· aspiration or wish fulfillment and incredible though we may have been, there was no concept of...

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I t is as interesting as it gets. Manvendra Singh, ex-BJP MP and son of the saffron party’s veteran Jaswant Singh, will take on Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje as the candidate of arch-rival Congress — the party that he joined last month — for the December 7 Assembly polls from Jhalrapatan constituency. The contest between the two will be one of the most keenly observed ones given their acrimonious past as Manvendra sees Raje as the rea- son for his father’s image fall in the party. Whether the son will avenge the insult meted out to his father, the BJP old guard who is in coma for the last four years, will only be known on December 11 when the results will be out. The Congress hopes to pin down the Chief Minister in her constituency and also seeks to cash in on the perceived Rajput sentiments against her. But Raje looked unperturbed as she said, “The Congress could not find any candidate and he (Manvendra) was to be given ticket from somewhere and therefore, he was sent here (Jhalrapatan). But they should know that it is not a fight of one person, this is a contest fought by Jhalawar and Rajasthan, which is a family.” A lyque Padamsee became India’s greatest story-teller at a time when we were still coming to terms with our self- worth as a nation, idealistic to the core but yet apologetic, fumbling, barefooted and unsure about screaming out loud on the world stage. Films were the only expression of our aspiration or wish fulfillment and incredible though we may have been, there was no concept of Brand India, ambassadors and advertising. India’s greatest ad guru, who passed away at the ripe old age of 90 — literally as a vanguard of a nation in tran- sit — shaped our identity in popular culture. A people who could have aspirations, chase them and make them happen while retaining their innate Indianness. And concretise wishful thinking with home- grown products. In that sense, he sold us our first global dream. No wonder, till date he is considered the only god of Indian advertising and sales. So by the time 1970s hap- pened and the angry young man was taking shape on the big screen with Big B, his female counterpart exploded in the form of the Liril girl, soap suds gliding down her green bikini as she splashed about with Amazonian glee and aban- don under a waterfall, literally tra la la-ing her way into our minds. The bell bottoms and halter tops were coming but model Karen Lunel signified the “liberation” moment as it were for a generation of Indian women. RNI Regn. No. CHHENG/2012/42718, Postal Reg. No. - RYP DN/34/2013-2015

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Page 1:  · aspiration or wish fulfillment and incredible though we may have been, there was no concept of Brand India, ambassadors and advertising. India’s greatest ad guru, who passed

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It is as interesting as it gets.Manvendra Singh, ex-BJP

MP and son of the saffronparty’s veteran Jaswant Singh,will take on Rajasthan ChiefMinister Vasundhara Raje asthe candidate of arch-rivalCongress — the party that hejoined last month — for theDecember 7 Assembly pollsfrom Jhalrapatan constituency.

The contest between thetwo will be one of the mostkeenly observed ones giventheir acrimonious past asManvendra sees Raje as the rea-son for his father’s image fall inthe party. Whether the son willavenge the insult meted out tohis father, the BJP old guardwho is in coma for the last fouryears, will only be known onDecember 11 when the resultswill be out.

The Congress hopes to pindown the Chief Minister in herconstituency and also seeks tocash in on the perceived Rajputsentiments against her. ButRaje looked unperturbed as shesaid, “The Congress could notfind any candidate and he(Manvendra) was to be giventicket from somewhere andtherefore, he was sent here(Jhalrapatan). But they shouldknow that it is not a fight of oneperson, this is a contest foughtby Jhalawar and Rajasthan,which is a family.”

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Alyque Padamsee becameIndia’s greatest story-teller

at a time when we were stillcoming to terms with our self-worth as a nation, idealistic tothe core but yet apologetic,fumbling, barefooted and

unsure about screaming outloud on the world stage. Filmswere the only expression of ouraspiration or wish fulfillmentand incredible though we mayhave been, there was no conceptof Brand India, ambassadorsand advertising. India’s greatestad guru, who passed away at theripe old age of 90 — literally as

a vanguard of a nation in tran-sit — shaped our identity inpopular culture. A people whocould have aspirations, chasethem and make them happenwhile retaining their innateIndianness. And concretisewishful thinking with home-grown products. In that sense,he sold us our first global

dream. No wonder, till date heis considered the only god ofIndian advertising and sales.

So by the time 1970s hap-pened and the angry youngman was taking shape on thebig screen with Big B, hisfemale counterpart exploded inthe form of the Liril girl, soapsuds gliding down her green

bikini as she splashed aboutwith Amazonian glee and aban-don under a waterfall, literallytra la la-ing her way into ourminds. The bell bottoms andhalter tops were coming butmodel Karen Lunel signified the“liberation” moment as it werefor a generation of Indianwomen.

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Page 2:  · aspiration or wish fulfillment and incredible though we may have been, there was no concept of Brand India, ambassadors and advertising. India’s greatest ad guru, who passed

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What genre is thisone? Horror? Notreally though the

entire film and the situationit puts a little child intomakes you squirm.

The opening credits tellyou that the film is based ona true story. Apparentlysomething so horrifichappened somewhere inGhaziabad years ago. Onscreen, it is equally so.Cherubic girl child Pihubrings your heart into yourmouth by roaming around ina deserted house with hermother lying dead on the bedand she being far removedfrom the entire concept of alife end. On her part, Myrawho plays Pihu tugs at yourheart with all her unguardedmoments, which incidentally

are many. But the situationshe is in gets you. It is eerie, itis highly uncomfortable andit mkes you feel the need tosomehow, anyhow end herpredicament even though sheis least aware of the fact thather mother is not sleepingbut lying dead on the bedafter a bad bout with herhusband who has since leftfor Kolkata.

Vinod Kapri andSidharth Roy Kapoor maythink this one to be a creativeand sensitive film but purelyfrom the point of view ofcinema, it is monotonous,stretched and needless.Seeing such harsh realities oflife through a child so tendercomes across as a bad page ofemotional porn.

Myra though is brilliant,thanks to excellent camerawork. One can see hoursbeing spent to capture hermoods.

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With an end of Porus whodied with the vision ofAkhand Bharat (united

India) and fought againstAlexander, The Great, only toachieve victory in defeat, Chanakyatakes the story forward with therise of yet another warrior in themaking, Chandragupta Maurya.

The show Porus highlightedthe king’s journey and how he andChanakya worked towards thevision of a united India andprevent outsiders to come intoIndia. Porus succeeds inconvincing Alexander to leaveIndia who leaves his generalSeleucus Nicator behind. AfterPorus the assassination bySeleucus, Chanakya takes histhought forward and goes toDhananand, the king of Magadh,who insults him who considerseveryone like dirt. Before leaving,Chanakya tells Dhananand thatfrom this speck of dust he willcreate a mighty king who will takethe vision forward.

“Chanakya realised thatDhananand has joined hands withSeleucus and is not able to see thefuture. Once Seleucus will captureMagadh, the Greek Army willtake over and impose their cultureon us. The culture, religion andlanguage of India will be lost.Which actually happened whenBritishers came,” Tarun Khanna,who plays Chanakya, says adding

that the show will air at the sametime slot, every Monday to Friday8 pm on Sony Entertainment TV.

Taking the baton of akhandBharat forward, Chanakya goes ontell the story of the making ofIndia’s brave and most celebratedKing in the Indian history —Chandragupta Maurya.

Essaying the role ofChandragupta Maurya, KartikeyaMalviya says: “I am doing an in-depth study on the life ofChandragupta Maurya. Since theshow will throw light on thechildhood of Chandragupta, whohad innate abilities of leadershipand was a problem solver and agreat friend, I will have to workhard in play different shades of thecharacter. I will be riding a horse,doing masti with friends andcreate light moments which wasvery contrary to play Shani Dev inthe serial.”

Chandragupta Maurya was areluctant student who had nofeelings for his motherland andharboured only one goal — to earnhis freedom from the hunter whohe was sold to as a child. Chanakya,on the other hand, was a wisestrategist with a vision of a unitedIndia. But how do these twopeople with such contrastingnature join hands?

“When Chanakya metChandragupta, he found him to bea carefree child. He and his gang

of friends were petty thieves. Onething which Chanakya foundendearing was that Chandraguptaloved his mother but never saiddeclared it. He thought that aperson who loves his mother somuch will ultimately come to lovehis motherland as well. Thatthought made Chanakya bet onthis boy and convincesChandragupta to be his mentor.This brings a big transformation inhis life,” Khanna says who drawssimilarities between Chanakyaand Mahatma Gandhi.

“Mahatma Gandhi too wasinsulted and thrown out of the trainin Africa and realised that this isnot a personal issue but a bigconcern for India and its people. Hecame back to India and madeothers join his fight against

prejudice. If he had wanted, hecould have also become the PrimeMinister but he gave the power toJawahar Lal Nehru. The mostpowerful person is one who haseverything and gives it tosomebody else. That is whatChanakya did. His aim was not torule a kingdom but to make a kingout of an honest and just man. Hecould have easily said toChandragupta Maurya that youbecome my commander-in-chiefand I will be your king but he choseto be his educator and advisor.Chanakya makes a king out of acommoner,” Khanna tells you

Through the concept of linearstory which is used for the firsttime on Indian television, onehistorical show has paved the wayfor another without taking a break.“Every end is a new beginning. Forthe first time on Indian TV onestory will move into anotherseamlessly. It’s like one chapter willend and the second will start. Thekey characters from Porus will takethe story ahead in ChandraguptaMaurya, one of the biggestwarriors who had created a unitedIndia against foreign invasion,” saysproducer and director SiddharthKumar Tewary.

Where Sourabh Raaj Jain willbe playing Dhananand and VikasVerma as Seleucus Nicator,Chandragupta Maurya’s motherwill be essayed by Shefali Sharma.

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Rowlings fantastic beast out of the Potter framehave been engaging in their moulds but thesecond film on them, despite the gravitas of

incorrigible screen eccentrics Johnny Depp, JudeLaw and Eddie Redmayne, falls flat in netherland.Never mind the groovy French and English locales,the giddying aerial swoops on razor pointed castlesand the magical views of Hogwarts where a youngand dashing Dumbledore is at work with mid airsuspension of candles and training young wizards todiscipline their wands.

The film is interesting in parts, very small andfew parts actually. But the Rowlings touch both inwriting and as producer gives the film expectationswhich sadly fall short of moments in the warbetween villain wizard Grindelwald and the rest ofthe magical world.

The film start from where it left off in theprevious edition, with Grindelwald making astunning aerial escape from a prison facility andthen rocking the world with his desire to rule theroost. The cataract eyed and silvr haired albino likeJohnny Depp does lend weight to a character who isotherwise not given much of a role to play in thiswizard story mostly bereft of magic. But yes he doeslook demonic and mean and perfect foil to a youngand dashing Dumbledore played to the hilt by JudeLaw. The two sign a blood pact to never fight eachother and the faint hint of a gay relationship looksrather inapropriate in a film for young adults.

Redmayne, best remembered as the Danish girl,does what he did in the previous one, a bitmechanically with familiarity of beasts like a treewalker and the feline sky-streaker. Despite all thebeasts, the film lacks the beauty of a sustainablestoryline. How could Rowling allow that?

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It is rare that a film’s storylineand emotional hold are as

powerful as the actors are and BoyErased is that rare one on a gayboy being sent by his veryChristian parents to be cleansed ofhis gay traits at a gay conversionfacility.

Russell Crowe and NicoleKidman as the parents of JaredEamons are more than brilliant.Crowe who never manages to shedhis Church inhibitions of being apriest and Kidman who goes byreligious advise to actually sendJared away, take you to quiteanother emotional level which, isfurther enhanced by the absolutelyfantastic portrayal of Jared’s fearsand bewilderment by LucasHedges. He is, by far, one of themost astonishingly polished actorsin the young generation and asJared he puts life into the film,making it an emotionalrollercoaster even for doubtinghomophobics. The film neverambles along and is magnificientlyput together keeping a tight stringaround your heart through everyframe, every dialogue and eversituation that besets this otherwisegood family. It is indeed, one ofthe most powerful films on the gayissue to come out in a long while.

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�How is life post marriage withPankhuri?

Life is great. If your life partneris your best friend then life becomesvery easy. A best friend canunderstand you better than anyoneelse. We are very different but ourethics and values in life are samethat's why we can see life in the sameway. Pankhuri is an introvert and Iam a mixture of being an introvertand extrovert. She takes care of myfamily and social things. If anytimeshe is not being able to handle Ialways step in and help her.

�A husband and wife in sameprofession …don’t you haveproblems?

If both husband and wife aresensible then there should be noproblem. Ego can come in anyhusband-wife whether they are insame profession or not. If notworking then the problem starts.Pankhuri and I are matureindividuals and I don’t think therewill be a problem in future also.

�Are you influenced bysuperstitions?

Not really. I pray to Godeveryday and go to the temple.When I am shooting there is a timeconstraint. I have a fixation with thenumbers. My lucky number is 5, soI try to keep that in my car or myhouse no or maybe in my parkingslot. I am not obsessed about it, buttry to follow that.

�This show has quite a number ofstunts. How has been yourexperience?

Whenever I work on televisionI do get action centric roles whichI enjoy. When I was doingMahakumbh my chin was hurtbadly, during Lucky I broke my leg.I am prone to injury. But am happythat on television whatever actionbased shows are coming I am partof that. This kind of shows throwsa lot of challenge to an actor. There

is always fun when you somethingadventurous. I do take care ofmyself, I workout well and eathealthy food.

�What challenges you as an actorat this phase?

If any role or show challenges mephysically that is the time I get thatextra high. Kaal Bhairav 2 isphysically exhausting and at the endof the day I am tired. On televisionyou get less opportunity to showcasethat. When I shoot outdoors I needextra energy to keep myself active.Because apart from doing action stuffyou need to act as well. Director-producer Ravindra Gautam is a veryhands on creative person whounderstands the subject well.

�Why did you return to televisionafter doing films?

Honest and simple reply - there

were no offers from films. Likeothers I won't say am on a break. Thetime is good, lot of tv actors are doinggood films. But I think its importantthat the film should do well at the boxoffice. Time is changing. Televisionhas given me my home. It is my breadand butter. I will never leavetelevision.

�What you do to make yourselfhappy?

I spend a lot of time with myfamily. I have two-three friends in mylife. When you are shooting inMumbai the traffic and shoot takesalmost 16 hours in a day. Then thereis hardly anything to do. So myfamily is my priority. Working out ismy stress buster too. I like to keepmyself fit. It is important to keepyourself fresh, that’s the reason ambeing able to play the same aged rolefor so many years.

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Accusing the ruling BJP ofcreating two Chhattisgarhs,

one of the rich and the other ofthe poor and the exploited,Congress President RahulGandhi on Saturday pledged towaive off all farm loans with-in 10 days of his party comingto power in the State.

Campaigning for the sec-ond phase of the Assemblypolls in Koriya district inChhattisgarh, Gandhi target-ed Prime Minister NarendraModi over alleged crony cap-italism. He also hit out atChief Minister Raman Singh.

"Chhattisgarh was createdso that its natural resourcescan be utilised for the welfareof the people. But now wehave two Chhattisgarhs-one ofthe rich, of those wearingsuit-boot, and the second ofthe masses, poor, margin-alised, farmers and workers.

"We don't want twoChhattisgarhs. We want jus-tice," said Gandhi, addressinga rally in this erstwhile prince-ly Koriya district.

Claiming that �3.5 lakhcrore of corporate loans werewaived off by the Centre,Gandhi asked why even a

rupee of farm loans was notwaived.

"I had asked Modi why hewas not writing off loansgiven to the poor farmers, buthe never bothered to reply. Sofrom here I declare that with-in 10 days of coming to powerin the State, we will waive offloans of each and everyfarmer," said Gandhi in thedistrict which is a bastion ofthe ruling BJP.

He said the waiver of farmloans will be offset by recov-eries from fraudsters like VijayMallya, Nirav Modi andMehul Choksi, who, with thehelp of Modi Government,had defrauded banks of bil-lions of rupees.

Sharpening his attack onModi over demonetisationand the Rafale deal, Gandhi

alleged that "thieves, with thehelp of Modi, laundered theirblack money into whitethrough demonetisation".

The second phase ofChhattisgarh Assembly pollsfor 72 constituencies spreadacross 19 districts will be heldon November 20.

The first phase of pollingin 18 constituencies acrosseight Maoist-affected districtswas held on November 12.The results will be declared onDecember 11.

Addressing another rallyin Jashpur in the State, Gandhialleged that the "Rafale dealwas done by Modi to give�30,000 crore to his industri-alist crony".

He also promised settingup food processing units in allthe blocks in the State so thatfarmers could easily sell theirproduce at the right priceand their sons and daughtercould get jobs in these facto-ries.

He also slammed ChiefMinister Raman Singh forunemployment in the State,saying despite thousands ofvacancies in variousGovernment departments andinstitutions, the youth werenot employed because of cor-ruption.

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The bureaucrat-turned-politician OP Chaudhary,

who is BJP candidate inCongress bastion KharsiaAssembly constituency, is fight-ing it out against all odds to winthe seat for the BJP.

Chaudhary is a local OBCyoung person who quit his IASjob just before Assembly pollsannouncement to launch hiscareer in politics. He is lockedin a direct fight with sittingMLA Umesh Patel, son of theformer Congress State chiefNandkumar Patel who wasmartyred in Naxal attack in2013.

Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) has also fielded VijayJaiswal, who was supported byJanta Congress Chhattisgarh(J). Jaiswal has a strong influ-ence in certain areas ofKharsia seat.

Though Congress candi-date Umesh Patel has a solidsupport base in the seat as hisfamily is deep rooted inKharsia politics butChaudhary is no mood togive up the fight and analystssay that Congress has beenchallenged in its bastion forthe time ever and the resultcould go either way.

Chaudhary, is also knownas a ‘blue-eyed boy’ ofChhattisgarh Chief Minister

Raman Singh.Nirakar Patel, a close

friend of Late NandkumarPatel and a fatherly figure forUmesh, who is also electionconvenor of Umesh, whiletalking to The Pioneerexpressed his hope that peopleof each and every home ofKharsia have family relationswith Patels. “They will defi-nitely cast their votes in favourof Umesh and will ensure his

huge victory,’’ he added.Fanendra Chaudhary,

uncle of OP Chaudhary, can-didly admitted that there is aclose contest in Congressstronghold this time.

He said that youth andintellectuals are supportingChaudhary. However, heaccepted that the old genera-tion in constituency was sym-pathetic towards Congresscandidate.

Notable, Kharsia is aCongress bastion and neverever a candidate from anyother party had recorded vic-tory from this seat.

The family of Patel is rep-resenting the constituency fordecades and father of Umesh,late Nandkumar Patel, retainedthe seat from 1990 till hisdeath in 2013. He was electedfrom the constituency fivetimes in a row in 1990, 1993,1998, 2003 and 2008.

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Former Chief Minister AjitJogi’s Janta Congress

Chhattisgarh (J) suffered amassive blow on Saturday as itsnational treasurer GajrajPagaria resigned from the partyafter he was being allegedlymanhandled at party founder’sresidence in Raipur.

Pagaria, the former mayorand a known public face, hadallegedly fought physically withone Vijay Nijwan at Ajit Jogi’sresidence on Friday night andthey filed complaints againsteach other in Civil Lines, policestation.

Pagaria, in his resignationletter, said that he was painedby the Friday incident where alower party worker had mis-behaved with him in full pub-lic view.

“Instead of taking action,the party office bearers termedit as personal matter and I hadno option but to resign fromthe party,’’ Pagaria stated.

JCC (J) leader and electioncampaign incharge VidhanMishra confirmed that Pagariahas put in his papers.

Jogi’s party which is con-

testing assembly polls in tie-upwith Bahujan Samaj Party, isjolted by a spree of resignationsby potential party leaders inrecent past. Jogi had floated theparty in 2016 after desertingCongress.

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Election Commission of Indiawill felicitate media houses

with National Media Award-2018 for promoting and creatingawareness among the electors. Ithas sought the entries byNovember 30, 2018.

In a letter issued by EC,media groups can apply in 4 cat-egories. The award is for four cat-egories, Print Media, Television(Electronic), Radio (Electronic)and online (Internet)/SocialMedia. One award would begiven to single category.

The application should carryclear-cut efforts on creatingawareness and promotion,need/importance of using thefranchise and the relevance ofvoting.

Application should haveclarity on details of works anddrives undertaken by the mediaorganisation for voters’ aware-ness. The judges’ panel wouldshortlist the entries. The awardwould be given away on January25, National Voter’s Day (2019).

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Police in Supela area in Bhilaiarrested a youth, with a

Bolero vehicle, on Saturday ashe was impersonating as aBorder Security Force AssistantSub Inspector.

He was caught during apolice checking.

A team of Supela Policestation led by Sub-InspectorAnuram Dewangan during thechecking near Supela TollPlaza, spotted a Bolero Vehicle

CG-07-BB-1519, having a bluebeacon light, coming fromNehru Nagar area side.

When intercepted, thepolice team found a youthwearing camouflage dress withCG Police ASI star.Interrogation revealed hisname as Abhishek Mishra andworking with BSF as ASI.Detecting mismatch in hisdress, shoes and star, policeteam then put him in intensiveinterrogation.

He then broke down andrevealed that he is Sunil KumarSonwani son of Ashok KumarSonwani. He is resident ofIndira Nagar Supela.

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Former Chief Minister andJanta Congress

Chhattisgarh (J) chief Ajit Jogimade another U-turn on

Saturday regarding hisremoured upcoming alliancewith the BJP and said he wouldnot engage with the saffronparty in case if the results pro-duces a hung Assembly in

State.“I want to put the record

straight that I would neithergive support to BJP not I takeits support for formation of thenext Government irrespective

of what the results come in,’’Jogi told reporters.

Jogi is known as an unre-liable politician who hardlykeeps his words and in recentpast he had contradicted hisown statements at least a dozentimes.

Jogi had earlier said that hewould back up the BJP if it fallsshort of majority inChhattisgarh. But his allianceparty BSP’s supremo Mayawatirebuffed him at an election rallyat Arang on Friday and statedshe would never do any busi-ness with the BJP.

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Nationalist Congress Party(NCP) Chhattisgarh pres-

ident Satish Jaggi, along withhis supporters, joinedCongress in presence of partynational president RahulGandhi at Ambikapur onSaturday.

Jaggi, son of late politicianRamavatar Jaggi, had beenheading the NCP in the Statefor past 15 years. In year 2003,the party had bagged one seat(from Chandrapur) but innext two successive assemblypolls held in 2008 and 2013,the party drew blank.

NCP was launched inChhattisgarh by late Congressveteran Vidya Charan Shuklain 2003.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi would be arriving on

a day-long visit to Chhattisgarhon Sunday. He would addressan election rally atMahasamund.

As per itinerary released byState BJP office, he will arriveat 11.45 am at Mahasamund.He would address the publicmeeting at Bemcha Bhataground.

The second phase ofChhattisgarh Assembly pollsfor 72 constituencies spreadacross 19 districts will be heldon November 20.

The first phase of polling in18 constituencies across eightMaoist-affected districts washeld on November 12. Theresults will be declared onDecember 11.

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Chhattisgarh Chief ElectoralOfficer Subrat Sahoo

reviewed the poll preparations inthree districts of Dhamtari,Gariaband and Balod wherethe second phase of polling is

scheduled on November 20.Earlier, he had held meeting

with 9 districts. CEO inspectedthe strong room, polling centres,counting centre and ‘Sanghwari’polling centre.

He sought the details ofsecurity arrangement in thepolling centres, with pollingteams and also strong rooms ofkeeping EVMs.

CEO directed all the three

district officials to ensure rampfor the differently able personsin all the polling booths.

Sahoo directed the officialsto ensure that all sector officersdownload the C-TOPPS appli-

cation and are imparted trainingfor it. The application is used fortracking the polling teams,updated information on thepolling and other related com-plaints.

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Page 4:  · aspiration or wish fulfillment and incredible though we may have been, there was no concept of Brand India, ambassadors and advertising. India’s greatest ad guru, who passed

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Haryana Chief MinisterManohar Lal on Saturday

said that the biggest footwearpark of the world would bedeveloped at Bahadugarh indistrict Jhajjar.

“As many as five acres landwould be made available in thisfootwear park for setting upFootwear Skill DevelopmentCentre so that local peoplewould be imparted trainingand made employable. Thisfootwear park would be devel-oped over 910 acres and 620production plants would allo-cated in it,” Manohar Lal said.

The Chief Minister madethis announcement after inau-gurating Skill Development

and Quality Control Centreestablished under FootwearDevelopment Institute at a costof �25 crore at BahaudgarhFootwear Park in Jhajjar.

On this occasion, the ChiefMinister announced to estab-lish transport city on about 32acres, industrial waste dispos-al centre on one acre and newcommercial and industrialplots on 60 acres.

He also announced to pro-vide Super Sucker Machine toevery city in the state underPPP mode to strengthen thesewerage system.

He said every year about7,000 to 8,000 trainees wouldget training of footwear tech-nique in Skill Developmentand Quality Control Centre

and they would get employ-ment in footwear industry.

The Chief Minister saidthat Micro, Small and MediumEnterprises (MSME) play sig-nificant role in providingemployment. Therefore, theState Government has beenpromoting MSME industries.

With this view, the Microand Small industrial units,which have electricity load lessthan 20 KW, would have to payonly �4.75 per unit and there-

fore such industries would bebenefited with �1.75 to �2 perunit, he said.

Manohar Lal also said thatin terms of export, the state hasbagged fifth position in thecountry. Similarly, in terms ofper capita income, the state hasbeen ranking first among bigstates. In 2014-15, the per capi-ta income was 1.70 lakh whichhas now reached to �2.41 lakh,he said.

He added the State

Government is going to devel-op the Kundli-Manesar-PalwalExpressway as economic cor-ridor. Under this, five smartcities would be developed onboth sides of highway..

Speaking on the occasion,Industries and CommerceMinister, Vipul Goel said thatfor the first time, the industri-al policy has been prepared inthe interests of the entrepre-neurs after incorporating theirsuggestions.

As a result of this policy, atarget of investment was set at�1 lakh crore duringHappening Haryana GlobalIndustrial Summit in 2016against which MoUs of morethan �3 lakh crore were signed,he said.

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Punjab Chief MinisterCaptain Amarinder Singh

has ridiculed Akali Dal leaderand his predecessor, ParkashSingh Badal, for the latter’sattempts to divert public atten-tion from the ongoing SITinvestigation against him in theKotkapura and Behbal Kalanfiring cases by claiming it to bepolitically motivated.

Reacting to Badal’s state-ment that the SIT was workingunder his “influence”, the ChiefMinister said the Government’sjob was over after it abided bythe unanimous decision of thePunjab Vidhan Sabha andformed the investigating team.

“SIT is an independententity and the Governmenthas no role in its functioning”,said the Chief Minister, addingthat it was now up to theinvestigating officers to carryout the investigations in themanner they deem fit.

In a statement issued onSaturday, the Chief Ministersaid that the SIT compriseshighly competent officers andthey are free to summon and

question anyone.“If anyone is found guilty

by them, they will make areport and submit it to the courtfor further action”, he said,adding that his Governmenthad no role whatsoever eitherin the ongoing investigations ortheir outcome.

Amarinder said it wasabsolutely ridiculous for Badalto even suggest that the SITreport will be written byPunjab’s Advocate General.“Unlike you, Badal, I believe inthe law of the land and fairinvestigations”, the CM said.

Accusing Badal of playingthe victim and indulging intheatrics by claiming that nodemocratically elected ChiefMinister had been ever calledfor questioning in independentIndia, the CM said it seems agehad caught up with him and hewas suffering from amnesia.

“Under your Government,I was summoned and ques-tioned by the police on frivo-lous charges at the Patiala cir-cuit house”, said the ChiefMinister, while advising Badalto face the investigations as alaw-abiding citizen.

����� ����� �'�

Punjab Urban and RuralDevelopment Minister Tript

Rajinder Singh Bajwa on Saturdayasked former Chief Minister andAkali Dal patron Parkash SinghBadal to reveal as to why Akal TakhtJathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh andhis associates were summoned to hisresidence in September 2015 beforeDera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmit RamRahim Singh was granted pardon.

“This is the key issue relating to theentire sacrilege narrative. It had comeout at that time that the Jathedars hadbeen summoned to official residenceof Badal to secure pardon for the Derachief. However, Badal himself mustcome out on record on this sensitiveissue. That it was violation of SikhRehat-Maryada is a separate issue.Badal has been five-time CM and hashonour of Fakhr-e-Qaum PanthRattan and as such, it is expected hewill only speak the truth,” he said.

Bajwa recalled that the pardon toDera chief by Akal Takht in the blas-phemy case of 2007 was withdrawnfollowing Sikh anger that the Badalscontinue to face.

He called upon Badal to come outas to why there were no concerted

efforts to trace the Bir of Guru GranthSahib from Burj Jawahar Singhwala onJune 1, 2015 whose pages were sub-sequently found scattered in thestreets of nearby Bargari village. TheBadal government treated it just as anordinary crime. In case, the Bir hadbeen traced, the subsequent tragic inci-dents relating to sacrilege could havebeen avoided, the Minister said.

He also alleged it was part of thedesign of Badal and his then DeputyCM, Sukhbir Singh Badal to treat itas a normal crime while it was root-ed in Dera Sacha Sauda for whosechief they secured pardon from AkalTakht. Bajwa added it was shockingthat even after the heinous crime ofsacrilege, no focussed investigationwas carried out to trace the culprits.The culprits were arrested only dur-ing investigation and that too by thesame team only after CaptAmarinder Singh took over as theChief Minister, he said.

The Minister asserted the SITwas doing its job professionallywithout any interference from theAmarinder Government. He rub-bished the allegation by Badal thefinal report of this probe will be dic-tated by Amarinder saying this onlybetrayed guilt complex.

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Punjab Chief Minister CaptainAmarinder Singh on Saturday

emphasised the need to bring syn-ergy among the departments ofCooperation and AnimalHusbandry & Dairy Developmentto boost the crop diversificationprogramme across the State.

The CM was addressing apublic gathering after laying thefoundation stone of the VerkaMega Dairy plant here.

The plant is being built at acost of �358 crore and will be

completed in three phases. It willhave milk handling capacity of 11lakh litres per day and generatedirect and indirect employmentgeneration of 500 and 80,000respectively.

The Chief Minister exhortedthe farmers to come out of the rutof wheat-paddy cycle and shift todairying as allied farming.

He said with the ever increas-ing production of milk, moresuch milk plants would berequired across the state to givefurther impetus to dairy devel-opment, thereby helping thefarmers who were facing acute

agrarian crisis owing to lowreturns due to nearly stagnatedminimum support prices (MSP)and ever increasing costs ofinputs like seeds, fertilizers, pes-ticides etc.

Amarinder also inauguratedthe Verka Mohali Dairy as a ‘FullyAutomated Fermented Unit’ at acost of �100 crore through aremote control. The unit will haveadditional milk processing capac-ity of 2.5 lakh litres, 2.5 lakh litresof lassi and 100 MT of Dahi perday. This project has been com-pleted in record period of 18months.

����� ����� �'�

Decorated war veteran andfamous hero of the ‘Battle of

Longewala’ during the 1971Indo-Pak war, Brigadier (retd)Kuldip Singh Chandpuri, died ata hospital in Mohali near here onSaturday. Brig Chandpuri wassuffering from cancer. He is sur-vived by his wife and three sons.

Brig Chandpuri was a recip-ient of the Maha Vir Chakra —the country’s second-highest gal-lantry award — for his role atLongewala, an outpost in the Thardesert of Rajasthan. He held off aPakistani attack while leading asmall group of Indian soldiersthrough the night in the 1971 war.

The 1997 Bollywood classic,Border, in which actor Sunny Deolplayed role of Brig Chandpuri, wasmade depicting Longewala battle.Cremation will take place onMonday with full military hon-ours.

Born on November 22, 1940,Chandpuri would have turned 78in five days time. Brig Chandpuripassed out from the Officers’Training Academy, Chennai, in1963 and was commissioned intothe 23rd Battalion of the Punjab

Regiment. He took part in the 1965war on the western sector and,thereafter, served in the UnitedNations Emergency Force (UNEF)for about a year. He also servedtwice as an instructor at theInfantry School, Mhow.

Chandpuri was nominated asCouncillor in the ChandigarhMunicipal Corporation where heserved his term (2006-2011) withactive participation in proceedings inside and outsidethe house.

Punjab CM condoled thepassing away of Chandpuri.

Recalling the “remarkableservices” of Brig. Chandpuri,Amarinder, a former Army cap-tain himself, said: “He was anastute and illustrious army offi-cer who handled several militaryoperations immaculately, besidesa prolific writer on defence pre-paredness and military warfarestrategies.”

“His exemplary and heroicleadership in the Battle ofLongewala would be everremembered by one and all andespecially inspire the young sol-

diers and officers of the defenceservices to discharge their dutieswith utmost devotion, commit-ment and sincerity,” Amarinderadded.

Describing Chandpuri’sdemise “as a huge loss to militaryfraternity”, the CM said in deathof a valiant soldier, nation has losta great son of the soil.

Citation for his MahavirChakra Award reads: “MajorKuldip Singh Chandpuri wascommanding a company battal-ion of the Punjab Regimentoccupying a defended locality inthe Rajasthan Sector.”

Chandigarh: With a view tocelebrate the 550th birthanniversary of Guru NanakDev in a befitting manner atState-level for organising var-ious activities relating to his lifeand teachings, the HaryanaGovernment has decided toconstitute a 97-memberOrganising Committee underthe chairmanship of ChiefMinister Manohar Lal.

“Education Minister RamBilas Sharma, Finance MinisterCapt Abhimanyu, AgricultureMinister OP Dhankar, HealthMinister Anil Vij, Urban LocalBodies Minister Kavita Jain,Minister of State forCooperation, Manish Groverand Minister of State for SocialJustice and EmpowermentKrishan Bedi would be its mem-bers,” an official spokesman said.

He said committee mem-bers will include MP Sirsa,Charnjeet Singh Rori, MLAsSubhash Barala, BakhshishSingh, Rohita Rewri, JasvinderSingh Sandhu, GhanshyamArora, Seema Trikha, SubhashSudha, Aseem Goyal, KulwantBazigar among others. PNS

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President Ram Nath Kovind will inaugurate themega international agricultural fair, “CII AgroTech

2018”, here on December 1.“The premier biennial four-day agro technolo-

gy and business fair, organised by the Confederationof Indian Industry (CII), will be held from December1 to 4 at the Sector 17 Parade Ground,” Ajay S.Shriram, Chairman, CII Agro Tech 2018, said hereon Saturday.

The theme for this year, which happens to be the13th edition of the fair, is “Technology in Agriculture:Increasing Farmer’s Income”.

Shriram, who is the Chairman and SeniorManaging Director, DCM Shriram Ltd, said: “Thepartner country is Great Britain while focus countriesare Canada and China. Two special pavilions havebeen added this time — States of India Pavilion andcountry pavilions from Canada, China and the UnitedKingdom, besides participation from Germany, Italy,Spain, The Netherlands and the USA.”

The CII Agro-Tech 2018 exhibition will be spreadover an area of 16,000 square metres with 110exhibitors, which would include 103 domestic andseven international ones.

The four-day fair will also have 10 concurrentshows, including Good Earth Expo on agri-inputs andinnovative farming techniques and food expo.

International conferences include agriculturediversification, conference on harvest for processing— integration with the global supply chain, innova-tors pitch, global dialogue on digital pathways in agri-culture 2.0, conference on stubble burning, confer-ence on enhancing shelf life of commodities and work-shop on entrepreneurs.

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Citing escalation of threat tolife of Punjab Minister

Navjot Singh Sidhu, Congressleader Randeep Singh Surjewalaon Saturday wrote to UnionHome Minister Rajnath Singhseeking Central IndustrialSecurity Force (CISF) cover forthe cricketer-turned-politician.

Surjewala in his letter saidthat while Sidhu was always a"high-risk" target, there hasbeen "marked escalation inthreats ever since he left BJPand joined Congress".

"Sidhu has taken on AkaliDal (Badal) and their anti-peo-ple policies, besides exposingtheir unholy nexus with certaincriminal elements on numer-ous occasions. "After Sidhuleft the BJP, the threateningtone and disparaging remarksby various Akali Dal-BJP lead-ers, including the BJP NationalPresident, Amit Shah are alsowell known," wrote Surjewala.

"Unfortunately, the exten-sion of protection to Sidhu hasbeen driven not by threat per-ceptions but by his politics,"said Surjewala urging CISFcover for Sidhu.

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Amid increasing threat fromthe Dark Web to national

security, the Centre is planningto amend the InformationTechnology Act to create alegal basis to compel the pop-ular Internet giants, whoseservers are located outsideIndia, to share their keys formonitoring by the securityagencies here.

Entities hit by cyber attackswill have to mandatorily dis-close it to the authorities con-cerned after the new regulato-ry framework is put in place.

"Servers of popular siteslike social media platformslike WhatsApp, Facebook andGmail are located outside Indiawith encrypted data andunshared keys without havingany backdoor for monitoringby the law enforcement agen-cies," a senior Union HomeMinistry official said.

In what is indicative of theterror connection with theDark Net, as many as 9,800websites and over 46,000Twitter accounts with terroristcontents have been blocked atthe behest of Indian securityagencies.

The Government in coor-dination with the IntelligenceBureau is now working toamend the IT Act to deal withsuch attacks on even privateentities besides subversiveactivities on the Dark Net.

The amendment to the ITAct will lead to localization ofservers of major serviceproviders and sovereign clouddeployment as was done byMicrosoft for China andGermany, the official said,adding this is in a bid to facil-itate better monitoring of theservice providers.

The Union Home Ministryis working on putting in placelegal provisions for mandato-ry disclosure of cyber attacksbesides formulating a regula-tory framework for web chan-nels.

The changes in the IT Actand regulatory mechanismsare needed as India now has120 crore mobile/ telephonesubscribers, 42 crore Internetsubscribers and 28 crore mobileInternet connections amidlurking threat to cyber com-munication. India has alreadydisplaced the US as the numerouno in terms of number ofFacebook users. But Indiastands at 23rd position out of165 nations in Global CyberSecurity Index 2017 of the

United Nations. Proposals for making strin-

gent KYC (Know YourCustomer) norms for mobilewallets for tracing flow of fundsfrom fraud and crime are alsounder consideration.

Cyber communicationposes threat at personal level,in the social and economic fieldand in the domain of nationalsecurity. Threat to nationalsecurity is mostly posed by theDark Web which facilitatesonline trading of drugs andarms, human trafficking, RedRooms (hidden website onDeep Web where one can par-ticipate/see interactive tortureor murder), mass mobilizationthrough social media, onlinerumour mongering and per-ception shaping. Other threatsinclude radicalization andrecruitment by terror groups,inter-terrorist group commu-nication, unregulated commu-nication through VoIP, unau-thorized telephone exchangesand unregulated online videochannels like Peace channel ofalleged terrorist and onlineterror motivator Zakir Naik.

An international cooper-ation mechanism through for-mation of international con-vention on monitoring andregulation of cyber space,bilateral and multilateraltreaties and MoUs with indus-try and academia of globalrepute is also being workedout, officials added.

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In an effort to ensure bettercoordination between offi-

cials working on the bullettrain project, its implementingauthority National High SpeedRail Corporation Limited(NHSRCL) organised aJapanese language and culturelearning training programmefor its men and gave away pro-ficiency certificates to 35 per-sonnel on Saturday.

The high-speed rail tech-nology is being adopted fromJapanese Shinkansen traintechnology, hence there was aneed of inter-countr yexchanges between the offi-

cials of two countries, whichwould be facilitated by profi-ciency in Japanese languageand understanding of theirculture, according to a release.

The training programmeon Japanese language and cul-ture has been developed by theJapan Foundation which isbased on the established stan-dards for Japanese LanguageEducation. "The study mate-rial is designed with an empha-sis on using Japanese languagefor oral communication, andbetter understanding theJapanese culture," it said.

Several employees ofNHSRCL from its projectoffices in Mumbai, Vadodara,

Ahmedabad, Surat and corpo-rate office in Delhi, includingthe Managing Director of theorganisation, have completed

this five-month course, therelease said.

"Similar course would con-tinue to be organised for all the

employees. The next course isscheduled to start fromDecember 2018. NHSRCL willalso give preference to jobapplicants who have Japaneselanguage proficiency," said

NHSRCL Managing DirectorAchal Khare.

The Director for JapaneseLanguage of the JapanFoundation, NoguchiKousuke, said, "We hope thatthe NHSRCL employees whotook the course will continueto learn the language andalso the culture, and con-tribute to the success of theHigh Speed Rail project."

NHSRCL is a joint sectorcompany of Government ofIndia and participating stategovernments formed forimplementation of the HighSpeed Train Corridor Projectbetween Mumbai andAhmedabad.

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New Delhi: A Delhi court onSaturday ordered framing ofcriminal conspiracy and othercharges against formerAIADMK leader TTVDinakaran in the allegedElection Commission briberycase related to two-leaves partysymbol.

Special Judge AjayBharadwaj ordered to putDinakaran on trial for theoffence punishable under sec-tions 120B (criminal conspira-cy) and 201 (destruction of evi-dence) of Indian Penal Code(IPC) and under the Preventionof Corruption (PC) Act.

Dinakaran, who had float-ed Amma Makkal MunnetraKazhagam party after beingexpelled from the AIADMK,was arrested in April 2017 hereand was later granted bail.

Alleged middleman SukeshChandansekar, who is current-ly in judicial currently, was alsoordered to be put on trial in thecase for the offence punishableunder sections 120-B and 201 ofIPC and under the PC Act.

The court directedDhinakaran to appear before iton December 4, when it willformally frame the charges.

In 2017, Delhi Police'scrime branch had filed thecharge sheet alleging thatChandansekar had conspiredwith Dinakaran and others tobribe the poll panel officials toget the two leaves symbol forSasikala-led AIADMK faction.

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The Election Commissionon Saturday directed the

Chhattisgarh Government totransfer its Public Relations

Secretary who was allegedlycaught on tape offering moneyfor sting operation againstOpposition Congress leaders inthe poll-bound state.

The commission directedthat S Rajesh Toppo, secretaryand commissioner of publicrelations in the state govern-ment, be transferred from hispresent post "in context ofalleged statements made byhim", a spokesperson said.

"The commissionobserved that such statementsindicate partisan behaviourapart from use of uncivilised

language unbecoming of asenior civil servant," thespokesperson said.

Toppo was allegedly caughton tape asking a journalist tofilm a video of Congress mem-bers abusing one of their seniorleaders. The official is pur-portedly heard saying that he iswilling to spend some moneyfor the sting video.

The second phase pollingin 72 assembly constituenciesin Chhattisgarh will be held onNovember 20. The first phasepolling in 18 seats took place onNovember 12.

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The Supreme Court hasagreed to examine a plea

seeking contempt actionagainst the chief officer of amunicipal council in Karnatakaand a private contractor onallegations of mass culling ofstray dogs.

A bench of Justices N VRamana and M MShantanagoudar issued noticeto Wilson VT, Chief officer ofMunicipal Council ofSakaleshapura town, and con-tractor V George Robert andsought their response in fourweeks.

Advocate Siddharth Garg,appearing for petitioner animalrights activist Neveena Kamath,said the contempt proceed-ings should be initiated againstthe two respondents for will-fully disobeying the specificdirections of the apex court.

He said that on November18, 2015, the apex court haddirected that all local authoritiesand panchayats should strictlyfollow the Prevention of Crueltyto Animals (PCA) Act, 1960and the Animal Birth Control(ABC) Rules, 2001 and that no"subterfuge or innovative meth-ods" to circumvent the order ofthe court will be tolerated.

Garg said the PCA Act1960 and the ABC Rules, 2001prohibit any wanton catching

and relocation of stray dogsand only allow catching for thepurpose of sterilisation andrelocation back to the sameplace, where the stray dogswere picked up.

According to the petition,Wilson had given contract toGeorge to catch and then relo-cate stray dogs within hismunicipality.

George was paid Rs 91,537for catching and relocating 350stray dogs.

"It must be made clear thatthe Prevention of Cruelty toAnimals Act, 1960 and theABC Rules, 2001 only allowcatching then sterilising, vac-cinating and then relocation atthe very same place. They donot allow any such catchingand dislocating," the plea said.

It said that the respondentshave "deliberately and willfully"violated the orders of this courtand contempt proceedingsshould be initiated against them.

"If such violations are notdealt, swiftly and sternly, by thisCourt then it will send a verywrong message to society thatthe orders of the apex court canbe trifled with and there are noconsequences for even the mostopen and egregious defiance.The actions of the Respondentsare making a mockery of themajesty of this Court and invitethe wrath of this Court to itsfullest extent," the plea said.

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The Communist Party ofIndia (Marxist) on Saturday

said no State Government could“obstruct” probes being inves-tigated under court orders.

CPI(M) general secretarySitaram Yechury asserted thatthe Left party was against themisuse of the Central Bureau ofInvestigation (CBI) for politi-cal gains and expected theprobe agency to favour neitherPrime Minister Narendra Modinor West Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee.

“We are against the misuseof the CBI for political pur-poses. We are in favour of jus-tice, not in favour of Modi orMamata,” he told reporters atthe CPI(M) office here.

The West Bengal govern-ment Friday withdrew the"general consent" accorded tothe CBI to conduct raids orprobes in the state.

The decision came close onthe heels of a similar steptaken by the Andhra Pradeshgovernment.

Differentiating between thestand of his party and that ofBanerjee, who is also theTrinamool Congress (TMC)chief, on CBI, Yechury said,"We are (even) against themisuse of the CBI in favour ofMamata Banerjee."

CPI(M) politburo memberBrinda Karat pointed out thatthe Left party had earlier "crit-

icised the delay by the CBI ina court-ordered inquiry againstMamata Banerjee".

Several TMC leaders areunder the scanner of the CBIand other probe agencies fortheir alleged involvement in theSaradha chit fund scam and inconnection with the Naradasting operation.

Yechury said the CBI,which had the powers of thepolice, had to take the consentof the state governments sincelaw-and-order was a State Listsubject according to theConstitution.

However, he added that thecentral probe agency couldinvestigate matters pursuantto court orders.

"The CBI investigations inWest Bengal are under courtorders. The agency can under-take investigations after courtorders and no state governmentcan obstruct those," theCPI(M) leader said.

Banerjee had extendedsupport to Andhra PradeshChief Minister NChandrababu Naidu over theissue, saying, "What theChandrababu Naidu govern-ment has done is absolutelyright. We will also look into therules under which it was done.Earlier, there was no need touse such provisions, but weneed to do it now as the BJP isusing the CBI and other agen-cies to pursue its own politicalinterests and vendetta."

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The Congress will raise theissue of ailing Chief

Minister Manohar Parrikar'scontinuance in power and theimpending "constitutional cri-sis" in BJP-ruled Goa inParliament, party's nationalspokesperson Randeep SinghSurjewala said on Saturday.

The Congress leaderdemanded the convening of aspecial session of the GoaLegislative Assembly while dar-ing the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-led coalition govern-ment here to prove its majori-ty in a floor test.

"We are going to national-ly put pressure on the BJP andthe Centre. If necessary, we willmove the President of India.We will also raise the issueinside the Parliament in theforthcoming winter sessionand we will say that Goa is the

most classic case of a fraudbeing played on theConstitution of India by theGovernor and the BJP govern-ment," Surjewala said at a pressconference here.

"This will clear all doubtsabout who is in-charge in Goaand the floor test will deter-mine as to which party has therightful claim to head a demo-cratic government in people'sinterest," he added.

The All India CongressCommittee (AICC) commu-nications cell in-charge said thecoastal state was suffering from

a "complete breakdown of con-stitutional machinery".

Parrikar is suffering fromadvanced pancreatic cancerand has been in and out of hos-pitals in Goa, Mumbai, NewYork and Delhi for nearly ninemonths. He returned fromNew Delhi's All India Instituteof Medical Sciences on October14 and has not moved out of hisprivate residence for any offi-cial event since.

The Opposition, as wellruling coalition allies havebeen demanding Parrikar's res-ignation, claiming that theadministration has come to astandstill due to his absence.

On Saturday, DeepakDhavalikar, president of rulingcoalition outfit, theMaharashtrawadi GomantakParty, demanded that Parrikarstep down from the chief min-isterial post and appoint areplacement.

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The cloak of secrecy sur-rounding the illnesses of

Goa Chief Minister ManoharParrikar and former Congresspresident Sonia Gandhi arenot comparable, Congressnational spokespersonRandeep Singh Surjewala saidhere on Saturday.

He said that whi leParrikar is a Chief Minister ofa State, Sonia Gandhi was nei-ther a Prime Minister nor wasshe holding a Cabinet postwhen she suffered from illness.

“Sonia Gandhi was neitherthe Prime Minister of India,nor was a Minister in the cab-inet holding a cabinet post(when the illness occurred),"Surjewala told IANS.

Surjewala was respondingto a question on whether theCongress, which is demand-ing a medical bulletin and apublic disclosure of Parrikar's

health status, had been equal-ly transparent when it came torelaying information aboutGandhi's prolonged illness,when she was CongressPresident and headed theNational Advisory Councilthat had been set up to advisethen Prime MinisterManmohan Singh.

Surjewala said that onlythose in positions of power,especially as heads of state,should disclose the nature oftheir affliction in public interest.

"I can have five ailments.

I have for example high bloodpressure and I take medicinefor it, but I had not disclosedit till today, till you asked me.That does not mean that Ihave to describe every prob-lem that I have in the publicdomain. It is only when youare holding a position ofpower and a position ofpower as the head of the state(that one ought to reveal thenature of i l lness) ," Surjewala said.

The Congress spokesper-son, who was in Goa to addressa press conference, also alleged

that in Parrikar's absence"power-brokers" were runningamok and plundering the state'sresources, even as he ques-tioned why a regular healthbulletin updating the ChiefMinister's medical status wasnot being released.

Parrikar is suffering fromadvanced pancreatic cancerand has been in and out ofhospitals in Goa, Mumbai,New York and Delhi for near-ly nine months.

He returned from NewDelhi's All-India Institute ofMedical Sciences on October14 and has not moved out ofhis private residence for anyofficial event since.

Goa's Health MinisterVishwajit Rane last monthconceded that Parrikar wasindeed suffering from pan-creatic cancer, even though thestate government has refusedto release a regular medicalbulletin detailing Parrikar'shealth status.

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Itanagar: A terrorist was killedin an exchange of fire withsecurity forces in Tirap districtof Arunachal Pradesh onSaturday, Defence sources said.

Acting on specific intelli-gence about NSCN cadres car-rying out extortion from vil-lagers, Assam Rifles personnelswiftly launched an operation,Kohima-based DefenceSpokesman Col ChiranjeetKonwar said.

But the spokesman did notspecify which faction of the NSCNwas carrying out extortion.Duringsearch of the area, the securitypersonnel noticed a few sus-pected cadres trying to flee.

"They challenged the mil-itants and asked them to sur-render. However, the fleeingmilitants opened fire on themand they retaliated and broughtdown controlled effective fireon the fleeing militant andeliminated one cadre," thespokesman said in a release.

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President Ram Nath Kovindwill inaugurate the inter-

national agricultural fair onDecember 1 here, aConfederation of IndianIndustry (CII) official saidSaturday.

CII Agro Tech 2018,India’s biennial four-day AgroTechnology and Business Fair,organised by the CII is beingheld from December 1 to 4 here.

The theme for this year,which happens to be the 13thedition of the fair, is‘Technology in Agriculture:Increasing Farmer’s Income’, hesaid.

In a statement, Ajay SShriram, Chairman, CII AgroTech 2018, and Chairman andSenior Managing Director,DCM Shriram Ltd, said part-ner country is Great Britainwhile focus countries areCanada and China.

Two special pavilions havebeen added this time – Statesof India Pavilion and countrypavilions from Canada, China,and the UK, besides participa-tion from Germany, Italy,Spain, the Netherlands andthe US, they said.

The CII Agro-Tech 2018exhibition area will be spreadover an area of 16,000 squaremetres of with 110 exhibitors,which would include 103domestic and seven interna-tional.

While the host states arePunjab and Haryana, partnerministries included theMinistry of Agriculture andFarmers Welfare, Ministry ofFood Processing Industries.

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Showering praise on FinanceSecretary Hasmukh Adhia,

who retires on November 30,Finance Minister Arun JaitleySaturday said he was a no-non-sense civil servant who per-formed his job with profes-sionalism.

In a Facebook post titled‘Dr. Hasmukh Adhia retires’,Jaitley said “he was unques-tionably a highly competent,disciplined, no-nonsense civilservant and of course, withimpeccable integrity.”

His only diversion from hisduties was his passion for spir-ituality and yoga, he added.

Jaitley also said theGovernment wanted to use theoutgoing Finance Secretary’scapability and experience insome alternate capacity. “He(Adhia) had informed me earli-er this year that he would notwork for a single day after the30th of November 2018. His timethereafter belongs to his favouritepassion and of course his son,”Jaitley wrote.

Adhia, a 1981-batch Gujaratcadre officer of the IndianAdministrative Services (IAS),moved to Delhi in November2014 as secretary in theDepartment of Financial Servicesafter Narendra Modi became thePrime Minister. In a series oftweets, Adhia thanked Modiand Jaitley for their guidance andexpressed gratitude to his officersand staff. “I am indeed privi-leged to have worked inFinance Ministry for 4 yearsunder the guidance and lead-ership of Hon Prime MinisterShri Narendra Modi and HonFinance Minister Shri ArunJaitley,” Adhia tweeted.

“I retire on 30th Novemberwith a sense of great satisfac-tion for what I could do for thecountry. I am grateful to allthose officers and staff who

worked with me.“My special gratitude to

Hon Prime Minister for hisguidance and to Shri ArunJaitley ji for having acknowl-edged my contribution pub-licly,” Adhia added.

Giving credit to Adhia forimplementing GST, Jaitley said,“It was his efforts supported byhis team of officers of centreand State Governments, whichmade it possible to hit thedeadline of 1st July 2017. Ratereductions and smoothening ofthe rough edges were alsoachieved in a record time.”

Recalling Adhia’s tenureas Revenue Secretary, Jaitleysaid tax base and tax realisationsaw an “exponential increase”.

“He was ably supported bythe two boards, CBDT andCBIC. The follow-up afterdemonetisation in detectingthe large cash depositors andmaking them accountable wasno mean challenge,” theFinance Minister noted.

During his four-year stintin the Finance Ministry, Adhiaspearheaded rollout of the his-toric Goods and Services Tax(GST) besides implementing ahost of laws to unearth blackmoney. He was also deeplyinvolved in formulation of var-ious social sector programmesof the Modi Government.

Jaitley in his post saidAdhia’s tenure as the RevenueSecretary will be rememberedfor various initiatives where heprovided the bureaucratic lead-ership in shaping and imple-mentation of the policy.

“The campaign against blackmoney both within and outsidethe country was the initial high-light of the RevenueDepartment,” he said. Jaitleyalso noted that the Income Taxdepartment now functionsonline with no physical interfacebetween the assessee and theassessment official.

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Britain’s arts minister hasimposed an export bar on

a unique watercolour paintingdepicting a traditional musi-cal performance in mid-18thcentury northern India in anattempt to find a UK buyerfor the 550,000-pound artwork.

Michael Ellis, Minister forArts, Heritage and Tourism, ishoping a museum would beinterested in acquiring‘Trumpeters’ by Nainsukh ofGuler (1710-1778).

The painting is describedby experts as a delicate minia-ture of a “rarely found calibre”,showing seven village musi-cians on a terrace, striking dif-fering poses and faces, whileenergetically blowing theexceptionally long Pahari hornscalled Turhi, in the hill regionof northern India.

It has been categorised asa fine example of Nainsukh ofGuler’s trademark gift ofdetailed observation and com-plex directional composition.

“Nainsukh’s artistic influ-ence has been felt around theworld for generations andthis piece demonstrates theoutstanding aesthetic impor-tance of his work,” said Ellis.

“I hope that this piece canbe kept in the UK, not only forits beauty, but to help furtherthe study of Indian art and his-tory,” he said.

The artist is considered tobe one of the most acclaimedof the Pahari Movement, amajor and popular genre ofIndian miniature painting dur-ing the period.

Some of his other worksare exhibited in public collec-tions in the UK, including theVictoria and Albert Museumand the British Museum.

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Facebook investors havecalled on the company’s

chief executive MarkZuckerberg to step down aschairman following reportsthat the company hired a pub-lic relations firm to smear itscritics, a media report said onSaturday.

The New York Timesrecently published a reportrevealing that Facebook attimes smeared critics as anti-Semitic or tried to link activiststo billionaire investor GeorgeSoros, and tried to shift public

anger away toward rival techfirms.

It also said that the com-pany also used a Republicanpublic relations firm, DefinersPublic Affairs, to help repair its

battered reputation followingintense criticism of the socialmedia platform’s handling of ascandal over Russian interfer-ence in the 2016 US electionsand the Cambridge Analyticascandal, The Telegraph report-ed.

Jonas Kron, a senior vicepresident at Trillium AssetManagement, a US investorwhich owns an £8.5m stake inFacebook, last night called onZuckerberg to step down asboard chairman in the wake ofthe report, the paper said.

“Facebook is behaving likeit’s a special snowflake,” thepaper quoted him as saying.

“It’s not. It is a companyand companies need to have aseparation of chair and CEO,”he said.

The attack on Zuckerbergis set to complicate the daunt-ing challenge facing Sir NickClegg, Facebook’s new globalhead of policy and communi-cations, who joined last monthand has been asked to conducta review of Facebook’s use oflobbying firms.

Definers allegedly encour-aged the depiction ofFacebook’s critics as anti-Semites and had publishednews articles criticisingFacebook’s competitors.

The business has also beenaccused of attempting toencourage journalists to reportthat anti-Facebook groups werelinked to Mr Soros, the papersaid.

In a call with journalists onThursday, Zuckerberg deniedknowing that his business hadhired the firm.

“As soon as I learned aboutthis, I talked to our team andwe are no longer working withthis firm,” he said.

Kron said the new revela-tions about Facebook’s use ofDefiners offered fresh reasonsfor Mr Zuckerberg to relin-quish his dual role as chairmanand chief executive.

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Oracle’s ex-product chiefThomas Kurian will head

Google’s cloud division, replac-ing Diane Greene.

In a blog post Friday,Greene said Kurian will joinGoogle Cloud on November 26and transition into the leader-ship role in early 2019.

“I believe that he’ll do anamazing job helping to takeGoogle Cloud to the nextlevel. Thomas has 22 years ofexperience at Oracle; mostrecently he was President ofProduct Development,” she said.

She will continue as CEOthrough January, working withKurian to ensure a smoothtransition.

Greene, who will remain adirector on the Alphabet board,had joined Google inDecember 2015 to run its cloudbusiness.

“After an unbelievablystimulating and productivethree years, it’s time to turn tothe passions I’ve long hadaround mentoring and educa-tion,” she added.

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Washington: US PresidentDonald Trump on Friday saidhe thinks there will be a tradedeal with China, reiterating thathe wants a deal which is fairand on a reciprocal basis.

Trump’s statement cameahead of his meeting with hisChinese counterpart Xi Jinpingin Argentina later this month.

The US President kickedoff the trade war in June byslapping additional tariffs onbillions of dollars of Chineseexports, piling up pressure onChina to reduce over USD 335billion trade deficit in USD710.4 billion bilateral trade.

“We have tariffs coming inon USD 250 billion worth ofgoods and we’re talking aboutbillions and billions of dollarsa month will flow into ourcountry, and has already start-ed flowing into our country,that comes from China,”Trump told reporters during anews conference. PTI

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Union Coal Minister PiyushGoyal Saturday said the

Government is committed toresolve the issues impactingproduction and supply of coalin the country.

He said the situation in thekey sector has improved in thelast four years.

“We will be importing lesscoal than what we did fouryears ago and the quality of coaltoday has never been so good,”he said at the ET Awards 2018here.

The Government is com-mitted to resolve all issuesrelated to the sector, he added.

Captive power producerscoming from sectors like alu-minium, steel and copper havebeen complaining the issue ofcoal supply to run their plants.

In this regard, the IndianCaptive Power Producers

Association (ICPPA) had ear-lier submitted a letter to thePrime Minister’s Office (PMO)requesting to address the issueof coal availability and its sup-ply.

Supply of coal is a longstanding issue for the captivepower producers who unlikethe independent power pro-ducers (IPPs) don’t produce itfor commercial purpose.

Holding responsible theprevious Government for con-tributing to the issue, Goyalsaid “This is the weakness ofthe previous Government thatthey insisted you (the players)todesign power plant onimported coal then we willallow you environmental per-mission to set it up.

“They could never imaginethat country could have 10 percent growth of coal productionwhich we have this year in thefirst half."

In the monsoon, he saidthere was stress of power, therequirement shot up and coalproduction could not keeppace with the monsoon.

Earlier this month, theminister urged state-run CoalIndia Ltd to pledge self-suffi-ciency in production to elimi-nate import of the dry fuel, andlook at reviving the 1-billiontonne output aim.

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Ibrahim Mohamed Solih wasinaugurated on Saturday as

the new President of theMaldives after the Oppositionunited to dislodge pro-Chinastrongman leader AbdullaYameen in September elec-tions.

Solih, 54, emerged as com-mon Opposition candidate asall key dissidents were eitherjailed or forced into exile byYameen who took power fol-lowing a controversial run-offin 2013.

At a special session of par-liament held at the NationalFootball Stadium in the capitalMale, Solih was sworn in withIndia’s Prime MinisterNarendra Modi among those inattendance.

The Maldives ForeignMinistry said China’s CultureMinister Luo Shugang was alsoan invitee.

Modi’s presence was areflection of the relief felt inIndia, which has long heldsway in the archipelago, and inthe West that Yameen wasvoted out.

The United States and theEuropean Union had threat-ened sanctions if the vote hadnot been free and fair.

Both neighbouring Indiaand Western nations watchedwith concern as Yameen movedcloser to Beijing which loaned

the strategically placed archi-pelago millions of dollars forinfrastructure.

“I am confident that myvisit will herald a new era ofeven closer exchanges andcooperation between our twocountries,” Modi said onFacebook, especially in “infra-structure, health care, connec-tivity and human resourcedevelopment.”

Solih’s MaldivianDemocratic Party (MDP) has

pledged to end what it called“China’s colonialism” and toresist a “land grab” in thecountry which straddles keyEast-West shipping routes.

MDP leader and formerpresident Mohamed Nasheedhas vowed his party wouldreduce reliance on China andrenegotiate millions of dollarsin loans taken from Beijing.

More than 80 per cent theMaldives foreign debt is owedto China, he said.

China has also loanedother countries around theIndian Ocean and beyond largeamounts of money for infra-structure projects as part ofBeijing’s Belt and RoadInitiative, alarming the West.

Sri Lanka last year granteda 99-year lease on theHambantota deep-sea port toBeijing, after it was unable torepay Chinese loans for the$1.4-billion project. MahindaRajapakse, Sri Lanka’s PrimeMinister when Colombo tookout the loans, is looking toreturn to power in the severecurrent political crisis grip-ping the island nation.

During a recent visit toColombo in the middle of hiselection campaign, Solih toldreporters that he wanted torepair ties with immediateneighbours Sri Lanka andIndia.

Yameen awarded majorinfrastructure projects to Chinawhile taking away a major air-port development from India.

He also relied on Beijingfor diplomatic support as theMaldives faced internationalisolation over his dismal rightsrecord.

Modi had cancelled hisfirst visit to the country in 2015after Yameen detained pro-India Nasheed and eventuallyhad him convicted on a ter-rorism charge and jailed for 13years.

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The CIA has concluded thatSaudi Arabia’s powerful

Crown Prince Mohammad binSalman ordered the murder ofdissident journalist JamalKhashoggi in Istanbul, contra-dicting the Saudi Government’sassertions that he was notinvolved, according to a mediareport.

The death of Khashoggi, aonetime insider turned critic ofthe crown prince and a residentof the US, has spurred a waveof international anger againstSaudi Arabia and its ruler.

Khashoggi, a WashingtonPost columnist, was last seenentering the kingdom’s con-sulate on October 2 to obtainpaperwork for his marriage.

Saudi Arabia had offered aseries of contradictory expla-nations for Khashoggi’s death.After repeated denials, SaudiArabia finally admittedKhashoggi had been murderedat the compound but blamed iton a “rogue” operation.

American officials haveexpressed high confidence inthe agency’s assessment, whichis the most definitive to date,allegedly linking Saudi Arabia’scrown prince to the killing,

according to The WashingtonPost. The Central IntelligenceAgency (CIA) found that 15Saudi agents flew on govern-ment planes to Istanbul andcarried out the killing at theSaudi consulate, the reportsaid, adding that it could com-plicate President DonaldTrump’s efforts to preserve USties with one of the closestAmerican allies in the region.

“The accepted position isthat there is no way this hap-pened without him being awareor involved,” a US official famil-iar with the CIA’s conclusions,told the daily.

Saudi Arabia has deniedany such linkage. FatimahBaeshen, a spokeswoman forthe Saudi Embassy inWashington, said that theclaims in the CIA’s “purportedassessment are false. We haveand continue to hear various

theories without seeing theprimary basis for these specu-lations.”

According to the report, itis CIA assessment that thecrown prince who is the defac-to ruler of the country wouldsurvive the crisis.

Officially Saudi Arabia hasblamed the brutal murder ofKhashoggi at the Saudi con-sulate in Istanbul to rogue ele-ments. Khashoggi was forciblyrestrained and injected with alarge amount of a drug result-ing in an overdose that led to hisdeath, alleged the Saudi prose-cutors, who has sought deathpenalty for 11 of its officials.

Turkish investigating agen-cies provided the CIA an audiorecording that proves the bru-tal murder of Khashoggi. Afterhis killing, one of thoseinvolved in it called Saud alQahtani, then one of the topaides to Mohammed, andinformed him that the opera-tion had been completed,according to people familiarwith the call.

A conclusion that thecrown prince was responsiblefor the murder of Khashoggicould endanger the US rela-tionship with Saudi Arabia,The Wall Street Journal said.

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British Prime MinisterTheresa May fought back

Saturday against critics of herBrexit deal, telling herConservative opponents thattheir alternative plans forBritain’s departure from theEuropean Union wouldn’twork.

May is battling to win overrebels in her own ranks andsave her leadership after a gru-eling week, with two Cabinetministers quitting and otherConservative critics plotting tooust her immediately afterBritain struck a divorce dealwith the EU.

In a public relations offen-sive, May tried to win supportin a Daily Mail interview thatrevealed how her husband sup-ported her during what sheadmitted to be “a pretty heavycouple of days.”

She also laid into politicalopponents, saying the alterna-tives they favour to tackle a key

stumbling block — the issue ofhow to avoid a hard borderbetween Northern Ireland andthe Republic of Ireland afterBrexit — wouldn’t resolve theproblem.

“People say ‘If you couldonly just do something slight-ly different, have a Norwaymodel or a Canada model,this backstop issue would goaway. It would not. That issueis still going to be there,” shesaid in the interview , publishedSaturday.

“Some politicians get soembroiled in the intricacies oftheir argument they forget it isnot about this theory or thattheory, or does it make me look

good,” she added.Calling her husband Philip

her “rock,” May said that whenthe Conservative revolt erupt-ed on Wednesday, the firstthing he did was pour her awhisky.

While May appeared tohave survived the week’s polit-ical storm intact, her trial is farfrom over — disaffected“Brexiteers” believe they havethe numbers required to trig-ger a challenge to her leader-ship within days.

They are aiming for 48 let-ters of no confidence, the num-ber needed for a vote underparty rules. So far, more than20 have publicly said they sub-mitted such letters.

British media also report-ed that several pro-Brexitsenior Conservatives, includingHouse of Commons leaderAndrea Leasom, are working topersuade May to change herBrexit plans and renegotiate thedivorce deal to make it moreacceptable to them.

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President Donald Trump hasplayed down a court deci-

sion that forced him to restorethe press pass credentials ofCNN’s correspondent JimAcosta and threatened to walkout of future press briefings ifreporters do not act with “deco-rum”.

The press pass of Acosta,CNN ’s White HouseCorrespondent, was suspend-ed last week after an altercationhe had with President Trumpduring a news conference. TheWhite House had accused himof placing his hand on anintern. Acosta and the CNN hasdenied the allegations.

A federal US court onFriday ordered the WhiteHouse to immediately reinstatethe press credentials of Acostain a ruling seen as a major vic-tory for mediapersons.

Trump played down theruling, saying it wasn’t “a bigdeal”.

But, he said, “people haveto behave”, adding his staff

were “writing up rules and reg-ulations” for the press to abideby, including sticking to theagreed number of questions.

“If they don’t listen to therules and regulations we’ll endup back in court and will win,”Trump said. “But more impor-tantly, we’ll just leave, and thenyou won’t be very happy.”

“You can’t take three ques-tions and four questions andjust stand up and not sit down,”he added. “Decorum. You haveto practice decorum.”

CNN this week it filed alawsuit against the WhiteHouse urging the court toreinstate the press pass of itsChief White HouseCorrespondent.

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Aload of space station sup-plies rocketed into orbit

from Virginia on Saturday, thesecond shipment in two days.

And another commercialdelivery should be on its way ina couple weeks.

“What an outstandinglaunch,” said NASA’s deputyspace station program manag-er, Joel Montalbano.

Northrop Grummanlaunched its Antares rocketfrom Wallops Island beforedawn, delighting chilly early-bird observers along theAtlantic coast.

The Russian Space Agency

launched its own supplies to theInternational Space Station onFriday, just 15 hours earlier.

The US delivery will arriveat the orbiting lab Monday, aday after the Russian ship-ment.

Among the 7,400 pounds(3,350 kilograms) of goodsinside the Cygnus capsule: icecream and fresh fruit for the

three space station residents,and a 3D printer that recyclesold plastic into new parts.

Thanksgiving turkey din-ners — rehydratable, of course— are already aboard the 250-mile-high outpost. The spacestation is currently home to anAmerican, a German and aRussian.

There’s another big event

coming up, up there: The spacestation marks its 20th year inorbit on Tuesday.

The first section launchedon November 20, 1998, fromKazakhstan.

“As we celebrate 20 years ofthe International SpaceStation,” Montalbano noted,“one of the coolest things is thecooperation we have acrossthe globe.”

Then there’s the US com-mercial effort to keep the spacestation stocked and, beginningnext year, to resume crewlaunches from Cape Canaveral.

“To me, it’s been a hugesuccess,” he said.

This Cygnus, or Swan, isnamed the SS John Young tohonour the legendary astronautwho walked on the moon andcommanded the first spaceshuttle flight.

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Officials on Saturday recovered a boat that sank in roughweather off Thailand's southern resort island of Phuket in

July, killing 47 Chinese tourists. Two tour boats sank off Phuketon July 5. Tourists from one boat were rescued, while the sink-ing of the double-decker Phoenix left 47 Chinese tourists dead.

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Chinese President Xi Jinpingand US Vice-President

Mike Pence traded barbs inspeeches at a summit of worldleaders on Saturday, outliningcompeting visions for globalleadership as trade and othertensions between them simmer.

Pence said there would beno letup in President DonaldTrump’s policy of combatingChina’s mercantilist trade pol-icy and intellectual propertytheft that has erupted into a tit-for-tat tariff war between thetwo world powers this year.

The US has imposed addi-tional tariffs on $250 billion ofChinese goods and China hasretaliated. Pence reiteratedTrump administration threats tomore than double the penalties.

“The United States,though, will not change courseuntil China changes its ways,”Pence said, accusing Beijing ofintellectual property theft,unprecedented subsidies forstate businesses and “tremen-dous” barriers to foreign com-panies entering its giant mar-ket.

Pence announced the U.S.would be involved in allyAustralia’s plan to develop anaval base in Papua NewGuinea, where the summit isbeing held.

China has been intenselywooing Papua New Guineaand other Pacific island nationswith aid and loans for infra-structure.

“Our vision for a free andopen Indo-Pacific will pre-vail,” Pence said.

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Africa’s leaders applaudedEthiopia’s Prime Minister

Abiy Ahmed for making sub-stantial reforms in his countryas they met to considerimprovements to the conti-nent-wide body at a summitthat started on Saturday.

“Ethiopia is undergoing aprofound renewal. In the pastseven months, far-reachingreforms were made in responseto various challenges,” saidAbiy, 42.

“We have opened a newpolitical space for dialogue,released thousands of prison-ers, lifted bans placed uponpolitical parties and mediaoutlets and unblocked websites.

We are now actively crackingdown on corruption andreforming our judicial systemin its entirety,” said Abiy, win-ning enthusiastic applause fromAfrican leaders at the meeting.

He stressed that his gov-ernment must be accountablefor its actions. He also high-lighted that his administrationhas achieved peace with neigh-boring Eritrea and hasappointed a Cabinet in which50 per cent of the members arewomen. Abiy spoke as AfricanUnion leaders, led by Rwanda’sPresident Paul Kagame, con-vened an extraordinary summitat its headquarters in AddisAbaba to consider reforms toencourage peace, developmentand a united Africa.

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Hosts India kept its all-win recordintact on the third day of theAIBA Women's World Boxing

Championships with Pinki Rani, Soniaand Simranjit Kaur notching up victoriesin their respective bouts to enter the pre-quarterfinals here on Saturday.

Sonia, a farmer's daughter fromHaryana, secured a unanimous 5-0 winin 57kg category before seasoned cam-paigner Pinki (51kg) and Simranjit(64kg), who was fighting a bout after thedeath of her father in July, scored iden-tical 4-1 wins to maintain a clean slate forthe host country.

On Friday, Sarita Devi (60kg) andManish Moun (54kg) had won theirrespctive bouts to enter the pre-quarter-finals.

On Sunday, five Indians, includingfive-time world champion M C MaryKom, will take the field. The 35-year-oldMary Kom, who got a first round bye, willbeginning her campaign against AigerimKessenayeva of Kazakhstan in 48kg.

Sonia was the first Indian to take thefield and the 21-year-old used her "defen-sive" style to good effect to emerge win-ner in an unanimous 5-0 verdict againstDoaa Toujani of Morocco.

It was a close bout with all the fivejudges giving 10-9 points in all the threerounds to either boxers. Toujani got onlyone favourable decision from a judge inthe second round as Sonia won 29-28, 30-27, 30-27, 30-27, 30-27.

This was Sonia's first major interna-tional event having risen to senior level

by winning a Goldin the NationalChampionships in2016. Last year, shewon a Gold in the SerbiaCup. She won a Bronze inthe Ahmet Comert BoxingTournament this year.

Sonia began with anopen guard inviting theMorocco pugilist to takethe initiative. The rookie Indian managedto land a couple of left jabs and a straightduring the first round which looked aclose one.

Sonia continued with her left jabs,trying to land on the real scoring areas ofher opponent using her unconventionalmethods, especially with the right. The

experienced Moroccan, too, changed herstrategy and lowered the guard more outof frustration than anything else. Thoughshe did manage a few blows, she strug-gled to connect her punches.

But the third round proved to be deci-sive when the Indian landed a right, thena combination of right-left and a left jab,even as both pugilists went attacking.

In the pre-quarters, Sonia, who gota first round bye, faces 2014 WorldChampionships Gold medallist StanimiraPetrova of Bulgaria on Monday.

"I began boxing in 2011 (at the schoollevel) and this is my first major interna-tional event and I am happy to win thisbout. It was a tough fight. My style is basi-cally defensive and I stuck to it. My coach-

es told me to play from a distance, drawher in and punch. That I did," Sonia saidafter her bout.

"I knew I had to maintain my distanceand go close only to find openings. I wassuccessful on a few occasions in the firsttwo rounds. But in the third, I went attack-ing and used my combination punches."

Sonia's opponent Toujani, who hadbeaten Somalian Ramla Ali in the firstround, was in tears after losing the bout,but said she had no issues with the result.

"I had a good fight and I am happyto have competed at this stage. I have noissues with the result," she said throughan interpreter.

The next up for India was Pinki andthe 28-year-old boxer from Hisar inHaryana beat Armenia's 2014 youthWorld Champion Anush Grigoryan 4-1(30-27, 30-27, 30-27, 30-27, 30-27) onpoints.

Pinki is a seasoned campaigner whobegan the sport in 2006. This year, shewon Gold in India Open and a Silver inAhmet Comert tournament. She nownow faces Alice Jones of England in thepre-quarterfinals on Monday.

"I am an aggressive player but in thefirst round, I observed my opponent todecide my strategy. My coaches told methat I was playing closer to my opponent.So in the second and third round, Ichanged my strategy and kept distance.I dodged some of her punches and thenreturned the punches," she said.

"This is my third WorldChampionships and I have not won amedal yet. This time, I want to make mycountrymen happy by winning a medal."

The 23-year-old Simranjit, who wona Gold in the Ahmet Comert tournamentin Turkey this year, was taking the ringthree months after he father passed awayand she said she would try hard to win amedal for him.

From Chakar village in Ludhiana,Simranjit had a tough fight against 28-year-old Amelia Moore of the UnitedStates. Four judges ruled in favour of theIndian while one went for Moore (30-27,30-27, 30-27, 27-30, 30-27).

"My father passed away in July andit was tough for me to be here but it isWorld Championships. I want to win amedal for him," she said.

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Speedster Chris Morrisclaimed two wickets as

South Africa strangledAustralia to a 21-run victoryin their rain-reducedTwenty20 international onSaturday.

The South Africans easilyprotected their 108 for sixtotal off 10 overs to restrictAustralia to 87 for seven withMorris the star of the Proteasbowling attack.

Morris claimed the wick-ets of D'Arcy Short for a gold-en duck and Chris Lynn for 14in his opening over to triggera wicket slide.

The Australians fell awayfrom 21 for one after twoovers to be 60 for six upon thedismissal of Alex Carey foreight in the seventh over.

Glenn Maxwell wasAustralia's topscorer with 38off 23 balls with two sixes butwas guilty of moving aroundthe wicket and missing hittabledeliveries as the pressuremounted on the home side.

In the end the differencewas the execution of the pow-erplays. South Africa smashed42 runs, losing just the onewicket, while Australia couldmanage only 27, and lost theirtop three batsmen.

Earlier Andrew Tye andNathan Coulter-Nile claimedtwo wickets each as SouthAfrica reached 108 for sixafter being sent into bat.

The Proteas got away to aflyer with opener Quinton deKock clubbing 22 off 16 ballswith two sixes and skipper Fafdu Plessis hitting 27 from 15balls.

The South Africans racedto 42 inside the opening threeovers before Coulter-Nileclaimed the wicket of ReezaHendricks for 19 caught in thedeep by Ben McDermott.

Maxwell had de Kockstumped by wicketkeeperCarey and two overs later duPlessis fell to a brilliant leap-ing catch over the boundaryrope by Maxwell off BillyStanlake.

That left South Africa at84 for three, triggering a rashof late wickets for only 24 runs.

Heinrich Klaasen chippedin with 12 and David Miller hit11, before he was the first ofTye's wicket double.

Tye bowled out his onlytwo overs at the end of theinnings to finish with two for18 while Coulter-Mile cap-tured two for 19.

The match was reduced to10 overs a side after heavy rainprevented a scheduled start.

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Parthiv Patel top-scored with 94before India A declared at 467 for

eight, but their bowlers struggled in theface of New Zealand's strong responsein the unofficial first Test here onSaturday.

Opting to bat after winning thetoss, India A declared their firstinnings after some useful contri-butions from the lower-orderbatsmen. The visitors were 340for five at stumps on theopening day at the Bay Oval.

Medium pacer BlairTickner was the most suc-cessful bowler for the hometeam, returning figures of 4/80.

New Zealand made astrong response, reaching 176 forone at stumps on the second day.Opener Hamish Rutherford,son of former New Zealandcaptain Ken, was goingstrong at 106 off 169 balls,hitting 16 boundaries anda six. Is opening partner, Will

Young, made 49 before falling to off-spinner Krishnappa Gowtham.

Gowtham was the only India Abowler to pick up a wicket, as the NewZealand A openers put on 121 runs.

Mohammed Siraj andGowtham did the bulk ofthe bowling while medi-um pacer Deepak Chaharproved to be ineffective.

Earlier, the experiencedPatel narrowly missed outon a hundred, having been

dismissed for 94 by Tickner,who had earlier bagged the

wickets of Murali Vijay andMayank Agarwal.

The wicket-keeper bats-man's departure didn't derail

the Indian innings as VijayShankar stepped up toscore an impressive 62off 96 balls while

Gowtham chipped in with47. While Rutherford was looking good,Glenn Phillips was giving him compa-ny with 13 runs from 60 balls at the closeof play.

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Spinners led by Jack Leach helpedEngland close in on a series-

clinching victory after Sri Lanka losta fighting Angelo Mathews for 88 inthe second Test on Saturday beforerain stopped play.

Moeen Ali trapped Mathews lbwin the first over after tea to end thesenior batsman's solid resistance thathad kept alive Sri Lanka's hopes ofchasing down a target of 301.

Leach struck soon to getDilruwan Perera for one when tor-rential rain halted proceedings for theday with Sri Lanka on 226 for sevenin Kandy.

The hosts, who trail the three-match series 0-1, need another 75 towin with three wickets and three ses-sions in hand. Niroshan Dickwellawas batting on 27 when play wasstopped.

Leach has claimed four wicketswith his left-arm orthodox spin whileAli has taken two on a turning pitch.

Mathews, who hit his third half-century of the series, took crease with

Sri Lanka on a shaky 26-3.The former captain played a grit-

ty innings that lasted 137 deliveriesand also built crucial partnerships.

His 73-run fifth wicket stand withRoshen Silva (37) frustrated theEnglish spinners in the afternoon ses-sion.

Ali had Silva caught behind witha faint edge. The umpire had givenSilva not out before England suc-cessfully reviewed the decision in their

favour.Leach had rattled the

Sri Lankan top-order withthree early wickets afterthe tourists were bowled

out for 346 in the morning session.Left-handed opener Dimuth

Karunaratne then put on 77 runs withMathews before falling to Adil Rashidfor 57.

England, who had resumed theday on 324-9, stretched their secondinnings lead to 300 with overnightbatsman Ben Foakes hitting anunbeaten 65.

Foakes, who hit a ton on debut inGalle, added 14 to his overnight 51and shared 41 runs for the last wick-et with James Anderson (12).

�����@�Skipper Shakib Al Hasan returned frominjury as Bangladesh on Saturday named a 13-man squad for the first Test against the WestIndies, starting in Chittagong on November 22.

It was feared Shakib would be sidelined for atleast three months after he underwent surgery onan injured finger in late September.

He missed the recent home series againstZimbabwe but Bangladesh chief selector MinhjaulAbedin said the all-rounder recovered from theinjury sooner thanexpected.

"He has beencleared by thephysio to playagainst the WestIndies," Minhajulsaid.

"There is nopain in his fingernow. And heshould be availablefrom the first Test. He has a lack of match practice.But we thought as a senior cricketer he could adjust,"he said.

Left-arm spinner Nazmul Islam, who playedagainst Zimbabwe, made way for Shakib.

Batsman Liton Das, Nazmul Hossain, and pac-ers Saiful Islam and Abu Jayed, who were also partof the squad for Zimbabwe, have also been exclud-ed.

Top-order batsman Soumya Sarkar was recalledfor the Test. The hosts also included uncapped off-spinner Nayeem Hasan in the squad.

Nayeem was in the squad for the home seriesagainst Sri Lanka earlier this year but did not play.

The West Indies will play two Tests, three one-day internationals and as many Twenty20 interna-tionals during their month-long series in Bangladeshfrom November 22 to December 22. AFP

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Anya Shrubsole took a hat-trick as Englandthrashed South Africa by seven wickets in Saint

Lucia to boost their hopes of reaching the Women'sWorld Twenty20 semi-finals.

Hosts and reigning champions West Indiescould send themselves and England into the lastfour if they beat Sri Lanka later on Saturday.

It was a must-win game for World Cup cham-pions England after theiropening game against SriLanka was washed out, buta tame effort with the batfrom South Africaensured the matchwas never a realcontest.

"Anya's bowledbrilliantly for us, and tohave so few runs to chasewas nice," said England cap-tain Heather Knight.

The usually big-hitting Lizelle Lee crawled toa 26-ball 12 before being trapped by Natalie Sciver,who ended with incredible figures of three for fourfrom four overs, as South Africa mustered a pal-try 85 all out.

Shrubsole, the star of England's thrilling WorldCup final win over India last year, wrapped up theinnings by becoming only the second woman fromher country to take a T20 international hat-trickafter Sciver against New Zealand in 2013.

She dismissed Shabnim Ismail, Masabata Klaasand Yolani Fourie with the first three deliveries ofthe final over.

England openers Danni Wyatt and TammyBeaumont put on a quickfire 55, and wicketkeep-er Amy Jones' driven four wrapped up a thump-ing victory with 35 balls to spare.

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Left-arm pacer Trent Boult helped NewZealand foil Pakistan's advantage with four

wickets as the first Test was evenly poised afterday two in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.

Boult's 4-54 derailed the Pakistani bats-men who were bowled out for 227 in responseNew Zealand's first innings total of 153.

He was well supported by debutant spin-ner Ajaz Patel (2-64) and Colin deGrandhomme (2-30) as Pakistan managed afirst innings lead of just 74.

New Zealand then battled to 56-1 whenbad light forced umpires toend the day with 4.2 overs stillremaining.

The Black Caps still trailby 18 runs with nine wicketsremaining.

Skipper Kane Williamson will hold the keyfor his team as he walked off with 27 not outand with him opener Jeet Raval on 26 not out.

The pair has added 56 for the second wick-et after Tom Latham was bowled by Hasan Alifor nought in the second over, negotiating thespin bowling well under cloudy conditions.

New Zealand can take heart from the factthat Pakistan lost a Test at this venue last yearagainst Sri Lanka by 21 runs, falling short ofa target of just 136.

Pakistan squandered a good chance of tak-ing a big lead through some inept batting, withonly Babar Azam (62), Asad Shafiq (43) andHaris Sohail (38) making significant contri-butions.

Azam hit five boundaries in his 109-ballknock and was the last man out when he edgedBoult for wicketkeeper BJ Watling to take alow diving catch.

Pakistan had resumed at 59-2 but lostovernight batsmen Sohail and Azhar Ali (22)

in the space of just six balls atthe same score of 91.

Sohail hits four boundariesbut was caught at short mid-wicket by Latham after a loose

shot off leg-spinner Ish Sodhi's low full toss.Azhar was dropped by Jeet Raval off Boult

on 19 and was again lucky two runs later whengiven not out as the fast bowler reviewed fora leg-before decision.

But Boult had the last laugh, forcing anedge off Azhar's bat for Watling's one-hand-ed diving catch.

Boult checked hosts progress in secondsession by dismissing Asad Shafiq for 43,bowled off an inside edge. That was 174-5,the start of a passage that saw Pakistan's lastsix wickets fall for 63 runs.

Patel had Sarfraz Ahmed caught off amiscued sweep for two and Bilal Asifstumped by Watling for 11 while Boult, deGrandhomme and Neil Wagner also chippedin.

Wagner, playing in his 37th Test, achieveda personal milestone by becoming the eighthNew Zealand bowler to take 150 wicketswhen he dismissed Yasir Shah for nine.

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Page 9:  · aspiration or wish fulfillment and incredible though we may have been, there was no concept of Brand India, ambassadors and advertising. India’s greatest ad guru, who passed

Asilent but spectacular revolutionhas taken place in India’s neigh-bourhood, which went unnoticedby our agile and alert media, spe-cialists in ‘breaking news’ every

other minute. This is a revolution which haslarge-scale implications for India in the imme-diate future itself. Sri Lanka — which wit-nessed a more than three-decades-long ethnicwar that culminated in 2009 with the oblitera-tion of the LTTE terrorists fighting for a sepa-rate Tamil country by vivisecting the islandnation — overtook India and emerged asSouth Asia’s most literate country.

The United Nations rated Sri Lanka as acountry with 94 per cent literacy rate, whilebig brother India is far behind with a mere 74per cent literacy. “Yes, Sri Lanka has becomethe country of enlightenment in Asia,” saysProf BM Hegde, leading educationist and for-mer Vice-Chancellor of Manipal University.

It is no mean achievement. A country,which has an area of 65,610 sq km to India’s3.287 million sq km and which has been devas-tated by an ethnic war between Sinhalese andTamils, rose like the proverbial phoenix fromits own ashes to emerge as a global leader ineducation and counter-terrorism operations.

The striking feature about the islandnation is the uniqueness of the politics prac-tised by its leaders. They had to face a lot ofproblems, internal as well as external. Theaverage Sri Lankan citizen is still in the darkwhen asked about the terrorism unleashed inthe country by the Liberation Tigers of TamilEelam. The LTTE wanted to create a separatenation inside Sri Lanka by integrating thenorthern and eastern provinces, which wouldhave made the country shrink by 18,880 sqkm. Though there is no justification or ratio-nality in the demand by the Tamils for a sepa-rate country, it got support from many parts ofthe globe, thanks to the media blitzkrieg letloose by the Tamil diaspora.

The Tamil expatriates from Sri Lankaspread the news all over the world that theywere being discriminated against by themajority Sinhala population and theGovernment. That was absolutely false. Theeffort by the Government at Colombo tomake Sinhala the national language wasresisted by the Tamils. The fact is that 75 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 2.16 crorespeak Sinhala, while Tamil is spoken by just15 per cent of the population. It is natural forany sovereign country tohave a national language.

The scenario is similarto what we experience in

India where theDravidian politi-cal parties are

out and out

against Hindi as the national language. Hindiis not taught in Government schools in TamilNadu and it is the only State in India whichdoes not allow Navodaya Vidyalayas,launched by late Prime Minister RajivGandhi, to make public school educationavailable to the poorest of the poor, especiallythe rural poor. The Dravidian politicians,who have not given up their demand for aseparate Dravida Nadu, are afraid of the factthat if the students are taught Hindi — thelanguage spoken by majority of the popula-tion — it may make the youngsters fromTamil Nadu join the national mainstream.

The ethnic riots, which began in the1970s with the indirect help offered by thethen Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, pulledSri Lanka backwards by many decades. TamilNadu played host to armed training campsfor the LTTE guerrillas and they used theState as a base camp to organise suicideattacks in the island nation.

Anton Balasingham, the LTTE ideologue,in his autobiography has described howTamil Nadu politicians, especially late ChiefMinister MG Ramachandran, had hosted himand Velupillai Prabhakaran and providedthem with crores of rupees to mobilise armsfor fighting the Sri Lankan Army. Not onlythat, MGR deputed his police chief to ensurethat the duo reached Talaimannar in SriLanka without any problems. The Sri LankanArmy of the 1970s and 1980s vintage weremainly for ceremonial parades as the thenleaders, mainly peace loving Buddhists, didnot foresee the possibility of an armed upris-ing against the Government.

In spite of the ethnic crisis and terroristattacks, which claimed the lives of hundredsof thousands of civilians including some ofthe best statesmen and scholars, there weresome silver linings in the country’s darkhorizon. There were many Sinhala leaderswho worked for the uplift of the poor andthe downtrodden, irrespective of ethnicity,language, and religion. The shining star ofSri Lanka was Lalith William SamarasekeraAthulathmudali, Lalith to his friends and

well-wishers. He rose like a meteor in Sri Lankan politics, did a lot for

the people in a short span of timebefore the bullets fired by theLTTE assassins felled him at a comparatively young age of 56 in April 1993.

Born in a family of lawyerson November 26, 1936, Lalithwas a bright student who wasinternationally recognisedfor his academic brilliance.Sri Lanka owes it to himfor its emergence as anation of

enlightenment. It were the farsighted poli-cies initiated by Lalith as the EducationMinister of the country from 1990 to 1991that turned out to be the game-changers inits high literacy rate. Lalith was educated atOxford, from where he graduated with dis-tinction. “He was doing his post-graduationat Oxford in 1959 when his father passedaway. Lalith had to return as he faced finan-cial strains. But the then Prime Minister ofSri Lanka, SWRD Bandaranaike, wanted himto continue his education and offered himthe national scholarship with which he com-pleted his post-graduation as well as law,”reminiscences SVD Kesaralal Gunasekera,his long-time associate and friend.

The national scholarship offered to himby the Government was the turningpoint in Lalith’s life. Having completed

his education with flying colours fromOxford and Harvard, he returned to SriLanka and launched a career which saw himworking as a lecturer in some of the best uni-versities in the world. In 1973, he joined theUnited National Party and contested the 1977General Elections. President Junius RichardJayewardene appointed Lalith as the ministerfor trade. His raise in the Government hierar-chy was spectacular, as he was entrusted withthe responsibilities of many sensitive min-istries, including national security. That wasthe time when the LTTE was very aggressive,causing murder and mayhem all over theisland nation demanding a separate countrywithin Sri Lanka. It was Lalith who initiatedsteps to modernise the Sri Lankan military,which hitherto was a ceremonial force, andhe succeeded in controlling the terroristactivities to a certain extent.

Even before becoming a minister, Lalithhad set up the Mahapola Trust Fund in 1981for offering financial assistance to studentsopting for higher education. He was the chair-man of the Trust Fund and the Governmentallowed him to retain the chairmanship evenwhen he was a Union Minister handling vari-ous portfolios. The Mahapola Trust Fund hasbeen renamed since as the Mahapola HigherEducation Scholarship Trust Fund.

What makes this Fund unique is its inclu-sivity. Students from any ethnic communityor religion or caste can get this scholar-ship provided they meet the mandatory

norms. Even whilethe Tamils in the

island nationwere cam-

paigning

against the Sinhala politicians accusing themof discrimination, Tamil students wereoffered the Mahapola Scholarship for highereducation. Lalith’s dream was to make highereducation accessible to all, irrespective oftheir ethnicity or language.

“I was the son of a retired police sergeantwhen I was at the University of Peradeniya 22years ago. It was not easy for our family-of-sixto afford my higher education with all othercommitments of the family. Thanks to Lalith, Ialso received the Mahapola Scholarship, whichhelped me manage my expenses on studies. Istill remember that there were students send-ing money from their Mahapola to their fami-lies for a living. I believe what I am todaywouldn’t have been a reality if MahapolaScholarship did not exist. Dreams of manyuniversity students, who are lucky enough toenter a State university in Sri Lanka but arenot financially blessed, would be the same,”said GD Kapila Kumara, a senior lecturer atthe faculty of agricultural sciences,Sabaragamuwa University in Sri Lanka.

Kapila Kumara says millions of universitystudents are benefited in the country becauseof this scholarship. Mahapola has contributedto preserve education “as a right to all” and toalleviate poverty through education, saysKumara, who also disclosed that he says aprayer for Lalith every night before he goes tobed. “As a tribute to him, a gold medal named‘Lalith Athulathmudali Memorial Gold Medalfor the Best Academic Performance’ is award-ed annually at the general convocation ofSabaragamuwa University,” said Kumara.

The Trust Fund was established by the Actof Parliament in 1981. The management andcontrol of the Fund is with the Chief Justice ofSri Lanka; Minister of Trade, Secretary;Ministry of Higher Education, Secretary;Ministry of Education; and Secretary, Ministryof Trade. There are also two nominated mem-bers, whilst the other five are all ex-officials.

“The vision is to create aneducated society with the aim

of alleviating poverty. Themission is to provide

scholarships for theunderprivileged youth

to complete their highereducation and creation of

equal opportunitiesthrough the developmentof facilities for higher education,” said SiriFernando, a Trustee,friend and close confidante of Lalith.

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Though he had presided over mostof the ministries in Sri Lanka,Lalith had a passion for the

department of education. He wasenchanted by the Chinese proverbwhich stated that: “Give a fish and befed for only a day. Teach how to fishand be free from hunger forever.” Hehad visualised a Sri Lanka where therewon’t be any illiterate people and theyouth would have some professionalskills or other, which would ensure an assured livelihood.

It was in 1990 that Lalith was des-ignated as the Minister of Education.By that time, he was an international-ly acclaimed statesman having ledvarious ministries of theGovernment. “But he met the pressonly after 10 days because he wasadamant that he should familiarisehimself with the nuances of educationbefore making a policy statement. Fora person like Lalith, it was not atough job, but he knew that he was incharge of the most sensitive ministry,”recalled Gunasekera.

Gunasekera, who was present during the press meet, reminiscences:“One of the reporters asked Lalith whatwould be his top priority as theMinister of Education. Lalith repliedinstantly that students would be his toppriority. The journalist asked him whatwould be the second and third priori-ties. ‘Students and students,’ repliedLalith, without batting an eyelid.”

“Any changes made in the field ofeducation would bear fruit only after10 years. That is, to know the impactof the changes, we have to wait for 10years. Then only we will know whetherthe change made was for the best orfor the worst. If we rectify the mistake,it will take another 10 years to knowthe results. That’s why education andthe changes in education policy areimportant for us,” is what Lalith toldjournalists in the press meet.

Lalith insisted that no student inSri Lanka should be denied the rightto higher education due to lack offunds. He got a law enacted to ensurethat all students, irrespective of theirethnicity or the language they speak,got scholarships for higher education.“It is another thing that the Tamil stu-dents who benefited from theMahapola Foundation Scholarship goabroad and complain that they werebeing discriminated against in Sri

Lanka,” said an educationist, who did not want to be named. The fundsfor running the LTTE Government in exile, operating from Europe andCanada, are mobilised by these same expatriate Tamil youth, whocompleted their higher education with the scholarship.

The Mahapola Trust, which beganin 1981 by awarding 422 scholarships,has benefited more than 3,50,000 stu-dents by 2017. “At any time of the year,60,000 students are beneficiaries ofthis scholarship,” said Gunasekera,who has set apart five to six hours ofhis daily life to ensure the smoothfunctioning of the scholarship scheme.According to Gunasekera, 65 per centof students enrolled for higher educa-tion in Sri Lanka are getting theMahapola Scholarship.

The scholarship is in the �5,500 to�7,500 range per month, depending onthe course of study. The beneficiariesare selected depending on the financialstatus of the parents. “If the income ofthe parents is within the stipulatedamount, the students are offered thescholarship for the entire duration ofthe course, with a limit of four years,”said Gunasekera.

Siri Fernando said most of the stu-dents manage to supplement the

income of their parents by sendinghome a part of the scholarship amount.“It is as good as a source of income,even as they study in professional colleges,” said Fernando, former chiefof a British company in Colombo, who shadowed Lalith throughout hislife as a friend and follower.

The scholarship programme, whichbegan with the funds donated by Lalithin 1981, has emerged as the biggesteducation programme in the country.It is sustained by Mahapola Lotteryorganised by the DevelopmentLotteries Board of the Government.

“The students who complete theireducation using this scholarship arein no way obliged to us. Lalith wasnot for it because he wanted no com-mitment from the beneficiaries otherthan completing the education suc-cessfully. Till date, we have not askedfor any favours from the students whobenefited from this unique scheme,”said Gunasekera.

It was the Mahapola Foundationthat set up the Sri Lanka Institute ofInformation Technology. So, don’t beunder the impression that theFoundation only disburses scholar-ships and sits back for the rest of thetime. Not a single student has com-mitted suicide in Sri Lanka for want

of funds or denial of opportunitiesfor higher education. This is thebiggest achievement of the MahapolaScholarship. Pola in Sinhala languagemeans festival and the scholarshiphas helped the beneficiaries maketheir life a great festival, pointed out Siri Fernando.

There is one factor on which theentire political spectrum of Sri Lankais unanimous. They are all of the viewthat Lalith was the best President orhead of the state Sri Lanka did nothave. But politics is a strange andtreacherous path where there are ter-rorists and landmines of differentforms waiting to take lives out ofunsuspecting victims.

The objectives and missions of the Mahapola Foundation, drafted and written by Lalith, speak volumesabout his vision:�To provide higher education facilitiesto the youth.�To provide assistance to deservingyouth, enabling them to complete theiracademic, industrial, or technical educa-tion in a higher education institution inconsequence of the successful comple-tion of their secondary education.�To set up and assist in the managementof vocational training institute with theview to improve skills of the youth.

�To set up and assist schools and otherinstitutions in the furtherance of education.�To provide assistance for theimprovement and development of skills of persons who are engaged inthe furtherance of education.

The question which comes to mindis whether we have a scheme like thisin India or in any other neighbouringcountries? Mahapola Foundation is theone and only inclusive scheme whichhas made a big impact in the lives ofthe poor in the island nation. Thereare ministers, bureaucrats, education-ists, military officers, lawyers, vice-chancellors, medical doctors, andother professionals who came up in life only because of this scheme.

A vice-chancellor, who hails fromthe northern province, recounted hisgratitude to the Mahapola Foundationfor the scholarship. “The first thing Idid with the scholarship amount wasto buy a time piece which helped meget up early in the morning. This wasuseful because I could complete myhomework and also supplement mymother’s income by working as a help-ing hand in the nearby store for a fewhours daily,” he said.

Lalith gave his countrymen a rosegarden itself while they were lookingfor a simple rose. This inclusivescheme itself would qualify him forthe Nobel Prize for Peace as he hadimplemented this scheme in a war-torn country. Lalith was a proponentof human rights as well as democraticrights. The steps he initiated to resolvethe ethnic crisis in the island nationduring his tenure as Minister forNational Security could be told onlythrough a comprehensive book.

But the truth is that Lalith died anunsung hero of Sri Lanka; a personwho was felled by the bullets fired by avile assassin. Lalith would definitelyhave taken Sri Lanka to newer heightshad he been alive. Strange are theways of this world. If there is one per-son who qualifies for the Nobel Prizefrom this part of the world, it is LalithAthulathmudali.

What struck the mind after hear-ing Lalith’s story was the scenario in

Tamil Nadu, a State in India where theDravidian politicians bay for Sinhalablood for alleged discriminationagainst Tamils. We come acrossreports routinely in Tamil Nadu aboutyoungsters committing suicidebecause of failure to get admission inmedical colleges. Do we have ascheme like Mahapola Foundation inany of the Indian States?

“All we have to do is divert 10 percent of the funds allocated for corpo-rate social responsibility to a corpusaccount and all States in India toocould boast a Trust like Mahapola. Itshould be based purely on merit,” saidJayaprakash Valliathan, a veteranmarine engineer, who has opened aschool for the poor in his village afterretiring from service. He adds that thepolitical leadership of the countryshould have the will power to imple-ment such innovations.

Tamil Nadu, hardly 30 nauticalmiles off the Sri Lankan shore, sawmany students committing suicide fol-lowing failure to crack the NationalEligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET),the gateway to medical colleges. Thisis unheard of in Sri Lanka where allbeneficiaries of the MahapolaScholarship laugh all the way to thebanks. Had he been alive, Lalith wouldhave turned 82 this November 26. Asusual, his friends and associates fromall over the world would assembleunder the auspices of the LalithAthulathmudali Foundation to takestock of last year’s performance and todiscuss future plans.

Sri Lanka is less than half the sizeof Tamil Nadu and does not havemonikers like the Oxford orCambridge of the South. Sri Lanka hasneither this many engineering collegesor medical colleges which you see inTamil Nadu. Still, the students (bothSinhala and Tamil) are happy and con-fident of their bright future. LalithAthulathmudali revolutionised educa-tion into a mission, while in our ownTamil Nadu, it is a multi-billion dollarbusiness along with TASMAC (TamilNadu State Marketing Corporation),the State monopoly on liquor trade.

Aflight lands in Bali every sevenminutes. This was actually anobservation made by my friendas we sat gorging on delicioussea food at a restaurant by Kuta

beach, very close to Ngurah RaiInternational Airport, Denpasar. Thesound of waves slapping the shores wasmusic to ears, even as the eyes got attract-ed to the lights hanging in the mid air,before they made a perfect landing. Soon,we lost count of the number of air planesthat made it to the island, but not beforeconcluding what a popular tourist destina-tion this island nation was.

Part of the world’s largest archipelago,Indonesia, Bali is the most favoured desti-nation among tourists what with its forest-ed volcanic mountains, iconic rice paddies,beaches and coral reefs. Ancient temples oncliff sides and shores speak of the island’sconnect with ancient India, that lives in theform of a prevalent Hindu society that thispart of the island nation is today.

Happy go lucky island vibe throbs inthe lively bars of Kuta and resort towns ofSeminyak, Sanur and Nusa Dua to thesouth. Those who love clubbing swear byPotato Head Beach Club, Seminyak and theRock Bar at Ayana Resort and Spa,Jimbaran! For a mind and body balance,you find a generous smattering of spas,yoga and meditation retreat.

��������������� ��From Rishikesh to Bali — though I can’treally boast much of water adventuresport experience, but the thought of travers-ing rapids on Ayung River that flowsthrough Ubud in Bali was quite appealing.Dressed aptly and armed with respectivesafety gear and oars, our group of fivewomen set out on this fun adventure.

The trek to the river is a decent climbdown and an equally treacherous climb up,especially when your clothes are all wet andclinging. However, it is worth every step onceyou get into the raft. The river stretch is sur-rounded by lush forest and panoramic viewsalong the course. Somewhere along the waywe crossed a stretch with black rock carv-ings depicting stories from Ramayana.Covered in moss, these carvings looked real-

ly old but apparently these have been craft-ed not too long ago by a skilful artisan ona commission from a local hotel owner.

With rapids of grade moderate to easyand a busy stretch, rafting on this river isoften about avoiding big stones and bump-ing into a fellow raft as one goes along.Nevertheless, it is a fun activity with all thebrief stops one gets to make by the banksfor a coconut water/snack break or a halt bythe small waterfalls for some splashing fun.

������� ��When travelling towards Ubud, visit toSacred Monkey Forest is a must. The for-est is a sanctuary or natural habitat ofBalinese long-tailed Monkey and a very pop-ular tourist attraction. Well known for itsconservation efforts, over a hundredmacaques inhabit the forest, and in-depthresearch and studies are carried out forobserving their health, diet and breedinghabits. Shiva Shakti Temple is housedinside the forest and dates back to the 14thcentury. It is only open to the locals for per-forming religious ceremonies.

We were well warned not to carry anysunglasses or jewellery on our body. Theguides tell you to even remove hair acces-sories, if you happen to be wearing any.Stone statues inside the forest pay ode tothe inhabitants and make for a hangoutspaces for them. I chose to hang out nearthe temple rather than venture into theforest. Given the familiarity Indians havewith their cousins here, there is notmuch novelty, but then perhaps…

������������The Indonesian Islanders have great respectfor nature and strongly believe in co-habi-tation. This also explains the efforts madeby them to conserve the fast gettingextinct species. Green sea turtles is anoth-er such example. Located 10 km south ofDenpasar is Serangan Island, a frequentnesting ground for green sea turtles.

Not too long ago, consumption of tur-tle meat as well as the use of sea turtles in cer-emonies led to extinction threat for this beau-tiful species. Public awareness and timelycommunity action, however, checked the lossand now, a conservation project is run by the

local people in partnership with the govern-ment on this island to conserve the species.

A popular tourist spot, visitors com-bine with other water sports activities thatthey can participate on the eastern side ofSerangan, especially surfing. You canchoose to just ride on the waves in a glassboat, should you just want to take it easy.After all, Bali is part of the Coral Triangle,the area with the highest biodiversity ofmarine species and is home to over 500reef-building coral species. This, indicatethe statistics is about seven times as manyas in the entire Caribbean!

����������������������These rice terraces offer a perfect Bali photoopportunity with its dramatic views.Located on the north side of Ubud (around20 minutes drive), Tegallalang makes fora famous tourist attraction for beautiful riceterraces The vista sprawls down and awayto the rice terraces on the slopes across thevalley and offers a great showcase ofSubak (traditional Balinese cooperative irri-gation system), which according to histo-ry, was passed down by holy man RsiMarkandeya in the 8th century.

The highlight of our visit was also theadventurous Bali swing that flies over the ricefields and offers an opportunity for a per-

fect Instagram shot. Well that is what mosttourists come here looking for. Quite a scaryadventure, if you don’t have a thing forheights, the swing is well secured with har-ness to keep you in place. I have to admit,with all the courage I could muster, I coulddo it only one way looking into the fields.

������������No visit to Bali is complete without a visitto their beautiful temples. A pocket ofHindu religion and culture, locals not onlyworship the same gods and goddesses, per-form similar rituals, and build sacred tem-ples as Indian Hindus, but Hinduism is away of life for them. I found it fascinatingto see that every Balinese Hindu homehouses a temple of its own, especially inUbud, and elaborate one at that. Some ofthe famous temples of Bali and most fre-

quented by tourists include, Ulun DanuBeratan Temple in Bedugul, Tabanan;Tanah Lot in Tabanan and Uluwatu Temple,Jimbaran. Most temples are dedicated to thetrinity and pays homage to the local gods.In most temples visitors are not allowed topray inside the temple and can only enterthe premises if they are wearing a sarong.The rituals and prayers can only be per-formed by the locals and follow strict codes.

There is a lot that is there to be sharedabout the local culture and religiousbeliefs. Perhaps another time. But as atravel destination, there is so much thatthe visitors can do as part of their stayhere, or not should they choose to. It’s notfor nothing that it tops people’s travel list.And you just can’t cover all in one trip.You have to come back for more. Well,that’s my promise to self.

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Page 11:  · aspiration or wish fulfillment and incredible though we may have been, there was no concept of Brand India, ambassadors and advertising. India’s greatest ad guru, who passed

The visit by PranabMukherjee, formerPresident of India, tothe RSS headquarters atNagpur, earlier in 2018,

has set the ideological stage forthe 2019 General Elections.

Pranab Mukherjee’s politicalcareer has spanned the decadesfrom the long innings of absolutistIndira Gandhi, all the waythrough to the present dispensa-tion. He has been a consummateCongress politician and man forall seasons at the highest echelonsof the Government.

Kingshuk Nag, in his eighthbook, has used Mukherjee’s illus-trative and unabashed tribute tothe importance of the RSS today,for his insightful study on RSSchief Mohan Bhagwat.

Earlier, Nag, a veteran formerjournalist, has written books onNarendra Modi, Atal BihariVajpayee, Subhas Chandra Bose,The BJP, Vijay Mallya and theKingfisher Airlines imbroglio, andthe infamous Satyam scam featur-ing its key actor, Ramalinga Raju.

The symbolism of the RSS andits Sarsanghchalak MohanBhagwat at centre-stage in today’spolitics, stands in stark contrast to

the RSS’ much vilified past duringthe decades of Nehru-Gandhidomination and this book istherefore very timely. The RSS,indicates Nag, prefers to paint ona much wider canvas than theNehruvian reference points ofWestern inspired modernism. Itdraws inspiration from “Bharat”,albeit an inclusive continuum, thatis centuries old, rich in history,tradition, knowledge and culture.

That the time has come toacknowledge and incorporate thisbroader view of India’s nation-hood is possibly why PranabMukherjee went to Nagpur.However, other reasons, have alsobeen advanced for the visit.

The RSS, often painted as ananachronism by the Congress,seeks to derive its vision of

Hindu Rashtra from the gaze ofmillennia. That this automatical-ly tends to dwarf and rendershallow the Nehruvian vision ofa “secular” India is the veryproblem according to the Libleft.

The RSS and the NDA hasgained traction however preciselybecause the idea of Nehruviansecularism has been moulded todiscriminate against the majoritycommunity of Hindus.

The Indian electorate hasawakened to this discriminationagainst Hindus combined with adistaste for the blatantly dynasticpolitics promoting the Nehru fam-ily gradually. This found its firstexpression in voting in non-Congress Governments in theeighties and nineties as the erst-while captive vote banks began to

migrate to other political parties. Then the seeming anathema

of voting for a “communal” BJP, asopposed to a socialist and diverseJanata Dal, was also penetratedwhen the Vajpayee Governmentcompleted a full-term in power.

The induction of more andmore RSS stalwarts into key posi-tions in the BJP, both in the Partyand Government has marked ashift during the current Bhagwat-Modi period. However, despitethis, effective in governance hasnot exactly been stellar.

Vajpayee tended to hold theRSS at arms-length in gover-nance. Modi has a much betterequation with Bhagwat, the sameage as himself, as Nag points out.Both are 1950 born, well afterindependence.

The lines have indeed blurredbetween RSS as the ideologicalcompass, and the BJP as the vehi-cle of governance. However, somedifferences in emphasis are appar-ent. Modi tends to regard devel-opment or vikas as a universalpanacea. The RSS wants HinduRashtra and some historicwrongs against the Hindus right-ed on a priority basis.

It is clear Modi and the BJPcould not have won without RSSsupport in 2014, though the mag-nitude of the win, took the RSS bysurprise. This sort of majority winmay repeat in 2019, given a weakand disparate Opposition. This,despite Narendra Modi havingfailed to keep many of the promis-es he made. And the effects ofcontroversial decisions such as the

sudden demonetisation, that isthought to have hurt small busi-nesses and the poor.

Also, the Modi Governmenthas done next to nothing to pro-mote the RSS agenda for a HinduRashtra. Still, the RSS may be con-strained to back Modi once againas its best hope for realising itsvision in the future.

The construction of the RamTemple at Ayodhya is a stickingpoint, as is the unchanged statusof J&K, despite RSS inductee RamMadhav being in-charge of partymatters in the latter state. TheMandir construction, long pend-ing, is coming to a head now. Thepressure is coming from the VHP,the SS, groupings of seers andmahants, members, some unionministers of the Modi

Government, and, of course,Mohan Bhagwat and the RSSitself. Interestingly, there is sup-port for an urgent commence-ment of the Ram Temple con-struction from the Shia WakfBoard too. The Supreme Courthowever continues to drag its feeton the title dispute.

Nag refrains from puttingwords into Bhagwat’s mouththroughout the book. Instead, helays out the multiple concerns ofthe RSS as very much a work-in-progress. Of paramount concernto a pragmatic and modernisingBhagwat today is the BJP’s andparticularly Modi’s winnability.

Today, even as the RSS exertsits influence on the choice of elec-toral candidates, policy mattersand union ministers alike it hasnot made much headway on coreissues. The commitment thereforeto a second term for Modi and theBJP is perforce intact.

This is the eighth decade ofthe RSS’ existence thoughBhagwat is only the sixthsarsanghchalak. Because ofBhagwat’s relative youth, ascend-ing to the top job at 59, the reachof the RSS has been markedlyextended. It is active in Bengal,and more effectively, in the NorthEast, for the first time. In terms ofinclusion, the Muslims and Dalitsfeature significantly in the RSSstructure today.

Bhagwat has been less suc-cessful in influencing educationalpolicies of the Government, possi-bly because of a large cadre ofentrenched Leftists.

The fates of Narendra Modiand Mohan Bhagwat are, on theface of it, intertwined, looking at2019. But waiting in the wings, isNagpur’s first choice for primeministership, should Modi falter.

Nitin Gadkari, elected fromNagpur, is the only union ministerwho has had a free hand in theModi Government, and the onlyother senior leader with bothModi’s development credentials,BJP’s organisational experience,and consummate RSS backing.

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What makes TheRainbow Acres work isthat the narrative cap-

tures the universal humandesire to move about in searchof better opportunities and abetter life. Human diaspora is asold as human civilisation itself.By interweaving the stories ofSophia from Mexico andKishan Singh Dillon fromPunjab, the writer furtherunderscores the ubiquity of thisexperience. As the novel tells itsreaders, unlike popular percep-tion, immigration is not onlyabout the destination, it is alsoabout the journey. Theimmensely exhausting, endless-ly dangerous, and yet uniquelyinvigorating journey of thecountless Mexicans, Punjabis,Japanese, and Chinese immi-grants is at the heart of thisbook. Every individual has aheart wrenching (and heart-warming) story, waiting to betold: Be it Han-Gan or HarbansSingh. Like many others beforeand after them, Kishan andSophia are also drawn by thesiren’s call that is California —the land of gold and goldenopportunities.

As a reader, the cultural andlinguistic shock and alienationthat characters like Kishan,Jaspal and Han-Gan experienceare easy enough to understand,and even pre-empt, but what isnot as easy to grasp is the bitter-sweet taste of nostalgia thatlingers in the heart of theseexpatriates. The longing for thehomeland is a persistent achethat can find respite, only tem-porarily, in hazy memories.Trying to capture it in words isa failed enterprise. Hence, theimmigrant is always locked inan unbreakable hold of his ownmemories. As Jaspal, KishanSingh’s adoptive brother, tellshim, he will never be able tofully explain certain experiencesto his wife Isabel: “She willnever know the lost wheat fieldsback in Noor Mahal or thesmell of simmering saag thatfilled up my house on winterevenings. She will never knowhow influenza came in throughthe dark of the summer nightsand tore my world apart. She

will never know the recklessfarmer boy that I was beforeboarding the ship to Californiain search of new moors.”

Yet, this untranslatabilityforms a bond which connectsall immigrants, irrespective ofreligion, language and national-

ity. As a woman of Indian ori-gin, living in the US, Dhir hascaptured the complexities of thediasporic life with both subtletyand nuances. The character ofKishan Singh has been verywell-etched, especially in thefirst part of the novel. Sophia’s

character on the other hand,seems a little rushed, in partsat least. Sophia’s turmoils enroute California are too pre-dictable and just as easilybrushed off. She lacks thedetailed delineation that hasbeen bestowed on Kishan.

The American Dream is aconstant presence in the textand informs and shapes the des-tiny as well as the life-choices ofthe protagonists. Both Kishanand Sophia are enterprisingindividuals, thus, their successin this land of opportunities isalmost a given. Entrepreneurshipis shown to be the cornerstoneof the American economy andthe writer seems to be fullyinvested in this ideal, at a per-sonal level almost. The praise ofAmerica and the boundlessavenues of personal and profes-sional growth it offers are oftenon the verge of turning intopopulist puree. But, usuallywith Kishan Singh as hermouthpiece, the author alsomanages to make the readersunderstand the irony of it all.America is the land of freedomand yet for immigrants, likeJaspal and Kishan, freedom is alike the receding horizon —tantalising but ever just out ofreach. And, it is in these

moments that the protagonisttruly shines out as the moralcenter of the text. KishanSingh and Sophia are heroicnot in the martial sense but intheir actions and intentions.Their perseverance, integrityand zeal, whether for them-selves or their loved ones,makes them stand out.

As mentioned above, thenarrative operates on two lev-els — the story of Sophia’s lifein Mexican Acapulco, thenGuadalajara, and her (much)later life California; and thestory of Kishan which beginsin Punjab and then moves toColorado. This interesting nar-rative technique eventuallybecomes one of the most jar-ring aspects of the novel. Thetwo stories intersect much toolate in the text and the laterbond between Kishan andSophia is not given sufficienttime to develop.

In the final section of thenovel, it seemed as if the writerdecided to shift the focus fromKishan to Jaspal-which wouldnot have been such an issue butfor the fact that the latter doesnot have a well-defined charac-ter arch until this point in the

text and as a reader it is difficultto suddenly invest in him.

Other than this, the novel isa gripping read and adds a greatdeal to one’s understanding ofthe diaspora of the Punjabis —Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs —to the US as farmers and afarmer’s undying love and com-mitment for his land. Boththese aspects are especiallyinteresting as one rarely readsabout such topics in popularfiction. Kudos to the writer forher painstaking research andher lucid prose.

The Rainbow, like the rain-bow at Kishan Singh’s farmafter the storm, is the promiseof hope that keeps one goingin spite of all odds. It repre-sents the quintessentialAmerican promise of wish-ful-filment at the end of a trial. Itrepresents the cycle of nature-that transcends all nationalitiesand political boundaries —where spring will inevitablyfollow after winter.

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Elections in the United States are a spec-tacle par excellence. This is equally true

for both the anointed Presidency and theCongressional elections. Awareness anddeliberations about the US Foreign Policyacross the larger international system areeveryone’s pet peeve but the scenario in thedomestic politics remains a realm whichhas been investigated to a lesser extent else-where. Also, it is a theoretical principle inthe discipline of international relations thatthere lies a continuum between the domes-ticity of a nation and its larger footprintin the international ecosystem. It is in thistwilight zone where the electoral narrativeholds sway.

Typically, 218 seats are required for amajority in the US House ofRepresentatives, which has Paul Ryan asthe Republican leader and Nancy Pelosistanding forth as the leader of theDemocrats in the House.

The related aspersion is that the ver-dict of the midterm elections has playeda substantial role in the firming up of asubstratum for the future of PresidentDonald Trump in his next tenure if thattranspires at the second-term electoral hus-tings. In the recently concluded elections,55 Congressmen didn’t seek re-elections;it makes the midterm outing as significantand decisive in the making of a politicalconsensus for the crucial future and theAmerican Dream.

Several outcomes of the elections areof significance: The Republican andDemocratic control the Intelligence,Investigative and Foreign Affairs comethrough as a key and crucially contextu-al realm of these midterm elections, butthe results have denied them this privilege.The Supreme Court vacancies are up forthe grab as the elections have weakenedthe prerogative of President Trump, espe-cially in the light of the Kavanaugh can-didature for the Supreme Court. TheObamacare repeal was defeated by onevote in 2017 and the Bill could get final-ly erased. In the light of the refugees andundocumented aliens marching on to theUS-Mexican border, immigration andPresident Trump’s eviction oriented poli-cies have come up for scanner with thesouthern and immigrant oriented popu-lations, all across the United States beingreal testing grounds for the immigrationtheme of the Republicans which furtherfound them divided under the WhiteHouse’s decisions in the context.

It has been witnessed that the Houseof Representatives has been won over bythe Democrats and the Republican Partyhas retained its majority in the Senate. Still,a great iota of unpredictability was asso-ciated with some of the races as the “tug

of war” was a very narrow one in them.In the midterm polls of 1994, 2006 and2010, the parties of the Presidents withdwindling approval ratings lost out butdoes that hold up as a role model trend,after the Trump inaugural, has been test-ed as a hypothesis at the November 2018

hustings. The Washington Post and ScharCollege pointed towards advantageDemocrats, where the quotient is biggerfor pshephological error as most of theraces were very closely fought. It is defi-nitely an acid test for the “Trump sur-prises” wherein the decision-making and

the influence-potential of White Housemight be up for the asking which getsweakened as Democrats have performed.

Also, on the other hand, going byDemocratic candidates such as O’Rourke,apart from the Democratic strongholds,the youngsters, Texans and the Hispanic

voters have replicated their inclinationsand choices elsewhere also to giveDemocrats a win in the overall picture,which is far from being picture perfect. Thefinal results point towards better days forthe dandy Democrats. Also, now after themidterm polls, Democrats hold 47 seats

and the Trump’s gladiators are on the 51mark in the US Senate. In the House ofRepresentatives, the number 36 is the trickwherein Democrats have improved theirtally by 36 votes with their tally reachingthe healthy figure of 231. The Republicanshave gone down by 36 seats wherein theirstrength has come down to a measly 198.The Guardian has called it a blue wave.What needs to be relooked by PresidentTrump that though the nation’s economyis roaring and unemployment figures areunder control, but still the “AmericaFirst” Brigade has not done well in theHouse of Representatives. That demandsa re-look by the Republican Party and theissue of environment also has impactedresults.

As results have come out, the allimportant State of Arizona has gone theDemocrat way with the leading critique ofPresident Trump, Krysten Sinema, pippingRepublican Senator Jeff Flake to the post.The British national daily has called themidterm polls as not a Democrat “Bluewave”, but an affront to the Republicanvanguard which resulted in flipping sevenstately Governorships. It was only after theRichard Nixon’s Presidency and theWatergate scandal in 1974 that Democratshave performed in such a positive man-ner in the midterm Congressionals.

The elections in a blitzkrieg mannerhave obfuscated the Trump Presidency ashe will have to combat the Democratsmortally and the Democrats will benumerically emboldened to persist withtheir investigations on the TrumpAdministration after the elections. Still, asthe Senate majority still rests withPresident Trump, his Supreme Court,Cabinet and other representatives will con-tinue to sail through for another two years.What surprises is that the Arizona winnercompared the immigrant rage to the Iraqwar outrage, and her outrage was com-bated by the Republican candidate on thecontext of the Democrat candidate oppos-ing the creation of new Air Force bases andweakening the national security objectiveof Washington exemplified by PresidentTrump.

Still, the core constituency of theRepublicans is only rattled and the battlefor the next Presidency might still be atough task for President Trump’s rivalsafter the good showing of the Democratsin the midterm elections. Some analysts,after the elections, are pointing towards asub-urban revolt which might have pivotedthe Democrats in the midterms.

(The writer teaches InternationalRelations at Indian Institute of PublicAdministration, Delhi)

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The recent upsurge in conflictbetween Israeli security agencies

and Palestinian organisation Hamasthat has taken seven lives in GazaStrip in last one week is a reminderof an array of issues the West Asianregion has to grapple with. Asmany as 2,000 civilians and over 100soldiers have died in the conflictever since resurgence of conflictafter a lull that ended in 2014.

Deeply concerned at the violentonslaught, the UN is pulling out allstops to find permanent solution tothe vexing problem. But the road topeace is not that easy as the currentstate of affairs does not offer anyhope for resuming dialogue betweenwarring factions for ceasefire. A trialof strength is going on between thesecurity forces of Israel and Hamas.

The present crisis is the out-come of a combination of factors,deeply interwoven in the compli-cated saga of the conflict in WestAsia since 1948. Although on manyoccasions the Israeli Governmenthad designed a series of policiesaimed at quick results, Hamas tookthe extreme step of working againstthe peace proposals. However,recently a third party (Egypt sup-ported) brokered peace and recon-ciliation efforts have been agreedupon by Hamas, but only time willtest the sustainability of such effortsas the third party mediation has notyielded positive results in the regionin the past.

In these circumstances, the

solution to the biggest West Asiancrisis depends on the present lead-ership of Israel and Hamas.However, the mounting Israelistrikes on Gaza Strip have aggra-

vated the crisis further dashing thehopes for peace. Also, Hamas hasalready vowed to avenge the “Israelislaughter” and is preparing for afresh onslaught. Hamas has poten-

tial to strike with efficiency and itsexpertise has extended beyond con-ventional guerilla warfare.

The emboldening factors favourHamas locally. Hamas enjoys an

immense advantage because ofthree factors: politically, thePalestinians want Israel to withdrawfrom the West Bank and GazaStrip; militarily, Hamas has suffi-

cient arms & ammunition and well-trained fighters; and, at the locallevel, Hamas has been able tomobilise people ideologically.

The ongoing Israeli attacks havenot only jeopardised US PresidentGeorge Bush-led Israeli-PalestinianPeace Accord of November 2007 buthave also created serious concernamong the security and militaryintelligence throughout the region.

The violent attacks, some ofwhich were retaliatory, suggest thatthe present crisis is deeply inter-woven in the issue of separatenational identities and the never-ending claim over a common pieceof land. Gradually, both Israel andPalestine have understood that theycould only survive if a two-Statesolution was accepted. The OsloPeace Accord allowed thePalestinians to build an air and seapassage in the West Bank and GazaStrip, with then PalestinianPresident Yasser Arafat denouncingterrorism and the recognition ofPalestine by Israeli Prime MinisterYitzhak Rabin. However, Hamasdoes not recognise the right of Israelas a State and its claim over territory.

There were rays of hope butnothing much came of these decla-rations. Earlier, Israel was keen tobuild around 30,000 houses for itscitizens on the West Bank andGaza Strip by 2020 but thePalestinians were vehementlyagainst it. The Palestinians alwayswanted to have full control of the

West Bank and almost 90 per centwithdrawal of the Israeli Army.

Palestinians always accusedIsrael of not abiding by the 34 com-mitments such as freeing ofPalestinian prisoners, dismantlingsettlements in Jerusalem, freemovement for Arabs from othercountries and allowing free air andsea passage to Palestinians. The for-mation of the Palestinian NationalAuthority (PNA) was a welcomestep towards the restoration ofpeace and reconciliation in thewar-torn area but the increasingnumber of attacks and conflictbetween the Fatah and Hamasmembers compelled PalestinianAuthority President MahmoudAbbas to dissolve the UnityGovernment and allow Hamas totake control of the Gaza Strip.

The existence of two separateGovernments in West Bank and theGaza Strip has created many com-plications for the peace process.Soon after, in June 2007, Hamasmembers tried to dismantle theFatah authority in Gaza. The veryidea of control over the Gaza Stripdid not go down well with Israel andthe US. Ever since the victory ofHamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January2006, Israel has made all efforts toisolate it.

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Paris has vaulting ambitionsto capture a share of theworld gold trade from

London, reviving its historic roleas a top-tier power in the interna-tional bullion market. TheBanque de France has teamed upwith JP Morgan to offer a fullrange of swaps, leases, and golddeposits for global central banksand sovereign wealth funds.Global reserve managers will beable to pledge bullion as collateralfor deposits or for raising foreigncurrency on the Paris market.

Sylvie Goulard, the BdF’sdeputy governor, called it thespearhead of a sweeping shake-up of the French gold industryand left no doubt that one aim isto challenge the hegemonic posi-tion of the City in bullion deal-ing. “While these gold investmentservices have until now only beenoffered from London, it recentlybecame possible for the Banquede France to offer them also fromParis. As a result, Paris couldgradually re-emerge as a keymarketplace for gold,” she wrotein the Alchemist, the in-housejournal for the London BullionMarket Association (LBMA).

While the French plans pre-date the Brexit referendum, theyhave taken on fresh salience asPresident Emmanuel Macronopenly strives to peel away someof the Square Mile’s banking,wealth management, euro clear-ing, and insurance business.

Mme Goulard said the BdFwill act as a ‘principal’ for thefirst time so that foreign centralbanks can generate a return fromgold transactions without takingon counterparty risk, a crucialservice in the ultra-cautiousworld of reserve managers.

One aim is to muscle in onthe swap business as gold becomeseligible collateral under the BaselIII framework for banks. The BdF

is upgrading the quality of its goldreserves to ensure that they meetthe LBMA benchmark standardfor global trading. This meansrefining to a 999.9 per cent purity.It is reported that the BdF is offer-ing much lower storage costs thatthe Bank of England.

Paris was a central hub of theworld bullion nexus in the 19thCentury when the Napoleon 20franc gold coin rivalled theBritish gold sovereign and theAmerican Eagle. The goldreserves of the French ThirdRepublic were stored in the winecellars of Hotel de Toulouse inParis until the First World War.Deemed vulnerable, they wereswitched to the famousSouterraine beneath the SeineRiver in the 1920s, the deepestand biggest gold vault in theworld. Its underground cathedralof 720 pillars and Dantesque cir-cles, with its seven ton armoureddoor, were immortalised by theinterwar writer Stefan Zweig,who called it the “heart of oureconomic world, the epicentre ofthe invisible waves that stir mar-kets, bourses, and banks.”

The London gold market —or loco London in trader parlance— is a hard nut for the French tocrack. The Bundesbank has beenrepatriating gold holdings fromvaults in Paris and New York toassuage Germany’s “bring-home-our-gold” movement, but it hasnot yet withdrawn any bars fromthe vaults of the Bank ofEngland. “If the Bank for

International Settlements want totrade on behalf of central banks,for example, it does so inLondon. It is an all-or-nothingeffect, and it is self-reinforcing.Although Shanghai is breathingdown London’s neck,” he said.

Peter Hambro, a London goldveteran and president of theRussian miner Petropavlovsk,said the French held onto to mosttheir gold when Gordon Brown

sold half the Bank of England’sbars at the bottom of market, fora quarter of current price.

France sold 580 tonnes underNicolas Sarkozy — to great protest— but remains the world’s fifthbiggest holder with 2,436 tonnes.“The Banque de France has anexcellent reputation as the manag-er of the French national reservesof gold and foreign exchange. It isin a select club of countries like

China and Russia that still under-stand the value of gold as a storeof value and a medium ofexchange that is in itself no oneelse’s promise,” he said.

Ross Norman from SharpsPixley said there is a reason forthis stickiness. London remainsthe most liquid gold market in thewestern world by far, with trustedcourts under the rule of law. “Ihaven’t heard of a ‘loco Paris’ gold

trade for decades, so it is going tobe tough for them,” he said.

The LBMA says the dailynotional trade in London in 2016was $234bn, far ahead of theCOMEX in the US at $28.9bn, orthe combined Shanghai futuresand gold exchanges at $9.4bn.However, the LBMA membersprovide deep liquidity to the mar-ket and this cannot easily be repli-cated. “Constructing anew such asystem would be expensive andwearisome. For Paris to challengeLondon’s pre-eminence the BdFwould need to encourage morethan just JP Morgan to operatethere with such a back-up,” he said.

France’s 20th century rever-ence for gold had unintendedconsequences. The countryaccumulated too much of theworld’s bullion stock in the1920s after it returned the post-Versailles Gold Standard at anundervalued rate. This exerted adeflationary effect on the inter-national system, deepening theGreat Depression. At one pointit amassed 5,000 tonnes.

Gold hoarding recoiled with avengeance in the 1930s whenFrance remained the last majorpower fixed to the Gold Standard,and therefore remained trappedin contractionary vortex thatdelayed recovery and led to bitterLeft-Right political conflict. It wasa key reason why the country suc-cumbed to defeatism in 1940.

London can boast an evenmore illustrious past than Parisas a bullion hub. It dates back to

the gold shipping partnership ofthe East India Company andMoses Mocatta in the late 17thCentury — later helped by thegreat gold enthusiast, Sir IsaacNewton, master of the RoyalMint and part-time alchemist,when he could tear himself awayfrom gravity theory.

The Bank of England estab-lished the London Good DeliveryList in 1750 to set a unified stan-dard for gold refiners. The quin-tet of N M Rothschild & Sons,Mocatta & Goldsmid, Pixley &Abell, Samuel Montagu & Co.and Sharps Wilkins ran the cele-brated ‘London Fix’ for decades.The anachronistic Fix wasreformed after the global finan-cial crisis to make it more trans-parent. It is now electronic andpartially regulated. Barclays wasfined $26m in 2014 for abuseslinked to the old system.

The Bank of England’s goldvaults hold 5,200 tonnes onbehalf of global central banks andfor the LBMA, with sealed lips onthe who customers are. Some7,500 tonnes in total are stored inLondon. JP Morgan, HSBC, andBrinks, among others, have theirown vaults. In the long run, thereal challenge for the Londongold market almost certainlycomes from Shanghai and Asianhubs. Some might say the siblingrivalry between the French andthe British — over the mostatavistic of all commodities —borders on national caricature.

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AKashmiri political sci-entist once said to me,“You cannot discussKashmir, or theKashmir conflict,

without starting with history”. Iwas puzzled: What did theregion’s ancient or medieval histo-ry have to do with a conflict thatbegan after the Partition of Indiain 1947? It was only when I start-ed researching this book that Ifound that many contemporarythreads of the conflict — and,more importantly, its solution —lead back in time.

Internally, the valley’s particu-lar form of religious syncretism,which is so different from thedemographic pluralism of Jammuor the “living together separately”model of Ladakh, is rooted in theopening centuries of the 1stMillennium CE. Kashmir wasamongst the earliest regions of theIndian subcontinent to record itshistory, and through the ages,Kashmiri historians and mytholo-gists preserved much of the cul-ture as it developed. The tradi-tions that were anchored throughretelling were not unbroken:Kashmir too fell under a series ofempires as well as a rapid succes-sion of dynasties, each of whichleft its imprint. But the philosoph-ical underpinnings of Kashmiritradition were relatively undis-turbed, perhaps because it was atthe periphery of empire and fewancient empire-builders treatedperipheries as bulwarks. Thebeliefs that Kashmir andKashmiris are exceptional, thatthey are guardians of the religioussites of all faiths, that the pursuitof knowledge requires engage-ment with every view, that themilitary is an inferior occupation— a view shared by India’s nine-teenth-century social reformerSwami Vivekananda — remainstrong even today, though they areincreasingly under threat.

Externally too, the region’shorizons have not altered in anymajor way despite the changinggeopolitics of the region.Neighbours continue to playmake-or-break roles in the state.Afghanistan’s leaders, who onceruled Kashmir, no longer seekcontrol or influence there. Yet,events in Afghanistan continue tofall out on Kashmir, largelybecause of Pakistani activism inboth regions. Attacks from mod-ern Pakistan, which includes theancient territories once calledDardistan, have increased, butonly to the extent that there areshorter lulls between attacks thanthere were centuries ago. WhileIran is less prominent thanancient Parthia, it continues tosway Shias in the state politicallyand Kashmiri elites culturally.China is no longer a potential allyfor Kashmir, since it occupied alarge part of the state’s territoryafter the 1962 India-China Warand became a stakeholder in theKashmir conflict. Tajikistan and

Uzbekistan, once of some signifi-cance for both trade and culturalexchange, may regain those ties ifplans for connectivity take off.Kashmiri leaders lobby for inclu-sion in emerging regional roadand rail networks that will revivethe relations they built during theancient Silk Route period, in amore peaceable neighbourhoodthan there was then.

No wonder any discussion onKashmir has to begin with history,however mythologised some of itmay be. For ancient Hindus,Kashmir was a sacred geographyto which humans were introducedby divine intervention. TheNilamata Purana, also known asKasmira Mahatmya, was regardedas one of the texts in the Vedanta,a body of scriptural literature thatcombines myth and legend withwhat may have been real-lifeevents and often interprets onethrough the other. It describes theKashmir valley as originally onevast lake, home to the gods Shivaand his wife, Parvati, but it alsorefers to the valley itself as Uma,another name for Parvati, turningit into a place to worship as well asa place of worship.

This vast lake, says theNilamata, was drained at theorder of the sage Kashyapa,grandson of the god Brahma, bycutting a rock gorge at Varahmula,which is Baramulla today. It grad-

ually separated into large andsmall lakes when the divine clanof Nagas, who were protagonistsin the epic Mahabharata, andother fortunate mortals settledthere. “Because water called Kawas taken out by Balarama theplough-wielder from this country,so it shall be called Kas’mira inthis world.” A paradise to live in,with soaring mountains and flow-ering orchards, the goddesses Sati,Saci, Ganga, Aditi, Yamuna, Ditiand Karisini all took the form ofrivers flowing through it. “Thewater of Vitasta [today’s Jhelum]mixed with that of Sindhu [Indus]is like milk mixed with nectar,beauty combined with elegance,and knowledge combined withgood nature.”

Descendants of the sageKashyapa, whose wife Kadru gavebirth to the Naga clan, theNilamata’s writers saw Kashmirisas guardians of the sacred “whoperform sacrifices and areengaged in self-study and contem-plation, virtuous ascetics well-versed in the Vedas.” Their lifesounds idyllic, if unreal; protectedby the formidable mountains thatsurround it, Kas’mira had neverbeen conquered and its peoplewere free from fear. The valleyechoed with the sounds of lutesand drums, religious chants,dance and theatre in an unendinground. “One should feast in the

company of friends and shouldplay to one’s content.”

Yet, if they failed to follow theedicts of their founder-king Nila,retribution would descend onthem in the form of “floods,excess of rain, drought, famine,deaths, untimely death of theking, and dreadful punishments.”Just such an eventuality wasdescribed in the Mahabharata,written a thousand years earlier,with Kashyapa’s two wives fallingout and turning their children, theNagas, and the great bird Garuda,into sworn enemies. To trump hisfoes, Garuda brought the Nagasthe nectar of immortality but pre-vented them from swallowing it,and a series of disasters followed.The Naga chiefs fell out, theirpeople were massacred, their king,Gonanda I, besieged the godKrishna in Mathura and waskilled by Krishna’s brother, whileKrishna himself killed Gonanda’sson, Damodara I, in Gandhara,which comprised present-dayKandahar and Kabul inAfghanistan together withPakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwaand Swat. A repentant Krishnaanointed the dead king’s wife,Yasovati, the new ruler ofKashmir, because “the goddessUma (was) the same as Kas’mira.”

Whether these myths consti-tuted imaginative interpretationsof actual alliances and conflicts

between rulers of the time isdebatable, though it would beaetiologically unsurprising givenKashmir was a Hindu kingdomduring the Mahabharata period. Itbecame a part of the BuddhistMauryan empire between the 3rdand 1st Centuries BCE. TheEmperor Ashoka founded thebeautiful city of Srinagari in the3rd Century BCE, some twentykilometres from today’s capitalSrinagar, abutting its suburbSoura. Modern Srinagar datesback to the 7th Century and is infact built on the site of the 6thCentury royal capital Pravarapura,mentioned in the Chinese annalsof the Tang dynasty. The moderncity took the older Ashokan name.

Buddhism flowered inKashmir under Ashoka, who dis-patched hundreds of monks fromGandhara to spread the faith, atthe same time building a Shivatemple at Vijeshwari to supportwhat was then the religion of themajority. Vijeshwari is nowBijbehara in Anantnag district, theconstituency of former ChiefMinister Mufti MohammadSayeed from 2002-15. Buddhismcontinued to blossom in closeproximity to Hinduism underAshoka’s son and grandson, aswell as under the Kushana kingswho captured Kashmir from theMauryan empire in its decline.The Kushanas are believed to be

of Turkic origin and possiblybelonged to the Xinjiang andGansu regions of modern China.Folklore has it that the Kushanaking Kanishka hosted the FourthBuddhist Council in the first cen-tury at Harwan, today’s ShalimarGarden in Srinagar. The councildrew 500 Buddhist and Hinduscholars from all over the region,including China, to codifySarvastivada, the precursor toMahayana Buddhism.

First under the Mauryas andthen the Kushanas, Kashmir’shorizons stretched across theIndian subcontinent, fromMagadha in the southeast, com-prising modern Odisha andparts of Bengal, to Malwa ormodern Rajasthan in the south-west. In modern-day Pakistan,they covered Gandhara to thenorth and the lands of the Dardsin the northwest, comprisingChitral, Gilgit and Kohistan inSwat, Gurez in Baltistan andparts of northern Punjab, andMehrgarh or today’s Balochistanin the west. Beyond the subcon-tinent, they reached furtherwest to Palmyra in Syria andParthia or Persia, which is pre-sent-day Iran; north to Bactria,lands in the Amu Darya orOxus basin including parts ofAfghanistan, Uzbekistan andTajikistan, through Sindh andnortheast to China.

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Apopular Japanese YouTuber set aGuinness World Record by wrap-

ping a volunteer in cling wrap in onlyone minute, 58 seconds.Dekakin, a comedian andYouTuber known for food andarm wrestling related stunts,enlisted the help of IchihoShirahata, a member of thegroup “Gekijo-ban”Gokigen Teikokusinging group whoseballet experiencecame in handy dur-ing the attempt. Thepair practiced forhours to perfecttheir techniquebefore the officialattempt, whichwas timed tocoincide withThursday’sGuinness WorldRecords Day.

Guinness stipulatedShirahata had to becovered from her feet

to her shoulders in cling wrap withoutany gaps. An adjudicator for the record-keeping organisation kept time andinspected Shirahata to make sure theattempt was an official record. Dekakinwas awarded a certificate once the timewas verified at 1 minute, 58 seconds.

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Storms, strikes, computer failures— you can now add “your plane

has been seized by theGovernment” to the list of thingsthat can delay your flight. InFrance, 149 passengers werepreparing to take off for Londonlate Thursday when Frenchauthorities ordered theirRyanair Boeing 737 impound-ed. The budget carrier owedmoney and it was “regrettable

that the state was forced” toevacuate the plane, the civilaviation authority said. The

passengers had gonethrough passport control and

security and were about to walk onthe tarmac to board the plane when

airport authoritiestold them to turnaround, passenger BorisHejblum said. “The airport stafftold us there was an issue with the plane,”he said. No Ryanair staff members wereavailable, and the only communicationfrom the airline was two text messagessaying simply that the departure wasdelayed, and a 5-euro ($5.75) voucher forfood — “less than what a sandwich costat the airport café,” the 30-year-oldFrenchman said. The passengers wereput on another flight that finally broughtthem to London’s Stansted airport — fivehours late. The multi-million dollar jet,meanwhile, was released only Fridayafter Ryanair paid a bill of 525,000 euros.

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AChinese teenager who already holdstwo Guinness World Records broke

two more by solving Rubik’s cubes inunusual ways. Xiamen resident QueJianyu was observed by a Guinness adju-dicator when he solved three Rubik’scubes at once — one in each hand andone with his feet — in 1 minute, 36.39

seconds. Que then suspendedhimself from a bar and broke the

record for fastest time to solve a Rubik’scube upside-down, finishing with a timeof 15.84 seconds, 1.6 seconds faster thanthe previous record holder.

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Asmall group of British conserva-tionists are installing mesh-covered

ladders in roadside drains to savetrapped amphibians from certain death.The Warwickshire Amphibian andReptile Team — the memorablyacronymed WART — hopes that byplacing 20 of the rust-resistant alu-minum ladders down drains nearknown breeding pools in England’sWest Midlands, they can boost thedwindling amphibian population. “Theamphibians are coming to breed andthen hitting the road, getting across theroads, hitting the curb, along the curband into the drains. And then that’s it -end of story for them, game over,” saidTim Jenkins, a ladder fitter at WART.

“By installing the amphibian lad-ders, it enables them to get back out of

the drains and back to their breedingpools and doing what they should doand making more amphibians.”

The issue of trapped toads is notlimited to Britain. A 2012 study in theNetherlands estimated that more thanhalf a million small vertebrates likefrogs, toads and newts end up trappedin gully pots and drains each year.

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Self-styled positivity guruEmile Ratelband thinks

age is just a number. And hisis a number the Dutchman wantschanged. The 69-year-old TVpersonality has asked a court inthe Netherlands to approve hisrequest for a new birthday thatofficially would make him 49.

Ratelband says his legalappeal is consistent with otherforms of personal transforma-tion that are gaining acceptanceand Government recognition inthe Netherlands and around theworld. “With this free(dom) ofchoice, choice of name, freeness of

gender, I want to have my own age.I want to control myself,” he said

Thursday.Ratelband says he wants to

avoid age discrimination insociety — especial-ly on dating web-sites. “So when Iask for a mort-gage, for example,they say it’simpossible,” hetold TheAssociated Press.“If I go on Tinder,then I get womenfrom 68, 69 whenwomen arethere.” Howabout just

being eco-nomical withthe truth

about his age?“I don’t want tolie,” he said. “Iwant to bemyself, so don’tforce me to lie.”

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Aretha Franklin’s voice estab-lished her reputation as thequeen of soul, but her style was

the stuff of legend. Fans had thechance to snap up more than 30 of herhistory-making looks at a fashion auc-tion in New York. Franklin, who was76 when she died from cancer inAugust, was known for an elaborateand glitzy aesthetic, heavy on sequins,fur and feather boas. A public exhibi-tion of her outfits was held at the HardRock Cafe last week before goingunder the hammer. Highlights of theJulien’s Auctions collection includedthe red ruffled dress Franklin wore fora Radio City Music Hall concert in1993, the denim crew jacket from the1980 Blues Brothers film, in which sheplayed Mrs Murphy, and the regalcream gown she wore to Bill Clinton’snomination ball.

Franklin sang for three presidents— Jimmy Carter, Clinton and BarackObama — and was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom byGeorge W Bush in his second term.She died without making a will, leav-ing her niece as the executor of her

$80m estate. More than 100 pinkCadillacs were part of her funeral pro-cession in Detroit and the servicestretched for eight hours in a churchpacked with 4,000 guests. In signaturestyle, Franklin had three outfitchanges for each public viewing, aheadof her funeral. Martin Nolan, execu-tive director of the sale, said the auc-tion was “celebrating the tremendoustalents, power and grace of America’sgreatest singer of all time”.

Somebody, somewhere knows itslocation. But the one man whocould help is refusing to talk.

Portrait of Mlle. Gabrielle Diot (1890),a painting by Edgar Degas, hungabove the desk of a renowned Jewishart dealer at his Paris gallery until1940 when, along with numerousother works, it was confiscated by theNazis. Now, the descendants of PaulRosenberg have hired London-basedart detectives to try to recover it,almost 60 years after the art dealer’sdeath. “It’s not impossible that some-body has seen it,” said MarianneRosenberg, Paul’s granddaughter. “Wereserve the right to seek recourse tothe law in all jurisdictions.”

Paul Rosenberg, a patron to bothHenri Matisse and Pablo Picasso,whom he affectionately called “Pic”,kept meticulous records of the worksin his keeping, a practice that hasgreatly helped his family over theyears in its quest to reclaim them. Ofthe 400 or so works looted from hisgallery, only 65 have yet to be recov-ered, according to Marianne.

Many of the pieces were loaded onto a train that was stopped outside

Paris in August 1944 by a unit of theFree French forces led by LieutenantAlexandre Rosenberg, PaulRosenberg’s son, an interventiondepicted in the 1964 film The Train,starring Burt Lancaster.

But the 1890 Degas was notamong them, and its whereaboutssince the theft by the Nazis have beena mystery. The painting first resur-faced in 1974, when a Hamburg-basedart dealer, Mathias Hans, is said tohave brokered its sale to a Swiss buyer.

Disney is moving ahead withanother Star Wars spinoff TVseries. It follows the

announcement, in October, of theJon Favreau-created TheMandalorian. In an earnings call withinvestors, Disney CEO Bob Iger saidthat the new show would act as a pre-quel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.It will star Diego Luna as CassianAndor, the rebel alliance spy heplayed in the movie. According to astatement from Disney: “The rousingspy thriller will explore tales filledwith espionage and daring missions

to restore hope to a galaxy in the gripof a ruthless Empire.”

Like The Mandalorian, the RogueOne series will be available onDisney’s new streaming service, whichIger revealed will be named Disney+.A Marvel-related TV series, to starTom Hiddleston as Loki, is in devel-opment, also for Disney+. Alsoplanned are series spinoffs of theDisney-Pixar film Monsters Inc, andthe Disney Channel film High SchoolMusical. Disney+ is due to launch inthe US in late 2019. It will remove itscontent from Netflix at the same time.

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You might have noticed thatveganism has been in thenews recently. As the fall-out from former WaitroseFood magazine editor

William Sitwell’s vegan commentscontinues apace, November 1marked the World Vegan Day, andthe start of World Vegan Month.

Veganism isn’t about to slip fromthe agenda, either. As a new pollreveals that one third of Britons aretrying to reduce their meat intake,we’re only two weeks away from theannual month of Veganuary, in whichpeople eliminate all meat, fish, dairy,and eggs from their diet. The initiative,launched in 2014, seeks to encouragepeople to try a vegan diet, stating that,“Veganism is one of the most effectivechoices a person can make to reducethe suffering of animals, help the plan-et, and improve personal health.”

Despite the stereotypical litany ofvegan-myths (think: Under-nourished,long-haired, hippie lentil-lovers), veg-anism is steadily becoming one of themost popular diets around the world.Propagated by the clean eatingbrigade, it has a lengthy list of celebri-ty backers: Russell Brand, EllenDegeneres, Natalie Portman, andSamuel L Jackson. And then there’s theever-growing list of vegan athletes,including Serena Williams, MikeTyson, and former Mr UniverseBarnabas du Plessis (a past PETAspokesperson), which should put paidto anyone with the phrase “but whatabout protein?” on their lips.Intrigued? Here are some scientificallytested reasons to give veganism a go:

��+�����-��#���-����*�� �Heads up: Diet season is on the hori-zon! If the four weeks of endless booz-ing, chocolate-nibbling and mince pie-scoffing that essentially makes upDecember traditionally leaves yourbelt a little tight, a vegan diet may bejust the ticket to help you shed theextra pounds (as long as you move abit as well). A 2015 study showed thatthose following a vegan diet lost com-paratively more weight than those fol-lowing omnivorous and vegetarianones. Good news for anyone still in acheese-induced coma.

�/�� ����,�����������$���Agriculture is one of the largest con-tributors to greenhouse gas emissions(more than all transport), potentiallyincreasing to 50 per cent by 2050.Rearing livestock for animal-basedproducts requires far more land, waterand energy than producing grain; 27kgCO2 is generated per kilo beef in com-parison to 0.9kg per kilo of lentils.According to a 2016 Oxford study, theadoption of a vegan diet globallywould cut food-related emissions by70 per cent. That’s got to be a goodreason to put down the ham sandwich.

��$� ��$����#���-����-�� ��While veganism isn’t necessarily a one-way ticket to a zen-like, eternal youth,numerous scientific studies have beentaken to measure the impact of aplant-based diet in reducing the risk ofmajor diseases, including diabetes andheart disease with positive results. Avegan diet also eases the symptoms ofarthritis-sufferers and can help prevent

obesity, which affects one in sixBritons and is a leading cause of death.A 2016 study from Oxford argues thatthe mass adoption of a vegan dietcould cut 8.1 million deaths a year.Becoming vegan for 31 days is notgoing to have the same effect, but it’sworth bearing in mind.

���� ��� ���� ����,��#��No one needs to tell you that eatingfruit and vegetables is beneficial, but incase you’ve forgotten everything yourparents and teachers ever taught you,they’re full of essential vitamins andminerals (including calcium, potassiumand Vitamin C) and dietary fibre. All ofthese should keep you feeling and (ide-ally) looking great. Even though you’vehad the five-a-day mantra drilled intoyou for years, the chances are you’restill not eating enough fruits and veg-etables. Unless you plan to survive on adiet of crisps and vegan sausages (Idon’t recommend it) trying outVeganuary will, if anything, force youto eat more of the good stuff.

��$�����#����$�--�%���Go ahead and raise your eyebrows, buta recent study analysed the sweat ofthose who eat a diet of mainly fruit andvegetables, and found that it wasdeemed to be more attractive to women(who actually had to smell and evaluateeach sample) than those on a carb-heavy diet. The sweat produced by veg-

eating men was described as “floral,fruity, sweet or having medici-

nal qualities.” Do you needanother reason?

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And we blame luck — acts done inthe past as the reason for our pre-sent woes. Nothing can be farther

from truth. Yes, our present has a lot to dowith our past. For example, all bad habitslike being lusty, greedy, jealous, etc takeroots earlier, but we act on these now,which hurt. Arjuna had many good quali-ties. Lord Krishna told him that he wasborn with divine endowments. (Gita 16.5)But what was to cause Arjuna’s downfall? Itwas Arjuna’s ego if he was not to heedGod’s instructions. (18.58) Yes, ego wasthere earlier also but Arjuna had to actnow in an egoistic manner.

This is what we do too. Lust, greed,anger, jealousy, ego, hurrying, attachments,impatience, pride, being anxious, beingfearful, etc are all present in various degreesin most of us. But these hurt when we actunder their influence. Let me discuss lust,the most harmful one, first. It has manymanifestations. We can be lusty in a sensu-ous way; we maybe lusty in what we eat, wecan be driven by lust for power, etc. Don’twe know when we indulge in these acts?Two college friends, both unmarried, get introuble. Did they not know that what theywere doing was full of danger? Does a dia-betic not know that he or she is looking fortrouble when he or she gets up in the nightand hurriedly eats a leftover cake? Whatwill you say about a leader who spreads hateto win an election? Can he blame his past

for it when violence breaks out and destroyshim? How do you justify greed? A bankercolludes with a client and allows a largeloan to an undeserving person. Once thefacts come out and he is sent to jail, then,can he blame his bad luck? Two hot-headedpersons get into an ugly fight over a minorcar accident, and get seriously hurt. Canluck be blamed for such aggression?

Ego influences behaviour is most fami-lies and offices. Is someone forcing us to doso? No, we choose to do so. Someone maygive a justification stating that this habitdeveloped long ago. Okay, then, we have toalso admit that there is nothing like intelli-gence in us. We cannot claim to be intelli-gent and also at the same time, be helplesslyconsumed by our faulty emotions.

Yes, there is destiny, which must cometo pass. But there is a difference betweenwhat is avoidable and what is unavoidable.An act of income tax fraud will surely bringpunishment but doing so now cannot be

blamed on destiny. Habits are formed butthey can also be given up. It is up to us.

Our scriptures warn us against havingattachments for material objects, but do weheed the warning? Rather we want to beoblivious of this danger, which takes awayour peace of mind. Pride of possessingmaterial objects is a brother of ego. Don’twe realise that these things are with ustemporarily and can be taken away? If wemust be proud, we should be of goodbehaviour, impeccable manners, etc. Manyof us become anxious or fearful for nogood reason. We are so accustomed toblame our luck that even common sensebecomes a foreign concept. Let us wake upand stop blaming fate; we have manyoptions in the present to minimise our suf-ferings. We are not robots. Arjuna gave uphis ego (18.73). We, too, can give up ourbad habits and faulty emotions.

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Time and again the leadership question crops upto find out what is the right mix of leader quali-ties. Yet, the issue fails to be resolved. In other

words, people are not consistent in their views. This istrue not only for nations but also organisations.However, in the case of organisations the people do nothave as much say as is the case of nations, particularlyin the democracies. But the essential question remainsthe same — the transient nature of perception of thepeople about the leader. Why do people get disillu-sioned with the leader they once admired?Management theorists and political scientists, psychol-ogists, and sociologists have all tried to give prescrip-tions for effective leadership, only to realise that thesaid effectiveness fails to last long. Does it mean thatattempts to find out consistent qualities of effectiveleaders are futile? But it does call for some seriousthinking. Interestingly, evolution of leadership theorieshave passed through all these stages in the last overhundred years, though inconclusively. Still, there is aneed to examine the issue afresh because leadership isone of the most talked about subjects in managementliterature. As experts galore try to broach over the sub-ject, an old Indian story is worth recapitulating. Once,Lord Shiva and Parvati decided to visit the world alongwith their ox. The God was disguised as an old man,whereas Parvati wore her natural young and beautifullook. As they took to the streets people would gaze atthis odd couple of an old man and a young woman. Onthe way, Lord asked Parvati to ride the ox while hechose to walk alongside. As they were travelling theyheard comments disapproving the young lady ridingthe animal while the old man is made to walk. Hearingthis, Parvati asked Shiva that since people disliked thisit will be good if the Lord rides the ox and Parvatiwalks along side. The God agreed and acted according-ly. Now Shiva was riding and Parvati walking. Theyhad travelled a little distance when another set of peo-ple started murmuring sarcastically saying that howmean it was for the old man to enjoy riding the oxwhile the young lady is being made to walk. The Godthen changed his mind and asked Parvati to also sit onthe ox so that people do not comment. They both werenow riding the ox. But barely had they travelled a shortdistance that another group of people commented thathow inhuman the couple was to ride and torture thedumb and poor animal. Shiva again changed his mind.They dismounted the bullock and started walkingalongside the animal. But after travelling some distancethey found a group of people ridiculing their foolish-ness on having an ox, yet choosing to walk. The Lordcould now realise that no matter what you do therewill be people to criticise you. Moral of the story — donot try to please everybody. No matter what you do orhow noble your intentions are, people will find fault.Perhaps, this may give some clue as to why people’sperception about leaders is fickle. The course open forleaders is to have an agenda with noble intentions andpursue the path with dedication, without aiming to sat-isfy all the people all the time. Leadership is not aboutbeing politically correct. It is about being just correct.Let the conscience be the judge.

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Why do we have fear?Fear arises from doubtand from theunknown. When wehave doubts about

how something is going to turn out, itopens the door to fear. When we doubtourselves, we fear making a wrongdecision or making a mistake. If wedoubt our abilities, we fear that we willfail in a competition or a test. Whenwe doubt whether an outcome will turnout right, we fear the consequences. Ifwe doubt the existence of a controllingpower, we live in fear of chance occur-rences and accidents.

Untruth also leads to fear. If we tella lie, we live in the fear of being caught.We must create an intricate web of liesto cover the first lie. The number of liesbecomes so great that it is hard to trackwhat we said to whom and when wesaid it. Rather than bringing closure tothe situation by telling the truth, wespend weeks, months, and even yearsspinning yarns to cover up the initiallie. Fear grips us any time someonecomes close to knowing the truth, forthen we will be exposed and must paythe consequences of the deed we weretrying to hide.

We fear being weak. The youngboy or girl on the school playgroundfears the bully. Each day as he or shewalks home from school, the weakchild lives in fear of being physicallyattacked by the bigger children. Atwork, the employee fears the employer.The employer holds the future of oursalary and job in his or her hands. Wemay feel weak and powerless to speakup for injustices on the job becausethose who hold the power may retaliateand punish us for doing so.

If we examine our lives, we findthat we are fearful of many things. Aschildren, we fear and worry about howlong our parents are going to be thereto support us. As students, we live infear of failing our examinations. Asparents, we fear whether or not ourchild is going to be healthy or whetheror not he or she will grow to be a goodperson. As business owners, we worryabout whether our competitors are get-ting the better of us. Each one of us isfearful about one aspect of our life or

another. Behind all these fears is thefear the fear of the unknown.

Those who fear death actually fearthe unknown. We all know that oneday we are going to die. Many believethat annihilation of ourselves is the endof our existence. That fear is always try-ing to eat us up in one manner oranother. People fear the unknownbecause it may be unpleasant orpainful. Since they do not know whatto expect, anxiety and fear builds with-in them. There are many people whodo believe in life after death. Whatthey fear then is the unknown of howthey are going to die and what they willexperience at the time of death. Theyfear the pain of death.

Our soul, which is totally con-scious, is a part of God and, therefore,is without fear. Since God is all-con-sciousness, and the soul is one with theLord, it is God in a microcosm. God iswithout fear, and the soul is also with-out fear. It is only when we are out oftouch with our soul that we begin to beafraid. The soul is truth; the soul istotally conscious. Being in connectionwith absolute truth means there is nofear. Thus, there is no fear in the soul.

The soul’s quality of wisdom givesit access to the knowledge of all that is.There is nothing potentially unknownto the soul. It knows what is and whatis to be. What does it have to fear?Those who have been in touch withtheir soul — the saints, mystics,prophets, and enlightened beings —have come to understand the process ofdeath through firsthand experience.This knowledge helps eliminate the fearof death. They say that what dies is thephysical body, which is made of matter.Being made of matter, it deteriorates, itdecays, and is finally destroyed. But ourtrue self, which is our spirit or soul, iseternal. It lives on and on and on.What we call death in this world ofours is only a physical death. For thesoul, it is just the changing of a vesture.Therefore, the first thing to understandis that our soul is everlasting. If we canrealise this, fear of the unknown natureof death, will be eliminated.

The soul is truth. Untruth lives infear of being exposed. But as MahatmaGandhi often said, “Truth always wins

in the end”. Truth conquers all. If welive in truth, we have nothing to fear.

We may not want to recognise it,but there are laws by which the uni-verse is governed. Ignorance of the lawsis no excuse. We may think we can getaway with deceiving others, withdeceiving ourselves, with deceivingGod, but we cannot get away with theseacts. Sooner or later, truth is revealed.

If we read the newspapers, we findthieves may rob a bank and get away.Parents lie to their children, and chil-dren lie to their parents. We may takemoney that is not ours from our placeof employment. We may cheat on ourloved ones. We may pretend to havepower that we do not have in order toget people to do what we want. Wemanipulate others to get our way. Wemake promises we have no intentionsof keeping. There are numerous shadesof untruths in which human beings areinvolved. But in the end, the truth willcatch up with us, if not in this life, thenon our day of judgment. No matterwhat religion we follow, there isaccountability for our doings. There isa day of reckoning for each of us.

Living in truth frees us from fear.We neither fear having to account foruntruth, nor fear being found out.The prisoner who has served time injail for wrongdoings based on lies,deception and dishonesty decides tolive a clean life of truth. How freeingit is for that criminal to wake up eachday and enjoy life without lookingover his or her shoulder in fear ofgetting caught. The person whospeeds on the highway is alwaystense wondering whether the policewill stop him or her for a traffic vio-lation. The driver can enjoy neitherthe scenery nor the conversation inthe car. But the person who drives atthe accepted speed limit does nothave to drive in fear. That person canenjoy the sights along the way, themusic on the radio, or the discus-sions with other passengers withoutfear hanging over his or her head.The soul’s existence is truth. If wecan tap into the soul, then our realnature as truth will govern our livesand free us from fear.

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Evolutionary urge seems to beintrinsic to human spirit. This iswhat has propelled progressive

civilisational evolution down the agesthrough conscious human efforts. Evenin individual terms, most of us wish tomake it big in life, and accordingly setour dream destinations. Dreams are nec-essary for people to reach heights theyare capable of. Since time immemorial,the Moon has fascinated and evokedman’s curiosity, seen every day — yetunknown. A longing to know and under-stand it led scientists to send man on theMoon. But not everyone’s dream comestrue, non realisation of which oftenbrings in frustrating experiences. Why?Are we so helplessly fated?

There is little doubt that we are allborn with immense mind-power, carry-ing limitless potential. If we couldaccess, unfold, and optimise ourindwelling potential, one would knowno limits. Our power of freewill aidedby the faculty of discriminate intelli-gence, helps us achieve this end throughconscious efforts. Provided, we are awareof our true nature — with all the corestrengths and weaknesses. The paradox,however, is that our mind-power ordi-narily remains under cloud; for, it

remains under a lot of self-acquired lim-itations, coming as they may as the effectof Karmic residuals carried over fromthe past. That restricts the scope of ourvision. Mind, the mover and shaker of abeing, thus fails to have access to majorpart of its landscape, thus limiting ourindwelling potential.

Seen in real terms, we are all bornwith a preconditioned mind in terms ofour desire trends, virtues and attributes aswell as habits and attitudes. That sets theusual trends of our ongoing life. Whatfurther compounds our problems is ego,which doesn’t let us look beyond our pre-conceived limits. With such a narrowedvision, we fail to look at issues in hand inthe right perspective. Consequently, oftenwe are not able to make the right choicesin life, and with obvious consequences.When we meet failures, instead of lookingfor our own inadequacies for necessarycorrection, we try to find refuse in ourdestiny. Truth, however, remains that wedon’t succeed or fail in life simply becausethat would be so scripted in our destiny.We fail in life only when we do not strivesufficiently to address our limitations andunfold the immense power within. In theprocess, our evolutionary potential getscompromised, leaving us restive from

within, which in turn doesn’t let usprocess our thoughts objectively.

The irony of the whole situation isthat caught up in the usual mills of life,seldom does one care to figure out one’sown limitations. Instead, people keeplooking for a probable promisingmoment in future. A couple of yearsback parents of an errant young mancame seeking guidance on how to bringhim back on the rails. Following a lookinto his chart, they were told that theyoung man’s thought process seems tohave become incoherent, calling forimmediate medical intervention. Theygot badly offended. “Our child has gonemad — is that what you mean? Just sug-gest the probable time frame when he isexpected to behave responsibly, andremedial measures if any necessary,”they retorted. “I have offered you mypiece of advice. It is now your call,” Ihumbly suggested. Meanwhile, theyoung man’s condition has been gettingworse day by day. He often turns violent,abusing elders and at times has evenassaulted them. He has wasted a hugesum of money in the last couple of years.

Let us now look at his astrologicalpointers. Lagna lord Sun as well as mind-signifying Moon are locked in adverseformation with Uranus and Neptune.

That, in the first place, accounts for hismercurial temperament. Second, heshould be self-willed, tactless, and unsta-ble. He would be an escapist, stuck to hisdelusionary dream perception, and notopen to look beyond in search of betteroptions. He may not acknowledge truthon its first appearance and would rathercontinue pursuing his own dream per-ception undeterred. Third, he may not bekeen on taking pains to achieve some-thing by himself. He may wish from hiselders to meet all his demands.Intelligence signifying Mercury is placedadverse to Mars. That makes him rest-less, lacking focus, bad tempered, irrita-ble, hyper-critical, and a habitual liar.Mars ill-disposed off to Saturn, makeshim suspicious, impatient, bad temperedand evil minded. It also gives him arevengeful attitude. Venus oppositeUranus and Neptune brings in self-indul-gent tendencies. All put together makeshim vulnerable to mental disorder, call-ing for sustained psychiatric help.

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