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W est Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on a high-profile visit to the nation- al Capital met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his resi- dence on Tuesday ahead of a series of meetings with top Opposition leaders to prepare the strategy for a unified chal- lenge to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. On Wednesday, Mamata will hold “chai pe charcha” with Congress president Sonia Gandhi. This was the Bengal Chief Minister’s first meeting with the Prime Minister after the bitter Bengal election campaign. Mamata told reporters after the meeting that there should be a Supreme Court- monitored enquiry into the Pegasus scandal involving Opposition leaders, two Union Ministers and 40 journalists revealed as potential targets of surveillance using Israeli Pegasus spyware that is sold only to Governments. Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee is among the potential targets whose name has surfaced as part of a worldwide investigation by a media consortium that includes India’s The Wire. Mamata announced a judicial enquiry led by former Supreme Court judges on Monday. Mamata described her meeting with the PM as a “courtesy visit” and said she discussed the Covid situation, the supply of vaccines and medicine to the State and also a proposal to rename Bengal as Bangla. “I should not speak what the PM said,” she told reporters when pressed for details. Apart from Sonia, Mamata is scheduled to meet top Opposition leaders like NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Om Prakash Chautala, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and political strategist Prashant Kishor. Continued on Page 11 T here was resilience on dis- play in hockey, a tactical mind sparkled in the boxing ring but the free fall in shoot- ing remained perplexing and worrying as India’s Olympic campaign oscillated between some celebration and a lot of dejection on day 4 of the com- petitions here on Tuesday. At the Asaka shooting range, the Indians largely mis- fired and with that the hopes of medals in the 10m air pistol and 10m air rifle mixed team events went up in smoke. The performance so far has resurrected the ghosts of 2016 Rio Games when sim- ilar hype and expectations had ended in a deflating medal-less campaign. But perhaps the shooters can take a leaf out of the men’s hockey team’s book and find a way out of their current misery. Hammered 1-7 by Australia, the Manpreet Singh- led side claimed a 3-0 triumph over Spain to inch closer to a quarterfinal berth. Continued on Page 11 I ndicating that a booster dose is going to be the next in- thing after two mandatory jabs against Covid-19, a study pub- lished in The Lancet journal has found that the total antibody levels start to weaken just six weeks after both doses of immunisation with Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines. The antibody levels may also be reduced by more than 50 per cent over 10 weeks or 2-3 months, said researchers from University College London (UCL) in the UK. They said if the antibody levels carry on dropping at this rate, there are concerns that the protective effects of the vac- cines may also begin to wear off, particularly against new variants. But how soon that might happen cannot be pre- dicted yet, they added. The UCL Virus Watch study also found that antibody levels are substantially higher following two doses of the Pfizer vaccine compared to two shots of the AstraZeneca jab, known as Covishield in India. Antibody levels were also much higher in vaccinated people than in those with prior SARS- CoV-2 infection, they said. “The levels of antibody following both doses of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vac- cines were initially very high, which is likely to be an impor- tant part of why they are so protective against severe Covid-19,” said Madhumita Shrotri from UCL Institute of Health Informatics in a statement. “However, we found these levels dropped substantially over the course of two to three months,” Madhumita Shotri added. Based on data from more than 600 people aged 18 and above, the findings of the study were consistent across all groups of people, regardless of age, chronic ill- nesses or sex, researchers said. Continued on Page 11 T he Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday appointed Rakesh Asthana, a 1984 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Gujarat cadre, as the Commissioner of the Delhi Police. The appointment of Asthana to the post came just days before his superannuation on July 31. He will have a tenure of one year. According to a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) order issued on July 27, Asthana currently serving as Director General of the Border Security Force (BSF), will join as the Delhi Police Commissioner with immediate effect. Earlier on June 30, Balaji Shrivastava, 1988 batch IPS officer, was appointed as the acting Delhi Police Commissioner after then incumbent SN Shrivastava retired. Asthana has served as the Special Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). During his stint in the CBI, he was engaged in an unsavoury spat with then CBI Director Alok Verma. T he Assam-Mizoram border row that claimed the lives of six Assam policemen on Monday has its genesis in an 1875 Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation declaring 1,318 sq km of the stretch as an inner line forest reserve over which Assam claims its jurisdiction. Mizoram shares a 164 km border with Assam which is the core of the unresolved border issue between the two States. Several rounds of talks between the two States with facilitation from the Centre since 1995 have not yielded any result. Both sides have accused each other of transgressing their territories. At the centre of the conflict is the 164.6-km inter-State bor- der that separates Assam and Mizoram, with the three Assam districts of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj sharing a bor- der with Kolasib, Mamit and Aizawl districts of Mizoram. Mizoram, earlier referred to as Lushai Hill, shares borders with three States of Tripura, Assam and Manipur besides a 722-km border with the neigh- bouring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar. The India-Myanmar bor- der in Mizoram is open, and an unhindered movement of peo- ple from both sides has report- edly led to a spurt in cross-bor- der smuggling. The Free Movement Regime between India and Myanmar allows people living along the border to travel 16 km into each other’s territory without visa. Amid recurring claims and counterclaims, the region along the border between the two States has largely remained peaceful. Continued on Page 11 P lacards of “Big Brother is Watching” and ear-split- ting slogans were the only highlight of the sixth day of the Parliament session which ended without transacting any business on Tuesday even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave tongue-lashing to the Congress for obstructing busi- ness in both Houses and asked BJP MPs to “expose” the Opposition party. Both Houses of Parliament have barely transacted any business as they have been witnessing a repeat adjourn- ments on account of Congress- led vociferous protest on a range of issues, including farm- ers’ agitation and Pegasus spy- ware controversy. Both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned multiple times on Tuesday as members of the Opposition continued their vociferous protests on the Pegasus snooping issue, seek- ing an independent judicial probe into the matter. Apart from the reports by the Pegasus Project partners, the issues of the farmers’ demand to repeal the three farm laws and petrol prices sky- rocketing have also been raised by Opposition members. However, it was the Pegasus issue that has domi- nated proceedings in both the Houses so far. As soon as the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha resumed their sessions, the Opposition members began raising slogans in support of their demands for a probe. Continued on Page 11 B asavaraj S Bommai, 61, the State Home Minister, a “Lingayat” by caste and a close confidant of BS Yediyurappa was on Tuesday declared the new Chief Minister of Karnataka after BJP legislature party met at the State capital. Bommai is expected to take oath of Chief Ministership on Wednesday. The name of Bommai, the son of former State Chief Minister SR Bommai (a Janata parivar leader) who had joined the BJP in 2008, was proposed by Yediyurappa, the “Lingayat” strongman and former Chief Minister. The new Chief Minister is a two-time MLC and three- time MLA from Shiggaon in Haveri district. “It is a big responsibility in the given situation. I will strive to work for the welfare of the poor. It will be pro-people and pro-poor people governance,” said the Karnataka CM-elect soon after he was elected to the post. The outgoing Chief Minister, Yediyurappa, said, “We have unanimously elected Bommai as CM.... we are very happy.” The MLAs’ meeting at Bengaluru’s Hotel Capitol that elected Bommai was attended by the Central observers — Union Ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, G Kishan Reddy and general secretary and State-in- charge Arun Singh. Pradhan announced the name of Bommai as a successor to Yediyurappa amid loud cheers and clapping. By picking-up Bommai, a Sadara “Lingayat”, the BJP seemed to have satisfied the caste dynamics of Karnataka, pre-empted influential com- munity’s wrath, and agreed to Yediyurappa’s choice of the CM candidate. Yediyurappa himself belongs to the Veerashaiva- Lingayat community which is seen to be the BJP’s core sup- port base in Karnataka. Continued on Page 11 T he Government is expect- ed to begin vaccinating children against Covid-19 by next month, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also present at the meeting. The Union Government had expressed confidence that it would soon able to vaccinate children between 12 and 18 years of age. Mandaviya said India is on course to become the largest vaccine producing country as more companies will get pro- duction licences. Zydus Cadila, which is developing DNA vaccines, has concluded its trials for the 12- 18 age group, and subject to statutory provisions, the vac- cine may be available in the near future, the Centre had said. Continued on Page 11 D ays after denying any death due to oxygen shortage during the second wave of Covid-19, the Government has written to States/Union Territories seeking such data, according to Government sources. This data is likely to be pre- sented in the ongoing Monsoon Session of Parliament, they added. T he BJP members on Tuesday boycotted the meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) led by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, saying that the agen- da of the meeting should not be made public. The Committee is likely to question top Government offi- cials, including from the Home Ministry, on allegations relat- ed to phone tapping of many using Pegasus spyware on Wednesday. There are 32- members in the committee. Continued on Page 11

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West Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee on a

high-profile visit to the nation-al Capital met Prime MinisterNarendra Modi at his resi-dence on Tuesday ahead of aseries of meetings with topOpposition leaders to preparethe strategy for a unified chal-lenge to the BJP in the 2024Lok Sabha polls.

On Wednesday, Mamatawill hold “chai pe charcha”with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

This was the Bengal ChiefMinister’s first meeting with thePrime Minister after the bitterBengal election campaign.

Mamata told reportersafter the meeting that thereshould be a Supreme Court-monitored enquiry into thePegasus scandal involvingOpposition leaders, two UnionMinisters and 40 journalistsrevealed as potential targets ofsurveillance using IsraeliPegasus spyware that is soldonly to Governments.

Mamata’s nephewAbhishek Banerjee is amongthe potential targets whosename has surfaced as part of aworldwide investigation by amedia consortium thatincludes India’s The Wire.Mamata announced a judicialenquiry led by former SupremeCourt judges on Monday.

Mamata described hermeeting with the PM as a“courtesy visit” and said shediscussed the Covid situation,the supply of vaccines andmedicine to the State and alsoa proposal to rename Bengal as Bangla.

“I should not speak whatthe PM said,” she told reporterswhen pressed for details.

Apart from Sonia, Mamatais scheduled to meet top

Opposition leaders like NCPchief Sharad Pawar, SamajwadiParty chief Akhilesh Yadav,

Om Prakash Chautala, ShivSena leader Sanjay Raut, DelhiChief Minister Arvind Kejriwal

and political strategist Prashant Kishor.

Continued on Page 11

����� �� �

There was resilience on dis-play in hockey, a tactical

mind sparkled in the boxingring but the free fall in shoot-ing remained perplexing andworrying as India’s Olympiccampaign oscillated betweensome celebration and a lot ofdejection on day 4 of the com-petitions here on Tuesday.

At the Asaka shootingrange, the Indians largely mis-fired and with that the hopes ofmedals in the 10m air pistoland 10m air rifle mixed teamevents went up in smoke.

The performance so far hasresurrected the ghosts of 2016 Rio Games when sim-ilar hype and expectations hadended in a deflating medal-lesscampaign.

But perhaps the shooterscan take a leaf out of the men’shockey team’s book and find away out of their current misery.

Hammered 1-7 by

Australia, the Manpreet Singh-led side claimed a 3-0 triumphover Spain to inch closer to aquarterfinal berth.

Continued on Page 11

����� ��������

Indicating that a booster doseis going to be the next in-

thing after two mandatory jabsagainst Covid-19, a study pub-lished in The Lancet journal hasfound that the total antibodylevels start to weaken just sixweeks after both doses ofimmunisation with Pfizer andAstraZeneca vaccines. Theantibody levels may also bereduced by more than 50 percent over 10 weeks or 2-3months, said researchers fromUniversity College London(UCL) in the UK.

They said if the antibodylevels carry on dropping at thisrate, there are concerns that theprotective effects of the vac-cines may also begin to wearoff, particularly against newvariants. But how soon thatmight happen cannot be pre-dicted yet, they added.

The UCL Virus Watchstudy also found that antibodylevels are substantially higherfollowing two doses of thePfizer vaccine compared to twoshots of the AstraZeneca jab,known as Covishield in India.Antibody levels were also muchhigher in vaccinated peoplethan in those with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, they said.

“The levels of antibodyfollowing both doses of eitherthe AstraZeneca or Pfizer vac-cines were initially very high,which is likely to be an impor-tant part of why they are so protective against severe Covid-19,” saidMadhumita Shrotri from UCL

Institute of Health Informaticsin a statement.

“However, we found theselevels dropped substantiallyover the course of two to three months,” MadhumitaShotri added. Based on data

from more than 600 peopleaged 18 and above, the findingsof the study were consistentacross all groups of people,regardless of age, chronic ill-nesses or sex, researchers said.

Continued on Page 11

����������� ��������

The Union Ministryof Home Affairs

(MHA) on Tuesdayappointed RakeshAsthana, a 1984 batchIndian Police Service(IPS) officer of Gujaratcadre, as the Commissioner ofthe Delhi Police.

The appointment ofAsthana to the post came justdays before his superannuationon July 31. He will have atenure of one year.

According to a Ministry ofHome Affairs (MHA) orderissued on July 27, Asthanacurrently serving as Director

General of the Border SecurityForce (BSF), will joinas the Delhi PoliceCommissioner withimmediate effect.

Earlier onJune 30, Balaji

Shrivastava, 1988batch IPS officer,

was appointed as the actingDelhi Police Commissionerafter then incumbent SNShrivastava retired.

Asthana has served as theSpecial Director of the CentralBureau of Investigation (CBI).During his stint in the CBI, hewas engaged in an unsavouryspat with then CBI DirectorAlok Verma.

����� ��������

The Assam-Mizoram borderrow that claimed the lives

of six Assam policemen onMonday has its genesis in an1875 Bengal Eastern FrontierRegulation declaring 1,318 sqkm of the stretch as an innerline forest reserve over whichAssam claims its jurisdiction.

Mizoram shares a 164 kmborder with Assam which is thecore of the unresolved borderissue between the two States.

Several rounds of talksbetween the two States withfacilitation from the Centresince 1995 have not yielded anyresult. Both sides have accusedeach other of transgressingtheir territories.

At the centre of the conflictis the 164.6-km inter-State bor-

der that separates Assam andMizoram, with the three Assamdistricts of Cachar, Hailakandiand Karimganj sharing a bor-der with Kolasib, Mamit andAizawl districts of Mizoram.

Mizoram, earlier referredto as Lushai Hill, shares borderswith three States of Tripura,Assam and Manipur besides a722-km border with the neigh-bouring countries ofBangladesh and Myanmar.

The India-Myanmar bor-der in Mizoram is open, and anunhindered movement of peo-ple from both sides has report-edly led to a spurt in cross-bor-der smuggling. The FreeMovement Regime betweenIndia and Myanmar allowspeople living along the borderto travel 16 km into eachother’s territory without visa.

Amid recurring claims andcounterclaims, the region alongthe border between the twoStates has largely remainedpeaceful.

Continued on Page 11

����� ��������

Placards of “Big Brother isWatching” and ear-split-

ting slogans were the onlyhighlight of the sixth day of theParliament session whichended without transacting anybusiness on Tuesday even asPrime Minister Narendra Modigave tongue-lashing to the

Congress for obstructing busi-ness in both Houses and askedBJP MPs to “expose” theOpposition party.

Both Houses of Parliamenthave barely transacted anybusiness as they have beenwitnessing a repeat adjourn-ments on account of Congress-led vociferous protest on arange of issues, including farm-

ers’ agitation and Pegasus spy-ware controversy.

Both the Lok Sabha andthe Rajya Sabha wereadjourned multiple times onTuesday as members of theOpposition continued theirvociferous protests on thePegasus snooping issue, seek-ing an independent judicialprobe into the matter.

Apart from the reports bythe Pegasus Project partners,the issues of the farmers’demand to repeal the threefarm laws and petrol prices sky-rocketing have also been raisedby Opposition members.

However, it was thePegasus issue that has domi-nated proceedings in both theHouses so far. As soon as theRajya Sabha and the Lok Sabharesumed their sessions, theOpposition members beganraising slogans in support oftheir demands for a probe.

Continued on Page 11

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Basavaraj S Bommai, 61, theState Home Minister, a

“Lingayat” by caste and a closeconfidant of BS Yediyurappawas on Tuesday declared thenew Chief Minister ofKarnataka after BJP legislatureparty met at the State capital.

Bommai is expected totake oath of Chief Ministershipon Wednesday.

The name of Bommai, theson of former State ChiefMinister SR Bommai (a Janataparivar leader) who had joinedthe BJP in 2008, was proposedby Yediyurappa, the “Lingayat”strongman and former ChiefMinister.

The new Chief Minister isa two-time MLC and three-time MLA from Shiggaon inHaveri district.

“It is a big responsibility inthe given situation. I will striveto work for the welfare of thepoor. It will be pro-people and

pro-poor people governance,”said the Karnataka CM-elect soon after he waselected to the post.

The outgoing ChiefMinister, Yediyurappa, said,“We have unanimously electedBommai as CM....we are very happy.”

The MLAs’ meeting atBengaluru’s Hotel Capitol thatelected Bommai was attendedby the Central observers —Union Ministers DharmendraPradhan, G Kishan Reddy andgeneral secretary and State-in-charge Arun Singh. Pradhanannounced the name ofBommai as a successor toYediyurappa amid loud cheersand clapping.

By picking-up Bommai, aSadara “Lingayat”, the BJPseemed to have satisfied thecaste dynamics of Karnataka,pre-empted influential com-munity’s wrath, and agreed toYediyurappa’s choice of theCM candidate.

Yediyurappa himselfbelongs to the Veerashaiva-Lingayat community which isseen to be the BJP’s core sup-port base in Karnataka.

Continued on Page 11

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The Government is expect-ed to begin vaccinating

children against Covid-19 bynext month, Union HealthMinister Mansukh Mandaviyatold the BJP ParliamentaryParty meeting on Tuesday.Prime Minister Narendra Modiwas also present at the meeting.

The Union Governmenthad expressed confidence thatit would soon able to vaccinatechildren between 12 and 18

years of age.Mandaviya said India is on

course to become the largestvaccine producing country asmore companies will get pro-duction licences.

Zydus Cadila, which isdeveloping DNA vaccines, hasconcluded its trials for the 12-18 age group, and subject tostatutory provisions, the vac-cine may be available in thenear future, the Centre had said.

Continued on Page 11

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during the second wave ofCovid-19, the Government haswritten to States/UnionTerritories seeking such data,according to Governmentsources.

This data is likely to be pre-sented in the ongoingMonsoon Session ofParliament, they added.

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The BJP members onTuesday boycotted the

meeting of the ParliamentaryStanding Committee onInformation Technology (IT)led by Congress MP ShashiTharoor, saying that the agen-da of the meeting should not bemade public.

The Committee is likely toquestion top Government offi-cials, including from the HomeMinistry, on allegations relat-ed to phone tapping of manyusing Pegasus spyware onWednesday. There are 32-members in the committee.

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Taking a lead over other polit-ical parties, the Bahujan Samaj

Party, on Tuesday, announced thenames of two of its candidates forthe coming Uttar PradeshAssembly elections.

Ramesh Singh Yadav will bethe BSP candidate from Bithoorassembly constituency in Kanpurand Kalmesh Ambedkar fromBharthana (reserved) assemblyseat Etawah in the 2022 election.

The name of KalmeshAmbedkar was announced byBSP’s Etawah district presidentShilu Dohra on Tuesday. KamleshAmbedkar is the wife of BhimraoAmbedkar, chief sector inchargeof the BSP for Kanpur division.

In 2007, Kamlesh's husbandBhimrao Ambedkar was elected asBSP MLA from Lakhna reservedseat, which has now been includ-ed in the Bharthana reservedseat, but he could not taste victo-ry in the subsequent assemblyelections. The Bharthana reservedassembly constituency is present-

ly held by Bharatiya Janata Party,from where Savitri Katheria is theruling party’s MLA. Shilu Dohraclaimed that the BJP would con-test the 2022 assembly electionswith full force. He said prepara-tions were being made to field acandidate of Yadav or Shakyacaste from Shivpal Singh Yadav'sJaswantnagar constituency.

Meanwhile. continuing itsoutreach programme ahead of theassembly polls, BSP has nowdecided to host a 'BrahminSammelan' at Vrindavan fromAugust 1. This assumes signifi-cance as Lord Krishna is believedto have spent his childhood in thisholy town. Before taking part inthe event in which a lot ofBrahmins are expected to partic-ipate, BSP general secretary SatishChandra Mishra will visit thefamous Banke Bihari temple. Heclaimed that both BJP andSamajwadi Party had failed to doanything for the development ofVrindavan and Mathura as com-pared to BSP.

On July 23, Mishra had

offered prayers at the RamJanmabhoomi temple in Ayodhyaand commenced the party's firstphase of campaign to wooBrahmin voters.

Brahmin sammelans were alsoheld in Prayagraj and AmbedkarNagar. Stressing that the realpower would come only whenBrahmins and Dalits in UP cametogether, Mishra said, "TheBrahmin community constitutes13 per cent of the state populationbut are still marginalised becausethey are not united.”

BSP supremo Mayawati onTuesday also tweeted that theopposition was in fear after thesuccess of Brahmin sammelanheld by the party with the firstphase starting from Ayodhya.

“The favourable response andsuccess of Brahmin sammelanheld by Satish Mishra on mydirective pointed that people hadconfidence in my party and wouldsupport them in the comingassembly election,” Mayawatiasserted through her tweet onTuesday.

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Sleuths of the Anti TerroristsSquad (ATS) claimed to have

busted a gang involved inhuman trafficking racket involv-ing Bangladeshis and Rohingyasin the country. They arrestedthree members of the gang onTuesday and claimed that thegroup was involved in humantrafficking, especially of womenand children, to settle them incities like Ghaziabad, Noidaand Delhi through forged doc-uments.

According to an officialcommuniqué, the ATS sleuthswere getting information forsome time that an internation-al gang was illegally bringing cit-izens of Bangladesh andMyanmar, especially womenand children, to India to settlethem in cities like Noida,Ghaziabad and Delhi.

During investigation, it wasfound that the leader of thisinternational human traffickinggang was Muhammad Nooralias Noorul Islam, who was ille-gally luring Rohingya andBangladeshi women into mar-riage, and men and children towork in factories, the releasestated. After bringing them toIndia, they were settled on the

basis of coded forms.According to the informa-

tion given by the police, thesehuman traffickers exploited thevictims, including women andchildren financially, physicallyand mentally. It also came tolight that the human traffickerswere earning a huge amount ofmoney from this work.

The ATS investigationrevealed that Noor Muhammadwas going to Delhi by train(Brahmaputra Mail) along withsome Rohingya andBangladeshi nationals when theprobing team deboarded fivepersons, including two girlsand interrogated them inGhaziabad. Besides Islam, theother two arrested were identi-fied as Rahmatullah andSafiurrehman alias Safiullah,all hailing from Myanmar.

Earlier in June also, fourmembers of the gang that sentRohingyas to India were arrest-ed. Rohingyas are living illegal-ly in the country. Around 15Rohingyas have been arrestedfrom Uttar Pradesh so far.

The gang involved in theseillegal activities used to sendthem through the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. The gangwas involved in illegal docu-ments and human trafficking. A

person named Hafiz Shafiq wasrunning this gang in Meerut.

"Gang members used tomake fake United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugeescards and take a lot of moneyand then help people enterIndia illegally after making theirfake Indian IDs. These peoplewere involved in criminal andanti-national activities," saidADG (Law & Order) PrashantKumar.

"They have also sent someRohingya women abroad usingfake documents. This is the firsttime that human traffickingangle has come to the knowl-edge as they have sent somewomen to Malaysia.Investigation is underway,"Prashant Kumar had earlierrevealed.

The money was being cir-culated through hawala. Metalslike gold have also been recov-ered from the arrestedRohingya, he informed.

The ATS also arrested twomembers of the Rohingya com-munity for illegally living inIndia by forging documentsjust two days before the abovearrest. The ATS team arrestedRafiq and Amin belonging tothe Rohingya community, whoare residents of Myanmar.

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To showcase the claim ofhow double engine govern-

ments in Delhi and Lucknowhad changed the face of UttarPradesh, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and severalUnion ministers will now fre-quently visit the poll-bound UPevery month to either inaugu-rate or lay the foundation stoneof various developmentschemes, until the model codeof conduct comes into force.

Union Home MinisterAmit Shah will visit the statecapital to lay the foundationstone of Uttar Pradesh StateInstitute for Forensic Scienceswhich will come up in 50-acreland in Piparsand village ofSarojini Nagar tehsil inLucknow on August 1. Theinstitute will also have a seat ofcentre of excellence and pavethe way for research in DNAtesting in the state.

“Like the model followedin Bihar and West Bengal elec-tions, the prime minister, hisministerial colleagues andsenior BJP functionaries will bevisiting UP regularly ahead ofthe imposition of the modelcode of conduct to inaugurate

or lay the foundation stone ofdevelopment projects in thestate,” a senior BJP leader toldthis reporter on Tuesday.

The prime minister will bein Siddharthnagar to inaugu-rate nine new medical col-leges, his second trip to thestate this month after visitingVaranasi on July 15 for unveil-ing projects. The dates will beannounced later. It will behighlighted that these medicalcolleges have been built underPradhan Mantri SwasthyaSuraksha Yojana and with theresources of the UP govern-ment.

Government sources con-firmed that the prime ministeris likely to lay the foundationstone of Asia's biggest airportat Jewar in Gautam BuddhaNagar between August 22 and25 and the district authoritieshave been asked to start prepa-

ration for the programme.Similarly, the state gov-

ernment is working round theclock for completion ofPurvanchal Expressway whichwill be inaugurated in August.Already, 95 per cent work of theproject has been completedand the rest will be finished bythe first week of August,sources disclosed and addedthat the government hasappointed nodal officers tocomplete these works on thewar footing.

In October, the prime min-ister could again be in the stateto inaugurate two All IndiaInstitutes of Medical Sciences(AIIMS) in Gorakhpur andRae Bareli. The Centre willstress that it was the ‘double-engine’ of BJP governments atCentre and in UP that madethese AIIMS projects possible.The OPDs of AIIMS inGorakhpur and Rae Bareli arefunctional.

Besides, BJP president JPNadda is also expected tolaunch the party's poll cam-paign in the second week ofAugust and will be in Lucknowon August 7 and 8 to hold aseries of meetings with stateleaders.

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Aiming to provide free med-ical aid to the underprivi-

leged, a special campaign toprovide Golden Health Cardshas been started for beneficia-ries who do not haveAyushman cards.

On the first day of thecampaign, Golden Cardswere provided to over 26,000families of Uttar Pradesh andso far, such cards have beenissued to over 6.5 crorebeneficiaries in the stateunder Ayushman Yojana. Usingthis card, any beneficiary canget free treatment up to Rs 5lakh in any empanelled hospi-tal.

Stressing that Antyodayacard-holder families would getrelief in paying their medicalexpenses, Chief Minister YogiAdityanath said the campaignshould be conducted with com-mitment and the benefit of thescheme should be provided toall eligible people.

Last week, during a cabinetmeeting, it was decided thatover 40 lakh Antyodaya card-holder families of UttarPradesh, who were deprived ofPradhan Mantri Jan ArogyaYojana and Mukhya Mantri JanArogya Yojana would be linkedto Mukhyamantri Jan ArogyaYojana.

“This will not only reduce

the financial burden of poorand underprivileged familiesbut will also ensure their accessto quality health care services.If the budget of Rs 5 lakh sanc-tioned for the MukhyamantriJan Arogya Yojana is insuffi-cient, an additional budget willbe allocated through a supple-mentary budget,” the chiefminister said.

A proposal to this effectwas cleared in a meeting of the

state cabinet chaired by thechief minister earlier.

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The battle of one-upmanship amongtwo Nishad parties staking claim over

the legacy of bandit queen and former MPPhoolan Devi has worried the SamajwadiParty. The Nishad Party of UP andVikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) of Bihar,both allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party,are vying with each other to establishthemselves as the sole representative of theNishad community in UP and claimingthemselves as the sole representative ofPhoolan Devi.

“It was the Samajwadi Party thattook cudgels on behalf of the communi-ty in 1994 and not only ensured the releaseof Phoolan Devi but got her elected to LokSabha twice. Now new claimants haveemerged to stake claim on her legacy. BothNishad community- based parties wouldbe exposed during the 2022 UP Assemblyelections as people know who their realbenefactor is,” said a Samajwadi Partyleader in Lucknow on Tuesday.

Nishad leader and Bihar ministerMukesh Sahani has said that his outfit, VIP,will contest 165 assembly seats in the 2022UP elections. Eyeing the votes of Nishad(Mallah) community that constitute sevenper cent of UP’s electorate, Sahani hasdecided to install Phoolan Devi's statuesin 18 UP districts including Prayagraj,Firozabad, Ballia, Sant Kabir Nagar, Banda,Ayodhya, Sultanpur, Gorakhpur,Maharajganj, Auraiya, Lucknow, Unnao,Meerut, Mirzapur, Sant Ravidas Nagar,Muzaffarnagar, Varanasi and Jaunpur.

All these districts have the presence of asizable Nishad community.

In 1994, the then Chief Minister ofUP, Mulayam Singh Yadav had withdrawnpending cases against Phoolan Devi andfacilitated her release from the jail. Shewas in jail for the 1981 massacre ofThakur community members in Behmaivillage of Kanpur Dehat. Subsequently,Phoolan was elected twice to Lok Sabhaas a SP candidate from Bhadohi con-stituency in UP. However in 2001,Phoolan Devi was perforated with bulletsby assailants outside her official residencein Delhi. The assassins later said that theywanted to avenge the deaths of people inBehmai village.

Sahani's political ambition hasbecome a threat to the UP-based NishadParty headed by Sanjay Nishad, whose sonPraveen Nishad is a BJP MP fromKhalilabad. Sanjay Nishad has been aNishad politician in Uttar Pradesh fordecades and has raised the issues of thecommunity on numerous occasions. Heis now eying a berth in Yogi Adityanath’spossible cabinet expansion. The party isdominant in about 20 Lok Sabha con-stituencies and 60 Assembly segments inUttar Pradesh.

If Mukesh Sahani manages to makeinroads into the Nishad votes in UP, hewill be another option for the BJP toreplace Sanjay Nishad as the saffronparty has been under pressure from himin recent months. Rattled over the devel-opment, the Samajwadi Party has beenkeeping a close watch on the situation.

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A17-year-old girl was shot dead by herfather, allegedly to save the family's

honour, as she tried to elope with herboyfriend in Budaun on Monday.

As per reports, the teenaged girl wasa school dropout living in Paroli village inBilsi police circle on Budaun. She had beenin a relationship with a 21-year-old neigh-bour for two years. Despite both beingfrom the same community, their relation-ship was opposed by her father. Even as thegirl’s mother did not oppose the relation-ship, she could not persuade her husbandto agree to the two deciding to get mar-ried.

Forced to stay in the house for months,the girl decided to run away with herboyfriend. On Monday, around 4 am, thetwo lovers were eloping with the objectiveof getting married at another place whenher father spotted them. He warned hernot to leave but when she refused to heedto his instruction, the father shot her witha country-made pistol from close range.

The victim's mother later informed thepolice and got her husband arrested. Theassailant, a farmer by occupation, was laterarrested and is reported to have confessedto killing his daughter in a fit of rage.

A case was registered against him atBilsi police station and the victim’s bodywas sent for autopsy.

Meanwhile in Lalitpur, a woman wassubjected to inhuman torture by twomiscreants after she refused to give in totheir lascivious demands in Dhamma vil-lage on July 21.

As per reports, the woman used to sellvegetables to eke out a living and was clos-ing down her shop on the fateful eveningwhen she was approached by the two lech-ers. Upon learning about their designs, shehit them with slippers. However, they lateroverpowered and gagged her. To avengetheir humiliation, the miscreants heated aknife with a lighter and shoved it into hereyes causing serious injuries.

The injured woman lay unattended tillthe morning when her sister-in-law foundher and informed police before rushing herto a hospital. The victim’s kin alleged thatthe duo was infamous for their criminalactivities. The woman’s sister-in-lawclaimed that the miscreants had tried tosexually assault the victim three monthsago too but the local police did not takeany action which emboldened them.

The police registered a case in this con-nection and are searching for the perpe-trators.

/�&���� ������(�!� �����������*� ���Lucknow (PNS): Buoyed by the success ofMission Shakti, the Uttar Pradesh govern-ment is set to launch its next phase to ensuresafety, dignity, health, education and self-reliance of women.

Chairing a high-level review meeting,Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said thatthere was a need to give a new direction toMission Shakti along with added energyand spirit and the departments of Health,Education, Rural Development, PanchayatiRaj, Home, Women and ChildDevelopment and others should coordinateand prepare a detailed action plan for thenext phase.

He also instructed officials to takeimmediate action against crime involvingwomen and girls.

“Despite the pandemic, many schemesimplemented in the state for needy womenand girls of rural and urban areas havebecome a shield for them. Now the govern-ment has decided to launch a new phase ofMission Shakti. Schemes like Women Self-Help Group, BC Sakhi have shown the pathof self-reliance to women. While otherschemes like Mukhyamantri KanyaSumangala Yojana, and MukhyamantriSamuhik Vivah Yojana have providedmajor support to the girl child and theirparents. Schemes run by the YogiAdityanath government are focusing onwomen’s security, education, self-reliance,dignity, health for the all-round develop-ment of women,” a top government officialsaid.

7/���������������������� ����67/�/������������Lucknow(PNS): With a view toassign responsibility for theforthcoming assembly elec-tions, Bharatiya Janata Partynational president JP Naddawill hold meetings with BJPMPs on July 28 and 29 in NewDelhi.

“An important meeting hasbeen called by BJP nationalpresident JP Nadda regardingpreparations for upcomingassembly elections, party cam-paign and programmes of theorganisation,” a senior leader ofthe party said here on Tuesday.

He said the meeting ofBraj, West and Kanpur regionswould be held on July 28 whilethe next day MPs from Awadh,Kashi and Gorakhpur regionswill hold a meeting with theparty national president.

BJP state presidentSwatantra Dev Singh, stategeneral secretary (organisa-tion) Sunil Bansal and in-charge Radha Mohan Singhwill be present.

The source in the partysaid that the meeting had beenconvened to activate the MPsbefore the 2022 assembly elec-tions and their role in the elec-tion campaign would be fixedand responsibility would beassigned to them.

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Uttar Pradesh reported 36new coronavirus positive

cases on Tuesday while 73patients recovered during thesame period while 11 dis-tricts were declared Covid-free, said Additional ChiefSecretary (Information)Navneet Sehgal here onTuesday.

Aligarh, Budaun, Basti,Bahraich, Etah, Fatehpur,Hamirpur, Hathras, Kasganj,Mahoba and Shravasti districtshave been declared Covid-free.

Sehgal said not a case ofinfection was found in 54 dis-tricts, while patients werefound in single digits in 21 dis-tricts. He said the positivityrate now stood at 0.01 percent.

He said at present, thenumber of active cases in thestate had come down to 798out of which 508 were inhome isolation.

The COVID-19 recoveryrate in the state is 98.6 percent. So far, more than 16.84lakh people have recovered, headded.

In the last 24 hours,2,25,009 Covid tests were con-ducted. More than 8.20 lakhpeople were administered vac-cines on Monday. So far, morethan 4,52,39,000 Covid vac-cines have been administeredin UP. In this, more than 1.32crore vaccine doses have beengiven in the month of Julyalone. More than 3.79 crorepeople of the state have takenat least one dose of Covid vac-cine.

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In a move aimed at defeatingthe ruling Bharatiya

Janata Party, Sharad Pawarled Nationalist CongressParty and Samajwadi Partyhave decided to join handsand contest the comingassembly elections in UttarPradesh..

Well placed sources inSamajwadi Party said thatSharad Pawar and AkhileshYadav had a long consultationover the issue in Delhi afterwhich the two leaders decidedto forge an alliance but the seatsharing was yet to be workedout.

The sources said Pawarwas also said to be in talks with

other “like-minded” parties ina bid to put up a united frontagainst the BJP in UttarPradesh.

While addressing partyworkers in Lucknow last week,Akhilesh Yadav had said thatthe BJP was an “anti-people”party which was runningthe government with “hatred”and that the assembly polls

next year would be the “lastopportunity” to save democra-cy.

"To achieve the target ofsecuring 350 seats in UP,we will have to work dayand night," AkhileshYadav had said andexhorted party workers tobeware of BJP’s tricks and pro-paganda.

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In a major push to the ruraleconomy of Uttar Pradesh,

the Yogi Adityanath govern-ment announced an invest-ment package of Rs 1,000 crorewhich is likely to create self-employment opportunities inthe villages of the state.

The government will pro-cure material worth more thanRs 1,000 crore at the local levelthrough 58,189 gram pan-chayats and the PanchayatiRaj department has alreadyissued necessary instructionsin this regard. These grampanchayats have been asked toconduct work from the villagesecretariat, which will beequipped with furniture, com-puters, internet powered by

solar energy and other facili-ties. The state government hasapproved a budget of Rs 1.75lakh each for equipping andfurnishing village secretariatswith necessary facilities,including Rs 25,000 for chairs,Rs 6,000 for computer tables,Rs 17,000 for racks and cup-boards, Rs 38,000 for solarpanel set-up, Rs 3,000 for car-pets, Rs 6,000 for fans, Rs60,000 for computers and Rs20,000 for CCTV cameras.The government will spend atotal of Rs 1018.30 crore for the58,189 gram panchayats. Asper Panchayati Raj depart-ment officials, panchayatbuildings were being con-structed in 33,577 villages ofthe state while construction of24,617 panchayat bhawans is

on the cards. Of these, 2,088panchayat buildings are to beconstructed under RGSA and22,529 under the FinanceCommission and MNREGA.All 24,617 under-constructionpanchayat buildings are to becompleted in the next threemonths. An amount of aboutRs 1.75 lakh each will beadmissible for office furnishingand computer etc.

Meanwhile, the state gov-ernment clarified that the pur-chase of furniture and equip-ment for village secretariatswill be done by gram panchay-ats at the local level, ruling outpooling of any kind at theblock or district levels. Therural body will also ensurecompliance with financial rulesduring procurement.

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The state government willtake stern action against the

ambulance drivers for holding astrike in the midst of a pandem-ic, Additional Chief SecretaryAwanish Awasthi said as the stircontinued on Tuesday. Awasthicategorically stated that if healthservices were affected, actionwould be taken.

“It was not appropriate andno strikes can be held underESMA. It is an essential servicewhere patients are impacteddirectly. Ambulance drivers hadalso created problems whenCovid was at its peak in the sec-ond wave,” he said.

Awasthi said the Healthdepartment has issued instruc-tions to districts that alternativearrangements should be made,wherever required. In the statecapital, the drivers of 108 and102 ambulances staged a dhar-na at Eco Garden even as theGVK EMRI service provider ofthe ambulances filed an FIRagainst 11 union leaders ESMAat Ashiyana police station.

TVS Reddy from GVKEMRI service provider saidthey are running the servicesand trying to ensure maximumpercentage of ambulances on theroad. “This kind of behaviourcannot be accepted as it causesinconvenience to people,” hesaid. He added that they had nolink to the dispute which arosewith a new service provider forthe ALS ambulances.

“However, leaders of the

ambulance drivers union areinstigating the 108, 102 ambu-lance drivers to go on strike topress demand for a salary hike,”he said. A senior official fromthe Health department claimedthat health services were notimpacted because they hadmade alternative arrangementsfor ambulances across the state.“We have asked the DMs tomake arrangements for ambu-lances. We have no role to play

because the issue lies betweenthe service provider and the dri-vers and is being looked into bythe National Health Mission,” hepointed out.

Spokesperson of ambu-lance drivers union SharadYadav said that in view of therequirement, 15 ambulanceswere being run in all the dis-tricts. Giving a backgrounder,he said that since July 23, theyhave been holding a peacefulprotest for their demands butwhen the state government didnot pay heed to their issues,they went full-throttle acrossthe state, bringing all the ambu-lances to a halt from July 26midnight.

“There are 20,000 ambu-lance drivers across the state. In2017, a project of Advanced LifeSupport Ambulances had beenstarted and the contract wasgiven to GVK EMRI. Now thecontract has been given to a newcompany which is recruitingnew drivers. GVK has told theALS drivers that the tender isnot with them now and 1,200drivers are jobless,” he said.

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Chief Minister YogiAdityanath on Tuesday

paid a visit to Sanjay GandhiPost-Graduate Institute ofMedical Sciences (SGPGIMS)to inquire about the well-beingof former UP CM Kalyan Singhwhose condition continues tobe critical.

A senior doctor at theSGPGI said Singh, who is alsothe former Governor ofRajasthan, is on life supportsystem. “He has been on con-tinuous dialysis. His clinicalparameters are being closelymonitored by expert consul-tants and senior faculty mem-bers of CCM, Cardiology,Nephrology, Neurology andEndocrinology,” he said.

A number of senior BJPleaders have paid a visit to theailing former chief Minister atthe hospital.

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Aspecial vaccination drivefor pregnant women will

kick off from Wednesday.CMO Dr Manoj Agarwal saidthe drive is being carried outunder the directions ofDistrict Magistrate AbhishekPrakash.

Those pregnant womenwho can reach the vaccinationcentres can take the jabs whilefor those who are unable to dothat due to advanced stages ofpregnancy, the mobile vanswill take them to the healthcentres, he said.

The nod to immunisa-tion of pregnant women cameafter a lot of deliberations byexperts. Coronavirus infectionduring pregnancy may impactthe health of a woman and herchild. According to experts,the advantages of vaccinationare more than the risksinvolved. The matter was

taken up by the NationalTechnical Advisory Group onImmunisation (NTAGI) andNEGVAC in a series of meet-ings conducted on the subjectafter which the vaccinationwas recommended.

As per the guidelines,Covid vaccine can be takenanytime during pregnancyand it should be taken at theearliest. Symptomatic preg-nant women are at anincreased risk of a severe dis-ease and it might affect thechild as well. Hence, the vac-cine was recommended forpregnant women

The CMO further saidthat for the third wave, all theresources are at their dispos-al and the control room isrunning fine. “We have aninventory of all the requiredequipment with us. We had along meeting with privatehospitals in this regard andoxygen plants are also being

opened at the hospitals. Wehave enough oxygen andtrained manpower for paedi-atric care, PICUs and NICUs,”he said. He added that there isno problem as far as drug sup-ply is concerned and they aregetting all the medicines fromthe medical corporation.About the problems regardingthe availability of drugs likeRemdesivir during the secondwave, he said they are unlike-ly to face any problems now.

Meanwhile, Lok BandhuHospital has opened a crèchefor its employees. NodalCovid officer Dr Arun Tewarisaid it is an initiative to facil-itate employees with little kidswho can be taken care of.

“This is for the hospitalemployees who face problemsin taking care of their childrendue to their busy schedule. Wedecided to open the crèchewhere children can be takencare of,” he added.

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Kaiserbagh and surround-ing areas which come

under the Red CrossCommunity Health Centrereported over 300 cases perday during the second wavepeak earlier this year. TheCHC is now gearing up todeal with the third wave.

CHC superintendent DrRitesh Dwivedi said that theareas which come theminclude Kaiserbagh,Aminabad, Ganeshganj ,Chitwapur, Hussainganj,Sadar, Udaiganj, Lal Kuanand Khurshid Bagh apartfrom areas from KKC up toCharbagh. The hotspot areasinclude Aminabad, KhurshedBagh, Purana Ganeshganj,Bhoosamandi, Kaiserbaghand adjoining areas, slumarea of Sudamapuri, RamdasHaata and Nayee Basti.

“In these areas, ASHA

workers carry out surveil-lance and if they find a caseof fever, they report to us andwe send the rapid responseteams for screening,” he said

He pointed out that thebiggest challenge is gettingpeople tested. “If people havefever and cough, they are notready to get tested. The otherchallenge is that there is alarge market in Aminabadwhere it is difficult to ensureCovid-appropriate. We keepcontacting the SHOs andADMs asking them to help inmaintaining Covid proto-cols. We also visit the areasfor that purpose. Other suchareas include Kaiserbagh veg-etable market and GolaBazaar in Sadar,” he said.

There were multiple fac-tors responsible for thespread of coronavirus infec-tion during the second wave,which included mandis andmarket areas, migration of

people during the festive sea-son and mutation of thevirus, he pointed out. DrDwivedi said they are carry-ing out several activities tomake sure that the thirdcorona wave is kept at bay ordelayed as much as possible.

“We have adequatepreparations for making oxy-gen cylinders or concentra-tors available for each of the15 beds at the CHC. We alsohave a control room whichprovides logistics to all therapid response teams at dis-trict levels and one of thewards has been provided tothis control room for stor-age,” he said.

He added that they haveover 1,000 medicine kits inspare for adult patients andthrough the nigrani samitis,the kits provided by the sategovernment are being dis-tributed among children.

“The medicines are being

distributed in three cate-gories, including children upto one year, 1-5 years and 5-12 years. The ASHA workershave these medicine kits andthey provide medicines tochildren depending upontheir symptoms and age.Their families are also told toget them tested at the near-est facility. We have threePHCs which have rapidresponse teams for testing.These centres are inGaneshganj , Sadar andStation Road,” Dr Dwivedisaid.

He added that their sec-tor teams visit the hospitalsfrom time to time along withthe ADM to ensure that theyhave a Covid help desks andfever & flu clinics so patientscan be screened before being allowed to enter thepremises.

He pointed out that therehas been not a single Covidcase for the past one week.

“We have made arrange-ments for installation of anoxygen plant and prepara-tions are afoot for the pur-pose in the basement. Oncethis ward is ready, we willhave a central oxygen supplyto all the wards,” he said,adding that the CHCcovers a population of 1.80lakh.

Regarding vaccinations,he said when they startedout, they were covering col-lectorate , commissioneroffice, Jawahar Bhawan andSwasthya Bhawan. “Now, thevaccinations are being car-ried out at the CHC, UrbanPHC at Sadar and atChitwapur PHC. Besides, 500people are being jabbed on adaily basis under the SadarGurudwara while a week-long camp was held forCentral Bar Association &Lucknow Bar Associationand another at the SilverPlaza in Aminabad.

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��0��;�����/�� ���������#�������/����To review the role and contribution of Punjab National Bank

in the all-round development of the state, executive directorSwaroop Kumar Saha visitedLucknow on Tuesday. Duringhis one-day visit, he planted asapling on the Staff TrainingCollege-1 campus under cor-porate social responsibility.Both the divisional offices(East and West of Lucknow)were inaugurated by Saha.Addressing the staff, he said there is a need to maintain the high-est customer service to take the bank to further heights. He helda meeting with the NPA borrowers of Lucknow zone and alsopresided over a review meeting with the Stressed AssetsTargeted Resolution Action (SASTRA) department to discussenhancement of recovery.

���#�$� �/�#��������������A 5-day online faculty development programme on

‘Empowering the social life using artificial intelligence’ was organ-ised by IARAI Students’ Chapter, Department of IT, BBDNIIT,in association with Artificial Intelligence Foundation Trust. In theinaugural ceremony, the chief guest, Dr Ashish M Gujrathi fromthe College of Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman, saidAI is playing a big role in daily lives and by analysing and explor-ing data, many future trends can be predicted. The guest of hon-our was Dr V.K. Singh, director of BBDNIIT. He spoke about theupcoming scenario of AI in human life. Special guest, Dr AnkitVidyarthi from Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida,explained the concept of responsible AI, which, he said, is veryimportant for privacy and security purposes.

� ����������Mohd Shaarib Ahamed, a student of

City Montessori School, Aliganj CampusI, has been offered admission with ascholarship of US$ 93,000 by The CityUniversity of Hong Kong for pursuinghigher education there. The scholarshiphas been offered to him for the entirestudy period of four years. Sharib attrib-uted his achievement to the motivation by his teachers and mean-ingful education and educational atmosphere of the school.

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A woman was killed inNigoha on Monday night

allegedly by her son after sherefused to sell their ancestralland. Police registered a case ofmurder and launched a man-hunt for the accused.

The victim was identifiedas Leelawati (50) of KalsharKheda village in the area whilethe accused as Sanjay.

As per reports, some localsspotted the woman lying deadoutside her house and sensedfoul play as a side of her sareewas tied around her neck.They alerted the police and ateam reached the scene.

Leelawati had two sons(Sanjay & Sangam) and adaughter (Rajrani) and herhusband Kishan passed awayfour years back. Her elder sonSanjay and her daughter aremarried. Leelawati was stayingseparately from her sons due todifferences with them.

Locals said Sanjay is aliquor addict and would pickup fights with Leelawati off andon over his insistence to selltheir ancestral land. OnMonday night, Sanjay reached

Leelawati’s house in a drunkenstate and tried to forced her tosell the land.

“Sanjay is suspected tohave killed Leelawati as somevillagers had seen him fightingwith her over the issue. He isabsconding and we havelaunched a manhunt for him.We hope to nab him soon,”Nigoha inspector Nand Kishorsaid. He said Sanjay’s wifedeserted him four months backas she was thrashed by Sanjayon a daily basis. “Villagers toldus that Sanjay is an ill-temperedman and he used to thrash hiswife. Due to his highhanded-ness, she shifted to her parents’house,” the inspector said.

Villagers said Sanjay soldall the ornaments of his wife topurchase liquor and it was thereason behind the differencesbetween the couple. “Sanjayused to torture his wife forcingher to bring money from herpoor parents. He later startedpestering his mother to sell theland,” a villager said.

Meanwhile, two pilgrimsgoing to Ayodhya were killedwhen a loader rammed into astationary truck in Nigoha onTuesday. Several others were

injured in the mishap.The deceased were identi-

fied as Urmila Devi (53) andJulie (15), both of KantaKaraundi village of Nigoha.The injured were identified asUsha Devi, Ram DulariAdarsh, Rishu, Saroj Kumari,Bitana, Radha and Khushboo,also of Kanta Karaundi village.

As per reports, the devo-tees were travelling by a loader which rammed intothe truck.

����Thieves decamped with

ornaments of gold and silverworth several lakh from a shoplocated on Kanpur road inBanthra on Monday night.Anand Kumar Dixit ofAlambagh said his shop,‘Anand Jewellers’, is locatedclose to the Hanuman templein the area. He said he closedthe shop around 7 pm onMonday. “Around 3 am onTuesday, the landlord informedme that the shutter of the shopwas broken. As I reached there,I found the articles lying strewnacross the floor. The thievesmade off with a huge quantityof ornaments,” he said.

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A22-year-old youth endedhis life by hanging himself

at his house after his mother wasroughed up and their house ran-sacked by police over a brawl ata Covid vaccination camp inRanchhad village in Baghpat.Superintendent of Police ofBaghpat, Abhishek Singh saidthat 10 police personnel fromBinauli police station wereremoved and attached to thePolice Lines.

As per reports, a localRashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghleader’s son, Akshay (22)accompanied his 62-year-oldmother Madhu to a Healthdepartment facility at Ranchhadvillage to get her vaccinatedagainst coronavirus on Monday.When he urged the officials togive her the jab on priority con-sidering her old age, an alterca-tion ensued with the cops. A copon duty allegedly slappedAkshay and got into a scuffle. To“teach” him a lesson, the irkedpolice personnel raidedAkshay's house and broke chairsand a window of the car andalso vandalised a tractor. Whenthe women of the house protest-

ed, they were insulted. Akshay'smother Madhu, her sister-in-law Kamlesh and DharamveerSingh of the village were takeninto custody and dragged to thepolice station and a case wasalso registered against Akshay.Upset over the police high-handedness, Akshay ended hislife by hanging himself at hishome. After the news of hisdeath spread, local villagersstaged a demonstration,demanding that a case be reg-istered against the erring police-men. It was only after seniorpolice officials pacified themthat they allowed police to takethe body for post-mortem ataround 7:30 am on Tuesday. Onthe complaint of Akshay's father,a case was registered against fivepolicemen, including police sta-tion in-charge ChandrakantPandey, SSI Udham SinghTalan, constable Ashwani, headconstable Salim and constableMurli,under Indian Penal Codesections pertaining to abetmentto suicide and other relevantsections.

Later, 10 policemen wereattached to the Police Lines withimmediate effect. An investiga-tion into the incident is under-

way and policemen in largenumbers have been deployed inthe village to maintain law andorder.

Meanwhile, police inactionforced a youth to commit suicideinside the office of senior super-intendent of police of Meerut onTuesday. Reports said thatDevendra Singh of Sarai Kaziarea under Medical police sta-tion had taken Rs 1 lakh fromhis neighbour 10 years back andhad returned Rs 2 lakh yet hewas being harassed by the neigh-bour who even threatened toauction his house to recover hismoney which as per himamounted to Rs 8 lakh.

Devendra contacted thelocal police and senior officersseveral times but failed to getany relief. Depressed with this,he went to the Meerut SSP’soffice on Tuesday morning andmet senior officers, including SP(Crime) and SP (Traffic) butthey failed to get his grievanceredressed. Upset with the policeinaction, he consumed sulphastablets after which the policeshifted him to a hospital wherehe was pronounced dead. A casewas registered and investiga-tions were on.

����� �.,����

In a tragic incident, twolabourers were electrocuted

to death at a construction sitein Para on Monday eveningafter they were forced to con-tinue working despite theirrefusal. Police registered a caseof causing death due to negli-gence against the contractor onTuesday on a complaint givenby the kin of the victims.

The victims were identifiedas Kamlesh Maurya (30) ofNaubasta locality in Kakoriand Ram Babu Rathor (28) ofMalihabad.

As per reports, Kamleshand Ram Babu were hired bycontractor Anuj Chaurasia foran under-construction house inSun City locality in the area.

Kamlesh’s kin Vimlesh saidboth Kamlesh and Ram Babuwere working at the site onMonday when it started rain-ing around 5:30 pm. “Kamleshand Ram Babu refused to workas an uncovered electricitywire was lying at the site.However, Anuj and his kinSonu forced the victims tocomplete the work. Left with

no option, they started to workunwillingly. Vimlesh said whenthe victims were working, themixer machine came in contactwith the uncovered wire andboth Kamlesh & Ram Babusuffered electric shock. Theywere rushed to KGMU TraumaCentre where both weredeclared brought dead.

After the incident, the kinof the deceased staged ademonstration and held Anujand Sonu responsible for themishap which claimed the livesof the labourers. A case wasregistered against Anuj andSonu. Gloom descended on thelocality after the bodies reachedthe scene. Villagers said thefamilies of the deceased werefacing financial crisis sinceCovid outbreak as both wereout of jobs.

“They left their houses tobring money for their familiesfor purchasing food stuff.When it started raining, theybecame apprehensive andrequested the contractor to letthem go. However, they had tocontinue working on beingforced by the contractor,” a vil-lager said.

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The Pegasus snooping listseems unending. The latest

list to come out figures manyindustrialists and their lobby-ists. It includes the now defunctJet Airways owner NareshGoyal, Spice Jet promoter AjaySingh, considered close to thetop BJP leadership, EssarGroup’s Prashant Ruia, Aircelpromoter Sivasankaran, andRotomac Pens’ Vikram Kothariand son Rahul Kothari, facingbank cases.

Mukesh Ambani and AnilAmbani Group’s V.Balasubramaniam and A.N.Sethuraman and Adani Group’slobbyists’ names also figured inthe list. As per the report pub-lished by The Wire portal, thetop executives of PSUs like

GAIL, LIC, Narmada ValleyFertilizer Corporation also fig-ured in the Pegasus target list.

“Apart from Goyal, themost prominent names on thelist are numbers used bySpiceJet chairman and manag-ing director Ajay Singh and theEssar Group’s Prashant Ruia.The list also contains multiplebusinessmen or officials ofcompanies who have had run-ins with the law over the lastfew years, mostly due to inves-tigations of loan fraud. Thisincludes Vikram Kothari ofRotomac Pens (and his sonRahul), and C. Sivasankaran,former Aircel promoter andmaverick entrepreneur,” saidthe Wire report.

Former GAIL ChairmanBC Tripathi, who later joinedEssar Group, two numbers,

“one for a former boss of LifeInsurance Corporation of Indiaand the other for a former exec-utive director of the GujaratNarmada Valley FertiliserCorporation also appears onthe list,” said the report.

Though the report namedboth Reliance Group lobbyistsBalasubramanian andSethuraman, it did not namethe lobbyists of Adani Groupwho were targeted. Dravidiansplinter group leaders werealso caught on the Pegasusradar. “Naam ThamizharKatchi’s Seeman, May 17 move-ment’s Thirumurugan Gandhi,Thanthai Periyar DravidarKazhagam’s K. Ramakrishnanand Dravidar Kazhagam trea-surer Kumaresan feature inthe list of potential targets of anNSO Group client.

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Situation in Afghanistan and itsimpact on the whole region

and terrorism and ways to curbits funding will figure promi-nently during Defence MinisterRajnath Singh’s three-day partic-ipation in the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation(SCO)conclave starting Wednesday inDushanbe, Tajikistan.

The annual conference of theDefence Ministers of the SCOcountries will also see theChinese and Pakistan Ministerstaking part. While Rajnath hadmet his Chinese counterpartWei Fenghe in the SCO conclavelast year in a bilateral meeting inMoscow, it was not yet con-firmed about such a meeting thisyear.

Rajnath and Fenghe haddiscussed ways to ease tension atthe Line of Actual

Control(LAC)in nearly two-hour long parleys on the side-lines of the SCO conclave inSeptember last. Incidentally, itwas the first high level meet-ing between leaders of Indiaand China after stand-offserupted on the LAC in easternLadakh ion May last year.

Giving details of Rajnath’sschedule in Dushanbe, theDefence Ministry said here onTuesday, the Minister willaddress the SCO gathering onWednesday.

Defence cooperationissues among the SCO mem-ber states will be discussed anda communique is expected tobe issued after the delibera-tions. During his visit, Rajnathis also expected to meet hisTajikistan counterpart ColonelGeneral Sherali Mirzo to dis-cuss bilateral issues and otherissues of mutual interest.

Tajikistan is chairing theSCO this year and hostingseries of Ministerial and offi-cial-level meetings. A few daysback it hosted the foreignMinisters’ meet.

Addressing the SCO dia-

logue on Afghanistan there onJuly 14, External AffairsMinister S Jaishankar hadproposed a three-point wayforward to restore peace in thestrife torn country. He alsostressed that the solution hasto be Afghan led.

Jaishankar also cautionedthat the international commu-nity is against the “seizure ofpower by violence and force”and will not “legitimise suchactions”. This was in an appar-ent reference to the Talibansurging in many districts inAfghanistan.

As regards Rajnath’saddress on Wednesday,sources said he is expected todelve into regional securitychallenges, including terror-ism, and the ways to deal withthem.

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Kerala on Tuesday logged 22,129 new Covid-19 cases

across the State while the pan-demic claimed 156 lives duringthe last 24 hours. This took thedeath toll in the State till dateto 16, 326. The average TestPositivity Rate on Tuesday was12.35 percent.

The Legislative Assemblywitnessed charges and countercharges between theOpposition UDF and the rul-ing LDF over the death tollreleased by the Government.Leader of the Opposition V DSatheeshan claimed that theGovernment has not includedmore than 7,000 persons whodied of Covid-19 in its list whileChief Minister Pinarayi Vijayanretorted that the Governmentdoes not have anything to hide.“If you have any genuine griev-ances and evidences, furnish itto us and we will certainlyexamine the same,” said theChief Minister while replyingto an adjournment motionmoved by the Opposition.

Tuesday’s announcementregarding the Covid-19 detailscame amidst the concern

expressed by the UnionGovernment that Kerala’s tendistricts had the highest TPR inthe country.

Malappuram topped thelist of districts with highestnumber of new Covid-19 caseson Tuesday. WhileMalappuram registered 4,037new patients, Thrissur camesecond with 2,623 patients.Kozhikode (2,397), Ernakulam(2352) and Palakkadu (2115)were the other districts withmore than 2,000 patients.

On Tuesday, 1,79 lakhssamples were tested, accordingto the release issued by theDepartment of Health. “Thenumber of new Covid-19 casesare likely to go up further indays to come as we are waitingfor the impact of the lifting oflock down in connection withthe Id festival,” said aGovernment Physician whohas been on Covid-19 treat-ment duty for the last one year.

He said there were discrep-ancies in the details submittedby the Department of Health ,Kerala Government. “A com-parative study between thedetails released by Tamil Naduand Kerala reveal that the for-mer is more transparent.

The Tamil NaduGovernment’s daily bulletinsincorporate the number of RT-PCR tests and antigen Testswhile Kerala is silent about thecategories of tests carried out.The RT-PCR tests are authen-tic while the antigen tests arenot trustworthy. There weremany instances when samplestested negative during antigenturning positive when RT-PCRwas done,” said the physician.

New Delhi: Union Home MInistry has called a meeting ofthe Chief Secretaries and DGPs of Assam and Mizoram onWednesday in the wake of violence along their shared bor-der, where five Assam Police personnel were killed.

Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla will chair the meet-ing to discuss the sudden escalation of violence along theAssam-Mizoram border. The meeting of the ChiefSecretaries and DGPs is expected to work on a peace for-mula so that there is no repeat of the violence along the bor-der of the two states, a home ministry official said.

The central government is in regular touch with theAssam and Mizoram governments and trying to calm downthe situation, the officials said, adding CRPF has beendeployed in the violence-hit area. Five Assam Police per-sonnel, along with a civilian, were killed and more than 50others, including a Superintendent of Police, were injuredwhen Mizoram Police opened fire on a team of Assam offi-cials on Monday. PNS

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The rain-flood toll in Maharashtra climbed further to 209 onTuesday, even as 43 roads in various rain-flood ravaged areas

of Maharashtra remained submerged in water and the numberof people evacuated went up to 4,34,185. Seventeen more bod-ies were recovered during the day, taking the total number ofpeople killed in the rain-related mishaps to 209.

Raigad accounted for a maximum of 95 deaths, while therewere 45 deaths in Satara district of western Maharashtra. Thedeath tally in other places comprised: Ratnagiri-35, Thane-14,Kolhapur-7, Mumbai-4, Pune-3, Sindhdurg, Wardha and Akola-2 each. The authorities pegged the number of injuries at 50, whileeight persons were still reported missing. Though there was letup in the rains, as many as 19 -- 16 teams belonging to theNational Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and three belongingto the Indian Army – continued with their rescue and opera-tions in various parts of the coastal Konkan region and westernMaharashtra. Till Tuesday evening, the rescue and relief teamsshifted as many 4,34,185 people in the flooded areas of the stateto safer places. As many as 1351 villages were affected by the rainsand consequent floods. Satara bore the maximum brunt of theheavy rains, as many as 420 villages were affected. While 411 vil-lages in Kolhapur district were affected, the authorities peggedthe number of villages affected in Sangli district at 104.

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It is surprising that one gov-ernment department is cre-

ating hurdle on the project ofother department and taking aserious note of it, the DistrictMagistrate Kaushal Raj Sharmadirected the executive engineerof Jal Nigam to shift valves oftube-well from the road toother place by making cham-ber so that the 400 m long four-lane Shivpur-Lahartara roadcould be constructed on time.

Reviewing the projectsbeing carried out by the PublicWorks Department (PWD)and Bridge Corporation at hiscamp office, here on Mondaylast, the DM came to knowthat there is valve of tube-wellof Jal Nigam on the roadwhich is creating obstacle inconstructing the 400 m longfour-lane Shivpur-Lahartararoad being constructed by thePWD and taking it seriously,he asked the executive engi-

neer of Jal Nigam to shift thesame to other places by mak-ing a chamber. The DM direct-ed the superintendent of cen-tral jail in Shivpur to shift thetemple which was outside thejail, inside the jail premises sothat the construction of roadcould be completed.Expressing annoyance over

the delay in completing theconstruction work being car-ried out in Chandpur industri-al state by the PWD, the DMdirected the concernedauthority to complete the workby August 31.

The DM expressed annoy-ance over the slow pace of theworks being carried out by the

Bridge Corporation anddirected for sending a letter tothe corporation for making noadditional effort to completethe construction work ofImiliya Ghat and others with-in stipulated time. He took theengineers of the corporation totask for the slow pace of thework to construct RoB onPhulwaria four-lane. He fixedthe deadline of September 15to complete the constructionworks of Konia Bridge, bridgeon Babatput-Kapsethi routeand Imiliya Ghat and direct-ed for completing the con-struction work of Varuna-Kalikadhar Bridge by August31.

Emphasising on draftingout an action plan to acquireland for the service lane ofAshapur flyover, the DMdirected the concernedauthority to clear all the hur-dles on the construction worksby addressing all the mattersrelating to land acquisitionwithin a week.

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As expected Shankarpurihas become the seventh

mahant of Annapurna Mandir.He has long experience ofworking along with lateMahant Rameshwarpuri as hisdeputy. In a function organisedat the temple's premises here onTuesday, the representatives ofSri Panchayati Akhara, alongwith senior religious leaders ofthe city, offered ‘chadar’ toShankarpuri to mark his suc-cession to the post of mahant.

After becoming themahant as per traditional rit-uals, Shankarpuri offered flo-ral tributes to Rameshwarpuriand then said that he wouldwork hard to fulfill the dreamsof Rameshwaripuri and com-plete all the pending projects.He said that he would alsowork for the protection andpopularisation of culture andcontinue the temple's all socialservice works. He said thatboth temple and trust wouldwork for the society as per theguidance of the scholars.Meanwhile, Deputy ChiefMinister Keshav PrasadMaurya also visited the tem-ple to greet the new mahantand paid tr ibutes toRameshwarpuri.

Earlier, Sri PanchayatiAkhara has decided to appointShankarpuri as mahant as hewas associated with the tem-ple since his student life as hegot his traditional educationfrom Rishikul BrahmacharyaAshram, run by AnnapurnaAnn Kshetra Trust. In the

beginning, seers sat there andoffered tributes toRameshwarpuri. Then thename of the new mahant wasannounced by the secretary ofAkhara Ravindrapuri, mahantof Akhara Haridwar KailashBharti, Mahant Dayalpuri ofOnkleshwar and many other

senior saints. The function was also

attended byMahamandleshwar SantoshDas of Satua Baba Ashram,general secretary of AkhilBhartiya Sant Samiti SwamiJitendranand Saraswati ,Mahant Jaikishanpuri of Sant

Bihari Puri Math, MahantSubhashpuri, president ofKashi Vidvat Parishad ProfRam Yatna Shukla,general secretar y RamNarayan Dwivedi and chiefpriest of Kashi Vishwanathtemple Shashi BhushanTripathi.

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Vijayotsav was celebrated atSurya Sarovar in Banaras

Locomotive Works (BLW) hereon Monday evening, remem-bering the victory of the coun-try in the Kargil war. On theoccasion, hundreds of lampsand candles were lit by the offi-cers, employees, ex-employ-ees, players and children pay-ing their tributes to the sacri-fices and exemplary bravery ofthe Kargil martyrs. The Kargilwar lasted for 60 days whichsaw the country’s triumphhoisting tri-colours at Kargilpeak.

Deputy General Manager(DGM) Vijay was the chiefguest. It was also attended byDr Sunil Kumar, PublicRelations Officer (PRO) RajeshKumar, Staff Council’s mem-bers Navin Sinha, VinodKumar Singh, Vijender Kumar,Pankaj Srivastava, MarketCommittee’s members RameshSingh, Rajesh Singh, SantoshSingh of Human RightsCommittee, football coachVK Kanojia, Mritunjya of StJohn’s Brigade, Saroj ofEmployees’ Club and manyothers. The function was con-ducted by MP Thakur, formerwelfare inspector.

Earlier, on the occasion ofKargil Vijay Diwas, a blooddonation camp was organisedunder the aegis of Red RibbonClub of National Service

Scheme (NSS), Banaras HinduUniversity (BHU) at NSS build-ing. More than 36 units ofblood were donated in theblood donation camp whichwas inaugurated by chief proc-tor of BHU Professor AnandChaudhary. In the beginning,programme coordinator DrBala Lakhendra welcomed theguests. As a special guest DrSandeep Kumar of the BloodBank, Institute of MedicalSciences (IMS), Dr DineshSingh, technical officer andmany others were also present.

NON-AIDED COLLEGETEACHERS PROTEST:Raising their voices againstthe state government for notdisbursing stipend to the teach-ers of non-aided colleges for thelast two years, the non-aidedteachers associated to the UttarPradesh Madhyamik ShikshakSangh (Non-aided group) onTuesday staged a protest atShastri Ghat, here and submit-ted a memorandum to the dis-trict administration regardingtheir demands including an ex-gratia of Rs 50 lakh to the nextkin of the teaching and non-teaching staff who died ofCOVID-19 while dischargingtheir duties.

The teaching and non-teaching staffs of non-aidedcolleges are currently facingstarvation like situation andtheir life has become worsethan that of labourers ofMNREGA because they are not

getting stipend for the last twoyears, the state president ofSangh and MLC Lal BihariYadav said adding, even theyare not in position that theycould pay fee of their wards.The government is also notpaying attention to theirplights, he blamed anddemanded the government toopen the schools and collegesfrom August 1 and also ensurethat they could get theirstipend.

The government did notannounce an ex-gratia for theirfamilies of non-aided teacherswho died of COVID-19 whiledischarging their duties; hecharged and demanded that thegovernment should makeannouncement of an ex-gratiaof Rs 50 lakh for the next kinof such teachers and also gov-ernment job to their one child.

There are no rules andregulations for the non-aidedteachers, he said and demand-ed the government to draft outrules & regulations for them.He also demanded the govern-ment to address the problemsof teachers of madarsas relat-ed to their salary. The govern-ment is not paying an ex-gra-tia of Rs 50 lakh which wasannounced for the next of kinof the teachers of aided andgovernment colleges who diedof COVID-19, the speakersblamed and demanded thegovernment to pay the same atthe earliest.

The teaching and non-teaching staff of aided andgovernment colleges are fight-ing for the restoration of the oldpension system but the govern-ment is paying no heed towardsit, they blamed and demandedthe government to restore it inthe larger interest of teachersand employees. There are manyposts of backward class andScheduled Castes which arelying vacant in the aided andgovernment colleges, theyblamed and demanded thegovernment to make recruit-ment on these vacant seats atthe earliest. They also madeother demands and handedover the memorandum regard-ing it to the district administra-tion.

The state president (in-charge) of Sangh Sitaran Yadav,state vice president OmprakashAmbedkar, state organisingsecretaries Jain Kushwaha,Omprakash Yadav &Parashuram Yadav, divisionalpresident Dr Suryanath Yadavand district president BhanuShankar Tripathi mainly puttheir views.

TWO MORE TEST POS-ITIVE: Two were tested pos-itive for the novel coronavirusinfection out of 4,642 testsconducted during the last 24hours taking the confirm casesto 8,234 as per the figuresreleased by the Health depart-ment in the evening onTuesday

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The fear of the third wave ofcoronavirus is gradually

weakening, but doctors do notagree with it. They believe thatthe third wave is sure to come,even if it does not come in thethird week of August andcomes in the month ofSeptember or October. This isthe reason why the cases ofincreasing corona infection inDelhi, Maharashtra and SouthIndian states are increasingthe heartbeat of doctors inPrayagraj too.

In the daily video confer-

encing to be held from the UPgovernment, the prepared-ness of the hospitals is beingreviewed. The biggest empha-sis is on the availability of oxy-gen and its generation plant.Additional Chief SecretaryHealth Amit Mohan Prasadhas asked the Health depart-ment of Prayagraj district tobe alert. It has also been saidthat like the second wave,keep the medical team readyto deal with the suddenimpact of the third wave.

Dr Kiran Malik, ChiefMedical Superintendent ofTej Bahadur Sapru i.e Beli

Hospital, said that before thesecond wave, two or threeinfected were being foundevery day in January, February2021. Then suddenly the casesincreased in March, as if thestorm had arrived. Even atpresent, cases are getting lessthat the general public willhave to be alert in Prayagrajdue to the increasing cases ofinfection in the states likeDelhi, Maharashtra, Keralaetc.

She said that people mustwear a mask when they comeout of the house, protectthemselves strictly from com-

ing in contact with someoneelse, and eat something aftercleaning their hands. If theydon’t do this, it can be verydifficult.

Swarooprani NehruHospital has now become ahospital of 1066 beds. In this,24 hours full oxygen has beenarranged on all the beds.Oxygen plant is also beinginstalled in Beli Hospital. Beliwas made a L2 Covid Hospitalat the time of corona infec-tion. The Health departmenthas also asked the UnitedMedicine and Medical Collegeto be alert and ready.

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The BJP, which claims to befriendly to Hinduism, is

trying to eliminate Sanskritfrom the country. More thanhalf of Sanskrit schools havebeen closed due to promotionof model schools. This is weak-ening Sanskrit education,which is directly affectingSanatan Dharma. These viewswere expressed by the NationalGeneral Secretary of BSP, SatishChandra Mishra in a seminarorganised on Tuesday at theparty office in Osa.

The National GeneralSecretary of BSP said thatpeople from Brahmin andDalit society are beingharassed all over the state.

People of Brahmin society arebeing killed selectively. Despitethe disclosure of the killing of

Brahmin in Chitrakoot, thepolice did not nab the accused.The temple of Lord Shri Ramin Ayodhya is being built onthe orders of the SupremeCourt, but the BJP is patting itsback.

The BSP leader said thatKhushi Dubey was married onJune 29. She was put in jail.Even after a year has passed,the bail has not been given, itis injustice. Even after this thepeople of Brahmin society aresilent. The BSP general secre-tary also told the people pre-sent that ‘you are the descen-dants of Vishnu andParashuram, you should thinkabout the state. Think of‘Sarvjan Hitay, SarvjanSukhay’.

He said that 13 per centare Brahmins and 23 per centScheduled Caste people in thestate. If they become one, thenin the year 2022, the govern-ment of BSP will definitely beformed. The BSP chief hadplaced the people of Brahminsociety in dozens of postsalong with the minister. TheBSP general secretary alsoaccused the central and stategovernments of ignoring theunemployed and farmersprotesting in Delhi over theagriculture law. He said thatlike the SP government, hooli-ganism and terror continues inthe BJP. After the formation ofthe BSP government, people ofall sections will get justice,added Mishra.

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The Vishwa Hindu Parishad(Gau Raksha division) in

an attempt to protect cows hasplanned to set up Gau Rakshacommittees at all villages andappoint gaurakshak (cow pro-tectors).

Leaders said that cowslaughter would not be tolerat-ed at any cost in the country.VHP has also decided toimpart training to farmers sothat Indian origin cows shouldbe kept at every house in vil-lages. Leaders of VHP ( GauRaksha division) Kashi prantheld a meeting atShankaracharya ashram,Alopibagh on Tuesday .

Senior VHP leader andnational organisational secre-

tary (Gau Raksha division)Khemchandra Sharma saidGau Mata (cows) are the cen-tral devotion point (KendraBindu) for Hindu community.He also said the Indian culturecan be protected only when weprotect cows, Ganga and vil-lages.

He also stressed on theneed to protect the originalbreed of cows ( Indian origincows) at a time when Indianorigin cows were finding noplace in the society.

People were more interest-ed in keeping jersey cows fortheir economic benefits butthere was a strong need to takecare of Indian origin cows orthey would be an extinctspecies.

VHP leaders said that the

strength of Indian origin cowswas declining by every passingday and if the similar conditioncontinues, cows would be seenat museums only. Speakersstressed on the need to makefarmers self reliant and devel-op industries in villages.

Lal Mani Tiwari, regionalsecretary (VHP Gau Raksha)said that it should be everyindividual’s responsibility toprotect cows and they shouldalso come forward for it. Healso said that the majority ofGaushala had fallen prey tocorruption and many cowswere losing their lives.

RETD TEACHER COM-MITS SUICIDE : A retiredteacher committed suicide onTuesday morning by taking aleap from his flat, situated on

the third floor under theDhoomanganj police station.

Radheshyam Bharatiya, aretired teacher lived with fam-ily in a flat in Paras GreenApartment, TP Nagar underthe Dhoomanganj police sta-tion.

On Tuesday morning hecame to the balcony of the flatand took a leap from there. Hefell on the ground and diedinstantly owing to head injury.The panic gripped residents ofthe Paras Green Apartmentinformed the police, who tookthe body to hospital and thento postmortem house.

The preliminary investiga-tion revealed that the retiredteacher was not enjoying goodhealth, so he preferred to endhis life.

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Ahandful of Kanwarias werespotted on the banks of

Ganga for taking holy waterfrom Sangam – the confluenceof Ganga, Yamuna and myth-ical Saraswati - here onTuesday. Despite the fact thatthe state government has can-celled the Kanwar yatra thisyear in view of corona pandem-ic, a group of Kanwariasdressed in saffron attire andKanwar on their shoulders, onTuesday afternoon arrivedfrom Pratapgarh district totake holy water from Sangamand started their journey backto Pratapgarh where theywould be offering Jalabhishekat Lord Shiva at BabaBhayharan Nath Dham inPratapgarh. The group mem-bers included Manish Kumar,Triloki Nath, Ashish Tiwari andothers and residents of MahobaTiraha said, ‘We have comefrom Mahoba Tiraha area fromPratapgarh district to fetchholy water from Sangam as wewould be performing jalab-hishek at famous Lord Shivatemple at Baba Bhayharan NathDham in Poore Torai, KatraGulab Singh (Pratapgarh).’

Manish said, ‘I along witha group of five devotees arrivedto take holy water and westarted our journey on barefoot from Pratapgarh to

Prayagraj on Tuesday morningand collected holy water fromSangam. He said that we havemaintained social distancewhile walking to Prayagraj andused masks.’

On being asked about stategovernment’s decision to can-cel Kanwar yatra, Manish saidthat it’s a matter of faith andgovernment might have takenright decision to protect itspeople from the deadly disease.He, however, said that peopleliving in villages have notformed big groups of devoteesand some of them would bearriving to fetch the holy water.

Another three members’group from Kunda also arrivedat Sangam to take holy water.One of the group membersSharad said, ‘After taking holywater from Sangam, we wouldbe heading towards Varanasi tooffer jalabhishek at KashiVishwanath temple onMonday. He added, ‘We wouldcover the distance betweenPrayagraj and Varanasi duringnight hours and would performjalabhishek.’

He said that no one object-ed to them when they werearriving at Sangam to takeholy water during their journey.

Meanwhile, authorities ofBaba Bhayharan Nath Dhamsaid that they have cancelledthe Kanwar yatra this year.

General secretary of Baba

Bhayharan Nath Dham, SamajShekher said, ‘Apart from ban-ning the Kanwar yatra thisyear, we have strictly followedsocial distancing and madewearing of masks compulsoryon the temple campus.

COURT RECORDSSTATEMENT OF RN RAI:The MP/MLA court ofPrayagraj on Tuesday recordedthe statement of Ram NarayanRai, brother of the slain BJPMLA Krishnanand Rai. Mafia-turned-politician MukhtarAnsari, BSP MLA and mafiadon of eastern Uttar Pradesh isfacing murder charge in thiscase and it is related to theGangster Act.

It may be mentioned herethat after the murder of BJPMLA Krishnanand Rai,Gangster Act was slapped onMukhtar Ansari and a caseunder the Gangster Act wasregistered by theMohammadabad police sta-tion of Ghazipur district.

Ram Narayan Rai, brotherof Krishnanand Rai, is an eyewitness and the court had fixedJuly 27 for recording his state-ment in this high profile mur-der case. Krishnanand Rai waskilled on November 29, 2005.

August 3, 2021 has beenfixed for the next hearing of thecase when the eye witness willbe cross examined.

REQUEST NOT TO

DEMOLISH BRIDGE: Localresidents of Devghat andDamupur handed over a mem-orandum to the ADM Cityrequesting him to ensure thatthe private bridge onSasurkhaderi river is notdemolished. They reachedKutchery with the GramPradhan to draw the attentionof the district magistratetowards this issue. The mem-orandum says that land mafiahas nothing to do with theabove bridge which is built bycollecting funds from the localresidents. They said that theFIR registered against the landmafia for constructing thisbridge to enhance the value ofthe plots, was totally fabricat-ed and misleading. Accordingto the memorandum, the vil-lagers had to cover a distanceof about 10 kilometres to reachthe other village on the otherside of the small riverSasurkhaderi. They made sev-eral requests with the officialsand political leaders for con-structing a bridge there, buttheir requests fell on the deafears of the system. Ultimatelythey collected funds for thebridge and constructed thesame for their convenience.

Through this memoran-dum they have requested theauthorities not to demolishthe bridge in the name ofaction against land mafia.

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Ajoint delegation of CivilLines Vyapar Mandal and

Prayag Vyapar Mandal submit-ted a memorandum to AlokKumar Pandey, Zonal Officerof Prayagraj DevelopmentAuthority (PDA). The delega-tion suggested one-way trafficin the Civil Lines area to avoidvandalism due to road widen-ing. It was said that the tradersare under mental stress due tothe demolition notice given for

road widening and they arefeeling very traumatised.

The delegation of tradersapprised him that in the past,similar demolition had beenstarted, so after meeting theDistrict Magistrate and theVice Chairman of theAuthority, it was suggestedthat if the electric poles andtransformers are removed fromthe roads, then the roads willbe widened. It was also suggest-ed to make these routes one-way, as there is less traffic on

the roads. In such a situation,road widening and beautifica-tion can be done as per require-ment without damaging theinstallations.

The zonal officer said thatall the works are being doneunder the smart city project. Atthe same time, the delegationdemanded to include theoffice-bearers of the VyaparMandal, public representativesof the area and elite citizens inthe Smart CityAdvisory Committee, so that

the plan does not haveto be amended again andagain.

The delegation was led bySushil Kharbanda, president,Civil Lines Vyapar Mandal andgeneral secretary ShivshankarSingh. Prayag Vyapar Mandalpresident Vijay Arora, AshishArora, Inder, Harshit Agarwal,Shashank Agarwal, RiteshSingh, Sheikh Dabur Vakil,Sardar Inderpreet Singh, Dr.Subhash Yadav etc. were pre-sent in the delegation.

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District MagistratePriyanka Niranjan inau-

gurated Tokyo Olympicsawareness rally on Tuesday.She said sports is an integralpart of the society and we areproud that girls are bringingmedals for the country. On theoccasion She appealed to people for large-scaleparticipation in the field of sports and praisedthe efforts by national shooter Deepak Pandey,

who belongs to Orai. Shesaid efforts will be made toimprove sports facilities inthe district. The rally whichwill cover a distance of3,625 km passed throughIndira Stadium, JaiswalTower, Kalpi bus stand,Patel Square, DistrictHospital, Bhagat Singh

square, Yadav garments, Lalman Sweets,Ghantaghar, Mahil Talab and Allahabad Bankin Orai city and was welcomed by people.

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The third phase of 65th Rail Week and AwardDistribution Ceremony-2020 was organised

under the chairmanship of Divisional RailwayManager (DRM) Vijay Kumar Panjiar inPremchand auditorium hall of divisional officeon Monday with simplicity and followingCoronavirus prevention guidelines. In thissequence, the DRM honoured46 employees of the division byproviding medals, cash prizesand certificates for theirremarkable and outstandingservice. Among the awardrecipients were 24 employeesof Mechanical (Carriage &Wagon) department and 22 ofMechanical Power (O&F)department whose excellent and dedicated ser-vice has significantly improved the functioningof the Railways as well as the image of the divi-sion. Congratulating them Panjiar said that forthe last two years the movement of passengertrains may have decreased due to Covid-19 butthat of goods trains has increased threefold dur-ing this period. The mechanical employees byfollowing the Covid protocol during the Coronaperiod performed their responsibilities very welldue to which very few employees of Varanasidivision got infected as compared to other insti-tutions. He appealed to employees that theyshould also get their families vaccinated so that

everyone remained safe. A water recycling planthas been installed for water conservation atBanaras and Chhapra coaching depots ofVaranasi division. Along with it automatic coachwashing plants have also been installed atBanaras and Chhapra stations for the cleanlinessof coaches. Under the Swachh Bharat Missionbio-toilets have been installed in almost all trainsby Indian Railways. In Varanasi division by mak-

ing provision for single-use plastic free sta-tions/offices majoroffices and stations havebeen made plastic free.On the occasionAdditional DivisionalRailway Manager(ADRM-Infra) PraveenKumar, ADRM

(Operations) SPS Yadav, Senior DivisionalMechanical Engineer (C&W) SP Srivastava, SeniorDivisional Mechanical Engineer (O&F) AlokKesharwani, Senior Divisional Personnel Officer(SDPO) Sameer Paul, Divisional Personnel Officer(DPO) Vivek Mishra and a limited number of divi-sional employees were present were present.Senior Divisional Personnel Officer Sameer Paulconducted the programme and proposed the voteof thanks as well. For the compliance of Covid-19guidelines and safety of employees the 65thRailway Week and the award ceremony at the divi-sional level is being organised in five phases, PublicRelations Officer (PRO) Ashok Kumar said.

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Under the chairmanship of Chief RajbhashaOfficer and Principal Chief Engineer (PCE),

North Eastern Railway (NER) Satish KumarPandey, the second quarterly meeting of theHeadquarters Rajbhasha ImplementationCommittee was held on Monday through vir-tual medium. In it Construction Organisationand Mechanical Workshop’s deputy chief rajb-hasha officer besides Rajbhasha liaison officersof various departments andnon-departmental units werepresent virtually. Addressingthe meeting Principal ChiefRajbhasha Officer SatishKumar Pandey said whileworking in NER he had expe-rienced that here Rajbhasha isbeing widely used in officialwork. He said through e-office 100 per cent corre-spondence should be done inHindi. Besides, the languageof the letter to be sent through e-office shouldbe simple and comprehensible. Moreover, all themeetings, till the next order, should be donethrough virtual medium only. Pandey said thatregular publication of ‘Rail Rashmi’ should beensured. All departments should send articlesetc. for this magazine. With the concerted effortsof all the status of Rajbhasha in this railway willbe further strengthened, he added. Deputy ChiefRajbhasha Officer Krishna Chandra Singhwhile welcoming everyone in the second quar-terly meeting of the calendar year 2021 of theHeadquarter Rajbhasha ImplementationCommittee said that as per the guidelines of theGovernment of India due to Coronavirus infec-tion it was being done through virtual means.He further said he had taken over charge asdeputy chief rajbhasha officer recently. Singhadded that all the departments should discussthe actual status of the use of Rajbhasha among

themselves so that meaningful steps can be takenin the direction of achieving the set target. Theminutes of the last meeting held on March 30were confirmed. Rajbhasha Officer ArshadMirza discussed the compliance status of themajor decisions of the minutes of the last meet-ing as per the standard agenda of the RailwayBoard and the suggestions of the members ofthe committee were sought. On the occasion thevote of thanks was proposed by RajbhashaOfficer Mohd Arshad Mirza.

C A M P A I G NLAUNCHED: With theaim of creating awarenessamong railway passengersabout protection fromCovid-19 infection and itsprevention a joint check-ing campaign was con-ducted by the CommercialDepartment and RailwayProtection Force (RPF)personnel at Gorakhpurrailway station on Monday.

For protection from Coronavirus infection andits prevention, announcements are made by therailway administration regarding wearing ofmasks by passengers, adherence to physical dis-tancing besides taking care of hand hygiene. Inorder to ensure adherence to guidelines regard-ing prevention of Covid infection, a checkingcampaign was conducted jointly by theCommercial Department and RPF personnel atGorakhpur station here. During it as many as 50persons on being found without face masks therewere fined and counselled, Chief Public RelationsOfficer (CPRO) Pankaj Kumar Singh said.Moreover, a sum of �5,000 collected as fine wasdeposited in railway revenue. It may be pointedout here that it is mandatory to wear masks intrains as well as in station premises and there isa provision for imposition of fine for not wear-ing them. Besides, a drive is also being run againstillegal vendors and those selling water illegally.

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UP Minister of State for Tourism, Culture,Religious Affairs and Protocol (Independent

charge) Neelkanth Tiwari while interactingwith some mediamen at Vindhyachal on

Monday said on the lines of Mathura, Ayodhyaand Kashi Vishwanath temple Vindhyachal wasto be developed and Vindhya Corridor was justa beginning. At Ashtabhuja guest house whilereviewing preparations regarding the proposedlaying of foundation stone of Vindhya Corridorthe minister directed the officials concerned tocomplete the allocated works timely and makea plan for overall development of the area afterwidening the roads. He said under the plan theentire Tarikon area was to be developed in orderto attract tourists. The minister inspected thedemolition sites, helipads at hillock as well asat Deori village besides the site at GIC too wherea public meeting was to be held along with lay-ing foundation laying ceremony and works tobe dedicated to the public. The minister inspect-ed the site of the stage too from where the pub-lic meeting was to be addressed and becameaware about all preparations and gave necessarydirections. During the visit the minister wasaccompanied by MLA (City) Ratnakar Mishra,

divisional commissioner Yogeshwar RamMishra, District Magistrate Praveen KumarLaxkar, Superintendent of Police Ajay KumarSingh, ADM(F&R) UP Singh, city magistrateVinay Kumar Singh and other officials concerned.

THEFT CASE: Unidentified burglars tar-geted a house situated in an area under Chilhpolice station on Sunday night and took awayjewellery and cash from there. According to areports received here, Uma Shankar Dubey aliasDukharan, a resident of Mahanandpur, wassleeping on the roof along with his family mem-bers. On Monday morning he was taken abackon seeing his main gate closed from outside. Onhearing his cries his neighbours gathered thereand opened the door. The house owner wasshocked when he saw the boxes missing fromthe rooms. On getting information the policeteam reached the spot and found some emptyboxes lying in the field. As per the house owner,the thieves had decamped with jewellery wortharound �7 lakh besides �14,000 in cash. On get-ting information about the matter Circle Officer(Sadar) Shailendra Tripathi visited the spot anddirected the cops to work out the case without delay.

PROGRAMME HELD: DivisionalCommissioner Yogeshwar Ram Mishra duringthe clothes distribution programme organisedat an old age home located at Vindhyachal

appealed to inmates tolead a happy life andnot feel alone becausethe entire society waswith them. He direct-ed the CMO to con-duct health and eye

check-up of all inmates. He instructed the socialwelfare officer to visit shelter home regularly andsolve the problems of inmates on priority.During the distribution of clothes Chief MedicalOfficer (CMO) Dr PD Gupta, Social WelfareOfficer Gireesh Dubey were also present.

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The regional head of theBank of Baroda, Kannauj,

Reeta Bajpai, while inaugurat-ing the new premisesof the bank at Sarai-MeeraRoad on Tuesday said thatthe BoB was one of the lead-ing banks of the country andthus it was committed to pro-vide the best services to itsclientele.

She then informed aboutthe new products of the bankand said it was meant for the

clients and appealed to them toavail themselves of the facility

extended by the bank. She saidthe bank would continue toprovide the best services to thebank in the near future.

Prominent among thosewho took part in the functionwere Shekhar Vaidya, AjayKumar, Branch Manager, SKMishra and the remaining staffof the bank.

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Hepatitis C is a liver infec-tion caused by the

Hepatitis C Virus (HCV). It isspread through contact withblood from an infected person.Most people become infectedwith the HCV by sharing nee-dles or other equipment usedto prepare and inject drugs.

This was stated by gas-troenterologist Dr Praveen Jhafrom Regency SuperspecialityHospital here on Tuesday.

Addressing media persons,Dr Jha said Hepatitis C was ashort-term illness for somepeople but for more than halfof people who become infect-ed with the HCV, it becomes along-term, chronic infection.He said chronic Hepatitis Ccould lead to serious, evenlife-threatening health prob-lems like cirrhosis and livercancer.

According to the USCenter for Disease Controland Prevention (CDC), peoplewith chronic Hepatitis C canoften have no symptoms anddo not feel sick. When symp-toms appear, they often are asign of advanced liver disease.

Chronic Hepatitis C infec-tion causes ongoing liverinflammation that leads toscarring (fibrosis). As fibrosisprogresses, scars graduallyreplace healthy liver tissue.Advanced liver fibrosis leads todamage of the normal liverarchitecture and to growth of

new liver cells (regenerativenodules). This stage of liverdamage is known as cirrhosis.Hepatitis C-related liver failureis usually a result of cirrhosis.

There is no vaccine forHepatitis C. However, the bestway to prevent Hepatitis C is byavoiding behaviors that canspread the disease, especiallyinjecting drugs. Getting testedfor Hepatitis C is important,because treatments can curemost people with Hepatitis C in8 to 12 weeks.

While many people withHepatitis C can be treated withdirect-acting antiviral (DAA)medications, some, includingthose who have suffered liverdamage from cirrhosis ordeveloped liver cancer, mayalso need to have a liver trans-plant.

The CDC reports that outof 100 people infected withHepatitis C, more than half willdevelop chronic liver disease -- specifically, hepatitis andfibrosis -- and 5 to 25 willdevelop cirrhosis over a peri-od of 10 to 20 years. An esti-mated 1 to 5 out of 100 peoplewith chronic Hepatitis C die ofcirrhosis or liver cancer result-ing from the infection.

He said liver failure due toHepatitis C is one of the mostcommon reasons for livertransplantation in India. Hesaid without treatment, mostpeople who had Hepatitis Cremained infected for life andinfections that persist in this

way are called "chronic."Liver transplantation has

several benefits for personssuffering from liver failure dueto Hepatitis C but it is also asensitive process.

Meanwhile, leading gas-troenterologists from RegencyCare, Dr Ajmal Hasan and DrAbhimanyu Kapoor, whileaddressing press persons onWorld Hepatitis Day said thisyear the theme was ‘HepatitisCannot Wait’ and thus therewas an immediate need to cre-ate awareness among the mass-es towards this deadly disease.

Dr Hasan said althoughthere were umpteen break-throughs for the managementof hepatitis yet more researchwas needed to save preciouslives. He said medical scientistsacross the world strongly rec-ommended a functional cureand added that the resultsfrom the trial of RNAi thera-peutic drug VIR-2218 werequite encouraging examplesthat a cure was possible soon-er or later.

He said each year July 28July tried to raise awareness ofviral hepatitis, an inflammationof the liver that caused severeliver disease and hepatocellu-lar cancer. He said this engen-dered a global need to eliminatehepatitis as a public healththreat by 2030. He said every 30seconds a person was dyingfrom a hepatitis related illnessand it was witnessed in the cur-rent COVID-19 crisis. He said

the number of viral hepatitiscases across Uttar Pradeshamounted to approximately25,000 which was a cause ofconcern.

Dr Abhimanyu Kapoorsaid hepatitis referred to aninflammatory condition of theliver commonly caused by aviral infection, but there wereother possible causes of hepati-tis.

He said the other causesincluded autoimmune hepati-tis and hepatitis that occurredas a secondary result of med-ications, drugs, toxins, andalcohol. He said Hepatitis Awas caused by a virus thatinfected liver cells and causedinflammation. which couldaffect the working of the liverand cause other signs andsymptoms of Hepatitis A.

He advised in simplestterms that eating food handledby someone with the viruswho does not thoroughly washhis or her hands or by drink-ing contaminated water andkeeping in close contact withan infected person were themajor causes of the spread. Hesaid one common cause ofspread was travel to areaswhere hepatitis was rampant orattend child care or work in achild care centre. He saidHepatitis A could even cause asudden loss of liver function,especially in older adults orpeople with chronic liver dis-eases.

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Nikhil Kurele and HarshitRathore, alumni of the

Indian Institute of Technology,Kanpur, made the countryproud as the prestigious ForbesIndia Magazine has publishedtheir success story in its latestissue.

During the COVID-19 cri-sis, they took up the challengeof technological innovationand created ventilators thatare at par with any world-classproduct, but better suited toIndian needs and conditions,and are available at a fractionof the cost of imported variants.

Their aim has been to cre-ate ‘Made-in India’ products ofsuperior quality that meet glob-al standards and certifications,while keeping them affordablefor hospitals of all sizes and

capabilities. All the spare partsof these portable ventilators aremanufactured in India. Underthe Startup Innovation andIncubation Centre (SIIC) atIIT-Kanpur, they launched the

startup and formed a compa-ny, Noccarc Robotics, to man-ufacture robots to look after thecleaning and maintenance ofsolar panels. Both these alum-ni of IIT-Kanpur had figured inthe list of Forbes Under-30 Asia2020. The team’s journey tosuccessfully make the NoccarcV310 ventilator in a recordtime of 90 days has been doc-umented in The VentilatorProject, written by SrikantSastri and AmitabhaBandyopadhyay, who were theteam leaders in the projectand formed the IIT-KanpurVentilator Consortium to assistNoccarc Robotics. “The deci-sion that we made last year wasprimarily driven by two factors.One, our existing businessbecame highly restrictedbecause of the lockdowns andwe could not progress with it;

and two, we realised that therewas a requirement for medicaltechnologies in the country andwe could contribute meaning-fully to that as we had experi-ence of building complex elec-tro-mechanical products,” saysKurele. Between April and Junethis year, they sold 2,500 units.With the ebbing of the secondwave, the numbers have comedown and although the com-pany has the capacity to man-ufacture up to 100 units a dayat its Pune plant, it normallymakes about 40 units a day, hedisclosed.

The fact that Noccarc’sventilators are being installed insome of the best hospitals incities such as Mumbai, Puneand Delhi proves that they arebeing recognised for their capa-bilities and not simply theirlower price.

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New MunicipalC o m m i s s i o n e r

Shivasharanappa GN took overcharge of the Kanpur NagarNigam in an informal functionon Tuesday. He said the prior-ity of the government was tocarry out development worksand that too at a rapid pace andthus his focus would be ondevelopment.

He said his objective wouldbe to keenly monitor all thedevelopment works and ensurethat there was no compromiseon quality. He also assured thepeople of Kanpur Nagar thatissues related to their civicissues would also be taken upon priority and settled at theearliest.

Shivasharanappa GN is anIAS officer of the 2015 batchand was the CDO of Deoria.

The new municipal com-missioner said he always pre-ferred transparency in working,especially issues related to gov-ernment projects, so that itcatered honestly to the needs ofthe people. He said the meet-ing with the officials of theKNN was quite cordial and hefound that the KNN had a verystrong and hardworking teamwhich would further the pend-ing projects in the times tocome.

He said Kanpur Nagar wasa very big city and it would takesome time for him to becomefamiliar with the city and itsproblems and what could bethe solutions.

He said as the monsoonhad come, every effort wouldbe made to ensure proper civicfacilities. He said he wasinformed that water-loggingwas a perennial problem ofKanpur and thus every effortwould be made to ensure thatit did not happen this mon-soon. He appealed to the offi-cials and the KNN staff toextend full cooperation so thatthe development works couldbe carried out smoothly in thecity.

He said the KNN had donea commendable job in sanitiz-ing the city during the COVID-19 pandemic and said it wouldbe continued and the objectivewould be to keep the city cleanespecially in view of the appre-hended third wave.

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Uttar Pradesh SarafaAssociation has expressed

concern over the governmentmove to bring silver jewelleryunder hallmarking. It hasappealed to the governmentthat when the gold hallmarkingwork is yet unaccomplishedthen adding silver for hall-marking is unjustified. It hasalso appealed to the Centralgovernment to keep the hall-marking of silver jewellery inabeyance till the hallmarkingwork of gold is not finished.The sarafa association mem-bers said assurance had beengiven to them that the silverhallmarking would not bemade mandatory immediatelybut it would certainly be mademandatory at the appropriatetime. Addressing the meetingof the members on Tuesday,Uttar Pradesh SarafaAssociation president MaheshChandra Jain said the issue wasquite complex and should notbe introduced in a haste. He,however, said that it was cer-tainly not justified to add silverjewellery for hallmarking at thisjuncture and added that thatassociation was in touch withthe ministry and would cer-tainly work out an amicablesolution to this vexed issue. Hesaid the current moves oneafter the other were not justi-fied and the governmentshould give enough time tothose in the jewellery business.He said the association was notagainst the rule but it was cer-tainly protesting against themanner in which it was beingforced upon them.

It may be mentioned thatthe Bureau of Indian Standardshas imposed a hallmarkingsystem for silver jewellery soldin India, certifying the purity ofthe metal. Hallmarking certifiesthat the piece of jewellery con-forms to a set of standards laidby the BIS the NationalStandards Organisation ofIndia.

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Overall Covid-19 cases mayhave been showing a

declining trend, but there are 22districts— 7 from Kerala, 5from Manipur, 3 in Meghalayaamong others in the countrywhere an increasing trend incases has been reported in thelast 4 weeks. It is a cause of con-cern, the Union Health Ministrysaid as it warned the public thatthe second Covid wave is stillnot over.

“There has been a consistentdecline in the weekly average inthe COVID cases...But if wecompare the rate of decline incases, from earlier to now, itsdecrease remains the area ofconcern. We’re in talks withstates in this regard,” LavAgarwal, Joint Secretary, UnionHealth Ministry , said at a pressconference here.

He said, “There are still 62

districts in the country whereover 100 cases are reportedevery day. These cases are foundin a localised and limited set ofareas of these districts.”

The rate of decline of caseshas however slowed downwhich is a matter of concern,cautioned the official.

Echoing similar views, NitiAayog member Dr V K Paulpointed out that vaccination isnot a full guarantee and oneshould not take Covid for grant-ed. “No vaccine provides 100%guarantee against reinfection. Allhowever reduce the risk of hos-pitalisation drastically,” he said.

In this connection he citedresurgence of Covid cases world-wide, pointing out that “it is amatter of concern and the pan-demic is not over yet.”

“If we look from a globalperspective, the pandemic isfar from over. There’s a notice-able increase in the number of

cases across the world, whichremains the area of concern.We’ve to work on containing thespread of the virus with strict-ness,” the official said.

At 29,689, India has report-ed less than 30,000 new Covid-

19 cases after 132 days, accord-ing to the government.

The number of active casesin the country also fell below4,00,000 after 124 days, it said.Fresh cases pushed India’s over-all Covid-19 tally to 3,14,40,951,

while the death toll climbed to4,21,382 with 415 daily fatalities,the health ministry said.

The active cases havedeclined to 3,98,100 and nowcomprise 1.27 per cent of thetotal infections.

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The Government on Tuesdayinformed Parliament that a

little over 2 lakh hectare of thecropped area has been damagedso far this year due to hydro-meteorological calamities. Thegovernment also informed thatit is aiming to create a federat-ed National Farmers Databaseusing digitised land recordsthat will help to offer proactiveand personalised services tofarmers.

In a written reply to the LokSabha, Union AgricultureMinister Narendra Singh Tomaron Tuesday informed that 66.55lakh hectare cropped area wasdamaged in 2020-21. However,till July 27 this year, 2.024 lakh

hectare area has been damageddue to hydro-meteorologicalcalamities/ hazards, he said.

The maximum damage wasreported from Gujarat, followedby Kerala, Maharashtra, UttarPradesh, Karnataka, Odisha,and Goa in the said period. Theminister said states undertakerelief measures in the wake ofnatural disasters from the StateDisaster Response Fund (SDRF)already placed at their dispos-al.

“As a first step in this direc-tion, the government hasalready initiated building fed-erated farmers’ database thatwould serve as the core of theenvisaged Agristack,” Tomarsaid in another written reply tothe Lok Sabha.

No private sector compa-nies are involved as far as thebuilding of the Agristack isconcerned. However, leadingTechnology/Agri-tech/startupcompanies were identified andinvited to collaborate with thecentral government to developproof of concepts (PoCs) basedon small portions of data fromthe federated Farmers’ databasefor certain identified areas (dis-trict/village), he added.

In a reply to another ques-tion, Tomar said that the Centrehad approved nearly Rs 700crore towards relief of farmersin flood-hit Maharashtra, evenas Opposition members con-tinued disrupting the lowerchamber for the fifth straightday.

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The UNESCO on Tuesdaysaid Dholavira, a

Harappan-era metropolis, inGujarat, has been inscribed onits World Heritage List,prompting Prime MinisterNarendra Modi to tweet thathe was “absolutely delightedby this news”.

“Dholavira: A HarappanCity, in India, just inscribedon the @UNESCO#WorldHeritage List .Congratulations!” UNESCOtweeted. The ongoing 44thsession of the World HeritageCommittee of the

UNESCO has alreadygiven India a new world her-itage site in the form of theRudreswara/ RamappaTemple in Telangana, which

dates back to the 13th centu-ry.

“Absolutely delighted bythis news. Dholavira was animportant urban centre and isone of our most important

linkages with our past. It is amust visit, especially for thoseinterested in history, cultureand archaeology,” Modi tweet-ed.

“As CM of Gujarat, I had

the opportunity to work onaspects relating to heritageconservation and restorationin Dholavira. Our team alsoworked to create tourism-friendly infrastructure there,”he further said.

Gujarat so far has threeworld heritage sites —Champaner near Pavagadh,Rani ki Vav in Patan and thehistoric city of Ahmedabad.

This session of the WorldHeritage Committee is beingchaired from Fuzhou in Chinaand is being held online. Itstarted on July 16 and willend on July 31.

The 44th session com-bines current work, and issuesleft outstanding since lastyear, when the annual meet-ing was postponed due to

COVID-19.“It gives immense pride to

share with my fellow Indiansthat #Dholavira is now the40th treasure in India to begiven @UNESCO’s WorldHeritage Inscription. Anotherfeather in India’s cap as wenow enter the Super-40 clubfor World Heritage Siteinscriptions,” Culture MinisterG Kishan Reddy said in atweet.

“Today is a proud day forIndia, especially for the peo-ple of Gujarat,” he said. “Since2014, India has added 10 newWorld Heritage sites – onefourth of our total sites. Thisshows PM @arendramodi’ssteadfast commitment inpromoting Indian culture,heritage and the Indian way oflife,” Reddy tweeted.

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New Delhi: Making it clear itwill not take an “elitist view”that no beggars be allowed onthe streets, the Supreme CourtTuesday asked the Centre andDelhi Government to respondto a plea seeking vaccinationand rehabilitation of beggarsand vagabonds in view of theCovid-19 pandemic.

The apex court said beg-ging is a “socio-political prob-lem” and people are com-pelled to beg on the streets toeke out some elementarylivelihood in the absence ofeducation and employment.

A bench of Justices D YChandrachud and M R Shahtold the counsel appearing forthe petitioner that it wouldnot consider one part of theprayer which sought direction

to the authorities to restrainbeggars, vagabonds andhomeless persons from beg-ging at public places or traf-fic junctions.

The bench said it wouldissue notices to the Centreand the Delhi Governmentseeking their responses on theprayer made in the petition

for rehabilitation, vaccina-tion and providing food andshelters to beggars andvagabonds amid the pan-demic.

“As the Supreme Court,we would not want to take anelitist view that no beggarsshould be there on thestreets,” the bench said. PTI

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New Delhi: Observing thatidentification of children whohave become orphans or losta parent either due to Covid-19 or otherwise does notbrook any further delay, theSupreme Court Tuesdaydirected the StateGovernments and UnionTerritories (UTs) to file statusreports giving particularsabout the number of childrenwho have become orphansafter March 2020.

The top court said thereis a need to ensure theschemes meant for orphansreach the real beneficiariesand not just remain on paper.

A Bench comprisingJustices L Nageswara Raoand Aniruddha Bose direct-ed the the DistrictMagistartes to issue necessaryinstructions to the districtchild protection officers totake assistance of the police,civil society, gram panchay-ats, anganwadi and ASHAworkers for identification oforphans.

The apex court said thisis in addition to mechanisms

available in Juvenile Justice(Care and Protection ofChildren) Act, 2015 andrules.

“The identification ofchildren who have lost bothparents or one parent afterMarch 2020 does not brookany further delay,” the benchsaid.

The Bench also clarifiedthat its order covers all chil-dren who became orphansduring this period due toCovid or otherwise.

“What we are thinking isto take care of all childrenwho have been orphanedwhether Covid or not Covid. We cannot restrict theorders passed to onlyorphans who lost both par-ents to COVID-19”, JusticeRao said.

The Bench said District

Magistrates are directed tocontinue uploading the infor-mation on Bal Swaraj portalof National Commission forProtection of Child Rights(NCPCR).

Child welfare commit-tees are directed to com-plete the inquiry within thetime limit specified underAct and provide assistanceand rehabilitation to orphans,the bench added.

“All State Governments,UTs are directed to file sta-tus reports giving particularsgiving the number of chil-dren who have becomeorphan after March 2020.The number of children pro-duced before the child wel-fare committee and theirparticular who have beenprovided with benefits of theschemes by the state govern-ments,” the bench said.

It also directed the statesto provide details regardingpayment of �2,000 mone-tary assistance given to needyorphans under the IntegratedChild Development Servicesscheme. PTI

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Seven Opposition parties havewritten to President Ram

Nath Kovind seeking his inter-vention to direct theGovernment to discuss farmers’issues and Pegasus phone-tap-ping in Parliament.

The decision to knock thedoors of Rashtrapati Bhavantook place after a meeting of theOpposition leaders held in theParliament premises after theadjournment of Lok Sabha andRajya Sabha.

Though the Congress wasalso present in the meeting, thesignatories of the letter are BSP,RLP, SAD, National Conference,CPI, CPI(M) and NCP. Later,the Opposition leaders joinedsenior Congress leaderMallikarjun Kharge for a jointPress conference outside theParliament.

Congress sources said thatthe grand old party did notbecame a signatory to the letterdue to the presence of SADhowever the both political par-ties will continue to fight for theright of farmers in theParliament till justice met.

NCP leader Supriya Sulesaid the seven parties have writ-ten to the President seeking hisintervention to instruct thegovernment to discuss the farm-ers’’ issues and Pegasus snoop-ing in the Parliament.

SAD leader HarsimratBadal, who was a Minister inModi government until sheresigned to protest the contro-versial farm laws, said it is veryunfortunate that farmers havedied while protesting against thethree farm laws but the Centreis not even ready to discuss theirissues.

Addressing the Press con-ference, Kharge said, govern-ment is not interested in ameaningful discussion anddebate.

“This Government doesnot believe in its accountabili-ty to the people of India throughthe Parliament. ThisGovernment has functioned ina manner, which has loweredthe prestige of IndianParliament and Indian democ-racy. What the opposition hasdemanded is fair, correct, with-in the ambit of rules and estab-lished Parliament practice andconventions. When collective-ly, the opposition gives a noticethat matter has to be discussed,

Parliament is not convenedonly for the legislative agenda ofthe Government,” Kharge said.

“We have no option, but tocontinue to agitate and we havecome here all of us together,because what we say inside thehouse, does not reach the peo-ple, it is never telecast.Opposition is being blackedout inside the house, so throughthe media, we want to tell ourpeople, we shall continue thisfight. The government obdurateas it is, we will force them, as ina democratic set up it is done tocome and debate, if the gov-ernment has nothing to hide, letthem start the debate todayitself, the opposition is ready,”said Anand Sharma, DeputyLeader of Opposition in RajyaSabha.

DMK’ Tiruchi Shiva, SPleader Ram Gopal Yadav, CPIleader Binoy Vishwam, TMCleader Sukhendu Shekhar Roy,RJD’s Manoj Jha and AAPleader Sanjay Singh attended themeet.

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The Government on Tuesdaytermed as “ill-informed

and misrepresenting” mediareports that claimed that Indiawill miss the end-July target ofadministering 50 crore Covidvaccine doses and asserted thatover 51.60 crore vaccine doseswill be supplied from Januaryto July 31.

“These reports are ill-informed and have clearlymisrepresented the facts,” theUnion Health Ministry said ina statement here.

The figures of 516 millionvaccine doses might have beenpicked up from varioussources which informed aboutthe likely availability of thevaccine doses from January toJuly-end, it added.

“The facts are that a totalof more than 516 million vac-cine doses will indeed be sup-plied from January 2021 to31st July, 2021,” the ministrysaid.

It added that the vaccinedoses are supplied to the statesin accordance with the

advance allocation plan andthey are informed about it inadvance. The vaccines are sup-plied to the states in variousschedules throughout themonth.

“Therefore, availability of516 million doses till end of aparticular month does notmean that every dose supplied

till that month is going to beconsumed/administered.

“There would be suppliesin the pipeline, which shouldbe available for the next fewdays till the next supplies ofvaccine doses materialize in aparticular state/district/sub-district to keep vaccinationgoing on,” the statement said.

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The Government onTuesday cited a study by

the Armed Forces MedicalCollege (AFMC) during thesecond Covid-19 wave to saythat Covishield gives 93 percent protection against Covid-19 and a 98 per cent mortali-ty reduction.

Addressing a press con-ference, NITI Aayog Member(Health) Dr V K Paul pre-sented findings of the studywhich was conducted on 15

lakh doctors and frontlineworkers.

“Protection to the extent of93 per cent was seen (in peo-ple who were administered theCovishield vaccine) and thiswas during the second wavewhich was driven by the Deltavariant... also 98 per cent mor-tality reduction was seen,” hesaid.

Reiterating the usefulnessof vaccines in battling Covid-19, Paul said inoculationreduces infection but it is nota total guarantee.

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Underlining the time-testedlong-standing defence

between the two countries,India and Russia will take partin the 12th edition of the Indo-Russia Joint Military Exercise(INDRA) at Volgograd city.The 13-day exercise will starton August 1, 2021.

The exercise will entail

conduct of counter terror oper-ations under the UnitedNations mandate by a jointforce against international ter-ror groups.

Giving details of theupcoming event, officials saidhere on Tuesday, 250 person-nel from both the nations willform part of the exercise. TheIndian Army contingent com-prising of a Mechanised

Infantry Battalion underwentrigorous training at differentlocations in India to refinetheir drills for participation inthe joint exercise.

Exercise INDRA-21 willfurther strengthen mutual con-fidence and interoperabilitybetween the Indian andRussian Armies and enablesharing of best practicesbetween the contingents ofboth the countries.

The exercise will be yetanother milestone in strength-ening security cooperation andwill serve to reinforce the long-standing bond of friendshipbetween India and Russia.

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The Lok Sabha on Tuesdaywitnessed 10 adjournments

amid continuous protests byOpposition members over thePegasus snooping row andfarm laws. After beingadjourned nine times, theLower House reassembled at4.30 PM and RajendraAgrawal, who was in the Chair,took up one matter of urgentpublic importance.

However, the Oppositionmembers again trooped intothe Well shouting slogans andcarrying banners.

Meanwhile Congress MPsfrom Punjab Ravneet SinghBittu and Gurjit Singh Aujalasat on a dharna inside the LokSabha chamber after the pro-ceedings of the House wereadjourned for the day. Thedharna was still going on whenthe last report came in. Thisprotest indicates theOpposition is expected to uptheir ante in coming days onPegasus snooping row and

farm laws. The members of Congress,

CPI, CPI(M) and TMC wereprotesting over the Pegasussnooping row, while the BSP, SPand Shiromani Akali Dal wereraising slogans against theCentre’s three new farm laws.Earlier, Speaker Om Birla ledthe members in paying tributesto Anerood Jugnauth, formerpresident of Mauritius, andKenneth David BuchizyaKaunda, the first president ofZambia. The opposition’sprotests started soon after theproceedings began at 11 AM.

Minister of State forParliamentary Affairs ArjunRam Meghwal said by dis-rupting the proceedings, theOpposition is not allowing theministers to do their duty ofreplying to questions.

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The Pegasus issue continuedto rock the Rajya Sabha for

the sixth consecutive day onTuesday. Sloganeering and dis-playing of banners by the agi-tated Opposition and some ofthem trooping into the well ofthe house were the order of theday. It witnessed repeatedadjournments due to disrup-tion.

Rajya Sabha Chairman MVenkaiah Naidu tried to restoreorder when the proceedingscommenced at 11.00 am.However, the Opposition was in no mood torelent and shouted slogans.Naidu said it was “a sorry stateof affairs” before

adjourning the house till 12.00pm.

Similar scenes were seenwhen the house reassembled and despiteDeputy Chairman Harivansh’sappeal, the din continued.

He cautioned that some ofthe members in the well werenot wearing masks and not fol-lowing the Covid protocol.

Deputy leader of the houseMukhtar Abbas Naqvi alsoobjected to the members notwearing masks and said they are posing a health risk tothe Rajya Sabha secretariatofficials.

He also objected to allegedderogatory slogans raisedagainst Prime MinisterNarendra Modi.

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The Union Home Ministryhas sought an extension

for the fifth time till January9 for framing the rules of theCitizenship Amendment Act(CAA), which was passed byParliament in 2019. TheMinistry also said that due tooutbreak of Covid-19 andflood situation, finalisation ofNational Register of Citizens(NRC) in Assam is delayedandthe process of issuingrejection slips has been post-poned.

Replying to the questionfrom Congress MP GauravGogoi, the MoS Home Affairs

Nityanand Rai informed LokSabha on Tuesday that “theCommittees on SubordinateLegislation, Lok Sabha andRajya Sabha have beenrequested to grant furtherextension of t ime upto09.01.2022 to frame the rulesunder the Citizenship(Amendment) Act, 2019,”

This is the fifth extensionsought by the governmentfor framing of these rules.According to the Manual onParliamentary Work, the rulesfor any legislation shouldhave been framed within sixmonths of Presidential assentor seek extension.

The MHA, to a query

from Abdul Khaleque(Congress) on the NRC, saidnine Gazette notifications,the last being on July 31,2019, had been published by the Office of theRegistrar General and theCensus Commissioner.“Several communications andinstructions have been sent tothe State Coordinator ofNational Register of Citizens(NRC), Assam, for complying[with] the orders of Hon’bleSupreme Court with regard to disposal of claimsand objections, publication oflists of inclusions and exclu-sions in NRC, etc.,” said theMinistry.

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CDS actually appeared on thehorizon: His office was preparedin South Block, Guard ofHonour rehearsed by DelhiArea and NDTV announcedAdm Sushil Kumar’s elevation.But between the cup and the lipwas a slip. The Naresh ChandraTask Force in 2013 revived theCDS in its less truculent avatar:Permanent Chairman Chiefs ofStaff Committee. But DefenceMinister AK Antony sat on theproposal. It was not untilChristmas Day 2019 that Modi2.0 Government issued a gazettenotification appointing Rawat as“primus-inter-pares-CDS” —tasking him to implement joint-ness by January 2023. ADepartment of Military Affairswas also created under MoD.Appointing a CDS has been anarticle of faith for the BJP.

Two questions arise fromthe reform process. First, didGoI do the necessary thinkingand research — and who did it— before issuing the gazettenotification? Why were theknown historical IAF insecuri-ties not addressed by the polit-ical authority? Unfortunately,the newly minted DefencePlanning Committee underNSA AK Doval merely issued acharter of work to Rawat with-out the DPC doing any ground-work. Clearly such an epictransformational exercise shouldhave begun by launching anSDSR (Strategic Defence and

Security Review), preferably anIntegrated Review, on the linesthe UK did in March this yearfollowed by enunciating aNational Security Strategy. TheDPC conveniently left the think-ing to CDS, ignoring theinevitable repercussions.

I recall UK DefenceSecretary Michael Heseltineexplaining to me on the back ofan envelope at RCDS London in1984 how he had rewired theCDS system for unification andwhose implementation heordered in the face of revoltfrom Service Chiefs. Thereforms were ordered top-downwithout passing the buck.

Modi had announced theappointment of CDS from RedFort in 2019. The Governmentsimply issued a fiat to CDS onjointness despite knowing oppo-sition to it. This lack of consen-sus (which all militaries havehad to overcome) emergedclumsily last month during aseminar organised by GlobalCounter-Terrorism Council inwhich both Rawat and AirChief Marshal Bhadauria spoke.It was one of the ugliest publicspats between a service chief andCDS, which has triggered an ill-informed debate. The remedi-al measure of an ExpertsCommittee headed by CDSwith Vice Chiefs of single ser-vices for more consultation anddiscussion is a bad idea: themedicine worse than the mala-

dy. The Defence Minister oughtto have intervened and done aHeseltine.

The IAF’s concerns includ-ing integrated use of air powerhave to be addressed, given thatIAF has only 30 fightersquadrons. Appointments ofCDS and CombatantCommanders of otherjoint/integrated/unified com-mands and organisations bemade by merit and not inRobin’s turn. The concepts ofair-land and tri-service battleshave to be revised and updated.Joint Professional MilitaryEducation should becomemandatory for promotion toflag rank. An equivalent of USGoldwater-Nichols Act 1986will ensure jointness to dimin-ish inter-service rivalry. Indiawas a pioneer in integrationthrough Joint Services Wing/National Defence Academy/Defence Services StaffCollege/National DefenceCollege. But long ago, the polit-ical class responsible for defenceof India stopped thinking, leav-ing it to the military to self-reform. The politician isrequired to do and say morethan “giving a befitting reply”.

(The writer, a retired MajorGeneral, was Commander, IPKFSouth, Sri Lanka, and foundermember of the Defence PlanningStaff, currently the IntegratedDefence Staff. The viewsexpressed are personal.)

������������������ � ��Sir — It looks that from Punjab toKarnataka, it is the season of change anda show of assertion by the central leader-ship of political parties to set their housein order, their sights trained on theupcoming elections. The 78-year-old,four-time Chief Minister BS Yediyurappawho had won his current term by engineer-ing defections and toppling the Congress-JDS Government in 2019, has quit .

To date, Yediyurappa and the BJP haveremained synonymous in Karnataka andnow he, despite being the only mass leaderthe BJP had in the State and in the entiresouth, has now resigned. His exit leaves theBJP without an experienced leader to helmthe Government. While the RSS wants tomove away from caste equations by pick-ing national organising secretary BLSanthosh, a Brahmin, many in the State BJPare against ignoring the Lingayat commu-nity that has been the BJP’s mainstay allthese years.

The hard fact is that the party cannotdo without the support of the Lingayatcommunity, particularly its influentialmutt heads. But what is most unfortunateis that the effect of what the seers inKarnataka have said openly has the effectof dividing people on the basis of caste linesand community. If these seers are keen ona life in politics, they should drop the pre-tence of renunciation and contest elections.

JS Acharya | Hyderabad

������������������ �����������Sir — The interstate boundary issue innorth-eastern States is a perennial prob-lem and six personnel of the AssamPolice died at the border with Mizoramwhile defending the constitutional bound-ary of the State. The incident came less thantwo days after Home Minister Amit Shahmet with the northeast CMs to resolve theinterstate boundary disputes.

Border conflicts have occurred inter-mittently since Mizoram was carved outof Assam as a Union Territory in 1972 andgot Statehood in 1987. Six Assam policepersonnel were killed in an exchange of firewith their Mizoram counterparts after the

protracted border row between the twonortheastern States took a violent turn. Theclashes at the border town of Vairengte alsoleft at least 60 persons from Assaminjured. The incident comes less than twodays after Union Home Minister AmitShah held a meeting with the ChiefMinisters of the northeast in Meghalaya’scapital Shillong for resolving the interstateboundary disputes. However, Assam alsoharbours border disputes with ArunachalPradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Krishnan Subramaniam | Ghaziabad

��� ����������������� � � ���Sir — During the election campaign sea-son earlier, the leaders of the DMKaccused the then AIADMK Governmentand its Ministers, including then ChiefMinister E Palaniswami, of rampant cor-ruption. They even submitted a memoran-dum to the Governor seeking actionagainst those “corrupt” leaders. They also

assured the electorate that if elected topower, they would initiate serious actionagainst all the Ministers and officialsfound to be involved in corruption andother malpractices leading to them amass-ing wealth disproportionate to their knownsources of income.

As assured, the DMK Government hascommenced action and the recent raidsconducted by the DVAC at the residenceand more than 20 business places connect-ed to former Transport Minister MRVijayabhaskar are part of the exercisewhich, we believe, is going to be a contin-uing process henceforth. The Governmentthat has started in the right earnest to fixthe corrupt should not succumb to anypressure from any quarters, go ahead withthe raids and investigations and see that thecorrupt get exemplary punishment.

Shalini Gerald | Chennai

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Before the monsoon sessionof Parliament, DefenceMinister Rajnath Singhinvited two former

Defence Ministers for a briefing. Hedid not dirty his hands but askedthe CDS and COAS to brief them.In the UK, it would not happen.Politicians pass the buck to the mil-itary. Expectedly, the Army and AirForce have clashed over the trans-formational reforms underway.CDS Gen Rawat described the IAFas an extension of artillery and acombat support service. Air Chiefshave been kept out of the loop dur-ing the 1965 and 1971 wars, reflect-ing mistrust of IAF which is aboutair power required for “shaping thebattlefield”. But boots on theground are essential.

Rewind: Gulf War I (1991) last-ed 44 days: 38 days of aerial bom-bardment and four-day land offen-sive. In Bosnia (1995), air poweralone won the war in 17 days.Kosovo (1999), air war was 78 dayswith no ground offensive. TheAfghanistan campaign (2001) last-ed 65 days with 11 days of groundoperations. The Iraq war (2003)lasted 21 days of air and land bat-tle. In Sri Lanka, the IAF performedits modest role effectively. The IAF’ssterling performance though wasthe Balakot bombing — political-ly and strategically a turning point,marking the threshold of counter-terrorism response. The omissionin employing IAF in 1962 was partof the political and military fiasco.Still, IAF insecurities arising fromjointness, including rotation ofthree-star slots by merit, have to beaddressed to achieve unification toobviate IAF Chief having to ask theArmy Chief to requisition in writ-ing that air support was requiredduring Kargil.

The CDS traces its history toAdmiral Mountbatten when hesounded Prime Minister Nehruabout its utility. After the 1971 war,Prime Minister Gandhi hadinformed Field Marshal SamManekshaw he would becomeCDS but nothing came of it. TheCDS was resurrected by a 2001GoM containing 100 recommen-dations, most of which were imple-mented except CDS. When anattempt was made to appoint CDS,Air Chief Marshal OP Mehraaccompanied by a posse of formerAir Chiefs met the President andblocked the enterprise. In 2002, a

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The Taliban taking over Kabul orestablishing a parallel regime inAfghanistan will involve the issueof legitimacy via its recognition.

Strongly related to this, the message fromRussia to India is clear, “it’s up to India toanalyse the situation and go ahead accord-ing to the current realities”. The new strate-gic alignment of Pakistan-China-Russia isalready in a process that will have a desta-bilising effect on the countries of South andCentral Asia. With these developments,India might then have to rethink beyond itstraditional strategies.

In this context, the entire debate wouldshift upon India’s decision for the Afghanforces and the strategic developments thatmight follow. India might decide to help theAfghan Air Force with the StrategicPartnership Agreement (2011) being themain guiding principle. The responses canrange from total military support to a mod-erate one or maybe a combination of vari-ous strategies, but certainly, the Indian gov-ernment will not be indifferent because secu-rity is at stake.

Irrespective of the decision that wouldbe taken, certain challenges are coming upfor the government. An increase in cross-border terrorism with new forms of hybridwarfare, a sharp increase in drugs andhuman trafficking, especially affectingPunjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, andMaharashtra, and an increase in the propa-ganda warfare by the adversary working intandem with the existing and the emergingViolent Non-State Actors (VNSA). The fateof Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan is alsoin jeopardy. All these challenges are inter-linked. An India-centric approach is requiredto deal with them.

First, at the diplomatic level, eventhough Russia might look to stand withPakistan, strategic overlaps with Russia canbe used for the furtherance of India’s inter-ests. As we understand that geopolitics is nei-ther black nor white, how well the currentstrategic agreements are used to extractleverages would depend upon the govern-ment apart from the developments that willfollow. India should exercise its strategicleverage with Saudi Arabia and otherIslamic countries to tighten its noosearound Pakistan in the future. The role ofOIC in the coming few days would be ofimmense importance to India. The policyof exposing and isolating Pakistan shouldcontinue at a regional and international level.There can be no better platform than FATFand UNGA.

There is also an opportunity for Indiato reinvigorate its strategic relations with Iranand find new commonalities to cooperate.Iran’s initial euphoria of the US exit may soonend as it might find the Taliban committingatrocities on the Shia minority inAfghanistan. Many hardliner clerics inTehran have still not forgotten the 1998killings of Iranian diplomats.

The upcoming refugee problem in thewake of the establishment of an Islamic emi-rate is going to open up new challenges for

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July 26 happened to be thesecond anniversary ofChief Minister

Yediyurappa’s rule inKarnataka. However, it turnedout to be an occasion for anemotional farewell speechafter he announced his resig-nation. Though BSY, as he isknown in the State, resistedpressures, the high commandhad decided that it was timefor a younger leader to takeover.

Yediyurappa is now 78and well over the party’s pre-scribed age limit of 75 yearsto hold public office. He willnot lead the party in the nextassembly polls in 2023, as hewould be over 80 by then.Karnataka is the southerngateway for the BJP. It hasbecome the third pillar alongwith Congress and JD

(Secular) and Yediyurappahad a big role in that.

Unfortunately, though hecame to power four times, hehas not completed a singleterm. BSY quit reluctantly asthe high command hadworked out his exit planswith minimum damage to theparty.

Incidentally, the RSS, too,wanted a younger leader totake over. Karnataka has pro-duced many important RSSleaders -from RSS chief, thelate K. S. Sudarshan, HVSeshadri to present-day lead-ers like Dattareya Hosbole,B.L. Santosh, and C.R.Mukund.

Yediyurappa has been anasset as well as a liability to theparty. BSY was a shrewdmanipulator who knew howto snatch power from the

opponents, be it the Janata Dalcoalition or Congress. He wasadept at using age-old tricksof defection and lure ofmoney. Even in the 2017polls, the BJP did not get asimple majority. To keep BJPout, the Congress and theJD(S) formed a governmentwith the JD(S) leader H.D.Kumaraswamy as ChiefMinister. Yediyurappa pulleddown this government in2019 and became the chief

minister for the fourth time.Why is Yediyurappa

important for the BJP? First ofall, there is no Lingayat leaderto match him in the state,either in Congress or theJD(S). The BJP also did notdevelop the second rung ofleadership.

Secondly, crucial castepolitics favour him.Lingayats are the State’s sin-gle-most significant com-munity, (17 percent). Of the500 mutts in the state, mostare headed by Lingayats, fol-lowed by Vokkaliga mutts.The community can tilt thebalance in as many as 90-100of the State’s 224 assemblyconstituencies. The seers,who received support finan-cially and otherwise from thechief minister, openly sup-ported BSY.

The Lingayats traditional-ly supported the Congressbut moved away in the seven-ties only to return briefly. Butthey withdrew their supportafter Prime Minister RajivGandhi abruptly sacked pop-ular Lingayat chief ministerVeerendra Patil. In the 1994assembly elections, the com-munity voted againstCongress. This was the timewhen BSY emerged as the faceof the Lingayats. Barring 2013,the BJP always had morethan 30 Liingayat MLAs in theHouse - 32 in 2004, 39 in2008, and 38 in 2018.

Yediyurappa has risenfrom the RSS ranks and beena seven-term MLA between1983 and 2013. He joined theRSS when he was barely 15and cut his political teeth inthe Jana Sangh. A mass leader

who installed the first BJPgovernment in South India in2008, BSY continues to havehis own place in the State,despite the corruptioncharges, nepotism, and voic-es of dissent.

His meteoric rise inKarnataka was checked inthe wake of a land scam thatcost him the chief minister’sjob. He walked out of the BJPin 2012 to float his outfit, theKarnataka Janta Paksha (KJP),which dealt a severe blow tothe BJP in the 2013 assemblyelections.

The return ofYediyurappa consolidated theLingayat vote base again in the2014 general elections. Whiledealing with him, the BJPleadership had to keep this inmind. For the fourth time, hetook over as the chief minis-

ter in July 2019 after engineer-ing defections of 18 MLAsfrom Congress and the JanataDal (S). By then he hadalready crossed 76 years andlike before, was facing corrup-tion and nepotism chargesfrom his party detractors.

With the chief ministerdrumming up support fromthe mighty Lingayat mutts,the BJP cannot ignore BSYbecause holding Karnataka iscritical for the party before the2023 Assembly polls or the2024 General elections.

BSY’s innings may be overbut if the BJP high commandhandles him well, being amass leader, he could stillmobilize the Lingayat votes.His successor has a tough jobahead, taking everyone alongin a state where factionalismalways prevailed.

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Iran. The Taliban have already takencontrol of Islam Qala, a military poston its border with Afghanistan.Here, an opportunity for India isopen. It is through an independentIran policy that India can deepen itsstrategic stronghold. Another geopo-litical twist, a positive one, can be apossibility if pursued. Given the geo-graphical proximity of India to bothAfghanistan and Iran, the dynamicsof the situation are well under-stood. The US has to accept theregion’s geopolitical realities. Historyis full of examples of states havingmultiple allies who probably don’t seeeye to each other.

The role of the UN has to becalled upon as sincere joint effortsare required. India should firstapproach the UNSC and in case ofconflicting interests, the task ofmaintaining normalcy and peaceshould be discussed in the UNGA.Having an understanding that therewould be a lack of unanimity in theUNSC to protect Afghanistan andits people, India cannot let theregion be sucked into chaos andanarchy. For this, sooner or later,India has to take the lead for an“emergency special session” of theUNGA. This session can be calledby India and its allies underResolution 377A (V) that providesfor a ‘Uniting for Peace’. India mustremind the international communi-ty of its primary duty to maintainpeace and security and shouldrequest recommendations to act col-lectively to restore the peace of theregion under a unified command.The UN has provisions in case theUNSC fails to “discharge its respon-sibilities”.

All the international legal issues

such as re-arming and unlawfuldiplomatic recognition to theTaliban, suppression of the humanrights of women, children, and reli-gious minorities, and diversion offundamentalists should be discussedin the UNGA to expose countrieslike Pakistan. This will also set thetone for India’s leadership and theexpansion of the UNSC.Additionally, to secure the lives anddignity of Hindus and Sikhs inAfghanistan, the government maythink of evacuating them at the ear-liest before a full-fledged war breaksout.

Second, at a tactical level, hybridwarfare against India will deepen andbroaden. New weapons and tacticsutilised by the proxy militia will callfor measures that favour coercivepolicies. For instance, the use ofdrones and rockets by terror groupsto avoid casualties in physical attackshas already been initiated. To countersuch an emerging threat, India canexpand the horizons of its ‘offensivedefence’. It may incorporate the pol-icy of ‘deterrence by denial’ throughdisallowing the terrorists to assem-ble and execute attacks against India.Of course, it has its own risk of sub-stantial escalation when states areusing VNSA. The evolving strategiccommunication and the military-civil interface through the media tolet the world know about India’spolitical will, intentions and interestswill surely play an important role.

India should strengthen itsdefence system that is capable ofretaliating to the emerging hybridwarfare techniques that are redraw-ing the battle lines. Turkey andChina are the main suppliers ofdrones to Pakistan. Collaborative

threats either in a proxy war or a mil-itary conflict cannot be ruled out.Here, a two-way approach may beadopted. Apart from strategic pur-chases of anti-drone platforms fromthe allies such as the US, Israel,France, and Germany, long-term col-laboration may be pushed forwardto counter the asymmetric warfare.AI is another thrust area. Forinstance, the US alone has around140 projects based on AI, the knowl-edge of which is available in the pub-lic domain. This can be of immensehelp to the Indian forces.Simultaneously, indigenous R&Din defence manufacturing especial-ly in AI technologies should beboosted for surveillance and tacticalcapabilities.

There are various new areas ofAI that India has not yet explored.These include bio-inspired surveil-lance systems, AI face recognitioncameras in sensitive areas, toolsusing AI algorithms to countercyber-attacks, and overlook securi-ty issues such as indoctrination, saleof narcotics, and small arms throughthe darknet. All these measures willhelp the forces and will ensure effi-ciency in the changing times.However, the focus on AI and othertechnologies should not distract thegovernment from developing newwarfare platforms such as anti-sub-marine warfare capabilities andshort-range tactical weapons todefeat the conventional threats forthere are possibilities for simultane-ous provocations on the border.Given the current scenario and theshifting sands, India has to strive foritself and there is no one better thanIndia to think about the nationalinterests.

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Script Open High Low LTPTATAMOTORS 292.90 297.60 288.70 291.30DRREDDY 5421.00 5445.00 4781.00 4844.35JINDALSTEL 405.20 423.25 405.20 419.95TATASTEEL 1312.10 1335.00 1308.25 1330.50SBIN 424.50 433.15 424.05 429.45HAPPSTMNDS 1364.95 1475.00 1361.40 1427.25IBULHSGFIN 285.80 289.80 275.35 277.25RELIANCE 2079.00 2083.50 2041.20 2054.30DLF 339.50 344.50 328.65 336.95FINOLEXIND 177.70 178.50 173.80 174.75CHOLAFIN 493.70 496.00 481.30 484.10SAIL 131.00 132.00 128.25 129.75TATACOFFEE 220.00 241.60 218.00 235.40PEL 2264.85 2409.50 2264.65 2305.90HINDALCO 401.15 419.60 401.15 417.45BAJFINANCE 6174.00 6324.00 6174.00 6231.20AXISBANK 752.50 756.10 729.50 731.75CAPPL 963.00 1034.00 887.00 907.40IDEA 8.33 8.50 8.31 8.41BAJAJFINSV 13525.35 13843.10 13502.20 13816.05CADILAHC 612.75 622.00 591.00 598.90INDUSINDBK 989.00 994.00 963.35 975.65SANOFI 7996.25 8064.85 7842.00 7959.90TATAPOWER 122.65 123.75 120.25 121.10ASIANPAINT 3084.00 3084.00 3021.20 3027.45BHEL 62.70 63.95 61.25 61.50ADANIENT 1415.00 1423.80 1378.80 1402.20INFY* 1605.00 1608.90 1598.10 1602.60HCLTECH 1002.00 1002.00 983.90 992.80GUJGAS 717.05 724.00 687.60 694.70ASHOKLEY 121.80 123.20 120.85 122.45APLLTD 860.00 868.55 800.00 807.10SBICARD 1017.35 1027.80 1004.35 1015.50IBREALEST 160.95 164.40 148.30 156.20SBILIFE 1095.05 1113.00 1062.85 1105.90MANAPPURAM 195.05 211.45 195.05 209.55LAURUSLABS 653.00 661.10 624.60 632.20LT 1609.05 1618.15 1584.40 1608.20NATIONALUM 84.40 87.90 83.85 87.10GLENMARK 635.00 635.00 585.20 589.30TCS 3204.00 3209.50 3161.00 3183.05JUBLFOOD 3595.00 3705.10 3580.15 3669.00ITC 212.00 213.00 208.00 208.65RAMCOCEM 1130.00 1130.25 1027.35 1060.20ALKYLAMINE 4460.15 4740.00 4448.00 4633.90IRCTC 2328.95 2346.00 2281.20 2295.60WIPRO 589.60 594.60 584.05 591.50INDUSTOWER 225.90 227.40 221.40 223.00UPL 820.00 825.45 806.50 812.50ADANIPORTS 685.00 686.20 660.45 663.30HSCL 53.00 53.05 50.90 51.45JSWSTEEL 714.00 717.90 703.50 710.45BANKBARODA 80.00 81.10 79.25 80.00TITAN 1739.75 1742.00 1713.30 1731.35NAUKRI 5100.00 5209.60 5100.00 5179.35GRANULES 377.85 382.00 362.00 364.90CIPLA 953.70 955.70 909.15 913.20SUNPHARMA 705.00 705.50 673.95 688.00JSWENERGY 241.80 256.00 235.00 251.70CCL 421.00 495.00 421.00 483.70ZENSARTECH 400.00 423.70 396.35 401.30ICICIBANK 681.00 685.60 673.30 677.65NOCIL 267.00 278.05 265.95 270.10AUROPHARMA 957.95 957.95 901.70 905.70PNB 39.50 40.00 39.05 39.15JINDALSAW 133.40 145.20 132.75 142.80VEDL 276.50 276.50 262.55 265.45DEEPAKNI 1935.80 1947.30 1891.25 1905.00APOLLOHOSP 4123.00 4188.45 4050.10 4078.80M&MFIN 147.00 150.40 145.50 148.05IGL 551.90 551.90 542.50 545.75CANBK 147.15 150.50 146.75 148.80BANDHANBNK 299.80 301.70 292.75 295.70EQUITAS 130.55 136.80 128.60 132.25BPCL 457.50 460.30 452.50 453.30INOXLEISUR 307.25 347.50 307.25 320.65GMRINFRA 28.50 28.55 27.85 27.95PFIZER 5668.00 6107.65 5668.00 6006.85IDFCFIRSTB 51.80 51.80 50.50 50.75DIXON 4566.00 4610.00 4419.85 4513.10ULTRACEMCO 7638.00 7676.95 7557.60 7570.05KOTAKBANK 1750.00 1750.95 1695.00 1697.95FEDERALBNK 87.90 88.40 86.10 86.35NAVINFLUOR 3715.10 3779.00 3661.00 3678.90SRTRANSFIN 1377.20 1411.75 1353.50 1365.45GRAPHITE 668.60 698.65 656.50 694.75AMBUJACEM 410.00 413.90 401.55 408.80PHILIPCARB 249.70 258.95 246.20 248.65HDFCBANK 1436.00 1450.00 1436.00 1441.95HDFC 2477.00 2477.00 2431.00 2434.75RBLBANK 198.65 200.80 195.25 196.30HINDCOPPER 151.00 156.00 149.80 152.75HEG 2239.00 2318.90 2229.75 2297.85MFSL 1135.00 1144.85 1115.05 1125.00LUPIN 1173.80 1173.80 1095.15 1111.25JUSTDIAL 970.00 980.45 950.05 955.70BALAMINES 3329.00 3438.70 3280.00 3390.55SUZLON 7.32 7.38 6.92 6.93MOTHERSUMI 232.00 234.35 228.70 230.45RAIN 257.00 263.30 252.15 255.00HAVELLS 1170.00 1177.90 1152.00 1159.65M&M 755.00 759.30 742.65 745.40DIVISLAB 4922.05 4944.85 4671.75 4796.80HEROMOTOCO 2813.00 2825.10 2790.00 2795.25HINDUNILVR 2350.00 2359.00 2331.70 2342.75LALPATHLAB 3560.00 3670.55 3551.00 3614.00DMART 3492.00 3535.00 3465.35 3498.10

BIOCON 396.20 396.20 378.20 379.60ROUTE 2120.00 2212.00 2116.65 2149.15MPHASIS 2599.00 2618.40 2562.75 2596.00ACC 2384.00 2395.00 2357.65 2370.90JSL 156.65 160.95 149.95 155.35GUJALKALI 480.90 493.65 470.95 474.60SUNTV 546.75 560.00 531.80 538.60SPARC 251.80 256.55 239.40 241.70ALLCARGO 189.90 195.60 186.30 191.85SEQUENT 307.50 311.25 292.00 308.95FORTIS 248.00 256.90 246.60 254.80SWSOLAR 274.80 293.90 274.80 290.60JSLHISAR 272.10 283.00 266.45 276.15CHAMBLFERT 318.70 321.85 302.15 305.20ESCORTS 1155.00 1160.35 1135.15 1142.50BEL 185.40 185.40 181.85 183.35L&TFH 88.65 89.00 87.20 88.10WELSPUNIND 127.50 135.00 125.75 134.35LUXIND 4500.00 4500.00 4057.10 4117.00PERSISTENT 3248.00 3248.00 3135.00 3161.20METROPOLIS 2900.05 2984.70 2900.05 2926.55WOCKPHARMA 553.00 558.95 522.00 528.00PVR 1342.00 1376.20 1330.90 1358.90TATAELXSI 4240.00 4240.00 4151.70 4174.15BURGERKING 176.90 179.35 172.55 174.80KPRMILL 1896.50 2086.25 1879.35 2002.25APLAPOLLO 1608.50 1819.30 1603.75 1735.70KPITTECH 310.00 315.90 291.25 293.90EICHERMOT 2570.00 2597.05 2542.55 2570.55TRIDENT 17.25 17.95 17.15 17.95NMDC 175.05 177.55 173.75 174.45TATACONSUM 780.00 787.60 764.30 769.75AARTIDRUGS 728.00 734.00 707.75 719.90IOLCP 696.70 708.55 676.00 683.05TATACHEM 758.00 763.55 739.35 743.55PNCINFRA 320.00 332.00 318.00 322.95TATAMETALI 1285.00 1322.45 1285.00 1295.35MMTC 48.20 53.40 47.70 52.90HDFCLIFE 665.50 674.60 663.30 668.85ABFRL 217.20 224.85 216.95 223.15LICHSGFIN 445.80 448.35 440.60 443.60AARTIIND 896.10 904.65 884.55 897.85LTTS 3482.80 3559.95 3470.15 3502.30MCX 1709.95 1730.50 1658.75 1679.00IEX 444.00 449.55 420.30 429.25MARUTI 7290.70 7321.25 7161.10 7241.45

GLAND 4069.40 4075.00 3835.75 3923.70FORCEMOT 1552.90 1562.20 1512.00 1524.80INDIACEM 197.75 199.30 190.70 193.25BHARTIARTL 544.25 545.65 536.25 540.00GODREJPROP 1545.85 1572.70 1518.95 1534.65FSL 216.95 223.70 213.30 215.05SPICEJET 76.95 77.35 75.60 76.05TTKPRESTIG 9350.00 9530.05 8626.40 9186.15IOC 105.25 105.40 103.25 103.90GODREJCP 982.25 1004.70 970.00 998.50POLYCAB 1861.00 1869.00 1800.00 1803.95CAMS 3240.00 3326.90 3200.00 3227.15NESTLEIND 18000.20 18446.55 17979.25 18238.40GRASIM 1556.80 1562.00 1515.00 1520.95MINDTREE 2734.80 2743.15 2703.45 2720.25BHARATFORG 780.05 786.70 776.40 780.45IOB 24.55 25.35 24.40 24.45TV18BRDCST 37.10 39.05 36.95 37.05CONCOR 662.15 662.25 629.75 641.00HUDCO 46.30 46.50 45.25 45.40FLUOROCHEM 1757.00 1769.00 1638.00 1649.90SHREECEM 28107.10 28455.05 27750.25 27841.20COROMANDEL 920.00 923.30 882.10 886.35ZEEL 204.60 206.35 200.25 200.60WELCORP 147.00 151.30 146.50 149.65BSOFT 407.40 407.40 397.80 403.00ONGC 115.00 115.85 114.05 114.60SRF 7859.65 7862.25 7620.00 7720.00TECHM 1127.00 1130.00 1104.70 1122.20SOUTHBANK 11.00 11.29 10.95 11.00INDIGO 1743.15 1751.50 1691.70 1706.80THYROCARE 1320.00 1320.00 1304.60 1306.85BATAINDIA 1576.10 1591.25 1567.05 1577.00POWERGRID 233.00 234.70 230.80 232.10PIIND 3112.85 3116.30 2981.75 3021.00BIRLACORPN 1506.05 1524.00 1425.15 1480.00STAR 773.00 777.35 748.25 752.95JKLAKSHMI 717.95 729.50 712.50 727.60MUTHOOTFIN 1555.05 1579.15 1537.70 1557.00

NTPC 119.70 119.70 118.15 118.75ISEC 714.10 746.65 714.10 731.65TRENT 892.20 925.30 885.55 910.25AUBANK 1187.25 1201.20 1179.60 1195.50ORIENTELEC 356.70 368.00 355.65 361.95PIDILITIND 2319.70 2325.00 2290.00 2303.90PGHL 5479.95 5540.40 5404.90 5430.00DELTACORP 181.45 181.45 174.50 175.80RCF 83.10 84.65 80.60 80.95JMFINANCIL 107.80 111.80 105.00 108.10TVSMOTOR 582.00 595.50 579.75 581.15TORNTPHARM 3110.00 3121.45 2966.90 3003.75CGCL 524.90 525.75 516.80 525.00VOLTAS 1037.90 1049.00 1018.45 1019.95IIFL 313.00 313.00 287.40 305.25INTELLECT 845.00 858.90 816.45 830.25BAJAJ-AUTO 3848.30 3859.70 3812.65 3812.65AFFLE 4393.00 4395.00 4255.00 4289.00GAIL 141.30 141.95 138.60 139.05MAHINDCIE 270.05 272.95 252.00 267.90GREAVESCOT 169.00 169.00 161.80 163.40VTL 1824.70 2007.05 1824.70 1880.15MRF 81288.55 81384.05 79986.65 80121.00IDBI 38.60 38.65 37.70 38.00BALRAMCHIN 346.00 358.25 342.80 349.95ADANIPOWER 97.80 98.00 94.00 94.95EQUITASBNK 65.60 68.70 64.45 65.80GNFC 375.00 384.80 372.95 376.10BAJAJCON 286.25 290.45 281.50 283.95BRITANNIA 3496.00 3503.90 3437.00 3454.50NAM-INDIA 403.00 403.00 387.00 390.00MOTILALOFS 1086.00 1086.00 1026.45 1036.65SHILPAMED 662.00 662.65 616.00 623.60HINDZINC 326.15 329.65 319.00 320.50ALOKTEXT 24.85 25.60 24.75 24.95CENTURYTEX 711.65 711.65 680.35 682.95HFCL 72.00 73.75 69.60 70.05COALINDIA 144.65 145.25 142.10 142.50PAGEIND 32827.20 33272.65 32344.50 32369.00OFSS 4185.00 4218.00 4120.65 4178.00FINCABLES 515.50 527.00 515.50 522.65ORIENTCEM 152.55 156.25 150.55 152.25ALKEM 3454.00 3498.00 3373.25 3389.50ADANIGREEN 942.00 945.40 902.00 910.70TATACOMM 1349.00 1385.95 1325.00 1351.00BOSCHLTD 15150.00 15166.20 14975.00 15030.30EDELWEISS 91.80 91.80 88.65 89.40IPCALAB 2228.75 2244.00 2147.25 2230.00UCOBANK 13.60 14.35 13.50 13.80SYMPHONY 1021.15 1033.00 985.00 994.00AMBER 3015.05 3062.35 2992.10 3021.00LTI 4352.10 4396.40 4281.00 4346.00GEPIL 339.00 347.70 336.20 338.75EIDPARRY 430.00 439.50 429.45 434.35HDFCAMC 2865.05 2889.95 2825.80 2860.00JKPAPER 221.50 225.45 218.30 223.45CRISIL 3050.00 3060.10 2914.55 2944.40ATGL 911.00 932.90 871.15 923.90RAJESHEXPO 595.00 602.35 588.20 597.00IRB 165.00 170.10 161.35 165.70TORNTPOWER 467.30 469.60 456.05 456.05MRPL 44.80 47.40 44.80 46.35CENTRALBK 24.95 25.50 24.60 24.80J&KBANK 40.25 40.50 38.65 39.05MAHABANK 22.85 23.05 22.15 22.30SYNGENE 630.00 634.60 610.15 614.50UBL 1436.00 1447.40 1415.00 1416.00ABB 1720.00 1780.00 1626.05 1670.55RALLIS 318.05 327.50 313.00 314.50SUNTECK 380.00 382.35 369.00 373.60DABUR 596.85 598.70 587.70 590.25BAJAJELEC 1152.00 1154.30 1115.35 1128.90ASTRAL 2070.95 2074.30 2014.10 2029.00SCHAEFFLER 6887.00 7000.00 6525.05 6650.00CANFINHOME 562.00 568.80 542.50 546.15GMM 4580.00 4644.70 4560.00 4577.50BBTC 1265.60 1302.45 1258.40 1283.70ABCAPITAL 117.80 120.65 117.10 117.15CESC 842.00 849.80 825.10 832.80UNIONBANK 36.05 36.75 35.65 35.95UJJIVAN 238.80 255.05 238.80 240.80SIS 520.20 534.85 510.85 511.00IDFC 56.95 58.15 56.40 57.55RAYMOND 448.40 459.60 441.20 446.50FCONSUMER 8.75 8.79 8.16 8.27NATCOPHARM 1064.90 1069.00 1023.05 1048.00PFC 127.05 128.10 123.60 124.05PETRONET 219.10 219.35 216.30 216.80DCMSHRIRAM 958.00 977.25 923.20 939.50COFORGE 4717.55 4754.10 4688.85 4749.95NCC 88.35 89.25 85.75 86.10DEEPAKFERT 407.00 428.95 403.00 424.00APOLLOTYRE 222.65 225.30 221.20 222.00SUVENPHAR 504.00 510.80 480.90 489.35BALKRISIND 2350.35 2355.85 2305.95 2313.00FRETAIL 62.80 62.80 60.60 60.80MAZDOCK 259.95 261.65 251.40 253.60MARICO 536.10 540.15 531.25 535.35REDINGTON 324.70 324.70 315.35 318.00DCAL 213.00 217.40 205.00 207.95DISHTV 14.38 14.64 14.10 14.22MINDAIND 760.00 770.50 721.55 730.50HINDPETRO 273.00 274.15 268.40 269.10ICICIPRULI 636.25 657.35 636.25 652.10KALPATPOWR 475.00 487.00 458.00 470.00NBCC 49.90 50.55 49.10 49.20ENGINERSIN 76.35 76.40 74.90 75.20HATHWAY 26.15 26.25 25.50 25.80

MAXHEALTH 267.50 284.00 267.50 275.00GICRE 178.00 178.45 174.50 174.70NLCINDIA 57.40 57.80 56.30 56.60DALBHARAT 2224.65 2299.00 2224.65 2253.60STLTECH 301.40 301.40 297.95 298.60MIDHANI 197.55 200.35 189.45 189.95ICICIGI 1468.30 1479.35 1458.10 1472.70KRBL 279.15 280.25 273.00 275.20KEI 716.15 730.00 711.20 713.05

INDHOTEL 147.00 149.25 146.35 148.30JKTYRE 144.80 144.80 140.10 141.05AVANTI 637.35 643.25 633.20 634.90GSPL 346.20 348.25 338.80 343.00BASF 2850.00 2917.95 2808.00 2815.75JAICORPLTD 159.60 160.85 153.00 154.80RVNL 30.45 30.50 29.85 30.20ASHOKA 104.00 104.85 101.05 102.00VAKRANGEE 39.60 39.80 37.30 37.60VAIBHAVGBL 785.00 802.50 780.00 787.60SIEMENS 1984.10 1989.10 1939.65 1942.95SCHNEIDER 126.90 130.10 126.60 127.40UTIAMC 934.80 934.80 919.20 922.40VENKYS 3200.00 3245.00 3090.15 3109.90LEMONTREE 40.70 41.05 39.70 40.00RECLTD 151.00 151.00 145.00 145.30INFIBEAM 46.55 46.60 44.80 45.05EXIDEIND 179.00 179.30 176.15 177.75CUMMINSIND 851.50 863.35 844.00 845.90TIMKEN 1619.35 1624.00 1551.00 1570.00NILKAMAL 2604.75 2642.80 2472.05 2530.00INDIANB 139.00 141.50 136.45 137.25GLAXO 1749.00 1765.95 1657.60 1672.10UFLEX 516.70 526.75 512.60 523.00POLYMED 1035.20 1045.05 980.00 997.25SOBHA 622.50 622.50 582.00 586.75VGUARD 254.00 256.40 250.80 251.90TATAMTRDVR 132.55 136.90 132.45 134.75GHCL 315.20 328.00 314.45 323.90SUDARSCHEM 761.00 769.10 742.40 749.45AEGISLOG 318.75 321.00 310.20 310.60MAHLIFE 727.30 746.25 704.30 738.35GRSE 211.25 212.50 204.75 207.60QUESS 800.00 817.20 800.00 803.00GSFC 121.00 121.50 114.70 116.50ROSSARI 1240.00 1245.30 1222.00 1235.40SKFINDIA 2840.00 3020.00 2840.00 2906.00VIPIND 410.00 410.35 396.30 401.35RADICO 850.80 859.75 820.45 831.45CROMPTON 467.75 474.90 467.75 471.60GODFRYPHLP 1063.05 1084.00 1063.00 1079.95AJANTPHARM 2250.00 2259.90 2216.55 2239.35PRESTIGE 341.90 352.00 333.20 335.95CASTROLIND 143.50 144.40 140.75 141.60CEATLTD 1360.00 1374.85 1330.00 1335.50IRCON 45.00 45.35 44.30 44.70COLPAL 1813.80 1813.80 1789.35 1797.00BERGEPAINT 857.00 857.00 836.10 842.70ATUL 9131.00 9198.00 9040.75 9043.35JBCHEPHARM 1824.00 1825.15 1760.00 1764.30AAVAS 2680.00 2700.00 2572.00 2601.85GODREJAGRO 652.25 662.00 645.00 657.00ERIS 750.25 775.00 750.25 752.80COCHINSHIP 383.00 383.00 370.30 372.30KTKBANK 60.50 60.80 57.55 59.05INDIAMART 7348.95 7348.95 7165.05 7188.75SWANENERGY 142.60 143.35 140.05 141.45SOLARA 1738.35 1761.00 1707.25 1725.45CARBORUNIV 659.40 679.25 659.40 670.35SONATSOFTW 779.75 788.00 760.65 769.00VINATIORGA 1952.00 1965.00 1920.20 1926.25ASTRAZEN 3481.15 3496.60 3450.00 3450.10ADANITRANS 925.65 945.00 891.00 909.95NH 492.60 500.95 491.10 495.40CUB 154.45 154.70 150.60 151.40MAHLOG 604.00 615.35 591.30 608.00KSCL 707.90 714.45 692.90 704.40AMARAJABAT 731.05 731.05 717.50 720.15CYIENT 983.05 1002.25 970.05 987.40ABBOTINDIA 17864.30 18000.00 17841.40 17999.00SHK 165.45 171.20 164.70 168.90IFCI 14.15 14.45 13.80 13.97VMART 3400.00 3420.00 3243.90 3280.10TANLA 953.90 953.90 921.50 925.00SJVN 27.40 28.25 27.20 27.65ITI 127.55 129.00 126.05 126.90LAXMIMACH 7719.10 7849.00 7616.00 7762.75MGL 1145.00 1154.00 1134.00 1136.65HONAUT 43998.90 43998.90 42599.00 42813.25BANKINDIA 72.00 73.00 70.30 70.80HAL 1106.10 1119.25 1086.60 1099.90JYOTHYLAB 174.10 178.15 173.55 175.10BEML 1315.50 1319.40 1300.60 1302.35WHIRLPOOL 2232.10 2240.05 2190.00 2201.80

EIHOTEL 114.90 114.90 112.00 112.35PHOENIXLTD 874.75 875.00 826.15 830.50SUMICHEM 437.60 437.65 423.65 425.20PTC 99.30 99.85 97.60 97.95DBL 576.40 576.40 560.00 560.10HAWKINCOOK 5850.05 5924.00 5802.15 5815.00KANSAINER 623.10 626.15 611.85 616.10GESHIP 370.15 379.75 367.90 369.103MINDIA 24980.00 25000.00 24378.00 24879.05EPL 241.90 243.75 233.05 238.10ZYDUSWELL 2233.90 2238.00 2185.00 2199.80PRSMJOHNSN 142.65 145.80 138.50 140.60SCI 112.10 112.95 110.85 111.55SHOPERSTOP 249.45 251.95 243.75 244.80VBL 758.00 762.70 738.95 743.30NESCO 614.80 614.80 586.15 590.00RHIM 343.50 344.15 333.45 335.00UJJIVANSFB 29.20 29.80 29.00 29.05NHPC 25.85 26.05 25.70 25.90GALAXYSURF 3075.00 3112.75 3052.00 3081.25BAYERCROP 5872.85 5928.75 5753.00 5769.55KEC 426.00 434.15 417.50 421.50SUNDRMFAST 769.50 769.50 739.10 744.90FINEORG 2986.00 2996.75 2931.00 2956.70BDL 405.00 407.05 397.20 404.00EMAMILTD 565.00 565.00 553.45 554.85KNRCON 271.70 277.85 271.10 275.00GPPL 107.40 107.65 104.20 105.80BALMLAWRIE 136.70 137.60 135.30 136.15POWERINDIA 1947.00 1947.00 1901.25 1919.65JKCEMENT 3110.00 3178.40 2990.05 3005.00RELAXO 1199.00 1199.00 1164.70 1173.15MAHSCOOTER 4205.35 4247.00 4082.20 4102.85NETWORK18 49.25 50.35 49.25 50.30ASTERDM 162.00 162.35 156.70 159.15INDOCO 440.00 451.00 436.10 438.60CSBBANK 361.90 361.90 347.00 350.50ADVENZYMES 410.85 412.35 402.00 403.20GODREJIND 555.85 555.85 541.40 542.00MINDACORP 134.35 139.30 134.35 135.15RATNAMANI 2060.25 2097.00 2046.05 2068.95DCBBANK 103.85 104.05 101.55 103.75TCIEXP 1593.45 1621.00 1521.15 1541.50BLUESTARCO 851.00 857.75 835.90 840.00SUPREMEIND 2106.00 2106.00 2092.00 2101.00OBEROIRLTY 702.00 713.55 702.00 705.40BLUEDART 5727.10 5728.75 5594.40 5651.10GRINDWELL 1300.00 1300.00 1230.30 1235.00CHALET 181.00 182.80 175.60 176.60HEIDELBERG 262.50 262.50 256.55 258.00BAJAJHLDNG 3892.35 3914.95 3870.50 3910.00SPANDANA 674.55 676.05 655.00 662.90DHANUKA 1020.80 1020.80 992.00 995.00TIINDIA 1105.05 1108.65 1081.15 1083.00MHRIL 313.95 325.80 310.00 312.50NIACL 167.85 167.85 160.70 161.45FDC 373.50 382.00 367.00 369.45PNBHOUSING 696.00 699.00 666.00 674.00ITDC 395.00 407.00 392.80 397.80GILLETTE 6100.00 6120.10 5945.35 5967.00GARFIBRES 3489.00 3510.90 3410.00 3455.90KAJARIACER 1007.75 1009.95 977.55 988.25RITES 283.20 285.25 277.60 280.15GMDCLTD 66.45 67.95 65.10 65.40TEAMLEASE 3950.00 4018.35 3833.55 3889.90IIFLWAM 1330.00 1335.00 1290.35 1297.25CENTURYPLY 442.90 442.90 427.70 436.95LINDEINDIA 1769.90 1769.90 1705.80 1705.80SOLARINDS 1599.90 1695.00 1599.90 1636.60BRIGADE 326.40 327.50 310.85 319.25VSTIND 3522.00 3557.00 3471.25 3511.15GULFOILLUB 656.65 656.65 644.05 647.50OIL 162.05 162.95 160.15 161.90CREDITACC 656.00 661.75 640.25 661.75PGHH 12665.00 12842.70 12665.00 12829.00SFL 2384.70 2400.00 2339.90 2385.00ENDURANCE 1668.00 1693.20 1624.10 1637.00VRLLOG 310.95 310.95 298.30 300.70STARCEMENT 112.50 112.80 109.45 109.90WABCOINDIA 7070.35 7120.00 7006.05 7107.50JCHAC 2294.95 2294.95 2263.10 2272.20MOIL 180.70 183.15 179.50 182.05WESTLIFE 554.00 554.00 537.80 550.70NAVNETEDUL* 98.70 99.25 96.80 97.00JAMNAAUTO 86.00 86.55 85.00 86.20TATAINVEST 1169.95 1172.00 1143.00 1145.00AIAENG 2019.55 2047.05 1994.00 2020.00GDL 282.00 296.00 276.85 291.80VARROC 341.85 343.60 338.00 340.25CERA 4383.15 4411.00 4340.00 4385.00MASFIN 804.95 811.00 794.50 799.90MAHSEAMLES 311.55 319.80 307.85 309.15TRITURBINE 128.90 130.95 121.75 123.95LAOPALA 278.40 278.40 270.10 272.00KSB 1085.25 1091.65 1061.20 1065.00THERMAX 1426.80 1432.15 1405.90 1409.40JTEKTINDIA 111.50 111.70 108.05 109.35TASTYBIT 18729.10 18822.15 18493.45 18522.00BLISSGVS 113.85 113.85 108.20 109.30AKZOINDIA 2284.10 2285.95 2262.00 2272.00CHOLAHLDNG 646.55 654.00 641.65 648.50RESPONIND 140.00 144.20 130.65 131.55ECLERX 2130.00 2159.95 2088.10 2115.00INDOSTAR 345.35 349.45 338.70 341.40IFBIND 1045.50 1050.70 1020.00 1024.55SHRIRAMCIT 1787.95 1792.80 1723.15 1776.80ESABINDIA 1886.75 1894.50 1845.00 1845.00TCNSBRANDS 592.00 592.25 578.05 582.40

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SCRIP OPEN HIgh LOW LTP CHANGENIFTY 50 15860.50 15881.55 15701.00 15746.45 -78.00HINDALCO 404.00 419.70 403.55 417.35 17.30SBILIFE 1098.00 1113.75 1063.00 1111.00 34.35TATASTEEL 1315.00 1334.50 1308.05 1333.50 35.55BAJAJFINSV 13531.15 13844.95 13503.15 13795.60 270.55SBIN 424.15 433.25 424.00 429.20 5.90BAJFINANCE 6180.00 6327.00 6175.00 6231.10 68.65HDFCLIFE 666.00 674.80 662.90 669.75 6.65JSWSTEEL 709.85 717.90 703.30 709.55 5.00NESTLEIND 18012.00 18449.00 17972.50 18200.00 98.65LT 1610.15 1619.00 1584.25 1605.60 8.00HDFCBANK 1436.10 1449.90 1436.10 1441.50 6.95EICHERMOT 2566.10 2598.00 2542.65 2575.00 11.80TECHM 1120.20 1127.70 1104.05 1123.25 3.05TITAN 1733.00 1742.40 1713.35 1726.95 4.10ONGC 115.35 115.90 114.00 114.70 0.15ICICIBANK 680.15 685.60 673.30 677.50 0.75MARUTI 7241.30 7320.00 7160.85 7243.30 7.50WIPRO 588.90 594.65 584.15 590.35 -0.10HCLTECH 1000.00 1002.20 983.85 993.65 -0.65INFY 1605.00 1609.30 1597.90 1600.10 -3.80TCS 3200.00 3210.00 3161.15 3187.95 -9.60HINDUNILVR 2348.70 2359.45 2332.00 2341.00 -7.70BAJAJ-AUTO 3850.00 3859.00 3812.00 3821.00 -15.35ULTRACEMCO 7625.00 7675.00 7559.00 7585.00 -31.70POWERGRID 233.00 234.85 230.65 231.50 -1.20SHREECEM 28000.00 28473.00 27751.30 27824.00 -144.30NTPC 119.30 119.60 118.20 118.70 -0.65HEROMOTOCO 2821.80 2826.25 2790.50 2794.00 -16.25BPCL 456.00 460.40 452.25 453.00 -3.00BHARTIARTL 545.80 545.80 536.15 540.15 -3.90TATAMOTORS 293.00 297.65 288.60 291.00 -2.15UPL 820.00 825.65 806.15 813.95 -6.00IOC 104.75 105.35 103.25 103.75 -0.90BRITANNIA 3496.00 3504.85 3435.15 3451.75 -30.25M&M 756.00 760.00 742.65 747.20 -7.10INDUSINDBK 989.00 994.00 963.05 971.50 -9.80ASIANPAINT 3079.40 3081.50 3021.30 3028.15 -33.05COALINDIA 144.50 145.25 142.10 142.45 -1.55RELIANCE 2076.80 2083.70 2042.00 2054.00 -22.85ITC 212.00 213.00 207.95 208.80 -2.35TATACONSUM 780.40 788.15 764.00 767.45 -8.90HDFC 2470.90 2474.00 2430.00 2431.20 -33.10GRASIM 1551.20 1564.20 1513.00 1518.50 -31.75KOTAKBANK 1752.00 1753.00 1693.85 1700.15 -40.45SUNPHARMA 705.00 705.70 673.85 686.90 -16.50DIVISLAB 4930.00 4944.75 4669.40 4800.00 -121.15ADANIPORTS 682.80 686.30 660.35 662.35 -20.45AXISBANK 750.50 756.00 729.10 731.65 -24.65CIPLA 952.50 958.50 909.00 917.15 -33.40DRREDDY 5438.00 5444.95 4780.00 4853.20 -558.05

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SCRIP OPEN HIgh LOW LTP CHANGENIFTY NEXT 50 39454.65 39572.20 39007.30 39105.40 -245.90JUBLFOOD 3588.00 3708.10 3580.10 3668.00 108.50GODREJCP 976.05 1004.70 969.10 998.50 21.95PEL 2260.50 2410.00 2260.50 2299.00 46.40NAUKRI 5101.00 5214.35 5100.00 5179.95 94.00ICICIGI 1458.10 1480.25 1457.20 1474.95 19.00DLF 338.00 344.55 328.65 337.00 3.05ICICIPRULI 640.75 657.90 639.30 652.50 5.70PGHH 12765.00 12872.85 12740.00 12872.00 100.30BAJAJHLDNG 3882.00 3917.95 3865.40 3910.00 28.10ABBOTINDIA 17825.05 18006.00 17820.00 17975.00 115.15DMART 3499.00 3533.40 3465.25 3494.55 11.00BOSCHLTD 15033.75 15180.00 14953.55 15022.00 40.70IGL 549.90 551.45 542.35 548.25 1.30MUTHOOTFIN 1566.00 1580.15 1536.15 1560.00 3.20AMBUJACEM 408.85 414.00 401.55 408.80 0.70APOLLOHOSP 4120.90 4189.65 4050.45 4106.50 6.15ADANIENT 1403.90 1424.60 1378.15 1404.00 0.10ACC 2371.00 2395.00 2356.80 2366.25 -2.95HDFCAMC 2874.00 2889.75 2825.00 2864.05 -4.70LTI 4360.00 4398.70 4278.05 4344.00 -7.40HAVELLS 1165.00 1177.65 1151.65 1160.00 -2.30INDUSTOWER 226.50 227.40 221.15 223.50 -0.70MARICO 537.90 540.35 531.50 535.00 -2.00COLPAL 1805.95 1810.00 1788.10 1798.00 -7.95NMDC 175.40 177.60 173.70 174.00 -0.80PIDILITIND 2314.40 2326.50 2289.00 2300.00 -12.80PNB 39.50 40.00 39.05 39.10 -0.25BANDHANBNK 300.00 301.80 292.70 295.80 -1.95BERGEPAINT 851.05 856.00 835.75 843.95 -5.80PETRONET 219.50 219.70 216.25 217.20 -1.65SBICARD 1021.00 1028.40 1005.00 1009.00 -8.25DABUR 597.35 598.80 587.75 589.75 -5.60MRF 80925.00 81319.95 79947.85 80085.00 -832.75ALKEM 3430.00 3497.70 3370.05 3389.00 -38.40CADILAHC 615.00 622.00 591.00 597.50 -8.05UBL 1435.00 1449.00 1412.20 1416.90 -19.25INDIGO 1731.05 1749.70 1691.85 1716.00 -24.30HINDPETRO 274.00 274.30 268.50 269.25 -4.30GAIL 141.85 142.00 138.55 139.10 -2.25SIEMENS 1982.40 1988.65 1936.00 1943.00 -32.65ADANIGREEN 942.20 950.00 905.00 925.45 -16.75YESBANK 13.35 13.40 13.00 13.05 -0.25MCDOWELL-N 657.95 662.00 642.55 644.00 -13.65TORNTPHARM 3096.30 3144.00 2960.20 3011.15 -68.05BIOCON 394.95 394.95 378.00 380.85 -8.65GLAND 4070.00 4078.00 3834.05 3920.00 -99.25VEDL 276.25 276.25 262.50 264.75 -7.35ADANITRANS 920.00 945.00 899.90 901.00 -38.70LUPIN 1169.50 1172.95 1095.20 1115.00 -50.25AUROPHARMA 954.10 956.85 901.20 908.25 -44.55

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As many as 78 foreign com-panies were registered in

the country under the compa-nies law in the last financialyear, according to official data.

In 2019-20, a total of 124foreign companies were regis-tered in India. The count wasat 118 in 2018-19.

The data was provided byMinister of State for CorporateAffairs Rao Inderjit Singh in awritten reply to Rajya Sabha onTuesday.

“Foreign Company isdefined under Section 2 (42) ofthe Companies Act, 2013 (theAct) as any company or bodycorporate incorporated out-side India which (a) has aplace of business in India byitself or through an agent,physically or thorough elec-tronic mode and (b) conductsany business activity in India inany other manner,” the minis-ter said.

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Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) in food processing

sector declined 57 per cent toUSD 393.4 million (around�2,926 crore) in 2020-21 ascompared to the previous year,the government said onTuesday. In a written reply tothe Lok Sabha, Minister ofState for Food ProcessingIndustries Prahlad Singh Patelsaid the FDI policy and data arethe under purview of theDepartment for Promotion ofIndustry and Internal Trade.

“As per extant policy, 100per cent FDI for FPI sector ispermitted under the automat-ic route implying that no priorapproval of the Government orRBI is required. As per theForeign ExchangeManagement Act (FEMA), theIndian recipient company hasto report the inflow of FDI toReserve Bank of India,” he

said. The FDI received by foodprocessing industries (FPI) sec-tor during 2020-21 stood atUSD 393.4 million as againstUSD 904.7 million in the pre-vious year.

During 2018-19, FDI inFPI sector stood at USD 628.24million. Patel said the min-istry has been implementingCentral Sector UmbrellaScheme - Pradhan MantriKisan SAMPADA Yojana(PMKSY) since 2016-17 foroverall growth and develop-ment of the food processingsector, including processing ofagroproducts and thus increas-ing the income of farmers.

The component schemesof PMKSY are -- Mega FoodPark, Integrated Cold Chainand Value AdditionInfrastructure, Creation/Expansion of Food Processing& Preservation Capacities,Infrastructure for Agro-Processing Clusters.

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Increased tax collection in thefirst quarter this fiscal shows

that the economy is on therecovery path, Minister of Statefor Finance Pankaj Chaudharysaid on Tuesday.

Net direct tax collection inthe April-June quarter of thecurrent fiscal is over �2.46lakh crore, as against more than�1.17 lakh crore during thesame period of the previous fis-cal.

“Reasons for increase inthe collections include revivalof economic activities and pos-itive sentiments among tax-payers during this currentfinancial year, leading toincreased income estimatesand higher advance tax pay-ments in the first quarter of theFY 2021-22 as compared to thecorresponding period of FY2020-21,” he said in a writtenreply to the Rajya Sabha.

Net Indirect Tax (GST

and non-GST) revenue collec-tion in the first quarter of FY2021-22 is �3.11 lakh crore, hesaid.

“The increased tax col-lection (Direct & Indirect) asreported in the first quarter ofthe current financial year ascompared to the same periodprevious financial year showsthat the economy is on therecovery path. Higher tax col-lection would enableGovernment in increasing pub-lic expenditure, which wouldhave a positive impact on GDP,”Chaudhary added.

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The International MonetaryFund (IMF) on Tuesday cut

its economic growth forecastfor India to 9.5 per cent for thefiscal year to March 31, 2022 asthe onset of a severe secondCovid-19 wave cut into recov-ery momentum.

This forecast for 2021-22is lower than the 12.5 per centgrowth in GDP that IMF hadprojected in April before thesecond wave took a grip.

For 2022-23, IMF expectseconomic growth of 8.5 percent, larger than the 6.9 percent it had projected in April.

“Growth prospects inIndia have been downgradedfollowing the severe secondCOVID wave during March-May and expected slow recov-ery in confidence from that set-back,” IMF said in its latestWorld Economic Outlook(WEO).

India’s economy is gradu-

ally recovering from a deepcontraction in the fiscal yearended March 31, 2021 (7.3 percent) and a subsequent severesecond wave of COVID-19.

IMF joins a host of glob-al and domestic agencies whichhave cut India’s growth esti-mates for the current fiscal. Lastmonth, S&P Global Ratingsprojected a 9.5 per cent GDPgrowth in the current fiscal and7.8 per cent in 2022-23.

While World Bank seesGDP growth at 8.3 per cent

from April 2021 to March2022, the Asian DevelopmentBank (ADB) last week down-graded India’s economicgrowth forecast to 10 per centfrom 11 per cent estimated inApril.

Another US-based ratingagency Moody’s has projectedIndia clocking 9.3 per centgrowth in the current fiscalending March 2022. For 2021calendar year, Moody’s has cutthe growth estimate sharply to9.6 per cent.

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China’s regulatory crackdown on techcompanies. The 30-share BSE Sensexskidded 273.51 points or 0.52 per centto finish at 52,578.76, while the broad-er NSE Nifty fell 78 points or 0.49 percent to 15,746.45. Dr Reddy’s was the

top loser among the Sensex constituents,plunging 10.44 per cent, after the com-pany reported a 36 per cent decline inconsolidated net profit at �380.4 crorefor the quarter ended June 30, 2021, onaccount of higher expenses.

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Digitisation and growth-ori-ented initiatives have

enabled India to take progres-sive strides, and the govern-ment is focused on policies in

areas like licencing framework,spectrum management andbroadband to strengthen digi-tal infrastructure, a senior DoTofficial said on Tuesday.

Telecom and IT industrieshave achieved a level of matu-

rity and built capabilities forbusiness, technology, innova-tions and an appetite for star-tups, T K Paul, Member(Technology), Department ofTelecom (DoT), said. Speakingat a virtual event organised by

Broadband India Forum (BIF),Paul said, “(The) governmentis looking at a series of policyinitiatives to propel India to thispath of growth of digital infra-structure and the digital econ-omy as a whole”.

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Democrats are launchingtheir investigation into the

January 6 Capitol insurrectionTuesday with a focus on the lawenforcement officers who wereattacked and beaten as therioters broke into the building— an effort to put a human faceon the violence of the day.

The police officers whoare scheduled to testify enduredsome of the worst of the bru-tality. They were punched,trampled, crushed and sprayedwith chemical irritants. Theywere called racial slurs andthreatened with their ownweapons as the mob of then-President Donald Trump's sup-porters overwhelmed them,broke through windows anddoors and interrupted the cer-tification of Democrat JoeBiden's presidential win.

“We're going to tell thisstory from the beginning,” saidMaryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, aDemocrat who sits on the newHouse panel that is investigatingthe attack. “The moral center of

gravity is these officers who puttheir lives on the line for us.”

Testifying will be CapitolPolice officers Harry Dunn andAquilino Gonell andMetropolitan Police officersMichael Fanone and DanielHodges. In previous interviews,Dunn has said that attackersyelled racial slurs and fought himin what resembled hand to handcombat as he held them back.Gonell, an Iraq veteran, detailedsurgery on his foot and injuriesfrom which he struggled torecover. Fanone has describedbeing dragged down the Capitolsteps by rioters who shocked himwith a stun gun and beat him.Hodges was beaten and crushedbetween two doors, and hisbloody face and anguishedscreams were caught on video.

The panel's first hearingcomes as partisan tensions haveonly worsened since the insur-rection, with many Republicansplaying down, or outright deny-ing, the violence that occurredand denouncing theDemocratic-led investigation aspolitically motivated.

Indian Falls (US): It could bedays before officials will be ableto assess the damage done to asmall town by California''slargest wildfire, one of dozensof blazes scorching lands acrossthe US West.

Over the weekend, themassive Dixie Fire roaredthrough the remote NorthernCalifornia community of IndianFalls. The blaze had already lev-elled at least 16 houses and

other structures, but a newdamage estimate wasn''t imme-diately available because flameswere still raging in the moun-tain area on Monday.

“Fire behaviour has beenso unpredictable, it hasn''tbeen safe for inspectors to goin to work,” said MitchMatlow, a fire spokesman.“Until things settle down, wewon''t know the extent ofwhat''s burned.” AP

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The United States servednotice on Monday that it

will keep existing Covid-19travel restrictions on interna-tional travel in place for nowdue to concerns about thesurging infection rate becauseof the delta variant.

It was the latest sign thatthe White House is having torecalibrate its thinking aroundthe coronavirus pandemic asthe more infectious variantsurges across the U.S. And a

substantial chunk of the pop-ulation resists vaccination.

It was also a reversal fromthe sentiment President JoeBiden voiced earlier this monthwhen he said his administrationwas “in the process” of consid-ering how soon the U.S. Couldlift the ban on European travelbound for the U.S. After theissue was raised by GermanChancellor Angela Merkel dur-ing her visit to the White House.

White House press secre-tary Jen Psaki said the restric-tions would continue for now.

“Driven by the delta vari-ant, cases are rising here athome, particularly amongthose who are unvaccinated,and appears likely to continuein the weeks ahead,” she said.

The rising cases also arecausing the administration totake a closer look at policies onwearing masks. On Monday, theDepartment of Veterans Affairsbecame the first first major fed-eral agency to require its healthcare workers to get COVID-19vaccines.

HONG KONG: The first per-son to be tried under HongKong’s sweeping nationalsecurity law was found guiltyof secessionism and terrorismon Tuesday in a ruling close-ly watched for indications ofhow the law will be applied asChina tightens its grip on thecity long known for its free-doms.

Tong Ying-kit was chargedwith inciting secession andterrorism for driving hismotorcycle into a group ofpolice officers last year whilecarrying a flag bearing thebanned protest slogan“Liberate Hong Kong, revolu-tion of our times.” Rightsgroups condemned his convic-tion, and many are bracing forfurther such trials since morethan 100 people have beenarrested under the legislation— part of Beijing’s increasingcrackdown on dissent in HongKong following months ofanti-government protests in2019.

Tong, a 24-year-oldrestaurant worker, pleadednot guilty to the charges, argu-ing the slogan itself does notcall for secession. He nowfaces a maximum sentence oflife imprisonment, but hislawyers are expected to arguefor a lighter punishment at hissentencing hearing Thursday.

The new national securi-ty legislation not only result-ed in the charges against Tong,but it also spelled out how thetrial would be conducted. The

proceedings, which ended July20, were held in the HongKong High Court with nojury, under rules allowing theexception from Hong Kong’scommon law system if statesecrets need to be protected,foreign forces are involved orif the personal safety of jurorsneeds to be protected. Trialsare presided over by judgeshandpicked by Hong Kongleader Carrie Lam.

Reading the verdict,Justice Esther Toh said Tong“committed terrorist activitiescausing or intended to causegrave harm to the society” inpursuit of a political agenda.

His behavior was an act ofviolence aimed at coercingthe central and Hong Konggovernments and intimidatingthe public and carrying the flagconstituted an act of incite-ment to secession, she said.

Tong did not speak duringthe reading of the verdict. Hewaved to his parents and oth-ers in the gallery as he wasescorted from the chamber.

Tong’s defense lawyer hassaid it’s impossible to provethat Tong was inciting seces-sion merely by having used theslogan.

The defense also saidthere is no evidence that Tongcommitted the act deliberate-ly, that he tried to avoid crash-ing into officers and that hisactions couldn’t be consideredterrorism since there was noserious violence or harm tosociety. AP

Berlin: An explosion at an indus-trial park for chemical companiesshook the German city ofLeverkusen on Tuesday, sendinga large black cloud rising into theair. At least 16 people were injuredand five remain missing.

Germany’s Federal Office forCivil Protection and DisasterAssistance classified the explosionas “an extreme threat” and askedresidents to stay inside, turn offventilation systems and keep win-dows and doors closed, Germannews agency DPA reported.

Later on Tuesday, however,the Cologne fire departmenttweeted that measurements ofthe air’s pollution “do not showany kind of abnormality.” Theysaid the smoke had gone down butthat they would continue to mea-sure the air for toxins.

The city of Leverkusen said ina statement that the explosion atthe Chempark site, about 20 kilo-meters (13 miles) north ofCologne on the Rhine river,occurred in storage tanks for sol-vents. It said four people wereseverely injured and 12 less seri-ously. Five people are missing.

Currenta, the company oper-ating the chemical park, said theexplosion happened at 9:40 a.m.at the storage tanks of their wastemanagement center and thendeveloped into a fire.

“Sirens were operated to warnresidents and warning alerts weresent,” Currenta said in the statement.

Police in nearby Cologne saida large number of officers, fire-fighters, helicopters and ambu-lances from across the region hadbeen deployed to the scene. AP

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Four Afghan journalists werearrested by the country's

intelligence service after theyreturned to the city of Kandaharfollowing a reporting trip to aborder area recently taken bythe Taliban, an Afghan pressfreedom group said Tuesday.

The four had travelled toSpin Boldak to interviewTaliban commanders after theinsurgents captured a bordercrossing there with Pakistan. Aspokesman for the InteriorMinistry says the four areaccused of spreading propagan-da for the Taliban.

The Afghan media watch-dog known as Nai said theyreturned home to Kandahar onMonday and were arrested bythe National Directorate forSecurity. Nai says that the jour-nalists' whereabouts onTuesday was not known.

Three of the reporters —Bsimullah Wantandost, QudratSultani and Moheb Obaidi —work for the local radio stationMellat Zhagh. The fourth isSanaullah Siam, a cameramanfor the Xinhua News Agency,the group said.

Taliban spokesmanMohmmad Naeem, with theinsurgents' political office inQatar, condemned the arrest by

the “Afghan administration,"saying the four were only doingtheir job, trying to “follow theevents and try to reveal thefacts." Nai said the arrest wasillegal and demanded the jour-nalists' immediate release.

Later Tuesday, Afghan inte-rior ministry spokesmanMirwais Stanikzai said the fourhave been accused of spreadingenemy propaganda. He insist-ed the Kabul government iscommitted to freedom ofexpression but cautioned itmust abide by the constitutionand the laws of the country.

“Any kind of propagandafor the benefit of terroristsand the enemy as well asagainst the national interest ofAfghanistan, will be counted asa crime,” Stanikzai added.

Reporters work underextremely difficult circumstancesin Afghanistan, and often faceviolence, threats and intimida-tion, preventing them from car-rying out their work properly.

The war-torn nation hasover 2,000 officially registeredmedia outlets. Violence againstjournalists was up 26% in 2020,compared to 2019, according tothe Afghan Journalists SafetyCommittee, which recorded132 threats and acts of violenceagainst journalists and mediaworkers last year.

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President Joe Biden is mak-ing his first visit to an

agency of the US intelligencecommunity, looking to empha-sise his confidence in nationalsecurity leaders after his prede-cessor's incendiary battlesagainst what he often deridedas the “deep state".

Biden is scheduled Tuesdayafternoon to visit the Office ofthe Director of NationalIntelligence, which overseesthe 17 US intelligence organi-sations. The White House saidin a statement that Bidenintends to express “admira-tion for their work and under-score the importance for ournational security of intelli-gence collection and analysisfree from political interfer-ence”.

President Donald Trumpvisited the Central IntelligenceAgency on his first full day inoffice, praising the agencies butalso airing personal grievances.Standing in front of CIA'smemorial wall with stars mark-ing each of the officers who

have died while serving, Trumpsettled scores with the mediaand repeated false claims aboutthe size of his inaugurationcrowd.

The relationship betweenthe intelligence communityand the president "went down-hill from that very day,” saidGlenn Gerstell, who thenserved as general counsel of theNational Security Agency andstepped down last year.

Trump would go throughfour permanent or acting direc-tors of national intelligence infour years and engaged innear-constant fights with theintelligence community.

In particular, he was angryabout its assessment that Russiahad interfered on his behalf inthe 2016 presidential campaignand its role in revealing thatTrump pressured Ukraine toinvestigate Biden, an action thatultimately led to Trump's firstimpeachment. Trump eventu-ally fired the inspector gener-al at the national intelligenceoffice - the internal watchdogwho brought that pressure tolight.

Islamabad: The US and NATOhave promised to pay $ 4 bil-lion a year until 2024 to financeAfghanistan's military andsecurity forces, which are strug-gling to contain an advancingTaliban. Already, the US hasspent nearly $ 89 billion overthe past 20 years to build,equip and train Afghan forces.

Yet America's ownGovernment watchdog saysoversight of the money hasbeen poor, hundreds of mil-lions of dollars have been mis-spent and corruption is rife inthe security apparatus.

Monitoring where thefuture funding goes willbecome virtually impossibleafter August 31, when the lastcoalition troops leave. Here isa look at some of the issues:

US SPENDING SINCE 2001Nearly USD 83 billion has

been spent to build, equip,train and sustain Afghanistan'sNational Defence and SecurityForces, which include the mil-itary, national police and theelite special forces.

That figure covers a widerange of items. For example, theUS spent nearly USD 10 billionfor vehicles and aircraft. Itspent USD 3.75 billion on fuelfor the Afghan militarybetween 2010-2020.

AP

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President Joe Biden said onMonday that the U.S. com-

bat mission in Iraq will con-clude by the end of the year, anannouncement that reflects thereality on the ground morethan a major shift in U.S. pol-icy.

Even before Biden tookoffice, the main U.S. focus hasbeen assisting Iraqi forces, notfighting on their behalf. AndBiden did not say if he plannedto reduce the number of troopsin Iraq, now about 2,500.

The announcement comeson the heels of Biden's decisionto withdraw fully fromAfghanistan nearly 20 yearsafter the U.S. launched that warin response to the Sept. 11,2001, attacks.

Together, the wars inAfghanistan and Iraq haveheavily taxed the U.S. militaryand kept it from devoting moreattention to a rising China,which the Biden administra-tion calls the biggest long-term security challenge.

For years, U.S. troops haveplayed support roles in Iraq and

in neighboring Syria, whichwas the origin of the IslamicState group that swept acrossthe border in 2014 and cap-tured large swaths of Iraqi ter-ritory, prompting the U.S. tosend troops back to Iraq thatyear.

Speaking to reporters dur-ing an Oval Office sessionwith Iraqi Prime MinisterMustafa al-Kadhimi, Bidensaid his administrationremained committed to a part-nership with Iraq — a relation-ship that has been increasing-ly complicated by Iranian-backed Iraqi militia groups.

The militias want all U.S.troops out of Iraq immediate-ly and have periodicallyattacked bases that houseAmerican troops.

Dan Caldwell, a senioradviser to Concerned Veteransfor America, said U.S. troopswill remain at risk.

“Regardless of whethertheir deployment is called acombat mission, U.S. troops willremain under regular attack aslong as they remain in Iraq,”Caldwell said in a statement.

“An American military

presence in Iraq is not neces-sary for our safety and onlyrisks the loss of more Americanlife.”

Biden said the U.S. militarywill continue to assist Iraq in itsfight against the Islamic Stategroup, or ISIS. A joint U.S.-Iraqstatement said the securityrelationship will be focused ontraining, advising and intelli-gence-sharing.

"Our shared fight againstISIS is critical for the stabilityof the region and our countert-errorism operation will contin-ue, even as we shift to this newphase we're going to be talkingabout,” Biden said.

The shift from a U.S. com-bat role to one focused ontraining and advising the Iraqisecurity forces was announcedin April, when a joint U.S.-Iraqistatement said this transitionallowed for the removal fromIraq of any remaining U.S.combat forces on a timetable tobe determined later.

It did not specify whatcombat functions the U.S. wasengaged in then, nor did Bidenget into such specifics onMonday.

New York: The chair of formerPresident Donald Trump's 2017inaugural committee pleadednot guilty on Monday and saidhe was “100 per cent innocent”of charges that he secretly lob-bied the U.S. On behalf of theUnited Arab Emirates.

Tom Barrack, 74, wearinga black mask to protect againstthe coronavirus, appeared inBrooklyn Federal Court forthe first time, days after he wasfreed on $250 million bail fol-lowing his arrest in California.His lawyer entered his plea forhim.

“As you'd expect, the sys-tem is working. I think whatyou'll find is that … overtime, you'll all see that I'm100per cent innocent,"Barrack said as he left thecourthouse.

Prosecutors say Barrackused his multidecade friendshipwith Trump to influence theRepublican's policy, startingwhen Trump was a candidate in2016 and continuing after hewas sworn in as president.

AP

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Over last six decades eight of the 20Chief Ministers of Karnataka hailedfrom the Lingayat community.

The decision to appoint a relative-ly “newcomer” to the party, who is nota hard-core Hindutva leader, is seen asa very pragmatic step that placed faithon a leader who could shift and shuf-fle well in the turbulent and divided BJPState unit with at least 17 formerCongress-JDS MLAs keeping theGovernment afloat.Besides Covid-19,Bommai will need all skills to keep allfactions happy when he forms hisCabinet shortly. Bommai started hispolitical career with the Janata Dal andworked with senior leaders, includingHD Devegowda and RamakrishnaHegde.

He left the Janata Dal (United) andjoined the BJP in 2008 and thus, inter-esting carries a “secular past”.

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It has the maximum membersfrom the ruling BJP.

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey said theagenda of the meeting should be givento the members in advance, but was notgiven and the meeting was held at a timewhen both the Houses are in Session.The agenda of the meeting was toreview of the functioning of the CentralBoard of Film Certification (CBFC) inthe context of the draft Cinematograph(Amendment) Bill, 2021.

“As per rules, confidentiality shouldbe maintained. Agenda became publicbefore the meeting. The agenda shouldbe fixed with the consent of committeemembers. We’ve boycotted the meet,”said BJP MP Zafar Islam. The face-offthe BJP MPs and the Committee chair-man is not new as the two sides havehad several run-ins in the past overFacebook and Twitter issue and 4G con-nection in Jammu & Kashmir.

Meanwhile, the 32-memberParliamentary Standing Committee onIT is scheduled to meet on Wednesday,for which the listed agenda is ‘’Citizens’data security and privacy’’, according toa notification issued by Lok SabhaSecretariat.

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She will also meet leaders of the BSPand the RJD. After her meetings, theWest Bengal CM is also planning to hosta dinner for the leaders, sources addedwithout divulging much detail of thetiming and venue. Mamata met seniorCongress leaders Kamal Nath, AnandSharma, and Abhishek Singhvi and onTuesday.

This is the first of her series of meet-ings with senior political leaders afterher Assembly poll victory in Bengal.

Nath said he had come to congrat-ulate Mamata for her victory in therecent Assembly elections. “The strat-egy for 2024 will be discussed withSonia. Mamata will meet Sonia,” said

Nath.“We have not discussed any strat-

egy. That will be discussed by the leaderof our party. We just discussed the cur-rent situation and the issue of risingprices,” Nath told media when askedabout the meeting.Nath said Mamata’svictory in the Assembly polls has senta message across the country.

Mamata also met another seniorCongress leader Anand Sharma duringwhich Sharma is reported to have toldher that there cannot be a non-BJP frontwithout the Congress as it is a nation-al political party with a pan-Indiapresence. Mamata’s visit is part of herefforts to cobble up a national frontagainst the BJP. Before the 2024 LokSabha elections, Mamata is preparing toplay an important role at the nationallevel. The TMC said their party supre-mo is also to visit Parliament to meetother political leaders.

:11:�-�P�<:�###However, clashes in 1994, 2006,

2018, 2020 and the latest one onMonday at Lailapur, Cachar, between thetwo sides have flared up tensions in thearea. In 1994, tensions escalated inVairengte, 130 km from Aizwal, Capitalof Mizoram, when a skirmish broke outbetween the police personnel of the twoStates, but the crisis was averted with theintervention of the Union HomeMinistry. The North-Eastern Areas(Reorganisation) Act, 1971, provided forthe creation of States of Manipur andTripura and the formation of Meghalaya.The Act also provisioned the formationof the Union Territories of Mizoram andArunachal Pradesh - by the reorganisa-tion of the then existing State of Assam.

Mizoram was originally a part ofundivided Assam. It was first created asa Union Territory in January 1972when it was separated from Assam, andlater acquired statehood in 1987. TheMizo community is the dominant trib-al community inhabiting Mizoram andcovered under the Schedules Tribes.Post-Independence, the border issuebetween Assam and Mizoram has exist-ed for the last 50 years when the UT ofMizoram was formed in 1972.

The Mizoram Peace Accord signedin June 1986, between the Centre andthe Mizo National Front (MNF), endedthe two decades long Mizo insurgency,leading to the grant of statehood toMizoram. However, the boundary issuesthat remained suppressed earlier esca-lated into border disputes after the cre-ation of a separate State of Mizoram.

While Assam recognises the mapand boundary drawn by the Survey ofIndia in 1933, both sides have attributedborder skirmishes to perceptual differ-ences over an imaginary line.

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This will be a big step in breakingthe chain of transmission and alsoreopening schools across the countryamid warnings of a possible third waveof Covid, according to medical frater-nity. Earlier this month, Dr NK Arora,

who heads the National Expert Groupon Vaccines, had said that vaccinationfor children will start by September withthe Zydus vaccine for 12 to 18-year-olds.Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and ZydusCadila’s candidate are testing vaccinesfor children. The results of the Covaxintrials are expected by September, AIIMSchief Randeep Guleria has said.

=���: ���###Addressing a meeting of the BJP’s

Parliamentary party, Modi accused theCongress of not only detailingParliament proceedings but also notallowing other Opposition parties toresolve the impasse in Parliament.

The Congress had not allowed thePrime Minister to introduce his newcouncil of Ministers on July 19 in theLok Sabha when Parliament session hadcommenced.

In this reference the Prime Ministeralso pointed out the Congress’ boycottof last week’s all-party meeting toreview the Covid-19 situation, andsaid the party had also prevented oth-ers from attending.

“Expose this behaviour of theCongress and some Opposition partiesin front of the media and the public”,Modi told MPs in the meeting.

In the last Parliamentary partymeet he had said the Congress is in the“coma” and not being able to digest BJP’spolitical progress. He had than soughtBJP MPs to “expose lies of the Congress”.

Modi also spoke in the meetingabout the “Azadi Amrit Mahotsav”launched by the Union Government tomark the 75 years of India’sIndependence and sought their activeparticipation and not reducing it to a“sarkari event”.

Reflecting Modi’s ideas, JP Naddaasked party MPs to ensure that CentralGovernment schemes reach the pubicaffected by the Civid-19 and spread vac-cine awareness among people.

The BJP has been trying to limit thepolitical damage done by the April-Maysecond-killer-wave of the Covid-19and asking all its leaders to play a pro-active role on vaccination and infra-structure building ahead of the antici-pated third-wave of the pandemic in thecountry in August -September.

Meanwhile, seven Opposition par-ties have written to President Ram NathKovind seeking his intervention todirect the Government to discuss farm-ers’ issues and Pegasus phone-tappingin Parliament.

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The authors highlighted thatalthough the clinical implications ofwaning antibody levels are not yet clear,some decline was expected and currentresearch shows that vaccines remaineffective against severe disease.

For Pfizer, antibody levels declinedfrom a median of 7,506 units per mil-lilitre (U/mL) at 2141 days, to 3320U/mL on 70 or more days.

For the AstraZeneca vaccine, anti-body levels were reduced from a medi-

an of 1201 U/mL at 020 days to 190U/mL at 70 or more days, over a five-fold reduction.

“When we are thinking about whoshould be prioritised for booster doses,our data suggests that those vaccinat-ed earliest, particularly with theAstraZeneca vaccine, are likely to nowhave the lowest antibody levels,” saidProfessor Rob Aldridge from UCLInstitute of Health Informatics.

The researchers said that the find-ings also supported recommendationsthat adults who are clinically vulnera-ble, those aged 70 years or over, and allresidents of care homes for older adultsshould be prioritised for booster doses.

��,�� (�6�N�4�###It was a tremendous fightback after

a loss that could have easily scarredthem for the entire Games.

Instead, India produced a spiritedperformance against world No.9 Spainand scored through Simranjeet Singh(14th minute) and Rupinder Pal Singh(15th and 51st) to record a comfortablewin in their third Pool A match at theOi Hockey Stadium.

Any talk of fight by an Indian inthese Games would be incompletewithout the table tennis veteran ASharath Kamal. The 39-year-old took agame off the reigning Olympic andWorld champion Ma Long of China.

It wasn’t enough to fetch him a vic-tory as he bowed out in the men’s sin-gles third round but it did show thetremendous athlete that Sharath hasbeen for several years.

In the boxing ring, Assamese debu-tant Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) dis-played what a calm mind can achieve.Borgohain, the lone Indian boxer inaction on the day, prevailed 3-2 overGerman veteran Nadine Apetz in aclosely-fought last-16 stage bout.Borgohain’s rival was 12 years hersenior but both the boxers were mak-ing their Games debut.

The Indian became the first fromher nine-strong team to make thequarterfinal stage. The 23-year-oldshowed great poise in a tense contest totriumph by the thinnest of margins. Sheclaimed all the three rounds on splitpoints. Indian sailors Vishnu Saravananand Nethra Kumanan finished waybehind the leaders as they ended at 22ndand 33rd spot in the respective eventsafter six races.

The Indian tennis team’s campaignended as Sania Mirza and Sumit Nagalcould not make the cut for the mixeddoubles event due to their low com-bined ranking of 153.

In badminton, it was tough luck forthe debutant pairing of Chirag Shettyand Satwiksairaj Rankireddy in themen’s doubles. They emerged victoriousagainst the England pair of Ben Laneand Sean Vendy in their final Group Amatch but still missed out on qualify-ing for the quarterfinals.

Ranked 10th in the world, theIndians beat world the number 18 team21-17 21-19 in a 44-minute match at theMusashino Forest Plaza.

The strain of COVID-19 hasimpacted our lifestyle in manyways — learning, working, and

traveling have all been hindered. Asthe promise of a swift recovery wanes,most institutions across India areadopting an online mode of teaching.Most workplaces continue to employphygital models of working, whereassome organisations have allowed theiremployees to work remotely. It wouldbe an understatement to say that thepandemic has changed how academiaand businesses operate!

Amidst all this doom and gloom,let’s focus on the bright side.Technology is constantly evolvingand automation is catching up in mostof the industries across the globe. Onone hand, the vaccination drive isgaining momentum, on the other, theinfection positivity rate is going downdrastically.

India still has one of the youngestpopulations in the world, putting it ina unique sweet spot wherein theworking-age population is more thannon-working age. Leveraging thedemographic dividend and adoptionof digital technologies has put us in aprime position to embark on a jour-ney of rapid growth.

As more and more students jointhe workforce, the one question thatthreatens to derail us from our jour-ney is “Are India’s graduates employ-able?” “Do they have the relevant skillsrequired by the industry?”

Traditionally, educational insti-tutions have laid greater emphasis onthe academic and theoretical devel-opment of students, leaving a long-

lasting effect in terms of a lack ofdevelopment of employable skillsincluding core technical skills, com-munication skills, and other workplaceskills.

Graduate-level curriculum inIndia, in particular, does not empha-size on behavioural and soft skills. Agraduate who has finished his/hercourse and may have secured anexcellent academic rank might stilllack oratory skills, knack for presen-tation, motivation, problem-solving,and critical thinking skills.

This has also been highlighted inthe India Skills 2021 report publishedby Wheebox in association with CII.As per the report, only 45.9 per centof graduates in India are found unem-ployable.

Having the right mix of hard andsoft skills is important for a success-ful career. Today, employers valueattributes such as integrity, reliabili-ty, teamwork, and a positive attitudeas much as core technical skills in can-didates. In most organisations, theresponsibilities and KPIs defined forjob roles, require an employee to workwith different stakeholders acrossfunctions. While many of these skillsare learned on the job, there are cer-tain skills everyone should learnbefore starting their careers.

Investing in continuous learningand upskilling is essential for one tobe productive, innovative, and mar-ketable in today’s recessionary jobmarket.

The importance of making a con-scious learning effort to possess theright attitude, upskilling to tap indus-

try demand, and re-skilling further tostay relevant in the job is immense,given further the demand-supplymismatch. In India, the number ofstudents applying for a job out-weighsthe number of open positions by a fac-tor of 10x.

Upskilling to differentiate yourselffrom your peers is as necessary forsustenance as securing basic educationqualifications and degrees, if notmore.

One may then wonder, how toevaluate one’s own skills and knowwhat is required by the recruiters. Arethere some easy ways to do it?

One way to find one’s level ofemployability skills is by taking the jobfitment and aptitude tests available onthe internet. Most of these goodassessments give you a detailed reportof your skill index and areas ofimprovement, if one selects theanswers honestly. These self-assess-ments help the test taker in making aninformed decision about the rightcareer path she/he wants to pursue. Awell-structured job-fitment test acts asa career guidance and providesinsights to the test takers about theirstrengths and unique skill sets.

Another way is to study the jobdescriptions available on job portals.A well-defined job description lists theknowledge, skills, and attributesrequired to perform the job. Find thejob description of the role one wantsto take up, make a list of topics, skills,and attributes required and thenanalyse where one stands. This willhelp the students to focus on the skillsand attributes they need to work on.

So, what do the students need todo to upskill and re-skill in order tostay ahead in the race?

First, try to find the area of inter-est and find out the niche in whichone wants to make a career. Second,join several online industry-orientedcertificate courses to learn the latesttechnologies and industry best prac-tices. Thirdly, apply for internships incompanies that are in the industrywhere you finally want to land up.Fourth, make a good LinkedIn pro-file, connect with industry practi-tioners, follow the best minds in theindustry, watch out for what they aretalking about, participate in online dis-cussions, and write articles and postthem. Fifth, subscribe to podcasts,vodcasts, newsletters, to stay updatedabout the industry and professions,and finally, find a good mentor whocan guide you throughout your career.

Once you start working, makesure you don’t lose out on learning. Asyou spend more time in the role, youstart realising what skills, knowledgeand attributes are required to grow inthat path.

At that junction, make a list ofadditional skills you need to buildyourself, and work on them con-sciously. Join training programs avail-able in your company, and focus ongaining skills for particular job func-tions or roles. These programmeswithin the companies have well-defined learning outcomes to beachieved in a specified time period,and are designed to give the traineesa head start in their job profiles.

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Studying in a great university abroadis no longer just a fad, or somethingreserved for those with deep pock-

ets. Thanks to the growing appeal of aglobal career and lifestyle, the increasedspending power of the middle class andthe boom in student financing options.

The pandemic doesn’t seem to haveslowed India from becoming the secondlargest country to send international stu-dents to various countries abroad.According to a release by Common Appin January 2020, the number of interna-tional student applicants were up by 10per cent (of which Indian applicants wereup by 28 per cent) as compared to 2019-2020 levels.

So how are all these students fundingtheir study abroad dream? Betweentuition fees, accommodation, living andtravel expenses, the whole thing can betwice as expensive as planning an Indianwedding!

Self-financing: According to open-doorsdata.org, more than 85 per cent ofthe total international students choose tobootstrap their education abroad. Somestudents choose to dip into family savingsand assets to fund their education, at leastpartially and cover the rest throughscholarships and part-time work. But thisleaves the whole family at risk without aPlan B.

Secured/collateral-based educationloan: Many banks, both public and pri-

vate, and NBFCs offer education loansagainst a collateral of a certain value likea house/land etc. This is a systematic andstructured approach and has many advan-tages such as tax saving benefits. The loanrepayment usually kicks in six monthsafter the degree is completed, irrespectiveof whether you have a job or not, andmust be completed within seven years offinishing the degree. So, this is a factorthat students must consider before sign-ing up for one.

The difference between banks andNBFCs is that banks usually cover about85-90 per cent of expenses such as tuitionfees, lodging, travel, lab fees etc, where-as NBFCs offer 100 per cent Cost ofAttendance (CoA) coverage. Similarly,banks may also have an upper limit on thesanctioned loan amount for large amountssuch as over �20-�30 lakh, depending onthe course and university you select.NBFCs have no such cap on loan amount.However, banks may also offer conces-sions on interest rates for women, whichNBFCs don’t.

Unsecured/collateral-free educationloan: Another option is to opt for unse-cured education loans offered by manyfinancial institutions that require no col-lateral. This is given based on yourfinancial status, for example, your cred-it score. However, since this is riskier tothe lender, it may be more tedious andexpensive as you may be charged a high-

er interest rate for the same loan amount.Students may also not get any favourablerepayment terms for the same reason.Many banks and NBFCs require you topay interest while you study.

International financial institutions:A trending option among students is edu-cational loans from international finan-cial institutions. They may provide loanamounts in foreign currency with orwithout a cosigner/collateral. They cal-culate interest rates based on the loanapplicant's future repayment potentialrather than historic data, and hence canalso provide lower interest rates thanbanks or NBFCs.

SIP: This option depends on howearly you start and is more suitable forworking professionals rather than studentswho wish to pursue their postgraduatestudies.

A systematic investment plan or a SIPis a great way to both invest and save forsalaried professionals. The frequency ofinvestment is based on the discretion ofthe candidate to allow them a flexibleapproach. SIPs have gained a lot of trac-tion over the years in the field of financ-ing the educational endeavours of post-graduate students.

The key to remember is that everystudent is different. So, it is important toweigh the pros and cons of each optionbefore proceeding further.

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When one hears of someonevolunteering in the social

sector, the immediate reaction isto always congratulate the indi-vidual on choosing to give backto society, on being a change-maker. However, when the sameindividual announces a full-time job in the social sector, thisnews is met with hesitation, trep-idation and sometimes evenrebuke and criticism. Whatcauses this sudden change inperception, and is this shift val-idated?

Unfortunately, there are sev-eral myths associated with thesocial sector that set it in a badlight not just for donors, partnerorganisations but also for thoselooking to make a career insocial work. Some of thesemyths are that there is no growthin this sector, it is a waste of time,there are no returns, the moneyis negligible and the work isdreary. However, if one does takeout the time to talk to someonewho has worked in this sectorfor a while, they are sure to geta clearer picture of what the sec-tor actually comprises of, andwhat actually lies in store forthose who want to enter theworld of social work.

One of the prevalentassumptions is that there is noadvancement in the social sec-tor, that it is an area worth

investing only a small amount oftime in order to boost resumes.However, there is immensepotential to develop and evolvein the social sector. It offers spaceto grow not just professionallybut personally as well, for you getthe best of both worlds- deskjobs as well as field work.Further, this sector itself isalways growing, taking intoaccount the varied requirementsof beneficiaries across demo-graphics. Since the sector itselfis never stagnant, growth always

accompanies it.Several people also assume

that there are no exciting oppor-tunities available to social work-ers. However, the sector isextremely dynamic purely basedon the fact that the work isdirectly related to people inneed. Since humans themselvescan’t possibly be put into blackand white categories, the worktoo has to adapt itself to situa-tions and the issues it brings up.Each day brings with itself newchallenges, and new opportuni-

ties to bring about change. Notwo days are the same whileworking in the social sector,making it a vibrant and livelyprofessional sector.

What seems to be the mostpressing and overarching mythrelated to working in the socialsector is that there is no adequaterecompense or rewards, thatthere is no money for a socialworker. While it is true that mostNGOs cannot offer salary brack-ets that are possible at a corpo-rate job, this does not mean thatthe salaries are meagre. Further,International NGOs haveextremely attractive pay pack-ages, and these come with sev-eral perks as well. Depending onqualifications, the returns can beextremely rewarding. Of course,what makes the work even morefulfilling are the blessings onereceives from the beneficiaries,something that no amount ofmoney can ever give.

The social sector is as enter-prising, as exciting, and asrewarding as any other profes-sional sphere. The myths sur-rounding this sector are exact-ly that- baseless. The world isyour oyster when it comes tosocial work. No matter how youengage with it, it always givesback multifold.

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The signing ceremony ofthe Memorandum of

Understanding (MoU)between Entuple Technologiesand the School of Electronicsand Engineering, VIT-APUniversity was held virtuallyon the July 22, 2021.

Dr S V Kota Reddy, Vice-Chancellor, VIT-AP Universityafter signing the MoU withEntuple Technologies, saidtheir aim is to impart skill andcapabilities to the students inVLSI and RF Communicationtechnologies and enable them

to build their career in thisemerging field. This will alsoprovide an opportunity to thestudents, scholars, and facultymembers to carry out researchand to develop several

advanced applications usingVLSI and RF Technologies.

Further, EntupleTechnologies will provideinternships and job opportu-nities to selected students.

Mehta SD D, Director-sales, Entuple Technologiessaid that with this collabora-tion can conduct freeWebinar/workshop, FacultyDevelopment Program (FDP),Short Term TrainingPrograms (STTP), Trainingcum Internship Program,Career Builder Programs inassociation with Entuple tech-nologies. These programs areaimed at providing industryskills in campus and boostcompetency and employabil-ity of students.

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Department of PhysicalEducation and Sports

Science at SRM Institue ofScience and Technology(SRMIST), Kattankulathurorganised the ‘VolleyballAchievers Award 2021’ andhonoured eight of its studentsfor getting placed inGovernment and private jobs.Of this, four girls have beenselected to Indian Railwaysunder the sports quota.

The chief guest for theevent was SRMIST’s DeputyRegistrar and Director (Instituteof Hotel Management) DrAntony Ashok Kumar.

The special guests for theevent were SRMIST’s Director

(Career Centre) N VenkataSastry, Associate DirectorCampus Life & Ladies Hostel

Dr E Poovammal andManaging Director Sri VinayagaTimbers, Tambaram T

Purushothaman. A documentary on the

Women’s Volleyball Journey2020-21 was released on theoccasion.

Volleyball women’s teamcoach Om Prakash elaboratedon how the students are trained,how their diets are monitored,their workout sessions, and soon.

T Purushothaman who hasbeen a patron of the sportswished the team many morelaurels in the upcoming tour-naments.

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��#���7����G����������Sanskriti University,

Mathura invites online appli-cations for admission todiploma, under graduate, andpost graduate programmes inEngineering, Management &Commerce, Education, SpecialEducation, Humanities &Social Sciences, Pharmacy,Agriculture, FashionDesigning, Law and LegalStudies, Yoga andNaturopathy, Tourism & HotelManagement, Medical &Allied Sciences, Basic &Applied Sciences, Ayurveda,Unani, and Nursing courses.

Eligibility: Applicationsare open to applicants whohave passed or will appear forthe qualifying examinationsunder the higher secondary(Class XII) from any recog-nised Board of Education suchas AISSCE/IB/ICSE/CBSE, orequivalents. For Admissionto diploma programmes,Students are required to havepassed the Class X examina-tion from any state or centralboard like CBSE/ICSE.

How to apply: Applicantsseeking admission arerequired to fill an online appli-cation form availableonwww.sanskriti.edu.in. Thesubmission of the ApplicationForm can be done online orin-person at the University bydepositing �1000. For onlinesubmission, visit thislink:https://www.sanskriti.edu.in/register. The admission prereq-uisites will be in accordancewith the various regulatorybodies as amended from timeto time.

Last date to apply: July 31,2021.

0���G�����������Lakshya Bhartee Institute

of International Hotel man-agement, Delhi invites appli-cations for admission to itsthree years BSc programme inHotel management and twoyears MSc programme inHotel management.

Eligibility: For BSc inHM applicants must have

p a s s e dClass XII from a recognisedcentral/ state board or from arecognised university and forMSc in HM Applicants mustcompleted graduation from arecognised university.

How to Apply: Admissionforms can be purchased fromadmission office of LBIIHM,Pitampura, Delhi or can applyonline by visitwww.lbiihm.com.

Last date to apply: July 30,2021.

���������������Delhi College of fire and

safety Engineering invitesapplications for admissionsto its one year certificatecourse in Fire Technology &Industrial SafetyManagement, one year sixmonths course in health safe-ty environment and six monthcertificate course in fire fight-ing.

The study of this pro-gramme is incorporated totrain candidates to gainknowledge about the preven-tive measures to be appliedduring times of emergency.

Eligibility: This full timediploma course has beenthoughtfully designed forthose who have recentlypassed Class X or Class XIIfrom any recognised boardand want to work in fire &Safety management industrycan enroll for these courses.

How to apply: To applyplease visit www.dcfse.com orthe application formsbrochure may be obtainedfrom admission office of DelhiCollege of fire and safetyEngineering, Mundka, Newdelhi-110041.

Last date to apply: July30, 2021.

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The Common Admission Test(CAT) is a national-level exam-ination conducted by The Indian

Institute of Management (IIM). It is amandatory exam for seeking admissioninto IIM or other prestigious B-schools.More than half of the candidatesappearing for CAT have an engineer-ing background. This makes the com-petition quite serious. Here are somemust-follow tips for engineers.

Work hard for the VARC section:The VARC section is a big hurdle forthe Engineering students as they do notfocus much on the English language asa subject during their graduation. But,if studied well this section will nottrouble you much.

Master the DILR section: Theonly way to score well in this sectionis to practice as much as possible. Thissection can be solved using varioustricks which you will know when andhow to apply only when you havesolved enough problems. This sectionis quite easy once you know the tech-niques.

Improve your calculations:Calculations are an extremely impor-tant factor in solving both theQuantitative Ability section. Improveyour accuracy and try achieving theright answers in the first attempt tosave maximum time. Practice solvingmentally instead of using a virtual cal-culator. You will see a difference inyour calculations if you practice reli-giously.

Get a complete idea about the sec-tions: You need to have the maximumidea about all the sections. Make sureyou know everything like the numberof questions in each section, marksallocated to the sections, topics coveredin the sections, the marking scheme,etc. Knowing all of this will make theprocess ahead easier and less complex.

Avoid rote learning: Mugging upwill land you in trouble. One shouldfocus on concepts and understandthem thoroughly. It is not at all advis-able to choose to mug-up technique.Understanding the whole concepthelps one to remember things for alonger period and on the other sidemugging up never stays for a longerperiod.

Practice makes perfect: No mat-ter how good or bad you are at the top-ics, one thing that can make you score

well in CAT is practicing. You need tokeep practicing the questions regular-ly. Buy enough practice material andmake sure you solve most of it. Makesure you know most of the concepts.Practicing every day will be of extremehelp. Solve all the previous years’question papers and the available sam-ple papers. Solve mock tests to be evencloser to being perfect.

Do not start preparing at the lastminute: Start studying well in advance.Starting from the beginning will notpile up all the work. You can study atyour own pace and understand con-cepts properly. This will result in hav-ing a lot of time for preparation. If youstart preparing at the last moment thenyou will have a chance of not coveringthe entire syllabus. You will have to fin-ish the entire syllabus in a few dayswhich may result in creating confusion.

Do not prepare without a plan:You need to have a plan. You need tomake a timetable of how you will bestudying and how much syllabus youwill complete within a day. Also, makesure you decide how much you willpractice each day after finishing upwith the portion. Make strategies onhow you will appear for the paper.Make daily targets and work hard tocomplete them.

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The Griffith Universityis offering RTPInternational Fee

Offset Scholarships for inter-national students.Scholarships fully cover theHDR me tuition fees.

Eligibility: Applicantmust: Not be a domestic stu-dent, as defined as being a stu-dent who is an Australian cit-izen or an Australian perma-nent resident or holder of anAustralian PermanentHumanitarian visa or a NewZealand citizen and be com-mencing or enrolled in HDRprogramme. Not be awardedto a candidate who is inreceipt of an equivalent awardor scholarship from theCommonwealth Governmentdesigned to offset HDR pro-gramme tuition fees.

Admission requirement:Must have previous degree.

Language requirement:Applicants whose first lan-guage is not English are usu-ally required to provide evi-dence of proficiency inEnglish at the higher levelrequired by the University.

How to apply: New appli-cants must follow the processfor submitting an online appli-cation. Visit: https://www.grif-f i t h . e d u . a u / r e s e a r c h -study/apply

Application deadline:The last date to apply for this

is September 28, 2021.

Applications are invitedfor the need-based aid offeredby the Case Western ReserveUniversity for internationalstudents for the academicyear 2021-2022.

Eligibility: Applicants canapply to study any bachelor ormaster degree programmeoffered at Case. Applicantsmust meet all the follow-ing/given criteria: Be interna-tional first-year or transfer stu-dents enrolled in a pro-gramme at Case.

Supporting documents:The students are required topresent the following docu-ments to the university:

High school resultsAdmission essayAdmission require-

ments: The applicants musthave completed high schoolgraduation to be accepted inany programme at Case.

Language requirement:The applicants are required toattain minimum scores inEnglish language proficiencytests.

How to apply: The stu-dents are required to submittheir application via theCommon Application orCoalition Application. Theapplicants are required tohave set up a CSS profile andapply for the opportunitythrough the same.

Application deadline:The last date to apply for thisscholarship is November 30,2021.

The present pandemic hasbrought the entire world toits knees and the whole

world has observed the adversecatastrophe of this global pan-demic. As the healthcare sectoracross the globe is growing, it hasopened great career opportunitiesto thousands of students of phar-maceutical science because the rateof growth of the pharmaceuticalsector is interlinked and is direct-ly proportional to the growth ofthe healthcare sector.

According to IBEF, Indianpharmaceutical sector suppliesover 50 per cent of global demandfor various vaccines and states thatwe are the largest provider ofgeneric drugs globally.

In the present scenario thedemand for medicines is increas-ing day by day, so the employmentin the pharma sector is also rising.According to sources of govern-ment statistics, over 300 institutionsimpart diplomas or degrees tonearly 20,000 students in Indiaevery year. Indian pharmaceuticalindustry is one of the largest phar-ma industries in the world and thiswidens the scope of pharma stud-ies in India and abroad.

As per the report of IndianEconomic Survey 2021, in the nextdecade the domestic market isexpected to grow three times.The pharmaceutical industry isvalued at $41.7 billlion. Ourdomestic pharmaceutical marketis estimated at $ 41 billion andlikely to reach $ 65 billion by 2024.

In India, Pharmacy Council ofIndia (PCI) is the regulatory bodywhich has been designing therducation Regulations pertainingto pharmacy which outlines theconditions to be followed bypharmacy colleges. The PCI grantsapproval to universities and col-leges to run various programmes.It has well-defined standards,norms and guidelines.

As compared to other coun-tries, the prices of medicines inIndia are amongst the lowest in theworld. Although having some ofthe medicine's lowest prices in theworld, leading firms of India alsohave the capacity to not onlyserve the Indian market for essen-tial drugs but also supply theirdrugs to the world.

Price fluctuation and poli-cy environment: Price fluctua-tion and policy environment are

the challenges created by unex-pected and frequent domesticpricing policy changes in India.One of the biggest challenges isanalysing the shifting customerbehaviour and fluctuating prices,due to this vague environment ofinnovations and investments hascreated in Industry. According toThe Indian PharmaceuticalsAlliances (IPA), to produceaffordable patients’ drugs, theGovernment and stakeholderswork together.

Paucity of proficiency in theinnovation space: Due to limitedgovernment Supported researchecosystem the pharmaceuticalcompanies have been slow togrow in the innovation space. Toovercome this hurdle Governmentneeds to invest in research anddevelopment initiatives and talentin order to expand India’s inno-vation.

A talent pool with advancedskills is limited in India as com-pared to other countries. There isalso a huge gap between the col-lege curriculum and industry'srequirements. Clinical trialsshould also be supported andsubjectivity in certain regulatory

decision-making removed.Generic market exporting:

Just like any other industry, thepharmaceutical industry is also asales-driven industry. With thehelp of AI technology, companiescan gather information regardingtargeting audiences and createunique marketing strategies forthem. This way they can under-stand the needs of the market andcan convert most leads into rev-enues. AI can help in protectingthe success or failure rate of themarketing strategy.

Effect of external market:More than 50 per cent of pharmaingredients are dependent onother countries like China. Slightchanges in policies can bring a bigdifference in the production ofmedicines and equipment. Due togrowth in the pharma industry inIndia, both directly and indirect-ly, Government needs to makeIndia a life sciences innovationhub to promote innovation by cre-ating a research ecosystem andexpanding and upskill the talentpool to handle complex tech-nologies with advanced resources.

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Tokyo: Dragflicker RupinderPal Singh scored a brace as theIndian men’s hockey over-came a demoralising defeat inthe previous match to cruisepast Spain 3-0 and inch clos-er to a quarterfinal berth atthe Tokyo Olympics onTuesday.

Drubbed 1-7 by Australiain their last match, India pro-duced a spirited performanceagainst world No 9 Spain andscored through SimranjeetSingh (14th minute) andRupinder Pal Singh (15th and51st) to record a comfortablewin in their third Pool Amatch at the Oi HockeyStadium.

India, ranked fourth in theworld, had earlier defeated

New Zealand 3-2 in theiropening fixture. Spain, on theother hand, are yet to registera win in the competition.

Spain drew 1-1 againstArgentina before losing 3-4 toNew Zealand.

The Indians will next playreigning Olympic championsArgentina on Thursday.

For any team it is alwaystough to recover from amorale-shattering loss withina day, but India looked moreorganised and sorted againstSpain on Tuesday.

Despite the win, India’schief coach Graham Reid saidthe team needs to work upona lot of grey areas, like conced-ing penalty corners, ahead oftheir remaining matches.

“Better result today, but alot of things to work on froman improvement perspective.The fact that we gave toomany corners, that’s always aconcern when that happens.But the team did really well in

terms of defending,” he said.“The first quarter was

played very well, we couldmove the ball really well andit was exactly what we plannedto do. We struggled a bit in thesecond and third quarters.”

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TUESDAY HIGHLIGHTS

�Hockey: India beat Spain 3-0 in Men’s Pool A Match.�Badminton: SatwiksairajRankireddy and Chirag Shettybeat Ben Lane and Sean Vendy(Great Britain) 21-17, 21-19 inMen’s Doubles Group A Match.�Boxing: Lovlina Borgohainbeat Nadine Apetz of Germany3-2 in Women’s 69kg Round of16 Bout.�Table Tennis: A SharathKamal lost to Ma Long (China)7-11, 11-8, 11-13, 4-11, 4-11 inMen’s Singles Round 3 Match. �Shooting: SaurabhChaudhary/Manu Bhaker andYeshahswini Deswal/AbhishekVerma fail to qualify for medalround in 10m Air Pistol MixedTeam event.Elavenil Valarivan/DivyanshSingh Panwar and AnjumMoudgil/Deepak Kumar fail toqualify for medal round in 10mAir Rifle Mixed Team event.�Sailing: Nethra Kumanan32nd and 38th in Race 5 and 6in Women’s Laser Radial.Vishnu Saravanan 23rd and22nd in Race 5 and 6 in Men’sLaser.KC Ganapathy and VarunThakkar 18th in Race 1 inMen’s Skiff 49er.

IN FOCUS TODAY�Hockey: India vs GreatBritain (Women’s)�Badminton: P V Sindhu vsNY Cheung (Hong Kong) andB Sai Praneeth vs M Caljouw(Netherlands).�Boxing: Pooja Rani vs IchrakChaib (Algeria.�Rowing: Arjun Lal Jat andArvind Singh in Men’sLightweight Double ScullsSemifinal 2.�Archery: Tarundeep Rai vsOleksii Hunbin (Ukraine).Pravin Jadhav vs GalsanBazarzhapov (Russian OlympicCommittee).Deepika Kumari vs Karma(Bhutan).

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Tokyo: Indian boxer LovlinaBorgohain (69kg) advanced tothe quarterfinals in her debutOlympic appearance onTuesday, defeating Germanveteran Nadine Apetz in aclosely-fought last-16 stagebout.

Borgohain, the loneIndian boxer in action on theday, prevailed 3-2 over herrival who is 12 years hersenior. Both the boxers weremaking their Games debutand the Indian became thefirst from her nine-strongteam to make the quarterfinalstage.

The 23-year-old showedgreat poise in a tense contestto triumph by the thinnest ofmargins. She claimed all thethree rounds on split points.

The 35-year-old Apetz wasthe first German woman toqualify for a boxing event atthe Olympics. She is a two-time world championshipBronze-medallist and a formerEuropean champion.

Borgohain is a two-timeWorld and Asian champi-onships Bronze-medallist andwill next face Chinese Taipei’sNien-Chin Chen on July 30,who is seeded fourth.

A win in the upcomingcontest would assureBorgohain of at least a Bronzemedal at the mega-event.

On Wednesday, Asianchampion Pooja Rani (75kg)will square off against Algerianyoungster Ichrak Chaib.

Tokyo: Indian shooters enduredyet another forgettable outing atthe Tokyo Olympics on Tuesdayas they crashed out in the qual-ifying stages of the mixed teamevents in both pistol and rifle.

Considered the team’s bestbet for a podium finish, the duoof Saurabh Chaudhary andManu Bhaker caved in underpressure and failed to qualify forthe final of the 10m air pistolmixed team event.

Thy finished seventh inQualification 2 after topping thefirst phase with 582. Both the 19-year-old shooters lost the plotcompletely when the top eightteams battled it out in the sec-ond phase.

The other Indian team inthe event, Abhishek Verma andYashaswini Singh Deswal, failedto clear Qualification 1 and fin-ished in 17th place, havingtotalled 564 across six series(three each for one member).

The team of Chaudharyand Bhaker totalled 380 across

two series each in the secondphase of the qualification.

While the top eight teamsmake the Qualification 2, the topfour pairs in the second phasequalify for the medal rounds.

Later in the day, both theIndian pairs participating inthe 10m air rifle mixed teamevent crashed out in the firstqualifications stage, missing outon yet another final after an out-ing that left a lot to be desired.

The duo of ElavenilValarivan and Divyansh SinghPanwar finished 12th with a totalof 626.5 across three series each,while Anjum Moudgil andDeepak Kumar ended 18th outof 29 pairs with an aggregatescore of 623.8.

Tokyo: Sharath Kamal matchedthe legendary Ma Long strokefor stroke in the first threegames before making a thirdround exit from the table ten-nis competition on Tuesday,ending India’s medal-lessyet impressive run atthe Tokyo Olympics.

Following theunprecedented gainsmade from the 2018Asian Games, whereIndia won a table ten-nis medal for thefirst time ever,the perfor-mance ofSharath andManika Batrain the roundof 32 addedsignificant-ly to thes p o r t ’ sgrowing pop-ularity.

They bothachieved a first by

reaching the third round at theSummer Games.

A less tougher draw inmixed doubles, in whichSharath and Manika were seenas medal contenders, as well as

in the men’s singles couldhave seen the Indians scal-ing new heights.

The way 39-year-oldSharath played againstLong has convinced him to

think about compet-ing in his fifth

Olympics inParis.

H ef o u g h ttooth andnail in thefirst threeg a m e sa g a i n s tthe reign-

i n gOlympic and

world champi-on Long beforegoing down 7-

11, 11-8, 11-13, 4-11, 4-11 in 46minutes.

To have a player like Longunder pressure in itself is a sig-nificant achievement for theseasoned Indian.

“It was the best three gamesand probably the best matchand best tournament I everplayed,” Sharath said.

The Chinese great tooacknowledged that Sharathmade it tough for him.

“It was a tough match. Ofcourse at the Olympics everymatch, no matter the opponent,no matter the country, it’salways tough,” said Long.

“I did prepare for difficul-ties. The third game was cru-cial. After gutting it out the lasttwo games were better,” headded.

With Sharath’s defeat,India’s challenge ended in tabletennis as Manika, SutirthaMukherjee and G Sathiyanhad already exited the singlescompetition.

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The second T20I betweenIndia and Sri Lanka in

Colombo on Tuesday waspostponed by a day afterIndian all-rounder KrunalPandya tested positive forCovid-19, forcing him out ofthe series with seven days ofisolation.

However, all his eightclose contacts, who were iso-lated, have tested ‘negative’ inthe RT-PCR tests and will beavailable for the postponedgame which is being held onWednesday.

As per Sri Lanka’s healthsafety protocols, Krunal willnot be able to travel back toIndia with other members ofthe contingent on July 30 as hewill now have to undergomandatory isolation andobtain a negative RT-PCRreport.

The third and final T20 isscheduled to be held onThursday.

“Krunal is symptomaticwith cough and throat pain.

He is obviously out of theseries and will not be able ableto return with rest of thesquad,” a BCCI source track-ing the developments inColombo said.

“However the good newsis that all his eight close con-tacts who were identified bythe BCCI medical officer (DrAbhijit Salvi) have tested neg-ative.”

For now, the three-matchseries is on as even if there area couple of more cases, theIndian team has enough play-ers with negative RT-PCRreports to field a team.

Krunal, who tested posi-tive on Tuesday morning, hasalready been quarantined.

India are travelling with a20-member squad plus fourstand bye net bowlers.

Now, there will be back-to-back matches onWednesday and Thursdayprovided there aren’t any moreplayers testing positive toaffect the balance of the sideswhich will lead to cancella-tion.

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Tokyo: Indian shuttlers ChiragShetty and SatwiksairajRankireddy emerged victori-ous against the England pair ofBen Lane and Sean Vendy intheir final Group A match butstill missed out on qualifyingfor the quarterfinals at theTokyo Olympics on Tuesday.

Ranked 10th in the world,the Indians beat world number18 team 21-17, 21-19 in a 44-minute Group A men’s doublesmatch at the Musashino ForestPlaza.

However, they couldn’tmake it to the knockout stageas they finished third in theGroup A behind top-rankedIndonesian team of MarcusGideon Fernaldi and KevinSanjaya Sukamuljo and worldnumber three Yang Lee andChi-Lin Wang of ChineseTaipei.

“We knew the momentLee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin won,

we don’t stand a chance. Theywon in two games and we wonin three. It is quite sad.Unfortunately, even after win-ning two matches in the group,we don’t go through. But thatis badminton and have to livewith it,” said Chirag.

All three teams finished onsame points with two winseach and when the number ofgames won was considered toidentify the qualifiers, theIndians lost.

Chirag and Satwik’sstraight game loss to theIndonesians on Monday costthem dear.

Moments before theIndian pair stepped on thecourt, Lee and Wang had com-pleted a three-game win overSukamuljo and Gideon in thepreceding group match, ren-dering the result of India's con-test against Britain inconse-quential.

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Japan’s Naomi Osaka suffered a 6-1, 6-4 defeat to MarketaVondrousova in the third round of the Tokyo Games on

Tuesday, crushing her dreams of winning Olympic Gold at home.Osaka, who lit the Olympic cauldron during the opening cer-

emony, struggled in an error-strewn display under the centre courtroof at Ariake Tennis Park and was knocked out in 68 minutes.

Vondrousova, ranked 42nd, will go on to face Spain’s PaulaBadosa or Nadia Podoroska of Argentina.

Meanwhile, Stefanos Tsitsipas advanced to the third roundof the Olympics men’s tennis tournament on Tuesday as heavenged last month’s Wimbledon loss to Frances Tiafoe.

The Greek third seed downed American Tiafoe 6-3, 6-4 underthe centre court roof at Ariake Tennis Park, where all play onoutside courts was delayed an hour by morning drizzle.

Tsitsipas, who is also entered in mixed doubles with MariaSakkari, will play France’s Ugo Humbert or Miomir Kecmanovicof Serbia for a spot in the quarter-finals.

Also Novak Djokovic added another medalevent to his program by entering the mixeddoubles draw with Serbian partner NinaStojanovic.

INDIAN CAMPAIGN OVERThe Indian tennis team’s cam-

paign at the Tokyo Olympics offi-cially ended on Tuesday as SaniaMirza and Sumit Nagal couldnot make the cut for the mixeddoubles event due to their lowcombined ranking of 153.

The entries were to befinalised on Tuesday morn-ing and the cut was expect-ed to be between 50-60.The Indians did not evenhave faint hopes of gettinginto the easiest of tennisevents at the Games.

Only 16 teams playthe mixed doubles eventand thus winning justtwo matches can get ateam in the medal round.

Nagal was blown awayby Daniil Medvedev in the men’s sin-gles competition, while the women’sdoubles pair of Sania Mirza and AnkitaRaina lost its opener from a winningposition.

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Tokyo: The Indian shootingfederation on Tuesdaypromised an ‘overhaul’ of thecoaching staff after the 15-strong contingent’s Olympiccampaign moved from onedisaster to another.

As the country’s shooterscontinued to belie expecta-tions with their horror showhere, reliving the Rio 2016debacle, the head of the sport’snational governing bodypromised a major revamp incoaching and support staff.

“Definitely the perfor-mances have not been onexpected lines and I have spo-ken of an overhaul of coachingand support staff,” NRAIRaninder Singh said.

Questions are being raisedabout why the shooters werenot able to replicate their excel-lent showing at the ISSF WorldCups at the Olympics.

“I feel something is lackingin getting our shooters pre-pared for these big occasions,because clearly the talent isthere and we have seen it hereas well,” the NRAI boss said.

However, Raninder saidthat not all is still lost for theIndian shooting team as it is leftwith a few more starts.

“Having said that we stillhave starts left and let’s contin-ue to back the team and I amsure we’ll get results.Postmortems can wait till afterthe Games,” Raninder said.

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Enoshima: Indian sailorsVishnu Saravanan and NethraKumanan finished way behindthe leaders as they ended at22nd and 33rd spot in therespective events after six racesin the Tokyo Olympics here onTuesday.

Saravanan finished 23rdand 22nd in the fifth and sixthrace in the men’s laser eventwhile Kumanan was 32nd and

38th in the two races of thewomen’s laser radial event heldat Enoshima Yacht Harbour onTuesday.

Four more races and medalrace remain in the competitionand the India duo were farbehind in the rankings.

Each event consists of aseries of races. Points in eachrace are awarded according toposition: the winner gets one

point, the second-placed finish-er scores two and so on.

The final race is called themedal race, for which points aredoubled. Following the medalrace, the individual or crew withthe fewest total points isdeclared the winner.

The medal races of both thewomen’s laser radial and men’slaser will be held on August 1after 10 races each.

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Durham: Ahead of the gruellingfive Test match series againstEngland, the Indian Test teamled by skipper Virat Kohli, hada centre wicket training at theDurhan Cricket Club here onTuesday.

Aggressive wicket-keeperRishabh Pant, who had joinedthe Test team after recoveringfrom Covid-19, also batted inthe nets.

“TeamIndia back at it andhaving a centre wicket trainingat Durham Cricket Club aheadof the five-match Test seriesagainst England,” the BCCI saidin a tweet.

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-����������� ��� �$� ���� ���Tokyo: Enduring a forgettablecampaign, bottom-placedIndian women’s hockey teamcan’t afford squandering anymore chances if it fancies upset-ting defending champions GreatBritain on Wednesday.

After a 1-5 drubbing againstworld number one theNetherlands, the Indians play-ers lifted their game by leaps andbounds to give third-rankedGermany a run for their moneybefore losing 0-2 in their nextPool A match.

But two consecutive defeatshave definitely pegged the sideback. India created a lot ofscoring opportunities againstGermany but finishing was lack-ing from the forward line. Onone occasion, Vandana Katariyawas denied by the goal post too.

But not converting thepenalty stroke was a huge miss.

However, the Rani Rampal-led side can take a lot of heartfrom its performance against theGermans given that it kept theintensity and fight intact till thefinal hooter.

With two defeats from asmany games, the Indian womenare currently lying at the bottomof the six-team Pool A, which isbeing headed by Netherlands,followed by Germany, Britain,Ireland and South Africa.

But these are still early dayswith three matches each remain-ing for all the teams. Top foursides from each pool of six willqualify for the quarterfinals.

Ranked 11th in the world,India stand a chance to make thequarterfinals but for that tohappen they will have to outplayseventh-ranked Ireland andSouth Africa, who are placed16th.

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