WINDOWS

NEWDELHI

Chief Justice of India N V Ramana on Sunday

exhorted women lawyers to strongly raise

their demand for 50 per cent reservation in

the judiciary while assuring them of his "total

support".

"I don't want you to cry but with anger, you

have to shout and demand that we need 50

per cent reservation," he said. The CJI said

that it's an issue of thousands of years of sup-

pression and women are entitled to the reser-

vation and added, "It's a matter of right, and

not a matter a charity." He said, "I want to

say that I strongly recommend and support

the demand of a certain percentage of reser-

vation in all law schools of the country for

women, so that they can join the judiciary."

Speaking at a felicitation function organised

by Lady Advocates of Supreme Court for the

nine newly appointed judges, including three

women judges, CJI Ramana said he has modi-

fied Karl Marx's "Workers of the world unite.

You have nothing to lose but your chain"

quote for the occasion and added: "Women of

the world unite. You have nothing to lose but

your chain."

The CJI said, “You all are laughing. Yes, I

don't want you to cry but with anger, you

have to shout and demand that we need 50

per cent reservation. It's not a small issue but

an issue of thousands of years of suppres-

sion. It is high time we have 50 per cent repre-

sentation of women in the judiciary. You are

entitled (to it), it's a matter of right. It is not a

matter a charity. It is unfortunate that some

things are realised very late." He said he will

be "very happy" whenever the goal will be re-

alised.

"All my sisters and all of you have carved

out exceptions for people in the society and

women of the society and for that matter

youngsters whether male or female are all

waiting and looking at you as if you are role

models. Your success stories will make them

more impulsive and we expect more women

will join the profession and we will achieve

the goal of 50 per cent shortly. I wholeheart-

edly support all initiatives taken by you and

so long as I am here I will support all of your

causes," he said. The Chief Justice of India

said that he believes in mixing with people,

knowing about their ideas so that he under-

stands what is the problem the society is fac-

ing, but added these days he is visiting lots of

places and has got bored of giving speeches.

"After coming back yesterday night from

Odisha, I collected some information about

the system in which we are working. In the

entire country...in subordinate judiciary less

than 30 per cent are women, in high courts

women judges are 11.5 per cent and in

Supreme Court four women judges out of

33...(that is) 11 or 12 per cent,” the CJI said.

DEMAND 50% QUOTA IN JUDICIARY: CJI TO WOMEN LAWYERS

CHANDIGARH

PUnJAB Chief MinisterCharanjit Singh Channi car-ried out his first Cabinet ex-pansion on Sunday, induct-ing 15 Cabinet Ministerswhich included seven newentrants, as the Congressgears up to face assemblyelections that are barely fivemonths away. The new facesin the Channi Ministry areRandeep Singh nabha, RajKumar Verka, Sangat SinghGilzian, Pargat Singh,Amarinder Singh Raja War-ring and Gurkirat SinghKotli. Rana Gurjit Singh hasmade a comeback after re-

signing in 2018 from the Am-rinder Singh Ministry.

Punjab Governor Banwari-lal Purohit administered theoath of office and secrecy tothe legislators. Brahm Mo-hindra, Manpreet SinghBadal, Tript Rajinder SinghBajwa, Aruna Chaudhary,Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria,Razia Sultana, Vijay InderSingla and Bharat BhushanAshu, who were ministers inthe previous AmarinderSingh led cabinet, were re-tained as Cabinet Ministers. Channi was handpicked asPunjab's first Dalit chief min-ister following the uncere-monious exit of Congress

veteran Amarinder Singh af-ter a prolonged power tusslewith state Congress chiefnavjot Singh Sidhu. Minis-ters Rana Gurjit Singh, Mo-hindra and Singla are consid-ered close to AmarinderSingh. However, the discon-tent in the faction-riddenparty appeared to be far fromover. Rana Gurmit SinghSodhi, Sadhu Singh Dharam-sot, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Gur-preet Singh Kangar and Sun-der Sham Arora, who wereministers in the AmarinderSingh-led cabinet, did notfind a place in the new min-istry. Hours before the cere-mony, Balbir Singh Sidhu

and Gurpreet Singh Kangarheld a joint news conferencewhere they questioned thedecision to drop them. .

Channi on Sunday handedover the appointment lettersof government jobs to thenext of their kin.

The chief minister, accom-panied by Deputy Chief Min-ister Sukhjinder Singh Rand-hawa, visited the house ofdeceased farm labourerSukhpal Singh (30) at MandiKalan village in Bathinda andhanded over the appoint-ment letter of a governmentjob to natha Singh, the elderbrother of the deceased, anofficial statement said.

NEWDELHI

Ahead of the civic body polls in the national Capital,north Delhi Municipal Corporation (north MCD)Mayor has slammed opposition parties like theCongress and the Aam Aadmi Party, saying thosewho have lust for power are scared and they resortto telling lies during elections.

Highlighting the preparations for the upcomingMCD polls and his achievements, north MCDMayor, Raja Iqbal Singh said: "My party (BJP) fol-lows the policy of "Seva hi Sanghathan. Those whoserve the public have no fear of elections."

The Mayors of all three civic bodies -- northDelhi Municipal Corporation, South Delhi Munic-ipal Corporation and the East Delhi Municipal Cor-poration -- are working hard to retain power in thenext elections.

"Those who serve the people are fearless. Thosewho crave for power are scared, so they resort totelling lies during elections. I am absolutely clearthat my party is not nervous about the upcomingMCD polls," the north MCD Mayor added.

The BJP Councillor said he will put forth hisachievements before the public, adding that, "Myparty has worked hard on making Delhi a garbage-free city, ensuring cleanliness, providing educationand health."

"In order to make Delhi rid of garbage, the northMCD has installed 70 compactor machines acrossall areas coming under its ambit and nearly 300waste dumping sites have been closed down."

"Apart from this, when all other parties refusedto move out of their home comfort during Covid-19, it was only the BJP Councillors who helped peo-ple in distress while putting their own lives at risk,"

he said. When asked about merging the three civicbodies of Delhi, the north MCD Mayor said, "Thisissue is out of my jurisdiction but if all three mu-nicipal bodies are merged together, it will definitelybenefit the general public."

"There is a paucity of funds in the north MCDso the people are suffering due to financial irregu-larities committed by the Congress while they werein power. Therefore, I want the three civic bodiesto be merged," Iqbal Singh said.

In view of the civic body polls, the north MCDhas taken a big decision of completely waiving offthe property tax of all types of residential propertiesof 50 square metre area falling under the civic body.However, the opposition parties like the Congressand the AAP have questioned why the move is beingdelayed. Responding to this, the Mayor said, "Thereis no delay, the BJP have passed a resolution waiving

property tax of residential area of 50 square metres,on the floor of the house. now it just needs to beimplemented, the issue will be cleared in a week'stime." "This law will be applicable to all householdsof 50 square metre area falling under the northMCD, whether the property is authorized or not,"he added.

According to the north MCD Mayor, postershave been put up to create awareness among thepeople so that a person must be assured that thecivic body has waived off their tax, he explained.

The waiving of property tax will hugely benefitthe middle class, lower middle class and poor peo-ple, the Mayor said.

On the other hand, mosquito-borne viral diseasescontinue to wreak havoc in Delhi. According to thelatest report, a total of 211 dengue cases have beenreported in the national Capital.

www.thehansindia.com VOL. 4 | NO. 328 | MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2021 | DELHI | PAGES 8 | `8.00

Simultaneously published from Hyderabad | Warangal | Tirupati | Amaravati | Visakhapatnam | Khammam | Kurnool | Delhi: RNI No: DELENG/2017/74095

Forecast: Showers late. Cloudy. Temp: Max.31°C. Min.29°C. Humidity: 53% Sunrise: 05:54 Sunset: 06:41

Pakistan violates LoC ceasefire

SRINAGAR: Pakistan violated

the LoC ceasefire at Tithwal in

Tangdhar sector in J&K's Kupwara

district on Sunday morning, de-

fence sources said. Sources said

Pakistani troops opened unpro-

voked fire on Indian army posts,

drawing a swift response from the

Indian side. The exchange of fire

continued for 15 minutes.

"Pakistan's unprovoked cease-

fire violation was suitably retali-

ated," a source said.

There were no casualities on

the Indian side.

Sources added that the cease-

fire violation is in line with Pak-

istan's nefarious design of using it

to cover pushing of terrorists into

the Indian side.

Those who serve public have no fear of polls: MCD mayor

Choke funds of Maoists, actagainst frontal groups: Shah

new Delhi: Intensifying operations againstthe Maoists and choking the flow of funds tothem were the two key issues discussed at ahigh-level meeting chaired by Union HomeMinister Amit Shah and attended by six chiefministers and top officials of four other stateshere on Sunday, sources said.

Action against frontal organisations of theMaoists, filling up the security vacuum, con-certed action by the Enforcement Direc-torate, the national Investigation Agencyand the state police were other vital issuesdiscussed during the nearly three-hour-longmeeting. The chief ministers who attended the meet-ing were naveen Patnaik (Odisha), K Chan-

drashekar Rao (Telangana), nitish Kumar(Bihar), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (MadhyaPradesh), Uddhav Thackeray (Maharashtra)and Hemant Soren (Jharkhand), officialsources said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Baner-jee, Bhupesh Baghel of Chhattisgarh, Y S Ja-gan Mohan Reddy of Andhra Pradesh andKerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan did not attendthe meeting. Their states were representedby senior officials. According to sources, in-tensifying operations against the naxals, fill-ing up the security vacuum, choking the flowof funds to extremists and concerted actionby the ED, the nIA and the state police werediscussed threadbare in the meeting.

Delhi Police chief visits Rohini court

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police Commis-

sioner Rakesh Asthana on Sunday

visited the Rohini court which on Fri-

day saw the dramatic killing of top

gangster Jitender Singh Mann, alias

Gogi, by two members of a rival

gang, before they were, in their turn,

shot dead by police.

According to sources, the Commis-

sioner inspected the crime scene --

the courtroom -- where the shootout

took place. On Friday, in an incident

that seemed ripped from a Bolly-

wood potboiler, Gogi was shot dead

in a courtroom by two gangsters

from the rival 'Tilu' gang, dressed in

lawyers' garb. Asthana also reviewed

the security arrangements of the

Court complex. "He stayed for at

least one hour at the court prem-

ises," sources said adding that he

also spoke to his team and the

lawyers present there. Gogi was on

Delhi Police's most-wanted list and

he was also an accused in dozens of

cases - including murder, kidnap-

ping, and fraud - in other states.

Mass transfers of AIIMS docs incorrect

NEW DELHI: The Union Health

Ministry termed as "fallacious" re-

ports in a section of media alleging

that Health Minister Mansukh Man-

daviya said there will be a mass

transfer of AIIMS Delhi doctors. Ac-

cording to thereports, the Minister

made the statement while speak-

ing on the 66th Foundation Day of

AIIMS on Saturday "The reports

further state that the government

will soon implement a transfer pol-

icy to introduce uniform medical

standards in all AIIMS across the

country. This policy will lead to

mass transfer of doctors of AIIMS

Delhi to the new AIIMS, while new

doctors will be appointed for AIIMS

Delhi," the Ministry said.

BENGALURU

InDIA'S Mars Orbiterspacecraft has completedseven years in its orbit,well beyond its designedmission life of six months.

"Indeed, a satisfyingfeeling," K Radhakrishnanwho as the then Chairmanof Indian Space ResearchOranisation (ISRO) ledthe Mars Orbiter Mission(Mangalyaan) team toldPTI on the milestone.

MOM is the maiden in-terplanetary mission ofISRO. Launched on no-vember 5, 2013, the probewas successfully insertedinto Martian orbit on Sep-tember 24, 2014 in its firstattempt.

MOM is primarily atechnology demonstra-

tion venture and all themission objectives weresuccessfully met, accord-ing to officials of Ben-galuru-headquartered In-dia's national spaceagency.

The main lessons learntwere in the field of designand realisation of systemsand subsystems, launchfor interplanetary mis-sion, insertion into otherplanet's orbit, operation ofthe spacecraft and scien-

tific instruments aroundMars orbit, they said.

The lessons learnt haveraised the confidence ofISRO scientists for takingup future interplanetarymissions.

ISRO has been contin-uously monitoring thespacecraft and its five sci-entific instruments, andofficials said scientificanalysis of the data beingreceived from MOMspacecraft is in progress.

LUCKNOW

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanathon Sunday expanded his cabinet by inductingseven new ministers.

All the new ministers wereadministered oath of officeand secrecy by GovernorAnandiben Patel at a hur-riedly convened ceremony atthe Raj Bhavan, in the pres-ence of the Chief Ministerand his cabinet colleagues.

Among those who weresworn in are one cabinetminister and six ministers ofstate. The much-awaited ex-pansion comes barelymonths before the state ispreparing for assembly elec-tions in early 2022. Through this expansion,the BJP has made it clear that it will focus onOBCs and SC/ST categories to ensure its returnto power in next year's assembly elections.

While Jitin Prasada, who has been sworn in

as cabinet minister, is the lone Brahmin leaderto get a place in Sunday's expansion, the re-maining six belong to OBC (three) and Sched-uled Caste (two) and Scheduled Tribe (one).

The six ministers of state who were sworn inare -- Sanjeev Gond (ST-Sonbhadra), Dharamvir Pra-japati (OBC-Agra), Chhatra-pal Gangwar (OBC-Bareilly),Sangita Balwant Bind (OBC-Ghazipur), Paltu Ram (SC-Balrampur) and DineshKhatik (SC-Meerut).

Apart from ensuring acaste balance, the party hasalso made sure to providerepresentation to all parts ofthe state.

A surprise omission inSunday's list is the name of

Arvind Kumar Sharma, a former bureaucrat inthe PMO who had taken voluntary retirementin January this year to join politics. He came toLucknow and was immediately made memberof the UP legislative council.

Yogi adds 7 new Ministersincluding Jitin Prasada

PM to launch Pradhan MantriDigital Health Mission todayNew Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra

Modi will launch the Pradhan Mantri

Digital Health Mission on Monday

via video conference, his office said.

The pilot project of National Digi-

tal Health Mission had been an-

nounced by the prime minister from

the ramparts of the Red Fort on Au-

gust 15, 2020. Currently, the Prad-

han Mantri Digital Health Mission

(PM-DHM) is being implemented in

pilot phase in six Union Territories.

In a historic initiative, Prime Minis-

ter Modi will launch the PM-DHM on

September 27, 2021 at 11 AM via

video conferencing, which will be

followed by his address on the oc-

casion, the Prime Minister's Office

(PMO) said in a statement. The na-

tionwide rollout of PM-DHM coin-

cides with National Health Authority

(NHA) celebrating the third anniver-

sary of Ayushman Bharat Pradhan

Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-

JAY), the statement said.

Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi with his Cabinet after the oath-taking ceremony in Chandigarh on Sunday

7 new faces in Team Channi CM hands over appointment letters to kin of deceased farmers

North MCD Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh

India’s Mars probe completes 7 years in orbit

ARTIADKE

MEET Mumbai- based AmritaDeora an entrepreneur,started an incubator for

artists, provid-ing them withinfrastructureand support.Amrita Deorafounded TheDesignera toprovide an in-c u b a t o r- l i keplatform forIndia’s emerg-ing artists. Through its selective cura-tion process which has an acceptancerate of less than five per cent, The De-signera selects artists and their art-works including verticals sculptures,paintings, photography, and illustra-tions, among others.

Excerpts from an interviewTell us about your journey

Although being an entrepreneur atthe age of 17 I was unconventional tomy peers, it felt like a natural step in myjourney because of the way I grew up.My blooming love of design coupledwith my real estate background led meto begin Camelot CoWorks, an uber-cool co-working space. With the luxuryof hindsight, I know that this ventureallowed me to grow my love of designwhile fine-tuning my leadership and en-trepreneurial skills. Soon after, my pas-sion for fine arts led me to begin TheDesignera which I can confidently sayis my true calling.

Throughout my life, my love of arttook me across the globe from Venice’sBienalle to Art Basel to the Museum ofModern Art New York, I sought outevery place and travelled to where Icould find art. My worldtravels became syn-onymous with myjourney of art.But Designerawas ignitedwith ane p i p h a n ywhen I wentto see theDurga Pujain Calcuttaand was leftm e s m e r i s e dwith the crafts-manship withinIndia. It was a mo-ment where one re-alises hows e -

verely undervalued Indian art is. See-ing all these places on an interna-tional canvas, and then seeing themismatch of Indian talent andplatform, I committed my-self to be the flag-bearerof Indian art.

As the vision forDesignera beganto evolve, Ir e a l i s e dthat thed i s -r u p -tion inthe art in-dustry was yetto happen. I knewwe had to be at theforefront of the art rev-olution.

By and large, art is stillconsidered to be a piece on thewall or a sculptural installation,but there is no reason that there can’tbe an art layer in every interaction. Inthe same way, we now have a tech layerin every product and service. So, we piv-oted our vision to add an art layer toevery day and revolutionise the way inwhich we interact with art.

What does your work aim to achieve?The Designera is currently In-

dia’s finest through an ex-tremely selective curation

process and an underfive per cent accept-

ance rate, Designeraselects artists andartworks spanningall verticals: sculp-tures, paintings,photography, il-lustra-

tions, among various others. A stable in-come, a state-of-the-art studio, the

finest infrastructure, and completecreative support provided by De-

signera ensures that theartists are equipped with

all the tools they need tothrive. Through De-

signera’s e-com-merce plat-

form, thesevivacious,

contem-p o r a r y

a r t w o r k sare displayed

to art lovers forpurchase. The main

vision of The Design-era is to lead an art revo-

lution.

What inspired you?Travelling is something that is in-

strumental in my journey of art, and mygreatest source of inspiration-so globe-trotting withmy family is some-thing that I love todo as it inspiresme the most.My travelshave exposedme to a worldof identities,thoughts, be-liefs, archi-tecture, artand culturethat have ignitedmy affair with art.I’ve also

loved to study our mythology epics, cur-rently the Bhagavad Gita, which hasbeen a guiding force for me. Mystudy of Indian mythology alsoinspired a series of art piecesin the Designera collec-tion!

How is India’s firstincubator forcreators?

An artand de-s i g ncompanythat aims toprovide a plat-form to variousartists. Once an artistis selected to be a part ofDesignera’s platform, weprovide them with 360-degreesupport and all the tools they needto conquer a global canvas. A stableincome, a state-of-the-art studio, the

finest infrastructure and completecreative support ensure that our

artists can thrive. We are alsothe only artist platform to

purchase every single artpiece that we repre-

sent, allowing theartist to have finan-cial freedom

right off the bat. Our mission is truly na-tionalistic at heart; we hope to empower

our artists and allow them to paint aglobal canvas.

What does your artmean to you?

Art for change: The avantgarde

One of thestrong pur-

poses ofart is us-ing it as

an instru-ment for so-

cial change. Theavant-garde is

e x p e r i -m e n t a l

and radi-cal cre-

ations thatpush the

boundaries ofa c c e pt a b i l i t yand status quo.Avant-Garde artpieces are cre-ations that areused to com-mu-

nicate political, spiritual, or philosophicalideas with an intention of the advance-ment of society.

The window to another world: CatharsisAnother crucial purpose of art is allowing

it to serve as the window to another world,an escape of sorts for our imagination.When you are in the presence of exquisiteart, it opens the door to a realm of untappedideas and emotions, much like any otherspiritual experience. The painting becomesa threshold into a cathartic universe and aportal into the divine. As German artist,Richter eloquently put into words “Art ismaking sense and giving shape to thatsense. It is like the religious search for God."

Elicit thinking and awarenessArt is also proven to produce critical

thinking; it gives us an opportunity to becurious, to be astonished and even to beconfused. When we engage with art, it al-lows for a far deeper level of thinking andunderstanding. This can explain why art isalso used as a means for therapy and psy-chological healing. It channels our innerawareness bringing us closer to our truestselves. As beautiful as art may be, its resolvegoes miles beyond just beautifying the walls

of a space. Art holds the power to createa revolution, open your heart,

nourish your mind andtruly change the world.

2

For the next 7 days, Shivang and I are gonna liveon a boat; doing what we love the most - scubadiving. There are 14 other shark chasers here.The phone network is really weak, but I’ll try

taking you on the ride with me .. Wish us luck!#Liveaboard #ScubaDiving

PARINEETI CHOPRA

@PARINEETICHOPRA

TWEET PATROL

DELHI MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2021

SOLUTION TO SEPTEMBER 25

SOLUTION TO SEPTEMBER 25

Across

3 Greek letter (5)

8 Scottish hillsides (5)

10 Customary (5)

11 Rock musician __ Rose

(3)

12 A device to turn a

shaft (5)

13 A steep part of a gla-

cier (7)

15 Reach (3,2)

18 Admiration (3)

19 Phrase of distress (2,4)

21 Florida resort (7)

22 Impertinent (4)

23 Dirt, to dirty (4)

24 Variant (7)

26 Cup rest (6)

29 Anatomical pouch (3)

31 Indonesian island (5)

32 Deer meat (7)

34 Dire Straits' ___ for

Nothing (5)

35 Antiquity (3)

36 Foreign (5)

37 Pens and needles (5)

38 Sully (5)

Down

1 Vestige (5)

2 One's health and

prosperity (7)

4 Clayey fertiliser (4)

5 Keen for action,

combat (4-2)

6 Inquired of (5)

7 Mediterranean Isle (5)

9 Chopper (3)

12 Not so messy (7)

14 Boring tool (3)

16 Part of a joint (5)

17 Some exams (5)

19 Epic poem (7)

20 City of Brittany (5)

21 Intense hatred (5)

23 Organized group (7)

24 Shakespeare's Two

Gentlemen of ____ (6)

25 Bond creator

Fleming (3)

27 Garlic mayonnaise (5)

28 Celestial body (5)

30 Devout (5)

32 Blood vessel (4)

33 Wily (3)

l CROSSWORD l SUDOKU

Actress Simple Kaul, who is known for her role of 'Gulabo' in

'Taarak Mehta Ka Oolta Chashmah', is currently seen as 'Koel' in

'Ziddi Dil Maane Na'. The actress opens up about her on-screen

personality. Moreover, she also wants to be like 'Koel' in her real life.

Simple is portraying the character of a mother for the first time and

this is an altogether different experience for her.

She says: "One of my reasons to take up this

show is because I have never played the role of a

mother, an unconventional mother especially. I

could relate to the character since I believe I will

be just like 'Koel' if I became a mother too in real

life." Simple shares about her bonding with child

actor Nirbhay Thakur who is playing the role of

her son 'Nikhil' in the show. Nirbhay has grabbed a lot

of attention for his on-screen character and their

mother-son relationship is being appreciated. "Nirb-

hay Thakur (Nikhil) and I share a very

close-knit bond on-screen as well as off-

screen, we are more like siblings towards

each other. As an on-screen mother, I am

still exploring various reactions and have

witnessed growth in myself with time,"

she adds.

Simple who has played different kinds

of roles in daily soaps like 'Kutumb',

'Shararat' and 'Oye Jassie' feels this on-

screen personality has brought a distinct side of her in front of the audience

and she took the offer without a second thought about it. "This role has

brought about a different side of me, something I have never experienced

before. Usually, whenever I am offered to play the role of a mother, I would

always think twice but here I had absolutely no doubts. It was an instant

yes for me," concludes the actress. The show features Shaalien Malhotra,

Kaveri Priyam, Kunal Karan Kapoor, Diljot Chhabra, Aditya Deshmukh and

Simple Kaul in the lead roles. 'Ziddi Dil Maane Na' airs on Sony SAB.

If I become a mom in real life, I'll

be just like ‘Koel’: Simple Kaul

IN THE NEWS

Giving a platform to emerging artistsMy travels have exposed me to a world of identities, thoughts, beliefs,

architecture, art and culture that have ignited my affair with art -Amrita Deora

NIMERTA C SHA-RAN

Your monthlyround up of

the latest lifestylelaunches, fromluxury indul-gences to arti-sanal creations,here's what youcan look forwardto.Bag this

Exciting newsfor all handbaglovers, luxuryfashion houseLouis Vuitton re-cently launchedtheir limited editionhandbags 'Artyca-pucines - Chapter 3'.Six internationallyacclaimed artistshave transformed theblack canvas of thetimeless Capucinesbag into beautiful artpieces. Each bag willbe available in a lim-

ited edi-tion of200 andwill be re-leasedworld-

wide atthe end ofOctober

2021.

Add to cartLooking for

a quick festivefashion fix for

you and yourloved ones? E-commerce giantAJIO has an-nounced it'shottest fash-ion sale start-ing Septem-ber 30, 2021.The shop-ping plat-form hasroped instylistaSonam

Kapoor as the face of the sale thatwill offer more than 2500 brandsat discounted prices.Artisan love

The country's leading designhouse, Good Earth, in collabora-tion with textile designer Made-line Weinrib will present its col-lection of 'butah' motifdinnerware and home textilesat the Metropolitan Museum ofArts, New York. The 'HeirloomProject' that honours diverseIsalmic design techniqueswill display curated prod-ucts from across theglobe.Macaron mania

Sweet dreamsare made of this!Iconic FrenchpatisserieLaduree hasopened its firstIndian outpostat Delhi's up-scale KhanMarket. Spreadover threefloors, the bak-ery currently

has twelve macaron flavours,their signature pastries and teacakes and other brunch and high-tea items on the menu. Bon ap-

petit.

Bright and beautifulRaw Mango's

latest festive edit'Moomal' goeslive on theirwebsite on Sep-tember 26, 2021.

Inspired bythe

rich-

New in lifestyle

As the name indicates, Family

Day is a date for us all to pay

tribute and honor to our fami-

lies. Often, we do not appreciate our

families as much as we should. This is

because we spend so much time with

them and we are so used to

this that we do not take a

step back and reflect on

everything that they do for

us. Family Day gives you the

opportunity to do this. Of

course, not all families are re-

lated by blood. There are step

families. There are also families

that you have inherited along

the way. They may have even

done more for you than your own

family has ever done. Not all families

are created equally, after all. And, this

is okay! It is all about celebrating

family and what this means to you.

We should all love our families,

even if they annoy us at times! After

all, families are always there for

us.

Through the

good and the bad, you can always

count on your family to be there. Fam-

ilies also love you for who you are,

and they support you through every-

thing. You can use family day to show

your parents and other family mem-

bers just how much they mean to you.

There are a number of easy yet mean-

ingful ways that you can do this. It

can be as simple as just telling them

how you feel. You can also share a

fond memory with them, spend time

with them, help around the house, or

cook them a tasty meal. It is up to

you!

Family Day is celebrated all over the

world. In fact, in some countries it is

celebrated as a public holiday. This

includes Songkran in Thailand, as

well as in the Australian Capital Terri-

tory, Vietnam, Vanuatu, Uruguay, the

U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona, a

number of different Canadian

provinces, and in South Africa as well.

FAMILY DAY

CITY/REGION 3DELHI MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2021

For Advertisement please Call: 9717809984/ 9718673567

Owaisi factor creates ripple among parties banking on Muslim votes in UP MUHAMMADMAZHAR SALEEM

LUCKNOW

ASADUDDIN Owaisi's AIMIM, whichis going to contest next year's UttarPradesh Assembly polls on the prom-ise of creating leadership among Mus-lims, has created unease in the politi-cal parties that so far considered themembers of the minority communityas their core "vote bank".

Different castes, including Jatavs,Yadavs, Rajbhars and Nishads, whichconstitute a relatively small part of thepopulation of Uttar Pradesh, more orless have their own leadership, butMuslims, who account for more than19 per cent of the people in the state,do not see any united leadership. Sothe All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Mus-limeen (AIMIM), led by Owaisi, wantsto end the "slavery" of Muslims in thehands of the Samajwadi Party (SP), theBahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the

Congress, which had been using themas their "vote bank", according to theleaders of the party.

There are 82 Assembly segments inthe state where Muslim voters are ina position to make or mar the politicalfortunes of the candidates. Buoyed bywinning five seats in last year's Biharpolls from the Muslim-dominatedSeemanchal region, which gave jittersto the RJD and the Congress, Owaisihas already announced that his partywill field candidates in 100 of the 403seats in the Uttar Pradesh election ex-pected to be held early next year.

The Hyderabad MP launched hispoll campaign from Ayodhya earlierthis month and since then, has beenaddressing public meetings at differ-ent places. AIMIM nationalspokesperson Syed Asim Waqar toldPTI on Sunday that the main goal ofthe party is to create a political narra-tive and leadership among Muslims

for the progress of the community anda better future.

"Even the so-called secular parties,which were getting the votes of the

Muslims, never allowed a Muslim lead-ership to emerge. The report of theSachar Committee has made out thecondition in which the parties have

pushed them to," he said. The opinionsof experts differ on whether Muslims,after the rise of Hindutva politics, havebecome aware enough to create theirown acceptable leadership.

The SP and the BSP have accusedOwaisi of serving the interest of theruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)by trying to divide Muslim votes anddismissed any possibility of theAIMIM having any impact in thecountry's political heartland. SeniorSP leader Abu Azmi discarded Owaisias a "vote-katwa" (splitter of votes)who is acting on behalf of the BJP todamage the poll prospects of theSamajwadi Party.

State media coordinator of the Con-gress Lallan Kumar said Owaisi re-members Muslims only at the time ofelections and claimed that the minor-ity community has traditionally sup-ported the grand old party.

According to Census 2011 data,

Muslims account for 19.26 per cent ofthe population in Uttar Pradesh.They can play a decisive role in 82 ofthe state's 403 Assembly constituen-cies. Muslims constitute 50.57 percent of the population in Rampur,47.12 per cent in Moradabad, 43.04per cent in Bijnor, 41.95 per cent inSaharanpur, 41.3 per cent in Muzaf-farnagar, 40.78 per cent in Amrohaand above 30 per cent in Balrampur,Azamgarh, Bareilly, Meerut,Bahraich, Gonda and Shravasti. Ac-cording to political analyst RasheedKidwai, the issue of giving leadershipto Muslims has come up more or lessin every election in Uttar Pradesh butnever took off and the Muslims oftenvoted for the SP and the BSP. Owaisi'sparty will contest the Uttar Pradeshpolls as part of the "Bhagadari Mor-cha" formed by Suheldev BharatiyaSamaj Party (SBSP) president OmPrakash Rajbhar.

Adityanath changed caste of KingMihir Bhoj for votes: Akhilesh LUCKNOW

SAMAJWADI Party (SP) chiefAkhilesh Yadav on Sunday accusedthe BJP of "changing" the caste ofninth-century ruler Mihir Bhojand tampering with historical factsto secure the votes of a certaincommunity.

This comes days after UttarPradesh Chief Minister YogiAdityanath unveiled a 15-footstatue of the ruler in GautamBuddh Nagar's Dadri, stoking acontroversy that saw sections ofGurjar and Rajput communitiesstake claim over the king's legacy."It is taught in history that KingMihir Bhoj was a Gurjar-Pratihar.But the BJP people have changed

his caste," Yadav said in a tweet inHindi. "This is condemnable. TheBJP is deliberately trying totamper with historical facts and di-vide society to secure the votes ofa particular side," he said. The SPchief added that his party stood forrespect and honour for all sectionsof the society.

After unveiling the statue onSeptember 22, Adityanath hadsaid, "No foreign ruler was able tointrude India during the rule ofKing Mihir Bhoj. They were sofrightened of him that nobodydared to attack India even 150years after his rule until MehmudGhaznavi invaded and plunderedthe country."

"A community that forgets its

past and traditions is unable toprotect its geography also, andsomething like this has happenedwith us as well," he said then. Soonafter, a controversy erupted be-

tween sections of Gurjar and Ra-jput communities in Dadri over theking's legacy.

Later, a video surfaced purport-edly showing a local communityleader tampering with the founda-tion stone plaque of the statue andchanging the prefix in the king'sname. Noting the rift between thetwo communities, Adityanath ad-vised them against confining greaticons within the boundaries ofcaste, saying their sacrifices werefor the whole of India to cherish."Maa Panna Dai had taken Maha-rana to a safe place by sacrificingthe life of her son. Not just the Gur-jar community, but entire Indiashould feel proud of her great sac-rifice," he tweeted.

LUCKNOW

BAHUJAN Samaj Party chiefMayawati on Sunday said thather party will support a peace-ful 'Bharat Bandh' called byfarmers against the Centre'sthree farm laws.

The Samyukta Kisan Morchahas given a Bharat Bandh call forSeptember 27. In a tweet in Hindi,Mayawati said, "The farmers ofthe country do not endorse thethree farm laws brought in a hurryby the Centre, and are sad aboutit. They have been protesting forthe past 10 months in the countryand aggressively, especiallyaround Delhi. They have given thecall of 'Bharat Bandh', and BSPsupports its peaceful organising."

The Centre, she said, shouldhold proper consultations withfarmers and bring a new law with

their agreement. In anothertweet, the BSP chief said, "TheCentre is once again requested towithdraw the three farm lawswhile showing appropriate sym-pathy and sensitivity to farmers.

The Centre should hold properconsultation with the farmers,and bring a new law with theiragreement, so that this problemcould be solved. If the farmer is

happy and prosperous, then thecountry will also become happyand prosperous." The governmentand farmer unions have held 11rounds of talks so far, the last be-ing on January 22, to break thedeadlock and end the farmers'protest. Talks have not resumedfollowing widespread violenceduring a tractor rally by protestingfarmers on January 26.

The three laws -- The Farmers'Produce Trade and Commerce(Promotion and Facilitation) Act,2020, The Farmers (Empower-ment and Protection) Agreementof Price Assurance and FarmServices Act, 2020, and The Es-sential Commodities (Amend-ment) Act 2020 -- were passed byParliament in September lastyear. Farmer groups have allegedthat these laws will end the mandiand MSP procurement systemsand leave the farmers at themercy of big corporates, even asthe government has rejectedthese apprehensions as mis-placed and asserted that thesesteps will help increase farmers'income. The Supreme Court hadin January stayed the implemen-tation of the three laws till furtherorders and appointed a panel toresolve the impasse.

PROTEST AGAINST FARM LAWS

Mayawati extends support to bandh called by farmers

Pramod Tiwari denies his role in attack on BJP MP

NEWDELHI

FORMER Congress MP Pramod Tiwari has re-jected the allegation that he was behind the attackon Pratapgarh BJP MP Sangam Lal Gupta.

Tiwari, speaking on the phone, said, "He is tryingto gain attention in the party and increase his TRPahead of the Assembly elections."

Tiwari alleged that Gupta had himself torn hisclothes and there might have been a scuffle betweenthe workers which somebody told me. Nobody at-tacked the MP, Tiwari said.

The BJP MP had alleged that the supporters ofCongress leader Pramod Tiwari had beaten him onSaturday as the supporters of both clashed at the'Garib Kalyan Mela' in Pratapgarh district of UttarPradesh.

The BJP alleged that the video of the attack was aproof and Gupta was beaten up in the presence ofTiwari and his daughter Aradhana Mishra, who iscongress leader in the Assembly.

Both have refuted the allegation and said, "Guptawas making allegations because in Pratapgarh BJPwas feeling helpless, so they are resorting to suchcheap tactics."

Congress MP Pramod Tiwari, Congress legisla-ture party leader Aradhana Mishra and 48 othershave been booked under Section 307 (attempt tomurder), 146 (rioting) and 336 (act endangeringlife or personal safety of others) at the Lalganj po-

lice station in Pratapgarh.The case was registered late on Saturday night

after BJP MP Sangam Lal Gupta, with his support-ers, blocked traffic on the Prayagraj-Pratapgarhroad for several hours.

BIKANER

FIVE persons including three Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers

(REET) candidates were arrested before the exam Sunday as the aspirants

were found wearing slippers with bluetooth devices, officials said. The exam

is being held across the state Sunday under tight security arrangements.

Bikaner Superintendent of Police Priti Chandra said the bluetooth devices

were hidden in the slippers to facilitate cheating. The five accused -- three

candidates and two other persons who were there to help them cheat in the

paper -- were caught from the Naya bus stand in Gangashahar area before

the exam started and are being interrogated, she said.

Mobile SIM cards, bluetooth devices and other equipment were recovered

from their possession, the SP said.

5 held as 3 REET candidates foundhiding bluetooth devices in slippers

GURUGRAM

THE Gurugram Metropolitan De-velopment Authority (GMDA)will construct a 15 km-long cycletrack from the IFFCO Chowkto Golf Course Extension Road,costing about Rs 12.88 crore.

According to the officials, thisproject was placed in the meet-ing of the Core Planning Cell heldrecently and was approved by theChief Executive Officer of the GMDA.

As per the plan, the cycle track will beginfrom IFFCO Chowk and end at the Golf CourseExtension Road as a large number of people ridebicycles on this route every day. Officials saidthat work on the project would be started soonafter finalising the route alignment.

The officials added that if the cycle track isconstructed on the Golf Course Road then it willalso be connected with the cycle track to be builtfrom IFFCO Chowk to Southern PeripheralRoad (SPR) through Sector-27, 28, 42 and 43.With this, both the roads will also be linked with

each other, due to which cyclists willget a safe route to go from one

road to another.It is noteworthy to men-

tion that the mobility planhas been prepared byGMDA to improve the traf-fic system in the city and re-duce pollution.

Under this initiative, theGMDA aims to build 800 km

of cycle tracks on city roads by2035. Officials said that this work

will be done in a phased manner.The GMDA has so far constructed cycle tracks

from Netaji Subhash Marg, Udyog Vihar Road,MDI Chowk to Atul Kataria Chowk and RejanglaChowk to Bijwasan Border. So far, around 50 kmof cycle track has been constructed in the city,including these routes.

"A cycle track will be built from IFFCO Chowkto Golf Course Extension Road. This track willbe 15 km long. Only cyclists will be allowed onit. Its construction will cost an estimated Rs12.88 crore," a senior official of the GMDA said

15KM-LONG CYCLE TRACKTO BE BUILT IN GURUGRAM

Linking of Aadhaar

with liquor sales

will be a good

move. Anyone who

can spend more

than Rs 200 per day on

liquor should be declared

as in eligible for government

schemes. Currently, it is diffi-

cult to get the data of how much

the guzzlers belonging to below

poverty line invest in alcohol. If the purchase of alcohol is

linked with the Aadhaar card, it would be easy to trace how

much liquor each person consumes and the amount spent

on it from the income he earns.

Karumuri Maheswara Rao, Visakhapatnam

A good idea that should be pursued by govt Minister of State for Railways Darshana Vikram Jardosh met Chief Minister

of Uttarakhand Pushkar Singh Dhami in Dehradun. Both leaders discussedin detail the status of various ongoing railway projects in the state. This in-cluded electrification of sections, doubling of already existing lines, stationredevelopment plans and new line projects. Ashutosh Gangal, General Man-ager Northern Railway, Divisional Railway Manager, Moradabad, Ajay Nan-dan, senior officials of Northern Railway were also present on the occasion.Elaborating about the meeting the two Ministers said that emphasis is onincreasing the presence of railways inUttarakhand. The rail connectivity todifferent locations in the Himalayan state will make travel much safer, eco-nomical and comfortable.

Jardosh meets Dhami to discussrailway projects in Uttarakhand

4 EDIT

India hits out at Pak, China

In his address at UN General Assembly, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi slammed Pakistan for not fighting re-

gressive thinking and using terrorism as a political tool,a big global challenge facing the world. he found faultwith Pakistan for not embracing democratic values re-quired for all-pervasive and inclusive development,thereby sending a strong message that it will boomerangon the country any day. Similarly, Modi took a dig atChina's expansionism by trying to covet territories be-longing to other countries by forcibly occupying it. healso accused China of manipulating World Bank data toimprove its rankings and in the same vein supportingPakistan, epicentre of terrorism, cause for downfall ofAfghanistan and export of terror to other countries withIndia suffering the most. Finally, Modi hailing India forits vibrant democracy and progressive thinking had putPakistan on notice for its failure to understand its dutyto promote peace and harmony and instead digging itsown grave by continuously supporting terror whichwould only spell doom.

K R Srinivasan, Secunderabad

II

Modi held that ‘diversity’ is at the heart of Indianidentity. But in reality his party is promoting ‘uni-

formity’ and ‘homogeneity’ in everything. ‘One nation,one everything’ is BJP’s mantra. Modi’s claim that Indiais seeing ‘equitable development’ is belied by ground re-ality. The economy is in a downward spiral, but the in-comes of Ambani and Adani show an upward movement.he touched on India’s ‘growth story’ and its strong ‘start-up ecosystem, but he conveniently overlooked the prob-lem of rising unemployment.

Modi described ‘regressive thinking’ and ‘extremism’as ‘threats to the world’ in the context of the turn of events

in Afghanistan and emerging geopolitical partnerships.he cautioned against taking advantage of the situationin Afghanistan. he referred to ‘the origin of the novelcoronavirus’, cancellation of the World Bank’s ease ofDoing Business Index (at China’s behest) and oceans asour ‘shared heritage’ and ‘lifeline of international trade’for anyone to have expansionist designs. he should showthe same concern for minorities in India

G David Milton,Maruthancode

III

PAKISTAN, where terrorists enjoy free pass, is an ar-sonist disguising itself as a fire-fighter, and the entire

world has suffered because of its policies as the countrynurtures terrorists in its backyard, India has said in ablistering retort after Prime Minister Imran Khan rakedup the issue of Kashmir in his address to the UN GeneralAssembly. Counter-terrorism experts will need to laystress on multi-domain operations and informationtechnologies, and undertake ‘terror gaming’ to wrestlewith an uncertain future that is already upon us. PMModi is advocating the need for unearthing the terrorgroups and making a joint effort to bring them to booksonce for all, so that we need not worry about them allthe time. It is high time the tyranny of terrorism mustbe eliminated and bring peace to the sub-continent andalso the world over.

C K Subramaniam, Mumbai

IV

Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the 76th UNGA -without naming China and Pakistan - that “regressive

thinking” by those who employ terrorism as a politicaltool must realise that it is a threat to them as well; andthat oceans are the lifelines of global trade, and we mustnot abuse oceanic resources, there is need to protectoceans from expansionism; and that the consensusreached at the Security Council with regard to maritimesecurity must show the way forward. The need for the

United Nations to enhance its reliability as many ques-tions are being raised with regard to the legitimacy ofthe UN into the origin of the Coronavirus, climatechange, and more recently the new development inAfghanistan, in the aftermath of takeover by the Taliban.The lack of assertive global order and uniform rule thatshould have come from the UN has been seen to be ab-sent over the past many years; and there is need forcourse correction on part of the UN to be more relevantto face the new challenges that the world did not witnessduring the past few decades ago.

K R Venkata Narasimhan, Madurai

Heavenly gods descend, earthly gods ascend

This is with reference to the news item " Doctors Scalehostile himalayan terrain in mission to vaccinate

all" (The hans India-25-Sept 2021). It is a popular beliefthat gods descend from their heavenly abode to the earthto save the people who are in danger of death but now ithas so happened that the earthly gods (doctors) ascendedto the himalayan heights to save the people of Malana,a village in the himalayas, from the danger of deadlydisease COVID-19. On Sept 14 2021,a team of five healthworkers led by District health Officer Dr. Atul Gupta setout to Malana to administer the second dose of vaccineto all the adults in the village. Making a hazardous jour-ney, carrying boxes of vaccine, crossing the gorge whichdrops down about 100 meters the team reached the vil-lage and successfully gave the second shot of vaccine tothe people there to save all of them from death. That hasalways been the spirit of genuine doctors in India andhence it is said "Vaidyo Narayano harihi." God descends,Doctor ascends. Long live such doctors and their crew!

R Sreenivasulu,Ananthapuramu

Do m e s t i ca v i a t i o nhas not

been able to fly inthe past decade.Air India has beenrunning in lossesfor many years, JetAirways has gonebankrupt, Spice Jetnearly went underand the profits ofIndigo Airlines

have taken a hit. All this has taken placebefore the Covid pandemic which hasonly made things much worse. The rea-son is that the government has been fo-cussing on improving regional aviationwhile the opportunity lies in long dis-tance flights.

The cost of AC 2-Tier train travel fromDelhi to Bengaluru in an express train isRs 2,925. In comparison, a one-monthahead air ticket is available at Rs 3,170,which is nearly equal to the AC 2-tier fare.The difference is that AC 2-tier traveltakes 2 nights and one day and involvesexpenditures of food during this period.The cost becomes more when the foodexpenditure is added. In comparison, airtravel from home-to-home takes onlyabout 7 hours. Therefore, air travel is suc-cessful both in terms of time and cost.however, short notice air travel becomesless competitive. In that case, air travelmay cost Rs 7,000-plus while train travelwould cost the same Rs 2,925 if ticketsare available. This shows that basicallyair travel is successful for long distances.

Compare this with medium distancetravel, say, between Delhi and Lucknow.AC 2-tier ticket fare is Rs 1,100 while one-month ahead air ticket fare is Rs 1,827.The time taken in home-to-tome railtravel is 10 hours against only 5 hours forair travel. however, train travel can beundertaken during the night while airtravel has to be undertaken during thedaytime and cuts into working hours. Theproductive day time is lost in air travel.Thus, medium distance travel is success-ful by train. Only those reluctant to un-dertake night travel say for health rea-sons; or train tickets not being available;or having some urgency to reach the des-tination may undertake air travel formedium distances.

Another policy being pursued by thegovernment is to improve air connectiv-ity with tourist places like Assam and An-daman Islands. here the problem is sys-temic to the tourism sector that is besetwith problems of law and order, lack ofsocial cohesion and lack of investment inmarketing. Tourism-oriented civil avia-tion will succeed only if tourism succeeds

which shows no signs of happening in thenear future.

It appears that these factors have beenignored by various agencies repeatedly.The government had constituted a work-ing group to suggest policies for the ex-pansion of domestic aviation in 2012. Thegroup recommended that subsidies begiven to regional aviation. Then the gov-ernment made a National Civil AviationPolicy after which it started providingsubsidies for three years to regionalflights. Recently in 2018, Deloitte Consult-ants suggested expansion of aviation tosmaller towns. All these reports have notdelivered because an equally efficaciousif not better alternative of train travel isavailable. The improvement of roads inthe recent time has made available yet an-other alternative to air travel for mediumand short distances. Travel from Delhi toDehradun by road or air, for example,would take about the same 4 hours. how-ever, road travel would not require stand-ing in queues at check-in counters, secu-rity check, boarding the aircraft andcollecting baggage. Thus, the policy of pro-moting regional civil aviation is a failureand will continue to be so. The govern-ment must instead focus on making longdistance air travel more convenient. Therecent proposal to expand the IndiraGandhi International Airport at Delhi isthus in the right direction. Further, roadconnectivity to the airports must be im-proved. The time taken for security checkand baggage check-in must be cut. I knowof travellers that arrive at airports in Lon-don merely 15 minutes before take-off andboard the flight seamlessly.

The sinking of Air India into loss ispartly due to these structural problemsof the domestic aviation sector in thecountry. however, the loss cannot be ex-plained only by these missteps of the gov-ernment. Air India has a large portfolioof international flights that continue tobe profitable and face no competitionfrom rail or road transport. These inter-national flights have not delivered either.Social media is awash with the state ofAir India. The Finology Blog says, “em-ployee expenses, insurance, and retire-ment also contributed to the already in-creasing costs.” The Simply Flying blogsays, “Massive corruption within the air-line and poor management was the primereason behind the hindrance to Air In-dia’s development.” An Op-ed on the Run-waygirl Network says it is common to findextremely poor reviews of the airline andthat many reviews “highlight customerservice issues.”

Recently Minister of Civil Aviationhardeep Singh Puri said with satisfactionthat Air India “has not laid off a single

employee even as international and do-mestic carriers have resorted to cost cut-ting through layoffs.” I daresay, thisshould be a cause for concern rather thanfor satisfaction. Not laying off surplusstaff means that Air India has to bear un-necessary losses that then have to bepassed to the hapless citizens of the coun-try. These problems are endemic to thebureaucratic stranglehold on the publicsector and Air India is no exception.

The 2018 effort to privatise Air Indiafailed precisely due to the attempt of bu-reaucracy to hold on to its powers. Thegovernment had then offered to sell only75 per cent controlling shares to the buyerand the bureaucracy wanted to hold on to25 per cent of the shares. This meant thatthe bureaucrats would get a seat on theBoard of Directors of the privatised com-pany and get a veto that would interferewith the commercial decisions of the pri-vate management. It is good that the bu-

reaucracy – though after incurring furtherlosses for another three years – has learntthe lesson and now offered to sell 100 percent shares. Let us hope that Air India willnow be privatised successfully.

There is more to do to promote domes-tic aviation. The government must im-prove the road and the metro connectivityto the airports and sort out the kinks inthe security checks and other harass-ments faced by the passengers. Thesesteps could possibly help in jumpstartingregional aviation as well by reducing thetime of air travel between Delhi and Luc-know, for example, from present 5 hoursto, say, 3 hours.

(The author is former Professor of Economics at IIM, Bengaluru)

(The opinions expressed in this column are

those of the writer. The facts and opinions

expressed here do not reflect the views

of The Hans India)

LETTERS

thehansreader@gmail.com

Another World River Day came andwent, but there has not been even

whimper from the government or anyother organisation. even a minusculeportion of the publicity that was given tothe meeting of Telangana Chief MinisterK Chandrashekar Rao had with Union JalShakti Minister was not there for theWorld River Day nor was any programmetaken up to create awareness on the needto protect the rivers.

While the Telangana governmentwhich has been expressing concern overlosing its control over river waters did notdeem it fit to highlight the need to protectthe rivers which have been constantlymistreated by humans, the media whichis supposed to be a watchdog did not evenwag its tail.

human negligence has made the riversface a massive challenge and their degra-

dation threatens the very existence of hu-man civilisations. Most of the rivers arehigh on pollution and have been callingfor urgent action. Unfortunately, no oneis talking in terms of saving them. Re-ports suggest that around 80% of India’swater is severely polluted because of di-rect dumping of raw sewage, silt, garbage,and highly toxic industrial dischargesinto rivers and lakes. A stellar example ofthis is the pollution of the Ganga riverdue to growing urbanisation and indus-trialization along its banks.

In the two Telugu states, the plight ofrivers Godavari and Krishna is no differ-ent. This has worsened the current na-tional challenge of providing clean andsafe drinking water to all citizens. Thisproblem is not unique to India; it is esti-mated that by 2025, two-thirds of theworld’s population may face water short-

ages. Rivers have always been fresh andhealthy source of water that provide uswith ample resources such as energy,food, crops, drinking water and more.People in rural areas in particular used towake up early, go to the river, take bathwithout using pollutants like soap etc andbring water in vessels. There were no ROplus UV with mineral guard technologywater purifiers in houses. The water usedto be pure and fresh. Now, if anyone triesto take a dip in river waters, he/she wouldget e-coli infection or skin problems. Stillno one is bothered to talk about the im-portance of rivers or need to protectthem. We hold seminars, lectures andproduce tonnes of research papers on thesubject but do nothing at the groundlevel.

With the advent of climate change andthe increase in global warming, rivers

hold great value in restoring the climateof the planet and balancing the ecosys-tem. If we continue to pollute the rivers,the ecosystem around them will collapseand, perhaps, we will lose one of the mostimportant water units of the world. Butthe political executive does not seem tobe bothered even a bit. One wonders whythe bureaucracy does not create aware-ness among the political executive onsuch issues.

According to Mark Angelo, the founderand Chair of World Rivers Day, WorldRivers Day is a timeous opportunity formillions and millions of people across theglobe to come together and commemo-rate the importance of healthy thrivingwaterways. It’s time to commit ourselvesto proactively protect and preserve theearth’s waterways. Will the governmentsopen their eyes at least now? ‘Jago Re.’

WAKE UP TO PLIGHT OF RIVERS

TENZINCHOEZOM

The conflict between China and Tibet is still an ongoing issue thathas not been able to come to a fair and justified conclusion. The il-

legal occupation of Tibet by China has led the long struggle which sumsup to more than six decades of struggle seen mainly from Tibet-sidewhereas there have always been clashes between the two countries iftraced back in their respective histories.

The difference however is that China has stuck to their claims of al-ways owning Tibet whereas it is clear from both the country's historythat Tibet was once a free country and that the Chinese has tried toconquer it in the past as well but failed to do so successfully.

Tibet's sovereigntyhas been denied by theChina's Communist gov-ernment and the brutal-ity since the takeover hasremained and doubled inyears. China's destruc-tion of the Tibetan reli-gious institutions,monasteries, nunneries,relics, settlements, landand environment in Ti-bet is unimaginable.

The Chinese Commu-nist Party (CCP) hasbloomed since Tibet'soccupation and thegrowth in the economyand social life due to Ti-bet's land and resourcesare beyond measure. TheTibetans back in Tibetstand as witnesses of thewrath that China has un-veiled on Tibet since the1950s and the oppressionthat still goes on in Tibet.China has however laidvarious plans and im-posed several schemes toattack Tibet and to up-root its authenticity fromthe core by focusing oncutting of its ethnicityonce and for all. The lackof rights to practice one'sreligion and language inTibet is apparent and thiswould mean a gradual fallof the number of Ti-betans who would actu-ally know about Tibet'sreligion and language. This would in turn help in the sinicisation ofTibet.

China's plans to sinicise Tibet has been on the go for decades. Theban on basic rights for Tibetans in Tibet, the endless oppression andthe strict surveillance that is strengthened ever so often are all waysthrough which Tibetans are kept from keeping in touch with their Ti-betan ethnic roots. China's imposition of the usage of the Chinese lan-guage as the sole medium of instruction in Tibetan schools is a directattack on the Tibetan language.

The new regulations that were adopted during the third session ofthe 11th People's Congress of the Tibetan Region on January 11, 2020.to establish "model areas for national unity and progress" in the TibetanAutonomous Region has never been for the Tibetans but for China toenforce their Chinese centric lifestyle on the innocent people of Tibet.China's constant strengthening of the surveillance in Tibet is visiblethrough its excessive arrests on baseless grounds and from projectssuch as the construction of border villages. This particular regulationwould also help China in raising more informers for the Chinese govt.and to maintain their grasp on the Tibetan regions. China's ever grow-ing control in Tibet is all being done to gain complete power over theTibetans but the Tibetans' connection and loyalty towards their owntrue ethnicity is what bothers China and what they wish to uproot.

China has also made claims in the past of how their hold over Tibetis for the land's own good since the Communist Party aims towardsliberating Tibet's land and its people. The higher authorities have al-ways made statements regarding how Tibetans have the full right tolive on their own terms and have expressed how they wish for the co-existence of the Tibetans and Chinese. The regulations passed on Jan-uary 11, 2020, have come off as a clear proof of how the Chinese gov-ernment never meant for Tibet's growth and peace since systematicdiscrimination is openly announced and later imposed.

even while China and its government officials made such meaning-less claims to give Tibetans the space to maintain their culture andlifestyle, the truth was far from what was promised. Tibetans have al-ways faced discrimination and have never ever been given access tothe fundamental rights. It stands against humanity for people fromany nation to not have their basic rights or the right to life but this hasgone on for years with the Tibetans. The further imposition of China'sdominant ethnic culture on the people of Tibet who are subjugated vi-olates International human rights standard. The regulations furtheraim towards brainwashing Tibetan children from the preschool daysand to stem in them the Chinese ideological propaganda, meaningwhich there will be more invasion of privacy and lack of rights in theTibetan regions.

The CCP way of dealing with the Tibetans has always been throughextreme torture and inhumanness. This issue has however never re-ceived the attention that it deserves so that Tibetans can be given afair stand against China's ruthless rule. The Tibetan struggle has goneon for years and is still going on strong. There have been developmentsthroughout the years but the needed international support is still miss-ing and hasn't reached a strong point. It is high time for the other na-tions and the international organisations who are witnessing such in-humanity and to call out China's faults. China, being the powerfulcountry that it has always sought out its way easily from negotiationsand especially from accusations.

Tibetans have struggled for years and will still live under such direcircumstances if they don't receive immediate support and help. Coun-tries like China who use sheer violence for their own benefit should beheld accountable for their crimes and the subdued should be freedfrom such grief and anguish.

THE WAY AHEAD

Dr Bharat Jhunjhunwala

China’s continuous attacks on Tibetan ethnicity & culture

The present scenario shows that basically air travel issuccessful for long distances in the domestic sector. Inthe case of medium distance travel, air travel has to beundertaken during the daytime and cuts into working

hours. The productive day time is lost in air travel.Thus, medium distance travel is successful by train.Another problem is related to tourism-oriented civilaviation which will succeed only if tourism succeeds

which shows no signs of happening in the near future.It appears that these factors have been ignored by

various agencies repeatedly. The sinking of Air Indiainto loss is partly due to these structural problems.

Also, not laying off surplus staff means that Air Indiahas to bear unnecessary losses that then have to be

passed to the hapless citizens of the country

Tip of the iceberg of aviation crisis

Tibet's sovereignty has beendenied by the China's

Communist government andthe brutality since the

takeover has remained anddoubled in years. China's

destruction of the Tibetanreligious institutions,

monasteries, nunneries,relics, settlements, land and

environment in Tibet isunimaginable. The ban onbasic rights for Tibetans in

Tibet, the endlessoppression and the strict

surveillance that isstrengthened ever so oftenare all ways through which

Tibetans are kept fromkeeping in touch with their

Tibetan ethnic roots

DELHI MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2021

AP/TELANGANA 5DELHI MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2021

HANS NEWS SERVICEMANGALAGIRI

TDP national general secretaryand MLC nara Lokesh on Sun-day slammed the Jagan MohanReddy government for turningAndhra Pradesh into a 'den ofdrug smuggling' by joininghands with international mafiagangs involved in smuggling ofheroin and other drugs.

Lokesh demanded that theState government explain topeople what were the links ofTadepalli palace in AndhraPradesh with the Taliban drugsin remote Afghanistan.

In a statement here, Lokesh

expressed concern overhow the country'shighest investiga-tion agencies werepointing theirsuspecting fin-gers towards AP.The nationalagencies werecautioning then e i g h b o u r i n gStates to remain onhigh alert about AP.What was once a destina-tion for investments and indus-tries had now turned into ahaven for gangsters, criminalsand smugglers. Lokesh termedit as 'deplorable' that the AP

DGP was not doinghis duty and cov-

ering up every-thing in order

to please theChief Minis-ter. TheState gov-e r n m e n t

owed an ex-planation to

the public onthe involvement of

a Vijayawada-basedfirm in the import of drugsworth thousands of crores fromAfghanistan into India.

Meanwhile, the TDP said thatreports were coming to the sur-

face about more YSRCP leadersbeing involved in the drugsmuggling. It was found out thatYSRCP MLA Samineni UdayaBhanu's son Prasanth was thehead of the gang which wascaught by the Telangana policewhen they were transporting 60kg ganja. The TDP leaders saidthat the real gangsters who werecaught along with the ganjawere now being allowed to goscot-free. A new Bihar gang wasbrought to the fore to cover upthe case pertaining to the 60 kgganja seizure.

The YSRCP MLA should takeup the challenge if his son wasnot guilty of ganja smuggling.

What are Tadepalli links withTaliban drugs, asks Lokesh

Slams YSRCP for turning

AP into a 'den of drugs'

National agencies pointing

suspicious fingers

at AP, he says

HANSNEWSSERVICEMANGALAGIRI

FORMeR Minister and seniorTDP leader Yanamala Ramakrish-nudu on Sunday held the JaganMohan Reddy government's 'anti-farmer' policies responsible forthe deepening crisis and steep fallin agricultural growth rate in theState. Yanamala expressed con-cern that both agriculture and itsallied sectors were caught in asteep crisis. As a result, the per-centage of population dependenton agriculture fell from 70 per centto 50 per cent, which was analarming fall of -20 per cent. Allround problems have made thelives of cultivators very difficult tolead in Andhra Pradesh. Theywere getting stuck in debts andlosses. The growth rate also wentdown by over -4.9 percent underthe Jagan Reddy rule. In a state-ment here, the Opposition Leaderin the Legislative Council said thatthe agriculture and allied sectorsrecorded double digit growth un-der naidu’s regime. It touched 10.5

per cent during 2017-18 and 2018-19 whereas, the growth rate camedown to 6.04 per cent under theYSRCP rule, which was a fall by -4.9 per cent when compared to theprevious regime.

Aquaculture growth rate fellfrom 27.4 per cent to 6.9 per centunder the present rule, which wasa fall by -20.5 per cent. horticul-ture growth rate was 17.7 per centduring the naidu’s rule and it fellto just 4.4 per cent under the Jaganrule, a fall by -6.9 per cent.

Yanamala said that there was nogrowth even in the animal hus-bandry development. There was adowntrend going on in the devel-opment of industries and servicesrelating to agriculture and alliedsectors. This was having an ad-

verse impact on the creation ofwork opportunities in these sec-tors. There were no remunerativeprices to the crops at the end ofthe season. The farmers were notgetting returns for their hardwork, sweat and blood. As a result,the production of foodgrains camedown drastically in AP, which fellby 3 per cent in 2020-21 whencompared to 2019-20. The TDPleader deplored that the fixing ofmeters on agricultural motorswould amount to hanging a nooseround the necks of farmers. Pay-

ments were not being made intime to the crops purchased fromthe farmers. The farmers werestuck in debts as their paymentswere kept pending for six to ninemonths. Food inflation wasrecorded at an alarming 12.5 percent. The farmers were declaringcrop holidays all over the State dueto the indifferent policies of thegovernment and rising costs ofcultivation. export of agricultureallied sector produce came downsteeply. not a single food process-ing industry came to AP in the pasttwo-and-half years whereas theChief Minister was acting like anambassador to Gujarat Amul. Thereverse rule of Jagan Reddy hadcrushed the AP people financiallyand pushed the State into a retro-gressive mode.

The TDP leader said that theaqua farmers in coastal region andhorticulture farmers in Ray-alaseema region were incurringheavy losses. even the subsidieson drip and agricultural imple-ments were cancelled under thepresent regime.

YanaMaLa BLaMeS CM fOrdeePenIng CrISIS In agrICuLTure

Agri-dependent population

fell from 70% to 50%

under Jagan rule

Meters on motors hang like

a noose around farmers’

necks, he says

HANSNEWS SERVICEAMARAVATI

The comments made by film actor-turned-politician PawanKalyan evoked sharp response from Ministers. Speaking to me-diapersons in Vizianagaram onSunday, Minister for MunicipalAdministration and Urban De-velopment Botcha Satya-narayana said that the State gov-ernment will not keep quiet if thefilm industry tried to burdencommon man by increasingticket price. he said the govern-ment proposed online ticket sys-tem to streamline the tax collec-tion. Minister for Irrigation AnilKumar condemning the com-ments of Pawan Kalyan, saideveryone is equal before the gov-ernment whether he is a big staror small star and it is decided tostreamline the system through

online ticket system. he criti-cised selling tickets at a higherprice for big budget movies.

Minister for Information andPublic Relations Perni nani tookstrong objection to Pawan’s com-ments against the YSRCP gov-ernment and leaders. he saidPawan has to know the facts be-fore criticising the government.he said In Telangana, 419 the-atres were opened against total519 theatres whereas in AP 800theatres were functioningagainst total 1,100 theatres.

The producers were getting

more share from AP than Telan-gana. he said Pawan Kalyan was unnecessarily criticising Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddyover the issue. he challengedPawan to come out with facts oninjustice done to film industry.

Meanwhile, endowmentsMinister Vellampalli Srinivas ex-pressed ire over the Jana Senapresident for his remarks onPerni nani. he questioned whatwas wrong in the government’smove to introduce online ticketsystem to prevent burden oncommon people.

he said the government de-cided to introduce the onlineticket system only after dis-cussing with the film industry.he said Pawan who was defeatedin the State Assembly polls in2019, was indulging in mudsling-ing against the State govern-ment.

Not Ministers,

change the

CM: Cong

APCC working president

N Tulasi Reddy slams

govt over appointing

advisors paying each of

them hefty honorarium

when it is not in a

position to pay salaries

to the government

employees

HANSNEWS SERVICEVIJAYAWADA

AnDhRA Pradesh Con-gress Committee (APCC)working president Dr n Tu-lasi Reddy said here onSunday that the change ofthe Chief Minister is theneed of hour not the Minis-ters. In a statement re-leased from the party head-quarters Andhra RatnaBhavan here, Dr TulasiReddy said that the Minis-ters in the State remainedprocessional deities. In alighter vein, he equated theMinisters with the sixthfinger. The working presi-dent of the APCC said thatthe present problem of theState is the Chief Ministersince he is responsible forturning the State into adebt-ridden AP, chaotic AP,corrupt AP, inefficient APand barbaric AP. “If theChief Minister is changed,the problems of the Statewould be solved forever,”he said. Coming down heav-ily on the appointment ofadvisors, Dr Tulasi Reddysaid that it was not properto appoint about to retireChief Secretary Adityanath Das as an advisor.When the government isnot in a position to paysalaries to the governmentemployees, what is thepoint in appointing advi-sors paying hefty honorar-ium of Rs 3.82 lakh in addi-tion to the staff and theoffice premises, he won-dered. This is nothing butwasting public money, hesaid.

HANSNEWS SERVICEHYDERABAD

FOLLOWInG the legal tanglesin some of the land parcels, theTelangana State Industrial Infra-structure Corporation (TSIIC)has put off the e-auction of landsat Puppalaguda and Khanameton the outskirts of the city.

The Telangana governmenthad proposed auction of 117.35acres of land at Puppalaguda andKhanamet.

In a press note released onSunday, the TSIIC said it waspostponing the e-auction of thesaid lands. nine plots, admeasur-ing 22.79 acres, at Khanamet vil-lage were to be auctioned on Sep-tember 27, while 26 plots to anextent of 94.56 acres at Pup-

palaguda village were to be auc-tioned the next day.

TSIIC Managing Director eVnarasimha Reddy said certain

frivolous claims were made bythird parties on the governmentlands put for e-auction by ap-proaching various courts.

“In order to provide completeassurance to prospective buyers,government will ensure speedydisposal of all pending cases be-fore the process of auction is re-sumed,” he said in a statement.

Industries Secretary JayeshRanjan said that the State gov-ernment's intention had alwaysbeen to auction lands after en-suring clear titles.

“Some unscrupulous elementshave filed frivolous cases incourts regarding lands identifiedfor auction, even though the titlematter has been well-settled bythe Supreme Court of India ingovernment’s favour. Inconven-ience caused to prospective buy-ers is deeply regretted,” he said.

This is part of the auction oflands planned by the State gov-ernment to mobilise Rs 20,000crore during the current finan-cial year to bridge the revenuedeficit.

This was the second round ofauction of government lands inthe city. In July, the State gov-ernment earned Rs 2,729 crorefrom e-auction of 65 acres of landcomprising 13 plots at Kokapetand Khanamet.

Legal tangles force TSIIC to put offe-auction of Puppalaguda lands

l The State governmentproposed auction of 117.35acres at Puppalaguda andKhanamet on September 27& 28

l It intended to raise Rs20,000 crore through e-auction to bridge therevenue deficit in currentfiscal

l However, due to third partyclaims, it postponed theauction to a later date

“Some unscrupulouselements have filedfrivolous cases in courtsregarding lands identifiedfor auction, even thoughthe title matter has beenwell-settled by theSupreme Court ingovernment’s favour.Inconvenience caused toprospective buyers isdeeply regretted.” JayeshRanjan, Secretary,Industries

HANSNEWS SERVICEAMARAVATI

The Andhra Pradesh govern-ment on Saturday extended itssupport to Bharat Bandh to beheld on Monday.

The nation-wide bandh callhas been given by political par-ties to extend solidarity withtheir cause against the threefarm laws passed by the Centralgovernment. The strike will beled by Samyukt Kisan Morcha(SKM) – an umbrella body offarmers' unions spearheadingthe anti-farm law protests.

It has received support fromthe Andhra Pradesh government,

Congress party, Jana Sena, TeluguDesam Party and the left parties.The AP Road Transport Corpora-tion (APSRTC) has announcedthat all its buses would be off theroad till 1 pm. Information andPublic Relations Minister PerniVenkataramaiah (nani) speakingto the media announced that theState government is providing“complete support” to the Bandh.The Kisan Morcha had been agi-tating against the farm laws forthe past couple of months in Delhiand here the employees andworkers of the VisakhapatnamSteel Plant are up in arms de-manding that the Centre takeback its decision to privatise the

VSP. The State Government hadbeen asking the Centre to drop itsplans to privatise the steel plant,nani said and added that theYSRP-led government would ex-tend its support to the bandh. Aspart of it, the minister gave a callto the people to stage peacefulprotests in the State.

Meanwhile, the TDP calledupon the party leaders and ac-tivists to take part in the nation-wide bandh and make it a suc-cess.

The Vijayawada Chamber ofCommerce and Industry askedall the business establishmentsto keep their shutters down onMonday.

V PRADEEPKUMAR

TIRUPATI

TheRe appears to be no end tothe long wait for over 10,000teaching faculty under UGC pay-scales in Andhra Pradesh for get-ting the 7th Central pay commis-sion arrears which is given onceevery 10 years.

Though the 7th pay commis-sion recommendations were duein 2016, the Central governmenthas delayed its implementationand dragged it till March 2019.Finally, on July 7, 2020, Rs 255.51crore out of its share of Rs 344.31crore as first instalment for revi-sion of pay scales of teachers andother equivalent cadres was re-leased. Consequently, the StateGovernment on February 9, re-leased a GO giving administra-tive sanction for Rs 503 crore byincluding its matching grant tothe Central government’s share.

But it is now learnt that the

treasury has refused to clear thearrears stating that they have notreceived any directions from thegovernment. Interestingly,though, the staff were given thecode of the payment.

The state Convenor of AkhilBharatiya Rashtriya ShaikshikMahasangh (ABRSM) Prof YVRami Reddy told The hans Indiathat the state government’s atti-tude was ‘unjust’. he said thatthey had sought the interventionof the UGC by submitting a rep-resentation to its Chairman ProfDP Singh last week.

The UGC Chairman assuredABRSM that they will seek clari-fication from the State Govern-ment over the issue and ask themto submit the utilisation certifi-

cate for the Rs 251.55 crore.Meanwhile, some retired facultyfiled a petition in the AP highCourt for releasing arrears. Ofthe 10,000 staff, about 6,000 areretired staff. The retired teachersalong with other governmentstaff in the State were not gettingtheir gratuity and other pension-ary benefits for over two yearsand some of them have even diedwaiting for the arrears.

In some universities, the pen-sion fixation also was takingaround one year and the arrearsare yet to be paid to the staff afterthat fixation. The retired staff arelearnt to have mentioned the is-sue of non-receipt of retirementbenefits also in their petition tothe high Court.

AP govt lends supportto Bharat Bandh

College teachers’ wait forarrears gets longer

l College faculty wait for Central pay arrears since 2016l Centre releases its share of Rs 251.55 crore but bills not clearedl Retired staff approach High Court for release of arrearsl Of 10,000 staff, nearly 6,000 retired and a few died

Ministers react sharply to Pawan’s comments

HANSNEWS SERVICEHYDERABAD

OPPOSITIOn parties are gear-ing up for making the ‘BharatBandh’ against the ‘anti peoplepolicies of State and Central gov-ernments’ on Monday a successby planning to take up protestsat different parts of the State.

All the opposition parties inthe State would take up a protestrally from Koti crossroads (fromGandhi Gyan Mandir Park nearWomen’s College) to YMCAcrossroads at 11.30 am on Mon-day. The political parties likeCongress, left-wing parties, TJSand TDP would participate in theprotest rally.

The party leaders would leadthe protests at different parts ofthe city. TPCC chief A RevanthReddy, T Veerabhadram (CPM),

Azeez Pasha (CPI), K Ashok Ku-mar Goud (TDP), M LakshmaReddy (TJS) would be protestingat Boduppal Depot. Prof Kodan-daram (TJS) would be protestingat hayathnagar. TPCC chief Re-vanth Reddy said that the DCCpresidents, Assembly con-stituency in-charges and work-ing presidents of the partyshould take part in the bandh inthe areas allotted to them. TheCongress leaders would also sub-mit representations to all districtcollectors on September 30. TheTelangana nSUI has called for abandh of educational institutionsin the State on Monday. Some ofthe schools have declared a holi-day on account of bandh.

Supporting the bandh, the AllIndia Kisan Sangharsh Telan-gana State Convention de-manded the Centre to withdraw

the three farm laws.The transport sector workers,

including the JAC of ten unionsof TSRTC have announced sup-port to the bandh call. TheTSRTC JAC chairman K RajiReddy said that the ten unionswould be supporting the bandh.he said that the bandh wasagainst scrapping 29 labour lawsand making them into four codes.

The unions demanded that thegovernment release salaries onthe first of every month.

Telangana Auto Drivers’ JointAction Committee (TADJAC)has appealed to the auto, taxi andlorry drivers to participate in theBandh. A rally of auto, taxi andlorry drivers would be organisedon Monday up to LB nagar cross-roads and a rasta roko pro-gramme would be conducted at11.30 am.

Opp parties gear up forBharat Bandh today

HANSNEWS SERVICEHYDERABAD

The Telangana government islikely to defer the hike in bus faresof TSRTC and electricity chargestill the bye-election to huzurabadAssembly constituency is over.

In a recent meeting with ChiefMinister K Chandrasekhar Rao,officials said that there was noother way but to increase the RTCfares because of the poor financialcondition of the TSRTC. Similarly,the energy department officialsalso wanted the government to in-crease the electricity charges be-cause of huge losses incurred bythe power utilities.

The chief minister had asked

the officials to submit a report be-fore the next cabinet meeting sothat the government can take a de-cision on the fare hike. TheTSRTC officials are hopeful thatthey would get a decent fare hikeso that the Corporation can sus-tain the losses.

however, the TRS leaders haveurged the party leadership to deferthe decision to increase the busand power charges at least till thebye-election is over.

The TRS party leaders have alsotold the party leadership that anyhike in fares of TSRTC and alsothe power charges would hamperthe party’s prospects in the bypollbound huzurabad constituency.The ruling party is making all-out

efforts to win the huzurabad by-poll at any cost. As part of thestrategy, KCR had announced sev-eral sops, including the DalitBandhu scheme and several nom-inated posts to the party leadersfrom Karimnagar district.

A senior party leader said thatthe TRS has been targeting BJPsaying that a vote for BJP wouldmean a vote for price hike of petroland diesel and all other commodi-ties. If the government announcedbus and power tariff hike now, itwould boomerang on them. Infact, they even feel that it wouldbe better if the chief minister de-fers holding any cabinet meetingtill the bypoll is over or excludethese issues from the agenda.

Huzurabad bypoll may put brakeson bus fare, power tariff hike

AMARAVATI

ANDHRA Pradesh added 1,184 fresh

coronavirus cases to its tally that

now touched 20,46,841 on Sunday.

The latest bulletin said 1,333 pa-

tients had recovered from the infec-

tion in 24 hours ending 9 am on Sun-

day while 11 others succumbed.

The gross recoveries now in-

creased to 20,19,657 and toll to

14,136. The number of active cases

is now 13,048.

In 24 hours, East Godavari re-

ported the highest 218 and Kurnool

the lowest three new cases.

Six districts added between 110

and 170 while five others registered

between 10 and 60 fresh cases.

Chittoor district saw three fresh fa-

talities, Guntur and Krishna two

each, Prakasam, Srikakulam,

Visakhapatnam and West Godavari

one each in a day.

AP logs 1,184 fresh

cases, 11 deaths

NATION/WORLD

HP's natural farming becomes learning ground for foreigners

WINDOWS

SHIMLA

"IF we want to sustain ourselves in a more natural way,

non-chemical farming is a great option," said Carole Du-

rand, 28, from Averon, France.

Durand is in Himachal Pradesh with her friend,

Shahzad Parbhoo, 36, from Raigad, Maharashtra, to have

a first hand knowledge of the low-cost climate resilient

natural farming technique being promoted by the state

government under Prakritik Kheti Khushhal Kisan Yojana

(PK3Y) over the last three years.

Devised by Padma Shree awardee Subhash Palekar,

the technique is named as Subhash Palekar Natural

Farming (SPNF) technique in the state.

As many as 1,33,056 farmers on 7,609 hectares have al-

ready adopted it partially or fully after trainings organ-

ized by the State Project Implementing Unit (SPIU), PK3Y,

a state official said.

Durand is a nurse and came to India five years ago as

she was interested in Yoga. Together for the last three

years, she, along with Parbhoo, a management profes-

sional, have been exploring the possibilities of non-

chemical agriculture as a livelihood option.

“My grandfather, who was a strawberry farmer in Cor-

reze in France, died of brain cancer supposedly because

strawberries required frequent chemical sprays. The

chemical farming has done much damage to the health

of farmers in that area,” said Durand.

She said there is awareness among people about or-

ganic farming in France, but natural farming is amazing.

"I had incidentally met Dr Rajeshwar Singh Chandel,

Executive Director, PK3Y, last year while I was doing a

one-year apprenticeship at an agriculture farm (based on

bio-dynamics) near Anand in Gujarat. He told me about

the natural farming initiatives in Himachal Pradesh,

wherein the farmers are not using any chemical fertilizer

or pesticide.

Durand and Parbhoo visited a number of farmers ear-

lier this month, who are practising natural farming of

vegetables, cereals, pulses and fruits, on part of their

land in Kangra, Mandi, Shimla and Solan districts and

both of them find themselves enriched with knowledge

on the concept. “In Maharashtra the development has

eaten up agriculture fields near urban areas in a big way.

In Himachal, we saw agriculture farms everywhere. Most

of them are taking multiple crops from the same field af-

ter they switched to natural farming,” observed Parbhoo.

He said the farmers in HP were quite aware of the advan-

tages of non chemical natural farming in the long run. “A

number of them said they were fed up with the overuse

of chemicals which was increasing their expenditure,

while crop production was either stagnant or declining.”

Parbhoo said the farmers, who have already tested

natural farming on a portion of their land, are ready to do

it despite challenges in the switch-over.

The duo was all praise for Agriculture Technology

Management Agency (ATMA) staff, working under SPIU,

for regular connect with the farmers for emerging issues.

“It has been a great learning,” they said, while sharing

their experience with Executive Director, PK3Y, Dr Ra-

jeshwar Singh Chandel, State Project Director, Rakesh

Kanwar and Secretary, Agriculture, Dr Ajay Sharma in

Shimla and said it had been a great learning for them.

Durand said the farmers were so warm. “We stayed with

one of the apple growers, Rajpal Gejta, an ex-serviceman,

a progressive farmer from Rohroo, who is doing natural

farming on 5.5 bigha. He talks high about it. He told us

about the challenges of keeping an indigenous cow.”

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has spent several

days on holiday in Siberia where he was hiking and fishing, the

Kremlin said on Sunday, following a short spell in self-isolation

as a precautionary measure against Covid-19.

Putin said in the middle of September he would have to

spend "a few days" in self-isolation after dozens of people in

his entourage fell ill with Covid-19.

He had to cancel his trip to Tajikistan for a security summit.

Putin has cultivated a macho image, appealing to many Rus-

sians, and has previously been pictured riding a horse bare-

chested and in sunglasses, as well as carrying a hunting rifle

and piloting a fighter jet.

This time, his outings were more mundane.

The Kremlin published 20 photos of Putin standing in a river

and catching a fish, walking through lush meadows and talking

to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, his usual holiday compan-

ion.

Putin, 68, has had two shots of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine.

The Kremlin has said he was feeling healthy.

After Centre’s no, Nitish reiterates demand for caste censusNEW DELHI

BIHAr Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on sun-day reiterated his demand for a caste census,saying it is in national interest and will facili-tate development of the communities laggingin development.

Asked about the Centre's affidavit in thesupreme Court that virtually ruled out censuson the caste lines, he told reporters that it was"absolutely not correct" but added that thematter was not directly related to the issue ofcaste census.

In the national capital to attend Home Min-ister Amit shah's meeting with the chief min-isters of naxal-affected states, the JD(u)leader also rejected arguments against castecensus and asserted that the demand for it has

been coming from not only Bihar but manystates.

Kumar said he will speak to members of dif-ferent parties in Bihar over the issue to chartout their next course of action.

He had led an all-party delegation from thestate to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modiin support of such a headcount across thecountry.

However, the Centre told the supremeCourt on Thursday that caste census of back-ward classes is "administratively difficult andcumbersome" and excluding such informationfrom the purview of Census is a "consciouspolicy decision".

In an affidavit filed in the apex court, thegovernment has said that caste enumerationin socio-economic and Caste Census 2011 was

fraught with mistakes and inaccuracies.Kumar asserted that caste census can be

done by imparting appropriate training to peo-ple. However, the Bihar chief minister, whoseparty's ties with the BJP have been uneven forsome time, refused to be drawn into any po-litical implications of the issue.

"Caste census is in the interest of the coun-try. It will help the country's development,"he said. After the Centre's stand, many BJPleaders in Bihar have strongly defended themove and questioned the need for caste cen-sus.

The BJP has made it clear that its stand onthe politically fraught issue can be differentfrom those, including some of its allies, sup-porting the step.

As far as the BJP is concerned, it stands for

"sab ka saath, sabka vikas", the party had said.An all-party delegation from Jharkhand led

by Chief Minister Hemant soren met HomeMinister Amit shah on sunday and demandedthat a caste-based census be conducted in thecountry. A nationwide, caste wise enumera-tion, as part of the Census is an unavoidablenecessity and hence should be carried out bythe central government, Pattali Makkal Katchifounder leader s ramadoss said on sunday.

Pointing to the union government's con-tention in the supreme Court of a policy deci-sion since 1951 against caste wise enumera-tion, the PMK leader said taking such a standis not in sync with the present times. It is afact that it has been the Centre's policy fordecades, but this is "not correct," he said in astatement.

As many as 1,33,056 farmers in 7,609 hectares have already adopted it partially or fully after training

‘Administratively difficult and excluding such info from purview of Census is a conscious policy decision’

Putin fishing, hiking in Siberia

BHARAT BANDH TODAYCongress asks workers, state unit chiefs to join stir

Protest against farm laws

NeW DelHI: The samyukt Kisan Mor-cha’s (sKM) call for a Bharat Bandh onMonday, to mark the first anniversary ofthe three controversial farm laws gettingPresidential assent, has garnered supportfrom all sections of the society, includingpolitical parties.

Many opposition parties have expressedtheir support to the bandh — while PunjabChief Minister Charanjit singh Channi hassupported the bandh, leader of oppositionin Bihar Assembly Tejashwi Yadav has an-nounced that he will participate in the na-tionwide strike. The Andhra Pradesh andTamil Nadu governments, too, have de-clared complete support to the nationwidestrike. Congress has also said that it will bejoining the protests on Monday.

The bandh will be held from 6 in themorning to 4 in the evening during whichall government and private offices, educa-

tional and other institutions, shops, indus-tries and commercial establishments aswell as public events and functions will beclosed throughout the country. However,all emergency establishments and essentialservices, including hospitals, medicalstores, relief and rescue work and peopleattending to personal emergencies will beexempted. The bandh will be enforced in avoluntary and peaceful manner, the sKMhas assured.

Kerala’s ruling lDF has also called for astate-wide hartal on 27 september to ex-press solidarity with the farmers. This callwas announced by lDF convenor andCPI(M) acting secretary A Vijayaraghavanafter the meeting of the leaders of the rulingparty alliance in Thiruvananthapuram.

The All India Bank officers’ Confedera-tion has extended its support to the bandhon Monday. It has requested the govern-

ment to have a dialogue with the farmerson their demands and rescind the threelaws at the centre of the standoff. The con-federation said that its affiliates and stateunits will join in solidarity with the protestactions of the farmers all over the countryon Monday.

The Congress on sunday asked all itsworkers, state unit chiefs and heads offrontal organizations to take part in the'Bharat Bandh' called by farmer unions onseptember 27 to protest the Centre's threeagri laws.

Congress general secretary K C Venu-gopal, said the Congress and its workerswill extend our full support to the peaceful'Bharat Bandh' called by farmer unions onMonday. "We believe in the right of ourfarmers and we will stand by them in theirfight against the black farm laws," he saidin a tweet.

BHOPAL

A crematorium in Bhopal on sunday im-mersed the ashes of 57 coronavirus victimsin the Narmada river as the family mem-bers of these deceased failed to collect theircremated remains for months, its office-bearers said. Madhya Pradesh has so farregistered 10,518 Covid-19 deaths, most ofthem during the second wave of the pan-demic.

"Vishram Ghat Trust and sewa sanskarsamiti on sunday immersed the ashes of57 persons, who died due to CoVID -19 buttheir ashes were not collected by their fam-ilies after the funerary rituals," shobhrajsukhwani, manager of subhash NagarVishram Ghat (crematorium) told PTI.

He said the family members of these de-ceased had failed to collect the ashes dueto the pandemic situation. "so, after wait-

ing for months, the asthiyan (cremated re-mains) were collected and immersed in theNarmada river in Hoshangabad with all the

rituals," he said.Meanwhile, in a test conducted by Bri-

hanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)on 120 people (prisoners and staff ) of By-culla Women's Jail, 39 inmates were re-ported positive.

India saw a single-day rise of 28,326 newcoronavirus infections,, taking the coun-try's total tally of cases to 3,36,52,745, ac-cording to the union Health Ministry dataupdated on sunday.

The death toll climbed to 4,46,918 with260 daily fatalities, according to the dataupdated at 8 am. The active cases have in-creased to 3,03,476, comprising 0.90 percent of the total infections, while the na-tional CoVID -19 recovery rate wasrecorded at 97.77 per cent, the ministrysaid. An increase of 2,034 cases has beenrecorded in the active CoVID -19 caseloadin a span of 24 hours.

Unclaimed ashes of 57 Corona victims immersed

Gulab cyclone:Odisha sets ‘zero casualty’ target

BHUBANESWAR

Hours before cyclone ‘Gulab' makes landfall in odisha, Chief Min-ister Naveen Patnaik on sunday set a “zero casualty” target in thevulnerable districts of the state, where rainfall activity started inthe southern and coastal regions under the influence of the weathersystem. The cyclone, the second to hit the state in four months after‘Yaas' wreaked havoc in May, is likely to make landfall betweenGopalpur and Kalingapatanam in Andhra Pradesh around midnight,the India Meteorological Department said.

It lay centered about 125 km southeast of Gopalpur and 160 kmeast of Kalingapatnam, the Met office said, adding, the system ismoving at a speed of 18 kmph in the sea. “It is likely to move nearlywestwards and cross north Andhra Pradesh-south odisha coasts…with maximum sustained wind speed of 75-85 kmph gusting to 95kmph, around midnight of today. The landfall process will com-mence from late evening of sunday,” the IMD said, while issuing a‘red Message' (extreme rain). Taking the stock of the preparednessvirtually from New Delhi, Patnaik said all efforts should be made toprotect each and every person in the seven identified districts ofGanjam, Gajapati, Kandhamal, Koraput, rayagada, Nabarangpurand Malkangiri.

During his discussion with the collectors of 11 districts, he saidthat the cyclone's trajectory is located in an “unconventional re-gion”, and the authorities should take extra precaution. Thoughthe coastal belt of the state has encountered numerous cyclonesearlier, the natural phenomenon is new for people in the seven dis-tricts. “The CM has appealed to the people to remain indoors, par-ticularly in pucca houses from sunday evening till 10 am of Mondayduring which the cyclone will pass through the region,” special re-lief Commissioner (srC) P K Jena told reporters. Farmers lie in pits during a protest against farm laws and compensation for their lands acquired under the UP Housing and Development Board Housing Scheme, in

Ghaziabad on Sunday

AIIMS Deputy Director Dhirendra Pratap

Singh (right) being produced in a court by CBI

on bribe charges, in Bhopal on Sunday. Singh

was caught red handed accepting Rs 1 lakh

bribe on Saturday.

2 terrorists killed inJ&K's Bandipora

SRINAGAR: Two terrorists were killed in a

gunfight between the terrorists and security

forces at Watnira area in Bandipora district of

Kashmir on Sunday, officials said.

"Two unidentified terrorists killed. Search

going on. Incriminating materials including

arms and ammunition recovered," police said.

The encounter took place after a joint team

of the police and the army cordoned off the

area and launched a search operation on the

basis of specific information about the pres-

ence of terrorists. As the security forces ze-

roed in on the spot where the terrorists were

hiding they came under a heavy volume of

fire that triggered the encounter.

Infiltration bid foiled,3 soldiers injured

SRINAGAR: Three army soldiers were in-

jured when the alert troops foiled an infiltra-

tion bid by terrorists from across the line of

control (LoC) in Uri sector, sources said.

Defence sources said alert troops chal-

lenged heavily armed terrorists who were try-

ing to infiltrate in Uri sector on

Saturday evening. "An encounter ensued be-

tween the infiltrating terrorists and the army

in which 3 soldiers were injured.

The operation is still going on in the area,"

sources said.

DELHI MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 20216

DELHI MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2021

Stocks.MFs.Bonds.Commodities

DASARISREENIVASARAO

Indicating wider trading rangein the ongoing bull market, the

options data, after the last Fridaytrading hours on NSE, is showingthe same resistance level of18,000CE and support level of17,000PE when compared withthe previous week.

The stock market on last Fridaywitnessed a sharp reversal hap-pening from a higher level due towhich the volatility index movedto three months high and closedabove 16 per cent. Analysts opinethat volatility may continue torise further in next sessions aheadof F&O expiry on September 30.As a result, the trading rangewould increase in indices andsharp moves being expected onboth sides.

Highest Call OI base is at 18,500strike followed by 18,000/ 17,900/18,100/ 18,200 strikes. Furtherstrikes 17,900/ 18,000/18,500/18,700 witnessed reasonable ad-

dition of Call OI. Coming to thePut side, 17,000 strikes has maxi-mum Put OI followed by17,500/17,300/ 17,200/ 17,700strikes. Other strikes 17,900/17,000/17,800/ 17,850/ 17,700strikes recorded moderate build-up of Put OI.

Dhirender Singh Bisht, seniorresearch analyst (derivatives) atSMC Global Securities Ltd, said:“From derivatives front, Call writ-ers at 17,600 strike triggered sharpshort covering, while Put writersadded hefty Open Interest at17,700 strike. In upcoming days,we expect the market to remainon a volatile path as we are ap-

proaching the expiry of the Sep-tember series contract.”

On the F&O data from ICICIDirect.com, the current up movehas put Call writers on the blockand positions were moved to deepOTM strikes towards 18,000points. Despite significant writingat ATM and OTM Call strikes onFriday, analysts predict that tillmajor Put bases are not breached,one should remain positive. Dur-ing the last couple of weeks, Putwriters continued to strengthenthe base. For the coming weeklysettlement, the 17,400 strike holdsnoteworthy Open Interest.

India VIX moved up 1.93 per

cent to 16.92 level. On the volatilityfront, India VIX moved to its high-est level in more than threemonths and closed above 16 level.While the market remains in anuptrend, such a sharp rise involatility may induce some profitbooking in the coming sessions.Derivatives analysts advise in-vestors to hold long positionsabove 17,400 levels.

“Indian markets witnessed an-other week of stunner rally in theweek gone by as Nifty scaled to

its record highs and closed above17,800 mark for the first time.Banking, financials, reality andIT stocks supported the big upmove in markets,” adds Bisht.

For the week ended September24, 2021, BSE Sensex closed at60,048.47 points, a rise of 1,032.58points or 1.74 per cent, from theprevious week’s closing of59,015.89 points. Registering again of 268.05 points or 1.52 percent, NSE Nifty ended the weekat 17,853.20 points from 17,585.15

points a week ago.Bisht forecasts: “However bias islikely to remain in favour of bullsand any dip into the prices shouldbe used to create fresh longs. Onthe higher side, now 18,000 levelswould act as a key psychologicalresistance for Nifty.”

“Implied Volatility of Callsclosed at 14.78 per cent, whilethat for Put options closed at 15.20per cent. The Nifty VIX for theweek closed at 16.60 per cent.PCR of OI for the week closed at1.31,” observes Bisht.

In the F&O space, FIIs re-mained concentrated in the stockfutures and index options space.With the Nifty trading at lifetimehighs, FIIs are active in stock fu-tures. FIIs were net buyers in in-dex futures worth Rs82 crore andthey sold to the tune ofRs2,840crore in stock futures and

Rs4,365-cr index options duringthe week.

Bank NiftyNSE’s banking index closed the

week at 37,830.30 points, a mar-ginal gain of 18.35 points or 0.05per cent, from the previous week’sclosing of 37,811.95 points. Dueto high volatility, the option OI isplaced from 36,500 to 38,500strikes. However, major Put OIwriting was observed in 37,000strike, followed by 37,500, accord-ing to ICICI Direct.com.

On the upside, analysts observethat the Bank Nifty may head to-wards 39,000 as money flow islikely to see from IT and metalsto banking. The current price ratioof Bank Nifty-Nifty reverted fromits yearly low and it may outper-form in banking stocks shouldcontinue for a couple more days.

F&O TURNOVERProduct Contracts Turnover (Rs/cr) Premium (Rs/cr)

Index Futures 2,97,376 27,337.21 --

Stock Futures 12,86,917 1,17,600.82 --

Index Options 3,65,80,400 33,89,309.71 19,311.64

Stock Options 47,64,557 4,58,912.37 7,349.66

F&O Total 4,29,29,250 39,93,160.11 26,661.30

NSE/ As on Sept 24

, 2021

If you aren’tthinking

aboutowning a stock for

10 years, don’t eventhink about owning

it for 10 minutes

– Warren Buffett

CHERUKURIKUTUMBARAO

Buoyed by the easing of nerv-ousness around Evergrandecrisis, US Fed meet outcome,

buying by DIIs and positive macro-economic environment; the bench-mark indices scaled fresh recordhighs last week. The BSE Sensexrose 1,032.58 points, or 1.75 per-cent, to 60,048.47, and the NSENifty jumped 268.05 points, or1.52 percent, to 17,853.20, takingthe five-week gains to 8.5 per-cent in the indices. Heightenedinterest in the index countersled to underperformance ofthe broader market. In the ab-sence of any major domesticcues, the market is expected tofocus on global developments fordirection and could see some volatil-ity given the F&O expiry in the com-ing week. DIIs have net bought Rs3,048 crore worth of shares, whereasFIIs have net sold Rs 8.38 croreworth of shares in the week ended.Strong buoyancy in revenue col-lections may help in the public cap-ital expenditure this fiscal to bevery close to the budget estimate.Tax cuts to stimulate growth areunlikely from hereon. It is pertinentto observe that the Finance Ministryhas withdrawn expenditure curbon various Central Ministries andDepartments with immediate effect.Meetings with the global ratingagencies by the finance ministryofficials have reportedly been fruit-ful and sovereign rating upgrade ison cards in next few quarters say

sources. Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s three-dayvisit to the United States isexpected to give fillip to keysectors ranging from dronesto 5G, semiconductor, andsolar.

N e a rterm trend will

be dictated by F&O expiry, autosales data, macro-economic data,

crude oil prices, rupee movementand global cues like unfolding of

Evergrande crises. Bandh call onSeptember 27 by farmers and tradeunions received support from allopposition parties; expected to im-pact bank services, road and railtransport. The IPO mart will keepbuzzing next week as well. Theinitial public offer of Aditya Birla

Sun Life AMC, sold in theprice band of Rs695-712 perequity share, will open onSeptember 29 and will closeon October

1. Paras Defence and SpaceTechnologies, which saw recordsubscriptions, will likely debut

on bourses on October 1.Heard on the Street: India

is no exception to a globalIPO frenzy, in which compa-nies ranging from technologystartups to jewellers and drugmakers have raised about arecord $476 billion worldwide

this year. Liquidity, low interestrates and demand from retail in-vestors are spurring firms to gopublic. The IPO market of India isin a feeding frenzy and has reachedRs70,000 crore and is likely to growfurther, as a series of companiesare lining up with their public offerin the coming months. Zomato, theonline food delivery behemoth, is

in a sense is leading this marketgrowth. The start-up went publicin July, and despite its mediocregrowth prospects and losses in con-secutive financial years, its shareshave soared more than 70 per cent.Paytm, India’s leading digital pay-ments company has filed its doc-uments for the preliminary offer-ing. With this public offering, thecompany has plans to raise aboutRs166 billion ($2.2 billion). More-over, if Paytm’s IPO can reach itspredicted level, it will be India’slargest stock market debut ever,surpassing Coal India’s Rs150 bil-lion public offerings in 2010. Ad-ditionally, e-commerce giant Flip-kart is also planning an IPO.

According to the reports, thecompany can go public as soon asthe fourth quarter of FY2021 –2022. Also, the digital educationstartup Byju’s, currently valued at$16.5 billion, is getting advice totake advantage of this ‘red hot’ mar-

ket. If global investors have to pickan emerging market, the balance istilting in India’s favour after theregulatory action in the China in-ternet ecosystem.

F&O/sector watch Ahead of the settlement week,

on the back of benchmark indicesscaling new highs, the derivativesegment witnessed robust tradingvolumes. Maximum Call Open In-terest (OI) was seen at 18500 fol-lowed by 18000 and 17900 strikes,while maximum Put OI was seenat 17000 followed by 17500, 17700& 17800 strikes. Call writing wasseen at 18500 then 18000 & 17900strikes with unwinding at 17700and 17800 strikes, while Put writingwas seen at 17900 then 17700 &17800 strikes with unwinding at17600 strike.

Auto sales numbers for the monthof September, which will start flow-ing in from October 1, will be closelywatched by the street. Industry ob-servers feel that sales are expectedto be impacted by the chip shortagebut the same could improve towardslater part of Q4CY21. Tata Motors,Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra &Mahin-dra, Eicher Motors, Bajaj Auto, TVSMotor Company, Ashok Leyland,Hero Motocorp and Escorts will bein focus.

Realty stocks witnessed hugebuying interest during the weekended.

(The author is a stock market expert. He is former vice chairman of AP Planning Board)

T BRAHMACHARY

The domestic stock market re-mained bullish as the bench-

mark indices closed higher for thefifth consecutive week. It is thelongest winning streak in the year.The NSE Nifty made an all-timehigh of 17947.65 before it closed at17853.20 on Friday. On a weekly basis, itgained by 268.05 points or 1.52 per cent.The BSE Sensex zoomed above the60,000 level with a 1.8 per cent weeklygain. For the first time, the BSE marketcapitalisation has reached to Rs 261 lakhcrores. On the Sectoral front, the NiftyRealty and Media are the top gainerswith 21.2 per cent and 11.7 per cent, re-spectively. The PSU Bank index andMetal indices declined by 4.4 per centand 3.3 per cent. The Pharma index isalso down by 0.5 per cent. The remainingsector indices are in rally condition. Dur-ing the month, FIIs bought Rs. 7132.72crores, and DIIs bought Rs1,030.37 crores.Overall market breadth is at 1:1.

The NSE Nifty has registered thelongest winning streak in this year byclosing higher for the fifth consecutiveweek. It formed a higher high and higherlow and strong bullish candle. Eventhough the market overextended andoverbought condition, the benchmarkindex is resilient to decline. The marketis alive because of a perfect sector rotationand stock rotation. It is also resilient toglobal markets and outperformed lastweek. But, over 620 points weekly tradingrange, a spike in volatility is worry pointnow. The Nifty has extended over 127.6per cent of the prior swings, which weprojected earlier. It closed much abovethe 17740 levels decisively, so it may testthe 144 per cent extension of 18055. The161.8 per cent extension level is at 18368.For, we can’t forecast more than thislevel. Most probably, the market top willbe formed at one of these levels.

Now, we will discuss the downside

probabilities. On a daily chart, theindex has formed a spinning topcandle. In any case, the Nifty opens witha gap down and closes below 17,819 points,and the reversal is a reality. In this re-versal, the Nifty must not breach 17,326level. As long as it’s trading in the 17326- 17947 range, the Nifty will consolidate.The 20DMA is at 17375, is another im-portant level to watch. For the first timeafter November 2014, the RSI has reached80 zone on a monthly chart. And Onlyafter April 2006, it closed above the 80on a weekly chart. Whenever 14 periodsRSI has reached 80, it has made a top inthe past on a longer period chart. Thistime too, it has reached the extremeoverbought condition in all timeframes.As the RSI historically high overboughtcondition and the rally extended beyondthe expected 127.6 level of 17740, thehigher probability is consolidation forsome time above the 17254. India VIXtraded below 18 for many weeks; it haseven tested the level of 10 on the downsidemultiple times. Interestingly, the IndiaVIX currently, for the 16-week period,is trading below the 18 mark. A similarpattern was witnessed just before theMarch 2020 fall, when India VIX tradedbelow the 18 mark for almost 18 weeks.As mentioned earlier, as had been wit-nessed many times in the past, the pro-longed period of low VIX will result inan impulsive and volatile move. That isexactly what has been happening for thelast two consecutive days.

With a serious increase in volatilityand a weekly close above the 18 zone,bears, in all probability, will dominate

the market for some time. Evenduring the top of 2014, the VIX hadbroken out of the range and closedabove the 18 mark on a weekly basis.Hence, keep a close watch on IndiaVIX; a close above the 18 mark would

be a red flag. Another interestingobservation is that the Mansfieldrelative strength indicator showsthat the Nifty is underperformingcompared to the Nifty 500. The

outperformance of mid-cap and small-cap stocks is one of the major factorsfor the market rally. These two importantmarket drivers underperformed lastweek. Though the midcap-100 indexmade a new high, it declined below theprevious day low and formed a bearishengulfing. The smallcap-100 index hasmade a lower high with a big bearishbar. The leading sector index, the NiftyIT has made a gravestone Doji and allthe major IT stocks are also formed sim-ilar bearish candles. The Bank Niftyformed a double top. Historically, in 16out of 21 years, the Nifty formed a majortop in the January-March quarter. TheOctober-December quarter has beenthe most bullish in the last 15 years asper the seasonality charts. This histor-ical fact shows a lower probability of abig bear market ahead. The volatilitywill increase in the near term, and itwill become extremely challenging totrade in shorter periods. Hence, wewould advise traders to concentrateon quality names and maintain strictstop loss for trading bets. In history,only in 2016 did Nifty make an inter-mediate top in September, and in 2010it made a top in October. The Niftymust form a lower high and lower thelow bar on a weekly timeframe. Thenonly one has to change the stance to-wards the bearish.

(The author is a financial journalist and technical analyst.

He can be reached attbchary@gmail.com)

Recently one of my friendscalled me to find out the

options to invest his dad’s re-tirement corpus. He was unim-pressed with the returns fromthe fixed income and similarassets that are currently avail-able. Since it’s a larger corpus,I’d suggested about diversifyinginto multiple assets to get a bet-ter risk adjusted returns. Butwhat caught my attention wasthe raw pursuit of returns andespecially in this low interestrate environment.

While I wanted to warranthis wishes, I was searching fora right analogy to explain therisk quotient he was leadinginto. The discussion veered toa car I recently drove. We weretalking the pros and cons of itand then he said that the onlyshortcoming of that model isthe less-efficient braking systemat high speeds. So, he felt thatone needs to be vigilant whiletaking higher speeds in that ve-hicle.

It struck me on how we makedecisions about handling ormanaging risk. The risk of higherspeeds persists despite a betterbraking system, but if we wereto end up with a better car thenwe invariably hit higher speeds,thus increasing the risks again.Risk in simple terms is nothing

but uncer-tainty or aprobability ofan event lead-ing to a loss.Unfortunate-ly, risk is moreto do withhow we per-ceive thanwhat it actu-ally it is. So,what’s riskierfor me mayn’tbe the samefor anotherperson. This dichotomy of un-derstanding leads us to makechoices that turn harmful forour investment journey.

This is well explained in therisk compensation theory whichsuggests on how typically peopleadjust their behaviour in re-sponse to ‘their’ risk perception.This leads to being more carefulwhen sensing higher risk andless careful when one feels pro-tected or finds less risk. Thiscould lead to lower net benefitsof safety interventions than usu-ally thought. This reduction ofpredicted benefits arising outof regulations made to improve

safety is re-ferred to Peltz-man’s effectnamed afterSam Peltzmanwho in 1975published a pa-per on how theimproved safetyr e g u l a t i o n shaven’t reducedthe highwaydeaths.

Seatbelts andA n t i - L o c kBreaking Sys-

tems (ABS) were designed toprovide greater safety for driv-ers. But research found that thedrivers of vehicles with ABStend to drive faster, follow closerand brake later thus negatingthe benefits of road safety oth-erwise achieved with the system.A 1994 study of people who bothwore and habitually didn’t wearseatbelts concluded that driverswere found to drive faster andless carefully when belted.

As per the behavioural theory,risk seeking is an attitude wherea person is inclined to take less-certain activities in lieu of morecertain ones. This acceptance

of greater risk and uncertaintyin exchange for the potentialhigher returns would often re-sult in undesirable outcomes.Risk seekers, though have a highlevel of risk tolerance which isnot the case with most investors.The concern here is the sidestepping the comfort zone inchasing for higher returns par-ticularly in these desperate sit-uations.

Risk-seeking tends to be onrise during bull markets as in-vestors see their targeted re-turns reaching easily and attimes earlier than planned. Atthese times when the draw-downs are minimal and shallow,the guard of general public isalso lowered due to the buoy-ancy in the markets. As returnexpectations slowly cross togreed, the risk assessment is di-luted leading to indiscipline.

This is why I would like todefine the investment objectiveat the beginning and thus arriveat the return expectations. Whatmost investors do is take thisrationale inversely, they wouldapproach an investment with acertain return expectation.When an investment objectiveis defined well then the risk as-sociated would be firm and clear.That way investors wouldn’t bemaking wrong choices in in-vesting. Also, one has to stickto their risk profile and not becarried away with the marketconditions.

(The author is a co-founder of‘Wealocity’, a wealth management

firm and could be reached atknk@wealocity.com)

K Naresh Kumar

DERIVATIVES

OUTLOOK Volatile trading likely ahead of F&O expiryCall writers at 17,600 strike triggered sharp short

covering, while Put writers added hefty OI at 17,900/17,700strike; India VIX moved up 1.93% to 16.92 level

When return expectations turn into greed, the risk assessment is diluted leading to

indiscipline. The investors need to stick to their risk profile for better returns

NIFTY

MARKETKHABREIN

TGV SRAAC Limited, formerly

Sree Rayalaseema Alkalies and

Allied Chemicals Limited, is a

producer of chlor-alkali products

and manufactures castor deriva-

tives and fatty acids. The three

segments, the company is en-

gaged in chemicals, oils and

fats, and power sectors. The

chemicals segment products

mainly contain Causc Soda (Lye

&Flakes), Potassium Hydroxide,

chlorine, hydrochloric acid,

Sodium Hypochlorite and

Chloromethanes, etc. Oils & Fats

Segment contains Castor oil de-

rivatives, Soap noodles, Hydroxy

Stearic Acid, etc., products. The

main product Caustic Soda after

witnessing cyclical downturn till

March 2021 has witnessed huge

surge in prices by over 30 to

35%. Buy for medium term tar-

get of Rs80.

Elecon Engineering Company

Limited is engaged in the manu-

facture of material handling

equipment, industrial geared

motors and reducers, mining

equipment and casting

processes. The company’s seg-

ments include Material Handling

Equipment, Transmission Equip-

ment and Others. It is also en-

gaged in designing and manu-

facturing worm gears;

parallel shaft and right angle

shaft; helical and spiral level

helical gears; fluid geared and

flexible couplings, as well as

planetary gear boxes.

There are strong rumours of

L&T picking up stake in the com-

pany at a significant premium to

current market price. Recovery

in the economy and improving

outlook for Capita Goods compa-

nies makes Elecon Engineering

good buy at current levels for

target price of Rs325.

STOCK PICKS

Global cues to set the tone for mkts

Risk-seeking tends tobe on rise during bullmarkets as investors

see their targetedreturns reaching easily

and at times earlierthan planned. At these

times when thedrawdowns are

minimal and shallow,the guard of general

public is also lowereddue to the buoyancy in

the markets

FOCUS ON QUALITY STOCKS, KEEP STOP LOSS FOR TRADING BETS

Be aware of the risk in your investment

Gold, silver remainfirm despite global tensions

HC UPADHYAY

HYDERABAD: Amidst QUAD meeting

and continuing geo-political ten-

sions, both the precious metals,

namely, gold and silver remained

firm in the global markets. Conse-

quently, New York gold closed at

$1,750.20 (per Ounce) while silver

closed at $22.38 (per Ounce). Plat-

inum and palladium closed at $976

(per Ounce) and $1,897 (per Ounce)

respectively. In local markets, stan-

dard gold (24 carats) further de-

clined by Rs.230 and closed at Rs

47,130 (per 10 gms). Ornamental

gold too, followed the suit and was

quoted in the range of Rs.43,100 –

43,200 on the closing day. Silver

(0.999) too, further declined by Rs

1,800 and closed at Rs 64,100 (per

kg). Other economic parameters re-

mained moderate. Brent closed at

US $ 78.09 (per barrel) while Crude

MCX oil was quoted at Rs 5,466 (per

barrel). While Gold MCX stood at Rs

45,995 (per 10gms), MCX Silver

closed at Rs 59,920 (per kg), Copper

MCX closed at Rs 714 (per kg).

CommoditiesThe sentiment in principal

wholesale commodity markets in

twin cities turned moderate due

to parting rain showers of the cur-

rent monsoon season. Rythu

Bazars and the various commod-

ity markets located in Begum

Bazar, Kishangunj, Mukthyargunj,

Risala Abdullah, Mir AlamMandi,

Dilsukhnagar, Kukatpally, Bowen-

pally, General Bazar moderate

trading.

Bandh call onSeptember 27 by

farmers and trade unionsreceived support from all

opposition parties; expectedto impact bank services, road

and rail transport. The IPOmart will keep buzzing

next week as well

7

DELHI MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 20218 SPORTS

ABUDHABI

RAVINdRA Jadeja won a close match forChennai Super Kings for the umpteenthtime as his back-end pyrotechnics ensureda two-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Rid-ers in an Indian Premier League thrillerhere on Sunday.

Jadeja (22 off 8 balls) launched intopacer Prasidh Krishna, who bowled the19th over, where the pacer lost his lengthcompletely under the Saurashtra all-rounder's onslaught with CSK reachingthe target of 172 in exactly 20 overs.

Instead of bowling yorkers, Krishna re-peatedly bowled length balls as Jadeja hittwo sixes and two boundaries to make it acakewalk in the final over.

Krishna conceded 22 runs in the penul-timate over to leave CSK with four runsto get in the final over. But there was moredrama in store as Sam Curran and Jadejawere snuffed out by Sunil Narine beforedeepak Chahar ended the match with asingle.

However KKR skipper Eoin Morgan'scaptaincy left a lot to be desired as the de-cision to bring in Krishna in the 19th overwould be debated. Morgan in his defencecould sight Anre Russell's injury being thereason but Narine in the 19th over couldhave posed more challenge for a rampag-ing Jadeja.

The win also meant that CSK remainedunbeaten after the IPL resumed and onceagain were back atthe top in the peck-ing order, with 16points. In pursuit of achallenging 172, CSKwere down and out at142/6 before Jadejatook the onus onhimself.

KKR had posted 171/6, as they rode onlate flourish by former skipper dineshKarthik and Nitish Rana after the foun-dation was laid by Rahul Tripathi (45).CSK wasn't able to capitalise on the ag-gressive 74-run opening start given by Ru-turaj Gaikwad (40 off 28 balls; 2 fours and3 sixes) and South African Faf du Plessis(43; seven fours).

KKR pegged CSK by sending both theopeners back in quick succession. CSKthen suffered a middle-order collapse.Spinner Varun Chakravarthy had got KKRback into the game by dismissing Mahen-dra Singh dhoni.

Earlier, former skipper dineshKarthik's late cameo and Nitish Rana'ssteady long handle took Kolkata KnightRiders to a par-score of 171 against Chen-nai Super Kings in an Indian PremierLeague encounter on Sunday.

Seamer Shardul Thakur (2/20 in 4overs) and Ravindra Jadeja (1/21 in 4overs) performed impressively to keepKKR under leash till the 13th over whenthey were 93 for 4.However, the last

s e v e n

overs yielded 78 runs and KKR were ableto put on a more than fighting score largelydue to Sam Curran (0/56 in 4overs) leak-ing runs at the back end. Even Josh Ha-zlewood (2/40 in 4 overs) got a bit of stickhelping KKR's cause.

The platform was laid by Rahul Tripathi(45 off 33), who hit four boundaries andone six but it was the CSK bowlers, whokept making inroads and did not allow theKKR batsmen to either free their arms orsettle down.

Opting to bat, Kolkata lost opener Shub-man Gill (9) in the first over after a horri-ble mix-up with Venkatesh Iyer. One-down Tripathi and in-form Venkatesh Iyer(18) tried to resurrect the innings but thesouthpaw was unable to convert his startafter he nicked one to Mahendra Singhdhoni off Thakur.

Tripathi, who fetched his first boundary,an imperious pull shot over mid-wicket,also got a 'life' after the ball on which hehad nicked, was adjudged as a 'no-ball'. Offthe very next one, he smashed his firstmaximum over deep extra cover.

Skipper EoinMorgan (8) also

fell cheaply as he holed todu Plessis off Josh Hazle-wood as KKR was in spot ofbother at 70/3. Tripathialso fell in the 13th over, ashe was cleaned up by left-arm spinner RavindraJadeja as KKR slipped to89/4.

Then Andre Russell (20)took on Sam Curran in the 15thover, smacking two fours and amonstrous six, as KKR fetched 14runs. But Shardul Thakur forcedRussell to drag one back onto hisstumps. Then it was the Rana andKarthik show that took them past170. (PTI)BRIEF SCORES: Kolkata Knight Riders 171/6 in 20overs (Rahul Tripathi 45, NitishRana 37 not out, Shardul Thakur2/20, Josh Hazlewood 2/40) lost toChennai Super Kings 172/8 in 20overs (Faf du Plessis 43, Ruturaj Gaik-wad 40, Sunil Narine 3/41, Andre Rus-sell 1/28) by twowickets.

l All-round Jadeja delivers in CSK’s nail-biting two-wicket win over KKR

NEWDELHI

"IT will not be just a match, it will be much more than that," quipped aformer Indian cricketer when asked about his views on Royal Chal-

lengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians' clash scheduled totake place in dubai on Sunday night. Virat Kohli (RCB)and Rohit Sharma (MI) will be looking to up their cap-

taincy quotient and raise their respective team's per-formance by a few notches when the two sides

meet later in the evening.India's outgoing T20 captain and the one who

is likely to replace him, both have endured crush-ing defeats. It puts them on a slippery slope as the

league approaches its business end."They both would want to prove their mettle. I

am just waiting for the clash," the former cricketeradded. Even fans are eagerly waiting for the match."Outgoing captain vs likely captain. What more

would you want on Sunday?" one wrote on Twitter.Another stated; "It might be the last match of cap-

tain Rohit vs captain Virat". Whereas, one wrote, "Viratvs Rohit. King vs Hitman. Fire vs Extinguisher. Big hitter vs

Big hitter. Entertainment guaranteed."For the record, things are a bit tough for Mumbai Indians

at the moment as they have lost their first two matches inthe second phase and are currently at the sixth position

in the points table with 8 points. On the other hand, RCBare in a better position and are at number three with 10

points.However, RCB have also lost their first two

matches in the UAE leg as well. In this situation,both the teams are looking for victory, but if

Mumbai gets defeated in this match, then it canbe difficult for the playoffs ahead.

Mumbai Indians opted to bowl againstRoyal Challengers Bangalore in their here

on Sunday.MI's star all-rounder Hardik Pandya

was picked in the eleven for the firsttime since the resumption of IPL this

season. RCB made three changes,bringing in Shahbaz Ahmed, dan

Christian and Kyle Jamieson at theexpense of Navdeep Saini,Wanindu Hasaranga and Timdavid. (IANS)

‘Outgoing captain vslikely captain’; Fans wait

for mega clash

MACKAY

INDIA finished the

ODI leg of the

multi-format se-

ries on a high

with a brilliant

two-wicket win -

- fashioned by a

collective team ef-

fort -- which ended

Australia's unbeaten ODI

streak of 26 matches on Sun-

day. However, Australia won the ODI se-

ries 2-1, with the multi-format series' score-

line reading 4-2.

The third and final ODI in Mackay went

down to the wire but this time India held

their nerves as they sealed a thrilling two-

wicket win with just three balls to spare. Tall

India pacer Jhulan Goswami hit the winning

runs, lofting it straight for a four.

Chasing a target of 265, India showed

poise and power in their response, with the

opening pair of Shafali Verma and Smriti

Mandhana putting on 59 for the first wicket.

Negotiating the new-ball partnership of

Perry and McGrath, Mandhana fell to the off-

spin of Gardner for 22 (25), with Annabel

Sutherland taking a catch running back from

mid-off.

Young Yastika Bhatia continued her fine

start to international cricket, ticking things

along with Verma, bringing up a 100-run

stand in just 19 overs.

At 160/1 after 29

overs and needing

just 105, India

looked in

prime posi-

tion, before a

double blow

swung the

pendulum back

once again. Verma

fell to the left-arm or-

thodox spin of Sophie Mo-

lineux for 56, while wicketkeeper

Richa Ghosh was dismissed an over later,

with Sutherland taking her first wicket.

Bhatia continued her press with captain

Mithali Raj, with only a piece of inspired

fielder ending her stay at the crease. Top-

edging a short ball, Bhatia became Stella

Campbell's first victim in international

cricket, only after a diving catch from substi-

tute fielder Molly Strano.

Sutherland doubled her tally by rattling

Vastrakar's (3) stumps, leaving Mithali and

No.7 Deepti Sharma needing a run a ball

from the last 10 overs.

BRIEF SCORES: Australia Women 264/9 in 50

overs (A Healy 35, B Mooney 52, A Gard-

ner 67; T McGrath 47; J Goswami 3/37,

P Vastrakar 3/46) lost to India Women

266/8 in 49.3 overs (S Verma

56, Y Bhatia 64; A Sutherland

3/30) by 2 wickets.

India end hosts’ 26-match unbeatenrun with 2-wicket consolation win

NEWDELHI

INdIAN men'snational teamcoach Igor Stimac

has named a list of23 players for the forthcoming SAFFChampionship which kicks off in the Mal-dives from October 1. The final of thechampionship is slated for October 16.

The players and the support staff will as-semble in Bengaluru on Monday (Septem-ber 27), and will fly out to the Maldives thenext day.

Stimac and the other members of thetechnical staff will join the squad directlyin Maldives on the same day.

Besides India, Bangladesh, Nepal, SriLanka and hosts Maldives are the otherteams in the championship. Each teamplays the other once with the top two teamsqualifying for the final.

"We are all looking forward to the SAFFChampionship as the leading football coun-try in this part of Asia. These 4-5 games areextremely crucial for us as we won't haveany other chance of getting together before

the start of the third round AFC Asian Cup

qualifiers next season. So these matchesshould help us to improve a few points inour game," said Stimac.

India have won the SAFF Championship(formerly SAARC Cup) seven times -- 1993Lahore, 1997 Kathmandu, 1999 Margao,2005 Karachi, 2009 (U23 squad) dhaka,2011 New delhi and 2015/16 Thiruvanan-thapuram.

India begin their campaign againstBangladesh on October 4.India's fixtures in group stage:Oct 4: Bangladesh vs India (IST 4.30pm).Oct 7: India vs Sri Lanka (IST 4.30pm).Oct 10: Nepal vs India (IST 8.30pm).Oct 13: India vs Maldives (IST 8.30pm).Probables:GOALKEEPERS: Gurpreet Singh, Am-rinder Singh, Vishal Kaith. DEFENDERS:Pritam Kotal, Seriton Fernandes, Chinglen-sana Singh, Rahul Bheke, Subhasish Bose,Mandar Rao dessai. MIDFIELDERS:Udanta Singh, Brandon Fernandes, Laleng-mawia, Anirudh Thapa, Sahal Abdul Samad,Jeakson Singh, Glan Martins, Suresh Singh,Liston Colaco, Yasir Mohammad. FORWARDS: Manvir Singh, Rahim Ali,Sunil Chhetri, Farukh Choudhary.

Stimac names 23-member squad forSAFF Championship

in Maldives

NEWDELHI

FOR quite some time Virat Kohli's captaincy

has been the subject of much speculation

among cricket fans across the country. He may

have shut out the rumours after announcing,

citing workload burdens, his resignation as In-

dias T20 captain. But now it seems there's

more to his resignation than Virat would have

us believe.

Since the tour of England, speculation had

started that Virat would be removed from

white ball captaincy. It was said that the Board

of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was 'un-

happy' with the skipper, but when the IANS

spoke to BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal, he flatly

denied the news. The very next day, the 32-

year-old stylish batsman came forward and an-

nounced his decision to leave India's T20 cap-

taincy. He said that he would step down after

the ICC T20 World Cup next month.

The decision caused many eyebrows to be

raised. Why just T20? Meanwhile, it also tran-

spired that something was actually not right

between Virat and the BCCI!

According to sources, such talk had been go-

ing on for the last six months and gathered

pace after the World Test Championship deba-

cle. Even the BCCI secretary Jay Shah, after Vi-

rat's announcement, stated that he had been

discussing this matter with him for the last few

months.

Cricket experts, however, questioned the

timing of his announcement. 'Why did Virat

take such a decision just a month before the

mega sporting spectacle?'

More queries, more mystery!

Did Virat come to know that the BCCI was

thinking of removing him from the top post?

Was the workload really a factor? Why did the

poster boy of the team suddenly lose his aura

of invincibility? If sources are to be believed,

the revolt against Virat had started within the

team a few months ago. It has come to light

that several senior players in the dressing room

were miffed at the attitude of the ace cricketer.

His lack of form further didn't help the

cause, especially because Kohli had not scored

a century in the past several innings across for-

mat -- Test, ODI or T20s.

His failing form has affected his decision-

making, which has taken a toll on his relation-

ship with the players. A senior player had com-

plained to the BCCI secretary against Virat for

making him feel �insecure'.

Virat had reportedly accused the senior

cricketer of showing 'no intent' during the

World Test Championship final against New

Zealand in Southampton, UK.

If sources are to be believed, the name of R.

Ashwin is now doing the rounds as one of the

mutineers, but it has not been confirmed yet.

But if one recalls how Ashwin was treated

during the England series and Virat's insis-

tence on not including him in the playing XI,

despite the advice of experts, indicated some-

thing was brewing.

Even chief coach Ravi Shastri had talked

about playing Ashwin before the fourth Test.

Virat apparently ignored this advice.

Interestingly, another issue to come up was

that Virat was not even consulted before the

appointment of MS Dhoni as a mentor of the

T20 side for the World Cup. The inclusion of

Ashwin in the T20 team also ignited fireworks

between selectors and Virat. Sources said that

Virat wanted young spinner Yuzvendra Chahal

in the team instead of the veteran.

Recently another news doing the rounds was

that Shastri had asked Virat to step down from

the ODI and T20 captaincy as well, but Virat

only relieved himself of leading the T20 side.

It is also being speculated that in the coming

months, after the World T20, Virat could also

be removed from the ODI captaincy too and Ro-

hit Sharma may be brought in his place.

The performance of the team in the T20

World Cup will be critical. Recently, Virat also

announced that he would step down from the

Royal Challengers Bangalore captaincy after

IPL 2021.

Fortune, it seems, is not favoring Virat! (IANS)

Virat faces mutiny in the ranks; Ashwin leads the revolt?

Sania wins firsttitle of 2021 season in OstravaOSTRAVA (CZECHREPUBLIC)

STAR Indian tennis player SaniaMirza won her first title of the sea-son as she and her Chinese partnerShuai Zhang beat the pair of Kait-lyn Christian and Erin Routliffe inthe women's doubles final of theOstrava Open here on Sunday.

The second seeded Indo-Chi-nese duo defeated the thirdseeded pair of American Chris-tian and New Zealander Rout-liffe 6-3 6-2 in the summit clashin one hour and four minutes.

The 34-year-old Sania andZhang had defeated the Japanesepair 6-2 7-5 in the semifinals ofthe WTA 500 event. It was Sa-nia's second final of the season,following a runner-up finish atthe WTA 250 Cleveland event inthe USA last month with

Chirstina Mchale. (PTI)

SOCHI

INdIA'S Jehandaruvala cappedoff his weekend inRussia with a thirdplace finish in the

feature race of theFormula 2 Champi-

onship here onSunday.

Jehan, who was secondfastest in the qualifying,dropped a place at the start tosettle for the final podium posi-tion. It was also his fourthpodium this season.

The Red Bull junior driver re-mains seventh in the standingswith 96 points. One of the two

sprint races were scrapped thisweekend due to wet weather. Je-han finished out of points in thesole sprint race held. Oscar Pi-astri took his second consecu-tive feature race win and ex-tended his lead in the drivers'standings with a commandingdrive at the Sochi Autodrom.

The Australian headed ThéoPourchaire across the line, withJehan occupying the final spoton the podium for Carlin. Start-ing from pole position, Piastriretained his position at the headof the field at the start of therace, while Pourchaire movedahead of daruvala for secondplace at Turn 2.

A fast-starting RalphBoschung progressed into thetop three, while c’ship-contend-ing Guanyu Zhou slipped fromfourth to eighth. With daruvalathird, local favourite RobertShwartzman was fourth, aheadof Saturday's Sprint Race victordan Ticktum.

Printed and Published by K. Hanumanta Rao, on behalf of Hyderabad Media House Pvt. Limited, Flat.No.609, 6th Floor, Kirti Shikhar Building, Plot.No.11, Dist.Center, Janakpuri, New Delhi- 110058.

and Printed at M/s. Marutinandan Printers & Publishers, A-15, Bara Bagh, G.T Karnal Road, Industrial Area, New Delhi - 110033. Editor: V Ramu Sarma. RNI No: DELENG/2017/74095

Daruvala finishes

weekend in Russia

with podium

Chennai Super Kings on summit

Dinesh Karthik of Kolkata Knight Riders try to run outSuresh Raina of Chennai Super Kings during IPL match atthe Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi in the UAE on Sunday

Faf du Plessis ofChennai Super Kings

plays a shot during IPL matchagainst Kolkata Knight Ridersat

the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, AbuDhabi in the UAE on

Sunday

It's a nice victory to have. At times you play goodcricket and you lose. It is enjoyable when you don'tdo so well and still win. It was good cricket from

both sides, and a pleasure for the spectators. We werealso worried about how the wicket will be. When youkeep playing on a wicket, groundsmen sometimes waterit more and leave some more grass. The important thingwas to make the most of what we had learnt and to comeback stronger

— M S Dhoni

TEAM P W L PT NRR

CSK......10......8 ....2....16 ......1.069

DC........10......8 ....2....16 ......0.711

RCB ......9......5 ....4....10 ....-0.720

KKR ....10......4 ....6......8 ......0.322

PBKS ..10......4 ....6......8 ....-0.271

MI ..........9......4 ....5......8 ....-0.310

RR..........9......4 ....5......8 ....-0.319

SRH ......9......1 ....8......2 ....-0.637

IPL STANDINGS

AICF to finalisebidders for chess leagueCHENNAI: Signing a sponsor-ship agreement with a multi-national company (MNC) fornational chess tournaments, fi-nalising the bidders for the In-dian Chess League, popularis-ing the sport at the grassrootsand setting up a national chessacademy are some of the thingsthat are there on the All IndiaChess Federation's (AICF)plate, said a senior official.

The AICF has also created aPlayers' Welfare Fund with acorpus of Rs.50 lakh to helpchess players in times of emer-gency, he added.

"We have signed a five-yearsponsorship agreement with anMNC. The company will spon-sor 18 national tournaments in-cluding the age groups for fiveyears," Bharat Singh Chauhan,AICF secretary told IANS.

"The MNC will give AICFRs.1 crore in the first year andincrease the contribution by 20per cent during the remainingfour years," Chauhan added.

He said the company's namewill be revealed once the firstyear's amount is received byAICF. Chauhan said a meetinghas been fixed on October 10 toconsider their proposals.

RR vs SRH

at 7:30pm

IST