16
A fter lukewarm response to his proposed Federal Front from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik, TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao is in Delhi hoping that his pro- posed meeting with BSP chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav will help his effort to prop up non-BJP non- Congress alliance for the next year's Lok Sabha polls. Sources said KCR is expected to meet Mayawati and Akhilesh on Wednesday, but so far the meetings are not confirmed. While Mayawati is in Delhi, SP sources in Lucknow said Akhilesh has not yet planned any visit to Delhi. It is interesting to watch the moves of KCR as his coun- terpart in Andhra Pradesh and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu is also meeting Opposition leaders as part of his effort to form an anti-BJP grand alliance that will also include the Congress. KCR is in the national Capital to also call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Union Ministers to talk about issues related to Telangana where he retained power last week. The Congress which is spearheading an assortment of Opposition parties, includ- ing the BSP, SP and TMC, has accused the TRS of being a BJP agent and feels that his pro- posed front cannot rescue the BJP as the front constituents will State specific anti-BJP alliance. Criticising the TRS chief 's efforts to forge a Federal Front of regional parties, the Congress said it is an attempt to help the BJP return to power after the next general elec- tions. Claiming that the Chief Ministers of different States, whom KCR met would not fall for the idea of a third front, as the leaders of regional parties would join a broad coalition with the Congress, leaving only TRS in the Federal Front. "KCR's attempts to rope in regional parties and State Chief Ministers to be part of the Federal Front will only help the BJP," said Congress leader Rajeev Gowda. Gowda further said the Congress would ensure that a mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) was formed with all regional, secular and progres- sive parties. "This federal front idea... The truth behind it is nothing but an attempt to ensure that BJP and 'Modi Sarkar' come back to power," he alleged. Meanwhile, reports from Hyderabad said even as KCR's mission to bring regional par- ties together to form a Federal Front reached New Delhi after passing through Bhuvaneshwar and Odisha, it was clear that the leaders whom he met so far have not made any direct com- mitment about their future course of action. According to the sources in TRS, both Naveen and Mamata remained non-committal about the stand they would take on the formation of a front which will not involve the Congress. Significantly, Mamata did not make any comment after meeting KCR in Kolkata on Monday. It was only KCR who promised that a concrete result of the deliberations will come out soon. Sources said while KCR repeatedly asserted the need for all the regional parties to come together and offer an alterna- tive to both the Congress and the BJP, the other regional leaders indicated that they would like to wait and watch till the 2019 polls were over. "Some of the leaders want to keep their options open till after the elections and take a final decision depending on the election results," sources said. "At the moment it appears that any third front or Federal Front will have to wait till the elections are over. At best it would be a post-poll arrange- ment, not any pre-poll alliance," said a TRS leader. Meanwhile TRS member of Parliament Vinod Kumar said the idea of Federal Front is not new as KCR had thought about it back in 2006. "Both NDA and UPA are seeking to rule the country on their own while KCR wants that the power should be in the hands of the regional parties to meet the aspirations of the people", he told the media. "If the regional parties had responded positively back in 2006, Telangana State would have become a reality then only," he said. C hief Minister Kamal Nath and Congress president Rahul Gandhi tried to balance the caste and region and dif- ferent camps in selecting cab- inet members from the newly elected legislators. As expected, the forma- tion of 28-member Cabinet in Madhya Pradesh saw power being distributed propor- tionately among the regional satraps– Chief Minister Kamal Nath, Digvijay Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia. In a simple function, Governor Anandiben Patel administered oath of office and secrecy to 28 Ministers at Raj Bhawan in Bhopal on Tuesday. For obvious reasons, ten Kamal Nath loyalists found ministerial berths while seven berths were offered to those seemed close to former union minister Jyotiradiya Scindia. Two-time Chief Minister Digvijay Singh who remained in the backdrop to ensure a Congress win was satisfied with nine ministerial berths to his loyalists including to his son Jaivardhan Singh and close relative Priyavrat Singh. Former MPCC president Arun Yadav’s brother Sachin, an MLA from Kasravad was appointed a minister while ministerial berth was also given to Congress working president and the member of Team Rahul Gandhi—Jitu Patwari who has won from Rau seat in Indore. Madhya Pradesh which was the epicenter of caste protests after restoration of SC/ ST Act provisions by the Centre felt the heat of the protests as eight Thakurs (Rajputs) were accommodated in the Cabinet alongside two Brahmins, five OBSc, four STs and five SCs and Arif Aqueel remained the lone Muslim face in the cabinet. Former Minister and the ex- Rajya Sabha member, Vijay Laxmi Sadho and Dabra MLA Imarti Devi remained the women faces of the cabi- net. Bhopal received a single representation in the cabinet as South-West Bhopal MLA PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest member of the cab- inet. Congress rebel Pradip Jaiswal who contested as an independent from Wara Seoni and defeated CM Shivraj Singh Chouhna’s brother-in- law Sanjay Singh Masani who had defected to Congress ahead of polls, was the lone independent MLA who is in the cabinet. None of the two MLAs from BSP and the lone MLA from SP was given any repre- sentation in the cabinet. The portfolios of the ministers would be allotted later. First cabinet meeting of the Congress government has been convened in the evening on Tuesday at PCC and NP Prajapati who has won from Gotegaon in Jabalpur has been nominated by the Congress party for the post of speaker. P rime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said his Government has changed the "dilly-dallying" work culture regarding implementation of development projects. Addressing a rally here after inaugurating the coun- try's longest rail-cum-road bridge, at Bogibeel in Assam, he said completion of projects within a given time frame is no longer confined to paper but has become a reality. "We have changed the earlier latkane bhatkane (dilly-dallying) work culture... Completion of pro- jects within a time frame is no longer confined to paper but has become a truth in the real sense," he said in a apparent dig at the previous Congress- led UPA Government. If for- mer Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had a second term, Bogibeel bridge would have been ready by 2008-09. After his Government, no attention was paid to the pro- ject till 2014, the Prime Minister said. Asserting that the Bogibeel bridge will strengthen the country's defence prowess with movement of vehicles and trains, he said, it is not only a bridge, it is a lifeline for crores of people in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The bridge will cut down rail distance (between Dibrugarh in Assam to Naharlagun in Arunachal Pradesh) to below 200 km from 700 km now, Modi said. After inaugurating the bridge, the prime minister flagged off the Tinsukia- Naharlagun Intercity Express, which will run five days a week and use the 4.9-km bridge to cut down the train-travel time between Tinsukia in Assam to Naharlagun town of Arunachal Pradesh by more than 10 hours. Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh is just over 15 km from Naharlagun. A 45-year-old engineer died after being trapped in his car when the moving vehicle caught fire in early hours of Tuesday in Greater Noida. The incident happened just half kilometre from his home. The deceased has been identified as Pavan, a native of Amba in Himachal Pradesh. According to a senior police official, a passerby informed police regarding the incident at around 5.30 am on Tuesday following which a team rushed to the spot. "By the time police reached the spot near the DPS Society, under Kasna police station limits, the vehicle, a Ford Ikon, was already in flames and the body was later found inside," said the senior police official. "The man was working in a private company here. He was returning after a night shift when the incident took place," said Greater Noida 1st Circle Officer Nishank Sharma. He said the identity of the deceased was confirmed after matching the details of regis- tration number of the car. "After initial investigation, it appeared that the car had caught fire and the man could not eject himself out in time. Short-circuit and problems with the blower appear to have triggered the fire but an inves- tigation is underway," said Sharma, adding that the body has been sent for post-mortem. "During probe it was also revealed that the deceased had sent Christmas greetings to friends and relatives in the morning, around 5 am. Everything was fine till the fire broke out accidentally," said Ramphal Tomar, Station House Officer, Kasna police station. New Delhi: Services of State- owned banks are expected to be impacted on Wednesday due to a nation-wide strike call given by unions to protest against the proposed amalgamation of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda. This will be the second bank strike in less than a week. Last Friday (December 21), an officers' union of State- run banks observed a day-long strike to protest against the merger and also demanded immediate settlement of wage negotiations. Most of the banks have already informed customers about the strike. Private sector banks will continue to function as usual. The strike is being organ- ised by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella organisation of nine unions, including the All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC), the All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE) and the National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW). The UFBU claims membership of 10 lakh officers and staffers. According to AIBEA General Secretary C H Vekatachalam, the concilia- tion meeting called by Additional Chief Labour Commissioner did not lead to any assurance and so the unions are going ahead with the strike. During the meeting, nei- ther the Government nor the concerned banks came for- ward to assure that they will not go ahead with the merger, he added. The unions claim that the Government wants banks to grow in size by such mergers but even if all public sector banks are bundled into one, the merged entity will not find a place among the top 10 global- ly. The Government in September approved the amal- gamation of Bank of Baroda (BoB), Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank — the first three-way merger in the public sector banking space. C iting concerns that com- munal harmony could be disturbed, especially in the run-up to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2019, Uttar Pradesh's Noida Police has issued orders to offices and establishments in Sector-58 to direct their Muslim employees to stop offering Friday prayers in open areas such as parks. According to a notice issued last week by police in Noida, companies will be held liable if their employees are found violating the directive. "A notices were sent to many companies in our area after several complaints regarding a large number of people offering namaz in the afternoon especially on Fridays," said Pankaj Rai, Station House Officer (SHO) of the Sector 58 police station, from where the initial round of notices were issued "Since most people offer- ing prayers are employees in companies nearby, we have sent notices to those compa- nies to ask their employees to either offer namaz in a masjid, Eidgah or within the office compound on the roof etc," Rai added. F ormer Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday turned a rallying point for political leaders as 'Sadaiv Atal' (immortal Vajpayee), a memo- rial of the late leader, was ded- icated to the nation here on Tuesday on his 94th birth anniversary. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh Chief Ministers also announced that a statue of Vajpayee would be installed in Patna and Lucknow. With the whiff of 2019 Lok Sabha polls in the air, Vajpayee returned to the posters outside the BJP headquarters along with other party veteran LK Advani. In the auditorium of party's headquarters, though, Vajpayee and Advani have long been replaced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah adorning the dais. President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and the Prime Minister were among the dig- nitaries who paid floral tributes to the former statesman at the memorial built near the 'Rashtriya Smriti Sthal', where his mortal remains were con- signed to flames on August 17. The memorial is enclosed by nine bas-relief walls having inscriptions of poetries penned by Vajpayee who was know for his rhythmic poems, repartees and one-liners. Vajpayee passed away in Delhi on August 16 after a pro- longed illness and was cremat- ed with full State honours. "Tributes to Atal Ji on his Jayanti. We reiterate our com- mitment towards creating the India he dreamt of," Modi tweeted on Tuesday. Noted singer Pankaj Udhas recited devotional songs at the memorial while the dignitaries paid tributes. Sadaiv (always) Atal memorial will be managed by a trust headed by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. A vacant piece of land was made available for the memo- rial at the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal here by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry. Spread over 1.5 acres of land, the memorial was con- structed by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) at a cost of Rs 10.51 crore. The project was funded by the Atal Smriti Nyas Society. The founding members of the society include Mahajan, Bihar Governor Lalji Tandon, Gujarat Governor OP Kohli, Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala, BJP leaders Vijay Kumar Malhotra and Ram Lal. A rush has begun to get closer to Vajpayee's political legacy with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath promising statue of Vajpayee in Lucknow. "A 21-metre tall stat- ue of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be installed inside Lok Bhawan in Lucknow," Adityanath said. "Atalji had strong ties with Uttar Pradesh. He started his public life from Balrampur in the State and represented Lucknow as an MP for five terms," the Chief Minister said, adding that a number of schemes are being launched in the name of the former Prime Minister. Bhopal: Governor Anandiben Patel on Tuesday administered oath to the newly-formed Council of Ministers at the Raj Bhavan. Chief Minister Kamal Nath was also present on the occasion. As many as 28 MLAs took oath of Minister’s post and secrecy. Among the legislators who took oath of the post of Ministers are Vijaylaxmi Sadho, Sajjan Singh Verma, Hukum Singh Karada, Govind Singh, Bala Bachhan, Arif Aqueel, Brijendra Singh Rathore, Pradeep Jaiswal, Lakhan Singh Yadav, Tulsiram Silavat, Govind Singh Rajput, Imarti Devi, Omkar Singh Markam, Prabhuram Chaudhri, Priyavrat Singh, Sukhdev Panse, Umang Singhar, Harsh Yadav, Jaivardhan Singh, Jitu Patwari, Kamleshwar Patel, Lakhan Ghanghoria, Mahendra Singh Sisodia, PC Sharma, Pradyumna Singh Tomar, Sachin Subhash Yadav, Surendra Singh Baghel and Tarun Bhanot. The Governor extended her best wishes and congratulated the newly- appointed ministers after the oath-taking ceremony. Chief Secretary BP Singh conducted the oath-taking ceremony. SR RNI Regn. No. MPENG/2004/13703, Regd. No. L-2/BPLON/41/2006-2008 C M Y K C M Y K

C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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Page 1: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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After lukewarm responseto his proposed Federal

Front from West Bengal ChiefMinister Mamata Banerjeeand her Odisha counterpartNaveen Patnaik, TRS supremoK Chandrasekhar Rao is inDelhi hoping that his pro-posed meeting with BSP chiefMayawati and SamajwadiParty president AkhileshYadav will help his effort toprop up non-BJP non-Congress alliance for the nextyear's Lok Sabha polls.

Sources said KCR isexpected to meet Mayawatiand Akhilesh on Wednesday,but so far the meetings are notconfirmed. While Mayawati isin Delhi, SP sources inLucknow said Akhilesh hasnot yet planned any visit toDelhi. It is interesting to watchthe moves of KCR as his coun-terpart in Andhra Pradesh andTDP supremo N ChandrababuNaidu is also meetingOpposition leaders as part ofhis effort to form an anti-BJPgrand alliance that will alsoinclude the Congress.

KCR is in the nationalCapital to also call on PrimeMinister Narendra Modi andother Union Ministers to talkabout issues related toTelangana where he retainedpower last week.

The Congress which isspearheading an assortmentof Opposition parties, includ-

ing the BSP, SP and TMC, hasaccused the TRS of being a BJPagent and feels that his pro-posed front cannot rescue theBJP as the front constituentswill State specific anti-BJPalliance.

Criticising the TRS chief 'sefforts to forge a Federal Frontof regional parties, theCongress said it is an attemptto help the BJP return to powerafter the next general elec-tions. Claiming that the ChiefMinisters of different States,whom KCR met would not fallfor the idea of a third front, asthe leaders of regional parties

would join a broad coalitionwith the Congress, leaving onlyTRS in the Federal Front.

"KCR's attempts to rope inregional parties and State ChiefMinisters to be part of theFederal Front will only help theBJP," said Congress leaderRajeev Gowda.

Gowda further said theCongress would ensure that amahagathbandhan (grandalliance) was formed with allregional, secular and progres-sive parties. "This federal frontidea... The truth behind it isnothing but an attempt toensure that BJP and 'Modi

Sarkar' come back to power," healleged.

Meanwhile, reports fromHyderabad said even as KCR'smission to bring regional par-ties together to form a FederalFront reached New Delhi afterpassing through Bhuvaneshwarand Odisha, it was clear that theleaders whom he met so farhave not made any direct com-mitment about their futurecourse of action.

According to the sources inTRS, both Naveen and Mamataremained non-committal aboutthe stand they would take onthe formation of a front which

will not involve the Congress.Significantly, Mamata did

not make any comment aftermeeting KCR in Kolkata onMonday. It was only KCR whopromised that a concrete resultof the deliberations will comeout soon.

Sources said while KCRrepeatedly asserted the need forall the regional parties to cometogether and offer an alterna-tive to both the Congress andthe BJP, the other regionalleaders indicated that theywould like to wait and watch tillthe 2019 polls were over.

"Some of the leaders wantto keep their options open tillafter the elections and take afinal decision depending on theelection results," sources said.

"At the moment it appearsthat any third front or FederalFront will have to wait till theelections are over. At best itwould be a post-poll arrange-ment, not any pre-poll alliance,"said a TRS leader.

Meanwhile TRS memberof Parliament Vinod Kumarsaid the idea of Federal Frontis not new as KCR had thoughtabout it back in 2006.

"Both NDA and UPA areseeking to rule the country ontheir own while KCR wantsthat the power should be in thehands of the regional parties tomeet the aspirations of thepeople", he told the media. "Ifthe regional parties hadresponded positively back in2006, Telangana State wouldhave become a reality thenonly," he said.

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Chief Minister Kamal Nathand Congress president

Rahul Gandhi tried to balancethe caste and region and dif-ferent camps in selecting cab-inet members from the newlyelected legislators.

As expected, the forma-tion of 28-member Cabinet inMadhya Pradesh saw powerbeing distributed propor-tionately among the regionalsatraps– Chief MinisterKamal Nath, Digvijay Singhand Jyotiraditya Scindia.

In a simple function,Governor Anandiben Pateladministered oath of officeand secrecy to 28 Ministers atRaj Bhawan in Bhopal onTuesday.

For obvious reasons, tenKamal Nath loyalists foundministerial berths while sevenberths were offered to thoseseemed close to former unionminister Jyotiradiya Scindia.Two-time Chief MinisterDigvijay Singh who remainedin the backdrop to ensure aCongress win was satisfiedwith nine ministerial berthsto his loyalists including to hisson Jaivardhan Singh andclose relative Priyavrat Singh.

Former MPCC presidentArun Yadav’s brother Sachin,an MLA from Kasravad wasappointed a minister whileministerial berth was alsogiven to Congress workingpresident and the member ofTeam Rahul Gandhi—JituPatwari who has won fromRau seat in Indore.

Madhya Pradesh whichwas the epicenter of casteprotests after restoration ofSC/ ST Act provisions by theCentre felt the heat of theprotests as eight Thakurs (Rajputs) wereaccommodated in the Cabinetalongside two Brahmins, fiveOBSc, four STs and five SCsand Arif Aqueel remainedthe lone Muslim face in thecabinet.

Former Minister and theex- Rajya Sabha member,

Vijay Laxmi Sadho and DabraMLA Imarti Devi remainedthe women faces of the cabi-net. Bhopal received a singlerepresentation in the cabinetas South-West Bhopal MLAPC Sharma was included inthe list of ministers.

Thirty two-year-oldJaivardhan Singh, an MLAfrom Raghogarh and the sonof Digvijay Singh is theyoungest member of the cab-inet. Congress rebel PradipJaiswal who contested as anindependent from Wara Seoniand defeated CM ShivrajSingh Chouhna’s brother-in-law Sanjay Singh Masani whohad defected to Congressahead of polls, was the loneindependent MLA who is inthe cabinet.

None of the two MLAsfrom BSP and the lone MLAfrom SP was given any repre-sentation in the cabinet. Theportfolios of the ministerswould be allotted later.

First cabinet meeting ofthe Congress government hasbeen convened in the eveningon Tuesday at PCC and NPPrajapati who has won fromGotegaon in Jabalpur hasbeen nominated by theCongress party for the post ofspeaker.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Tuesday said his

Government has changed the"dilly-dallying" work cultureregarding implementation ofdevelopment projects.

Addressing a rally hereafter inaugurating the coun-try's longest rail-cum-roadbridge, at Bogibeel in Assam,he said completion of projectswithin a given time frame is nolonger confined to paper buthas become a reality. "We havechanged the earlier latkanebhatkane (dilly-dallying) workculture... Completion of pro-jects within a time frame is nolonger confined to paper but

has become a truth in the realsense," he said in a apparentdig at the previous Congress-led UPA Government. If for-mer Prime Minister AtalBihari Vajpayee had a secondterm, Bogibeel bridge wouldhave been ready by 2008-09.After his Government, noattention was paid to the pro-ject till 2014, the PrimeMinister said.

Asserting that the Bogibeelbridge will strengthen thecountry's defence prowess withmovement of vehicles andtrains, he said, it is not only abridge, it is a lifeline for croresof people in Assam andArunachal Pradesh.

The bridge will cut downrail distance (betweenDibrugarh in Assam toNaharlagun in ArunachalPradesh) to below 200 kmfrom 700 km now, Modi said.

After inaugurating thebridge, the prime ministerflagged off the Tinsukia-Naharlagun Intercity Express,which will run five days aweek and use the 4.9-km bridgeto cut down the train-traveltime between Tinsukia inAssam to Naharlagun town ofArunachal Pradesh by morethan 10 hours. Itanagar, thecapital of Arunachal Pradesh isjust over 15 km fromNaharlagun.

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A45-year-old engineer diedafter being trapped in his

car when the moving vehiclecaught fire in early hours ofTuesday in Greater Noida. Theincident happened just halfkilometre from his home. Thedeceased has been identified asPavan, a native of Amba inHimachal Pradesh.

According to a seniorpolice official, a passerbyinformed police regarding theincident at around 5.30 am onTuesday following which ateam rushed to the spot.

"By the time police reachedthe spot near the DPS Society,under Kasna police stationlimits, the vehicle, a Ford Ikon,was already in flames and thebody was later found inside,"said the senior police official.

"The man was working ina private company here. He wasreturning after a night shiftwhen the incident took place,"said Greater Noida 1st CircleOfficer Nishank Sharma.

He said the identity of thedeceased was confirmed aftermatching the details of regis-

tration number of the car."After initial investigation,

it appeared that the car hadcaught fire and the man couldnot eject himself out in time.Short-circuit and problemswith the blower appear to havetriggered the fire but an inves-tigation is underway," saidSharma, adding that the bodyhas been sent for post-mortem.

"During probe it was alsorevealed that the deceased hadsent Christmas greetings tofriends and relatives in themorning, around 5 am.Everything was fine till the firebroke out accidentally," saidRamphal Tomar, Station HouseOfficer, Kasna police station.

New Delhi: Services of State-owned banks are expected to beimpacted on Wednesday due toa nation-wide strike call givenby unions to protest against theproposed amalgamation ofVijaya Bank and Dena Bankwith Bank of Baroda.

This will be the secondbank strike in less than a week.

Last Friday (December21), an officers' union of State-run banks observed a day-longstrike to protest against themerger and also demandedimmediate settlement of wagenegotiations.

Most of the banks havealready informed customersabout the strike. Private sectorbanks will continue to functionas usual.

The strike is being organ-ised by the United Forum ofBank Unions (UFBU), anumbrella organisation of nineunions, including the All IndiaBank Officers Confederation(AIBOC), the All India BankEmployees' Association(AIBEA), NationalConfederation of BankEmployees (NCBE) and the

National Organisation of BankWorkers (NOBW). The UFBUclaims membership of 10 lakhofficers and staffers.

According to AIBEAGeneral Secretary C HVekatachalam, the concilia-tion meeting called byAdditional Chief LabourCommissioner did not lead toany assurance and so theunions are going ahead withthe strike.

During the meeting, nei-ther the Government nor theconcerned banks came for-ward to assure that they willnot go ahead with the merger,he added.

The unions claim that theGovernment wants banks togrow in size by such mergers buteven if all public sector banksare bundled into one, themerged entity will not find aplace among the top 10 global-ly. The Government inSeptember approved the amal-gamation of Bank of Baroda(BoB), Vijaya Bank and DenaBank — the first three-waymerger in the public sectorbanking space.

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Citing concerns that com-munal harmony could be

disturbed, especially in therun-up to the upcoming LokSabha elections in 2019, UttarPradesh's Noida Police hasissued orders to offices andestablishments in Sector-58 todirect their Muslim employeesto stop offering Friday prayersin open areas such as parks.

According to a noticeissued last week by police inNoida, companies will be heldliable if their employees arefound violating the directive.

"A notices were sent to

many companies in our areaafter several complaintsregarding a large number ofpeople offering namaz in theafternoon especially onFridays," said Pankaj Rai,Station House Officer (SHO)of the Sector 58 police station,from where the initial roundof notices were issued

"Since most people offer-ing prayers are employees incompanies nearby, we havesent notices to those compa-nies to ask their employees toeither offer namaz in a masjid,Eidgah or within the officecompound on the roof etc," Raiadded.

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Former Prime Minister AtalBihari Vajpayee on Tuesday

turned a rallying point forpolitical leaders as 'Sadaiv Atal'(immortal Vajpayee), a memo-rial of the late leader, was ded-icated to the nation here onTuesday on his 94th birthanniversary. Bihar and UttarPradesh Chief Ministers alsoannounced that a statue ofVajpayee would be installed inPatna and Lucknow.

With the whiff of 2019 LokSabha polls in the air, Vajpayeereturned to the posters outside

the BJP headquarters alongwith other party veteran LKAdvani. In the auditorium ofparty's headquarters, though,Vajpayee and Advani have long

been replaced by PrimeMinister Narendra Modi andparty president Amit Shahadorning the dais.

President Ram Nath

Kovind, Vice-President MVenkaiah Naidu and the PrimeMinister were among the dig-nitaries who paid floral tributesto the former statesman at thememorial built near the'Rashtriya Smriti Sthal', wherehis mortal remains were con-signed to flames on August 17.

The memorial is enclosedby nine bas-relief walls havinginscriptions of poetries pennedby Vajpayee who was know forhis rhythmic poems, reparteesand one-liners.

Vajpayee passed away inDelhi on August 16 after a pro-longed illness and was cremat-ed with full State honours.

"Tributes to Atal Ji on hisJayanti. We reiterate our com-mitment towards creating theIndia he dreamt of," Moditweeted on Tuesday.

Noted singer Pankaj Udhasrecited devotional songs at thememorial while the dignitariespaid tributes.

Sadaiv (always) Atalmemorial will be managed bya trust headed by Lok SabhaSpeaker Sumitra Mahajan.

A vacant piece of land wasmade available for the memo-rial at the Rashtriya SmritiSthal here by the UnionHousing and Urban AffairsMinistry. Spread over 1.5 acresof land, the memorial was con-structed by the Central PublicWorks Department (CPWD) ata cost of Rs 10.51 crore.

The project was funded bythe Atal Smriti Nyas Society.

The founding members ofthe society include Mahajan,Bihar Governor Lalji Tandon,Gujarat Governor OP Kohli,

Karnataka Governor VajubhaiRudabhai Vala, BJP leadersVijay Kumar Malhotra andRam Lal.

A rush has begun to getcloser to Vajpayee's politicallegacy with Uttar Pradesh ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanathpromising statue of Vajpayee inLucknow. "A 21-metre tall stat-ue of former PM Atal BihariVajpayee will be installed insideLok Bhawan in Lucknow,"Adityanath said.

"Atalji had strong ties withUttar Pradesh. He started hispublic life from Balrampur inthe State and representedLucknow as an MP for fiveterms," the Chief Minister said,adding that a number ofschemes are being launched inthe name of the former PrimeMinister.

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Bhopal: Governor AnandibenPatel on Tuesday administeredoath to the newly-formedCouncil of Ministers at the RajBhavan. Chief Minister KamalNath was also present on theoccasion. As many as 28 MLAstook oath of Minister’s post and secrecy.

Among the legislators whotook oath of the post ofMinisters are Vijaylaxmi Sadho,Sajjan Singh Verma, HukumSingh Karada, Govind Singh,Bala Bachhan, Arif Aqueel,Brijendra Singh Rathore,Pradeep Jaiswal, Lakhan SinghYadav, Tulsiram Silavat, GovindSingh Rajput, Imarti Devi,Omkar Singh Markam,Prabhuram Chaudhri,Priyavrat Singh, SukhdevPanse, Umang Singhar, HarshYadav, Jaivardhan Singh, JituPatwari, Kamleshwar Patel,Lakhan Ghanghoria,Mahendra Singh Sisodia, PCSharma, Pradyumna SinghTomar, Sachin Subhash Yadav,Surendra Singh Baghel andTarun Bhanot. The Governorextended her best wishes andcongratulated the newly-appointed ministers after theoath-taking ceremony. ChiefSecretary BP Singh conductedthe oath-taking ceremony. SR

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Page 2: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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Bhopal: An array of vibrant coloursand new designs is being put up at thehandloom exhibition wherein thefashion freaks of the city are explor-ing the most enchanting attire forthemselves.

A Chanderi Utsav, handloomexhibition cum sale showcasing themost trendy and beautiful dress mate-rials is being put up at Communityhall, 10 no. Market. Kicked off fromTuesday, the Chanderi Utsav exhibi-tion cum sale on its second day had agreat response by the shopaholics ofthe city. On the very first day, femalebuyers were seen buying not only thedress materials, but also the imitationjewellery being put up.

The Chanderi Utsav is a must visitfor those looking out for a fashionableand stylish look for the weddings andfestivals. It not only showcases a vari-

ety of fusion dresses, but also displaystraditional designs. Notably, Chanderiis one of the most wanted dress mate-rials for the fiestas. This exhibition cumsale has a variety of more than 1000designs in suits which are captivatingthe interest of the shopaholics of thecity. These suits have been designed indifferent patterns and prints. There areprinted materials beautifully embroi-dered with Batik Print, Dabu Print,Hand-Block Print and one of the mostrenowned and loved in all seasons,Bagh Print. There is also a range ofsaris in different varieties as well.

One could find the price of thesuits and dress materials lowest fromRs 700 till Rs 15000. Besides, there isa huge collection in Mulberry silk,crape, chiffon silk and cotton silk aswell at the emporium for regularshopping. SR

Bhopal: A collection of classical Hindifilms is introduced at Swami VivekanandaLibrary. The movie lovers now have anopportunity to watch their favouritemovies and find them at one place.

As many as 45 movies are on displayat Swami Vivekananda Library. SwamiVivekananda Library Manager YatishBhatale said that 20 of the 45 DVDs hadalready reserved for the day.

This collection of such movie collec-tions has been compiled by the library forthe first time in the library. He further saidthat the library members also liked thiscollection a lot.

Collections of films from 1971 to 2013were collected in this collection. Some ofthe films include Trashaghi 1988, Gandhi1982, A day of Ashadh 1971, One daysuddenly 1988, Mammo 1994, Rui ka bojh1997, Gangoo bai 2013, Devi Ahilya Bai2002, Kalma's death 1989, Messi Sahib

1986, Jaya Ganga 1996, Death of a Doctor1990, Trade to Pakistan 1991 andDeparture 1978 are on display.

Manager of the library Yatish Bhatelesaid that the popular movies that werereleased between 1971 to 1990 havebeen launched in Swami VivekanandaLibrary. Besides, all these movies arecoloured. He said that every Sunday aspecial collection is launched in SwamiVivekananda Library, so that every mem-ber of the library gets a good book col-lection to read.

He also said that members can alsogive suggestions about what genres andwhat author’s books they want to read.Manager Yatesh Bhatele said that thesebooks will be displayed on Sunday. Healso said that the members can book thebooks they want to read. Also, newbooks are released every Sunday in thelibrary, he added. SR

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Dance expert YogendraSingh Rajput said, “The

training of ballet should beginfrom the age of 5 so that thebody can adapt to the move-ments”.

Yogendra was addressingparticipants of ContemporaryBallet Workshop. Marking thethird day of the workshop, onTuesday the participantslearned about contemporarydance movements.

Addressing the participantsYogendra Singh Rajput saidthat if any story and poetry isexpressed through movementsis all about contemporary bal-let dance.

The ballet workshop is

being held at Utkal Bhavan. As many as 20 aspirants are

learning tbe art of ballet.Notably, a 15-day long balletworkshop is being organizedfor the aspirants to learn theballet form properly. Thedance lovers of the city areenjoying the workshop as theyare able to explore differentstyle of dance which is mostlyused in theaters.

While talking about thedance form he said that bodylanguage is major criteria forthe dance. He said it is impor-tant to keep body flexible andfree at the same time to bringout the essence of the danceform. Then he stated that it isalso important to feel the musicand feel the dance together.

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Weather conditions havestarted normalising after

witnessing extreme cold con-ditions in the past two weeksacross the state; night temper-atures have started increasinggradually.

The night temperatureshave started increasing stillharshness in weather condi-tions prevail in the late eveninghours till the morning.

Regions which were wit-nessing extreme cold condi-tions have shown reversal pat-tern and temperatures havebeen recorded above normaltemperature at Indore andChambal divisions.

Major cities recorded coldconditions as Gwalior record-ed night temperature at 5.5degree Celsius.

Jabalpur recorded night

temperature at 7.6 degreeCelsius while Indore recordednight temperature with signif-icant rise at 14 degree Celsiuswhich provided relief to thecommercial capital of the state.

The lowest night tempera-ture was recorded in Khajurahoat 3 degree Celsius. Met officialissued warning of cold waveconditions in Rewa andShahdol divisions and Morena,Bhind, Gwalior, Datia,Tikamgarh, Chattarpur, Pannaand Mandla districts.

Khajuraho, Rewa and Mandladistricts witnessed cold waveconditions in the past 24 hours.

Apart from Khajurahowhich witnessed lowest nighttemperature Umaria recordednight temperature at 4.8 degreeCelsius, Rewa recorded nighttemperature at 4 degree Celsius.

Nowgong and Gwaliorrecorded night temperature at5.5 degree Celsius. State capi-tal witnessed 11.4 degreeCelsius which was 1.8 degreeCelsius above the normal tem-perature.

Except few places nighttemperatures have been record-ed around and above 10 degreeCelsius. Weather patternwould resume normal weath-er conditions with the start ofthe week and would prevail.The extreme cold conditionsare less likely to witness in thenext 4-5 days.

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Governor Anandiben Pateland Chief Minister Kamal

Nath and his cabinet col-leagues have extended greet-ings and best wishes to state’speople on Christmas.

In her message Patel saidthat Lord Jesus Christ gave themessage of love, harmony,kindness and peace to theworld. Governor Patel saidthat there is a tradition of cel-ebrating all festivals in ourcountry in an atmosphere ofharmony and brotherhood.She said that the festival ofChristmas also gives us anopportunity to strengthen thistradition. Patel wished peace,prosperity and development ofthe state and its people on theoccasion.

Chief Minister KamalNath also extended greetingsand best wishes to Christianfellows and all people of thestate on Christmas.

In his greeting message,the Chief Minister said that

Lord Jesus Christ gave themessage of love, mercy, for-giveness, sacrifice, compas-

sion and peace for humanwelfare. Jesus Christ’s ideals ofmoral values, world peace and

establishment ofdignity of humanlife are ever rele-vant.

Nath said thatgreat persons andreformers maybelong to differentcommunities andreligions, but theirteachings andideals call for ser-vice to humanbeings.

Nath said thatChristmas is anoccasion to prayfor progress andprosperity.

Besides, all thenewly appointedministers in theState cabinet alsoextended their bestwishes on the fes-tival of Christmas.Madhya PradeshAssembly Principal

Secretary AP Singh alsoextended greetings on the fes-tival.

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Public education being one ofthe largest and most impor-

tant sectors for the inclusivegrowth of the country, access toquality school education is stilla high critical issue thatrequires serious attention.

A joint study by Centre forBudget and GovernanceAccountability (CBGA) andCRY – Child Rights and Youanalyses the school educationbudgets for six states, bringingto fore that even though thestates have increased fundingfor school education in the 14thFC (Finance Commission)period, they have not fullyutilised their budgets to changethe composition of their schooleducation spending.

This has led to a crunch inallocation of resources includ-ing adequate number of pro-

fessionally qualified teachersand required infrastructureamong others – factors likely tohamper children’s access toquality education.

With over 60 per cent ofchildren in India depending onpublic schools for their ele-mentary and secondary edu-cation, public sector educationtakes centre stage for bothState and Union governments.

The CBGA-CRY study

named ‘Budgeting for SchoolEducation: What has Changedand What Has Not’ is carriedout for six states, namely UttarPradesh, Bihar, West Bengal,Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra andTamil Nadu; by studying theDetailed Demands for Grantsof state budgets for 2014-15 to2017-18.

“To ensure better schoolenvironment and quality learn-ing outcomes, adequate public

spending is vital.” “There is a dire need to

step up public investment forschool education. With scarci-ty of basic resources of educa-tion like teachers and infra-structure, the governments atCentre and the States shouldcome together to considerablyincrease and sustain schooleducation funds longer thanusual to transform the currentpublic education system,” saidPriti Mahara, Director, Policyresearch and Advocacy at CRY– Child Rights and You.

“Ensuring quality educa-tion is invariably related to a lotof factors. Though increasedallocation of funds and betterquality of spending does notsolely or directly ensure qual-ity education, it surely canaddress the issue by creating amore conducive environment,”she added.

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The tale of one of the mostbeautiful queen of India

Kamlapati was told through theHindi play 'Kamlapati'. Theplay was staged at ShaheedBhavan auditorium here onTuesday. The play was direct-ed by Lokendra Tiwari. It wasperformed by the artists ofAbigyan Theatre Troupe, NewDelhi.

The play portrayed thestory of Rani Kamlapati. RaniKamlapati who fought torevenge his husband's death.Rani Kamlapati was the wife ofNizam Shah of Ginnorgarh. Itis said that she was the mostbeautiful queen of the country.

The story of RaniKamlapati began when dhemarried Nizam Shah. She wasthe daughter of KriparamGond. Nizam Shah was mur-dered by his nephew by poi-sioning.

To save herself and hisyoung son Rani Kamlapati ranfor help and reached to DostMohammad Khan inIslamnagar. Dost MohammadKhan after listening to herstruggle story he promised togiver her shelter and help.

He avenged the death ofNizam Shah and promised toalways helo Rani Kamlapati.After this Rani Kamlapati tiedrakhi to Dost MohammadKhan and regularly used to sentit to Dost Mohammad Khan.

The grand tale of RaniKamlapati was beautufully toldthrough this play. The audiencewas overwhelmed with theperformance.

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C M Y K

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Page 3: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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New District Collector ofGwalior Bharat Yadav

assumed office from the outgo-ing collector, Ashok Varma onTuesday. Immediately after tak-ing charge Yadav held a meetingof the departmental heads at theconference hall of the collec-torate.

Addressing the meeting,the new collector said that oneof his top priorities is to makesure that the delivery system ofthe administration functions ina smooth and prompt way sothat the public can avail the ben-efits of the government schemeswithout any hassle or delay. Healso cautioned the departmen-tal heads and other officers pre-sent that there will be regular fol-

low-up and no compromisewith work will be tolerated.

The collector also asked theofficials to treat developmentalworks and pro poor schemes likeloan waiver, MukyamantriKanyadan Yojana, land allot-ment procedure and CMHelpline as priorities.

The Collector further askedthe officials to launch a driveagainst the black marketing offertilizer in the district. He saidthat black marketing of fertiliz-er is a severe offence and theadministration will initiate strictaction against all those involvedin the black marketing of it. Healso asked the officials to imme-diately file FIRs against all suchoffenders.

The Collector instructedthe Executive Engineer of the

PWD to commence work on theGwalior/ Rayru road by the 1stof January. He further instruct-ed the EE to initiate talks withthe National HighwaysAuthority regarding the repairworks to the depleted overbridge on the Gwalior bypass.

On the Health front the col-lector asked the concernedhealth officials to see that prop-er vaccination is done againstmeasles and rubella diseases. Heasked them to form a specialtask force for this purpose.

Yadav also asked the officialsto update the voters list as perthe instructions of the ElectionCommissioner. The collectorfurther asked the officials torestart all the projects that havebeen suspended due to the codeof conduct.

Bhopal: Kamla Nagar policehave nabbed six persons aftera raid was conducted at HookaLounge near Navgrah temple inNehru Nagar and found con-sumption of tobacco onMonday. The owner did nothave license for operatinghooka lounge.

Police conducted raid atWoodvila Restaurant and itwas found that customers wereserved tobacco products whichhas been banned. Manager andstaff escaped the spot andsearch has been started of theaccused.

Acting on a tip off policeteam conducted raid atWoodvila Restaurant. At therestaurant five persons werefound consuming tobaccoproducts while one person wasfound serving tobacco productsto the five present at the timeof the raid. Gopal Parihar wasfound serving tobacco productsto the customers.

The police have registereda case under section 4, 7, 21 (1)Cigarette and other TobaccoProducts 2013. The six nabbedaccused were identified as JatinSoni (19), Deepak Rathore(20), Aditya Singh (19), RohitSingh (19), Anuj Nema (19)and Gopal Parihar (45).

The lounge has been oper-ated by Shawar while Sohailworks as manager at theWoodvila Restaurant.

The restaurant is func-tional for long in the area andhas been raided earlier afterwhich it stopped operating forsome time and later it startedagain. This is for the secondtime that the hooka lounge hasbeen raided.

The crime record of theabsconding accused would beinvestigated in the furtherinvestigation. The nabbed staffwould be grilled to find thewhereabouts of the abscondingShawar and Sohail. SR

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Nishatpura police havebooked four miscreants

for attacking a 22-year-oldshopkeeper with sharp edgedweapons at Karond on Monday.

Police said that an injuredyouth was rushed to hospitalafter he was attacked by fourmiscreants where his conditionis reportedly critical.

The victim identified asFaizan Khan was attacked byIrfan, Imran, Azeem and Zaidwhen the victim was in Karondarea. In his complaint victimstated that the four appearedand one of the accused Irfanalleged that Faizan hasinformed crime branch anddue to which he was nabbedand later severed jail andattacked with sharp edgedweapon in his stomach whilethe three others also attackedthe victim with sharp edgedweapons.

The victim was injuredbadly and was profusely bleed-ing when he was rushed to hos-pital in ambulance.

Based on the complaintafter the preliminary investi-gation the police have regis-tered a case under section 307of the IPC and started furtherinvestigation.

Late in the night policehave conducted raid at severalplaces but failed to find theaccused and search has beenintensified.

The main accused IrfanChapati is a habitual criminal

and has been booked for sev-eral crimes by Nishatpura anddifferent police stations. He wasthe master mind behind theattack. Three of the accom-plices of Irfan also hold crimerecord and have been involvedin criminal activities with Irfanin different parts of the statecapital. Till the filing of thereport the accused remainedabsconding and search for thefour accused continued.

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A24-year-old marriedwoman committed suicide

by hanging with the ceiling atPutlighar under Teelajamalpurapolice station area on Monday.

Police said that FauziaKhan was found hanging withthe ceiling and rushed to hos-pital where she was declareddead. Body was sent for thepost mortem and police haveregistered a case under section174 of the CrPC and startedfurther investigation.

The husband of thedeceased work as carpenterand was at work when thedeceased committed suicide.During the investigation policehave not found any suicide notor information which couldhelp in establishing the reasonbehind the suicide.

Reason behind the suicideremained unknown while thestatements of the family mem-bers of the deceased are yet tobe recorded. Meanwhile, a 55-year-old man committed sui-cide by hanging with the ceil-

ing at Bihari Colony underChhola Mandir police stationarea on Monday. The deceasedidentified as Sitaram Basodwas found hanging with theceiling and later declared deadwhen taken to hospital.

At the time of suicide fam-ily members have gone towork. The deceased committedsuicide late in the afternoonand was found hanging whenthe family members returnedafter work. After the prelimi-nary investigation the policehave sent the body for the postmortem. The police have reg-istered a case under section 174of the CrPC and started furtherinvestigation.

The deceased use toremain depressed for the pastfew days but reason could notbe ascertained as the familymembers are unaware.

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The decision of ChiefMinister Kamal Nath soon

after assuming the charge ofChief Minister of the state, towaive the outstanding croploan given the case of short-term crop loan of the farmersof the state, upto �2 lakhs, as onMarch 31, 2018, will prove tobe beneficial for the farmers.The loan waiver scheme hasresulted in enthusiasm amongthe farmers.

Gokaran Singh, a residentof Gajigwan village in RampurBaghelan tehsil of Satna districtwas facing difficulties in culti-vation for the last 8 years. Hehad made efforts to engage infarming after taking loan of�50,000 from DistrictCooperative Central Bankquota through KCC GokaranSingh could not repay the loanof the bank despite continuedefforts.

Singh used to become dis-turbed on receiving the bank

loan recovery notice. When hecame to know that MadhyaPradesh Chief Minister KamalNath had initiated the loanwaiver scheme in the interest ofthe farmers, he became quiteenthusiastic. His joy knew nobounds.

Gokaran Singh believesthat the new Chief Minister ofMadhya Pradesh has taken thedecision promptly andlaunched the loan waiverscheme in the interest of thefarmers which will benefitfarmers of Madhya Pradesh

along with the farmers of Satnadistrict. Gokaran Singh hasnever turned away from mak-ing efforts. Singh is now free ofall worries. Chief Minister’sannouncement has broughtback the smile on his face.

Gokaran Singh told thatthe new government has comeas a boon to the farmers.

This government has start-ed making efforts in the direc-tion of releasing the farmers ofworries and increasing theirincome.

Singh says that when,

Kamal Nath announced theloan waiver soon after the newgovernment was formed in thestate and he took oath of officeof the post of Chief Minister, hewas unable to believe it. It wasonly when the bank managerhimself told that the govern-ment had actually waived loanup to Rs 2 lakh that he was ableto believe it. Expressing his joy,Singh said that now all ourwork has been fulfilled andnow the household expensescan also be met easily.

The news of the decision towaive farmers’ loan by the newgovernment has spread to everyvillage of Satna district.

Singh said that I too havevisited every village and toldfarmers about the new gov-ernment’s decision to waive offloans.

This has given new hope tothe farmers. Gokaran Singh hascongratulated for the importantdecision taken by the new gov-ernment in the interest offarmers.

Bhopal: Madhya PradeshCricket Association (MPCA)on Monday lodged a com-plaint with the BCCI, askingthe board to address the issueat the earliest.

After the Feroz Shah Kotlapitch fiasco in the Ranji Trophymatch between Delhi andMadhya Pradesh, MadhyaPradesh Cricket Association(MPCA) on Monday lodged acomplaint with the BCCI, ask-ing the board to address theissue at the earliest.

BCCI’s North Zone curatorSunil Chauhan overwateredthe Feroz Shah Kotla pitchand then, breaching protocol,left the venue before the startof Delhi-Madhya Pradesh RanjiTrophy match on Saturday, hisindiscretion leading to a delayof two and half hours, begin-ning in the second sessiondespite a perfect weather.

Vikas Mishra tormentedMadhya Pradesh batsmen witha six-wicket haul as Delhithumped the visitors by ninewickets for their first victory ofthe ongoing Ranji Trophy sea-son. MPCA wrote to BCCICOO Saba Karim and CEORahul Johri, saying that the latestart resulted in loss of overs onday one and the conditions didnot remain sporting, makingthe toss crucial. Cricbuzz quot-ed MPCA CEO Rohit Pandit assaying, “We want BCCI to doa thorough investigation of theincident and fix the loopholeson a priority basis.” SR

Bhopal: Talaiya police has-booked a miscreant for molest-ing and assaulting a minorgirl near Islampura on Monday;victim was assaulted when sheopposed molestation byaccused.

Police said that the accusedidentified as Anas waylaid thevictim, molested her and onopposition assaulted the victim.The Investigating Officer SIReena Suryavanshi said that inthe victim was molested byAnas who lives in the samelocality where the victim resides.

The victim lives inAishbagh area and facedmolestation on Monday. Thedetails of the victim andaccused have to be investigat-ed, she added. SI Suryavanshisaid that the girl is minor or nothas to be determined. The vic-tim works with a catering firm.

She was acquainted with theaccused. On Monday the mis-creant followed the victimwhen she had gone for shop-ping at Chowk Market andwhen she was returningaccused molested her andassaulted her. The accusedholds any crime record has tobe investigated. The victim waswaylaid by the accused whowas with his friend on scooterand tried to force her to sit onscooter which she refused andwhen she refused accused holdher hand. The victim raisedalarm which was answered bythe accused by assaulting herand escaping from the spot.

Based on the complaintafter the preliminary investi-gation the police registeredcase of molestation and assaultagainst the accused and start-ed search for the accused.

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Senior Congress legislatorsNP Prajapati and KP Singh

have been excluded from theState cabinet in MadhyaPradesh. It is being speculatedthat Ptajapati would be madeSpeaker of the State assembly.

It was expected that thesetwo senior legislators would beincluded in the cabinet, but tothe surprise of many, both theleaders were not seek at the cer-emony. KP Singh is consideredfrom the camp of seniorCongress leader JyotiradityaScindia.

Besides, it was believedthat former Leader of theOpposition in the State assem-bly Ajay Singh would get placein the cabinet, despite the factthat he has lost the assemblyelection from his ancestralChurhat constituency.However, he was found miss-ing from the leaders who weresworn in on Tuesday.

The list of 28 ministerswho were about to take oath onTuesday, was out in a fewnewspapers in the morning.Probably, due to this, Singh didnot attend the oath taking cer-emony. Besides, seniorCongress leader SureshPachouri, who lost to BJPleader Surendra patwa fromBhojpur constituency in theassembly elections, also dis-tanced himself from the cere-mony. This has led to specula-tions, that Ajay Singh andSuresh Pachouri are annoyedwith the chief minister.However, seeing the stature ofthese two leaders, party leadersfeel they would certainly getadjusted somewhere soon.

There are also talks that theCongress party would alsoappoint parliamentary secre-taries and around a dozenparty leaders could be accom-modated this way, by accordingState minister status to theparliamentary secretaries.

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Bhopal: A woman SubInspector posted withSecretariat was found deadunder suspicious at her housein Ashoka Enclave in the after-noon on Tuesday; Aishbaghpolice have started investiga-tion.

Police said that thedeceased identified as AshaTande was found lying in a poolof blood when door was brokento enter the house. The laundryiron was found plugged inwhen police entered the house.Investigating Officer SI SSTomar said that the deceasedwas alone at her house for thepast one month as her husbandBrijendra Malviya was out forwork. He works with a privatefirm and for official work hewas in Raisen for the past onemonth which was provided byher husband. In the afternoon

when the victim failed torespond to her maid the neigh-bours checked and found thatsomething is wrong andinformed the police and onentering she was found in apool of blood with injury markover head, he added. SI Tomarprovided further details that thedeceased was Sub Inspectorand was posted at VallabhBhawan in dispatch section. Hesaid that injury mark on thehead was found but it could notbe ascertained that the victimwas hit by any object or she sus-tained injury accidentally. Thepost mortem report is awaitedwhich could help in revealingthe reason behind the death.

After the preliminary inves-tigation body was sent for thepost mortem and a case undersection174 of the CrPC was reg-istered by the police. SR

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Page 4: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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Days after the police hadbooked two professors of

IIT Roorkee in the allegedsexual harassment case involv-ing two students, the policeinvestigation has allegedly beengoing on at a snail’s pace.Under pressure mounted byBhim Army and others onpolice, a case had been regis-tered against accused professorVikas Pruthi on two chargeswhile a single case had beenregistered against P Gopinath.

Meanwhile, the contro-versy dogging the esteemedinstitute, the director IITRoorkee has gone on leave.Police said that the absence ofthe director is one of the rea-sons behind the investigationnot gaining the desired speed.

Fol lowing complaintlodged by a research scholar

belonging to the ScheduledCaste from Gujarat- a studentof the Centre ofNanotechnology since 2015-according to which she wasbeing harassed both physi-cally and mentally by a pro-fessor over the past two years,an FIR had been lodgedagainst Pruthi.

The row had deepenedfurther after another student ofBiotechnology department ofthe same institute had lodgeda complaint against Pruthi,resulting in the second casebeing registered against him.

Quizzed over the investi-gation being irritatingly slow,

SSP Haridwar Ridhim Agarwalsaid that things were not so.

“Vikas Pruthi has beenbooked under section 354. Hehas also been tagged to sex-ual harassment case on thebasis of the second com-plaint filed. We are trying toget direct evidences through interrogation of theprofessors and the students.We have already recorded thestatements of the com-plainants.

Things are movingsteadily. There is no reason tothink that the probe has gotstuck or is not making head-way,” she said and addedthat till the director returnedfrom the leave the investiga-tion team would remainengaged in obtaining directevidences from the teachersand the students of the insti-tute.

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Lashing out at its “suspend-ed” legislator Sukhpal Singh

Khaira asking him to abstainfrom making negative state-ments, Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) on Tuesday backed thenew-entrant Justice (retired)Zora Singh who joined theparty a day before. Khaira haddescribed “discredited” JusticeZora Singh’s joining AAP as its“political bankruptcy”.

Hailing Justice ZoraSingh’s decision to join AAPand welcoming him in theparty fold, senior leader andSunam MLA Aman Arora andparty’s legal wing head advo-cate Jastej Singh said thatAAP is people's party andpeople with clear image likeJustice Zora Singh are alwayswelcome in AAP.

Arora said that Justice ZoraSingh has performed a mar-vellous service in the field ofjudiciary for 35 long years, andhis induction in the party willfurther strengthen AAP inPunjab.

Reacting on Khaira’s state-ment about Justice Zora Singh,Arora said that it showed that

Khaira always indulge in neg-ative politics without any rea-son.

“The entire Punjab knowsthat Justice Zora Singh inves-tigated the matter related to thecases of desecration of GuruGranth Sahib with utmost sin-cerity and did not spare eventhe government officials andpoliticians related to the rulingSAD,” he said.

“This was the reason thatBadal government did notmake the recommendationsof the report public,” he saidadding that Justice Zora Singhcarries a respectable image inthe field of judiciary.

Arora said that Khairaalways follow the principal of‘Me, Me and Me’, but he forgotthat team is always importantfactor in politics.

“Every human being, while

living in the world, has to fol-low the rules set up by societyand it applies in the politicstoo,” he said.

AAP MLA said that Khairamust not forget that the partywhich he is criticizing todayhad sent him to Punjab VidhanSabha and then appointed himLeader of Opposition in theVidhan Sabha.

“Khaira started crying fouljust after he was removed fromthe post of leader of opposition.Speaking against his own partyis the past practice of Khairaand it will lead him tonowhere,” he said.

Arora said that Khaira hasno right to speak against theparty and he must resign fromthe party and form his ownpolitical outfit before raisingfingers over the AAP leader-ship.

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Bhubaneswar: The Odishaunit of Congress on Tuesdayaccused the Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP) and Biju Janata Dal(BJD) of being hand-in-gloveand ignoring the interests of thestate.

The Congress's barb camea day after the visit of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi, whoattacked the BJD governmenton several issues but did notname Chief Minister NaveenPatnaik and his party for thealleged misgovernance in thestate.

"Both Naveen and Modihave betrayed people ofOdisha. They are trying tohoodwink people by takingthe name of Lord Jagannath.The doubt about a secret nexusbetween the BJP and the BJD

has been proved true," saidOdisha Pradesh CongressCommittee (OPCC) presidentNiranjan Patnaik.

He accused NaveenPatnaik and Narendra Modi oftrying to fool the people by giv-ing false assurances.

However, the ruling BJDsaid that their party has main-tained equidistance from bothCongress and BJP.

"We have always kept equaldistance from both BJP andCongress. We are accountableto people of Odisha becausethey have reposed faith in us forfour consecutive times and wedon't need to answer the BJP orthe Congress," said BJD MPPratap Deb.

Union Petroleum MinisterDharmendra Pradhan said the

Prime Minister questioned thestate government on severalissues including growing cor-ruption in the state.

"Everyone knows who thedemon of corruption is. Severalpeople are in jail for theirinvolvement in chit fund scam.Whose MLAs and MPs arebehind bars? Who are takingPC (percentage commission)?"he asked.

On Monday, Modi duringa rally in Khurda had attackedthe state government on cor-ruption, farmer issues, malnu-trition and cleanliness.

"What is the reason thatfrom chit fund to PC culture,the demon of corruption hasbecome so powerful in Odisha?Who is feeding the demon?"asked the Prime Minister. IANS

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Dharamsala: Tibetan spiritualleader the Dalai Lama onTuesday said the Buddhistsshould learn from theChristians how to serve thehumanity.

Presiding over the secondday of his discourse in Bihar'shistorical city Bodh Gaya, theDalai Lama urged followers ofall religions to form closercontact and learn from eachother's traditions.

"The major world religions-- Christianity, Judaism, Islam,different Hindu and Buddhisttraditions, Jainism, Daoism,Confucianism, and so on --each of these has its ownunique knowledge that benefitspeople," he said.

"Therefore, through anexchange of knowledge, wecan learn new things fromeach other."

Emphasising its vital role inthe spiritual and inner devel-opment, the elderly Buddhistmonk said religion has thepotential in bringing togetherpeople and that "a meaningfulexchange could widen anddeepen our own spiritual expe-rience".

"Particularly fromChristian brothers and sisters,we as Buddhists could learnhow to serve the communityand engage in social work. Ireally feel that we should emu-late their exemplary social ser-vice."

The Dalai Lama has beenliving in India in self-imposedexile since 1959 when he fledhis homeland after ChineseCommunist troops took overTibet.

The spiritual guru's teach-ings are free and open to thepublic. Even board and lodgingis free for the participants,says the Dalai Lama's office.

IANS

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Human-elephant conflictsare on the rise in

Sundargarh district. This isevident from the fact that asmany as 27 elephants and 91persons were killed duringlast six years in the district.

There are three forest divi-sions in Sundargarh districtsuch as Rourkela, Bonai andSundargarh. According to for-est officials, as many as 11 ele-phants are currently moving inforests under Rourkela forestdivision, about 10 elephantsare moving in Bonai forestdivision and 45 elephants aremoving in Sundargarh forestdivision.

According to the forest

sources, elephant numbers areincreasing in Sundargarh dis-trict day by day as elephantsare migrating fromChhatisgarh, Jharkhand,Bamra and Jharusugda forests.Elephants are usually movingtowards human habitationarea and damaging crops inthe field and eating vegetables,paddy and rice.

Sources said elephants liketo eat ficus species such asatundi climber, Banyan trees(Bara) and Moraceae (Ostatrees) and also bamboo plantsbut since these trees are nowa-days getting scant, elephantsin forests are straying intohuman habitations, particu-larly to villages adjacent to for-est, to eat vegetables in thefield, paddy and rice. As aresult, the innocent villagersare falling victim in elephantattack. Despite all measures,the elephant and human con-

flict is continuing unabated.Even if to stop elephants

from going to human habita-tion, solar fencing in someareas in Sundargarh districtwas done, jumbos are still onthe upper hand and killinghumans and damaging theircrops.

The three forest divisionsof Sundargarh district are pro-viding compensation to thefamily members of elephantattack victims. Forest officialsare trying to apply somemethod like megaphone toalert people by announcing,using fire brands to checkhuman-elephant confronta-tion but elephant menace isincreasing day by day.

Two days ago, a tuskerattacked an elderly man nearhis house under Ujjalpur for-est range of Sundargarh forestdivision and later the elderlyman succumbed to his

injuries. The tusker also dam-aged houses of that man andalso damaged another twohouses in the locality.

Similarly, about a monthago, an elephant was killed andlater buried by villagers inRajgangpur forest out ofvengeance as the elephant wasdamaging their crops in field.Similarly, another injured ele-phant in Bargaon forest rangehas been creating panic amonglocals and damaging the cropsof locals.

Recently, a team had cometo tranquilize the elephant forhis treatment but failed. Thefigure of human-elephant con-flict shows that 90 personshave lost their lives in elephantattack in Sundargarh districtfrom 2013-14 to 2018-19 and27 elephants have been killedover the same period. The ris-ing figure has been a cause ofconcern for the forest officials.

To check the human-ele-phant conflict, forest divisionsof district have openedWhatsapp group with Wescoand railway official for sharingelephant movement. Sourcessaid the Wildlife Institute ofIndia,

Dehradun, is going to startsatellite tracking of elephantsin forests under Sundargarhforest division and in forestsunder the Rourkela forest divi-sion by March 2019 to tracktheir movement.

“The human-elephantconflict has been a cause ofconcern for us but our squadsare keeping watch on the jum-bos to avoid any casualty,”said Regional ChiefConservator of Forest,Rourkela, Lingraj Otta,adding, “We are also trying toensure safe movement of jum-bos in forests.”

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After the arrest of a dreadedcriminal Ananta Kumar

Macchua alias Mani on Mondaynight, police on the basis of hisconfessions on Tuesday nabbednine dacoits in connection withthe liquor truck loot case onDecember 4 in Ganjam district.

The nine arrested personsare the associates of Mani, whowas critically injured in a policefiring near Gudidhepa area inKhallikote.

During interrogation, Mani,the mastermind behind theloot of a liquor-laden truck, con-fessed about the crime and

provided information about theother gang members.

The police swung into actionand nabbed the looters. The copsalso seized two trucks, a four-wheeler, a gun, three live bulletsand 500 liquor bottles from them.Notably, the robbers’ gang hadhijacked the truck loaded withliquor bottles worth Rs 50 lakhafter attacking its driver andhelper near Badaghati under theKhallikote police station.

According to sources, thetruck was heading to Cuttackafter loading the liquor fromGopalpur. The miscreantsabducted truck driver RanjanNahal and the helper in anInnova and decamped with thetruck. Later, they dumpedRanjan and the helper 10 kmaway from the spot.

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Adreaded criminal, AnantaKumar Macchua alias Mani,

was critically injured in anencounter with police nearGudidhepa in Khallikote ofGanjam district on Mondaynight.

The accused, who sufferedbullet injuries on his right leg,was admitted to the MKCG

Medical College Hospital here.Acting on a tipoff about themovement of Mani in the local-ity, a police team had rushed tothe spot and laid a trap to appre-hend him. However, Mani afterspotting the police team openedfire at them. In retaliation, thepolice fired at him, injuringhim. A motorcycle, a pistol andthree live bullets were seizedfrom Mani’s possession.

The criminal is said to be aresident of the Ranpur area ofNayagarh district. According tosources, more than 10 criminalcases have been filed againstMani in different poilce stations.

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The Ganjam police in a sec-ond encounter within 24

hours nabbed a fugitive alongwith his associate followingan encounter in KaradabaniForest under theJagannathprasad police stationin Ganjam district on Tuesday.

The dreaded criminal BabuNayak sustained bullet injuriesin the encounter.

Acting on a tipoff about themovement of Babu in the area,a police team had rushed to thespot and intercepted him.Spotting the cops, Babu fired atthem in a bid to escape. In cops’retaliatory firing, he was injured.

Police also arrested his associ-ate Tapan Jena from the spot.

Two pistols and a motorcy-cle were seized from their pos-session. As per reports, over 30criminal cases are registeredagainst Babu in various policestations. Earlier, he had bedennabbed during an encounter butmanaged to flee from theMKCG Medical CollegeHospital. Five policemen hadbeen suspended in connectionwith the incident.

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An ailing tusker died lateon Monday night in Toda

Reserve Forest under theBonei Forest Division ofSundargarh district.

The elephant, aged about30 years, had got separatedfrom an 18-member herd and

started roaming alone in theforest.

Two days back, the tuskerhad fallen ill and forest offi-cials had informed a veteri-nary doctor for its treatment.Doctor Sudhakar Behera hadstarted treatment and forestofficials were guarding thetusker. But the animal ulti-

mately died.Postmortem of the tusker

was conducted on Tuesday,after which its tusks wereremoved and kept in theBarsuan Range office.

“As per the veterinarydoctor, the tusker was suffer-ing from diarrhea,” said ACFJohan Oram.

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Police nabbed eight ganjasmugglers and seized around

109 kg of the contraband fromtwo vehicles in the Balimela areain Malkangiri district onMonday night.

The eight accused identifiedas Mobarak Khan, KrishanKashayap, Sachin Salenku,Rajesh Patnaik, Bikash Munde,Sabir Bisoi, Kashinath Begal, andRahul Badu were forwarded tocourt, police said on Tuesday.

While Malkangiri policeapprehended seven peddlers,later the Nabarangpur policearrested the kingpin of the gangMobarak Khan, from Umerkotearea.

A police team led by SDPOManas Ranjan Barik and DSP

Dilip Das carried a search oper-ation in the districts and arrest-ed the smugglers.

With this seizure, theMalkangiri police have so farseized 82 tonne of contrabandand registered 17 cases with thearrest of 180 persons.

Besides, 83 vehicles used forthe ganja transportation havebeen seized and over 600hectares of ganja plantation hasbeen destroyed by the districtpolice, informed Malkangiri SPJagmohan Meena.

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Puri: The annual bird census inthe Chilika lake would begin onJanuary 5, said a notificationissued by the PCCF office hereon Tuesday.

As per the notificationissued to the DivisionalForester Officer, Puri, the birdcounting will take place in 11other water bodies in Puri dis-trict on January 3, in Chilika onJanuary 5 and the annual dol-phin census will be conductedon January 19. The Dolphincensus will be carried out inaround 65 km coastal areafrom the Devi mouth of theChilika. A special team will beengaged and a training pro-gramme in this regard will beheld on January 2. A total of114 dolphins had been foundin the Chilika in 2017. PNS

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In a bid to minimise trafficrush between Cuttack and

industrial and mining belt ofDhenkanal, Angul and Talcher,a total length of 112 km of theNH-55 will be widened. PMNarendra Modi laid the foun-dation of the project in presenceof Governor Dr Ganesi Lal,CM Naveen Patnaik, UnionMinisters Jual Oram andDharmendra Pradhan by video-conferencing. The project cost isRs 999.32 crore.

Sources said, the 112 kmroad will pass through threemajor bridges, 21 miner bridges,five flyovers, one rail over bridge,seven elephant corridors andtwo bypasses at Indipur and

Angul.During the video confer-

ence held at the ExhibitionGround at Mahisapat here, theNational Highway Authority ofIndia expressed 23,000 treesmwere cut for completion of theproject. The contract agency M/sGayatri Projects has assured to

complete the work by 2020.Among others, NHAI

Project Director PramodKumar Sabat, GM MahabirSingh, Vice-President BBBhaskar, Dhenkanal ADMPurna Chandra Mishra, Sub-Collector Pitambar Samal, for-mer Rajya Sabha memberRudra Narayan Panny, formerSadar MLA Krushna ChandraPatra, BJP district presidentBibhuti Pradhan, formerDhenkanal MunicipalityChairman Surendra Mishra,Nabin Chandra Dalei, SunilSharma, former BarAssociation president NabaKishore Guru, Sanjay Mishra,and Rama Chandra Patra werepresent.

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National Youth AwardeeSushanta Kumar Sahoo

has urged the StateGovernment to set up a bar-rier-free sports complex hav-ing hostel faci l it ies inBhubaneswar for sportsper-

sons with disabilities.Maintaining that the State

does not have proper infra-structure for growth ofsportspersons with disabilitiesthough it has thrown up sev-eral disabled national andinternational players, Sahoosaid that if a world-class ded-

icated sports centre comes upin the State capital, it can cer-tainly enable disabledsportspersons effectivelycompete and win medals inParalympics, Deaflympics,special Olympics and otherinternational events.

Sahoo also submitted a

memorandum to Sports andYouth Ser vices MinisterChandra Sarathi Behera tothis effect. Sahoo said thatwith limited available facili-t ies , various disabledsportspersons from Odisha,time to time and in the recentpast, have secured gold and

silver medals in the sportsevents abroad. To name afew are Mohammad ZafarIqbal, Pankaj Bhue, Sukharan

Majhi, Lingaraj Routray, KaliaPradhan (All internationalblind cricketers), Soundarjyaand Prachurjya (Blind Chess

Competition), Sahoo added.“If they bring laurels with-

out getting Government sup-port, they can do wonderafter they receive facilitiesfrom the Government in formof infrastructure,” he added.

“At a time when the Stateis earning fame for organising

international sports eventslike Odisha Men’s HockeyWorld Cup in Bhubaneswar,its own blind cricketers couldnot get a playground to prac-tice their match for nationalor international tourna-ments,” said the rights cam-paigner.

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Page 5: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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Concerned at the increasinghuman-elephant conflicts

(HEC) in Assam — nearly 800lives have been trampled by wildjumbos between 2006 and 2016— tea estate firms have cometogether under the umbrella ofIndian Tea Association (ITA) toexplore ways to mitigate the cri-sis in the Northeastern State andWest Bengal.

In this regard, said DrDipankar Ghose, Director,Species and Landscapes pro-gramme, WWF-India, a first-ofits kind meet was organised bythe ITA in Kolkata to plan anindustry- wide collaboration toaddress HEC faced by the teagardens of Assam and WestBengal.

The WWF-India is imple-menting 'The Sonitpur Model' intwo districts of Assam in col-laboration with the State ForestDepartment where locals aretrained and equipped to form'Anti Depredation Squads' thatcan drive the wild elephantsback using searchlights, fire-

crackers and kunki elephants.Kunkis are trained elephants thatcan help the Anti DepredationSquad members in driving backwild elephants..

In fact, Apeejay Tea, a teafirm and WWF-India have part-nered (2015-18) to implementHEC management measures inits tea plantations in Sonitpur.

Dr Ghose said, "Throughintensive conflict managementstrategy in the conflict proneplantations, a range of initiativeshave been implemented whichwere found to be successful inreducing losses related to HECin four of Apeejay Tea estatesnamely Borjuli, Ghoirallie,

Dhulapadung and Sessa TeaEstates.

Under the project, low costsolar power fences were installedacross the tea estates, a scalablebio fence, using thorny bamboowas also introduced to preventthe entry of wild elephants intovulnerable areas of the tea gar-den when ready. Regular villagelevel meetings and interactionwere held to create awareness onelephants and HEC manage-ment.

"We believe that we will beable to scale up these initiativesin Assam with the ITA's partic-ipation in effectively managingHEC along with other stake-

holders," he added.Karan Paul, Chairman of

Apeejay Tea and member of ITAwho had initiated the meetingsaid that they were perhaps thefirst tea company to fund anintensive conflict managementstrategy in Sonitpur becausefour of our gardens were in thehot zone.

Vivek Goenka, ITAChairman added,"The ITA hasstudied the Project Outcomes ofApeejay Tea - WWF collabora-tion and is sensitive to the issue.I believe that a multi-stake-holder collaboration includingthe Government will aid imple-mentation of large scale inter-ventions across the tea sector.This was our first meetinginvolving tea companies and weare hopeful of a collaborativeapproach emerging to take thisforward."

According to Governmentdata, Assam with an elephantarea (15,050 square km) is thecountry's prime elephant rangeState, having 5,719 jumbos, thehighest population of wild ele-phants after Karnataka.

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New Delhi: Out of the 2,061Border Fencing Light polesalong the international borderin Gujarat's Bhuj andGandhinagar Sector, only 616are "functional", the BSF hastold the CPWD, according tothe minutes of an inter-depart-mental co-ordination meetingheld in November.

Border Security Force offi-cers also informed the CPWDthat out of 82 diesel gensets, only38 are "functional", "affectingoperational duties" by the troopson the sensitive internationalborder, the minutes stated.

The meeting was held atBSF Headquarters in NewDelhi, during which seniorofficers of BSF and CPWD, thegovernment's largest construc-tion agency, discussed severalprojects.

BSF Director General RajniKant Mishra and CentralPublic Works Department DGPrabhakar Singh also attendedthe November 16 meeting.

India's border with Pakistanruns through four states, Jammuand Kashmir (1,225 km, whichincludes 740 km of Line ofControl), Rajasthan (1,037 km),Punjab (553 km) and Gujarat(508 km).

"Out of 2,061 BFL poles,only 616 BFL poles are func-

tional (along the internationalborder in Bhuj andGandhinagar Sector). Out of 82DG sets, only 38 DG sets arefunctional.

"CPWD (was) requested tocarry out necessary repair at theearliest as it is affecting oper-ational duties performed by thetroops deployed on the sensi-tive international border," stat-ed the meeting's minutes pre-pared by the BSF and sent tothe CPWD director general onDecember 12.

There have been severalattempts of infiltration by ter-rorists who cut the borderfences to enter India from thePakistani side.

BFLs are maintained byCPWD in Bhuj and GandhiNagar Sector.

According to the minutes ofmeeting, the CPWD intimatedthat work of repairing of BFLsand DG sets in Bhuj and GandhiNagar Sector are in progress andwill be handed over to BSF afterproper rectifications.

It also stated that inJammu, out of the 28 commandposts in non-composite BorderOutput Posts, so far only threecommand posts have beencompleted and 17 are under-construction with "very slowprogress" while work on eighthave not yet started.

It added that out of the 43High Mast Lights in river-linegaps, so far work on 25 HML hasbeen completed while three areunder construction with "veryslow progress" and 15 HMLwork has not started yet. PTI

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AParliamentary panel hasquestioned the

Government's motive to waiveoff the GST under its six-month-old 'Sewa Bhoj Yojna'for the big religious institutionsserving free meal to more than5,000 people per month whiledepriving the smaller onesfrom similar financial benefitseven though "they are morelikely in need of it."

The Committee headed byRajya Sabha MP, DerekO'Brien, has recommendedthat the eligibility criteria ofserving free food to above5,000 people should be recon-sidered by the Union CultureMinistry.

The Modi Governmenthad launched the Sewa BhojYojana on June 1, 2018,exempting charitable organi-sations that provide free foodfrom paying Central Goodsand Services Tax (CGST)/Integrated Goods and ServicesTax (IGST) on the raw materi-als used. The scheme followeddemand from the BJP ally, theShiromani Akali Dal (SAD), inPunjab which had soughtexemption of langar from GST.

While appreciating thescheme which reimburses theCGST/IGST for only thosereligious institutions that serve

food to at least 5,000 people ina calendar month, the panel,which has submitted its reportin Parliament recently said itfails to understand the reasonfor this eligibility criterionsince smaller religious institu-tions are more likely to be inneed of this Scheme.

Moreover, ascertaining thenumber of people to whomfood is served by a religiousinstitution in a month is diffi-cult and could lead to religiousinstitutions in actual need ofthe support being left out.

The Committee also feltthat instead of carrying outinspection every year at least in5% of the cases as decidedunder the scheme, theGovernment should scrutiniseat least 10% of the cases.

The Committee feels thatthe proper utilization of fundsis very important in the imple-mentation of all schemes andthis scheme could be mali-ciously exploited for gettingreimbursement of taxes bycommercial food outlets.

Considering this fact, theCommittee feels that the min-imum inspection limit of 5% ofthe cases seems very low andmight not have a deterringeffect on the organisations.

Introduced by the CultureMinistry, the scheme has atotal outlay of �325 Crore forFinancial Years 2018-19 and2019-20.

The scheme envisages toreimburse the CGST and IGSTon purchase of raw items suchas ghee, edible oil,atta/maida/rava/flour, rice puls-es, sugar, burra/jiggery etcwhich go into preparation offood/Prasad/langar/bhandaraoffered free of cost by religiousinstitutions. The objective ofthe scheme is to lessen thefinancial burden of such char-itable religious Institutions whoprovide food/prasad/langar(Community Kitchen)/bhan-dara free of cost without anydiscrimination to public/devo-tees.

The charitable religiousInstitutions such as temples,gurudwara, mosque, church,dharmik ashram, dargah,matth, monasteries etc. whichhave been in existence for atleast five years before applyingfor financial assistance/grantand who serve free food to atleast 5,000 people in a monthare covered.

New Delhi: Touted as thelargest cancer hospital in India,the National Cancer Institute inHaryana's Jhajjar district wouldbe opened to public by thethird week of January, UnionHealth Minister JP Nadda saidon Tuesday.

The institute, being con-sidered as a landmark in thefield of cancer research in thecountry, shall lessen the deficitof tertiary cancer care in thenorthern region.

"The National CancerInstitute in Jhajjar would bededicated by the third week ofJanuary," Nadda said at anevent in AIIMS hospital inDelhi.

The institute will have 710beds, out of which 200 beds willbe dedicated for translationalresearch on India-specific can-cers.

Out patient department orOPD services were partiallystarted last week.

Different facilities such assurgical oncology, radiationoncology, medical oncology,anaesthesia and palliative careand nuclear medicine will beavailable at the institute. It willalso have the first-of-its-kindtissue repository in India.

The institute, which willoperate under the All IndiaInstitute of Medical Sciences inDelhi, was approved by theManmohan Singh governmentin 2013 and has been built at acost of Rs 2,035 crore.

There will be 372 units offlats and 1,080 hostel rooms forstaff members. A night shelter

with a capacity of 800 unitsmeant for patient attendantshave also been planned.

There are more than 80lakh cancer patients in theworld. Nearly 29 lakh of themare in India. About 11 lakh can-cer cases are detected everyyear.

With a view to prevent andcure cancer, the governmentdecided to set up the newinstitute of advance researchactivities.

The institute, coming up inBadhsa village, will operate onthe lines of National CancerInstitute in the US and GermanCancer Research Centre( D e u t s c h e sKrebsforschungszentrum)DKFZ as a nodal centre forindigenous research, promo-tive, preventive and curativeaspects of care and humanresource development.

The institute is aimed toplan, conduct and coordinateresearch on cancers which aremore specific to India — liketobacco-related cancers, cancerof the uterine cervix, gall blad-der cancer and liver cancers. Thefocus will be on understandingand analysing the cause and gen-esis of these type of cancers, theGovernment has said. PTI

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Congress president RahulGandhi on Tuesday took a

dig at Prime Minister NarendraModi for reportedly ignoring aBJP worker's question on themiddle class' struggle with thetaxation policy, saying forget aPress meet, he cannot evenhold a poll booth workers'conference.

Rahul Gandhi was appar-ently referring to an incidentthat took place last week dur-ing Modi's interaction with"booth workers" from northerndistricts of Tamil Nadu andPuducherry. He also said "BJP-vetted" questions is a superbidea, but the party should also"consider vetted answers".

The Congress chief cited amedia report that claimedModi faced embarrassingmoments during his interac-tion with BJP workers fromTamil Nadu when a workersought to know why his admin-istration was busy collectingtaxes from the middle class butnot interested in taking care ofthem.

The report claimed that theprime minister during hisvideo interaction chose not toanswer the question raised by

the worker and continued withhis interaction by switching toPuducherry.

Taking a jibe at the primeminister, the Congress chieftweeted: "VanakamPuducherry! That's NoMo'sanswer to the struggling mid-dle class. Forget a press con-ference he can't even stringtogether a polling booth work-er's conference."

On reports that the BJPwill filter questions from work-ers to Prime Minister Modi fol-lowing the incident, the Gandhiscion said, "BJP-vetted ques-tions is a superb idea. Considervetted answers as well."

The Congress presidenthas been criticising Modi fornot holding a press conferenceduring his tenure. Earlier thismonth, Rahul had posted pic-tures from a press conferencehe held and tweeted saying theprime minister should try onesomeday as it is fun to be askedquestions. Even former PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh lastweek remarked that though hewas tagged as silent PM but hewas never afraid of talking tothe Press and he used to con-duct a media interaction everytime he returned from foreignvisits.

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In an alarming trend in attri-tion, as many as 25,288 offi-

cers and jawans of the CRPFhave resorted to voluntaryretirement and resignationssince 2011 besides 10, 362 per-sonnel who left the force due tosuperannuation, invalidation,dismissal and termination.

Hard and harsh workingconditions including 12 to 14hours of job daily withoutproper leave is one of the rea-sons for the attrition.Deployment of the Force’s per-sonnel in far-flung areas andcontonious deployment awayfrom home, home sickness andthe pitfalls of nuclear familybesides personal problems andfamily disputes are other rea-sons for the attrition. Better jobopportunities and less harshworking conditions outside theForce also contribute the per-sonnel resorting to voluntaryretirement, according to inputswith the Union Home Ministry.

Against a housing satis-faction fixed at 25 per cent ofthe personnel (88,168) out ofthe sanctioned strength of3,24,093 at the static locations

like group centres, traininginstitutions and battalionsraised on unattached patternslike Combat Battalion forResolute Action (CoBRA),Rapid Action Force (RAF),Mahila Battalions is only 11.83per cent.

Out of the authorised 88,168 houses, 37,801 have beencontructed and 12,014 are

under construction and thenet deficiency is 38,353.

A Parliamentary panel hasnoted that such a poor level ofhousing satisfaction level couldbe one of the major reasons forhigh attrition in the paramili-tary. While directing the gov-ernment to expedite the underconstruction 12,014 houseswithout time and cost overruns,the panel also advised theCentre to chalk out an actionplan to achive the objective ofconstructing the remaining 38,353 quarters within the stipu-lated timeframe.

The Force personnel suffercasualties not only due to coun-tering the insurgents in theNaxal areas, Northeast andJammu and Kashmir but alsowhile operating in hostile ter-rain and inhospitable working

conditions which generate"extreme stress and strain ontheir physical and mentalhealth. During the last eightyears since 2010, more person-nel have been killed due to dis-eases than in action. As manyas 798 personnel have beenkilled due to heart attack but thecasualties during operationstood at 391 during the periodbetween 2010 and 2017.Likewise, cancer took a toll of334 personnel followed by 94deaths due to cerebral malariaand six casualties due to snakebite.

Central Reserve PoliceForce is the world's largestparamilitary force and the des-ignated agency for anti-Naxaloperations, countering terror-ists in Jammu & Kashmir andinsurgents in the Northeast.

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The CBI has booked the chiefmanaging director of Delhi-

based kids-wear retailer,Catmoss Retail Pvt Ltd AshwiniKumar Chawla, for allegedlycheating Union Bank of India of�20 crore. The company and itsofficials allegedly fabricated bal-ance sheets to avail a loanwhich was not repaid to thebank, CBI officials said.

Following a complaint bythe bank, the CBI has registereda case of criminal conspiracyand cheating against the com-pany Catmoss Retail Pvt Ltd,Chawla, his wife and guarantorAsha Rani Chawala and thefirm's directors Reena Chawla

and Asha Rani Chawla, theysaid.

In its complaint to the CBI,Union Bank of India alleged thatthe company furnished "forgedand fabricated" balance sheetswith an intention to cheat andcause wrongful loss to it.

"CMD of Catmoss RetailPvt Ltd Ashwini Chawla, in pur-suance of a well knitted crimi-nal conspiracy to fraudulentlyavail loan facility from the com-plainant bank by furnishingforged and fabricated balancesheets, has committed offenceslike cheating, forgery, forgery forpurpose of cheating and usingas genuine a forged document,"it said.

It is alleged that Chawla had

approached the bank in 2011seeking a sanctioned creditlimit of �10 crore.

The company furnishedbalance sheets for the financialyears 2009-10 and 2010-11 tothe bank which were audited bya chartered accountant.

The account was declared anon performing asset on March31, 2013, having an outstandingof �10.92 crore.

The bank extracted a por-tion of its loan amount by auc-tioning some properties whichit had held as guarantee.

During the inquiry, thechartered accountant, who hadpurportedly signed the balancesheets, told the bank that it wasnot the case.

Jaipur: Exuding confidencethat the Congress will form theGovernment at the Centre in2019, Rajasthan Deputy ChiefMinister Sachin Pilot claimedthat the BJP is under pressureas its allies are deserting thecoalition.

He alleged that the BJP'sallies were quitting the NDAdue to the arrogance of saffronparty leaders and it was nowunder pressure which recent-ly reflected in the seat-sharingin Bihar.

"Upendra Kushwaha hasquit the NDA, the TDP hasalready left and the Shiv Senais also not with them. Now theBJP is under pressure andtherefore they gave 17 seats inBihar to the JD(U) which has

only two MPs. What can be afine example of insecurity thanthis," Pilot said.

He said the BJP leadersused to point fingers towardsthe Congress by saying that theparty was struggling for its sur-vival but results of the recent-

ly held Assembly polls inRajasthan, Madhya Pradeshand Chhattisgarh have sent outa strong message.

"This full majorityGovernment at the Centre hasbecome so weak that it hasgiven nearly half of Bihar (LokSabha seats) to a party havingjust two MPs just because ofthe fear that people are not vot-ing for the BJP and also itsallies are daring them. Thishappens when the govern-ment is weak," he told PTIhere.

Pilot said the BJP shouldaccept the fact that it has faceda severe blow in three statesand should take responsibilityof the defeat.

"(BJP's) Nitin Gadkari has

already spoken that the partyleadership should take theresponsibility for the defeat.When the Congress had suf-fered defeat, the party presidentRahul Gandhi had humblyaccepted that but the BJP lead-ership is so arrogant thatdespite facing defeat in threestates, it is unwilling to take theresponsibility," he said.

Pilot said there was a swingof 12.5 per cent votes inRajasthan and the Congressgained 99 seats in 2018 from 21Assembly seats in 2013.

"We won 21 (Assembly)seats in 2013 and the numberof seats has increased fivetimes in 2018. Swing of votesis 12.5 per cent. BJP's voteshare has decreased by 6.6 per

cent and ours increased by sixper cent. It's a rare swing," hesaid.

Pilot, who is also theparty's Rajasthan unit chief,said the victory of the Congresshas boosted the morale ofparty workers and they havestarted preparing for the 2019Lok Sabha polls.

"We have formed the gov-ernment and along with deliv-ering on our promises, we arefocusing on the upcomingelections. Meetings in the partyhave already started. The partywill register a thumping victo-ry in the Lok Sabha polls andthe Congress will form theGovernment at the Centre," hesaid.

Rajasthan has 25 Lok

Sabha seats and at present, 22are with the BJP, one with theCongress and two are vacant.

The BJP had won all the 25seats in the 2014 general elec-tions but it lost two seats to theCongress in bypolls held ear-lier this year.

Two sitting MPs — RaghuSharma (Congress) and HarishMeena (BJP) — won the recent-ly held Assembly polls andthey have resigned as the MPthus making their seats vacant.

BJP's Harish Meena, whowas director general of theRajasthan Police, had defectedto the Congress before theassembly polls and contestedon Congress ticket from Deoli-Uniara Assembly constituencyand got elected. PTI

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Page 6: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

The Supreme Court last weekdelivered its judgement on theissue of whether a probe to lookinto the Rafale controversyneeds to be constituted or not.

In its decision, the court stated that it doesnot think that the matter, as arguedbefore it, requires any intervention. WhileI cannot speak for the petitioners in thecase that was filed before the SupremeCourt in this matter, the Congress has con-sistently maintained its stand that theappropriate forum for an examination ofthe issues raised against the Rafale deal isnot the Supreme Court but a JointParliamentary Committee (JPC). In thisweek’s article, I will briefly speak about howthe Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) attemptsto claim the decision of the top court as“clean chit” is unfounded and ill-advised.

At the outset, it is imperative to statethat the apex court, while passing its order,stated clearly that its decision is from thestandpoint of the exercise of jurisdictionof the Supreme Court under Article 32 ofthe Constitution of India. This examina-tion by the apex court, as I am sure theGovernment fully knows, is limited to theextent that the court, under its Article 32jurisdiction, cannot summon/examine allthe relevant file notings, examine witness-es on oath and have the Prime Ministerand Defence Minister answer questions onpropriety. As stated by the Supreme Courtitself, there are broadly three issues that theSupreme Court was required to examine,(1) the process of procurement of theRafale jets from Dassault Aviation; (2) theissue of pricing of the jets; and (3) the selec-tion of Anil Ambani as the offset partnerfor Dassault Aviation.

All of these issues and the allegationsagainst the Government warrant andrequire a thorough examination. Only adetailed examination of the deal, as is beingdemanded by the Congress and increas-ingly by the people of the country, can helpactually determine whether there was anyinstance of wrongdoing. Therefore, theclaim of the BJP that the decision of theSupreme Court on the basis of the limit-ed information placed before the courtconstitutes a clean chit from it is a little far-fetched. Separately, the essential questionbefore the BJP is whether a limited exam-ination and an absolute clean chit can gohand in hand?

One would think it couldn’t becausea limited examination and an unequivo-cal clean chit are a contradiction in terms.The Finance Minister and industrialistAnil Ambani of course believe otherwise,judging by the statements that we haveseen in the few days since the pronounce-ment of the decision of the court. It wasfairly poetic that within a few hours of thejudgement, the BJP was forced to curb itsenthusiasm and answer some uncomfort-

able questions because of anespecially troubling paragraphin the judgement of the apexcourt, which stated that as perthe Centre, the pricing details,with respect to the Rafale jets,were shared with theComptroller and AuditorGeneral (CAG) and that thereport was examined by thePublic Accounts Committee(PAC). This was a shock to theCongress as the PACChairman Mallikarjun Khargereceived no such copy of thereport.

In a situation, franklyapproaching the absurd, theGovernment of India thenmoved an application beforethe Supreme Court saying thatthe statement of the Centrehad been “misunderstood”because of a grammatical error,and stated that in fact the PAChad never actually examinedthis report. The convenience ofthe explanation aside, the rel-evant question that must beasked is: How much of thisobfuscation the Governmentengaged in while presenting itsarguments before the SupremeCourt?

At the end of the day, theSupreme Court only examinedthe questions posed by it froma limited perspective andplaced reliance on the state-ments of the Government onface value to some extent. Butnow this recent ‘gaffe’, whichappears to be a slender ‘fig leaf ’,clearly raises questions about

the authenticity and honestywith which this Governmenthas approached the court andplaced facts before it. TheGovernment could argue thatthe public should trust it toplace authentic facts before thecourt and that its statementsshould be taken at face value.However, the Government’stactics of obfuscation as evi-denced through its entire termdo not inspire any trust.

So, in light of the limitedexamination of the SupremeCourt and the manner inwhich it has been misled by theGovernment, the question thatarises is what is the best wayforward to deal with this entireepisode? While this may comeas a surprise to the readers, Iwould actually like to offer theGovernment a word of adviceto help them get out of thismess: Sunlight is the best dis-infectant.

At the end of the day, theGovernment has been posedwith some uncomfortablequestions and, therefore, theBJP must come forward andanswer these three questionsand expose the present Rafalecontroversy to the requireddisinfectant of proper scrutiny:

i) If there is nothing tohide, why not constitute aJPC?

ii) If the new Rafale jets areindeed cheaper, why did theGovernment only purchase36 as opposed to the originalrequirement of 126?

iii) Why doesn’t the PrimeMinister hold a press confer-ence and answer questions onthe deal from journalists?

Of these questions, thequestion as to why a JPCshould not be constituted, isperhaps the most pertinent.The Finance Minister’sresponse to this question wasthat Parliament cannot ques-tion the judgment of the high-est court of the land. Thisseems like a convenient excuse.

For starters, the SupremeCourt itself has stated that thisis only a limited examinationand, therefore, there appears tobe prohibition on a JPC to lookinto the matter in greaterdetail. Further, when the BJPwas in the Opposition, it insist-ed on a JPC on the 2G case andthe Bofors matter as well.Then what according to theFinance Minister makes theRafale deal so special?

It is, therefore, apparentthat if the BJP wants to get thisRafale-shaped monkey off itsback, it will have to ultimate-ly relent and allow for a thor-ough examination of the deal.While the Government maywish to dream away its prob-lems or throw insults at theOpposition to discourage anddissuade these uncomfortablequestions, it must be awarethat at some point it will beexposed to sunlight.

(The writer is JharkhandPCC president, former MP andIPS officer. Views are personal)

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Sir — This refers to the editorial,“Genuinely Silly Tax” (December18). It is a fact that the Goods andServices Tax (GST) is posingproblems both to the people andbusinesses. A uniform lower ratefor all products, including fuel,under GST will be a better option.The Congress has been asking fora cut in GST rates for a long time.It is obvious that with the gener-al election just around the corner,the BJP is resorting to politics ofcompulsion.

Najmul HudaMumbai

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Sir — This refers to the article,“Business plan for the banking sec-tor” (December 22) by SudhansuR Das. If banks continue to getcapital (easy money) from theGovernment, without much fussto carry on their operations, whywould they change their dailyoperating procedures, strengthentheir working capital and improvetheir project finance creditappraisal system? Until theGovernment makes the banks

accountable for every single pennythey lend, the exchequer’s moneywill keep going down the drain.

Bal GovingNoida

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Genuinely Silly Tax”(December 18). The

Government’s decision to slashGST rates for 23 items is wel-come; though it has an eye on the2019 Lok Sabha poll. While thereis some amount of relief for theconsumers, a lot more needs to bedone. Most important of all,fuels must be brought under theambit of GST. The loss of revenueto this effect can be compensat-ed by better compliance andhigher turnovers that will come

as an outcome of this step thatwill also boost the economy.

Mahesh KumarVia email

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Sir — This refers to the editor-ial, “Federal Express” (December25). Trinamool Congress chiefMamata Banerjee and TRS pres-

ident K Chandrasekhar Rao,the doyens of politics, havesomething in common. This iswhy they have joined hands tofight the two mainstream parties— the Congress and the BJP.

The federal front, as pro-posed by the leaders, is soon tobecome a reality. Rumours aredoing the rounds that otherpolitical parties, albeit min-nows, too would be roped intothe federal front. But how farwill the regional parties succeedin their efforts would be any-body’s guess. Banerjee is a localleader with a national stature.She has all the requisite charis-matic leadership qualities. KCR,though a political figure who isnot so alluring as Banerjee, is aman with shrewd ideas.

What is intriguing isBanerjee’s hasty attempt to cob-ble a coalition from scratch tosomehow defeat the prospectsof the two national parties. So,what has kept up their sleeve willonly be unfolded at the righttime. Let us all keep our fingerscrossed.

TK Nandanan Chennai

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Page 7: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

As 2018 comes to a close, it willbe pertinent to look back andsee how the year fared, politi-

cally. The year was especially impor-tant because it taught a few lessons topolitical parties of all shades. Until afew months back, no one expresseddoubts about Prime MinisterNarendra Modi coming back to powerin 2019. But now, it looks like the nextgeneral election will no more be acake-walk for the Prime Minister.More importantly, the Bharatiya JanataParty’s (BJP) juggernaut was haultedduring the year, at least temporarily,giving a jolt to the Modi Governmentand the BJP in particular.

The saffron party’s defeat beganwith it losing the battle in Karnataka.Its deafeat in the just concluded

Assembly polls in Rajasthan,Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh,that for long remained the rulingparty’s bastion, dealt a further blow,making it clear that the Prime Ministerwas no longer invincible. Besides,results to these three Hindi heartlandStates also showed that the BJP couldnot escape anti-incumbency even in itsbastions.

Second, post the Congress’ victo-ry in these States, its electoral fortunesare said to be looking up. Congress chiefRahul Gandhi and his party receiveda major boost after registering impres-sive wins in Rajasthan, MadhyaPradesh and Chhattisgarh. RahulGandhi emerged as a leader in his ownright. The Grand Old Party has nowbecome the biggest party in relativelyfive large States — Karnataka, Punjab,Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and MadhyaPradesh. So, the idea of a ‘Congress-mukt bharat’ is no longer a reality. TheCongress has also shown that it hasstrong regional leaders in these States.

The tide began to turn fromDecember 2017, when the BJP won bya narrow majority in Gujarat. Then in

May 2018, the Congress, in its bid tostop the Saffron Party’s surge, surpris-ingly backed the Janata Dal (Secular)JD(S) to form the Government inKarnataka. The efforts of the Congressproved that coalition could well be thebest bet for the Opposition.

The picture of senior Oppositionleaders, which included UPA chairper-son Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi,former Prime Minister Deve Gowda,Bahujan Samaj Party supremoMayawati, Trinamool Congress chiefMamata Banerjee and Rashtriya LokDal president Ajit Singh among others,joining hands during JDS leader HDKumaraswamy’s swearing-in ceremo-ny, flaunting a ‘show of unity’, wastelling. Since then, Rahul Gandhi andthe once-dithering Congress, appear tobe more focused and consistent. Postthis development, the Opposition hasbeen making efforts to forge a commonanti-BJP front for the 2019 polls.

Third, the BJP’s alliances areshowing signs of strain. Most of itsallies have voiced concerns about theparty’s ‘big brother’ attitude. Someeven abandoned the NDA fold dur-

ing the year. Most important ofthem all was the Telugu DesamParty’s (TDS) decision to breakalliance with the NDA in March.Bihar’s Rashtriya Lok Samta Party,(RLSP) led by Upendra Kushwaha,was the latest one to quit. What’sworse is that both leaders have nowjoined the Congress’ ranks. What wasalso strange was the tie-up betweenthe Congress and the TDP in theAssembly elections in Telangana.The two parties remained bitterrivals ever since the 1980s.

Earlier in year, the PeoplesDemocratic Party (PDP)-BJP experi-ment in Jammu & Kashmir, too, col-lapsed, thus proving that unnaturalalliances cannot work in Indian poli-tics for long. The BJP lost the supportof Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HindustaniAwam Morcha in Bihar. On top of that,the Shiv Sena has been threatening toquit the alliance in Maharashtra. PawanKalyan’s Jana Sena also quit in AndhraPradesh. The Congress, on the otherhand, did the unthinkable by joininghands with the TDP and the JD(S).

Fourth, today, the BJP and its allies

are ruling in seven States. This is indeeda big change from the earlier days whenthe Congress ruled the ‘seven sisters’ forlong. The BJP has proved that it hasbecome a pan national party by spread-ing its wings in the west, east and cen-tral India, besides having roots inKarnataka. The North-East has becomeCongress-mukt now.

Fifth, agrarian crisis has led tomore than 3,00,000 suicides amongfarmers in the last 20 years. The BJP isin denial mode even after suffering elec-toral loses in some States. Agrarian cri-sis is going to be one of the biggestissues in the 2019 polls. The partyshould have taken note of it when30,000 farmers came knocking at thedoors of the national capital in October-November. Few of their demandsincluded unconditional loan waiver,implementation of the recommenda-tions of the MS SwminathanCommission, et al — a demandignored by successive Governments.The Opposition as well as the rulingdispensation will have to come up witha new narrative. Farm loan waivers arenot an answer to their problems. More

innovative solutions are needed.Sixth, the issue of demonetisation

and Goods and Services Tax (GST),too, needs to be addressed. It is clearthat the former hit the people hard.Even two years after demonetisation,the informal and agricultural sectors aresuffering. Demonetisation also result-ed in job losses and a decrease in labourforce participation rate.

Seventh, Mayawati cannot beignored politically. The year 2019 willsee more and more parties runningafter her for alliance.

Eighth, national parties have notbeen able to defeat regional satraps, aswas proved by the Telangana RashtraSamithi (TRS) chief K ChandrashekharRao. Also, the BJP has not been able toexpand its base in the south. The year2019 will show how much the politi-cal parties will address the lessons learntin 2018. It will be visible in the pollresults but both the NDA and the UPAneed to move from the existingmachinery and build a new narrativeto woo the voters.

(The writer is a senior political com-mentator)

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As head of Scotland Yard’sCounter Terrorism Commandbetween 2011 and 2016, I

looked in some depth at the threatposed by drones during the London2012 Olympic Games. It was clear tous then that it was one of the poten-tial scenarios we faced — for instancea Fathers 4 Justice drone coming intothe stadium.

A comprehensive report by theCombating Terrorism Center in theUnited States set out in 2016 howdrones have been used in the terror-ist context for a number of years,including by the Hizbullah and theIslamic State.

At the time when the report waspublished, I had said that this has tobe one of the biggest concerns for theWest, because sooner or later, terror-ists will use it here. It was always aquestion of when,not if. But dronesare a very difficult threat in a civil-ian context, and there is sadly nofoolproof solution.

In relation to this, many peopleare asking this question: Why thedrone can’t just be shot down?Unfortunately, it’s not that straight-forward. If a marksman were toshoot a drone down and its debriswere to kill someone, potentially theofficer could then face a manslaugh-ter charge.

Over a runway, of course, thechances of it landing on anybody areremote but you’ve still got the chal-lenge of a marksman hitting such afast-moving object, which is not easy.Jamming electronic signals works insome cases but that’s not always thecase. It would also jam everythingelse in the vicinity.

There are also net systems thatcan catch and immobilise drones,which, however, depends on being inproximity to them.

These difficulties aside, theGovernment should have been muchmore vigilant to this threat. Clearly,for example, there needs to be moreeffective deterrents. A five-yearprison sentence for endangeringaircraft or breaching the restrictionson operating drones is not enough.It should be a 20-year sentence.Those who use drones for maliciouspurposes need to know that they aregoing to be hit hard with lengthy jailsentences.

The Civil Aviation Authority(CAA) itself admitted that rulesand regulations around drone use are‘evolving’ but this is the state of playat the moment: Drones are classifiedas “unmanned aircraft.” The CAAwas keen to point out that they aremost certainly a type of aircraft and“not toys.” This, because lands man-

aged for public enjoyment and bio-diversity are not appropriate placesfor their use. There are concerns, too,that the legal 50m distance and fullcontrol cannot be guaranteed. If yourdrone weighs over 20kg then it’s onlylegal to use it in certified “dangerareas” such as Parc Aberporth aero-drome in West Wales.

Those using a drone weighingless than 20kg for commercial use —receiving payment of any sort — arerequired to seek permission from theCAA. To get permission, you willhave to show that you are “sufficient-ly competent”. This is less clear-cutthan for manned aircraft, wherethere is a well-established licensingprocedure. If your drone is under20kg and you’re not using it for com-mercial reasons, you still have somerules to follow.

i) Anyone filming with a dronefor their own purposes must avoidflying it within 150 metres of a con-gested area and 50 metres of a per-son, vessel, vehicle or structure notunder the control of the pilot.

ii) You will also need to fly theaircraft within sight. This means youcan’t go above 400ft in altitude orfurther than 500 metres horizontal-ly. If you want to exceed that limit,you’ll again need to seek explicit per-mission from the CAA.

I also know that pilots have beenasking for a five kilometre exclusionzone for drones around airports.They should have been given that.

It was too long before the droneflying above Gatwick was seen as anational major incident and treatedaccordingly, and it was too longbefore the Whitehall machine gotinvolved. If a drone is near any crit-ical national infrastructure, it should

be treated as a major incident. I’msurprised there wasn’t a ministerialCobra meeting within six hours.From the outset, it was clear that itwould cause chaos.

Two people have been arrestedin connection with the criminal useof drones which has caused wide-spread disruption to flights at theGatwick Airport. Sussex Police saidthe people were arrested just after10pm on the night of December 21.

Superintendent James Collis ofSussex Police said: “Our investiga-tions are still ongoing, and ouractivities at the airport continue tobuild resilience to detect and miti-gate further incursions from dronesby deploying a range of tactics.

“We continue to urge the public,passengers and the wider communi-ty around Gatwick to be vigilant andsupport us by contacting us imme-diately if they believe they have anyinformation that can help us inbringing those responsible to justice.

“The arrests we have made thisevening are a result of our determi-nation to keep the public safe fromharm, every line of inquiry willremain open to us until we are con-fident that we have mitigated furtherthreats to the safety of passengers.”

No more details about the sus-pects were released. Anyone with anyinformation was asked to call andcooperate with the police.

Unfortunately, we are now like-ly to see ‘copycat’ incidents. And theease with which a major UK aviationhub was brought to a standstill willnot have escaped the attention of ter-rorist groups who will be wondering,Why they have not tried usingdrones before? Ministers who arescrambling to protect Britain against

potential “copy-cats” drone attacksfear that the chaos at Gatwick couldbe replicated at other transport hubsacross the country.

Whitehall sources said theauthorities were “very concerned”about attempts to repeat the paral-ysis at Britain’s second busiest air-port, which saw around 140,000 pas-sengers delayed, and were takingurgent steps to safeguard othersagainst the threat.

Gavin Williamson, the UKDefence Secretary, who is amongministers liaising with authoritiesand airport chiefs, told The SundayTelegraph: “The Armed Forces standready to assist the civilian authori-ties whenever they are required.”

This is not just an airport issue,it is a threat issue which needs to beseen in the broadest context. There islittle in place to stop these dronesfrom being flown over DowningStreet or Buckingham Palace or otherhighly sensitive areas. Also, they canbe used to drop anything from greatheights, including explosives.We sawa chaotic response to this incidentbecause drones are a relatively a newthreat and no single organisationbelieves that it is their responsibilityto respond to the threat they pose.

When something like this hap-pens, where hundreds of thousandsof people are affected, there is a lotof serious economic damage. No onehas died as a result but there is a hugeamount of impact on the nation. It’sa serious major incident, which wasunfortunately not treated as such.

(Richard Walton is Director ofCounter Terrorism Global Ltd.Matthew Sparkes is Deputy Head ofTechnology )

(Courtesy: The Telegraph)

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Page 8: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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One person was killed and24 school students were

injured when an overcrowdedbus returning from a picnic inMadhya Pradesh met with anaccident Tuesday morning inGujarat’s Panchmahal district,said police.

The private luxury bus,hired by an Ahmedabad-basedschool for picnic, fell into a road-side pit after the driver lost con-trol over the vehicle at Parvadivillage near Godhra, around130km from here, said PoliceSub-Inspector MV Jotana.

According to an FIRlodged at the Godhra talukapolice station, the bus washired by the Vivekanand HindiHigher Secondary School, sit-uated in the Narol area ofAhmedabad.

The mishap took placewhen the bus, packed with 107

passengers, including school-children and teachers, wasreturning to Ahmedabad fromUjjain, Madhya Pradesh, wherethey had gone for a picnic.

While the cleaner of thebus, Balram Bhadoria, died inthe accident, its driver fled thespot, said Panchmahal DistrictSuperintendent of Police LeenaPatil.

“The bus slipped into aroadside pit after the driver lostcontrol over the vehicle. While24 students received minorinjuries, the cleaner died as hejumped from the moving busto save his life,” said Patil.

The injured students wereshifted to the Godhra CivilHospital for treatment, she said.

Primary investigations bythe police revealed negligenceon part of the school manage-ment as the bus was carrying107 passengers, way beyond itscapacity, said Patil.

“The bus driver fled fromthe spot after the accident.The bus was indeed over-crowded. Apart from students,there were teachers and theirfamily members in the bus. Wehave lodged a case against thedriver and others,” said the SP.

Based on a complaint filedby one of the parents,Radheshyam Prajapati, theGodhra taluka police lodgedthe FIR against the unidentifieddriver, bus operator SitaramSharma and the school owner,Panjabilal, said the police.

They were booked undervarious sections of the IPC,including 304 (culpable homi-cide not amounting to murder),279 (rash driving) and 337 (caus-ing injury by rash act). Accordingto PSI Jotana, the capacity of thebus was just 58, against which107 people, including 70 stu-dents, were in the vehicle at thetime of accident.

Bengaluru: Karnataka ChiefMinister H D Kumaraswamy hasgot embroiled in a controversyafter a purported video, showinghim ordering a police official to“shoot mercilessly” those whokilled a JD(S) worker in Mandya,went viral.

After drawing flak over hiscomments, the chief ministersaid “it was an emotional out-burst” and he did not mean it.

The opposition BJP lashedout at Kumaraswamy over theissue and termed it “irresponsi-ble and nonsense”.

JD(S) worker H Prakash(50) was allegedly hacked todeath by four men in Maddurtown of Mandya district Mondayevening, police said. Theassailants stopped Prakash’s carwhen he was going home andhacked him to death withmachetes. Prakash was a formerZila Panchayat member.

Tension prevailed inMaddur and Mandya after theincident as people ‘gheraoed’ thepolice station demanding imme-diate arrest of the murderers.

Following the killing of hisparty man, Kumaraswamy pur-portedly gave instruction overphone, which was caught oncamera and went viral.

In the video, the CM is heardsaying that there were three

murders in the past before hecame to Bengaluru and he wasdisappointed with the police.

“I don’t know how you willhandle it (the case).. Because itwas your responsibility. I amactually disappointed because it(the murder) brought a badname. He (who was murdered)was a good person.. There is noproblem if you shoot such peo-ple mercilessly,” he said alludingto the alleged killers.

“I am least bothered (aboutthe consequences),” the CM wasfurther heard saying.

As he faced criticism,Kumaraswamy told reporters inVijayapura that he acted in a fitof rage as he knew the victim.

“It is beyond my imagina-tion that such a person can everbe killed. My words were only anemotional outburst, which I didnot mean,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kumaraswamy’soffice also issued a statement say-ing the comments were an “emo-tional reaction” to the incidentand not orders.The chief minis-ter recalled there were two mur-ders earlier in the locality andthat he had asked the police tobe careful as the accused in thecrime were released on bail. “..But no measures were taken. Ithink that police did not do theirduty properly,” he said. PTI

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Bihar Chief Minister NitishKumar on Tuesday paid a

moving tribute to formerPrime Minister Atal BihariVajpayee on his birth anniver-sary and said the late leaderwould always be rememberedfor art of successfully runninga coalition government.

Kmar said he relishedmemories of having workedwith Vajpayee as a ministerholding important portfolioslike Railway, Agriculture andSurface Transport and fondlyrecalled the love he alwaysshowered on me, something I would never be able to forget.

Atal ji shall always beremembered for the role heplayed in national politics andthe manner in which he upheldsocial harmony. I have per-sonal regard for him. I haveworked under his leadership asa ministerreceived his ashir-wad (love and blessings), hetold reporters on the sidelinesof a function organised here onthe occasion of the birthanniversary of Vajpayee whopassed away in August thisyear.

The positive manner inwhich he dealt with his alliancepartners is a memory to becherished. Even the dignitywith which he treated those in

the opposition used to be asight to behold, Kumar whoheads the Janata Dal (United)said.

He earned respect from allsegments of society. No otherpolitician has been able tomatch his popularity in therecent past. We have decided to

hold a state function every yearin his memory. A statue of hiswill also be erected in Patna forwhich a proper spot will beidentified, the Chief Ministeradded.

The function, held at theSri Krishna Memorial Hall,was attended among others by

Governor Lalji Tandon,Deputy CM Sushil KumarModi, Assembly Speaker VijayKumar Chaudhary, ministersNand Kishore Yadav, MangalPandey and Vinod Narain Jhaand a number of other mem-bers of the states bicameral leg-islature.

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The Babri Masjid ActionCommittee (BMAC)

Tuesday appealed to Muslimsto refrain from reacting to anyinflammatory statement on theRam temple issue ahead of theresumption of hearing in thecase in the Supreme Courtnext week..

BMAC convenor ZafaryabJilani said the appeal was issuedat a meeting of the actioncommittee here.

The meeting expressed sat-

isfaction over the progress ofthe matter in the court.

The top court had inOctober rejected an urgenthearing after the Uttar Pradeshgovernment argued that it wasa 100-year-old dispute thatshould be taken up on priori-ty.

The decision to move thecase to January was seen bymany to have dimmed hopesfor a verdict before the LokSabha election a few monthshence.

It triggered loud demandsfor an ordinance within the BJPand various groups linked toits ideological mentor RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh to paveway for the construction of the

Ram temple in Ayodhya.The apex court is sched-

uled to take up a batch of peti-tions for hearing in the RamJanmabhoomi-Babri Masjidtitle dispute case on January 4.

The matter is listed beforea bench comprising ChiefJustice Ranjan Gogoi andJustice SK Kaul.

The bench is likely to con-stitute a three-judge bench forhearing as many as 14 appealsfiled against the 2010Allahabad High Court judg-ment, delivered in four civilsuits, that the 2.77-acre land bepartitioned equally amongthree parties -- the Sunni WaqfBoard, the Nirmohi Akharaand Ram Lalla.

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Small parties should berespected and given due

importance by their biggerallies, Ashish Patel, nationalpresident of Apna Dal(S) party,a constituent of the BJP-ledNational Democratic Alliance(NDA), said on Tuesday.

He also cautioned the saf-fron party that a tie-up betweenthe Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)and the Samajwadi Party (SP)in Uttar Pradesh would pose achallenge to it in 2019 LokSabha election.

“We small parties, like theApna Dal(S), want somerespect to be shown to us. We,our leaders and workers feelhurt if due importance is notgiven to us,” Ashish Patel toldmediapersons here.

He added that his partywas not happy with the behav-iour of the BJP-led state gov-ernment with Union Ministerof State for Health AnupriyaPatel, also his wife.

The Apna Dal(S) chiefclaimed that she was not givenadequate importance and noteven invited for inaugurationsof medical colleges.

Ashish Patel’s remarkscome days after Rashtriya LokSamta Party (RSLP) ChiefUpendra Kushwaha walkedout of the NDA. He was upsetwith the BJP after it assertedthat the RLSP would not begiven more than two seats inthe 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Earlier in March, the TeluguDesam Party (TDP) ended itsfour-year-old alliance with theNDA over the Centre’s refusal togrant Special Category Status toAndhra Pradesh.

Asked how many seats hisparty would like to contest inin Uttar Pradesh in 2019 LokSabha election, Ashish Patelsaid it would be revealed whenthe time comes.

He asserted that the ApnaDal(S) had widened its baseduring the last five years.

The party’s candidatesAnupriya Patel and HarivanshSingh won from Mirzapur andPratapgarh respectively.

Responding to a question,Ashish Patel denied that theBJP’s defeats in the recentlyconcluded assembly polls inMadhya Pradesh, Rajasthanand Chhattisgarh had weak-ened the party.

Jaipur: A day after Cabinet for-mation, Rajasthan Congresschief Sachin Pilot Tuesday hint-ed at its expansion in nearfuture, saying several leaderswill be given a chance to work.

The statement comesamidst growing resentmentamong some senior Congressleaders who were apparentlyleft fuming after being deniedministerial berths in the newgovernment.

“Every division of the statehas been given representationin the Council of Ministers. Itwas the first expansion.Another expansion may hap-pen in sometime. Several peo-ple would be given a chance towork on various posts,” Pilottold reporters.

On Monday, 23 ministers,including 13 cabinet and 10

state ministers took oath in thepresence of Governor KalyanSingh, Chief Minister AshokGehlot and Deputy ChiefMinister Sachin Pilot.

A total of 18 fresh faceswere inducted in the state cab-inet even as senior leaders likeC P Joshi and Deependra Singhabstained from attending theceremony held at Raj Bhawan.

Various other senior lead-ers including Brijendra Ola,Parasram Mordiya, RajendraPareek, Mahesh Joshi were notinducted in the state cabinet.

Hours later, supporters ofCongress legislator from Kaman,Zahida Khan and legislator fromGuda Malani, Hema RamChaudhary took to the streetsand raised anti-government slo-gans for not giving their leadersa ministerial berth. PTI

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In a fairy tale ending of a real-life story, a 17-year-old, men-

tally challenged girl, who hadgone missing in Kedarnathduring 2013 deluge there, hasbeen reunited with her familyin Aligarh after five years.

Elated over the return oftheir long-lost grand-daughterChanchal, her grandparentsparents Harish Chand andShakuntla Devi, residents ofBannadevi locality here, said,“This reunion is nothing shortof a miracle.”

Chanchal had gone toKedarnath on a pilgrimagewith her parents when thetragedy struck, sweeping awayher father, while her mother

returned home after some-time, Harish Chand told mediapersons here Monday.

Chanchal, then 12, wasfeared dead but some goodsamaritans handed her over toan orphanage in Jammu, saiddirector Gyanendra Mishra of

NGO Childline Aligarh whichhelped in bringing the girlhome.

For the last few months,the orphanage managementhad been observing that the girloften tried to communicatesomething about Aligarh citythrough her limited verbalskills, Mishra said.

They somehow got intouch with Aligarh city legis-lator Sanjiv Raja who thentook Mishra’s assistance.Mishra, in turn, managed toidentify the family of the lostgirl with the help of police, andrestored her to it.

Chachal still misses herlong-lost father Rajesh andkeeps remembering him,Harish Chand said.

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Swami Adhokshjanand DeoTirth Tuesday said Uttar

Pradesh Chief Minister YogiAdityanath and other leadershave vitiated the atmosphere inthe country by linking LordHanuman to various castesand communities.

He demanded that PrimeMinister Narendra Modi andother top leaders of the BJPshould clear the party’s standand bar party functionariesfrom disrespectful remarksabout gods and goddesses.

The seer’s reaction cameafter Uttar Pradesh ReligiousAffair Minister Laxmi NarayanChaudhary dubbed LordHanuman as a Jat, saying likeJats, the deity never toleratedinjustice towards anybody, any-where.

The minister made theremark Friday after a Bharatiya

Janata Party Memeber ofLegislative Council (MLA)from the state, Bukkal Nawab,dubbed Lord Hanuman aMuslim on the ground that hisname rhymed with Islamicnames like Rahman, Arman,Qurban etc.

During an election rally inRajasthan, Adityanath hadtermed the deity a Dalit.

“On one side the BJP, fromtime to time, has been bring-ing up the Ram temple issueand on the other, its leaders aremaking absurd remarks onHindu gods and goddesses,hurting religious sentiments,”S h a n k a r a c h a r y aAdhokshajanand Deo Tirthsaid here.

“The Ram temple inAyodhya will be incompletewithout Lord Hanuman asRam had himself praisedHanumanji calling him likehis brother Bharat,” he said.

If the remark made byNawab has the BJP high-com-mand’s approval, “then theparty will have to get a mosqueconstructed for LordHanuman”, the seer said.

The chief minister hadhurt religious sentiments byterming Lord Hanuman aDalit, even as his office laterissued a clarification, claim-ing that Adityanath was mis-quoted, the shankaracharyasaid.

“Adityanath and other lead-ers’ remarks on Hanuman havevitiated the atmosphere in thecountry,” the seer said.

Lord Hanuman has beentermed a Jat, Thakur, a sports-man and even a Muslim, eventhough gods and goddessesare above caste and religion, hestated.

Uttar Pradesh SportsMinister and former cricketerChetan Chauhan had said on

Sunday that Hanuman was asportsperson.

However, he had dismissedhis party colleagues’ attempts atidentifying the deity’s casteand said gods don’t have castes.

The seer asked the BJP toclear its stand on the remarksand claimed no clarificationwas issued by the party on thestatements on Lord Hanuman.

“The silence by BJP high-er ups and RSS functionaries(on the remarks on LordHanuman) indicates that forthe BJP, the Ram temple is atool to garner votes,” he said,adding that the temple inAyodhya will be constructed byseers and dharmacharyas.

At a meeting held inVrindavan, the coordinator ofthe Mathura Nagar Nigam TaraChandra Goshwami also con-demned the remarks of BJPleaders on Hindu gods andgoddesses.

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Page 9: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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The Bell would perhapsnever have jingled for these

little “Christs” had this unpre-tentious Sadhu not made atimely intervention in theircarcinogenic existence. True,there is hardly a better way tocelebrate the birth of the Lordon the Christmas Day thanproviding these little ones,afflicted by cancer, with winterhardware to fend off a bitingcold.

Sevapeeth Matri Mandirthe Ashram run under theaegis of Swami Bedananda thisChristmas Day provided can-cer afflicted children with rags,mosquito nets et al even as theseptuagenarian monk said “lifeblooms into a true Christmasonly when you serve the dis-tressed,” even as he advocatedthievery of virtue and sheddingof vise.

Behind the veneer of hisnonchalance, reside deep philo-sophical thoughts. “If you real-ly have to steal something then

steal not conceit but compas-sion that transmits from theascetic eyes of Lord Buddha. Ifyou have to thieve a thingthen thieve the mystical smilefrom Ramakrishna

Paramhansa’s lips. Conveykindness by your words anddeeds and avoid disgruntle-ment. Be content with whateveryou have. Then only you willhave peace. And in a peace ofmind resides a peaceful world,”said Bedanada who shares his9x9 nondescript enclosure,with Mother Goddess Kali.

“I lost my mother when Iwas too young. She left me bin-ning all my humble desires tocuddle up her lap. So I decid-ed to quit my house and with-draw into this commonplaceroom to live with the Motherof the Universe. I sleep androuse, eat and pray, laugh andchat --- all in this small roomunder the benevolent spon-sorship of my Mother,” theSadhu preaches in a commonman’s idiom even as a bevy ofwho’s who from the City of Joy--- king and the king-maker,ruler and the ruled, officerand the gentleman, doctor andprofessor, teacher and the stu-dent --- make a beeline for hissermons.

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Wednesday evening willsee people in the three

southern States of Kerala,Karnataka and Tamil Nadulighting millions of lamps(Ayyappa Jyothi) as a mark ofsolidarity with the devotees ofLord Ayyappa who are engagedin a battle of nerves with theGovernment of Kerala overthe entry of women in the childbearing age to the holy shrineof Sabarimala.

A Constitution Bench ofthe Supreme Court had ruledon September 28 that womenof all ages should be allowed toworship at the Lord AyyappaTemple at Sabarimala atop theWestern Ghats in Kerala. Thedevotees of Lord Ayyappa areupset over the verdict and hadrequested women devotees inthe 10 to 50 age group not tomake it to the temple.

But the CPI-M led KeralaGovernment, in its anxiety toimplement the court order has

made elaborate securityarrangements for facilitatingthe entry of women to the tem-ple, where women had beendenied entry as per age old tra-dition.

“This Ayyappa Jyothi isan effort to lead Kerala to aworld of light. There is anattempt to destroy the plurali-ty and diversity of the templesin Kerala and the Ayyapa Jyothiis an attempt to expose thismission as well as an offeringto the God with a prayer toinculcate good thoughts in themind of the powers that be,”said Swamy Chidanandapuri,head, Advaitha Ashram and thechief patron of the SabarimalaKarma Samithi.

He pointed out that it wasfor the Acharya Dharma Sabha,Thantric, Vedic andAstrological scholars to studythe need to make changes inthe Agama Saasthras and takea final decision. “Why only onereligion has been singled out bythe authorities in the name ofreformation while they are

reluctant to make any com-ment on the goings on in otherreligions? That is not fair andit is against secularism,” said theSwamiji, described as spiritualleader of the Hindus in theState.

Govind Bharathan, seniorlawyer, Kerala High Court andone of the prominent faces of

Sabarimala Karma Samithidescribed the Ayyappa Jyothias a unique event. “Besices the795 km stretch from Mangalorein Karnataka to Kanyakumariin Tamil Nadu, many districtsin these three States will lightup Ayyappa Jyothi. We willrecite “Swamy Saranam” whiledoing so and there will be nospeeches or slogans,” saidBharathan.

He said that not a singlewoman devotee had come toSabarimala on their own tillTuesday evening. “Thosewomen who came toSabarimala were all activistswho had declared that theywere undertaking the trip onlyto shatter the convention andtradition. They were all self-proclaimed atheists and non-believers,” said Bharathan.Wedneday will see the 41st dayof this year’s festival and theAyyappa Jyothi is expected toadd splendour to it.

Swamy Chidanandapurilambasted the efforts by a sec-tion of the society to portray

the denial of rights to womenfor worshipping at Sabarimalaas part of casteism. “Accordingto custom and tradition invogue in Sabarimala, womenare not allowed here. Pleaseunderstand that this is theonly holy shrine situated deepinside a forest and there are sci-entific reasons behind thiscustom,” said Swamiji.

“There are many SupremeCourt verdicts which weredelivered earlier to theSabarimala case. But the KeralaGovernment’s anxiety to imple-ment this particular verdict isdubious,” said PrayarGopalakrishnan, Congressleader and former president ofTravancore Devaswam Board.

Meanwhile, the CPI-M ledGovernment is working over-time to make the proposedWomen’s Wall on January 1 amajor success. Hectic activitiesare on to light up AyyappaJyothi in temples acrossChennai, according to KAsokan and Pravin Pillai, devo-tees and activists.

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Indian Naval Hospital Ship,INHS Sandhani was on

Monday commissioned atNaval Station Karanja at Uranin Raigad district at the handsof Vice Admiral Girish Luthra,Flag-Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western NavalCommand.

Surgeon Vice AdmiralAnup Banerji, DGMS (Navy)delivered the welcome addressand Mrs. Preeti Luthra,

President NWWA, WesternRegion, unveiled the commis-sioning plaque of the hospital.The Commissioning Warrantwas read by the firstCommanding Officer of thehospital, Surgeon Captain HBSChaudhry.

With the steady expansionof Naval Station Karanja, overthe last few decades, a need fora dedicated multi-specialty hos-pital was felt, in order to pro-vide quality healthcare to morethan 8,000 naval personnel and

their dependents, who reside atthe Karanja naval station.

The commissioning of this30-bedded hospital, with ateam of specialists in the fieldsof Medicine, Surgery,Gynecology, Pediatrics,Anesthesia and DentalSciences; will not only improvethe quality and speed of health-care delivery, but also obviatethe need for patients, includingthose with critical ailmentsand emergency cases, to trav-el by sea to Mumbai.

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In a shocking incident that tookplace two days ahead of Christmas,

at least 12 worshippers were injured,when a group of vandals attackedthem during a Sunday mass withbeer bottles, hockey sticks and chop-pers at a Church at Kowad inChandwad taluka of Kolhapur dis-trict in western Maharashtra.

Reports reaching the State head-quarters said on Tuesday some “15to 20” unidentified attackers, whoarrived at the New Life FellowshipChurch at Chandwad in motor-bikes when the mass was on there onSunday, first hurled stones and beerbottles at the church for 20 to 30minutes and later barged inside theplace of worship.

There were in all 40 worshippersinside the church when the incidenttook place at around 11.30 – nearlyhalf an hour after the start of Sundayservice.

The attackers, who had coveredtheir faces to avoid being identified,smashed the heads of the worship-pers with empty beer bottles and alsohit them with hockey sticks, injur-ing at least a dozen of them. Most ofthe injured were mostly those whohad formed a protection ring arounda majority of worshippers soon afterthe vandals barged inside the church.

The Kolhapur police said that theinjured were admitted to a privatehospital at Belagavi in the neigh-bouring Karnataka, where eight weretreated and discharged and the con-dition of the remaining four was

reported to be “serious”. The seriouslyinjured are undergoing treatment inIntensive Care Unit (ICU).

Till Tuesday evening, theKolhapur police had not made anyarrests in connection with the attackon the church and worshippers.The investigations have revealedthat the attackers might have fled toneighbouring Belagavi city inKarnataka. "Our investigations haverevealed that after the church inci-dent, the same group of goonsattacked people in Talguli andDindalkop villages on their way toBelagavi," a senior police officer saidon Tuesday.

The police have launched amanhunt for the vandals by formingfour teams. “We have not arrestedany one so far,” the police officer said.

Meanwhile, the police have reg-istered offences against the unknownpersons under sections 143 (pun-ishment for unlawful assembly),146, 147 (rioting) 148 (Rioting,armed with deadly weapons, 295(injuring or defiling place of worshipwith intent to insult the religion ofany class), 323 ( punishment for vol-untarily causing hurt), 427(Mischief) and 452 (House trespassafter preparation for hurt, assault orwrongful confinement).

Though the motive behind theattack has not been established, theinvestigators suspect that right-wingactivists might have been the attack.“All the same, we are not ruling outanything, including the involve-ment of right-wing activists. We arelooking at all angles,” a senior police

officer investigating the case said.In a related development,

President of Indian Christian Voiceand former Vice Chairman-Minorities Commission Dr AbrahamMathai described the incident as“very unfortunate” that the churchand worshippers were attacked in avillage in Kolhapur district.

Talking to “The Pioneer”, Mathaisaid: “ I had warned the SupremeCourt about the possibility of attackson churches in the run-up to and dur-ing Christmas festivities. In fact, I hadwritten a letter to the Chief Justice ofIndia nearly a fortnight back, seekingwithdrawal of the privilege of burn-ing crackers till 12.30 am and ratherensure protection and safety ofChurches for Christmas. I had toldhim clearly that ChristianCommunity needs protection andsafety more than permissions toburn crackers on Christmas Eve”

“While we respect the ruling ofthe Supreme Court, the ruling willencourage the use of firecrackerswhich has not been part of theChristmas Celebration in the pastand will set a precedent which isadverse to the environment. Anarchicelements can also take advantage ofthe situation to discredit the peaceloving community,” Mathai said.

“Adequate security and elaborateprotection measures need to be putin place to protect Christian com-munity during this festive season andto deter communal goons fromattacking them and ultimately dis-rupting their prayer meetings,”Mathai said.

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Song of Solomon (7:11) withslight change is going to be

the theme of the campaign ofthe DMK for the upcomingLok Sabha elections. Thesong “Come, my beloved, letus go the countryside ..” hasbeen slightly altered to suit thechanged situation. “Let us goto the people, Let us speak tothe people, Let us win thehearts of the people” would beparty chief Stalin's theme songof the campaign for DMK’s2019 Lok Sabha election.DMK leaders will tour all thevillages in the State and willleave no stones un-turned inthe run up to the 2019 elec-tion.

This was announced by MK Stalin, party president, aftera day-long meeting with thedistrict level office bearersand constituencies-in-chargeof the DMK on Monday.Though the electionCommission has notannounced the schedule of

the Lok Sabha polls, the DMKwould launch the massive out-reach programme on January3 , 2019 from Thiruvarur, thehome constituency of late MKarunanidhi, the party’s for-mer president who breathedhis last in August his year.

The assembly election2016 has seen Stalin, who wasthe then working president ofthe party leading “We ForOurselves” campaign in whichhe interacted with people in allthe 234 assembly constituen-cies in Tamil Nadu. Thoughthe DMK could not unseat theruling AIADMK from power,the party put up a spirited fightand won 89 seats.

Stalin plans to relaunchthe outreach programme fromwhere he left it in 2016. Butthis time, party leaders toowould chip in because it is dif-ficult for the partry leaderhimself to attend the GramaSabha like meetings plannedin all the 12,617 panchayathsin the State.

The outreach programmehas been announced immedi-

ately after Stalin’s interactionwith bishops and priests of var-ious denominations of theChurch held at Tiruchirappallilast Saturday. Though staged asa Christmas gala , the bishopsand priests assured Stalin thefull support of the communi-ty in the upcoming elections.

“Office bearers of the partyhas been allocated districts inwhich they have to undertakethe outreach the programme.We have been asked to speakto the villagers, make themspeak about their problemsand inform them about theaction programme Stalin hasprepared to resolve theirissues,” said K SRadhakrishnan, spokesman ofthe DMK.

Interestingly, the DMKchief is upset over the lack ofsupport for his call to projectRahul Gandhi as the PrimeMinisterial candidate of theOpposition for the upcomingparliamentary election. Hewrote a lengthy letter to theparty cadre explaining the rea-sons for his announcement

and assured them that all theopposition parties would fall inline after the election toendorse his call. His efforts tobe a modern day Karunanidhihas come a cropper and Stalinis upset over the cool responsefrom his own party leaders,”said G Sathyamurthy, colum-nist and political commentator.

The outreach programmehas been announced at a timewhen the ruling AIADMK isfast disintegrating itself due toinfightings. In Sunday, a partymeeting convened atThoothukudi by KadamburC Raju, the publicity ministerhad to be called off followingscuffles between various fac-tion leaders in the district inthe presence of the minister.

Stalin accused PrimeMinister Modi of playing therole of peace maker betweenchief minister EdappadiPalaniswamy and his deputy OPanneerselvan. “This is beingdone to facilitate the formationof a BJP-AIADMK alliance inTamil Nadu,” alleged Stalinafter Monday’s meeting.

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Former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo HDDeve Gowda Tuesday expressed disappoint-

ment at not being invited for the inaugurationof the country’s longest rail road bridge in Assamthough he had laid the foundation stone of it.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesdayinaugurated the 4.9 km long bridge at Bogibeelacross Brahmaputra river, built at a cost of Rs5,900 crore. The foundation stone for the pro-ject was laid by Gowda when he was the primeminister in 1997.

“Railway line to Kashmir, Delhi Metro andBogibeel rail road bridge were among the pro-jects I had sanctioned (as prime minister). I hadsanctioned the budget of Rs 100 crore for eachof these projects and laid their foundation stones.People have forgotten today,” Gowda said.

Replying to a question from reporters on thesidelines of a function here as to how he felt aboutthe inauguration of the project started by him,the former prime minister said he had given thenod for many projects.

To a question whether he received an invi-tation, Gowda quipped, “Aiyo Rama! Who willremember me? Some newspapers might havementioned about it.”

On the enormous delay in completing theproject, he said, “That is where I differ. I com-pleted the Hassan-Mysuru project in 13 months.I completed two bridges on time. Anagwadibridge (across Ghataprabha). Go and see thebridge on Krishna river.

“Some people from Bombay Karnatakaregion say that Deve Gowda did not do anything(for the north Karnataka region), go and see it,”he added.

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Page 10: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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Ho s p i t a l s ,universities

and other insti-tutions in devel-oped countriesreceive largeendowments dueto factors likeinheritance tax,which is not thecase in India,Finance MinisterArun Jaitley saidon Tuesday.

A n a ly s i ngthe means offunding for India’s healthcareand educational bodies asagainst the global ways, Jaitleysaid such institutions in thecountry receive donations fromreligious groups and CSR pro-grammes.

“Most hospitals interna-tionally have some of thelargest endowments. Most edu-cational institutes have some ofthe largest endowments. Thoseendowments come to the edu-cational institutions from theiralumni, who have benefittedfrom the quality of that insti-tutions.

“Once they are successfulin life, they keep supporting theinstitutions with those endow-ments. Some IITs have startedthat experiment now in India.But still it’s not very largelyprevalent,” Jaitley said at anevent in AIIMS here.

He said the endowments

received by some major hospi-tals in the US and Europe runinto billions of dollars, whichare provided by people andpatients who have benefittedfrom them.

“So I was analysing thatwhy that condition doesn’texist in our country. And oneof the reasons I found out wasthat those societies have verylarge inheritance tax. Thereforea lot of people in their old ageprefer to go for charitabledonations in order to getaround that inheritance tax.Since we don’t have that inher-itance tax in India, our chari-ties are not in terms of suchendowments,” he said.

The finance minister saidcharities in India depend onsocial endowments.

“Educational institutions,hospitals are set up by religiousgroups, caste groups by com-

munities and so on. The socialsector in India gets fundedmore on a community basis,except for this new beginningthat we started in the last fouryears when we started the cor-porate social responsibility,”he noted.

Under the Companies Act,2013, certain class of prof-itable entities are required toshell out at least 2 per cent oftheir three-year annual averagenet profit towards CorporateSocial Responsibility (CSR)activities.

Inheritance tax is levied onthe wealth inherited by the legalheirs of a deceased person. Alsoknown as estate tax, it is leviedby governments of most west-ern countries, including the USand the UK.

India too had this tax, butit was abolished by the RajivGandhi Government in 1985.

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The Reserve Bank of India(RBI) will soon introduce a

new �20 currency note withadditional features, according toa document of the central bank.

The central bank hasalready issued new look cur-rency notes in the denomina-tions of �10, �50, �100, and�500, besides introducing �200and �2,000 bank notes.

The new look notes arebeing introduced sinceNovember 2016 underMahatma Gandhi (New) series.These are different in size anddesign compared to the notesissued previously.

The currency notes, exceptfor banned �500 and �1,000,issued under old series con-tinue to remain legal tender.

According to the RBI databank, there were 4.92 billionpieces of �20 note in circulationas on March 31, 2016. Thenumber more than doubled toabout 10 billion pieces byMarch 2018.

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Buoyed by over 36per cent of its pro-

curement from microand small enterprises(MSEs), power giantNTPC has pitched fortheir universal registra-tion for supplies to allCPSUs in India.

“To promote ease of doingbusiness for MSEs, NTPCChairman Gurdeep Singh hasproposed a single window reg-istration for MSEs acrossCPSUs,” a senior company offi-cial told PTI.

As against the governmentmandate for minimum 25 percent procurement from MSEs,NTPC has achieved 36 per centprocurement from MSEs in thecurrent fiscal till November2018, the official added.

NTPC’s total procurementreaches around Rs 1,000 crorein a year from 3,500 vendors.Last fiscal, it stood at Rs 1,163crore.

“NTPC’s endeavour is tobetter its contribution in asso-ciation with MSEs year onyear. Therefore, Singh pro-posed on different fora thatthere should a one registrationfor all MSEs for procurementsby CPSUs. But it is the MSMEministry which would take

final call on it,” the officialadded.

Singh reiterated his pro-posal for single window regis-tration of MSEs at the NationalVendor Meet of Micro andSmall Enterprises organisedby NTPC last week at its PowerManagement Institute.

As many as 225 MSE rep-resentatives (both material sup-pliers and service providers)attended the meet.

The meet was organised tounderstand concerns of ven-dors and get first hand feed-back on business dealings withNTPC and support requiredfrom the company for increas-ing the participation of MSEsin its procurement.

NTPC has taken severalinitiatives for MSEs like MSERegistration Portal (single win-dow registration for 358reserved items for MSEs), ven-dor invoice tracking portal/appand NTPC Tenders info app.

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The Government hasdeferred the auction of two

iron ore mines having reservesof 93.87 million tonnes inOdisha, according to a MinesMinistry report.

The Government has notgiven any reason for deferringthe auction of the mines.

While the Chandiposhiiron ore block in Sundergarh,Odisha, has reserves of 47.07million tonnes (MT), thePurheibahal block has reservesof 46.80 MT, the report said.

The notice inviting tenderfor both the mines was released

on February 23.The ministry is also plan-

ning to auction two limestoneblocks in Chhattisgarh nextmonth. Both the mines have“no end-use reservation”, theministry said.

The Government so far hasauctioned 50 mines, including23 limestone, 17 iron ore, fourgold, two each of manganeseand graphite blocks and oneeach of bauxite and diamondblock. From the 50 mineralblocks auctioned so far since2015, the Government will earna revenue of �1.81 lakh croreover the lease period.

To ensure transparency in

the mineral sector, Mines andMinerals (Development andRegulation) Amendment Bill,2015 was passed by Parliamentin 2015.

In a bid to give a push tothe auctions, the Centre hadearlier said it was consideringgranting all approvals, includ-ing environmental clearance, tomineral blocks before puttingthem up for sale.

The Government had ear-lier said unless issues related togreen clearances and landrights are addressed upfront,India may not make muchprogress in auctioning miner-al blocks in the future.

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Nissan Motor Co.Executive Greg

Kelly was releasedfrom detention inJapan on Tuesday afterbeing granted bailover the allegedunderreporting of hisboss Carlos Ghosn’spay.

The late-nightrelease of Kelly, who isAmerican, followedthe Tokyo DistrictCourt’s approval ear-lier in the day of a bailrequest filed last weekby his Japanese lawyer.

Kelly was freed on70 million yen (USD 635,600)bail, ending his detention aftermore than a month.

Television footage capturedthe bespectacled Kelly, wearinga beige jacket, slowly walkingout of the detention centre andgetting into a black car. Thevehicle drove past reporterswaiting outside of the gate ascameras flashed. Kelly wasexpected to go straight to a hos-pital for treatment of his chron-ic neck problem, according tolocal media.

Kelly and Ghosn weredetained in Tokyo immedi-ately after their November 19arrest. They are charged withunderreporting Ghosn’s payby about 5 billion yen (USD 44million) in 2011-2015.

Kelly’s Japanese lawyersought bail after the court dis-missed prosecutors’ request

for more detention for the twoto investigate their second alle-gation of underreportingGhosn’s 4 billion yen (USD 36million) pay.

Charges for an underre-porting allegation in morerecent years are pending, andno trial date has been set.

Ghosn will be detaineduntil January 1 or longer sincehe also faces breach of trustallegations.

Prosecutors say Ghosn andKelly are flight risks. After hisrelease, Kelly will have to fol-low rules set by the court,including those regarding hisresidence and travel, prosecu-tors have said.

The arrests of Ghosn, whois an auto industry icon, and hisright-hand man have triggeredinternational attention andraised concerns about the

Japanese practice of extendeddetentions.

Nissan has removed Kellyas representative director andGhosn as chairman, but theyare still company board mem-bers. The board of Renault SA,the French ally of Nissan, hasretained him while naming aninterim chair. Mitsubishi tooka measure similar to Nissan.

Kelly, 62, joined NissanNorth American in 1988 andworked in legal counsel andhuman resources at the com-pany, and has been a memberof the automaker’s board since2012.

His American lawyer,Aubrey Harwell, has said he isinnocent and that he onlyacted according to the lawand according to companypolicy. Ghosn has also deniedthe allegations and told

lawyers that he isdetermined to prove hisinnocence in court,according to Japanesemedia reports.

The scandal alsoraised concerns over theJapanese automaker andthe future of its alliancewith Renault, which in1999 sent Ghosn to turnaround Nissan, then onthe verge of bankruptcy.He has since led Nissan’srise to the world’s sec-ond-largest automaker.

Ghosn’s downfall isseen by some as amaneuver by others atNissan to gain power inthe alliance.

Kelly’s wife, Donna, hadmade a plea to the Japaneseauthorities for her husbands’early release in a video messagecarried Tuesday by Japanesepublic broadcaster NHK andothers. She said that her hus-band was “framed” by Nissanand that he also should bereleased to get his neck prob-lem treated.

“Release Greg and allowhim to come home and havethe surgery he needs,” she said.“That is our family’s Christmaswish.” Kelly reportedly suffersfrom spinal stenosis, a condi-tion of a narrowing of thespaces in the spine that cancause pain, tingling or numb-ness.

He had been scheduled toundergo surgery in Nashville inearly December, according tomedia reports.

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Budget carrier IndiGo is like-ly to induct its first long

range jet A321neo (new engineoption) in its fleet Saturday,after a delay of almost onemonth, which will pave the wayfor the airline to launch itsmuch-awaited medium-haulinternational operations, asource said Tuesday.

The Gurugram-basedlargest domestic carrier bymarket share currently hasshorter-range A320neos in itsfleet of 200-odd planes, whichalso has A320s and ATR jets.

“IndiGo’s first A321neoplane, which was to join thefleet late last month, will nowbe finally inducted onDecember 29,” an airline sourcesaid.

The delivery of the new jetwill help IndiGo introduceflights on the medium-haulroutes.

Flights of up to six hoursduration come under medium-long haul category of opera-tions.

Queries sent to IndiGo didnot elicit a response.

The airline has alreadyannounced its plans to launchservices to Istanbul and has also

signed a code-share pact withTurkish Airlines for seamlessconnectivity to 20 global des-tinations for its passengersfrom Istanbul and onwards.

In turn, passengers of theTurkish national carrier willhave access to all destinationsoperated by IndiGo withinIndia.

This will be the first of theIndiGo’s150 A321neos on orderwith the European aviationmajor Airbus.

As per the Airbus orderbook (till November), it hasalready delivered 59 A320neosof the total 280 on order to theairline.

The airline, in two tranch-es, placed order for 430A320neos (180 in 2011 and 250in 2015) with Airbus. Later, itconverted 150 of these planesto A321neos.

IndiGo at present operatesover 1,300 daily flights to 52domestic and 15 internationaldestinations.

Besides Istanbul, the bud-get carrier also reportedly plansto launch services to Gatwick(London), Riyadh (SaudiArabia) and Yangon(Myanmar) as part of its inter-national network expansionplans.

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Lickouture, thenew and

e n t e r p r i s i n gname, with its tagl i n e‘UnapologeticallySexy’, organiseda fashion in NewDelhi.

M a l a i k aArora — Defyingtime and defin-i n gbeauty…walkedthe ramp atL i c k o u t u r e ’sinaugural fash-ionshow.

Addressingthe event, MayaGurjar and Meeta Choprasaid, “We always had a veryclear idea of the kind ofclothes that defined us, butfinding them in the marketwas almost impossible. Thereare so many well establishedbrands in India that provide abeautiful and sensual aesthet-ic for traditional clothes.However, in order to find adress or gown for a special

occasion we felt it was neces-sary to travel outside of thecountry. In order to find aneasier and faster way toaddress this, we started tomake our dresses ourselves.Very soon, we had friends andeven strangers asking wherethey could buy the outfitsthey saw us wearing — whichis how the business actuallystarted. We soon realised we

had tapped into a gap in theIndian market. Suddenly, wewere selling our dresses andthe demand kept increasing,and so we had to hire moreand more staff to keep up!Our only vision from thebeginning has been to dressfor a woman’s personality. Wewant women to be bold, besexy, be unapologeticallysexy!”

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Jivi Mobiles launchedtraditional handsets

— feature phones —Banana 6, N444, X03,N4332.

These basic phonesare equipped with allthe latest features like toname a few whatsapp,facebook, google inter-phase, good quality ofcamera and music play-ers too which give theusers a feel of modernsmart phone.

Jivi Mobiles, a homegrownfeature and smart phone brand,has brought old memories backfor the feature phone lovers.

Brand also runs moving the-atre Caravan in the rural and

semi urban areas of the coun-try and showcase movies dailyin the villages which do nothave availability of big screen.

Speaking about the newrange Harsh Vardhan,Marketing Head, Jivi Mobiles,said, “Jivi Mobiles enjoys agreat reputation in featurephone segment. In the era ofsmart-phones market, most of

us want or carry a secondaryphone for frequent calls and aswell as for privacy. But there ishardly any design leveladvancement which brands dowhich makes these phones lessattractive. To fill this gap Jivi isbringing back the iconicdesigns of feature phones in amodern way which are stylish& trendy, colorful, handy, easyto use and have the internetfriendly too. We hope that itwill bring back the old mem-ories and will attract new cus-tomers also. This will also helpus to strengthen our reach inthe market across the country”.

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The MSME Ministry hasproposed to establish a

governing council to ensureefficient delivery of all export-related interventions as part ofits action plan to boost ship-ments from micro, small andmedium enterprises.

The Ministry has recom-mended a detailed analysis ofvarious trade agreements,including FTAs and bilateraland multilateral trade agree-ments, to identify areas of con-cern for MSMEs in the strate-gic action plan titled‘Unlocking the Potential ofMSME Exports’.

It said a study will be con-ducted of special economiczones and export promotionzones in the country to reassesstheir role and objectives asthese are an essential con-stituent of Foreign Trade Policyand it is important to harnesstheir potential.

Moreover, a tech-enabledonline portal shall be developedfeaturing country-wise list ofglobal products and services in

demand andinformationon how toenter specificforeign mar-kets. It willalso havedetails onloans andcredit offeredby variousf i n a n c i a linstitutions.

A formalplatform may also be created bythe ministry to ensure that it isinvolved in all bilateral andmultilateral trade negotiationswhich have an impact on theenterprises.

The governing councilshall be chaired by Secretary,MSME and co-chaired byDevelopment Commissionerin MSME Ministry. It shallcomprise senior officials andmembers from MSMEMinistry, Commerce Ministry,MSME Export PromotionCouncils, Export DevelopmentAuthorities, CommodityBoards, etc., the MSMEMinistry said.

As part of the action plan,National Resource Centre forMSME Exporters will engagewith various internationalagencies including UN organ-isations to promote procure-ment from Indian MSMEs andfurther enhance their capabil-ities.

A guide or handbookshall also be developed tohelp the export community tounderstand the processesinvolved in export business,access the potential marketsetc. The guide shall consistsof practical informationwhich will be useful forexporters.

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In a hyper-connected India,Internet of Things (IoT)

has the potential to reach anestimated 2 billion connec-tions, unlocking revenues of$11.1 billion by 2022, accord-ing to a new report.

“Fast forward to India2022, 5 new mobile connec-tions per second are esti-mated to join the power ofinternet. Nearly 50 per cent ofthe households are likely tobe connected through fixedbroadband,” said the jointstudy by Assocham-EY.

Connectivity will movebeyond people to connectbillions of devices, vehicles,household appliances andmachines, the study said esti-mating that in a hyper-con-nected India, the Internet ofThings (IoT) has the poten-tial to reach 2 billion con-nections, and unlock rev-enues of $11.1 billion by2022.

The joint report high-lights that while India holdsa huge potential, this promis-ing market currently lagsbehind the US, China andSouth Korea in connectivityvia optical fibre.

Fiberisation of towers iscritical in India, it said,adding that only 25 per centof telecom towers in Indiacarry optical fibre whereasthe corresponding share inthe US, China and Korea isabout 65-80 per cent.

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Page 11: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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An hours-long gun and sui-cide attack on a Kabul gov-

ernment compound killed atleast 43 people, the health min-istry said on Tuesday, makingit one of the deadliest assaultson the Afghan capital this year.

No militant group hasclaimed responsibility for theraid, which caps a bloody yearfor Afghanistan as long-suf-fering civilians and securityforces are slaughtered in recordnumbers.

Another 10 people werewounded in Monday's mas-sacre on a site where theMinistry of Public Works andan office that handles pensionsand benefits for war veteransare located, spokesmanWaheed Majroh said.

Gunmen stormed the com-pound mid-afternoon afterdetonating a car bomb at theentrance, sending terrified gov-ernment workers running fortheir lives. Some jumped fromwindows several floors high toescape the militants.

Hundreds more weretrapped inside buildings forhours as heavily armed securi-ty forces swarmed the area,engaging the attackers in afierce gun battle punctuated bymultiple explosions.

At least four militants,including the suicide bomber,were killed and more than 350people freed, officials said.Most of the dead and wound-ed were civilians, who haveborne the brunt of the 17-yearwar.

It was the deadliest assaultin the Afghan capital since asuicide bomber blew himselfup in the middle of a religious

gathering last month, killing atleast 55 people.

President Ashraf Ghani,whose government has beenskewered over its security fail-ures, said "terrorists attackcivilian targets to hide theirdefeat on the battleground".

Afghanistan's de factoprime minister AbdullahAbdullah also sounded a defi-ant note as he blamed theTaliban for the attack.

"Every attack they carry outagainst our people, our resolveis further strengthened to elim-inate them," he said.

But their statements beliethe grim reality on the battle-field where the Taliban have theupper hand.

Afghanistan's largest mili-tant group has made significantterritorial gains this year as itsfighters inflict record casualtieson government forces.

The raid followed a tumul-tuous few days in Afghanistanwhere officials are reeling fromUS President Donald Trump'splan to slash troop numbers,which many fear could harmefforts to end the conflict with

the Taliban.It also comes after a major

security shake-up in Kabulthat has placed staunch anti-Taliban and Pakistan veteransin charge of the police and mil-itary. While there has been noofficial announcement of a USdrawdown, the mere sugges-tion of the United States reduc-ing its military presence hasrattled the Afghan capital andpotentially undermined peaceefforts.

General Scott Miller, thetop US and NATO commanderin Afghanistan, said Sunday hehad not received orders to pullforces out of the country.

Trump's decision appar-ently came Tuesday as USpeace envoy Zalmay Khalilzadmet with the Taliban in AbuDhabi, part of efforts to bringthe militants to the negotiatingtable with Kabul.

Many Afghans are worriedthat Ghani's fragile unity gov-ernment would collapse if UStroops pulled out, enabling theTaliban to sweep back intopower and potentially sparkinganother bloody civil war.

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Suicide attackers stormed theLibyan foreign ministry in

the capital Tripoli on Tuesday,killing at least three peopleincluding a senior civil servant,the authorities said.

Ten other people werewounded in what the foreignministry said was a suicideattack carried out by "terror-ists".

A car bomb exploded near the ministry, promptingsecurity forces to rush to thescene, said special forcesspokesman Tarak al-Dawass,accusing the Islamic Statejihadist group (IS) of respon-sibility.

A suicide bomber thenblew himself up on the secondfloor of the building while asecond attacker died when thesuitcase he was carryingexploded, he said.

A third assailant, who wasunarmed and wearing a bul-

letproof vest, was killed bysecurity forces outside, Dawassadded.

At least three people werekilled and 10 wounded, accord-ing to the health ministry.

A civil servant who head-ed a department in the foreignministry was among the dead,security sources said.

Plumes of smoke were seenrising from the building asambulances, paramedics andsecurity forces gathered out-side.

There was no immediateclaim of responsibility.

Torn apart by power strug-gles and undermined by chron-ic insecurity, Libya has becomea haven for jihadists since theouster and killing of MoamerKadhafi in 2011.

Two competing adminis-trations, rival militias, tribesand jihadists have been com-peting for control of territoryand the country's vast oilwealth.

IS took advantage of thechaos to gain a foothold in thecoastal city of Sirte in 2015.

Forces loyal to the UN-backed Government ofNational Accord (GNA)regained control of the city inDecember 2016 after eightmonths of deadly fighting.

Since then, some jihadistshave returned to the desert inan attempt to regroup andreorganise.

In September, IS claimedresponsibility for a suicideattack on the headquarters ofLibya's National Oil Company in the heart ofTripoli which left two dead and10 wounded.

Four months earlier, itclaimed an attack on the elec-toral commission's headquar-ters which left 14 dead.

In April, the GNAlaunched an operation to trackdown IS fighters operating inareas of western Libya under itscontrol.

Last month IS claimedresponsibility for an attack onmilitia forces in southeasternLibya in which at least ninepeople were killed.

The US military has regu-larly carried out strikes onjihadists in Libya, particularlysouth of Sirte.

The GNA was set up undera 2015 UN-brokered deal, buta rival administration based inthe country's east aligned withmilitary strongman KhalifaHaftar refuses to recognise itsauthority.

Rival Libyan leaders hadagreed to a Paris-brokered dealin May to hold a nationwideelection by the end of theyear.But instability, territorialdisputes and divisions havedelayed plans for elections.

Two days of meetings last month in Italy laid baredeep divisions between keyplayers in the crisis with somedelegates refusing to sit side byside.

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At least five persons, includ-ing a policeman, were

killed and 21 others injured onTuesday when a hijacked buscrashed into pedestrians aftera knife-wielding man attackedits driver in southeasternChina's Fujian Province.

The incident happened inLongyan, Fujian province,state-run Xinhua news agencyreported. It said the bus washijacked.

Five people were killedand 21 others injured after the

bus which had been hijackedcrashed into pedestrians on thestreet Tuesday afternoon,Xinhua reported, quoting localauthorities.

A suspect, who had a knife,has been detained and aninvestigation is underway. Theattacker was not identified bythe police.

Photographs shared onlineshowed people lying injured onthe ground, while video footageappeared to show the suspectbeing detained.

His motive for the attackhas yet to be established.

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APakistani lawyer who suc-cessfully fought a legal bat-

tle to acquit a Christian womanin a high-profile blasphemycase says he will return home torepresent her whenever thecountry's Supreme Court takesup a review petition against her.

Saiful Malook, who fled toNetherlands following threats tohim from radical Islamists afterthe October 21 acquittal of AsiaBibi, said Tuesday that no datehas been set by the court to hearthe petition.

The announcement byMalook came as the 54-year-oldmother of five celebratedChristmas amid security despitebeing freed.

Bibi had been on death rowsince 2010 on charges of insult-ing Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

The radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik political party held vio-lent nationwide protestsdemanding her public executionafter her release.

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Pope Francis used hisChristmas message Tuesday

to appeal for peace in conflictzones such as Syria and Yemen,whose populations face some ofthe world's worst humanitari-an crises.

"My wish for a happyChristmas is a wish for frater-nity. Fraternity among indi-viduals of every nation and cul-ture. Fraternity among peoplewith different ideas... Fraternityamong persons of differentreligions," he said in his tradi-tional "Urbi and Orbi" (To theCity and to the World) address

in Saint Peter's Square.The pontiff said he hoped

a truce in conflict-ravagedYemen would end a devastat-ing war which has killedaround 10,000 people since2015 and pushed 14 millionYemenis to the brink of famine.

"My thoughts turn toYemen, in the hope that thetruce brokered by the interna-tional community may finallybring relief to all those childrenand people exhausted by warand famine," he said.

The Pope also evoked thewar in Syria, from where USPresident Donald Trump hasdecided to pull out some 2,000

troops in a controversial deci-sion, arguing that the IslamicState has been defeated.

"May the internationalcommunity work decisively fora political solution... So that theSyrian people, especially allthose who were forced to leavetheir own lands and seek refugeelsewhere, can return to live inpeace in their own country," hesaid.

He also said he hoped forrenewed peace talks betweenthe Israelis and Palestinians"that can put an end to a con-flict that for over 70 years hasrent the land chosen by theLord to show his face of love."

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Bangladesh police havearrested more than 10,500

opposition activists in a crack-down ahead of elections thisweek, opposition parties said onTuesday.

The figures were releasedafter the United States urgedPrime Minister Sheikh Hasina'sgovernment to do more toensure free polls on Sundaywhen she is aiming to win arecord fourth term.

Opposition parties said thearrests since the election wascalled on November 8 wereintended to create a "climate offear".

The main oppositionBangladesh Nationalist Party(BNP), whose leader KhaledaZia is serving a 17-year jailterm, said 7,021 of its activistshad been detained.

Its Islamist ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, said more than 3,500 fol-lowers were in custody. Jamaat-e-Islami is banned from con-testing elections but has candi-

dates taking part as individualswith the BNP.

"Every day 80 to 90 of ouractivists have been arrestednationwide. These arrests havecreated a climate of fear," Jamaatsecretary general ShafiqurRahman told AFP.

Police spokesman SohelRana did not confirm any fig-ure for arrests, but said they didnot make "unnecessary arrests"without warrants.

"We never target any indi-vidual unless they break the law.These people have specific war-rants against them," he toldAFP.

Rizvi Ahmed, a BNPspokesman, said the chargeslaid against party activists were"fictitious" and "ghost" cases"aiming for "a lopsided election"in favour of Hasina.

Hasina and Zia have beenpolitical foes since the intro-duction of democracy in1991.They have traditionallyalternated in power but Hasina'scurrent rule has lasted since2009 and Zia's jail term this year

prevented her from taking partin the election. The BNP and itsallies have also accused policeand ruling Awami League partyactivists of attacking theiractivists and candidates.

The BNP had hoped thedeployment of 30,000 troops onMonday would improve secu-rity across the Muslim-major-ity majority country of 165million.

"The Awami Leagueactivists along with the lawenforcing agencies attacked ourcandidates at 28 constituencies(in the last 24 hours).

Nineteen of our candidatesand over 100 activists wereinjured in the attack," Ahmedtold a press briefing.

He said that since the elec-tion campaign started at least152 BNP candidates wereattacked and hundreds of activists were injured inclashes. Police spokesman Ranadenied police had attacked anyopposition activists, acknowl-edging only that "isolated inci-dents" were possible.

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Pakistan's ousted prime min-ister Nawaz Sharif was shift-

ed to the Kot Lakhpat jail inLahore amid tight security onTuesday, a day after an anti-cor-ruption court sentenced him toseven years in prison in a graftcase linked to the high-profilePanama Papers scandal.

Sharif, 69, was sentenced toseven years of rigorous impris-onment in the Al-Azizia SteelMills graft case but was acquit-ted in the Flagship Investmentscase by the AccountabilityCourt in Islamabad onMonday.

The three-time formerprime minister, who was takeninto custody by police follow-ing the court judgement, wastaken to Adiala Jail inRawalpindi on Monday.

Upon reaching Adiala jail,jail doctors carried out a med-ical examination of the PML-N leader and found him phys-ically fit.

On Tuesday morning,Sharif was taken to Nur KhanAir Base amid tight security.Sharif was then flown toLahore, where he was shifted to

the Kot Lakhpat jail. Tightsecurity had been put in placearound the jail and Rangerswere deployed at the policecheckposts established on theroute to the prison.

Shortly after his convictionin the National AccountabilityCourt's Al-Azizia corruptioncase Monday, Sharif 's counselrequested court to shift him toLahore jail instead of Adialasince the veteran leader is aheart patient and his personalphysicians and family membersare stationed in Lahore. Therequest was granted.

The Punjab province gov-ernment approved the provi-sion of "better class" jail facili-ties for Sharif. The better classprisoners are provided with amattress, a study table andchair in addition to a TV setand newspaper.

A large number of thePakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supporters gatheredoutside the jail to have aglimpse of their Quaid(supreme) leader. However,due to high security they werenot allowed to come close tothe prison. Police also batoncharged the PML-N workers

for trying to reach the jail.According to the jail

administration, Sharif is pro-vided with "better class" facil-ities.

Sharif has been shifted tothe barrack where former pres-ident Asif Ali Zardari was alsokept in corruption cases in1990s.

Upon reaching KotLakhpat jail, doctors carriedout a medical examination ofSharif and found him physi-cally fit.

Tuesday also marks Sharif 's69th birthday. The PML-N'sprovincial secretariats haveplanned celebrations, alongwith Christmas celebrations.

The party members alsocut a cake in front of the KotLakhpat jail.

Commenting on the ver-dict on Monday, Sharif said hisconscience was clear as he wasnever involved in any kind ofcorruption.

"I was never involved inmisuse of authority and cor-ruption so my conscience is atpeace," he said.

Sharif 's lawyers said theaccountability court's verdictwill be challenged in the

Islamabad High Court.The accountability court

verdict on Monday concludeda series of three court cases -Avenfield properties case,Flagship investment case andAl-Azizia steel mills case -launched against the Shariffamily by the NationalAccountability Bureau (NAB)on September 8, 2017 follow-ing a judgment by the SupremeCourt that disqualified Sharif inthe Panama Papers case inJuly last year.

Sharif, his daughterMaryam and his son-in-lawCaptain (retd) M Safdar weresentenced to 11 years, eightyears and one year respective-ly in prison in the Avenfieldproperties case related to theirpurchase of four luxury flats inLondon through corrupt prac-tices. However, the three werebailed out by the IslamabadHigh Court in September.

The apex court set thedeadline for December 24 towrap up the remaining twocorruption cases against theSharif family.

On Monday, the courtdelivered the judgement intwo remaining cases.

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Russia's UN Ambassador saysrelations between Moscow

and Washington are "practical-ly non-existent," which he saysis bad not only for both coun-tries but for the world — and hesees little prospect for improve-ment anytime soon.

Vassily Nebenzia said in arecent wide-ranging interviewwith a small group of journal-ists that the Trump adminis-tration should offer some incen-tives to North Korea to moveforward toward denucleariza-tion, saying the situation "isstalemated at the moment."

Russia and China havebacked an easing of sanctions tospur momentum, but the U.S.Insists that North Korea mustfirst make major steps towardeliminating its nuclear pro-gram. "I'm concerned that itdoesn't roll back" to the 2017 eraof increasing nuclear and mis-sile tests and escalating rhetoric,Nebenzia said.

"I think that the US Hopefully is starting tounderstand that the situation

may go (back)." As for Iran, Nebenzia said

he worries about U.S. Strategyif its sanctions don't bring aboutthe changes in behaviour theTrump administration wants.He sees "a danger if they go tothe limits."

"I'm worried if anybodywants to go to war with Iran,and that is the enigma and thequestion — what is the strate-gy about Iran?" Nebenzia asked.

He said the U.S. And Russianeed to talk about global issuesincluding strategic stability, ter-rorism, narcotics and regionalconflicts, and he thinksPresident Donald Trump"understands pretty well that it'sbetter to cooperate."

But he said because Russiahas become a major issue in U.S.Domestic policies — accused ofhacking and interfering in the2016 U.S. Elections which isbeing investigated by specialcounsel Robert Mueller — "andgiven the vulnerabilities thatdrift around this administration,I don't see too bright prospectsfor improving (relations) anytime soon."

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Turkey said Tuesday it isworking with the United

States to coordinate the with-drawal of American forces butremains "determined" to clearUS-allied Kurdish fighters fromnortheastern Syria.

Foreign Minister MevlutCavusoglu told reporters that "ifTurkey says it will enter, itwill," in comments carried byprivate DHA news agency.

For weeks, Turkey has beenthreatening to launch a newoffensive against the Kurdishfighters, who partnered with theUS to drive the Islamic Stategroup out of much of northernand eastern Syria.

Ankara views the Kurdishforces as terrorists because oftheir links to an insurgentgroup inside Turkey.

President Donald Trumpannounced the planned with-drawal of US forces after aphone call with TurkishPresident Recep TayyipErdogan earlier this month.

The minister also saidAnkara and Washington haveagreed to complete a roadmapon the northern Syrian town of

Manbij until the US withdraws.Under the June deal, Kurdishforces would leave Manbij, inthe western Euphrates valley,but delays have infuriatedTurkey.

"It is crucial that the USdoesn't appear as not havingkept its promises," Cavusoglusaid.

He argued that Turkey hasthe "strength to neutralize" ISon its own and criticised France,which has promised to stay inSyria despite the US decision.

Cavusoglu warned it wouldnot benefit France if it was stay-ing in Syria to protect the YPG,the main Kurdish militia inSyria.

Erdogan, speaking toreporters in Ankara, saidTurkey was taking into accountTrump's announcement onSyria rather than FrenchPresident Emmanuel Macron'sdecision.

The future of the interna-tional coalition against IS,which includes Turkey, the USand France, remains unclear.

The Turkish president alsoannounced that a delegationwas heading to Moscow andthat he would meet with

Russian President VladimirPutin. Turkey has been negoti-ating on behalf of the Syrianopposition with Russia andIran, which support the Syriangovernment, as part of effortsto end the nearly 8-year civilwar.

A top Russian official saysthat Moscow expects that a hot-line between Russia and the USmilitary will be kept in placedespite the impending USwithdrawal from Syria.

Trump announced lastweek that the US will withdrawall of its 2,000 forces in Syria, amove that will leave control ofthe oil-rich eastern third ofSyria up for grabs.

Russia launched its militaryoperation in Syria in 2015 toback its longtime ally PresidentBashar Assad.

Russian Deputy ForeignMinister Sergei Ryakov saidTuesday in an interview withthe RIA Novosti news agencythat it would be a "big mistake"to dismantle a hotline thatRussia and the US use to pre-vent potential clashes in Syriapending the US withdrawaland said he sees no indicationsthe Americans would do that.

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Britain is forbidding puppiesand kittens from being sold

by pet shops in a bid to crackdown on animal exploitationand abuse.

The government said itwill roll out the legislation next year after hold-ing public consultations thatshowed 95-percent support forthe ban.

"This will mean that any-one looking to buy or adopt apuppy or kitten under sixmonths must either deal direct-ly with the breeder or with ananimal re-homing centre," theDepartment of EnvironmentFood and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Sunday as partof its Christmas animal welfarepush.

The measure is common-ly called Lucy's Law in honourof a Cavalier King CharlesSpaniel who was rescued froma puppy farm in Wales in 2013.

She had spent most of herlife in a cage and was no longerable to breed because her hipshad fused together from lack ofmovement.

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The lights were not twinkling.The toy trains were not

whirring. Even the nearby bath-rooms were locked.

The national Christmastree, symbol of a country's sea-sonal cheer, instead stood as anicon of a government in paral-ysis, as the partial shutdownstretched into the holiday withan array of federal servicesfrozen, some 800,000 publicservants either idled or about tobe and the disruption to thebroader public bound to growwhen the quiet spell ends laterthis week.

Already facilities at manynational parks were shuttered, ifthe parks were accessible at all,and thousands of federal build-ings were to remain closedwhen the work week resumedunless President Donald Trumpand members of Congressquickly break through a budgetimpasse that the White Housesaid could drag on into 2019.

Under cloudy skies in abrisk wind on the third day ofthe shutdown, the capital put onlittle holiday wonder for visitorslike Greg Forcherio of

Columbia, Maryland, a gov-ernment contractor with nooffice to work in after the holi-days as long as federal buildingsstayed closed.

He, his wife and their tod-dler on Monday came to see thegiant, glittering spruce treebrought from Colorado to serveas the national Christmas tree,normally a focal point forWashington holiday visitors.

But a locked chain-linkfence blocked access to the siteand the nearby White Housevisitor's center and its bath-rooms were closed, with a hand-scrawled sign directing visitorsto portable toilets, which alsowere chained shut. "Kind ofannoying when you've gotyoung children," Forcherio said.

Access to the site wasrestored later Monday and final-ly, as night fell on ChristmasEve, the lights returned.

The government hadannounced a day earlier that itwould be sealed off because ofthe shutdown and becauserepairs had slowed after anepisode of vandalism on the treebefore the weekend. It reopenedwith money from the NationalPark Foundation, a charity.

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C M Y K

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Page 12: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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Adesperate India will punt on therookie opening pair of MayankAgarwal and Hanuma Vihari in

their bid to regain momentum againsta rejuvenated Australia when the'Boxing Day' Test starts on Wednesday.

After being deflated by 146 runs inthe second Test at Perth, India after aweek's break will be putting their bestfoot forward, an indicator of which isthe decision to finally drop their out-of-form openers KL Rahul and MuraliVijay.

While there was temptation to playall-rounder Hardik Pandya, a fit-againRohit Sharma will give the cushion ofan extra batsman.

Indian team management in adeparture from its conventionannounced their playing XI, a day priorto the match ending speculations aboutthe possible team combination.

Time had already run-out forRahul, who had scored only 48 runs infour innings this series, including ahighest of 44 in the second innings atAdelaide.

In this year's overseas cycle alone,his average had dropped down to20.94 in nine Tests with only one fifty-plus score.

Vijay had done no better previouslyscored 49 runs in four innings thisseries, including a highest of 20 in thesecond innings at Perth. Overall in2019, he only averages 18.80 in eightTests, with one hundred againstAfghanistan.

Otherwise his highest score thisyear is 46 in the first innings againstSouth Africa at Centurion. In this year'soverseas cycle, his average drops downto 12.64 in seven Tests.

The sheer numbers indicated thatthe two couldn't be persisted with asthey had become "walking wickets" forthe Australian new ball bowlers.

Chairman of selectors MSK Prasad,who is present in Melbourne indicat-ed that Vihari is being looked as a stop-gap solution (with Prithvi Shawinjured).

Agarwal though has earned hisplace by sheer weight of runs in domes-tic cricket as well as for India A andcouldn't be ignored any further by

either selectors or the team manage-ment.

While Vihari bats at number threefor Andhra, he has previously openedfor Hyderabad earlier in his first-classcareer.

It suffices to say that he hasimpressed the team management suf-ficiently in his two Test outings thus farto be handed this responsibility againstMitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and JoshHazlewood.

Even so, this new strategy from thethink tank again puts the spotlight onRohit Sharma, who will be eager tomake an impression after yet anotherbatting order shuffle to accommodatehim.

In the past, India have droppedCheteshwar Pujara (Sydney, 2014),moved Ajinkya Rahane to numberthree (Colombo, 2015), and even skip-per Virat Kohli has batted at numberthree (St Lucia, 2016) to make way forSharma in the line-up.

The batsman continues to under-whelm with his indifferent Test form,albeit he did score an attacking 37 runsat Adelaide out of India's first inningstotal of 250.

India's third change is pertainingto their bowling attack.

After getting the balance awfullywrong in Perth, they have included aspinner along with Ishant Sharma,Mohammed Shami and JaspritBumrah.

Left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadejahas recovered sufficiently from hisshoulder stiffness and takes UmeshYadav's spot in the playing eleven.

This was after off-spinner RAshwin was ruled out of this third Test,as he still needs more time to recoverfrom his left abdominal strain.

Australia too have made onechange to their playing eleven.

Peter Handscomb, who is short ofruns, makes way for all-rounderMitchell Marsh, albeit the latter isn't inthe best form himself.

The hosts have made this changekeeping in mind the placid nature of theMCG pitch, which was rated poor bythe ICC after a drab draw played outagainst England here in December2017.

The pitch for this 'Boxing Day' Testsported some grass on the top surface,and both teams talked about the pos-sibility of some moisture in the wick-et as well.

However, Australian coach JustinLanger and opener Marcus Harrishave previously warned about thegrass being not too productive hereunlike in Adelaide and Perth, and withthe sun beating down, the wicketcould yet turn out to be a flat surfacethus explaining their one change to bol-ster the bowling unit.

����India (XI): Virat Kohli, MayankAgarwal, Hanuma Vihari, Pujara,Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma,Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, IshantSharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Shami.Australia (XI): Tim Paine, MarcusHarris, Aaron Finch, UsmanKhawaja, Travis Head, Shaun Marsh,Mitchell Marsh, Nathan Lyon, Starc,Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood.

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Their patchy performance has stuck outlike a sore thumb during the first two

Tests and skipper Virat urged his batsmento complement the superb effort of his bowl-ing unit in the upcoming Boxing Day Test.

While Kohli gave a batting masterclasson a challenging track in Perth, CheteshwarPujara had played a decisive role in team'swin in Adelaide but other batsmen have notcontributed much unlike bowlers, who havepicked 40 wickets in four innings.

"It is very important for batsmen tostand up, because as everyone can see, ourbowling has been performing really well.Otherwise, the bowlers won't be able to doanything with the totals that we have beencompiling," skipper Kohli said on the eve ofthe third Test.

"If we are batting second, we will try totake the lead or get as close to the opposi-tion total as possible. If you equal a big score,then it becomes a second-innings' match andif you take a good first-innings lead, thenyou can capitalize on that.

"The batsmen must step up collective-ly. I won't say individually whether some-one needs to do that or not, but as a batting

unit, we have to definitely put up a betterperformance," Kohli sent out a loud andclear message for his batting unit.

The Indian captain made it clear thatneither his team's Adelaide victory nor thePerth defeat will have any bearing whenMelbourne Test starts.

"As a team, I don't think whether youare 2-0 up or 2-0 down or 1-1, what's hap-

pened in the past has no significance at allto what's going to happen in the next twoTests or what's going to happen in the nextTest which is quite immediate."The key isto stay in the moment, stay in the present,understand and remember why you won thefirst Test, which was because of us being inthe present moment," the skipper reiterat-ed what he has often stressed.

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Chairman of selectorsMSK Prasad on

Tuesday made it clear thathis committee pickedRavindra Jadeja for the Testseries based on the fitnessreport where he wasdeclared absolutely fit.

Jadeja, who had ashoulder stiffness couldn'tfeature in the second Test inPerth and coach RaviShastri told the mediaper-sons that the player was car-rying the niggle from India.

Prasad however wantedto set the record straight onthe eve of the Boxing DayTest, which will feature theSaurashtra all-rounder.

"On the eve of anyselection meeting, the selec-tion committee is given afitness report of all theplayers. In that report,Jadeja was absolutely fit. Sowe picked him. After wepicked him, he went andplayed Ranji Trophy also,where he bowled 60 overs.So there is no question ofhim being unfit at the timeof selection (for Australia),"Prasad said.

"Whenever a healthissue comes up, we have agroup in which it is beingplaced. All that is lookedafter by the physio andthey have very clearly givenit in the statement," he said.

On a different note,Prasad said that Mahendra

Singh Dhoni's return inthe T20 squad for NewZealand tour was onexpected lines as he wasonly rested for the six T20Internationals against WestIndies and Australia.

"With regard to MS,even while resting also, wecategorically told that hewas going to be rested forthose six matches so that wecan give more game-time toDinesh Karthik andRishabh Pant. That is thevery reason. Now they haveplayed quite a few matches,so we thought that weshould bring back MS intothe squad," Prasad rea-soned, even though it isclear that Dhoni won't bepart of 2020 World T20 inAustralia.

Prasad said the decisionto drop Rishabh Pant fromthe ODIs against Australiaand New Zealand was tokeep him fresh for biggerbattles ahead. He assuredthat the young keeper is stillin scheme of things for the2019 World Cup.

"With regards toRishabh, given the intensi-ty of this series that we areplaying right now, so afterthis series, we want to keephim fresh. Give him a breakand he will have a verygood game-time of fivematches against the visitingEngland Lions. Definitely apart of our World Cupplans (sic)," Prasad said.

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Hanuma Vihari's role as an openeris a stop-gap one and he will be

given enough opportunities in his pre-ferred middle-order spot should he failat the top, assured chairman of selec-tors MSK Prasad.

When asked if the new role is unfairon Vihari, who has only played twoTests so far, and doesn't regularly openin domestic first-class cricket, Prasadsaid:"He would be given a fair chancein the middle order should he fail tomake an impression as an opener in thenext two Tests."

Having watched Vihari closelywhen he played domestic cricket forAndhra, Prasad feels that he has thegame to face the new kookaburra.

"It's fine. Technically, we feel thatVihari is well-equipped. There weretimes where Cheteshwar Pujara alsoopened when the team required. Theteam demands it and definitely I hopehe will come out successful. Definitelyit is not a long-term solution, I can tellyou that," Prasad assured.

Vihari opening the innings at theMCG is a sort of deja vu for Prasad, who

was given the same role during the dis-astrous 1999 series where he found BrettLee's pace too hot to handle.

Prasad feels that Vihari unlike himshould see this chance as an opportu-nity.

"I always feel that it (openingagainst Aus in 1999) was an opportu-nity given to me which I didn't reallylived up to. We think Vihari is well-equipped to do so (than Rohit Sharma).We are convinced with his techniqueand definitely he is a long-term prospectfor Indian Test cricket."

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Buoyed by team's compre-hensive victory in the second

Test, a cautious Australian skip-per Tim Paine believes that hisinexperienced side has thepotential to get ahead of Indiabut is still a work in progress.

"I don't feel like we are ontop of them. We feel like we aregetting better with every Test,"Paine said on the eve of theBoxing Day Test.

"We are improving withevery game but we need to keepstacking up good days and playgood Test cricket. If we can dothat for the next 4-5 days I thinkwe will be in the thick of it again,"Paine said.

"Certainly when you have aninexperienced team and you get a bigwin like in Perth against the numberone team in the world, guys are goingto grow in confidence a little bit andcome to Melbourne feeling better thanwhen we did to Perth," the skipper

said.India have made three changes

for the Boxing Day Test but Paine isnot bothered about changes in oppo-sition rank.

"India's changes don't really both-er us because we have done our home-work on all of their players for a num-ber of weeks now. We have been pre-

pared for all of them to play.What they do is their business,and we will keep focussing onwhat we are doing," Paine said.

As is the norm, Australianamed their playing elevenwith Mitchell Marsh coming inthe side replacing PeterHandscomb.

Paine said that the changeis to do with bowling and itwould help out their four-bowler attack, before addingthat Handscomb could be backfor the Sydney Test.

"We did it last year duringthe Ashes as well and majori-ty of this decision is based onthe fact that it will be hot and

the bowlers have had a big role play.We think Mitch can come in and doa good job with the bat and will be agreat support for our bowlers as well.

"Peter knows that there are thingswe would like him to improve. Goinginto Sydney, where it spins, I think hewill come back into it quickly becausehe is our best player of spin.”

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Tamil Thaliavas andHaryana Steelers played

out an exciting 40-40 tie inVivo Pro Kabaddi League sea-son 6.

Haryana Steelers avoideddefeat as they scored two pointsin the last minute. Monu Goyattop scored for Haryana with 17points and put in a stellar per-formance.

Ajay Thakur was in fineform for Tamil Thalaivas andhe too scored 17 points.Haryana ended their leaguecampaign on a positive note asdid Tamil Thalaivas. Bothteams finished bottom of thetable in their respective zones.

Tamil Thalaivasbegan strongly and led3-0 after three min-utes with Ajay Thakurpicking up a raidpoint. HaryanaSteelers came back to trail 3-4after five minutes. It was a closeaffair in the first 10 minutes.

Monu Goyat picked up atwo-point raid in the 7th

minute to level the match at 6-6.

Haryana Steelers forced asuper tackle in the 13thminute as they tied the matchat 11-11. Anand was the star

raider for Thalaivas in thefirst half.

He picked up threeraid points in twominutes as they led16-14 at the end of

the first half.Tamil Thalaivas inflicted

an all out at the start of the sec-ond half to lead 19-16.Haryana Steelers weren't

deterred by the all out and keptpicking up points.

In the 26th minuteHaryana inflicted an all out tolead 27- 23. Ajay Thakur madea super raid in the next minuteto bring Thalaivas back in thematch. In the 29th minute,Thalaivas inflicted an all out tolead 32-28.

It was a closely foughtencounter with both teamslevel on 36-36 after 36 min-utes. Ajay Thakur picked uptwo raid points in two minutesto give Thaliavas 39-37 leadafter 38 minutes.

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��+���#�������+@����Digital Vidya has

launched a new programmein digital marketing— SEOExecutive TrainingProgramme.

The course is targetted atmaking fresh graduates builda rewarding career in the fieldof digital marketing. Theorganisation has tied up withmajor agencies in India whoare willing to hire the success-ful pass-outs of this course.

Selection process: Thecandidate needs to apply forthe course and upon accep-tance, he has to clear an hour-long communications andanalytical abilities exam to beable to enroll. The greatestbenefit of this comprehensiveSEO Training Programme,which is a 12-week course, isthat every successful candi-date is guaranteed a job.

For more details, log on towww.digitalvidya.com.

��/�#������#��������The Indian School of

Development Management(ISDM), New Delhi, invitesapplication for admission toits one-year full-time PostGraduate Programme inDevelopment Leadership(PGP-DL).

It’s curriculum developan in-depth understanding ofthe development sector and itsmanagement practices, allrooted in value-based trans-formational leadership. Theprogramme is co-developedby large social purpose organ-isations and is designed anddriven by practitioners andeminent leaders from the sec-tor.

The sector has careeropportunities for a variedrange of professionals as jobprofiles include strategy build-ing, communications andengagement, fund raising,being part of the CEOs office(strategy, data-based decisionmaking, planning), managingM&E, programme leadership,CSR, partnerships andalliances, social entrepreneur-ship, operational leadershipand many others.

Scholarship: The insti-tute is offering a scholarshipof �1,00,000 for all applicantswho would apply beforeDecember 23, 2018 and is alsooffering up to 100 per centscholarship on a need basiswith up to 50 per cent dis-count on the living expenses.

"�The Ambedkar University

Delhi (AUD) invites applica-tion for admission to Masterof Business Administration(MBA) for the academic ses-sion 2019-20 offered by theSchool of Business, PublicPolicy and SocialEntrepreneurship.

The fees for the two-yearMBA programme payable is�2,84,760 for Indian studentsand �5,06,520 for foreign stu-dents.

Around 85 per cent of theseats are reserved for candi-dates belonging to the NCTDelhi and the remaining 15per cent of seats are for can-didates from all over India.

Deadline: The last datefor application is February 11,

2019. The entrance exam willbe held on February 24, 2019.To apply, log on towww.aud.ac.in.��������#��+��+�

The Indira GandhiNational Open University(IGNOU) has launched cer-tificate programme in SpanishLanguage and Culture. Theadmission to this new courseis open.

This certificate course ismeant for learners who areinterested in learning Spanishlanguage and who desire toreceive cultural informationabout the Spanish-speakingcountries. Learners will getthe opportunity to acquirelanguage skills as well associo-cultural competencethat will enable them to com-municate effectively with theSpanish-speaking world inthe activities related to dailylife.

The Certificate in SpanishLanguage and Culture is atightly structured multimediaintegrated bilingual pro-gramme (Spanish andEnglish). The contact ses-sions are a very importantaspect of this programmewhich will be conducted atdesignated Study Centers ofIGNOU on weekends.

Eligibility: Aspiring stu-dents should have passedClass XII or equivalent andshould possess some knowl-edge of English.

Deadline: The last date toapply is January 15, 2019.

"��'��Amrita Vishwa

Vidyapeetham’s School ofEngineering has announcedadmissions open to its variousBTech degree courses offeredat its all five campuses —Amritapuri (Kollam),Bengaluru, Amaravati(Andhra Pradesh),Coimbatore and Chennai.

Students can apply foronline entrance examinationto be held from April 22 to 26,2019. Simultaneously, writ-ten examinations will be heldat 27 centres across TamilNadu. However, only studentsof Tamil Nadu will be eligibleto take the written examina-tion. Specific dates, centresand time for counselling, to beheld in May 2019, will be inti-mated to successful studentsby email.

Eligibility: Candidatesshould be born on or after July1, 1998. Aspirants should havepassed Class XII or its equiv-alent examination, securingan aggregate of 60 per centmarks in Mathematics,Physics and Chemistry withnot less than 55 per cent ineach of these three subjects.

Seat allocation will bedone separately for candi-dates of AEEE 2019 and JEEMains 2019. To apply online,students can log on towww.amrita.edu/admissions/btech-2019

Astatement made 2,500 yearsago stands relevant even today.More so, for the start-up eco-

system that goes hand in hand withdynamism, agility, andinnovation.With every year thatpasses, it witnesses the influx of cut-ting-edge technologies and inge-nious approaches that solve long-standing market challenges. And inthe due process,change the marketentirely.

However, it is important to notethat this change is primarily drivenby the building blocks of the startupecosystem, for example: The indus-try professionals.If you are one ofthem, or are planning to become one,here are some of the hiring trends of2018 that you surely must know:

�Blockchain eco-systemBlockchain technology has

proven itself to be a game-changerfor an array of industr yapplications.Just before 2018, Indiarevealed its own plan to develop ablockchain network calledIndiaChain which will be inter-linked with IndiaStack and help in

reducing frauds, speed up contractenforcement, increase transparency,and boost economy. A report sug-gests that India can add $5 billion toits economy within five years just byimplementing blockchain. So,blockchain was one of the primefocus areas amongst startupsthroughout 2018 and will continueto remain the same for the comingfew years.

�Artificial IntelligenceAnother area of focus during this

year has been Artificial Intelligence(AI). Startups are typically known tohave a very lean team which has tomanage across-the-board opera-tions. AI is now enabling them tostreamline these operations throughprocess automation while alsoextending deeper insights withintheir area of deployment.

The technology, at the sametime, also eliminates human errors,omissions, and negligence. Giventhese advantages, the adoption oftechnology, and so, the recruitmentof related talents, was quite high dur-ing 2018.

�Open bankingThe ongoing digitisation drive in

India is truly transforming the reg-ular Indian lifestyle. Now, peoplefrom all walks of life are lookingtowards digital services to meettheir everyday needs including bank-ing. The Indian regulatory has alsobeen very supportive of the change

and is readily promoting its openbanking infrastructure.

With it, banks are also joiningforces with fintech startups to lever-age their trailblazing, tech-drivenapproaches in a range of applications.This was the main reason why thedemand for talent within the fintechdomain was specifically high.

�CybersecurityDigital technologies, though

adding tangible value to the broad-er ecosystem, also come with theirown downsides. Cyber attacks havebeen mounting on India for quitesome time now — which grew from49,000 in 2015 to 50,000 in 2016 and53,000 in 2017 (according to CERT-

In) — and were expected to reach58,300 in 2018. Start-ups, as they aremostly based on digital technologies,have adopted a prudential approachand started recruiting cyber securi-ty talent apart from leveraging MSPs(Managed Service Providers). Cybersecurity challenges are also beingaddressed right from the ground upwith startups adopting DevSecOpsinstead of the typical DevOps.

�Information TechnologyAt present, India is facing acute

skill shortage with more than 140,000jobs being vacant within the ITindustry.This is despite fresh gradu-ates constantly entering the job mar-ket every year. The situation isexpected to further worsen in thefuture as more than 1.4 million newIT jobs will be created by 2027(Cisco and IDC report).

Forward-looking start-ups arenow trying to tackle the situation bycollaborating with different educa-tional institutions. They are helpingshape the curriculum of variousinstitutions as per market-facingapplications and future needs. It isalso enabling them to recruit candi-dates who can deliver and solvemarket challenges.

These have been some of themost prominent trends that were wit-nessed during 2018. It will be inter-esting to see how the grand schemeof things change in the year about tocome. But now, it time to prepare forits arrival and revel in festivities!

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Astudy on the Indian AI industry by GreatLearning indicates that there are over 4000

positions related to Artificial Intelligence(AI) in India that remain vacant due toshortage of qualified talent at the mid andsenior levels. This is despite the industry grow-ing by close to 30 per cent in the last one yearto $230 million in size.

These opportunities do not include theslew of new jobs that are advertised everymonth but refers to opportunities that havebeen vacant for a period of 12 months. The keyreason behind this is the massive shortage ofAI talent at the middle and top level. Out ofcurrent working professionals in India, almost55 per cent have less than five years of totalwork experience. Only 23 per cent of thisworkforce has over 10 years of total work expe-rience.

Contrary to this, as per the report, around57 per cent of organisations that are hiring forAI in India are looking for candidates withmore than five years of experience. This sup-ply-demand gap indicates huge opportunity formid and senior level professionals acrossindustries like IT, finance, healthcare and e-commerce, who are looking to transition into

AI, over the next few years.Another big challenge being faced by com-

panies when recruiting in India is the lack oftalent that is experienced in the AI domain.As per the report, the average AI experienceof Indian professionals stands at a mere threeyears, with almost 67 per cent AI profession-als in India having joined/ transitioned to theircurrent role, only in the last two years.

When it comes to remuneration, themedian salary of AI professionals in India is�14.3 lakhs across all experience level and skillsets. Around 40 per cent of AI professionalshave an entry-level salary of �6 lakh onwards.Around 4 per cent of AI professionals in Indiacommand a salary higher than �50 lakhs,reflecting the massive demand for mid andsenior level AI talent in the country. The studyalso points out that the salary trends across var-ious industries like finance, e-commerce andhealthcare are also improving steadily.

A city-wise remuneration comparisonreveals that Mumbai is the highest paymasterin AI at almost �15.6 lakhs per annum, fol-lowed by Bengaluru at �14.5 lakhs. Chennai

on the other hand, is the lowest paymaster at�10.4 lakhs.

�����������/��%On the demand side, the 10 leading

organisations with the most number of AIopenings this year are — IBM, Accenture,Amazon, Fractal Analytics, Societe Generale,SAP Labs, 24/ 7 Customer, Atos, Nvidia andTech Mahindra. The top skill sets that AIemployers are looking for are MachineLearning, Natural Language Processing, NeuralNetworks, Analytics, Cloud Computing andPattern Recognition.

More than 1,000 companies claim towork on AI in some form. This includes a smallnumber of companies into products (Chatbots,AI-powered visual search and recommenda-tion engine) and a larger chunk offering eitheroffshore, recruitment or training services.There is a 30 per cent year-over-year increasein the number of companies setting up dedi-cated AI teams in India. That said, India stillhas a long way to go with us contributing only10 per cent to the global AI job openings.

A breakup of AI talent across companiesreveals an even spread across enterprises, mid-sized companies and start-ups. Almost 37 percent of AI professionals in India are employedwith large-sized companies (total employeebase of 10,000 plus). Mid-size organisations(total employee base in the range of 200-10,000) employ 29 per cent of all AI profes-sionals, while start-ups (with less than 200employees) employ 34 per cent of AI profes-sionals in India.

Bengaluru is the front runner when itcomes to AI action in India, housing almost31 per cent of AI firms. It is followed by NCRthat houses around 25 per cent of AI firms.Mumbai comes third housing 14 per cent ofAI players. In terms of workforce, 33 per centof AI professionals in India are working inBengaluru, followed by 30 per cent inDelhi/NCR.

Hari Krishnan Nair, co-founder, GreatLearning said: “AI is in nascentsector. Theindustry is facing a skill gap. The field offersgreat potential for working professionals whoare looking to transition into newer technolo-gies. AI will make a huge dent across sectorslike IT, healthcare, fin-tech and e-commerce.This is the right time to enter the field and beat the forefront of these changes.”

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The Class X students of Shiv Nadar School, a not-for-profit initiative of the Shiv Nadar Foundation

in K12 education, showcased their innovative tech-nology projects at recently held Colloquium 2018.

The winner for this year’s competition was TeamSilverlane from Shiv Nadar School Noida that com-prised students — Romsha Singh, Arvind Raja,Archisha Arun, Shoumya Barua, Rishit Dhyani andAaryaman Singha.

The team developed first of its kind walker-cum-stepper for senior citizens to enable them toclimb and descent stairs unassisted. The annual con-ference provides a platform to students, who work

on a year-long tech project to solve a real-worldproblem.

The competition follows a two-tier selectionprocess, where student projects are first scrutinisedby a sub-jury, followed by a presentation and inter-action with an external jury who judge the effica-cy and viability of the projects. While a total of 15projects from both Shiv Nadar School, Noida andGurugram were presented to the sub-jury, onlyseven made it to the final jury round. The exter-nal jury comprised Deep Kalra, founder, chairman

and CEO, MakeMyTrip; Rajiv Makhni, India’s TechGuru and Managing Editor of Technology, NDTVand Vineet Nayar, founder, chairman and CEO,Sampark Foundation.

Apart from the winning project, the other inno-vations showcased at this year’s Colloquium includ-ed:�Eatabowl: Provided an alternative to plastic dis-posables in the food industry. The students madeedible sporks and bio-degradable cups. The sporkis a hybrid between a spoon and a fork. The sporks

are made by baking a mixture of flour and water.The cup has a seed and fertiliser embedded at thebottom.�Posture Perfect: A devise that helps in early detec-tion of incorrect sitting posture in modern work-spaces. They have built an intelligent system thatuses a camera to calculate and collect the user’s pos-ture data while they work on their machines todetermine and suggest postural improvements.�MoodBox: Reduce the stress levels of teachersunder 180 seconds by making them play a game inthe staff room using brainwaves. The team designeda game that requires users to consciously generatemore Delta Waves as part of its game play to uncon-sciously relax themselves.

�Enkindle: A block-chain based eco-systemdesigned to ensure timely and righteous paymentssupply chain management in the agricultural sec-tor.�ZILEO: Creation of a device for electronicallymasking noise for schools and hospitals throughdynamic usage of white noise.� Sophros: The students have designed an organ-ic air purification unit which also acts as an aes-thetic indoor air cleaning device. The deviceinvolves a unique usage of dust to filter particulatematter along with usage of plants and moisture sen-sors for constant oxygen supply and filtration ofgases and VOCs while keeping them hydrated auto-matically.

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Tata Motors haslaunched the Season-6 ofTata Delight Star Scholarsunder the Tata Delight loyaltyprogram with a prize moneyof �25,000. The company hasalso gone a step ahead andoffered a special prize of 40Tablets for women applicantsbased on their performanceto encourage education forgirl child.

This special programmeis designed to make a mean-ingful contribution towardsthe upliftment of the truckingprofession, constantly strivingto reward, recognize anddelight the commercial vehi-cles customer, making everyinteraction a rewarding one.

The programme over thelast five editions has helpedfulfill the dreams and aspira-tions of over 1,000 deservingchildren by ensuring thatthey receive adequate supportto pursue their right to high-er education. The company todate has granted scholarshipsto over 1,000 students,amounting to approx �1.5crores to all the beneficiaries.

The Fox InternationalFellowship is available forstudents of Yale University orfrom students of any of theexchange partner institutionsin Fox InternationalFellowship network.Applicants of all nationalities

areeli-

gible to apply forscholarship.

Eligibility: The fellow-ship places a strong emphasison communicative compe-tence in the host country lan-guage(s) to truly engage col-leagues and establish longterm personal relationshipswith people from the FoxPartner University and thelarger community of thatUniversity and the overallFox alumni/ae network.English language require-ments: Candidates mustdemonstrate sufficient mas-tery of national or regionallanguage skills relevant totheir research projects as wellas to thrive in the local andlarger communities of theFox Exchange partner univer-sity. For English-speakingcountries with strong local orregional language bases, can-didates with evidence offamiliarity and interests inthose languages, as relevantto their research and largercultural engagement, mayreceive some competitivepreference, like Hindi and orGujarati. Students withoutthese language skills are alsowelcome to apply.

How to apply: Submitapplication online throughthe Student Grants andFellowships Database at YaleUniversity. Application musthave: Statement of interest,leadership statement, recentcurriculum vitae, and two let-ters of recommendation.

Application deadline:The last date to apply isFebruary 13, 2019.

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Around six lakh children with spe-cial needs, between the ages of 6to 13 are out of school. This isn’t

just a statistic, this is the result of anancient assumption that still operates inthe classroom; one approach fits all. Ourinfrastructure can’t facilitate the alloca-tion of specialised teachers to every class.This has led such students to questiontheir ability to learn in such an environ-ment. But learning is for everyone andinfrastructure should not be a barrier.That’s where technology can be used tocompliment classroom learning.

Select the pace and space: In a class-room of 60, it’s hard for students with spe-cial needs to understand every concept.They may take time to learn, dependingon their grasping power. Before they canstart to break the concept down, theteacher has already moved on to the nextone. Every student’s pace is different andtechnology provides for that uniqueness.Video lectures give students the powerto pause a lecture, rewind it or even selectthe speed of the explanation. With e-learning apps available on any mobiledevice, students can choose to study inan environment that suits them best.

Adaptive learning: Adaptive learning,a feature that is transforming the way stu-dents learn, is embedded in most e-learn-ing platforms. This can help specially-abled students, teachers and parentsunderstand how much they have grasped.They are given a question, depending ontheir answer, they will be given anotherquestion of either a higher difficulty levelor a lower difficulty level. The practicequestions adapt to the student’s ability.This ensures constant assessment. Thisensures there are no gaps in the student’sunderstanding.

Interactive and quality content:Technology has opened the doors toquality content and teachers. With a sim-ple video conferencing, children can learnfrom experts, anywhere in the world. Ed-tech has bought content designed for spe-cially-abled students to smartphonesand computers. The use of animation invideos have made lectures interactive,rather than just instructive. Children canactually play with objects in 3D and see

visual representations of a lecture in theform of videos, diagrams, graphs andimages.

Help 24x7: Doubts are very bother-some and students need someone to solvethem instantly. It becomes difficult forchildren with special needs to raise adoubt in front of people. Ed-tech is bring-ing them support around the clock!Students can ask their doubts on a chatplatform and experts in that subject, willpatiently explain the concept, until it'sgrasped. To make it easier for the stu-dents, they don't even have to type, theycan simply send a picture! Now help isjust a click away.

Better engagement with gamification:It can be challenging for a teacher to keepall the students engaged. It’s especially dif-ficult to engage students with ADHD orother conditions. Gamification is mak-ing this task easier with badges, leader-boards and experience points.

Each time students complete a set oftasks, they are rewarded a badge for theirperformance, speed, accuracy, consis-tency and other factors. This is even mak-ing learning fun, increasing participationfrom students with a short attention span.Thus, leading to better engagement andparticipation.

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Online education, that wasonce considered humblecousin of mainstream edu-

cation, has witnessed an upwardswing in the last few years. Thechange has been brought in notonly by various technological inno-vations but by innovative newagecontent and curriculum that onlineeducation providers offer to thelearners. The industry in India isestimated to be a $1.96 billionindustry by 2021, according to aresearch conducted by KPMG,with insights from Google search.According to the report, the paiduser base is likely to grow six-fold— from 1.6 million users in 2016to 9.6 million users in 2021.

Increased penetration of inter-net and smart phones, factorssuch as convenience, increasedreach and personalised contentoffered by online educationproviders have led to the growthand expansion of online educationmarket to tier-II and tier-III cities.Online education modules todayallows distant learners to join invirtual lectures, pose questions toprofessors, chat with fellow stu-dents and take virtual exams. Mostof the programmes are career-focused helping students to chalka career path and set goals. Here aresome trends that are likely todominate online education.

Emergence of cloud com-puting: According to Technavioanalysts, emergence of cloud com-puting will be one of the majortrends that we will witness in thecoming year. The cloud computingtechnology enables online educa-tion providers to save significant

amount of content and data on asingle platform. This makes it eas-ier for users and providers toprocess, obtain, access and manageinformation from anywhere atany time.

Focus on future-ready careerskills: With a changing world, theonline educational institutions aretrying to keep a balance betweenlearning and skills required byenterprises and industry. They areoffering new courses which helpstudents become well equipped forthe jobs of tomorrow. In 2019, weare likely to witness launch of moresuch courses and career pro-grammes.

Many institutions are offeringonline degrees in specialised areaslike AI, IoT, business management,data science and digital marketing.These courses have been designedto equip the students with skillsthat are likely to dominate in theyears to come.

Game learning: The trend islikely to catch up as it makes thelearning process more interestingand effective. Game learning tech-niques ensure higher level ofinvolvement and interaction fromstudents, offers them opportunityto experiment and introduce newtechnological innovations.

The modern business envi-ronment is becoming complexevery day. With the help of gametechniques, it is easier to explainthese. During the interactive ses-sions, participants make decisions,develop strategies, immediatelyobserving their influence on thefinancial position of the company.

Project-based learning: This

allows students todemonstrate skills by developing

apps and product. Many a time, itrequires constant instructor feed-back and multiple attempts if a stu-dent fails to meet the criteria.Project-based education is thefoundation of the curriculum ofsome online educational institu-tions. Students create several pro-jects over six-12 months andreceive regular feedback to earn adegree.

Blended e-learning pro-grammes: These courses withoffline touch points are increas-ingly gaining popularity amongstindividuals and organisations look-ing to upskill their employees. E-learning providers have witnesseda 25-30 per cent jump in compa-nies opting for blended model over100 per cent e-learning courses.The model facilitates discussionsand collaborative learning, offersflexibility to learners has bettercompletion rate.

Increase in interest in AR andVR: Though AR and VR are yet toreach their full potential in onlinelearning, these technologies areexpected to have a impact.Engagement, that has been one of

the weakest aspects inmany e-learning platforms, can beincreased using these technologies.Use of AR and VR in onlinelearning platforms have shown sig-nificant increase in engagementand improved results.

Adapting existing content:Not everyone can incorporate thelatest technologies into their learn-ing processes. In most cases, usersare only looking for informationthat is important. Therefore, onlineeducational institutions shouldreview their existing study mater-ial, in terms of how useful, relevantand detailed the information is.They must be prepared for con-stant changes.

In 2019, training will becomemore specific and personalised.The online courses will need toplay a key role in creating aroadmap that leads from basicknowledge to expertise in theshortest possible time. The focuswill remain on people who want tolearn about specific skills and notwaste time learning about every-thing. The decisive factor willdepend on the person’s motivationto regularly devote time to self-edu-cation.

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Page 16: C M Y K - The Pioneer · PC Sharma was included in the list of ministers. Thirty two-year-old Jaivardhan Singh, an MLA from Raghogarh and the son of Digvijay Singh is the youngest

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Former champions Mumbai andSaurashtra featured in an excitingdraw on Tuesday after both teams

squandered chances to win the contest onthe fourth and final day of their EliteGroup A game.

Mumbai, champions on 41 occasionsand ahead of the visitors by 46 runs on thefirst innings, declared their second inningsclosed in the morning session at 238 for8, leaving Saurashtra a target of 285 in 72overs.

Saurashtra were sailing along merrilyafter being 79 for two with the 113-runthird wicket stand between ViswarajsinhJadeja (71 in 129 balls) and SheldonJackson (57 in 118 balls) bringing themcloser to the target.

Jadeja was run out by a direct throwfrom point by Jay Bista to break the standat 192 and then a double strike with theuse of short balls in one over by mediumpacer Minad Manjrekar put the skids onSaurashtra.

Manjrekar got rid of both Jackson,caught slashing at deep point whenSaurashtra needed 55 in ten overs, andPrerak Mankad (24 in 21 balls) three runslater to raise visions of a Mumbai victory.

Manjrekar got two more wickets inthat spell to send back Arpit Vasavada andrival captain Jaydev Unadkat after whichSaurashtra downed the shuttlers withChirag Jani holding fort at one end.

After four balls in the final over, thegame was called off as a draw with the vis-itors on 266 for 7, needing 19 more runsto pull off what would have been a come-from- behind win.

Jani (9) and Dharmendra Jadeja (8)were the unbeaten batsmen at the creasewhen the match ended.

Manjrekar finished with impressivefigures of 4 for 39, while Shivam Dube got2 for 50.

Mumbai secured three points to boosttheir tally to 11 and are 14th out of 18teams in the combined A and B Groupsstandings with two matches left.

Saurashtra secured one point toremain on top of the combined standingswith 26 points with one game in hand.

Meanwhile at Shivamoga, hosts

Karnataka trounced Railways by 176 runs.Senior off-spinner K Gowtham rose to theoccasion and returned with match-win-ning figures of 6-30, as Railways were bun-dled out for 185 in their second essay.

At Nagpur, the Gujarat-Vidarbhagame ended in a tame draw with the hoststaking the first innings lead and grabbingthree crucial points. Gujarat got onepoint.

At Raipur, hosts Chhattisgarh tookthree points, courtesy the first innings lead.But the hosts survived a scare withMaharashtra taking as many as six wick-ets in their second innings.

�����"����+��+�%�����C�Hosts Assam defeated Goa by7 runs in a pulsating Group C game afterhaving conceded a narrow first inningslead to the visitors.

Resuming at their overnight score of166 for 6, Goa needed 218 for an outrightwin, but were shot out for 210 at theBarsapara cricket stadium on the final day.

Then right-arm medium pacer ArupDas (6-67) trapped number 11 batsmanKrishna Das (2) in front of the wicket tohand Assam a memorable win.

Meanwhile, at Ranchi, left-arm spin-ner Shahbaz Nadeem bowled hostsJharkhand to an 81-run victory overServices with excellent figures of 7 for 62.

Jharkhand had conceded the firstinnings lead and then turned the matcharound to bag six points and boost theirtally to 30 from 7 games. They are in thirdspot.

At Jammu, Odisha defeated Jammuand Kashmir by eight wickets.

The game between table toppersRajasthan and Haryana at Jaipur ended ina tame draw with the hosts walking awaywith three points on the basis of the firstinnings lead.

"����������+�#��������C�Ashutosh Aman returned with amatch haul of 12 wickets to help Biharsecure a thumping 273-run victory overNagaland in their Plate Group fixture.

The left-arm spinner, who claimedseven wickets in the first innings, grabbed5/49 in the second to finish with a matchhaul of 12/96, as Nagaland folded for 173

in their tall pursuit of 446.This was the former Services crick-

eter's fourth successive 10-wicket haul.Aman, who was adjudged Man-of-the-Match for the third time from four match-es, is now the leading wicket-taker with 51scalps from 10 innings with an astound-ing average of 5.54.

At the CAP Siechem Ground inPuducherry, the match between leadersUttarakhand and Puducherry startedafresh on the fourth day, with a new tosstaking place on a fresh pitch.

However, only 15 overs were playedbefore the match was called off, owing toinconsistent bounce from the pitch andboth teams settled for one point each.

�������������'�B���������������#�C�Tamil Nadu suffered a nine-wicket defeat against Himachal Pradesh ina Elite Group 'B' match as it crashed outof contention for the knock-out phase.

The victory, third of the season, tookHimachal's tally so far to 22 points whilethe visitors remained with just 12 pointsfrom seven games -- four draws and twodefeats and sole win, failing to qualify forthe knock-out phase.

The home team rattled up 111 for 1 toseal the win after Tamil Nadu folded upfor 345 in the second innings following amiddle-order collapse after centuries byAbhinav Mukund (128) and captain BabaIndrajith (106).

Guleria (3 for 56) and Rishi Dhawan(3 for 60) were the best bowlers forHimachal.

Chasing the target, Ankush Bainslaunched a clinical assualt on the TNbowlers, hitting six fours and four sixersin his unbeaten 38-ball 64 to powerHimachal home just in 15.3 overs.

The other opener Raghav Dhawan(39) was sent back by left-arm spinner RSai Kishore while going for a big hit butRishi Dhawan (4 not out) finished thegame, blasting a four of Kishore.

In other games in the group, Andhrahad to settle for three points against Bengalat Visakhapatnam while visitors Punjabcould not reach its target againstHyderabad despite an attacking ton by theyoung Shubman Gill (148, 154 balls 16X4,2X6).

����■ ���������

Fast bowler Dale Steyn on Monday saidhe is looking beyond breaking the

record for most Test wickets for SouthAfrica in the forthcoming series againstPakistan.

Steyn currently shares the record of421 wickets with former captain ShaunPollock, who retired in 2008, and needsone more wicket in the first Test againstPakistan, starting at SuperSport Park onWednesday, to hold first place on his

own."I have a lot more wickets in me than

just one more," he said. "I haven't savedmyself just to take one more wicket thanPolly (Pollock), there is a bigger goal atthe end of the day."

He admitted that the past two years,during which he has had several setbackshad been frustrating.

"I do think it will be a beautiful thingto happen, if it happens. It has taken a

long time and these records are greatthings to achieve.

"I will be highly honoured but I willget back to my mark and try to take thenext one."

The 35-year-old, who will be playingin his 89th Test, seemed set to take therecord when he played in two Tests in SriLanka earlier this year but could onlytake two wickets to tie with Pollock.

"It's just nice to have a red ball in myhand again," he said.

"Sri Lanka was tough conditions forthe fast bowlers, but by the looks ofthings - the way the nets have been play-ing out in the middle — there is somespice.

"I am looking forward to getting outthere and playing five competitive daysof cricket."

Steyn is currently joint eleventh inthe all-time list of wicket-takers in Testcricket. Sri Lankan spinner MuttiahMuralitharan, who retired in 2010, headsthe list with 800 while the top fast bowleris current England opening bowler JamesAnderson with 565.

The first Test match of three matchTest series will start from 26th Decemberat SuperSport Park in Centurion followedby second in Cape Town from 3rd Jan.

����■ �����������

Manchester United return to OldTrafford for the first time under

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's managementagainst Huddersfield on Boxing Daywith a new-found swagger after scoringfive goals in the Premier League for thefirst time in five years.

The Norwegian's caretaker spell incharge until the end of the season got offto a dream start asUnited threw offthe shackles, thatled to turgid foot-ball and deteriorat-ing results underJose Mourinho, to thrash Cardiff 5-1.

United still face a huge challenge tomake up an eight-point gap just to qual-ify for next season's Champions Leaguevia a top-four finish.

But for now the luxury of just beingable to enjoy watching a side play withfreedom and the attacking principles thathave underpinned the club's history isenough to excite United fans again.

"I think the boys are looking forwardto playing at Old Trafford and that'simportant. We should be looking for-ward to that, they are the best fans in theworld," said Solskjaer when questionedwhether some of the current Unitedsquad have been inhibited by the pres-sures of playing at home in thefamous red shirt.

Solskjaer is certainly afavourite of the United faithfulhaving scored 126 goals in 11 sea-sons as a player, including the onethat famously won theChampions League final in1999.

He was serenadedthroughout by the visiting fansin the Welsh capital at theweekend as United hit five for the firsttime since Alex Ferguson's final gamein charge.

"I just hope in the next five monthsI do a good enough job for them to keepsinging my name when someone elsecomes in," added Solskjaer, whose pos-

itivity has immediately lifted a squaddowntrodden by Mourinho's moodswings.

"Just to be positive. Take risks," saidJesse Lingard, who scored twice inCardiff, at what Solskjaer's message hasbeen.

"If you lose the ball, win it back, andplay the United way - attacking football,entertaining football. For us as players,we enjoyed it today."

Rarely has enjoy-ment ever been top ofMourinho's list of pri-orities, even in his mostsuccessful spells withPorto, Chelsea and Inter

Milan.

I%�������J�However, the levels of committmenthe demanded from those sides wasnot evident in the current Unitedsquad.

For the first time this season, Unitedoutran their opponents against Cardiff.

"A Man United team should neverever be outworked," said Solskjaer tohighlight the minimum he expects.

"Doesn't matter which team youplay. You should run more than themand then your skills will give you thechance to win the game."

A good work ethic should be theminimum required of a Manchester

United team, but Mourinho's tac-tics also didn't help his side's run-ning statistics.

Too often the Red Devilswere set up to sit deep and try andcounter-attack. Solskjaer instead

seems intent on implementingthe United way he learned atthe heel of Ferguson for so long.

"I said the same to theselads as I do back in Molde: work

harder than them, enjoy yourselves, passit forward, run forward, if you lose it, Idon't mind as long as you work to winit back and they did.

"When you've got players like thiswith the quality you are always going tocreate chances."

����■ � ����� �

Indian football team forwardJeje Lalpekhlua on Tuesday

said he has developed a "tele-pathic understanding" with acestriker Sunil Chhetri.

Jeje first caught the attentionby scoring a hat-trick againstPakistan at the age of 19 — in hisfirst tournament. Since then,despite scoring regularly, he wasin and out of the national squadtill 2015, when he cemented hisplace.

"I played with Sunil-bhaiwhen I made my debut. Sincethen we have been playingtogether. I feel, together we fit inwell, and complement eachother's styles," Jeje stated.

"He has helped me a lot onand off the field. We have a tele-pathic understanding on thepitch. I know where he is, andhe always knows where I am," headded.

India take on Thailand intheir opening match of the AFCAsian Cup 2019 and Jeje sound-ed confident.

"This team is a strong one aswe have put in a lot of goodwork so far," the Mizo playersaid.

"We are confident in ourabilities and feel that we can takeon any challenge."

He stated that the side hasbeen improving steadily, andthat the progress is there foreveryone to see.

"Compared to when I mademy debut, there is a lot of dif-ference in the National Team.With every match, we havebeen getting better and haveachieved a lot in between," hefelt.

"I'm very happy to be a partof this team. We worked hard toqualify for the Asian Cup. It is

the biggest tournament for us,almost like a World Cup. Wehope to do well, and strive forbigger things," he stated.

"In fact, there is still a lot wecan do and the AFC Asian Cupis the next step along the way."

Jeje also spoke about the roleplayed by coach Constantine inthe recent upsurge.

"The entire team has put ina lot of hard work. He has hadthe most crucial role to play.When he came in, he had toldus that our target was to quali-fy for the Asian Cup, and we didit."

����■ ��� ������

Australia's Asian Cup defencehas been dealt a blow with

Huddersfield midfielder AaronMooy ruled out of the tournamentafter a second opinion on a kneeinjury confirmed the worst.

Mooy has been in top formthis season, but suffered ligamentdamage in his right knee playingagainst Arsenal earlier this month.

Huddersfield initially side-lined him until February, but he issuch a key player for Australia thatthey insisted on getting a secondopinion from an independent spe-cialist.

"It is disappointing to loseAaron for the tournament," saidSocceroos coach Graham Arnoldin a statement late Monday.

"However, it was importantthat we left no stone unturned inexploring every option to getAaron on the pitch for Australia inthe United Arab Emirates."

Mooy needs at least anothermonth to recover and with theAsian Cup starting on January 5,Arnold decided it wasn't worthrisking him.

"In a best-case scenario, thiswould mean he would not beready to play until after the quar-ter-final stage," he said.

"With so many games in sucha short period we felt it would be

best to bring in a player that is fullyfit and ready to go from the out-set."

James Jeggo, who plays theAustrian Bundesliga for FKAustria Wien, has been added tothe squad as cover.

Australia are in Group B,along with Jordan, Syria andPalestine. They are due to assem-ble in the UAE from December 26.

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