˙ ˆ ˝˛ ˚ ˘ ˇ ˆ ˚ ˆ · bhagwani, who works as a clerk in the land records department and...

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The security forces haveuncovered a “sinister” plot

hatched by the Pakistan Armyto target Amarnath pilgrims inthe last leg of the 45-day- longpilgrimage. Following this, theGovernment on Friday issuedan advisory asking the touristsand pilgrims to curtail their pil-grimage to the Amarnath caveshrine and leave the State “assoon as possible”.

A top officer of the IndianArmy based in Srinagar, alongwith the Director General ofState police, on Friday claimedthat an attempt to target thepilgrims has been foiled by thealert troops, who recovered amine bearing mark of aPakistan ordnance factory fromone of the two yatra routesleading to the cave shrine.

“The recovery indicatesthat Pakistan Army is involvedin terrorism in Kashmir. Thiswill not be tolerated,” Lt GeneralKJS Dhillon, Commander ofthe Chinar Corps, said.Displaying pictures of the minebearing Pakistan’s ordnancefactory’s stamp, Dhillon said, “Itlaid to rest any doubts aboutIslamabad’s direct role inattempts to destabilise J&K”.

Meanwhile, the Jammu &Kashmir Government onFriday issued an advisorydirecting tourists and pilgrimsto curtail their pilgrimage tothe Amarnath cave shrine andto leave the State immediately.

“Keeping in view the latest

intelligence inputs of terrorthreats, with specific targetingof the Amarnath Yatra, andgiven the prevailing security sit-uation in the Kashmir Valley, inthe interest of the safety andsecurity of the tourists andAmarnath Yatris, it is advisedthat they may curtail their stayin the Valley immediately andtake necessary measures toreturn as soon as possible,” theorder issued by the State HomeDepartment said.

Last week, Union HomeMinistry had rushed 10,000troops to Kashmir Valley toeffectively handle securityrelated and law and orderduties. Speculations were rifeover the arrival of 25,000 moretroops in Kashmir Valley aspart of the ongoing exercise.

During a three-day inten-sive search operation conduct-ed to sanitise the AmarnathYatra route, security forces hadalso recovered a cache of arms,including an American sniperrifle M-24. Security forces actedon the basis of specific intelli-gence inputs that Pakistan-based terrorists might targetthe Yatra using IEDs and attackpilgrims, he added.

Dhillon said the threat ofimprovised explosive devices(IEDs) in Jammu and Kashmiris more “pronounced” in thehinterland even as the situationalong the Line of Control (LoC)remains “largely peaceful”.

I G Kashmir SP Pani saidaround 10 serious attempts totrigger IED blasts were recent-ly made in the Valley, mostly in

Pulwama and Shopian areas. Director-General of Police

(DGP) of Jammu & KashmirDilbag Singh, CRPF AdditionalDirector General ZulfiqarHasan, IGP Kashmir SP Pani,and others were also presentduring the Press briefing.

Commenting on the pre-vailing security situation inKashmir valley, Dhillon said,“On July 30, Pakistan armyindulged in unprovoked firingand it was responded to inbefitting manner, they becamequiet thereafter,” he said.

15 Corps commanderDhillon said the security forceshad considerable successagainst the terrorist groupsoperating in J&K recently andmost of the top leadership of

Jaish-e-Mohammaed, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideenhad been eliminated in theoperations in last three months.

The 15 Corps commandersaid IED threats had increasedin the last year with severalattempts made to blow upsecurity forces vehicles orinstallations. “There was afailed IED attempt in Banihalin June and on August 2, oneof the Army vehicles was tar-geted.” said Dhillon, addingthat one IED expert MunnaLahori was killed by securityforces last week.

reacting to the State HomeDepartment order formerChief Minister Omar Abdullahtweeted, “Although thisunprecedented order would

seem to suggest a genuine fearof a massive terror strike direct-ed at Amarnath ji yatris or/andtourists this will do nothing todampen the sense of fear andforeboding that prevails in thevalley at the moment.”

Abdullah, along with hisfather Dr Farooq Abdullah,had called on Prime MinisterNarendra Modi in Delhi onFriday urging him that no pre-cipitous steps of any sort shouldbe taken that may result in sit-uation in the State, particular-ly the Valley, worsening.

“We specifically asked himto let subjudice matters be set-tled by the courts & other mat-ters be settled by an elected gov-ernment,” Omar Abdullah saidlater.

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The Supreme Court onFriday said it will hold day-

to-day hearing from August 6to decide the politically sensi-tive Ram Janmabhoomi-BabriMasjid land dispute in Ayodhyaas the efforts to arrive at anamicable settlement throughmediation have failed.

The apex court took noteof the report of the three mem-ber mediation panel, headed byformer apex court judge FMIKalifulla, that the mediationproceedings which went on forabout four months have notresulted in any final settle-ment and it has to decide thematter pending before it.

“We have received thereport submitted by Justice(Retd) FMI Kalifulla, theChairman of the MediationCommittee. We have perusedthe same. The mediation pro-ceedings have not resulted inany final settlement. We, there-fore, have to proceed with thehearing of the cases/appeals,which will commence on andfrom August 6 (Tuesday),” saida 5-judge Bench headed byChief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.

“The hearing which will beon day-to-day basis until thearguments are concluded willstart with the appeals arisingout of the two suits. Thelearned counsel(s)...In theappeals arising out of the afore-said suits may, for the conve-

nience of the court, indicate thepleadings and the evidence onwhich they propose to rely, sothat the officials of the Registrycan keep the said documentsready for perusal of the court,”the Bench said in its order.

The Bench, also compris-ing Justices SA Bobde, DYChandrachud, Ashok Bhushanand SA Nazeer, had on July 18,asked the three-member medi-ation panel to inform the courtabout the outcome of their pro-ceedings as on July 31.

The panel was asked toplace the report by August 1 toenable it to proceed further inthe matter.

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Despite assurances of theUnion Health Minister Dr

Harsh Vardhan, doctors of sev-eral Government-run hospitalsin Delhi went on strike onFriday and health services werecrippled. Apprehending law andorder issues, the Delhi Policedeployed additional police per-sonnel, along with CentralArmed Police Forces, (CAPFs)to control the situation.

Resident doctors, whoform the backbone of OutPatients Department (OPD)and critical healthcare, with-drew all services in protestagainst the National MedicalCommission Bill that waspassed by the Rajya Sabha onThursday.

Protesting doctors and sev-eral bodies have expressedreservations over certain pro-visions of the Bill and allegedthat these were “anti-poor,anti-student and undemocrat-ic”. The resident doctors’ asso-ciations of AIIMS, SafdarjungHospital, RML Hospital andthose attached with theFederation of Resident DoctorsAssociation (FORDA) andUnited Resident Doctors’Association (URDA) had boy-cotted work and held demon-

strations on Thursday over theissue. Patients at AIIMS, LNJPHospital and several otherfacilities continued to faceproblems in accessing medicalcare, many of whom had comefrom neighbouring cities.

Mahesh Sharma, 45, anorthopedic patient said he vis-

ited AIIMS as he had anappointment with a doctor buthe was surprised to see thatthere was no doctor in the OPDto treat him.

“It is very difficult for meto come again after takingappointment. I am not evensure about next date for treat-

ment,” he said. Another patient, Saviita

Kumari who is getting treat-ment from AIIMS for liver ailment, said she travelledfor more than 20 hours fromBihar to Delhi but knowingabout the strike she got disap-pointed.

��

Parliament on Friday passedthe amended Unlawful

activities Prevention Bill(Amendment) Bill (UAPA),2019 with the Rajya Sabha giv-ing its assent to it.

The legislation to givemore teeth to the NationalInvestigation Agency andother institutions to fight ter-rorism was passed with 147votes in favour and 42 against.The Lok Sabha had alreadycleared the legislation on July 24.

Allaying the apprehensionsof the Opposition over declar-ing individuals as terrorists,Home Minister Amit Shah saida four-tier screening mecha-nism is provided in the pro-posed law to avoid harassmentand uphold human rights.

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The controversy furtherdeepens over a religious

customer denying an orderfrom Non-Hindu delivery boyof Zomato, as a Hindutvagroup has come forward toback the beleaguered customer.

After the district adminis-tration served a notice to thecustomer Amit Shukla,Jabalpur Superintendent ofPolice Amit Singh has initiat-ed a probe into the incident andhas ordered an Addl SP toprobe into the matter before thepolice would take any action.

In a separate action,Gorakhpur tehsildar PramodChaturvedi has served a noticeto ‘errant’ Zomato customer Pt

Amit Shukla and has orderedhim to furnish his reply inTehsil office personally.

Shukla however speakingto the media has clarified thathe had simply cancelled theordered as a non-Hindu wassupposed to deliver food andhe was on fast in month ofshrawan. He had tweeted thematter but some ‘vested’ ele-ments twisted the entire inci-dent.

The virtual world thoughhas seen a split over the inci-dent with some backing the

customer in preserving hisfood rights while some othersare lauding the company whichsaid, “Food has no religion.”

Minister for UrbanAdministration andDevelopment Jaivardhan Singhalso took to twitter to slam thecustomer saying now thoseoffering food are divided intoHindu and Muslims and calledit a contagious attitude. “Thepolitics has divided the hungerinto Hindu and Muslim,” saidthe minister.

Meanwhile a right winggroup –Hindu Seva Parishadhas come forward in support ofShukla and handed a memo-randum to SP Amit Singh urg-ing him not to initiate anyaction against him and claimedhe was just using his religiousfreedom.

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Gwalior: Lokayukta Police onFriday raided three premises ofa clerk in the Land RecordsDepartment in connection witha case of disproportionate assetsand unearthed properties worthcrores of rupees. The raids wereconducted simultaneously atthree premises of SanjayBhagwani, who works as a clerkin the Land RecordsDepartment and his brother-in-law who is a businessman.

According to sources in theLokayukta Police, Bhagwani hasbeen under the radar of thepolice since 2016 when Rs 2.5crore was stolen from his resi-dence situated at Dwarakapuri.At that time Bhagwani had toldthe police that the stolen amountwas only Rs. 2.5 Lakh including

the cost of ornaments. Later onthe police recovered the entirestolen money amounting to Rs2.5 crore from the thieves. Whenthey questioned Bhagwani aboutthe source of this money hedenied the money belonged tohim.

Sanjay Bhagwani had joinedthe Lands Records Departmentin 1990. The clerk whose presentpay scale is Rs 50000 per monthhas massed assets worth over Rs3 crore, including two poshhouses in Gwalior, an agricul-tural land worth 1.5 crore andseveral luxury cars.

Details of his various bankaccounts are yet to be ascer-tained. According to the DSP ofLokayukta Kavindra Chauhanthe interior decoration of one of

his houses alone cost him Rs 25Lakhs.

The DSP further said thathis brother-in-law is engaged insome minor business activitieswith the sole purpose of con-verting the black money intowhite. Bhagwani’s wife too hasa Boutique in Phalika Bazar andit is believed that she too isengaged in the laundering of herhusband’s ill earned wealth.

The raiding team consistingof inspectors Parashar,Dharamveer Singh and PKChaturvedi was led by theLokayukta DSP KavindraChauhan. A case has been reg-istered under the Prevention ofCorruption Act and furtherinvestigations are on. PNS

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Minister for HigherEducation Jitu Patwari

said that challenges of futureshould be assimilated in theeducation system. He wasaddressing the 49thFoundation day programmeof Barkatullah Vishwavidyalayaon Thursday.

Patwari said that any ide-ology should not be promotedby the universities, when itcomes to build children’s future.

The first goal of the edu-cation is to make children amatured individual, so thatthey become independent inimaginative and conceptualform.

Patwari mentioned thatAbdul Hafiz MohammadBarkatullah has contributed inthe independence of the coun-try.

He has also given an impor-

tant contribution in the educa-tion field. Patwari further stat-ed that the BarkatullahVishwavidyalaya is a uniqueexample of Ganga-Jamuni tra-dition. Guru-Shishyaparampara is the identity ofIndian Culture.

He mentioned that there isno scarcity of budget and visionfor excellence in higher educa-tion. Patwari informed that abudget provision of �55 crorehas been for the current year tomake BarkatullahVishwavidyalaya capable tosecure highest ranking ofNAAC next year.

He further said that the

appointments of professors willbe made soon.

The Vice Chancellor of theUniversity RJ Rao said thatthere is also a need for changein education and teaching sys-tem for comprehensive andquality education.

The Minister, Jitu Patwarihonoured teachers, officers andemployees, who have complet-ed 35, 25, 20 and 15 years ser-vice tenure in the university.

He also honoured NCCand NSS cadets of the universi-ty, Young Scientist AwardeesPoonam Arya and AbhinavBhargava along with the firstfemale mountaineer of the stateMegha Parmar, who scaled theMount Everest.

Patwari also released aMagazine ‘Vision-2025’ on theoccasion and planted a saplingin the university’s campus underthe programme ‘Ek Abhiyan-Dharti ke Shringar Ka’.

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BHEL Bhopal’s HeatExchanger Group has suc-

cessfully manufactured, & test-ed the First High PressureHeater for 4000 MW UltraMega Power Plant of CoastalGujarat Power Limited, a whol-ly owned subsidiary of TataPower Limited.

In a simple ceremony heldon Friday DK Thakur,Executive Director BHELBhopal flagged of the consign-ment for commissioning atthe site. On this occasion MLTaurani GM (Thermal), MSKinra, GM (Quality), VipinMinocha GM (MM & CDC),PK Mishra, GM (Hydro &Fabrn), AK Varshney GM(TPTN & Feeders) and allHODs & employees ofThermal Group, Quality,Fabrication group, Logisticswere present.

B Murthy, Customer rep-resentative from M/s CGPLwas also present.

Addressing the gathering,Thakur appreciated and con-gratulated all the employeesassociated with the successfulmanufacture and testing of theproduct.

He further urged all theemployees to work towardsachieving more such success.

Taurani in his addressopined that with this break-through, BHEL is confident ofreceiving more orders of HPHeaters in this rating for otherunits of this project & fromother customers.

The heater has been man-ufactured in Thermal Group’sHeat Exchangers Division ofBHEL Bhopal for 800 MWUnit #5 of CGPL UMPP. HPHeater of this rating has beenmanufactured for the first time

in BHEL, meeting stringentquality requirements of thecustomer. Three more heatersare under manufacture inBHEL.

Earlier, this group has suc-cessfully developed, manufac-tured and supplied Duplex LPHeaters for 800 MW SuperCritical power plants. All the800 MW power stations sup-plied by BHEL are havingDuplex Heaters manufacturedby BHEL-Bhopal.

It is for the first time thatHP Casing for 700 MWNuclear power plant were suc-cessfully manufactured & sup-plied to NPCIL meeting allstringent requirement.Similarly, special product ofNuclear power plant ieMoisture Separator & Reheaterhas been developed, manufac-tured & supplied by this groupfor all 700 MW Nuclear powerplant.

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Offering all possible help toUnnao rape victim and her

mother, Chief Minister KamalNath here on Friday askedthem to settle down in MadhyaPradesh.

Laud Supreme Court’s ver-dict in Unnao rape case, Nathtweeted, “I appeal to the moth-er-daughter duo, who havedecided to leave UP taking thestate unsafe for them, to settledown in Madhya Pradesh.”

My Government wouldoffer complete security to yourfamily, said the Chief Minister,in an apparent dig at State ofaffairs in Yogi Adityanath-ledUttar Pradesh.

Nath went on to offer thatthe state government wouldtake care of the treatment,education and other necessitiesof the girl and won’t let the fam-

ily be hassled by any means.Once the cases (pertaining

to the family) are transferred toDelhi, we would make ade-quate travel arrangements forthe family.

“We would take care of thegirl like daughter of our state,”Nath promised the family fromUnnao who teenage daughterwas raped by former BJP MLAKuldip Sengar who had beenexpelled from the party onThursday.

SC on Thursday had

ordered Rs 25 lakh compensa-tion to the victim and orderedshifting of all cases related tothe victim to Delhi.

Reacting to Nath’s tweet,BJP spokesperson RajnishAgrawal claimed that Nath’sinitiative for the daughters islaudable but in the same breathsaid why he chose to tweetinstead of contacting that fam-ily. “He should also pay atten-tion to atrocities meted out togirls in Madhya Pradesh,”pointed out Agrawal.

Bhopal: Chief Minister KamalNath said that the StateGovernment is committed toprotect the interests of theemployees. He mentioned thatpromises made in the mani-festo for the employees will befulfilled. Nath was holdingdiscussions with a delegationof 24 organisations of employ-ees and APAKS employees’union at Mantralaya onThursday.

On the occasion, the orga-nizations of the officers andemployees expressed grati-tude towards the ChiefMinister that he has takenseveral decisions in the inter-ests of the employees within ashort period of just 8 months,which have benefitted all theemployees. The Minister forHome Bala Bachchan was alsopresent on the occasion.

The Chief Minister men-tioned that the governmentemployees do not belong toany political party, they workfor the government. He stat-

ed that the government issensitive towards the demandsand aspirations of the gov-ernment employees and willtake their memorandum intoconsideration with utmostseriousness. Nath said that hewill resolve the grievances byholding discussions with therepresentatives of the employ-ees. He told the organiza-tions of the officers andemployees to present theirrepresentation by making sep-arate points of their demands,so that immediate actioncould be taken.

The Chief Minister wasapprised of the aspirations ofthe officers-employees’ orga-nizations by the Minister forPublic Relations PC Sharma.He said that the ChiefMinister has made increase inthe dearness allowance of theemployees and pensioners andhas developed a new culture inthe governance and adminis-tration for the welfare of theemployees. SR

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Miscreants targeted houseof a dentist and escaped

with car and electronic goodsworth Rs 15 lakh from KotraSultanabad under Kamla Nagarpolice station area on Friday.

Police said that a com-plaint was lodged byGopikrishna Shastri regardingburglary of LED TV and a carfrom his brother-in-law DrAshoka Upadhyay at KotraSultanabad.

The victim had gone tomeet his daughter inGanganagar on July 30 and onAugust 1 his neighborinformed regarding the bur-glary. Later, he asked his broth-er-in-law Gopikishan to lodgecomplaint.

The CCTV cameras of thelocaity and nearby areas will be

investigated. The neighbourshave expressed ignorance overthe burglary as the miscreantstargeted the house late in thenight and escaped with thevaluables. In the incident aVerna car and a Sony LED werestolen. The total loss in the bur-glary is around Rs 15 lakh. Thecomplainant claimed that losscould not be ascertained as thevictim could provide the detailson his return.

The locks of the main doorwere broken which were used

to enter and escape with the carand valuables. The victim is adentist and owns a clinic atBhopal talkies. Domestic helpand security guard would bequestioned in the investigation.

Complainant told thepolice that the loss would bemore than �30 lakh as belong-ings were lying in the house.

The almirah was foundbroken but what are the valu-ables which have been stolenare yet to be checked by the victim.

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Nishatpura police havenabbed three vehicle-

lifters from Ratan Colony andrecovered 10 two-wheelersworth �5 lakh from his pos-session on Thursday.

According to the police,acting on a tip off a youth wasdetained and when he wasasked details regarding thevehicle he failed and confessedthat the two-wheeler was stolenone. The nabbed accused wasidentified as Golu alias DheerajGaur (24) of Neemkhedi.

Later in the initial investi-gation Golu confessed stealingof other two wheelers with histwo accomplices and based inthe information two men werenabbed identified as Kaluramalias Kallu Malviya (48) andAnil Gaur (21) both ofKacnaria village. Police haverecovered nine vehicles fromtheir possession which were

hidden or kept at differentplaces by the vehicle lifters. Thevehicles were stolen from dif-ferent areas of the city.

Accused have sold fewvehicles in the nearby villagesat �10000 to �15000 as per thecondition and need of the cus-tomer. The accused would bequizzed in the investigation toobtain more details stealing ofvehicles and disposal of thevehicles. Remote places wereused by the miscreants to keepthe stolen vehicles. During theinvestigation police have notfound any criminal record ofthe miscreant and told thatsearch for the crime recordwould be done in the furtherinvestigation.

Nishatpura police have reg-istered a case under section 379of the IPC and 41(1-4) ofCrPC. In the further investi-gation the details of recoveredvehicles would be provided tothe respect police stations.

Bhopal: A 28-year-old manwas robbed of his mobilephone and �3000 cash nearPampapur Hanuman temple bythree scooter borne miscreantsin the night on Thursday; TTNagar police have started inves-tigation.

Police said that the victimAjay Choudhary was on hisway to home when he wasrobbed by three scooter bornemiscreants.

The victim in his com-plaint stated that he wasstopped by three scooter bornemiscreants and when hestopped the miscreant snatchedthe mobile phone and took�3000 and escaped the spot.

Based on the complaintafter the preliminary investi-gation the police have regis-tered a case under section 392of the IPC and started searchfor the accused.

The victim works with abuilding contractor and

involved tiles laying work.Victim was on her way tohome after work and when hereached near Hanuman templehe was stopped by miscreantwho threatened the victim andafraid of the miscreant victimprovided his purse and mobilephone.

The victim raised alert butthe accused managed to escapefrom the spot. The miscreantswere three and committed thecrime on a scooter.

The incident took place ataround 10 pm when the areawas deserted and the miscreanttargets victims found in desert-ed area and carrying mobilephone. The victim was walkingwhen he targeted by the mis-creants.

Police said that during thefurther investigation policewould search for details ofmiscreants in the footages ofCCTV cameras installed inthe area. SR

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The Directorate of UrbanAdministration and

Development has sanctioned atotal amount of �114.79 croreof 14th Finance Commission'sGeneral Basic Grant 2019-20 to378 urban bodies.

On the basis of census-2011, 90 percent and on thebasis of area, 10 percent of theamount has been sanctioned.

In the sanctioned amount,�27.01 crore to 264 NagarParishads, �33.55 crore to 98Nagar Palikas and �54.23 croreto16 Municipal Corporationshave been sanctioned.

Out of the sanctionedamount, �10.67 crore havebeen sanctioned to BhopalMunicipal Corporation.

Similarly, �6 crore 41 lakh 3thousand to Gwalior, �01 crore53 lakh 52 thousand toMorena, �11 crore 76 lakh 58thousand to Indore, �01 crore11 lakh 51 thousand toKhandwa, �01 crore 12 lakh 94thousand to Burhanpur, �6crore 60 lakh 95 thousand toJabalpur, �01 crore 15 lakh 32thousand to Chhindwara, �01crore 28 lakh 39 thousand toKatni, �01 crore 48 lakh 63thousand to Rewa, �01 crore 59lakh 30 thousand to Satna,�01 crore 63 lakh 13 thousandto Singrauli, �01 crore 83 lakh24 thousand to Sagar, �2 crore86 lakh 35 thousand to Ujjain,�01 crore 69 lakh 6 thousandto Dewas and Rs 01 crore 45lakh 81 thousand to MunicipalCorporation Ratlam have beensanctioned.

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Panic prevailed in BadawiaKalan area after a woman

was found dead under suspi-cious circumstances near rail-way tracks; Shahpura policehave started investigation, iden-tity of the deceased is yet to beestablished.

On the hands of deceasedBiharilal, Kartar Singh, BabluBhai and Kachari Bai havebeen tattooed. Burn injurymark is present which is oldwhile injury marks which leadto the death are under investi-gation.

From the tattoo police sus-pects that the name could beKachari Bai. The deceased is inthe age group of 45- 50 years.

After the preliminaryinvestigation the body was sentfor the post mortem. The police

have registered a case undersection 302 of the IPC andstarted further investigation.

Meanwhile, a 36-year-oldman was electrocuted whileworking at the PanchsheelNagar under TT Nagar police

station area on Thursday.According to the police thedeceased Yashwant was elec-trocuted and was rushed to anearby hospital where he wasdeclared dead.

Police were informed andon the receipt of the informa-tion a police team reached thespot and started investigation.

After the preliminaryinvestigation the body was sentfor post mortem. The policehave registered a case undersection 174 of the IPC andstarted further investigation.

The deceased was electro-cuted while working and policefound that the house was dam-aged due to which the wireswere exposed and the deceasedcame into contact with the livewires. The deceased hailedfrom Rajgarh and used to livein Jehangirabad.

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City's Government WomenPolytechnic College

becomes the first NBA accred-ited college.

Government WomenPolytechnic College, hasbecome the first polytechniccollege in the State to accreditits 2 courses from the NationalBoard for Accreditation (NBA).These are 2 courses areArchitecture and InteriorDesign Department andComputer Science andEngineering Department.

The achievement fromNBA means that outcomebased education is provided inthis college. It is noteworthythat now every technical edu-cation institute has got accred-itation from the NBA.

It is noteworthy that NBAreflects higher levels of educa-tion, as well as the degree ordiploma of students studyingfrom such colleges are recog-

nized worldwide. Principal ofthe college K. V. Rao has con-gratulated this while describingit as a historical achievement.At the same time, he expressedthe hope that this achieve-ment of our college will proveto be milestone in making thestate's technical educationsuperior.

It is noteworthy that in theacquisition of accreditationfrom the NBA, the qualitativesteps were taken by womenpolytechnic at every level of theinstitution and the academicdepartment are important.Here, education levels are being

made world-class for the lastseveral years. Academic andadministrative reforms andinnovative teaching methodswere adopted for this.According to the vision of thecollege, different courses weremade outcome based on dif-ferent courses.

Outcome based curricu-lum is taught by the well qual-ified faculty to InnovativeTeaching Methods, whichmakes students understand thedifficult subject.

Apart from this, the well-equipped modern laboratoriesand workshops such as 3Dprinting IOT model makingembedded systems etc. wereintroduced, so that students arefamiliar with the latest tech-nology trends. College'sTraining and Placement Cellwas updated. This cell pro-moted industry interaction inthe college. MOU was donewith the institutions based onthe industry.

Industrial visits, Expertlectures, site visits were broughtto the routine of curriculam,from which girls got betterexposure. Regular training isdone by this cell to the faculty.Women Polytechnic has mem-bership of three student chap-ters. There is also a registeredAlumni Association whichconnects the pass outs to thecollege. Departmental AlumniMeets are also organized in thecollege.

Extre curricular activitiesare organized to give platformto the talents of girls. Greencampus, Weekly Sports and fit-ness activities such as zumba,athelitics competitions areorganized. Here is an opengym. At present, admission infive diploma courses is alsobeing given, where outcomebased education can beobtained in very low fees tak-ing advantage of all theschemes of the government.

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This festive season theshopaholics are being

drawn towards new and trendyoutfits. The Bhopalites are seenexploring all of that on the firstday of Sawan Mela 2019.

The ‘Sawaan Mela’Handloom and Handicraftexhibition cum sale organisedby Mrignayanee Emporium atGauhar Mahal. The exhibitioncum sale began here fromFriday is evoking a greatresponse, the exhibition-cum-sale is jam packed with theshopaholics on the first day.

A huge crowd was noticedat the venue buying the trendystuff put up at the fair.Featuring a different variety ofdress materials embedded withrare motifs attracted a hugecrowd. The different and newmotifs on dress materials aremuch in demand. On the first

day people were observed buy-ing home decor for the festiveseason.

On asking about theresponse of the people at thefair manager of MrignayaneeGauhar Mahal Brijendra Singhsaid, “The response is againvery good this time. People aremostly captivated towards buy-ing the material and decorativepieces too at affordable prices.”

People totally enjoyed

shopping during the strokingheat too and they usually dotake advantage of shoppingand nothing else.

The mela is all about thehandloom and handicraftmaterials from all over theState. The people of Bhopalexplored the vibrant colours ofState’s exceptional varieties ofdress materials and other arti-cles. Fair is furnished with thebeautiful handicrafts and hand-loom in Chanderi,Maheshwari, Kosa Silk, deco-rative pieces, bronze statues andmore.

Also the dress materialsthat was available in regularChanderi, Maheshwari andKosa Silk features salwar suits,sarees, running material andtextiles are beautifully adornedwith Bagh print, Block print aswell as Dabu print were pre-sented beautifully in vibrantcolours.

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Bhopal: Chief Minister KamalNath said that the proposedUrban Development Instituteshould be established in theform of Institute of Excellencefor proper colonies in citiesaccording to the increasingpopulation.

Nath saw a presentationprepared by the committeeformed to prepare a blue-print of the UrbanDevelopment Institute atMantralaya on Friday.

The Minister for UrbanDevelopment JaivardhanSingh was also present at themeeting.

Nath said that citiesshould be developed in aplanned manner and in accor-dance to future needs andpopulation. Competency isneeded in this field. He fur-ther mentioned that keepingin view this, the plan of UrbanDevelopment Institute hasbeen visualized. He said thatthe institute should be formedin such a manner that besidesbetter planning of urbandevelopment, it shouldbecome an example in theentire country.

Presenting the outline ofthe Urban DevelopmentInstitute, the Chairman ofRERA Antony DeSa said thatthis institute will be an inde-pendent, empowered andautonomous institute. Thiswill be developed in the formof Institute of Excellence bymaking government, com-munity and experts in plan-ning of urban development asits partners.

The Chief Secretary SRMohanty, Director Generalof Atal Bihari VajpayeeInstitute of Good Governanceand Policy Analysis RParshuram, Director of Schoolof Architect and PlanningShreedharan and SunaliRohila were present at themeeting. SR

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Afolk play Jagar was stagedat Madhya Pradesh State

Tribal Museum. The play wasstaged here on Friday underUttaradhikar series.

The play was directed byKrishna Gode from Goa.

The presentation beganwith dance performances byartist's 'Ganesh Vandana'. Inthis presentation, artists pre-sented the nature of Ganeshwith their skill to the audienceon the stage.

After this, all the artistsperformed Guru Vandana.After Guru Vandana, threecharacters presented a tale withtheir artistic skills. In whichthree people go to a garden andplant many flowers. So thenext day when the gardenercomes, he feels that God hasdone all this. So he takes dance-

songs. After this, the artists pre-sented the legend of a king withthe role of a king in front of theaudience. According to thelegend, there was a king, whichwas very corrupt and the con-duct was inferior.

Due to the king, the com-mon people and businessmenof the entire state were quiteupset. Therefore, people getannoyed and pray to GoddessKali and kill the king ofGoddess Kali himself. At theend of the presentation, HemuKrishna Gauda, ??with his fel-low artists, presented a pre-sentation centered on GaneshVandana and wrapped up thepresentation.

The play was beautifullyperformed before the audi-ence. All the art lovers were slellbound with the performancegiven by the artists in Konknistyle.

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Two day film festival FilmPrasang had an unsatisfac-

tory start. The film fest thatbegan from Friday witnessed alow footfall at the show atRavindra Bhavan.

The festival is being organ-ised by Directorate of Cultureon the ocassion of 150 birthanniversary of MahatmaGandhi. Here on Friday film'Gandhi' was screened and lessthan 15 people attended theshow.

This film was directed byRichard Attenbrough. In thefilm Gandhi's character is fullyexplained as a man of nonvio-lence. Through his patience, heis able to drive the British outof the subcontinent. And thestubborn nature of Jinnah andhis commitment towardsPakistan is portrayed.

The film covers Gandhi'slife from a defining moment in1893, as he is thrown off aSouth African train for being ina whites-only compartment,

and concludes with his assassi-nation and funeral in 1948.Although a practising Hindu,Gandhi's embracing of otherfaiths, particularly Christianityand Islam, is also depicted.

Gandhi was released inIndia on 30 November 1982, inthe United Kingdom on 3December, and in the UnitedStates on 10 December.

In 1893, the 23-year-oldGandhi is thrown off a SouthAfrican train for being anIndian sitting in a first-classcompartment despite having afirst-class ticket.[8]Realisingthe laws are biased againstIndians, he then decides tostart a nonviolent protest cam-paign for the rights of allIndians in South Africa. Afternumerous arrests and unwel-come international attention,the government finally relentsby recognising some rights forIndians.

The first day of film screen-ing did not recievd satisfacto-ry response from theBhopalites.

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Role of legislative and exec-utives is important in

good Governance and public welfare.

The legislative and exec-utives are complementary asthe sole objective is publicservice and inclusive devel-opment of state throughdemocratic governance underconstitutional provisions, saidPrincipal Secretar y ofMadhya Pradesh StateAssembly AP Singh address-ing trainees of StateAdministrative Service (SAS)officers during their visit toState Assembly.

He said that under par-liamentary process responsi-bilities of executives areensured. The process of mak-ing of law was detailed bySingh and curiosities wereanswered.

The trainees are under-

going training at PanditKunjilal Dubey, RashtriyaSansadiya Vidyapeeth(National Parl iamentar yStudies Institute) Bhopal. Onthe occasion officials of stateassembly were present.

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Atwo-day workshop beganat the All India Local Self-

Governance Training Institutetoday to apprise the municipalcommissioners, CEOs of smartcity projects and chief munic-ipal officers about innovativetechniques for implementa-tion of various schemes.

The Institute's Adviser, NBLohani and Commissioner,Urban Administration andDevelopment, P Narharilaunched the workshop.

In the workshop, subjectexperts briefed on the benefi-ciary oriented schemes run bythe Central and StateGovernments and implemen-tation of various projects.

Commissioner Narhari

said that the latest techniquesshould be used for monitoringthe schemes. He said, a well-thought-out plan should beformulated to ensure imple-mentation of the schemes with-in a time frame. Narhari saidthat eligible beneficiariesshould get the benefit of theschemes at home.

In the workshop,Additional CommissionerSwatantra Kumar Singh gaveinformation about Smart CityMission, AdditionalCommissioner Ashish Saxenaabout E-Municipality, PankajJain about National UrbanLivelihood Mission, MeenakshiSingh about Prime Minister'sHousing Scheme andEngineer-in-Chief PK Kataregave information about theAmrit Yojana.

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Police on Friday arrestedtwo persons who had given

an extortion call after com-mitting theft at a businessman'shouse at Ambagan underSakchi police station area onJuly 29. The victim has a cloth

shop in Sakchi.The two arrested persons

were identified as Ranjit Kumar(28) and Chandan Shao (26),both residents of Gwala Busteeat Bhuiyandih in Sidhgora.

Revealing about the break-through, senior SP, AnoopBirtharay, said a burglary wascommitted at the house ofMunna Agrawal at Ambaganon the night of July 23.

The criminals haddecamped with valuables,including electronic appliancesand also a scooter by breakingopen the house of Agrawal,leading him to lodge an FIR

with the Sakchi police stationon July 24.

While the police were try-ing to detect the criminalsinvolved in the burglary atAgrawal's house, the victim had

on July 30 informed the Sakchipolice about a call made bysome criminals demanding �2lakh as "rangdari."

He said the caller hadintroduced himself one of those

who had committed burglary atthe victim's house.

The caller had also threat-ened that they would kill someof the family members if theirextortion call is ignored.

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The Lok Sabha on Fridaypassed the Dam Safety Bill,

seeking to set up an institu-tional mechanism for surveil-lance, inspection, operationand maintenance of specifieddams across the country.

The provisions of the Billare proposed to be applied toall specified dams in the coun-try which have height of morethan 10 metres. The Bill envis-ages a two-tier structure atnational as well state-level toensure safety of dams in thecountry, said Jal Shakti MinisterGajendra Singh Shekhawat.

Observing that safety ofdam is extremely important asit concerns lives of people,property and flora and fauna,the Minister said “there is aneed to have a common pro-tocol for safety of dams in thecountry.” There are 5,745 reser-voirs in the country of which293 are more than 100 yearsold. The age of 25 per cent of

dams is between 50 to 100 yearsand 80 per cent are over 25years old, he said.

Among other things, thebill also seeks to resolve theinter-state issues concerningmaintenance and safety ofdams, he said, adding as manyas 92 per cent of dams in the country is on inter-stateriver basins.

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Parliament on Fridayapproved a Bill to enable

introduction of minimum wagefor every worker besidesaddressing issues like delay inpayment to employees, withLabour Minister SantoshKumar Gangwar asserting itwill benefit about 50 croreworkers in the country.

The Code on Wages Bill,2019 — which seeks to amendand consolidate the laws relat-ing to wages, bonus and mat-

ters connected therewith —was passed in the Rajya Sabhawith 85 members in favour and8 against. It was passed in theLok Sabha on July 30.

The Bill will subsume four

labour laws — MinimumWages Act, Payment of WagesAct, Payment of Bonus Act andEqual Remuneration Act. Afterits enactment, all these fourActs would be repealed.

Moving the bill for considera-tion and passage in the RajyaSabha, Gangwar said, “Everylabourer should have a respect-ful life. It is an historic bill.About 50 crore labourers willbenefit.”

While drafting the Bill, theMinister said the Governmenthas accepted 17 out of the 24recommendations made by theStanding Committee whichhad scrutinised the similar Billintroduced in the previous LokSabha. Replying to the discus-sion on the Bill, he said all suchworkers in the country willcome under the ambit of min-imum wages.

New Delhi: The Supreme Courton Friday stayed the NationalGreen Tribunal’s 2015 directionasking the Uttar PradeshGovernment to constitute ashrine board for three templesin the pilgrimage town ofGovardhan in Mathura district.

It also stayed anotherrecent order of the NGT ask-ing AK Awasthi, additionalchief secretary of the state, toappear before it for non-com-pliance of its 2015 order.

Additional SolicitorGeneral Pinky Anand, appear-ing for State Government, saidthe NGT’s direction needed tobe stayed. A Bench, comprisingJustices SA Nazeer and RSubhash Reddy, took note ofthe submissions of the UttarPradesh Government.

The apex court on July 29had agreed to hear theGovernment’s plea against theNGT’s July 23 order seekingpersonal appearance of the

senior official over delay inconstitution of a shrine boardfor the three temples atGovardhan. The tribunal onAugust 4, 2015 had issued direc-tions on several issues includingsetting up of the shrine board.

It had earlier directed thestate government to inform itabout the reasons for the delayin constitution of a shrineboard for three temples atGovardhan.

NGT had asked the

Additional Chief Secretary to filean affidavit and give details withrespect to the steps taken so farfor the constitution of a shrineboard for temples Jatipura,Dhanghati and Mansi Ganga.

The shrine board wouldsolve many problems like prop-er supervision and manage-ment of the temple, includinghygiene, and prevent pollutionof the environment, cleaning ofthe area, among others, it said.

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Vice-President M VenkaiahNaidu on Friday called for

‘Samvaad’ (Dialogue) in placeof ‘Vaad’ (Argument) and‘Vivaad’ (Controversy) to pro-mote unity and make the worlda better place to live. In hisopening remarks at ‘Samvaadwith Sadguru’, Naidu referredto the need for inner peace andtranquil minds to face variouschallenges that flow frommechanical lifestyle and workpressures that are making livesstressful.

“Societal interactionsmarked by anger and hatred donot bode well for progress. Weneed to liberate our mindsfrom such feelings so as to

overcome irritation and intol-erance. Spiritual leaders from allreligions shall reach out to thepeople helping them in such lib-eration of minds,” Naidu said.

Renowned Sadguru JaggiVasudev also addressed theeminent gathering which sawpresence of Lok Sabha SpeakerOm Birla, Deputy Chairman ofRajya Sabha Harivansh,Supreme Court Judges,Ministers, Members ofParliament, top officials of theGovernment of India and theParliament and other inviteesat Vice-President House.

On the occasion, Sadguruelaborated on the causes andconsequences of individualstress and the ways to manageit. “Stress and tension are self

inflicted as people fail to be atpeace with themselves by effec-tively managing their time andenergy. A person is a manifes-tation of his experiences. Even90 per cent of successful peo-ple are tension ridden. To claimto be stressed out has becomea fashion.”

Sadguru urged the peopleto promote ‘Inner Wellbeing’and to live in harmony with thesociety and the nature. Heexpressed concern over deplet-ing water levels in the riversand his campaigns ‘Rally forRivers’ and ‘Cauvery Calling’for water conservation.Vasudev stressed the need foragro-forestry to meet the grow-ing demand for timber andavoiding felling of trees.

New Delhi: In a landmarkjudgment, the Supreme Courton Friday held that judicialmagistrates “must be conced-ed” the power to direct a per-son to give voice sample toinvestigating agencies to effec-tively further probe in a case.

It used its plenary powerunder Article 142 of theConstitution to fill the void inthe Code of CriminalProcedure, which until now didnot force people, accused incriminal offences, to give voicesamples to probe agenciesagainst their wish.

The top court said until“explicit provisions” areengrafted in the CrPC byParliament, judicial magistrateswould be empowered to ordera person to give voice samplefor probe.

A three-judge Bench head-ed by Justice Ranjan Gogoidecided the issue after a two-judge Bench had given a splitverdict in December 2012 onthe subject and referred it to alarger Bench.

“In the light of the abovediscussions, we unhesitatinglytake the view that until explic-it provisions are engrafted inthe Code of CriminalProcedure by Parliament, ajudicial magistrate must beconceded the power to order aperson to give a sample of hisvoice for the purpose of inves-tigation of a crime,” the bench,comprising Justices DeepakGupta and Sanjiv Khanna, said.

“Such power has to be con-ferred on a magistrate by aprocess of judicial interpretationand in exercise of jurisdictionvested in this court underArticle 142 of the Constitutionof India,” the Bench said in its

23-page verdict.The Bench dealt with the

issues, including that whetherin the absence of any provisionin the CrPC, can a magistrateauthorise the investigatingagency to record the voicesample of the person accusedof an offence.

It noted that medicalexamination of an accused forthe purposes of effective inves-tigation of a criminal case hasreceived a wider meaning bythe amendments made in theCrPC in 2006.

It, however, said none ofthese amendments specificallyauthorised or empowered a mag-istrate to direct an accused or anyother person to give his or hervoice sample for the purposes ofan inquiry or investigation.

Referring to the 87threport of the Law Commissionof India of August 29, 1980, theBench observed it had said thata suitable legislation, in the

form of an amendment toSection 5 of the Identificationof Prisoners Act, would beappropriate to specificallyempower a judicial magistrateto compel an accused person togive his or her voice sample.

Section 5 of theIdentification of Prisoners Act,1920 empowers a magistrate todirect any person to allow hismeasurements or photographsto be taken for the purposes ofinvestigation or proceeding.

The apex court noted thatby insertion of section 311-A ofthe CrPC, a magistrate hasbeen empowered to order anyperson, including an accused,to give specimen signatures orhandwriting for the purposes ofinvestigation.

It said “what may appear tobe legislative inaction to fill inthe gaps in the statute could beon account of justified legisla-tive concern and exercise ofcare and caution.” PTI

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Union Home Ministry onFriday enhanced the

monthly honorarium of SpecialPolice Officers in Jammu &Kashmir as they will now get Rs6,000 to Rs 18,000, dependingon their services.

As per the Order issued bythe Home Ministry as many as10,821 Special Police Officers(SPOs), who have completed 15years of service, will get themonthly honorarium of Rs18,000, a hike of Rs 6,000.

Similarly, 5,132 SPOs, whohave completed 10 years of ser-

vice, will get Rs 15,000, a hike ofRs 6,000. A total of 4,436 SPOs,who have completed five yearsof service, will get Rs 12,000, ahike of Rs 3,000. As many as1,134 SPOs, who have complet-ed three years of service, will getRs 9,000, a hike of Rs 3,000.

On the other hand, 8,590SPOs, who have completedless than three years of service,will get Rs 6,000, the order said.

The Special Police Officers(SPOs) in Jammu and Kashmirassist the state police in variousfunctions, including that ofintelligence gathering, an offi-cial said.

��

The Lok Sabha on Fridaypassed a Bill which

removes the Congress presi-dent as a permanent memberof a trust that runs theJallianwala Bagh NationalMemorial amid walkout bythe Opposition party allegingthat the Government was try-ing to “re-write” the history.

Besides the Congress,TMC, DMK, NCP and BJDalso opposed the Bill and askedthe Government to let Congresspresident remain as perma-nent member of the trust.

The Jallianwala BaghNational Memorial (amend-ment) Bill states that it seeks to“delete” the mention of‘President of the IndianNational Congress’ as a trustee.

Seeking the passage of theBill, Culture Minister PrahladPatel said the Governmentwants to end politics involvedwith regard to the Trust. “It isour belief and principle that pol-itics should be removed fromthe national memorial hence theamendments were brought tothe 1951 Act,” he said.

Patel said no one canrewrite history and neither the

Modi Government is doingthat. It is only reviewing it andacknowledging those who havebeen forgotten. He addedmajority contribution foracquiring land for the memo-rial was given by commonman and it was also commonpeople who sacrificed theirlife there.

Taking on Congress, theMinister said in 1970 BabuJagjivan Ram was the presidentof Congress but then PrimeMinister Indira Gandhi was onthe board of trust. And it tookmore than 40 years for theCongress to replace JawaharlalNehru, Abdul Kalam Azad and Saifuddin Kitchlew

from the board of the trust in2006, he said.

The Bill was passed by avoice vote amid Congress walk-out. Earlier, amendmentsmoved by Opposition partieswere defeated by a division ofvotes. A division sought byOpposition members at thetime of consideration of the Billwas also defeated by 214 infavour and 30 against it.

Opposing the Bill,Congress member GurjeetAujla said the Governmentwants to re-write the history byremoving the Congress presi-dent from the trust. “You haveno contribution to the country’sfreedom struggle. Why do you

want to control the memorial,”he alleged.

Participating in the debate,Akali Dal member and UnionMinister Harsimrat Kaur Badalclaimed that a close relative ofPunjab Chief Minister CaptainAmarinder Singh had laudedthe role of General Dyer, whowas involved in the JallianwalaBagh massacre, describing it asa “correct” action. She said itwas members of the Congresswhich were involved in the1984 riots against Sikhs.

While BJD’s B Mahtabopposed the Bill saying it willbring no harm if the Congresspresident remains a member ofthe trust, DMK leader

Dayanidhi Maran said the BJPgot a huge majority in LokSabha and it should be mag-nanimous. TMC memberSaugata Roy asked theGovernment not to rewrite history.

The amendment Bill pavesthe way for the leader of thesingle largest Opposition partyin the Lok Sabha to be a mem-ber of the trust. As of now, onlyLeader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha is a memberof the trust.

The Amendment Bill con-fers power to the centralGovernment to terminate theterm of a nominated trusteebefore the expiry of the termwithout assigning any reason.

As of now, the trust whichmanages the memorial, has thePrime Minister as the chairper-son, President of Indian NationalCongress, Culture Minister,Leader of Opposition in the LokSabha, Punjab Governor, PunjabCM as its members.

The memorial was estab-lished in 1951 by the CentralGovernment to mark the mas-sacre of unarmed people onApril 13, 1919 by the BritishIndian Army under the com-mand of Col Reginald Dyer.

New Delhi: The SupremeCourt on Friday soughtresponse from the Centre on aplea seeking CBI or SIT probeinto complaints of “large-scale”and “well-organised” kidneytransplant scam involving largecorporate hospitals in variousStates.

A Bench of Justices SABobde and BR Gavai alsoissued notice to the UnionMinistries of Law and Justice,Health and Family Welfare,and Women and ChildDevelopment on the plea of a23-month-old disabled babywho has approached the courtthrough his mother Sapna Jain.

The minor boy is sufferingfrom West Syndrome whichhad rendered him physicallyand mentally disabled due to abrain injury at the time of hisbirth at a private hospital here.

The top court also soughtresponse from States, includingHaryana, Uttar Pradesh andDelhi, on the PIL which also

said that the probe be moni-tored by a committee com-prising one or more formerjudges or senior advocates.

The probe should alsoexamine the cause of risingtrend of commercialisationamong corporate hospitals andto make recommendations onthe ways to curb it.

The plea has also sought adirection to the Centre andthree States to undertake cam-paign for the underprivilegedpeople to create awarenessamong them regarding themenace of organ trade, and toacquaint them with their rightsand remedies in this regard.

The plea, which mentionedmedia reports of kidney traf-ficking, said a large number ofpoor and vulnerable citizenswere being frequently “coerced,forced and compelled” to selltheir kidneys, and the Centreand the states have not takenany preventive measures tostop this fraud. PTI

��

The Supreme Court onFriday directed the Centre

to take a decision by August 14on apex court collegium’s rec-ommendation to appointJustice AA Kureshi as the ChiefJustice of the Madhya PradeshHigh Court.

A Bench headed by ChiefJustice Ranjan Gogoi was toldby Solicitor General TusharMehta, appearing for theCentre, that the UnionGovernment be given 10 days more for taking thedecision as Parliament was stillin Session.

“Whatever decision youwant to take, take that andplace it before the court,” thebench said, adding that it can be put either on the judi-cial side or on the administra-tive side.

The Bench, also compris-ing justices Deepak Gupta andAniruddha Bose, was hearinga PIL filed by the Gujarat High

Court Advocates Association(GHCAA) seeking a directionto the Centre to act upon theMay 10 recommendation of thecollegium to appoint JusticeKureshi, who is currently theBombay High Court judge, asthe Chief Justice of the MadhyaPradesh High Court.

The Centre had earlier toldthe apex court that the issue ofappointment of Justice Kureshiwas “under consideration”.

During a previous hearing,counsel appearing for the Barbody said the Centre has “onlythe role of a ‘distinguishedcommunicator’ as per theMemorandum of Procedure(MoP) and the Department ofJustice is only to announce theappointment”.

The lawyers’ body hadalleged that the Centre clearedthe appointment of chief jus-tices of other high courts, therecommendation of which wasmade by the three-memberapex court collegium before thesummer vacation.

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Parliament on Friday passeda Bill to repeal 58 old

Central laws which theGovernment said has beendone to achieve maximumgovernance.

The Repealing andAmending Bill, 2019 waspassed by the Rajya Sabhathrough voice vote. It waspassed by the Lok Sabha onJuly 29.

Moving the Bill in theUpper House, Law MinisterRavi Shankar Prasad said afterthe BJP-led Government cameto power, it decided to get rid

of redundant and absolute laws.A committee has identified1824 old laws.

So far, 1,428 old and archa-ic central Acts have beenrepealed and about 75 laws —which the Centre drafted forStates in view of the PresidentRule — have also been repealedtill date, he said.

The current Bill aims torepeal 58 old central laws,which have become “irrele-vant”. This is being done toensure minimum legislationand maximum governance,Prasad said, adding repealing ofold laws is a continuousprocess.

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Jim Corbett wrote in the Man-Eatersof Kumaon, the “tiger is a large-heart-ed gentleman with boundless courageand that when he is exterminated —as exterminated he will be unless pub-

lic opinion rallies to his support — Indiawill be the poorer, having lost the finest ofher fauna.” Had the legendary hunter-turned conservationist and writer beenalive, he would have noted with relief thecontents of the latest estimation report onthe number of tigers, titled the Status ofTigers, Co-Predators, Prey and their Habitat,2018, released by Prime Minister NarendraModi on July 29, annually observed asGlobal Tiger Day. The report puts the num-ber at 2,967, which marks an increase of33 per cent over the figure of 2.226 in theestimated tiger count in 2014 and a phe-nomenal 210 per cent over the 2006 figureof 1,411.

The increase is gratifying because itcomes as a part of a continuing upwardtrend since 2006. Besides it represents oneof the few instances in which the Unionor a State Government’s efforts have suc-ceeded. It all started in 1970 when theUnion Government banned the hunting oftigers throughout the country. Two otherimportant developments followed in 1972.The country’s first tiger census put thenumber of the striped lords of the junglesat 1,827. More important, Parliamentpassed the Wildlife (Protection) Act,1972, for protecting animals, birds, reptilesand plants. It prohibited the capturing,killing, poisoning or trapping of wild ani-mals, the injuring, destroying and remov-ing any part of a wild animal’s body, alsoforbade disturbing or damaging of the eggsof wild birds and reptiles. It further pro-hibited the picking, uprooting, destruction,acquisition and collection of specifiedplants and trade in these. The Act also pro-vided for the creation of sanctuaries andnational parks where wildlife would be safeand for restriction of entry into these.More, it provided punishment for each cat-egory of crime.

The Act was an important step as theWild Birds and Animals Protection Act of1912 (eight of 12) and the various State lawsprevailing until then offered little protec-tion. It was, however, aimed at wildlife ingeneral and not specifically tigers. For thelatter, Project Tiger was launched on April1, 1973, with two objectives — identifica-tion of the causes of shrinking tiger habi-tats, adoption of remedial measures andrepair, to the extent possible, of the dam-age already done; and, second, the main-tenance of a viable tiger population.

The project’s distinguishing feature hasbeen the creation of sanctuaries, calledTiger Reserves, to protect tigers frompoaching and other threats. Against ninespread over 9,115 square kilometres at thebeginning, there are now 50 of theseencompassing an area of 74,749 square

kilometres. No human activi-ty is allowed in their coreareas, while limited access isgranted to the buffer zonesaround these. Strong action isbeing taken against poachingwith rangers and forest guardsbeing provided wireless com-munication systems, improvedweaponry and facilities forrapid movement.

Funded by the UnionGovernment, administered bythe Union Ministry ofEnvironment, Forests andClimate Change (MOEFCC),and functioning under thedirect supervision of theNational Tiger ConservationAuthority (NTCA), set upunder the provisions of theWild Life (Protection)Amendment Act, 2006, ProjectTiger has made the mostimportant contribution toincreasing the number of tigers.One, however, has also to takeinto account the efforts madeto protect wildlife from crimesagainst it, which has helped sig-nificantly, particularly sincepoaching to meet the demandabroad for tiger body parts fortheir allegedly medical andaphrodisiacal value, has been acontributory factor in thedecline in numbers. In thiscontext, one needs to recognise

the critical role played by theWildlife Crime Control Bureau(WCCB) set up in 2006 underthe same amendment act thatestablished the NTCA.

A statutory multi-discipli-nary body under the MOEFC,to combat organised wildlifecrime in the country, it collectsand collates intelligence per-taining to organised wildlifecrime and disseminates thesame among State and otherenforcement agencies forimmediate action. Its func-tions also include the establish-ment of a centralised wildlifecrime data bank, co-ordinationof actions by various agenciesin enforcing the Act’s provi-sions and assistance to foreignauthorities and internationalorganisations to facilitate glob-al action against wildlife crime.Among other things, it alsohelps to improve the capacityof agencies combating wildlifecrime to conduct scientific andprofessional investigations andassists State Governments tosuccessfully conduct prosecu-tion for the same.

A proud feather in its caphas been the United NationEnvironment Progamme’s con-ferring on it in November lastyear of an Asia EnvironmentEnforcement Award in the

Innovation category for suc-cessfully innovating enforce-ment techniques that have dra-matically improved actionagainst trans-boundary envi-ronmental crimes in India.Earlier, in 2010, it had receivedthe prestigious Clark R BavinWildlife Law EnforcementAward for outstanding work onwildlife law enforcement. Notsurprisingly, its actions, alongwith those of other enforce-ment agencies, have resulted inthe arrest of 350 wildlife crim-inals and huge seizures oftiger/leopard skins, rhinohorns, elephant ivory,turtles/tortoises, raw mongoosehair, mongoose hair brushes,protected birds, marine prod-ucts, live pangolins, deer antlersand so on across the States.

There is, however, hardlyany scope for complacence.Human-tiger conflicts arebecoming more frequent asthe increase in the number oftigers continues along withgrowing human encroachmentsinto their habitats in the formof new settlements, more exten-sive farming, infrastructure,and environmentally-disastrousindustrial projects benefittingblue-eyed entrepreneurs. Inthis context, there is an urgentneed to implement the NTCA’s

suggestion for developing anational level strategy for man-agement of human-tiger inter-face and dispersing tigers incompliance to its standardoperating procedure, ensuringactive collaboration betweendistrict administrations, policeand forest department person-nel, and, when required, formob management to ensuresafe capture or movement ofanimals.

All this, however, will nothelp if State Governments clearprojects threatening the tiger’ssurvival. Two examples comeimmediately to the mind.Maharashtra sanctioned lastyear the diversion of 467.5hectares of forest land inYavatmal district for a cementplant. Also, its recommenda-tion has led to the clearance, inprinciple, of 87.98 hectares ofland in Kondhali andKalmeshwar ranges — barely160 km from Yavatmal — to anexplosives company inChakdoh for manufacturingdefence products.

Unfortunately, tigers donot vote. Nor do they con-tribute to the funds of politicalparties.

(The writer is ConsultantEditor, The Pioneer, and anauthor)#��(

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Sir — It is amusing that onlythree days after some 50 eminentcitizens came together to writean open letter to the PrimeMinister, requesting actionagainst “Jai Shri Ram” beingused as a war-cry and theincrease in religion-fuelled hate-crime such as lynching, anoth-er group of 62 celebritiesresponded to it in defence of theGovernment’s silence. Is theGovernment not accountable tothe citizens anymore? After all,supporters of the Prime Ministerseem to have taken up the taskof answering for him.

The 62 celebrities have writ-ten an open letter against the“selective outrage and false nar-ratives” and accused the writersof the first open letter of not hav-ing condemned separatist slo-gans that were allegedly raisedon university campuses. TheChairperson of the CentralBoard of Film CertificationPrasoon Joshi stated that hedoes not support anything thatdegrades human live.

Why, then, do he and theothers not criticise hate crimesvocally? Is this the “change for

the better” that the respondentsclaim is happening? Who knewthat in the land of MahatmaGandhi, speaking the truthwould become an act of defam-ing the nation?

Bidyut Kumar ChatterjeeFaridabad

��

Sir — This refers to the editor-ial, “Divorced Opposition”(August 1). The allegation by theOpposition/certain Islamicorganisations that the triple

talaq Act is a brazen violation ofthe rights guaranteed by theConstitution to religious minori-ties is overtly misleading.

The Constitution is supreme.Religious outfits cannot trun-cate or modify the basic rights oftheir members conferred in the

Constitution and the electedGovernment is bound to exerciseits invulnerable dominanceagainst any such acts to protectthe genuine interests of the peo-ple. Significantly, this anachronis-tic system is already debarred bymany of Islamic nations, includ-ing Pakistan. Similarly, our apexcourt, too, has declared tripletalaq as unlawful. It’s time for usto shun this practice.

TKM KummbalamchuvattilMuvattupuzha

��

Sir — Now that all cases relatedto Unnao rape have been shift-ed to Delhi, it is clear that theGovernment and the law-enforc-ing authorities have failed mis-erably to render justice to thevictim though two years elapsedafter the crime. The case criesout for an early disposal. Rapecases must be dealt within afixed time-frame with early con-viction. Rape should be made anon-bailable offence.

Sravana RamachandranChennai

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recentelectoral victory can be clearly attrib-uted to two essential arguments that hewas able to sell successfully, no matterhow cosmetic the value. First, that the

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was a party with adifference when it came to matters of honesty andintegrity. Second, it was not a family concern andhad no place for dynasts. Without any doubt, theCongress and some other Opposition parties arefacing an existential crisis, having been voted outof power earlier for corruption and now becausethe voter has made its distaste for family-run con-cerns pretty obvious, especially given the ratherunderwhelming performances of some of thesevery “families.”

Unfortunately, if we go beyond the superfi-cial, the reality on both counts is quite different.As the Report by the Association for DemocraticReforms makes it quite clear, as per their owndeclarations, the average assets of those in theUnion Council of Ministers is �14.72 crore, while22 (39 per cent) of them have declared criminalcases against them, of which 16 Ministers haveserious criminal cases pending. As a matter offact, of its 301 members in the Lok Sabha, 116have declared criminal cases pending, just mar-ginally better than that of other parties and cer-tainly no indication of either honesty or integri-ty.

Moreover, despite its claims to the contrary,the BJP is really no different from the family con-cerns that it so disparages. It, too, is run by anextremely small and close-knit “family”, albeit not related by blood, in which other leaders are treated more asbystanders or retainers.

While Modi’s performance in his first termmay be open to debate, what the current victo-ry has done is to highlight the fact that he canno longer get away by foisting the blame for theprevailing difficult security, social, economic orlaw and order issues on his predecessors, some-thing he had turned into a fine art then. Andimmensely challenging task is at hand for theGovernment with the economy being in the dol-drums, foreign investors jumping the ship, thesecurity environment far from being conduciveand the country’s foreign policy has just beenupended by the actions of US President DonaldJ Trump. These problems, however, pale in com-parison to the fact that the BJP’s credibility restssolely on the popularity that Modi enjoys andwithout him, it is likely to flounder very quick-ly.

Interestingly, his popularity depends signif-icantly on the larger-than-life image he has beenable to generate as a leader, who is not only seenas strong, bold, pragmatic and decisive but alsoa very capable administrator, who is forwardthinking and empathetic. While much of this isa carefully tailored media creation, the latest beinghis participation in a survival-based reality show,similar to what Russian President Vladimir Putinputs on, his inability to fully live up to the imagehe projects is quite evident.

Take foreign policy for instance. No PrimeMinister, other than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, hasdevoted as much time and effort to foreign pol-icy as Modi has done. He has been travellingmuch of the world to raise India’s stature with-

in the international community. Yet, inour own neighbourhood, inAfghanistan, where the Taliban is on theascendancy, Modi’s influence is asgood as non-existent and we find our-selves discarded by the wayside.

For us, Afghanistan’s importance isin the access it provides to the CentralAsian Republics through the Iranianport of Chabahar. By succumbing toAmerican pressure over sanctionsagainst Iran, we have dealt a mortalblow to our Chabahar initiative andhope of access to those Republics.Similarly, the re-emergence of the US-Pakistan relationship from the shadowshas once again derailed our efforts toisolate Pakistan internationally, a keystrategy in Modi’s Kashmir policy.

Clearly, tilting towards the US hasnot been without adverse consequences,and despite all the rhetoric and postur-ing, in his dealings with both the USand China (remember the WuhanSummit?), Modi has emerged as a weakand pliable leader, unable to stand upfor what is obviously in our nationalinterest.

There is a similar disconnect withregard to our internal security issues aswell as our military capabilities.Regardless of whether the Balakotepisode should be seen as the “new nor-mal” or not, our Kashmir policy has notmade much headway, especially giventhe increase in popular discontent

within the Valley. While levels of vio-lence have been contained, for the pre-sent, the Central Government hasmade little effort to push for an equi-table political solution that can helpnegate insurgency. Of course, one maywell be proved wrong with the recentinduction of a hundred companies ofthe Central Armed Police Forces(CRPF), ostensibly to strengthen thecounter-insurgency grid. This seemsodd given that there are more than ade-quate troops already available in thesector. This action may well herald aserious effort to break the politicaldeadlock. We will have to wait and seeas to the manner in which the situationdevelops in the coming days andmonths.

In this context, it is also worthrepeating that while much is made ofcross-border terrorism, even at theworst of times, foreign militants haveplayed only a marginal role in the ongo-ing insurgency. While we must stay alertto avoid a Kargil repeat, we have tofocus inwards. In addition, while theissue of funding of separatists byPakistan receives enormous mediaattention, we refuse to acknowledge thebigger problem of domestic financing.Surely our intelligence agencies and thesecurity establishment are quite awarethat the militant groups corner a per-centage of all Government contractsand developmental funds in Jammu &

Kashmir. This is what makes the busi-ness of insurgency tick and what theGovernment needs to tackle.

Finally, where this divergencebetween fact and fiction is most notableis in the Prime Minister’s dealings withthe military. In these past five years, hehas made much of the military publicly,even constructing the long demandedNational War Memorial in quick time.Undoubtedly, as it is generally accept-ed, his electoral victories also owe muchto the “surgical strikes” undertaken bythe military. While scarce budgetarysupport for defence is understandable,given our difficult economic situation,what is utterly incomprehensible is thefact that the Government spares noeffort to demean, degrade and demor-alise our forces.

Examples abound and are wellknown to bear repetition, with the lat-est example being the manner in whicha modified form of One Rank, OnePension (OROP), given by this veryGovernment with much fanfare, is inthe process of being gutted. The prob-lem for the Prime Minister is that hecan’t be all things to all people. Moreimportantly, we the people deserve toknow what exactly he stands for? So,will the real Modi please stand up?

(The writer, a military veteran, is aconsultant with the Observer ResearchFoundation and a Visiting Senior Fellowwith The Peninsula Foundation, Chennai)

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In 1995, I came across a book writ-ten by a Pakistani political activistin 1985, after he was released

from solitary confinement where hehad been mercilessly tortured by thepolice. As a young activist, the authorhad participated in various protestsagainst the reactionary Gen Zia dic-tatorship (1977-88). In the early 1980s,accused of being a member of a “ter-rorist communist outfit” and an“Indian agent”, he was thrown in jailand constantly tortured in the variousprisons of interior Sindh. Finally, in1985, he was allowed medical treat-ment in Karachi.

He was not a member of any com-munist outfit, nor was he a memberof Zia’s most active opponent, thePakistan Peoples Party (PPP). He was-

n’t a Sindhi, Baloch or Pakhtunnationalist either. He belonged to theJamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) — one ofthe few Right-wing parties that wereagainst the Zia regime.

In 1984, when the Zia dictatorshipbanned student unions, various Left-wing student groups and the studentwing of the Right-wing Jamaat-i-Islami, the Islami Jamiat Tulaba (IJT),set aside their ideological differencesto protest together against the ban. Atleast for a month or two, the dictator-ship was put under tremendous pres-sure, until the IJT decided to sudden-ly exit the protest.

During the same period, journal-ists and their unions often cooperat-ed to protest against what were called“Zia’s black laws” against Press free-doms. A detailed study by Philip EJones of the 1968 movement againstthe Ayub regime saw similar left-rightalliances taking shape. The late schol-ar, Khalid bin Sayeed’s study of the1977 movement against the authori-tarian Z A Bhutto regime also speaksof the left and right journalist groupscoming together. This happened againduring the movement against the

Musharraf dictatorship in 2007.There is nothing unique about

this. Large protest movements have atendency of bringing together distinctideological groups to address sharedconcerns. Consider the present sce-nario in the context of the kind ofharassment and censorship the coun-try’s media has been facing these days.If, for example, one media groupcomes under attack by the powers thatbe, its peers are likely to either remainquiet or even celebrate!

How did this happen? Whenevera profession, an institution or an indi-vidual faces a crisis, the instinctivething to do is to point out the exter-nal forces responsible for triggering thecrisis. And on most occasions, theexternal forces are the triggers.

Pakistan has had a long history inwhich certain state institutions,Governments and political partieshave bullied, harassed, terrorised andcensored the media. However, if todaywe begin to again point out these exter-nal forces, we won’t be saying anythingnew. We won’t be saying anything thathasn’t already been said for over 40years. It is being lamented again. But

during a crisis, it is equally importantfor one to look for triggers within.

Internal reasons that might becontributing to the crisis often getignored when all the effort is beinginvested in pointing out external trig-gers. Looking for internal triggers isimportant because, I believe, the cri-sis faced by the media today may beslightly different than before.

To begin with, there is a battlegoing on within the media betweenobjective journalism and subjectivejournalism. The former is based onfacts that are thoroughly investigated,checked and cross-checked. Theiragenda is simply to provide informa-tion without any obvious bias towardsa particular political party or individ-ual, a state institution, a religion, a sect,an ethnicity, etc.

We can all agree that absoluteobjectivity is impossible, but at least theintent to be objective (in the media)was once there. That’s why, for exam-ple, newspapers used to have whatwere called “gatekeepers.” Their jobwas to safeguard the intent of remain-ing objective and factual.

But from the 1990s onwards,

across the world, we saw a concentrat-ed attack on the whole idea of objec-tivity. Vulgar post-modernism derid-ed objectivity as being an intellectu-ally elitist tool to repress popular opin-ion. The gatekeepers were brushedaside and a new subjective idea of jour-nalism started to take root. All of a sud-den, anybody could say just about any-thing.

That’s why what is being said —especially on TV news channels — ismostly opinion. But opinions are notnecessarily facts. As a US Senator oncecorrectly pointed out: “Everyone isentitled to their opinion, but not totheir facts.” The whole Fox Newsmodel turned this on its head.Opinions were presented as facts andanyone with a theory or a rant was wel-come to appear on TV. This model wasa huge commercial success. Those,who thought they knew better than thesnooty experts and intellectuals, lappedit all up.

Conspiracy theories, distortions ofhistorical and contemporary factsand the demonisation of imaginedenemies, all became acceptable con-tent. News journalism crossed into

show-business and reaped the ratings.After the success of Fox News, almostall private news channels, whichmushroomed across the world, includ-ing Pakistan, adopted the same model.

The nature of the media as a busi-ness changed. The intent of remain-ing objective was now bad for business.When news media, show business andpopular opinion came together, theresult was a new form of entertainment+ a kind of “newstainment” that blursthe line between fact and fantasy, truthand lie. It became okay to come on TVor print in a newspaper or a website“facts” such as: 9/11 was an inside job;that ancient Hindus were flyingaround in spaceships thousands ofyears ago; that one can derive energyfrom jinns: That Malala’s shooting wasstaged: That there were billions uponbillions of dollars stashed by Pakistanipoliticians in foreign banks: That heor she was corrupt or a traitor, or aninfidel or a racist, a sexist, immoral, fas-cist, liberal fascist, et al.

All this is now okay to say andwrite as long as it is generating ratings,circulation, likes and retweets. Allforms of media have become platforms

for all kind of opinions. But opinionsdressed as “facts.” Ironically, the attackon the idea of objectivity was encour-aged by the media. But if objectivityas an intent once bothered externalforces, adopting subjectivity canbecome a self-destructive act.

Subjective journalism does notbother about objective things such asevidence. But this opens it up tocounter-accusations that also do notbother with things such as proof. That’swhy the nature of censoring today’smedia has become a lot more brazenthan before. It’s all subjective now, all“relative.” One man’s ban (on a mediagroup) is another man’s act of patrio-tism, and another media group’s tri-umph. Typical post-modernist hog-wash. The few media outlets that arestill holding on to the intent of objec-tive journalism have become victimsof not only external forces threatenedby their objectivity, but also by themess created by their more subjectivepeers within the media industry.Therefore, this time the battle formedia freedom is and will be a lotmore complex and messier.

(Courtesy: The Dawn)

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Nagpur: The RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh (RSS) onFriday welcomed the SupremeCourt’s decision to hold day-to-day hearing of Ayodhya dis-pute, expressing hope that legalobstacles in the way of con-struction of Ram temple will beremoved soon.

The apex court, earlier inthe day, ordered day-to-dayhearing from August 6 of thepolitically sensitive RamJanmabhoomi-Babri Masjidland dispute case, noting thatmediation efforts have failed.

“We were hoping thatmediation would be successful

in removing the obstacles in theconstruction of RamJanmabhoomi temple but it didnot work out,” a tweet on theRSS’s official handle quoted itsgeneral secretary BhaiyyajiJoshi as saying.

“We welcome the SupremeCourt’s decision to hold day to day hearing from August 6.We are hopeful that the long- pending dispute will be resolved within a definitetimeframe and legal hurdles in temple construction will be removed and constructionof a grand temple will start,” it said. PTI

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Close on the heels of launch-ing a helpline and a portal

where the electorate will reg-ister their woes and seek theChief Minister’s intervention,Mamata Banerjee on Fridayunveiled yet another websitewhere the people would enlistreasons showing why they feelproud of Didi.

The new twitter page iscalled Amar Garbo Mamata(Mamata my Pride). The hash-tag would enable people to listpoints showing reasons whythey love the Chief Ministerand feel proud of her.

A senior TrinamoolCongress leader said the pagewill help people to share theirexperiences on why they feel

proud of Mamata Banerjee. “They may even share

their personal encounters withher if any, they may sharetheir personal opinion aboutvarious steps she has taken todevelop Bengal to what it istoday, they may even makeconstructive criticism if theywant,” a Minister said, adding“the entire TrinamoolCongress is proud of our Didi.Now it is time for the people to

share their experiences aboutwhy they feel proud about herand have been voting for herfor such a long time.”

Apparently acting uponan advice of the election strate-gist Prashant Kishor the ChiefMinister had earlier floatedanother portal called “Didi kiBolo.com” where the peoplecan register their grievancesagainst any person whichBanerjee promised to take careof at the earliest.

Apart from this a telephonenumber was also provided sothat the people can directly callher up to register their griev-ances. “We have been receivingoverwhelming response fromthe people as men and womenfrom all walks of life, of all ageand everywhere have been call-

ing us at Nabanna (State secre-tariat),” the Minister said adding“their problems are being solvedfrom the highest level.”

The TMC has reportedlystruck a deal with Kishor tosalvage the party’s image afterthe colossal loss it suffered atthe hands of the BJP in therecently concluded parlia-mentary elections. After aseries of meetings the profes-sional strategist has offered ahost of do’s and don’ts to theparty and the social media out-reach is one of them.

Apart from this Banerjeehas asked the party leaders toreach out to the villages andmeet the people and if possiblespend nights in their houseslearning about their problems,redressing them and assuaging

their grievances. “In the next100 days about a thousandparty leaders and workers willreach out to 10,000 villages inthe State,” Banerjee had said.

Giving sharp reactions tothe Chief Minister’s latest movea senior CPI(M) leader andcentral committee membersaid, “this (website) will helpBJP supporters to share manymemories of why they feelproud of Didi: firstly they willbe proud of didi because shedemolished Left movement tolet Lotus bloom in Bengal, sec-ondly she gagged the poorman’s voice in Parliament bykilling the Left … they will alsobe proud of the skills that someformer Chief Ministers ofBihar, Tamil Nadu andKarnataka lacked.”

Guwahati: The AssamGovernment has claimed thatthe percentage of people exclud-ed from the draft NationalRegister of Citizens was lower indistricts bordering Bangladeshhaving a sizeable Muslim pop-ulation than those whereHindus were in majority.

The Government placed alist in the State Assembly onThursday which contained dis-trict-wise figures of people leftout of the hugely contentiousNRC, which is being updatedunder the supervision of theSupreme Court.

The development camedespite an apex court directiveto the state coordinator ofNRC to submit before it thedetails in a sealed cover as thematter was “a human problemwith great magnitude”.

PTI had erroneouslyreported on Thursday that thepercentage of people excludedfrom the draft NRC was high-er in disricts along the Indo-Bangladesh border.

Assam AccordImplementation andParliamentary Affairs MinisterChandra Mohan Patowary laidthe district-wise list of inclusion,rejection and non-inclusion ofapplicants’ names in the NRC.

The list showed the totalnumber of applicants was

3,29,91,385 out of which40,07,717 names, which is 12.15per cent, were not included.

According to the list, thepercentage of non-inclusion ofnames in districts borderingBangladesh like South Salmarawas 7.22, Dhubri 8.26 andKarimganj 7.67.

Non-border districts Hojaiand Darrang have the highestnon-inclusion rate at 32.99 per cent and 30.90 per centrespectively.

“It is a matter of concernthat the percentage of namesexcluded from the draft NRC islower in the Bangladesh borderdistricts compared to the rest ofthe state,” Patowary said.

The NRC coordinator cameunder fire from ruling BJPmembers who expressed doubtwhether a correct NRC will

ever be published.They claimed that the rate

of exclusion of NRC applicantsin the districts borderingBangladesh was less than thestate average — 12.15 per cent.

This is a proof that a sectionof people residing in border dis-tricts of Assam has wrongly beenincluded in the NRC, they said,slamming the coordinator.

They alleged there was grossmisuse of the legacy data in var-ious districts, particularly inthose bordering Bangladesh.

“Due to this misuse, com-paratively fewer people wereleft out of the draft NRC in thosedistricts”, the minister said. BJPMLAs Debanana Hazarika,Shiladitya Deb and NumalMomin and AIUDF memberNurul Amin raised the issueduring the Zero Hour. PTI

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Aizawl: The Mizoram Policehave arrested 1098 non-tribalsfrom the northern part of thestate for living in the State with-out valid inner line permit(ILP)and have pushed back 92 ofthem to Assam, senior policeofficial said on Friday.

Deputy Inspector Generalof Police (Northern Range)Lalbiakthanga Khiangte saidthat the arrests were madesince Thursday and the pushback to Assam took place onFriday.,

He said that 81 people

arrested by Bairabi police and11 by Vairengte police inKolasib district on theMizoram- Assam border werepushed back.

The rest would be produced before the respectivedistrict courts, Khiangte said.

He said that 865 peoplewere arrested in Aizawl district, 111 in Kolasib district,52 in Mamit district on theborder with Tripura, 43 in central Mizoram’s Serchhipdistrict and 27 in Champhaidistrict. PTI

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Students from outside TamilNadu desirous of taking up

engineering studies in the Stateshould think many times overabout their decision if the2019 admission to engineeringcolleges are any indication.

Though there are 1,67,652seats in Tamil Nadu’s engi-neering colleges (Governmentcolleges, Government aidedcolleges and private engineer-ing colleges put together),there were only 83,396 takersfor the total seats leaving near-ly 90,000 seats (89,544 to beexactly) go abegging.

This is a major setback forthe State which claims itself asthe educational hub of thecountry. Fate of many engi-neering colleges hang in thebalance as 34 out of the 479self-financing engineering col-leges which took part in thecounselling for the Tamil NaduEngineering Admission 2019failed to get even one student.Only 22 per cent of the seats inthe self financing colleges havebeen filled up leaving the man-agements in the lurch.

But elite institutions likeCollege of Engineering,Guindy, Indian Institute ifHandloom Technology, Salem,had their seats filled withindays of the counselling sessionthat has send mixed signals

about the quality of engineer-ing education imparted in theState’s engineering colleges.

“The self financing engi-neering colleges have failed tochange ahead with the times.In addition to this, there hasbeen a stagnation in thedemand for engineering grad-uates over the years. Both par-ents and students have failed totake note of the situation,”said M Ananthakrishnan ,former chairman, IIT Kanpurand former Vice Chancellor,Anna University. Though hedid not tell it openly, ProfAnanthakrishnan, a widelyrespected educationistexpressed his unhappiness overthe quality of educationimparted in these colleges.

Prof S P Thyagarajan, for-mer vice-chancellor of MadrasUniversity and Professor ofEminence and Dean(Research), Sri RamachandraUniversity , pointed out that theproliferation of engineeringcolleges and the absence of a

mechanism to monitor theannual performance of thesecolleges have led to the deteri-oration of their standards.“Equally important is the factthat there has been a dynamicchange in skill set required bythe industry from engineeringgraduates. The industries havechanged to modern methods ofproduction while the most ofthe colleges gave failed inupdating the curriculum tosuit the changed environ-ment,” said Prof Thyagarajan.

He also pointed out thatstudents from Tamil Nadukeep abreast of the quality andstandard of the engineeringcolleges where they seek to getseats. “The new age industriesin the country prefer scienceand commerce graduates, offerthem training in the kind ofskill expected from them andappoint them at lower salaryscales for the work previouslydone by the engineering grad-uates at higher wages,” said ProfThyagarajan.

Most of these self financ-ing colleges release glossyadvertisement campaigns in the newspapers and TVchannels in the State whichwould ensure that no negativereports about their institu-tions make it to the publicdomain. Complaints are galoreabout the absence of facultiesand laboratory facilities inthese colleges.

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Large number of Amarnathbound pilgrims, stranded

in Jammu due to inclementweather conditions along theyatra route, on Friday claimedthey were not deterred by theterror threats. “We have fullfaith in Lord Shiva and jawansof our security forces. we willperform yatra and returnhome safely”.

Reacting to the StateHome department advisoryfor tourists and Amarnath pilgrims, a group of pilgrims from MadhyaPradesh, camping in a basecamp in Jammu said, “IfGovernment will allow themto undertake Amarnath yatrathey will happily join thesecurity convoy to reach basecamps in Baltal andPahalgam”.

Another group of pilgrims,who were waiting for their turnhave decided to return homefrom Jammu in the wake offresh security advisory. “Wehave decided to return home.We are a group of 8 people andafter the news was flashed onTV news channels we arereceiving calls from our lovedones to avoid visitingAmarnath cave shrine. Wehave cancelled our yatra andlooking for tickets to returnhome”, leader of the pilgrimgroup said.

Meanwhile, on groundzero, the State Government

directed the organisers of thecommunity kitchens, to windup their food stalls and refresh-ment points, set up for pilgrimsalong the yatra route.

A senior StateGovernment official campingin Nunwan base camp inPahalagam told The Pioneer,over telephone, “the commu-nity kitchens have been told topack up with immediate effect”.He also confirmed the reportsthat large number of tents,pitched for accommodatingpilgrims, have been uprootedfollowing suspension of yatratill August 4.

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Srinagar: The NationalConference and the PeoplesDemocratic Party reactedstrongly to the security advi-sory on Friday askingAmarnath pilgrims andtourists to leave Kashmir assoon as possible.

National Conferenceleader Omar Abdullah said thedirective would do nothing todampen the sense of fear thatis prevailing in the Valley.

“Although this unprece-dented order would seem tosuggest a genuine fear of amassive terror strike directed

at Amarnath ji yatris or/andtourists this will do nothing todampen the sense of fear &foreboding that prevails inthe valley at the moment,”Abdullah said in a series oftweets.

The comments come after the Jammu & Kashmiradminstration asked Amarnathpilgrims and tourists to imme-diately cut short their stay inthe Valley and return as soonas possible in the wake ofintelligence inputs of “specificterror threats” to the pilgrim-age. PTI

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Mumbai: The NIA has moveda special court seeking in-cam-era trial of the 2008 Malegaonblast case claiming that “unwar-ranted publicity” to the pro-ceedings can damage “com-munal harmony”.

The National InvestigationAgency (NIA) filed an applica-

tion before special court judge,V S Padalkar here on Thursday.

In the plea, the agency hassubmitted that the allegationsagainst the accused are thatthey committed the offence totake revenge against “MuslimJihadi activities” and “to createa rift between two communities”.

According to the NIA, Malegaonwas chosen for the bomb blastas it is a Muslim-dominatedarea. “It is necessary to conductthe trial of this case in-cameraunder the provision of the NIAAct and the UAPA [UnlawfulActivities (Prevention) Act],”the agency added. PTI

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Within hours after the newMuslim Women

(Protection of Rights onMarriage) legislation wasenacted on Thursday, the policelate in the night registered thetriple talaq case against aMuslim husband and two of hisfamily members at the minor-ity community-dominatedmini township of Mumbra inthe adjoining Thane district ofMaharashtra.

Acting on a complaintlodged by victim woman JannatBegum Patel (31), the Mumbrapolice booked her husbandImtiyaz Ghulam Patel (35),mother-in-law Heena GhulamHussain Patel and sister-in-lawSultana Ghulam Hussain Patelunder section 498 A (husbandor relative of a woman sub-jecting her to cruelty) and 406(criminal breach of trust) readwith section 34 (commonintent) of Indian Penal Codeand section 4 of the MuslimWomen (Protection of Rightson Marriage) Act, 2019.

Confirming that the newlyenacted triple talaq law hadbeen invoked in registering acase against Imtiyaz Patel andtwo of his family members,senior police inspectorMadhukar Kad of the Mumbrapolice station told “ThePioneer” on Friday: “Yes. Lastnight, we booked the com-plainant’s husband and two ofhis family members under sec-tion 4 of the new triple law andother relevant sections of IPC”.

However, the police havenot arrested the victim woman’shusband Imtiyaz Patel or twoof his family members in con-nection. “We have not arrest-ed any one at this juncture. Wewill do whatever is necessaryduring the course of investiga-tions,” Kad said.

Incidentally, the Mumbrapolice registered a case againsthusband Imityaz Patel underthe triple law at 9.32 pm onThursday, hours after President

Ram Nath Kovind gave hisassent to the Muslim Women(Protection of Rights onMarriage) Bill, which had been

passed by both the Houses ofParliament earlier in the week.After the President’s assent,the bill became a law.

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Mathura: A police station herehas booked a man for pro-nouncing triple talaq on hiswife, probably the first suchcase since the enactment of thelaw punishing the practice.

The Muslim Women(Protection of Rights onMarriage) Bill prescribing up tothree years imprisonment formen giving instant triple talaqto their wives and was passedby Parliament on Tuesday.

President Ram NathKovind gave assent to the tripletalaq Bill on Thursday.

Ikram, a resident ofHaryana’s Nuh district hadmarried Jumirat about twoyears ago and was demanding

�1 lakh as dowry from his in-laws who live in Krishna Nagarlocality in Kosi Kalan townhere.

The victim had returned toher maternal home followingharassment and had lodged acomplaint with the local police.The couple was then called atthe ‘mahila thana’ (all-womenpolice station) in the district forreconciliation, sub inspectorRuchi Tyagi said.

Both had reached a com-promise after several coun-selling sessions.

On July 30, they werecalled again by the police andtheir relation appeared cordial,she added. PTI

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Stepping up their campaignagainst the Electronic

Voting Machines (EVMs), theOpposition parties inMaharashtra announced onFriday that they would take outan all-party morcha in Mumbaion August 21, to protest againstthe genuineness of the EVMs and demand the use ofballot papers in the StateAssembly polls to be held inOctober this year.

Addressing a joint newsconference here, the leaders ofthe Congress, NCP, MNS,Peasants and Workers’ Party(PWP), CPI, SwabhimaniShetkari Sanghatana, JanataDal (U) and some prominentindividuals said that as part oftheir “EVM-VVPAT hatao”campaign, they would submita memorandum to the StateElection Commission on

August 21.They said that all parties

would create awareness aboutthe adverse impact of faulty anddefective EVMs by undertak-ing door-to-door campaignsacross the state. “Our volun-teers will visit people at theirhomes and get questionnairesfilled by them. Once we get allthe questionnaires back frompeople, we will submit thesame to the ElectionCommission,” MNS chief RajThackeray said.

Demanding the use of bal-lot papers in the Assemblyelections, NCP’s former deputyChief Mister Ajit Pawar said:

“We want the elections tobe held with ballot papers. We

are appealing to people to sup-port us in our campaign. Theelections should be held in atransparent manner. The peo-ple should known whom theyvoted.

“Our agitation is extreme-ly important from the point ofview of democracy. Theresponsibility about removingmisunderstanding about EVMsand VVPATs lies with theElection Commission and theGovernment,” State CongressPresident Balasaheb Thoratsaid.

Swabhiman ShetkariSanghatana President RajuShetti said that a return to bal-lot paper was imperative forbringing ‘total transparency’ inthe electoral process.”We appealto all village panchayats topass a resolution on Aug. 15 forbanning EVMs and reintro-duce the ballot paper system,”Shetti said.

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As part of the upcomingMumbai Metro-III pro-

ject, the work of boring the first3.82 km-long tunnel passingunderneath some of the mostthickly populated areas of southMumbai has been completed.

Making an announcementto this effect, a spokesperson ofM/s Hindustan ConstructionCo. Ltd (HCC) said here onFriday that it had accomplished“a challenging task” of con-structing south-bound tunnelbetween Chhatrapati ShivajiMaharaj Terminus (CSMT)-Mumbai Central stations,becoming the first among allcontractors to complete theentire length of a tunnel for theMetro III.

“We maintained an averagedrilling rate of around 8.20

metres per day for the 3.82 kmslong tunnel passing via stationboxes of Kalbadevi, Girgaonand Grant Road,” thespokesperson said.

The 3.82 km tunnel sectionis part of the 33.50 kms longMetro III line connectingC o l a b a - B a n d r a - S E E P Z(Andheri east) and will be thefirst fully underground metroin the city being built at a costof around �23,136 crore, with�13,325 crore loan from JapanInternational Cooperation

Agency (JICA).According to the

spokesperson, the HCC teamsencountered several geologicaland urban conditions includingproximity to the Arabian Sea,tunneling through heteroge-neous reclaimed land, con-gested working areas anddrilling below some of the old-est residential and other build-ings, many over a century old,without disturbing their foun-dations.

The Mumbai Metro RailCorporation Ltd. (MMRCL)had awarded the contract toHCC in July 2016 for thedesign and construction ofTwin Tunnels by Tunnel BoringMachines (TBMs) and con-struction of four undergroundmetro stations at CSMT,Kalbadevi, Girgaon and GrantRoad.

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Gorakhpur (UP): Villagerslocked up stray cattle inside thebuilding of a primary school inneighbouring Sant Kabir Nagardistrict, forcing the suspensionof the class work on Friday.

The villagers of theBakhira area herded the straycattle in Dasdih primaryschool in Belharkala block,alleging they were destroyingtheir crops.

They also kept a watch onthe gates to see that the cattleis not freed by anyone.

Principal Taresh Kumarsaid he asked the students toreturn home after reachingthe school.

In the morning when Ireached the school, the gateswere locked and stray cattlewas inside. There was no alter-native arrangement for holdingthe classes so the childrenreturned home, he said, adding he informed the offi-cials about it.

Later, Block DevelopmentOfficer Mahabir Singh reachedthe spot and the stray cattlewere sent to cow shelters.

We got an informationthat stray cattle were locked byfarmers in Dasdih Primaryschool and we sent the animalsto cow shelters, Singh said. OnSunday, villagers had lockedstray cattle inside Amardobhaprimary school, which is aboutfour km away from Dasdih pri-mary school. PTI

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Srinagar: A terrorist was killedand a soldier lost his life in anencounter between the securi-ty forces and the ultras inJammu and Kashmir’s Shopiandistrict on Friday, the Army said.

A cordon-and-search oper-ation was launched inPandoshan area of the southKashmir district after a tip-offabout the presence of militantsthere. An encounter followedafter the militants fired uponthe search party, an official said.

“One terrorist, Zeenat-ul-Islam, a resident of Memenderarea of Shopian, has been killedin the Pandoshan operation,”an Army official said.

During the operation, asoldier was also killed. Weaponsand war-like stores have beenrecovered from the encountersite, the official said, adding thatthe operation was on. PTI

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Former Goa Chief MinisterPratapsingh Rane sought

to know in the state Assemblyon Friday whether consump-tion of local alcoholic beverages ‘feni’ and ‘hurrack’causes cancer.

Speaking during theQuestion Hour on the issue ofcancer cases in the state, Ranesaid the state governmentshould conduct a survey toknow if these drinks causecancer. “Do you have a studyon the kind of cancers that arefaced by people in Goa? Haveyou conducted a study on it,” heasked Health minister VishwajitRane. “It is a well-known factthat smoking causes cancer. Butwe also have to know whetherdrinking local alcoholic brewlike ‘feni’ and ‘hurrack’ cancause cancer?... A surveyshould be conducted and itsfindings be placed in theHouse,” he said.

In his reply, the healthminister said the governmenthas the statistics about thetypes of cancer.

“Maximum cases in thestate are that of breast cancer,

followed by head and neck andother types,” Vishwajit Ranesaid. He was speaking on thequestion asked by CongressMLA Aleixo ReginaldoLourenco over the number ofcancer cases in Goa.

Rane said lifestyle is one ofthe reasons behind the increas-ing number of cancer cases inthe state.

He said the governmentwas serious about the cancercases in the state and facilitiesare being created for treat-ment of cancer patients in thegovernment-run Goa MedicalCollege and Hospital (GMCH).

According to him,although cancer is on the rise,nobody is able to tell the exactreason behind it.

“With innovation and tech-nology, we are able to detectcases of cancer more as com-pared to the past,” he said.

“In Goa, lifestyle plays animportant role. It is notwhether a person is a vegetar-ian or a non-vegetarian. Thereare several issues related tolifestyle, which are creatingproblems. Along with otherdiseases, cancer is also comingto the forefront,” Rane said.

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�� 3��*��2��Itanagar: Journalists inArunachal Pradesh staged a sit-in on Friday against the Centresmove to repeal the WorkingJournalists Act (1955) and theWorking Journalist (Fixation ofWages) Act 1958 along withother labour laws.

The scribes under the ban-ner of Arunachal PradeshUnion of Working Journalists(APUWJ) wearing blackclothes sat on protest at thePress Club here demandingimmediate withdrawal of thetwo Labour Code bills.

In the two Labour Codebills, one on working condi-tions and the other on wages,introduced in the Lok Sabha,the government proposed torepeal the Working Journalistsand other NewspaperEmployees (Conditions ofService) and MiscellaneousProvisions Act of 1955, and theWorking Journalist (Fixation ofrates of wages) Act, 1958 alongwith 11 other labour laws.

We staged the dharna toprotest the arbitrary move of

the Narendra Modi govern-ment to scuttle the rights ofworking journalists and thebills are an infringement of theWorking Journalist Act,APUWJ President AmarSangno said.

The state’s media fraterni-ty demands immediate with-drawal of the “anti workingclass, anti journalists” andmedia workers labour codebills immediately, he said.

The APUWJ, ArunachalElectronic Media Association(AEMA) and Arunachal PressClub (APC) expressed grati-tude to the Pema Khandu-ledgovernment for fulfilling theirlong-standing demand fortreating journalists at par withgroup A officers.

The state government in arecent notification said accred-ited journalists will get facilitiesenjoyed by group A officers inall the state government accom-modations like inspection bun-galows, circuit houses, touristlodges, bhawans and guest hous-es across the country. PTI

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Power Grid Corporation ofIndia Limited (POWER-

GRID), a ‘Navratna’ Companyunder Ministry of Power,Government of India, has post-ed a consolidated net profit of�2,503 crore for the first quar-ter of FY 2019-20 (April-June,2019), an increase of10%against �2278 crore reportedduring the corresponding quar-ter ended June 30, 2018.

Total Consolidated Incomefor first quarter (April-June,2019), rose to �9362 crore, upby 12% from �8376 crore in thecorresponding period year ago.

On a standalone basis,POWERGRID had registered anet profit of �2428 crore on aTotal Income of �9228 crore inthe FY 2018-19.

POWERGRID’s physicalassets as on April-June,2019include more than1,58,000ckm of transmissionlines, 246 Sub-stations withtransformation capacity ofmore than 3,75,000MVA on aconsolidated basis.

With the use of state-of-the-art maintenance tech-niques, automation and digiti-zation, POWERGRID main-tainedaverage transmission sys-tem availability of 99.77% forQ1FY20.

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External Affairs Minister SJaishankar on Friday held a

series of bilateral meetings herewith his counterparts fromVietnam, Sri Lanka, Mongolia,Timor Leste and Bangladeshduring which he discussed ahost of key issues, including thefight against terrorism.

Jaishankar is in the Thaicapital to attend a number ofconferences, including theASEAN-India MinisterialMeeting, the 9th East AsiaSummit Foreign Ministers’Meeting, the 26th ASEANRegional Forum and the 10thMekong Ganga CooperationMinisterial Meeting.

"Good start to second day;strong traditional friendshipstands reaffirmed #VietNam@ F M P h a m B i n h M i n h ,”Jaishankar tweeted.

He also reiterated India’sstrong support in the fightagainst terrorism with Sri Lanka,which saw the country’s worst

terror attack on Easter Sunday."An important neighbour,

a valuable friend. Warm meet-ing with FM @MFA_SriLankaTilak Marapana. Reiterated ourstrong support in the fightagainst terrorism,” he tweeted.

Nine suicide bombers car-ried out a series of blasts thattore through three churchesand as many high-end hotels,killing 258 people, including 11Indians, in the country’s dead-liest violence since the brutalcivil war ended in 2009.

The Islamic State claimedthe attacks, but the governmenthas blamed local Islamistextremist group NationalThawheed Jamaath (NTJ) forthe bombings.

He also had a cordial con-versation with foreign ministerof Timor Leste on the sidelinesof the second day of 9th EastAsia Summit Foreign Ministersmeet in Bangkok.

"Cordial conversation withTimor Leste FM Dionisio daCosta Babo Soares. Agreed tostep up engagement across allsectors,” he tweeted after themeeting.

The foreign minister alsoheld talks with his Mongoliancounterpart Damdin Tsogtbaatarand discussed a range of issuesof mutual interest.

"Working on advancingour comprehensive engage-ment with ‘third neighbour’ &Strategic Partner #Mongolia@TsogtbaatarD,” he tweeted.

He also had a meetingwith his Bangladeshi counter-part Dr AK Abdul Momen andhighlighted India’s "neigh-bourhood first” policy.

"An excellent meeting withmy Bangladeshi counterpart DrAK Abdul Momen. Look for-ward to visiting Dhaka soon.Neighbourhood first!,” the for-eign minister tweeted.

��

President Donald Trump onThursday announced that

the US will impose an addi-tional 10 per cent tariff on $300billion in Chinese imports, ashe accused China of not beingserious in arriving at the tradedeal and failing to keep itspromise to buy more Americanagricultural products.

In a series of tweet, Trumpsaid the new tariff, in additionto the 25 per cent on goodsworth $250 billion that waspreviously in place, wouldcome into effect fromSeptember 1.

The announcement came aday after US TradeRepresentative RobertLighthizer and TreasurySecretary Steven Mnuchinreturned from Shanghai aftertwo days of latest round oftrade negotiations with China.

“Our representatives havejust returned from Chinawhere they had constructivetalks having to do with a futuretrade deal,” Trump tweeted.

“We thought we had a dealwith China three months ago,but sadly, China decided to re-negotiate the deal prior to sign-ing. More recently, China agreedto buy agricultural product fromthe US in large quantities, butdid not do so,” Trump said.

“Additionally, my friendPresident Xi said that he would

stop the sale of Fentanyl to theUnited States — this neverhappened, and manyAmericans continue to die!”said the president.

“Trade talks are continu-ing, and during the talks the USwill start, on September 1st,putting a small additional tar-iff of 10 percent on the remain-ing 300 billion dollars of goodsand products coming fromChina into our country,”Trump tweeted.

“This does not include the250 billion dollars already tar-iffed at 25 per cent. We lookforward to continuing our pos-itive dialogue with China on acomprehensive trade deal, andfeel that the future between ourtwo countries will be a verybright one!” said the USPresident.

Since the commencementof trade war last year China andUS have so far hit each otherwith punitive tariffs coveringmore than $360 billion in two-way trade.

Trump kicked off the tradewar demanding China toreduce massive trade deficitwhich last year climbed toover $539 billion. He is alsoinsisting on China to workoutverifiable measures for protec-tion of intellectual propertyrights (IPR) technology trans-fer and more access toAmerican goods to Chinesemarkets.

��

The Reserve Bank on Fridaysaid it has imposed a col-

lective penalty of �11 crore onseven public sector banks forviolating norms on currentaccount opening.

Allahabad Bank and Bankof Maharashtra have beenimposed a fine of �2 crore each,Bank of Baroda, Bank of India,Indian Overseas Bank andUnited Bank of India havebeen slapped with fines of �1.5crore each, while Oriental Bankof Commerce has beenimposed with a penalty of �1crore.

"The Reserve Bank of India(RBI) has, by an order datedJuly 31, 2019, imposed mone-tary penalty on seven banks fornon-compliance with certainprovisions of directions issuedby RBI on ‘Code of Conduct forOpening and OperatingCurrent Accounts’,” RBI said ina release.

It said the penalties havebeen imposed in exercise ofpowers vested in the centralbank under the provisions ofthe Banking Regulation Act,1949.

"This action is based on thedeficiencies in regulatory com-pliance and is not intended topronounce upon the validity ofany transaction or agreemententered into by the banks withtheir customers,” the regulatoradded.

��

Hyundai Motor India onFriday said it has reduced

price of Kona EV by around�1.58 lakh in order to pass thebenefit of reduced GST onsuch models to customers.

The model is now pricedat �23.71 lakh as comparedwith �25.3 lakh earlier.

The reduced KonaElectric price is effective fromAugust 1, 2019, HyundaiMotor India said in a state-ment.

The company said it hasalready received 152 bookingsfor the model which will besold from 15 dealerships in 11cities.

On Thursday, TataMotors had announced pricecut on Tigor EV by up to�80,000.

Last week, the high-pow-ered GST Council decided toreduce the tax rate on electricvehicles (EVs) to 5 per centfrom the existing 12 per centeffective from August 1.

��

Coffee DayEnterprises

stock plungedover 48 per centin four days tohit its freshlower circuitlimit as waryinvestors took toselling amid slewof negative newsaswirl about the company.

In four days of heavy sell-ing, when shares of the com-pany have tanked over 48 percent, its market valuation hasbeen eroded by �1,956.6 croreto �2,110.40 crore on the BSE.

On Friday, the scrip plum-meted 9.96 per cent to a fresh52-week low as well as lowercircuit of �99.90 on the BSE.

At the NSE, it cracked 10per cent to its lower circuit limitand one-year low of �99.45.

Coffee Day Enterprises onWednesday named indepen-dent director S V Ranganath asthe interim chairman of the

company to replace its founderVG Siddhartha, who was con-firmed dead, days after hewent missing.

Siddhartha’s body wasrecovered from a river nearMangalore on Wednesday.

The coffee tycoon seemedto be under severe financialstress before his death with hisCoffee Day Enterprises’ liabil-ities doubling to over �5,200crore and his unlisted venturesfor realty and hospitality hav-ing similar levels of debt, as perregulatory filings with stockexchanges and the corporateaffairs ministry.

��

Engineering firm GreavesCotton’s e-mobility sub-

sidiary Ampere Vehicles onFriday announced a price cutof up to �5,000 on its e-scooters in the wake ofGovernment reducing GSTon EVs to 5 per cent from 12per cent earlier.

Following the downwardprice revision, the company’sflagship high speed e-scooterZeal will now cost �67,000 asagainst �72,000 (ex-showroomBangalore) earlier, theCoimbatore-based AmpereVehicle said in a release.

This Ampere Zeal pricealso includes FAME (FasterAdoption and Manufacture of(Hybrid and) Electr icVehicles)-II incentives.

Similarly, the price of theRio LA e-scooter have beenslashed by �3,000 to �40,000and that of the Rio Li e-scooter to �52,500 from�56,000 earlier, the companysaid.

��

The National Housing Bank(NHB) is infusing an addi-

tional �10,000 crore in NBFCsfrom Friday with a view toimprove flow of funds forhousing loans, said a financeministry statement.

"To further ease flow offunds to the housing sector, theNHB is making available fromtoday, a liquidity infusion facil-ity of �10,000 crore for HousingFinance Companies (HFCs)as additional liquidity for indi-vidual housing loans, foraffordable housing,” the state-ment said.

This facility will be overand above the existing financeschemes of the housing sectorregulator NHB.

The statement further saidsubsequent to the budgetaryannouncements, the RBI hasunveiled a slew of measures forbanks to avail additional liq-uidity of �1.34 lakh crore.

"Now...The backstop guar-antee to banks for NBFC port-folios taken over by them hasbecome effective. Banks will beutilising this guarantee supportas per the contours of thescheme,” it said.

Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman had announced in

the Budget that the governmentwould provide one-time sixmonths partial credit guaran-tee to public sector banks forthe "first loss of up to 10 percent” to enable them purchasepooled assets of financiallysound NBFCs amounting to Rs1 lakh crore.

"This would ease the liq-uidity stress in the NBFC sec-tor and increase the access ofthese NBFCs to bank finance,and, in turn, enable them tocontinue to play their role inmeeting the financing require-ment of the productive sectorof economy,” the ministryadded. Meanwhile, the gov-ernment has received a pro-posal from the Reserve Bankon the draft modalities of theguarantee to operationalise theBudget announcement.

The ministry further saidthe government has accordedits approval to the modalitiesthat would be set in motion bythe RBI.

"The Department ofFinancial Services would put inplace an oversight mechanismfor the scheme,” it added.

The NBFC sector has beenfacing liquidity issues after oneof the largest shadow banks inthe country, IL&FS Groupdefaulted on loan payment.

�� +��

GMR led Hyderabad International Airport has added anoth-er domestic freighter to its existing range of freighter offer-

ings, the latest entrant being SpiceJet freighter that landed at theairport late on 1st August 2019. The cargo arm of SpiceJet hascommenced its services connecting Hyderabad with Delhi,Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. With this, HyderabadInternational Airport now has six scheduled freighters operating.

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Riyadh: Saudi Arabia will allowwomen to travel abroad withoutapproval from a male “guardian”,the government said Thursday,ending a restriction that drew

international censure andprompted extreme attempts toflee the kingdom.

The landmark reformerodes the longstandingguardianship system that renderswomen permanently as legalminors and allows their“guardians” —husband, fatherand other male relatives — toexercise arbitrary authority overthem.The decision, followingyears of campaigning by activists,comes after high-profile attemptsby women to escape theirguardians despite a string ofreforms including a historicdecree last year that overturnedthe world’s only ban on femalemotorists.

“A passport will be grantedto any Saudi national who sub-mits an application,” said a gov-ernment ruling published in theofficial gazette Umm Al Qura.

The regulation effectivelyallows women over the age of 21to obtain passports and leave thecountry without their guardian’spermission, the pro-governmentOkaz newspaper and other localmedia reported, citing seniorauthorities. AFP

Seoul: South Korea’s militarysaid North Korea fired uniden-tified projectiles twice Friday intothe sea off its eastern coast in itsthird weapons tests in just overa week.

The North’s increased test-ing activity is seen as brinkman-ship aimed at increasing pressureon Seoul and Washington overthe slow pace of nuclear negoti-ations. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staffsaid the launches were conduct-ed at 2:59 a.M. And 3:23 a.M.From an eastern coastal area butdid not immediately confirmhow many projectiles were firedor how far they flew.

The North fired short-rangeballistic missiles on July 25 andconducted what it described asa test firing of a new multiplerocket launcher system onWednesday. Experts say theNorth is demonstrating its frus-tration over planned US-SouthKorea military exercises andstalled nuclear negotiations withthe US, and its weapons testscould intensify if negotiations donot proceed rapidly over the nextfew months. AP

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Two men from Thailand’sinsurgency-hit “Deep

South” have been arrestedlinked to several small bombattacks which rattled BangkokFriday as it hosted a regionalsummit attended by USSecretary of State MikePompeo, leaving four peoplewounded but not disruptingthe diplomatic event.

Thailand, which has a grimhistory of political violenceand is fighting a long-runningrebellion in the Muslim-major-ity south, remains deeply divid-ed after a controversial March

election returned a junta topower as a civilian govern-ment.

Prime Minister PrayutChan-O-Cha, who led the for-mer junta, told reporters “therewere nine successful orattempted explosions...

We haven’t ruled out anymotives.”

Two men from the farsouth were arrested after wiresand ball bearings were found inan inactive device outside Thaipolice headquarters lateThursday, in what police saidwas a linked incident.

Police chief JakthipChaijinda confirmed the men

came the Muslim-majority areabordering Malaysia which is inthe grip of a 15-year insur-gency.

But he said it was “tooearly” to clearly tie them withthe rebellion.

Any connection to theinsurgency will cause deepalarm in Bangkok, which hasfailed to win peace in a conflictwhich has left more than 7,000dead.

Occasionally the shadowyrebel cells take their violenceoutside their region to markkey anniversaries or kickbackagainst specific Thai actions.

Outrage is boiling in thesouth over the treatment of a34-year-old rebel suspect whowas left in a coma hours after

being taken into a notoriousmilitary interrogation centre inPattani province.

The blasts in BangkokFriday appeared to be symbolicattacks aimed at embarrassingthe government during a majorsummit but not designed tocause mass casualties.

Small devices -- somebelieved to be so-called “pingpong bombs” around the sizeof a table tennis ball -- explod-ed at several locations acrossthe city, none close to thesummit venue.

Officials said four peoplewere wounded.

“Reports are they were‘ping pong bombs’ hidden inbushes by the road,” said RenuSuesattaya, director of

Suanluang district where thefirst bombs were reported.

Two further explosionsshattered glass near a well-known downtown skyscraper,emergency police added.

Bomb disposal expertswere deployed around theMahanakorn Tower -- ownedby the King Power group thatcounts Leicester City footballclub among its assets.

Most of the dead in thehighly-localised insurgency inthe south are civilians, but theconflict garners few interna-tional headlines.

Malay-Muslim militantsare fighting for autonomy fromThailand which annexed theregion over a century ago.

Friday’s bombings took

place just before a keynotespeech by top US diplomatPompeo, in which he praisedThailand for rejoining the“democratic fold” after fiveyears of outright junta rule.

The blasts come weeksafter former junta leaderPrayut was inaugurated as acivil ian prime minister,sparking outcry among manypro-democracy supporters ina kingdom scored by divi-sions.

The junta manoeuvreditself back into power withthe help of a fully appointedsenate stacked with army loy-alists and an electoral systemits critics say was designed tolimit the success of the pro-democracy parties.

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�# -��#*�##)).6,6./%1�.��#5%)6��". �/#)%?$ #�-�#1�#((�.5#) Lahore: Pakistani authorities

have arrested an Indian manfor living in the country’sPunjab province allegedly withfake documents for the past 10years after he converted toIslam and married a Pakistaniwoman.

The Federal InvestigationAgency (FIA) presented theman along with his Pakistanirelative, who gave him shelter,before a court on Friday, whichremanded the duo to three-daycustody for further investiga-tion.

The FIA arrested the man,

identified as Panjam Tiwari,and his brother-in-lawMohammad Kamran fromMominabad in Gujranwala inPunjab province on Thursday.

In its report submittedbefore the court, the FIA stat-ed that Tiwari has been livingillegally in the country, whileKamran gave him shelter andalso helped him prepare doc-tored documents.

An FIA official told PTIthat the agency had sought 14-day remand for the two men.

He said the FIA raidedTiwari’s residence in

Mominabad on the report of anintelligence agency and arrest-ed the duo.

According to FIA, Tiwarihad gone to Dubai for work in2009 where he met Kamran, aresident of Gujranwala.

“They started businesstogether in Dubai and aftersome time, Kamran broughtTiwari to Pakistan on a fakepassport,” it said.

Tiwari married Kamran’ssister, also converted to Islamand changed his name toMohammad Bilal.

PTI

Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a phone con-versation with his new British counterpart Boris Johnson onFriday, the Foreign Ministry here said.

It was the first conversation over the phone between the twoleaders since Johnson took office last week.

Abe expressed concern about a possible negative impact onJapanese firms operating in Britain if it quits the European Unionwithout a deal, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the Ministry, the former London Mayorresponded by promising to sufficiently consider such companies.During the call, Abe urged Johnson to ensure an orderly exit fromthe bloc, the report said.

The two sides also agreed to coordinate over the matter ofthe denuclearization of North Korea. IANS

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Paris, Aug 2 (AFP) Bank of Finland chiefOlli Rehn has withdrawn from the race to be theEU’s pick for leading the IMF, a French financeministry official said Friday, leaving just two can-didates in contention.

Rehn’s departure from the vote of EU min-isters called by French Finance Minister BrunoLe Maire leaves just former Dutch finance min-ister Jeroen Dijsselbloem and BulgarianKristalina Georgieva, the current number twoat the World Bank, left in the race.

A second round of voting is now underwayto choose between Dijsselbloem and Georgieva,the French ministry official said.

The choice of the candidate to lead theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF), who byconvention is a European, had exposed deepdivisions within the EU and forced Le Maire tocall a vote.

Southern countries chafe at the prospect ofseeing Dijsselbloem in the post because of histough stance against nations like Greece whenhe headed the group of EU finance ministers.

Writing on his Twitter account, Rehn con-firmed he was pulling out to find a unity can-didate for the “exceptionally meaningful andmotivating job,” he wrote.

AFP

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Washington: Researchers havefound a novel way to useimmunotherapy drugs againsttreatment-resistant cancer thatstarts in white blood cells calledlymphocytes, by combiningthem with stem cell transplan-tation.

The approach, described inthe journal Cancer Discovery,also dramatically increased thesuccess of the drugs in

melanoma and lung cancer.This type of immunother-

apy, called “checkpoint block-ade,” ramps up the ability ofimmune cells called T cells tofight cancer by removing the“cloaking effect” that tumoursuse to hide from them.

Checkpoint blockade ther-apy is effective in severaltumour types, but generallyineffective in non-Hodgkin’s

lymphomas, said researchersfrom the Mount Sinai Hospitalin the US.

However, the study foundthat when this immunothera-py is combined with a stem celltransplant, which theresearchers call “immuno-transplant,” the process rampsup the T cells to increase thecancer-killing immuneresponse tenfold. PTI

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Back on the road following theirunfulfilled World Cup campaign,

India will begin their preparations forthe T20 showpiece event next yearwith a three-match series against theWest Indies beginning here onSaturday.

As captain Virat Kohli pointed outbefore leaving for the Caribbean tour,the main objective of the T20s and thesubsequent ODI series against theWest Indies is to try out the fringeplayers who are on selectors’ mind.

A full strength squad has beenpicked barring the absence of starpacer Jasprit Bumrah who will join theside ahead of the Test series beginningAugust 22.

It will be a crucial couple of weeksfor Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey,who are back in the mix after beingsidelined from India’s 50-over WorldCup plans.

Pandey last played for India inNovember 2018 and Iyer in February2018.

With India looking to solidify theirbrittle middle-order in ODIs, bothbatsmen have a good opportunity tomake their case in the coming sixgames.

Spin all-rounder WashingtonSundar and pacers Khaleel Ahmed andDeepak Chahar are also back in theT20 squad while speedster NavdeepSaini and Deepak’s brother Rahul arein line to make their India debut.

With Rohit Sharma and a fit-againShikhar Dhawan set to open, thenumber four spot seems likely to beoccupied by K L Rahul, who has fondmemories of the Central BrowardRegional Park Stadium, having scoredan unbeaten 110 in his last inningshere almost three years ago.

Rohit was top-scorer in the WorldCup, with a record five hundreds, andwould be keen to carry that form amidthe off-field drama.

From this tour onwards, RishabhPant will have more responsibility onhis shoulders with the selectors back-ing him as the number one wicket-keeper in all formats amid little clar-ity over the future of Mahendra SinghDhoni.

India will be expected to beat theWest Indies though they are most dan-gerous in the shortest format.

The explosive Kieron Pollard andspinner Sunil Narine are back in theside though Chris Gayle will only beseen in the ODIs. Injury-prone AndreRussell too has been named in the T20squad.

The regional side will be aiming toget over the disappointment of WorldCup with a good result against India.

SQUADSWest Indies: John Campbell, EvinLewis, Shimron Hetmyer, Nicolas

Pooran, Kieron Pollard, RovmanPowell, Carlos Brathwaite (c), KeemoPaul, Sunil Narine, Sheldon Cottrell,Oshane Thomas, Anthony Bramble,Andre Russell, Khary Pierre.India: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma,Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, ShreyasIyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant,Krunal Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja,Washington Sundar, Rahul Chahar,Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed,Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini.

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Former skipper SouravGanguly on Friday said he

aspires to be India’s cricketcoach some time in future buthas no interest in the high-pro-file position at this point.

The hunt is on for the newIndia coach with incumbentRavi Shastri’s tenure coming toan end with the conclusion ofthe tour of the West Indies.

Ganguly said he’s definite-ly interested in the India coach’sjob but not at the moment ashis plate is full.

“Definitely, I’m interestedbut not at this point of time. Letone more phase go then I willthrow my name into the fray,”Ganguly said.

The 47-year-old is cur-rently the Cricket Associationof Bengal (CAB) president,besides being associated withIPL franchise Delhi Capitals asthe team Advisor. He also doescricket commentary and is thehost of a popular Bengali quizshow.

“Currently, I’m associatedwith too many things — IPL,CAB, TV commentary. Let mecomplete this. But I will defi-nitely put my hat at somestage. Provided I get selected.But definitely I’m interested.Not now but in the future,”Ganguly said.

One of the most successfulIndian cricket captains,Ganguly was the chairman ofthe previous Cricket AdvisoryCommittee (CAC), whichpicked Shastri as the Indiacoach last time.

The recently-appointedCAC, led by Kapil Dev withAnshuman Gaekwad andShanta Rangaswamy as othermembers, is all set to pick thenew coach.

But it seems that Shastri,who has reapplied for the post,would get another term withthe India captain Virat Kohliopenly endorsing his candida-ture.

Kapil Dev also said thatthe skipper’s opinion

needs to be “respected”.Ganguly said there

were not many bignames in the fray this

time around.“Going by the

applicants, Idon’t see anyh e av y we i g htnames. I heardM a h e l a(Jayawardene)

would apply butultimately he didn’t. Thereare not many big names whohave applied for the coach’sjob.

“Ultimately I don’t knowwhat the panel will decide.They have been around fora while. We will see how longthe term the coach will give.Not many names haveapplied for.”

The former left-handerhowever refused to commenton Shastri’s tenure.

“I will hold my opinion

on that. I don’t think it’s rightfor me to say about that. I’mtoo far from the system thatdecides the coach,” Gangulysaid.

After the ODI World Cup,where India lost in the semi-finals, they will be back on theroad with a full series in theWest Indies, beginning withthe first T20I in Florida onSaturday.

Ganguly, meanwhile, saidIndia’s upcoming series wouldbe tough against the reigningWorld T20 champions, whoalso defeated England 2-1 ear-lier this year at home.

“West Indies in WestIndies will be a lot stronger.T20 is their preferred format.They enjoy playing T20s andthey are the current World T20champions. The two matchesin Florida will be tough games.

“Test matches will also betough as they played very wellagainst England. It won’t be aneasy West Indies tour as it wasfive years ago. India will bechallenged. There are a lot ofyoung players in the team,”Ganguly said.

“As I’ve said before youwant to see these young play-ers get consistent opportuni-ties. You keep saying horses forcourses but I feel ‘don’t judgea horse if you want to keepthem on the course’.Consistency is important forrhythm and confidence,” headded.

Ganguly heaped praise onSteve Smith whose brilliantcentury helped Australiarecover from 122/8 to reach acompetitive 284 in the open-ing Ashes Test.

“Class is permanent andyou could see it. These sort ofhundreds will remain in every-body’s memories. Now theyhave a big chance of winningthe match. First innings scoresare very important. From thatpoint of view, it’s a fantastichundred.

“To be away for a year andplay the World Cup...He hashad a quiet World Cup. Andthen to start the Ashes with acentury, especially when theteam was down was a remark-able effort. Ashes is the biggestEngland-Australia battle,”Ganguly said.

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He stood firm when his sonbroke down and Peter

Smith says he is finally lettingemotions get the better of himnow that Steve Smith’s remark-able resurrection from a one-year ball-tampering ban seemscomplete with an Ashes hun-dred.

Smith’s grinding knock of144 off 219 balls pulledAustralia out of trouble to arespectable 284 after beingeight down for 122 on theopening day of the first AshesTest against England inEdgbaston.

“...This one, given the con-text of all that has gone to getto that point now, and heplayed under a lot of pressureas people fell around him …that probably made it. If it’s nothis best, it’s way up there,” Petertold The Telegraph.

The knock was continua-tion of a remarkable comebackby Smith after being bannedtill March of this year for theinfamous incident in South

Africa. Peter Smith’s hand wasonly one around Steve’s shoul-der when he sobbed and apol-ogised in a press conference onarrival back in Sydney lastyear.

Little over a year after thatemotional breakdown, SmithSenior couldn’t be more proud.

“He had worked very, veryhard to get to that point. Thatwas one thing he did say to me,it was one of the hardestinnings he’s had to play. Andyou could see that in thathundred. And you could seethe effect that it was having onhim,” Peter said.

“For that reason you sort ofgo with him and enjoy it aswell, but also know what he’sactually going through. I mustadmit, to begin with, I hadmore trepidation than I prob-ably ever have had, which wasstrange.

“Then it all unfolded andit became emotional. It wasemotional watching him gethis hundred. And I’m stillquite a bit emotional about it,”he added.

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Rory Burns was eyeing a maidenTest century as Australia finallysaw the back of England captain

Joe Root in the Ashes opener atEdgbaston on Friday.

England were 170-2 at tea on thesecond day of the first Test, 114 runsbehind Australia's first-innings 284.

England still had plenty of work todo to get back on level terms but thiswas a vast improvement on their first-innings 85 all out in a Test win overIreland at Lord's last week.

Surrey opener Burns was 82 not outand fellow Ashes debutant Joe Denlynine not out at tea, with Root the onlybatsman dismissed in a session thatyielded 99 runs in 27 overs.

Australia's total had been built ona superb 144 from Steve Smith in theformer captain's first Test match sincecompleting a 12-month ban for his rolein a ball-tampering scandal in SouthAfrica. The tourists been struggling at122-8 before their last two wickets morethan doubled their score.

England were 10-0, with left-han-der Burns four not out and Surreyteam-mate Jason Roy six not out,when play resumed Friday in slightlyovercast conditions.

Roy made a blistering 85 in even-tual champions England's World Cupsemi-final win over Australia atEdgbaston last month.

But in just his second Test, he neverlooked comfortable against Australia'sfast bowlers and, on 10, he edged a goodlength ball from James Pattinson lowto Smith at second slip, with Englandthen 22-1.

Root had returned to numberthree from four in a bid to lead fromthe front.

- Fortune favours England -But the star batsman was almost

bowled leaving off-spinner NathanLyon's first ball, a sharply turningdelivery that just missed the stumps.

Root had an even bigger slice ofluck on nine when he was given outcaught behind off Pattinson only for hisreview to reveal the ball had hit the offstump without dislodging a bail.

Meanwhile Burns patiently bidedhis time and picked off anything loose,

such as an over-pitched ball from PatCummins that he on-drove for four.

England were 71-1 at lunch, withBurns 41 not out and Root unbeaten on11.

Burns went to fifty in 110 ballswhen he hit Lyon for the seventh fourof his innings.

Root then had another moment ofgood fortune when given out lbw torecalled paceman Peter Siddle on 14.

But in a match already full of over-turned decisions, his immediate reviewrevealed an inside edge.

Root cashed in by driving Lyon forfour and leg-glancing Cummins foranother boundary as he too complet-ed a 110-ball fifty.

But, frustratingly for a batsmanwhose conversion rate of fifties to hun-dreds is relatively poor -- 42 to 16 -- he fell soon afterwards when hechipped a ball Siddle held back, thebowler taking a fine one-handedcatch, to end a second-wicket part-nership of 132.

Australia's pacemen allowedBurns to settle by repeatedly bowlingaround the wicket and so feeding himruns on the legside.

By the time they bowled over thewicket at him, he was well set withBurns -- whose highest Test score is the84 he made against the West Indies inBridgetown in January -- cutting Lyonfor four. Australia hold the Ashes butthey have not won a Test series awayto England in 18 years.

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The interim selectionpanel of Cricket West

Indies has named JasonMohammed as the replace-ment for Andre Russell forthe first and second match-es of the three-matchTwenty20 Internationalseries.

Mohammed (32) has sofar played nine T20 interna-tionals and has also cap-

tained the West Indies inT20 internationals and the50-over format.

Russell was named inthe original 14-membersquad for the first and sec-ond matches to be played inthe US subject to him pass-ing a fitness assessmentprior to the series.

The all-rounder experi-enced some discomfortwhile playing in the GT20tournament in Canada and

informed the interim selec-tion panel of his unavailabil-ity for the upcoming series.

"We welcome JasonMohammed into the squadfor the first two T20 match-es here in Florida. He is aplayer with a lot of experi-ence in all three formats andhas done well for Trinidad &Tobago as well as forGuyana Amazon Warriors,"said Floyd Reifer, the inter-im head coach of the West

Indies."It is not easy to the fill

the shoes of someone likeAndre Russell, who hasdominated T20 cricket allover the world and helpedthe West Indies win theICC T20 World Cup ontwo occasions. We believeJason is capable of goodperformances and we backhim to perform at this leveland win games as well,"Reifer added.

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England pacer James Andersonapologised to his teammates

after bowling only four oversbecause of a calf injury on DayOne of the first Ashes Test againstAustralia, revealed Stuart Broad.

Anderson, who first tore hisright calf muscle while playing forLancashire against Durham atSedburgh on July 2, on Thursdayexperienced further discomfortduring his fourth over of thematch at Edgbaston and left thefield for treatment.

The 37-year-old is nowawaiting the results of a scan

and could miss the remain-ing part of the

Edgbaston Test. “He’s a bit

d i s t r a u g h t , ”ESPNcricinfo quotedBroad as sayingafter the end ofplay on Day One.“He came andsaid sorry to the

bowlers. He feels likehe’s let the bowling groupdown, which of course hehasn’t. He’s down and he’sfrustrated.”

“We don’t know the fullextent yet. All we can hopeis the news is better than weexpect,” the England pacer

ended.

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Indian run-machine Rohit Sharmawill surpass Chris Gayle for the

highest number of sixes in T20Internationals if he hits four moremaximums in today’s first matchagainst the West Indies.

Rohit has so far struck 102 sixesin 94 T20Is while the big-hittingJamaican tops the list with 105 in 58outings.

Gayle is followed by New

Zealand’s Martin Guptill who hassmashed 103 maximums in 76 match-es he has played so far.

While Rohit will turn up for histeam, the 39-year-old Gayle willnot get a chance to add to his tally,as he won’t feature in the three-match series.

Rohit already holds the recordfor being the highest run scorer inT20Is. He has aggregated 2331 runsat an average of 32.37 with four hun-dreds and 16 half centuries.

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Keeping your personallife private isn’t suchan easy task. It’s flat-tering that people

genuinely care what we’re doingwith our days where we’re liv-ing, what we’re doing for work,who we’re sharing our liveswith, when we’re going to makeour next career or relationshipmoves, why we’re doing whatwe’re doing, and how we’regoing to achieve all of our life’sgoals.

It’s also frustrating whenwe’re not quite where we wantto be yet, know we’re not, andthen have to talk to peopleabout why we’re not where wewant to be and then listen totheir suggestions, as if wehaven’t already thought of thoseideas ourselves. We add fuel tothese fires ourselves by theinformation we share on socialmedia platforms and then haveto face the repercussions.

Lots of us have a bad habitof wearing our hearts on oursleeves. This can make us anopen book even to strangers.We definitely don’t want thatso, keeping a clear distinctionbetween your personal life andyour professional life is a diffi-cult skill to master. You have tobe very picky who you shareyour secrets with, because,unfortunately, not everyone

has good intentions.If you spread the intimate

details of your breakup all overtown, you won’t be moving onuntil everyone else does. Yourfights will always come back toyou in ‘he said, she said’ formas all your friends let you in ontheir own version of the latestgossip.

Stop treating everyone likeyou owe them something. Theonly reason that you do this isbecause you’ve subscribed tothe belief that you’re notenough, so you attempt tocompensate as a means ofemotional survival. Your child-hood experiences implement-ed and programmed this men-tality, but that doesn’t meanthat you have to continue beingchief of the opposition andcarry out that mission/mental-ity until emotional warfare is away of life. You are more thanenough, just as you are. Youdon’t need to give everyone theprivilege of knowing every lit-tle detail about you and untilyou view it as just that – a priv-ilege – no one else ever will.

Unplug, not only does thismean refraining every nowand again from using your cellphone, which has become anextension of your right hand atthis point (and any other tech-nology you use daily), it means

being able to say “No” andfocus on what you need to dofor yourself. That friend, theone who always wants to getlunch or a drink, but asks pry-ing questions the entire timeand then criticizes your deci-sions, only to tell your friendsabout your lunch a few dayslater, even though you asked tokeep everything you saidbetween the two of you. Youknow the one, right? Yeah,

don’t hang out with that friendanymore or at least make sureit’s only in small doses, in alarge group with your otherfriends, or when you know youhave an escape plan. Rid your-self of the things in your lifethat you can. Sure, you need touse technology at work, butwhat about when you’re offi-cially off the clock? Let go.You’ll be fine, and possible evenmuch better than fine. You may

be great.Determine the things

about your life that you’re will-ing to share with others and thethings that you don’t feel com-fortable with. As long as you setthe foundation, you won’t feeltricked into accidentally givingup more information aboutyourself than you originallyplanned to a friend, familymember, colleague, or anyoneelse you come into contact

with. You decide the topicsyou’re comfortable speakingabout and can carefully choosethe words that come out ofyour mouth. Don’t let anyoneelse take your power awayfrom you. You control the mes-sage or information aboutyourself that you want to let therest of the world (as tiny asyours may be) know.

Keep your fights off ofsocial media. It’s so importantto know which parts of your lifeto keep private, and fighting isundoubtedly the most impor-tant one. Don’t get me wrong,everyone loves to grab thepopcorn and enjoy reading agood fight in the comments ofa Facebook selfie, but do youreally want to be on the otherend of that? It only makes youlook immature and ridiculous.Stay away from social mediafighting. You’ll thank yourselflater.

At one point or another, apotential boss will look you upon social media. Depending onyour boss, there’s a pretty highchance that they don’t want tosee swearing or other crudebehavior all over your profile.Try to act as professional as youwould if you were in a job inter-view. Eventually, your socialmedia profiles could say moreabout you than your actual job

interviews could.Just like remembering that

a future employer could belurking around your socialmedia, remember the rest ofyour audience. Would youwant your grandmother to seewhat you’re about to post?Would your friend roll her eyesif she knew you were about topost this? Remember youraudience before you post.

Obviously this point comeswith conditions. Talk aboutyour love life on social mediaif you feel comfortable with it!However, if you’re in a ridicu-lous, tumultuous relationship,maybe try to keep it off ofsocial media. This goes back tomy first point about keepingfights off of social media. If youbreak up and get back togeth-er every day, and then postabout it on your social mediaaccounts, there’s a fairly goodchance that 80% of yourFacebook friends are rollingtheir eyes at you.

You don’t need to telleveryone every little thing thatyou do. As long as the informa-tion you’re holding in won’t doharm to yourself by keeping itin or to others by not revealingit, why not have somethingthat’s your own? It feels nice toknow things that other peopledon’t, right?

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Can you imagine actor Varun Sharma akaChoocha of Fukrey in a serious and

intense avatar? Probably not. It would be dif-ficult to even imagine him beyond his idiot-ic yet endearing and comically sweet roles.

I have been waiting for sometime andanticipating that he would be be comic in reallife as well. As I walk up to him, he asks for ashort two-minute break with the sweetestrequest ever made, “Hello, I am extremelysorry can I please come back shortly?” As I noda yes, he smiles and leaves to keep his just-made promise intact. He returns and as westart talking about his latest, KhandaaniShafakhana, it turns out that he is as adorableas he seems to be in all his roles. And in someparts, serious too, depending on what is up fordiscussion. He still wants to keep certain thingsin the old school format yet follow the newchanges in society and accept them with openarms. Just like he does in his film.

The film that revolves around Baby Bedi(played by Sonakshi Sinha), a young womanwho inherits a sex clinic or a shafakhana fromher late, estranged uncle. Amid a range of chal-lenges and backlashes from the society, shetries to break taboos and ultimately open sev-eral minds. Varun, who plays her brother,Bhooshit Bedi, follows and believes in multi-ple stereotypes about sex disorders just like theother small town people. Completely oppos-ing the idea of woman sexologist, he questionsher, “Tu ladki hokar shafakhana cha-layegi?” He says that the film’s realessence emerges from this fact ashow even a sibling is against hissister when she decides to takeup a job which is not consideredto be appropriate for a woman.Contradicting his dialogue,Varun questions, “Kya dikkathai ek ladki ke sex clinic chalaanemein? (What’s the harm in awoman running a sex clinic?) Ifpeople are fine with a female gyne-cologist and can consult them fortheir problems, why is a femalesexologist a problem? Thefilm tries to say that itshould be looked uponas just a profession.Nobody goes to adoctor for fun. It’s atreatment for sexu-al disorders justl ike there aretreatments forother diseases.And we shouldalso look at itthat way only.”

Sexual dis-orders are com-mon but we hard-ly talk about themand this leads to variousproblems, especially in ataboo-ridden society likeIndia. This is somethingwhich the actor realisedduring the film. He says,“People do suffer from themin a large number but neverdiscuss them. And we nevereven pay attention to themas they are not consideredimportant. And due to this,there have been so manytimes where when two peo-ple are going to get marriedand the guy is aware about hissexual problem but he doesn’tdiscuss it. Neither with hisfamily, nor with the girl’s. It isfinally revealed after the two getmarried and that is when theproblems begin to arise. Thishas led to the break down ofso many marriages in India.”

Indeed, an example ofimpotency in men and his dif-ficulty in discussing it was evi-dent in one of the episodes ofAmazon Prime’s Made InHeaven, where the girl gets toknow about her husband onlyafter they are married. Varunsays, “The man needs to acceptit rather than hide it as a weak-ness and maintain an illusion.This would in turn affect not justhis life but also his partner’s.Aur isliye, baat karni bohotimportant hai especiallyfamily ke saath. Sex edu-cation, hence, is a must.In metros, it might stillbe surfacing among thehigher classes now, lekin

chhote sheheron me nahi (But not in smalltowns).”

Recalling his teenage years, the actor saysthat he, too, hadn’t received any sex education.He adds, “I learnt and found everything myselfthrough internet and discussed it with myfriends. I am from the 90s and at that time,the atmosphere wasn’t this liberal. There wasnot much exposure. We couldn’t talk to ourparents about even our bodily changes andissues so openly like kids do today in big cities.And I realised these things much later thanat the time that I was grappling with them.”

And talking about small towns, the actorfrom Punjab points out that whenever hewould cross a bus-stand, he would read ‘SexClinic’ written on a wall in bold letters, itimmediately caught his fancy. “I used to stopand wonder how boldly the term (sex) hasbeen written. A term, which we cannot evenutter in regular language. I found it to be veryfascinating, different and new. I am sure therewould have been a number of people whothought like that. The film, through its desihumour, is trying to change just that — so thatwe aren’t taken by surprise. It aims to nor-malise it. If we are able to do it, then we suc-ceed and it would be amazing. But if not, peo-ple will enjoy the film and return home.Simple!” says he.

Hesitation is one of the reasons why, infuture, Varun wants to create an open relation-

ship and share a friendly space with his chil-dren so that they can easily talk to himabout just anything. He believes that this

should be the ideal case too. “Ideally,one should go to the family first andthen to the internet only to verify. Butthe case is reverse today. People referto the internet first before going to theirfamilies. Earlier, even though we mighthave not conversed on sex-related sub-

jects, we still spent more time with eachother at home and had fun. Today,

mobile phones get the highest atten-tion,” he says and goes on to

add, “Thodi si cheeze vapasse old school honi

chahiye. (Some thingsshould be back to

being oldschool.),” says theactor, who willsoon be seen inC h h i c h h o r e

a n dRoohiAfza,a horrorcomedy.

T h eactor, who

has becomea comedy icon

in the eyes of mostyouth, never fixed orplanned to pick up thegenre. He says, “Mainekabhi socha bhi nahitha main comedykarunga. (I had nevereven imagined myselfdoing comedy.) Inever thought Icould do it. When I

did theatre andshows, I only did

intense roles. Ironically,Fukrey was my firstattempt at comedy and Igot accepted so beauti-fully by the audience.And this is the biggestthing for someone whois making a debut. Afterthat, I felt that I couldmake someone smile and

laugh. I realised this genrehas chosen me. I nowlove it. I enjoy spreadinghappiness and I just hopeto do this for most of mylife. There are manyother genres too, whichI want to explore but Iwould not do just anyfilm for the heck of it.Until I am not convincedor feel that I would beable to do justice to myrole, I won’t take it up.But of course, never

leaving comedy. Mujhemazza aata hai yaar iss

cheez me,” he laughs andends the conversation withhis beguiling smile, bunnyteeth and warm hand-shake.

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Turned out in all-white — a lacybralette draped with a shortcropped jacket and culottes

paired with sporty shoes — I couldfeel the peaceful aura which actressSonakshi Sinha exuded at a singleglance. We are like yin and yang, asI am dressed in black. Both perfectfor an ideal exchange of ideas.

Though she has adorned sim-plicity, her choice of roles are boldand more complex. In her latest out-ing Khandaani Shafakhana, she playsBaby Bedi, who is a quick-wittedsmall-town medical representativefrom an orthodox Punjabi family.Despite her earnest efforts, her mod-est income never matches up to themounting bills, which results inmultiple loans and creditors knock-ing at her door constantly. One day,she is presented with an uniqueopportunity. She must choosebetween her utterly ordinary life orbail her family out of their perenni-al money crunch by running a sexclinic, which she inherits from herestranged uncle. The conditions inhis will are a tad bit unusual. Whatfollows is the no-holds-barred jour-ney of a girl in a world where peo-ple prefer to hush up things. Thissmall-town girl will break all thetaboos around sex, open hearts andultimately, minds.

Sonakshi says that there is asocial taboo around the ‘sex’ worditself. We have made it abnormal tosay it out loud or discuss it openlywith anyone, within families or evenwith friends. That’s just how, as asociety, we have been brought up.Yes, things are changing gradually.She says one of reasons why she didthe film was, “Because I am one ofthose people who never had this con-versation with my parents. And thisdespite the fact that I come from aliberal and modern family. So imag-ine, if I am having this issue, whatpeople in small towns are goingthrough and how they must be feel-ing. It is surprising to see sex beingtreated as a taboo especially in acountry, which is so heavily populat-ed. In the trailer, there’s a dialogue— Duniya mein 17 per cent abaadivale hum aur baat toh aise karte hainjaise 130 crore log parshaad vale kelekhake prakat hue hain. (We consti-tute 17 per cent of the populationand we talk as if this appeared as ablessing of God). Envision a coun-try like this. Maybe this is the rea-son why India is over populatedbecause we do not have proper sexeducation and we don’t talk about itopenly.”

The actress feels that this should-n’t be the case. “Whenever there’s acondom advertisement, one proba-bly feels awkward and acts innocent.But why? Is practising safe sex acrime? No, right? Then why does thishappen,” she asks, clearly referring toour history where ancient textsreveal that sex was considered amutually pleasurable act and pre-marital sex was accepted. But today,sex talk, sex education and every-thing related to the topic have a stig-ma attached to them.

Sonakshi feels that such subjects,when merged with an element ofhumour, stays with the audience. “Ifyou ask my opinion, yes, comedydoes help a lot in putting across asubject like this. But I don’t believeit is the only way to express the mes-sage. There have been films with

social messages, which are seriousbut they were a bit different. Thiskind of subject needed humour.Also, what are films? They mirror thesociety, right? So it’s human nature,if you show somebody where theyare going wrong, they get defensivebut if you do it in a funny manneror joke about it, they always listen.It becomes more palatable. Humourjust makes people think withoutoffending them, of course,” explainsthe Dabangg actress.

She is happy to become a flag-bearer for women by taking up asubject like this. Does she think amale protagonist would have beenbetter for the role? Or if it was a malefilmmaker directing her, would shehave been as comfortable? “Therehave been films with male protago-nists but I am really happy to take upsex as a subject. It’s important as wellas relevant in today’s day and age. Itis something that should be dis-cussed and thought about to makea difference in the future. For thisparticular role, a female protagonistwas required,” she says with greatzeal and goes on to add, “Honestlyonce you decide to do a film, if it wasthis particular theme and even if itwas a male director, I would havedone it with conviction and I wouldhave stood by my decision. I think,that’s exactly when you throw allyour embarrassment out of the win-dow because once you are commit-ted to do something you have to putyour heart to it. However, I feel, thekind of sensitivity that Shilpi(Dasgupta) has directed this filmwith definitely did make me a lotmore comfortable. She has done it sobeautifully that it’s not even borderline cheap or vulgar in any manner.It’s a very well-made, intelligent and

funny film. As I said before, it’salways good to express these kind ofemotions and thoughts withhumour.”

Sonakshi is one such person,who believes that roles and charac-ters that are played on-screen shapesyou in real life. “Your roles alwaysteach you. I take away somethingfrom most of my roles. It’s like therole is a part of yourself and at thesame time, you take something fromit. I could easily relate with the char-acter of Baby Bedi. And it’s not onlyme but every other girl as she is oneof those, who somewhere, whenshe was a child, had a dream ofbecoming a doctor but due to fam-ily responsibilities, she had to let goof that dream. You’ll see how shecomes back to following it. I am surea lot of people will be able to con-nect with her. I did too, in certainways,” she says.

What was Sonakshi’s under-standing of the role? And how did sheprepare for it? She answers in a man-ner that leaves nothing to doubt. Itseems she has a habit of takingeverything with ease and that is thereason why she appears so confidentbe it on-screen or in front of themedia. She tells us that her way ofpreparing was to speak with thedirector. “There was no researchinvolved as such. I spoke to Shilpibecause she had a certain vision forit. She showed me a few videos ofsome medical representatives — howthey talk, how smart and straight theyare, what they say to sell a particu-lar product. We did readings with thedialogues. It was very helpful. It getsyou into an easier flow,” says she. Justthe way in which Sonakshi speaks, Isensed how effortlessly simple she is.

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Production consultantDhruv Singh was involvedin the epic wildlife series

— Dynasties. He was vital inliaising with the ForestDepartment and local com-munity in Bandhavgarh tomake the filming happen. Healso spent several days on thefield filming with the produc-tion crew, given his expertiseand awareness of the local sce-nario and challenges.

Tell us about your journey.How did you get into thisprofession and how manywildlife shows have you beena part of?Since my childhood days, Ihave been interested in wildlife,all thanks to my parents, whopioneered the wildlife and ranone of the first wildlife lodges ofthe country in Bandhavgarh,Bhopal in 1978. I was broughtup in Bandhavgarh and hadbeen exposed to tigers sincechildhood. Initially, in this pro-fession I was a wildlife photog-rapher. I can still recall the dayI got an opportunity to work ona wildlife documentary andsince then I never looked back.So, I have been working on suchdocumentaries since the year1996. My first film was theLands of the Tigers (1997),which was a groundbreakingfilm of BBC on the Indian sub-continent and it was one of mymost enjoyable experiences inlife. That’s how my passion fortigers and wildlife grew andturned into a profession.

What is that one trait of a tigerthat is distinct from otheranimals? The trait that appeals me themost is the patience, especiallywhen they are about to hunt.And because I have spent all mylife with tigers, I have observedthem. A tiger can absolutelyfreeze for unimaginable lengthsof time. There will be absolute-ly no movement. One can neversense that the animal is aroundthem. So when a tiger is inquis-itive, it would just freeze in anyposition. And you can see thatin some of the parts ofDynasties.

How difficult was it to shoot inBandhavgarh Reserve for theshow?It was a struggle that we knewwe were getting into. I wouldlike to advice people, who wantto make a film or a documen-tary on the animal — do carrya few pills for blood pressurebecause it’s a real challenge.Actually, filming wildlife itself isa challenge as it’s among one ofa few professions or maybe theonly type of genre, where thesubject you’re going to film iscompletely uncertain. There isno surety whether you’re goingto see a tiger or not. There couldbe days when you wouldn’t seea tiger at all. There was a partof the shoot, where out of three

weeks, for two weeks we didn’tfind a single Raj Bhera, thetigress. It was a very stressfulmoment for the entire crew.However, shooting inBandhavgarh, we had the bestpossibility of seeing thembecause it has the highest num-bers. We knew the territories,which part of the park to findthem. So we had the best knowl-edge and that madeBandhavgarh the perfect loca-tion to film the show.

What is the current situationof tigers in India? Is it betterthan before? If yes, then howand what more can be done tohelp conserve the tiger?I would answer that in twoways. The number of tigers is

undoubtedly far better thanbefore but even that is worse.Where will they go and how canwe create a space for them is achallenge. And to answer thatfurther, the government ofMadhya Pradesh has taken boldsteps. Because of their conser-vation efforts, the numbershave increased. And this is aproblem that they have foreseenthat when the numbers willgrow, where would the tigers go.They have made efforts bymaking headway into pro-grammes by which they cankeep them evenly. They canmove them from parts whichare big in numbers to areas thathave smaller number of tigers.It was very successfully inPanna, where the numbers haddrastically dropped. They wereable to repopulate by bringingthem from other tiger reserves.

Does filming in proximity inthe jungles disturb the ani-mals? The reason why I agreed towork with Sony BBC Earth forDynasties was that they deeplyrespect the space for animals.And It was very clear that thisfilm about tigers in their habi-tat, living a natural life. And thatis what was exciting as well asa challenge. In order to make a

successful film, we need tohave a safe distance. The tigermust not feel your presence,which is a hard thing. So it wasall possible because of the lens-es we used. The ethics of thechannel are very clear. Theentire team behaved in a certainmanner in which they should.To shoot the tigers, there shouldnot be any disturbance, and theteam adhered to it. Because theminute a tiger is disturbed, theshot is of no use to us.

What are the ground realitiesin the jungles that contributeto extinction of animal speciesincluding tigers? What can acommon man do to help intiger conservation?I feel that people of the countryare very responsible as theyunderstand what does it meanto be cruel towards animals.That is why most of the speciesanimals have survived in India.Even though India being themost populated country in theworld, there is still room for ani-mals. And that is not onlybecause of education or conser-vation efforts, it is because peo-ple care for animals and that forme is the essence of conserva-tion. It is our duty, me as a film-maker and every other individ-ual as common person to under-stand their manner of living.Giving them freedom is whatmatters the most as everybodylikes to live in their natural habi-tat and live a life as they want.If we let them live on their ownterms, this simple means that wecare enough to protect them. Ina nutshell, the biggest responsi-bility to have is to fidget nature,national parks, reserves andspend time with animals.

What drove you to the worldof wildlife? Tell us your scari-est moment while assisting infilming the tiger?A lot of people find get scaredwhen something happens.However, while filming wildlife,it’s scariest part is when noth-ing is happens. It means that itis scary when you can’t findanything to shoot. When atiger sleeps, it sleeps throughout the day. The longest we havegone without seeing a tiger istwo and a half weeks, almost18-20 days. It was so dreadful.It’s really difficult because theentire crew’s patience is testedto extreme levels. And that’swhere the production plays abig role in keeping the moraleof the team high and keepingthem excited.

Ajourney from being an asth-matic kid, who could barelyrun 100 metres, to being theyoungest Guinness worldrecord holder for climbing the

seven summits and seven volcanic sum-mits, Satyarup Siddhanta has foughtagainst all the odds and made Indiaproud by inspiring young talent.

But Satyarup knows how to crawl outfrom the depths. While climbing theEverest, which he considers his mostchallenging expedition, he fell into adeep crevice after a snowbridge brokeenroute to camp. He was stuck in the mid-dle and it was so deep that he could notsee its bottom. But he was lucky enoughto be alive and tell the tale.

He says, “On my death bed, I won’tremember how much bank balance I haveor what contract I won or lost.” Rather, hewants to feel content that he touched lives.But to battle the odds, tough conditionsand extreme weather needs a special kindof motivation. He says, “Every step that Iput on the high altitude, fills me up withgratitude. It’s like a miracle, as I neverthought I could climb any mountain. Thejoy in surpassing my own limits, breakingthe barriers and shattering the self limit-ing belief makes me feel unstoppable.” Herealised human potential is unfathomableand the discovery of this strength servedas the greatest motivation for him.

Adventurous since childhood,Satyarup says, “I never dreamt of moun-taineering, but I was always adventurousin my thought process. I used to read a lot

of novels and imagine that I am the cen-tral character. People often saw me on thetreetop or climbing on the parapets or theboundary walls.”

Sharing about his initial years, he says,“Because my college was in the Himalayas,I had intense asthma attacks because of thehigh altitude.” The turning point camewhen he had an asthma attack and had for-gotten the inhaler in his room. He says, “Iwas rolling on the ground to breathe andget some oxygen. I tried everything pos-sible to regularise my breath but nothingworked. After 10 minutes, it automatical-ly became normal.” This incident changedSatyarup’s life. He became contemplativeand saw the incident through a broaderperspective. He realised how dependent hewas on his inhaler and wanted to get ridof that helplessness for which he startedtraining his body by eating food that hewas allergic to.

It was when he joined a job atBengaluru in 2005 that the seeds of

mountaineering were sowed. His bossshowed him his trekking pictures atParvathamalai hill which gave him aninsight into the world he was not aware of.He says, “For a moment I was shockedbecause I always used to think that trekswere possible only in foreign countriesbecause the adventure novels that I readwere mostly set abroad. I asked my bossif I could also do this, and he counter ques-tioned, ‘if I can why can’t you?’” This excit-ed him to the core but he knew that itwould not be easy for him on account ofhis asthma. But, he decided to chase hisdreams and went on a trek toParvathamalai hills. He says, “When Ireached the top, I not only had the joy ofclimbing the hill but also of the fact thatI didn’t use the inhaler during the wholejourney. I felt liberated. That momentinstilled confidence in me and I realisedthat I could achieve all my dreams if I amdedicated.”

Since then there has been no looking

back. Satyarup decided to fight with hisproblems and fulfill his wildest imagina-tion. He says, “Every weekend, people sawme on the Western Ghats trekking, divingand skydiving. I never thought that I wouldbecome a mountaineer.” Things took a 360degree turn in 2010 when he went for theEverest base camp trek in Nepal. He says,“The highest mountain stood there cast-ing a spell on me. I did not know whatmountaineering was, I just knew it is yetanother mountain, a little high but I coulddefinitely do it. So, I promised Everest thatI am going to come back.” But, he soonrealised that mountaineering was not likenormal trekking and was a different gamealtogether. But he clung on to his dreamand started preparing for it.

He then went to Kilimanjaro, the high-est mountain in Africa and came to knowabout the concept of seven summits.(The 7 summits represent the highest pointon each of the seven continents). Satyarupsays, “I was blown away by the idea and

started dreaming about it. But, soonrealised that I didn’t have money for climb-ing even one and here I am thinking aboutseven mountains.”

Talking about the challenges of hisjourney he says, “ I went to Mt Denali, thehighest mountain of North America inAlaska, unsupported and unguidedbecause of its heavy cost.” But the good partwas that he completed the journey and thisboosted his confidence for Everest. Butfinancial constraints held him back, so hecollected funds from his college, friends,parents and crowdfunding. But in 2015,there was an earthquake in Nepal whichkilled more than 10,000 people and allexpeditions were closed. Talking about thetough time he says, “I lost my four friends,I was shattered. Our dreams were crushedbut I did not lose hope. I held together allthe broken pieces of my dreams and start-ed rebuilding it.”

Mountaineering involves challenges inall aspects, be it physical, mental or finan-cial. A mountaineer should be strongenough to combat these in order to turntheir dream into a reality. Satyarup says,“You have to be mentally very strongbecause it’s not easy to see someonefalling from the cliff in front of your eyesbut then you have to walk ahead withoutfeeling anything. This needs a lot of guts.”One needs to be patient in order to han-dle the uncertainties. Talking about thefinancial challenges, he says, “I had to leavemy job because there was no policy forsuch long leaves in my office. So, I had tochoose between Everest and my job and Ichose the former because I had no ideawhether I would come back from the climbor not. I thought there was no point both-ering about the job? The Everest climb cost�20-25 lakh and Antarctica �76 lakh.” Hehas run up a loan of 45 lakh for which heworks at two jobs — morning and evening— to pay his EMIs. Therefore, he is try-ing to get the government’s support. Hefeels that India is not mature enough aboutmountaineering. He says, “There are con-sistent efforts to encourage sports whichhas shown results as we have been break-ing records. My request is to extend thisto mountaineering as well.” He hopes thatthe government understands his situationand reverts with a positive response.

“It will be a failure on part of our coun-try if the potential and passion of moun-taineers is held back because of financialconstraints. I could have used this moneyto buy a house or a car and lead a settledlife but I wanted to make my countryproud. Nobody asked me to, but I felt anurge to be instrumental,” adds he. Herepeatedly urges the government to sup-port mountaineers who silently bringglory to the country but are suffering ter-ribly.

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Embarking on a journeywith friends is a greatway of strengthening

your bond and creating mem-ories that one would treasureforever. A good company canmake any activity fun, adven-turous and exciting. Withfriendship day around thecorner, below is a list of uniqueexperiences across the worldto help you plan a memorabletrip with your friends.

Road trip through Avenue ofthe Giants, CaliforniaAvenue of the Giants, locatedinto the heart of HumboldtRedwoods State Park is knownfor it’s world famous 31-miledrive. The whole route haseight key stopping pointswhich gives you enoughopportunities to explore thescenic beauty of the woods.You can go swimming in theEel River nearby or visit the950 year old tree which hassurvived countless floods andlightning strikes. If you haven’tever took a road trip with yourfriends, now is the perfect timeto visit the Red Wood Forestof California which also hassome amazing views to keepyou mesmerised throughoutthe journey.

Mount Batur SunriseTrekking, BaliTrekking is one of the mostcommon activities done withfriends and what makes it epicis the beautiful view on thetop. A good company helps tokeep you going through thetrek. Trekking at Mount Baturbegins early morning and lotof tourists who visit Bali takepart in this activity as it allowsthem to gaze at the stars whilegoing up. Once you havereached the top of the moun-

tain you can witness a breathtaking view of the sunrise.Make sure to stop at a nearbyhot water spring to relax yourmuscles.

Jetpack adventures, NewSouth WalesJetpacking is one of the mostthrilling activity to do withyour friends. The Jetpack cen-tre located in Sydney and atMount Penang Garden at theCentral coast of New SouthWales allows you to experi-ence the thrill of flying with awater-powered jetpack whichblasts hundreds of litres ofwater through its thrust noz-zles allowing you to fly 15metres above the water. Eachintroductory session includestraining of 45 minutes and aflight of 15 minutes. Water jetpowered fly boards and bikesare also available there.

Party in Ibiza, SpainSpeaking of thrilling adven-tures, partying with yourfriends is as fun and excitingas any activity. Ibiza in Spainis known for it’s night life andlegendary parties. So, packyour bags and fly down toSpain to experience one of thebest night life in the world.You can start the day byexploring amazing beachesand boat parties. As the sunsets, you can move into the

town for some drinks andthereafter join any of the leg-endary clubs with yourfavourite DJs.

Glacier Express, SwitzerlandIf you and your friends are afan of breath taking views,then you are in for a treat. TheGlacier Express has been titledthe ‘slowest express train in theworld.’ It is a direct train fromZermatt to St Moritz. Thetrain passes through 91 tun-nels and 291 bridges account-ing for a 291 km and an eighthour journey. It passesthrough narrow valleys, tightcurves and the beautiful SwissAlps. Make sure to keep acamera to click pictures ofunique and unobstructedlandscapes.

Cross Border Zipline,AndaluciaCross Border Zipline is one ofthe most unique thing toexperience with your friends.It connects Sanlucar deGuadiana, in Andalucia,Spain, to Alcoutim, in Algarve,Portugal. What makes this2,362 foot long zipline uniqueis the fact that it allows you totravel back in time as Algarve,Portugal is an hour behindAndalucia, Spain. The speedof this zipline can reach 45miles per hour which makesit even more exciting.

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He came in when the Indiancricket team was “looking for a

fitness culture” and former strengthand conditioning coach BasuShanker says his stint has ended withthe satisfaction that none of the play-ers would be able to “leave the reg-imen even if they wanted to”.

The 50-year-old’s four-yeartenure ended with the World Cup.

While Kohli was always a“freak” who has not taken a cheatday in the last two years, theChennai-based professional is mostsatisfied about the transformation hehas brought in the fitness levels ofspeedsters Jasprit Bumrah,Bhuvneshwar Kumar andMohammad Shami.

“When I started it was a chal-lenge to transform the culture, now90 per cent of the team trains veryprofessionally. There will always beone or two in every team whorequire the extra push,” Basu, whosecontract with the Indian team endedon July 30, said.

He also worked extensively withthe others including KL Rahul,Hardik Pandya, Ishant, DineshKarthik and Ravichandran Ashwin.The list goes on. Ravindra Jadeja,according to him, is a natural ath-lete who knows his body well andprobably the best fielder in theworld.

Basu decided against continuingwith the Indian team due to familyreasons and says it time for him tomove on to the next phase in his life.

“Looking back, I came at theright juncture (in 2015). The Indianteam was looking for changes andthat was one of the responsibilitiesthrust on me, to bring about the cul-ture. To be very honest I was veryblessed with a set of boys who werelooking for this change.

“When I joined I made a pactwith myself that I will tirelessly workto bring in the much needed impro-visations and culture to augment theteam’s needs. I was very fortunate towork with a coaching and supportteam which allowed me to makeindependent decisions with regardsto training.

“Most of the boys had alreadyworked with me during their under-19 days and it was easy to sell theconcepts.”

And having a leader like Kohliin the side helped him in being more

effective in his job.“When you see someone like

him, it is difficult not to be inspired,”said Basu.

“His cheat days come once in ablue moon, I have not seen him takeone in the last two years. I am tellingyou that fellow is a freak. There willbe months together he would go onand I would force him to take rest.”

The Indian teams of the pastwere not known for their fitness butunder Kohli India has become oneof the fittest sides around.

“It is very simple. You hit oneand then you hit two. In a team if thecaptain sets the example everyonestarts following, it is tough otherwise.And you cannot paint everyone withthe same brush.

“They need to buy in, unlessthey buy in there is no way you canbe effective as a coach. When theystarted seeing the change, they allstarted embracing it. Now we havecome to a stage, even if they want toleave it, they won’t be able to. It isingrained in their system,” saidBasu.

There were doubts over thelongevity of Bumrah with his unusu-al action and his pace partner Shamialso broke down way too often.

While Bumrah has become thenumber one match-winner in allthree formats in the last two years,Shami has worked hard on his fit-ness and managed to stay injury free.

“It is not only Virat, Bumrah,DK, Rahul, Ishant, Shubman, every-body has bought into it now. But Ireally enjoyed working with Bumrah

and Shami, fast bowlers clocking145kmph is very heartening to seeand you have another whole lotclocking 140 plus. It can’t happenovernight.

He also picked the cases ofBhuvneshwar Kumar and KedarJadhav.

“Bhuvneshwar bowls at 140kmph consistently, when I came inhe was bowling at around 128kmph. When you talk about spin-ners, with improved fitness, Ashwincould bowl 95 overs in a match,” saidthe man during whose tenure, clear-ing the yo yo test became mandato-ry.

And there were some giftedmen like Jadeja who did not need alot of attention.

“Look at Jadeja, probably themost natural athlete in the world andthe fittest fielder I have seen in mylife. He is an enigma. The way hemoves on the field, he is easily bestfielder by a country mile.

“He is one guy who did thingson his own, didn’t spend too muchtime in the gym. He was a road run-ner and I understood that very earlyand let him be. So it was all abouthorses for courses.”

He can’t travel with the teamanymore but is always open tohelping the national team.

“At any point if the countrywants me I am there for consulta-tion. Let me first relax for a monthand then take all life decisions later.I have just had two biryanis at a goso let me enjoy this phase,” Basuquipped.

��

India’s SatwiksairajRankireddy and ChiragShetty qualified for the

men’s doubles semifinals butB Sai Praneeth crashed out ofthe men’s singles event at theThailand Open here onFriday.

While Rankireddy andShetty registered a hard-fought win over qualifiersChoi Solgyu and Seo SeungJae of Korea, Sai Praneethsuffered a straight gamedefeat against seventh seedKenta Tsuneyama of Japan.

After posing some chal-lenge in the first game, SaiPraneeth, who reached thesemifinals of lastweek’s Japan Open,surrendered 18-21,12-21 in the men’ssingles quarterfinals.

With Sai Praneeth’s exit,Indian challenge has endedin the men’s singles event.

However, the unseededIndian combination ofRankireddy and Shettyfought valiantly for exactly anhour to get past the Koreanrivals 21-17, 17-21, 21-19 ina quarterfinal duel.

The win was Rankireddyand Shetty’s maiden victoryover the Korean pair to enterthe semifinal, their first in2019 on the BWF WorldTour circuit. They had earli-er won the Brazi l

I n t e r n a t i o n a lChallenge andreached the semifi-nals of Denmark

Challenge.The 16th ranked Indians

will take on another Koreancombo of Ko Sung Hyun andShin Baek Cheol in the semi-finals on Saturday.

Speaking after the match,Rankireddy said, “With everytournament we can see ourgame is improving. In today’smatch, we knew if we staypositive and confident till theend we can win and we real-ly played well in the last twopoints in the end.

“Both of us are makingstrategies for every point on

court and this has helped usto win crucial points, whichotherwise we have been los-ing. Also staying calm andpositive has really worked inour favour.”

However, it was curtainsfor Rankireddy in the quar-terfinals of mixed doublesevent as he and AshwiniPonnappa lost in straightgames to bow out of the tour-nament.

Rankireddy andPonnappa were no matchfor third seeds YutaWatanabe and ArisaHigashino of Japan, losing13-21, 15-21 in a lopsidedencounter that lasted just 28minutes.

� ��

Bayern Munich resume their powerstruggle with Borussia Dortmund on

Saturday for the German Super Cup withthe Bavarians chasing Manchester Citystar Leroy Sane to reinforce their squad.

The blockbuster Bundesliga curtain-raiser in Dortmund once more pitsGermany’s top clubs together after Bayernheld off a spirited Dortmund challenge toland a seventh straight league title on thefinal day of last season.

“This is the first title that is importantto us,” said Bayern star Thomas Muellera fortnight before the new Bundesliga sea-son starts.

“The game has a certain explosive-ness. We want to show that we are ready— we’ll put our all into it.” As defenderNiklas Suele put it, Bayern “want to givea sign” they remain the team to beat inGermany.

Dortmund have recruited hard, sign-ing wingers Thorgan Hazard and JulianBrandt — the latter currently sidelined byinjury — and luring Mats Hummels backfrom Bayern to beef up the defence.

And while Bayern added Frenchworld champions Lucas Hernandez andBenjamin Pavard, City winger Sane is themarquee player they crave.

��/�!��/��According to reports, Bayern have

tabled a bid of around 90 million euros($85 million) — which would be a clubrecord.

They have even reportedly pushedtaking the official team photo back toSeptember in the hope the 23-year-old willhave joined by then.

Head coach Niko Kovac initiallydeclared “I assume we’ll get him” lastweekend, but Bayern have dramaticallydialled back.

Kovac phoned his City counterpartPep Guardiola to apologise for recruiting

Sane aggressively following criticismfrom Bayern’s senior figures.

“We’re all well advised to not talkabout players still under contract,” saidsports director Hasan Salihamidzic whilechairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge alsocriticised Kovac’s bold statement.

On Wednesday, Kovac insisted “whatI said was true” as he still believes in thedeal with the transfer window to close ina month’s time.

Exactly who will line up for Bayernat Dortmund is unclear.

Bayern fielded mainly reserve teamplayers in Wednesday’s defeat toTottenham Hotspur in the final of theirpre-season tournament.

/�� #��"��!��!�Frenchman Kingsley Coman, who

suffered a recurrence of a serious ankleinjury last season, “only” bruised his kneeagainst Spurs, Bayern confirmed.

Fellow winger Serge Gnabry is alsodoubtful with a leg knock, but Kovac indi-cated both players “will be back soon”.

It will be interesting to see if JeromeBoateng features after coming off thebench against Spurs and missing the cru-cial penalty in the shoot-out.

Bayern are keen to sell the 2014 WorldCup winner, but the club’s desire to movethe 30-year-old on has irritated thesquad.

“We’ve been going round in circles for

weeks,” moaned Mueller. “This guyJerome Boateng does us good,” he addedin his team-mate’s defence.

This will be Dortmund’s first key testafter winning six pre-season friendlies —including a 3-2 victory over ChampionsLeague holders Liverpool last month ontheir US tour.

They posted a 4-1 win over St Gallenon Tuesday in their Swiss training campwith captain Marco Reus scoring theirfourth.

“The Super Cup is very important forus all — to start the season well and showfans what we have planned,” said Reus.

“However, it’s clear neither us norBayern are at 100 percent yet.”

� ��

French World Cup-winner Kylian Mbappe urgedtroubled Brazilian Neymar to stay at Paris Saint-

Germain on Friday as he apologised for sparkingspeculation about his own future at the club.

Mbappe, speaking before the ChampionsTrophy against Rennes in Shenzhen, China, saidNeymar was a key player for the French league-win-ners who are desperate for success in Europe nextseason.

“Everyone loves him and I love him so much,”Mbappe said of Neymar, who has been linked witha return to his former club Barcelona.

“I don’t want him to leave the team, obvious-ly. I want him to stay. When you think about hissituation and then he plays very well and he co-operates with the team you can see what he meansto us.”

The 20-year-old Mbappe, who smashed 33goals for PSG last season, also doused any linger-ing concerns over his own plans after he talkedabout playing “elsewhere” at the French leagueawards ceremony in May.

“I think it wasn’t the right place (to say that),”he told reporters in southern Chinese city. “I’d liketo say sorry to the players who were there,because I spoiled the party.”

It has been a troubled few months for Neymar,who earned a three-match ban after an altercationwith a fan as Rennes stunned PSG on penalties towin the French Cup in April.

Neymar also missed Brazil’s triumphant CopaAmerica campaign on home soil after suffering anankle injury in a warm-up friendly against Qatar.

And the 27-year-old has been embroiled in rapeallegations, vehemently denied, which were dis-missed by Brazilian police on Monday for lack ofevidence.

“He is still the same Neymar,” said Mbappe ofhis team-mate, who trained with the rest of thesquad on Friday.

“We all know he is in very special circum-stances. However he is training with us and he isstill performing his best which is not unusual andafter all he is a very good player.”

Mbappe said he hoped to improve on his 33-goal tally next season, adding that Qatar-ownedPSG also want to take the elusive next step in theChampions League.

“We’re going to try to win the two national tro-phies, to not leave matches to chance,” he said.“After that there’s the Champions League, whicheveryone's looking at... we have to take that step.

“We’ve found our way blocked the last fewyears. It’s up to us to find a way to go as far aspossible.”

� ��

World number six Stefanos Tsitsipas struggledlate but advanced to the ATP Washington

Open quarter-finals on Thursday by defeatingAustralia's Jordan Thompson 6-3, 7-6 (7/4).

The 20-year-old Greek top seed took the onlybreak of the match to claim the first set and aftersome tense moments won the tie-breaker whenThompson netted a forehand after 99 minutes atthe US Open hardcourt tune-up event.

“It was kind of tricky at the end,” Tsitsipas said."I kept doing silly mistakes in the tie-breaker. Iwas not happy about it. I made a lot of unforcederrors.

"I played great to get break points, then I start-ed thinking about it. I didn't identify the rightoccasion to come to the net. Just a little lost."

"I believe I can handle those situations moremature in my next matches."

In the quarter-finals, Tsitsipas will meetFrench 10th seed Benoit Paire, who ousted US fifthseed John Isner 7-6 (7/3), 6-3.

"He's a very dangerous player," said Tsitsipasof Paire. "He has a big backhand. His serve canbe dangerous. I'll have to be careful. He's veryunpredictable."

Tsitsipas, who beat Roger Federer in Januaryon his way to the Australian Open semi-finals,seeks his fourth career ATP title after crowns lastOctober in Stockholm, last February at Marseilleand in May at Estoril.

Tsitsipas reached the 2018 Washington semi-finals and a week later became the youngest play-er to ever beat four top-10 ATP players in the sameweek before losing to Rafael Nadal in the CanadaMasters final.

Croatian sixth seed Marin Cilic, the 2014 USOpen champion, beat Canadian ninth seed FelixAuger-Aliassime 6-3, 6-4.

World number 17 Cilic booked a last-eightdate with Russia's 10th-ranked Daniil Medvedev,who eliminated hometown hero Frances Tiafoe6-2, 7-5.

"He's in great shape. His game is strong. Weall know what he's capable of when he's in goodshape," Medvedev said of Cilic. "It's going to show

what I'm capable of this season."Medvedev and Karen Khachanov give Russia

two top-10 players for the first time sinceOctober 2010.

"I'm playing good," Medvedev said. "I wantto back it up with some more wins."

Tiafoe said he will skip next week's ATPCanada Masters Canada after aggravating a footinjury in the loss.

Two lucky losers reached the last eight, includ-ing Slovakia's Norbert Gombos, a last-secondreplacement for South African fourth seed KevinAnderson, who withdrew with right knee pain.

The world number 137 will next face AussieNick Kyrgios, who fired 15 aces in eliminatingJapan's Yoshihito Nishioka 6-2, 7-5.

German 122nd-ranked lucky loser PeterGojowczyk shocked Canada's Milos Raonic, the2014 Washington champion, 6-4, 6-4 to reach thequarter-finals.

"Couldn't make it count when it was the mostimportant," Raonic said. "Just a disappointing per-formance."

Gojowczyk, who had lost 12 of 14 priormatches entering the week, replaced AussieBernard Tomic, who withdrew with a finger injury.

The German has made the most of his oppor-tunity by dispatching Russian Andrey Rublev,Aussie 12th seed Alex De Minaur and 20th-ranked Raonic.

Next up for Gojowczyk is British 13th seedKyle Edmund, who ousted France's 70th-rankedJo-Wilfried Tsonga 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Tsonga, who fired 18 aces, received a wild-card into next week's event at Montreal.

Also getting a Montreal spot was Britain'sAndy Murray, who will play doubles alongsideSpaniard Feliciano Lopez as he tries to make a sin-gles return in two weeks at Cincinnati.

Murray, who feared he might never play againafter January right hip surgery, plays alongsidebrother Jamie in a Washington doubles quarter-final Friday.

In the joint WTA event, Taiwan's 31st-rankedHsieh Su-wei became the only seed in the quar-ter-finals by outlasting Russian qualifier VarvaraGracheva 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (8/6).

� � ��

Two-time Wimbledon cham-pion Petra Kvitova has with-

drawn from next week's RogersCup in Toronto after failing torecover from an arm injurywhich has dogged her season,organisers said Friday.

Tennis Canada said in astatement that the 29-year-oldCzech star's withdrawal wouldmean former world number one

Serena Williams is now given atop eight seed.

Venus Williams will takethe available space in the maindraw while a wild card spotwould be handed to SvetlanaKuznetsova.

Kvitova said in a statementshe had pulled out after the leftarm injury that forced her towithdraw from the French Openflared up again.

"I'm so disappointed to have

to withdraw from the RogersCup," Kvitova commented.

"My forearm injury is con-tinuing to cause some problemsso, on the advice of my medicalteam, I have made the decisionnot to travel to Canada."

Despite pulling out ofRoland Garros, Kvitova wenton to play Wimbledon, advanc-ing to the last 16 for the first timein five years where she waseventually knocked out by

Johanna Konta.Kvitova has made a remark-

able comeback to tennis afterbeing attacked during a homeinvasion and robbery in 2016which left her with seriousinjuries to her left hand.

Although doctors feared shemay never play tennis again, shereturned to the sport in 2017 andhas since won eight titles, as wellas reaching the final of theAustralian Open in January.

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