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T he State Assembly was adjourned till 3 pm on Friday as ruling BJD members strongly protested fuel price hike and Congress and BJP members continued shouting slogans against the Government’s ‘apathetic’ atti- tude in fulfilling teachers’ demands. As soon as the House met for the day, BJD members stood at their chairs and shout- ed slogans against the Union Government for steep hike in petrol and diesel prices. On the opposition side, BJP members stood at their benches and demanded fulfilment of teach- ers’ demands at the earliest. Congress members rushed into the Well of the House and shouted slogans against the State Government for not resolving teacher issues for which teaching has been affect- ed in the State. Amid sloganeering and protests, Speaker Pradeep Kumar Amat adjourned the House at 10.32 am till 3 pm. When the House reassem- bled in the afternoon, Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra expressed deep concern over the way the House was adjourned till 3 pm and no business conducted. “We (Congress members) had raised fuel price hike issue in the House on September 4 and the ruling members remained mum. You suspended the House till 11.30 am that day. But today, as the ruling members raised the issue, you immediately adjourned the House till 3 pm. It seems that the House is being run at the whims of the Government,” alleged Mishra. He even wanted to know whether the Chair would adjourn the House for the day on September 10 as Congress members might not join the House for the scheduled Bharat Bandh that day. Continued on Page 4 I n a shocking incident on Friday, a 38- year-old woman and her 13-year-old daughter were killed after being burnt alive and her husband severe- ly injured in a cooking gas cylinder tragedy at Bhuban area in Dhenkanal district. The deceased were identi- fied as Mamata Pothal, wife of Duryadhan Pathal, residing in an asbestos roof house at Ward- 3 of Bhuban and her daughter, Jyotsna Pothal. Sources said Duryadhan is an ice cream vender. Mamata had received a BPCL gas cylin- der free of cost under the Ujjwala Yojana of the Central Government about six months back. She was not using the cylinder as she was not prop- erly educated by the donor regarding the safe use of the cylinder. After accumulating some idea from friends and neigh- bours regarding use of the cylinder, Mamata wanted to prepare tea for the family on Friday early morning. After opening the nub of the cylin- der, she searched for the match box. In the meantime, her daughter Jyotsna lighted the stick of the match box, when the entire kitchen having no ventilation facility had been filled with gas. The mother and daughter duo was burnt alive as the room caught fire in no time. Listening to their scream- ing, Duryadhan tried to rescue them by rushing into the house but received severe burn injuries. He was admitted at the Bhuban hospital. Meanwhile, former Congress Minister Nabin Chandra Narayan Das said the Government of India should not distribute gas cylinder only to promote vote bank. Uneducated, poor women should be told how to use the gas before being given away a free gas connection, he demanded. T ension prevailed at Lingipur under the Dhauli police station here on Friday after supporters of a BJD mem- ber, Rabi Patra, staged a road blockade protesting attack on their leader. The incident took place during a demonstration by BJD members in the area as part of the BJD’s State-wide stir against the rising fuel prices on the day. Patra alleged that during the protest, members of a rival group called him to a corner and suddenly opened a couple of rounds of fire at him. However, he managed to escape unhurt. Patra told the police that he was targeted over past enmity. Following the incident, Patra’s supporters blocked the Bhubaneswar-Puri road demanding immediate arrest of the accused. The blockade led to disruption of vehicular traf- fic for some time. Getting information, the zone ACP and the Dhauli and the Lingaraj police stations IICs rushed to the spot and pacified the crowd, following which the road blockade was withdrawn. Police said some empty cartridges were recovered from the spot and the situation was under control. An investigation was on into the incident. T he Block Grant teachers and staffs, who are holding protests here for the last 23 days, on Friday intensified the agitation by spreading it to all 314 blocks across the State. Thousands of teachers are now sitting on dharnas in front of their respective block offices. On the day, expressing sol- idarity with the striking teach- ers Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan visited the dharna site and met the protesting teachers. Pradhan alleged the State Government of being insensi- tive towards the teachers. “I request the State Government to discuss and solve the issue with the teach- ers and allocate the required funds at least for the sake of over 30 lakh students studying in various schools and colleges. Their studies are being affect- ed due to the strike,” said Pradhan. Odisha Government has money to strengthen its own vote bank but doesn’t want to bear Rs 800 crore burden for resolving the grievances of teachers. The Minister said Odisha Government can spend and make a provision of Rs 1,200 crore under the ‘Ama Gaon, Ama Vikas’ programme and has Rs 400 crore to distribute among party workers through the Biju Yuva Vahini. “It is unfortunate the way Odisha Government has turned a blind eye towards the legitimate demands of teach- ers,” Pradhan said, adding fur- ther that though education is totally a State subject, the 14th Finance Commission has given additional funds for the devel- opment of education in Odisha. CUTTACK: The Crime Branch police, which is entrust- ed by the Orissa High Court to investigate into all the four cases that were registered in connection with the lawyers- police standoff here, on Saturday went to the house of advocate Devi Prasad Pattnaik and questioned him. Pattnaik had been assaulted by police on August 28 following a series of road accidents involving his car. Protesting against the police assault on Pattnaik, the lawyers of the city have been boycotting the courts and tri- bunals, including the High Court, since August 29. At least four cases have been reg- istered in this connection at dif- ferent police stations of the city, including a case pertaining to torching of a police vehicle parked in front of the gate of the High Court and another filed by Pattnaik himself. Continued on Page 4 W ith several of its leaders openly expressing con- cerns over the upper caste anger against restoration of the stringent provision of the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the BJP is set to discuss the issue in its National Executive meeting beginning on Saturday. The party is keenly moni- toring the needle of the upper caste compass in view of the upcoming Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and next year’s Lok Sabha poll. “The Supreme Court ver- dict was correct. There should be safeguards,” asserted former Union Agriculture Minister and BJP MP from Muzaffarnagar, Sanjeev Balyan, denouncing the harsh clauses in the Act. Talking to The Pioneer, the BJP leader said the SC/ST Act “is driving fissures in social integration”. On the “anger” against reservation politics, Balyan said the BJP manifesto speaks of reservation on “economic basis” and “that should be our party line”. The BJP MP was obvious- ly articulating upper caste angst over the “unfair treatment” meted out to them in the cur- rent system. Earlier party MP Subramanian Swami, Harshwardhan Singh Dungarpur, Kalraj Mishra among several other leaders have openly slammed the amended SC/AT Act. The worry over caste arithmetic close to the Lok Sabha poll 2019 and the spi- raling implications of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill, 2018 passed in Parliament last month to nullify the Supreme Court order (which had set cer- tain safeguards prior to the arrest of the accused) has rat- tled the party leadership. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah reportedly discussed the implication of the scenario and instructed party leaders and spokespersons to be cau- tious and not to offer a “loose comment” on the issue. Though not averse to take credit for moving and having passed the Amendment Bill, 2018, by Parliament in August, the BJP is uncomfortable with the response the upper caste- sponsored Bharat Bandh got in the Hindi heartland. The upper castes have alleged rampant misuse of the law which gives police the power to arrest the accused without preliminary enquiry and has no provision of antic- ipatory bail. The Supreme Court, in its order on the SC/ST Act, had laid down stringent safeguards, including provisions for antic- ipatory bail and a “preliminary enquiry” before registration of a case. The apex court had noted that there had been “instances of abuse” of the Act by “vested interests” for polit- ical or personal reasons. However, the BJP feels that while it may have to bear the brunt of the upper caste anger, it would help them refurbish their image among the Dalits. “The expression of anger and agitation by upper caste against the restoration of strin- gent clauses in the Act goes on to puncture the Opposition propaganda that we are against the Dalits,” said a senior BJP leader requesting anonymity and suggesting that by default the BJP’s image is get- ting awash (without the party asking for it). He said the party has, for long, been accused of playing anti-Dalit politics by the Left and the Congress without any evidence on the ground. The matter was also recent- ly discussed at the meeting of the BJP Chief Ministers with the Prime Minister. Source said the BJP leadership is ask- ing the upper caste MPs and its leaders to reach out to their upper caste voters and assure them that the Act would not be allowed to be misused on the ground. The BJP Government in UP has already scrutinised most of the cases under the Act and maintained that “right compensations” would be given wherever instances of misuse were proved after the investi- gation. T he new amendments to the SC/ST law passed by Parliament cannot be stayed at this stage, the Supreme Court said Friday (rpt Friday), as it sought the Centre’s response on a batch of pleas challenging the fresh provisions. The pleas have sought dec- laration of the new amend- ments to the Schedule Castes and Schedules Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act as ultra vires. Parliament on August 9 had passed the bill to overturn the apex court order concern- ing certain safeguards against arrest under the SC and ST law. The new amendments had overturned the March 20 order on rampant misuse of the strin- gent SC/ST Act and held that there shall be no immediate arrest on any complaint filed under the law. It had also passed a slew of directions and said a public servant can be arrested in cases lodged under the SC/ST Act only after prior approval by the competent authority. On Friday, a bench of Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan issued notice to the Centre and sought its response in six weeks. Counsel for petitioner Prathvi Raj Chauhan said the bench should at least stay the operation of the new provisions till the petition is being heard by the court. I n sharp contrast to the rec- onciliatory tone of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan towards India, Army chief General Qamar Jawed Bajwa has vowed to avenge blood of the country’s soldiers being shed on the border. General Bajwa’s comments came while addressing the Defence Day ceremony in Rawalpindi on Thursday to mark the 53rd anniversary of the 1965 war with India. He also paid respect to “brothers and sisters in the occupied Jammu & Kashmir who’re writ- ing the history of resistance”. “We will avenge the blood flowing on the border,” Geo News quoted General Bajwa, as saying in the presence of Prime Minister, who had earlier said that his Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaf (PTI) Government favoured good relations with India and wanted to see lead- ers of the two countries sitting across the table to resolve all disputes, including Kashmir. “Our armed forces and the entire nation have learned much during their service to Pakistan. Fear and terrorism were thrust upon us. Our homes, schools, places of wor- ship, recreational sites and national institutions were attacked,” General Bajwa said. “Efforts were made to weaken and divide us from within. But I salute all the cit- izens of Pakistan and the ones safeguarding our nation who fought remarkably in these difficult times and stood against such elements,” the Army chief added. “We have sacrificed a lot but our job is not done. The war is still ongoing. We have yet to reach the pinnacle of peace. We have to make Pakistan reach a level where no one can look at us with an evil intent.” Former Indian cricketer- turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu earlier came under severe criticism after he hugged General Bajwa during Khan’s oath-taking ceremony last month. Sidhu’s photo of him seat- ed next to President of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) Masood Khan at the ceremo- ny had also created some rip- ples back home. Speaking at the same event, Khan said that “Pakistan would no more participate in some- one else’s war” and insisted that there was no civil-military divide in the country. He said that he was against the war from the very begin- ning and his Government’s foreign policy would be in the best interest of the nation. “I was against this war from the very beginning. “We will not become part of a war of any other country (in future)... Our foreign policy will be in the best interest of the nation,” he said. New Delhi: Sinking may lead the Centre to cater to another mega expenditure — foreign debt. According an estimate by the State Bank of India, at the current rate, India will have to shell out an addi- tional Rs 68,500 crore. The currency has lost more than 11 per cent to the dollar this year. The rupee fell past 72 per dollar to a record low on Thursday, amid a deepening emerging market contagion and the risk of a wider current- account deficit. India’s short-term debt obligations, which included non-resident deposits as well as overseas commercial borrow- ings by companies, totaled USD 217.6 billion in 2017. Assuming 50 per cent has either been paid in the first half of 2018 or was rolled over to next year, the remaining amount to be repaid would be 7.1 trillion rupees computed using the average exchange rate of 65.1 per dollar in 2017, according to Bloomberg. A weak currency always hurts a country. Be it India or any other part of the world. Very simply, everything gets more expensive. This includes luxuries like holidaying over- seas, buying imported goods like cars and smartphones, studying abroad. This has an inflationary tendency and everyday consumables can become more expensive for you. Vegetables, groceries, and the proverbial ‘roti, kapda makaan’ get costlier. Rupee depreciation will also have a direct impact on home loans. This means it is a bad time to get into one. What’s another area of concern is imports. A weak rupee to the dollar ratio makes imports costlier for India. Some imports are inevitable. One of the main ones is oil where crude oil prices are already on the rise. Agencies

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Page 1: ˆ ! #˛ˆ ˙ * +€¦ · the room caught fire in no time. Listening to ... them by rushing into the house but received severe burn injuries. He was admitted at the Bhuban hospital

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The State Assembly wasadjourned till 3 pm on

Friday as ruling BJD membersstrongly protested fuel pricehike and Congress and BJPmembers continued shoutingslogans against theGovernment’s ‘apathetic’ atti-tude in fulfilling teachers’demands.

As soon as the House metfor the day, BJD membersstood at their chairs and shout-ed slogans against the UnionGovernment for steep hike inpetrol and diesel prices. On theopposition side, BJP membersstood at their benches anddemanded fulfilment of teach-ers’ demands at the earliest.Congress members rushed intothe Well of the House andshouted slogans against theState Government for notresolving teacher issues for

which teaching has been affect-ed in the State.

Amid sloganeering andprotests, Speaker PradeepKumar Amat adjourned theHouse at 10.32 am till 3 pm.

When the House reassem-bled in the afternoon, Leader ofOpposition Narasingha Mishraexpressed deep concern overthe way the House wasadjourned till 3 pm and nobusiness conducted.

“We (Congress members)had raised fuel price hike issuein the House on September 4and the ruling membersremained mum. You suspendedthe House till 11.30 am that day.But today, as the ruling membersraised the issue, you immediatelyadjourned the House till 3 pm.It seems that the House is beingrun at the whims of theGovernment,” alleged Mishra.

He even wanted to knowwhether the Chair wouldadjourn the House for the dayon September 10 as Congressmembers might not join theHouse for the scheduled BharatBandh that day.

Continued on Page 4

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In a shocking incident onFriday, a 38- year-old woman

and her 13-year-old daughterwere killed after being burntalive and her husband severe-ly injured in a cooking gascylinder tragedy at Bhubanarea in Dhenkanal district.

The deceased were identi-fied as Mamata Pothal, wife ofDuryadhan Pathal, residing inan asbestos roof house at Ward-3 of Bhuban and her daughter,Jyotsna Pothal.

Sources said Duryadhan isan ice cream vender. Mamatahad received a BPCL gas cylin-der free of cost under theUjjwala Yojana of the Central

Government about six monthsback. She was not using thecylinder as she was not prop-erly educated by the donorregarding the safe use of thecylinder.

After accumulating someidea from friends and neigh-bours regarding use of thecylinder, Mamata wanted toprepare tea for the family onFriday early morning. Afteropening the nub of the cylin-

der, she searched for the matchbox. In the meantime, herdaughter Jyotsna lighted thestick of the match box, whenthe entire kitchen having noventilation facility had beenfilled with gas. The mother anddaughter duo was burnt alive asthe room caught fire in notime. Listening to their scream-ing, Duryadhan tried to rescuethem by rushing into the housebut received severe burninjuries. He was admitted at theBhuban hospital.

Meanwhile, formerCongress Minister NabinChandra Narayan Das said theGovernment of India shouldnot distribute gas cylinder onlyto promote vote bank.Uneducated, poor womenshould be told how to use thegas before being given away afree gas connection, hedemanded.

����� ���������

Tension prevailed atLingipur under the Dhauli

police station here on Fridayafter supporters of a BJD mem-ber, Rabi Patra, staged a roadblockade protesting attack ontheir leader.

The incident took placeduring a demonstration by BJDmembers in the area as part ofthe BJD’s State-wide stir againstthe rising fuel prices on the day.

Patra alleged that duringthe protest, members of a rivalgroup called him to a cornerand suddenly opened a coupleof rounds of fire at him.However, he managed toescape unhurt.

Patra told the police that hewas targeted over past enmity.

Following the incident,

Patra’s supporters blocked theBhubaneswar-Puri roaddemanding immediate arrest ofthe accused. The blockade ledto disruption of vehicular traf-fic for some time.

Getting information, thezone ACP and the Dhauli andthe Lingaraj police stationsIICs rushed to the spot andpacified the crowd, followingwhich the road blockade was

withdrawn.Police said some empty

cartridges were recovered fromthe spot and the situation wasunder control. An investigationwas on into the incident.

���������� ������ ���������������

��������� ������������������ ������������������ ����������������������������������������������� ����������������������������������������

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The Block Grant teachersand staffs, who are holding

protests here for the last 23days, on Friday intensified theagitation by spreading it to all314 blocks across the State.

Thousands of teachers arenow sitting on dharnas in frontof their respective block offices.

On the day, expressing sol-idarity with the striking teach-ers Union Petroleum MinisterDharmendra Pradhan visitedthe dharna site and met theprotesting teachers.

Pradhan alleged the StateGovernment of being insensi-tive towards the teachers.

“I request the StateGovernment to discuss andsolve the issue with the teach-

ers and allocate the requiredfunds at least for the sake ofover 30 lakh students studyingin various schools and colleges.

Their studies are being affect-ed due to the strike,” saidPradhan.

Odisha Government has

money to strengthen its ownvote bank but doesn’t want tobear Rs 800 crore burden forresolving the grievances ofteachers.

The Minister said OdishaGovernment can spend andmake a provision of Rs 1,200crore under the ‘Ama Gaon,Ama Vikas’ programme andhas Rs 400 crore to distributeamong party workers throughthe Biju Yuva Vahini.

“It is unfortunate the wayOdisha Government hasturned a blind eye towards thelegitimate demands of teach-ers,” Pradhan said, adding fur-ther that though education istotally a State subject, the 14thFinance Commission has givenadditional funds for the devel-opment of education in Odisha.

��� �� ������� ���������� �������� ��

CUTTACK: The CrimeBranch police, which is entrust-ed by the Orissa High Court toinvestigate into all the fourcases that were registered inconnection with the lawyers-police standoff here, onSaturday went to the house ofadvocate Devi Prasad Pattnaikand questioned him. Pattnaikhad been assaulted by police onAugust 28 following a series ofroad accidents involving his car.

Protesting against thepolice assault on Pattnaik, thelawyers of the city have beenboycotting the courts and tri-bunals, including the HighCourt, since August 29. Atleast four cases have been reg-istered in this connection at dif-ferent police stations of the city,including a case pertaining totorching of a police vehicleparked in front of the gate ofthe High Court and anotherfiled by Pattnaik himself.

Continued on Page 4

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With several of its leadersopenly expressing con-

cerns over the upper casteanger against restoration ofthe stringent provision of theScheduled Caste/ScheduledTribe (Prevention of Atrocities)Act, the BJP is set to discuss theissue in its National Executivemeeting beginning on Saturday.

The party is keenly moni-toring the needle of the uppercaste compass in view of theupcoming Assembly electionsin Rajasthan, Madhya Pradeshand Chhattisgarh, and nextyear’s Lok Sabha poll.

“The Supreme Court ver-dict was correct. There shouldbe safeguards,” asserted formerUnion Agriculture Ministerand BJP MP fromMuzaffarnagar, Sanjeev Balyan,denouncing the harsh clausesin the Act. Talking to ThePioneer, the BJP leader said theSC/ST Act “is driving fissuresin social integration”.

On the “anger” againstreservation politics, Balyansaid the BJP manifesto speaksof reservation on “economicbasis” and “that should be ourparty line”.

The BJP MP was obvious-ly articulating upper caste angstover the “unfair treatment”meted out to them in the cur-rent system.

Earlier party MPSubramanian Swami,Harshwardhan SinghDungarpur, Kalraj Mishraamong several other leadershave openly slammed the

amended SC/AT Act. The worry over caste

arithmetic close to the LokSabha poll 2019 and the spi-raling implications of theSC/ST (Prevention ofAtrocities) Amendment Bill,2018 passed in Parliament lastmonth to nullify the SupremeCourt order (which had set cer-tain safeguards prior to thearrest of the accused) has rat-tled the party leadership.

Prime Minister NarendraModi and BJP president AmitShah reportedly discussed theimplication of the scenarioand instructed party leadersand spokespersons to be cau-tious and not to offer a “loosecomment” on the issue.

Though not averse to takecredit for moving and havingpassed the Amendment Bill,2018, by Parliament in August,the BJP is uncomfortable withthe response the upper caste-sponsored Bharat Bandh got inthe Hindi heartland.

The upper castes havealleged rampant misuse of thelaw which gives police thepower to arrest the accusedwithout preliminary enquiryand has no provision of antic-ipatory bail.

The Supreme Court, in itsorder on the SC/ST Act, hadlaid down stringent safeguards,including provisions for antic-ipatory bail and a “preliminaryenquiry” before registration ofa case. The apex court hadnoted that there had been“instances of abuse” of the Actby “vested interests” for polit-ical or personal reasons.

However, the BJP feels thatwhile it may have to bear thebrunt of the upper caste anger,it would help them refurbish their image amongthe Dalits.

“The expression of angerand agitation by upper casteagainst the restoration of strin-gent clauses in the Act goes onto puncture the Oppositionpropaganda that we are againstthe Dalits,” said a senior BJPleader requesting anonymityand suggesting that by default the BJP’s image is get-ting awash (without the partyasking for it).

He said the party has, forlong, been accused of playinganti-Dalit politics by the Left

and the Congress without anyevidence on the ground.

The matter was also recent-ly discussed at the meeting ofthe BJP Chief Ministers withthe Prime Minister. Sourcesaid the BJP leadership is ask-ing the upper caste MPs and itsleaders to reach out to theirupper caste voters and assurethem that the Act would not beallowed to be misused on theground.

The BJP Government inUP has already scrutinisedmost of the cases under the Actand maintained that “rightcompensations” would be givenwherever instances of misusewere proved after the investi-gation.

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The new amendments to theSC/ST law passed by

Parliament cannot be stayed atthis stage, the Supreme Courtsaid Friday (rpt Friday), as itsought the Centre’s response ona batch of pleas challenging thefresh provisions.

The pleas have sought dec-laration of the new amend-ments to the Schedule Castesand Schedules Tribes(Prevention of Atrocities) Actas ultra vires.

Parliament on August 9had passed the bill to overturnthe apex court order concern-ing certain safeguards againstarrest under the SC and ST law.

The new amendments had

overturned the March 20 orderon rampant misuse of the strin-gent SC/ST Act and held thatthere shall be no immediatearrest on any complaint filedunder the law. It had also passeda slew of directions and said apublic servant can be arrested incases lodged under the SC/STAct only after prior approval bythe competent authority.

On Friday, a bench ofJustices AK Sikri and AshokBhushan issued notice to theCentre and sought its responsein six weeks.

Counsel for petitionerPrathvi Raj Chauhan said thebench should at least stay theoperation of the new provisionstill the petition is being heardby the court.

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In sharp contrast to the rec-onciliatory tone of Pakistan’s

Prime Minister Imran Khantowards India, Army chiefGeneral Qamar Jawed Bajwahas vowed to avenge blood ofthe country’s soldiers beingshed on the border.

General Bajwa’s commentscame while addressing theDefence Day ceremony inRawalpindi on Thursday tomark the 53rd anniversary ofthe 1965 war with India. Healso paid respect to “brothersand sisters in the occupiedJammu & Kashmir who’re writ-ing the history of resistance”.

“We will avenge the bloodflowing on the border,” GeoNews quoted General Bajwa, assaying in the presence of PrimeMinister, who had earlier saidthat his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Governmentfavoured good relations withIndia and wanted to see lead-ers of the two countries sittingacross the table to resolve alldisputes, including Kashmir.

“Our armed forces and theentire nation have learnedmuch during their service toPakistan. Fear and terrorismwere thrust upon us. Ourhomes, schools, places of wor-ship, recreational sites andnational institutions wereattacked,” General Bajwa said.

“Efforts were made toweaken and divide us fromwithin. But I salute all the cit-izens of Pakistan and the ones

safeguarding our nation whofought remarkably in thesedifficult times and stoodagainst such elements,” theArmy chief added.

“We have sacrificed a lotbut our job is not done. Thewar is still ongoing. We have yetto reach the pinnacle of peace.We have to make Pakistanreach a level where no one canlook at us with an evil intent.”

Former Indian cricketer-turned-politician Navjot SinghSidhu earlier came undersevere criticism after he huggedGeneral Bajwa during Khan’soath-taking ceremony lastmonth.

Sidhu’s photo of him seat-ed next to President of PakistanOccupied Kashmir (PoK)Masood Khan at the ceremo-ny had also created some rip-ples back home.

Speaking at the same event,Khan said that “Pakistan wouldno more participate in some-one else’s war” and insisted thatthere was no civil-militarydivide in the country.

He said that he was againstthe war from the very begin-ning and his Government’sforeign policy would be in thebest interest of the nation.

“I was against this warfrom the very beginning. “Wewill not become part of a warof any other country (infuture)... Our foreign policywill be in the best interest of thenation,” he said.

����)��%����� �"��������������*+��()�� ���� ��� ���� �&�����*���������������

New Delhi: Sinking �� maylead the Centre to cater toanother mega expenditure —foreign debt. According anestimate by the State Bank ofIndia, at the current rate, Indiawill have to shell out an addi-tional Rs 68,500 crore.

The currency has lost morethan 11 per cent to the dollarthis year. The rupee fell past 72per dollar to a record low onThursday, amid a deepeningemerging market contagionand the risk of a wider current-account deficit.

India’s short-term debtobligations, which includednon-resident deposits as well asoverseas commercial borrow-ings by companies, totaledUSD 217.6 billion in 2017.

Assuming 50 per cent haseither been paid in the first halfof 2018 or was rolled over tonext year, the remainingamount to be repaid would be7.1 trillion rupees computedusing the average exchange

rate of 65.1 per dollar in 2017,according to Bloomberg.

A weak currency alwayshurts a country. Be it India orany other part of the world.Very simply, everything getsmore expensive. This includesluxuries like holidaying over-seas, buying imported goodslike cars and smartphones,studying abroad. This has aninflationary tendency andeveryday consumables canbecome more expensive foryou. Vegetables, groceries, andthe proverbial ‘roti, kapdamakaan’ get costlier.

Rupee depreciation willalso have a direct impact onhome loans. This means it is abad time to get into one. What’sanother area of concern isimports. A weak rupee to thedollar ratio makes importscostlier for India. Some importsare inevitable. One of the mainones is oil where crude oilprices are already on the rise.

Agencies

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Notwithstanding the OdishaGovernment allocating a

whopping around over Rs64,000 million worth capitalexpenditure per year on aver-age during the period 2015-18for roads and bridges, the grimfact for the State is potholes onroads killed two lives every 10-days in 2017. The trend iscontinuing and is also clearly-discernible in the first sixmonths of 2018.

What looks very discon-certing is the pothole deathshave recorded its worst in therecent years in State in 2016,when Odisha saw on an averagedeath of 1 person every two daysowing to pothole accidents.

And the revelation is almost90 per cent of pothole deaths

occurred in monsoon months.According to data available

with State police, potholes onroads killed 73 and injured 160others in 2017. The trend hasalmost continued in 2018, whenthe first six months (Jan-Jun)saw almost over 70 such potholeaccidents killing over 48 livesand injuring around 90 others.

The data reveals thatOdisha had recorded a high ofaround 208 pothole accidentdeaths and injuries of a whop-ping 397 others in 2016. Mostof the deaths and injuries havetaken in rainy season and indusk hours, revealed the data.

Pothole related accidentdeaths in Odisha accounted foraround 1-5 per cent of totalroad accident fatalities in thelast five-year period.

An analysis of the Statepolice data further shows that

the fatality rate in pothole acci-dents ranges from around 34per 100 accidents in 2015 to 92per 100 accidents in 2016 andaround 48-49 per 100 accidentsin 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Also, the analysis didn’treveal any wide gap in deathsin the urban-rural milieu.Fatalities owing to potholeaccidents have been reporteduniformly from all districtsand regions.

A glance at road-wise pot-hole deaths reveals that around90 – 95 per cent deaths havetaken on municipal roads or

roads of Panchayati RajDepartment or RuralDevelopment Department.This reveals the pathetic workculture of the local adminis-tration in Odisha.

Experts observed that civicauthorities or Panchayati RajDepartment should strictlyensure in contracts that con-tractors ought to fill the pot-holes during the maintenanceperiod, and the StateGovernment should also spec-ify the amount it allocates peryear for filling potholes so as tokeep the road stretch in traffic

worthy condition.However, it is not to say

that pothole deaths didn’t occurelsewhere in the country. Stateslike Andhra Pradesh,Maharashtra, Punjab, TamilNadu and Haryana have wit-nessed such pothole deaths inthis monsoon recently, whichhas led to a massive uproaracross the country over negli-gent municipal corporations.

Looking at the growingenormity of the situation acrossthe country, the Supreme Courton July 20 has asked itsCommittee on Road Safety todelve into the issue at the ear-liest and submit a report on thewhole gamut, including quan-tum of compensation to bepaid to such mishap victims.

At present, compensationis paid to the victims in accor-dance with the provisions ofChapter X and XI of the MotorVehicles Act, 1988, which ispaid by the InsuranceCompany from the regularpremiums paid for the motorinsurance policy cover taken bythe motor vehicle owner.

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The UniversalDeclaration of

Human Rights issued bythe United Nationsdeclares literacy a basichuman right. Womeneducation is a big oppor-tunity for India to bedeveloped socially andeconomically. Educatedwomen are the weapon yield-ing a positive impact on theIndian society through theircontributions at home andprofessional fields. They are thereason of improved economy inthe country as well as the soci-ety.

In India, however, 50 percent of the women cannot reador write. For a country that hashad phenomenal growth ratesfor the last several years, it alsohas some of the most shockingstatistics when it comes to

education. Ifwomen are une-ducated, half ofthe country isu n e d u c a t e d .Through womeneducation thesocial and eco-nomic develop-ment would befaster in India.To spread the

importance and improve thelevel of women education,national propaganda andawareness programmes arevery necessary. History of Indiais never blank of brave women.It is full of women philosopherslike Gargi, Viswabara,Maritreyi (of Vedic age) andother famous women are likeMirabai, Durgabati, Ahalyabi,Laxmibai, etc., who are inspi-ration for the women of thisage.

For the betterment of the

women education in India,programmes like Sarva ShikshaAbhiyan, Indira Mahila Yojana,Balika Samridhi Yojana,Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, MahilaSamridhi Yojana, Employmentand Income GeneratingTraining-cum-ProductionCentres are functional. TheGovernment's Beti Bachao,Beti Padhao and SukanyaSamridhi schemes as well as themandatory maternity leaverules are initiatives to pro-mote the objective of women'srights and empowerment.

Still, there are some factorsaffecting the women educationin India as undernourishmentand malnutrition of the girlchild, Sexual harassment andabuse at an early age, lowersocioeconomic status of par-ents, infections and low immu-nity power at childhood and somany social restrictions havebecome a hindrance in the path

of progress among sections ofwomen and forced them to getonly limited education.

National literacy in India iscurrently 64 per cent.According to the UNESCO,India ranks in the bottom fivein female literacy next toPakistan, Nepal, Bangladeshand Afghanistan.

According to the 2011Census, the male literacy rateis 82.14% and female literacyrate is only 65.46% in India.

All these statistics certain-ly reveal the kind of discrimi-nation women have to face intoday’s world. Low female lit-eracy rate means an overallsluggish growth of India as it impacts every arena ofdevelopment.

According to new datafrom the UNESCO Institute forStatistics, there are still 750 mil-lion illiterate adults, two-thirdsof whom are women. These

numbers are a stark reminderof the work ahead to meet theSustainable DevelopmentGoals (SDGs) 4 and 5 and theEducation 2030 targets. Despitethe progress, gender disparityin youth literacy remains per-sistent in almost one in fivecountries. In 43 countries,mainly located in NorthernAfrica and Western Asia,Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, young womenaged 15 to 24 years are still lesslikely than young men to havebasic reading and writing skills.This is a clear sign of the per-sistent challenges that contin-ue to hold girls back. Educatedwomen are less likely to believein superstitions and socialtaboos. They will not let any-one easily dominate them andwould fight for their rights. Biasagainst daughters can only endif women’s education is accom-panied by social and econom-

ic empowerment.By acquiring literacy,

women become more eco-nomically self-reliant and moreactively engaged in the coun-try’s social, political and cul-tural life. All evidence showsthat investment in literacy forwomen yields high develop-ment dividends. But denial ofautonomy is in itself one of thecentral problems for Indianwomen. This problem can’t beaddressed by literacy alone; andgovernments need to addressthe issue directly.

(Dr Das writes articles onissues of gender equality andwomen’s issues in nationaland international dailies. Sheis the Director, Leadershipand Communication ofSustainability Foundation andcan be mailed [email protected])

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The State Government hasdecided to provide month-

ly pension to as many as 46,000artistes of different categories,including Paika Akhada gurus,under the Mukhya MantriKalakar Sahayata Yojana(MMKSY) soon.

Odia Bhasha Sahitya andSanskruti Minister PrafullaSamal informed this in theState Assembly in response to aquestion of BJD MLA Rajendra

Kumar Sahoo on Friday.The Minister informed

that 4,000 indigent artists arenow being paid a pension of Rs1,200 per month each underthe Indigent Artist PensionRule 1976. In order to providesupport to more artists, whohave been promoting art andculture of the State despite allodds, the State Government hasadopted the MMKSY sinceMay 26, 2018.

About 62,000 artists fromdifferent districts have appliedfor inclusion in the scheme. Ithas been decided to providepension to 46,000 artists out ofthem and the district levelselection committees wouldfinalise the names, informedthe Minister.

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Justice Raghubir DasCommission of Inquiry

constituted to probe intothe missing of the Puri ShreeJagannath Temple’s RatnaBhandar keys has sought anextension of its tenure bythree months.

A letter to this effect hasbeen sent to the StateGovernment, whose is await-ed, said Justice Das.

The judicial commis-sion formed on June 6 wasearlier asked to submit itsreport within three months.

As per its Terms ofReference (ToR), the com-mission would probe into (i)sequence of events and cir-cumstances leading to thereported non-availability ofthe keys of the inner cham-ber of the Ratna Bhandar, (ii)the role, conduct andaccountability of individu-als/groups/authorities forthe reported non-availabili-

ty of the keys and (iii) anyother matter connected withor incidental thereto as thecommission may considerappropriate including measures to be taken toavoid recurrence of suchevent in future.

Chief Minister NaveenPatnaik had on June 4ordered the probe into thecircumstances leading to thenon-availability of the keysof the Ratna Bhandar.

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The Odisha Government hassubmitted the required

documents for getting theGeographical Indication (GI)status to ‘Odishara Rasagola’,MSME Minister Prafulla Samalsaid on Friday.

Replying to a written ques-tion, he told the State Assemblythat the Government has com-plied with a 14-point checklistsought by the office of theGeographical IndicationsRegistry, Chennai.

The Minister said the req-uisite documents were sub-mitted on August 17.

Notably, the GeographicalIndications Registry, in the lastweek of June, had soughtdetailed information on 14questions including submis-sion of documentary proof

that substantiates the origin of‘Odishara Rasagola’.

The State-owned OdishaSmall Industries Corporation(OSIC) has applied for the GItag for ‘Odishara Rasagola’ in

February. Odisha moved the GIRegistry for its own version ofthe popular sweet after WestBengal was awarded the GI tagfor its own variant ‘BanglaraRasagulla’ in November 2017.

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The Odisha Election Watch(OEW), State chapter of the

National Election Watch, andthe Association for DemocraticReforms (ADR) urged all polit-ical parties to bar leaders withserious criminal backgroundfrom contesting the upcomingelections.

OEW State coordinatorRanjan Kumar Mohanty,addressing a Press meet here onFriday, said banning criminalsfrom contesting elections isnot only a necessity for the wel-

fare of the nation, but a meansto safeguard the integrity of theParliament and LegislativeAssemblies.

If people with criminalrecords are allowed to contestelections, they may use uneth-ical means to force people tovote for them. This will increase

violence in elections and throwa challenge to free and fair elec-tions. As a result, very funda-mental basis of democracy willbe at stake, he added.

He also urged the parties tonot nominate such persons tocontest elections on their behalfin the forthcoming general

election and election to theOdisha State LegislativeAssembly. He also demandedthe parties to disclose the cri-teria on which candidates aregiven tickets.

Mohanty told that while 27per cent of sitting OdishaMLAs have criminal casesagainst them, while at thenational-level 21 per cent ofelected representatives havecriminal records. He disclosedthat a massive voter’s awarenesscampaign, entitled, “My VoteMy Country: My Vote not forSale” would be launched inOctober in the Odisha.

Mohanty further informedthat the campaign would beconducted in different villagesand cities covering all the 30districts through mobile vanusing audio visual materials,

folk media, street play, differ-ent cultural actions, posters,pamphlets, workshops andawareness meeting.

The organisation wouldalso launch a campaign “HumBadlenge Apnaa Bharat” tomotivate the young children inimproving the situation afterentering the voting age.

On a pilot basis, the cam-paign would be undertaken in100 higher secondary educa-tion institutions of Odisha forClass-XI and XII students,Mohanty added.

Among others, formerChief Secretary SahadevaSahoo, former Health ServicesDirector Dr Seba Mohapatra,Doordarshan former DirectorBaikunthanath Panigrahi andsocial activist KshyamakarSwain were present.

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The State’s ruling BJD onFriday kicked off its three-

day State-wide agitationprotesting against the sky-rocketing fuel prices by hold-ing peaceful dharnas before thefilling stations.

Party members demon-strated before petrol pumps intheir respective areas from 10am to 12 noon and sensitisedthe people about the risingfuel prices, for which theCentral Government isresponsible.

In Bhubaneswar, partyactivists including membersof the youth and students’wing and Mahila Morcha dis-

tributed leaflets and stageddemonstrations at all petrolpumps. BJD leaders, includingMLAs also joined the protest bytaking out a rally from the StateAssembly to the petrol pumpnear the Ram Mandir.

BJD general secretarySanjay Dasburma said, “TheBJP-led Central Governmenthad come to power withpromises of ‘Acche din’, but theincreasing petrol and dieselrates have overburdened thecommon man. We will contin-ue the protest till the prices fall.”

“We will intensify the

protest if the prices of petrole-um products are not broughtunder control,” Dasburmaadded.

MLA Arun Sahu said, “Theoil prices in India have spi-ralled. Earlier, when the rate ofoil per barrel was 135 dollars inglobal market, the petrol pricesin India was Rs 54 per litre.Now when the global rateshave fallen to 78 dollars, whyhave the rates in India gone upto Rs 80,” questioned Sahu.

In reaction, Union Ministerof Petroleum and Natural GasDharmendra said, “The BJD is

suffering from mentalbankruptcy. Odisha hascollected the maximumrevenue in petroleumproducts during the peri-od 2014-18.” He urgedthe State Government toreduce VAT on petrol anddiesel to give relief to thepeople.

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PCC president NiranjanPatnaik flayed the State

Government for large scalevacancies of doctors and para-medical staff in Governmenthospitals and questioned on theefficacy of new health schemesand medical colleges when theproblem of manpower crunchis acute.

In a Press statement,Patnaik criticised HealthMinister Pratap Jena for givingfalse information on doctorvacancy in the State. Jena hasdisclosed in the Assemblyrecently that there are 1,609doctors and 275 dentist postslying vacant. However, Patnaiksaid the actual vacancy in doc-tor posts is 3,800.

The PCC chief said totalapproved number of cadre postof doctors in Odisha includingCommunity Health Center(CHC), Primary Health Center(PHC), Sub-divisionalHeadquarters Hospitals andDistrict Headquarter Hospitalsis 6,719. There are only around2,800 doctors working in theState and those MBBS whowere posted through OPSC,many of them have gone for PGor remaining absent since long.However, the Government iscalculating their number asworking doctors.

Patnaik said as per WorldHealth Organization (WHO)norms, there should be mini-mum 1 doctor for every 1,000patients. While the ratio in thecountry is 1:11,082, in Odisha,

it has worsened more.Approximately 400 to 500

out patients are being attend-ed in each DistrictHeadquarters Hospital per day.Likewise, 350 to 400 in eachSub divisional hospital, 200 to250 in a CHC and 300 in aPHC. But even not a singledoctor is there in many of thePHCs and CHCs, where eitherpharmacists or paramedicalstaffers are providing service.This is the real picture ofhealthcare system in the State,lamented Patnaik. On the otherhand, it has created 3 cadres ofdoctors leading to dissatisfac-tion among them, he told.

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The Bhubaneswar MunicipalCorporation (BMC) is pro-

moting digital payment forbetter transparency and con-venience and discouraging cashpayment also.

While the trade licencepayment has gone into 100 percent digital, the civic bodywants owners of holdings to godigital payment of their hold-ing and all other taxes, feesthrough online.

The BMC is also planningto publish an advertisement tomake people aware on the useof www.odishaonline.gov.in sothat it would be more conve-nient to people, will involve nocash, no need to go to tax col-lectors henceforward.

Currently under the e-Municipality platform serviceslike holding tax, trade licence,birth and death certificates, col-lection of water cess and urbantransport in city buses arecoming under the digital ser-vices.

The BMC is now planningto go for the CommonPayment Card System (CPCS)with which several city-levelservices would be digitallylinked for payment with a sin-gle card. Under theBhubaneswar Smart CityLimited, the SPV for SmartCity work, the CPC would belaunched shortly with theICICI Bank, which would be amilestone for entering in an eraof present world with a mani-fold and magnificent effect.

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As many as 4,953 people havedied in road accidents in the

State during last 13 months,informed Transport Minister DrNrusingha Charan Sahoo in theStatae Assembly in response to aquestion by Congress MLAChandra Sekhar Majhi on Friday.

According to the Minister’sinformation, a total of 10,961 acci-dents occurred since July 2017 inwhich 4,953 people were killed,6,139 severely injured and 4,913received minor injuries.

The Minister informed that Rs2.06 crore was collected from bik-ers for driving without helmets in2017-18 and Rs 1.2 crore collectedthis year so far.

In response to a related questionof MLA Sanatan Mahakud, theMinister informed inspections arebeing conducted to check speed dri-ving and riding without helmet andawareness programmes are beingheld to check accidents.

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Legal protection to the castediscriminated people in

India is a historical necessity. Itis not to appease any caste orcommunity; rather it is toensure dignity of every humanbeing for building an inclusive

nation.A very unique caste system

exits in India and south Asiawith strong religious supportthat divides people in lower andupper strata with most inhu-man practice of untouchabili-ty against a section of people.The practices are protected inmany ways and very well nur-tured for centuries.

Many social and religiousreformers have sacrificed theirlife against this continued injus-tice but still in each and everyvillage of our country, peoplecontinue to live as the untouch-able.

The leaders of the rulingparty of the country are visit-ing their hamlets and homesand are dining with them, butthat seems only to catch eye-balls and take political mileage.

Caste system and untouch-ability practice is anti-nation-al. We cannot build a countryby dividing people as touchable

and untouchable, as upper andlower, which violates principlesof human rights and dignity.The British Government inIndia undertook the first castecensus in 1931 to identify thedepressed classes of the coun-try with nine criteria devised byJH Hutton, the then CensusCommissioner.

Later, the Scheduled ofCastes (SCs) and ScheduledTribes (STs) were created anddeclared in 1936. The BritishGovernment in India intro-duced protective provisionsfor the welfare of SCs and STs.

During and after the inde-pendence movement, the ideaof a modern nation State verywell was debated and resolvedin the Constituent Assemblyfor almost three years.

Our national leaderssought to change the age oldreligious notion that contra-dicts international under-standing of human rights and

dignity. It was thought to pro-tect the caste discriminatedcommunities against discrim-ination by protective legislationand punish the perpetuatorsthose who still believe in reli-gious notion of caste.

It was decided to follow theprinciples of democratic gov-ernance which says one manone value, establish constitu-tional value and morality, lib-erty, equality, fraternity anddignity, in place of age old reli-gious values and morality.Later, in 1976 the 42ndamendment of the Constitutionwas made to develop scientif-ic temper, humanism and thespirit of inquiry and reform.There cannot be two contra-dictory parallel ideas to run inthe country.

Sooner the citizens of thecountry realize, it is better forthe country, otherwise a civil

war like situation will contin-ue in each village at the cost ofpeace and development of thecountry.

The first legislation againstuntouchability in independentIndia came into force in 1955as Protection of Civil RightsAct. Under Article 17 of theConstitution of India, untouch-ability is abolished and itspractice in any form is forbid-den. The enforcement of anydisability arising out ofuntouchability shall be anoffence punishable in accor-dance with law. Thus the leg-islation empowers a victim toenforce his/her civil rights tofight the social disability andmost inhuman forms of restric-tions.

The law empowers the so-called untouchable to enterpublic places, shops, hotels,public utility places, water bod-

ies and temples, use publictransport and wear ornamentsand protest forced caste-basedlabour. But how far our coun-try has been able to enforce thislaw in our villages is a mootquestion. Forget about privateplaces, even public places suchAgwanwadis, schools, pan-chayat offices, tea shops,saloons and temples are still aplace of discrimination wherethe low castes are not treatedwith dignity. For last 70 years,the enforcement of law is mis-erable and political party work-ers and Government officials ingrass root level are non coop-erative.

With growing conscious-ness of human dignity andself-respect, the lower castes/untouchables/SCs and STshave started asserting them-selves by the help of laws whichshould be seen as a majorsocial progress and empower-ment towards positive social

change.The IPC is inadequate to

address the issues of caste-based atrocities against lowcaste people in order to protectthem. After 40 years of consti-tutional governance, theParliament of India enacted thePrevention of Atrocities Actand the rules were draftedafter five years. So almost after45 years of enforcement ofconstitution, the country has alegislation to protect its mostvulnerable section from a cen-turies old injustice. The StateGovernments which are thereal implementer of the Acthave their own style of lookingat issues to enforce leading todelayed implementation.

The Act aims to preventthe commission of offence ofatrocities against members ofthe SCs and STs and to providefor special courts for the speedtrial of such offences and forthe relief and rehabilitation of

the victims of such offences andother related matters.

The protective legislationsare still unknown to a vastmajority of people, especiallyfor whom this protection isbeing provided and still remainnon –implemented. Therefore,both the Central and the StateGovernments are beingengaged in popularizing thelegislation through differentawareness programmes andtrainings.

Every day heinous forms ofatrocities are taking place indifferent parts of the countryand untouchability practice isrampant in each and every vil-lage. It is largely felt that with-out a strong law, the practicesof caste-based discriminationand atrocities can never stop.Laws are made to protect theweak and the poor whichshould not be diluted in theplea of its misuse.

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The R Udaygiri police inGajapati district busted a

fake gold bricks racketand arrested three per-sons including the kingpin of the racket on Friday.

Earlier, a goldsmith,Prafulla Baitaro, ofPudamari village underthe Patapur police stationin the district, had beenduped by the fraudstersof Rs 7 lakh for sellingsome gold bricks to him.

Finding no other way out,Baitaro lodged a complaintwith the police, who startedinvestigations.

Later, the cops nabbed thekingpin of the racket PrabodhPradhan of Tikamala villageunder R Udayagiri block andhis associates Rabi Raita from

Lubursing village and LohitaSingh of Nuagada village.

The police seized cash of R2 lakh, fake gold bricks andmobile phones from thearrestees’ possession. They havebeen arrested and forwarded tocourt, said Gajapati SP AmulyaKumar Dash. Prabodh and his

associates have con-fessed to the police thatthey had duped Baitaroand sold him the fakegold bricks.

The SP said a policeteam led by ASIParmananda Dalai,responsible for bustingthe racket, would beawarded for solving thecase within a short spanof time.

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The district administrationswung into action and sent

a medical team to Amarpali vil-lage under Birmaharajpurblock after a news published inThe Pioneer on spread of kid-ney disease in the area.

A medical team from theDistrict Headquarters Hospital(DHH) and local CHC col-lected blood samples whereinat least 18 people were diag-nosed with the deadly diseasein the village.

Led by Dr SibanandaChaulia, the team met the ail-ing people and discussed theproblem. The team also pre-pared individual medicalreports which will be submit-ted to the Health Departmentfor necessary action.

It may be noted that AnantSahu,Chaturbhuja Biswal and

Sriram Baghar died of the kid-ney disease and several otherswere affected last month in thevillage.

During the probe, it waslearnt that most of the affect-ed persons belong to BelowPoverty Line(BPL) categoryand have not undergone anyformal treatment due to finan-

cial constraints.Due to lack of proper

drinking water facility, the res-idents depend on tube wellwater laced with high fluoridecontent. Moreover, they alsoconsume water from pondsand canals. It is felt that unsafewater consumption has causedthe disease.

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In a shocking incident, a minor girlwas allegedly gangraped by her

male friend and his associate in thepremises of the Buguda treasuryoffice in Ganjam district on Friday.

The matter came to the foreafter the victim fell unconscious atthe main market in the locality. Shewas rescued in a critical conditionand rushed to a hospital.

Sources said the girl’s malefriend had called her to meet himand took her near the Buguda trea-sury office, where he and his friendraped her in the office premises.They fled from the spot after com-mitting the crime.

After the matter came to light,the Buguda police registered a caseand launched a probe. Acting swift-ly, the police nabbed the accusedduo.

A medical test of the girl wasconducted and further probe wasunderway, Bhanjanagar SDPO UtkalKeshari Das informed.

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A1 2 - h o u rbandh hit

normal life atBheden block inBargarh districton Thursday. Itwas called by theJai Kishan Andolan, a leadingfarmers’ association of Bargarh,led by its president UtparnnaKumar Bhoi to protest against nonpayment of cropinsurance money.

The agitators staged roadblockades by burning tyres atseveral places demandingimmediate clearance of thecrop insurance money.Business establishments, shops,offices, schools and other insti-tutions remained closed due tothe protest. A group of farmers

has locked the BhedenCooperative Bank since August31 protesting non-fulfillment oftheir demand.

“We have been deprived ofcrop insurance under thePradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojana since long and wedemand clearance of the pend-ing dues. But the administra-tion is not taking any interest,”said Jaikishan Andolan secre-tary Ramesh Mohapatra. Hethreatened to intensify theprotest ahead.

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An ambulance carryingganja worth lakhs of

rupees was seized by theMudulipada police inMalkangiri district late onThursday night. However, noarrest has been made in thisconnection till yet.

Sources said an unidenti-fied person was smugglingthe contraband in the ambu-lance on the Mathili-

Khairaput bypass road. A policeteam was conducting patrolling atthat time near Mathili. The ambu-lance driver lost control over thevehicle while trying give the copsa slip, following which the ambu-lance skidded off the road.

While the driver managed toescape from the spot, the policeteam seized three sacks containingcannabis from the ambulance andtook the vehicle to police station.

An investigation into the inci-dent was on, police said.

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Khirod Sahoo, a youth from Talcher, wasfelicitated on August 29 with State award

for Social Service for the year 2017 in recog-nition of his outstanding work in the field.

Sahoo received the award from ChiefMinister Naveen Patnaik in the presence ofFinance Minister Sashi Bhusan Behera, RajyaSabha MP DilipTirky and other dignitaries ina function organised by the Department ofSports and Youth Services, Odisha, at theKalinga Stadium, Bhubaneswar. The award car-ries a cash award of Rs 25,000 and a citation.

Sahoo is a known person in the localityfor his social service. Inspired from childhoodas a scout volunteer in school, Sahoo took tosocial service as his prime mission in life. Beit blood donation, helping accident victimsor patients, Sahoo is ever prepared.

He arranged more than 230 voluntaryblood donation camps as a full time Red Crossvolunteer since 2006.

He also joined several plantation pro-grammes organised by different institutions,with a record of planting over 5,000 saplings.

For his contribution towards the environment,he was awarded as ‘Prakruti Bandhu’ by theAngul Collector in 2015.

Sahoo is very much popular for bike ambu-lance, a new concept to carry needy patientsfrom their homes and accident victims to hos-pitals. The idea came to his mind when he pur-chased a motor cycle in the year 2010, he told.He always wears a white dress and stays in hispaternal thatched house at his native villageGhantapada under Talcher Sub Division.

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Athree-day ContinuingEducation Programme for

pharmacy teachers sponsoredby the Pharmacy Council ofIndia was held at the RoyalCollege of Pharmacy andHealth Sciences here fromSeptember 7 to 9.

Prof CK Kokate was thechief guest during the inauguralsession while Prof PN Murthy,convener of the programmeand Director-cum –Principal ofthe Royal College, presided.

Prof Murthy emphasisedthe importance of the pro-gramme in the light of the rapiddevelopment and progress tak-ing place in the profession andhealthcare domain.

Eminent persons from thefield of Pharmacy addressedthe gathering of teachers andalso trained them on therecent advances andstrategies needed to beadopted to improveteaching ability.

Experts like Prof MVimala Devi, Prof CKKokate, Dr M VenkataReddy and Prof SSatyanarayana were felic-itated for their remark-able contributions to theprofession.

Prof M Vimala Devi,CEO, Auro Pharma andformer Head and Deanof Pharmacy, AndhraUniversity, highlighted

the importance of fundamen-tal research.

Dr M Venkata Reddy,Member, PCI and formerDirector, Drugs ControlAdministration (AP) andAdvisor, Natco Pharma Ltd.Hyderabad, focused on regula-tory control. Prof SSatyanarayana, formerPrincipal, AU College ofPharmaceutical Sciences, pro-vided an insight onPharmacology research. Dr TPrakasa Rao, President of RoyalEducational and ResearchSociety, advised all the partici-pants to include latest develop-ments and technical-know-how.

Among others, organisingsecretary Prof SK Panda andjoint secretary of the event DrMadhusmruti Khandai werepresent. Prof SK Sahoo offeredvote of thanks.

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The Koshal State Coordination Committee (KSCC) observeda 12- hour bandh in Birmaharajpur on Friday for a false case

lodged against Koshal Youth Coordination Commitee (KYCC)president Artatxrana Dash by Birmaharajpur Sub-Collector SubratBehera.

As per sources, Birmaharajpur Sub Collector Behera hadlodged a complaint against Dash and some of his supporters atBirmaharajpur Police Station on August 20. In reaction, the KSCChad submitted a petition to Collector Madhusudan Mishrademanding that the case be withdrawn. But as no action wastaken, it had given the bandh call.

Normal life was disrupted due to the bandh.While shops andbusiness establishments remained closed, vehicular traffic wasdisrupted. The KSCC claimed that the bandh was supported byall sections of people. Among others, KSCC coordinatorKishore Hota, Youth coordinator Bibhudatta Mishra, Balangirdistrict coordinator Rabishankar Mishra, Sabya SachiMishra,Naba Krushna Danta, Ranaraj Singh Deo, NilkamalMishra, Naba Kishore Tripathy, Aditya Purohit, Subrat Hota werepresent. Over 100 activists picketed in the town.

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The members of Balangirdistrict Congress

Committee led by its presidentDilip Behera, SamarendraMishra and Santosh SinghSaluja staged a protest beforethe Collectorate here allegingcorruption by the ModiGovernment in purchase ofRafale fighter plane fromFrance.

The Congress leaders crit-icised the BJP led NDAGovernment at the Centre forcorruption in purchase of

Rafale fighter plane, fuel pricerise, inflation and failure toprovide jobs to youths.

The 126 Rafale fighterplane deal was finalised during

UPA Government at Rs 526.10crore per plane with France .18planes were to be purchasedfrom France and 108 planeswere to be produced at HAL

with transfer of technology.But after the Modi

Government came to power,Rafale plane deal was finalisedat Rs1, 670.70 crore per planeand total 36 planes will be pur-chased.

The total purchase cost ofRafale plane would have beenRs 18,940 crore, whereas theModi Government’s new dealhas hiked the total purchaseprice of fighter plane to Rs60,145 crore. Hence, there is acorruption of Rs 41,205 crorein the deal, the Congress lead-ers charged. Besides, they toldif the planes were to be pro-duced in HAL, Odisha, it couldhave provided employment to35,000-40,000 youths of theState, said former MLA Saluja.

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Page 4: ˆ ! #˛ˆ ˙ * +€¦ · the room caught fire in no time. Listening to ... them by rushing into the house but received severe burn injuries. He was admitted at the Bhuban hospital

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Farmers of Kasinagar blockin Gajapati district have

been holding dharna sincethree days in front of the dis-trict Collectorate seeking actionagainst members of the LokSangram Mancha who areallegedly forcibly cultivatingtheir land and taking away theharvest.

The farmers said that asmany as 75 families are earn-ing their bread and butter fromthe 120 acres of cashew landand 10 acres of cultivationland, which belongs to theirgrandparents. But a group ofpeople under the banner of LokSangram Mancha every yearare forcibly cultivating theirlands and taking the harvest,they alleged.

They also said the districtadministration and the policewere informed regarding thematter but in vain. A case was

also filed in the High Court andthe HC stated that the namementioned on the land pattawould be the owner of lands,

they added.Farmers P Sreenu, P

Ramsankar, P AnandRao,Rokama Rama Babu, PKondalaRao and R Ravanayaalleged that they have been sit-ting on dharna before theCollector’s office since lastthree days, but the Collectorand the police have not comeup with any solutions.

They threatened that if nosolutions are made, they wouldintensify the stir in future.

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Three motorcycle-bornemiscreants looted �50,000

from a private finance company manager at Bansavillage in the Naugaon area in Jagatsinghpur district on Friday.

Reports said that thefinance company managerManoj Kumar Jena was return-ing to Naugaon block head-quarters after collecting grouploans from SHGs when theantisocial elements waylaidhim at Bansa on the Naranpur-Bansa road and asked him to hand over the cash bagto them.

When he refused to obligethem, one of the miscreantsopened fire to terrorise him.Another criminal brandished agun at his head.

As Manoj fell down fromhis bike, the miscreants brokehis bike dickey and decampedwith the cash bag containing�50,000.

Manoj later lodged a com-plaint at the Naugaon policestation, following which policestarted investigation.

BHUBANESWAR: Even asthe 200th year of the PaikaRevolt is being celebrated in bigways by both the Union andState Governments this year, aproposal for installation of afull-size horse-ride statue ofPaika Bidroh hero BuxiJagabandhu BidyadharMohapatra in the Parliamentpremises has remained unde-cided since 2004.

This was revealed fromthe information submitted bythe Odia Language, Literatureand Culture Minister PrafullaSamal in the State Assembly inresponse to a question of BJPMLA Dillip Ray on Friday.

The Minister informed that

the State Government had firstsent a proposal to theParliament authorities in 2004for installation of a horse-ridestatue of Buxi Jagabanhu inParliament premises. However,the Statue InstallationCommittee later made a pro-posal for installation of a 9-footfull-size of statue of BuxiJagabandhu due to lack of space.

Later in 2008, the StateGovernment again requestedthe Parliament authorities toreconsider its proposal ofinstallation of full-size horse-ride statue of Buxi Jagabandhu.However, the Parliamentauthorities are yet to respond,said the Minister. PNS

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The OMC Guru KelucharanMohapatra Award Festival’s

second evening witnessed yetanother beautiful blend ofdance and music, with a vocalrecital by Partha SarathiPanigrahi and a Kuchipudiduet by Vyjayanthi andPrateeksha Kashi.

In the presence of distin-guished guests like ViceChairman, Bharatiya VidyaBhavan Dr SK Tamotia, VicePresident, Crown Hotel AKTalukdar and LalatenduMohanty of Priyadarshini

Handloom, theevening commencedwith a vocal renditionof the Geeta Govindaby Partha Sarathi‘Baboo’ Panigrahi, sonof the legendary duo ofOdishi, late Sanjuktaand Suramani Pt RaghunathPanigrahi.

With a deep soulful voicelike his father, Pt RaghunathPanigrahi, Baboo enthralledthe audience with Srita Kamala,Mamiyam Chalita Vilokya andDheera Samire, Ashtapadisfrom the Geeta Govinda.

He also sang Jaya Durge in

praise of the power andgrandeur of Goddess Durgawith great poise and feeling.Baboo was ably accompaniedby Bibhu Prasad Tripathy onthe keyboard, DushmantParida on percussion and RabiNarayan Barik on the cymbals.

The second programme ofthe evening was a Kuchipudi

duet by the mother-daughter duo ofVyjayanthi Kashi andPrateeksha Kashi fromBangalore. VyjayanthiKashi’s concept andchoreography ofAntaranga-taranga was

presented skillfully with a blendof both elegance and greatenergy, with dialogues thatheightened the dramatic effect.

The entire production wasa depiction of variations of theVatsalya Rasa. The first itemportrayed the Vatsalya Rasabetween God and devoteesthrough the story of Narasimha

and Prahlad. The second piece,Jagadoddharana, was a popu-lar composition portraying theVatsalya Rasa between motherand son. Although Yashoda isnot the actual mother ofKrishna, her unconditionalmotherly love for him wasbrought out beautifully byVyjayanthi Kashi.

In their final presentation,Bhumi Sita, specially choreo-graphed for the festival, theyshowed the Vatsalya Rasabetween mother and daughter,narrating the feelings of Bhumitowards her daughter throughthe various phases of her life,

her marriage to Lord Ram andespecially during her final wishto return to the womb of hermother.

Accompanied by a flawlesslive orchestra with AishwariyaNityananda and AkhilaPajimanu on the vocals,Shashishankara Bhadrachar onthe Mridangam, Jayaram KS onthe flute, Vishwanath NV onthe violin, Anil Iyer on theNatuvangam and Naveen MGon the lights, the experience ofVyjayanthi Kashi and the ener-gy of Prateeksha madeAntaranga-taranga an aesthet-ic delight.

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Noted Odia poet SatrughnaPandav would get the 39th

edition of the Sarala Puraskarfor his work “Misra Dhrupad”,the Sarala Puraskar Committeeannounced here on Friday. Hewill receive a cash award of �5lakh along with a citation.

Two more notable person-alities will be honoured fortheir valuable contributions inthe fields of music and art,respectively. Pandeet UmeshChandra Kar will be awardedIla Panda Sangeet Sammanand Binod Moharana willreceive Ila Panda ChitrakalaSamman.

They will receive a cashaward of �1.5 lakh each alongwith citations. A function wouldbe held here on October 26 tofelicitate the awardees. Eminentnovelist of India Govind Mishrahas consented to be the chiefguest at the function.

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Even though the ExciseDepartment has made

some seizures of drugs in thelast few months in the city, thenarcotics trade continues toflourish and the Haladipadiaslum under the Laxmisagarpolice station has turned intoa safe haven for drug peddlers.

In a glaring example, theExcise Department officialsseized 100 grams of brownsugar from Haladipadia slumon Friday and arrested awoman in connection with thecase. The market price of theseized brown sugar is estimat-ed to be �20 lakh.

As per reports, the contra-band items were being sold insmall packets through agentsincluding minor boys.

Earlier on September 2,excise sleuths had seized brownsugar worth over �10 lakhfrom a youth identified asSanjeev Lal. Lal hailing fromBihar was nabbed during raidsconducted at the Haladipadiaslum.

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Thousands of bikers, smalland heavy vehicles suffered

traffic jams in city on Fridayafter the Bhubaneswar-Satapada National Highwaywas cut off to clear the waterlogging in a vast part of the pil-grim city.

Since a vast area towardswest of the city remainedwaterlogged for many days,the administration finally choseto detach the patch connectingBiraharekursnapur toManglaghat Chhak of the NH.

Due to the cut-off of thebypass road, hundreds of heavyvehicles aiming Bhubaneswardiverted their routes to the citythat caused huge traffic jam inmany areas.

Sources said the adminis-tration took the drastic step torescue the people from waterlogging in many low-lyingareas including Atharna,Matitota, Batamangala, besidesthe north portion. Around

30,000 people are still living inhouses surrounded by water intheir localities due to continuedrains over a month.

Despite several attemptsof the administration, waterlevel remained as it was andstarted worsening the condi-tions with boats and tyresbeing sources of communica-tion.

After the construction ofthe bypass road nearBiraharekrusnapur on the NHduring the Nabakalebar Yatra,the adjoining localities havefallen low and there is no exitpoint for water after a heavyrain. Before taking decisions tocut off the NH, the adminis-tration had received permissionof the NHAI.

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Even as the Commissionerate police have suspended threepolicemen for misconduct, two PILs have been filed in the HighCourt by lawyers seeking a judicial inquiry into the incident.Adjudicating a PIL, the High Court earlier this week had direct-ed for Crime Branch investigations into all the cases registeredin this connection. The lawyers are, however, demanding arrestof the erring policemen. PNS

���������� �������������555From Page 1

Raising the teacher issue, Mishra said, “It is most unfortu-nate that the State Government is not holding talks with teach-ers to resolve their demands while teaching has been severelyaffected due to the strike.”

Besides, he slammed the Government for lawyers’ strike. “Thelawyers have been on strike against police excesses for which com-mon people have been facing problems in getting justice. Similarly,lawyers in western Odisha have been staging cease-workdemanding a Permanent High Court bench in western part ofthe State. While the justice system has been paralysed, the StateGovernment has sat silent,” lamented Mishra.

He demanded that the Chief Minister make a statement onthe teacher and lawyers’ strike issues in the House soon.

On the suggestion of members, the Speaker adjourned theHouse at 3.14 pm till Monday.

#)��& & � ������� ��������� �-��+�� New Delhi: Two suspected ter-rorists, affiliated to the IslamicState of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) inJammu & Kashmir (ISJK)organisation, were arrestedfrom near the Red Fort by theSpecial Cell (anti-terror unit ofDelhi Police). The duo hailingfrom Shopian in KashmirValley were identified as Parvez(24) and Jamshid (19).

They were arrested fromthe Jama Masjid bus stop nearthe Red Fort, said PS Kushwah,Deputy Commissioner ofPolice (DCP) Special Cell.

They were boarding a busto return to Jammu & Kashmirwhen they were nabbed around10.45 pm on Thursday.

Intelligence inputs provid-ed by Central security agenciesand subsequent investigation byDelhi Police revealed that theduo was using Delhi as a tran-sit point, Kushwah said. SR

563-B

34091/11/0037/1819

1. Name of the work :- Supply, delivery & installation of Godrej makeFurnitures at(A) Patient Waiting Hall, Seminar hall & Library ofSCB Dental College & Hospital, Cuttack.(B) All HODs & Principal's Office chamber andRecord room of SCB Dental College & Hospital,Cuttack

2. Estimated Cost :- (A)Rs.42,03,121/- (B)Rs.32,59,775/-3. Period of completion :- 1 (One) calendar Month4. Date & time of sale & receipt of Quotation :- From 12.09.2018 to 4 PM of 19.09.20185. Last date / time of receipt of Quotation :- 4 PM of 19.09.20186. Date & time of Opening of Quotation :- 11 AM of 20.09.20187. Name and address of the Officer Inviting :- Executive Engineer,

Quotation Cuttack (R&B) Division No.I, CuttackFurther details can be seen from the State Govt. portal “http://www.odisha.gov.in”

Sd/-Executive Engineer,

Cuttack (R&B) Division No.I

OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE ENGINEERCUTTACK (R&B) DIVISION NO.I : CUTTACK

E-Mail [email protected]./ Fax No.(0671)-2304128

GOVERNMENT OF ODISHA Quotation NoticeQuotation Notice for Supply of Furnitures

Bid Identification No. E.E. CTC(R&B)-04 of 2018-19No.7157/ Dt.04/09/2018

723-O

25015/11/0004/1819

1. Name of Works : Construction of pump house,OHT & Distribution system,etc. with supplying of all materials including pipes, valve &fittings for RPWS to different villages of Sambalpur district.

2. Total Number of Work : 02 Nos ( Two )3. Estimated Cost : Rs.12.05 lakhs to Rs.26.81 lakhs4. Class of Contractor : C5. Period of Completion : 6 (Six)

Sd/-Executive Engineer,

R.W.S&S Division, Sambalpur

GOVERNMENT OF ODISHAOFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE ENGINEER

R.W.S&S DIVISION, SAMBALPUR.“e” PROCUREMENT NOTICE

Bid Identification No. RWSS (SBP):- 09/2018-19

E-mail- [email protected]

10.09.2018RWSS (SBP):- 09/2018-19Executive Engineer,RWSS Division, Sambalpur

Procurement Off icerAvailability of tender On-line for bidding

Bid Identification No.F rom To

20.09.2018up to 5.00 PM

Further details can be seen from the e-procurement portal “www.tendersorissa.gov.in”Subsequent corrigendum if required shall be appeared in the website only.

253-C

13017/11/0006/1819

The Executive Engineer, G.P.H. Division No-I, Bhubaneswar on behalf of Governor of Odishainvites percentage rate bid in single cover system to be received in online mode only for the worksdetailed in the table below.

1 Name of the work. 1 (One) No.of Work2 Estimated cost Rs.43,35,166.003 Period of Completion 01 (One Calendar Month)4 Date & time of availability of document https://tendersorissa.gov.in

in the portal5 Last date/ Time of receipt of bids in the 17.00 Hours of 19.09.2018

portal6 Name & Address of the officer Inviting bid Executive Engineer, GPH Division No.l,

BhubaneswarFurther details can be seen from the e-procurement portal “https// tendersorissa.gov.in”

1. The bid documents will be available in above website from 11.00 Hours of 10.09.2018 to 17.00Hours of 19.09.2018 for "online" bidding.

2. Bids received on line shall be opened at 15.00 Hours on 20.09.2018 in the office of the ExecutiveEngineer, G.P.H. Division No-I, Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

3. The bidder must possess compatible Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) of Class-II or Class-Ill.4. Further details can be seen from the website https://tendersorissa.gov.in

Sd/-Executive Engineer,G.P.H. Division No-I,

Bhubaneswar

GOVERNMENT OF ODISHA(e-PROCUREMENT NOTICE)

OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE ENGINEER,G.P.H DIVISION NO.1, BHUBANESWAR, ODISHA,

INVITATION FOR BIDS (IFB)Bid Identification No. EEGPH1BBSR-12/2018-19 Dt.06.09.2018

19-b

34149/11/0003/1819

Sd/-Executive Engineer,

N.H. Division, Jeypore

1. The Executive Engineer, National Highway Division, Jeypore invites bids at percentage ratebasis for the following work.

E-PROCUREMENT NOTICE

BID IDENTIFICATION NO. 02/18-19 (e-procurement)

e-mail Id- [email protected]

Name of the WorkName of theconcerned

N.H.Division

S/R such asproviding signages,paints and safetyprovisions from Km294/280 to 351/480Km of NH-26 forthe year 2018-19.

Jeypore

value of work(Rs in lakhs)

01 43.76

Bid security(Rs in lakh)

0.44 6,000.00

Cost oftender

Documents(Rupees)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Class ofEligible

contractor

B&A 2 months

Period ofcompletionin months

Pkg.No.

2. Bid document will be available in the web site from 11.00 Hours of 11.09.2018 to 17.00 Hours of20.09.2018 for online bidding.

3. All other details can be seen in the Government website www.tendersorissa.gov.in.

564-B

34140/11/0006/1819

1. Name of the work : Civil Work-2 Nos,(Building and Road)Composite work-1 No. (Building)

2. Numbers of work : 03 (Three)3. Estimated cost : Rs 17.30 to 78.99 Lakhs4. Period of completion : 2 (Two) to 8 (Eight) Months5. Date & Time of availability of : From 11.45 A.M of dt.11.09.2018 to

bid document in the portal 04.00 P.M of dt.19.09.20186. Last Date/ Time for receipt of : 04.00 P.M of dt.19.09.2018

bids in the portal7. Date of opening of Bid : 11.30 A.M of dt.20.09.2018.8. Name and address of the officer : Pradeep Kumar Rath, Executive Engineer,

inviting Bid Ghatagaon (R&B) DivisionFurther details can be seen from the e-procurement portal https://tendersodisha.gov.in

Sd/-Executive Engineer,

Ghatagaon(R&B)Division

GOVERNMENT OF ODISHA, “e”- PROCUREMENT NOTICEBid Identification No. E.E. GTN(R&B)- 04 /2018-19

E-mail address- [email protected]

Letter No. 2267 / WE dt.01.09.2018

Page 5: ˆ ! #˛ˆ ˙ * +€¦ · the room caught fire in no time. Listening to ... them by rushing into the house but received severe burn injuries. He was admitted at the Bhuban hospital

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Signifying the growingdefence ties between India

and US, the armies of twocountries will hold a joint exer-cise ‘Yudh Abhyas’ inChaubatia, Uttrakhand for 12days starting from September16. The exercise takes placedays after the maiden 2+2 dia-logue here on Thursdaybetween the external andDefence Ministers of twonations covering the entirerange of strategic issues besidescross-border terrorism,enhancing defence trade andsharing of cutting edge tech-nology.

The joint army exerciseheld every year alternately inIndia and US will see this yearmore than 350 troops fromeach side practicing variousdrill including urban terrorismbesides familiarizing them-selves with weapons and tech-nology of each other’s armies,officials said here on Friday.The Indian team will be repre-sented by a unit of 15 GarwhalRifles. The last episode washeld in Joint Base, Lewis-McChord, US.

Meanwhile, during the 2+2dialogue it was decided tohold the first ever tri-serviceexercise off the East Coast ofIndia next year where thearmy, navy and air force of twocountries will conductmanouevers focusing on pro-viding rescue and relief duringnatural calamities. “We havedecided for the first time tocarry out a tri services exerciseon the Eastern Coast with USin 2019,” Defence MinisterNirmala Sitharaman hadannounced at the joint pressconference with her US coun-

terpart James Mattis after the2+2dialogue.

Incidentally, India andRussia also held the first evertri-service joint drill this year.Earlier, the three Services usedto have separate exercises oftheir respective units.

The two defence ministersof India and US alsoannounced their readiness tobegin negotiations on anIndustrial Security Annex(ISA) that would support clos-er defense industry cooperationand collaboration.

India and the US havesigned the General Security ofMilitary InformationAgreement (GSOMIA) yearsago and allows sharing of clas-sified information from USGovernment and Americancompanies with IndianGovernment and DefencePublic Sector Undertakings(DPSU) but not with Indianprivate companies. The ISA isrequired to enable this and par-ticularly important as Indiaopens up defence manufactur-ing to the private sector in a bigway.

To further defence inno-vation, a Memorandum ofIntent was signed betweenthe U.S. Defense InnovationUnit (DIU) and the IndianDefence InnovationOrganisation — Innovationfor Defence Excellence (DIO-iDEX) which will look intojoint projects for co-produc-tion and co-development pro-jects through the DefenseTechnology and TradeInitiative (DTTI). US hasemerged as one of the biggestweapon suppliers to Indiahaving sold systems worthover ten billion dollars in thelast couple of years.

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Hitting out at the Congress for“criticising” country’s Prime

Minister Narendra Modi andpraising Pakistan’s Premier ImranKhan, the BJP on Friday accusedPunjab Tourism Minister NavjotSingh Sidhu of insulting India andsought an explanation from theOpposition party for the state-ments made by its leader.

“Navjot Sidhu and Congressshould give a clarification whetherthis is also the line of the party oth-erwise we will consider it a state-ment by Congress president RahulGandhi. This has become Congress’nature now-to insult India and itsPrime Minister and praise Pakistanand its leaders,” said BJP spokesmanSyed Shahnawaz Hussain.

“Navjot Sidhu is a Congressleader and his statement thankingPakistan is an indication of whatthe Congress feels about Pakistan.On one side General Qamar JavedBajwa has spewed venom against

India, saying his military wasready to avenge bloodshed of itsmen on the border with ‘khoon kabadla khoon’ and in India aCongress leader is thankingPakistan,” Hussain said.

Sidhu on Friday said he had“no words to thank” Pakistan’s newPrime Minister for opening thecorridor of Kartarpur Sahib onGuru Nanak’s birth anniversary inNovember. “They (Pakistan) areready to open the corridor ofKartarpur Sahib on the 550 birthanniversary of Guru Nanak Ji.There can be no bigger happinessthan this for the people of Punjab,”Sidhu was quoted as saying. Healso asked Central Government toreciprocate Khan’s gesture.

BJP spokesman pointed toBajwa’s speech at Pakistan’s 53rdDefence Day on Thursday to crit-icise Sidhu who was profuse in hispraise for Pakistan premier. “Wewill avenge the blood flowing onthe border,” reports from Pakistanquoted Bajwa as saying.

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Almost six years after aBharat Bandh call given by

the BJP protesting the fuelprice hike in the regime ofManmohan Singh, theCongress too has announced amassive protest across thecountry against the incumbentGovernment as petrol is pricedexorbitantly at �80 per litreagainst the UPA’s �69 per litre.

The DMK has announcedto extend its support to thenationwide shutdown onSeptember 10 and has com-mitted for an active part inmaking it a success.

The Congress said most ofthe Opposition parties havegiven their consent to supportand its leaders have talked tothe Left parties, the SamajwadiParty, the NCP, RJD and oth-ers, who have extended theirsupport to the Congress on theissue. On Trinamool Congress,the party said it has agreed tosupport but won’t give a call for

bandh as they are inGovernment. Senior partyleaders recalled how BJP hadprotested and called for BharatBandh on May 31, 2012.

Congress spokespersonRPN Singh said all politicalparties will take to the streetsto protest against the risingprices of petrol and diesel thatare hitting the common manhard and questioned the PrimeMinister’s silence on the issue.He said the September 10‘Bharat Bandh’ protest is “notof the Congress but of thecommon man”.

Congress hit out at PrimeMinister Narendra Modi, ask-ing whether petrol priceswould hit the century markunder his Government and ifthe rupee was in hospital. “The

Prime Minister during theUPA’s tenure had said the rupeeis in hospital. The rupee hastouched an all-time low againstthe US dollar, where is thePrime Minister now? He is nei-ther tweeting nor giving anyspeech. Never has the rupeetouched such low levels in thehistory of the country. Thecountry wants to ask him whyis he silent? Is the rupee in hos-pital today?” he asked.

Singh alleged that thisGovernment has failed on allfronts, including “economy,employment, welfare of theyouth, farmers and every sec-tion of society”.

He said petrol has touchedthe �80 mark in Delhi and hasbreached the �90 mark atplaces like Bhiwandi and asked

if it will “cross the century markunder this Government”. Singhsaid the Government hasearned �11 lakh crore throughtaxes on petrol and diesel. Thecommon man, who has paidthe taxes, should take to thestreets to protest. He said theCongress will organise State-level press conferences in over90 cities to highlight the fuelprice rise and urged people tomake the bandh a success byparticipating in it.

BJP and NDA partnershad called for nationwidebandh to demand a rollback ofthe then steepest-ever petrolprice hike and termed the UPAgovernment as an “anti-people”and a “savage attack” on thepeople. TMC and DMK, thenpartners in UPA had demand-ed a rollback of fuel price hike.

Congress also remindedthe Manmohan SinghGovernment’s argument thatthe hike was effected by petro-leum companies as the pricingof petrol stands deregulated.Also demanding a roll back, thethen Shiv Sena supremo lateBal Thackeray had said aBharat bandh is “acceptable” tothe party. Anti-corruption cru-sader Anna Hazare too hadjoined the battle.

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Asub-committee of theGovernment-appointed

panel for a multidisciplinarystudy of the Saraswati river hascalled for protection of the sitesin Punjab, Rajasthan andHaryana — where it has foundscientific evidences about exis-tence of the ancient river —from urbanisation andencroachments.

Officials of theArcheological Survey of India(ASI), members of the sub-committee on Saraswati forresearch and showcasingexpressed their concern statingthat the excavation sites need tobe protected for further stud-ies.

At the meeting, formersenior official from

Geographical Survey of India(GSI), Dr GS Bhardwaj wassaid to have made a presenta-tion before the committee onthe satellite mapping of theriver-like image which could bethe Saraswati river.

Sources said that the mem-bers at the meeting also delib-erated about the possible stepsthat will be needed in nearfuture to trace the river, whichas per the legend flowed inareas between rivers Indus andGanges; originated inHimalayas and descended to

the Rann of Kuchchh afterpassing through, Sindh andBahawalpur Provinces ofPakistan.

According to a section ofhistorians, on the bank ofSarasvati river existed anancient civilisation of the worldknown as HarappanCivilisation. They said that theYamuna, Sutlej and Ghaggharwere all once part of theSaraswati, the shrinking ofwhich is linked to the declineof the Harrapan civilisation.

The ASI has excavated var-ious places like Mugalwali, avillage near Adi Badri,Yamunanagar, Haryana,Bhagwanpura, Kalibangan inRajasthan and Vilaspur so far.According to a Governmentpanel report, evidence frompalaeochannels — remnants of

defunct rivers — suggestedthat the Sarsuti-Markandarivulets in Haryana were thewater courses of the “easternbranch of a Himalayan river”and the Ghaggar-Patiali chan-nels were the western branch-es.

Dr BR Mani, DG of theNational Museum, ARChaudhar, geologist atKurushetra University fromthe Centre of Excellence forResearch on Sarswati, PrashantBhardwaj are among the mem-bers of the sub-committee.

The sub-panel is the part ofthe advisory committee thatwas set up by the UnionCulture Ministry to draw up acomprehensive programme forthe study of the Saraswati basinand identify 16 sites forresearch and development.

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The Centre’s rice procure-ment has surpassed the tar-

get at 38 million tonnes so farin the ongoing 2017-18 mar-keting year that will end thismonth. The rice procurementtarget set for this year was 37.5million tonnes.

According to FoodMinistry, the Government hadprocured 34.35 million tonnesduring the last marketing year(October-September), surpass-ing the target of 33 milliontonnes set for that year.

“Rice procurement is com-ing to closure this month. So far,we have procured 38 milliontonnes. We have purchasedmore than the target set for thisyear,” the official said

Much of the rice was pur-chased from States like Punjab,Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh,Haryana, Odisha, AndhraPradesh and West Bengal. Over33 percent of the country’stotal rice production has beenprocured at the MSP.

The paddy is procured atthe minimum support price(MSP). State-run FoodCorporation of India (FCI)

and State agencies have under-taken procurement operation.

For the current year, theGovernment has fixed paddyMSP of ‘common’ grade varietyat �1,550 per quintal, while thatof ‘A’ grade variety at �1,590 perquintal. According toAgriculture Ministry data, thetotal area planted during thecurrent kharif season crossedthe 100-million-hectare markthis week. And for the first timethis year, rice planting overtookthe area sown in the previousseason. The total area undercultivation, however, is stillmarginally lower at 1,023 (lakhhectare) as compared to 1,027lakh hectare covered during thecorresponding week last year.Rice planting, on the otherhand, was completed on 370lakh hectare as against 368lakh hectare covered in sameperiod in the previous year.

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BSF Director General KKSharma on Friday said the

West Bengal Government is“slightly friendly” to theRohingyas moving from dif-ferent parts of the country tothe State and has set up campsfor 70 families.

“…there has not been anylarge-scale influx of Rohingyasinto India (from Bangladesh).Whatever Rohingyas arealready there in the country, arealso under pressure at someplaces; so they are going toWest Bengal, a State which isslightly friendly with them,”Sharma said in a joint Pressconference with hisBangladeshi counterpart MajGen Md Shafeenul Islam, Chiefof Border Guards Bangladesh.

“They (West BengalGovernment) have set upcamps for Rohingyas comingfrom within the country andnot from Bangladesh. We got it(Rohingyas presence in WestBengal) inquired and therewere about 70 odd families whohad come from various placeswithin India,” Sharma furthersaid.

The Intelligence Bureau ina report to the Union HomeMinistry has said that the 70families have been settled inNorth 24 Parganas district with

the help of NGOs besides sup-port from the local MLA andMP, Intelligence sources said.

The BSF had conducted anenquiry in conjunction withthe IB to ascertain the presenceof the Rohingyas in WestBengal.

Denying any large-scaleinflux of Rohingyas fleeingfrom Myanmar to Bangladeshinto India, the BSF DG said,“We are alive to the situation.We are aware that a large num-ber of Rohingyas are assembledthere in Bangladesh and fromtime-to-time some smallgroups did try to enter India,but I am very happy to say thatwe did not let them succeed.”

“So, I am very happy to saythe BSF has successfully con-tained the influx of Rohigyasand we have not allowed anyintrusion so far. This has alsobeen verified by our sistersecurity agencies,” the BSF DGasserted.

Replying to questions onmovement of Rohingyas along

the Indo-Banglafrontier, BGB ChiefMaj Gen Md said hisForce is “very muchalert” to preventunauthorised move-ment of Rohingyas intheir country andtowards the borderareas.

“There are a large numberof Rohingyas along theBangladesh-Myanmar borderand all the security agenciesincluding BGB are keepingthem confined to the area allo-cated to them. But yet, in veryfew cases, they are slipping outof the camps and we are find-ing them in some other partsof Bangladesh. Our securityforces are very much alert andas we detect them, we get themback to our camps again. Weare very keen on keeping themin the designated camps,” theBGB DG said.

The joint Press conferenceby BSF and BGB chiefs washeld after conclusion of thebiannual talks between the twoborder guarding forces. TheBangla delegation was on a six-day visit to India for the talks.

The Centre views the pres-ence of Rohingyas as a securi-ty threat and considers them asillegal immigrants and not asrefugees. The Centre is infavour of deporting them but

the Supreme Court has stayedthe move following petitionsagainst the move.

There are about 40,000refugees settled in differentparts of the country includingJammu & Kashmir. TheRohingyas have been involvedin terror cases including theBodh Gaya blasts.

INSET The first smart fence pilot

project (ComprehensiveIntegrated Border ManagementSystem) that envisages deploy-ment of laser fences and tech-nology-enabled barriers to plugvulnerable gaps along India’sborders is set to be formallylaunched by Union HomeMinister Rajnath Singh laterthis week, the BSF DG said,adding the gadgets will bedeployed along 2,400-km fron-tier with Pakistan andBangladesh in the future. “Thefirst pilot project of the CBIMsystem or smart fence is alreadyin place and working inJammu. The home ministerwill formally launch it onSeptember 17... But this is atentative date. On the easternside in Dhubri, across theBrahmuptra, we have installedtechnical solutions on a stretchof 55-60 kilometers becausethere is no possibility of erect-ing a (physical) fence there,” theBSF chief added.

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Setting aside all rumour millsdoubting Congress chief

Rahul Gandhi’s KailashMansarovar Yatra, his party onFriday posted images of his visitand also shared his fitness datawith other details of the Gandhiscion’s trek to the abode of LordShiva.

“Leaving all the hatersbehind, Congress presidentRahul Gandhi sets the paceduring his Kailash Yatra. Canyou keep up?,” the Congresssaid on its official Twitter han-dle. The party also posted a pic-ture of a smiling Rahul posingin front of the Mount Kailash,considered the abode of LordShiva, on Twitter along withdetails of his trekking detailscompiled by popular fitnessmobile app ‘fitbit’.

The fitbit data showedRahul having travelled 46,433steps, 203 floors, 34.31 kmsover 463 minutes, while burn-ing 4,466 calories. He left thenational Capital on August 31

and expected to be back fromhis Yatra by end of this week.

The Congress chief alsotweeted a video of the hills onhis official Twitter handle andsaid, “Shiva is the Universe”.On Thursday as well, he hadposted a picture of MountKailash, saying, “It is so hum-bling to be walking in theshadow of this giant.”

He had earlier put out pic-tures of the “tranquil and calm”waters of the lake and said there“is no hatred here”. “The watersof lake Mansarovar are so gen-

tle, tranquil and calm. Theygive everything and lose noth-ing. Anyone can drink fromthem. There is no hatred here.This is why we worship thesewaters in India,” he had said onTwitter. The 48-year-old leaderis undertaking the KailashMansarovar Yatra in accor-dance with a wish he expressedin April when his planeplunged hundreds of feet dur-ing the campaign for theKarnataka polls.

On April 26, the planecarrying the Congress chief andsome others from Delhi toHubballi airport in Karnatakadeveloped a technical problemand tilted heavily on the leftside. The plane dipped steeplywith violent shuddering, butsoon recovered and landedsafely. Three days later heannounced during a rally thathe wanted to undertake thearduous annual pilgrimage toMount Kailash, which is con-sidered the abode of LordShiva in Hindu mythology andis in the Tibetan Himalayas.

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India and France signed animplementation agree-

ment on ‘Mobilise Your City(MYC) programme in whichthree pilot cities will be pro-vided support to reduce theirGreenhouse Gas (GHG)emissions in urban trans-port. Under the programme,three Indian cities —Nagpur, Kochi andAhmedabad — will get grantto the tune of 3.5 millionEuros as part of the EU’scommitment under the ParisClimate agreement toachieve a “sustainable trans-port policy”. These cities arethe part of the 100 citiesselected under the smartcity mission in the country.

The MYC agreementwas signed by MukundKumar Sinha, OSD and ex-officio Joint Secretary in theUrban Affairs Ministry andthe Regional Director ofAgence Française deDéveloppement (AfD),Nicolas Fornage. It was

signed in the presence ofMinister of State (I/C),Ministry of Housing &Urban Affairs Hardeep SinghPuri and Alexander Ziegler,Ambassador of France inIndia. MYC aims to extendhelp to 100 cities globally toreduce Green House Gas(GHG) emissions by pro-moting sustainable urbantransport and to promotesustainability in urbanspaces.

“More funds would beprovided to India as loan totake forward the smart cityand sustainable transportinitiatives in the three citieson pilot basis,” said officialsof HUA ministry. Accordingto the ministry, based on aproposal made by AFD in2015, the EU has agreed toprovide 3.5 million eurosthrough the AFD to con-tribute to specific invest-ments and technical assis-tance components within theMYC in India.

“The pilot cities selectedas well as the MoHUA will

benefit from the technicalassistance activities The pro-gramme includes learningand exchange formats withother cities across India forexchanges on best practices.The details of the projectactivities will be worked outby AFD in consultation withMoHUA and the three part-ner cities including institu-tions such as the respectivespecial purpose vehicles(SPVs) for smart cities, themunicipal corporations andany transport authority ortransport related SPV,” theMinistry officials said.

According to the MoU,the MYC is an initiativecombining urban mobilityobjectives and climate con-siderations. It aims at pro-viding solutions in a fullyintegrated manner, analysingdifferent modes of trans-portation within the urbanfabric, with the objective ofproviding people long-term,sustainable, adequate, reliableand cost-efficient trans-portation opportunities.

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Like a husband who doubtsthe fidelity of his wife, the

AIADMK came out on Fridayaccusing the BJP of having ille-gitimate relations with theDMK. Thampi Durai, the LokSabha Deputy Speaker who isthe AIADMK’s face in NewDelhi, lambasted the Hindutvaparty of having secret under-standing with the DMK.

Speaking to reporters atKarur, his home constituency,Durai questioned the proprietyand timing of the CBI raids onthe houses of the AIADMKMinisters and the State PoliceChief in connection with thegutkha scam. “The date inwhich the CBI raids took placeis noteworthy. People in TamilNadu knew that M K Alagiri,elder son of Karunanidhi washolding a rally in Chennaiagainst his younger brotherand DMK President M KStalin. The CBI raids wereheld on that day itself only todivert the attention of the gen-eral public from the rally stagedby Alagiri,” charged Durai.

He said the CBI could haveconducted the raids on someother days. “There is every pos-sibility of a secret deal betweenthe BJP and the DMK. We haveour own doubts about it. Whydid the BJP sent a senior mostMinister who happens to be a

former president of the BJP forthe memorial meeting held inhonour of Karunanidhi? TheAIADMK was not invited forthe so called apolitical meet-ing,” charged Thampi Durai.

He said the BJP’s handlingof the Karunanidhi death wasclear proof of it’s new foundlove for the DMK. “Both theHouses of Parliament wereadjourned without conductingany business. The Centredeclared a day of mourningand national flag flew halfmast. This is unheard of in thepast,” said Thampi Durai.

The Lok Sabha DeputySpeaker hinted that it was notproper on the part of BJP todepute its national leader toTamil Nadu for a meeting heldby the DMK which has notbothered to invite the AIADMK.“We expect some kind of polit-ical decency,” he said.The AIADMK’s outburst comesat a time when there are reportsin the vernacular media aboutthe possibility of the DMK com-

ing closer to the BJP. ThoughStalin in his address to theGeneral Council on August 28had declared that his top prior-ity was in teaching the BJP a les-son by sending it packing fromNew Delhi, veteran politicalcommentators pointed out thatthese are muscle flexing seenbefore alliance formation. “Even Karunanidhi haddescribed the BJP as a com-munal party of the highest orderand declared that he would nothave anything to do with sucha political party. Within twomonths he made a volte face andaligned with the same BJP,” saidRaveenthrhan Thuraisamy,political commentator. He also pointed out that thegroup fighting in Congress inthe State has reached alarmingproportions with factions owingallegiance to TNCC presidentThirunavakarassar and formerchief EVKS Elangovan fightingit out in the street.

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To give impetus to traineraircraft National Aerospace

Laboratories (NAL), Bengaluruand Mesco Aerospace Ltd.,New Delhi have signed anagreement for the design,development, production andmarketing of two seat Hansa-NG aircraft. NAL which comesunder CSIR is expected toease the availability of indige-nous aircraft for pilot trainingto obtain private pilot andcommercial pilot licenses

According to a press releaseissued in Bengaluru on Fridaythe aircraft will be ready forfirst flight in the next 11-13months and will be certifiedunder DGCA for commercialflights by March 2020. Post cer-tification, the HansaNG shallbe manufactured by MescoAerospace under a licenseagreement. Mesco Aerospacewould also set-up service cen-tre for Hansa and undertakemaketing of HansaNG in Indiaand abroad. As per the recentmarket reports, the immediatemarket potential for 2 seat air-craft in India is about 70-80 air-craft. The targeted selling costof the aircraft would be around�80 lakhs for the basic versionand �100 lakhs for fully loadedversion, the release said.

The Hansa-NG can also beused in bird reconnaissance atairfield, cadet training, coastalsurveillance and hobby flyingin the country. CSIR-NAL hasbuilt totally 14 production ver-sion 2 seat aircraft of Hansa-3from 2001 to 2010 out of which11 were delivered to DGCA,one aircraft to IIT-Kanpur andtwo aircraft are with CSIR-NALout of which one has beenleased to M/s Mesco AerospaceLtd. during Aero India 2017.

According to press com-muniqué the pilots who haveflown Hansa-3 aircraft haveexpressed that the aerody-namics, power and controlsharmony makes flying verycomfortable and the aircraft hasgot excellent flying character-istics. They suggested a fewupgrades/modifications toHansa-3 aircraft by imple-menting latest technologiesand enhancing its roll and tomake it more useful as a train-er aircraft.

Now CSIR-NAL jointlywith Mesco Aerospace Ltd willmodify Hansa-3 aircraft byincorporating new technologiesand bring out Hansa-NG (NewGeneration), which will satis-fy the requirements of flyingclubs for obtaining PPL(Personal Pilot License) & CPL(Commercial Pilot License) bythe young generation.

NAL director JitendraJadhav said this new aircraftdeveloped here is going tochange the complexity of flyingfor the trainee pilots and willhave all the modern systemsincorporated in it. ManojPandey, COO of the MescoAerospace signed the collab-orative agreement.

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The sub human conditions,utter lack of basic health care

and absence of accessible roadsin the tribal areas of northcoastal Andhra Pradesh dis-tricts were brought into focus bya youth who used his mobilephone to shoot a shocking sceneof how a pregnant lady had todeliver in forest midway her jour-ney on the shoulders of men.

The video which has goneviral on the social media andwas also being shown on TVchannels all over, shows how thewoman Muthamma was carriedin a make shift palanquin (apiece of cloth hanging from abamboo pole carried by menfolk on their shoulders) as therewas no road to connect theirhamlet atop a hill to the hospi-tal seven kms away. The inci-dent happened on Tuesday lastin Maasika Valasachintala underSaluru mandal of Vizianagaramdistrict of Andhra Pradesh.

When only half the dis-tance was covered on footthrough difficult terrain thepains became unbearable forMuthamma and she was forcedto deliver in the open forestwith the help of a couple ofwomen. With the woman sit-ting in the background, the trib-al youth explained her ordealand how their frequent appealsto the Government for a roadwere ignored over the years.

The video also ha a chilling

scene of how the umbilical cordof newly born boy was cut by twomen with a blade. The video saidthat both the mother and babywere safe. “With nobody comingto our help despite our appealswe are forced to carry our seri-ously ill and pregnant womenlike this”, the youth could be seenmaking an appeal for help.

The visuals show the narrowand difficult covered with mudand stones on which the grouphad to walk carrying the woman.Officials of Integrated TribalDevelopment Agency say thatbout 15 hamlets in Saluru did nothave road connectivity. ThoughGovernment sanctioned �5.5crore last year to lay a 9.8 kmslong stretch of road, no con-tractor came forward to take upthe work in difficult terrain andwork could not be completed.

Vizianagaram is one of thethree north coastal Andhra dis-tricts parts of which are calledagency areas inhibited by thetribal people. While the indus-trialised and prosperous portcity of Visakhapathanam showsthe brighter side of the region,the poor and neglected tribalareas and the sufferings of theirinhabitants remain unreportedand ignored. The incidentinvolving Muthamma was normrather than exception in theregion. The health care facilityin the region is so pathetic thatevery year seasons diseases likemalaria and brain fever claim alarge number of lives.

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Two days after theCentral Bureau of

Investigation officialsraided his house inChennai’s Anna Nagarresidential area, S George,former Commissioner ofPolice, said that he had norole n the multi-croregutkha scam.

“I was not theCommissioner of Policewhen the pay-offs as allegedby the petitioner happenedin Chennai. The petitionstates that huge amount ofcash was handed over to theCommissioner of Police inthree specific dates. Buthad been transferred out ofthe COP’s post much beforethat and was brought backonly towards the end of2016,” George told reportersat his house on Friday.

The former super copof Chennai said reportsabout his name figured in

the diary maintained by thegutkha manufacturer werewrong. “My name does notfigure in the FIR filed by theCBI,” he said. When he wasasked about a noting in thediary seized by the IncomeTax Department raid fromthe residence of MadhavaRao that stated that �15 lakhwas paid to a former policecommissioner on ChristmasDay, George said he does notknow anything about it.“Someone might have col-lected that money by falselystating that it was for me. Idon’t know anything about it,”said the former police com-missioner.

Meanwhile DJayakumar, Tamil NaduMinister for fisheries, whois also the spokesman of theGovernment, said that therewas nothing strange aboutthe CBI raids on the resi-dences of Minister VijayaBhaskar, police chief T KRajendran and formerMinister Ramana.

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Asenior Catholic nun whohas accused Latin Catholic

Bishop Franco Mulakkal ofthe Jalandhar Diocese of rap-ing her several times or herfamily may approach the KeralaHigh Court on Monday in thecontext of the police’s allegedreluctance to arrest him even asmore nuns of the diocese havereportedly told the investigatorsabout the bad experiences theyhave had from the prelate who,they said, used to embracethem forcibly.

A nun of the same diocese,who has already abandonedher religious habit after beingfed up with the bishop’sallegedly perverse behaviour, issaid to have told the policeteam probing the rape chargeagainst him that he used totouch the nuns, members ofthe Missionaries of Jesus con-gregation that came under hiscontrol, in immoral mannerand embrace them forcibly.

As per reports, a minimumof 18 nuns had given up theirservice in the congregationdue to the bad experiences theyhad had from the Bishop, espe-cially during a Church pro-gramme he himself had imple-mented, ‘A Day with theShepherd’, which necessitatedthe nuns to spend whole dayswith him.

It is said that the Bishop

used to call the nuns to hisroom even after evening in thename of prayer sessions held aspart of the programme whichwas launched in the diocese in2014 but only one nun wouldbe allowed at a time. The pro-gramme had triggered wide-spread protests from within thecongregation and even severalpriests in the diocese had comeout against it.

One of the nuns who haveabandoned their religious habithas reportedly told the policethat she had faced bad behav-iour from the part of theBishop during such prayersessions. Even the MotherGeneral of the congregationhad admitted to the police thatthe programme, A Day withthe Shepherd, had to be sus-pended after a couple of ses-sions due to objections.

In her complaint to thepolice, the senior nun, now 47,had said Bishop FrancoMulakkal (54) had raped her ata guest house attached to StFrancis Mission Home, herconvent at Kuravilangad in

Kottayam district, 13 times intwo years. He had raped herfirst on May 5, 2014 when hehad visited Kerala for takingpart in a Church programme inThrissur, she had said.

Meanwhile, the rape victimor her family is likely to file apetition in the High Court onMonday against the allegedreluctance of the Kerala Policeto arrest the Bishop, who hailsfrom a Syro-Malabar Catholicfamily in Thrissur, despite thefact they have collected ampleevidences and witness state-ments against him.

There were rumours thatthe nun herself might hold aPress conference on Sunday todisclose details of her allega-tions in a bid to mount pressureon the police. The victim’sfamily is convinced that theprobe team headed by DySP KSubhash wants to arrest theBishop at the earliest but theaction is being delayed due topressure from their superiorsand political bosses.

“The police have collectedstrong evidences and suffi-

cient witness statements againstthe Bishop but they are notarresting him. Nothing willhappen as far as the presentpolice chief – DGP LoknathBehera – remains in that posi-tion. In this situation, the onlyway before us seems to be toapproach the court,” said abrother of the victim.

Pointing out that the probein the case had started 72 daysago, the family said the policehad already recorded the state-ment of the nun six timeswhile the only action taken inthe case of the accused was thatthe probe team had recordedhis statement once and that tooin a “very generous manner” athis diocesan headquarters inJalandhar.

The family thinks that thepolice, who have already comeacross a nearly two dozencontradictions in the state-ment given by the accused,have been “questioning” thevictim again and again withthe intention of finding con-tradictions in her statementsthat could be interpreted inthe Bishop’s favour so that hisarrest can be avoided ordelayed further.

The charge against theBishop, the disrepute andshame it has brought to theCatholic Church and thepolice’s alleged reluctance toarrest the accused have sowedunhappiness among a largesection of the Catholic laity inKerala. Catholic organizationsin Kochi have been preparingto stage protests against theBishop and the police in thecoming days.

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Following complaints regard-ing breathlessness, the 25-

year-old Patel quota stir leaderHardik Patel, who is on indef-inite fast agitation seeking

reservation for his communi-ty, was admitted to aGovernment hospital by hissupporters on Friday earlyevening.

The convener of pro-quotaoutfit Patidar Anamat

Andolan Samiti (PASS) is fast-ing since the past 14 days withhis demand to avail reserva-tion for his Patidar communityin Government jobs and edu-cational institution underOBC category as well as waiv-er in farmer debts. FromThursday onwards he hasstopped taking water and asresult of it his health starteddeteriorating speedily.

Hardik’s close aide ManojPanara said that PAAS sup-porters decided to admit theirleader after he began to com-plain about breathlessness. Itwas necessary to give him treat-ment before he lost conscious-ness and went into coma, stat-ed Panara while talking tomedia persons. PAAS support-ers admitted Hardik in thehospital against his wish, he

claimed adding that he will con-tinue fast agitation from hos-pital and would not take eitherwater or solid food.

According toPanara, Hardik stoppedconsuming water afterhis deadline for theState Government toinitiate ‘talks’ with himended on Thursdayevening. On the otherhand State Governmentrepresentative andGujarat’s Minister forenergy Saurabh Patelsaid that PAAS nevercame before the StateGovernment for dia-logue, in fact it wasleaders of Patidarorganisations (religiousand social) took initia-tive and trying to medi-ate between PAAS andthe State Government.The Minister also madea remark that Hardik’sagitation was inspiredby the OppositionCongress party.

Hardik, who has been onindefinite strike, had stoppedconsuming water fromThursday evening after hisdeadline for State Governmentto initiate talks with him endwithout any response. TheState Government on its partonly once spoke on the fast inpast 14 days, with industryminister in Vijay Rupani gov-ernment dubbing Hardik’s agi-tation as “Congress-led”. Thebedridden PAAS convener alsoreacted from hospital in socialmedia that the BJP ledGovernment was ignoringdemands of Patidar as well asfarmers issues.

Sources in the Sola civilhospital where Hardik has beenadmitted said that a team of 10doctors including a nephrologistwas attending the pro-quotaleader. Patel’s blood and urinesamples have been taken tocheck whether the fast has hadany impact on kidneys or liverof Hardik, who is said to havelost around 20 kg of weight dur-ing the last one fortnight.

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The Governor administra-tion changed the police

leadership in Jammu &Kashmir amid growing inci-dents of violence and ahead ofproppsed polls for local urbanbodies and panchayats.

Dilbagh Singh, a 1987batch Indian Police Serviceofficer with several counterin-surgency assignments underhis belt on Friday took thebaton from outgoing policechief Shesh Paul Vaid who wastransferred to hold the chargeof transport commissioner.

Singh is already holdingthe post of DGP Prisons andhas been ordered to holdcharge of Director General ofJ&K police in addition to hisown duties. The order to thiseffect was issued by State HomeDepartment through PrincipalSecretary Home late onThursday evening.

The change in police lead-ership was in circulation sincethe beginning of this monthwhen a major crisis erupted aftermilitants abducted nearly adozen close relatives of police-

men and officers in southKashmir region to deter securi-ty forces from taking on relativesof terrorists in their pursuit.After the abduction spree, theauthorities released several closerelatives of terrorists including

father of Hizbul Mujahideen'Operational commander' RiyazNaikoo from a police station inAwantipora. The unofficial swaphas not gone down well with thetop brass in Union Ministry ofhome affairs, sources said.

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With Telangana actingChief Minister K

Chandrasekhar Rao virtuallyannouncing the election datesfor the State Assembly, theOpposition parties were up inarms and the ElectionCommission of India has alsoexpressed its displeasure.

Soon after the TelanganaLegislative Assembly was dis-solved on Thursday afternoonto pave way for early polls, KCRexpressed confidence that theelection in Telangana would beheld in October along with fourother States and results willcome out in December firstweek.

While the mainOpposition Congress allegedthat there was a nexus betweenTRS and the CEC, CommunistParty of India delegation led bynational general secretarySuravaram Sudhakar Reddymet the Chief ElectionCommissioner OP Rawat andlodged protest against KCR’sstatement.

KCR had also said that allthe aspects were discussed withthe ECI officers before decision

to dissolve the Assembly wastaken.

CEC Rawat has alsoexpressed his displeasure andtermed KCR’s statement as“preposterous and uncalled for”.

The questions has come upbecause the Telangana assemblywas dissolved even though 8months of its present term wereremaining. Timing of the pollshas become crucial because anearly election was being seen asadvantageous to the State's rul-ing Telangana Rashtra Samiti.

The speed with which theState Governor ESLNarasimhan accepted the rec-ommendation of the cabinetand the way all the legal andadministrative formalities werecompleted to issue a notifica-tion of the dissolution by theLegislature Secretariat has alsoraised many an eyebrows.

State Chief Electoral OfficerRajath Kumar was summonedby the Election Commission toDelhi to discuss the prepara-tions for election including thestatus of ongoing revision ofelectoral rolls. TelanganaCongress president N UttamKumar Reddy alleged that thereseems to be a match fixing

between the TRS and theElection Commission. Referringto the claims of KCR that he wastalking to the ElectionCommission, Reddy questionedits propriety before the dissolu-tion of assembly. "What theywere talking", he asked.

Pointing out that as per theschedule the electoral rollsrevision should continue tillJanuary Reddy asked how elec-tion can be possible before that.

CPI general secretary SSudhakar Reddy after meetingCEC in New Delhi today saidthat only Election Commissioncan announce the schedule of theelection. "How ChandrashekharRao can say when the electionswould be held. We have con-veyed our strong objection overit". Telangana Jana Samiti pres-ident Kodandaram demandedthat the state should be put underpresident's rule as there werefears that election under KCR ascarre taker Chief Minister willnot be fair.

State BJP leaders includingfloor leader G Kishan Reddymet the governor Narasimhanand urged him to keep an eyeon KCR and ensure that hedoesn't misuse his power.

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Aday after the dissolution ofthe State Assembly,

Telangana Rashtra Samiti pres-ident and care-taker ChiefMinister K Chandrasekhar Raokicked off his party’s electioncampaign with first meeting inHusnabad even as theOpposition parties were fray-ing to catch up with him.

KCR who has a fad forastrology, Vastu and numerolo-gy and goes strictly by the adviseof Pundits chose Husanabad inSiddipet district for sentimentalreasons as he had launched hissuccessful 2014 campaign fromthe same place. Earlier he wor-shipped at a temple in his ownconstituency Gajwel.

Addressing the “people’s

blessings meeting” KCR soughtthe support from the people fora second term to ensure con-tinued development of the State.

“Congress is responsible forour decision to go to polls aheadof schedule. Congress leaderslevelled baseless allegationswhich endangered the stabilityand development of the state andthere was a threat of officials get-ting demoralised"he said.

Recounting the work of hisgovernment over the last fouryears including faster economicdevelopment and 24 hours freepower supply to farmers hesaid, "the results of our efforts,development and welfareschemes are before your eyes",

he told the voters. "As Congress leaders are

unable to see the development inthe state they should get theireyes tested and tested", KCR said.

Meanwhile other partieshave also stated chalking outthe plans for their campaign.

Andhra Pradesh ChiefMinister and Telugu Desamnational president NChandrababu Naidu will arrivein Hyderabad on Saturday toreview the preparations by theTelangana unit. His visitassumes significance in view ofspeculations that TDP mayreach an electoral understand-ing with the Congress party

BJP national presidentAmit Shah will visit the state onSeptember 15 and was expect-ed to kick off his party's cam-paign from Mahbubnagar.

Congress leader and UPAchairperson Sonia Gandhi wasexpected to visit on September16 and assess meetings inKarimnagar and Nizamabad.

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IT city Bengaluru being oneof the fastest growing cities

in the world will be intro-ducing zero emission busessoon to reduce air pollution.With a fleet of over 7000buses Bangalore MetropolitanTransport Corporat ion(BMTC) buses will be part ofthe soot-free urban bus fleetcampaign launched in 2015by The International Councilon Clean Transportation(ICCT), a non-governmentalinternational research organ-isat ion based in SanFrancisco. The congestedBengaluru has been a victimof growing urbanization andgovernment plans to controlthe growing air pollution.

The Soot-free campaign isalso being implemented byICCT in Abidjan, Accra, AddisAbaba, Bangkok, Bogota,Buenos Aires, Casablanca, Dares Salaam, Dhaka, Istanbul,Jakarta, Johannesburg, Lagos,Lima, Manila, Mexico City,Nairobi, Santiago, Sao Paulo,and Sydney.

Ray Minjares of the ICICT

said in an international con-clave on “Towards Clean andLow Carbon Mobility :Addressing affordability andscaling up of sustainable trans-port, the new assessment orga-nized by Centre for Science andEnvironment (CSE), NewDelhi, Bengaluru is the only cityin India recently signed anagreement for the soot freebuses on the road.

He said the agreementwas signed between BMTCManaging Director VPonnuraj and ICCT in asso-ciation with the InternationalAssociation of PublicTransport (UITP) India officein Bengaluru a week ago toreduce the air pollution. Asper the agreement for thenext three years, ICCT willoffer technical guidance toBMTC on fleet modernisationwith the induction of electricbuses with an objective ofachieving zero emission, airpollution and help improvequality of life in city. Besidestechnical guidance, ICCT alsowill help BMTC to attractfinance for procuring tech-nology, building depotsamong others.

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The Election Commissionon Friday decided to send

a team of officials toHyderabad on September 11for making an assessment ofthe poll preparedness of themachinery in the State wherethe ruling Telangana RashtraSamiti has sought early elec-tions by dissolving the assem-bly. After a meeting with ECofficials, the Chief ElectionCommissioner (CEC) OPRawat said the EC would assessif the polls in the State couldbe held along with four others,dismissing "astrological pre-dictions" over the dates. TheCEC also stated that theCommission will assess thepossibility of holding the pollsalong with Rajasthan, MadhyaPradesh, Chhattisgarh andMizoram.

"In view of the dissolutionof the state legislative assemblyof Telangana, the Commissionhas decided to send a team ofECI officials to assess the sit-uation in the state regardingpoll preparedness. A team ofECI officials headed by UmeshSinha, Senior Deputy ElectionCommissioner, will be visitingHyderabad on Tuesday, 11September 2018 and will givethe report to the election com-mission after the completion ofthe visit," the EC said in a state-ment.

The commission met aday after the Telangana gov-ernment headed by KChandrashekar Rao dissolvedthe assembly and the governoracted on the cabinet decisionto end the tenure of the assem-bly whose term was there tillJune next year.

Earlier in the day, CECRawat rejected the claimsmade by sources thatTelangana AssemblyElections may not be heldalong with four other states."We'll assess if Telanganaelections can be held withother 4 states. Any astrolog-ical predictions (over dates)made by anyone is notwith-

standing," Rawat said whilehitting out at the sourceswhich claimed that TelanganaAssembly Elections mightnot necessarily be held alongwith other four states.

"ECI will review theground level preparednessstatus with CEO Telanganaand make up its mind abouttiming of elections forTelangana to be announced indue course. Whenever aHouse is dissolved prema-turely, as per Hon'bleSupreme Court's guidelineslaid down in 2002, ECI isrequired to initiate immedi-ate steps for holding electionsfor constituting LegislativeAssembly on the first occa-sion and in any case within 6months from date of prema-ture dissolution of theAssembly," Rawat said.

Some media reports onFriday said that Rawatappeared to hint at the possi-bility of early elections inTelangana. The CEC hintedthat elections in Telanganamay be called along with thepolls due in four other states inDecember this year, a reportsaid.

According to officials, theEC will also assess about howmany EVMs and VVPATsneed to conduct Telanganaassembly polls. The EC willalso assess whether is it possi-ble for the EC to conductthese polls along with 4 otherstates whose assemblies expirein December/January.

The Congress and someother opposition parties criedfoul over the development,calling it the result of a "dubi-ous pact" between Rao andPrime Minister NarendraModi. Speculation was rifeover the last few weeks aboutthe likelihood of Rao going foran early election as he did notwant national issues raisedduring the next year's LokSabha polls to overshadowlocal factors, which theTelangana RashtraSamiti(TRS) feels, are in itsfavour.

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Aspecial CBI court on Fridayrejected the bail applica-

tion of Indrani Mukherjea, thekey accused in the SheenaBora murder case, after dis-missing her claims about her“ill-health” and the threat to herlife in the prison as “exagger-ated and unacceptable”.

While hearing her bail pleaon the grounds of “ill-health”and alleged threat to her life,CBI Judge JC Jagdale said thatIndrani was much safer insidethe prison than outside, whilehe said that the accused hadalso made a similar claim whenshe had applied for bail in 2016.

Indrani, who has beenlodged at Byculla women prisonever since she was arrested inAugust 2015 for the murder ofher daughter Sheena Bora, hadapplied for bail mid last month,citing “ill-health” and threat toher life. While citing twoinstances of her hospitalisationfor drug overdose, she hadalleged that someone in theprison was trying to “poison” her.

While rejecting Indrani’sbail plea, the Judge said thatIndrani was exaggerating theissue and said that, as per theprison authorities, she had beengiven adequate security by lodg-

ing her in a separate cell whereshe was under round-the-clockCCTV surveillance. “If the pre-sent prison cell is not adequate,then the authorities are at libertyto shift her to a different cell orprovide further security in thepresent cell,” the Judge said.

Alluding to Indrani’s hospi-talisation, the CBI had arguedthat the court that the accusedinteracted with fellow inmates inthe court after hearings and oneof them might have given her

the pills which caused the illnessand that the jail authorities anddoctors at the State-run JJHospital could provide her ade-quate medical care. The agencyhad also informed the court thatIndrani’s health was fine and thatshe was being given necessarytreatment whenever required.

While not lending much ofcredence to the claim of “ill-health” made by the accused,the Judge noted that she hadalso cited similar health reasons

when she had applied for bailin 2016.

On its part, the CBI hadtold the court that releasingIndrani on the two un-found-ed grounds would be prejudi-cial to the Prosecution's case.

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Kolkata: Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee has calledupon the Bengali speaking pop-ulation of Assam to rise upagainst the CentralGovernment’s nefarious designsto throw them out of the north-eastern State. She was speakingagainst the alleged victimizationof Bengalis in the name ofpreparing the National Registerof Citizens (NRC).

Assuring all cooperation ifthey hit the streets against theNRC regime she said has told aBengali newspaper that theBengali-speaking people ofAssam will have to generate acountrywide public opinion

against the harassment they arebeing subjected to in the nameof NRC. Indicating that NRCwould become one of thecounter electoral issues for theTrinamHit the streets againstNRC: Didi tells Assam Bengalis

TMC in Bengal particular-ly in places (read border districts)where the BJP has been trying torouse passion against alleged“infiltration from Bangladesh,”Banerjee said “the Bengalis ofAssam should come out in theopen. We will remain by theirside. Take out rallies and tell thepeople of the country whatordeal you are being subjected toin the name of NRC.” PNS

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Three days after a majorbridge collapsed in Kolkata’s

Majherhat area killing threepersons and injuring 26 others,two of them critically — andthrowing a major portion ofabout 10 lakh strong South-east-ern Kolkata traffic out of gearperhaps for a few years — a sec-ond bridge, a small one caved inat Phanshidewa block in Siliguriin North Bengal, sources said.

The bridge covering a smallriver caved in from the middletaking down along with it aloaded truck injuring the driverwho was rushed to the NorthBengal Medical College Hospital,

sources said. Reacting to the acci-dent North Bengal DevelopmentMinister RN Ghosh said thebridge was built in the LeftFront era way back in 1995 andbadly required repair.

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omos

exua

lity,

Indi

a’sfir

st t

rans

gend

er c

olle

ge p

rinc

ipal

Man

abi B

ando

padh

yay

said

it w

as li

kege

tting

a m

arria

ge of

fer af

ter r

etire

men

t.An

d in

fara

way A

ligar

h, Ir

fan w

onde

red

whet

her

he w

ould

be f

inall

y tre

ated

as a

partn

er o

f Pro

fRa

mch

andr

a Shr

iniv

as S

iras,

who

was

alleg

ed-

ly m

urde

red

for a

cons

ensu

al sa

me-

sex r

elatio

n-sh

ip w

ith h

im. W

rong

ed an

d co

mpr

omise

d fo

rye

ars,

they

are a

skin

g th

e big

que

stion

, will

the

decr

imin

alisa

tion

chan

ge th

e w

ay w

e pe

rceiv

eth

e LG

BTIQ

com

mun

ity? W

ill th

e inc

lusio

n be

who

le-he

arte

d an

d ab

solu

te w

ithou

t ade

quat

eleg

al pr

otec

tion?

Tho

ugh

now

they

hav

e the

righ

tto

be

jubi

lant,

they

wer

en’t

full-

thro

ated

abo

utit

as th

ey h

ad w

orrie

s on

a day

whe

n ex

trem

istvi

ewpo

ints

still i

nsist

ed th

at th

ey co

uld

be to

xic

in a

socie

ty a

nd n

eede

d ps

ycho

logi

cal r

edre

ss.

This

desp

ite th

e Cou

rt’s e

xplic

it ob

serv

atio

n th

at

“hom

osex

ualit

y is

not a

diso

rder

.”In

Ju

ne

2018

, th

e W

orld

H

ealt

hO

rgan

isatio

n’s (

WH

O)

11th

rev

ision

of

the

Inte

rnat

iona

l Cla

ssifi

catio

n of

Dise

ases

(ICD

-11

) rem

oved

all t

rans

-relat

ed d

iagno

ses f

rom

the

men

tal d

isord

ers

chap

ter

as “e

vide

nce

is no

wcle

ar th

at it

is n

ot a

men

tal d

isord

er, a

nd in

deed

class

ifyin

g it

in th

is ca

n ca

use

enor

mou

s stig

-m

a fo

r pe

ople

who

are

tra

nsge

nder

.”H

omos

exua

lity

was

rem

oved

as a

men

tal d

is-or

der i

n 19

70 fr

om th

e ICD

.Pe

rhap

s, th

at’s t

he re

ason

why

the S

upre

me

Cou

rt’s r

ulin

g stri

king

dow

n Se

ctio

n 37

7 was

acla

rion

call

not j

ust t

o th

e G

over

nmen

t to

dow

hat i

t had

bee

n m

anda

ted

to d

o —

pro

tect

acit

izen

’s rig

ht, e

ven

if it

is of

just

one —

but

anap

peal

to so

ciet

y at l

arge

to b

e acc

omm

odat

ive

of it

s plu

ralis

tic w

orth

. In

fact

, the

rulin

g we

ntw

ay b

eyon

d th

e sco

pe o

f the

imm

ediat

e sub

ject

to a

ddre

ss th

e pr

evai

ling

soci

etal

min

dset

of

hom

opho

bia,

para

noia

and

a pre

sum

ed ex

tinc-

tion

by an

ythi

ng an

d an

ybod

y “o

ther

than

us.”

This

large

r con

text

of a

real

ity ch

eck

is am

pli-

fied

by th

e C

ourt’

s obs

erva

tions

that

“majo

ri-ta

rian

view

s and

pop

ular

mor

ality

cann

ot d

ic-

tate

cons

titut

iona

l rig

hts.”

Or t

hat “

no o

ne ca

nes

cape

from

their

indi

vidu

alism

. Soc

iety i

s now

bette

r fo

r in

divi

dual

ism…

Auto

nom

y of

an

indi

vidu

al is

impo

rtan

t. H

e or s

he ca

nnot

sur-

rend

er it

to a

nyon

e… Id

entit

y is

equi

valen

t to

divi

nity

... D

enia

l of s

elf-e

xpre

ssio

n is

invi

ting

deat

h….

Des

truc

tion

of i

ndiv

idua

l id

entit

ywo

uld

be ta

ntam

ount

to c

rush

ing

of in

trins

icdi

gnity

that

cum

ulat

ively

enca

psul

ates

the v

al-

ues o

f priv

acy,

choi

ce, f

reed

om o

f spe

ech

and

othe

r exp

ress

ions

.” In

fact

, Chi

ef Ju

stice

Dip

akM

isra e

ven

quot

ed G

oeth

e: “I

am w

hat I

am, s

ota

ke m

e as I

am.”

Whi

le em

powe

ring

the m

ost

muf

fled

voice

, the

Cou

rt als

o re

min

ded

that

the

Gov

ernm

ent s

houl

d ha

ve fo

llowe

d th

e spi

rit as

laid

in th

e Con

stitu

tion

conf

iden

tly in

stead

of

assig

ning

the

role

to th

e C

ourt

as t

he p

urve

y-or

and

exec

utor

of ju

stice

. “M

ajorit

arian

ism co

n-sti

tutio

nally

is u

nten

able.

The

Con

stitu

tion

is a

dyna

mic

doc

umen

t, ha

ving

the p

rimar

y obj

ec-

tive o

f esta

blish

ing a

dyn

amic

and

inclu

sive s

oci-

ety.

We

have

to v

anqu

ish p

reju

dice

, em

brac

ein

clusio

n, an

d en

sure

equa

l rig

hts.”

Thi

s is j

ust

not a

com

men

t on

the

aggr

essiv

e m

uscu

larity

of m

ainstr

eam

disc

ours

e but

an ap

peal

to in

tro-

spec

t and

self-

corr

ect p

re-c

once

ived

not

ions

of

min

ority

sm. I

t is

a de

sper

ate

call

to e

thic

albe

nevo

lence

. Th

e Cou

rt, w

hile

emph

asisi

ng th

at h

istor

yow

es a

polo

gy to

the

LGBT

IQ c

omm

unity

for

unwa

rran

ted

ostra

cism

, eve

n de

linea

ted

the r

ole

of th

e G

over

nmen

t in

norm

alisi

ng h

uman

ityov

er se

xual

pref

eren

ces,

advi

sing i

t to

give

wid

epu

blici

ty ab

out L

GBT

IQs i

n th

e med

ia an

d co

n-du

ctin

g aw

aren

ess d

rives

for G

over

nmen

t offi

-ce

rs. T

here

in li

es th

e bi

gger

cha

lleng

e be

yond

rem

edia

l justi

ce, t

hat o

f ens

urin

g acc

ess t

o ec

o-

nom

ic, s

ocia

l and

cul

tura

l rig

hts f

or th

e co

m-

mun

ity, t

o al

low

them

a sh

are

of m

ains

tream

oppo

rtuni

ties b

y valu

ing t

heir

min

d an

d sk

ill se

tsbe

yond

their

phy

sical

orien

tatio

n. A

nd w

hile

weha

ve bi

g nam

es fr

om th

e com

mun

ity d

oing

sem

-in

al w

orks

, wha

t is n

eede

d is

empo

werin

g th

eco

mm

ones

t am

ong t

hem

as a

stake

hold

er in

the

coun

try’s

eco

nom

ic d

evelo

pmen

t an

d so

cial

insti

tutio

ns s

uch

as e

duca

tion,

fam

ilies

and

heal

th ca

re.

A W

orld

Ban

k stu

dy o

n sti

gma a

nd ex

clu-

sion

for L

GBT

IQs i

n In

dia,

colle

ctin

g dat

a fro

m20

06, s

how

s tha

t 41

per c

ent o

f Ind

ians

wou

ldno

t wan

t a h

omos

exua

l nei

ghbo

ur a

nd 6

4 pe

rce

nt b

eliev

etha

t hom

osex

ualit

y is

neve

r jus

ti-fie

d. T

his n

egat

ive a

ttitu

de h

as p

roba

bly d

imin

-ish

ed o

ver

time

with

pop

ular

im

ages

of

LGBT

IQs a

s inf

luen

cers

and

thou

ght l

eade

rs to

o.Co

rpor

ate I

ndia

has

alre

ady b

egun

show

ing t

hew

ay. T

he T

ata

grou

p an

d IB

M h

ave

expa

nded

thei

r div

ersit

y por

tfolio

to in

clude

the c

omm

u-ni

ty, p

rivate

educ

atio

nal in

stitu

tions

like t

he Sh

ivN

adar

sch

ool h

ave

awar

enes

s m

odul

es, h

otel

chai

ns li

ke T

he L

aliT

hav

e inc

lude

d LG

BTIQ

sin

all

serv

ices

, fro

m fr

ont d

esk

to n

ight

clu

bs,

and

the L

akm

e Fas

hion

Wee

k fea

ture

d th

em fo

rth

e fir

st tim

e on

the

ram

p w

ith d

esig

ners

like

Shan

tanu

& N

ikhi

l eve

n pu

tting

out

a m

ar-

keta

ble

line

of c

loth

ing.

In

fact

, The

Lal

iT’s

Kesh

av S

uri

sees

a h

uge

pote

ntia

l in

the

tour

ism ec

onom

y to

o.

Popu

lar m

edia

, like

Bol

lywo

od an

d pa

rtic

-ul

arly

stre

amin

g pl

atfo

rms,

are

also

resh

apin

gth

e way

we l

ook a

t “ot

hern

ess”,

as h

uman

s befo

reth

eir p

hysic

ality

. The

se h

ave h

appe

ned

with

out

Gov

ernm

enta

l int

erve

ntio

n. B

ut w

e sti

ll ne

edlaw

s to

prot

ect r

ight

s. Th

e Gov

ernm

ent,

on it

spa

rt, n

eeds

to d

eal w

ith is

sues

of a

civ

il un

ion

—W

hat

shou

ld b

e th

e rig

hts

of a

par

tner

?W

ould

a m

arria

ge b

e allo

wed?

Wou

ld al

l exi

st-in

g leg

al sp

ousa

l clau

ses a

pply

to th

em? W

hat

shou

ld b

e the

righ

ts of

inhe

ritan

ce? W

hat a

bout

insu

ranc

e ben

efits

? As

of n

ow, m

edic

al in

sura

nce i

s a n

ebul

ous

area

whe

n it

com

es to

tran

sfere

nce

right

s to

sam

e-se

x par

tner

s. W

hat a

bout

disc

rimin

atio

nan

d ty

peca

sting

at th

e wor

kpla

ce an

d en

surin

gth

eir p

artic

ipat

ion

in th

e lar

ger l

abou

r mar

ket?

The a

ssim

ilatio

n of

LG

BTIQ

s has

a lo

ng b

attle

ahea

d be

yond

the u

rban

cons

ciou

snes

s. In

the

hint

erlan

d an

d th

e vas

t cou

ntry

side,

whe

re th

eyco

ntin

ue to

be c

asta

ways

or se

en as

natu

re’s a

ber-

ratio

n, a

law th

at al

low

s the

m to

pro

claim

who

they

are m

ay p

reve

nt th

em fr

om a

jail

term

but

can

it pr

otec

t the

m fr

om a

liena

tion

and

non-

inclu

sion

in co

mm

unity

affa

irs?

Affi

rmat

ive

actio

n is

need

ed to

firs

t alte

rth

e pe

rcep

tion

amon

g th

e di

sadv

anta

ged

sec-

tions

of t

he c

omm

unity

that

they

are

not

just

begg

ars a

nd se

x wor

kers

but c

an b

e mas

ons,

car-

pent

ers a

nd o

f em

ploy

able

wor

th. A

part

from

stere

otyp

es, t

hey,

too,

hav

e the

addi

tiona

l bur

-

dens

of c

aste

hie

rarc

hies

to d

eal w

ith.

Wha

t is n

eede

d is

a pra

ctica

l awa

rene

ss d

rive

that

beg

ins w

ith th

e pr

imar

y sc

hool

net

work

,co

unse

llors

and

train

ed te

ache

rs. C

reat

ing s

afe

spac

es fo

r the

LG

BTIQ

to ta

lk ab

out t

heir

issue

s,pr

ovid

ing t

hem

supp

ort a

nd en

cour

agin

g the

mto

look

at th

emse

lves

bey

ond

thei

r sex

ualit

y as

capa

ble i

ndiv

idua

ls is

the n

ext s

tep.

Oth

erw

ise,

we w

ill h

ave g

hetto

ised

set-u

ps w

hich

are d

etri-

men

tal

rath

er t

han

bein

g ab

sorp

tive.

Ther

esh

ould

be

a lay

ered

lega

l red

ress

syste

m p

an-

Indi

a w

here

LG

BTIQ

s ca

n cla

im p

rote

ctio

nfro

m b

ully

ing,

vio

lence

and

ostra

cisa

tion.

Th

ere s

houl

d be

a de

dica

ted

men

tal h

ealth

serv

ice

for

the

mos

t dea

deni

ng p

sych

olog

ical

battl

es th

at L

GBT

IQs f

ace i

n th

eir re

inte

grat

ion

atte

mpt

s. H

uman

righ

ts ca

n on

ly w

ork i

f we a

reco

nsci

ous a

bout

our

dut

ies a

s fell

ow h

uman

s.D

ecrim

inal

ising

them

is ju

st a

fract

ion

of th

eba

ttle w

on. W

e mus

t loo

k be

yond

thei

r phy

si-ca

lity

to t

he s

oul

with

in.

That

is

why

our

myt

holo

gies

and

epi

cs ta

lk a

bout

shap

e-sh

ift-

ing

and

sex-

chan

ging

cap

abili

ties

of d

ivin

ity,

met

apho

ricall

y urg

ing u

s to

look

bey

ond

the f

ix-

ities

of th

e mate

rial w

orld

and

valu

e the

true

core

of b

eing.

But t

ry in

voki

ng th

e alle

gorie

s em

bed-

ded

in e

pics

and

myt

hs n

ow a

nd r

isk b

eing

trolle

d as

a no

n-be

lieve

r. Ye

t it i

s in

thes

e tex

tsth

at w

e ne

ed to

see

k so

lutio

ns a

nd f

ind

our

anch

or fo

r a ju

st an

d he

althy

soci

ety.

(The

writ

er is

Asso

ciate

Edito

r, Th

e Pio

neer

)

���

����

��

����

���

Sir

— T

his

refe

rs t

o th

e ed

itoria

l,“C

hang

e fo

r go

od”

(Sep

tem

ber

7).

The

Supr

eme

Cou

rt’s v

erdi

ct d

ecrim

-in

alisi

ng h

omos

exua

lity

is w

elcom

e.Th

e Br

itish

-era

law,

trea

ting

sam

e se

xre

latio

nshi

p as

crim

inal

, was

arc

haic

. It

is tr

ue th

at e

ven

as th

e LG

BTQ

com

mun

ity i

s ce

lebr

atin

g th

e ap

exco

urt’s

ord

er, t

he In

dian

mid

dle-

class

or a

maj

ority

of t

he In

dian

peo

ple w

illco

ntin

ue d

islik

ing

hom

osex

ualit

y. Fo

rth

em, i

t is t

he n

atur

e’s a

berr

atio

n an

dno

t its

mai

nstre

am d

ispen

satio

n. T

hus,

the c

elebr

atio

n of

the L

GBT

Qs c

an on

ly

be te

mpo

rary

— a

long

hau

l lie

s ahe

ad.

M R

atan

Via

emai

l

���

���

���

���

��

� �

Sir

— T

his

refe

rs t

o th

e ed

itoria

l,“C

hang

e fo

r go

od”

(Sep

tem

ber

7).

The

Supr

eme

Cou

rt d

id w

hat p

oliti

-ci

ans c

ould

not

in so

man

y ye

ars.

In a

com

plex

coun

try lik

e Ind

ia, d

ecrim

inal-

ising

Sec

tion

377

is in

deed

a p

rogr

es-

sive d

ecisi

on. C

allin

g it h

istor

ic w

ould

be a

n un

ders

tate

men

t. Th

e ve

rdic

t is

boun

d to

impa

ct th

ousa

nds o

f live

s pos

-iti

vely.

Pol

itici

ans c

hose

to o

pt fo

r the

safe

rou

te m

ainl

y be

caus

e th

e ga

yco

mm

unity

is to

o sm

all f

or t

hem

toco

unt o

n fo

r an

y sig

nific

ant c

ontr

ibu-

tion

in te

rms o

f vot

es. N

ot to

men

tion

the

obvi

ous

orth

odox

and

reg

ress

ive

min

dset

. But

the b

attle

is on

ly ha

lf-wo

n.Th

ere a

re b

igge

r cha

lleng

es. T

here

is a

need

for a

n aw

aren

ess d

rive t

o ed

ucat

eth

e ign

oran

t or c

onse

rvat

ive m

asse

s to

chan

ge/u

pgra

de t

heir

min

dset

s. Th

ene

ed i

s to

bri

ng s

ocie

tal

chan

ge.

Thou

gh th

e jud

gmen

t is m

uch

laude

d,it’s

tim

e to

wai

t and

wat

ch a

s to

how

soci

ety

perc

eive

s the

dec

ision

. Ba

l Gov

ind

Noi

da

����

���

��

�Si

r —

Tel

anga

na C

hief

Min

ister

KC

hand

rase

khar

Rao

has

take

n a b

old

and

calcu

lativ

e mov

e by d

issol

ving

the

Stat

e A

ssem

bly

prem

atur

ely.

Evid

ently

, Ra

o ha

s ta

ken

this

bold

step

sens

ing

his r

etur

n to

pow

erw

ith a

pos

sible

land

slide

vic

tory

, lik

eth

e on

e w

itnes

sed

in t

he n

atio

nal

Cap

ital

in 2

015,

whe

re t

he A

amA

adm

i Par

ty r

egist

ered

an

unpr

ece-

dent

ed p

oliti

cal v

icto

ry, w

inni

ng 6

7ou

t of 7

0 se

ats i

n th

e Del

hi A

ssem

bly.

To p

ave t

he w

ay fo

r gra

dual

mov

-in

g to

war

ds si

mul

tane

ous p

olls,

pol

it-

ical

rul

ers

at t

he C

entr

e an

d St

ates

shou

ld b

e cou

rage

ous e

noug

h fo

r pre

-m

atur

e ele

ctio

ns, s

o th

at th

e phe

nom

-en

on o

f sim

ulta

neou

s el

ectio

ns m

aym

ove

a st

ep fo

rwar

d. P

rem

atur

e di

s-so

lutio

n sh

ould

also

be f

or L

ok S

abha

and

othe

r A

ssem

blie

s. If

polit

ical

rule

rs a

re s

o co

nfid

ent o

f the

ir po

p-ul

arity

and

wor

k, t

hey

shou

ld a

lsoex

hibi

t cou

rage

as K

Cha

ndra

sekh

arha

s don

e.M

adhu

Agr

awal

Del

hi

!������� ��������������

�����

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� ������ ���

������� �������� �������

���������������������

Rahu

l Gan

dhi is

the b

igges

t buff

oon.

He is

an as

set f

or us

, the

mor

e he c

omes

(to

Telan

gana

) the

mor

e sea

ts we

will

win.

—Ca

retak

er Te

langa

na C

hief M

iniste

rK

CHAN

DRAS

HEKH

AR R

AO

Instea

d of t

hank

ing th

e Con

gres

s, he

(Rao

)ha

s beh

aved

in a

mann

er w

hich i

sun

beco

ming

of a

Chief

Mini

ster.

—Co

ngre

ss le

ader

AN

AND

SHAR

MA

�!��������� �!����

The ‘p

rofe

ssio

n of

arm

s’be

stow

s a ce

rtai

n no

bil-

ity, m

oral

ity an

d so

ver-

eign

resp

onsib

ility

that

are

unm

atch

ed i

n its

emot

iona

l im

port

to

the

natio

nsta

te. T

he se

lfles

s nat

ure o

f its

pro-

fess

iona

l ca

lling

ofte

n ne

cess

i-ta

tes

the

com

bata

nts

to h

onou

rth

eir

swor

n co

mm

itmen

ts to

the

Con

stitu

tion

by p

ayin

g th

e ‘u

lti-

mat

e pr

ice’.

In

mat

ure d

emoc

raci

es, w

here

the

arm

ed fo

rces

serv

e un

der t

heci

vilia

n au

thor

ity,

thei

r w

ilful

adhe

renc

e to

the

hig

hest

eth

ical

stan

dard

s, di

scip

line

and

stee

lel

evat

es th

eir p

opul

ar p

erce

ptio

nam

ongs

t th

e ci

tizen

ry.

This

is

espe

cial

ly tr

ue in

land

s of w

ound

-ed

civi

lisat

ions

, blo

ody h

istor

y and

ongo

ing

com

bat

com

mitm

ents

(like

the

Arm

ed F

orce

s of

the

Uni

ted

Stat

es o

r Ind

ia).

Wit

hin

the

com

ity

of

such

for

ces,

this

cultu

re i

s su

s-ta

ined

by

cele

brat

ing

exam

ples

of

its h

eroi

c pas

t, in

divi

dual

galla

ntry

and

the

saga

of

unim

peac

habl

ele

ader

ship

. Bey

ond

the

ultim

ate

vict

ory o

r def

eat o

f bat

tles,

it is

raw

cour

age a

nd va

lour

of t

he co

mba

t-an

ts th

at a

re r

ever

ed fo

r po

ster

i-ty

. Hen

ce, a

Vie

tnam

is

no l

ess

sacr

ed a

s an

Iwo

Jima,

or

in th

eIn

dian

con

text

, a 1

962

as a

197

1.Re

cent

ly, tw

o w

ar h

eroe

s fro

mth

ese

land

s met

with

star

kly

con-

tras

ting

fate

. Th

e U

nite

d St

ates

witn

esse

d un

prec

eden

ted

scen

es o

fna

tiona

l m

ourn

ing,

unf

ilter

edgr

ief a

nd th

e di

gnity

of a

spon

ta-

neou

s ou

tpou

ring,

follo

win

g th

ede

ath

of it

s Vie

tnam

war

her

o an

dSe

nato

r, Jo

hn M

cCai

n, w

hose

mem

ory

cuts

acr

oss

soci

etal

and

polit

ical

div

ision

s in

the

fra

c-tu

red

natio

n.

The t

horo

ughb

red

sold

ier a

ndso

n of

an

Adm

iral,

Nav

al A

viat

orJo

hn M

cCai

n w

as sh

ot d

own

whi

lefly

ing

over

Han

oi a

nd w

as a

Priso

ner

of W

ar (P

oW) w

ho w

asto

rtur

ed in

cus

tody

for

over

five

year

s. H

is ph

ysic

al d

isab

ilitie

s,ow

ing

to h

is m

ilita

ry s

ervi

ces,

neve

r di

min

ishe

d th

e so

ldie

r’sin

stin

cts a

s he b

laze

d hi

s way

into

a pol

itica

l car

eer t

hat w

as m

arke

dby

his

tra

dem

ark

upri

ghtn

ess,

blun

t ind

ivid

ualit

y an

d lo

yalty

tohi

s nat

ion.

In

an

amaz

ing

show

of b

ipar

-ti

sans

hip

and

grac

e, f

orm

erPr

esid

ents

and

one-

time M

cCai

n-ri

vals

, G

eorg

e W

Bus

h (w

hode

feat

ed M

cCai

n in

Rep

ublic

anpr

imar

ies)

and

Bar

ack

Oba

ma

(who

def

eate

d M

cCai

n in

the

Pres

iden

tial r

un-o

ff) h

eape

d eu

lo-

gies

on

the s

tate

sman

-war

rior a

ndpa

trio

t tha

t bef

itted

the s

oldi

er to

his n

atio

n.

His

daug

hter

’s lo

aded

ode

toth

e re

al h

ero,

“W

e ga

ther

her

e to

mou

rn t

he p

assin

g of

Am

eric

angr

eatn

ess.

The

real

thi

ng,

not

chea

p rh

etor

ic fr

om m

en w

ho w

illne

ver

com

e ne

ar th

e sa

crifi

ce h

ega

ve s

o w

illin

gly,

nor

the

oppo

r-tu

nist

ic a

ppro

pria

tion

of t

hose

who

live

live

s of c

omfo

rt an

d pr

iv-

ilege

whi

le he

suffe

red

and

serv

ed”,

or a

s Ba

rack

Oba

ma

mov

ingl

yno

ted

that

des

pite

the

ir di

ffer-

ence

s, “w

e nev

er d

oubt

ed w

e wer

eon

the

sam

e te

am”.

The

A

mer

ica

that

Jo

hnM

cCai

n ha

d sto

od u

p fo

r res

olut

e-ly

and

dig

nifie

dly

was

one

whe

rehe

sla

mm

ed h

is ow

n pa

rtym

anD

onal

d Tr

ump

from

taki

ng p

ot-

shot

s at

a fa

llen

sold

ier,

Cap

tain

Hum

ayun

Kha

n, a

bout

who

mM

cCai

n sa

id, “

mem

ory o

f his

sac-

rific

e will

mak

e us a

bet

ter n

atio

n—

and

he w

ill n

ever

be f

orgo

tten”

. So

ldie

rs h

ave i

nstit

utio

nalis

edm

emor

ies a

nd th

ey d

o no

t wav

erfro

m th

eir s

crip

ture

s or b

elief

s, th

em

ost s

upre

me a

mon

g th

em b

eing

defe

ndin

g th

eir

coun

try

abov

eal

l.Sa

dly,

arou

nd th

e sa

me

time,

a rev

erse

nar

rativ

e was

und

er w

ayin

Indi

a whe

n th

e nat

ion

forg

ot it

sow

n ic

onic

and

alm

ost

myt

hic

‘sain

t-sol

dier

’, Lt G

en H

anut

Sing

h,as

his

abod

e in

Deh

radu

n w

asse

aled

by

an ig

nora

nt, a

path

etic

and

inse

nsiti

ve m

unic

ipal

cor

po-

ratio

n.

The

leg

enda

ry M

aha

Vir

Cha

kra

(MV

C)

awar

dee,

who

assu

med

folk

lore

whi

le in

serv

ice

itsel

f, ha

d pa

ssed

aw

ay i

n hi

sas

hram

in

Deh

radu

n in

201

5.U

nsur

pris

ingl

y, i

t w

as i

n th

e‘ab

ode

of g

ods

and

sold

iers

’ tha

tth

is as

cetic

and

spiri

tual

ly-in

cline

dso

ldie

r sp

ent

his

last

yea

rs. T

heve

tera

n co

mm

unity

has

bee

nag

hast

and

prot

este

d to

wha

t the

ysa

w a

s an

affr

ont t

o th

e m

emor

yof

the m

an w

ho se

rved

the n

atio

n

and

its m

ilita

ry, i

n th

e fin

est t

ra-

ditio

ns as

a da

shin

g ca

valie

r, fe

ted

hero

and

an u

nfor

getta

ble G

ener

al.

The l

egen

d, w

ho co

mm

ande

dth

e fa

mou

s Po

ona

Hor

se (

only

regi

men

t to

have

won

two

Para

mVi

r Cha

kras

) in

the

deci

sive

bat-

tle o

f Ba

sant

ar in

197

1, h

ad h

isre

gim

ent a

ckno

wle

dged

by

none

othe

r th

an t

he P

akis

tani

s as

‘Fak

hr-e

-Hin

d’ (P

ride o

f Ind

ia) f

orhi

s bat

tle d

ared

evilr

y. M

uch

late

r, as

a se

nior

offi

cer,

his i

mpr

int a

nd p

rofe

ssio

nalis

m as

a ‘so

ldie

r’s-g

ener

al’, b

rillia

nt ta

cti-

cian

and

the

gre

ates

t fie

ld c

om-

man

der w

ere b

urni

shed

— so

me-

thin

g th

at t

he e

qual

ly le

gend

ary

‘Thi

nkin

g G

ener

al’

K S

unda

rjiac

know

ledg

ed b

y en

trus

ting

LtG

en H

anut

Sin

gh w

ith th

e co

m-

man

d of

2 C

orps

. Thi

s con

trib

uted

to m

echa

nise

d do

ctrin

es i

n th

eev

olut

ion

of A

rmou

red

Cor

psan

d M

echa

nise

d In

fant

ry t

hat

stan

d th

e te

st o

f tim

e.

It is

said

sol

dier

s do

not

die

but o

nly

fade

aw

ay. H

owev

er, L

tG

en H

anut

Sin

gh’s

uniq

ue ch

arac

-te

r, re

ctitu

de a

nd u

ncom

prom

is-in

g pr

obity

ele

vate

d hi

m w

ithin

the

pant

heon

s of I

ndia

n m

ilita

ryhi

stor

y.A

fello

w c

lans

men

of L

t Gen

Han

ut S

ingh

fro

m t

he M

arw

arre

gion

of R

ajasth

an, M

ajor S

haita

nSi

ngh

had

foug

ht ‘t

o th

e end

’ in

afie

rce

disp

lay

of u

npar

alle

led

cour

age,

lea

ders

hip

and

exem

-pl

ary

patr

iotis

m in

the

Bat

tle o

fRe

zang

La

in 1

962.

In

a q

uirk

of

fate

, M

ajor

Shai

tan

Sing

h (P

aram

Vir

Chak

ra)

was

from

the

Kum

aon

Regi

men

tan

d go

es d

own

in th

e glo

rious

sol-

derin

g tr

aditi

ons o

f Utta

rakh

and

as a

prou

d ‘K

umao

ni O

ffice

r’. It

isth

is re

cipr

ocal

dig

nity

, app

ropr

i-at

ions

and

sol

dier

ing

etho

s th

atw

ere

invo

ked

by th

e tit

ular

hea

dof

the

fam

ed M

arw

ar R

atho

res,

Gaj

Sin

gh, i

n hi

s ple

a to

the C

hief

Min

ister

of U

ttara

khan

d to

resp

ect

the m

emor

y and

pro

tect

the a

bode

of L

t G

en H

anut

Sin

gh i

nD

ehra

dun.

C

hief

Min

ister

Har

ish R

awat

wou

ld b

e pe

rson

ally

con

vers

ant

with

the

sens

itivi

ties

invo

lved

inth

e mat

ters

of m

ilita

ry, a

s lik

e mos

tot

hers

in

Utta

rakh

and,

he

too

belo

ngs t

o a

mili

tary

fam

ily.

How

ever

, in

Ind

ia,

polit

ical

tides

and

com

mer

cial

com

pul-

sions

ofte

n co

mbi

ne to

regr

ess t

hesa

cros

anct

into

forg

otte

n co

mm

it-m

ents

. Muc

h ha

s bee

n po

litic

ally

invo

ked

in th

e nam

e of t

he ‘I

ndia

nso

ldie

r’, y

et it

is th

ese

inse

nsiti

vi-

ties t

hat r

aise

que

stio

ns ab

out t

here

al in

tent

, ext

ent a

nd re

spec

t for

the

unifo

rmed

frat

erni

ty.

As A

brah

am L

inco

ln fa

mou

s-ly

sai

d, “A

nat

ion

that

doe

s no

tho

nour

its

her

oes

will

not

lon

gen

dure

”, ho

lds t

rue i

n al

l ‘la

nds o

fth

e fr

ee’, b

e it

the

US

or In

dia.

(The

writ

er, a

mili

tary

vete

ran,

is a

for

mer

Lt

Gov

erno

r of

Anda

man

& N

icoba

r Isl

ands

and

Pudu

cher

ry)

��3�

����

��

&'�

:

12�

���;

9-

���

���:

% :

Too o

ften,

we

hear

of i

ncid

ents

of v

io-

lence

and

shoc

king

crim

es b

eing c

om-

mitt

ed b

y ju

veni

les,

teen

ager

s an

dyo

ung c

olleg

e-go

ing s

tude

nts.

This

leave

s me

conf

used

as t

o w

ho sh

ould

be h

eld re

spon

-sib

le. T

houg

h re

spon

sibili

ty ca

n be

shar

ed by

man

y — sc

hool

s, te

ache

rs an

d fri

ends

— le

t’sno

t for

get t

hat p

aren

ts pl

ay a

criti

cal r

ole h

ere.

A ch

ild gr

ows u

p in

a fa

mily

and

spen

ds a

lot

of ti

me a

t hom

e, ye

t par

ents

pass

the b

uck t

oot

hers

when

their

child

goes

off t

he tr

ack.

Last

year

, the D

elhi G

over

nmen

t lau

nche

d pa

rent

-in

g wo

rksh

ops

in G

over

nmen

t sch

ools

for

guar

dian

s of c

hild

ren

appe

arin

g fo

r clas

s 10

and

12 b

oard

exam

s. Th

e aim

was

to pr

ovid

ea c

ondu

cive e

nviro

nmen

t at h

ome.

Whi

le I a

pplau

d th

e ini

tiativ

e, th

e que

s-tio

n is

: W

hy b

e se

lect

ive?

Why

onl

yG

over

nmen

t sch

ools

and p

aren

ts of

thos

e stu

-de

nts w

ho w

ere a

ppea

ring

for b

oard

exam

swe

re in

clude

d in

the

prog

ram

me?

Is it

that

only

chi

ldre

n of

Gov

ernm

ent

scho

ols

are

invo

lved

in al

l sor

ts of

une

xpec

ted/

anti-

socia

lac

tiviti

es? I

s it t

hat l

ow p

erfo

rman

ce o

f stu

-de

nts i

n m

any p

rivat

e sch

ools

is no

t an

issue

?W

hile

not q

uesti

onin

g the

inte

ntio

n of

such

work

shop

s, th

e onl

y con

cern

is w

heth

er th

eywo

uld

yield

im

med

iate

resu

lts. T

he m

ost

intri

guin

g par

t of t

hese

initi

ativ

es is

that

they

are n

ot co

ntin

uous

and

man

dato

ry.

Perfo

rman

ce in

boa

rd e

xam

s is i

mpo

r-ta

nt b

ut a

desp

erat

e bid

may

not

be f

ruitf

ul.

An

atte

mpt

mus

t be

mad

e to

mak

e su

chwo

rksh

ops/t

rain

ing

prog

ram

mes

par

t an

dpa

rcel

of al

l sch

ools.

Such

type

of tr

ainin

g ses

-sio

ns/w

orks

hops

sho

uld

be o

rgan

ised

bysc

hool

s, G

over

nmen

t as

well

as

priv

ate,

mor

e ofte

n th

an n

ot. I

feel

ther

e is a

dire

nee

dfo

r sch

ools

to co

-opt

par

ents

in th

e upb

ring-

ing

of th

eir o

wn w

ards

. Pa

rent

s ent

rust

the e

ntire

resp

onsib

ility

for t

he c

hild

’s lea

rnin

g an

d de

velo

pmen

t to

scho

ols.

Can

pare

nts a

bsol

ve th

emse

lves o

fall

resp

onsib

ility

by

simpl

y pa

ying

the f

ees?

The p

aren

ts’ m

inds

et of

“we p

ay th

e fee

s and

thus

hav

e th

e rig

ht t

o ex

pect

” is

prov

ing

coun

ter-

prod

uctiv

e fo

r so

ciet

y at

lar

ge.

Som

ethi

ng sc

arier

is th

at th

is att

itude

is p

ass-

ing o

n to

their

child

ren,

who

are m

ore a

ware

of th

eir ri

ghts

than

dut

ies. I

t har

dly

cros

ses

their

min

d ab

out g

ivin

g; th

ey ra

ther

expe

ct.

Her

e com

es th

e nee

d to

educ

ate t

he p

aren

ts,w

ho in

turn

will

mak

e con

certe

d ef

forts

and

beco

me a

par

t of t

he g

rowi

ng u

p pr

oces

s of

their

child

ren.

W

hile

we a

re th

inki

ng o

f our

you

nger

popu

latio

n an

d pl

anni

ng to

mov

e to t

he n

ext

level

with

them

, thi

s min

dset

is n

ot ve

ry pr

o-gr

essiv

e for

socie

ty. P

aren

ts ne

ed to

be m

ore

activ

ely in

volve

d in

their

war

ds’ g

rowi

ng u

p.A

com

mer

cial m

inds

et d

oes n

ot ap

ply w

hen

it co

mes

to a

pare

nt-c

hild

relat

ions

hip.

A lo

tof

tim

e and

effo

rt is

requ

ired

to im

bibe

the

right

set o

f valu

es. L

ove a

nd af

fect

ion

do n

otm

ean

indu

lgen

ce o

nly

out o

f gui

lt fe

eling

.M

ore s

hock

ing,

ther

e is

anot

her s

et o

f par

-en

ts, w

ho su

ppor

ts th

eir ch

ildre

n fo

r all t

heir

wron

gdoi

ngs.

And

by th

e tim

e the

y rea

lise i

t,it’s

too

late.

They

do

not t

hink

twice

bef

ore

blam

ing

the t

each

ers a

nd ed

ucat

iona

l ins

ti-tu

tions

whe

n th

e sam

e chi

ld go

es as

tray.

For

exam

ple,

ask a

stud

ent t

o re-

do h

is/he

r wor

kfo

r bet

ter o

utpu

t, pa

rent

s will

com

e run

ning

to th

e tea

cher

com

plain

ing t

hat d

ue to

wor

kpr

essu

re, t

he ch

ild h

as go

ne in

to d

epre

ssio

n.

How

man

y pa

rent

s in

culca

te r

eadi

ngha

bits

amon

g th

eir c

hild

ren?

The

y wo

uld

rath

er gi

ve th

em ac

cess

to Fa

cebo

ok. P

aren

ts

go o

ut o

f the

way

to g

ift th

eir c

hild

ren

the

mos

t exp

ensiv

e m

obile

pho

nes b

ut d

o th

eyre

ally t

ake o

ut ti

me t

o fin

d ou

t how

it is

bein

gm

isuse

d? H

ow m

any p

aren

ts te

ach

their

chil-

dren

how

to

man

age

their

per

form

ance

s,w

hich

is en

tirely

diff

eren

t fro

m ge

tting

their

hom

ewor

k do

ne? D

o th

ey th

ink

that

train

-in

g th

e ch

ild fo

r dela

yed

rewa

rds i

s no

less

an ef

fort?

If

we g

o on

to c

alcul

ate

the

num

ber o

ftim

e ch

ildre

n sp

end

in sc

hool

in re

gard

totim

e spe

nt o

utsid

e, it

will

not b

e sur

prisi

ngth

at th

e lat

ter w

ould

be m

ore.

So h

ow d

o we

expe

ct th

e sch

ool t

o sh

ould

er th

e res

pons

i-bi

lity e

ntire

ly? B

ut h

ere,

scho

ols c

ould

pitc

hin

by or

gani

sing w

orks

hops

/train

ing s

essio

nsfo

r par

ents.

We

cann

ot e

xpec

t the

you

nger

gene

ratio

n to

be be

tter i

ndivi

duals

whi

le be

ing

succ

essfu

l if p

aren

ts do

not

spen

d tim

e with

their

child

ren.

Spen

ding

tim

e doe

s not

mea

nin

dulge

nce.

Sess

ions

nee

d to

focu

s on

imbi

b-in

g valu

es li

ke sa

ying

‘no’

for i

nsta

nce;

man

-ag

ing

perfo

rman

ce; c

ourte

sy; g

oal s

ettin

g;tim

e man

agem

ent;

disc

iplin

e; in

terp

erso

nal

beha

viou

r; et

hica

l beh

avio

ur et

al.

Org

anisi

ng su

ch se

ssio

ns sh

ould

not

be

cons

ider

ed a

s an

othe

r bu

rden

for

scho

ols.

Thes

e sh

ould

be

look

ed a

t as

cons

truct

ive

mec

hani

sms t

o ea

se th

ings

, lead

ing t

o be

tter

perfo

rman

ce. T

here

shou

ld be

a se

ries o

f ses

-sio

ns w

here

par

ents

have

to p

artic

ipat

e in

com

pulso

rily.

At t

he s

ame

time,

scho

ols

shou

ld n

ot b

e loo

king

at th

ese s

essio

ns as

anen

d of

their

role.

Mor

e of

ten

than

not

, it i

sob

serv

ed th

at sc

hool

s, in

their

bid

to co

ncen

-tra

te on

the s

tudy

part,

forg

et to

ingr

ain yo

ung

min

ds w

ith in

valu

able

valu

es o

r beli

efs a

ndco

mpe

l the

m to

face

the c

ompe

titiv

e wor

ld.

In t

he e

nd,

it i

s fe

lt th

at b

oth

teac

hers

/scho

ols a

nd p

aren

ts as

par

tner

s will

be ab

le to

brin

g in

a sea

chan

ge in

the m

ind-

set o

f the

youn

gster

s. It

is im

mate

rial w

heth

erth

e stu

dent

is

in G

over

nmen

t or

priv

ate

scho

ol. T

his h

as be

com

e a bu

rnin

g nee

d no

wes

pecia

lly b

ecau

se o

f all

the m

isdee

ds o

ften

carr

ied ou

t by t

he ju

veni

les. S

ociet

y can

nev

erbe

a b

ette

r plac

e to

live i

f par

ents

thin

k it

isth

e res

pons

ibilit

y of t

he sc

hool

s and

vice

-ver

sa.

Inste

ad, g

oing

han

d-in

-han

d wi

ll go

a lo

ngwa

y. Be

tter p

erfo

rman

ce ca

n on

ly be

expe

ct-

ed a

fter

cont

inue

d co

llabo

rativ

e ef

forts

by

both

par

ents

and

teac

hers

. No q

uick

-fix s

olu-

tion

will

help

the c

ause

.(T

he a

utho

r is

work

ing

as A

ssocia

tePr

ofes

sor

at T

he N

orth

Cap

Uni

vers

ity,

Gurg

aon)

Pare

ntin

g is

no

child

’s p

lay

Con

trast

ing

fate

of t

wo

war

riors

Sadl

y at

a ti

me

whe

n th

e U

S w

as e

ulog

isin

g its

war

rior

-sta

tesm

an S

enat

or J

ohn

McC

ain,

ther

e w

as n

o re

spec

tsh

own

tow

ards

Ind

ia’s

lege

ndar

y sa

int-

sold

ier,

LT G

en H

anut

Sin

gh, w

hose

pre

mis

es w

ere

seal

ed in

Deh

radu

n

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sh M

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e pos

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data

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ing

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ad tr

ekke

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rs fo

r abo

ut 3

4 km

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�-��� -�-���

The rupee on Friday stageda turnaround to close high-

er by 26 paise at 71.73 againstthe US dollar, snapping itsseven-session losing streak afterheavy intervention by theReserve Bank.

Weighed down by tradeconcerns and rising crudeprices, the Indian currencybreached the 72 mark to tradeat 72.04 to the dollar in morn-ing trade.

However, heavy interven-tion by the RBI predominant-ly resisted the rupee’s sharpdepreciation and helped itrebound from record low lev-els.

Some calm returned toforex front with sentimentsoothed by positive commentsand confidence-building mea-sures from the governmentafter what was described ascarnage.

Steady crude oil prices anda relief on the trade front as theUS did not slap duties on USD200 billion of Chinese goodsafter the passing of a deadline

for a public consultation easedpressure on the local currency.

Benchmark Brent crudeoil was trading at USD 76.74 abarrel in early Asian trade.

The battered rupee lost awhopping 189 paise in the lastseven trading sessions whichresulted in the worst sell-offs inthe forex history.

The rupee resumed high-er at 71.95 from overnightlevel of 71.99 at the inter-bankforeign exchange (forex) mar-ket on bouts of dollar selling bystate-run banks.

However, intense volatilitypushed the rupee to break the72-mark to hit a low of 72.04on an intraday basis.

But, the local unit quicklybounced back to trade in pos-itive terrain following centralbank intervention. It latertouched a session high of 71.65before ending at 71.73, reveal-ing a gain of 26 paise, or 0.36per cent.

The Financial BenchmarksIndia private limited (FBIL),meanwhile, fixed the referencerate for the dollar at 71.9009and for the euro at 83.6744.

In the cross-currency trade,the rupee recovered against theeuro to settle at 83.25 from83.70 yesterday.

The home unit, however,remained weak against thePound sterling to end at 93.19per pound as compared to93.08 and also eased againstthe Japanese yen to close at64.70 per 100 yens from64.69.

The 10-year G-Sec yieldalso softened to end at 8.03 percent.

The Indian currency standsout as one of the most vulner-able and worst performingcurrency in Asia this year so farwith a steep 13 per cent fall invalue against the resurgentdollar bulls.

Hardening concerns overslowing capital flows and awider trade deficit couldstretch the funding of India’scurrent account gap due tolower-than-expected goodsand services tax collectionsincreased volatility uncertain-ty in the midst of Trumpsgeopolitical mess and conta-gion spreads.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Friday pitched for

investments in electric vehiclesacross the value chain from bat-teries to smart charging as heunveiled a mobility road mapwith common public transportas the cornerstone, saying bet-ter mobility can boost growth.

“Congestion-free mobilityis critical to check the eco-nomic and environmental costsof congestion,” he said address-ing the Global MobilitySummit ‘MOVE’ here.

Stating that common pub-lic transport must be the cor-nerstone of mobility initia-tives, he said focus must gobeyond cars to other vehiclessuch as scooters and rickshaws.“Clean mobility powered byclean energy is our most pow-erful weapon in our fightagainst climate change.”

With CEOs of global automajors in attendance, Modisaid the government is keen on“investments across the valuechain from batteries to smartcharging to electric vehiclemanufacturing”.

The government is targetingelectric vehicles to account for 15per cent of all vehicles sales in fiveyears in a bid to curb greenhouse

gas emissions and dependencyon fossil fuels. An estimated2,000 EVs were sold last year.

“My vision for the future ofmobility in India is based on 7Cs — Common, Connected,Convenient, Congestion-free,Charged, Clean and Cuttingedge,” he said.

Stressing the need to wide-ly use common public trans-port to drive mobility initia-tives, the Prime Minister saidthat focus must also go beyondcars to other vehicles.

“We must leverage the fullpotential for vehicle pooling toimprove private vehicle utili-sation,” he said. “Convenientmobility means safe, affordableand accessible for all sections ofthe society.”

He said it must be ensuredthat public transport is pre-ferred to private modes oftravel as it would result in fewertraffic jams and lower levels ofstress for commuters.

“We should champion theidea of ‘clean kilometers’,” hesaid adding Indian entrepre-neurs and manufacturers arenow poised to develop anddeploy break-through batterytechnology that would mean apollution-free clean drive, lead-ing to clean air and better liv-ing standards for people.

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Ford India on Friday said itis recalling 7,249 units of

petrol EcoSport to update thepowertrain control module(PCM) software.

In a statement, Ford Indiasaid it is voluntarily inspecting7,249 EcoSport petrol vehi-cles, manufactured betweenNovember 2017 and March2018, to update the PCM soft-ware.

The software update actionis in line with company’s con-tinued commitment to ensurequality of its vehicles and willeliminate any remote chance ofsudden deceleration or batterydrainage, it added.

In July, Ford hadannounced recall of 5,397 unitsof EcoSport to rectify faultyfront lower control arm anddriver and front passenger seatrecliner locks.

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As more and more end userslook for completed homes

to buy and occupy, only 16% ofIndian homebuyers know howto check the construction qual-

ity of a residential project whilean alarming 84% of real estateconsumers are clueless aboutthe due diligence and justwished to know the process tocheck the quality of their house,revealed a recent poll by

Magicbricks.Many buyers ignore the

construction quality as it is notpossible for a commonman/buyer to check the con-struction materials used in aparticular building.

Lack of awareness is thebiggest challenge in checkingthe construction of quality ofbuildings. Homebuyers mustgo through jargon such as seis-mic compliance, structuralsafety certificate, earthquakeresistant building but have nomeans of ensuring that hous-es are of good quality.

Explains V. Suresh, Vice-Chairman of the NationalBuilding Code, the referencedocument for all buildings inIndia, there are four majorcomponents to quality of con-struction:

StructuralNon-StructuralFinishing and Services Structural includes ele-

ments such as column, beam,slab etc where you need asafety auditor to give you areport.

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The Reserve Bank of Indiahas imposed a �1 crore

penalty on Union Bank ofIndia for failing to detect andreport fraud on time.

“This is to inform thatReserve Bank has imposed apenalty of �10 million on thebank for delay in detectionand reporting of fraud. Thepenalty has been imposed inexercise of powers vested inRBI under . . .BankingRegulation Act,” Union Bankof India said in a regulatoryfiling on Friday.

RBI had issued a show causenotice to the bank on January 15,2018 asking why a penalty notbe imposed on Union Bank ofIndia under the Act.

Subsequently, the bank hadreplied to the regulator onFebruary 1, followed by repre-sentations on oral submissionduring personal hearing on April14 before the Committee ofExecutive Directors of the RBI.

“The reply as well as oralsubmission made by the bankin the personal hearings andalso additional documents fur-nished have not been foundadequate by RBI leading toimposition of penalty of �10million,” UBI said.

However, the bank saidthat the amount of the penal-ty is not material consideringthe size of the bank.

The bank further said itreceived communication fromRBI on imposition on penaltyon September 6.

The bank has taken neces-sary preventive measures andhas implemented a compre-hensive corrective action planto strengthen internal controlsand to ensure that such inci-dents do not recur, it added.

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Markets remained in betterform for the second straight

session on Friday, with the Sensexclosing over 147 points higher asauto shares zoomed on sus-tained buying by domestic insti-tutional investors amid the rupeestaging a recovery.

The rupee was tradinghigher by 29 paise at 71.70(intra-day) against the dollar atthe forex market. The domes-tic unit had hit a fresh life-timelow of 72.11 before settling at71.99 Thursday.

Trading sentiment got amassive lift following the gov-ernment’s decision to exemptelectric vehicles (EVs) andautomobiles run on alternativefuels from permit requirementsin a bid to boost such vehiclesin the country.

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Flipkart aims to account forover 30 per cent of the phone

sales this festive season as it linesup new launches through hand-set partners and dishes outmore financing options to wooIndian shoppers. The Walmart-backed company, which islocked in a fierce competitionwith US-based Amazon,claimed that about 25 per centof the total phones sold in thecountry are through its platform.

“We are confident that wewill be able to expand our lead-ership further and by the end ofthe festive sales (Big BillionDays or BBD), we should have30-32 per cent share,” Flipkart,senior director (smartphones),Ayappan Rajagopal told PTI.

The company had, in April,said it aims to touch 40 per centmarket share by 2020 as part ofits ‘Mobiles 40by20’ strategy.

“Our platform will have anumber of new launches inalliance with our handset part-ners (during the festive sale).There will be devices acrossprice points...we expect strongvolumes coming especially inthe �10,000-15,000 category aswell as the entry-level smart-phones (�4,000-7,000),” he said.

The company is workingwith a number of brands, many

of them exclusively, includingthe likes of Informix, Realme,Panasonic and Asus, he added.

Rajagopal noted that as perindustry reports, about 39 percent of the mobile phones soldin the country are throughonline platforms. “Online salesis about 39 per cent in the coun-try, which is the highest so far.It is also the highest globally forany country. In China, for exam-ple, about 29 per cent phones aresold online,” he explained.Stating that its mobile phonevertical has been growing steadi-ly, Rajagopal said the companyhas started offering EMI optionfor debit card holders to helpmore people transact on itsplatform. It is also with offeringslike mobile protection services.

Flipkart is yet to announcethe dates of BBD, but the sale islikely to take place in October.Both Flipkart and Amazon Indiaare betting big on mobile phonesto drive growth.

Mobile phones are one ofthe most popular items soldthrough e-commerce sites in thecountry. Over the last few years,a number of new handset com-panies, including the likes ofHMD, Xiaomi, Motorola andCoolPad have partnered playerslike Flipkart, Amazon andSnapdeal to enter the Indianmarket.

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India’s second largest IT ser-vices firm Infosys on Fridaysaid it had teamed up with

Temasek to form a joint venturethat will support the Singapore-based company’s digital trans-formation journey.

The joint venture — inwhich Infosys Consulting(Infosys subsidiary) holds 60per cent stake — will be head-quartered in Singapore, Infosyssaid in a statement.

The remaining stake willbe held by Temasek throughFranklin Investments, it saidadding that the agreement wassigned by the parties onThursday night and was effec-tive immediately.

The JV will integrate teamsfrom Infosys and the opera-tions of Temasek’s whollyowned subsidiary — TrustedSource — that currently deliv-ers IT services to Temasek and

a number of other clients.As part of the transaction,

more than 200 employees andcontractors from TrustedSource will be part of the JV, inaddition to Infosys staff whowill join over time, the state-ment said.

Infosys, in a regulatory fil-ing, said the consideration ofinvestment is “up to SGD 12million excluding adjustmentsfor working capital, cash andnet debt on closing”.

“Infosys gains significantcapacity in terms of workforceas it focuses on strengtheningits footprint in Southeast Asia,while Temasek will see a rapidenhancement of its IT servicesthrough the augmented capa-bilities of the joint ventureentity,” the statement said.

Trusted Source will provideTemasek and its other clients inthe region solutions and tech-nologies across cloud, data andanalytics, cybersecurity, digital

experiences and artificial intel-ligence and automation amongothers.

“The joint venture will sup-port Temasek’s digital transfor-mation journey, managing acomplex Cloud migration pro-gram that will enable Temasekto host its applications on a cloudplatform,” the statement said.

Infosys and Temasek havenamed Shveta Arora, vice-pres-ident at Infosys, as the chiefexecutive officer of the JV.

“Our joint venture withTemasek will accelerate ourefforts in the region, enhancingour existing presence, as wehelp clients navigate the nextjourney in their business trans-formation,” Mohit Joshi, pres-ident, Infosys said.

The partnership will helpunlock new capabilities andtechnology platforms that helpTemasek, Jon Allaway, chieftechnology officer at Temasek,said.

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India’s e-commerce marketis set to grow three times to

surpass USD 100 billion by2022 and may trigger over amillion jobs in the comingyears, a report said Friday.

According to the report byindustry body Nasscom andPwC India, the e-commercemarket is worth about USD 35billion at present.

E-tail and e-travel will con-tinue to hold their sway withover 90 per cent share of e-commerce while online finan-cial services will experience thefastest growth, the report said.

It also noted that e-com-merce can potentially createone million plus jobs by 2023.

“The Indian e-commercemarket of USD 35 billion isexpected to grow at 25 per centin the next five years andexceed USD 100 billion by2022,” it said.

It noted that three out offour online customers areexpected to come from tier IImarkets and beyond.

“A vast majority of themwill be relatively less tech-savvy, seek greater transparen-cy from brand and prefer con-suming content in local lan-guages,” the report said.

It said that next 100 millioncustomers will be “very differ-

ent” from the existing 50 mil-lion and therefore, e-biz play-ers “must Make in India”.

The report underlines theneed for “harmonisation” in thee-commerce policy frameworkthat enables the growth of thesector. The middle class willform the biggest chunk ofIndian population and, in thenext few years, is likely to con-sume just as much as theirChinese counterparts do today.

Their consumption pat-tern is expected to eventuallysupersede that of both the USand China, the report said.

“To experience exponentialgrowth in the next phase, exist-ing barriers pertaining to lan-guage, tech usability, logisticsand regulatory complianceswill have to be removed,” thereport added.

Nasscom President DebjaniGhosh said, over the next fiveyears, the sector has the poten-tial to create a million jobs inallied industries such as logis-tics, warehousing, and others.

“The e-commerce sectorhas been contributing towardsvarious macroeconomicgrowth parameters, evangelis-ing local businesses and cus-tomers...In addition, the FDIattracted enhances the coun-try’s positioning significantlyon the global stage,” Ghoshsaid.

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US retail giant WalmartFriday said it had complied

with the tax obligations of itsUSD 16 billion acquisition ofIndia’s largest online retailerFlipkart but did not say thequantum of taxes it paid.

The tax authorities had setSeptember 7 as the due date fordepositing a withholding tax onthe deal amount it paid toshareholders of Flipkart.

Withholding tax, or reten-tion tax, is an income tax to bepaid to the government bypayer of the income ratherthan by the recipient of theincome. The tax is thus with-held or deducted from theincome due to the recipient. Incase of Walmart-Flipkart deal,the withholding tax pertains tothe capital gains made by theshareholders of Flipkart.

“We take our legal obliga-tions seriously, including pay-ing taxes to governments wherewe operate. Following ourFlipkart investment, we havenow completed our tax with-holding obligations under theguidance of the Indian Taxauthorities,” a Walmartspokesperson told PTI.

US-based retail giantWalmart Inc had completedacquisition of 77 per cent stakein Flipkart for about USD 16billion in mid August.

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New Delhi (PTI): The government onFriday invited bids for sale of 100 per cent stakein Central Electronics Ltd (CEL). The depart-ment of Investment and Public AssetManagement (DIPAM) has invited Expressionof Interest (EoI) from interested bidders havingminimum net worth of �50 crore as on March

31, 2018. The last date for submission of bids isOctober 21, 2018, as per the EoI floated byDIPAM.

The government had last year cleared a pro-posal for 100 per cent stake sale in CELthrough strategic sale with transfer of manage-ment control.

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A25-year-old Indian finan-cial consultant was among

three people killed when agunman opened fire in a bankbuilding in the US city ofCincinnati before police shothim dead on Thursday, in thelatest mass shooting incident inAmerica.

Pruthviraj Kandepi, whohailed from Guntur district ofAndhra Pradesh, was killedwhen 29-year-old OmarEnrique Santa Perez from thetown of North Bend, Ohio,opened fire at the headquartersfor the Fifth Third Bank nearFountain Square in downtownCincinnati, police said.

India’s Consul General inNew York AmbassadorSandeep Chakravorty told PTIthat the Consulate is in touchwith the police, Kandepi’s fam-ily as well as members of the

community. An official of theTelugu Association of NorthAmerica (TANA) said thatKandepi was working with thebank as a consultant.

Arrangements were beingmade to send his body toIndia, he added.

Hamilton County CoronerLakshmi Sammarco knew

Kandepi, she said on Facebook,when she announced thenames of the victims. She metKandepi at the Hindu temple ofCincinnati, Cincinnati.Comreported.

“How do you tell parentswho live 10,000 miles away thatthey will never see their sonagain because of a senselessshooting in a foreign country?”she wrote. The other two vic-tims were identified as LuisFelipe Calderon, 48 andRichard Newcomer, 64.

Five people were shot,some multiple times, in theincident, police said, addingthat the gunman was killed ina shootout with officers.

It appeared the victimshad no connection to eachother. It was not immediatelyclear if any knew the gunman,media reports said on the lat-est mass shooting incident inthe US.

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US Defense Secretary JimMattis met with top Afghan

leaders during an unannouncedvisit to Kabul on Friday, addinghis weight to a flurry of diplo-matic efforts to bring the Talibanto the negotiating table.

His trip comes a little morethan a year after President Don-ald Trump unveiled a revampedstrategy for Afghanistan that sawhim commit thousands of addi-tional US forces to the war-torncountry on an open-ended basis.

Mattis, on his fourth visit toAfghanistan since becomingdefence chief in January 2017,has met with President AshrafGhani and the new US com-mander for American andNATO forces, General ScottMiller. His arrival in Kabul

comes at a sensitive time in the17-year war. The grinding con-flict has seen little progress byAfghan or US forces against theTaliban, the country’s largestmilitant group. Six US soldiershave been killed in Afghanistanso far this year, the most recenthappening on Monday in anapparent insider attack.

Ghani told Mattis that pre-venting so-called “green-on-blue” attacks, in which Afghansoldiers turn their weapons oninternational troops with whomthey are working, was a “topnational priority”. They alsodiscussed other issues includingthe peace process, security ref-orms, upcoming Parliamentaryand Presidential elections, andPakistan, according to a state-ment from the Presidentialpalace.

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Awary China on Friday wel-comed the first 2+2

Dialogue between India andthe US but remained silent onthe landmark security pactunder which Indian militarywill have access to critical andencrypted American defencetechnologies.

The Communications,Compatibility, SecurityAgreement (COMCASA) wassigned on Thursday after the2+2 talks External AffairsMinister Sushma Swaraj andDefence Minister NirmalaSitharaman had with USSecretary of State MichaelPompeo and Defence SecretaryJames Mattis.

The COMCASA will allowIndia to receive high-end mil-

itary communications equip-ment from the US and will alsohelp get real-time encryptedinformation from the US.

Asked about China’s reac-tion on the Indo-US talks andCOMCASA agreement, ChineseForeign Ministry spokespersonHua Chunying said, “I have seenthe reports about the 2+2 con-sultation between the UnitedStates and India.”

“China is happy to see thenormal development of bilat-eral relations between the USand India and hopes that theywill do more to contribute toregional peace and stability inthe process of developing bilat-eral relations,” she said. She,however skirted any responseto the question on India andUS signing the COMCASA.

On the India-US call for

maritime freedom in the Indo-Pacific region Hua said, “Aboutthe security navigation in thesea, we uphold the legal rightsentitled in the international lawand we also hope parties can doreal things to ensure freedomof navigation.”

During the the 2+2 talks,India and the US expressedcommitment to work togeth-er and in concert with otherpartners toward advancing afree, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.

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In an unusual move, PakistanArmy chief Gen Qamar

Javed Bajwa has batted fordemocracy and the need forstrengthening of institutions inthe coup-prone country, as heshared the dias with PrimeMinister Imran Khan.

Addressing the Defenceand Martyrs Day ceremonyorganised by the Army at itsheadquarters in Rawalpindion Thursday, Bajwa said thatcontinuation of democracy wasmust for development and

progress of the country.His significant comments

came two days after visiting USSecretary of State gave a peptalk to Bajwa on the impor-tance of strong democraticinstitutions in Pakistan.

The army chief said that forthe country’s stability andprogress, democracy is of utmostimportance. “Democracy can-not blossom without observingthe democratic traditions intrue spirit and without thestrengthening of institutions,” hewas quoted as saying by Dawnnewspaper.

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South Korean PresidentMoon Jae-in said Friday

that he is pushing for “irrevo-cable progress” in efforts to ridNorth Korea of its nuclearweapons by the end of this yearas he prepares for his thirdsummit with North Koreanleader Kim Jong Un.

Earlier this week, Moonsent special envoys toPyongyang to help resolve thenuclear stalemate. After return-ing home, the envoys saidThursday that Kim still hasfaith in US President DonaldTrump and reaffirmed hiscommitment to a nuclear-freeKorean Peninsula, although heexpressed frustration overskepticism about his sincerity.

Trump later responded bytweeting, “Kim Jong Un ofNorth Korea proclaims ‘unwa-vering faith in PresidentTrump.’ Thank you toChairman Kim.

We will get it done togeth-er!” Moon said the outcome ofhis envoys’ Pyongyang tripwas “much more than what wasexpected.” The next step innuclear diplomacy is uncertain.Negotiators seem deadlockedover whether North Koreatruly intends to denuclearize asit has pledged numerous timesin recent months. North Koreahas dismantled its nuclear androcket engine testing sites, butUS officials want more serious,concrete action taken beforeNorth Korea obtains outsideconcessions.

Kim told the South Koreanenvoys that he is willing to takestronger steps if his “goodwill”measures are met in kind,according to chief envoy ChungEui-yong. Kim has repeatedlysaid he wants a step-by-stepdisarmament process in whicheach of his actions is recipro-cated with corresponding out-side concessions.

North Korea, which says itsnuclear program is aimed atcountering U.S. Militarythreats, has demanded theUnited States jointly declare anend to the 1950-53 Korean War,which was halted by anarmistice, not a peace treaty.

During his meeting withthe South Korean envoys, Kimsaid an end-of-war declarationwouldn’t weaken the U.S.-South Korean alliance or leadto the withdrawal of the 28,500U.S. Troops stationed in South Korea to prevent anNorth Korean attack, accordingto Chung.

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An Indian-origin womandescribed as a “bogus

immigration lawyer” has beenjailed for five years’ imprison-ment after being found guiltyof six counts of fraud by falserepresentation.

Harvinder Kaur Thethi,from the West Midlands regionof England, had been convict-ed by Southwark Crown Courtin London in July for falselyclaiming to be a barrister, solic-itor and a UK Home Officeofficial with the ability toprogress immigration applica-tions.

Despite being unqualifiedin any of these fields, she wenton to obtain GBP 68,000 fromvulnerable people in payment for immigration relat-ed services, which werepromised but not delivered, thecourt was told.

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The modern woman is amulti-tasker and hard

pressed for time, switchingbetween role plays. A nor-mal day looks chaotic withchores like dropping chil-dren to school while goingto work and maybe join-ing colleagues for formalevenings to crack a dealworth lakhs. These superwomen are thus unable tofind suitable time forthemselves and theirstyling needs. In such a sit-uation, do-it-yourself fash-ion comes to the rescue.

“The modern Indianwoman has so many dif-ferent needs. She is travel-ling, working, she is multi-faceted. The concept formy new collection camefrom this lack of time.How will you transformclothes, hair and lookeffortlessly to fill all theseshoes? Styling needs haveincreased substantially butyou cannot carry a bag fullof change in your car,” saidfashion designer Ashish ofthe brand Ashish N Soni.“People commute for longhours and have differentroles to play, where is thetime to go to a salon everyday, where is the time toget styling help?” he asked.

To answer these ques-tions, his latest collectionis based on the concept ofmetamorphosis that helpstransform one’s look fromcasual to formal, daywearto evening wear with itsdifferent different layersand silhouettes. “Lift thecollar and it becomessomething else, removethe scarf and it’s moreeasy-going, open the jack-et and you have a niceinteresting blouse whichyou carry in your bag thatyou can change intoquickly to make it into anevening wear. The outfitthat was meant for workcan easily become some-thing else,” he said.

The collection was a“see now, buy now” onefor AW 2018 season forwhich he used a variety ofsilhouettes and fabrics,something that he doesn’tdo usually. He used light-weight wool, wool crepe,polyviscose for drapesalong with heavy satin,cutwork organzas andjacquards, which wereseen in a light Japanesedress and pant suit.Assymetry defined the sil-houettes, best seen in atrouser with only one sideof wide bottom and jack-ets that are different oneach side.

He also used the ideaof Siamese twins to juxta-pose two looks with sim-ilar fabrics and silhou-ettes but are remodelledentirely because of thestyling. “I wanted to showthe togetherness that onecould have. I was creatingan illusion,” he said.

The designer also cre-ated uniforms for an all-women SWAT team inIndia. “While making theuniform, I thought theyshould look approachableand feel good about them-selves. Their comfort fac-tor was important and toan ordinary citizen theyshould be easily identifi-able in an emergency sit-uation. With traditionalkhakis, it’s difficult to tellthem apart in an emer-gency situation. So thebrief I received was about using blue and we experiment-ed with camouflage blue to create the outfit,” he said. Fastand furiously feisty, we say.

Iam wearing my PhD,” says HemlataJain with a laugh. Dressed in a bluechecked Patteda Anchu, Jain can

rightfully claim so as she is behind therevival of this handloom cotton sarifrom North Karnataka which had gotlost somewhere in the onslaught ofpowerloom, synthetic versions. Thepetite Jain has the looks of a scholaractivist with her hair tied tightly in abun. But her frail frame hides a spineof steel.

The Patteda Anchu, with a plainborder and really tiny checks, has twopallus in different colours. It is madeof a thick material and is reversible. Sofor all practical purposes you have asgood as two saris but that is not whatmakes it special. Rather it is the storybehind it that makes it worth so muchmore than the price it has in the mar-ket.

Displaying her collection at theDastkaari Haat in MeharchandMarket, where one can pick fromblack, chocolate brown, purple, offwhite, blue and more eco-friendly andnatural colours, Jain settles down ona low stool to describe her journey. Asa PhD student at the National Instituteof Fashion Technology she kept hear-ing about many saris and crafts thathad disappeared in North Karnataka.“Everyone talks of Ilkal saris but noone talks of any other local saris whichwere worn by farmers and locals longago. People are just wearing synthet-ic saris. You don’t see cottons despitethis region being a cotton-growingone.

I kept hearing the name PattedaAnchu but there were no samples orevidence while records for the sariwent as far back as the 10th century.I undertook historical research andethnographic study and finally met a90-year-old from Kodaikal who hadseen it being woven. He mentionedplaces like Bhagalkot, YelammaSaundati and I went there three-fourtimes and finally found a girl whosemother was a Devdasi, since this sariwas traditionally offered to themwhen the daughter of the house gotmarried,” she says. And it was this girlwho dug out a fragment which hergrandmother had got from the tem-ple which when tested turned out to

be 250 years old!But this was not the end of Jain’s

quest. She looked around for weaverswho could recreate the fabric and final-ly found one. Since her survey, whichwas a part of the Ph D, indicated thatthe saris would not be well-received,she got him to weave stoles and tow-els in the fabric. Soon Jaya Jaitly andher Dastkari Haat stepped in andplaced an order for a 100 saris whichgave her a shot in the arm. “The eventwas slotted for December but kept get-ting postponed as there was just oneweaver and it was not possible to com-plete the order,” she says. The eventwas finally held in May and the entirestock was sold out in two and a halfdays with orders being placed foranother 100.

Jain decided to introduce newcolours. “I wanted to dye them in ecofriendly colours but at the same timeone that would not bleed. So I start-ed doing eco-friendly dyes which I amtrying to get patented,” she says. Thisinnovation led to another set of prob-lems. The weavers wanted to weave thesaris in traditional colours of red, yel-low and chocolate brown and not haveanything to do with black which isconsidered inauspicious. “I dyed

seven-eight kg of yarn in the colour toget over their inhibitions,” she says andall this while she was teaching atSymbiosis, Pune to fund the projectwhile shuttling to the villages on the

weekend. It was when the weaversrealised that she was not going to giveup and was here to stay that theyrelented. “I started with one loom in2014. Now we have 30 weavers andanother 15 helpers,” she says. Shefounded the Punarjeevana, a self-help group for the weavers to makethem sustainable at around the sametime. “The idea is to make use of local-ly grown cotton, dye it with naturalcolours to reduce the carbon footprintas much as possible,” she says.

There were more obstacles. Whileshe was busy completing the order,some women who had picked up thesaris from her started selling them onthe social media claiming that they hadrevived it. “Another one cut up the sari,fashioned pants out of it and postedit on the social media, saying that thesari had been reinvented. Anotherlady visited the cluster, walked into theweaver’s house claiming to be myfriend and clicked photographs whichshe promptly put on Facebook andsaid that she was working on it,” shesays.

Others picked up saris from herand gave them to other weavers toreplicate them. “Three clusters awaythere was a powerloom shed where

this was taking place. Whatever newcolour I developed, however innov-ative, it was replicated,” says Jain.

What made the sari particularlysought after all of a sudden was thefact that it had reversible pallus, waszero maintanence and was so thickthat it could be worn even without apetticoat – making it open to reinter-pretation and modern twists. Andmore than that, the Patteda Anchuhad made a buzz in the society circleswhere it became extremely popular.

As is the case with many hand-loom saris, the replication of PattedaAnchu takes place on a powerloomwhich costs one-fourth the price butcommands the same amount ofmoney as a handloom. “They are rid-ing on the back of handloom andkilling it,” says Jaitley, Dastkari HaatSamiti. Depending on the design, thesaris are priced between �800-2,000.

What makes a hand-woven saridifferent and a masterpiece accordingto Jain is the slight difference. “These

are woven by humans so there isalways a margin for a slight difference.This is what makes it unique,” says Jain.

Adds Jaitley, “While shoppingonline, you can never make out the dif-ference between the two. The touchand the feel are important. Haats andbazaars are essential for this very rea-son that people can see, touch and feelit. The experience cannot be replicat-ed online.”

Despite the odds Jain continues tosoldier on. She has held pop-ups in dif-ferent cities but the demand has beenvaried. “In Pune people prefer to buymaterials, in Chennai, Hyderabad thefabric is important but they are quickbuyers. In Mumbai, the emphasis is onthe story behind the sari. In Calcuttaon the other hand it is traditionalcolours like red and yellow that work,”she says.

While funding and imitationscontinue to be a problem, the groupis now self-sustainable. “Weavers comeup with ideas and want to experiment.They want to know what fared well ata sale and what did not and are look-ing at making improvements,” saysJain. With the weavers firmly behindher, she can wear her Ph.D on hersleeve, practically.

If there is one show on television for whichfans wait with bated breath, it is Amitabh

Bachchan’s cult show Kaun Banega Crorepatiaka KBC. Ever wondered what happens tothe amount that a contestant wins at the KBCshow? Or what struggles they go through toget to the hot seat? Are they also helped withthe questions they are being asked?

Sonia Yadav, who made it to the hot seatbecoming the first contestant of KBC’s sea-son 10, hails from Haryana and has servedthe Indian Air Force as Squadron Leader intheir engineering branch for the past 10years.

Struggles are part of human lives, but thequestion lies in how fiercely one sails one’sboat through the storm. The officer sharesher #KabTakRokoge moment that finds itsinspiration from her mother. “My motherhas worked hard for me and my siblings.Being kids, we never realised her role andwhat she did for us.” She reminisces shar-ing an event from her life, “Me and my fam-ily had just shifted to Rewari, Haryana in1999 and my father, an army officer, hadbeen posted to Kargil for the war. He could-n’t see the entire house been built for us andjust managed to get one room and a kitchenbuilt.

And he left for the front. The surround-ings weren’t safe. The house didn’t have aproper entrance gate. We were four siblings,all girls, and Haryana hasn’t been in the listof the safest places. Keeping herself awake,my mother used to do some householdchores every night outside the room to guardthe house and her four young daughters.”

Talking about her journey to the hotseat, she says, “My sister saw an advertise-ment in newspaper about the preliminaryauditions for KBC. I thought of participat-ing in it. It was just for fun.”

She shares how she quit Indian Air

Force, taking a voluntary retirement, to workfor the empowerment of women and pro-mote education for girls.

“Being in the armed forces, I want toserve my country with 24x7 duty. I could notget into other ventures along with that,which is why I thought of leaving the IndianAir Force. Politics is not my motto. I want

to empower women in any manner possi-ble and take a step towards girl education.Residing in Haryana, I feel strongly abouthow education can change one’s life as it didto me.”

She adds, “I’m currently trying to con-nect with a few social entrepreneurs inHaryana, so that we could meet thesarpanchs of each and every village. Wewould need to get a data of the state of edu-cation in those villages, specifically nearRewari, from where I belong.”

Sonia talks about how wonderful a plat-form KBC is, especially for the people withinspirational stories.

She says it’s not just a game show butmore than that. “I will not talk aboutmyself but the stories that I heard there werevery impactful and influencing. I thinkknowledge is power. For instance, a girl,highly ambitious, from Amritsar had comealong with me. Her father ran a cart (thela)for selling plants and had been a daily wager.She was trying since 15 years to fulfil herparent’s dream of buying a house for herfamily. Stories like these really help to seethat there’s the other side to the world aswell.”

Is the show scripted or is a contestantbeing told what is to be done during theshow? She answers, “I am not aware if theshow is scripted or not but when I wentthere, there was a question related to AirForce. Since I belong to the field, theyexpected me to know the answer that ques-tion. If a candidate has struggled and has astory, the producers try to pose relatedquestions.”

She quit the show at the question for �25lakh, ultimately drawing ��2.5 lakh as thewinning amount. She lost all the four life-lines, phone-a-friend, 50-50, audience polland ask the expert.

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Filmmaker Karan Johar says he finds it disturb-ing that there's a lack of information and aware-

ness about sexual individuality.In an interview, Karan spoke of ‘men’s enlight-

enment’, and touched upon how there are peoplewho are gay but married (to someone else)because of society pressures, and there are men whoare scared to tell their parents.

Karan said: “It is very disturbing as firstly thereis no information on sexual individuality. I thinkthe most important thing is when there is infor-mation and awareness, it leads to understandingit and then it leads to get you an emotion towardsit. “When you don’t have an understanding andawareness of what it is, how deeply rooted and emo-tional it is, well that's how it is.”

He said judgments must be kept aside.“When a man loves a woman or a man loves

a man, the level of intensity is not something thatyou are supposed to judge.

“It’s something you have to evolve with, it’ssomething you have to accept, and it is a part ofthe human DNA,” added the filmmaker.

He said the “Log kya kahenge (what will peo-ple say)” phenomenon has to end because it doesnot matter what anybody says because eventuallywhat they say will pass but your life stays.

It took you a long time to say this and to acceptit yourself, the interviewer asked Karan, who in hisbook An Unsuitable Boy said he didn’t feel the needto scream out his sexual orientation.

The 46-year-old filmmaker said: “No I don’tthink I am not living in a way people will say orjudge. So, I do what I like and I do what I love.

“When I love to dance on stage, I do. They say,as a filmmaker I should not dance on a reality stageand I say ‘who said this is a rule?’ They say 'youare not supposed to do a talk show’. If I feel likepouting in a selfie, I’ll do it because it makes mehappy. “And I don’t want to do anything to conformwith what the world says. When you do that withconfidence and you do that with conviction, let metell you nothing can come in the way of that.”

When the Supreme Court on Thursday dec-rimanilised homosexuality between consentingadults by declaring Section 377, the penal provi-sion which criminalised gay sex as “manifestly arbi-trary”, Karan, along with a slew of Bollywoodcelebrities, called it a “historic” judgment.

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Loneliness is an urban conceptwhich is similar across world cities

— London, New York, Bombay,” saysKanwal Sethi, director of Once Again,Netflix’s latest film release which hasbeen making a mark on account of itsstory where two mature adults fall inlove. The idea fascinated him as didthat of a strong woman, a widow inurban India who wants to be indepen-dent.

The director, who divides histime between Germany and India,believes that a change in content ishappening gradually. “There is achange happening in the last few years.The way a story is told and also theaudience, there is a process of matur-ing of both. I see a similar develop-ment all over Europe, especially inGermany. There are mainstreammovies and arthouse ones and nowboth of them are moving in eachother’s direction,” he says.

While Once Again grabbed eye-balls, Sethi is not exactly a newcom-er to the craft. His first feature was aGerman film with KulbhushanKharbanda and was the story of an ille-gal immigrant, a Punjabi man, whomeets a German wanting to leaveGermany. “So there was one personcoming in and the other was leaving,”he says.

Once Again, which many peopleinitially compared to The Lunchbox asthe promo indicated that Shefali Shah,the main lead, runs a restaurant andsends a tiffin to Amar, played byNeeraj Kabi, is quite different in treat-ment.

The director narrowed down onthe cast of Shefali and Neeraj on

account of several reasons. “I met quitea few people. Shefali had the maturi-ty and the sensuality and also thebluntness that Tara needed as a humanbeing. She liked the script and wedecided that we would work togeth-er. I was very confident that Neeraj canbring the internal conflict of the char-acter. The story has a rhythm. It hasan outer drama but the inner dramafor me was always bigger. One does notfeel that he is acting,” he says.

Neeraj plays an actor who feels hecan’t dance. Incidentally, the actor isa trained dancer. “Amar is a characterwho thinks that he cannot dance in hislife and in love. But for me Amar cando it and this is his journey. Oftenthings happen professionally and at thesame time parallel things happen inlife. There are bridges between thetwo,” he says.

But besides the two characters,there is a third, Mumbai, which playsan equally important role in themovie. We get to see the lesser knownparts of the Millenium city. So thereare no stock shots of Marine Drive orthe Gateway but of the nooks andcrannies that a local knows about. “Ibelieve that the space that we live intells a lot about us. During the writ-ing it was conceptualised that boththese characters are different and it wasdepicted through the city. It is the hor-izontal and vertical journey of the twolovers. That is why ‘Bombay’ as an ideahas played a major role in the film,” hesays.

Filmmaker Nitin Kakkar sought freshness in his new film Mitron more thananything, be it in the cast or the location, and wanted to tell a simple story

about India that appeals to everyone.“I have seen movies about UP, Punjab, so I thought if I look for a new state

there would be freshness. And I realised that Gujarat has not been explored muchin Hindi cinema and decided to locate the film there. When I went to GujaratI saw a culture of food trucks that were coming up and decided to use that inthe film,” he said.

The film stars JackkyBhagnani, Kritika Kamra, PratikGandhi and Shivam Parekh.“Jackky has not done a film insometime and is in a way rein-venting himself, while Kamrahas only been seen in TV anda great actor like her wasn’t get-ting good opportunities there,”said Kakkar.

Like Jackky, he too looksforward to reinvent himself.Unlike his earlier tragic-comicstories like Filmistaan, for whichhe received a National Award,he has moved on to a lightercomedy about a clueless middleclass Gujarati man who wants tofind a direction and a wife.

“Any artist doesn’t want tokeep repeating themselves. Idon’t want to fall under anybracket. I want to try differentgenres so that I am able to growas a director. I like to put myselfin uncomfortable positions anddo things I haven’t done before.I push myself to do somethingelse and learn something in theprocess,” he said. He addedthat he doesn’t enjoy followingtrends or one process.

Ram Singh Charlie, which is yet to release, and Filmistaan were both dark-er comedies and yet he is ready to try romance, thriller, army and war-relatedfilms. While he wrote the script for the first two, the current film, Mitron, isadapted by Sharib Hashmi from a Telugu film.

“If I have a story to say, I write the script, if I don’t, I can trust another per-son’s writing too,” said Nitin, who began as a director in theatre, then movingon to TV shows before finally directing Filmistaan. “It is always better to bankon a script than trends, because they go out of fashion,” he said.

The film, Mitron, named after a word often used by Prime Minister NarendraModi garnered questions about the choice of the title, which was clarified say-ing that it’s a common way to refer to friends in Gujarat. Asked if he faced anyridicule over it, he said, “I don’t think people are stupid to unnecessarily ridiculeanything. There have been questions. People wanted to know why mitron andif it had something to do with Modi ji, but that has been clarified,” he said.

What if you are being bul-lied by someone and thereis nobody around to help

you out? How will you manage toget out of his firm grip? Just be pre-emptive, aware, focussed and strikewith your strongest physical assetat the opponent’s weakest zone.Give your limbs full play, punches,swings, kicks and lunges.

Dealing with real-world com-bat situations, Krav Maga is the tra-ditional martial arts started in the1930s. It was developed as a self-defence module by ImiLitchenfield, a boxer and wrestlerwho mixed moves along with rawstreet-fighting tactics to protect theJewish quarters during the War. Itis quickly gaining followers andconverts in India. Refael Kashani orRafi, the Israeli Krav Maga (IKM)chief instructor (E4), instructsaround a hundred students at theSarvodaya Co-education SeniorSecondary School. He started train-ing children after one of his stu-dents in Israel was almost attacked.“My student, who has been train-ing with me since she was a four-year-old, went to her friend’s placeonce and was followed whilereturning home. In Israel, it getscompletely dark at 5 pm and shewas taking some shortcuts to reachearlier. When the person followingher came near her, she sensed athreat and turned around to kickhim in the crotch. I hope to makeevery child capable of doing thesame and be prepared for anymishap,” Rafi says.

The concept of the martial art

developed from Jewish travailsduring the Holocaust and found itsroots in World War II. “TheHolocaust was an extremely diffi-cult period for the Jewish people.There was a need for the people tolearn this art to defend them-selves. They didn’t know earlier,which doesn’t mean they shouldn’tknow it today. The problems weredifferent but the principle was thesame — people need to feel safe.What we have today is many yearsof evolution in Krav Maga,” he says.“During the Holocaust we wit-nessed something very negative,but then we turned it into some-thing really positive instead of sit-ting and grieving. We built a coun-try, an army, and a system. KravMaga is one of the strongest toolswe have in Israel today,” he adds.

Since times are not here to stay,why not change and keep pace withthe times, and who better than chil-dren of the current generation toupdate us? Rafi says, “I like to workwith kids because I get informationfrom them which is relevant fortoday. When I was a kid, maybe Ilearnt something which might notbe good for their time. And I think,this is only the link from theWorld War II and the Holocaust toteaching Krav Maga today.”

He began training at the age ofnine and has mastered the art overthe past 26 years. But how did hefirst get there? He says that if a justenvironment is created for children,they could become leaders. “Ibelieve that there are no bad kids,they all are good but only bad cir-

cumstances in which they grow up.There is only a lack of support.Through good teachers, some ofthese kids could also be a primeminister or win a Nobel. I want togive power to the kids to makethem believe they are capable goingahead with their dreams,” he adds.

He grew up in a “problematicneighbourhood of Israel” fromwhere he was able to leave andbecome an international levelteacher. “My coach, Eli Ben Ami,dragged me out from the poorstreets to the gym. It was my exitfrom problems and troublesomesurroundings. He made me prac-tise vigorously, eventually taughtme to converse in English, mademe learn maths, science, anatomy,physiology. I never had any booksin my life and all of a sudden, I hada 100 books in front of me.” Therewas someone to lift him up and hetries to pay the good karma forwardnow. He shares how his hard workhad paid off. “I follow my dreamstoday. I worked really hard tomake myself capable and respon-sible enough to go around theglobe. Today, I head IKM institu-tions in Canada, Israel, Australia,Mexico and even the United States.And now, India too.”

He shares the “interesting”story of bringing the art to India.“In my schools located in Canada,I came across many Indians, whotold me about how they wishedthey knew Krav Maga since theirchildhood and could learn it inIndia. Then I thought, ‘why not?What’s the problem after all? Let’s

do something in Indiaas well.’”

However, the onlything that is lacking isthe support from gov-ernment officials andthe authorities whoneed to understandthe significance andmove towards creatinga more aware andbraver society. “Forus to conduct thepractice on a regularbasis, we wouldrequire funding for it. Idon’t like to ask forcharity or beg for dona-tions.

I would really like toconnect with the educationministry to show the offi-cials how important thistraining could be for thecurriculum,” he says.

Rafi finds that thelanguage barrier couldhave been a big chal-lenge but he learntEnglish so that he couldconnect with children and makethem understand the techniques. “Itry my best to be reachable when-ever it is possible, even if it is twoor five in the morning,” he says.

The art is now 50 years old andhas spread across 30 countries. Rafi,who is one of the highest levelexperts, says “I want to createsomething for everyone — kids,adults and senior citizens. I want totell them that Krav Maga is foreveryone, forget the age.”

The Predator sees writer/director ShaneBlack returning to a world he first expe-

rienced back in 1987 as an actor. In thisnew film, he’s expanding and exploring thestory of the alien hunters and the humanbeings that must face the threat of extinc-tion. With the government attempting tocover up the extent of predator incursionson Earth, a rag-tag group of military vet-erans must figure out what is going on andhow to save the world – or at least them-selves – as the battle spreads from thedepths of outer space to once-safe subur-bia.

Olivia Munn is a talented actress whobegan working on television and has suc-cessfully segued into cinematic work.She’s known for movies including X-Men:Apocalypse, Magic Mike and OfficeChristmas Party. In The Predator, she’s sci-entist Casey Bracket, dragged into anadventure she might not be quite ready for,but will bring all of her skills to help with.Munn talks about getting the part, her ownhistory with the series and the sheernumber of spines being ripped out in thefilm.

� How does your character fit in thescope of the film?

She’s an evolutionary scientist and biol-ogist. In this movie, we have two storylinesthat merge into one. We’ve got TrevanteRhodes, Boyd Holbrook and Thomas Janeand that group of guys — the soldiers —and their interactions with the Predator.And on the other side, my character hasbeen brought in by the CIA because of herexpertise in evolutionary biology to get abetter understanding of what they havefound. She’s only called in if there is a high-er life that’s found, and here there is defi-nitely some alien activity.

��How did you get involved?Initially, I was not interested because

typically in a big movie like this, the femalerole is usually delegated to just being thelove interest. But Shane just wanted to meetme. I’m a huge fan of his work and KissKiss Bang Bang is one of my all-time

favourites. I really trusted him as a direc-tor. He’s a filmmaker who is really collab-orative and actually allows you to bringwhat you want to the character. I read thescript and then had another meeting withShane about some of my thoughts. He wasreally receptive to it and I was in.

��Your character definitely doesn’t comeacross as a damsel in distress…

When you’re fighting for your life, youhave to shoot, even though nobody wantsto be in a position where they have to fightfor their life. The guys —they’re soldiers— but I approached this character as a sci-entist. I grew up in a military family so Iknew how to shoot guns. Making thismovie was not about us finding momentsfor her to not be a damsel in distress. It justwasn’t on the page; it’s not what we weredoing.

��Was there extensive training or prepa-ration for the role?

She’s not a trained athlete or assassinbut I think she’s healthy and physicallyactive. We trained with guns and that wasreally fun. And I loved being able to do thatwith the guys, learning how to shoottogether. Every time we did that, I learntdifferent techniques, tools and skills. Butthen I tried to incorporate what my char-acter would do and put a little bit of shak-iness into it.

In this movie, there’s something real-ly big going on, which is fascinating for her.This is something that she’s waited herentire life for — especially as an evolution-ary scientist. And yet when this is happen-ing right before her eyes, there is shock andawe. While everyone else is running awayfrom the Predator, she’s running towards

the aliens, because she’s fascinated.

�Does working on real sets and locationhelp your performance?

It’s very intimidating and visceral.And it really puts you in that space. But thatbeing said, there’s still so much stuff thatis put in later with CG and the VFX andeverything that really amps it up for theaudience at home. We get enough that wecan allow our performances to be evenmore real. A movie like this really takesadvantage of how great technology is andwhere we’ve come from, and what we cando with it and how realistic things are.Especially when it comes to like the blood,guts, the destruction and death.

��Shane has said the film won’t shy awayfrom the violence…

I’m really big on it. I think we’ve got-ten so politically correct that we lose thefun of going to the movies sometimes. Forme, the more bloody spines being rippedout, the better.

�� What is your relationship with theoriginal Predator? How old were youwhen you first saw it and how cool is itto now be in a Predator film?

I actually hadn’t watched it. I didn’t seeit until a few months before shooting. Iknew of it and maybe I knew some of thecatchphrases and lines but I had never seenit until I signed up for this movie. Whilethis is technically a sequel, it’s not pickingup right where the other movies left off.

At the same time, its acknowledging allthe previous ones. And it’s interestingbecause we have some throwbacks from thevery first Predator, which I love. For me,it wasn’t imperative to have watched thatfilm before I signed on because I knew itwould be its own beast. After watching it,I kept saying to Shane, “Can we not havea scene where someone has to hide in themud? Can I go hide in the mud?” Becausethat’s a genius way to not be discovered byaliens.

Predator will release in India onSeptember 13, a day before the US.

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Opener Alastair Cook hit apatient half-century in thefinal match of his career as

England reached 123 for one at tea onthe opening day of the fifth and finalTest against India at the Oval onFriday.

The 33-year-old Cook, who isplaying his final Test for England afterwhich he will retire from internationalcricket, had eight hits to fence in his177-ball unbeaten innings as heshared 60 runs with opening partnerKeaton Jennings (23) and then forgedan unconquered 63-run stand withMoeen Ali (23) for the second wick-et.

At the break, Cook was unbeat-en on 66 runs, while Ali was battingon 23 not out having faced 102 balls.

Post lunch, India toiled hard andtightened their lines as the pacers gotsome seam movement. JaspritBumrah (0-31) and Ishant Sharma (0-17) bowled threatening spells, andcould have easily accounted for bothbatsmen.

In the 31st over, Ajinkya Rahanedropped Cook (on 37*) at gully offSharma. Three balls later, Virat Kohlidropped Ali (on 2*) at third slip offBumrah.

Ali also survived an lbw shout in33rd over off Bumrah, with India'sDRS appeal being turned down. Infact he was lucky to survive this ses-

sion at all, as Mohammed Shami (0-27) beat him on umpteen occasionsbut simply didn't find the edge.

Cook was more solid at the otherend, and duly reached his 57th half-century off 139 balls to a rousingreception from the packed crowd. Indoing so he put on 50 with Ali off 158balls for the second wicket stand.

Despite India's toils the break-through didn't come, even as Englandscored at a slow pace with only 55runs coming in the two-hour sessionwith 100 coming up in only the 59thover.

Earlier, England made their beststart of the series, reaching 68-1 atlunch after skipper Joe Root won hisfifth consecutive toss of the series and

opted to bat.Cook as given a 'guard of honour'

by the Indian team as he walked outto bat in his final Test.

Opening bowlers Bumrah andSharma found some movement in theinitial overs, but the wicket turned outto be best for batting in this series sofar.

The early movement disappearedvery quickly as Cook and Jenningsmade a sedate start. Hanuma Vihari(0-1), who earned his maiden Test capreplacing Hardik Pandya, was also inaction as he came on to bowl first-change in the 14th over.

It was his solitary over though, asJadeja (1-36) and Shami took overbowling duties after the drinks' break.

Cook and Jennings brought uponly their second 50-partnership thisseries off 107 balls, and went on to putup their best opening stand in fiveTests — 60 runs. Their previoushighest was 54 at Trent Bridge.

Jennings though couldn't go onfor longer, as he edged Jadeja to legslip in the 24th over with KL Rahuladding another catch to his tally.

Ali and Cook then batted out theremaining session until lunch, withIndia hardly creating any threateningchances.

England have already taken anunassailable 3-1 lead in the series withwins in Birmingham, Lord's andSouthampton. India won the thirdTest at Nottingham.

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Sprint sensation Hima Das has pulledout of the IAAF Continental Cup as

the Athletics Federation of India wantsher to give rest after a hectic season whichsaw her become the junior world 400mchampion.

The prestigious tournament is to beheld in Czech Republic from Saturday.

Hima was initially among sevenIndian athletes who were to take part inthe season-ending IAAF event in Ostravaon September 8 and 9 but has now beenreplaced by Australia's Anneliese Rubbieas the second runner from Asia-Pacific.

The Continental Cup is competedamong four teams — Europe, Africa,America and Asia-Pacific — in 18 eventseach in both men and women's sectionsand the mixed 4x400m relay. The top twoathletes in the season's rankings fromeach of the four regions take part in theContinental Cup.

"Yes, Hima is not running in theIAAF Continental Cup. The AFI hasdecided to give her rest. She has run somany races this year from theCommonwealth Games to the WorldJuniors and the Asian Games. It is notgood to make her run so many races," atop coach said on Friday.

The coach, however, ruled out anyinjury to Hima, though reports had saidshe sustained minor side strains during

the mixed 4x400m relay race during theAsian Games due to 'obstruction' by aBahraini runner. She was also seenlimping after running the 4x400m relayrace in Jakarta.

"There is no injury to Hima. Athletesneed good recovery time after a hecticseason. She is very young, she has juststarted her career and we have to preserveand manage her workload lest she isburnt out," the coach said.

The 18-year-old from a village nearDhing in Assam started running only inlate 2016 but has quickly risen to be thenew Indian sprint sensation in a shortspan of time.

She created history by becoming thefirst Indian to win a track Gold in WorldJunior Championships in Finland in July.In the just-concluded Asian Games, shebroke two national records in a span oftwo days in the women's 400m (51.00and 50.79 seconds) race though she hadto be content with a Silver behind SalwaNaser (50.09) of Bahrain.

Hima was also part of the Gold win-ning 4x400m relay team and silver-win-ning mixed 4x400m relay quartet.

Neeraj Chopra (men's javelin),Arpinder Singh (men's triple jump),Mohd Anas (men's 400m), JinsonJohnson (men's 800m), Sudha Singh(women's 3000m steeplechase) and P UChitra (women's 1500m) are the Indianstaking part in the Continental Cup.

�-��� �2������

Indian shuttlers Sameer Verma and RMVGurusaidutt set up a semifinal clash after

staving off spirited challenge from theirrespective opponents in the men's singlescompetition of the $ 75,000 BWF TourSuper 100 tournament here Friday.

Top seed Sameer, who had clinched theSwiss Open this year, had to dig deep intohis reservoir to outwit compatriot PratulJoshi 16-21, 26-24, 21-7 in a match that last-ed 55 minutes.

Gurusaidutt, a former CommonwealthGames Bronze medallist, recovered froma game down to outwit Malaysia's Lim ChiWing 13-21, 22-20, 21-11 in a 59-minutequarterfinal match.

Among other Indians in fray,

Commonwealth Games Silver medallistsSatwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shettyoutclassed India's Tarun Kona andMalaysia's Lim Khim Wah 21-13, 21-10 tosail into the last four.

Fourth seeds Arun George andSanyam Shukla also entered the final fourwith a 21-17, 21-15 win over Hong Kong'sChan Tsz Kit and Yeung Shing Choi to setup a semifinal clash with Satwik andChirag.

The top Indian mixed doubles pair ofPranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddydefeated Hong Kong's Yeung Ming Nokand Ng Tsz Yau 22-20, 14-21, 21-17 in a52-minute match to also progress to thesemifinals.

The world no 24 Indian pair will faceanother Hong Kong combination of Chang

Tak Ching and Ng Wing Yung, seeded fifth,on Saturday.

However in women's singles, SriKrishna Priya Kudaravalli and RasikaRaje bowed out after suffering defeats inthe quarterfinals.

While Jia Min of Singapore ended SriKrishna's run in the tournament with a 21-12, 21-12 win, Raje was outwitted 19-21,8-21 by Sim Yu Jin of Korea in anotherquarterfinal clash.

The mixed doubles pairs of S Sunjithand Sruthi KP and Arjun MR andManeesha K also crashed out of the con-test. Second seeded men's doubles pair ofArjun MR and Ramchandran Shlok andwomen's doubles pair of Pooja D andSanjana Santosh also failed to cross thequarterfinal hurdle.

�-��� -�-���

The Indian hockey team'sperennial problem of con-

ceding late goals has raisedconcerns about nerves butmen's coach Harendra SinghFriday rejected the idea ofgetting a psychologist onboard, saying the word has a"negative vibe" to it.

The men's team fetched arather disappointing Bronze atthe recently-concluded AsianGames after losing in a shoot-out to Malaysia in the semifi-

nals. India eventually defeatedPakistan for the Bronze in theplay-off.

The setback didn't justcost the team a shot at a sec-ond successive Gold but alsodirect qualification to the 2020Olympics.

Asked if the side neededhelp to deal with pressure sit-uations with professional help,Harendra was dismissive.

"Why do you need psy-chologists?" he asked.

If gaining confidence is theaim, then you can even consulta commoner and take motiva-tion from him. The word psy-chologist itself carries a nega-tive vibe and the players feelthat they are doing somethingwrong for which they need toconsult a psychologist," hesaid on the sidelines of theteam's jersey launch.

"I don't know that word. Inany team the biggest psychol-ogist is the coach and youyourself. If I'll not motivatemyself then no one in theworld can motivate (me)," saidHarendra.

He said it is the coach's jobto ensure that the players'emotional needs are under-stood and addressed.

"...Rather than going andgetting the help from a psy-chologist, who has no clueabout the team and sports, noclue about how the playersbehave," he explained.

As for the team's overallAsiad performance, Harendradescribed it as a bad memoryand a learning curve.

"Look at the positive side,look at the data and thenmove to the World Cup,Whatever happened at the

Asian Games, that's a biglearning curve for the players,coach and the staff," Harendrasaid.

"...That should not berepeated, that is more impor-tant, whatever happened wecan erase that bad memorywhen we do well in the WorldCup," Harendra told reportershere referring to the premiertournament in December.

The coach and the entireteam, along with legends suchas Ajit Pal Singh, AshokKumar, Dilip Turkey, DhanrajPilley and Sandeep Singh, wasat the Friday event.

"They (the team) have a lotof positive things and if wemove forward with that posi-tive mindset. We are mental-ly and physically capable ofturning (things around)," thecoach said.

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Bangladesh have added batsmanMominul Haque to their squad for

the Asia Cup as backup to several play-ers carrying injuries, selectors said onFriday.

"He is a top-order batsman, who canplay as an opener or in (the) one-downposition. So we thought his inclusionmight be useful in the tournament," saidHabibul Bashar.

Opener Tamim Iqbal has an issuewith his finger while uncapped left-han-der Nazmul Hossain hurt his left thumbduring a recent training session. "We arehopeful they will both play. But wethought Mominul might play just in casethey feel any problem," Bashar added.

Bangladesh are Pool B alongside SriLanka and Afghanistan in the six-nation Asia Cup, which will run fromSeptember 15-28 in the United ArabEmirates.

The Tigers also have some fitnessconcerns regarding all-rounder ShakibAl Hasan, who was keen to skip the AsiaCup to have a surgery on a finger.

But the Bangladesh Cricket Boardinsisted on playing him in the tourna-ment, putting his surgery on hold untilOctober when they host Zimbabwe.

Shakib in a recent interview with theEnglish-language Daily Star said that heis only 20-30 percent fit, a statement thatwas quickly dismissed by Bangladeshcoach Steve Rhodes.

"I don't believe he is 20-30 percentfit. I think he is a lot fitter than that,"Rhodes said in Dhaka on Thursday.

"He is not fully fit. But if he playsanything like he played in theCaribbean, then that will be a massiveasset to Bangladesh cricket," Rhodessaid.

�-��� �����1�

India Blue thrashed defending champion IndiaRed by an innings and 187 runs in the final

Friday to win the Duleep Trophy at NPRCollege ground here.

Spinners Deepak Jagbir Hooda (5 for 56) andSaurabh Kumar (5 for 51) needed just 10.5 overson the fourth day to bundle out India Red for172 in the second innings.

Overnight not-out batsmen Ishan Kishanand Writtick Chatterjee fell in the space of 10 runsto left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar and Hoodarespectively.

The talented, young Kishan could only addfive runs to his score of 25, while Chatterjeemoved from 13 to 15 before being caught byRicky Bhui off Hooda.

Off-spinner Hooda picked up the wickets ofM Prasidh (7) and Ishan Porel (6) to finish thingsoff for India Blue.

Earlier, Saurabh had Mihir Hirwani (5)caught behind by Smit Patel.

Left-arm spinner Swapnil Singh, who took5 for 58 in India Red's first innings, bowled onlythree overs and went wicketless in the second.

Swapnil had a pretty good match as he scored69 in India Blue's only innings apart from thefive-wicket haul. Nikhil Gangta was named manof the match for his superb knock of 130.

�,3�+,��;�With big guns K Srikanth and HSPrannoy battling poor form, Sameer Vermaemerged as the best-placed Indian in the race fora place in the BWF World Tour Finals with two-thirds of the season completed.

Sameer, who had clinched the Swiss Openearlier this year, remained in the hunt to qual-ify for the USD 1,500,000 season-ending eventas he is currently in the sixth place in Race toGuangzhou Rankings.

However, Srikanth, who had an exception-al season last year, languished at 41st place as hisbest finish this season was a semi-final at theMalaysia Open.

Prannoy, who had a topsy-turvy year witha series of injuries, was at the 42nd place.

In women's singles, Olympic and WorldChampionship Silver medallist P V Sindhu wasfirmly at the second place, while Saina Nehwalwas at 27th.

The BWF World Tour Finals will be heldfrom December 12 to 16 at Guangzhou, Chinaand only the top eight players in each of the fivedisciplines of the HSBC Race to GuangzhouRankings will qualify to compete in the seasonfinale. PTI

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Six-time champion Serena Williams sweptaside Anastasija Sevastova on Thursday toreach a ninth US Open final, where she'll face

Japanese trail blazer Naomi Osaka.Williams, seeded 17th as she seeks to add to

her 23 Grand Slam titles for the first time sincethe birth of her daughter Olympia last year, need-ed just 66 minutes to dispatch the 19th-seededSevastova 6-3, 6-0.

Osaka, seeded 20th, became the first Japanesewoman to reach a Grand Slam final with a 6-2,6-4 victory over American Madison Keys — lastyear's beaten finalist.

Williams called her return to the US Openfinal for a ninth time "incredible" given that shewas undergoing surgery for life threateningblood clots this time last year in the wake of giv-ing birth.

"To come from that, in the hospital bed, notbeing able to move and walk and do anything,now only a year later, I'm not training, but I'mactually in these finals, in two in a row," saidWilliams, who also reached the final atWimbledon.

"To come this far so fast .... I'm really look-ing forward to the possibilities." Williams lost outin the semi-finals of her last two US Opens, in2015 and 2016.

But with six titles in New York she needs justone more to surpass Chris Evert for most all-time— and she needs just one more Grand Slam titleto equal Australian Margaret Court's all-timerecord of 24.

Osaka, 20 and in the last four at a Slamfor the first time, admitted she was dri-ven by the idea of facing Williams.

Asked how she managed to save all13 break points she faced, Osaka said:"I was just thinking I really want toplay Serena." '

Asked to elaborate, Osaka seemed stunned."Because she's Serena — what do you mean!"

said Osaka, who had already made history alongwith men's semi-finalist Kei Nishikori as the firstJapanese man and woman to reach the last fourat the Slam.

"It still feels really weird because I've neverbeaten Madison before," she said. "I'm just gladI was able to get through this match."

G9��-�%,--��%��-�-,+D�Serena Williams once again targets a record

24th Grand Slam singles title at the US Open onSaturday.

Win or lose, the US great says she's just get-ting started in the latest phase of her career.

"I'm still on the way up," said the 36-year-old,who is playing her seventh tournament since thebirth of daughter Olympia on September 1 2017."There's still much more that I plan on doing."

Williams came agonizingly close to match-

ing Australian Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 major titles atWimbledon, but fell toAngelique Kerber in the final.

It was the high point of areturn that began in March and hasnot surprisingly been, at times, erratic.

But once again Williams has shown shecan rise to the occasion on the game'sbiggest stages.

Another US Open title — four yearsafter her sixth — would be not a culmina-tion but a springboard, she said.

"I just feel like there's a lot of growth stillto go in my game, that's actually the mostexciting part," she said.

"Even though I'm not a springchicken, I still have a very, very

bright future."The players that have faced

her so far in Flushing Meadows saythe current Serena is tough enough —

perhaps as good as ever."It's tough to say," said Anastasija

Sevastova after Williams swept past her 6-3, 6-0 in the semi-finals. "She played finalsin Wimbledon. She's playing finals here. Ithink this year is not bad for her."

Eighth-seeded Karolina Pliskova, whobriefly rose to number one last year, fell toWilliams in the quarter-finals, two yearsafter shocking her in the semis.

"I don't feel any difference," Pliskova saidof Williams's game. "She's playing with thesame power. She can still serve well. I thinkmaybe she's back on the level where shewas."

G���:.,�$:�D4�:���-,�����,�,�Naomi Osaka told US Open title oppo-

nent Serena Williams "I love you" justmoments after she became the first Japanesewoman to reach a Grand Slam final.

The 20-year-old breakout star of thetournament swept into the record booksand Saturday's championship match againstthe 23-time major winner with a 6-2, 6-4win over Madison Keys, the runner-up in2017.

When asked on court what she told her-self as she served for the match, she said:"Don't double fault".

"Why," asked the interviewer. "Serena,"replied the charismatic Osaka.

"I love you, Serena," she added beforeadding "I love you, mom; I love everybody".

Osaka, the 20th seed, has met anddefeated Williams once — at Miami inMarch.

That win came just a week after she hadlifted her first top-level trophy at the pres-tigious Indian Wells event in California.

Saturday will be the fulfilment ofOsaka's childhood dream of facing Williamsin a Grand Slam final.

"It still feels a little bit, like, surreal. Evenwhen I was a little kid, I always dreamedthat I would play Serena in a final of aGrand Slam," she said.

"Just the fact that it's happening, I'mvery happy about it. At the same time I feellike even though I should enjoy thismoment, I should still think of it as anoth-er match.

"Yeah, I shouldn't really think of her as,like, my idol. I should just try to play heras an opponent."

The contrast on Saturday cannot begreater.

Serena will be playing in her 31st GrandSlam final and ninth at the US Open whereshe is a six-time champion.

When the American, 16 years hersenior, won her first US Open in 1999,Osaka was not yet two years old.

Whatever happens in the final, Osakasaid she will remain a fan of the Americanwho is chasing a record-equalling 24thmajor, just a year after giving birth andundergoing four post-natal surgeries.

"When you just come back and thenyou make the finals of two slams, I thinkthat's really amazing," added Osaka in ref-erence to Williams's runner-up spot atWimbledon in July.

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World Cup winners France were heldto a 0-0 draw by Germany in a flat

start to the new UEFA Nations League onThursday, as Gareth Bale starred in a bigwin for Wales.

The heavyweight showdown at theAllianz Arena between the last two win-ners of the World Cup looked like the per-fect game to mark the opening night of thenew international competition.

However, on a rainy night in Bavaria,the meeting of the last two world cham-pions never really sparked into life,although the French were grateful to goal-keeper Alphonse Areola for a couple of finesaves in the second half.

Areola was starting in goal in place ofthe injured Hugo Lloris, winning his firstcap in the only change made byFrance coach Dider Deschampscompared to the side that startedthe World Cup final win overCroatia in July.

The Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeperintervened brilliantly todeny Marco Reus and keep out aMatthias Ginter header, while AntoineGriezmann's well-struck shot thatwas saved by Manuel Neuer was asclose as France came.

"I know that we are gettinggreedy, but a draw in Germany is agood result," Deschamps told Frenchtelevision channel TF1.

The Netherlandsare the other teamin Group 1 ofLeague A, andRonald Koeman's team travelto Paris on Sunday, when theFrench will turn out at home for thefirst time since their glorious campaign inRussia.

The top sides in each of the four groupsin League A will advance to a mini finaltournament in June next year, with theoverall Nations League title at stake beforethe Euro 2020 qualifiers begin.

Below the elite league, there is pro-motion and relegation and also a potentialpath to the European Championship forthose who do not make it via the traditionalqualifiers.

%::+���%-�<:��%�%%�Bale scored a stunning goal as an

impressive Wales beat the Republic ofIreland 4-1 in Ryan Giggs's first competi-tive match as manager.

Bale followed up his fine start to theseason with Real Madrid by curling in a

sensational strike from outside the box inthe 18th minute of their League Bencounter in Cardiff.

It was a 30th international goal for Bale,who is Wales' all-time leading goal-scor-

er. Tom Lawrence had already givenWales the lead before that, and 17-year-old Ethan Ampadu set upAaron Ramsey for the third goalbefore half-time.

Ireland's 1-0 win in Cardifflast October had ended

Wales' World Cup dream,but Martin O'Neill's sidewere dreadful this time.

Bale set up ConnorRoberts for the hosts'fourth after the break,before substitute ShaunWilliams pulled a goalback for the Irish afterrobbing Ramsey of pos-session.

"We wanted to putin a performance infront of the fans and

put out a statement,"Bale told Sky Sports.

Wales go to Denmark onSunday, with the Danes expected tofield a full-strength side in that gameafter sending out a team of lower-league and futsal players in a 3-0friendly loss in Slovakia onWednesday.

Also in League B,Ukraine came frombehind to win 2-1 in the

Czech Republic withOleksandr Zinchenko scoring

the decisive goal in stoppage time.In League C, Fulham's Stefan Johansen

scored twice as Norway beat Cyprus 2-0,and Bulgaria won 2-1 in Slovenia.

The first ever goal of the new NationsLeague was a stunner, scored by GiorgiChakvetadze in distant Astana, as Georgiabeat Kazakhstan 2-0 in Group 1 of LeagueD. In the same league, Arsenal's HenrikhMkhitaryan had a penalty saved as hisArmenia beat Liechtenstein 2-1.

��� 4�3

With CristianoRonaldo absent and

Luka Modric in action,Portugal and Croatia drew1-1 in a friendly Thursday.

In its first game sincereaching the World Cupfinal, Croatia got on theboard with forward IvanPerisic's goal and defend-er Pepe equalized beforehalftime.

The Portuguese had most of the scoring chances butcould not break through the Croatian defense at AlgarveStadium in southern Portugal.

Coach Fernando Santos did not call up Ronaldo say-ing the player needed more rest following a busy summerthat included a transfer from Real Madrid to Juventus.

Modric, a finalist with Ronaldo and Salah for the FIFAplayer of the year award, was substituted in the second half.

Portugal was eliminated by Uruguay in the round of 16of the World Cup. Croatia lost the final to France.

Defending European champion Portugal will make itsUEFA Nations League debut against Italy on Monday.Croatia will open at Spain on Tuesday.

�-��� &���13�

There was no stopping the golden runof India's junior shooters with

Hriday Hazarika claiming the 10m airrifle top honours before the women'steam combined for a new world recordand Gold at the ISSF WorldChampionships here on Friday.

Elavenil Valarivan also won theindividual Silver in women's 10m airrifle, going down narrowly to China'sdouble senior World Cup Gold-medal-list Shi Mengyao, in the final.

Elavenil shot 249.8 to Shi's 250.5.The 17-year old Shreya Agrawal won theBronze with an effort of 228.4 in thefinal. This is the tournament's 52nd edi-tion.

Four podium finishes on the sixthday of competition took India's tally to18, their best-ever showing in theInternational Shooting SportFederation's (ISSF) premier tourna-ment. The country's previous best wasthe six medals won during the 49th edi-tion in Zagreb, Croatia.

Hazarika, the lone Indian to quali-fy for the men's final with a score of627.3, was tied with Iran's MohammedAmir Nekounam on 250.1 once the fieldwas pruned to the regulation top eight.

But the 17-year-old Indian clinched

the yellow metal after prevailing in ashoot-off at the prestigious tourna-ment.

As the individual shots began,Hazarika strung together a fantasticseries of high 10s and by the end of the20th shot, he was leading the field by 0.5.

He held on to the lead till the 22ndshot from Nekounam. Then a 9.4 for his

23rd shot meant that at the end of theallotted 24 shots, both Hazarika andNekounam found themselves tied at250.1 points each.

In the shoot-off, Hazarika had thelast laugh with a 10.3 to the Iranian's10.2.

In the women's 10m air rifle, theteam of Elavenil (631), Shreya Agarwal

(628.5) and Manini Kaushik (621.2) thenproduced a sensational performance tototal 1880.7 for a Gold with a worldrecord to boot.

The score by Elavenil, a juniorworld cup Gold-medallist, was also anew junior world record.

The men's team, comprisingHazarika, Divyansh Panwar and ArjunBabuta, finished fourth with a combinedtotal of 1872.3.

There was disappointment for thecountry in the senior men's 50m riflethree position competition as none of theIndians in fray managed to make the cutfor the finals.

Asian Games Silver-medallistSanjeev Rajput was the lowest placedIndian at 58th with a score of 1158.

Swapnil Kusale was 55th with a scoreof 1161 while Akhil Sheoran took the44th position with 1167.

The Indian team, comprising thetrio, ended 11th with a total of 3503.

In women's 25m pistol, teenagerManu Bhaker was the best-placed Indianafter the first precision stage of qualifi-cation, shooting an impressive 294 outof 300 to be among the joint top fourscores. Asian Games champion RahiSarnobat was lying 27th with 289 whileAsiad Bronze medallist Heena Sidhushot 284 to be in 61st position.

<��� �-�����-�

Wesley Sneijder turnedout for the

Netherlands for the 134thand final time on Thursdayas Memphis Depay's bracesecured a 2-1 friendly winover Peru here.

On an emotional nightat the Johan Cruyff Arena,Dutch coach RonaldKoeman handed over thecaptain's armband toSneijder, who is now 34.

Sneijder, the former RealMadrid and Inter Milanplaymaker who moved to AlGharafa of Qatar earlier thisyear, took the microphoneand encouraged fans to joinhim for a beer on their wayout of the stadium.

A star of the Dutch teamthat got to the 2010 WorldCup final, Sneijder receiveda warm ovation from the50,000 fans at the home ofAjax, the club where he

began his career.The most-capped Dutch

player of all time, who wonhis first cap in 2003, leavesbehind a team trying torebuild after failing to qualiyfor Euro 2016 or the lastWorld Cup.

Koeman is trying tobuild a side capable of mak-ing it to Euro 2020 builtaround Liverpool centre-back Virgil van Dijk and alsofeaturing young Ajax starletMatthijs de Ligt.

They fell behind againstthe Peruvians through aPedro Aquino goal early on,but Lyon forward Depayequalised on the hour markbefore netting the winnerseven minutes from time.

Koeman later confirmedhe would make "severalchanges" for Sunday's trip toface World Cup winnersFrance in their first match inthe new UEFA NationsLeague.

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