Indian ` inv. 1.00 INRUS Dollar 72.525758Euro 87.959414British Pound 101.735435Australian $ 57.020478Kuwaiti Dinar 239.523038Saudi Riyal 19.340202Qatari Riyal 19.924659Chinese Yuan 11.203677UAE dirham 19.748335

Four more arrested in

Rinku Sharma murder case

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Four more persons have been held in connection with the Rinku Sharma murder case taking the total number of ar-rested persons to nine, Delhi Police Crime Branch said on Sunday. After that some boys involved in the fight reached Rinku’s house and stabbed him. The Crime Branch, which took over the case last week, identified the four as Deen Mohd, Dilshan, Faiyaz and Faizan. 25-year-old Rinku Sharma, who was working at a private hospital, was stabbed to death by some men from his locality in Delhi’s Mangol-puri area on February 10. The police have already arrested five accused in connection with the case -- Danish, Islam, Zahid, Mehtab and Tajuddin. Earlier the police said on Feb-ruary 10 some youth went to a restaurant to celebrate a birth-day party. During that time, a scuffle broke out over some business rivalry related to the shutting down of a restaurant. After that some boys involved in the fight reached Rinku’s house and stabbed him.

National English Daily In memory of Dr Asima Kemal and Prof. Dr. Salim W Kemal indianhorizon2010@gmail.com / feedbackhorizon@gmail.

NEW DELHI,MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22 , 2021 PAGES 12 + 4 PULL OUT (P16) PRICE: 3.00Vol No: 8 ISSUE NO: 53

www.indianhorizon.org

Indian HorizonRNI NO: DELENG/2013/51507

PUBLISHED FROM NEW DELHI & HYDERABAD

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Our vision to ensure top quality development in Bengal: PM

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) A day ahead of his visit to poll-bound West Bengal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sun-day said the BJP’s vision and effort is to ensure “top quality development” in the state currently ruled by the Trinamool Con-gress under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The Prime Minister will be in West Bengal’s Hooghly district at around 4.30 p.m. on Monday to inaugurate various rail-way projects to bolster the

BJP’s campaign consider-ing upcoming Assembly election which is due be-fore the expiry of the state Assembly in May-end this year. The BJP, which had made deep inroads in the state during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by winning 18 of the 42 seats, is target-ing more than 200 of the 294 Assembly seats. It will be Modi’s second visit to the state in a month. He had addressed his maiden public rally in West Bengal on February 7 at East Mid-napore district.

“The great soil of West Bengal has nurtured ex-traordinary individuals who have contributed towards national progress. It’s our

vision and effort to ensure West Bengal gets top qual-ity development,” the Prime Minister said in a series of tweets. From Hooghly, the

extension of Metro rail-way from Noapara to Dak-shineswar will be inaugu-rated, said Modi, adding this project is special because it will improve access to the sacred Maa Kali Temples at Kalighat and Dakshineswar. “These temples are vibrant symbols of India’s great cul-ture.” Mentioning about two newly-built stations of Ba-ranagar and Dakshineswar, the Prime Minister said the stations have many modern facilities that will further ‘ease of living’ as “they have also been designed.

Sonia Gandhi writes to PM over rising fuel prices, says they are at ‘historic, unsustainable’ high

New Delhi, February 21 : Writing to Prime Minister Na-rendra Modi over “spiralling” fuel and gas prices, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Sun-day accused the government of “profiteering” off “people’s misery” and demanded a roll-back of the increase in prices.

In a letter to Modi, she said the truth is that as GDP “nosedives”, the prices of gas, diesel and petrol continue to rise unchecked. “I write to you to convey every citizen’s anguish and deep distress regarding the spiralling fuel and gas prices. On one hand,

India is witnessing system-atic erosion of jobs, wages and household income. The middle class and those at the margins of our society are struggling. These challenges have been compounded by runaway inflation and an un-precedented rise in price of almost all household items

and essential commodities,” the Congress chief said.

“Sadly, in these distress-ing times, the government has chosen to profiteer off people’s misery and suf-fering,” Gandhi said. Petrol price on Saturday touched an all-time high of Rs 97 per litre in Mumbai while die-

sel rate crossed Rs 88-mark. This was the 12th straight day of price hike and the largest daily increase since oil companies started to revise rates on a daily basis in 2017.

ArrayPrayagraj (Uttar Pradesh), Feb 21 (IANS) Con-gress General Secretary Pri-yanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday reached Prayagraj district to support the boatmen who were allegedly harassed by the local police. Priyanka had recently taken a holy dip at the Triveni Sangam in Prayagraj on ‘Mauni Amavasya’ and had travelled in boatman Sujit Nishad’s boat

who informed her of the atroci-ties being committed on local boatmen. Nishad had informed Priyanka about the issues that

boatmen belonging to the Ni-shad community were facing, including brutality against them, by police whom he alleged had

destroyed their boats.The boatman requested her

assistance in raising their voices against the oppression to which she agreed, party sources said.

Sujit said several boats be-longing to the Nishad commu-nity, an OBC (Other Backward Class) caste, were damaged by police and administrative offi-cials in the Banswaar village in the trans-Yamuna area.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be touring poll-bound Ker-ala and Tamil Nadu this week to campaign for the party. Gandhi, who is cur-rently the MP from Way-anad, will be in Kerala on Tuesday. Later in the week, he will be campaig-ing in Tamil Nadu where the party will contest elections as part of the DMK-led alliance.

Gandhi has already ini-tiated campaigning in As-sam, where the polls are also coming, but there is

no clarity of his joining campaign in West Bengal where the Left and the Congress have organised a joint rally. Party sourc-es, however, say that on the same day, Gandhi is slated to be in Tamil

Nadu. Congress General Secretary in charge of Kerala Tariq Anwar has already reached the state to prepare for the polls. “I will be visiting 34 Assem-bly constituencies and will interact with grass-roots Congress workers and leaders. Beside this, I will also be meeting with different commu-nity leaders and promi-nent personalities,” he had said. Meanwhile, the preparations for Gandhi’s rally in Kerala are on and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

Rahul to campaign in Kerala,

Tamil Nadu this week

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) President Ram Nath Kovind on Sunday said that great saints like Sant Ravidasji belong to entire humanity and it is necessary for people to change their think-ing and outlook. In his address at the Shri Guru Ravidas Vishva Mahapeeth Rashtriya Adhive-shan-2021 here, he noted that if saints are tied up to a particular community, then it would be against the very principle of in-clusiveness.

The President said that Guru Ravidasji may have been born in a particular community, sect or region, but rise above all such boundaries. “Saints do not be-long to any caste, sect or region. They take steps which are for the welfare of the entire human-

ity. The conduct of saints goes beyond all kind of discrimina-tion and narrow-mindedness.” Kovind expressed happiness that the philosophy and values of Guru Ravidasji like social jus-tice, equality and fraternity have been imbued in our constitu-tional values. “The Chief Archi-tect of our Constitution, Dr B.R. Ambedkar embodied the Con-stitutional principles around the values expressed.

Great saints like Sant Ravidas belong to all humanity: President

Priyanka assures UP boatmen of her support

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday inaugu-rated the 26th edition of ‘Hunar Haat’ that brings to-gether indigenous artisans and craftsmen from across the country, at the Jawaha-rlal Nehru Stadium in the

national capital. The ‘Hu-nar Haat’ will be organised on the theme of ‘Vocal for

Local’ by the Union Minis-try of Minority Affairs from February 20 to March 1. The Ministry in a statement said that more than 600 artisans and craftsmen, including a large number of women artisans, from more than 31 states.

Rajnath inaugurates 26th edition of ‘Hunar Haat’ in Delhi

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) With a rise in the active caseload over the past few days which has pegged at 1,45,634 on Sunday, the Centre wrote all states and Union Territories and has advised them to improve the overall testing numbers by focusing on increasing the proportion of RT-PCR tests and refocus on strict and comprehensive surveil-lance as well as stringent containment in selected districts.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in a communication with the states, has asked them to conduct regular monitor-ing of the mutant strains through testing followed by Genome Sequencing, as well as monitoring of the

emerging cluster of cases, besides focusing on clinical management in districts re-porting higher deaths.

According to the Union Health Ministry, more than 74 percent of the ‘Active Cases’ of the country are in Kerala and Maharashtra. Of late it has been seen that there has been a spike in the daily cases in Chhattis-garh and Madhya Pradesh also. Punjab and Jammu

and Kashmir too have been witnessing a surge in daily new cases. In the last four weeks in Kerala, the average weekly cases have fluctuat-ed between a high of 42,000 to a low of 34,800. Similarly, in the last four weeks, the weekly positivity in Kerala has ranged from 13.9 per-cent to 8.9 percent and the Alappuzha district has a cause of special concern where the weekly.

Centre writes to States witnessing spike in Covid 19 cases

New Delhi, Feb 20 (IANS) Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday said that time has come to embark on mission “One Nation One Stan-dard” and make India the leader in setting global benchmarks in set-ting standards. While reviewing the work of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), he said that while all areas of production and services be included in this national mission, bringing a national uniformity and standard-ization in all kinds of public pro-curement and tendering can be an immediate deliverable.

Noting that the strength and char-acter of nation often exemplified by the standards it sets for the quality of its products and services, he further said that its time for India to settle for

nothing less than the best. Exhorting the industries, the Minister said that we should aim to be the world leader in having maximum industrial prod-ucts under Indian Standards and no one should feel the need to go abroad to get quality certification. Mr Goyal also said that lab testing in India should be world standards. “Modern equipments and latest technologies should be used there and Gap analysis

of BIS and Government labs be taken up on priority basis as well”, he added. The Gap analysis refers to the com-parison of actual performance with potential or desired performance. Referring to the issue of different In-stitutions and Public Sector Units (PSUs) having variety of non uniform standards, he said that effort should be made to merge different standards under one standard as much.

CBI summons Mamata’s nephew’s wife in

‘coal theft’ case, party calls BJP ‘desperate’

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Summons were issued to Rujira Naroola, the wife of Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee who BJP has made an election issue. Case is about illegal mining & transport of coal worth thousands of crores.

As GDP 'nosedives' and fuel prices rise, government continues to blame

previous regimes for its economic 'mismanagement': Cong chief

city2

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) The plot to murder Gurlal Singh Bhalwan, President of the Faridkot District Youth Congress and a Zilla Pari-shad member from Gole-wala, Punjab, was hatched in Canada. This was revealed by the Delhi Police Special Cell on Sunday after it managed to arrest three of the accused involved in the murder.

Police said that the men had shot dead Gurlal Singh as he was about to get into his car after coming out of a a friend’s shop in Faridkot’s Ju-bilee Chowk on February 18.

The arrested accused have been identified as Gurvinder Pal, Sukhwinder and Sau-rabh, all three from Faridkot, Punjab.

Sustained efforts of the

Counter Intelligence Unit have resulted in mapping and profiling of the members of the Lawrence Vishnoi-Kala Jathedi gang. Deep surveil-lance over technical identifi-ers being used by this highly sophisticated and technically nuanced criminal gang, cou-pled with human intelligence resulted in specific intelli-gence being received on the intervening night of February 20 and 21, that three persons suspected to be involved in the murder of Gurlal Singh leader in Faridkot, Punjab were expected to arrive at Sarai Kale Khan on their way to some hideouts in Uttar Pradesh. The trio were appre-hended, and two guns and 8 live cartridges were recov-ered from their possession.

“The mastermind of the murder is Goldy Brar who is an associate of Lawrence Vishnoi, having several hei-nous cases registered against him. Presently, he is running an extortion cartel from his safe havens in Canada from where he targets several

prominent Punjab-based businessmen,” Manishi Chandra, DCP Counter Intel-ligence, Special Cell said.

Lawrence Vishnoi and Goldy Brar’s syndicate tar-geted Gurlal Singh Bhalwan, who was suspected by Law-rence and Goldy to be sup-

porting rival Bhambia gang while crafting his political fortunes.

On February 5, Gurlal Singh had posted on his Facebook of his plan to travel to Delhi for joining the ongo-ing farmers’ protest at Singhu border on February 9. Goldy instructed Gurvinder to see if the hired assassins could execute their task while Gur-lal was at Singhu. However, the shooters could not get a chance because of the size of the protesting crowd. Later, Gurlal Bhalwan was detained briefly by local police. This further foiled the assassina-tion plans. Later, the plan was executed on February 18 after the shooters followed the victim up to Jubilee Chowk in Faridkot.

Scripted in Canada: Killers wanted to eliminate Gurlal at Singhu borderDelhi reports 145 new Covid cases, 2 deaths

BKU’s Ugrahan dares Delhi Police to enter

Punjab to arrest accused

New Delhi, 21st February 2021: --- BRICS Chamber of Commerce & Industry, in association with Economic Mission in New Delhi and Mashav organized a visit for its members to get familiar with Israel’s Agro-Technol-ogies Solutions to Centre of Excellence for Vegetables, Ghauraunda, Haryana. The delegation was guided by top experts and technicians in the agriculture sector.

The members of delegates were interested to know about Israeli Agriculture Technologies and wanted to have a feel of it.

At the CoE Six Israeli com-

panies are having ongoing projects. A request had been made to their local repre-sentatives to give Presenta-tions and explain about their Products/ Technologies. Five companies: Naandan Jain, Netafim, Hazera Seeds, ADAMA and ICL confirmed their participation. After presentations and Q&A Dr. Deepak Kumar, Incharge of Centre led the visitors to the Open Fields and explained about the Israeli technolo-gies to grow vegetables. Af-ter this the group visited the Hi-Tech Nursery where they were shown the techniques to grow seedlings from seeds.

The visitors were amazed to see the Vegetables varieties grown from seeds given by Hazera Seeds and produced with Israeli technologies. They were shown the Fertiliz-er unit as well as how to make natural fertilizer.

Centre of Excellence for Vegetables in Gharaunda of Haryana’s Karnal district is the first Indo-Israel agricul-tural project in the country. Protected cultivation enables high-quality vegetables like cherry tomatoes, cucumber, brinjal, chilly, color Capsi-cum, green capsicums and so on to be grown round the year. They are cultivated

in high-tech polyhouses, naturally-ventilated poly-houses, walk-in tunnels with controlled climate and pro-visions for micro irrigation along with drip Irrigation for unseasonal crop cultivation and high yield.

Dr. BBL Madhukar, Di-rector General, BRICS CCI said, ‘One of the most criti-cal issues for the farming community is availability of water. Under the India-Israel Agriculture Project, Centre of Excellences was established in various states as a breakthrough move to help the farming fraternity in India to adopt the latest

technologies such as micro irrigation systems.

I encourage this approach and wish to organize more such visit with the support of Embassy of Israel.’

Mr. Sameep Shastri, Vice Chairman, BRICS CCI said, ‘BRICS CCI has always fol-lowed a ‘BRICS & Beyond’ approach. These delegations are an epitome of the strong relations that India and Israel share with each other. We hope to organize more such visits to motivate our youth to invest, understand and engage with agriculture as a focus sector for our country’s progress.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) When the golden yellow co-lour envelopes the entire country on the occasion of Basant Panchami every year, sunflowers mesmerise people, new crops of wheat and oat spread happiness everywhere

and butterflies sprinkle joy and smile, a silent tradition being followed at the Hazrat Nizamuddin Aullia Dargah in Delhi. The Basant Panchami is celebrated on the fifth day of ‘Magh’ month to welcome the Spring season. People

also worship God Vishnu and Kaamdev on this day. But rarely anybody know that an 800 years old tradition is be-ing followed at the popular mosque of Delhi to make hap-py the Sufi saint.

Nizamuddin Auliya’s chief

in-charge Sayed Kashif Kazmi told IANS: “We decorate the mosque with yellow marigold flowers every year on this day and wear yellow clothes along with same colour turban or strap on the head.”

“This tradition is being fol-

lowed at the Dargah for over 800 years to mark the Sufi Spring festival. Artistes also offer ‘qawwali’ before the Sufi Saint to get his blessings,” he said. “These ‘qawwals’ sing Amir Khusrau’s song.”

There is a story behind it.

Hazrah Nizamuddin had a great affection towards his nephew Hazrah Takiuddin Nuh. The sudden death of Nuh had left Hazrat Nizamud-din in trauma. He then gradu-ally stopped meeting with people and going any where, and after sometime he had also stopped stepping out of

this office.When Hazrat Amir Khus-

rau got to know about this, he became upset. But one day when he going from nearby the Kalka temple, he saw some people were including women and children were going wear-ing yellow dresses and yellow flowers in their hands.

BRICS CCI visited Centre of Excellence for Vegetables, Ghauraunda, Haryana to get familiar with Israel’s

Agro-Technologies Solutions

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) The national capital contin-ues to report a low Covid-19 death count with two fatalities, along with 145 new case in the last 24 hours, as per the Delhi government health bulletin on Sunday.A total of 97 patients recovered from the viral disease in the last 24 hours. With that, the cumulative case tally now stands at 6,37,900, including 6,25,929 patients who have re-covered or have migrated, while the death toll stands at 10,900.

Meanwhile, the number of active cases has fallen to 1,071, of which 467 are in home isola-tion.

The highest single-day spike

in the city till date -- 8,593 cases -- was reported on November 11 last year.

As per the bulletin, 60,383 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. Of them, 44,673 were done through RT-PCR and 19,140 were Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT). The capital city has conducted 1,19,71,940 tests so far, according to the Delhi Health Department bulletin.

Currently, 422 out of 5,751 beds are occupied in the hospi-tals, 37 out of 7,392 in dedicated Covid Care Centres and none out of 307 in dedicated Covid Health Centres, as per the data shared by the Delhi govern-ment.

Chandigarh, Feb 21 (IANS) Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugrahan) President Joginder Singh Ugrahan on Sunday dared Delhi Police to enter Punjab for arresting the Red Fort violence accused.

At a massive show of strength by the farmers and farm la-bourers mainly from the Mal-wa region of Punjab at Barnala town, he said this was for the first time in history that a pro-test of such a scale in India was mounted to challenge a “fascist and communal government”.

The ‘maha kisan-mazdoor rally’ saw thousands of farm-ers and farm labourers protest the Centre’s three contentious farm laws.

Ugrahan said the rally was historic as the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugrahan) came together with the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union. Donning yel-low dupatta to signify solidari-ty, tens of thousands of women too participated.

Sufi singer Kanwar Garewal enthralled the gathering. Or-ganisers claimed that over two lakh farmers attended the rally.

Besides Ugrahan, leaders

of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha comprising Balbir Singh Ra-jewal, Ruldu Singh Mansa and Sukhdev Singh too participated in the rally.

Expressing serious concern over the threat to the state’s agriculture as a result of the “disruption caused by the three new farm laws”, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had on Saturday urged Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi to ensure urgent resolution of the ongo-ing farm unrest by the Centre “to the satisfaction of the pro-testing farmers by addressing their grievances”.

Calling for the fullest respect for the ‘annadaata’, the Chief Minister, through his speech for the virtual meeting of the Niti Aayog, reiterated his gov-ernment’s stand that agricul-ture is a state subject and law-making on it should be left to the states in the true spirit of “cooperative federalism” en-shrined in the Constitution.

In this context, he pointed to the state amendments already passed to the central legisla-tions by the state Assembly in October 2020.

New Delhi, 21-02-2021 ---Staredu Education and Training Institute Pvt. Ltd.(a subsidiary of Star Imag-ing and Path Lab Pvt. Ltd.) had the honour to be part of Police Week Celebration at Mata Sundari College, New Delhi. Mr. Sameer Bhati, Di-rector Staredu and Star Imag-ing represented the Company during the function.

The Program was attended by Joint CP, Central Range Mr. N.S Bundela, who was the chief guest of the program, DCP Mr. Jasmeet Singh and Add DCP Mrs. Shweta Singh Chauhan, team of doctors, Yuva training students, vari-ous Police officials etc.

During the program vari-ous cultural activities were done. The Program also fo-cused on Yoga and self de-fence training. The certificate for training completion were

also distributed to Yuva stu-dents during the program.

The Program focused on efforts of Delhi Police in com-munity policing and training

the underprivileged students. Staredu Education and Train-ing Institute Pvt. Ltd. has been associated with Delhi Police, Central District in

Yuva Project. The aim of the Yuva Project

is to upgrade the skills of the Youth as per their compe-tencies. The Yuva Program

focuses on school dropouts, juvenile offenders, victims of crimes, families in a dire state due to the incarceration of the bread earner of the fam-ily.

The efforts of Staredu sup-porting Delhi Police in Com-munity Policing even during Pandemic, training the un-derprivileged students, en-hancing their skills and place-ment of Yuva Students(which was more than 75%) in various hospitals have been widely acknowledged.

Also the initiative of Star Imaging and Path Lab in con-ducting various counseling session, medical health check up for Delhi Police during Pandemic was appreciated.

Staredu Education and Training Institute is commit-ted to support Delhi Police in community policing and skilling the youth.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) As the farmers’ protests against the farm laws continues at the borders of the national capital, Bollywood actress Gul Panag on Sunday visited the Ghazipur border site to show her solidarity. She met Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) spokesperson Rakesh Tikait at

the protest site and reiterated her support for the protesters.

Gul, who is among the many Bollywood actors to extend their support to the farmers, told IANS: “I myself belong to a family of farmers and have arrived here to show my sup-port for the farmers.”

Noting that the farmers

have been sitting at Delhi bor-ders for a long time to demand repeal the farm laws, Gul said that her request to the govern-ment was that it should hold discussions with the farmers to come to a decision, so that the farmers could go home.

Gul also tried her hand at a ‘Charkha’ (spinning wheel)

during her visit. There have been 11 rounds of talks held between the Central govern-ment and farmer organisa-tions, but no concrete solu-tion has been achieved.

Farmers have been protest-ing at various borders of the national Capital since No-vember 26 last year against

the three laws - the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Com-merce (Promotion and Facili-tation) Act, 2020; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protec-tion) Agreement on Price As-surance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

Gul Panag visits Ghazipur border to show solidarity

Staredu Education and Training Institute is committed to support Delhi Police Week Celebration

Indian HorizonMonday, February 22, 2021

New Delhi : Aashu Bhai Guru ji @ Aashu Baba Gang Rape case should Inquire From CBI, Advocate Vishal Chopra

Addressing Press Confrence. Demand to transfer this case from Delhi Crime Branch to CBI.

Nizamuddin Dargah preserving 'tradition of spring' since 800 years

cityIndian HorizonMonday, February 22, 2021 3

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) In order to avoid any un-toward incident at the pro-test site, farmers protesting against the three farm laws enacted by the Centre gov-ernment at Singhu border have beefed up the security at Singhu border and ad-joining areas.

Around 100 CCTV cam-eras at both the stages and many locations in-cluding the areas outside restrooms earmarked for women protestors have been installed along with heavy deployment of po-lice personnel near the bar-ricades close to the protest site. Two control rooms for monitoring of CCTV cam-eras have also been set up behind both the stages. The number of volunteers for security check at every

entry and exit gates along with the way from Singhu village to Kundli village has also been increased.

“Activities of people moving around are been monitored and volun-teers are keeping a close watch on people coming from outside and farmers staying on tractor trollies. Since there are many cuts for entry and exit towards the villages so the volun-teers have been deployed at every possible spot. Vol-unteers are also patrolling on tractors especially after the sun set,” said Maninder Singh, a member of Kranti-kari Kisan Union in Punjab who is also part of security management at Singhu.

Height of concrete bar-ricades that were setup earlier by Delhi Police close

to the protest site (towards Delhi) have been increased by putting barbed wire on them. Whereas barricades put at four spots along the way from Singhu to Sing-hola village (Delhi-Chandi-

garh) highway were added with barbed wire after stone-pelting incidents.

Drone cameras are been used by the security forces to monitor the situation. However, Delhi Police per-

sonnel along with the para-military forces deployed at the protest site have been decreased while the entry of visitors and mediaper-sons from the main gate is still banned.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Mercury is likely to rise by four to five degrees to settle at 32 degree celsius (C) over most parts of northwest In-dia in the next three to four days given an increase in moisture and variable wind direction, the Indian Mete-orological Department said on Sunday.

The maximum tempera-ture recorded in Delhi on Saturday was 27.3 degree

C, three degrees above nor-mal while the city recorded minimum temperature on Sunday at 10.1, over one degree C below normal. Meanwhile, the tempera-ture in the day is forecasted to reach 28 degree C in the national capital.

The department said that two western disturbances are prevailing the weather condition which may bring rain and thunderstorms to

the western Himalayas.“Normally tempera-

tures go up when there is a Western Disturbance,” said Kuldeep Shrivastava, head, regional weather forecast-ing centre. The weather department also informed that the first western dis-turbance (WD) started ap-proaching on Friday while the second one is likely to approach on Monday. However, the department

Security beefed up at Singhu border

Mercury likely to soar by 5 degrees in northwest India: IMD

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Four more persons have been held in connection with the Rinku Sharma murder case taking the total number of arrested persons to nine, Delhi Po-lice Crime Branch said on Sunday.

The Crime Branch, which took over the case last week, identified the four as Deen Mohd, Dilshan, Faiyaz and Faizan. 25-year-old Rinku Shar-ma, who was working at a private hospital, was stabbed to death by some men from his locality in Delhi’s

Mangolpuri area on February 10.The police have already arrested

five accused in connection with the case -- Danish, Islam, Zahid, Mehtab and Tajuddin. Earlier the police said on February 10 some youth went to a restaurant to celebrate a birthday party. During that time, a scuffle broke out over some business rival-ry related to the shutting down of a restaurant. After that some boys in-volved in the fight reached Rinku’s house and stabbed him.

Four more arrested in Rinku Sharma murder case

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) The admission process for nursery classes has started in the national capital and also in other parts of the country.

Even though the admission process began, the schools would remain closed for the time being as physical classes have not been started yet for the junior students.

The nursery admissions in the private schools in Delhi this year would be complete-ly online. The school forms could be downloaded online and applications would be submitted online. The list of the admitted students would also be released online. The

parents of enrolled students would be able to pay the school fees online.

The Central or the Delhi government have not shared any official information about when the nursery students would be going to schools af-ter conducting online admis-sions. According to the Delhi government, these classes would be held online for some more time.

At the same time, Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said he has asked the states to open the schools based on the guide-lines directed by the Union Home and Health ministries.

As per the information re-ceived by Nishank, 32 states have opened the schools fol-lowing coronavirus preven-tion guidelines.

However, in these 32 states schools have not been opened for the classes at the primary level. According to the Union Education Minister, if the guidelines set by the Union Ministries of Home and Health are completely ad-hered to, only then all schools would be opened at different timings.

to Nishank, the Navodaya Vidyalayas would also reopen schools for students of Classes 9 to 12. Jawahar Navodaya

Vidyalayas would be opened in these states following all the safety measures and Covid-19 guidelines.

Nearly 647 Jawahar Navo-daya Vidyalayas across the country coming under the Union Ministry of Education were closed after the annual examinations held during March 2020 due to the coro-navirus pandemic.

In spite of opening classes for students of Kendriya Vidy-alaya and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, schools still remain closed for the primary class students.

At present, there is no con-sensus among the parents on

the subject of opening prima-ry classes.

According to Ashok Agar-wal, President of All India

Parents Association, the cur-rent academic year should be declared as a ‘Zero Education Year’ by the Central govern-

ment. In view of the situation arising due to the Covid-19 pandemic, all students should be promoted to the next class.

Admission process for nursery classes begins

Ahead of the Aam Aadmi Par-ty’s mahapanchayat in Meerut supporting the protests against the three farm laws, the party Saturday said that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will meet a group of farmer leaders on Sunday. AAP functionaries, who did not wish to be named, said the meeting will take place over lunch at the Delhi Assem-bly. However, the party refused to share names of the leaders who have been invited to the meeting.

Krantikari Kisan Union leader Darshan Pal of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), the um-brella body of over 30 unions leading the protests, said no union leader has received any invite from the Delhi govern-ment or the AAP so far. “We have not received any invitation from the Delhi government,” Pal said. The morcha held a meeting at its camp office at the Singhu border on Saturday. “The leaders were asked if they have received any invite from the Delhi govern-ment. Everyone said no. The morcha has also not received any communication in this re-gard on its official email id,” a functionary from SKM said.

The development also comes against the backdrop of the Pun-jab municipal polls, where the AAP won nine out of 401 wards in municipal corporations and 51 of 1,817 wards in municipal councils/nagar panchayats. On February 28, Kejriwal is sched-uled to address a mahapanchay-at in Meerut after the comple-tion of an AAP workers’ meet.

Ever since the farmers, pre-dominantly from Punjab and Haryana, started camping at Delhi’s entry points, Kejriwal has visited the Singhu border once. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also visited Ghazipur border last month. During his visit, Sisodia had met BKU leader Rakesh Tikait, who has publicly thanked the Delhi government for making arrangements for the farmers at the protest venue.

The AAP also activated its ad-ministrative machinery towards making arrangements for the protesters in the form of water tankers, WiFi services and mo-bile toilets. The Delhi govern-ment had also turned down the Delhi Police’s request to convert nine stadiums into makeshift jails during the initial stages of the protests.

Arvind Kejriwal to meet group of farmer leaders at

Assembly todayNew Delhi, Feb 21

(IANSlife) The knowledge of self-defence is a basic hu-man right that everyone should have access to, espe-cially women, believes ‘The Indian Tigress’ Ritu Phogat, a wrestling champion and a superstar from India. From a young age, she was taught how to wrestle by her father, Mahavir Singh Phogat. Since then, she has gone on to gar-ner countless accolades in the sport.

If a would-be attacker were to rush up on Phogat in a dark alley in the middle of the night, chances are, that attacker would be uncon-scious within a minute.

In these modern times, Phogat said women should have the capability and skills to physically defend themselves as well as those around them from threats and attacks. She believes that, through the power of martial arts, women will gain more confidence and learn how to protect themselves from anything.

Here are five essential self-defence tips The ONE Cham-pionship female atomweight star shares with IANSlife.

Learn martial artsBeing a lifelong martial

artist, Phogat is inclined to advise women to pick up martial arts, whether that be her base discipline of wres-tling, or striking disciplines such as Muay Thai and box-ing. Today, Phogat is one of the fastest rising mixed mar-tial arts (MMA) talents in the world, which combines dif-ferent martial arts disciplines together in a seamless fight-ing style.

According to Phogat, mar-tial arts is important because it has a host of benefits to of-fer in our lives.

“You will one hundred percent gain the confidence of knowing how to defend

yourself. You won’t have to rely on anyone to protect you in the most volatile of situa-tions. You will have the skills and the knowledge of how to handle even attackers who are bigger and more physi-cally imposing. You’ll also be able to protect the people you love,” said Phogat.

“Other benefits of martial arts include increased sharp-ness and focus, enhanced reflexes and athleticism, physical strength, a stronger immune system, and a more positive outlook on life.”

Practice in the gymOf course, you’re going

to want to put your newly

developed skills to the test. There’s no better place to try them out than in the safe and controlled environment of the gym.

In order to enhance your martial arts skills, you need to put in the hours at the gym, honing every single technique, going through every situation in your mind, and preparing yourself both physically and mentally to apply your skills in the right manner.

In the gym, you have train-ing equipment such as heavy bags, speed bags, focus mitts, and the like to sharpen your weapons. You also have

sparring partners and gym mates to simulate self-de-fence situations so you know exactly what to do in any case presented.

“Learning how to fight is 80 per cent in the gym, and 20 per cent in an actual fight. The preparation is more im-portant than the fight itself. If you work hard on your skills in the gym, fights are easy,” said Phogat.

“You can practice certain self-defence situations with your gym mates, friends, and instructors, so that when it comes time to ac-tually put those skills into use, you know exactly how to utilize them. You know that when your attacker is charging at you, you can use his momentum against him. If he has you in a hold or in a choke, you have the right technique to break free and reverse the situation.”

Get help from authoritiesPhogat, however, stressed

that even with self-defence capabilities, the first re-sponse to any situation that could potentially become physical should be to dif-fuse. If you can walk away from the situation with a cool head, it is certainly the best option.

Ritu Phogat shares 5 essential self-defence tips for women

said that its impact is likely to be con-centrated around the hills only.

“The impact of the WDs will be limited to the hills mainly in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and upper tranches of Uttarakhand. Light rain is also likely over Punjab, but over the rest of northwest India, temperatures will rise due to increase in moisture and variable wind direc-tion,” Shrivastava explained.

“Light to moderate rainfall/snow-fall is very likely over Jammu, Kash-mir, Ladakh, Gilgit, Baltistan and

Muzaffarabad and isolated to fairly widespread rainfall/snowfall is likely over Himachal Pradesh during the next 5 days and over Uttarakhand on February 23 and 24.

“Thunderstorms and lightning are also likely to occur over Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit, Baltistan and Muzaffarabad during the next 5 days and over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand during February 22 to 24. Hailstorms are also likely over parts of Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit, Baltistan and Muzaffarabad.

SOUTH Indian HorizonMonday, February 22, 20214

K’taka CM shares best practices at NITI Aayog meet

Bengaluru, Feb 21 (IANS) Karna-taka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Saturday said that the state in-tends to set up a Scientific Market-ing Intelligence Cell in order to shift focus on income based policy to in-crease farmers income.

Addressing the sixth meeting of the Governing Council of NITI Aay-og virtually here, Yediyurappa said that it is also intended to create an online marketing platform for sur-plus fruits and vegetables supported by infrastructure facilities under At-manirbhar scheme.

The CM said that affidavit based clearance system, steps taken to promote exports. “Agreements are signed with e-commerce players like Amazon and Flipkart to boost marketing of local products etc. Besides this, Steps have been taken to upgrade the skill development

training curriculum in partnership with industry leaders to achieve major goals in Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat,” he explained.

Besides this, he added that a task force to promote an integrated farming system has been set up. “Growing millets is promoted to im-

prove nutrition levels. While farmers contact centres have been made as a single point of contact for region specific input supplies and adviso-ries. It is also planned to conserve local breeds of cattle,” he said.

Yediyurappa also maintained that the state has been able to

maintain one of the lowest unem-ployment rates in the country at 3.6 per cent even during the Covid pandemic times. “Despite the pan-demic all our fiscal indicators have been contained within the limits of Karnataka Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2002,” he said.

He also appealed to PM to ap-prove six proposals worth Rs 6,673 crore under modernisation of ca-nals project and additional grants were also sought for river diversion projects.

“Three ports are being devel-oped under PPP model, Benga-luru sub-urban Railway Project is taken up in joint venture with Railways,” he said.

The CM demanded Modi to set up a mechanism to fast track disposal of litigation in courts as infrastruc-ture projects are fraught with litiga-tions and environmental protests.

Yediyurapp also requested the NITI Aayog to declare Upper Bhadra Project and Upper Krishna Project as national projects.

Premji wants private hospitals in vaccination drive

Bengaluru, Feb 21 (IANS) Wipro czar Azim Premji on Sunday urged the Central government to involve pri-vate hospitals to speed up the anti-Covid vaccination drive across the country.

“If the government in-volves private hospitals and nursing homes to join the anti-Covid vaccination drive, about 500 million people can be inoculated in 2 months,” he told Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman here.

Participating in a post-budget interaction with in-dustry leaders, organised by the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) here, Premji said scaling up the vaccination drive to cover more people at the earliest was critical

though the government was doing its best.

“I suggest that the govern-ment should supplement its efforts by involving private parties to accelerate the vaccination programme,” he reiterated.

The nationwide vacci-nation drive, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi

launched on January 16 from New Delhi, has till date covered over 1.1-crore healthcare workers and frontline warriors across the country.

“If more vaccines are pro-duced and supplied to pri-vate hospitals and nursing homes, more people can be given the shot through mass

vaccination in less time,” Premji said. Calling upon the private sector to be part of the country’s growth story, the Finance Minister said India had proved its mettle as a soft power by supplying anti-Covid vac-cines to over 100 countries the world over.

“The Union Budget for fiscal 2020-21 facilitates the private sector to energise growth, as it has set a path for this decade. Sustained growth will enable the economy to recover rapidly in the post-pandemic year,” she added.

Besides captains of in-dustry and India Inc, noted cardiologist Devi Shetty and former Infosys board mem-ber T.V. Mohadas Pai par-ticipated in the interaction.

Karnataka CET examinations will be held on July 7 & 8

Karnataka’s Panchamasali Lingayats

seek job, education quota

Day before test, Puducherry ruling alliance loses two more MLAs

Bengaluru, Feb 21 (IANS) Karnataka Ex-amination Authority will conduct the Common En-trance Test (CET) for pro-fessional courses on July 7 and 8, Deputy Chief Minis-ter C.N. Ashwath Narayan said on Saturday.

According to a statement released by his office here, Narayan who is in-charge of Higher Education Min-istry, stated that the dates were finalised consider-ing the schedule of CET conducted by other states,

time table of the second year PUC Examinations in Karnataka and the CBSE time table.

“On July 7, the CET will be held for Biology and Mathematics and for Physics and Chemistry, the next day,” his state-ment read.

The Kannada language test for Horanadu (other states) and Gadinadu (bor-der regions of the state) Kannadiga candidates will be conducted on July 9, the statement said.

Last year amid Covid-19 pandemic breakout, a total of 1.47 lakh students had taken CET examinations out of the 1.94 lakh stu-dents who had registered for it at 497 centres across the state, marking about 75 per cent attendance

Among these, 60 Cov-id-19 positive students in-cluding 12 were from Ben-galuru were among the 1.47 lakh who appeared for the Karnataka CET for engineering and other courses.

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 21 (IANS) Tearing into the ruling CPM-led LDF government in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh Chief Min-ister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday slammed the Pinarayi Vijayan government for its anti-people governance and also the way the Sabarimala temple issue was handled.

The powerful UP Chief Min-ister arrived in the northern dis-trict of Kasargode in the state to flag off the state-wide yatra of the Kerala unit of the BJP, led by its state president K. Surendran, ahead of the upcoming Assem-bly polls.

Just before flagging of the yatra, speaking in Hindi, Yogi took on the ruling Left govern-ment and said it is only inter-ested in the welfare of its cadres,

while the BJP is working for de-velopment of all.

“Just look at Tripura, where the CPM ruled for 25 years and everything was kept under leash by the CPM there. But things changed after Modiji explained to the people of Tripura what he plans to do and today the BJP is ruling with a two-thirds majority there,” said Adityanath.

Delving into the ongoing pro-tests by Kerala youth protesting against the backdoor appoint-ments done by the Vijayan government, he said in Uttar Pradesh in the past four years he was able to give jobs to four lakh youth.

“Not long ago, the Kerala Chief Minister was making fun of the health sector in UP. In UP there are 24 crore people and now

there are just around 2,000 Covid cases and we have got apprecia-tion from the WHO. Today, look at Kerala, the whole world is laughing at Kerala as it has not been able to contain Covid,” said Yogi.

“The Left government is work-ing against the interests of the famed Sabarimala temple and it was promoting those who are against culture and tradition,” added Yogi.

He also blamed the succes-sive governments in Kerala for not taking appropriate action against the prevalence of “Love Jihad” in Kerala.

“No action was taken by the government here, while in UP we came out with a law to tackle ‘Love Jihad’. The CPM here is in-terested only in divisive politics

while the BJP is working for the welfare of all. This yatra is go-ing to give the BJP a big boost,” added Yogi.

The yatra led by Surendran will criss-cross the state and will hold 14 Maha rallies and 80 pub-lic meetings and the grand finale is to be held in the state capital on March 7 when Union Home Minister Amit Shah will attend.

Among others who are expect-ed to take part include Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Smriti Irani, Prahalad Joshi, for-mer Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and also for-mer Congress leader and actress Khushboo, who recently joined the BJP.

The slogan of the yatra with the polls on the anvil is ‘A new Kerala’.

Bhubaneswar, Feb 21 (IANS) The Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) of Odisha on Sunday directed all the district collectors, superintendents of police and municipal commission-ers to ensure strict implementation of Covid-19 safety guidelines in all public places including workplaces to avoid any chance of resurgence of the virus in the state.

“It is observed that people at many places are showing complacency in observing the basic safety protocols such as mandatory wearing of mask or other face covering while in public place, frequent hand-washing or use of hand sanitizer, maintaining mini-mum one meter physical distance, avoiding congregation, etc,” the SRC said in its letter to the other state offi-cials. In view of this, the SRC directed the district and police authorities to check and ensure strict observance of Covid-19 safety protocols such as mandatory wearing of mask, main-taining physical distancing in all public places including workplaces and educational institutions.

Concerned authorities of govern-ment and private offices/institutions

including educational institutions shall be responsible for due compli-ance of the Covid-19 safety protocols in their respective establishments, the letter said.

Large congregations must be avoid-ed and wherever permission has been granted for marriages, other social and religious functions, sports, en-tertainment, academic, cultural and any other gathering and congrega-tions, compliance of the Covid-19 safety protocols and crowd size shall be strictly monitored.

Under no circumstances, persons more than the number permitted shall be entertained in all such gath-erings, the SRC said.

Strong penal action shall be taken against the persons violating the Co-vid-19 guidelines. Shops and other commercial establishments found violating such norms may be sealed and action as per law will be taken. Strong penal action shall be taken against the persons violating the Co-vid-19 guidelines. Shops and other commercial establishments found violating such norms may be sealed and action as per law will be taken.

Puducherry, Feb 21 (IANS) A day before the floor test in Puducherry Assembly, the ruling Congress-led alliance suffered a major setback as two more of its MLAs resigned on Sunday.

In a dramatic development, Con-gress’ K. Lakshminarayanan and DMK’s K. Venkatesan announced their resignations.

Lakshminarayanan said he re-signed because the party didn’t give him due recognition in the govern-ment and in the organisation.

Asked if he will join any other party, he said he would take a deci-sion after consulting people of his constituency. He claimed that the government led by Chief Minister V.

Narayanasamy has lost its majority. Assembly Speaker V.P. Sivakolundhu confirmed that he has received res-ignations from two MLAs. “I have informed the Chief Minister and the Assembly Secretary about it. I am ex-amining their resignations,” he said.

Puducherry’s incharge Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararjan on February 18 had asked Chief Minister Naraya-nasamy to prove majority in the As-sembly on February 22. Hours after taking over as the incharge Lt Gov-

ernor, she said the Assembly session shall be summoned on February 22 with a single agenda of ascertaining whether the government continues to enjoy the confidence of the house.

Her direction came after the op-position BJP, the AIADMK and the All India NR Congress submitted a memorandum claiming that the Congress-led government in the Union Territory slipped into a mi-nority. All India NR Congress found-er-leader N. Rangasamy, who is the

Leader of Opposition, had claimed that the government had lost its ma-jority after four of the MLAs of the ruling party resigned in the last 25 days. He also pointed out that a legis-lator of the ruling party was disquali-fied last year.

Before the resignation of two MLAs on Sunday, both the government and the opposition had 14 MLAs in 30-member Assembly. There are three nominated members and all the three belong to the BJP.

Bengaluru, Feb 21 (IANS) Members of the Panchama-sali sect of Karnataka’s power-ful Lingayat community held a massive rally in the city’s Pal-ace grounds on Sunday to seek inclusion in the 2A reservation category for government jobs and seats in state-run educa-tional institutes.

“If the state government does not include our com-munity in the 2A reservation category for government jobs and educational seats, we will intensify our agitation and lay siege to the state Secretariat,” Panchamasali seer Basava Jaya Mruthyunjaya Swami warned.

Over a lakh of the politically-dominant community’s mem-bers reached the city since Sat-urday from Kudalasangama in the state’s Bagalkot district af-ter a 37-day march (padayatra) in support of their demand.

“We took police permission to stage the march from Kudala-sangama and other 17 districts to hold the rally peacefully for ensuring social justice to us, as we have been neglected over the last 70 years,” Lingayat Pan-chamasali Mahasabha presi-dent Vijayanand Kashappana-var told reporters here.

Besides scores of the sect’s pontiffs, community leaders, legislators from the ruling BJP, including minister Murgesh Nirani, and opposition Con-gress and JD-S participated

in the rally and addressed the gathering. In his speech, Ni-rani said Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa was committed to ensure reservation to the Lin-gayat sect and efforts would be made to amend the law soon to include the community in the 2A category.

State Information Minis-ter C.C Patil, senior rebel BJP leader Basangouda Yatnal and Congress legislator Lakshmi Hebbalkar and others spoke at the rally and urged the state government to include the sect in the 2A category.

Another seer Vacahnanda Swami, who marched to the city along with hundreds of the community from Basavakalyan in Bidar district, said though the previous BJP government in the state had set up a sub-committee for drafting the law during its 2008-13 tenure, they have not been given reservation as members of other communi-ties.

“When Jagadish Shettar was the BJP’s third Chief Minis-ter after Yediyurappa and D.V. Sadananda Gowda, a legislative panel was set up in 2012 to study our demand. The panel report said Panchamasalis should be included in 2A,” he said.

Of the 108 sub-sects in the Lingayat community, 34 are in the 2A category, while about 70 are in the OBC (Other Backward Classes) category.

Ensure strict implementation of Covid-19

guidelines: OfficialCPM interested only in welfare of

cadres, BJP for development of all: Yogi

NationIndian HorizonMonday, February 22, 2021 5

Lucknow University awareness drive for teens on sexual offences

Lucknow, Feb 21 (IANS) The Lucknow University, under

the ongoing ‘Mission Shakti’ campaign, is holding a series of events to spread awareness and support teenagers against adolescent sexual offence and child sexual abuse.

A play will be staged, discussion and poster-making com-petition will also be organised in which students will be told whom to report if you face sexual offence, how to report child abuse and what legal action can be taken in case of an adoles-cent sexual misdemeanour.

Mission Shakti coordinator Prof. Sheela Mishra said: “We have planned events in a manner that they appeal to the youths and they connect with us to know and understand all about adolescence and child sexual abuse.”

The first event will begin on Sunday. It will be a discus-sion on the episode of popular TV show ‘Satyamev Jayate’ in which the issue has been highlighted, and it will be followed by a discussion, she added.

“We opted for discussion based on a TV show as we know that youths connect better with the television world. Well known psychologist Anandana Trivedi will deliver a lecture on women and culture,” Mishra added.

A play on legal and empathetic support against harassment will also be staged on the campus by MCA first-year students, followed by a poster-making competition on sexual harass-ment and adolescence.

Cremation ground divided on caste lines, probe ordered

Bulandshahr (Uttar Pradesh), Feb 21 (IANS) A barbed wire was set up across a cremation ground, dividing it into two -- one portion for the upper castes and the other for lower castes. The administration, later removed the wire.

The ‘division’ was done in the Banail village with the ‘con-sent’ of Dalits who even contributed to the cost of the fenc-ing. Ved Priya Arya, Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Shikarpur, under whose jurisdiction the village lies, said, “We got to know and have ordered an inquiry into the matter.”

Block Development Officer, Ghanshyam Verma, too, said that action would be taken in the matter.

“We will initiate action against whoever did this,” he said.Two days ago, the fence was finally brought down.For years, the Dalits in the village, who make up about 20

per cent of the population, were not allowed to use the cre-mation ground which was exclusively meant for upper castes.

In 2018, the government built a concrete structure around it. “It started being used by Dalits as well but this did not go down well with the upper caste members who made the Dalits agree to a division in December last year,” said a local source. So far, there has been no FIR because there has been no complaint.

Non-bailable warrant against former MP Dhananjay Singh

Lucknow, Feb 21 (IANS) A non-bailable warrant has been issued against former BSP MP and mafia don Dhananjay Singh for conspiring the murder of Mau gangster Ajit Singh in Lucknow.

A sharpshooter, Giridhari, accused of killing Ajit Singh in Lucknow last month, was shot dead last week.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Sushil Kumari issued the non-bailable warrant against Dhananjay Singh.

Senior police officials said the role of the former BSP MP was being probed and evidence points to his involvement in the conspiracy.

Dhananjay owns a flat in Sharda Apartment, Gomti Nagar Extension, where four shooters who eliminated Ajit Singh had stayed.

Additional Depty Commissioner of Police, east zone, Qa-sim Abidi said that the murder was engineered to prevent Singh from testifying in court against mafia don Kuntu Singh, accused of killing former MLA Sarvesh Singh Sipu in 2013.

The Mau gangster was a witness and his testimony was crucial to the case.

Death row convict Shabnam files fresh mercy petition

Court rejects UP govt plea for withdrawal of case

No ‘Ganga Aarti’ without permission now

Nitish Kumar to start ‘CM Samwad’ in April or May

Wanted for killing UP cop, main accused shot dead in encounter

2.5 million UP farmers to be linked to Kisan Credit Card

Himachal involving students for survival of saplings

Lucknow, Feb 21 (IANS) Death row convict Shab-nam, who was awarded the death sentence for killing seven members of her fam-ily in April 2008, has filed a fresh mercy petition to Ut-tar Pradesh Governor Anan-diben Patel and President of India Ram Nath Kovind.

According to Anand Ku-mar, Director General (pris-on department and reform services), Shabnam had also approached the Uttar Pradesh Governor earlier for pardon, but Patel had rejected her petition.

“A copy of mercy ap-peal to the UP governor by death-row convict pris-

oner Shabnam through her lawyer regarding Supreme Court order dated May 25, 2015, was made available to our office to be forwarded,” said Rampur jail superin-tendent.

Sources said that two law-yers had met Shabnam in Rampur jail on Friday and convinced her to send a mercy petition to the Gov-ernor of Uttar Pradesh.

Confirming that a sec-ond mercy petition has been sent to the Governor and the President of India, Shabnam’s lawyer Shreya Rastogi, in a press release, claimed that ‘news reports should correct the factual

and legal positions regard-ing the remaining remedies available to Shabnam.’ She said in the release, “Shab-nam has several consti-tutional remedies that remain to be exercised. These include the right to challenge the rejection of her mercy petition before the Allahabad HC and the Supreme Court on various grounds. She also has the right to file a curative peti-tion in the SC.”

The development comes a day after 12-year-old son of Shabnam Ali appealed to the President of India on social media to consider his mother’s mercy plea again.

Lucknow, Feb 21 (IANS) A spe-cial court in Lucknow has rejected a plea of the Uttar Pradesh govern-ment seeking withdrawal of pros-ecution against BJP MP Rita Bahu-guna Joshi in connection with a case

lodged against her for an assault on police personnel and causing dam-age to property during an agitation in 2015.

The special MP/MLA court on Saturday, held the matter as seri-

ous, and fixed March 6 for framing of charges against the accused per-sons.

Besides Joshi, 17 other accused in the case include state Congress leaders like Raj Babbar, Pradeep Jain, Ajai Rai, Nirmal Khatri, Rajesh Pati Tripathi and Madhusudan Mis-try.

Special judge P.K. Rai said the matter was serious and could not be allowed to be withdrawn as no pub-lic interest would be achieved if the withdrawal is allowed.

At the time of pronouncing the or-der, Joshi was present in the court.

Sub Inspector Pyarelal had lodged an FIR with Hazratganj police on August 17, 2015 against the accused persons.

Varanasi (UP), Feb 21 (IANS) Social organisa-tions and even individu-als, performing ‘Ganga Aarti’ at various ghats will now have to get reg-istered with the Varanasi Municipal Corporation (VMC).

The decision has been taken by the district ad-ministration to check en-croachments on the riv-erfront, which is a public property.

The municipal authori-ties have also been asked to prepare the records of the ‘Ganga Aarti’.

District magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma has

asked the municipal au-thorities to prepare the records of the Ganga aarti and complete the regis-tration process by March end.

Thereafter, no such ac-tivities would be allowed on the ghats without the registration and prior permission of the VMC.

“The riverfront is a public property owned by the state government and being looked after by the Varanasi Municipal Cor-poration,” said the dis-trict magistrate in a letter to VMC.

“It has been noticed that quite often that some

people indulge in dis-putes over holding Ganga Aarti. The municipal cor-poration should make a specific regulation for or-ganising the Ganga Aarti along the ghats. The VMC should register the aarti organisers with the al-lotment of space, which should be renewed every year. Besides, it should also be ensured that no aarti is organised by any individual or organisa-tion without the VMC’s permission,” he said.

The VMC has also been directed to nominate a nodal officer to look after the whole process.

Patna, Feb 21 (IANS) The Chief Minister’s Office in Bihar has started the preparations for ‘CM Samwad’ which is expected to start from April of May.

Through ‘CM Samwad’ Nitish Kumar will address the grievances of common people. The format of ‘CM Samwad’ is based on the line of his earlier initiative ‘Janata

Darbar’. The only difference be-tween ‘CM Samwad’ and ‘Janata Darbar’ is that the former will be organised at the secretariat while the later was organised at his of-ficial residence.

It is expected that the Chief Minister will interact with the people, address their issues and solve them on the spot by giving the required directions to the con-cerned officials.

Nitish Kumar, through ‘CM Samwad’, wants to establish di-rect contact with the people to send positive signals across all sections of the society.

The ‘CM Samwad’ will be organ-ised every Monday where officials of all the departments will also be present.

Kasganj (Uttar Pradesh), Feb 21 (IANS) Moti, the main ac-cused in the murderous attack on two police personnel in Kas-ganj on February 9, was killed in an encounter with the police in the early hours of Sunday.

Moti, who had been abscond-ing after the incident, was hid-ing in the forest area near the Kali river. On receiving a tip-off, a police team began comb-ing the area late on Saturday night.

Around 3.a.m on Sunday, the police team closed in around Moti’s hideout and the latter, and his accomplice, opened fire on the police team.

While the accomplice fled in the darkness, Moti was injured in the shootout and was taken to the Sidhpura community health centre where the doc-tors declared him dead.

It may be recalled that on the

night of February 9, a police constable was killed and a sub inspector grievously wounded in assault by aides of Moti, a known liquor smuggler.

Moti’s brother, Ilkar, was shot dead by the police a few hours after the incident.

The deceased constable was identified as Devendra while the injured SI was Ashok Ku-mar.

The two policemen had re-portedly gone to serve a legal notice for attachment of prop-erty to Moti over his alleged li-quor smuggling activities when they were ambushed by his aides, stripped and assaulted with sticks and other weapons and taken hostage.

A search operation was con-ducted and additional forces were called after the police-men, who had managed to flee from the site of the incident,

informed the officials. The two police personnel were found with serious injuries in a field in Nagla Dhimar village un-der the Sidhpura police sta-tion and were taken to a local hospital. However, Devendra succumbed to his injuries later during treatment.

The police team recovered Ashok Kumar’s bike from the spot. The police team recov-ered Ashok Kumar’s bike from the spot.

The policeman’s bike was found fallen on the ground with their uniform and shoes on top. It is believed that the attackers also humiliated the policemen by stripping them and then assaulting them.

The Chief Minister’s Office later released a statement say-ing “Action to be taken against the culprit under the National Security Act.”

Shimla, Feb 21 (IANS) Him-achal Pradesh’s Forest Depart-ment is involving school stu-dents in planting saplings and ensuring their survival to cre-ate awareness, officials said on Sunday.

For this, the department has set up the Vidyarthi Van Mitra Yojna under which eco clubs have been set up in the schools to identify open or degraded forest areas for carrying out plantation of indigenous spe-cies. These areas will be main-tained by the students, to help them develop a bond with plants.

In 2018-19, 228 schools were covered under the scheme and

166,830 saplings were planted in 164.30 hectare area.

In 2019-20, 146 schools were covered and 86,702 saplings were planted in 131.5 hectares, an official statement said.

Under this scheme, the stu-dents and school administra-tion play a vital role in identi-fying the site for plantation of saplings.

A micro plan for plantation is prepared by the school admin-istration and the Divisional For-est Officer provides approval to it. The department provides necessary technical informa-tion for plantation.

The students are not only re-sponsible for plantation of the

saplings but also maintain the area on a long-term basis.

The government is lay-ing stress not just in creating awareness among students on conservation of forest and wild-life but is also emphasising on conservation of the natural re-sources.

Besides, the government is ensuring conservation of for-ests for those communities that are dependent on resources generated from forests for live-lihood. In Himachal Pradesh, 37,948 sq km is forest area and 15,433.52 sq km is green forest cover of the total forest area. About 16,376 sq km forest area is above treeline.

Lucknow, Feb 21 (IANS) With the aim to double the income of farmers, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has taken measures to link over 2.5 mil-lion farmers to Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme.

Under KCC, loans are provided at a sub-sidised rate to the farmers for seeds, irri-gation purposes, crop production, land preparation, fertilisers and other require-ments.

This will resolve the ongoing capital cri-sis in the agriculture sector which directly impacts the production and sale of crops.

The Yogi government has taken effec-tive measures to help farmers overcome issues like shortage of cash before harvest season by providing them monetary aid through KCC. As a result, the farmers of the state are flourishing by getting appro-priate prices for their produce.

A government spokesman said that ac-cording to the Swaminathan Committee, the government has spent an amount of Rs 64,000 crore on the Minimum Support Price (MSP) related to crop expenditure, expansion of crops included in MSP, transparent process of procurement of crops and payment to farmers in their ac-counts within 72 hours.

About 2.42 crore farmers have so far received Rs 27,101 crore under the Prime Minister’s Kisan Samman Nidhi. Most of the beneficiaries of this project are farm-ers from Uttar Pradesh.

In order to provide relief to the farmers from the financial crisis, the Yogi govern-ment in its first Cabinet meet, had waived Rs 36,359 crore worth of loans. Since then, the government has been constantly working to improve the conditions of the farmers in the state.

The state government’s initiative to cover 2.5 crore farmers with KCC, will bring liquidity of about Rs 2 lakh crore in the agricultural sector. This will not only alleviate the crisis of agricultural invest-ment to a great extent but also will boost the income of farmers in the state. At present, the Yogi government has covered over two lakh crore farmers with KCC.

6 Edit indian HorizonMonday, February 22, 2021

Monday, February 22, 2021

Readers Response and contribution Welcome

indian Horizon

Even as the memory of the horrific

2017 Unnao gangrape case is fresh, this

Uttar Pradesh town has been rocked

again for the same reprehensible rea-

son: heinous crimes against women.

Three cousins, aged 13, 16 and 17

years, who had gone out to gather fod-

der were found lying unconscious in

the fields when the family went search-

ing for them as they had not returned

home. Two girls are dead and the third

is battling for her life in a hospital. The

gritty survivor must be given the best

medical aid, even an air ambulance to

fly her to AIIMS, New Delhi, if need be.

Going by the audacity shown by the ac-

cused in earlier such cases to threaten

and intimidate victims and witnesses,

the teenager must be protected against

any such moves.

It is essential to prevent a repeat of

the sequence of events of the 2017 rape

case that smacks of a shoddy probe

and an attempt to shield the main ac-

cused, expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Sen-

gar, and his accomplices. Frustrated

by the tardy progress and hurdles in

her quest for justice, the poor rape vic-

tim even attempted to immolate her-

self in front of Chief Minister Yogi Ad-

ityanath’s residence on April 3, 2018.

Her father who had been, in a bizarre

twist, arrested was found dead in po-

lice custody the next day. The road to

Sengar’s eventual conviction by the

CBI in December 2019 was littered by

another suspiciously disgraceful act:

when they were headed to the court, a

truck-car collision left the girl and her

lawyer critically injured and her two

aunts dead.

Equally shameful is last September’s

brutal gangrape of a Dalit woman in

Hathras. The authorities’ actions, be-

ginning with a delayed FIR, once again

reeked of protection of the upper-caste

accused. The late-night cremation of

the victim, allegedly without the fami-

ly’s approval by the UP Police, sparked

nationwide protests. Hopefully, the

chastised Yogi government will bring

the guilty to book this time. Certain

and swift punishment can bring down

the crime rate.

Gurbachan JagatWhile speaking in the British Parliament

in 1922, Lloyd George (then Prime Minister) stated in reference to the British civil service, ‘If you take the steel frame out of the fabric, it would collapse.’ Sardar Patel, while speak-ing in the Constituent Assembly in October 1949, stated: ‘You will not have a united India if you do not have a good All India Service which has independence to speak out its mind.’ He further said that ‘if you want an ef-ficient All India Service, I advise you to allow the services to open their mouth freely; these people are the instruments, remove them and I see nothing but a picture of chaos all over the country’. Speaking in Parliament on February 10, 2021, the current Prime Minis-ter stated that the IAS officers were handling most departments and incidentally he also referred to them as ‘Babus’, a word made popular by the media. This came as a bit of a surprise because he has always placed great confidence in bureaucrats.

From the steel frame to the instrument to keep the country united and finally to a figure of ridicule — a ‘Babu’. This journey from the sublime to the ridiculous has taken only 73 years. In this system of governance, we have chosen the elected politicians to head the government at the Centre and the states and the All India Services are the instruments of governance. Gradually, the political class has usurped the powers of the bureaucracy and has begun to run governments as personal fiefdoms. Laws are bent, rules are broken and

the system circumvented in order to achieve political or personal objectives. With the pas-sage of time, some unscrupulous officers be-gan to collaborate with similar elements in the body politic and now the disease has spread to lower levels also. It has become a pandemic against which the only vaccination is your conscience or your will to stand up and speak the truth to power. Mercifully, there are a few who do this and that is why the system has not totally collapsed.

I will not go into details of how institu-tions have been destroyed, laws and rules compromised, collaborators rewarded and conscience-keepers sidelined. In all this, most of the officers have become willing, subservient collaborators afraid to open their mouth, lest they anger the politician. The nexus of the politician, elements in the services (including the judiciary) and the crony businessman/industrialist is almost complete and is in a position to not only in-fluence policy, but also define it. The com-mon man for whom the welfare state came into existence is nowhere in the picture ex-cept at the time of elections, when votes are bought or obtained in the name of religion, caste, etc.

For 30 years or so after freedom, the pub-lic sector was built to galvanise the econo-my. There was no private sector worth the name when the British left. They left no de-velopmental infrastructure behind as they had no interest in the development of the country. It had to be created from scratch

and that was done by men of vision, intel-lectual brilliance, solid integrity and full faith in the rule of law. They had created the Constitution and they lived by the principles enshrined in it. Together, with the services, they laid down a network of dams, irrigation facilities, steel plants, science institutes for education and to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes, agricultural universities, cement factories and various other things needed to kickstart a country’s economy on the path of all-round development. The voice of India was respected in all interna-tional forums. This was because there was no nexus and all citizens, political leaders and officers were to be lending their shoul-der to the national wheel of progress.

How did the public sector start perform-ing at below-par levels? It was manned by officers of the All India Services who had entered through a very rigorous system of selection, got trained in the best institutes and were groomed by senior officers in the field and in the secretariat, men and women of proven competence and integrity. I was part of the UPSC from 2002 till 2007 and can say without hesitation that out of the lakhs appearing every year for the civil services exam, rarely has there been a complaint against the fairness and the integrity of the UPSC. The brightest of young men and women appear for this exam and about a thousand finally make it. The problem be-gins when they go to the states and are post-ed in the field and get exposed to the elec-

toral structure i.e. panchayats, municipal councils, corporations, MLAs, MPs, min-isters, etc, and begin to see the difference between theory and practice. They seek support from their seniors when forced to do wrong, but very rarely does it come. So, what is it about the political environment in the field which does not allow the rule of law and good administration? It is the quality of men entering politics at all levels. About 200 MPs have criminal records and some of them are ministers. The same holds true at the state level and down to the panchayat. This kind of a political setup requires the same kind of instruments to do their dirty work. Thereafter, the young bureaucrats start getting wiser and most of them adapt to the ways of the system and you will find different shades of grey in their orientation.

If we are serious about bringing a change, we should begin with the political setup. There should be a special commission of eminent jurists, constitutional experts, rep-resentatives of all parties, etc. They should have a hard look at the prevailing conditions and come up with a code of conduct for all political parties, which should include the distribution of tickets for elections, for selec-tion of ministers, interaction with bureau-crats, interference in transfers and postings, redressal of complaints of bureaucrats, to mention a few of the requirements. This commission and code of conduct should have statutory backing.

IANS

From ‘steel frame’ to ‘Babu’

Ira PandeEven as we were all recovering

from the devastating glacier burst in Chamoli, another climate-re-lated disaster was waiting to strike the world. In a phenomenon called Polar Vortex, the severity of weather usually restricted to the polar regions is now slipping into lower latitudes. This partially explains why Texas, a semi-desert area, has been overwhelmed by unprecedented snow storms that have paralysed the US state and crippled normal life. My brother lives in Dallas and the pictures he has sent of frozen taps, huge snow drifts and a fountain fes-tooned with icicles, really shook me. I remember going there one summer and we couldn’t breathe without air-conditioning. I am certain many homes have no pro-vision for heating in winter sim-ply because the need for warmth was never in question.

Add to this the fact that people in developed countries have been pampered by years of easy liv-ing. They have never experienced power outages that can last days, or no water as pipes freeze. Unlike us hardy people who have lived all our lives with such disruptions, they don’t keep a bucket filled in the bathroom ‘just in case’, nor invest in inverters and candles. I am ashamed to say so, given the trials that many are facing there,

but I can’t help thumbing my nose at those who have wasted the precious resources of our planet and now have the temer-ity to preach to us on how to save water and power. Join the club, is my answer to all ‘woke’ environ-mentalists who have cut trees to make toilet paper, drained water into their swimming pools when others were thirsting for a sip and loaded the planet with so much plastic waste that one day we will all be buried under it.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I praise all those middle-class Indian homes where plastic dabbas are re-used to store food, aluminium foil is neatly folded to use for wrapping rotis, ziplock bags are washed to be used another day, old clothes carefully cut up into dusters and rags used to polish furniture or brass. Sadly, our new rich brats have forgotten these useful les-sons.

As for wasting food, we were told that there was no greater sin than throwing food away. Each grain of rice, each morsel of vegetable and dal had to be finished before one was allowed to leave the ta-ble. I am appalled at how much food is simply thrown away now. Abroad, I have seen huge baskets of bread and rolls outside baker-ies for free distribution as it is a day old. A day old! In our homes,

old chapattis were smeared with ghee to make paranthas, leftover rice was tossed with vegetables and made into a homely version of fried rice, and so on. In the ab-sence of refrigerators, food was cooked so that it was consumed that day itself. What stops us from keeping these thrifty habits alive? Do we need lessons from some American or European know-all telling us how to conserve ener-gy? On the other hand, we could teach them a thing or two about doing with less.

All over the Third World, peo-ple value food and natural re-sources deeply. Many rituals are created around such lessons to make them a part of everyday life. Similarly, trees, water sources, plants, and even stones, are wor-shipped to remind us how the natural world must at all times be respected. However, years of rule by people of another culture erased these basic lessons when missionary teachers would make fun of our idolatrous practices. Recently, on Basant Panchami, a festival celebrated in various ways across India, I was aston-ished to see that very few both-ered to dress in yellow clothes or cook yellow, saffron-scented sweet rice. As for Saraswati Puja, associated with the festival, there is now no mention, except to score electoral points in Bengal.

As children, we kept all our books and writing implements in front of Saraswati to bless them and loved that we were not supposed to open a book that day.

In the colony we live now, more children know about Valentine’s Day than the significance of this lovely ritual. I have nothing against celebrating all festivals whether they belong to my reli-gion or any other, what saddens me is how a marketing blitz un-leashed by multinational compa-nies that make and sell greeting cards and teddy bears is slowly taking over. We have already lost our food, languages and clothes to others. Let us at least keep our celebration of nature’s bounty alive.

Our festivals and rituals carry within the distilled wisdom of centuries. The worship of nature is woven into all pastoral com-munities, whether here or else-where. However, many cultures have thrown the baby out with the bathwater when they turned away from these celebrations. Let us not forget that wearing yellow clothes to celebrate the onset of spring or dancing round a Lohri bonfire to say goodbye to winter are remnants of a pastoral way of life when Nature was saluted. Is there a better way of making chil-dren eco-conscious?

IANS

doing with less

Sushma RamachandranPublic sector enterprises in this

country were meant to attain the ‘commanding heights’ of the econ-omy soon after Independence. While one can easily criticise the performance of these companies now as being slow and bureau-cratic, there is no doubt their cre-ation contributed significantly to the industrialisation of a previously agrarian economy in the 1950s and 1960s. One of the key problems at the time was the need to gain ac-cess to technology from abroad for many manufacturing processes. The close ties with the then Soviet Union helped this country obtain such technical knowhow from there which was used to set up several public sector projects and schemes.

But seven decades have elapsed since independence and times have changed. The Indian economy has changed gears after the liberalisa-tion and economic reforms of 1991. The private sector has come to oc-cupy a much larger share of the economy, while the performance of the public sector has increasingly become a drain on the taxpayers’ resources. According to the Eco-nomic Survey, as many as 110 pub-lic sector enterprises out of the to-tal of 366 are currently in a defunct state. In addition, 77 are loss-mak-ing companies. The total profit of 171 public undertakings was Rs 1.38 lakh crore while the consolidated losses of the rest were Rs 44,816 crore. The net profit of public sec-

tor companies declined by as much as 34.6 per cent in 2019-20 from the previous year.

It is in this backdrop of rising pub-lic sector losses that one must view the bold leap towards privatisation in the Budget proposals. It is a long awaited reform. The first steps to-wards privatisation were taken by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led gov-ernment in 1999. At the time, many public sector undertakings were sold off and a review of their post-sale performance shows that all are doing far better than in their previ-ous avatar as state-owned entities.

At the same time, one cannot for-get the controversies that swirled around some of the sales. One was the criticism that the underlying as-sets of these enterprises were not fairly valued. The company itself may have been loss-making and therefore could be sold for a pit-tance, but the linked assets needed to have been given a higher value. This aspect has been the subject of much debate, but the learnings from these issues have evidently been imbibed this time round. In contrast to the earlier approach, the latest budget proposals present an entire pipeline of government-owned assets that can be monetised to raise resources. This includes more than just surplus land and also covers toll roads along with oil and gas pipelines.

The other element of the new public sector policy that is being awaited with bated breath liter-

ally is the proposal to privatise two state-owned banks and one insur-ance company during the current fiscal. This seems to be part of a process to consolidate the banking industry. Mergers of some banks were already carried out last year with the aim to ensure that the sector will end up with a few large banks rather than multiple small ones. It appears policymakers are keen to slowly pull back from own-ership of the banking industry. This is a major shift in approach and needs to be implemented in a gradual manner, given the key role of the nationalised bank industry in the economy.

For the time being, however, privatisation along with reducing government equity stakes in many companies is going to be a major driver for resource mobilisation. The 2021-22 Budget proposals have set an ambitious target for disin-vestment receipts with the aim of raising revenues to finance the huge increase in capital expendi-ture planned for the year. The target has been kept at Rs 1.75 lakh crore, which may seem high but is lower than the current year’s target of Rs 2.10 lakh crore. The latter is far from being achieved as till now, the total revenue mobilisation under this head is Rs 12,400 crore. The year is expected to end with total receipts of Rs 32,000 crore due to disinves-ment.

The big-ticket revenues in the next fiscal are expected to come

from sale of the loss-making Air In-dia and the profit-making Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). The Air India sale was de-railed last year as there were lit-erally no bids for the airline. The company’s huge debt overhang was taken out of the picture and other incentives were added, leading to a possibility that it could be acquired by the Tatas. Which would be in the fitness of things, given that the air-line’s founder was JRD Tata. As for BPCL, it has many suitors owing to its critical role in the country’s oil refining and marketing sector.

Apart from these larger ventures, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DI-PAM) as the Disinvestment Minis-try is now euphemistically called, has identified an entire pipeline of about two dozen public enterprises that could be privatised over the next one to two years.

For the long term, however, a more detailed policy on privatisa-tion plans is available. It envisages that barring four strategic areas, divestment will gradually be car-ried out in all others. The selected areas are atomic energy, space and defence; transport and telecom-munications; power, petroleum, coal and other minerals; and bank-ing, insurance and financial servic-es. Even in these sectors, a minimal number of public enterprises will be retained with government eq-uity participation.

IANS

Build consensus on need for privatisation

Unnao shamed, againYogi govt must prevent repeat of

earlier mistakes

7OP-EDIndian HorizonMonday, February 22, 2021

The views expressed in these columns are the writers’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Indian Horizon or its management.-Editor

By Baria AlamuddinA remarkable meeting occurred in January be-

tween Syrian and Israeli officials at the Russian base near Latakia in western Syria. It appears to have been precipitated by Israeli concerns about the increasing sophistication of high-precision Iranian missiles and drones in Tehran’s satellite states.

Israel wanted to convey the message to Tehran that an Iranian military presence in Syria would never be permitted. Perhaps more remarkable than the meeting itself was the extensive pressure exerted by the Russians to force Damascus to par-ticipate, including temporarily suspending fuel supplies.

Some observers view Moscow’s persistent ef-forts to bring Israeli and Syrian officials closer together as the prelude to a peace accord, similar

to those brokered with other Arab states. If Russia did facilitate such a deal, the essential elements are obvious: Return of the Golan, in exchange for wholesale Iranian exclusion from Syrian territory – a major concession to swallow for both sides, but offering huge strategic gains. If Putin decides to put his boot on Assad’s neck, this is probably an offer that the gravely weakened Syrian dictator couldn’t refuse — particularly as it was Russia’s 2015 inter-vention that fundamentally shifted the course of the Syrian conflict.

It’s no secret that many Assad regime officials are fed up with the contempt they experience from Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps person-nel who behave as if Damascus belongs to them. Similarly for Russia, Iran has gone from being a necessary ally to a liability. Russia’s massive mili-tary investments in Syria will never be secure as

long as Iran’s radicalized militias provoke regional conflict. Meanwhile, the depths of Putin’s com-mitment to Israel — and to his friend Benjamin Netanyahu —were highlighted again last week with a Russia-brokered prisoner swap, the third such exchange amid successive rounds of Israeli elections in which Netanyahu has been fighting for his political life.

Russia has conspicuously left Syrian airspace wide open for Israel to strike Iran-associated targets on a daily basis. US intelligence sources describe Syrian airspace as “saturated” with Israeli and Russian planes, necessitating close coordination. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently pledged to Israel’s leaders: “If you have facts that your state is facing threats from Syrian territory, report the facts urgently and we will take every measure to neutral-ize the threat.”

The Biden administration appears to have rec-onciled itself to Syria being consolidated under Russian influence; better this than being an Iranian satellite or spawning ground for Daesh. Trump’s Syria envoy, James Jeffrey, warns: “Russia is try-ing its very best to present an alternative security architecture for the region. (The Russians) are our competition in the region as much as the Iranians are.” Indeed, Biden’s lack of outreach to Arab lead-erships may spur them to seek closer Russian ties.

For the time being, Moscow has gone from being the foremost global provoker of conflicts to energetically putting out fires and calming things down — not least in the Middle East, where Putin is sick of Tehran’s warmongering and ceaseless provocations.

While Biden aspires to be tough with Moscow, he clearly isn’t seeking confrontation for the sake

of confrontation, evidenced by the swift return of both sides to the START Treaty. However, this will remain a highly transactional relationship, with Putin seeking as many negotiating cards as pos-sible, even when Russia-US interests overlap.

This is likely to be the case with Iran’s nuclear program. Both Putin and Biden support a return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Indeed, behind the scenes Russia has been en-couraging Tehran not to violate its JCPOA commit-ments, with Lavrov warning Iran “not to give into emotions” and withdraw from the IAEA Additional Protocol. Moscow furthermore has a strategic in-terest in widening the deal to encompass the cur-tailment of Iran’s proxy paramilitaries.

Russian diplomacy in Lebanon is also becoming increasingly visible in support of Saad Hariri form-ing a government, after Western efforts appear to have petered out. This is another arena where Rus-sian diplomacy could constrain Iranian influence, particularly as Moscow’s curtailment of Iran’s ac-tivity in Syria would limit Tehran’s ability to arm and support Hezbollah, while abruptly putting a halt to Hezbollah’s regional aspirations. Russia has also been intervening in the floundering Afghan peace process, having most to lose from a terror-ism-exporting failed state in its backyard.

Biden should be urging Turkey, as a NATO member, to act as a check on Russian expansion-ism, particularly as Turkish ambitions so frequent-ly clash with those of Moscow: Ankara backed the winning side, Azerbaijan, in Nagorno-Karabakh, while Moscow (previously the pre-eminent Cauca-sus power) only latterly intervened to calm the situ-ation. As part of this Armenia-Azerbaijan peace ac-cord, “sister states” Turkey and Azerbaijan are now

physically linked by a “pan-Turkic super-highway” via Armenia. This affords Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman ultra-nationalist regime enhanced access to the Turkic states of Central Asia, which Russia and China regard as their exclusive zone of influence. Turkey’s close ties to Ukraine, including military assistance, are an irritant to Putin’s aspirations to dominate the Black Sea region.

Since 2017 the Central African Republic (CAR) has been the centerpiece for Putin’s expansionist Africa strategy, offering the tantalizing prospect of monopolies over the region’s vast mineral riches. But with the CAR dissolving into renewed parox-ysms of civil war, Putin has been compelled to send hundreds of additional mercenaries (or “military instructors”), as his dreams of lucrative African ad-ventures turn into a costly headache.

With a plurality of crises in former-Soviet states (notably Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia), a newly assertive domestic protest movement (per-sonified by Alexei Navalny) and a tough economic outlook, Putin appears unusually vulnerable and overstretched. Thus, for the time being, Moscow has gone from being the foremost global provoker of conflicts to energetically putting out fires and calming things down — not least in the Middle East, where Putin is sick of Tehran’s warmongering and ceaseless provocations.

Russian pre-eminence in Syria and the region is certainly not our ideal scenario, given the implica-tions for governance, freedoms and human rights. However, given the overarching menace from Teh-ran, Hezbollah, Daesh, Al-Qaeda and a thousand and one other paramilitary proxies, matters could be infinitely worse.

Arab News

Putin considers slamming the door on Iran and opening a window for Israel

By Yossi MekelbergEvery year, Feb. 20 is celebrated as the

World Day of Social Justice. This year the theme is “Social justice in the digital econo-my,” fitting for a year when much of our so-cial, let alone economic, activity has moved to cyberspace. Since the coronavirus outbreak began more than a year ago, digital technol-ogy has felt like our savior, keeping societies and economies functioning. However, the uneven diffusion of digital technology and knowhow has created a modern divide be-tween the haves and have-nots, widening in-come inequalities and harming the chances of reaching many of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and in so doing turning the notion of universal social justice into little more than an abstract aspiration.

The digital economy has in fact quickly increased inequalities, among companies and among individuals. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased and enhanced our digital interactions, but has also acceler-ated the inequalities that come with them, even though the writing was on the wall long before its outbreak. Not that long ago,

advances in Information and Communica-tions and Technology (ICT) were perceived as advancing equality and justice, if not for all, at least for growing numbers of people across the world. However, although the digital revolution has shifted the nature of how we conduct our lives, the basic tenets of our global societies and economies have not changed at all, and if anything the ac-cumulation of wealth and the level of its disparities have grown exponentially with the spread of the online economy.

The world’s three wealthiest individuals are Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, the founders of Tesla, Amazon and Microsoft re-spectively, while not far behind in fifth place is Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. These four have an accumulated wealth of more than $600 bil-lion, when the average wage of an Amazon warehouse operative in the UK is under £16 per hour, and in India just above $4 per hour; and when content moderators for some of the social media giants, who work long hours and are often exposed to disturbing images, can earn as little as $18 per hour in the US and $5 in India or the Philippines.

When the UN General Assembly passed the resolution in 2007 creating the World Day of Social Justice, it was to address ex-actly these kinds of injustices, affirming a commitment to promote national and global economic systems based on the “principles of justice, equity, democracy, participation, transparency, accountabil-ity and inclusion.” There was a recogni-tion, to a large extent a prophetic one, that social development and social jus-tice are indispensable for achieving and maintaining peace and security among nations, and that, equally, there can be no social justice without peace and security.

If we are to fully harness the economic potential of the digital revolution to benefit the many and not the few, there is a need for global cooperation and a readiness from the leading digital powers to share the spoils of this technological bonanza.

Two of the most powerful and concern-ing phenomena of our times are intensify-ing societal and political malaise, and con-tinuing increases in income inequality. Together they have given rise to national-

ist and populist sentiments that are desta-bilizing both domestic and international politics. The nexus of these two major trends has been the basis for a discourse that advocates social justice, not only for obvious moral considerations, but also as a practical and utilitarian measure of en-suring social and political stability, some-thing the world’s elites seem unable to understand as serving their own interests.

The digital economy offered new in-come-generating opportunities, and cre-ated more flexible working arrangements. It allowed for a more inclusive labor mar-ket, helping more women, people with dis-abilities, young people and migrant work-ers to join the global workforce, something they found much more challenging in pre-digital times. However, large parts of the world are still not part of the digital economy due to lack of investment in in-frastructure, equipment, and vocational training. And it is also far from true that being employed necessarily equates to es-caping the poverty trap —for that, national and international regulations are required,

otherwise it is too easy for companies to set up their digital businesses in locations where there is no legislation protecting the rights of workers, with the result that jobs migrate from countries where there is such protection, creating unemployment in the process, to places where they create employment but for low wages, in difficult conditions and with few social benefits.

The digital economy was expected to pro-duce a more level playing field, but numbers of internet users even in OECD countries range from over 95 percent of the popula-tion to less than 70 percent, while there is a significant correlation between age, ethnic-ity and socio-economic background and ac-cess to ICT. Outside the OECD countries the situation is more worrying and many are be-ing left behind, or as the UN has described it: “The world is characterised by a yawning gap between the under-connected and the hyper-digitalized countries.” In the least developed countries only one in five people use the internet, compared with four out of five in developed countries.

Arab News

Why the digital divide is a threat to social justice

By Hafed Al-GhwellA decade ago, despite the

failed gamble that was the War on Terror and nearly two de-cades of ineffectual wars, inco-herent policies, ill-conceived interventions or even a global financial crisis, few in the Arab world would have doubted US primacy in the Middle East.

But four years of America First and foreign policy tone-deafness have shaken any remaining faith in that enduring primacy. Any expectations of a return to Amer-ican hegemony, as envisioned by President Biden in his “back at the head of the table” remarks, are prey to new realities, particu-larly in the Middle East.

It is not just Washington’s flir-tation with foreign policy based on populist nationalism that has unraveled old perceptions. America began its pivot toward a reduced footprint abroad in or-der to shore up domestic priori-ties long before 9/11, pre-dating bungled overseas engagements by George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The only difference was the speed and extent to which the US com-mitted to that retreat.

President Biden, however, faces the undeniable reality that the era of superpowers or global hegemons is over because no country can deliver decisive fi-ats in conflicts or crises around the world. While America still has the economic and military heft to safeguard its interests, it is no longer capable of unilater-ally exerting influence abroad and projecting sufficient power

to change outcomes. The US has spent two decades and over $2 trillion confronting that inevi-tability. This also created pow-er vacuums across the region, sparking a mad scramble to fill them.

This new landscape has mostly eroded any prospect of a return to American primacy, or even to Cold War-era bipolarity, despite heightened US-Russia tensions and growing competition be-tween the US and China. Russia simply lacks the capacity or mo-tivation to dominate the region. China’s engagement with the region favors trade and stronger economic ties over military and security links. Europe is largely uninterested in expanding its engagements beyond resolving crises that constitute threats to the bloc’s security and energy interests. Meanwhile, the White House has signaled it seeks a re-configuration of US foreign pol-icy, and by extension the frayed multilateral global order, toward more predictable, consistent, deliberative, collaborative and consensual diplomacy. Gone are the days when military interven-tion or long-term deployment of “advisers” were the default tools to manipulate outcomes over-seas or buy time for diplomacy.

Unfortunately, while fewer boots on the ground are a wel-come development, the ensuing regional entanglements have unleashed new frictions and ex-acerbated old ones. Worse, if the natural progression of the Biden foreign policy is toward mul-tilateralism based on regional

alliances around shared inter-ests, tensions in the Middle East will only complicate the White House’s objectives.

Another tightrope Washington must walk involves what will be the primary focus in its Middle East policy — Iran.

The US will not want to risk progress on normalization, which has achieved an elusive long-term goal of US Middle East policy — Israel and parts of the Arab world acting together as a bulwark against a shared adversary, Iran. However, the rest of the Arab world is not as convinced, since its cooperation with Israel still hinges on the fate of the Palestinians.

Another tightrope Washing-ton must walk involves what will be the primary focus in its Mid-dle East policy — Iran. Tehran is open to a return to the narrow focus of the 2015 Joint Compre-hensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to curb its nuclear ambitions despite having processed and stored far more fissile material than is needed for commercial applications and power genera-tion. However, the Gulf states will want an expansion of the nuclear agreement to include a freeze on Iran’s long-range mis-sile development and their de-ployment to regional proxies in Yemen and Syria.

Additionally, a new JCPOA that fails to address Iran’s re-gional destabilization activities will be unpalatable to the Gulf. If the White House rejects these provisions, not only will it jeop-ardize normalization and weak-

en US influence in the region, it will also make open conflict between the Gulf states and Iran far more likely.

Determinations on Iran will have to wait at least until after the elections there that will de-termine what Iranians envision for themselves, the region and any future relations with the US. It is a welcome reprieve because the ghosts of 2011 still loom over the region. A positive response from the international commu-nity to Biden’s planned global democracy summit could em-bolden local political opposition groups and desperate youth to re-mobilize for a second “Arab Spring.” That would leave the

White House trapped between its commitments to restore de-mocracy around the world and to center human rights in its for-eign policy. The fence-sitting of a decade ago would be uncon-scionable, and do more harm to America’s already tattered global standing.

If Washington truly wants to avoid nearly two decades of di-sastrous policymaking in the region by listening to experts, as already signaled by the White House, policymakers must nev-er lose sight of these undercur-rents and realities. It is not all bad news, however, since most governments have responded positively to America’s re-en-

gagement and are positioning themselves to make the most of the return to multilateralism.

The brief lull affords time to lay the groundwork for positive engagements, but the Biden ad-ministration must avoid look-ing too much to the past. Prag-matism will be the key and so far, most of the world agrees, the future of international rela-tions will be based on regional clusters coalesced around con-vergent interests. They are far better positioned to promote regional stability and have a meaningful impact on global crises such as climate change or future pandemics.

Arab News

America’s uneasy path back to its place in the world

8 Indian HorizonMonday, February 22, 2021international

Another 5 members of terrorist gang arrested in Kabul

Kabul, Feb 21 (IANS) The Afghan intelligence personnel ar-rested another five members of a joint terrorist gang of Taliban-linked Haqqani network and Islamic State (IS) group in national capital Kabul, the national intelligence agency confirmed on Sunday. “Javid, Ahmad Murid, Rohullah, Abdul Hafiz and Abdul Jabbar five members of a joint terrorist network of Haqqani and IS arrested in recent days. They have been involved in main-taining, transferring, hiding, activating and launching rockets on different parts of Kabul, including Shaheed Mazari’s Grand Mosque, Hamid Karzai International Airport and the Bagram Airfield in Parwan province,” the agency said in a statement.

They were held following a series of intelligence personnel special operations in Police District 17 of Kabul City, the Xi-nhua news reported. On February 12, the Afghan intelligence agency announced the arrest of three key members of the same group in Kabul. The city with a nearly 5 million population has been on the scene of bomb explosions and targeted killings in recent months.

Philippines logs 1,888 new Covid-19 infections

Manila, Feb 21 (IANS) The Department of Health (DOH) of the Philippines reported on Sunday 1,888 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 561,169.

The death toll climbed to 12,088 after 20 more patients died from the viral disease, the DOH said, adding that 9,737 more patients recovered, raising the total number of recoveries to 522,843, the Xinhua news reported. The Philippines, which has about 110 million population, has tested over 8 million people since the disease emerged in January last year.

On Sunday, the DOH reported an additional 18 Filipinos that tested positive for the more contagious coronavirus variant first found in Britain, bringing cases in the country to 62.

The DOH said 13 of the recent 18 cases were returning over-seas Filipinos and three are the residents of a region in the northern Philippines. All 16 patients have recovered, the DOH added.

The DOH said it is verifying whether the remaining two cases were locals or returning overseas workers. The DOH confirmed the first case of the new variant in the country on January 13.

The DOH also said it had detected an additional three mu-tations found in the central Philippines in another batch of samples sequenced from the Central Visayas region, raising the country’s number of mutations to 34. The DOH earlier con-firmed that it had detected “mutations of concern” in 31 sam-ples in the Central Visayas region.

However, it said the data is insufficient to make “definitive conclusions about the potential public health implications of the mutations.”

The DOH planned to submit the new findings to the World Health Organization and the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data “to aid in the ongoing global effort to track and study new and emerging genomic changes SARS-COV-2 virus.” The DOH expressed hope that vaccine manufacturers can use the data to recalibrate vaccines and ensure efficacy against Co-vid-19.

Pakistan to get 5.6m coronavirus vaccines doses in March

Islamabad, Feb 21 (IANS) Around 5.6 million Covid vaccine doses are expected to arrive in the country by the end of March 2021, according to the National Command and Operation Cen-tre (NCOC) on Sunday.

Out of these, 2.8 million doses of Gavi/COVAX are expected to reach by the first week of March and 2.8 million doses by the second week of March, the Geo TV reported.

The country has managed to vaccinate 72,882 Front Line Healthcare Workers (FLHCWs) under the national vaccination strategy so far which is being implemented simultaneously across the country.

As many as 17.1 million doses will reach Pakistan by the end of June 2021 which would help in successfully running the na-tional vaccination drive.

However, the registration of citizens over 60 years of age has also been started. Senior citizens can SMS their CNIC numbers in 1,166 to get themselves registered for the vaccine.

Moreover, the registration of general healthcare workers has also started. They can register at www.covid.gov.pk/vaccine.

UK records another 10,406 Covid-19 cases, 445 deaths

London, Feb 21 (IANS) Another 10,406 people in Britain have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of coro-navirus cases in the country to 4,105,675, according to official figures released on Saturday. The country also reported another 445 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavi-rus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 120,365. These fig-ures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test, the Xinhua news agency reported.

More than 17.2 million people in Britain have so far been giv-en the first jab of the coronavirus vaccine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to unveil his “road-map” out of lockdown on Monday. It is widely expected that schools in England would start to open on March 8.

Earlier Saturday, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Asso-ciation of School and College Leaders, called for a staggered ap-proach similar to what has been announced in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

“Why would we not want to do that in England? Parents want to be reassured why it suddenly feels right that 10 million peo-ple, teachers, parents do that (come back) on a single day -- and possibly risking all the benefits of lockdown so far,” Barton told Sky News.

London, Feb 21 (IANS) All adults in the UK will be of-fered their first dose of a coro-navirus vaccine by the end of July, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pledged. More than 17 million people have been given a jab since the UK’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout began in December 2020, the BBC reported on Saturday.

But Johnson said he now wants the programme to “go further and faster”.

He said the July target would allow vulnerable people to be protected “sooner” and would help to further ease lockdown rules across the country. The prime minister is expected to hold a final meeting on Sun-day about how to ease Eng-land’s lockdown, before he sets out the full “road map” on Monday.

A speedy rollout of the vac-cine to all vulnerable people

is seen as critical to reducing the pandemic’s death toll and relieving pressure on the NHS.

The government’s previous target was to offer all adults the first dose by September.

The new plans mean that by April 15, all adults aged 50

and over, as well as younger people with underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk, should have been offered a jab.

However, the order of prior-ity in which the under-50s will be offered jabs has yet to be

outlined by the Joint Commit-tee on Vaccination and Im-munisation (JCVI).

The Labour welcomed the vaccine targets being moved forward, but called on the government to prioritise peo-ple based on their job.

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “It’s perfectly reasonable for teach-ers, police officers and other key workers who haven’t been able to stay at home in the lockdown to ask when their turn will be.

“If government aren’t going to prioritise by occupation in the next phase, they need to set out why.”

At least 17.2 million people in the UK have received their first dose of a vaccine at one of the 1,500 vaccination sites across the country, and al-most 600,000 have received their second dose. The gov-ernment has said it met its pledge of offering a vaccine to everyone in the top four prior-ity groups - including those aged 70 and over, care home residents, healthcare workers and people required to shield - by February 15.z

Washington, Feb 21 (IANS) Former US Presi-dent Donald Trump will speak at the Conservative Political Action Confer-ence in Orlando, Florida, on Feb 28, according to a source familiar with the matter, while former Vice President Mike Pence declined an invitation to speak at the conference.

One source said that the organisers still hope to change Pence’s mind about attending, while another source said that Pence is planning to stay under the radar for the next six months, the CNN reported.

The divergence be-tween the two former leaders, which comes as the GOP is grappling with its future in the wake of the Trump presidency, follows tensions between

Trump and Pence sur-rounding the January 6 riot at the US Capitol and Pence’s role certifying the results of the election for President Joe Biden.

“We accept Joe Biden is the duly elected Presi-dent of the US,” Marc Short, former chief of staff to Pence, said.

“Despite Pence play-ing a role in perpetuating baseless election fraud theories that Trump re-peatedly pushed ahead of the attack on the Capi-tol,” he added.

Unlike Trump, Pence

attended Biden’s inau-guration in Washington, DC, last month -- after skipping Trump’s fare-well ceremony.Short said on Saturday that Trump and Pence “departed am-icably” and that they’ve spoken since.

The source familiar with Trump’s plans to attend CPAC, who is also familiar with the former President’s speech, said that “he’ll be talking about the future of the Republican Party and the conservative move-ment.” “Also look for the

45th President to take on President Biden’s disas-trous amnesty and bor-der policies,” the source added.

The speaking en-gagement would mark Trump’s first public ap-pearance following his departure from the White House last month and comes as senior Repub-licans are split over how to treat the former Presi-dent, with his loyalists paying him visits recently in Florida.

One of Trump’s cam-paign managers, Brad Parscale, met with the former President at his club in Mar-a-Lago this week for a lengthy meet-ing, according to a source familiar. Utah Sen. Mike Lee is holding a fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago Sat-urday night.

All UK adults to get Covid vax jab by July 31: Johnson

Chinese mainland reports no new locally transmitted Covid-19 casesBeijing, Feb 21 (IANS) The

Chinese mainland reported no new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases on Saturday, the National Health Commis-sion said on Sunday.

No new locally transmit-ted Covid-19 cases had been reported for six straight days since Monday, according to the commission. One such case was reported in Hebei Province on last Sunday, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The commission said it re-ceived reports of seven new imported Covid-19 cases on Saturday.

Two new suspected cases from outside the mainland were reported in Shanghai, and no new deaths related to the disease were report-ed, it said. On Saturday, 38 Covid-19 patients were dis-charged from hospitals fol-lowing their recovery.

By the end of Saturday, a total of 4,928 imported cases had been reported on the mainland. Among them, 4,735

had been discharged from hospitals following recovery, and 193 remained hospital-ised. No deaths had been re-ported among the imported cases.

The total number of con-firmed Covid-19 cases on the mainland reached 89,831 by Saturday, including 423 patients still receiving treat-ment, two of whom were in severe conditions. A total of 84,772 patients had been dis-charged following recovery on the mainland, and 4,636 had died of the disease.

There were three suspected Covid-19 cases on the main-land by the end of Saturday, and 7,929 close contacts re-mained under medical obser-vation.

Saturday also saw six as-ymptomatic cases newly reported, all arriving from outside the mainland. One asymptomatic case arriving from outside the mainland was re-categorised as the con-firmed case.

egypt, Spain hold joint naval

exercise in red Sea

Cairo, Feb 21 (IANS) Egyptian and Spanish naval forces held joint military drills in the Red Sea, Egypt’s armed forces said in a statement on Saturday. The joint exercise is the second in re-cent days, after the two navies held similar drills on February 14 also in the Red Sea, the Xinhua news reported.

The training involved various activities, in-cluding carrying out sailing formations, surveil-lance of suspected ships, night transportation, helicopter landing on helidecks of marine units and more, according to the statement.

The Egyptian military highlighted the impor-tance of the joint drills “in consolidating Egyp-tian-Spanish bilateral relations and enhancing the horizons of military cooperation between the two countries, which contributes effectively to maintaining maritime security and stability in the region.”

Trump to speak at CPAC in first public appearance after leaving WH

Seoul, Feb 21 (IANS) South Korea will begin administer-ing Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines to medical staff on February 27, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Sunday. The vac-cines are expected to arrive in the country later this week, Yonhap news agency reported.

“On February 26, 117,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines will

arrive in the country and the vaccines will be administered to medical staff treating coro-navirus patients starting on February 27,” Chung said dur-ing a meeting on the Covid-19 response held at the govern-ment complex in Seoul. The country will begin the Cov-id-19 inoculation programme with AstraZeneca’s vaccines

on Friday, with first jabs to be administered to staff mem-bers and patients under the age of 65 at nursing hospitals and facilities.

“As the government has taken responsibility in verify-ing their safety and efficacy, we ask that you trust them and fully participate in receiving inoculation of the vaccines.”

S.Korea to start using Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine from Feb 27: PM

australia begins coronavirus vaccinationsCanberra, Feb 21 (IANS)

Prime Minister Scott Mor-rison has become one of the first Australians to receive a coronavirus vaccine.

Morrison on Sunday morning received his first dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine alongside Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly and a small group of aged care residents and staff and frontline pandemic workers, the Xinhua news reported.

Jane Malysiak, an 84-year-old World War II survivor, was the first Australian to re-ceive a vaccine, according to a media report.

“Tomorrow our vaccina-tion program starts, so as a curtain raiser today we’re here making some very im-portant points; that it’s safe, that it’s important, and we need to start with those who are most vulnerable and are on the front line,” Morrison said.

Earlier on Sunday, Health Minister Greg Hunt said that the decision was made to

vaccinate political leaders early in order to instill con-fidence in vaccines. Anthony Albanese, the leader of the Opposition Labor Party, will receive vaccines within days.

“Many people are worried, has this been too quick? And we had to show that it’s been full, thorough assessment and that we believe in the safety ourselves,” he said.

Hunt said that the first goal of Australia’s vaccine rollout, which will begin in full on Monday, was protecting the community.

“Our first goal is protec-tion. And what we see is with both the two initial vaccines, the Pfizer and the AstraZen-eca vaccine,” he said.

“The second goal is to have as high as possible a rate, and we will learn more as a world about the impact in terms of preventing transmission, although the evidence is in-creasingly strong, but also the longevity of the anti-body protection, and that’s not known yet, but it will be known over the course of the coming year.”

BusinessIndian HorizonMonday, February 22, 2021 9

Air India denies shooter Manu Bhaker’s allegations of harassment

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Indian Auto LPC Coali-tion, the industry body of auto LPG stakeholders has urged the government to promote a number of clean alternative fuels for auto-mobiles, rather than just focusing on electric mobil-ity. Citing the recent power grid failure in the American state of Texas, the industry body in a statement said that the incident has re-ignited concerns over the perils of turning to an all-electric future.

“For India, which is plan-

ning an almost complete switch to Electric Vehicles, the Texan crisis serves as a reminder of the need to promote a basket of clean alternative fuels, rather than focus single-minded-ly on electric mobility,” it said.

The threat of power fail-ures and grid disruptions is real across the world and this raises questions over the viability of a strategy that shifts all transport so-lutions to electricity, it said.

Suyash Gupta, Director General, Indian Auto LPG

Coalition said: “Climate change is already upon us as is evident by extreme weather events being wit-nessed across the world, be it the freeze in Texas, the deadly glacier-break in Ut-tarakhand or the changing winter pattern in Munnar.”

Noting that such ex-treme weather events may become a norm, he said: “India must take this into account while planning its long-term energy poli-cies. In such a scenario, investing in a basket of clean alternative fuels to

include low hanging and immediately viable fuels such as Auto LPG is a more viable long-term strategy, rather than banking totally on electric vehicle tech-nology.” Gupta was of the view that the government must reconsider its EV-

only strategy and opt for promoting a wide variety of clean alternative fuels. Auto LPG is one such im-mediately available solu-tion that can replace petrol and diesel right away and reap immense benefits for the environment, he said.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) A three-day ‘Incredible In-dia Mega Homestay De-velopment and Training Workshop’ by Ministry of Tourism’s India tourism Kolkata, Regional Office (East) in association with Eastern Himalayas Travel and Tour Operator Asso-ciation and IIAS School of Management will be inau-gurated by Union Tourism Minister Prahlad Singh Pa-tel on February 22 in Dar-

jeeling.The three-day workshop

has been organised with an aim to enrich the hos-pitality skills of homestay owners to ensure a better experience for the tourists.

Since, the homestay concept is gaining popu-larity in Darjeeling and Ka-limpong districts located in northern West Bengal, the aim of the three-day workshop is to enrich the hospitality skills of home-

stay owners to ensure a better experience for the tourists. IIAS School of Management will provide

free training to 450 home-stay owners in different spheres of hospitality. The workshop would take

place between 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and post the work-shop, interaction between operators (nearly 40 op-erators) and travel agents in the form of Business-to-business (B2B) would be organised.

Homestay tourism has received the highest level of local community’s in-volvement at one of the most favoured hill stations for domestic amd inbound tourists.

‘Govt needs to promote basket of clean auto fuels, not just electric mobility’

Prahlad Patel to inaugurate 3-day workshop in Darjeeling on Feb 22

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Lending major State Bank of India’s subsid-iary SBI Payments on Saturday said it plans to deploy low-cost acceptance infrastructure ‘to expand the digiti-sation of merchant payments’ in the country.

Accordingly, the company is launching ‘YONO Merchant App’.

“Aiming to enable millions of mer-chants through mobile led technol-ogy to accept digital payments, SBI plans to deploy low-cost acceptance infrastructure across India over the next two years targeting 20 million potential merchants across India in retail and enterprise segment,” it said in a statement.

The launch, company said, is in line with RBI’s recent announce-ment of creating a Payments Infra-structure Development Fund (PIDF) to encourage acquirers to deploy Point of Sale (PoS) infrastructure (both physical and digital) in lesser penetrated areas of the country.

“Merchants will now be able to turn their NFC enabled Android smartphones into payment accep-tance devices through a simple mo-bile app.”

According to the statement, SBI partnered with Visa, on the ‘Tap to Phone’ feature, which aims to give the necessary boost to scale up ac-

ceptance infrastructure across the country.

“While the State Bank of India has focused on providing innova-tive, best-in-class banking services and inclusion of new-to-digital mer-chants and customers, Visa contin-ues to simplify payments with prod-ucts like tokenisation.”

“With India’s smartphone base expected to reach 820 million in the next two years, both SBI and Visa firmly believe there is a tremendous opportunity to augment them as payment acceptance devices.”

Following the deployment, the company said merchants will also be able to access details of transactions, generate reports, upload transac-tions for processing etc. through SBI’s mobile application besides ac-cepting payments on their mobile device.

SBI Payments to expand digitisation of merchant payments

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Transaction auditor Grant Thornton, in a report shared with the Administrator of DHFL, has found certain transactions which are under-valued, fraudulent and pref-erential in nature, putting the newly-discovered fraud at Rs 6,182 crore.

The Administrator of De-wan Housing Finance Com-pany Ltd, appointed under the Insolvency and Bankrupt-cy Code, 2016 to carry out the duties under it, obtained as-sistance from reputed profes-sional agency, Grant Thorn-ton to conduct investigation of the affairs of the company

in respect of transactions qualified under sections 43 to 51, and sections 65 and 66 of the Code.

Accordingly, the Admin-istrator of the Company re-ceived an initial report from the professional agency ap-pointed as the transaction au-ditor, indicating that there are certain transactions which are undervalued, fraudulent and preferential in nature, falling under the aforesaid sections of the Code, as per a filing.

On basis of the investigation and observations of the trans-action auditor, the Adminis-trator has filed an application before the Mumbai bench of

the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under Sec-tion 45, Section 60(5) and Section 66 of the Code on February 20, 2021 in respect of disbursement made to certain entities as other large project loans (OLPL), against Kapil Wadhawan, Dheeraj Wadha-wan, Creatoz Builders Pvt Ltd,

Ikshudip Fincap Pvt Ltd, Rite Developers Pvt Ltd and cer-tain other entities. It is to be noted that further filings may be undertaken, in due course.

The nature of fraud is in relation to irregularities in disbursement of OLPL loans by the company in the past. As per the transaction audi-

tor report shared with the Administrator, the monetary impact of the above transac-tions covered under the appli-cation amounts to Rs 5,381.90 crore towards outstanding principal, Rs 589.36 crore to-wards accrued interest and Rs 210.85 crore towards notional loss of interest on account of

charging lower rate of interest. Thus, the total impact of such transactions, as detailed in the transaction auditor’s report, has been sought from the rel-evant entities involved, along with the interest for the rele-vant period, through the said application filed with NCLT.

As per the report prepared by the transaction auditor, the concerned transactions occurred over a period of time, detailed in the report.

Based on the report, the ap-plication has been filed with NCLT, Mumbai against 33 respondents, including Kapil Wadhawan, Dheeraj Wad-hawan, Creatoz Builders Pvt

Ltd, Ikshudip Fincap Pvt Ltd, Rite Developers Pvt Ltd and certain other entities.

The preliminary estimation included in the application places the monetary impact of the concerned transactions at approximately Rs 6,182.11 crore (which includes Rs 210.85 crore towards notional loss of interest on account of charging lower rate of inter-est).

All relevant details regard-ing these proceedings have been included in the appli-cation filed before the Na-tional Company Law Tribu-nal, Mumbai and is presently pending consideration.

Fraudulent transactions of Rs 6,182 crore in DHFL unearthed

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Two days after 19-year-old shooter Manu Bhaker de-manded action against Air In-dia officials at the capital’s IGI Airport for alleged harassment and seeking of bribes, the na-tional carrier has denied the allegations against its employ-ees. In a statement on Sun-day, the airline said that CCTV footage nullifies the claims of

Bhaker over alleged seeking of bribes and snatching of her mobile phone. “Our employee Manoj Gupta was at the coun-ter throughout and had, at no point, communicated directly with Bhaker. This is also cor-roborated by the CCTV foot-age. Hence, the allegation of misbehaviour by him simply does not arise,” it said.

On Friday, the Olympic

quota place winner pistol ace evening alleged that she was harassed by Air India officials at the Indira Gandhi Interna-tional Airport (IGI) while she was trying to board a flight from Delhi to Bhopal.

The 19-year-old Haryana shooter, who was carrying two weapons and ammunition on her way to Bhopal Shooting Academy, was later allowed to

board the flight.Claiming that the document

for exemption shown by the shooter was not valid as it was signed only by the Assistant Secretary of the National Rifle Association, Air India said: “The moment she furnished the required document to the Air India check-in and secu-rity personnel, her baggage, including the arms were ac-

cepted for carriage.”The statement said that the

airline was only following the protocol regarding a sensi-tive activity like the carriage of arms on board. It further claimed “zero tolerance” for any kind of misdemeanour or arbitrary demand from its employees, like the ones al-leged by sportsperson. “Only the legitimate documents were

asked for, contrary to the alle-gations made,” it said.

After being stopped at the Indira Gandhi Airport on Fri-day, Bhaker tweeted her ‘prob-lem’, tagging Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju and Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, besides others. Apparently, after Rijiju’s intervention she eventually boarded the AI 437 flight. Manu tweeted five times

on Friday, starting at 8.17 p.m., and the last one was posted at 8.57 p.m., after she was cleared to board the flight. She thanked the Sports Minister in her last tweet. In another tweet on Sat-urday, she again said that the AI employee Manoj Gupta did not listen to the DGCA official who issued the permit and on his instructions the Air India security person snatched.

Mumbai, Feb 21 (IANS) Pun-jab National Bank will not take part in the capital raising plans of PNB Housing Finance.

Last August, the Board of PNB Housing Finance approved raising Rs 1,800 crore of equity capital through preferential is-sue or rights issue.

Referring to the decision, PNB Housing, in a regulatory filing,

said that it will continue to pur-sue with the proposed capital raising plan. “Punjab National Bank has communicated that it shall not be participating in the capital raise plans of the com-pany. However, the company will continue to pursue with the proposed capital raising plan through permitted modes,” the filing said.

PNB not to take part in housing finance arm’s

planned fund raiseNew Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS)

The Modi government is now planning to work on mission mode to reduce the dependence of the country on edible oil imports, under which it would be increasing production of edible oil from various sources along with spreading public awareness for economical consump-tion of oil.

According to experts, the objective of this new mis-sion of the Modi government is not only to bring self-reli-ance (‘Aatmanirbharta’) in edible oils but also to trans-fer money to farmers on the expenses incurred on the oil imports.

Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi on Saturday dur-ing the meeting of the sixth governing council of the Niti Aayog also mentioned that despite being an agricul-tural country, India imports edible oil worth nearly Rs

65,000-70,000 crore annu-ally. The Prime Minister said this money spent on imports could be transferred to the bank accounts of farmers in the country.

We are talking about the ‘National Mission on Oil-seeds’, on which there is a plan to spend nearly Rs 19,000 crore in the next five years. A senior official of the Union Ministry of Agricul-ture and Farmers Welfare said the preparations for the mission are foolproof and

would be implemented from April 1 in the upcoming fi-nancial year.

India imports nearly 150 lakh tonnes of edible oil every year while domes-tic production is nearly 70 to 80 lakh tonnes. With the growing population of the country, consumption of ed-ible oil would also increase moving ahead. In such a situation, bridging the huge gap between the edible oil imports and the domestic production by achieving

‘self-reliance’ in edible oil is a major goal. But Trilochan Mohapatra, Director General of the Indian Council of Ag-ricultural Research (ICAR), says that when work is un-dertaken on mission mode, there is a greater chance of achieving success in it. He said to increase the produc-tion of oilseeds in the coun-try, along with acreage, more emphasis would be given on increasing productivity.

Mohapatra told that in the eastern region of the country, there are nearly 110 lakh hectares of land, which remains vacant after taking out the paddy crop, it can increase its area by growing mustard. In addition, farm-ers are encouraged to cul-tivate pulses and oilseeds instead of crops like paddy, wheat and sugarcane in Punjab, Haryana including northern India where there is scarcity of water.

Mohapatra said like paddy and wheat, if farmers get the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for oilseeds and high yield seeds are available then their interest in cultivating these crops would increase.

He told that according to the study conducted by ICAR, there are 20 agro eco-logical regions in the coun-try. Mohapatra said that va-rieties of seeds are prepared for cultivation of suitable crops in climate of a particu-lar region, which increases the yield. He said that India imports palm oil the most, but the emphasis is now on increasing palm cultivation in the country, which would help in bringing ‘Aatmanirb-harta’. A total of nine oilseed crops are cultivated in India every year. Their annual pro-duction has been exceeding 300 lakh tonnes for the last four years and is increasing year by year.

Modi govt to reduce dependence on edible oil imports

Business10

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Muthoot Homefin aims to disburse home loans worth Rs 700 crore in the upcoming financial year (FY2021-22).

In a statement, the com-pany said that over the past five years since its inception, Muthoot Homefin has dis-bursed over Rs 2,600 crore home loans. Currently, it has assets under management (AUM) of Rs 1,800 crore with operations in 16 states and Union territories of India serving more than 22,000 customers.

“For the coming year, in addition to further penetra-tion into the existing geog-raphies, Muthoot Homefin also plans to expand its operations in the southern

states of India and aims to disburse up to Rs 700 crore of home loans in FY 2021-22,” it said.

It also added that the com-pany’s credit rating has been upgraded to “AA+ (stable)” from “AA (positive)” by Cri-

sil during the week ended Friday and the upgrade will allow the company to raise funds at competitive interest rates, thereby passing on the benefits to its end custom-ers, it added.

George Alexander Muth-

oot, Managing Director said: “Muthoot Homefin is aiming to disburse Rs 700 crore of home loans in FY 2021-22. We are steadfastly progress-ing on taking the ‘Housing for All’ initiative of the gov-ernment to the farthest tier II

and III locations in the coun-try in order to support the af-fordable housing needs and aspirations of every Indian.”

As of now, the company will be focusing on expand-ing its housing finance oper-ations in the southern states of the country.

“With the additional fo-cus towards collections in FY2020-21, the company has been able to contain de-linquencies on the portfolio during the pandemic and have now stabilised its col-lections,” the MD said.

Muthoot Homefin (India) Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Muthoot Fi-nance. It operates as an af-fordable housing finance company.

Muthoot Homefin aims to disburse Rs 700 cr home loans in FY22448 infra projects report cost overrun of over Rs 4.02 lakh cr

Govt may look at AMC/ARC model for asset monetisation programme

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Cairn India has discussed a number of proposals with the aim of finding a swift resolu-tion that could be mutually acceptable to the Govern-ment of India and the inter-ests of Cairn’s shareholders.

An international arbitra-tion seated in The Hague and constituted under the terms of the UK India Bilateral In-vestment Treaty has ruled conclusively on the matter and issued a final and bind-ing award in Cairn’s favour ordering the refund of the value of the assets taken, being $1.2 billion, plus sig-nificant interest and costs. That arbitration also ruled

decisively that this matter falls within the jurisdiction of the UK-India Treaty, having heard arguments from the parties on that subject.

Cairn has enjoyed a long and successful history op-

erating in India, investing billions of dollars, bringing employment and benefit-ting local communities. “The business we created in India has generated more than $20 billion in revenues for the

government. The freezing of our assets in 2014 to enforce a retrospective tax measure has been extremely negative for all parties, and we are very keen to be able to put this legacy matter behind us and move forward positively”, it said.

“We have had cordial and constructive discussions in Delhi over the last few days with officials from the Minis-try of Finance. Notwithstand-ing and without prejudice to our rights under the inter-national arbitration award, we have discussed a number of proposals with the aim of finding a swift resolution that could be mutually acceptable

to the Government of India and the interests of Cairn’s shareholders,” it added.

“Assuming such a resolu-tion can be achieved, we look forward to being able to move on to further opportunities to invest in India which con-tinues to import the majority of the energy sources it con-sumes. We remain hopeful that an acceptable solution can be found, in order to avoid further prolonging and exacerbating this negative is-sue for all parties. However, we have also been clear that we must continue to take all necessary steps to protect the interests of our sharehold-ers,” Cairn India said.

Cairn discussing proposals with India on arbitration award

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) As many as 448 central sector in-frastructure projects have re-ported a cost overrun of over Rs 4.02 lakh crore as of February 21, 2021. The monthly Flash Re-port by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementa-tion said that 539 projects are running behind schedule.

“Total original cost of imple-mentation of the 1,739 proj-ects was Rs 22,18,210.29 crore and their anticipated comple-tion cost is likely to be Rs 26,20,618.44 crore, which re-flects overall cost overruns of Rs 4,02,408.15 crore (18.14 per cent of original cost),” it said.

The expenditure incurred on these projects till January

2021 is over Rs 12.29 lakh crore, which is 46.92 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.

“Out of the 1,739 projects, 12 projects are ahead of schedule, 247 are on schedule, 539 are delayed, 448 projects reported cost overrun and 209 projects reported both time and cost overrun with respect to their original project implementa-tion schedules,” it said.

The report however, noted that the number of delayed projects decreases to 401 if de-lay is calculated on the basis of latest schedule of completion. Further, for 941 projects neither the year of commissioning nor the tentative gestation period has been reported.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) The government may consid-er asset management and as-set reconstruction company model to monetise non-core assets of public sector enter-prises (PSEs).

AMC and ARC or a bad bank has been proposed for the banking sector in Budget 2021-22 to acquire, manage and turnaround bad loans.

The budget also talked about asset monetisation to unlock the true value of the assets lying with the government entities. The plan now is to create a special purpose ve-hicle (SPV) under the govern-ment route that could take the shape of an AMC/ARC and help maximise the value of the assets of the PSEs.

Assets may first be transfer

to the proposed SPV which will then devise a plan to im-prove them before finding a strategic buyer and complet-ing the transaction.

Speaking to IANS earlier, DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kan-ta Pandey had said that the SPV could look at monetising non-core assets of PSEs that are unable to undertake the work on their own and help

them realise better value for assets that are unutilised or underutilised or are just lying idle without generating any revenue. Asset monetisation is the process of creating new sources of revenue for the government and its entities by unlocking the economic value of unutilised or underutilised public assets. A public asset can be any property owned by

a public body, roads, airports, railways, stations, pipelines, mobile towers, transmission lines etc. or even land that re-mains unutilised.

The DIPAM secretary said that while the contours of the asset monetisation SPV is still to be worked out, it has asked all government bodies and PSEs to identify a list of assets that need to be monetised.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) After an incessant increase in petrol prices to new record high levels for the past 12 days, oil marketing companies (OMC) have kept the prices of the fuel unchanged across metros on Sunday.

In the past 12 days, petrol prices have increased in the range of Rs 3.2 per litre (Kol-kata) to Rs 3.63 a litre in Delhi.

On Sunday, price of the fuel in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata was at Rs 90.58, Rs 97.00, Rs 92.59, Rs 91.7 per litre, respectively, unchanged from the previous levels.

In the past few days, petrol and diesel prices increased with steep hikes, pinching the consumers harder, and draw-ing criticism for the govern-ment from several quarters along with the opposition.

The steepest hike in the past several months came on Sat-urday with OMCs increasing the price of petrol and diesel by 39 paisa and 37 paisa per li-tre respectively in the national.

On Sunday, diesel prices also were unchanged and in the national capital, it was at Rs 80.97 per litre.

In Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the fuel was sold at Rs 88.06, Rs 85.98 and Rs 84.56 per litre, respectively, all same as Saturday’s levels.

Across the country the surge in fuel prices off late has been in the range of 35-40 paisa per litre depending on the level of local taxes on the two petro-leum products. Premium pet-rol has crossed Rs 100 per litre mark in several cities of Raj-asthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra a few days back.

Mumbai, Feb 21 (IANS) As the Indian equity market goes on a consolidation mode, global markets along with the GDP data scheduled to be re-leased later in the week is like-ly to steer the domestic stock markets going ahead.

Vinod Nair, Head of Re-search at Geojit Financial Services, said that the market was largely in a consolidation phase throughout the week following weak global cues.

Bears took control of the markets across the globe as worries of increasing US Bond yield and inflation kept inves-tors’ mood gloomy, he said, adding that PSU banks out-performed during the week due to developments around privatisation, while the sector witnessed profit booking to-wards the end of the week.

“We expect the domestic market to continue follow-ing the global markets in the coming week due to lack of any major domestic events. The GDP data for the third quarter which is to be released towards the end of next week is expected to show signs of economic recovery adding positive momentum in Indian market,” he said.

The economy is expected to record positive growth for the October-December quarter after the 7 per cent contraction in the previous quarter.

As per the recent projec-tion by ICRA, India’s GDP is expected to record a year-on-year rise of 0.7 per cent in Q3FY21.

S. Ranganathan, Head of Re-search at LKP Securities noted

that that week ended Friday belonged to the PSU Bank In-dex which rose close to 11 per cent with Midcap state-run banks and non-life insurers posting huge gains.

“During the coming week we expect investor interest coming back to large banks as FPI flows this month of over Rs 24,000 crore reflects the appe-tite of foreign funds,” he said.

Deepak Jasani, Head of Re-tail Research at HDFC Secu-rities said that the optimism about the global economic recovery was shortlived this week as profit booking emerged at higher levels on February 16.

“Weakness in global markets on lingering pandemic con-cerns pushed against stronger economic data,” he said.

The Nifty and the Sensex fell by 1.2 per cent and 1.3 per cent respectively over the week. Markets ended in the red on four out of five trading days.

The Indian rupee on the other hand ended the week around 72.65 levels.

Sajal Gupta, Head, Forex and Rates, Edelweiss Securities: “It seems like RBI has slowed the pace of intervention and has given some strength to rupee. FII flows poured in though at a reduced pace. We expect ru-pee to trade with strong bias towards 72.40 with a range of 72.30 to 72.80.”

He, however, said that rising crude prices, trade deficit and high US treasury yields pose risk to the rupee rally and any rise in US yields beyond 1.33 levels can be a serious risk to global liquidity.

Petrol prices unchanged after rising over Rs 3 per

litre in 12 days

Global cues, GDP data to drive equities coming week

Mumbai, Feb 21 (IANS) Thomas Cook (India) plans to raise up to Rs 450 crore through preferential issue of Optionally Convertible Cu-mulative Redeemable Pref-erence Shares (OCCRPS) to Fairbridge Capital (Mauri-tius) Limited to the promot-er of the company

In a regulatory filing the company has said that the “Board of Directors of the company, at its meeting held today, has, inter alia, approved the issuance of up to 45,00,00,000 Optionally Convertible Cumulative Re-deemable Preference Shares of face value of Rs 10 each to Fairbridge Capital (Mauri-tius) Limited, the promoter of the company, through pri-

vate placement on a prefer-ential basis aggregating upto Rs 450 crore.” The issuance would however be subject to the approval of regula-tory or statutory authorities including the Reserve Bank of India and the sharehold-ers of the company at the forthcoming Extraordinary General Meeting.

Further, it said that as a result of the proposed is-sue, the board approved

the increase in the autho-rised preference share capi-tal from Rs 250 crore to Rs 500 crore and consequen-tial changes to the Capital Clause of the Memorandum of Association of the compa-ny. For the purpose of giving effect to the above issuance of OCCRPS, the board has authorised a committee to decide on various matters related to issuance of such OCCRPS.

Mumbai, Feb 21 (IANS) Nifty earnings are likely to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24.2 per cent over FY21-23, said an ICICI Direct report.

“Going forward, we ex-pect Nifty earnings to grow at 24.2 per cent CAGR over FY21E-23E. Using a bottom up approach and giving dis-count to target weighted av-erage PE, we now value the Nifty at 16,300 i.e. 22x P/E on FY23E EPS of Rs 740 with cor-responding Sensex target at

54,600,” it said.It noted that corporate

earnings gained momentum during the third quarter of FY21 as economic activity rebounded in the post-Covid unlocking era with optimism fuelled by the festive season.

The Q3FY21 earnings staged an impressive show and were broadly ahead of es-timates as corporates contin-ue to benefit from lower raw material costs and realised leaner cost structures, it said.

At the index level, excluding

the BFSI (banking and finan-cial industries and insurance) space, in Q3FY21, net sales declined 2.5 per cent YoY, primarily driven by double digit topline decline in the oil and gas domain amid muted

crude prices. Excluding oil and gas and banking space, Nifty topline posted growth of 10 per cent YoY.

Auto sector results were robust nearly all across the board particularly in relation

to margins, amid 10.5 per cent YoY growth in total sales volume at 72.8 lakh units, said the ICICI Direct report.

In the capital goods do-main, execution picked up pace sequentially with key highlight for the quarter be-ing robust order inflows. In the FMCG space, strong growth momentum contin-ued in Q3FY21 led by robust growth in rural regions sup-ported by significant increase in government spends post pandemic, it added.

Thomas Cook India plans to raise up to Rs 450 cr via preferential issue

Nifty earnings may grow at 24% CAGR during FY21-23

Indian HorizonMonday, February 22, 2021

Sports Indian HorizonMonday, February 22, 202111

Melbourne, Feb 21 (IANS) Serbia’s Novak Djokovic on Sunday dismantled Russia’s Daniil Medvedev in straight sets to win a record-extending ninth Australian Open title at the Rod Laver Arena.

The win moves world No 1 Djokovic, 33, within two of Swiss great Roger Federer and Spain’s Rafael Nadal’s record total of 20 major victories.

In a match that lasted just an hour and 53 minutes, Djokovic beat Medvedev 7-5, 6-2, 6-2. The Serbian quelled a brief rally from Medvedev in the third set, getting a break in the final game to win the title.For 25-year-old

Medvedev, this is the end of a 20-match winning streak that started in November 2020. This included a straight sets win over Djokovic himself at the ATP Finals in London. This was his second Grand Slam final,

having lost to Nadal at the 2019 US Open final.Djokovic was on the money from the start, breaking Medvedev in his opening service game. He then consolidated the break for a 3-0 lead before Medvedev fought back.

Melbourne, Feb 21 (IANS) Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek won their first Grand Slam doubles title together by comprehensively defeating defending champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury at the Australian Open on Sunday at the Rod Laver Arena.

Croatian Dodig and Slovakian Polasek beat Ram and Salisbury 6-3 6-4 winners at Rod Laver Arena, not facing a break point on and constantly applying pressure on their higher-seeded opponents.

It had to be particularly special for Polasek, who came out of retirement in 2018 after a back issue led to leg problems and forced

him out of the game. Two days ago, his partner gave birth to their second child, a daughter.

Polasek served out the contest with ease. He was the lone player of the quartet on court not to have lifted a

Grand Slam trophy in men’s doubles.

Ram and Salisbury were foiled in their bid to become the first repeat men’s doubles winners since Bob and Mike Bryan tallied three in a row from 2009-11.

Australian Open: Dodig, Polasek win men’s doubles title

161 RUN KNOCK IN 2ND TEST WAS VERY SATISFYING

TO ME: ROHIT SHARMA

Racing Team India finish 5th in their 1st Asian Le Mans Series

Adriatic Pearl boxing: Vinka, Sanamacha win gold medals

Hajilol, Sonika clinch National Cross Country titles

Bahrain signs host city contract for Asian Youth Para Games

Suryakumar, Kishan, Tewatia earn maiden India call-up for T20s; Pant, Bhuvi back

Clinical Djokovic clinches 9th Australian Open crown

Manama (Bahrain), Feb 21 (IANS) Preparations for the Bahrain 2021 Asian Youth Para Games took a big step forward when a delegation from the Asian Paralympic Committee (APC) visited Manama, Bahrain, met with members of the Local Organising Committee and took part in a ceremony to mark the formal

signing of the Host City Contract.Although preparations have continued behind the

scenes, the site visit and signing ceremony had been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. APC

President Majid Rashed and CEO Tarek Souei met Bahrain Paralympic Committee Chairman Shaikh Mohammed bin Duaij Al Khalifa and BPC Secretary General Ali Mohamed Al Majed to formally sign the Host City Contract and discuss the next phase of preparations for the Games scheduled to take place in early December 2021.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav and Rahul Tewatia on Saturday earned their maiden India call-up for next month’s five-match T20 series against England as the selectors rewarded them for their stupendous performances in the I P L . W i c k e t - k e e p e r batsman Rishabh Pant, all-rounder Axar Patel

and pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar also returned to a fresh-looking squad.The selectors named a 19-man squad for the series starting March 12

in Ahmedabad with an aim to try out new faces such as Kishan, Yadav and Tewatia in a World Cup year.All three had a stellar IPL though Yadav has formed the backbone of Mumbai Indians’ batting over the years.Questions were raised when Suryakumar Yadav did not make the team for the series in Australia but his long wait has finally ended.Kishan too had a

good IPL and has been in red hot form in white ball cricket. He got the call-up on a day when he smashed 173 off 93 balls for Jharkhand in the Vijay Hazare Trophy.

Tewatia, who plays for Rajasthan Royals and Haryana, had smashed West Indian Sheldon Cottrell for five sixes in an over in the IPL last year to pull off a stunning win for his team.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Karnataka’s Parasappa Madevappa Hajilol and Sonika of Haryana tamed the challenge to win the men’s and women’s 10km titles at the 55th National Cross Country Championships at the ATF Golf Meadows course in Dera Bassi, near Chandigarh, on Sunday.

Hajilol’s winning time was 31 minutes 13.21 seconds while Sonika clocked 37 minutes 09.53 seconds for the 10km route.

Hajilol, 25 who comes from Bijapur and trains in Dharwad, surprised more seasoned runners like Vikram Bangriya of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra’s steeplechaser Adesh Yadav. Bangriya was

second at 31 minutes 15.21 seconds while Yadav clocked 31 minutes 19.41 seconds to finish third.Railways distance runner Abhishek Pal and defending champion Anish Thapa Magar

of Services couldn’t keep pace with leading runners and finished down the ladder.

Since the 2km grassy course was quite challenging, Hajilol’s time of 31 minutes 13.21

seconds was less than a minute slower than Anish Thapa Magar’s time of 30 minutes 31.00 seconds clocked in January last year in Warangal.

Sonika, 21, ran a well-judged

pace to outpace her more experienced rivals in the last 200m of the race to take home the gold medal. Maharashtra’s Komal Jagdale was second with a time of 37 minutes 11.40 seconds while Nikita Raut finished third at 37 minutes 12.71 seconds.

Defending champion Kavita Yadav failed to keep pace with the leading bunch to finish fourth.

Services retained the men team’s title with 28 points while the Railways with 54 was second. The Madhya Pradesh team was third with 61 points.

The women’s team event saw a remarkable upset as Haryana defeated the Railways. Haryana with 24 narrowly beat Railways

who collected 26 points.Apart from senior group, races were also organised in under-20, under-18, under-16 in both boys and girls categories.

The results:Men 10km: Parasappa

Madevappa Halijol (Karnataka) 31:13.21; Vikram Bharatsingh Bangriya (Madhya Pradesh) 31:15.21; Adesh Yadav (Maharashtra) 31:19.41.

Team: Services 28 points; Railways 54; Madhya Pradesh 61.

Women 10km: Sonika (Haryana) 37:09.53; 2. Komal Chandra Jagdale (Maharashtra) 37:11.40; 3. Nikita Raut (Maharashtra) 37:12.71.

Team: Haryana 24; Railways 26; Maharashtra 34.

The four-match series currently stands level at 1-1 and now both

teams will lock horns in a pink-ball Test,

beginning February 24 at the Motera Stadium

Ahmedabad, Feb 21 (IANS) India batsman Rohit Sharma on Sunday said that the 161-run knock played by him in the second Test against England was very satisfying to him personally as it came under challenging circumstances.

The four-match series currently stands level at 1-1 and now both teams will lock horns in a pink-ball Test, beginning February 24 at the Motera Stadium.

In the first innings of the second Test, Rohit had gone on to play a knock of 161 as India posted 329 runs on the board. As a result of this knock, he also attained 14th position in ICC Test batsmen rankings.

The second Test pitch led to some sort of criticism from former players like Michael Vaughan and Mark Waugh and the duo termed the pitch as “sub-standard”.

“I have mentioned earlier as well that I would not rate any of my knocks or put one ahead of another one, every knock you play comes under different circumstances and situations.

All those knocks are very important, it was satisfying to play that 161-run knock in the second Test under pressure and get the team to a decent total in the first innings, it was very important from the team’s perspective.

Abu Dhabi, Feb 21 (IANS) Racing Team India ended its first Asian Le Mans Series campaign fifth in the overall championship standings. Narain Karthikeyan, Arjun Maini and Naveen Rao raced their ORECA 07 LMP2 car to a pair of fifth place finishes in the final two races of the season at Abu Dhabi's Yas Marina track.The results came on the back of the fifth

and fourth-placed finishes the team chalked up in the two season-opening races in Dubai.

Their fifth-placed finish ruled out any possibility of the team gaining automatic qualification to the prestigious 24 hours of Le Mans in June as it is reserved for the team that wins the Asian Le Mans series."Racing Team India is grateful to the

Asian Le Mans Series and the ACO. Organisers were extremely supportive of the team's effort and goals and welcomed it into the series with open arms," said the team in its statement.The fifth-placed finish is, however, an impressive feat considering it was the team's debut season at the Asian Le Mans series and it overcame significant obstacles in the

Abu Dhabi leg.The team ran into trouble even before the race started in Abu Dhabi as Karthikeyan was involved in a crash after an LMP3 car ahead of him spun. The team's LMP2-spec Oreca-07 prototype was left with significant damage but Asia Le Mans champions Algarve Pro Racing's support ensured that the team was able to carry out the repairs on time.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Budva, Montenegro, is proving to be a happy hunting ground for the Indian youth boxers as they won two more gold medals to take the country’s gold tally to three at the 30th Adriatic Pearl Tournament.

Vinka (60kg) and T. Sanamacha Chanu (75kg) finished atop the podium in the women’s category late on Saturday night.

Alfiya Pathan (81kg-plus) had won the first gold, also in the women’s section.In

all-Indian final, Sanamacha prevailed over Raj Sahiba

to win gold while Vinka defeated Moldova’s Kristna Kriper.

Indian team is on course to win three more gold medals as Lucky Rana notched up a 3-0 win against Uzbekistan’s Gulshoda Istamova in the last four-stages of women’s 64kg and set up a title clash with Finland’s Lia Pukkila.

Apart from Lucky, Babyrojisana Chanu (51kg) and Arundhati Choudhary (69kg) also entered the finals of their respective weight categories.

New Delhi, Feb 21 (IANS) Avtar Singh and Tulika Mann lost their opening round matches of the Tel Aviv Grand Slam judo in Tel Aviv on Saturday to end India’s poor outing in the competition.

Singh lost to Belarus’s Mikita Sviryd in the men’s 100kg group while Tulika lost to Ivana Maranic of Croatia in the women’s 78kg-plus category.Earlier on Thursday, the opening day of the

three-day competition, the Indian team made a good start, but found the going tough in the second round.

Vijay Yadav won his first round of the 60kg category against Israel’s Adam Jazan, but lost to Azerbaijan’s Davud Mammadsoy in the second. Mammadsoy eventually won gold in the 60kg.

In the 66kg category, Jasleen Singh Saini was off to a good start. He

defeated Spain’s Roman Perez in the first round, but lost in the second round to Israel’s Shmailov Baruch and bowed out of the competition.

In the women’s 48kg, Sushila Devi lost her opening round match to Portuguese Siderot Maria.

“Both Saini and Yadav collected 120 points while the other three were awarded 10 points because of first round defeats,” said team coach Jiwan Sharma.

Indian judokas have a poor outing in Tel Aviv Grand Slam

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ENTERTAINMENTIndian HorizonMonday, February 22 , 2021 12

PRIYANKA CHOPRA ANNOUNCES 'WE CAN BE HEROES'

SEQUEL

Priyanka Chopra Jonas says a sequel of her web film, We Can Be Heroes,

is in development.The actress took to Twitter

on Tuesday to share the update, claiming 44 million households watched the superhero film in the first four weeks of its release.

"Heroics Headquarters projection: 44 MILLION FAMILIES will have suited up for WE CAN BE HEROES in its first 4 weeks!! And... BREAKING NEWS: The Heroics are coming back for round two. Sequel is in development with @rodriguez and @Netflix," she wrote.

Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, the film is a spin-off of his "The Adventures Of Sharkboy And Lavagirl in 3-D" and the "Spy Kids" franchise.

Priyanka is seen as Ms. Granada, the leader of an organisation filled with superpowered children.

Her role comes with shades of grey.It follows the children of Earth's superheroes that have to take on alien invaders that have kidnapped their parents.

IANS

Bhumi Pednekar, who is a

climate warrior too, says she is dedicated to highlighting the seriousness of the climate crisis and its repercussions.

Now, the actress will call upon the young generation as part of Sony BBC Earth's Young Earth Champions initiative.

The nationwide contest aims at inspiring young minds of India to think about a better and a more sustainable future. Bhumi along with an expert will

judge this initiative."Young Earth Champions is offering a great platform to trigger exchange of creative ideas among kids, who have the power to bring about change.

I am looking forward to an encouraging participation from incredible, young talents and a stimulating discussion about a sustainable future," she added.Meanwhile, the actress has started shooting for comedy drama "Badhaai Do" along with Rajkummar Rao.

IANS

Banita Sandhu, who rose to fame from Shoojit

Sircar's romantic drama film, 'October' has tested COVID-19 positive.Banita was admitted to a private hospital in

BANITA SANDHU TESTS COVID-19 POSITIVE, REFUSES TO ENTER

INTO THE HOSPITAL!Kolkata as she refused to be treated in a government quarantine center. The actress was shooting for Kavita & Teresa in the city.

As per the sources she traveled on the same flight in which people from the United Kingdom were also travelling who were infected

with the new mutant coronavirus strain.

Courtesy : Santa Banta

ANIL KAPOOR : PEOPLE ARE EAGER TO WATCH

FILMS IN THEATRES

Anil Kapoor, who has projects

across genres lined up in 2021, hopes the year ahead is good for all, including the film fraternity.

Kapoor is currently garbnering good response and reviews for his role in "AK Vs AK", which released digitally and co-stars Anurag Kashyap.

Talking about the response to the Vikramaditya Motwane directorial, Kapoor told IANS: "When people like your film and your performance, you feel good. So, I am glad that people liked the film."On the industry

gradually opening up, he added: "There are few films that are made for the big screen only.There are a few films of mine that are going to

be released this year, so I hope audiences watch those films in theatres.I am sure about that because people are eager to watch films in

theatres. There are few films that give you the same joy on big screen and on OTT platforms, and 'AK Vs AK' is one of those films."

"Now that vaccine has also been approved by the government, so I pray that theatres will reopen with the same capacity as they used to.

I hope this year people watch films in theatres.

I have a positive approach to life and, God willing, everything will be fine.I definitely feel 2021 will be a great year for everyone including the film fraternity," he added.

Kapoor will next be seen in Karan Johar's historical drama "Takht", the comedy drama "Jug Jugg Jeeyo" and Sandeep Vanga Reddy's crime drama "Animal".

IANS

RANVEER SINGH POSTS PIC WITH

'BIWI NO.1' DEEPIKA PADUKONE

Ranveer Singh shared a romantic post of his actress wife Deepika Padukone, whom he lovingly tagged as Biwi No. 1,

Ranveer posted the picture on Instagram on Tuesday night, on the occasion of Deepika's birthday.In the image, Ranveer is seen hugging Deepika from behind and planting a kiss on her cheek."Biwi No.1 @deepikapadukone

#happybirthday," Ranveer wrote as caption.He also shared a childhood picture of Deepika, who turned 35 on Tuesday.Alongside the image, Ranveer wrote: "My jaan, my life, my gudiya…. Happy birthday!!!@deepikapadukone."The couple tied the knot in November 2018 at Lake Como, Italy. IANS

GO GET WHAT'S YOURSVARUN DHAWAN :

Varun Dhawan has shared his

mantra of success. He has urged everyone to go get what is theirs."Go get what's

yours," he wrote.Varun was recently seen in his digitally released film "Coolie No. 1", which also stars Sara Ali Khan.He will next be seen in "Jug Jugg Jeeyo".The film had an eventful stint during its recent Chandigarh outdoor schedule.

Shooting had to be temporarily halted after actors Neetu Kapoor, Varun Dhawan and director Raj Mehta tested Covid positive.

Shoot resumed after the actors and filmmakers recovered.

The next schedule of the film is expected to begin soon. The film also features Maniesh Paul and YouTube sensation Prajakta Kol in her Bollywood debut role.

IANS

Varun posted a picture on Instagram where he flaunts washboard abs in a shirtless pose, wearing black basketball shorts, against the backdrop of a bright blue sky and the ocean.

BHUMI PEDNEKAR :

CLIMATE CHANGE IS UPON US

"Climate change is upon us and it is real.

Through my initiative of Climate Warrior, I

diligently try to highlight the seriousness of the crisis and its

repercussions," Bhumi said.

SUNNY LEONE SHARES A HARD-HITTING ACTION BTS VIDEO FROM THE SETS OF 'ANAMIKA',

VIKRAM BHATT CALLS HER MAD!Sunny Leone has

started the shooting of Vikram Bhatt's project, 'Anamika' and especially for the venture, she flew from the USA amid the Coronavirus pandemic.

In the MX Player project, she will be seen portraying the role of a trained assassin along with Sonnalli Seygall.

Recently, the actress shared some BTS video on her social media and complimented her director with Tiger eyes.

Reverting to her post, Vikram Bhatt commented, "You are just mad mad."

Vikram Bhatt's action thriller project, 'Anamika' stars Sunny leone and Pyaar Ka Punchnama fame Sonnalli Seygall in the lead roles. In December, Vikram Bhatt announced

the project on his social media while captioning, "With the lovely ladies! Anamika is about two trained assassins and Imagine me with

a clapboard in the middle." The project is said to be a web-series that will premier on streaming service MX Player.

IANS

Sunny Leone shared a hilarious video of an action scene from sets of Anamika on Instagram.The actress performed the scene under the guidance of Vikram Bhatt and captioned the video, "Action shot with @vikrampbhatt Sir has the eye of the tiger and as you can see I'm having too much fun!! Lol but we got the shot!" Reverting to her post, Vikram Bhatt commented, "You are just mad mad."

RAJAN SHAHI HONOURS HIS FAVOURITE KAIRA, CALLS JANUARY

6 AS KAIRA DAY!

Rajan Shahi is extremely

fond of the lead pair Shivangi Joshi and Mohsin Khan, popularly called Kaira by their fans, of his popular show "Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai".

And the show is going to have a tragic twist in the storyline as Shivangi's

character Naira might die in the January 6 episode leaving Kartik alone.

Though it is still a suspense whether Naira will come back or not, the ace producer has honoured his favourite on-screen jodi by calling January 6 as Kaira day.And to announce that

he organised a special event. While Mohsin and Shivangi took the centre stage and gave an impromptu dance performance, it was Rajan, Shivangi and Mohsin doing the signature SRK pose that got our attention.

In fact, Rajan also shared how it started in Greece when the famous trio did it for the first time, and since then they have always done it before something big in the show.

Shivangi and Mohsin also shared their favourite Kaira moments and the former called their on-screen wedding sequence as her most favourite one. She said it is one of the best memories both on and off-screen.

Courtesy : Santa Banta

AKSHAY KUMAR, KRITI SANON, JACQUELINE START

'BACHCHAN PANDEY' SHOOT

Akshay Kumar along with actresses Kriti Sanon and

Jacqueline Fernandez began shooting for their upcoming film Bachchan Pandey in Jaisalmer on Wednesday.Shoot will continue till March. The team is expected to shoot at places like the Gadisar Lake and Jaisalkot.

Updating about the film, trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted: "BACHCHAN PANDEY... Subhan and Sufyan - #SajidNadiadwala's sons give clap for first shot of #BachchanPandey. Shoot starts in #Jaisalmer. Stars #AkshayKumar, #ArshadWarsi, #JacquelineFernandez, #KritiSanon, #PrateikBabbar and #PankajTripathi... Directed by #FarhadSamji."In the

Farhad Samji directorial, Akshay plays a gangster who aspires to be an actor, while Kriti plays a journalist who wishes to be a director. The film also stars Arshad Warsi who plays the role of Akshay Kumar's friend.Meanwhile, Akshay Kumar's upcoming

releases include Rohit Shetty's cop action drama Sooryavanshi and a spy thriller titled Bell Bottom directed by Ranjit Tiwari. While Akshay romances Katrina Kaif in Sooryavanshi, Bell Bottom features Vaani Kapoor in the female lead.

IANS