25-11-2015 - The Hindu - Shashi Thakur

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Delhi, wednesday, november 25, 2015

Printed at Chennai, Coimbatore, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Madurai, Noida, Visakhapatnam, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Vijayawada, Mangaluru, Tiruchirapalli, Kolkata, Hubballi, Mohali, Allahabad and Malappuram

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www.thehindu.in ● Regd. DL(ND)-11/6110/2006-07-08 ● RNI No. TNENG/2012/49940 ● ISSN 0971 - 751X ● Vol. 5 ● No. 280 ● CITYEDITION ● 20 Pages ● Rs. 8.00

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureauof Investigation plans to putformer television executive Pe-ter Mukerjea, who was arrestedfor the alleged murder of hisstep-daughter Sheena Bora,through lie-detection tests ashe has been giving contradicto-ry statements.

“Peter, who has beenbrought to the national Capitalfor further interrogation, is notcooperating in the investiga-tions. On several issues, he hasbeen giving evasive replies,”said a CBI official on Tuesday.

While seeking his custody,the agency hinted at a possiblefinancial angle as the motivebehind Sheena’s murder. Hadshe got married to his son Ra-hul, it would have financial im-plications for both Peter andIndrani Mukerjea.

In the charge-sheet filedagainst Indrani, her formerhusband Sanjeev Khanna anddriver Shyamwar Rai, the CBIalleged that after Sheena’s dis-appearance, Rahul made sever-

al efforts to trace her. He grewsuspicious as his father Peterand Indrani had been givingcontradictory statements on

Sheena’s whereabouts.Interestingly, in the CBI

charge-sheet, Peter is not in thelist of those who were misin-formed by Indrani on Sheena’swhereabouts. She told Rahul,her daughter Vidhie and otherfriends and relatives of Sheenathat she was in the UnitedStates and was leading a happylife.

The charge-sheet states: Pe-ter, Indrani’s son Mikhail, andhis grandparents also keptquiet about it and did not takeany action. Rahul attempted tolodge a police case, but to noavail.

Suspecting that somethingwas amiss, Rahul started re-cording his conversations withPeter and Indrani, and alsosaved text messages from themon his mobile phone. The emailexchanges between him, his fa-ther and Indrani, recorded con-versations — to which Indra-ni’s voice samples havematched — and the messageshave been included asevidence.

Call records have revealedthat Peter was in constanttouch with Indrani before andafter Sheena’s murder on April24, 2012.

Peter Mukerjea in a Mumbaicourt on Monday. PHOTO: PTI

Peter giving contradictory statements: CBIDEVESHK. P ANDEY

MUMBAI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is likely tomake Kajal Sharma, IndraniMukerjea’s secretary, a statewitness in the Sheena Boramurder case, sources said onTuesday.

Indrani, her ex-husbandSanjeev Khanna and her driverShyamvar Rai were recentlycharge-sheeted by the CBI.Indrani’s husband Peter Mukerjea,who was also arrested, iscurrently in CBI custody.

CBI sources said that onIndrani’s instructions, Sharma

had forged Sheena’s signature onher lease agreement andresignation letter. She alsoopened a new email account inSheena’s name to create animpression that the latter wasalive after she was killed.

Indrani secretary may be made witnessG AUTAMS. MENGLE

CRUCIAL TO EXPOSINGINDRANI | PAGE 13

NEW DELHI: The Arvind Kejriwal

government’s inquiry reporthas virtually blamed the Lieu-tenant-Governor’s rule in Del-hi last year for the HighCourt’s order against CAG au-dit of discoms.

The government’s probe re-port, accessed by The Hindu,has revealed that after the pre-vious AAP governmentpushed for the CAG audit of discoms in 2014, the case was“not properly” represented bythe L-G during the year-longPresident’s rule in the Capital.To make a solid case in the Su-preme Court, the governmentis now planning to rope inprominent lawyers such asGopal Subramaniam and L.Nageswara Rao.

The inquiry conducted bygovernment’s senior standingcounsel, Rahul Mehra, made astartling revelation about themanner in which senior law-

yers and counsels represent-ing the government fought thecase in the court. “Their at-

tendance was registered in theHigh Court’s records, but noneof them actually turned up toargue the case. This obviouslymade the case weak. The gov-ernment now has to find outwhether these lawyers werepaid,” said Mr. Mehra.

Even the High Court had re-marked about the absence of lawyers representing the gov-ernment. “Neither the seniorcounsel who addressed argu-ments for GNCTD nor any of

the counsels briefing himwere present on any of the ea r-lier dates of hearing, when the

other counsels had addressedarguments,” observed thecourt in its order dated Octo-

ber 30.Sources said the Power De-

partment has now passed anote to Power Minister Sa-tyendar Jain requesting him todispense with the services of the lawyers who were present-ing the case for thegovernment.

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Jain said the government’s“worst fears have come true inthe report”. “The conclusionhas two points. Representa-tion of the government duringthat time was inadequate andineffective,” he said.

The report also highlightshow the misrepresentationhappened primarily duringthe L-G’s rule. Only two hear-ings took place during the re-gime of the presentgovernment.

On November 2, after theHigh Court quashed the AAP

government’s order for CAGaudit of discoms, the govern-ment ordered the probe.

The government’s worst fearshave come true, says PowerMinister Satyendar Jain

Case against discoms weakenedduring L-G’s rule, says AAP reportS WETA GOSWAMI

NEW DELHI: The juvenile convict-

ed in the December 16 gang-rape case is a “potential rapistand murderer” posing a threatto the life and liberty of com-mon people in society, fear theparents of the victim.

The juvenile, now a 20-year-old adult, is set to walk freefrom the Majnu Ka Tila shelterhome next month at the end of his three-year sentence.

In a complaint to the Nation-al Human Rights Commission,the parents of the girl who wasbrutally gang-raped and mur-dered in Delhi on December16, 2012, have expressed appre-hension that the boy, who wasreportedly the most brutalamong all the offenders, couldrepeat the crime.

“The rate of recidivism(committing crimes again) isfairly high,” stated the com-plaint, while requesting theCommission to make a recom-

mendation to the Union gov-ernment to prepare a plan toprotect citizens from such de-

linquent juveniles after theirrelease and also strengthenlaws on the subject.

An NHRC spokespersonsaid on Tuesday that the vic-tim's parents met the Commis-sion's acting chairperson, Jus-tice Cyriac Joseph, last weekand submitted the complaintwhile laying emphasis onevolving a mechanism to keepa strict check on such juvenileconvicts.

The complainants cited theSex Offender Registration andNotification Act, which oper-ates in countries such as theU.S. and Canada. They calledfor enactment of a similar lawin India and referred to theirrepresentation made to the

Union Home Ministry in thisconnection.

The Commission has ob-

served that the parents of thegang-rape victim had under-gone extreme agony and the

fears expressed by them need-ed to be looked into.

It has issued notices to theDelhi Chief Secretary, the Po-lice Commissioner and theUnion Home Secretary, callingfor reports in the matter withintwo weeks.

The Commission also issuedsome specific directions, ask-ing the Chief Secretary to in-form it if any pre-release andpost-release plan under the Ju-venile Justice (Care and Pro-tection of Children) Rules,2007, had been prepared in thecase of the juvenile.

The Chief Secretary will al-so inform whether the juvenilehas recently been subjected topsychological and psychiatricassessment for ascertaininghis mental health. The UnionHome Secretary has been di-rected to inform the Commis-sion about the action, if any,

taken on the representationsubmitted by thecomplainants.

Juvenile in Dec. 16 gang-rape case athreat to society, say victim’s parentsMOHAMMED IQBAL The Union government has

been urged to prepare a

plan to pro tect citizensfrom such delinquent juveniles after their release

NEW DELHI: A person cannotclaim the names of a holy or re-ligious book as a trademark forhis goods or services, the Su-preme Court has held.

“The name of a religiousbook cannot become the sub-ject matter of monopoly for anindividual ... There are manyholy and religious books likethe Koran, the Bible, the GuruGranth Sahib, the Ramayan,etc., to name a few. The answerto the question as to whetherany person can claim the nameof a holy or religious book as atrademark for his goods or ser-vices marketed by him is clearly‘No’,” the Supreme Court said.

The recent judgment deliver-ed by a Bench of Justices Ran-jan Gogoi and R.K. Agrawalcame on a dispute regarding aPatna-based trader, Lal BabuPriyadarshi, who applied for atrademark by the name ‘Ra-

mayan’ for his incense sticksand perfumeries.

Ramayan cannot be anyone’s trademark: SC

K RISHNADASR AJAGOPAL

CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

EMPOWER— On page 7

Mamata accusesNDA government of bias in flood relief

Page 9

Ahead of wintersession, Venkaiah tochair all-party meeting

2

Congress wrestsRatlam Lok Sabhaseat from BJP

Page 12

India will issue rupeebonds, Narendra Modisays in Singapore

Page 15

NEW THEATRE Strikes against Islamic State suffer setback as two nations get into a stand-off

ISTANBUL: Turkish fighter jetson patrol near the Syrian bor-der on Tuesday shot down aRussian warplane that Tur-

key said had violated its air-space, a long-feared escala-tion that could further strainrelations between Russia andthe West.

Turkish Prime MinisterAhmet Davutoglu orderedthe Foreign Ministry to con-sult with NATO and the Unit-ed Nations over this episode,his office said in a statement,without elaborating. NATOannounced that it would holdan emergency meeting inBrussels later on Tuesday todiscuss the episode.

In his first remarks on theincident, Russian PresidentVladimir Putin confirmedthat an F-16 Turkish fighterjet had shot down the SukhoiSu-24 with an air-to-air mis-sile. But he insisted that theRussian jet had been in Syrianairspace at the time and hadnever threatened Turkey’sterritory.

‘Stab in the back’

Mr. Putin, speaking slowlyand clearly angry before a

meeting with King AbdullahII of Jordan in Sochi, Russia,said the episode would have“serious consequences forRussian-Turkish relations”,but did not elaborate. Hecalled the shooting down of the Russian jet a “stab in theback” by those who “abet”terrorism, and he accusedTurkey of aiding the IslamicState by helping it sell its oil.

As Mr. Putin spoke, credi-ble reports were emergingfrom rebel forces in Latakiaprovince, where the Russianjet went down, that rebelspossibly wielding TOW anti-

tank missiles and other weap-ons had shot down a Russianhelicopter sent to the sceneof the crash to look for survi-vors. There was no officialconfirmation from Russia,and state-run television newscited only foreign reports.

The Turkish military didnot identify the countrywhich owned the plane, butsaid in a statement on its web-site that Turkish pilots firedonly after repeated warningsto the other warplane. Turkeyreleased a map that it saidshowed that the plane, flyingeast, was shot down as it tran-

sited a narrow finger of Turk-ish land less than three kilo-metres wide that juts downinto Syria.

A Turkish government offi-cial told Reuters that Ankarabelieved the Russian pilotsejected from the jet and werealive. But a Russian Generalconfirmed that one of the pi-lots was dead. — The New

York Times News Service

and Agencies

Putin warns ofseriousconsequences

BALL OF FIRE: This video grab shows a burning Russian fighter jet after i t was shot downnear the Turkish-Syrian border at Hatay on Tuesday. — PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Turkey shoots down Russian plane for ‘violating’ airspace

DOWNING OF JET MAYFURTHER WORSEN SYRIANCONFLICT; U.S., FRANCE TOSTEP UP STRIKES | PAGE 14

NEW DELHI: Escalating ten-sions following the Paris at-tacks which left 130 deadfound an echo in the Su-preme Court and pouredcold water on the efforts of a56-year-old French womanfor an interim release fromTihar jail on healthgrounds.

Marie Emmanuelle Ver-

hoeven, accused of murder-ing a Chilean senator in aterror strike in 1991, wasserved a blow on Tuesdaywhen the court refused herplea point-blank. Making apoint that the court couldnot be seen to be soft on aperson accused of terroristactivities in another coun-try, Justice T.S. Thakur toldcounsel T.R. Andhyarujinaand Ramni Taneja that thecourt would hear Ms. Ver-hoeven’s case fully and withcare, but “we are not readyto release her now”.

She was arrested on Feb-ruary 17, 2015, in Uttar Pra-desh on an Interpol RedCorner Notice while enter-ing India through Nepal.She moved the court aga-inst any attempt to extraditeher to Chile. Following thecourt’s emphatic ‘No’, her

lawyers were confrontedwith its alarm at the world’svulnerability to terror.

We cannot besoft on terroraccused, saysapex courtK RISHNADASR AJAGOPAL


NEW DELHI: India’s strategy atthe Paris Climate Changesummit will be to work withemerging economies andpress the developed world toconcede that responsibilityfor cutting carbon emissionsafter 2020 cannot be shared

equally by rich and poornations.Two major issues that New

Delhi will focus on at theConference of the Parties(CoP) to the UN FrameworkConvention on ClimateChange (UNFCCC) are failedambitions on transferringlow carbon technologies tothe developing world, and thelack of support for a plan tofund mitigation and adapta-tion efforts.

The UN Convention onClimate Change has followedthe principle of common butdifferentiated responsibili-ties (CBDR), reflected in theKyoto Protocol and rein-forced last year at Lima. Un-der this, poor countries werenot required to cut emissions.India is emphasising thisagain, informed sources inthe Ministry of Environment

and Forests said, and de-manding that developing na-tions be allowed greaterroom in cutting emissions be-yond 2020, as they seek to

eliminate poverty throughfast-paced economic growth.

Low per capita emissions

The Modi government isapproaching the CoP with theview that the domestic ac-tions proposed under the In-tended Nationally Deter-mined Contributions(INDCs) submitted to theUNFCCC are truly progres-sive. National per capitaemissions are very low at 1.56tonnes carbon dioxide equiv-alent (about a tenth of some

developed nations), and In-dia’s share of cumulativeglobal emissions only 3 percent.

Given the large green cover

in the country, these emis-sions are already accountedfor in terms of absorption of greenhouse gases. One inde-pendent assessment of theINDC recently described In-dia’s offer as exceeding its fairshare.

Yet, there is a concerted at-tempt to bring India underpressure on the eve of theCoP, including by the UnitedStates, to paint the country as‘obstructionist’. “This is un-fair, uncalled for and deliber-ate,” an official said, pointing

out that the UNFCCC hadwelcomed the INDC submit-ted by India.

New Delhi to highlight

commitment toprogressive INDCs

India to press for equity atclimate talks despite pressure

G. A NANTHAKRISHNAN


MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Film starAamir Khan found himself atthe centre of a raging contro-versy on the issue of toler-ance on Tuesday with saf-fron parties attacking himfor stoking “fear” and tellinghim to “go to Pakistan” if hefelt insecure in the country.

But parties at the otherend of the spectrum defend-ed the star actor, saying hewas only reflecting the pre-vailing mood in India.

“He was a celebrated actortill now. But now it seemsthat we handed over milk toa snake. If he doesnot want to stayhere, he can go toPakistan,” Maha-rashtra Environ-ment Minister andsenior Shiv Senaleader Ram-das Kadamsaid.

At an event in New Delhion Monday, the actor said hewas alarmed at the rise in in-tolerance over the past six toeight months and his wifeand film-maker, Kiran Rao,had wondered if they shouldrelocate to another country.

“Kiran and I have lived allour lives in India. For thefirst time, she said should wemove out of India? That’s adisastrous and big statementfor Kiran to make to me. Shefears for her child,” he said.

Congress vice-presidentRahul Gandhi said: “Insteadof branding all those whoquestion the governmentand Modi ji [Prime MinisterNarendra Modi] as unpatri-otic, anti-national or moti-vated, the governmentshould reach out to peopleand understand what’s dis-

turbing them.”

Aamir Khan can go toPakistan, says Shiv Sena

A LOK DESHPANDE

& NISTULA HEBBAR

NEW DELHI: Union FinanceMinister Arun Jaitley said onTuesday that he was willingto reach out to the Congresson the Goods and ServicesTax (GST) Bill, but addedthe party that ruled India foralmost half-a-century mustnot pursue a model thatwould create a defective taxregime.

The government is keen

on getting the Constitution(Amendment) Bill passed inthe winter session of Parlia-ment that begins on Thurs-day so as to meet its April2016 target date for rollingout the indirect tax regime.

“It would be unfair to thecountry to impose, in thename of compromise, a de-fective GST,” Mr. Jaitley saidin his valedictory address atan annual event of Asso-cham here.

Willing to reachout to Congresson GST: Jaitley

V IKASDHOOT


SRINAGAR: Reflecting growingsupport for militants, protes-ters unfurled the Pakistaniflag on a wall of the ancestralhouse of Chief Minister MuftiMuhammad Sayeed duringthe funeral procession of twoHizbul Mujahideen militantsin south Kashmir’s Bijbeharaarea.

Foggy and chilly weatherfailed to stop around 5,000

people from gathering at the‘Marriage House’ park, recent-ly inaugurated by the Chief Minister in his hometown Bij-behara, 48 km south of Srina-gar, in the morning.

Funeral of two Hizbul mili-tants -- Adil Sheikh and Tan-veer Bhat -- out of the threekilled in the Ashmuqam areain Anantnag district on Mon-day afternoon, was held in thepark with people raising pro-freedom slogans. Another fu-neral was held on the outskirtsof Bijbehara for the third mili-tant, Sartaj Ahmad Lone.

Pak. flag hoistedon Mufti’sancestral housePEERZADA A SHIQ

PARTIESRALLY AROUNDAAMIR | PAGE 13



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CITY 2 | THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015

NOIDA/DELHI

Women still feel unsafe in DelhiYears after the December 2012 gang-rape, women still feel unsafein the city, observed a combination of six studies brought togetherby the Institute of Human Development (IHD). >>Pg 4

Low redressal rate mars Swachh Delhi appTechnical glitches like 5,000 complaints getting registered under thesame phone number, and low redressal rates have dogged theSwachh Delhi app in the first week after it was launched. >>Pg 5

ENGLISH:

SPECTRE:PVR (Plaza, Rivoli, Priya, Saket,Citywalk, Naraina, Vikaspuri, Prashant Vihar, EDM,Mahagun, Opulent), DT (Saket, Shalimar Bagh,Vasant Kunj), Satyam (Patel Nagar, Janakpuri).

HINDI:

SPECTRE (New Release - Hindi): Delite Diamond,PVR (Plaza, Rivoli, Priya, Saket, Citywalk, Naraina,Vikaspuri, Prashant Vihar, EDM), Satyam (PatelNagar, Janakpuri, Nehru Place), DT (Saket,Shalimar Bagh, Vasant Kunj), Movie Time (RajaGarden, Pitampura), Wave (Raja Garden, Noida,Kaushambi), Spice (Noida), M Cinemas.Mr. X (New Release: Emraan Hashmi, SushilPandey, Tanmay Bhat, Gurmeet Choudhary): PVR(Saket, Citywalk, Naraina, Vikaspuri, PrashantVihar), DT (Saket, Shalimar Bagh, Vasant Kunj),Wave (Raja Garden, Noida, Kaushambi), FUN (MotiNagar, Pitampura), BIG (Odeon, Vaishali, Noida), ),Satyam (Patel Nagar, Janakpuri, Nehru Place), SRSCinemas, JAM Shipra, Spice (Noida), Inox and QCinemas (Faridabad).

PREM RATAN DHAN PAYO: (Salman Khan,Sonam Kapoor): Delite, Golcha, Shiela, Vishal,Samrat, Aakash, Milan, Ritz, Gagan, Seble, EroxOne, Supreme, Amba, Cinemax, G3S (Rohini), PVR(Plaza, Rivoli, Priya, Saket, Citywalk, Naraina,Vikaspuri, Prashant Vihar, EDM, Mahagun,Opulent), M2K (Rohini, Pitampura), Movie Time(Raja Garden, Pitampura), DT (Saket, ShalimarBagh, Vasant Kunj), FUN , Satyam (Patel Nagar,Janakpuri, Nehru Place), BIG (Odeon, Vaishali,Kaushambi, Noida), Wave (Raja Garden, Noida,Kaushambi), SRS Cinemas, Spice (Noida), MCinemas, MMX, JAM Shipra, M4U, SM World,Galaxie, Star X (Vaishali), Movie Palace, MovieMagic, Chaudhary (Ghaziabad), Movie World andSilver City (Ghaziabad), Inox and Q Cinemas(Faridabad).(BOOKING ENQUIRIES: PVR 51513391; Spice Gold 012043890000; Satyam Cinemas 25797385;Delite 23272903; Wave 51832222)

CINEMA

NEW DELHI: It was a pleasant day in Delhi fol-lowing a foggy morning with the maximumand minimum temperatures settling with-in normal levels for this time of the year.

“The maximum temperature was re-corded at 26 degrees Celsius while the min-imum settled at 11 degrees Celsius, bothnormal for this time of the year,” a MeT of-ficial said. The weatherman has predictedpartly cloudy sky for tomorrow with possi-bility of shallow fog in some areas.— PTI

Foggy morning in the city

NEW DELHI: Over the past fewdays, a campaign on socialmedia has gone viral withwomen posting photos of themselves holding a posterthat reads “happy to bleed”.

This campaign was in responseto a comment by a temple chief that rose the debate about al-lowing women who are men-struating to enter temples. Thecomment has opened up a de-bate on gender equality onlineand on Tuesday evening in theCapital, an exhibition of art-work by German artist Kathari-na Kakar was inaugurated thatdeals with gender issues facingIndian society and seeks to fur-ther carry forward the debateof gender equality inside thewalls of the gallery and outsideas well.

Katharina says that throughher installation titled 'Crossingthe Lakshmana Rekha: Shakti,Sensuality, Sexuality' shewants to show how Indian so-ciety has inherited a culturethat had a vibrant debate about

sexuality but in modern timesthat debate has been silencedas women are not allowed toexpress themselves freely. Shehopes that through her art, adebate will be kick-started andsociety will be able to givespace to those women who areprotecting their individualityand leading a life that is differ-ent from what the society ex-pects them to.

Katharina in her debut solo

show of mixed media installa-tions and drawings that openedat the Visual Arts Gallery, IndiaHabitat Centre uses chillies,spices, coir, wax, condoms,copper, clay, dried fish and ahost of other discarded prod-ucts to bring out her themes of rape, female foeticide, violenceand abuse. Katharina has beenliving in India since 2003 andstudied Comparative Religion,Anthropology and Indian Art

History at the Free University,Berlin and is using her educa-tional background to interpretIndian society through her artand writings.

The central piece of her dis-play is the installation ‘Cross-ing the Lakshmana Rekha’

which is created out of waxbody parts. “My installationconsists of a large empty circle,filled with rose petals, and sev-eral hundred wax body parts(of my own body) placed be-yond the line drawn by Laksh-mana. The installation not onlyrefers to women’s vulnerabilityin public space, but also to theissue of public and privatespace and the growing visibili-ty of women in that space,” saysthe artist.

Katharina also makes men-tion of the “Nirbhaya rapecase” in a floor installation of wooden items from a tradition-al metal workshop and copperrod. Through this work, sheseeks to depict the aggressiontowards women, who cross in-to public space, which in Indiais culturally a “male space”.

The exhibition is on at the India International Centre tillNovember 30.— PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Beyond the Lakshmana Rekha for gender equality J AIDEEPDEO BHANJ

NEW DELHI: Winners of a photoand essay competition on cli-mate change, organised by the

European Union in associ-ation with The Hindu Centrefor Politics and Public Policy,were felicitated in the Capitalon Tuesday.

The winners of “My ClimateMy Future” voiced out theirthoughts about the effects of climate change in India, needfor clean development agendaand measures that are beingtaken or could be taken totackle the impact in words aswell as photographs.

The awards were givenaway by Ambassador of theEuropean Union Tomasz Ko-zlowski, Environment Direc-torate-General, EuropeanCommission Daniel CallejaCrespo and former Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, and mem-ber of the board of manage-ment of The Hindu Centre for

Politics and Public Policy, N.Ravi. The three students whoemerged as winners were--Manalika Borgohain from Ja-waharlal Nehru University,Delhi, Jerry George Thomasfrom SSN College of Engineer-ing, Chennai, and Jayasuryafrom the Tata Institute of So-cial Sciences, Hyderabad.

Winners of the essay com-

petition have also won them-selves a study tour to Europefor a week.

Speaking at the felicitationceremony, Mr. Tomasz Ko-zlowski said: “We were im-pressed by the logic and pas-sion of the argumentsexpressed by the participatingstudents. If their participationin this competition is any indi-

cation of the commitment andpurpose with which the nextgeneration is going to tacklethe issues of environment andclimate change in India, it au-

gurs well not only for thiscountry but for the world.”

Describing the response tothe essay contest as highly sat-isfying and encouraging, Mr.Ravi, said: “The contest hadachieved its two purposes of creating awareness of globalchallenges posed by climatechange and sustainable devel-opment, and also getting asense of how deeply theyounger generation felt aboutthe issue.”

Winners of the photo con-test were Supriya Biswas andDeepak Kumar for the 'Cli-mate Photo Jury Prize' andKirti Sarbalia and WagishSharma for the 'Climate PhotoVoter's Choice' prize. SupriyaBiswas also won the 'JuryChoice-Honorary Mention'award.

It was organised by the EU in association with The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy

Winners of the competition along with Ambassador of theEuropean Union Tomasz Kozlowski, Environment Directorate-General, European Commission, Daniel Calleja Crespo andformer Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, N. Ravi.—P HOTO: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

‘My Climate My Future’ winners felicitated

K RITIKA SHARMA SEBASTIAN



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| 3THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER25, 2015

NOIDA/DELHI

CITY

Published by N. Ram at Kasturi Buildings, 859 & 860, Anna Salai, Chennai-600002 and Printed by S. Ramanujam at HT Media Ltd. Plot No. 8, Udyog Vihar, Greater Noida Distt. Gautam Budh Nagar, U.P. 201306, on behalf of KASTURI & SONS LTD., Chennai-600002. Editor: Malini Parthasarathy (Responsible for selection of news under the PRB Act).

Disclaimer:Readers are requested to verify &make appropriate enquiries to satisfythemselves about the veracity of an adver-tisement before responding to any published inthis newspaper. Kasturi & Sons Limited, thePublisher & Owner of this newspaper, does notvouch for the authenticity of any advertisementor advertiser or for any of the advertiser’s pro-ducts and/or services. In no event can theOwner, Publisher, Printer, Editor, Director/s,Employees of this newspaper/company be heldresponsible/liable in any manner whatsoever forany claims and/or damages for advertisementsin this newspaper.

D E L H I

Nov 25, Wed Nov 26, Thu Nov 27,Fri

RISE 06 51 SET 17 26 RISE 06 52 SET 17 25 RISE 06 53 SET 17 25

RISE 17 13 SET 05 50 RISE 18 06 SET 06 55 RISE 19 02 SET 07 57

Exhibition: “Ray of Hope” - anexhibition on the importanceof education at American Cen-ter, 24, Kasturba GandhiMarg, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Exhibition: “Autumn Dew” - agroup show of paintings andsculptures by artists fromJharkhand and West Bengal atLalit Kala Akademi, RabindraBhavan, Copernicus Marg,Mandi House, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

Art: “Ascension: An Ode to Ex-pression and Movement” - artshow by Artist Rashmi SikandYadav at Open Palm CourtGallery, India Habitat Centre(IHC), Lodhi Road, Near Air-force Bal Bharati School, 10a.m.-6 p.m.

Art: “Crossing the Lakshmana

Rekha: Shakti, Sensuality,Sexuality” - solo art show byKatharina Kakar at Visual ArtsGallery, India Habitat Centre(IHC), Lodhi Road, Near Air-force Bal Bharati School, 10a.m.-7 p.m.

Music:Sarod recital by MallarRakahit at Habitat World, In-dia Habitat Centre (IHC), 7p.m.

Screening: “La CommareSecca (The Grim Reaper)” -film screening as part of “Dou-ble Bill” Series at the ItalianEmbassy Cultural Institute,50-E, Chandragupta Marg,Chanakyapuri, 6:30 p.m.

(Mail your listings for this co-lumn at [email protected])

DELHI TODAY

NEW DELHI: The game will carryon, but questions on how theFeroz Shah Kotla cricketground has been allowed tofunction for years without ba-sic clearances was once againhighlighted on Tuesday whenthe Congress demanded an in-quiry into the issue.

The ground, run by the Delhiand District Cricket Associ-ation, was allowed to host theIndia-South Africa match onDecember 3 by the High Courtlast week. The court orderedthe South Delhi MunicipalCorporation to issue a provi-sional occupancy certificate tothe DDCA to facilitate thegame.

But, the SDMC’s lawyer toldthe court that the re was no pro-vision to grant provisional oc-cupancy certificates under theBuilding Bye-Laws.

On Tuesday, the Leader of the Opposition in the SDMC,Farhad Suri, demanded an in-quiry, alleging wrongdoing onthe part of the BJP-led civicbody. “The corporation’s ownlawyer and officials have saidthere is no provision to grant

such a certificate. Then, why

didn’t they appeal against theorder as it is against the DelhiMunicipal Corporation Act,”Mr. Suri told the StandingCommittee at a meeting.

He added that these develop-ments showed the “doublestandards” of the SDMC as“provisional occupancy certifi-cates from 2005 have been is-sued without any directionsfrom a court”.

The DDCA had applied for acompletion certificate in 2010,but it was rejected as the stadi-um had not obtained NOCsfrom the Delhi Fire Service, theUnion Government’s Land andDevelopment Office and thecorporation’s Property Tax De-partment, and had not demol-ished the unauthorised struc-ture that had been booked.

The civic body and DDCAhad an ongoing case in the HCregarding property tax dues.While that was being ad-dressed, the SDMC was or-dered to issue provisional oc-cupancy certificates onOctober 3, 2011, May 1, 2014,September 30, 2014, and onApril 9 this year. Each time, theDDCA had been asked to com-plete the formalities, but had

failed to do so.

Congress demands inquiryD AMININ ATH

NEW DELHI: The paintingadorning the drawing roomwall at the Solanki family’sresidence in Outer Delhi’s

Pooth Kalan village bearstestimony to the unpredict-ability of life.

Five days after six-year-old Akshita presented thatspecial painting to her fatherSachin on his 33rd birthday,the family performed thelast rites of both.

On Tuesday, a day afterthe father-daughter duo,along with four others, diedin a chopper crash in Vaish-no Devi, their bodies werebrought to the Capital.

The deaths leave behindmany questions for the fam-ily, and in particular its patri-arch Jagdish Solanki whowas present at the spot of theaccident and saw two gener-ations of his family erasedwithin a span of a minute.His questions are to himself as well as the shrine author-ities.

“What if it was me? I andSachin’s father-in-law (alsonamed Jagdish) were toboard that chopper but be-cause of our combinedweight crossing the maxi-

mum weight limit that wasset, my son decided to gowith his daughter. In a flash,

we saw the chopper comingdown and before we couldunderstand anything, I sawthe charred bodies of both,”said Mr. Solanki.

The other members who

had gone for pilgrimage tothe holy site in Jammu andKashmir included Sachin’s

wife Priya and their childrenas well as parents of both.Mr. Solanki blamed the

Vaishno Devi Shrine Boardauthorities alleging that thefrequent trips the choppers

make leave little time for thepilots or the machine to restthat is why the accident was

caused. The bereaved fatheralso dismissed media re-ports about the chopper hit-ting a bird while gainingheight. “All we could seethere were ducks which can-

not fly to that height. This isan attempt to cover up andshould be exposed,” he said.

The eldest in the family,Sachin was one of the fewengineers the village hadproduced. The focus of theconversation returns toAkshita or Miku.

Though she might havebeen too young to announceher career choice, her fatherwanted her to become a bu-reaucrat or a police officer, adream he himself had nur-tured years ago, says a rela-tive.

“There is no reason whyshe could not have achievedthat. She was as brilliant as

her father, had everythingshe learnt in school on herfingertips,” said Mr. Solanki,letting out a big sigh. In notime, the sigh turned into aninconsolable sob.

Six-year-old Akshita and her father Sachin; (right) Jagdish Solanki, Sachin’s father.—PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Their world turned upside down in a minuteSHUBHOMOY SIKDAR

On Tuesday, a day afterthe father-daughter duoalong with four othersdied in a chopper crash

in Vaishno Devi, their bodies were brought tothe Capital

NEW DELHI: Supporters of AAPMLA Sharad Chauhan wereamong the five persons in-jured in an alleged scuffle be-

tween them and members of amarriage procession in OuterDelhi’s Narela on Mondaynight.

No complaint has been re-ceived from either side and nocase has been registered sofar.

“We were informed aboutthe matter and sent a policeteam, which intervened andtook the injured to a hospitalwhich confirmed injuries in-flicted on five people fromboth sides.

“However, since no one hascome with a formal com-plaint, no case has been regis-tered so far,” said DeputyCommissioner of Police (Out-er) Vikramjit Singh on Tues-day evening.

The brawl was the outcomeof an argument over right of way outside the Narela MLA’shouse in Bakoli village. Mr.

Chauhan is learnt to have toldthe police that when he re-quested the marriage party toclear the road, they were at-tacked and his supporters hadto step in to save him.

MLA supporterscaught in a clashSHUBHOMOY SIKDAR

NEW DELHI: An unidentifiedwoman’s body was recoveredfrom an iron trunk lying in adrain in North-East Delhi’sUsmanpur on Tuesdayafternoon.

The trunk was discoveredaround 12 noon when somelocal residents were trying toclear a clogged drain in the ar-ea.

The trunk was fished outand opened to discover awoman’s body inside. Policewere immediately informed.

The body was found wrap-ped in a bed sheet. The victim,

who appeared to be in her 30s,was wearing a night gown. Po-lice said no documents that

could reveal her identity werefound inside.

It is suspected that thetrunk was immersed in waterfor at least two days.

Since the body was underwater for too long, no injuriescould immediately be sighted

on the body. It has been sentfor post-mortem and a mur-der case registered in this

connection at New Usman-pur police station. A senior of-ficer said that whether thewoman was sexually assault-ed before her murder wouldbe known only after thepost-mortem.

Missing filed reportslodged across the city are be-ing scanned and all police sta-tions in and around the na-tional Capital have beeninformed about the recovery.

Police are questioning thelocal residents to know if any-one had noticed any suspi-cious activity near the spotwhere the body was reco-vered.

So far, no one has ap-proached the police with anysuch information.

It is suspected that thetrunk was immersed in water for at least two days.Since the body was under water for too long, noinjuries could immediately be sighted on the body

Woman’s body found in trunk S TAFFR EPORTER

NEW DELHI: A plan to eliminatesome witnesses in a murdercase has been foiled with thearrest of four members of thenotorious Naveen Khati gang,police said on Tuesday.

The gang had plans to exe-cute the murder either in thepremises of Dwarka Court ornearby, said a senior police of-ficer, adding they are yet toextract the exact plan fromthe arrested men.

Four pistols and severalcartridges have been reco-vered from the suspects whowere arrested near GoylaDairy in North-West Delhi onMonday.

The arrested men havebeen identified as Rajesh,Sandeep, Birjesh and Neeraj.While the first two hail fromDhichaon Kalan village, thethird suspect is a resident of Mitraon village — both villag-es notorious for gang warsover the last couple of decades.

Naveen Khati, a notoriousgangster currently lodged inTihar Jail in connection with amurder, was to appear inDwarka Court on Tuesday fora hearing.

Police said Khati’s men had

plans to shoot dead the rivalgang members and their fam-ily members when theywould arrive at the court.

“We had received a tip-off about a possible gang war be-tween some notorious gangsof the area. Our teams workedagainst time and scanned theNajafgarh and Dwarka areasto nab and neutralise the sus-pects,” said Dependra Pathak,

Joint CP (South-West).The suspects were spotted

in a white Scorpio car on aroad between Goyla Dairyand Dwarka. The men insidetried to slip away, but wereoverpowered and restrained.

Each of them was carryingpistols which were immedi-ately seized. Police said theywould know their concreteplan only after they are inter-rogated in detail.

Plan to murder witnesses in courtfoiled, four held

S TAFFR EPORTER

NEW DELHI: A Delhi-based film-maker on Tuesday ap-proached the city policewith a complaint in connec-tion with actor Aamir Khan’sstatement on “intolerance”in the country.

A written complaint wasreceived and acknowledgedby the police at the NewAshok Nagar police stationin East Delhi. However, noFIR was registered in thisconnection.

Even as senior officerssaid they would proceed asper the law, sources in thepolice said this complaint,like many previous onesfrom the filmmaker, wouldbe shelved forever.

The complainant UllhasPR, who identifies himself asa social filmmaker, had earli-er in August approached thepolice for action againstKhan for referring to policeas ‘thulla’ in his film ‘PK’.

On Tuesday, Ullhas ap-proached the police seeking

clarification on which socie-ty was the Bollywood actorreferring to when he madethe controversial remarks ata function a day earlier.

“I also live in this societyand I do not feel insecureand scared in my country,”he said, in his complaint,adding, “Aamir Khan shouldnot have mentioned this is ageneral way”.

Speaking to The Hindu lat-er, Ullhas said his complaintwas not specific to Khan, butagainst the country’s celeb-

rities as a whole for making“loose statements”.

“I don’t want the actor tobe punished. I just want theneedful to be done to pre-vent such remarks whichspread fear in the country,”he said.

When reminded that simi-lar complaints by him in thepast have failed to draw anyaction by the police, he saidhe only wanted to bring hisopinion in front of a largeraudience.

“The Delhi High Court,

earlier this year, had told meto come through a properchannel as I filed frequentPILs,” he reasoned for ap-proaching police over com-plaints which generallydon’t translate into FIRs.

He denied he was doingthis for publicity. “I have fil-ed complains against the Su-preme Court for ‘misrepre-sentation’ of state emblemand against Sadhvi Prachi forher statements.

“Those were difficult de-cisions,” he said.

Filmmaker approaches cops over Aamir Khan’s statementsSHIV SUNNY



CMYK

ND-ND

CITY 4 | THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015

NOIDA/DELHI

NEW DELHI: A major furoregripped the Delhi Assemblyon Tuesday that almostbrought legislators to fisti-cuffs and culminated in thesuspension of a BJP MLA fromthe House for making deroga-tory comments against his fe-

male colleagues.Legislative business on the

Assembly’s agenda for the daycame to a grinding halt.

Om Prakash Sharma, theBJP MLA from east Delhi’sVishwas Nagar and one of justthree BJP representatives inthe 70-member Aam AadmiParty-dominated (AAP) Vid-han Sabha, was expelled fol-lowing a verbal confrontationwith AAP MLA from ChandniChowk Alka Lamba. He willremain under suspension tillThursday.

This is not the first suchconfrontation between thetwo. In early August, Ms. Lam-ba had led a 'raid' at a restau-rant operated by Mr. Sharmain north Delhi’s KashmiriGate area leading to a series of allegations andcounter-allegations.

Even as Chief Minister Ar-

vind Kejriwal took to Twitterto express shock over the inci-dent, Deputy Chief MinisterManish Sisodia urged SpeakerRam Niwas Goel to refer the

matter to the Ethics Commit-tee.

A party source told The

Hindu that AAP legislatorswould seek “nothing lessthan” Mr. Sharma’s suspen-sion from the House till theconclusion of what remains of the Winter Session, which isscheduled to end on Novem-

ber 28. The source said thatthe party was ‘also consider-ing disciplinary action’, whichincludes registration of acriminal case and the cancel-

lation of the BJP legislator’smembership from theAssembly.

“I am shocked at the lan-guage used by Mr. Sharmaagainst a lady MLA. Two daysback also he abused a ladyMLA. Hope BJP will actagainst him,” Mr. Kejriwaltweeted.

Delhi Jal Board Chairmanand Karawal Nagar MLA Ka-pil Mishra tweeted, “black dayin the history of democracy.The language used by Mr.

Sharma is simply unaccept-able”.

Mr. Sharma made back-to-back remarks against Ms.Lamba during a discussion onhomeless people and theavailability of night shelters inDelhi. The discussion was ini-tiated through a calling atten-tion motion by Leader of Op-

position Vijender Gupta.Mr. Gupta said that this yearas many as 402 deaths of homeless persons had beenreported till date as per fig-

ures recorded by north DelhisKashmiri Gate police stationas opposed to 221 deaths lastyear following up with the al-legation that the AAP govern-ment was ‘not serious aboutthis matter’.

Ms. Lamba intervened say-ing that the deaths were notdue to the cold but due to drug

abuse – a statement which shehad made on Monday as well –prompting Mr. Sharma tocounter her with personal andderogatory comments.

This prompted the AAPMLA’s to rush the well of theHouse demanding Mr. Shar-ma’s expulsion.

Even as Mr. Gupta arguedthat Ms. Lamba had 'tried toslap' Mr. Sharma, AAP’s wom-en MLAs have threatened toboycott the proceedings of theHouse if their demands arenot met.

The day’s agenda relating tothe introduction of The Work-ing Journalists and OtherNewspaper Employees (Con-ditions of Service) and Mis-cellaneous Provisions (DelhiAmendment) Bill and theMinimum Wages (Delhi)Amendment Bill was stalled.

Consideration and passing

of the significant Delhi (Rightof Citizen to Time Bound De-livery of Service) Amend-ment, which was introducedon Monday, was also dropped.

Ruckus after BJP’s O.P. Sharma makes personal, derogatory remarks against AAP MLA Alka Lamba

AAP MLAs demanding the suspension of BJP MLA O.P. Sharma during the Delhi Assembly sessionon Tuesday. PHOTO: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

MLAs nearly come to blows in House, one suspended J ATIN A NAND

NEW DELHI: Soon after BJPMLA from VishwasNagar, OP Sharma, wassuspended from the Delhi

Assembly, Leader of Opposition VijenderGupta alleged that it was“a conspiracy” by AamAadmi Party (AAP)legislators to silence theopposition in the House.

Calling the action of Mr. Sharma a “chainreaction”, Mr. Gupta saidthat “regret” should comefrom both sides and madethree demands. “Theentire matter should bethoroughly investigatedincluding the role of theDeputy Chief Ministerfor encouraging hislegislators to abuse theopposition. The DelhiPolice Commissionermust enhance thesecurity of theopposition, both insideand outside of the House,as this incident has

shown how unsafe theopposition legislators arein front of AAP MLAs,who have no hesitation in

turning violent even onthe floor of the House,”he said.

The BJP demanded thatthe matter be referred tothe Ethics Committee.

“The AAP MLAs broke allthe limits of decencywhen the LoP in the DelhiAssembly calledattention on the plight of homeless due to lack of night shelters in thecapital. AAP MLA AlkaLamba approached theopposition bench and notonly abused the BJPMLAs but even raised herhand on BJP MLA O.P.Sharma. This atrociousact by the AAP MLA wascommitted on the orderof the Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia,”said a party leader.

Delhi Commission forWomen ChairpersonSwati Maliwal said it was“shocking” to see anelected member use suchlanguage. “He appears tobe a habitual offender and

lacks respect for women.We have recommendedregistration of FIR against OP Sharma.”

BJP demands inquiry, protection from AAPS TAFFR EPORTER

NEW DELHI: The Consumer Pro-tection Act is a legislation en-acted to protect consumers butthere are times when this law ismisused for trivial matters.

The Delhi State ConsumerDisputes Redressal Commis-sion was faced with one suchappeal for compensation whena man sued a multiplex in Ra-jouri Garden for ‘grainy’ pic-ture quality and demandedcompensation of Rs. 50,000 formental harassment and agony.

The District Consumer Dis-putes Redressal Forum, beforewhich the complaint was origi-nally moved, had dismissedthe plea for compensation say-ing “the complainant can notbe encouraged to approach theForum for loss of petty amountof a ticket and that too claim-ing a compensation of Rs.50,000. If the complainantdidn’t like the movie, he couldhave left the hall. He spentmore money in filing the com-plaint than that the value of theticket.”

When the case was moved tothe State Commission, it said:“The dispute is of trivial natureand is not worth being foughtin court. The same isdismissed.”

Man deniedredress for‘grainy’ movie

S TAFFR EPORTER

NEW DELHI: Rampant malprac-tice of arbitrary maximum re-tail price (MRP) being la-belled and charged onimported medical devices iscausing unsuspecting Indianpatients/consumers to pay ex-aggerated cost and is alsoforcing Indian manufacturers

to respond similarly whileraising the overall healthcarecost in the country.

The Association of IndianMedical Device Manufactur-ers (AIMED) has now ex-pressed grave concern aboutthis wide-scale raging mal-practice, which is leading toserious fleecing.

Urging the government tomove in quickly to put a trans-parent and stringent MRP re-gime for imported medicalgoods in order to protect av-erage Indian patients/con-sumers AIMED has also de-manded that there should be astop to unjust supernormalprofiteering and to bringdown overall healthcare cost.

Indian Medical DeviceManufacturers’ (AIMED) Ra-jiv Nath said that measureneeds to be brought in so thataverage Indian consumers are

not fleeced and retail priceparity between domesticallyproduced medical devicesand imported products aremade competitive based on atransparent labelling mecha-nism on display of the MRPinclusive of taxes (MRP),which is mandatory in India.

Erratic MRP onmedical devicescheating patients

BINDU SHAJANPERAPPADAN

NEW DELHI: Years after the De-cember 2012 gang-rape putthe issue of crime againstwomen in the Capital underinternational spotlight,women still feel unsafe in thecity. This was revealed in acombination of six studiesbrought out by the Instituteof Human Development

(IHD).One of the findings in the

study revealed that the per-centage of women who saidthey felt safe in the city wasmuch lower than the percep-tion of safety felt by womenin their immediate locality.

The study probed whetherthe campaigns and the stepstaken by the government,such as the amendment tothe criminal law, instilled asense of confidence and se-curity among women andgirls in Delhi.

The situation, it seems, haslargely remained the same.

As far as the city at large isconcerned, only 14.6 per centof the households in Delhifelt that women feel 'safe',62.8 per cent feel ‘unsafe’.Around 19.4 per cent of households felt ‘unsafe attimes’.

The study, which was donethrough primary field re-search and analysis of sec-

ondary data, also reveals thatat night only 6 per cent of thehouseholds feel 'safe' while84.2 per cent of them feel ‘un-safe’ in Delhi at large (areasexcluding their immediatelocalities).

Locality wise, however, ahigher percentage of house-holds in slums feel unsafecompared to residents in au-thorised colonies in Delhi.

When it comes to their im-mediate locality, there is agreater perception of safetyand security for women.Around 80 per cent of house-holds feel safe and only 10.6per cent feel 'unsafe'.

However, even in their im-mediate locality this sense of security is much lower forwomen in slums.

Only 60 per cent of thehouseholds in slums feel safewhile 31 per cent feel 'unsafe'.

This highlights how theclass factor works for wom-ens safety and security per-ceptions.

Explaining the methodolo-gy, Director of IHD ProfessorAlakh N. Sharma said thestudy has used both quantita-tive and qualitative methodsfor studying urban crimesand conflict.

The survey for the study is

based on a large stratifiedrandom sample of 2,000households in Delhi.

“As a whole, the studyfinds that crimes and conflictare influenced to a great ex-tent by prevalent exclusionand inequalities in access tobasic amenities such as shel-ter, water, sanitation, educa-tion and health services. Thisis compounded by exclusionof the poor living in slumsand other similar localitiesfrom the sources of liveli-

hood. The access to reasona-bly good employment is veryfew among slum dwellers,”she said.

Interestingly, when asked aseries of question aboutwomen's safety, crimeagainst women, sexual as-sault, the majority of respon-dents felt the situation has re-mained the same and therewas no change despite the se-ries of awareness drive andthe amendment in the crimi-nal law.

Asked if the security situa-tion has improved for wom-en and girls in the city duringthe last five years, 75.7 percent of the respondents saidthere was ‘no change’. Only12.5 per cent said that theyfeel ‘safer’.

“The factors of exclusionsof the poor and vulnerablegroups remains a major trig-

ger of crime and conflict inthe urban areas,” added Prof.Sharma.

Only 14.6 per cent said they feel 'safe', 62.8 per cent felt ‘unsafe’

Women still feel unsafe despite police efforts

S WETA GOSWAMI

NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) MLA from RohtashNagar, Sarita Singh, who wasbooked for allegedly misbe-having with a cop, has ap-proached the Delhi Commis-sion for Women (DCW)demanding registration of anFIR against the police official.She claimed that the cop hadfirst hit her car with his lathiand then verbally abused her.

Ms. Singh has also filed apolice complaint alleging thatit was he who abused her firstand she then reacted. “Thepolice have only one agenda,to target AAP,” said Ms. Singh.“The DCW chief will write tothe Police Commissionerseeking registration of an FIR over her complaint,” said aDCW official.

A case was filed against Ms.Singh on Sunday for allegedlymisbehaving with an assistantsub-inspector, deployed at amarriage function in Bhajan-pura area where Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wasto arrive. The incident oc-curred after her vehicle hitthe cop’s motorbike.

Meanwhile, DCW Chair-person Swati Maliwal has is-sued a notice to Deputy Com-missioner of Police (PoliceControl Room) R. K. Singh,asking him to pay a visit to theCommission. Ms Maliwal saidthat on Tuesday, while shewas coming from Civil Lines,she saw a car burning. Shetried calling 100, but it was on-ly after 20 minutes and 14 to 15attempts that there was anyresponse. “It is pertinent tonote that the caller could’vebeen a woman in distress inurgent need of help,” Ms. Ma-liwal said.

The commission hassought details from Mr. Singhregarding average responsetime of Delhi Police PCR 100.

AAP MLA wantsFIR filed against‘abusive’ cop

S TAFF R EPORTER

NEW DELHI: The Delhi HighCourt on Tuesday directedthe Delhi Transport Corpora-tion (DTC) to vacate the 50-acre millennium bus depot onthe Yamuna banks by January27, saying the DTC had beenallotted substantial portionsof land at four locations in theCapital, where it could shiftits buses.

The Bench of Justice Man-mohan, hearing a contemptpetition moved by environ-mental activists Anand Aryaand Manoj Misra, said theDTC Managing Directorwould have to appear in per-son in the court on February 1if the DTC does not vacate thesite by that date.

The contempt petition hadcontended that the DTC hadnot complied with the High

Court's September 13, 2012 or-der, in which had directed thetransport body to either getthe Delhi Master Plan-2021amended, so that the depotcould remain where it is, orvacate the site. The court hadgiven six months to DTC tocomply with the order.

The court said since land atfour locations had been allot-ted to DTC and it was not pos-sible to change the land use of

millennium bus depot site,the corporation will have toshift its buses from there.

In its status reports, theDTC had informed the courtthat it had been allotted 8.25acres of land at Sarai KaleKhan, 10 acres at Narela, 16.33acres at Anand Vihar and 20acres at Rohini Phase V.

The court also noted theDTC's submission that thepossession of alternate sites

had been handed over to itand the land use of the plotshad been changed by way of notifications. The DTC hadalso told the court that it wasreconstructing old depots tomake them low floorbus-friendly.

The millennium bus depotwas constructed on the banksof Yamuna river at a cost of Rs.60 crore for the 2010 Com-monwealth Games.

High Court asks DTC to vacate millennium bus depotMOHAMMED IQBAL

NEW DELHI: The National GreenTribunal (NGT) on Tuesdaydecided to hold an in-cham-ber meeting with officials of Uttarakhand government todeliberate on a policy for apollution-free Ganga.

“Let the Secretary (UrbanDevelopment), Secretary(Water Supply), Secretary(Tourism), Secretary (Envi-ronment) and Member Secre-tary of concerned authoritiesbe present on November 26,in Chamber of Chairperson,”a bench headed by NGTChairperson Swatanter Ku-mar said.

The Green Court’s decisioncomes a day after it slammedofficials of Uttar Pradesh andUttarakhand over increasingpollution in the Ramganga

tributary of the Ganga river.The Tribunal has been di-

rected by the Supreme Courtto take up the matter if indus-

trial pollution in Ganga on apetition filed by environmen-

tal activist and advocate M.C.Mehta.

Mr. Mehta told the Tribunalthat most of the industrial

units from Gomukh to Hari-dwar were operating withouta no-objection certificate.The Uttarakhand govern-ment contested the argumentsaying the state was the leastpolluting and that no hotel,ashram or dharamshala wasrunning without permission.

The NGT had earlier statedthat it intended to take rejuve-nation of Ganga stage-wise toclean up the 2,500 km stretchspanning several northernand eastern states.

The Tribunal had said theplan would comprise threephases and the first phasewould relate to pollution inthe river from the originatingpoint at Gomukh to Kanpur.

A bench headed by Mr. Ku-mar had directed the officialsfrom state pollution controlboards and Jal Nigam to be

present before it on Novem-ber 26.

Green Court says there is no coordination between the pollutioncontrol boards of the States. PHOTO AFP

NGT summons over unclean Ganga A KANKSHA J AIN

NEW DELHI: An alleged car-jack-

er duo landed in the police netafter being tracked through aGPS device within threehours of stealing a car atknife-point near Ghitornimetro station in south Delhi,police said on Tuesday.

With the arrest of the duo,identified as Rahul (22) andAmit (20), the police claimedto have solved as many as sev-en robbery cases at south Del-hi's Fatehpur Beri, Neb Saraiand RK Puram areas in thepast few months.

According to the police, theduo allegedly robbed a man of his car, mobile phone and wal-let, from near the metro sta-tion at south Delhi's Ghitorniarea around Friday midnight.

The victim approached thepolice and informed thatthere was a GPS device in hiscar with which the move-ments of the vehicle could be

tracked.—PTI

GPS helps trapcar-jackers

NEW DELHI: Members of severaldisability rights group willmarch to the Parliament onDecember 3 protesting againstwhat they claim to be an inor-dinate delay by the Centre inbringing in amendments andplacing the Rights of Personswith Disabilities Bill, 2014 fordiscussion in the House.

The members said that theBill, introduced during the fagend of the UPA regime, wassent to the ParliamentaryStanding Committee of theMinistry of Social Justice andEmpowerment owing to cer-tain concerns raised by severaldisability rights outfits.

“However, the delay in in-troducing the amendmentssince then is inexplicable,”

noted S.K. Rungta of the Na-tional Federation of the Blind.

Disabled to march

for their rightsBINDU SHAJANPERAPPADAN

NEW DELHI: In its endeavour toestablish a people-friendlyface, the Delhi DevelopmentAuthority has installed displayboards in its parks with detailsof all those responsible for themaintenance of the park.

It has also made it mandato-ry for its staff deployed at thepark to wear badges with theirnames and designation to en-able general public to give any

feedback.The move comes after the

DDA launched four mobileapps for feedback of generalpublic on maintenance of itssports complexes, golf coursesand the quality of constructionin its housing scheme.

“In order to create aware-ness among the general public,Delhi Development Authority

has installed displayingboards at the entrances of itsparks providing details aboutthe officials/ workmen, suchas Malis, Security Guards,Coolies, Bullock Men etc., de-

ployed for the maintenance of these parks,” DDA said.

“In this connection, it has al-so been made mandatory forthe staff deployed at the parksto wear badges displayingtheir name and designation toenable general public to givetheir feed back / suggestionfor the betterment of the facil-ities,” it added.

Move comes after the DDA launched four mobile appsfor feedback from public onmaintenance of its sportscomplexes, golf courses

DDA displays names of horticulture staff in parksS TAFF R EPORTER

NEW DELHI: The Delhi HighCourt on Tuesday allowed apetition of former High Court

Judge Mukul Mudgal, whowas recently appointed ob-server for the upcoming In-dia-South Africa cricket testmatch, to give entry to chil-

dren from economicallyweaker sections and those

studying in governmentschools in Ferozeshah KotlaStadium here to watch thematch for free.

A Division Bench said therewas no objection to the pleafrom any party, including theDelhi and District Cricket As-sociation (DDCA). TheDDCA agreed to bear the cost

of the season tickets fixed atRs.50 per child.

Plea to let kids watch cricketMOHAMMED IQBAL



CMYK

ND-ND

| 5THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER25, 2015

NOIDA/DELHI

CITY/STATE

DEATH

Please contact: 011-43579797from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m

WEATHER WATCH (City-wise reading yesterday)

For metros highlighted, readings show max temperature

Delhi | 29.3 ° C

Kolkata | 31.1° C

Mumbai | 32.1° C

Hyderabad | 31.5 ° C

Chennai | 31.1 ° CBengaluru | 25.1 ° C

Image & Data: India Meteorological Department

Forecast for Wednesday: Heavy rain would occur at isolated places over

Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Moderate to dense fog would occur at isolatedpockets of Bihar.

Max Min Max Min Max Min

Agartala 29.0 16.0 Hubballi 30.0 18.0 New Delhi 29.3 11.1

A hm ed ab ad 3 3. 7 2 2. 0 H yd er ab ad 3 1. 5 2 1. 8 P at na 2 8. 8 1 4. 7

Allahabad --- --- Imphal 26.5 7.5 Port Blair 31.4 23.7

Aizawl 22.0 9.0 Jaipur 29.7 13.8 Pune 29.4 19.6

Bengaluru 25.1 18.4 Kohima --- --- Puducherry 29.0 23.0

Bhopal 31.3 19.0 Kolkata 31.1 19.3 Raipur --- ---

Bhubaneswar 31.2 18.0 Kochi 32.6 23.8 Ranchi 28.6 14.2

Chandigarh 2 6.0 13.0 Kozhikode 35.1 24.9 Shillong 20.6 9.6

Chennai 31.1 22.1 Kurnool 32.6 21.7 Shimla 18.4 8.5

Coimbatore 28.8 22.9 Lucknow 30.5 13. 1 Srinagar 11.6 0.9

Dehradun 25.2 1 2.1 Madurai 31.2 24.1 Vijayawada 29.0 21.0

G an gt ok 1 7. 1 1 0. 0 M an ga lu ru 3 4. 2 2 4. 5 V is ak ha pa tn am 3 1. 2 2 3. 0

Goa 34.0 2 4.0 Mumbai 32.1 25.8 Thiruvananthapuram 32.7 24.0

Guwahati 29.5 14.2 Mysuru 25.9 20.8 Tiruchi 29.5 23.8

NEW DELHI: Water supply will beaffected in large parts of thecity as the Delhi Jal Board onTuesday temporarily closedthe carrier lined channel(CLC) that brings water to theCapital so authorities couldlook for a drowned man’sbody.

A DJB official said the localdistrict administration hadasked for the CLC to be closedso they could look for theman’s body.

Supply will be at low pres-sure on Wednesday morningin South Delhi, West Delhi,North Delhi, North West Del-hi, Dwarka, Nangloi and ad-joining areas. Water tankerswill be available at 28525659and 28524334 (D-Block Janak-puri), 27304656 and 27306069(Ashok Vihar water emergen-cy), 8600895707 (Nangloi),9599634510 (Dwarka) and

1916, 23538495 and 23527679(Central Control Room).

DJB shuts channelS TAFFR EPORTER

NEW DELHI: Karawal Nagar constituency is the firstto implement works decided by people duringthe Mohalla Sabhas (public meetings) held byAam Aadmi Party legislators. The District UrbanDevelopment Agency (DUDA) of the area hasconstituted 'Mohalla Rakshak Dal', it's own 28-

member team of civil defence volunteers.Tourism Minister and MLA from Karawal Na-

gar, Kapil Mishra flagged off the first such teamon Tuesday. As part of the Mohalla Rakshak Dal,these youths have been given a cycle, a torch, ajacket and a whistle. Works under DUDA are im-plemented by the money given under the MLAfunds.

Karawal Nagar first off the block S TAFFR EPORTER

NEW DELHI: Technical glitcheslike 5,000 complaints getting

registered under the samephone number, and low re-dressal rates have dogged theSwachh Delhi app in the firstweek after it was launched.

The Delhi Government andmunicipal corporations hadcome together to launch thesanitation-related grievanceredressal app on November 16.As of Tuesday evening, about25,000 complaints of garbageor malba lying on the streets of Delhi had been received.

“Of the 25,000 complaints,24,000 have been forwarded tothe civic bodies to be ad-dressed. Currently, the redres-sal rate is between 5 and 50 percent, depending on the agen-cy,” said Sandeep Mishra, theAdditional Secretary of theUrban Development Depart-ment, who is overseeing theapp’s central control room.

Though the app has gained

in popularity with about60,000 downloads, as per Mr.Mishra, there are teethingtroubles with its functioning.

On Monday, about 5,000complaints were logged underthe phone number of an assist-ant sanitary inspector of theSouth Delhi Municipal Corpo-ration’s Najafgarh Zone. Thecomplainants were getting amessage that their grievance

had been registered, but thesystem was registering the ASIwho forwarded the com-plaints. Mr. Mishra clarifiedthat the glitch had been recti-fied.

The BJP-led corporationsseem to have put aside theirdifferences over funds withthe Delhi Government to worktogether on the sanitationdrive.

“We don’t want to engage inpolitical mudslinging. Thereare issues with the app like in-correct addresses or GPS loca-

tions. We are coordinatingwith the government to makeit smoother,” said AshishSood, the Leader of the Housein the South Delhi MunicipalCorporation.

The app works with usersuploading a picture of garbageor malba with the latitude andlongitude of the location. Thecomplaints are then sorted in-to malba, which is being clear-ed by the PWD, and garbagethat the civic bodies lift.

The Opposition Congresshas blamed the differences be-tween the BJP and the AAP forthe problems with the app andthe sanitation drive.

“The app was prepared inhaste. There is a shadow box-ing match between the BJPand the AAP, due to which thecomplaints are unaddressed,”said Farhad Suri, the Leader of the Opposition of the SDMC.

TEETHING TROUBLES

Glitches, low redressal ratemars Swachh Delhi appThe app has gained in popularity with about 60,000 downloadsD AMININ ATH

NEW DELHI: Right to Informa-tion (RTI) activists who hadwritten to Chief Minister Ar-vind Kejriwal regardingwhat they claimed was a'lack of transparency andpublic consultation' in rela-

tion to the proposed DelhiLokpal Bill and the ServiceDelivery Amendment Billare 'deeply disappointed' atthe response they received.

Mr. Kejriwal's office, thegroup announced on Tues-day, responded to theirqueries justifying the pur-ported lack of consultationand transparency statingthat the 'fundamental sug-gestions from the public onthese crucial bills were al-ready known, the text of theproposed legislations onabove Bills has not been putin public domain for furtherconsultations.'

On November 21, activistsincluding Anjali Bhardwaj,Shailesh Gandhi, Aruna Roy,Prashant Bhushan, NikhilDey and Maja Daruwalaamong others wrote to Mr.Kejriwal stating that while

they welcomed the AamAadmi Party (AAP) govern-ment's move to bring thetwo crucial legislations tothe Delhi Assembly for con-sideration and passage theywere 'deeply concerned tonote that the AAP govern-ment has not made publicthe text of either of these twoBills.'

In reply, Rajeev Gupta,OSD to Mr. Kejriwal, said hehad been directed to conveyto them on his behalf that'the Lokpal Bill and the Ser-vice Delivery AmendmentBill have been in discussionfor last many years and thefundamental suggestionsfrom the public on these cru-cial Bills were alreadyknown, the text of the pro-posed legislations on aboveBills has not been put in pub-lic domain for furtherconsultations.'

In future, however, Mr.Gupta added that all matterspertaining to the Bills intro-duced in the Delhi Assemblywould be put in the publicdomain and suggestionsfrom the public would be in-vited 'in proper participato-ry process.'

RTI activistsdisappointed overCM’s ‘lack of transparency’

J ATIN A NAND

NEW DELHI: Days after the Centreannounced the Ujjwal DiscomAssurance Yojna (UDAY) forState-run discoms to ease themof their debt, Delhi discomshave now come forward seek-ing a scheme for private powerutilities where the Centrecould issue tax-free bonds toliquidate their regulatoryassets.

Discom Tata Power DelhiDistribution Limited (TPDDL)has written a letter to PowerMinister Satyendar Jain urgingthe Delhi government to takeup the issue of “amortization of regulatory assets” with theUnion Power Ministry. In his

letter, Praveer Sinha, TPDDL’sCEO and MD sought “cheapersources of funding” from boththe Centre and State. “Underthe UDAY scheme two stepscould be taken by the govern-ments. Firstly, it can issue tax-free bonds repayable in 10years for 50 per cent of the Reg-ulatory Assets. This could be of about Rs 12,500 crore. Second-ly, it can arrange loan for 25 percent of regulatory assets atbase lending rates,” said MrSinha. The proposal, if pursuedby the Delhi government andapproved by the Union PowerMinistry will result in provid-ing a relief of approximately 75paisa per unit to consumers,the discom insisted.

Discoms seek tax-free bondsS WETA GOSWAMI

NEW DELHI: For the third consecu-tive week, the private toll taxconcessionaire responsible forthe 124 border entry points inDelhi underpaid the municipalcorporations, citing a fall in ve-hicles due to the imposition of the additional ‘green tax’.

The contractor, SMYR Con-sortium, is supposed to payRs.10.54 crore every week to theSouth Delhi Municipal Corpo-ration, which is the nodal agen-cy for toll tax collection.

However, the company hasalleged that there has been a 30per cent fall in vehicles enteringDelhi after it started collectedthe environment compensationcharge (ECC) as ordered by theSupreme Court. The weeklypayments, every Tuesday, havebeen for Rs.7.32 or Rs.7.34 croresince the contractor startingcollecting the ECC of Rs.700and Rs.1,300 since November 6,

SDMC Additional Commis-sioner G.S. Meena told theStanding Committee on Tues-day.

The civic body has been un-able to enforce the provisions of the contract, which has a fixedamount and no possibility for areduction based on the numberof vehicles. “The SDMC hasfailed to put forth its stance inthe court. At the end of the day,we will face a reduction in reve-nue,” said Farhad Suri, the Lead-er of Opposition.

However, the BJP-led corpo-ration said it was only followingthe directions of the SupremeCourt that are aimed at reduc-ing vehicular pollution and con-gestion.

Toll tax concessionairecites ‘green tax loss’S TAFFR EPORTER The company has alleged

that there has been a 30 per cent fall in vehiclesentering Delhi

‘Knowledge Centre’in memory ofKalam

NEW DELHI: DelhiTourism Minister KapilMishra on Tuesday saidthat the AAPgovernment will set up’Knowledge Centre’ inCapital in the memoryof former President A PJ Abdul Kalam.The government’smove comes a fewdays after Kalam’s

elder brother A P J MMaraikayar urged ChiefMinister ArvindKejriwal to set up‘Kalam National Centrefor KnowledgeDiscovery’.— PTI



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STATE6 | THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015

NOIDA/DELHI

NEW DELHI: RSS ideologue Dinanath Batraon Tuesday said that books and syllabusin schools and colleges of the countrychange as and when a new governmentcomes in.

Mr. Batra whose suggestions for re-forms in education have been termed as“saffronisation” was addressing a semi-nar on “New Education Policy” at DelhiUniversity’s Sanskrit Department.

“In our country, when the governmentchanges, we see all books are beingchanged, syllabus also changes whichcreates an atmosphere of tension. WhenMurli Manohar Joshi used to be the edu-cation minister, all books were changed.When the next government came, allbooks were changed again,” Mr. Batrasaid. The founder of the Shiksha SanskritiUtthan Nyas, he has been an advocate of moral science and cultural education inschools and colleges.

He also called for institution of an Indi-an Education Service (IES) to ensure thatonly those people work in the sector whohave the expertise.

There should be an Indian EducationService. Once they qualify they should betrained in nuances of primary and highereducation. The field and policy-makingshould not be in hands of bureaucrats buteducationists, he said.

Mr. Batra, who is on a panel formed bythe Haryana government to bring in qual-itative changes in the education system,also said that the entire education system

needs to be rehauled and suggested thatsocial service be made obligatory in

schools and colleges.

Academicians from various universi-ties and colleges presented their suggest-ions on reforms in higher education at theseminar organised by the RSS-backedShiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas and DU’sDepartment of Sanskrit. The seminar’s fi-nal report will be sent to the HRDminister.

The suggestions include tweaking of teachers’ training curriculum to intro-duce concepts such as patriotism, healthconservation, social consciousness, spiri-tualism, moral science, value-based edu-cation, vedic maths; establishment of Bhartiya Education Services, and inclu-sion of subjects such as ancient and mod-ern knowledge, science, physical educa-tion, yoga and character building.

Former Pro-VC of JNU, Kapil Kumar,moderated the seminar where 10 themesfor higher education were discussed, in-cluding governance reforms for quality,ranking of institutions and accredita-tions, improving the quality of regulation,pace-setting roles of central institutions,improving State public universities, inte-

grating skill development in higher edu-cation and promoting online courses.

Academicians from variousuniversities and colleges presentedtheir suggestions on reforms inhigher education at the seminarorganised by the RSS-backedShiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas andDU’s Department of Sanskrit

Syllabus changes with changeof govt: RSS ideologueK RITIKA SHARMA SEBASTIAN



CM

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F O R J O B L I S T I N G S & A R T I C L E S , V I S I T w w w . t h e h i n d u . c o m / j o b s

| 7THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015

NOIDA/DELHI



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8 | THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015

NOIDA/DELHI

NATION

BENGALURU: A five-year-longresearch by scientists of theInstitute of Wood Scienceand Technology (IWST) hasresulted in finding an organicnatural plant extract fortreatment of rubber wood topreserve it better and make itstronger to match its friendlypricing.

While teakwood and rose-wood, which are categorisedas Class 1, have natural prop-erties to protect themselvesagainst termites and vagariesof weather, rubber wood fallsin Category III, which meansthat it is susceptible to ter-mite attack and may not belong lasting without treat-ment. Currently, rubberwood is treated with chem-icals to increase its shelf life.

Scientists D. Venmalar andK.K. Pandey of the WoodProcessing Division at IWSThave developed organic plantextracts for developing eco-friendly wood preservatives.A combination of pongamia(honge) seed oil, cashewshell liquid, neem oil andspecialised extracts of fiveother leaves and barks, in-cluding the acacia bark,which yielded remarkable re-

sults to fight insecticidal and

fungicidal attacks on rubberwood.

The scientist duo took uprubber wood timber cut ac-cording to BIS standards, andseasoned them for treatingthem in open fields. Theirtreatments over the yearshave shown them as being 6to 8 times more resistant topests.

Alternativetreatments

“We compared them withuntreated timber left over inthe fields. As rubber wood at-

tracts termites and is highly

perishable, we treated it withpongamia seed oil as its anti-septic properties extended aprotective shield by makingit resistant to pests, Ms. Ven-malar said. These organic al-ternative treatments can helpus see rubber wood in a dif-ferent perspective and notget obsessed with teak. Rub-ber trees are inexpensivecompared to teak as they be-long to plantation timber,”she added.

Comparing their findingwith that of the inorganicchemical based treatments

currently used in the indus-

try, she said: “Timber healthcannot be maintained withchemical treatments that hasheavy metals as copper, chro-mium and arsenic elementsin the mix.”

The organic study alsoleads to conclusions that tim-ber as mango, eucalyptus,honne and mathi that also be-long to Class III in their re-sistance to pests as rubberwood can be treated with thesame plant extracts.

This increases their mar-ketability making themstronger and helping the less-

er extraction of forest green.

Bengaluru-based scientist duo’s innovative approach to avoid chemical treatment bears fruit

Rubber wood is susceptible to termite attack and may not be long lasting without treatment.— FILE PHOTO: B. JOTHI RAMALINGAM

R ANJANIGOVIND

Fortifying rubber wood, naturally

KALPETTA:A new species of treefrog was discovered and an-other species of bush frogwas rediscovered by a team of researchers during their re-cent exploration in the West-ern Ghats.

The discovery, publishedin the latest issue of Interna-tional Taxonomic Journal

Zootaxa, is a joint effort by ateam comprised Robin Abra-ham, a researcher from theUniversity of Kansas, USA;Anil Zachariah, a batracholo-gist from Wayanad and VivekPhilip Cyriac, a researcher, of the Indian Institute of Sci-ence Education and Re-search,Thiruvananthapuram.

The team discovered a newspecies of Rhacophorid treefrog of the genus Ghatixalus.The new species is namedGhatixalus magnus after itslarge size making it the big-

gest known tree frog from theWestern Ghats.

Elusive species

The team has also redisco-vered a frog that had beenevading for the past manydecades. Raorchestes flavi-ventris, a species of rhaco-phorid bush frog describedfrom the Western Ghats byGeorge Albert Boulenger in1882, had never been reportedfrom the region since its de-scription. The team membershave found this elusive frogfrom the High Ranges of Idukki district in Kerala. Thediscovery of this frog after

around 132 years was publish-ed in International Journal

Zootaxa.Interestingly, both these

frogs were discovered fromKadalar in the high ranges of Idukki distrct , a place whichhas yielded several new spe-cies of amphibians in the past,indicating the need to focusconservation efforts. The dis-covery of a new species of tree frog despite its large sizestresses the need for furtherexplorations even in areaswhich seem to be well stud-ied, which is necessary to fo-cus conservation efforts, saysDr. Anil Zachariah.

E. M. M ANOJ

Ghatixalus magnus and Raorchestes flaviventris

New species of tree frog discovered

VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradeshhas witnessed two major di-sasters in recent months, thestampede at the GodavariPushkarams in July and theongoing floods in Nellore andChittoor district, but therehas been no effort made byHAM radio operators to chipin with the relief effort.

There are nearly 500 HAM

radio operators, or amateurradio operators, in andaround Vijayawada, equippedto serve as an important com-munication channel in disas-ter-affected areas. But theyhave been reduced to being si-lent spectators.

In contrast, during the 2013floods in Uttarakhand, HAMradio operators were activeplayers on the frontline.

Eager to play their part, thefraternity is urging the Stategovernment to make use of them in the Krishna Pushka-rams next year, an event thatprovides a wide scope forthem. Use of the HAM radionetwork could probably haveprevented the stampede at theGodavari Pushkarams in Julythis year, some amateur radiooperators feel.

“At least in the ensuingKrishna Pushkarams, we

want the government to use

HAM radio operators as a par-allel communication net-work,” says Arza Ramesh Ba-bu, coordinator of thenow-defunct Ham RadioTraining Centre in Krishnadistrict.

“A growing number of peo-ple, especially engineeringstudents, are evincing interestin this mode of communica-tion. The government shoulddevelop the sector,” says Mr.Ramesh Babu.

Radio amateurs use voice,text, image and data and havefrequency allocations in theradio spectrum to enablecommunication across a city,region, country, continent,the world, or even into space.

In the past, the Vijayawada

Urban Development Author-

ity (VUDA) office, now calledthe Capital Region Develop-ment Authority (CRDA),used to house a HAM trainingcentre. It is gone now. In theabsence of an office, amateurradio operators hold theirmeetings and workshops atthe Regional Science Centreat Bhavanipuram.

The HAM radio equipmentin the Krishna district Collec-tor’s office is 20-25 years oldand has become obsolete.

Government indifferencenotwithstanding, ham radiooperators in Vijayawada haveacquired a fully professionalcommercial ham radio repea-ter-cum-duplexer, which theywant to install atop GunadalaHill.

The equipment is being put

to test by installing an anten-na at a height of 100 ft from theground.“Gunadala Hill isaround 750 ft from the groundand the repeater from herewill cater to the needs of Hams in and around Vijaya-wada. More importantly, therepeater will be connectedround-the-clock to the ecolink, making itaccessible forglobal communication,” ex-plains Mr. Ramesh Babu.

The frequency of this re-peater transmitter is 145.550Mhz and the receiver fre-quency is 144.950 Mhz. Vijaya-wada is one of the biggest rail-way junctions and Hamspassing through this city cantry to trigger the repeater.

The repeater covers almostall of Krishna and Guntur dis-tricts, most parts of West Go-davari and Khammam dis-tricts and some parts of Ongole and East Godavaridistricts.

“We have all the relevantequipment ready for installa-tion but the officials con-cerned have been dilly-dally-ing on giving us permission.Once that is done, the over500 licensed Ham radio oper-ators in this area can make useof the equipment to explorenewer areas of communica-tions across the globe,” he

says.

There are nearly 500 HAM radio operatorsin and aroundVijayawada, who can serve as an i mportant communicationchannel in disaster-affected areas. —P HOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

HAM operators signal discontentP. SUJATHA V ARMA

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: IndianRailway Catering and Tou-rism Corporation Limited(IRCTC) under the railwayswill launch two premier trainservices that will unveil be-fore its travellers the charm of the sprawling deserts andeclectic heritage.

Both the semi-luxury trainswill depart from New Delhiand will have an array of de-luxe facilities.

‘Desert Circuit’ will coverRajasthan’s famed cities of Jaisalmer and Jaipur, while

‘Heritage Circuit’ will be toVaranasi, Khajuraho andAgra.

The two trains will runeight trips individually tillsummer sets in upcountry byApril next.

The tourists interested invisiting the desert and heri-tage circuit can book the seatsin advance and plan the itiner-ary from Delhi.

Desert Circuit will beginservice from mid-December2015 and wind up on April 21,

while Heritage Circuit willcommence on December 20.Its last trip will start on April24.

The package, which in-cludes intercity transfers, alsofeatures accommodation in 3-star hotels, all meals (break-fast, lunch & dinner), sight-seeing and local transfers byair-conditioned deluxe vehi-cles, service of English/Hin-di-speaking guide, travel in-surance, 24x7 security andCCTV surveillance onboardthe train besides hygienickitchen-car, medical facilityand Wi-Fi service.

The Jaisalmer stop of theDesert Circuit will cover thecity Fort, sand dunes, Gadisa-gar lake and Palwaon Ki Have-li. At Jaipur, one will be able tovisit City Palace, Jantar Man-tar observatory, Chokhi Dha-ni, Amer Fort and Hawa Ma-hal, according to the IRCTC.

In the Heritage Circuit, thepassengers can look forwardto the visit to Sarnath, boatride on the Ganges and expe-riencing the dusk-time aarticeremony.

SPECIALCORRESPONDENT

Get set for a cool andcomfortable train ride

KOHIMA: A four-member disas-ter management team onTuesday had a narrow escapewhen their Pawan Hans heli-copter crash-landed at MeluriHelipad in Phek district of Nagaland.

An official in the NagalandState Disaster ManagementAuthority said that the team,led by Joint Secretary of Union Ministry of Home Af-fairs (Disaster ManagementWing), had taken off from Ko-

hima Helipad at around 7 am.However, on reaching Me-

luri, 163 km from Kohima, thechopper crash-landed due tosome technical problem, theofficial said.

All the four passengers andthe pilot sustained minor in-juries, the official said. — PTI

Close shave for relief team

PUNE: With purists objecting toSanjay Leela Bhansali’s much-anticipated historical pageant

Bajirao Mastani, a city-basedresident has filed a case in alocal court against the film’s

creators on grounds of grossdistortion of history.

Firoze Mohammad Shaikh,a resident of the city’s VimanNagar area, has filed a caseagainst Mr. Bhansali, thefilm’s director-producer aswell cast members, actors Pri-

yanka Chopra and DeepikaPadukone who essay the rolesof Kashibai, the Peshwa’s firstwife and that of Mastani re-spectively. The petition takesparticularly strong objectionto the recently released song‘Pingaa,’ which it alleges, in-

correctly portrays the charac-ters of Kashibai and Mastani.It claims that the song was of-fensive to Marathi culture anddegrading to a Marathi lady.

The petition has demandeda complete ban on the releaseof the film, scheduled for De-

cember 18, in Pune and acrossMaharashtra. “The film is aninsult to the glorious historyof Bajirao Peshwa and a totalmisrepresentation of his per-son,” claimed the petition.

According to criminal law-yer Wajed Khan-Bidkar, who

filed the complaint on behalf of Shaikh, the complaint wasnot to garner publicity, but toprevent such filmmakersfrom making imaginary, ficti-tious films, by which the emo-tions of lakhs of people maybe hurt.

Court admits petition against Bhansali’s Bajirao MastaniSHOUMOJIT B ANERJEE

MUMBAI: The MaharashtraChief Information Commis-sioner has issued summons totop police officers and bureau-crats to appear in person inconnection with a complainton non-compliance with provi-sions of the Scheduled Castesand Scheduled Tribes (Preven-tion of Atrocities) Act.

In an order dated November23, CIC Ratnakar Gaikwadsummoned Additional Chief Secretary, Home Department;Principal Secretary, Social Jus-

tice and Special Assistance De-partment; Director General of Police, Maharashtra; Addition-al Director General of Police(PCR and POA, 1989); DirectorGeneral of Babasaheb Ambed-kar Research and Training In-stitute (BARTI), Pune, to ap-

pear before him in person onDecember 15 at 3.30 p.m. with“all the relevant documents up-on which you intend to rely insupport of your defence.”

The order further states,“Please note that you should at-tend personally, failing whichthe Commission would be com-pelled to issue bailable or non-bailable warrants to ensureyour presence.”

The order was in response toa complaint by Nagsen Sonare,human rights activist from theAmbedkar Centre for Justiceand Peace. “I had complained

on October 10 that informationabout the Atrocity Act andcases was not displayed on anydistrict or State website. Thisamounted to concealment of in-formation. The Commission di-rected the officials to put the in-formation on the website by

November 15, but his directionswere not complied with. That’swhy the summons were issued.”

Mr. Sonare had sought thatinformation on FIRs, arrests,bail orders, charge sheet, pen-dency of cases, compensationto victims, acquittals, court or-ders, names of public servantsidentified for non-complianceof duties, steps taken for speedytrials, meetings of monitoringcommittees, counter cases andexclusive court should be up-loaded on governmentwebsites.

In an earlier order, the CIC

noted, “Undoubtedly, factspointed out by the complainantare in wider public interest andshows indifference and negli-gence on the part of the publicauthorities by not putting inpublic domain vital informa-tion.”

Information panel summonstop Maharashtra officialsSPECIALCORRESPONDENT



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NATION

PUSHKAR (RAJASTHAN): Amidst in-creasing colour and clamour,the internationally known an-nual Pushkar Fair, one of thebiggest fairs in the world forcamel trade, was termed a“dull event” by camel tradersthis year.

For a visitor, the reducednumber of tents occupied bycamel traders in the territorywhere the fair is held is evi-

dence enough of the fair los-ing attraction for cameltraders.

Dhan Raj from the Hanu-

mangarh area in northern Ra-jasthan had come to the fair tosell nine camels.

“I couldn’t sell any this yeareven when the cost was be-tween Rs. 3,000 and Rs.15,000,” he said.

Downtrend

Based on the data from pre-vious years Joint Director of the Animal Husbandry De-partment, Ajmer, VirendraGandhi said, “The number of

camels that are brought to thefair for trade has reduced byhalf in the past five years.”

In the year 2010, as many as

9,419 camels were brought tothe fair for trade. This yearthe number was 5,215.

Joint Director of the Rajas-than Tourism Department G.S. Gangwal said to The Hin-

du, “Camel trade has reducedover the years mainly due tomechanisation as areas, in-cluding farming, transporta-tion, machines, have replacedcamels.”

There were laws restrict-ing the number of camels

transported. “Due to restrict-ed number of camel and cat-tle purchase people don’twant to bear the high cost of

transporting the camels andcattle they buy at the PushkarFair. This too has affectedcamel and cattle trade,” MrGangwal said.

Also, people are unclearabout the laws that govern thestatus of the camel as theState animal of Rajasthan andthis too has deterred buyersin recent years, Mr. Gangwalsaid.

The cost of camels too hascome down drastically, much

to the dismay of camel trad-ers who attend the fair.Indra Raj, a camel trader

from Hanumangarh pointed

to the reduction in the priceof camels. “What I sold for Rs.15,000 last year fetched meonly Rs. 5,000 this year,” IndraRaj said.

The existence of camels inthe State has also been affect-ed in the past years. Accord-ing to the 2012 Livestock cen-sus, Rajasthan had 3.26 lakhcamels which is almost a lakhless than the 2007 Livestockcensus where the camel pop-ulation was 4.22 lakh and al-

most half the camel popula-tion recorded in the 1997Livestock census where theState had 6.69 camels.

K AVITA UPADHYAY

Fair holds no charm for camel traders

KOLKATA: Accusing the Centreof double standard over re-lease of funds for flood re-lief, West Bengal Chief Min-ister Mamata Banerjee onTuesday said that while theCentre acted within sevendays in the case of Tamil Na-

du, the State has not got asingle penny even monthsafter braving the floods.

Addressing a public rallyat Arambagh in Hooghly dis-trict, Ms. Banerjee said that

she was not envious of theothers and was happy thatthe other States were gettingfunds. She, however, asked:“Are lives in Bengal lessprecious?”

The remarks made byChief Minister come afterthe Centre sanctioned Rs.940 crore to deal with the

flood situation in Tamil Na-du.

Nearly 100 people haddied and several districts of south Bengal were floodedin August 2015. Ms. Banerjee

had met Prime Minister Na-rendra Modi then seekingfunds for flood relief.

The Trinamool Congresschairperson also urged thegovernment at the Centre torise above politics and workfor the people in the country.

“Is it that Tamil Nadu ismore friendly and West Ben-

gal is not?” she asked.

Swachh Bharat cess

Raising questions over theSwachh Bharat cess imposedby Centre, Ms. Banerjee said

while others are taking cred-it for it, the real work is donein Bengal. “Three of out fourtop districts under SwachhBharat are from West Ben-gal. Hooghly is one of them,”the Chief Minister said.

Debt burden

Ms. Banerjee once again

raised the issue of debt bur-den of the State. Withoutproper flow of funds, howwas it possible to implementvarious development pro-jects in the State, she asked.

‘Flood-hit Tamil Nadu got relief fast, but West Bengal has been neglected’

Are lives in Bengal lessprecious, asks MamataBanerjee.—FILE PHOTO: PTI

Mamata accuses Centre of biasSPECIALCORRESPONDENT

SRINAGAR: Engineer Rashid, anMLA from Langate, on Tues-

day accused supporters of theRashtriya SwayamsevakSangh and Sangh Parivar of laying siege during his visit toChenab Valley’s Kishtwardistrict.

Addressing gatheringsthere, Mr. Rashid asked thegovernment “to control thegoons attacking Muslim driv-ers at Nandni and Nagrota.”

He thanked brave-heartyouth of Kishtwar “who, de-spite all efforts of Sangh Pari-var, foiled their nefarious de-sign to create communaltension in Kishtwar, beforeand during his publicmeetings.”

Lashing out at the BJP, Mr.Rashid questioned its alliancewith the BJP. “How did un-touchable PDP become so sa-cred for the BJP? Even PrimeMinister Narendra Modi for-got to have ever talked ‘Baap

Beti ki Sarkar’ (father-daugh-ter government),” alleged Mr.Rashid.

Why ally withPDP, KashmirMLA asks BJP

PEERZADA A SHIQ

PATNA: Rashtriya Janata Dalpresident Lalu Prasad onTuesday asked the newly-elected party MLAs not toscramble for bungalows inPatna before it was officially

allotted to them. He also ad-vised party leaders and MLAsto be “restrained and nice” topeople as they now possessed“immense power.”

After getting a massivemandate in the Assembly poll,the RJD held its first execu-tive committee meeting at theparty headquarters on Tues-day. It set a target of enrolling50 lakh members in the com-ing days. All the top partyleaders, newly elected legisla-tors and executive committeemembers were present.

“You don’t have to be in arush to get official bungalowsand put your nameplate out-side the gate. I know it’s notyou but some VIPs aroundyou who do such things… bewary and don’t be misled bythem,” Mr. Prasad told theMLAs.

Earlier, some newly-elect-

ed MLAs from the RJD andthe JD(U) had affixed theirnameplates to the gate of sev-eral palatial bungalows. Theyhad also pulled out the name-plates of the present resi-

dents. Nameplates of RJDMLAs Arun Kumar Yadav andAnil Kumar Yadav and R.N.Singh of the JD(U) were seenoutside the bungalows of for-mer Baikunthpur JD(U) MLAManjeet Singh, IndradeoManjhi of BJP and Rahul

Sharma of the JD(U) on Sun-day and Monday. However, onTuesday they were missing.

Significantly Tejaswi Ya-dav, RJD leader and son of party chief Lalu Prasad, is theDeputy Chief Minister and al-so in-charge of the BuildingConstruction Departmentwhich decides the allotmentof buildings and bungalows.

Tejaswi Yadav too hadsternly told the MLAs thatthey would be allotted bunga-lows according to the officialnorms. “Don’t be involved inactivities which bring badname to the party,” he toldparty leaders and workers onTuesday.

“After such a huge mandate,we’ve to work very hard… youshould not be distracted andinvolve yourself in other ac-tivities. Otherwise we will allbe in big trouble… the forces

we defeated in the poll are ve-ry strong and they will trytheir best to trap us,” he cau-tioned. His father and partychief Lalu Prasad nodded inagreement.

Don’t scramble for bungalows, Lalutells party MLAs A MARNATH TEWARY

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat Con-gress has alleged that theState Election Commission(SEC) deleted large numberof names from the voter list atthe instance of the Bharatiya Janata Party government,which is facing a challenge toretain its hold in the local

bodies.In Ahmedabad alone, 1.03

lakh names were deletedfrom the electorate list. Thevoters, whose names weredeleted from the records,learnt about the deletionwhen they went for voting forthe civic polls on Sunday.

“Why names on such largescale were removed from thelist is something the SEC andthe State government mustexplain to the people becausethe eligible voters could notexercise their franchise,” saidCongress leader and SoniaGandhi’s political secretaryAhmed Patel, who is cam-paigning for the party in Guj-arat, his native State.

Cong.’s demand

On Tuesday, a Congressdelegation called on the SECdemanding that no names be

deleted from the list for thepanchayats polls scheduledfor November 29.

“As per our assessment,close to 2.5 lakh names weredeleted in six cities where themunicipal election was heldon Sunday. This is a criminalact by the SEC at the behest of the government,” said Con-gress general secretary NishitVyas, who submitted a mem-orandum to the Commission.

Blames it on ECI

However, the SEC hasblamed the Election Com-mission of India (ECI) andthe voters for the removal andadded that the electoral rollswere prepared based on therolls prepared by the ECI forthe 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

“It is true that more thanone lakh names were re-moved from the list in Ahme-dabad but the SEC had no rolein either addition or deletionof any name in the rolls be-cause those were prepared bythe ECI,” said State ElectionCommissioner Varesh Sinha.

Gujarat Congressquestions deletionof voters’ names

SPECIALCORRESPONDENT

PATNA: Son of RJD chief LaluPrasad and Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Tejaswi Ya-dav on Tuesday reacted toDelhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal’s statement sayingthat it was Lalu Prasad Yadavwho had hugged him duringthe swearing-in ceremony of Bihar Ministers on Novem-ber 20 in Patna.

Tejaswi Yadav said: “Hug-ging guests and embracingthem is the culture of Bihar”.

During the swearing-inceremony, Mr. Prasad had

hugged Mr. Kejriwal andraised his hands along withMr. Kejriwal in front of thegathering. Mr. Prasad had al-so hugged Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi onthe dais.

Later, Mr. Kejriwal said inDelhi that Mr. Prasad hadpulled and hugged him whiletaking his hand together andraising it. “But that doesn’tmean we’ve made an alliancewith Lalu Prasad or his par-

ty,” said Mr. Kejriwal.Mr. Tejaswi Yadav came

out in support of Bollywoodactor Aamir Khan over his“rise of intolerance” remark.

“Aamir Khan is right thatintolerance has increased inthe country. Several artists,writers and others have an-nounced the return of theirnational awards in protest,”Mr. Yadav told media per-sons, adding that even beforeMr. Khan, several other ce-lebrities had stated that in-tolerance had increased inthe country.

“And many people will say

the same thing on intoler-ance in the coming days aswell… We’ll fight against in-creasing intolerance in thecountry”, declared Mr. Ya-dav. He also appealed to theCentral government to takeappropriate steps on theissue.

“The Central governmentmust now wake up before itis too late to check and con-trol intolerance across thecountry,” he said.

Hugging guests is Biharculture, says TejaswiSPECIALCORRESPONDENT

RJD chief Lalu Prasad looks on as his son and Deputy CMTejaswi Yadav greets leaders at a meeting of party MLAs,

Ministers and MPs in Patna on Tuesday. — PHOTO: PTI

NEW DELHI: British aviator Tra-cey Curtis-Taylor is flying13,000 miles across 23 coun-tries in three continents in anopen cockpit vintage biplaneretracing a historic flight andhas enroute landed on theoutskirts of Delhi onTuesday.

At Hindon Air Force sta-tion outside the national cap-ital, Ms. Taylor interactedwith the vintage flight crewof the Indian Air Force (IAF)as well with IAF womenpilots.

Ms. Taylor said the realpurpose of her flight was tocelebrate what Amy Johnsonachieved in 1930 — the firstwoman to complete the epic

journey when she flew solofrom London to Sydney injust 19 days at the age of 26.

Flying a vintage Boeing

Stearman biplane “Spirit of Artemis,” she began her jour-ney from Farnborough air-port in the U.K. on October 1and is expected to take 14

weeks to finish. On the aim of the flight she said, “It’s a trib-ute flight not aimed at break-ing a record. I am celebratingaviation and promoting fe-males into aviation.”

Stating that the expeditionhas been challenging and in-volved high risk, Ms. Taylorsaid she enjoyed it and wasgetting huge support fromthe international community.“I have a very basic plane andits visual flight. I cannot fly atnights and in reduced visibil-ity. Nevertheless, I flew verylow level and it was spectacu-lar,” she said.

In 2013, the 53-year-oldBritish born-Canadian raisedpilot had recreated MaryHeath’s solo flight of 1928from Cape Town to the UK.

British aviator Tracey Curtis-Taylor after landing in an iconicBoeing biplane at Hindon Air Force Base outside New Delhi on

Tuesday. — Photo: PTI

British woman aviator lands near DelhiSPECIALCORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Courton Tuesday asked the Univer-sity Grants Commission(UGC) to respond to an alle-gation that differently abledpersons are not given threeper cent reservation in jobs byuniversities.

A Bench comprising Justic-es Dipak Misra and Prafulla C.Pant asked the UGC to replyin five weeks on a petition fil-ed by the Justice SunandaBhandare Foundation.

“For 19 years, it [the Act]has not been implemented .The disabled have not re-ceived the merit they shouldhave got,” the Bench said.

SC notice to UGCon quotaLEGALCORRESPONDENT



CMYK

ND-ND

wednesday, november 25, 2015

10 | THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER25,2015

NOIDA/DELHIEDITORIAL

CARTOONSCAPE

Actor Shatrughan Sinha summed it up cor-rectly when he said that it was a victory of theBihari over the bahari (outsider) in the elec-tions to the Bihar legislature. But, then, mostState Assembly elections over the past twodecades and more have been contests be-

tween local alternatives. The days of nationalleaders overpowering regional ones in Stateelections are long gone. Some recent excep-tions prove the rule.

It is surprising, therefore, that Bharatiya Ja-nata Party president Amit Shah and PrimeMinister Narendra Modi chose to ignore thisfact — that elections in parliamentary Indiahave become presidential. After all, Mr. Mo-di’s own victory in Gujarat and New Delhisymbolised this reality.

Belated recognition

It appeared that there was a belated recog-nition of this shift in political sentiment whenthe BJP national leadership named Kiran Bedithe candidate for Delhi Chief Minister againstArvind Kejriwal. Her defeat only underscoredthe importance of credible local candidates.Mr. Kejriwal’s victory was his, not that of hisparty. Even a political scientist and psepholo-gist like Yogendra Yadav did not want to con-cede this reality when he challenged the bos-sism of Mr. Kejriwal. But Mr. Kejriwal ran apresidential campaign to win an essentiallymayoral election.

More than development or the caste andcommunal loyalties of voters, or the simplearithmetic of pre-election alliances, the Biharverdict was shaped by the fact that the votershad to make a choice between local leadersand no one else in particular. Regional andcaste-based parties may have initially beenvoted to power on the strength of their ideolo-gy and manifesto, but their fortunes have be-come increasingly linked to the popularity of their leaders.

True, the core support of any political partyis composed of its loyalist s, of those who sharethe party’s ideology and programme. But elec-tions are not won and lost on the basis of the

size of the core. It is the swing vote — the ac-cretion to the core — that makes all thedifference.

In 2009, while loyalists of the BJP and the

Sonia Congress might have voted for theirparty of choice, the floating voter took a callon who he or she wished to see as the PrimeMinister of India — Manmohan Singh or LalKrishna Advani. Both the BJP and the Con-gress went into that election having namedtheir prime ministerial candidates. The votesthat made a difference were cast in favour of Dr. Singh.

In 2014, the voter opted for Narendra Modiover Rahul Gandhi. Both national parties ranpresidential campaigns, seeking votes fortheir chosen or perceived candidate for the

top job. What has been happening at the na-tional level over the past decade and more hasbeen happening at the State level for some

time now, cutting across parties and States.Consider the record.In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the victory

of the Congress was defined by the impressivegains it made in Andhra Pradesh under theleadership of the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.It was Dr. Reddy’s sustained grassroots cam-paign that unseated the Telugu Desam supre-mo, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, and gave theCongress a decisive edge over the BJP. TheNational Democratic Alliance led by Atal Bi-hari Vajpayee lost also because in Tamil Naduthe Congress ally, M. Karunanidhi, ousted J.

Jayalalithaa. Dr. Reddy repeated his perform-ance in 2009 with his highly personalised

campaign and helped Dr. Singh return topower.

In most other States where the Congresswon the elections, the vote was as much for its

chief ministerial candidate as it was for theparty — Oommen Chandy in Kerala, TarunGogoi in Assam, Shiela Dikshit in Delhi andSiddaramaiah in Karnataka. The Karnatakavoter punished the BJP because of B.S. Yeddy-urappa’s tenure and rewarded Mr.Siddaramaiah.

All regional or caste-based parties havelong approached the voter in the name of theleader. Which is at least one reason all of themhave become family controlled parties. Thephenomenon of ‘dynasty’ in Indian politicsbegan with Indira Gandhi’s personalised cam-

paign of 1980, managed by her younger sonSanjay. The natural consequence was the feu-dal succession that was staged after her death

when Rajiv Gandhi was made party leaderand Prime Minister. The leader’s family slow-ly took possession of the party.

In his recently published memoir, The Chi-nar Leaves, Indira loyalist Makhan Lal Fote-dar reminds us that even as late as in the early1980s, party leaders such as R. Venkataraman,P.V. Narasimha Rao, Pranab Mukherjee andeven Madhavrao Scindia were viewed as po-tential prime ministerial candidates. Once thefamily domination of the Indian NationalCongress was complete, regional parties fol-lowed suit.

Thus, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagamtransformed itself from being a normal, ideol-

ogy-based party to a party dominated by theleader’s family. The All India Anna DravidaMunnetra Kazhagam and the Telugu DesamParty, as indeed the many Congress break-away groups, began as ‘leader-oriented’ par-ties rather than cadre-based parties. The Lo-hia Socialists of the north imitated theseexamples. Coming to power on the strength of an ideology and in pursuit of a cause, they allbecame ‘leader’ oriented.

Even in ideology-based parties like the BJPand the CPI(M), elections have been fought in

the name of the leader with a mass appeal. In1998 and 1999, the BJP’s Lok Sabha campaignrevolved around the personality of Mr. Vaj-payee. The turning point came, as BJP observ-ers pointed out at the time, when the crowdscame to hear only Mr. Vajpayee speak andthinned out when Mr. Advani rose to speak.

In Gujarat, Mr. Modi became the BJP’s face,as did Vasundhara Raje Scindia in Rajasthan,Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradeshand Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh. Mr. Modi’sattempt to secure control of his party in theseStates has been refuted by the assertion of State leaders. Mr. Modi’s success in Maha-rashtra and Haryana in ‘nominating’ StateChief Ministers after the elections werefought in the name of the party, a la IndiraGandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, may have encour-aged him to overreach in Delhi. He failed tolearn the lesson in time for Bihar.

The experience of the Left only under-scores the point. In West Bengal, the CPI(M)was made invincible by the personality of thelate Jyoti Basu. It was only when a dynamo likeMamata Banerjee arrived on the scene, andBasu was followed by a less charismatic fig-

ure, that the CPI(M) lost power. In Kerala, thevictory of the Left Front in 2006 was definedby the personality of ‘Comrade VS.’ It remainsto be seen what alternative the Left will pre-sent in West Bengal and Kerala to the popularincumbents — Mamata Banerjee and Oom-men Chandy — in next year’s elections.

Many political analysts made the point inthe 2012 State elections in Uttar Pradesh thatthe Congress would have repeated, or evenimproved upon, its 2009 Lok Sabha perform-ance had the voters been given the choice of electing Rahul Gandhi their Chief Minister. Inmany ways, Mr. Modi repeated in Bihar themistake Rahul made in U.P. — seeking votesfor a party rather than an individual.

‘Winners’ preferred

Bihar shows that the era of centrally nomi-nated Chief Ministers is over. Even nationalparties have to pick ‘winners’ now as CMs.Going forward, therefore, the Congress oughtto know that victory in Assam would dependon whether the voters in Assam want more of Mr. Gogoi or would like to see him go.

All this is not to suggest that party loyaltiesand ideology do not matter. Of course, they dofor a large majority of voters who remain loyalto their party. That forms a party’s core sup-port base. But elections are not won and lostdue to major shifts in the core. It is the ‘non-core’ voter and the first generation voter, withno firm loyalty to a party, who defines the finaloutcome.

The ‘floating’ voter opted for ManmohanSingh in 2009 and for Narendra Modi in 2014.The challenge for the prime ministerial candi-dates of 2019 will be to retain the loyalty of thecore constituency while gaining new voters— both from rivals and from first generationvoters. It is a race in which Mr. Modi still re-mains leagues ahead of all potential rivals, andthere are so many of them among the self-made CMs around the country!

(Sanjaya Baru is the author of‘The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making

and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh’ )

Elections are not won and lost due to major shiftsin the core vote. It is the ‘non-core’ voter and thefirst generation voter, with no firm loyalty to a party, who defines the final outcome

Regional and caste-based parties may have initially been voted to

power on the strength of their ideology and manifesto, but their

fortunes have become increasingly linked to the popularity of

their leaders

Every election is presidentialS ANJAYA B ARU

The ongoing war crimes trial in Bangladesh,which seeks to heal decades-old wounds in so-ciety by finding and punishing those who com-mitted grievous crimes during the country’s

liberation war in 1971, has invited applause and also raisedconcerns. After more than 40 years of independence, jus-tice is finally being seen to be done as the Sheikh Hasinagovernment took it upon itself to see the trials through.These crimes remained unresolved all these years be-cause of Bangladesh’s complex post-liberation history.That the past is unresolved is still seen in the present, asthe fundamentalists and even the Pakistan governmenthave opposed the trials and the subsequent punishment.The secular civil society, on the other hand, has put pres-sure on the government to carry forward the trial and pun-ish the war criminals. This contradiction was on displayonce again when two convicted war criminals — Ali Ah-san Mohammad Mujahid of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Sa-lauddin Quader Chowdhury of the Bangladesh NationalistParty — were hanged on Sunday.

While there’s little doubt that the Awami League gov-

ernment is committed to doing what it can to punish thewar criminals, what acts as a dampener is its embrace of the death penalty as a means to bring in justice. From amoral standpoint, executions actually weaken the Bangla-desh government’s position in its struggle with the extre-mists. It gives the trial proceedings the colour of revengerather than the conviction of justice, which should be thebasis of a state’s legal system. On the other side, these exe-cutions happen at a time when Bangladesh is grapplingwith the problem of Islamist fundamentalism. If theSheikh Hasina government thought that these hangingswould weaken the Islamist politics in Bangladesh, it couldwell be proved wrong in the long run. The hard-line posi-tion the government is taking against the opposition couldhelp extremist groups recruit followers from among em-bittered opposition sympathisers. Recent incidents inBangladesh show that it is already happening. Despite thegovernment’s tough position and the hanging of its lead-ers, Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party, isstill organisationally strong, and has vowed to “take re-venge” by “establishing Islam in Bangladesh”. Further, itmay not be a coincidence that attacks against secular writ-ers and their publishers have been on the rise ever since

the execution of war criminals started. In other words, thegovernment’s position has sharpened the contradictionsof the present rather than redressing the injustices of thepast. The challenge before Dhaka is huge. It has to ensurethat those who committed crimes against humanity dur-ing the war are brought to justice, while at the same timepreventing Islamist forces from using that process to theirbenefit. By bringing the war criminals to trial and puni-shing them to life imprisonment, they could have broughtthe tragic events to a just closure, but relying on the deathpenalty dampens the otherwise welcome process.

Crime & penalty

in Bangladesh

New data from the Census have confirmed yetagain what is now very well known — the In-dian desire for a male child, even if at the ex-clusion of a female child, is widespread and

well-established. Within this known phenomenon, how-

ever, are two different and in some ways contrastingprocesses that are going on simultaneously among differ-ent socio-economic groups, processes with great importfor India’s demographic future. On the one hand, there isa clear birth advantage for male children in India, an ad-vantage of such magnitude that it is almost certainly arti-ficial. Among women who had one child, 22 million saidthat they had a girl and 28.5 million had a boy, clearly in-dicating a disproportionately large number of boys beingborn. Even given the small genetic and biological advan-tage that boys enjoy, meaning that a slightly larger num-ber of boys than girls are naturally born, there is an impli-cation of pre-natal sex selection which is leading to moreboys being born. This unnatural disadvantage continuesin slightly larger families; half of all families with twochildren have a boy and girl, another one-third have bothboys, and just one-sixth have both girls. It is only in largefamilies that the trend reverses.

India has had remarkable success in lowering fertilityto the extent that its southern States have now reachedreplacement levels of fertility, at which the populationgrowth will stabilise and the population as a whole willstop growing. What’s all the more admirable is that this

change has come largely without coercive measures of the sort adopted by China, with the belief that education,access to health and economic prosperity, particularlyfor women, automatically drive down female fertilityamong all social groups. However, there is growing evi-dence that in the absence of a genuine transformation ingender relations, the push for smaller families is makingpre-natal sex selection more common. While familiesmight have chosen in the past to have repeated pregnan-cies until a male child was born — as borne out by the farhigher likelihood of the youngest children of a large fam-ily being boys — as smaller families become a socialnorm, families are being pushed towards artificial meth-ods of ensuring a male offspring. Indeed, the new Censusdata bear witness to this. Smaller families are more likelyto have more boys than girls, while the larger ones havemore girls than boys. Anecdotal evidence suggests thatlack of access to pre-natal sex determination technologymeant better sex ratios among more marginalised com-munities, but with growing urbanisation these barriersare falling too. India must build on its success at bringingdown fertility levels, but it cannot be unmindful of theimmense cost to its girl children this is coming at. It must

begin a meaningful conversation on gender equality,backed with a gender-equal economic regime, going for-ward, or this will be a h ollow demographic transition.

Not withoutour girls

Reactions to pay hikeThe government has been subjectto media attack ever since therecommendations of the SeventhPay Commission (SPC) weretabled. Every discussion seems tobe centred around the financialburden to the country. No oneappears to appreciate the effortsbeing put in by governmentservants towards the developmentof India’s economy (“Why we mustnot grudge them a pay hike”,Nov.24). The contribution bygovernment servants by way of GPF is unknown to many sections.Here, the returns that accrue arebased on 8 per cent interest. Onlythe top level of government staff has stood to gain from therecommendations. The 65 per centhike in pay applies to only 25 percent of the staff. The middle-levelmanagement has been ignored bythe SPC even though it is thebackbone of the government

workforce.A. Sowrirajan,

Vayalur, Tamil Nadu

Much of the discussion has beenabout how implementing the PayCommission will result in fiscaldeficit. Yet, the fact is thatgovernment staff, from civilservants, to defence personnel tothose looking after essentialservices, support a chunk of thework done in India. India faces‘brain drain’ and if enhancedsalaries and perks are not paid andprovided to governmentemployees, there is bound to be afurther flight of talent. Now thatthere is movement on theCommission, performance-basedpayment of salary and incentivesshould be encouraged.

Ankit Galgat, Panipat, Haryana

The article should lend some

balance to the highly skeweddebate in the media and publicsphere over the recommendations.

Those who highlight the plight of unorganised workers and raise theissue of growing inequality in thecontext of a reasonable wageincrease for the governmentemployees are unable to see thewood for the trees. Neo-liberalpolicies across the world are whathave resulted in 1 per cent of thesuper rich controlling nearly half the world’s wealth. In India too,growing economic inequalities canbe attributed to such policies. As apercentage of GDP, the cost of theproposed pay hike is quitemoderate. The critical reactionsobviously are emotional and notbased on facts.

Manohar Alembath, Kannur

What is worth noting is that withthe recommended pay hike, theimpact on GDP is still 0.12 per centlower than the hike recommendedby the Sixth Pay Commission.However, a comparison with the

private sector brings out moresubjective points than merestatistics.

First, employee accountability inthe private sector is greater than ingovernment. Second, incomparative terms, the privatesector is the major contributor toGDP. Here, salaries and jobs arecreated out of innovations,initiatives and productivity. Anypay hike in government serviceswill be contributed to by the privatesector either directly or indirectly.The spending on government staff does not end with mere salaries.The pension burden on GDP isexpected to rise to as high as 4 percent in the next decade.Fundamentally, this isunproductive drain on theexchequer. While there may bedefensible arguments for the hike,better accountability in allgovernment jobs might help inreducing public grudge against

similar pay hikes in future.Krishnaraj Kenadath,

Guruvayoor

The writer does not make a faircomparison. Governmentemployees enjoy more paid leavethan their counterparts in theprivate sector. Moreover, takingadvantage of ILC (1957), theSeventh Pay Commission fixes theminimum wage for an unskilledgovernment servant at Rs.18,000 amonth. Under the Government of NCT, Delhi, the minimum wage forunskilled labour is Rs.9,178 a month,which is only 51 per cent of theCommission’s range.

S. Ramani,Chennai

No one denies that salaried peopleshould be given a periodic payrevision. But governmentemployees are more fortunate thanthose who work in the privatesector. First, their job is highlysecured. After globalisation,retrenchment is a reality in theprivate sector. Pension in the sectoris also meagre. It is no exaggeration

that a government peon draws apension much higher than anofficer in a private firm. There arealso teachers in private schoolswho toil but are paid a pittance.Government staff need to askthemselves whether they dischargetheir duties honestly. Corruptionand a lethargic attitude arecommon. At work, beingdisrespectful towards the public iscommon. Paperwork never movesunless several palms are greased.There is resentment only becausethere is no accountability.

V. Pandy,Thoothukudi

J&K developmentThe article, “How the Valley ischanging” (Nov.24), is dismissiveof the view that alienation can beovercome with economicdevelopment. Calling it an“illusion”, the former NSA issceptical of coalitions and alliances

being able to overcome‘fundamental’ differences, implyingthat the PDP’s commitment to India

is suspect. Strangely, he ignores thenaked projection of Hindutvaforces in Jammu and the fear andinsecurity that have been aroused.He has no word to offer on what ishappening across the country andits impact on politics in the Valley.In looking far and beyond, heforgets how developments closerhome are shaping conditions in

J&K. The moot question is how is itafter celebrating a marginalisationof the ‘Azaadi’ movement byprojecting a high turnout as being atriumph of pro-India forces, we areback to talking about alienation andradicalisation. The Indianestablishment is unable to see itsown role in causing this to happenby comprehensively ignoring theneed for a political solution and,instead, finding newer excuses toshift blame on distant events. It isthe absence of a political solutionand a reliance on the suppression of all those who refuse to give up theirdemand for ‘Azaadi’ that is the root

cause behind radicalisation. Whilealienation cannot be won witheconomic packages, radicalisationcannot be prevented unless wemove towards a democraticsolution.

Gautam Navlakha,New Delhi

Male child preferenceThe report, “Male child stillpreferred” (Nov.24), only showsthat while the majority are good atonly worshipping femaledepictions during rituals andfestivals, the respect for womenappears to end here. Our leaderstoo are equally adept at mouthingvirtuous jargon and epithets like‘women’s empowerment’, ‘genderequality’ and ‘ladies first’ whileshying away from giving womentheir due. The language used inmost texts, scriptures and otherforms of literature on religionpertinently mentions sons and male

children.Sivamani Vasudevan,

Chennai

Gold monetisationThe gold monetisation programme,which was launched recently,appears to be a damp squib like itsearlier versions and which werefloated under different names overthe past 50 years. When anornament is melted, the makingcharges and cost of precious stonesare irretrievably lost which thenreduces the asset’s value by 40 percent. There are severalcontradictions in the scheme.Medium- and long-term deposits of gold will go to the Centralgovernment which proposes to sellthe yellow metal in order to meetthe expenditure on populistwelfare programmes. At the time of redemption, depositors will getback the asset’s money value and atthen prevailing rates. Globalfinancial institutions, commercialand central banks and evengovernments invest in gold. MostIndian temples have a large stock of

gold ornaments and devotees areunlikely to resist the idea of meltingand a consequent reduction in themetal’s value. Instead, templeauthorities can auction theseornaments to devotees who mighteven pay a premium. Overall, it isno surprise that this scheme couldfetch 400g so far.

B.R. Ravindranath, Bengaluru

The gold monetisation schemelooks great, but on closerexamination raises questions. Howcan the government enable 2.5 percent interest on gold since it isbeing sold and not lent out at ahigher rate of interest? One of theaims is to bring down imports andhelp reduce our current accountdeficit. But in the long term, we willhave to import even more gold notonly to satisfy demand arising outof expiring gold certificates, butalso to pay interest on those

deposits in gold.C. Stephen Kingston,

Coimbatore

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters emailed to [email protected] carry the full postal address and the full name or the name with initials.



CMYK

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PERSPECTIVE | 11THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015

NOIDA/DELHI

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Proposal for uniformpower rates

Dr. K.L. Rao, Union Minister forIrrigation and Power, disclosedhere [New Delhi] to-day[November 24] that the ElectricityAct was being amended by theGovernment with a view toremove some legal difficultiesbeing experienced by States inbringing about uniformity in therates of power suppliedirrespective of the sources of energy and other considerations.The Amendment Bill, he said,

would be taken up during thecurrent session of Parliament.Inaugurating a two-day conferenceof Chairmen of the ElectricityBoards, he said the matter of uniformity in the rates of powerhad assumed urgency as ruralelectrification programme hadbeen taken up all over the country.The present rates of power “varieseven within one State from Boardto Board and region to region.”

Such variations affected the paceof rural electrification programme,on which depended the success of the food production drive, Dr. Rao

added.

Americans’ heaviesttoll in Viet Nam

A record total of at least 710 U.S.soldiers were killed or woundedduring military operations inSouth Viet Nam in the weekending November 20, it wasofficially announced to-day[November 24]. The U.S. Military

High Command here [Saigon] saidthat 240 Americans were killedand 470 wounded. A further sixU.S. soldiers were listed asmissing. This was by far thehighest toll suffered by U.S. forcesin any single week of the war. Alarge number of these casualtieswere sustained during the battleslast week in the Ia Drang Valleywest of Plei Me in the CentralHighlands.

(dated November 25, 1965)

FROM THE ARCHIVES

>>The byline of the Open Page article, “Elonian theory of happiness” (No-vember 24, 2015), should have been Ansamma Kurian.

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

Call it an anti-intellectualantidote to the one Ramaya-na that is being foisted bythe cultural watchdogs of the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) as they go about in

earnest setting dates around which the

epic’s main hero was born. And this basedon a study of the constellations in an at-tempt to provide a standardised text forall.

However, in Kannada poet Du. Saras-wathi’s telling of the epic, in which Sitaspeaks, there is little room for the man ex-tolled and venerated as the most virtuousone. Seen through her eyes, he appears di-minished. Saraswathi, also a feisty wom-an’s rights activist, who represents one of the many small traditions that India is,points outthat in every village there is anaccount of the epic. In every village thereis a marker, a spring, a rock, or a treearound which the timeless story of theking of Ayodhya is woven. And these arefar removed from the tele-version thatwas aired on Doordarshan in the 1980sand that has since spawned several imita-tions as kitschy as the original.In these at-tempts, the epic has been standardised,overlooking the layered interpretationsthat go beyond what the eye can see ontelevision.

Representing unseen womenThere is something deeply paradoxicalin the retelling of the Ramayana, a satireby Sannthimmi, the character created bySaraswathi, who represents little, un-known and unseen Indian women, whoare comfortable without the heroes intheir lives. This is a Sita who goes abouther everyday work, cooking for all thosedear to her. Saraswathi has not broughther one-woman act to Delhi, but she hastravelled around the villages and towns of Karnataka; the telling of the epic hasevolved with her. As she puts it, her at-tempt is to show that the rural folk of Indiahave their knowledge systems and philos-ophies in place, which cannot be dis-lodged by an attempt to push through alinear, homogenous narrative. “I fear thatis what is being attempted right now; it isan attempt to force down a narrativewhich is compatible to us all,” she says.

Nearly five years ago, poet and scholarA.K. Ramanujan’s Three Hundred Ra-mayanas, prescribed as study materialfor history undergraduates in Delhi Uni-versity, was removed from the curricu-lum. This was following pressure from theAkhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the

student body affiliated to the BJP, andclaiming to be among the torch-bearers of Indian tradition. It had found the essay ob-jectionable. The vice chancellor whomade the decision to expunge the essay,said that there was nothing intellectualabout it, implying that it lacked the heftnecessary for its inclusion in the curricu-lum. Yet, as more attempts are being madeto standardise the epic, questions must beasked about what do we do with the manyRamayanas in the countryside. As theCulture Ministry blesses an exhibitionwhich seeks to authenticate the Ramaya-na among other epics by raising it to a his-torical fact, there are many Ramayanas inthe countryside that the government isoblivious to.

Saraswathi’s fears are not unfoundedwhen placed in the context of Union Min-ister of State for Culture a nd Tourism Ma-

hesh Sharma’s praise for a foundation re-searching on the Ramayana, mirroring theattempts being made by the Indian Coun-cil of Historical Research to fix a date to

the epic. While many question the at-tempts to historicise the Ramayana, forSaraswathi the dangers lie in removingthe many Ramayanas where Sita is a sin-gle woman, a single mother, and comfort-able in her own skin. It is also a feministinterpretation of Sita from a Dalit per-spective. As Saraswathi grapples with hercentral character, a leading televisionchannel has decided to take the plungeagain, delving into the epic in an attemptto see it from a woman’s perspective.

Branding exercise

“Siya Ke Ram”, being marketed and ad-vertised as the Ramayana from Sita’spoint of view, is as glossy as its previouselectronic media avatars. And though thegeneral manager of Star Plus, Gaurav Ba-nerjee, sayshis telling of the epic is Sita’snarrative, there is no escaping the Ra-mayana branding exercise under way. Us-ing the official Twitter handle of the chan-nel, you can retweet if you like an episodein the serial, which is aired six times aweek on prime time. The Twitter handle,‘@StarPlus’, raises questions about ques-tions that Sita asks in the epic. An exam-ple: “Is Sita right in asking questions?”

The answers are a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. Mr. Ba-nerjee promises that all the characterswill spring a surprise. Kaikeyi, Rama’sstepmother, is depicted as a woman who

is extraordinarily intelligent and forced toextract a promise from King Dasharathaonly to safeguard her son’s future. “Wecan understand her dilemma,” he says.

The programme has spawned Twitterhandles from fans, and there is no escap-ing the fact that this is a telling that con-forms to the grand vision of the BJP. Lostin the hyper-marketing branding exerciseis the voice of Saraswathi.

“I am happy with my life,” says Saras-wathi’s Sita. “I say this not with sadness oranger. One day the throne you sit on willpierce you and to Mother Earth you willalso return.” Saraswathi cooks on stage foran audience as she tells her story. Shedoesn’t have the time to do a stand-upnumber. Like other women, she too has tojuggle various responsibilities that life hasthrown at her. These include being a sin-gle mother to two sons.

As the academic Velcheru NarayanaRao reminds us in A Ramayana of theirOwn, “The Ramayana in India is not a sto-ry with a variety of retellings; it is a lan-guage with which a host of statementsmay be made.” It is a reminder for anyonewho wishes to engage with the epic.

[email protected]

Among the Ramayanas, Sita’s ascent With concerted attempts to homogenise the epic and make one size applicable to all,questions must be asked about what we do with the many Ramayanas in the countryside

“While many question the attempts to historicise the Ramayana, for others the dangers lie in removing the many versions whereSita is a single woman, a single mother, and comfortable in her own skin.” Picture shows a wall painting depicting the story of theRamayana along the Godavari in Nashik, Maharashtra.—PHOTO: T.K.ROHIT

A NURADHA R AMAN

In every village there is arock or a tree around whichthe timeless story of theking of Ayodhya is woven.These are far removed fromthe version that was airedon Doordarshan

After Podemos in Spainand Syriza in Greece, Po-land’s Razem Party is thenewest entrant from the

Left to electoral politics in Europe. Formed barely five

months before Poland’s parliamentaryelections on October 25, 2015, it repre-sents the culmination of various grass-roots mobilisationsunder a single politi-cal umbrella. With no sponsors, littlemedia coverage, and no institutionalbacking whatsoever, Razem surprisedmainstream political pundits by grab-bing a 3.65 per cent vote share, which hasmade it eligible for state funding of €3million for the next four years. Feminist-

philosopher Ewa Alicja Majewska, 37,contested the elections as a Razem can-didate. In an email interview with G.Sampath , the Berlin-based politicianspeaks about her journey so far, the par-allels between Syriza and Razem, andthe challenges facing the Left in the ageof “neo-liberal brainwashing”. Excerpts:

How did Razem happen?

It was a long process, going back at least10 years. Many of those who would be-come members of Razem were for severalyears involved in the non-parliamentaryLeft, in social organisations, or in theyouth wings of Left parties. Early in 2015,there was a call from some of these enti-ties for the Left to unite. An open letter

was circulated, inviting people to join anew, genuinely Leftist entity. Hundreds of people signed up. They now constitutethe core of Razem. In May, some 300 par-ticipants joined the first ever conventionof the Razem Party, in Warsaw. The partywas officially registered in July 2015.

What was your politics before you joinedRazem?

I come from a section of the radical Leftwhere the power of the state is as muchcriticised as the phallogocentric powersof capital. This radical, anti-authoritarian,queer-feminist position is necessary forany left wing party today if it is not to sur-render to authoritarian tendencies. Thisalso brings on board a human rights orien-tation and a sharp feminist optic.

How would you rate Razem's performancein the recent parliamentary elections?

For a party that was born in May andregistered in July, crossing the 3 per cent

vote share mark (5,50,000 votes approxi-mately) in October and qualifying for thestate subsidy of €3 million is a tremen-

dous achievement. Whenever I havedoubts about party politics, I always re-peat to myself that we need this money —while all kinds of right wing parties haveused these funds to strengthen their con-servative politics, progressive politicscould also do with this support.

What do you think is the reason for thefailure of the Left parties in Poland?

I do not think we have had Left partiesin Poland since the collapse of the PolishSocialist Party, which was forcibly dis-solved in 1948. We’ve had great socialistsin the anti-communist opposition (I knowhow paradoxical this sounds), in the liber-al Social Democrat party, and above all, inthe social movements, workers unions,and academia. Now all these people havecome together within Razem, and hope-fully we will overcome the last 25 years of neo-liberal brainwashing and institution-alised neglect of human rights.

Razem does not have a leader as such.How then is the party structured?

The Razem Party’s ‘management’ con-sists of 30 people: a 10-member Board anda 20-member Council. This is the largestleadership team for any party Poland hasseen, and also the most egalitarian. Thereis no chief or president of the party. Dur-ing the electoral campaign, there werepress conferences practically every day inmany Polish cities, precisely to showcase

the many different ‘leaders’ to the public.There are also many brilliant people inthe party who did not become candidates,

but they are great activists and workers.

Razem’s candidate selection policies havealso attracted a lot of attention.

Yes, apart from our consciously egali-tarian approach, I am also proud of thefact that our electoral list had as manywomen candidates as men, from every so-cial stratum. There were single mumsrunning small businesses, teachers, com-puter programmers, workers, academics,local activists. We had no ‘professionalpoliticians’ — people whose only domainof expertise is institutional politics — forwe believe that this has a destructive im-pact on the quality of political life.

What are the options for the workingclasses and minorities when the onlyelectoral alternatives on offer are varyingshades of neo-liberal politics?

There has always been one option forthe working class and the excluded any-

where in the world: to organise; to workacross artificially built ethnic, religiousand gender differences; to fight for theirrights, and build new forms of productionand redistribution, so that capital is tamedin its anti-social effects.

Syriza raised a lot of expectations, only todisappoint its supporters. How can Razemensure it avoids the same fate?

I am quite concerned about the all-too-easy satisfaction that some on the Lefttake in Syriza’s failure to embrace the po-litical responsibility for Grexit. I think it isa perverse symptom of some Leftist frus-tration, wherein the biggest celebrationsare always in the moments of failure. Weactually need to cherish what Syriza hasachieved — it has shown that anotherelection is possible, that another politicsis possible, that a non-corrupt govern-ment is possible in Greece, which really isa caste society for European standards.

Coming back to Razem, it should besaid over and over again we are not in pol-itics to win. People who only want to winshould take up some sport, join the army,or participate in beauty contests. For us,politics is a domain in which equality is atstake in a highly mediated world of con-flicting value systems and diverse tradi-tions. In these conditions, politics shouldbe perceived not as a popularity contestbut as a field of work, one in which theperspective is always in plural.

After years of neo-liberal brainwashingthat has sent all centralised forms of statemanagement to the dustbin of history, we

embrace anew the vision of the state as away of mediating differences in order tobring about equal rights and access for ev-eryone. This is a revolutionary change initself, but to also see people mobilisingaround such ideas, especially in Poland,where state communism was rejected astotalitarian, and where the media, univer-sities, and churches smashed any remnantof socialism, is a revolutionary moment.

Do you think the Left can sustain itself asa political movement within a nationalistframework or does it need to benecessarily international?

I think this is a very artificial way of speaking about the Left, and we shouldfind more complex tools for analysis. AnyLeft, even if it tries to be the most interna-tional in the world, has participants em-bedded in local contexts. The nationalistframework is not a leftist framework. It isa fascist one, and I think this notionshould be taken out of Left politics forgood.

[email protected](For full text of the interview, please go

to www.thehindu.com.)

‘We’re not in politics to win’Scholar-turned-politician Ewa Alicja Majewska explains the political mobilisation that informsthe new Left Razem Party in Poland, and why it shuns ‘professional politicians’

There is no chief orpresident of the party.

During the electoralcampaign, there were pressconferences practicallyevery day in many Polishcities, to showcase the

many different ‘leaders’ tothe public.

Ewa Alicja Majewska.— PHOTO: BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTINTERVIEW

Over this weekend, five girls have killed at least 12 people inNigeria and Cameroon in suicide bombings, officials stated.In Nigeria, one girl strapped explosives to her body, killingherself and seven others at a military checkpoint. In Cam-eroon, on November 23, four teenage suicide bombers killedthemselves and a family of five. These a re just a few exam-

ples, among hundreds, of people giving up their lives for a cause.Suicide terrorism, it seems, is becoming more common, driving yet an-

other wave of violence across the world. Which brings us to the question,why are some people, belonging to the Islamic State or Boko Haram or

other militant groups, willing to die for a cause? Or it is true that all hu-man beings are willing to give up their lives for some cause or the other if their grievances cross a certain threshold?

Explanations to these questions offered by many academics have beenchallenged as shallow and incomplete, and political pundits often lettheir religious, social and political biases creep into their analyses. A ho-listic assessment of the factors that trigger suicide terrorism could proveto be a key tool in ensuring a safer world.

If giving up one’s life is the highest risk, what happened in Paris was aflawed execution of a grand plan, and France may have escaped whatcould have been a deadlier attack. The fact that three suicide bombersblew themselves up outside Stade de France shows that the key target of the terrorists was the stadium, as the French President and several otherimportant persons were watching a soccer match between France andGermany there.

There have been many academic studies to try to understand why peo-ple become suicide bombers, but none asimpressive as the book Dying to Win byRobert Pape of the University of Chicago.Pape, in what is one of the finest efforts tounderstand suicide terrorism, has arguedthat most suicide attacks can be under-stood if they are seen as efforts that try tocompel democracies to withdraw militaryforces from the terrorists’ homeland. However, that doesn’t fully justifywhy Pakistan has been witnessing so many suicide attacks in recent

years. Nor does it explain the 4,620 suicide attacks in over 40 countriesbetween 1982 and 2015, as recorded by the Chicago Project on Securityand Terrorism led by Prof. Pape.

Many have pointed fingers at the Salafi strand of fundamentalist Islam,based on incidents of recent years, to argue that it promotes this violentmanner of retribution. The point here is that most terrorist organisationshave a common ideological underpinning, which inspires people to be-come suicide bombers with the promise of a better afterlife.

However, to blame a single religion for suicide terrorism is a terriblemistake and here’s why. Between 1987 and 2008, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a socialist organisation comprising mostly Hindusand Christians, gave rise to at least 275 suicide terrorists. Much of the in-spiration for the LTTE’s Black Tigers may have come from the traditionthat glorifies those who lay down their lives for the greater good of socie-ty. Christian masses in the Tamil part of Sri Lanka were rewritten partial-ly to praise suicide terrorists, and statues of Black Tigers were erectedaround the Tamil territories.

Every point in time gives a different perspective of suicide terrorism.Hezbollah, which carried out a series of deadly suicide attacks, especiallyin the early 1980s, is a Shiite organisation. It is believed that Hezbollah’sattack on the U.S. Marine barracks in 1983 that killed almost 250 peoplewas what inspired the LTTE to adopt the concept of dying to kill others.

In the Kashmir conflict, there is only one recorded instance of a localKashmiri fidayeen, of a 17-year-old who rammed a car into a military in-stallation in 1999. Almost all other fidayeens in Kashmir have come fromPakistan or elsewhere.

History shows that the Japanese have produced more suicide attackersthan any other culture. As it began to suffer military setback in WorldWar II, Japan unleashed kamikaze pilots, who flew their aircraft filledwith explosives into American ships. Some 3,860 of them died in these at-tacks.

There are also detailed recordings from southern Kerala of the tradi-tion of “chaverpada” (suicide squads) existing for centuries.

Jewish zealots were also legendary, and probably the first recorded in-stance of people willing to fight and die. In fact, the stunning Masada for-tification in Israel tells the story of a mass suicide by 960 people, mostly Jewish rebels and their families, when the Roman Empire was closing inon them. It is in a way the same tradition exhibited by Velu Thampi Dala-wa in the early 19th century. Dalawa killed himself after his rebellionagainst the British forces failed near Thiruvananthapuram.

If history is a reliable teacher, there is only one lesson to be learnt fromthese diverse examples: suicide terrorists do not belong to one religionor culture alone. It is a fact that nation states fighting terrorism do not re-ally have an idea of how terrorists are going to respond and to whatlength they will go to in order to cause damage. Without a proper assess-ment of emotions and passions that shape the response of non-state ac-tors, how can even the mightiest of military be assured of success?

Instead of focussing myopically on a religion or a region, it is time tolook far deeper into issues contributing to the plague that is terrorism.This demands a rigorous effort to remove all biases before sitting downto look for answers to the crucial question: when will someone be readyto give up his/her life for a [email protected]

Dying for retribution

History shows thatsuicide terrorists donot belong to onereligion or culture

HOMELAND

JOSY JOSEPH



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NEWS12 | THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015

NOIDA/DELHI

In the run-up to the CoP,India has been engaging 60countries ranging from theSmall Island DevelopingStates and Least DevelopedCountries to the developednations to evolve aconsensus.

Two areas of failure in the

climate process so far, ac-cording to Indian officials,are creation of the $100-bil-lion annual climate financefund that had been initiatedsix years ago in Copenhagen,and transfer of green tech-nologies. “The financepledge has been diluted atsuccessive Conferences of the Parties, and only a prom-ise of $10.2 billion has beenmade at present,” said an offi-cial. If innovators of greentechnologies have to be com-pensated, it could be doneusing the fund, but thereshould be no access barrierto any country. EnvironmentMinister Prakash Javadekarhas been saying that disastershould not be used to gener-ate profits.

Another contested area isthat of transparency normsfor use of funds. This has

been proposed by the indus-trialised countries in theform of a common frame-work from 2020, but has alsonot found favour since it goesagainst the principle of dif-ferentiated capabilities. Theoverall approach of the richcountries is seen as ‘expand-ing the base of contributorswhile shrinking the base of recipients’.

India is also taking the leadin demanding the major

share of the carbon space (theceiling of 800 or 900 giga-tonnes of carbon emissionsthat the earth can still absorbto keep a rise in global tem-perature below the agreed 2degree Celsius mark), for thedeveloping world. Cuttingemissions to stay within thislimit requires robust financeand technology transfermechanisms.

India and other developingcountries argue that far frommaking progress on flow of

assistance, advanced nationsare trying to include regularoverseas development fund-ing under the 100 billion dol-lar category, in a case of “fudging and doubleaccounting.”

Solar mission

One highlight of the Indianapproach to curbing emis-sions is a major scaling up of renewable energy to 175 GWby 2022, outlined in the

INDC. The National SolarMission alone is to provide100 GW. However, there is noescape from boosting con-ventional capacity too, in-volving some emissions.That is because, if renew-ables are to provide such alarge quantum of power,there have to be other con-ventional sources, such asthermal, to provide capaci-ties to handle fluctuation inthe generation from greensources, an official points out.

This is being done in the formof a green corridor that willbe deployed duringfluctuations.

Overall, India’s effort alongwith other developing coun-tries such as Brazil, China andSouth Africa would be to re-inforce equity in any climateagreement arrived at in Paris,and for developed countriesto enhance action on cuttingtheir carbon emissions in theperiod before 2020.

India to press for equity atclimate talks despite pressure

India plans to cut emissions by i ncreasing power generationfrom renewable energy sources. —P HOTO : VIJAY SONEJI

“Look at what is happeningin the world, terrorists arestriking at will,” Justice Tha-kur, Chief Justice of India-designate, said in an apparentreference to the Paris terrorattacks, which shocked theworld.

Justice Thakur, who ledthe Bench including JusticeKurian Joseph, said there wasno “middle course” for Ms.Verhoeven.

Making a point that thecourt could not be seen to besoft on a person accused of terrorist activities in anothercountry, Justice Thakur toldcounsel T.R. Andhyarujinaand Ramni Taneja that thecourt would hear Ms. Ver-hoeven’s case fully and withcare, but “we are not ready torelease her now”.

“I was only asking for re-lease for humanitarian sake,”Mr. Andhyarujina said.

“She is accused of terroristactivity. She is accused of links to subversive groups.We have no control over her.This also involves the bilater-al relationship between twocountries ... we cannot create

any complications here,” Jus-tice Thakur observed, post-ing the case for December 8.

The Centre, meanwhile,banked on a treaty datingback to 1897 for her extradi-tion to Chile to face murdercharges. Additional Solic-itor-General P.S. Patwaliatold the court that Chile hadwritten to India for her extra-dition as recently as Novem-ber 16.

‘Why the long detention?’

But Mr. Andhyarujinaquestioned the woman’s de-tention for about ninemonths. He submitted thather arrest was struck downby the Delhi High Court onSeptember 21. Counsel saidthe Red Corner Notice wascancelled on May 30.

“What was the justifica-tion to keep her in custodyfor so long? Article 21 is not

only applicable to citizensbut also to foreigners,” Jus-tice Kurian asked the Centre.

Mr. Patwalia counteredthat “everybody here is triedas per the law”.

He said a fresh arrest war-rant was issued on Septem-ber 22 on a fresh Note Ver-bale from Chileanauthorities. He referred toSection 3 and 34 (B) of the Ex-tradition Act, 1962, enjoiningthe Union government to ar-rest a fugitive criminal aftersecuring warrant from acompetent magistrate.

In her plea, the womansaid she was being persecut-ed by the Chilean authoritiesfor raising human rights is-sues there. She contendedthat the Indian governmenthad unreasonably and with-out basis accepted an extra-dition request by Chile. Sheis alleged to have participa-ted in the assassination of Senator Jaime Guzman Erra-zuriz on April 1, 1991.

She was visiting India forthe fourth time on a Buddhistpilgrimage when she got em-broiled in this trouble.

We cannot be soft on terroraccused, says Supreme Court

Article 21 is not only applicable to citizens butalso to foreigners, Justice

Kurian tells Centre

FROM PAGE ONE

NEW DELHI: First it was Badla

(revenge), after Batla Houseencounter it was Farz (duty)and now it is Deen (religion)— this is the opening line of asecret document prepared bythe Telangana Police to ex-

plain the influence of thedreaded militant outfit, theIslamic State (IS), in India.

Though Indian intelli-gence agencies were littlelate to wake up to the dangersposed by the IS, with alreadysix of 23 who joined the fightin Iraq and Syria dead, theagencies and the governmenthave finally put their act to-gether. Nearly 150 people areunder watch. There are fivewomen also among the prob-able recruits who wereweaned away through com-munity outreach. The thrustis on counter-radicalisation.

From roping in heads of Muslim religious bodies to is-sue fatwas against the IS tothat of keeping an eye on edu-cational institutions, theagencies are acting behindthe curtain to discourageyoung Muslim men and

women from being attractedto the IS.Though it has always de-

nied there is any influence of the IS here, government hastaken multiple steps to coun-ter the outfit.

A senior Home Ministryofficial told The Hindu that athree-pronged approach wasbeing followed by them. “We

have categorised the poten-tial recruits of the IS in threecategories — those who havecome back, those who are cu-rious about the IS and theones who want to go.”

“There is no blanket rule toarrest all of them. It is beingdealt with on a case-to-case

basis. The Islam propagatedby the IS is alien to Muslimsin India,” said the official.

Another official said: “Theconcern for India is purelyarithmetic as the country hasthe second largest Muslimpopulation in the world.There is a tiny percentage of

Muslims who have joined theIS.”

IS members post religiousmessages on Facebook andother social media platforms.They then develop contactswith the persons who haveshared the post or liked it.These men and women are

motivated further by sharingradical videos and pictures.“If seriousness is evinced bythe person, the routes and lo-gistics are explained to reachthe IS. Phone numbers andSkype IDs are exchanged.The recruit then meets theintermediary and they are en-

couraged to travel to Syriabased on the person’s willing-ness and drive,” said theofficial.

The government says it hasroped in NGOs to deal withthe IS. “Along with those whopromote violent extremism,it is important to target extre-

mist ideologies as well,” saidthe official.

An official said the govern-ment was trying to have awide “overt and covert” pres-ence on the Internet. “Agen-cies are creating positive In-ternet content and pushing itacross social media. Efforts

are on to reduce the appeal of the IS through wide disper-sion of counter-radicalisationmessages,” said the official.The foremost thing was tofind credible interlocutors,who could act as a bridgeamong the community mem-bers, the official said. The

government had alreadybrought the Imams on board,who have issued fatwasagainst the IS. “The MinorityWelfare departments shouldbe strengthened through hu-man and material resources.It should be treated on a parwith SC/ST departments. Itwill partner with police andother departments in a cre-ative manner to address theissues of alienation andshared victimhood.”

Account for missing youth

The government has askedall States to step up beat-pol-icing for ground-level intelli-gence. Special emphasis isbeing laid on “identifying andaccounting for the missingyouth in the locality.”

The government is keepinga close eye on places of wor-ship, political ideas and

learning, communities, plac-es of work, education, prisonsand social network. “All thesegroups produce groups of like-minded individualswhose shared purpose andexperiences build enduringtrust and a sense of ‘us, to-gether against the world’among its members,” said asenior official.

TACKLING ISLAMIC STATE

Focus now is on counter-radicalisationA three-pronged approach being followed to address the issue, says Home Ministry official

V IJAITA SINGH

SINGAPORE: India and Singa-pore signed a joint declara-tion envisaging a “StrategicPartnership,” which, besidesbroadening engagement inexisting areas of coopera-tion, aims to catalyse newones ranging from political,defence and security cooper-ation to economic, culturaland people-to-peoplecontacts.

Besides the partnershipdeclaration — a frameworkto contribute to greater re-gional stability and growth— the two countries signedas many as 10 bilateral agree-ments on Tuesday.

Later, addressing the In-dia-Singapore EconomicConvention, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi said his visithad been very productiveand positive. Memoranda of understanding were signedfor curtailing drug traffickingand improving cybersecuri-ty, enabling Singapore andIndia to collaborate on tech-

nology and research.Agreements were signed

for collaboration in urbanplanning and wastewatermanagement and to extendlong-term loan of Indian ar-tefacts to the Asian Civilisa-tions Museum of Singaporeand for cooperation in thefields of arts, museums, ar-chives and monuments.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays homage at the IndianNational Army memorial in Singapore on Tuesday.— PHOTO: PTI

India, Singapore enterinto strategic tie-upPRASHANTHCHINTALA

NEW DELHI: State Minister of Home Affairs of Bangladesh AsaduzzamanKhan Kamal told The

Hindu on Tuesday thattwo IS assassins sought byBangladesh for the

October 3 murder of Japanese agro-researcherKunio Hoshi, have crossedover to India.

“We have alerted Indianauthorities about theirpresence,” Mr. Kamal said.

Senior Home Ministryofficials told The Hindu

that they were working on

the intelligence forwardedby Bangladesh and weretrying to track them.

Bangladesh’s claimabout the IS killers of Hoshi, hiding in India werethe latest after it handedover a list containing 204names of the “ShirshoShontrashi” (top

terrorists) of Bangladeshreportedly hiding in India.

“We handed over the listcontaining photographsand even addresses andalso discussed the threatfrom the IS during theHome Secretary-level talksthat were held in Dhaka onNovember 16. The border

area around Bangladesh,especially certain regionsin West Bengal, Assam andMeghalaya have hideoutsthat are being used bythese terrorists as bases,”Mr. Kamal told The Hindu

from Dhaka.The Minister said

though two assassins of the

IS had been tracked insideIndia, the list of 204 hasseveral names belonging tothe Jamat ul-Mujahideen(JUM) and theAnsarulallah Bangla,which were violentfundamentalist groupwaging battle againstBangladesh.

We are tracking two IS killersinside India, says BangladeshK ALLOLBHATTACHERJEE

& V IJAITA SINGH

NEW DELHI: In what promises tobe yet another difficult ses-sion of Parliament — sched-uled to commence on No-vember 26 — coming as itdoes soon after the Biharelections, the government’stop priority remains the con-troversial Goods and Servic-es Tax (GST) Bill. PrimeMinister Narendra Modimade this clear in Singaporeon Tuesday.

But the government’s suc-cess in taking its reformsagenda forward will hinge onhow many concessions it iswilling to make to the Con-gress that has drawn severalred lines through the presentdraft Bill. Meanwhile, theCongress leaders continuedto maintain that no effort hasbeen made by the govern-ment to narrow down differ-ences on the contentiouslaw.

Even the Janata Dal (Unit-ed) — that heads the victo-rious Grand Alliance in Bi-har — has decided that in theinterests of the Opposition

unity, it will follow the leadtaken by the Congress andthe Left Parties: earlier, it haddecided to back the GST Bill.“Bihar is not a manufactur-ing State,” a senior JD(U) MPtold The Hindu. “So we arenot that affected by the GST.But in the interests of the Op-position unity, we feel in thenational interest, the govern-

ment must heed what theCongress and the Left aresaying.” The JD(U) has 12MPs in the Rajya Sabha,where the government ismassively outnumbered.

Not surprisingly then, theGST Bill was one of the keyissues that came up for dis-cussion when five seniorMinisters met here on Tues-day for a preliminary discus-sion ahead of formal all-par-ty meetings convened byParliamentary Affairs Minis-ter M. Venkaiah Naidu andLok Sabha Speaker SumitraMahajan on Wednesday.

Union Ministers RajnathSingh, Arun Jaitley, SushmaSwaraj and Manohar Parri-

kar who met at Mr. Naidu’soffice, informed sources say,specially reviewed the ef-forts being made to reach outto the Opposition.

With the Opposition hav-ing made it clear that it willraise the issue of rising intol-erance, the Ministers alsodiscussed how the govern-ment could counter it.

SMITA GUPTA

GST Bill tops agendafor Winter Session

Venkaiah Naidu will chair anall-party meet on Wednesday.

“I will expect the partywhich ruled India for almosthalf-a-century to reconsidersome of the suggestions.Some of their suggestions arenot in the larger interests of GST,” he said. At the sametime, he stressed that he waswilling to discuss their con-cerns with them and had “nodifficulty in reaching out” tothe Opposition.

Mr. Jaitley termed “pre-posterous” the Congress’ssuggestion to incorporatethe tariff rates for GST in theConstitution (Amendment)Bill as it would create a

“flawed architecture” for thetax. He also questioned theCongress’s stance on chang-

ing the dispute resolutionmechanism, arguing thatnone of these positions waspart of the Bills moved by P.Chidambaram and PranabMukherjee when they wereFinance Ministers in theUPA government.

Terror threat

Mr. Jaitley, who recentlyreturned from a G20 meetingin Turkey that was overshad-owed by the Paris attacks,said the Islamic State had thepotential to destabilise theglobal economy and impactinvestment flows and pover-

ty alleviation.“The IMF has been revis-

ing its global growth fore-

casts for the last two years.Now, patchy signs of growthare appearing around theworld, and are then beingovertaken by geopoliticalfactors that pose a challengeto the stability,” he said.“Which part of the world issafe itself will become a bigquestion,” he said.

IS shadow

“In the past few months,the IS’s activities have an im-pact on global economy thatcan’t be underrated. Globalresources will now be in-creasingly diverted to securi-

ty measures… IS attacks willimpact global currency, tradeand tourism,” he said.

Willing to reach out to Cong.: Jaitley

BHOPAL/IMPHAL: In a major set-back to the BJP, its candidateNirmala Bhuria was trouncedby Kantilal Bhuria of the Con-gress in the by-poll in Ratlam-

Jhabua (ST) Lok Sabha seat inMadhya Pradesh, which thesaffron party won in 2014.

In Manipur, the party wonboth the Assembly by-elec-tions, opening its account inthe 60-member House.

However, the BJP retainedthe Dewas Assembly seat inMadhya Pradesh.

Nirmala Bhuria, daughter of Dileep Singh Bhuria, whose

death necessitated the by-poll,lost to former Union MinisterKantilal Bhuria who wrested

the tribal-dominated seat fromthe BJP by a margin of 88,832votes. Buoyed by his victory,Mr. Kantilal said: “It is a victoryof voters. The wave of BJP’s de-feat that started from Jhabuawill spread to the entire Stateand country.”

Iboyaima Laithangbamreports from Imphal:

Thongam Bisajit of the BJPwon the Thongju constituencyby defeating his nearest rival,Bijoy Koijam, of the Congress.

In the Thangmeiband con-stituency, Khumukcham Joyk-ishan of the BJP won 12,095

votes, while Jotin Waikhom of the Congress got 10,198 votes.

The seats became vacant fol-

lowing the disqualification of Bisajit and Joykishan, bothTMC MLAs, who joined theBJP.

TRS gets Warangal again

Gollapudi Srinivasa Rao re-ports:

The ruling Telangana Rash-tra Samithi (TRS) won the Wa-rangal Lok Sabha seat with athumping majority, betteringits earlier record. Party candi-date Pasunuri Dayakar won theelection polling 4,59,092 votes.His rivals Sarve Satyanarayana(Congress) secured 1,56,315

votes and BJP-TDP candidatePagidipati Devaiah polled1,30,178 votes.

Congress wrests Ratlam; BJP wins 2 seats in Manipur

Congress workers celebrating the victory from Ratlam seat,outside the PCC office in Bhopal on Tuesday.—P HOTO: PTI

SINGAPORE: Setting the tone forthe Paris climate changeconference, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi said onTuesday that India wouldnot create any “problems”for the world in combatingglobal warming, an apparentresponse to the U.S.’scontention that it would be a“challenge” at the meet.

He said India needed hugeamounts of energy fordevelopment but would dowhatever it could to dealwith the problem of climatechange as it saw the world asone family.

Addressing the Indiandiaspora here beforewinding up his two-day visitto Singapore, Mr. Modi saidhis government was layingthrust in generating of power from clean andrenewable sources such assolar, nuclear, wind andbiomass energy with a targetof 175 gigawatts and in turnreduce dependence on coal.

“By 2022, when thecountry celebrates its 75thIndependence Day, we wantto provide 24x7 electricity toall the villages,” he said. —PTI

‘India will do its best tocombat climate change’

Rejecting the trader’schoice of name, JusticeAgrawal, who wrote theverdict, observed, “Theword ‘Ramayan’ representsthe title of a book written byMaharshi Valmiki and isconsidered a religious bookof the Hindus in our coun-try. Thus, using exclusivename of the book ‘Ra-mayan’ for getting it regis-tered as a trademark for anycommodity could not bepermissible.”

The court referred to

how the trader also had

photographs of Lord Rama,Sita and Lakshman shownin the label, taking it as a“clear indication that hewas taking advantage of thegods and goddesses, whichis otherwise notpermitted.”

The judgment referred tothe Eighth Report on theTrade Marks Bill, 1993, sub-mitted by the Parliamen-tary Standing Committeeon April 21, 1994, in this re-gard. “We find that the com-mittee expressed its opin-

ion that any symbol relating

to gods, goddesses, placesof worship should not ordi-narily be registered as atrademark. However, thecommittee did not want todisturb the existing trade-marks by prohibiting theirregistration as it will resultin a chaos in the market. Atthe same time, the commit-tee trusted that the govern-ment will initiate appropri-ate action if someonecomplains that a particulartrademark is hurting his re-ligious susceptibilities,” the

apex court observed.

Ramayan cannot be anyone’strademark, says Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Union Fi-nance Ministry has said ithas taken immediate stepsto release funds to theflood-affected Tamil Naduand Andhra Pradesh and ateam of Central govern-ment officials has been de-

puted to take stock of thedamage in Tamil Nadu onNovember 26.

The government said it

allocated Rs. 939 crore toTamil Nadu and Rs. 1,030crore to Andhra Pradeshfor dealing with the disas-ters, and it would considermore help to the severelyaffected States based onthe assessment of theteam.

“The Tamil Nadu Chief

Minister had sent a letterenclosing a detailed mem-orandum on the damagefrom the floods. Likewise,

a letter has been receivedfrom the Andhra PradeshChief Minister seekingCentral assistance…,” theFinance Ministry said onTuesday evening.

A team of Central gov-ernment officials will visitTamil Nadu on November26. Another team will visit

Andhra Pradesh once theState sends its memoran-dum on the extent of dam-age.

sessment. The Ministry of Home Affairs takes thelead in the assessment.

For Tamil Nadu, Rs. 133crore in the Centre’s con-tribution to the SDRF for2014-15 was released onMonday.

The State is also entitledto Rs. 509.25 crore of the

SDRF funds this year, andthis was also remitted byMonday, the Finance Min-istry said.

Every year, the Centremeets 75 per cent of theState Disaster Relief Fund(SDRF), and the rest ispaid by the States.

If the consequences of adisaster cannot be handledwith the money from theSDRF, a claim may bemade on the National Di-

saster Relief Fund(NDRF), and the moneyfrom it will be released onthe basis of the Centre’s as-

FinMin releases funds for flood-hit Tamil Nadu, A.P.N ATIONAL BUREAU



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NEWS | 13THE HINDU WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015

NOIDA/DELHI

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: The Con-gress on Tuesday backed ac-tor Aamir Khan’s right to ex-press his feelings. “I think hehas raised a crucial issue andthe government should bethankful to him for that,” par-ty spokesman Shakeel Ah-mad said.

Aamir said on Mondaythat he was alarmed at therise in intolerance in thecountry over the past six toeight months.

Delhi Chief Minister Ar-vind Kejriwal and Communi-st Party of India (Marxist)general secretary SitaramYechury lauded the actor’scourage to speak out.

“Every word that AamirKhan said is so true. I admirehim for speaking up,” Mr.Kejriwal tweeted.

“Aamir Khan spoke aboutdifficult issues with Minis-ters present in the audience.He should be heard and notthreatened for speaking thetruth,” Mr. Yechury said in aseries of tweets.

The Union government re-sponded to Mr. Khan, sayingthe statement was made “un-der someone else’s influen-ce.” Minister of State for Mi-nority Affairs MukhtarAbbas Naqvi said “the coun-try has given him [Aamir

Khan] so much love and re-spect. I am sure he said it in ahurry or maybe under influ-ence of others.”

“Tolerance is in the DNAof this country. Neither is hegoing anywhere nor will welet him go,” he added.

INTOLERANCE DEBATE

Cong., CPI(M) back AamirHe should be heard and not threatened: YechuryN ATIONAL BUREAU

Security was increased at the residence of the actor followingprotests against his remarks. - PHOTO: AFP

MUMBAI: The BJP on Tuesdayattacked Aamir Khan for hiscomments on a sense of “in-security” and “fear” in socie-ty and said the actor was notscared of anything, but wasspreading fear amongIndians.

The party’s national spo-kesperson Shahnawaz Hus-sain said the way Congressvice-president Rahul Gand-hi had backed Mr. Khan ex-posed the party’s conspiracyto defame India. “Indianshave showered Aamir withlove, affection, praise andmoney. He may use his star-dom to make headlines, buthis statements are nothingbut a blot on the country’simage,” he said.

Accusing the Congress of fuelling the controversy, Mr.

Hussain said Aamir Khanshould reveal who was ad-vising him to make suchstatements. “At a time whenthe entire world is recognis-ing India as a super powerand the country is walkingthe path of development, theCongress is hatching a con-spiracy to defame the na-tion,” he said.

“We do not see anyonethrough the communalprism. We see everyone asan Indian,” he said. The ShivSena, which was soft onShah Rukh Khan after hemade a similar statement re-cently, attacked Aamir Khan,saying if he did not want tostay in India, he could go toPakistan. “If he does notwant to stay here, he can goto Pakistan,” MaharashtraEnvironment Minister Ram-das Kadam said.

BJP sees Cong. plotS TAFFR EPORTER

NEW DELHI: If the Central Bu-reau of Investigation (CBI)charge sheet against IndraniMukerjea, her former hus-band Sanjeev Khanna anddriver Shyamvar Rai is to bebelieved, the April 24, 2012murder of Sheena Bora was

planned to a T.On April 23, Indrani reac-

hed Mumbai. The chargesheet alleges she had told herpersonal secretary KajalSharma and driver Shyamvarabout the visit.

Indrani’s passport detailsshow she reached Mumbai onApril 23 morning. The driverpicked her up from the airportand dropped her at the Mar-low Apartment complex, fol-lowing which she, along withhim, allegedly visited Raigadto decide where to dispose of Sheena’s body.

Along the way, at Indrani’sinstance the driver alsobought a 20-litre can in Lona-wala. On her way back to theapartment, she purchasedtwo big bags allegedly for herdaughter and son Mikhail’sbodies.

Security guards deployed

at Indrani’s apartment sawher and Shyamvar Rai goingout on the day of the murder.Indrani visited a chemist anda wine shop, purchased a bot-tle each of vodka and whisky,two small bottles of water, sixbottles of sedatives and a pairof gloves.

At her instance, the driveropened a water bottle andboth the liquor bottles,poured out some and mixedthe entire six bottles of seda-tives into them.

Indrani and her personalsecretary then went to HotelHilltop, not far from theapartment. She told the secre-tary that she had booked a ho-tel room for a guest from Kol-kata, some Mr. (Sanjeev)Khanna.

In the evening, Indrani andthe driver reached Bandraand parked the car at therendezvous, near NationalCollege. By then, her formerhusband Sanjeev also joinedher.

Meanwhile, Sheena’s boy-

friend and Peter Mukerjea’sson Rahul picked her up fromher Mumbai Metro office at3.36 p.m.

Rahul and she headed toBandra in an Alto car. Theyreached Bandra at 6.40 p.m.Rahul left after droppingSheena near Indrani’s car.

The mother and daughterhugged each other and then,the former offered her thespiked water. Sheena dranksome, following which Indra-ni took her to one AmarsonsSari showroom and aftersometime, all four got into thecar. Indrani directed Shyam-

var to go towards Pali Hill. Inthe moving car, an intoxicatedSheena started losing con-sciousness. Indrani askedShyamvar to pull over.

The CBI charges that thedriver then placed his handson Sheena’s mouth and San-jeev pulled her by the hair.Sheena tried to fight back, bit-ing Shyamvar’s right thumbthat began bleeding. But heheld on. The mother grabbedher daughter by the neck andstrangled her.

Confirming that Sheenawas dead, Sanjeev steppedout of the vehicle and walkedaway. Indrani then instructedthe driver to go to Taj LandsEnd in Bandra.

On the way, she muttered:“Three BHK flat Sheena komil gaya hai” (Sheena has gota 3BHK flat).

After a while, she left theTaj and drove back to theapartment. Sanjeev joined theother two accused at a gardennear the Marlow Apartmentcomplex, after which theyagain went to the flat, parkingthe vehicle close to the ga-rage. Indrani and Sanjeevstuffed Sheena’s body in a bagand then, he along with Shy-amvar carried it to the garage.

Next day at 4 a.m., theybrought the bag carryingSheena’s body back to the car.Indrani and Sanjeev pulled

the body out and placed it inan upright sitting position inthe back seat. The three thenset out to dispose of the bodyin the Raigad forest.

A file photo of Sheena Borawho was allegedly murderedby her mother.

How Indrani, her driver andex-husband ‘killed’ SheenaDEVESHK P ANDEY

MUMBAI: The CBI is likely tomake Kajal Sharma, IndraniMukerjea’s secretary, a statewitness in the Sheena Boramurder case, sources said onTuesday. The agency record-ed Sharma’s statement overthe weekend and is taking for-ward the investigation basedon her statements, officialssaid.

“Her testimony will be cru-cial in proving the efforts thatIndrani took to fool people,particularly Rahul [Sheena’sfiancé], and make them thinkthat Sheena was alive,” said a

CBI officer. On Indrani’s in-structions, Sharma had forgedSheena’s signature on hercancellation of lease agree-ment and resignation letter.She also opened a new emailaccount was set up in herSheena’s name to create animpression that she was aliveafter she was killed on April24.

The officer said Sharma didnot gain any personal benefitfrom participating in the de-ception.

“Even Rai was paid moneyfor his role in the murder, butSharma was not,” the officeradded.

Secretary’s testimony key to exposing murderG AUTAM S. MENGLE

PUNE: In a thinly veiled re-buke to Aamir Khan for hisremarks on the “growingintolerance” in the country,Nationalist Congress Partychief Sharad Pawar said onTuesday that the actor’ssensibilities seemed super-fluous compared with thesacrifice of an Army officerfrom Maharashtra, whodied fighting militants inKashmir last week.

Mr. Pawar was in Satarato visit the family of Col.Santosh Mahadik. “ForgetAamir Khan... his remarksare not important in thelight of the tremendoussacrifice made by Col. Ma-hadik for his country,” saidMr. Pawar.

Pawar ‘rebukes’actor for remark SHOUMOJITB ANERJEE

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NEW DELHI: The pro-talks factionof ULFA appealed to the Cen-tre to include its recently de-ported ‘general secretary’Anup Chetia in the peaceprocess, saying without hisparticipation the dialoguewould remain inconclusive.

“There will be no political

discussion without ULFA gen-eral secretary Anup Chetia'sparticipation in the talks. Wehave appealed to the govern-ment to ensure his early re-lease from judicial custody sothat he can join us. Otherwise,the peace process would re-main inconclusive," ULFA'president' Arabinda Rajkho-wa said after a meeting withUnion Home Secretary RajivMehrishi.

A Home Ministry spokes-person said the ULFA leadersappreciated the efforts madeby the government for repa-triation of Chetia from Bangla-desh to India.

“The ULFA leaders request-ed to associate him (Chetia) inthe ongoing peace process.The Union Home Secretarysuggested to the governmentof India representative to ex-amine the request of the ULFA

leaders,” he said.The meeting, under thechairmanship of Mr. Mehrishi,reviewed the progress made inthe peace talks so far. Repre-sentatives of the governmentof Assam also took part in it.

“The discussions were cor-dial and it was decided to meetagain as soon as mutually con-venient to move the peaceprocess forward,” the spokes-person said.

ULFA leader ShashadharChoudhury said the nextround of talks with the Centralgovernment would be held inDecember in which Chetia isexpected to take part.

Chetia, who was arrestedupon his deportation fromBangladesh about a fortnightago, is currently in a jail inGuwahati.

Union Minister of State forHome Kiren Rijiju said theCentral government is expect-ing a breakthrough in the on-going talks with the ULFAsoon.

Take Chetia on board, says ULFA faction

N ATIONAL BUREAU



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NOIDA/DELHI

WORLD

NEW YORK: A 29-year-oldPakistani former schoolcricket captain was jailed for40 years in the United Stateson Tuesday over an al-Qaedaplot to bomb a Britishshopping center.

Abid Naseer was firstarrested in 2009 in Britainwith 11 other men suspectedof preparing to attack a mall

in Manchester, and wasextradited to the United

States from Britain in 2013."You are not a typical

criminal," Judge RaymondDearie told Naseer in the U.S.federal court in Brooklyn."You are a terrorist, theevidence establishes that."

Naseer was convictedearlier this year of helpingal-Qaeda plan the attack onthe Manchester shopping

center as part of coordinatedattacks. — AFP

U.S. jails Pak. convict for 40 years

KABUL: Taliban insurgents onTuesday ambushed a military-contracted helicopter thatmade an emergency landingin northwest Afghanistan,killing three people in ashootout and capturing 16others on board.

Afghan Defence Ministry

spokesman Dawlat Waziriconfirmed the helicopter hadgone down in Faryab, aprovince that has experiencedheavy fighting between theTaliban and Afghan securityforces. He would not saywhere the helicopter washeaded or who was on board,and it was not immediatelyclear why the helicopter wasforced to land. — AP

Taliban ambushes chopper, 3 killed

ussian President Vladimir Putin saidon Tuesday that he found it suspi-cious that Turkey had reached out toits NATO allies after the downing of a Russian jet over the Syrian borderbut not to Moscow.

“Instead of immediately getting incontact with us, as far as we know,

the Turkish side immediately turnedto their partners from NATO to dis-cuss this incident, as if we shot downtheir plane and not they ours,” Mr.Putin said in Sochi. “Do they want tomake NATO serve ISIS?” he asked.

The Russian leader, nevertheless,insisted the affair should encouragemore cooperation in the fightagainst terrorism.

A U.S. official said U.S. forces werenot involved in the downing of theRussian jet, which was the first timea Russian or Soviet military aircrafthas been publicly acknowledged tohave been shot down by a NATOmember since the 1950s.

The incident occurred as Russiaand the West were slowly edging to-ward some manner of understand-ing to unite forces to confront the Is-lamic State in the wake of the bloodyterrorist attacks in Paris and thedowning of a Russian charter flightover Egypt that together killed 354people.

President François Hollande of France began a world tour this weekto try to build consensus on the is-sue. He’s in Washington on Tuesday,and will go to Moscow in the comingdays.

But the Sukhoi incident was likelyto further sour relations betweentwo key parties to any solution, Mos-cow and Ankara, already bruisedover previous tensions on the borderand differences over the fate of Pres-

ident Bashar Assad of Syria. TheKremlin dispatched its military toSyria in late September to shore upMr. Assad and to fight rebels backedby Turkey.

“It would be wrong now to giveany assessments, assumptions ormake any conclusions before we geta full picture,” Dmitri S. Peskov, theKremlin spokesman, told reportersin Sochi in response to a questionabout how the incident would affectrelations between the two countries.

“We have to be patient. It is a veryserious incident, but again, withoutall of the information it is impossibleto say anything and it would bewrong.”

However, President Putin, speak-ing in Sochi before a meeting withKing Abdulla II of Jordan, said the in-cident would have “serious conse-quences” for ties between Russiaand Turkey.

Russia’s entry into the heavily traf-ficked skies around Syria raised im-mediate concerns about mishaps, in-advertent or otherwise, that couldlead to confrontations involving

Turkey, a NATO member, and theU.S. Turkey has warned Moscowabout intrusions in its airspace atleast two times since it began itsbombing campaign in September

and last week shot down an un-manned aerial device that analystssaid was likely of Russian origin.

Some Western analysts character-ised the downing of the jet as a ro-bust response by Turkey which theysaid created clear red lines for Russiaand should thereby make furtherclashes less, rather than more likely.

Tensions had been building re-cently over Russian bombing in theborder area.

Last week, Turkey summoned theRussian ambassador, Andrey G. Kar-lov, to discuss Ankara’s concernsover the bombing of Turkmen villag-es in northern Syria and called for animmediate end to the Russian mili-tary operation close to the Turkishborder, according to Turkish ForeignMinistry.

— New York Times NewsService & Agencies

TENSIONS SPIRAL

Incident occurs at a time when Moscow and the West are slowly edging toward some kind of understanding over Syria after the Paris terror attacks

R

We support the territorialintegrity of our NATO ally,Turkey. Diplomacy andde-escalation are importantto resolve this situation— JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO Chief

Downing of Russian jet may further worsen Syrian conflict

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan was setWednesday to execute a dis-abled man as activists said itwas nearing its 300th hangingin under a year, and AmnestyInternational slammed Isla-mabad for "shamefully seal-ing its place among theworld's worst executioners".

The execution of Abdul Ba-sit, a paraplegic who was con-victed of murder in 2009, hasalready been postponed sev-eral times after rights groupsraised concerns about how awheelchair-bound manwould mount the scaffold.

A prison official confirmedto it has been scheduled againfor Wednesday morning. "Hisfamily has been informed,"the official said, adding that afinal meeting between Basitand his relatives had been ar-ranged for late Tuesday. Pa-kistan's Human Rights Com-

mission said it had written toPM Nawaz Sharif seeking tostay the execution. — AFP

Paraplegic set forhanging in Pak.

BUENOS AIRES: When he was just32, the President-elect of Ar-gentina, Mauricio Macri,thought his life would followthe predictable pattern of theson of an industrial tycoon,marked by luxury and privi-lege as he followed his fa-ther’s path into business in-side the cocoon of thisnation’s elite.

But then rogue police offi-cers kidnapped him andplaced him in a coffin on theirway to a hide-out.

“When they opened thecoffin, I breathed deeply asmuch as I could,” Mr. Macrisaid of the harrowing episodein 1991, which ended morethan 10 days later when his fa-ther paid a multimillion-dol-lar ransom to secure his re-lease. “I wasn’t sure of

anything anymore, not even if I would live through the day.”

Likening the experience to

surviving a terminal illness,

Mr. Macri, now 56, credits thekidnapping with an awaken-ing, putting him on a coursethat would ultimately leadhim to politics.

He eventually became themayor of Buenos Aires, andon Sunday, he defied early ex-pectations by winning Argen-tina’s presidential race, up-ending the nation bydefeating the Peronists, whohave dominated politics herefor decades.

Only a day later, Mr. Macrimoved quickly to strike a dif-ferent tone from that of thedeparting President, CristinaFernandez, who — along withher late husband, NéstorKirchner — had controlledthe presidency for the last 12years.

At a news conference onMonday, Mr. Macri empha-sised how his administration

would differ from that of Ms.Fernandez on foreign policy.He announced an effort to get

Venezuela — a close ally of Argentina under Kirchnerand Fernandez — suspendedfrom the Mercosur regionaltrade bloc over claims of theinfringement of civil libertiesthere.

Before entering politicswith the formation of a cen-tre-right party in 2003, Mr.

Macri cut his teeth in the cut-throat world of Argentinesoccer. After his kidnapping,he remained for a few years inleadership roles in the con-struction and auto manufac-turing business empire as-

sembled by his Italian-bornfather, Franco Macri, beforewinning an election as the

President of Boca Juniors,

one of Argentina’s most pop-ular soccer teams.

While presiding over Boca Juniors gave Mr. Macri achance to establish his ownname, he still has to contendwith claims that his privi-leged upbringing makes himunaware of the challengesfaced by ordinary Argentines.At a televised debate with Mr.Scioli, critics accused him of dismissively smirking at hisopponent.

“It provokes fear when yousee Mauricio Macri express-ing himself quite so arrogant-ly,” Maurice Closs, the gover-nor of Misiones province andan opponent of Macri, said inan interview.

Mr. Macri has sought tosoften his image by explain-ing that he plans to maintainpopular anti-poverty pro-grams introduced by the

Kirchners since 2003.— New York Times NewsService

RARING TO GO: Before entering politics with the formation of acentre-right party in 2003, Mauricio Macri cut his teeth in thecutthroat world of Argentine soccer. — PHOTO: REUTERS

SIMONR OMERO&

JONATHAN GILBERT

From football fields to Presidential palace

BRUSSELS: Belgium onTuesday issued aninternational arrestwarrant for a man seen

driving a car with key Parisattacks suspect SalahAbdeslam two days beforethe atrocities.

Mohamed Abrini, 29,was filmed along withAbdeslam at a petrol station inRessons on the motorway to Paris in aRenault Clio which was later used inthe attacks, Belgium's federalprosecutor said in a statement.

"Two days before the Paris attacks,on 11 November around 19.00 pm,Salah Abdeslam was filmed in a gasstation in Ressons (on the motorway toParis), together with a person who hasbeen identified as Mohamed Abrini,born 27 December 1984," theprosecutor's statement said.

"The latter was driving theRenault Clio used two days laterfor committing the attacks.

"The Investigating Judge has

issued an European andInternational arrest warrantagainst Mohamed Abrini. He isactively tracked down byBelgian and French policeservices," said the communique,

which was issued in English.Belgian authorities also charged a

fifth person in connection with theattacks, following the arrest of anumber of people in Brussels and theeastern city of Liege.

"The Investigating Judge,specialised in terrorism cases, hasplaced one person under arrestwarrant for participation in theactivities of a terrorist group andterrorist murders," a statement fromthe federal prosecutor said. — AFP

Belgium issues warrant for new suspect

WASHINGTON: U.S. and Franceon Tuesday said they wouldlike Russia to be part of theirjoint efforts to fight the Is-lamic State in Syria and Iraq,but put the onus on Russia toprove its credentials by giv-ing up its support to SyrianPresident Bashar al-Assad.

Hours after NATO mem-ber Turkey downed along itsborder with Syria a Russianwarplane, U.S. President Ba-rack Obama and FrenchPresident Francois Hollandeindicated a toughening inthe coalition’s stance to-wards Russia. “We have aglobal coalition of 65 coun-tries and Russia is an outlier.Russia and Iran are a coali-

tion of two, supporting As-sad. Given Russia’s militarycapabilities and their influ-ence on Assad, their cooper-ation can help the fightagainst IS,” Mr. Obama said.

“But Russia must make astrategic shift” he said, Mr.Hollande by his side at theWhite House, after a meet-ing in which they decided to“broaden and intensifystrikes” against IS targets.

Mr. Obama defended theTurkish strike that broughtdown the Russian plane. “Ev-ery country has a right to

protect its territory and itsairspace,” he said, suggestingthat Russia was responsiblefor it. “Russia and Turkeymust talk to each other. Thispoints to an ongoing prob-lem as Russian planes havebeen targeting moderate op-position forces in that area,who are supported, also byTurkey,” Mr. Obama saidwhile Mr. Hollande added hecould “only regret” the inci-dent. Mr. Hollande called forRussia and Turkey to takemeasures to avoid escalationof the conflict. Asked wheth-er the coalition could con-sider coordinated operationwith Russia against IS, Mr.Obama said for that to hap-pen, Russia must “refocus itsattention on IS.”

Obama, Hollande seek shift inRussian strategy before joint action

Ask Russia to give upits support to SyrianPresident al-Assad

V ARGHESEK. GEORGECAIRO: Islamic State group sui-cide bombers killed four peo-ple, including a judge, in an as-sault Tuesday on a North Sinaihotel hosting judges oversee-ing Egypt's parliamentarypolls, the government and jiha-dists said.

The interior ministry said ajudge, two policemen and a ci-vilian were killed in the blastsat the Swiss Inn hotel in thetown of El-Arish, the provin-cial capital of North Sinaiwhere Islamist militants arewaging an insurgency.

The Islamic State group'sEgypt affiliate claimed respon-sibility for the attack in a state-ment posted online.

The first blast was triggeredby a suicide car bomber fol-lowed by a militant who set off an explosive vest. — AFP

4 killed in IS attack on Sinai hotel

TUNIS: A bomb exploded on abus transporting Tunisia’spresidential guard in centralTunis on Tuesday and killedat least 12 people and wound-ed 11, the interior ministrysaid.

A security source at the siteof the explosion said “most of the agents who were on thebus are dead.” The blast waslikely caused by a bomber det-onating explosives inside thevehicle, a presidential sourcesaid

The explosion, describedas an “attack” by presidentialspokesman Moez Sinaoui,struck on the capital’s Mo-hamed V Avenue, a ministryofficial told AFP.

An AFP journalist reportedseeing the partly burnt outshell of the bus, with police,ambulances and fire trucks atthe scene.

A bank employee workingnearby reported hearing alarge explosion and seeing thebus on fire.

While there was no imme-diate claim of responsibility,Tunisia has been plagued byIslamist violence since the2011 overthrow of longtimedictator Zine El Abidine BenAli.

The explosion came 10 daysafter authorities increased the

security level in the capitaland deployed security forcesin unusually high numbers.

Earlier this month, Tuni-sian authorities announcedthe dismantling of a cell it saidhad planned terror attacks atpolice stations and hotels inthe seaside city of Sousse,about 150 kilometers (95miles) southeast of Tunis.

Two attacks earlier thisyear claimed by the IslamicState group targeted foreign-ers — at the National BardoMuseum in March, killing 21tourists and a policeman, andat a resort hotel in Sousse in June, killing 38 tourists.

Dozens of members of thesecurity forces have also beenkilled by extremists since2011. — Agencies

Tunisian police officers standguard after an attack on amilitary bus in Tunis onTuesday.— PHOTO: REUTERS

Explosion hits presidential

guard bus in Tunisia, 12 killed

IRVING: Attorneys for a 14-year-old Muslim boy arrested afterthe homemade clock he tookto his Dallas-area school wasmistaken for a possible bombsaid Monday he was publiclymistreated and deserves $15million.

A law firm representingAhmed Mohamed sent lettersMonday demanding $10 mil-lion from the city of Irvingand $5 million from the IrvingIndependent School District.The letters also threaten law-suits and seek written apol-ogies. Ahmed took his clockto school in September, andan educator thought it couldbe a bomb. Ahmed was arrest-ed but never charged. He wassuspended from school.

‘Inexcusable’

“What has happened to thisfamily is inexcusable,” KellyHollingsworth, an attorneyfor Ahmed and his family, saidin an email. “As indicated inthe letters, the long term ef-fects on Ahmed are incalcula-ble.”

Meribeth Sloan, a spokes-woman for Irving said the cityis reviewing its letter and hasno comment. The districtdidn’t immediately return amessage on Monday. — AP

Family of Muslim teen seeks $15min clock incident



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BUSINESS

BRIEFLY

NEW DELHI: The government plans

to ensure that close to 98 per cent

of the foreign investment inflowscome in through the automatic

route without needing any

bureaucratic approval, in a bid to

ensure ease of doing business in

the country, a senior government

official said.

“Following the recent

announcement of opening up 15

sectors…India has thrown open 92

per cent of the FDI through the

automatic route. We do not want

any business man to come to

Udyog Bhawan or the Finance

Ministry, which is also the

mandate from the Prime Minister,”

said Industry Secretary, Amitabh

Kant. He was speaking at an event

organised by industry body

Assocham,

Singapore tops the list of Ease

of Doing Business Index, Mr Kant

said “If we are able to get 10-12

states as champions of growth

and if some 12 states grow at a

rate of 10%-plus, then India would

grow at 9 to 10% per annum.” —

Arun .S

FDI

Govt. to keep red tapeat bay

CHENNAI: Foodpanda, online food

ordering platform, plans to

associate with Indian Railway

Catering and Tourism Corporation

(IRCTC). The association is

expected to enable consumers to

order meals of their choice

through Foodpanda’s aggregator

model, and allow them to order

from a wide variety of cuisine

options. The pilot of this proposed

association is being planned to be

launched at the New Delhi Railway

station. — Special Correspondent

PILOT PROJECT

Foodpanda to tie-upwith IRCTC

SENSEX GOLD RUPEE BRENT OIL

24-11-15 2577643POINTS

24-11-15 25,74090/10gm

24-11-15 66.320.15

/$

24-11-15 46.320.03$/bbl23-11-15 25819 23-11-15 25,650 23-11-15 66.47 23-11-15 45.35

Now with Internet.org’s FreeBasics many more people…willhave access to information- MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, FACEBOOK

ndia has decided to startselling Rupee Bonds “insome countries” to pro-vide long-term finance forinfrastructure develop-ment in the country. Thiswill be in addition to thesetting up of the NationalInvestment and Infras-tructure Fund and intro-duction of the tax-free In-frastructure Bonds.

Disclosing this at the In-dia-Singapore EconomicConvention in Singaporeon Tuesday, Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi saidthat Singapore could beamong the countrieswhere the Rupee Bondswould be offered.

Stating that his govern-ment had taken “dynamicsteps” early this month tofurther open up the econ-omy for foreign direct in-

vestment (FDI), Mr. Modisaid that “with this lastround of reforms, Indiawill be among the mostopen economies for FDI.”

New sectors have beenfully opened for FDI, hesaid, adding that entry andexit norms had alreadybeen relaxed to a great ex-

tent. For most of the sec-tors, the FDI clearanceswere now on automaticroute. In addition togreenfield areas, manysectors could freely ab-sorb FDI in brownfieldprojects. These includedroads, construction andmedical services.

Mr. Modi said thatthough the interest of for-eign investors in India hadgone up tremendously inthe past few months, therewere a number of regula-tory and taxation issues

which were adversely im-pacting sentiment. Hence,the government had takendecisive steps to addressmany of the long pendingconcerns.

According to Mr. Modi,India is now undergoingeconomic and socialtransformation on a scalethat is unmatched in histo-ry. The Prime Ministersaid that the governmentwas also working hard toensure the benefits of growth reached the com-mon man. The govern-

ment’s strategy was to en-ergise the economy,

empower the people, fundthe un-funded, secure thepoor and enhance the in-come level of all.

Emphasising that Indiatoday was the next fron-tier of economic revolu-tion, Mr. Modi said thatthe changing paradigmhad created new opportu-nities for global investors.These opportunities rang-ed from building 50 mil-lion affordable houses and100 smart cities, modern-isation of railway networkand re-development of stations to setting up newrailway corridors, genera-tion of 175 GW of renew-able energy, constructionof national highways,bridges and metro railnetworks.

The Prime Ministersaid that Singapore was an

important and valuablefriend of India in its globaloutlook. India regards Sin-gapore as an essential allyin the implementation of its “Look and Act East Pol-icy.” Beyond bilateralscope, he said there werealso significant opportu-nities through collabora-tion with third countries.The Regional Compre-hensive Economic Part-nership (RCEP), compris-ing the ASEAN and its sixdialogue partners, was an-other potential opportuni-ty “for our companies,” headded.

LONG-TERM FINANCE

‘Country will be among the most open economies for FDI’

I

India regards Singapore as an essential ally in the

implementation of its ‘Look and Act East Policy, said

Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing India-

Singapore Economic Convention in Singapore on

Tuesday. — PHOTO: PTI

PRASHANTHCHINTALA

India to sell rupee bonds: Modi

India regards Singaporeas an essential ally in theimplementation of its‘Look and Act East Policy’- Narendra Modi

Exchange Rates

Indicative direct rates in rupees a unitexcept yen at 4 p.m on November 24

TT TT

C ur re nc ie s B uy in g S el li ng

U.S. Dollar 66.12 66.44

Euro 70.42 70.78

Po un d S te rl in g 9 9.9 6 10 0. 45

Jap Yen (100 Un its) 53. 95 54. 21

Chinese Yuan 10.33 10.41

Swiss Franc 65.02 65.34

S in ga po re D ol la r 4 6.7 3 4 6.9 6

A us tr al ia n D ol la r 4 7.7 3 47.9 8

Ca nad ia n D ol la r 49. 47 49.73

Swedish Kroner 7.61 7.65

Danish Kroner 9.44 9.49

N ew Zealand D ol lar 4 3. 07 4 3. 30

Hongkong Dollar 8.53 8.57

M al ay si an R in gi tt 1 5. 56 1 5. 67

Ku wa it i Di na r 21 6.9 6 21 8.73

UAE Dirham 18.00 18.09

B ahra ini Din ar 17 3.9 4 1 77.41

Qatari Riyal 18.19 18.23

Saudi Riyal 17.64 17.69

Omani Riyal 171.30 173.02

Source: Indian Bank

Bullion RatesNovember 24 rates in rupees with

previous rates in brackets

Chennai

Bar S il ver (1 kg) 34, 030 (33,775)

Retail (1 g) 36.40 (36.10)

24 ct gold (10 g) 25,720 (25,640)

22 ct gol d ( 1 g ) 2 ,4 05 (2 ,3 97 )

Delhi

Silver 34,150 (34,000)

S ta nd ar d g ol d 2 5,74 0 ( 25 ,6 50 )

Sovereign 22,200 (22,200)

BOSTON:U.S. retailers are hunt-ing for evidence of newbreaches leading into the ho-liday shopping season after a

cyber intelligence firm pri-vately warned them aboutpayment-card-stealing mal-ware that it said evades al-most all security software.

“This is by far the most so-phisticated point-of-sale mal-ware seen to date,” said MariaNoboa, lead technical analystfor privately held iSight Part-ners, which uncovered themalware and was due to re-lease a technical report aboutit on Tuesday.

The firm had shared infor-mation about the malware,dubbed ModPOS, with clientsin October, and briefed doz-ens of companies, includingretailers, hospitality compa-nies and payment-card proc-essors, about its dangers.

Retailers began hunting forthe malware in the approachto this week's unofficiallaunch of the holiday shop-

ping season, the busiest timeof the year for most mer-chants, according to the Re-

tail Cyber Intelligence Shar-ing Center (R-CISC), anindustry group set up thisyear to fight hackers.

Retailers have been fendingoff increasingly sophisticatedpayment-card theft schemesfor more than a decade. Thebiggest breaches to date in-clude a notorious 2013 holi-day-shopping-season attackon Target Corp and a majorbreach at Home Depot Inc,each of which compromisedtens of millions of paymentcard numbers.

ISight declined to say how

it uncovered the ModPOSthreat or name any targetedretailers.

Some retailers have founddigital evidence that linkedthreat indicators they hadpreviously seen to ModPOS,

though that does not neces-sarily mean they were victimsof breaches, said WendyNather, director of researchfor R-CISC.

“I couldn't tell you who ismost likely to be compro-mised by this,” Nather said.“But if it were harmless, wewouldn't even be talkingabout it.” Her group, whichwas set up this year, has ap-proximately 50 members in-cluding Gap Inc, J.C. PenneyCo, Lowe's Co and Wal-greens. ISight said it firstidentified the malware latelast year, but only came to un-derstand its sophistication inrecent months after breakingencryption that hid how themalware works.

ModPOS includes modulesfor “scraping” payment-cardnumbers from the memory of point-of-sale systems, logging

keystrokes of computer usersand transmitting stolen data.— Reuters

U.S. retailers hunt for attacksafter malware warning

Retailers have beenfending off increasingly sophisticated payment-card theft schemes formore than a decade. The biggest breaches to dateinclude a notorious 2013holiday-shopping-seasonattack on Target Corp

NEW DELHI: Social networkinggiant Facebook on Tuesdaysaid its Free Basics platform,previously Internet.org, willnow be available across Indiaon Reliance Communica-tion’s network. “We just tookanother step towards con-necting India. As of today, ev-eryone in India nationwidecan access free internet ser-vices for health, education,jobs and communicationthrough Internet.org's FreeBasics app on the Reliancenetwork,” Mark Zuckerberg,CEO of the company, said in astatement posted on Face-book. Free Basics initiative,which has about one millionusers in India, aims to bringinternet services to areas thatare still not connected in part-nership with technologycompanies such as Samsungand Qualcomm. However, it

has been widely criticised forviolating Net Neutrality prin-ciples. Mr Zuckerberg has on

several occasions defendedthe program saying the com-pany is committed to net neu-trality and the initiative doesnot violate its principles.

The initiative was earlieravailable only in six states –Gujarat, Maharashtra, AndhraPradesh, Telangana, TamilNadu, Kerala and Goa.“Today,nearly 1 billion people arewithout internet access in In-dia. Now with Internet.org’sFree Basics available to every-one in India, many more peo-ple…will have access to the in-formation and opportunitythe internet brings,” Mr. Zuck-

erberg said. Internet.org islive in more than 24 countrieswith 15 million users.

Facebook’s Free Basics platform to ride onReliance network Y UTHIKA BHARGAVA

Free Basics initiative,

which has about onemillion users in India,aims to bring internetservices to areas that arestill not connected

NEW DELHI: The country’s thirdlargest telecom services pro-

vider, Idea Cellular, will buyspectrum in Gujarat and Ut-tar Pradesh (West) from Vid-eocon Telecommunicationsfor Rs 3,310 crore ($499 mil-lion) to boost its high-speeddata services.

Videocon Group is lookingto monetize its spectrumacross most of the circles andplans to raise another Rs9,000 to Rs 10,000 crore fromspectrum sale,” VideoconGroup chairman VenugopalDhoot told The Hindu.

This is the first deal afterthe government allowed tele-com companies to trade mo-bile airwaves in September toaddress the problem of short-age of spectrum and improveservices for mobile phone us-ers facing issues such as fre-quent call drops. Idea Cellu-lar intends to use thespectrum for introducing its

4G services in these areasnext year, according to astatement from the company.

“With this spectrum trad-ing arrangement, Idea’s 4G(LTE) spectrum footprintwill expand to 12 service ar-eas covering over 75% of Idea’s current revenue andover 72% of existing 170 mil-lion quality subscribers onVLR. These 12 circles cur-

rently contribute 60% of theIndian telecom industry mo-bility revenues,” according to

the statement.Along with the right to usespectrum until 2032, Idea willalso be taking over the out-standing liability of Videoconthat the latter has to pay togovernment for the airwaves.

“The amount of outstand-ing on the Deferred PaymentLiability after repayment of first instalment on December1, 2015 by seller (Videocon)

will be Rs 482.26 crore andthis amount plus interest ac-crued thereon till the date of closing of transaction will bereduced from the payment of the aggregate considerationof Rs 3,310 crores,” accordingto the statement.

“UPE, UPW & Bihar areour low operation circles, andwe were looking at exercisingSpectrum Trading op-tions…We are in active discus-sions with operators for UPE

and Bihar to exercise spec-trum trading option, and weare looking at valuation of atleast Rs 3,500 Cr consideringthe potential,” Arvind Bali,Director and CEO VideoconTelecom said in the statement

He added that the firm islooking at investing part of the proceeds to strengthencircles in MP, Haryana andPunjab.

A mobile user passes past the cluster of towers in Hyderabad.— FILE PHOTO: P.V. SIVAKUMAR

Idea to buy spectrum from Videocon for Rs.3,310 crore Y UTHIKA BHARGAVA

This is the first dealafter the governmentallowed telecomcompanies to trademobile airwaves inSeptember

MUMBAI: Vijay Mallya, thechairman of grounded carrierKingfisher Airlines, has of-fered banks to pay the princi-pal amount that he owes butnot the interest componentand he has approached thebankers seeking a meeting,which may take place duringthe next few days.

The principal amount thatKFA owes to the banks is be-tween Rs 4,500 crore to Rs5,000 crore, a banker, who isfamiliar with the deal said oncondition of anonymity.

However, bankers are in nomood to settle for less andthey may ask for the interestcomponent also, at least a sig-nificant a part of it. The inter-est component is upward of Rs 2,000 crore and public sec-tor banks have kept the Fi-nance Ministry in the loop re-garding the issue.

A Kingfisher Airlines spo-kesperson declinedcomment.

According to a public no-tice issued by SBI Caps re-cently, the amount due by thetroubled airline to the consor-tium of banks lead by SBI, is

about Rs 6,963 crore, as on 31 January, 2014, excluding inter-est rate which will be levied at15.5 per cent per annum. SBICaps – the merchant bankingarm of State Bank of India –the country’s largest lender –has put KFA’s asset that are inMumbai Chhatrapati ShivajiInternational Airport, forauctioning.

“I am focussing on settlingKingfisher affairs with banks.That's what my current focusis on,” Mr Mallya said at theUSL annual general meetingtoday, news agency PTI re-ported from Bangalore.

A few banks like State Bank

of India and United Bank of India have identified Mr Mal-lya as wilful defaulter whichwill mean he or the companywhere he is a board membercannot access funds frombanks. Kingfisher Airlinestopped flying since October2012, and the airline's permitwas suspended by the Direc-torate General of Civil Avia-tion in the same month.

United Breweries (Hold-ings) and Mr Mallya are theguarantors to the loans takenby Kingfisher Airlines, ac-cording to the SBI Capsnotice.

The loans to Kingfisher

Airlines were restructured in2011 and banks had taken abeating after a 10 per cent of the debt was converted intoequity. Banks had boughtshares of Kingfisher at a 61 percent premium. Despite therestructuring, the airlinecompany failed to pay itsdues. Most of the banks haveclassified the loans given toKingfisher as non-perform-ing. Since, a large part of theloan was unsecured, so bankshave to make 100 per cent pro-visioning for the exposure.

In October, the Central Bu-reau of Investigation had raid-ed the UB group's office andMallya's residence in Goa andBengaluru, after the agencyfiled a first information reportagainst Mr Mallya, and somebank officials.

The banking regulatorshave tightened norms to tack-le wilful default while the gov-ernment is formulating abankruptcy code to expediterecovery. A draft bankruptcycode was recently put out inpublic domain. The govern-ment has said it aim to tablethe Bankruptcy Bill in thewinter session of the parlia-ment.

Kingfisher Airlines aircrafts stand parked in a yard at the airportin Mumbai. The airlines lost five more aircraft due to non-payment of lease rentals and tax dues.— PHOTO: PTI

Vijay Mallya ready to pay principal

amount Kingfisher owes to banksM ANOJIT S AHA

NEW DELHI: The Employees’Provident Fund Organisation(EPFO), the country’s largestretirement fund with over Rs.8 lakh crore under its watch,has decided to begin invest-ments in bonds rated AA+ orhigher issued by private sec-tor banks. At least two creditrating agencies should havegiven such a rating.

The Board of Trustees of the EPFO, which met here onTuesday, ratified the decision,a senior government officialsaid.

Under a new investmentpattern adopted this April, itis required to park 35 per centto 45 per cent of its fresh ac-cruals into corporate bonds,higher than the previousthreshold of 10 per cent.

With the EPFO board,chaired by Union Labour andEmployment Minister Banda-ru Dattatreya, ratifying onTuesday investments inbonds rated AA+ or higher, PFsavings can now be investedin bonds issued by privatebanks with a tenure of 10years, with an upper limit of

20 per cent of each bank’s networth. With the EPFO’s exist-ing norms precluding it frominvesting in debt rated lowerthan AAA, the retirementfund manager had investedjust Rs. 7,600 crore in corpo-rate bonds in the first fivemonths of this year, as againstits targeted allocation of Rs.33,000 crore-Rs. 45,000 crorefor 2015-16.

At a meeting this August,professional fund managersappointed by the EPFO hadasked for relaxing the normsso that more corporate debtbecomes eligible for invest-ment. They proposed that pri-vate corporate debt with AA+rating from at least two creditrating agencies may be con-sidered for investment.

Subsequently, the board’sfinance and investment com-mittee noted that interestrates offered by corporate is-suers had gone down in re-cent months and the normsfor investing in India Inc’sdebt paper was already beingexamined by an expert com-mittee headed by formerUCO Bank Chairman and Ma-naging Director Arun Kaul.

“We felt that private sched-uled commercial banks ratedAA+ may be permitted as theyare meticulously regulated bythe Reserve Bank of India andthe risk associated with themis less than that of any otherindustry vertical,” a senior of-ficial said.

More funds will now flowto corporate bonds

The EPFO first initiated in-vestments in private sectorbonds in 2006 and graduallyrelaxed norms to allow in-vestments in blue-chip highlyrated corporates such as Re-liance Industries, L&T, TCSand Infosys.

However, the EPFO’s in-vestment avenues have notkept pace with the surge inthe assets under its watch. In2015-16, the fund is expectedto receive Rs. 1,15,000 crore of fresh accruals from employ-ees’ PF contributions. Thesavings had earned a return of 8.75 per cent in 2014-15. TheEPFO manages the retire-ment savings deducted fromthe salaries of nearly eightcrore formal sectoremployees.

EPFO to invest in AA+-rated private bank bonds V IKASDHOOT

NEW DELHI: The ongoing mod-ernisation of railways mayboost the country’s gross do-mestic product by about 3 percent over a period of time,Railway Minister, SureshPrabhu said. Railway Minis-try was on track to spend Rs 1lakh crore as budgeted thisfiscal and about 103 announ-cements made in the FY16railway budget have been im-

plemented with several sta-tions showing marked im-provement in cleanliness, Mr.Prabhu said during his ad-dress at the Annual GeneralMeeting of the industrychamber, Assocham. He add-ed that projects were being

awarded in a transparentmanner and “not a single ru-pee tender comes to the min-ister.”Funds were raised at an

affordable rate from the LIC“which is just above the G-Sec(government security) ratepaid in 30 years.” The Rail-ways’ capex spend includes aRs 40,000 crore order to Gen-eral Electric Co. (GE) and Al-stom to set up locomotive fac-

tories in Bihar. The ministerhad recently said the capexplans included Rs 82,000crore for a Dedicated FreightCorridor project, a movewhich has the union cabinetnod.The ministry is also plan-ning to redevelop 400 sta-tions through open bidscalled the Swiss Challengemethod, a form of public pro-curement. Besides consider-ing port connectivity pro-jects, the ministry is also

planning to use revenue fromclients such as Steel Author-ity of India and Coal India oncoal evacuation projects. Theministry is also discussing thecreation of a $30 billion fundwith the World Bank to fi-nance key rail projects.

Rail upgrade to boosteconomic growth by 3% A RUN.S

The minister hadrecently said the capex plans included Rs82,000 crore for aDedicated FreightCorridor project,

MUMBAI: Japanese insurer Nip-pon Life will increase in stakein Reliance Life Insurance to49 per cent from 26 per centby investing Rs 2265 crore.

The deal values RelianceNippon Life Insurance Com-pany, the new entity after themerger, at Rs 10,000 crore,making it one of the highest

valuation for an insurancecompany in the country, ac-cording to a statement issued

by Reliance Capital, the hold-ing company of Reliance Life.

The move comes after a lawwas amended earlier this yearto increase foreign direct in-vestment limit in the insur-ance sector to 49 per cent.

“Nippon Life’s investmentrepresents implied embed-ded value multiple of over 3times, the highest in the in-dustry till date,” according to

the statement.The life insurance compa-

ny will now have to apply for-

eign investment promotionboard (FIPB) and insuranceregulator’s approval. NipponLife’s investment representsthe largest foreign direct in-vestment in the Indian insur-ance sector till date, accord-ing to the statement.

“Nippon Life will have in-vested a total of Rs 8,630 crorefor acquiring 49% stake eachin Reliance Capital Asset

Management and RelianceLife Insurance with this trans-action.”

Nippon Life raises stake in Reliance LifeSPECIALCORRESPONDENT



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BUSINESS

An increase in non-per-forming assets have led sev-

eral public sector banks togo slow on educationalloans, latest data compliedby the Finance Ministryshows.

“Banks have achieved 50per cent of the disbursal tar-gets of the year 2015-16 up to30 September,’’ according toa note circulated amongchief executives of the pub-lic sector banks before Fi-nance Minister Arun Jaitleymet the bankers on Monday.“`However, banks namelythe Corporation Bank, DenaBank, IOB , UCO Bank, SBI,State Bank of Patiala, StateBank of Hyderabad and theState Bank of Travancorehave not achieved propor-tionate targets,” the notesaid.

Banks were given a targetof 20 per cent growth in dis-bursement and 15 per cent

growth in accounts for thecurrent financial year.Reserve Bank of India

Governor Raghuram Rajanhad, earlier this month at theDelhi Economic Conclave,raised a red flag over the in-crease in non-performingassets in education loansand said such loans shouldbe devised in a flexible man-ner, providing options like

automatic moratorium if borrowers were under a pe-riod of unemployment. Hewanted guidelines on know-your-customer (KYC) to bemade easier.

“There are lots of NPAs inthe education sector. Theyhave been rising in the last

few years. It's a matter of concern,” Mr. Rajan said.

A student, under the edu-cational loan scheme, canborrow up to Rs.10 lakh fordomestic education andRs.20 lakh for studying inforeign colleges. Borrowersneed not pay during the ten-

ure of the course and for anadditional year. The repay-ment period is five to sevenyears.

For loans up to Rs.4 lakh,banks cannot demand anycollateral. According tobankers, the maximumnumber of bad loans are inthis segment.

Due to rising bad loans,the finance ministry, at therequest of bankers, has cre-ated a credit guarantee fundfor education loans. TheMinistry of Human Re-sources has transferredRs.351.09 crore to the corpusfund and Rs.112.05 crore maybe transferred in the nextweek, according to the Fi-nance Ministry.

It has also asked banks tointegrate with the VidyaLakshmi portal – which is afirst of its kind portal pro-viding a single window forstudents to access informa-tion and submit applicationsfor educational loans to

banks and for governmentscholarships.While 24 banks have reg-

istered, only eight have inte-grated their system with theportal for providing loanprocessing status to the stu-dents. “All the remainingbanks are requested to takesteps to integrate with theportal,” according to thenote.

EDUCATIONAL LOANS

Banks were given a target of 20 per cent growth in disbursements

M ANOJIT S AHA

Student loans dry up as bad debts climb at banks

MUMBAI: Real estate advisoryservices firm, HDFC Realtyhas received bids wortharound Rs.155 crore from pro-spective buyers through on-line home auction process.

HDFC Realty and www.i-BidmyHome.com had recent-

ly launched a multi-propertyonline home auctions thatwill empower home buyers tobid for their home at belowmarket prices.

“HDFC Realty has receivedan encouraging responsewithin a fortnight of the

launch of the first ever sale of new homes from buildersthrough an online biddingprocess. Since its launch, theportal has received bids fromprospective home buyersworth around Rs.155 crore,”the company said in a state-

ment. These non-bindingbids have received for new,ready-to occupy-homes ineight residential projects be-longing to three leading realestate developers, in the citiesof Bengaluru, Chennai andKochi, it said. — PTI

HDFC Realty online auctions get Rs.155 cr bids

BANGALORE: European aircraftmaker Airbus has launchedAirbus BizLab, a global aero-space accelerator in Bengalu-ru where startups and Airbusemployees called 'intrapre-neurs' will tranform ideas in-to businesses. This is the thirdsuch facility for Airbus glob-

ally after Toulouse, its head-quarters in France, and Ham-burg in Germany.

Airbus has tied up withFrench start-up acceleratorNUMA in Bengaluru. Itwould offer a six month accel-eration programme wherestartups would be given ac-cess to infrastructure, men-tors, experts and venturecapitalists.

“Digitization is transform-ing this industry drastically,”said Bruno Gutierres, head of Airbus Bizlab adding, “Weneed to go beyond our naturalborders and work with otherindustries, be more agile anddevelop quickly our innova-tion. Working with the star-

tups is the way to do that.”The accelerator would look

at tapping innovations in ar-eas such as robotics, aug-mented reality, big data ana-lytics, financial technology,gaming and Internet of Things-where devices com-municate with each other in-telligently. For instance inToulouse it is working with aGerman firm that would printaircraft spare parts through3D Printing. It is also workingon technology to secure theinformation that goes to theprinter and assess the qualityand safety of the parts thathave been printed.

The accelerator works on a'hybrid' concept. It not onlycollaborates with young ven-tures but also allows them tobetter understand the needsand ways of working withlarge groups.

Srinivasan Dwarakanath,managing director at AirbusIndia said: “This is fundamen-tal part of our global strategy.

Innovation is a key for Airbus,that is what is going to keep usas leaders and going into thefuture. Rajiv Chib, Directorfor Aerospace and DefencePractice at Pricewaterhouse-Coopers said Airbus has setup this accelerator because itis looking to tap new disrup-tive technologies. “Also thereis lot of talent in India.”

NUMA which is Airbus' ac-celerator partner in Bengalu-ru has already shortlisted 12start-ups for the first batch of its programme.

The firms which were se-lected from more than 200 ap-plicants will go through a sixmonth tailored accelerationprogramme.

Airbus goes speed dating with Indian startupsPEERZADA A BRAR

The accelerator wouldlook at tappinginnovations in areassuch as robotics,augmented reality, bigdata analytics, financialtechnology, gaming andInternet of Things

MUMBAI: Petronet LNG Limit-ed, India’s largest gas impor-ter, is in talks with RasGas Co.of Qatar to re-negotiate itslong term gas agreement inwake of falling gas prices. Thenegotiation are happening at

company-to-company levelbut the government is keep-ing and eye on it and expectsthe outcome to be mutuallybeneficial.

“Certainly, they are inform-ing every thing to the govern-ment and things are in righttrack. It’s a long term contractand we have to off-take thevolume and the contract hasto be honoured. It’s importantand sensitive issue for us.When gas price was high, they(Qatar) stood by us. Business-es can’t be done one-sided.Both the companies are talk-ing and working out the microdetails of the contract withsupport from the govern-ment,” Petroleum Minister,Dharmendra Pradhan, toldThe Hindu,

Pentronet LNG is in talkswith Qatar's RasGas for waiv-er of Rs 10,000 crore penalties

for breaking a long-term con-tract for LNG but two are yetto sign on a revised deal.

Petronet and RasGas werein talks regarding the currentissues under their agreement,according to an exchange fil-ing by Petronet.

“However, no bindingagreement has been executedto this effect. Once the finalagreement is reached be-tween the parties, the samewill be intimated to stockexchanges.”

It is learnt that RasGas has'in-principal' agreed to post-pone collecting 'take-or-pay'charges on its long-term LNGagreement with PetronetLNG as the Indian firm facesthe potential penalty as it is ina contract with RasGas whereit pays the highest price of liq-uefied natural gas in theworld.

India backsPetronet torevamp gas deal with Qatar

PIYUSHP ANDEY

NEW DELHI: Proxy advisory firmStakeholders EmpowermentServices (SES) has termed theproposed contract manufac-turing deal between MarutiSuzuki India (MSI) and Japa-nese parent Suzuki MotorCorporation (SMC) as fa-vourable for the minority sha-reholder of the India’s largestcar maker.

This comes soon after an-other proxy advisor Institu-tional Investor Advisory Ser-vices’ (IiAS) recommendedthat its clients vote against theproposal. To this, the India carmaker had issued a strong re-buttal saying the “conclu-sions” are not based on “any

facts or logic”.In its analysis, SES states

that it “does not find that bythe proposed structure SMCis placed in any better situa-tion than what it is in Marutiat present or what it wouldhave had, had the expansionbeen implemented through adivision or Subsidiary of MSIL…Further as far as risksare concerned, MSIL is ex-posed to same risks as it

would have, had the expan-sion was done in house.”

Initially, the Gujarat plantwas proposed to be owned byMaruti Suzuki but the planwas changed later with SMCannouncing in January lastyear that it would invest USD488 million to build the plant.

Under pressure from insti-tutional investors, Maruti Su-zuki had decided to seek mi-nority shareholders' approvalafter tweaking some of theearlier proposals.

Recommending that share-holders vote for the proposal,SES added that the companyhas provided adequate ratio-nale and disclosures and nomajor governance issue hasbeen identified.

Proxy advisory firm SES backs

Maruti’s Gujarat plant proposal Y UTHIKA BHARGAVA

The minority shareholder voting onthe Gujarat plant beganon November 16 and endon December 15.



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Feeling goodThe guys are in good shape, looking in good nickand feeling mentally good about approaching thisTest.— Virat Kohli, India captain

A setback, but…Not having Dale Steyn (in pic) in the team is asetback. But we’ve got to deal with it and,hopefully, the guys who play will get a chance tostand out.— Hashim Amla, South Africa skipper

TV ScheduleIndia vs South Africa (third Test)

STAR Sports 1, 3,HD1 & HD3

9.30a.m.ONWARDS

NAGPUR: Indian captain ViratKohli faces a sort of litmus Testas the two teams in the PaytmFreedom Series have preparedto resume hostilities in the thirdTest on a probably slow turnerat the VCA stadium here fromWednesday.

The absence of a true duelbetween the bat and ball after along period of lull because of in-cessant rain during the secondTest at Bengaluru had virtuallybrought a screeching halt to thefour-Test rubber that had un-ambiguously given the impres-sion of a nerve-tingling conteston designer pitches created forthe Indian spinners against theSouth African batsmen.

The virtual washout at Ben-galuru may have preventedKohli to marshal his resourcesfrom a distinctly advantageousposition at stumps on the first

day and take a 2-0 lead.

Kohli, who has always vowednever to take a backward step,will hope that events quicklyunfold in his team’s favour at avenue in which South Africa’sreputed fast bowler of the lastdecade Dale Steyn in a match-winning spell took 10 wicketsfive years ago.

The suspense though of thespeedster appearing in theSouth African team for thethird Test was emphaticallyruled out by skipper HashimAmla at the press conference.Amla said that Steyn had not re-covered from his groin injuryand would not play.

For obvious reasons the at-tention would be on the youngIndian captain. Though he be-gan in spectacular fashion ascaptain in Australia with scoresof 115 and 141 at Adelaide and 147at Sydney and notched up a 103against Sri Lanka at Galle, Kohliwould have liked to see better

scores than in the series in Sri

Lanka and also in the MohaliTest. He did not get to bat atBengaluru, but more than theobjective of carrying out con-sistent undertakings with thebat he would have been anxiousto start with a clear-cut serieswin, leading the national teamfor the first time in a homeseries.

India was such a dominatingforce to reckon with at home,before Alastair Cook’s Englandstartled the Dhoni-led Indianteam with a 2-1 win in the 2012series with Graeme Swann andMonty Panesar able to obtainmore turn of the wicket thanthe Indian spinners. But the 4-0thrashing of Australia and 2-0victory over the West Indiesput India back in the winningmode and that’s precisely whatKohli will look forward to in thethird Test.

Horses for courses

He has hinted at following

the horses for courses policyand the likelihood of playingthe wrist spinner Amit Mishrato add variety to the spin attackthat already has Ashwin and Ja-deja.

Responding to a question onteam composition Kohli said:“For sub-continental condi-tions you will have that sort of spinning all-rounder more of-ten than not fitting in. That willalways be an area that we willexperiment with.”

“Other than that, we haven’treally chopped and changedtoo much. It is just the one slotwhich brings balance to theteam must be decided accord-ing to the conditions we areplaying in. Other than that, any-thing could be a possibility. Wepossibly might make a fewchanges according to theconditions.”

In the four days of skirmishseen in the series, the home

team has come up trumps and

with the notable exception of A.B. de Villiers, none of the vis-iting batsmen, including Amla,has been able to find answers tothe probing of the Indian spin-ners.

“We have been preparing(simulating situations and find-ing ways to tackle the spinners)like this for ten years. We werevery much in the first Test tillthe third day,” said Amla, whohas an uphill task to find theright team without Steyn andPhilander.

Probably he is looking tobring in Temba Bavuma.

Responding to a question onthe Test series which has beenbizarre so far with only fourdays of Test cricket possible,Kohli said: “Mohali was a posi-tive result for us, but that was along time back. What happenedin Bengaluru is something thatwas not in our control. I re-member one fine tour that India

had against Sri Lanka, it was a

20 or 22-day tour and only oneday of cricket was possible. Soit’s not the first time that it’shappening, and certainly notthe last time that it has hap-pened because weather issomething that we can’tcontrol.”

The teams (from):India: Virat Kohli (capt.), Shikhar

Dhawan, Murali Vijay, Ajinkya Rahane,Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma,Wriddhiman Saha (wk), RavichandranAshwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Amit Mishra,Ishant Sharma, Varun Aaron, UmeshYadav, Stuart Binny, Bhuvneshwar Ku-mar, K.L. Rahul and Gurkeerat Singh.

South Africa: Hashi m Am la(capt.), Temba Bavuma, A.B. de Vil-liers, Dean Elgar, Faf de Plessis, J-P.Duminy, Dane Vilas, Morne Morkel,Kagiso Rabada, Imran Tahir, Stiaanvan Zyl, Kyle Abbott, Simon Harmer,Dane Piedt, Dale Steyn and Marchantde Lange.

Umpires: Ian Gould and BruceOxenford.

Third Umpire: Anil Chaudhary.

RARING TO GO: With the VCA pitch expected to be a slow turner, Hashim Amla could consider another role for himself in the third Test. (Right): Cheteshwar Pujara and K.L. Rahul hone their catchingskills. —PHOTOS: K.R. DEEPAK

India seeks to clinch seriesCRICKET / Steyn’s absence might just work in favour of the hosts

G. V ISWANATH

On Friday, cricket will take a step into thepresent when Australia and New Zealand

play the first night Test match in Adelaide. Itseems momentous and history-making in antici-pation. In a few years we will wonder what thefuss was all about. It is an idea whose time has

come; to be honest, the time had come a while ago. Some see it aspandering to television which hopes to attract a bigger audi-ence. But just because television approves, it does not automat-ically make it bad.

Test cricket is not dying. Yet, of the 45 possible bilateralcompetitions, only a few are guaranteed top dollar: the Ashes,India versus Pakistan, India versus Australia and maybe a cou-ple of others. Perhaps Test cricket is stagnating, not reallyattracting a new audience while the older audience moves on, toput it delicately. This is a big step for the traditional game, evenif an inevitable one.

The hype around T20 — that it would bring in a new andyounger audience for Tests — remained just that. The shortestformat of the game — I have become a bore on this subject — is adifferent sport altogether, which just happens to be played withthe same equipment. If anything, the traffic might be in theopposite direction, with some less ardent Test fans embracingT20 with great passion.

In any case, Test cricketneeds better looking after.Which is why it was disap-pointing that there was no play

at all on the last four days of theBangalore Test. This, as someof the biggest crowds — in-cluding excited schoolchil-dren — turned up.

The wicket and the run-upwere unaffected, but there wasindeed a spot on the outfieldwhich hadn’t fully dried. Yet,the crowd deserved better. True, as time ran out, there was littlepossibility of a result, and both the umpires and the players lostinterest in the game. But the same could not be said of the nextgeneration of potential cricket lovers who had tu rned up in largenumbers.

Even a 40-over day or a 30-over day would have kept theminterested. Umpires and players too have a responsibility to theaudiences. We need to take another look at the conventionwhich says that conditions have to be perfect for play to restart.

No excuseA slight drizzle or a less-than-ideal light cannot be an excuse.

You do not attract audiences by sitting in the pavilion.A Test at night is an experiment now (technically, it is a

day-night Test), but as the glitches are removed, it could be ananswer to dropping attendances. Nearly four decades ago, Ker-ry Packer played ‘Super Tests’ under lights in Australia, but anight cricket match was played as far back as in 1952. That was abenefit between Middlesex and Arsenal, a 13-a-side knockaboutplayed on matting and with balls painted white. BBC, whichtelecast it, had a sizeable viewership, but mostly it was seen as ajoke.

The Test match in Adelaide will be played with pink balls, andthere is worry it might not last beyond 50 overs. Adam Vogessaid after a match in Australia that “it was turning green”, as thelacquer wore off while Mitchell Starc complained that it wasdifficult to sight it near the boundary. These were the samecomplaints against the white ball all those years ago. Playershave a way of adapting; as David Warner said, “It doesn’t matterwhat ball you play with.” The worries about the pink ball goingsoft quickly and not swinging after the initial overs may begenuine, but sensible rules can counter that. Maybe the new ballcan be taken after 55 overs as it was done by Bradman’s Austra-lians in 1948.

After all, Test cricket hasn’t always been a five-day, 90-oversper day, over-arm bowling, six-balls per-over affair it is today,and doubtless there were cribs every time changes were made.There have been timeless Tests, three-and four-day Tests, four-ball and eight-ball overs, and there were lob bowlers even at thestart of the last century. Wickets were left open to the elementsfor the majority of the 138 years of Test cricket. Bats havechanged, the height of the stumps has changed, laws havechanged.

Cricket has tended to lag behind the contemporary, and everytime it has tried catching up, there have been complaints. That isthe nature of the sport.

Kevin Pietersen has asked the administrators not to “messwith the greatness of Test cricket”. The green grass, red ball,white outfit, blue sky, golden sun are the original colours of thegame. But conditions change in day cricket, as they will in nightcricket. Overcoming the opposition by conquering the condi-tions is the essence of the game. Night cricket might add anotherdegree of difficulty — or perhaps not, we will know soon.

Night Tests might sound like 50-over internationals did in1970 or a World Cup for T20 in 2006. But see how well those twohave done.

A small step and a giant leap in a changing game

BETWEEN WICKETS

Cricket has tendedto lag behind thecontemporary, andevery time it hastried catching up,there have beencomplaints

SURESHMENON

India finds itself in the enviable

position of havingenough options topick its playing 11

from, especially with 17 mem-bers named for the NagpurTest.

Depending on the condi-tions, Virat Kohli will have todecide if he wants to stick withthree medium-pacers or bringin the additional spinner inAmit Mishra.

South Africa is aware that,for it to have any hope of regis-tering its first series win in In-dia since 2000, it must win thisTest. Given the way South Afri-

ca has shaped up in this series,that is a tall order. But I believe,if any team in internationalcricket is capable of bouncingback, it has to be South Africa,the No. 1 Test side.

However, time is running outand South Africa will need itstraditional strength — pacebowling — to rouse itself from

the diffidence of the last twoTests.

Amla desperateHashim Amla will be desper-

ate for the new ball to make in-roads, but, in India, there is nobetter time for a pacer to bebowling than with the olderball, because no cricket ball inthe world reverse swings betterthan the SG Test.

South Africa will perhapsmiss the services of a qualityleft-arm spinner. Historically,India’s batsmen have had aproblem against the left-armspinner bowling over thestumps and into the rough, a de-fensive line in the most part.

The successes of Monty Pa-

nesar, even Paul Harris and Mi-chael Clarke, testify to the ef-fectiveness of the left-armspinner on these tracks. DeanElgar did some damage in Mo-hali, but I am not sure you cancall him a specialist bowler.How Amla will be wishing hehad a Harris or a Jadeja at hisdisposal! More than anything

else, though, Amla will be wish-ing for some runs under hisbelt. Amla can ill afford to hopethat A.B. de Villiers will alwaysbail out the team. Elgar, Amlaand the experienced Faf duPlessis must take some burdenoff AB’s shoulders. I also feel,with AB in such great touch anddu Plessis struggling, it won’tbe a bad idea for a switch in bat-ting spots.

AB factor

AB at No. 3 can put the bow-lers immediately under pres-sure. Thus far, India’s spinnershave been allowed to bowl asthey pleased, and de Villiershas invariably walked in withhis side on the backfoot. A

change in strategy won’t be out

of place, especially with thingsnot working out for the SouthAfricans.

I am sure the teams will begreeted by another dry surfacewith the promise of plenty of turn because the scars of thelimited-over series losses arestill fresh and India is keen tomake amends. I have no prob-lems with that, because that isthe privilege playing at homeconfers on you — the opportu-nity to maximise yourstrengths.

That India’s strength is SouthAfrica’s weakness is a happycoincidence from Kohli’s per-spective. The trick now lies inmaking the most of that coinci-dence. — Hawkeye | Chi-vach Sports

SA needs its pacers to rise to the occasion J AVAGALSRINATH

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka has offereditself as a neutral venue for a pro-posed series between India andPakistan to break a deadlockover where to play the matches,cricket officials said on Tuesday.

The country emerged as a like-ly solution after crisis talks at theweekend between the two rivalsin Dubai failed to end thestalemate.

“We have made the offer,” aSLC official said, adding theteams had been given the optionof playing in Colombo and Kan-dy or Colombo only. “We areawaiting a response from thePCB.” he said. — AFP

Sri Lanka offers to be neutral venue

MACAU: Top seed K. Srikanthbowed out with a straight-gameloss but three other Indians, in-cluding Ajay Jayaram and H.S.Prannoy, advanced to the secondround of the $120,000 MacauOpen Grand Prix Gold badmin-ton tournament on Tuesday.

World No. 7 Srikanth’s badpatch continued as he made yet

another early exit, falling 16-21,21-23 to Christie Jonatan of Indo-nesia, ranked 40th in the world.

However, ninth seed Jayaram,who has reached the Korea Su-per Series final and won theDutch Open this season, foughtgallantly to see off Hong Kong’sTam Chun Hei 21-6, 25-23. Hewill take on Lin Guipu of Chinanext.

Seventh seed Prannoynotched up a 21-15, 16-21, 21-18win over Indonesia’s SukamtaEvert while 15th seed B. Sai Pra-neeth defeated Indonesia’s FikriIhsandi Hadmadi 21-18, 23-21.

P.V. Sindhu, seeded fifth,opens her campaign against KimHyo Min of Korea on Wednes-day, while the pair of G. Jwalaand Ashwini Ponnappa, seededsecond, will face Yuki Fukushi-ma and Sayaka Hirota of Japan.

The results (first round):

Christie Jonatan bt K. Srikanth 21-16, 23-21; H.S. Prannoy bt Sukamta Ev-ert 21-15, 16-21, 21-18; Ajay Jayaram bt

Tam Chun Hei 21-6, 25-23; B. Sai Pra-neeth bt Fikri Ihsandi Hadmadi 21-18,23-21. — PTI

Srikanth falls,others advance

NAGPUR: ‘The big boys play atnight’ was the appealing catch-word when Kerry Packer found-ed the World Series Cricket inthe 1970s. Almost three-and-a-half decades later the ICC hasput in place a bilateral Test be-tween the Tasman rivals, Austra-lia and New Zealand. This Testwill also be played with pink ballat Adelaide from Nov. 27.

India’s young captain ViratKohli is clearly excited about theinnovation of night Test andpink ball and is looking forwardto the Australia-New ZealandTest.

“I’ve heard a few players giv-ing feedback on playing with thepink ball. The only thing they

were concerned about was dur-ing twilight hours it was veryhard to pick the ball.

“During day it was fine andduring night it was okay as well.But when the floodlights are noton and when the sun is goingdown, they may found it diffi-cult,” said Kohli. — SpecialCorrespondent

Kohli backsnight matches

KALABURAGI: The top seed PrernaBhambri continued her goodrun of form, advancing to thesecond round of the US $10,000prize money RGUHS ITF ten-nis tournament for women witha 6-1, 6-1 victory over China’sXi-Yao Wang here on Tuesday.

While other seeded playershad easy first round matches,Karnataka’s Sharrmadaa Baluu,seeded five, had to retire from

her match against Sneha Pada-mata after one game, due to aninflamed ankle.

Third-seeded Druthi Tata-char defeated Varunya Chan-drasekhar 6-2, 6-0, and seventhseed Eetee Maheta beat Sindhu

Janagam 6-3, 6-2.In another interesting duel,

Swetha Rana prevailed overAmrita Mukherjee 6-0, 5-7, 7-6(4) after a 161-minute battle.

The results: Singles (firstround): Sahan Shetty bt Bhargavi Ni-tin Mangudkar 6-0, 6-1; Eetee Mahetabt Sindhu Janagam 6-3, 6-2; Sneha Pa-damata bt Sharrmadaa Baluu 1-0,retd.; Shweta Rana bt Amrita Mukher- jee 6-0, 5-7, 7-6(4); Sai Samhitha Cha-marthi bt Arthi Muniyan 6-1, 6-0; Prer-na Bhambri bt Xi-Yao Wang 6-1, 6-1;Druthi Tatachar Venugopal bt Varu-nya Chandrashekar 6-2, 6-0.

Doubles (round of 16): Nidhi Chi-lumula & Eetee Maheta bt Sindhu Ja-nagam & Amreen Naaz 6-0, 6-1; RiyaBhatia & Shweta Rana bt Sri Sai Shiv-ani & Sahan Shetty 6-3, 6-0; Tama-

chan Momkoonthod & Plobrung Pli-puech (Tha) bt Amrita Mukhejee &Sansriti Ranjan 6-2, 6-1.

Prerna cruises

BENGALURU: When he won hisfirst world title, in 2003, PankajAdvani had wondered if he hadit in him to win another. Twelveyears and 14 trophies later, alldoubts have been erased.

Speaking at the launch func-tion of the annual G. Raman

Nair billiards tournament at theECA premises here on Tues-day, Advani recalls his journeyfrom being an 18-year-old whosurpassed expectations by win-ning the 2003 IBSF Worldsnooker championship to be-coming one of India’s most ac-claimed sportspersons.

The 30-year-old’s most-re-cent triumph — the 2015 IBSFWorld snooker championship,which he has won after a gap of 12 years — has given him asense of relief. That he defeatedmercurial Chinese teenagerZhao Xintong in the final, inHurghada (Egypt) a couple of days ago, only adds to theoccasion.

Joining Advani in the conver-sation is current Asian billiardschampion and close friend,Dhruv Sitwala.

ExcerptsAdvaniThe emotions surrounding thevictory

I cannot describe how muchthis means to me. When I won itin 2003, I was a junior, a no-

body. I believed that that I maynever win another world cham-pionship again, because com-petitive snooker is so unpre-dictable and tough.

I'm thrilled to have wonagain. Now, no one can point afinger at me and tell me that Idid it just once. That brings a lotof relief.

The journeyI’m now comfortable in my

own skin. For example, peoplehave always said that my tech-

nique is unorthodox. But it doesnot matter, as long as it works.

Once this level of self-aware-

ness is achieved, everything be-comes clearer. I know my gamevery well — it has become eas-ier for me to understand whichshot to take on, and which toleave alone etc.

Facing Chinese sensationXintong in the finalI knew that if I give Xintong

even a small chance, he will beget back into contention. Heforces you to respond with hisfantastic shot-making abilities.

He was trailing early, and

therefore, he felt no pressure.He began to attack everything,and he started to get on a roll.

But, in the 14th frame (at thisstage, Advani was leading 7-6 inthe best-of-15 clash), he misseda pot on 24. He showed somefrustration, for the first time. Irealised that I had to pounce,and I put on a century break tofinish the match.

SitwalaAdvani’s standout qualities

I have travelled with Pankajfor nearly 10 years on the cir-cuit, and I believe that it is hiscalmness which makes him sosuccessful. His emotions are al-ways in check. Being emotionalclouds your judgment, and Pan-kaj has the ability to automati-cally forget about the previousshot and focus on the presentmoment.

Another big asset is, of course, his hunger to succeed.Nowadays, one or two nationaltitles is enough to kill this hun-ger — as you can see amongsome junior players. But tohave the motivation to winagain and again is what makes areal champion.

Comparisons to AdvaniPeople ask me why other In-

dian cueists are unable to winas often as Pankaj. I tell themthat Pankaj is a once-in-a-life-time sportsperson — just likeSachin Tendulkar, Roger Fe-derer or Michael Schumacher.

All Indian cueists, includingmyself, feel honoured to com-pete and play alongside Pankaj.

CUE SPORTS

I’m now comfortable in my own skin: AdvaniSPORTSR EPORTER

ROLE MODEL: Calling Pankaj Advani a “once in a lifetimesportsperson”, Dhruva Sitwala (right) attributes the former’ssuccess to equanimity and a hunger to win. — PHOTO: SUDHAKARA JAIN

NEW DELHI: India's comprehensive6-2 title win over Pakistan in thejunior Asia Cup in Malaysia wasthe culmination of a dominantperformance that saw the Indi-

ans remain undefeated through-out the tournament.No wonder coach Harendra

Singh was proud of his wards.“The fact that we have been to-gether for almost 18-20 monthsmade the difference. When Ichanged the strategy for the finaland told the players to use the en-tire space and open up the game,the players understood what Iwanted. Pakistan could not cometo terms with the changes,” Ha-rendra told The Hindu .

The coach, who celebrated hisbirthday on Tuesday, admitted it

was the best gift he could havereceived. “We decided not toturn the match into an occasion;that adds to the pressure. I neveronce stressed on the opposition,only told the players to work ontheir basics and the results

would come. Now, the target isto continue improving with the2016 Junior World Cup in mind,”Harendra said.

Captain Harjeet Singh agreed.“There was slight pressure be-cause it was Pakistan, so the finalscore line made us very happy.Now we are only concentratingon the World Cup and on ironout the few concerns we identi-fied through this tournament.”

The players now have a week-long break before re-assemblingin Bangalore for the next campstarting December 1.

HOCKEY

Indian juniors now target the WorldU THRA G ANESAN

A PROUD BUNCH: India dominated the final completely, scoring atwill and strangling the Pakistan attack.

NEW DELHI: Ankita Raina, in part-nership with Elise Mertens of Belgium, made the doubles quar-terfinals with a 6-2, 6-4 victoryover fourth seeds Ksenia Lykinaof Russia and Sofia Shapatava of Georgia in the $75,000 ITF wom-en’s tennis tournament in Aichi, Japan, on Tuesday.

Ankita advances



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In chapter five of the Gita, Lord Krishna says that if weunderstand Him, we will be happy. But which of His qualitiesis the Lord talking about here? He is the embodiment of

auspicious qualities, but here we must look at the context inwhich He is speaking.

Here, He is talking about the performance of karma andthen says one who does karma with an understanding of Himwill be happy. So here the quality of His that we shouldremember is related to our performance of karma, saidValayapet Ramachariar in a discourse.

We need to understand that He is the One who enjoys thefruits of our actions. If we know that, we will have peace of mind.

Yagas are prescribed for householders for various results.A person who performs them merely with a view to attainingthe results is not a karma yogi. So does that mean aperformer of a yaga will not get results as promised? He will.So how then can we say that the Lord gets the result of ouryagas?

Vedanta Desika gives an example to help us understandthis concept. Imagine a child playing with its doll. It combsthe doll’s hair. It decorates it, drapes it in cute clothes. Noneof this gives pleasure to the doll. It only gives pleasure to thechild.

Or take the case of a man who feeds a parrot. If the birdeats what is offered, he is glad. So here the bird accepting thefood is what gives happiness to the man.

Likewise, when we perform our duties, the Lord gives usjoy and our joy gives Him joy. So the ultimate joy is His. If we

understand this, then we will have peace of mind.

His happiness

FAITH

A mind game and a

puzzle that you solve

with reasoning and

logic. Fill in the grid with

digits in such a manner

that every row, every

column and every 3x3

box accommodates the

digits 1 to 9, without

repeating any. The

solution to yesterday’s

puzzle is at left.

SU | DO | KU

VARIETY

Across

1 Start from Florida and move

slowly (6)

4 Was frugal Bob ruffled? (8)

10 Start to stop lofted shot by

sportsman (3,6)

11 Bill's ram to misbehave (3,2)

12 Nick! The first two to China(5)

15 Fumed at person getting

breakfast item (6,3)

17 Agitated bear enters wood,

perhaps for rest (3,5)

18 Empty the ruined castle for

transmission (8)20 Bird's left initially soaked in a

ferment of almonds (7)

21 Say grain, in a row (6)

22 Aloof king to express feeling

(6)

23 Some excruciating chore's

simplified by repeater (6)

25 Garment from college festival

(5)

by a French man (7)

24 Rex manipulated, seized

financial instrument, to get

funds (9)

25 Carbon can send a message

(5)26 A gas only found near

Australia (5)

27 Indeed a popular time for

drama (4,5)

28 Disturbing, angering or

provoking (8)

29 Pass to Mark and French (6)

Down

1 Person obtains stockings (8)

2 A television hit after I do it

differently (5,3)

3 Sofa frame (5)

5 Vehicle to add-on animation

(7)

6 Very much inside a large

system (2,1,3,3)

7 Pocket a half of Togo's crop

(6)

8 Expel bear (6)

9 Indian husband enters

quickly (6)

1 2 3

4

5 6 7

8

9

10 11

12

13

14 15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22 23

24 25

26

27

28 29

A S S I M I L A T O R

T A W N R N M

A F F A I R S R E A T A S

C R V T E T D

T H A N E E G G H E A D

I I L E U E W A

C O D E I M P L E M E N T S

I E P A A P

A L M A M A T E R S U G L I

N O M Y S B L R

A R G E N T S O M E G A

S N A S U A T

L E N T I L P E N A N C E

L A K A D S SU S E L E S S N E S S

Sunnet

Solution to puzzle 11557

13 Singer's time to fill job

report's header (9)

14 Anxiety in Thailand's currency

(7)

16 Modern society's intelligence

(4)

19 Backed wickedness to survive

(4)

21 Plastic base of pigpen is taken

THE HINDU CROSSWORD 11558

Topping the chartsChennaiyin FC leads the scoring charts with 21goals, ahead of Atletico de Kolkata and FC Goa(both 20). Mendoza (in pic) is the top-scorer forthe side with 10 strikes

Intelligent ElanoElano (in pic) is an intelligent player. Heunderstands [why he is on the bench]. Brunoscored crucial goals last season. My decisions areto get the best out of the team— Marco Materazzi, Chennaiyin FC coach

TV ScheduleFC Goa vs NorthEast United FC

STAR Sports 2, 3,HD2 & HD3

7p.m.ONWARDS

CHENNAI: Teetering on the edge

of elimination, Chennaiyin FCproduced yet another master-ful display, dismantling thefamed Delhi Dynamos defence,with a thumping 4-0 win intheir Hero-Indian SuperLeague encounter at the NehruStadium here on Tuesday.

With its second successivebig-margin victory, Chennaiyinhas made its intentions loudand clear. A goal difference of six will come in handy in whatlooks like a tight league phase.

With 16 points from 12matches, Chennaiyin is still notout of the woods. It has to win

two more matches — MumbaiCity FC (at home) and FC PuneCity (away).

Dynamos remain at 18 pointsfrom 11 matches.

For a brief while, Dynamossuccessfully resisted the Chen-naiyin raids. Then along came

John Stiven Mendoza to breakthe deadlock. A long ball from

Jeje went straight at ’keeper An-tonio Doblas Santana, with onlyAnas Edathodika for company.Strung for options, Doblas at-tempted to head the ball away,only to see it go to Mendoza,who gleefully lobbed it into thenet.

In only his third start of theseason (10 appearances), Bruno

Pelissari proved his versatilityas an attacking midfielder. Fill-ing the big shoes of Elano is nochild’s play, but the 22-year-old

Brazilian has proved he is nospring chicken.

A blistering three-prongedcounterattack mounted by Pe-

lissari, Mendoza and Jeje sawthe Indian hitting it straight tothe ’keeper. Off the rebound,Pelissari unleashed a left-footer

Chennaiyin dismantles Dynamos’ defenceJeje scores a brace in a thumping winK. K EERTHIVASAN

MARKSMAN: Jeje Lalpekhlua celebrates with Thoi Singh and Mendoza after scoring Chennaiyin'sfourth goal. —PHOTO: R. RAGU

that fetched him his first goal of the season.

The four-man defence of Ad-inga Ralte, John Arne Riise,Anas Edathodika and Souvik

Chakraborty came a cropper,finding it extremely difficult tostem Chennaiyin’s raids.

Central midfielder FlorentMalouda, did make valiant at-tempts to cut through the host’sdefence, but the attack upfront,comprising Robin Singh andAdel Nabi, turned out to bewoefully inadequate.

The third goal, which camewith five minutes remaining inthe first half, extinguishedwhatever hopes Dynamos har-boured, Jeje making the most of a wonderful assist from the leftby Mendoza.

Central midfielder RaphaelAugusto was the fulcrumaround which Chennaiyinmoved today. He also played apart in the fourth goal scored by

Jeje. This was also the firstmatch in which the host has notconceded a goal.

Chennaiyin made onechange from the last match. In-stead of central defender Po-

tenza, who is serving a suspen-sion, it brought in MailsonAlves. On the other hand, Dy-namos retained the eleven fromthe last match.

The result: Chennaiyin FC 4 ( Men-doza 17, Pelissari 21, Jeje 40 & 54) btDelhi Dynamos 0.

MUMBAI: They say beating SerenaWilliams is next to impossible.Last year, Alize Cornet achievedthe feat on three occasions. TheFrenchwoman, whose game isfounded on grit and determina-tion, gave a superb account of herself as the Raipur Rangersthrashed the Mumbai Tennis

Masters 23-14 [3-5, 5-2, 5-3, 5-2,5-2] on Day Two of the secondedition of the Champions Ten-nis Leagueon Tuesday.

When Cornet took the court,her team had lost the first set —legend’s singles — 3-5. Standingacross the net was a player who

won the last major of the year.Not only did Cornet take FlaviaPennetta head on, she beat theItalian at her own game by dis-playing power and precision inequal measure.

Pennetta looked anything butthe player who triumphed at

Flushing Meadows this year.The set began with the ladiestrading breaks. Cornet restoredorder by taking a 3-2 lead beforebreaking Pennetta again. Shetook the set 5-2 with a forehandwinner.

Then Cornet and RobertoBautista Agutstorme d past Pen-netta and Santiago Giraldo. Thehighlight of the set was a bril-

liant rally, the centrepiece of which was Cornet. Haring herway from the baseline to net, shethrew her racquet at everything,only to trip in the end.

Agut then joined hands withRamkumar Ramanathan, whokept himself busy, often vocalis-ing to add extra meat to his pow-erful forehands, besides servingwell. His counterpart, Sriram

Balaji, was clearly off-colour.The Mumbai duo went down 2-5to give the visitors an unassaila-ble 18-12 lead. In the fifth rubber,Agut thrashed Giraldo 5-2 tocomplete the rout.

Earlier, Richard Krajicek puton a master-class against Tho-mas Muster, firing aces at will.He also took a leaf out of RogerFederer’s book, unleashing the‘sneak attack’ on Muster’s weaksecond serve.

The Dutchman served fourconsecutive aces to open up a 3-1lead, and by the time Muster up-ped his level, it was too late.Muster’s team, however, morethan made up for his loss.

The results: Raipur Rangers (RR)bt Mumbai Tennis Masters (MTM) 23-14. Legends: Thomas Muster lost toRichard Krajicek 5-3; Women: AlizeCornet bt Flavia Pennetta 5-2; RobertoBautista Agut & Cornet bt Santiago Gi-raldo & Flavia Pennetta 5-3; Men’sDoubles: Roberto Bautista Agut &Ramkumar Ramanathan bt SantiagoGiraldo & Sriram Balaji 5-2; Men: Ro-berto Bautista Agut bt Santiago Giral-do 5-2.

Cornet does the star turn for RaipurDEREK A BRAHAM

HANGING TOUGH: Alize Cornet first beat Flavia Pennetta and thenteamed up with Roberto Bautista Agut to clinch the mixeddoubles rubber for Raipur.— PHOTO: PRASHANT NAKWE

CHAMPIONS

TENNIS LEAGUE

Reddy (five for 73) and I. Kar-thik Raman (three for 85) shonewith the ball as Andhra defeat-ed Maharashtra by 10 wickets.

Maharashtra opener H. Motkarscored 104 (208b, 16x4).

The scores:At Hyderabad: Saurashtra 528 for

eight decl. in 176.5 overs drew withHyderabad 609 for six in 168.2 overs(K. Nithesh Reddy 238, P. Sai VikasReddy 56, Buddhi Rahul 121).

At Chennai: Tamil Nadu 179 & 81for three in 53 overs vs Jharkhand 253for nine decl. in 117.1 overs (WilfredBeng 138, R. Sai Kishore four for 75, M.Siddharth three for 64). Points: Jhark-hand 3; Tamil Nadu 1.

At Vizianagaram: Andhra 454 foreight decl. & 47 for no loss in 11.1 overs(C.R. Gnaneswar 34 n.o.) bt Maha-rashtra 236 & 264 in 84 overs (H. Mot-kar 104, S.D. Jagdale 53, S.A. Kothari26, P. Girinath Reddy five for 73, I. Kar-thik Raman three for 85). Andhra 7;Maharashtra 0.

HYDERABAD: K. Nithesh Reddycracked a double century (238,423b, 25x4) while Buddhi Rahulscored a breezy 121 (126b, 15x4,4x 6) to help Hyderabad takethe first innings lead againstSaurashtra in a high-scoringmatch which ended in a draw in

the Cooch Behar Trophy (un-der-19) cricket tournament’sElite Group B here on Tuesday.

Jharkhand takes lead

At Chennai, skipper WilfredBeng’s 138 (8x4, 5x6) helped

Jharkhand take the crucial firstinnings lead against Tamil Na-du on the final day at Chepauk.

Girinath scalps five

At Vizianagaram , P. Girinath

Nithesh cracks double century

K. Nithesh Reddy.

TIRUVARUR: GM Vidit Gujrathicontinued to lead the field, withseven points, after registering awin over IM P. Karthikeyan inthe ninth round of the ONGC53rd National Premier chesschampionship, organised bythe Tiruvarur DCA, here onTuesday.

In the Closed Catalan game,both Vidit and Karthikeyanplayed a cautious and error-free middle game. After a seriesof exchanges in the centre, Vi-dit won a rook for knight on the25th move. Though Karthi-keyan won a pawn on the 32ndmove, Vidit’s control of theopen file by his rook and ‘a1h8’diagonal by his queen and bish-op made Karthikeyan to resignon the 36th move. With the loss,Karthikeyan (5.5 points)slipped to the third spot.

GM Karthikeyan Murali de-feated IM P. Shyaamnikhil andrecorded his fifth win of thechampionship. Shyaamnikhilplayed Modern defence.

In the middle game, he losttwo valuable pawns and whenKarthikeyan won one morepawn, Shyaamnikhil did nothesitate to resign on the 36thmove. Karthikeyan has movedto the second spot with sixpoints and will meet Vidit in thenext round.

The results (ninth round): M.Shyam Sundar (AAI) 4.5 drew withM.R. Venkatesh (PSPB) 4; K. PraneethSurya (Tel) 4.5 drew with Deep Sen-gupta (PSPB) 3.5; K. Ratnakaran (Rlys)3.5 drew with Neelotpal Das (PSPB)4.5; P. Shyaamnikhil (TN) 3 lost to Kar-thikeyan Murali (TN) 6; Vidit Gujrathi(PSPB) 7 bt P. Karthikeyan (Rlys) 5.5;Abhijit Kunte (PSPB) 3.5 drew withS.P. Sethuraman (PSPB) 4.5; SwapnilS. Dhopade (Rlys) 4 lost to ArghyadipDas (Rlys) 5.

Vidit Gujrathikeeps leadG. PRASAD

KOCHI: Rajasthan’s Ravi Kumarshattered the under-18 boys’ de-cathlon National record by morethan 300 points at the 31st Nationaljunior athletics championship atRanchi on Tuesday. Uttarakhand’sHarsh Kumar and Kerala’s JisnaMathew broke the meet records inthe under-18 boys’ and girls’ 400m.

The results (winners only):Boys: Under-20: 100m: Gaurav

Kumar (UP) 10.66s. 400m: MohanKumar (TN) 48.01s. 4x100m relay:Kerala (D. Sreekanth, U. Nithin, T.K.Jyothi Prasad, M. Joseph Joe) 41.65.

High jump: Mothi Arun (TN) 1.99m.Discus throw: Ravinder (Har)

53.18m. 10,000m walk: Vikash Singh(Jhd) 44:45.59s.

Under-18: 100m: PrincedeepSingh (Pun) 10.78s. 400m: Harsh Ku-mar (Ukd) 47.51s [MR, OR 47.97].1,000m medley relay: 1. Haryana(1:55.01s).Shot put: Ashish Bhalothia(Mpr) 18.14m. Decathlon: Ravi Ku-mar (Raj) 6418 pts [NR, OR 6081].

Under-16: 100m: Chaudhary Pa-lendra Kumar (UP) 11.01s [ENR.].400m: Naveen (TN) 48.96. Long jump: S. Lokesh (Kar) 7.14m. 5,000m

walk: Lalit Singh Bisht (Utd)23:23.19s.Under-14: 100m: Sunil Va-

tas (Guj) 11.42s. Shot put: TusharSingh (Guj) 15.35m.

Girls: Under-20: 100m: M. Akhila(Ker) 12.21s. 400m: Rajni Nagar (Har)55.39s. 4x100m relay: Kerala ‘A’(Soumya Varghese, Ramya Rajan, A.P.Shilbi, M. Akhila) 47.83s. Triple jump:Athira Surendran (Ker) 12.41m.

Under-18: 100m: Rashmi Sheregar(Mah) 11.89s [MR, OR 11.93]. 400m:Jisna Mathew (Ker) 53.85 [MR, OR54.92]. Long jump: Priyanka Kerketta(Jkd) 5.95m. Pole vault: Chellaman-

gai (TN) 3.05m. Hammer throw: Ko-mal (UP) 50.57m. 5,000m walk: Ban-

dana Patel (UP) 26:16.69s.Under-16: 100m: Santra Teresa-

martin (TN) 12.71s. 400m: SumitaBhowmick (WB) 58.93. 1,000m me-dley relay: West Bengal (2:19.05s).Javelin throw: Samar Singh (UP)65.14m. 3,000m walk: A. Divya (Ker)16:09.36s.

Under-14: 100m: Mansi Pendhar-kar (Mah) 12.74s. Long jump: P.S.Prabhavathi (Ker) 5.40m. High jump:Kevinaa Ashwine (TN) 1.50m. Shotput: Anshika (UP) 10.96m.

ATHLETICS

Ravi Kumar sets a new National record

KOLKATA: M.S. Washington Sundarand Rishabh Pant, who scored ahalf-century each, helped Indiabeat Bangladesh by four wicketsand ensure itself a place in the finalof the under-19 tri-series here onTuesday. Chasing 223, the Indiansreached the target losing six wick-ets and with eight balls to spare.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Pant topscored with 51 while Washingtonscored 50 and claimed twowickets.

India lost its way a bit midway asthree wickets fell in quick succes-sion. But Amandeep Khare (41)and Washington (50, 75b, 6x4)played responsibly to take the hostclose to victory before MahipalLomror (19 n.o.) and Mayank Da-gar (11 n.o.) knocked off theremainder.

Electing to bat, Bangladesh was

helped by a fine knock of 87 (90b,10x4, 2x6) from its captain MehedyHassan Miraz, who ensured thatthe team posted a fighting total of 222 for seven.

India’s 13 points from three winssealed its berth in Sunday’s final.

Bangladesh has five points fromtwo loses (against India) and a win(against Afghanistan).

The scores:

Bangladesh: Joyraj Sheik Imon cLomror b Dagar 15, Mohammed Saif Hassan c Sarfaraz Khan b Ansari 33,Mohammad Najmul Hossain Shantoct Sarfaraz Khan b Sundar 4, Moham-mad Zakir Hasan b Sundar 3, Moham-mad Mehedy Hassan Miraz c Ansari bSeth 87, Jaker Ali Anik run out 16, Mo-hammad Shaifuddin c Pant b AveshKhan 30, Saeed Sarker (not out) 17,Mohammad Mehede Hasan (not out)6; Extras (b-4, nb-3, w-4): 11; Total (forseven wickets in 50 overs): 222.

Fall of wickets: 1-27, 2-40, 3-47, 4-

81, 5-144, 6-188, 7-216.

India bowling: Avesh Khan 10-3-39-1, Kanishk Seth 9-0-66-1, MayankDagar 8-0-18-1, Washington Sundar 6-1-25-2, Mahipal Lomror 10-0-39-0,Zeeshan Ansari 7-0-31-1.

India: Rishabh Pant c Imon b Sarker51, Ishan Kishan run out 24, ViratSingh c Gazi b Miraz 21, AmandeepKhare b Miraz 41, Sarfaraz Khan lbw bShaifuddin 0, M.S. Washington Sundar

c&b Shanto 50, Mahipal Lomror (notout) 19, Mayank Dagar (not out) 11;Extras (lb-1, nb-1, w-4): 6; Total (for sixwickets in 48.4 overs): 223.

Fall of wickets: 1-67, 2-84, 3-116,4-116, 5-185, 6-198.

Bangladesh bowling: Moham-mad Abdul Halim 3-0-33-0, Moham-mad Mehede Hasan 6-1-28-0, MehedyHassan Miraz 9-2-50-2, Saeed Sarker10-1-42-1, Saleh Ahmed Shawon Gazi9-0-31-0, Mohammad Shaifuddin 8.4-1-28-1, Mohammad Najmul HossainShanto 3-0-10-1.

A MITABHA D AS SHARMA

India beats Bangladesh, makes finalCRICKET

BENGALURU: Karnataka teamsposted victories in both themen’s and women’s sections of the 63rd senior National kabad-

di championship here onTuesday.

The men’s team, led by raiderPrashanth Rai (12 points), pow-ered his side to a 27-22 win overUttarakhand.

Karnataka emerged un-scathed after a horrendousstart, when it suffered an ‘allout’in the early stages of the match.

From here, Rai — who playsfor Telugu Titans in the Pro Ka-

baddi League — and catcherRajaguru (4 points) took over.

The home side led 21-18 at theend of the first-half, and effec-tively slowed down the pace af-ter the restart to stall all come-back attempts of Uttarakhand.

In the women’s section, Kar-nataka proved too good forWest Bengal. Sushmita Pawar(8 points) took out the Bengal‘antis’ with ease, giving the fansmuch to cheer about.

The results:Men: Karnataka 27 bt Uttarakhand

22; Andhra Pradesh 26 bt BSNL 23;Services 53 bt J&K 8.

Women: Karnataka 22 bt WestBengal 14; Haryana 65 bt J&K 5.

KABADDI

A SHWIN A CHAL

Karnataka begins well

KOLKATA: Defending championPadmini Rout of Odisha, whowon the title with a round tospare, lost to K. Priyanka of Ta-mil Nadu in the 11th and finalround of the RamRatna 42nd Na-tional Premier chess champion-ship at ICCR on Tuesday. Pad-

mini, however, retained herone-point margin as Swati Ghatewas outwitted by SoumyaSwaminathan.

The results (11th and finalround): Padmini Rout (Odi) 8.5 lost toK. Priyanka (TN) 3; Soumya Swami-nathan (PSPB) 7.5 bt Swati Ghate

(LIC) 7.5; Neha Singh (Bih) 1 lost toBhakti Kulkarni (Goa) 7.5; PratyushaBodda (AP) 6.5 lost to N. Priyanka (AP)4.5; Michelle Catherina (TN) 4.5 lostto R. Vaishali (TN) 6.5; V. Varshini (TN)4 lost to Tania Sachdev (AI) 5.

Final standings: 1. Padmini Rout8.5 , 2. Soumya Swaminathan 7.5 (tie-

break-37.75), 3. Bhakti Kukarni 7.5(33.75), 4. Swati Ghate 7.5 (33.50), 5.Pratyusha Bodda 6.5 (31.75), 6. R.Vaishali 6.5 (29.75), 7. Tania Sachdev5, 8. Michelle Catherina 4.5 (20.50) ,9. N. Priyanka 4.5 (17.25), 10. V. Var-shini 4, 11. K. Priyanka 3, and 12. NehaSingh 1.

CHESS

Soumya takes second spot



CMYK

ND-ND


NOIDA/DELHI

SPORT

Round Eight (day two)Group A

At Hubballi: Karnataka 542 in149 overs (Robin Uthappa 148,Mayank Agarwal 118, ManishPandey 81, Vinay Kumar 50, KarunNair 39, C.M. Gautam 37, NavdeepSaini three for 85, PradeepSangwan three for 102) v Delhi 60for one in 29 overs (GautamGambhir batting 33).

At Kolkata: Bengal 142 and 135in 55.2 overs (AbhimanyuEaswaran 39, Sudip Chatterjee 37,Manoj Tiwary 35, Basant Mohantyfive for 16) bt Odisha 107 and 37 in19.2 overs (Ashoke Dinda seven for

19, Pragyan Ojha three for 14).Points: Bengal 6; Odisha 0 .

At Lahli: Haryana 112 and 62for no loss in 19 overs (Nitin Sainibatting 42) v Rajasthan 279 in88.3 overs (Ashok Menaria 47,Puneet Yadav 46, Siddharth Dobal43, Vineet Saxena 39, DeepakChahar 30, Mohit Sharma five for56, Ashish Hooda three for 62).

At Pune: Assam 223 for four in81 overs (K.B. Arun Karthik batting105, Gokul Sharma 59, Amit Verma32) v Maharashtra. Toss:Maharashtra.

Group BAt Indore: Madhya Pradesh

240 and 201 (Jalaj Saxena 79,Devendra Bundela 42, ShardulThakur three for 33, Iqbal Abdullathree for 53) v Mumbai 162 in 38.1overs (Jalaj Saxena five for 66,Ankit Sharma five for 80).

At Kanpur: Punjab 272 in 90.3overs (Mayank Sidhana 85,Gitansh Khera 74, Praveen Kumarfour for 81, Ankit Rajpoot three for60) v Uttar Pradesh 205 for eight

in 71 overs (Umang Sharma 49,Akshdeep Nath 35, Piyush Chawla34, Himanshu Asnora 34,

Harbhajan Singh three for 31).

At New Delhi: Railways 182and 194 for eight in 64 overs(Ashish Yadav batting 55, SaurabhWakaskar 38, B. Sudhakar four for49) v Andhra 114 in 50 overs (D.B.Prasanth 49, Karn Sharma five for30, Anureet Singh three for 25).

At Tirunelveli: Tamil Nadu vGujarat (rain, no play).

Group C

At Malappuram: Kerala 166and 105 in 41 overs (AkshayChandran 32 not out,Dharmendrasinh Jadeja six for 59,V. Jivrajani four for 31) v

Saurashtra 157 in 60.4 overs(Samarth Vyas 54 not out, ChiragJani 34, Monish Kareparambil sixfor 81) and 16 for one in nineovers.

At Ranchi: Jharkhand 337 in103 overs (Shiv Gautam 122,Saurabh Tiwary 79, Ishank Jaggi48, Anand Singh 30, Bipul Sharmasix for 59) bt Himachal Pradesh133 in 36.2 overs (Ankit Kalsi 53,Shahbaz Nadeem seven for 45)and 133 in 32.1 overs (NikhilGangta 38, Prashant Chopra 32,Shahbaz Nadeem four for 45,Kaushal Singh three for 10).Points: Jharkhand: 7; HimachalPradesh 0.

At Hyderabad: Hyderabad 548for five decl. in 173 overs (HanumaVihari 219, B. Sandeep 93, B.Anirudh 78, Tanmay Agarwal 45,Akshath Reddy 40) v Tripura fourfor one in five overs.

At Jammu: Goa 552 for fivedecl. in 162 overs (SwapnilAsnodkar 232, Amogh Desai 106,Sagun Kamat 105, Dharshan Misal

41, Parveez Rasool four for 169) vJammu and Kashmir 42 for two in11 overs.

NEW DELHI: Propelled by an at-tacking half century by AshishYadav, Railways took the fightto the doorsteps of Andhra atthe end of the second day in theGroup B Ranji Trophy match atthe Karnail Singh Stadium hereon Tuesday.

With an overall lead of 262runs and two wickets in hand,Railways gave itself a chance tokeep alive its chances of stayingin the Elite group.

Yadav, playing cross-battedshots on a pitch demanding cau-tion, was unbeaten on 55 off 80balls with four fours and twosixes after the Railways’s top-order collapsed to the left-armslow pair of B. Sudhakar (fourfor 49) and C. Sneha Kishore(two for 54).

In only his second match of the season, Yadav, batting at No.8, gained from his positive ap-proach, playing and missing afew but connecting well to leaveAndhra a frustrated lot.

Andhra, resuming at 62 forfour, lasted 25 overs and added amere 52 runs in the morningwith leg-spinner Karn Sharmapicking up four wickets andAnureet one, to push the visiting

side into an agonising state. A lotdepended on opener D.B. Pra-santh and the talented AshwinHebbar, but Karn struck withvenom on an amiable pitch.

The turn was not pronounced,but Andhra succumbed to self-doubt and inflicted the misery

on itself in quick time. Prasanth,29 overnight, put on 20 runs be-fore he followed Hebbar for a100-ball 49 with five fours and asix.

The last five wickets couldcontribute just 39 to Andhra’sscore as the team conceded a vi-

tal lead of 68 runs.The scores: Railways — 1st in-

nings: 182.Andhra — 1st innings: K.S. Bharat

lbw b Anureet 0, D.B. Prashanth c NandibKarn 49, K.R. Sreekanth c Wakaskar bYadav 8, Mohd. Kaif lbw b Anureet 0,A.G. Pradeep c Vivek b Karn 11, AshwinHebbar c Wakaskar b Karn 14, M.U.B.Sriram c Karn b Anureet 12, D. Siva Ku-mar lbw b Karn 0, B. Sudhakar (run out)7, B. Ayyappa c Anureet b Karn 9, C.Sneha Kishore (not out) 0; Extras (b-2,lb-1, w-1): 4; Total (in 50 overs): 114.

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-21, 3-24, 4-44, 5-75, 6-92, 7-92, 8-97, 9-113.

Railways bowling: Anureet Singh17-5-25-3, Ashish Yadav 11-3-31-1, Karn

Sharma 14-2-30-5, Sagar Mishra 2-1-7-0, Arnab Nandi 6-4-18-0.

Railways — 2nd innings: SaurabhWakaskar lbw b Kishore 38, AshishSingh b Siva Kumar 5, V. Cheluvaraj lbwb Sudhakar 18, Arindam Ghosh lbw bSudhakar 23, Vivek Singh c Sriram bKishore 7, Mahesh Rawat c Sriram bSudhakar 6, Karn Sharma b Prasanth18, Ashish Yadav (batting) 55, ArnabNandi c Siva Kumar b Sudhakar 5, SagarMishra (batting) 11; Extras (b-8): 8; To-tal (for eight wkts. in 64 overs): 194.

Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-65, 3-65, 4-81, 5-94, 6-115, 7-151, 8-163.

Andhra bowling: D. Siva Kumar 8-3-18-1, B. Ayyappa 12-2-43-0, C. SnehaKishore 22-6-54-2, B. Sudhakar 12-0-49-4, D.B. Prashanth 10-1-22-1.

Railways stays alive with 262-run lead V IJAY LOKAPALLY

Karn Sharma was instrumental in pushing Andhra to anagonising state, picking up four wickets on Tuesday.— PHOTO: SANDEEP SAXENA

HUBBALLI: Karnataka continuesto call the shots in this contest,even if Delhi offered firm re-sistance on Tuesday afternoon.

After being dismissed for 542on the second day of this RanjiTrophy Group ‘A’ game, Karna-taka emerged hungry and buoy-ant in the evening session, hop-

ing to make deep inroadsbefore the close of play. Onewicket, however, was all thehome side could manage. Un-

mukt Chandswung at a widedelivery from S.Arvind and edgedbehind for 22, af-ter 88 minutes of hard work.

Delhi finishedon 60 for one atthe KSCA Stadi-um here, a patientGautam Gambhir(33, 82b) andDhruv Shorey (4,28b) at the crease.

Karnataka’sbatsmen had scored unhinder-ed overnight but in the morn-ing, they did not quite flourishas they may have hoped. Nav-deep Saini and Pradeep Sang-wan bowled with control incloudy, windy conditions as thebrakes were steadily applied.

22nd half-century

Karun Nair could add onlyeight runs to his overnight

score, Saini bowling him with adelivery that stayed rather low.Only 20 runs came off the day’sfirst 10 overs before the monot-ony was briefly broken by Man-

ish Pandey. The right-handerdrove Pawan Suyal for succes-sive fours through long-off, thefirst of those boundaries taking

him to his 22nd half-century infirst-class cricket.

Pandey was dropped on 79when a forceful drive burstthrough the fingers of Nitish

Rana in the covers, but he didnot make much of the reprieve,dragging Sangwan onto thestumps the very next ball. “It

was a really loose shot to play; Ihad worked hard for those 81runs,” Pandey said later. “ButI’m not too disappointed be-cause the team is in a comfort-

able position. The pitch has be-come a little flat but ourbowlers can do the job.”

Karnataka went into the

lunch interval five down for456, having scored at underthree runs an over in that ses-sion. Shreyas Gopal and C.M.Gautam made useful contribu-tions while Vinay Kumar ledthe home side’s push for quickruns, striking nine fours to raisea 57-ball half-century. Karnata-ka’s last five wickets fell for 86runs, as Delhi trooped back in

after five sessions on the field.The scores:

Karnataka — 1st innings: R. Sa-marth b Suyal 17, Mayank Agarwal cBisht b Suyal 118, Robin Uthappa c & bSangwan 148, Manish Pandey b Sang-wan 81, Karun Nair b Saini 39, C.M.Gautam c Unmukt b Sangwan 37,Shreyas Gopal c Bisht b Saini 27, R. Vi-nay Kumar lbw b Manan 50, A. Mithunb Manan 6, S. Arvind c Milind b Saini 4,H.S. Sharath (not out) 1; Extras (b-4,lb-4, nb-6): 14; Total (in 149 overs):542.

Fall of wickets: 1-47, 2-283, 3-297, 4-371, 5-436, 6-474, 7-515, 8-535,9-540.

Delhi bowling: Pradeep Sangwan35-7-102-3, Nitin Saini 32-11-85-3, Pa-wan Suyal 31-5-123-2, Manan Sharma41-4-147-2, Milind Kumar 6-0-35-0,Dhruv Shorey 4-0-42-0.

Delhi — 1st innings: UnmuktChand c Gautam b Arvind 22, GautamGambhir (batting) 33, Dhruv Shorey(batting) 4; Extras (nb-1): 1; Total (forone wkt. in 29 overs): 60.

Fall of wicket: 1-47.

Karnataka bowling: R. Vinay Ku-mar 8-1-30-0, A. Mithun 7-2-20-0, S.Arvind 8-5-7-1, H.S. Sharath 5-3-3-0,Karun Nair 1-1-0-0.

Karnataka continues to call the shotsDespite Delhi’s Saini and Sangwan bowling with control in cloudy, windy conditions

SHREEDUTTA CHIDANANDA

GOOD KNOCK: Karnataka’s Manish Pandey hogged the limelight with a well-made half-centuryagainst Delhi in the Ranji Trophy at Hubballi on Tuesday.— PHOTO: K. MURALI KUMAR

RANJI SCORES

BENGALURU: Second seed M. Kan-ishq crashed out of the 14thUnion Bank all-India Junior-ranking badminton tourna-ment, losing 22-24, 19-21 in theboys’ under-19 round of 64 toTapas Shukla here on Tuesday.

Kanishq out

NEW DELHI: Nida Shahid Kamalbeat fifth seed Jennifer Luik-ham 6-4, 6-3 in the girls’ firstround of the ITF grade-4 junior

tennis tournament here onTuesday.Shivani Ingle put up a good

fight against seventh seed Mar-ta Oliveira of Portugal, but lostin three sets.

The results (first round): Boys:Muthu Aadhitiya Senthilkumar btApuroop Patlolla Reddy 6-1, 6-0; Sidd-hant Banthia bt Sathya Maran 6-2,6-2; Salvador Bandeira (Por) bt KabirManrai 6-2, 7-6(7); Abhimanyu Van-nem Reddy bt Param Pun 6-3, 6-1; Ad-itya Vasisht bt Sagar Bains 6-2, 6-4.

Girls: Nida Shaid Kamal bt JenniferLuikham 6-4, 6-3; Lalita Devarakondabt Seerat Sidu 7-5, 6-3; Marta Oliveira(Por) bt Shivani Ingle 6-2, 1-6, 6-2; Hu-mera Begum Shaik bt Aesha Patel(US) 6-2, 6-1; Mahak Jain bt SonasheBhatnagar 6-0, 6-2.

Nida ousts Jennifer

RAIPUR: Suraj Beniwal bouncedback after losing the first set toknock out seventh seed NikiPoonacha 1-6, 7-6(2), 6-1 in thefirst round of the $10,000 ITFmen’s Futures tennis tourna-ment here on Tuesday.

In another lively match, topseed Mohit Mayur fought hisway past Tejas Chaukulkar inthree sets.

Haadin Bava overcame Wei-De Lin of Chinese Taipei inthree sets, to set up a secondround clash against eighth seedChandril Sood.

The results:Singles (first round): Mohit May-

ur bt Tejas Chaukulkar 6-2, 4-6, 6-1;Suraj Prabodh bt Manish Sureshku-mar 7-5, 6-1; Suraj Beniwal bt NikiPoonacha 1-6, 7-6(2), 6-1; Haadin Bavabt Wei-De Lin (Tpe) 6-4, 2-6, 6-4; Jui-Chen Hung (Tpe) bt Bhavesh Gour 6-1,6-1; Aditya Deswal bt Chinmay Prad-han 6-1, 6-2; Prajnesh Gunneswaranbt S.D. Prajwal Dev 6-2, 6-2; JayesPungliya bt Sourabh Singh 6-0, 6-0.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals):Chinmay Pradhan & Siddharth Vish-wakarma bt Anvit Bendre & ChandrilSood 1-6, 6-2, 10-7; Hardeep SinghSandhu & Shaikh Abdullah bt Jatin Da-hiya & Aaditya Tewari 6-4, 4-6, 12-10;Bhavesh Gour & Sidharth Rawat bt Pa-ramveer Singh Bajwa & Jayesh Pungli-ya 7-5, 7-6(3); Kunal Anand & Ronit

Singh Bisht bt Jui-Chen Hung & Wei-Del Lin (Tpe) 6-4, 7-5.

Beniwal rallies tostun Poonacha

KOLKATA: A city that prides it-self as the cradle of Indiantennis — its South Club is theoldest tennis club in thecountry — has been chosenthe first stop for a reuniontour that brings together thenation’s biggest players.

Mahesh Bhupathi, SaniaMirza and Kolkata’s ownLeander Paes, and the legend-ary Martina Navratilova, willtake the court together tostart the three-leg Masters’tennis tour at the Netaji In-door Stadium on Wednesday.

The ‘Masters-Kolkata’event, which is a part of thepromotional activity for the

International Premier TennisLeague conceived by Bhu-

pathi, will give the tennis afi-cionados of the city an occa-sion to see stars of this staturefor the first time since theWTA Sunfest Open’s last edi-tion in 2007.

The tour — which will takethe quartet to Hyderabad andDelhi after Kolkata — is ex-pected to lead up to the inter-national League that is sched-uled to start in Kobe, Japan,on December 2.

The match itself, whichwill pit Bhupathi and Saniaagainst Paes and Navratilova,will be played on a friendlynote but will revive memo-ries of the exploits of the two

successful pairs and the talessurrounding their triumphs.

At 29, Sania, the WorldNo.1 women’s doubles player,is the youngest of the fourplayers while the 59-year-oldNavratilova, the owner of 18Grand Slam singles titles, isthe oldest of them all and themost successful.

Paes and Bhupathi, who arein their early 40s, bridge theage divide and bring the ener-gy and thrust to the upcomingcontest.

Bhupathi won the Austra-lian Open and Roland Garrostitles with Sania, while Paesand Navratilova too havewon two Majors — the Aus-tralian Open and Wimbledon.

TENNIS

PRINCIPALCORRESPONDENT

Kolkata ready to host reunion of stars

KOLKATA: In keeping with thetrend that saw 20 wickets fall onthe opening day, the BCA groundat Kalyani witnessed a repeat of it on Tuesday.

Bengal, resuming at 23 for noloss, made 135 in the second in-nings to set a target of 171 runs forOdisha. The visitors, however,were bowled out for a paltry 37.

Bengal earned a 133-run winprompting the humiliated vis-itors to lodge an official complainwith the Board of Control for

Cricket in India about the hostoffering them an underpreparedwicket.

In its second essay, Bengalrode on the contributions of Ab-himanyu Easwaran (39), SudipChatterjee (37) and captain Ma-noj Tiwary (35) to reach 103 forfour before suffering a collapseas the team was bowled out for135.

While the first day belonged tothe spinners, it was the medium-pacers who were in the limelighton the second day. Basant Mo-hanty picked up five Bengalwickets giving away 16 runs tohasten Bengal’s dismissal.

Taking the cue, former Indiamedium-pacer Ashoke Dindacame up with a deadly spell to f in-ish with figures of 10-0-19-7 asOdisha was bowled out for 37.

Arabind Singh and JayantaBehera were the joint top scorerswith seven runs that signified theplight of the visitor’s batting.Apart from Dinda, Bengal usedanother bowler, Pragyan Ojha,who scalped the remaining threewickets.

“It was unpredictable on thefirst day, but turned into a dan-gerous pitch today (Tuesday)

and unnerved the young batsmenin my team.“Whatever be the result, such a

pitch cannot be good for the gameof cricket,” said Odisha captainNatraj Behera after his team’s de-feat. “We have submitted an offi-cial complain to the match refer-ee about the nature of the pitch,”he added.

Match referee Shakti Singh ac-knowledged the complaint fromOdisha and said that he will passit on to the appropriate office inBCCI.

The scores:Bengal — 1st innings: 142.Odisha — 1st innings: 107.Bengal — 2nd innings: Abhima-

nyu Easwaran lbw b Basant Mohanty39, Sayan Sekhar Mondal c HalhadharbPradhan 3, Sudip Chatterjee c Saran-gi b Basant Mohanty 37, Manoj TiwarycArabind b Basant Mohanty 35, Shree-vats Goswami c Arabind b Dhiraj 0,Pankaj Shaw c Poddar b Dhiraj 0, Pra-mod Chandila lbw b Basant Mohanty0, Aamir Gani lbw b Basant Mohanty 4,Pragyan Ojha run out 0, Ashoke Dindast. Halhadhar b Behera 0, Anurag Tiwa-ri (not out) 0; Extras (b-2, lb-12, nb-3):17; Total (in 55.2 overs): 135.

Fall of wickets: 1-25, 2-62, 3-102,4-103, 5-103, 6-110, 7-118, 8-135, 9-135.

Odisha bowling: Suryakant Prad-

han 10-5-25-1, Jayanta Behera 8.2-0-29-1, Pratik Das 2-0-4-0, Dhiraj Singh18-6-47-2, Basant Mohanty 17-9-16-5.

Odisha — 2nd innings: RanjitSingh c Chandila b Dinda 1, Natraj Beh-era c Easwaran b Dinda 5, ArabindSingh b Ojha 7, Govinda Poddar c Tiw-ary b Ojha 2, Anurag Sarangi c Easwa-ran b Dinda 4, Pratik Das b Dinda 0, Hal-hadhar Das c Easwaran b Dinda 1,Suryakant Pradhan lbw b Dinda 1,Jayanta Behera (not out) 7, Basant Mo-hanty c & b Dinda 0, Dhiraj Singh cChatterjee b Ojha 5; Extras (b-4): 4; To-tal (in 19.2 overs): 37.

Fall of wickets: 1-2, 2-13, 3-15, 4-17, 5-19, 6-20, 7-21, 8-22, 9-22.

Bengal bowling: Ashoke Dinda 10-0-19-7, Pragyan Ojha 9.2-4-14-3.

Bengal picks up full pointsOdisha complains about pitch being underprepared

PRINCIPAL CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Former Test cricket-er Kirti Azad on Tuesday wroteto Justice Mukul Mudgal alleg-ing “a systematic fraud in ap-propriating tickets meant forthe public” by some Delhi andDistricts Cricket Association(DDCA) functionaries.

Azad said even though10,000 free passes were beingallotted to the DDCA for everymatch, the association officialsgrabbed more tickets throughother means.

“Every year, in the IndianPremier League (IPL) andODIs, the public hardly getstickets and organisations likeBook My Show, which aretasked with selling tickets on-line, have to keep returningmost of the tickets to two indi-viduals, C.K. Khanna and SnehBansal, whereas the publickeeps thirsting for more tick-ets,” wrote Azad.

“This is a big racket — nei-ther the public gets the ticketsnor the DDCA gets any moneyfrom such a sale. Ultimately,most of these tickets are misap-propriated by the two key of-fice-bearers and no money isactually received.”

Azad requested Justice Mud-gal, who had been assigned bythe Delhi High Court to overseethe conduct of the fourth and fi-nal Test between India andSouth Africa at the Kotla earlynext months, to address the is-sue and ensure sale of tickets to

genuine public. — SpecialCorrespondent

Azad raises ‘ticketfraud’ issue

NEW DELHI: In a pleasant depar-ture from the past, the DDCAmanagement, running againsttime to complete the arrange-ments for the fourth and finalTest against South Africa at theFerozeshah Kotla from Dec 3,has decided to have separateseating arrangements for cur-rent and former internationalcricketers.

This was done under the di-rections of Justice MukulMudgal.

It was also decided thatleague and local cricketerswould have a separate block. A

small section will be reservedfor senior citizens, who will beinvited to witness the Test,with hospitality provided.Some seats have been reservedfor specially-invited, physicallychallenged students.

Clubs playing in the DDCALeague will be given a 50 percent discount on tickets whileaffiliated clubs and studentswill be given tickets priced Rs.250. — Special Correspondent

Special seatingarrangementsat the Kotla

Neer cruisesto victory

NEW DELHI: Last year’s under-9

champion Neer Nehwaleased past Atik Malik 11-1,11-4 in the under-9 qualifyingevent of the PNB Metlifejunior badmintontournament at the ThyagarajIndoor Stadium here onTuesday.In the under-11 girls’ event,Vartika Singh, the under-9champion last year, defeatedVidushi Jaidka 11-8, 11-1.In the boys’ under-11 section,top seed Manraj Singhbattled past Anmol Bhutani11-8, 10-11, 11-6, while theunseeded Nikita beat secondseed Aditi Bhatt 15-11, 15-13 inthe girls’ under-15 category.

Airbus Indian Openpolo from today

The Airbus Indian Openpolo championship, one of the longest running events inthe country with a century-old trophy (IPA Rose Bowl),will be played at the Jaipur

Polo ground fromWednesday.The league will feature threeteams — Jindal Panther,Indian Polo Associaiton(IPA) and Achievers.Panther will have eight-goalplayer John Paul Clarkinapart from Simran Shergill,Miguel Saravia and Naveen Jindal.It will open against IPA on

Wednesday.The final will be played onSunday.

PNB, PSB to clashfor title

It will be a clash of bankmenin the final of the 52nd Nehrusenior hockey tournamentafter both Punjab NationalBank (PNB) and Punjab &Sind Bank (PSB) won theirrespective semifinals in theshootout on Tuesday.Last year’s runner-up PSBdefeated ONGC 3-1 onpenalties after being tied 2-2after regulation time.PSB led 2-0 till the last 10minutes and it appeared itwould win easily beforeONGC struck back to levelthe scores.In the shootout, however,only Jagwant Singh couldconvert for ONGC whilePSB was successful in all itsthree attempts.

Brace by RohidasIn the other semifinal, PNBgot past Indian Railways 4-2after the teams were tied 3-3at the end of regulation time.PNB took an early lead butsoon fell behind as AmitRohidas’s brace and AffanYousuf’s strike helpedRailways take a 3-1 lead. ButSumit Toppo scored twice infour minutes to take thegame into shootout.The results (semifinals):

PNB 3 (Sumit Toppo 2, Damandeep

Singh) bt Indian Railways 3 (AmitRohidas 2, Affan Yousuf) onpenalties.

PSB 2 (Sarvanjit Singh, Sukhjit Singh)

bt ONGC 2 (Gurvinder Chandi, TyronPerreira) on penalties.

Karanveer slamscentury

ALIGARH: Karanveer Singhslammed 141 runs andVaibhav Pawar took fourwickets for just 39 runs asHNB Garhwal University,Uttarakhand thrashedSharda University, Noida by191 runs in the North Zoneinter-university crickettournament here onTuesday.

The scores:

HAU, Hissar 110 in 30.2 overs (MohdSultan Ansari five for 18) lost to AMU,Aligarh 111 for two in 20 overs (MohdSultan Ansari 39, Saleem Ansari 31).

HNB Garwal, Uttarakhand 305 in 40overs (Karanveer Singh 141, JavedIqbal three for 46) bt ShardaUniversity, Noida 114 in 23.5 overs(Parkash Kumar 28, Vaibhav Pawar

four for 39).IK Gujral PTU, Jalandhar 90 in 32.1overs (Simran Sharma three for 8)lost to MJP Rohilkhand University,Bareilly 94 for five in 18.2 overs(Piyush Likhi four for 36).

SHI, Allahabad 204 in 39.2 overs(Sarabjit Dubey 48, Abrar Ahmadthree for 28) bt Islamic University,Pulwama 114 in 31 overs (FaisalYaseen 26, Sarabjit Dubey three for30).

NORTH INDIA ROUND-UP

LONDON: Jermain Defoe boostedSunderland’s bid to escape thePremier League relegationzone as he pounced on a defen-sive howler to snatch a 1-0 winat Crystal Palace on Monday.

Centre-back Scott Dann andgoalkeeper Wayne Hennesseymade a hash of clearing a ballforward, allowing Defoe to slotinto an empty net 10 minutesfrom time in south London.

Defensive howlerlets Defoestun Palace KOCHI: Track legend P.T. Usha

has sent a letter to Prime Minis-

ter Narendra Modi protestingagainst the decision of theSchool Games Federation of In-dia (SGFI) to organise athleticevents for boys and girlsseparately.

In her letter, Usha cited theSGFI calendar which men-tioned that the events for boysand girls will be held separatelyin the second week of January2016 and the fourth week of De-

cember this year at Nashik andPune respectively.

“It is indeed shocking newsto the Indian sports communi-ty,” she wrote. “Whatever thereason behind the decision, it istotally undemocratic and con-demnable to the maximum ex-tent possible.

“When the world is cryingloudly against gender discrimi-nation and for equality amongmen and women, this attitudeof the SGFI cannot be justified

at any cost,” the sprint queensaid in her letter.

“Separate competitions forboys and girls, or men andwomen, were held only in theolden days,” she said.

Noting that the IAAF and AFIare organising events for menand women at the same timeand the same venue with a viewto help women better their per-formances, Usha said SGFI’sdecision is a violation of humanrights. — PTI

GENERAL

Usha writes to PM on SGFI decision




NOIDA/DELHI

25-11-2015 - The Hindu - Shashi Thakur

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