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OPINION

P4Kashmiriyat is dead, this much is certain. And everything associated with it – religious harmony, secularism, the distinct relationship between Kashmir and India –is gone as well. Kashmiriyat has been in the throes of death for some decades now, but the latest moves by the Indian government to abrogate Article 370 and 35A, and demote the state of Jammu and Kashmir to a Union Territory, have put the final nail in its coffin. Constitutionally and rhetorically, Kashmir is no longer special.

Kashmiriyat The Death Of An Idea

OPINION


Kashmiriyat The Death Of An Idea

OPINION


OPINION

P4Every Final Judgment May Not Necessarily

Be Right And Just

The judgment delivered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid civil dispute in Ayodhya has given finality to the dispute over 1480 sq yds of land. This small tract of land where the Babri mosque once stood came to be believed to be the birthplace of Lord Ram. This finality has to be respected. Such is the vigour and demand of a society governed by the Rule of Law. All communities of this great nation, of course including the Muslims, are bound by it. The collective sentiment of Indian Muslims must not supersede the Rule of Law.

12

Chill Intensifies In Kashmir Due To Overcast Condition

Fresh Spell Of Snow From Friday

SRINAGAR: There was still no respite from chilly weather conditions as the maximum and minimum temperatures remained several degrees below normal due to over-cast conditions in Kashmir

valley, where a fresh spell of snow is predicted from Fri-day onwards.

A Met department spokes-person told UNI that isolated very light rain and snow would occur at More On 02

Bulbs Still Not Lit In Scores Of Areas, HT Lines Lying On RoadsSRINAGAR: Life is still out of gear in Kashmir Valley due to con-tinuous shutdown and massive snowfall. Majority of the areas are still reeling under darkness while people are unable to get clean drinking water. In rural areas of Valley and in Srinagar outskirts, snow has still not been cleared. Srinagar based news agency received dozens of phone calls from people hailing from Qamar Abad, HMT, Kursu Rajbagh, Jawahar Nagar, Sonwar, Zakura, Shalteng Laway Pora, Railway Colony Kanihama, Dooru Shahabad, Shalimar, Nishat, Hilar who complained that Power Development Department has not restored electric-ity to their areas. Pertinently, PDD claimed to have More On 02

Srinagar-Jammu Highway Remain Closed, Over 2000 Vehicles StrandedSRINAGAR: The Srinagar-Jammu national highway, the only all weather road connecting Kashmir valley with the rest of the country, remained closed since Thursday due to snow and landslides, triggered by heavy rain.Over 2000 vehicles, including those carrying passengers, are stranded on the highway which was put through More On 02

UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THIS WD, Kashmir is expected to experience fresh spell of snow on Friday and Saturday.”

2 Militants Killed In Bandipora Gunfight

Shutdown Enters 15th Week In Kashmir

Train Service To Resume TodayNEW DELHI: Train services in the Kashmir Valley, which were disrupted since August 3 ahead of the abrogation of provisions of Article 370, will resume on Tuesday, a Northern Railway official said. The valley had been under restrictions after August 5, when the Centre revoked the special sta-tus to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated it into union territories. "After appropriate action and assurance by GRP, J&K regarding safe operation of train in Kashmir Valley between 10 AM and 3 PM, the Firozpur Division will commence a limited passenger service of running two More On 02

Stipulated Time Over For Sanction To Prosecute Nearly 100 Govt Officials: CVCAgencies

NEW DELHI: It has been over four months since the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has been awaiting sanction to prosecute nearly 100 central government employees, includ-ing IAS officers, for their alleged involvement in corruption.

The accused also include of-ficials attached to probe agen-cies like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), according to the CVC.

As per norms, sanction for prosecution of government employees accused of cor-ruption has to be given within four months' stipulated time.

Of the total number of 51 cases involving at least 97 of-ficers, the highest number of eight cases each are pending with the Department of Per-sonnel and Training -- the nod-al authority for anti-corruption matters -- and Corporation Bank, according to the latest

data available with the CVC.Six corruption cases are

pending with the Uttar Pradesh government for ap-proval to prosecute the ac-cused officials, the CVC said.

Two such cases each are pending with the Defence Ministry, Railway Ministry, Chemicals and Fertilisers Ministry, Department of Rev-enue, Punjab National Bank and the Jammu and Kashmir government.

One case each is pending with the Comptroller and Au-ditor General (CAG), Coal Min-istry, Canara Bank, New India Assurance Company Ltd, State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Com-merce, Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Hu-man Resources and Develop-ment Ministry, Water Resourc-es Ministry and the Lok Sabha.

The governments of Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu More On 02

Govt Sets Up Panel To Declare Dal Lake As Eco-sensitive Zone

China Hails Kartarpur MoveK J M Varma

BEIJING: China on Monday wel-comed the opening of the land-mark Kartarpur corridor and hoped that both India and Paki-stan "can continue to show the goodwill" to resolve their differ-ences through dialogue.

The first batch of the Indian Sikh pilgrims entered Pakistan on Saturday through the historic corridor which was thrown open ahead of the 550th birth anni-versary of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev. The corridor links Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Paki-stan, More On 02

BANDIPORA: Two militants have been killed in an en-counter that erupted in North Kashmir's Bandipora village.

The encounter started after government forces launched a cordon and search operation in Lawdr-ara village when they got in-puts about the presence of militants on Sunday night.

An official told Kashmir News Trust that a militant was killed on late Sunday night while another mili-tant lost his life on Monday.

Official Twitter handle of Chinar Corps-Indian Army tweeted that weapon and war-like stores have More On 02

JAMMU: The Jammu and Kash-mir government has set up a ten-member committee to declare Srinagar's famous Dal Lake and its surrounding areas as an eco-sensitive zone (ESZ), following concerns over its shrinking size.

Pollution and encroachments have resulted in the Dal Lake shrinking from its original area of 22 square kilometers to about 10 square kilometers, according to an assessment by the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) in 2017.

The DCI also found that the world-famous lake's capacity has shrunk to about 40 per cent and that its water quality has

deteriorated."Sanction is hereby accorded

to the constitution of a 10-mem-

ber committee to finalise the draft of the notification for de-claring Dal Lake More On 02

SRINAGAR: Strike continued for the 99th day on Monday in the Kashmir valley, where people are protesting against scrapping of Article 370 and 35 A, besides dividing the state into two Union Territories (UTs) on August 5.

Restrictions under Section 144 CrPC, prohibiting assemble of four or more persons, continued as a precautionary measure in the val-ley on Monday, police said. How-ever, there is no curfew in any part

of the valley.Meanwhile, all gates of historic

Jamia Masjid in the down town re-mained closed for devotees since August 5. Large number of Central Armed Paramilitary Force (CAPF) are deployed in the Jamia market and outside to prevent people from entering the worship place, stronghold of moderate Hurriyat Conference (HC) chairman Mir-waiz Moulvi Omar Farooq, who is currently under More On 02

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2 Missing In Gulmarg Avalanche SRINAGAR: Two porters were reported missing after a snow avalanche hit the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla district on Monday, police said.The incident took place in Gul-marg sector in north Kashmir, a police official said.Efforts were underway to rescue them, the police added.

Mortar Shells Defused On LoCJAMMU: The Army on Monday defused four live mortar shells fired by Pakistani troops in civilians areas along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district, officials said.Two mortar shells of 120 mm, which had sunk in the ground after being fired by the Pakistan Army in forward areas of Balakote and Mendhar sectors, were detected and defused by the Army's engineering wing, they said.

Fire Damages 6 Houses In SrinagarSRINAGAR: Eight houses were damaged in a devastating fire in the downtown Srinagar, official sources said on Monday.They said fire broke out in a house at Tibetian colony in the downtown on Sunday. However, before the fire tenders could reach the spot, fire spread to adjoining areas.They said eight houses and other property were damaged before the fire could be doused off.The cause of the fire More On 02

LG Greets People On GurupurabJAMMU: Lt. Governor, Girish Chandra Murmu has greeted the people on the auspicious occasion of Guru Nanak Dev’s Birthday.In a message of greetings, Lt. Governor described Guru Nanak Devji as an apostle of peace and tolerance whose teach-ings would continue to inspire generations, leading them to the path of righteousness and brotherhood. He said that Guruji strove all his life for More On 02

Army Commander Briefs LGJAMMU: Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, Army Commander, Northern Command, met Lieutenant Gov-ernor, Girish Chandra Murmu at the Raj Bhavan here today.Lt Gen. Singh briefed Lt. Governor about the overall security situation along the IB, LAC, LoC and hinterland and the anti terrorist operations being conducted by the Army.Lt. Governor and the Army Com-mander also discussed various other issues relating to the over-all security environment in J&K.

Ayodhya: Lawyers For Hindu Parties Say Faith Reaffirmed By SC; Muslim Parties Voice Dissatisfaction

Heating System For 2 Hours Only

Attendants, Patients Shiver In Hospitals

Pak Increases Deployment Across LoC

J-K Admin To Campaign For Raising Awareness On Fundamentals Duties From Nov 26Press Trust of India

JAMMU: The Jammu and Kash-mir administration is set to begin a campaign focusing on creating awareness on the fundamentals duties --a very important feature of the constitution -- from November 25, an officials said on Monday.

The campaign shall begin on November 26 and continue till April 14, 2020, he said.

The department of law, justice and parliamentary affairs has been designated as nodal depart-ment with its secretary as the nodal officer for coordinating ac-tivities with all those dealing with the campaign, the official said.

Agencies

SRINAGAR: Attendants and pa-tients Monday alleged that hos-pital authorities don’t operate Central Heating System round the clock in the hospitals as a result they shiver in present harsh chilly conditions.

Principal, Government Medi-cal College had directed all its as-sociated hospitals to run Central Heating System after the snow furry that brought temperatures almost below to freezing point. Reports said that some of the hos-pitals including Lal Ded and JVC Bemina run heating system only for two hours in a day.

Both attendants and patients at Lal Ded Hospital told Kashmir News Trust that they shiver in-side the hospital due to prevailing harsh weather conditions.

At JVC Bemina Hospital, at-tendants and patients too com-plained of chill and said that au-thorities give a damn to the needs of patients. “It is really difficult to stay inside the hospital in ex-treme cold conditions. The hospi-tal authorities run heating ststem for 2 hours only,” they said adding even after bringing the matter to higher authorities, they did noth-ing to give some respite to both attendants and patients.

Valley is in the grip More On 02

Agencies

NEW DELHI: Lawyers for Hindu parties on Saturday said the Su-preme Court judgment granting the entire 2.77 acre of disputed land in Ayodhya to deity Ram Lal-la has reaffirmed their faith while the Muslim advocates voiced dis-satisfaction saying there were lot of contradictions in the verdict.

The apex court on Saturday cleared the way for the con-struction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site at Ayodhya, and di-rected the Centre to allot a 5-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a mosque.

Senior advocate P S Narasimha, who had appeared for deity Ram Lalla Virajman in the title dispute, said that they are grateful to the

court for respecting their religion and faith while Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board's Zaf-aryab Jilani expressed his dissat-isfaction over the verdict.

"The faith of Hindus has been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court verdict. We had faith before the mosque. We had faith during the mosque and we had faith after

the demolition of the mosque and there was continuous worship by the Hindus," said Narsimha.

"We are grateful to the institu-tion of judiciary for the extraordi-nary measures for restituting the historical belief. We are grateful to the court which has shown great respect to our religion and belief which brings amity and af-fection in the society," he added.

Jilani said there were lot of contradictions in the judgement and they will seek its review.

"The Ayodhya verdict holds no value for us. We are dissatis-fied with the verdict. It has lot of contradictions. We will seek a re-view," senior advocate Jilani said.

Senior advocate C S Vaidyana-than, who had also appeared for the deity, welcomed More On 02

Agencies

NEW DELHI: India has ap-prised the international com-munity about the Pakistan Army gradually increasing troop deployment and enhanc-ing its firepower on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) since the abroga-tion of Article 370 on August 5, sources said on Monday.

The Indian Army had car-ried out a detailed analysis in this regard and shared a re-port with the government.

The report states that Paki-stan has also placed artillery guns across the Line of Con-

trol to carry out continuous shelling on the Indian side, violating the ceasefire agree-ment. "The frequency of skir-mishes has increased after the abrogation of Article 370 on

August 5," sources said."Pakistan has started tar-

geting civilian areas along the Line of Control indulging in heavy artillery firing. There have been More On 02

Tuesday | 12.11.2019 02SNOWFALL AFTERMATH

Prices Of Essentials Skyrocket In ValleySRINAGAR: Vendors in Kashmir Val-ley are having field days in absence of any regulating authority these days. Taking full advantage of pre-vailing uncertainty and the situation emerging after the massive snow-fall, vendors and vegetable sellers have sharply pushed up prices of vegetables and fruits across Valley particularly in Srinagar.

The regulating body is in deep slumber while sellers are violating all the norms imposing self-fixed prices on customers.

Due to prevailing situation, the price of tomato has gone up from Rs 20 to Rs 90 now. There is no shortage of supply but the ven-dors are taking undue advantage of the situation. Kashmir has been witnessing continuous shutdown from past 99 days against the ab-rogation of Article 370 in the first week of August this year and the situation from past some days have worsened on account of the mas-sive snowfall.

“Due to prevailing situation and the lethargic approach from the ad-ministration after the snowfall, the

market checking squad is unable to regulate the market. We can’t

visit the areas in present circum-stances,” said an official from Food

Supply Department. Some of the buyers told Kash-

mir News Trust that the game of increasing price is being played mainly due to uneasy calm prevail-ing in Kashmir. “A couple of vendors operating in a single market usually fix the prices. Take the example of Mehjoor Nagar, Haba Kadal or Zaina Kadal area. The vendors selling veg-etables there decide the price of each vegetable. There are no fixed prices. In Haba Kadal you will get a kilogram of Tomato for Rs 90 while for the same quantity you have to spend Rs 80in Mehjoor Nagar,” said a businessman Sajad Ahmed.

The vegetable sellers sell lettuce (saagh) for Rs 70, Nadroo Rs 300, Panjabi potato Rs 50, white potato Rs 40, Spinach Rs 50, cabbage Rs 40, cauliflower Rs 50, Beans Rs 60, lady finger Rs 60, peas Rs 100.

The rate of onion is between Rs 60 and Rs 70 a kg depending on the quality and profile of the colonies. The retail price of most vegetables including bottle gourd, pinted gourd, brinjal have touched Rs 50 a kg. Simi-larly, one kg capsicum (shimla mirch) is available at Rs 60; ginger at Rs 125 a kg; carrot Rs 40 a kilogram. (KNT)

Div Com Chairs HLC Meet

Ram Temple in Ayodhya Before 2022

Discusses Allotment Of Plots Under Rehabilitation Programme

SRINAGAR: Divisional commis-sioner, Kashmir, Baseer Ahmad Khan today chaired a High Level Committee (HLC) meeting regard-ing the allotment of plots to the dislocated families living on either sides of river Jhelum and Tsunti Khul under rehabilitation program.

The meeting was attended by VC SDA, Additional Com-missioner, Kashmir, Commis-sioner SMC, Chief Engineer, Irrigation and Flood control, Superintendent Engineer PWD and representatives of Chief Town Planning.

During the meeting, one case of rehabilitation was settled in which a plot at Noor Bagh was considered for Mrs. Hanifa W/O Ghulam Qadir Gassi R/O Bund Kothi Bagh, Srinagar.

It was informed that pursu-ant to the government decisions taken from time to time, Srinagar Development Authority has al-lotted residential plots to dislo-cated families living on either sides of river Jhelum and Tsunti Khul under rehabilitation pro-gramme in Boatman Colony Be-mina, Boatman colony Noorbagh and Summerbugh Colony after dismantling certificates issued by the Irrigation and Flood Con-trol Department and LAWDA.

THE VEGETABLE SELLERS SELL LETTUCE (SAAGH) for Rs 70, Nadroo Rs 300, Panjabi potato Rs 50, white potato Rs 40, Spinach Rs 50, cabbage Rs 40, cauliflower Rs 50, Beans Rs 60, lady finger Rs 60, peas Rs 100. The rate of onion is between Rs 60 and Rs 70 a kg depending on the quality and profile of the colonies. The retail price of most vegetables including bottle gourd, pinted gourd, brinjal have touched Rs 50 a kg. Similarly, one kg capsicum (shimla mirch) is available at Rs 60; ginger at Rs 125 a kg; carrot Rs 40 a kilogram.

JK Tourism Deptt participates in World Travel Mart LondonSRINAGAR: Jammu and Kash-mir Tourism Department par-ticipated in World Travel Mart in London to showcase the huge potential J&K offers to visitors, travelers and adventure lovers.

Principal Secretary Tourism Navin Kumar Choudhary along with Deputy Secretary Tourism Waseem Raja attended the pres-tigious event to promote J&K’s tourism potential among the travel leaders of the globe.

The annual WTM at London provides a huge platform for the

tourism promotion where many tourism boards of different coun-tries participate to showcase their tourism products.

Every year, the event is spon-sored by Ministry of Tourism Government of India in which various States of the country including J&K participate to in-teract with the global leaders in the tourism sector as part of their promotion activity.

This year the Indian Pavilion at WTM focused on India’s culture and heritage besides niche tour-

ism products like cuisine, well-ness, wildlife and luxury under the Incredible India campaign with the theme ‘Find the Incred-ible in You’.

Cultural programmes includ-ing ‘India Evening’ were major attractions at this year’s WTM.

Union Secretary Tourism Yogendra Tripathi along with various senior officers includ-ing Principal Secretary Tourism, J&K, held an interactive session and press conference at ‘India Evening’.

Agencies

NEW DELHI: The much await-ed temple proposed to be built at the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya after the Supreme Court verdict, will be complet-ed before 2022, the 75th year of India''s independence.

The Uttar Pradesh govern-ment has released a picture of what the temple, and the Ram statue proposed near it, would look like on their completion. Sources said the Ram idol will take three years to complete.

Details are also trickling in of the grand temple com-

plex planned. Spread over an area 240 feet long and 145 feet wide, it will be 141 feet in height. Its 4 feet periphery will have 251 columns.

The temple complex will have a prayer hall, a Ram-katha Kunj (lecture hall), a Vaidik Pathshala (educational facility), a Sant Niwas (saints residence) and a Yatri Niwas (hostel for visitors).

Around the idol of Lord Ram, there will be other facili-ties such as a digital museum, a centre for description on holy scriptures, a library, a caf-eteria and parking space.

News

FROM FRONT PAGE

Fresh Spellupper reaches while the skies will be cloudy

during the next three days in Kashmir valley.He said a fresh Western Disturbance (WD),

which originated from the Arabian Sea and is ap-proaching the region though Afghanistan and Pakistan, would hit the UTs of J&K and Lakdah on Friday. “Under the influence of this WD, Kashmir is expected to experience fresh spell of snow on Friday and Saturday,” he added.

After witnessing below normal night tempera-ture, people woke up to a chilly Monday morning due to overcast conditions, coupled with ice cold winds in the summer capital, Srinagar. “The night temperature in Srinagar on Sunday settled at 0.4 degree, which about a degree below normal,” he said.

Some roofs and open fields were still covered under a thin blanket of snow in Srinagar, which received the season’s first snowfall on Thursday. People could be seen wearing jackets, sweaters and pheran (traditional Kashmiri cloak), to evade chilly weather conditions in the city. Pedestrians were finding it difficult to walk on the roads which were waterlogged due to melting of snow as the snow clearance operation was not undertaken in the interior areas.

Skies were cloudy in world famous ski resort of Gulmarg, which is covered under several feet of snow. The ski resort, about 55 km from here in north Kashmir, received over two feet of fresh snow since Wednesday night, resulting in dip in the night temperature.

Weather was also cloudy at world famous health resort of Pahalgam, about 100 km from here in south Kashmir, which also received moderate to heavy snowfall on Thursday.

Bulbs Still Notrestored power supply to South and Central Kashmir, majority areas especially villages are still in dark and in those areas where it was restored, it is erratic. Reports said that administration has even failed to restore electricity in areas having tourism value. If sources are to be believed then famous tourist re-sorts of Gulmarg, Sonamarg, Pahalgam, Kokernag and Acchabal are still reeling under darkness. "This is i think for the first that we are without power from past five days. We fail to understand, why administration was not prepared for this even-tuality," said Firdous Ahmed of Railway Colony, Kanihama. Eyewitnesses told KNT that locals in several areas repaired electric wires and poles. "The bulbs lit after four days in my area, though PDD restored electricity in adjoining areas three days after the snowfall," said Nisar Ahmed of Mehjoor Nagar. HT lines were seen lying on the roads un-attend-ing in various areas. In Budgam and Ganderbal districts, power was being restored within 24 hours in the past, post snowfall but majority of the areas are reeling under darkness and in some areas HT lines are still lying on the road. The electricity in major towns of Bud-gam district like Charar-e-Sharif, Beerwah, Magam and Khag is yet to be restored. In South Kashmir where the snowfall was less, the power was restored in some towns on Friday

and Saturday and it is erratic while villages are still plunged into darkness. Meanwhile, the Meteorological Department has forecast more snow due to a fresh Western disturbance. "More snowfall is likely between 14 and 16 Novem-ber, but the intensity would be less," Director IMD - Kashmir, Sonam Lotus said. (KNT)

Srinagar-Jammu Highwayfor several hours on Saturday and Sunday to clear the vehicles, stranded on both sides of the Jawahar tunnel.The 86-km-long historic Mughal road, connecting Shopian in south Kashmir with Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu region remained closed due to accumula-tion of snow and slippery road condition for the sixth day on Monday.Meanwhile, the 434-km-long Srinagar-Leh national highway was open for one-way and vehicles were ply from Kashmir to Ladakh on Monday, a traffic police official told UNI. No vehicle will be allowed from opposite direction, he added.He said traffic was again suspended on Srinagar-Jammu national highway in the afternoon on Sunday after a huge landslide between Ramban and Ramsu. Traffic on the highway was resumed only on Sunday morning and Heavy Motor Vehicles (HMVs) were allowed from Jammu to Kashmir. However, Light Motor Vehicles (LMVs) and those carrying passengers were allowed from both sides before the highway was closed again in the after-noon on Sunday, he said.He said a massive landslide occurred at Digdol damaging more than 200 meters of road. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has al-ready pressed into service sophisticated machines to clear the landslide, he said, adding it will take more than 12 hours more to put through the high-way provided there is no further landslide.There are 2000 vehicles, including those carrying passengers, stranded on both sides of the Digdol. The authorities had requested stranded passengers to return to Banihal and Ramban. Officials said there are 18 shelter-sheds in Ramban, Ramsu, Banihal and other areas for the stranded passengers, where all arrangements have been made. Traffic official said the highway will remain closed today. Traffic will be resumed only after receiving green signal from the officials posted at differ-ent places on the highway, he said adding fresh vehicles will be allowed only after clearing all stranded vehicles from both sides.

Stipulated Timehave also not granted for over four months sanc-

tion to prosecute allegedly corrupt officials associ-ated with them, according to the CVC data.

"In eleven cases involving 23 officials of Cor-poration Bank, New India Assurance Co Ltd, Ori-ental Bank of Commerce, Union Bank of India and Ministry of Human Resources Development, the Commission agreed with the departments/ or-ganisations that sanction for prosecution is not necessary. However, final action taken/decision is awaited," the CVC document said.

The final decision on whether or not sanction is required to prosecute some accused officials is awaited from their respective government depart-ments, an official said.

2 Militants Killedbeen recovered from the neutralised militants.The tweet said that one more militant (total

two) was killed in Lawdara operation and weap-ons were also recovered from the encounter site.

In a press release issued by the Kashmir police to KNT states that, a cordon and search operation was launched jointly by the police and security forces in Lawdara area after receiving credible in-put.

While search operation was going on, the hid-ing militants fired at the search party, to which the joint security forces retaliated, leading to an encounter.

In the ensuing encounter, two militants were killed and the bodies were retrieved from the site of encounter. The identity and affiliation of the killed militants is being ascertained.

Incriminating material including arms and am-munition was recovered from the site of encoun-ter, the press release said. (KNT)

Govt Sets Upand its surrounding areas as eco-sensitive zone,"

Additional Secretary of General Administrative De-partment (GAD) Subash Chibber said.

The committee shall finalize the draft notification within a period of one month, he said, adding that all facilities and infrastructure to the committee shall be provided by the Housing and Urban Development Department.

The committee comprises of Chief Conservator for Forests, Director of the Tourism Department, Vice-Chairman of the Lakes and Waterways Development Authority, Director of Industries Department, Com-missioner of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), Kashmir's Regional Wildlife Warden, Regional Direc-tor of the State Pollution Control Board, Director of the Agriculture Department, the Chief Town Planner and a representative of the Law Department, he said.

The DCI assessment also found that intense pol-lution by untreated sewage and solid wastes that flow into the lake, encroachments of water chan-nels and clogging has diminished the circulation and inflows into the lake, leading to extensive growth of the weed water hyacinth which has emerged as a health hazard.

Further, it established that the depth of the lake has reduced at many places due to siltation and encroachment, and that continuing night soil discharge from the 800 to 900 houseboats causes extreme pollution in the water body.

Shutdown Entershouse arrest. However, there are no road blocks

in the area.Shops and business establishments remained

closed after functioning in the morning for about three hours from 0700 hrs in Srinagar on Monday in the civil lines, including historic Lal Chowk, the nerve centre of the city. Public transport, includ-ing State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) buses remained off the roads since August 5. However, private vehicles were seen plying on some routes

in the civil line and uptown. Train service between Baramulla in north and Banihal in Jammu also re-mained suspended since August 5.

Pre-paid mobile service and internet service, in-cluding Broadband of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Lim-ited (BSNL) also remained suspended for the past 99 days.

Shops and business establishments remained closed in this and other district and tehsil head-quarters of south Kashmir on Monday, a report from Anantnag said. However, private vehicles were seen plying on the roads but passenger traffic remained off the roads. Complete shutdown also continued in south Kashmir district of Kulgam.

Life remained paralysed due to strike in this and other north Kashmir towns, a report from Baramulla said. Traffic was off the roads though good number of vehicles were seen plying in the district. Additional security forces remained de-ployed at sensitive places to prevent any law and order problem.

Similar reports were also received from cen-tral Kashmir districts of Ganderbal and Budgam, where business and other activities remained par-alysed since August 5.

Pak Increases Deployment

increased attempts to push in terrorists from launch pads metres away from the LoC. The launch pads are full of terrorists waiting to infiltrate," the report stated.

According to the report, the Pakistan Army has deployed around 2,000 personnel from its special operations wing - Special Service Group (SSG) on the Line of Control. The country also has a deploy-ment of close to 90,000 troops on the Line of Control against the 1,13,000 Indian Army personnel.

The report also exposes Pakistan''s continuous propaganda that Kashmir has been turned into a military garrison with 9 lakh Indian troops.

According to the analysis, the total deployment of the Indian Army and the Central armed po-lice forces in the Valley is around 2,31,000. "This includes the over one lakh additional forces de-ployed in mainland Kashmir since August 5 for public order and counter terror operations," said a source.

Contrary to Pakistan''s claims of India having deploy 9 lakh personnel in Kashmir, the Valley has not more than 2,31,000 personnel, who also have to carry out counter terrorists and counter infiltra-tion attempts from Pakistan, which leads to their numbers going up, said the report.

Now, Pakistan has pushed in more that 1.3 lakh troops near the Line of Control hardly differentiat-ing it from India. But India''s troop figures are still much less than what is being claimed by Pakistan as part of its propaganda and the deployment is well within the mutually agreed numbers by the two countries, it added.

The report stated that so far the Pakistan Army personnel always assumed that deployment across the Line of Control was a peace posting compared to their country''s western borders, where they fought battles in Afghanistan.

"But things have changed and now Pakistan Army personnel do not consider peace posting

with their Commanders issuing directions of con-tinuous shelling and firing across Line of Control," source added.

China Hailsthe final resting place of Guru Nanak Dev, to

Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Punjab's Gurdaspur."We welcome such good interactions between

India and Pakistan," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told the media here.

"Both countries are important in South Asia and peaceful coexistence between the two meets the fundamental interests of both and the common aspiration of the world," he said.

"We hope the two sides can continue to show the goodwill moving in the same direction proper-ly resolving the differences through dialogue and improving their relations and jointly safeguarding regional peace stability," he added.

The inauguration of the corridor comes in the midst of frayed ties between India and Pakistan following New Delhi's decision in August to with-draw Jammu and Kashmir's special status and bi-furcate the state into two Union Territories.

Train Servicepair of trains between Srinagar-Baramulla-Srinagar with effect from November 12," an official said.

Attendants, Patientsof cold wave after unexpected snowfall brought

life to full stop. The extreme cold wave prompted Principal Government Medical college to issue an advisory, directing all GMC associated hospitals to run Central Heating System. (KNT)

Ayodhya: Lawyersthe judgment, saying it is a victory for the peo-

ple."It is a very balanced judgment and it is a victory

for the people of India," he said.The Nirmohi Akhara said it has no regrets over

the Supreme Court saying that it is not a 'shebait' of deity Ram Lalla.

"We have no regrets on this because we were batting for Ram Lalla. The court has accepted Ram Lalla's side and with this, our motive was fulfilled," Nirmohi Akhara member Mahant Dharmdas told PTI.

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy tweeted, "Only when Lord Rama wanted, the green light for re- building the temple is being given. Jai Shri Ram."

In one of the most important and most antici-pated judgements in India's history, the bench put an end to the more than a century old dispute that has torn the social fabric of the nation.

Fire Damages 6was being ascertained, they said, adding police has registered a case.

LG Greets Peoplepromoting social justice and equality and to bring about peace and harmony among the communities.Lt. Governor hoped that the celebration of this auspi-cious event would contribute towards strengthening brotherhood and communal harmony and would be a harbinger of peace, progress and prosperity in Jammu and Kashmir.w

Tuesday | 12-11-2019 03NewsDIAL-EMMA

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HIGHWAY STATUS• Sgrr-Jammu highway - (Open)

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This Day in History• 1918 - Russia cancels Treaty of Brest-Litovsk• 1921 - US, France, Japan & British Empire

sign a Pacific Treaty• 1956 - US Supreme court rules race

separation on buses in Alabama unconstitutional

• 1979 - Ronald Reagan in New York announces his candidacy for US President

• 1980 - US spacecraft Voyager 1 sends back 1st close-up pictures of Saturn

• 1982 - Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened in Washington D.C., featuring the names of over 58,000 US soldiers who were killed or missing in the Vietnam War

• 1986 - NASA launches space vehicle S-199• 1986 - US President Reagan confesses

weapon sales to Iran• 1990 - Saudis ask US for rights to bid on

SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) crude• 1993 - Pakistani minister of Foreign affairs

Faruk Laghari elected president• 1994 - Sweden agrees to join European Union• 2001 - Doha Round: The World Trade

Organization ends a four-day ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar.

• 2001 - War on Terrorism: In the first such act since World War II, US President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against foreigners suspected of connections to terrorist acts or planned acts on the United States. Shakira

• 2001 - US President George W. Bush orders that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve be filled to capacity over the next few years

• 2002 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq agrees to the terms of the UN Security Council Resolution 1441.

• 2007 - An explosion hits the south wing of the House of Representatives of the Philippines in Quezon City, killing four people, including Congressman Wahab Akbar, and wounding six.

• 2008 - Germany's economy, Europe's largest , contracted by 0.5% in the third quarter after GDP fell 0.4% in the second quarter, putting it in recession for the first time in five years

• 2008 - Equity research by Deutsche Bank states that Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines should not experience a recession, despite potential harm to economic growth from falling commodity prices and possible weaker exports

• 2009 - The Netherlands officially exits the recession after experiencing 0.4% growth in the third quarter, but recovery for the Netherlands still remains fragile as the country is highly dependent on exports to maintain the recovery

• 2009 - Germany's growth of 0.7% in the third quarter helps lead the Eurozone out of the recession after providing overall growth of 0.4% in the same period, with the whole European Union growing 0.2%, it is reported today

• 2012 - 3 Syrian tanks enter the demilitarized zone of Golan Heights

• 2014 - Rohit Sharma of India sets a new record of 264 runs against Sri Lanka in an ODI innings in cricket

• 2015 - Terror attacks in Paris at 3 locations leave at least 129 dead. Isis claim responsibility

HIJRI CALENDAR

14 RABI-UL-AWWAL

1441

PRAYERSFAJR5: 35ZUHR12: 15ASR3:51

MAGRIB5:32ISHA6:55

From KO Archives US election drama drags on; trailing Gore wants hand count, loses faith in machines

AGENCIES

WASHINGTON: Republican George W. Bush’s lead over Democrat Vice-President Al-Gore has been pegged at 327 votes after a final unofficial recount in Florida, prompting the Bush camp to ask Gore to concede defeat but the outcome of the US Presidential election will not be known till next week as several thousand postal ballots are expected from abroad. Vice president Al-Gore, who the recounts showed was trailing by 327-votes to Republican George W Bush has demanded more vote recounts in crucial Florida state particularly hand counts in four of the 67 counties. Saying machines make mistakes.

Meanwhile, news reports said a court in Palm Beach had or¬dered a freeze on the recount process in the county pending a hearing next week on alleged irregularities that could hurt Gore. Three days after the voting, the election to the White House was mired in uncertainty facing legal challenges and the world yet to know as to who is the next incumbent. The unofficial count by the Associated Press county-by-county slightly boosted Bush’s tally after earlier counts had showed the margin as 225 votes. The recount shoved Bush won Florida, Bush’s communica¬tion director Karen Hughes claimed in a statement in Austin, Texas, asking Gore to concede. The Gore camp hit back saying contrary to claims by the rival side this election is not over.

Again we want the true and accurate will of the people to prevail and that means the legal system to run its course. If at the end of that process, George Bush is the victor, we will respect that result, Gore campaign chairman William Daley said in a statement.

(Kashmir Observer, November 12, 2000)

People shifted to safety as 2 civilians injured in Pak ceasefire violation in Uri

Agencies

Srinagar, Nov 11 (UNI) Two civil-ians were injured during the last 24 hours when Pakistani troops violated ceasefire and resorted to indiscriminate firing and shelling at the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir’s Uri sector, where families living in the area were shifted to saf-er places. Official sources said that Pakistani troops fired mortar shells and resorted to indiscriminate fir-ing, targeting forward Army posts and civilian areas in Silikot in Uri sector in Baramulla. “Majority shells fell in the civilian areas,” they said, adding two persons were injured in

the ceasefire violation.“Indian troops retaliated and hit

Pak army posts, they said, adding the exact damage suffered by en-emy troops was not immediately clear. They said families living in Si-likot and adjoining areas have been shifted to safer places.

Ceasefire violation by Pakistani troops at the LOC in Baramulla and Kupwara has witnessed increase during the past few months, par-ticularly after August 5, when cen-tre scrapped Article 370 and Article 35 A, besides divided the state into two Union Territories. Sources said Pak troops are frequently violating ceasefire to help militants in launch

pads in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) to infiltrate into this side be-fore the upper reaches are closed due to snowfall. Several hundred trains militants are waiting across the LoC to sneak into this side, they said adding troops guarding the LoC are already on high alert to foil any infiltration attempt.

However, they said security forc-es are already on high alert to foil any infiltration bids.

Director General of Police (DGP), Dilbagh Singh has recently said that some militants have sneaked into this side from POK. However, he said, majority infiltration attempts were foiled.

Observer News Service

Srinagar: Dozens of far-flung and remote villages, including border towns of Keran, Karnah and Machil besides Gurez remained cut off from their respective district and tehsil headquarters in north Kash-mir due to accumulation of several feet of snow. An official of Police Control Room (PCR), Kupwara, told UNI over the phone on Mon-day that there is no change in the situation as due to accumulation of snow, traffic on different routes, leading to far flung and remote ar-eas, including near LoC, remained suspended since Wednesday.

The PCR official said three main roads of Kupwara-Karnah, Kup-wara-Keran and Kupwara-Machil remained closed due to snow. “The roads are very slippery and there is also threat of avalanches,” he said, adding the snow clearance opera-

tion has been started.He said roads leading to dozens

of far flung and remote villages also remained closed due to snow.

Meanwhile, the Razdan pass, connecting Gurez, Neeru and dozens of other areas near LoC in Bandipora district, also re-mained closed due to heavy snowfall. The road has been closed on Wednesday morning for any vehicular movement due to several feet of snow and slippery conditions. “There was more than five feet of snow at Razdanpass,” officials said.

The authorities have already pressed into service snow clear-ance machines and cutters to clear the snow and put through the road, which remained closed for six win-ter months in the past. The govern-ment has already approved a tun-nel at Razdan pass to make it an all weather road.

Far-flung, remote villages near LoC remain cut off in Kashmir

Office Of The Principal GOVT. DEGREE COLLEGE SOPORNO. DCS/2019/1312 Date 07/11/2019 S H O R T T E N D E R N O T I C E

Sealed tenders are invited from the registered firms / suppliers/ dealers for Supply/lnstallation/Commissioning of below mentioned items as student heating arrangement for retail lab for winter classes. Complete Tender Bids should reach to the office of the undersigned along with EMD in the form of CDR pledged to Principal, Govt. Degree College Sopore. The details are given as under:

S.No. Name of the Work EMD

01. a. SITC of Two Ton Hot & Cold Split Type Airconditioning Unit in Compliant with Star Rating & Inverter Type with Copper Pipes and insulation as required and wall bracket etc. RTU Unit, Power Cord as required. Complete with refrigerant topping, outdoor jack, wall mounted 5 KVA AVR, Double Pole MCB 40 Amp, C - Curve. Designed from input 90 Volt. The AC should have test report compliance of working from-20 to +30 deg centigrade. Complete job as required. Make Daikin/Blue Star/IFB/Voltas/Panasonic

b. Supply of LPG Gas Heater Two in One having Electric Ceramic Rods Double Chamber Type with Commercial HPCL LPG Filled Cylinder. Regulator Pipe Complete job as required. Make Ghazal/Aygaz

c. Supply Installation Testing of 15KVA Servo Controlled Transformer Oil TypeSingle Phase having high cut low cut protection and contactor MNX 100 based and digital meter console with complete oil topping. Fully Copper Wound designed from 90 - 240 Volt. Double / Single Wound Dimmer, Complete job as required. Make Chinar /Alba/Servokon

Rs. 1000/-

The product should have standard warranty of 18 months. Rates to be quoted should be inclusive of GST/Freight etc. FOR GDC Sopore Complete Tenders along with EMD. etc. should be addressed to the Principal Govt. Degree College Sopore and should reach to the undersigned office within seven days i.e. 16-11 -2019 upto 3 P.m.

Principal Govt. Degree College Sopore DIPK NO. 2714/M

DIPK NO. 2740/M

OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE ENGINEER ELECTRIC MAINTENANCE & RURAL ELECTRIFICATION DIVISION SHOPIAN, KASHMIR.

Contact No/ Fax: - 01932-261246 E-mail:- [email protected]

N O T I C E I N V I T I N G T E N D E R NIT: - EDS/e-tender/16 of 2019-20 Dated: 11 -11-2019For and on behalf of the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory , e-tenders are hereby invited from Registered Class-A Electrical Contractor

enlisted with Inspection Agency of Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Department for execution of below works .

S. No Name of Work Estimated Cost Adv. Cost. (Lacs) Earnest Money. Position of Funds.

1. Improvement of LT Network at village Keller Batapora, Naidgund Keller, Zawoora, Farman Mohalla (BLOCK KELLER) & Creation of 63 KVA substation alongwith allied material at village Kegam Cheki niltrchal (BLOCK KELLER) under BACK TO VILLAGE PROGRAM..

6.64 6.64 2%of adv. Cost DEMANDED

1 Cost of e-Bid/ tender document Rs. 1000.00 (Payable to Executive Engineer ED Shopian vide Treasury Receipt or Echallan Only)2 Amount of Earnest Money Deposit @ 2 % of Adv. Cost. Rs. 13000 (Pledged to Executive Engineer EM&RE Division Shopian payable at Shopian)3 Publishing Date & Time 11-11-2019 (_________Hrs)4 Document Download / Sale Start Date & Time 11-11-2019 (1700 Hrs)5 Seek Clarification Start Date & Time 13-11-2019 (10.00 Hrs)6 Seek Clarification End Date & Time 13-11-2019 (1600 Hrs)7 Bid Submission Start Date & Time 14-11-2019 (1700 Hrs)8 Bid Submission End Date & Time 20-11-2019 (1400 Hrs)10 Technical Bid Opening date & Time 21-11-2019 (1400 Hrs)

The Quoted rates shall be Firm, inclusive of all taxes and duties, transportation up to working sites. The rates shall include costs, if any attracted towards mandatory inspections / testing by the designated agencies and the department will not be required to pay / reimburse anything over and above the price quoted. Executive Engineer, Electric M&RE

Division Shopian

Observer News Service

JAMMU: Lt. Governor Girish Chan-dra Murmu reviewed the Health and Medical Education sector and also the externally aided projects being executed by the Economic

Reconstruction Agency (ERA), in separate meetings held at the Civil Secretariat, Jammu. Sh. BVR Subrahmanyam, Chief Secretary; Sh. Arun Kumar Mehta, Finan-cial Commissioner, Finance; Sh. BipulPathak, Principal Secretary to Lt. Governor were among the officers present on the occasion. Sh. AtalDulloo, Financial Commis-sioner, Health and Medical Edu-cation gave a presentation on the status of health indicators, disease burden, human resources in the health sector and achievements under the Ayushman Bharat Scheme were reviewed.

Lt. Governor was informed that Jammu and Kashmir till date has issued 11.35 lakh Golden Cards against the target of 31 lakh, highest number in the country, under Ay-

ushman Bharat-PradhanMantri Jan ArogyaYojana (AB-PMJAY).

While reviewing the sector, Lt. Governor urged for achieving 100 % distribution of Golden Cards at the earliest and directed for pro-viding internet connection to all

the government hospitals imple-menting the Ayushman Bharat scheme. He directed installation of heavy duty generators in all the government hospitals of Jam-mu and Kashmir and also advised for exploring renewable energy sector for meeting power de-mand of the health care sector. Lt. Governor emphasised strength-ening of healthcare infrastructure and directed expediting works on medi-cities, operationalization of 102 and 108 ambulance service, proper disposal of medical waste and achieve targets under the Na-tional Immunization Programme.

In another meeting Lt. Governor reviewed various externally aided projects being executed by the Eco-nomic Reconstruction Agency (ERA) including those for ensuring 24*7

water supply, solid waste manage-ment, urban transport etc in Sri-nagar and Jammu cities.

Sh. RohitKansal, Principal Sec-retary Planning, Development and Monitoring Department gave the Presentation. Sh. Dheeraj Gupta,

Principal Secretary Housing and Ur-ban Development Department; Ms. AvnyLavasa, CEO, ERA participated in the meeting.

While reviewing the Jehlum-Tawi Flood Recovery Project (JT-FRP), Lt. Governor suggested to take up drainage works on priority and follow due procedures for pre monsoon check of the system. He emphasised revival of natural wa-ter bodies in J&K which channelize excess water flow in case of floods like situation.

Lt. Governor directed for estab-lishment of a foolproof Disaster Control room capable of function-ing effectively even during any flood exigency. He advised the ERA to ensure strict quality control while executing works under various projects.

Lt Governor reviews Health and Medical Education sector and projects by the ERA

Agencies

Srinagar: Ahead of the resumption of train services in Kashmir, the Indian Railways on Monday con-ducted a trial run between Banihal and Baramulla. The train services in Kashmir Valley were stopped soon after the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir on August 5. The security and railway officials were present during the trial run.

On Sunday, Railways officers had said that if everything goes well, the train services can be restored in the Valley from November 12.

The train service on 137 km railway line was suspended ahead of August 5th announce-ment altering the Constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir. The Railways have suffered a loss of over Rs 3- crores due to sus-pension of the train services. The Valley has been under lockdown

for more than three months. Except for one day of week, 15 pairs of train ferry around 30,000 commuters, mostly students and employees between Banihal and Baramulla. The officials said since the Railways generated revenue from the sale of passenger tickets, snapping of service incur huge losses. “Railways in Kashmir an-nually generate Rs 10 crores but the expenditure for the same pe-

riod is more than Rs 70 crores and income declines further with this loss,” an official said.

This is the second time Railway services have remained suspended for longer duration. In 2016, the service was suspended for five months after the killing of a mili-tant commander, BurhanWani, that sparked protests across the Val-ley. The Railway suffered a loss of around Rs 5 crores during that pe-riod. (KNT)

After 98 days Indian Railways conduct trial run in Kashmir after suffering Rs 3 crore loss

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Tuesday|12-11-2019

Sunday Observer

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Snowed Under

FOUR days on from the Thursday’s heavy snowfall, the Union Territory government is still struggling with the task of putting the life in Valley back on

rails. Power and water supply continue to re-main disrupted in parts of the Valley and snow clearance operations continue to be lax. This is really a sad comment on the state of affairs in the UT. More so, when Thursday’s snowfall was its first test. In fact, response to a snowstorm is always a major test of the responsiveness of the administration. Considering the fact, the winter in Kashmir is harshly cold, the govern-ments here are supposed to be not only pre-pared for sudden weather challenges but also once faced with the challenge address it in the shortest possible time. Also, being a place with long, extended winters, the administration in Kashmir is expected to have a pool of knowl-edge, experience and the expertise to deal with the situation. But seeing the tardy response to the current snowfall one can very well ask what have our departments charged to deal with win-ter emergencies learnt over the years. Where is the pool of knowledge to deal with the situation and get the life up and moving again?

What the current snowfall has once again highlighted to everybody’s dismay is how more things change in Kashmmir, more they remain the same. And how it is a safe prediction for ev-erybody that the future will be no different. What makes the situation more difficult is the apathy of the UT government to the chaos that followed the snowfall. The exceptionally severe nature of the recent weather phenomenon hardly made the state government more sensitive towards the needs of the people. In fact, this winter the govern-ment appeared more distant than ever. The peo-ple were more or less left to fend for themselves.

Also, such monumental government failures whereby a snowfall leaves us hopelessly strand-ed doesn’t even become a public issue. But it is only to be expected in Kashmir. Be it democracy or a gubernatorial administration, the gover-nance goes missing at crucial junctures. Peo-ple are important, no doubt, but our democracy easily affords to skirt them. This is why we still are waiting for our governments to pleasantly surprise us by at least raising the level of their responsiveness to the situations that cause most distress to the people. In the event of a snowfall, power and water supply are the first to be dis-rupted and snow clearance operations are lax. Here is hoping against hope that the new admin-istration pleasantly surprises us with a more ef-ficient handling of a future bad turn in weather.

K O V I E W

Every Final Judgment May Not Necessarily Be Right And Just

THE judgment delivered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of In-dia on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid civil dispute in

Ayodhya has given finality to the dis-pute over 1480 sq yds of land. This small tract of land where the Babri mosque once stood came to be believed to be the birthplace of Lord Ram.

This finality has to be respected. Such is the vigour and demand of a society governed by the Rule of Law. All communities of this great nation, of course including the Muslims, are bound by it. The collective sentiment of Indian Muslims must not super-sede the Rule of Law.

However, every final judgement may not necessarily be right and just. The con-clusions of the court, may be criticised, as being against justice and equity.

The Hon’ble Court accepted the contentions — Muslims offering namaz in the Babri mosque till 1949; idols being placed inside the Mosque in 1949; the demolition of the Mosque that stood for 464 years, in 1992, being a gross violation of Rule of Law; faith/belief and archaeological evidence cannot be the basis to decide title; the place of birth i.e. the Janamsthan is not a juristic personality. Having con-curred on these facts, the court ought not to have decided to hand over the 1480 square yards to the temple side.

As the dispute before the Hon’ble Court was confined to 1480 square yards, there was no occasion for the court to grant five acres land for the mosque.

The Hindu side had offered 10 acres of land and ₹5 crores in exchange for the mosque in 1986. The offer stood till recently. One of the offers from the mediators to the dispute was five acres of land elsewhere, which was re-jected by Muslim parties. I am of the opinion that while recognising the fi-nality of the decision, the community ought to reject the five acres granted by the Hon’ble Court.

The final stamp of the Judiciary has recognised a certain faith and belief, and in doing so, has permitted Lord Ram to be historicised. A simple legal issue pending in court, came to be reignited through vested political interests by filing a fresh case in 1989.

The entire case thereafter became political at the behest of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and its ilk. Finally, the politics of the country prevailed in the shape of tilted judicial verdicts, firstly by the high court and finally by the Su-preme Court.

Faith prevailed upon the title by using the extraordinary power of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s duty in this case was to ensure that the wrong caused to the mosque was cured and ensured rule of law and not to be benevolent by giving the land which Muslims had not demanded.

In mediation, at the outset I had objected in writing, to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar being a Ld. Mediator be-cause of his well-known view of a

resolution only being possible if the Muslim parties give up the site. The said objection was mentioned in the first meeting held on 13.03.2019. The Ld. Mediation Panel assured us of their impartiality.

Even Sri Sri personally assured me that his personal views expressed in the past, would not prejudice his neutrality. Thus, we did not press that objection any further.

In the first private mediation pro-ceedings, all the Muslim parties in-cluding the chairman, UP Sunni Cen-tral Waqf Board, in compliance to the request of a proposal, gave up their claim to a part of the land, in writing, in the larger interest.

Till the end of the first round of me-diation, we kept asking the panel as to whether the other contesting parties had submitted a resolution plan. The answer was always negative.

All I was told was that they wanted Muslims to leave the entire disputed land. On one occasion, I asked the panel that, in terms of reciprocity, does the other side agree, that the mosque also needed to be built? If so, then where? The answer of the panel was for our side to agree to leave the site and such mo-dalities to be worked out later.

I appeared before the panel on sev-en occasions. Sometimes with Muslim parties in the case, and twice by myself at New Delhi. On asking by the panel about the general issues faced by the community in general in the country, I summarised various issues before them, including the issue of how the central government and the Archaeo-logical Survey of India had, over the years, taken over various religious structures of Muslims, like mosques and tombs, and prohibited the offering of prayer at these places.

I also pointed out that the State neither allowed the renovation of un-disputed mosques in Ayodhya, nor

prayers thereat. Later I was told, one more person raised these issues in his individual session.

I also stated to them that despite the provisions of the Places of Wor-ship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, litigation involving many mosques still remain pending.

Despite this statute, majoritar-ian political will seems to be against law itself, targeting various religious places of Muslims. Thereafter, the panel formulated a settlement pro-posal, which included some answers to these issues. I cited these to show the prevailing scenario in the country and not as compensation for surren-der of land.

In the last two meetings, the issue of ASI mosques and strengthening Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991— in addition to building the mosque elsewhere in Ayodhya — was placed before the individual Muslim parties as a counterproposal.

I was shown a draft by the panel to this effect in New Delhi meeting. Af-ter going through the draft proposal, I inquired, whether the subject set out in the counterproposal had the sanc-tion from the executive/government.

The answer was negative. I think the approach of mediation panel was on a wrong premise.

Firstly, they thought if Muslims surrender their claim on this land, it would resolve other issues which the Muslim community is facing. Second-ly, any talks with the Muslim parties were subject to the claim to the site of the Babri Mosque being given up.

Finally, in this case, Rule of Law has been defeated; majoritarianism and faith of one religion has prevailed.

The writer is the Advocate on Re-cord for Iqbal Ansari in the Supreme

Court of India. The views expressed are personal

M R ShaMShad

Hindustan Times

The final stamp of the

Judiciary has recognised a certain faith and belief, and in doing so, has permitted Lord Ram to be historicised. A simple legal issue pending in court, came to be reignited through vested political interests by filing a fresh case in 1989.

The Hindu side had offered 10 acres of land and Rs 5 crores in exchange for the mosque in 1986. The offer stood till

recently. One of the offers from the mediators to the dispute was five acres of land elsewhere, which was rejected by Muslim parties

ERic BowMan

WHAT are the most addictive drugs? This question seems simple, but the answer depends on whom you ask. From the points of view of different

researchers, the potential for a drug to be addic-tive can be judged in terms of the harm it causes, the street value of the drug, the extent to which the drug activates the brain’s dopamine system, how pleasurable people report the drug to be, the degree to which the drug causes withdrawal symptoms, and how easily a person trying the drug will become hooked.

There are other facets to measuring the ad-dictive potential of a drug, too, and there are even researchers who argue that no drug is always addictive. Given the varied view of researchers, then, one way of ranking addictive drugs is to ask expert panels. In 2007, David Nutt and his col-leagues asked addiction experts to do exactly that – with some interesting findings.

1. HeroinNutt et al.’s experts ranked heroin as the most

addictive drug, giving it a score of 3 out of a maxi-mum score of 3. Heroin is an opiate that causes the level of dopamine in the brain’s reward sys-tem to increase by up to 200% in experimental animals. In addition to being arguably the most addictive drug, heroin is dangerous, too, because the dose that can cause death is only five times greater than the dose required for a high.

Heroin also has been rated as the second most harmful drug in terms of damage to both users and to society. The market for illegal opiates, including heroin, was estimated to be $68 billion worldwide in 2009.

2. Cocaine

Cocaine directly interferes with the brain’s use of dopamine to convey messages from one neuron to another. In essence, cocaine prevents neurons from turning the dopamine signal off, re-sulting in an abnormal activation of the brain’s reward pathways. In experiments on animals, co-caine caused dopamine levels to rise more than three times the normal level. It is estimated that between 14-20m people worldwide use cocaine and that in 2009 the cocaine market was worth about $75 billion.

Crack cocaine has been ranked by experts as being the third most damaging drug and pow-dered cocaine, which causes a milder high, as the fifth most damaging. About 21% of people who try cocaine will become dependent on it at sometime in their life. Cocaine is similar to other addictive stimulants, such as methamphetamine – which is becoming more of a problem as it becomes more widely available – and amphetamine.

3. NicotineNicotine is the main addictive ingredient

of tobacco. When somebody smokes a cigarette, nicotine is rapidly absorbed by the lungs and delivered to the brain. Nutt et al’s expert panels rated nicotine (tobacco) as the third most addic-tive substance.

More than two-thirds of Americans who tried smoking reported becoming dependent during their life. In 2002 the WHO estimated there were more than 1 billion smokers and it has been esti-mated that tobacco will kill more than 8m people annually by 2030. Laboratory animals have the good sense not to smoke. However, rats will press a button to receive nicotine directly into their bloodstream – and this causes dopamine levels in the brain’s reward system to rise by about 25-40%.

4. Barbiturates (‘downers’)Barbiturates – also known as blue bullets, go-

rillas, nembies, barbs and pink ladies – are a class of drugs that were initially used to treat anxiety and to induce sleep. They interfere with chemi-cal signalling in the brain, the effect of which is to shut down various brain regions. At low doses, barbiturates cause euphoria, but at higher doses they can be lethal because they suppress breath-ing. Barbiturate dependence was common when the drugs were easily available by prescription, but this has declined dramatically as other drugs have replaced them. This highlights the role that the context plays in addiction: if an addictive drug is not widely available, it can do little harm. Nutt et al’s expert panels rated barbiturates as the fourth most addictive substance.

5. AlcoholAlthough legal in the US and UK, alcohol was

scored by Nutt et al.‘s experts 1.9 out of a maxi-mum of 3. Alcohol has many effects on the brain, but in laboratory experiments on animals it in-creased dopamine levels in the brain’s reward system by 40-360% – and the more the animals drank the more dopamine levels increased.

Some 22% of people who have taken a drink will develop dependence on alcohol at some point during their life. The WHO has estimated that 2 billion people used alcohol in 2002 and more than 3m people died in 2012 due to damage to the body caused by drinking. Alcohol has been ranked as the most damaging drug by other experts, too.

This article has been amended to reflect an er-ror in the reading of Nutt et al.’s data. The author

wishes to thank Erin Brodwin/Business Insider for detecting the error.

By arrangement with The Conversation

The Five Most Addictive Substances On Earth – And What They Do To Your Brain

05Tuesday | 12-11-2019Business

N E W S M A K E R S

Passenger vehicle sales rise marginally in October

No claimants for dormant Swiss accounts of Indians; some may get liquidated soon

Press Trust Of India

New Delhi/Zurich - No claimants have come forward for about a dozen dormant Swiss bank ac-counts linked to Indians, leaving the funds lying in these accounts at the risk of getting transferred to the Switzerland government.

The Swiss government began making details of dormant ac-counts public in 2015 to allow their claimants submit necessary proof to get access to those funds, which included at least 10 ac-counts linked to Indians.

These included some accounts linked to Indian residents and na-tionals from the British rule era, but ironically not a single dormant account linked to an Indian has been successfully claimed in the last six years, as per the records available with the Swiss authori-ties. The claim period for some of these accounts would expire next month, while a few others can still be claimed till the end of 2020.

Incidentally, some of the ac-counts linked to Pakistan resi-dents have have been claimed since then, as is the case with several other accounts linked to residents from other countries in-cluding Switzerland itself.

The list included close to 2,600 dormant accounts when it was first made public in December 2015, which had around 45 mil-lion Swiss francs (over Rs 300 crore) lying unclaimed since at least 1955. There were also nearly 80 safety unclaimed deposit boxes when the list was first made pub-lic for claims from the real own-ers or their heirs.More accounts are being added every year since then after they become dormant under the Swiss banking laws and the list now includes nearly 3,500 accounts. While Swiss bank ac-counts have been a matter of heat-ed political debate for many years in India due to suspicion that they were being used to hoard alleged black money, it has also been suspected that people linked to the erstwhile princely states had stashed some funds in banks in

Switzerland. Under global pres-sure over recent years, Switzer-land has opened its banking sys-tem for regulatory scrutiny from abroad and it has also entered into pacts for automatic exchange of information on financial matters with a large number of countries, including India.

The first batch of details about accounts held by Indians in Swit-zerland-based financial institu-tions was given to India recently under this automatic information exchange information and the next such exercise would take

place in September 2020.In the meantime, the claims for

dormant accounts are being man-aged by the Swiss Banking Om-budsman under cooperation from the Swiss Bankers Association.

As per the details available with the ombudsman, the dormant ac-counts linked to Indians that are waiting for their claimants include those included to at least two per-sons from the erstwhile Calcutta (now known as Kolkata), one from Dehradun, two from erstwhile Bombay (now known as Mumbai) and also some Indian settled in France and the UK.

The claim period for two such accounts -- which are in the names of Leila Talukdar and Prmatha N Talukdar -- would end next month on November 15, while the assets can be claimed till December this year for accounts in the names of Chandralata Pranlal Patel, Mohan Lal and Kishore Lall.

In case of two Bombay-res-idents -- Rosmarie Bernet and Pierre Vachek -- the claim period would expire next year in Decem-ber 2020, while similar is the case for the account of Chandra Baha-dur Singh from Dehradun and Yo-gesch Prabhudas Suchah, whose last recorded residence was in London. Under the Swiss laws, a bank account is declared dormant after there is no customer contact for 60 years ago and details are made public for inviting claims for all such accounts having at least 500 Swiss francs or assets of un-known value.

Indian economy facing challenging time, says Sitharaman


NEW DELHI - Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday unveiled a book on global finance, and said it suggests solutions for challenges that the world and In-dian economy is currently facing.

Launching the book titled 'The Rise of Finance: Causes, Conse-quences and Cure', she said it will help "understand the current eco-nomic situation facing both the world and Indian economy".

The book is co-authored by V Anantha Nageswaran and Gul-zar Natarajan. Nageswaran is dean of IFMR Graduate School of Business at Krea University. Natarajan is senior managing director at Global Innovation Fund. "As a textbook, I am sure it will become very popular and more importantly, this will be a book that is very relevant to those of us, sitting on the policy making table. Secondly, its rel-evance and the timing of the

launch of the book in India. We are currently facing a challeng-ing time," the minister said.

She said it has come at a time when questions are being asked about the nature of the slow-down, which is affecting the glob-al economy and bogging it down and indeed questioning if India is actually in a slowdown.

"...the book examines the rise of financialisation globally. I really commend the prescriptive and descriptive narrative that sup-ports the topic of financialisation and the solutions that have been prescribed for situations that the world and Indian economy is cur-rently facing," Sitharaman said.

India's economic growth slumped to an over six-year low of 5 per cent in the first quarter ended June this fiscal due to slow-er consumer demand and private investment amid deteriorating global environment. This has prompted many global agencies to cut India's GDP growth by vari-ous degrees for 2019-20. The RBI, in October monetary policy re-view, had cut sharply its economic growth projection for the country for this fiscal to 6.1 per cent from 6.9 per cent earlier, expressing hope it will recover in the second half of 2019-20. The government has recently announced a slew of measures, including cut in corpo-rate tax rate, capital infusion into public sector banks, setting up a Rs 25,000 crore fund to boost re-alty sector, among others, to boost the economy.


New Delhi: Domestic passenger vehicle sales witnessed a mar-ginal increase of 0.28 per cent to 2,85,027 units in October from 2,84,223 units in the year-ago period. Domestic car sales were down 6.34 per cent to 1,73,649 units as against 1,85,400 units in October 2018, according to data

released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam).

Motorcycle sales, last month, declined 15.88 per cent to 11,16,970 units as against 13,27,758 units a year earlier. Total two-wheeler sales in October de-clined 14.43 per cent to 17,57,264 units compared to 20,53,497 units in the year-ago month. Sales of commercial vehicles were down

23.31 per cent at 66,773 units in October, Siam said.

Vehicle sales across catego-ries registered a decline of 12.76 per cent to 21,76,136 units from 24,94,345 units in October 2018, it added. In fact, barring utility vehicles, passenger carriers and quadricycles, all other vehicle cat-egories witnessed decline in sales during the month.

Iran announces discovery of massive oil field

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Tehran - Iran has discovered a massive new oil field, President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday, a find that would boost its proven reserves by about a third in a rare piece of "good news" for an econ-omy battered by US sanctions.

In a speech aired on state TV, Rouhani said the country's economy had stabilised despite punishing US measures against its senior leaders, banking and finance sectors. The vast field in the southwestern province of Khuzestan holds an estimated 53 billion barrels of crude, he said.

The 80-metre deep reservoir stretches nearly 200 kilometres from Khuzestan's border with Iraq to the city of Omidiyeh.

"This is a small gift by the gov-ernment to the people of Iran," he said in a speech from the cen-tral city of Yazd.

"We announce to America to-day that we are a rich nation, and despite your enmity and cruel sanctions, Iranian oil industry workers and engineers discov-ered this great oil field." The find would add around 34 percent to the OPEC member's current prov-en reserves, estimated by energy giant BP at 155.6 billion barrels.

Iran, a founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, sits on what were already the world's fourth-biggest oil reserves. The new re-serves, if proven, would lift it to third place, just before regional arch-rival Saudi Arabia.

But it remains to be seen how much the country can benefit from the new field.

Iran has struggled to sell its oil since US President Donald Trump

withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal last year and reim-posed unilateral sanctions.

In May, Washington ended temporary sanctions waivers it had granted to the eight main buyers of Iranian oil, ratchet-ing up the pressure on holdouts China, India and Turkey to find other suppliers. Tehran does not report exact figures, but says some crude is still exported via

"unconventional" means.It has hit back at the US with a

series of countermeasures, step-ping up its nuclear activities and threatening to go further unless the deal's promised economic benefits materialise. It insists its moves are transparent and easily reversible, calling on the deal's other parties to honour their commitments. The remaining parties to the 2015 accord -- Brit-ain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- have been working on measures to help it avoid US sanc-tions, but with few results so far.

Since the US withdrawal, ten-sions have cranked up in the Gulf with a series of mysterious

attacks on tankers and Saudi oil installations, with Tehran and Washington narrowly avoiding an armed confrontation after the downing of a US drone over Irani-an territory. Iran has experienced a sharp economic downturn this year, fuelled in part by US sanc-tions, with a plummeting curren-cy sending inflation skyrocketing and hiking the prices of imports.

But Rouhani insisted the econ-

omy had now stabilised."Our people weathered hard

days in the past year ... (but) I believe America is now hope-less," he said. The IMF has said Iran's economy will contract by a massive 9.5 percent this year, its worst performance since 1984 when the Islamic republic was at war with neighbouring Iraq, but notes the growth is ex-pected to stabilise at zero next year. Authorities have cracked down hard on "economic dis-ruptors" -- Iranians accused of exploiting shortages and fluc-tuations in gold and currency prices, with dozens tried and some executed.

Agencies

Riyadh, Nov 10 (AFP) Saudi Aram-co's much-anticipated initial pub-lic offering will begin on Novem-ber 17, the company's prospectus said, without revealing the size of the stake sale or the pricing range.

The 658-page document, re-leased just before midnight Sat-urday, said the final share price will be determined on December 5 -- a day after the subscriptions close -- in what is expected to be the world's biggest IPO.

After years of delays and false starts, Aramco officials last week announced a share sale on the Riyadh stock exchange for the world's most profitable company, which pumps 10 per cent of the world's oil. The prospectus said the state giant will sell up to 0.5 per cent of its shares to individual investors while it has still not de-cided on the percentage for larger institutional investors.

"The targeted percentage of of-fer shares allocable to individual investors will be up to 0.5% of the shares," the prospectus said.

The document also highlighted risks including the potential for terrorist attacks, the possibility of antitrust legislation and climate change concerns that could re-duce global demand for hydrocar-bons. But investors in Saudi Ara-bia appear to be salivating at the prospect of owning a piece of the company -- seen as the kingdom's crown jewel -- in the IPO.

It would be the world's biggest if it eclipses Chinese retail giant Alibaba's USD 25 billion listing in 2014. The prospectus named a

host of international banking gi-ants -- from Citibank to Credit Su-isse and HSBC -- that it has hired as financial advisors and bookrun-ners. Saudi Arabia is pulling out all the stops to ensure the success of the IPO, a cornerstone of Prince Mohammed's ambitious plans to steer the economy away from oil by pumping tens of billions of dol-lars into a host of megaprojects and non-energy industries.

The government has reportedly pressed wealthy Saudi business families and institutions to invest in the IPO, and many nationalists have labelled it a patriotic duty.

The firm has said there were no current plans for an international stock sale, indicating that the long-discussed goal for a second offering on a foreign bourse had been put aside. Aramco had ini-tially been expected to sell a total of five percent on two exchanges, with a first listing of two per cent on the Tadawul Saudi bourse fol-lowed by a three per cent listing on an overseas exchange.

It is unclear whether Aramco will get the 2 trillion valuation Prince Mohammed had hoped for, with investment research firm Bernstein estimating it could fall between USD 1.2 and USD 1.5 trillion. There are also reports the firm is struggling to get in-stitutional investors on board amid a bearish outlook for the energy sector and questions over the company's transparency and governance. Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, has said it does not plan to invest in Aramco, a Norwegian of-ficial told AFP.

‘Saudi Aramco's record IPO starts Nov 17’

Gold rises Rs 118 on global cues, rupee depreciationNew Delhi, Nov 11 (PTI) Gold prices on Monday rallied by Rs 118 to Rs 38,678 per 10 gram in the national capital helped by a recovery in global prices and sharp rupee depreciation against the dollar, according to HDFC Securities. On Saturday, the pre-cious metal had closed at Rs 38,560 per 10 gram. HDFC Securities Senior Analyst (Commodities) Tapan Patel said spot gold prices for 24 Karat in Delhi were trading up by Rs 118 with recovery in global gold prices and sharp rupee depreciation. He further said the spot rupee was trading around 20 paise weaker against the dollar during the day. The Indian rupee depreciated 8 paise to 71.34 against the US dollar in early trade on Monday tracking uncertainty over the US-China trade deal and subdued opening of the do-mestic equity market. Silver prices also gained Rs 293 to Rs 45,263 per kg as against Rs 44,970 per kg in the previous trade. On international trend he said, "Gold prices on Monday witnessed marginal recovery after declining more than 3 per cent in the previous week on US-China trade deal hopes." In the global market, gold was trading with gains at USD 1,463 an ounce and silver at USD 16.85 per ounce.

Traders to launch agitation against Amazon and FlipkartNew Delhi - Traders' body CAIT on Sunday said it will launch a series of protests against Amazon, Flipkart and other e-commerce firms for continuous violation of the FDI policy from Wednesday. Trade leaders from 27 states gathered here at a National Traders Conference held by CAIT. Confederation of All India Traders Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said the frontal war against Amazon and Flipkart will begin from November 13 and continue till January 10, 2020.

A "National Protest Day" will be held on November 20 and dharna will be organised in more than 500 cities. About 5 lakh traders are expected to take part in such protest, the traders' body said. The traders' body alleged that these companies were circumventing the law and abusing Press Note No 2 of the government's foreign direct investment (FDI) policy. Khandelwal said the conference has chalked out a roadmap for its nationwide agitation from November 13, which will be observed as "National Awareness Campaign Day" when traders delegations across the country will submit an exhaus-tive memorandum to all MPs, urging them to raise the issue in Parliament.

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BSNL mulls continuity measures amid VRS plan rollout; talks on with DoTNew Delhi -With the current VRS plan expected to cut BSNL's staff by almost half, the DoT has instructed the corporation to put in place measures to ensure business continuity and smooth transition, particularly for manning telephone exchanges in rural areas. At present, various options are being discussed for the transition period. A source in Department of Telecom (DoT) told PTI said the matter requires urgent focus, and meetings are on to find a solution to ensure there is no impact on day-to-day manning of exchanges and other operations, once the VRS plan concludes. On Friday evening, barely four days after the scheme was rolled out, the number of BSNL employees opting for VRS had swelled to 57,000, and the figures when combined with those of state-owned MTNL had exceed 60,000. In all, nearly one lakh BSNL employees are eligible for the VRS out of its total staff strength of about 1.50 lakh. BSNL's internal target for VRS is pegged at 77,000 employ-ees, which essentially means that if the VRS reaches full target, the staff strength will come down by half. The effec-tive date of voluntary retirement under the present scheme is January 31, 2020. When contacted, BSNL Chairman and MD P K Purwar confirmed that discussions have been initiated on the issue and said the corporation is planning business re-engineering and business continuity.

Life & Times 06Tuesday | 12.11.2019

Personal Care Products Harmful For Children: Study

WASHINGTON: Personal care products like shampoo, lotion, nail polish and cologne may send one child to the hospital every two hours due to poisoning and chemical burns, according to a US study published on Monday.

Researchers at the Nationwide Children's Hospital found that 64,686 children younger than five years of age were treated in US emergency departments for inju-ries related to personal care prod-ucts from 2002 through 2016.

The study, published in the jour-nal Clinical Pediatrics, found that most injuries from these products occurred when a child swallowed the product (75.7 per cent) or the product made contact with a child's skin or eyes (19.3 per cent).

These ingestions and expo-sures most often led to poisonings (86.2 per cent) or chemical burns (13.8 per cent), researchers said.

"When you think about what young children see when they look at these products, you start to understand how these injuries can happen," said Rebecca McAd-ams, a senior research associate at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

"Kids this age can't read, so they don't know what they are looking at. They see a bottle with a colour-ful label that looks or smells like something they are allowed to eat or drink, so they try to open it and take a swallow.

"When the bottle turns out to be nail polish remover instead of juice, or lotion instead of yogurt, serious

injuries can occur," McAdams said.The top three product categories

leading to injuries were nail care products (28.3 per cent) hair care products (27.0 per cent), and skin care products (25.0 per cent), followed by fragrance products (12.7 per cent).

Nail polish remover was the indi-vidual product that led to the most number of visits to the emergency room (17.3 per cent of all injuries).

Of the more serious injuries that required hospitalisation, more than half were from hair care products (52.4 per cent) with hair relaxers and permanent solu-tions leading to more hospitalisa-tions than all other products. Also of concern, is the ease of access to these products, researchers said.

"Children watch their parents

use these items and may try to im-itate their behaviour. Since these products are often stored in easy-to-reach places and are not typi-cally in child-resistant containers, it can be easy for kids to get to and open the bottles," said McAdams.

"Because these products are cur-rently not required to have child-resistant packaging, it is important for parents to put them away im-mediately after use and store them safely, preferably in a cabinet or closet with a lock or a latch.

"These simple steps can pre-vent many injuries and trips to the emergency department," she said.

Researchers also recommend that paediatricians discuss these safe storage guidelines with care-givers during well-child visits. (PTI)

Immune System Of New Born Is Transferred From Mothers

WASHINGTON: To help the newborn immune system learn to discriminate between friend and foe, mothers transfer antibodies to their infants via the placenta, recent findings suggest.

As part of a recent study, a team of researchers has determined how a pregnant woman's vaccine-induced immunity is transferred to her child, which has implications for the development of more effec-tive maternal vaccines.

"Newborns arrive into the world on the first day of life with brand-new immune systems that, like the children themselves, need to learn to cope with both helpful and harmful microbes in their environment," explained Galit Alter, co-senior author of the study published in Cell paper.

According to the researchers, to help the newborn im-mune system learn to discriminate between friend and foe, mothers transfer antibodies to their infants via the placenta. The rules by which the placenta performs this absolutely essential function have been unknown but if decoded, could hold the key to generating more power-ful vaccines to protect these most precious patients.

While maternal antibodies against some diseases such as measles can be transferred from mother to in-fant, providing some protection until the child is old enough for individual vaccination, antibodies to other serious diseases like polio are less efficiently transferred.

To investigate the mechanisms by which antibod-ies are transferred from mother to child, the team of researchers used a novel tool called system serology to compare the quantity and quality of antibodies against pertussis in blood samples from mothers and from the umbilical cords that carry blood, nutrients and immune factors from the placenta to the infant.

Their investigation revealed that the placenta prefer-entially sifts out and delivers to the infant antibodies that activate natural killer (NK) cells, key elements of the in-nate immune system. While several important immune cells are too immature in newborns to provide effective protection, NK cells are among the most abundant and functional immune cells during the first days of life.

The team found a similar preference for the placental transfer of NK-activating antibodies against influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, a common disease of childhood, and also identified antibody features that ap-pear to regulate placental selection, features that could possibly be built into next-generation vaccines with im-proved mother-to-child antibody transfer. (Agencies)

'Virtual Biopsy' Device Can Help Detect Skin Cancer Readily

NEW YORK: Scientists have developed a 'vir-tual biopsy' device that can quickly and non-invasively determine whether a skin tumour is cancerous and needs to be removed surgically.

Using sound vibrations and pulses of near-infrared light, the device can determine a skin lesion's depth and potential malignancy with-out using a scalpel, according to the researchers from a Rutgers University in the US.

The ability to analyse a skin tumour non-invasively could make biopsies much less risky and distressing to patients. Currently, physi-cians who perform surgical biopsies often do not know the extent of a lesion and whether it will be necessary to refer the patient to a specialist for extensive tissue removal or plastic surgery – until surgery has already begun.

The first-of-its-kind experimental procedure, called vibrational optical coherence tomography (VOCT), creates a 3D map of the legion's width and depth under the skin with a tiny laser di-ode. It also uses soundwaves to test the lesion's density and stiffness since cancer cells are stiffer than healthy cells.

An inch-long speaker applies audible sound-waves against the skin to measure the skin's vibrations and determine whether the lesion is malignant. "This procedure can be completed in 15 minutes with no discomfort to the patient, who feels no sensation from the light or the nearly inaudible sound," said Frederick Silver, a professor at Rutgers University.

"It's a significant improvement over surgi-cal biopsies, which are invasive, expensive and time-consuming," said Silver. The study found that a prototype device is able to accurately distinguish between healthy skin and different types of skin lesions and carcinomas.

The researchers tested the device over six months on four skin excisions and on eight vol-unteers without skin lesions. Further studies are needed to fine-tune the device's ability to iden-tify a lesion's borders and areas of greatest den-sity and stiffness, researchers said, which would allow physicians to remove tumours with mini-mally invasive surgery. (PTI)

Here's How To Fight Digital AddictionNEW DELHI: Digital addiction is real and it could be as dangerous as drug addiction, warned psychiatrists while outlining practical ways to fight the urge to use gadgets non-stop both among children and adults.

The warning came following re-ports of a 24-year-old mother com-mitting suicide last week in Tamil Nadu after she was prevented from using TikTok and a 16-year-old stu-dent from Madhya Pradesh suffer-ing a major cardiac arrest and los-ing his life after playing PUBG for six straight hours last month.

The key to fighting digital addiction is to realise the problem when some-one develops it, the experts said.

"The two most important things that people have to do is maintain a balance between work, life indoor, outdoor recreation and social en-gagements. One must also ensure they are getting proper sleep. It is essential," Samir Parikh, Director, Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences, Fortis Health-care, told IANS.

Parikh also recommended that adults should undergo a four hours of "digital detox" every week - a period when they do not use their phone or any gadget.

"If one finds it difficult to go through those four hours then there is a problem, which needs to

be addressed," he said.People who are addicted to us-

ing gadgets, tend to get "withdrawal symptoms" in the form of always thinking about that them, or becom-ing irritable with disturbed sleep when they try to stop using their devices, said Sandeep Vohra, Senior Consultant, Psychiatry, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi.

"Digital addiction is as bad as addiction to any other drug. So if you are hit by digital addiction, the signs are that you actually tend to go off your normal routine life. You are always dependent and on the screen," Vohra told IANS.

Such people can neglect per-sonal hygiene and their own self. They also tend to stop interacting

with the society, with their family members and stop thinking about their responsibilities or stop doing their day-to-day chores.

"One can have clinical depres-sion, anxiety, obsessive symptoms, insomnia, irritability, and difficulty in concentrating on other things.

"And you can have in rare cases, when one becomes over-depen-dent, psychosis. So you have to be aware of all this and it can be very challenging if you don't realise that you are going into addiction," Vohra added.

It is not just adults who are vul-nerable to digital addiction as use of smartphones and other gam-ing devices have become common among children.

But do we know when a child starts showing signs of addiction and when to seek help?

The experts suggested that par-ents should be alarmed when they notice that a child's ability to live life normally has got affected and they lash out badly when digital access is denied.

"Parents need to be good role models. If parents spend too much time on digital gadgets then chil-dren learn and follow by example. Encourage children to be social and develop hobbies," Parikh said.

"If you keep focusing your child's attention on indoor activities there are higher chances of him/her be-coming digitally addicted. There-fore encourage him/her to play sports or meet friends and family. Reading is also a great way to com-bat boredom if indoors," he added.

Vohra suggested that when parents realise that their child is spending too much time on screen, it is very important first to have a dialogue with the kid and ask them to cut down on media consumption.

"If they feel that either the child is not responding the way they want, or if they feel that the child is trying to tell them lies and still us-ing time on screen, then it's better to consult a mental health profes-sional," Vohra informed. (Agencies)

'Every 20 seconds, 1 Indian suffers a brain-stroke'Every 20 seconds, one Indian suffers a brain stroke, or three every minute, and the num-bers are increasing alarmingly due to changing lifestyles.

At this rate, around 1.54 million Indians are affected by strokes every year and the worse is 90 per cent of stroke patients failed to reach hospital on time.

The lifetime risk of stroke after the age of 55 is 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 6 for men.

These revelations came at the ongoing 3-day Fourth Con-gress of Society of Neuro Vas-cular Intervention (SNVICON) Mumbai 2019, with interna-tional participation, here on Saturday.

Prominent speakers said the message was simple but alarming - that in India, the numbers of brain strokes are increasing and it would not be wrong to say they are "life-

style related".Two top Bol-lywood actors - Jackie Shroff and Sanjay Dutt - came out in support of India's neuro-logical fraternity to spread the message and awareness that "stroke is beatable".

Breach Candy Hospital's Se-nior Consultant Neurosurgeon and Interventional Neurosur-geon Dr Anil P. Karapurkar said that like a healthy heart,

a healthy brain is important, for which precautions need to be taken."In case of a heart at-tack, it is either you are gone or you recover. In case of a brain stroke, you may be gone, you may recover and come to normal, or you become de-pendent for life," Karapurkar warned.

He explained that in case of a heart attack, there are half

a dozen basic symptoms such as chest pain, breathlessness, pain in left shoulder and up-per abdomen, but in case of strokes, symptoms may vary depending on which side of the brain is affected.

"Stroke is a sudden loss of func-tion of a part of the body. It can happen out of the blue. The simple rule to follow in case of a stroke is - 'BE FAST' - Balance, Eyes, Face, Arms, Speech, Time," he advised.

If a person suffers from problems in balancing, hoarseness in voice, sudden loss of vision, drops an object, giddiness, the first thing is to rush him to hospital without wasting time.

Karapurkar cautioned that treatment for brain strokes cannot start at home and a CT Scan or a MRI Scan is necessary, and since 2015, doctors follow a protocol of CT plus angio or MRI plus angio to tackle such cases.

The neurological fraternity is now contemplating launch-ing a massive outreach pro-gramme with family doctors and general practitioners to create more awareness about how to deal with brain stroke emergencies.

Some of the other prominent speakers included medicos P. S. Ramani, Dileep R. Yavagal, Orlando Diaz, Abhidha Shah, Sukhdeep Khawar, Philippe Mercier and Nitin N. Dange.

The SNVICON also saw the lat-est technologies being deployed for treatment of stroke. A new web device was also launched.

Some of the major subjects covered are neurovascular anatomy, understanding of ce-rebral artery and 3D anatomy to understand a person's con-dition and treatment better, 3D spine vascular anatomy as a booming field with more to come. (Agencies)

Rheumatic And Musculoskeletal Disease Triggers Suicidal ThoughtsWASHINGTON: A new survey has revealed that pain due to rheu-matic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs) impacts the mental health of people and they are more likely to have suicidal thoughts.

The results were presented at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR 2019). "This survey highlights the huge importance of pain on the psy-chological well-being of RMD patients and the critical need to improve the support on offer," said Professor Thomas Dorner, Chairperson of the Scientific Pro-gramme Committee, EULAR.

The study conducted a survey on over 900 RMD patients which revealed that pain had caused one in ten to have suicidal thoughts within the previous four weeks. Pain also caused 58 per cent to feel that everything was unman-ageable for them.

Another important finding was a reciprocal relationship between sleep and pain where 69 per cent people identified the quality of their sleep as having a negative influence on their pain. In return, two-thirds of patients rarely or never felt fully rested when they wake up in the morning, with 36

per cent taking painkillers to im-prove their sleep.

"Our study indicates that pain and poor quality of sleep have a huge impact on a patient's daily life, especially on their men-tal health," said Lene Mandrup Thomsen, Danish Rheumatism Association, Denmark.

"We are using the results of this study in our political work to help campaign for better treatment and support for patients with

chronic pain in our healthcare system," Thomsen added.

Of the participants, 83 per cent have pain daily or several times a week and 46 per cent have re-ceived strong painkillers over the last year. "It is imperative for rheumatology services to routine-ly measure anxiety and depres-sion in order to intervene before the individual is in crisis," said Dr Hayley McBain, University of Lon-don. (Agencies)

Awesome Wearable Tech May Help Improve The Lives Of Disabled People

Scientists have developed soft, wearable rehabilita-tive devices that can help

elderly and disabled people move with comfort and safety.

According to the research-ers from University of Bristol in the UK the lives of thou-sands of people with mobil-ity issues could be trans-formed with the research.

The FREEHAB project will develop soft, wearable reha-bilitative devices with a view to helping elderly and dis-abled people walk and move from sitting to a standing po-sition in comfort and safety.

Rehabilitation is vital for patients, but outcomes are hampered by a lack of easy-to-use dynamic tools to help therapists accurately analyse mobility performance and devise effective programmes.

As rehabilitation increasingly

takes place in patients' homes in the absence of a therapist, better ways to support in-home mobil-ity and training are needed.

The materials from which the artificial muscles are made in-clude 3D-printable electroactive gel materials, and soft but strong pneumatic chains that change shape when inflated and can exert considerable force.

"Together with integrated sens-ing technology, we will make de-vices that physiotherapists can use to accurately pinpoint limitations in their patients' movements, thus

enabling them to plan person-alised training programmes," said Jonathan Rossiter, from University of Bristol in the UK.

"We will also make simpler devices that the patient can use to enhance their mobility activities and exercise with confidence when a therapist is not with them," said Rossiter.

To develop the project, the researchers will work with physiotherapists, and with people who have undergone physiotherapy for their mo-bility problems. (PTI)

News Tuesday|12-11-2019 7I R A N F M I N S Y R I A

Trump ‘Upset’ at Turkey Buying Russian ArmsNew York: President Donald Trump will confront Turkey’s leader about his decision to buy a Russian air defence system when they meet this week at the White House amid strained rela-tions between the two NATO allies.

Trump’s national security ad-viser, Robert O’Brien, said Sunday that the United States was still “very upset” by the move to purchase the Russian S-400 system. The US said the system was not compatible with NATO forces and could compromise the F-35 fighter jet program and aid Russian intelligence.

The Trump administration removed Turkey from the F-35 program in July. O’Brien told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that if Turkey doesn’t get rid of the Russian system, Turkey will likely face US sanctions backed by a bipartisan majority in Congress.

Trump is scheduled to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stol-tenberg on Thursday. Trump and Erdogan had planned a joint news conference Wednesday afternoon.

“There’s no place in NATO for the S-400,” O’Brien said.

“There’s no place in NATO for significant Russian military pur-chases. That’s a message that the president will deliver to him very clearly when he’s here in Washing-ton.” O’Brien said, however, that the US will do everything it can to keep Turkey in NATO.

Danger to Sharif’s health increasingIslamabad: The danger to Nawaz Sharif’s health is increasing due to a delay in his travel abroad for treatment, his party has said, as the ailing former Pakistan prime minis-ter awaits removal of his name from the no fly-list.

The 69-year-old Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo agreed on Friday to go to the UK for the treatment, heeding doctors’ advice and accepting his family’s request. He was scheduled to leave for London on a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight on Sunday morning.

The government could not remove Sharif’s name from the no fly-list (Ex-ist Control List-ECL) as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chair-man was not available to issue no objection certificate in this case.

According to doctors, Sharif’s departure process needs to be speeded up, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb tweeted.

Aurangzeb said that doctors had given the former prime minister a heavy dose of steroids to prepare him for his travel abroad.

She said that it will become almost impossible to shift Sharif overseas for treatment in case of a medical emergency.

“Nawaz Sharif’s treatment abroad is being delayed by the delay in taking his name off the ECL,” Geo News quoted Aurangzeb as saying said. “Doctors have said that he cannot be given heavy doses of steroids time and again.”

PUBLIC NOTICEI have lost my Election Card bearing No: KHP0796342 . Now I have applied for the duplicate of the same if anybody having anyob-jection in this regard he/she may file his/her objection in police station safa kadal within a period of seven days from the date of publication of this notice. After that no objection shall be en-tertained.

Shiaq mehraj bhat S/o mehra-u-din bhat

R/o Wanthpora hawal Srinagar

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT REGIONAL TRANSPORT OFFICER ANANTNAG

NOTICEWhereas joint application has been received by this office from Mu-zaffar Ahmad Lone S/o Gh Nabi Lone R/o Uttresoo Kanilpora Anant-nag {Party No.1st) as Transferor, (Seller) Owner of the Vehicle Trac-tor Bearing Regd. No. JK03A-7973 (Commercial/ Non-Commercial) covering under R/P No. nil . and. Bilal Ahmad S/o Gh Rasool R/o Sher-gund Shangus (Party No.2nd) as Transferee (Purchaser) requesting for transfer of R/C & R/P of the above noted Vehicle from party No 1st and 2nd. And Cancellation of hire purchase agreement with ...Before the case is disposed off on its merit, anybody have any objec-tion regarding the proposed transfer Amy file his objection within (7) days from the publication of this notice to the office of the un-dersigned. No any representation / objection shall be entertained after stipulated period.

Assistant Regional Transport Officer Anantnag


NOTICEWhereas joint application has been received by this office from Gulshan Akhter W/o Gh Mohi-u-din R/o Chanipora Anantnag {Party No.1st) as Transferor, (Seller) Owner of the Vehicle Swift Bearing Regd. No. JK03G-0209 (Commercial/ Non-Commercial) covering un-der R/P No. nil . and. Shahid Qadir Bhat S/o Gh Qadir Bhat R/o Gopal-pora Anantnag (Party No.2nd) as Transferee (Purchaser) requesting for transfer of R/C & R/P of the above noted Vehicle from party No 1st and 2nd. And Cancellation of hire purchase agreement with ...Before the case is disposed off on its merit, anybody have any objec-tion regarding the proposed transfer Amy file his objection within (7) days from the publication of this notice to the office of the un-dersigned. No any representation / objection shall be entertained after stipulated period.


PUBLIC NOTICE I have lost the Fitness certificate of my vehicle bearing Reg No: JK03C- 3590. Now I have applied for the duplicate of the same if any body having any objection in this regard he/she may file his/her objection in the office of the ARTO Anantnag Within a period of seven days from the date of publication of this notice. After that no objection shall be entertained.

Ghulam Hassan Dar R/o Brakpora Anantnag


NOTICEWhereas as an application has been received by this office from Mukhtar Ahmad Shah S/o Khazir Mohammad Shah R/o General Bus Stand Anantnag Owner of the Vehicle Ford Figo Bearing Regd. No. JK03D-3385 requesting for transfer Cancellation of hire purchase agreement with J&K Bank Sadiq Abad Anantnag Before the case is disposed off on its merit, anybody have any ob-jection regarding the proposed Cancellation may file his objection within (7) days from the publication of this notice to the office of the undersigned. No any representation / objection shall be enter-tained after stipulated period.


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Air Pollution In India Linked With Higher Risk Of Heart Disease, Stroke: StudyPress Trust Of India

London: Exposure to high levels of ambi-ent and household air pollution in India is associated with an increased risk of cardio-vascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke, according a study.

A team led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) in Spain is the first to explore the association between ambient and household air pollution, and carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) -- a marker of athero-sclerosis or thickening of arteries -- in a popu-lation of a low-and-middle income country.

The study, performed in a periurban area in Hyderabad, Telangana, shows that people most exposed to fine particles have a higher CIMT index, which means they are at higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases such as stroke or heart attack.

The study, published in International Journal of Epidemiology, was performed with 3,372 participants.

The team measured CIMT and estimated exposure to air pollution using an algorithm called land use regression (LUR), which is fre-quently used to predict the amount of fine par-ticles -- suspended particles with a diameter un-der 2.5 micrometres -- in high-income countries.

The participants also provided informa-tion on the type of cooking fuel they used.

The results show that high annual ex-posure to ambient fine particles was asso-ciated with a higher CIMT, particularly in men, participants above 40 years of age, or

those with cardiometabolic risk factors, the researchers said.

Sixty per cent of participants in the study used biomass cooking fuel.

"People using biomass fuel for cooking had a higher CIMT, particularly women

who cooked in unventilated spaces," Otavio Ranzani, ISGlobal researcher and first au-thor of the study, explained.

"Women had a higher CIMT than men, which could be due to the fact that they spend more time in the kitchen, breathing air polluted by biomass fuel," he said.

Annual average exposure to PM2.5 was 32.7 microgrammes (mg) per cubic metre (m3), far above the maximum levels of 10 mg/m3 recommended by the Word Health Organzation (WHO).

"This study is relevant for countries which, like India, are experiencing a rapid epidemiological transition and a sharp in-crease in the prevalence of hypertension, diabetes and obesity," said Cathryn Tonne, ISGlobal researcher and coordinator of the study said in a statement.

"In addition, the country is affected by high levels of air pollution, both ambient and indoors," Tonne said.

She said the findings highlight the need to perform more studies on air pollution in low- and middle-income countries.

The conclusions may differ considerably from studies in high income countries due to differences in population characteristics and air pollution levels and sources, Tonne noted.

Iran's New Atomic Pitch: International Arm Sales

Agencies

TEHRAN— The head of Iran’s nu-clear program told The Associated Press on Monday that the country is now producing more low-enriched uranium daily, after restarting an underground lab.

Ali Akbar Salehi of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran made the comments as Iranian Presi-dent Hassan Rouhani also called on hard-liners to support the coun-try’s troubled nuclear deal, say-ing it could open up international arms sales for the Islamic Repub-lic next year.

Iran has broken out of the ac-cord’s limits since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord between Tehran and world powers over a year ago.

Salehi told AP journalists in Teh-ran that the country is now produc-ing at least 5.5 kilograms daily (12 pounds). That’s compared to what Tehran had been producing — about

450 grams (1 pound) of low-enriched uranium per day.

Salehi said that’s due in part to restarting enrichment at Iran’s un-derground Fordo nuclear facility.

“I believe (that) in total, 5.5 kilo-grams is the daily volume of uranium enrichment in Natanz and Fordo,” Salehi told the AP, mentioning Iran’s other nuclear facility at Natanz.

Iran currently enriches uranium to up to 4.5%, far below weapons-grade levels of 90%.

However, the more uranium it en-riches over time will begin to narrow the so-called “breakout period” Iran would need to have enough fissile ma-terial for a nuclear bomb — should it choose to build one. Analysts had put that time at a year, under the restric-tions of the 2015 nuclear deal.

Iran maintains its nuclear pro-gram is for peaceful purposes. How-ever, Western nations pushed for the nuclear deal over its concerns about the program.

Rouhani spoke on Monday in

the city of Rafsanjan in Iran’s south-west Kerman province, as part of a provincial tour ahead of planned parliamentary elections in Febru-ary. The day before, in Yazd, he faced some heckling from a crowd of hard-liners, despite announcing the discovery of a 53-billion-barrel oil field in the country.

Iran announces discovery of massive oil field

Tehran: Iran has discovered a massive new oil field, President Hassan Rouhani said

Monday, a find that would boost its proven reserves by about a third in a rare piece of "good news" for an economy battered by US sanctions.

In a speech aired on state TV, Rouhani said the country's economy had stabilised despite punishing US measures against its senior leaders, banking and finance sectors.

The vast field in the south-western province of Khuzestan holds an estimated 53 billion barrels of crude, he said.

The 80-metre deep reservoir stretches nearly 200 kilometres from Khuzestan's border with Iraq to the city of Omidiyeh.

"This is a small gift by the government to the people of Iran," he said in a speech from the central city of Yazd.

UN Mission In Iraq Proposes Roadmap For Ending UpheavalAgencies

Baghdad: The United Nations' mis-sion for Iraq on Sunday proposed a roadmap out of the country's social upheaval, while Amnesty Interna-tional said Iraq's crackdown on anti-government protests has descended into a "bloodbath".

Iraqi security forces put up con-crete barriers in central Baghdad in an effort to hamper and block the movement of protesters. The mea-sures come after security forces last Monday violently cleared demonstra-tors from three flashpoint bridges in central Baghdad. By the end of the day, six anti-government protesters were killed more than 100 wounded.

The widening security crack-down reflects government intran-sigence and narrowing options for protesters who have been on the streets of Baghdad and the mainly Shia south's cities for weeks. Author-ities shut down internet access and blocked social media sites several times amid the demonstrations.

The leaderless protests are tar-geting Iraq's entire political class and calling for the overhaul of the gov-ernment established after the 2003 United States-led invasion. Security forces have used live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas in an ef-fort to quell the protests.

On Sunday, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq urged the country's politicians to chart a way forward and proposed a roadmap, saying time is of essence.

In a statement, it laid out a series of short- and longer-term measures to deal with the crisis, including electoral reform and a series of anti-corruption measures. As immediate measures, it called for the release of all peaceful demonstrators detained since October 1, initiating a full investigation of cas-es of abduction and prosecuting and punishing those responsible for the excessive use of force.

Amnesty International said Iraqi

authorities should immediately rein in security forces.

"The government of Iraq has a duty to protect its people's right to life, as well as to gather and express their views. This bloodbath must stop now, and those responsible for it must be brought to justice," said Heba Mor-ayef, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Director.

"All government promises of re-forms or investigations ring hollow while security forces continue to shoot and kill protesters," she said.

The White House also issued a state-ment on Sunday night calling for a halt to the violence against the protesters.

Turkey Begins Deporting Foreign Jihadists: Ministry

AGENCIES

ISTANBUL, Nov 11 — Turkey has deported an American ji-hadist, and seven more from Germany are to be expelled lat-er in the week, an interior min-istry spokesman said today.

“One American foreign terrorist fighter was deported from Turkey after completing the procedures,” said spokes-man Ismail Catakli, according to state news agency Anadolu.

“The travel programme of seven foreign terrorist fight-ers of German origin was completed at the repatriation centres. They will be deported on November 14,” he added.

Turkey has criticised Western countries for refus-ing to repatriate their citizens who left to join the Islamic State group (IS) in Syria and Iraq, and stripping some of them of their citizenship.

Interior Minister Suley-

man Soylu said last week that Turkey had nearly 1,200 foreign members of IS in cus-tody, and had captured 287 during its recent operation in northern Syria.

“We will send three, five, 10 people back,” Soylu said on Friday. “There is no need to try to escape from it, we will send them back to you. Deal with them how you want,” he added.

It remains unclear wheth-er Turkey will be able to re-patriate those who have lost their citizenship.

Although the 1961 New York Convention made it illegal to leave people stateless, several countries, including Britain and France, have not ratified it, and recent cases have triggered pro-longed legal battles.

Britain alone has stripped more than 100 people of their citizenship for allegedly join-ing jihadist groups abroad. — AFP

TUESDAYNOVEMBER 201912 08

“IT’S GREAT TO WIN THE $9 MILLION but I just don’t want to lose to him and give him the satisfaction because the bragging rights are what is going to be even worse than the money,” Mickelson


Karachi- Pakistan has filed an appeal with the International Tennis Federation (ITF), chal-lenging its decision to shift the Davis Cup tie against India to a neutral venue with the as-sertion that Islamabad is well-equipped to host the clash.

The Pakistan Tennis Fed-eration (PTF) President Salim Saifullah told PTI on Sunday that a formal appeal has been filed with the international body and they were expecting a positive response by November 15.

"We have pointed out that we are fully prepared to host India for the Davis Cup tie as there is no security issue and nor

should political ties between the two countries over-ride our chance of hosting a major event," Saifullah said.

Saifullah said the event-free opening of the Kartarpur cor-ridor on Saturday is a clear in-dicator that despite the ongoing diplomatic tensions it is pos-sible to host the Indian tennis team in Islamabad.

"I think our case is very strong because there is no vi-able argument for shifting the tie to a neutral venue," he said.

Pakistan was earlier sched-uled to host India in the Da-vis Cup Asia Oceania Group-I Tie on September 14-15 at the grass courts of Pakistan Sports Complex, Islamabad, where

matches against Uzbekistan, Korea and Thailand have taken place in 2017 and 2018.

But the ITF announced early this month that the tie would be held at a neutral venue to be chosen by Pakistan after the All India Tennis Associa-tion (AITA) requested the tie to be shifted from Islamabad. The ITF said it had acted on the recommendations of its independent security advi-sors. Saifullah also said if their appeal was not accepted, the PTF had some other options and was working on those.

"We may tell the ITF that we'll not nominate the neutral venue. We'll request it to ask AITA to choose where its outfit

wants to play," he added.Saifullah said the Indian of-

ficials had used the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl's (JUI-F) ongoing sit-in in Islamabad to convince the ITF that their play-ers would not be able to focus on the matches.

"They highlighted to the ITF about JUI-F leadership's aggres-sive attitude. We have a very good chance of beating India on our grass courts and the Indians know this that is why they are using all tactics to delay and shift the tie," he said.

Pakistan's top players, Aisam-ul-Haq and Aqeel Khan have also criticised the decision of the ITF to allow a shift in the Davis Cup venue.

Pakistan challenges ITF decision to shift Davis Cup tie against India

"THEY HIGHLIGHTED TO THE ITF ABOUT JUI-F leadership's aggressive attitude. We have a very good chance of beating India on our grass courts and the Indians know this that is why they are using all tactics to delay and shift the tie."


Dubai - Sundar Singh Gurjar overcame a shoulder injury to defend his World Para Athlet-ics Championships title in the men's F46 javelin throw event while also securing Tokyo Para-lympic Games quota, along with the bronze winner Ajeet Singh and Rinku, here. Gurjar came up with his season's best ef-fort of 61.22m to claim the top spot. Singh sent the spear to a distance of 59.46m to clinch the bronze while Rinku finished fourth. Under International Para-lympic Committee rules, the top four ranked athletes at the 2019 World Para Athletics Champion-ships in each of the individual medal events on the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Programme (exclud-ing Marathon) will each obtain one qualification slot for their respective country.

The 23-year-old Gurjar not only defended his London Worlds 2017 title here but also became the only second Indian to have clinched two World Championships medals after De-vendraJhajharia's gold and sil-ver in 2013 Lyon and 2015 Doha

Championships.Staying in the second place till

his fifth attempt, Gurjar hurled the javelin to a distance of 61.22 metres in his sixth attempt, enough to jump to the top of the results table ahead of Sri Lanka's Dinesh P HerathMudiyanse-lage who was leading till then

with his first attempt throw of 60.59m. The F46 category ath-letes have a single below or above the elbow amputation.

"Indian javelin throwers have always brought laurels to India.

Today once again our players showed that they will be the ones to beat at Tokyo 2020. This also shows that we are in the right track," said Gursharan Singh, Paralympic Committee of India.

India now have two gold, one silver and a bronze from this Championships.

Later on Monday, six Indi-ans will be in action, including EktaBhyan and KashishLakra in women's Club Throw F51 final and Yogesh Kathuniya in Men's Discus Throw F56 Final.

Sundar defends World title as India secure 3 Tokyo Paralympic Games quotas


Nagpur - Pacer Deepak Chahar took a sensational six-wicket haul, including a hat-trick after entertaining half-centuries from ShreyasIyer and K L Rahul, as India defeated a self-destructing Bangla-desh by 30 runs in the third and final T20 International to win the series 2-1, here on Sunday. Pacers

Deepak Chahar (6/7 in 3.2 overs), who registered the best figures in a T20 match on Sunday besides becoming the first Indian to take a hat-trick in the shortest format, and ShivamDube (3/30) shared nine wickets amongst themselves to secure India's first T20 series

win at home this season.Heavy late evening dew rendered

the spinners ineffective but Chahar and Dube rose to the occasion.

Iyer (62 off 33) and Rahul (52 off 35) had earlier smashed sublime half-centuries to propel India to 174 for five after Bangladesh opted to field. Chasing the target, the visitors were all out for 144 in 19.2 overs.

With 50 needing off the last 30 balls and six wickets in hand, Ban-gladesh had a great opportunity to win the series but they crumbled under pressure. Rookier opener Mohammad Naim (81 of 48) played

a blinder to take Bangladesh deep into the game before they lost five wickets for 20 runs to blow it all away. Chasing a challenging 175, Bangladesh suffered early setbacks as Chahar had opener Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar caught off successive balls to leave the visitors at 12 for two. Naim, playing his debut series, and Mohammad Mithun (27) shared a 98-run stand for the third wicket

to bring their team back into the contest. Left-hander Naim played some exquisite strokes especially against the spinners and welcomed YuzvendraChahal into the attack with three consecutive fours.

Earlier, a maiden half-century for Iyer and the sixth one for Rahul

helped India put up a competitive total. Iyer's cracking knock came af-ter he was dropped on 0.

Bangladesh skipper Mahmudul-lah followed the template set in the series by winning the toss and opting to field. India made an un-expected call by dropping a bowler in Krunal Pandya for middle-order batsman Manish Pandey.

The hosts were dealt a body blow in the second over when pacer Shafiul Islam removed their skip-per Rohit Sharma, who had made a sublime 85 in the series-levelling win in Rajkot. Rohit tried to whip a

length ball but only managed an in-side edge on to the stumps.

Rahul joined ShikharDhawan (19 off 16)in the middle and with both the batsmen under pressure having not made an impact the first two games, the situation provided them an ideal platform to deliver.

Dhawan, who has found it tough to accelerate of late, got going with successive boundaries off Al-Amin Hussain. Rahul too began his in-nings in a similar fashion, going for the aerial straight drive before punching Islam through point.

However, Dhawan could not last long after hitting four boundaries, mistiming a slog to be caught in the deep by Mahmudullah.

India once again could not get to a good start batting first, struggling to 41 for two in six overs. It would have been three down at that stage if Aminul Islam had not dropped a regulation catch off incoming bats-man Iyer at backward point.

Rahul and Iyer gave a much need-ed boost to the Indian innings with a 59-run stand. Rahul in full flow is always a treat to the eye and that is what the Nagpur crowd witnessed. He completed his fifty off 33 balls before getting caught at mid-off two balls later, leaving India at 94 for three in the 13th over.

Iyer, who made a sedate start to his innings, went ballistic after Ra-hul's departure. He was especially brutal against the spinners and hit three sixes over long-on off Afif Hossain. Iyer, who raced to his 50 off

27 balls, ended up hammering five sixes and three boundaries.

Rishabh Pant (6), who has copped a lot of criticism of late both for his batting and wicket-keeping, disap-pointed once again when the team needed him to provide the big hits. He struggled in his nine-ball stay and was eventually bowled after be-ing deceived by a slower one from medium pacer Soumya Sarkar.

Pandey (22 not out off 13), play-ing his first game of the series, came up with welcome boundar-ies in the death overs to take the total beyond 170.

Chahar's hat-trick hands India T20 series win over Bangladesh

Nagpur- Bangladesh captain Mahmudullah feels his team still has a long way to go in Twenty20s as it is neither learning from its mistakes nor has the big-hitters essential to the format. Bangladesh have come close to victory on many occasions but failed to cross the line, especially against top teams like India losing the just-concluded T20 series 1-2.

"We have a long way to go in T20 cricket. We don't have big hitters. We have to be dependent on our skill hitting. So we are working on our game sense and become more consistent mentally," said Mahmudullah following the 30-run loss to India in the series-decider here on Sunday. "As a batting unit, if we can improve then we will have more chances to win," he added. Needing 50 runs off the last 30 balls with six wickets in hand, Bangladesh were on course for a memorable series win here on Sunday but lost wickets in a heap to blow it all away.

"I am not sure whether it was composer or not. But if you see, we did similar kind of mistakes probably in few games in recent times. That's where I think big teams are quite good and very consistent in these situations and they can chase down this sort of total.

"Having said that, the wicket was very good to chase on. Our bowlers did a very good job to restrict them to 174. We just didn't finish well."

Not many expected Bangladesh to take the series right down to the wire, especially in the absence of senior players Tamim Iqbal and the suspended Shakib Al Hasan. "If you analyse these three games, I think we played good cricket. But T20 cricket is such a format, if you lose momentum it's very hard to get it back. We were very close in this game but as we

lost three-four wickets in six or seven balls and that's the crucial part of that game," said the skipper.

Mahmudullah admitted the experienced hands like him and Mushfiqur Rahim should have take the team over the line after rookie opener Mohammad Naim took the game deep with a brilliant 81 off 48 balls. "I can't blame Mushy. He won us the game in Delhi. So you can't say he failed miserably. Yeah, if you say about today's game, yes we failed. That I agree." He picked out the performances of opener Naim, pacer Al-Amin Hossan and spinner Aminul Is-lam as positives out of the India series.

"Al Amin was brilliant. I think he is one of the best T20 bowlers from our country. I personally feel that. International or domestic cricket, he is always a con-sistent performer. "Naim's innings was beautiful to watch. I am feeling bad that we could not finish it. That's why I have more regret. Because he batted so well. We should have finished it for him."

Their frontline pacer Mustafizur Rahman went wicket-less in the three-match series but Mahmudullah backed him to come back stronger from this setback. "I think every play-er faces such a time when in four, five or six matches, you can't perform as your team ex-pects. We all know that he is a champion bowl-er and sometimes as a team we expect more from him." "He is concerned about his form but I don't think he needs to take a break or be dropped. You have to support a champion bowler, he is our match winning bowler. When he will return to full rhythm, Bangladesh will win matches," added the captain.

We have long way to go in T20 cricket: Mahmudullah

Agencies

Liverpool : Liverpool took a huge step towards a first league title in 30 years by beating defending champi-ons Manchester City 3-1 at Anfield on Sunday to open up an eight-point lead at the top of the table. Two goals in the first 13 minutes from Fabinho and Mohamed Salah gave the Eu-ropean champions a dream start before Sadio Mane’s diving header early in the second half sealed City’s fate. Bernardo Silva pulled a late goal back, but a third defeat in eight league games leaves City down in fourth, nine points behind Liverpool, and with a mountain to climb if they

are to claim a third straight league title. “It’s nine points but there is a long way to go,” said Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp. “It’s not important. Who wants to be first in early No-vember? It’s important to be top in May.” City’s defensive deficiencies have been much publicised without the injured AymericLaporte so far this season and they crumbled as Liverpool scored with their first two attacks of the game. But the visitors were furious with some justification at the move that led to the opening goal when a dangerous foray into the Liverpool box ended with the ball striking Trent Alexander-Arnold on the arm. Instead of City being awarded a penalty, the hosts broke down the other end and the ball fell to Fabinho on the edge of the area. The Brazilian is not renowned for his goalscoring, but when invited to shoot by a hesitant City back line, he arrowed a strike beyond stand-in goalkeeper Claudio Bravo. “Ask to the referees, don’t ask me,” said City boss Pep Guardiola on the contro-versial opener. “I would like to talk

about our performance. It was one of my proudest performances as (Man City) manager.”

The visitors had more of the ball and plenty of chances even in be-tween Liverpool’s early blitz as Ra-heem Sterling headed wide Kevin De Bruyne’s in-swinging free-kick.

But it was Liverpool who were ruthless as a pinpoint cross by Andy Robertson was headed home on the bounce by Salah. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a goal like it,” said Klopp of his side’s second. “It was wild, in-tense from the first second.

“You could sense it was really im-portant for both teams. We scored two incredible goals, but we had to

suffer in moments because of the way City played.”

- Damage done -City went on to enjoy the better of

the play in the remainder of the first half, but the damage was already done. A purposeful burst forward by Angelino saw his deflected shot come back off the post before Ser-gio Aguero then dragged City’s best chance of a reply before the break wide after great work by De Bruyne. Any hope of a City comeback was eliminated six minutes into the sec-ond half when Jordan Henderson’s teasing cross was met with a diving header by Mane, although Bravo could have done better to stop the ball creeping over the line.

Guardiola’s mood was not im-proved when another VAR check went against his side after Sterling went down in the area under pres-sure from Mane. City finally got the goal much of their approach play had threatened when Bernardo Sil-va swept home Angelino’s cross 12 minutes from time, but it was too little, too late.

Premier League

Liverpool beat Manchester City to boost hopes of historic title triumph

Leander Paes drops out of top-100 for first time in 19 yearsNEW DELHi -Veteran tennis star Leander Paes on Monday dropped out of the top-100 bracket for the first time in 19 years, slipping to 101 after losing five places in the ATP doubles chart.

With 856 points, Paes is now fourth-highest ranked Indian player behind Rohan Bopanna (38), Divij Sharan (46) and Purav Raja, who re-entered the top-100 by jumping eight places to 93.

The last time the 46-year-old Paes was placed outside top-100 was in October 2000 when he was ranked 118.

Paes, one of the finest tennis players that India has seen, dominated the doubles circuit with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi between the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In August 2014, Paes had lost his place in the top-10 and in an-other two years time he was outside the top-50 as well.

The passionate Paes, winner of 18 Grand Slam titles, has not played since US Open this year in September. He has made himself available for the upcoming Davis Cup tie against Pakistan. Mean-while, in the singles, PrajneshGunneswaran continues to be India’s top-ranked singles player though the Chennai left-hander dropped a rung to 95 and was followed by SumitNagal (127, +2), Ramkumar-Ramanathan (190, +9), Sasi Kumar Mukund (250, +2) and Saketh-Myneni (267, -1).

Gros Islet (St Lucia) - Teenager ShafaliVerma scored her sec-ond consecutive half century after off-spinner Deepti Sharma starred with the ball as the In-dian women's cricket team reg-istered an emphatic 10-wicket win over the West Indies in the second T20 International here.

The 15-year-old Shafali con-tinued her impressive run by scoring a quick-fire 69 off 35 balls alongside SmritiMandhana (30). The duo powered India to a 2-0 lead in the five-match series on Sunday night. Shafali, who overtook the iconic Sachin Ten-dulkar to become the youngest Indian cricketer to score a half-century in international cricket, displayed scintillating form yet again and smashed 10 fours and two sixes. Earlier, the Indian bowlers, led by Deepti, who reg-istered career-best figures of 4 for 10, managed to restrict the West Indies for a paltry 103 for

seven in the stipulated 20 overs.Opting to bat, the West Indies

openers struggled to get going. Pacer Shikha Pandey drew first blood for India when she dis-missed Stacy-Ann King (7) in the fourth over. Wicketkeeper Sh-emaineCampbelle soon followed after Radha Yadav (1/20) had her stumped for a duck. Opener Hay-ley Mathews (23) and Chedean Nations (32) tried to resurrect the West Indies innings but could only manage a 32-run stand as pacer Pooja Vastrakar(1/23) di-missed the former. However, the West Indies were unable to get any kind of momentum going as wickets kept tumbling. Deepti accounted for the four wickets in the last four overs. Later Man-dhana, who had also smashed a half-century in the series-opener, played second fiddle to Shafali in guiding the team home. The 23-year-old's innings was laced with four boundaries.

Shafali, Deepti power Indian women to 10-wicket win over West Indies

WE HAVE POINTED OUT THAT we are fully prepared to host India for the Davis Cup tie as there is no security issue and nor should political ties between the two countries over-ride our chance of hosting a major event," ............... Saifullah

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nd 12 TUESDAY 22 KASHMIR · Train Service To Resume Today NEW DELHI: Train services in the Kashmir Valley, which were disrupted since August 3 ahead of the abrogation of provisions