12
A latest World Bank report has sounded alarm bells over the disastrous impact of climate change. It says by 2050, unchecked climate change causing higher temperatures and poor monsoon rainfall would diminish the living stan- dards of the half of India’s population, particularly farm- ers in the Central belt. Titled “South Asia’s Hotspots: The Impact of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards,” the report gives detailed analy- sis of future scenario of India and notes that by 2050, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh will be the top two cli- mate hotspot States in the coun- try. They are likely to experience a decline of more than 9 per cent in their living standards, fol- lowed by Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra. Also, seven out of the top ten most-affected hotspot dis- tricts, including Chandrapur, Nagpur, Gondiya, Wardha, Yavatmal, will belong to the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, as per the report. This comes as grim news for the country’s farmers who are already facing severe agrarian and financial crisis. The report notes that almost half of South Asia’s population, including India, now lives in vulnerable areas and will suffer from declining living standards that could be attributed to falling agricultural yields, lower labour produc- tivity or related health impacts. Some of these areas are already less developed, suffer from poor connectivity and are water stressed. Continued on Page 4 B acking India on its security concerns with regard to Pakistan, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, on Thursday said the Trump administration has firmly told Pakistan that it cannot tolerate its Government providing a safe haven to terrorists. Speaking at an Observer Research Foundation event, Haley said neither India nor the US can afford to turn a blind eye to the regimes that produce, har- bour, and support terrorists, and in this context, the US is treating Pakistan differently than in the past. Haley asserted that Washington and New Delhi must become global leaders in the fight against terrorism. Noting that the US and India have experienced the pain of terrorism, she said both the countries share a commit- ment of defeating terrorists and the hate ideology that motivates them. “We share an urgent inter- est in eliminating the terrorist networks that threaten us, and to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and their sponsors. Both our nations lost citi- zens in the horrific Mumbai attack a decade ago. As fellow democracies, the United States and India must be global lead- ers in the fight against terror- ism,” Haley said. She said though in many instances Pakistan had been a partner of the US, but it cannot tolerate the Pakistani Government, or any other Government, giving a safe haven to terrorists. “We won’t tolerate it. We are communicating this mes- sage to Pakistan more strongly than in the past and we hope to see changes,” the envoy added. According to her, India and the US have expanded their counter-terrorism cooperation in the past decade but there is still scope to do more. W ith high crude oil prices and weak macro-eco- nomic fundamen- tals, the Indian rupee collapsed to a lifetime low of 69.10 against the US dollar ear- lier on Thursday and finally closed at Rs 68.78, while the pound sterling finished higher at Rs 90.03. With the drastic fall of rupee, sources said, a horde of sectors, including small, medi- um and large companies involved in importing raw materials or those with foreign borrowings or both, are set to see pressure in near future. “Goods and services exporters in major sectors such as IT, pharma, jwellery are likely to witness sentimental rub-off from rupee’s depreciation,” sources added. The low currency wit- nessed both the key indices los- ing points. While BSE Sensex slumped 179.47 points to close at 35,037.64, broader NSE Nifty shed 82.30 points to 10,589.10 on Thursday. With the depreciating trend of the Indian cur- rency, experts expressed mixed response, saying that a weak currency and stubborn global oil prices not only pose inflationary risks to imports (net energy importers like India), but also discourage foreign institutional investors (FIIs) into the country and the export scenario as well. Besides, they also foresee that currency may be weakening closer towards the 70- mark in near future. Prathamesh Mallya, chief analyst of Mumbai-based broking firm Angel Commodities Broking, said, “A major selloff in the domestic equity and debt markets has added down- ward pressure on the Indian currency. So far this year foreign investors have sold a combined value of $7 bil- lion in equity and debt mar- kets.” As far as export scenario is concerned, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Director General Ajay Sahai said the development would not provide any addi- tional support to exporters as currencies of other emerging economies, including China, are depreciating. “It will provide a level-play- ing field to our exporters. It will not provide a much needed support as India is not singled out,” Sahai added. India’s exports grew 20.18 per cent to $28.86 billion in May — the highest in six months, even though the trade deficit widened to a four- month high of $14.62 billion. If we compare the curren- cy situation way back in 2013, when the rupee weakened past the Rs 68 against the dollar mark for the first time then, oil was near 110 per barrel, poising the oil as the villain though, the current account deficit (CAD) was seen testing 3.6 per cent during the period, putting pres- sure on the rupee. Besides rupee as a fac- tor, the other pressure on CAD was through imports, which was largely due to gold, apart from oil. FIIs have become more reluctant in Indian equities and debt lately. I n this mofussil town in east- ern Uttar Pradesh, which is known as “Gateway to hell”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday cited the teach- ings and couplets of Sant Kabir to attack Opposition parties for their greed to grab power and blamed them for creating insta- bility in the country. In the rally that could be seen as the launch of his 2019 Lok Sabha campaign, Modi tried to woo Dalits and the backwards, saying his Government was forging ahead on the teachings of Saint Kabir. He said Kabir fought to break the caste barriers and asked BJP workers to reach out to every person irrespective of caste and creed projecting party’s image of a ‘nationalist Hindutva’ party. After paying tribute to Kabir and laying the founda- tion of the Kabir Academy in Maghar, the PM said, “Those, who opposed Emergency, are trying to form alliances with the Congress. It showed their lust for power and lack of principles.” Taking a dig at those par- ties, who are promoting casteism and chaos, Modi said, “Some political parties do not want peace and harmony in society. Such people are cut off from ground realities. D elhiites’ activism has forced the Centre to shelve plans for felling of 16,000 trees for the redevelopment of seven Government colonies, includ- ing for residential complex for bureaucrats. Faced with public protests, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUA) on Thursday announced to redesign these colonies to avoid tree cutting. The National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC), which is executing the project, has already floated an Expression of Interest for the acquisition of tree re-location equipment and for engaging services of trained profession- al entities in this respect. Further citizens groups will be invited to suggest where trans- planted trees will be planted. Under pressure from dif- ferent quarters, HUA Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday held a high-level meeting to discuss the issues relating to re-development of these Government colonies. “The NBCC/CPWD will rework the design and plans for the remaining redevelopment of the seven general pool residen- tial accommodation colonies to avoid felling of trees,” the Ministry said in a statement. Officials said that it was also decided to plant more than one million trees in dif- ferent parts of the Capital. Of these, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) will plant 10 lakh half grown tree; NBCC 25,000; CPWD 50,000 and Delhi Metro 20,000 trees. These will not be saplings but trees of 8-12 feet height. The planting of trees will be completed in the next three months during the monsoon season and the trees will com- prise of fruit-bearing, flowering and other green trees,” the HUA Ministry said. The colonies are Sarojini Nagar, Nauroji Nagar, Netaji Nagar, Mohammadpur, Kasturba Nagar, Srinivaspuri and Thyagraj Nagar. As per earli- er plan, in Sarojini Nagar, 8,322 of the 11,913 trees would be cut while in Nauroji Nagar, 1,465 of the 1,513 tress would be chopped off. D elhi Metro services in the national Capital may come to a halt on Friday evening as the non-executive staff of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) have planned to boy- cott working from Friday evening to Saturday (whole day), if their demands are not fulfilled. “If our demands are not met by June 29 evening (Friday), we will go on hunger strike and work in that condi- tion, and drivers will drive in that condition. And, if anything happens to our members or to com- muters then the DMRC shall be responsible for it,” said Ravi Bhardwaj, Secretary, DMRC Staff Council. T he Jammu & Kashmir Police has claimed that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e- Tayyeba (LeT) hatched con- spiracy to kill senior Kashmiri journalist Shujaat Bukhari. Police released pho- tographs of four killers on Thursday. They are identified as Srinagar resident Sheikh Sajjad Gul — who has been liv- ing in Pakistan since March 2017 — Azad Ahmad Malik, a known LeT operative from Anantnag, Muaffar Ahmad of Kulgam, and Naveed Jatt, a Pakistani terrorists who fled from police custody in February this year. Addressing a Press confer- ence at Police Control Room here, IGP (Kashmir range) Soyam Prakash Pani said police always referred to Sujaat Bukhari’s killing as terror relat- ed crime. Detailed report on P8 C hhattisgarh is among the five States which received an "award of appreciation" for exemplary work towards regu- lar holding of District Development Coordination & Monitoring Committee (DISHA) meetings. The other States include Jharkhand, Kerala, Mizoram and Uttarakhand. This was informed in an ongoing DISHA Week being cel- ebrated from June 25 to 29 to mark the successful completion of two years of DISHA with Union Minister of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Mines Narendra Singh Tomar holding wide ranging dis- cussions on the DISHA initiative with Special Secretaries of the States and UT at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on Thursday. The discussions centered on DISHA initiative and ways and means to make it a pow- erful and potent tool of partic- ipative governance. Union Minister of State for Rural Development Ram Kripal Yadav also shared his views in the meeting. Tomar interacted live with seven Members of Parliament during the course of District-level DISHA Committee Meetings in districts of Dindori, Jodhpur, Jashpur, Sikar, Jalaun, Jabalpur and Sambhal. Tomar discussed the incre- mental effective- ness of these committees in pursuing the convergence agenda. Tomar also interacted with 36 States Rural Development Department Secretaries and stressed on implementing the convergence of schemes in rural areas. He said schemes should be implemented in a time bound manner and the money that is spent on such schemes should commensurate with the progress at the grass roots level. Tomar said that PM Modi has right from the beginning wanted to change the perception of gov- ernment in the minds of the peo- ple and DISHA is an efficacious tool and step in that direction. He said that the seed for this scheme was sown during the NDA led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and has been improvised and taken forward from being a tool for monitoring schemes for rural development and broad based by incorporating other flagship schemes across Ministries. RNI Regn. No. CHHENG/2012/42718, Postal Reg. No. - RYP DN/34/2013-2015

see pressure in near future. ... Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Director General Ajay ... the Centre to shelve plans

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Alatest World Bank reporthas sounded alarm bells

over the disastrous impact ofclimate change. It says by 2050,unchecked climate changecausing higher temperaturesand poor monsoon rainfallwould diminish the living stan-dards of the half of India’spopulation, particularly farm-ers in the Central belt.

Titled “South Asia’sHotspots: The Impact ofTemperature and PrecipitationChanges on Living Standards,”the report gives detailed analy-sis of future scenario of Indiaand notes that by 2050,

Chhattisgarh and MadhyaPradesh will be the top two cli-mate hotspot States in the coun-try. They are likely to experiencea decline of more than 9 per centin their living standards, fol-

lowed by Rajasthan, UttarPradesh, and Maharashtra.

Also, seven out of the topten most-affected hotspot dis-tricts, including Chandrapur,Nagpur, Gondiya, Wardha,

Yavatmal, will belong to theVidarbha region ofMaharashtra, as per the report.This comes as grim news forthe country’s farmers who arealready facing severe agrarian

and financial crisis.The report notes that

almost half of South Asia’spopulation, including India,now lives in vulnerable areas

and will suffer from decliningliving standards that could beattributed to falling agriculturalyields, lower labour produc-tivity or related health impacts.

Some of these areas are alreadyless developed, suffer frompoor connectivity and are waterstressed.

Continued on Page 4

���� ��������

Backing India on its securityconcerns with regard to

Pakistan, the United StatesAmbassador to the UnitedNations, Nikki Haley, onThursday said the Trumpadministration has firmly toldPakistan that it cannot tolerateits Government providing asafe haven to terrorists.

Speaking at an ObserverResearch Foundation event,Haley said neither India nor theUS can afford to turn a blind eyeto the regimes that produce, har-bour, and support terrorists,and in this context, the US istreating Pakistan differently thanin the past.

Haley asserted thatWashington and New Delhimust become global leaders inthe fight against terrorism.

Noting that the US andIndia have experienced the

pain of terrorism, she said boththe countries share a commit-ment of defeating terroristsand the hate ideology thatmotivates them.

“We share an urgent inter-est in eliminating the terroristnetworks that threaten us, andto keep nuclear weapons out ofthe hands of terrorists andtheir sponsors.

Both our nations lost citi-zens in the horrific Mumbaiattack a decade ago. As fellowdemocracies, the United Statesand India must be global lead-ers in the fight against terror-ism,” Haley said.

She said though in manyinstances Pakistan had been apartner of the US, but it cannottolerate the PakistaniGovernment, or any otherGovernment, giving a safehaven to terrorists.

“We won’t tolerate it. Weare communicating this mes-sage to Pakistan more stronglythan in the past and we hope tosee changes,” the envoy added.According to her, India and theUS have expanded theircounter-terrorism cooperationin the past decade but there isstill scope to do more.

������������������������

With high crudeoil prices and

weak macro-eco-nomic fundamen-tals, the Indianrupee collapsed to alifetime low of 69.10against the US dollar ear-lier on Thursday and finallyclosed at Rs 68.78, while thepound sterling finished higherat Rs 90.03.

With the drastic fall ofrupee, sources said, a horde ofsectors, including small, medi-um and large companiesinvolved in importing rawmaterials or those with foreignborrowings or both, are set tosee pressure in near future.“Goods and services exportersin major sectors such as IT,pharma, jwellery are likely towitness sentimental rub-offfrom rupee’s depreciation,”sources added.

The low currency wit-nessed both the key indices los-ing points. While BSE Sensexslumped 179.47 points to closeat 35,037.64, broader NSE Niftyshed 82.30 points to 10,589.10on Thursday.

With the depreciatingtrend of the Indian cur-rency, expertsexpressed mixedresponse, saying thata weak currency andstubborn global oilprices not only poseinflationary risks toimports (net energyimporters like India),but also discourageforeign institutionalinvestors (FIIs) intothe country and theexport scenario aswell. Besides, they alsoforesee that currencymay be weakeningcloser towards the 70-mark in near future.

Prathamesh Mallya, chiefanalyst of Mumbai-basedbroking firm AngelCommodities Broking,said, “A major selloff in thedomestic equity and debtmarkets has added down-

ward pressure on theIndian currency. So far this

year foreign investors havesold a combined value of $7 bil-lion in equity and debt mar-kets.”

As far as export scenario isconcerned, Federation ofIndian Export Organisations(FIEO) Director General AjaySahai said the developmentwould not provide any addi-tional support to exporters ascurrencies of other emergingeconomies, including China,are depreciating.

“It will provide a level-play-ing field to our exporters. It willnot provide a much neededsupport as India is not singledout,” Sahai added.

India’s exports grew 20.18per cent to $28.86 billion inMay — the highest in sixmonths, even though the tradedeficit widened to a four-month high of $14.62 billion.

If we compare the curren-cy situation way back in 2013,

when the rupee weakenedpast the Rs 68 against the

dollar mark for the firsttime then, oil was near110 per barrel, poisingthe oil as the villain

though, the currentaccount deficit (CAD)was seen testing 3.6per cent during theperiod, putting pres-sure on the rupee.Besides rupee as a fac-tor, the other pressureon CAD was throughimports, which waslargely due to gold,apart from oil. FIIs havebecome more reluctantin Indian equities anddebt lately.

���� ���� ���������� ����� �

In this mofussil town in east-ern Uttar Pradesh, which is

known as “Gateway to hell”,Prime Minister Narendra Modion Thursday cited the teach-ings and couplets of Sant Kabirto attack Opposition parties fortheir greed to grab power andblamed them for creating insta-bility in the country.

In the rally that could beseen as the launch of his 2019Lok Sabha campaign, Moditried to woo Dalits and thebackwards, saying hisGovernment was forging aheadon the teachings of Saint Kabir.

He said Kabir fought tobreak the caste barriers andasked BJP workers to reach outto every person irrespective ofcaste and creed projectingparty’s image of a ‘nationalistHindutva’ party.

After paying tribute toKabir and laying the founda-tion of the Kabir Academy inMaghar, the PM said, “Those,who opposed Emergency, are

trying to form alliances withthe Congress.

It showed their lust forpower and lack of principles.”

Taking a dig at those par-ties, who are promoting

casteism and chaos, Modi said,“Some political parties do notwant peace and harmony insociety.

Such people are cut offfrom ground realities.

�������������� ��������

Delhiites’ activism has forcedthe Centre to shelve plans

for felling of 16,000 trees for theredevelopment of sevenGovernment colonies, includ-ing for residential complex forbureaucrats. Faced with publicprotests, the Ministry ofHousing and Urban Affairs(HUA) on Thursdayannounced to redesign thesecolonies to avoid tree cutting.

The National BuildingsConstruction Corporation(NBCC), which is executingthe project, has already floatedan Expression of Interest for theacquisition of tree re-locationequipment and for engagingservices of trained profession-al entities in this respect.Further citizens groups will be

invited to suggest where trans-planted trees will be planted.

Under pressure from dif-ferent quarters, HUA MinisterHardeep Singh Puri onThursday held a high-levelmeeting to discuss the issuesrelating to re-development ofthese Government colonies.“The NBCC/CPWD will

rework the design and plans forthe remaining redevelopment ofthe seven general pool residen-tial accommodation colonies toavoid felling of trees,” theMinistry said in a statement.

Officials said that it wasalso decided to plant morethan one million trees in dif-ferent parts of the Capital. Of

these, Delhi DevelopmentAuthority (DDA) will plant 10lakh half grown tree; NBCC25,000; CPWD 50,000 andDelhi Metro 20,000 trees.

These will not be saplingsbut trees of 8-12 feet height.The planting of trees will becompleted in the next threemonths during the monsoonseason and the trees will com-prise of fruit-bearing, floweringand other green trees,” theHUA Ministry said. Thecolonies are Sarojini Nagar,Nauroji Nagar, Netaji Nagar,Mohammadpur, KasturbaNagar, Srinivaspuri andThyagraj Nagar. As per earli-er plan, in Sarojini Nagar, 8,322of the 11,913 trees would be cut while in Nauroji Nagar, 1,465of the 1,513 tress would bechopped off.

�������� ������ ��������

Delhi Metro services in thenational Capital may come

to a halt on Friday evening asthe non-executive staff of DelhiMetro Rail Corporation(DMRC) have planned to boy-cott working from Fridayevening to Saturday (wholeday), if their demands are notfulfilled.

“If our demands are notmet by June 29 evening(Friday), we will go on hungerstrike and work in that condi-tion, and drivers will drive inthat condition.

And, if anything happensto our members or to com-muters then the DMRC shall beresponsible for it,” said RaviBhardwaj, Secretary, DMRCStaff Council.

���������������� � ����

The Jammu & KashmirPolice has claimed that

Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) hatched con-spiracy to kill senior Kashmirijournalist Shujaat Bukhari.

Police released pho-tographs of four killers onThursday. They are identifiedas Srinagar resident SheikhSajjad Gul — who has been liv-ing in Pakistan since March2017 — Azad Ahmad Malik, aknown LeT operative fromAnantnag, Muaffar Ahmad ofKulgam, and Naveed Jatt, aPakistani terrorists who fledfrom police custody inFebruary this year.

Addressing a Press confer-ence at Police Control Roomhere, IGP (Kashmir range)Soyam Prakash Pani said police always referred to SujaatBukhari’s killing as terror relat-ed crime.

Detailed report on P8

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Chhattisgarh is among thefive States which received an

"award of appreciation" forexemplary work towards regu-lar holding of DistrictDevelopment Coordination &Monitoring Committee(DISHA) meetings. The otherStates include Jharkhand, Kerala,Mizoram and Uttarakhand.

This was informed in anongoing DISHA Week being cel-ebrated from June 25 to 29 tomark the successful completionof two years of DISHA withUnion Minister of RuralDevelopment, Panchayati Rajand Mines Narendra SinghTomar holding wide ranging dis-cussions on the DISHA initiativewith Special Secretaries of theStates and UT at Vigyan Bhawan

in New Delhi on Thursday.The discussions centered

on DISHA initiative and waysand means to make it a pow-erful and potent tool of partic-ipative governance.

Union Minister of State forRural Development RamKripal Yadav also shared hisviews in the meeting.

Tomar interacted live withseven Members of Parliament

during thecourse ofDistrict-levelD I S H ACommitteeMeetings indistricts ofD i n d o r i ,J o d h p u r ,J a s h p u r ,Sikar, Jalaun,Jabalpur and

Sambhal.Tomar

discussedthe incre-m e n t a lef fect ive-

ness of these committees inpursuing the convergenceagenda.

Tomar also interacted with36 States Rural DevelopmentDepartment Secretaries and

stressed on implementing theconvergence of schemes inrural areas.

He said schemes should beimplemented in a time boundmanner and the money that isspent on such schemes shouldcommensurate with theprogress at the grass roots level.

Tomar said that PM Modi hasright from the beginning wantedto change the perception of gov-ernment in the minds of the peo-ple and DISHA is an efficacioustool and step in that direction.

He said that the seed forthis scheme was sown during theNDA led by Atal Bihari Vajpayeeand has been improvised andtaken forward from being a toolfor monitoring schemes for ruraldevelopment and broad based byincorporating other flagshipschemes across Ministries.

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The CBI has filed achargesheet against two

former chairman-cum-man-aging directors of the CanaraBank in connection with thealleged loan default of �146crore by Jatin Mehta ofWinsome Diamonds and hasalso sought a Red CornerNotice (RCN) against the bil-lionaire jeweller.

Mehta is absconding andbelieved to have got St Kittspassport, sources said. Theagency has filed thechargesheet against 21 accusedwhich includes Mehta, hiscompany, his wife besides 15public servants, CBISpokesperson Abhishek Dayalsaid.

The public servants chargesheeted by the agency includesformer CMDs AvinashChander Mahajan and SunderRajan Raman. Former execu-tive director of the bank,Archana Bhargava, has alsobeen named by the agency inits chargesheet filed in SpecialCBI court, Mumbai, he said.

The agency has alleged thecompany purchased gold fromthree bullion banks abroad —

The Bank of Nova Scotia,Standard Bank and StandardChartered Bank — on the basisof guarantees from the Indianbank. Later, this gold wasprocessed and sent to 13 buy-ers in the UAE, the CBI stated.

The company also failed tomake the payment for the goldimported on the strength ofguarantees, the agency said.

“In this regard, the com-pany has taken plea that exportproceeds have not beenreceived from foreign buyers(which) resulted in invokingthe SBLCs (guarantees) by bul-lion banks that cost wrongfulloss of �146.35 crore to CanaraBank.

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The Election Commission(EC) has asked Facebook to

examine blocking of politicaladvertisement 48-hours beforeelections in the country. Thesocial media giant has notresponded to the request as yet,but is examining.

At a June 4 meeting of thecommittee constituted by theECI to study provisions ofSection 126 of theRepresentation of the PeopleAct, 1951, a Facebook repre-sentative agreed to examineproviding a window or buttonon the Facebook page for flag-ging complaints about violationof election laws.

The representative alsoagreed to examine if the num-ber of Facebook reviewersattending to complaints againstcontents posted by users can beincreased from current 7,500persons. The number, he said,could be augmented duringelection period if the needarises.

Section 126 of the

Representation of the Peopleprohibits displaying any elec-tion matter by means, inter alia,of television or similar appa-ratus, during the period of 48-hours before the hour fixed forconclusion of poll in a con-stituency.

The official of social mediagiant at the meeting statedthat complaints can be lodgedagainst the ‘contents’ on theFacebook and these arereviewed as per the globalcommunity standards. “If con-tents are found to be violatingthe community standards, they

will be taken off,” he stated,according to the minutes of themeeting.

Action would be prompt-ly taken if a complaint wasmade by the Commission or itsmachinery about violation ofany provision of the law inregard to “contents onFacebook”. “In such cases,action will be with regard toviolation of the law and notmerely based on the globalcommunity standards. There isa policy of taking special careduring elections,” he told themeeting.

In the case of proved vio-lations, the Facebook informsthe users concerned and con-tents are removed. The cases ofremoval of contents are alsoposted on the transparencypage of Facebook. “Maintaininga safe community for people toconnect and share on Facebookis absolutely critical to us. Inour recent meeting with the EC, we explained that we reviewcontent flagged to us on basisof our global ‘CommunityStandards’ and remove it fromour platform if found in viola-tion of our policies.

“Additionally, we also reit-erated that we remove content

which is in violation of any pro-vision of the law in the coun-try,” a Facebook Indiaspokesperson said.

At the meeting, the officialwas “requested to consider thepossibility of blocking postingof election advertisements dur-ing the period of last 48- hoursand to collect details about theexpenditure part of the adver-tisements for elections,” accord-ing to the minutes.

Committee Chairman andSr Deputy ElectionCommissioner Umesh Sinhasaid the aim was to prevent vio-lations so as to ensure free andfair elections and askedFacebook to share the code ofethics/guidelines for contentsand consider some mecha-nism to forewarn the usersagainst violation of electionlaws during elections.

Besides ECI officials, thepanel includes representativesof News BroadcastersAssociation (NBA), PressCouncil of India, and Ministryof Electronics and InformationTechnology.

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The Congress on Thursdaycame out all guns blazing

against the Modi Governmentand said that it is trying to polit-ically exploit the surgical strikesby the Army against terrorlaunch pads in Pakistan-occu-pied Kashmir (PoK) in 2016.

The party reacted aftersome TV channels telecast avideo of the surgical strikes onWednesday night. TheCongress alleged that the sur-gical strikes were “shamelesslypoliticised” by the BJP for theMarch 2017 Uttar PradeshAssembly elections.

Addressing a press chiefspokesman Randeep Surjewalacharged that while on the onehand the Modi Government isseeking credit for the sacrificeand valour of the armed forces,on the other it has failed to pro-vide direction and vision todeal with Pakistan. He alsoaccused the Government ofmeting out “step-motherlytreatment” to the armed forcesby not providing them withstate-of-the-art equipment andslashing their budgetary allo-cation.

“Let the ruling dispensa-tion remember that the bloodand sacrifice of our brave sol-diers cannot become a politi-cal vote garnering tool for theModi Government and theBJP. On the one hand, theModi Government/BJP indulgein seeking credit for the sacri-fice of our soldiers and surgi-cal strikes, yet the Governmenthas utterly failed to provide thedirection, the vision and thepolicy for dealing with Pakistanand checkmating Pak-spon-

sored terrorism,” he charged. Surjewala said the “apathy”

and “incapacity” of the ModiGovernment has resulted in thesacrifice of 146 soldiers, morethan 1,600 ceasefire violationsby Pakistan and 79 terroristattacks post September 2016.

“The doublespeak of theModi Government and theBJP stands is reflected in thestep motherly treatment of ourarmed forces, both in terms ofproviding for security appara-tus as also in slashing the bud-getary allocation. Vice Chief ofArmy Staff Lt Gen. SarathChand, was forced to publiclystate that 68 per cent of allequipment is vintage,” he said.

Hailing the indomitablecourage, fortitude and spirit ofsacrifice of the armed forces, hesaid the Congress has unequiv-ocally supported them and theGovernment in conductingsurgical strikes against terror-ists in Pakistan and for takingall steps for demolishing theterror infrastructure againstthe country.

“As the Modi Governmentseeks to politicise the braveryof our soldiers and their deter-mination in conducting thesurgical strikes through ‘head-line management’, the Nationdemands answers.

“Is the Modi Governmentendangering our ‘security infra-structure’? Is the ModiGovernment guilty of puttingthe life of our soldiers in dan-ger? Is the Modi Governmentusing our ‘soldiers’ as ‘politicalfodder’ — using their sacrificefor vote garnering?,” he asked.

Surjewala also askedwhether former PrimeMinisters Atal Bihari Vajpayeeand Manmohan Singh werewrong when they used surgicalstrikes for strategic and secu-rity purposes without any chestthumping. By making publicthe videos of the strikes, has theGovernment not somehowendangered lives of armedforces participating in them asalso civilians living along theLine of Control (LoC), heasked.

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The BJP on Thursdaydescribed Congress as a

“fringe party” which is ques-tioning “surgical strikes” car-ried out against Pakistan in2016 across the border anddoubting the commitment andcourage of the forces.

Addressing a Press confer-ence, senior BJP leader andUnion Law Minister RaviShankar Prasad asked theCongress whether it doubtedthe authenticity of the video onsurgical strikes being shown inthe media and should tellwhether the strikes were aright step or not.

Prasad rejected theCongress’ allegation that theModi Government is politicis-ing the surgical strikes, sayingif the BJP wanted to drawpolitical mileage then a videopurportedly showing theArmy’s operation in PoK wouldhave been released during thepolls in States like UttarPradesh, Gujarat or Karnataka.

“Where are the electionsnow ?”, he asked. Prasad saidthe Army officers connectedwith the surgical strikes haveconfirmed the video’s authen-ticity. Attacking Congress lead-ers for making Pakistan andterrorists there happy by mak-ing comments against Armyand Army chief, the BJP leadersaid while one Congress leaderGulam Nabi Azad has goneinto a silent mode after sayingthat Army killing more civiliansthan terrorists anotherCongress leader Saif UddinSoz started making commentsinimical to the interests ofnational integrity. Soz, in his

recently released book, hasreportedly called for the inde-pendence of Kashmir.

The Congress has becomeso desperate with its repeatedlosses in elections that it hasbeen repeatedly questioningthe commitment and courageof our armed forces, Prasadclaimed.

“It is boosting the moraleof terrorists. To what extent theCongress will stoop for votes,”he said. “It is clear from itsrepeated comments that theCongress is no longer a main-stream party but a fringe play-er, a fringe party in the nation-al politics,” Prasad said.

The Minister condemnedCongress comparing a globalleader like Prime MinisterNarendra Modi with anoppressive Mughal emperorAurangzeb, calling it a new lowin Congress politics and areflection on a “desperate anddefeated Congress.”

Senior BJP leader ArunJaitley had last week comparedformer Prime Minister IndiraGandhi with German dictatorAdolf Hitler.

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The EnforcementDirectorate (ED) has filed

a chargesheet against GitanjaliGroup and its owner MehulChoksi in a money launderingcase related to Punjab NationalBank scam. The total proceedsof crime in this case is �6097.63crore.

ED filed prosecution com-plaint equivalent chargesheetbefore the Special Court inMumbai. Mehul Choksi and 13other entities, including eightindividuals and five companies,have been charged underPrevention of MoneyLaundering Act.

The agency had filed amoney laundering case againstChoksi and other on February16 on the basis of FIR regis-tered by Central Bureau ofInvestigation (CBI). It wasalleged that Choksi and otherhad committed cheating inconnivance with certain bankofficials by fraudulently gettingthe Letters of Undertaking(LoUs) and Foreign Letters ofCredit (FLCs) issued withoutfollowing prescribed proce-dure and caused a wrongfulloss to the bank.

In this case, three compa-nies of Choksi — GitanjaliGems Ltd, Gili India Ltd andNakshatra Brand Ltd — gotfraudulently issued LoUs to thetune of �3,011.39 crore andfraudulently got the credit lim-its of FLCs enhanced to thetune of �3,086.24 crore makingthat total proceeds of crime�6,097.63 crore.

During the investigation, itis revealed that funds of LoUsobtained fraudulently weresiphoned off through their

alleged overseas suppliersnamely 4C’s DiamondsDistributors Hong Kong,Shanyang Gong SI LimitedHong Kong, Asian Diamondsand Jewellery FZE, UnitedArab Emirates, GitanjaliVentures DMCC, United ArabEmirates and Abbeycrest(Thailand) Limited, Thailand.

On receipts of FLC appli-cation, bank paid enhancedfunds to overseas companies4C’s Diamond Distributors andCrown Aim Limited (bothlocated in Hong Kong) whichare actually controlled byChoksi.

In addition, there are sev-eral other dummy companiescontrolled by Choksi in Dubaiand Hong Kong which wereused for layering and rotationof such funds. These compa-nies are having directors, whowere mere employees anddummies and ultimate decisionmaking always remained withChoksi. Most of these compa-nies had no genuine businessand were only paper companiesused for rotation of funds.Proceeds of crime was alsoremitted to Gitanjali GroupCompanies in India in guise ofExport-Import transactions.

It has also been found thatthough the goods being export-ed from India were of abysmal-ly low quality but the value washighly inflated. The valuationof the export and import goodswas used to be decided byChoksi. It has come on recordthat the diamond studded jew-elry in semi finished form andof very poor quality wereexported from India to theoverseas dummy firms. Thesewere then dismantled bydummy entities and diamondsand precious stones wereremoved. The gold and silver soobtained, after removing thediamonds was melted at thelocal melting unit and con-verted into bullion. The bullionso obtained and the diamondand precious stones wereexported as raw material toIndia, completing the cycle.

“Books of Gitanjali Groupwere also manipulated by usingthird party remittance systemand fabricated debtors wereused to be created in order toenhance the drawing power forcontinuation and enhancementof credit limits,” the chargesheetstated. During probe it has alsocome into light that funds werealso diverted from Dubai toseveral overseas subsidiary ofGitanjali Group in guise of loanrepayment, loan and advances.

Choksi indirectly used thefraudulently availed funds fromLoUs and FLCs to invest in hiscompanies in India throughindividuals/companies and inone case he transferred thefunds from Eternity JewelsFZE, a shell company of Choksito Rakesh Gajera in guise ofloan. These funds were laterused to purchase the equity ofGitanjali Gems Ltd.

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The National BuildingConstruction Company

(NBCC) has sold nearly 28,000sq ft office space at Okhla in thenational Capital to BalmerLawrie & Co for �83 crore.

The office is part of thestrategically located ‘NBCCCentre’, a CommercialComplex developed by thecompany that offers world classamenities, makes it one of itskind office building in thevicinity.

The construction of thebuilding was completed.

“The profit margin avail-able to NBCC against the saiddeal will be approximately �55crore” NBCC said.

NBCC Centre comprises

three basements and groundplus 8 storeys having a totalsaleable area of approximately2,36,251 sq ft. With this sale,approximately 75 per cent ofthe commercial space at NBCCCentre stands sold.

Some of the leading com-panies which have taken upoffice space in the centre are OilIndia Ltd., Bharat DynamicsLtd., Council of Architecture,National Insurance, New IndiaAssurance and OrientalInsurance Company Ltd.

NBCC’s present areas ofoperations are categorised intothree main segments — projectmanagement consultancy(PMC), real estate and EPCcontracting. The current orderbook outstanding of the com-pany stands at �80,000 crore. ���� ��������

Union Home Ministry hasinstituted new medals in

the special operations catego-ry for meritorious officers inpolice, security and intelli-gence services.

The medals are meant forspecial operations, Intelligencecategory and will be awardedon Independence Day andRepublic Day annually.

“Union Home MinisterRajnath Singh has approved

the institution of “HomeMinister’s Special OperationMedal”. Police Officers of States& Union Territories, CentralPolice Organisations (CPOs),Central Armed Police Forces(CAPFs) and SecurityOrganisation involved inSpecial Operations will be eli-gible,” said the MHA state-ment.

“The Union HomeMinister has also institutedthree more Medals, — theAntarik Suraksha Medal,

Asadharan Aashuchan Padak,and Utkrisht & Ati-UtkrishtSeva Medal.

The Medals will be award-ed annually; while the HM’sSpecial Operation Medal andAsadharan Aashuchan Padakwill be awarded on 15th Augustcoinciding with theIndependence Day, the AntarikSuraksha Medal and Utkrisht &Ati-Utkrisht Seva Medal will beannounced on 26th January tomark the Republic Day.

The Asadharan Aashuchan

Padak will be given to officialsof Intelligence organization ofCentral and StateGovernments, Assam Rifflesand NSG.

The Antarik SurakshaMedal will be bestowed uponPolice personnel of States andcentral police forces engaged inthe operation duty rendered bythem for a tenure of every twoyears in Internal Security inJammu & Kashmir State,Maoist affected areas NorthEastern States.

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The Law Ministry hasapproached the Cabinet

Secretary for creation of an‘integrated legal division’ in allCentral Ministries to ensurethat legal advice on complexissues is not delayed and courtsare only approached as a lastresort and cases with leanchances of winning are not pur-sued.

After a push by the PrimeMinister’s Office and theCabinet Secretariat, LawSecretary Suresh Chandrawrote to the Cabinet Secretaryon Wednesday seeking cre-ation of integrated legal divi-sion on the lines of integratedfinancial division which is

already in place. “I have writ-ten to the Cabinet Secretaryyesterday. The draft proposal isfor creating ILD on the lines ofIFD in all ministries,” Chandratold a coordination committeemeeting of over 60 nodal offi-cers representing differentdepartments and ministrieswhich are part of the the LegalInformation Management andBriefing System (LIMBS).

LIMBS is an online data-base of Government-related lit-igation with details of 2.91 lakhuses. It was launched in 2016with an aim to eventually bringinformation on court caseswhere Government is a party ona single electronic platform.

According to the proposal,formulated last November, theLaw Ministry would firstincrease the strength of IndianLegal Service cadre so that itsofficers are deputed in variousministries. It also plans to setup an integrated legal divisionon the lines of integrated

finance division. The officersattached to the division wouldreport to the Department ofLegal Affairs in the LawMinistry and also get theirsalaries from it. This wouldensure their independencewhich is necessary for them tobe able to give an impartiallegal advice, a functionary said.

The move will ensure thatlegal advice required by variousMinistries is not delayed as thepresence of Law Ministry offi-cials in Ministries would cutshort the red tape. The officialswould report to their unit orgroup heads in the Law Ministrywho would also help themresolve complicated legal issues.

Law Ministry officials arealready posted in the Defenceand the Railway Ministries.

These officials would alsoensure that the Ministries inwhich they are posted approachcourts only when they are sat-isfied that litigation is the lastresort left to settle a dispute.

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Five hundred years ago,Kabir Das had fearlessly

raised the voice againsthypocrisy. His thoughts andpersonality had so muchimpact that even today thereare crores of followers incountry and foreign land.They continue to spread hismessage, said Chief MinisterRaman Singh. He wasaddressing a public meetingon Thursday at Kotrabhata as

he was on a visit toRajnandgaon.

He said it should not betermed birth but correct wordshould be incarnation asdivine personalities takesincarnation. It is the deepeffect of Kabir that state is tra-ditionally known for peace,progressive and communalharmony. It is his thoughtsthat State is island of devel-opment and peace. “It is myprivilege that I have beenborn in a district named afterKabir Dasji”, said Raman

Singh.He said Nadiya Math is

playing key role in promotingthe thoughts of Kabirpanth.He appreciated the role playedby Mangal Saheb and PrakashDas Saheb and those associ-ated with Kabirpath for thepious work.

Chief Minister participat-ed in Rani DurgavatiMartyrdom Day event atMalpuri. He said RaniDurgavati is an ideal foreveryone’s life. She laid her lifefor her aim and principles.

Addressing the Dhamansaravillage, Chief Minister saidthat through ChandoDiversion, the farmers willderive benefit of agriculture.He assured that soon trans-formers will be installed sothat farmers can pull water forirrigation.

He said that under SKYscheme during 'vikas yatra' inAugust, around 55 lakhmobile phones would be dis-tributed in state. It wouldfacilitate the common man tobe linked with latest technol-

ogy and developments. He ,further, said that underAyushman Bharat schemepoor families would be cov-ered under �5 lakh medicalinsurance.

As part of contact pro-gramme in his assembly con-

stituency, Chief Minister vis-ited villages of Dhamansara,Malpuri, Mudhpar andKotrabhata. He sanctionedfunds for construction worksof road, community building,announced installation oftransformer among others.

He distributed laptops to stu-dents of DhamansaraHorticulture College andPandit Kishori Lal AgricultureCollege.

Chhattisgarh UrduAcademy chairman AkramQureshi, Civil Supplies

Corporation former chair-man Leelaram Bhojwani,Rajgami Sampada Nyayschairman Ramesh Patel,Chhattisgarh Housing Boardmember Naresh Dakliya,among other public repre-sentatives accompanied him.

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Chhattisgarh InfotechPromotion Society

(CHiPS), the nodal agency ofDepartment of InformationTechnology, Government ofChhattisgarh, will empanelfirms of national and interna-tional repute for gettingempanelled for undertakingdata anaytics as well as takingup solutions and developmentassignments.

In order to implement andmanage various data drivengovernance initiatives by theChhattisgarh Government, theempanelled firms would beexpected to take up assign-ments for data analytics ser-vices and solutions develop-ment engagements for variousgovernment agencies in thestate of Chhattisgarh and out-side.

These engagements entailprocesses such as strategydevelopment, data collectionand data management, dataanalysis using data mining andstatistical tools and creatingactionable insights, reports,dashboards, etc.

The empanelled firmswould oversee project execu-tion, manage implementationand deal with technology,process, external agencies/vendors and change manage-ment related issues.

It may be recalled thatCHiPS will also empanel reput-ed IT Program Managementand IT Development Servicesfirms for implementing andmanaging a host of State gov-ernment projects.

The empanelled firms willbe expected to provide man-power resources to undertakeIT Program Management and

IT Development Servicesengagements for theGovernment’s ongoing andnew projects, officials

informed.The empanelled firms will

be taking up assignments for ITProgram Management and ITDevelopment Services engage-ments from the State govern-ment pertaining to strategydevelopment, conceptualisa-tion, detailed project report for-mulation, goods and servicesprocurement, design, andimplementation and monitor-ing of projects/initiatives ofvarious Government agenciesin Chhattisgarh.

The firms will also overseeproject execution, manageimplementation and deal withtechnology, process, externalagencies/ vendors and changemanagement related issues.

The firms would also iden-tify different best practices fol-lowed in various States in Indiaand to map with the require-ment of the departments.

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Attacking the Congress partyon politicising the Surgical

Strike by Indian Army,Chhattisgarh Chief MinisterRaman Singh said thatCongress sought proof amdwhen they were given the evi-dence, the party raised allega-tion against the Bharatiya JanataParty of taking political mileagefrom it. But the fact is that it isCongress who raised questionover the action of Army.

Chief Minister was inter-acting with media at villageMalpuri while participating inthe Rani Durgavati Martyrdom

Day on Thursday atRajnandgaon. He was a day

visit to Rajnandgaon, hisassembly constituency.

“It is the Congress party,which is involved in politicsover the army. Indian Armyhad carried out the surgicalstrike in year 2016, where it hadraided the terrorist hideoutacross the border. The video of

the strike has been releasedafter two years. Congress had

raised the allegation against theBJP Government over politi-cising the bravery and martyr-dom of the Indian Army.Congress had stated that dur-ing earlier governments alsothe Army had carried out sim-ilar strikes. But it was neverused for political gain.

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Atraining workshop of Stateand district-level

Spokespersons of Chhattisgarhunit of the Congress party washeld here at Congress Bhawanon Thursday.

Senior leaders of the partyprovided tips to Spokespersonswith the directive to be on theoffensive from now onwards inorder to grill the ruling partyover a wide set of issues as partof the Assembly poll prepara-tions.

Chhattisgarh In-charge ofAll India Congress Committee(AICC), P.L. Punia, issueddirectives to the Spokespersonsto remain updated on contem-porary issues.

“It is the duty of State-levelparty spokespersons to conveythe issues they raise to the dis-trict level units”, he said.

Punia also directed not tomake a statement which mayspoil the image of the party, hesaid.

In the meeting it wasadvised to the Spokespersons tomaintain cordial relations with

the media persons and main-tain polite behaviour withthem.

The spokespersons werealso asked to come preparedbefore addressing a press con-ference and talk to media per-

sons while having completedata and proof on variousissues. They were also trainedhow to be eloquent speakers .

Later, a workshop forfrontal organisation Sevadalwas also held in which theywere appealed to play a key rolein formation of nextGovernment of the Congressparty after upcoming Assemblypolls.

National Chief Convenerof Sevadal, Lalji Desai, who wasespecially present in the work-shop, said the activists ofSevadal had to be in frontrather than supporting theCongress party from behind asBJP’s frontal organizationRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS) does.

He directed the activists ofSevadal to be present in eachand every booth in the assem-bly segments of the State.

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High Commissioner ofIndia to Republic of

Uganda Ravishankar called onChhattisgarh GovernorBalramji Das Tandon at RajBhawan on Thursday. Secretaryto Governor Surendra Kumar

Jaiswal and Commerce, indus-tries secretary Dr KamalpreetSingh were also present.

Governor extended warmwelcome to Ravishankar on hisarrival in State. They held dis-

cussion on the India-Ugandarelations in detail. Ravishankarsaid that in Republic ofUganda, Indians have abundantopportunities in agricultureand agro-products processing.

He said that Indians playkey role in the economy ofUganda. High Commissioner

said that in business sectorIndia is an important partnerof Uganda.

The industrialists fromChhattisgarh can also comeforward for investment.

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Patna High Court Judge,Justice Ajay Kumar Tripathi

would be the new Chief Justiceof Chhattisgarh High Court.

The present Chief Justice ofChhattisgarh High Court,Justice T.B Radhakrishnan, hasbeen transferred as a JointChief Justice of High Courts ofAndhra Pradesh and TelanganaStates.

The Centre on Thursdayapproved the transfer of JusticeT B Radhakrishnan on recom-mendation of the SupremeCourt Collegium early this year.

Justice Ajay Kumar Tripathiwho has been elevated as theChief Justice of ChhattisgarhHC, Bilaspur, hails from steelcity Bokaro.

He had taken his schooleducation from Saint Xavier’sSchool, Bokaro and had donehis higher education fromShreeram College, New Delhi.

Later, he took his degree ofLaw from Delhi University andstarted practicing as anAdvocate from 1981 and wasappointed as a Judge in HighCourt of Patna in the year2006. He became regular Judgeof Patna HC from November21, 2007.

He is a good player of golfand has participated in inter-state golf tournaments.

Justice Ajay Kumar Tripathiwas Chairman of Patna GolfClub from 2007 to 2009. Hisfather Hari Narayan Tripathi isa social worker while his twoyounger brothers Vijay andAbhay are officers of IndianAdministrative Service (IAS).

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The Executive Body Meet ofState unit of Bharatiya

Janata Party (BJP) was held atthe party’s State Office atKushabhau Thakre premiseshere on Thursday evening.

The meeting dwelt on theissues of poll preparations andformulated strategy for ‘Mission2018’.

The meeting convened inpresence of party'sOrganizational GeneralSecretary from HimachalPradesh Pawan Rana and StateBJP Chief Dharamlal Kaushikchalked out strategies to achievethe target of Mission 65+.

Speaking at the meeting,Rana said, “victory could onlybe achieved when we (party)have set the target”.

“The target must be ‘JahaKam Waha Dam’ (more effortto places where we (party) isweak). The Assembly segmentshave to be categorised andspecial attention had to begiven to the weak areas,” hesaid.

Rana also gave tips tostrengthen the booths and

underlined the need of orga-nizing ‘beneficiary seminars’.

Kaushik while ascertainingthat the party’s victory for the

fourth consecutive time is cer-tain said the work done by theBJP Government in past 15years in the State would paveway for victory this time.

In the meeting, senioroffice bearers of the organisa-tion reviewed and assignednew tasks to the office bearersof frontal organisationsMorchas and Prakoshthas forthe upcoming polls.

The frontal organisationswere asked to tighten theirbelts for ensuring victory forthe fourth term.

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To encourage the youth ofState to participate in

Adventure Tourism,Chhattisgarh Tourism Board(CTB) is organising ‘BicycleTourism’ event from June 30 toJuly 1, 2018.

CTB had earlier organisedsimilar events like ‘Tour-De-Raipur’, Tour-De-Chhattisgarh,and ‘Tour-de-Sarodhadadar’.

The ‘Tourism on Wheels’scheduled from June 30 to July1 will cover a distance of 90kilometres that is from Raipurto Dhamtari to Gangrelthrough bicycle riding. Theevent is being jointly organisedby CTB and Tour De Raipur,Bicycle Club.

The Bicycle riders wouldbe flagged off on June 30 at 6.00

am at Marine Drive,Telibandha, Raipur.

The riders would take theroute of old Dhamtari road toBardiha Lake View TouristCottage, Gangrel. They wouldthen participate in variouswater sports activities and haltduring the night.

The main aim of the eventis to promote bicycle tourismamong the youth along withconservation of naturalresources.

It would also help to pro-mote the use of bicycles.

Those interested to partic-ipate in the event can registerwith Chhattisgarh TourismBoard, Tourism InformationCentre at Mahant GhasidasMuseum, Raipur ‘Garh Hatri’or with the Tour De Raipur,Bicycle Club.

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Seven persons were arrestedfor allegedly printing and

circulating counterfeit cur-rency from Basna region ofMahasamund district onThursday evening.

A sum of �7,37,500 incounterfeit currency notes, aprinting machine, mobilephones and papers used forprinting currency were seizedfrom possession of theaccused, police informed.

“The accused GautamKumar Tondar (Arang,Raipur), Krishna KumarGnedre Muswadih, Baloda

bazar, Chamru Patel,Larnapali Basna, ManmohanDas Amsena Arang,Rupanand alias RupeshBaitari, Basna, SurendraChauhan Bilkhan Basna,Kamal Bariha Bilkhand Basnaformed a group to earn easymoney by circulating fakecurrency,” Superintendent ofPolice (SP), MahasamundSantosh Singh said whileaddressing a press conferencehere.

The counterfeit currencywas circulated in the districtas well as in the neighbouringstate of Odisha, he said.

A couple of days ago,police got a tip off that that a

grey coloured van withoutbearing any registration num-ber was making suspiciousmovement in the Pirda villageof Basna , official informed.

A team of Crime Branchpersonnel with Basna PoliceStation personnel was sent tothe village where they foundfour persons in the said van.

After intense interroga-tion , they admitted that theywere involved in printing andcirculation of counterfeit cur-rency.

The printing work wasdone at residence of KamalBariha and around �2 lakhfake currencies was in the van,they admitted.

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Punjab Chief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh on

Thursday assured compensa-tion for the remaining 325Jodhpur detenues, at par withthe 40 who have been award-

ed by the Court. CaptAmarinder also promised toalso persuade the CentralGovernment to do the same.

The Chief Minister came outwith the assurance during a sim-ple ceremony held at PunjabBhawan to hand over the

cheques, amounting to Rs2,16,44,900, to the 40 Jodhpurdetenues, after the CongressMLA from Patti pointed thatcompensation was paid only tothose who approached the Courtwhile there were total 365 captiveSikhs, and the rest remainingshould also get the compensation.

Capt Amarinder has hand-

ed over cheques of the state’s 50percent share of approximate-ly �4.5 crore compensationannounced by AmritsarDistrict and Sessions Court tothe 40 detenues who hadsought judicial relief.

Notably, a total of 365 per-sons were arrested and detainedat Jodhpur jail in the wake of

Operation Blue Star in 1984,and were eventually released in1986. As many as 100 had diedsince then. Of the 40 who hadgone to the court, seven hadpassed away in the interim.

Sharing the pain of thedetainees, Capt Amarinder saidthat those who did not go to thecourt were also entitled to

compensation and his govern-ment will make the same pay-ment to them too.

He expressed the confi-dence that the Centre wouldagree to his plea to also con-tribute its share to the remain-ing 325 detenues.

“Our government was pre-pared to release the full com-pensation to 40 detainees whohad won the case in DistrictCourt, but I was informed bythe Central Government of itsdecision to release its share too,”the Chief Minister told thedetainees or survivors.

“It was a small compensa-tion for the pain they hadundergone,” he said whileassuring the detainees that hisgovernment would also lookinto their demand for jobs fortheir children.

Recalling the painful peri-od that Punjab had gone

through post 1984, the ChiefMinister urged the detaineesand their families to forget thepast and move on.

Congress MLA HarminderSingh Gill, who was alsodetained after 1984, thankedthe Chief Minister for comingto the rescue of the detainees,time and again.

He recalled CaptAmarinder’s gesture in visitingthe detenues in Nabha prison,where they were initially keptbefore being shifted to Jodhpur,to give them clothes as thedetainees had been kept nakedin Nabha prison.

Harminder recalled that itwas Capt Amarinder who gavethem Rs one lakh each in 2006,during his previous tenure —“the only compensation givento the detainees before today”.

He said that the detaineesmet former Chief Minister

Parkash Singh Badal severaltimes during the various Akalirules after Operation Blue Star,but got no help.

He blamed the Centre fordelaying the compensation bygoing in appeal before thePunjab and Haryana HighCourt, and observed that hadCapt Amarinder not inter-vened, the matter would haveagain gone into cold storage.

“It is the Chief Minister’sefforts and decision to paythat had forced the Centre toagree to release its share,” headded. One of the detaineesJasbir Singh Ghuman laudedthe Chief Minister as the ‘manof the match’ in the entireepisode. s“Our acquittal hadcome after a 20-year courtbattle and then it took us sevenyears to win the compensation,”he said.

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From page 1Impact of climate change is

already being felt. India’s aver-age annual tempesratures isexpected to rise by 1°C to 2°Cby 2050 even if preventivemeasures are taken along thelines of those recommended bythe Paris climate changeagreement of 2015. If no mea-sures are taken, average tem-peratures in India are predict-ed to increase by 1.5°C to 3°C,as per the report.

The work scientificallyidentifies vulnerable States anddistricts as “hotspots” usingspatial granular climate andhousehold data analysis. Thereport defines hotspot as alocation where changes in aver-age temperature and precipita-tion will have a negative effecton living standards.

These hotspots are notonly necessarily higher tem-perature zones than the sur-rounding areas, but also reflectthe local population’s socio-economic capacity to cope withthe climatic changes.

In India today, approxi-mately 600 million people livein locations that could eitherbecome moderate or severehotspots by 2050 under a busi-ness-as-usual scenario, thereport says. States in theCentral, northern and north-western parts of India emergeas most vulnerable to changesin average temperature andprecipitation.

Muthukumara Mani, mainauthor of the report and LeadEconomist in the South AsiaRegion of the World Bank said“these weather changes willresult in lower per capita con-sumption levels that could fur-ther increase poverty andinequality in one of the poor-est regions of the world, SouthAsia.”

“Identifying hotspots willhelp policymakers in findingspecific locations and house-hold types where the resourcesare needed the most to addressthe rising risk to living stan-dards.”

The report providesoptions to prioritise invest-ments and strategies to buildlocal resilience to climatechange. To offset the negativeeconomic impact in India, forexample, the analysis suggestsenhancing educational attain-ment, reducing water stress,and improving job opportuni-ties in the nonagricultural sec-tors.

The analysis predicts thata 30 per cent improvement onthese measures could halt thedecline in living standards byalmost 1 per cent from-2.8 percent to-1.9 per cent.

According to experts thescale of tree destruction, posesa grave threat to tackling bothclimate change and the massiveglobal decline in wildlife.

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Delhiites and people resid-ing in National Capital

Region (NCR) on Thursdayheaved a sigh of relief as mon-soon showers hit the city a dayahead of its scheduled arrival.

Confirming the arrival ofmonsoon in the city, the IndianMeteorological Department(IMD) Additional DirectorGeneral Mritunjay Mohapatrasaid, “It would cover the entire country in next 2-3

days. The Southwest Monsoon could cover the rest of thenation a fortnight before itsscheduled date.”

“The normal onset date formonsoon in Delhi is June 29while it usually reachesSriganganagar in westRajasthan, its last outpost in thecountry, on July 15. SouthwestMonsoon has further advancedinto some more parts ofGujarat region, most parts ofeast Rajasthan, some parts ofWest Rajasthan, entire

Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi,remaining parts of west UttarPradesh, Uttarakhand,Himachal Pradesh andPunjab,” the IMD said.

“Conditions are favourablefor further advance ofSouthwest Monsoon intoremaining parts of northArabian Sea, Gujarat,Rajasthan and thus the entirecountry during the next 2-3days,” the IMD added.

This year, the monsoonreached Kerala on June 28,three days ahead of its normalonset date. It battered the western coast in the first halfof the month.

However, after a brief lull,it made a steady advance.

The Southwest Monsoongives 70 per cent of the rain tothe country, where agriculturestill remains a major contrib-utor to the GDP. Meanwhile, the Safdarjung observatory,recording of which is consid-ered the official figure for thecity, recorded 20.4 mm rain-fall till 8.30 am. It receivedtraces of rainfall till 5.30 pm.Lodhi Road, Palam, Ayanagarand Ridge received 20.8 mm,32.8 mm, 30.6 mm and 33mm rainfall, respectively till8.30 am, the MeT said. Palam

and Ayanagar observatoriesrecorded 5.6 mm and 2.3 mmrainfall, respectively between8.30 am and 5.30 pm. Areasunder Lodhi Road and Ridgedid not receive any rainfall dur-ing this time interval, it said.

The maximum tempera-ture was recorded at 35.2degrees Celsius, two notchesbelow the season’s average.The minimum temperaturesettled at 24.2 degrees Celsius,four notches below the season’saverage, a MeT official said.Humidity levels oscillatedbetween 100 per cent and 60per cent. The MeT office hasforecast cloudy skies alongwith a likelihood of moderaterains and thundershowers fortomorrow. “The maximumand minimum temperaturesare expected to hover around36 degrees and 24 degreesCelsius, respectively,” theweatherman said. OnWednesday, the maximumtemperature settled at 37.5degrees Celsius, while the min-imum was recorded at 26.2degrees Celsius.

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Pakistan’s former PrimeMinister Shahid Khaqan

Abbasi was on Thursday barredby an election tribunal fromcontesting the July 25 generalelection from Rawalpindi, a dayafter he was allowed to run fora seat from capital Islamabad.

Abbasi had filed nomina-tions for NA-53 Islamabad andNA-57 Rawalpindi seats.Initially, election officials hadrejected his nomination fromIslamabad but accepted his bidfrom Rawalpindi.

He had challenged his rejec-tion from the capital in a specialelection tribunal of theIslamabad High Court, where hisplea was accepted by judgeMohsin Akhtar Kayani onWednesday.

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German Chancellor AngelaMerkel warned on Thursday

that the migration challengecould determine Europe’s fate,hours ahead of a Brussels sum-mit where EU leaders are expect-ed to clash over the way forward.

“Europe has many chal-lenges but migration couldend up determining Europe’sdestiny,” she told German law-makers.

The path the EU choosescould decide if the bloc isviewed by others as a credibledefender of the values itespouses, she said.

Europe can decide to “over-come the challenge in a way thatpeople in Africa or elsewherebelieve that we are guided byour values, and that we take a

multilateral rather than a uni-lateral approach,” Merkel added.

The alternative wouldresult in a situation where “noone will believe in our valuesystem that has made us sostrong.” “That’s why the stakesare high,” said the Germanleader, who is also battling adomestic rebellion over herdecision in 2015 to openGermany’s borders to asylumseekers fleeing war and miseryin Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.

If a deal cannot be reachedbetween all 28 of the bloc,Merkel said that a compromisemust be found among “a coali-tion of the willing”.

But the guiding principle ofany accord must be multilater-al and must not put dispro-portionate weight on frontlinecountries, she stressed.

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President Xi Jinping has toldUS Defence Secretary James

Mattis that China will not con-cede “even an inch” of its terri-tory passed down from ances-tors, in an apparent reference tothe disputed South China Sea.

China is engaged in hotlycontested territorial disputes inboth the South China Sea(SCS) and the East China Sea(ECS). Beijing claims almost allof the SCS. Vietnam, thePhilippines, Malaysia, Bruneiand Taiwan have counterclaims over the vital transitroute for world trade.

The US views China’s mil-itarisation of the SCS a reasonof tension in the Sino-US ties.The US has been sending peri-odic air and naval expeditionsto assert its right of the freedomof the navigation in the areamost of which is claimed byChina.

During his meeting withMattis here on Wednesday, Xisaid China and the US shouldpromote the development ofbilateral ties based on the prin-ciple of mutual respect andwin-win cooperation.

“When we see commoninterests between China andthe US, we do not shy awayfrom differences. Our stance issteadfast and clear-cut when itcomes to China’s sovereigntyand territorial integrity,” hesaid, adding that “any inch ofterritory passed down fromancestors cannot be lost, whilewe want nothing from others.”

As an important part ofbilateral relations, Xi said, theUS and China military relationshave maintained a sound devel-opment momentum in therecent years.

“It has long been knownthat the real experts on militaryaffairs do not want to employmilitary means to solve issues,”

Xi was quoted as saying by thestate-run Xinhua news agency.

Asserting that Sino-USrelation is one of the mostimportant bilateral ties in theworld, the Chinese Presidentsaid, “The history and realitysince the establishment of bilat-eral diplomatic ties in nearly 40years have proved that thesound development of China-US ties can benefit people ofboth the countries and theworld, and is also conducive toworld and regional peace, sta-bility and prosperity.”

China and the US sharecommon interests in extensiveareas and common ground faroutweighs differences, he said.

“The Pacific Ocean is vastenough to accommodate Chinaand the US, as well as othercountries,” he said.

Xi’s comments to Mattiswas significant as the US DefenceSecretary is a strong advocate ofproactive US policy in the SouthChina Sea to contain China’sefforts to consolidate its hold byinstalling military bases on thereclaimed islands.

Mattis’ meeting with Xialso took place amid the spi-ralling tariff spat between USand China over PresidentDonald Trump’s demand torapidly reduce the USD 375 bil-lion trade deficit between thetwo countries.

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Pakistan has lifted a ban ona Sunni extremist outfit and

unblocked assets of its chief, ina surprise decision hours beforethe country was placed on the‘grey list’ by the FinancialAction Task Force for failing tocurb anti-terror financing.

The National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NACTA)yesterday issued a notificationto lift the ban on Ahl-e SunnatWal Jamaat (ASWJ) andunfreeze the assets of its chiefMaulana Ahmed Ludhianvi,the Express Tribune reported.

The notification was issuedon the recommendations of thePunjab province home depart-ment, the paper said.

Ludhianvi is the chief ofASWJ, a banned sectarianextremist group, formerlyknown as Sipah-e-Sahaba. Hebecame the group’s chief afterthe killing of his predecessor AliSher Haidri in a 2009 ambush.

In 1990s, the Sipah-e-Sahaba was actively involved ina number of high profile attackson scholars, mosques and gath-erings of the minority Shiacommunity. The groups wasbanned by the military dicta-tor General Pervez Musharrafin 2002. The group reemergedunder the name of ASWJ.

The Hague: Abu Dhabi onThursday called on Doha tostop “supporting terroristgroups and individuals” as itstrongly denied human rightsabuses against Qatari citizensbefore the UN’s top court.

The bitter Gulf crisis pit-ting Doha against its neigh-bours including the UnitedArab Emirates, Saudi Arabiaand Bahrain moved to theinternational courts yesterday,with Qatar accusing the UAE offostering an “environment ofhate” against its citizens.

But Abu Dhabi’s represen-tatives today fired back, sayingit cut relations with Qatar“because of its support for ter-rorism, its interference with theaffairs of its neighbours and itsdissemination of hate speech”.AFP

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US President Donald Trumpand his Russian counterpart

Vladimir Putin will hold theirfirst summit meeting on July 16in the Finnish capital Helsinki tomend bilateral relations, theWhite House and the Kremlinannounced on Thursday.

The summit will take placefour days after a NATO summiton July 11 and 12 in Brussels,Belgium, where Trump will meetleaders of US military allies.Trump plans to visit London tomeet British Prime MinisterTheresa May on July 13.

The two leaders “will meeton July 16, 2018, in Helsinki,Finland,” White House PressSecretary Sarah Sanders said.

“The two leaders will dis-cuss relations between theUnited States and Russia and arange of national security issues,”Sanders said in a statement.

In Moscow, the Kremlinpress service said Putin andTrump will discuss “the current

state and prospects of furtherdevelopment of Russian-USrelations and also vital issues ofthe international agenda.”

Putin and Trump held theirfirst talks on the sidelines of theG20 summit in Germany’sHamburg in July 2017. Theyhad another opportunity tohold negotiations during theAPEC summit in Vietnam inNovember 2017 but no full-fledged meeting took place.

The announcement of thedate and venue of the summitfollows a meeting betweenPresident Putin and USNational Security Adviser JohnBolton in Moscow yesterday.Putin’s adviser Yuri Ushakovhad said the two leaders willmeet in a third country.

The summit will includeone-on-one talks between thepresidents and conclude with ajoint news conference, Ushakovsaid, adding that the two lead-ers are expected to issue a jointstatement after their meeting.

“Both President Trump

and President Putin feel that it’simportant for these two lead-ers of these two criticallyimportant countries to gettogether and discuss theirmutual problems and areas ofco-operation,” Bolton said.

“It’s something that I thinkboth feel will contribute toimprovements in the US-Russiabilateral relationship and in sta-bility around the world,” headded.

President Putin said hismeeting with Bolton had raisedhopes for a full restoration ofrelations, which he admittedwere not in the best of shape.

Putin insisted Moscow hadnever sought confrontationand that, in his view, the poorstate of relations was a result offierce political confrontationinside the US itself.

Relations betweenWashington and Moscow havehit lows not seen since the ColdWar over Russia’s annexation ofCrimea as well as disagreementover the Syrian conflict.

Peshawar: For the first time inthe history of Pakistan, the179th death anniversary ofMaharaja Ranjeet Singh, theleader of the Sikh Empire, wasobserved at the historicBalahisar Fort here.

The anniversary last eveningwas largely attended by the mem-bers of the Sikh community at thefort, which now serves as theheadquarters of Frontier Corps(FC) Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Singh was born inGujranwala, undivided India,on November 13, 1780 and diedon June 27, 1839 in Lahore.

Special prayers wereoffered for peace in Pakistan onthe occasion. Sikh leaderGorpal Singh said that specialpermission was sought fromInspector General of the FC forobserving the anniversary inthe fort premises. PTI

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The re-election of Recep TayyipErdogan has led analysts andscholars to comment on anintensified move that thisdevelopment represents

towards a worldwide transition fromdemocracy to autocracy. On Sundaywith an unprecedented 87 per centturnout, voters have given “their autocrat-ic President another unprecedented man-date…”, according to an article by DavidA Andelman, published and disseminat-ed by CNN. The article concludes thatvastly large stretches of the world aremore concerned about the basics offood, housing and personal safety. Withthese overwhelming priorities, democra-cy seems to take a backseat as peopleexpress their choice solely in favour ofseeking and securing the necessities thatwill help them survive today.

The current move towards the impo-sition of tariffs on imported goods ini-tiated by US President Donald Trump isclearly creating the conditions for acomplete reversal of open trade and glob-alisation achieved over many years of sus-tained efforts. While this could have anegative effect on the global economy,there is another aspect of serving populistobjectives and national economic inter-ests alone which could have seriousimplications for all life on this planet.

The US decision for withdrawingfrom the Paris Agreement on climatechange is, of course, an explicit movetowards reversing an Agreement reachedby the previous President of the US, butmore than that it is a retreat from theresponsibility for global action by anation which is historically responsiblefor the largest share of cumulative emis-sions of greenhouse gases (GHG).

Human-induced climate change isthe result of the large concentration ofGHGs resulting from their emissions inthe past from burning of fossil fuels anddeforestation. Climate change, there-fore, and other threats to all life on thisplanet have come into existence becausepolicies adopted by nation states have puttheir own narrow economic interestsbefore the need to protect the global com-mons. It is another matter that destruc-tion of the global commons will imposea cost on one and all from which eventhose nations which have achieved eco-nomic gains on the back of neglectingtheir environmental responsibilities willnot be able to escape.

In January 2013, a group of UN agen-cies brought out a think piece entitled“Global governance and governance ofthe global commons in the global part-nership for development beyond 2015”.This document was an effort to providea basis for initiating an informed dialogue

on a subject which was important toaddress as the world came to the end ofthe period for reaching the MillenniumDevelopment Goals.

The then Secretary General of theUN, Ban Ki-moon, rightly focused on theglobal challenges facing human societyand all living species in coming up witha process and an intellectual foundationthat resulted in the SustainableDevelopment Goals (SDGs). This reportstated, “Deepening economic globalisa-tion, and increasing migration, trade andcapital flows, and climate change andincreased activities in the global com-mons — those resource domains that donot fall within the jurisdiction of any oneparticular country, and to which allnations have access — make individualStates more susceptible to policies adopt-ed by others.”

As an example, it can be stated thatwhile the hurricane season of 2017 dev-astated large parts of the Caribbean andNorth American regions last year, theworst sufferer has been the island ofPuerto Rico which has still not recoveredfrom the devastation caused by HurricaneMaria. The lack of infrastructure andmeans in the poorest regions of the worldmake them particularly vulnerable to theimpacts of climate change and damagingthe global commons.

The UN System Task Team referredto above articulated the need for astronger UN system and a more effectivegovernance arrangement to deal with theprotection of the global commons. It

mentioned that environmental sustain-ability, the third dimension of sustainabledevelopment, is undoubtedly charac-terised by a weak global environmentalgovernance regime that is very fragment-ed. The move to a protectionist stanceand steps towards authoritarianism inevidence today clearly imply a retreatfrom collective responsibilities towardsprotecting the global commons.

Among today’s world leaders withunusual power the one who stands out withhis conviction in favour of protecting the glob-al commons is President Xi Jinping ofChina. Under Xi’s leadership protection of theenvironment has not only been given highpriority for solution of local environmentalproblems but the country has shown strongresolve in tackling climate change at the glob-al level. In fact, the Paris Agreement was facil-itated to a large extent by the joint efforts ofPresident Obama of the US, who, in his sec-ond term became pro-active on climatechange issues and President Xi of China.

By definition, global commons representthose parts of the planet that fall outsidenational jurisdictions and to which allnations have access, such that the benefitsfrom such access accrues to all. Internationallaw identifies four global commons, name-ly the High Seas, the Atmosphere, theAntarctica and the Outer Space. Humanactivities are threatening these at an alarm-ing level, resulting from increase in activitiessuch as fisheries, bioprospecting, navigation,aviation and scientific research.

More recently, the increase in the use ofplastics has been found to create unprecedent-

ed dangers to marine life and marine ecosys-tems even at locations remote from humanhabitation. Dramatic projections show thatby the middle of this century, the volume ofplastic under the ocean would exceed thequantity of fish.

In realisation of the threat that the oceanis facing from this form of pollution, we finda new resolve in some countries to cut downsignificantly on the single use of plastics. TheEuropean Union (EU), in particular, has takenthe lead in coordinated measures towardsreduction of single use plastic consumption.

Countries which have implementedpolicies of an exemplary nature, includingsome countries on the European continent,particularly in the Nordic region, have beenable to do so as a result of a high-level ofawareness on the scientific facts related todegradation of the global commons, theresulting cost and severe impacts that everysociety would have to bear and the co-ben-efits of actions to deal with the problem.

The answer lies in widespread aware-ness of the problem, the growing ease andeconomic merits inherent in feasible solu-tions and thus mobilising the youth of theworld, in particular, to take action. It is afterall their future which is at stake.Authoritarian leaders in the countrieswhere they are elected will not be able toignore the will of the people, if thisinvolves the security of their children forwhich youth must demand policies to min-imise damage to the global commons.

(The writer is former chairman,Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange, 2002-15)�

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Sir — This refers to the article, “Acontest between NDA and UPA”(June 27) by Kalyani Shankar. Postbreak-up with the PeoplesDemocratic Party, the NationalDemocratic Alliance seems to be ona tightrope as the Shiv Sena and theTelugu Desam Party had alreadyparted ways, making it tough for theBJP high command to ascertain theright permutation and combinationfor each of these States.

Lack of local leadership andstrong regional parties with a con-crete base might play a party spoil-er for the ruling dispensation.Dynamics of creating a politicalequilibrium is a tough task this timeas every regional party is aiming tostrengthen their condition on theirown and not by the aid of a nation-al party. The Congress is trying tomake an umbrella alliance by pro-jecting an anti-Modi narrative, asseen in the Karnataka election.

Opposition unity will be thedeciding factor for the approachingelection but will never be the onlyfactor. Winning the upcoming Stateelections of Madhya Pradesh,Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh willactually be a game changer for theBJP as the effect of these results willdefinitely get painted upon the2019 General Election.

Nischai VatsSultanpur

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Sir — This refers to the article,“Thank you. Pranab da, for the con-versation” (June 27) by ManmohanVaidya. There is no doubt that for-mer President Pranab Mukherjee is

a mature politician who knowsabout the pulse of the people andappreciates the culture of this coun-try. Mukherjee elaborated on nation-alism and patriotism in TritiyaVarsh Sangh Shiksha Varg ofRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS), emphasising upon culturaldiversity of country.

The writer has rightly pointedout that usually, intellectuals nevertook the pain to understand the RSSstructure and functioning; nor werethey willing to hold any dialoguewith Sangh functionaries. We mustunderstand the contribution of RSSin nation-building and their cultur-al policy which are an importantcomponent of unity and integrity ina country. I congratulate the writerfor his understanding of the issue.

Jasim MohammadAligarh

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Sir — World Asteroid Day (June 30)is a global awareness movementwhere people from all walks of lifecome together to learn about aster-oids and what we can do to protectour planet. Although asteroidswould seem like mere rocks float-ing in space, they are actually objectsof great importance for astronomers,geologists, planetary scientists,among others. On evolutionaryfield, they are pristine objects fromthe dawn of the solar system. Theymaintain their original chemicalcomposition that speaks to us abouthow our solar neighbourhood waslike 4.5 billion years ago.

Jubel D’CruzMumbai

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Yours truly travels a fair bit acrossthe world, and has noticed apeculiar variety of Indian pass-

port holder. The self-loathing Indianwho takes it upon himself or herself toeducate the world of India’s ills. This israrely in front a group of Indians, butalmost always when there are foreigners in the audience, the whiterthey are the better.

Initially, I put up with this; heck, Iwill be the first to admit that I evenjoined in the conversation quite oftenbut over the past decade I find theseconversations not just irritating but pos-itively anger-inducing.

This writer will be the first to admit

that there are hundreds of systemicproblems in India and then there arethe historic wrongs that have been com-mitted on a vast number of Indianssome of which must be discussed atglobal forums. But much of the con-versations I overhear nowadays arenothing but imagined wrongs or worseall driven by a unmitigated hatred ofthe party in power or more directlyPrime Minister Narendra Modi.

The belief that badmouthing Indiais directly badmouthing the party inpower or the man in power throughcomplaining about India to a whiteaudience befuddled me.

Not to stretch the ‘I met a taxi dri-ver’ analogy particularly favoured byself-loathing Indians but there havebeen Americans, Europeans and evenChinese folks I have met recently who after hearing such a conversation ask what is the problemwith us Indians is and whether theIndian nation-state is on the verge ofcollapse.

Yes, there was a section ofNarendra Modi’s supporters who tookthe 2014 election victory as a seeming-ly cultural victory of ‘us’ over ‘them’ andit is a pity that the party has not reinedin some of the more extremist elementson the Hindu right. But there is also nodoubt that there has been even moreextreme selective outrage by so-called‘liberals’ who have come across asBrahmanical defenders of an outdated

ideology and believers in makingnoise on social media for self-servingpurposes.

Nobody wants to indulge inwhataboutery but the simple fact thatsome of these ‘liberals’ have bent overso much that their noses touch theground. Of course, the foreign readWestern media confined to the hypo-critical liberal outposts of Khan Market,Kala Ghoda and the Jaipur Literary

Festival laps up every word of negativ-ity.

In their own failing states, hearingabout India’s failures from a supposedfirst-person perspective they can neverget in China perhaps makes their read-ership feel good, forgetting the fact thatthe US elected a demagogue, theBritish voted to leave the EuropeanUnion and their populations are as suchmore nationalist/right-wing than mostIndians. But sharing stories of‘deplorables’ from across the world givesreports a fizz.

Self-loathing Indians are only toohappy to feed narratives that India-haters in the West want to build. Afavourite tactic is to flame-bait on socialmedia, saying something outrageousand then feigning hurt and threatswhen called out; such people are thetrolls too.

These are the people who had theear of the Indian state and now thattheir privileges have been taken awaythey are the very definition of ‘namak

haram’. They would happily sell out thenation for an American or British res-idency, but thanks to electoral forces inthose countries that revolted againsttheir own self-loathing individualsthat’s becoming increasingly difficult toachieve. So some ply their trade onsocial media or pretend to be comics.

The only way to deal with suchpeople is to either counter them, with-out resorting to the malice they use, orbetter still ignore them altogether.

There are problems in India and wehave to acknowledge them, and somewho take offence to any questionasked of this Government have tounderstand that. Have things changedin the past four years? Yes, they have.Have they changed as fast as someexpected? No, they haven’t. But thecourse has been set and expect the self-loathing Indian to get even louder inthe coming 11 months.

(The writer is Managing Editor,Special Projects, The Pioneer)

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The UN Human Rights Council(UNHCR) report on Kashmiris a tedious and wasted effort

of 49 pages masquerading as unbi-ased reportage. It has been rightful-ly slammed as ‘fallacious, tenden-tious and motivated’.

The timing of the release of thereport could not have been worse forits chroniclers as the very next day, theValley witnessed the coldbloodedkilling of the Editor-in-Chief of a localnewspaper, Rising Kashmir and histwo bodyguards, an abduction fol-lowed by the recovery of a bullet-rid-den body of an Indian Army soldier(hailing from Jammu & Kashmir) andthe usual pelting of stones on thevehicles of the security forces acrossthe Valley — this when theGovernment of India had unilateral-ly initiated a ceasefire of anti-terror-ist operations during Ramzan.

In a cruel twist of fate, amongstthe last retweets (attributed to hisown newspaper) that ShujaatBukhari sent was on ‘India rejectsUN report on Kashmir’! Whereas,there are two detailed sections with-in this UNHR Council report sub-titled “restriction on the right to free-dom of expression” and “reprisalsagainst human rights defenders andrestrictions on journalists” that cap-tures multiple incidents blamingthe State authorities (including per-versely, even mentioning ‘RisingKashmir’) but there is not a singlemention about the terrorists or theseparatists putting any sort of pres-sure on the media and freedom ofexpression. Ironically, the man underwhose aegis this contentious reportwas prepared, Prince Zeid bin RaadZeid al-Hussein (United NationsHigh Commissioner for HumanRights), is from within the monar-chial ‘establishment’ of Jordan.

He is not allowed to use the feu-dal prefix ‘Prince’ in the officialdomof the UN. The dynast from animperfect democracy like Jordanwas a controversial choice at the timeof appointment as his earlier votingrecord on issues during his tenure asJordan’s Ambassador to the UN wasreflective of his countries dubiousstand on blasphemy laws, defamationof religion etc that was in consonancewith the Organisation of IslamicCountries’ (OIC) position —theorganisation that also has a certainpredetermined view on Kashmir.

Prince Zeid’s subsequent overenthusiastic interventions into theaffairs of sovereign matters withoutthe know of full details had led theRussian Ambassador to the UNcomplain about him saying, “PrinceZeid is overstepping his limits fromtime to time and we’re unhappyabout it. He criticised a number ofheads of State, Government. Heshould stick to his file, which isimportant enough.”

It is believed that the UN

Secretary-General António Guterreshad to urge Prince Zeid to tone downhis enthusiasm on various issues andhis term ends this August, as he hasperhaps read the writing on the walland refused to stand for a reelection.Meanwhile, his swansong via thisKashmir report (the first ever reportof its type) has led to furious reac-tions across, especially when the titleof the report ostensibly covers threeregions — Kashmir, ‘Gilgit-Baltistan’and worse, ‘Azad Kashmir’ — andgives away a clearly biased predisposition.

The fact is that India is besetwith various socio-economic chal-lenges and often the reaction of thestate and its response to the same areeither sub-optimal or sometimesplain incorrect.

There are internal challengestoo like gender issues, minorityright issues, riparian issues, dalit andtribal rights, north-eastern integra-tion issues etc that often morph intoviolent reactions, protests and evenarmed insurgencies like the Maoistmovement.

However, these are not an outcome of a deliberate sovereign policy that wishes the diminution ofany region, sect, race or religion. Theconstitutional aspiration of India isproudly secular, democratic andunambiguous about various libertiesand rights that it seeks to provide toits citizens — that there are flaws inimplementations, inefficiencies andeven mistakes do not make

the sovereign guilty of willfullyplanned or the deliberate abuse of human rights.

Acts like the much commentedArmed Forces Special Powers Act(AFSPA) are not a privilege or enti-tlement for the security forces; theyare simply a practical necessity thatrecognises the reality of dealingwith armed terrorism.

Contrast this with having todeal with a neighbouring state thathas since its Independence, decidedto move towards Islamisation as astate definition, with a declaredhostile position on Kashmir and aninternationally acknowledged infamyas a supporter-financer-perpetratorof the terror instigator beyond itsborders. Shockingly, this HumanRights report even shies away fromusing the word terrorist or militantsto describe the macabre operativeswithin the Valley and prefers toaddress them as ‘a variety of armedgroup’.

While there is a section cap-tioned, “Abuses by armed group”, theHuman Rights report states thateven though India accuses that thesearmed groups are actively support-ed by Pakistan, it notes ‘theGovernment of Pakistan categorical-ly denies any allegation of involve-ment in stoking unrest in Indian-Administered Kashmir or of provid-ing support to armed groups oper-ating there’.

A substantially lesser wordage isspared for the section detailing the

region in the Pakistan-OccupiedKashmir (POK), and incredulouslyadvises the authorities in India to“ful ly respect the right of self-determination of the people ofKashmir as protected under interna-tional law.”

It further seeks to escalate theKashmir issue (something Pakistanhas been trying desperately in therecent past and failing) by recom-mending to the Human RightsCouncil to “the possible establish-ment of a commission of inquiry toconduct a comprehensive indepen-dent international investigation intoallegations of human rights viola-tions in Kashmir.”

The biased pontification in thisreport aside, India has plenty ofroom for improvement in its gover-nance, operational and law-makingprocesses. However, to insidiouslyattribute a sinister motive to theGovernment of India in its Kashmiragenda is, to pander to a very selec-tive view.

Surely, there are cases of excess-es committed by the security forcesand the same needs to be addressedon priority and the guilty brought tobook, as soon as possible, but suchcases are of individual or unit levelfailures and not part of a dark sov-ereign plan, as this report almostseeks to project and establish as thedefinite narrative of Kashmir.

(The writer, a military veteran, isa former Lt Governor of Andaman &Nicobar Islands, and Puducherry)

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Ma j l i s - e - I t t e h a d u lMuslimeen president and

Hyderabad MP AsaduddinOwaisi said that issue ofwomen’s safety highlighted bythe Thompson ReutersFoundation was a serious mat-ter and the entire countryshould ponder over it withoutdoing politics over it.

“This is a fact thatMuslims, Dalits and women arefacing a serious threat and thesituation has worsened over thelast four years”, Owaisi told themedia in Hyderabad.

He said that the reportdescribing India as the mostdangerous country for womenwas correct and Narendar Modigovernment should clarify whatit intends to do about it.

“But when you ask thePrime Minister about the safe-ty of women he says he hasbrought triple talaq bill forMuslim women. I want to tellhim every woman in the coun-try is worried and fearful todayin the country.PM shouldunderstand that we are aboveAfghanistan and Syria in rank-ing today and you are ruling forthe last four years. But he didnot listen to me in Lok Sabha”,Owaisi said.

Instead of providing secu-rity to all the women he is justtalking about interfering withSharia, he said. “Now what hewill do? This is the finding of

Reuters no body can ignore it.Will the government do

something about it or just keeptalking of Muslim women whohave rejected the triple talaqbill”.

Underlining the seriousthreat to women, Owaisi saidthat three women are rapedand ten women are assaultedevery hour in the country.“Even wife of a major is killed.So the security is not the prob-lem of only poor but also ofmiddle class and the rich. Thegovernment should do some-thing about it”.

Stressing that theMuslims, Dalits and womenwere under attack Owaisisaid, “When you talk aboutthe safety of women howabout the wife of Qasim who

was lynched to death andhow about the family mem-bers of Sameeuddin who isfighting for his life in hospi-tal, how about mother ofAklaq and the Dalit boys whowere killed and beaten up justbecause they were ridinghorse. They should also getthe safety”, he said.

Meanwhile the UttarPradesh unit president of MIMShoukat Ali and other leadersmet the families of the victimsof lynching in Hapur Theyhanded over financial help of Rs100,000 to the family of Qasimwho was brutally lynched todeath and gave Rs 50000 to thefamily of Sameeuddin who wasinjured in the same incidentand was undergoing treatmentin hospital.

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With 2019 Lok Sabha pollscoming closer, simmer-

ing discontent in ruling BJP aswell as opposing Congress partystarted surfacing in Gujaratespecially among sitting MLAsand some of the senior leadersof both the parties.

Over the past few yearscontroversies of GujaratCongress used to become pub-lic, but in the case of BJP suchsituation is unusual in PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’shome-State. Interestingly threeVadodara legislatures came outin open to voice their concernat a time when Chief MinisterVijay Rupani is on six days tourto Israel.

The MLAs from Gujarat’scultural capital Vadodara –Madhu Srivastava, Yogesh Pateland Ketan Inamdar expressedtheir anger against workings ofBJP ruled state Governmentand attitude of bureaucratstowards legislators.

Shrivastava who is havingreputation of muscleman saidthat ever since the currentGovernment took charge, offi-cials were not attending elect-ed representatives and resolvingtheir issues. The five timesMLA went on to say that offi-cials need to be ‘taught’ somelessons. Manjalpur MLA Patelsaid that legislators were havingresponsibilities to resolve peo-ple’s problems but due to callous

attitude of officials they werenot able to represent issues oftheir constituencies properly.

“State Government func-tionaries should have controlover officials. Here we feel thatofficials have become thickskinned and they even don’tcare about people’s representa-tives,” says Inamdar who isMLA from Savli constituency.The three MLAs have alsoclaimed that more number ofBJP legislators would join themin coming days.

Instantly Gujarat BJP lead-ership came into action topacify surfacing discontentamong MLAs as senior cabinetminister BhupendrasinhChudasama said that he,Deputy CM Nitin Patel andstate BJP chief Jitu Vaghaniwould sort out issues of all thethree MLAs from Vadodara.

Talking to media personsDeputy CM Patel said that theMLAs were annoyed because ofcertain officials’ behaviour andnot angry with the party. “Theyhave been call on to meet meat the state capital Gandhinagaron Friday,” he said.

Meanwhile similar situa-tion is also prevailing in rivalCongress camp too. Koli leader

and Jasadan MLA KuvarjiBavalia on Friday skippedimportant meeting of CongressMLAs called by GujaratPradesh Congress Committee(GPCC) in-charge Rajiv Satav.Bavalia is complaining contin-uously over the past six monthsto party high command overhis ignorance by the stateCongress leadership.

Sources close to him alsoinformed that he had also metBJP president Amit Shah twodays back at latter’s residence inAhmedabad. However, therehas been no confirmationabout such meetings neitherfrom the Congress MLA norfrom the state BJP leadership.Similarly Javid Pirzada ofWankaner MLA has alsoexpressed unhappiness overnot getting important place inGPCC organisation.

Earlier this week strongSaurashtra leader IndranilRajguru tendered his resigna-tion after GPCC announcedappointments of 12 new districtand city presidents. PostRajguru’s resignation, 17 coun-cillors of Rajkot MunicipalCorporation came openly in theex-MLA’s support and tenderstheir resignations too. Sourcesin the oldest political partyclaimed that more number ofMLAs and senior leaders wouldcome out openly against theGPCC leadership’s workingstyle as the 2019 Lok Sabhapolls would come closer.

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BJP president Amit Shah onThursday blew the poll bugle

calling for a second Parivartanin Bengal the “foundation ofwhich will be laid in 2019” bywinning 23 out of 42 parlia-mentary seats from the State.

Addressing a huge rally inPurulia that hit national head-lines last month — for anunprecedented saffron showin the panchayat elections andmurder of three BJP workersallegedly by the TMC cadre inthe immediate aftermath —Shah said violence, rampantcorruption and syndicate rajwere the hallmarks of theMamata Banerjee regime thatdeserved to be defeated in 2019general elections.

The BJP president said atime had come for the MamataGovernment to be thrown outof power as it thrived only oncorruption and violence.

“In the Panchayat electionswhich hardly throws anyimpact on the future of the StateGovernment 1,341 people wereinjured, 20 killed and about 2crore people were not allowedto vote by the TMC goons whogagged the voice of democracythroughout Bengal,” Shah said.

“The TMC thinks that theywill continue to remain inpower through violence. But Ithrow an open challenge tothem from this rally that thesacrifices of our workers whowere murdered by the TMC

goons will not go in vain.Their blood will show its truecolours and this Governmentwill be thrown out of power —the process of which will beginin 2019,” he thundered.

Claiming that the MamataGovernment had picked upfrom where the Marxists left by“destroying Bengal’s economyand polity even further,” Shahsaid, “when the CPI(M)Government went the Statehad a debt of �2 lakh crore, butin the past seven years that debthas gone up to �3.5 lakh crore.”

Accusing the ruling partywith misappropriation of cen-tral funds sent by the NarendraModi Government the BJPpresident said Centre had sent�3.6 lakh crore for the devel-opment of the State “but mostof that fund had been spent forthe development of theTrinamool Congress goons andthe syndicates run by it.”

Instead of the common

man it were the sand mafia, coalmafia, cattle mafia, drug cartelsand cross-border infiltratorswho were developing, he said.“The development schemes ofthe Modi Government are notreaching the people because ofthe Trinamool Governmentand the goons that control it.”

Attacking the Chief Ministerfor trying to raise a grand allianceShah said “Mamata didi is tour-ing the country to raise thegrand alliance but I will suggesther to mind her own State wherethe ground beneath her feat isslipping away fast.”

There was no industry inBengal because of the faulty pol-icy of the Mamata Governmenthe said. “After the IndependenceBengal accounted for the 25percent of the national GDPgrowth but today it has comedown to a mere 4 percent. Thisis because the entire industryhas fled the State. The onlyindustry that runs here is the

one to make bombs,” he said.Shah earlier arrived in

Kolkata on Wednesday andheld a series of meetings saidTrinamool had ruined theBengali culture which was onceenriched by the likes of SwamiVivekananda, RamakrishnaParamahansa, Tagore, BankimChandra, Sarat Chandra andSyama Prasad Mukherjee.“Today instead of RabindraSangeet you can only listen tobombs going off,” he said.

Reacting to the BJP chiefBengal Minister Firhad Hakimsaid his party was “not ready tolisten about Tagore from ajungle because these peoplepresided over Gujarat carnage.”

On the misuse of Centralgrants, State Finance MinisterAmit Mitra said, “He is lyingbecause most of the people-friendly projects have eitherbeen dropped or slashed by theCentre and we are forced to runthem with our own resources.”

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In an ideal instance of the Stateadministration getting

increasingly servile to politicalinterests instead of minding itsconstitutional obligations, theDistrict Magistrate of Purulia onThursday entered into a heatedargument with Union MinisterBabul Supriyo not only refusingto entertain his complaints butalso telling him bluntly that hewould only take instructionsfrom the State Government.

The incident took place inPurulia when vehicles boundfor the ground where BJP pres-ident Amit Shah was to addressa rally got stuck in a“Government created trafficjam.” According to sources thepolice unnecessarily blockedother roads to clog the oneleading to the rally ground.

When the Minister rushedto the spot he found the DMsimply sitting idle inside hisvehicle and not intervening.When asked to sort out themess he said, “that is not myduty, I have told the SP to takesteps.” When the Minister toldhim to accompany him to theclogged bottleneck he said hewas “not supposed to takeyour directions,” adding “I willonly take directions from theState Government.” Heatedarguments continued for quitea few minutes between thetwo.

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Throwing a hint thatCongress would be a major

player in the maha-gathbandan(grand alliance) in UttarPradesh, State Congress pres-ident Raj Babbar said that theparty is ready to sacrifice to anyextent to defeat the BJP in thecoming Lok Sabha elections inthe State. “We have done it inKarnataka and prevented BJPfrom coming to power. In theLok Sabha elections too theparty can go to any extent foran opposition unity to defeatthe BJP,” he said.

Addressing a press con-ference along with party’snational spokespersonPriyanka Chaturvedi andnational media coordinatorRohan Gupta, Babbar saidthough the party’s experimentof forging an alliance with theSamajwadi Party in assemblyelections was not good stillCongress will do anything todefeat the BJP.

Though admitting thatparty high command woulddecide on the mahagathbandanin UP Babbar said “it is up to

the party leadership to decideon the alliance and the numberof seats to be contested.” Hesaid Congress had alreadyshown its intention in theKairana Lok Sabha bypollswhere even after party’s hugesupport base no candidate wasgiven against the oppositioncandidate. This united strategyled to the defeat of the BJP.

“In Gorakhpur andPhulpur LS bypolls thoughCongress contested but when itsaw that SP was in direct fightagainst BJP , our candidateslowered their campaign foreasy run for the oppositioncandidate,” he said.

However Babbar did notgive any answer to the queriesseeking his comment on the SPand BSP leadership not readyto take Congress onboard andhad hinted to give only RaeBareli and Amethi seats tothem.

Meanwhile, PriyankaChaturvedi alleged that theYogi Adityanath government inUP, on the directions of theCentre, was trying to dilute theLand Acquisition Act, made bythe UPA government.

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Police have claimed thatPakistan based Lashkar-e-

Tayyeba (LeT) outfit hatchedconspiracy to shoot deadsenior Kashmiri journalistShujaat Bukhari and three mil-itants including a Pakistanifugitive Naveed Jatt executedthe broad day light murder inthe press enclave area of capi-tal Srinagar on June 14.

Police released pho-tographs of four personsnamed in the conspiracyincluding a Srinagar residentSheikh Sajjad Gul who lives inPakistan since March 2017.Police said a lookout noticewould be issued against Gul,who has written blogs againstBukhari, and Interpol helpwould be sought to nab him.

Addressing a press confer-ence at Police Control Roomhere, Inspector General of Police(Kashmir range) SoyamPrakash Pani said that policehave always referred to Bukhari’skilling as terror related crime.

“We have gathered tangibleevidence in the case that wouldbe produced in the charge-sheet,” he said adding the wit-nesses and documents have to beprotected.He said the case hasconspiracy part and executionpart. Pani said that Sajjad Gul isa Srinagar resident based inPakistan who started an intim-

idating campaign againstBukhari on certain social mediaplatforms like kashmirfight.wordpress.com and facebookaccount "Kadwa sach Kashmir"and twitter handle "AhmadKhalid" ahmadkhalid@313.

“These sites were spreadinghate campaign, malicious andintimidating content against theKashmiri journalist,” Pani, whowas flanked by AK Birdi, DeputyInspector general (centralKashmir) said. Birdi is headinga Special Investigation Team(SIT) probing Bukhari’s murder.

He said Gul alias AhmadKhalid has settled in Pakistan

since March 2017. Earlier, hehas been arrested by DelhiPolice in 2003 in a terror caseand Parimpora (Srinagar)police in 2016. “We have gonefor lookout notice againt Gul.He is one of the persons whocreated blogs and spread lot ofrumours in public domain. Wehave strong evidence againsthim,” Pani claimed.

He identified the militantswho executed the conspiracy asAzadAhmad Malik, a knownLeT operative from Anantnag,MuaffarAhmad of Kulgam andNaveed Jatt, a Pakistani militantwho fled from police custody

in February this year.He said Police have tangi-

ble evidence to establish thatthe whole conspiracy washatched in Pakistan by pro-scribed militant outfit Laskar-e-Toiba (LeT).

Pani said this is a high pro-file case and further detailsshall be recorded in thechargesheet against the accused.He said Police will issue look-out notice against local accusedand interpol notice throughproper channel shall be issuedagainst Pakistan based Kashmiriblogger Sajjad Gul.

Asked whether the motivebehind the conspiracy was foundpani said that this part would betaken care of in the charge sheet.

He said the role of JunaidQayoom, a local resident whowas arrested on the basis of his

presence at the shootout site, isbeing probed. Qayoom pickedup pistol of one of the two slainpolicemen guarding Bukhari.The pistol and two cellphoneshave been recovered from hispossession.

Bukhari, Editor-in-chief ofa conglomerate of newspapersincluding English daily RisingKashmir, was killed on June 14outside his office at press enclavein Srinagar. Hours after thesensational killing, policereleased CCTV grabs of theattackers, who were riding amotorcycle. While one of thesuspects concealed his identityunder helmet, another coveredhis face with a mask. The thirdrider’s face is invisible who isholding a bag reportedly carry-ing assault rifles used in theattack. A volley of fire silencedShujaat and his bodyguardssoon after they embarked ontheir SUV on the fateful evening.

Militant groups includingLeT have denied their involve-ment in the killing. “We wouldlike to call their bluff. If Indianforces are truly convinced thatthis heinous crime was com-mitted by mujahideen, thenthey should have no objectionto an independent investigationof this murder by a neutralcountry such as China orRussia,” LeT’s chief spokesmanMahmood Shah said in state-ment.

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Hailing Prime MinisterNarendra Modi for break-

ing the myth Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath said that PM’svisit to Maghar proves that thisBJP Government does notbelieve in superstitions andworks for the uplift of thesociety.

“Yogi said that by comingto Maghar Prime Minister hasbroken the myth that this placeis Gateway of hell. What SantKabir preached 500 years ago,Prime Minister Modi did it onThursday. The area will nolonger remain neglected afterPM’s visit,” Yogi said whileaddressing a public rally pay-ing tribute to Kabir and layingthe foundation of the Kabir

academy in Maghar here onThursday.

UP Chief Minister YogiAdityanath said Prime Ministerensured sabka saath sabka vikasina transparent manner and noone raise a finger at any min-ister as no one is facing a cor-ruption charge. “The last fouryear tenure of the central gov-ernment is corruption free,” hesaid. Lauding the developmentschemes being launched bythe Prime Minister he saidthat the country is galloping tothe path of development as PMhas turned India into a fastestdeveloping country of theworld.

However, the CM, blamedthe past state governments ofignoring Maghar. “ UP gov-ernment was committed to

develop the area of Kabir whichhad been ignored by the pre-vious governments,” he said.“The parties have used dalitsand weavers as the vote bankbut no one spared a thoughtabout their development,” hesaid. The BJP is eyeing theweavers’ community asthrough his address, the CMwooed the weaver communityand Vaishnava Nagas as Kabiris widely believed to be the dis-ciple of Bhakti poet-sant SwamiRamananda of Varanasi.Vaishnava Nagas have a hugepresence in Varanasi, Chandoli,Gorakhpur and Sant KabirNagar region.

UP culture ministerChoudhury Laxmi Narain wel-comed the guests while sufisingers from Madhya Pradeshand Chhattisgarh sang songbefore the PM.

Meanwhile, Yogi’s ststirreda controversy when he refusedto wear a cap offered to him atthe mazar of Sant Kabir inMaghar on Wednesday whenhe had gone there to overseepreparations for the primeminister’s visi. He was offereda fur cap by Khadim Hussain,the caretaker, which he polite-ly refused. “As per tradition Ioffered the cap to ChiefMinster Yogi Adityanath whenhe visited the mausoleum ofKabir saheb but he politelyrefused,” the Khadim said.

However, he agreed to keepthe cap, he said.

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Country’s leading entrepre-neur and BJP MP R K

Sinha said the centre shouldexempt the expenditure undercorporate social responsibility(CSR) from taxation so that allthe companies come forward todo charity works with 2 percent of their income.

Sinha said he spoke toFinance Minister Arun Jaitleyin this regard and told him thatthousands of companies, bothmedium and small, were notcoming up for charity workbecause of the fear of tax. Heeven suggested that the slab of2 percent could be increased ifit was made tax free.

Sinha was talking to mediaafter the AGM of his 44 years oldand country’s leading privatesecurity agency which has trainedmore than five lakh people andmany of them were working invarious government securityagencies and States police.

SIS Group Enterprises, wasstarted as security agency buthas grown up as a market leaderin security, cash logistics andfacility management, is the onlymultinational company of Biharwith its headquarter in Patnaand among country’s 15 gov-ernment and private enterpris-es which are biggest employers.

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Hitting out at PrimeMinister Narendra Modi

for doing politics in the nameof Sant Kabit Das, BahujanSamaj Party (BSP) presidentMayawati said that UnionGovernment was trying todivert the attention of the peo-ple after it failed to bring‘Acche din’ for them which BJPleaders had promised duringelection campaigns.

“When the Lok Sabha elec-tion is round the corner PrimeMinister has suddenly startedremembering saint Kabir Das.This shows that the BJP is try-ing to take political mileage.PM accused opposition of cre-ating instability in the countrybut can he reply whether hisspeech in Maghar was notpolitically motivated,” she ques-tioned.

Reacting to the politicallyloaded speech of Prime

Minister, the BSP chief said thatwhen BJP Government hasfailed on all fronts it has nowstarted misusing the name ofKabir and other renowned per-sonalities. This is done not justas a reverence for these saintsbut is done to cover up its laps-es,” she said in a written state-ment issued here on Thursday.

Mayawati said that PMhad publicized in a big wayabout the setting up of KabirAcademy in Maghar but he didnot elaborate as what purposewill it serve to the people.” Willthe academy solve the problemand miseries of the people ofeastern UP, which is one of themost backward regions of thestate. It seems it is is just a lol-lypop for the people,” she said.

Claiming that BSP hastaken many steps to propagatethe teachings of Saint Kabirwhen BSP was in power, theformer UP chief minister saidthat it was the BSPGovernment in the past whichnamed it as Sant Kabir Nagardistrict. “So, what ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath saidthat no previous governmentdid anything for the region iswrong. Yes, no Governmentused Sant Kabir to gain politi-cal mileage which BJP is tryingto dom” the BSP national pres-ident said.

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MK Stalin, Leader ofOpposition in Tamil

Nadu Legislative Assembly,who is also the working presi-dent of the DMK, may be on amission to get GovernorBanwarilal Purohit transferredout of the State, but hisMadurai-based elder brotherMK Alagiri is not at allhumoured with the move.

Alagiri, despite his expul-sion from the DMK, wieldsconsiderable influence insouthern Tamil Nadu. He doesnot approve the “OperationPurohit” campaign initiatedby his younger brother.“Banwarilal Purohit is an excel-lent Governor and it is goodthat he has been appointed toTamil Nadu. He is not like con-ventional governors who spend

their time inaugurating publicfunctions and cutting ribbons”Alagiri told The Pioneer.

The former union ministerfor chemicals and fertilisers, saidhe was also for State Autonomy.“But I have not seen GovernorPurohit acting in any wayagainst the State Autonomy.Here is a person who wants thegeneral public to benefit by thewelfare measures initiated bythe Government and he shouldbe complimented for that,” saidAlagiri, addressed as AnchaNenchan (Tamil for BraveHeart) by the DMK cadre.

“You should understandthat Governor is a public ser-vant entrusted with the respon-sibility of overseeing the gov-ernance of the State. The gen-eral public is happy over thesteps initiated by the Governor.The Government officials who

come to meet me tell that theyare happy with the meetingsthey had with the Governor.These meetings were convenedby the State Government and aminister si always present dur-ing the sessions,” said Alagiri.

Though he was expelled bythe DMK leadership in 2013alleging him of anti-party activ-ities, Alagiri continues o bewhat he was before the ousterfrom the party. Hundreds ofcadres call on him on a dailybasis to inform him abouttheir grievances. He disclosedthat the DMK was in a pathet-ic situation as on date becauseof poor leadership (read Stalin).“Kalaignar (M Karunanidhi,his father) is not well andthere is a leadership vacuum. Ifthe present situation continues,I am afraid the party is in formajor trouble in the next

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Few days after a historicglobal circumnavigation

by team TARINI (team of sixIndian Navy women officer),Commander (Cdr) AbhilashTomy is all set for secondsolo circumnavigation ofglobe that too in a non-motorised sailboat. CdrTomy sailed into Les Sabelsd'Olonne in France a fewdays ago, in time for the July1 flag-off of the 30,000-mileGolden Globe Race (GGR).

Interestingly, there are 18skippers at the start line andCdr Tomy of the Indian Navyis a special invitee at the race.

Explaining about thevoyage, the Indian Navy offi-cial mentioned that the raceis being held to commemo-rate 50 years since it was heldfor the first and last time,which saw Sir Robin Knox-Johnston's successfully com-pleting the voyage in 312days, to become the firsthuman to finish solo, unas-sisted and nonstop circum-navigation of the world,adding, “The biggest chal-lenge at the GGR is to haveequipment, tools and boatwhich resembles the oneused by Sir Johntson, despitethe change in technology,”the official added.

Cdr Tomy is aiming tocomplete the race in 311 days,

one day less than SirJohntson’s timing. He will besailing in the 10-metre‘Thuriya’, whose design issimilar to Sir Johntson’s boat‘Suhaili’, which was inciden-tally manufactured in Colaba,Mumbai. “Thuriya” has beenbuilt at Goa atRatnakarDandekar’s AquariusShipyard. Cdr Tomy has sup-plies consisting of specially-prepared food items, andfresh water in the limitedspace on board. Incidentally,in the age of Global PositingSystem (GPS), the navigationwill have to be done oldinstrument - the maps.

Cdr Tomy was born atChengannacherry, Keralaand taking inspirationsfrom his father (A Navalofficer) he joined the IndianNavy. Graduated from theNaval Academy and spe-cialized as a MaritimeReconnaissance pilot andserved on board variousships and air squadrons.

Notably, in March 2009,

he volunteered to beCaption (then) nowCommodore DilipDonde's (Retd) assistantfor his solo circumnaviga-tion, Sagar Parikrama I.

And on completion ofthe project in 2010, he sailedto Cape Town and partici-pated in the Cape to Riorace from Cape Town to Riode Janeiro on 'INSVMhadei'. Abhilash skip-pered 'Mhadei'from Rio,across the Atlantic, withone crew and sailed solofrom Cape Town to Goa ona 33-day long voyage.

Interestingly, November1,2012, Cdr Tomy set sailfrom Mumbai on 'INSVMhadei'. And in the span offive months he covered23,000 nautical miles and onMarch 31,2013, he wasreceived by the President ofIndia at the Gateway ofIndia, and became the firstIndian and second Asian tocomplete a solo and non-stop circumnavigation.

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Senior backward classleader D Srinivas

appears to be on his way outfrom the ruling TelanganaRashtra Samiti and waslikely to re-join theOpposition Congress party.This looks imminent afterthe TRS president andChief Minister KChandrasekhar Rao did notgrant him an appointmentin the backdrop of a ragingcontroversy in the partyover his alleged anti-TRSand pro-BJP activities.

KCR’s daughter andTRS MP from Nizamabad KKavitha wrote a letter to heron behalf of the other lead-ers from the district seekinghis removal from the party.

D Srinivas denying anywrong-doing on his part has

refused to give any clarifi-cation saying he will do soonly to the Chief Minister.

D Srinivas who wasearlier in the Congress andserved as a Minister andthe State party presidenthad joined the TRS in2015 on an invitation fromKCR and was also mademember of Rajya Sabhaand the advisor with cab-inet rank.

The al legationsagainst D Srinivas hadstarted making roundever since his son DAravind had joined theBJP a few months ago.Many TRS leaders com-plained that he wasextending help toAravind. But Aravind hasdenied the allegation andsaid that unlike Kavithahe did not ask or need thehelp from his father.

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In a most shocking incident,a 12-seater chartered

Beechcraft aircraft crashed intoan under-construction buildingsite at the congested residentialsuburb of Ghatkopar in north-east Mumbai on Thursday,killing five persons and leavingthree others injured.

The King Air C 90 (num-ber VT-UPZ), which had beensold by the Uttar PradeshGovernment to a Mumbai-based firm UY Aviation Pvt Ltdin 2004, crashed at 1.15 pm atan under- construction site atManiklal Estate near JeevdayaLane at Ghatkopar (West).

The aircraft, which wasreportedly on a “wrong flightpath”, was less than three kmaway from Mumbai Airport’smain runway 09/27 when itcrashed.Thursday’s would havebeen a major disaster, had thepilot not shown utmost circum-spection to swerve the aircraft atthe last minute to crash into aconstruction site instead of abusy residential area. For, thereare several residential buildingsand slums next to the under-con-struction site where the ill-fatedaircraft came crushing down.

Those killed in the mishapcomprised pilot Capt P SRajput, co-pilot capt MaryaZuberi, aircraft maintenanceengineer Surabhi, technicianManish Kumar Pande and apedestrian Govind Pandit.

The three constructionworkers injured in the mishapwere identified as LavkushKumar (21), Mahesh KumarNishad (28) and PrashantMahakal (23) who were rushedto nearby BMC-run RajawadiHospital. Eyewitnesses said thatthe aircraft then hit a tree andcrashed onto the ground. Beforelong, the aircraft’s wreckagestrewn around the place was upin huge red and yellow flames.

Alerted by the local resi-dents and WhatsApp messagesthat went viral, personnel fromthe Mumbai Fire Brigade and

the Ghatkopar police stationrushed to the under-construc-tion “Jagruti” building where theaircraft had crashed. It tookmore than an hour for the firebrigade personnel to extinguishthe fire. The rescuers rushed thethree injured construction work-ers to the Rajawadi Hospital.

Officials of the AirportsAuthority of India (AAI) andDirectorate General of Civil

Aviation (DGCA) also reachedthe spot less than a couplehours after the mishap. "Theinitial investigations would bedone by DGCA after which adetailed inquiry would be doneby Aircraft AccidentInvestigation Bureau (AIIB)," asenior AAI official said.

The officials, meanwhile,recovered the Aircraft VoiceData Recorder (AVDR) –

known popularly as “blackbox” – from the mishap siteand handed it over to the civilaviation authorities. Expressinghis shock over the aircraftcrash, Civil Aviation MinisterSuresh Prabhu tweeted:“Saddened to hear the newsabout the aircraft crash inMumbai. Have directed DGCAto conduct an investigationinto the plane crash at the ear-

liest. I'm in constant touchwith on ground developments”.

Complimenting the pilot tohave shown presence of mindto avoid a big mishap, formerCivil Aviation Minister PrafulPatel tweeted: “Saddened tohear about the unfortunateincident at #ghatkopar asCharter plane crashes in anopen area. Salute to the pilotwho showed presence of mindto avoid a big mishap, savingmany lives at the cost of herown life. #RIP to all the 5 Dead.My deepest condolences”.

Uttar Pradesh’s CivilAviation Minister Nand GopalGupta extended condolences tomembers of bereaved families.“We extend our deepest andheartfelt condolence to the fam-ilies of the people who lost theirlives in the unfortunate accident.VT-UPZ was Uttar Pradesh gov-ernment aircraft till 2014 and itwas sold to UY Aviation Pvt Ltdof Mumbai in 2014. It is currentlyneither owned nor operated byUP Govt,” Gupta said.

A senior UY Aviation offi-cial said the aircraft, which hadbeen procured by his firm in2004, had been in operation forthe last 22 years. “The pilot hasflown over 5,000 hours whilethe co-pilot used to fly with JetAirways earlier, “ the officialsaid. Available informationsuggests that the ill-fated air-craft was preparing to land atMumbai Airport’s main run-way 09/27 which incidentallyclosed currently formaintenance work andthe flight operationshave been moved to thesecondary runway

M e a n w h i l e ,Maharashtra chief min-ister DevendraFadnavis visited the air-craft crash site and tookstock of the situation.CM @Dev_Fadnavisvisits private aircraftVT-UPZ crash site inGhatkopar, Mumbai toinspect relief operationsbeing carried out.

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The Tripura Governmenthas prohibited SMS and

mobile internet services acrossthe State for next 48 hours fol-lowing reports that rumoursare being mongered about pres-ence of some child lifters,which has created panic insome parts of the State.

The Tripura state Homedepartment on Thursdayissued the notification onThursday and said that theorder was issued to all the ser-vice providers of mobile andinternet companies operatingin the state. “The order was

issued to prevent the misuse ofthe media like this to disturbthe peace and tranquility of theentire state and for maintain-ing law and order situation,”said Tripura AdditionalSecretary SaradinduChoudhuri.

It may be mentioned herethat there has been reports ofincidents of attacks on peoplefound in isolated locations bythe public suspecting them tobe child lifters.

The incidents like this havealso generated serious law andorder situation in the statehaving potential threat to pub-lic safety.

TheGovernment suspectsthat social media like facebook,twitter and youtube and mes-saging systems like SMS andwhatsapp are likely to be usedfor transmission of fake infor-mation like picture, images,videos and texts have thepotential to incite violence inthe state.

The notification furthersaid that the prohibition shallbe applicable to press messagesalso and that violation of thispromulgamation will be pun-ishable under section 188 IPCand also under the relevantprovision of the IndianTelegraph Act 1885.

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In a major debt-reducingexercise, Reliance

Infrastructure Ltd (RelianceInfra) plans to sell its 100 percent stake in integratedMumbai power business toAdani Transmission Ltd (ATL)at an estimated Rs 18,800 crore,following an approval given itto it by the state-runMaharashtra ElectricityRegulatory Commission(MERC) to the proposed deal.

“Following the MERC’snod, the transaction is expect-ed to be closed in July 2018.MERC had concluded its hear-

ing into the matter andreserved its order on June 14,2018,” a Reliance Infraspokesperson said.

“Reliance Infra hasreceived the approval ofCompetition Commission ofIndia (CCI) and its share-hold-ers. The total considerationvalue of the deal is estimated at�18,800 crore,” the spokesper-son said.

Reliance Infra and ATLhad signed Definitive BindingAgreement for 100% stake saleof the integrated business ofgeneration, transmission anddistribution of power forMumbai in December 2017.

Reliance Infra will utilizethe proceeds of this transfor-mative transaction entirely toreduce its debt, becoming debtfree and up to �3,000 crore cashsurplus.

“This is the largest everdebt reducing exercise by anyCorporate. This monetisationis a major step in RelianceInfrastructure Ltd. deleveragingstrategy for future growth,” the

company spokesperson said.Reliance Infrastructure Ltd,

Mumbai Power business(known as Reliance Energy) isIndia’s largest private sectorintegrated power utility dis-tributing power to nearly 3 mil-lion residential, industrial andcommercial consumers in thesuburbs of Mumbai, coveringan area of 400 sq km.

It caters to a peak demandof over 1,800 MW, with annu-al revenues of Rs. 7,500 crorewith stable cash flows. Goingforward, Reliance InfrastructureLtd. will focus on upcomingopportunities in asset light EPCand Defence businesses.

Reliance Infra is one of thelargest infrastructure compa-nies, developing projectsthrough various SpecialPurpose Vehicles (SPVs) inseveral high growth sectorssuch as Power, Roads andMetro Rail in the Infrastructurespace and the Defence sector.

Reliance Infra is also a lead-ing utility company having pres-ence across the value chain ofpower businesses i.e.Generation, Transmission,Distribution and PowerTrading. Reliance InfrastructureLtd through its SPVs has exe-cuted a portfolio of infrastruc-ture projects such as a metro rail

project in Mumbai on build,own, operate and transfer(BOOT) basis; eleven road pro-jects with total length of about1,000 kms on build, operate andtransfer (BOT) basis.

Apart from providingEngineering, Procurement andConstruction (EPC) servicesfor developing power and roadprojects, Reliance Infra hasentered into the defence sector.The Maharashtra Governmenthas allotted land at Mihannear Nagpur for the develop-ment of India’s first smart cityfor the defence sector known asDhirubhai Ambani AerospacePark (DAAP).

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India’s largest port developerand part of Adani Group

APSEZ on Thursday said it hasinked a pact to acquire MarineInfrastructure Developer for�1,950 crore.

Marine InfrastructureDeveloper Private Limited(MIDPL) is the operator ofKattupalli Port. Of the�1,950 crore, Adani Ports andSpecial Economic ZoneLimited (APSEZ) will be pay-ing �1,562 crore towards set-tlement of dues of MIDPL.

“It has executed SharePurchase Agreement betweenLarsen and Toubro Limited,Marine Infrastructure DeveloperPrivate Limited, L&TShipbuilding Limited and AdaniKattupalli Port Private Limitedto acquire 97 per cent shares ofMarine Infrastructure DeveloperPrivate Limited (MIDPL).MIDPL is the developer andoperator of Kattupalli Port,”APSEZ said in a statement.

Kattupalli Port is one of themost modern ports in India,

emerging as new gateway forEXIM trade in Chennai /Bangalore region and providesa whole new dimension of ser-vices with speed and sophisti-cation, the company said.

“We are going to start ourconstruction to diversify thecargo of the port and will beadding 40 million tonne of newcapacity in next 3 years. We areconfident that with our superi-or infrastructure and efficienthandling of cargo we will be ableto reduce logistics cost of indus-tries in the region and be one of

the engines of growth,” APSEZCEO Karan Adani.MIDPL is engaged construc-tion, maintenance, develop-ment and operation ofKattupalli Port. The company islikely to complete the acquisi-tion in a week, APSEZ said.

The company in a regula-tory filing to the BSE said theacquisition will be “�1,950 croreenterprise value of which �388crore is the consideration for theacquisition of shares and the bal-ance �1,562 crore is towards set-tlement of liabilities of MIDPL”.

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Petroleum MinisterDharmendra Pradhan on

Thursday reacted cautiouslyto the US demand to stopcrude imports from Iran, say-ing the Government “will go bythe national interest”.

Oil imports from Iransurged to about 705,000 barrelsper day in May, the highestsince last October, according toindustry data, despite thethreats of fresh US sanctionsagainst Tehran after the USpresident Donald Trump hadon May 8 unilaterally withdrewfrom the nuclear deal that hispredecessor Obama had sewedup with Tehran.

In May the volume rose10.2 per cent over the previousmonth and about 45 per centover the same month last year.

While India is the secondlargest crude customer for Iran

behind China, Iran is the thirdlargest source of crude for thecountry after Iraq and SaudiArabia. It supplied 18.4 milliontonne crude in the April 2017-January 2018 period.

With around 200 millionbarrels per annum,India is thethird largest consumer of fos-sil fuels after the US and Chinaand is one of the few marketsthat has a steady demandgrowth.

“We will go by our owninterests,” Pradhan quippedcautiously when asked abouthis views on the latest USdirection to the Government tostop crude imports from Iranfrom November 4 or face eco-nomic sanctions.

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India is among the 5 countrieswhich are least vulnerable to

currency pressures amidstrengthening of the US dollar,because of low dependence onexternal capital inflows,Moody’s Investors Service saidon Thursday.

In a report on the impactof strengthening of the USdollar on other sovereigns, Moody’s said theappreciation of USD hasprompted a sharp currencydepreciation and/or a signifi-cant decline in forex reserves ina number of emerging andfrontier markets.

However, India, China,Brazil, Mexico and Russia areamong the “least vulnerable” tocurrency pressures, it said.

“Large savings channelledthrough the financial sectorallows these economies tolargely fund themselves domes-tically, thereby lowering expo-sure to volatile portfolio flows,”Moody’s said.

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To improve transparencyand credibility to the spot

price polling mechanism incommodities, Sebi has pro-posed to make it compulsoryfor exchanges to accredit anindependent polling agency

and bring such agency under itspurview.

The capital markets regu-lator has come out with a con-sultation paper on ways toenhance efficiency in thepolling methodology adoptedfor determination of spot pricefor commodities.

The availability of correct and transparent information about the spotprice of any commodity isessential for arriving at theexpected futures prices of thecommodity.

This is necessitated as anydivergence in the linkages

between the two prices couldlead to adverse impact on theprice in two markets —deriv-atives and spot, the regulatornoted.

Under the consultationpaper, Sebi has proposed tomake it compulsory forexchanges to accredit an inde-pendent polling agency forspot price polling, which cando the job independently for allthe exchanges on a specificcommodity.

“This is necessitatedbecause of the fact that the uni-verse of the polling participantsis limited and the same partic-ipants are being called manytimes in a day especially wheresame contract is listed on morethan one exchange or the sameparticipant deals in multiplecommodities.

“As a result, many a timesthese polling agents do notanswer the calls from theexchanges,” the regulator saidin the paper issued yesterday.

The Securities andExchange Board of India (Sebi)has proposed for uniformity inapproach amongst theexchanges on the process ofprice polling methodology.

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TROLLS SWEEP WEB AFTER GERMAN EXIT

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TRUMP'S JOKE ON CRISTIANO FALLS FLAT

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WC SETS NEW RECORD FOR OWN-GOALS

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MOTION PICTURE

MUSCOB TES

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Switzerland moved through tothe World Cup last 16, after

a draw over Costa Rica but willbe without captain StephanLichtsteiner because of suspen-sion.

A 93rd minute own goal bythe unfortunate keeper YannSommer from a Bryan Ruizpenalty gave the centralAmerican side a deserved 2-2draw on a night of late drama inNizhny Novgorod.

That wiped out a Swiss leadwhich had lasted only two min-utes after substitute Josep Drmicslotted home to apparently givethe Swiss an undeserved victo-ry.

Earlier Blerim Dzemaili hadthumped home in the first halfto give Switzerland the leadagainst the run-of-play in the31st minute against the teamwho finished bottom of GroupE.

That goal was cancelled outby Kendall Waston's header inthe 56th minute, the central

Americans first goal of the tour-nament.

The draw ensuredSwitzerland finished second inthe group behind Brazil.

But Switzerland will be leftcounting the cost after yellowcards for experienced defendersLichtsteiner and Fabian Schaermeans they will miss the gameagainst Sweden in SaintPetersburg on July 3.

Lichtsteiner received a yel-

low card for a late tackle onDaniel Colindres in the 37thminute.

It was the Arsenal player'ssecond yellow of the tournamentafter being booked in the open-ing game against Brazil.

He was one of three playerswho had escaped a ban goinginto the match after the contro-versial "double eagle" goal cele-brations in the fevered 2-1 vic-tory over Serbia.

Then late on Schaer alsoreceived his second yellow cardof the tournament, also rulinghim out of the Sweden match.

Switzerland took the leadwhen Dzemaili emphaticallyconverted from close range aftera fine headed knock-down byBreel Embolo.

It was the only goalSwitzerland have so far scored inthe first-half at the tournament.

The goal was harsh onCosta Rica after a frantic startsaw them go close on severaloccasions, hitting the post andbar.

Four minutes laterColindres hit the bar with a fineshot which beat the excellentSommer but hit the bar.Campbell and Oviedo also wentclose as the Costa Ricans dom-inated.

But finally they wererewarded by defender Waston'sheader from a second-half cor-ner. The goal ensured that CostaRica would not be the only teamwho did not score at this WorldCup.

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South Korean fans rejoiced onThursday and called for nation-

al service exemptions after theirteam went out of the World Cup ina blaze of glory, eliminating defend-ing champions Germany with ashock 2-0 victory.

In one of the great World Cupupsets, Kim Young-gwon and SonHeung-min both scored in injurytime to condemn footballing super-power Germany to their first open-ing-round exit in 80 years.

South Korea were pelted withtoffees, a Korean insult, when theyreturned winless from Brazil 2014and although they again leaveearly, after defeats to Mexico andSweden, they finished aboveGermany on goal difference inGroup F.

"We didn't make it to theround of 16... But we sent the worldnumber one packing," said a head-line in Seoul's major Dong-A daily.

"We are so proud of you," thenewspaper said on its front page,adding the game "shook SouthKorea upside down".

Germany went into the gameknowing that a win by two cleargoals would have seen them intothe last 16. But instead it wasSweden and Mexico who advancedafter the Scandinavians romped toa 3-0 win in the group's othermatch.

The Taeguk Warriors, semi-finalists in 2002, brought thedefending champions "down withthem", Yonhap news agency said,adding that Germany "unceremo-

niously bowed out of the tourna-ment".

South Korean social mediawere flooded by tens of thousandsof messages from fans expressingjoy and astonishment over a victorythat had seemed utterly implausi-ble before the match.

"This is far more shocking thanour advance to the semi-final at the2002 World Cup," one commentersaid.

"Who cares we won't make itto the round of 16? We defeatedGermany, the world number one!"added another.

"It was an honourable exit."Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon

joined them, tweeting onThursday: "Reality beat our imag-ination today" and praising theSouth Korean footballers.

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Portugal defender Bruno Alves saidSaturday's World Cup last-16 clash

with Uruguay will be more than simplya battle between Cristiano Ronaldo andLuis Suarez.

The European champions will faceUruguay in Sochi for a place in the quar-ter-finals after finishing as runners-upbehind Spain in Group B.

Uruguay won all three of their groupmatches, beating hosts Russia 3-0 in theirlast outing, and are the only team yet toconcede a goal at the tournament.

Real Madrid forward Ronaldo hasscored four of Portugal's five goals so far,while Barcelona star Suarez netted againstSaudi Arabia and Russia.

"I don't think it will be a duelbetween Suarez and Ronaldo," Alves saidon Thursday. "It's a match between thetwo teams, Portugal and Uruguay, andwe'll do everything we can to win."

Portugal survived a late scare againstIran on Monday, as Ronaldo missed apenalty and was fortunate to escape a redcard for an elbow.

"At this stage we still believe we haveroom for improvement," Alves said.

"I think we will win, but you can't for-get you can only win if you play well andI think we'll play well." The 36-year-oldAlves is at his third World Cup, althoughthe Rangers centre-back has yet to make

an appearance in Russia."I feel that we're always highly moti-

vated. I think all of us have come here toplay and when our moment comes wewill be ready for it to help Portugal win,"he said.

"I think this Portugal team is readyfor everything. We've shown we have thechance to win and if we keep it up thisway I think we'll be successful. There aredifficult games in store for us though."

Portugal have not lost a competitivematch with Ronaldo in the side since the2014 World Cup, although they werebeaten on penalties by Chile at last year'sConfederations Cup.

Alves sounded a note of caution fol-lowing the departure of defending cham-pions Germany.

"Everybody can see that in thisWorld Cup there are no easy games,"Alves said. "Germany's fatemade it clear what can happen to anystrong team." Uruguay are hopeful JoseMaria Gimenez will return from injuryto resume his centre-back partnershipwith Atletico Madrid team-mate DiegoGodin.

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Brazil conjured the opener from noth-ing when a beautifully lofted pass fromPhilippe Coutinho found Paulinho, whoflicked the ball over Stojkovic's reach on 36minutes to make it 1-0 at the break.

Serbia repeatedly struggled to containBrazil's fleet-footed attack.

Manchester United midfielder NemanjaMatic was the next Serbian midfielder to bebooked when he fouled Manchester City starGabriel Jesus on 48 minutes.

Serbia's brightest spell came with half anhour left, only to be let down by poor fin-ishing.

Ljajic stumbled to take a return pass aftera charging run into Brazil's box and thenfired over shortly after.

Then with his defence beaten, Brazilgoalkeeper Alisson palmed a save straightat Aleksandar Mitrovic, but the Serbia for-ward could only head the ball back into thegrateful arms of the Brazilian shotstopper.

To cap Serbia's frustrations, SergejMilinkovic-Savic fired wide, then Mitrovicguided a powerful header straight at Alissonfrom a corner.

However, Brazil made sure of the winwhen Neymar swung in a free-kick and hisParis Saint-Germain team-mate Thiagocrashed home his header, unmarked at thenear post, on 68 minutes.

With one eye on the last 16, Tite tookoff Countinho with ten minutes left whileNeymar twice went close to scoring theSelecao's third late on, but the Brazil coachcan be happy with his star forward.

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Brazil eased into the World Cupknockout stages after defeatingSerbia 2-0 here, with superstar

Neymar sparkling in a win which setsup a last 16 clash against Mexico.

Paulinho put Brazil ahead with asuperb dinked finish on 36 minutesbefore Neymar swung in a cross forThiago Silva to header the Selecao's sec-ond goal with 22 minutes left inMoscow.

Having opened his Russia 2018account with the second of Brazil's twolate goals in Friday's 2-0 win over CostaRica, Neymar was again impressive onWednesday.

After the tearful emotion of SaintPetersburg, Neymar cut a more joyfulfigure after this win, blowing kisses tothe crowd as the five-time championscelebrated.

As Group E winners, Brazil willnow face Mexico in Samara on Monday,with group runners-up Switzerlandtaking on Sweden in St Petersburg onTuesday.

In the pre-match build-up Brazilcoach Tite said Neymar alone can not"shoulder the responsibility" for histeam's World Cup hopes.

However, the 26-year-old seemedcontent to carry Brazil's attack, motor-ing through Serbia's midfield andcrashing an early shot just wide of thepost.

The match at Moscow's SpartakStadium began at a ferocious tempo andBrazil left-back Marcelo was an earlycasualty, limping off after ten minutesto be replaced by Filipe Luis.

Neymar had the best chance of theopening half hour when he forcedSerbia goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic topalm his shot away.

Tempers frayed when Serbia mid-fielder Adem Ljajic scythed downNeymar, in full flight on the left flank,to earn a booking on 33 minutes.

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Experiment is the buzzword asIndia prepare to take onIreland in the second and final

T20 International, aiming to strikethe perfect balance while ringing inthe changes here on Friday.

The Men in Blue got their three-month long tour of Ireland andEngland off to a fine start with a 76-run win on Wednesday.

Riding on half-centuries fromRohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan,India scored 208-5. ThereafterKuldeep Yadav and YuzvendraChahal shared seven wickets torestrict the Irish to 132-9.

It indicated that India's first-choice eleven was functioning prop-erly after a break of three months,and tuning itself for the Englandtour.

The big question is of benchstrength and chances for the likes ofKL Rahul, Dinesh Karthik andUmesh Yadav.

India will have an advantagefrom the fact that the pitch for thesecond T20I is expected to playmuch in the same fashion as onWednesday.

Both Kuldeep and Chahal wereable to garner purchase from thestrip, and Ireland skipper GaryWilson went as far as to say that it"wouldn't have mattered if they hadbowled first or second". Clearly, thegap in quality between the twosides is too far to bridge even for thisgutsy Irish side.

Barring an unimaginable upsetthen, India do have the luxury ofgoing with a batsman short andaccommodating an extra bowler.

Kohli's mantra of giving chancesto those sitting on the bench couldbe extended to the bowling line-upas well, where both Umesh Yadavand Siddarth Kaul are raring to goand longing for game time.

It is easily noticeable that theteam management is reluctant todrop both Bhuvneshwar Kumar and

Jasprit Bumrah whenever they are fitand available.

Leaving out Pandya for threefull-time pacers and two spinnersstill gives Kohli five bowling options,enabling him to leave out SureshRaina and Manish Pandey to bringin both Rahul and Karthik.

There is also the small matter ofgetting some time at the crease forhimself after Kohli got out for a two-ball duck on his first outing on thistour.

While it is too early to worryabout, it did ring in memories of histroubles in 2014 where he justcouldn't buy a run, irrespective offormats.

Irrespective of the scope of teamchanges, on the strength of their bat-ting and bowling, India will be firmfavourites going into this second

game.Fielding though is a different

matter, and the coaching staff will beexpecting a better display from theIndian players than in their first out-

ing.As many as three outfield catch-

es were dropped in the power-playovers, and a stronger opposition -like England - will definitely punishthese errors.

For Ireland, it won't simply be amatter of turning up on the day.While the 200-plus target was farbeyond their reach, they showedenough wherewithal to stick out inthe middle and attempt to compete.

Asking for an upset on Fridaywill be too much, but they remaincapable of springing a surprise ortwo on home soil. The biggestincentive for the hosts is another

chance to play against one of the topT20 sides in the world in front of afestive and raucous crowd.

�H���INDIA: Virat Kohli (c), RohitSharma, Shikhar Dhawan, KLRahul, Manish Pandey, SureshRaina, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni(wk), Hardik Pandya, KuldeepYadav, Yuzvendra Chahal,Bhuvneshwar Kumar, JaspritBumrah, Umesh Yadav, SiddarthKaul.IRELAND: Gary Wilson (c & wk),Andrew Balbirnie, Peter Chase,George Dockrell , Josh Little, AndyMcBrine, Kevin O'Brien, WilliamPorterfield, Stuart Poynter, BoydRankin, James Shannon, SimiSingh, Paul Stirling, StuartThompson.

���� ������

Indian captain Virat Kohliwants to "surprise the opposi-

tion" by experimenting with hismiddle order in the remainingT20s against Ireland and the sub-sequent three-match seriesagainst England.

Kohli pushed himself downthe order at six in the openingT20, which India won by 76runs. Suresh Raina came to batat three and M S Dhoni four afterthe openers Shikhar Dhawanand Rohit Sharma put up a 160-run stand.

"We have already announcedthat apart from the openingcombination we are going to doa lot of experiments in the mid-dle order. We are going to beflexible in the next few T20s. Wewill look to throw in guys whenthe situation requires them tocome in and try to surprise theopposition," said Kohli in thepost-match presentation.

"It presents the opportunityfor the batsmen who couldn't getthe opportunity to bat. The guyswho couldn't get a chance todaywill get an opportunity in thenext match. The guys had a greattime in IPL but they need to gettime in the middle here too."Kohli assured that everyone inthe squad will get a game.

"The team managementdecided to give a go to everyonein the squad. The guys are finewith this decision. We are look-ing to give everyone game-timeand want them to portray thequalities they possess becausemany guys go on tour and neverget an opportunity to play," saidthe skipper.

There was not much to com-plain either after India out-played Ireland in all depart-ments.

"The opening combinationwas excellent. The last overbowled by Ireland was terrific.Great effort by Rohit andShikhar to put us in a good posi-tion. And good strikes fromMS, Raina and Pandya in theend. Bowlers did a clinical jobtoo," Kohli added.

The Indian spin duo ofKuldeep Yadav and YuzvendraChahal started the UK tour witha bang, taking four and threewickets respectively.

Ireland captain Gary Wilsonsaid his batsmen will have to finda way to play the Indian spinnersbetter. "They are a world-classside and their lads at the topplayed beautifully. I expected itto be a good wicket, I did notexpect it to spin as it did in thesecond innings. We could havebowled spinners in the power-play," said Wilson.

���� ������

It is still early days in his maiden tourof the UK but Kuldeep Yadav feels he

has adapted well to the conditions witha four-wicket haul against Ireland in theopening T20 here.

Yadav also underlined that India'seasy 76-run win over Ireland onWednesday was down to hosts' inabil-ity to play spin properly.

"The score was good so it was eas-ier as we had a target to bowl at anddefend. A spinner always tries to bowlaccording to the target. From an indi-vidual point of view, it was quite goodbecause I was bowling the way I want-ed to bowl and I used the variations welltoo," said Yadav.

Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawanscored attacking half-centuries andIndia finished with 208-5. Irelandcould only manage 132-9 in responsewith Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahalsharing seven wickets.

"They batted well against pace andgot a good start too. But they struggledagainst our spinners because theyweren't using their feet too much. Also,we vary our pace and bowl slower attimes, and perhaps they are not usedto this type of bowling. But the morethey play (against top sides), they willget better," said Yadav.

India have had two practice ses-sions and now some game time as they

continue fine-tuning for the longEngland tour.

"Conditions here seem to be nor-mal. I haven't seen too much difference(from other overseas tours). Perhapswickets are a bit slower and the ball isturning. I felt normal (in practice andin the game), and didn't feel that it has

been something new," said the spinner."The weather is a bit colder and

conditions are different from India. Butit was easy to adjust and for me it is anormal thing. After one game you can-not say how wickets will be through-out the tour. This one had a little turnand the ball was turning, but as we play

more matches on this tour, maybe thewickets in England will be different,"he added.

Irrespective of conditions or targetsset by his batsmen though, Yadav out-lined that his prime focus is always ontaking wickets.

"Every bowler has a different styleso they may bowl differently as per thesituation. However, I always think ofpicking wickets because if I try to con-trol runs, I will give away more runs.So it is important for me to take wick-ets and get breakthroughs for my teambecause I am that type of attackingbowler. My style is different," he added.

Ireland Gary Wilson chose to lookat the positives after the heavy loss tothe visitors. He also admitted that theywere not good enough against theIndian spinners.

"We didn't expect the pitch to spinlike it did in the second innings. Therespinners are very good and would havespun it in the first innings like that aswell so I don't think we can blame theconditions by any means or prepara-tion," said Wilson.

"We need to go back and need tofigure out how we will play Kuldeepand Chahal in the second game. We canonly get better (against quality spinners)with playing more game. It is coveredin FTP now as we have 65 games innext four years so we are going to playmore," he added.

�� �� � ����

Jos Buttler hit the fastest fifty by anEngland batsman in a Twenty20 inter-

national to lay the platform for a 28-runwin over Australia at Edgbaston onWednesday.

Australia, set 222 for victory, lost halftheir wickets inside nine overs to be 72for five. Aaron Finch, their captain, keptthem in the match with a fine innings of84 while sharing a sixth-wicket stand of86 with Ashton Agar.

But the run-rate required Finch tokeep going for big hits and when he holedout off Adil Rashid, Australia were 158for six in the 16th over.

Leg-spinner Rashid, the official man-of-the-match, led England's attack withthree for 27 in his maximum four oversbefore paceman Chris Jordan strucktwice in two balls to leave Australia onthe brink of defeat at 174 for eight.

Australia were bowled out for 193with two balls to spare.

Buttler, fresh from his man of theseries heroics in a 5-0 one-day interna-tional sweep of Australia, including amatch-winning 110 not out in a dramaticone-wicket victory in the series finale atOld Trafford on Sunday, was promotedto open in this one-off T20 clash.

He responded with a 22-ball fifty,including six fours and four sixes, on hisway to 61. Alex Hales made 49 after Jason

Roy (44) put on 95 for the first wicketwith Buttler.

Roy should have been out for 27when he drove left-arm spinner AshtonAgar straight to long-off only for KaneRichardson to drop a simple catch.

The next two balls saw Buttler scoopa four and smash a six. An 'inside-out' sixover extra cover off fast bowler BillyStanlake was even more audacious.

The next ball saw Buttler go to fiftywith a scooped four just beyond the reachof wicket-keeper Alex Carey.

Buttler eventually became Swepson'sfirst international wicket when he holedout in the deep, with Roy falling next overwhen he skyed Stanlake to Finch at mid-wicket.

���� �0�����0�0

Star shuttlers P V Sindhu andKidambi Srikanth notched up

straight-game wins to progressto the quarterfinals but it wascurtains for Saina Nehwal in the$ 700,000 Malaysia Open worldtour super 750 tournament hereon Thursday.

Olympic and world cham-pionship Silver medallist Sindhubrushed aside the challenge ofMalaysia's Ying Ying Lee 21-8,21-14 to set up a clash withOlympic champion and formerworld no 1 Carolina Marin.The 22-year-old Indian has a 5-6 head-to-head record againstthe Spaniard.

In men's singles, fourth seedSrikanth saw off Chinese Taipei'sWang Tzu Wei 22-20, 21-12 in36 minutes to take his head-to-head count to 3-0.

The 25-year-old fromGuntur, who had briefly becomeworld no 1 in April, will clashwith France's Brice Leverdez onFriday. The Indian had beatenthe world no 22 French in threegames at All EnglandChampionship this year.

Earlier, Saina's run at theMalaysia Open ended with a

straight-game loss to Japan'sAkane Yamaguchi.

Saina, a two-timeCommonwealth Games Goldmedallist, went down 15-21,13-21 to world no 2 Yamaguchiin 36 minutes at the AxiataArena in Bukit Jalil, a suburb inKuala Lumpur.

This is Saina's sixth straightloss to the Japanese in sevenmeetings. The only time Saina

had defeated Yamaguchi was inthe 2014 China Open.

World No 3 Sindhu hardlybroke any sweat as she firstopened up a 6-4 lead and thenreeled off eight straight points tojump to 14-4.

In the second game, Sindhuagain held an 8-7 lead beforemoving to 13-7. Lee tried tomake a comeback but Sindhuwas always ahead as she com-

fortably sailed into the quarters.In the men's singles,

Srikanth zoomed to a 11-3 leadat the break after dominating theproceedings right from the start.Wang, however, didn't give upand kept breathing downSrikanth's neck to eventuallyclaw back at 20-20.

But Srikanth grabbed thetwo crucial points to pocket theopening game.

In the second game,Srikanth was ruthless as hesurged to 10-2 advantage anddespite Wang trying to step uphis attack, the Indian kept hiscomposure to seal the contestcomfortably.

Earlier in the day,Yamaguchi, who had struggled abit against Saina during their lastmeeting at the Uber Cup Final,produced a dominating show asshe led 9-2 in the first game.

Saina fought back to narrowthe gap to 10-11 but the Japaneseagain jumped to an 18-11 advan-tage and eventually secured theopening game comfortably.

In the second game,Yamaguchi again raced to an 8-2 advantage before shutting thedoor on the Indian withoutmuch ado.

�� � �����C0 ��

Andy Murray slipped to a 6-4, 6-4 defeat to Britishcompatriot Kyle Edmund at Eastbourne on

Wednesday to put the former world number one's par-ticipation at Wimbledonin fresh doubt.

Murray, a two-timeWimbledon champion,has slipped to 156 in theworld after only return-ing to action at Queen'slast week following 11months out with a hipinjury.

The 31-year-old lostfirst up at Queen's butwas buoyed by beatingfellow three-time majorwinner Stan Wawrinka inthe opening round atEastbourne on Monday.

Murray suffered his hip injury in the quarter-finalsat Wimbledon last year and underwent surgery inJanuary.

This year's Wimbledon gets underway on Monday."It was a bit of a tough match, mentally, playing

Andy, but I had to try to view it as another match,"Edmund, who has taken over from his mentor asnational number one, told reporters.

"I've looked up to Andy so much, and he's lookedafter me and really been good for me, so it's a bit ofa weird feeling.

"I was a bit nervous towards the end."

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