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BJP MLA Pramod Sawantwas on Monday named as

the new Goa Chief Ministerafter party bigwigs, includingpresident Amit Shah andUnion Transport MinisterNitin Gadkari, could bringabout a consensus on his nameby making the other claimantsto the post from the alliancepartners agreeable to his can-didature, according to sources.

Sawant was the Speaker ofthe Goa Assembly.

Swant’s name was clearedhours after late Chief MinisterManohar Parrikar’s funeral cer-emony, also attended by PrimeMinister Narendra Modi, con-cluded at Goa’s Capital Panaji.

Sawant will be assisted bytwo Deputy Chief Ministers —Goa Forward Party (GFP)chiefVijai Sardesai andMaharashtrawadi GomantakParty (MGP) MLA SudinDhavalikar. Interestingly, thetwo who have now been“accommodated” had earlierstaked their claim to the toppost in the State.

There was no Deputy CMpost in place when Parrikar wasCM. But since the MGP and

the GFP both have 3 MLAseach they hold the key to anyGovernment formation.

“We have managed to con-vince the alliance partners andfinalised the formula of twoDeputy Chief Ministers forthe State,” a senior BJP func-tionary said.

Parrikar was heading acoalition Government com-prising the BJP, three MLAseach of the GFP, the MGP andthree Independents.

Shah said it will be hard tofill the void left by ManoharParrikar even as reports sug-gested that two MGP MLAscould switch over to the BJP toincrease its number in theAssembly from 12 to 14.

Sawant has been a promi-nent presence in Goa’s politicalscene since Parrikar’s illnesswas announced in October2018. In February, the BJPleader had updated the publicabout the State of Parrikar’shealth, after the CM was admit-ted to AIIMS in Delhi.

Sawant represents theSanquelim constituency and isan Ayurveda practitioner byprofession. He was close toParrikar, who was understoodto have groomed him as a

politician.The Congress is currently

the single largest party in theState with 14 MLAs. The BJPhas 12 legislators in the 40-member Assembly, whose

strength now is 36 afterParrikar’s death.

The strength of the Househas reduced due to demise ofBJP MLA Francis D’Souza ear-lier this year, and

Parrikar on Sunday, and res-ignations of two CongressMLAs Subhash Shirodkar andDayanand Sopte last year. TheNCP has one MLA in theAssembly.

Earlier, even as Parrikar’sfuneral procession was on, theCongress yet again staked anabortive claim to form aGovernment in the coastalState.

��

The speculation for alliancebetween the Aam Aadmi

Party (AAP) and the Congresscame to an end after AAP’sDelhi convener Gopal Rai onMonday made it clear thatthere would neither be anyalliance with the Congress nora rollback of any of its candi-dates in the national Capital.

The statement came a dayafter the AAP declared its can-didate for the seventh LokSabha seat in Delhi. Assertingthat “enough is enough”, Raisaid these are the final sevencandidates of the party andthere is no question of “any rollback”.

Rai said despite facing stiffopposition from its workers,the party was open to analliance with the Congress inDelhi but after waiting for solong and constantly hearingconflicting statements fromthe party, we have decidedthat now even if the Congressapproaches us, there will be noalliance in Delhi.

He also said there has beenno communication from theCongress and it clearly showsthat the grand old party is “notserious” about elections inDelhi. “AAP will fight the LokSabha polls on the issue of fullStatehood and it is ‘late now’ fortalks on an alliance in Delhi.

The Congress is confused andeveryone is giving differentstatements,” Rai said.

The ruling AAP had earli-er on March 2 announced thenames of its candidates for thesix Lok Sabha seats.

The AAP declared its sev-enth candidate for West DelhiLok Sabha seats on Sunday.

The party insiders said thename of Balbir SinghJhakhar was announced after

the recalcitrant attitude of theCongress leadership towardsforging an alliance in thenational Capital.

The other six AAP candi-dates are Atishi from EastDelhi, Guggan Singh fromNorth-West Delhi, RaghavChadha from South, Dilip Pandey from North-East,Pankaj Gupta from ChandniChowk and Brijesh Goyal fromNew Delhi seat.

��

Aday after the Congress saidit was leaving seven Lok

Sabha seats for the SP-BSP-RLD combine in Uttar Pradesh,BSP supremo Mayawati on

Monday asked the Congressnot to “spread confusion” andsaid the alliance was capable ofdefeating the BJP on its own.

Hours later BSP’s poll allySamajwadi Party (SP) the SPtoo echoed Mayawati’s view. Ina tweet, SP president AkhileshYadav said, “In Uttar Pradesh,the SP, BSP and RLD allianceis capable of defeating the BJP.The Congress party need notspread any kind of confusion.”

Mayawati even dared theCongress to go ahead and fieldcandidates in all the 80 LokSabha seats in the State.

The BSP chief in a series of

tweets made it clear that theparty will not enter into anyalliance with the Congress.

On Sunday, the Congressannounced that it was leavingseven Lok Sabha seats in thestate for the SP, Bahujan SamajParty (BSP) and Rashtriya Lok

Dal (RLD) alliance.“The Congress is free to

field its candidates on all the 80seats in UP alone. In otherwords, our alliance (of SP-BSP-RLD) is capable enough ofdefeating the BJP.

The Congress shouldrefrain from spreading confu-sion about leaving seven seatsfor the (SP-BSP-RLD) alliance,”Mayawati tweeted.

Mayawati also said,“The BSP would like to make

it clear once again that there isno alliance or understandingwith the Congress in UP andanywhere in the country.”

��

In an hilarious turn of eventsduring the boat campaign by

Congress general secretaryPriyanka Gandhi on Monday,a boat carrying media personsand some Congress leadersran aground at Manaya ghat ofAllahabad from wherePriyanka started sailing toreach Varanasi.

As media persons reachedthe Manaiya Ghat, they saw justone steamer all decked up forPriyanka, and no arrangementfor another boat to carry themalong to cover Priyanka’s pollcompaign.

The drama started as soonas Priyanka — who reached theghat around 11.30 am — gotonto her steamer. There was noroom for the media.

However, as soon her boatstarted sailing, media personsand some other Congressfound another boat following

her, and they all jumped intothe boat. The boat was soonstuffed beyond its capacity andbecame unstable. On boat-man’s frantic instruction, somepeople aboard had to get off.

But as the boat reached the

middle of the river it ranaground in low water there.

And it could not budge aninch from there.

Following which, a boatwas called in to take the stuckjournalists back to the pier.

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Biju Janata Dal (BJD) supre-mo and Chief Minister

Naveen Patnaik on Mondayannounced the party’s first listof candidates for nine out of 21Lok Sabha and 54 out of 147Assembly seats.

Incidentally, the BJD is thefirst among the parties to comeout with poll candidates’ lists.

The nine Lok Sabha can-didates include ChandraSekhar Sahu (Berhampur),Kousalya Hikaka (Koraput),Achyuta Samanta(Kandhamal), Puspendra SinghDeo (Kalahandi), RameshChandra Majhi (Nabarangpur),

Prasanna Acharya (Bargarh)Sunita Biswal (Sundargarh),Pramila Bisoi (Aska) and Kalikesh Singh Deo(Balangir).

As per his earlierannouncement, Patnaik haschosen women candidates in33 per cent of the nine LS seats.Koraput and Sundargah havegot women candidates.

The candidates who wouldbe in the first phase poll frayinclude Jagannath Saraka(Bissam Cuttack), RaghunathGomango (Gunupur), LalBihari Himirika (Rayagada),Raghuram Padal (Koraput),Prabhu Jani (Laxmipur) andRabi Narayan Nanda (Jeypore)under the Koraput LS;Sadashiva Pradhani(Nabarangpur), Subash Gond(Umarkote), Manohar

Randhari (Dabugaon), PadminiDian (Kotpad) and Purna Chanda Baka under theNabarangpupr LS; Dushmanta Naik(Bhawanipatna), BhupinderSingh (Narla), Dibya SankarMishra (Junagarh), MausudiBag (Dharmagarh), RajendraDholakia (Nuapada) andLambodhar Nial(Khariar) under the KalahandiLS and Bikram Keshari Panda (Berhamapur), Dr Pradeep Kumar Panigrahy(Gopalpur), Surjya NarayanPatro (Digapahandi), UshaDevi (Chikiti), Subash ChandraBehera (Chhatrapur), KalyaniGajapathi (Paralakhemundi)and Purnabasi Nayak (Mohana)under the BerhampurParliamentary constituency.

Continued on page 4

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For the first time, Biju JanataDal (BJD) supremo and

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaikwould contest from twoAssembly constituencies in theelections next month.

Patnaik’s name figured inthe first list of BJD candidatesannounced by him on Monday.

While retaining his four-time-old Hinjili seat in hisnative Ganjam district, hewould also be the party candi-date from Bijepur in Bargarhdistrict of western Odisha.

Patnaik had on Sundaybeen urged by several BJDleaders of the western region tooffer himself as a candidate intheir area apparently to meet achallenge the BJP and theCongress may give to the State’sruling party in the region.

Sources said that in theevent of winning both theseats, Patnaik would retainBijepur, leaving Hinjili for a by-election

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The Election Commission ofIndia (ECI) on Monday

issued a notification for elec-tions to four Lok Sabha and 28Assembly seats to be held in thefirst phase in Odisha on April11.

While polls would be heldfor Koraput, Nabarangpur,Kalahandi and BrhamapurParliamentary seats, theAssembly seats which would goto elections in the first phaseare Nuapada, Khariar,Umerkote (ST), Jharigam (ST),Nabarangpur (ST), Dabugam

(ST), Lanjigarh (ST), Junagarh,Dharmgarh, Bhawanipatna(SC), Narla, Chhatrapur (SC),Gopalpur, Brahampur,Digapahandi, Chikiti, Mohana(ST), Paralakhemundi,Gunupur (ST), Bissam Cuttack(ST), Rayagada (ST),Lakshmipur (ST), Kotpad (ST),Jeypore, Koraput (SC), Pottangi(ST), Malkangiri (ST) andChitrakonda (ST). As per thenotification, poll candidatescan file nominations fromMonday (April 18) till March25. The verification process ofthe nomination papers wouldtake place on March 26. Thelast date for nomination with-drawal is March 28.

��

Apparently being informedthat he would not be re-

nominated to contest electionsthis time, Rayagada district’sGunupur BJD MLA TrinathGomango on Monday resignedfrom the primary member-ship of the party alleging“injustice” meted out to him bythe party.

Gomango sent his resigna-tion to BJD supremo and ChiefMinister Naveen Patnaik alleg-ing that he has been neglected,tortured and subjected to injus-tice in the party.

He said, “Many senior

leaders are giving patronage toseveral anti-socials in the dis-trict.

When I opposed this, theystarted hatching a conspiracyagainst me. When I brought thematter to the notice of partypresident Naveen Patnai, no action was taken inthis regard.”

“Besides, I and many hon-est party workers were noteven informed about the party’sMisrana Parva (joining cere-mony) held recently inGunupur. This shows the partysupremo’s step-motherly atti-tude towards tribal people inthe constituency,” Gomangofurther alleged.

Gomango, who had joinedthe BJD in 2009, was electedfrom Gunupur on the partyticket in the 2014 Assemblyelections.

��

There are reports that former WorksSecretary Nalini Kanta Pradhan,

who took voluntary retirement andjoined the BJD recently, is likely to befielded as a party candidate from theSambalpur Lok Sabha seate, wouldutilise the services of a coterie of offi-cials of the department, who are loyalto him.

Sources said the as Pradhan was theChief Engineer of Works Departmentfor a long time before becoming itsSecretary, he can influence the localcontractors and the coterie of officialsto help him in the elections.

Reliable sources said the Roads andBuildings Central CircleSuperintendent Ranjit Sahu and theDivision -1, Division-II and Division-III Executive Engineers, R and BCuttack Superintendent Engineer

Bimal Charan Das are loyalists ofPradhan for which they are continuingposted in the same post for years.

Another close confidante ofPradhan is Sambalpur SuperintendentSanjay Kumar Sahu and Division-1 andDivision-II Executive Engineers. Eventhough the tainted Panda Infra hasbeen blacklisted by the StateGovernment and debarred from allprojects, it has been allowed to carryout construction of the Sambalpur fly-over with the active support of Sahuand Pradhan.

The R and B BrahmapurSuperintendent Engineer and AngulRand B Executive Engineer are alsoknown to be close to the former WorksSecretary.

A section of officials of the WorksDepartment apprehend that if theseaforesaid officials continue in theirpresence posts, they would try toinfluence the elections in Pradhan’sfavour. They demanded that the StateGovernment and the Odisha ChiefElectoral Officer should transfer theseofficials to ensure free and fair elections.

��

Ahead of theelections, BJD

supremo and ChiefMinister NaveenPatnaik lifted theexpulsion order onformer Ministerand formerSukinda MLAPrafulla ChandraGhadai on Monday.

Party State sec-retary BJD Nayakinformed this in astatement.

N o t a b l y ,Patnaik hadexpelled Ghadai inSeptember 2014 for his alleged anti-party activ-ities. However, Ghadai had been claiming at dif-ferent public forums that he was still in the BJDand praising the developmental programmes ofthe Naveen Patnaik Government.

Ghadai’s son Pritiranjan Ghadai is now rep-resenting Sukinda in the Assembly

��

In the politically troubled-torn Brahamgiri constituen-

cy, there is a clear indicationthat the fight is mostly betweenthe BJD and the BJP in theupcoming Assembly election.

So far as the Congress isconcerned, it is still in searchof a suitable candidate when fil-ing of nomination is just a cou-ple of days away. The troublefor Congress is the party lacksa face after the demise of fire-brand leader and two-timeMLA Lalatendu Bidyadhar(Lulu) Mohapatra.

Lulu’s younger brotherLalitendu Bidyadhar

Mohapatra, who is in the tick-et race in the BJP, is going touse all his might to get back hisfamily seat. Hence, the fightwould be tough this time,sources said.

Though, tickets in boththe BJD and the BJP are yet notfinalised, sitting MLA SanjayDasburma (BJD) and Lalitenduare ahead in the race in theirrespective parties. ForDasburma, who is a formerMinister and frontline leader ofBJD, besides its youth wingleader, the election is a prestigeissue.

While Dasburma eyes fora third time victory inBrahmagiri after consecutive

two terms based on develop-mental works over ten yearssince 2009, Mohapatra willbasically capitalize brotherLulu’s fame and sympathy afterhis demise.

Though the number ofapplicants for ticket in the BJDis unclear, but sources saidthat the chairman ofBrahmagiri blockKrusnachandra Roy is also inthe race to replace Das Burma.As is learnt, Roy has startedlobbying in headquarters forticket, since Dasburma has already enjoyed 10 yearsand is surrounded by disputes after the chit fundscam.

��

Tension prevailed at theCapital Hospital here on

Monday after patients andtheir attendants failed to availregistration tickets to visit doc-tors of various departments ofthe hospital.

The development tookplace after the staffs at the com-puterised central registrationcounter denied them ticketsand stopped working allegingnonpayment of their salariesfor the last 11 months.

The move of the employeestriggered resentment amongpatients and their attendantswho created ruckus at the hos-pital premises.

“The staffs are claimingthat they have not receivedsalary so they would not work.They should have informedabout the stir beforehand. Wehave been in the queue since

early morning,” said an atten-dant.

When questioned, theemployees said four of the five

computers at the registrationcounter developed a technicalsnag some five days back andthey have been issuing hand-

written tickets since then.Later, police rushed to the

spot and pacified the iratepatients and attendants.

��

Ahead of the InternationalDay of Forest and the

World Water Day 2019, theActionAid launched a “People’sReport on Mahanadi” and“JalSaathi”, a volunteer engage-ment programme on the issueof water, here on Monday.

The ActionAid in associa-tion with the Sneha Abhiyan inJagatsinghpur, Seheda inJharsuguda, Patang inSambalpur, Focus OdishaFoundation in Khordha,Abhiyan in Boudh ,Sanchar in Nayagarh, Muktiand Rashtriya Yuva Sangathanand the Utkal Gandhi Smarakin Cuttack had conducted astudy on issues related toMahanadi in eight districts inOdisha and two districts inChhattisgarh.

ActionAid regional manag-

er Debabrat Patra, naturalresource hub head BratindiJena, programme managerBiren Nayak, programme offi-cer BN Durga, scribeSudarshan Chhotray and devel-opment researcher Priyabarat

Satpathy released the report. Patra said the study has

covered 36 villages in eight dis-tricts like Jharsuguda,Sambalpur, Subarnapur,Boudh, Angul, Nayagarh,Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur,

Khordha and Puri in the Stateand four villages in two districtsRaigarh and Janjagir Champaof Chhattisgarh.

He also said that the aim ofthe report was to understandthe perspective of the people on

the issue of Mahanadi throughgroup discussion and commu-nity consultation.

Besides, about 60 commu-nity representatives from 12districts also shared their feed-back and suggestions.

��

The trailer and music of fea-ture film ‘Biju Babu’ was

released at the MaharajaTheatre on Monday.

It is acclaimed movie direc-tor Dr Nila Madhab Panda’sfirst feature film in Odia. “BijuBabu was awarded the ‘BintangJasa Utama’ (Son of the soil),the highest national award ofIndonesia. I want to take thismovie to an international plat-form. The movie will let usknow Bijubabu and hisphilosophies more closely, andI’m sure it will attract audiencesfrom all age groups and willsurely turn out to be a greatdose of entertainment foreveryone,” said Panda.

The music for the film hasbeen creatively designed byrenowned music director PremAnand. Top Ollywood singerslike Human Sagar, Ananya

SritamNanda, Diptirekha,Ashutosh Mohanty and othershave given their voice to thesongs.

According to the debu-tante director duo Devi PrasadLenka and Vishal Mourya, the

film has an absolutely commer-cial format with four fantasticsongs, lots of drama, action,romance and comedy.However, it's not a biopic onBiju Patnaik. The film thatembodies the ideology, spirit,

and charisma of the greatleader, is all set to create histo-ry in Ollywood.

The lead actor of the filmsuperstar Anubhav Mohanty,said, “I’m feeling really proudthat for the very first time in

Odisha, a film is being made ona great personality, that too onour very own Bijubabu and Ihave been chosen to play thelead in it.”

“What an amazing experi-ence it was to work in this film‘Biju Babu,” said lead actressSupriya Nayak.

�� ""��

The Orissa High Court onMonday directed the State

Bar Council to ensure electionsto form the executive bodies ofall the 167 bars in the State bythis month-end on the princi-ple of ‘one bar, one vote’.

The High Court alsoquashed the February 24 reso-lution passed by the BarCouncil in which at least 12 barassociations, including theCuttack Bar Associations, weregiven the liberty to hold theirelections at a later date.

Deciding over a PIL filed inthis connection, a DivisionBench headed by Chief JusticeKS Jhaveri made it clear thatthe elections to different barsshould be made simultane-

ously on the principle of onebar, one vote.

Briefing reporters, senioradvocate Ashok Mohapatrasaid the High Court has acted

in accordance with a judgmentpassed earlier by the SupremeCourt. “Even, the Bar Councilof India and the State BarCouncil have passed similarresolutions,” he said.

The ‘one bar, one vote’rule was set by the SupremeCourt in 2015 to identify thenumber of genuine advocatespracticing in different courts ofthe country. “The rule allowsmultiple memberships of dif-ferent bars but one voting rightto a lawyer.

The bar associations of theState have already been provid-ed with their respective voters’lists indicating the individualadvocate’s choice of the bar toparticipate in the annual elec-tions to form its executivebody by the end of March.

��

Police on Monday nabbed aperson from the Kedargouri

area under the Lingaraj policestation for allegedly stealingmoney from the Hundi (dona-tion box) installed at theLingaraj Temple here.

The accused allegedly stolethe money from the donationbox and fled from the spot onSunday. Later, the templeadministration filed a com-plaint with the local Lingarajpolice.

Acting on the complaint,police initiated a probe andchecked the CCTV surveil-lance footages of the temple.On the basis of the CCTVfootage, police apprehendedthe accused, who is said to be

a native of Balangir district.While the accused person

is in police custody for interro-gations, a case has been regis-tered against him under theappropriate sections of IPC,sources said.

��

The BJP has alleged thatChief Minister Naveen

Patnaik has opted to fight froma second seat in westernOdisha on the basis of a reportof the State Intelligence thatsaid he might face a defeat inhis old Hinjili constituencydue to voters’ disenchantmenton many counts.

“The Director of the StateIntelligence had on March 15written to the Chief Minister’sOffice and the DirectorGeneral of Police mentioningthat the CM might not win theHinjili seat this time and sug-gesting names of four otherseats for his win. On the basisthis report, the CM has optedto fight from a seat in western

Odisha,” said Bharatiya JanataYuva Morcha presidentTankadhar Tripathy at a Pressmeet here.

He said the four otherseats named by the Intelligencewere Rourkela, Bijepur,Balangir and Titilagarh.

Tripathy said people ofHinjili have been dissatisfiedover distribution of CycloneTitli compensation and KALIAassistance.

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After a report was publishedin The Pioneer on March

17 under the caption“Meenakshi Mahanta mightbe BJD choice for Champua” asBJD supremo and that CMNaveen Patnaik has agreed toa proposal of Champua MLA(Independent) SantatanMahakud to field her as BJDcandidate, there is a revoltamong the cadres of Mahakud.

This was evident onSunday when Naltu Mahanta,a Councillor of the BarbilMunicipality and said to be aclose aide of Mahakud, alongwith his hundreds of support-ers went to the Naveen Niwasbeing led by senior BJD leaderKusha Apat to show their sol-idarity with Kusha Apat andnot with Mahakud.

They pleaded that Naveen

Patnaik should give a chance toKusha Apat to contest the elec-tions from Champua so thatBJD would have a better chanceof winning. Minister Badri

Narayan Patra, who representsKeonjhar district, was also pre-sent when the team met theChief Minister.

Notably, Meenakshi

Mahanta is the wife of BhaktaMahanta, another close asso-ciate of Mahakud, who himselfdoes not want to contest elec-tions this time.

BHUBANESWAR: With renewable ener-gy status given to the hydropower sector,Odisha will be reaping benefits in a big wayas the State holds vast scope for develop-ment of the green energy sources.

Earlier, the State Government had timeand again requested the UnionGovernment in this regard and with sucha favourable decision, Odisha will be ben-efitted in a big way, senior officials admit.

The Union Government’s recent deci-sion for providing renewable energy sta-tus for large hydro projects has come as aboon for the State, which has large num-bers of hydel power plants and there ismore scope for generation of power fromthe sector, said a senior official inDepartment of Energy.

The Odisha Government recently hadurged the Union Government in Ministryof New and Renewable Energy to catego-rize hydro power project with capacity of25 Mega Watt (MW) and above as renew-able energy, which has been conceded.

Officials feel this will boost hydropower generation and by adding hydropower as renewable energy, generation of225 Giga Watt of renewable energy by 2022will be possible.

At present, hydro power tariff isexpensive than other sources of energy andthis step will help rationalize the tariff byhydro power projects.

With such a favourable decision, large

hydro power projects would be allowedreduction of tariff after increasing projectlife to 40 years and increasing debt paymentperiod to 18 years, said official sources.

Earlier, Odisha submitted that as theUnion Government is considering the pro-posal to categorize hydro units with25MW capacity and above as renewableenergy, all the new and up-coming as wellas existing hydro projects be kept underNon Solar Renewable Purchase Obligation(RPO) within renewable energy spec-trum.

The State Government had justifiedthat all hydro power projects, new, old,small, medium and large, are renewable innature.

Under the backdrop, decision taken bythe Union Government will promotehydro power generation including pro-viding budgetary support for flood mod-eration cost and enabling infrastructurecost.

It will help in tariff rationalization mea-sures to reduce tariff and thus the burdenwill be lessened on consumers, said an offi-cial.

Making another request, Odisha hadalso urged for financial support for smallhydro projects, which were provided tillMarch 31, 2017 to be extended for anoth-er five years.

Odisha has huge scope for small hydropower projects and due to absence of suchfinancial support, projects were not takingoff. Now promoters are upbeat with changeof policy by the Union Government, saidsources. PNS

��

Three persons, including twowomen, were killed and

another suffered criticalinjuries in a collision betweena car and a truck on BijuExpressway near Jarangloi vil-lage in Sundargarh district onSunday night.

The deceased were identi-fied as Sajjan Agrawal, UrmilaDevi and Nirmala Devi. Theinjured woman identified asSangeeta Agrawal was admittedto hospital.

Sources said the four per-sons hailing from theBirmitrapur area had gone toSambalpur to attend a cultur-al event. While returning ataround 11 pm, the car bywhich they were travelling hit

the truck from behind. Whilethree died on the spot, criticallyinjured Sangeeta was firstrushed to the Sundargarh

District Headquarters Hospitaland later shifted to a Rourkelamedical.

It was suspected that the

accident occurred due tospeedy driving of the car. Thedriver fled the spot after theaccident.

��

IT firm Mindtree cofounderSubroto Bagchi has resigned

as the Chairman of the OdishaSkill Development Authority(OSDA) to protect the compa-ny from a hostile takeover.

Taking to the Twitter onSunday, Bagchi mentionedabout his resignation and hisreturn to Bengaluru to save theMindtree.

“Mindtree has not beendesigned as an “asset” to bebought and sold. It is a nation-al resource. It has a unique cul-ture that humanizes the idea ofbusiness. It sets the standardsof corporate governance. I needto be there in its time of diffi-culty. Hence the hard decision

to return,” Bagchi posted onTwitter.

Notably, Bagchi had beenappointed as OSDA Chairmanon May 1, 2016 with a status ofthe Cabinet rank Minister.

��

In a serious case of medicalnegligence, an unconscious

man was allegedly declareddead by a doctor and sent forpostmortem at the DistrictHeadquarters Hospital onSunday.

The incident came to lightin the morning after the patientSujit Khatua of Khatuapatnavillage under the Dhusuripolice station, regained con-sciousness ahead of post-mortem being conducted onhim.

Sources said Khatua wasadmitted to the hospital fortreatment on Saturday. But theattending doctor KarunakarRout allegedly declared himdead and reportedly informed

Khatua’s family that his post-mortem would be conducted inthe morning.

However, Khatua gainedconsciousness in morning andwas shifted to Medicine Ward for treatment. His con-dition is reportedly stable,sources said.

Later, Sujit’s brother filed acomplaint against the attending

doctor Rout at the Bhadrakpolice station in connectionwith the incident.

“The doctor was dozingwhile he was examining thepatient and declared him dead.He also referred him for post-mortem. I want the doctor tobe punished for his negligence,” said Sujit’s brother.

�� 1��

The district administrationhas geared up to implement

model code of conduct (MCC)in letter and spirit in allthe four Assembly constituen-cies under Sambalpur LokSabha seat.

As part of the first exercise,police and a flying squadaccompanied by executivemagistrates seized vehicles andcash from different personswho have been unable toexplain the purpose of carryingcash.

Notably, one has to accountfor cash in possession if it ismore than �50, 000.

As per the code of conductfor the election, each vehicle tobe used for election has to takeprior permission. At the sametime, one has to clarify the pur-pose of carrying cash of �50,000 or more and also explainthe source.

“But three cases of irregu-larities have come to the noticeof the officials engaged inchecking of vehicles at differ-ent locations,” informedSambalpur ADM Ajay KumarJena.

In the first case, the policeat Jujomura, seized a Bolerobearing No OR 15M 5151engaged in electioneering foran aspirant BJP candidate.Tehsildar of Jujomura SusantaNayak seized the vehicle andhanded it over to the policethere as it had no permissionfor the purpose, the ADMinformed.

“The Tehsildar and teamhave also made video shootingof the entire episode so that noone can find an escape route infuture,” he added.

Further, the flying squadseized �1 lakh from one AnilKumar Sahu, a resident ofHirakud under SambalpurAssembly constituency. When

Sahu couldn’t give any satis-factory reply as to carrying ofthe cash, the squad handedover the cash to Dhanupalipolice and registered a caseagainst him.

In the second case, theflying squad seized �2 lakhfrom Antaryami Pradhan, aresident of Deogarh district.The cash was seized nearArdabahal village comingunder Kuchinda constituency.The squad handed over thecash in the nearest police sta-tion at Mahulpali. Keeping inview to the general election andthe money game by differentpolitical parties, the police andflying squad are now makingmassive checking in importantroads and chowks.

“Nobody will be sparedfrom police checking and verystringent action will be takenagainst those violating themodel code of conduction,”ADM Jena warned.

�� "��

The vicinity of VedantaAlumina here turned into

a war zone when OdishaIndustrial Security Force(OISF) personnel resorted to alathi-charge to disperse thefactory’s contract labourers,who were staging an agitationdemanding jobs for locals onMonday.

Two persons were killedand at least 30 others sus-tained injuries in the lathi-charge.

The labourers were staginga dharna in front of the main

gate of Vedanta Alumina. Butwhen OISF personnel askedthem to disperse, the agitatorsarmed with lathis indulged invandalism and tried to bargeinto the plant premises. Theyalso torched the security guardshed and vandalised vehiclesparked in front of the factory.

Later, the OISF resorted tolathi-charge injuring 30 labour-ers. Though the injured wererushed to the refinery hospitalimmediately, a labourer and anOISF staff succumbed to theinjuries at the hospital.

As the situation went out ofcontrol, the district adminis-tration clamped prohibitoryorders under Section 144 ofCrPC in front of the factory’smain gate.

The Vedanta spokesper-son in a release said, “This

morning, some agitators nearour Lanjigarh plant staged aprotest which led to a violentagitation. The local OdishaIndustrial Security Force per-

sonnel (OISF), who intervened,were attacked by the protestorsduring which some protestorsand OISF personnel got injuredand they were immediately

moved to the local hospital.According to the hospitalauthorities, one protestor andone OISF staff have succumbedto injuries.”

“We are deeply saddenedby the news and we offer ourcondolences to the families ofthe deceased. We would workwith full cooperation with theappropriate authorities whowould be looking into the inci-dent. We sincerely appeal to theprotestors not to resort to suchacts when every situation canbe resolved amicably throughdiscussions,” the release stated.

OISF Inspector AshokKumar Roul in a statementsaid, “There was an agitation atthe Vedanta plant in Lanjigarhthis morning. Our staffs werebrutally attacked by the agita-tors and we had to act in to our

defence and as well as peoplearound us. The agitatorsattacked us and pelted stones.They were extremely violentand refused to calm downdespite several attempts by theOISF personnel.”

“When the attack gotsevere our personnel attempt-ed to push back the crowds andcalm the situation. During thisact a few people were injuredand were moved immediatelyto the Lanjigarh GovernmentHospital. According to thelocal authorities, an OISF staffmember and a protester havedied due to their injuries. Wewould submit our statement tothe authorities and provideevery support to resolve thematter. We urge the people ofLanjigarh block to maintainpeace,” said Roul.

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Afake currencyminting unit,

operating from arented house atSridharnagar in thetown was busted bypolice on Mondayand two persons were arrestedin this connection.

Acting on a tipoff, a teamof the Paralakhemundi policeled by SDPO TP Patra con-ducted a raid on the house andseized counterfeit currencynotes of �500 amounting to�2.5 lakh, chemicals,paper and other materials used in manufacturing fakecurrency.

The arrestees were identi-fied as Karunakar Parida (39)of Mahadeipur village inGajapati district and SantoshMajhi (40) of Basundara villagein Srikakulam district of niegh-bouring Andhra Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the duo isbeing interrogated to ascertain,who else are involved in the racket and other infor-mation.

��

Two incidents of crimes thattook place on Sunday

evening rocked north Baleswar.While in one incident, uniden-tified miscreants shot at ayoung trader at Tarini TempleChhak under Baliapala block,in another incident, a 48- year-old man was found dead in hisvillage with stabbing injuries.

The deceased was identi-fied as Bibhutibhusan Jena ofvillage Khuluda under Jaleswarpolice limits, the victim whichsurvived bullet attack was iden-tified as SoumyadeepChakravorty.

In neither of the cases,police have nabbed the culprits.

According to sources,Bibhutibhusan’s body wasfound near Gajiani on the roadbetween Jaleswar –Paschimbad .

His body was spotted bythe pedestrians on the road.Besides stabbing injuries inhis stomach, his throat was slit,suggesting that he was killedwith a sharp weapon.

The police have seized amobile phone near the bodyand begun investigation toascertain the reason of murder.

In the shootout case tookplace at around 5 pm while vic-tim Soumyadeep was in frontof his shop.

Two bike-borne miscre-ants approached him and shotone round of bullet whichstruck his back, before fleeingaway. Soumyadeep, who bledprofusely in the attack some-how managed to take a liftfrom a passer-by biker andreached a nearby hospital rid-ing pillion. He was later shift-ed to the Baleswar DistrictHeadquarters Hospital.

While the cause behind theattack is not known, a pastenmity mainly due to sandquarrying and lifting from theSubarnarekha river bed is sus-pected. However, the policehave not clarified the cause yet.

�� 1��

The Brahamapur police cracked theGourilundi cement shop loot case by

arresting parents of the accused, a minor,here on Sunday.

The arrestees were identified asMahendra Kumar Patro and his wife.

The police have recovered �2.74lakh out of the stolen amount of �5.25lakh and a KTM Duke motorcycle,which was purchased with the lootedmoney. However, the main accused, aminor boy, is still at large.

It may be mentioned here that �5.25lakh had been looted from a cement shopnamed Siva Shakti Agency here onFriday. Acting on the complaint lodgedby the owner, police conducted investi-gation and found the minor to have com-mitted the loot. Then police made theseizures, amounting to �4.45 lakh, andnabbed his parents.

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Delhi-based Odishidanseuse Pritika Kalra

Gandhi performed Odishi ren-dition ‘Hamsadhwani’ at anevent, “Vasant Utsav”, held atthe Bhanja Kala Mandap hereon Monday.

On the occasion, Pritika, apassionate classical dancersince 20 years, was conferredwith an appreciation awardamidst an august gathering ofdance performers, dance loversas dance critics.

Pritika has travelled glob-ally spanning several coun-

tries to share the beauty andrich cultural heritage of Indiathrough her dance. While atDelhi, Pritika continues toinvest her energies in theyouths and children impartingamong them a sense of pride intheir culture through the medi-um of dance training.

��

Angul District AdditionalSP Jadunath Hansdah on

March 16 reached Tarava inDhenkanal district along withBJP Kishan Morcha leader ErDebashisa Hota to conduct afresh inquiry into the BJPleader Salman Rout murdercase during the last Panchayatelection.

The National HumanRights Commission (NHRC)had notably directed the DGPolice of Odisha for a freshinquiry after the earlier probe

by the Dhenkanal SP was notaccepted as neutral and fair bycomplainant Hota whose com-ments were sought by theCommission.

Hota had prayed theNHRC to discard the report ofthe Dhenkanal SP and soughtpayment of compensation andpunishment to the then In-charge of Dhenkanal Sadar police station for misuseof power by ordering lathi-charge, falsely implicating andarbitrarily arresting thefamily members of thedeceased.

The Commission consid-ered the matter and directedthe DGP Odisha to get a freshenquiry conducted by a seniorpolice officer of the districtother than from Dhenkanaland submit the report withinsix weeks along with copy ofinjury report and treatment

record of the policemen andinjured persons.

Further NHRC directedfor involving Er Hota and hiswitnesses in the fresh inquiryprocess.

Notably, after the politicalmurder of Salman Rout during

last panchayat elections, theaccused had allegedly threat-ened the eye witnesses in frontof the then DhenkanalSadar IIC Gyana Ranjan Samalto kill them if they fight for jus-tice.

The police had lathicharged female relatives includ-ing mother of slain Rout.

ines Minister andKamakhyanagar BJD MLAPrafulla Mallick allegedly hadpressurized the police andGovernment machineries tosave his close aide who wasbehind the murder.

Union MinisterDharmendra Pradhan had metthe parents of deceased atTarava and suggested them tomove the NHRC. ObeyingPradhan, Hota had lodged acase before the NHRC onbehalf of the bereaved familymembers.

��

The National AluminiumCompany Limited (Nalco)

organised a Hindi Hasya KaviSammelan here on Monday.Nalco CMD Dr Tapan KumarChand inaugurated the event

by reciting a few lines of hisown poetry.

Five eminent poets,Chakachoundh Gyanpuri of

Varanasi, Sabrasa Mursani,Sringar Malika PoonamSrivastava, Bhushan Tyagi andSalim Shiwalwi, delighted the

audience with their heart-touching humorous poems.

Eminent persons ofBhubaneswar, officials of PSUsand Hindi lovers of the cityalong with employees of theNalco and their family mem-bers enjoyed the event. KamalaNehru Women’s College HindiDepartment HOD VRamalaxmi anchored the pro-gramme.

�� ""��

The Vigilance police onMonday caught Boudh

Consumer Disputes RedressalForum president’s StenoManmath Kumar Gadanayakred-handed while he wasaccepting a bribe of �3,000from one Satya Pradhan of vil-lage Nuapalli in the district.

Gadnayak had demandedthe bribe for expeditious dis-posal of the complainant’sconsumer case against the offi-cials of Southco for arbitraryenhancement of his energycharges.

Based on the complaint,the Vigilance sleuths laid a trapand caught the accused whiletaking the bribe money. Hisresidential quarter at Boudhwas searched. Gadnayak wasarrested and forwarded tocourt.

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��(��/�0!��12��From page 1

The Assembly candidatesannounced by the BJD for thesecond phase polls are ManjulaSwain (Aska), Purna ChandraSwain (Surada), Nandini Devi(Sanakhemundi), NaveenPatnaik (Hinjili), Srikant Sahu(Polasara), Latika Pradhan(Kabisuryanagar) and KKSuryamani Baidya(Khalikote)under the Aska LS constituen-cy, Chakradhar Kanhar(Baliguda), Saluga Pradhan (GUdaygiri), Pradip Kumar Amat(Boudh), Mahidhar Rana(Kantamal), Bikram KeshariArukha (Bhanjanagar) andRamesh Behera (Daspalla)under the Kandhamal LS seat;Tukuni Sahu (Titlagarh), SarojMeher (Patnagarh), NiranjanPujari (Sonepur), Ajay Das(Kantabanji) and PadmanabhaBehera (Biramaharajpur)

under the Balangir LS seat;Debesh Acharya (Bargarh),Snehangini Chhuria (Attabira),Susanta Singh (Bhatli), BijayRanjan Singh Bariha(Padampur), Naveen Patnaik(Bijepur) and Naba KishoreDas (Jharsuda) under theBargarh LS seat and JogeshKumar Singh (Sundargarh),Mangala Kishan (Rajgangpur),Stephen Soren (Talsara), SaradaPrasad Nayak (Rourkela),Subrat Tarai (Raghunathpali)and Ranjit Kishan(Bonai)under the SundargarhParlimentary constituency.

From the list, it is knownthat candidates for the fourAssembly seats to go to polls inthe first phase on April 11 andfive candidates for the secondphase polls on April 18 havenot been announced by the rul-ing party.

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The Congress, which is plagued by fac-tionalism and infighting in Haryana

state party unit, is planning to launch a busyatra to bring all its warring state leaderstogether in view of Lok Sabha polls.

The voting to10 Lok Sabha seats inHaryana is scheduled to be held on May12.

The Congress has planned to launcha bus yatra to carry out its election cam-paign on 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

“We are hopeful that travelling and din-ing together during the course of the cam-paign through bus yatra will help to ironout differences among the state partyleaders and put a united fight against theBJP in Haryana,” said Congress general sec-retary in-charge of party affairs in Haryana,Ghulab Nabi Azad while talking to themediapersons on Monday in New Delhi.He was accompanied by Haryana stateparty chief Ashok Tanwar.

Azad also announced that the coordi-nation committee for Lok Sabha polls for

Haryana Congress. He said that the com-mittee is headed by former Chief MinisterBhupinder Singh Hooda and has 15-member as announced in the previousorder, which was withdrawn on Friday.

The faction-ridden Haryana Congressis at present desperately looking to makea comeback in the state.

Haryana Congress is divided in twodominant groups each led by state partychief Ashok Tanwar, a dalit leader and for-mer Chief Minister Bhupinder SinghHooda, an upper caste Jat.

When asked about infighting in theHaryana Congress, Ghulam Nabi Azadsaid, “I have planned that all party leaderswill travel in a bus across the state whilecampaigning for polls so that the leaderscan resolve their differences and the partycan present a united face in polls.”

“The details of the yatra will be final-ized. I had started this bus yatra modelnearly 20 years ago when I was in chargeof the party’s affairs in Karnataka and thenreplicated it successfully in AndhraPradesh. I am sure that it would work in

Haryana too,” Azad said.The senior Congress leader added that

his experience in Andhra, back in 2003-2004, was that while the leaders may havetheir personal feuds, after they traveltogether for a few days, spend time witheach other, the differences disappear.

When asked if he is sure that the modelwill work in Haryana, which is sufferingfrom factionalism since long, Azad said,“Andhra was a bigger state at that time.Haryana is comparatively a smaller statewith 10 Lok Sabha seats and 90 assemblyseats. After Lok Sabha polls, assembly pollsare also scheduled to be held later this year.”

We have another 6-8 months before thestate assembly elections are here and wewould try to touch all assembly con-stituencies during this bus tour andstrengthen the party, he added.

Azad, who was appointed as in-chargeof Haryana Congress unit in January is yetto visit Haryana and conduct a meeting ofstate party unit in the state.

The Congress leader said that hisappointment has come a little later but he

is confident that the party will perform wellin Haryana in the polls.

The parliamentary election in Haryanaare much later in the sixth phase and a datefor the launch of the poll campaign wouldbe decided soon, he added.

Notably, the faction led by former CMHooda had been demanding to make himthe state party chief. Last year, BhupinderSingh Hooda, along with his 12 loyalistsMLAs had carried out a rath yatra to con-nect with the people of all 90 constituen-cies while his detractor Ashok Tanwar hadkicked off a cycle yatra in the state.

Apart from factions of Hooda andTanwar, senior leaders including KumariSelja, Randeep Surjewala, Kuldeep Bishnoi,Kiran Choudhry heads other factionswithin the party.

The Congress could retain only oneLok Sabha seats out of 10 in Lok Sabha polls2014. In assembly polls held later that year,the party was reduced to 15 seats, even los-ing the status of the main opposition partyto the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) inthe state assembly.

The number of Congress MLAs hadlater increased to 17 after Kuldeep Bishnoi’sHJC’s merger in the party in 2016.

'��%��'� �� %�&�Chandigarh: Three days afterwithdrawing the order of coordinationcommittee list for Haryana Congress,the party on Monday issued the samelist.

The coordination committee will beheaded by two-time former Chief MinisterBhupinder Singh Hooda and have 15members including state party chief AshokTanwar, CLP leader Kiran Choudhry,MLA Randeep Surjewala, Rajya Sabha MPKumari Selja, MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi,Mahender Pratap Singh, Ajay Singh Yadav,Rohtak MP Deepender Singh Hooda, for-mer MP Navin Jindal, Kailasho Saini, AnilThakkar, MLA Kuldeep Sharma, MLAJaivir Singh Balmiki and Sardar Jaipal SinghLali were members of the committee.

While announcing the coordinationcommittee for Lok Sabha for Haryana

Congress, party senior leader Ghulab NabiAzad, said the order was withdrawn lastweek because the party wanted to declarea few other committees for Haryana simul-taneously after ensuring that all importantleaders of the state representing variouscastes and parts of Haryana were accom-modated.

He maintained that the remainingcommittees including campaign commit-tee, management committee for Lok Sabhawill be announced in a few days.

The announcement of coordinationcommittee had on Friday last reportedlyupset Hooda and his loyalists, who hadbeen demanding his appointment as stateparty chief.

Hooda, however denied such reportsand maintained that the party is united.

“The coordination committee willmeet on Tuesday to chalk out strategy forLok Sabha polls,” he said while talking tothe mediapersons in New Delhi.

Hooda said that the party is united andis confident of winning all 10 seats inHaryana in general elections 2019.

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The BJP is likely to fieldthree sitting MPs in

Haryana while new faces willbe seen on seven other LokSabha seats in the state.

Haryana BJP election com-mittee in its meeting held inNew Delhi on Monday dis-cussed probable candidates on10 Lok Sabha seats in thestate.

At present, the BJP hasseven MPs in the state.

The election committee isbelieved to have given nod tothe candidature of sitting MPRao Inderjit Singh from

Gurugram, Krishan Pal Gurjarfrom Faridabad and Rattan LalKataria from Ambala.

The three MPs were alsopresent during the meeting inNew Delhi. Kalraj Mishra,incharge for the Lok Sabhaelections in Haryana, ChiefMinister Manohar Lal, party’sco-incharge for Lok Sabhapolls in Haryana, VishwasSarang, party’s Haryanaincharge Anil Jain and CabinetMinisters were present in themeeting.

Sources said that the partyis unlikely to field BJP MPsRamesh Chander andDharmveer again from

Sonepat and Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituencyrespectively and discussedprobable candidates for the twoseats.

Earlier, it was speculatedthat new faces will be fieldedfrom Karnal and Kurukshetraseats, represented by BJP’sAshwini Kumar Chopra andrebel BJP leader Raj KumarSaini. However, the party isnow gearing to field new facesfrom Jat dominated seats ofSonepat and Bhiwani-Mahendragarh as well.

The names of IASBrijendra Singh, son of UnionMinister Birender Singh, CM’s

media advisor Rajiv Jain, partyleader Krishna Gahlawat werediscussed for Sonepat seat inthe meeting. Three-time for-mer MP Arvind Sharma, whohad joined the BJP last week isalso seen as a contender fromKarnal, Rohtak and Sonepatseat.

Union Minister ManekaSanjay Gandhi, the seven-timeBJP MP has expressed interestto contest from Karnal con-stituency while the party alsodiscussed the possibility ofher candidature fromKurukshetra constituency.

The names of two othercontenders for the BJP ticket in

Karnal – Sanjay Bhatia, anaide of Chief Minister andKiran Chopra, wife of sittingBJP member Ashwani Chopra– were also deliberated upon.For Rohtak seat, names ofArvind Sharma, OP Dhankar,Shamsher Singh Kharkara areunder consideration, sourcessaid. Candidature of singerHans Raj Hans is being con-sidered for Sirsa constituency(reserved), names of MLAsNayab Saini and Pawan Sainiwere discussed forKurukshetra and candidatureof Finance Minister CaptAbhimanyu and IAS BrijendraSingh were discussed for Hisar

seat. After the meeting, AnilJain, incharge for Haryanaparty affairs, while talking tothe mediapersons said that wehave many ticket aspirants for10 parliamentary seats in thestate.

Discussion was held onprobable candidates on 10seats and party’s campaignstrategy for Lok Sabha polls,Jain said. The committee hasgiven the responsibility toKalraj Mishra, Vishwas Sarang,Haryana CM, Subhash Baralato finalize the candidates andsubmit the list to the BJP cen-tral election committee, headded.

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Punjab Chief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh on

Monday mocked the BharatiyaJanata Party’s ‘Main BhiChowkidar’ election campaign asa ridiculous “jumla”, which willnot solve any real problems of thepeople of India.

“Such slogans do not help fillthe stomachs of our poor people,they do not give jobs to ouryouth,” Capt Amarinder said inan informal chat with media-persons after a meeting withMLAs, zone in-charges andheads of frontal organizations ofPunjab Pradesh CongressCommittee (PPCC) from

Patiala, convened to review theparty’s preparedness from thePatiala constituency.

The ‘jumla’ party failed todeliver on any promise all theseyears, and was now resorting tomore ‘jumlebaazi’ in a desperatebid to win votes, said the ChiefMinister, adding that the peopleof India were fed up with thesehollow slogans and promises.They wanted to know what theBJP-led Government had donefor them in the last five years, headded. Declaring the PPCC to befully prepared for the Lok Sabhapolls, Capt Amarinder said thathe was confident that the partywould win all the 13 seats inPunjab.

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Ranchi: State BJPSpokesperson Pratul Shahdeotoday said that the 2019 LokSabha election will be foughtbetween the ‘Chowkidars’, whoguarded the country's bordersand the 'Beldar' leaders of theCongress, who are roaming outafter taking bail from courts.Shahdeo said that the firstfamily of Congress is on bail.“Congress president RahulGandhi and Sonia Gandhi areon bail in the National Heraldcase. Robert Vadra is also freeon interim bail. The Congress ally RJD is beingoperated from jail. The entiregroup of them is of the leaders

who are facing corruptioncases. On the other hand, everycitizen of the country, underthe leadership of PM NarendraModi, is playing the role of alertwatchman. Our borders have become safe.The enemy does not lookthrough our eyes. It knows thatthe main ‘Chowkidar’ of thecountry takes revenge of amartyr by 10 enemies.”Shahdeo said that the agendafor the forthcoming elections isclear. On one hand, there is anhonest watchman and on theother side the ‘baildar’Congress and other Oppositionleaders. PNS

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Dynasty is alive and kickingin the hill state of

Himachal Pradesh. Sons andgrandsons of political veteransfrom the state, from both BJPand Congress, are eyeing nom-ination of their respective parties for the Lok Sabha polls.

Former Union MinisterSukhram's grandson AashraySharma is eyeing a BJP ticketticket for Mandi Lok Sabhaseat with Himachal's formerChief Minister VirbhadraSingh's son Vikramaditya

Singh hoping to get that of Congress for the 2019polls.

Neither the ruling BJP northe Congress, however, has yetfinalised their candidates forany of the four Himachal Lok Sabha seats seats - Shimla,Mandi, Hamirpur and Kangra.

In a recent Facebook post,Shimla Rural MLA and a scionof erstwhile princely stateBushahar, VikramadityaSingh, said, "I have not appliedfor ticket from Mandi seat asmy father has taught me tocontrol my ambitions."

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Having been pipped byJaipur City last year, the

800-year-old Warangal-basedRamappa Temple, the onlytemple in the country namedafter its sculptor Rampapa, hasbeen nominated for theUNESCO World Heritage siteselection process for 2019. It isIndia's only entry this year. TheArcheological Survey of India(ASI) has written to theUNESCO for its nomination,said sources in the premierconservation agency under theUnion Culture Ministry.

Located in Palmapet inMulugu district, the RamappaTemple, also known as the

Ramalingeshwara Temple,dates back to 1213 AD duringthe period of the Kakatiyaruler Ganapati Deva. Now thetemple, known for its architec-tural marvel is under the pro-tection of the Kakatiya HeritageTrust (KHT) that has beenpushing it for the WorldHeritage tag since 2012, evenbefore the formation of theTelangana State.

The dossier was submittedto the Centre in 2018 alongwith the dossier of Jaipur city.Both technically qualified butthe Centre chose Jaipur cityover Ramappa Temple in 2018.Now, said an official in the ASI,the temple has become thecountry's only nomination for

the World Heritage site selec-tion process.

While many structures ofthe 1200 AD era are now inpoor status, this temple, dedi-cated to God Shiva seems tohave remain untouched by thevagaries of the weather. Forinstance, there are cracks fromthe beams on the temple floorbut despite this, the structurehas not collapsed. “The tem-ple roof (garbhalayam) of thetemple is built with brickswhich are so light that they canfloat on water. Also, it is builton the sand box technology,which made it resistant toearthquakes and other naturalcalamities. Depending on thesize and area of the construc-

tion, the earth was dug threemeters deep for the foundation.It was then filled with sand andfor the sand mixture to becomestrong, it was mixed with gran-ite, jaggery and Karakkaya(Chebula),” said the ASI offi-cial.

Another unique feature ofthe temple is that it was carvedwith dolomite rocks, whichare so intricate that even a haircan pass through it. The pillarshave 13 significant carvings,probably indicating the thir-teenth century during whichthe temple was built. EveryShivratri, a Hindu festival ded-icated to Lord Shiva, the tem-ple witnesses huge congrega-tion of Hindu devotees.

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The average assets of 153MPs who were re-elected in

2014 grew by 142 per cent,averaging �13.32 crore per MP,with Shatrughan Sinha, PinakiMishra and Supriya Sule shar-ing the top honours. Amongthe MPs, the highest rise of�116.73 crore was made byShatrughan Sinha, who waswith the BJP. In 2009, his assetswere around �15 crore whichwent upto �131 crore in 2014.

Pinaki Mishra of BijuJanata Dal (BJD) showed anincrease of �107 crore in hisassets, to �137 crore in 2014.

The third highest jumpwas made by Supriya Sule ofthe Nationalist Congress Party(NCP) whose assets climbedfrom �51 crore in 2009 to�113 crore in 2014.

According to ElectionWatch and Association ofDemocratic Reforms (ADR),average asset growth for 153MPs in five years (from 2009 to2014) was �7.81 crore.

The independent publicresearch groups comparedfinancial details submitted by153 MPs who were re-electedin 2014.

The study found that aver-age assets of these MPs in2009 was �5.50 crore whichmore than doubled to �13.32crore.

Among the top 10 high networth MPs include HarsimratKaur Badal of Shiromani AkaliDal (SAD) at number 6 andVarun Gandhi of the BJP at10th slot. Gandhi had shownhis assets to be only �4 crore in2009 which jumped to �35crore in 2014.

At the party level, 72 BJPMPs showed an average jumpof �7.54 crore while 28Congress MPs had an averagerise of �6.35 crore in theirassets.

Among top leaders,Congress MP Rahul Gandhi'sassets went up from �2 crore in2009 to �7 crore in 2014.

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With stalemate over seat-sharing amongst the

Bihar grand alliance partnerscontinuing, the State Congressleadership is believed to havecommunicated to the highcommand to take the decisionat the earliest keeping in mindthe necessity of being in themahagathbandhan.

The final decision has to betaken by Congress presidentRahul Gandhi within a day andthat AICC sources said to keepthe alliance intact the Congressis ready to accept 10 seatsagainst its persistent demand of11 Lok Sabha seats of the totalof 40 Bihar Lok Sabha seats andthus pave way for the successof the grand alliance to take onthe might of NDA.

BPCC president MadanMohan Jha sought to refutereports of a rift, claiming “wehave made no demands. Seat-sharing talks are making goodprogress.

The elections have justbegun. Wait for two-three daysand you will come to know ourformula as well as other details,”Jha said who reached Delhi toconvey the feelings of Bihar tothe central leadership.

The “mahagathbandhan”in Bihar formally acknowl-

edges Congress, RJD, UpendraKushwaha’s RLSP, Jitan RamManjhi's HAM, Sharad Yadav’sLJD and Mukesh Sahni’s VIP asits constituents. Attempts arebeing made by MadhepuraMP Pappu Yadav whose wifeRanjeet Ranjan is a CongressMP to seek entry into the for-mation though the same isbeing opposed by the RJDwhich had fielded him on itsticket five years ago butexpelled him later on discipli-nary grounds.

Sharing of seats in thegrand alliance has been ham-pered by squabbles betweensmaller partners like the RLSPand the HAM with each partydemanding a share that wasbigger than what the otherwas to get.

Sources also say that thingshave reached an impasse onaccount of the Lalu Prasad’sRJD asking the Congress to becontent with eight seats, but thelatter is making a “demand” ofnot less than 11. Four of the 40Lok Sabha constituencies inBihar would go to polls in thefirst phase, notifications forwhich have been issued onMonday.

The current impasse sur-faced following RJD leaderTejashwi Yadav indicating “fis-sures” as crisis deepened in the

Bihar mahagathbandhan.Amid hard bargaining bysmaller parties, the major play-ers — RJD and Congress —have locked horns over the seatsharing arrangements.

Bihar political sources saidRJD supremo Lalu Prasad,who is in jail (currently in hos-pital), is keeping close watchover the development anddetermined that the RJD willnot contest less than half of thetotal 40 seats.

RLSP's head Upendra ispressing for not less than fourseats while HAM supremo

Jitan Ram Manjhi too is notbudging from his demand forequal number of seats..

AICC sources said RJD isnot ready to give more thaneight to nine Lok Sabha seats toCongress which had alreadyfinalised its candidates on 11 seats for the ensuingpolls.

In the given scenario, if theCongress too sticks to its posi-tion, the RJD will have to sac-rifice at least four seats toaccommodate others allies ofthe mahagathbhandhan. Andthis is something Lalu is not

going to accept at any cost, saida senior party leader.

One of the constituentCPI(ML) too has asserted thatdecisions relating to the state“could not be taken while sit-ting in New Delhi.” “You can-not take a decision about Biharby holding parleys in NewDelhi.

You have to be here, amongthe people of the state, to assessthe situation on the ground andthen take a realistic decision,”CPI(ML) general secretaryDipankar Bhattacharya stated.

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Setting in motion the high-voltage electoral battle, the

Election Commission (EC) onMonday issued a notificationfor the April 11 first phase pollfor 91 Lok Sabha seats in 20States and Union Territoriesacross the country.

With the issuance of thenotification, the nominationprocess has begun whichwould continue till March 25.Simultaneously, notificationwas also issued for Assemblyelections in four States -Andhra Pradesh (all 175 con-stituencies), Odisha (28 oftotal 147 constituencies),Sikkim (all 32 constiuencies)and Arunachal Pradesh (all 60constituencies).

All the constituencies inboth the Telugu-speakingStates Andhra Pradesh andTelangana will go to polls onApril 11 in the first phase. Inthe first phase, voting will takeplace in Andhra Pradesh (25seats), Telangana (17),

Uttarakhand (5), ArunachalPradesh (2), Meghalaya (2),Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1),Sikkim (1), and the UnionTerritories of Andaman andNicobar (1) and Lakshadweep(1), the notification said. Eightconstituencies (out of 80) inUttar Pradesh, two (of 42) inWest Bengal, four (of 40) inBihar and two (of 6) in Jammu& Kashmir will also go to

polls in the first phase. Theelectorate in five (of 14 con-stituencies) in Assam, one (of11) in Chhattisgarh, seven (of48) in Maharashtra, one (oftwo) in Manipur, four (of 21)in Odisha and one (of two) inTripura would also cast theirvotes in this phase, the notifi-cation said.

Uttar Pradesh, Bihar andWest Bengal will see polling inall the seven phases.Saharanpur, Kairana,Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Meerut,Baghpat, Ghaziabad (VKSingh) and Gautam BuddhNagar (Mahesh Sharma) willvote in the first of the seven-phase general elections.

The Jammu and Baramullaseats in Jammu & Kashmir willalso go for polling in the firstphase.

All the 175 Assembly seatsin the Andhra Pradesh assem-bly, 60 of Arunachal Pradesh,32 of Sikkim and 28 ofOdisha's 28 assembly seatswill also cast their vote in thefirst phase on April 11.

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Union Culture Minister andBJP MP Mahesh Sharma

has kicked up an unsavourycontroversy by describingCongress president RahulGandhi as “Pappu” and his sis-ter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as“Pappu ki Pappi” during a pollcampaign in Gautam BuddhNagar, inviting sharp ripostefrom the Opposition

A purported video ofSharma's speech in his parlia-mentary constituency'sSikandrabad area has goneviral on social media in whichhe is seen condemning not onlyGandhi family politicians, butalso other regional leadersincluding BSP supremoMayawati, TMC chief MamataBanerjee and SP presidentAkhilesh Yadav.

“Pappu kehta hai mainprime minister banunga…Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav,Pappu.. Aur ab 'Pappu ki Pappi'bhi aa gayi hai. Wo Priyankakya pehle hamare desh ki betinahi thi kya, Congress ki betinahi thi kya, aage nahi rahegikya? kya naya leke aayi hai?(Pappu says he wants tobecome Prime Minister.Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav,

Pappu... And now ‘Pappu’sPappi’ has also arrived! Wasn'tPriyanka already a daughter ofthis nation, a daughter of theCongress. And would she notremain so in future? Whatnew has she brought in?),” hetold a crowd of his supportersduring his speech deliveredon March 16.

Regional politicians likeWest Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee or herKarnataka counterpart H DKumaraswamy would makeno difference to the local peo-ple even if they were “to comedance or sing” here, Sharmasaid.

“If Mamata Banerjeedances Kathak (a classicaldance form) here,Kumarasawamy, the CM ofKaranataka, comes and sings asong here, who is going to lis-ten to them? They have just 72seats (in Lok Sabha). How willthey get 200 more (for a sim-ple majority)?” the Ministersaid. Congress national secre-tary and UP-west co-inchargeDheeraj Gurjar slammed theMinister for his remarks.

“As are his thoughts, so arehis words. Being on such aresponsible post, Sharma ji hasmade such a remark against a

woman! It is condemnable,”Gurjar told PTI. “The BJP onits own should take someaction against him.”

Sharma also claimed oppo-sition leaders do not want astrong Government at theCentre but a weak one. Theywant to support “Pappu, whohas remained a Pappu”, hesaid. He also attacked theCongress party for keepingthe Nehru-Gandhi family at thehelm.

“First (Pandit Jawaharlal)Nehru, then (former PM) RajivGandhi, then Sanjay Gandhi,thereafter Rahul (Gandhi) andnow Priyanka (GandhiVadra)...And if there will beanother, it will also be aGandhi. Are they doing somefavour to the country?” heasked.

“If you want to rise abovethem, you can see only onetiger and that is (PrimeMinister) Narendra Modi,” hesaid.

Gautam Buddh Nagar goesto polls on April 11 in the firstof the seven-phased Lok Sabhaelections. Sikandrabad, whichgeographically falls in theBulandshahr district, is a partof the Gautam Buddh Nagarparliamentary seat.

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Seeking to scotch specula-tions about a rift in its State

unit, the Congress on Mondaysaid it is united in Haryana andwill display this unity whenleaders undertake a bus yatra tolaunch its election campaignthere. Itdenied differencesamong functionaries over astate coordination committeemeeting being called off afterbeing announced.

Congress general secretaryin-charge of Haryana GhulamNabi Azad's remark came daysafter a coordination committeein Haryana was withdrawnsoon after it was made public.

Reportedly, a section in thestate unit expressed resent-ment over inclusion and exclu-sion of some leaders in thepanel. Two days ago, the partyhad announced the coordina-tion committee for the Stateand later withdrew it, but therewas no major reason, he said.

The committee is likely tomeet on Tuesday with formerHaryana Chief MinisterBhupinder Singh Hooda as itschairman, Azad said.

The Congress leader has

denied any resentment or dif-ferences over the committee'sformation.

In its proposed meeting onTuesday, it would decide thedate for the launch of the “bus

yatra” as part of its Lok Sabhapoll campaign in the State,Azad said.

Polling in 10 Lok Sabhaseats in the State will be held onMay 12.

The bus yatra would alsomark the party’s campaign forthe assembly elections slatedlater this year, he said. “We willnow follow the Andhra-Karnataka model, which I hadstarted about two decades back,to put all the leaders in one busand take them around,” Azadsaid.

The Congress did it inKarnataka in 1999-2000 and inAndhra Pradesh in 2003-2004,he said .

“They are different beforeentering the bus, but when theycome out of the bus after a fewweeks, they are one. Twentyleaders become one. Whenthey speak from one stage,when they eat from the sameplate, they become one. So, weare working out this plan for abus tour,” Azad told reportershere. During the yatra, he said,leaders would be laying thefoundations of the party's cam-paign for the Assembly elec-tions.

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New Delhi: With the objectiveof fostering closer military tieswith African nations, the firstever Africa-India FieldTraining Exercise-2019 calledAFINDEX-19 started in Puneon Monday and will end onMarch 27. At least 17 nationsfrom the African continent aretaking part in the exercise toplan and conduct humanitari-an mine assistance and peacekeeping operations underChapter seven of the UN PeaceKeeping operations.

Giving details of the inau-gural conclave, officials saidhere on Monday the exercisewill focus on exchange of bestpractices between the partici-pating nations, team buildingand tactical level operations inconduct of United Nationsmandated tasks to includeestablishment of a new mission,siting of a United NationsHeadquarters for PeaceKeeping operations, siting ofMilitary Observer sites duringthe peace keeping missions,protection of civilians, nuancesof standing combat deploy-ment, convoy protection,

patrolling aspects and aspectsrelated to humanitarian mineassistance.

The participating coun-tries from Africa include Benin,Botswana, Egypt, Ghana,Kenya, Mauritius,Mozambique, Namibia,Niger,Nigeria, Senegal, SouthAfrica, Sudan, Tanzania,Uganda, Zambia andZimbabwe came together forthe opening ceremony alongwith a contingent of MarathaLight Infantry representingIndia.

Major General SanjeevSharma, General OfficerCommanding, Golden KatarDivision, who was the ChiefGuest for the opening cere-mony, reviewed the parade, inpresence of a large number ofDefence Attaches and otherofficials of the participatingcountries. A fly past by a set ofAdvanced Light Helicoptersand Cheetah Helicopter of theIndian Army carrying the flagsof United Nations, India andthe AFINDEX was the high-light of the opening ceremony.

PNS

New Delhi: The scourge of ter-rorism threatening the worldfigured prominently duringthe talks between India andJapan when a parliamentarydelegation led by DeputyChairman Harivansh visitedthat country recently. Notingthat terrorism tops the list of allexistential threats that theworld faces today, the DeputyChairman thanked Japan forexpressing solidarity with Indiain its fight against global terror.

The Speaker of House ofRepresentative, Japan withwhom the delegation interact-ed condemned terrorism andassured assistance to India in itsfight against terrorism. DeputyChairman expressed that giventhe close friendship among

the people of two countries,growing engagement in manyfronts, the future of India-Japan bilateral relation is full ofpromise and potential.

The Indian delegationincluded Bhubaneswar Kalita,Shamsher Singh Manhas andBanda Prakash( all Members ofRajya Sabha), the Secretary-General, Rajya Sabha and otherofficials of the Rajya SabhaSecretariat, an official press state-ment from the Rajya Sabha said.

The Indian delegationinteracted with their Japanesecounterparts under the aegis ofJapan-India ParliamentaryFriendship League(JIPFL).Appreciating the role of JIPFLin providing bipartisan politi-cal support for strengthening

relations between Japan andIndia, Harivansh said it wouldbe ideal if the Upper Houses ofthe both Parliaments sign anagreement to strengthen par-liamentary cooperation forwhich the work is underway.

Referring to the Summitmeeting in 2018 between boththe Prime Ministers, whichachieved numerous milestonescovering areas as diverse as eco-nomic cooperation, maritimesecurity, new and digital tech-nologies, agriculture, food pro-cessing and healthcare part-nership, the Deputy Chairmancalled upon the Japanese com-panies to participate in flagshipinitiatives such as Make inIndia, Digital India, Skill Indiaand Smart cities. PNS

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The Supreme Court has saidthat acid attack is an

“uncivilised and heartlesscrime” which does not deserveany clemency.

The apex court observedthis while asking two convicts,who have already undergonefive year jail for throwing acidon a 19-year-old girl in 2004,to pay �1.5 lakh each as addi-tional compensation to thevictim.

The top court also askedthe Himachal PradeshGovernment to pay compen-sation to acid attack survivorunder the VictimCompensation Scheme.

“Indeed, it cannot be ruledout that in the present case thevictim had suffered anuncivilised and heartless crimecommitted by the respondents(two convicts) and there is noroom for leniency which can beconceived,” a Bench of Justices

AM Khanwilkar and AjayRastogi said.

The bench further said, “Acrime of this nature does notdeserve any kind of clemency.This court cannot be obliviousof the situation that the victimmust have suffered an emo-tional distress which cannot becompensated either by sen-tencing the accused or by grantof any compensation.”

The court delivered its ver-dict on an appeal filed by thestate challenging the March 24,2008 judgement of theHimachal Pradesh High Courtwhich had reduced the 10-yearjail term awarded to both themen by a trial court to fiveyears.

According to the victim,she was on her way to collegeon July 12, 2004 when the twomen came on a two-wheelerand threw acid on her and fledthe spot. She had suffered 16per cent burn injury in the incident.

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Terrorists shot dead anoth-er ‘unarmed’ youth outside

his home in Reshipora area ofTral in South Kashmir’sPulwama district on Mondayevening.

The deceased has been iden-tified as Mohsin Ahmad Wanison of Gh Mohammad Wani.

According to groundreports, “Wani was shot at byterrorists outside his home inReshipora village of Tral onMonday evening”. He was shift-ed to sub district hospital in thearea where doctors declared

him brought dead.This is the fifth incident

since past week in which civil-ians were targeted by terroristsand four among them later suc-cumbed to their injuries.

A civilian, a woman SPOand an army deserter werekilled and a NationalConference (NC) leader wasinjured in these firing inci-dents.

On Saturday, a womanSpecial Police Officer, KhusbooJan, was killed by terrorists inShopian inside her house.

On Thursday terroristsabducted 40-year-old Manzoor

Ahmad Lone from his home inDogripora village, Awantiporain Pulwama and later dumpedhis body in an adjoining village.

Same day terrorists shot atand injured National Conferenceblock president MohammadIsmail Wani outside his home atBijbheara in south Kashmir’sAnantnag district.

On Wednesday, terroristskilled 37-year-old youthShowkat Ahmad Naik outsidehis home at Pinglina village inPulwama district. Naik hadjoined the Army but desertedduring training in Septemberlast year.

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In what could be a majorrelief to Congress strong-

man and former unionf inance minister PChidambaram, AIADMKleader Raja Kannappan quitthe party and joined the DMKon Monday. Raja Kannappanhad filed an election petitionin Madras High Court chal-lenging the elect ion ofChidambaram from theSivaganga Lok Sabha con-stituency in the 2009 GeneralElection. Though it is morethan decade since he filed thepetition, the case is gettingdragged on much to the reliefof Chidambaram.

The victor y ofChidambaram in the 2009election was shrouded in con-troversy from the day theresults were announced.Though the returning officerinit ial ly declared thatChidambaram lost the elec-tion, the former had to retractthe announcement. At theend of the day Chidambaramwas declared elected by awafer thin majority of 3354votes, the lowest margin ofvictory from south India.

Raja Kannappan’s argu-ment was that the data entryoperators employed in thecounting station by the thenDMK government enteredthe votes polled by him in theaccount of Chidambaram andvice versa. J Jayalalithaa, thethen Leader of the Opposition

herself wrote to the ChiefElection Commissioner stat-ing that Chidambaram’s winwas by fraudulent means andnot based on the votes cast bythe electorate.

Chief minister JJayalalithaa, in a letter to thechief election commissionerin 2011 had said that duringcounting of votes in the 2009Lok Sabha election , ‘blatantirregularities’ were committedby the Data Entry Officers atSivaganga to further the pollprospects of Chidambaram.

Jayalalithaa said in the let-ter that 3400 votes polled byKannappan from 11 pollingstations were entered infavour of Chidambaram and1617 votes polled by the laterwere entered in favour of theAIADMK candidate. She saidthis was done by the DEOs atthe behest of the then DMKgovernment and no actionwas taken against the opera-tors who indulged in suchgrave offences.

“The votes that were phys-ically entered by the countingagents/ counting officers ofKannappan were deliberatelychanged by the DEOs at thetime of making entries inForm-20. A comparison of thehand written entries made bythe counting agents ofKannappan and the entriesmade by the Data EntryOperators in Form 20 wouldclearly reveal that the votespolled in favour of Kannappanwere entered with mala fideintention to favour

Chidambaram and facilitatehis fraudulent victor y,”Jayalalithaa had told the CEC.

Though the case was filedin 2009, the court is yet tocomplete the hearing . “Forfive years, Chidambaramplayed all tricks to get the casederailed. Once the courtagreed to take up the case, ittook us nearly three years tocollect the evidences and sub-mit the evidences. Then therewere the routine delays dueto retirement of judges andcourt holidays,” explainedSaravana Kumar, the MadasHigh Court lawyer pursuingthe case.

He said though RajaKannappan had crossed overto the DMK, it would notaffect the case. “He would notbe able t withdraw the case asthat stage is over. We expectthe court to pronounce theverdict in this year itself ” saidSaraana Kumar.

Raja Kannappan jumpedthe fence on Monday andwent to the DMK camp as theAIADMK leadership over-looked him while selectingthe candidates for the LokSabha election. Chances arethat his case againstChidambaram may remainas the longest fought electionpetition in the country. TamilNadu electorate are electingtheir MPs on April 18 andthere is no possibility of anyverdict in this case by thattime. As tennis commentatorssay, it is AdvantageChidambaram.

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Stage is set for the ‘mother ofall battles’ in Tamil Nadu.

Both the DMK and theAIADMK, the two main pro-tagonists, announced thenames of candidates and con-stituencies from where the par-ties would lock horns for con-trolling the State as well as theCentre.

Voters in Tamil Nadu willdecide on April 18 which polit-ical formation should rule notonly the country but also thefate of the EdappadyPalaniswamy government inthe State. This is because theby-polls to be held on thesame day to 18 assembly con-stituencies is crucial as well ascritical for both the AIADMKand the DMK.

There are two more fontsin the State in addition to thetwo fronts led by the traditionalrivals, the AADMK and theDMK. The AMMK led byTTV Dhinakaran (who waseased out of the AIADMKalong with his aunt and formerJayalaluthaa aide V K Sasikala)and film actor-turned politicianKamal Haasan too are in thefray in all the constituencies.While the AMMK is having anelectoral alliance with the SDPI,an Islamic extremist outfit, theMakkal Neethi Maiam ofKamal Haasan is fighting all the

39 seats on its own.Though Tamil Nadu will

see four-cornered contests in allthe 39 Lok Sabha constituenciesand the 18 assembly by-polls(this may go up to 21 by-pollsas the apex court would decideby this weekend the pleas by theopposition DMK to conductthe by-polls in three morevacant seats which areenmeshed in legal imbroglio),the main fight would bebetween the fronts led by theAIADMK and the DMK.

The AIADMK leadershiphad shown that it is no differ-ent from the DMK in dynastyand family politics. The list ofAIADMK candidates include PRaveendranatha Kumar (son ofdeputy chief minister OPanneerselvam) , ManojPandian (son of former SpeakerPaul Pandian) and VVR RajanSathyan (son of Madirai MLARajan Chellappa) who willcontest from Theni andMadurai respectively. JJayavardhan, who is seeking re-election from Chennai South isthe son of AIADMK seniorminister D Jayakumar.

Interestingly, only six of sit-ting 37 MPs who won the 2014Lok Sabha election have beenre-nominated to contest thistime. The party leadership hasbrought in the old war horseslike KP Munusamy and Agri SSKrishnamurthi to take on the

challenge posed by the break-away AMMK faction.

While the AMMK is sureto erode the strength ofAIADMK in some of the con-stituencies dominated by theThevar community ( the com-munity to which Dhinakaran,Sasikala belong), what type ofdamage the MNM would causeis yet to be seen. Kamal Haasan,who prefers to be addressed asUlaga Nayakan (Global Hero)is yet to declare the ideology ofthe party though it has seenmany leaders making an exit.

The AMMK would contestfrom 38 constituencies in theState leaving one seat to theSDPI. “It is certain that theAMMK and the MNM wouldend up as also ran in this bat-tle. These parties are unlikelyto make any impact in this elec-tion . The DMK is having anoverall advantage in this elec-tion ,” said Sam Rajappa, vet-eran commentator.

But T Ramakrisnan, authorand columnist is of the viewthat one should not underesti-mate the AIADMK led front.“TTV Dhinakaran will poseproblems. But EdaPalaniswamy andPanneerselvam are seasonedpoliticians who are capable ofspringing surprises. This is anopen match in spite of the factthat DMK-led front has a slightedge,” said Ramakrishnan.

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A24 year old Riflemanattained martyrdom in a

fresh incident of ceasefire vio-lation along the line of controlin Keeri Battal area ofSunderbani sector of Rajouridistrict early Monday morning.Three other soldiers of theIndian army also receivedinjuries and were rushed to thenearby army hospital.

Tension prevailed in thearea following fresh escalationsince late Sunday evening.

According to Lt- ColDevender Anand, Ministry ofDefence Spokesman in Jammu,“Pakistan army initiated ‘unpro-voked’ ceasefire violation byshelling forward areas and tar-geting Indian posts along theline of control in Sunderbanisector sunday evening at around6.30 p.m”. The firing continuedin the area for about four hours,local reports claimed.

After a brief lull, Pakistanarmy once again resorted toheavy shelling early Mondaymorning in the same sector ataround 5.30 a.m In response,Indian army retaliated strong-ly and effectively. As the firingcontinued Rifleman KaramjeetSingh received critical injuriesand later he succumbed to hisinjuries. Lt Col DevenderAnand said, “martyred armyjawan hailed from Janer villageof Dharam Kot tehsil in Mogadistrict of Punjab and is sur-vived by his parents”.

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With alliance talks betweenthe Congress and the

Left Front almost crumblingdown, Bengal tended to headfor a four-corner fight in thegeneral elections. Leaders fromboth the parties said they hadnot been approached by theother side after Saturdayevening.

Subsequently PradeshCongress president SomenMitra on Sunday night flew toDelhi with a list of 42 probablecandidates for party presidentRahul Gandhi’s approval. PCCleaders on Monday saidGandhi had “given his go-ahead and anytime soon theAICC may declare a prelimi-nary list of 12 or 15 candidates.”

Even as Congress onMonday went ahead with itsdecision to announce its can-didates’ list the Left tended tooka cautious approach withhold-ing its decision for the remain-ing 17 seats which it had leftout pending seat-sharing dis-cussions between the two sides.Amidst talk process the Lefthad earlier announced its list of25 candidates.

There has considerable

pressure from subaltern ranksin both the sides party sourcesaid. “We want an alliance. Theleaders should shun their per-sonal ego and look at the inter-ests of the common people whohave been suffering at thehands of TMC,” said AbuAkhtar a Congress workerfrom Kolkata said.

“We want an alliance toresist both the TMC and BJP asboth are the two sides of thesame coin,” said Samarpananother Congress worker fromKasba blaming party MP“Pradip Bhattacharya and DeepDasmunshi for the failure oftalks.”

CPI(M)’s Dilip Jana want-ed the party to “shed its big-brother attitude and follow thepath shown by the great JyotiBasu to sew up the alliance.”

The Congress had beenasking for 18 seats while theLeft was not willing to part with13-14 seats. Out of the 18 seatsthe major bones of contentionwas Purulia --- from where theCongress had in 2014 polledabout 2.5 lakh votes whereasthe Left had got 3.25 lakhvotes—and Basirhat where theLeft and Congress got about2.84 lakh and 1.20 lakh votes

respectively.The Congress had also

been asking for Raiganj seatwhere former Union MinisterDeepa Dasmunshi had in 2014lost out to the Left Front’s MdSalim by a wafer-thin marginof 1,300 votes. With the“CPI(M) trying to dictate itsterms on us” and with RahulGandhi categorically askingthe State party units “not tomake compromise on theparty’s prestige we had noother way but to stop the talks.”

Both the parties had joint-ly contested the Assembly elec-tions in 2016 with the LeftFront managing to get nearly90 percent of its votes trans-ferred to the Congress where-as the latter managing to trans-fer about 74 percent of itsvotes transferred to the Left.“Had the Congress been able totransfer its votes like we did wewould have formed theGovernment,” said a seniorPCC member adding “Thoughout of 294 the Alliance got 77seats we lost out to theTrinamool Congress in 70 seatsby small margins of 150 to4,000 votes.”

Keeping that prospect inmind a number of leaders onboth sides had been asking foralliance between “particularlybecause the ElectionCommission looks more seri-ous beginning its area domi-nation exercise pretty early.”

While the Congress wasalmost ready with its list of 12candidates sources told yourreporter that the party couldfield Priya Roy Chowdhuryfrom Coochbehar, Sukh BilasBurma from Jalpaiguri,Shankar Malakar fromDarjeeling, Deepa Dasmunshi

from Raiganj, Isha KhanChowdhury from MaldaNorth, his uncle AH KhanChowdhury from Malda South,Adhir Chowdhury fromBehrampore, AbhijeetMukheree from Jangipur, AbuHena from Murshidabad,Nepal Chandra Mahato fromPurulia.

The Left Front howeverwas holding a marathon meet-ing on its next strategy. Insiderssaid that one group in theFront was for leaving the 17seats to the Congress irrespec-tive of the other party’s stancewhich would not only save theCPI(M) from allegations ofspoiling the alliance but alsokeep doors of talks open.

The second groups wantedto go it all out to give theCongress the real feel of itsstrength in the State. The thirdopinion wanted to leave 11-13seats --- including the 4 seatsthe party had won in 2014 ---for the Congress.

The BJP which had fastcome up as the prime opposi-tion party in the State on theother hand was likely toannounce its own list of can-didates on Tuesday, partysources said.

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Untimely spells of squallsover the past a few days

seem to have given theTrinamool Congress’ candi-dates a respite from early sum-mer heat which is easily visiblefrom the face South Kolkataparty nominee Mala Roy.

Taking advantage of the“extended Spring,” Roy theChairman (equivalent to Speakerof a State Assembly) of KolkataMunicipal Corporation and a“homemaker to the hilt” hasdrawn forward the fervor of Holiby a few days even as she playswith colour while in election trail.

“Everyone has a child hiddeninside. I too am no different. Sowhen I have found this oppor-tunity to play with Aabir” orGulaal (dry colours), “particularlywith the children of the neigh-bourhood,” she says liberallysmearing faces with green Aabir.

And why does she usegreen only? “There is no hardand fast rule about colours.Spring is the season of colours.Any colour can be used. Greenhowever is more favouritebecause it carries a meaning. Itis more akin to nature,” she

sounds philosophical addingher party has no problem withcolours as “we use blue, pink,yellow and many other hues.”

Roy and her husband a for-mer TMC MLA and a scholarhave been in and out of theparty on more than one occa-sions. The couple had left theCongress to join MamataBanerjee’s battle against theLeft Front before coming backto the parent party.Subsequently she joined theTMC again in 2015 to becomea councilor and then theChairman of KMC. Ever since,she has been loyal to the party.

“I am a loyal soldier ofMamata Banerjee. She has askedme to go, contest and win thepolls from a constituency onerepresented by herself. I will trymy level best to do that” she saysin the midst of taking a mid-dayleave of a couple of hours whenshe goes back home to have alight dinner with rice, fish, curry,neem-brinjal fry and some chut-ney. “I take plenty of water dur-ing my campaigns,” she saysaware that her constituency wasonce represented by the likes ofShyama Prasad Mukherjee.

She contesting against

CPI(M) candidate Dr NandiniMukherjee a professor of com-puter science from neighbour-ing Jadavpur University.

“Yes South Kolkata is ahighly conscious political con-stituency,” she says adding how-ever the people here “are tradi-tionally Congress-TrinamoolCongress and lately MamataBanerjee-oriented. So I amconfident that I will win.”

Banerjee had once wonthis seat by a huge margin of2.35 lakh votes she reminds notforgetting however that BJPcandidate Tathagata Roy had in2014 elections come secondtaking a lead from a couple ofAssembly segments.

On the possible Left-Congress alliance she says, “Idon’t consume rejected stuffs,”and on BJP one of her party mensays “western disturbances docome occasionally only to fadeaway with time,” reminding the“people of Bengal are largely notcommunally oriented. You canfirm up some support by con-fusing nationalist and commu-nal ideas but permanently thefight will remain between Leftideology and the one preachedby Mamata Banerjee.”

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With the first phase of LokSabha polls inching clos-

er, some unidentified miscre-ants tried to fuel communalhatred in the sensitiveGorakhpur by throwing brokenidols in Padri Bazaar area onMonday morning.

Luckily, the local policeresponded to an SOS in timeand assured the agitated peo-ple of initiating stern actionagainst the perpetrators.

A heavy police force waslater deployed to avert anyuntoward incident.

The police also registereda case against unknown per-sons and started investigation.

As per reports, residents ofPadri Bazaar area inGorakhpur where shocked tofind at least 12 broken idolsstrewn at the roadside onMonday morning. The idolsfrom Natveer Baba temple andother roadside places of wor-ship were dumped there afterdamaging them.

As the news of recovery ofbroken idols spread, hundredsof local residents converged onthe spot within no time andraised slogans against the policeand one community, allegingits hand in the mischief.

On learning about the

incident and the protest, apolice team led by senior offi-cers rushed to the spot anddefused the situation. Theyassured the agitated mob thatthe idols would be repaired orreplaced and the culprits wouldbe brought to justice in theshortest possible time.

Circle officer ofGorakhnath, Pravin Singh, saidthat prima facie it appeared tobe an act of mischief and aprobe was underway.

The police were trying toidentify those responsible forthe incident.

Meanwhile, inMuzaffarnagar, a 17-year-oldDalit girl was gang-raped byfive youths at Phulat villageunder Ratanpuri police stationon Sunday evening and theentire act was filmed by themiscreants. After a case wasregistered, the police arrestedthree of the accused.

As per the report lodged bythe girl’s brother, she had goneto the field on Sunday after-noon to collect fodder for cat-tle when the five accusedforcibly dragged her to asecluded place and took turnswith her.

The miscreants filmed theentire act and threatened tomake the video public if shereported the matter to anyone.

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New Delhi: The Union Cabineton Monday condoled thedemise of Goa chief ministerManohar Parrikar, saying hewill be remembered for hissimplicity and as an exceptionaladministrator. TermingParrikar as Chief Minister ofcommoners, the Cabinet reso-lution remembered his contri-bution to the welfare of armedforces and ex-service men.

After observing a two-minute silence, the Cabinetmeeting chaired by PrimeMinister Narendra Modipassed a resolution which said,in his death the country has lostan able administrator who wasaffectionately called the “chiefminister of commoners.”

“Shri Parrikar will beremembered for his simplicityand his abilities as an excep-tional administrator. His con-tribution to the building ofmodern Goa and to the mod-ernization of India’s ArmedForces as well as improvementto the lives of ex-Servicemenwill never be forgotten,” the res-olution read. PNS

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The last rites of Goa ChiefMinister and former

Defence Minister ManoharParrikar, who died on Sundayafter suffering from pancreaticcancer for over a year, were heldwith full military and statehonours at the Miramar beachhere on Monday evening.

Thousands of supportersand BJP workers accompaniedthe funeral cortege from theKala Academy Arts andCultural Centre, where theremains had been keptthroughout the day for thepublic to pay last respects to thenearby Miramar beach.

The mortal remains ofParrikar, wrapped in thenational tri-colour, were placedon a pyre amid a 21 gun saluteat the beach and his elder sonUtpal Parrikar consigned it toflames.

Parrikar, 63, is survived bytwo sons, two daughter in-lawsand a grandson.

Top BJP leaders includingPrime Minister NarendraModi, BJP President AmitShah, Union Ministers NirmalaSitharaman, Nitin Gadkari,Smriti Irani, Suresh Prabhuand Ramdas Athawale offered

floral tributes to Parrikar.Maharashtra Chief

Minister Devendra Fadnavisalso paid his last respects.

Parrikar was ChiefMinister of Goa on four sepa-rate occasions, but could notcomplete a single term in office.

He served as Defence Ministerin the Narendra Modi cabinetfrom 2014-17 before returningto state politics.

His death has triggered apolitical crisis in Goa, with theBJP being unable to come upwith a alternative ChiefMinisterial candidate, who isacceptable to coalition allies.

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Mumbai: When a young andlittle known Tejaswini Sawantwas in urgent need of financialhelp to participate in a shoot-ing world championship inGermany, Goa chief ministerManohar Parrikar came as herray of hope.

The support not onlyenabled the shooter fromKolhapur in Maharashtra toparticipate in the competitionin 2005, but also became aturning point in her career asshe scaled new heights there-after, Sawant said.

Her only regret now is thatshe could not thank the chiefminister enough for his gen-erosity which made a big con-tribution in her life and shoot-ing career.

“It was a brief meetingwith Parrikar along with fam-ily friend and senior BJP leaderChandrakant Patil. He just lis-tened about my performanceand estimated the expendi-ture. He then signed a chequefor me immediately,” the ace

shooter recalled while talkingto PTI over phone.

“The amount was aroundRs 1 lakh and it was the mostneeded help for me that changedmy entire career,” she said.

It helped Sawant moveahead as she scored 397 and 396out of 400 in two rounds of theevent, comfortably securing aplace among the mainstreamshooters to represent India.

The boost further helpedher in improving her perfor-mance game by game, and shesubsequently became the firstIndian woman shooter to wina gold medal at the WorldChampionships, with a world-record equalling score in the50m rifle prone event in 2010in Germany.

“I could do it only becauseof two people. First, ManoharParrikar for his trust and finan-cial support, and thenChandrakant Patil, who tookmy case to Parrikar,” she said.

Since 2006, Sawant wonseveral gold and other medals

in international champi-onships.

She said after the early suc-cess in her career, she receivedoffers for a job in the Goa gov-ernment and financial help fortravel and training expenses tillshe wanted to play.

“I regret that I could neverthank Parrikar properly forhis contribution in my life andcareer,” the shooter said whileexpressing her grief over hisdemise.

When contacted, Patil, whois currently Maharashtra’s rev-enue minister, said he sharedclose ties with Parrikar.

He said when Sawantapproached him, Parrikar’sname came to his mind and hecalled up his number for help.

“He was like that (generous).In case of Tejaswini, Parrikarhelped her in his own capacity.He didn’t use the governmentmoney. Though he spent fromhis pocket, he never brought upthe issue in our subsequentconversations,” Patil said. PTI

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Monday paid trib-

ute to Goa chief ministerManohar Parrikar, who died ofpancreatic cancer on Sunday.

After arriving in the coastalstate, Modi reached the KalaAcademy in Panaji where hepaid his last respect to the 63-year-old senior leader. He metParrikar’s family members andoffered his condolences tothem.

Defence minister NirmalaSitharaman also met Parrikar’sfamily members.

Earlier in New Delhi, aUnion Cabinet meeting wasconvened to condole thedemise of Parrikar, followingwhich Modi left for Goa.

BJP president Amit Shahwill also be in the coastal stateto take part in the funeral pro-cession of the late leader, theparty said.

The chief minister’s bodyhas been kept at the KalaAcademy to allow the public

pay their tributes.Earlier in the morning, his

mortal remains were kept theBJP office in Panaji, locatedaround three km from theKala Bhawan, for the partyleaders and workers to paytheir last respects.

Parrikar, a four-time chiefminister, died at his private res-idence Sunday evening afterbattling the pancreatic ailmentsince February last year. TheIIT graduate represented PanajiAssembly seat in the state forover two decades.

Parrikar’s final journey willbegin after 4 pm.

His last rites will be per-formed at 5 pm at the Miramarbeach here, next to the memo-rial of Goa’s first chief ministerDayanand Bandodkar, whowas also cremated there.

Parrikar would be accord-ed a state funeral with full mil-itary honours, according to thehome ministry. The centralgovernment has announcednational mourning onMonday.

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The Indian Institute ofTechnology Bombay (IIT-

B) will hold a condolence meeton Monday evening to pay trib-utes to their alumnus, Goachief minister ManoharParrikar, who died after a longillness.

The meeting will be held at5 pm at the institute’s P CSaxena auditorium here, anIIT-B spokesperson said.

Parrikar, 63, who had alsobeen the defence minister, diedon Sunday evening at his pri-vate residence in Goa after bat-tling a pancreatic ailment sinceover a year.

In 2017, he addressed the55th convocation of theMumbai-based institute wherehe told the graduates to take upjobs in social and developmentsectors.

An alumnus of the famedinstitute, he also asked studentsto join politics and the Army,said a former IIT-B studentwho was present at the convo-cation ceremony.

Panaji: Thousands of peoplethronged the streets of the statecapital Monday to catch a finalglimpse of Goa chief ministerManohar Parrikar, who died ofa pancreatic ailment, as hismortal remains was brought tothe BJP office here for partyworkers to pay their last respect.

His remains would betaken to Kala Academy, aroundthree km from the BJP office,later on Monday, to allow thepublic pay their tribute to him.

A pall of gloom descendedon the BJP office and hundredsof Parrikar supporters turnedemotional when his mortalremains, wrapped in the tri-colour, was brought there.

The truck carrying the 63-year-old chief minister’s bodytravelled 5 km from his privateresidence in Dona Paula toPanaji, as people tried to catchsight of the popular leader, whorose from the small coastal stateto become the country’sdefence minister. PTI

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Ateam of Indian CoastGuard (ICG) personnel

rescued six members on boarda tug “Revti” after it capsized inthe Arabian Sea off the WorliSeaface in south-CentralMumbai on Monday.

The ICG personnel werecontinuing their search onemissing crew member from thecapsized tug.

`Revti’ was on way fromMumbai to Tarapur when themishap took place. There werein all seven members on boardthe ill-fated vessel.

Acting on a distress callfrom `Revti’ , the authoritiesdiverted the Indian CoastGuard Ship Amartya, a fastpatrol vessel on surveillancemission, to undertake searchand rescue mission.

“CG ship responded to thedistress call and reached posi-tion of Tug at 10.54 am and res-cued six from the sinking ves-sel. The recovered crew hasbeen provided with necessaryfirst aid and their condition is

presently stable,” an ICG pressrelease said.

“In addition to the surfacesearch by two ships to find onemissing crew, two helo sortiesby chetak helicopter have beenlaunched to undertake sea-air

coordinated search,” the releaseadded.

The authorities identifiedthe rescued sailors as RashidQuasim Sorathiya (38), TonoyChalak (22), both fromMidnapur, West Bengal,

Ramesh J Keni (55), DilipYadav(29), both from Mumbai,Shanu Kumar (19), fromMumbai and Salem Siddiqui

The missing crew memberwas identified as one AbdulAzeez (53).

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Declining to release Kuldip Nayar’sposthumously published book,On Leaders and Icons: FromJinnah to Modi, former PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh

informed the veteran journalist’s wife that onperusing the book, “I found a reference onpage 172 that during my prime ministership,Government files would go to Sonia Gandhi’shouse. This statement is not true and Kuldipdid not check with me about its truth. In thisbackground, I would find it embarrassing toattend the book release function on February8, 2019.” Raconteur par excellence, Nayarwrote that Singh’s lack of a popular base helpedhis political career. Selected as Prime Minister,for 10 years, he served as a “convenient frontman for Sonia Gandhi and her dynasty.”Government files would go to her residencewhere senior Congress leader Ahmed Patelguided her in day-to-day Government affairs.

This is hardly news for most Indians.What is startling is the revelation that whenformer Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehrusuffered a stroke in January 1964, IndiraGandhi ruled the country in the name ofher ailing father. Lal Bahadur Shastri, asMinister without portfolio, “began quietlydealing with the files marked to Nehru.Indira Gandhi did not like this. She wouldinsist on seeing important files herselfbefore sending them to Shastri. The latterlearnt of this but did not protest”.

Nehru’s ambition to make Indira Gandhihis successor was visible to all. In 1959, UNDhebar stepped down as Congress presidentand aware of Nehru’s desire, proposed IndiraGandhi as next president. Aghast, HomeMinister Govind Ballabh Pant protested thather frail health would hinder the extensivetravels required of a Congress president. ButNehru raised his voice: “she is healthier thanboth of us — and could put in longer hoursof work.” With that, Indira Gandhi was unan-imously elected and cleared the first hurdleto prime ministership.

Indira Gandhi’s name came up afterNehru died but Morarji Desai’s ambitionthwarted a consensus and the mantle fell onShastri, who died of a heart attack less thantwo years later in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Nayar,who was in the media delegation, recountsthat Shastri retired slightly agitated as theaccompanying Indian media had badgeredhim about the return of Haji Pir and Tithwalto Pakistan after the 1965 war. Angered overthe concession, his wife, Lalita, had refusedto speak to him over the telephone.

At the dacha, Swaran Singh askedNayar, “Who do you think the next PrimeMinister will be?” Nayar repeated whatShastri had told him a few months earlier:“If I die in the next two years, my successorwill be Indira Gandhi. If I survive, it will beYB Chavan (then Defence Minister)”. InDelhi, he recalls, Lalita Shastri asked him,“Where were you? Can’t you see he has beenpoisoned, his whole body is blue?”

There was distressing politics over the cre-

mation. Indira Gandhi wantedShastri cremated in his hometown, Allahabad, away from RajGhat where Mahatma Gandhiand Nehru had samadhis. Shehad already (though Nayar omitsto mention it) denied him thePrime Minister’s residence atTeen Murti by turning it into amemorial. An enraged Lalitatrounced Indira Gandhi bythreatening a fast-unto-death.Indira Gandhi then opposedinscribing Shastri’s famous slo-gan, “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan” on hissamadhi at Vijay Ghat; Lalitathreatened self-immolation.Later, searching for an appropri-ate prime ministerial bungalow,Indira Gandhi inspected theShastri home, sneered at his“middle class living” and left theplace to the family.

Despite his gargantuanmemory, Nayar states that Jinnahjoined the Indian NationalConference in 1906. Actually, theConference had merged with theIndian National Congress (INC)in 1886; Jinnah joined INC in1906. He recalls Jinnah’s firstspeech as President of Pakistan,wherein he admits the intractableproblem of minorities in bothcountries: “…All the same, in thisdivision it was impossible toavoid the question of minoritiesbeing in one Dominion or theother.” Clearly, Jinnah knew theproblem he was creating but wentahead. More tellingly, the Quaid-e-Azam’s speech was not broad-cast by Radio Pakistan: A reali-

ty byte regarding his power in thecountry he created.

Interestingly, Nayar recountsthat when he met LouisMountbatten near London onOctober 1, 1971, the latterrecalled a conversation withJinnah at the Viceroy House inDelhi on April 9, 1947: “I toldJinnah that his moth-eatenPakistan would not last morethan 25 years.” Mountbattenclaimed he told Jinnah that EastPakistan would become an inde-pendent country in 25-30 years.However, his former Press advis-er, Alan Campbell-Johnson, toldNayar, “Mountbatten’s memoryprobably fails him. I should haveknown if he had made such aremark.” Cyril Radcliffe, whodelineated the border, concurredwith Campbell-Johnson: “You arethe first person to tell me this. Ihad never heard it before.”

One wonders whyMountbatten, who presidedover the bloody Partition anddecapitation of India’s northernfrontier to serve the West in theemerging Cold War, embell-ished the truth. Speaking toLarry Collins and DominiqueLapierre in 1972, Mountbattenclaimed, “I was always con-vinced East Pakistan wouldnever work. The whole conceptof two different peoples beingheld together over all thosemiles by the same religion wasabsolute nonsense. But WestPakistan was something else, Iwanted it to work.... I wanted

Kashmir with them, I did notmuck up my own creation…”(Mountbatten and IndependentIndia, Vikas: 1998: 56)

Nayar says Jinnah sowedthe seeds of separation when,during his first official visit toEast Pakistan, he insisted thatBengalis would have to learnUrdu, Pakistan’s national lan-guage. Yet, in India, Nehruallowed Sheikh Abdullah toimpose Urdu on Jammu &Kashmir, when Kashmiri has arich literary tradition.

Nayar reveals that Nehruhad said, “Even if Kashmirwere to be handed over toPakistan on a platter, Pakistanwould think of some other wayto keep its quarrel with Indiaalive, because Kashmir is onlya symptom of a disease and thatdisease is hatred of India.”Surely Nehru realised that theobject of hatred was India’sHindu majority. Though hedoes not say so overtly, Nayarplaces the burden of maintain-ing plurality solely on the Hinducommunity. His ode to NoorJehan should have queried whyfamous artistes in cosmopolitanMumbai went to Pakistan. Why,when Maharaja Hari Singh rana secular Government, did hiscourt artist, Malika Pukhraj, goto Pakistan? Above all, why didSaadat Hasan Manto?

(The writer is Senior Fellow,Nehru Memorial Museum andLibrary; the views expressed arepersonal)

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Sir — Flagging the deadly impactof air and water pollution, thatannually claims at least ninemillion lives globally, a new UNreport termed air pollution as the“single biggest environmentalhealth risk in the world” andcalled for urgent action to savehumanity from the disastrousconsequences of environmentaldegradation. It is rather unfortu-nate that many children andaged people in our country suf-fer from diseases caused due toair and water pollution. TheGovernment must take urgentsteps to address the problem.

Najmul HudaMumbai

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Sir — A huge amount of publicmoney is being wasted in allow-ing senior officials in the legis-lature, judiciary, bureaucracyand public sector undertakingsto travel in business class ratherthan economy class in domesticflights. All airlines may be direct-ed to reserve the first two rowsof the economy class for those

officials entitled to travel inbusiness class. However, thosedesirous of travelling in businessclass can do so by paying the dif-ference in fares. Frequent-flier-points earned should go into theaccounts of the Governmentdepartment concerned ratherthan in the names of individuals.

SC AgrawalNew Delhi

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Sir — The Election Commissionof India (ECI) has launched a new‘Citizens Vigil’ or CVIGIL app forthe benefit of voters ahead of thegeneral election. The app hasbeen launched with a primaryfocus to enable the citizens reportany instances related to non-com-

pliance of Model Code of Conductduring the elections. The app fur-ther acts as an effective feedbackmechanism for a voter to reach outdirectly to the ECI.

The effort made by the ECIto monitor voter feedback effec-tively through apps is welcomebut it benefits only smartphone-savvy users, especially in urbanand semi-urban areas. A novice

voter has no other way to reachout to ECI other than the newlylaunched app. The electoral bodyshould now strive to open allpossible digital and offlinemodes of communication tofurther strengthen the voterfeedback mechanism. It shouldalso initiate various effectivecommunication tools like a ded-icated postal mail box, an (nodalofficer based) email id, toll-freeSMS feedback mechanism, socialmedia handles and also a newsingle window website to regis-ter only the feedback (similar toCPGRAMS portal).

Varun SDBengaluru

��Sir — China has once againblocked India’s bid to declareMasood Azhar as a global terror-ist. But we must not be disheart-ened as placing terrorists on suchlists does little to combat terror-ism. India must strengthen itsinternal security mechanism toprevent any future attacks.

ShivanshVia email

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There is something about old proverbs.Take, for example, an old adage byAbraham Lincoln: “You can fool all the

people some of the time, and some of the peo-ple all the time, but you cannot fool all the peo-ple all the time”. Certainly, this maxim is spot-on with regards to the Pulwama tragedy andits repercussions. Despite Pakistan’s bestefforts to steer the narrative to its advantage,the truth that is emerging — though in dribsand drabs — paints a very different picturefrom what it would have wanted us to believe.

For example, take a look at perceptions inPakistan about the suicide attack itself. Notonly most of us, but also much of the world,especially analysts focussing on this region, hadlittle hesitation in accepting the involvementof Pakistan-based terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), in the suicide bombingattack, especially since the JeM itself publiclyclaimed responsibility. Yet, let alone thePakistani establishment, not even one respect-ed journalist or analyst over there uttered aword of condemnation against the JeM for thisheinous act. Instead, they insisted that theattack was motivated by the brutal treatmentmeted out to Kashmiri locals by the Indiansecurity forces.

This is contrary to what has widely beenreported about Pakistani Senator MushahidHussain Sayed, a senior politician and formerCabinet minister, who quite categoricallystated that “what happened in Pulwama inFebruary, in my view, was Pakistan’s finest hourafter the nuclear tests of 1998.” Moreover, whilePakistan’s Foreign Minister acknowledgedJeM chief Masood Azhar’s presence inPakistan, the Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) blandly con-tradicted him a day later, unequivocally stat-ing that the JeM does not exist in Pakistan asit is a “proscribed terrorist organisation”.

Similarly, with regard to the Indianresponse, the ISPR spokesperson was the firstone to admit that the Indian Air Force (IAF)had crossed the Line of Control (LoC) and car-ried out a strike in the vicinity of Balakot. He,however, attempted to mislead and obfuscatethe issue by hinting that this attack was in thevicinity of the village, in close proximity to theLoC in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), andnot the town by that name in KhyberPakhtunkhwa, deep inside Pakistan, where itactually struck. While the IAF claimed to havehit the terrorist training camp, the spokesmaninsisted that no damage or casualty wasinflicted to the “seminary” located over there.However, the cordoning of the area by thePakistani Army and its refusal till date to allowany access raises questions and suggests anattempt to cover up.

Finally, there was the confusion about twoIndian fighter aircraft having been shot downwith both pilots taken prisoners. It, however,turned out that the IAF’s claim at that time ofhaving lost one MIG-21, piloted by WingCommander Abhinandan after he had downeda Pakistani F-16, was correct. Bizarrely, notonly has Pakistan continued to deny the lossof its own aircraft, it even insists that the F-

16s in its possession were not involved in oper-ations in this sector. This despite the IAF hav-ing produced evidence.

Clearly, obfuscation and deceit are embed-ded in the DNA of Pakistan, especially in themanner it deals with India and the internation-al community. We have been experiencing thissince decades. Remember, Pakistan denied anyconnection to the so-called “raiders”, who near-ly captured Srinagar in 1948 or to the “mili-tants”, who occupied the Kargil heights in 1999,only to recant and accept its involvement sub-sequently. It isn’t as if it reserved such treat-ment for India alone as Iran and Afghanistanhave also found to their cost. Therefore, in thepresent instance, to have expected Pakistan tobehave any differently was sheer fantasy,especially given that the military uses proxywar to retain its pre-eminent role within thecountry and the region.

The sad truth is that its very foundationwas built on the British construct — that it wasreligious antagonism and not its requirementfor a pliable state that would help protect itsinterests in the region — which resulted in thehorrors of partition. The formation ofBangladesh put paid to the two-nation theo-ry and secret Cabinet documents in the UK,subsequently declassified, showed up thedeceitful lengths the British had gone to in fur-thering their own interests.

Leaving aside Pakistan’s desperate attemptsto change perceptions what should be ofimmense concern to all right-thinking people,here is the horrendous manner in which thisissue is being used by politicians and the mediato gain attention for their selfish agenda evenif it is at the cost of the nation’s interest. Neitherfree speech nor the looming elections justifysuch crass behaviour, especially since it isimpacting the credibility and apolitical natureof our armed forces.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modideserves credit for his bold decision to aggres-sively respond in the manner that he did, it isno excuse for the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) to use the strike to tom-tom its nation-alistic credentials, going so far as to shameful-ly depict Wing Commander Abhinandan inposters used for election rallies. Prime MinisterModi may well scream ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’from the rooftops but it has not in any waystopped his Government from refusing to grantOne Rank One Pension (OROP) to militaryveterans or opposing the grant of NonFunctional Upgrade (NFU) in the SupremeCourt using all manner of lies. That the NFUis already authorised to the Civil Services andthe Central Armed Police Forces, therebychanging long-standing civil-military parity,has been deliberately ignored. Their efforts tohumiliate and lower the prestige and standingof the armed forces continues unhindered.

It isn’t as if other political parties, includ-ing the Congress, have behaved any less hyp-ocritically. On the one hand, they have “offi-cially” supported and praised the action of theIAF, while at the same time senior leaders ofthese very parties have questioned the effica-cy of the attack, despite the Air Chief havingclearly stated that the targets selected weredestroyed as they had planned. It appears thatthey believe that the only manner in which thesteadfastness and strength of character ‘Modi’displayed on this occasion can be negated isby deliberately destroying the credibility of ourmilitary’s achievements. While we may beuncertain of who will succeed at the hustings,there is absolutely no doubt that our armedforces have lost out yet again.

(The writer is a military veteran, a consul-tant with the Observer Research Foundation andVisiting Senior Fellow with The PeninsulaFoundation, Chennai)

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Arenewed effort to cleanse theGanga was made by PrimeMinister Narendra Modi

under the Namami Gange pro-gramme, more than three decadesafter a similar attempt was made byformer Prime Minister RajivGandhi at Varanasi. Pursuing thisseemingly elusive objective, anoth-er round of foundation stone-layingceremony for projects in Bihar,estimated to cost a whopping �700crore, was taken up with much fan-fare, this time in Patna.

National Mission for CleanGanga (NMCG), under the Ministryof Water Resources, RiverDevelopment & Ganga Rejuvenation,plans to spend �452.24 to prevent

flow of 670 mld (million litres perday) of sewage into Ganga while�243.27 has been earmarked forimproving the Patna riverfrontinvolving construction of new ghats,promenade and community-cum-cultural centre among others.

The Namami Gange pro-gramme, which is undertaking thismassive task as an IntegratedConser vation Mission, wasapproved as a flagship programmeby the Union Government in June2014. With a budget outlay of�20,000 crore, it has the twin objec-tives of effective abatement of pol-lution, conservation and rejuvena-tion of the national river, Ganga.

Additionally, under the GangaGram project, the Ministry of WaterResources, River Development &Ganga Rejuvenation has identified1,674 gram panchayats situated onthe bank of river Ganga in five States(Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,Jharkhand and West Bengal). A sumof �829 crore has been released tothe Ministry for the construction oftoilets in 1,674 gram panchayats offive Ganga basin States.

NMCG is developing infra-structure for sewage treatment,surface cleaning, afforestation alongthe river bank, monitoring indus-trial effluents, development of riverfront, saving biodiversity andimproving public awareness. Withseven thrust areas and 21 actionpoints, it has enough on its plate toqualify as a separate Ministry.

Efforts to clean up Ganga hadstarted as early as in 1979, when theCentral Board for the Preventionand Control of Water Pollution wasdirected to undertake a comprehen-sive survey, and its report ultimate-ly formed the basis for setting up ofthe Central Ganga Authority (CGA)in February 1985. The GangaProject Directorate (GPD) wasestablished as a wing of theDepartment of Environment, witha budget of �350 crore to adminis-ter the cleaning up of Ganga and torestore it to pristine condition,with the Ganga Action Plan (GAP)launched on June 14, 1986, byRajiv Gandhi in Varanasi.

From 1993 onwards, GAP-1was extended as GAP-2 to cover

four major tributaries of Ganga —the Yamuna, Gomati, Damodarand Mahananda — and furtherbroad-based in 1995 with the inclu-sion of other rivers and renamed asthe National River ConservationPlan (NRCP). Also, 34 other riverswere taken up for cleaning with thesame model of GAP.

However, while GAP has man-aged to spend less than �4,000 crorein three decades, the reconstitutedbody (NMCG) has already spent�5,650 crore, and for year endingMarch 31, 2019, projects worth�2,295 crore are expected to becompleted. With an outlay of�20,000 crore for the period 2015-20, NMCG is aiming big with 267projects sanctioned so far costing�26,360 crore, of which 82 havebeen completed.

A comprehensive managementplan for Ganga was the result of abrain storming report by a consor-tium of seven IITs in January 2015.Adopting a comprehensiveapproach, NMCG has broughtGanga and its tributaries under one umbrella.

Declared as an authority inOctober 2016 under theEnvironment Protection Act of1986, NMCG has since then takena collaborative approach, converg-ing multiple agencies at both theCentral and State level under oneroof with an aim to achieve the goalof clean Ganga within the nextdecade or so.

With a catchment area of8,61,494 square km, the Gangabasin covers no less than 11 States,five of them being on the mainstem.The river itself is 2,525 km longwith a 1,000 km long stretch inUttar Pradesh alone. Around 43 percent of India’s population dependson it while it makes 57 per cent ofthe nation’s agricultural land fertile.

Ninety seven towns on themain river stem have 155 drains dis-charging 2,853 mld of sewage intoit. In addition, 1,109 gross pollut-ing industries, mainly tanneries,paper, pulp, sugar, textile, dyeingand distilleries are discharging toxiceffluents into it. Tributaries such asRamganga and Kali also contributeto the polluting load. Its elimination

is indeed a gargantuan task.Realising that the scores of

interception and diversion drains,sewage treatment plants and sewagepumping stations need to be oper-ated and maintained efficiently —which has been one of the weaklinks in the efforts made to clean theriver over the last three decades —it has opted to award Operation andMaintenance contract for a periodof 15 years to SPVs, which involvevarious stake holders.

With an allocation of a dedicat-ed budget for five years and adopt-ing a hybrid annuity-based PPPmodel, NMCG hopes to achieve theso far elusive objective, especially asthese funds are non-lapsable. NMCGhas already attracted notice as oneof the four short-listed initiatives —which includes Ofwat of the UK,Water and Electricity Company ofSaudi Arabia and Water ServicesRegulatory Board of Kenya — for thePublic Water Agency of the YearAward of 2019. Hopefully it wouldemerge as the winner.

(The writer is former member,railway board)

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Cash-strapped Jet Airways on Monday saidit has grounded four more planes, taking

the number of aircraft that are non-opera-tional due to non-payment of lease rentals to41.

Grappling with financial woes, the car-rier has been looking at ways to raise freshfunds.

“... An additional four aircraft have beengrounded due to non-payment of amountsoutstanding to lessors under their respectiveleasea agreements,” the airline said in a fil-ing to the stock exchanges.

As mentioned earlier, the company isactively engaged with all its aircraft lessorsand regularly providing them with updateson the efforts taken to improve the liquid-ity, it said.

“Aircraft lessors have been supportive ofthe company’s efforts in this regard,” it said,adding that all efforts are being made to min-imise disruption to its network.

Meanwhile, the shares of the companyclosed at �237, up 0.87 per cent on the BSE.During the day, it touched a high of �238 anda low of �233.40.

At the NSE, the shares closed 0.68 percent higher at �236.75.

Earlier this month, Jet AirwaysChairman Naresh Goyal said that more than50 of its aircraft were not operating.

As per its website, the airline has a fleetof 119 planes.

“The payment of interest due on March19, 2019, to the debenture holder will bedelayed owing to temporary liquidity con-straints,” it said in a separate filing.

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With the clouds of uncertainty darkening overthe survival of his 25-year-old airline, Jet

Airways chairman Naresh Goyal on Monday soughtto reassure the 16,000-strong staff of the efforts torestore the “much needed stability” in its operationsat the earliest.

Since a larger number of its over 100-fleet aregrounded leading to drastically curtailed operations, theairline is struggling to prevent a nose-dive somehow.

Goyal, in a communication to employeesMonday evening also said talks with the airline’sstrategic partner Etihad Airways and SBI-led lendersare going on. The UAE carrier owns 24 percent inthe airline.

“Once again I assure you that I am personallycommitted to have the resolution process complet-ed as soon as possible and restore the much-need-ed stability to our operations at the earliest,” Goyalsaid in a letter to the staff who are apprehensive oftheir future with the airline.

The airline is sitting on a debt pile of over �8,200crore and has defaulted thrice since January, includ-ing on some forex debt.

On 14 February, its board had approved a bank-led- resolution plan, whereby the SBI-consortium oflenders will become the largest shareholders in theairline and Goyal would exit the management as thechairman and board member.

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The Indian rupee onMonday surged by 57 paise

to close at an over seven-month high of 68.53 against theUS dollar, also marking a sixthstraight session of gains, drivenby sustained foreign fundinflows and narrowing tradedeficit.

Besides, weakness in thegreenback against major glob-al currencies and a heavy buy-ing in domestic equities aidedthe forex market sentimentdomestically.

The dollar index, whichgauges the greenback’s strengthagainst a basket of six curren-cies, fell 0.20 per cent to 96.40.

At the Interbank ForeignExchange, the rupee opened at68.92 and advanced to a highof 68.45 during the day. Itfinally settled at 68.53, a rise of57 paise against the dollar overits previous close.

This was the highest clos-ing level for the rupee sinceAugust 1, 2018 — when itended at 68.43.

On Friday, the domesticcurrency had closed at 69.10against the US dollar.

In the last six trading ses-sions, the rupee has appreciat-ed by 161 paise.

“Indian rupee continuesadvancing for the sixth day in

a row, marking the best per-former among the Asian cur-rencies in today’s trade amidbetter than expected trade dataand foreign fund flows,” said VK Sharma, Head PCG &Capital Markets Strategy,HDFC Securities.

According to data releasedby the Commerce Ministry, themarginal 2.44 per cent rise inexports as well as lower importsof gold and petroleum productsin February significantly nar-rowed the country’s tradedeficit to $9.6 billion.

Meanwhile, the FinancialBenchmark India Private Ltd(FBIL) set the reference rate forthe rupee/dollar at 68.6088and for rupee/euro at 77.7827.The reference rate forrupee/British pound was fixedat 91.1184 and for rupee/100Japanese yen at 61.50.

Further lifting market sen-timent, foreign institutionalinvestors (FIIs) put in �1,822.99crore on a net basis on Monday,provisional data showed.

“Overseas investors havebought $2.4 billion in equitiesthis month, taking net foreignpurchases to $4.7 billion, thehighest in Asia. Global fundshave raised holdings of rupee-denominated bonds by $833million this month, HDFCSecurities’ Sharma said citingexchange data.

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Extending its winning streakto the sixth consecutive

session, the BSE Sensex gainedover 70 points on Monday asstocks made further headwaypowered by unabated foreignfund inflows and narrowingcountry’s trade deficit amidpositive global cues.

The 30-share benchmarkadvanced to hit a high of38,369.59 as buying activitygathered momentum. However,investors locked in gains push-ing the key index into the neg-ative zone to hit a low of37,952.10 before bouncing backto end 70.75 points, or 0.19 percent, higher at 38,095.07.

Likewise, the 50-stock NSENifty finished 35.35 points, or0.31 per cent, higher at11,462.20 after hitting the day’shigh of 11,530.15 and a low of11,412.50. Among Sensex com-ponents, Bajaj Finance toppedthe gainers list by surging 2.84per cent.

Other winners werePowerGrid, RIL, Axis Bank,Tata Steel, Kotak Bank,IndusInd Bank, Tata Motors,NTPC, HDFC Bank, AsianPaints, ICICI Bank, ITC, SunPharma and Yes Bank, risingup to 2.29 per cent.

On the other hand, MarutiSuzuki, Hero MotoCorp, BhartiAirtel, HCL Tech, M&M, L&T,

Infosys, Vedanta Ltd, BajajAuto, TCS, HDFC, ONGC,Coal India and HUL, retreat-ed up to 2.56 per cent.

A 15 per cent or 1,500-point rally has ensued in theNifty 50 since October 2018.The market’s internals are thehealthiest they have been since2017, said Sunil Sharma, ChiefInvestment Officer, SanctumWealth Management.

“First and obviously, dra-matic inflows have come infrom FIIs. Capitulation by retailhas happened, and short cov-ering by the bears seems to beunderway. Next, capital sittingon the sidelines that is waitingout the elections, is going tostart feeling the pull of runawayequity prices against idle cash,”he said.

On a net basis, foreigninstitutional investors (FIIs)bought shares worth a net of�4,323.49 crore on Friday,while domestic institutionalinvestors (DIIs) were net sell-ers to the tune of �2,130.36crore, provisional data availablewith BSE showed.

“What we are witnessingand what markets seem to betelegraphing is a tilt backtowards synchronised stimu-lative policy at some point inthe medium term future by theFed, ECB, Japan and Chinesecentral banks,” he said, addingthat these environments are

pro-emerging market assetsand pro emerging currencies.”During the day, BSE realtygained the most rising 2.46 percent, oil and gas 1.55 per cent,PSU 0.94 per cent, bankex0.88 per cent, metal 0.79 percent and FMCG index up 0.42per cent.

However, auto index, cap-ital goods, IT, teck and health-care indices ended lower by upto 1.36 per cent.

Investor sentiment alsoremained upbeat on narrowingtrade deficit, according to mar-ket experts.

The marginal 2.44 per centincrease in exports as well aslower imports of gold andpetroleum products inFebruary significantly nar-rowed the country’s tradedeficit to $9.6 billion, datareleased by the commerce min-istry Friday showed.

Strengthening gains, therupee appreciated 54 paise to68.56 against the US dollar intra-day. Global crude benchmarkBrent crude futures fell 0.15 percent to $67.06 per barrel.

Investor sentiment was alsobuoyed tracking a firmingtrend in most Asian boursesand a higher opening inEuropean shares on speculationthat the US Federal policymakers will lower interest rateforecast after weaker-than-fore-cast economic data on Friday.

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Billionaire Anil Ambanion Monday thanked his

brother Mukesh and his wifeNita for extending “timelysupport” after his debt-ladenf irm Rel ianceCommunication cleared pay-ments due to a ser vice

provider just a day beforeexpiry of deadline set by theSupreme Court.

“My sincere and heartfeltthanks to my respected elderbrother, Mukesh and Nita,for standing by me duringthese tr ying t imes, anddemonstrating the impor-tance of staying true to ourstrong family values byextending this timely sup-port. I and my family aregrateful we have movedbeyond the past, and aredeeply touched with this ges-ture,” he said in a brief state-ment issued through thecompany spokesperson.

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The Government on Mondaycautioned against fake web-

sites claiming to be registrationportal for Kisan Urja Surakshaevam Utthaan Mahabhiyan(KUSUM) scheme and saidsuch websites may be misusingthe collected data.

The scheme, formulatedby the Ministry of New andRenewable Energy (MNRE),aims to promote use of solarenergy among the farmers.

“It has been noticed thatfew websites have cropped upclaiming to be registration por-tal for KUSUM scheme. Suchwebsites are potentially dupinggeneral public and misusingdata captured through fakeregistration portal,” the min-istry said in a statement.

The MNRE further saidthat DISCOMs or electricitydistribution companies andstate nodal agencies shallimplement the KUSUMscheme for which the detailedguidelines will be issued soon.

All potential beneficiariesmust avoid depositing any reg-istration fee or sharing impor-tant data on fake websites, itsaid, adding “they can contacttheir DISCOMs/state renew-able energy nodal agencies orcan visit official portal of theministry for necessary infor-mation related to the scheme.”

Last month, the CabinetCommittee on Economic Affairs(CCEA) approved launch of

KUSUM scheme with the objec-tive of providing financial andwater security to farmers.

The scheme consists ofthree components — 10,000MW of decentralised ground-mounted grid connectedrenewable power plants, instal-lation of 17.50 lakh standalonesolar powered agriculturepumps, and solarisation of 10lakh grid-connected solar pow-ered agriculture pumps.

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An RBI-appointed panel onMonday sought sugges-

tions from the public on long-term solutions for economicand financial sustainability ofMSME sector, including waysto improve credit rating mech-anism to help them raise fundsat competitive rates.

The panel is undertaking acomprehensive review of thesector to identify causes andpropose long-term solutions forits development, the centralbank said in a statement.

The committee was set upin January under former Sebichairman U K Sinha.

MSMEs contribute about45 per cent of the manufactur-ing output, over 40 per cent oftotal exports of the country,and around 8 per cent of thecountry’s GDP.

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The Government has con-stituted an inter-minister-

ial Panel for monitoring, sanc-tioning and implementationof projects under the �10,000-crore FAME-II programme,aimed at incentivising cleanmobility.

The ProjectImplementation andSanctioning Committee willbe chaired by the secretary inthe Department of HeavyIndustries and will have othermembers including NITIAayog CEO, Department forPromotion of Industry andInternal Trade secretary,Department of EconomicAffairs secretary and secre-taries in the power and newand renewable energy ministry,among others.

The Department of HeavyIndustries, in an order, said thecommittee is constituted “forthe purpose of overall moni-toring, sanctioning and imple-mentation of the scheme, withimmediate effect and until fur-ther orders”.

The panel’s terms of refer-ence includes modifying cov-erage parameters for variouscomponents and sub-compo-nents of the scheme, reviewingdemand incentives annuallyor earlier based on price andtechnology trends, modifyinglimits of fund allocationsamong different segments andtypes of vehicles, reviewingthe cap for maximum incentiveper vehicle, and deciding otherscheme parameters for itssmooth roll out.

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Mahindra & Mahindra’sFarm Equipment Sector,

India’s tractor manufacturerand a part of the $20.7 billionMahindra Group, on Mondayannounced the winners of theMahindra Samriddhi IndiaAgri Awards (MSIAA) 2019.Instituted in 2011, theMahindra Samriddhi IndiaAgri Awards are bestowed uponfarmers and institutions to rec-ognize their noteworthy andpurposeful contributions in thefield of agriculture, the back-bone of the Indian economy.

The Chief Executive Officerof NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kantwas the Chief Guest at theawards ceremony. Shri SanjayAgarwal, Secretary, Departmentof Agriculture, Cooperation andFarmers Welfare, Governmentof India was also present at theawards ceremony.

At the awards, Mahindrareinforced its commitment toFarming 3.0, the new age inagriculture defined byInnovation and Technology.

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The incidence of type I Diabetes is rising by three per cent everyyear, with nearly 75,000 new children being diagnosed to have

T1DM every year. Type I Diabetes is also known as InsulinDependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM) and Juvenile OnsetDiabetes Mellitus. As of 2018, there were at least 97,000 cases ofjuvenile Diabetes reported in India alone, which is alarming.

Type I Diabetes is an autoimmune disorder which affects thepancreas, and stops the production of insulin. Insulin is a hormonewhich plays a number of roles in the body’s metabolism. Insulinregulates how the body uses and stores glucose and fat. Many ofthe body’s cells rely on insulin to take glucose from the blood forenergy. The hampering of the production of insulin leads tolaboured functioning of other internal systems. The circulatorysystem, nervous system, skin, eyes, feet and others, are all impact-ed by Diabetes.

Juvenile Diabetes has been connected to viral infections likemumps, rubella, and even in-utero enteroviral infections, alongwith early stage nutrition. However, one of the most direct andapparent causes till date has been genetics. Men and women withtype I Diabetes tend to stand a greater chance of passing on thedisease to their children.

In case of women with type I Diabetes, the risk is higher incase of pregnancies after the age of 25. About one in every sevenpeople with type I Diabetes have a condition called Type IIPolyglandular Autoimmune Syndrome. This condition leads tothyroid and malfunctioning of adrenal gland. The child’s risk ofdeveloping Diabetes in this case is as high as 50 per cent.

It is crucial for families to be aware of the risk factors, and thepossible impact on their children. The best way to prevent/pre-pare for possibility of the disease is regular screening, regardless.

There are tests that can accurate-ly assess risk of Diabetes, bifur-cated below.�Glycosylated Hemoglobin:Which tells us the average bloodsugar level over the last two tothree months, to identify whetherwe are at a risk of developing dia-betes or already have Diabetes �Post-diabetes: After beingdetected with diabetes:�Insulin level: The main anabol-ic hormone of the body, regulat-ing the metabolism of carbohy-drates, fats and protein.�C peptide level: As a means of

distinguishing type I diabetes from type II.�Antibodies, GAD and other pancreatic antigens�Glutamic Acid Decarboxylace Antibodies (GADA or Anti-GAD): This test looks for antibodies built against a specific enzymein the pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin and Insulin AutoAntibodies (IAA).

In addition to attacking beta cells, the immune system in peo-ple with type I Diabetes also targets insulin. This test thereby, looksfor those antibodies that target insulin

While, these are tests that directly indicate diabetes, there arecertain other tests can also prove to be indicators of developingdiabetes and should be regularly monitored like lipid profile, kid-ney profile tests, thyroid tests, skin & eyes

Additionally, there are molecular tests which can be under-taken to assess the genetic root. Type I Diabetes is determined bythe presence of one or more autoimmune markers. One can gettested to assess the levels of these, to determine the possibility ofdeveloping type I diabetes, or complications thereof.

Diabetes can’t be cured (yet), but it can be controlled. Growingwith Diabetes can be quite challenging for kids, from physical aswell as an emotional point of view. Children with Diabetes requirebalanced nutrition, exercise, and most importantly, support fromthose close to them.

Medical science is striving endlessly to ensure easier manage-ment of the disease, to enable young patients of type I Diabetesto lead fulfilling lives. In a situation with so much at stake, fore-warned is definitely forearmed, and it falls on parents, doctors,and the adults in their lives to ensure that we take this responsi-bility.

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'�&��: Cayenne peppers are a type of chilipepper. They belong to the nightshade family of

flowering plants and are closely related to bell peppers andjalapenos. Cayenne peppers are a popular spice used inmany different regional styles of cooking, and they havebeen used medicinally for thousands of years.

The capsaicin in cayenne peppers has metabolism-boost-ing properties. It helps increase the amount of heat yourbody produces, making you burn more calories perday.

Cayenne pepper mayhelp boost the stomach’sdefense against infections,increase digestive fluidproduction and helpdeliver enzymes tothe stomach, aidingdigestion

It is full of beta caroteneand anti-oxidants that support yourimmune system. It aids in breaking up and moving congestedmucus and once this nasty mucus will leave the body, the symp-toms of the flu or cold will diminish.

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AStatistics by theWHO indicatethat there are

about 466 million peopleacross the world with dis-abling hearing loss. This number is like-ly to increase to 900 million by 2050 if noaction is taken. The need of the hour is tolay emphasis on early identification andintervention for hearing loss. More thanone billion young adults aged between 12and 35 years are at risk of hearing loss dueto exposure to higher recreational noiselevels. Around one-third of people over 65years of age are affected by disabling hear-ing loss.

It is recommended that people who arecontinuously exposed to a noise level ofgreater than 85 dB should be providedhearing protection. Tips from Heart CareFoundation of India:

�Traffic flow around areas like schoolsand hospitals should be minimised asmuch as possible. Signboards displaying‘Silence zone’, ‘No honking’ must beplaced near them.

�Ban the use of horns with jarringsounds, motorbikes with damaged exhaustpipes, and noisy trucks.

�The use of loudspeakers in partiesand discos, as well as public announce-ments systems should be checked and dis-couraged.

�Noise rules must be stringent andstrictly enforced near such silence zones.

�Plant trees along roads and in resi-dential areas is a good way to reduce noisepollution as they absorb sound.

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When you are playingHoli, you forget thedamage the colours

can do to your skin, eyes andhair. But that doesn’t meanthat you can’t enjoy this fes-tival of colours. Here aretips that one can follow:

Putting lots ofhair oil is an ageoldtrick to prevent thehair from getting

damaged. Ensure thatyou oil them at least anhour before you startplaying with colours. Onecan use almond oil.

Drink lots of fluids. Keepyourself well hydrated this willprevent your hair from gettingdry and more vulnerable toharsh colours.

Ensure that you tie yourhair properly, braid them. A bet-ter way would be to use a scarfto tie your hair. This will prevent

the hair from damage.After you have finished

playing with colours, it is impor-tant to wash your hair proper-ly. First, thoroughly wash your

hair with plain water toget rid the colour.

Use a mild sham-poo. Leave it onfor about 10minutes. Rinseand apply a con-ditioner. You can

make your ownshampoo using

shikakai, reetha andorange or lemon peel. If

your hair feel dry, oil your hairagain and leave it overnight.Wash off, the next day.

Apply a deep cleansingconditioner. Apply a hair maskusing lemon, eggs, yogurt andamla after two to three days totreat the damage done to yourhair.

The weather is just right to playHoli. While most people take care

of the skin and nails when theyplay with colours, many forget

that haircare is just as important.ROISHANI DEVI shares tips to

prevent damage to them

Recently Pharmazz India Pvt Ltd pre-sented its nine years of research done

for developing life saving drugs at a con-ference. These drugs will be helpful incases of accidents, maternal mortal-ity, diarrhoea and burns as thesecan control excessive blood lossor fluid loss from the patient’sbody to such an extent thatdoctors can effectively getextra time of 6-7 hours to savethe life. The event was attend-ed by medical researchers fromIndia and the US.

Twenty highly-credentialed Indiansare executing human trial tests in 25 majorIndian medical institutions, that addressshock from serious blood loss, stroke fromreduced blood supply to the brain,Alzheimer’s disease and injuries to thespinal cord.

“This conference shows Indian doc-tors and scientists collaborating on new

technological answers to life-threateningchallenges faced by millions of Indians,”Pharmazz Co-founder Anil Gulati, PhD,MD, said.

Millions of Indians are afflicted bythese injuries and diseases every

year. For instance, we have veryhigh rates of car crashes. Peopleare injured and bleed. Millionshave lost their lives from theblood loss. Our drug has

already saved lives in clinical tri-als, and we hope it will be success-

ful and save more,” Dr Gulati said.Considering the preclinical and clin-

ical data till date, the chances of survivalare very high. The drug has shownremarkable effects in patients of hypov-olemic shock. Three important surrogateclinical endpoints for hypovolemic shockare blood pressure, blood lactate and base-deficit. The results demonstrate all threepoints significantly (P<0.001) improved.

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Can diet alter your health happiness? Theanswer to this is a certain yes. One has to

be thoughtful while eating if you love to behealthy and in shape. Festivals are a sweet delightwe all know. However, too much of sweetnesscomes hand in hand with excessive calorieswhich can hamper your body’s weight and healthas well.

Festivals like Holi in which sweet indulgenceis a must with no escape formula, it becomeshard to avoid sweet as well as its cravings.Certainly, there is no fixed diet which can be fol-lowed during a festive season. Also, each per-son will have their different set of rules. Like forexample a diet suggestion by our grandma anda plan given by a gym instructor will matchnowhere during these festivities. But it is an indi-vidual’s responsibility to kill those little sweetcraving monsters jumping inside or to satisfythem with a little or optional indulgence. It hasto be you and only you who can decide what andhow much you are going to eat by following yourming or a heart. �What are the basics of diet which need to bekept in mind during festivals?

Festive season diet is very essential and abeginning to the basics is by stocking the righttype of food to munch on during celebrations.Getting your hands on the right ingredients isthe best to watch your calories and keeping yourdiet healthy even amidst the celebrations.

You can choose to go nutty over the nutssince they contain the healthy fats which can helpyour skin and hair without any further harm-ing to weight. A handful of dry fruits like raisins,almonds, figs, pistachio, apricots, and cashews,are few healthy eating as well as gifting optionsduring this Holi. Dried fruits can also be addedto several home-made low-calorie sweets dur-ing the festival as well.

It is also important to avoid deep ghee indul-gence along with white sugar and instead,switching over to sweets made from jaggery ordark chocolate with dry fruits will be a far bet-ter option. Sweets made from white flour, sugar,and ghee must be minimised to keep excessivecalories at bay. Eating healthy as well as giftinghealthy items must be a proper mantra this Holi.

Spicing of healthy festivals can be done withsavory and sweet foods by adding cloves, saf-fron, cinnamon, cardamom, and black pepper-corns and others. Besides giving a good flavourto foods these are enriched with several biolog-ical properties to help the health with severalbenefits. These are also readily available in ourIndian kitchens as well.

To keep yourself healthy and fit you can relyon the following tips:�Try to stick to your daily work out regime ifyou follow any. Because little more food indul-gence with a break of workout regime can trig-ger a sudden weight put on. �Cooking fiesta during festivals is a stress busterfor many. However, empty stomach cookingmight result in snacking on each and every stuffyour eyes get hold on. To avoid this, it is best iseither to cook while you are not too hungry orkeeping unhealthy snacks out of your easy reachin kitchen closets. �Grocery shopping during pre-festival prepa-rations must be linked with some principles tofollow. Like opting for only healthy foods to storeand avoiding unhealthy stuff from the beginning.�Refrain from non-veg meals and opt for morenatural vegetables and fruits in meals. Else opta mantra to keep a balance between veg and non-veg diet with mindful diet instead of binging onnon-veg entirely giving the festival a reason toyourself for overeating. �Always remember to stay hydrated and haveplenty of water and other fluids.

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W AT C H THE SCALES

While it’s a pleasure playing withcolours on Holi, it’s alwaysquite a difficult task to get ridof the same after the festiveparty. Here are few of the tips

which you can consider for post-holi cleansingof your skin, hair and nails:

First, you can opt for cleaning up after Holiis to shampoo generously, and wash off thecolours from the hair. It is also advised to oil thehair again after the shampoo in an order to lockthe moisture in the hair. Second, you shouldclean your skin after Holi celebration with a face-wash which is gentle, and not harsh on the skin.

Third, you can put some aloevera gel on theareas affected by the colors or sun burn causeddue to the long exposure in sunlight. It can alsobe helpful to reduce the itching on the skin,caused due to the mixing of glass into the Holicolours.

Fourth, you can clean up after playing holi.Gently massage on your face and body withsesame seed oil as it helps in protecting the skinalong with helping in removing the residues ofthe colours.

The final measure which you can take toclean up after playing holi is to apply a hair maskor hair pack. It can be well prepared by usingthe domestic remedies like making a mixture ofhenna powder, lemon juice and curd. Apply iton the hair and wash after an hour, it will makeyour hair free from harmful chemicals of theHoli colours and will ensure that your scalp iscompletely clean, while locking back the nour-ishment in the hair.

Ensure that if you find any serious issue pop-ping up, then you need to consult a rightly qual-ified dermatologist for the same.

0��/�!��&�"��0�&Holi — the festival of colours is finally here,

bringing a lot of fun and joy with itself. It’s a greatamuse to drench into the hues of colours but atthe same time it can be hazardous to our skin,nails as well as hair, as it can result into acne,rashes and many other skin diseases. It’s quitean important thing to make yourself preparedwell in advance for the same, you can do so bykeeping the points in mind.

First, apply ice cubes and massage with thesame for around ten minutes as it will close theopen skin pores thereby, preventing the acne toappear on the skin. Second, you can putalmond oil on your whole body as it acts as awall between the skin and the color, preventingthe colour sticking onto the body. It’s alsoenriched with Vitamin E, providing nourish-ment to the body. The third thing which you cando to prepare yourself before indulging into thecolours is to put sunscreen on the whole bodyto shield your skin from the exposure to the per-ilous UV Rays, which can also lead to tanning.The fourth thing which you can do for a safeHoli is to put petroleum jelly around the finger-tips, nails, in between the fingers, at the back-side of ears, and on the lips as well. The finalmeasure which you can take for a hassle free Holiis to shampoo as well as condition your hair wellbefore playing Holi too, because if the pre-dirtof the hair mixes with the colours, it can dam-age your hair at a great extent resulting intorough and dry hair, which can further lead toa huge amount of hair-fall.

�/��'�Playing Holi is fun, but it’s hectic to get back

your skin in the very same condition as Holicolours grasp the nourishment of the skin andthereby, turn it dry. Here are some of the tipswhich you can adapt for a healthy skin, post Holicelebration. One should also consult a qualifieddermatologist for taking extra special care.Follow the following steps and get rid of all yourjitters.

First, have a bath in lukewarm or normalwater to remove the dry colours from the skin.Do not use soaps as it is alkaline in nature andcan be harsh on the skin, and can cause furtherdryness. For face, choosing cleansing cream overfacewash is a better option as it will sooth theskin and won’t be causing any itching or irrita-tion. Gently massage the cleansing lotion all overthe skin and remove it with a moist cotton.

Second, after washing the facepack, you canapply moisturiser all over the body.

Third, coconut oil can be used as a skincleanser and to lock the moisture in the skin.

Fourth, to remove the colours from the fin-gertips, or around the nails you can mix the rosewater into the warm water and dip your handsand feet in the same.

Fifth, you can do to take care of your skinis not to use any body or face scrub, exfoliators,after at least 48 hours of playing holi.

Finally, you can adapt to take care of yourskin is to avoid going out in much exposure tothe sun.

�� Holi colours can lead to skin rashes or skin

infection which can result into severe burningand itching that can be very much harmful to

skin. What you can do as a measure of precau-tion is to keep a first-aid box, or medicine pouchhandy with yourself so that if any emergencystrikes, it can be helpful. In that you can keepsome antiseptic powder, solution, cream, andlotion, bandage, anti-burning cream, band aid,anti-allergic tablets, body oil, moisturiser, petro-leum jelly, face and hand cream, sunscreen toprotect the skin from sunburn. These solutionscan act as a saviour for your skin from any kindof hazardous skin diseases or rashes that can becaused due to the Holi colours.

��%Many skin treatments should be avoided

during the festive season of Holi as it can affectadversely to our skin as there is colour mixedin the air and everywhere throughout the atmos-phere. It can cause severe skin diseases like skinpeeling, rashes, itching, or irritation and others.Skin treatments which involve exfoliation in anyof the forms like scrub, peel, or dermabrasionshould be avoided before or just after Holi,instead you should go for mild hydrating andoxygen infusion rejuvenation treatments to prepyour skin and make it healthy from within. Youcan use home based remedies like aloevera asit moisturises the skin, reduces inflammation,and thereby, turning the skin cool, it also helpsin reducing the peeling of the skin. It soothesthe irritated skin and helps in reducing sunburn,and areas which feel hot and painful.

However, the best way to take precaution ofskincare during Holi is to consult a qualified der-matologist for the same. %��(�<��(��!��<��

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Our eyes are amongthose body parts,which are extremely

susceptible during Holi. Usesof synthetic colours that arecomposed of chemicals pos-sess a great threat to one’s eyes.The artificial green colourused on Holi comes fromcopper sulphate, which cancause several eye infectionsand allergy.

Eye infections are causedby bacteria, chemicals or othermicrobiological agents. Thereare different types of eye infec-tions with different causesand treatments. Most com-mon eye infections are con-junctivitis/pink eye, keratitis,endophthalmitis, blepharitis,sty, uveitis, cellulitis and ocu-lar herpes. �EYE ALLERGY: Eye aller-gy post-Holi is fairly common.Symptoms of eye allergyinclude redness of the eye,itching, tearing, burning, sting-

ing and watery discharge.Eyelids become inflamed and,sometimes, you may experi-ence blurred vision. The longerthe synthetic colour is in theeye, the more damage it willcause.

You can save yourself fromeye allergy post Holi by wash-ing your eye immediately withplain water and continuewashing for at least ten min-utes. The particles of thechemical will wash away andyou will feel relaxed. There area number of eye drops that canhelp you relieve eye allergy.

�TESTS TO DIAGNOSEEYE INFECTION: Tests fordiagnosis of eye infectionslike viral retinitis, endoph-thalmitis, and Fuch’s uveitis.Molecular panels for diagnos-ing these conditions are basedon advanced molecularmethods and provide greaterthan 90 per cent sensitivitywith the assurance of 100 percent specificity, leading tofaster and effective treat-ment.

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British Prime MinisterTheresa May was making a

last-minute push on Monday towin support for her EuropeanUnion divorce deal, warningopponents that failure toapprove would mean a long —and possibly indefinite — delayto Brexit.

Parliament has rejected theagreement twice, but May aimsto try a third time this week ifshe can persuade enough law-makers to change their minds.Her aim is to have the dealagreed before EU leaders meetThursday for a summit inBrussels.

But there was no sign of abreakthrough, and the govern-ment faces a deadline of the endof Tuesday to decide whetherthey have enough votes to passthe deal, so that a vote can beheld on Wednesday.

May's spokesman, JamesSlack, said Monday that thegovernment would only hold avote if there is “a realisticprospect of success.” May islikely to ask for a delay to Brexitat the Brussels summit. If a dealis approved, she says she will askthe EU to extend the deadlineuntil June 30 so that Parliamenthas time to approve the neces-sary legislation.

If it isn't, she will have toseek a longer extension that

would mean Britain participat-ing in May 23-26 elections forthe European Parliament —something the government iskeen to avoid.

May's goal is to win overNorthern Ireland's small, power-brokering Democratic UnionistParty. The DUP's 10 lawmakersprop up May's Conservativegovernment, and their supportcould influence pro-BrexitConservatives to drop theiropposition to the deal.

Still, May faces a struggle toreverse the huge margins ofdefeat for the agreement inParliament. It was rejected by230 votes in January and by 149votes last week.

Influential ConservativeBrexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg saidhe would wait to see what theDUP decided before making uphis mind on whether to supportMay's deal.

“No deal is better than a baddeal, but a bad deal is better than

remaining in the EuropeanUnion,” he told LBC radio.

British Foreign SecretaryJeremy Hunt said Monday hesaw “cautious signs of encour-agement” that the deal mightmake it through Parliament thisweek.

After months of politicaldeadlock, British lawmakersvoted last week to seek to post-pone Brexit. That will likely averta chaotic British withdrawal onthe scheduled exit date of March29 — although the power toapprove or reject a Brexit exten-sion lies with the EU, whoseleaders are fed up with Britishprevarication. EU leaders saythey will only grant it if Britainhas a solid plan for what to dowith the extra time.

“We have to know what theBritish want: How long, what isthe reason supposed to be, howit should go, what is actually theaim of the extension?” GermanForeign Minister Heiko Maastold reporters in Brussels.

“The longer it is delayed, themore difficult it will certainly be.”Belgian Foreign Minister DidierReynders agreed, saying: “Weare not against an extension inBelgium, but the problem is —to do what?” Opposition toMay's deal centers on a measuredesigned to ensure there is nohard border between the U.K.'sNorthern Ireland and EU mem-ber Ireland after Brexit.

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The Maldives on Mondayreaffirmed its “India-First

Policy”, saying it looks for-ward to working closely withIndia on all issues and willremain sensitive towards itssecurity and strategic concernsas External Affairs MinisterSushma Swaraj held talks withthe country's top leadership.

The Maldivian leadersalso expressed commitment tosupport India's efforts to com-bat terrorism, particularlycross-border terrorism, andcrimes such as piracy, organ-ised crime, narcotic drugs andhuman trafficking.

Swaraj arrived here onSunday on a two-day visit, thefirst full-fledged bilateral tripfrom India to the strategicallylocated Indian Ocean islandnation after the government ofPresident Ibrahim MohamedSolih came to power inNovember last year.

She held talks withPresident Solih, ForeignMinister Abdulla Shahid, for-mer President MohamedNasheed and other top leaders.

The External AffairsMinister and Solih took stockof the progress made in bilat-eral relations since his visit toIndia in December 2018.

Swaraj and her Maldiviancounterpart Shahid duringtheir meeting on Sunday dis-cussed the entire gamut ofbilateral relations and alsonoted the number of high levelexchanges, between the twocountries over the past threemonths.

They recalled the visit ofPrime Minister Narendra Modito attend the swearing-in cer-emony of President Solih inNovember as well as his visit toIndia in December.

The bilateral talks betweenthe Foreign Ministers was fol-lowed by a joint ministerialmeeting in which Swaraj held

discussions with Shahid,Defence Minister MariyaAhmed Didi, Finance MinisterIbrahim Ameer and other min-isters.

She also met MaldivianHome Minister Imran Abdullaon Monday and discussed stepsto continue the upward trajec-tory in bilateral relationship.

“Foreign Minister Shahidreiterated his government's“India-First Policy” and saidthat his Government looksforward to working closely with the Government ofIndia on all issues.

He also reiterated that theGovernment of Maldiveswould remain sensitive towardsIndia's security and strategicconcerns, “ according to a jointstatement.

Maldives is an importantcountry for India's maritimesecurity and there have beenconcerns in India over China'sgrowing influence over thecountry in the last few years.

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Agunman killed three peo-ple and wounded nine oth-

ers on a tram in the centralDutch city of Utrecht, sparkinga manhunt that saw heavilyarmed officers with snifferdogs zero in on an apartmentbuilding close to the shooting.

Authorities immediatelyraised the terror alert for thearea to the maximum level,and the city's mayor said a“terror motive” was the most likely theory.

Dutch military policewent on extra alert at Dutchairports and at key buildingsin the country as the Utrechtmanhunt took place.

A few hours after theshooting, Utrecht policereleased a photo of a 37-year-old man born in Turkey whothey said was “associated withthe incident.” The photoshowed a bearded man onboard a tram, dressed in a dark

blue hooded top.Police warned citizens not

to approach the man, whomthey identified as GokmenTanis, but call authoritiesinstead.

The Utrecht attack camethree days after 50 people were

killed when an immigrant-hating white nationalist openedfire at two mosques inChristchurch, New Zealandduring Friday prayers. Therewas no immediate indication of any link between the two events.

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Pope Francis met Mondaywith Cardinal Philippe

Barbarin, France's highest-ranking Catholic official, whowas expected to tender hisresignation after receiving a six-month suspended jail sentencefor failing to report sex abuseby a priest under his authori-ty.

The Vatican confirmed themeeting took place within thecity state but did not provideany details.

Barbarin, 68, is the mostsenior French cleric caught upin the global paedophilia scan-dal that has rocked the CatholicChurch. He said after hisMarch 7 conviction that hewould travel to Rome to tenderhis resignation. If accepted,Barbarin would become “bish-op emeritus” of the southeast-ern French city of Lyon butremain cardinal, meaning hecould still vote on a new pope.

The Argentine pontiffcould take several weeks todecide whether to accept theresignation. The pope has pre-viously defended the cardinal,saying in 2016 that his resig-nation before a trial would be“an error, imprudent”.

But Francis said inFebruary that “no abuse mustever be covered up, as has hap-pened in the past”, or be under-estimated. A court in Lyonfound Barbarin guilty of failingto report allegations that apriest, Bernard Preynat, hadabused boy scouts in the Lyonarea in the 1980s and 1990s.

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Australian counter-terror-ism police on Monday

searched two homes linked tothe family members of thegunman accused of killing 50people at two mosques inChristchurch to obtain mater-ial that may assist New ZealandPolice in their investigationinto the terror attack.

The attacker, identified byauthorities as Australia-bornBrenton Tarrant, 28, targetedimmigrants during Fridayprayers. Witnesses said vic-tims were shot at close range.

He was arrested shortlyafter entering two mosques --Masjid Al Noor and Linwood

- with high-powered weaponsand shooting dead 50 people,including five Indians.

The New South Wales(NSW) Joint CounterTerrorism Team on Mondaytwo properties on the state'smid-north coast. One of theproperties being searchedbelongs to Sharon Tarrant, themother of the attacker.

''Around 8.30 this morning(local time) officers from theNSW JCTT executed a searchwarrant at a home in the townof Sandy Beach, near CoffsHarbour. A short time later, asecond search warrant wasexecuted at another home inLawrence near Maclean,'' thestatement said.

''The primary aim of theactivity is to formally obtainmaterial that may assist NewZealand Police in their ongo-ing investigation,' it said adding''the family of the Australianman arrested in Christchurchcontinues to assist police withtheir inquiries.'

Police further assured thecommunity that that there wasno information to suggest acurrent or impending threatrelated to this search warrants.

The NSW JCTT compris-es representatives from theAustralian Federal Police, NSWPolice Force, the AustralianSecurity IntelligenceOrganisation (ASIO) and theNSW Crime Commission.

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Pakistan's former militaryruler Pervez Musharraf has

been admitted to a hospital inDubai after suffering a reactionfrom a rare disease that hasweakened his nervous system,his party has said.

General (retd) Musharraf,75, who has been living inDubai since March 2016, is fac-ing the treason case for suspending the Constitution in 2007, a punishable offencefor which he was indicted in2014.

A conviction for high trea-son carries the death penalty orlife imprisonment.

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The J-10 fighter jets of theChinese air force will par-

ticipate in Pakistan's NationalDay parade on March 23, state-media reported Monday.

The J-10 fighter jets of thePeople's Liberation Army AirForce's Bayi Aerobatic Teamarrived in Pakistan on Saturdayin preparation for a flight per-formance there, Global Timesreported.

Contingents from coun-tries including China, Saudi

Arabia and Turkey will partic-ipate in the parade, withMalaysian Prime MinisterMahathir Mohamad being theguest of honour, the reportsaid.

Hu Zhiyong, a research fel-low at the Shanghai Academy ofSocial Sciences' Institute ofInternational Relations, toldthe daily that China sendingfighter jets to celebrate PakistanDay is symbolic of the friend-ship between the two countries

noting that Pakistan is an “all-weather friend” of China.

Recently China announcedplans to upgrade the JF-17fighter jet being jointly pro-duced by both the countries.

In addition to the J-10'sflight performance, Chineseanalysts expect more Chineseelements at Pakistan Dayparade as the country operatesa variety of Chinese weapons.

The Pakistan Air Forcealso operates the ZDK-03 early

warning aircraft, which is devel-oped by China and is reportedlycapable of aerial detection andsharing real time battlefieldinformation.

The MBT-2000 main battletank developed by China NorthIndustries Corporation(Norinco) is designated the Al-Khalid in the Pakistan Army,the report said.

Pakistan also operates thelikes of China's HJ-8 anti-tankmissile and FM-90 air defencemissile, according to ChinaMilitary Online.

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It’s scientifically proven that childrenwho don’t get adequate amount of sleep,

develop cognitive and behavioral prob-lems years later. Getting less sleep hurtsthese cognitive processes in many ways.First, it impairs attention, alertness, con-centration, reasoning, and problem solv-ing. This makes it more difficult to learnefficiently. Second, during the night,various sleep cycles play a role in consol-idating memories in the mind. If youdon’t get enough sleep, you won’t be ableto remember what you learnt and expe-rienced during the day. Teenagers are alsoprone to depression. Lack of sleep canalso have negative effects on children’sperformance in school, during extracur-ricular activities and even in social rela-tionships as it plays a critical role in think-ing and learning. Conditions like atten-tion-deficit/hyperactivity disorder(ADHD), lack of concentration and highrisk of obesity are linked to too little sleepin children. Everyone needs at least ninehours of sleep per night.

A recent study conducted by GodrejInterio revealed that children are one ofmost sleep-deprived segments in India.They launched the sleep@10 campaign in2017 that focused on addressing the ris-ing concern over sleep deprivation. It wasfound that over 93 per cent of Indians aresleep-deprived.

The study is based on the insightssourced from Indians that have takentheir sleep test on the sleep-o-meter. Over3.5 lakh Indians have taken the sleep testand Delhi was found to be one of mostsleep-deprived city in India. The studyrevealed that the problem of not sleep-ing on time wasn’t only restricted to theadults in Delhi but kids as well whereinonly 60 per cent of respondents below 18years feel drowsy and tired after wakingup which shows that sleep deprivation ison a rampant rise among the next gen-eration. Around 45 per cent of the chil-dren respondents admitted that ‘screentime’, including television and phone,could be delaying their sleep hours while41 per cent of the children respondents

said they slept after midnight while theideal time would be around 10 pm.

According to the sleep-o-meter data,respondents between 18-25 age group,29 per cent go to sleep between 12 mid-night to 2 am while 58 per cent rarelysleep at 10 pm which is declared as anapt time for sleeping. Among respon-dents between 26-54 age group, 36 percent get less than six hours of shut eyewhile only eight per cent respondents areable to sleep at 10 pm. For the respon-dents above the age of 55 years, 41 percent sleep after 10 pm but before 12 amwhile 40.4 per cent rarely sleep aroundthat time.

The exam times are stressful notonly for children but everyone aroundthem and especially for parents. One ofthe first steps parents must take to tack-le anxiety and stress related to exams isto ensure that children are gettingenough sleep. Getting adequate sleep ishighly essential during exams as ithelps them to focus, retain, and recallinformation better.

More than a perfect house or bal-cony, it is the number of stampson passports that milleninals

save for today. With India estimated tobecome the youngest country by 2022,the Indian millennials are majorlyinfluencing the country’s travel trends,which show that travel has become away of life for many young Indians andthey are structuring their work andfinancial plans to ensure frequent get-aways. They don’t share their parentsinterest of investing in commodities.

Keeping in mind that Indians aretravelling more than the global average,Nalini Gupta, head of Costa Cruise,India, says that the trend of travel loanshas emerged and now many fin techcompanies are offering personal andretail loans for people to sponsor theirtravel packages. “However, the youngIndian and especially the Gen Z, whichgrew in the midst of the great recession,

have also become fiscally conscious trav-ellers, who will pre book to save moneyand unlike their parents do not makelast minute travel decisions,” she says.

According to Karan Anand, headrelationships, Cox & Kings, “The trendof taking more than one holiday by mil-leninals has led to many of them opt-ing for travel loans. These are for des-tinations such as the Far East andEurope. Even those who take shortbreaks to Dubai any Abu Dhabi fall inthis bracket. These loans have a tenureof 18 to 24 months which make themattractive.”

Heena J Akhtar, co founder,TripXOXO says, “Travel loans havebecome prevalent in the last three

years. Patrons are opt-ing for their dream

trips because theycan upgrade the

trips

to international destinations espe-cially for their honeymoons.Travellers are also exploring high-end experiences such as a balloonflight with breakfast and falconshow, a helicopter ride, Abu DhabiFormula 1 or a skydive which maketheir holidays memorable. Peopledo pre-bookings for summersbefore prices increase.”

The cruise industry in India isalso expanding rapidly. This is

because the cruise product meetsmany of the requirements of trav-ellers, who want good food, well-planned entertainment activities,Instagrammable experiences andvisiting unique ports. Nalini says,“Cruise options provide great valuefor money propositions and morethan anything are hassle-free. Giventhe growing demand of Indianswanting to cruise, it is estimatedthey will exceed Chinese cruise pas-sengers soon. The major cruisedestinations are Singapore, Europe,Dubai and Maldives.” Since cruis-es don’t come cheap, finance offersa good option to travellers.

Anand Menon, brand leader,FCM Travel Solutions, pointstowards the summers as the seasonfor the maximum number of vaca-tions. He says, “There’s an increasein demand and therefore the cost

of travel packages isbound to go

up due to the rise in airfares and therate of exchange (ROE). However,the rate of interest (ROI) for trav-el loans doesn’t fluctuate signifi-cantly throughout the year, unlikeROE which can witness fluctua-tions dramatically.”

For instance, he says, on agiven day the rate for one eurocould be �80 and after a fewmonths, it could be �87. Thus,the cost of travel packages canonly be affected by the ROE.Also, this year, since the holidayseason is approaching, we havewitnessed an increase in queriesby 38 to 39 per cent in March vis-à-vis January and February.Customers who book earlyalways benefit.

People usually take loansbetween �2.5 lakh and �5 lakh forinternational destinations. Themost common destinations areEurope, Australia and SouthAfrica to travellers who mightotherwise choose regular hauntsin Goa, Thailand or Sri Lanka.

Actor Mahesh Babu who never shiesaway from giving it back to the soci-

ety, especially to his fans, reached out imme-diately to his ardent fan from Srikakulamwho’s suffering from cancer and had a wishof meeting his favorite actor.

A source reveals, “Mahesh believes thatthe position at which he is today is becauseof their loyalty and love. His heart meltedwhen he came across this request. Amidstshooting for his forthcoming Maharshi, hetried every possible way to reach out to theofficial authorities and set up a meeting withhis fan (Parvin Bybi) at the earliest.

“Mahesh didn’t want to inform any onebefore going. He wanted to keep it is assmooth as possible. He met her early in themorning and spent quality time. He’s nowin touch with her parents as well to con-stantly know about her health and helpthem out in every way possible.”

Bollywood names such as AmitabhBachchan, Akshay Kumar and

Anupam Kher have mourned the deathof Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar,who died at the age of 63.

A slew of actors rememberedParrikar and called him a “gentleman,intelligent and a good soul.”

Parrikar died at his private residenceon Sunday after a prolonged battle withpancreatic cancer. He was diagnosedwith advanced pancreatic cancer inFebruary last year and in and out of hos-pitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and NewYork since then, had turned “extremelycritical” on Sunday, the Chief Minister’sOffice wrote on social media.

Here’s what the entertainmentcelebrities have wrote on twitter:

Amitabh Bachchan: ManoharParrikar CM Goa, passes away. A gen-tleman to the core, simple in demeanourand well respected. Spent few shortmoments with him... very dignified,fought his illness bravely. Prayers andcondolences.

Anupam Kher: Deeply deeply sad-dened to know about the untimelydemise of Manohar Parrikarji. He wasone of the most real, dignified, intelligent,warm, down-to-earth and honest personI had met. He had a great quality ofinspiring people so effortlessly. Will misshim. Om Shanti.

Akshay Kumar: Extremely sad athearing about the demise of ManoharParrikarji. I feel blessed to have had thefortune of meeting and knowing a sin-cere and good soul as he was. Heartfeltcondolences to his family.

Kay Kay Menon: Manohar Parrikar,a fine example of ‘simple living, highthinking’. A personality that inspiredconfidence in every position that heserved for the Nation. RIP Sir.

Randeep Hooda: Man of few words,simple, epitome of integrity and efficien-cy, a straight shooter, defence minister,

three-time chief minister of Goa, awayfrom the trappings of a person in power,IITian, well mannered, a true servant ofthe nation, an example to follow for oneand all... Salute Manohar Parrikar.

Swara Bhasker: RIP ManoharParrikar. Condolences and strength tothe family in this tragic time of grief.

Shankar Mahadevan: A big voidwhich can never be filled. An extreme-ly sad day for India as we have lost oneof the finest leaders, Manohar Parrikar.My heartfelt condolences and prayers forthe family.

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One gets a feeling of trav-elling back in time. Theimage is familiar, yet itis not, for it has beenstripped of any appear-

ance of modernity, including thechaos that becomes normal whenthere is an abundance of human pop-ulation. An elephant cart pulling aload next to the footsteps of Delhi’sJama Masjid has the possibility ofholding the viewer enthralled. Thenthere are the chariots ofMahabalipuram, no longer placedwithin the sanitised surroundings oftoday but rather appearing to bestraight out of Mowgli’s world akinto the old, abandoned palace inhab-ited by King Louie.

The 144 prints by Thomas andWilliam Daniel, which featured inthe six volumes of Oriental Scenerypublished between 1795 and 1808,occupy the top floor of theDrishyakala exhibition, which isbeing displayed at Barrack number4 inside the Red Fort, a monumentwhich can be considered to be theheart of Shahjehanabad. Put togeth-er by the DAG, these works are apart of one of the four exhibitionsdone with the Archaeological Surveyof India as part of the public-privatepartnership. They represent the storyof India between the 16th century tothe Independence.

These exhibitions, which haveworks from private collections,museums and more, took morethan six months to put together. “Wegot in touch with curators from out-side DAG in 2017 and startedtowards the end of the same year. Butit was in the last six or seven monthsthat work started on it in full swing,”says Poonam Baid, Researcher andProject Coordinator, Exhibitions &Publications, DAG.

There was a definite idea behindputting this up at a central placewhich does not fall into the realm ofa traditional art gallery. “The ideabehind putting these up at the RedFort, which features on the list ofmust-visit for everyone and not justart afficionados, is to cater to thecommon people who would not oth-erwise visit something like the ArtFair. Besides, it would give them asense of belonging to their heritage.This would enable them to see thenational art treasures together, whichhave never been seen before,” saysPoonam. The effort seems to be bear-ing fruit as about 2,000-3,000 peo-ple are coming in every day. The waythey browse and even the discussionsthat they have among themselvesmake it apparent that this is their firstbrush with art at close quarters. “Wewant to hold their attention. Our pri-mary motivation was to reach out to

them with important art works,” shesays.

So, while the ground floor hasthe works of nine National ArtTreasures, Abanindranath Tagore,Amrita Sher-Gil, GaganendranathTagore, Jamini Roy, Nandalal Bose,Nicholas Roerich, RabindranathTagore, Raja Ravi Varma, and SailozMookherjea, the first floor is dedi-cated to portraits, which includethose which are academic as well asroyal, by impressionists and expres-sionists, and also popular printsduring the period of freedom strug-gle and Independence. “Many ofthese canvasses and water colourswere done to build a momentumtowards popularising art in thatperiod and that is how prints camein the picture,” says Poonam. It is onthe third level that the works ofDaniels feature.

However, there are also overlaps.So while Raja Ravi Verma madepaintings, he also set up the litho-graphic press and became the firstperson to print a picture in India. “Hewas a pioneer who set up a press andchurned out oleographs and litho-graphs of his paintings so that everyhome had a Raja Ravi Verma as these

were representation of divinities,” shepoints out. However it is not just theprints which make the cut at theexhibition. Verma was a masterdraughtsman and so his sketch-books too have been put on display.

At the entrance itself, flanked oneither side by rooms that display theworks of the nine artists, is the IndianConstitution adopted on January 26,1950 which was not a printed doc-ument. It was entirely handcrafted bythe artists of Shantiniketan under theguidance of one of the nationaltreasures, Acharya Nandalal Bose,with the calligraphy texts done byPrem Behari Narain Raizada inDelhi.

Another important work by theartist is the Haripura that Nandlal didfor the 1938 Congress session. “Wefelt that this was important due to itshistorical context and people shouldsee it. But there is also a mytholog-ical print as well as nature studies thathe did in Shantiniketan and somecollages. So all the genres of the artistand what all of them represent canbe seen,” says Poonam.

An early work of Jamini Roy forinstance does not show the influenceof the Kalighat Pat (Kalighat paint-

ing), which was a style of art withbold sweeping brush-strokes, that theartist is known for. On the contrary,it can be classified more in the genreof an impressionist landscape whichis representative of his early works.

Similarly Amrita Sher-Gil’sworks are showcased not just by herpaintings but also by a sculpture oftwo wild cats — one of the few doneby the artist.

“The works of these nine artistscannot be exported,” informsPoonam. She also says that this is oneof the biggest exhibitions which hasworks of all of the nine artists underone roof. “We selected the paintingson the basis of every genre, differentkinds of work and when it was doneby the artist. It also includes unseenworks,” she adds.

As an aside to this particularshow, there are also timelines of eachof the artists which highlight theimportant dates in their lives.Additionally, there are also films oneach of the exhibitions to enable thepublic to better understand the idea,the artist as well as the works on dis-play.

Moving on to the next floor,there are portraits of all sizes and clas-

sifications. “People are interested inthe rajas and the royalty. A lot ofthought process has gone into whatwould people like to see. You canengage with an academic portrait andlook at the ornamental jewellerywhile being exposed to a legacywhich has been put together,” shesays.

Many of these paintings look likethey have been done in a studio set-ting. Poonam explains the reason forthis. “These paintings often took offfrom photographs. The artists wouldimagine a studio with drapes andcushions and include these in thepaintings.”

There is also an interesting storybehind how Indian artists starteddoing portraits. Poonam says, “Whentravelling European artist like FrankBrooks were given commissions topaint portraits, the Indian artistsrealised that the foreigner is gettinggood money for painting themaharaja. Moreover, making a life-size portraits was royal and regalwhich added more value to their artwhich the Indian artist was quick tounderstand. As a result, they toostarted doing commissioned worksduring the 18th and 19th century.”Interestingly, while the subjects aredocumented, often there is no traceof the artists who remain anonymoussince they were doing commis-sioned portraits and did not sign it.

A really massive painting madeby Bourn and Shepard shows NawabMohammad Ali Khan Bahadur(1881-1947) of Malerkotla, Punjabdone in the 1930s. An oil on canvas,it shows him in his regalia. Thecolours are fresh and well-preserved,including greens which have tenden-cy to fade away. “It still has its orig-inal frame which weighs 380 kg andit required 12 people to carry it. Themassive 108.0 x 60.0 inch paintingwas brought in separately and framedhere,” says Poonam.

However, it was not just the roy-alty which was getting their likenesspainted. There is an entire section onParsis, who were the first people whogot into trades and businesses. “Theroyalty and the rajas were gettingtheir portraits done and since theParsis considered themselves next toroyalty, they too commissioned art-works. They used to sit in the studiosettings and got these made byartists like Pithawala or PestonjiBomanji as they had the money toget it done.”

Another section is devoted toartists who have made self-por-traits like the ones by PestonjiBomanji or Kishori Roy. There isalso a photograph which has beenhand-tinted to make it look like apainting.

On this floor, there are moreprints, all of which are again anony-mous. Most of the time, it is only thename of the press that one comes toknow of, while the artists would byand large remain anonymous. Theprints are divided into sections, sothere is a representation of theheads of each of the princely states,a recreation of the 1911 Coronationor even one of George V and theroyal consort Queen Mary in the onewhich pertains to the time of theBritish Raj. There is a separate sec-tion on the freedom struggle, whichis rich in its representation of theheroes of the time, primarilyMahatma Gandhi and SubhashChandra Bose. What is interestingto note is that while the ones fromthe British Raj are more formal andstiff, these are more of a represen-tation that is rooted in popular cul-ture. “A lot of literature was beingwritten, which included caricatureand sarcasm, during the freedomstruggle. It was important to giverepresentation through means ofvisual media as people can associ-ate this easily with what they werereading,” says Poonam.

The post-Independence sectionincludes not just calendars butadvertisements as well. The chang-ing mood in the country can best besummed up by the addition of ‘Shri’which is considered auspicious to thename of what was essentially aBritish company.

“We have tried to put togetherthe prints according to how it washappening. These prints startedwith Brutish era and go on to theFreedom Struggle andIndependence. So while being divid-ed into sections, it is also chronolog-ical but then some of the events werehappening simultaneously. So over-laps are obviously there are manythings were happening simultane-ously,” says Poonam.

Two smaller rooms also havenewspapers, many of which have sincethen shut, on display. However, it isthe third section on the second floorwhich is really captivating. TheDaniels — William and Thomas —who were uncle and nephew were alsoartists who travelled across India start-ing from Calcutta in 1788. They dida series of prints. “The Daniels didsomething which was interesting.They started at one point and finishedat another and whatever they saw, theydocumented. So it is essentially a doc-umentation of India at that time,” shesays. Not surprisingly, these havebecome an important historical doc-ument. As has the exhibition.

(The Drishyakala exhibition is on display till July 31 at the

Red Fort.)

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Emails and messages have altered theway we sit and communicate withpeople today. Purchasing stamps to

post letters has become a bygone prac-tice. We have lost the art of detailing andthe pleasure of waiting to instant com-munication. Nevertheless, nostalgia con-tinues to be the favourite among the oneswho lived it, and as well the ones whohave only heard of it through their ances-tors.

Presented by the Gujral Foundation,Property of a Gentleman, Stamps from theNizam of Hyderabad’s Dominions, a US-based collector Hanut Ewari has inher-ited a collection of rare stamps and stampsheets from his grandfather, NawabIqbal Hussain, who also served as thepostmaster general of Hyderabad underthe reign of seventh and last ruling Nizamof Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan. Theexhibition, curated by Pramod KumarKG, showcases the collection that hasgrown under the stewardship of Ewariwith a plethora of stamps from across theglobe.

Says Pramod, “The oldest stamp inthe Ewari collection is from 1866. Thecollection consists of more than threemillion stamps and valuable, unusual andrepresentative pieces from across whatwere called the princely states, includingrelated paraphernalia such as blind andwet stamps, invitation cards, original let-ters, calligraphy art, postcards, revenuestamps of the region, erroneous stamps,seals and monograms.”

Given that the stamps hail from the1860s, they were in a very good shape

and properly maintained when he firstlooked at them. He says that it is also anevidence of how the paper used for thesestamps has yellowed but didn’t decaythrough the years. “They were properlymaintained and in a healthy condition.We didn’t have to restore any of it,”informs Pramod.

Well, archives and repositories aremuch more than just shelves stacked withhistorical records. They are a crucial col-lection of the different kinds of materi-al cultures inherited over the ages. Thecurator, who has been associated with afew national archives since a long time,

believes that India, being a country withvast diversity and history, can easily useand develop more archives for a deeperunderstanding of history and hence, abetter development of the future. He feelsthat we don’t know how to use ourarchives appropriately and effectively.“Museums and archives are a record thatthis existed and in a particular way. If welook at them closely, we will learn aboutthings that are completely forgotten orignored in the modern-day advance-ments. I feel that archives should be morethan just about oral histories or past inci-dents. There is a lot to record for future

references like poetry, transition in lan-guage, artifacts, writings, graphic art andvarious other things not talked abouttoday,” says he.

He narrates that when the Ewarifamily approached him for the curationand presentation of their collection, hefelt it was important since it “is some-thing that will talk about the print his-tory of India. These stamps reflect thepostal history and transition of visualand graphic arts in the country. With thetechnological advancement, theseobjects, which once played an essentialrole in the communication network,

seem insignificant.” He says that itimportant to make the current gener-ation realise that they were originallyused as modes of payment to transfermessages and facilitate revenue collec-tion, and taxation.

The exhibition also aims to helppeople take into account that apart fromtheir fiscal purposes, many states alsoutilised them as a way of celebrating thematerial heritage and culture of theirregion. The stamps show the use ofexquisite calligraphy in diverse lan-guages and architectural tropes thatexisted in the erstwhile Hyderabad.

Well, one of the most special ele-ments of the exhibition, Pramod says,is the “focus on the architecture of theNizam’s dominion” on the stamps. Thecollection also includes the first stampever issued by the Nizam governmentin the city; a wide range of postagestamps in different colours, values,inscriptions and sizes; stamps featuringmonuments from across the Nizam’sdominion as well as the last stamp issuedby the princely state, with the most spe-cial one being the rare stamps issued inthe city to commemorate the victory ofthe Allied Powers in the Second WorldWar.

“There is also Penny Black (the firstadhesive postage stamp in the world in1840), and a King George VI series ofIndian postage stamps depicting differ-ent modes of transportation used todeliver mail,” he adds.

(The exhibition is on till March 24at Bikaner House.)

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The chunk of cement that fell from the ceiling of a her-itage building missed an octogenarian former Union

Minister — a tenant — but has brought to the fore the poorupkeep of the historic structures in the city, mainly dueto the absence of proper laws.

Ironically, the 109-year-old ParkMansion on the iconic Park Street hadreceived a prestigious heritage awardfor restoration of the colonial erastructure from the Kolkata MunicipalCorporation (KMC) and the IndianNational Trust for Art and CulturalHeritage (INTACH) in 2013.

West Bengal HeritageCommission (WBHC) Chairman and artist ShuvaprasannaBhattacharya said on an average two buildings of heritagevalue were being destroyed every day in Kolkata, the firstcapital of colonial India where the British East IndiaCompany had set up its base.

“It is unfortunate that in Kolkata, almost two build-ings of heritage importance are destroyed every day dueto the lack of proper law. I have no idea if the people areaware of this,” Bhattacharya said.

The city has as many as 1,475 heritage buildings.Bhattacharya said due to complex ownership a huge ances-tral property, which upholds the city's culture and heritage,remains stuck in legal limbo.

“Due to this, we also cannot take up the property. Someamendments should be made to the existing laws to safe-guard the heritage properties. There should be a commit-tee to look after the interest of all the parties,” Bhattacharyasaid.

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Dominic Thiem denied Roger Federer a recordsixth Indian Wells title, beating the Swiss great

3-6, 6-3, 7-5 on Sunday to claim his first ATP Masters1000 crown.

The 25-year-old Austrian, ranked eighth in theworld, had fallen in two prior Masters finals, bothin Madrid.

But he rallied for a third career win over Federerin five meetings, his first over the Swiss on hardcourts.

Thiem earned the crucial break in the 11th gameof the final set, connecting on two sharply angledpassing winners to give himself a break point whichhe converted with a stinging forehand winner.

He sealed the match after two hours and twominutes when Federer's backhand found the net andwill now return to a career-high ranking of fourthin the world.

It was the second year in a row that Federer wasdenied in the Indian Wells final. In 2018 he missedout on three championship points as he fell toArgentina's Juan Martin del Potro in the title match.

Federer, fresh off a remarkable 100th career titlein Dubai, remains tied with Novak Djokovic for themost Indian Wells victories with five.

"I think it's not my right to congratulate you, youhave 88 more titles than me," Thiem told Federeras he accepted the trophy.

He's the first Austrian to win a Masters 1000 titlesince Thomas Muster in Miami in 1997.

"It's been a great week for me, even though it did-n't work out," Federer said. "Congratulations toDominic — wonderful week and great play at theend. You deserved it."

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Canadian sensation BiancaAndreescu became the firstwild card to win the WTA

title at Indian Wells on Sundaywith a gritty 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victoryover Wimbledon championAngelique Kerber.

Andreescu, 18, shook off fatigueand rallied from a break down in thethird set to topple the eighth-rankedGerman, who hasn't won a title sinceshe beat Serena Williams in lastyear's Wimbledon final for her thirdGrand Slam crown.

Ranked 60th coming into thetournament, Andreescu will rise to24th in the world with her first WTAtitle.

When she finally converted herfourth match point she kissed thesun-baked court and f loppedspread-eagled on her back.

F��G��'�1&G"If you believe in yourself, any-

thing is possible," Andreescu said asshe hoisted the crystal trophy as theyoungest player ever to win one of

the WTA's prestigious PremierMandatory tournaments.

"It's crazy. Crazy is theword of the tournament forme. Just crazy."

It's another giant step in abreakout season forAndreescu, who finished 2018ranked 178th in the world.

She has racked up 28match wins in 2019 across alllevels, including qualifyingand challenger circuit wins —but Sunday's triumph was acut above.

Andreescu's run to thefinal included rallying from 3-1 down in the third set to beatIrina-Camelia Begu in thefirst round and a 6-0, 6-1 routof former world number oneGarbine Muguruza of Spain,with a three-set win oversixth-ranked Elina Svitolinaputting her into the titlematch.

She showed no sign ofnerves as she opened thematch with a break of Kerber'sserve. It would be all she

needed to take the set withoutfacing a break point herself.

Kerber's consistency andpower from the baseline keptthe less predictable Andreescuat bay in the second. TheGerman came up with a mas-sive hold for 2-1, saving twobreak points before taking a 3-1 lead with her first break ofthe Andreescu serve and fromthere forced the decisive set.

Andreescu follows in thefootsteps of 2018 championNaomi Osaka, who won herfirst WTA title at Indian Wellsto launch a stellar season thathas seen her capture the USOpen and Australian Opentitles and rise to number onein the world.

She becomes the fourthunseeded champion afterSerena Williams in 1999, KimClijsters in 2005 and Osaka.

"Naomi did this last year,"Andreescu said. "Now to beable to have my name besideso many amazing championsit means the world to me."

��

Indian boxing star M C Mary Komsays her decision to skip the

Asian Championships is part of alarger plan to enhance her chancesof Olympic qualification at a timewhen the competition in her weightcategory has become significantly"difficult".

Mary Kom, who claimed hersixth world title last year in Delhi,will be looking to qualify for the2020 Tokyo Olympics in the World Championships inYekaterinburg, Russia. The Asian Championship isscheduled to be held next month in Thailand.

"This year is very important for me. Qualifying forthe Tokyo Olympics is my main aim. Without compet-ing in any competition I cannot qualify for the Olympics.It would be difficult. I have to know all the opponentsin my category (51kg) and judge how strong they are com-pared to me," Mary Kom said.

"I have to first compete in the India Open and thenslowly choose my tournaments in the 51kg category. Iam looking to qualify for the Olympics at the Worlds andthat is why I have decided to skip the AsianChampionships to prepare myself best for the Worlds.

"Without proper planning I cannot qualify for theOlympics. India Open is also very important for me. SoI have decided to choose some important tournamentsto qualify for the Olympics," added the 2012 LondonOlympics Bronze-medallist,

The 2019 AIBA World Boxing Championships willbe held from September 7 to 21.

Mary Kom would be competing in the 51kg catego-ry after her preferred 48kg divisions did not make theOlympic programme. The Manipuri had competed in the51kg category in Germany during a training stint earli-er this month and came back undefeated.

"I have already been competing in the 51kg catego-ry in last one year. I now know the areas where I haveto work upon but fitness wise there are no issues. I justhave to work upon strength, power and stamina," she said.

��

Afghanistan claimed their firstever victory in Test cricket on

Monday, beating fellow newcomersIreland in what captain AsgharAfghan hailed as a historic day forthe war-torn country.

Afghanistan and Ireland bothachieved full member status of theInternational Cricket Council in2017, becoming only the 11th and12th teams to play the long formatof the sport beloved of purists.

Rahmat Shah and IhsanullahJanat scored fifties as Afghanistanchased down 147 to beat Ireland byseven wickets on day four of theone-off game in the north Indiancity of Dehradun.

"It's a historic day forAfghanistan, for our team and ourpeople," Afghan said.

"We have been playing for awhile, we have been playing first-class cricket, so we have that com-posure. The bowlers were verygood, Rashid (Khan), Yamin(Ahmadzai)," he added.

Afghanistan were steered totheir target by a 139-run partnershipbetween Shah, who made 76, anddebutant Janat, who hit an unbeat-en 65.

Shah, a top-order batsman,registered his second fifty of thematch after making 98 inAfghanistan's first innings score of314.

With three needed to win,Afghanistan lost Shah and thenMohammad Nabi in successivedeliveries before HashmatullahShahidi came to the crease and hitthe winning boundary.

"I want to congratulate all thelads in the team, they have beenabsolutely brilliant," said Afghan.

"We have got a few gamesbefore the World Cup and we wantto make every opportunity count,"the captain added.

��0��Cricket has become the nation-

al sport of Afghanistan, torn apartby decades of war, with many of theAfghan players cutting their crick-eting teeth in refugee camps inPakistan.

The country gained one-day

international status in 2009 and havequalified for their second 50-overWorld Cup in England and Wales,due to begin on May 30. They havealso been part of four Twenty20World Cups.

They have made India theirbase since 2015, far away from theguns and bombs of their homecountry. Last year they made theleap to Test cricket, taking on Indiain Bangalore, but were thrashedinside two days.

It was Ireland's second Test too.They played their debut Test againstPakistan in Dublin last year, losingby five wickets.

"It's been a long tour, but thelads have been very good. You arenever tired to play Test cricket, it'salways a special feeling," said Irelandcaptain William Porterfield.

��

World No 24 H S Prannoy will lead a 13-member Indian badminton team at the

Tong Yun Kai Cup 2019, the second editionof the Badminton Asia Mixed TeamChampionships to be held at Hong Kongfrom March 19-24.

In the absence of top shuttlers SainaNehwal, P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth,all of whom have been rested, Prannoy hasbeen entrusted with the responsibility to leada young Indian team.

The troika of Saina, Sindhu and Srikanthhave been rested ahead of the upcomingIndia Open.

In its bid to give exposure to talentedyoungsters, the Badminton Association ofIndia (BAI) has selected seven young shut-tlers in the women's squad for the upcom-ing event, to be headed by Assam's won-derkid Ashmita Chaliha.

The 19-year-old prodigy from Assamalready has a couple of BWF titles under hername and even reached the semi-finals of theNationals this year.

She will be supported by Nagpur shut-tler Vaishnavi Bhale, who was in last year'sUber Cup team.

Shikha Gautam and Ashwini K Bhat havealso made it to the team by virtue of theirfine show at the Nationals, where the duowon the women's doubles title.

Rutaparna Panda, Arathi Sara Suniland UK Mithula are the other selected mem-bers in the women's team.

Among men, 2018 Asian ChampionshipsBronze medallist Prannoy has the three-timenational champion Sourabh Verma for com-pany, in the six-member squad.

World No 45 pair of MR Arjun and

Shlok Ramchandran, who won the Silvermedal at the Nationals, will be spearhead-ing the Indian challenge in men's doublesalong with Arun George and Sanyam Shukla

Eleven teams have been divided into fourgroups in this six-day biennial competition.

The India team has been placed in GroupB along side Chinese Taipei and Singapore.The top two teams from each group willadvance to the quarter-finals.

India reached the quarter-finals in thelast edition where they lost narrowly toThailand.

��

Former India opener Gautam Gambhir onMonday said the BCCI should either snap

all cricketing ties with Pakistan, includingmulti-lateral events, or engage with the arch-rivals at every level as "there can't be con-ditional bans".

Gambhir, who called for snapping tieswith Pakistan after the Pulwama terrorattack, said the Indian Board has to decideand be prepared for the consequences.

"There can't be conditional bans. Eitheryou ban everything with Pakistan or openeverything with Pakistan. What has hap-pened in Pulwama is absolutely not accept-able," Gambhir, who was recently con-ferred the Padma Shri, said.

"I am sure it's going to be difficult forIndia to boycott them in ICC tournamentsbut stop playing Pakistan in the Asia Cup,"said the left-hander.

Outspoken in his support for the armedforces on social media, Gambhir reiteratedthat there should be a blanket ban on engage-ment with Pakistan even if it comes at thecost of being ostracised by the sporting com-munity.

The BCCI had appealed to the ICC tosnap ties with countries from where terror-emanates in a veiled reference to Pakistan.

But the request was turned down at the ICCBoard meeting in Dubai.

Gambhir cited England's forfeiture oftheir 2003 World Cup round-robin fixtureagainst Zimbabwe in protest of the RobertMugabe regime.

"England decided in 2003 and theywouldn't go to Zimbabwe, they forfeited. IfBCCI decides not to play against Pakistan,everyone should be mentally ready to givethose two points," he said.

"There could be repercussions and wemay not qualify for the semi-finals. Nomedia should blame the Indian team if theyplan to boycott playing Pakistan," he said.

Asked what should be done if the twoteams meet in the final, Gambhir said in thatcase, India should forfeit the final.

"Two points are not that important.Country is important, those 40 soldiers wholost their lives are far more important thana cricket match. If we let go of a World Cupfinal, the country should be ready for it.

"Certain section of society says that don'tmix sports with politics but Jawans are farmore important than a game of cricket."

India drew the International OlympicCommittee's (IOC) ire after Pakistani shoot-ers were denied visas for the Delhi WorldCup owing to the Pulwama attack. The IOCsuspended all discussion on hosting ofmajor events in India and told other inter-national federations to halt interactionswith the country.

The IOC demanded that the IndianOlympic Association must provide govern-ment assurance that none of the participat-ing countries would be denied visa in caseIndia host any event. Recently, wrestlingwold body withdrew the Asian junior cham-pionship from India owing to the unresolvedmatter.

Asked if India's stand could lead to asporting boycott of the nation in the nearfuture, Gambhir said that he wouldn't mindthat.

��

International Cricket Council CEODave Richardson on Monday said

he doesn't forsee any threat to thehigh-profile India-Pakistan WorldCup match, insisting that the twoteams are bound by an ICC agree-ment to show up.

"For ICC events, all teams havesigned a members' participationagreement which requires them toparticipate in all the matches of thetournament and (in case of) anyunjustified non-compliance with thatprovision, the playing conditionswill kick in and the points will beawarded accordingly (to the otherteam)," he said when asked about thematter.

There were demands that Indiashould boycott the game againstPakistan in the World Cup inManchester on June 16 in the wakeof last month's Pulwama terrorattack.

"The ICC's motto is clear wedon't want to mix politics withsports."

Asked about the ICC's role in theresumption of bilateral ties between

India and Pakistan, Richardson saidit is completely up to the two crick-eting boards.

The ICC CEO said the percep-tion about Pakistan among the restof the world is slowly changing andthe world body is supporting itsmember board to bring back inter-national cricket to the nation.

He also said that the successfulhosting of Pakistan Super League(PSL) matches will do a world ofgood towards achieving the goal.

Richardson also thanked for-eign players, who made the trip toPakistan for PSL.

"Step-by-step, certainly Pakistanis on the right path," he said, assur-ing ICC's support to the PCB in itsefforts to encourage foreign teams tovisit Pakistan.

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The deadly New Zealand shootingswhich Bangladesh cricketers narrowly

avoided means security will remain an"absolute priority" going into the WorldCup, the head of cricket's governing bodysaid on Sunday.

Fifty people died in attacks on twomosques in Christchurch on Friday, in whatis believed to be the worst assault onMuslims in a Western country.

Bangladesh's Test cricketers were just afew minutes from being caught up in themassacre, arriving in a bus at one of themosques as shooting began.

The third Test between Bangladesh andNew Zealand which was due to start inWellington on Saturday was cancelled andthe team returned home.

Speaking on the sidelines of PakistanSuper League (PSL) final in Karachi, theInternational Cricket Council (ICC) chiefexecutive David Richardson said securityhad to remain "an absolute priority".

"I don't think security is anything new,obviously something happening in NewZealand probably took a lot of people bysurprise and it emphasised the need not tobe complacent, especially going into theWorld Cup," Richardson said.

"I know the work has already been doneby the security director together with all thesecurity agencies in the UK and they areleaving no stone unturned," he added.

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The breakthrough run at theIndian Wells has propelled

India's Prajnesh Gunneswaran tocareer-high rank of 84 butinjured Yuki Bhambri onMonday dropped out of top-200for the first time in almost twoyears.

In the recently released ATPrankings, Prajnesh had collect-ed 61 points after reaching thethird round, where he beat world

number 18 Nikoloz Basilashvilito register the biggest win of hiscareer.

The performance helpedhim zoom 13 places to his newcareer-best ranking.

He was followed byRamkumar Ramanathan (139),who dropped three places.

Both of them will try to

qualify for the singles maindraw of the Miami Masters thisweek.

Yuki, who is nursing a kneeinjury, slid 36 places to 207. Thelast time the Delhi player wasplaced outside the top-200bracket was in July 2017.

The next best in the singleschart were Saketh Myneni (251,

-5) and Sasi Kumar Mukund(268, +2). Mukund did not fig-ure in even top-400 five monthsback and has shown goodprogress in this time period.

In the doubles, left-handedJeevan Nedunchezhiyan toucheda new career-high of 64 and wasthird highest-ranked played ofthe country after Rohan Bopanna

(36,+2) and Divij Sharan (41, -1).Purav Raja (80, -1) and vet-

eran Leander Paes (94, +2) com-plete the top-five.

In the WTA rankings,Ankita Raina continues to beIndia's top-ranked player at 168(-2) and was followed by KarmanKaur Thandi, who jumped sevenplaces to 203.

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Even the Real Betis fans were applaud-ing by the end as Lionel Messi scoredanother spectacular hat-trick to fire

Barcelona to a 4-1 victory on Sunday andleave them with one hand on the La Liga tro-phy.

Messi's treble, his second in a month inSeville, fourth of the season and 51st of hiscareer, moves Barca 10 points clear ofAtletico Madrid with 10 games left to play,a gap surely too big to close.

"We had a great opportunity to increasethe gap on Atletico," Messi said. "We had totake it tonight."

Luis Suarez, whose superb flick set upMessi's second, scored his own brilliantgoal after a scintillating solo run but it wasultimately reduced to a footnote, in whatbecame another night al l about hisArgentinian partner.

The only blot was the sight of Suarezlimping off late on, with what coach ErnestoValverde suspected was a "bad sprain" tohis ankle.

Messi now has 29 league goals thisseason, 39 in all competitions, andtogether with Suarez's 18 their joint-total of 47 is more than all but two of theother teams in the division.

A simple finish from Suarez'sexquisite assist came between a free-kickperfectly planted into the top corner and abending lob that grazed the crossbar anddropped in.

The Betis fans left at the BenitoVillamarin, and most of them were, felt com-pelled to stand and applaud.

"I don't remember the opposition cheer-ing me for a goal, I am very grateful," Messisaid.

This was supposed to be one of the moreawkward tests in Barcelona's run-in, whichincludes Atletico Madrid at home and fifth-placed Alaves away.

All the rest of their opponents current-ly sit 10th or lower.

But regardless of the fixtures, Barcaseem to be saving their best for the homestraight, which bodes badly for ManchesterUnited, whom they face in the ChampionsLeague quarter-finals next month.

Already in the final of the Copa del Rey,where Barca will return to this stadium to faceValencia in May, a treble is certainly notbeyond the realms of possibility.

Barca were fortunate to earn the free-kick

for Messi's opener as Canales obstructedArthur Melo just outside the area, to the rightof centre.

But there was no luck in Messi'sshot, which flew like a dart over theducking head of Gerard Pique, pastthe hand of Pau Lopez, and into thetop left-hand corner.

Betis came again, Arthur twicescrambling the ball away fromCanales in the box, before Suarezmissed a sitter after being teed upby Messi.He made amends just before half-

time. Messi fired into the feet of theUruguayan, who took the ball one way andflicked it the other, behind his leg and intothe path of Messi, who did the rest.

Betis could have been four down by thehour as Suarez missed two more, but thechances kept coming, and he finally hit themark.

There were four defenders ahead whenhe began his run from the halfway line butSuarez sped past one and between twomore, each of them colliding into the otherbefore being left sprawled on the ground.

Aissa Mandi made one final lunge butSuarez skipped through to finish.

Loren Moron curled in a consolation forBetis but Messi had the final say. IvanRakitic rolled the ball back and heclipped a sumptuous chip over Lopez,off the crossbar and in.

Suarez limped off injured in thefinal minutes and Messi could haveadded a fifth, only for the post to rescueBetis. Four was enough.

��1��

Bayern Munich took out theirChampions League frustra-

tions on Mainz as JamesRodriguez claimed his firstBundesliga hat-trick on Sundayin a 6-0 romp to fire theBavarians back to the top of thetable.

After Wednesday'sChampions League exit, fol-lowing a 3-1 home defeat byLiverpool in the last 16, Mainzbore the brunt of the backlashat Munich's Allianz Arena.

"We showed the disappoint-ment of the Liverpool defeat isbehind us, it was important toreact," said Bayern coach NikoKovac.

Rodriguez, on loan until theend of the season from RealMadrid, came off to a standingovation with 20 minutes left afterarguably his best display in thefamous red shirt.

"I am pleased for him, hedeserved the applause," addedKovac, who declined to com-ment on whether Rodriguez'sloan deal will be extended.

Canadian wunderkindAlphonso Davies, 18, scored hisfirst Bayern goal on only his fifthappearance after coming off thebench.

The thumping win sawBayern reclaim top spot in theBundesliga from BorussiaDortmund, who briefly usurpedthem with a nervy 3-2 win atHertha Berlin on Saturday, witheight games left.

�'��"We had planned a lot

because of what happened onWednesday, our focus is now onthe league," said ThomasMueller.

Dortmund andBayern are level on 60points, but the Bavarianshold a superior goal dif-ference of seven.

"We wanted to fightback after Dortmund's victory.The last three games are amarker," Mueller added, withBayern having smashed in 17goals in winning their last threeleague games.

Poland striker RobertLewandowski, the Bundesliga'stop scorer, claimed his 18thleague goal this season, tappingin a David Alaba cross on threeminutes.

Leon Goretzka laid on thesecond goal, chesting down into

Rodriguez's path and theColombian opened hisaccount on 33 minutes.

French winger KingsleyComan gave Mainzgoalkeeper FlorianMueller no chance withhis shot six minutesbefore the break tomake it 3-0 at half-time.

Rodriguez wrappedup his hat-trick with two goalsin four breathtaking minutes,hitting the top corner pastMueller's reach on 51 minutes,then chipping the despairingMainz goalkeeper momentslater.

Just 11 minutes after com-ing on, Davies claimed his firstBundesliga goal, netting therebound from a savedLewandowski shot.

Bayern have now won 13 oftheir last 14 league matches.

��

Angel Di Maria scored twice asParis Saint-Germain eased to a 3-

1 victory over Marseille on Sunday toextend their long unbeaten runagainst their arch rivals and move 20points clear at the Ligue 1 summit.

A group of PSG ultras were boy-cotting the opening stages of the gameover the team's shock ChampionsLeague defeat by Manchester United,but when they arrived they were givena 16th win in 19 meetings withMarseille, alongside three draws, tocheer.

Banners reading "We don't for-get", "respect the establishment" and"banknotes in place of a heart" werehung in a section behind the goal tomake clear supporters' unhappiness atPSG's 3-1 home loss to United onMarch 6.

"There are some thing we can'tchange, we have to accept that we hada very, very sad defeat — very, verybad for us. But we started againat Dijon (last week) and eventoday the guys showed theircharacter," said PSG coachThomas Tuchel.

"I'm glad we could showthat today, because it'simportant for our sup-porters and for us."

Kylian Mbappeput PSG in front onthe stroke of half-time with his 26thleague goal of theseason, but ValereGermain equalisedin the first minuteof the second peri-od.

Argentine DiMaria restored thehome team'sa d v a n t a g e ,though, andMarseille 'keeperSteve Mandanda wassent off for a clear hand-ball 30 yards from goal.

Di Maria's wonderfulfree-kick added furthergloss to the scoreline,although Mbappe saw alate penalty saved by vis-iting substitute YohannPele.

The capital giants havenot lost to Marseille sincea 3-0 defeat at the StadeVelodrome in November2011.

With the Ligue 1 titleeffectively secured, the

only competition left for PSG to playfor this season is the French Cup, inwhich they face Nantes in the semi-finals next month.

!�0��00��'0��Mario Balotelli had the first shot

in anger, shrugging off the PSGdefence before seeing his long-rangedrive well held by home goalkeeperAlphonse Areola.

The missing ultras did not missmuch goalmouth action early on, butmany rushed to their seats when theythought Di Maria had put the hostsin front, only to see the effort ruledout for offside by VAR.

Marseille did well to keep theirrivals at arm's length for the opening45 minutes, although injuries whichforced the substitutions of PSG full-backs Thomas Meunier and DaniAlves contributed to the game's scrap-py nature.

But PSG forged ahead in the sec-ond minute of first-half injury time,as they broke at pace from a Marseille

corner and Di Maria played inMbappe to sweep the ball pastMandanda.

Rudi Garcia's away sidestunned the Parc des Princes just

seconds after the restart, though,as Lucas Ocampos raced

clear and squared forGermain to slot into thebottom corner.

Marseille grew inconfidence, but that leftspace for PSG to exploit,and Di Maria cut insidefrom the right andcurled a fantastic 55th-minute finish past

Mandanda to score hisfifth goal in six matches.

The match was all butended as a contest just afterthe hour mark whenMandanda raced from hisline and dived to handleyards outside of his area ina moment of madnesswhich left his side a man

down.Di Maria ensured PSG did

not wait long to take advan-tage, hammering a swervingstrike from the resulting free-kick past Pele, who wasbrought on for the ineffectiveBalotelli, and in off the post.

Mbappe missed the chanceto score a second himself inadded time, as his penalty wassaved by Pele after the WorldCup winner was bundledover by Hiroki Sakai.

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UEFA on Monday openedan investigation into

Cristiano Ronaldo's goal cele-bration after scoring a hat-trick in Juventus' ChampionsLeague comeback win againstAtletico Madrid last week.

European football's gov-erning body said Ronaldo is fac-ing charges of "improper con-duct" after he mimicked DiegoSimeone's crotch-grabbing'cojones' gesture in last Tuesday's3-0 win that sent Juventusthrough 3-2 on aggregate.

After scoring the decisivepenalty four minutes from time,Ronaldo turned towards theAtletico fans and replicatedSimeone's gesture after the

Spaniards' 2-0 first leg win bygrasping his genitals and thrust-ing out his groin.

A decision will be taken byUEFA on March 21.

Juventus take on Dutchclub Ajax in the ChampionsLeague quarter-finals over twolegs, on April 10 in Amsterdamand April 16 in Turin.

Coach MassimilianoAllegri has said he is confidentRonaldo will not be fined orsuspended.

"I think everyone celebrat-ed their own way on the fieldand in the stands. I saw noth-ing strange, just a celebration.There won't be a ban," saidAllegri.

Simeone was fined 20,000euros by UEFA for his gesture.

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AC Milan coach Gennaro Gattuso on Sunday saidthat he is more upset by an "unacceptable" bust-

up between midfielders Franck Kessie and Lucas Bigliaon the sidelines at the San Siro than his team's 3-2 derbydefeat to Inter.

Ivorian Kessie, 22, and Argentina midfielderBiglia, 33, had to be pulled apart by teammates amiddrama on and off the pitch in the "Derby DellaMadonnina" between the Milan city rivalsin northern Italy.

Kessie, who had been substituted,was furious at something said by Bigliaon the bench and had to be held back byteammates as he repeatedly lunged at theArgentine.

"The defeat that hurts me the mostwas Kessie and seeing what happened on the bench,"said Gattuso, after his team's five-match winning runin the league was ended.

"That is something I cannot accept with the wayI see football, the way I see the team and the group ethic.

"There has to be respect for everyone in the dress-ing room and it was just unacceptable.

"This means the world to me and that is why it isa double defeat. I will have my say over the next fewdays," he warned.

Both players later apologised.Tensions were also high on the pitch, with Andrea

Conti who had come on for Kessie after 69 minutesseeing red for a tackle on Inter striker LaurtaroMartinez, but a VAR review saw the referee change itto yellow, to the fury of Inter coach Luciano Spalletti,who was sent off for dissent.

Matias Vecino scored after just three minutes forInter, days after his team's Europa League exit, withStefan de Vrij adding the second on 51 minutes, to giveInter a two-goal advantage.

For Milan, Tiemoue Bakayoko headed in after 57minutes with Mateo Musacchio reacting quickly to fin-ish off a rebound (71), just after Lautaro Martinez slot-ted in the third from the penalty spot for Inter.

"We've found the young striker who can put thingsright for us," Spalletti said of Martinez.

Inter goalkeeper Samir Handanovic cleared a lateSamuel Castillejo header with Patrick Cutrone alsodenied a last-gasp equaliser with Danilo D'Ambrosioclearing on the line. Inter leapfrog AC Milan and aretwo points ahead in third with Roma on fifth.

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