BENGALURU, DHNS: Karna-taka has spent less than oneper cent of the total alloca-tion for seven cities chosenunder Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi’s pet Smart Citiesmission, with Bengaluru andMangaluru yet to completea single project, official datashow.

Seven cities — Bengaluru,Belagavi, Davangere, Hub-balli-Dharwad, Shivamogga,Mangaluru and Tumakuru —were chosen to receive Rs 500crore each from the Centre

and the state under the SmartCities mission.

So far, these cities have Rs6,462 crore, but projects worthjust Rs 30.97 crore have beencompleted, according to theUrban Development Depart-ment. The remaining projectsare either ongoing, tenderedor in the conceptual stage.

Most projects that havebeen completed include mi-niscule works, a senior officialpointed out. “In Shivamogga,for example, a park has comeup under the Smart Citiesmission. Now, why does a parkneed branding as a Smart Cit-ies project? Mostly, work un-

der the Smart Cities missionis turning out to be like thosecarried out by the public worksdepartment,” the official saidof how lack of conceptual clari-tyyyt undermined the potential ofthe Smart Cities mission.

These cities were chosenbased on a nationwide chal-

lenge that assessed their read-iness to take up retrofitting,redevelopment and green-field projects. Bengaluru, forinstance, came up with a fu-turistic proposal that involvedthe Internet of Things-enabledroads. “But these smart roadsare nothing but a reiterationof the existing TenderSUREroads where all utilities areshifted underneath on bothsides,” the official said.

The Smart Cities missionwas formally launched in 2015.Six cities were chosen in 2016whereas Bengaluru made thecut in 2017.

The government is now

pushing municipal corpora-tions to hasten expenditurealong with some tweaks.“We’re scaling up projects tonon-mission cities, which in-cludes Control and CommandCentres, LED lighting andcommercial complexes,” Ur-ban Development secretary(municipalities and urban de-velopment authorities) AnjumParwez said.

“The first two years werespent putting things in place,”Parwez pointed out. “Thisinvolved setting up specialpurpose vehicles and findingthe right project managementconsultants.” Table, Page 5

Bharath Joshi

State trips on Smarrra tttr Citiiit esKarnataka spends just 1% of allocated funds in PM’s pet plan

NEW DELHI, DHNS: A minus-cule 3% of 133 crore Indiansshop online or pay theirutility bills via the Internetas against 45% in neighbour-ing China, over 70% in the UKand US and an average 15%in all other BRICS nations.

F u r t h e r ,o n l y 5% I n- dians accesst h e i r ba nk sthrough theirmobile phonesor broadbandwhile the per-centage is much higher in oth-er middle and high-incomecountries, according to a dataset released by the ReserveBank of India (RBI), which alsoshows that for every 100 Indi-ans, there are over 87 mobilephones and a rapid expansionof Internet netwwwt ork.

The RBI, which releaseda report on India’s paymentsystems, said the country’s per-formance on digital paymentwas abysmally low and thatit could be pushed by target-ing a larger population of the

millennial generation or thoseborn betwwwt een 1982 and 2004,who have a greater aptitude fordigital products.

“The most straight-forwardapproach to have a digital pushwould be to target the genera-tion which is most responsiveto technology and the digitalage. Since India has a large

population ofM i l l e n n i u mC h i l d r e n or G e n e r a t i o nY, th e a p t i -tude for dig-ital productsis large and

possibly larger than countriessuch as Japan and Europewhich have an ageing popu-lation,” the central bank saidin its report “BenchmarkingIndia’s Payment System”.

One of the key reasons foracceptance of digital paymentsin India was rewards attachedto online purchases, especiallyin non-metros. Hence it sug-gested that the payment ser-vice providers personalise re-wards beyond cash-backs andcreate loyaltyyyt programmes.» Online, Page 8

Annapurna Singh

Only 3% Indiansshop online;China has 45%Targeting millennials wiiiw llgive digital push, says RBI

WA SHING T ON , PT I: India’seconomy is projected to growat 7.5% in the next three years,supported by robust invest-ment and private consump-tion, the World Bank hasforecast, in some good newsto the new gov-ernment.

The bank, inits Global Eco-n o m i c P r o s -pects releasedo n Tu e s d a y,said India is es-timated to haveg r o w n 7 . 2 % in fiscal year2018/19, whichended March31. A slowdownin governmentconsumption was offset by sol-id investment, which benefit-ed from public infrastructurespending.

As against a growth rate of6.6% in 2018, China’s growthin 2019 is projected to drop to6.2% and to 6.1% in 2020 and6% in 2021. With this, India willcontinue to retain the positionof being the fastest growingemerging economy.

The report came as goodnews for India days after datafrom Central Statistics Officeshowed its growth slowing toa five-year low of 5.8% in thefourth quarter of 2018-19.

World Bankretains Indiagrowtttw h rateat 7.5%

By 2021,India’s

growth rateis projectedto be 1.5%more thanChina’s 6%

BENGALURU, DHNS: Develop-ment projects have struck atthe heart of the state’s forestecology in Uttara Kannadadistrict, where 9,628.30 hec-tares (23,792 acres) of forestland have been given away forvarious works, including de-fence and hydel power relatedworks, over the last 30 years.

As per documents pro-vided by the Ministry of En-

vironment, Forests and Cli-mate Change, the major shiftin change in land use can betraced back to approval for theconstruction of Kadra Hydro-electric project on 3,051 hec-tares in 1987, a year after 2,259hectares were diverted for theSea Bird naval base at Karwar.

On top of this, the govern-ment is pushing the Hubba-lli-Ankola rail line, which maytake a toll on 2 lakh trees.» Uttara Kannada, Page 6

Projects harm UttaraKannada forests

Chiranjeevi Kulkarni

BENGALURU, DHNS: Two stu-dents from Karnataka areamong the top 50 rank-hold-ers in the National Eligibili-tyyyt -cum-Entrance Test (NEET)2019, the results of which wereannounced on Wednesday.

Phaneendra D K stood firstin the state by securing anall-India rank of 36, while PMahesh Anand came secondwith the 43rd rank. PragyaMitra, who bagged the 20thposition among the top 20 fe-male rank-holders, securedthe 99th rank.

The National Testing Agen-

cy (NTA) which released theresults on Wednesday after-noon advised the candidatesto access their rank cardsthrough the official website ofNTA, wwwww wwww .nta.ac.in.

NEET is the gateway foradmission to undergraduatemedical and dental admissions

across the country.This year, a total of 1,15,931

students had registered for thetest from the state, of which1,02,735 appeared, and finally64,982 qualified for admis-sions to medical and dentalcourses.» Neet, Page 6

Phaneendra, Mahesh, Pragya

NEET: 3 from state score high

DHNS, NEW DELHI: The Re-serve Bank of India’s first mon-etary policy announcement onThursday in the new NarendraModi government is expect-ed to be more supportive ofgrowth than choosing to staywithin its inflllf ation targetingmandate. Growth has fell to afive-year low in 2018-19.

While the consensus on thestreet is for a 25 basis pointcut in the key policy repo ratewhen the monetary policycommittee (MPC) announcesits decision on Thursday after athree-day meeting, some econ-omists expect the reductioncould be as deep as 35 bps toget the economy going again.

One basis point is equivalentto 0.01%. Repo rate is the rateat which the RBI lends moneyto banks for a short term.

Details on Page 13

RBI may cutrate by 25bps or more

RBI chief Shaktikanta Das

Rajasthan’s NalinKhandelwal topped

NEET this year, scoring701 marks out of 720

» DETAILS ON PAGE 8

The Centre is planning to introduce a uniform road taxregime across the country based on the price of vehiclesunder the ‘’One Nation One Tax” concept, DHNS reportsfrom New Delhi. The Road Transport and HighwaysMinistry had written to states seeking their views onthis issue. Earlier, a Group Of Ministers comprising statetransport ministers suggested to the Centre to introduce acommon road tax regime across the country.

» DETAILS ON PAGE 8

Centre plans uniform road tax

JaspritBumrah

strikes to removeHashim Amla and

Quinton de Kock in thefourth and sixth overs

to peg South Africaback early.

Australia vsWest Indies (3 pm

LIVE: Star Sports netwo

TODAY’S MATCH

India produced a strong bowling display and a determinedbatting show to defeat South Africa by 6 wickets in their

World Cup opener. Here are the key moments of the game

INDIA BEGIN ON HIGH, THRASH SA

South Africa227 for 9

India230 for 4

ICC WORLD CUP 2019Follow DH’s complete coverageof the ICC World Cup 2019 withmatch previews, live ball-by-ballupdates and post-match insightsof every minute of the action onand off the pitch.

YuzvendraChahal nips SouthAfrica’s comeback

bid with two wickets inthe 20th over after Faf duPlessis and Rassie van derDussen had added 54 runs.Chahal’s 4/51 plays a big

role in India restrictingSouth Africa to

227/9.

mm))

oorrkk

aa

UUPP 22001199 RohitSharma,

unflustered,hammers his 23rd

ODI century to calmIndian nerves and take

the former champsto victory.

SouthAfrica makea promisingbeginning by

sending back ShikharDhawan for 8 and

Virat Kohli for18.

PAGE

16

Bengaluru, Thursday June 6, 2019Pages 22 Vol 72 No 156 6 Bwww.deccanherald.com

6DECCANNA HERAAR LLA D Thursday, June6,2019

State

"The more thingschange, the morethey stay the

same" is perhaps a phrasethat can accurately beapplied to the 'X-Men'films. The franchise hasstumbled over the years,trying to find solid foot-ing, only to lose it not verylong after.

Dark Phoenix, unfor-tunately, suffers from thesame issue—having to cre-ate a convincing reason forthe existence of the Phoe-nixForcewhiletacklingthefact that it isaprequel.

Dark Phoenix takes usinto the 90s, in a vain ef-fort to continue the fran-chise — given that Disneynow owns the propertyand likely any film madewill end up getting wipedout for a fresh slate.

That is not to say it’snot a competently madefilm. Unlike the lastX-Men film Apocalypse,which felt like a seriesof events put together

Beatingadeadphoenix

DarkPhoenixENGLISH (U/A)

DIRECTOR:SimonKinberg

CAST:SophieTurner,JamesMcAvoy,MichaelFassbender, JessicaChastain

haphazardly, Dark Phoenixat least seems to havedirection by way of focusingon Jean Grey’s existentialcrisis and how it affectseveryone around her.

It all starts during Jean’schildhood when she unwit-tingly causes an accident,ballooning directly into arescue attempt in space,where she is hit by thePhoenix Force, becoming asavagely powerful individualwho potentially can destroyentire planets.

The greatest success andfailing of Dark Phoenix arein its focus on Jean Grey,who is forced to contendwith her newfound powerwhile dealing with the ideathat the man who gave her afamily may not have been asinnocuous as she thought.Xavier is...complicated inthis film to say the least.

He’s more closed, moreobscure and his ego ison full display even if hedoesn’t want to admit it –even fictional charactersare not immune to beingclose to powerful people, itwould seem.

The film fails greatly atbuilding a character forJean, drowning her in riversof CGI slugfests with noreal substance or characternuances that were at leastsomewhat present in earlierentries.

It feels like it’s going forthe “dark and gritty” routebut it never truly embracesit, even with shock fac-tor elements and with asolid, head-turning finalbattle worthy at least ofrecognition for its technicalbrilliance.

There is no real reasonfor Dark Phoenix to exist.It’s mired in reshoots thatseem to have shifted thingsaround a lot. Importantrevelations in the plot areglossed over with cheapmind tricks and mixed withexcessive reliance on CGIover characters. The filmfeels hollow altogether atthe close.VarunHK

thread of Partitionruns its exhaustingcourse, complete with arendition of the nationalanthem and several tripsto the Wagah-Attari bor-der, where our man cutshis birthday cake everyyear.

For the fan, Bharat isTHE big ticket that SalmanKhan promised. For therest of the universe, it’s one

of his insipid Being (super)Human rituals every Eid.

This time, the outing isover-the-top nationalistic,featuring a string of iconsand idols — from Jawa-harlal Nehru to ManmohanSingh (for a change, theman is not mocked at),Amitabh Bachchan to ShahRukh Khan, and Kapil Devto Sachin Tendulkar.

But none of them is a

AgoniesofBeingBharat

Bharat does not havea surname. Becausehis name has “poora

desh” in it. Dad JackieShroff proclaims his sonbelongs to the wholenation.

In the next two and ahalf hours, the son sets outon a 1940-2010 journeyto pay back what he oweshis country. The tributefeatures a few bike stuntsin a Russian Circus, someoil drilling in the MiddleEast, a stint in the IndianNavy and half a dozensongs to cement his statusas the most desirable andloyal hunk, with patriotismoozing out of every cell ofthe bulked-up bod.

All along, a stretched

BharatHINDI (U/A)

DIRECTOR:AliAbbasZafar

CAST:SalmanKhan,KatrinaKaif

patch on our hero whowields the great Bollywoodwand that turns gun-tot-ting Somali pirates intopuppets dancing to Bach-chan tunes, and a spunkyKatrina Kaif into a loved-updoll who coos into Salman’sears, “Don’t try to playgod, you are human.” Ourthoughts, exactly.

Kaif puts in a lot of effortto fit into her “Hindustani”role while all that Salmandoes is grey some hairstrands to look old. Anddoes he?

As a 70-year-old, he turnsinto the action-hero mode,stopping bikes with barearms and beating up goonstrying to close his ‘HindRation Store’.

Small mercies come inthe form of friends likeSunil Grover who try tokeep the Bhai show sane.

It’s one thing to celebrateBharat, the country. It’sanother to force-feed theviewer a wannabe super-man of the same name.Angel Rani

DH Talkies

UttaraKannada,Page1

TheRailwaysisalsoseekingthepristineforestlandfordoublingHubballi-Vasco line. Wildlifeactivists noted that providingland for defence establish-mentsmaybeunavoidable,butthe state and the central gov-ernments should be cautiouswhile allowing other develop-mentprojects.

RTIreplyGiridhar Kulkarni, a wildlifeactivistwhoobtainedtheinfor-mationunderRTI,saidthatUt-tara Kannada district is losingits natural forests at an alarm-ingpace tonon-stopassault bymining, quarrying, hydroelec-tricprojects,highways,railwaylines,dams,reservoirs,nuclearpowerplantsetc.

In 2013, the Centre for Eco-logical Sciences, IISc, noted adecrease in the evergreen for-estsinthedistrictsfrom67.73%in1973to32.08%in2013.

“A portion of the evergreenforest is lostduetohorticultur-al plantations like areca andcoconut which have shown anincrease from 2.01% to 5.25%during the time period from1973 to 2013,” researchers ledbyProfTVRamachandrahadsaidinthereport.

Forest officials said thatwhilebigprojectsareavisiblethreat, amajorportionof the

forestlandisdegradedbyillegalencroachmentbypeoplewhichgoesunnoticed.

“People file applicationsfor land rights, burn the forestand occupy the land. We havebeen unable to protect forestsfromsuchbrazenviolationsbe-cause the moment we take uprecovery activities, they bringpolitical pressure to stop us,”anofficial intheForestDepart-mentsaid.

Giridhar said the fragmen-tationhasalreadyledtoseveral

problems in the district with aplace like Joida facing severewatershortage.

T h i s s u m m e r , 1 9 5vi l lages in the distr ictwere fed through watertankers.

“I have written to the chiefminister to protect and pre-serve forests. While develop-ment is important for a nationlike India, it shouldnothappenatthecostofforestandwildlife.Both the governments shouldchart out a scientific manage-

ment plan of the forest areasbasedon theNational ForestPolicy,”hesaid.

Developmenteats intoUttaraKannadaforests

Neet, fromPage1

Comparedtothepasspercent-ageofthepreviousyear, thereis a 0.26% dip in the numberof candidates who qualifiedfrom the state. During NEET2018,63.51%qualified,whileitis63.25%this time.

According to experts, thedecreaseisduetothenumberofcandidateswhoskippedthetest.

Data available from the

NTA shows that of the to-tal registered candidates,13,196 were absent from thestate.

Impactof IIPUresults“This year, as the results ofsecond-year pre-universi-ty courses were announcedmuch before the NEET ex-ams, many students who hadapplied for the test decidednot to take it, owing to theirscore insecondyearPUC.”

“This had an impact onthe total number of thosewho qualified for NEET fromstate,”saidanofficialfromthestate medical education de-partment.

Asmanyas15,19,375candi-dateshadregisteredforNEET2019, of which 14,10,755 ap-peared for the test. A total of7,97,042candidatesqualified.

Among the states, Del-hi topped the country with74.92% candidates qualify-

ing, followed by Haryana at73.41% and Chandigarh at73.2%.

InKannadaThis year, as many as 1,017candidates took the test inKannada. Since 2018, thereis an option to write NEETin nine regional languages.Of the total candidates regis-tered,8.86%optedforregion-al languages.DHNewsService

NEET: three fromKarnataka in top50HAVERI, DHNS: Five personswereinjuredinaclashbetwwt eentwwt o groups over the closure ofslaughterhouse on the eve ofEid-ul-FitronTuesdaynight.

Several organisations, in apress meet on Tuesday morn-ing, had alleged that, despiteplaints, police had failed to actagainst those involved incattleslaughter. A while later, policeordered the closure of slaugh-terhouseinthemarket.At7pm,it is said,meatvendorsassault-edafewmembersoftheorgan-isations.

Dr Santosh Aaladakatti toldreporters, “Meat vendors as-saulted Manoj Jadhav, VarunAnavatti, Shanmukh Niralagi,PraveenandHarishMadiwalar,membersof theorganisations.After the slaughterhouse wasclosed on Tuesday morning,several meat vendors wereslaughtering cattle in theirhouses. As the news spread,members of the federation ofpeople’s organisations tried tostop cattle butchering. About60persons attacked thegroupwith sharp weapons. We havelodgedaplaintwith theHaveriTownpolice,”hesaid.

The meat vendors allegedthatafewmiscreantsundertheguise of Gaurakshaks misbe-havedwith thewomen in theirhouses.“Theytriedtoattackuswhen questioned about theirobjectionable behaviour,” theysaid.

5 hurt inHaverigroup clash