tion should begin somewhere. Huzurabad is becoming the one and people there should feel proud of it”. He said, rising over the party, ideology and other differences, that every-one should work for the suc-cess of the scheme without any fights or differences. If Dalits get victory in Huzurabad and subsequently create awareness all over the state then it will be an exemplary action. If Dalit Bandhu Scheme is successful, the development of Dalits will be ensured. The Huzurabad victory of Dalit Bandhu will be etched permanently in the history of the country.

With inputs from VJM Diva-kar. The writer is the Chief Public Relations Officer to

the CM of Telangana. Views expressed are personal

VANAM JWALA NARASIMHA RAO

To be a woman is to be told what to do. Reli-gious books, laws, diktats, guidance,

rules — through the ages all of these have been written by men, and among other instruc-tions, they have essentially set out to tell a gender completely different from their own, how to conduct themselves. Obvi-ously, these rules have been challenged by resolute women, who not only refused to follow the commands of men but also dared to change them.

Even today, guidelines set by men are being defied by women. In some cultures, men have forced women to cover up from head to toe while in some they have been ordered to don skimpy uniforms with overtly sexual overtones. The discussion over the clothing of sportswomen has been trig-gered once again, this time at the Tokyo Olympics. It started when the Norwegian female volleyball team refused to wear bikini bottoms during a match against Spain and swapped them for the com-fortable and more utilitarian shorts. Each player was fined 50 euros by the European Handball Federation, which created a huge uproar. Ger-man gymnasts followed suit by opting to wear unitards rather than their usual linge-rie-like apparels.

For far too long, women in competing sports have been compelled to dress a certain way — a way that sexualises them and their body parts even if they don’t want it. The dress code for some of the games in the Olympics have been sex-ist for a while but have been tolerated in silence. This time though, history is being etched with the female resistance against the sexist clothing gaining momentum. Sporting outfits are meant to be func-tional and aid performance,

however, unnecessary sexu-alisation of the uniform only draws attention away from the athlete’s prowess and grit, and more to their bodies. Objecti-fication of the female form has long been a factor of discom-fort to female athletes.

These clothing rules are apparently put in place by the federations of each sport, obvi-ously men. Volleyball, gym-nastics, figure skating — all have uniforms that exude sex-uality. While male volleyball players wear loose tops and shorts, women wear tank tops with their stomachs showing and bikini bottoms (just read this rule about female cloth-ing in volleyball) “with a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg” and a maximum side width of four

inches. Going by the aesthetics of their clothing, the women rolling in the sand are to per-form, not for the sport, but for the lascivious eye of the male observer.

Interestingly, the so-called rules were quite different when women were first allowed to participate in the Olympics in 1900. Women were made to cover up with long dresses, high necks, and loose sleeves. This was done so that men don’t get distracted by their female counterparts. In 1908, the bottom half of the legs could be shown but uniforms were still conservative, and over the years, with women breaking (yes, ‘breaking’ not ‘making’ because that’s how hard they had to push to com-pete in the Olympics) their

way into newer sports, the uniforms too evolved. The evolution of sporting attire happened with a view to make female clothing more feminine to take away from the mascu-linity of competing in sports (yes, rolling my eyes while I write this) while still helping the women attract husbands. So, whether the women were asked to hide their sexuality a century ago or expose it now, the ‘rules’ were always spelt out by men; women played no role. It’s in this context that the revolt of these gutsy women at the Tokyo Olympics gains importance.

Some sportswomen have a flamboyant style; their var-ious looks, like with Serena and Venus Williams, often cre-ate headlines. But it’s always

been their decision to dress the way they want, pushing their limits of comfort and agility. They are not governed by rules that compel them to cavort about in revealing gar-ments even when they don’t want to. British Paralympian Olivia Breen, who is partici-pating in the Tokyo Olympics said she was “disgusted” when an official told her that her shorts were, well, too short. How female athletes decide to dress and determine their comfort levels, is best left to them. No matter what the woman decides to do, flaunt or cover her body, should ulti-mately be her choice — her body, her rules, right?

The writer is an author and media entrepreneur. Views

expressed are personal

The plan is to additionally allocate Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 crore under the scheme to empower Dalits

Olympic athletes’ stance against sexualisation should bring in the overdue changes; not just heap praises

The light emanating from the success of the scheme in Huzurabad will spread not only in Telangana but countrywide

For far too long, women in competing sports have been compelled to dress a certain way — a way that sexualises them and their body parts even if they don’t want it

1.The Executive Engineer HPPWD Kotkhai Distt Shimla H.P on behalf of Governor of H.P invites the online bids on item rate, in electronic tendering system, in 2 Cover System for the under mentioned work from the eligible and approved contractors/Firms registered with HPPWD Department.

Sr. No.

Name of work Estimated Cost

EMD Cost of Tender

Time Eligible class of Contractor

1 Improvement of Kotkhai Deori Khanety Deorighat road in K.M. 0/00 to 22/255 (SH:- C/o, wire crate B/Wall at R.D. 20/875 to 20/893 and R/Wall at R.D. 15/750 to 15/773)

Rs. 9,51,178/-

Rs. 19,200/-

Rs. 350/- Two Month Class D And Class C

Tender document and other instructions can be downloaded or viewed online from the portal https://hptenders.gov.in by the firm/individual registered on the website which is free of costKey Dates:

1 Date of Online Publication 05-08-2021 11:00 HRS2 Document Download Start and End Date 05-08-2021 1130 HRS upto

12-08-2021 1730 HRS3 Bid Submission Start and End Date 05-08-2021 1130 HRS upto

12-08-2021 1800 HRS4 Physical Submission of EMD and Cost of Tender Document 13-08-2021 upto 1030 HRS5 Date of Technical Bid opening, 13-08-2021 1100 HRS6 Evaluation of Technical Bid followed by Opening of Financial Bid. Date to be announced

Executive Engineer, Division Kotkhai, H.P.PWD Kotkhai, Distt. Shimla H.P No 2893/2021-2022 on behalf of Governor of Himachal Pradesh

HIMACHAL PRADESH PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENTe-Procurement Notice

INVITATION FOR BIDS (IFB)

The Executive Engineer, Palampur Division, HPPWD, Palampur on behalf of Governor of Himachal Pradesh, invites the item rate bids, in electronic tendering system from the eligible class of contractors registered with HPPWD for the works as detailed in the table:-

Sr. No.

Name of work Estimated Cost

Starting date for fodownloading Bid

Earnest Money

Deadline for submission of bid

1 Providing and fixing High Pressure Oxygen Gas Pipeline alongwith essential fitting thereof in Govt. Civil Hospital Palampur (Indoor Block). (SW:- Providing and fixing medical Gas pipe-line system in Civil Hospital Palampur.

Rs.81,21,910/- 12.8.2021 Rs. 1,13,700/-

18.08.2021

The bidders are advised to note other details of tenders from the department website WWW.hptenders.gov.inExecutive Engineer,

HPPWD, Division, Palampur PIN-176061, Tel. 01894-230561, e-mail:-ee-pal-hp@nic.in

No 2887/2021-2022 on behalf of Governor of Himachal Pradesh

HIMACHAL PRADESH PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENTINVITATION FOR BIDS (IFB)

8 millenniumpostWorldmpSATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

Delta variant may spread as easily as chickenpox: Reports

CAUSE MORE SEVERE INFECTION

NEW YORK: The Delta vari-ant of the Coronavirus may cause more severe illness than all other known versions of the virus and spread as easily as chickenpox, media reports quoting an internal document from the US health authority said.

The document from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) outlines unpublished data that shows fully vaccinated people might spread the Delta variant, first identified in India, at the same rate as unvaccinated people, reports said.

The contents of the doc-ument - a slide presentation - were first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday.

Dr Rochelle P Walensky, the director of the CDC, acknowl-

edged on Tuesday that vacci-nated people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant carry just as much

virus in the nose and throat as unvaccinated people and may spread it just as readily, if less often.

But the internal document lays out a broader and even grimmer view of the variant.

The Delta variant is more

transmissible than the viruses that cause MERS, SARS, Ebola, the common cold, the sea-sonal flu and smallpox, and it is as contagious as chick-enpox, according to the doc-ument, a copy of which was also obtained by The New York Times.

The Delta variant -- orig-inally known as B.1.617.2 -- might cause more severe dis-ease, according to the docu-ment. The immediate next step for the agency is to acknowl-edge the war has changed, the document said. The doc-ument's tone reflects alarm among CDC scientists about Delta's spread across the coun-try, the NYT quoted a fed-eral official, who has seen the research described in the docu-ment, as saying. AGENCIES

There are roughly 35,000 symptomatic infections per week among 162 million vaccinated Americans, according to data collected by the CDC

Evacuation flight brings more than 200 Afghans to US

WASHINGTON DC: The first flight evacuating Afghans who worked alongside Americans in Afghanistan brought more than 200 people, including scores of children and babies in arms, to resettlement in the United States on Friday, and President Joe Biden welcomed them home.

The evacuation flights, bringing out former inter-preters and others who fear retaliation from Afghanistan's Taliban for having worked with American servicemembers and civilians, highlight American uncertainty about how Afghan-istan's government and mili-tary will fare after the last US combat forces leave that coun-try in the coming weeks.

Family members are accompanying the interpret-ers, translators and others on the flights out.

The airliner carrying the 221 Afghans in the special visa program, including 57 children and 15 babies, according to an internal US government doc-ument obtained by The Asso-ciated Press, touched down at Washington Dulles Interna-tional Airport in Dulles, Vir-

ginia, just outside Washington, DC, according to the com-mercial FlightAware tracking service.

Biden called the flight "an important milestone as we continue to fulfill our prom-ise to the thousands of Afghan nationals who served shoul-der-to-shoulder with Ameri-

can troops and diplomats over the last 20 years in Afghanistan. He said he wanted to honor the military veterans, diplomats and others in the U.S. who have advocated for the Afghans.

Most of all, Biden said in a statement, I want to thank these brave Afghans for stand-ing with the United States, and today, I am proud to say to them: Welcome home.'"

Russ Travers, senior deputy homeland security adviser at the National Security Coun-cil, told reporters on Thursday as the Afghan families were en route that the flight "rep-resents the fulfillment of the U.S. commitment and honors these Afghans' brave service in helping support our mission in Afghanistan and in turn, help-ing to keep our country safe.

The Biden administration calls the effort Operation Allies Refuge. The operation has broad backing from Republi-can and Democratic lawmakers and from veterans groups. Sup-porters cite repeated instances of Taliban forces targeting Afghans who worked with Americans or with the Afghan government. AGENCIES

Health workers treat a COVID-19 patient at the Dr. Suyoto General Hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia PTI

The first arrivals were screened for COVID-19 and received vaccines if they wanted them, said Tracey Jacobson, the US diplomat running the effort

US to hold 2nd lottery for H-1B visa applicants

WASHINGTON DC: In what can be good news for hundreds of Indian IT professionals seeking the H-1B work visa, the US' immigra-tion agency has decided to conduct a rare sec-ond lottery for the most sought-after visas to decide on the successful applicants who could not make it in the first random selection.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Ser-vices (USCIS) said on Thursday that a decision was taken after determining that the computer-ised draw of lots for H-1B visas conducted early this year did not give them enough numbers of the Congressional mandated H-1B visas.

The H-1B visa, the most sought-after among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

The H-1B visa has an annual numerical limit cap of 65,000 visas each fiscal year as mandated by Congress. The first 20,000 petitions filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a US master's degree or higher are exempt from the cap.

Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China. AGENCIES

Japan expands virus

emergencyTOKYO: Japan expanded a Coronavirus state of emer-gency to four more areas in addition to Tokyo on Friday following record spikes in infections as the capital hosts the Olympics.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared an emergency in Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba, near Tokyo, as well as in the western city of Osaka, effective Monday until August 31.

Emergency measures already in place in Tokyo and the southern island of Oki-nawa will be extended until the end of August, after the Olympics and well into the Paralympics which start August 24.

Five other areas, includ-ing Hokkaido, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka, will be placed under less-stringent emer-gency restrictions. AGENCIES

9millenniumpost Business mpNEW DELHI | SATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021

FRANKFURT: Europe emerged from a double-dip recession in the second quar-ter with stronger than expected growth of 2% over the quarter before, according to official fig-ures released Friday, as hard-hit southern European economies Spain, Italy and Portugal deliv-ered surprisingly strong results.

But the economy in the 19 countries that use the euro currency still lagged pre-pan-demic levels and trailed the faster recoveries in the US and China, with the delta variant continuing to cast a shadow of uncertainty over the upturn.

The growth figure for the April-June quarter announced Thursday by the European Union’s statistics agency Euro-stat compared to a drop of 0.3% in the first quarter as the 19 countries that use the euro endured a double-dip recession after a rebound in mid-2020. The second-quarter growth fig-ure was stronger than the 1.5% foreseen by market analysts.

Italy was a major positive surprise, growing 2.7% and Por-tugal boomed with 4.9%, while growth returned in major econ-omies France, which grew 0.9% compared to the previous quar-ter, and Germany, which saw growth of 1.5% after a sharp

drop of 2.1% in the first quarter. German auto companies in par-ticular have shown strong profits despite a shortage of semicon-ductor components as global auto markets recover, particu-larly for the higher-priced vehi-cles sold by Mercedes-Benz and by Volkswagen’s Audi and Porsche luxury brands.

Yet the recovery lags the one in the US, where the economy surpassed its pre-pandemic level during the quarter. Fri-day’s figures leave the eurozone 3% smaller than before the virus outbreak, according to Capi-tal Economics. China was the only major economy to con-tinue growing during pandemic year 2020.

The stronger performance in southern Europe may be the result of stronger spending by households, said Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist at Capital Eco-nomics. Spain, with consumer spending up 6.6%, both illus-trated the rebound and under-lined how far it has to go, since gross domestic product remains 6.8% below where it was before the pandemic. Lag-ging vaccinations held back the European economy in the first part of the year but have made steady progress since. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Petroleum Min-ister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday promised an open-door policy to resolve any issue faced by the industry as he sought for-eign and private investments to boost domestic oil and gas production.

At an investor meet called to promote India’s latest offering of discovered fields for bidding, Puri said India, besides offer-ing the world’s fastest-growing energy markets, also offers a rule-based regime.

“The government stands ready to partner with you both in the identification of what remedial steps we need to take in the ecosystem and what need to do to overcome hurdles,” he said.

The Indian economy, he said, is poised to take off and the same is going to contribute to the growth of energy demand. And to meet that, domestic exploration and production has to be increased.

Puri said he wants for-eign and private firms to get involved in the Indian oil and gas exploration and production.

“If anyone, anywhere in the world is thinking of good investment in energy, India is a good place to begin,” he said.

Addressing representatives of private and foreign com-

panies who joined the meet online, he said, “I look forward to many of our friends who are on the screen... to intensify their interest here.”

“My doors are open... tell me what is it we have to do to make sure that you are able to take business decisions,” he said.

As many as 32 oil and gas blocks with 75 discoveries have been offered in the Discovered

Small Field (DSF) round-III. These small and marginal fields were discovered by state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corpora-tion (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) but they were not eco-nomically viable to be devel-oped due to the fiscal regime and their small size.

Under DSF, liberal terms including pricing and market-ing freedom are offered, mak-ing them viable.

Stating that he is very bull-ish about the Indian economy, the minister said per capita energy consumption in India is one-third of the global aver-age and it will rise as incomes grow and urbanisation rises.

Responding to a partici-pant’s comment, Puri said dealing with the government was a “dreadful experience” 20 years ago.

The participant had com-

paring ease of doing business now and in the past, stating that being called by the Director-ate General of Hydrocarbons -- the oil ministry’s technical arm for oil and gas production -- was a “dreadful experience 20 years back”.

“Somebody said 20 years ago DGH was a dreadful expe-rience. I don’t know why they regard only DGH as a dreadful experience. 20 years ago any-thing to do with the govern-ment was a dreadful experience. I mean it. I was a civil servant for 39 years,” the minister said.

In DSF-III, 11 onshore blocks, 20 offshore and one deepwater area are being offered for bidding. These blocks, spread over about 13,000 square kilometers, hold 75 oil and gas discoveries with a combined resource base of 230 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas.

In the previous two rounds between 2016 and 2018, 54 blocks, taken away from ONGC and OIL, were awarded.

According to DGH, 29 field development plans entailing $1.76 billion investment have been submitted.

Oil production from the areas awarded in two rounds of DSF is envisaged to reach 1.3 million tonnes by 2024 and gas output to touch 2.9 billion cubic meters.

NEW DELHI: Indian Oil Cor-poration (IOC), the country’s top oil firm, on Friday reported a three-fold jump in its June quarter net profit on the back of higher refining margins and inventory gains.

Standalone net profit of Rs 5,941.37 crore in April-June was up 210 per cent when compared with Rs 1,910.84 crore a year earlier when lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic hammered fuel demand and squeezed margins.

The profit was down 32 per cent in comparison to the pre-ceding quarter, mostly because of mobility being hit by the onset of the second wave of COVID-19 in April and May, the company’s stock exchange filing showed.

Talking to reporters on the earnings, IOC Chairman Shri-kant Madhav Vaidya said the company earned $6.58 on turn-ing every barrel of crude oil into fuel in June quarter.

This is compared with a loss (negative gross refining margin) of $1.98 per barrel in the same period last year. The refining margins included a component of inventory gain, IOC Director (Finance) Sandeep Gupta said without elaborating.

Inventory gains arise when crude oil is bought at a par-ticular price but by the time it is shipped to India and pro-cessed into fuel, rates would have gone up. And since the refinery gas prices are bench-marked to global rates, an inven-tory gain is booked.

Inventory loss is booked when the reverse happens. After netting out inventory gain, the core gross refining margin (GRM) was $2.24 per barrel.

Revenue from operations was up 74 per cent at Rs 1.55 lakh crore.

IOC and its unit, Chennai Petroleum, control close to a third of India’s 250 million tonne refining capacity.

Vaidya said petrol consump-tion reached pre-COVID levels

in first week of July while die-sel is at about 88 per cent of the pre-COVID levels.

“If a third wave does not strike, we should reach pre-COVID levels for diesel by Diwali,” he said adding ATF, which is at 50 per cent of the pre-pandemic levels, may take by the end of the fiscal to reach normal consumption levels.

Air travel continues to be restricted, impacting sales.

Refinery run-rate, or capac-ity utilisation, is likely to touch near normal in a quarter, Vaidya said.

IOC refineries operated at 88.5 per cent of their capacity in April-June mainly because of the lower demand of fuel by consumers. “The run-rate is closer to 90 per cent in the cur-rent month,” he said.

Last year, when a nation-wide lockdown was imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus infections, refinery run-rate had almost halved. Petrol sales rose 32 per cent in the quarter to 2.7 million tonne and diesel by 22 per cent to 7.8 million tonne.

Cooking gas LPG sales how-ever fell 1.8 per cent to 3 million tonne as lockdown last year had made people eat at home more

than outside, he said.“Petrol sales are up due to

rise in personal vehicle use as public transport is not fully operational and people have concerns about using public transport,” he said.

IOC has planned a capital spending of Rs 28,500 crore in the fiscal year to March 31, 2022. Of this, it spent about Rs 4,000 crore in the first quarter (April-June).

Vaidya said global crude oil prices had fallen to around $70 per barrel from $75 after pro-ducers and their partners, called OPEC+, earlier this month agreed to raise output. But they have crept back to $75 levels.

Product cracks or the mar-gin on diesel have narrowed to $4.67 per barrel in July from $5.14 in the previous month. The same on petrol widened to $7.64 from $4.78 while that on jet fuel (ATF) shrunk to $2.12 from $2.34.

Moreover, IOCon Friday said it will partner with Malay-sia’s Petronas for natural gas and transportation fuel retail-ing business.

IOC and Petronas have a 50:50 joint venture, IndianOil Petronas Pvt Ltd (IPPL) for import of LPG. It sells LPG to commercial customers who are not allowed to use subsidised cooking gas sold to households by state energy firms.

This joint venture will “diversify into natural gas and transportation fuel retailing business,” IOC Chairman Shri-kant Madhav Vaidya said. IPPL will set up petrol pumps as well as get into the city gas distribu-tion business, he said.

He however said detailing of the business has not been done yet. IOC owns 32,303 out of 77,709 petrol pumps in the country. It also has licences to retail CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households in several geographical areas.

Vaidya said IPPL will have its own branding and marketing. MPOST

Puri seeks foreign, private investments in oil, gas output

At an investor meet Oil Minister said India, besides offering world’s fastest growing energy markets, also offers a rule-based regime

Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri

Highlights » The Indian economy, he said, is poised to take off and the same is going to contribute to the growth of energy demand. And to meet that, domestic exploration and production has to be increased » ‘If anyone, anywhere in the world is thinking of good investment in energy, India is a good place to begin,’ he said » As many as 32 oil and gas blocks with 75 discoveries have been offered in the Discovered Small Field (DSF) round-II

In the previous two rounds between 2016 and 2018, 54 blocks, taken away from ONGC and OIL, were awarded. According to DGH, 29 field development plans entailing $1.76 billion investment have been submitted

IOC Q1 profit jumps 3-fold to `5,941.37 crore

NEW DELHI: Power Minister R K Singh on Friday said that providing quality and reliable power supply round-the-clock is a key factor for accelerated growth of the economy.

“Providing 24x7 quality and reliable power supply with enhanced consumer satisfac-tion is very important as this is the key ingredient for accel-erated growth of economy and country at large,” Singh said in a statement after chairing a review meeting.

He chaired the virtual meet-ing with Additional Chief Sec-retaries/Principal Secretaries (Power/Energy) and CMDs/MDs of DISCOMS of all States/UTs. Minister of State for Power Krishan Pal Gurjar, Union Sec-retary Power Alok Kumar and

senior power ministry officials were also present at the meeting.

During the meeting, reforms being undertaken in the power sector as well as on the guide-lines of the new Reforms Based and Results Linked Distribution Sector Scheme were reviewed. IPDS and DDUGJY Schemes were also reviewed. At the meet-ing, Singh said the power sec-tor has witnessed tremendous growth over the past few years

in the areas of generation, trans-mission and distribution. With a total installed generation capac-ity of 384 GW, the country has transformed from a power defi-cit to a power surplus country.

Transmission network has been expanded to connect the whole country into one inte-grated grid with inter-regional transfer capacity of over 1 lakh MW, he noted.

With the joint efforts of the Centre and state govern-ments, universal access has been achieved, with 100 per cent electrification of the vil-lages and electrification of 2.82 crore households, the minis-ter said and emphasised that in today’s scenario, all policies and programmes should be consumer centric. PTI

IOC Chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya

IOC on Friday said it will partner with Malaysia’s Petronas for natural gas and transportation fuel retailing business

NEW DELHI: The Income Tax Department on Friday said it has issued refunds worth over Rs 43,991 crore till July 26 in the current fiscal.

It comprises personal income tax refunds of Rs 13,341 crore and corporate tax refunds of Rs 30,651 crore.

“CBDT issues refunds of over Rs 43,991 crore to more

than 21.03 lakh taxpayers between 1st April, 2021 to 26th July, 2021. Income tax refunds of Rs 13,341 crore have been issued in 19,89,912 cases & corporate tax refunds of Rs 30,651 crore have been issued in 1,12,567 cases,” the I-T department tweeted. PTI

I Refunds worth `43,991 cr issued till July 26, says I-T department

NEW YORK: European regu-lators have fined Amazon 746 million euros ( $886 million) for data protection violations.

Amazon said in a regulatory filing on Friday that the Luxem-bourg National Commission for Data Protection issued a deci-sion against the company ear-lier this month, claiming that its processing of personal data did not comply with the European Union general data protection regulation. Amazon said that it believes the decision is with-out merit and that it will defend itself vigorously.

Amazon has come under scrutiny by the EU before. In November regulators filed anti-trust charges against the com-pany, accusing Amazon of using its access to data from com-panies that sell products on its platform to gain an unfair advantage over them.

While the U.S. initially criticized the EU for targeting American companies, it has more recently started taking a tougher line on big tech as well, suing Google last year for abusing its dominance in online search and advertising.

In May a court annulled a ruling by the European Com-mission that a tax deal between Amazon and Luxembourg’s gov-ernment amounted to illegal state support. AGENCIES

EU regulators fine Amazon $886 million

European economy grows 2%, ending

double-dip recessionNEW DELHI: Industry chamber CII on Friday said it has entered into an agreement with Serum Institute of India (SII) to accelerate COVID vaccination in small towns and rural areas.

The chamber said the part-nership with Serum Institute will help catalyze industry participation to reach out to communities at large.

“Overall, industry has been playing a responsible part in ensuring vaccination of workers and their families, but clearly given the scale and urgency of the vaccination program, we can complement and supplement the efforts of the government in this piv-otal mission for the nation,” CII President T V Narendran said in a statement.

On the development, Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla said it is essential that all stakeholders work together towards carry-ing out the inoculations.

“Our partnership with CII will be a good way to close the gaps, as there is plenty of supply of Covishield available for distribution,” Poonawalla said.

As part of the pan-India vaccine demand aggrega-tion exercise, CII under-

took a survey with response from over 3,000 companies in 196 cities.

“This identified a require-ment of over 7 million sin-gle dose vaccines. As of July 23, 2021, a total of 34,75,301 (3.4 million) single doses have been administered through 430 camps held across the country by the CII and the CII Foundation,” it added.

To further scale up the efforts, CII said it is now map-ping the vaccination need requirement state-wise and setting up vaccination camps along with its members focus-ing on reaching Tier 2/3 cities and rural areas. PTI

CII to work with SII to expand Covid vaccination in small towns, rural areas

Quality 24X7 power supply key for accelerated growth‘With a total installed generation capacity of 384 GW, India

has transformed from a power deficit to a power surplus’

Power Minister R K Singh

KMDA TENDER NOTICE e-NIT No: 03/EE(Plng Divn.)/SD

&SWM/KMDA of 2021-2022 Online e-Tender is invited by the Executive Engineer (Civil), Planning Division, SD&SWM Sector, KMDA, Unnayan Bhavan, Block-B, 1st floor, Salt Lake City, Kolkata-700091, from eligible, reliable, resourceful and experienced agencies / firms / companies / individual contractors for the work,, Name of Work, Estimated Value, Earnest Money Deposit, Time of Completion, Operation and Maintenance of the 30 KLD Capacity Septage Treatment Plant at Pramod Nagar constructed for the South Dum Dum Municipality including cost of all required Manpower, Chemicals & Reagents Electricity & Transport charges, Gardening, Repairing of all civil Structures, Machineries & Laboratory equipments complete for one year., Rs.3041754.75, Rs.60,835/-, 12 months, Last date & time of online Tender submission: 13.08.2021 upto 18:55 hrs., For details contact the above office or visit both websites. (KMDA-254) www.kmdaonline.org www.wbtenders.gov.in

ICA- T9159(3)/2021ICA- T9163(3)/2021

KMDA TENDER NOTICE e-NIT No: SE(EB)/T-03 of 2021-22

e-Tender is invited by the Superintending Engineer (EB), W.S. Sector, KMDA, Unnayan Bhavan, Block-A, 6th floor, DJ-11, Sector-II, Salt Lake, Kolkata-700091, from reliable, experienced and resourceful Agencies for the work,, Name of Work, Estimated Amount, Earnest Money, Time of Completion, Cost of tender Paper, Design, fabrication and erection of Pipe Crossing steel bridge over Howrah Drainage canal near Amra sabai club of about 42 meter span and laying of one no. of 200mm dia (ID) DI pipe in Howrah Municipal Corporation on Turnkey Basis., Rs.4912434.32, Rs.98,300/-, 02 months, Rs.2,500/-, Last date & time of online Bid submission: 25.08.2021 upto 13:00 hrs., For details contact the above office or visit both websites. (KMDA-258) www.kmdaonline.org

ICA- T9167(3)/2021

ICA- T9172(3)/2021

ICA- T9178(4)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE N. I. T No.- 16of G.M (E)-II of 2021-2022

WB HIDCO invitesonline item rate open tender in two bid system for “Cen-tre for Career Development and Excellence of Sustainability at Nazrul Tirtha in New Town, Kolkata”for resourceful bonafide Govt. Contactors and eligible outsiders in the manner as described in the detailed tender notice available on http://wbtenders.gov.in on and from 30.07.2021 at 11.00 A. M.Corrigendum / Addendum, if any to this e-tender would appear only on above Website and not be published.

General Manager (Engg)-IIWB HIDCO

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

NOTICE INVITING TENDERe-N.I.T No.10 of G.M. (Elect) of 2021-22

Sealed Single Part tenders on Percentage basis are invited for the work of “ Engage-ment of Manpower for Day to day Operation and Maintenance of internal and external electrical installation including operation of Sound System, Pumps, Diesel Generator set, Elevators & A.C. system and cleaning of electrical equipment’s, fixtures and other appliances observations of sub-station including HT & LT switch gear, LT panels & Transformer at Various offices under WBHIDCO for One Year i.e. 365 days.”.” from the agencies having ability in execution for similar nature of work. Last date of receiving application 09-08-2021 upto 6.00 P.M. Detailed may be seen in our website at www.wbhidcoltd.com.

ICA- T9191(3)/2021

ICA- T9200(4)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL

10 millenniumpostBusinessmp SATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

KARGIL/GURUGRAM: Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (POWERGRID), a Maharatna CPSU under Min-istry of Power, Gov-ernment of Indiahas successfully commis-sioned 40-kms of 11kV trans-mission line from Lalung to Darchik under rural electrifi-cation scheme namely PMDP (Prime Minister Development Program). The line is used for electrification of enroute adjoining villages namely

Lalung, Silmoo, Batalik, Dar-chik, Hurdass, Sinikcey and Garkon.With commissioning of this line, all remote villages in Aryan Valley (in Kargild-istrict) are now connected to the National Grid through 220 kV Srinagar Leh Transmission System. Earlier, these villages were dependent on DG sets for power supply which was avail-able for limited time only.

In addition to above, elec-trification of 20 villages in

Leh district has also been completed by POWERGRID which involves commissioning of remote villages like Largiab in Nubra Valley.

Besides, number of 11 kVlines totaling 150 km, con-necting villages Wanla to Fatoksar, Lamayaruto Atishe & Fotorse and Saspol area have been established by POW-ERGRID and it connects all enroute villages.

POWERGRID has built a

state-of-the-art 220/66 kV Gas Insulated Sub-stations(GIS) at Drass, Kargil,Khalsti and Lehconnecting Ladakh region to the national grid through the 341-km of 220 kV trans-mission line emanating from Srinagar. 220 kV Srinagar-Leh transmission system has been transferred to POWERGRID as ISTS and we are committed to maintain high system availabil-ity and provide reliable power to entire Ladakh region. MPOST

MUMBAI: Mastercard has submitted a new audit report to the Reserve Bank of India, it told Reuters, as it seeks to overturn a ban on card issu-ance linked to concerns over the US giant’s handling of data processed abroad.

The RBI on July 14 sent panic-waves through Indian banking partners by announc-ing a ban, effective from July 22, to prevent the U.S. giant from issuing new cards. It cited non-compliance with 2018 rules

that required it to store pay-ments data only in India. read more The RBI imposed the ban after deciding a “system audit report” submitted by Mastercard’s auditor Deloitte in April was unsatisfactory, three sources familiar with its

decision-making said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. Two of the sources said the RBI was reviewing the new report.

In a statement to Reuters, Mastercard said Deloitte per-formed a “supplemental audit” and a new report was submitted on July 20 to the RBI, six days after the ban was announced.

“We look forward to con-tinuing our conversations with the RBI and reinforcing how seriously we take our obli-

gations. We are hopeful that this latest filing provides the assurances required to address their concerns,” it said. Deloitte declined to comment, citing confidentiality obligations. The RBI did not respond to a request for comment.

The sources said the RBI was concerned Deloitte’s audit did not clearly state how long Mastercard took to purge Indi-ans’ card data that is processed abroad before being stored locally. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The central gov-ernment’s fiscal deficit stood at Rs 2.74 lakh crore or 18.2 per cent of the full year’s Bud-get estimate at the end of June, according to data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) on Friday.

The fiscal deficit at the end of June 2020 was 83.2 per cent of the Budget Estimates (BE) of 2020-21. In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit was at Rs 2,74,245 crore at the end of June.

For the current financial year, the government expects the fiscal deficit at 6.8 per cent of GDP or Rs 15,06,812 crore.

The fiscal deficit or the gap between expenditure and reve-nue for 2020-21 was 9.3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), better than 9.5 per cent projected in the revised esti-mates in the Budget in February.

As per CGA data, the gov-ernment received Rs 5.47 lakh crore (27.7 per cent of corre-sponding BE 2021-22 of total receipts) up to June 2021. The amount comprises Rs 4.12 lakh crore of tax revenues, Rs 1.27 lakh crore of non-tax revenues and Rs 7,402 crore of non-debt capital receipts. The receipts were 6.8 per cent of BE at the

end of June 2020.Non-debt capital receipts

consists of recovery of loans worth Rs 3,406 crore and disin-vestment proceeds of Rs 3,996 crore.

Further, Rs 1,17,524 crore was transferred to state govern-ments as devolution of share of taxes by the Government of India up to June 2021.

At the end of June, CGA said

that total expenditure incurred by the government was Rs 8.21 lakh crore (23.6 per cent of cor-responding BE 2021-22). Out of the total amount, Rs 7.10 lakh crore was on revenue account and Rs 1.11 lakh crore was on capital account.

Out of the total revenue expenditure, Rs 1.84 lakh crore was for interest payments and about Rs 1 lakh crore was on account of major subsidies.

Centre’s fiscal deficit touches 18.2% at June end

The fiscal deficit at the end of June 2020 was 83.2 per cent of the Budget Estimates (BE) of 2020-21

Government of India AccountsApril-June 2021

Total ExpenditureTotal Receipts

` 5,47,399 crore

(27.7% of Budget Estimates

for 2021-22)

` 8,21,644 crore

(23.6% of Budget Estimates

for 2021-22)

Revenue

Account

` 7,10,148

crore

Capital Account

crore` 1,11,496

Tax Revenue

` 4,12,680

crore

Non-Tax

Revenue

` 1,27,317

crore

Non-Debt Capital

Receipts: crore` 7,402

KBK graphicsInfo

` crore transferred to states1,17,524

as devolution of share of taxes

Source: Ministry of Finance

(Loans Recovery: 3,406 cr +`

Disinvestment Proceeds: 3,996 cr)`

Highlights » In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit was at Rs 2,74,245 crore at the end of June » For the current financial year, the government expects the fiscal deficit at 6.8 per cent of GDP or Rs 15,06,812 crore » The fiscal deficit or the gap between expenditure and revenue for 2020-21 was 9.3 per cent of the GDP, better than 9.5 per cent projected in the revised estimates in the Budget in February

At the end of June, CGA said that total expenditure incurred by the government was Rs 8.21 lakh crore (23.6 per cent of corresponding BE 2021-22)

Markets succumb to last hour stock selling as Sensex falls 67 points, Nifty below 15,780

MUMBAI: The country’s foreign exchange reserves declined by $1.581 billion to stand at $611.149 billion for the week ended July 23, RBI data showed on Friday. The reserves had reached a lifetime high of $612.730 billion after rising by $835 million in the previous week ended July 16, 2021.

In the reporting week, the drop in the reserves was mainly due to a fall in foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major compo-nent of the overall reserves, as per weekly data by the Reserve Bank of India. FCAs declined by $1.12 billion to $567.628 billion.

Expressed in dollar terms, the foreign currency assets include the effect of apprecia-tion or depreciation of non-US units like the euro, pound and yen held in the foreign exchange reserves. Gold reserves were down by $449 million to $36.884 billion in the reporting week.

The special drawing rights (SDRs) with the IMF dipped by $3 million at $1.546 billion.

The country’s reserve posi-tion with the IMF also declined by $9 million to $5.091 billion in the reporting week, as per the data. PTI

Forex reserves fall $1.581 bn to $611.149 bnNEW DELHI: The output of

eight core sectors grew 8.9 per cent in June, mainly due to a low base effect and uptick in production of natural gas, steel, coal and electricity, official data showed on Friday.

The eight infrastructure sec-tors of coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilis-ers, steel, cement and electric-ity had contracted by 12.4 per cent in June 2020 due to the lockdown restrictions imposed to control the spread of corona-virus infections.

In May this year, these key sectors had recorded a growth of 16.3 per cent, while it was 60.9 per cent in April. According to the commerce and industry ministry data, production of coal, natural gas, refinery prod-ucts, steel, cement and electric-ity jumped by 7.4 per cent, 20.6 per cent, 2.4 per cent, 25 per cent, 4.3 per cent and 7.2 per cent, respectively, in June 2021.

The same stood at (-) 15.5 per cent, (-) 12 per cent, (-) 8.9 per cent, (-) 23.2 per cent, (-) 6.8 per cent and (-) 10 per cent in the corresponding month last year. Crude oil output con-tracted by 1.8 per cent during the month under review as against a negative growth of 6 per cent in June 2020.

Fertiliser segment recorded a growth of 2 per cent in June.

During April-June period this fiscal, the eight sectors grew by 25.3 per cent against a con-traction of 23.8 per cent in the same period last year.

Commenting on the data, ratings agency ICRA’s Chief

Economist Aditi Nayar said con-tinued unlocking by the states, improved mobility and higher electricity demand, pushed up in part by the lull in rainfall, are expected to boost the core sec-tor growth to 11-14 per cent in July 2021.

Despite the gradual unlock-ing, the sequential uptick in the overall core index in June 2021 was mild at just 1.1 per cent , with double-digit increases in cement and fertilisers, damp-ened by a month-on-month

decline in petroleum refinery products and coal, with the lat-ter reflecting the onset of the monsoon, she said. “We expect the IIP (index of industrial pro-duction) to expand by 12-17 per cent in June 2021, exceeding the core sector growth, as some of the other high frequency indi-cators such as GST e-way bills and auto output have displayed a solid sequential uptick in that month, engendered by the relax-ation of state level restrictions,” she added. PTI

Output of eight core sectors up 8.9% in June

According to the commerce and industry ministry data, production of coal, natural gas, refinery products, steel, cement and electricity jumped by 7.4%, 20.6%, 2.4 per cent, 25%, 4.3% and 7.2%, respectively, in June 2021

Gold reserves were down by $449 million to $36.884 billion in the reporting week

NEW DELHI: Retail inflation for industrial workers rose to 5.57 per cent in June, mainly due to rising prices of certain food items.

“Year-on-year inflation for the month stood at 5.57 per cent compared to 5.24 per cent for the previous month and 5.06 per cent during the correspond-ing month a year before,” a labour ministry statement said.

According to the statement, food inflation stood at 5.61 per cent against 5.26 per cent in May 2021 and 5.49 per cent in June 2020.

The All-India CPI-IW (Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers) for June 2021 increased by 1.1 points and stood at 121.7 points.

On one-month percentage change, it increased by 0.91 per cent with respect to the pre-vious month, compared to a

rise of 0.61 per cent recorded between corresponding months a year ago.

The maximum upward pres-sure in current index came from food & beverages group con-tributing 0.72 percentage points to the total change.

At item level, rice, fish, poultry/chicken, eggs, edible oil, apple, banana, brinjal, car-rot, onion, potato and tomato, among others, saw price rise.

Electricity, kerosene oil, bar-ber/beautician charges, doc-tor’s/surgeon’s fee and petrol too contributed to the rise in the index.

However, this increase was checked by items like arhar dal, coconut fresh with pulp, mango, pomegranate, water-melon, lemon and tamarind, which put downward pressure on the index.

At centre level, Shillong

recorded maximum increase of 6.2 points, followed by Puduch-erry and Bhopal with 3.5 points and 3.1 points, respectively.

Among others, 13 centres observed an increase between 2 to 2.7 points, 30 centres between 1 to 1.9 points and 32 centres between 0.1 to 0.9 points. On the other hand, Indore recorded a maximum decrease of 1.1 points.

Among others, seven cen-tres observed a decline between 0.1 to 0.7 points. There was no change in two centres.

Director General Labour Bureau D P S Negi said, “The rise in Index during June, 2021 is in line with all other con-sumer price indices compiled and released by different agen-cies in the country and the rise in prices of Food & Beverages and Fuel items are responsible for increase in index.” PTI

Retail inflation for industrial workers rises to 5.57% in June

MUMBAI: The Sensex and Nifty closed modestly lower on Friday after investors offloaded banking, finance and metal stocks in the last hour of trade amid sluggish global cues.

The 30-share BSE Sensex slipped 66.23 points or 0.13 per cent to close at 52,586.84, while the broader NSE Nifty dipped 15.40 points or 0.10 per cent to 15,763.05.

The market remained range-bound for the most part of the session as investors kept their exposure lower due to weak global cues, traders said.

The selling pressure was witnessed towards the fag-end when European markets opened in the negative zone, they added.

Bajaj Finance was the top loser in the Sensex pack,

shedding 2.59 per cent, fol-lowed by Bajaj Finserv, SBI, Tata Steel, Titan, Asian Paints and Axis Bank. On the other hand, Sun Pharma topped the

winners chart with a leap of 10.06 per cent after the drug major reported a net profit of Rs 1,444.17 crore for the June quarter, compared to a net loss

of Rs 1,655.60 crore in the year-ago period.

Tech Mahindra, Power Grid, Bajaj Auto, HCL Tech, M&M and NTPC were among the other gainers, spurting up to 7.24 per cent. On a weekly basis, the Sensex fell 388.96 points or 0.73 per cent, while the Nifty shed 93 points or 0.58 per cent.

Sector-wise, the BSE metal, energy, bankex, oil & gas and capital goods indices slumped as much as 1 per cent, while healthcare, utilities, auto and consumer durables notched up gains.

In the broader markets, the BSE midcap and smallcap indi-ces climbed up to 0.69 per cent.

The rupee fell 13 paise to close at 74.42 against the US dollar. PTI

Rupee depreciates 13 paise to close at 74.42 against US dollar

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment on Friday said that 1.37 crore candidates have been enrolled under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) as on July 10 since the launch of the scheme, cov-ering more than 700 districts and 37 sectors.

Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that under the PMKVY scheme, as on July 10, around 1.29 crore candidates are trained/oriented across the country against the target of 1.32 crore.

“Under PMKVY , as on July 10, 2021, 137 lakh candidates have been enrolled since the launch of the scheme covering more than 700 districts,” Dhar-mendra Pradhan said in a writ-ten reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Skill India Mission aims to empower the Indian youth through skill development. Under the Skill India Mission, the ministry is implementing its flagship scheme PMKVY which has two components - Short Term Training (STT) and Recognition of Prior Learning.

As on July 10, he said an expenditure of Rs 8,805.82 crore has been made against the budgetary allocation of Rs 10,641 crore. Under the third phase of the PMKVY, the tar-get is to train 8 lakh candidates across the country, he said in another reply. PTI

‘1.37 crore candidates

enrolled under PMKVY since launch’

NEW DELHI: High tariffs faced by domestic exporters in the European Union and the UK as compared to zero duty access given by them to nations like Bangladesh and Cambo-dia are affecting India’s exports performance, Parliament was informed on Friday.

Minister of State for Tex-tiles Darshana Jardosh also said that the textile industry has been hugely affected due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.

India’s textiles exports in 2020 stood at $29.61 billion, while the shipments of Bangla-desh, Vietnam and Cambodia in that year were aggregated at $37.95 billion, $37.10 billion

and $7.77 billion, respectively.“High tariffs faced by Indian

exporters in key markets such as the EU and the UK as com-pared to zero duty access given to competing nations like Ban-gladesh and Cambodia are affecting India’s exports per-formance,” she said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

In a separate reply, she said textiles exports to China have

increased to $1.56 billion in 2020-21 as against $1.13 bil-lion in 2019-20.

“The global pandemic of Covid-19 has adversely affected the textile sector such as restric-tion on social gathering, migra-tion of labourers, disruption of supply chain, thus affecting all the stakeholders from farm-ers to traders/exporters in the value chain. However, the situ-ation improved with time and production and exports looked up,” she said.

Jardosh also said that dur-ing cotton season 2020-21 (up to July 23, 2021), the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) has procured seed cotton equiva-lent to around 91.893 lakh bales

under MSP operations.In another reply, the min-

ister said due to Covid-19 pandemic and nationwide lock-down imposed by the various state governments, the produc-tion activities in all National Textile Corporation (NTC) Limited mill units including Minerva mill units were put on hold from March 25, 2020.

“During this period, the employees were paid salary regularly as per their status by NTC out of its cash reserve. After lifting up of the lock-down and as per availability of raw material, NTC restored operation of 14 mill units from January 2021 onwards,” she said. PTI

High tariffs faced by Indian exporters in EU, UK affecting exports performance: Govt

NEW DELHI: Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) has listed its foreign currency bonds and green bonds on NSE IFSC’s debt securities market platform.

The company has raised a capital of $2.25 billion by issuing bonds in different tranches under the $4 bil-lion global medium-term note and $500 million green bonds programmes, NSE IFSC said in a statement on Friday. NSE IFSC launched debt securities market for list-ing and trading of debt securi-ties in multiple foreign currency bonds, green bonds, masala bonds and notes in March 2018.

The debt securities market platform provides an efficient international listing process to issuers with a minimum turn-around time and investment opportunities for investors from across the world. “IRFC is happy to be listing on NSE Interna-tional Exchange at GIFT City. This gives us immense oppor-tunities to reach out to interna-tional investors and raise funds using a wide variety of prod-

uct and currencies,” Amitabh Banerjee, Chairman and Man-aging Director of IRFC, said.

He also said that IRFC will continue to focus on the railway sector and play a critical role in the development, modernisa-tion and growth of the Indian railways. Ravi Varanasi, Chief Business Development Officer of NSE, said development of a robust corporate bond market is the key to effective implemen-tation of large projects across sectors. Debt securities market at NSE IFSC enables the listing and trading of debt securities in foreign currencies as well as rupee-denominated masala bonds, he said. PTI

IRFC lists foreign currency, green bonds on NSE IFSC

Mastercard submits new audit to India after ban over data handling

POWERGRID successfully commissions 11 kV transmission line in Ladakh villagesElectrification of 20 villages in Leh has also been completed by POWERGRID

KBK graphicsInfo

Intra-day on July 30, 2021

9am 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4 9am 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4

Previous

close:

52,653.07

Previous

close:

15,778.45

NSE NIFTYIntra-day on July 30, 2021

BSE SENSEX

Open:

52,792.36

High:

15,862.80

Open:

15,800.60

-15.40

(-0.10%)

High:

52,910.23

Low:

15,744.85Low:

52,533.91Close:

52,586.84

Close:

15,763.05

-66.23

(-0.13%)

Item No

Name of work Amount put to Tender (in Rs.)

Date of release of tender in e- procurement solution

Last date/time of receipt of tender through e- procurement soultion

1 Construction of additional 2.0 Lakh litre capacity UGR at Varun Kunj Rithala residential complex. Tender ID 2021_DJB_206367_1

48,82,987 /- 29-07-2021 21-08-2021 upto 03.00 PM

DELHI JAL BOARD GOVT OF NCT OF DELHIOFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE ENGINEER (Civil) SDW-NW

Opp RBI Colony Shalimar Bagh, New Delhi-110088 Ph No. 011-27491437, e-mail: eecsdwnw@gmail.com STOP CORONA-WEAR MASK, FOLLOW PHYSICAL DISTANCING, MAINTAIN HAND HYGIENE

Press NIT No.17 (2021-22) EE(C)SDW-NW

Further details in this regard can be seen at https://govtprocurement.delhi.gov.in.

ISSUED BY P.R.O. (WATER) Sd/- Anil Kumar Sharma Advt. No. J.S.V./2021-22/231 Exectuive Engineer(Civil)SDW-NW

11millenniumpost Sport mpNEW DELHI | SATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021

Hockey: Quarter-finalists India ride on Gurjant

twin strikes to beat JapanTOKYO: Striker Gurjant Singh was twice on target as India comfortably outclassed hosts Japan 5-3 on Friday to complete their pool proceed-ings with four victories having already sealed a quarter-final berth in the Tokyo Olympics.

Apart from Gurjant (17th, 56th), Harmanpreet Singh (13th), Shamsher Singh (34th) and Nilakanta Sharma (51st) scored for India to hand the eight-time Olympic champi-ons their third consecutive win in Pool A at the Oi Hockey Stadium.

Kenta Tanaka (19th), Kota Watanabe (33rd) and Kazuma Murata (59th) were the goal getters for Japan, who were already knocked out of the last-eight race ahead of Friday's tie.

By virtue of this win, India finished second in Pool A behind Australia with four victories out of five matches. They face Great Britain, who finished third in Pool B, in the quarterfinal scheduled on Sunday.

Australia ended their pool engagements on top with four wins and a draw.

India's lone defeat -- a 1-7 drubbing -- came at the hands of Australia.

The top four teams from each pool of six qualify for the quarterfinals.

"Better performance tonight. First-quarter was pretty good, we lost a little bit after they scored. In the sec-ond half, we came out and sort of regained control over the game. But, I thought we played better.

"We really tried playing at a much higher tempo tonight, trying to get on the tempo that we are going to need on Sunday. Good to get a cou-

ple of field goals, created a lot of opportunities, but I think we still need to get better at those outcomes in the circle," said India chief coach Graham Reid.

Looking to keep their win-ning run intact, the Indians went on the offensive from the beginning and penetrated the Japanese attacking third on several occasions.

Despite exerting continu-ous pressure on the Japanese defence, the Indians couldn't manage a clear shot at the goal in the first 10 minutes of the match.

In fact, it was Japan who had the first scoring chance but Tanaka's shot just went wide.

Soon India secured their first penalty corner and Har-manpreet made no mistake in giving his side the lead.

Simranjeet Singh and Gur-jant had a good match upfront as they combined well but the latter's effort from close range was kept away by Japan goal-keeper Koji Yamasaki.

India doubled their lead two minutes into the sec-ond quarter when Sim-ranjeet and Gurjant again combined well to create the opportunity. AGENCIES

Sensational Sindhu enters semi-finals at Tokyo Olympics

TOKYO: Reigning world champion P V Sindhu kept alive India's hopes of a first-ever Olympic gold in badmin-ton by reaching the semifinals of the women's singles with a straight-game win over world No.5 Japanese Akane Yamagu-chi here on Friday.

The 26-year-old Indian, who won a silver in the 2016 Rio Olympics, defended bril-liantly and rode on her attack-ing all-round game to outclass the fourth seeded Yamagu-

chi 21-13 22-20 in a 56-min-ute quarterfinal clash at the Musashino Forest Plaza here.

"The first game was mostly under my control. I was gain-ing the lead but I didn't take it easy because in her previous matches she came back. But I maintained the lead and fin-ished it off," Sindhu, seeded sixth, said.

"In the second game I was leading but then she came back. But I still fought back, I never lost hope and I con-

tinued with the same tempo. I am very much happy with the way I controlled the shuttle, not many errors," she added.

Yamaguchi had scripted a late comeback in the sec-ond game, grabbing two game points but Sindhu ensured there were no hiccups, regis-tering her 12th win over Yama-guchi in 19 meetings.

She had last beaten the Japanese at the All England Championship in March this year. AGENCIES

India's Shamsher Singh (21) drives up the pitch against Japan's Kaito Tanaka (14) during a men's field hockey match at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Friday, in Tokyo, Japan PTI

Fearless Lovlina assures India of first boxing medal at Tokyo Olympics

TOKYO: Debutant Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) assured India of their first boxing medal at the ongoing Olympic Games when she upstaged former world champion Nien-Chin Chen of Chinese Taipei to enter the semifinals here on Friday.

The 23-year-old Assam boxer prevailed 4-1 to make the last-four where she will square off against reigning world cham-pion Busenaz Surmeneli of Tur-key, who hammered Ukraine’s Anna Lysenko in her quarter-final bout.

Borgohain, a two-time world championship bronze-medallist and the first female boxer from Assam to qualify for the Games, displayed tremendous calm in the face of a plucky opponent, who had beaten her in the past.

She was aggressive to start with, followed it up with a tre-mendous counter-attacking game and kept her defence tight in the final three minutes to emerge triumphant.

“She stuck to the plan of counter-attacking and taking advantage of her height. She had tried being aggressive with this girl in the previous bouts and lost. So this time, we told her ‘aap khade raho, usko aane do’,” national coach Mohammed Ali Qamar said.

“And what a cool mind she displayed, never got excited.

Never tried to barge in. She exe-cuted the plan to perfection. Had she tried to go on offen-sive, she would have ended up getting hit,” he said.

The youngster, who was laid low by COVID-19 last year and missed a training trip to Europe because of it, let out a huge scream after the referee raised her hand, pent up emo-tions finally getting the better of her.

She had caught the infec-tion while visiting her ailing mother Mamoni Borgohain,

who underwent a kidney trans-plant last year. Her father Tiken is a small-time businessman and her elder sister are also kick boxers.

Borgohain started out as a kick boxer herself before Sports Authority of India coach Padum Boro, while scouting for talent in Assam’s Golaghat district, noticed her.

He introduced her to box-ing and she took to it like fish to water, winning a bronze medal in her debut world champion-ship in 2018, following it up with

another bronze the next year.She is also a two-time Asian

Championships bronze-winner.Raised in Golaghat’s Baro

Mukhia village, Borgohain eventually moved to Guwahati to realise her boxing dreams.

India’s previous boxing med-als have come through Vijender Singh (2008) and M C Mary Kom (2012). Both of them had won bronze medals and Borgo-hain would look to better that.

Earlier, Simranjit Kaur (60kg) lost to Thailand’s Sudaporn Seesondee in the pre-

quarterfinals to make an early exit from the Games here.

The 26-year-old Indian, seeded fourth, went down 0-5 despite a gritty performance.

She was impressive in the opening round and seemed to have caught Seesondee on the back-foot with her measured approach, sticking to a counter-attacking strategy.

However, the judges ruled unanimously in favour of the Thai, causing Simranjit to be a tad reckless in the second round.

The Indian paid for the hyper-aggressive approach in the first few seconds itself when Seesondee managed to connect some eye-catching left hooks.

The defensive errors in the second put paid to Simranjit’s chances and even though she gave it her all in the third round, it needed nothing short of a demolition job to get over the line. However, that was not to be as she bowed out following a unanimous verdict.

The 29-year-old Thai is a two-time world championships medallist and also won a silver in the 2018 Asian Games.

On Saturday, world num-ber one Amit Panghal (52kg) will open his campaign against Colombia’s Yurberjen Herney Mart nez Rivas, the light fly-weight silver-medallist from the Rio Olympics. AGENCIES

Djokovic loses to Zverev at Olympics, ending

Golden Slam bid

TOKYO: There will be no Golden Slam for Novak Djokovic. The top-ranked Serb lost to Alexander Zverev of Ger-many 1-6, 3-6, 6-1 Friday in the semifinals of the tennis tourna-ment at the Tokyo Olympics.

Djokovic was attempting to become the first man to win all four Grand Slam tourna-ments and Olympic gold in the same year. He won the Austra-lian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon this year and needed the Olympic and U.S. Open titles to complete the collection.

Steffi Graf in 1988 remains the only tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam.

Zverev's opponent in the gold-medal match will be Karen Khachanov. The Russian beat Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain 6-3, 6-3. Djokovic will play Car-reno Busta for bronze.

Djokovic's hadn't lost since getting beaten by Rafael Nadal at the Italian Open final 2 months ago.

On a humid and muggy eve-ning at the Ariake Tennis Park, Djokovic committed a series of uncharacteristic errors after a strong start as the 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) Zverev started to win free points with his big serve.

When Zverev hit a back-hand winner down the line that Djokovic didn't move for to close it out, Djokovic walked to the net where he was embraced by Zverev. Djokovic responded by resting his head on Zverev's shoulder as the pair exchanged some words. Djokovic's only Olympic medal was bronze in singles at the 2008 Beijing Games his first. He could still win a gold at the Tokyo Games in mixed doubles. AGENCIES

The 23-year-old Assam boxer prevailed 4-1 to make the last-four where she will square off against Busenaz Surmeneli of Turkey

India's Lovlina Borgohain lands a punch on Chen Nien-Chin of Chinese Taipei during women's welterweight (64-69kg) category boxing match, at the Summer Olympics 2020 in Tokyo, Friday PTI

Novak Djokovic PTI

Another Olympic heartbreak for Deepika, crashes out in quartersTOKYO: Another Olympics, another heartbreak for India's Deepika Kumari.

The world number one archer's quest for an Olympic medal ended in heartbreak for the third time as she surren-dered tamely to Korean top seed An San in straight sets in the quarterfinals here on Friday.

It was all over in six minutes.The fancied Indian misfired

three 7s in a row after drilling in as many 10s in succession to snuff out any chance of a come-back after being 0-2 down in the opening set.

An, who had a perfect open-ing set of 30, closed it out despite shooting in the red-circle thrice

in succession (7-8-9) in second and third sets.

"I am not sure what hap-pened. I tried hard but I could not perform to my own expectations," Deepika, who shot a pathetic four 7s from seven arrows, said after her loss at the Yumenoshima Park. AGENCIES

‘Dickwella, Mendis,

Gunathailaka banned for 1 yr, fined Rs 10 mn’COLOMBO: Sri Lanka Cricket on Friday banned senior play-ers Kusal Mendis, Niroshan Dickwella and Danushka Gunathilaka for one year and also imposed a fine of 10 million Sri Lankan rupees on them for breaching COVID-19 protocols on the tour of UK last month.

The trio was caught on cam-era on the streets of Durham during the limited overs series, which was a bio-bubble breach and they were sent back home midway into the tour and were suspended.

They also faced a disci-plinary committee headed by a retired judge, which rec-ommended two year bans for Mendis and Gunathilaka along with 18-month sanction for Dickwella.

However on Friday, the SLC committee decided to ban them from international cricket for one year and six months from domestic cricket. There will also be suspended sentence of one year which will be valid for two years provided there is another transgression from the players.

The three charges that have been brought by the SLC are : "Putting in jeopardy the safety of players by breaching COVID-19 safety guidelines, including instructions of the team man-agement. AGENCIES

12 millenniumpostLeisure

Entertainmentmp

SATURDAY, 31 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

MUMBAI: Superstar Akshay Kumar on Friday announced that his much-anticipated movie “Bellbottom” will arrive in cinemas on August 19.

The espionage thriller was originally scheduled to release in April this year, but was postponed to July 27 due to the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in India.

As the theatres open across the world and vari-ous parts of the country, the producers have locked a new release date for the movie.

“Mission: To Entertain

you on the BIG SCREEN. Date: August 19, 2021. Announcing the arrival of #BellBottom! #BellBot-tomInCinemasAug19,”

Kumar posted on Twitter.

Vashu Bhagnani is backing the film along with Jackky Bhagnani, Deepshikha Deshmukh, Monisha Advani, Madhu Bhojwani and Nikkhil Advani.

Directed by Ranjit M Tewari, “Bellbottom” is set in the 1980s and revolves around one of India’s forgot-ten heroes.

Written by Aseem Arrora and Parveez Shaikh, the film also features actors Lara Dutta, Huma Qureshi and Vaani Kapoor. PTI

LONDON: Actor Jodie Whittaker, the first woman

to play the Time Lord in BBC’s ‘Doctor Who’, will exit

the sci-fi series in 2022.Whittaker, who

has been playing the 13th doctor since 2017, will leave after her third season.

The actor will appear in a six-part event serial as well as three specials before departing the series, BBC said in a statement on Friday.

Besides Whittaker, showrunner Chris Chib-nall is also leaving the

long-running series.“In 2017 I opened my glorious gift

box of size 13 shoes. I could not have guessed the brilliant adventures, worlds and wonders I was to see in them,” said Whittaker.

“My heart is so full of love for this show, for the team who make it, for the fans who watch it and for what it has brought to my life. And I cannot thank Chris enough for entrusting me with his incredible stories,” she added.

The 39-year-old actor said Chibnall and she made the decision to leave the show together.

“We knew that we wanted to ride this wave side by side, and pass on the

baton together. So here we are, weeks away from wrapping on the best job I have ever had.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to express what this role has given me. I will carry the Doctor and the lessons I’ve learnt for-ever,” Whittaker added.

Chibnall concurred with the actor and said that they had made a ‘three series and out’ pact with each other at the

start of “this once-in-a-lifetime blast”.“So now our shift is done, and

we’re handing back the TARDIS keys. Jodie’s magnificent, iconic Doctor has exceeded all our high expectations. She’s been the gold standard leading actor, shouldering the responsibility of being the first female Doctor with style,

strength, warmth, generosity and humour. PTI

KOLKATA: National award-winning director

Srijit Mukherji said praise or criticism cannot alter the type of stories he wants to narrate.

Mukherji, who has recently made two short films in

the anthology ‘Ray’ on maestro’s birth centenary

on an international OTT plat-form triggering both barbs and praises, said Wednesday that he will not waver from his narra-tive style or readaptation tech-nique in the wake of negative reactions.

The Gumnaami director had made ‘Forget Me Not’ and ‘Bahrupiya’ in the 4 film

series ‘Ray’.Affirming that he will

not waver from his own narrative style or readap-tation technique in the

wake of such negative reactions, the film-

maker said, “Praise or criticism cannot actually alter the

type of stories I want to tell and the way I tell them.”

“I have always been kind of open-

minded. I am open to criticism,

I try to learn but at the end of the day I go by

my instinct in terms of story-telling,” Mukherji, whose debut feature film Autograph was a super hit, said.

“So I guess that is some-thing that is going to continue,” he added.

Mukherji, whose upcoming Bengali web series ‘Robindro-nath Ekhane Kawkhono Khete Aashenni’ (REKKA) will be streamed from August 13 on a leading Bengali OTT, said “sto-rytelling elements are different in OTT and feature films for the big screen.”

The way the plot is unfolding, character arch, space devoted to character and plot everything is driven by different dynamics.

“Storytell-ing on OTT is not the same as storytelling in (fea-ture) films, which is basically why OTT is a brilliant option. OTT gives you an alternative timeline, space, to structure narrative you want to unfold and the plot,” the maker of Feluda Pherot web series said.

Now set to unveil his sec-ond web series in Bengali in REKKA, he said: “Defi-nitely OTT is a very exciting development. It is an alterna-tive medium for expressing oneself. So I think for direc-

tors it is a fantastic conduit for storytelling. I am personally enjoying it a lot, I think a lot of directors will welcome it with open arms.”

About REKKA, he said the novel by Mohammad Nazim Uddin has already been touted as one of the best Bengali thrill-ers of recent times, and I was very keen on adapting it.

“This title is something given by the author of the origi-nal novel Robindranath ekhane kakhono khete and I have used the acronym. The setting has

shifted to this part of Bengal having tw ists

obviously, which are organic and

plot-driven,” he said.

About helming

the Taapsee Pannu-starrer

sports drama, Shabaash Mithu,

the biopic of Mith-ali Raj, captain of the

Indian Women’s ODI cricket team, Mukherji said: “Cricket has always been my first love, So it is obviously dream project.”

“Really looking forward to it. And yes sports and sports biopic have for long fascinated me. This was a very very apt opportunity,” Mukherji who came on board to helm the biopic which was earlier being directed by Rahul Dholakia, gushed. PTI

Co-Director of the upcoming show ‘Human’, Mozez

Singh, is one director who believes in show-casing his admiration for his cast. Mozez recently took to his social media to shower praises on actor Kirti Kulhari.

The appreciation post came via Instagram wherein Mozez stated that “The most excit-ing thing about working with any actor is when the actor takes the given part many notches higher, sometimes kicking the ball way out of the park. Your extreme emotional intelligence, your delicate nuances, your willingness

to dive into the deep end & your constant refusal in not accepting a take till it was more than superb had both the directors, Vipul Sir and I, in your complete thrall. Thank you for the tremendous experience of working with you Kirti. The shoot is over but the celebrations begin now. Let’s lose ourselves to a

cosmic dance! Let’s fly !” An overwhelmed

Kirti was quick to reply back in com-ments stating that, “Mozez this is the sweetest thing a direc-tor has done for me.. written an appre-ciation post … m so touched.. had been waiting to see what you write for me I have learned so much from the two of u and together, I would like to believe that we have created some-thing special. thank u for being a father to #sairasabharwal and bringing her into this world.” MPOST

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson has sued Dis-ney Studios for breach of contract over their decision to release Marvel Studios’ “Black Widow” standalone film on Disney Plus and in theatres simultaneously.

‘Black Widow’, featuring Johans-son as the titular superhero, was released in the theatres and on Dis-ney’s streaming platform on July 9.

The film set a pandemic-era box office record with its 80 million debut in North America and earned 78 million overseas. It also made 60 million on Disney Plus.

According to Deadline, in a law-suit filed on Thursday in Los Ange-les Superior Court, attorneys for Johansson claimed that the star’s contract was breached when the stu-dio opted not to debut the film exclu-sively in theatres.

The lawsuit contends that the Disney Plus release siphoned poten-tial theatergoers, costing her poten-tial compensation tied to the movie’s theatrical revenue.

Disney intentionally induced Marvel’s breach of the agreement, without justification, in order to pre-vent Ms. Johansson from realizing

the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel, the suit reads.

The suit seeks unspecified dam-ages and names the Walt Disney Company as the sole defendant.

The Walt Disney Co. responded to Johansson’s lawsuit via statement in which the studio said that the litigation showed a callous disregard to the COVID-19 pandemic and even revealed that she has so far received USD 20 million from the project.

There is no merit whatsoever to this filing. The lawsuit is especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and pro-longed global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Disney has fully complied with Ms Johansson’s contract and further-more, the release of ‘Black Widow’ on Disney+ with Premier Access has significantly enhanced her abil-ity to earn additional compensation on top of the 20M she has received to date,” a Disney spokesperson said.

Directed by Cate Shortland, ‘Black Widow’ also features actors Rachel Weisz, David Harbour. PTI

Johansson sues Disney for breach of contract

She has been playing the 13th doctor since 2017

‘Praise or criticism cannot alter the type of stories I want to narrate’

Srijit Mukherji says he has always been kind of open-minded and is open to criticism

Directed by Ranjit M Tewari, ‘Bell Bottom’ is set in the 1980s and revolves around one of India’s forgotten heroes

He recently made two

short films in the anthology ‘Ray’ to celebrate the maestro’s birth

centenary

Bell Bottom to release theatrically on August 19

The espionage thriller was originally scheduled to release in April this year, but was postponed due to the second wave of the coronavirus

Doctor Who: Jodie to leave after 3 seasons

Mozez Singh showers praise on Kirti Kulhari

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday noted that passing a blanket gag order on the media against report-ing anything against Bolly-wood actor Shilpa Shetty, wife of arrested businessman Raj Kundra, shall have a chilling effect on the freedom of press and said there is a judi-cial limit on what can be con-strued as

good or bad journalism.Justice Gautam Patel, how-

ever, directed that three videos uploaded on YouTube chan-nels of three private persons be deleted and not uploaded again as they were malicious and

with not even the slight-est attempt to inves-

tigate the truth of the matter.

The court noted that

the free-dom of

press has to

be balanced with the right to privacy of an individual.

The court was hearing a suit filed by Shetty against alleged defamatory articles published against her and family after the arrest of her husband on July 19. Kundra (45) is currently in jail under judicial custody.

Shetty, in an interim appli-cation, had sought for media to be restrained from publishing any incorrect, false, malicious and defamatory content.

Justice Patel, however, noted that the plaintiff ’s prayer seeking media to be restrained will have a chilling effect on the freedom of press.

There is a judicial limit on what is good or bad journal-ism as this comes very close to freedom of press, the court said.

The court noted that the articles referred to by Shetty in her suit do not seem to be defamatory.

It cannot be like if you (media) are not going to write or say anything nice about me (Shetty) then do not say

anything at all. How can this be? Justice Patel said.

The actor’s application also sought damages of Rs 25 crore, stating that the respondents (several media publications and social media sites like Google, Facebook and You-Tube) are causing irrepara-ble loss and damage to her reputation.

In her plea, Shetty sought directions against social media platforms like Google, You-Tube and Facebook to remove all defamatory content related to her and family.

To this, Justice Patel said, Your prayer seeking for social media platforms like Google, YouTube and Facebook to exercise control over editorial content is dangerous. The HC directed all defendants in the suit to file their affidavits and posted the matter for further hearing on September 20. PTI

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The court was hearing a suit filed by Shetty against defamatory news articles

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Blanket gag order will have chilling effect on press freedom: HC