2021/02/27 · happy with anything less than 40. “the dmk is winning elec-tion by making use of...

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Pitching for a strongCongress leadership at the

Centre in order to corner theNarendra Modi-ledGovernment, the group of 23Congress leaders, known in theparty circles as “dissident” voic-es, on Saturday launched afresh offensive questioning thetop brass of the party why itfailed to utilise the services ofan “experienced” leader likeGhulam Nabi Azad when itneeded him the most.

At least seven leadersbelonging to this “group of dis-senters”, assembled in Jammuto attend Shanti Sammelanorganised by the GandhiGlobal Family.

Interestingly, the “show ofstrength” was organised bythese leaders a day after theannouncement of the Assemblypolls by the ElectionCommission of India (ECI) infive States, including Kerala,Assam, Tamil Nadu and WestBengal.

In one voice all these lead-ers sent out a clear message tothe Congress leadership tostart working towards strength-ening the party before it’s toolate. The tone and tenor of thespeeches made by these leadersclearly indicated the Congressparty is headed for a major“shakeup” in the days to come.These leaders also made itclear they will not sit idle as thecountry was facing numerouschallenges.

Apart from Ghulam NabiAzad, former Cabinet MinistersKapil Sibal, Manish Tewari,Anand Sharma, formerHaryana Chief MinisterBhupinder Singh Hooda, par-liamentarians Raj Babbar, andVivek Tankha attended theevent in Jammu.

Wearing saffron headgears,all these leaders also openlycame out in support of thedemand for restoring “state-hood” to Jammu & Kashmir.

None of the office-bearersof the Jammu & Kashmir

Pradesh Congress Committee,including its chief GA Mir,attended the event. Only loy-alists of Ghulam Nabi Azadfrom the Kashmir Valley andJammu region attended theevent in full strength.

Leading the charge fromthe front, one of the seniormost members of the groupAnand Sharma said, “TheCongress has weakened in thelast decade. Our voice is for thebetterment of the party. Itshould be strengthened every-where once again. New gener-

ation should connect (to theparty). We’ve seen good days ofthe Congress. We don’t want tosee it weakening as we becomeolder.”

In a veiled attack on theparty leadership, the formerUnion Minister went on to add,“All of us have covered a longdistance to reach where we’retoday. Nobody among us hascome through the window, allof us have walked through thedoor. We have come throughthe students’ movement, theyouth movement. I’ve not given

anyone the right to declare ifwe’re people of Congress or not,nobody has that right. We’llbuild the party and strengthenit. We believe in the strengthand unity of the Congress”.

His Cabinet colleaguesKapil Sibal and Manish Tewarialso batted for a strongCongress leadership at the top.Sibal said, “We had gatheredtogether earlier too and wehave to strengthen the partytogether”.

Sibal questioned as to whythe Congress was not utilisingthe rich experience of GhulamNabi Azad. “He is one suchleader who knows the groundreality of Congress in every dis-trict of every State. We weresaddened when we realisedthat he is being freed fromParliament. We didn’t wanthim to go from Parliament”.

Referring to the treatmentmeted out to Azad by the partyhigh command, Sibal said,“What is the real role ofGhulam Nabi Azad ? A personwho flies an aircraft is an expe-rienced person. An engineeraccompanies him to detectand repair any malfunctioningin the engine. Ghulam Nabi jiis experienced as well as anengineer”.

Echoing similar sentimentsAnand Sharma also said,“There has never come such anoccasion after 1950 when thereis no representative of Jammu& Kashmir in the Rajya Sabha.This will be corrected”.

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Eligible Covid-19 vaccineaspirants in the country

will have to shell out �250 pershot — �150 cost of vaccineplus �100 service charge — ifthey opt to get themselvesinoculated at the designatedprivate hospitals during the sec-ond phase of the vaccinationdrive beginning March 1 tocover people aged above 60years and those over 45 withcomorbidities.

However, the Governmenthospitals will be providing thejab free, the cost to be borne bythe Centre. “The private hos-pitals can charge up to �250 perdose of Covid-19 vaccine.However, the jab will be givenfree of cost at Governmenthospitals across the States. Thecost will be borne by theCentre,” said Union HealthSecretary Rajesh Bhushan in astatement here.

“�250 will be the ceiling —�150 cost of vaccine plus �100service charge. This arrange-ment will remain effective tillfurther orders,” Bhushan said ina statement here following aninteraction with HealthSecretaries and MDs (NHM) of

States and UTs on the vacci-nation of age-appropriategroups through a video con-ference (VC) on Saturday.

“There would beGovernment health facilitieswhich will be used as Covidvaccine centres such as medicalcollege hospitals, district hos-pitals, sub divisional hospitals,CHCs, PHCs, Health SubCentres and Health andWellness Centres. Geo refer-ence maps with GPS coordi-nates of all these health facili-ties have been prepared thatwill serve as CVCs and theseGeo referenced maps are beingshared with the States,” a seniorhealth official added.

To ramp up the Covid vac-cination capacity manifold, sig-nificantly a large number ofprivate facilities are beinginvolved. “Around 10,000 pri-

vate hospitals empanelledunder Ayushman BharatPMJAY, over 600 hospitalsempanelled under CGHS andother private hospitals empan-elled under State Governments.

“Health Insurance Schemescan participate as CVCs. HealthDepartments of StateGovernments have already ini-tiated dialogue with these pri-vate hospitals so that they canbe encouraged to participate inthis drive as CVCs. A list of allthese private hospitals has beenuploaded on the website ofMinistry of Health and FamilyWelfare and National HealthAuthority,” said the official.

So far, 77 per cent ofhealthcare workers have beenadministered with the firstdose and 70 per cent got thesecond dose, the official added.

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With the ElectionCommission of India

declaring the poll schedule forthe Tamil Nadu LegislativeAssembly on Friday, the DMKand the Congress are finding itdifficult to arrive at an amica-ble seat sharing agreement.

A national leader of theCongress told The Pioneer thatthe DMK is proving to be atough taskmaster when it istime for seat allocation. “Themaximum they had offered astill Saturday 2 pm is just 20seats. Please remember that theCongress was allocated 40 seatsduring the 2016 Assembly elec-tion and we won eight seats,”said the senior leader who didnot want to be identified.

Last week the team ofCongress leaders deputed byparty chief Sonia Gandhi calledon the DMK headquarters andheld a round of meeting withthe second rung leaders of theDravidian major.

“It was not a pleasant expe-rience,” said another leader, aclose aide to party scion RahulGandhi.

The leader said the grandold party of India would not behappy with anything less than

40. “The DMK is winning elec-tion by making use of thegoodwill enjoyed by theCongress in Tamil Nadu. Thereis a strong anti-DMK feeling inthe State, but the Congress willsurvive because it has showedthe world that the party doesnot require power to becomestrong,” said the leader who wasaccompanying Rahul Gandhito Thoothukudi on Saturday.

What comes out of theCongress leaders’ comments isthe fact that there is a trustdeficit between the party andthe DMK. This was visible inthe downfall of the Congress-

led NarayanasamyGovernment in Puducherrywhich lost vote of trust becauseof the resignation of the loneDMK member.

The Congress negotiatorswere led by former KeralaChief Minister OommenChandi and Karnataka leaderDinesh Gundu Rao. Theabsence this time of GhulamNabi Azad has surprisedTNCC leaders. “Azad was theleader who knows the func-tioning of the DMK insideout. But he was conspicuous byhis absence this time,” said theleader.

While the Congress-DMKtalks are in a deadlock, theAIADMK scored a major pointon Friday by enacting a legis-lation that granted 10.5 per centreservation for the 2 crorestrong Vanniyar community inthe Government service. Thishas been a long standingdemand of Dr Ramadoss,founder of the PMK. Thisbrought in some cheer to theAIADMK as it has pacifiedthree of its major allies, the BJP,the PMK and the PuthiyaTamilakam.

The DMK, which has beenon an aggressive mood tillearly last week, has suddenlymellowed down and main-taining a silence. MeanwhileTTV Dhinakaran, general sec-retary of the AMMK andnephew of VK Sasikala,Jayalalithaa’s former aide,declared that he would be theChief Ministerial candidate ofthe front to be led by his party.This means that there are fourCM candidates in Tamil Naduas on Saturday, the other threebeing incumbent EdappadiPalaniswamy, MK Stalin(DMK) and film actor KamalHaasan (MNM). Tamil Nadugoes to the poll on April 6 toelect 234-member Assembly.

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The Centre on Saturdayadvised States and UTs —

Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat,Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,West Bengal, Telangana andJammu & Kashmir — toenforce Covid-appropriatebehaviour by dealing firmlywith violations and ensureeffective surveillance in case ofpotential super spreadingevents so as not to let the situ-ation go out of hand.

These States and UTs havebeen reporting a high Covid-19 active caseload or anincreasing trend in new casesin the last week, noted CabinetSecretary Rajiv Gauba whilechairing a high-level reviewmeeting with Chief Secretariesof States/UTs.

“They were advised not tolower their guard, enforceCovid appropriate behaviourand deal firmly with violations.It was strongly underlined thatthey need to follow effective

surveillance strategies inrespect of potential superspreading events,” the UnionHealth Ministry said in astatement.

The need for effective test-ing, comprehensive tracking,prompt isolation of positivecases, and quick quarantine ofclose contacts were also strong-ly emphasised.

During the review meeting,States were advised to under-take vaccination on priority indistricts reporting higher casesand monitor strains and clus-tering of cases for early hotspotidentification and control.

They have also been askedto improve the overall testingin districts reporting a reduc-

tion in testing, and increaseRT- PCR tests in districts hav-ing high antigen testing.

The States and UT weredirected to focus on surveil-lance and stringent contain-ment in selected districtsreporting reduced tests/highpositivity and increased cases.

They have also beenadvised to carry clinical man-agement in districts reportinghigher deaths and promoteCovid-appropriate behaviourto ensure effective citizen communication to not let complacency set in, especially in light of the vacci-nation drive entering the nextphase.

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Saudi Arabia’s Crown PrinceMohammed bin Salman

(MBS) likely approved thekilling of US-based journalistJamal Khashoggi inside theSaudi consulate in Istanbul,according to a newly declassi-fied US intelligence report.But the Biden Administrationis not going to sanction MBS.

The intelligence findingswere long known to many USofficials and, even as theyremained classified, had beenreported with varying degreesof precision. But the publicrebuke of MBS is still a touch-stone in US-Saudi relations.

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As part of its effort to boostfarm exports, enhance

farmers’ income and raise ruraljobs, the Centre on Saturdayfinalised a list of products fromagriculture and allied sectorsunder the “One District OneFocus Product (ODOFP)”,scheme that will be promotedin a cluster approach in 728 dis-tricts across the country.

For instance, UttarPradesh’s Ballia district is to bepromoted as Bindi ( tikuli)cluster; Deoghar and Dumka inJharkhand for Peda productshub; Rajouri for spices;Anantnag for trout fish;Ayodhya for Jaggery; Auraiyafor food processing desi ghee;Srinagar for flowers; Budgam

for exotic vegetables; East Delhifor namkeens, and South-westDelhi for milk-based prod-ucts.

Similarly, Kupwara is to bedeveloped for walnut;Ganderbal for honey;Bandipora for processed poul-try/mutton; Durg and Koriyain Chhattisgarh for tomato-based products; Surguja forlitchi; Batod in Gujarat forguava; Porbandar for gram-based products; North Goafor jackfruit; Ambala for onionand Kinnaur for fruit wineunder the ODOFP scheme.

According to the Ministry,the product chosen in the dis-trict for promotion, havingexport potential which willboost farm exports andenhance farmers’ income.

Besides, also help to providejobs in rural sector.

The list includes 25 dis-tricts of Arunachal Pradesh; 38districts of Bihar; 28 districts ofChhattisgarh; 2 districts inGoa; 22 districts of Haryana; 12

districts of Himachal Pradesh,24 districts of Jharkhand, 20districts of Jammu & Kashmir;31 districts of Karnataka; 14districts of Kerala; 52 districtsof Madhya Pradesh; 36 districtsof Maharashtra; 16 districts of

Manipur; 30 districts ofOdisha, 23 districts of Punjab,4 districts of Sikkim, 36 dis-tricts of Tamil Nadu; 8 districtsof Tripura, 75 districts of UttarPradesh, and 18 districts ofWest Bengal.

As many as 13 districtseach of Uttarakhand andAndhra Pradesh, 11 districtseach of Delhi, Meghalaya,Mizoram and Nagaland; and 33districts each of Assam,Gujarat, Rajasthan andTelangana have been included.

That apart, three districtsof Andaman & Nicobar Islands;total three districts of Dadraand Nagar Haveli and Damanand Diu; two districts each ofLadakh and Puducherry; onedistrict each of Chandigarhand Lakshadweep are part ofthis exercise.

According to the Ministry,fruits have been identified for226 districts, the highest in the

list while vegetables for 107 dis-tricts and spices for 105 dis-tricts are at the second and thethird position in the list. Paddywill be promoted in 40 districts,wheat-5 districts, coarse cumnutri cereals in 25 districts,pulses 16 districts, commercialcrops 22 districts, oilseeds 41districts, plantation 28 dis-tricts, floriculture 2 districts,honey 9 districts, animal hus-bandry/dairy 40 districts, aqua-culture/marine fisheries 29 dis-tricts and processed products33 districts. The Ministry saidthat the list of products havebeen finalised after takinginputs from the States/UTsand Indian Council ofAgricultural Research (ICAR).

“These products will bepromoted in a cluster approachthrough convergence of theGovernment of India schemes,to increase the value of theproducts and with the ultimate

aim of increasing the income ofthe farmers. These identifiedproducts will be supportedunder the PM-FME scheme(PM Formalisation of Microfood Processing EnterprisesScheme) of the Ministry ofFood Processing Industrieswhich provides incentives topromoter and micro-enter-prises,” the Ministry said.

At the governing councilmeeting last week, the NITIAayog also reiterated that foodprocessing and export underOne District One focusProduct scheme not only alignsperfectly with district-levelcrop diversification, but willalso help raise rural jobs andincome of farmers.

“This future developmentof agriculture with rise inincome will augment shift indemand towards processedfood and thereby furtheringthis cycle,” it said.

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� What is your role in Ranju KiBetiyaan?

I play Guddu Mishra; he is fromMuzaffarpur, Bihar. He is someone who isrespectful of his father and because of hisfather’s wish to get married to a particularperson, even though he doesn’t agree tothis, he gets married to Ranju (played byReena Kapoor). She is timid and has novoice of her own. Ranju has four daughters.But my character is of a patriarchalmindset, he yearns for a son who can takehis family name forward. Even though herespects his father, he wants to break thenorm and achieve what he has wanted todo, dreaming of doing. Even though he hasa wife and daughters, he gets married toanother with whom he has two sons. Hissituation is unconventional but with aconventional marriage. This is a bit ofdichotomy. �How did you get this project?

I had earlier done a show for RashmiSharma Telefilms titled Shakti-Astitva KeEhsaas Ki. The show was about a eunuchchild. The role that was offered to me waschallenging. The show was quiteprogressive and hence had agreed to dothis show. I liked that my role was strongand all the twists and turns that happenare because of me.�What made you play Guddu Mishra?

Of course, the fact that while mycharacter finds himself in a conventionalmarriage, the situation is unconventional.Second, the more important one is that theshow is about a single working mother;something that is becoming prevalent inour society. More and more people arebreaking out and craving a life forthemselves. It is encouraging people tobelieve in their dreams and to strike outand make a living. �Was the fact that the role differentfrom what you had done in the past alsothe attraction of taking up Ranju...?

More than the character that I wasessaying, it was the concept of the showthat had me take up the project. Theconcept is very interesting. I felt that theshow is extremely progressive, that it hassomething to say. The part that has beenoffered here, I have something to say, therewas a certain amount of identifiability here.I thought that the audience would getsomething out of it. �Do you think that people get impactedby what a show wants to say?

Yes, it does. When you pick up asubject like Ranju.... when one wants tobreak the mindsets of people, if one triesto approach this aggressively, there is apossibility that one may be rejected. Attimes, at the cost of looking regressive, youslowly and gently push a thought process

forward and steer him towards a path thatis different from the present one. One hasto achieve a balance where you don’t loseyour audience and yet cater them towardsprogressive ideas.�You started off with films, what was theattraction of venturing into TV?

After doing films like Mrityudand,whatever that came my way after that wasnot all that exciting. The roles offered werenot doing anything for me. I waited for twoyears to get work. Then came a time whenI needed to work and met a person whowas making a show, he appeared to beprogressive with his ideas. He made theshow Muskaan (1999). Once I starteddoing TV I realised that the commitmentto TV is very heavy especially with dailysoaps. With weekly, one could still do films.Once daily started, it became difficult todo films and TV. But if your character wasnot pivotal, one could still manage but theminute your role became central to theshow, doing anything else, it was unfair tonot be committed to one platform.� Is that why you haven’t done moviesin the recent past?

The funny part is; it is ironic but thetruth is that every time I waited for a movieto come my way and it didn’t and I tookup a TV show, the very next day ofshooting of the TV, I would get an offerof doing a film. I don’t know whether it isluck or fate. Also, once you commit to aTV show, it requires full attention and onecannot plan in advance.�You have a film background. Was thereever a time when you wanted to besomething else besides an actor?

Yes, definitely. There was a time whenI wanted to be a fighter pilot — the wholeidea of having so much power under you!But then my mother threatened andbullied me, I am the youngest of thesiblings and since she could not bully them,she did it with me. I agreed not to pursueflying. But I have no regrets. � Is it important for an actor to find aconnection with the character he isessaying?

Actually, what an actor needs to havein his arsenal is to understand differentfacets of life and society. To be able tounderstand different thought processes.Also, to be able to understand charactersof people. If one is unable to do this, oneis just playing a part that people may ormay not be able to identify with. Onelearns a lot from society and people andan actor needs to learn from them.�What next?

I am open to any form of mediumto work in. It is just that whenever it

comes my way, I hope I am in a positionto take them up. Let’s see what is in store.

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Let’s talk about the positives first. It starts off ona good note. The opening scene tells you thatthere is more to come and it is bound to be

interesting — murder-crime thrillers are definitelya treat to watch. And this latest Parineeti Chopra filmis no different. A girl on the train who watches thelife of another woman and reminiscing her own andwishing it was her in place of that girl is normalenough . More so when our life is in shambles andnothing is going right. So far so good.

Unfortunately, as the movie progresses itstarts to spiral out of control and goes off track. Ofcourse the makers wanted to give a Bollywood feelto the film and hence the song and dance but there

was no need to let it deviate so much.If the makers had gone with the name and

copied most of the scenes, they might have stucktrue to the book by British author Paula Hawkins2015 novel of the same name. One doesn’tunderstand the need to go for a twist that doesn’tmake much sense because there are so many gapsthat are difficult to fill. However, if can manage towatch it like any other B-town movie and not lookfor answers that need to be addressed, The Girl OnThe Train manages to hold your attention. But thereis a condition— one should have neither seen norread the book by the same or watched the 2016movie staring Emily Blunt. The character in theHindi version is played by Chopra.

If by any chance one gas done either of theabove, it will be a lost cause even if there is adeviation at the climax which is definitely asurprise. ,��-��

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The latest film by writer-directorDurba Sahay, who had made herdebut as a director with The Pen, is

a take on the guru-shishya parampara andhow one cycle ends and the next begins.With danseuse Shovana Narayan in thelead, the one-hour-and-56 minutes arespent exploring the beautiful relationshipthat a gurus have with their shishyas andhow sometimes ego and pride cone in theway of this beautiful and sacredrelationship. But the whole premise behindan art form is to surrender to the art and

there is no place for egos here.Through the four generations of passing

on the tradition of who will lead the nextgeneration of young dancers, Aavartan,which means a cycle, is interesting to watch— that a guru can be jealous of her pupil butmanages to over come her insecurities via astory told to her by her guru.

Narayan may not be a great actor butthere is no doubt where her skills lie — abrilliant Kathak dancer. Those who loveclassic dance forms, this movie is a treat towatch. To see Narayan dance so beautifullyeven though she us 70 years old is magical.It just goes to show that one can never takethe art form from the artist whatever be theage. The dual towards the climax where sheperforms is absolutely riveting. One can seeclearly why she is still the queen of her art.

Watch this one for some excellentfootwork by Shovana Narayan.

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Since the launch of the Delhi‘Electric Vehicles’ (EVs) pol-

icy in August 2020, 465 new EVshave been registered and moreare being registered every day.

Delhi Chief MinisterArvind Kejriwal tweeted "Thiswill go a long way in curbingpollution in Delhi. Delhi is fastbecoming a modern city. EveryIndian is proud of Delhi”.

Transport Minister KailashGahlot said, “Since the launch ofDelhi EV policy, 465 new EVfour-wheelers have been regis-tered. Incentives of up to �3 lakhare provided under Delhi EVpolicy, which includes 1.5 lakhsubsidy, registration, and roadtax exemption.”

“This is the highest subsidyin India and makes the total costof ownership of an electric carin Delhi the same as a diesel car.Subsidies provided on electriccars in Delhi EV policy arereducing the total cost of own-

ership of the electric cars by upto 30 per cent. An individual cansave �1,050 per month byswitching to EV from a dieselcar," he said.

The third week of the DelhiGovernment’s Switch Delhi elec-tric vehicle campaign thatfocused on sensitizing Delhiiteson the benefits of electric four-wheelers along with the incen-tives that EV adopters can availunder the Delhi Government’sEV policy received overwhelm-ing support from Delhiites.

The Switch Delhi pledge isavailable onev.delhi.gov.in/pledge has beenlaunched to encourage more andmore Delhiites to be a part of theEV revolution and help to makeDelhi the EV capital of India.

Delhiites can take the pledge toswitch to an EV or install acharging point in their premis-es in the next 3 years.

The Delhi Governmentissued an order on Thursdaysaying that all DelhiGovernment departments,autonomous bodies, and granteeinstitutions will replace theirexisting fleet of hired conven-tional fuel vehicles with an elec-tric vehicle. 2,000 cars will beimpacted by this decision andtransition will happen to EVs inthe next 6 months.

The Transport Departmentof Delhi will be the nodaldepartment to monitor theprogress of the transition fromexisting diesel or petrol vehiclefleets to EVs. It will also be nec-essary for all departments toproduce monthly action reportson the transition to EVs to thenodal department.

“Delhi govt's commitmentto switch all its hired cars toElectric in 6 months is unprece-

dented globally. As the nodaldept, Transport dept will leaveno stone unturned to ensure asmooth transition. CM@ArvindKejriwal's call for@SwitchDelhi marks a start ofthe EV revolution”, tweetedGahlot.

Delhiites who have switchedto electric cars came forward toshare their experiences ofswitching to EVs under the#DilliKeGreenWarrior initia-tive.

Anju Jain, a Delhite and anEV owner said, “Buying an EVwas so convenient and it offersa very smooth and noiselessdrive. Driving an EV is waybetter than driving an ICEvehicle in terms of speed andperformance. All thanks toDelhi Govt’s EV policy, I gotbenefits of around three lakhsand also, a waiver of the roadtax and registration fee. Icharge my EV at my homethrough a 15A plug point andit runs for around 220 km.”

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People from all age groupsvisited the 34th edition of

the Garden Tourism Festival inlarge numbers. They were seenexperiencing the floral arrange-ments, and unique displays ofhanging baskets, dahlias, cutflowers, recycled floral dis-plays and tray gardens. Manywere keen on gaining experi-ence to create their own homegardens and were seen inter-acting with buyers at theGarden Bazaar while purchas-ing products.

The event was graced byhis excellency Walter J.Lindner- German Ambassadorto India. Over the first week ofthe event, visitors

With the objective to cre-ate awareness about the envi-ronment and showcase therich floriculture of Delhi, thethree-week extravaganza is

themed ‘#Colours of Naturehas been this year. Unlike athree-day format that wasbeing followed previously,Delhi Tourism has extendedthe festival to three weeks, togive a safe, socially distancedand memorable experience toits visitors.

The venue, Garden of FiveSenses spread over 22 acres ofland is a unique venue appeal-ing to the five senses. Withsculptures like Prayer of Peace,Tree of Infinite Knowledge,

Wind Chime, Five Sensesthrough Five Seasons dottingthe lush green expanse, Gardenof Five Senses is the largest col-lections of public art in theCapital.

A 95 year old lady visitingthe festival shared, “I was vis-iting the festival for the firsttime and I thoroughly enjoyed.Everything from the flowersdisplays to the ambience of theGarden is very fascinating. Ialso appreciate the medicalfacilities provided at the

entrance to ensure the safety ofthe visitors during CORONAtimes.”

Two visitors from Kashmirshared, “It is a beautiful displayof flowers and we are having agreat time with our friends.Seeing the beauty of nature, wefeel like we are home. Wethank the organizers for sucha thrilling experience.”

In order to revive tourismin the city, Delhi Tourism hasmodified this event in order toextend the experience to morevisitors, keeping safety in mind.This will enable a guided move-ment that will adhere to all thenorms of COVID-19 guide-lines. Digital payment facilityhas also been available at theticket counters along withonline bookings on PaytmInsider, enabling cashless trans-actions.

The second weekend ofthe festival witnessed perfor-

mances by Sid K Official inpartnership with Radio FM,our official radio partner. Theperformance was thoroughlyenjoyed by the crowd as manywere seen dancing to his tunes.

Sunday 28th February,2021, will witness perfor-mances by Punjabi artistsPraveen Sharma and RavinderKaur, presented in collabora-tion with Punjabi Academy,Govt. of Delhi.

With the Garden TourismFestival, it calls out to all gar-den enthusiasts and citydwellers to teach more aboutthis skill and also help makeDelhi a greener city. A specialdisplay of hydroponic plantshas also been set up to show-case how certain plants can begrown without the use of soil.

Delhi Tourism will alsoprovide free electric shuttleservice from Saket MetroStation to the venue and back.

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In view of SwachchhSurvekshan-2021, South

Delhi Municipal Corporation(SDMC) carried a sanitationand poster removal drive in allits zones. Under the drive,posters were removed frompublic places, markets, metropillars, roads, key places etc.Nearly 2,000 posters, bannersand hoardings were removed.The drive will be continued tillMarch 2.

Nodal Officer of SwachhBharat Abhiyan Rajiv Jain saidthat in order to improve rank-ing in Swachh Survekshan-2021, theme based sanitationdrives are being carried in thearea under jurisdiction of

South MCD and posterremoval drive is part of it.

The drive was started onSaturday from 85 locationsincluding Najafgarh Road, NewMahavir Nagar, GovindpuriMetro Station, Kalkaji, ChiragDelhi, RK Puram, Pushp ViharRamphal Chowk, PalamFlyover, Sagarpur, Dabri,Ganesh Nagar, Tilak Nagar,Dwarka, Malviya Nagar,Greater Kailash-2 and TagoreGarden.

Jain said that to aware peo-ple about Swachh Survekshan-2021, sanitation drives arebeing conducted at variousplaces. He said that drives arebeing conducted at variousroads, parks, colonies, markets,bus stops, metro stations,schools, vacant plots etc.

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A55 year-old Assistant SubInspector (ASI) of Delhi

Police, who was attached withthe Police Control Room (PCR)unit, allegedly shot himself withhis service pistol while he was onduty at Zakhira flyover in westDelhi on Saturday morning.

The deceased has beenidentified as Tej Pal and he waspresently residing at Rajnagar inGhaziabad.

According to a senior policeofficial, cops received informa-tion about the incident at around7 am and said no suicide notewas recovered from the spot.

“During enquiry, it came tonotice that ASI Tej Pal, was onduty and allegedly shot himselfon his chest with his service pis-tol inside a PCR van. He wasrushed to ABG hospital by thePCR van driver where he wasdeclared brought dead by thedoctors on duty,” said the seniorpolice official.

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A28-year-old woman wasallegedly killed by her hus-

band following a quarrelbetween them in Budh Vihararea of Rohini. Police said thatprima facie, it appears that thewoman was thrashed and hitwith stick by her husband whowas suspected to be under theinfluence of alcohol duringthe time of incident.

The accused has been iden-tified as Chetan PrakashSolanki while his wife has beenidentified as Geeta. The couplehas a seven-year-old daughterand the accused husband is adriver by profession.

According to a seniorpolice official, the incidenttook place on Friday nightafter a quarrel broke outbetween Chetan and his wifeGeeta over some dispute.

“On reaching the spot,police broke out the door andfound the injured woman whileher husband was also foundlying unconscious in the room.The two were rushed to BSAhospital where the woman wasdeclared brought dead and herhusband was also admitted tothe hospital,” said the seniorpolice official.

“During enquiry, neigb-hours told police that there wasa quarrel between the couple.On the statement of thewoman's brother, a case ofmurder was registered and theaccused husband has beenapprehended in connectionwith the incident,” he said.

“Chetan is being interro-gated to ascertain the sequenceof events and the reason thatled to a quarrel between them,”police said, adding furtherinvestigation is underway.

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Delhi Congress presidentAnil Kumar on Saturday

visited the family of the Dalit girlfrom Kalyanpuri and demand-ed a probe by a retired SupremeCourt or High Court judge to“unravel” the truth and �1 crorecompensation to the family.

Kumar promised the fullsupport to the family of the girlwho was allegedly kidnapped,raped and murdered. SeniorDelhi Congress leaders accusedthe BJP and Aam Aadmi Partyleaders of protecting the crim-inals involved in the kidnap-ping, rape and murder of thenine-year-old girl.

Addressing the media, ex-MP Udit and ex-MLA Jaikishansaid that ever since the BJP andthe AAP came to power, attacksand crimes against Dalits are onthe rise.

They said that the dastardlyrape and murder of the VthStandard Dalit girl was the lat-est incident of attacks againstDalit women and theKichiripur rape was a repeat ofthe Hathras’ Dalit girl rape andmurder crime. “If the DelhiPolice and Uttar Pradesh hadacted on time, the criminalscould have been caught,” theyadded.

Jaikishan said that DelhiChief Minister Arvind, whowas an expert in sitting on dhar-nas demanding safety and secu-rity of women, was silent on therape and murder of a girl froma poor Dalit family and it expos-es his double-standard.

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Senior Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) leader and MLA of

Kalka Ji constituency Atishi onSaturday said that neitherwomen nor school-going chil-dren are safe under DelhiPolice.

Atishi said that a girl wasmolested by some men atKalka Ji just 100 metres awayfrom the police station whileshe was returning from schooland her brother was stabbedwhen he tried to save her.

She said that the law andorder situation in the entirecity is crumbling, criminalsthink that they can kill anyoneand they will not face any pun-ishment.

"The survivor's family willget all kinds of help from ourparty and the government,went to the ICU to see the boy,"she said.

Atishi Tweeted, "Met thefamily of the boy who wasstabbed in Kalkaji yesterday.Have assured them of full sup-

port. Also spoke to the doctorsat the AIIMS Trauma Centre,who said that the boy is stableand recovering."

"Have also spoken to DCPeast Delhi and asked them toensure that the perpetrators areswiftly located and arrested.

Have also told DCP SouthEast that CCTV footage will bemade available from all near-by CCTV cameras so that theinvestigation can be assisted,"she said in another tweet.

Atishi said, "It is veryunfortunate that the nationalcapital of India is goingthrough such a miserable lawand order situation.

"Today I met the family ofthe survivor and assured themthat the AAP will stand besidethe family and help them. I alsowent to the ICU to see the boy.The doctors have informed methat the condition of the boy isimproving," she said.

"I have met the DCP of thearea and requested stringentaction and the quickest actionagainst the culprits. The CCTVfootage of the culprits is alsoavailable. So the police mustarrest the culprits at the earli-est. We demand stringentaction against the culprits andit should become an examplein front of everyone so that nosuch incident takes place here-after," she added.

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Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal on Saturday ques-

tioned the law and order situ-ation in the national Capitaland urged Union HomeMinister Amit Shah andLieutenant Governor AnilBaijal to take action citing twocrimes in the last 36 hours.

Taking to Twitter, Kejriwaltweeted, “Deeply concernedby the murder of a 8-yr-old girlin Khichdipur and attack on a17-yr-old boy in Kalkaji. Delhi'slaw and order situation is in aserious turmoil, I appeal toHon’ble Home Minister andLt. Gov to take appropriateaction to address the situation.”

His tweet came after a 17-year-old boy was beaten up andstabbed for allegedly opposingthree boys who were stalkinghis sister and passing"inde-cent remarks" on her in south-east Delhi's Kalkaji area.

According to a seniorpolice official, the incidenttook place on Friday near a

school in southeast Delhi'sKalkaji area. “The injured boy,a resident of Sarvodaya campin Kalkaji Nagar, was taken toAIIMS Trauma Centre fortreatment. He was shifted toOperation Theatre so he couldnot be examined,” he said.

“In her statement, the vic-tim's sister said that on Fridaywhile she was with her broth-er, three boys followed herand passed indecent remarkson her. When her brotherobjected to it, they all startedbeating him and one of themstabbed him on left side ofabdomen and fled from thespot,” said the senior police offi-cial adding that he was shiftedto AIIMS Trauma centre wherehe is still unfit for statement.

“Police have registered acase under section 307 (attemptto murder), 354 D (stalking),509 (Word, gesture or act

intended to insult the modestyof a woman) and 34 (acts doneby several persons in further-ance of common intention)and further investigation isgoing on,” said R P Meena, theDeputy Commissioner of Police(DCP), Southeast district.

“Efforts are being made totrace the accused who are res-idents of JJ camp, Giri Nagar inthe area of Govindpuri,” saidthe DCP.

Earlier, two days ago, abody of a nine-year-old girl,who was kidnapped from eastDelhi’s Khichripur three daysago, was found in the sugarcanefields of a village in Modinagar,near Ghaziabad, on Fridaymorning.

The police had said that theautopsy has ruled out sexualassault. Four alleged kidnap-pers, who live in the sameneighbourhood as the girl’sfamily, have been arrested inconnection with the kidnapand murder.

The arrested persons wereidentified by their first names —Johnny alias Shiva, the key sus-pect, his cousin Naresh, Kailashand Tarun. “In the kidnappingand murder case of Kalyanpuri,four persons have been arrest-ed and the weapon of theoffence has been recovered,” saida senior police official.

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Acharred body was recov-ered after a fire broke out

at a factory in Pratap Nagararea of North Delhi in the earlyhours of Saturday. Police saidthat no one has been reportedinjured.

According to Delhi FireServices (DFS), one of the fire-men sustained minor injury onhis finger during the fire-fight-ing operation but was givenfirst aid at the spot.

“A call about the fire wasreceived at around 3.47 amand 18 fire tenders werepressed into service. Later, 10more fire tenders were rushedto the spot and the fire wasbrought under control whilethe cooling process is under-way,” said Atul Garg, theDirector, DFS.

“The fire broke out on thefirst and second floor of the fac-tory. The plastic and nail pol-ish materials caught fire and a

charred body was recoveredfrom the first floor of the fac-tory. The cause of the blaze isbeing ascertained,” said Garg.

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Two residents of Punjabhave been arrested in

Delhi’s RK Puram area oncharges of conspiring to kill anactivist who is quite vocal onKashmir.

“Two pistols, two country-made guns and four live bulletshave been recovered fromthem. The seized pistols are ofthe kind, manufactured inPakistan”, police said.

The accused have beenidentified as Sukwinder Singh(25), a resident of Faridkot andLakhan (21), a resident ofKotpura.

According to Ingit PratapSingh, the DeputyCommissioner of Police(DCP), Southwest district, bothof them are acquaintance from

Punjab Faridkot and were sentto Delhi at behest of one per-son identified as Prince aliasLutti.

“During interrogation itwas revealed that Prince, is achildhood friend of Lakhanand facing murder trial inFaridkot and facts of which arebeing verified,” he said.

“They were promised �10lakh cash if they kill oneSushil Pandit who is HumanRights Activists and CLO ofHive Communications IndiaPvt Ltd.

“The duo also revealedthat they were provided withfour pistol, two of which areCountry made pistol and twoare foreign made pistol alongwith four cartridges and onemobile phone containing pho-tograph of Sushil Pandit, pro-vided by Prince,” said the

DCP in a statement issued onSaturday.

“While they were on thelookout for a rented accom-modation in South WestDistrict they were nabbed bythe local police of RK Purampolice station on specificinputs,” said the DCP.

“A case under section25/54/29 Arms Act, 120B(Punishment of criminal con-spiracy) 115 IPC (Abetment ofoffence punishable with deathor imprisonment for life) hasbeen registered in RK Purampolice station,” said the DCPadding that further investiga-tion going on.

“Considering the natureof the case and that foreignhand may be involved in thecase, the case is now beingtransferred to Special Cell ofDelhi Police,” said the DCP.

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Awoman and her 19-year-old son were allegedly

stabbed by a group of four boyswhen they raised objections formaking noise in west Delhi'sPunjabi Bagh area on Saturday.

Police said that both theinjured boy Moin and hismother, aged around 48, weretaken to Deen Dayal Upadhyayhospital where they are beinggiven treatment.

“In his statement, Mointold police that four boys, allresidents of his locality onDDU camp area of PunjabiBagh were making noise.When his parents tried to stopthem, they started fighting andone of the boys stabbed hismother on her chest with a

knife and injured him on hisleft thigh,” said the seniorpolice official.

“A case has been regis-tered and during investiga-tion, it has come to notice thatall the accused involved in theincident are below 18 and arepresently absconding,” he said.

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Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) president Adesh

Gupta on Saturday said that theDelhi Government has spentonly 1.6 per cent of �883 crorecollected from the people in thename of green cess to controlpollution which has nowreached an alarming level.

Addressing the media, hecharged the Kejriwal govern-ment with having completelyfailed in controlling theincreasing pollution level andsaid the apathy of the govern-ment has resulted into Delhibecoming “a capital of dust”.

“The chief minister is onlyinterested in political expansionof his party that has led to theworsening overall situation inthe city where most of the peo-ple are compelled to live in mis-erable conditions,” he added.

Citing reports by somemedical experts, he said coro-na pandemic would not havetaken a monstrous turn inDelhi had air pollution beenunder control. “If people aresuffering from lung cancer,heart disease, asthma, TB, it isKejriwal who is responsible

for all this,” he said.Extensively quoting from

an NGO’s GreenpeaceSoutheast Asia report, he said54,000 people died of pollu-tion-related diseases in thecapital last year alone or a dailyaverage of 148 deaths and itcaused a monetary loss ofDelhi to the tune of �58,000crore.

Talking about the Greenbudget of the Kejriwal govern-ment, Gupta said even on stub-ble burning, he made a lot ofhue and cry, but figures showlast year the government spentonly �40,000 in buying biodecomposer units while �24lakh was spent on their distri-bution and another whopping�9 crore on its publicity.

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Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khanon Saturday welcomed the ceasefire agreement withIndia but said the onus of creating an “enabling envi-ronment” for further progress in bilateral relationsrests with New Delhi.

In his first comments since the militaries ofIndia and Pakistan jointly announced on Thursdaythat they have agreed to strictly observe all agree-ments on the ceasefire along the Line of Control(LoC) and other sectors, Khan said Pakistanremains ready to move forward to resolve “all out-standing issues” with India through dialogue.

“I welcome restoration of the ceasefire along theLOC. The onus of creating an enabling environmentfor further progress rests with India. India must takenecessary steps to meet the long-standing demand& right of the Kashmiri people to self determina-tion according to UNSC resolutions,” Khan tweet-ed.

“We have always stood for peace & remain readyto move forward to resolve all outstanding issuesthrough dialogue,” Khan said in a series of tweets.

India has told Pakistan that “talks and terror”

cannot go together and has asked Islamabad to takedemonstrable steps against terror groups respon-sible for launching various attacks on India.

On Thursday, India said it desires normal neigh-bourly relations with Pakistan and is committed toresolving all issues bilaterally in a peaceful manner.

“On relations with Pakistan, as we have said ear-lier, India desires normal neighbourly relations withPakistan. We have always maintained that we arecommitted to addressing issues, if any, in a peace-ful and bilateral manner,” Ministry of ExternalAffairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said in NewDelhi.

India and Pakistan issued a joint statement onThursday to strictly observe all agreements on cease-fire along the LoC and other sectors after the hot-line discussions by their Director Generals ofMilitary Operations. The decision by the two coun-tries came into effect from the midnight ofFebruary 24/25.

India and Pakistan signed a ceasefire agreementin 2003, but it has hardly been followed in letter andspirit over the past several years. PTI

United Nations: India hasemphasised the need for anearly return of displacedRohingyas from Bangladesh toMyanmar, saying that it has thehighest stake in resolving theissue since it is the only nationthat shares a long border withboth countries.

Speaking at the informalUN General Assembly meetingon Friday on the situation inMyanmar after the militarystaged a coup this month, India’sPermanent Representative tothe UN Ambassador T STirumurti said that it must beensured that the recent devel-opments in the country do notimpede the progress made so farand the international commu-nity must encourage and sup-port positive steps.

Bangladesh is hosting over1.1 million Rohingya refugees inCox''s Bazar, who fled Myanmarfacing military crackdown, oftenconsidered as “ethnic cleansing”

by many rights groups.Myanmar doesn’t recognise

Rohingya as an ethnic groupand insists that they areBangladeshi migrants living ille-gally in the country.

Myanmar military seizedthe power on February 1, detain-ing the country''s de-facto leaderAung San Suu Kyi. The militarycoup took place at a time whenBangladesh was spearheading adesperate campaign for safereturn of some 1.1 millionRohingyas.

Tirumurti, addressing theissue of displaced persons fromthe Rakhine state of Myanmar,said India has the highest stakein resolving the issue of repatri-ation of the displaced personssince it is the only country thatshares a long border with bothBangladesh and Myanmar.

“We have continued tocounsel our partners on the needfor a balanced and constructiveapproach to this issue. For this,

mobilisation of support for thedevelopmental needs of thelocal people is crucial. India hasbeen consistently encouragingstakeholders to find practicaland pragmatic solutions,” hesaid. He emphasised the need foran early resolution of the issueof Rohingyas.

Underscoring that a “col-laborative and consensus-basedapproach” is key to arriving at ameaningful and practical out-come, Tirumurti said the inter-national community must workto address the challenges that theconcerned stakeholders contin-ue to face so that this humani-tarian problem is resolved in atimely manner.

“India will continue to workwith both the governments ofBangladesh and Myanmar toenable the earliest return of dis-placed persons to their homes inthe Rakhine State in a mannerthat is safe, speedy and sustain-able,” he said. PTI

Washington: Prime Minister Narendra Modi willreceive the CERAWeek global energy and environmentleadership award during an annual international energyconference next week. The prime minister will also deliv-er the keynote address at the CERAWeek Conference-2021,which will be held virtually from March 1 to 5, its organ-iser, IHS Markit, said on Friday.

Prominent speakers at the conference include US spe-cial presidential envoy for climate John Kerry, Co-chairof the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and founderof Breakthrough Energy Bill Gates and president and CEO,Saudi Aramco, Amin Nasser.

“We look forward to Prime Minister Modi's per-spectives on the role of the world's largest democracy andare pleased to honour him with the CERAWeek GlobalEnergy and Environment Leadership Award for his com-mitment to expanding India's leadership in sustainabledevelopment to meet the country's, and the world's, futureenergy needs,” IHS Markit vice chairman and the con-ference's chair, Daniel Yergin, said.

In charting its path towards economic growth,poverty reduction and a new energy future, India hasemerged at the centre of global energy and the environ-ment, and its leadership is crucial to meet climate objec-tives for a sustainable future while ensuring universal ener-gy access, he said. PTI

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Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala onSaturday crossed the 10 lakh markin terms of total COVID-19 recov-eries, while reporting 3,792 newpositive cases and 18 deaths.

With the addition of the freshcases, the infection count surged to10,56,498 and the death toll to 4,182,state Health Minister K K Shailajasaid in a release here.

As many as 4,650 people haverecuperated from the disease onSaturday, taking the total cured in thestate to 10,01,164, she said.

Currently, there are 50,514 peo-ple under treatment.

The minister said no UKreturnee had tested positive in the last24 hours.So far, the total infected UK

returnees in the southern state was94.

Among them, 11 people wereearlier found infected with the newstrain of virus, she said.

Stating that the state has tested73,710 samples in the last 24 hours,the minister said the test positivityrate was 5.14 per cent.

Till now, 1,14,13,515 sampleshave been tested.

“Among those found infectedtoday, 112 people reached the statefrom outside while 3,418 contractedthe disease from their contacts.Thesource of infection of 236 are yet tobe traced while 26health workers arealso among the infected,” the minis-ter said. PTI

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The NDA in Kerala wouldbring in a law to prevent

prevent 'love jihad” in the state,if voted to power in the April6 assembly elections, as suchcases are 'more prevalent' herethan in Uttar Pradesh, BJPstate chief K Surendran saidhere on Saturday

'Love Jihad' is a term usedby right wing activists to referto an alleged campaign ofMuslims forcing Hindu girls toconvert in the guise of love.

Surendran said theChristian community was nowmore worried about the prac-

tice as they were reportedlybeing targetted, and had soughtstringent action against it.

“Love Jihad is more preva-lent in Kerala than in UttarPradesh and a law is requiredto prevent it.

The christian communityin the state is worried and havesought stringent action againstlove jihad.. This is of seriousconcern for them,” Surendrantold reporters here.

BJP-ruled Uttar Pradeshand Madhya Pradesh had ear-lier brought in religious free-dom laws to stop conversionsthrough marriage or by anyother fraudulent means.

Asked about senior BJPleader Shobha Surendran'srecent statement that IUMLwas welcome to the NDA ifthey leave behind their 'com-munal agenda' and accept theleadership and policies of theNarendra Modi led govern-ment, the state chief said theparty would join hands onlywith those who leave theiraffiliation with the IUML,Congress and CPI(M).

“The BJP in Kerala will notjoin hands with the IUML, CPI(M) and the Congress. We willaccept only those who leavetheir affiliation with these par-ties,” Surendran said.

Gopeshwar: One more bodywas recovered from the banksof the Alaknanda at Marwadinear Joshimath taking the tollin the recent avalanche inUttarakhand's Chamoli dis-trict to 72. The 72nd body wasrecovered late on Fridayevening, Chamoli's DisasterManagement Officer N K Joshisaid on Saturday.

Meanwhile, rescue opera-tions in the avalanche hit-areascontinued for the 21st day onSaturday, he said.

So far 72 bodies and 30human body parts have beenrecovered from different placesin the avalanche-hit areas out

of which 41 bodies have beenidentified, he said adding 132persons are still missing.

Meanwhile, the NTPCwhose Tapovan-Vishnugadhydel project was one of theworst-hit by the February 7 dis-aster, has deposited a sum of Rs3.52 crore in the chief judicialmagistrate's court to be paid ascompensation to 25 affectedfamilies as per a list issued bythe state government, a com-pany spokesperson said.

The rest of the families willalso be paid compensationafter the state governmentissues death certificates of theirmissing kin, he said. PTI

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Eight people were on SaturdayArrested for allegedly slaugh-

tering 16 cows in Siddipet dis-trict of Telangana, police said.

Acting on information thatthe cows were slaughtered on theoutskirts of Siddipet on Friday,a police team reached the spotand arrested the eight.

The district PoliceCommissioner D Joel Davis saida case was registered under rel-evant sections of the IPC,Prevention of Cruelty to Animals(PCA) Act and Prohibition ofCows Slaughter Act.

Citing preliminary infor-mation, police said the arrestedpeople used to purchase agedcows from farmers and tookthem to a poultry shed forallegedly slaughtering them tosell beef.

Meanwhile, members of BJPand VHP and other organisa-tions held a rally on Friday,demanding the arrest of thoseresponsible for the slaughter,the police said.

The situation is peaceful inSiddipet, they added.

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Bengaluru: If things go as planned,an Indian rocket will launch aBrazilian satellite for the first timefrom Sriharikota spaceport onSunday.

It's also Indian Space ResearchOrganisation's (ISRO) first launchof 2021.

Subject to weather conditions,the blastoff is scheduled at 10.24hours from Satish Dhawan SpaceCentre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota,where countdown commenced at08.54 hours on Saturday for thePSLV-C51/Amazonia-1 mission.

PSLV-C51 rocket, which is the53rd mission of PSLV (Polar SatelliteLaunch Vehicle), will launchAmazonia-1 of Brazil as primarysatellite and 18 co-passenger pay-loads from the first launch pad of

the Sriharikota spaceport in AndhraPradesh's Nellore district, about100 kms from Chennai.

These co-passenger satellitesinclude Satish Dhawan Sat (SDSAT) from Chennai-based SpaceKidz India (SKI). A picture ofPrime Minister Narendra Modi hasbeen engraved on the top panel ofthis spacecraft.

“This is to show solidarity andgratitude for his (PM's)Aatmanirbhar initiative and spaceprivatisation”, said SKI, which is alsosending up “Bagavad Gita” in SD(secured digital) card.

It's also a big day for Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO's commercialarm NewSpace India Limited(NSIL). PSLV-C51/Amazonia-1is the first dedicated commercial

mission of NSIL, which is under-taking it under a commercialarrangement with Seattle, US-basedsatellite rideshare and mission man-agement provider, Spaceflight Inc.

“We are eagerly looking forwardto the launch. We are very proud tolaunch the first Brazilian-built satel-lite, Chairman and ManagingDirector of NSIL, G Narayanan, toldPTI. The 637-kg Amazonia-1, whichwill be the first Brazilian satellite tobe launched from India, is the opti-cal earth observation satellite ofNational Institute for Space Research(INPE).

“This satellite would furtherstrengthen the existing structure byproviding remote sensing data tousers for monitoring deforestationin the Amazon region and analysis

of diversified agriculture across theBrazilian territory,” an ISRO state-ment said.

In view of the strict COVID-19pandemic norms in place at SDSCSHAR, Sriharikota, gathering ofmedia personnel is not plannedthere and launch viewing gallery willbe closed.

However, the live telecast of thelaunch will be available on ISROwebsite, Youtube, Facebook andTwitter channels.

The 18 co-passenger satellitesare: four from ISRO's IndianNational Space Promotion andAuthorisation Centre (threeUNITYsats from consortium ofthree Indian academic institutesand the SD SAT from SKI) and 14from NSIL. PTI

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Lakhs of devotees from differentparts of the country took a dip

in the Ganga at Har ki Pairi hereon the occasion of Maghi Purnimaon Saturday.

Devotees had begun to gath-er at the famous ghat from Fridayitself for a bath in the river on theoccasion which has a special reli-gious significance for Hindus.

According to teerth-purohits,taking a bath in the Ganga on theoccasion of Maghi Purnima givesone as much spiritual benefits as

10,000 Ashwamedha Yagnas.Though the notification for a

COVID-delayed Kumbh Mela hasnot been issued yet, it would havebeen the fourth important bathingday on Saturday if the event washeld on time.

The devotees said they prayedto mother Ganga for the wellbeingof their families and for freeing theworld from the coronavirus pan-demic.

The mela area was dividedinto nine zones and 23 sectors forthe smooth conduct of MaghiPurnima snan.

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Bengaluru: A rare 10.9 gramgold coin of Kam Bakhsh, thefifth son of Mughal emperorAurangazeb, is going underthe hammer here.

Marudhar Arts, a leadingnumismatic auction househere, is holding the auction ata price ranging between Rs 45lakh and Rs 50 lakh.

According to RajendraMaru, the CEO of MarudharArts, the gold 'Mohur' ofBijapur Dar-uz-Zafar mint hasa Persian legend.

“The coin, weighing 10.90

gram, is almost uncirculated.So it's unique,” Maru, who isorganising the auction, said.

According to a statementon Marudhar Arts' portal, KamBakhsh took active part in thewars.

In 1707, he seized the con-trol of the Bijapur fort anddeclared himself the king.

Gradually, Kam Bakhshsway extended across much ofDeccan winning control overHyderabad, erstwhile Gulbarga(now Kalaburagi), Shahpurand Wakinkhera. PTI

Aizawl: The Mizoram government has decided to reopencolleges, universities and other higher educationalinstitutions from March 1, an official statement said.

A meeting of Education and Health department offi-cials chaired by Higher and Technical EducationMinister Dr R Lalthangliana on Friday decided to reopencolleges, universities and higher educational institutionsfrom March 1, the statement said.

The meeting instructed all college authorities toundertake mandatory thermal screening at the entranceand to strictly follow Standard Operating Procedure(SOP), it said.

Lalthangliana, who is also the Health Minister, urgedauthorities of schools, colleges, universities and otherinstitutions to adhere to COVID-19 protocols and guide-lines made from time to time. PTI

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From Page 1Meanwhile, Azad, who reached Jammu on Friday said the

Congress party will contest the coming Assembly elections infour States and a Union Territory with its full might. He said,the fight is not over yet. “I may have retired from Parliament butnot for the politics”, Every time I received this treatment I havebounced back,” he thundered.

Addressing the ‘Shanti Sammelan Azad said, “Be it Jammuor Kashmir or Ladakh, we respect all religions, people and castes.We equally respect everyone, that is our strength and we will con-tinue with this”.

“In the last 5-6 years, all these friends did not speak any lessthan me in Parliament over Jammu & Kashmir, its unemploy-ment, stripping off of statehood, finishing off industries and edu-cation, implementation of GST,” the former Rajya Sabha MPadded.

Raj Babbar also addressed the event and emphasised that theG-23 leaders want the Congress party to be strong. People say“G23”, I say Gandhi 23. “With the belief, resolve and thinkingof Mahatma Gandhi, this nation’s law and Constitution wasformed. Congress is standing strongly to take these forward. ‘G23’wants Congress to be strong,” he said.

From Page 1It leaves no doubt that as the prince continues in

his powerful role and likely ascends to the throne,Americans will forever associate him with the brutalkilling of a journalist who promoted democracy andhuman rights.

Yet even as the Biden administration released thefindings, it appeared determined to preserve theSaudi relationship by avoiding direct punishment of theprince himself despite demands from some congres-sional Democrats and Khashoggi allies for significantand targeted sanctions.

Questioned by reporters, Secretary of State AntonyBlinken defended the approach.

“What we’ve done by the actions we’ve taken is notto rupture the relationship but to|recalibrate it to be more in line with our interests andour values,” he said. “I think that we have tounderstand as well that this is bigger than any one per-son.”

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From Page 1Maharashtra reported the highest daily new cases at

8,333, followed by Kerala with 3,671 while Punjab report-ed 622 new cases in the last 24 hours.

In the last two weeks, Maharashtra has shown the high-est rise in active cases from 34,449 on February 14 to 68,810currently, the Ministry said.

They informed about the enforcement of Covid appro-priate behaviour by levying heavy fines and challans, review-ing the surveillance and containment activities closely withthe district collectors, and other steps being taken in linewith the guidelines provided by the Ministry of Health andFamily Welfare (MoHFW) and the Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA).

India’s total Covid-19 active caseload is 1,59,590 whichis 1.44 per cent of the total infections.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Saturday said the

Government has prepared a‘National Toy Action Plan’ thatincludes 15 ministries anddepartments to make theindustry competitive and pro-vide it with a global platform.

The Prime Minister saidthe ancient toy culture of thecountry reflects the practice ofreuse and recycling, which ispart of the Indian lifestyle.

He said India has thepotential to take the worldback to eco-friendly toys.

The fair that will continuefrom February 27 to March 2aims to bring together all stake-holders including buyers, sell-ers, students, teachers, design-ers, etc on a virtual platform tocreate sustainable linkages andencourage dialogue for theoverall development of theindustry, according to aGovernment statement.

Speaking at the India ToyFair 2021 here that he alsoinaugurated, the PrimeMinister said the Governmenthas prepared a National ToyAction Plan. It includes 15ministries and departmentsto make the industry compet-itive, ‘Aatmanirbhar’, and toprovide it with a global plat-form.

“This first Toy Fair is notjust a business or economicevent. This programme is alink to strengthen the coun-try’s age-old culture of sportsand gaiety. India toy culture isas old as the Indus Valley

Civilisation. The world hasstudied the toys of theMohenjo-Daro and Harappanera,” he said.

Prime Minister had in his‘Ma’am ki baat’ radio pro-gramme also stressed the roleplayed by the toys in shapingmind and reflected on therich and varied Indian tradi-tion of toy Making.

Addressing the Toy Fairthat he inaugurated, the PrimeMinister said that India hasgiven the world some of themost popular games like Chessand ludo.

“Chess, which is so popu-lar in the world today, was ear-lier played in India as‘Chaturanga or Chaduranga’.Modern Ludo was played as‘Pachisi’. In our scriptures too,there are descriptions of younglord Ram, and lord Krishna’stoys,” he said.

Modi said that even todayIndian toys are simpler andcheaper than western toys andappealed to the manufacturersto make toys that are better forboth ecology and psychology.

“Try to use less plastic intoys. Use such things that canbe recycled,” he said.

Indian toys, he said, con-tain elements of science, enter-

tainment and psychology.“Take Lattu (top) as an

example. When children learnto play with Lattu, they learnabout gravity and balance. Inthe same way, a child playingwith a slingshot inadvertentlystarts learning basics aboutkinetic energy and potentialenergy. Puzzle toys developstrategic thinking and prob-lem-solving thinking, “ PrimeMinister sight to explain.

Modi said that the newNational Education Policy alsoincorporates play-based andactivity-based education.

“This is an education sys-tem in which logical and cre-ative thinking can be increasedin children through riddlesand games. Special attentionhas been given to this,” he said.

The Prime Minister assert-ed that in the field of toys,India has tradition and tech-nology coupled with conceptsand competence.

“We can take the worldback towards eco-friendlytoys. The National Toy ActionPlan has been prepared whichincludes 15 ministries anddepartments to make theindustry competitive,Aatmanirbhar and take India’stoys to the world,” he said.

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Union Minister for MinorityAffairs Mukhtar Abbas

Naqvi on Saturday said herethat the “Hunar Haat” is play-ing “phenomenal and perfect”role in making “Vocal forLocal” campaign a “massmovement” and as of nowgiven employment to over fivelakh people and ‘still counting.’

Speaking at the “HunarHaat” in Jawaharlal NehruStadium here Naqvi said that“Hunar Haat” has been becom-ing “Kumbh of backers of bril-liance”.

Naqvi said that more than12 lakh people have visited the“Hunar Haat”, started from20th February and become“Proud Promoter” of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’s“Vocal for Local” campaign bypurchasing handmade prod-ucts of indigenous artisansand craftsmen worth crores ofrupees.

The number of visitors islikely to go above 16 lakh inthe next two days, he said. This“Hunar Haat” will be con-cluding on March first, 2021.

The 10-day “Hunar Haat”was inaugurated by DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh.

Several Ministers, MPs,senior government officials,various Diplomats, renownedindustrialists have come hereto encourage the artisans and

craftsmen. More than 600 artisans

and craftsmen from more than31 States and UTs participat-ing in the “Hunar Haat”.Artisans and craftsmen fromAndhra Pradesh, Assam,Bihar, Chandigarh,Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Goa,Gujarat, Haryana, HimachalPradesh, Jammu-Kashmir,Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala,Ladakh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland,Odisha, Puducherry, Punjab,Rajasthan, Sikkim, TamilNadu, Telangana, UttarPradesh, Uttarakhand, WestBengal etc are participating inthe “Hunar Haat to display andsale of their indigenous hand-made products.

Naqvi said that indige-nous handmade products suchas Applique work, dry flowers,jute-cane, brass products,wooden and clay toys, AjrakhBlock Print, Blue Art Pottery,Pashmina Shawl, Khadi prod-ucts, Banarsi Silk, WoodenFurniture, ChikankariEmbroidery, Chanderi Silk,Lac bangles, Rajasthani jew-ellery, Phulkari, Oil Painting,Leather products, Khurja pot-tery, Sandalwood artefactsfrom Tamil Nadu, Karnataka,Jute products from WestBengal, rare antiques made ofglass, mats and carpets etcwere available for sale and dis-play at the “Hunar Haat”.

Naqvi said that the visitorsalso enjoyed traditional deli-

cacies from every region of thecountry at “Bawarchikhana”section.

Besides, different culturaland musical programmes weredaily presented by renownedartists of the country such asVinod Rathore (21 Feb);Nizami Brothers (24 Feb);Sudesh Bhonsle (26 Feb); SlKailash Kher (27 Feb) andothers.

Naqvi said that the “HunarHaat” has, as of now, provid-ed employment and employ-ment opportunities to morethan 5 lakh 30,000 artisans,craftsmen and artists .

The Union Ministry ofMinority Affairs will provideemployment and employmentopportunities to 7 lakh 50,000artisans and craftsmenthrough 75 “Hunar Haat”which will be organised bycompletion of 75 years of thecountry’s independence.

The “Hunar Haat” is avail-able on virtual and onlineplatform http://hunarhaat.organd on GeM Portal also wherethe people of the country and abroad can buyproducts of indigenous arti-sans and craftsmendigital/online.

Next “Hunar Haat” will beorganised in Bhopal (12 to 21March 2021); Goa (25 Marchto 04 April); Kota (9 April to18 April); Surat (23 April to 2May).

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The Election Commission(EC) has decided to keep in

abeyance Assam Government’sdecision of transferring andposting over a dozen policeofficers after the announce-ment of poll schedule.

The poll body has writtento chief secretaries and chiefelectoral officers of five States—West Bengal, Kerala, TamilNadu, Assam andPuducherry—going for thepolls, drawing the particularprovisions of model code ofconduct to the party in powerand immediate enforcementof the MCC.

According to the EC, theAssam Government orderedthe transfer of 12 IPS and 6APS officers on the day theelection schedule wasannounced. The Commission,therefore, decided to keep thetransfer/posting of these policeofficers in abeyance till furtherorders. In West Bengal, the pollbody replaced the top cop incharge of law and order for theState. Jag Mohan, who waspreviously DG (Fire Services),has been named as the newADG and IGP (Law andOrder), replacing JawedShamim “with immediate effectand in the interest of public ser-vice”. Shamim will now takeover the DG (Fire Services)position.

In a letter, the EC said“…the particular provisions ofModel Code of Conduct relat-ing to the ‘party in power’which inter alia says that theparty in power whether at theCentre or in the States con-cerned, shall ensure that nocause is given for any complaintthat it has used its officialposition for the purposes of itselection campaign”.

“The Ministers shall notcombine their official visit with

electioneering work and alsoshall not make use of officialmachinery or personnel duringthe electioneering work.” Thereshall be a total ban on use ofofficial vehicle by any politicalparty, candidate or any otherperson connected with election(except officials performingany election related officialduty) for campaigning, elec-tioneering or election relatedtravel during elections. Thegovernment transport includ-ing official air-crafts, vehicles,machinery and personnel shallnot be used for furtherance ofthe interest of the party inpower,” the EC said in its com-muniques.

The EC also stated thatpublic places such as maidansetc., for holding election meet-ings, and use of helipads for air-flights in connection with elec-tions shall not be monopolisedby itself. Other parties andcandidates shall be allowed theuse of such places and facilitieson the same terms and condi-tions on which they are used bythe party in power,” it said.

The EC further points outthat rest houses, dak bungalowsor other government accom-modation where elections havebeen announced or are takingplace can be given to the polit-ical functionaries who are pro-vided security by the State in Zscale or above or equivalent byvarious State Governments or

the Central Government underprovisions of their laws, onequitable basis.

“This shall be subject tocondition that such accommo-dation is not already allotted oroccupied by election relatedofficials or Observers. Suchpolitical functionaries shall notcarry out any political activitywhile staying in theGovernment GuestHouses/Rest Houses or otherGovernment accommodationetc,” it said.

The poll body further saidthat no advertisements shall beissued in electronic and printmedia highlighting the achieve-ments of the government at thecost of public exchequer. “If anyadvertisement has already beenreleased for telecast/broadcastor publication in the printmedia, it must be ensured thatthe telecast/broadcast of suchads on electronic media isstopped forthwith and that nosuch ad is published in anynewspapers, magazines, etc.,i.e. in print media, from todayitself and it should be immedi-atelywithdrawn,” it said.

The MCC is a set of rulesput in force by the ElectionCommission of India to guar-antee free and fair elections. Itis a set of norms that haveevolved with political partiesconsenting to abide by theprinciples embodied in the saidcode.

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India and Bangladesh onSaturday decided to finish

the early completion of borderfencing and tackle the menaceof cross-border terrorism. Atthe virtual Home Secretarylevel talks, headed by UnionSecretary Ajay Kumar Bhallaand Bangladesh Mostafa KamalUddin, Senior Secretary, PublicSecurity Division, it was reit-erated that either countryshould not be used for anyactivity inimical to each other’sinterests.

“The 19th HomeSecretary Level Talks (HSLT)between India and Bangladeshwere held virtually today inthe backdrop of‘MujibBarsho’and 50 years ofBangladesh Liberation Warand establishment of diplo-matic ties between the twocountries. The Indian delega-

tion was led by Shri AjayKumar Bhalla, Union HomeSecretary.Sh. Mostafa KamalUddin, Senior Secretary,Public Security Division,Ministry of Home Affairs ofBangladesh led theBangladesh delegation.

“India and Bangladeshattach highest importance totheir bilateral relations. BothSecretaries reiterated theircommitment to furtherexpand and strengthen mutu-al cooperation in the securityand border related issues. Bothsides reaffirmed not to allowthe territory of either countryto be used for any activityinimical to each other’s inter-ests. Both sides discussed earlycompletion of pending fencingalong the Indo BangladeshBorder (IBB) as agreed by thePrime Ministers of the twocountries,” said Union HomeMinistry in a statement.

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The NIA on Saturday filed achargesheet against four

persons in a case relating tohuman trafficking in the guiseof running placement agenciesbefore the NIA Special Court,Ranchi under various Sectionsof the IPC, Provisions of theInter- State Migrant Workmen(Regulation of Employmentand Conditions of Service) Act,1979 and the Juvenile Justice(Care and Protection) Act,2015.

Those charged are PannaLal Mahto, Sunita Devi(absconding), Gopal Oraonand Shiv Shankar Ganjhu.

The case was initially reg-istered as FIR No. 07/2019 atAHTU police station in Khunti,Jharkhand on July 19, 2019 inwhich the accused Panna LalMahto, aged about 37 years, ofvillage Ganaloya under Murhupolice station, Khunti wasarrested for running a HumanTrafficking network inJharkhand and New Delhi.

The NIA had taken overthe investigation on June 13 lastyear after re-registering thecase as RC-09/2020/NIA/DLI.

“During investigation, itwas revealed that Panna LalMahto, the kingpin of humantrafficking racket, along with hiswife, Sunita Devi, was operat-ing a Human Trafficking net-work in the guise of sixPlacement Agencies in Delhi.They used to traffic poor andinnocent minor boy and girlsfrom Jharkhand on the pretextof providing them jobs in Delhiand neighbouring States.However, the victims wereexploited and were never paidthe promised remunerations,”the NIA said in a statement.

During the investigation,two other accused Gopal Oraonand Shiv Shankar Ganjhu, bothresidents of Khunti districtwere arrested. Both were closeassociates of the kingpin PannaLal Mahto, and were activelyinvolved in trafficking vulner-able persons from Jharkhand, itsaid.

Investigation has alsorevealed that both were ownersof three Placement Agencies inDelhi, involved in human traf-ficking racket. Another accusedSunita Devi, wife of arrestedaccused Pana Lal Mahto, isabsconding.

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The EnforcementDirectorate (ED) has

attached immovable assets(agricultural and non-agri-cultural land, buildings, resi-dential flat and factories)worth �84.40 crore held byKanva Group of companies)and related entities besidesthose of Founder Directorand President of Bengaluru-based Sree Kanva SouhardhaCo-Operative Credit Limited(SKSCCL), Harish S.

The accused individualsand the entities had collected� 650 crore from the publicand total attachments in thecase is about �340 crore.

The attached assets are sit-uated at Nelamangala,Koratagere, Chikkabalapura,Srirangapatana and Bengaluruin Karnataka and atMadakasira in AndhraPradesh.

The ED initiated investi-gation on the basis of a com-plaint received from the Officeof the Registrar ofCooperative Societies,Bengaluru and various regis-tered FIRs wherein it wasalleged that the entity hascollected �650 crore depositsfrom the members of public,assuring high rate of interestthrough commission agents,without maintaining requiredliquidity.

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Battling insolvency pro-ceedings, The Pioneer

media group is gearing up toundergo a major facelift. Thegroup is planning to augmentits revenue, improve its con-tents, and radically change itsdigital presence through theintroduction of new technolo-gy, new marketing strategyand revamping of its circula-tion.

The senior employees ofthe newspaper both from themanagement and the editorialside met on Saturday under theleadership of NCLT-appointedInterim Resolution Professional(IRP) Ranjeet Kumar Vermawhere it was decided to effec-tively tackle the “existential”challenge the one of the oldestmedia houses in the country isfacing.

“I am here as a representa-tive of the court and my mainobjective is to keep The Pioneergroup as a going concern. I’veno score to settle or no axe togrind. I want the cooperationof everyone to make ThePioneer a vibrant brand again,both in Hindi and English,”Verma said during the courseof an exchange of idea session.He added that he expected thecompany operation to return tonormal in a short while.

The IRP assured theemployees that their prioritywould be look into a range of

serious issues flagged by themregarding their remunerationand staff shortage. “I will doeverything possible to create aproper atmosphere so thateveryone can contribute to therevival of the company,” he said.

He said he didn’t believe ina witch-hunt, but he expectedeveryone to help him imple-ment the court’s order in letterand spirit.

The Delhi bench of theNational Company LawTribunal (NCLT) last monthinitiated insolvency proceed-ings against the CMYKPrintech , which runs the oper-ation of The Pioneer newspaper,following a plea by one of itsdirectors.

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The Congress Saturdayaccused the Modi

Government of ignoring thewoes of common man andasked it to shed its “arrogance”and reduce the tax imposed onpetrol, diesel and LPG.

Addressing a press confer-ence here, Congress spokesper-son Abhishek Singhvi said thegovernment should immedi-ately roll back the additionaltaxes of �23.78 and �28.37 perlitre on petrol and dieselrespectively, which will helpbring down fuel prices.

He quoted Prime Minister

Narendra Modi’s words asGujarat Chief Minister to urgethe government to reduce thehigh tax components on petro-leum products. Singhvi said thecommon man is already hurtdue to rising inflation and job-lessness amid a decline in theeconomy post-pandemic.

The PM may ignore theCongress’ demand, but heshould at least listen to his ownwords as Gujarat CM duringthe UPA regime at the Centre,or may heed RBI GovernorShaktikanta Das’s advice thatthe rising fuel prices will havea cascading effect, the Congressleader said.

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Khadi and Village IndustryCommission’s (KVIC)

foray into the online market-ing segment has foundtremendous public patron-age. Testimony to this is thegross turnover of over Rs1.12 crore in just 8 months ofthe launch of Khadi’s e-por-tal www.khadiindia.gov.in.

Launched on July 7, 2020,Khadi e-portal has deliveredorders to over 10,000 cus-tomers out of the 65,000 peo-ple who visited the e-portaltill date. The KVIC has alsodelivered more than 1 lakharticles/commodities to thesecustomers. During this peri-od, the average online pur-chase has recorded at Rs11,000 per customer, which isan indication of Khadi’s ever-growing popularity and thediversity of its product range.

Minister of MSME NitinGadkari has lauded Khadi’ssuccessful e-commerce ven-ture saying this provided awide marketing platform forvarious Khadi and villageindustry products to a largerpopulation. “E-marketing ofKhadi is proving to be agame-changer. Our effortsshould be to reach a turnoverof Rs 200 crore per year,”Gadkari said.

KVIC has developed thee-portal in-house withoutspending a single rupee onweb-developing. Unlike otheronline portals, the KVICtakes care of all logistics andinfrastructure support likecataloguing, product photo-shoot, maintaining onlineinventory and packaging andtransportation of goods tothe customers’ doorsteps. Thissaves Khadi artisans, institu-tions and PMEGP units man-

ufacturing Khadi productsfrom any financial burden.“All expenses incurred onoperating Khadi e-portal isborne by the KVIC. While incase of other e-commercesites, product cataloguing,packaging and dispatch arethe responsibility of therespective sellers, KVIC hasa policy that the Khadi insti-tutions and PMEGP units areexempted from any suchfinancial and logistical bur-den. This saves them a lot ofmoney and, therefore, Khadi’se-portal is a unique platformfor lakhs of Khadi artisans,”KVIC Chairman VinaiKumar Saxena said.

Khadi’s online sale thatstarted with just Khadi FaceMasks during the Covid-19lockdown, has evolved into afull-fledged E-market plat-form with nearly 800 prod-ucts.

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People who took statins —widely used cholesterol-

lowering medications – mayhave reduced risk of develop-ing severe Covid-19 disease, ateam of researchers saidadding that they were approx-imately 50 per cent less likelyto die if hospitalised for theinfection.

“Our study is one of thelarger studies confirming thishypothesis and the data laythe groundwork for futurerandomized clinical trials thatare needed to confirm thebenefit of statins in Covid-19,” said Aakriti Gupta, car-diologist atN e w Yo r k P r e s b y t e r i a n /Columbia University IrvingMedical Center and one of theco-lead authors of the studypublished in the Nature

Communications.“If their beneficial effect

bears out in randomized clin-ical trials, statins could poten-tially prove to be a low-costand effective therapeuticstrategy for COVID-19,” addsco-lead author Mahesh VMadhavan, cardiologist atN e w Y o r k -P r e s b y t e r i a n / C o l u m b i aUniversity Irving MedicalCenter.

Gupta, Madhavan, andthe study’s leadership groupare cardiologists who caredfor hospitalized Covid-19patients in the spring andsummer of 2020 when thefirst wave of the pandemicswept through New York City.

“We obser ved thatpatients who got very sick andrequired hospitalization hadhigh rates of hyperinflamma-tion and clotting,” says Elaine

Wan, the Esther AboodiAssistant Professor ofMedicine in Cardiology andCardiac Electrophysiologyand a cardiac electrophysiol-ogist at NewYork Presbyterian/Columbia University IrvingMedical Center, one of thestudy’s senior authors.

“As cardiologists, statinsnaturally came to mind,”Gupta says. “In addition totheir well-known cholesterol-lowering effect, statins areknown for their anti-inflam-matory, anticoagulant andimmunomodulatory proper-ties.”

Based on their observa-tions, the authors looked atoutcomes for 2,626 patientswith Covid-19 who wereadmitted to a quaternary aca-demic medical center inManhattan during the first 18weeks of the pandemic.

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Maharashtra Minister of State for Home,IT, Housing, Transport, Parliamentary

Affairs and Ex-Servicemen Welfare SatejPatil on Saturday hit out against the Centrefor its recent move to regulate social mediaand over-the-top (OTT) platforms, sayingthat it was nothing but act of infringing theprivacy of individuals and free speech underthe Constitution.

Dubbing the move as an act of “sup-pressing” the voice of those exercising theirfreedom of speech, Patil said: “This moveby the Centre needs to be fought tooth andnail. Such ‘dictatorial’ regulations will notbe accepted by the people of this democ-ratic country.. Some bureaucrats passing thejudgement on what needs to be publishedor not on any media platform is nothing butan attack on the freedom of press in India”.

“Such orders will not have any stand-ing in court of law,” the minister said, as he

referred to the recent Delhi court’s recentorder granting bail to climate activistDisha Ravi for allegedly editing a socialmedia material or toolkit on the ongoingfarmers’ protests.

“The Centre’s move is nothing but anact to suppress the voice of those who areexercising their freedom to speech,” Patilsaid.

The Centre had on February 25announced sweeping regulations for socialmedia firms such as Facebook and Twitteras well as OTT players such as Netflix,requiring them to remove any contentflagged by authorities within 36 hours andsetting up a complaint redressal mechanismwith an officer being based in the country.

The regulations also make it mandatoryfor platforms such as Twitter and WhatsAppto identify the originator of a message thatauthorities consider to be anti-national andagainst security and sovereignty of thecountry.

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Mumbai: Mumbai Police has registered a caseagainst three marriage halls for allowing morenumber of guests than the prescribed limit of 50on the complaint of the city civic body, an offi-cial said on Saturday.

At each of these three marriage halls, locat-ed on CST Road in Kalina, at least 200 guestshad assembled on Friday, the civic official said.

He said many guests gathered at these hallswere not wearing a face mask and social dis-tancing norms were also not adhered to.

“Officials of the BMC's (BrihanmumbaiMunicipal Corporation's) health departmentwho were on supervision duty on Friday nightspotted the violations at the three halls,” the offi-cial said. Accordingly, action was taken againstthese halls and an FIR was lodged at Vakolapolice station against officials concerned of eachmarriage hall for violating the COVID-19 rules,he added. PTI

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Kolkata: With the stage set for high-Octane Assembly elections, pollstrategist Prashant Kishore onSaturday exuded confidence of TMCreturning to power as the people ofWest Bengal are ready to bring backtheir rightful leader.

Kishor, whose team I-PAC isworking in planning TMC's electioncampaign, in his latest tweet said thatone of the key battles for democracyin the country will be fought in theWest Bengal. The people of the statewant its daughter back and the pub-lic could hold him to this tweet onMay 2, the day the results of the elec-tions will be declared.

“One of the key battles FORDEMOCRACY in India will befought in West Bengal, and the peo-ple of Bengal are ready with theirMESSAGE and determined to showthe RIGHT CARD -#BanglaNijerMeyekeiChay (BengalOnly Wants its Daughter) PS: On 2ndMay, hold me to my last tweet,” hetweeted.

Planned and conceptualised byI-PAC, TMC last week had unveiled

a poll slogan- “Bangla Nijer MeyekeiChaye”, portraying Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee mascot with afocus on women voters and Bengalisub-nationalism.

The BJP, however, mocked Kishorand said he has no idea about theground reality in Bengal.

Earlier, in a tweet in December,Kishor had vowed to quit Twitter ifthe BJP crossed double digits in the2021 West Bengal Assembly elections.

Kishor then wrote that BJP wouldstruggle to secure even double digitsin the West Bengal assembly election.

His tweet was in response toHome Minister Amit Shah setting atarget of winning more than 200 outof 294 seats in West Bengal assemblypolls in 2021.

The Election Commission hasannounced eight-phase elections inWest Bengal from March 27 to April29. Results will be declared on May2 along with the three other poll-bound states and the union territoryof Puducherry.

West Bengal has a 294-memberassembly. PTI

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Palakkad (Kerala): The moth-er of two minor sisters, whowere found hanging in their hutafter an alleged sexual assaulton them, tonsured her head onSaturday to protest againstalleged inaction against thepolice.

The police, she said, hadallegedly committed lapses inthe probe of the death of thegirls in 2017. She shaved herhead after staging a month-long satyagraha here sinceJanuary 26.

The woman recentlyannounced that she would

shave her head and campaignacross the state against theLeft government if it did nottake action on the police per-sonnel for the alleged lapse.

Besides her, two activiststonsured their heads, express-ing solidarity with the victims'mother.

People raised slogans seek-ing justice for the women andher deceased daughters.

Congress leader and MPRemya Haridas and MahilaCongress president LathikaSubhash were also present.

The woman resorted to

the protest weeks after theLDF government handed theprobe of the death of the minorDalit girls over to the CBI.

The High Court had alsoordered a re-trial in theWalayar case last month.

Allowing appeals filed bythe state government and themother of the children, thecourt had, on January 6,ordered the re-trial by observ-ing that there were seriouslapses in the investigation andthat there has been a miscar-riage of justice.

A Division Bench of

Justices A Hariprasad and M RAnitha had set aside a October2019 order of POCSO (SpecialProtection of Children fromSexual Offences Court acquit-ting the five accused in the casefor want of evidence.

The oldest of the siblings,aged 13, was found hanging intheir hut in Walayar inPalakkad district on January 13,2017, and the younger one (9)on March 4 the same year.

Both were allegedly sexu-ally assaulted. The mother ofthe girls had earlier sought aCBI probe. PTI

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Ahmedabad: In view of therecent spike in coronaviruscases, the Gujarat Governmenthas decided to extend the nightcurfew in four major cities ofthe state, includingAhmedabad, by another 15days.

The ongoing night curfewin Ahmedabad, Surat,Vadodara and Rajkot, was toend on February 28.

An official statement issuedon Friday night said, the gov-ernment decided to extend thenight curfew by another 15days in view of the recent risein coronavirus cases in fourmunicipal corporations.

This is the fifth extensionof the night curfew, which firstcame into force in Novemberlast year after a spurt inCOVID-19 cases in these citiespost-Diwali.

The ongoing night curfewstarts at midnight and ends at6 am. Although the statementabout the extended night cur-few does not mention the time,the existing schedule is likely tocontinue. In view of increasingCOVID-19 cases, the govern-ment has decided to expeditethe vaccination drive, the state-ment said.

The statement was issuedfollowinga meeting chaired byChief Minister Vijay Rupani onFriday evening to review thecoronavirus situation inGujarat. PTI

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The controversy over a host ofemails sent allegedly by an

“impostor” pretending to beBollywood actor Hrithik Roshan toKangana Ranaut resurfaced onSaturday, as the crime branch sleuthsof the Mumbai police recorded thestatement of “Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai”actor.

Four years after the actor lodgeda complaint with the Mumbai policealleging that someone impersonat-ing him was sending e-mails from abogus e-mail ID between 2013 and2014 to Kangana, the officials of theCrime Intelligence Unit of the CrimeBranch-CID recorded Hrithik’s state-ment in connection with the inves-tigations into his complaint.

It may be recalled that Hrithikhad in 2016 lodged an imperson-ation complaint with the policeafter a spat with Kangana, withwhom he had acted Kites (2010) andKrrish 3 (2013).

Earlier, in the wake of Kanganacalling him a “silly-ex” during aninterview, Hrithik had sent her a legalnotice demanding a public apologyfrom her. However, Kangana Ranaut

refused to apologise and claimed hatthe two had been romanticallyinvolved in 2014. She sent a counter-notice to Hrithik Roshan, asking himto take his notice back or face a crim-inal case.

In his legal notice, Hrithik hadthat he was being harassed mental-ly by Kangana. The notice claimedthat Kangana had sent him a stag-gering 1,439 emails, to which henever responded. He had also allegedthat the actress was telling peoplethat she was in a romantic relation-ship with her.

Among other things, Hrithikhad claimed that Kangana had beenin touch with was an imposter, pre-tending to be Hrithik Roshan.

On her part, Kangana hadclaimed that the particular email IDused for exchanging mails with himhad been given to her by HrithikRoshan himself. She had also saidthat the email had been kept privateso as to prevent it from having a neg-ative impact on the divorce pro-ceedings between Hrithik Roshanand his wife Sussanne Khan that wasgoing on then.

Based on Hrithik’s complaint,the police had registered a case undersection 419 (cheating by person-ation) of IPC and sections 66C

(identity theft), 66D (cheating bypersonation using computerresources) of the InformationTechnology Act against an unknownperson at the Cyber Police Station.

As part of the investigations, theCyber Cell of the Mumbai police hadalso taken Hrithik’s laptop andphone for investigation.

In the past, the police forensicexperts could not ascertain any factsabout the email ID which was tracedto the US and hence filed a nil reportin June 2017. In December last year,Hrithik’s lawyer Mahesh Jethmalanihad approached Mumbai PoliceCommissioner Param Bir Singhand requested him to look into theactor’s complaint, after the case wastransferred to the Crime Branch'sCIU.

Hrithik's lawyers had told thePolice chief that despite theMagistrate's order directing thepolice to return the actor's laptop andmobile phone submitted for theprobe, he had not collected it yet toenable the police complete the probeand catch the real culprit.

On her part, an unfazedKangana called Hritik “mera silly-exand made fun of him as the actorappeared before the Crime branchsleuths to record his statement

“Duniya kahan se kahan pahunchgayi magar mera silly ex abhi bhiwaheen hai usi modh pe jahan yehwaqt dobara laut ke nahi jane wala”.

This is not the first time thatKangana has made fun of Hrithik. InOctober 2018, the actress hadslammed Hrithik by saying that“people who keep wives as trophiesand young girls as mistresses shouldbe boycotted”.”There are men whomake false promises of love and mar-riage to a girl to get them into a rela-tionship that is also a type of harass-ment. There are married men whokeep their wives as trophies and keepyoung girls as their mistresses likeHrithik...They lure young beautifulgirls with the promise of marriageand later try to prove them mad.Nobody should work with suchpeople. They should be boycotted,”Kangana had told a news televisionchannel Justifying the treatmentbeing meted out to film makerVikas Bahl, a former member of thenow dissolved Phantom Films whohas been accused of sexual harass-ment by a couple of actresses,Kangana said: “There are manypeople like Vikas Bahl, he is not theonly one. We still have a lot of workto do so, we should not start the cel-ebrations as yet. We have a long way

to go. We have to make this place(world) absolutely safe for woman”.

Kangana’s comments againstHrithik had come three days after theactor tweeted in the midst of “MeToo” movement: “It is impossible forme to work with any person if he/sheis guilty of such grave misconduct.I am away and have access to onlysporadic information. I have request-ed the producers of Super 30 to takestock of the apparent facts and takea harsh stand if need be. This is notto be hushed or brushed under thecarpet. All proven offenders must bepunished and all exploited peoplemust be empowered and givenstrength to speak up.”

Hritik’s comment came inrespect of Bahl, who is the directorof Super 30, a biopic on the life ofmathematician Anand Kumar andhis educational programme Super30. Incidentally, Kangana's Queenco-star Nayani Dixit had accusedBahl of sexual misconduct.

After a reported affair betweenthe two during the filming of Krrish3, Kangana and Hrithik have beenengaged in a legal war. While theactress has all along insisted that shehad affair with Hrithik, the actor hassteadfastly denied any relationsbetween them.

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Jammu: The foot soldiers of the IndianArmy, deployed in the hinterland toeffectively tackle any threat from the ter-rorist outfits, would continue to par-ticipate in the counter terrorism oper-ations in Jammu and Kashmir, Lt-GenYK Joshi, GoC-in-C of the NorthernCommand headquarters in Udhampursaid on Saturday.

“Recently, the Director General ofMilitary Operations (DGMOs) of Indiaand Pakistan have announced an agree-ment to uphold a ceasefire along theLoC from February 24 and 25 midnight.I want to assure that this ceasefire willhave no bearing on the counter-terror-ist operations and we will maintain ouralertness,” Lt Gen Joshi said at theNorthern Command investiture cere-mony.

He said the northern command,which looks after the security of the twinunion territories of Jammu and Kashmirand Ladakh, remained on the highest

alert and made possible what wasbelieved impossible by the bravery, gritand determination of its personnel inthe face of challenging situations alongthe border. He said 2020 was historicin many ways for the Army whichdemonstrated its mettle in easternLadakh by its “grit, determination, self-confidence, bravery and steadfastness”.In Kashmir, he said, the overall securi-ty situation saw a great improvement inthe previous year as there has been aconsiderable reduction in terrorist-ini-tiated incidents, stone-pelting activitiesand protests as a result of tireless effortsof the security forces and the people ofJammu and Kashmir.

“The northern command hasalways stood like a shield against theattempts by our neighbouring countriesto spread disturbance and it will con-tinue to remain so in the future.Whenever anyone raises an evil eye onour country, Indian Army has replied

strongly,” Lt Gen Joshi said.Withoutnaming China and Pakistan, he saidIndian Army has maintained its dom-ination on its borders with the neigh-bouring countries and helped in main-taining peace in the hinterland.

He said there has been a tremen-dous improvement in the basic deploy-ment and preparedness and the effortsin this direction will continue. “Themeasures we have put in to strengthenour defences, the same efforts weremade to maintain peace,” he said.During the ceremony, the Army com-mander presented two Bar to Senamedals (gallantry) and 50 Sena medals(gallantry) to the brave soldiers.Healso presented three Sena medals (dis-tinguished) and six Vishisht Seva medalsfor selfless service to the nation.

Lt Gen Joshi also awarded unitappreciation to 26 units for their over-all outstanding performance in thecommand theatre. PNS

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Ballia (UP): Upset with non-payment of honorar-ium, a 30-year-old woman ‘gram sevak' allegedlycommitted suicide by hanging herself in Ballia dis-trict, police said on Saturday.

Maya Pande, who worked as a gram sevak underMGNREGA in the Chitroli village under BansdihKotwali police station of the district, was found hang-ing in a room of her house in the same village onFriday, SHO Rajesh Singh said.

She was rushed to the district hospital by herfamily members, he said, adding the woman diedthere later.

The victim's family members told police that shewas not getting her honorarium for the past twomonths.

She was also not keeping well and had asked forleave which too was not granted, the family mem-bers told police, adding these reasons drove her totake the extreme step.

The body has been sent for post mortem exam-ination and further investigations are on, the SHOadded. PTI

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Amid speculation that ShivSena Minister Sanjay

Rathod has already beenadvised by his party to put inhis resignation over allegedlinks with a 22-year-old TikTok star committed suicide inPune early this month, theOpposition BJP on Saturdayrooted for the minister’s resig-nation by organising “Chakkajams” (traffic blocades) in sev-eral places across the state.

Ahead of the start of thebudget session of the StateLegislature beginning onMarch 1, the BJP’s womenwing organised “Chhaka Jams”(traffic blockades) in severaltowns across the state.

While BJP’s MahilaMorcha president Uma Khapreled the protests at Mulund innorth Mumbai, Seema Hireand Mrs Vidya Thakur organ-ised the protests in Nahsik.

Uma Khapre claimed thather party’s women activistsheld protests in 100-odd places.“Twenty days have passed since22-year-old Pooja Chavan diedunder suspicious circum-stances, but the Maharashtragovernment has not taken anyaction against Rathod who islinked to her death. This isdespite the fact that so muchevidence has surfaced againsthim in the media,” Khapresaid.

“We will not allow a

smooth session unless Rathodis removed from the Cabinet,”state BJP president and formerrevenue minister ChandrakantPatil said.

Informed sources in theruling Shiv Sena, meanwhile,said that at a meeting he hadwith Rathod on Wednesday,Maharashtra chief ministerUddhav Thackeray asked theminister to resign before thestart of the budget session ofthe State Legislature on March1. Uddhav had also told theSena minister that if he did notresign before the start of thebudget session, he would haveno alternative but to sack himfrom the State Cabinet.

On their part, the ShivSena’s ruling alliance partners– the Congress and NCP – havetold the chief minister that heshould put in his papers imme-diately otherwise the MVAgovernment will face consid-erable embarrassment andopposition during the budgetsession of the state legislature.

However, Rathod tried tobrazen it out by staging a showof strength and denied theallegations linking him with thesuicide by Tik-Tok star PoojaChavan.

Taking serious cognisanceof the violation of Covid-19protocols at a huge gathering ofpeople who had come to greetRathod at Pohradevi fort inWashim district, the chief min-ister ordered a probe and asked

the district collector and PoliceSuperintendent to submit areport to the State ChiefSecretary on the issue.

It may be recalled that onFebruary 8, Pooja had alleged-ly committed suicide by jump-ing off the Heaven Park build-ing in Pune’s Wanwadi locali-ty on the intervening night ofFebruary 7 and 8.

Following her death, theOpposition BJP on Saturdayhad upped the ante over thealleged of a 22-year-old Tik-Tok star Pooja Chavan, byrooting for the arrest of Rathod,who was reportedly in lovewith the deceased woman.

BJP leaders RadhakrishnaVikhe-Patil, Kirit Somaiya andparty’s woman leader ChitraWagh had said that the minis-ter had no moral right to con-tinue in the office. “In fact, heshould be booked abettingPooja’s alleged suicide andarrested immediately,” Waghsaid.

Maharashtra’s former chiefminister and senior BJPDevenra Fadnavis haddemanded that Pooja’s death beinvestigated in view of the factthat the telephonic conversa-tions between her and theminister had gone viral onsociety media. The Oppositionleaders alleged that Pooja waspregnant at the time of deathand that there were reasons tobelieve that the minister wasresponsible for her pregnancy.

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Police in Myanmar escalatedtheir crackdown on demon-

strators against this month’smilitary takeover, deployingearly and in force on Saturdayas protesters sought to assem-ble in the country’s two biggestcities and elsewhere.

Security forces in someareas appeared to become moreaggressive in using force andmaking arrests, utilising moreplainclothes officers than hadpreviously revealed themselves.Photos posted on social mediashowed that residents of atleast two cities, Yangon andMonywa, resisted by erectingmakeshift street barricades totry to hinder the advance of thepolice.

Myanmar’s crisis took adramatic turn on the interna-tional stage at a special sessionof the United Nations GeneralAssembly on Friday when thecountry’s UN ambassadordeclared his loyalty to the oust-ed civilian government of AungSan Suu Kyi and called on theworld to pressure the militaryto cede power.

There were arrestsSaturday in Myanmar’s two

biggest cities, Yangon andMandalay, where demonstra-tors have been hitting thestreets daily to peacefullydemand the restoration of thegovernment of Suu Kyi, whoseNational League forDemocracy party won a land-slide election victory in

November. Police have increas-ingly been enforcing an orderby the junta banning gatheringsof five or more people.

Many other cities andtowns have also hosted largeprotests against the Feb. 1coup. Police in Dawei, in thesoutheast, and Monywa, 135

kilometres northwest ofMandalay, used force againstprotesters. Both cities, withpopulations of less then200,000 each, have been seeinglarge demonstrations.

Social media carriedunconfirmed reports of a pro-tester shot dead in Monywa.

The reports could not imme-diately be independently con-firmed but appeared credible,with both photos and identifi-cation of the victim. The reportsfrom Monywa also said dozensor more people were arrested.

The military takeoverreversed years of slow progresstoward democracy after fivedecades of military rule. Suu Kyi’sparty would have been installedfor a second five-year term inoffice, but the army blockedParliament from convening anddetained her and President WinMyint, as well as other topmembers of her government.

At the General Assembly inNew York, Myanmar’s UNambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun,declared in an emotionalspeech to fellow delegates thathe represented Suu Kyi’s “civil-ian government elected by thepeople” and supported the fightagainst military rule.

He urged all countries toissue public statements strong-ly condemning the coup, and torefuse to recognise the militaryregime. He also called forstronger international mea-sures to stop violence by secu-rity forces against peacefuldemonstrators.

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Myanmar’s UN ambas-sador strongly opposed

the military coup in his coun-try and appealed for the“strongest possible action fromthe international community”to immediately restore democ-racy in a dramatic speech tothe UN General AssemblyFriday that drew loud applausefrom many diplomats in the193-nation global body.

Ambassador Kyaw MoeTun began his statement sayinghe represented Aung San SuuKyi’s National League forDemocracy “civilian govern-ment elected by the people” inNovember, and supported theirfight for the end of military rule.

He urged all countries toissue public statements strong-ly condemning the militarycoup, and to refuse to recognizethe military regime and ask itsleaders to respect the free andfair elections in November

won by Suu Kyi’s NLD party.He also urged stronger inter-national measures to stop vio-lence by security forces againstpeaceful demonstrators.

“It is time for the militaryto immediately relinquishpower and release thosedetained,” Tun said, agreeing

with UN Secretary-GeneralAntonio Guterres “that mili-tary coup is not acceptable inthis modern world and thecoup must cease.”

“We will continue to fightfor a government which is ofthe people, by the people, forthe people,” he vowed.

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President Joe Biden saidFriday that Iran should

view his decision to authorizeUS airstrikes in Syria as awarning that it can expect con-sequences for its support ofmilitia groups that threaten USinterests or personnel.

“You can’t act with impuni-ty. Be careful,” Biden said whena reporter asked what messagehe had intended to send with theairstrikes, which the Pentagonsaid destroyed several buildingsin eastern Syria but were notintended to eradicate the mili-tia groups that used them tofacilitate attacks inside Iraq.

Administration officialsdefended the Thursday nightairstrikes as legal and appro-priate, saying they took outfacilities that housed valuable“capabilities” used by Iranian-backed militia groups to attackAmerican and allied forces inIraq.

John Kirby, the Pentagon’schief spokesperson, said mem-

bers of Congress were notifiedbefore the strikes as two AirForce F-15E aircraft launchedseven missiles, destroying ninefacilities and heavily damagingtwo others, rendering both“functionally destroyed.” Hesaid the facilities, at “entrycontrol points” on the border,had been used by militia

groups the US deems respon-sible for recent attacks againstUS interests in Iraq.

In a political twist for thenew Democratic administra-tion, several leading Congressmembers in Biden’s own partydenounced the strikes, whichwere the first military actionshe authorized.

Damascus: Attackers struck agas pipeline in eastern Syria onSaturday, leaving it ablaze butcausing no casualties, state newsagency SANA reported, the lat-est incidence of sabotage againstSyria’s oil and gas infrastructure.

As in the past, no oneclaimed responsibility for theattack. Syria’s nearly 10-yearconflict, which has killed abouthalf a million people, has alsobadly affected oil and gas fields,

many of which are outsidegovernment control.

SANA said the attackoccurred in the area known asAbu Khashab in the easternprovince of Deir el-Zour thatborders Iraq.

Sleeper cells of the IslamicState group are known to beactive in the area and have tar-geted government forces andUS-backed Kurdish fighters ineastern Syria. AP

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As many as 140 Democraticlawmakers have reintro-

duced a legislation in the USCongress to prevent futureMuslim bans and prohibit dis-crimination on the basis of reli-gion.

The Muslim travel ban,introduced by former USPresident Donald Trump, tar-geted several Muslim-majoritynations and restricted the entryof people from Iran, NorthKorea, Syria, Libya, Yemen,Somalia and Venezuela.President Joe Biden ended theMuslim ban on his day one inthe office last month.

In the House ofRepresentatives, the NationalO r i g i n - B a s e dAntidiscrimination forNonimmigrants (NO BAN)Act was reintroduced on Fridayby House Judiciary CommitteeChairman Jerrold Nadler andJudy Chu, while in the Senate

it was done by Senator ChrisCoons. Indian-American law-makers Ami Bera, Ro Khanna,Pramila Jayapal and RajaKrishnamoorthi are amongthose who are supporting thebill. The legislation strengthensthe Immigration andNationality Act to prohibit dis-crimination on the basis of reli-gion, and restores the separa-tion of powers by limitingoverly broad executive authority to issue future travelbans.

“When the TrumpAdministration issued itsxenophobic Muslim ban, itwas immediately apparent thatit was unconstitutional, dis-criminatory, and morally rep-rehensible,” said Nadler.

“I am grateful thatPresident Biden took boldaction on day one to repeal thisban and reunite families, butwe cannot risk the possibility ofany future President reinstatingthis heinous policy,” he said.

Dubai: Iran’s impoverishedsoutheast experienced wide dis-ruptions of internet service overthe past week, internet expertssaid Saturday, as unrest grippedthe remote province after astring of fatal border shootings.

Several rights groupsreported in a joint statementthat authorities shut down themobile data network in therestive provinces of Sistan andBaluchistan, calling the dis-ruptions an apparent “tool toconceal” the government’sharsh crackdown on protests.

The reports of internet inter-ference come as Iranian author-ities and semi-official news agen-cies increasingly acknowledgethe turmoil challenging localauthorities in the southeast — ahighly sensitive matter in acountry that seeks to repress allhints of political dissent. Forthree days starting Wednesday,the government shut down themobile data network acrossSistan and Baluchistan, where 96

percent of the population access-es the internet only through theirphones, rights groups said, crip-pling the key communicationtool. Residents reported arestoration of internet access.

“This is Iran’s traditionalresponse to any kind of protest,”Amir Rashidi from MiaanGroup, a human rights orga-nization that focuses on digitalsecurity in the Middle East, toldThe Associated Press onSaturday.

“Shutting down the internetto block news and pictures get-ting out makes (authorities) feelmore comfortable opening fire.”The week saw a series of esca-lating confrontations betweenpolice and protesters. Crowdswith light arms and grenadelaunchers descended on Kurincheckpoint near Iran’s borderwith Pakistan, Abouzar MehdiNakhaie, the governor ofZahedan, said in commentscarried by Iran’s semi-officialISNA news agency. AP

Islamabad: Terrorists attacksare on the rise in Pakistan amida growing religiosity that hasbrought greater intolerance,prompting one expert to voiceconcern the country could beoverwhelmed by religiousextremism.

Pakistani authorities areembracing strengthening reli-gious belief among the populationto bring the country closer togeth-er. But it’s doing just the opposite,creating intolerance and openingup space for a creeping resurgencein militancy, said MohammadAmir Rana, executive director ofthe independent Pakistan

Institute for Peace Studies.“Unfortunately, instead of

helping to inculcate better ethicsand integrity, this phenomenonis encouraging a tunnel vision”that encourages violence, intol-erance and hate, he wroterecently in a local newspaper.

“Religiosity has begun todefine the Pakistani citizenry.”Militant violence in Pakistanhas spiked: In the past weekalone, four vocational schoolinstructors who advocated forwomen’s rights were travellingtogether when they weregunned down in a Pakistanborder region. AP

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Haitian authoritiesannounced Friday that

more than 400 inmates escapedand 25 people died in a prisonbreakout, making it the coun-try’s largest and deadliest onein a decade, with the prisondirector and a powerful gangleader among those killed.

Some believe on Thursday’sjailbreak at the Croix-des-Bouquets Civil Prison in north-east Port-au-Prince was to freegang leader Arnel Joseph, whohad been Haiti’s most wanted

fugitive until his 2019 arrest oncharges including rape, kid-napping and murder.

Joseph was riding on amotorcycle through theArtibonite area in the town ofL’Estère on Friday a day afterhis escape when he was spot-ted at a checkpoint, policespokesman Gary Desrosierstold The Associated Press. Hesaid Joseph pulled out a gunand died in an exchange ofgunfire with police.

Joseph ruled Village deDieu, or Village of God, ashantytown in downtown Port-

au-Prince, and other commu-nities, including some inArtibonite, which is Haiti’slargest department.

Authorities have not yetprovided much details on thebreakout except to say that 60inmates have been recapturedand the investigation is ongo-ing. State Secretary FrantzExantus said authorities havecreated several commissions toinvestigate who organized thebreakout and why. Amongthose killed was the prisondirector, identified as PaulJoseph Hector.

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UK Prime Minister BorisJohnson has reiterated

Britain’s support to Afghanistan inits fight against the Taliban, as partof the wider North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)alliance.

In a phone call from DowningStreet in London with AfghanPresident Ashraf Ghani on Friday,Johnson also agreed on the impor-tance of making progress in peacetalks to secure a sovereign, demo-cratic and united Afghanistan.

“He [Johnson] reiterated theUK’s longstanding support forthe Afghan government’s fightagainst the Taliban as part of theNATO coalition,” a DowningStreet spokesperson said.

In February last year, the USand Taliban signed a peace agree-ment in Doha, Qatar, which pro-visioned withdrawal of allAmerican and NATO troops fromwar-torn Afghanistan by May 1.

“They agreed on the impor-tance of making progress in peace

talks to secure a sovereign, demo-cratic and united Afghanistan,and to preserve the gains made bycivil society and women and girls,”the Downing Street spokespersonsaid.

The US-Taliban PeaceAgreement also mentioned apledge from the Taliban to preventmilitant forces from operating inits areas, and dialogue between theTaliban and the Afghanistan gov-ernment.

Besides regional matters,Johnson and Ghani discussed theCovid-19 crisis and global effortsaround access to vaccines to com-bat the pandemic.

“The Prime Minister andPresident Ghani also discussedglobal efforts to tackle the pan-demic and the rollout of vaccinesin Afghanistan and the UK,”Downing Street said.

The conversation between thetwo leaders comes amidst a reviewof the US-Taliban peace deal by theJoe Biden-led US administration,creating uncertainty over thefuture course of events.

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AUN investigation into theattack on a humanitarian

convoy in Congo that killed theItalian ambassador, his body-guard and driver will look intowhether the long-planned mis-sion’s security protocols werefollowed and whether infor-mation might have leaked tothe unknown gunmen involvedin the ambush.

The deputy communica-tions director of the WorldFood Program, Greg Barrow,told an online briefing Fridaythat the February 22 mission tobring Ambassador LucaAttanasio to a WFP schoolfeeding program in easternCongo had been in the workssince 2020.

Advance planning andsecurity meetings as well assecurity briefings took place upto the moment the seven-member team took off fromGoma, in Congo’s east, in atwo-car convoy bound for theprogram in Rutshuru, he said.

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Alegislation has been intro-duced by a group of influ-

ential Republican senators toend China’s access to 10-yearmulti-entry visas until it iscertified that Beijing has ceasedits campaign of economic andindustrial espionage againstthe US.

The legislation, VisaSecurity Act, was introduced bySenators Marsha Blackburn,Tom Cotton, Rick Scott, TedCruz, and Marco Rubio onFriday. It would prohibitChinese nationals from receiv-ing 10-year B-1/B-2 visas untilthe Secretary of State certifiesthat China has ceased its cam-paign of economic and indus-trial espionage against theUnited States and ended itsprovocative and coercivebehaviour towards Taiwan.

The B-1/B-2 visas areissued to those who come tothe US for business, visit ortourism purposes.

Under this legislation,Chinese citizens would be eli-gible for one-year multi-entryvisas. This policy would repre-sent a return to the pre-2014visa status quo and does notapply to Taiwan or certain res-idents of Hong Kong.

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Washington:The White Househas said that through theairstrikes in Syria, President JoeBiden protected US personneland facilities, and deterred therisk of additional attacks “overthe coming weeks”.

On Thursday, airstrikes inSyria targeted facilities belong-ing to a powerful Iranian-backed Iraqi armed group,reportedly killing one fighter and wounding severalothers.

The strikes came in the

wake of recent attacks on USinterests in Iraq, including arocket attack last week whichkilled a civilian contractor andinjured a US service memberand other coalition troops.

“The president is sendingan unambiguous message thathe’s going to act to protectAmericans, and when threatsare posed, he has the right totake action at the time, and inthe manner of his choosing,”White House Press SecretaryJen Psaki told reporters. PTI

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New Delhi: People from all agegroups have been enjoying the34th edition of the GardenTourism Festival.The event was graced by His

Excellency, Walter J. Lindner-German Ambassador to India.Over the first week of theevent, visitors were seen expe-riencing the floral arrange-ments, and unique displays ofhanging baskets, dahlias, cutflowers, recycled floral displayand tray gardens. Many were keen on gainingexperience to create their ownhome gardens and were seen

interacting with buyers at theGarden Bazaar while purchas-ing products.

With the objective to cre-ate awareness about the envi-ronment and showcase therich floriculture of Delhi, thethree-week extravaganza isthemed ‘#Colours of Naturethis year.

Unlike a three-day formatthat was being followed previ-ously, Delhi Tourism hasextended the festival to threeweeks, to give a safe, sociallydistanced and memorableexperience to its visitors.

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The e-market portal unveiledby Khadi and Village

Industries Commission(KVIC) has achieved a grossturnover of over Rs 1.12 crorein just eight months of itslaunch, the MSME Ministrysaid on Saturday.

“Launched on 7 July2020, Khadi e-portal has deliv-ered orders to over 10,000 cus-tomers out of the 65,000 peo-ple who visited the e-portal tilldate. KVIC has also deliveredmore than 1 lakh articles/com-modities to these customers,”an official statement said.

During this period, theaverage online purchase hasbeen recorded at Rs 11,000 percustomer. MSME MinisterNitin Gadkari has lauded

Khadi’s successful e-commerceventure saying this provided awide marketing platform forvarious khadi and villageindustry products to a largerpopulation. He said e-mar-keting of Khadi is proving to bea game-changer. Gadkari alsosaid the effort should be toreach a turnover of Rs 200 croreper year.KVIC Chairman VinaiKumar Saxena said all expens-es incurred on operating Khadie-portal are borne by KVIC.

“While in case of other e-commerce sites, product cata-loguing, packaging and dis-patch are the responsibility ofthe respective sellers;

KVIC has a policy that theKhadi institutions and PMEGPunits are exempted from anysuch financial and logisticalburden,” Saxena said.

New Delhi:The Governmenton Saturday said it has finaliseda list of products from agri-culture and allied sectors thatwill be promoted in a clusterapproach in 728 districts acrossthe country as part of its effortto boost farm exports andenhance farmers income.

The agriculture min-istry, in consultation with foodprocessing industries ministry,has finalised the products for‘One District One Focus

Product’ (ODOFP), an officialstatement said.

Inputs from the States/UTsand Indian Council ofAgricultural Research (ICAR)have also been taken to preparethe list.

“The products have beenidentified from agricultural,horticultural, animal, poultry,milk, fisheries and aquaculture,marine sectors for 728 districtsacross the country,” the state-ment said.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Saturday exhorted

toy manufacturers to use lessplastic and more eco-friendlyand recyclable material in a bidto increase the share of thedomestic industry in the glob-al market.

Inaugurating the first IndiaToy Fair, the Prime Ministersaid, “We have to becomeAatmanirbhar in the toy sectorand also cater to the globalmarket”.

Observing that India’sshare in the USD 100 billionglobal toy market is very small,and 85 per cent of the toys inthe country are sourced fromabroad, Modi said there is aneed to change this situation.

“In the field of toys, Indiahas tradition and technology,India has concepts and com-petence. We can take the worldback towards eco-friendly toys.Through our software engi-neers, computer games can

bring the stories of India to theworld,” he said.

While referring to the tra-ditional toy industry, the PrimeMinister underlined the needfor promoting Handmade inIndia.

If there is a demand forMade in India today, then thedemand for Handmade inIndia is also increasing equal-ly, he said, adding “today peo-ple do not only buy toys as aproduct, but also want to con-nect with the experience asso-ciated with that toy. So, we haveto promote Handmade in Indiaas well”.

The Prime Ministerappealed to the manufacturersto make toys that are better forboth ecology and psychology,using less plastic and more ofsuch things that can be recy-cled.

Referring to the initiativesof the government, Modi saidthe countryhas now gradedthe toy industry in 24 majorsectors.

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The Government has fixedfifty lakh registered users as

the threshold for defining ‘sig-nificant social media interme-diary’, which will have toadhere to additional obligationsand compliance under the newIT rules that seek to crackdown on misuse of socialmedia platforms.

The new rules, announcedearlier this week, require ‘sig-nificant social media interme-diaries’ to follow additionaldue diligence, including theappointment of a chief com-pliance officer, nodal contactperson and resident grievanceofficer. All three officials willhave to reside in India.

They will have to publish amonthly compliance reportand details of the contentsremoved proactively.

At present, the countryhas 53 crore WhatsApp users,44.8 crore YouTube users, 41crore Facebook subscribers,21 crore Instagram clients,while 1.75 crore account hold-ers are on microblogging plat-form Twitter.”...The Central

Government hereby specifiesfifty lakh registered users inIndia as the threshold for asocial media intermediary to beconsidered a significant socialmedia intermediary,” the noti-fication said.

Earlier on Thursday, thegovernment announced thetightening of the rules govern-ing social media and streamingcompanies, requiring them totake down contentious contentquicker, appoint grievanceredressal officers and assistinvestigations.

The move aims to makesocial media platforms likeFacebook, WhatsApp, Twitterand Instagram - which haveseen a phenomenal surge inusage over the past few years inIndia - more accountable andresponsible for the contenthosted on their platform.Socialmedia companies will have toremove contentious contentflagged by the government orcourt orders within 36 hoursand take down posts depictingnudity or morphed photoswithin 24 hours of receiving acomplaint, as per the latestintermediary rules.

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Wholesale growth isexpected to continue for

tractors, passenger vehicles andtwo-wheelers said equityresearch firm Emkay.

As per its sectoral update,channel checks indicate betterretail sales for tractors andPVs, while it remains subduedfor 2Ws on a YoY basis.

“Tractor industry whole-sales should grow strongly atmore than 25 per cent on bet-ter retails and channel filling.”

“Volume growth is expect-ed to be positive acrossregions.”

According to the update,PV industry volumes are like-ly to remain in the positive ter-ritory, with industry growth atover 15 per cent.

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The Centre on Saturday saidthat the list of One District

One Focus Product (ODOFP),which will be promoted in acluster approach through con-vergence of the variousschemes, has been finalised.The products have been iden-tified from agricultural, horti-cultural, animal, poultry, milk,fisheries and aquaculture,marine sectors for 728 districtsacross the country.

Fruits have been identifiedfor 226 districts, the highest inthe list while vegetables for 107ditstrics and spices for 105districts are at the second andthe third position in the list.The chief food crop paddy hasbeen identified for 40 districtswhile wheat for 5 districts.

The Ministry of

Agriculture and FarmersWelfare in consultation withthe Ministry of FoodProcessing Industrieshasfinalised the products for OneDistrict One Focus Product ,said an official statement.

The list of products havebeen finalised after takinginputs from the States/UTsand Indian Council ofAgricultural Research (ICAR).

These products will bepromoted in a cluster approachthrough convergence of theGovernment of India schemes,to increase the value of theproducts and with the ultimateaim of increasing the income ofthe farmers. These identifiedproducts will be supportedunder the PM-FME scheme(PM Formalisation of Microfood processing EnterprisesScheme) of the Ministry of

Food Processing Industrieswhich provides incentives topromoter and micro-enter-prises.Many products alsoinclude convergence ofresources and approach fromthe other departments. TheMinistry of Agriculture andFarmers Welfare will supportODOFP from its ongoing cen-trally sponsored schemes suchas Mission for IntegratedDevelopment of Horticulture(MIDH), National FoodSecurity Mission’ (NFSM),Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana(RKVY), Paramparagat KrishiVikas Yojna (PKVY).

The implementation ofODOFP by State Governmentswill benefit farmers and pro-vide support for realizing theexpectations of value additionand subsequently enhancingagricultural exports.

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The new series of SovereignGold Bonds 2020-21 will

be opened for the periodMarch 1-5, 2021.

The issue price of theBond during the subscriptionperiod shall be Rs 4,662 pergram.

The Settlement date underthe Series XII scheme hadbeen fixed for March 9.

The Government in con-sultation with the ReserveBank of India has decided toallow discount of Rs 50 pergram from the issue price tothose investors who applyonline and the payment ismade through digital mode.

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Improved economic environ-ment in 2HFY21 and the

Centre’s focus on higher spend-ing especially on infrastructurewill give a boost to FY21 cred-it growth, India Ratings andResearch (Ind-Ra) said.

The agency’s February2021 edition of its credit mar-ket tracker showed an upgradeto its FY21 credit growth esti-mates to 6.9 per cent from 1.8per cent.

Accordingly, the agencysaid that amid the pandemic,the credit offtake in the bank-ing system has remainedmuted, which led to lesserissuances of certificates ofdeposits (CDs).

“The CD issuances forJanuary 2021 increased forpublic sector banks, whereasthat for private banks haveremained muted.

Concurrently, the CD yieldacross maturities was confinedto a narrow range, amid sub-dued issuances. Similarly, theissuances of commercial paper(CP) by corporates have fallen,due to a lesser requirementamid fewer rollovers.

“The CP yields howeverhave largely seen an upwardrevision, owing to the ReserveBank of India’s announcementof the restoration of liquiditymanagement operations.”

Besides, demand fromfund houses for corporatebonds and short-term fundshas increased by “Rs 52 billionand Rs 10 billion, respective-ly”.

On the other hand, theagency said that CP issuancesby non-banking financial com-panies and housing financecompanies have remainedencouraging, both in terms oftotal amount and volumes.

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Country’s petrol and dieselprices continued its north-

ward march on Saturday, aftera three-day break, taking itsretail rates to unprecedentedlevels and burning holes in theconsumers pockets.

Oil marketing companiesraised the pump price of petroland diesel by 24 paise and 15paise per litre on Saturday.

With this, petrol is nowpriced at Rs 91.17 a litre anddiesel Rs 81.47 a litre in thecapital.

Across the country as wellthe petrol and diesel pricesincreased between 20-30 paiseper litre depending on thelevel of local duty at the statelevel.

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The Indian Car Of TheYear (ICOTY) 2021 and

the Indian Motorcycle OfThe Year (IMOTY) 2021awards were announced at aglittering ceremony here inDelhi.

The winner of the ICOTYwas the Hyundai i20 and theIMOTY award went to theRoyal Enfield Meteor. TheICOTY award, which is cel-ebrating its 16th year thisyear is well-established asIndia’s top car award andsimilarly IMOTY is India’sleading two-wheeler award.

Speaking to The Pioneer,Yogendra Pratap, Editor ofAuto Today and theChairman of the ICOTY jurysaid that ICOTY will alwaysremain as India’s top caraward and not just because of

its name, “the fact that wepartner with multiple publi-cations which look at various

aspects of

motoring,some are targeted at enthusi-asts and other are targeted atpracticality.

This in addition to theindependent judges whocome from various otherpublications and almost all ofus have been evaluating carsfor at least a decade makesthis award the most influen-tial in India.

Our judges have over 350years of combined experienceevaluating cars and becausewe are not part of a ‘single’publication, I believe ICOTY

carries much more weightwith Indian automotive man-ufacturers as well.”

Speaking to The Pioneer,Aspi Bhatena, Editor of BikeMagazine and Chairman ofthe IMOTY jury said that theaward was proof of howIndian manufacturers haveprogressed. “In all the yearswe have given this award, wehave not given it to a ‘lemon’,all our winners have enjoyedimmense commercial suc-cess and some like the 2019winner, the Royal EnfieldInterceptor have hadimmense global success.”

At a function held at theAndaz attended by the seniormanagement of several auto-motive companies, bothawards firmly establishedthemselves as India’s leadingand most credible awards forthe industry.

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For now, this 16-year-oldhas taken a break fromwhat she loves doing —writing — somethingthat she has been doing

since she was nine years old.Saranya Bhattacharjya is busypreparing for her Class XI Boards.However, once she is done withher exams she will be back to writ-ing poems.

What makes Bhattacharjyadifferent from your average 16year olds is that the proceeds fromher poems titled Clash WithReason that got published recent-ly will go towards raising funds forthe transgender community viathe Mitr Trust. The book is pub-lished by K2 Publishing and isavailable on Amazon and leadingbookstores at �499.

The poems are a collection ofeverything that she has been writ-ing in a Blog. “But when the pre-sent epidemic broke out in 2020,she understood that the conditionof the transgenders was evenworse. I had been interacting withthe community for the past two-and-a-half-years through MitrTrust run by Rudrani Chettri. Ifound out that these people did-n’t have access to basic necessitieslike food and medicine. That iswhen I decided to compile thepoems that I had written in a bookand get it published and raisefunds for this community from thesale of the books. All the moneythat I will get from the sale will gotowards bettering the lives of thetransgender community,”Bhattacharjya says who plans topursue Humanities.

In order to compile the book,she took the help of her friendswith the art work to correspondwith the poems that she haspenned. However, this is not thefirst time that she has been pub-lished. Back in 2015, her poems

found their way into GlobalCitizen. She has also been pub-lished in her school magazine afew times and a text book in theNorth-east also finds a poemwritten by her.

Her work with the transgen-

der community began at an eventorganised by the Angles Networkthat her mother started. This iswhere she met Chettri. Like mostpeople, Bhattacharjya was alsoscared of the transgender due tothe stigma attached to them. Afterher conversation with Chettri,Bhattacharjya’s perception of thecommunity changed.

“I admired the work thatChettri has been doing for thiscommunity. I wanted to knowmore — about their living condi-tions. I slowly understood thatthey are people like you and meand don’t need the ridicule thatthey face daily. I found out thatthey are grossly misunderstoodand treated as piranhas and out-casts when they shouldn’t be,”Bhattacharjya tells you.

A major part of her workentails spending time going totheir homes and talking to them,finding out how their lives are dif-ferent from ours and how one canbetter their lives. On her 15thbirthday she collected all themoney that she got and boughtthings that they needed.

“We have a lot to learn fromthem. They are far more empa-thetic. The most significant prob-lem that they face is that they don’tget jobs and opportunities tostudy,” Bhattacharjya tells you.

Her friends are supportive ofher since Gen Z is all about equalopportunity.

“There is still a long way to go.I have a few ideas on how I wantto proceed further and will take itup once my exams are over. Thereason why this community isviewed differently is lack of knowl-edge on our part. Another prob-lem is that since they are not well-educated, our perception of themis different,” Bhattacharjya says.

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One would hardly associ-ate a 15-year-old towork on a model thatcan detect DownSyndrome (DS) and

prevent deaths. At present, 20,000 diewith it in India. But this is precise-ly what Saanvi Mehra of TheShriram Millennium Schoolhas done. The 15-year-oldwho submitted her model toGoogle India Code LearnContest 2020 not only wonit in the Class IX-X catego-ry, but the model will be aboon for those suffering withDS.

Mehra chose this pro-ject because the DSprevalence in thecountry is estimat-ed at roughly oneout of every thou-sand children lead-ing to over 30,000children being bornevery year with thisgenetic disorderwith survival ratestanding at 44 percent.

There is a morepersonal reason whyMehra chose DS as aproject. It was duringher mother’s secondpregnancy. It was sus-pected that the babywas at a high risk ofDS.

“Fortunately, wewere living in a metroand were privilegedto be able to afford thenecessary tests but Iknow this is not the

case for everyone. Since it was so per-sonal to me, it struck me as some-thing worth raising my voice. InIndia the penetration of smart-phones is more than the basic health-care; early detection of DS andtreatment can change the lives ofmany,” Mehra says.

The Class X student has alwaysbeen inclined towards technology.She tells you that she came to know

about the Google India CodeLearn Contest when she wasin Class VI.

“I had won the contestwhen I was in Class VI aswell. It was for a bookdonation app called

Vidyadaan that facilitatesbook donation. The app con-

nects donors with thosewho need books

utilising the sur-plus of bookscreated eachyear. This year, Isaw it was inthe AI & MLcategory. Theyprovided uswith GoogleCloud AutoMLengine. I had alot of time in my

hand during thelockdown. I had

also done a coursein AI for Everyoneby Andrew Ng. I wasconfident I would beable to showcase mytalent,” the 15-year-old who loves to readand cook tells you.

She took pho-tographs from adataset and statisticsfrom the Internet totrain an AutoML modelusing API which is the

visual AutoML. Children afflictedwith DS have certain distinctivefeatures like slanting eyes and flatnose bridge. She set these parame-ters and adjusted the sensitivity ofeach feature to determine DS. Shetrained, tested and deployed themodel by repeatedly adjusting thesensitivity of each parameter.

She tells you that at present, thereis no app only a model but she isworking towards creating an app thatwill make things easier in the future.For now, she wants to test the clin-ical validity of the model. “I plan totest the validity of the model. All onehas to do is send a photograph of thechild to me. I will feed it into themodel and do the test,” Mehra sayswho started working on the modelin October 2020.

At present, she is looking tobroaden the dataset in a real timeenvironment and make the process,background and lighting more uni-form in existing photos that she has.The idea of taking a photo under setconditions makes it possible to easethe process and perfect the modelbefore using it in real time.

“Suppose the parent had to usethe model, I would ask the parent togo out in the open to take the photoso that the camera can recognise thefacial features better,” Mehra sayswho is interested in pursuing AI, ML,technology and loves to studyComputer and Biology. She plans toapply for a double major or a dualdegree.She tells you that as of now,she is in talks with doctors who havebeen impressed.

“They are interested in the accu-racy but would like her to make theprocess more uniform and come tothe hospital and take photos of kidswith DS and check for accuracy andthen run tests to see if the child isreally afflicted with DS and take it tothe next level,” Mehra says.

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Veteran batsman Chris Gaylehas returned to the West

Indies squad forthe first time innearly two yearsfor the three-match T20I seriesagainst Sri Lanka,beginning onMarch 3.

The 41-year-oldtop-order batsmanwas recalled to the14-man squad underKieron Pollard on thebasis of his good per-formances in recenttournaments, includ-ing the IPL andPakistan SuperLeague.

Senior fast bowlerFidel Edwards, 39, isalso back in the nation-al squad after a nine-

year hiatus.The three matches of the

T20I series will be played onMarch 3, 5, and 7 at the

Coolidge CricketGround in Antigua,which will be makingits Internationaldebut.

The big-hittingGayle last played forWest Indies in theirhome series againstIndia in August

2019 after

the 50-over World Cup thatyear.

He had earlier said that the2019 World Cup matches wouldbe his last appearances for WestIndies.

“Chris Gayle has performedvery well in recent tournamentsand the selection panel thinksthat he can still add great valueto our team,” Roger Harper,Cricket West Indies’ (CWI)lead selector, said.

“As we build towards thedefence of the T20 World Cup,the opportunity is being takento determine our best teamand squad as we go forward.”

The selection panel alsonamed the squad for the ODIseries against the visting SriLankans to be played betweenMarch 10-14 at the Sir VivianRichards Stadium in Antigua.

All-rounder Andre Russellis recovering from contractingCovid-19, and despite testing

negative over a week ago hasbeen ruled out of the T20 series.

A West Indies spokesmanadded that fast bowlers SheldonCottrell and Oshane Thomas,along with batsman ShimronHetmyer and all-rounderRoston Chase have all failed toreach the minimum fitnessstandard in time to be consid-ered for selection.T20I squad: Kieron Pollard(c), Nicholas Pooran, FabianAllen Dwayne Bravo, FidelEdwards, Andre Fletcher, ChrisGayle, Jason Holder, AkealHosein, Evin Lewis, ObedMcCoy, Rovman Powell, LendlSimmons, Kevin Sinclair.ODI squad: Kieron Pollard (c),Shai Hope, Fabian Allen, DarrenBravo, Jason Holder, AkealHosein, Alzarri Joseph, EvinLewis, Kyle Mayers, JasonMohammed, Nicholas Pooran,Romario Shepherd, KevinSinclair.

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Veteran medium pacerShikha Pandey was on

Saturday dropped from India’sODI and T20 squads that willtake on South African women ina twin series starting March 7.

The most debatable decisionby the Neetu David-led selectioncommittee, however, was theexclusion of teenage battingsensation Shafali Verma in theODI squad which has plodderslike skipper Mithali Raj andPunam Raut, whose strike-rateshave come under the scannertime and again.

With 19 T20 Internationalsunder her belt and an amazingWomen’s T20 World Cup lastyear, Shafali is a box-officecricketer.

“It will be interesting toknow whether skipper MithaliRaj, who herself loves to bat atthe top of the order and con-sumes more deliveries than per-missible, had at all wantedShafali in the ODI squad,” asenior BCCI official, whosounded miffed with the move,told PTI.

“Her absence means thatIndia lack firepower saveHarmanpreet and Smriti. Welost out on a big hitter,” he added.

The selectors, though, haveincluded a lot of rookies basedon their last season’s domesticperformances as well as A andB team series againstBangladesh.

Rookie keeper-batsman

Shwetha Verma, along with theseasoned Sushma Verma, are thetwo keepers in both formats.

Pandey’s exclusion wasmore to do with the selectorswanting to check out the pacebowling bench strength androokie right-arm medium pac-ers C Prathyusha and MonicaPatel were included in both thesquads.

There is also young seamerSimran Dil Bahadur, who is partof the T20 Internationals team.

Left-arm spinner YastikaBhatia has made way for EktaBisht in the 50-over squad whileVeda Krishnamurthy, after aprolonged lean phase, has beendropped from both squads.ODI squad: Mithali Raj(Captain), Smriti Mandhana,Jemimah Rodrigues, PunamRaut, Priya Punia, YastikaBhatia, Harmanpreet Kaur, DHemalatha, Deepti Sharma,Sushma Verma, SwethaVerma, Radha Yadav,Rajeshwari Gayakwad, JhulanGoswami, Mansi Joshi,Poonam Yadav, C Prathyusha,Monica PatelT20I squad: HarmanpreetKaur (Captain), SmritiMandhana, Shafali Verma,Jemimah Rodrigues, DeeptiSharma, Richa Ghosh,Harleen Deol, Sushma Verma,Nuzhat Parveen, Ayushi Soni,Arundhati Reddy, RadhaYadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad,Poonam Yadav, Mansi Joshi,Monica Patel, C Prathyusha,Simran Dil Bahadur.

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Skipper Shreyas Iyer’s fluent116 and an impressive show

by India speedster ShardulThakur powered Mumbai to a67-run win over Rajasthan in anElite Group D game of the VijayHazare Trophy here onSaturday.

This was Mumbai’s fourthsuccessive win, having earlierdefeated Delhi, Maharashtraand Puducherry.

Opting to bat at the KLSaini stadium, Mumbai rode onIyer’s 103-ball knock to post acompetitive 317/7. The elegantright-handed batsman led fromthe front before his bowlersbundled out the opposition for250 with Thakur (4/50) doingthe bulk of the damage.

Iyer anchored the inningsbefore toying with the Rajasthanattack, scoring his second cen-tury of the tournament with thehelp of 11 fours and three sixes.

He found able partners inSarfaraz Khan (30) and

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Acommunity coronavirusoutbreak in Auckland has

forced New Zealand cricketbosses to hastily reschedule twoT20 matches against Australia asother affected sports assessedtheir options.

Prime Minister JacindaArdern has ordered Auckland,New Zealand’s largest city andthe centre of the outbreak, intoa seven-day lockdown fromSunday, requiring people to stayat home except for essentialshopping and work.

The remainder of the coun-try faces Level Two restrictionswhich limit the size of publicgatherings.

A New Zealand Cricketspokesman said the third matchin the current T20 series, to beplayed in Wellington on

Wednesday, will go ahead butwithout spectators.

Game four, scheduled forAuckland on Friday, has beenmoved to Wellington and, again,will be played behind closeddoors.

The spokesman said theywould wait for Governmentadvice on whether crowd restric-tions are to be lifted beforedeciding if there will be specta-tors at the final game of the seriesin Tauranga on Sunday.

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India off-spinner Ashwin Ravichandran onSaturday said that the talk around the pitch-

es being used in the ongoing Test series againstEngland is “getting out of hand.”

India edged ahead in the four-match serieswith a 10-wicket win over England in the thirdTest at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad, anda major talking point in the match was thepitch which offered sharp turn from day one.

While several former England crick-eters questioned the nature of theAhmedabad pitch, Ashwin questionedthe narrative that is emerging.

“I think I have said that in thepast as well, everyone is entitled totheir opinion and I am not here tosay that your opinion is right andit is wrong. The fact remainsthat the talk about the surfaceis getting out of hand,” saidAshwin in a virtual press confer-ence on Saturday.

“Why would you talk aboutthe surface and sell that to us timeand time again? Is there anyinstance where the pitch has beentalked about this much when wehave played games in othercountries.

“I somehow find itfunny that whenthey speakabout thesurface, itimmediatelygets quotedall over inour pressand this isthe issuehere. Therehave beeninstances,we havebeen toN e wZ e a l a n d ,where boththe Tests gotover in a totalof five days.”

Ashwin said that the talkaround the pitch is unnecessaryand there is no set rule on how acricket pitch should behave overthe course of a Test match.

“The bowler wins the game,the batsmen need to bat well toscore runs. Who defines what agood surface is? Seam on thefirst day, then bat well in thenext couple of days and spinon the last two days, comeon, who makes theserules?

“We need to get over it and if you are ask-ing whether the pitch in the third Test was a goodsurface, I do not see any players of England com-ing out and complaining. You should be hopingfor a good cricket match, not the surface,” he said.

Ashwin also cited a press conference of ViratKohli during a South Africa tour where the Indiacaptain refused to blame the pitch for the results.

“There is a video doing the rounds whereVirat Kohli is talking in South Africa and he

says I am not here to talk about the pitch.That is how we have been taught to playcricket, that’s why I say let them sellthoughts, buying is our choice,” he

added, similar to the tweets he had put outon Friday.

The 34-year-old off-spinner, who hasbecome second-fastest to 400 Test wick-

ets, tweeted about “ideas being sold” toform public opinion.

“I am not disturbed with thingsbeing taken out of context. That is

what has been happening for thelast decade, if not more. That is

why I put out the tweets I didyesterday (Friday). People

need to get the context andwhat is happening,” saidAshwin.

“There have beenpeople messaging methat the match has fin-ished in two days.Every pink-ball gamewe have played hasended within threedays. I do not knowwhat to say, unfor-tunately, many peo-ple have not playedthe pink-ball game,so they will notunderstand thisfacet of the game.

“My angstagainst the

whole thing isthat someonesays onething, thereare so manyp e o p l ewatching thesame picturebut are notable to painta differentone as com-pared tos o m e o n ewho is dri-ving a certaincase and sell-ing a certain

case to us. Thisneeds to stop,”

he added.

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Ravichandran Ashwin hasstopped bothering aboutlandmarks “long, long

time back” as his only endeav-our currently is to work on hiscraft and be useful every timewhen he plays for India.

Ashwin has become thefourth Indian bowler to com-plete 400 wickets in Test crick-et and was asked if surpassing‘Peak 619’ could be a reality incoming years.

“If you look at it pragmat-ically, it’s 218 wickets away,”Ashwin, who is always goodwith words answered.

“For me, I have stoppedthinking about all those land-marks and all long, long timeago.”

He said he is looking tobecome a better cricketer, everytime he stepped on the field.

“It’s been about what I cando, how I can get better, whatmore I can offer to the team

because every time you comeback into this setup, especiallynow that I am only playing Testcricket, it’s important to comeback and offer to the team.”

Ashwin wants to be in thishappy zone and enjoy his craftas he always does.

“I am looking to get betteras an individual and cricketer.That’s probably one of the rea-sons why I am really, reallyhappy and I am enjoying mygame and probably the best Ihave done in the last 15 years.I would like to continue thisphase and not think about toomuch else,” the bowler added.

Ashwin has been in thebio-bubble since the IPL andthen has been part of theAustralia series and the ongo-ing England series, and hesaid that is incredibly hard tobe without family but in thesame vein said that the teambonding has got better.

“I think without them(family) around it can be

incredibly hard. Yes, we get larg-er hotel spaces. We do get ourentertainment area. We bondmuch better. One thing thatstands out is that the fact thatbecause of this bio-bubble theplayers are getting togethermore than ever. I think the team

bonding has gotten better,” hesaid.

Ashwin also said there wasno apprehensions about playingthe Pink Ball Tests.

Asked have the playersspoken about the apprehensionto the board about playing

pink-ball Tests, Ashwin said:“There is no apprehension. Ifthere was apprehension, wewould have expressed.”

He said it was all aboutadapting.

“This is a new facet that hasbeen introduced to the game.We are used to playing with thered ball. We are conditioned toplaying with the red-ball andnow all of a sudden, they havegot in the pink ball. The pinkball has got a new dimensionto the game, so it’s about adapt-ing,” he said.

“You play more and moreand get used to it, the playersare going to adapt better. Thesame thing with one-dayers.We were used to playing withthe red ball and then shifted tothe white ball. Initially, thewhite-ball was doing a lot.Now, it does nothing. That’show this format will alsoevolve. Anything new is goingto have a lot of challenges,” heelaborated.

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Fast bowler Jasprit Bumrahwill miss the fourth and

final Test against England,beginning here on Thursday,as he was released from theIndian squad, owing to per-sonal reasons.

The BCCI said no additionto India’s squad will be made

for the final Test at Motera.“Jasprit Bumrah made a

request to BCCI to be releasedfrom India’s squad ahead of thefourth Test owing to personalreasons,” BCCI Secretary JayShah said in a media release onSaturday.

“Accordingly, the fastbowler has been released andhe will not be available forselection for the fourth Test.”

Bumrah has already beenrested for the limited-overseries, comprising five T20Isand three ODIs, beginning onMarch 12 here as part of theteam’s extensive workload man-agement programme.

The 27-year-old Indianpace bowling spearhead hasbeen inside bio-secure bubblesince August prior to the IndianPremier League in the UAE.

England all-rounder ChrisWoakes also has left the Testtour without playing a matchas part of the ECB’s rotationpolicy.

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The Motera track may havereceived a lot of flak after the

pink ball Test ended inside twodays but it is unlikely to attractany severe sanctions from thegame’s governing body ICCwith the pitch for the finalgame set to be a batting beau-ty.

With India 2-1 up in thefour-Test series and needing adraw to qualify for the WorldTest Championship final atLord’s from June 18-22, anoth-er turner is currently out ofquestion as the home team willbe aiming to take minimal risksas far as the track is concerned.

“Expect a good hard surfacewhich will be firm and evenbounce. It will be a batting beau-ty and since its a traditional redball match, one can expect avery high scoring contest herefrom March 4-8,” a senior BCCIofficial privy to the develop-ments told PTI.

Also the BCCI bigwigsalong with the team manage-ment understands the fact thatanother dust bowl won’t augur

well for the new venue which isexpected to host a lot of impor-tant matches during IPL as wellas ICC T20 World Cup.

“If there are two matchesplayed at the same venue, youcan’t hold one result in isolation.Let the final Test be over andthen only based on match ref-eree Javagal Srinath’s report canICC decide its course of action.Also as of now, the Englandteam hasn’t lodged any officialcomplaint,” the BCCI official

said.If there has been one good

and one bad pitch at the samevenue, the ICC is unlikely totake any action. While Indiawould be happy with a 3-1 mar-gin, they will not require a resultoriented turner as a draw wouldsuffice their purpose.

Also the Indian team man-agement doesn’t want to preparea track that can ideally backfireon them in a very high-stakegame of cricket.

Suryakumar Yadav (29), whoplayed their roles to perfection.

For Rajasthan, left-arm spin-ner Shubham Sharma (3/59) didthe bulk of the damage.

Chasing 318, Manender Singh(40) and Mahipal Lomror (76)tried to take the game deep withtheir 101-run third-wicket stand,but medium pacer Akash Parkarbroke the partnership after trap-ping Singh in front of the wicket.Shardul castled Lomror to leaveRajasthan at 160/4.

From thereon, it was an uphilltask for Rajasthan and they wereeventually bowled out for 250.

In other matches of the group,India opner Shikhar Dhawan’s 153helps Delhi beat Maharashtra bythree wickets at Sawai MansinghStadium. While Puducherry win by104 runs against HimachalPradesh.

PRERAK SLAMS 174Kolkata: In Group E clash, middle-order batsman Prerak Mankadtook Eden Gardens by storm witha sensational 174 to power

Saurashtra to a 62-run win overChandigarh. The 26-year-old plun-dered six sixes and 16 fours in hisknock from 130 balls to propelSaurashtra to a massive 388 for 7after Chandigarh opted to bowl.

In reply, Chandigarh, whohave been impressive in theirdebut Elite season with three winson the trot, could manage 326 for7.

The win helped Saurashtraconsolidate their lead with 16points, four clear of Chandigarh toclose in on a quarterfinal spot.

The No 4 batsman paced hisinnings brilliantly taking 53 ballsfor his half-century before hestepped up to race to his secondList A century in the next 39 balls.

There was no stopping Prerakas he took another 27 balls to cruiseto 150. He was dismissed by JagjitSingh in the final over but the dam-age had been done.

Chasing the target,Chandigarh skipper Manan Vohra(50) and Arslan Khan (61) put ona century-plus stand and thenAnkit Kaushik chipped in with 54

but it proved too little in the end.In other games, Services beat

Haryana by 112 runs and Bengalwin by 82 runs against Jammu &Kashmir.

UTTARAKHAND, ASSAM WINChennai: Uttarakhand notchedup their fourth straight win beat-ing Mizoram by eight wickets intheir Plate group match.

Uttarakhand are currently ontop of the standings with 16 pointsfrom four matches, sharing theposition with Assam, who wontheir match against Sikkim byfour wickets.

Leg-spinner Dikshansu Negitook 6 for 21 in a brilliant bowlingperformance to help Uttarakhandbundle out Mizoram for a paltry117.

In reply, Uttarakhand knockedoff the required runs in just 10.5overs.

In another match, Assamchased down a target of 246 set bySikkim in the 48th over to main-tain their all-win record in thegroup.

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Pep Guardiola ratesManchester City’s 20-gamewinning run as one of the

greatest achievements of his glit-tering career.

City moved 13 points clear atthe top of the Premier Leaguewith a hard-fought 2-1 victoryover West Ham at the EtihadStadium on Saturday.

Guardiola’s side are unbeat-en in 27 games and their run of20 successive victories in allcompetitions is a record for anEnglish top-flight side.

The Spaniard has won 29trophies as a manager withBarcelona, Bayern Munich andCity, including consecutivePremier League titles in 2018 and2019.

But Guardiola believes City’s

remarkable winning streak thisseason, amid a pandemic anddespite injuries to Sergio Agueroand Kevin De Bruyne, is up therewith his finest moments.

“It is so difficult. Twenty inthis period, in this era, with thissituation around the world. To beable to do 20 is maybe one of thegreatest achievements we havedone together in our careers,”Guardiola said.

“That doesn’t mean we willwin titles but we have not had

one week’s rest in three months.A game every three days, withthe Covid situation, injury situ-ations — to make this winningrun shows mentalstrength.”

City weren’t at theirbest against in-form WestHam, but Guardiola wasdelighted with the way theyfought for the points.

“We didn’t paint some-thing nice but there are many ofthese games during the season,”

he said.“It was obvious to every per-

son who saw the game it wasreally tough. The opposition is

incredible, well composed.“So, a big compliment to

West Ham. After 26 fixturesthey were in the ChampionsLeague positions. They haveeverything.

“It was a really toughgame but that is good for us

for the coming games, to realisewhat is going to happen.”

STONES FIRESPep Guardiola’s side are clos-

ing in on their third PremierLeague title in four seasonsthanks to priceless contribu-tions from their in-form centre-backs.

Ruben Dias, imperious sincesigning from Benfica inSeptember, put City ahead withhis first goal for the club.

Michail Antonio equalisedfor West Ham just before half-time, but the revitalised Stones

bagged the winner with a finestrike after the break.

City are enjoying the longestever winning streak by anEnglish top-flight team, with 14of those 20 victories coming inthe league to leave their titlerivals trailing in their wake.

“It was really difficult. After10-15 minutes today we realisewe are not going to paint any-thing beautiful,” Guardiola said.

“Second half we were muchbetter than the first half. Whenyou play a lot of games, in theleague and then the ChampionsLeague, this is normal. We werelucky to get all three points. Themathematics matter at the end ofthe season.”

Second placed ManchesterUnited and third placed Leicestercan close the gap back to 10points if they beat Chelsea andArsenal respectively on Sunday.

But it is hard to imagine any-one catching City over the last 12games of the season. They sur-vived a stern test from fourthplaced West Ham and ominous-ly for the rest of the league,Sergio Aguero returned to theCity starting line-up for the firsttime in four months.

Once he gets his sharpnessback, City’s record goalscorer willprovide a boost to their bid towin an unprecedented quadru-ple. West Ham had won seven oftheir previous nine league games,but even they couldn’t halt City’srelentless march to the title.

BHA MISS TWO FROM SPOTElsewhere, West Brom kept

their hopes of avoiding the dropalive with just a second win in 13games under Sam Allardyce in agame overshadowed by a surre-al moment of refereeing by LeeMason that cost Brighton anequaliser. Kyle Bartley’s earlyheader was enough for WestBrom to seal the tie.

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French Open tennis cham-pion Iga Swiatek crushed

world No 12 Belinda Bencic instraight sets to claim theAdelaide International atMemorial Drive on Saturday.

The 19-year-old Pole wasin ruthless form as shedowned her Swiss opponent6-2, 6-2 to claim the secondtitle of her career.

Swiatek burst onto thescene at Roland Garros lastyear when she claimed theFrench Open crown, defeatingthen world No 6 Sofia Keninin the final.

She started stronglyagainst Bencic and nevereased up, breaking her twicein each set to wrap up a com-fortable victory.

Swiatek went into thetournament as world No 18but will now rise to a career-high 15th as a result of thewin, her first hard-court title.

The women’s doubles final

was won by Chilean-US pairAlexa Guarachi and DesiraeKrawczyk, who beat HayleyCarter of the US and Brazil’sLuisa Stefani 6-7 (4-7), 6-4,10-3.

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Indian boxer Deepak Kumar’sstupendous run at the 72nd

Strandja Memorial tournamentended with a Silver medal inSofia, Bulgaria after he lost afiercely-contested flyweight(52kg) final on Saturday.

Deepak, an Asian Silver-winner, was up against Bulgaria’sDaniel Asenov, a two-timeEuropean championships Gold-medallist. The bout ended in asplit verdict in favour of the localfavourite.

The Indian had createdquite a flutter in the tournamentwhen he stunned reigningOlympic and world champion— Uzbekistan’s ShakhobidinZoirov — in his semifinalshowdown.

On Saturday, theBulgarian seemed the busierof the two boxers in theopening round and wassharper in his counter-attack-ing game.

Asenov’s consistent-ly high guard alsodenied Deepak aclear shot formost part.

Deepak’ss e c o n dround wasbetter andhe also putup as t r o n g e rdefensive per-formance but thejudges ruled infavour of Asenov.

In the final threeminutes, however, itwas Deepak whocalled the shots formost part, effortless-ly dodging his rival’srelentless attacks andalso launching somestrong ones of his

own.But Asenov, despite being

visibly jaded, had done enoughto seal the issue by that point.

“It is disappointing that Icould not win the Gold but theselast few days have been nothingshort of a dream come true. Iwas determined to make a markin this tournament especiallywhen I got an opportunity toplay against a Champion oppo-nent like Shakhobidin Zoirov inthe semis. I am very happy thatI could come out a winner.Though a lot of work still needsto be done and I will be focus-ing on it along with my coach-es as I go return to India,”Deepak added.

A Naib Subedar in theIndian Army, Deepak is

also a former IndiaOpen Gold-medallist.

Earlier, NaveenBoora (69kg) settledfor a Bronze medalafter going down to

Asian Games Goldmedallist Bobo-

Usmon Baturovof Uzbekistanin his semifi-nal bout.

W i t hthis, Indiasigned offwith twomedals atthe event

this year,one less

than what thecountry man-aged in the pre-vious edition.

None of theIndian womenboxers couldmake the medalrounds and wereeliminated bythe quarterfinalstage.

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Jadon Sancho brought up his50th Bundesliga assist as the

Borussia Dortmund forwardstarred in his side’s 3-0 win overArminia.

The 20-year-old becamethe youngest player inBundesliga history to reach thatmilestone as he also grabbed agoal from the penalty spot.

The England internationallaid off the ball to teammateMahmoud Dahoud who thenfired into the back of the net atthe start of the second half.

Sancho then cooly nettedfrom the spot to make it 2-0 toDortmund before ReinierCarvalho made it three withnine minutes to go.

He has now reached the 50assists milestone in just 99league games and has 36 goalsto go along with that. No otherplayers has ever reached thatmark before playing 100 times.

Sancho had a relatively slowstart to the campaign followingthe fallout of ManchesterUnited’s failed attempts to bring

him to Old Trafford.But is now in red-hot form,

as he has four goals and fourassists in his last seven games inall competitions.

2 FOR LEWA & GNABRYBundesliga top scorer

Robert Lewandowski baggedtwo goals as Bayern Munichrouted Cologne 5-1 to end itstwo-game winless streak andconsolidate its league lead.

Lewandowski took his sea-son tally to 28 goals asBayern moved five pointsclear of Leipzig, whichhosts BorussiaMönchengladbach in thelate game.

Leon Goretzka,making his first leaguestart since recovering from thecoronavirus, lifted a cross forEric Maxim Choupo-Moting toopen the scoring in the 18thminute, then brilliantly set upLewandowski in the 34th.

Goretzka received the ballfrom Lewandowski, turned andplayed the ball through Colognedefender Rafael Czichos’ legs,

before sending it to the right forLewandowski to score.

Defensive errors fromDavid Alaba and JérômeBoateng allowed Ellyes Skhiripull one back for Cologne afterthe break, but Lewandowskikilled off any notions of a sur-prise when Thomas Müller setup his second in the 65th.

Müller had only been onthe pitch a minute, after mak-ing his comeback from hiscoronavirus infection.

Bayern goalkeeperManuel Neuer almostgifted Cologne a wayback when he lost theball to DominickDrexler, but the mid-fielder’s effort cameback off the post.

Serge Gnabry, who camewith Müller in the 64th,sealed the result in the 82ndand wrapped up the scoringin the 86th.

Schalke moved another stepclosed to relegation with a 5-1loss at Stuttgart, and HerthaBerlin’s winless streak continuedin a 2-0 loss at Wolfsburg.

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Barcelona reignited their titlehopes after Lionel Messi and

Ousmane Dembele scored in a 2-0 victory over Sevilla on Saturdayto put them two points behindAtletico Madrid.

Atletico still have two gamesin hand, the first of those comingagainst sixth-placed Villarreal onSunday, but a dip in form from LaLiga’s leaders has given theirchasing rivals hope.

Barca looked dead and burieda few weeks ago but this was theirninth win out of 10 in La Liga, asurge that has put them back incontention, with Atletico playingagainst Real Madrid next week-end.

Sevilla started the day asarguably the form team at the top,

having won all of their last sixleague games, the last five of thosewithout conceding a goal.

But they were second best atthe Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, a

dominant performance fromBarcelona exposing them still asslightly short of Spain’s top three.

It also creates an intriguingback-drop to Wednesday’s Copa

del Rey semi-final second legwhen these two teams meet again,with Barca hoping to overturn a2-0 deficit at Camp Nou.

Pedri and Ronald Araujocould be doubts after both weresubstituted in the second halfwith what looked like injuryproblems.

Coach Ronald Koeman couldwell stick with his new 3-5-2 sys-tem, which saw Jordi Alba andSergino Dest playing as wing-backs ahead of a back three andDembele deployed up frontalongside Messi.

Without Antoine Griezmann,who dropped to the bench,Koeman sacrificed some creativ-ity in the final third for controlthrough the middle, not to men-tion the threat of Dembele inbehind.

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French league top-scorerKylian Mbappe scored twice

as Paris Saint-Germain routedrock-bottom Dijon 4-0 to moveup to second place on Saturday.

PSG was two points aheadof Lyon, which could reclaimsecond spot it wins on Sunday.

Moise Kean gave vis-iting PSG the perfect startafter five minutes.Mbappe and defenderAbdou Diallo combineddown the left to find nearthe penalty spot the Italystriker, who shifted theball onto his right foot andsqueezed it inside the rightpost.

Mbappe netted a penalty inthe 32nd following a handballand has converted all five he hastaken this season.

Five minutes after the break,he clipped the ball into the bot-tom left corner after neatlybeing set up by Rafinha for his18th goal. Center half Daniloheaded in the fourth from acorner late on.

Elsewhere, Metz hit two lategoals to win at Bordeaux 2-1with a last-minute goal from

Cape Verdean forward Vagner.Metz’s improvement under

coach Frederic Antonetti con-tinued as it rose to fifth place,while Bordeaux’s fifth defeat insix games left it mired in mid-table.

Striker Samuel Kalu putBordeaux ahead in the 13thfrom Youssouf Sabaly’s cross.

After defender ThomasDelaine equalized in the71st with a fine curlingshot from the left, Vagnermet Thierry Ambrose’scross at the back post.

On Sunday, Marseille’sfans will be in a better

mood for the home gameagainst Lyon after unpopularpresident Jacques-Henri Eyraudwas replaced and JorgeSampaoli was named as the newcoach.

Lille faces lowly Strasbourgand Monaco looks to make it 12league games unbeaten when ithosts Brest.

Niko Kovac’s Monaco sidehas not lost since mid-December and comfortablywon at PSG at 2-0 last weekend.

Lyon will move top on goaldifference if it wins and Lilleloses.

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Odisha FC prevailed overSC East Bengal 6-5 in a

crazy 11-goal thriller as theIndian Super League onSaturday recorded the mostgoals in a match through teamswhose season was blighted bytheir inability to score.

Doubles from two Indianyoungsters Paul Ramfangzauva(49’, 66’) and JerryMawihmingthanga (51’, 67’)enabled Odisha to end the sea-son on a high, with S Lalhrezuala(33’) and Diego Mauricio (69’)chipping in.

Goals from AnthonyPilkington (24’), Aaron JoshuaHolloway (60’, 90’), JejeLalpekhlua (74’) and an owngoal from Ravi Kumar (37’)made up East Bengal’s tally.

However the result had noaffect on the points table.

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� What is keeping you busy thesedays?

I am towards the end of shooting fora Netflix Original project. I can’t revealtoo much details, but it is a thrillerdrama. It stars myself, Anil Kapoor,Fatima Sana Shaikh, Mukti Mohan andSatish Kaushik. It will release towards theend of this year. I have also shot a filmfor VasanBala.

It’s a dark comedy. It stars RadhikaMadan and I. It is also a Netflix film andwill release sometime in May.

� Your monologue AK VS AK caughta lot of attention. Some memories thatyou have to share.

When I got the film, though the partwas small, but it was a seven-page longscript. If I talk about the monologue, itwas a unique one because the characterwas putting on a performance forAnurag Basu. I got the material and

worked on it. I was trying to create acharacter of myself. In reality, I am

not at all like it. It’s just that the char-acter is called Harsh and is AnilKapoor’s son, but apart from thatI don’t share any similaritieswith it. I am not an extrovert oran attention seeking person inmy real life. I just played it likeany other character. That was allthe preparation part. Not to

mention, it was great to be togeth-er in a project with dad, Sonam

and Boney chacha which was direct-ed by Vikramaditya Motwane. I have

always dreamt of something like this.Also, I have done a lot of improvisationsin it and it came out well.

� When you started back in 2016, didyou have the fear of people drawingcomparisons with your father?

I don’t want to waste time or ener-gy thinking about the comparisonsbeing made. I don’t want to spend mycareer trying to replicate what my fatherdid in the 80s and 90s. I am different. Iknow whenever you try to do somethingdifferent it takes people time to under-stand it, but eventually your workspeaks for itself. My focus is on doingunique and progressive films and that iswhat I am working towards.

� Are you careful about your careerchoices or do you believe in going withthe flow?

I don’t strategise a master plan tochoose films on the basis of how muchit will earn at the Box Office and howmuch fame I will get from it. My think-ing is if I like Vasan’s film Mard Ko DardNahi Hota, I know if he is offering me afilm it will be different from the previ-ous ones. I know he will push me to deliv-er, just like Vikram did for AK VS AK.

� Is there a lesson you learnt in theindustry?

I realised that a movies’ sucess is

judged by the amount of money it hasmade at the Box Office. This, for me,is a strange fact. I always wonder howonly money and not the hard work ofthe team and the meaning of the filmmatters. If a film earns good, it getsgood reviews. If it doesn’t, the reviewswill also reflect the same. This is whatI have learnt in the industry.

� An advice that your father hasgiven to you.

It’s a simple one: Be true to your-self and don’t try to imitate anyone.

� Do you go to him for tips andtricks related to acting?

I have always been saying this thatacting is a personal thing and you can’ttake tips from anyone. It is about youand how you play the character.Everyone has their way of playing acharacter. If we talk about monologuein AK VS AK, I can’t ask my dad howwill he do it.

Because it is personal and you haveto do it your way. But when it comesto career choices, yes I do take advicefrom him because of his expertise inthe field. I do discuss projects with himbefore taking one up.

�You are a composer-producer. What made you take tosinging?

I started learning Hindustani Classical Vocal at a very youngage, I was three and continued to do so for 21 years from myguru Ustad Ramzan Khan saheb. I also learnt Western piano for10 years. Singing, therefore is an integral part of my compos-ing and producing. Hence, I have always been singing.�How was the experience of being at the other end of the stu-dio?

I have also been recording on a mis are normal for me. Mostof the tracks that I produce, compose and record are sung byme; before anybody else records them even though this is onlya small part of producing music.�How did your music journey begin?

My parents were very particular that I learn music as partof how to be more disciplined in life. I moved to Mumbai in2017. My first was Phillauri and released the same year. LearningIndian classical music is important. I believe it is part and par-cel of life in people who are from small towns. For me, musicbegan as a hobby; it was much later that I decided to take it upas a profession. Producing and composing for films is the mostimportant part in the business. I am glad and blessed that I amgetting an opportunity to work with the industry.�You worked on a few projects in the US. Why come backto India?

I had worked on huge projects in the US. But there weresmaller aspects of these projects that I was working on. I wasnot getting an opportunity to express my creativity or be the kindof music I wanted to do. Since I had so much training in Indianmusic everybody told me I should be making Indian music.Hence, I came back.�How did you end up in Bollywood?

I met Rhea Kapoor (film producer) in 2016 and motivatedme to come back to India. She gave me a project that she wasworking on. This was the beginning for me. I am extremely grate-ful to her that this project kickstarted my journey in the indus-try. I will forever remain indebted to her. The opportunity thatshe gave me helped me gain confidence and believe in myselfthat I had a future here. It gave me courage and fearlessness tocontinue on this path.�You have composed for web series, TV series and films. Howare the three platforms different?

In the long format, the opportunity to express oneself is muchlonger. However, the long format shows are more difficult to scorethan films. In films, if one works on a project, say for six months,there is a certain kind of content that has been created duringthis period and the entire team is involved and chooses the bestpart and puts it out in the movie. But in a long format that is,say for 10 hours, you get the same amount of time for a lot ofcontent. The quality of content that you create has to be con-sistent for the entire duration. After a while, this takes a toll. Irespect those who create music for this format.�What next?

I have a few movies planned this year and a couple of pro-jects are in the pipeline for next year. I am excited for the newmusic that will come out soon. I hope that the fun that I hadduring the making of these songs, the listeners have just as muchfun when they hear it.

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It’s a no brainer that the only thingthat is constant is change. With time,

people changes and so does countries.Even India has changed for that mat-ter. But this change is perceived dif-ferently by different generations. Forsome, it is good while for others it isas bad as can be.

Padma Patil, a retired schoolteacher and a senior citizen, tells youhow our country has changed in thelast few decades. “India has changedin many aspects from lifestyle to citiesand from clothing to communication.This shows how people are trying toadapt to the new technology. However,while doing this they are gradually for-getting their roots and somtimes his-tory too,” she says.

Earlier people used to live a sim-ple life. Everything from their clothesto their lifestyle was normal. But now,with time, people believe in showingoff their expensive clothes and acces-sories from luxurious brands. “Theyall live a fake lifestyle; they do thingsfor others not for themselves or fortheir satisfaction. This speaks of howpeople are more concerned aboutwhat others think of them. Their focus

is to look fashionable, while human-ity in between this is taking a backseat. However, on the contrary, earli-er people lived for themselves and tothe fullest, while at the same time alsocaring for others’ opinions,” Patilopines.

Not to mention, the cities havealso changed in terms of infrastruc-

ture. Earlier there used to be few hous-es and more open grounds. “Car wasconsidered a luxury back then andonly one out of 10 people owned a car.While today, multistory buildingshave taken over the open grounds.This results in cluttering places andleaving no space for children to playat all. This leaves them with no option

but to take to playing on roads. Andthis comes with a risk of accidents.Also, there are uncountable numberof cars on the road which createunnecessary traffic thereby increasingthe travel time for even nearby places.This amount of load definitely affectsour planet in some or the other way,”she says.

Even relationships have gone fora toss. Back then, there were smallhouses with big families and everyonelived happily, but nowadays the con-cept of nuclear families have takenover.

“People prefer to live away fromtheir parents and in some cases theyare not happy from their partners aswell,” Patil explains.

Climate change is one of themajor changes that the older genera-tion has seen in the last few years. “Inour times, like I said before, there wereabsolutely no cars on roads and morenumber of trees. Hence, the air qual-ity was extremely good, but now dueto air pollution, climate change hasbecome frequent and bad. This is notonly harming our health, but alsoharming our planet,” she says.

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Iam busy drawing,” say thevoice of a seven-year-old at the

other end of the phone. There isnothing surprising there. That iswhat is expected of a child thatage. But there is nothing normalabout this little girl as one wouldnot expect a seven-year-old tosign a deal with Invincible forher four upcoming books andreceive a part of the royalty pay-ment for the first 10,000 copiesof her book. Meet AbhijitaGupta who has unveiled thecover of her second book — WeWill Surely Sustain.

Gupta has been recognisedas the world's youngest authorby the International Book ofRecords and The Asia Book ofRecords has conferred on hertitle of the Grandmaster inWriting. According to the IndiaBook of Records, she is the

youngest author to write poet-ry and prose.

Gupta began writing at agefive. Hailing from the thirdgeneration of the renownedpoet — RashtrakaviMaithilisharan Gupt andSantkavi Siyaramsharan Gupt,Gupta has a flair for creativity.She penned her first book amidthe COVID-19 lockdown.Titled Happiness All Around, itis a book that has short storiesand poems with illustrations.The kids love reading this one.The only daughter of proud par-ents — Ashish Gupt andAnupriya Gupta, Gupta lives inGhaziabad and studies in ClassII, Presidium School

Indirapuram.She tells you that she does-

n't know when and how she gotinterested in writing but just oneday she came up with a storythat she wanted to write andasked her parents for a penciland notebook. “From that dayonwards, I developed interest inexpressing myself and therehas been no stopping me. I loveto write. But it doesn’t mean thatI write all the time. Sometimes,there are days when I don’t writeanything; then there are timeswhen I write late into the night.Not that I am forced to. My par-ents, in fact, want me to enjoymyself. But they also understandthat I need to express myself and

support me,” Gupta tells you.Her mother, Anupriya, an

engineer- turned-entrepreneurtells you that they never forcetheir daughter to write. “Wewant her to have a normalchildhood and enjoy doingthings that kids this age areinterested in. She is the one whogets down to writing at oddhours of the day. Sometimes, shewill write at night. We areextremely proud of her and willcontinue supporting her inevery leg of her writing journey,”Anupriya says.

Believe it or not but thisauthor doesn’t need anybody'shelp when she gets stuck whilewriting and tells you that shedoesn’t go to anybody when shehas no idea how to proceed fur-ther. She just racks her brainsand begins from scratch.

She tells you how writingher book was literally a child’splay since she loves writing. “Ididn’t have any problemsbecause writing is somethingwhich I love to do. I get ideasfrom my surroundings, what-ever I see, hear or feel. Since Ilove to write, it doesn’t matterwhether it is prose or poetry,”She says.

Strangely enough she does-n’t want to be a writer when shegrows up even though Englishis her favourite subject. “I wantto be a pediatrician so that I canhelp needy people but yes I willcontinue writing as a hobby. Isee so many people who don’tget proper treatment becausethey can’t afford the fees. Iwant to be a doctor and helpsuch people,” Gupta says.

Her first book was receivedwith much fanfare among herfriends and family. “They areexcited and happy to read mybooks,” says Gupta, wholaunched her second book lastweek.

Titled We Will SurelySustain, the book is about thepandemic affected life of kidsduring this period.

“I decided to write thisbecause I feel that all the kidsmust have gone through a dif-ficult phase and so was I and Ithought of expressing thisthrough this book. And themoney that I will get, I willdonate some of it to the needypeople,” Gupta says.

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He was recently seen in AK VS AK onNetflix, though short, his role is receiving

a lot of appreciation from the audience.Kapoor speaks with Musba Hashmiabout the show-stealing monologue,

people drawing comparisons withhis father and how he doesn’t

take acting advice from him

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In the last one year, our lifestyles andhabits have changed forever. The way welive, eat, play, work is all altered. Theresulting lockdowns of countries hasbrought national economies to a stand-

still. Salary and job cuts are happeningthroughout the world. Lives versus livelihoodis a constant debate. No one living in thesetimes has experienced a crisis that can beremotely equated to this one. And things arestill unfolding.

When we are not going out to eat out butcooking more at home; when we prefer ser-vices at home rather than going out; when weneed high speed internet to work from home,when masks are the new fashion statement; allthese changes in our behaviour shape the waydifferent industries are leading their waythrough the crisis and changing the core strate-gy. Covid-19 has impacted every sphere of thecorporate world.

The pandemic has had a varied impact ondifferent industries. Across the globe, therehave been industries where revenue has gonenegative; for some it has even gone down tozero. Industries like travel which relied on peo-ple physically moving around even needed torefund future bookings. Entertainment likephysical events, movie ticketing, are in thesame category. It is not sure when revenue isgoing to return. Some of these industries fall inthe bucket of ‘putting off for the future’. Forexample, people are putting off the visit to thehairdresser and are likely to go back when thecrisis eases. These industries are shifting theirpresent revenues into the future. The immedi-ate focus is on cash conservation.

During this crisis, we have all indulged insome kind of hoarding. Be it toilet paper in thewestern countries or Maggi noodles in India;industries selling products which are essentialsand non-perishable are seeing their future rev-enues brought forward as people buy for thenext quarter and at some point in future, thepresent day spends will impact the futurespends.

On the other end, being stuck and homeand having a lot of time at hand; people arefinding time to take up new hobbies; cooking,gardening and other isolation friendly activi-ties. Baking banana breads became a hugetrend. Companies that help provide these vir-tual classes or sell the raw materials one needsfor these activities are attracting a large share

of discretionary spends of customers. This isnew revenue for the companies but not neces-sarily brought forward from the future.However, the growth that these industries areseeing may not sustain once people begin tostep out for leisure and entertainment.

And then there are big winners in thiscrisis. Industries like video conferencing,online grocery delivery, digital paymentshave seen a huge spike in adoption and havereached levels they would have otherwiseexpected to reach in order of months toyears. These are likely fundamental customerbehaviour changes and expected to stay evenwhen the crisis eases. These industries arenot only making a lot of revenue during thecrisis. And when the crisis is over, the newnormal of these industries will be at a higherlevel. These are industries that are mostlyconstrained on their supply side to handlethe exponential growth in demand.

Few years down the line, leadership andbusiness lessons from this crisis will be taughtas crisis management case studies in B-schools.Which of these lessons will be permanentarmours for future leaders for dealing with anycrisis? And do the learnings differ dependingon which side of the revenue curve a companyfinds itself. Does leadership need to be reac-tive? Here are the top 5 lessons coming directlyfrom senior leaders across different industriesand organisations.

��Ever since the world reported its first case,

every day has been a roller coaster ride.Situations on the ground have evolved rapidly.Every day has been different from the previousone.

A week before, leaders were checking thesales numbers and reviewing their 2020 plans.A week later, supply chains were disrupted andbusinesses asked to temporarily shut until fur-ther notice. A day before, all our employeeswere safe. A day later, an entire department gotinfected. The time horizon of major events wasseverely shortened.

In a crisis situation, dealing with uncer-tainty needs less planning, more execution.This is not the time to draw a productroadmap, a 5-year vision or long-term strate-gies. Leaders are embracing speed, mitigatingthe short to mid-term consequences to stabi-lize the situation and stay afloat. COVID-19

has delivered a crash course in agility fororganisations of all stripes.

�� It is said that innovation and creativity love

crises and constraints. Crisis brings out con-straints and makes innovation almost a forcingfunction. Leaders often leverage consultants toget a fresh, outside perspective on their organi-sations to find opportunities to innovate. A cri-sis can have much the same effect, putting thespotlight on vulnerabilities, problem areas;great and small, that we’ve been ignoring or arejust plain unaware of. When a crisis hits, weare forced to confront the truth about how oursystems work (or don’t). The places wherethings could be done better or more efficientlybecome glaringly obvious. All of a sudden,opportunities for innovation are staring us inthe face.

The current crisis is bringing a whole newset of innovations. Services like medicine, edu-cation, industrial plant set ups are all goingdigital. Google and Apple are collaborating oncontact tracing. Dunzo is working with brandsto get the products delivered at one’s doorstep.ITC’s personal care team deserves recognitionfor introducing a range of new health andhygiene products for households. Its hospitalityteam curated a gourmet menu, which recreatesthe ITC dining experience for our customersin the comfort of their homes. While these arejust a couple of examples, leaders across indus-tries continue to strive to change and innovateto ensure that they deliver nothing short ofexcellence in their products and services to ourcustomers, despite the pandemic.

��While it may sound obvious, crises are

crises because people suffer. In a situationwhere emotions and anxieties run high, leadersconnect with employees and other stakeholdersand acknowledge the personal and professionalchallenges they are going through. Impactfulleaders convey their vision in a manner thatthe employees feel aligned, motivated and ral-lied against.

Effective crisis management requiresintegrity, accountability, and moral courage.Thoughtful, frequent, and empathetic commu-nication signals that the leaders share withtheir organization show they care and aretogether in the journey that employees go

through. These messages are delivered with“bounded optimism” — hope combined withrealism.

��What makes a leader is not just thinking

about self but for the larger community. Be itgiving back to the community in cash or kindor even gestures where one takes care of peoplewho are not directly on the organization’s pay-roll but on the frontline; leaders showcase howit is not enough if the organization alone pro-gresses. No true leader sees crisis as a time tocarve out a competitive advantage; definitelynot at the cost of a struggling competitor.Compassion is leadership, leadership is com-passion — compassion not just for self but foreveryone else, especially ones where one hasno self-interest whatsoever. If anything, the cri-sis will make leadership more humane andabove self-interest.

��In times of crisis, the acceptance of failure

and moving on from there to the next step andthe next is a critical leadership trait. These aretimes when given the dynamicity of the situa-tion, decisions need to be made based on thelimited information available and many timesin decentralized manners. Fail fast is moreimportant than learning and waiting to makethe right decision. Different business modelsare prototyped and many of them may notwork. It’s ok. Leaders move on.

There are often external circumstancesbeyond one’s control. Leaders are kind to your-self and to their teams. They repivot as manytimes as necessary. They collaborate with com-petitors. Leadership is not about the outcome— it is about the process. Even a decision ofshutting down the business may look like afailure looking outwards. But the process ofarriving at that decision, accepting, communi-cating and executing the failure can demon-strate leadership. Being open to failure is thebiggest lesson from turbulent times.

The onus of leadership lies with each oneof us. We all need to lead ourselves, our lovedones, our societies, organisations and countriesout of this and every crisis.

The writer is a corporate professional andauthor of 4 books. Her latest book, InflectionPoint – Leadership Lessons from Turbulent

Times, has been published by Rupa Publications

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LEADERSHIP LESSONSFROM TURBULENT TIMES

Once the summer capital ofundivided Bihar, known forits wild beauty and cool

weather, Ranchi now looks like theposter boy of an unplannedurbanised over-populated city.Despite being the capital of a rela-tively new state, Jharkhand, townplanning is noticeably missing here.

As the state tourism is workingto put the state on a larger travelmap, there do exist some hiddengems of history waiting to be discov-ered.

Close to the old Hazari BaghRoad’s Netaji Nagar locality (atKantatoli Chowk), and right behindthe old bus stand, a small piece ofhistory sleeps in oblivion. This isRanchi Commonwealth WarCemetery, where many fallen sol-diers of Second World War got theirfinal resting place. These soldierslost their lives in India and Burmawhile protecting the glory of theQueen of England.

Interestingly, of the eight WorldWar cemeteries in India, easternstates such as Manipur, Nagaland,Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand house

five. This reflects the impact of thewar on the region as a maximumnumber of Allied soldiers were sta-tioned here to protect India from aprobable Japanese invasion in theearly 1940s.

One needs to go back in the his-tory to recall that the fall ofSingapore and Rangoon in 1942 inthe hands of Japan, had caused greatpanic in British India. By 1944, theAxis forces had already enteredIndia, with Netaji Bose’s INA, andhad overtaken a large area nearImphal, Manipur. The eastern partof India had a very weak defencewith only seven divisions of thearmy and almost no air fields.

By May 1942, the Allied forceshad started amassing their armyfrom the Commonwealth coun-tries and started building logisticsinfrastructure in form of new airstrips and army bases. By the end of1944, places such as Calcutta,Guwahati, Kohima and some otherfrontiers of Assam and Bengal wereflooded with the American andCommonwealth soldiers arrivingfrom Canada, Australia, Great

Britain, New Zealand and India. Around the same time, a secret

army training camp was opened atRamgargh near Ranchi where

British and American Army officersgave training to the Chinese soldiersback from the front. Clearly Ranchiwas abuzz with action. The suburbs,

however, remained unaffected dur-ing the war.

Elsewhere in Assam, Manipur,Arunachal and even Calcutta, there

were high casualties of soldiers.Many a brave-hearts lost their lives.Only some got decent burials asmany returned home as badly muti-lated bodies. It was a dark momentin time.

As it did at the end of the FirstWorld War, Commonwealth WarGraves Commission began organ-ising the Army cemetery across theglobe. The project in Ranchi wasundertaken in 1952. Relics of thefallen soldiers were taken to Ranchifrom various battle fields and othermilitary and civil cemeteries and asmall war cemetery was designedwith all international features. Thisplace was well organised and openedto visitors in 1952. 704 graves fromacross India were identified andshifted here. Today, the cemetery has51 gravestones of Indian soldiers, ofwhich four belong to the BiharRegiment. This cemetery housesthree non-war graves as well. Thereare 200 graves from 12 other civilcemeteries.

Green open field lends a sadbeauty to the cemetery. At the cen-tre, stands a long freestanding Latin

cross called the “Cross of Sacrifice”,a very common feature in anyWorld War cemetery with morethan 40 graves. This cross of sacri-fice was designed by ReginaldBlomfield. Row upon rows of head-stones tell a saga of pain, pangs andexcoriated sacrifices.

Every headstone mentions thename of the soldier, his designationand his age at time of death. Everyheadstone is decorated with the reg-imental badge of the dead and a per-sonal line dedicated to him by hisfamily.

The cemetery is the final rest-ing place of soldiers belong to reg-iments such as the Royal AustralianAir Forces, Royal Canadian AirForces, East Yorkshire Regiment,West African Army, Royal ArmyOrdinance, East LancashireRegiment, Westmorland &Cumberland Yeo, among othersthat lost their lives to lost cause. Itis heart breaking to see that manysoldiers were as young as 20 yearsold. The pain of the loved ones isreflected in the memoriam linesetched on the stones.

Though the cemetery is not easyto locate and gets only few visitors,it is very well maintained. So nexttime you visit Ranchi, do make timeto visit this piece of history. As readsa message at one of the restingplaces: Thoughts go back to bygonedays. Life moves on but memorystays.

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Amar prem ki nagari mein aapkaswagat hai (welcome to the cityof eternal love), a green-coloured board greets us as weenter Mandu, a small town 100

km west of Indore in Madhya Pradesh.Myths, legends and Mandu seem to be

made for each other. As you drive throughlush green fields dotted with palaces andpavilions it is easy to lose yourself in thetown’s stories of romance, courage andbetrayal.

The most fascinating of all tales is theroyal love story of Baz Bahadur, the last sul-tan of Malwa (1555-1562) and his beau-tiful consort Roopmati. In these parts, BazBahadur and Roopmati are no less thanRomeo-Juliet, Heer-Ranjha or Laila-Majnu. Legend has it that once when BazBahadur was on a hunting trip, he saw abeautiful woman singing. He was so smit-ten by her beauty and melodious voice thathe asked her to accompany him to his cap-ital, Mandu. Roopmati agreed but had onlyone condition, she needed to set eyes onher beloved river Narmada every day.Thus, two canopies were built on top of awatch tower within 48 hours (if our guideis to be believed) so that Roopmati couldsee the river Narmada, 23 km away, comerain or shine.

Unfortunately, for the lovers, theirromance was short lived. In 1562, Mughalemperor Akbar decided to invade Manduand sent his general Adam Khan to cap-ture Mandu. Baz Bahadur’s small army wasno match for the great Mughal army.Mandu fell easily and Baz Bahadur escapedto Mewar. Adam Khan who had heard ofRoopmati’s beauty requested to meet her.Sensing her fate, she poisoned herself andavoided capture but not before she wrotethe following poem:

Chitt Chanderi, sabe Malwa,Jiyo bhayo udas,Kyonki bhag gaye Bahadur Baz,Preet meet ke din gaye,Gaye Bahadur Baz,Ab na jiyo jaat hai, Yahan kahan hai kaz(My heart is sad seeing the sunrise in

Mandu since Baz Bahadur has run away.The days of meeting my lover are over. It’sdifficult for me to live now and I have nomore work to do here).

History or legend? The love story lives

on giving rise to poetry and folklore. As I climb up Rani Roopmati’s pavil-

ion, I imagine her standing under one ofthe canopies gazing at her belovedNarmada on the one side and at the BazBahadur palace on the other. RaniRoopmati’s pavilion which is on top of ahill was originally a watch tower. Besidesthe two canopies, Baz Bahadur built awater reservoir (Rewa Kund) so thatNarmada water could be provided toRoopmati. The water was supplied in thewhole building through an aqueduct.

There is a clear view of Baz Bahadur’spalace from Roopmati’s Pavillion. Thepalace is a medley of Rajasthani andIslamic styles of architecture. Whilestrolling through the long corridors,arched entrances and domed pavilions Icould sense the echoes of a glorious past.

It was to acquaint the visitors to thishistoric past of Mandu — as also art, cul-ture and heritage — that Madhya PradeshTourism Board recently organised a two-day festival. One that I was apart of.

��The first written inscription about

Mandu is from the sixth century. But overthe years, it changed hands several times.The Parmar rulers moved their capitalfrom Dhar to Mandu in 1261, seeminglyto take advantage of its strategic locationon top of a plateau. The weakening of theParmar rule and the attacks from Delhiintensified in the last years of the thirteenthcentury and in 1305, Alauddin Khilji cap-tured Malwa. Another hundred yearslater, when Delhi was being ruled byMohamed Shah Tughlaq, his governorDilawar Khan Gori and his son HoshangShah ruled Mandu for several years andrenamed it Shadiabad or the City of Joy.

It was they who turned the town intoan architectural marvel by building icon-ic structures like the imposing JamiMasjid, modelled after the UmayyadMosque in Damascus (Syria). Consideredone of the finest and largest models ofAfghan architecture in India, the red sand-stone mosque has a sprawling courtyardenclosed by huge colonnades with perfect-ly symmetrical archways, pillars, baysand domes. The variety of domes are notmeant only for ornamental purposes butensured that the Imam’s voice could be

heard during prayers all across the largemosque.

Jami Masjid is no longer an activemosque but in its heydays it could accom-modate over 5000 people.

The tomb of Jami Masjid’s creator,Hoshang Shah, lies next door to it.Considered the first marble mausoleum,local folklore claims that Shahjahan wasinspired by this tomb while constructingthe Taj Mahal.

Whether that’s true or not, HoshangShah’s tomb built entirely in white marbleis a beautiful structure with lattice-work,arched openings, domes and jalis givingit an elegant look.

One of the most striking structures inMandu is the Jahaz Mahal built by SultanGhiyasuddin Khalji, supposedly to househis harem of 15,000 women. It is believedthat Mughal Emperor Jehangir, who vis-ited Mandu in 1617 and spent nearly sevenmonths there, writing extensively aboutMandu in his memoirs Jehangirnamacalled the palace Jahaz Mahal because builtbetween two lakes — Munja and Kapur —its shadow looks like a ship. The beauti-ful palace with its gorgeous halls, ceno-taphs, and striking pools is an architectur-al wonder.

The Jahaz Mahal is part of a larger com-pound that includes the very interesting

Hindola Mahal, named thus because itssloping outer walls give the impression thatthe palace is swaying. As per our guide, thestructure is built without a foundation andto ensure that it remained standing for cen-turies it was built at a 77 degree angle.During the monsoons swings were hung inthe main hall for the queens to sway.Hindola Mahal has an elegant façade andbeautiful symmetrical arches.

Because Mandu changed rulers somany times various structures were built,destroyed and rebuilt. It has over 3,000structures from the 12th to the 16th cen-tury in a 26 sq km area. You cannot walkmore than a 100 feet without spotting abeautiful monument, that tells its own storyadding to the agelessness of the place.

It was Mandu’s geographical locationwhich made it such an important city. Itprospered greatly under the Sultans ofMalwa for nearly 200 years. At its peak,Mandu had a population of over 9 lakh peo-ple. The small town today has a populationof just 15,000. Built primarily as a fort, mul-tiple ancient gates herald you every fewmetres, transporting you to a bygone era.

��

If the numerous monuments in Manduwill take your breath away, the presence ofseveral baobab trees, native to Madagascarand mainland Africa, will leave you won-dering. These massive, towering treesbereft of leaves and with bulbous trunks dotthe Mandu landscape leaving one bewil-dered. Where did they come from? Thereseems to be no satisfactory answer.

My guide says it was probably giftedby a traveller from those regions in themid-15th century but there doesn’t seemto be a record of the same. While the pres-ence of the trees surprises tourists like me,for the locals they have always beenthere. The baobab tree’s fruit is sold in thelocal market as ‘Mandu ki imly’. Break openthe elongated fruit and you find a clusterof white-coated seeds. The texture ispowdery and not fiberous like imly but itis tangy.

As I leave Mandu, I imagine it in allits glory as it lives on in its palaces andpavilions, its ballads and legends and I takea bit of its charm and romance back homewith me.

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,��HOW TO GET THERE

Mandu is located about a 100 kmfrom Indore and the only way to get thereis by road.

HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU NEEDYou can cover Mandu’s main sights

including the Jahaz Mahal, HindolaMahal, Roopmati Pavilion, Baz Bahadur’sPalace and Jami Masjid in a day trip fromIndore, if you are prepared to walk quitea bit. If you wish to slow down the paceand explore some of the lesser knownmonuments, then you can spend two days.

WHERE TO STAYThere are a few hotels in Mandu and

most are fairly basic. The best option isthe MPTDC Hotel — Malwa Retreatlocated next to one of Mandu’s Lakes.

WHEN TO GOThe peak season in Mandu is the

monsoon, when there is lush greenery allaround. Besides that the weather is pleas-ant in the winter months from November-February.

HOW TO GET AROUNDMandu doesn’t have autos or cycle

rickshaws as of now and so to get aroundyou need to have your own vehicle or thehotel can organise it for you.

WHAT TO EATDo try ‘Mandu ki imly’. It’s sold at stalls

outside Jami Masjid.

MUST WATCHThe light and sound show at Hindola

Mahal is a must watch. The half an hourshow provides a good overview ofMandu’s history and legends.

THINGS TO KNOWNetwork is a major issue but if the

plan is to be cut-off from your daily lifeand enjoy Mandu’s serenity then it works.There are a couple of ATMs in the mainmarket. But digital payments are accept-ed by most. Hotels accept credit cards.

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1��"�0��"��The Mahinda Rajapaksa

Government in Sri Lanka isin trouble again. The horrors ofthe three decades of LankanCivil War are revisiting theGovernment. The two brothers— Mahinda and Gotabaya —are holding the two crucialposts, Prime Minister andPresident, respectively.

Earlier, Mahinda servedas the President from 2005 to2010, when Gotabaya was theDefence Secretary. During thisperiod, both the brotherscrushed the Liberation Tigersof Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and putan end to the longest Civil Warin the country.

However it was the lead-ership of former LieutenantColonel Gotabaya, who final-ly led the Lankan Army to thesuccessful war against thedreaded LTTE leadership ofVelupillai Prabhakaran in 2009.It was good that an ethnic ter-ror movement came to an endthat took the lives of many inthe past. And the armed forcesof this tiny island nation and itspolitical leadership breathed asigh of relief. Prabhakaran’storture regime was over withhis killing in May 2009 at thehands of the Lankan Army.

This had not only shatteredthe command structure of theTamil Tigers, but also pushedthe outfit to the brink of clo-sure. The organisation had lostboth its firepower and man-power. The LankanGovernment forces too hadreceived severe casualtiesthough the forces receivedabundant supply of arms fromChina.

The end of the war broughtthe most vital question to thefore — the massive violation ofhuman rights by the LankanArmy. Though the RajapaksaGovernment had justified thewar, the humanitarian con-cerns emerging from the num-ber of dead, missing and post-war rehabilitation of the Tamilcivilians exposed the extremelevel of brutalities that theLankan forces resorted to.

Both the Rajapaksa broth-ers turned out to be heroesamong the majority Sinhalesepopulation, but questions of theviolation of fundamental rightsof the Tamils in the North andEastern part of the countryremained unanswered.

And this has been haunt-ing the Rajapaksa Governmentsince the end of the Civil Warand now also with the return-ing of the duo to power.

Sri Lanka is facing a newUN Resolution at the UNHuman Rights Council(UNHRC), calling on thehuman rights abusers toaccount and asking the coun-try’s Government to deliverimmediate justice to the vic-tims. Britain and others havecirculated a draft of the reso-lution among the members ofthe UNHRC.

It is expected to be adopt-ed at the end of the four-weekSpring Session of the UN’s tophuman rights body. The sessionbegan on February 22 inGeneva.

Both the Tamil Tigers andthe Lankan Army were accusedof massive violations of human

rights during the war.Therefore, the UN humanrights office blames both forcarrying out unparallel brutal-ities against the innocent civil-ians during the war.

Germany and Canada areamong the six countries thatformed the core group alongwith Britain to bring the reso-lution on Lanka. Lord Ahmad,Britain’s Minister of State forSouth Asia and theCommonwealth, said: “Thevictims from all communitiesof Sri Lanka’s brutal Civil Warare, a decade later, still await-ing justice for loved ones mur-dered or missing and dealingwith the repercussions of vio-lence and conflict”.

He further commentedthat the current resolutionmoved by his country in theUNHRC is a vital step towardsreconciliation and peaceful

relations among all of SriLanka’s diverse communitiesand faith groups. This willbring an added pressure on theLankan Government, but thenhow Colombo will respondmay only decide the future ofthe families of the victims.

UN Human Rights chiefMichelle Bachelet has submit-ted her report on Sri Lanka tothe UNHRC. While introduc-ing the report to the Council,she said the effect of the con-flict on thousands of survivorsfrom all communities was dev-astating.

She highlighted that 12years after the end of thearmed conflict in Lanka, thedomestic efforts to ensure jus-tice for victims have failed.Further she stated, “Despitecommitments made in 2015,the current Government, likeits predecessor, has failed to

pursue genuine truth-seekingor accountability processes…Moreover, the systems, struc-tures, policies and personnelthat gave rise to such grave vio-lations in the past remain andhave recently been reinforced”.

This has put the RajapaksaGovernment in the dock. Allefforts are on to pressuriseColombo so as to offer justiceto the families of thousands ofvictims and missing persons inthis devastating war.

As per the records madeavailable by the internationalmedia and human rights agen-cies, the war killed about1,00,000 people, including40,000 Tamil civilians, massa-cred by the Lankan Army inthe final onslaught.

However, the RajapaksaGovernment completely deniesthese allegations. An estimat-ed 1,50,000 people were

trapped on the coast at the endof the war. Besides thousandswent missing and the Lankansecurity forces were blamed forthe disappearance of the Tamilrebels who either surrenderedor captured.

Recently in a meeting witha UN envoy, Lankan PresidentGotabaya acknowledged forthe first time that more than20,000 people who disappearedduring the country’s Civil Warwere dead.

Further his office releaseda statement that steps would betaken to issue death certificatesfor those missing. This has cer-tainly dampened the hopes ofthose who were expecting apositive response from theGovernment.

Sri Lanka, the islandnation, had witnessed thescourge of terrorism for aboutthree decades. The terrorfuelled by the monstrous LTTEhad claimed many lives, includ-ing the civilians, soldiers andhigh-profile political leaderswithin and outside the country.

The LTTE under the lead-ership of Prabhakaran wassimply running a parallelGovernment in the North-Eastern parts of Lanka. Today,the Tamils and other minoritygroups like the Muslims andChristians are alleging massiveviolation of human rights bythe Lankan forces in the finalwar against the LTTE in 2009.But the international commu-nity must not forget the reignof terror brought byPrabhakaran and his team overinnocent civilians across theisland.

The LTTE, formed on May5, 1976, by Prabhakaran wasonce used to be the only terrorgroup in the world possessingits own military. Its politicalheadquarters was inKilinochchi, situating at a dis-tance of 200 miles north ofLanka’s capital city of Colombo.And this military consisted ofthree distinct branches — theTigers (Infantry), Sea Tigers(Sea Wing) and Air Tigers(Air Wing). It had graduallyemerged as the most lethal andwell-organised terror group.

In fact, the Federal Bureauof Investigation (FBI), in itsreport published in January2008, stated that the LTTEwas one of the most dangerous

and deadly extremist outfits inthe world and the world shouldbe concerned about the outfitas they had inspired networksworldwide, including the al-Qaeda in Iraq. The brutal tac-tics and the employment ofchild soldiers by the LTTEwere causing concerns acrossSouth Asia in its heydays.

Further some reports indi-cate that women were alsoforced to join the organisation.Only after seven years of its for-mation in 1983, the organisa-tion opened its Women’s Frontof the Liberation Tigers underthe leadership of Vithusha.Like many other African terrorgroups, the LTTE used torecruit children for combatforces.

As per the estimates of theSri Lankan Directorate ofMilitary Intelligence, as muchas 60 per cent of the outfit’sfighters were below 18 years. Itwas also revealed that the fight-ers of the Tamil Tigers whowere killed in the war weremostly between 9 and 18 years.

These were some of theharrowing episodes of theLTTE that rightly underlineshow the terror organisationwas simply twisting and under-mining the epithets of basichuman rights. Initially, itseemed to be an endless saga ofterror, violence, torture and aparallel state run by an author-itarian leader.

Today the Tamils are call-ing for accountability and jus-tice for the crimes committedduring the Civil War by theLankan forces. It is hard timefor the Rajapaksa duo torespond to the Tamil minori-ty in their country and to theworld Tamil diaspora on thissensitive issue. What is expect-ed from Colombo is quickredressal of the grievances ofthe minorities in the North andEastern part of the country.

It is time to accept theresponsibility of war crimes onthe part of the LankanGovernment. It is time to healthe wounds. Else, relationshipbetween the Sinhalese major-ity and rest of the minoritycommunities, particularly withthe Tamils, would further dete-riorate.

(The writer is an expert oninternational affairs)

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The ongoing global pan-demic of coronavirus dis-

ease 2019, caused by severeacute respiratory syndromecoronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),has been declared as a publichealth emergency of interna-tional concern (WHO, 2020).

Several research studiesacross the globe have con-firmed that SARS-CoV-2ribonucleic acid (RNA) hasbeen detected in faeces of notonly symptomatic but alsoasymptomatic patients. It hasalso been seen that sewers orsewage treatment plants (STPs)can provide near-real-timeoutbreak data because theyconstantly collect human fluidsshed by infected population.

Thus, wastewater-basedepidemiology (WBE) is apromising approach to under-stand the prevalence of virus-es in any given wastewatertreatment plant (WWTP)catchment population.

A densely populated coun-try like India will require con-stant vigilance to containCovid-19 infection hot spots,unless and until either a vaccineis proven to be effective or herdimmunity is achieved, to com-bat the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Real-time communitysewage detection can be takenas early as possible to restrictthe movement of the localpopulation, working to min-imise the pathogen spread andthreat to public health.

This could help the timely

determination of whether thereare Covid-19 carriers (bothasymptomatic and sympto-matic) in an area to enable pre-ventive measures such as rapidscreening and quarantine, evenbefore the residents of that cityhave been tested.

In India, the pandemicsteadily rose from April 2020with peaking in mid-August2020. The cumulative con-firmed cases have significant-ly lowered at present.

Several research groupsacross the globe have reporteddetecting novel coronavirusSARS-CoV-2 in wastewater.In Switzerland, ÉcolePolytechnique Fédérale deLausanne (EPFL) researchers,working in association with theSwiss Federal Institute ofAquatic Science andTechnology (EAWAG) onwastewater sampling andanalysis developed a study inMarch 2020, which acts as anearly warning signal for spreadof SARS-CoV-2 in communi-ties. Similarly, in April 2020,sewage sampling across greaterParis (France) for more thanone month, researchers havedetected a rise and fall in novelcoronavirus concentrationsthat correspond to the shape ofthe SARS-CoV-2 outbreak inthe region.

Other researchers have alsoreported detecting novel coro-navirus SARS-CoV-2 in waste-water in countries such as:Australia (Ahmed et al, 2020),

Cyprus (Michael-Kordatou etal, 2020), Ireland (Cahill et al,2020), Italy (La Rosa et al,2020), Japan (Haramoto et al,2020), South Africa (Street etal., 2020), The Netherlands(Dutch Water Sector, 2020),Spain (Chavarria-Miró et al,2020), USA (Peccia et al andHart & Halden et al, 2020), andIndia (Kumar et al and Aroraet al., 2020).

For effective dissemina-tion of knowledge created bythe current research efforts, andto empower collaboration on aglobal scale for wastewater-based epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2, there are various ongo-ing initiatives such as theEuropean Union’s NORMAN -SCORE Joint Initiative (SewageAnalysis CORe group Europe)(score-cost.eu/), COVID-19WBE Collaborative(covid19wbec.org/), BiobotAnalytics (biobot.io/), NSFResearch CoordinationNetwork (RCN)(sites.nd.edu/rcn-wastewater-sarscov2/), COVIDPoops19(https://twitter.com/COVIDPoops19?s=20), Global WaterPathogen Project (GWPP)(waterpathogens.org/) and others.

In IIT Gandhinagar, India,Kumar et al, 2020, for the firsttime, detected the presence ofthree SARS-CoV-2 genes(ORF1ab, N and S virus) inwastewater. The samples werecollected in May 2020 from OldPirana WWTP in Ahmedabad

(Gujarat) to understand theapplication of WBE surveil-lance in India.

The WWTP has a capaci-ty of 106 MLD receiving efflu-ents of Civil Hospital treatingCovid-19 patients. The numberof gene copies was found com-parable to that reported in theuntreated wastewaters ofAustralia, China, and Turkeyand lower than that of the USA,France, and Spain. A similarstudy was conducted byresearchers of Dr B Lal Instituteof Biotechnology (Rajasthan)with samples from hospital wastewater as well asfrom WWTPs of Jaipur, which has been a pandemichotspot (red zone) since April2020.

To analyse the presence ofSARS-CoV-2 in the commu-nity wastewater of differentcatchments in Chennai city inIndia, a group of scientists ledby Chakraborty et.al from SRMInstitute of Science andTechnology, Mu GammaConsultants Pvt Ltd (MGC)and The Energy and ResourcesInstitute (TERI) jointly imple-mented an intensive waste-water surveillance study, thefirst-of-its-kind in the southernregion of India.

The study entailed partiallockdown and post lockdownsurvey along the wastewaterdischarge points in Adayarand Cooum Riverine belt flow-ing through the densely popu-lated region of Chennai to

develop an early signallingspread of Covid-19 in com-munities during partial andpost-lockdown periods in 2020.This study gave interestinginsights for informing policyactions.

The wastewater surveil-lance study in Chennai has thepotential for replication inother Indian cities like Delhi aswell as upscaling it for largergeographic areas covering alarge population. Also, it couldpotentially be one of the basesfor scientifically informed deci-sions to implement publichealth intervention strategiesconsistent with legal and ethi-cal considerations in India.

At present, Delhi has 41Sewage Treatment Plants(STPs) with a cumulative treat-ment capacity of 3,149 MLD.Out of 41 STPs, 32 STPs (2,775MLD) are operational and 9STPs (373 MLD) are non-operational . Also, important-ly, 75 per cent of pollution iscontributed by three majordrains (Najafgarh,Supplementary and Shahdara)out of all the drains falling intothe river Yamuna. Given thecurrent sewage managementscenario of Delhi, a waste-water surveillance study (sim-ilar to the one conducted bySRM IST, MGC and TERI inChennai) can be taken up in the national Capital to track the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the wastewatersamples from major drains

falling into the Yamuna riverand select STPs.

The advantages of waste-water surveillance in Delhiwill include the monitoring ofwastewater samples fromsewage treatment plants andmajor drains of the Yamunariver in Delhi can help in esti-mating the number of infectedindividuals, and hence providerobust scientific evidence forinformed decision making atthe policy level.

This is an early, cost-effec-tive, unbiased community-levelindicator of the presence ofCovid-19 and of “hot-spots”within a community. It willsupport risk mitigation deci-sions for the communities, andguide decisions about whereand when to impose or relaxmore targeted restrictions onmovement and activity. It willhelp alert asymptomatic infec-tions in the communitythrough real-time communitysewage detection could bedetermined.

It will be very useful forpositioning resources and trig-gering public actions forimproved health outcomes. Itwill also alert second and sub-sequent waves, and developpreparedness towards outbreakof other pandemics in thefuture.

To track any resurgence ofCovid-19, national wastewatersurveillance programmes arebeing implemented in variouscountries like the USA,

Finland, Germany, theNetherlands, and Pakistan. Thesame can be planned for India.In the past, WBE has played animportant role in the eradica-tion of polio in 2011 in India,and at present, wastewater sur-veillance continues at 52WWTPs and unregulatedcatchment areas for detectionof poliovirus.

This surveillance networkcan be a viable resource for thedetection of SARS-CoV-2 inwastewater in the country,including the national CapitalDelhi.

There is a need to identifythe key issues and challengesrelated to the development ofvalidated methodological pro-tocols for the quantitativeanalysis of SARS-CoV-2 inwastewater.

The data generated fromthe SARS-CoV-2 wastewatermonitoring system in Delhimight be used to show aroadmap for tracking disease,intensifying testing, re-introducing public ordersrelated to social distancing orquarantines (if needed), andeven lifting restrictions once acessation of infection is confirmed.

(Paromita Chakraborty isAssociate Professor, SRMInstitute of Science &Technology, and Girija K Bharatis director, Mu GammaConsultants Pvt Ltd,Gurugram)

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There are two working tools of theDhyana process — an imagery tofocus upon and a mantra related to

the image — as has been explained in theprevious issue. Mantra is usually a set ofsyllables placed in a logical sequence tocreate a particular sound effect. It couldbe just a seed letter, syllable, word, or aset of words, which as a sequel to stresscreated and uttered by mouth, is heardby ears, and apprehended by mind.Mantra is so called, because it involves amental process. The word as such com-prises of ‘man’ out of ‘manana’ and ‘tra’out of ‘trãna’. Mana stands for mind;manana implies reflection in mind; andtrana stands for liberation.

So, chanting of mantra helps attainliberation from mental limitations. It,thus, serves a great purpose, as mantrahappens to be a radiant energy, rather asound-body of consciousness, set in cor-respondence with the consciousness ofthe related imagery. Following repeatedchanting of the mantra with focus on therelated imagery, consciousness of theseeker, in the first place, comes to termswith that of the mantra and the imagery.Eventually the seeker’s consciousnessbecomes one with the eternal element of

consciousness over a period of time.Pursuing the process doesn’t happen

without meeting difficulties on the way.Invariably, the seeker is confronted withdistracting thoughts that drift our atten-tion away from our focal point, againand again. Don’t confront those distract-ing thoughts. If you ever do that, theywill stay put in mind, and keep visitingagain and again. The only way out istraining one’s mind to remain disen-gaged from them. Mind it; unless youpay attention to something, it won’taffect you.

Keep chanting the mantra and try tobring back attention to the imagerysought after again and again. Gradually,the distracting thoughts will go out ofreckoning, and you may be able toremain focused for a longer stretch oftime. Let me add here that when thesound notes of the mantra resonate tothe imagery in focus, over a period oftime, one gets so involved that distract-ing thoughts if any are left far behind.When one gets fully established in theprocess, mind becomes one pointed. Inthe process, one also inculcates a valuesystem, coming as it may with the educa-tive import of the imagery in focus.

SAMÃDHI: As one gets established inthe dhãranã process, the seeker is inharmony with the imagery and its relat-ed educative import, as well as the res-onating mantra. We, thus, enter into astate of dhyana. Pursuing the processfurther, a stage is arrived at whenmantra gets dropped. Eventually allthoughts drop but one remains steadfastwith the concept synonymous with theimagery in focus. This state is termed asbeing in savikãr samãdhi (immersed inthe iconic figure targeted). Furtherdown the line, even the iconic figuredrops. Following which the mantra, theimagery, and the mind become oneseamless awareness, which meansattaining the state of nirvikalpa (form-less) samãdhi.

In samãdhi, mind, free from anythought input, becomes quiet. For, allthoughts prevailing in mind, whichotherwise condition one’s mind, getdropped. These very thoughts holdthe key to your futuristic aspirationsalso. You are free from any sense ofthe past or future. So, there remainsnothing in hand to process, and henceat peace. It is a state of being whenyou are just enjoying your present

moment in ‘as is where is’ condition.The question now is: If all about life,

including the mind, is manifestation ofnature driven energy orchestra, whichwould be continuously pulsating, howcomes mind gets into a state of no activ-ity for becoming at peace with the self?Well, mind can never get into an inac-tive state the way a running vehicle ishalted. But pursuing the dhyãnaprocess, a state is arrived at when mindis in perfect harmony with the elementof consciousness. The unitary mindthen submerges with the cosmic mind.Evidently then, mind becomes an inte-grated part of cosmic flow, and so is atpeace with the self and the rest. It issomething like someone standing onearth plane not able to have a feel oftremendous speed at which the latterwould be spinning. For, the person andthe earth are synonymous. This is whatmay be termed as being in a state ofYoga. In the state of Yoga, mind entersan infinite domain having no distinctiveexistences.

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