˘ˇ ˆ rni regn. no. chheng/2012/42718, postal reg. no ... hair clip, and footwears before meeting...

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I n a daring cross-border raid, a compact team of the Indian Army attacked a Pakistani Army post and killed three Pakistani soldiers in Rawlakot sector in Poonch on Monday. The “limited action” lasting not more than 10 to 15 minutes is seen as a retaliatory strike. The Border Action Team (BAT) of the Pakistan Army had killed four Indian Armymen, includ- ing an officer and three soldiers at the Line of Control (LoC) on Saturday last. Terming it as a “local tac- tical level action authorised by a Brigadier rank officer”, offi- cials said on Tuesday the raid by the Indian troops was carried out at 6 am. The team of four to five commandos known as “Ghataks (deadly)” slipped into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) territory 200 to 300 metres inside and attacked a temporary post of the Pakistan Army near the LoC and killed three Pakistanis. One more Pakistani soldier was reported- ly injured in the attack. The attacks should send a clear message to Pakistan that if it continued to target Indian sol- diers there will be a definite and firm response, officials said. Explaining the rationale of sending small teams, officials said element of surprise and speed is the key factor. If the attack party is big, there is fear of the enemy coming to know of the raid, they said. The retaliatory attack by the Indian Army came after a BAT of Pakistan Army com- mandos and terrorists infil- trated at least 400 metres inside India in Keri sector in Rajouri on Saturday and killed four Indians, including one officer and three soldiers. The Pakistani raiding team ambushed and killed the Indians. Reports also hinted that the bodies of Indian sol- diers were mutilated but the Army strongly rebutted them and said splinters from blast and cross border firing led to the death of its soldiers. Major Moharkar Prafulla Ambadas, Lance Naik Gurmail Singh, Sepoy Gurmeet Singh and Sepoy Pargat Singh were from 2 Sikh Regiment and carrying out area domination patrol when they were ambushed. Officials said the 25 Division of Poonch Brigade was responsible for the Monday action, adding these local level incidents keep happening. “Indian Army continues to exploit the fleeting opportuni- ties,” they said. The targeted post was of 59 Baloch regiment under 2 PoK Brigade of the Pakistan Army. There were at least three con- firmed casualties and one injured. However, Intelligence sources suggest there could be more casualties. After the Indian raid, there was heavy fir- ing on both sides and inter- mittent firing is still continuing. The raid commenced with one team of Indian soldiers triggering an explosion near the Pakistani post leading to chaos among the enemy. Taking advantage of this factor, the other team of the Ghatak commandos sneaked in about 300 metres and fired at the Pakistani soldiers. Sources said the blast could have also killed some soldiers. Media reports from Islamabad on Monday also said three Pakistani soldiers were killed and one injured in cross-border shelling by Indian security forces along the LoC. "The shelling occurred at Rukh Chakri sector in Rawlakot and received a strong response from Pakistani forces,” the DawnNews reported, quoting Pakistani military’s media wing the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). Continued on Page 4 T he security forces in Kashmir dealt a major jolt to banned Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) outfit by killing its “divisional commander" for South Kashmir Noor Mohammad Tantry who spent a decade in jails before recycling to revive the Jaish outfit. Tantray, alias Noor Trali, was dwarf, about 4 feet in height, but highly articulate with organisational skills. He was described by the security agencies as "new security headache". Sources said the security forces cordoned-off Samboora area of Pampore in South Kashmir late on Monday night after specific input on presence of a group of terrorists in a residential area. The contact with the holed up terrorists was established soon after but there was lull afterwards throughout the night. The encounter began on early Tuesday morning. Continued on Page 4 A day after Pakistan tried to grab global attention from the meeting between Kulbhushan Jadhav, his moth- er Avantika and wife Chetana in Islamabad, the Indian Government gave harrowing details of the mental torture and humiliation that the two women faced in Islamabad. Jadhav's mother and wife were forced to change clothes, remove their ornaments, bindi, mangalsutra, hair clip, and footwears before meeting Jadhav in a glass cage. Interestingly, the Pakistan Foreign Office never returned Chetana's footwear after the meeting and she had to walk back barefoot to the car. "Under the pretext of secu- rity precautions, the cultural and religious sensibilities of family members were disre- garded. This included removal of mangalsutra, bangles and bindi, as well as a change in attire that was not warranted by security. For some inexplicable reason, despite her repeated requests, the shoes of the wife of Jadhav were not returned to her after the meeting. We would caution against any mis- chievous intent in this regard," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said on Tuesday after Avantika and Chetana returned India along with Indian diplomat JP Singh who had accompanied them to meet Jadhav. India has raised strong objections and expressed dis- appointment over the manner in which Pakistan conducted the meeting between Commander Jadhav and his family. The meeting that took place after requests by India for family access saw Jadhav under duress, and making tutored statements instead of engaging in a conversation. His face was swollen and his left ear carried marks of stitches. Jadhav's mother told External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday upon arrival from Islamabad that her son "was not himself " and appeared to be a different man as not only he looked different but also behaved strangely. This exposed Jadhav's medical report as a brazen lie. The medical report put out by Pakistan declared him healthy, whereas his mother claimed he had marks of injuries on his face and ears. Avantika said that Jadhav kept on making 'tutored' state- ment when she inquired him about the injuries. With simi- lar 'tutored' statement, he stonewalled her queries on why he falsely claimed to be a RAW agent, how he landed in Pakistan from Iran where he had gone for business. Continued on Page 4 B odies of two teenage sisters were found hanging from a tree outside their house in Barola village, police said on Tuesday. Superintendent of Police (SP) City, Arun Kumar Singh said the girls were iden- tified as Laxmi (18) and Nisha (14). Their father hailed from Bulandshahr and the family was living in a rented house here in Sector 49. The bodies of Laxmi and her sister Nisha were spotted by a local in Barola village when he went to relieve himself at a drain near the tree, police said. “Prima facie, it appears to be a suicide case but the family is claiming both the sisters were murdered and hanged from the tree,” a police officer said. “No suicide note was found from the spot. We are investigating the case with all possible angles includ- ing homicide and suicide. “The family members are also suspecting the involve- ment of their relatives, Rishi, Billoo, Ravi and Rohit in the crime as they often used to torture the girls,” the SP City added. The police received infor- mation about the sisters this morning following which a team reached their house. They pulled down the bodies and sent them for post-mortem, he said. While Nisha was studying in a school, Laxmi was work- ing with a private company. The police detained Kulbhusan for questioning who claimed that his elder daughter was in love with a youth, Prem, and she had eloped with him 10 days ago. However, she returned home a few days ago following which he had scolded her. It appears that the girls had bolted the room, while their par- ents were sleeping, from outside on Monday night and commit- ted suicide by hanging them- selves with stoles, the SP said. The official said the matter was being investigated from all possible angles, including mur- der and honour killing. The bodies have been sent for post-mortem to examine whether they were sexually assaulted, he added. T he Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on Tuesday approved a com- bined 20 per cent hike in water and sewer charges in the national Capital for consumption above 20,000 litres a month. However, the DJB will not charge households con- suming up to 20,000 litres a month, in line with the sub- sidy scheme of the Arvind Kejriwal Government, which was a key poll promise of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), an official said. The new rates will come into force in February, 2018. In 2015, days after coming to power, the AAP Government had hiked water tariff by 10 per cent for consumers falling in the same category, keep- ing with an annual automatic 10 per cent rate hike mechanism put in place by then Sheila Dikshit Government in 2009. However, in 2016, the Government decided against following the auto mech- anism and put another hike on hold. The current hike comes three months after Kejriwal took over the ministerial port- folio of water after the removal of Kapil Mishra. It will effectively lead to a rise of Rs 28 per month for consumers crossing the 20,000 litres limit, DJB vice chairman Dinesh Mohaniya, the AAP MLA from Sangam Vihar, said. Detailed report on P4 New Delhi/Mumbai: Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications (RCom) on Tuesday has finalised a new resolution plan to reduce its huge debt by up to 39,000 crore through prepayment. The company said it will form a new RCom with debt levels under 6,000 crore. The resolution plan, how- ever, involves exiting strategic debt restructuring (SDR) and monetising some of the com- pany’s assets, including transfer of spectrum liabilities by March 2018. With the announcement of its debt revival plan, shares of RCom zoomed nearly 32 per cent. The stock rose sharply by 30.78 per cent to settle at Rs 21.33 on BSE. PNS T hose hooked to MCDonald’s juicy burgers, wraps, and fries may be soon forced to explore other avenues. The ongoing spat between the American company and McDonald’s estranged JV part- ner, Connaught Plaza Restaurants Ltd (CPRL), has parlaysed the supply chain and forced closure of several McDonald outlets. Vikram Bakshi, who heads the CRPL, has said nearly all outlets of the fast food chain in East India have been shut and several others in the North are on the brink of closure due to discontinuation of supplies by its logistics partner. All in all, there are 80 out- lets that have been hit by this cut-off in supplies by Radhakrishna Foodland, a move which is seen as a fallout of the ongoing spat between the fast food major and Bakshi. “Almost all the outlets in East India have been shut because of the move by the logistics partner, and others (in North India) are also under pressure due to the supply crunch,” Bakshi told PTI , adding a total of over 80 outlets are suffering, considering the limited stock each outlet has. In a letter dated December 20, Radhakrishna Foodland Pvt Ltd wrote to CPRL, the 50:50 JV between Bakshi and McDonald’s India, saying it is discontinuing the supply chain services due to reduction in volume and uncertainty of future, among others, as also non-payment of a certain addi- tional amount. The otherwise massive busi- ness in the festive season for McDonald’s is set to hit a bump, which will affect the food chain’s revenue. “Our long-standing logistics vendor Radhakrishna Foodland allegedly in collusion with McDonald’s Corporation and their wholly owned sub- sidiary McDonald’s India Pvt Ltd... has decided to hold back stock paid for approximately Rs 10 crore by us,” Bakshi said in a letter to landlords and develop- ers of his outlets. He further wrote, “While the American company and its subsidiary, MIPL, may have with their usual mala fide and malicious actions managed to give CPRL a temporary busi- ness setback at the end of the year and during this high sale festive season, yet we have made and are making alterna- tive arrangements and shall be back to serve our customers very soon.” Bakshi has been at logger- heads with the fast food chain over the management of CPRL after he was ousted from the post of MD of the McDonald’s franchisee in August 2013. McDonald’s India in August terminated the franchise agree- ment and had asked CPRL not to use its brand system, trademark, designs and its associated intellectual proper- ty, among others. Bakshi had moved the NCLT following termination of the licence by McDonald’s India Pvt Ltd (MIPL). RNI Regn. No. CHHENG/2012/42718, Postal Reg. No. - RYP DN/34/2013-2015

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In a daring cross-border raid,a compact team of the Indian

Army attacked a PakistaniArmy post and killed threePakistani soldiers in Rawlakotsector in Poonch on Monday.The “limited action” lastingnot more than 10 to 15 minutesis seen as a retaliatory strike.The Border Action Team (BAT)of the Pakistan Army had killedfour Indian Armymen, includ-ing an officer and three soldiersat the Line of Control (LoC) onSaturday last.

Terming it as a “local tac-tical level action authorised bya Brigadier rank officer”, offi-cials said on Tuesday the raid bythe Indian troops was carriedout at 6 am. The team of fourto five commandos known as“Ghataks (deadly)” slipped intoPakistan Occupied Kashmir(POK) territory 200 to 300metres inside and attacked atemporary post of the PakistanArmy near the LoC and killedthree Pakistanis. One morePakistani soldier was reported-ly injured in the attack.

The attacks should send aclear message to Pakistan that ifit continued to target Indian sol-diers there will be a definite andfirm response, officials said.

Explaining the rationaleof sending small teams, officialssaid element of surprise andspeed is the key factor. If theattack party is big, there is fearof the enemy coming to knowof the raid, they said.

The retaliatory attack bythe Indian Army came after aBAT of Pakistan Army com-mandos and terrorists infil-trated at least 400 metres insideIndia in Keri sector in Rajourion Saturday and killed fourIndians, including one officerand three soldiers. ThePakistani raiding teamambushed and killed theIndians. Reports also hintedthat the bodies of Indian sol-diers were mutilated but theArmy strongly rebutted themand said splinters from blastand cross border firing led tothe death of its soldiers.

Major Moharkar PrafullaAmbadas, Lance Naik GurmailSingh, Sepoy Gurmeet Singhand Sepoy Pargat Singh werefrom 2 Sikh Regiment andcarrying out area dominationpatrol when they wereambushed.

Officials said the 25Division of Poonch Brigadewas responsible for the Mondayaction, adding these local levelincidents keep happening.“Indian Army continues toexploit the fleeting opportuni-ties,” they said.

The targeted post was of 59Baloch regiment under 2 PoKBrigade of the Pakistan Army.There were at least three con-firmed casualties and oneinjured. However, Intelligencesources suggest there could be

more casualties. After theIndian raid, there was heavy fir-ing on both sides and inter-mittent firing is still continuing.

The raid commenced withone team of Indian soldierstriggering an explosion nearthe Pakistani post leading tochaos among the enemy.Taking advantage of this factor,the other team of the Ghatakcommandos sneaked in about300 metres and fired at thePakistani soldiers. Sources saidthe blast could have also killedsome soldiers.

Media reports fromIslamabad on Monday alsosaid three Pakistani soldierswere killed and one injured incross-border shelling by Indiansecurity forces along the LoC."The shelling occurred at RukhChakri sector in Rawlakot andreceived a strong response

from Pakistani forces,” theDawnNews reported, quotingPakistani military’s media wing

the Inter-Services PublicRelations (ISPR).

Continued on Page 4

��������� ����� ��� ��

The security forces inKashmir dealt a major jolt

to banned Jaish-e-Muhammad(JeM) outfit by killing its“divisional commander"for South Kashmir NoorMohammad Tantrywho spent a decade injails before recycling torevive the Jaish outfit.Tantray, alias Noor Trali,was dwarf, about 4 feet inheight, but highly articulatewith organisational skills. Hewas described by the security

agencies as "new securityheadache".

Sources said the securityforces cordoned-off Sambooraarea of Pampore in South

Kashmir late on Mondaynight after specific inputon presence of a group ofterrorists in a residentialarea. The contact with theholed up terrorists wasestablished soon after butthere was lull afterwards

throughout the night. Theencounter began on earlyTuesday morning.

Continued on Page 4

����������� ����������������������

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Aday after Pakistan tried tograb global attention from

the meeting betweenKulbhushan Jadhav, his moth-er Avantika and wife Chetanain Islamabad, the IndianGovernment gave harrowingdetails of the mental tortureand humiliation that the twowomen faced in Islamabad.Jadhav's mother and wife wereforced to change clothes,remove their ornaments, bindi,mangalsutra, hair clip, andfootwears before meetingJadhav in a glass cage.

Interestingly, the PakistanForeign Office never returnedChetana's footwear after themeeting and she had to walkback barefoot to the car.

"Under the pretext of secu-rity precautions, the culturaland religious sensibilities offamily members were disre-garded. This included removalof mangalsutra, bangles andbindi, as well as a change inattire that was not warranted bysecurity. For some inexplicablereason, despite her repeatedrequests, the shoes of the wifeof Jadhav were not returned toher after the meeting. Wewould caution against any mis-chievous intent in this regard,"Ministry of External Affairsspokesperson Raveesh Kumarsaid on Tuesday after Avantikaand Chetana returned Indiaalong with Indian diplomat JPSingh who had accompaniedthem to meet Jadhav.

India has raised strongobjections and expressed dis-appointment over the mannerin which Pakistan conductedthe meeting betweenCommander Jadhav and hisfamily. The meeting that tookplace after requests by India forfamily access saw Jadhav underduress, and making tutoredstatements instead of engaging

in a conversation. His face wasswollen and his left ear carriedmarks of stitches.

Jadhav's mother toldExternal Affairs MinisterSushma Swaraj on Tuesdayupon arrival from Islamabadthat her son "was not himself "and appeared to be a different man as not only helooked different but alsobehaved strangely.

This exposed Jadhav'smedical report as a brazen lie.The medical report put out by

Pakistan declared him healthy,whereas his mother claimed hehad marks of injuries on hisface and ears.

Avantika said that Jadhavkept on making 'tutored' state-ment when she inquired himabout the injuries. With simi-lar 'tutored' statement, hestonewalled her queries onwhy he falsely claimed to be aRAW agent, how he landed inPakistan from Iran where hehad gone for business.

Continued on Page 4

�������������� ����

Bodies of two teenage sisterswere found hanging from a

tree outside their house inBarola village, police said onTuesday. Superintendent ofPolice (SP) City, Arun KumarSingh said the girls were iden-tified as Laxmi (18) and Nisha(14). Their father hailed fromBulandshahr and the familywas living in a rented househere in Sector 49.

The bodies of Laxmi andher sister Nisha were spotted bya local in Barola village when hewent to relieve himself at a drainnear the tree, police said. “Primafacie, it appears to be a suicidecase but the family is claimingboth the sisters were murderedand hanged from the tree,” apolice officer said. “No suicidenote was found from the spot.We are investigating the casewith all possible angles includ-ing homicide and suicide.

“The family members arealso suspecting the involve-ment of their relatives, Rishi,Billoo, Ravi and Rohit in the crime as they often used

to torture the girls,” the SP Cityadded.

The police received infor-mation about the sisters thismorning following which ateam reached their house. Theypulled down the bodies and sentthem for post-mortem, he said.

While Nisha was studyingin a school, Laxmi was work-ing with a private company.

The police detainedKulbhusan for questioning whoclaimed that his elder daughterwas in love with a youth, Prem,and she had eloped with him 10days ago. However, she returnedhome a few days ago followingwhich he had scolded her.

It appears that the girls hadbolted the room, while their par-ents were sleeping, from outsideon Monday night and commit-ted suicide by hanging them-selves with stoles, the SP said.

The official said the matterwas being investigated from allpossible angles, including mur-der and honour killing. The bodies have been sent forpost-mortem to examinewhether they were sexuallyassaulted, he added.

�������������� ��������

The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on Tuesday approved a com-bined 20 per cent hike in water and sewer charges in

the national Capital for consumption above 20,000 litresa month.

However, the DJB will not charge households con-suming up to 20,000 litres a month, in line with the sub-sidy scheme of the Arvind Kejriwal Government, whichwas a key poll promise of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP),an official said.

The new rates will come into force in February, 2018.In 2015, days after coming to power, the AAP

Government had hiked water tariff by 10 per centfor consumers falling in the same category, keep-ing with an annual automatic 10 per cent ratehike mechanism put in place by then SheilaDikshit Government in 2009.

However, in 2016, the Governmentdecided against following the auto mech-anism and put another hike on hold.

The current hike comes three monthsafter Kejriwal took over the ministerial port-folio of water after the removal of Kapil Mishra. It willeffectively lead to a rise of Rs 28 per month for consumerscrossing the 20,000 litres limit, DJB vice chairman DineshMohaniya, the AAP MLA from Sangam Vihar, said.

Detailed report on P4

New Delhi/Mumbai: AnilAmbani-led RelianceCommunications (RCom) onTuesday has finalised a newresolution plan to reduce itshuge debt by up to �39,000crore through prepayment. Thecompany said it will form anew RCom with debt levelsunder �6,000 crore.

The resolution plan, how-ever, involves exiting strategicdebt restructuring (SDR) andmonetising some of the com-pany’s assets, including transfer of spectrum liabilitiesby March 2018.

With the announcementof its debt revival plan, sharesof RCom zoomed nearly 32 percent. The stock rose sharply by30.78 per cent to settle at Rs21.33 on BSE. PNS

����� ���������

Those hooked toMCDonald’s juicy burgers,

wraps, and fries may be soonforced to explore other avenues.The ongoing spat between theAmerican company andMcDonald’s estranged JV part-ner, Connaught PlazaRestaurants Ltd (CPRL), hasparlaysed the supply chain andforced closure of severalMcDonald outlets.

Vikram Bakshi, who headsthe CRPL, has said nearly alloutlets of the fast food chain inEast India have been shut andseveral others in the North areon the brink of closure due to

discontinuation of supplies byits logistics partner.

All in all, there are 80 out-lets that have been hit by thiscut-off in supplies byRadhakrishna Foodland, amove which is seen as a falloutof the ongoing spat between thefast food major and Bakshi.

“Almost all the outlets inEast India have been shutbecause of the move by thelogistics partner, and others(in North India) are also underpressure due to the supplycrunch,” Bakshi told PTI,adding a total of over 80 outletsare suffering, considering thelimited stock each outlet has.

In a letter dated December20, Radhakrishna FoodlandPvt Ltd wrote to CPRL, the50:50 JV between Bakshi andMcDonald’s India, saying it isdiscontinuing the supply chain

services due to reduction involume and uncertainty offuture, among others, as alsonon-payment of a certain addi-tional amount.

The otherwise massive busi-ness in the festive season forMcDonald’s is set to hit a bump,which will affect the food chain’srevenue. “Our long-standinglogistics vendor RadhakrishnaFoodland allegedly in collusionwith McDonald’s Corporationand their wholly owned sub-sidiary McDonald’s India PvtLtd... has decided to hold backstock paid for approximately Rs10 crore by us,” Bakshi said in aletter to landlords and develop-ers of his outlets.

He further wrote, “Whilethe American company and itssubsidiary, MIPL, may havewith their usual mala fide andmalicious actions managed to

give CPRL a temporary busi-ness setback at the end of theyear and during this high salefestive season, yet we havemade and are making alterna-tive arrangements and shall beback to serve our customersvery soon.”

Bakshi has been at logger-heads with the fast food chainover the management of CPRLafter he was ousted from thepost of MD of the McDonald’sfranchisee in August 2013.McDonald’s India in Augustterminated the franchise agree-ment and had asked CPRL notto use its brand system, trademark, designs and itsassociated intellectual proper-ty, among others.

Bakshi had moved theNCLT following termination ofthe licence by McDonald’sIndia Pvt Ltd (MIPL).

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The Home Ministry hasreleased �167 crore to nine

States with international borderfor the development of infra-structure in forward areas. TheStates which will benefit includeRajasthan, Punjab, both havinginternational border withPakistan, and West Bengal andAssam, which share boundarywith Bangladesh.

An amount of �167 crorewas recently released by theHome Ministry to Meghalaya,Punjab, Rajasthan, Bihar,Sikkim, Tripura, Assam,Himachal Pradesh and WestBengal under the Border AreaDevelopment Programme(BADP), an official said.

The fully centrally fundedBADP programme covers all vil-lages which are located within 0-10 km of the InternationalBorder in 17 States.

However, priority is given tothose villages which are identi-fied by border guarding forcesfor speedy development of infra-structure.

The schemes permissibleunder the BADP include activ-

ities relating to the cleanlinessmission, skill development pro-grammes, promotion of sportsactivities, promotion of ruraltourism, border tourism andprotection of heritage sites.

Construction of helipads inremote and inaccessible hillyareas which do not have roadconnectivity, skill development

training to farmers for the useof modern and scientific tech-nique in farming, organic farm-ing are other areas which comeunder the BADP.

While Rajasthan andPunjab share border withPakistan, West Bengal, Assam,Tripura and Meghalaya shareboundary with Bangladesh.

Bihar shares border withNepal, Sikkim shares borderwith Nepal and Bhutan andHimachal Pradesh share borderwith China. Earlier, the HomeMinistry had released �174crore to six States having inter-national border under the sameprogramme.

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Moving on to the next majorpoll battle, the BJP has

intensified its campaign inKarnataka with Prime MinisterNarendra Modi set to address apublic rally in the State onJanuary 28 on the culmination ofthe party’s two-and-half-month‘Parivartan Yatra’ in the State.

Set to throw a ‘serious chal-lenge’ at the ruling Congress inKarnataka, the BJP is currentlyrunning a 75-day campaignacross the State. The campaignwill culminate with Modiaddressing a public rally onJanuary 28.

In line with the ‘campaignYatras’ in other States, the partyis conducting ‘Nav KarnatakaParivartan Rally’ in 234 con-stituencies in the State.

BJP’s election-in-charge ofKarnataka and Union HRDMinister Prakash Javadekar lastweek visited the State to oversee the success of campaign

in the State.The party has over the last

three years found ways to gal-vanise voters in the poll-boundStates through ‘Yatras’ dottedwith rallies. The party has vary-ing themes for States, suiting theissues and electoral mood in aparticular State. If it was ‘GauravYatra’ in Gujarat, then the‘Parivartan Yatras’ in UttarPradesh and Uttarakhand creat-ed a favourable poll atmospherefor the party. In Kerala, where theparty is digging in its heels , BJPpresident Amit Shah had led the ‘Jansuraksha yatra’ to cre-ate public opinion against theruling CPM.

In continuation of the pro-longed election rallies and ‘Yatras’,BJP is carrying out the ‘NavKarnataka Parivartan rally’,which commenced onNovember 2 at Bangalore in thepresence of Shah.

Leader of Opposition inlegislative council KSEshwarappa and former Chief

Minister BS Yeddyurappa weretogether on the stage onNovember 2, to send out a mes-sage that both warring leadershave reconciled with each other.

Eshwarappa, an influentialKurba (shepherd community)leader, who has been deputy-chief minister in Jagdish Shettar-led BJP government from 2012 to 2013 had earlier pickedup a fight with Yeddyurappa onthe issue of appointments to dis-trict units.

BJP, which had come topower in Karnataka on its ownin 2008 but lost to the Congressin 2013, is hopeful that it couldmake a comeback withYeddyurappa’s hold over numer-ically strong Lingayat caste andthe anti-incumbency factoragainst the CongressGovernment,

Congress has accused thatthe BJP is running its campaignon religious polarisation byattacking the legacy of TipuSultan and raising the issue of

‘Islamic radicalisation’ in parts ofKarnataka.

The BJP, which has deployeda number of its central ministersfrom Karnataka includingAnanth Kumar, SadanandGowda and Anant KumarHedge for poll campaign, ishighlighting issues such as cor-ruption, farmers’ plight , urban mismanagement and

lawlessness. The party strategists have

drawn elaborate plans, like onthe pattern of Gujarat, to micro-manage 55,000 boothsin the State .

Besides, the two main rivalsCongress and the BJP, the JantaDal (S) of former Prime MinisterHD Deve Gowda and his sonKumaraswamy is also expectedto be in the reckoning and mayplay a decisive role in tilting theelection balance. In 2013, the JD(S) had won as many as 40Assembly seats equal to that ofthe BJP’s while the Congress gota clear majority with 122 seats.

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The Congress on Tuesday condemnedthe statement of BJP leader and

Union Minister Anant Kumar Hegdeabout changing the Constitution. Theparty said that the remarks by a CentralMinister have exposed the sole agenda ofthe ruling party, which was to change thebasic structure of the Constitution. TheCongress mentioned that such remarksare against the idea and ideals of India.

The Congress said that it would resistany attempt to change the basic nature ofthe Constitution and fight the BJP toothand nail. AICC spokesperson GauravGogoi said the statements made by thevarious Union Ministers of ModiGovernment thoroughly vindicate themalicious and sinister attempts to alter theethos of the Constitution.

“It is not a secret that the RSS and theBJP’s sole agenda is to change and mod-ify the basic nature and structure of the

Constitution and to impose their hate-filled, bigoted and prejudiced ideology onIndia and its people.

Congress strongly condemns anddeprecates such regressive remarks, whichare against the idea and ideals of India,”Gogoi said at AICC Press briefing.

“Will the Prime Minister break hissilence on the remarks by his Minister.The BJP-RSS school of thought isengrained in bigotry, hate, divisivenessand prejudices, that envision a monolithicculture. Its diametrically opposite to theliberal and inclusive traditions of Indiaand the progressive thoughts of theBabasaheb Ambedkar and the Makers ofModern India. Therefore we take strongexception of this remark,” said theCongress.

Gogoi, Lok Sabha MP from Assam,said in the past BJP and its leaders havesystematically insulted professionals andcommunities. “Be it the Prime Minister,Narendra Modi calling the CharteredAccountant community as “Chor”(thieves) or him calling the media fra-ternity as “Bazaroo” or be it his Ministerscalling farmers as “Cowards”- There is adefinite pattern by which BJP and its lead-ership has flouted all unwritten norms ofcivility and attacked groups, communi-ties, professionals and alike,” Gogoi said.

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Aday after Christmas celebrations,the Opposition Congress and a

partner in the ruling coalition used‘Santa Claus’ to hit out at theirrespective targets — Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and Goa ChiefMinister Manohar Parrikar.

While the Congress took pot-shots at Modi saying he is like the cin-ematic “Bad Santa” for gifting ‘noteban’ to the country and introductionof GST, BJP’s ally in the NDA, theShiv Sena termed Goa Chief MinisterManohar Parrikar a “Bad SantaClaus”.

Senior Congress spokesmanManish Tewari tweeted to say that inthe rest of the world “an old man witha white beard” — Santa Claus —stuffed stockings with gifts andmoney. But in India, a similar look-ing “old man with a white beard” didquite the opposite, that is, relievedpeople of their money and left themonly with their socks. And instead ofcoming down the chimney, heentered homes through the TV.

This is not the first instance thatTewari has taken a stinging jibe at

Modi. Earlier, Tewari had courtedcontroversy after posting a profani-ty-laced tweet against PM Modi.Tewari had posted on Twitter abouta gaffe committed by PM Modiabroad when he had started walkingeven as the national anthem wasbeing played during a ceremonialguard of honour.

The Shiv Sena wrote to thePrime Minister asking his interven-tion to stop the Goa CM from tak-ing the step of allowing Karnataka todivert the waters of the Mahadeyiriver. The party termed the move byParrikar on Christmas as that ofbeing a “Bad Santa Claus” who issnatching the future of our children,which is river Mahadeyi.

“Santa Claus distributes gifts tobring smiles on the faces of childrenbut our Parrikar, who is a “bad SantaClaus”, has instead snatched thefuture of our children by agreeing todivert the water of River Mahadeyi,”the letter States. The Sena’s letter isin response to the letter written byParrikar recently to BJP’s Karnatakapresident BS Yeddyurappa softeningthe former’s stand on the water shar-ing issue.

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Gujarat has constructed themost number of houses for

the urban poor under theCentre’s flagship housing scheme‘Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana(PMAY) (Urban), followed byTamil Nadu, Karnataka,Jharkhand and West Bengal.Interestingly, Sikkim had just onehouse constructed under thescheme so far while ArunachalPradesh, Chandigarh, Damanand Diu, Goa, Meghalaya andPuducherry are among thoseStates which had constructed lessthan 100 houses till date. Delhiconstructed 1,262 houses forurban poor.

Out of the 36 States andUnion Territories, only ninehave seen more than 10,000houses constructed, whereas 16of them have seen constructionof less than 1,000 houses overthe four-year period.

As per the Ministry ofHousing and Urban Affairs’data, a total 2,91, 291 houses con-structed under the scheme in thecountry. The Ministry hasreleased �11,897 crore to Statessince inception of this scheme in2014-15. Currently, the shortage

of houses is pegged at 1.2 crore.The Modi Government has setto construct 1.2 crore affordablehouses for urban poor across thecountry by 2022.

In Gujarat, as many as54,474 houses have been con-structed while it has receivedcentral assistance of �1355crore for construction of thesehouses. Tamil Nadu has con-structed 32,730 houses and ithas received central assistanceof �1,646 crore for constructionof these house. Gujarat was fol-lowed by Karnataka with theconstruction of about 33,450houses since 2014-15.

Similarly, Madhya Pradeshhas constructed 27,862 housesand it has obtained �960 croreas central assistance for hous-ing purposes. Jharkhand hasconstructed 27,308 houses fol-lowed by West Bengal (24,166),Maharashtra (22,699), AndraPradesh (21,794) and Rajasthan(12,274).

A surprise entry in the list oftop-10 states in terms of housesconstructed under PMAY(U)over the last four years is Tripurawhich occupies the 10th spotwith construction of 7,440 hous-es, more than those developed in

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. UttarPradesh has constructed 7231houses while Bihar, Chhattisgarh,Haryana, Kerala, Orissa, Punjab,Telangana and Uttarakhand con-structed between 1,000 and5,000 houses. As per data,Meghalaya has constructed only45 houses in the last four years,followed by Puducherry (33),Arunachal Pradesh (15),Chandigarh (34), Daman andDiu (36) and Goa (54).

The Centre has sanctioneda total of 30.76 lakhs housesacross all verticals. Furtherafter subsuming projects ofRAY scheme the total numberof houses being funded underPMAY(Urban) would be about32 lakh (31,94,676)houses.Currently, 15.65 lakhhouses have been groundedand are at various stages of con-struction and about 4.13 lakhhouses have been constructedsince the launch of the mission.

Earlier, in November, theCentre had approved enhance-ment of the carpet area of hous-es for the middle-income group(MIG) category under thePMAY (Urban). Under theMIG-I category, the carpet areaof the houses was enhanced

from 90 square metre to 120square metre, while under theMIG-II segment, it had beenincreased to 150 square metrefrom 110 square metre. Underthe MIG-I category, a four percent interest subsidy is providedto the beneficiaries, whose annu-al income is between �6 lakh and�12 lakh, on a loan of up to �9lakh. The scheme launched onJune 25, 2015.

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At a time when the privatehealthcare sector is under

the scanner for over-treatingand overcharging patients, theComptroller and AuditorGeneral (CAG) has foundseveral loopholes in the taxsystem that has helped theentities including private hos-pitals, diagnostic clinics andnursing homes to evade taxes.

“Despite private healthcareexpenditure having touchedabout �40,000 crore, tax col-lection from this sector has beendisappointing,” the top auditorsaid in its audit report tabled inParliament a few months ago.

The private healthcareexpenditure as a percentage ofGDP has shown an increasingtrend during 2011-12 to

2013-14 but the increase in taxbase was not commensuratewith growth in private healthcare sector, the CAG noted inits report “Assessment ofPrivate Hospitals, NursingHomes/Medical Clinics,Medical Colleges/ResearchInstitutes, Diagnostic Centres, Pathological labs andother Medical supplies agen-cies/stores.”

It said that despite thisremarkable expansion, thenumber of corporate assesseesin the categories — medical,professionals, nursing homesand specialty hospitals hadactually declined in 2012-13and then increased marginal-ly in 2013-14.

Though there havebeen several systemsand other tools for

analysing data collected fromexternal sources for wideningof tax base, these have not beeneffectively utilised for strength-ening the tax base in privatehealthcare sector, it said as itsuggested a string of measuresto plug the gaps.

Citing several instances,the national auditor said thatsystems such as Income TaxPayer Data ManagementSystem (ITDMS), Non-fliersMonitoring System (NMS) andProject Insight have not beenimplemented for identifyingthe stop-filers and non-filers.

There have been instances

where the provisions relatingto depreciation on machineryand plants as well as depreci-ation on other assets andamortisation of preliminaryexpenses were allowed erro-neously. The Income Taxdepartment has not under-taken any impact analysis toassess the outcome of reliefprovided to assessees engagedin the private healthcare sec-tor, the CAG report has said.

The CAG has recom-mended to the Central Boardfor Direct Tax (CBDT) toconsider registering agenciesthrough their administrativeMinistries for introducingprovision of mandatory quot-ing of PAN details as a per-condition while registeringprivate hospitals, nursinghomes, labs and others.

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� The existing tools could notbe used to cross-verify whethermedical professionals and med-ical companies/healthcare facil-ities registered with other regis-tering agencies were effectivelycovered in the income-tax net.Absence of any system of suchcross-verification points to thepossibility of potential assesseesremaining outside the tax net.

� Businesses under healthcaresector like medical clinics, diag-nostic centres, pathological labsand other medical suppliesagencies/stores under the exist-ing allocation of codes based onthe nature of business withrespect to healthcare assesseeswere not codified. This nega-

tively impacts monitoring andvigilance of the healthcare sec-tor as well as collection andsharing of relevant informationon sector-specific issues.

�There was no mechanism inexistence for the identificationof non-filers through NMS inDelhi, Kerala, Rajasthan, TamilNadu states. NMS module alsodid not have any provision forgenerating reports based onthe nature of business.

� Surveys, though an effectivetool for strengthening tax base aswell as deterrence against evasion,were not utilised at all in somestates during 2012-13 to 2015-16by Income Tax Department.

� The Income Tax Act doesnot prescribe any measurableparameters to assess the extentof charitable activities beingundertaken by any hospitaltrust availing the benefit ofexemptions under the Act. Thisgives rise to a possibility ofassessees availing exemptionwithout actually performingany charitable function.

�The provision under Section35AD of the Act does not specify the allowability ofdeduction on capital investments in cases where thevalue of land and building werenot separable, resulting inallowance of excess deductionand loss of revenue.

� Audit noticed instanceswhere the provisions relating todepreciation on machinery andplants as well as depreciation onother assets and amortisation ofpreliminary expenses wereallowed erroneously.

� The “referral fees” paid to the doctors by the private hospitals, nursing homes, diagnostic centres etc. for refer-ring patients and paymentsmade on account of “advertise-ment expenses” by the medicalpractitioners were allowed,although such expenditure hasbeen held as disallowable and“unethical” as per CBDT’s direc-tives and laws of regulatorybodies.

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������������ ������������������������������ � �� �New Delhi: The Government isexpected to table the triple talaqBill on Lok Sabha on Thursday.The Muslim Women (Protectionof Rights on Marriage) Bill is list-ed for introduction in the LokSabha by Law Minister RaviShankar Prasad on December 28,according to the list of businessin the Lower House.

The Bill, prepared by aninter-ministerial group headedby Home Minister RajnathSingh, makes instant triple talaqor talaq-e-biddat in any form —spoken, in writing or by elec-tronic means such as email,SMS and WhatsApp — “illegaland void” and provides for a jailterm of three years for the husband.

As per the Bill, the husbandcould also be fined and thequantum of fine would be decid-ed by the Magistrate hearing thecase. The Bill is being introducedas the practice still continued

despite the Supreme Court strik-ing down ‘talaq-e-biddat’.

The proposed law wouldonly be applicable to instanttriple talaq and it would givepower to the victim to approacha Magistrate seeking “subsis-tence allowance” for herselfand minor children. Thewoman can also seek the cus-tody of her minor childrenfrom the Magistrate who willtake a final call on the issue.

There has been dissentingvoices though. The All IndiaMulsim Personal Law Board(AIMPLB) urged Prime MinisterNarendra Modi to withdraw thebill terming it anti-women andmaintaining the legislation hadcontradictory provisions.

The AIMPLB has confront-ed the very imprisonment pro-vision in the Bill. It questionedhow the dependents would gettheir dues including the mone-tary provisions sanctioned once

the violator is imprisoned. The Board’s president

Maulana Rabey Hasani Nadwiwrote in a four-page letter to thePrime Minister that the bill wasagainst Sharia or Islamic law andinfringes constitutional rightsguaranteed to religious minori-ties. It said no procedure was fol-lowed in drafting the Bill, neitherany stakeholder was consulted

But there has been supportpouring in for the legislation fromthe Muslim community itself.Backing the early passage of the Bill, many women groupshave started meeting the leadersand MPs from Congress, NCP,TMC and Left parties, whichhave not yet spelt their stand onthis legislation.

After the Supreme Courtdeclared the practice of instantdivorce ‘void, illegal and uncon-stitutional’, the Narendra Modi-led Cabinet on December 15approved the Bill. PNS

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State Urban Administrationand Development Depar-

tment Minister Amar Agrawalon Tuesday said that theDepartment is now takingassistance of chartered accoun-tants for maintaining accountsof urban local bodies (ULBs)alongwith efforts being madeto boost revenue.

In a review meetingchaired by him here, theMinister directed to terminateall illegal appointments madein the Raigarh MunicipalCorporation.

He said that it has beenconfirmed that around 50 ille-gal appointments were made inthe Class-IV category inRaigarh Municipal Corportion.

While reviewing work onthe installation of LED lights inULBs, he said that so far 50 percent of the work had beenaccomplished.

He said that by January 31,

all ULBs need to install LEDlights. Agrawal said that allefforts are being made to make

ULBs financially self reliant.The work of revenue col-

lection had been outsourced in

Bhilai , Durg and Bilaspur to aprivate firm, he said.

It may be recalled that the

Chhattisgarh Government willsoon get a study done to findout measures to be taken foraugmenting revenue of all theUrban Local Bodies (ULBs) ofthe State.

Chief Municipal Officers(CMOs) and RevenueInspectors of Urban LocalBodies (ULBs) will have theirmonth's salary stopped now bythe Urban Administration andDevelopment Department ifthey are unable to meet revenuecollection targets set by theDepartment, the Governmenthad informed in October thisyear. The Department has alsoprepared a 12-month revenuecollection parameter for ULBsto boost tax collection.

The State UrbanDevelopment Agency (SUDA)in Chhattisgarh is also going fordevelopment and implemen-tation of an e-Governancemodel in Urban Local Bodies(ULBs) of the State, officialsinformed.

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Sowing has been completedby farmers in around 11.50

lakh hectares of land so far inthe ongoing Rabi season, offi-cials informed.

The sowing target for theRabi season for the ongoing

Rabi season is around 18.51lakh hectares.

According to AgricultureMinister Brijmohan Agrawal,during the Rabi season 2017-18, sowing preparations arebeing made in 3.65 lakhhectares for food grains, 9.26lakh hectares for pulses and

3.14 lakh hectares for oilseeds. The State Government has

announced that it has distrib-uted short-term loans worth Rs436 crore to the farmers dur-ing rabi season during 2016-17.

The total number of loanbeneficiaries stood at 1,49,706,he informed.

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The 230th battalion of theCRPF organised a mega

medical camp under civicaction programme on Tuesdayat Nerali valley area in Naxal-hit Dantewada district in whichhundreds of local poor peoplethronged to get treatment onfree of cost.

The CRPF officials claimedthat the medical camp organ-ised for local people got anoverwhelming response. Theysaid that poor families mainlyliving in Bade Kameli, Bhansiand Nerali villages turned up inlarge numbers for medicalcheck up at the camp.

Central government hasdeployed thousands of paramilitary CRPF troopers inDantewada district to tacklerising leftist insurgency.

The mistrust between thelocal people and CRPF troopers

had severely affected anti-Maoistoperation in Dantewada till year2016 but the CRPF improved itsrelationship with local people inpast two years by holding sev-eral social campaigns for localtribal people under civic actionprogramme.

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Amajor milestone wasachieved with the com-

missioning of first PushingEmission Control System ofBhilai Steel Plant (BSP) underthe 7 MT Project of BSP onTuesday by A. K. Mathur, ED(P), J. Arjuna Prasad GM(CO&CCD) and D. N. Swamy,DGM I/c (Project-Coke) inpresence of senior officers ofCoke Ovens, ProjectDepartment, representatives ofdifferent departments andagencies involved in thisModex Project.

This is the first PushingEmission Control System ofBhilai Steel Plant and this newtechnology will further facili-tate in making the CokeMaking Process environmentfriendly.

The system is fully auto-mated and works in conjunc-

tion with the operations takingplace in Coke Oven Battery.

The work involved in car-rying out erection, testing andvarious activities required forsuccessful commissioning ofthis Pushing Emission ControlSystem of Bhilai Steel Plant

was executed by the ProjectManager Unmesh Bhardwaj,DGM (Project-Coke Zone)and his team comprising N. K.Thakur, Dy Mgr, M. K.Shrivastava, Dy Mgr, V. L.Sahu and S. K. Prusty.

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The Social EmpowermentCell and NSS (National

Service Scheme) unit of OPJindal University, Raigarhobserved ‘NationalMathematics Day’ recently withthe students of GovernmentPre-Middle School, Tumidih.

In India, the birthday ofIndian mathematical geniusSrinivasa Ramanujan whichfalls on December 22, is beingcelebrated as the NationalMathematics Day.

After paying tribute toSrinivasa Ramanujan, OPJUstudents shared their thoughtson the great Mathematician.NSS Programme officer Dr S.K. Singh underlined the impor-tance of digital India cam-paign and cleanliness for goodhealth. Dr S. M. Hussain,Assistant Professor(Mathematics), OPJU talkedabout importance ofMathematics in daily life andNeville P. Jamshedji, CFAO,

OPJU interacted with the stu-dents and told them that ahealthy mind lives in a healthybody and talked about theimportance of cleanliness andhow to keep the body andmind healthy to achieve thedreams.

He motivated young chil-

dren to learn everything byheart. On the occasion of‘National Mathematics Day,’many competitions like Poster,Drawing, Speech, PoemRecitation, and Model makingwere organised to enhance thecapability and learning abilityof the school children.

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Chhattisgarh Governmenton Tuesday assigned new

duties to eight IndianAdministrative Service (IAS)officers.

As per the order, on returnof Gaurav Dwivedi from theCentral Deputation, he hasbeen posted as DirectorGeneral of ChhattisgarhAdministration Academy,Raipur.

On Dwivedi taking charge,Sunil Kujur would be relievedonly from additional charge ofDirector General, ChhattisgarhAdministration Academy.

Hemant Kumar Pahare,Secretary, Parliamentary Affairsand Public GrievancesRedressal Department has beengiven additional charge asSecretary, School EducationDepartment.

Divya Umesh Mishra,Additional Collector, Durg hasbeen made Deputy Secretary,

Public Health EngineeringDepartment.

Similarly, Shiv Anant Tayal,Additional Commissioner,MGNREGA and Director,Rural Housing has been madeCEO, Balrampur ZilaPanchayat.

Amrit Vikas Topno , CEO,Balrampur Zila Panchayat hasbeen made AdditionalCommissioner, MGNERGAand Director, Rural Housing.

Gaurav Kumar Singh,CEO, Zila Panchayat,Dantewada has been madeCEO, Zila Panchayat,Dhamtari.

Jagdish Sonkar, CEO, ZilaPanchayat Dhamtari has beenmade CEO, Zila Panchayat,Dantewada.

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NMDC Ltd will seek con-sultancy for financial due

diligence of its Detailed ProjectReport (DPR) made forBailadila Iron Ore Deposit 11Cin Bastar region ofChhattisgarh, officialsinformed.

This apart, it may berecalled that the company'sBailadila Iron Ore Dep-13 leasein Kirandul village at Bacheli inSouth Bastar district ofDantewada recently has alsobeen registered in favour ofNMDC-CMDC Ltd (NCL) onDecember 4, 2017.

Earlier the lease deed ofDeposit-13 was executed byNMDC on January 10, 2017pursuant to lease grant orderdated January 1, 2017.

The transfer of lease fromNMDC to NCL (NMDC-CMDC Ltd) was warranted asper the clause of the JV agree-ment and conditions in the

lease grant order.NMDC-CMDC Ltd is a

Joint Venture company inwhich the ratio of equity hold-ing of NMDC and CMDC are51 percent and 49 percentrespectively.

NMDC-CMDC Ltd hasplanned to start the miningoperations in FY 2018-19 andthe production of Deposit-13would meet the requirement ofChhattisgarh based sponge ironindustries and other domesticsteel makers.

NMDC Ltd has planned ofdeveloping green-field mines(Deposit 13) through JointVenture with the ChhattisgarhMining DevelopmentCorporation (CMDC), offi-cials informed.

Notably, the company isalso going for enhancement ofproduction capacity of ironore from 4.2 MTPA to 6 MTPAat its Bailadila Deposit no 10 inDantewada district of SouthBastar region in Chhattisgarh,officials informed.

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RAIPUR | WEDNESDAY | DECEMBER 27, 2017 chhattisgarh 04

STAFF REPORTER n NEW DELHI

The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) onTuesday approved a com-

bined 20 per cent hike in waterand sewer charges in the nation-al Capital for consumptionabove 20,000 litres a month.

However, the DJB will notcharge households consumingup to 20,000 litres a month, inline with the subsidy scheme ofthe Arvind KejriwalGovernment, which was a keypoll promise of the Aam AadmiParty (AAP), an official said.

The new rates will comeinto force in February, 2018.

In 2015, days after comingto power, the AAP Governmenthad hiked water tariff by 10 percent for consumers falling in thesame category, keeping with anannual automatic 10 per centrate hike mechanism put inplace by then Sheila DikshitGovernment in 2009.

However, in 2016, theGovernment decided against following the automechanism and put anotherhike on hold.

The current hike comesthree months after Kejriwaltook over the ministerial port-

folio of water after the removalof Kapil Mishra. It will effec-tively lead to a rise of Rs 28per month for consumerscrossing the 20,000 litres limit,DJB vice chairman DineshMohaniya, the AAP MLAfrom Sangam Vihar, said.

“No change in water tar-iff in Delhi for householdsusing up to 20,000 litres permonth for third consecutiveyear. Above 20,000 litres, a 20per cent combined hike onwater and sewer charges wasapproved in the Delhi JalBoard meeting,” DelhiGovernment spokespersonNagendar Sharma tweeted.

The DJB has been pro-viding up to 20,000 litres ofwater free of charge to domes-tic consumers.

For domestic users whoconsume between 20,000 litresand 30,000 litres of water permonth, the ser vice charge is Rs 219.62 and thevolumetric charge is `21.97per 1,000 litres.

Customers who use over30,000 litres a month pay Rs292.82 in service charge andRs 36.61 per 1,000 litres involumetric charge.

Delhiites to pay 120%for consuming waterabove 20K litre a month

From Page 1India had initiated the

“unprovoked ceasefire viola-tion” that led to an exchange offire between the two countries’border forces, the ISPR alleged.

The Indian raid comesnearly 15 months after a largescale surgical strike was con-ducted at various places acrossthe LoC in POK on September29 last year after 19 Indian sol-diers were killed when terror-ists attacked an Army camp inUri on September 19.

More than 40 terrorists andsome Pakistan Army personnelwere killed in the surgical strikeand terrorist infrastructure likelaunch pads located close to theLoC to enable terrorists to infil-trate into India destroyed. Theraids were conducted in POKareas opposite Poonch andRajouri in Jammu division andsome selected the PakistaniArmy posts harbouring terror-ists in its sector in South andNorth Kashmir. A total of 820incidents of ceasefire violationby Pakistani troops were report-ed in the current year till todayas against 221 last year.Moreover, 61 Army personnel,including three Garud com-mandos were killed in action inJammu & Kashmir this year.Thirty of these casualties tookplace at the LOC while trying toprevent terrorists from infil-trating and by cross-border fir-ing by the Pakistan Army.

From Page 1Police said Noor Trali was

one of the "chief architects" ofattack on Border Security Force(BSF) camp near Srinagar air-port earlier this year.

"In a significant break-through, Awantipora Police,Army and CRPF acting on aspecific input cordoned a clus-ter of houses at Samboora whichresulted in a fierce gun battleleading to elimination of top JeMcommander Noor MohammedTantray," said a policespokesman. He said Trali wasconvicted in a case registered in2003 in Delhi and was servinghis sentence at Central JailSrinagar until he was out onparole in the year 2015.

"Consequently, he remainedin Tral and became a major overground worker of JeM in thebelt," said the spokesman.

Sources said Tantray, a res-ident of Dar Ganaigund villagein Tral sub-district joined ter-rorist ranks in July this yearafter he was summoned bylocal security camps for hisalleged role in organisingprotests. He was instrumentalin public mobilisation in theaftermath of killing of threeJeM terrorists in the area,which ultimately triggered hisformal joining. He was laterseen brandishing automaticweapons despite being handi-capped.

Officials said Trali was thechief architects of the BSFcamp attack near Srinagar air-port and was wanted in a num-ber of offences in South andCentral Kashmir.

The killing triggered spon-taneous shutdown in Pamporeand Tral quarters. However,thousands of people convergedat his native village to take partin funeral prayers.

A group of terroristsappeared amid a horde of peo-ple and offered gun salute tothe slain terrorist.

From Page 1Not able to face such searching

questions, Jadhav got restless andgot up from his seat. Jadhav's wifelargely kept quiet all along.

"From the feedback we havereceived of the meeting, it appearsthat Jadhav was under considerablestress and speaking in an atmosphereof coercion. Most of his remarks wereclearly tutored and designed to per-petuate the false narrative of hisalleged activities in Pakistan. Hisappearance also raises questions of

his health and well being. We alsoregret that contrary to assurances, theoverall atmosphere of the meetingwas intimidating so far as familymembers were concerned. Familymembers, however, handled the sit-uation with great courage and forti-tude," Raveesh said.

It was further revealed thatJadhav and his family were notallowed to speak in Marathi.

"The mother of Jadhav was pre-vented from talking in their moth-er tongue, although this was clearly

the natural medium of communica-tion. She was repeatedly interruptedwhile doing so and eventually pre-vented from proceeding further inthis regard," Raveesh added. It islearnt that the Pakistan official pre-sent in the room, Fareha Bugti, reg-ulated the conversation and repeat-edly stitched off the speaker when-ever they tried to speak in Marathiwhile ordering them to speak inHindi or English.

Besides, the accompanyingIndian diplomat Deputy High

Commissioner JP Singh was ini-tially separated from family mem-bers who were taken to the meet-ing without informing him. Themeeting started without his pres-ence and he could join only afterpressing the matter with concernedofficials. Even then, he was keptbehind an additional partition thatdid not allow him access to themeeting as agreed.

Raveesh added that thePakistani press was allowed onmultiple occasions to approach

family members closely, harassand hector them and hurl false andmotivated accusations aboutJadhav.

This was despite a clear agree-ment that the media would not beallowed close access. "The manner inwhich the meeting was conductedand its aftermath was clearly anattempt to bolster a false and unsub-stantiated narrative of Jadhav'salleged activities. You would allagree that this exercise lacked anycredibility," Raveesh said.

The MEA said that prior to themeeting, the two Governmentswere in touch through diplomaticchannels to work out its modalitiesand format.

There were clear understand-ings between the two sides and theIndian side scrupulously abided byall its commitments. "However, wenote with regret that the Pakistaniside conducted the meeting in amanner which violated the letterand spirit of our understandings,"the official said.

SUDHIR MISHRA n BALANGIR

With no opposition fromany quarters, the sacrifice

of goats, sheep, hens, and evenbuffaloes took place onceagain on Tuesday at the mainSulia Pitha, popularly known asBadkhala, at Khairugda villagein Kulpatda panchayat inDeogaon block in Balangirdistrict, 24 km from the head-quarters town here, much tothe anguish of animal lovers.

Sulia Yatra is observed onthe first Tuesday of the Pausamonth by the tribal people. Thekilling of animals and birdstakes place at Badkhala and atanother place called SaanKhala, 2 km from the mainYatra site.

Animal sacrifice is a tradi-tion of tribals which has beengoing on for ages. The tribalpeople believe it as part of theirculture and tradition, withoutwhich they cannot survive.They believe that offeringblood of animals and birds toSulia, their traditional deity,brings good harvest resulting inprosperity and happiness totheir families and the commu-nity as a whole.

“I have brought a smallbuffalo to offer to deity SuliaBudha as one of my wishes hasbeen fulfilled,” said an old trib-

al villager of Odiapali.Even a small child accom-

panied by his family membersalso brought a buffalo to offerto the deity. “I have brought thisbuffalo to offer to Sulia as oneof our my relatives got curedthanks to the blessings of thedeity,” said Kahna of Baghapali.

Initially, Paat Buka or thespecial animal selected forkilling is offered to the deity inearly morning, after whichother animals are killed. Thesacrifice is managed by theMilita Sulia Yatra PujaCommittee, which has repre-sentation of 61 villages in 15gram panchayats of Balangirand contiguous Subarnapurdistricts. This year, the practice

went on peacefully, said com-mittee secretary MayaPradhani.

The Sulia Yatra is one ofthe major festivals of tribals ofwestern Odisha. On Mondayevening, Lord Shiva is wor-shipped first and next earlymorning, animal sacrifice isperformed during the festival.

“People are offering ani-mals as their desires were ful-filled,” said Pramod Bohidar, ayouth leader.

Three platoons of policeforce led by 15 officers and 70Home Guards were deployed tomaintain law and order at theSulia Yatra this year, saidBalangir SDPO NarayanNaikto this correspondent.

Animal sacrifice once againat Sulia Yatra this year

PNS n BHUBANESWAR

After making all attemptsto get peace and happi-

ness, the world is nowdependent on India for thepurpose. Hence, Indianthoughts have to prevaileverywhere for making theworld a place of peace andhappiness.

All India SarasanghaChalak (RSS chief ) DrMohan Rao Bhagwat statedthis while addressing theconcluding programme ofthe two-day PrabasiKaryakarta Sammilani ofthe Rashtriya SwayamsevakSangha (RSS) at Angul onMonday.

“Bharat has neverformed colonial rule in anycountry though it moved allcountries in the world in thepast. Bharat has not eventried to change thoughts ofpeople of other countries.

Rather it has taughtthem civilization, sanskirit,ayurveda, science and math-ematics,” viewed Bhagwat.

Stating that the IndianConstitut ion mentionsabout giving respect all

thoughts, he called uponthe Karyakartas to follow therules.

“We respect all diverseentities. We follow rules.Hence, we are progressingahead. Unity in diversity isHindutva,” he said.

Orissa High Court’sretired judge Justice PrafullaKumar Tripathy graced aschief guest.

RSS Sangha Chalak AjayKumar Nandi and SameerKumar Mohanty were pre-sent. Dr Anil Kumar Mishradelivered welcome address.

Programmes l ikeSuryanamaskar, yoga andpatriotic song presentationwere held on the occasion.

Hindutva cansolve all world’scrises: Bhagwat

Top JeMcommandershot in J&Kgunfight

Jadhav meet: India nails Pak’s ‘humanitarian’ lie

India teaches...

PNS n SHIMLA

As the stage is all set for theoath taking ceremony of

Chief Minister designate JaiRam Thakur, two of the con-tenders for the top job UnionHealth Minister J.P. Nadda andformer Chief Minister PremKumar Dhumal on Tuesdaysuggested that all was well withthe party and there was no sec-ond opinion on the chief minis-terial choice.

Both Nadda and Dhumalaccompanied the CM Designatealong with state BJP in-chargeMangal Pandey together visitedthe venue of oath taking atRidge, Shimla to take stock of the

arrangements. Necessary direc-tions were issued to the admin-istration to avoid any discomfortto the visitors and people.

Earlier, a meeting was heldat Peterhoff to review thearrangements which waspresided over by Thakur along-with MLAs Rajiv Bindal andSuresh Bhardwaj.

Chief Secretary V.C. Pharkaand DGP Somesh Goel issuednecessary directions to the offi-cers.

Thakur directed for com-plete coordination and urged theparty workers to gear up andcoordinate with the Governmentso that the dignitaries visitingmay not face any inconvenience.

KAMAL JOSHI n SHIMLA

With Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and BJP

president Amit Shah’s presenceamong a large number of UnionMinisters and Chief Ministers ofother states, the swearing-inceremony of Jai Ram Thakur asthe 13th Chief Minister ofHimachal Pradesh is all set to bea magnificent show of politicalstrength of the BJP. FormerDeputy Prime Minister LKAdvani will also be attending thegrand event.

The swearing-in ceremonyto be held at the historic RidgeGround in Shimla, would also beattended by Union HomeMinister Rajnath Singh, FinanceMinister Arun Jaitley, ExternalAffairs Minister Sushma Swaraj,Union Surface and TransportMinister Nitin Gadkari, UnionMinister for ParliamentaryAffairs Ananth Kumar and Partystate in-charge Thawar ChandGehlot.

Manohar Lal Khattar, ChiefMinister, Haryana; ManoharParrikar, CM Goa; YogiAdityanath, CM Uttar Pradesh;Vasundhara Raje, CM Rajasthan;Dr Raman Singh, CMChhattisgarh; DevenderGangadhar Fadnavis, CMMaharashtra; SarbanandaSonowal, CM Assm; PemaKhandu, CM ArunachalPradesh; Dr Nirmal Singh,Deputy CM Jammu andKashmir; Keshav Prasad Mauryaand Dr Dinesh Sharma, DeputyCMs Uttar Pradesh; SushilKumar Modi, Deputy CM, Biharwould also grace the ceremony.

The preparations for theswearing-in ceremony havebeen completed. As the CM

Designate Jai Ram Thakurhimself visited the venue withUnion Health Minister JagatPrakash Nadda to take stock ofthe preparations in the evening.Thakur also presided over ameeting to review the prepa-rations for visit of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi andother dignitaries, who would bevisiting state capital Shimlafor the oath taking ceremonyon Wednesday.

Thakur has directedauthorities for complete co-ordination for assisting VVIPs.He also urged party workers forbetter co-ordination so that theguests visiting Shimla mightnot face any inconvenience. Ithas also been decided to install8 to 10 LED screens at differ-ent places for live telecast of theswearing-in ceremony of thenew CM. One such LED screenwould also be installed at SeriManch in Mandi, Kullu and

Sundernagar.Modi will reach Shimla by

10.0 AM and he would returnby noon. The entire operationfor the preparations was lookedafter by Rohan Chand Thakur,Deputy Commissioner, Shimla.Thakur said the stage for theswearing-in had been madeand sitting arrangements forthe VVIPs and other peoplehad been completed. He saidthat a stage had been raisedbesides the podium at Ridgeand all the VVIPs would be sit-ting on the stage.

He said that the trafficdivsions had been made toensure smooth movement oftraffic on roads due to heavysecurity arrangements. He saidthat more than a thousandcops had been deployed onsecurity, and thee teams ofNSG and SPG had also beenlooking after the securityarrangements of the VVIPs.

Modi, Shah, Advani to attend swearing-in

Himachal Chief Minister-designate Jai Ram Thakur with Union Health Minister JPNadda at Peterhoff in Shimla on Tuesday. Pioneer photo

Chief Minister-designate Jai Ram Thakur presiding over a meeting to review thearrangements for the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other dignitariesfor the swearing-in ceremony, in Shimla on Tuesday. Pioneer photo

Stage set foroath-taking

PNS n CHANDIGARH

Alarmed at the depletingwater levels in the State,

Haryana Government hasnotified draft bill for setting upPond Development,Protection and Conservation,Pond Water and STP TreatedAffluent Utilization Authoritywhich would manage all pondslocated outside notified forestareas in the State, excludingthose having an area of lessthan 0.5 acre.

A network of effectivelymanaged ponds all over theState is expected to helprecharge the ground water.

For the draft bill, the stategovernment has invited objec-tions and suggestions from thepeople.

An official spokesman onTuesday said the Authoritywould consist of the ChiefMinister or Minister forIrrigation and WaterResources as Chairperson, andChief Secretary as Vice-Chairperson.

Additional ChiefSecretaries, Principal

Secretaries or Secretaries ofFinance Department,Irrigation and WaterResources Department,Panchayati Raj Department,Rural DevelopmentDepartment, UrbanDevelopment Department,Fisheries Department,Engineer-in-Chief, Irrigationand Water ResourcesDepartment, Engineer-in-Chief, Public HealthEngineering Department,Director General, AgricultureDepartment and PrincipalChief Conservator of Forests,would be members of theAuthority.

Besides, it would have fournon-official members fromamong experts or social work-ers in the field of environmentand ecology or pond develop-ment and conservation,including at least one womanand one person belonging tothe Scheduled Castes orScheduled Tribes. The ChiefExecutive Officer would beMember Secretary (Ex.Officio, Chief ExecutiveOfficer) of the Authority.

Groundwaterrecharge, Haryanato develop ponds

PNS n HARIDWAR

Security being a prime fac-tor for determining the

number of the footfalls oftourists, Uttarakhand is nowwell-placed, adjudged as thesecond best State next toNagaland of the country bythe National Crime RecordBureau (NCRB). Now, win-ter in its thick, the State- laud-ed as the abode of the gods-hemmed in by the serene,majestic Himalayas and thedense wilds, is beckoningtourists/pilgrims from acrossthe country and abroad.

Haridwar and Rishikesh-twoof the most famed centres ofpi lgrimage the State isendowed with-are no excep-

tion. The upcomingInternational Yoga Festival isexpected to see a congrega-tion of yoga enthusiasts from

across the world. Last year, it saw over 1000

participants from 88 countriesand this time the figure mightfurther move up.

Visitors throng these twinplaces, particularly Haridwar,as nearly every month, twomajor snans (holy dips) onSomavati Amavasya andEkadeshis are held which seethousands of people flockingto the fabled Har Ki Pauri(gateway to Lord Vishnu, thepreserver of the cosmos).

Besides, jungles abound inthe state which fascinates thejungle lovers from across the

world. Their association withthe legendary Jim Corbett addsto the charm. The director ofRajaji National Park and TigerReserve Sanatan Sonekar saidthat Haridwar being a safeplace for the tourists, theyexpect a further surge in thenumber of tourists cominghere to enjoy the beauty of thewilds.

“Of course, the NCRBrating would result inincreased footfalls this winter.Chilla range of RTR hasalready seen a good numberof tourists since it reopenedon November 15,” he said.

NCRB record will boost tourism in Haridwar

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Having failed in his admin-istration’s earlier effort to

repeal and replace Obamacare,President Donald Trump nowbelieves the just-enactedremoval of its “individual man-date” clause will gradually spellthe end of his predecessor’s sig-nature insurance reform foraffordable healthcare.

Obamacare’s individualmandate, under which everyAmerican citizen was requiredto buy health insurance or paya penalty, was done away withby the Republican majority inCongress last week as it votedTrump’s landmark tax overhaul.

Although only the indi-vidual mandate has beenremoved, with the rest of theObamacare still in place,Trump believes its days arenumbered and that a bipartisanalternative will emerge incourse of time.

“Based on the fact that thevery unfair and unpopularIndividual Mandate has beenterminated as part of our TaxCut Bill, which essentiallyRepeals (over time)ObamaCare, the Democrats &Republicans will eventuallycome together and develop agreat new HealthCare plan!”Trump tweeted on Tuesday.

Trump’s optimism aboutthe two parties coming upwith a bipartisan alternative inthe coming year is not shared

by Democrats, who remainstoutly opposed to anyRepublican exercise aimed atdiscarding Obamacare.

Reacting to Trump’s earli-er assertions that the scrappingof the individual mandate wastantamount to repeal ofObamacare, former HouseSpeaker Nancy Pelosi com-mented: “The president isunder some other illusion thathe has repealed the AffordableCare Act. He’s damaged it, buthe hasn’t repealed it. I don’t

know if he knows that.” Over the years,

Republicans have been tryingto repeal Obamacare, but theirfirst real chance came aboutonly after Republican Trumptook over as president lastJanuary. Even so, the partyfailed yet again in its bid to getrid of Obamacare in July whenthree of its Senators, includingRepublican veteran JohnMcCain, voted against themeasure.

Despite Trump’s con-tention that Obamacare isextremely unpopular with“premiums going through theroof ”, the annual open enroll-ment for it has shown only amarginal decline in numbers.During the enrollment drivefor 2018 that ended onDecember 15, roughly 8.8 mil-lion people signed up for plansoperating through the federalexchange in 39 States – a dropof just 4 per cent from lastyear’s 9.2 million enrollments.

These enrollment num-bers are huge and an “incred-ible indicator of hust how much people want quality,affordable coverage”, assertsthe “Get America Covered”campaign.

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A“smart” Brexit deal couldserve as a model for the

EU’s future relations with othernon-EU states, GermanForeign Minister SigmarGabriel says.

Turkey and Ukraine weretwo states that could benefitfrom the template, he toldGermany’s Funke media group.

He did not see either join-ing the EU any time soon, soalternative forms of closer co-operation were needed.

The UK’s future relation-ship with the EU, which it isdue to leave on 29 March 2019,is still being negotiated.

The two sides agreed thismonth on the three “divorce”

issues that took up the firstphase of negotiations: howmuch the UK owes the EU,what happens to the Northern

Ireland border and what hap-pens to UK citizens living else-where in the EU and EU citi-zens living in the UK.

In June 2016, the UK votedin a referendum to leave the EUafter more than four decades ofmembership.

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Israel is in touch with “at leastten countries” over the pos-

sible transfer of their embassiesto Jerusalem after the UnitedStates recognised the city asIsrael’s capital, a deputy min-ister said today.

“We are in contact with atleast ten countries, some ofthem in Europe” to discuss themove, deputy foreign ministerTzipi Hotovely told publicradio.

She spoke a day afterGuatemala said it would moveits embassy to the city, a moveslammed by Palestinian offi-cials as “shameful”.

Hotovely said US PresidentDonald Trump’s statementwould “trigger a wave” ofsuch moves.

“So far we have only seenthe beginning,” she said.

Hotovely did not name thecountries in question, but pub-lic radio cited Israeli diplo-matic sources as sayingHonduras, the Philippines,Romania and South Sudan areamong states considering sucha move.

Two-thirds of UnitedNations member states onThursday voted for a resolu-

tion rejecting Trump's con-troversial move, reaffirmingthat the status of Jerusalemmust be resolved throughnegotiations.

Israel seized the easternpart of Jerusalem in the 1967Six Day War and later annexedit in a move not recognised bythe international community.

Several mainly Latin

American countries had diplo-matic missions in Jerusalemuntil a 1980 UN SecurityCouncil resolution condemningIsrael's attempt to alter the“character and status” of the city,saying it was a barrier to peace.

Trump's announcement onDecember 6 sparked anger inthe Palestinian territories andacross the Muslim world.

Israelis see the whole of thecity as their undivided capitalwhile the Palestinians view theeast as the capital of theirfuture state.

No country currently hasits embassy in Jerusalem,instead keeping them in theIsraeli commercial capital TelAviv.

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President Donald Trumpcouldn't stop talking about

the red carpets, militaryparades and fancy dinners thatwere lavished upon him dur-ing state visits on his recenttour of Asia. “Magnificent,” hedeclared at one point on thetrip.

But Trump has yet to rec-iprocate, making him the firstpresident in almost a centuryto close his first year in officewithout welcoming a visitingcounterpart to the US withsimilar trappings.

Trump spoke dismissivelyof state dinners as a candidate,when he panned PresidentBarack Obama’s decision towelcome Chinese President XiJinping with a 2015 state visit.Such visits are an importantdiplomatic tool that includes a showy arrival ceremony andan elaborate dinner at the

White House.“I would not be throwing

(Xi) a dinner,” Trump said atthe time. “I would get him aMcDonald’s hamburger andsay we’ve got to get down towork.”

Last month it was Xi’s turnto literally roll out the red car-pet. The Chinese leader pouredon the pageantry as he wel-comed Trump to Beijing onwhat was billed as a “state visit,plus.” Trump also made statevisits to South Korea andVietnam.

White House press secre-tary Sarah Huckabee Sanderssaid there is no “singular rea-son” why Trump hasn't extend-ed a state visit invitation yet,but added that the adminis-tration hopes to schedule a visitearly in 2018. Sanders gave nohints about which of Trump'sforeign counterparts are beingconsidered for the diplomatichonor.

A state visit typically isoffered as a sign of friendshipand to showcase strategic tiesbetween countries that areimportant to each other, saidAnita McBride, a veteran ofthree Republican administra-tions who last served as chiefof staff to first lady LauraBush.

“The White House is theworld stage to elevate that,” shesaid. “These occasions really goa long way to solidify andstrengthen relationships.”

Trump speaks often abouthis relationships with many ofhis foreign counterparts,including Xi. Trump and theChinese leader met at Trump'sFlorida estate in April, andTrump treated Xi to a full din-ner — not the aforementionedburger — and what Trumpdescribed as “the most beauti-ful piece of chocolate cake.”

“President Xi was enjoyingit,” the president reported.

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Russian officials shouldreview opposition leader

Alexei Navalny’s calls for an elec-tion boycott to see if they mightbe breaking the law, the Kremlinsaid today, hinting at possiblelegal repercussions.

In a widely anticipated deci-sion, Russia’s top election bodyyesterday ruled to formally baranti-corruption crusaderNavalny from running in thepresidential election next March.

Navalny promptly put out avideo statement, saying that theban shows that PresidentVladimir “Putin is terriblyscared and is afraid of runningagainst me,” and called on hissupporters to stay away from thevote in protest.

Putin, who has been inpower for 18 years, announcedhis bid for re-election earlier thismonth, but so far has refrainedfrom canvassing.

In contrast, his most promi-nent rival, anti-corruption cru-sader Navalny has been cam-paigning aggressively all year,reaching out to the most remoteparts of the country. Opinionpolls say that Putin should eas-ily win the March vote.

Putin spokesman DmitryPeskov today wouldn’t com-ment on the Election Com-mission’s decision to barNavalny but said the “calls forboycott ought to be carefullystudied to see if they are break-ing the law.”

Peskov also rejected sug-gestions that Navalny's absence

on the ballot could dent thelegitimacy of Putin’s possible re-election.

The Russian law doesn't saycalls for an election boycott areillegal, but authorities last yearblocked access to several web-sites calling for the boycott.

Navalny rose to promi-nence in 2009 with investiga-tions into official corruptionand became a protest leaderwhen hundreds of thousandstook to the streets across Russiain 2011 to protest electoralfraud.

A few years later and afterseveral short-term spells in jail,Navalny faced two separate setsof charges of fraud which wereviewed as political retributionaimed to bar him from runningfor office.

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The Kremlin today rejectedconcerns that its decision

to ban opposition leader AlexeiNavalny from running againstPresident Vladimir Putin in aMarch election could under-mine the vote’s legitimacy.

The European Unionweighed in to the controversymeanwhile, warning that theban cast “serious doubt” on theelection.

Russia’s Central ElectionCommission yesterday reject-ed Navalny’s bid to take onPutin in the March presidentialpoll, citing a controversial

embezzlement conviction.The 41-year-old lawyer

maintains that the case againsthim is politically motivated. Heurged his supporters to stage a“vote strike” instead.

Navalny is seen by many asthe only Russian oppositionleader who stands a fightingchance of challenging Putin.

Observers have expressedconcern that barring Navalnyfrom running would affect thelegitimacy of the March polland could affect voter turnout.

“We cannot agree with thispoint of view,” Putin’sspokesman Dmitry Peskovtold reporters today.

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Jerusalem: An Israeli militarycourt has extended the deten-tion of a Palestinian teen whohas become a national heroafter she was filmed kickingand slapping Israeli soldiers.Ahed Tamimi, a blonde 17-year-old firebrand from theWest Bank village of NebiSaleh, was arrested last week byIsraeli troops and faces chargesof attacking soldiers. An Israelimilitary court on Mondayextended Tamimi’s detention,along with those of her moth-er and cousin, for four days forquestioning.

Tamimi was filmed earlierthis month outside her familyhome shouting, pushing, kick-ing and slapping Israeli soldiers,who fended off the blows with-out retaliating. Palestinians arecelebrating her as an icon of anew generation of resistance toIsraeli occupation, while thesoldiers’ restraint stirred uproarover what some perceive as thearmy’s humiliation. AP

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Notice Inviting Bid (NIB)The General Manager. SF Complex., Jagdalpur-494001, invites separate sealed bids in the

prescribed format from reputed firms for execution of following work at SI Complex, Jagdalpur.

S. Name of the Work Bid EMD Bid submission Bid submission Bid openingNo. document (Rs.) Stan Date End date & date & Time

Cost (Rs.) Time

1. Pneumatically Operated - 75,000/- 11/12/2017 02/01/2018 02/01/2018Mechanized Flap Door, 12:30 Hrs. 14:30 Hrs.As per Technical Specification

The Bid document is to be downloaded from the DRDO) website: www.eprocure.gov.in/epub-lish/app. The cost of EMD in the form of demand draft drawn in favour of General Manager, SFComplex, Jagdalpur-494001 payble at Jadgalpur, at the time of submission of the bid, failing whichthe bid would not be considered.

The General Manager, SF Complex reserves the right to the reject any or all bid without assing-ing any reason.

Sd/-General Manager

SF Complex, Jagdarlpur

davp/10301/11/0330/1718

Government of India, Ministry of DefenceDefence Research & Development Organization (DRDO)SF Complex, Airport Terminal Building, Jagdalpur-494001Tel : 07867-289461/62/63/64/65,Fax : 07867-289466,Email : [email protected]

NOTICE

Tally Cer tified Par tnerContact for Tally SaleServices and Solution SonaE Design and Solution, A-62 Pocket- 11, Jasola ViharNew Delhi- 25 Mobile:9811252801, 9999105541

Five hundred years hence”, wrote thephilosopher historian AnandaCoomaraswamy in one of his mostcelebrated expressions of deeperthought, “it will matter little to

humanity whether a few Indians, more or less,have held official posts in, or a few millionbales of cloth been manufactured in Bombayor Lancashire factories; but it will mattermuch whether the great ideals of Indian cul-ture have been carried forward or allowed todie. It is with these that Indian nationalismis essentially concerned, upon these that thefate of India as a nation depends…”

The essential struggle thus in India todayis that of trying to discover and carrying for-ward the ideals of Indian culture. The strug-gle is between the idea of a civilisational Indiaand that of a fragmented India; between theidea of an India that is transitory and not eter-nal; an India that is a caricature and devoidof uniqueness shorn of any exceptionalism.The struggle is between a civilisational Indiathat seeks to re-express or even re-assert itselfand an expression of India that argues thatthere never was an India or Bharat and thatthese are clear imaginations.

This struggle is building up in ideation-al dimensions and its expressions are visibleon the physical plane too. The academic, thepolitical and the social are the realms wherethis struggle is being played out. The adher-ents of cultural and civilisational India,hitherto underdogs in independent India,who have faced repeated castigation and havebeen constantly told that their past was onegreat wasteland, whose ideals where notworth re-discovery and re-statement oremulation, are now finding their voice to talkback. The Padmavati episode, whatever maybe its merits and demerits, is a manifestationof that talking back; of that urge to resistefforts to falsify and misrepresent selective-ly those episodes in our civilisational marchthat has greatly impacted the collectiveHindu psyche over ages and formed an inte-gral part of our mind space.

This talking back is naturally being resist-ed by the high-priests of the narrative of the‘Idea of India’. High priests, who controlled,directed, patronised and promoted a narra-tive of India, in which Bharat had no speak-er or taker, in which civilisational and cul-tural India ceased to exist and was replacedby a field full of conflicts of class and of com-munities. In their control of the discourse,these high-priests suppressed truth and dis-coveries that went to counter their intellec-tual and political propaganda and pushedinstead those, which even if weak on facts andoften devoid of truth, seemed to substanti-ate their false discourse.

In the realm of thought, victims of thissuppression have been many and haveretarded our quest for many-sided collec-tive self-discovery. Swami Vivekananda, SriAurobindo, Ananda Coomaraswamy him-

self, BR Ambedkar — Ambedkar hasfaced a selective approach, with a substan-tial part of his radical thoughts being sup-pressed or kept out of mainstream discus-sion for the sake of political convenienceand ideological expediency — Dharampal,Sister Nivedita, Tilak and Savarkar and somany others, like Pandit DeendayalUpadhyaya and Syama Prasad Mookerjee,Ram Manohar Lohia, RamanandaChatterjee of Modern Review and Prabasi.Their thoughts and articulations could havehelped to shape and firm up the contoursof our national thinking and could haveinstilled a certain deep rootedness in ourcivilisational foundations while also grad-ually preparing us to situate and navigateourselves through the currents of thewider world.

I was surprised to see the other day,while addressing a group of academics ata certain refresher course in the Universityof Delhi, many of these teachers of histo-ry, who have and are making a career outof exclusion studies, had not heard of thesocial philosopher, historian andGandhian Dharampal and had not read atleast a part of the substantial corpus of hiswork. They had not read Dharampal’sopus, The Beautiful Tree: IndigenousIndian Education in the EighteenthCentury, that gave a different perspectiveon the understanding of the Indian soci-ety and particularly on the indigenousframework of its educational outreach andcomposition and how it did not discrim-inate among sections. That they were notexposed to Dharampal was through delib-

erate design, because his work, throughsolid empirical research, challenged theirpropagated theories and impeded the fur-thering of its political objectives.

The prime objective of the peddlers ofthis narrative was to give rise to a sense ofself-deprecation when it came to civilisation-al India and to a sense of a perpetual stateof conflict and siege. The Congress has beenthe primary pusher of this narrative, butsince it did not have the interest or capaci-ty to see it through; it outsourced such a mis-sion to the communist parties and its intel-lectuals and ideologues. Interestingly, whilethrough their machinations, patriotismbecame a dirty word in intellectual and aca-demic circles in India, the Indian commu-nists lauded the efforts for example, ofPresident Jiang Zemin’s “patriotic educationcampaign” in 1991, which sought to re-examine and re-state Chinese history, instilla sense of patriotism among young minds.Indian communists passed off patriotism asthe first manifestation of fascism by Indiancommunists, a pejorative term that was tobe deplored and denigrated.

The result of this deprecatory approachtowards civilisational India, towards ourHindu past and towards its huge output —philosophical, cultural, aesthetic and sci-entific — is that it created a climate, whichsaw the strengthening of, in the words ofSita Ram Goel, “every factor and forcewhich was out to disintegrate this coun-try, uproot its people and destroy its cul-ture heritage.”

Such a climate gradually gave rise toa situation where, to cite Goel again,

“Hindu scholarship which [dealt] withHindu themes sympathetically and knowl-edgeably [remained] a private preservemost of the time. Once in a while, thisscholarship [was] praised in public cere-monies held primarily for the benefit ofsome politician in power. Occasionally, it[was] also honoured with awards andprizes. But, all the same, it [failed] to makean impact on public opinion, and [was]almost always eclipsed by the howls raisedby Hindu-baiters. On the other hand, hackswho [hawked] half-truths or plain liesabout Hindu history and heritage, [won]instant and wide spread recognition and[sold] as know-alls.”

An initial reversal of this state ofthings is now distinctly visible. Such a schol-arship is now emerging out from the pri-vate realm, it has ceased to be hesitant, ithas begun asserting itself, is rich in intel-lectual riposte and content and is beinggrudgingly accepted by the so-called main-stream in the media and among publishers.Nearly three decades of preparing theground by a legion of thinkers and schol-ars who strove against great adversity is nowbearing fruit. The political and intellectu-al struggle for the new India narrative nowderives mutual strength and subsistence, thismutuality poses a formidable challenge tothose who wish to thwart the carrying for-ward of the ‘great ideals of Indian culture’with which Coomaraswamy was so con-cerned. It disconcerts them and makes themmore aggressive, wild and scheming…

(The writer is director, Dr Syama PrasadMookerjee, Research Foundation, New Delhi) 1

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Sir — This refers to the editorial,“Justice upheld” (December 25). Asper ruling of a special CBI court inRanchi, RJD chief Lalu Prasad isguilty of complicity in fodder scam.It is really shameful and disgracefulthat a former Chief minister, whowas regarded as the leader of theState looted and plundered publicexchequer for self interest.

Further, by comparing his jailterm with Nelson Mandela, MartinLuther King Jr and BR Ambedkar,who had been jailed for preservingnational interest and for largercause of the masses, Lalu Prasad hasbecome a laughing stock. No doubt,this sort of evil design and corruptpractice are tantamount to irre-versible erosion of his personalityand credibility. Lalu Prasad is nomore a trustworthy leader of Bihar.

Nimai Charan SwainBhubaneswar

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Sir — This refers to the editorial,“Thunder in Chennai” (December26). The results of the RK Nagar by-election in Tamil Nadu have takeneveryone by surprise. The surge infavour of Sasikala Natarajan’snephew TTV Dhinakaran, whocontested as an independent candi-date, was palpable, but few couldpredict that he would topple the twoestablished Kazhagams of Tamilpolitics: The All India Anna DravidaMunnetra Kazhagam and theDravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

Even though the RK Nagar vot-ers have bestowed a kind of legiti-macy on the Sasikala faction, it issomehow unacceptable that some-

one should get to call the shots justbecause he/his aunt were once partof Jayalalithaa’s household. TamilNadu is an advanced, industrial Stateand deserves enlightened leadership,not the overlordship of the courtiers,attendants and orderlies.Dhinakaran’s victory underlines thefact that the ‘revolving door’ electoralpolitics of Tamil Nadu is far frombeing over.

Meghna ANew South Wales

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Sir — This refers to the editorial,“Justice upheld” (December 25).The second conviction ofRashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)chief Lalu Prasad in the Deoghartreasury case might carriesimmense weight and is likely toinfluence how the RJD positionsitself in the alliance arithmetic in2018 and 2019 elections.

Now, with Lalu Yadav’s con-viction, the taint of corruptionmight upset the game forCongress. The grand old party hasfreshly emerged ‘clean’ in thewake of the shocking 2G verdict,which held no one guilty, and par-ticularly gave a clean chit to for-mer Prime Minister ManmohanSingh. However, the guilty verdictfor Lalu Yadav restores faith in theIndian institution as the series ofacquittals in landmark cases thathad shaped the corruption narra-tive in the past few years had chal-lenged the very idea of institution-al accountability.

KS Padmanabhan Chennai

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Tamil Nadu is back in focus.This time due to the surpris-ing RK Nagar by-election

result, which has raised a pertinentquestion as to whether corruptionis an issue at all in this country ornot. The by-election results say no.Who would have ever thought thatthe people of RK Nagar constituen-cy, which was earlier represented byJ Jayalalithaa, would elect a manwith a perceived corrupt image?

With the return of TTVDhinakaran, nephew of Sasikalaand Jayalalithaa’s companion, theMannargudi clan is back in thereckoning. Dhinakaran fought as anindependent candidate because theruling All India Anna DravidaMunnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK),

led by E Palaniswami and OPanneerselvam, had expelled himand his aunt from the party.

The surprising result of RKNagar bypoll result seems to haveupset many stakeholders and thereis bound to be a realignment ofpolitical forces in the State. The firstto be hit was the ruling EPS-OPScombine, which was hoping toclaim the legacy of Jayalalithaa.

With such a handsome margin,surpassing even that of Jayalalithaa,Dhinakaran and Sasikala will not letthem claim her legacy, asserting thatthey are the real AIADMK even ifthe Election Commission of India recognised the unitedAIADMK as the real party and hadalso allotted the two leaves symbolto the Panneerselvam-Palaniswamicombine.

The AIADMK had all the ben-efits. It has the Government, agood candidate in Madhusudanan,money and MLAs. Dhinakaran hasalready claimed that the AIADMKGovernment will fall in threemonths. Read this as a warning that

he is planning to destabilise theGovernment and would also like tobecome the Chief Minister at theearliest by devising all methods,including horse-trading. The onlysaving grace for the EPS-OPS com-bine will be if the legislators do notwant to face an election at all. Theystill have another three and a half years to go.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK) working President MKStalin is another man who is disappointed with the electionresult because he was hoping toestablish his leadership and had alsobeen going round the State, enthus-ing the cadres. This was the firstacid test for him after he took overthe reins of the party as the working president. The by electionresult will surely dent his image toa certain extent.

The DMK too had many advantages. It had the support ofcommitted voters, good cadre andother parties like the Congress, theLeft and the ViduthalaiChiruthaigal Katchi.

On the other hand, theAIADMK votes had a three-waysplit. The BJP tried hard to comecloser to the DMK. In a friendlygesture, Prime Minister NarendraModi had visited ai l ing MKarunanidhi in his Gopalapuramresidence and he had also invitedhim to come and take rest at hisDelhi residence.

Added to that was the relief theDMK got when former TelecomMinister A Raja, DMK MPKanimozhi and all other accused inthe 2G scam case were acquitted onthe day of the polling.

Meanwhile, the AIADMKGovernment was going nowhere.There were no development workundertaken by them. Despite allthese, the DMK came third and alsolost its deposit.

As for the Congress and othersmaller parties, like the PattaliMakkal Katchi, MarumalarchiDravida Munnetra Kazhagam andthe Desiya Murpokku DravidaKazhagam, they did not have muchat stake.

The BJP came last and even thenumber of None Of The Abovevotes were double than what its can-didate secured. This must havebeen a big disappointment for aparty which has been trying hard tofind its feet in the south and moreso in Tamil Nadu, where it does nothave a single MLA.

The BJP was trying to ride pig-gyback first with Panneerselvamafter Jayalalithaa’s death when hewas the Chief Minister of the Stateand then when the EPS-OPS factionunited and formed the AIADMKGovernment.

When this strategy did notwork, the BJP tried making analliance with the DMK. Now, theresults have apparently made itclear that it seems to have been bak-ing all the wrong horses. So, it iskeeping all its options open for the2019 Lok Sabha poll.

Though Dhinakaran is a winnernow, he has to cross a hurdle race.There are several pending casesagainst him. It is a big if whether hecan get the AIADMK legislators to

join him and if he can become theChief Minister of the State. It is notclear what stand the BJP will takeagainst him as the party at theCentre has been cold to bothDhinakaran and Sasikala.

One thing is certain. Instabilityin the State, which has been knownfor its progress, will continue. Afterthe demise of Jayalalithaa and thedeteriorating health ofKarunanidhi, there has been a vac-uum. Younger leaders are not of thesame stature — be it Stalin orAnbumani Ramadoss orVijayakanth or any other Congressleader like Su Thirunavukkarasar.

Even aspiring film heroes likeRajinikanth and Kamal Haasanwill not come up to their level. Howcan a leaderless State go forward?This is what is ailing Tamil Nadu.Instability in all parties may contin-ue until some strong leader emergesto fill up the vacuum. Dhinakaranis certainly not that leader.

(The writer is a senior politicalcommentator and syndicated colum-nist)

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We all love stories ofyoung entrepreneurs,from MarkZuckerberg, whochanged the way we

communicate with the world to ourvery own Ritesh Aggarwal, who isknown to be one of the youngest ChiefExecutive Officers in the Indian hotelindustry, besides being the first resi-dent Indian to be awarded with ThielFellowship. With the advent of boom-ing techpreneurs around the world,youth has become synonymous toentrepreneurial success.

Does that mean that youth andinexperience are better than experi-ence in both life and industry? Notreally, as was found by a study byKauffman Foundation, which statesthat the average age of successful start-up founders was 40, with at least sixto 10 years of industry experience.And high-growth start-ups are almosttwice as likely to be launched by peo-ple over 55 as by people 20 to 34,thereby busting all myths linkingyouth and entrepreneurship.Additionally, according to a recentsurvey by First Round, a seed stageventure capital fund, almost one-third of startup founders are over 40.

In entrepreneurship, informationnetworks are inefficient, which provideopportunities to the founders to usetheir unique prior knowledge to fill theexisting gaps; and experience plays avital role in it, becoming the most com-mon factor as to why people start busi-ness later in life, in addition to reason-able financial stability. Often theseunique opportunities reveal themselveswith time, learning and exposure to avariety of challenges to make a productbetter or a service more efficient, pro-viding compelling value proposition andthe basis of a successful company.Experience also helps the founders havedeeper networks, team managing capa-bilities and better business savvy andskills to deliver on their vision.

There are numerous entrepre-neurs for whom age is just a numberand one can find these examples in allindustries. One would imagine thatLinkedin, the world’s largest profes-sional networking website, was found-ed by a 20-something. However, ReidHoffman co-founded Linkedin at theage of 35 and went public at the ageof 43, after failing at his first network-ing site, Socialnet and working forPayPal before leaving his position atthe company in 2002.

Colonel Harland Sanders, theman behind the world famous KFC’schicken recipe, is far from being anideal entrepreneur. Having troubledearly years, he lost several jobs due tohis quarrelsome nature, even losing hisjob as a lawyer after a courtroombrawl with his own client!

Sanders slowly gained popular-

ity for his delicious chicken recipewhile working at a local service sta-tion in Kentucky. In 1952, at the ageof 62, Sanders franchised his‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ for the firsttime. Today, KFC has over 18,800outlets in 118 different countries andterritories. One of the pioneers ofmicrochip industry, Robert Noyce,founded Intel at the age of 41, wherehe oversaw the invention of themicroprocessor, an innovation thatrevolutionised computer technologyand forms the foundation of themachines we still use today. Hisexperience in several companies,like Beckman Instruments andFairchild SemiconductorCorporation, helped him immense-ly in his technological journey.

McDonald’s which is hugely pop-ular in India as well as around theworld as one of the leading fast foodoutlets, was popularised by Ray Krocusing the franchise model, who final-ly ended up buying the company fromthe McDonald family for $2.7 millionat the age of 52. He wanted to createa brand where repeat business wasbased on the name as opposed to onestore’s reputation.

There are several reasons whyentrepreneurs who start businesseslater in life have a better chance ofreaching success. The first reason isexperience, which is the most obviousand undeniable benefit of starting abusiness later in life. As one growsolder, the level of business acumen andhands-on experience along withpatience can give a business the bestchance it has at success.

Over the years, there has been an

economic shift from industrial toknowledge-based, where age makesentrepreneurs more valuable as pro-fessionals because it brings moreskills and knowledge to the table. Thiseconomic shift will support olderentrepreneurs who decide to make ago of it later in life because one cantransform experience into a highlysought-after commodity.

Second, a large and diverse net-work of peers and colleagues provideinvaluable connections to drive abusiness. This depth of a thriving net-work often takes years to build, so ageis certainly an asset in this situation.

Third, goal-setting is an integralpart of starting and running a busi-ness and is necessary on a consistentbasis during the life of the business.Experience makes an entrepreneur aseasoned goal-setter and the processof outlining a desired outcome, as wellas the actions needed to make out-come a reality becomes a secondnature and helps the founder to moveforward in a more efficient, cost-effec-tive and productive way.

An entrepreneur who has ‘beenthere, done that’ has a better chanceof being backed by investors who arelooking for older, seasoned and expe-rienced owners, who have alreadymade mistakes and are able to makesmarter investments.

According to Richard Branson,passion is one of the most effectivemotivators when it comes to launch-ing a business and older entrepre-neurs are aware of their passion, theyknow what they enjoy doing andwhat they don’t; and can tailor a newbusiness to fit that.

Fourth, as a financially secure,seasoned professional, older entre-preneurs have more options when itcomes to the path to entrepreneur-ship, like buying into a franchise,leveraging the power of an alreadysuccessful brand and making it theirown legacy, forming a partnershipwith a fellow entrepreneur and split-ing the costs, workload and profitsor becoming an investor, moving tothe other side of the table by provid-ing capital for someone else’s busi-ness idea, in return for a percentageof the business, leaving the work forthe younger lot to handle.

An older person has seen his/hershare of failures and this is veryimperative for an entrepreneur fortwo reasons. First, the most valuablepart of each failure is the lessons onelearns in the process. Each failureteaches the importance of being pre-pared, hard work and the need for acontingency plan. Second, the fear offailure is a lot less significant at thisage than it was in the youth. Sincebeing afraid to fail can result in inabil-ity to make a decision, lack of confi-dence and inaction, having less to fearcan be a powerful reason why olderentrepreneurs have an easier start.

Running a business isn’t easy —it takes hard work and discipline toreach success. As a result, it shouldbe unsurprising that many times, it’sthe older and wiser among us whoare better at navigating that road. Sodon’t count yourself out, no matterwhat your age. Success can come toanyone at any time.

(The writer is Assistant Professor,Amity University)

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Superstar Rajnikant has givenjitters to political Tamil

Nadu with his announcementon Tuesday that he wouldmake his plans known on NewYear’s Eve. Addressing his fansfrom various parts of the Statewho had assembled inChennai, the 67-year-old pop-ular actor said he was notstranger to politics as he was inpolitics since 1996.

The next four days will seeRajnikant spending his dayswith fans for photo-ops anddiscussions.

Tamil Nadu has been wait-ing with bated breaths for theannouncement aboutRajnikanth’s political entry.

The actor who enjoys goodrelations with a host of politi-cal leaders ranging from PrimeMinister Narendra Modi toDMK working president M KStalin is being seen by politicalcommentators as the leader forwhom the people of TamilNadu are waiting for. With thedemise of AIADMK supremoJ Jayalalithaa on December 5,2016 and the exit of DMKpatriarch M Karunanidhi (94)from the centre stage, TamilNadu is undergoing a severeleadership vacuum and a polit-ical crisis.

In true filmi style, the actorpreferred to keep his fans and

well wishers under suspense tillDecember 31. “I have been inpolitics since 1996. I know theproblems that come up withpolitics and that is the reasonwhy I tread carefully,”Rajnikanth told his followers.

“We will see when the warcomes. The war, as you knowis nothing but election. One hasto win a war but we need bothbravery and strategy to win it,”said Rajnikanth, whom fansaddress as Thalaiva (leader).

The actor, who has a down-to-earth image because of hissimplicity and humblenessbowled over the hundreds offans with a small but emotion-al speech which he deliveredextempore.

“Only negative things arebeing propagated in the society.You switch on TV news oropen the newspapers. What yiusee is only negative and chill-ing news. Son murders moth-

er, youths kill their sweet-hearts or those who spurntheir love proposals, fatherkilling son and host of dread-ed news is what we comeacross. My reuest to yiu all is tolove your family, take care ofyour aged parents and grandpatents, take care of your chil-dren.

“Then only this worldwould become a nice place tolive. Never get carried away bynegative news. Our focusshould be on positivethoughts,” said Rajnikanth.

B S Gnanadesikan, a long-time friend of the actor andwho is also a former TamilNadu Congress CommitteePresident, said that Rajnikanthwas serious about his politicalplans.

“The speech he deliveredtoday indicates his seriousnessabout a political innings. Thespeech has been well receivedby families, especially thewomen folk. Usually one doesnot come across such speech-es by aspiring politicians,” saidGnanadesikan, a two-timeRajya Sabha member.

The Pioneer had reportedlast week that Rajnikanth is allset to announce his politicalplans by the year-end.Tamilaruvi Manian, a closeadvisor to the star had told thisnewspaper that Rajnikanthwould be an instant success inTamil Nadu politics.

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It was an emotional momentwhen the surrendered Maoist

leader Jinugu NarasimhaReddy alias Jampanna met hisoctogenarian mother Yashodhaat an Old Age Home in Kazipettown of Warangal district aftermore than three decades.

During the interactionwith his mother Jampanna saidthat he had surrendered withthe permission of the party(CPI Maoist) and there was nothreat to him either from theparty or the police. Whenmother asked whether thepolice will not take any actionagainst him, he assured her, “Ihave surrendered to the police.Nobody will take any actionagainst me”.

On seeing his son for thefirst time since he went underground in 1983, Yashodhastarted crying. With tearsrolling down her sunkencheeks, the elderly lady said ina feeble voice, “all these yearsI lived only with the hope ofseeing you someday. Even if Idie now there is no problem”.

When mother asked himwhether he will again go backto the forest, Jampanna saidthat he will live with her. “NowI will stay with you, with thepeople. I went to forest for thesake of the people. Now real-izing that I can serve them bet-

ter here, I have come back”.Jamapanna said thanked

the CPI Maoist for giving hima lot of importance and makinghim a lead. “Party gave me somuch importance. That is whyI became leader and I am in thehearts of the people”, he said.

Yashodha asked Jampannawhether he remembered her.“Yes I missed you a lot. Butwhile in the party you can notshow your emotions. I sufferedinside”, he said. When askedwhether he used to get foodregularly in the forest,Jampanna said, “In forest wedidn’t think about food.Whenever we got something,we used to eat”. Later the moth-er and the son shared the foodhe had brought with him.

Earlier in an interactionwith the media after surren-dering to the DGP MMahender Reddy inHyderabad Jampanna, the for-

mer member of CentralCommittee of CPIM soundedcritical of the organization andits strategy.

Jampanna who was accom-panied by his wife HingeAnitha, said that the long termstrategy of Maoists had failedto take in to account thechanges in the society over thelast ten fifteen years. “Thestrategy in the 1980 and 1990swas correct when People’s WarGroup was working”, he added.“In the present circumstancesthe party should go to the stu-dents, farmers, and workersand work with them in theinterest of the public at large”.

While the police said thathe surrendered because of illhealth, he said that he decidedto quit because of the differ-ences with the organization. “Ihave sent a detailed letter to theparty leadership on the issues.It was my personal decision toquit the party to lead a normallife. Now I will fight for thepeople’s problems in a democ-ratic manner”.

Jampanna, who had joinedthe PWG in 1983 grew fromthe lower cadre to the toppositions of Central Committeemember, ember of CentralRegional Bureau, and Memberof Central MilitaryCommission in charge ofOdisha state committee. Hecarried a reward of Rs 20 lakhsover his head.

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After the conviction of RJDboss Lalu Prasad who was

lodged in Birsa Munda jail inRanchi on Saturday hisyounger son Tejashwi PrasadYadav returned here and hourslater held an emergency meet-ing on Tuesday with all seniorleaders of the party, MPs andlegislators where he told themthe message of the party supre-mo. Lalu has asked the partymen to remain united andonly intensify the struggle forwhich the plan would be chart-ed out by Tejashwi.

From the jail, where theformer CM is being treated asan ordinary prisoner anddenied any privilege, Lalu sentout a message to the party’srank and file through a few vis-itors who were allowed to meethim on Monday. He sent themessage, “Gaon ghar ja log.Party ke barhao. Eehan sab

theek ba” (You go to villagesand peoples’ homes. Work forextension of the party. Here (injail) everything is fine.) As perthe jail manual Lalu couldmeet only three visitors inweekdays.

Senior leader RaghubanshPrasad Singh said after themeeting, “2018 will be the yearof our struggle and fight againstinjustice to the poor and down-trodden. We will root out BJP.”The next meeting will be heldon January 6, three days afterthe announcement of the quan-

tum of punishment to Lalu bythe special CBI court. Themeeting would be chaired byformer CM Rabri Devi.

In political circles the moveto convene meeting on Tuesdayis seen as the attempt by theformer Deputy CM to tightenhis grip over the party and runthe party as defacto supremo inabsence of Lalu. The Tuesdaymeeting is also viewed as amove to allay any suspicion inthe party and outside about theauthority of Tejashwi who wasdeclared as Lalu’s heir at the

party’s national convention.Later Tejashwi told media

that there was absolutely nosuspense or question mark onhis leadership. “Everybody iswith us. Nobody ever raisedquestion (on my leadership).The proposal to make me heirof Lalu Prasad was brought bysenior most leader JagdanandSingh at the national conven-tion. Some outsiders arespreading rumours against meTejashwi told party rank andfile that party would furtherstrengthen after the new devel-opments. “Lalu is the name ofan ideology.

Even if he is in jail he willcontinue guiding us and lead-ing the struggle. We will not bedemoralized and continuemoving forward on the thornypath of truth,” he said.

In the backdrop of Lalu’sclaim that he was following thelines of Martin Luther King andNelson Mandela, his son said,

“If Lalu gets weak nobody willbe left to safeguard the consti-tution.”

Tejashwi blamed BJP aswell as Chief Minister NitishKumar for hatching conspira-cy against Lalu and his family.“A dirty politics has beenplayed against us but we havefull faith in the judiciary andconfident to get justice. TheGovernment is misusing thecentral agencies against us.This is very dangerous prece-dence. What will happen whena non-BJP Government willcome and start action againstNDA leaders,” he alleged.

He also claimed that entirenation was feeling that injusticehas been meted out to RJDchief and people across thecountry see to Lalu with thehope that he would take for-ward battle against RSS and BJPbecause he is the one leaderwho is speaking against the fas-cist forces.

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Kerala’s Marxist ChiefMinister Pinarayi Vijayan

has thanked Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and hisGovernment for the supportthey had extended to theState in the aftermath ofCyclone Ockhi even as aCentral team on Tuesdaystarted assessing the damagecaused by the cyclone and theState Government decidedto continue the search in thesea for the fishermen who hadgone missing in the storm.

The Chief Minister con-veyed special thanks to Modifor visiting the cyclone-affect-ed areas. Modi had visitedPoonthura fishing hamlet inThiruvananthapuram andheld talks with the ChiefMinister on December 19.The letter said the State hadgot immense support fromthe Centre in its efforts forrescuing those who weretrapped in the sea.

Union Home MinisterRajnath Singh’s words ofappreciation for the timelyand effective intervention bythe State Government fortackling the situation in theaftermath of cyclone Ockhihad worked as an encourage-ment for it in taking forwardthe rescue and relief efforts,the Chief Minister said.

Pinarayi also said thatthe Prime Minister’s offer toconsider the rehabilitationand reconstruction packagethe State had submitted to theCentre for meeting the emer-gencies brought about by thecyclone had given immensehope for Kerala in the presentcircumstances. The State hassought a Rs 7,342-crore pack-age from the Centre.

Meanwhile, the KeralaGovernment decided to con-tinue the search for the fish-ermen who had gone to seabefore the November 30cyclone “till the last man isfound”. The decision came inthe context of the failure tofulfill the promise made ear-lier by Fisheries Minister JMercykutty Amma that allthe missing fishermen wouldbe brought ashore byChristmas.

The Government wouldwrite to the Chief Secretariesof other coastal states request-ing their cooperation in the

search for the missing fisher-men. They would be asked toinform the KeralaGovernment if any fishermenor boats were found. TheGovernment also decided toconduct searches for debris ofboats in the sea.

According to official esti-mates, 207 fishermen – mostof them from the fishinghamlets ofThiruvananthapuram – whohad been trapped in the sea inCyclone Ockhi are yet to befound. However, the LatinCatholic Church, to which alarge number of the fisher-men belong, says that a min-imum of 315 fishermentrapped in the sea are yet tobe found.

Majority of the fisher-men who are still to be foundhad gone for fishing in smallboats and anxiety amongtheir relatives and friends isrising by the day about thefate. The Government hasput the death toll in thecyclone at 74 but it could goup to shocking levels once themissing persons are includedin the list of dead.

At the same time, a teamof top Central officials arrivedin the State on Tuesday toassess the damage caused byCyclone Ockhi. The team, tobe split into three, wouldassess the cyclone-causedlosses in the coastal districtsof Thiruvananthapuram,Kollam, Alappuzha,Ernakulam, Thrissur,Malappuram and Kozhikode.

One team headed byBipin Mallick, AdditionalSecretary in the DisasterManagement Division of theUnion Home Department,visited Poonthura fishinghamlet and held discussionswith fishermen and repre-sentatives of the LatinCatholic Church.

They also met ChiefMinister Pinarayi and topState Government officials.

The team will tour theOckhi-hit districts for thenext two days and hold dis-cussions with the StateGovernment on Friday beforeleaving for Delhi where it willsubmit its report to theCentre. The Central decisionon the cyclone rehabilitationpackage the State has soughtfrom it would depend on thedelegation’s report.

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The unexpected win of inde-pendent candidate TTV

Dinakaran, nephew of jailedVK Sasikala, the former generalsecretary of the AIADMK, inthe RK Nagar by-election hasbrought in a wave of politicalinstability and confusion inTami Nadu. The signals com-ing out of the AIADMK andDMK camps are contradictoryin nature.

M K Stalin, the workingpresident of the DMK, who hadclaimed that the RK Nagar by-election in which the candidateof his party had to forfeit thesecurity was a Himalayandefeat for the ElectionCommission for its failure therestrict the money and musclepower of the AIADMKchanged his stance within 24hours and accepted that theresult was a temporary set-backfor his party. “But we have apermanent victory to boast of;the 2G Spectrum verdict,”Stalin said in a communique toparty cadre on Tuesday.

Stalin’s volte-face cameimmediately after theannouncement made by TKSElangovan MP and partyspokesman that the defeat ofthe DMK candidate at R KNagar was a blow to the DMK.“We need to plug loopholes in

our strategy,” Elangovan hadsaid while speaking to reportersafter the declaration of theresult. His announcement wasin the backdrop of report thatthe DMK had engaged in large-scale transfer of votes toDinakaran to sow seeds ofconfusion in the AIADMK.

Things are no different inthe AIADMK factions also.Thanga Tamil Selvan, one ofthe 18 AIADMK MLAs dis-qualified by the Speaker forrevolting against chief ministerEdappadi Palaniswamy toldThe Pioneer on Tuesday that aclear picture would emergeonly after the Madras HighCourt pronounces its verdict inthe batch of petitions filed bythe rebels challenging theaction of the Speaker. “Weprefer to go back to the peopleand come back with renewedvigour to establish the Ammarule in Tamil Nadu,” saidTamilselvan, a key strategist inthe Dinakaran camp. He saidmany MLAs from theEdappadi Planiswamy campwere in touch with them.

K Pugazhendi, theKarnataka secretary of theAIADMK who was eased outof the position on Monday byPalaniswamy andPanneerselvam duo said atCoimbatore that 20 MLAsfrom the rival camp has alreadyspoken to Dinakaran.

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Mukul effect seems to havestarted telling on the

Trinamool Congress’ perfor-mance in Bengal, party insid-ers feel. Though the State rul-ing outfit has maintained itswinning streak with a 15 per-cent surplus vote share in thejust concluded SabangAssembly by-elections the star-tling increase in BJP’s vote innear-geometrical proportions—in this Midnapore seat—have left the Trinamool boss-es startled, party sources say inKolkata.

As the TMC high com-mand see a Mukul Roy hand inthe BJP’s good show an appar-ently fidgety Mamata BanerjeeGovernment has immediatelyresponded by shifting outMidanpore SP Bharati Ghoshreportedly close to the formerRailway Minister to a relative-ly less important post in thePolice Lines at Barrackpore.

After Sabang more headsare likely to fall in theTrinamool Congress for theirproximity to Roy once numbertwo in the Trinamool hierarchybefore he left that party to jointhe saffron bandwagon, sourcessay adding the Chief Ministerhas asked the respective lead-ers to keep a close tab on theactivities of the block and dis-trict level office bearers beforethe panchayat elections.

Normally BJP’s upwardgraph is interpreted as a resultof steady flow of the Left votesto the saffron side. But this timeround a booth-wise report saysit is not the Left but theTrinamool which has shedmore votes to the BJP.

“Though the Left has suf-fered a loss of 22,000 votes fromwhat it polled in 2014 it isbecause of the better ‘election

day man management’ (readrampant rigging) it is theTrinamool which has shedvotes in real terms to the BJP,”said a local Trinamool leader.

Booths after booths theBJP has witnessed an upwardswing in vote share. Forinstance, at Sabang 1,2, 8, 9regions (where TMC rule theroost) the party has doneexceptionally well, sources saidadding in some booths atMahar — a strong TMC denwhere even the men in uniformtread with caution — the BJPhas taken lead giving “stronghints of betrayal,” a TMC leaderfrom neighoubring Belda sayadding the “Chief Minister isvery angry about this.”

Surprisingly at Sabang 1where the BJP polled 19, 35, 15,25 votes respectively at somebooths in 2016 it has got 173,276, 170 and 245 votes in thesame booths this time round,giving indications that some-thing is genuinely wrong with“loyalty issues” leaders at

Trinamool Bhavan saidadding the party would soon sitwith the local leaders and sortout issues.

No wonder why BengalBJP president Dilip Ghosh on

Tuesday told a huge rally atBankura: “The trident ofMukul Roy, Rahul Sinha andmyself will pierce theTrinamool in the panchayatelections.”

On why the Chief Ministeris “very angry” on her Sabangteam despite the TrinamoolCongress increasing its sharefrom 92,000 to 106,000 votesthe leader from Belda who isknown to have played an activerole in driving away theMarxists from his region say“luckily the shortfall has beenneutralized by the vote wemanaged from the CPI(M)and the Congress. They joint-ly lost about 45,000 votes to us.”

CPI(M) candidate RitaMandal tended to second theview saying, “in more than 200booths our voters were notallowed to reach the polling sta-tions. They were told to keepaway from the booths or elsetheir women, livestock andpaddy would be burnt.”

In Kolkata CPI(M)’s SujanChakrabarty says “nowMamata Banerjee is meetingher match. They have beenlooting votes from us now thesame looters have suddenlygone against them.”

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An uneasy calm was pre-vailing on the campus of

Satavahana University inKarimnagar of Telanganawhich was rocked by the clash-es between Dalit students andthe members of BJP affiliatestudents organisation ABVPyesterday.

Armed policemen werekeeping a close vigil and theauthorities had closed the uni-versity and the hostels followingthe clashes over the ABVP’s alle-gations that the Dalit studentshad burnt the image of “BharatMata”. Administration had alsopostponed the examinations.However the Dalit studentsorganizations includingTelangana VidhyarthyVibhagam denied the allegation.

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With an eye to 2019 LokSabha elections, the

Samajwadi Party has steppedup campaign against the use ofElectronic Voting Machines(EVM).

The party has decided toconvene a meeting of all oppo-sition parties next year in thesecond week of January tochalk out a strategy in this con-nection. SP president AkhileshYadav has taken the initiativefor mobilising opposition par-ties for the use of ballots in nextLok Sabha poll.

Akhilesh said in Lucknowon Tuesday that his partyfavoured the use of ballotpapers in the by -election toGorakhpur and KaushambiLok Sabha seats due in March

next year.The seats were vacat-ed due to the resignation by sit-ting MP Yogi Adityanath fromGorakhpur and Keshav PrasadMaurya from Kaushambi.

“The opposition must joinhands and demand the use ofballot papers instead of EVMsas a particular party intends tomonopolise political space inthe entire country and this hasdangerous portents for democ-racy. The use of ballots insteadof EVMs can no longer beavoided for free and fair poll inthe country,’’said the SP presi-dent.

Demanding that ballotpapers be used in 2019 LokSabha elections, Akhilesh said,“Several parties have raiseddoubts over the credibility ofEVMs in different states duringdifferent elections. But ques-

tions over EVMs remain unan-swered by the ElectionCommission of India. The pollprocess can be considered freeand transparent only if itretains the trust of the people.’’

The SP chief said thatreports of malfunctioning ofEVMs during elections andcomplaints by candidates havebecome the order of the day. Hesaid that it has also been foundthat there was differencebetween the number of votescast and total number of vot-ers in a particular pollingbooth.

Meanwhile, the SPslammed the BJP and PrimeMinister Narendra Modi forthe inauguration of MegentaLine of Delhi Metro linkingNOIDA with South Delhi onMonday.

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Andhra Pradesh is addinganother feather in its

crown in technology. One ofthe prestigious projects of theChief Minister, Chandra BabuNaidu, AP Fibergrid Project,would be inaugurated by thePresident of India, Ram NathKovind, on Wednesday. Hewill also visit the Real TimeGovernance State Centrerecently inaugurated inSecretariat.

As the Techno savy ChiefMinister is promoting newtechnologies coming upacross the world, AndhraPradesh is at the forefront ofleveraging latest technologiesfor promoting developmentand people’s welfare. In thisregard, Andhra Pradesh Fibergrid initiated by the ChiefMinister is an ambitious pro-ject to give high speed inter-net to over 1.45 Crore house-holds, 12198 Panchayats,60000 schools, 10000 gov-ernment offices, 670 mandalOffices, 96 municipalities, 14corporations and 6000 PublicHealth Centres in the state at

as low as 149 rupees permonth, State’s PrincipleSecretary, Ajay Jain, claimed.

Also in order to provideseamless and frictionless realtime governance in the state,Real Time Governance (RTG)State Centre, a first such centerin India is established in AndhraPradesh Secretariat inAmaravati. The RTG centerwhich directly reports to theChief Minister is helping toimplement real time governanceto handle all the importantevents and natural calamities etc.on a real time basis, leveraginge-Governance, technology andelectronic communication. It ishelping the government takedata-driven decisions impactingthe lives of citizens with themotto of ‘People First’.

Considering the impor-tance of these two events andthe Chief Minister’s efforts toleverage technology for thedevelopment of the state andpeople’s welfare, recently, thefounder of Microsoft, BillGates, has come forward towork with the State inAgriculture and RuralDevelopment sectors throughhis Foundation.

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Vijay Rupani’s 20-memberCouncil of Ministers took

oath of office and secrecy at theState Secretariat complex inGandhinagar on Tuesday in thepresence of nearly 10,000 invi-tees including Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, BJP’s nation-al president Amit Shah andChief Ministers of BJP and itsallies-ruled States.

As anticipated BJP’s think-tank gave weightage to Patidarsas well as OBCs in the RupaniMinistry and allotted six berthseach to both the communities.In fact, Patidars got biggershare in the pie as out of 10Cabinet rank Ministers includ-ing Chief Minister VijayRupani, five Ministers are frompowerful Patidar community.Apart from Deputy CM NitinPatel four other Patidars–for-mer Gujarat BJP president RCFaladu, Kaushik Patel, SaurabhPatel and Jayesh Radadia gotCabinet ranks. Another PatidarKishor Kanani, first time MLAfrom Varachha constituency ofSurat city was made Minister ofState (MoS).

In Gujarat’s total popula-tion, Patidars are nearly 12 to15 per cent while OBC formsover 60 per cent– representingmore than 140 communities.OBC MLA Dilip Thakore wasgiven cabinet berth and five

other OBC legislatures weremade MoS. In a balancing act,three ministerial berths givento tribal community includingone cabinet ranked in form ofGanapat Vasava, who wasForest Minister in the previousGovernment.

The sole Dalit face of theRupani Government isIshwarbhai Parmar who gotCabinet rank. VibhavaribenDave is the only woman in theministry as MoS. She is also thelone Brahmin. Two Kshtriyaleaders BhupendrasinhChudasama and PradeepsinhJadeja too repeated. Rupanihimself belongs to Jain Baniacommunity. Biggest region ofState – Saurashtra-Kutch which

sends 54 MLAs in the GujaratLegislative Assembly got max-imum representation in theRupani’s council of Ministerswith seven berths out of total20. South Gujarat and NorthGujarat got equal weightagewith five berths each whileCentral Gujarat got only three.Of the 33 districts of the State,13 districts got representationin the new council of Ministers.

Meanwhile Governor O PKohli administered the oaths ofoffice to Nitin Patel as deputyChief Minister. The oath-tak-ing ceremony was conductedby Gujarat’s chief secretary JNSingh. As Rupani became thesecond-time Chief Minister,former Chief Minister

Anandiben Patel, ShankersinhVaghela and Keshubhai Patelshared the stage together.Besides former deputy PrimeMinister Lal Krishna Advani,Maharashtra CM Devendra

Fadnavis, Bihar CM NitishKumar, Uttar Pradesh CM YogiAdityanath, Madhya PradeshCM Shivrajsinh Chauhan wereamong the BJP and its alliesruled state CMs.

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The pillars of BJP in GujaratKeshubhai Patel,

Shankersinh Vaghela andNarendra Modi were seentogether in public almost aftertwo decades during swearing-in ceremony of RupaniGovernment on Tuesday. “It’sfull circle now. The trinity

made it possible to bring BJPin power in 1995. They weretogether at that time whenfirst BJP government wasformed under the leadership ofKeshubhai 22 years ago. Nowequations have changed, againthey seemed united!” said a vet-eran BJP leader who was alsopresent during the oath taking ceremony.

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Kerala Chief MinisterPinarayi Vijayan, a senior

CPI(M) Politbureau member, onTuesday reiterated that hisparty’s chief enemy was theBJP-RSS but said the Congresscould not be made an associateof a democratic-secular alliancein the fight against the SanghPariwar.

Inaugurating the delegates’session of the three-day districtCPI(M) conference in Thrissur,being held in preparation for the22nd party congress to be heldin Hyderabad in April, Pinarayialleged that the Sangh Pariwar’sagenda was to destroy the diver-sity existing in the country.“The BJP’s bid is to destroy theprinciple of unity in diversity,” hesaid.

Unleashing a scathing attackagainst the Sangh Pariwar and thepolicies being pursued by the BJP-led NDA Government in theCentre, Pinarayi alleged that the

agenda of the RSS was to central-ize power around itself. The BJP-led Government had embarked onan exercise to stifle the federalismexisting in the country, he said.

“On the one side we areexperiencing the perils ofdemonetization and introduc-tion of GST and on the other weare seeing conflicts and the(Sangh Pariwar’s) hunt on theminorities. The country is fac-ing a grave danger… The peo-ple, including the farmers, arefacing a plethora of problemslike price rise and debt trap,”Pinarayi said.

However, the CPI(M) leadersaid the Congress, a proponentof the policies of globalizationand liberalization, could not beincluded in an alliance againstthe BJP which was pursuing thesame policies. “An alliance ispossible only with those politi-cal parties which were con-cerned about secularism andwhose policies carried clarity,” heopined.

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The farmers from NorthKarnataka districts who are

agitating for the past four daysin front of BJP office inBengaluru asking for a solutionfor contentious issue of watersharing of river Mahadayibetween Karnataka and Goa fordrinking purpose have decidedto intensify their agitation fol-lowing the failure of talksbetween State BJP president BSYeddyurappa and the farmers.

According to sources, BJPparty national president AmitShah has asked Yeddyurappa tomeet the agitating farmers inBengaluru which madeYeddyurappa leaving his rathy-atra to come to city onWednesday to meet the farm-ers who wanted an assurance inwriting about resolving theissue with Goa Chief MinisterManohar Parikkar.

Yeddyurappa who hadreceived a letter from GoaChief Minister assuring him ofconsidering the issue sympa-thetically as it was for drinkingpurpose has assured the farm-ers to resolve the issue withinDecember 15.

In a letter to his Goa coun-terpart, Chief MinisterSiddaramaiah said, “... themedia in Karnataka has beenreporting a personal letteraddressed by you to MrYeddyurappa....I only wish youhad replied to my letter sinceI took the initiative for thenegotiated settlement, non onlyon my own but also on the sug-gestion made by the hon-ourable judges of the MahadayiWater Disputes Tribunal.”Siddaramaiah went on to saythat he was once again askingfor a meeting with the chiefministers of Goa andMaharashtra.

Meanwhile Kalasa-BanduriNala Horata Samiti leaderVeeresh Sobarad Matt said thetalks with BJP State president BS Yeddyurappa has failed andthey would decide the nextcourse of action.

He said Yeddyurappa hasfailed to keep up his assuranceto render justice to the agitat-ing farmers before December15 and even today blamed theCongress for scuttling hisparty's efforts in solving thethree decade old dispute.

The agitators who are sit-

ting in front of the BJP officefor the last four days expressedtheir disappointment overYeddyurappa’s comments anddecided to continue theirprotest. Earlier in the dayKarnataka Water ResourcesMinister M B Patil spoke to theagitators and narrated the stepstaken by his Government tofind an amicable solution. Heaccused the Goa Chief Ministernot communicating to hisKarnataka counterpart on theissue and chose to address toYeddyurappa.

In a press conference laterin the evening Yeddyurappaaccused the Congress led bychief minister Siddaramaiah ofpoliticising instead of resolvingthe issue with the GoaGovernment. He alleged for-mer AICC President SoniaGandhi, present PresidentRahul Gandhi and ChiefMinister Siddaramaiah havecheated the people on the issue.

Yeddyurappa said that itwas on the behest of the thenChief Minister PratapsinghRane that the Tribunal was setup when Manmohan Singhwas the Prime Minister.Former Prime Minister Atal

Behar Vajpayee had directed torelease 7.56 tmc of water toKarnataka as per the directionsof the Central WaterCommission.

The north Karnataka farm-ers are demanding implemen-tation of the Kalasa-Banduriproject. This project wouldinvolve diverting water of theMahadayi River from its twotributaries, Kalasa and Banduriin some of the northern dis-tricts of the State. Goa hadraised objections to this projectsaying that it would affect theirwater supply from the river.

In another developmentFarmers agitating over sharingof Mahadayi river water havegiven for a day-long NorthKarnataka Bandh onWednesday demanding tak-ing up construction of Kalasa-Banduri Nala project.

The Core Committee ofthe BJP which was to have metat the Party State headquartershere had to change the venueto Yeddyurappa’s residence dueto ongoing agitation. Morethan 100 Farmers and pro-Kannada organisations haveextended support to the Bandhcall.

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Nearly six years after it wasreadied and that too in his

life time, a life-size wax sculp-ture of late Shiv Sena chief BalThackeray has been finally putup on display at a celebrity waxmuseum at the hill stationtown of Lonavla near Pune.

After Sena’s youth viewedthe sitting statue of his grand-father and approved it, lateThackeray’s wax model was puton display at the Sunil'sCelebrity Wax Museum(SCWM) at Lonavla.

In the wax exhibit, lateThackeray is seen in his famil-iar pose – donning a saffroncoloured shining silk kurtawith golden buttons and alungi, sporting a pair of darkglasses with two “rudraksh-mala” around his neck, histrade-mark white sandals

Thackeray is shown seatedon a large elaborately carved,silver-coloured ‘Sinhasan’(throne), with two lions for thehand-rest and the party’ logo,a bare-fanged tiger lookingdown from the top of thebackrest.

With his forefinger point-ed to someone, he is seen in acommanding posture.

“I had readied Balasaheb’ssculpture in early 2012 when hewas alive, I could not display itin my museum as I had no per-mission from Thackeray’s fam-ily to do so.

I had been lying in my stu-dio since then. During a visit toLonavla, Adityas Thackerayvisited my studio and viewedhis grandfather’s sculpture.

He was impressed by theimage. He gave me a go aheadto display the life-size model inmy museum,” wax sculptorand SCWM’s ManagingDirector Sunil Kandalloor told“The Pioneer” on Tuesdayevening.

“Adityaji assured me thathe would also help me set abranch of my museum inMumbai. Currently, my muse-um has branches in Kochi andDevgad,” Kandalloor said.

Currently, Kandalloor’smuseum has nearly 100 waxfigures of various prominentnational and international per-sonalities from different fieldsincluding politics, arts, socialfields, Hollywood and

Bollywood personalities,sportspersons, etc on display.Hundreds of tourists visit hisgallery during weekends andalso on weekdays.

Prominent among the waxsculptures that adorn SCWMinclude that of MahatmaGandhi, Subhash ChandraBose, Prime Minister NarendraModi, Albert Einstien,Abraham Lincoln, Sir CharlieChaplin, Bruce Lee, St. MotherTeresa, Mohammed Rafi, MFHussain, Micheal Jackson,James Bond, Queen ElizabethII, Dalai Lama, RowanAtkinson, Atal Bihari Vajpayee,Anna Hazare, AR Rahman,Kapil Dev, Rajnikanth andRamdev Baba in a yogic pose.

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Nearly five months after hewas divested of the post

pending an inquiry into seriousallegations of corruption,senior IAS officerRadheyshyam Mopalwar wason Tuesday reinstated andreappointed by theMaharashtra Government asManaging director of the state-run Maharashtra State RoadDevelopment Corporation(MSRDC).

Mopalwar’s reinstatementcame amidst speculation thathe has been given a “clean chit”by a three-member committeethat went into the authenticityor otherwise of a leaked audioclip in which he is heardallegedly discussing a bribewith a middleman.

However, there was noofficial word from the stategovernment about the findingsof the three-member commit-tee appointed by Chief MinisterDevendra Fadnavis to lookinto allegations of corruptionagainst Mopalwar.

On August 3, Fadnavis haddivested Mopalwar, a 1995-batch IAS officer, of his post asthe vice chairman and manag-ing director of cash-richMSRDC and sent him on forcedleave, pending an inquiry into

the serious allegations of corrup-tion that the latter faced.

Through a notificationissued on Tuesday, theMaharashtra Government for-mally announced the reinstate-ment of Mopalwar. Thoughchief minister DevendraFadnavis had — under mount-ing pressure from theOpposition parties – divestedMopalwar of his post in thewake of serious allegationsagainst him, the notificationissued by the State Governmentclaimed that the senior IAS offi-cer had resumed duty as the vicechairman and MD of MSRDCafter availing privilege leave for145 days between August 3and December 25, 2017.

Official sources claimedthat the three-member com-mittee, comprising formerChief Secretary Johnny Joseph,Additional Commissioner ofPolice R D Shinde and DeputyCommissioner of Police ParagManere had given a “cleanchit” to Mopalwar on the basisof its finding that the leakedtape was “doctored”.

It may be recalled thatFadnavis had ordered aninquiry on August 3, after theOpposition displayed in theState Assembly a letter writtenby the Ministry of Personnel,Public Grievances and

Pensions, to the State ChiefSecretary seeking a report onthe allegations that Mopalwarpossessed disproportionateassets amounting to more than�800 crore.

Apart from a complaint ofdisproportionate assetsamounting to �800 crore madeagainst him by BJP MLA AnilGote, Mopalwar had comeunder a cloud over the 36taped conversations that havesurfaced. The tapes, purported-ly containing the voice ofMopalwar, showed him strik-ing deals for money.

In one of the purportedtelephonic conversationsbetween him and a business-man. Mopalwar allegedly seeksa bribe for regularising 15,000sq ft land at Borivali in northMumbai. While displaying theCD of the conversation, formerdeputy Chief Minister andsenior NCP leader Ajit Pawarhad said in the State Assemblyon August 3: “There are 36such tapes in which Mopalwaris heard making deals”.

While divesting Mopalwarof his crucial post as the vicechairman and ManagingDirector of MSRDC, Fadnavishad said in the State Assembly:“Mopalwar is being divestedfrom his post till such time theinquiry against him is not over.

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NOTICE INVITING e TENDER

On behalf of the President of India, Dy Inspector General, SHQ. Delhi ITB Police, P.O. Madangir,Tigri Camp, New Delhi-110062 invites on line bids for supply of Liquor up to 05-01-18 at 1800 Hrs.

S. Description Of Approx Earnest Money Cost of e- TenderNo. Stores Qtly In. (Refundable) (Non Refundable) F.O.R

in Rupees in Rupees01 RUM 119724 1,00,000/- 500/- 22nd Bn,02 WHISKY 104004 ITBP, Tigri03 BRANDY/WINE 17448 Camp,04 BEER 97848 Madangir, Delhi

Note- quantity proposed above may be increased or decreased as per requirement.

S/N Details of Key Dates Date Time01 Date of online publication 14-12-17 1500 hrs02 Documents download Start date 14-12-17 1510 hrs03 Bid Submission Start Date 14-12-17 1530 hrs04 Bid Submission End Date 05-01-17 1400 hrs05 Physical submission of Earnest money Deposit/Bid Money

and cost of Tender Documents and Brands sample on or before 05-01-18 1800 hrs06 Date of Technical Bid Opening 08-01-18 1500 hrs

2 Tender documents and other instructions can be downloaded or viewed online from the CPPportal (http://eprocure.gov.in/e procure/app) by the firms registered on the website.

3 As the bids are to be submitted online and required to be encrypted (by their user Public key)and digitally signed, the bidders are advised to obtain Digital Signature Certificate. (DSC),from suitable vendors or from any authorized agency at the earliest.

Note:a Tender forms containing terms and conditions can be downloaded on line bid submission

process on cpp portal tender enquiry on or before 05-01-18 at 1000 Hrs.b Tender forms will be scanned on line bid submission process on cpp portal along with req-

uisite fees as prescribed in NIT as a cost of tender form Rs 500/- (not refundable) and EMDFees Rs 1,00,000/- (refundable) same will be submitted by bank draft in favour of DIG SHQ(Delhi) ITBP payable at SBI R.K. Puram (Code No. 1076) . The E Tender will be opened bythe board of Officers on08-01-18 at 1500 Hrs on above mentioned address.

c For more details please log on CPP portal tender enquiry.Sd/-DIG

davp 19112/11/0255/1718 SHQ. (DELHI) ITB POLICE

NO.)/ITBP/SHQ (DELHI)/PROV/LIQUOR TENDER)/2017/- 866OFFICE OF THE DY INSPECTOR GENERAL

SHQ. DELHI ITB POLICE (MHA)GOVT. OF INDIA, P.O. MADANGIR, TIGRI CAMP

NEW DELHI-110062DATE: 21-12-17

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Anil Ambani-led RelianceCommunications (RCom) onTuesday has finalised a new reso-

lution plan to reduce its huge debt by upto �39,000 crore through prepayment. Thecompany said it would form a newRCom with debt levels under �6,000 crore.

The resolution plan, however, involvesexiting strategic debt restructuring (SDR)and monetising some of the company'sassets, including transfer of spectrum lia-bilities by March 2018.

Crippled with total debt of �45,000crore as till October this year the compa-ny claimed a full debt resolution by Marchnext year, but without involving any con-version of debt into equity and exiting theSDR framework, apart from coming on-board of a strategic investor. However, the

company did not mention any particularname the new investor(s), but sources closeto the development said that there wouldbe 50 per cent foreign investors and rest50 per cent from India.

With the announcement of its debtrevival plan, shares of RCom zoomednearly 32 per cent.

The embattled mobile carrier had totaldebt of �45,000 crore as of October endthis year and aims to reduce that to �6,000crore, Ambani said at a briefing inMumbai on Tuesday.

“RCom plans to settle on buyers for

assets including its telecom spectrum, tow-ers, optical fibre network and real estate,with all transactions to close betweenJanuary and March,” the company state-ment said.

Announcing the resolution plan,Anil Ambani said that the new plan hasthe support of a Chinese lender that haddragged it to the NCLT for dues runninginto $1.8 billion, and would see RCombringing down its mountain of debt by�25,000 crore.

“As far debt resolution is concerned,it involves RCom exiting SDR framework

with no conversion of debt into equity andzero write-off by lenders,” Ambani said,adding the company expects full closureby March 2018.

He further said that the deal involvedan eight-stage asset monetisation processunder an oversight committee headed byformer RBI Deputy Governor SS Mundrawith members from telecom regulatorTRAI and the whole process will be com-pleted in 40 days flat.

The proceeds from asset monetisationwill be used only to pay back the lenders,including China Development Bank withwhom the company sealed an out-of courtsettlement last evening in Beijing.

“On the no hair-cut for lenders, he saidthe new plan involves zero equity conver-sion for lenders and bond holders. The debtresolution also involves part transfer ofspectrum installments,” Ambani added.

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Stocks on Tuesday went into the unexploredterritory as benchmarks Sensex and Nifty

closed at life highs, mainly because of some fag-end buying by participants.

The 30-share Sensex was up for the secondstraight session, hitting 34,010.61, a fresh clos-ing high — with a gain of 70.31 points, or 0.21per cent. This was its highest close sinceFriday's 33,940.30. It had risen 184.10 points inthe previous session on Friday.

For the 50-share Nifty, the close was a freshpeak at 10,531.50, up 38.50 points, or 0.37 percent, dismantling its previous record of 10,493reached on Friday.

It was all-time intra-day high for both thebenchmarks too. Mid-cap and small-cap indicescontinued to be on investors' radar.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) boughtshares worth a net �107.87 crore while the buy-ing tally for domestic institutional investors(DIIs) was �371.53 crore on Friday, provision-al data showed.

“Market started off range bound asinvestors' participation remained low due toholiday season while stock specific action intelecom, pharma and metal towards the closeraised the indices to a new high. Mid and smallcap outperformed on expectation of improve-ment in rural demand supported by contin-ued government reforms,” said Vinod Nair,Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services.

There were also signs of speculators rush-ing to cover their short positions ahead of this

year's last expiry in the derivatives segment onThursday. Blue chips such as Bharti Airtel, SunPharma and Yes Bank, climbed up to 2.59 percent. Reliance Communications made waveswith a sharp rise of 30.78 per cent after thecompany announced yet another debt revivalplan claiming full debt resolution by March.

Reliance Industries rose 1.03 per cent,Reliance Capital 7.02 per cent and ReliancePower 3.85 per cent. Telecom, realty, metal andhealthcare made gains of up to 2.28 per cent.

Broader markets stood out as the mid-cap index rose for the eighth straight ses-sion, this time 0.76 per cent, ending at arecord. The small-cap index too ruled highfor the seventh session, beating the Sensexwith a gain of 0.64 per cent.

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Keeping out wilful defaultersfrom bidding for stressed

assets is not a “moral issue”, buta choice between certainty anduncertainty, IBBI ChairpersonMS Sahoo has said.

His comments comeagainst the backdrop of the gov-ernment, through an ordinancelast month, barringwilful defaultersfrom bidding forstressed assets underthe Insolvency andBankruptcy Code(IBC).

The governmentwill be introducing aBill to replace theordinance this weekin Parliament.

Asked whether barring wil-ful defaulters would narrow theuniverse of bidders for thestressed assets, the IBBI chiefreplied in the negative. “If wekeep undeserving people out ofthe system, it is not a moralissue," said Sahoo.

The Insolvency andBankruptcy Board of India(IBBI) is implementing theCode, which came into force latelast year.

Noting that such a movedoes not narrow the uni-verse of bidders, Sahoo saidthe issue of wilful defaultersis an economic issue, “which

we call moral hazard”.“The choice is between cer-

tainty and uncertainty. Do we gowith a person who has a credi-ble record and is likely to deliv-er or go with a person who doesnot have a credible record and isunlikely to deliver?” he said.

The ordinance aims atputting in place safeguards toprevent unscrupulous people

from misusing orvitiating the provi-sions of the IBC, thegovernment hadsaid in a statementlast month.

“The amend-ments aim to keepout such personswho have wilfullydefaulted, are

associated withnon-performing assets, orare habitually non-compliantand, therefore, are likely to bea risk to successful resolutionof insolvency of a company,”it had said.

The ordinance to amendthe Code was issued amidconcerns that a defaulting pro-moter could wrest back controlof the company that is underinsolvency even as banks takea hit on the loans.

Nearly 500 corporates havebeen admitted for resolutionand about 100 companies havecommenced voluntary liqui-dation under the Code.

NEW DELHI: Mobile handsetcompanies, under the aegis ofIndian Cellular Association,have sought additional sixmonths to liquidate pre-GSTperiod devices so that they canavail input tax credit.

The deadline to avail inputtax credit by mobile firms onhandsets manufactured beforeJuly 1 is December 31, 2017.

“Our feedback is that thesix-month July-December 2017period is insufficient to liquidatethe old stock. At least 20-30 percent stock is still in pipeline inthe vast supply chain under 35GST jurisdictions,” ICANational President PankajMohindroo said in a letter toFinance Minister Arun Jaitleyon December 23.

The ICA has sought exten-sion of time period by at least 6months, saying by that time thestock will be exhausted.

Mohindroo said there willbe no revenue loss as suchsince duty has already been paidon the products and facility toavail input tax credit for unlim-ited duration is available in theGST regime.

“There is no reason why thetrade should be denied similarcarry forward in the cases ofunrebated taxes suffered in thepre-GST regime,” he said.

The Indian mobile device

industry size in the currentyear is estimated at �1.5 lakhcrore and the number of trans-actions in the industry will beat least 4-5 times of this value,since the same item changeshands several times in the sup-ply chain from raw material tofinished goods and then to thewholesalers, distributors, retail-ers and consumers, the ICA let-ter said.

“There is a lot of resentmentin the trade on this and weunderstand that some parties

have gone to the High Courtand have secured interim relief.Others too may have gone tocourt to have the judgementextended to them also. Petitionson the same lines are being filedbefore the High Court in theother GST jurisdictions. Eventhe Supreme Court may beseized of the matter,” he said.

Mohindroo said that exten-sion of deadline till June 30, 2018will ease the transition to GSTand give relief without hurtingindustry and trade. PTI

NEW DELHI: The GST collec-tions slipped to their lowest inNovember as rates were cut ondozens of goods to make the newnational sales tax regime moreacceptable.

Total collections under theGoods and Services Tax (GST)— which is the amalgamation ofthe excise duty, service tax, VATand several other indirect taxes— in November slipped for thesecond straight month to �80,808crore, down from over �83,000crore in the previous month, aFinance Ministry statement said.

As many as 53.06 lakh taxreturns had been filed tillDecember 25, it said.

In the biggest GST rejig yet,tax rates on over 200 items,ranging from chewing gum tochocolates to beauty products,wigs and wrist watches, were cutin early November to providerelief to consumers and busi-nesses amid economic slow-down.

As many as 178 items of dailyuse were shifted from the top taxbracket of 28 per cent to 18 percent, while a uniform 5 per centtax was prescribed for all restau-rants, both air- conditioned andnon-AC.

The rate cuts came on theback of GST Council — the high-est decision making body of thenew indirect tax regime — in

October deciding to reduce taxrates on 27 products.

Of the �80,808 crore col-lected in November, �7,798 crorehas been garnered as compen-sation cess in November — thefifth month of GST rollout.

Besides, �13,089 crore havebeen collected as Central GST,�18,650 crore as State GST,�41,270 crore as IntegratedGoods and Services Tax.

Further, �10,348 crore isbeing transferred from IGST toCGST account and �14,488 croreis being transferred from IGST toSGST account by way of settle-ment of funds on account of crossutilisation of IGST credit for pay-ment of CGST and SGST, respec-tively or due to inter-state busi-ness to consumer transactions.

Thus, a total amount of�24,836 crore is being transferredfrom IGST to CGST/SGSTaccount by way of settlement, thestatement added. PNS

NEW DELHI: Tata Sons Chairman NChandrasekaran on Tuesday askedemployees of the group to focus on sim-plification, synergy and scale in order tocash in on opportunities emanating froman expected 4 per cent growth of the glob-al economy next year.

In his new year address to over 6.95lakh employees of the salt-to-software con-glomerate, he said globally it is a “time ofdeep transformation, with many excitingnew developments, coupled with a height-ened sense of uncertainty”.

“On balance, I am firmly optimistic.The global economy is set to grow at 4 percent year-on-year in 2018 — the fastestpace since 2011. Global expansion in thiscoming phase of the cycle will rotateincreasingly towards developing markets— especially India,” he said.

Chandrasekaran, who took over asthe chief of the Tata group in February

this year after the unceremonious ousterof Cyrus Mistry last year, said he was“more convinced than ever before aboutthe future power and potential of theTata businesses”.

The House of Tata remains a corner-stone of India's growth story, and will con-tinue to play an influential role on theglobal stage, he said.

“With our diversified global footprintand our presence in the lives of almost abillion consumers, we are uniquely posi-tioned. In order to achieve peak perfor-mance, we must focus on three things —Simplification, Synergy and Scale,”Chandrasekaran said.

After taking charge at the helm of theover $100 billion group, he has been focus-ing on reducing cross holding amonggroup companies, while also working toexit from businesses where group entitiesare not significant players.

Reiterating the stand, Chandrasekaransaid, “To thrive in a world of rapidchange, we need to reduce complexityacross businesses and simplify. This willhelp us respond and react faster.”

It will also bring agility and spur fasterdecision-making across the group, he said,adding, “We must make our managementand organisation structures simpler andimpactful”.

Exhorting for synergies among groupcompanies, he stressed on the need for a'One TATA' approach, leveraging collab-oration between Group companies andassociates, to be a force multiplier.

“To my mind ‘One Tata’ is a mindsetthat brings the best of the group togeth-er for every opportunity. It is a journeythat will allow us to discover the art of thepossible when we work together,”Chandrasekaran added.

“To grow and innovate consistent-

ly, we must anticipate synchronicity,” headded.

With digital revolution “putting tech-nology at the heart of all industry to deliv-er real time value to an interconnectednetwork of users”, he said Tatas “can dis-tinguish ourselves in this networkedworld — first by being bold, enthusiasticand early adopters; and second by culti-vating an obsessive focus on customerexperience”.

“Unlocking the hidden productivity ofthe Tata ecosystem can catapult us to anew level of sustainability and perfor-mance,” he said.

Reminding the employees that theTata group has presence in many sectorswhich have potential to scale, he said,“Each of them presents significant oppor-tunity of growth. We need to scalethrough growth, consolidation and col-laboration.” PTI

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NEW DELHI: Markets regu-lator Sebi is mulling easingaccess norms for investmentby foreign portfolio investors(FPIs) and bringing a newframework to strengthen thegovernance structure formutual funds, senior officialshave said.

Also, the Securities andExchange Board of India(Sebi) has plans to review theframework for credit ratingagencies (CRA) as it seeks tocheck the menace of 'ratingshopping' and 'pick-and-choose' approach in theiractions.

Further, the regulator islooking at providing an addi-tional method for listed entitiesto achieve the minimum pub-lic shareholding requirements.

These issues would betaken up at the Sebi boardmeeting scheduled forThursday, senior officials said.

With regard to FPIs, themarkets watchdog may con-sider simplifying regulatoryrequirements pertaining toaccess norms, with a view toeasing direct registration foroverseas investors.

The regulator will reviewthe norms for CRA on thebasis of public comments. Ithad come out with a consul-tation paper in this regard inSeptember. PNS

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When a person is dubbed asthe next Kapil Dev, you

know he has done somethingright and Hardik Pandya couldhardly do any wrong in 2017 as heproved his mettle in all three for-mats. His rise started in the IPLwhere he shone with both bat andball. Afted being called up to thenational side, he continued his bril-

liant run by playing many dazzlingknocks filled with breathtakingstroke-play and also bowled at live-ly pace. He also made his Testdebut and by scoring a hundredagainst Sri Lanka, gave India theall-rounder they have been look-ing for in that format. While com-parisons with Kapil Dev may beslightly premature, there is nodoubt that India have unearthed anextremely bright talent.

Olympic silver medallistSindhu once again

reigned supreme of theIndian badmintonscene throughimpressive perfor-

mances through theyear. She avenged her

loss to Carolina Marinin the Olympic gold

medal match on home soilby defeating her in the Final of

the Indian Open. She then reachedthe Final of the World Championshipand took part in one of the greatestmatches in the history of the sportagainst Nozomi Okuhara which she lostafter an epic encounter. The final wentdown to th e decisive third set and last-ed for one hour and 49 minutes. The

match also started a rivalry betweent thetwo. Sindhu had her revenge by beatingOkuhara in the Final of the Korea Open.The year ended with the Hyderabadireaching the Final of the Dubai SuperSeries Finals and again missed the titleby a small margin but once again prov-ing that she brings her best in big tour-naments.

Who would havethought that a 20-

year old boy wouldemerge as the biggest starof PKL and completelyovershadow giants of thegame like Anup Kumarand Rahul Chaudhary.That's exactly whatPardeep Narwal did

and in the process raised the bar of perfor-mance to unseen heights in the 5th edition ofPKL. Stats tell the story of his domination thisseason: 369 points, 18 super raids and 19 super10's which included 20+ point performancesalso. Not only did he dominate the entire sea-son but also rose to the occasion in the Final byrescuing his team from precarious positions andgetting them the PKL 5 title.

Indian football over-saw some major

changes this year. Thesenior national team ison a 13-match unbeatenstreak and broke intotop 100 of FIFA rankingfor the first time. ButIndia under-17 boys tookthe limelight away fromthe men as India hostedthe FIFA under-17 World Cup. The team failedto win any of their matches but Dheeraj Singhbecame crowd favourite with his series of mar-velous saves in all the games. Although JeaksonSingh created history by becoming the first andonly Indian player to score in a football WorldCup, Dheeraj was the talk of the town.

Vijender Singh began 2017being unbeaten in his pro-

boxing career and has finished itwithout a blemish. He had toendure a gruelling contestagainst China’s ZulpikarMaimaitiali which went down tothe wire but Vijender somehowemerged as the winner and showedgreat sportsmanship by offering toreturn his opponent’s belt whichhe had won. He then faced ErnestAmuzu at the end of the year andproved himself by registering aneasy win. He has already put otheron notice by saying that he isaiming for the World title.

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David Warner posted a century after ano-ball reprieve and skipper Steve

Smith was on track for four straightBoxing Day tons as Australia made a solidstart to the fourth Ashes Test againstEngland on Tuesday.

Warner received a massive let-off on99 to claim his 21st Test hundred as anAustralia side chasing a series whitewashtook full advantage of winning the toss onan unresponsive Melbourne CricketGround drop-in pitch.

The aggressive opener, who had beenmarooned in the 90s for over 40 minutes,was poised on 99 to bring up his centu-ry as he faced the last ball of debutant TomCurran's fifth over.

But instead Warner top-edged a catchto mid-on and walked off to the jubila-tion of the England team, only forreplays to detect a no-ball for Curranoverstepping, meaning Warner wascalled back to the crease.

The next delivery Warneradded further to the Englandteam's dark mood when heraised his hundred off 130balls with a flick off his hip andcelebrated by leaping into theair and ripping off his helmetto salute the 88,172 Boxing Day crowd atthe MCG.

But Warner didn't stay at the creasefor much longer after his massive let-off,as he was caught behind off JamesAnderson for 103.

Smith, who hasn't been dismissed ina Melbourne Test match since Boxing Day2014, was still batting at the close on 65with Shaun Marsh not out 31 andAustralia 244 for three.

In the last three showpiece BoxingDay Tests, Smith has scored 192 againstIndia, 134 not out against the WestIndies and an unbeaten 165 last yearagainst Pakistan.

So far in this series Smith has amassed491 runs at a stunning average of 163.66from five innings.

Australia have already reclaimed theAshes after taking an unassailable three-nil lead in the five-Test series and are seek-ing a 5-0 whitewash over the beleagueredtourists.

The Australians freewheeled to lunchat 102 without loss with Warner leadingthe charge but England's bowlers toiledaway under a hot sun to restrict the homeside in the remaining two sessions.

In the process of raising his centuryWarner brought up 6,000 runs in his 70th

Test, making him the joint fourth- fastestAustralian to do so behind Don Bradman,Ricky Ponting and Matthew Hayden andalongside Greg Chappell.

Stuart Broad got his first wicket sincethe second Adelaide Test to end a barrenrun of 414 balls when he had UsmanKhawaja snapped up by Jonny Bairstow for17, and incoming Shaun Marsh surviveda leg before wicket review off the next ball.

England also took the wicket ofCameron Bancroft in the middle sessionleg before wicket for 26 off 95 balls facingChris Woakes in the 35th over.

Bancroft shared in a 122-run openingstand and was the passive partner asWarner chased runs.

It was the first toss captain Joe Roothas failed to win in the series, and was apotentially bad one to lose on a straw-coloured pitch with an unforgiving dayahead in the field for England.

The Australian players were wearingblack armbands in memory of ThomasMaggs, wicketkeeper Tim Paine's father-in- law, who passed away on Sunday.

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Amoment of sheer wizardrywas witnessed at the Dr

Ambedkar Stadium whenNongdamba Naoremdribbled past four

Shillong Lajong defendersto score the second goal of

his team as the IndianArrows marched on to win

the match 3-0 here onTuesday.

The Arrows ended theirthree-match losing streakwith a complete performanceas they dominated every

aspect of the game against a 10-man Lajong side — after sub-stitute F Lalrohlua saw his sec-ond yellow at 68th minute fora late tackle on Ali — in the offi-cial 90 minutes of play.

"It's very important for us towin the match, especially afterlosing three matches. We need-ed things to go our way to getback our confidence and weexactly managed to do that. Wewould like to build up on thiswin and keep getting positiveresults," said the stalwart goal-keeper Dheeraj Singh.

The teenagers looked hun-gry from the word go as they

exerted pressure on the awayside from the word go. Theysoon opened their account atthe 19th minute from a first-touch finish by centre-backJitendra Singh. The goal was aresult of quick link-up playfrom a free-kick that saw left-back Sanjeev Stalin plays RahimAli free on the flanks. The for-ward wasted no time in feedingunmarked centre-back JitendraSingh inside the box.

The match turned into amidfield battle after that asnone of the side were able to ekeout a clear chance further in thefirst half.

The same continued in thesecond half but graduallyRobert Nongrum-coached sidestarted looking more confidentwith their build-ups, especial-ly from set-pieces; Achilles heelof Arrows so far this season.

But that changed whenLalrohlua was sent off at 68thminute. Arrows' Stand-in coachFloyd Pinto — for coach LuisNorton de Matos, who is on aChristmas holiday — soonbrought on Naorem and KPRahul; albeit for defensive pur-poses but the duo end up doingoffensive wreckage.

After Naorem's solo goal in

the 85th minute, Rahul scoreda blinder of his own from out-side the box as shot-stopperPhurba Lachenpa stood nochance of blocking the shot inthe injury time.

"Despite being down to 10men, Shillong were attacking innumbers from the flanks so Isent in Nong (Naorem) andRahul to help the fullbacksfirst," said Pinto. "They did thatextra bit of effort themselves toscore the goals. We all knowhow efficient of a dribbler Nongis. For Rahul, when he connectsthe ball well with his feet, he isunstoppable."

Lajong coach Nongrumheaped praises on the youngestteam in the league.

"They were much improvedside than we saw them in pre-vious matches. They read ourgame well and got control of thegame in the first 15 minutesitself," said the Lajong gaffer.

Arrows will next playMohun Bagan away in Kolkataon December 29. The venue isyet to be decided as the I-leaguegiants have made an appeal toplay their home matches attheir own 22000-capacity homeground.

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Olympic and World Championshipsilver medallist PV Sindhu feels

the experimental service law in bad-minton could have come at a better time.

According to the new rule, "thewhole of the shuttle shall be below 1.15metres from the surface of the court atthe instant of being hit by the server'sracket".

The law will be tested at next year'sAll England Open Championships.

"From my side its just that it couldhave come at a better time. A differenttournament instead of the All EnglandChampionships because it is a veryprestigious tournament for everybody,"Sindhu said here on Tuesday whenasked about the service experiment .

"As far as my service goes I am try-ing but it should not be much of prob-lem. We just need to practice it out," shesaid.

Asked about the cramped interna-tional calendar, which has been slammed

by top players like Saina Nehwal andCarolina Marin, Sindhu said there is nopoint talking about it.

"The calender has already come outso we can not say we won't play. Ofcourse its a very tough schedule withWorld Championship, Asian Games and

Commonwealth Games. I am going topick and choose tournaments and planwith the coach accordingly."

The Badminton World Federation(BWF) had earlier received a lot of flakafter it made it mandatory for top shut-tlers to play at least 12 tournaments ina revamped schedule for 2018.

However, Sindhu is not on the samepage as some of the fellow players whosuggested that badminton calendarshould have tournaments like the tennisGrand slams.

"I cannot comment about someoneelse, how they prepare for the tourna-ment and they can't say about me. Sometournaments maybe are important forothers while some are important for me,"she said at a press conference, ahead ofher team's PBL tie against MumbaiRockets.

Talking about her much awaitedclash with Nehwal, which did not takeplace due to the latter's injury, Sindhusaid she was looking forward to playingagainst the fellow Indian.

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2016 was a hard act to follow for ViratKohli considering his prolific run ofform in that year. But Kohli did exact-

ly that, hammering 6 ODI and 5 Test tonsin the year including 3 double hundreds.The year also saw him take over from MSDhoni as the skipper in the limited oversformat and his success as a leader in Testswas replicated in the shorter versions as

well. Under him, India won all series theyplayed across formats, home and away, andalso reached the Finals of the ChampionsTrophy apart from remaining the No 1ranked Test side. Like 2016, Kohli was ona record-breaking spree this year and isnow looking to establishhimself as an all-timegreat.

TOP PERFORMERS OF 2017����������� �������������������!�����"�������������������������!����������#���� ���������������� ���!�

For all those whodoubted whether

women's cricket can beas exciting as the men'sversion, HarmanpreetKaur's magnificentinnings of 171 not out offjust 115 balls in thewomen's World Cupsemi-final againstAustralia must have set-tled the issue. Shesecured her name in thehistory of the game byplaying one of the great-est knocks by an Indianbatter — man or women— and arguably the bestin the history of thewomen's game. Her mer-ciless destruction of theAustralian bowlingattack made her as famil-iar a name among crick-et fans as that of ViratKohli or Rohit Sharmaand has inspired a wholegeneration of young girlsto thing about taking upthe game.

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India's search for a consistentperformer in the men's sin-

gles division ended with one ofhis protégé's Kidambi Srikanthachieving great heights in 2017.The 24-year old from Gunturjoined an elite club of interna-tional players by winning fourSuper Series titles in the year -French Open, Denmark Open,Indonesia Open and Australia Open. In rankings, heclimbed as high as the No 2 spot. Surprisingly, he suf-fered losses to B Sai Praneeth and HS Prannoy in theFinals of the Singapore Open Super Series.

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Already establishedas one of the

most devastating bats-men in limited overs

cricket, Rohit added to hisreputation by his consistentrun of form this year in both

ODI T20 formats whichculminated in him scor-ing his third ODI dou-

ble hundred and thejoint fastest T20Ihundred — taking

just 35 balls to reachthe three figure mark.

He also showed his abil-ities as a skipper by lead-

ing Mumbai Indians to theIPL title and later in the year

captained the national teamto victories in both the ODIand T20 home series against

Sri Lanka.

11

certainly looks promisingwhile South Africa boast ofnames like Dale Steyn, MorneMorkel, Vernon Philander andKagiso Rabada.

Prasad feels Steyn andMorkel, who are coming backafter an injury lay-off, will not

be much of a threat to the for-midable Indian batting but thevisitors need to be wary ofRabada.

"With due respect, I don'tsee Steyn and Morkel posinga big threat. The bowler Indianeed to watch out for is

Rabada. He is young, he hasgot the pace and creates thatawkward bounce for the bats-man," he opined.

Prasad said there is no rea-son why India can't post 350or more consistently againstthe South African attack.

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PV Sindhu scaled new heights but itwas K Srikanth who took Indianbadminton by storm with a higher

title count as male shuttlers finally cameout of the shadows in a season ofunprecedented success for the sport.

It was a year when the nationalanthem played quite frequently at stadiaacross the globe as either Sindhu orSrikanth stood on the podium in aseries of elite badminton tournaments.

If Sindhu cemented her place amongthe world's very best with three titles andthree silvers, Srikanth exceeded all expec-tations with four titles and a runners-upfinish to join the big league in a trulyremarkable season.

Infact, men's players managed to out-shine their women's counterpart as B SaiPraneeth and H S Prannoy too shonethrough on the international stage.

Another memorable aspect of theyear was the return of Saina Nehwal andhopes of resurgence in doubles.

The appointment of Indonesia'sMulyo Handoyo, best known for coach-ing Taufik Hidayat, gave a massive impe-tus to Indian badminton, which also alsosaw a change of guard at the associationwith Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma becom-ing the president following the suddendemise of Dr Akhilesh Das Gupta.

Among all the postcard moments thisyear, Sindhu's exhausted frame afterinnumerable energy-sapping matches isunlikely to be forgotten anytime soon.Her triumphs were not just a reflectionof talent but also the sheer determinationof the 22-year-old.

The World Championship's 110-minute epic final against Japan's NozomiOkuhara had fans on the edge of theirseats. And the summit clashes at KoreaOpen and the Dubai Super Series Finalwere as emotionally draining if notmore.

Though the Hyderabadi had toendure three painful final losses —

World Championship, Hong Kong Openand Dubai Super Series Finals — she alsoenjoyed the high of clinching Super Seriestitles at the India Open and Korea Open,besides the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold.

On the other hand, Srikanth's abili-ty to peak in successive weeks twice in ayear made him the first Indian to winfour titles in a season, a feat onlyachieved by the iconic Lin Dan, LeeChong Wei and Chen Long.

After recovering from an ankle injurythat nearly kept him out of action for fourmonths last year, the 24-year-old fromGuntur hit a purple patch in April as hereached three successive finals atSingapore, Indonesia and Australia.

He won the last two and it helpedhim regain his place in the top 10 andalso grab the top spot in the badmintonearnings chart.

His unbeaten streak, however, endedat the World Championship when he lost

to South Korea's Son Wan in the quar-ters but the Indian soon regained histouch, securing two wins in two weeksagain at Denmark and France in October.

His envious run earned him theWorld No 2 position and a spot in theseason-ending Dubai Finals.

However, non-stop badminton tooka toll as Srikanth aggravated his leg injuryduring the National Championships,where he finished second to Prannoy andhad to stay off the circuit for two tour-

naments.While Sindhu and Srikanth domi-

nated, Praneeth and Prannoy also maderapid strides with the former defeatingSrikanth at the Singapore Open in an all-Indian final to lay claim to his maidenSuper Series title.

Six weeks later, Praneeth secured theThailand Grand Prix Gold title.

Prannoy, meanwhile, notched upwins over Malaysian legend Lee ChongWei and China's Chen Long on succes-sive days to reach the semifinals at theIndonesia Open.

The 25-year-old later scooped the USOpen Grand Prix Gold title beating Pkashyap in another all-Indian finals.

He again outwitted Chong Wei at theDenmark Open and his rampaging runsaw him reach a career-best ranking ofWorld No. 10, besides becoming thecostliest buy at the PBL auction inOctober.

The year also saw Saina returning toaction to clinch the Malaysia MastersGrand Prix Gold early in the year. Shegave ample proof of her progress by bag-ging a bronze at the WorldChampionship.

Saina also notched up an incrediblewin over Sindhu at the finals of the SeniorNationals, which saw the return of topplayers, following initiatives taken by DrSarma.

But the 27-year-old's fitness remaineda concern and she decided to reunite withher long-time mentor Gopichand afterspending three years under Vimal Kumar.

The year also saw 16-year-oldLakshya Sen winning two titles at theIndia International Series and EurasiaBulgarian Open before finishing runners-up at the Tata Open India International.

With his wards dishing out consistentperformances, the legend of national coachPullela Gopichand only grew but allega-tions of favouritism against him followinghis daughter Gayatri's selection in theWorld Junior Championship team did raisesome uncomfortable questions.

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Ishant Sharma is yet torealise his true potential,

feels former pacerVenkatesh Prasad, whowants the lanky speedsterto lead the Indian attack innext month's tough tour ofSouth Africa.

India have picked upfive pace specialists —Ishant , Umesh Yadav,Bhuveshwar Kumar,Mohammed Shami andJasprit Bumrah — for thethree-Test series startingin Cape Town on January 5.

By far the most experi-enced pacer out of the five,Ishant, has been bowlingwell of late but he is not asure starter in the playingeleven.

The 29-year-old madehis Test debut way back in2007 and has played 79Tests since then, taking 226wickets at an average of36.55.

"Ishant has been aroundfor more than a decade. Itis high time that he leadsthe attack. I don't knowwhat the issue is. He has gotthe pace, the height, theaggression but he has notrealised his potential. Heshould be playing the rolethat Sr inath ( Javagal)

played when he wasaround, or Zaheer Khan orKapi l Dev when theyplayed," Prasad told PTItoday.

Talking about theIndian pacers picked for theSouth Africa tour, Prasadsaid there is enough varietybut a lot would depend onhow they adapt to the con-ditions.

"They all are differentto each other. With moreand more cricket beingplayed and more rolling,the pitches in South Africaare not what they were 10-15 years ago.

"However, the extrabounce would surely suitthe faster bowlers but itremains to be seen how theIndian pacers adapt to theconditions after doing wellat home," said Prasad.

Bumrah has receivedhis maiden call-up in Testsafter doing well consistent-ly in the shorter formats.

"He has done well andthat is why he has beenpicked. Let him get theopportunity then we willsee how he fares. Therequirements of bowling inTests are different to theneeds of the shorter for-mats," said Prasad, whotoured South Africa twice.

India's bowling attack

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I-League giants KingfisherEast Bengal would be hop-

ing to go top of the table witha win when they hostGokulam Kerala FC at theYuvabharati Krirangan inKolkata on Wednesday.

After shrugging of arather poor start to the sea-son, the Red and Golds haverecorded three wins on thespin and return home inhopes of picking all threepoints against the Hero I-League newbies, thus pro-pelling them to the top of thetable, albeit after havingplayed a game more thancurrent leaders MinervaPunjab FC.

Head coach Khalid Jamildid not see this as an oppor-tunity to jump the gun andget too excited. "We have tojust go and play good foot-ball. Every team whichcomes to play us will givetheir hundred percent so wecannot take anyone lightly. Ido not know much about

their (Gokulam Kerala FC's)specialities but I had watchedtheir first game. We have toplay positive and think aboutour own game rather thanothers", humbly said Jamil.

Willis Plaza, whoannounced his comebackinto goalscoring form twogames ago with a braceagainst Churchill Brothersten days ago, remained pos-itive as well. He said, "I amfeeling good at the momentwith my game and have beenworking hard. But the end ofthe matter is that we needthree points."

Though the Red andGolds have been in sublimegoalscoring form, withtwelve hits to the team'sname, shipping in sevengoals in five games will be aconcern they would like toaddress quickly. ArnabMondal has been reinstatedwith Eduardo Ferreira and itwill be up to the duo to keepthe defence organized withtheir combined leadershipand experience.

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Former Indian football captain Bhaichung Bhutiafeels strengthening club culture and providing

attractive pay will encourage more people to takesports as a profession in the country.

Cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar had last weekraised the issue of financial security of athletes, say-ing it is often a challenge when any person decidesto focus on sports alone as their career.

Bhutia agreeing to the batting maestro saidfinancial security is definitely a factor while choos-ing a career but also pointed out that things haveimproved with the advent of professional leaguesin different sports disciplines.

This trend, along with the long standing foot-ball culture, has provided sportspersons withmore opportunities to earn a decent living.

"I guess the club structure in any sport has tobe strong. Incentive for sportspersons when theydo well at state and national levels has to be good.And corporates have to come up (in a bigger way)and sponsor", Bhutia told PTI.

He said that more than health insurance, it isgood pay that will attract people to take up sportsas a career.

Bhutia also emphasised on the importance ofhaving health insurance for national-level athletes.

It is really good if sportspersons are coveredunder health insurance. But more importantly, oneshould have good club structure, which offers attrac-tive professional contracts to players, the 41-year-old said.

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