˘ ˇˆ˙ ˝ ˆ ˛ ˚ village near umarpada area in south gujarat. shockingly, the area in which the...

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I n a case of abject cruelty towards a wild animal, angry tribals burnt a leopard alive in its cage on Thursday, a day after the big cat mauled to death an eight-year-old girl in Surat’s Vadi Village near Umarpada area in South Gujarat. Shockingly, the area in which the gruesome incident occurred is the Assembly con- stituency of Gujarat’s Forest Minister Ganapat Vasava. Reacting immediately, the Gujarat Government ordered the setting up of a five member committee to look into the incident. The Forest Department, has lodged a complaint against the miscreants and an investi- gation is underway. The remains of the leopard have been sent for forensic examination. Leopards and other big cats have been known to stray into populated areas, and con- servationists have warned that such confrontations may increase as humans encroach on animal habitats. I n what is being dubbed a ‘historic’ effort by an outgo- ing president, Barack Obama is pulling out all the stops to see his party nominee Hillary Clinton prevail in the face of an extraordinary resurgence by Republican Donald Trump in the closing stages of a presi- dential campaign that she had dominated for the most part. Trump, in contrast to the coordinated Clinton-Obama offensive, has been soldiering on virtually like a lone ranger, but still drawing big crowds and going on the offensive against both, particularly against Obama’s Justice Department for “meddling” in the FBI probes over the email saga and the Clinton Foundation. More than 30 million Americans have already voted across the country taking advantage of the early voting opportunity. While Clinton and Trump have been having a go at each other, their campaigns have mounted a big ground operation for the early vote. Democrats, according to a CNN analysis, are building a lead in North Carolina and Nevada, with Republicans holding the edge in Ohio and Florida. Obama has now been cam- paigning almost on a daily basis over the past week in an all-out bid to beat back the Trump challenge amid mixed reports on her purported recovery as indicated by RealClearPolitics (+2.6 per cent nationally) and a slight improvement in some battle- ground States that have been swinging back and forth with- in a narrow range. In contrast, psephologist Nate Silver, even while noting that Clinton still has a 66.5 per cent chance of winning the race, speaks of a potential breach of her electoral firewall in New Hampshire, a Democratic stronghold that is now seen to be trending in favour of Trump and result in a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College. Although the possibility of Clinton prevailing in the highly-competitive battle- ground States of Florida and North Carolina cannot be ruled out, the loss of tiny New Hampshire, which has just 4 electoral votes, could produce a queer situation. For Clinton, as indeed for Trump, the predominant focus is now on Florida (29 electoral votes) and North Carolina (15). Among other major battle- grounds, Clinton is thought to be having Pennsylvania (20) within her grasp, while it is advantage Trump in Ohio (18). Obama, anxious about his own legacy as he does the extra mile for Clinton, is espe- cially focusing on galvanizing the votes of African-Americans and college students. Both these pro-Democrat segments are thought to be a little less enthusiastic this time com- pared to the 2008 and 2012 races that Obama had won handily. T here is happy news for mil- lions of followers of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa all over Tamil Nadu. “Jayalalithaa has completely recovered. She is aware of her surroundings and understands what is going on around her,” said Apollo Hospitals chairman Dr Pratap C Reddy at Chennai on Friday. He was interacting with journal- ists on the sidelines of a function held to release a book Apollo Hospitals Text Book on Medicine. Dr Reddy, a septua- genarian cardiologist, is the overall leader of the team of doctors attending to Jayalalithaa, who has been hos- pitalised since September 22. The fact that a person like Dr Reddy has come out with an announcement like this is expected to set at rest all rumours about her health being spread by her rivals. T he police on Friday took into custody four more suspects, thus taking the total number of arrests made in connection with the rape of a minor girl at an ashram school in Buldhana dis- trict of Vidarbha region to 11. Those arrested include staff members of the Kokare Adivasi Ashram School at Pala Village, who did not bring the incident to the notice of the police The Maharashtra Government has set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a woman IPS officer to investigate the inci- dent at the as police suspect that more children could have been sexually exploited. While Buldhana’s Additional Superintendent of Police Sweta Khedkar will head the SIT, the State CID’s Nagpur Divisional Superintendent Aarti Singh has been asked to visit the school and talk to children and parents of the wards in the school. “The Buldhana incident is serious. The State Government and police have taken cog- nizance of it. The police have arrested several people, includ- ing the director of the ashram school. Teams of women officers would visit ashram schools across the State, speak to the girls and ascertain if the school man- agements are implementing the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) prepared by the State Government to safeguard girl students,” said Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis. S howing strong faith in oust- ed Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry, independent directors of Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL), the group’s hospitality arm, on Friday expressed their solidar- ity and fully endorsed his lead- ership of the company and steps taken by him in the strategic direction. Also, amidst IHCL’s Board meeting, Tata Sons announced the rejig of its organisational structure, appointing S Padmanabhan as the group Human Resources (HR) head in the conglomerate and giving Mukund Rajan the responsi- bility of overseeing operations of the overseas representative offices of Tata Sons in USA, Singapore, Dubai and China. The independent directors, including banker Deepak Parekh and Nadir Godrej, met ahead of the Tata group’s loss- making company’s Board meet- ing and unanimously expressed their confidence in Mistry, who has been ousted as chairman of holding firm Tata Sons. Besides, Parekh and Godrej, other inde- pendent directors of IHCL also include Gautam Banerjee, Keki Dadiseth, Vibha Rishi and Ireena Vittal. “The independent direc- tors unanimously expressed their full confidence in chair- man Cyrus Mistry and praised steps taken by him in provid- ing strategic direction and lead- ership to the company,” IHCL said in a Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) filing. However, the Ratan Tata- led interim management of Tata Sons is seeking to oust Mistry from his positions in the operating group firms, includ- ing IHCL and Tata Motors. The IHCL Board met after the meeting of the independent directors and approved the financial results for the second quarter ended September. The meeting was chaired by Mistry and it is not clear if the pro- moter group brought any sup- plementary agenda to remove Mistry. Besides Mistry, his sib- ling Shapoor Mistry, is also a director on the Board of IHCL, as also his confidant and CEO Rakesh K Sarna. Explaining the reasons for making public their views, IHCL said, “After delibera- tions, the independent direc- tors came to the view that being a listed company, it was imper- ative for the independent direc- tors to state their views to the investors and public at large, such that those who trade in securities of the company make an informed decision.” It is learnt that Mistry has decided to dig in his heels after being ousted as chairman of Tata Sons and plans to contin- ue in his current role at Tata group firms, including Tata Steel, TCS and Tata Motors, where he is the chairman. Sources close to him had stat- ed that he has no plans to quit as chairman of these firms and he will discharge his fiduciary duty as required by law in all his positions in the Tata group. A day after he was ousted on October 24, Mistry had written a letter to the Board of Tata Sons in which he high- lighted many issues confronting the group firms, including IHCL. He had said many for- eign properties of IHCL and holdings in Orient Hotels have been sold at a loss. The onerous terms of lease for Pierre in New York were such that it would make it a challenge to exit. Mistry also said that beyond flawed international strategy, IHCL had acquired the Searock property at a high- ly inflated price and housed in an off-balance sheet structure. “In the process of unravelling this legacy, IHCL has had to write down nearly its entire networth over the past three years. This impairs its ability to pay dividends,” he wrote. Tata Sons also announced the rejig of its organisational structure, appointing S Padmanabhan as the group Human Resources (HR) head in the conglomerate. Besides, Padmanabhan has been given an additional responsibility apart from his existing role, of leading the Tata Business Excellence Group. Apart from Padmanabhan, former Tata brand custodian under Mistry’s regime Mukund Rajan has been given the responsibility of overseeing operations of the overseas rep- resentative offices of Tata Sons in the USA, Singapore, Dubai and China. This is in addition to his existing responsibility of ethics and sustainability. U nion Minister for Road, Transport and Shipping Nitin Gadkari will be the Chief Guest of State Foundation Day programme on November 15 in Ranchi. The Union Minister on Friday accepted Chief Minister Raghubar Das’ invitation in a courtesy meet in Delhi. The CM also met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely and requested him to be the Chief Guest in Global Investors’ Summit on February 16-17, 2017. The invitation was accept- ed by the Finance Minister. After meeting Gadkari, Das met with the Ministry officials regarding the ongoing schemes in the State. The CM requested the Gadkari to sort out the pending schemes of NHAI and speed up the work. He also requested to complete NH-33 soon. Gadkari directed the officials to visit the site and sort out the problems. On the occasion, the offi- cials requested the CM to sort out the problems regarding land acquisition for NHAI. The CM assured them to address the problems soon. A review meet- ing will take place in this regard on November 10 with NHAI officers in Ranchi. Road, Transport and Shipping Secretary Sanjay Mitra and other senior officials of the ministry were present in the meeting. Later in the day, the CM met Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and requested him to rename Hatia Ernakulum Express as Bhagwan Birsa Munda Express. He said that people of South India will come to know about Bhagwan Birsa and his crusade against the British rule with the initiative. The Railway Minister consented to it. A letter in this regard was also handed over to the Railway Ministry by Government of Jharkhand. The Chief Minister had flagged off Hatia- Ernakulum Express last week itself, which is a weekly train, from Hatia Station. He had raised the demand on the occasion. P roviding the Opposition a new arsenal to use against Government, Silli MLA and AJSU Party leader Vikas Singh Munda on Friday quit the Tribal Advisory Council (TAC). Despite being a mem- ber of AJSU Party, an ally of ruling BJP in the Government, Munda alleged the Government of not lending its ears to the other voices raised during TAC meeting on Thursday over CNT/SPT Acts amendment issues. However, he also said that he was very much in support of the Government, otherwise. “This is a symbolic protest. I wish my concerns over the (CNT/SPT) issues could have been paid attention. It is painful not to get heard. What else Adiwasis of the State are known for other than their land? I do believe this issue is there to be taken seriously,” said Munda after quitting. This move of AJSU MLA has left the Government, already surrounded with non- believers of CNT/SPT Acts amendment proposal outside the party, totally uncomfortable at a time when it is planning to step in the Winter Session of the Assembly. Four of the 18 TAC members had not attend- ed Thursday’s TAC meeting. Meanwhile, the Opposition parties slammed Government’s move on getting CNT/SPT Acts amended saying that they were ready to lock horns with the Government from street to the Assembly. JPCC president Sukhdev Bhagat said on Friday that the party believed that Government’s move was only to grab land and distribute it to their favourite business families and the party was determined not to let it happen at any cost. On the other hand, JMM and JVM have also said that the amend- ment was nowhere in favour of Adivasis and tribals of the State. “The BJP Government has perhaps not gone through even the Acts’ word by word in their hurry to grab the land. Otherwise they must have known that the CNT/SPT Acts are applicable on agriculture land only. So, the moment they say try to cheat people by say- ing that the ownership will not be changed, they forget that it is not possible at all,” said Bhagat. Questioning the logic of the Government that the development of the State was on a halt because of the act- duo, Bhagat said that develop- ment was just an excuse for the Government. “The Government doesn’t need land for development, as it already has a land bank of over 20 lakh acres in 29,000 revenue villages. Moreover, construction of schools, hospitals and other places of public use are nowhere stalled just for land,” said Bhagat. Adding its voice to that of the Congress, JMM spokesper- son Supriyo Bhattacharya also said that it out rightly rejected the proposals which were float- ed after Tribals Advisory Committee (TAC) meeting on Thursday. “We don’t buy those proposals, as they are anti-trib- als. We reject it and will come out with our course of action soon,” Bhattacharya said. JVM MLA Pradeep Yadav, however, went a step ahead by saying that the party was will- ing to request all those leaders across the party to oppose any such amendment, if the pro- posal was tabled in the assem- bly during winter session. “I wish the government tables in the assembly, because the true faces of all those supporting and opposing in the streets will be unveiled inside the assembly. As far as we are concerned, we strongly oppose to any amend- ment and we are there to stop the Government from taking its hidden agenda of land grabbing on behalf of handful million- aires,” said Yadav. Actually the Government appears to have teased the bee- hive of Opposition by calling TAC meeting and coming up with little flexibilities in the amendment clauses of CNT/SPT Acts. The members in the meeting on Thursday agreed upon bringing the pro- vision that even after land acquisition, the ownership of land wouldn’t change. “This itself is a big deceit. Why would any corporate, or anyone for that matter, would acquire land if it knows that it wouldn’t enjoy the ownership. Yet again, CNT/SPT Acts don’t allow any change in the nature of the land, which is no way possible if it is acquired,” said Bhagat.

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In a case of abject crueltytowards a wild animal, angry

tribals burnt a leopard alive inits cage on Thursday, a day afterthe big cat mauled to death aneight-year-old girl in Surat’sVadi Village near Umarpadaarea in South Gujarat.

Shockingly, the area inwhich the gruesome incidentoccurred is the Assembly con-stituency of Gujarat’s ForestMinister Ganapat Vasava.Reacting immediately, theGujarat Government orderedthe setting up of a five membercommittee to look into theincident.

The Forest Department,has lodged a complaint againstthe miscreants and an investi-gation is underway.

The remains of the leopardhave been sent for forensicexamination.

Leopards and other bigcats have been known to strayinto populated areas, and con-servationists have warned thatsuch confrontations mayincrease as humans encroachon animal habitats.

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In what is being dubbed a‘historic’ effort by an outgo-

ing president, Barack Obama ispulling out all the stops to seehis party nominee HillaryClinton prevail in the face of anextraordinary resurgence byRepublican Donald Trump inthe closing stages of a presi-dential campaign that she haddominated for the most part.

Trump, in contrast to thecoordinated Clinton-Obamaoffensive, has been soldiering onvirtually like a lone ranger, butstill drawing big crowds andgoing on the offensive againstboth, particularly againstObama’s Justice Departmentfor “meddling” in the FBI

probes over the email saga andthe Clinton Foundation.

More than 30 millionAmericans have already votedacross the country taking

advantage of the early votingopportunity. While Clinton andTrump have been having a go ateach other, their campaignshave mounted a big ground

operation for the early vote.Democrats, according to a CNNanalysis, are building a lead inNorth Carolina and Nevada,with Republicans holding theedge in Ohio and Florida.

Obama has now been cam-paigning almost on a dailybasis over the past week in anall-out bid to beat back theTrump challenge amid mixedreports on her purportedrecovery as indicated byRealClearPolitics (+2.6 per centnationally) and a slightimprovement in some battle-ground States that have beenswinging back and forth with-in a narrow range.

In contrast, psephologistNate Silver, even while notingthat Clinton still has a 66.5 percent chance of winning the race,speaks of a potential breach ofher electoral firewall in NewHampshire, a Democraticstronghold that is now seen tobe trending in favour of Trumpand result in a 269-269 tie in theElectoral College.

Although the possibilityof Clinton prevailing in thehighly-competitive battle-ground States of Florida andNorth Carolina cannot be ruledout, the loss of tiny NewHampshire, which has just 4electoral votes, could producea queer situation.

For Clinton, as indeed forTrump, the predominant focusis now on Florida (29 electoralvotes) and North Carolina (15).Among other major battle-grounds, Clinton is thought tobe having Pennsylvania (20)within her grasp, while it isadvantage Trump in Ohio (18).

Obama, anxious about hisown legacy as he does theextra mile for Clinton, is espe-cially focusing on galvanizingthe votes of African-Americansand college students. Boththese pro-Democrat segmentsare thought to be a little lessenthusiastic this time com-pared to the 2008 and 2012races that Obama had wonhandily.

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There is happy news for mil-lions of followers of Chief

Minister J Jayalalithaa all overTamil Nadu. “Jayalalithaa hascompletely recovered. She isaware of her surroundings andunderstands what is going onaround her,” said ApolloH o s p i t a l schairman DrPratap CReddy atChennai onFriday.

He wasinteractingwith journal-ists on thesidelines of af u n c t i o nheld to release a book ApolloHospitals Text Book onMedicine. Dr Reddy, a septua-genarian cardiologist, is theoverall leader of the team ofdoctors attending toJayalalithaa, who has been hos-pitalised since September 22.

The fact that a person likeDr Reddy has come out with anannouncement like this isexpected to set at rest allrumours about her healthbeing spread by her rivals.

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The police on Friday took intocustody four more suspects,

thus taking the total number ofarrests made in connection withthe rape of a minor girl at anashram school in Buldhana dis-trict of Vidarbha region to 11.Those arrested include staffmembers of the Kokare AdivasiAshram School at Pala Village,who did not bring the incidentto the notice of the police

The MaharashtraGovernment has set up aSpecial Investigation Team(SIT) headed by a woman IPSofficer to investigate the inci-dent at the as police suspectthat more children could havebeen sexually exploited.

While Buldhana’s AdditionalSuperintendent of Police SwetaKhedkar will head the SIT, theState CID’s Nagpur DivisionalSuperintendent Aarti Singh hasbeen asked to visit the school andtalk to children and parents of

the wards in the school.“The Buldhana incident is

serious. The State Governmentand police have taken cog-nizance of it. The police havearrested several people, includ-ing the director of the ashramschool. Teams of women officerswould visit ashram schoolsacross the State, speak to the girlsand ascertain if the school man-agements are implementing theStandard Operating Procedures(SOPs) prepared by the StateGovernment to safeguard girlstudents,” said Maharashtra CMDevendra Fadnavis.

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Showing strong faith in oust-ed Tata Sons chairman

Cyrus Mistry, independentdirectors of Indian HotelsCompany Ltd (IHCL), thegroup’s hospitality arm, onFriday expressed their solidar-ity and fully endorsed his lead-ership of the company andsteps taken by him in thestrategic direction.

Also, amidst IHCL’s Boardmeeting, Tata Sons announcedthe rejig of its organisationalstructure, appointing SPadmanabhan as the groupHuman Resources (HR) headin the conglomerate and givingMukund Rajan the responsi-bility of overseeing operationsof the overseas representativeoffices of Tata Sons in USA,Singapore, Dubai and China.

The independent directors,including banker DeepakParekh and Nadir Godrej, metahead of the Tata group’s loss-making company’s Board meet-ing and unanimously expressedtheir confidence in Mistry, whohas been ousted as chairman ofholding firm Tata Sons. Besides,Parekh and Godrej, other inde-pendent directors of IHCL alsoinclude Gautam Banerjee, KekiDadiseth, Vibha Rishi andIreena Vittal.

“The independent direc-tors unanimously expressedtheir full confidence in chair-man Cyrus Mistry and praised

steps taken by him in provid-ing strategic direction and lead-ership to the company,” IHCLsaid in a Bombay StockExchange (BSE) filing.

However, the Ratan Tata-led interim management ofTata Sons is seeking to oustMistry from his positions in theoperating group firms, includ-ing IHCL and Tata Motors.

The IHCL Board met afterthe meeting of the independentdirectors and approved thefinancial results for the secondquarter ended September. Themeeting was chaired by Mistryand it is not clear if the pro-moter group brought any sup-plementary agenda to removeMistry. Besides Mistry, his sib-ling Shapoor Mistry, is also adirector on the Board of IHCL,as also his confidant and CEORakesh K Sarna.

Explaining the reasons formaking public their views,IHCL said, “After delibera-

tions, the independent direc-tors came to the view that beinga listed company, it was imper-ative for the independent direc-tors to state their views to theinvestors and public at large,such that those who trade insecurities of the company makean informed decision.”

It is learnt that Mistry hasdecided to dig in his heels afterbeing ousted as chairman ofTata Sons and plans to contin-ue in his current role at Tatagroup firms, including TataSteel, TCS and Tata Motors,where he is the chairman.Sources close to him had stat-ed that he has no plans to quitas chairman of these firms andhe will discharge his fiduciaryduty as required by law in all hispositions in the Tata group.

A day after he was oustedon October 24, Mistry hadwritten a letter to the Board ofTata Sons in which he high-lighted many issues confronting

the group firms, includingIHCL. He had said many for-eign properties of IHCL andholdings in Orient Hotels havebeen sold at a loss. The onerousterms of lease for Pierre in NewYork were such that it wouldmake it a challenge to exit.

Mistry also said thatbeyond flawed internationalstrategy, IHCL had acquiredthe Searock property at a high-ly inflated price and housed inan off-balance sheet structure.“In the process of unravellingthis legacy, IHCL has had towrite down nearly its entirenetworth over the past threeyears. This impairs its ability topay dividends,” he wrote.

Tata Sons also announcedthe rejig of its organisationalstructure, appointing SPadmanabhan as the groupHuman Resources (HR) headin the conglomerate. Besides,Padmanabhan has been givenan additional responsibilityapart from his existing role, ofleading the Tata BusinessExcellence Group.

Apart from Padmanabhan,former Tata brand custodianunder Mistry’s regime MukundRajan has been given theresponsibility of overseeingoperations of the overseas rep-resentative offices of Tata Sonsin the USA, Singapore, Dubaiand China.

This is in addition to hisexisting responsibility of ethicsand sustainability.

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Union Minister for Road,Transport and Shipping

Nitin Gadkari will be the ChiefGuest of State Foundation Dayprogramme on November 15 inRanchi. The Union Minister onFriday accepted Chief MinisterRaghubar Das’ invitation in acourtesy meet in Delhi. TheCM also met Union FinanceMinister Arun Jaitely andrequested him to be the ChiefGuest in Global Investors’Summit on February 16-17,2017. The invitation was accept-ed by the Finance Minister.

After meeting Gadkari,Das met with the Ministryofficials regarding the ongoingschemes in the State. The CMrequested the Gadkari to sortout the pending schemes ofNHAI and speed up the work.He also requested to completeNH-33 soon. Gadkari directedthe officials to visit the site andsort out the problems.

On the occasion, the offi-cials requested the CM to sortout the problems regarding landacquisition for NHAI. The CMassured them to address theproblems soon. A review meet-ing will take place in this regardon November 10 with NHAIofficers in Ranchi. Road,Transport and ShippingSecretary Sanjay Mitra and othersenior officials of the ministrywere present in the meeting.

Later in the day, the CMmet Union Railway MinisterSuresh Prabhu and requestedhim to rename Hatia

Ernakulum Express asBhagwan Birsa Munda Express.He said that people of SouthIndia will come to know aboutBhagwan Birsa and his crusadeagainst the British rule with theinitiative. The Railway Ministerconsented to it. A letter in thisregard was also handed over tothe Railway Ministry byGovernment of Jharkhand.

The Chief Minister hadflagged off Hatia- ErnakulumExpress last week itself, whichis a weekly train, from HatiaStation. He had raised thedemand on the occasion.

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Providing the Opposition anew arsenal to use against

Government, Silli MLA andAJSU Party leader Vikas SinghMunda on Friday quit theTribal Advisory Council(TAC). Despite being a mem-ber of AJSU Party, an ally ofruling BJP in the Government,Munda alleged theGovernment of not lending itsears to the other voices raisedduring TAC meeting onThursday over CNT/SPT Actsamendment issues. However,he also said that he was verymuch in support of theGovernment, otherwise.

“This is a symbolic protest.I wish my concerns over the(CNT/SPT) issues could havebeen paid attention. It is painfulnot to get heard. What elseAdiwasis of the State are knownfor other than their land? I dobelieve this issue is there to betaken seriously,” said Mundaafter quitting.

This move of AJSU MLAhas left the Government,already surrounded with non-believers of CNT/SPT Actsamendment proposal outsidethe party, totally uncomfortableat a time when it is planning tostep in the Winter Session ofthe Assembly. Four of the 18TAC members had not attend-ed Thursday’s TAC meeting.

Meanwhile, the Oppositionparties slammed Government’smove on getting CNT/SPT Actsamended saying that they wereready to lock horns with theGovernment from street to theAssembly. JPCC presidentSukhdev Bhagat said on Fridaythat the party believed thatGovernment’s move was only tograb land and distribute it to theirfavourite business families andthe party was determined not tolet it happen at any cost. On theother hand, JMM and JVM

have also said that the amend-ment was nowhere in favour ofAdivasis and tribals of the State.

“The BJP Government hasperhaps not gone through eventhe Acts’ word by word in theirhurry to grab the land.Otherwise they must haveknown that the CNT/SPT Actsare applicable on agricultureland only. So, the moment theysay try to cheat people by say-ing that the ownership will notbe changed, they forget that it isnot possible at all,” said Bhagat.

Questioning the logic ofthe Government that thedevelopment of the State wason a halt because of the act-duo, Bhagat said that develop-ment was just an excuse for theGovernment. “TheGovernment doesn’t need landfor development, as it alreadyhas a land bank of over 20 lakhacres in 29,000 revenue villages.Moreover, construction ofschools, hospitals and other

places of public use arenowhere stalled just for land,”said Bhagat.

Adding its voice to that ofthe Congress, JMM spokesper-son Supriyo Bhattacharya alsosaid that it out rightly rejectedthe proposals which were float-ed after Tribals AdvisoryCommittee (TAC) meeting onThursday. “We don’t buy thoseproposals, as they are anti-trib-als. We reject it and will comeout with our course of actionsoon,” Bhattacharya said.

JVM MLA Pradeep Yadav,however, went a step ahead bysaying that the party was will-ing to request all those leadersacross the party to oppose anysuch amendment, if the pro-posal was tabled in the assem-bly during winter session. “Iwish the government tables inthe assembly, because the truefaces of all those supporting andopposing in the streets will beunveiled inside the assembly. Asfar as we are concerned, westrongly oppose to any amend-ment and we are there to stopthe Government from taking itshidden agenda of land grabbingon behalf of handful million-aires,” said Yadav.

Actually the Governmentappears to have teased the bee-hive of Opposition by callingTAC meeting and coming upwith little flexibilities in theamendment clauses ofCNT/SPT Acts. The membersin the meeting on Thursdayagreed upon bringing the pro-vision that even after landacquisition, the ownership ofland wouldn’t change. “Thisitself is a big deceit. Why wouldany corporate, or anyone forthat matter, would acquire landif it knows that it wouldn’tenjoy the ownership. Yet again,CNT/SPT Acts don’t allow anychange in the nature of theland, which is no way possibleif it is acquired,” said Bhagat.

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DALTONGANJ: Three railwaystations of the East Central rail-ways under Dhanbad divisionnamely Kajree Rajhara andTolra are most vulnerable to fogfall. Sources said these threerailway stations are close toriver Amanat Koyal and have enormous plain fieldswhere the concentration of foggets high.

For the railways the visi-bility limit is 180 meters fromthe railway station. And ifthere is no visibility in thisrange it means the railway sta-tion, signal and railway tracksare under fog! And it is alerttime for every one.

ECR railway traffic inspec-tor Daltonganj A K Sinha con-firming this said ‘3 railway sta-tions Kajree Rajhara and Tolra

are most vulnerable to fogproblem and the visibility stan-dard is 189 meters where ourtrain engine crew should seethings clear and if there is anydisturbance in visibility it isalert time for all of us’.

Pushpa Kumari a grade 4employee here in Daltonganjrailway station told the Pioneer‘ Exactly 270 meters away fromthe Home Signal two detona-tors are put on the railwaytracks in a gap of ten meters butthe two detonators are notkept in a series or in one trackbut their positioning is donetangent using two tracks’.

The detonators explode oncoming under the wheels of thetrain giving warning to trainengine crew of the fog .

PNS

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Circle Officer (CO),Daltonganj Sadar Sheo

Shanker Pandey has issued anotice with regard to the trans-fer of 32 acres and 45 decimalplot of land on the campus ofthe GLA college here for the

construction of the adminis-trative building and otherdepartments of the NilamberPitamber university.

Pandey said, “We have past-ed this Ishtehar on the collegecampus and its notice boardinviting any objection from anyconcerned in this regard latest by

November 10’. The objectionsare to be given in writing till thisNovember 10 in the office of thesadar CO Medininagar on anyworking day said Pandey.

Pandey said, “We havecarved out 32.45 acres of emptyplot of land for the NPU build-ing on this campus of GLA col-

lege.” He reiterated that once itwould take a final shape thenthis 32.45 acres of plot of landwould come down to littleover 25 acres. He said there aremore land but its shape isunfit for any construction.

Pandey said, “The spaceafter where the CRPF’s occu-pancy ends on this campus istoo narrow not fit for any con-struction and hence it has notbeen included.”

The notice has been done asway back in 2010 similar effortswere made to build the admin-istrative building of NPU on thecampus of the GLA college butfor the protest and demonstra-tion by a student wing then theplan was back seated. The uni-versity which had even given let-ter of intent to a builder ManjeetPrakash for construction in2010 had to return more than3.11 lakhs of Manjeet Prakash’ssecurity deposit then.

���������� ������������������������������������������'���������DALTONGANJ: Daltonganj police nabbed two youths one a sec-ond year medical student identified as Manoj Thomas Kundulnastudying in RIMS Ranchi and recovered 81 live rounds of Insaasrifle, three cell phones and cash worth 2,150 said ASP ( Operation)Arun Kumar Singh.

Giving details ASP ( Ops) Singh said the other nabbed withManoj has been identified as Shyam Sao who is a local guy.

Singh said the ammunition was to be passed on to one noto-rious Maoist Shiv Lal Yadav. He said the two were nabbed at BhimGara non metallic road under town out post number 2.

About the antecedence of the two Manoj and Shyam ASP (Ops) said they have been to this nefarious activi-ty in the past too. PNS

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Lohardaga police got a grandsuccess on arrest of three

criminal and an asset of Rs 25Lakhs of levy. Police also recov-ered Rs 61,40,000, 28 acres ofland worth crores and an Altocar of regional commanderNakul Yadav.

SP Karthik S said in apress meet, “Police had gotsecret information that theregional commander of amaoist organization BhartiyaCommunist Party Nakul Yadavalias Jawahar Yadav had sentone of his messengers Rohit

Yadav to collect levy from thetransporting and ranging com-panies of Pakhar mines.

The owners of those com-panies were to give a bigamount as levy.

After that a special raidteam had been set up in theleadership of SP and policearrested a suspected personRohit Yadav sitting in Alto carJH02 AE 8973 near AjayUdyaan. At that time RohitYadav was taking a plastic bagfrom Rajkumar Singh a super-visor of Balaji Company. Policerecovered Rs 8,15,000 fromthe plastic bag.

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About 500 partic-ipants on Friday

took part in “Run forUnity,” which isorganised by CentralCoalfields Limited tomark weeklong cele-bration of birthanniversary of SardarVallabh Bhai Patel.They negotiatedthrough Raj Bhawan,Soochna Bhawan,and residence ofChief Minister before culmi-nating at Jawahar NagarColony, Kanke Road.

Director (Personnel), CCL,RS Mahapatra flagged of “Runfor Unity” from DarbhangaHouse to Jawahar Nagar, KankeRoad. CVO Arbind Prasad,GM (Welfare) VN Prasad alongwith CCL employees, Studentsof Kendriya Vidyalya RajendraNagar, Ranchi University,

Diyang sportspersons, Residentsof Gandhinagar Colony, Kankeroad participated with fullenthusiasm in “Run for Unity”.During the program, tradition-al Chau dance and a patrioticdance performance was pre-sented by Lok Kalyan Santhan,Sonahatu and school studentsrespectively.

At the end of the “Run forUnity”, Director (Personnel)

RS Mahapataro, CVO and oth-ers paid floral tribute to SardarVallabh Bhai Patel. Mahapatroadministered the oath for Unityto all the participants.Addressing the participants hesaid that CCL will run alongwith the country on the road toprosperity. He said thatwhether its field of technology,education, sports etc. countryis ready to lead the world.

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Inspired from PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’s

Skill India programme,Motilal Nehru PublicSchool ( MNPS) organiseda Skill Fest to test the skill ofstudents. More than 500students from classes IV toXII participated in the festorganised at the school cam-pus in Bistupur.

As part of the event, stu-dents of class XI were givenfive sets of junked comput-ers comprising a monitor,CPU and keyboard, whichthey had to use to create sci-ence models.

The junior studentsfrom classes IV and V also par-ticipated in this competitionunder a different category wherethey made models on lungs, res-piratory system and how oxygenis essential to burn something.

Students of classes VIII, IXand X participated in mas-

terchef where they had to makepreparations like salads. Theyalso participated in a contesttitled ‘Design for Change’ wherethey had to explain their giventopics by drawing a flow chart.

Ashu Tiwary, principal ofMotilal Nehru Public School

said that the idea was to helpstudents use their skills tocome with their own innovativeidea. “This is the first of its kindfest we have to promote skills.This is something beyond edu-cation but helpful in longerrun,” she said.

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Union Home Ministry hasderecognised more than

11,000 non-governmental organ-isations (NGOs) after they failedto renew their registration underthe Foreign ContributionRegulations Act by the June 30deadline this year. The decisionprevents them from receiving foreign funds.

In a statement, the Ministry’sFCRA wing said the validity oftheir registration was deemedexpired from November 1, 2016.Most of these NGOs were reg-istered as orphanages, educa-tional institutions, mainly float-ed by various ChristianMissionaries. Some NGOs,which figure in the cancelled list,are staff welfare organisationsassociated with variousGovernment departments.

In 2015, the HomeMinistry had cancelled FCRAregistration of 10,000 NGOsbecause they did not file theirannual returns for three yearsin a row. Many of these organ-isations were defunct or did notwant the FCRA registration inany case.

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In order to ensure the safetyof denizens during the aus-

picious occasion of ‘ChhathPuja’, Ranchi police are on toeto prevent any untoward inci-dents. From National DisasterRelief Force (NDRF) toappointing divers at major‘Ghats’ every small details havebeen figured out by police

department so far. “Steps like barricading the

water bodies after the cleanli-ness drive has been completedby the laborers’ in the cityalmost at every place. NDRFpersonnel have been deputed atmajor water reservoirs likeHatania Talab, Kanke Dam,Ranchi Lake and other biggerwater bodies in the city.Similarly, at smaller Ghats, all

the association people havebeen asked to make somealternate arrangements bythemselves. However, at thetime of emergency, backup

will be provided by the policedepartment at these places,”said, City SP Kishore Kaushal after conducting aninspection of major Chhath‘Ghats’ on Friday along withother police personnel.

Ranchi police has alsodeputed approximately 34magistrates along with theforces to control the teemingcrowd at Ghats for assisting thepublic. Female constables toowill be deputed near all thewater reservoirs.

“Female constables will bedeployed in ample numbers atmajor places to aid people.Police personnel in casuals willalso assist public in time ofneed. This apart, Shakti com-mandoes will also patrol ontwo wheelers to keep a tab onmiscreants. On Sunday, policepersonnel will be deputed from2 PM at each Ghat in city,”added Kishore. Alternate traf-fic plan will be released by theTraffic police department soon.

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CPI (Maoist) rebels blastedthe house of a former

Maoist Uday Mahto of Pirtandblock in Giridih district late onThursday night and alsotorched a rest room in the samelocality in district under thePirtand police station, policesaid on Friday.

According to reports, sus-pected CPI (Maoist) cadresnumbering 120 Maoists raidedthe house of ex-Maoist UdayMahto near Bhirangi more inMadhubhan area on Thursday

night and triggered a dynamiteblast blowing up the house ofMahtowho recently surren-dered before the police.

They also torched the resthouse in the same locality, thepolice said, adding, nobodywas present in the two housesduring the incident. Both thefamilies were residing elsewherefollowing threats from Naxalites.No persons has been injured inthe blast .The building wasused by some local villagerswhile launching combing oper-ations against the Maoists,SDPO Manish Toppo said.����� /�$193

Under the Vigilance Awareness Week 2016, aPrice Distribution Ceremony was organised

at HRD Auditorium, MECON on Friday in whichparticipants of different competitions were award-ed prizes.

Among the various competitions, a Quiz wasalso conducted across the organisation using aMobile App developed for the occasion. CVOSupriya Jaiswal welcomed the audience.

A documentary film titled “Sankalp” on cor-ruption was launched which was appreciated byone and all. CMD Atul Bhatt emphasised theimportance of Vigilance and stressed that being vig-ilant is not to be confined only to the period ofVigilance Awareness Week rather it should beadopted as a habit.

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The most prominent trade body of theState has decided to lock its horns

with a senior bureaucrat of the State overallegedly repeated offensive behaviour ofthe latter towards it. Federation ofJharkhand Chamber of Commerce andIndustries (FJCCI) said on Friday thatthe extremely humiliating behaviour ofone senior bureaucrat of UrbanDevelopment Department has com-pelled the Chamber to write to the CMto get that official relocated.

“It is not the first time that we havebeen offered such a demeaning wel-come by Principal Secretary of UrbanDevelopment and Housing depart-ment Arun Kumar Singh today. Wehave got humiliated earlier also by himon a couple of other occasions, whenhe used to be in other departments. Weare going to request the CM RaghubarDas to get him relocated to where heis not burdened with meeting com-mon citizens of the state like us ondaily basis,” said FJCCI PresidentVinay Kumar Agrawal. However,Singh couldn’t be available to commenton the matter.

Meanwhile, Urban Housing and

D e ve lopmentd e p a r t m e n tMinister CPSingh has cate-gorically said thatthough not mis-behaving to any-one was some-thing everyone isexpected to fol-

low, yet he would come in between onlyafter he had been in know with the ver-sion of his department Secretary andthe person in question.

The trade body officials had goneto meet with the Principal Secretarytoday to get many of its pending issuesresolved. According to eye-witnessmembers of the Chamber, Singh firstobjected over presence of one Assistantto the Chamber President in the meet-ing. “I asked my Assistant to wait out-side. But Singh started insulting us withevery other matter that we put beforehim, just by saying that we went therewithout any preparation and we werenot efficient enough to run Chamberwith our short-sighted insight andmeager knowledge,” claimed Agrawal.

“The most humiliating momentfor us was when the PrincipalSecretary said that Chamber was fit fornothing but only to create hindrancesin the development of the state,” saidAgrawal. He added that the Chamberwanted to ask the government that ifit was indeed serious at invitinginvestors from other parts of thecountry and the world, it must first askthe bureaucrats to respect trader fra-ternity of the state.

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Water Resources andDrinking Water and

Sanitation department MinisterChandprakash Chaudhary onFriday directed officials to keepoverhead junk water tanks cleanand organised. Chaudhary, onThursday, was reviewing thetwo departments at NepalHouse in Ranchi on Friday.

Chaudhary while reviewingDrinking Water and Sanitationalso said that six districts in theState will be covered fromDMST while rest of the districtswill be covered under RDWPand Neer Nirmal Yojana. Healso asked officials to paint allprogrammes of drinking waterwith the same colour and dis-play among the people.

The Minister was alsoinformed that as many as 12blocks have been made free

from open defecation while 6more blocks will be made freefrom it by November 15.

Chaudhary during themeeting also reprimanded theofficers and also expressed sat-isfaction over the details ofmoney spent was provided by

them. He however, was not sat-isfied over projects of Bhairav,Ramrekha, Punasi, Raysa pro-grammes not being undertak-en according to the work plan.Talking separately to the con-tractors, Chaurdhary warnedthem that action will be taken

against those who would not beable to complete their work ontime. “Even then, if they do nottake interest in their work, thedefaulter agency will be put intothe black list,” said Chaudhary.

Stressing on shedding theold culture and workingaccording to the new tech-niques, the minister asked offi-cials to change their mentalityand adapt new work culture.

Chaudhary also stressedon promoting medium surfaceirrigation projects in the stateand also directed officials tosend five projects from each ofthe divisions. He also askedofficials to make plans for irrigating the adjoining vil-lages by stopping water on thehills itself.

Chaudhary also called smallirrigation projects a success anddirected the officials to makemore and more such plans.

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In a bid to reach out to themasses, Ranchi police will

soon connect to peoplethrough popular messagingApp WhatsApp. Talking to themediapersons after a work-shop organised at AryabhattAuditorium in Ranchi, DGPDK Pandey said that beat polic-ing system was being launchedin Ranchi to provide a safe andbetter environment throughpublic participation.

“Under ‘Police AapkeDwar’ Programme, every vil-lage and locality is being divid-ed into small beats so that it

becomes easy to have propercontrol over it. The mobilenumber of beat officers will beflashed among the people resid-ing under the beat so that hecould be reached easily in thehour of need,” the DGP said.

Small banners with thename and contact number ofthe Beat Officers will also beflashed at every nook and cor-ner in his area so that any plain-tiffs could go directly to himinstead of looking up to high-er officials for registering theircomplaints, he said.

“Complaint boxes are alsobeing put in the residentialareas so that those people who

do not want to come forwardcould also register their com-plaints with the police withouttheir names being disclosed,”said the DGP. The ultimatemotive was to provide a safeenvironment to the citizenswith their active participationunder beat policing system, theDGP added.

To check increasing crimegraph of the State capital, asmany as 47 beats and PoliceMitra have been formed where-as in the coming days, a totalof 116 new beats will be inau-gurated by the DGP. ‘PoliceMitra’ will also play an activeparticipation in it by providingvital information of their local-ities to the beat officers.

Meanwhile, the RanchiPolice will also try to create moreawareness about ‘Shakti App’ inschools and colleges as it feelsthat the App was not down-loaded as it would have been.

“The App was not down-loaded by the people as per our

expectation and hence, a deci-sion has been taken to createmore awareness about it inschools and colleges whereposters will be put on thenotice boards depicting theuse of it. Short film in cinemahalls will also be played to pro-mote the App so that maxi-mum utilization of it could bedone by the people,” said IG(CID) Sampat Meena.

In addition to that, to sharemore and more informationamong the people, Ranchipolice will also use WhatsAppgroup where some senior policeofficers along with Police Mitrawill also be added, she said.

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The city police on Fridaybusted a gang of looters

who would target trucks andloot cash and cell-phones fromthe truck drivers on the MarineDrive under Sonari andBistupur thana area.

While busting the looters’gang, the police arrested fourpersons and recovered �3,000as well as two cell-phones fromthe possession of the accused.

Police have arrested BijayMachhua (23) Mangal Nishad(25), Radheshyam Bhuiyan(22) and Dhondu Gope (31), allresidents of New Kapali Busteein Sonari.

Superintendent of police(city) Prashant Anand saidthat they had got a complaintof loot of Rs 4,000 from a truckdriver, Chhotelal Minz, whomthe looted on the Marine Drivenear XLRI gate under Bistupurthana area on Thursday.

“As per our information , aresident of Kolkata, Minz wasreturning back to the metro cityby carrying cables from aGamharia-based company onThursday evening.

The assailants had robbedthe trucker after stabbing him inthe lower abdomen.The truck-driver isundergoing treat-ment at the MGMMedical CollegeHospital,” saidAnand.

According tothe City SP, theywere searching forthe criminalsinvolved in the Rs4,000 loot on

marine drive in Bistupur area,they got another complaint ofloot taken place on the marinedrive past midnight.

“In another loot case, whichtook place on the marine driveunder Sonari thana area, a gangof criminals had intercepted atruck by showing hockey-sticksand iron rods at about 12.15 am.Targeting truck driver, PankajKumar Singh and cleaner PunitKumar Gupta, the criminalslooted Rs 7,000 from their pos-session. The looters had alsosnatched away two cell-phonesfrom the driver and cleanerleading the victims to informthe Sonari police at about 1 am,”Anand said.

The city SP said that a task-force comprising the officers-in-charge of Sonari, Bistupurand MGM thana and swunginto action for apprehendingthe culprits around 4 am.

On the statement made bythe loot victims, the policeteam raided the houses at NewKapali Bustee located along themarine drive and incidentallygot a clue to the looters.

The police team nabbed allthe four looters who wereinvolved in both the incidentsof loots,” said Anand.

Jamshedpur: Bistupur-based Reliance Jewelslaunched two new unique collections IRISSA forwomen and Charmz for kids. Women can revelin the festive spirit with IRISSA, a combinationof distinctive, light, iconic and edgy designs craft-ed to adorn every woman’s mood in the moststylish way. Also adorn your children with

Charmz, a delightful range of jewellery loving-ly crafted for your young ones. The collectionscomprise of pendants and they are available ingold and diamond.

The IRISSA collection features a range ofunique designs keeping in mind every woman’sdesire to be unique. PNS

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The administration hasdeployed more than 800

jawans from Jharkhand ArmedPolice and district police at dif-ferent ghats to ensure peacefulChhath celebrations. Adequatenumber of women cops wouldalso be deployed near the ghats.

Police personnel in civildress will also monitoring theghats. All the major ghats will beplaced under a magistrate andinspector rank police official.

Expressing satisfactionover the arrangements, EastSinghbhum SSP Anoop T.Mathew said that CCTVs willbe installed at major ghats andtheir footages will be moni-tored at police control room

East Singhbhum deputydevelopment commissionerBinod Kumar, who is officiat-ing as deputy commissioner in-charge as deputy commission-er has gone to Delhi on Fridayinspected several ghats.

He went on to inform thatapart from swimmers at allghats on river banks a rescueteams with all safety gears willbe positioned at Domuhaniand Subernarekha ghats andrush to any of the ghats in caseof emergency. Barricading ofdanger areas at the ghats wouldbe completed by Saturdayevening. Local police stationhave been asked to take strictaction against anyone foundindulging in illegal sale ofspaces at ghats.

Moreover in view ofthe large number of devo-tees going on foot to dif-ferent ghats the no entrytiming of heavy vehicleshas been changed fromSaturday itself. Heavyvehicles will be barredfrom entering the city.

Danger areas in riverbanks are being demar-cated by red flags andropes by JamshedpurNotified Area

Committee. Mobile numberof local swimmers and civildefence officials to be dis-played near danger zones.Changing rooms for womenhas been erected by Jusco atSubarnarekha ghat.

At Surya Mandir, Sidhgora,cleanliness of the pond hasbeen undertaken with bleach-ing powder and chemicals andwater refilled by Jusco andJamshedpur Notified AreaCommittee.

Surya Mandir Committeeunder its patron and state chiefminister Raghubar Das hasdistributed puja paraphernaliaat less than market rate whilefruits have been distributed freeto 250 poor devoteesArrangements of 20 fire extin-guishers by temple committee,over 40 CCTVs and two droneswill be deployed by the organ-ising committee for securityreasons. Performance byfamous Bollywood singerSunidhi Chauhan will be onNovember 6 evening.

The four-day festival begantoday with Nahay Khay. Day onesaw thousands of devotees offer-ing prayers to the Sun Godacross the city. The ghats rever-berated with traditional songs,as many women sang devotionalsongs dedicated to the Sun Godas they took the holy dip.

“Chhath is celebrated sixdays after Diwali. It is associ-ated with faith, purity anddevotion to the sun, the onlygod we can see. We took a bathin the holy river and cleanedourselves before preparingfood,” said a housewife sport-ing a new cotton sari, especiallybought for the occasion.

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Continuing to attack the Modidispensation, Congress vice-

president Rahul Gandhi onFriday claimed that the NDAGovernment has not deliveredon its promise on One-Rank,One-Pension (OROP) to the ex-servicemen, and instead hasgiven only pension enhance-ment. Rahul accused PMNarendra Modi of lying on thissensitive issue and not doing‘justice to soldiers who sacrificetheir life for the country’.

“What PM says is One-Rank, One-Pension is actuallypension enhancement and notOROP. The PM should stoplying on the issue. If the PMhad fulfilled his promise thenwhy would these ex-service-men be sitting at Jantar Mantarfor 509 days? Truth is OROPhas never been implemented.OROP is the right of ArmedForces personnel and theGovernment will have to giveit,” Rahul said after a meetingwith a group of ex-servicemenat Congress party headquarters.

The Congress leader alsoaccused the Government offavouring 15 big industrialistsby waiving off their loansworth �1.10 lakh crore but hasno money to give to Army vet-erans. “There used to be a slo-gan ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ butneither have farmers got any-thing nor the Armymen underthis Government. The

Government has not givenrespect and the right which isdue to soldiers,” Rahul said. Heclaimed that the ex-servicementold him that it is not aboutmoney but self respect thatthey are fighting for.

Rahul was also critical ofthe way Delhi Police handledthe death of ex-servicemanRam Kishan Grewal andalleged that his family mem-bers were abused and beatenup by the police. Rahul washimself detained when he wentto meet the family members.However, he said he was notbothered by his detention.

Meanwhile, seniorCongress leader Digvijay Singhattacked the Centre and DelhiPolice over the detention ofRahul. “Can Delhi Police pl tell

us under which provisions ofLaw was Rahul Gandhidetained thrice in two days?Can Delhi Police pl explainwhy they are not registeringFIR against the illegal deten-tion of Rahul Gandhi (sic)?” hesaid in a series of tweets.

Raising a number of issues,he asked, “Is it a crime if apolitical leader wants to par-ticipate in a peaceful candlemarch in memory of an ex-ser-viceman? Is it a crime for apolitical leader to visit thefamily of an ex-servicemanwho committed suicide fornot getting OROP?”

The Youth Congress, for itspart, took to streets in protestagainst the detention of theirvice president and in supportof ex-servicemen.

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Against the backdrop of thecontroversy over the sui-

cide of an ex-serviceman, theGovernment on Fridayslammed the politicisation ofthe issue and maintained that ithas allocated all the money forthe One-Rank, One-Pension(OROP) scheme. It attributedthe controversy to mistakescommitted by the banks indisbursing it to the veterans.

“The Government has allo-cated all the money. Thereseems to be a problem at thebank level. When such hugeamounts are disbursed, a fewcalculation mistakes happen onthe bank side,” Jaitley toldnewspersons as the politicsover the suicide snowballed.

Jaitley lashed out at thepoliticisation of the suicide bythe Congress and the AAP. “Itdoesn’t behave senior nationalleaders to exploit a tragedy ofthis kind, particularly at theICU of a hospital. Moreresponsible behaviour isexpected from them,” he said.

“No one should try tochange a personal tragedy intopolitical gain, especially a partywhose fortune is already sink-ing,” Jaitley said targeting theCongress.

He accused the Oppositionparty of not implementing theOROP during the 10 years of itstenure before Narendra Modi

took over in 2014.Meanwhile, another

Central Minister VK Singhcontinued to hit out at theCongress and AAP allegingthat they were “doing politicsover dead bodies”.

Singh alleged that the twoparties were left with no issuesand knew nothing about the‘One Rank, One Pension’ matter.

“So many soldiers havebeen martyred, did AamAadmi Party leaders andCongress leaders go to payhomage to them? They are talk-ing senseless,” the Minister ofState for External Affairs toldreporters on the sidelines of anenergy efficiency conference.

Asked about criticism fromother parties on his remarks,Singh said, “There is no pointdiscussing with those whodon’t know anything about it(one rank one pension).”

Earlier, on Wednesday,Singh had reportedly raisedquestions about the “mentalstate” of the ex-servicemanRam Kishan Grewal allegedlyover OROP that sparked apolitical row.

He had also rejectedreports about Grewal being aprominent face of the ‘OROP’agitation. “He (Grewal) was aCongress worker. He became‘sarpanch’ on Congress ticket.However, he was our soldier. Ifeel sad over his death,” Singhreportedly said.

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In a big step to secure studentsof the North-East from any

racial discrimination or vio-lence, the Supreme Court hasdirected the Centre to appointa Joint Secretary level officer inthe Ministry of Home Affairsas the Nodal Officer to lookinto their grievances.

The direction from theCourt came pursuant to an affi-davit filed by the Centre whichsaid that a police officer of therank of Special Commissionerwill monitor complaints madeby North-Eastern students inDelhi. In other States with sig-nificant presence of North-East students, a police officer ofthe rank of Joint Commissioneror Inspector General of Policewill monitor their complaints.

Seeking an amendment tothis proposal, a Bench headed byChief Justice TS Thakur toldCentral Government’sAdditional Solicitor General(ASG) Maninder Singh, “Youconstitute the Joint Secretary inthe Ministry of Home Affairshandling North East affairs as thenodal officer.” ASG agreed inprinciple with the suggestionalthough he emphasised the factthat the Centre had decided totake a slew of measures to rein-force confidence in the North-East students studying in Delhiand other parts of the country.

Singh outlined that in addi-tion to the nodal officer respon-sible for the protection of North-East students in the entire State,an Additional Commissioner ofPolice will head the SpecialPolice Unit for North-EastRegion. Deputy Commissioners

of Police (DCPs) will also coor-dinate similar action at thezone and district level, manag-ing complaints received bypolice stations under theirrespective jurisdiction. He evenindicated that persons hailingfrom the North-East will berecruited to head the unit deal-ing with North-East Region.

The Bench expressed satis-faction over such elaborate stepsplanned by the Centre but feltthat a bureaucrat can bettercoordination with the policeand report to Court on theprogress by police in the event ofany such incident. The Bench

hinted that once a mechanism isput in place in Delhi, the Courtwill consider extending it toother metropolitan cities as well.The Bench’s comments werepart of a PIL filed by one KarmaDorjee in 2014 expressing con-cern over a spate of violentattacks directed against North-East students and seeking reme-dial action.

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Out of nearly 11.4 millionnon-resident Indians

across the globe, only 16,000are registered as ‘overseasIndian voters’ in the country.To identify this gap, theElection Commission hasdecided to conduct an onlinesurvey for overseas Indians toassess their level of awarenessabout the registration and vot-ing process and to also gath-er opinion about their pre-ferred method of voting.

Chief ElectionCommissioner Nasim Zaidisaid the poll panel wants tosystematically address chal-lenges that overseas citizensmight face for which it is con-

ducting the online survey sothat interventions can bedesigned accordingly. TheRepresentation of the PeopleAct, 1950 was amended inFebruary 2011 to allow Indiancitizens residing outside thecountry to get enrolled as avoter and cast vote. But manyfind it difficult to come toIndia to cast their vote.

With a bid to attract morevotes from overseas Indians,the Election Commissionintends to compile the data andshare it with the Governmentand Parliament. The surveywill run through Novemberand December. An onlinecompetition will also be con-ducted as part of the survey bythe end of this month.

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The one-day ban on a lead-ing Hindi TV channel

NDTV India by the Centreover its coverage of Pathankotattack drew sharp condemna-tion on Friday from Oppositionparties and media bodies whichcalled it “shocking and author-itarian” and reminiscent ofEmergency days.

The leaders of the non-BJPparties and the media bodiesalso demanded immediate with-drawal of the order imposingthe blackout on November 9.

There was also a suggestionby Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal and senior Congressleader Digvijay Singh that allnewspapers and channels“show courage” and “go off airand not publish” on that day toregister their protest.

West Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee said the orderof the inter-Ministerial panel ofthe Information andBroadcasting Ministry showedthat an emergency-like situationprevailed in the country whileCongress vice-president RahulGandhi slammed it as “shock-ing and unprecedented”.

The Editors Guild of Indiacondemned the order as a

“direct violation” of the free-dom of the press and similarsentiments were echoed by theBroadcast Editors’ Association(BEA).

NDTV while terming theorder as “shocking” has allegedthat it has been “singled out”and said it is examining alloptions in the matter.

“The Editors Guild of Indiastrongly condemns the unprece-dented decision of the inter-Ministerial committee of theUnion Ministry of Informationand Broadcasting to take NDTVIndia off the air for a day anddemands that the order beimmediately rescinded,” theGuild said in a statement.

“The decision to take thechannel off the air for a day isa direct violation of the free-dom of the media and thereforethe citizens of India andamounts to harsh censorshipimposed by the Governmentreminiscent of the Emergency.”

The BEA while expressingdeep concern at theGovernment’s decision saidimposing a ban is a violation offreedom of expression.

Alleging that theGovernment action smacked of“authoritarianism and intimi-dation”, Rahul and other

Congress leaders hit out atPrime Minister NarendraModi.

“Detaining Oppositionleaders, blacking out tv chan-nels-all in a day’s work inModiji’s India.

“NDTV Banned-shockingand unprecedented (sic),” theCongress vice-president said ontwitter.

Senior Congress leaderAhmed Patel, who is also polit-ical secretary to party presidentSonia Gandhi, said,“Government’s decision to banNDTV India smacks of author-itarianism and intimidation.”

Former Jammu & KashmirChief Minister Omar Abdullahlashed out at the Centre, ask-ing if these were the promised“achhe din (good days)”.

“NDTV ban is shocking. IfGovernment had issues withPathankot coverage, there areprovisions available. But banshows an Emergency-like atti-tude.,” Banerjee said in a state-ment in Kolkata.

“I hope the whole mediagoes off air for a day in soli-darity wid NDTV .Congratulations to EditorsGuild for showing courage tostand up against Modi Govt’sdictatorship,” Kejriwal tweeted.

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Almost six months afterPrime Minister Narendra

Modi called on doctors to give12 days a year to treat poorpregnant women free of charge,the Union Health Ministry onFriday joined hands with pri-vate medical practitioners toprovide free and comprehen-sive antenatal care on the 9thday of every month.

Under the national pro-gramme — Pradhan MantriSurakshit Matritva Abhiyan(PMSMA), which was launchedby Health Minister JP Naddahere pregnant women will beprovided special antenatalcheck-up in their second orthird trimester at Governmenthealth care facilities.

It will cover about threecrore pregnant women acrossthe country, said Nadda hereafter unveiling the scheme.

Around 184 priority dis-tricts have been identified forgreater focus on antenatal care.

The private medical prac-titioners can provide their ser-vices at a Government hospi-tal located close to them.

Keeping in view the objec-tive, a web portal as well as amobile application were inau-gurated which will facilitateengagement with private sectordoctors and encourage them to

volunteer for the campaign.Obstetricians, radiologists

and physicians who wish tovolunteer on the 9th of everymonth can register themselveson the website or the mobileapplication. Thereafter, thedistrict chief medical officer, towhich the volunteer belongs to,will get in touch with the doc-tor concerned.

“Our pace of reduction ofinfant mortality rate and mater-

nal mortality rate is better thanthe rest of the world. We needto do more and provide betteraccess to medical care inremote areas,” Nadda said.

Director General of HealthServices Jagdish Prasadappealed to the doctors tospare a day every month forthe cause.

So far, 1500 doctors fromFederation of Obstetric andGynaecological Societies of

India (FOGSI) have pledgedtheir support to the programme,which is also backed by theIndian Medical Association.

Dr Gagan Gupta, SeniorHealth Specialist, UNICEFsaid, “ In India, we have 167maternal deaths per 1,00,000births. 44,000 women dieannually or 120 die per daybecause of pregnancy-relatedhealth issues. These are pre-ventable deaths.”

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With a majority of the tollplaza operators turning a

blind eye to providing basicpublic amenities at their facili-ties, the Union Transport andHighways Ministry on Fridaydecided to construct toilets at all370 toll plazas across the coun-try under the Centre’s flagshipSwachchh Bharat Mission. Thetoilets will have proper basicamenities like light and water.

Union Transport andHighways Minister NitinGadkari directed regional offi-cers of NHAI and RoadTransport & Highways Ministryin a video conference to startwork on the project within thenext fifteen days.

An official in the Ministrysaid that Gadkari has asked thetoll plazas on national highwaysto have separate toilets for menand women with proper signageand banners.

While PVC tanks should beinstalled to ensure availability ofwater and there should be prop-er lighting, the regional officershave been instructed to ensurethat the facilities are main-

tained well and kept clean, theofficial added.

Setting up of the toilet facil-ities as well as traffic and med-ical facilities are part of theagreement signed between theconcessionaires and the NHAI.But there have been severalcomplaints from travellers andorganizations about the lack ofsuch facilities at many toll plazas.

A survey held in 2015 acrossDelhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru,Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabadand Pune, found that highwaysgot the highest number of votes

(92 per cent) where toilets wereneeded the most.

As per the NHAI guide-lines, there should be toiletfacilities at all the toll plazas andat every 50 - 60 kms on thehighways, there should bemodern amenities includinghotels, fuel stations and toilets.But it has been commonlyfound that contractors are notwilling to take up these worksas per the allocated tenderbudget for the highways, thusplan to build toilets on high-ways is left in limbo.

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New Delhi: Congress Partyon Friday approached a Delhicourt seeking return of certaindocuments, including its bal-ance sheet, which were sub-mitted in the National Heraldcase involving Congress pres-ident Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

The party, in its applica-tion, said that the court hadearlier said that recordsretained as per its February 20and March 21 order bereturned to the appropriateauthorities but they have stillnot received the documents.

“It is imperative to bring tothe knowledge of this court thatrecord submitted on behalf ofIndian National Congress onApril 8, 2016 has still not beenreturned in compliance of theorder dated July 16, 2016,” theplea filed through advocateBadar Mahmood said.

A similar application wasalso filed in the court byAssociated Journals Ltd (AJL)seeking return of documents.Link magistrate Harvinder Singhlisted both the pleas for consid-eration on December 9 beforethe court concerned. PTI

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New Delhi: India on Fridayvoiced disappointment overthe European Union’s “mutedresponse” to the Uri attack,asserting terrorism was the“most significant securitythreat” to both itself and theEU which deserves greaterattention.

Proposing scaled upcounter-terror cooperationbetween India and the 27-nation bloc, Secretary (West)in the MEA Sujata Mehta alsoemphasised on the need for an“effective and comprehensive”global regime under UNthrough which the phenome-non of terrorism — whetherstate sponsored or throughnon-state actors — be dealtwith “firmly and effectively”.

Noting that India has beena “victim of terrorism fromacross our border and onaccount of terrorism beingused as an instrument of Statepolicy”, Mehta, in her keynoteaddress at a seminar on ‘India-EU Cooperation in Securityand Global GovernanceDomains’ at Carnegie India,also pitched for early adoptionof the draft ComprehensiveConvention on InternationalTerrorism (CCIT) by the UN

General Assembly.“EU too has called for the

perpetrators of the Mumbaiattacks to be brought to justice,and again, as India does, theEU is in favour of decisive andunited action against groupsand entities ranging from ISIS,Al-Qaeda and its affiliates andLashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizb-ul- Mujah-ideen, and the HaqqaniNetwork.

“Here I would like toexpress some disappointmentat the relatively mutedresponse of the EU to the Uriattack on September 18,” shesaid. As many as 19 soldierswere killed in the Uri attackcarried out by Pakistan-basedterrorists.

The shared concerns ofIndia and EU on terrorism,including from foreign ter-rorist fighters and from return-ing jihadis makes it imperativefor us to intensify our cooper-ation, she said. She said Indiawas also working to ensure fullimplementation of UNSCResolutions 1540, 1373, 1267,2253 for designating individ-ual terrorists and groups, andstrengthening the sanctionsregimes against them. PTI

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Normal life remained out ofgear in Kashmir Valley on

yet another Friday as massiveclashes erupted between pro-testers and security forces inseveral parts of Kashmirincluding capital Srinagar. Theauthorities had imposedrestrictions in several sensitiveareas as clashes were appre-hended after the congrega-tional afternoon prayers.

Sources said that massiveclashes between the protestersand security forces erupted inZainakote area on the out-skirts of Srinagar. Additionaldeployments were called inwhen agitated youth clashedwith police and paramilitariesin the area. The clashes erupt-ed over the detention of sever-al youngsters of the locality.

Reports of clashes alsopoured in from Bandipora,Sopore, Baramulla, Tral andSoura areas. Sources saidaround two dozen personswere injured during the clashes.

Meanwhile, the authori-ties yet again prevented wor-shippers to assemble at the cen-tral mosque in Nowhatta local-ity of capital Srinagar wheresenior Hurriyat Conferenceleader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq

delivers weekly sermon. The congregational Friday

prayers have been stopped atthe mosque since July 15 whenKashmir had already plungedinto turmoil after the killing ofHizbul Mujahideen comman-der Burhan Wani. Mirwaiz hasbeen held under house deten-tion at his Nigeen mansion inthe outskirts of Srinagar. Hehad threatened to defy restric-tions last week to lead theFriday prayers but the author-ities foiled his attempt.

The normal life remaineddisrupted for the 119th con-secutive day in the valley witheducational institutions, indus-trial units, government officesand shops shut and public

transport off the roads.Meanwhile, police along-

with Army and CRPF arresteda Lashkar-e-Toiba militant in

Tujarsharief, Sopore in northKashmir on Thursday evening.

Deputy Inspector Generalof Police (north Kashmir)Uttam Chand said that on aspecific information regard-ing the presence of LeT mili-tants in the general area ofShirpora Tujarsharief, PoliceSopore and the contingent of22-RR and CRPF launchedcordon and search operation inthe area. During the searchoperation all the civilians wereevacuated from the adjacenthouses, he said.

He said that the presence ofa local militant was establishedin one of the houses in the area.The militant was asked to laydown his arms and ammuni-tion and come out from thehouse, DIG added.

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Amid unabated shutdownscalled by the separatists

leading to loss of studies andmysterious burning of schoolsin Kashmir Valley, the author-ities have decided to conductannual examinations albeit withconcession in the syllabi for thestudents. The decision hasevoked resentment from sec-tions of civil society and the stu-dents who say that the situationin Kashmir was not conducivefor conducting examinations.

Chairman of the Board OfSchool Education (BOSE)Zahoor Ahmad Chatt toldreporters that the only purposebehind holding exams inNovember was to save the aca-demic career of the studentswho have to appear in othernational and international-levelcompetitive examinations indue course. The BOSE conductsexaminations for Class X andXII students in the State andaffiliates and recognizes theschools both in private andpublic sector.

The BOSE has announcedthat examinations for Class Xwill commence from November15 while those for the Class XIIwill start from November 14.

Majority of the students,Private School Association andcross-section of people havebeen pleading for deferment ofexams to March next year inview of continuing unrest thatbegan with the protests over the

killing of Hizbul Mujahideenterrorist Burhan Wani. All theeducational institutions inKashmir are shut in Kashmir inresponse to protest calendarsissued by separatist leadership.

Groups of students havestaged protests against the con-duct of examinations on the pleathat they have not covered thesyllabus and the past fourmonths have not been con-ducive for even self-studies.They said that several studentshave been detained by theauthorities.

Ghulam Nabi Var, presi-dent of Private SchoolsAssociation said that the con-duct of examinations in suchcircumstances is likely to trig-ger suicidal tendencies amongthe students. “In the current sit-

uation, where we saw loss ofstudies due to shutdowns,burning of schools and chil-dren getting killed, students arein no way ready for exams. Theextreme stress will give birth tosuicidal tendencies amongthem and in the longer run itwill create behavioral problemsamong children,” Var said.

A local daily in its frontpage editorial also suggested tothe Government to defer theexaminations till March. “Onesuch grievance is the studentbacklash against theGovernment decision to holdannual examination despite thefact that more than half the aca-demic calendar has been lost tocurfews and hartals. There is,thus, a natural anxiety amongthe student community about

facing the examination. Theyhave thus sought an adequatepreparatory time before theycould do so,” the editorial reads.“It (the State Government) cancertainly be more responsive tothe students, who nurse a gen-uine grievance, and accede totheir demand (of deferment ofthe exams),” the daily wrote.

Meanwhile, AmnestyInternational India on Fridayurged the State Government tobring to justice those responsi-ble for the burning of schools inKashmir.

Since July, at least 25 schoolshave been completely or par-tially burnt across 10 districts.No group has claimed respon-sibility. The State police havearrested 22 suspects in recentweeks. “Schools should be safespaces under all circumstances.The vicious arson attacks onschools end up denying childrenin Kashmir their right to edu-cation. This disturbing trendmust stop,” said Aakar Patel,Executive Director, AmnestyInternational.

The J&K HC has asked theState Government to immedi-ately take preventive measures.The Director of SchoolEducation in Kashmir toldAmnesty, “It is difficult for us toprotect all the school buildingsas they are scattered all over thegeographical areas of theValley… We are trying toinvolve village and mosquecommittees in the protection ofthe schools.”

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The Kerala Police stronglysuspect that it was Tamil

Nadu native Abu BackerSiddique, chief of the bannedIslamist outfit, Al-Ummah, whohad masterminded Tuesday’sexplosion at the district head-quarters office complex inMalappuram even as the effortsto prepare a sketch of the per-son suspected of planting theexplosive is getting delayed asthe lone witness is unable torecall his face.

According to sources,members of the State police’sspecial investigation probingthe Malappuram explosion havevisited the house of Siddique, anative of Nagapattinam in TamilNadu, but his wife told themthat he had not been stayingthere for a long time and thatshe had no information about

his present whereabouts. The SIT had come to the

assumption that Siddique couldhave masterminded theMalappuram blast consideringits similarity with the explosionsat Kollam on June 15 andMysore on August 1 behindwhich the hand of Al-Ummahwas suspected. Siddique is saidto have gone into hiding afterthe explosion at the BJP officein Bangalore in 2013.

Security experts are of theopinion that Siddique had beentrying to continue terror oper-ations through a new outfit, TheBase Movement, after Al-Ummah had become defunct.The SIT probing theMalappuram blast has receivedinformation suggesting thatSiddique could be in SaudiArabia presently and directingterror operations in India fromthere.

The police had recovered asmall cardboard box super-scribed “The Base Movement”,a pen drive and pamphletsfrom the spot of the explosionin Malappuram. The contents ofthe pamphlets and the pendrive were in the name of TheBase Movement, which threat-ened to avenge the killing ofMohammad Akhlaq in Dari,Uttar Pradesh over the beef con-troversy. The explosive wasplaced under a car.

The pen drive had alleged-ly contained messages convey-ing threat to the lives of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi,Central Ministers and seniorBJP leaders and it had also con-tained pictures of spots of strate-gic importance like the IndianParliament and Red Fort. Thepen drive also revealed that TheBase Movement had plans tocarry out similar blasts in other

places as well.Considering similarities

among the various blasts, theState police force, which isprobing the incident in closecooperation with the NIA, hascome to the conclusion that thesame group could have beenbehind the blasts at the districtcollectorate compound inKollam on June 15, at a courtcomplex in Chittoor, AndhraPradesh on April 7 and inMysore on August 1.

Investigators have got clearindications that the ammoniumnitrate used in the explosions atMalappuram and Kollam hadbeen sourced from Udupi insouthern Karnataka. They havealso found that the pressurecooker used to make the impro-vised explosive device whichexploded in Malappuram couldnot have been bought fromKerala.

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BJP national president AmitShah on Friday backed

Prime Minister Narendra Modion the issue of women’s equali-ty, saying that the NDAGovernment was firm in hisbelief that all women in India,irrespective of religion, shouldbe equally empowered.

Shah also said that oneshould not hide under thecloak of freedom of expressionto take potshots at India.“During the triple talaq issue,our Government did not ditheror hesitate because all womenin our country, irrespective ofany religion, have been giventhe right under the constitutionto safety,” Shah said.

The BJP national presi-dent was speaking at the IndiaIdeas Conclave, which gotunderway on Friday at a SouthGoa resort in Canacona village.

“In the past we have wit-nessed political parties scamperaway especially when it came tothe issue of equality amongwomen. This Government is ofthe firm belief that the rights andequality of women needs to beprotected, despite any oppositionto it. Our Government is firm onthis,” Shah also said, adding thattransformation in the Modi-ledNDA regime was all about tak-ing decisions which were “coura-

geous” and “historic”. Shah also said that politi-

cians, including Modi shouldbe ready to face criticism, butadded that no one should beallowed to criticise the country,especially under the guise offreedom of expression.

“One must accept criti-cism and tolerate it. But thengoing a step ahead and beingcritical of Modi to oppose thecountry, this is not real freedomof expression,” Shah said,adding that the Prime Ministerwas perhaps one of the mostcriticised leaders in the postindependence era, by a certainsection of the population.

“You can criticise any polit-ical leader in the country, but noone can oppose the countryitself. One can criticise the exist-ing policies, but if you want tocamouflage the criticism of thecountry, in the guise of freedomof expression, the country willnot accept it," Shah added.

Shah also said that for thepast Government's the word'reform' was reduced a fashion,where one never went beyondthe mere word and paid lip-ser-vice to it. But the scenario hadchanged under Modi, he said.

“Reform had become a fash-ionable word and no one wouldthink beyond just the worditself. But under Narendra bhai,we went ahead of just reforms.PM Modi has attempted to trig-ger a transformation in India. Hehas changed the very mind-setof the country and we can see theresults of the change today. Wecan witness the transformationon ground,” Shah said.

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Nearly two years after a 22-year-old Finnish national

Felix Dahl, who was holidayingin Goa, was found dead in abeach village in mysteriouscircumstances, police in SouthGoa Canacona village, finallyregistered a First InformationReport in connection with thecase under 302 of the IndianPenal Code, suggesting that thetourist could have been mur-dered.

The FIR was filed afterDahl’s mother MinnaPirhonen, approached theJudicial Magistrate First Classin Canacona, seeking that the

police, who had earlier said thatthe dead was due to a self-acci-dent injury, alleging that Dahlwas murdered.

According to the FIR reg-istered on Friday at theCanacona police station, Dahlwas allegedly “murdered byunknown persons in the inter-vening night of January 27-28,2015 at Patnem beach inCanacona”, which is locatedaround 90 kms from Panaji.

According to the petitionfiled before the court Dahl, astudent had travelled to Goa ona vacation, had entered into ansquabble with a local and hadbeen taken by the Canaconapolice to a neighbouring village

called Agonda. Dahl’s remainswere found the next day atPatnem village, whose adjoin-ing beach, is a popular hauntfor foreign tourists.

While the initial autopsyconducted by local forensicspecialists said that the deathcould have occurred due to aself-sustained injury, anotherforensic examination conduct-ed by a Finnish expert suggestthat Dahl could have beenmurdered.

Speaking to The Pioneer,London based kin of Dahl,Sanna Cutter said, “What wehave learnt from the othercases, especially the Scarlettcase, is that this is just the first

step on a long fight to get jus-tice for Felix”.

The issue of safety of for-eign tourists has been a matterof concerns and been high-lighted ever since the sexualassault and death of Britishteenager Scarlett Keeling atGoa’s popular Anjuna beach,located 20 kms north of Panajiin 2008.

The State has witnessedseveral high profile crimesrelated to assaults and deaths offoreign nationals since theKeeling episode, raising thequestion of whether Goa'sbeaches, though popular, weresafe for foreign tourists, espe-cially women.

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The All Bodo Students’Union (ABSU) has decided

to take its movement for sepa-rate State to New Delhi. Thepowerful students’ body haschalked out its next phase ofagitation for Statehood andsaid that thousands of membersof the students’ body will takepart in a sit-in demonstrationin New Delhi on December 12and December 13 this year.

Absu president PromodBoro said this on Friday andadded that the NationalFederation for New States(NFNS) activists will also par-ticipate in the programmealong with leaders of variousBodo organisations demandinga separate State for the Bodosin Assam.

“The Bodos have been agi-tating for its legitimate demandfor a separate State. We haveorganised several protest pro-grammes in Assam recently,including highway bandh andRail Roko programmes.However, the Government inDispur and New Delhi are yetto respond to our demand,”said Boro, while adding that thestudents’ body would also sitfor an indefinite hunger strikein New Delhi soon.

“The Bodos want protec-tion of their identity, languageand culture and that is the rea-son we have been demandingfor a separate State. The CentralGovernment has created Stateslike Telengana and Uttrakhand.So why there cannot be a sep-arate State for the Bodos,” heasked.

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With their brief honey-moon failing to produce

the desired result the CPI(M)and the Congress seem to haveparted ways in West Bengaldeciding to contest the two LokSabha and one Assembly by-elections on their own accord.

With the two parties contest-ing separately the Trinamool andthe BJP are likely to gain the mostfrom this multi-cornered fight,experts feel. Bengal is going to by-elections on November 19 forTamluk and Coochbehar LokSabha and Manteshwar Assemblyseats.

While Tamluk was vacated bysitting MP Subhendu Adhikarywho is currently the BengalTransport Minister his Coochbeharcounterpart had died necessitatingthe elections.

The CPI(M) State leader-ship would while taking a deci-sion to go it alone said the deci-sion was taken at the behest ofthe party’s central unit whichdenounced the earlier allianceduring the Assembly electionswhen the Left fared disas-trously. “We were not againstcontinuing with the alliance butour central unit was againstcarrying it forward,” a seniorCentral leader said.

A livid PCC presidentAdhir Chowdhury said theCPI(M) should at least haveshowed the courtesy to informthe Congress of its decision.“Now we will have to thinkwhether to continue with ourjoint agitation against TMC ornot,” he said.

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An emotional appeal of amother paid rich dividends

when a Kashmiri youth, whohad joined Pakistan-based ter-ror outfit Lashker-e-Taiba(LeT),was persuaded to surrender.This happened in an interiorarea of Sopore late last nightafter the army with the help ofother security agencies laid asiege of a locality after intelli-gence inputs indicated pres-ence of a militant in a house.

A senior army official,speaking on the condition ofanonymity, said on Friday thatthe troops came to know theidentity of the holed up mili-tant as Umaq Khaliq Mir alias‘Sameer’, a resident of Tujjar inNorth Kashmir.

When attempts to drawout the youth proved futile it wasdecided to request his parents,whose home was five km away,to come and persuade him tosurrender, the official said.

His mother agreed readi-ly and came to the place andpleaded with his son as thearmy had assured her that theywould take a lenient view incase her son surrendered. “Itwas an anxious moment for usas we were risking life of acivilian along with some of myboys, who had providedhuman shield to the woman,”the official said.

The mother was allowed togo inside the house and requesther son to come out and sur-render which he eventually did.

After lot of persuasion,

Mir emerged from the houseand handed over one AK rifle,three magazines, threegrenades and a radio set.

Mir, a 26 year-old boy ofTujjar, had been missing fromMay this year and had joinedthe LeT. “We make all outefforts to preserve human lifeand this is one such example.I am glad that my decision wasright because at the end, moth-erhood prevailed over a boywho had been brainwashed tocarry out innocent killings inthe State,” the official added.

After his surrender, hewas handed over to the localpolice which arrested him.

DIG further said that oneAK-47, three magazines ofAK-47, 90 rounds of ammu-nition, a, wireless Set, oneGPS set, one pouch, twogrenades and a matrix sheetwere recovered from the houseand added that a case FIRnumber 142/2016 U/S 7/25Act was registered in PoliceStation Bomai in this regard.

The DIG said that themilitant had joined the LeToutfit on May 16 this year andcrossed over to Palistan occu-pied Kashmir before recentlyinfiltrating along-with a groupof foreign militants.

He added that investiga-tion in this regard has beentaken up to trace out the restof his associates. ChiefMinister Mehbooba Mufti hadrecently told police and secu-rity forces to spare local mili-tants if they are caught in cor-don and search operations.

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Three photojournalists werebeaten up by private securi-

ty guards outside the “BombayHouse” while they were tryingto click pictures of ousted TataSons chairman Cyrus Mistry onhis arrival at the Tata head-quarters in south Mumbai tochair a Board meeting of Tatagroup firm Indian HotelsCompany Ltd (IHCL).

The three photojournalistswho were manhandled by theTata group’s security guardswere, Sant Kumar (Times ofIndia), Arjit Singh (HindustanTimes) and Atul Kamble (Mid-Day). Cameras and equip-ment belonging to the photog-raphers of Hindustan Times andMid-Day were damaged.

Trouble broke out minutesbefore Mistry–who is the chair-man of the IHCL arrived at the“Bombay House” to presideover the Board meeting. ThePress photographers gathered atthe venue scrambled to clickphotographs of the ousted TataSons chairman.

In their effort to control thephotographers, the security

guards of Tata group intervenedand tried to forcefully removethe photographers from thescene. The photographers resist-ed the security personnel’s

efforts. In the commotion thatfollowed, the security guardsroughed up three photogra-phers.

Before long, the personnel

from the Mata RamabaiAmbedkar Marg police stationrushed to the scene and broughtthe situation under control. Theinjured photo-journalists wererushed to the State-run StGeorge Hospital.

Meanwhile, several mediaassociations like Mumbai PressClub, Bombay Union of

Journalists (BUJ), Bombay NewsPhotographers' Association andTV Journalists Association con-demned the incident. On itspart, the Tata group expressed“deep regret” over the incidentand apologized to the injuredphoto-journalists.

In its statement condemn-ing the incident, the Mumbai

Press Club demanded theimmediate arrest of Tata House’ssecurity personnel, who wereinvolved in the incident. “TheMumbai Press Club does notexpect a corporate house likeTatas to indulge in violent prac-tices against media persons,and demands explanation fromthe corporate authorities whoallowed security personnel totake this extreme step”.

Disapproving the shockingand unprovoked attack on jour-nalists by Tata Group’s privatesecurity personnel, the BUJ stat-ed, “The BUJ asserts the right ofthe media to cover incidents ofpublic interest in a public space.The road outside BombayHouse, it must be stressed, is apublic space and not the privateproperty of the Corporatehouse”. It also demanded thearrest of security personnelbehind the incident.

In its statement, the TataGroup said, “We deeply regretthe incident during the entry ofcertain board directors today.We profusely apologise to thepress corp and their families forthis incident. We will ensure thatsuch a situation does not recur.”

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Four decades after the termwas coined by security

and strategic experts, theIslamic Bomb has become areal threat to the world,according to Larry Pressler, aleading US strategic expert.

“The threat of an ‘Islamicbomb’ was and is a real threatto the security of the Asiansubcontinent and the world,”said Pressler on Friday whileannouncing therelease of hisupcoming bookNeighbours inArms: TheA m e r i c a nPresence in theN u c l e a rSubcontinent, tobe published byPenguin RandomHouse India.

Senator Larry Pressler, aformer Harvard Universityprofessor, is no stranger toIndia. He is the author of thefamous ‘Pressler Amendment’,the 1990 law which literallycut off the US military aid toPakistan.

With the PresslerAmendment, it becamemandator y for the USPresident to certify on anannual basis that Pakistandoes not possess a nuclearexplosive device and the pro-posed US assistance pro-gramme would reduce sig-nificantly the risk of Pakistanpossessing a nuclear explo-sive device.

The Amendment is beingseen as the brain child ofPressler who was the chair-

man of the Arms ControlSub Committee of the USSenate.

The law was enacted fol-lowing the incapability of thethen US President George HBush in certifying whetherPakistan was a nuclearweapon state or not. Pakistanconducted a series of nucleartests in 1998 openly declaringto the world that it was anuclear power.

“I'm looking forward tosharing my personal opinion

and historical per-spective on the US-India nuclear deal,the relat ionshipbetween the twocountries, the his-tory of the PresslerAmendment, andmy past attemptsto keep nuclearweapons out of the

hands of Pakistan. As I saidthen and I say now, the threatof an ‘Islamic bomb’ was andis a real threat to the securi-ty of the Asian subcontinentand the world,” Pressler saidin the release.

From the words ofPressler it is clear that the USviews India as a responsiblenuclear power even asPakistan is stockpiling nuclearweapons as well as helpingcountries like Saudi Arabiaand Libya in acquiring the‘bomb’.

The book is expected tohit the shelves by November2017. Pressler reminiscencesthat he was rated as a hero(though temporari ly)throughout India while thePakistanis described him as avillain.

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Upping the ante against theBJP Government at the

Centre, Mamata Banerjee onceagain questioned its decision toput a one-day ban on the tele-cast of an English TV channel.

Saying that an “emergencylike situation” wasprevailing in Indiathe Bengal ChiefMinister said thatthe ban had shockedher and that if theGovernment hadany problem withthe coverage of ter-ror attack inPathankot it could have usedother measures instead of ban-ning the programme of thechannel. “A ban shows that anEmergency-like situation isprevailing in the country,” shesaid.

According to reports theI&B Ministry’s inter-minister-ial committee had recom-mended ban on the statednews channel for 24 hours for

reportedly revealing “strategi-cally sensitive information”while covering the anti-terroroperations at Pathankot airbase.

Early this year a ISI-spon-sored terror strike at Pathankotbase had left a number ofdefence personnel dead.

Incidentally the BengalChief Minister had earli-er condemned the deten-tion of her Delhi coun-terpart Arvind Kejriwaland Congress vice presi-dent Rahul Gandhi say-ing people would notaccept such undemocra-tic approach.

“What is happening? It isunprecedented. A CN isdetained in his own state. Hecannot move about freely.Unacceptable,” she tweetedhours after condemning theencounter death of 8 SIMI ter-rorists at Bhopal. Kejriwal andGandhi were protesting thesuicide death of an ex-Armyman on the “one man one pen-sion” issue.

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The Kerala CPI(M) headingthe State’s LDF Government

is in a spot over the protectionthat it is allegedly providing tocriminals like rapists and gang-sters as seen in the case of PNJayanthan, party’s councilor inWadakanchery Municipality inThrissur district, who isaccused of raping a 34-year-oldwoman with three other mentwo years back and intimidat-ing her with the help of otherMarxist leaders and police officials.

As protests raged across theState, the CPI(M) on Fridayhad suspended Jayanthan andalleged fellow-rapist Bineeshfrom its primary membershipbut while announcing the sus-pension, party’s Thrissur dis-trict secretary KRadhakrishnan, formerAssembly Speaker and formerMinister, disclosed the victim’sname. However, the party

decided not to ask Jayanthan toresign as municipal councilor.

Even as the gang-rapescandal that erupted the otherday rocked the party and theState, the CPI(M) suffered yetanother jolt on Friday as it wasforced to remove prominentleader Zakir Hussain as itsarea secretary in Kalamasserynear Kochi for his alleged asso-ciation with gangsters andinvolvement in the abductionand intimidation of an indus-trialist.

The State police have start-ed a probe against Jayanthan,the other three alleged rapistsand the police officials, partic-ularly the Circle Inspector of thepolice station at Peramangalamin Thrissur, who, according tothe victim, had allegedly tor-tured her with obscene com-ments and questions when hercomplaint against the rapistscame for his considerationthree months back.

It is now apparent that

Marxist Chief MinisterPinarayi Vijayan, who alsoholds the Home portfolio,might have turned a blind eyetowards the victim’s ordeal.According to Anil Akkara,Congress legislator fromWadakanchery, the victim hadlodged a complaint with theChief Minister on the incidentby registered post last August.

The issue rocked theAssembly on Friday with theCongress-led UDF Oppositionaccusing the CPI(M) and its

Government of providing pro-tection to the rapists. “Thisincident proves that women arenot safe under the CPI(M)’srule. It is extremely unfortunatethat the CPI(M) is providingprotection to all sorts of crim-inals,” said Opposition LeaderRamesh Chennithala.

The woman, a mother oftwo children, was allegedlygang-raped by four familyfriends–Jayanthan a localCPI(M) leader and party’smunicipal councilor in

Wadakanchery, and three oth-ers – in April, 2014 but she dis-closed the matter only onThursday by holding a Pressconference with the help of filmdubbing artist Bhagyalakshmiand mediaperson Parvathy inThiruvananthapuram.

The woman was allegedlyraped at a place some kilome-ters south of Thrissur city.“They told me that my husbandwas in a serious condition andthat I should go with them ina car. Since they were friends,there was no room for any sus-picion,” she said. Her husband,who was present at the Pressmeet, said the family had beenunder constant threat fromthe rapists since then.

“I did not have the courageto lodge a complaint againstJayanthan and others as theykept on threatening to kill myhusband and children. Theyalso threatened me by sayingthat they had videographed myordeal in their hands and that

they would publish the videothrough the Internet,” she said.

However, Jayanthan stuckto his arguments that he haddone nothing wrong, that thewoman was leveling chargesagainst him just because he hadasked her to repay the �3 lakhloan she had taken from himand that he was ready to under-go any punishment if provenguilty. The party also seemed tobe toeing the line that thecharge against Jayanthan wasfalse.

After discussions on theissue at various levels on Friday,the CPI(M) came to the con-clusion that it was impossibleto conclude that the allegedgang-rape had taken place.Justifying his act of mentioningthe names of the victim and herhusband, Radhakrishnan said,“It is unjust to argue that theother person’s name shouldnot be revealed whileJayanthan’s name is being men-tioned repeatedly.”

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Lucknow: The Samajwadi Party has banned theentry of expelled leaders during the silverjubilee foundation day function in Lucknow onSaturday. District Magistrate and SSP ofLucknow have been directed to ensure the com-pliance and prevent such leaders from enter-ing the programme venue at Janeshwar MishraPark.

Dubbed as an ‘outsider’ by Chief MinisterAkhilesh Yadav, controversial Rajya Sabha MPAmar Singh will also not attend the silverjubilee programme.

State Samajwadi Party chief Shivpal Yadavsaid in Lucknow that party chief MulayamSingh Yadav has ordered that the expelled lead-ers be banned from participating in the func-tion. The expelled leaders are all members of‘Team Akhilesh’ and were present on the daison Thursday during the flagging off the CM’sRath Yatra by party chief Mulayam Singh.

Five MLCs-Sunil Yadav, Anand Bhaduria,Sanjay Lather, Arvind Yadav and Udayvir Singhand heads of youth outfits of the party wereexpelled by State SP chief Shivpal Singh Yadav.

However, signalling a thaw towards threeleaders, Shivpal on Thursday said, “If theexpelled leaders tender unconditional apolo-gy to the party chief, then their expulsion orderscould be revoked.’’ Expressing his displeasureover the presence of expelled leaders on the daisduringthe Rath Yatra flag off, Shivpal Yadav hadopined that the expelled leaders should not havejoined the function. PNS

Lucknow: All eyes arenow set on the day-longsilver jubilee foundationday programme ofSamajwadi Party inLucknow on Saturday.The event is being seenas yet another show ofstrength in the SP’s firstfamily barely 48 hoursafter CM Akhilesh Yadavlaunched his ‘Vikas seVijay Rath Yatra’ onThursday.

Both warring campsled by CM AkhileshYadav and State SP chiefShivpal Yadav respec-tively, have asked theirsupporters to mobilisesupport for the silverjubilee function.

Contrary to earlierspeculations that

Akhilesh could skip theNovember 5 programme,the CM fer ventlyappealed to supporters toaccord the same impor-tance to the silver jubileefunction as they did forthe Rath Yatra. This alsoimplied that ‘TeamAkhilesh ‘will dominatethe November 5 show asthey did vis a vis theRath Yatra.

Besides sending outa clear message thatevery thing in the firstfamily and party were-hunky dory, the soleobjective of the silverjubilee funtion is toexhort all secular forcesto unite and st itchtogether a ‘maha gath-bandhan’ to defeat the

BJP in 2017 UPAssembly polls.

But the insiders feelthat the warring campswill try to steal the thun-der during the show.

A day after the SPbrass put up a united facewhile flagging off theRath Yatra, bothAkhilesh Yadav andShivpal held separatemeetings in Lucknow onFriday for reviewingpreparations and crowedmobilisation for theNovember 5 show.

The CM meting fiveexpelled MLCs and min-ister of state Tej NaryanPandey. Several minis-ters, MLAs and youthleaders also attended themeeting.

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Lucknow: A nine-year-old girl was rapedand murdered in Philibhit while two morecases of attack on the members of fairersex were reported from Ferozabad andHardoi respectively.

In Philibhit, a girl residing in Khidkiyahamlet of Bisalpur wentmissing after she wentfor her classes onThursday morning. Herfamily reported the mat-ter to the local police andalso launched a search.On Friday morning, thebody was recovered in asecluded place behindthe school. The bodyhas been sent for autop-sy and investigations areon. PNS

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The Assam police on Fridaynabbed chairman of Assam

Public Service Commission(APSC), Rakesh Paul for hisalleged involvement in severalirregularities in the Commissioneven as the police hinted thatmore people from theCommission will be quizzedsoon.

Dibrugarh policeSuperintendent, Gautam Borahconfirmed the arrest and saidthat Paul was arrested by a spe-cial team probing the allegationand that he was arrested onFriday evening from his office inGuwahati’s Khanapara area afterover five hours of grilling by thepolice team. “A special team of

police was probing a case ofbribery where an engineer ofTown and Country planningdepartment was caught redhanded while accepting bribe of�10 lakh cash on October 27.Based on the confession of theengineer, police also nabbed thepersonnel security officer of oneAPSC member SamedurRahman recently,” the SP said.

“The police team has gotsubstantial evidence against theAPSC chairman during theinterrogation of the two andtoday he was arrested accord-ingly. We are going to producehim before the court tomorrowand seek custody,” the SP said.

He further said that thepolice are also going to summonAPSC member, Samedur

Rahman for his involvement inthe irregularities and corruptionin the APSC. There had beenseries of agitation in Assam forlast several years against theirregularities and corruption inthe APSC, particularly duringthe conducting the Assam CivilService examinations and otherallied service examinations.There had been allegations ofRakesh Paul obtaining assetsdisproportionate to his knownsource of income and that Paulhas acquired assets in the nameof his wife, his brother, his dri-ver and other relatives.

Last year, the Gauhati HChad asked the CBI to carry outa probe, particularly regardingthe assets possessed by Paul, hiswife, brother and driver.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi, who won the2014 Lok Sabha electionon the agenda of eco-nomic development,

initially made all-out efforts toinculcate cordial relations with allneighbours, especially Pakistan.He invited heads of all SouthAsian Association for RegionalCooperation (Saarc) nations forhis oath-taking ceremony andalso paid a surprise visit to Lahoreon Pakistani Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif ’s birthday.

India took no action againstPakistan even when the military-controlled Inter-ServicesIntelligence (ISI)-backed terroristsattacked the Air Force base inPathankot earlier this year. Indiaprovided conclusive evidence toPakistan and requested it to actagainst the persons who trainedand sent the terrorists. Pakistansent a few more terrorists whoattacked an Indian Army base atUri in September, in which 19Army personnel were martyredand more than 30 injured.

Besides these attacks, Pakistanwas incessantly infiltrating terror-ists, including suicide bombers, inKashmir. ISI-funded separatistorganisations and leaders made abig issue when security forceskilled Burhan Muzzaffar Wani,self-confessed commander ofHizbul Mujahideen, in July. Theviolent demonstrations, protestsand strikes organised by separatistoutfits has continued for months,many people have lost their livesand several more injured.

Not only this, Pakistani polit-ical leaders as well as GeneralRaheel Sharif have been con-stantly seeking to intimidate India.Pakistan’s Defence MinisterKhawaja Asif, in an interview,threatened that Pakistan hadn’tmade the nuclear bomb to keep ina showcase and that it would“eliminate India” through nuclearweapons in case of a war. Pakistan’sChief of Army Staff mentionedthat “Kashmir is an unfinishedagenda” of 1947.

The Pakistani leaders wereindulging in anti-India rhetoric,thinking that the political situationin India would not permit Indianforces to cross the borders.Nonetheless, the ModiGovernment took a bold decisionand Indian forces conducted sur-gical strikes in Pakistan-occupiedKashmir (PoK) on September 29.In the surgical strike, whichoccurred within a fortnight of theISI-sponsored terrorist attack inUri, Indian Armed Forces pene-trated five to seven kilometres in

PoK and destroyed at least fourterror launch pads and killedmore than 40 terrorists and theirguides. About nine Pakistan Armypersonnel, who were the trainersand handlers of the slain terrorists,were also neutralised.

The Pakistani leadership, ISIofficials as well as terrorists did notvisualise that Indian forces wouldcross the Line of Control (LoC).Later Prime Minister Nawaz Shariftermed it as “unprovoked andnaked aggression”, while thePakistan Army blatantly lied andstated that Indian forces had notcrossed the LoC.

Director General of MilitaryOperations (DGMO) Lt GeneralRanbir Singh very intelligently,clarified at a Press conferencethat the surgical strikes were notagainst the Pakistan Army butagainst militants who wanted toenter India with the ulteriormotive of carrying out terroristattacks here.

The ISI has increased infiltra-tion efforts in J&K because cross-ing the border would be difficultonce winter sets in. Also, the agi-tation in Kashmir is declining andanti-agitation sentiments are

developing. The people ofKashmir have begun realisingthat such agitations and demon-strations have destroyed the econ-omy of the State. The ISI is plan-ning to carry out major terroristactivity in response to the surgi-cal strikes by India. According tointelligence reports, more than 125terrorists of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba,Jaish-e-Mohammed and othersimilar outfits have already enteredthe State this year. Several ofthem have been already extermi-nated in various encounters.

The Pakistan Army, whichpropagates itself as a saviour of itscountry, will not stop sending ter-rorists unless it finds that there isdanger to their existence andIndian forces would enter not onlyPoK, which incidentally is Indianterritory and illegally occoupied byPakistan, but even other places inthat country in hot pursuit.

The morale of the IndianArmy and the paramilitary forcesis high, as the local commandersare empowered to retaliate strong-ly against infiltration attempts aswell as against cross-border firings.The Indian security forces havekilled enemy forces as well as foiled

several infiltration attempts sup-ported by the ISI and PakistanRangers. Important leaders ofPakistani terrorist outfits had tovisit terrorist camps as well as bor-der areas to persuade terrorists tocross the border as several jihadiswere reluctant to enter India asthey were afraid of being killedwhile crossing the border.

The stringent policy formu-lated by the Modi Government inKashmir is giving results. LocalKashmiris are secretly providinginformation to security agenciesabout the hideouts of terrorists.The security agencies are con-ducting joint search operationsand suspects.

The Modi Government isworking on a two-pronged strat-egy against Pakistan. The securi-ty agencies have intensified vigil onthe border, and on the other handNew Delhi is isolating Pakistan inthe world arena. Indian policy-makers do not want a full-scalewar but they are retaliating in sucha way that the cost of spreadingterror is increasing for Pakistan.

No country criticised India forthe surgical strikes. Pakistan sent22 of its Members of Parliamentto different world capitals to pro-mote the Pakistani viewpointabout Kashmir, but they returnedempty-handed, as most countriestold them to control the terroristsoperating from their soil. The lec-turing by Nawaz Sharif at theUnited Nations on Kashmir inSeptember was ineffective andUN Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon did not even mentionKashmir in his concluding speech.Pakistan was compelled to post-pone the Saarc summit as severalcountries refused to attend. This,if anything, was a clear indicationof the global isolation of Pakistan.

Further, in the recent summitof The Bay of Bengal Initiative forMulti-Sectoral Technical andEconomic Cooperation (Bimstec),the member countries clearly lettheir displeasure known aboutPakistan for assisting terrorism.Earlier, Prime Minister Modi hadspoken emphatically on terrorismat the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India,China and South Africa) summitin Goa. Although the names of ter-ror outfits based in Pakistan couldnot be named in the final commu-niqué, largely due to China’s objec-tions and Russia playing along, themessage was clear to Islamabadthat it was being branded as a statesponsor of terrorism.

(The writer is member, UnitedServices Institute of India, and asso-ciated with the Institute for DefenceStudies and Analyses)7

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Sir — This refers to the report,“Cong, AAP stoke suicide rage”(November 3). The story of thedeath of an ex-serviceman andthe drama enacted by leadersfrom the Congress and the AamAadmi Party, notoriously sensa-tionalised by the electronicmedia, has raised many ques-tions which may never be impartially communicated tothe audience.

Setting this aside, a fewquestion needs to be answeredbefore another suicide storytakes the centre-stage in themainstream media with a wagonof wild allegations against the BJP.

Is ending one’s life an act ofbravery or mental disturbance?Does an act of suicide offer solu-tion to the problems? Does thepresentation of suicidal inci-dents in the mainstream medianot provide an impetus to theabetment of suicidal tendencies?Does abetment to suicide notamount to a cognizable offence?The society in general and themainstream media in particularmust give a serious thought tothese issues .

Jai Prakash GuptaAmbala Cantt

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Needless brouhaha”(November 2). The Bhopal policehad tenable evidence of theinvolvement of SIMI activists invarious subversive activities. Theywere a threat to the nation’s secu-rity. If the activists were notinvolved, why did they have toescape the jail, killing a duty-bound prison staff? Why didthey not wait for a trial?

It must also be probed as tohow these activists received armsto fight the security forces. Thismust be the handiwork of someclandestine criminals to helpthem resist police encounter. Weshould express no regret andshock over their death.

Nimai Charan SwainBhubaneswar

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Sir — The journey of this season’spolitical campaigns has beenmore analogous to a soap operathan a US presidential election.With a few days to go, pollsreflect that the competition isgrowing closer than just a fewdays ago, by about four percent-age points, in the wake of a re-

launching of investigations intoHillary Clinton’s alleged violationof US State Department emailprotocol, which has DonaldTrump gloating.

America is electing aPresident whom a clear majorityof voters deeply dislike and dis-trust. No wonder, an Americanpsychological association surveyhas found that this election has 52per cent Americans feeling “sig-nificantly stressed”. This is unsur-prising, given the deterioration indiscourse this election has seen,dragging the great upbeatAmerican poll celebration down.

Padmini RaghavendraSecunderabad

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Sir — Samajwadi Party supremoMulayam Singh Yadav’s sugges-tion that Prime Minister NarendraModi must visit the families ofmartyrs, is good. But since thePrime Minister is busy with othercommitments, Yadav must joinhands with the Prime Minister inthis good work and help boost themorale of our jawans.

Gulab Shanker SinghLucknow

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$�������� ����!*����� ����"B�����,�< ��The root of the Indian patent sys-

tem lies at the heart of theBritish colonial administration. Withthe coming of the World TradeOrganisation (WTO)-Trade RelatedAspects of the Intellectual PropertyRights (TRIPS) in 1995, theGovernment of India had to bringmassive changes to its original patentlaw of 1970.

As a signatory to the TRIPS,India had to overhaul the entirepatent system as part of its obligationto the agreement. Today, India’saccession to the TRIPS has complet-ed more than 20 years. Thought theIndian patent system has not comeup to the level of the advancedcountries, yet it has a few good patentlaws unlike many other developingnations. The main reason behind thisremarkable success of our patent gov-ernance system lies in rich back-ground that we had directly acquiredfrom the long rule of the British colo-nial administration.

This had initially provided a bigboost in shaping the post-Independent Intellectual Propertygovernance system in the country asa whole. Before we move on to traceIndia’s long and arduous journeyfrom the first colonial Patent Act of1856 to the global patent system ofthe WTO-TRIPS in 1995, let us focus on the fundamentals of patentin general.

Patent right is the most contro-versial of all the Intellectual PropertyRights (IPR). It is an exclusive rightgranted to an original inventor orcreator for a fixed period. And inreturn, the inventor has the obligation to divulge his invention in public.

The patentee can exclude anythird party from an unauthorised actof making, using, offering for sale,selling or importing the patentedproduct or process within the coun-try during the terms of the patent. Apatented invention becomes free forpublic use after expiry of the termsof the patent or when the patentceases to have effect on account of

non-payment of renewal fee.In other words, it is a negative

right enjoyed by the patentee. Thepatent also constitutes a trade-offbetween the State and the inventor.For immediate disclosure of newinvention which may assist in sci-entific progress and economic devel-opment then the State grants a lim-ited exclusive right to the inventor.For any invention to be patentable,it has to be novel, constitute aninventive step and also applicable tothe industries. An inventive step isconstituted by an invention if it doesnot form the state-of-the-art in thesense that it could not have occurredto any person skilled in the partic-ular technical field who happened tobe asked to find a solution to the par-ticular problem.

It is worthwhile to recount thehistory of patent rights in Indiahere. When India introduced patentrights, the impact of the Britishcolonial rule was highly evident inthese laws from the very beginning.The patent laws/rules passed in Indiawere the direct result of the Acts/rulespassed in the British Parliament inthose days.

The first patent Act of India waspassed by the British colonialGovernment. It was known as the ActVI of 1856. The aim of this legisla-tion was to encourage new and use-ful inventions. Second, the Act want-ed that the inventors disclose theirinventions for the benefit of the State.This Act was subsequently repealedby Act IX of 1857 since it had beenenacted without the approval of theSovereign. Therefore, fresh legislationfor granting “exclusive privileges” wasintroduced in the Act XV of 1859.Thus the new Act comprised someelements of the previous Acts. Forinstance, grant of special privilegesonly to those inventions which wereuseful, extension of priority periodfrom 6 to 12 months, etc.

Specifically this Act excluded theimporters from the definition of inventor.

The first patent Act of 1856 was

primarily based on the UK Act of1852, but it had some modificationsunlike the earlier Acts.

It specifically allows the assigneesto make application in India and alsotaking prior public use or publicationin India or the UK for the purpose ofascertaining novelty. The protectionfor invention was specified in the Actof 1859, but it had no mention aboutthe protection of designs. At the sametime, the protection for designs wasavailable in England since 1842.Therefore to remove this hurdle, the“Patterns and Designs ProtectionAct” (Act XIII) was passed in 1872.This new Act amended the 1859 Actto include any new and original pat-tern or design or the application ofsuch pattern to any substance or arti-cle of manufacture within the mean-ing of “new manufacture”.

The Act XV of 1859 was againamended in 1883 by the Act XVI tointroduce a provision to protectnovelty of the invention, which priorto making application for their pro-tection were disclosed in the exhi-bitions of India.

A grace period of six months wasprovided for filing such application

after the opening of such exhibition.It was realised that the laws made

in India should be more or less iden-tical to what exists in their counter-parts in England or else theEnglishmen were more in troublethan the natives. Therefore, in 1888,the Government resolved to come up with a new legislationwherein a consolidation of all lawsrelating to invention and designwould be included.

Again, this new law would bemade in conformity with what existsin the same field in England.

In 1911, the Indian Patents andDesigns Act, 1911 (Act II of 1911) wasintroduced to replace all previous leg-islations on patents and designs. Themost important aspect of this Act wasthat it had brought patent adminis-trative system under the control of theController of Patents for the first time.Thus began a new chapter in the his-tory of patent in India. In 1920, theAct was again amended. It furthermade provisions for same arrange-ments in the UK and other countriesfor securing priority.

In 1930, the Act was amended toinclude provisions for secret patents,

patent of addition, use of inventionsby the Government and finally toenhance the powers of the Controllerto rectify register of patent and extendthe patent term from 14 to 16 years.

The Act brought a new provisionso that an inventor can file provi-sional specification and completespecification within a period of ninemonths. This amendment was madein 1945 and it had given a new lookto the patent Act. But the amend-ments made in the Act of 1911 couldnot resolve all the emerging issues inregard to the patenting. Therefore, anurgent need was to consider allthese areas under one comprehensivelegislation at the earliest. Also theneed was felt because of the chang-ing political and economic landscapeheralded by the country’sIndependence.

Hence, the Government of Indiaformed a committee under Justice(Dr) Bakshi Tek Chand in 1949 toexamine the existing patent laws ofthe country.

As a result of the recommenda-tions of the Tek Chand Committee,the Patents and Designs Act of 1911was amended in 1950 (Act XXXII).

Justice N Rajagopala AyyangarCommittee was appointed by theGovernment to examine the questionof revision of the Patent Law in 1957.As per the recommendations of thiscommittee, the first patent Act ofIndependent India came into exis-tence in 1970. However, the Act final-ly came into existence on April 20,1972. It was truly a national patentAct wherein provisions were madeto favour the domestic industry to agreat extent. Indeed, the pharma sec-tor was given high priority under theAct so as to make the essential med-icines available at the affordableprice. This resulted into the sharp fallin investment and patenting of bothforeign firms and individual paten-tees in the country. From this to thesigning of the TRIPS, India witnesseda long debate both within and out-side Parliament.

Finally, the industry lobby, thecivil society organisations, and thenon-governmental organisations,which initially opposed the entry tothe TRIPS, agreed to move on to thesame. Many of them even arguedthat India must not lose the oppor-tunity and should be part of the glob-al patent system. However, from 1995to 2016, the Indian patent system hasbeen facing a serious competition atthe global level. It is not only the mat-ter of upgrading its rules, regulationsand infrastructural facilities, butalso keeping pace with the rapidchanges of the global dynamics in theIP field.

India must have more trainedprofessionals to handle the risingtrend of patents. Apart from efficientadministration, the country requiresspecial patent courts to process thepending patent litigations. Else, witha very few patent lawyers and lack ofawareness among the people aboutthe benefits of the IPR as a whole,India’s journey to the 21st centuryglobal patent system will remainincomplete.

(The author is Senior Editor,The Pioneer)

������&��$���8���5.�������������-��,����(����$���When the Syrian war was at a climax in

the mid-2015, many hoped that the cri-sis may lead to a “New Cold War”. Howeverafter some initial hiccups, two major pow-ers (Russia and the US) agreed that thereneeds to be a “rapprochement” from all theparties to end the conflicting situation.However, the expectation was belied after oneyear. The two Cold War adversaries are at log-gerheads over the Syrian question. This pro-pels one to think whether the Cold Wargeopolitical structure is “redrawing” itselfagain.

What propped analysts to predict the sit-uation is quite alarming: Russia did not agreeto an American proposal to prolong “cease-fire” in Aleppo, stronghold of SyrianPresident Bashar Assad. The incessant fight-ing by Russian/Syrian forces to wrest con-trol of the city is being considered by manyWestern countries as “war crimes”. Russia,on the other hand, is accusing the Westerncountries of their “double speak”. Blamingboth Jabhat al-Nusra and the West forbringing the Syrian crisis to a stalemate,President Vladimir Putin at the recently heldValdai Club meeting claimed, “You declarewar on terrorists and simultaneously try touse some of them to arrange the figures onthe Middle East board (Syria) in your owninterests, as you may think.”

The phrase of “Cold War” gained moreprominence when Assad in an interview withRussian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravdalast month said, “What we’ve been seeingrecently during the last few weeks andmaybe few months is something like morethan Cold War, less than war, a full-blownwar...” In the Vladai Club meeting, Putin alsoechoed the same line. Using Syrian impasseas a background, he further said, “Wealready had this opportunity after the end ofthe Cold War. Unfortunately, we did not takeadvantage of it.”

The recent precariousness of the situa-tion can be evident from the fact that a con-voy of International Red Cross engaged inhumanitarian assistance in the Alepporegion on September 19 got hit by an“Aerial bombing”. Though there was inter-national condemnation of the ruthless act,later on this issue provided opportunity toboth the US and Russia to blame each otherfor the heinous act. One may recall here thatboth sides are interested in resolving the pro-longed conflict in Syria. However, compli-cating the task to bring stability are some coreissues over which they failed to reach a con-sensus. For instance Washington considersAssad as a war criminal, but Russia treats himas their “blue-eyed boy” in Syria.

The US lodged a strong protest withMoscow for its role in the Aleppo attack andeven threatened to “withhold” itself fromcooperating with Russia. Washington holdsthe position that it was because of the jointaction by Russian and Syrian Air Force inAleppo that the aid party got hit. On the otherhand, Russian Foreign Ministry in a pressrelease claimed this act is being carried outby Jabhat al-Nusra. Moscow to substantiateits claim added that the rebel force is oper-

ating in collusion with the US. Though theblame game has continued, what is posing agrave danger to the desired Syrian peace isthe derailment of negotiation in which bothRussia and the US have vital stakes.

A few months back, both the countriesagreed to create a “Joint ImplementationGroup” (JIG) in which they see eye to eye to“take all reasonable measures to eliminatenon-combatant casualties”. The coordinat-ing centre of JIG was located in the neigh-bouring Jordanian capital city. However, thepoint that requires a closer scrutiny here isthat despite agreeing to bring normalcy totrouble-torn Syria, both the external pow-ers have taken the polar opposite positions?

Western allies like France and Germanyare quite vocal about Russia’s role in Aleppo.Calling the Aleppo attack as “war crime”, theFrench Foreign Ministry demanded “holdingspecial session of UN Human Right Council”.The German Foreign Ministry urged upon theinternational community for a “tougher finan-cial sanctions” on Russia. However, otherEuropean countries took a different positionkeeping their geopolitical interests in mind.

What is aggravating the matter are opin-ions emanating from various quarters that theSyrian crisis may contribute to a full blownwar between Russia and the West. This canbe inferred from recent actions by both theparties. The first such instance was Russia’s“suspension” of the Plutonium Management

and Dispossession Agreement, which itsigned in 2000 with the US and “ratified” in2010. As per the provisions of the agreement,both the sides agreed to “dispose 34 metrictonnes of weapon-grade plutonium”.

The Bill to seek “suspension” of the treatywas introduced in the Duma last month andwas approved with an overwhelming major-ity. The reason, which Moscow is giving for“suspending” the agreement, is “technical”in nature. But it can be inferred from the factthat the mutual antagonism betweenMoscow and Washington, along with the waythe American and NATO forces are pene-trating into the East European region (whichRussia considers as its “own sphere of influ-ence”) is most important factor . This moveon part of Moscow will also have a reper-cussion on global disarmament project.

In addition to the “suspension” of“Plutonium Agreement”, Russia is moving itsdeadly sea freights to the shore ofMediterranean Sea through North Sea as wellas British Channel. Since some of these Seacoasts are located near England, the RoyalNavy, as disclosed by the Defense SecretaryMichael Fallon, has also dispatched its ownnaval fleets to keep tabs on the movementof Russian naval ships. This is a policy of“encirclement” which the British navy is pur-suing since long. Though Russia is consis-tently stressing on the fact the naval carri-ers, which are moving towards Syrian coast,

has nothing to do with the Aleppo impasseand it is a routine movement. DespiteMoscow’s denial, the deployment of Russiannaval fleets in the Syrian coast can be under-stood from the fact that the US in June sentUSS Porter to the Black Sea, considered asvital to Russia’s “strategic sphere of influence”.

The Russian policymakers consideredthe whole incident as “provocation” and thepresent movement of naval freights in theMediterranean region may be considered asa counter-strategy to that of the US as wellas NATO States. Russia is also respondingto the NATO’s expansionist policy by creat-ing new “military brigades”, augmenting anti-missile shield as well as deploying advancedmissiles to protect itself. In addition to abovemeasures as reported, Moscow is mulling toopen its Cold War-era bases in Cuba whichcan directly encircle America and in Vietnamwhere Washington has deeper strategicinterest. Further, in order to ensure its peren-nial presence in Syria, Russia has signed anagreement with the Assad regime to deployits air forces without any time period. Thesame was ratified by Russian Lower Houserecently. Similarly, it is also entering into a“tripartite agreement” with Iran and Syria toresolve the Syrian cauldron. All these devel-opments demonstrate that we are really inthe midst of a “New Cold War”. It appearsthat the Syrian crisis is looking as a meresymptom of a larger crisis world is going to

face in near future. India on its part is taking keen interest

in resolving the Syrian standoff in a peace-ful manner. Because of its “historic linkages”,“energy and economic compulsions” as wellas the need to “fight radical forces”, India iskeen to stabilise the situation. During his visitto Damascus in June this year, Minister ofState for External Affairs MJ Akbar held extensive talks with the Syrian President.As reported, Assad appreciated the “objective role played by India” in “stabilis-ing the situation”.

One may recall here that India also tookkeen interest in the Geneva Peace Processformed to stabilise the situation in Syria. OnIndia’s push, BRICS Summit held in Goaurged “upon all parties involved to work fora comprehensive and peaceful resolution tothe conflict taking into account the legitimateaspirations of the people of Syria, throughinclusive national dialogue”. The SummitDeclaration has also stressed upon effectivemeasures to curb radical and terror groupsoperating in Syria. India has better leveragewith both the US and Russia and can play anfruitful role not only in resolving the conflictin Syria but also checkmating the Cold Warsyndrome, which is the direct fallout of mis-perception between these two rival powers.

(The writer is Assistant Professor,Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

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Only a day after Centre and Statesreached consensus on having

four tier GST rates, the same couldnot happen on Friday on who willcontrol which set of assessees underGST, a disagreement that threatensto derail the April 1 target for roll-out of the new indirect tax regime.

The second-day of the all-powerful GST Council failed toreach a consensus over which cat-egory of assessees should be gov-erned by the Centre and which bystates.

The November 9-10 meeting ofthe Council has been called off.

It was to finalise the draft lawand supporting legislations for sub-suming an array of central and statelevies including excise duty, servicetax and VAT. The finance ministersof states will now meet informallyon November 20 to evolve a polit-ical consensus on the sticky issue.

The next meeting of the GSTCouncil, headed by Finance MinisterArun Jaitley, has been scheduled for

November 24-25.Jaitley, who had previously

stated that he hoped for all modal-ities for the GST to be finalised byNovember 22, was still hopeful ofgetting the supporting legislationsduring the ensuing Winter Sessionof Parliament from November 16.

“That’s the effort. I am endeav-ouring to do that,” he said whenasked if the CGST and IGST legis-lations will come before Parliamentin the upcoming session.

“When in the month of Augustwe passed the Constitution amend-ment, it appeared too challengingbecause the time was very short. Asof today, I am more confident thanI was in August. Let me say thisbecause bulk of the spade work hasbeen done. Most of the decisionshave been taken. Only one key deci-sion remains,” he said.

Differences on the issue of crossempowerment to avoid dual controlarose with states demanding controlover 11 lakh service tax assessees, andCentre proposing to do away stateshaving exclusive control over all deal-

ers up to an annual revenue thresh-old of �1.5 crore -- an issue whichwas settled in the first meeting of theGST Council.

No decision could be arrived atthe end of the third meeting of theCouncil on October 19.Jaitley saidthe draft CGST, IGST, SGST andcompensationlaws will be sent to

states after November 15 and theGST Council in November 24-25meeting will approve them.

He said all pros and cons haveto be weighed before deciding on theissues of cross empowerment toensure single interface under GST,which will subsume excise, servicetax, VAT and other local levies.

“In order to resolve it we willhave an informal meeting of theministers, in order to find a politi-cal solution to this problem, and wewill try and thrash out a solution onthe November 20 between theseoptions or may be a hybrid optionof this,” he said.

“But whatever option is we don’t

want to take it in a hurry because ithas to be a well thought out decision,because administratively, any mis-take on this front could be chaotic.So we are going slowly and system-atically on this,” he added.

In the last meeting of theCouncil, 5 proposals were dis-cussed, but on Friday the Council

has arrived at an option of two pro-posals-- horizontal division andvertical division.

‘Horizontal Division’ wouldmean tax payers would be dividedboth for administrative and auditpurposes based on a cut off turnover.

Those with a turnover over �1.5crore would be administered bothby the Centre and states, while thosewith below �1.5 crore would beadministered solely by the state.

The ‘Vertical Division’ based onratios assigns tax payers to a taxadministration, Centre or state, fora period of 3 years for all purposesincluding audit. Tax payers could bedivided in a ratio which would bal-ance the interest of the Centre andthe state, both with respect to rev-enue and spread of numbers.

Jaitley said the matter is com-plex and hence the Centre andstates do not want to rush throughwith the final answer as the conse-quences of this are unforeseen. “Youcan have neighbouring shopkeep-ers being assessed by differentauthorities and, therefore, Jaitley said

the GST Council, since its firstmeeting on September 22, hastaken 10 important decisions.

On the issue of deciding taxjurisdiction, he said that oneasseessee should not be subjectedto assessment by multiple assessingofficers and there should be clearguidelines on it.

“So when in terms of division,you are talking in terms of scruti-ny cases,” Jaitley said, adding thatonly 5 per cent of the returns filedin the GSTN portal will be pickedfor scrutiny.

With both the Centre andstates having huge manpower,there was a suggestion that even-tually a federal bureaucracy be cre-ated by merging the officers. “Butthat is a far cry as of now,” Jaitley said.

He said the objective of work-ing out the dual control jurisdictionover assessees is that the quality ofassessment and the efficiency of taxsystem go up and there is optimumutilisation of manpower availablewith both.

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���������Meeting of the all pow-erful GST Council failed to reachany conclusion on the dual controlissue as states objected to non-avail-ability of updated data on assesseesof service tax, excise and VAT.

The Goods and Services TaxCouncil, comprising state financeministers and headed UnionFinance Minister Arun Jaitley, willmeet informally on November 20to sort out the differences.

Some state ministers, sourcessaid, could also meet on November

19 to sort out differences over dualcontrol, which will determine thejurisdiction of Centre and statesover assessees.

The Council will formallymeet on November 24 and 25 todecide on host of issues includingthe dual control and approvedraft legislations on IGST, CGSTand SGST. The meeting was ear-lier scheduled for November 9 and10.

“There will be dual control orcross empowerment or else GST

cannot be implemented. It isabsolutely clear in everyones’mind,” said a minister after the 4thGST Council meeting.

“The only problem is that wedo not want to make a decision inrush. We work with data. We needthose numbers. Once we have thenumbers, we will decide,” he said.

Another minister said thatstates have asked the Centre tocome with updated data onService Tax, Excise and VAT.

Some state ministers also

demanded service tax assessesbelow �1.5 crore should beallowed to be assessed by states.

“We had agreed upon thatin case of goods there will be athreshold of �1.5 crore. Wewanted that principle should beextended to services also. ButCentre is not willing,” saidanother minister, adding thatbefore the mood could becomeacrimonious “we decided tobreak” and meet again onNovember 20. ���

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��� ������ Government hasslapped a $1.55 billion demandon Reliance Industries and itspartners BP and Niko for“unfairly enriching” by pro-ducing natural gas belonging tostate-owned ONGC, a movethat is most likely to land inarbitration.

The oil ministry onNovember 3 issued a notice toall the three partners seeking$1.47 billion for producing338.332 million British thermalunit in seven years endedMarch 2016.

After deducting $71.71 mil-lion royalty paid on the gas pro-duced and adding an interest atthe rate of Libor plus 2 per centtotaling $149.86 million, a totaldemand of $1.55 billion wasmade on RIL, BP and Niko.

Originally, ONGC hadsought suing RIL and seekingcompensation for the gas thathad migrated from its blocksKG-DWN-98/2 (KG-D5) and

Godavari PML in the KG basinin the Bay of Bengal to neigh-bouring KG-DWN-98/3 (KG-D6) block of RIL and producedby the private company.

The Government hadappointed a one-man commit-tee under retired Justice A PShah to go into the issue. Thepanel in its report on August 29felt that the Government andnot ONGC is entitled to com-pensation.

Subsequently, the ministryasked its upstream technicalarm DGH to calculate theamount of compensation and ademand notice has now beenslapped on RIL-BP-Niko.

“The committee has con-cluded that the contractor’s(RIL- BP-Niko) production ofmigrated gas and retention ofensuing benefits amounts tounjust enrichment, since theproduction sharing contract

(PSC)... Does not permit acontractor to produce and sellmigrated gas,” the demand notesaid.

The ministry said it hadaccepted the Shah committeereport and consequently “ithas been decided by theGovernment to claim restitu-tion from the contractor of theblock KG-DWN- 98/3 for theunjust benefit received andunfairly retained by them”.

The notice also sought $177million in profit petroleumfrom the partners after theGovernment disallowed cer-tain costs previously for KG-D6output not matching targets.

Since both the ministry aswell as the Shah panel had citedprovisions of the signed PSCbetween the patners and thegovernment, the issue may beheaded for arbitration.

RIL contests that it hadknowingly produced any gasbelonging to ONGC as all the

wells it drilled were within theboundary walls of KG-D6 blockand with explicit permission ofthe Government.

While RIL and partners arelikely to contest the compensa-tion claim, arbitration is likelyto be resorted to as that is thedispute resolution mechanismset out under PSC for settlingany differences between theGovernment and a private con-tractor.

The cost disallowance issueis already under arbitration.

RIL did not offer anyimmediate comments but a BPspokesperson said: “We havereceived a letter from theGovernment on the issue ofmigration of gas from theneighboring block. We believeresolution of such geologicalboundary disputes should bebased on well-established inter-national petroleum industrypractices and in line with thePSC.” ���

+09&����!*9�� ��" ���"�� C.722�������� "�����,$'�B��0��� ���������Days after ousted

Tata Sons chairman CyrusMistry blamed Nano forbleeding Tata Motors, thecompany on Friday said it hassignif icantly written offdevelopment cost and invest-ments related to the car andis now refocusing its strategyon “growing and attractivesegments” of the passengervehicles market.

The company, however,refuted Mistry’s allegationsthat another reason for itnot shutting down the Nano,besides emotional reasons,was the supply of gliders to anelectric car maker in whichRatan Tata has a stake.

“... Due to combination ofseveral factors including pro-ject delays, due to change inlocation of the factory andthe perception of being alow-priced car, the volumesinitially anticipated did notmaterialise and utilisation ofcapacities are significantlylower,” Tata Motors said in aclarification to BSE.

It further said: “In a high-ly-priced sensitive segment ofthe market, coupled with lowvolumes, it has been a loss-making product.”

The company, however,said a major part of invest-ments at the Sanand plant,where the Nano is manufac-tured, is capable of beingutilised for other products asis evident from the produc-tion of Tiago model.

“As far as developmentcost and investments inNano-specific dyes and tool-ings are concerned, thesehave been significantly writ-ten off in line with theaccounting policies of overthe last several years,” TataMotors added.

A day after he was oust-ed as chairman of Tata Sonson October 24, Mistry hadwritten to the board membersof Tata Sons, saying the Nano

product developmentrequired a concept that calledfor a car below �1 lakh but thecost was always above this.This product has consistent-ly lost money, peaking at�1,000 crore.

He had said Tata Motorshas been unable to shut downthe loss-making small carNano due to “emotional rea-sons” and doing so would alsostop the supply of “gliders” toan entity that makes electriccars in which Ratan Tata hasa stake.

Refuting the particularallegation, the company said:“We would like to clarify thatthe matter is at a preliminaryexploratory stage and noarrangement for supply ofgliders has been concluded.”

On its turnaround plan,Tata Motors said it has recent-ly presented and received theapproval of the board for itsfuture passenger vehicle prod-uct and business strategy.

The strategy envisagedrefocusing s trateg y “ongrowing and attractive seg-ments of the passengervehicle market in terms ofvolumes and profitabilityan d a l i g n i ng w i t h t h echanging and enhancedexpectations of the con-sumers regarding contentand features”.

“The company is com-mitted to pursuing this refo-cused long-term strategy andfuture product decisions aris-ing f rom the wi l l beannounced in the course ofimplementat ion of thisapproved strategy,” it said. ���

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���������Undertaking a major branding exercise,Singapore Airlines will fly its budget carriers underthe single brand name ‘Scoot’.

The move, expected to be completed “betweenmid and end 2017”, would see the Singaporean majordoing away with the brand name ‘Tigerair’ -- used forits medium haul budget operations.

Together, Tigerair and Scoot operates 50 flightsinto India per week. Scoot’s India chief BharathMahadevan on Friday said the decision to have a sin-gle brand is expected to provide more leverage inIndia.

“Next year, Tigerair brand would go away andScoot would be operating into eight destinations.Then, India would become the second-biggest mar-ket for Scoot after China,” he told the news agency.

Approaching regulators, airports and customersas a single brand is much more beneficial for thebrand, he explained.

Scoot, which started operations in India this year,

flies to Chennai, Jaipur and Amritsar. Tigerair,which has been operating since 2007, has services toBengaluru, Kochi, Hyderabad, Trichy and Lucknow.

“The basic idea is we wanted a single brand so thatcustomer is very clear. Now, customer is slightly con-fused on what is Tigerair, what is Scoot and what isthe difference between them. The idea is to positiona single brand in front of the customers saying Scootis the low-cost arm of Singapore Airlines,” Mahadevannoted.

Budget Aviation Holdings Pte Ltd, which owns andmanages the Singapore Airlines Group’s budget car-riers Scoot and Tigerair, plans to pursue a single brandand operating licence next year.

“The integration is expected to be realisedbetween mid and end 2017, given the full spectrumof commercial, operational and regulatory consider-ations,” Singapore Airlines said in a release earlier today.

“This will encompass flight scheduling and con-nections as well as touchpoint integration for guests,

including a common website, contact centre and check-in counters.”

Budget Aviation Holdings was established as acommon holding company for the two carriers in May.

“The integration has already led to commercialand operational synergies between Scoot and Tigerairthat are providing growth opportunities for both air-lines.

“... Following a review, we have determined thatthe logical next step is to pursue a common operat-ing licence and common brand identity to enable amore seamless travel experience for customers,”Singapore Airlines CEO and Budget Aviation HoldingsChairman Goh Choon Phong said.

Together, Scoot and Tigerair offer a network of59 destinations over 16 countries across the Asia-Pacific. While Scoot operates all-787 Dreamliner fleetfor medium-to-long- haul destinations, Tigerair fliesshort-to-medium-haul flights with its Airbus A320-family aircraft. ���

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��� ������ Dismayed at UK’sproposed changes in visa systemthat will impact skilled IT migra-tion, software body Nasscom onFriday called for a high skilledworker mobility pact betweenthe two countries to safeguardthe economic interests of bothnations.

Nasscom said that the move-ment of tech workers should betreated as a trade priority ratherthan an immigration issue.

“Indian IT companies playa key role in driving the UK’sgrowth and prosperity by sig-nificantly enhancing productiv-ity and global competitiveness ofBritish businesses, contributing

to overall growth and job cre-ation of the UK economy,”Nasscom said.

Nasscom said it intends tofocus on opportunities that UKPrime Minister Theresa May’sforthcoming visit offers, for afresh approach to skilled ITmigration as part of a possiblynew India-UK trade agreement.

It said that the fast growingand high value tech sectors relyon an effective immigration pol-icy.

Such a policy should attracthigh skilled workers and min-imise barriers to the flow of tal-ented people between the twocountries, it added.

“A system that restricts theUK’s ability to access talent is alsolikely to restrict the growth andproductivity of the UK econo-my,” the association said.

The UK needs to have the“right” policies in place toencourage valuable temporaryimmigration, and minimise bar-riers to the flow of talentedpeople, it added.

“Our key ask to bothGovernments is for a high skilledworker mobility agreement,along with an agreement on thefree movement of data. Themovement of skilled tech work-ers from India should be seen asa trade priority rather than an

immigration issue,” it said.Under the new visa rules

announced last evening by theUK Home Office, anyone apply-ing after November 24 under theTier 2 intra-company transfer(ICT) category would berequired to meet a higher salarythreshold requirement of 30,000pounds from the earlier 20,800pounds.

The ICT route is largely usedby Indian IT companies inBritain, and the UK’s MigrationAdvisory Committee had foundearlier this year that Indian ITworkers accounted for nearly 90per cent of visas issued under thisroute. ���

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Spooked investors remainedhesitant for the fifth session in-

a-row amid uncertainty over USelection result, pulling Sensex 156points to near four-month low of27,274.15 led by huge sell-off inpharma counters. For the week,the first of the new Samvat Year2073, the Sensex and Nifty bothrecorded losses by plunging667.36 points, or 2.38 per cent,and 204.25 points, or 0.36 percent, respectively.

The relentless losses in stockscontinued amid sustained sellingby foreign funds and retailinvestors, tracking global cuesdominated by fear that marketfavourite Hillary Clinton is lag-ging behind Donald Trump inthe US presidential race. Investorscould not find any solace evenafter the finalisation of tax struc-ture by the GST council as mar-kets continued to ferry in the neg-ative zone.

Moreover, domestic marketwoes piled up as the session sawpharma stocks tumbling follow-ing reports of a likely US probeagainst Indian pharma compa-nies making generic drugs.Reacting to the news, Sunpharmashares tumbled 7.45 per cent, fol-lowed by Dr Reddy 5.67 per cent,Lupin 3.57 per cent and Cipla2.60 per cent. Vinod Nair, Head

of Research, Geojit BNP ParibasFinancial Services Ltd, said,“Market tumbled as investors areconcerned over the final lap of USpolitical battle and higher tax bur-den from GST. Even thoughGST is one step closer, whitegoods were impacted on fears ofa higher tax burden than expect-ed earlier. Pharma companies arethe major casualty due to theprice collusion in US market.

The rising volatility led theinvestors to wait and watch fora favorable risk reward.” TheSensex, which had lost 511.23points in the previous four ses-sions, dropped by another156.13 points, or 0.57 per cent,to end at 27,274.15, its lowestclosing since July 8. It shuttledbetween 27,498.91 and27,193.61. The 30-share indexhit the day’s lowest at 27,193.61.

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NEW DELHI: The Governmenton Friday raised �2,100 crorethrough sale of 1.63 per cent stakein Larsen & Toubro (L&T) heldthrough Specified Undertaking ofthe Unit Trust of India (SUUTI).The transaction took placethrough block deals with privateinstitutional buyers picking up theentire chunk on offer, leaving noheadroom for state-run LIC toparticipate, sources said.

SUUTI, which was created totake over part of the assets and lia-bilities of the now-defunct UnitTrust of India, held 8.16 per centstake in L&T. The Governmenthad approached the market to sella minimum of 1.50 per centstake in L&T at �1,415 apiece.

“Government has sold 1.63per cent stake at a discount of 2per cent over previous closingprice (�1,444.55). The deal hasgarnered �2,100 crore to theexchequer,” a source said. Sharesof L&T were quoting at �1,417,down 1.91 per cent over previousclose in the afternoon trade on theBSE.

The Government, sourcessaid, went ahead with 1.5 per centstake sale to show the market thatthere is no urgency for big stakesales and no need for any distressselling. “Government had got themarket appraisal done profes-sionally and sold the stake to pri-vate players with no participationfrom LIC,” the source said. PTI

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$��?������� ��������� � �����(���Mosul: Iraqi special forcesbegan their assault into moreurban neighborhoods of Mosulfrom its easternmost district onFriday, the military’s latest pushto drive Islamic State (ISIS)fighters from the city.

The advance started withartillery and mortar strikes onthe Aden, Tahrir, and Quds dis-tricts, just west of special forces’footholds in the Gogjali andKarama neighborhoods, Lt.Col. Muhanad al-Timimi toldThe Associated Press.

ISIS responded with mortarfire, he added, kicking off smallarms clashes between the twosides. Smoke from artillerystrikes rose over the city.

The Islamic State group isfighting to hold Iraq’s secondcity of Mosul as Iraqi forces andallied Kurdish troops squeeze infrom all directions with US-ledcoalition support, mostly withairstrikes and reconnaissance.

On Tuesday, Iraqi troops

entered the city limits for thefirst time in more than two yearssoldiers had withdrawn fromMosul in the face of the IslamicState group’s 2014 blitz thatseized large swaths of territoryin Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Now the Iraqi forces aregearing up for urban warfareexpected to take weeks, if notmonths, as they work their wayneighborhood by neighbor-hood, going through a warrenof dense buildings prone tobooby traps and ambushes.

More than 1 million civil-ians are stuck in the city, com-plicating the military’s efforts toadvance without harming inno-cents.

ISIS militants have driventhousands of them deeper intothe city’s built-up areas, pre-sumably for use as humanshields, while hundreds of oth-ers have fled in the past daystoward government-controlledterritory despite the uncertain-

ty of resettlement in displace-ment camps.

Mosul is the last major ISstronghold in Iraq, andexpelling the militant groupfrom the city would be a majorblow to the survival of its self-declared “caliphate” that stretch-es into Syria.

When IS seized Mosul andother territory in 2014, themuch larger Iraqi military hadbeen neglected and demoralizedby corruption.

Iraqi forces have madeuneven progress in closing inon the city. Advances havebeen slower to the south, withgovernment troops still 35kilometers away, although theyseized a handful of villages latelast week.

Kurdish fighters and Iraqiarmy units are deployed to thenorth, while government-sanc-tioned Shiite militias are sweep-ing in from the west to try to cutoff any ISIS escape route. AP

Peshawar: A Pakistani courttoday ordered the deportation ofSharbat Gula, NationalGeographic’s iconic green-eyed‘Afghan Girl’, back to her war-torn homeland for using fake IDcards to stay in this city.

Gula, who was immortalisedafter her haunting picture takenat a refugee camp in Pakistan in1985 was carried by the maga-zine on its cover and became asymbol of her country’s wars, wasarrested last week from herhome here and faces deportationas early as Monday.

A special anti-corruptionand immigration court in

Peshawar ordered Gula’s depor-tation to Afghanistan after serv-ing a 15-day jail sentence besidesslapping a fine of 1,10,000 rupees(USD 1,100).

Gula, who was dubbed as‘Mona Lisa of Afghan war’, wasarrested by the FederalInvestigation Agency (FIA) onOctober 26 from Peshawar foralleged forgery of a PakistaniComputerised National IdentityCard (CNIC).

The court issued the verdictafter the accused pleaded guiltyto the charges, Gula’s lawyerMubashir Khan said.

“She has served about nine

days in jail already and willremain imprisoned for six moreto complete her sentence,” hesaid.

The fine was also paid so shewill be deported from Pakistanat the end of her sentence, headded.

Gula, now in her 40s, wasbeing deported under Section 14of the Foreigners Act 1946.

Following the court’s verdict,Afghan ambassador OmarZakhilwal said: “With utmostdelight, I announce that SharbatGula is now free from the legaltroubles she endured over thepast couple of weeks. PTI

London: Islamic State’s reclu-sive chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has escaped from theterrorist group’s stronghold ofMosul as the Iraqi Armyadvanced for a final assault,British foreign secretary BorisJohnson said today.

He said western intelli-gence sources believe Baghdadiis no longer in Mosul, TheGuardian reported.

Baghdadi yesterday brokehis year-long silence and issuedan audio recording, urging hisjihadists to continue their fightto the end in Mosul, where hewas believed to be hiding.

Johnson, in an unusual ref-erence to intelligence, saidBaghdadi’s audio recording was“cruelly ironic since some of theintelligence we have suggests hehad himself vacated the sceneand is yet using internet mediato encourage others to take partin violence.” PTI

Aleppo: A 10-hour Russian-declared ceasefire for rebel-heldareas of Syria’s second cityAleppo began on Friday morn-ing with the goal of encourag-ing civilians and surrenderingrebels to leave. The so-called“humanitarian pause” is thesecond time Russia and itsregime ally have said passagesare open for evacuations, buttheir last unilateral ceasefireended with almost no oneleaving over three days. AFP

Diyarbakir: Turkish Policeon Friday detained almost adozen MPs from the country’smain pro-Kurdish party,including its two co-leaders, aseight people were killed in adeadly car bombing blamed onKurdish militants.

Peoples’ Democratic Party(HDP) co-leaders SelahattinDemirtas and Figen Yuksekdagappeared before judges in the

city of Diyarbakir who woulddecide whether to remandthem in custody, the state-runAnadolu news agency said.

As the hearings got under-way, a blast by the outlawedKurdistan Workers’ Party(PKK) struck outside a policestation nearby in the Baglar dis-trict of Diyarbakir, Turkey’smain majority Kurdish city.

Eight people were killed,including two police, and over100 wounded, Prime MinisterBinali Yildirim announced,updating an earlier toll, sayingthat the PKK had again showed

its “ugly face”.The arrest of the HDP co-

leaders along with nine otherMPs, is a \major escalation of acrackdown on leading pro-Kurdish politicians in the wakeof the failed military coup in July.

EU foreign policy chiefFederica Mogherini said onTwitter she was “extremelyworried” over the detentionsand would call a meeting of EUambassadors in Ankara.

Demirtas was detained athis home in Diyarbakir in theearly hours while Yuksekdagwas detained in Ankara.

Yuksekdag was then brought toDiyarbakir where the investi-gation is centred.

The detention of the 11MPs appears to be part of alarge-scale operation againstthe HDP, which is the thirdlargest party in the Turkish par-liament with 59 seats and themain political representative ofthe Kurdish minority.

Demirtas and Yuksekdaghad been targeted by severalseparate probes over the lastmonths but this is the first timethat either has been detained.

AFP

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Syrian rebels has renewedtheir bid to break a

Government siege of easternAleppo, shelling regime-heldparts of the city hours before abrief Russian-declared ceasefirewas due to begin.

State media on Thursdaysaid at least 12 people had beenkilled in rebel rocket and gun-fire on regime-controlledneighbourhoods, after anassault that began with a dou-ble car bomb attack.

Rebels have been battlingfor nearly a week in a desper-ate bid to break the three-month siege but have so farbeen unable to push throughGovernment lines in westernAleppo.

The opposition forces yes-terdayannounced a new phasein their assault on Government

forces in the city’s western out-skirts.

“We have started the sec-ond phase in our fight to breakthe siege with heavy artilleryfire” on several neighbour-hoods, rebel fighter AbuHamza told AFP on the edgesof Aleppo.

Thick black smoke bil-lowed out of the Dahiyet al-Assad district, where rebelshad lit tyres to try to shieldthemselves from warplanes cir-cling above.

The Syrian Observatoryfor Human Rights monitoringgroup said the “most intensefighting” was on the edges ofthe Halab al-Jadida neigh-bourhood.

The clashes on Aleppo’swestern outskirts could beheard in the city’s eastern dis-tricts, an AFP correspondentthere said.

Berlin: Germany today sum-moned Turkey’s envoy afterAnkara detained almost a dozenlawmakers from the main pro-Kurdish party, warning that acrackdown against terror shouldnot be used as an excuse tosilence the Opposition.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier “summonedTurkey’s envoy to the foreignministry” for talks on the “latestdevelopments in Turkey”, said aministry source.

While Ankara “has the rightto counter the threat of terrorismand to deal with the bloody coupattempt through the law, thatshould not serve as a justificationto muzzle the opposition or toput them behind bars,” thesource said.

Berlin felt it “could notremain silent” given the deep tiesbetween the two countries andits people.

“It is therefore necessary toformally communicate the gov-

ernment’s position to the Turkishgovernment,” said the source.

The talks between the sec-retary of state at the foreign min-istry and Turkey’s charge d’af-faires are due to be held later.

Both co-leaders of Turkey’sPeoples’ Democratic Party weredetained along with nine otherMPs today, dramatically esca-lating Ankara’s crackdown onleading pro-Kurdish politiciansin the wake of the July 15 failedmilitary coup. AFP

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A30-year-old woman, whowent missing in August

along with her boyfriend, wasfound “chained like a dog”inside a locked shipping con-tainer in a rural area of south-eastern US State of SouthCarolina, officials said.

Kala Brown was discoveredafter police searching the prop-erty in Spartanburg County inconnection with the duo’s dis-appearance heard bangingnoises from inside the 15 feetby 30 feet metal container,sheriff Chuck Wright said.

The authorities then heardBrown screaming, “Help me!Get me out of here!”, Wrighttold CNN.

The deputies took a pad-lock off the doors of the con-tainer and opened it to find her

tethered by the neck followingwhich they used tools on theproperty to cut her free.

A registered sex offender,42-year-old Todd Kohlheppwho owns the 100-acre prop-erty, has been arrested on sus-picion of kidnapping.

Brown told police that shehad been held captive for twomonths in the padlocked stor-age box and that there might beup to four dead bodies on theproperty, Wright said.

Brown, who was “obvious-ly traumatised” is being treat-ed at a medical facility but therewas no word on her 32-year-old boyfriend Charles DavidCarver.

“I want to thank God forallowing us to find a missingperson from Anderson citywho was in a container chainedup like a dog,” he said.

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South Korean President ParkGeun-Hye on Friday agreed

to be questioned in a formalcorruption probe, portrayingherself as an over-trusting,“lonely” leader who droppedher guard with a close friendarrested for fraud.

In a highly personal tele-vised address to the nation,Park said the scandal involvingher long-time confidante ChoiSoon-Sil was “all my fault”, butdenied reports linking her andChoi to a religious cult.

The scandal has shatteredpublic trust in Park’s presiden-cy, and a new Gallup pollshowed her approval rating hadplummeted to just five percent—an all-time low for a sittingSouth Korean president.

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London: In a crackdown to curb its soaring immigration figures,the UK Government announced changes to its visa policy for non-EU nationals, which will affect Indians especially IT professionals.Under the new visa rules announced Thursday evening by the UKHome Office, anyone applying after November 24 under the Tier2 intra-company transfer (ICT) category would be required to meeta higher salary threshold requirement of 30,000 pounds from theearlier 20,800 pounds. The ICT route is largely used by Indian ITcompanies in Britain and the UK’s Migration Advisory Committee(MAC) had found earlier this year that Indian IT workers account-ed for nearly 90 per cent of visas issued under this route. PTI

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Many of his songs refuse toleave the mindspace as doeshis voice. Angaraag

Mahanta, popular as Papon, is oscil-lating between independent musicand his career in Bollywood. Makinghis way up in the music industry, hebelieves that it is one creative spacewhere talent gets recognised themost. “I have not had any filmi back-ground and I don’t know if this lifewould have been possible if films hadnot happened to me. But I couldwork my way through despite chal-lenges of not having a godfather,guru or a lobby,” he tells us whilerehearsing for the Northeast Festival,his way of paying tribute to his rootsin Assam. Though he doesn’t wantto stress his vocal chords threehours before his performance, he stillgives in to our request. Only to provethat a simple boy with a dream froma faraway land can make it anddemolish the cliches.

As hit music in Bollywood isbecoming increasingly synonymouswith rap and senseless lyrics, Paponis among the handful of artistes whobelieve in the power of melody. “I wasborn into a musical family and that’swhere the journey began. But I did-n’t immediately take music as a pro-fession till later in my life. It took mea while to realise I am good at itmyself and not because my parentsare musicians,” says the singer.

Apart from carving a specialplace in Bollywood, Papon has alsoworked on reviving old folk forms inthe mainstream music vista. Hisfather was a popular folk singer afterall. Asked if the trend of folk musicand its exponents is here to stay, hesays, “Well, it is definitely getting a lotmore attention, and I think that thetrend is going to continue simplybecause we are all born with these

sounds. I’m extremely happy aboutthe space for folk and fusion exper-iments as I’ve been trying very hardto bring them back in whatever wayI could. Also, platforms like CokeStudio and The Dewarists are takingit a step further by getting it intoprime time mainstream television.”

Talking about the track he enjoysthe most, Papon shares, “That’s dif-ficult to tell. I have been listening toFataumata Diawara a lot more thanusual. I especially love her track calledSowa. Apart from that the song MonMur from my first album Jonaki Raatiis very special to me. It is a simple,easy song written by my late uncleKeshav Mahanta and I’m blessed thathe gave it to me. People have alwaysenjoyed this song. Over time, thissong has become one of our key songson stage in Assam and otherwise.” Hefurther adds, “I have many musicalinfluences, from Pink Floyd to FrankZappa to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Saab,Mehdi Hasan, to my parents. Myinfluences also include genres ofmusic from across the world —from folk, jazz, blues and rock to elec-tronic in the past 10 years.”

After gaining much appreciationfor his first Hindi album in 2012named The Story So Far, theAssamese rockstar has started work-ing upon his next album titled MyStory Now. “My next album will beout very soon. And I’m excited aboutthe music that I’ve created and verykeen to share it with my fans,” hegushes.

Having a huge following inAssam, his fans call themselves‘Paponists’. “It’s a big deal for me. Thisconnect I have with my fans is not justin Assam but all over. It increases myresponsibility towards them andencourages me to do justice to thesoul of music. For instance, once we

performed in Serbia and there musthave been only four Indians in thewhole auditorium, including theIndian ambassador. The rest of theaudience didn’t even know how tospeak English. But they loved andresponded to Assamese folk songs ina fusion format. They didn’t want usto get off the stage; this connectionwe had with the audience was amaz-ing.”

The GIMA award-winner saidthat it was his father, KhagenMahanta, also a folk singer fromAssam, who has inspired him always.“My father was a folk legend inAssam. He was responsible for thelove that folk music receives inAssam. He always insisted that Idevelop strong roots so that I couldbranch out with confidence,” con-cludes Papon.

Something that led him to formhis own band called The East indiaCompany in2007. We called it EastIndia Company because most of usare from that region. Besides, we alsoperform music from East India. Istarted touring in Assam, followingthe release of my first Assamesealbum Jonaaki Raati. It was then thatI realised that there was so much tal-ent lying idle. In August 2007, I decid-ed to bring some of these boys toDelhi. They stayed with me for twomonths in my house. I already hadideas after our tours in Assam. Wewere doing rock and funk but I want-ed to add more electronic music toit. I was interested in Anokha, NitinSawhney, Fundametal, Asian DubFoundation, State of Bengal at thattime – the whole Asian Undergroundscene. So we jammed in Delhi and itbecame a different sound. At thattime in India, there was not muchelectronic mixed with folk.” Thatexperiment continues.

They said marriages were made inheaven. Then came the wedding

planners and it began to look like mar-riages were made by wedding plan-ners. But the surge of matrimonial andnetworking sites made one believe thatmarriage definitely happened on theweb. No matter how it happens, thehappy news of a wedding comes withthe related paraphernalia — bridaltrousseau, wedding theme, venue,food, jewellery and much more. Eachyear the wedding season springs sur-prises, with the big fat Indian weddingtaking on various avatars. “My wed-ding, my way” is how most peopletackle this milestone in their life. Somechoose to keep it simple and tie theknot at a temple. Some love to go allout and party into the wee hours ofthe morning with friends. Some likeit extremely personal with a smallgathering and hand-made goodies togo. Some see it as an extension of theirlifestyle and their beliefs.

Themed weddings are all the rage— be it a jungle wedding, a Bollywoodbash, the possibilities are as endless asyour imagination. And when it comesto mandaps, even these are not lim-ited to four pillars. The old schoolmarigolds have been replaced bywilder shrubbery. On one hand,where many are fun and quirky, on theother, there are elegant and classy onestoo. We bring you a roundup of someof the most unique and inspiring onesfrom glamping style to a traditionalstyle which will be displayed today atthe Hotel Four Points by Sheraton. Atotal of nine mandaps by Delhi’s pre-miere wedding decorators will beshowcased.

“Gone are the days when man-daps were meant to be just the fire pit,pots on the side and gorgeousmarigolds as decor. The new-ageIndian couple looks for more than justa traditional touch. Keeping this in

mind we have been coming up withvintage style mandaps signifying sim-plicity at the same time being classy,”says Karan, a wedding planner. Hismandap design incorporates nature.Back to where we belong or should wesay, back to our roots. The tent man-dap will be done up with charpoys,stools, earthenware and lanterns.

Ever wondered if your weddingmandap could be in the shape of aTirupati temple? The answer is yes.“We have named it as ‘Infinity of Love’and have used many magical ele-ments. One of them is the entire struc-ture is made up of candles. And wehave used no flowers in the set-up,”gushes Rashi, the creative head behindRashiNidhi Event Design Boutique.Such a mandap is bound to overpow-er the rest of the set-up.

The absolutely traditional yetclean mandap by Abhinav BhagatEvents is another design with mini-malistic approach. “Our design is notwith a royal touch. Rather we havechosen to be rooted. One will seelanterns, diyas, hanging heliconias andorchids in our curated mandap,” tellsAbhinav.

Traditionally yours but classy as

ever, a play with gotha work makesfor a smashing mandap décor idea.The setup to be displayed byDesigner Events Inc will be a com-plete flowerless mandap in a pyra-mid shape where gotha work is usedfor the pillars and props. “The idea

is to capture the Indian originwork alongwith the western look,”says the wedding decorator, Kaveri.

So, if you are getting hitchedand soon, here’s inspiration withmandap decor ideas and themes tofloor you!

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Bringing together professionaland amateur singers/musicians

on one stage for creating greatmusic with a sense of joy and pur-pose, new band Friends of Lingeris well on its way to making a dif-ference. The Delhi-based bandrecently released a single, Miss You,which is about two men who aremadly in love, while the majorityof Indian society is yet to accepthomosexuality. “The song is pure-ly about love and nothing more. Itis a truth I lived with and it is atruth we have shared in the sim-plest possible way. The story-telling is essentially the work ofManav Singh Malvai whereas themusic was a combined effort ofSmiti Malik, Adhir Ghosh andmyself. And I wrote this song at atime when I missed the presenceof someone, not a specific personthough,” said the band’s frontmanSharif Rangnekar.

Also the founder of the band,Sharif was, however, not happywith the censor board’s decision togive the music video an “A” certifi-cate. “The board has asked us toremove ten seconds of the video.They’ve termed those ten secondsas intimate. Funnily, the ten sec-onds question is a scene of sepa-ration and not of love-making orhugging or kissing. And even if weremove this, the board clearlysays we would be awarded a U/Acertificate, not a U. That speaksvolumes of the fairness with whichthis video is being treated,” he said.

Sharing about their journey asa band, Sharif said, “Our storybegan over a round of drinks at aSouth Delhi karaoke bar whereone of our friends, DeepakSharma, hosted an event night. Onone such slightly drunken night, Iproposed the idea of performinglive with real music. This led meto call Adhir Ghosh, a noted gui-tarist who is a session artist, andalso the lead guitarist of Five8. Hebrought together some of Delhi’sfinest musicians for different gigsor for our recordings in studio.”

The members of the band,

who are also engaged in differ-ent professions, enjoy the musicthey produce. Often performinggigs at the restaurants in the city,Sharif said, “It is a fun experienceputting these together and yes wehave more in the making cover-ing different themes. We may getyou on the dance-floor or hum-ming once again.” The banddoes not like sticking to any par-ticular genre while makingmusic. “However, the influenceof rock, blues and jazz can be feltin what we do,” added the lead

vocalist. Speaking about the scenario

of LGBT rights in the country,Sharif believes that there is stilla long way to go. “So many of usare technically criminals everytime we make love or have sex.This is how bad it is. Even if andwhen the Supreme Court takes apositive view (we hope), wewould still have society to dealwith but will surely be far morefree.” However, still hopeful, headded, “Hope lies in the courtsand in the growing awarenessand openness that colleges anduniversities have been showing.”

Talking about the band’sfuture projects, Sharif said, “Weare toying with the idea of analbum or an EP but surely of anew single or two. Again, it willinvolve Smiti Malik, AdhirGhosh, Steve Peters and my writ-ings. The songs move the darktruth of how women are treatedin our male-dominated society.”

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�How much of a gift is Homeland at this stage inyour career with so much acclaim?

Mandy: It’s an incredible gift. I don’t understandwhy I’m here, why I’ve been given this gift. Literally,I’m not trying to be petty or trivial, I don’t get it howdid I end up here, in this extraordinary thing. Youknow, I’m just minding my own business, walkingaround. I’ve been so blessed. I’ve had so many extra-ordinary opportunities and I didn’t even do anything.I was doing a play in New York and someone callsme and says they’re going to send you something.“Oh? What? It’s a schedule problem?” How am I goingto do it?

�How long are your days while shooting forHomeland?

Mandy: We’ve had 14-16 hours sometimes. Iwould say the average is 12-14. The crew is here forevery minute, the actors sometimes get a break. Butoften the way things are scheduled, I work three soliddays wall-to-wall; I’m in every scene. So for me, ingeneral, I tend to get a lot of those 3-4 day periodswhere it’s all Saul stuff. I kind of liked it because youstay concentrated all day. I love television for thatreason, particularly this kind of television; you haveto just stay focussed. And it moves so fast, they haveso much to do in a day. So you don’t get bored. Youdon’t get lost while they take a day to light a scenewhere you open a car door. You just have to stay onit. I hope it keeps me from getting Alzheimer’s.

�Claire Danes, Damian Lewis and yourself obvi-ously have an emotional rapport with each other.What is it like working with each other and hav-ing this level of comfort as well?

Mandy: It’s the best. When you become famil-iar with other actors, the writers, the directors, youbecome a real ensemble, you start to work togetherin a much more comfortable and in a more profoundway. The tree has been in the ground longer, it hasdifferent roots…you start to see things, feel things,it’s really a much richer, more fertile, more enjoyableplayground to meet in than when you have to meetsomebody on the first day and pretend you’ve beentogether forever. The more you’re together and youlive these experiences together, you have real life stuff,so it becomes simpler. There’s a natural gift of sim-plicity that’s intrinsic to being together with some-body…this is a real gift, it’s a joy.

�When do you think you guys became so success-ful?

Mandy: I ask people this question all the time.Because I do my part like I do it for every job andthat’s not my job to know why it is successful? Verygifted smart people say to me, “I don’t watch TV butI watch this.” So, my first question is why? Why doyou watch this? There was one guy named JeffGreenfield, he is a very well-known reporter inAmerica, I think Time or Newsweek and he’s a talk-ing head on many networks, brilliant guy. He had thatexact line “we don’t watch TV but we watch this.”“Why?” I asked. He took a moment and said I thinkit’s because of its ambiguity. I loved that answerbecause everything in life has the possibility of thisor that, you know going left or right, black or red.This thing can turn on a dime in any direction —emotionally, physically.

Another buddy of mine compares life all the timeto baseball. Why? Because he feels it’s an amazing

game. Because it goes along and all of a sudden yourteam is winning and one little tiny thing happens byone player’s action or mis-action and emotionally itcan affect everyone on the team and everyone on theother team. And the whole World Series can changein less than an inning and go to the other guy. So hefinds that just amazing. I think that is what the worldof Homeland is like; it lives on the razor’s edge.

�Do you go to bat for some things with the writ-ers?

Mandy: I don’t have to do very much here becausethey’re so good, they write my character so well. Theyrarely do anything that I have objection to. I’ve hada couple of objections in three and a half years so far,which they respond to immediately and we discussit. Sometimes they agree with me, sometimes theymake me see what they had intended and I go, “Ohok, I wasn’t thinking that way.” And then on occa-sion they embrace something I’d improvised or athought I had.

�How was the visit to Israel, from what you remem-ber?

Mandy: We had four to five days time-off beforethe shoot. I made some phone calls and said, “I’m here,

I’d like to go witness the conflict.” So, I went all overthe West Bank, Hebron and the southern parts wherethese cave people live, and the checkpoint where allof these people have to suffer through these prison-like gates, these women and children. And towardsthe end, after we had shot everything, I went toRamallah. I saw parts that a lot of people don’t see,that a lot of Israelis don’t see. And the irony of it allwas I have family in Israel.

I met a man, an extraordinary 27-year-old, I thinka Stanford graduate and a brilliant human being. Hewas a Palestinian named Fadhi Kurahm and I shota 13-minute video of him in the car. I told Fadhi thatI have an uncle, my father’s brother, who was a demo-crat and very left wing, very much just like Homeland,a left-wing democrat.

Then 9/11 happened and in my opinion, my unclebecame, as many American Jews became after thattime, a “singular visioned-one issue- republican-rightwing- security for Israel” person. As a family, we workon my uncle all the time. Everyone from my gener-ation and my children’s talk to him. He reads six news-papers, he engages with all of us. We just talk to himabout different possibilities, different ideas so that hesees both sides. So I asked Fadhi, “What do I say tomy uncle? How do I respond to his classic respons-

es?” and he answered for 13 minutes. He told me at the end, “Ask your cousins.” I found

out my cousin lived in Bethel, which is a settlement.And so he said, “Ask your cousin how he feels aboutthe fact that he’s living in a place that was owned bymy grandparents and I’m not allowed to go there.”

So we drove to Bethel with the Palestinian cabdriver and my guide and I come to my cousin’s housein this settlement and there’s my family name in a bigshingle over the front door. I went in and met mycousin; we had a beautiful family gathering and thenan amazing discussion where you couldn’t hearbecause everyone was talking at once. Everybody hada view on the conflict. I was deeply affected by all ofthis exposure that I experienced there, on all sides.I even went to hear the hard right point of view at alunch and at a brunch where I was with a numberof people with you know, the opposite point of view,not the liberal but the right.

So I consider this show a gift because to have anAmerican hero Marine who converts to Islam is extra-ordinary. To have an American Marine hero in a sui-cide tape who blames the Vice-President of the UnitedStates for war crimes is extraordinary. And then youhave the other point of view calling him a terroristand a murderer and a killer. So, if we do our job well,which I said to Alex before we began to shoot the pilot,we would be a hit. I really felt if we could show bothsides of the argument by not being left wing and bynot being just right wing, if we could let the left wingwin at the same time the right wing was winning, wewould hit bull’s eye. I don’t want either side of thepolitical world to leave the table or to leave theTV. I want all points of view to be represented andI want questions to be seared on that TV and leaveyou in a haunted state of “what do we do?” Whatdo we do before we walk away from our lives?

I actually thought that the nature of Fadhi,because he was so extraordinary, would make awonderful character in our show.

�It is sometimes very tricky to distinguishbetween the good guys and the bad guys in theshow...

Mandy: I think humanity makes for the goodguys. In the first season people would always askif Saul was the bad guy. I would say well I’m notgoing to tell you. And then they would say, “wellwouldn’t you have to know as the actor?” Myanswer as an actor or as a person is I am more inthe vein of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandelaand others to come.

�Do you think Saul is your ultimate role? Doyou feel like you’re serving some sort of a big-ger purpose?

Mandy: My next role should be the ultimatebecause if this is it, then what do I have to livefor tomorrow? I have been so privileged and solucky in my life to have played different roles. Butwe have no idea what the future holds. Homelandis only half my year, so the other part of the yearI do other things. I’m working on a new play, Iwork on new music…I have a new vaudevilleshow that I do with a performer named TaylorMack called The Last Two People on Earth: AnApocalyptic Vaudeville. I climb Platteklip Gorgeas often as I can to condition myself for this vaude-ville show, because I sing and dance for an hourand fifteen, twenty minutes non-stop.

Shashi Tharoor in an An Era ofDarkness tries to disprove the claim of

the British that they recreated Indianunity and asserts that the benefits of theforeign rule were not intentional. His corepoint is that the British Raj deprived ofIndians’ self-respect.

“The British destroyed India’s tradi-tional industries like the textiles, shipbuilding and steel and a large number ofweavers were thrown out of work. India,which was strong in steel wood, waspushed out of the business. Indian steelwood was so famous that even theArabks took it”, said Tharoor during theconservation with veteran journalistKaran Thapar after the launch of thebook at Taj Mahal Hotel on Friday.

Tharoor, a parliamentarian fromKerala, in the book, portraits the ill-effects of the British rule, how it madeIndia an outlet of goods for Britain andhow the country could evolve to parlia-mentary democracy even in the absenceof the colonial rule. So why he wrote thatconstruction of railway lines in the coun-try by the British was a scam? “The con-cept was to extract the resources of India’shither lands. Indian railways became aprofitable investment for the British as thereturns were assured and constructingrailway lines for the country was viewedas a private profit making option ratherthan something done for public interest,”says Tharoor. He adds, “From the ticketcollectors to station masters whiteEuropeans were employed in the rail-ways.”

On asked about his claim that the ini-tiatives by the British led to developmentof poverty in India, he said that povertyin India was a direct result of the Britishrule. “The colonial rule created bothpoverty .The land owners in the countrywere finally reduced to tenants. Tax onagricultural production in India wasmaximum 15 per cent of the value of thecrop in India. But after the British camethey raised the taxes to minimum 45 percent of the crop value and there was noconsideration for victims of famine ordrought. By the end of 1947, 90 per centof the population fell under below pover-

ty line,” substantiates Tharoor, former min-ister of state for External Affairs.

On asked is there any exact figure onhow much the British extracted wealthTharoor said that it could be four billionwhich is a whopping amount now. So whatwas the impact of British rule on Indianeconomy? “Indian was Britain’s mainsource of revenue. British civil servantswere highly paid and Indians paid forthem. The book also says that the num-ber of Indians died of famine in India dur-ing the British Raj could be compared withthe death toll of the worst human atroci-ties. Tharoor said that when people diedof famine the British hold the view that theland didn’t have the capacity to bear them.

“The British even acted against the offi-cials who were soft to famine victims”.

The politicians and scholars of thecountry were silent when the British usedto talk about the looting? “No they neverdid it in public, but in their private corre-spondence only,” Tharoor said. But thecolonisation of India was better than theexperience of Spanish or Dutch as notedout by many? “The benefits of British rulewere not intentional. They have evenmade a law which was tougher to enforcein England. Their initiatives were notaimed at benefiting India,” he said.

But we can credit the parliamentarydemocracy of India to the British rule,there was no colonisation in China,Thailand and Nepal and they are notdemocratic? “Monarchy existed in Japan.But the country evolved to democracy afterit was bombed. The counter argumentssuggesting that the British rule was ben-eficial are speculative only. They are justoffering alternatives. The British wasreluctant to give us substantive democra-cy which they enjoyed back at home. Whatif the British didn’t teach us English lan-guage? “The British taught English to aminority only to use them as translators”,he said.

The book was launched by The TajMahal Hotel in association with AlephBook Company. Vice PresidentMohammad Hamid Ansari launched thebook.

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Manchester United's attacking prob-lems continued as it lost toFenerbahce 2-1 in the Europa

League on Thursday, leaving it at risk ofa group-stage exit.

United beat Fenerbahce 4-1 at OldTrafford a fortnight ago, but arrived inTurkey after drawing with Burnley 0-0, dur-ing which it dominated and had 37 chances.

Again, Jose Mourinho's side failed toconvert a glut of possession into goals, butthis time it also struggled to create oppor-tunities. Its attacking intent increasedbriefly after Zlatan Ibrahimovic replacedthe injured Paul Pogba half an hour in.

United's struggles in front of goal,however, are being reflected byIbrahimovic, who netted five goals in asmany matches to get his United career offto a flying start, but has managed to scorejust once in the last 11 matches.

"They deserved to win. Football is notjust about quality, it's about effort, com-mitment, playing the limits, and giving

everything," Mourinho said. "A team thatconcedes a goal after two minutes is a teamthat is not ready, is a team that is not men-tally prepared, not focused, not concen-trated ...

"After their second goal we had a reac-tion ... but we didn't deserve more. Ourproblem started in our attitude. They wereplaying the Champions League final andwe were playing a summer friendly."

United's David De Gea was by far thebusier goalkeeper.

Moussa Sow put Fenerbahce in frontafter only 66 seconds with a stunning over-

head kick from just inside the area, andJermaine Lens doubled the Turkish side'slead with a magnificent free kick in the59th, much to the delight of a raucoushome crowd. De Gea hardly moved for it.

Wayne Rooney netted a late consola-tion, smashing the ball in from 30 yardsto move level with Ruud van Nistelrooy on38 European goals for United. The captainis two goals from tying Bobby Charlton'srecord of 249 for United.

Fenerbahce leapfrogged United intotop spot in Group A, level on points withFeyenoord, which drew at Zorya Luhansk

1-1. United slipped to third, one point offthe pace.

�������#��������",Inter Milan interim coach Stefano

Vecchi knew he faced a daunting taskwhen he stepped in for the sacked Frankde Boer just two days ago. The first halfwent well for the youth team coach asMauro Icardi fired Inter in front.

There was drama in first-half stoppagetime as Southampton was awarded a some-what soft penalty when the ball hit IvanPerisic on the elbow. Inter players protest-

ed, and Antonio Candreva was fortunate notto be sent off after elbowing Sam McQueenin the face. Inter goalkeeper SamirHandanovic, a spot-kick specialist, dove tohis left to keep out Dusan Tadic's tamepenalty attempt. Southampton turned thematch around in five second-half minutes.

A corner fell to Oriol Romeu, whoseeffort crashed off the crossbar, but Virgilvan Dijk, who troubled Inter all match,fired in the rebound to level. Shortly after,McQueen's deflected cross bounced offYuto Nagatomo's knee and past a haplessHandanovic.

#��#���6"9���&Aritz Aduriz netted all five goals for

Bilbao to hand the Spanish side a much-needed win in Group F. With two penal-ties, Aduriz put his side 3-1 up at the break.Genk closed to within one, but Adurizscored his fourth and converted his thirdpenalty in stoppage time.

Bilbao moved level on points withGenk on top of the group, one aboveSassuolo and Rapid Vienna, who drew 2-2 in Italy after two goals in the final fiveminutes for the visitors.

����������Four sides qualified for the next stage,

with two matches to spare.Zenit St Petersburg and Shakhtar

Donetsk just needed to avoid defeat, andthe Russian side battled past Dundalk 2-1 in Group D, while Shakhtar won at KAAGent 5-3 to clinch top spot in Group H.

Ajax was also through after beatingCelta Vigo 3-2, while Schalke sealed itsspot in the round of 32 with a 2-0 win overFK Krasnodar.

���� !;9�

History beckons trailblazersBengaluru FC as they lock

horns with Air Force Club ofIraq in the summit clash ofAFC Cup here on Saturday,aiming to become the firstIndian football club to clinch acontinental title.

Bengaluru FC have alreadycreated history by becomingthe first Indian club to qualifyfor the final of a continentaltournament after they defeat-ed defending champions JohorDarul Ta'zim in the semifinalson 4-2 aggregate last month.

Before this, the farthest anIndian club had advanced in acontinental tournament wasthe two AFC Cup semifinalappearances by Dempo in 2008and East Bengal in 2013.

But a bigger glory, whichwill be unprecedented in theannals of Indian football his-tory, awaits Bengaluru as theyprepare to clash with the Iraqiside, which, just like the Indianclub, is also playing in itsmaiden AFC Cup final, at theQatar Sports Club Stadium.

No football team from

India, a laggard in the interna-tional arena, has won an Asianlevel title since the national sidebagged the 1962 Jakarta AsianGames gold.

East Bengal won the firstASEAN Championship inIndonesia in 2003, beating Thaiclub BEC Tero Sasana 3-1 in thefinal. But that was a tournamentcompeted by 10 sides fromSouth East Asian countries plus

East Bengal representing Indiaas an invitational team. It will bea remarkable achievement forBengaluru, owned by JSW Steel,if they win the AFC Cup title injust the third year of theirinception. Bengaluru won the2013-14 I-League title in theirdebut appearance. They finishedsecond in 2014-15 season andthen reclaimed the title this year.In between, they won the

Federation Cup in 2015.The Bengaluru-based side,

coached by Albert Roca, a for-mer assistant coach at FCBarcelona, have been in superbform in the tournament win-ning six times, losing thrice anddrawing twice. They are alsoexpected to get the homelikefeeling here as a large numberof Indian expatriates settled inQatar will be rooting for them.

Many people had not givena chance to Bengaluru whenthey took on Johor in the semi-finals as the Malaysian side hadbeaten them twice in the groupstage. But Bengaluru stakedtheir claim for glory by earninga 1-1 away draw in the first legof the semifinals before a 3-1victory in the second at home.

Bengaluru players, led byIndia captain Sunil Chhetri,will have the extra motivationto chase history on Saturdaybut they will have to play outof their skin against a top classIraqi side which have at leastfour national team players andhave won eight out of 11matches in the tournament.They drew twice and lost once.

Air Force Club have scored26 goals in 11 matches so far intheir campaign with 15 comingfrom their rampaging strikerHammadi Ahmed Abdullah, anational team player.

Chhetri, who has netted fivegoals so far in the tournament,struck twice in the 3-1 win overJohor, his second strike emerg-ing as the talk of town andarguably one of the best goals ofhis illustrious career.

����� !.�93

Delhi Dynamos flaunted itsattacking strength yet

again as they steamrolleredKerala Blasters 2-0 to move ontop of the Hero Indian SuperLeague table at JawaharlalNehru Stadium, Delhi, onFriday.

In a clash between thebest attack and strongestdefence, Delhi's strike-forcedelivered in the second sessionwith goals from Kean Lewisand Marcelinho in the 56thand 60th minute, respectively.Delhi have now scored 12goals in eight matches, the bestscoring record in the leaguethis season, while Kerala losttheir best defensive recordafter conceding two goals forthe first time in the league.

The victory enhancedDelhi's points tally to 13 from8 matches, helping them over-take Atletico de Kolkata (12points) at the top of the table.Atletico de Kolkata howeverstill have a match in hand.

Pre-match talk of attackversus defence played out inthe opening 45 minutes asDelhi saw more of the ball andhad the better scoring chances.Kerala on their part simplydefended and looked to hittheir opponents on the counter.

Brazilian strikerMarcelinho had the firstchance to open the account forDelhi when a quick throw-in

on the right was flicked on byRichard Gadze to Marcelinho.The Brazilian lost little time insmashing the ball but it onlyended up hitting the side net-ting.

Gadze had a chance toscore two minutes later butdespite controlling a ball fromFlorent Malouda inside thebox, he could not keep hisattempt on target.

Kerala's best chance of thehalf came late in the game.Kervens Belfort sent a goodcross from the left for DidierKadio in the 42nd minute buthis header after generatingtremendous power missed thetarget narrowly.

Delhi turned the match onits head in the second sessionand had Kerala goalkeeperSandip Nandy to thank for anunlikely mistake. A casual back

pass was easy clearance butGadze blocked his path, wonthe ball back and then set it upfor Kean Lewis to keep his cooland slam it past a host ofdefenders.

Four minutes later,Marcelinho made it 2-0. A fan-tastic ball from Malouda sawthe Brazilian head it perfectlybeyond Nandy from an acuteangle.

The setbacks upset Kerala'scalculations prompting coachSteve Coppell to make threesubstitutions within a minute.Coppell introduced AntonioGerman, Pratik Chowdharyand Duckens Nazon but Delhiplayed the rest of the matchwithout being troubled.

The loss was Kerala's firstin six matches after losing twomatches in a row at the begin-ning of the league.

���� ��/37

Marin Cilic ended a three-match losing streak

against David Goffin at theParis Masters on Thursday toearn a spot at the ATP Finals.

The former US Openchampion needs to stop aneven worse run if he is to makeit to the last four in the Frenchcapital. Cilic converted hissixth match point to beatGoffin 6-3, 7-6 (9) at theindoor tournament, giving hima spot in the quarterfinals andone of the remaining twoberths in the eight-man ATPFinals in London this month.

Next on his plate is top-ranked Novak Djokjovic, whorallied past Grigor Dimitrov 4-6, 6-2, 6-3. Cilic has a terrible0-14 record against the Serb.

"He likes to play me," Cilicsaid. "Or if you want to put itaround differently, I don't liketo play him that much."

A three-time defendingchampion at the Paris Masters,Djokovic sealed victory on hissecond match point. Dimitrovserved and returned extremelywell in the opener, then theBulgarian appeared to lose hisfocus and was undone by mul-tiple errors. Djokovic calledthe trainer at 3-1 up in the sec-ond set because of pain in hisright knee after falling whilechasing a shot. He played with

more accuracy afterwards. "Noproblem, thankfully," Djokovicsaid. "Just an awkward footingin that point, but all is well."

Andy Murray, who cantopple Djokovic in the rank-ings if he wins the tournamentand Djokovic does not reachthe final, made the quarterswith no trouble, dispatchingLucas Pouille of France 6-3, 6-0. The Briton will next take onTomas Berdych, who beatGilles Simon 6-4, 6-3.

Dominic Thiem of Austriawill complete the field inLondon if Berdych fails toreach the semifinals in Parisand Jo-Wilfried Tsonga doesnot win the title.

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Indian batsman Rohit Sharma, whois set to miss the Test series againstEngland due to a thigh injury, might

undergo surgery after consulting a spe-cialist in London next week, effective-ly ruling him out of the four-Test rub-ber against Australia early next year.

Rohit had sustained the injury dur-ing the Vizag ODI against New Zealandon October 29 and if the treatmentrequires a surgery, it will rule him outfor 10-12 weeks, which means he willnot be able to make a comeback by thetime the series against Australia beginson February 23.

"He will travel to London early nextweek for specialist consultation with apossibility to undergo surgery, as a resultof which, he is expected to miss at least10 to 12 weeks of cricket. The BCCImedical team will extend all support toRohit Sharma, to regain full fitness andfurther contribute to Indian Cricket," aBCCI release said.

Rohit, on his part, said the "pictureis not clear" and only after a proper eval-uation of his injury, something can besaid about his comeback.

"I don't know (how much time I willmiss cricket). Our BCCI medical teamis in touch with doctors, the scans wehave got till now have been sent to doc-tors, we are waiting for their opinion,whether to do surgery or not, if we dothe surgery then how much time isneeded," Rohit told reporters after thelaunch of Adidas Home Courtstore in suburban Bandra.

"The picture is fullynot clear. I think inone or two days thepicture will bemore clear,whether it(surger y) ishappening ornot. It is animportant deci-sion if we dosurgery. If I dothe surgery, I can-not play for 3 to 3and half months. Weare waiting for the doc-tors' opinion, let's seewhat happens," the Mumbai

player added.Asked about the nature of his injury,

Rohit said, "Like you saw, while takinga run the muscle pulled up then I under-stood that I won't make it to the crease,so I dived, after that our physio told methat it was necessary to take a scan."

"The next two days was Diwali so allhospitals were closed, so we took thescan on (November) first and after thatall the medical reports were given toBCCI medical team," he added.

Asked about the inclusion of all-rounder Hardik Pandya in the Testsquad, Rohit, who has captained him inMumbai Indians, said, "We are all wait-ing. I hope he gets his maiden Test cap,it will be good news for his fans, fami-ly and friends."

"He has got real talent, he bowls fastand he has got a good ability to comedown the order and bat. He has done itfor the state team. So I don't see any rea-son why he can't do it for his nationalteam also.”

��&�����������������%�����&���� The umpire Decision ReviewSystem (DRS), which BCCI was oppos-ing for long, would be implemented herefor the first time on a trial basis whenIndia play their opening Test againstEngland in the coming week.

The first Test of the five-matchseries between India and England isstarting from November 9 andSaurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) ishosting it at SCA stadium Khandheri.

"Decision Review System (DRS)will be implemented during the Testmatch in Rajkot," Niranjan Shah, SCAhonorary secretary was quoted as say-ing in a official press release issued bythe SCA.

BCCI, after opposing DRS for sucha long time has decided to use the sys-tem in upcoming Test series againstEngland on trial basis.

"Though it would be on trial basis,this will be first ever bilateral test withall components and technology of thesystem including the ball tracking sys-tem being used during the match as wellas the series," Shah said.

Shah claimed that Rajkot willbecome the first Test match centre toimplement the DRS system for thefirst time in India.

����� -)-4�3

England have to dig deep to chal-lenge India in their own backyard

says head coach Trevor Bayliss buthe also reposed confidence in hisside's ability to counter the hosts.

The marathon training and netpracEngland are coming into thefive-Test series after being toppled byminnows Bangladesh inside threedays.

"It's going to be difficult, that's forsure. We're going to have to playsome very good cricket, but we've gotthat in us," Bayliss was quoted of say-ing by the official England andWales Cricket Board website.

"We've shown in previous series;we've lost to Australia and SouthAfrica and been able to come backand win. We've got to dig deep toplay a very good team playing intheir home conditions," Bayliss said,according to www.Ecb.Co.Uk.

England lost the second Test toBangladesh in Dhaka by losing 10wickets for just 64 runs, chasing 273.

The visitors, who are to play theirfirst five-Test rubber against theworld's top ranked Test team in morethan three decades, had a full net ses-sion today at the Brabourne Stadium- two days after reaching the cityfrom Bangladesh.

The tourists, led by AlastairCook who was the leader whenEngland visited India for a come-from-behind 2-1 Test series winfour years ago, will adopt horses forcourses strategy while picking theteam for the series opener at Rajkot,said Bayliss.

"Cook and I will sit down in thenext few days and discuss that.Some have obviously cemented aspot and others there's still a bit of aquestion mark over. We've got twoor three options in the batting but

also in the bowling as well so there'llhave to be some soul searching overthe next few days," said the Englandcoach.

"It could come down to whowe're playing, what sort of wicketwe're playing on and the conditionswill have to be taken into consider-ation. We've got two or three optionsin the batting but also in the bowl-ing as well so there'll have to be somesoul searching over the next fewdays," he was quoted of saying by thewebsite.

����� -)-4�3

Bracing up for what is expected to be a gru-elling Test series, visiting England cricketers

had their first full net session here at theBrabourne Stadium after arriving fromBangladesh two days ago.

The marathon training and net practice ses-sion lasted for close to four hours with all the16 members of the squad taking part in italthough the session was "an optional" one.

"It was an optional session but with the Testin Dhaka finishing early (England lost in threedays), all the team members had enough timeto recover," said team sources.

Initially only a few members, including cap-tain Alastair Cook, were scheduled to take partin the session today to be followed by a full ses-sion tomorrow before the team's departure toRajkot for the opening Test of the five-gameencounter beginning Nov 9. "The squad willdepart on Sunday. We have another full sessionhere tomorrow," England team sources informed.

England are set to have two full days' ofpractice in Rajkot before the lung-opener, thefirst-ever Test match in that city.

A top batsman like Joe Root was seen play-ing the slog-sweep and the step-out straight dri-ves repeatedly against the net slow bowlers.

Meanwhile England's injured pace spear-head James Anderson is expected to undergoa fitness test back home in less than 24 hoursto find out whether he will be able to take partin the series at a later stage.

�'��� �./�9

South Africa overcame the loss of starpaceman Dale Steyn to another shoul-

der injury to produce a stunning come-back on the second day of the openingTest against Australia in Perth on Friday.

In reply to South Africa's 242,Australia were cruising at 158 for noneearly on day two, but then lost all 10 wick-ets for just 86 runs to lead by only two afterthe first innings.

At stumps on the second day, the vis-itors were 104 for two, an overall lead of102 and arguably in the favoured positionin the match, which seemed unthinkable24 hours earlier. Dean Elgar was on 46 andJP Duminy was on 34.

Tha pair had added 59 after theProteas lost two early second inningswickets, but their remarkable fightbackwas soured by news that Steyn would missthe remainder of the series.

Steyn left the field for scans on histroublesome right shoulder before lunch,just after claiming the wicket of Australianopener David Warner for 97, and did notreturn for the remainder of the innings.

The 33-year-old broke the sameshoulder late last year and missed sever-al months of cricket, and it was confirmedlate in the day he had a crack in a bone

and would not take further part in thethree-Test series.

He pulled up sore after the fourth ballof his 13th over, having been by far themost menacing of the South Africanbowlers to that stage. In his absence,Vernon Philander (4-56), Kagiso Rabada(2-78) and debutant spinner KeshavMaharaj (3-56) exposed the home side'sbatting frailty.

��%�������������'����������The playing future of South African

fast bowler Dale Steyn appeared in gravedoubt Friday, with the cricketer expect-ed to need surgery on his troublesomeright shoulder as he faces the prospect ofbeing sidelined for at least six months.

����� $.:�!.�93

South African fielding superstarJonty Rhodes reckons captain fan-

tastic Virat Kohli as a supremely fit ath-lete, but still believes Suresh Raina asthe best fielder in the Indian side hereon Friday.

The former South African Test andODI player was here on Friday to men-tor junior players participating in theIndian Junior Players League (IJPL) T-20 Tournament.

The 47-year-old deems SureshRaina as the best fielder in the Indianunit. On asked to name the numerouno fielder in the India side, he said:"Suresh Raina. I think Virat Kohli isalso very athletic in the field butSuresh Raina is definitely the best."

On asked whether the BCCI hasever tried to bring him on board tooversee India's fielding unit, Jonty said,"No. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Notin the past."

Elsewhere, Jonty warned theEnglish side who are due to face Indiain a five-match Test series beginning

November 9 in Rajkot how hard itwould be for the visitors to mount astrong challenge against the top-ranked Indian outfit in the longest for-mat of the game.

"The conditions here are demand-ing and a five-match tour can be harshon your body. Plus, England play hereon the back of a defeat againstBangladesh in Tests. With Indian spin-

ners pulling all the strings in the subcontinent, Alastair Cook and Co wouldfind it very difficult to beat India. Idon't' think so it would be a 5-0 white-wash for the hosts either. England area top Test side and we are in for somethrilling cricket for sure," he signed off.

Talking about pink ball being a toolto revive Test cricket, he said, " WhenT-20 cricket was introduced, people

had objections. But look at how it isproducing great batsman. Virat Kohligraduated from 20-20 to eventuallybecome a solid Test cricket great. So thelongest format of the games needs tobe revived for greater fan connectionand pink ball is surely a way to do thesame as it adds new facet to thegame."

On the challenges the bowlers

face these days to restrict batsman tomoderate score, he said, "I don't thinkit's just a batters game. I have seenenough T20 cricket in my time to knowthat if you have good enough skills youcan be successful. Everyone thoughtthat spin bowlers will never competeand dominate in T20 cricket but oftenthey are ones who are on top. It's agame that requires a bit of skill andgreat intensity."

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