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T he Supreme Court on Friday provided a major relief to the Modi Government by dismissing the demand for a court-monitored CBI probe into the Government-to- Government deal with France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets, saying there is no occasion to “really doubt the decision-making process” war- ranting setting aside of the contract. A Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi went into “three broad areas of concern” raised in the petitions — the decision-making process, pric- ing and the choice of Indian offset partners — and said there was no reason for inter- vention by the apex court on the “sensitive issue” of purchase of 36 fighter jets. The apex court said the Indian Air Force (IAF) needs advanced fighter jets as the country cannot afford to be “unprepared” or “under pre- pared” in a situation where adversaries have acquired fourth and fifth generation fighter aircraft, “of which, we have none”. “In view of our findings on all the three aspects, and hav- ing heard the matter in detail, we find no reason for any intervention by this court on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 defence aircraft by the Indian Government,” the Bench, also comprising Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph, said in its 29-page judgment. Attorney General KK Venugopal welcomed the ver- dict terming it as an “excel- lent” and “very good” judg- ment, which in his opinion has given “clean chit” to the Government by accepting all its arguments. “I think a clean chit has been given to the Government on Rafale deal,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a function to give farewell to Justice Madan B Lokur, who is set to retire on December 30. The court said perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a “fishing and roving enquiry” by the court in such matters and it cannot “sit in judgment” over the wisdom of Government’s decision to go in for purchase of 36 aircraft in place of 126. “We are satisfied that there is no occasion to really doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either set- ting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the court,” the Bench said. It noted that process for procurement of 36 Rafale jets was concluded on September 23, 2016 and no questions were raised at that time and the petitions were later filed after reported statement of former French President Francois Hollande with regard to selec- tion of Indian offset partners. The Bench said it was “cer- tainly not the job of this court to carry out a comparison of the pricing details in matters like the present” and the mate- rial has to be kept in a confi- dential domain. T he Congress on Friday named Ashok Gehlot as Rajasthan Chief Minister and Sachin Pilot as his deputy after party president Rahul Gandhi successfully brokered a peace between the veteran leader and his younger colleague after several rounds of discussion lasting more than two days. Congress observer to Rajasthan KC Venugopal made the announcement and said details of the oath-taking cer- emony would be decided after a meeting Governor Kalyan Singh in Jaipur. Addressing a Press confer- ence, Gehlot thanked Rahul Gandhi for giving him the opportunity to serve the peo- ple of the State for a third time and promised that he and Pilot will give “good governance”. Rahul met Gehlot and Pilot thrice since Thursday. Hectic parleys were held between top party leaders, including Sonia Gandhi. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too is understood to be involved in the decision-mak- ing process. Senior party lead- ers Venugopal, Avinash Pande and Jitendra Singh were present during the meeting on Friday. “The united colours of Rajasthan,” Rahul tweeted on Friday afternoon along with a photograph in which the three leaders were seen in a jovial mood. Gehlot and Pilot wel- comed with pomp and splen- dour at the Jaipur airport after the announcement. Pilot, 41, exuded confi- dence that Congress’ good elec- toral performance will contin- ue, saying the party will get a big mandate in 2019 polls and form a Government at the Centre also. “Mera aur Ashok Gehlot ji ka jaadu puri tarah chal gaya hai (Gehlot and I worked our magic in the State),” Pilot said. The Congress went from 21 seats against the BJP’s 163 in 2013 to get 99 seats (plus one of the Rashtriya Lok Dal) in the Assembly elections. Pilot said the party’s manifesto will be implemented immediately. However, the name of Chhattisgarh CM has been kept under wraps. The official announcement will be made on Saturday in Raipur. All the four contenders — TS Singh Deo, Bhupesh Baghel, Tamradhwaj Sahu and Charan Das Mahant — were called to Delhi. They took turns to meet Rahul during the day after the name of Rajasthan CM was finalised. Rahul authorised AICC Central Observer for Chhattisgarh Mallikarjun Kharge to announce in Raipur the CM candidate after the CLP meeting on Saturday. Gehlot will be the fourth leader to become Chief Minister of Rajasthan for a third time. Mohan Lal Sukhadia was the Chief Minister of the State for four times, while Hari Dev Joshi and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat were three-time Chief Ministers of the State. Both Sukhadia and Joshi were Congress leaders while Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was from the BJP. N oted English writer Amitav Ghosh has been honoured with this year’s Jnanpith Award, a literary award given to an author for “outstanding con- tribution towards literature”, Bharatiya Jnanpith announced on Friday. “Amitav Ghosh is a path- breaking novelist. In his nov- els, Ghosh treads through historical settings to the mod- ern era and weaves a space where the past connects with the present in relevant ways. “His fiction is endowed with extraordinary depth and sub- stance through his academic training as a historian and a social anthropologist,” a state- ment from Bharatiya Jnanpith reads. The decision was taken in a meeting of Jnanpith Selection Board chaired by eminent nov- elist, scholar and Jnanpith lau- reate Pratibha Ray. B uoyed by the Supreme Court verdict on the Rafale fighter jet deal issue, the Government and the ruling BJP on Friday charged the Congress with manufacturing lies and compromising with national security and said truth always holds together while “falsehood always fall apart.” Making this assertion here, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley without directly naming Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi said falsehood was manufactured by “one family”, but they are not above the apex court. Along with the Government, the ruling BJP also accused the Congress of making the Rafale deal look a suspect by telling lies. BJP president Amit Shah said here at a separate Press conference that the SC order was a slap on Congress chief Rahul’s politics of lies and asked him to apol- ogise to the country and its sol- diers for putting national secu- rity at risk. The BJP president said there is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France, and the court has upheld that in its order on Friday. It is not the job of the court to deal with the comparative details of the pricing, he said. He also hit out at the Congress pres- ident for taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi by saying the “chowki- dar” is a thief. “All thieves had gathered to call the ‘chowki- dar’ a thief, but the country never believed it,” Shah told reporters. R eliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani on Friday welcomed the SC order on the Rafale deal, saying it estab- lished the falsity of politically motivated allegations against him. “I welcome the judgment summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally,” Ambani said. R esponding to Minister Surjya Narayan Patro’s com- plaint that the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) has failed in Odisha, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhanon Friday requested the BJD Government to cooperate with his Minister in making Odisha 100 per cent smoke-free State and not to do politics over the scheme. In his letter, Patro had mentioned, referring to a news report, that while the Ujjwala scheme covered 35, 16, 384 households since its inception in May 2016, only 8,18,786 beneficiaries took a second refill in 2016-17 and the num- ber of refill takers came down to 6,45, 265 till July 24, 2018. Pradhan denied the alle- gation saying that the news report is factually incorrect and absolutely unsubstantiated, devoid of facts and complete- ly misleading. “I expect that the State Government extends whole- hearted support in providing LPG connections to all house- holds and making the State smoke free,” Pradhan wrote in his letter. “The Ujjwala Yojana has been immensely useful in trans- forming the lives of under- privileged especially poor women and children by reduc- ing pollution that causes of res- piratory and lung diseases. Poor women of Odisha have been relieved from the drudgery of collecting fire- wood. A study conducted by the University of California have recognised the positive outcome of this flagship pro- gramme to make villages smoke free,” mentioned Pradhan. He informed that 41 lakh LPG connections have been provided to poor households till December 12, 2018, of which, 35.22 lakh connec- tions have been given under PMUY. Further, the PMUY has played a critical role in sig- nificantly enhancing the total number of LPG consumers from 19 lakhs in May 2014 to 72.5 lakhs in 2018 in Odisha. The LPG coverage in Odisha has expanded from 22 per cent in 2014 to 69 per cent in 2018. A delegation of the BJD on Friday met CPI national secretary and MP D Raja in New Delhi seek- ing his support for women in the Parliament and State Assemblies. The team comprising MPs Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo and Kulamani Samal handed over a letter from BJD president Naveen Patnaik to Raja seeking support from his party for ensuring a 33-per cent reservation for women in the Parliament and State Assemblies. Responding positively to the issue, Raja mentioned that his party is very appreciative of the initiative taken by Patnaik. As decided earlier by the BJD leadedrship, BJD delega- tions are visiting leaders of 22 national and regional parties across the country seeking their support on women's reservation. T he Navnirman Krushak Sangathan (NKS) yet again took to streets on Friday and launched a padyatra from Raghunathpur in the city towards the Raj Bhavan to sub- mit a memorandum to the Governor regarding its long- standing demands of "price, prestige and pension". However, like the earlier agitation when the NKS activists were prevented from entering the State capital by the Commssionerate police, a huge posse of policemen stopped the agitating farmers at Nicco Park Square. Later, the farmers sat on a dharna at the spot. The NKS threat- ened to launch a non- cooperation agitation from February 1, 2019 if the State Government does not fulfill their demands. The NKS alleged that despite several Ministerial com- mittee meetings to resolve farm- ers' issues, nothing has been done so far by the Government. "Through the memoran- dum, we have given an ultima- tum to the State Government and if they do not fulfill our demands before January 31, 2019, we would launch a non- cooperation agitation across the State from February 1," warned NKS convenor Akshaya Kumar, who had recently held a 13- day hunger strike demanding ful- fillment of the farmers' demands. Kumar also warned that if the State Government doesn't take steps to address their demands, it would meet the same fate like the BJP Governments in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh did in the recent Assembly elections in their States. A day after carcasses of fowls tested positive for bird flu in Krushnaprasad block of Puri district, the local admin- istration on Friday began culling of chickens in the four affected villages. A total of ten Rapid Response teams have been formed for the culling. On the day more than 400 affected birds were culled. Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Minister Pradeep Maharathy said compensation would be provided to those being affect- ed in the culling. The culling of birds would be carried out in all poultry farms in Sanasahi, Maluda, Alanda and Patharaganja vil- lages of Krushnaprasad block. The district officials have been asked to cull birds and dispose the carcasses and infected materials as well as restrict access to infected areas, said sources. The operation will be car- ried out within one km radius of the affected villages and surveillance will be done with- in 10 km radius of the epicen- tre. Besides, incoming and out- going of poultry products have been restricted in the affected areas. Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Secretary Vishal Gagan said that there is no reason to panic as chickens from the affected areas have not been supplied to markets outside the area.In view of the avian influenza, the district admin- istration has decided to stop serving of eggs in mid-day meals of the schools and Anganwadis in the district for ten days. T he agitation by lawsyers, common people, civil soci- eties and different organisations demanding for a permanent Bench of the Orissa High Court in Sambalpur has completed 100 days. However, the lawyers seem not in a mood to relent. “When all the Government offices of the district are closed since last 100 days, the silence of the State Government surprises us,” said president of the Sambalpur District Bar Association Bijitendriya Pradhan. The agitation for the HC Bench began in the month of September. Initially, it was expected that it would be ended soon since the Government would not prefer closure of important offices of the Collector, the RDC and others for pretty long period. But nothing of that sort happened even as public has been suffering a lot. Even the two- day ‘Mahabandh’ on November 29 and 30 had no effect on the Government. Revenue offices apart, all the judicial offices are remaining closed since September for which the Sambalpur Jail has been jam- packed due to non-availability of bail to the under-trial prisoners. More than 1,000 people are staying in jail against the normal strength of 541, jail authorities informed. Earlier also the lawyers and public resorted to a long agi- tation for the same demand at dif- ferent points of time. But the Government was very casual then. But this time agitators are firm in their demand and deter- mined to continue the stir till the Bench is established. In the meanwhile, the common people have also expressed their utter dissatisfaction over the casual attitude of the Govt.

Transcript of English News Paper | Breaking News | Latest Today News in ... · the party’s manifesto will be...

Page 1: English News Paper | Breaking News | Latest Today News in ... · the party’s manifesto will be implemented immediately. However, the name of ... leader to become Chief Minister

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The Supreme Court onFriday provided a major

relief to the Modi Governmentby dismissing the demand fora court-monitored CBI probeinto the Government-to-Government deal with Francefor the purchase of 36 Rafalefighter jets, saying there is nooccasion to “really doubt thedecision-making process” war-ranting setting aside of thecontract.

A Bench headed by ChiefJustice Ranjan Gogoi went into“three broad areas of concern”raised in the petitions — thedecision-making process, pric-ing and the choice of Indianoffset partners — and saidthere was no reason for inter-vention by the apex court onthe “sensitive issue” of purchaseof 36 fighter jets.

The apex court said theIndian Air Force (IAF) needsadvanced fighter jets as thecountry cannot afford to be“unprepared” or “under pre-pared” in a situation whereadversaries have acquiredfourth and fifth generationfighter aircraft, “of which, wehave none”.

“In view of our findings onall the three aspects, and hav-ing heard the matter in detail,we find no reason for anyintervention by this court onthe sensitive issue of purchaseof 36 defence aircraft by theIndian Government,” theBench, also comprising JusticesSK Kaul and KM Joseph, saidin its 29-page judgment.

Attorney General KKVenugopal welcomed the ver-dict terming it as an “excel-lent” and “very good” judg-ment, which in his opinionhas given “clean chit” to theGovernment by accepting allits arguments.

“I think a clean chit hasbeen given to the Governmenton Rafale deal,” he toldreporters on the sidelines of afunction to give farewell toJustice Madan B Lokur, who isset to retire on December 30.

The court said perceptionof individuals cannot be thebasis of a “fishing and rovingenquiry” by the court in suchmatters and it cannot “sit injudgment” over the wisdom ofGovernment’s decision to go in

for purchase of 36 aircraft inplace of 126.

“We are satisfied that thereis no occasion to really doubtthe process, and even if minordeviations have occurred, thatwould not result in either set-ting aside the contract orrequiring a detailed scrutiny bythe court,” the Bench said.

It noted that process forprocurement of 36 Rafale jetswas concluded on September23, 2016 and no questionswere raised at that time and thepetitions were later filed afterreported statement of formerFrench President FrancoisHollande with regard to selec-tion of Indian offset partners.

The Bench said it was “cer-tainly not the job of this courtto carry out a comparison ofthe pricing details in matterslike the present” and the mate-rial has to be kept in a confi-dential domain.

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The Congress on Fridaynamed Ashok Gehlot as

Rajasthan Chief Minister andSachin Pilot as his deputy afterparty president Rahul Gandhisuccessfully brokered a peacebetween the veteran leaderand his younger colleague afterseveral rounds of discussionlasting more than two days.

Congress observer toRajasthan KC Venugopal madethe announcement and saiddetails of the oath-taking cer-emony would be decided aftera meeting Governor KalyanSingh in Jaipur.

Addressing a Press confer-ence, Gehlot thanked RahulGandhi for giving him theopportunity to serve the peo-ple of the State for a third timeand promised that he and Pilotwill give “good governance”.

Rahul met Gehlot and Pilotthrice since Thursday. Hecticparleys were held between topparty leaders, including SoniaGandhi. Priyanka GandhiVadra too is understood to beinvolved in the decision-mak-ing process. Senior party lead-ers Venugopal, Avinash Pandeand Jitendra Singh were presentduring the meeting on Friday.

“The united colours ofRajasthan,” Rahul tweeted onFriday afternoon along with aphotograph in which the threeleaders were seen in a jovialmood. Gehlot and Pilot wel-comed with pomp and splen-dour at the Jaipur airport afterthe announcement.

Pilot, 41, exuded confi-dence that Congress’ good elec-toral performance will contin-ue, saying the party will get abig mandate in 2019 polls andform a Government at theCentre also. “Mera aur AshokGehlot ji ka jaadu puri tarahchal gaya hai (Gehlot and Iworked our magic in theState),” Pilot said.

The Congress went from21 seats against the BJP’s 163 in2013 to get 99 seats (plus oneof the Rashtriya Lok Dal) in the

Assembly elections. Pilot saidthe party’s manifesto will beimplemented immediately.

However, the name ofChhattisgarh CM has beenkept under wraps. The officialannouncement will be made onSaturday in Raipur. All thefour contenders — TS SinghDeo, Bhupesh Baghel,Tamradhwaj Sahu and CharanDas Mahant — were called toDelhi.

They took turns to meetRahul during the day after thename of Rajasthan CM wasfinalised. Rahul authorisedAICC Central Observer forChhattisgarh MallikarjunKharge to announce in Raipurthe CM candidate after the CLPmeeting on Saturday.

Gehlot will be the fourthleader to become ChiefMinister of Rajasthan for athird time. Mohan LalSukhadia was the ChiefMinister of the State for fourtimes, while Hari Dev Joshi andBhairon Singh Shekhawat werethree-time Chief Ministers ofthe State. Both Sukhadia andJoshi were Congress leaderswhile Bhairon Singh Shekhawatwas from the BJP.

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Noted English writer AmitavGhosh has been honoured

with this year’s Jnanpith Award,a literary award given to anauthor for “outstanding con-tribution towards literature”,Bharatiya Jnanpith announcedon Friday.

“Amitav Ghosh is a path-breaking novelist. In his nov-els, Ghosh treads throughhistorical settings to the mod-ern era and weaves a spacewhere the past connects withthe present in relevant ways.“His fiction is endowed withextraordinary depth and sub-stance through his academic

training as a historian and asocial anthropologist,” a state-ment from Bharatiya Jnanpithreads.

The decision was taken ina meeting of Jnanpith SelectionBoard chaired by eminent nov-elist, scholar and Jnanpith lau-reate Pratibha Ray.

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Buoyed by the SupremeCourt verdict on the Rafale

fighter jet deal issue, theGovernment and the rulingBJP on Friday charged theCongress with manufacturinglies and compromising withnational security and said truthalways holds together while“falsehood always fall apart.”

Making this assertion here,Finance Minister Arun Jaitleywithout directly naming SoniaGandhi and Rahul Gandhi saidfalsehood was manufactured by“one family”, but they are notabove the apex court.

Along with theGovernment, the ruling BJPalso accused the Congress ofmaking the Rafale deal look asuspect by telling lies. BJPpresident Amit Shah said hereat a separate Press conferencethat the SC order was a slap onCongress chief Rahul’s politicsof lies and asked him to apol-ogise to the country and its sol-diers for putting national secu-rity at risk.

The BJP president saidthere is no occasion to doubtthe decision-making processin the procurement of 36Rafale jets from France, andthe court has upheld that inits order on Friday. It is notthe job of the court to dealwith the comparative detailsof the pricing, he said. He alsohit out at the Congress pres-ident for taking a jibe atPrime Minister NarendraModi by saying the “chowki-dar” is a thief. “All thieves hadgathered to call the ‘chowki-dar’ a thief, but the countrynever believed it,” Shah toldreporters.

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Reliance Group ChairmanAnil Ambani on Friday

welcomed the SC order on theRafale deal, saying it estab-lished the falsity of politicallymotivated allegations againsthim.

“I welcome the judgmentsummarily dismissing all PILsfiled on the Rafale contracts,and conclusively establishingthe complete falsity of thewild, baseless and politicallymotivated allegations levelledagainst Reliance Group and mepersonally,” Ambani said.

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Responding to MinisterSurjya Narayan Patro’s com-

plaint that the Pradhan MantriUjjwala Yojana (PMUY) hasfailed in Odisha, UnionPetroleum MinisterDharmendra Pradhanon Fridayrequested the BJD Governmentto cooperate with his Ministerin making Odisha 100 per centsmoke-free State and not to dopolitics over the scheme.

In his letter, Patro hadmentioned, referring to a newsreport, that while the Ujjwalascheme covered 35, 16, 384households since its inceptionin May 2016, only 8,18,786beneficiaries took a secondrefill in 2016-17 and the num-ber of refill takers came downto 6,45, 265 till July 24, 2018.

Pradhan denied the alle-gation saying that the newsreport is factually incorrectand absolutely unsubstantiated,devoid of facts and complete-ly misleading.

“I expect that the StateGovernment extends whole-hearted support in providing

LPG connections to all house-holds and making the Statesmoke free,” Pradhan wrote inhis letter.

“The Ujjwala Yojana hasbeen immensely useful in trans-forming the lives of under-privileged especially poorwomen and children by reduc-ing pollution that causes of res-piratory and lung diseases.Poor women of Odisha havebeen relieved from thedrudgery of collecting fire-wood. A study conducted bythe University of Californiahave recognised the positiveoutcome of this flagship pro-gramme to make villages smokefree,” mentioned Pradhan.

He informed that 41 lakhLPG connections have beenprovided to poor householdstill December 12, 2018, ofwhich, 35.22 lakh connec-tions have been given underPMUY. Further, the PMUYhas played a critical role in sig-nificantly enhancing the totalnumber of LPG consumersfrom 19 lakhs in May 2014 to72.5 lakhs in 2018 in Odisha.The LPG coverage in Odishahas expanded from 22 percent in 2014 to 69 per cent in2018.

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Adelegation of the BJDon Friday met CPI

national secretary and MPD Raja in New Delhi seek-ing his support for womenin the Parliament and StateAssemblies.

The team comprisingMPs Kalikesh NarayanSingh Deo and KulamaniSamal handed over a letterfrom BJD president NaveenPatnaik to Raja seeking supportfrom his party for ensuring a33-per cent reservation forwomen in the Parliament andState Assemblies.

Responding positively tothe issue, Raja mentioned that

his party is very appreciative ofthe initiative taken by Patnaik.

As decided earlier by theBJD leadedrship, BJD delega-tions are visiting leaders of 22national and regional partiesacross the country seekingtheir support on women'sreservation.

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The Navnirman KrushakSangathan (NKS) yet again

took to streets on Friday andlaunched a padyatra fromRaghunathpur in the citytowards the Raj Bhavan to sub-mit a memorandum to theGovernor regarding its long-standing demands of "price,prestige and pension".

However, like the earlieragitation when the NKS activistswere prevented from enteringthe State capital by theCommssionerate police, a huge

posse of policemenstopped the agitatingfarmers at Nicco ParkSquare.

Later, the farmerssat on a dharna at thespot.

The NKS threat-ened to launch a non-cooperation agitationfrom February 1, 2019 ifthe State Governmentdoes not fulfill theirdemands.

The NKS alleged thatdespite several Ministerial com-mittee meetings to resolve farm-ers' issues, nothing has beendone so far by the Government.

"Through the memoran-dum, we have given an ultima-tum to the State Governmentand if they do not fulfill our

demands before January 31,2019, we would launch a non-cooperation agitation across theState from February 1," warnedNKS convenor Akshaya Kumar,who had recently held a 13- dayhunger strike demanding ful-fillment of the farmers'demands.

Kumar also warned that ifthe State Government doesn'ttake steps to address theirdemands, it would meet thesame fate like the BJPGovernments in Chhattisgarh,Rajasthan and Madhya Pradeshdid in the recent Assemblyelections in their States.

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Aday after carcasses of fowlstested positive for bird flu

in Krushnaprasad block ofPuri district, the local admin-istration on Friday beganculling of chickens in the fouraffected villages.

A total of ten RapidResponse teams have beenformed for the culling. On theday more than 400 affectedbirds were culled.

Fisheries and AnimalResources Development

Minister Pradeep Maharathysaid compensation would beprovided to those being affect-ed in the culling.

The culling of birds would

be carried out in all poultryfarms in Sanasahi, Maluda,Alanda and Patharaganja vil-lages of Krushnaprasad block.The district officials have been

asked to cull birds and disposethe carcasses and infectedmaterials as well as restrictaccess to infected areas, saidsources.

The operation will be car-ried out within one km radiusof the affected villages andsurveillance will be done with-in 10 km radius of the epicen-tre. Besides, incoming and out-going of poultry products havebeen restricted in the affectedareas.

Fisheries and AnimalResources DevelopmentSecretary Vishal Gagan saidthat there is no reason topanic as chickens from theaffected areas have not beensupplied to markets outside thearea.In view of the avianinfluenza, the district admin-istration has decided to stopserving of eggs in mid-daymeals of the schools andAnganwadis in the district forten days.

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The agitation by lawsyers,common people, civil soci-

eties and different organisationsdemanding for a permanentBench of the Orissa High Courtin Sambalpur has completed100 days. However, the lawyersseem not in a mood to relent.

“When all the Governmentoffices of the district are closedsince last 100 days, the silence ofthe State Government surprisesus,” said president of theSambalpur District BarAssociation Bijitendriya Pradhan.

The agitation for the HC

Bench began in the month ofSeptember.

Initially, it was expectedthat it would be ended soonsince the Government wouldnot prefer closure of importantoffices of the Collector, theRDC and others for prettylong period. But nothing of thatsort happened even as publichas been suffering a lot. Eventhe two- day ‘Mahabandh’ onNovember 29 and 30 had noeffect on the Government.

Revenue offices apart, allthe judicial offices are remainingclosed since September for whichthe Sambalpur Jail has been jam-

packed due to non-availability ofbail to the under-trial prisoners.

More than 1,000 people arestaying in jail against the normalstrength of 541, jail authoritiesinformed. Earlier also the lawyersand public resorted to a long agi-tation for the same demand at dif-ferent points of time. But theGovernment was very casual then.

But this time agitators arefirm in their demand and deter-mined to continue the stir till theBench is established. In themeanwhile, the common peoplehave also expressed their utterdissatisfaction over the casualattitude of the Govt.

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At a time when the Congressis claiming agrarian distress

as one of the key reasons for theBJP’s debacle in Madhya Pradesh,Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh,Odisha Chief Minister and BJDsupremo Naveen Patnaik onFriday restructured the ‘BijuKrushak Janata Dal’ (BKJD)ahead of the 2019 polls.

Patnaik appointed party

senior leader and MP PrasannaAcharya as the new presidentof the farmers’ wing and HealthMinister Pratap Jena as its sec-retary general.

Earlier on December 12,the Odisha Pradesh CongressCommittee (OPCC), after itsfirst manifesto committeemeeting, had announced thatthe party would waive all farmloans and extend financialassistance to farmers in theState for five years if it comesto power in 2019.

OPCC president NiranjanPatnaik had said if voted topower, the party would alsoprovide solar pumps to helpfarmers with irrigation alongwith financial assistance for fiveyears.

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It is difficult to figure out theactual drinking water sce-

nario in Odisha. While themedia paints the scenario blackhighlighting water scarcity inalmost all parts of the State andinsufficient access to portablewater, the State Governmentclaims to be arranged drinkingwater provisioning for all.

While the Governmenttakes recourse to the statistics,others display bare facts. Thesetwo different pictures of drink-

ing water scenario in the Stateare so widely different that onefails to draw a conclusion aboutthe real drinking water scenarioin Odisha.

The picture is not just con-fined to rural Odisha. Urbanparts of the State also experi-ence the same. Whether thesmart urban bodies like theState capital or smaller censustowns, everywhere we can seeand experience water crisis orwater related maladies not justduring summer, rather acrossthe seasons.

Nevertheless, a greaterpolitical angle is also associat-ed with ensuring adequatedrinking water for people resid-ing in urban areas of the State.Thus, more than treating thewater provisioning from arights perspective, the forcesseating on the helm of powerfrom political perspectivealways try to address any waterrelated problem persisting tothe community they are gov-

erning for vote bank.Thus, when it comes to the

drinking water scenario ofurban set-up in Odisha in gen-eral and the State capital in par-ticular, waster automated tellermachine (ATM) has come outin a big way. Let’s see how andwhy water ATMs have startedmushrooming across the cap-ital city, despite Bhubaneswarbeing a Smart City.

Bhubaneswar is having aproblem of water leakage(Known as non-revenue waterin Public Health EngineeringDepartment or PHED).Official estimation is 62.5 percent loss, whereas it should be20 per cent. Besides there aremany uncovered habitationsand many isolated habitationsare still dependent on hand-pumps pumping ground water.

Those hand-pumps arefacing drawdown during sum-mer. So putting water ATM isan easy way to tackle such cri-sis. Thus, the Bhubaneswar

Municipal Commission (BMC)started promoting this.

Another area is water sup-ply in Bhubaneswar is beingmanaged by the PHED andwater crisis complaints come tothe BMC. Arrangement is theBMC has to deposit estimatedmoney to the PHED for watersupply service improvement.But there is a poor coordina-tion among both.

Considering politicalnature of the BMC and fundavailability, the BMC cannottell people to go to the PHED.Thus, water ATM is an easyway out.

Another aspect is the qual-ity of water people are getting.There are slums inBhubaneswar which often reg-ister various water related dis-eases including jaundice. Theprime reasons behind are first-ly those slums are not dulyconnected with safe water sup-ply system and second is evenif there are due supply systems,

considering the breakage andleakage in the supply systemlaid decades ago, those arecontaminating the water beingprovided though the system.Hence, to curb the reportedwater related diseases and toensure safe drinking water forcommunities, especially theexcluded and marginalisedones, authorities responsible forensuring safe drinking waterhave devised water ATM as thebest solution.

All the water ATMsinstalled across the city arebased on reverse osmosis (RO)system of purification.However, RO system has mul-tiple loopholes ranging fromhighest water loss to removal ofall minerals those are good forhealth. It should be noted thatRO could be adopted as apurification technology, wherethe contaminant from watercannot really be removed byany other means – mostlyappropriate for dangerous

chemical contaminants likefluoride and arsenic. But, a sur-face based supply system hav-ing bacteriological contami-nation really does not requirethe technology like RO, whichfurther aggravates the waterloss. Then why RO has beentaken as the only technology tobe fitted with the ATM across?

Once swiped, the ATMscreen will show options ofquantity of water. The machinewill pump out water based onthe quantity of litres opted bythe people. On a given day,maximum 20 litres of water canbe fetched using one card.Other than people who needwater, some people have start-ed using those water ATM forbusiness purpose. They obtainmultiple cards and they do sellwater to various street sidemediocre food business stalls.

The height is that waterATM has been started perco-lating to rural sphere even. Inquality-affected areas, this has

really taken the centre stage ofsafe drinking water provision-ing and the technology forpurification remains same –RO. Nuapada is a case point.Nuapada being a fluorideendemic district, water ATMwith RO technology has beenpromoted widely. But the back-water from ATM, whichamounts more that 50 per centof water gets into system, car-ries higher degree of fluorideand gets into the surfaceamounting to surface watercontamination. Instead of look-ing for alternative safe drinkingwater sources, looking intowater ATM with RO technol-ogy is a danger signal in ruralplaces like Nuapada.Considering the financial allo-cation to Gram Panchayatsthrough 14th FinanceCommission grant and havingmandate for utilising certainamount for drinking water,the Gram Panchayats have alsostarted opting water ATM as an

easy way out, utilising the fundas well as provisioning safedrinking water to community.But how appropriate the tech-nology is for fluoride endem-ic areas has never been thoughtof.

The way water ATM isbeing promoted in currentdays, it seems this is thepanacea to water crisis of theState. Looking into the wholegamut of issues associated withwater ATM, a serious thoughthas to be put by authorities andinstitutions promoting those inthe name of welfare of the com-munity, especially the exclud-ed and marginalised. Better latethan never, water should beprovided in a more sustainableway and to fix a problem,another problem should not benurtured.

(The author works withWaterAid India, Bhubaneswar.The views expressed are per-sonal.)

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The National Human RightsCommission (NHRC) has

asked the Bhubaneswar DeputyCommissioner of Police (DCP)to submit an action-takenreport (ATR) within fourweeks, regarding the allegedkidnapping of the husband ofa minority community womanof the Haladipadia slum underthe Laxmisagar police station.

The NHRC said if thereport is not received withinthe four weeks, the commissionwould be constrained to invokecoercive process under Sections13 of the protection of HumanRights Act, 1993 for personalappearance of the DCP.

The NHRC passed theorder taking cognisance of theNHRC case no.4653/18/28/2018, filed by civilsociety organisation HumanRights Watch secretary Sangita

Swain.In her petition Swain had

alleged that a minority com-munity Muslim victimHasinara Khatun(49) and herfamily of Haladipadia slumare being humiliated andseverely tortured by someHindu anti-socials and drugmafia.

The anti-socials kidnappedKhatun’s husband after dam-aging her house. But thoughshe filed an FIR with theLaxmisagar police, no actionwas taken by the cops. Insteadthey have lodged false casesagainst Khatun which is viola-tion of human rights, allegedSwain.

She prayed the commissionto provide protection to the vic-tim, rescue Khatun’s kidnappedhusband, take action againstthe errant policemen and paycompensation of Rs 10 lakh tothe victim.

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Aday after the Central teamsaccused the Odisha

Government of not followingthe guidelines on protection ofchildren at shelter homes, theNational Commission forProtection of Child Rights(NCPCR) teams continued theirinspection of various childrenhomes across the State on Friday.

An NCPCR team alongwith officials of Odisha StateCommission for Protection ofChild Rights (OSCPCR), ChildWelfare Committee (CWC)and District Child ProtectionOfficer (DCPO) carried outinspection of children homes inAngul district.

The team conducted anon-spot inspection of the con-dition in which the childrenare being kept at the shelterhomes. The team is also sched-uled to visit some SC and ST

children homes on the day.Another NCPCR team vis-

ited Brahmapur to conductinvestigation in various shelterhomes including ChildCorrection Home in the cityand Good News India’s shelterhome at Saheb Jenapalli area inChhatrapur of Ganjam district.

A NCPCR team accompa-

nied by SCPCR member,DCPO and other officialsreviewed the facilities in fourshelter homes in Kandhamaldistrict. They also held dis-cussion with ADM BasantSahu , CWC chairman AshokaBehera , member JayantiPanigrahi and other districtofficials. The officials informedthe team that Good NewsIndia shelter home in the dis-trict is closed.

Earlier on Thursday, a teamof NCPCR visited Koraput dis-trict and carried out inspectionat Missionaries of Charity inKoraput town and Rejoice CareCentre at Mastiput in the district.

The NCPCR along withmembers of SCPCR have beendivided into nine teams whichwill visit shelter homes in 19districts of the State and sub-mit their report to Womenand Child DevelopmentMinistry.

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Establishment of a 400-bed super-speciality hospital is on theanvil at the Paradip Port, which is likely to develop as a med-

ical college in future. The tendering process has already startedand the bids are to be opened this month.

The scope of the hospital is to rehabilitate, operate, manageand transfer the PPT Hospital for a concession period of 30 yearsand extendable by another 30 years as per the concession agree-ment.

The Paradip Port Trust (PPT), with an aim to create anadvance healthcare infrastructure in the locality, has decided toupgrade its existing 64-bed hospital to a 400-bed super-specialityone through PPP mode in a phased manner. The estimated pro-ject cost is Rs 200 crore. The facility would be built in an areaof 8.45 acres of land.

The Union Minister of Shipping during his visit to the portin July 2015 had announced to set up a super-speciality hospi-tal at Paradip. Since then, the PPT has been trying to make itinto a reality. A consultant was engaged for preparation of thefeasibility report; and after receiving it, an expression of inter-est had been published.

With the completion of the super-speciality healthcare pro-ject, not only the port employees but the people residing in thenearby areas would be greatly benefitted.

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Sir,

This is with reference tothe submission of Digital LifeCertificate (DLC). In thisregard, on behalf of manypensioners facing problems, Iwish the Regional PFCommissioner to please clar-ify the following:

1. Whether the earliersystem of life certificate inpaper form, certified by theBank Manager and submittedto the bank which was for-warding the same to theEPFO Office is totally dis-carded or it is also valid inaddition to digital life certifi-cate (DLC)?

2. After generating theDLC at the bank is any furtheraction required by the pen-sioner to visit the EPFO to sub-

mit the copy of JeevanPramaan? If a pensioner getsan SMS message confirminglinking of DLC with PPOnumber, soon after DLC isgenerated, is it the end of thetask? If the pensioner has topersonally visit the EPFO tosubmit a copy of DLC, the ben-efit of getting it done at thebank is totally negated forvery senior citizens who maynot have anyone to help to visitEPFO.

I request for an early clar-ification so that thousands ofpensioners are saved from thetrouble of visiting EPFO,crowding the office, having tospend a lot of time and gettingexhausted in the process.

K Ravi, E-237, GGPColony, Bhubaneswar-751025,Mob: 9437616497.

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Even as there is no cyclonethreat to Odisha, several

parts of the State are expectedto experience heavy rainfall asthe deep depression formedover Bay of Bengal is likely tointensify further into a cyclonicstorm in the next 24 hours,said the Regional Office ofIndian MetrologicalDepartment (IMD) here onFriday.

Moreover, it is likely toturn into a severe cyclonicstorm in the subsequent 36hours and head north-north-west wards and cross Andhra

Pradesh coast between Ongoleand Kakinada by December17 afternoon, said theNational DisasterManagement Authority(NDMA).

IMD Regional DirectorHR Biswas said several parts ofthe State would receive rainfallfrom December 16 withchances of thunderstorms atone or two places.

The rainfal l act ivitywould mostly be over thedistricts in interior Odishaand a few places in the coastalareas.

“The system is likely tomove north-northwest wardsand cross Andhra Pradesh onDecember 17.

Under its impact the bor-dering districts of Odishaincluding Malkangiri,Nabarangpur, Kalahandi,Kandhamal, Rayagada,Koraput would receive heavyrainfall,” said Biswas.

Biswas further informedthat fishermen have beenadvised not to venture intowest-central and adjoiningsouthwest Bay of Bengal onDecember 16 and 17.

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The Commissioneratepolice on Thursday night

arrested two persons from ashopping mall while the mis-creants were shopping afterrobbing a house at VSS Nagarof the city after the cops got amessage.

Sources said the robbershad barged into the house of anelderly woman living alone inthe VSS Nagar and decampedwith ornaments and other valu-ables including bank debitcards at gunpoint.

On receiving information,the Saheed Nagar police tracedthe movement of the thieveswith GPS tracking of the mes-sage received after the robberswithdrew cash from an ATMwith the help of the looted debitcard.

A special team of policecaught the looters red handedwhile they were trying to buylaptops and mobile phonesfrom a home appliances show-room in Patia.

After investigation, policefound that the robbers hadlooted 100 gram gold orna-ments, Rs 20,000 cash andother valuables from the elder-ly woman.

“I was watching TV whentwo youths barged into thehouse and gagged my mouthwith tape.

They threatened me toremain silent by brandishinga gun and snatched my neck-lace and some other goldornaments,” the complainantMalabika Chand said.

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The Srikshetra Mahotsava, an annual festival of ShreeJagannath culture, traditional activities, martial arts and folk

dances, would be held at Muktakash Rangamancha here fromDecember 16 to 20.

This was informed by Srikshetra Mahotsava Committee jointsecretary Chakradhar Mohapatra at a Press meet held here onFriday.

Mohapatra said a cultural rally would be flagged off fromGadanti Chhak here on December 16 in which more than 500participants would go around the city to reach the Rangamanchanear the Gundicha Temple.

Among others, District Culture Officer Aurovind Dash, com-mittee president Bhagirathi Khuntia, organising secretary FakirPanda, Narendra Mohanty and treasurer Dr Srinivas Acharyawere present.

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The annual HighSchool Certificate

(HSC) Examination-2019, to be conducted bythe Board of SecondaryExamination (BSE) willbegin from February 22next year.

Board PresidentJahan Ara Begum onFriday informed that thematriculation examina-tions for all the streams would continue till March 8. Practicalexaminations for the concerned students would be held betweenFebruary 11 and 16, she said.

The BSE President further informed that examinations equiv-alent to matriculation such as Madhyama for Sanskrit studentsand State Open School certificate examinations for dropoutswould be held during the same period.

Over six lakh students would appear in the HSC exami-nations next year, sources said, adding that the examinationswould be held on the scheduled dates between 9 am and 11.30am.

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Basing on the allegations ofacquisition of assets dis-

proportionate to his income byBhubaneswar Court Police SIDillip Kumar Das, Vigilanceofficers on Friday conductedsimultaneous searches at hishouses at different places anddetected assets worth Rs98,02,327 in his and his fam-ily members’ names.

The sleuths served Das’residential double-storiedbuilding at Bhubaneswar, threeresidential buildings of his rel-atives at three different palcesand his office room atBhubaneswar on the strengthof search warrants issued by theCourt of Special Judge,Vigilance, Cuttack.

The detected assets includ-ed a double-storied building atBhubaneswar worth Rs43,00,000, one double-storiedbuilding at Badasarolo inJagatsingpur worth Rs

15,62,800, eight homesteadplots at Bhubaneswar, Puri andJagatsinghpur together worthRs 8,86,700, a car and twomotorcycles worth Rs 6,55,857,bank, post offices and insur-ance deposits of Rs 11,18,063,gold and silver ornaments of Rs7,10,030, hard cash of Rs 36,000and and household articlesworth Rs 5,32,877.

The inquiry was still on,said an official release.

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An excise squad on Fridayconducted raids in differ-

ent villages under the KhordhaSadar police station and arrest-ed four persons on charge ofselling illegal liquor.

The arrested were identi-fied as Aswin Kumar Jena

(26) of Bangida vil lage,Company Pradhan (40) ofNiamala vil lage, AminaBaliarsingh (35) of Ogalpurvillage and Shankar Dalei (32)of Dalatola village.

The excise officials seized16 litres of ID liquor and 2.2litres of IMFL from their pos-session.

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The recent elections showedthat prolonged incumben-

cy was responsible for theouster of the existing StateGovernments. The same fate isawaiting the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD Government in Odishain the 2019 polls, said UnionMinister Dharmendra Pradhanat a BJP rally held in the districton Friday.

Addressing a public meet-ing during the Jan ParamarshaPadyatra in Bhograi block inBaleswar district, Pradhanalleged that the BJDGovernment is the most inef-ficient and corrupt in thecountry and; thus, time hascome to uproot thisGovernment.

“Youths, women and farm-ers are suffering on account offailure of Governmentmachineries in the State. TheGovernment is dogged by PC

(percentage) culture. Genuinebeneficiaries are not receivingbenefits of the welfare andpoverty alleviation schemes ofthe Centre. They are not ableto avail old age pension andhousing scheme benefits with-out PC,” alleged Pradhan.

He said that while theUnion Government has beenpumping enough funds forconstruction of toilets and elec-trifications in rural areas, yetthey are far from satisfaction inrespect of implementation inOdisha. Due to non-imple-mentation of the AyushmanBharat, hundreds of peoplehave been deprived of freehealth services, he said.

Pradhan wanted to knowwhile Digha in West Bengal hasbecome a famous tourist resort,why Talseri and Chandaneswarin Bhogai havr not becomesuch tourist attractions tillnow.

Pradhan also took a jibe atthe State Government for thealleged sexual harassment ofinmates and religious conver-sations reported in shelterhomes of the Good News India.

“Anti-incumbency hasbecome very strong here.Undoubtedly, people of theState will give a fitting reply tothe BJD Government duringthe forthcoming elections,”claimed Pradhan.

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As many as 87 girl studentsof the Tabarsingh Hostel

under Gajapati district’s RUdayagiri block were taken illdue to food poisoning andhospitalised at the DistrictHeadquarters Hospital (DHH)here on Thursday night.

As students started vomit-ing, school authorities alongwith villagers rushed to themto the nearby Ramgiri hospitalfirst. However, they were shift-ed to the DHH later at 10 pmby a bus.

On being informed, districtCollector Anupam Shah,District Education OfficerPradip Kumar Nag, DistrictWelfare Officer Santosh Rathvisited the hospital.

While about 50 studentswere discharged on Fridaymorning, the rest 35 girlswere still undergoing treat-ment by the time of filing ofthis story.

A special team, formedunder direction of the districtCollector, is conducting inves-tigation into the matter, saidsources.

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Demanding halt of theBhubaneswar-Balangir

Intercity Express at the Bamurrailway station in Angul dis-trict, locals under the banner ofthe Railway Users’ ConsultativeCommittee on Friday staged a‘Rail Roko’ at the railway sta-tion disrupting train services inthe State.

The agitators headed bylocal BJD MLA Sanjeev KumarSahu also staged a demonstra-tion in front of the railway sta-

tion as part of their 12-hourBamur Bandh. Several trainswere stranded at various rail-way stations due to the stir.

Shops and other businessestablishments, Governmentoffices were closed while vehi-cles stayed off the roads duringthe protest. The activists allegedthat that despite repeatedrequests for stoppage of theB h u b a n e s w a r - B a l a n g i rIntercity Express at the railwaystation, the authorities haveremained indifferent to theirdemand.

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Religion and identities ofreligious minorities are

very often being discussedthese days while some arecomplaining against the minor-ity appeasement policy ofGovernment. The minoritiesare being projected as votebanks.

The United NationsMinorities Declaration basedon consensus in 1992 in itsArticle 1 says minorities basedon national or ethnic, cultural,religious and linguistic identi-ties should be protected by theState. There is no internation-ally agreed definition overgroups that constitute asminority as in case of indige-nous people also. But minori-ty groups are prone to multiplediscriminations based on theirsocial identities based on caste,

race, gender, disability andsexual orientation. TheGovernment of India hasenacted the NationalCommission for MinoritiesAct, 1992 and notified six reli-gions as religious minoritygroups in India.

As per the 2011 Census,religious minority constitutesabout 6 per cent of the totalpopulation of Odisha whichincludes 2.77 per centChristians, 2.17 per centMuslims and others are Sikh,Buddhists and Jains constitut-ing a very insignificant number.Historically, it is a fact that peo-ple under lower social status ofHindu social order are beingconverted to other religions.Thus, a major section of minor-ity population carries multiplesocial identities in a caste rid-den society like ours. Thoughthey have changed their faithbut their social status and liv-ing condition has not changedmuch because of the influenceof the dominant religion inevery spheres of social life.

The Dalit Christians andDalit Muslims are such groupswho have been facing multipleforms of discriminations intheir everyday life as a religiousminority and also because oftheir past social identities.

They are also a minority

within the marginalised sec-tions. The change in their reli-gion status has deprived themof many of the Constitutionalrights and provisions of lawthatguarantee protectionagainst caste based discrimi-nation and untouchability andmost important, their partici-pation in different spheres likeeducation and Governmentjobs.

After the MandalCommission recommenda-tions based on the criteria ofsocial and educational back-wardness, many of such minor-ity groups are enlisted as OBCand SEBC but the issues of pro-tection against social discrim-ination remain unaddressedand they are pushed intounequal competitions. Therehave been cases of complaintsthat even within their religionthey face discrimination byfellow faith followers when itcomes to marriage and othersocial relationship and holdingposts in religious hierarchyand getting access to top deci-sion making bodies and mostimportantly sharing ofresources within provinces.

There is use of words suchas upper caste Christians, DalitChristians, ASRAF and AJLAF,Majbhi SIKH etc. which sounda hierarchical division within.

The converts from higher casteHindus still maintain distancein social relationship with peo-ple convert from lower socialstrata. There are a number ofstudies which have establishedthat the conditions of thesemarginalized sections withinreligious minority are worst. Itis being suggested that theremust be provision of land,basic amenities, education,credit, employment and scopeof participation in governance,including political participationand most importantly, protec-tion against dominance anddiscrimination.

It is important to knowabout the status of a groupbefore going for any kind offormulation of policy or forimplementation of any schemesor programmes. There hasbeen lack of disaggregated dataabout religious minority of theState in order to know their sta-tus for formulation of schemesand programmes. The institu-tional arrangement to addressthe very specific issues ofminority at policy level is mostsignificant and under this pro-vision the State must have aminority commission, a sepa-rate minority department anda minority finance develop-ment corporation under theleadership of representatives

from these communities. TheState minority commission is torepresent the concerns ofminority communities, policyand legal issues between theGovernment and groups andalso for ensuring socio-eco-nomic justice to these groupsin realisation of their constitu-tional rights as citizens of thiscountry while getting protect-ed as minority under the pro-visions of the law.

The Minister for MinorityDevelopment Departmentwould be held responsible tothe State Assembly and thematter of minorities will getappropriately focused. Thedepartment can appoint offi-cers in minority concentratedareas to look into the welfareand development issues alongwith facilitating the participa-tion and protection mechanismfor the groups. The presentdepartment of SCs, STs, OBCsand Minority DevelopmentDepartment of the State shouldbe split into four independentdepartments with four minis-ters from representing fourdifferent groups because thespecific issues of each group aredifferent while these fourgroups constitute more than 90per cent of the population ofthe State. Therefore their pro-tection and development is

very much vital to the inclusivedevelopment of the State. Butunfortunately the specific insti-tutional mechanism has notbeen developed yet.

Similarly, there are manyStates having State MinorityCommission and StateMinority FinanceDevelopment Commissionbut the Government ofOdisha has not initiated suchprocess which can be a firststep towards minority pro-tection and development.There are 18 States such asTN, Maharashtra, AP,Telangana, UP, WB,Rajasthan, Punjab andManipur having the StateMinority Commissions.

The independentMinority FinanceDevelopment Corporationmust have adequate fundsal located by the StateGovernment under budgetand tap funds from ministryof minority and credit facili-ties with nationalized andcooperative banks to developself-employment schemes forminority youths and entre-preneurs for generatingemployment, income and eco-nomic participation in main-stream social l i fe. Theschemes must be designed tosuit into the complex situa-

tions where the youths of theminority groups are well pro-tected from all kinds of pecu-liar situation, but not justcredit rather with social andadministrative support to dobusiness and develop as equalentrepreneurs. The allocationof shops and commercialestablishments, lands andinfrastructural facilities bythe Government must beavailable to minority com-munities and the State andlocal Government must havesuch provisions that ensure areasonable representation ofminority groups in businessand industry.

The minority educationalinstitutions are protectedunder the constitutional pro-visions but minority educa-tional institutions in the Stateare not so well equipped toimpart quality education forhigher studies and employ-ment opportunities. Therefore,there must be provision forminority groups inGovernment run educationalinstitutions to ensure scope ofaccess to quality education infield of medical, engineering,and other technical and high-er studies. The State run uni-versities, colleges, schools andtechnical institutions mustoffer such facilities to the

minority groups and areashaving minority concentra-tion.

Studies found that minor-ity habitations in Odisha havebeen suffering with lack ofbasic amenities such as home-stead land, housing, sanita-tion, toilet, electricity, linkingroad, and common land forvarious use of the communi-ty. The various schemes of theCentral Government espe-cially the 15-point programmeof Government of India hasnot reached to the minorityhamlets. Unfortunately thevarious committees headedby Chief Secretar y andCollectors are not meetingregularly to change the situa-tion.

It is being much debatedin recent times that theminority groups inKandhamal and Bhadrak havebeen facing dominance andthreat and are living in fearwhile celebrating their faithbased festivals and functions.The Government must takeinto seriously the issue andensure that minority groupscan have a life of dignitywithout fear and discrimina-tion as fellow citizens of thissecular country.

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In a tragic road mishap onFriday, an attendant of a

patient died on the spot and sixothers, including the driverand a pharmacist of an ambu-lance, sustained injuries afterthe ambulance carrying apatient rammed into a station-ary truck from behind on NH-60 near Haladipada.

The deceased was identi-fied as Santilata Mitra. She wasaccompanying the patient inthe ambulance.

The incident took place ataround 6 am when the ambu-lance carrying heart patient,Rajesh Mitra, from Hasimpurvillage under Baliapal policelimits was going to the DistrictHeadquarters Hospital (DHH)in Baleswar.

The injured were rushed tothe DHH but later, ambulancedriver Sashikant Mahanta andanother injured Biswajit Mishrawere shifted to the SCBMedical College and Hospitalin Cuttack as their conditionsworsened.

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After allegations of running ofillegal shelter homes were

reported in the State recently, anallegation of running of 63 pri-vate schools without (No-Objection Certificates (NOCs)has come to the fore inJharsuguda district.

The parents, who are spend-ing lots of money with an aimto build future of the children,are not aware of the school sta-tus and how their wards’ futureare jeopardised.

It is found that the numberof schools running withoutNOCs is much more than thosewith NOCs. Sources said out of93 schools imparting primaryeducation in the district, only 30schools are in possession ofNOC and rest 63 are runningwithout NOC. The schools arealso not complying withGovernment conditions likeprovision of safety arrange-ments, experienced and quali-fied teachers, conforming tosyllabus and fee structure. Outof 93 private schools, only 73schools have applied for NOC.After verification, only 30 schoolshave been given NOC by theGovernment and the rest 63 arerunning without NOC.

Three DAV schools, SaintJoseph School, Saint MarySchool, Ghanashyam HemlataVidya Mandir, two Daniel PublicSchools, St Arnold School andsome Saraswati Shisu Mandirand Arabinda Schools, totalling30, have received NOC.

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Afree dialysis centrewas opened in the

District HeadquartersHospital (DHH) here onFriday.

Inaugurating thecentre, Chief District Medical Officer Dr Ashok Kumar Patnaiksaid the Centre would provide free dialysis services to the patientssuffering from kidney related ailments and they would not berequired to move to Cuttack for the purpose.

Among others, ADMO Dr Basanta Kumar Barik, DistrictProgramme Manager Chakradhar Jena were present.

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The police have arrested ayouth, identified as Balia

Bhoi, from Lahanga village onthe charges of raping a minorgirl on Thursday.

Reports said that Bhoihad been maintaining a loveaffair with the minor since

months. On Wednesdaynight, he was spotted with theminor in the latter’s house inobjectionable position. Theparents of the girl had lockedthe duo from outside andcalled Bhoi’s guardians for set-tlement of the case withoutpolice action.

Later on Thursday, local

gentlemen and youth’s fathercame at minor girl’s houseand finally it was decided thatBhoi has to marry the minorgirl after she attains the mar-riageable age. However, theproposal was discarded byBhoi’s father. As a result, anFIR was lodged from theminor girl’s side.

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Even after 18 years of the BJDGovernment under the leader-

ship of CM Naveen Patnaik, todayOdisha has been termed as thepoorest State in the country, saidState Congress president NiranjanPatnaik in a meeting organised byJharsuguda District CongressCommittee.

Alleging misutilisation ofGovernment funds by forming BijuBahini, he said the youths of the Stateare being misled. The PCC chief also targetedthe Naveen Patnaik Government for splurgingon publicity campaigns and advertisements.

He revealed that as per directions ofCongress president Rahul Gandhi, the Odishaunit has started a public awareness campaign tocome nearer to the poor farmers of the State. Inhis address, Patnaik while blaming the ModiGovernment for its various unpopular projectslike GST and demonitisation etc, said that thefinancial status of the country has become unsta-

ble under the NDA Government.Patnaik said that the victory of the Congress

in the recent elections in five States is due to itsmanifesto to waive the loans of the farmers. Hedeclared that in case Congress comes to powerin Odisha in 2019 election, all the problems of

the farmers will be sorted out and they will begiven free solar water pumps.

The meeting was attended by AICC sec-retary Mastal Wali, Jharsuguda MLA NabaKishore Das, former Chief MinisterHemananda Biswal, former Ministers KisoreChandra Patel, Santosh Singh Saluja,Congress leader Dr Hameed Husain,Jharsuguda Zi l la Parishad presidentLaxminarayan Patel, Pintu Padi and SaritaAgarwal, among others.

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Forest cops of the AthagarhForest Division on Friday

arrested one PrasannaDehury of Rajanagar village,who is the owner of the brin-jal field where the carcass ofan elephant was found onWednesday. After interroga-tion, he was forwarded to

court, which rejected his bailplea and sent to jail, revealedAthagarh DFO SasmitaLenka.

The DFO said that duringthe interrogation, prima facieevidence came to light thatDehury and his associateshunted the elephant withexplosives.

The Forest Departmenthas f ramedseveral non-b a i l a b l eo f f e n c e sa g a i n s tDehur y forwhich his bailwas rejected.

However,claiming thatDehur y isinnocent, vil-lagers ofRajanagar haddemonstratedbefore theDFO’s officefor aboutthree hourson Thursday.

The locals alleged that eventhe poaching happened dueto negligence of the forestofficials, no step of discipli-nary action against any staffhas yet been taken by theDFO after five long days.

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The Vigilance police onFriday caught Ganjam dis-

trict’s Patrapur CommunityHealth Centre (CHC) BlockProject Manager NiranjanaReddy red-handed fordemanding and accepting bribeof Rs 2,000.

He was caught takingbribe in his rented house atPatrapur from complainantBanita Nayak of Sahaspur vil-lage in Ganjam district inorder to issue engagement

order in favour of com-plainant, who has already beenselected as an Asha Karmi ofthe CHC.

His residential rentedhouse at Patrapur and house atnative village Lochapada inBrahmapur was searched. Hewas arrested and forwarded tocourt.

Similarly, Ganjan district’sDharakote Block Educationoffice Junior Clerk was held fortaking bribe of Rs 2,000 fromcomplainant Narayan Sethy,Garadabili Upgraded HighSchool Assistant Teacher, toprocess the file for release of hisleave salary, which had alreadybeen granted by the BEO.

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Praises poured in for a schoolgirl for showing extraordi-

nary bravery to save her friendwho was almost run over by agoods train in Talcher.

The nine-year-old ShrimatiBhadra, a Class-IV student ofGhantapada Nodal HighSchool in Talcher set an exam-ple for others for such daringand swift action. Although herfriend lost her right foot but-survived.

The incident was report-ed on December 6 whenShrimati and her friendPramila Munda (11), a classVI student, were returning totheir homes from school.While they were crossing arailway track passing under ahalted goods train, the trainsuddenly started moving andPramila got stuck under it.

Applying presence ofmind, Shrimati immediatelypulled Pramila out and savedher life before any majormishap to take place. However,Pramila’s right foot wasdetached from her body.

Even as she was junior toPramila, she managed to reach

the home atDera MundaBasti walkingaround 500metre, carryingher friend in apool of blood onher little shoul-ders. Later,Pramila wasadmitted to theMandapal Sub-d i v i s i o n a lHospital fromwhere she wasreferred to theSCB Medical College andHospital in Cuttack for treat-ment. She underwent a surgerybut lost her right leg.

According to reports,Shrimati and Pramila are twoclose friends despite their ageand class differences.

“The train started movingand hit my friend while wewere trying to cross the railwaytrack. She fell and got stuckunder the train wheels. Shecried for help. Without think-ing anything, I put my schoolbag aside and pulled her outfrom the track. I carried herhome and told everyone aboutthe incident. Her family mem-

bers rushed her to the hospitalfor treatment,” said Shrimati.

“It is a sad incident for allof us. The victim is a bright stu-dent.

The two friends werehabituated with crossing therailway line. The class VI stu-dent Pramila’s leg was detachedin the incident. But, Shrimatimanaged to save her friend’slife. The next day whenShrimati narrated the incident,we immediately extended assis-tance to Pramila sending arepresentative on behalf of theschool,” said GhantapadaNodal High School teacherSagarika Hajra.

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Punjab Vidhan Sabha’sWinter Session was indeed

short but not sweet as theOpposition parties tookenough aims at the rulingCongress for running awayfrom the debate on its mis-gov-ernance. Main OppositionAam Aadmi Party (AAP), SADand BJP targeted the StateGovernment on a slew of issuesincluding farmers, potatogrowers, pollution in rivers,post-matric scholarship, andabove all on holding the “short-est session ever”.

The elevation of seniorCongress leader Kamal Nathas Madhya Pradesh ChiefMinister also led to fiery warof words between the SAD andCongress MLAs forcing theChief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh to inter-vene. Capt Amarinder lashedout at the SAD MLAs forpoliticising the issue whileasking them to let the law takeits own course.

The second and the lastday of the winter session wit-nessed series of protests notonly by the opposition legisla-tors, but also by the CongressMLA Barindermeet SinghPahra who also raised theissue of “discrimination againsthim” over the issue of pan-chayat polls.

The opposition partieslashed out at the rulingCongress for limiting the ses-sion to just one day citing “nobusiness”, and claimed that

they have plentiful issues todiscuss ranging from potato-sugarcane farmers and to theSC students.

Initially proposed for threedays and four sittings, fromDecember 13 to 15, the wintersession was cut short to justtwo days and two sittingsincluding one to pay obituar-ies. The treasury benches, dur-ing the Business AdvisoryCommittee meeting, arguedthat there was no businessthat needed to be discussed,and thus the length of the ses-sion be curtailed by a day andthe sittings reduced to two.

Wearing black arm-bands,AAP MLA protested againstthe short session and demand-ed to extend it. Taking up theissue in zero hour, AAP MLAAman Arora cited the bookclaiming that the House shouldhave 40 sittings in a year.

As the Speaker Rana KPSingh refused to pay any heedto their demand, Arora tore thepapers and threw it on thefloor in protest. AAP MLAs,sans the rebel group, stormedinto the Well raising slogansagainst the CongressGovernment.

Arora also flashed a locksaying that the Assembly belocked in case the session wasnot held as per the laid downprocedure; and staged a walk-out on the issue with AAPMLAs.

Also objecting the dura-tion, SAD MLA and formerfinance minister ParminderSingh Dhindsa questioned theSpeaker for rejecting hisadjournment motion to dis-cuss farmers’ issue. “TheGovernment is claiming thatthey do not have any business,and when we are giving busi-ness, it is being rejected onflimsy grounds,” he said.

SAD president SukhbirBadal said that the three-daysession was in itself a brief ses-sion, which had been furthercurtailed to two days. “Thistwo-day session will enter theGuinness Book of Worldrecords as the shortest sessionever in history,” he mocked.

“It is murder of democra-cy. Will crores of rupees beblown up for convening thesession and then winding it upin a day on the plea that thereis not enough business...Thisproves that this is the mostincompetent government everformed in Punjab which doesnot have any work to take upin the House,” he said.

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The protest against theCongress party’s decision toelevate its senior leader Kamal

Nath as Madhya Pradesh ChiefMinister was heard in over1000 kilometres away inPunjab Vidhan Sabha. SADdubbed the move as rubbingsalt into the wounds of 1984riot victims.

The issue was raised bySAD MLA Bikram Majithia, towhich the state ParliamentaryAffairs Minister BrahmMohindra retorted that MPCM designate was not namedin a single FIR.

Mohindra pointed thatNath was elected eight-times asMP after 1984 riots, and thriceserved as Union Minister, butnever ever this issue was raisedby SAD.

Showing pictures in hismobile phone purportedly offormer Chief Minister andSAD patriarch Parkash SinghBadal felicitating Kamal Nathand Parminder Dhindsa, ChiefMinister Capt Amarinder

Singh alleged that the opposi-tion was politicising the 1984anti-Sikh riots.

The Chief Minister saidthat a mere reference in theNanavati Commission reportcould not be construed asNath's involvement in the case.

“Let us leave it to the law.If somebody is guilty, he'sguilty. If he is not guilty, he isnot guilty," he said.

Congress and SAD MLAsengaged in a verbal duel on theissue, with SAD legislatorsraising slogans against theCongress Government andlater staging a walkout.

On SAD president SukhbirBadal's allegation that casespertaining to the 1984 riotswere "suppressed" over theyears, Mohindra said: “Thecountry has seen five non-Congress Prime Ministers,they were your (SAD) allies...Ifyou felt so, why did you not

raise it then."

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Showing deep concernover the falling prices of pota-to crop, the Chief MinisterCapt Amarinder assured theHouse to address the issue onpriority while expressing hisGovernment’s complete soli-darity with the distressed pota-to growers.

The issue was raised bySAD MLA Gurpartap SinghWadala by moving a callingattention motion. Intervening,Capt Amarinder said that theGovernment had alreadyraised with the Centre ademand to allow export ofpotatoes and sugar to Russia,UAE, Iran and Sri Lanka forfetching better prices of thesecrops.

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As Pakistan Governmenthas virtually granted per-

mission to visit Kartarpur SahibGurudwara, Punjab lawmakersnow wanted to bring it here inthe Indian Territory. For, theVidhan Sabha on Friday unan-imously passed a resolutionurging the Centre to swap landwith Pakistan to bring the his-toric Gurudwara in India.

Proposed by SAD presi-dent Sukhbir Badal, thedemand was supported by notonly his party colleague butalso the Congress MLAs andMinister Sukhjinder SinghRandhawa who pointed thatsimilar demand was made byhis father when he was DeraBaba Nanak MLA.

With the passing of the res-olution, the State would nowraise the issue with the CentralGovernment, putting on offernearly 11,000 acres of land fromthe state in lieu of the KartarpurSahib Gurudwara in Pakistan.

During the discussion onthe resolution moved by theChief Minister Capt Amarinderto thank the Pak and IndianGovernments for opening thecorridor, besides urging theCentral Government for com-pleting the corridor byDecember 2020 before 550thbirth anniversary of GuruNanak Dev, Sukhbir urged to

move the resolution for swap-ping the land.

AAP MLA Kanwar Sandhuand SAD MLA BikramMajithia too supported him,with Congress MinisterSukhjinder Singh Randhawapointing that this could bedone as his father had alsoraised the issue with the thenPrime Minister Indira Gandhiwhich was also consideredseriously, but could not fructi-fy in the wake of 1970 war.

Dera Baba Nanak standsopposite the Kartarpur Sahibgurudwara on the Indian side,and is the place from where theKartarpur Corridor is to beconstructed to Pakistan’sNarowal district.

Earlier, appreciating theopening of the corridor, CaptAmarinder reiterated his warn-ing to the Pakistan Army tostop terror activities in Punjaband Jammu and Kashmirdeclaring that he would be thefirst one to visit the KartarpurSahib gurdwara through thecorridor, provided Pakistanensured that peace was notcompromised on this side ofthe border.

To support his apprehen-sion, Capt Amarinder cited anarticle written by defenceexpert saying, “It is a project ofthe Pakistan Army, not that ofImran Khan (Pak PrimeMinister). Imran Khan was

well-intentioned, but thePakistan Army is not, and weshould not fall prey to their sin-ister designs,” he reiterated.

However, CaptAmarinder’s apprehensions onPak using corridor to reviveterrorism in India, especiallyPunjab, was not supported bymost of the MLAs, including ofhis own party. Instead, theyurged the Chief Minister tosend across the message of loveand peace, and shun “negativ-ity” over the same.

Congress MLA Raj KumarVerka pointed that wheneverIndia trusted Pakistan andextended friendly hand, theyattacked us, but we shouldgive peace a chance.

Another Congress MLAHarminder Singh Gill said thatthe Chief Minister’s apprehen-sions were ill-founded.

AAP MLA Kultar SinghSandhwan said the “our ChiefMinister” should give the mes-sage of love and peace, whileleaving it to the Army to takecare of the border.

SAD MLAs Sukhbir Badaland HS Chandumajra alsoasked the Chief Minister not touse “words” which may createhurdle in the years-long pend-ing demand of the Sikh com-munity.

“Only people from Punjabwould go there, no one fromthere would come to Indian

side. And I am sure that extracare would be taken to ensurethe security,” said Sukhbir.

Majithia said that the moveto exchange land would undothe historic blunder that hap-pened while British were divid-ing India. “Also, land-swappingwill take care of the misgivingsput forth by CaptainAmarinder Singh,” he said.

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Fine innings by cricketer-turned-polit ician NavjotSingh Sidhu in the not-so-friendly match between Indiaand Pakistan over the openingof Kartarpur corridor wasplayed down by his own “cap-tain”.

Virtually keeping him outof the appreciation game,majority of the MLAs, both

from opposition and ruling, didnot fail to thank Sidhu, whileChief Minister Capt AmarinderSingh relegated his party andcabinet colleague virtually tothe position of an “extra”.

Sidhu, who undoubtedlyhad played a significant role inopening of the corridor, listenedto the entire discussion silent-ly, but with a smile. Andexpressing his gratitude by nod-ding and bowing every time aMLA mentioned his name.

Congress MLA Verkaappreciated Sidhu for bringingthe message of opening of thecorridor from across the bor-der during his first visit. AAPMLA Kultar Singh Sandhwandemanded that names of every-one, including Sidhu, beincluded in the resolution forthanking him to realisingSikhs’s long pending demand.

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Petroleum and Natural GasMinister Dharmendra

Pradhan on Friday partici-pated in BJP's JanaparamarsaPadayatra organised fromPatuli vi l lage to OlavarCollege field here where laterhe addressed a gathering.

Pradhan charged that theState Government led by CMNaveen Patnaik has reachedto the extreme point of cor-ruption, incapability and cal-lousness.

"The Naveen Governmenthas failed from all fronts.Unemployment, insecurity ofwomen and farmers distressare major issues. People ingeneral have now made uptheir mind for a politicalchange in the State and it isdefinitely going to happen in

2019 general elections,"saidPradhan.

Since Narendra Modi ledNDA Government came topower in the Centre ,thenumber of LPG connectionsunder the Pradhan MantriUjjwala Yojana(PMUY) hasincreased in Orissa 20 percent to 70 per cent, saidPradhan.

He further stated that thePMUY is a flagship pro-gramme of the Governmentof India which is intended toprovide access to clean cook-ing to the poor households.The Ujjwala Yojana has beenimmensely useful in trans-forming the lives of under-privileged, especially the poorwomen and children. InOrdisha, 41 lakh LPG con-nections have been providedto poor households till date,said Pradhan.

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The Election Commission(EC) on Friday explained

the reasons that led to a delaywhich include objection relat-ed to voting machines, manda-tory tallying of electronic vot-ing machine (EVM) count withvoter-verifiable paper audittrail (VVPAT) slips, issuance ofcertificate after every round ofcounting and denying publicannounce system.

The increase in the postalballot votes, slim margins inMadhya Pradesh on many seatsand a cautious approach adopt-ed to avoid the embarrass-ment further, also the reasonsfor delay in announcement ofpolls results this year.

MP Assembly electionresults were declared 24 hoursafter counting began whileRajasthan results declared 19hours after counting began.

Unlike the quick countingof votes for the Assembly pollsin Chhattisgarh, Telangana,and Mizoram, counting inMadhya Pradesh and Rajasthanwent on at a snail’s pace, keep-ing people in general and thepolitical parties in particular ontenterhooks throughout theday on December 11.

Madhya Pradesh ChiefElectoral Officer (CEO) VLKantharao said “The delay isbecause every candidate has tobe provided a certificate afterevery round of counting.”“Right from the first round ofEVM counting at 8.30am, thecandidates were very particu-lar about checking and exam-ining every seal, tag and serialnumber of the EVMs and theircases being brought to thecounting tables. In severalcases, they raised trivial objec-tions on the seals, serial num-ber/tag number, signatures ofpolling staff on the tags, whichrequired the intervention,explaining and convincing bythe Returning Officer, District

Election Officer and Observerbefore these EVMs were takenup for counting. Even thoughno EVM was kept aside orfound tampered amongst the66,000 EVMs taken up forcounting, the process of objec-tions slowed down the rounds,”the CEO said.

The MP CEO furtherexplained that that when aresult is noted from an EVMmachine at a counting table, itis written down on part two ofForm 17C and the countingagents verify and sign on thissheets which is then photo-copied and given to them.

“Similarly, when the tabu-lation of 14 such results fromthe 14 tables in the countinghall is made into a broad sheet,it is again verified and photo-copies are distributed to thecandidates. Strict adherenceto this procedure has sloweddown the counting process,”the ECO said.

“The insistence of the can-didates to not bring the nextround of EVMs on to thecounting tables before tabulat-ed, round-wise figures are writ-ten on the blackboard/whiteboard in the counting hall andannounced in the public

announce system has deniedfive-minute time saving thathave could done in betweenrounds. With an average 22rounds of counting perAssembly constituency, thishas led to two hours of delay”.

According to Kantharao, inabout 250 cases out of 66000EVMs taken up to counting,the presiding officers had notfollowed the Close-Result-Clear (CRC) after the mockpoll done in the morning of thepoll day.

This meant that the resultof these particular EVMs hadto be obtained through thecounting of the VVPAT Slips.

The MP CEO further stat-ed that in the run of up to theLegislative Assembly elections2018, Madhya Pradesh addedabout 13,000 (21 per cent)additional polling stations ascompared to the previous elec-tions. Rajasthan’s ChiefElectoral Officer Anand Kumarsaid the reason of delay isbecause of votes in the elec-tronic voting machine (EVM)have to be matched by ran-domly selecting a VVPAT froma polling centre in eachAssembly constituency.

New Delhi: The SupremeCourt has dismissed a curativepetition seeking to re-examineits verdict upholding theappointment of Gujarat cadreIPS officer Rakesh Asthana asspecial director of CBI.

The apex court rejected thecurative petition filed by NGO,Common Cause, whose reviewpetition was also earlier held tobe devoid of merits.

After an in-chamber hear-ing, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi,said, “We have gone throughthe curative petition and con-nected papers. In our opinion no case is made outwithin the parameters indicat-ed in the decision of this court(in the case laying down guide-lines to deal with the curativepetition).”

The Bench, also compris-ing Justices MB Lokur, AK Sikriand AM Sapre, passed theorder on December 11 and wasmade public on the apex court’swebsite on Friday.

Curative petition is heardin the chamber of judges in theabsence of lawyers.

The decision of the apexcourt came amidst a bitterfeud between Asthana and CBIDirector Alok Verma. Bothhave been divested of powersand sent on leave by the cen-tral government on October 23.

The apex court, onNovember 28, 2017, had dis-

missed the PIL filed by theNGO against the appointmentof Asthana to the post of CBIspecial director, saying it can-not question a “unanimous”decision taken by the selectioncommittee and the decision isnot illegal.

Later, the court also dis-missed the plea seeking reviewof the verdict.

The top court had saidthere cannot be any doubt thatif the statute provides for con-sultation with any personbefore making a recommen-dation for appointment to anypost, the consultation with thatperson has to be made.

The NGO in its petitionhad challenged Asthana’sappointment, saying it was ille-gal as his name had surfaced ina diary recovered during araid conducted by the IncomeTax Department at the officesand other premises of compa-ny Sterling Biotech Ltd. PTI

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The Agriculture Ministrydata shows that planting of

wheat has increased marginal-ly to 233.71 lakh hectare so farin the ongoing rabi seasonfrom the same period a yearago, but coverage of othercrops especially pulses and ricewas still lagging behind.Sowing of rabi (winter) cropsbegins from October and har-vesting from March onwards.Wheat is the main rabi crop.

Wheat was sown in 233.59lakh hectare in the same peri-od of rabi season in the 2017-18 crop year (July-June). As perthe ministry’s latest data, wheatacreage in Punjab has increasedmarginally to 34.34 lakhhectare so far this season from33.92 lakh hectare a year ago.

Similarly, the area sown towheat in Haryana hasimproved slightly to 24.11 lakh

hectare from 23.32 lakh hectarein the said period. The sowingoperation in these two States isalmost completed, while it isunderway in States especiallyRajasthan, Madhya Pradeshand Uttar Pradesh.

Farmers in MadhyaPradesh have planted wheat inmore area at 44.57 lakh hectare

so far this season when com-pared with 37.91 lakh hectarein a year ago.

However in Uttar Pradesh,wheat sowing was still laggingbehind at 76.70 lakh hectare sofar this season as against 81.90lakh hectare in the same peri-od last season.

In Rajasthan too, the

acreage was slightly down at23.49 lakh hectare as against25.42 lakh hectare in the saidperiod. As per the Ministry’sdata, total pulses area wasdown at 125.40 lakh hectare sofar this rabi season as against138.29 lakh hectare in the year-ago period.

Oilseeds acreage was alsoslightly down at 70.22 lakhhectare as against 70.58 lakhhectare in the said period.Coarse cereals area remainedlagging behind at 37.55 lakhhectare so far this rabi seasonas against 47.16 lakh hectare inthe year-ago.

Rice acreage was also downat 9.24 lakh hectare as against 12.86 lakh hectare inthe said period.

Total area sown to all rabicrops remained down at 476.12lakh hectare so far this rabi sea-son from 502.48 lakh hectare inthe year ago period.

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Ahead of the general elec-tions next year and the

defeat of the ruling BJP in theHindi heartland States’Assembly polls , the Centre hasgranted extension of service ofsix months to IntelligenceBureau (IB) chief Rajiv Jain andexternal Intelligence agencyResearch and Analysis Wing(RAW) boss Anil Dhasmana.Both were due to retire laterthis month end.

While Jain’s tenure was toend on December 30,Dhasmana was slated to retirefrom service on December 29.

The decision to extend thetenure of the two Intelligencechiefs was taken due to theforthcoming general electionand the Centre wants the newGovernment to take a decisionon the appoints for the top

posts of the covert agencies,officials said. Jain, a 1980-batch IPS officer of Jharkhandcadre, was appointed IBDirector on December 30,2016, for a fixed tenure of twoyears.

A recipient of thePresident’s Police Medal, Jainhas served in various depart-ments of IB, including the sen-sitive Kashmir Desk.

He was advisor to the pre-vious NDA Government’sinterlocutor on Kashmir KCPant when talks were heldwith separatist leaders likeShabbir Shah.

Dhasmana, a 1981-batchofficer from the MadhyaPradesh cadre, has been withRAW for 23 years, duringwhich he served in importantareas, including the PakistanDesk and is considered anexpert on Balochistan.

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The EnforcementDirectorate (ED) has

launched a probe against theManaging Director of UshaMartin, the country’s largeststeel wire rope maker, in con-nection with alleged violationsof the Foreign ExchangeManagement Act (FEMA),

agency sources said on Friday.The said agency sleuths

questioned Rajeev Jhawar, the MD of the Kolkata-head-quartered firm, at their office in the capital of WestBengal on Friday.

The officials recordedJhawar’s statement under FEMA in connectionwith the purchase and regis-tration of an immovable assetin Singapore in 2013 and a fewother overseas transactions.

Jhawar is under theEnforcement Directorate’sscanner for alleged irregulari-ties in mobilising funds to cre-ate assets abroad.

The agency wants to ascer-tain the source of funds andcompliance of requiredapprovals, the sources said.Jhawar’s uncle BK Jhawar andthe latter’s son Prashant Jhawar are other promoters ofthe company.

The Competition

Commission had recentlycleared Tata Sponge Iron’sacquisition of steel business ofUsha Martin Ltd. (UML) for Rs4,300-4,700 crore. UML hadearlier said the sale of steel busi-ness to Tata Steel will help thecompany in “significant reduc-tion” of its debt.

Usha Martin is amongstthe largest wire rope manufac-turers in the world and a lead-ing producer of speciality steelin India.

New Delhi: The Government is open tothe idea of roping in “outside” agenciesfor accreditation of educational institu-tions, and IITs and IIMs have also been approached in this regard,Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekarsaid on Friday.

“To improve the quality of educa-tion, we are making the accreditationprocess more scientific and tough. TheGovernment wants to increase thestrength of the National Board ofAccreditation and the NationalAssessment and Accreditation Council so that more number of insti-tutions can be accredited,” Javadekar saidduring the national conference on“Positioning India on the GlobalEducation Map”.

“The Government is open to otheragencies taking the responsibility ofaccreditation, and IITs and IIMs havebeen asked about it ... So that more andmore institutions can be accredited,” headded.

The Union Minister said rankingand rating of education institutionsincrease competitiveness among themfor better performance.

“Today, because of the NationalInstitutional Ranking Framework, everyinstitute has constituted an internalcommittee to improve their ranking.Students also take into account the insti-tution’s ranking before taking admission,”he said.

“Graded autonomy is another majorstep by the Government to boost qual-ity education in the country. Universitieswill remain within the ambit of the UGCbut will have the freedom to start newcourses, off campus centres, skill devel-opment courses, research parks and anyother new academic programmes.

“They will also have the freedom tohire foreign faculty, enrol foreign stu-dents, give incentive-based emolumentsto the faculty, enter academic collabo-rations and run open distance learningprogrammes,” he added. PTI

New Delhi: The SupremeCourt on Friday said despitehaving “examined closely” thepricing details of the basicRafale fighter jet under theoriginal Request for Proposal(RFP) of 2007 and the oneunder the Inter-GovernmentAgreement (IGA) in 2016 to“satisfy its conscience”, it can-not go into cost comparison asit’s not the job of court.

The top court said despiteits initial disinclination to evengo into the issue of pricing, theCentre was directed to placethe cost details of the aircraft insealed cover, just to satisfy theconscience of the court.

It said the Governmenthas not disclosed the pricingdetails except for the basiccost of the aircraft even toParliament on the ground ofsensitivity of pricing details andnational security, apart fromthe issues of breach of theagreement between the twocountries — India and France.

In relief to the ModiGovernment, the SupremeCourt Friday dismissed thepleas challenging the dealbetween India and France forprocurement of 36 Rafale jetssaying there was no occasion to“really doubt the decision mak-ing process” warranting settingaside of the contract. The dealis estimated to be Rs 58,000crore, or about USD 8 billion.

A Bench of Chief JusticeRanjan Gogoi, Justices SanjayKishan Kaul and KM Josephsaid the Central Governmentdespite its reluctance, placedthe material regarding costs ofthe aircrafts before the court tosatisfy its conscience.

“We have examined close-

ly the price details andcomparison of theprices of the basicaircraft along with escalationcosts as under the originalRFP (of 2007) as well as underthe IGA. We have also gonethrough the explanatory noteon the costing, item wise,” theBench said.

It noted that the pricingdetails of 36 Rafale fighter jetsare stated to be covered byArticle 10 of the IGA betweenIndia and France, which pro-vides for protection of classifiedinformation and materialexchanged under the IGA andit would be governed by theprovisions of the SecurityAgreement signed betweenboth the Governments onJanuary 25, 2008.

“It is certainly not the jobof this court to carry out a com-parison of the pricing details inmatters like the present. We sayno more as the material has tobe kept in a confidentialdomain,” the Bench said.

It added even Chief of the

Air Staff is stated to have com-municated his reservationregarding the disclosure of thepricing details, includingregarding the weaponry whichcould adversely affect nation-al security.

The Centre has claimedthat there is a commercialadvantage in the purchase of 36Rafale aircraft and that thereare certain better terms in IGAqua the maintenance andweapon package, it noted.

The pricing details werehowever shared with theComptroller and AuditorGeneral (CAG) and the reportof CAG was examined by thePublic Accounts Committeeof the Parliament and only aredacted portion of the CAGreport was placed before theParliament which is in publicdomain, the court said. PTI

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The India MeteorologicalDepartment (IMD) predicted

that cyclone is brewing over the Bayof Bengal and it is expected to hitAndhra Pradesh’s coast on Mondayafternoon. The cyclone is named‘Phethai’ (contributed by Thailand)in line with the naming protocol forcyclones in the North Indian Ocean.

This would be the seventhcyclone this year, starting with‘Sagar’, ‘Mekunu’ and ‘Luban’ - allin the Arabian Sea - and ‘Daye,’‘Titli,’ and ‘Gaja’ in the Bay ofBengal and third to hit south Indiain less than two months.

Gaja, Daye, Luban and Titlicaused devastation to standingcrops and taking a number of livesin southern parts of the country.The IMD predicted heavy to veryheavy rainfall has been forecast forcoastal Andhra Pradesh onDecember 16 and 17. South

Chhattisgarh and Odisha mayalso see rainfall on December 17.

“The Bay of Bengal sees approx-imately five times as many cyclonesas the Arabian Sea. In addition,cyclones in the Bay are stronger anddeadlier. But this year could be anexception in terms of the numbers.It has also been seen that nearly 58per cent of cyclones formed in theBay reach the coast, as compared toonly 25 per cent of those in theArabian Sea,” the IMD officials said.

The IMD said as expected, thelow pressure area in Bay of Bengalhas now intensified into a well-marked low pressure area and isnow seen over Central Bay ofBengal. “Conditions continue to befavourable for the system to inducea depression in the next 24 hours.In fact, we expect it to strengtheninto deep depression and furtherinto a cyclonic circulation in thesubsequent 48 to 72 hours,’ it said.

The IMD predicted that

severe cyclone would achieve amaximum intensity of windspeeds reaching up to 105 km/hrand gusting to 115 km/hr alongand off Andhra Pradesh, northTamil Nadu and Puducherrycoasts from Saturday evening.“The system would continue tomove in north northwest directionand would be heading towardsAndhra Pradesh Coast,” it said. Asthe system nears, rains wouldalso start picking up pace and wecan expect heavy to very heavyrains over South Coastal AndhraPradesh. North Coastal TamilNadu would see moderate rainswith some heavy showers.

“Sea conditions would be roughto very rough, along with highvelocity winds. We can expectwinds of 80 kmph-90 kmph gust-ing up to 110-120 kmph at the timeof landfall. Locals and fishermen areadvised not to venture out in the seafor the next three days,” officials said.

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Nearly 24 of the 90 MLAselected to the Chhattisgarh

Assembly this week have crim-inal cases against them. Theyaccount for 27 per cent of thestrength of the House, up from17 per cent in the last assembly.As per the Association forDemocratic Reforms (ADR)report, 13 of the 90 (just over 14per cent) have declared seriouscriminal cases against them-selves - bribery, attempt tomurder and death by negli-gence, among others. The com-parative number for the 2013Assembly was nine per cent.

The Congress has 68 MLAsin the new House, including 19with criminal records (28 percent). Of these, 12 MLAs havedeclared serious criminal casesagainst themselves. Ajit Jogi’sJanta Congress Chhattisgarh(J), meanwhile, has strength offive MLAs, two of whom haverecords. One of these two is

accused of serious crimes.The BJP, which lost power

after 15 years, has three MLAsout of 15 (20 per cent) with arecord, but none of them areaccused of serious crimes.ADR’s analysis revealed that 68(76 per cent) of the incomingMLAs are crorepatis, which isalmost the same as the outgo-ing Assembly’s figure of 67.

Forty-eight CongressMLAs (71 per cent), 14 fromthe BJP (93 per cent), all fiveMLAs of Jogi’s party and one ofthe BSP’s two MLAs fall in thisbracket.

“The average of assets perMLA in the Chhattisgarh 2018Assembly elections is Rs 11.63crore. In 2013, the averageassets of 90 MLAs analysed wasRs 8.88 crore,” said the ADRreport. The average assets areRs 11.83 crore for the Congress,Rs 6.32 crore for the BJP, 28.68crore for the Janta CongressChhattisgarh (J) and Rs 2.04crore for the BSP.

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�� �������������������������� �������#�+�������New Delhi: The SupremeCourt on Friday said it cannotseek clause-by-clause compli-ances of Defence ProcurementProcedures (DPP) in the Rafalefighter jet deal and opinedthat the processes have been“broadly” followed. It alsoexpressed satisfaction with theGovernment’s decision-mak-ing process which led to thedeal between India and Francefor procurement of 36 Rafalejets, saying that there was “nooccasion to really doubt” it.

Top court, while junkingthe PILs challenging the Rs58,000 crore Rafale deal, exam-ined the three “broad areas ofconcern” — decision-makingprocess, difference in pricingand the choice of Indian OffsetPartner by Dassault Aviation.

Scrutinising the decision-making process, a bench head-ed by Chief Justice RanjanGogoi said though it had nooccasion to really doubt theprocess, even if there wereminor deviations then theywould not lead to annulmentof the deal. On the DPP, the

court cannot seek “clause-by-clause compliances” of theDefence ProcurementProcedures. “Broadly, theprocesses have been followed”.

The Bench, also compris-ing Justices SK Kaul and KMJoseph, said, “We have studiedthe material carefully. We havealso had the benefit of inter-acting with senior Air ForceOfficers who answered courtqueries in respect of differentaspects, including that of theacquisition process and pricing.

“We are satisfied that thereis no occasion to really doubtthe process, and even if minordeviations have occurred, thatwould not result in either set-ting aside the contract orrequiring a detailed scrutiny bythe court.” It added, “We havebeen informed that joint exer-cises have taken place, andthat there is a financial advan-tage to our nation. It cannot belost sight of, that these are con-tracts of defence procurementwhich should be subject to adifferent degree and depth ofjudicial review.” PTI

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Bengal unit of the CongressParty is planning to contest

single handedly in the nextyear’s Lok Sabha elections,party insiders say.

The Pradesh Congressleadership has been given aclear mandate by the Centralleadership to take a decision onits system of alliances, sourcessaid. The decision is the falloutof Chief Minister MamataBanerjee’s prior announcementto go it alone in the generalelections.

“Our workers are beingattacked and killed and theirhouses and properties lootedevery day by the TrinamoolCongress people. They arebeing framed in false cases. Sothe Congress plans to take onthe TMC alone on its ownstrength,” PCC presidentSomen Mitra said.

Insiders however said itspublic posturing apart, the PCCstill might wait for a “respectableoffer” from the Trinamool with-out which the party will go italone in the elections.

The PCC is divided inthree groups. The first groupled by former PCC presidentAdhir Chowdhury and StateOpposition Leader AbdulMannan who want an alliancewith the Left Front. The second

group led by the likes ofSubhankar Chakrabarty, AHKhan Chowdhury feel theCongress has no chances ofwinning without support fromthe Trinamool. The thirdgroups led by the likes of MPPradip Bhattacharya want to goit alone.

Mitra a veteran partyleader of 1960s and 70s hasasked the lower rung leaders toreach out to the people andstrengthen the organisation“where we have a bigger pres-ence.” The Congress currentlyhas four MPs in Bengal. Whiletwo seats are fromMurshidabad the two othersare from Malda district.

However the party alleges

that its organisational base hasbeen “gobbled up by theTrinamool Congress which haseither by muscle power or bylure of money forced a largenumber of our local workers tojoin their side.”

Mitra said “we will have torebuild our organisation inmany places. The victories inRajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarhshows that we still can do it evenin Bengal. If we start workingfrom now then we can definite-ly challenge the TMC.”

On whether the party willstill go with the Trinamool ifthey offer a respectable alliance,he said “they have notapproached us, neither we willgo to them begging for seats.”

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AMadras High Court orderdelivered on Thursday ask-

ing the Tamil NaduGovernment to shift 150 MBBSstudents from a private medicalcollege in Kancheepuram toGovernment run medical col-leges exposed the rot that hasset in the medical educationsystem, at least in the State.

Justice T Raja, while dis-posing a series of petitionsfiled by the students ofPonnaiyah RamajayamInstitute of Medical Sciences(PRIMS) complaining aboutthe lack of infrastructure in thecollege asked the Tamil NaduGovernment to shift the 150students from the college to the22 Government-run medicalcolleges in the State.

This is not the first time theMadras High Court is issuingan order like this. The year2017 saw the court ordering theshifting of 144 students fromAnnai Medical College andHospital to government-runmedical colleges. Dr C VKrishnaswamy, highly respect-ed medical doctor in TamilNadu told The Pioneer that theregulatory mechanism in the

State need to be beefed up tosave the students from fly-by-night operators. “Most of theprivate colleges have found tobe wanting when it comes toinfrastructure facilities andqualified teachers,” said DrKrishnaswamy.

Though the PRIMS didnot meet the mandatoryrequirements, the collegeauthorities managed to get theessentiality certificate from theState government in August2014 which authorised theinstitution to admit 150 stu-dents every year to the MBBScourse. But the Medical Councilof India opposed the move bythe Tamil Nadu government toissue essentiality certificate andLetter of Permission pointingout that PRIMS had manyshort comings. This includedshortage of outpatients, lowbed occupancy and non-avail-ability of blood bank.

But the College authoritiesmanaged to get the permissionbased on a Supreme Courtverdict based on the reportsubmitted by the OversightCommittee. The CentralGovernment issued the Letterof Permission in August 2016which allowed the intake of stu-dents from the academic year

2016-17. But the students facednumber of problems in the col-lege from day one onwardsbecause of shortcomings ininfrastructure.

Dr GR Raveendranath,general secretary, DoctorsAssociation for Social Equality(DASE), said the court orderswere reflective of the ineffi-ciency and corruption prevail-ing in the sector. “It is allbecause of the essentiality cer-tificate issued by the StateGovernment that the PRIMScould commence MBBS course.The fact that an essentiality cer-tificate was issued to an insti-tution which does not meet themandatory requirements itselfhas to be probed comprehen-sively,” said Dr Raveendranath.

He also pointed out thatadmitting students from privatemedical colleges to govern-ment run colleges was counterproductive in all respects. “Thegovernment-run colleges havealready filled the classes withstudents. There is a student-teacher ratio as well as otherlimitations in the governmentcolleges. Admitting studentsmidway in the course cause lotof hardship to other studentsand teachers,” saidRaveendranath.

�����)��������� 373�

In a sad commentary on thefunctioning of the Central

Bureau of Investigation (CBI),a Pune court on Friday grant-ed bail to the three accused inthe Narendra Dabholkar mur-der case, after the CBI failed tofile a supplementary charge-sheet in the case within thestipulated 90 days.

Pune’s First Class JudicialMagistrate SMA Sayyed grant-ed bail to accused Amol Kale,Rajesh Bangera and AmitDegvekar, after the CBI failedto file the chargesheet againstthem within the stipulated 90days after their arrest.

The relief to three accusedcame a day after they movedthe court for bail on the groundthat the CBI had not soughtadditional time from the courtto file the supplementarycharge-sheet under section 43of the Unlawful ActivitiesPrevention Act (UAPA).

Kale, Bangera andDegvekar are also accused in thejournalist Gauri Lankesh mur-der case. The CBI had arrestedBangera and Degvekar onSeptember 1, while Kale wasarrested on September 3. The

CBI had in the first week ofSeptember obtained the custodyof Kale, Bangera and Degvekarfrom the Katnataka’s SpecialInvestigation Team (SIT) inves-tigate their links with theDabholkar murder case.

The contention of the threeaccused was that neither thechargesheet was filed underIPC nor did the CBI seek addi-tional time from the court tofile the supplementary charge-sheet under UAPA.

At Friday’s hearing, a requestwas made on behalf the CBI thatthe probe agency be given timetill December 20 to file thechargesheet on the ground thatits officials were pre-occupiedwith some other work in Delhi,the CBI. However, MagistrateSayyed rejected the CBI’s requeston the ground that it should havefiled the chargesheet onWednesday when the 90-daydeadline expired.

However, there have been

many occasions in the pastwhen the Bombay High Courthad pulled up the CBI for theinordinate delay in completinginvestigations in the NarendraDabholkar murder case.

The Supreme Court hadsaid on Tuesday that if there wasa “common thread” among themurders of social activistsNarendra Dabholkar, GovindPansare, journalist GauriLankesh and rationalist M MKalburgi, then one agency couldinvestigate all the four cases.

Sixty nine-year-old anti-superstition campaignerDabholkar was shot dead himfrom a point blank range by twomotor-bicycle riding gunmen —aged between 25 and 30 years,while he was taking a morningwalk on the Omkareshwarbridge located in the heart ofPune, on August 20, 2013.

Gauri Lankesh (55) wasshot gunned down outside herBengaluru residence on

September 5, 2017. She was theeditor in Lankesh Patrike, aKannada weekly started by herlate father P. Lankesh. AfterLankesh’s death, Gauri used toher own weekly called GauriLankesh Patrike.

With the State police hav-ing failed to make any headwayin the investigations into theDabholkar murder case, theBombay High Court had trans-ferred the case to the CBI onMay 9, 2014, after overrulingthe objections raised by theMaharashtra Government. TheCBI had registered a case onJune 2, 2014, on the highcourt’s orders.

It was the Karnataka SITthat arrested Kale, Bangeraand Degvekar first in connec-tion with the Dabholkar mur-der case. The CBI, which ishelped by the MaharashtraAnti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) inthe investigations, has a strongreason to believe that the samepistol was used by the miscre-ants in killing both Dabholkarand Gauri Lankesh.

While Kale is former Puneunit convenor of HinduJanajagruti Samiti, an affiliateoutfit of Sanathan Sanstha,Digvekar was a promter ofSanatan Sanstha’s publicationthe Sanatan Prabhat. Bangeraallegedly trained two sharpshooters Sachin Andhure andSharad Kalaskar in handlingthe pistol.

����� �7�2�*�

Prime Minister NarendraModi’s visit to Rae Bareli,

the parliamentary constituen-cy of United ProgressiveAlliance (UPA) chairpersonSonia Gandhi, on December 16could throw some surprises asthere is a possibility that rebelAam Admi Party (AAP) leaderand poet Kumar Vishwas mayjoin the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) in his presence.

Though sources close to thepoet denied such a move, andthere is a tradition that no pol-itics is involved during thePrime Minister’s function,sources in the BJP confirmed inLucknow on Friday that thereis a strong possibility of KumarVishwas joining the party.

“There isa surprise foryou. Wait tillSunday,” asenior BJPleader said. In2014, KumarVishwas con-tested the LokSabha electionfrom Amethi constituency onAAP ticket and in 2019 hecould be the BJP candidate inplace of Union TextilesMinister Smriti Irani.

But sources in the BJPclaimed that Vishwas could beshifted to Rae Bareli to contestagainst Sonia Gandhi, whileIrani could contest against RahulGandhi from Amethi again.

Lucknow: Sleuths of theSpecial Task Force have soughtthe help of Nepal police toarrest prime accused inBulandshahr violence and Bajrang Dal’s city chiefYogesh Raj.

The violence which erupt-ed in Bulandshahr onDecember 3 claimed the livesof the Inspector of Syana policestation and a local youth.

“We have inputs that toavert his arrest, Raj has fled toNepal. We are in contact withour Nepalese counterparts andare trying to drop the net onthe mastermind ofBulandshahr violence,” said asenior STF officer posted inwest UP.

On Thursday night, the STFteam arrested another accused,identified as Saurabh Payal, fromBulandshahr. He was producedin a local court on Friday morn-ing and the court sent him to jail.Earlier, the probe agencies hadarrested armyman Jitendra Malikaka Jeetu Fauji in connectionwith the Bulandshahr violence.Later, a hunt was launched forarresting some aides of thearmyman who were at the sceneon the fateful day.

Interestingly, all accusednamed in the FIR and with saf-fron links have been freelyuploading videos on social sitesand giving interviews, pleadingtheir innocence, but the lawenforcers have preferred to lookthe other way. PTI

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With former MinisterSenthil Balaji joining the

DMK on Friday, the process ofdisintegration of the AIADMKhas reached the full steam.Hundreds of his followers tooaccompanied Balaji in his jour-ney from Karur to Chennai andthen to the DMK headquartersat Mount Road in the metro.

Balaji and his followerswere welcomed into the DMKby party chief MK Stalin. It wasa home coming for SenthilBalaji who had left the DMK in2000 to join the AIADMK andwas elected thrice to theLegislative Assembly in theparty ticket.

“The AIADMK is a sinkingship and Thalapathi (Tamil forcommander, as Stalin isaddressed by his followers) is theonly leader who is capable ofresuscitating Tamil Nadu fromthe clutches of the BJP,” Balajitold reporters after enrollinghimself as a DMK volunteer.

Hereafter he will addressStalin as Thalapathi andJayalalithaa as Jayalalithaa.Before reaching Chennai onFriday morning, Balaji and hisfollowers had removed the pic-tures of Jayalalithaa andSasikala from their shirt pock-ets, cars and SUVs. By the timethey left the DMK head quar-ters, all vehicles in the motor-cade accompanying Balaji spot-ted pictures of Stalin andKarunanidhi.

TTV Dhinakaran, generalsecretary of Amma MakkalMunnetra Kazhagam (AMMK),the breakaway faction of the

AIADMK launched by VKSasikala (aide to late JJayalalithaa) wished SenthilBalaji as the best in his newinnings in the DMK. “I don’tknow why he decided to leaveus. If he had any genuine prob-lems and had told us about it,we could have sorted it out,” saidDhinakaran in Friday. Balaji wasa camp follower of Dhinakaranand the AMMK before he casthis lots with the DMK.

G Satyamurthy, politicalcommentator and columnistsaid the exit of Balaji was notgoing to make any impact onthe fortunes of the AIADMK orthe AMMK. “Both are fast dis-integrating and I do not knowwhether the AIADMK wouldsurvive the 2021 Assemblyelection. The ground report isthat the AIADMK would bewiped out in the Lok Sabhaelection,” said Satyamurthywho is also sceptical about thestrength of Dhinakaran.

“AIADMK does not have a

charismatic leader who couldmatch the calibre of Jayalalithaato pull it through the troubledtimes. I am not sure about thecapabilities of Dhinakaran,”said Satyamurthy. He also saidSenthil Balaji joining the DMKis also media hype. “You waitfor a couple of weeks and seewhat happens to him andDhinakaran. Tamil Nadu pol-itics is getting churned,” he said.

Dr V Mythreyan, MP andsenior leader of the AIADMKsaid there is no possibility of hisparty’s merger with theDhinakaran faction. “OPanneerselvam, our convener,has made it clear that there isno question of aligning with theSasikala family dominatedparty and the subject endsthere,” Mythreyan said.

This puts to rest at least forthe time being, reports aboutthe possibilities of mergerbetween the rival factionswhich were being highlightedby the local media.

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In a freak mishap, a 22-year-old college student collapsed

and died during a tug of wargame at Somaiya College atVidya Vihar in north-eastMumbai late on Thursdayevening.

A resident of Thane city,Jibbin Sunny was leading oneof the two teams in the tug ofwar game when the incidenttook place.

The tournament had beenorganised as part of the college’sannual sports day

The video footage of the mishap, which wentviral on Friday, showed that Sunny collapsed after he putthe rope around his neck and pulled it with more power.

Sunny was rushed to thenearby Rajawadi Hospitalwhere he died during treat-ment.

While the cause of deathwas not immediately known,Sunny’s body has been sent forpost-mortem.

This is perhaps the first death that taken placein the metropolis during a tugof war game.

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Hitting out at the Congresspresident, Uttar Pradesh

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanathsaid Rahul Gandhi told liesabout the Rafale fighter aircraftdeal and he should apologise tothe people and defence per-sonnel for spreading canards toget political mileage.

“The oldest political partyof the country has failed to per-form its duty. It has threatenedthe nation’s security andintegrity by questioning theRafale deal which was initiat-ed by their government but waslater shelved as they could not

find any middleman like(Ottavio) Quattrocchi or(Christian) Michel,” the Chief Minister said whilespeaking to news persons inLucknow on Friday.

Yogi was reacting to aSupreme Court judgement inwhich a three-member benchgave a clean chit to the Rafaledeal. The judgement came as ashot in the arm for the saggingmorale of the Bharatiya JanataParty, which promptly used theverdict as a hammer to beat theCongress.

The Chief Minister alsoasked the Congress why its gov-ernment delayed the Rafale

deal during its tenure from2007 to 2014.

“Was the party in powersearching for brokers like theydid during the previous defencedeals?” Yogi asked in an obliquereference to the Bofors deal.

Yogi said that RahulGandhi should also disclose thesource of his information onRafale deal as it seemed that hisstatement against the govern-ment was an attempt to weak-en the country’s security.

“The statements made bythe Congress chief were morealarming as neighbouringcountries are equipped with thelatest aircraft and other defence

technology,” he said.The Chief Minister also

suggested to the judiciary notto entertain frivolous publicinterest petitions (PILs) whichcould affect the security andintegrity of the country.

“This is a fact that thesePILs were filed just to reappolitical mileage and defamethe government. The courtshould take strict action againstsuch PILs,” he said.

Yogi welcomed the deci-sion of the SC in rejecting allpetitions filed against the Rafaleaircraft deal and claimed thatthe judiciary’s verdict was aclear indication that nothing

was wrong in the deal.“The SC judgement has

exposed the false propagandaof the Congress. The grand oldparty defamed the Central gov-ernment and the BJP merely forpolitical reasons,” Yogi said.

+����������+��� �����7�7

The decision of ChiefMinister HD

Kumaraswamy and coalitionpartner Congress to appointPratap Chandra Shetty, aCongress leader from coastalKarnataka as Chairman of theLegislative Council (upperHouse) has made both theJD(S) and the Congress leadersfuming against the decision ofthe Chief Minister.

The decision has upset theformer pro tem chairman ofthe council (of the JD(S))Basavaraja Horatti and theCongress leader SR Patil( whowas Siddaramaiah’s candidate)both Lingayat leaders haveopenly criticised the Congressand the JD(S). Along with itanother powerful Lingayatleader from north Karnatakaand former water resourceMinister MB Patil also direct-ly hit at Kumaraswamy andmany say this might help BJP

to consolidate in favour of theparty which is playing Lingayatcard successfully in many elec-tions. The Lingayat dramaunfolded in the ongoingWinter Session of the Assemblywhere Kumaraswamy is facingthe heat both inside and theoutside. Sugarcane farmers areprotesting and pressuring forthe MSP and also to get thedues cleared.

The Lingayats are a pow-erful community which con-stitute over 19 per cent of thestate population. The BJP hasbeen polarising Lingayat voteskeeping its strongman from thesame community BSYeddyurappa and this mighthelp them to work out a strat-egy in the ensuing 2019 generalelections.

Even though the Congressvictory in the Hindi heartlandhas given ammunition to thecoalition partners, the centuryold party has failed to douse thefire. In another political devel-

opment Siddaramaiah who isthe chairman of the coordina-tion committee of the coalitionGovernment has cut short hisforeign visit and back inBengaluru to handle the chang-ing political developments.

Many Congress MLAs arewaiting for the December 22for the Cabinet expansion.According to sources after the

victory in MP, Rajasthan andChhattisgarh the party may notexpand the Cabinet whichmight lead to more dissent inthe party.

The State Governmentsacceptance on the floor of thehouse that only 800 farmers havebenefited from the �49,000 crorefarm loan waiver till now hasgiven ammunition to the BJPand also dissidents within thecoalition partners.

A senior Congress leadersaid “the party which extend-ed support to JDs to form thegovernment has ignored theLingayat leaders in the partywho were involved in themovement for a separate andminority religion tag to thecommunity. The Centre alsorejected their demand and theleaders who led the movementare left in a lurch in process”.

Soon after stepping downas the pro-tem chairman of thelegislative council, BasavarajaHoratti, blamed his leader

Kumaraswamy and asked himnot become a rubber stamp.

He said , “I want to tell myleader and Chief MinisterKumaraswamy not to end up asa mere rubber stamp of theCongress. My party asked me tofile the nomination but after werealised that the Congress wasfielding its candidate, we backedout to save the coalition fromembarrassment,” he added.

He said, “The Congressdrove a hard bargain for theportfolios during the cabinetformation. They had thendemanded the speaker’s postwhile agreeing to give thechairman’s post to the JD(S).But now, they have unilateral-ly decided to stake claim to thecouncil top post. Can you runa coalition without rules?”

Former water resourcesminister MB Patil of theCongress has questioned theGovernment on North-Southdisparity when it comes toallocation of prime positions by

the Congress is miffed with theparty over not being given aCabinet berth. He said “morenumber of Congress legislators(41) had been elected fromnorth Karnataka, but only fiveof them had been made min-isters. In contrast, 36 legislatorshave been elected from SouthKarnataka, but nine of themhave been made ministers”.

“All the prime portfolios likeHome, Water Resources, RuralDevelopment and PanchayatRaj have gone to legislatorsfrom South Karnataka.Important positions like DeputyChief Minister, Speaker of theAssembly, Chairman of theCouncil too have gone to legis-lators from the South” he added.

He said he will be writinga letter to Congress presidentRahul Gandhi regarding this.“This disparity should go andthe imbalance should be setright. The post of chairmanshould have gone to SR Patil,”he added.

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The 11th edition of annualrejuvenation camp for tem-

ple elephants in Tamil Nadubegan at Thekkampatti on thebanks of Bhavani River onFriday.

State Hindu Religious andCharitable EndowmentsMinister Sevoor SRamachandran inauguratedthe camp along with forestminister Dindigul Serinivasanand Municipal AdministrationMinister S P Velumani.

Ramachandran said 27 ele-phants from various templesand mutts had been brought forparticipation in the 48-daycamp, a pet project of lateChief Minister Jayalalithaa.

Adequate medical care willbe provided to the elephants atthe camp, with special veteri-narian teams, he said addingnutritious food with special dietwould be given.

Meanwhile, about 40 farm-ers of surrounding 23 villagesattempted to stage a picketingof the road near the venue,opposing the camp at the loca-tion, claiming threat to the peo-ple and crops by wild ele-phants which stray into theirarea in view of the presence oftemple jumbos.

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Adawn-to-dusk shutdowncalled by the BJP to protest

against the death of a man saidto be a Sabarimala devoteederailed Kerala on Friday,sparking widespread anger overthe disruption to normal life.

The 50-year-oldVenugopalan Nair set himselfon fire at a BJP protest venueon Thursday and succumbed tohis injuries in a hospital here.

But in his dying declaration, hemade no mention of theSabarimala temple.

Before being taken to thepublic crematorium, his bodywas brought to the BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) protestvenue where party leaders paidtheir last respect.

But the rationale for calling the shutdown cameunder fire from the rulingCPI-M, Congress, businessgroups as well as the man onthe street.

��� � �337

Jammu & Kashmir hasbecome the first State in the

country to have a law banning sexual exploitation ofwomen by those in positions of authority, having afiduciary relationship or a pub-lic servant.

The State AdministrativeCouncil (SAC) under the chairmanship of Governor Satya Pal Malik onFriday approved the‘Prevention of Corruption(Amendment) Bill, 2018’ andthe ‘Jammu & KashmirCriminal Laws (Amendment)Bill, 2018’, an officialspokesman said.

The Jammu & KashmirCriminal Laws (Amendment)Bill, 2018 seeks to amend the Ranbir Penal Code,whereby specific offence undersection 354 E is being inserted to provide for the offence of ‘sextortion’, hesaid.

����� +9�

Key NDA constituent JD(U)on Friday made it clear that

it was not in favor of promul-gation of an ordinance to facil-itate the construction of Ramtemple in Ayodhya, demand forwhich has been made by thesangh parivar and a section ofthe BJP.

JD(U) national general sec-retary Ram Chandra PrasadSingh said the party will stickto its earlier stand it had takenon the issue in its earlier avataras the Samata Party which was— the issue either be solved bymutual consent between theaffected communities or decid-ed by a court of law.

There should be no confu-sion in the minds of the peo-ple with regard to our stand onRam temple issue at Ayodhya.If an ordinance is promulgat-ed to facilitate construction ofthe temple, our party will notsupport it, he said.

“Since the Samata Partydays, we have been in favour ofa resolution of the dispute bymutual consent or through acourt order. We brook no thirdalternative,” Singh, who is alsothe party’s leader in the RajyaSabha and a confidant of Chief

Minister Nitish Kumar toldreporters here.

Even before walking out ofthe NDA in 2013, the JD(U)had always insisted that abro-gating Article 370, Ram templein Ayodhya and Uniform CivilCode should be kept out of thecoalition agenda. JD(U), head-ed by Bihar Chief MinisterNitish Kumar, is running acoalition government with theBJP in Bihar.

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Mumbai: On a day theSupreme Court dismissed pleaschallenging the Rafale deal,PDP chief Mehbooba Muftisaid the BJP should also waitfor the apex court’s verdict onthe Babri Masjid issue.

In a relief to the ModiGovernment, the SupremeCourt on Friday dismissed thepleas challenging the dealbetween India and France forprocurement of 36 Rafale jetssaying there was no occasion to“really doubt the decision mak-

ing process” warranting settingaside of the contract.

“Like the Rafale decisionwas welcomed, I hope they (theBJP) will wait for the decision (ofSupreme Court) on Babri Masjidas well and won’t start pointingfingers at the SC. We have aninstitution which is highlyrespected,” Mehbooba said.

She was replying to ques-tions at an event held by the Observer ResearchFoundation (ORF).

The Rashtriya

Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) hasbeen demanding an ordinanceor a law to build a Ram templein Ayodhya at the earliest. Ithad also criticised the SupremeCourt’s decision to defer thehearing in the land disputecase, saying it “hurt” Hindusentiments.

Several Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP) leaders have alsosupported RSS chief MohanBhagwat’s push for the law toenable the construction of Ramtemple. PTI

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Young Ahalya from Kollam, whogrew up in a pineapple farm,loved the fruit’s colours so muchthat she decided to express her-self through them and turned

painter. As she filled up her canvas with intri-cate scenes of plantation life, replicating herhard-working parents’ faces on the figuresthat peopled it, she surrounded them withhills and forests, nature in a flaming surgeas it were, pushing the pylons of civilisationin a distant greyness. Her fellow artists havepicked up a morbid rubble tossed up by theKerala floods and strung them to a twistedspinal cord, which is straightening itself ina desperate lunge at survival. There’sPangrok Sulap from Malaysian Borneo,another artist born of the soil, dancing ona canvas spread taut on wood-cut blocksdepicting farm life and issues, his happy feetimprinting his memories of them. All ofthem have stitched together their peasantorigins and come together at the KochiMuziris Biennale, which is unshackling artfrom the confines of rarefied thought andelitism to listen to the sub-terranean voic-es and helping them stake a claim in con-temporary discourse.

If art biennales are meant to rearticu-late the times, then the Kochi edition hasclearly pushed key frontiers in global dia-logue, snapping the exclusionary stiffness ofart fairs and museums, where the plight ofthe dispossessed is merely the motif and notthe felt anguish of those who go through it.As its curator, artist Anita Dube hasattempted to explore “possibilities of a non-alienated world” and managed to address theelephant in the room, to create a safe pub-lic sphere where we can think freely,exchange ideas, ask questions of ourselves,have conversations and dialogue rather thanideological loud-mouthing and best of allprovide a safe pedagogic haven where peo-ple do not feel threatened, judged or notqualified enough. In this respect, the Kochibiennale has fully given credence to sociol-ogist Pierre Bourdieu’s argument for theneed to create a social and cultural capitaljuxtaposed to the economic one. He haddefined “cultural capital” as that which deter-mined the “tastes” of society, which, if notwholesome and representative enough, canperpetuate a cycle of privilege instead ofbreaking it down. Museums and galleriesmay lend us access to all sorts of artworkthat have emerged as an interpretation ofhistory, context and archives but what of sen-sitive story-telling? Will it be a projectionof an idea rather than a humane experience?The Kochi biennale hasn’t talked down, ithas allowed everyone to come in. Or asDube described it, enfolded them in the “dis-cursive frame of culture.” Be it an attemptat post-colonial redemption by the West, theresolution of anxieties, the fluidity of iden-tities, the retrieval of protest poetry fromconflict zones, the reinstatement of women’s

dues, like that of the selflessMalayali nurses, the cry for eco-logical justice, the siege ofmicro-cultures or the much-revered cow head turning intoa fist of agrarian assertion,every voice has been respectedand interpreted in concrete,tactile and visually explosiveterms. For public engagement ofart cannot happen unless itappeals to our sensorium. Andtill that is done, till art alsobecomes a source of pleasure,populism will continue to cedespace to majoritarian mono-logues. Should that be easilyhanded over? Shouldn’t pop-ulism be a happy prospect thanbe demonised as a takeover toolof everybody’s trade?

In that sense, the Kochibiennale has already startedthe process of culture reclama-tion as a democratic nurturingof ideas, not a handed downrewriting of scripts. Muziriswas an ancient port on theMalabar coast, our first point ofglobalisation over centuries asmerchant ships plied the spiceroutes and broke down barriersfor a confluence and assimila-tion of cultures. Perhaps thisbiennale rescued that ancientspirit and applied it to the cur-rent context.

For Kerala, a State that wasravaged brutally by the floodsbarely a hundred days ago —1.5million people displaced and200,000 lives lost —the biennalehas been a huge palliative.Many had questioned if theGovernment should go throughwith this edition and not divert

the usual funds to the recon-struction process. But ChiefMinister Pinarayi Vijayan want-ed to send out the message thatKerala is resilient and meansbusiness. The spinoff effects onthe economy by way of tourism,services and infrastructure arefor all to see. The laid-back FortKochi area is now a bustle, thewaterways have emerged astransport corridors ferryingpeople from one island toanother, the local youth havesigned up as volunteers andmost residents have opened uphomestays and cafes.Warehouse owners, who dobooming business in a porttown, have let out spaces forthree months to make way forinstallation artists. And aban-doned houses are getting a newlease of life. More so, the peo-ple of Kochi, who have virtual-ly owned this art event as theirbadge of pride through thepast years, don’t want to let goof it. Students and young peo-ple are toggling assignmentsand work to play hosts andcoordinators. Thousands of car-penters are at work, helpingerect structures and artworks,the caterers have never beenbusier, feeding visitors on theroadside and the auto wallahshave replaced the need forGoogle maps.

The Chief Minister himselfinaugurated the biennale, lend-ing a heft to proceedings andinsisting in his speech that thetraumatised State indeed need-ed to heal itself through art. Thebiennale has done up drab

walls in hospitals and dressedup worn out facades withcolourful murals to mask thedarkness of pain. Over theyears, organisers have reachedout to schools and made entryfree on certain days for the com-mon people to access andembrace a different form ofexpression. This is the processby which an auto rickshaw dri-ver like Bapi Das was inspiredenough to embroider histhoughts on fabric, now onprominent display. Or a run-away like Vicky Roy, who grewup in a shelter home near theNew Delhi Railway station andwho was trained in a photogra-phy workshop, to reframe theurbanscape through his lensand awaken us to the trickle-down effects of societal statutesand policy-making. LikeAhalya, they were not empow-ered by birth, be it in terms ofaccess to language or chance.They evolved on their own,organically and untutored.Kerala clearly isn’t shedding atear for itself.

Of course, what’s art with-out the political subtext? Andthere were plenty at the biennaleposited against the visual epi-demic of clichés on other media.At a time when the womenartistes’ collective have articu-lated their brand of #MeToo inthe Malayali film industry andfaith debates on Sabarimalacontinue to hover over awoman’s right to enter theshrine, the biennale has had itsfirst woman curator and devot-ed more than 50 per cent of the

works to women artists. TheGuerrilla Girls, who have beentalking about sexism in the artsfield through provocative slo-gans and street performances,have plastered the town withplacards, asking questions aboutwhether women are only goodas models for artists and ifgallery staff get respectable pay.Kashmiri artist Veer Munshihas recreated a Sufi shrine withlacquer coffins of the young,arguing for the middle path indialogues and a return to civil-isational contiguity that hasbeen torn asunder by extrem-ism. A young performanceartist frisks entrants to peaceful-ly demonstrate his angst ofgrowing up behind the wiredquarters. That speaks louderthan the gun.

In the end, art anywhereshould be about the relationaldynamic between the creatorand the audience. Only then canit be a vibrant cultural asset andoffset hierarchies set by eco-nomic and political structures.Or to borrow words from theGuerrilla Girls, “Don’t let muse-ums reduce art to a small num-ber of artists who have won apopularity contest among big-time dealers, curators and col-lectors. If museums don’t showart as diverse as the cultures theyclaim to represent, tell themthey’re not showing the histo-ry of art, they are just preserv-ing the history of wealth andpower.” The sea winds havebrought a whiff of life to Kochi.

(The writer is AssociateEditor, The Pioneer)

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Sir — Retired Lieutenant GeneralDS Hooda, who was the formerGeneral Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Army’s NorthernCommand in September 2016when the surgical strikes tookplace, rightly spoke against thepoliticising of military opera-tions. Surgical strikes were part ofa necessary counter-offensive ofthe Army in retaliation to the Uriterror attack in which 19 Indiansoldiers were killed by Pakistaniterrorists.

Hooda said that it was natur-al to have initial euphoria aboutthe success, but the constantmaintenance of hype over militaryoperations was unwarranted.Indeed, a constant political show-casing of a military strike can doa two-fold damage. First, a con-stant political chest-thumping foran Army operation can haveadverse effects on our relationswith neighbouring countries.Second, if it turns into politicalasset for one political party, it willsend a wrong impression that theentire country is divided in termsof defence policy.

Sujit DeKolkata

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Rahul’s day dawns”(December 12). The Assemblyelections must prod the BJP toacknowledge the relevance ofthe much maligned dynasty of theCongress and that it is but a formof orchestrating individualstrengths to optimise collective

results. The Indira Gandhi regimeof imperious central diktats sawthe party gradually losing cohe-sion at grass roots. Tall regionalsatraps could yet hold the party,but with the loss of RajasekharReddy of Andhra Pradesh, theparty plunged into decline.Clearly, the dynasty was effectiveso long as its president producedresults. See what the lack ofdynasty has done to the

AIADMK, whose faction fight isa textbook case for the SamajwadiParty.

Congress chief Rahul Gandhiseems to have learnt the lessonswell. His persuasive style had thefrontline leaders, be it Rajasthanor Madhya Pradesh, to put partyneeds above personal ambitions.His task now is to keep that espritde corps going and showcase thesame for the 2019 LS elections.

Meanwhile, the BJP too mustponder now that its centrally dri-ven one-man party apparatushas proved fallible. Nor can thePrime Minister carry the soleonus of campaigning. The partyneeds many more shoulders andgiven its poor bench strengthtoday, it is left with little time topromote fresh talent.

R NarayananNavi Mumbai

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Rahul’s day dawns”(December 12). The BJP was, per-haps, too over-confident of win-ning the Hindi-speaking belt.But they lost because of emptypromises. The results should be aneye-opener for the party. Risingproblems, like farm and rural dis-tress as also urban angst played acrucial role in the erosion of theBJP’s support base. Understandingthe problems faced by people willremain crucial to fight the nextGeneral election.

Jubel D’CruzMumbai

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Page 9: English News Paper | Breaking News | Latest Today News in ... · the party’s manifesto will be implemented immediately. However, the name of ... leader to become Chief Minister

The Preamble to theConstitution of India clearlystates that India is a sover-

eign, socialist, secular, democraticrepublic. But as the ongoing pub-lic discourse of our political mas-ters clearly shows, we are more ademocracy and less a republic. Wemay not truly be aware of the sub-tle difference between the two oreven be bothered to give this aspectmuch thought. But make no mis-take, if we are to progress and devel-op as a nation, we cannot do with-out either. History tells us that theterm ‘democracy’ originated fromthe Greek words ‘demos’, the com-mon people, and ‘kratos’ orstrength. The first democracy wasthe city of Athens in 508-507 BC

where Cleisthenes, known as thefather of Athenian democracy,introduced the concept of rule bythe common people. However, rep-resentational democracy, as weknow it today, is very different fromwhat was practised then and istoday defined by its one major char-acteristic “rule of the majority”,which can easily devolve into mobrule or tyranny of the majority, oreven worse, anarchy.

Benjamin Franklin once said:“Democracy is two wolves and alamb voting on what to have forlunch.” The only thing that keepsthe lamb off the lunch menu is thefact that we are a republic — not aperfect one but still one nonethe-less. What that basically implies isthat the country is not a privateconcern of the rulers but is consid-ered a “public matter” and belongsto each one of us regardless of caste,creed, gender or ethnicity. Whilethis obviously demands that ourrulers are elected and not inherit-ed, as quite a few tends to be, moreimportantly, it requires them to rule

for the common good, an aspect ofgovernance on which philosophers,such as Plato and Aristotle, wrotevolumes. This is, of course, onlypossible when there are a set of lawsand those elected as leaders followthem both in letter and spirit.

Unfortunately over the past fewdecades, common good seems to beignored in the face of parochial andself-serving interests of our leaders,as the rule of law is often ignored orrendered irrelevant. It is no wonderthen that our legislatives at theCentre and States have a surfeit ofmembers facing criminal charges —1,765 MPs and MLAs at last count,or 36 per cent facing over 3,500cases as per the Government;though some contend the numbersare vastly understated.

While the Supreme Court maywell view the entry of criminals intolegislative bodies as akin to “termiteto the citadel of democracy,” it can-not make laws to keep them out.That, the court said, is the domainof Parliament, an institution that isyet to show a firmness of resolve to

stem the rot. Ironically, it is theactions of the apex court itselfwhich gave a fillip to criminals join-ing politics with its farcical rulingin the infamous JMM bribery case,involving the bribing of MPs todefeat a no-confidence motionbrought against the then PrimeMinister PV Narasimha Rao’sGovernment way back in 1993.These allegedly corrupt MPs wereunashamed and blatant enough toopenly deposit the bribe money ina public sector bank. They weresubsequently prosecuted under thePrevention of Corruption Act butwere absolved by the SupremeCourt’s interpretation of Article 105of the Constitution. This Articlestates that (1) MPs shall enjoyfreedom of speech in Parliamentand (2) shall not be held liable toany proceedings in any court inrespect of anything said or any votegiven in Parliament.

The court held that the allegedbribe-takers, who had voted in theHouse, were “entitled to the immu-nity conferred by Article 105(2)”. It

also went on to direct that thebribe-givers must be prosecuted, asalso the bribe-takers who did notvote. Certainly, a unique legal jus-tification for the concept of honouramong thieves.

The apex court has nowattempted to correct the existingstate of affairs by directing theGovernment to set up 12 fast-trackspecial courts to try cases against thelegislators.

In addition, it has also directedall political parties, which give tick-ets to persons with criminal casespending against them, to publicisethe information on the party web-sites, apart from issuing a declara-tion in “widely circulated” newspa-pers and on electronic media afterthe nomination is filed.

However, there is little doubtleft that the “centre of gravity”seems to have shifted in favour ofthe criminal legislators and theyseem to have become indispensableto parties for grabbing power. Thesad truth is that actions taken by theSupreme Court now are of little

consequence, nothing more thanclosing the barn door after thehorse has bolted.

While regular and reasonablyfair elections have ensured that wecontinue to enjoy the fruits of avibrant democracy, the same can-not be said for the state of ourRepublic. The gradual decline ofvalues and the rule of law haveensured that the common good isof little concern to our political classwho are quite happy with the sta-tus quo. Neither the judiciary northe bureaucrats can bring aboutchange for the better that isrequired. It is, therefore, left to thecommon citizen to act. If we do notstand up and reclaim the space, wehave conceded to criminals andother low-life who now sit in judg-ment over us. It will be our childrenwho will pay the price in the com-ing years.

(The writer is a military veter-an, a Consultant with the ObserverResearch Foundation and VisitingSenior Fellow with The PeninsulaFoundation, Chennai)

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The results of the Assembly electionsheld in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizorammust have sent jitters down the spineof the BJP leadership. The seniors had

never expected this kind of a drubbing, thinkingtheir schemes were indeed people-friendly whentheir implementation was skewed. In contrast, theoutcome has also done a lot to rejuvenate theCongress and Opposition leaders, who are all nowrallying behind the leadership of Congress pres-ident Rahul Gandhi. The BJP, however, has notbeen totally routed. It retains a fair share of thevote pie in spite of anti-incumbency in the threeheartland States — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthanand Chhattisgarh. But for sure, the oft-repeatedslogan of ‘a Congress-mukt Bharat’ was blownaway like a hot balloon. With these results, theOpposition is going for the jugular now andsmelling power for the 2019 parliamentary elec-tions, notwithstanding the fact that PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’s popularity remainsintact.

The results have further proved that theIndian electorate does not bother about perfor-mance or rhetorical slogans and knows how tohalt the juggernaut. They have also thrown a fewlessons for both the ruling and Opposition par-ties. Let us examine the matter from the point ofview of both the BJP and the Opposition. As aninformed citizen, this writer has been observingthe functioning of the Government in differentfields in different States, has been writing on issuesgermane to the people, hailing good decisions andproviding suggestions for improvements on sev-eral others.

Governance is not a cakewalk for any ruler,nor is feeling the pulse of the Indian mind in elec-tions an easy task, as voters have time and againbeen pooh-poohing expert psychologists with dis-dain. Any hasty policy decision on well-inten-tioned goals and programmes has always back-fired on the ruling regimes. People have a poormemory both for good deeds as well as bad. Theytend to forget the good deeds fast enough and for-give quickly on bad experiences. Because of this,for quite some time, the Indian polity hasbecome a sort of circus. Short-term perceptionsrule the people’s minds and those who exploitthem are victorious.

Taking a particular group or section of peo-ple for granted is wishful thinking. The rulingNDA had a lot of positives to offer to the coun-try after it came to power, both internally (in sev-eral fields) as well as on external affairs. India’sprestige and position grew to a new height andesteem, globally. The Prime Minister’s demoneti-sation drive had yielded a few positives in duecourse, like busting black marketers in realestate, ghost business houses et al. This writervividly remembers the poor people happilystanding in long queues before the banks duringdemonetisation as they believed it was going toend black money and cause difficulty to the cor-rupt and the rich.

There has been a sustained increase in thenumber of Income Tax Returns (ITRs) filed in thelast four financial years. As compared to 3.79 croreITRs filed in 2013-14, the number of ITRs filedduring 2017-18 was 6.84 crore, which is an

increase of 80.5 per cent. The numberof e-filings increased to 6.75 crore dur-ing the last fiscal. During 2017-18, thegross collections before refunds rose by13 per cent to �11.44 lakh crore. Thequantum jump in tax base to a largeextent was the result of demonetisation.The Government machinery, however,could not counter the allegationsagainst it.

But the biggest voter loss (loss ofvote base) for the BJP was the businesscommunity (the traditional BJP sup-porters for long) due to initial hiccupsin the implementation of the Goods andService Tax (GST). The introduction ofGST was a revolutionary attempt butthose who implemented it will neveragree that they failed to read the peo-ple’s mind on this. The problem is thatpromises made before the reform gotunder way were never implemented.And later, when the Government triedto correct the mistakes, it was too late.

The mishandling of the agitation ofthe upper castes against reservation forpromotions in Madhya Pradesh andRajasthan had really made a differenceto the BJP as the community voted forNOTA. In Madhya Pradesh, NOTAvotes were exercised by 542,295(6,43,144 voters) constituting about 1.4per cent of the total votes. In Rajasthan,NOTA votes were to the tune of467,781, constituting about 1.3 per centof the total votes polled. Most people,who exercised NOTA, were anti-reser-vation supporters and former BJP sup-porters. The BJP got 41 per cent votesin Madhya Pradesh while the Congressgot 40.9 per cent. The 1.4 per cent

NOTA may have taken the BJP’s tallyto well past 120 seats. Similarly, asagainst the Congress getting 39.3 percent of votes compared to the BJP’s 38.8per cent in Rajasthan, the NOTA votewould have crossed to 40 per cent forthe BJP and the party could havescraped through. In Chhattisgarhthough, the Congress really trouncedthe BJP by a margin of 10 per cent.

Yet another cause of the Congress’win was the way the party got the sup-port of farmers, who were facing sev-eral constraints notwithstanding thefact that Shivraj Singh Chouhan, dur-ing his chief ministerial tenure,increased the irrigated land from 7.5lakh to 36 lakh hectares over the last 10years. It was the disconnect in the pro-gramme with regard to production,marketing and incomes of farmers(including lopsided implementationof the Bhavantar scheme) that stokedthe farmers’ anger.

Though the Union Governmenthad taken a lot of steps for the farm-ers’ welfare, it had either not been mar-keted or executed well. Besides, thefarmers’ income was still not commen-surate with production costs. InRajasthan, the State had done very goodwork in water harvesting but the pro-grammes did not catch the imaginationof the farmers. The outreach by thebureaucracy was also not visible on theground.

Another cause of the BJP’s defeat isthe mobilisation of opposition partiesand the saffron party’s lack of contain-ment of negative vibes in politics. The“Sampark for Samadhan” was a damp

squib as those who were contacted weremainly urbanites. Genuine opinionmakers’ attempts for course correctionwere ignored. For example, thoughTelugu Desam Party supremoChandrababu Naidu’s own politicalsituation is not so good in AndhraPradesh, his alienation did fuel a move-ment against the BJP. Similarly, theparty alienated several of its opinions-makers who during the last 15 yearswere in its favour. This writer knowsone senior journalist and many moresupporters who relentlessly attemptedto take the BJP to a high pedestal as anacceptable national party with pan-Indian appeal among the intelligentsiabut they were either ignored or side-lined.

Now, the Congress and theOpposition front must adopt a charterwhich is nationalistic and filled with apositive vision for a future India andaway from confrontationist polity as theBJP is still a favourite for 2019. TheCongress has to modernise its function-ing and embrace a collective leadership,keep the Delhi crowd of bureaucrats ata distance and engage with experts toserve the nation. The people are fed upwith poor governance and unnecessarylogjams in Parliament. To make democ-racy work, we must be a nation of par-ticipants, not simply observers andsquabbling political leaders. The man-date of people is supreme. It should beseen as a lesson for all politicians, par-ticularly in view of the coming LokSabha election in 2019.

(The writer is a Retired CivilServant)

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The rupee declined by 22paise to close at 71.90

against the US dollar on Fridayamid strengthening of thegreenback and cautious tradingin the domestic equity market.

Forex traders said therupee came under pressurefollowing strengthening of thedollar against major currenciesoverseas, while caution pre-vailed amid the RBI’s centralboard meeting under newGovernor Shaktikanta Das.

At the Interbank ForeignExchange (forex) market, thelocal unit opened lower at

71.80 and fell further to touchthe day’s low of 72.04.

However, it pared somelosses and finally ended at71.90 per dollar, down by 22paise against its previous close.

On Thursday, the Indianrupee had plunged 33 paise to71.68 per US dollar.

Benchmark indices finishedwith modest gains after a see-saw session Friday. The BSESensex ticked higher by 33.29points, or 0.09 per cent, to endat 35,962.93, while the broaderNSE Nifty rose 13.90 points, or0.13 per cent, to 10,805.45.

Brent crude, the interna-tional benchmark, was trading

at $61.02 per barrel Friday,lower by 0.70 per cent.

On a net basis, foreignportfolio investors (FPIs)bought shares worth �675.14crore Thursday, while domes-tic institutional investors (DIIs)were sellers to the tune of�51.86 crore, provisional dataavailable with BSE showed.

The Financial BenchmarkIndia Private Ltd (FBIL) set thereference rate for therupee/dollar at 71.7359 and forrupee/euro at 81.4628. Thereference rate for rupee/Britishpound was fixed at 90.5809 andfor rupee/100 Japanese yen at63.20.

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Public Sector Banks (PSBs)do not have any plans to

shut down their ATMs,Minister of State for FinanceShiv Pratap Shukla informedParliament.

The statement assumessignificance amidst a report bythe Confederation of ATMindustry (CATMi) warningthat nearly half of the 2.38 lakhmachines run the risk of clos-ing down by March next yeardue to regulatory compliancechanges making the businessunviable due to rising costsand dipping or stagnant rev-enues.

As reported by the sched-uled commercial banks, smallfinance banks, payment banksand white label ATM operators,2.21 lakh ATMs are deployed inthe country as on September30, Shukla said in a writtenreply to the Lok Sabha.

Apart from ATMs, bankingservices across the country areprovided through bank branch-

es, inter-operable business cor-respondents (BCs) with micro-ATMs etc, he said.

Further, he said, mobilebanking services and variousdigital modes of banking facil-ities are also available in India.

Replying to another ques-tion, Shukla said theGovernment announced recap-italisation of PSBs to the tuneof �2.11 lakh crore in October2017, through infusion of cap-ital by the Government andraising of capital by banksfrom the markets.

PSBs meet their capitalrequirement through varioussources including, inter alia,mobilisation of capital from themarket through issuance ofcapital instruments and mon-etisation of non-core assets,internal capital generationincluding through recovery inwritten-off accounts, and cap-ital infusion by the govern-ment.

“�88,139 crore was infusedby the Government in PSBsduring financial year 2017-18after the recapitalisationannouncement and provisionof �65,000 crore has been madein the budget for the currentfinancial year for infusion,” hesaid.

Since the recapitalisationannouncement till November2018, PSBs have been recapi-talised to the tune of �1,28,861crore through infusion andmobilisation of capital from themarket, he said.

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With anaim to

provide cus-tomer servicesthrough onlineshopping por-tals, a Delhibased DVComgroup has launched India’s firstTech supported e -storeDVComm.in. The site offers awide range in IT ,Communication andElectronics among other relat-ed products.

The company is said tohave deployed a team to help,guide buyers with their pre-sales assistance & Free TechConsultation.

DVComm’s big advantageis that they are providing pre-sale guidance, post sales servicewith direct liaisoning withOEM during the warranty peri-od of the product, this begetscustomer comfort & huge con-fidence, a service that is pro-

vided by non other DVComm also provides a

chargeable installation asrequired & guarantees deliveryanywhere in India. Presently itsproduct line includes a widerange in IT, Networking,Telecom, CCTV SecurityElectronics, UPS products fromleading Global brands such as— Cisco, Alcatel, Polycom,CPPlus, Samsung, Nikon,Huawai, LG, Dell, HP,Emerson, APC and others.

Surya Murugaian fromEricson Global Services India,Bengaluru said — “The Hubmotors from DVComm.in aregood, their components arereally trust worthy”.

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Indian School of Hospitality,a newly inaugurated

Gurugram based hospitalityand culinary arts college, host-ed its first international coun-sellor summit — theCounsellors’ Retreat 2018.

Inaugurated by Chancellorof the Gurugram UniversityMarkanday Ahuja, the summitsaw a gathering of school coun-sellors representing schoolsfrom across the entire countryand neighboring regions,including people who areworking in hospitality educa-tion École hôtelière deLausanne.

The Counsellors’ Retreatwas called with the missionand aim to introduce school

counsellors to the diverserange of professional oppor-tunities and career paths in theworld of travel, tourism, hos-pitality, culinary arts and othernew age industries for theirstudents.

The event saw counsellorsparticipate in talks held byindustry and education leadersthat highlighted the trends ofthe hospitality industry, careeroptions for students and thebenefits of hospitality and culi-nary education for today’s tal-ent.

During the interactivesession, industry and academ-ic experts discussed andexchanged views about ISHand its curriculum for the hos-pitality and culinary educationspace.

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India Post on Wednesdayannounced full-f ledged

entry into e-commerce busi-ness, where it will leverage itsparcel business for end-to-end delivery of products.

“We have simplified deci-sion-making process atDepartment of Posts (DoP) bysetting up a separate parceldirectorate. It can make quickdecision on parcel rates andrelated provisions. India Postwill leverage its vast networkfor e-commerce services fordoorstep delivery of prod-ucts,” CommunicationsMinister Manoj Sinha told

reporters.The minister also

launched India Post’s e-com-merce portal.

Earlier, any decision relat-ed to change in parcel deliveryrates or matching services ofprivate players requiredapproval from top officials,which was time-consuming.

The DoP has set up parceldirectorate which is free totake decision to match thecompetition.

“India Post is open for reg-istration of all vendors for e-commerce business. It willpick up products from vendorand deliver to doorstep ofcustomers,” Sinha said.

India Post has deliverynetwork up to remotest vil-lages through its 1.55 lakh postoffices which no one canmatch, the minister said.

“We will also facilitatereturn of products service likeit is available for customers onother e-commerce platforms,”India Post Secretary A NNanda said.

Sinha said the departmentwill strictly monitor delivery ofproducts.

“The credibility that DoPhas built over the years isimmense. We will suitablyresolve complaints wheneverwe receive them,” the ministersaid.

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India’s wholesale inflation fellto a three-month low of 4.64

per cent in November, drivendown by decline in prices offood articles, especially veg-etables, and some easing inrates of petro products.

The Wholesale Price Index(WPI)-based inflation was 5.28per cent in October and 4.02per cent in November last year.

Food articles witnessedsoftening of prices with defla-tion at 3.31 per cent inNovember, against 1.49 percent in October, governmentdata released Friday showed.

Vegetables, too, becamecheaper with deflation at 26.98per cent in November, com-pared to 18.65 per cent in theprevious month.

Inflation in the ‘fuel andpower’ basket in Novembercontinued to rule high at 16.28per cent, but was lower than18.44 per cent in October. Thiswas on account of lowering ofprices of petrol and diesel, fol-lowing a decline in globalcrude oil prices.

Separately in petrol anddiesel, inflation was 12.06 percent and 20.16 per cent, respec-tively, and for liquified petro-leum gas (LPG), it was 23.22

per cent during October.ICRA Principal Economist

Aditi Nayar said the easing ofthe WPI inflation was led by adeeper disinflation in prices ofprimary food articles, easing ofinflation related to crude petro-leum and mineral oils follow-ing the correction in retail fuelprices, and some impact of theappreciation in the rupee onthe landed prices of imports.

“The recent trend of ayear-on-year correction in foodprices does not augur well forthe strength of rural demand inthe immediate term. However,factors such as weak post-monsoon rainfall and a delay inrabi sowing pose some uncer-tainty regarding how long foodprices would remain in the dis-inflation zone,” Nayar said.

Nayar said with the recentstability in the crude oil pricesand the rupee, ICRA expectsthe WPI inflation to rangebetween 3.7-4.4 per cent in theremainder of second half forcurrent fiscal.

Among food articles, pota-to prices continued to rulehigh with 86.45 per cent infla-tion in November. While onionwitnessed deflation of 47.60 percent, the same for pulses stoodat 5.42 per cent.

The October inflation at

4.64 per cent is the lowest inthree months, and a lowerinflation than this was lastseen in August at 4.62 per cent.

CARE Ratings, in its analy-sis, said it expects WPI inflationto remain in the range of 4.5-5 per cent for the rest of theyear, and will be above the CPIrates.

The WPI inflation forSeptember, however, has beenrevised upwards to 5.22 percent, from the provisional esti-mate of 5.13 per cent.

Data released earlier thisweek showed that the retail orconsumer price index-basedinflation for November also fellto a 17-month low at 2.33 percent.

The Reserve Bank of India(RBI) mainly takes into accountretail inflation data while for-mulating monetary policy.

In its fifth monetary poli-cy review for the fiscal, releasedlast week, the Reserve Bankkept interest rates unchanged,but held out a promise to cutthem if the upside risks to infla-tion do not materialise.

The central bank loweredretail inflation projection to2.7-3.2 per cent for the secondhalf of the current fiscal, citingnormal monsoon and moder-ate food prices.

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The Jammu and KashmirGovernment for the first

time will set up a Real EstateRegulatory Authority (RERA)in the state to promote regu-lated and planned growth ofthe real estate sector, officialspokesman said on Friday.

On Friday, the StateAdministrative Council (SAC)under the chairmanship ofGovernor Satya Pal Malikapproved the establishment ofReal Estate RegulatoryAuthority (RERA) in the State.

The Jammu and KashmirReal Estate (Regulation andDevelopment) Bill, 2018approved by the SAC provides

a provision to establish theReal Estate RegulatoryAuthority, the State AdvisoryCouncil and the Real EstateAppellate Tribunal in the Stateto effectively and efficientlyregulate this sector, spokesmansaid.

The move is aimed at pro-moting planned developmentof real estate and to ensure saleof plots, apartments, buildingsand other real estate projects,in an efficient and transparentmanner and to protect theinterests of the consumers, headded. RERA would ensure afair and just treatment to thebuyers and protect them fromany unscrupulous builders, hesaid.

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State-owned Oil and NaturalGas Corp (ONGC) Friday

said its board will considerbuyback of company shares ata meeting on December 20.

This follows Governmentpushing cash-rich PSUs to usetheir funds to buy back sharesor pay a higher dividend. TheGovernment is looking tobridge budgetary deficitthrough higher receipts of div-idend as well as selling itsshares in PSUs in the buybackprogrammes.

Stock buybacks refer tothe repurchasing of shares bythe company that issuedthem. A buyback occurswhen the issuing companypays shareholders the marketvalue per share and re-absorbs that portion of itsownership that was previ-ously distributed among pub-lic and private investors.

In a regulatory filing,ONGC said, “The meeting ofBoard of Directors of the com-pany will be held on Thursday,

December 20, 2018, inter-alia,to consider the proposal forbuy-back of the fully paid-upequity shares of the company.”

The Government holds67.48 per cent stake in India’slargest oil and gas producerONGC.

Just on Thursday, state-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC)said it will buy back 29.76 croreshares for about �4,435 croreand spend another �6,556 croreon paying an interim divi-dend to shareholders.

The board of the country’slargest oil firm Thursdayapproved buyback of up to29.76 crore equity shares, or3.06 per cent, at �149 pershare.

The Government, whichholds a 54.06 per cent stake inthe company, is expected toparticipate in the share buy-back.

The Government is tar-geting a minimum �5,000crore through share buybackoffers of state-owned firmslike Coal India, BHEL and OilIndia Ltd.

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Expressing concerns over slowpace of sugar export, the

Government on Friday directedmills to undertake shipment oftheir fixed quota and eventhreatened to take action againstdefaulting sugar mills.

To liquidate surplus stockand improve the liquidity of thesugar mills to facilitate them forclearance of cane price arrearsof farmers, the Governmenthas asked domestic sugar millsto mandatory export 5 milliontonnes in the 2018-19 market-ing year (October-September).

The Government is evencompensating expensestowards internal transport,freight, handling and othercharges to undertake shipment.

“However, it has beenobserved that the sugar millsare not undertaking export ofsugar at a desired pace. Onlyabout 2.46 lakh tonne of sugarhas been exported and con-tracts of only about 6 lakhtonne (including 2.46 lakhtonne of actual export) in thefirst quarter of the season,” thefood ministry said in a state-ment.

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Page 11: English News Paper | Breaking News | Latest Today News in ... · the party’s manifesto will be implemented immediately. However, the name of ... leader to become Chief Minister

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Everstone-backed IndoSpaceon Friday said it had raised

USD 1.2 billion from investorsthrough its new fund to devel-op and acquire industrial andlogistics parks.

IndoSpace is one of thelargest provider of modernindustrial and logistics real estatein India and has taken total com-mitment to India to above USD3.2 billion. It is promoted byEverstone Group, GLP andRealterm.

IndoSpace said in a state-ment that it held the final closeon IndoSpace Logistic Parks III(ILP III) and the offering wassignificantly oversubscribed onthe back of strong investordemand.

“USD 580 million of totalequity has been committed toILP III which, post leverage willcreate a corpus of more thanUSD 1.2 billion to develop andacquire industrial and logistics-related real estate investments inIndia,” it added.

IndoSpace would utilise thefund to further strengthen itsmarket leadership position.Leading global institutionalinvestors have invested in ILP III.Currently, IndoSpace has a port-folio of around 30 million squarefeet across developed and under-construction projects.

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Infosys on Friday said it hadformed a joint venture (JV)

with Hitachi, PanasonicCorporation and Pasona tostrengthen its presence in theJapanese market.

As part of the agreement,Infosys will acquire 81 per centof the shareholding in HitachiProcurement Service Co,Hitachi’s fully owned subsidiary,Infosys said in a statement.

Hitachi, Panasonic andPasona will be minority share-holders of the entity, it added.The consideration for the 81 percent stake, subject to closingadjustments, is JPY 2,762 million(approx �174.58 crore).

“As part of the transaction,Infosys Consulting Pte. Ltd. willacquire an 81 per cent stake inHIPUS from Hitachi by way ofan acquisition of existing shares,”Infosys said in a regulatory fil-ing. Hitachi will transfer 2 percent each to Panasonic andPasona, and will hold theremaining 15 per cent, it added.The transaction is expected toclose by April 1, 2019, subject tocustomary closing conditions,Infosys said.

“The transaction is in align-ment with Infosys’ strategy tostrengthen its presence in Japanand invest in local capabilities toserve the local and global needs

of Japanese corporations,” itsaid.

Hitachi Procurement, cur-rently, handles indirect materi-als purchasing functions for theHitachi Group. “...iconic com-panies coming together, willaccelerate business processtransformation leveraging dig-ital procurement platforms forthe local and global needs ofJapanese corporations,” the state-ment said.

Infosys will bring its exper-tise in procurement processes,consulting, analytics and digitaltechnologies such as artificialintelligence (AI) and RoboticProcess Automation (RPA) tothe venture.

Combined with Hitachi andPanasonic’s knowledge of theirprocurement functions and localteams, and Pasona’s human cap-ital and BPM networks in Japan,the entity will provide differen-tiated, end-to-end, efficient andhigh value procurement capa-bilities to corporations, the state-ment said.

“This JV will help Japanesecorporations transform theirprocurement processes usingnext-generation digital plat-forms, as we bring together thecombined power of deep pro-curement expertise, technology,global expertise and local skills,”Infosys president Ravi Kumarsaid.

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Italian superbike makerDucati on Friday announced

its foray into pre-owned mar-ket in India through its DucatiApproved programme.

Under the programme,only bikes less than 5 years oldwith certified mileage lowerthan 50,000 km are allowed tobe sold after undergoing 35technical checks, the companysaid in a statement.

“Our entry in the pre-owned segment in India willmake Ducati more accessible topassionate bikers who aspire forthe luxurious and premiumexperience offered by Ducatimotorcycles,” Ducati Indiamanaging director SergiCanovas said.

Ducati Approved is a cer-tified pre-owned motorcycleprogramme wherein company’squalified service techniciansselect and inspect every bike,certifying its history, the com-pany said.

The programme alsoincludes extended warrantyand roadside assistance, itadded.

“With this program, ouraim is to sell bikes with thesame level of sophistication andauthenticity as offered with anew Ducati,” the Ducati Indiamanaging director said.

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The Government on Fridaysaid it will set up National

Medical Devices PromotionCouncil (NMDPC) to boostmanufacturing, attract invest-ments and promote exports ofthe fast-growing sector.

"As Indian manufacturingcompanies and startups movetowards creating innovativeproducts, the setting-up of thecouncil will spur domesticmanufacturing in this sector,"the Commerce and IndustryMinistry said in a statement.

It said the medical devicesindustry plays a critical role inthe healthcare ecosystem and isindispensable to achieve thegoal of health for all citizens.

The manufacturing andtrade in the sector is growingsteadily which includes a wide

range of products. Although the industry has

been growing in double digits,it is predominantly import-dri-ven, with imports accountingfor over 65 per cent of thedomestic market.

The council, it said, willundertake several activitiesincluding facilitation, promo-tion and development of thesector besides holding seminarsand workshops to garner viewsof industry and understandbest global practices.

It would also identifyredundant processes and ren-der technical assistance to theagencies and departments con-cerned to simplify the approvalprocesses involved in the sec-tor.

It will "enable entry ofemerging interventions andsupport certifications for man-ufacturers to reach levels ofglobal trade norms and leadIndia to an export driven mar-ket in the sector," it said.

The NMDPC would sup-port dissemination and docu-mentation of internationalnorms and standards for med-ical devices, by capturing thebest practices in the globalmarket and facilitate domesticmanufacturers to rise to inter-national level.

It will also "drive a prefer-ential market access policy, by

identifying the strengths ofthe Indian manufacturers anddiscouraging unfair trade prac-tices in imports".

Besides, it would makerecommendations toGovernment based on industryfeedback and global practiceson policy and process inter-ventions to strengthen themedical technology sector.

The council will be head-ed by the secretary,Department of IndustrialPolicy and Promotion.

Apart from the concerneddepartments, it will also haverepresentatives from health-care industry and quality con-trol institutions.

Commerce and IndustryMinister Suresh Prabhuannounced this move at WHOGlobal Forum on MedicalDevices at Visakhapatnam.

New Delhi (PTI): Drugfirm Alembic Pharmaceuticalson Friday said it had raised�350 crore through allotmentof non-convertible debentures(NCDs) on private placementbasis. “The NCD committee ofAlembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd...has allotted 1,500, 9 per centrated unsecured listed

redeemable non-convertibledebentures (NCDs)... aggre-gating to �150 crore undertranche I,” AlembicPharmaceuticals said in a reg-ulatory filing. The companysaid it had also allotted 2,000,9 per cent rated unsecured list-ed redeemable NCDs... aggre-gating to �200 crore.

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New Delhi (PTI): The government has almost finalised theNational Policy on Electronics to boost electronics manufactur-ing in India on a big scale, Electronics and IT Minister Ravi ShankarPrasad said Friday. He said the Narendra Modi government waspushing India’s case for USD 1 trillion digital economy. Speakingat an event organised by industry body CII, the minister also askedthe electronics industry to focus on producing medical devices,defence and automobile items.

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CRISIL 1572.95 24.45 1.58CROMPTON 225.25 -1.7 -0.75CUB 178.5 0.25 0.14CUMMINSIND 809.1 -4.3 -0.53CYIENT 649.15 -9.95 -1.51DABUR 442.4 8.9 2.05DBCORP 171.6 -0.1 -0.06DBL 434.5 -6.55 -1.49DCBBANK 161.7 2.75 1.73DCMSHRIRAM 358.1 -3.25 -0.9DEEPAKFERT 144.6 -3.4 -2.3DEEPAKNI 232 -5.65 -2.38DELTACORP 242.1 -3.5 -1.43DENABANK 16.8 0.05 0.3DHANUKA 443.5 9.5 2.19DHFL 215.9 -2.25 -1.03DISHTV 37.65 0.05 0.13DIVISLAB 1492.4 -28.35 -1.86DLF 178.65 -0.05 -0.03DMART 1591.95 10.1 0.64DRREDDY 2591.6 -4.5 -0.17ECLERX 1095.45 4.6 0.42EDELWEISS 182.35 0.2 0.11EICHERMOT 23629 324.1 1.39EIDPARRY 206.25 2.5 1.23EIHOTEL 199.1 0.65 0.33ELGIEQUIP 240.85 0.4 0.17EMAMILTD 436.65 0.75 0.17ENDURANCE 1206.95 34.65 2.96ENGINERSIN 115.45 0.5 0.43ENIL 600 -10 -1.64EQUITAS 118.25 -0.7 -0.59ERIS 638.35 6.75 1.07ESCORTS 663.95 4.3 0.65ESSELPRO 104.25 -1.05 -1EVEREADY 189.85 0.75 0.4EXIDEIND 257.45 0 0FCONSUMER 48.5 0.55 1.15FDC 178.9 -1.6 -0.89FEDERALBNK 91.2 1.7 1.9FINCABLES 452.8 0.7 0.15FINOLEXIND 517.6 3.15 0.61FLFL 393.45 -10.05 -2.49FORBESCO 2436.55 -48.8 -1.96FORCEMOT 1619.55 -16.75 -1.02FORTIS 141.65 -10.25 -6.75FRETAIL 540.95 15.35 2.92

FSL 51.95 1.55 3.08GAIL 350.95 4.6 1.33GDL 137.7 0.05 0.04GEPIL 837.6 16.35 1.99GESHIP 346.7 5.6 1.64GET&D 255.6 -5 -1.92GHCL 238.2 2.35 1GICHSGFIN 241.65 -1.2 -0.49GICRE 273.25 1.1 0.4GILLETTE 6499.75 -19.35 -0.3GLAXO 1383.05 -10.8 -0.77GLENMARK 666.4 -10.65 -1.57GMDCLTD 86.7 -1.2 -1.37GMRINFRA 15.75 0.3 1.94GNFC 337 -4.3 -1.26GODFRYPHLP 925.55 8.9 0.97GODREJAGRO 506.65 -4.45 -0.87GODREJCP 824.55 18.85 2.34GODREJIND 543.6 -3.7 -0.68GODREJPROP 664.85 -4.45 -0.66GPPL 102.65 0.55 0.54GRANULES 87.65 0.75 0.86GRAPHITE 863.4 -11.7 -1.34GRASIM 845.5 14.8 1.78GREAVESCOT 123.8 -0.3 -0.24GREENPLY 131.1 -0.2 -0.15GRINDWELL 505 -4.95 -0.97GRUH 300.35 4.65 1.57GSFC 110.05 -0.5 -0.45GSKCONS 7777.65 26.75 0.35GSPL 176.95 -1.85 -1.03GUJALKALI 535.3 -2.85 -0.53GUJFLUORO 915.9 16.8 1.87GUJGAS 682.8 35.55 5.49GULFOILLUB 800.05 -24.8 -3.01HAL 768.95 -2.6 -0.34HATSUN 619.2 -6.35 -1.02HAVELLS 710.5 6.3 0.89HCC 11.52 0.45 4.07HCLTECH 960.35 -18.15 -1.85HDFC 1904.15 -37.8 -1.95HDFCBANK 2093.75 -7.3 -0.35HDFCLIFE 393.5 6.1 1.57HDIL 23.7 0.05 0.21HEG 4027.65 -18.5 -0.46HEIDELBERG 158.4 5.25 3.43HERITGFOOD 527.3 2.6 0.5HEROMOTOCO 3313.5 0.3 0.01HEXAWARE 328.25 -2.3 -0.7HFCL 19.25 0.05 0.26HIMATSEIDE 207.45 -1.65 -0.79HINDALCO 220.35 0 0HINDCOPPER 48.15 0.05 0.1HINDPETRO 227.4 2.7 1.2HINDUNILVR 1856.8 3.8 0.21HINDZINC 270.1 -5.25 -1.91HONAUT 23165.9 114.35 0.5HSCL 136.1 3.7 2.79HSIL 199.15 -0.8 -0.4HUDCO 41.9 -0.65 -1.53IBREALEST 83.05 2.85 3.55IBULHSGFIN 792.8 18.55 2.4IBVENTURES 397.95 -3.65 -0.91ICICIBANK 352.1 2.8 0.8ICICIGI 907 21.4 2.42ICICIPRULI 310.15 -4 -1.27ICIL 56.8 -0.45 -0.79IDBI 61 -0.7 -1.13IDEA 36.15 1.25 3.58IDFC 39.7 -0.35 -0.87IDFCBANK 39 -0.45 -1.14IEX 163.9 7.25 4.63IFBIND 838.3 8.95 1.08IFCI 13.73 0.44 3.31IGL 252.75 -1.15 -0.45IL&FSTRANS 11 -0.55 -4.76INDHOTEL 149.7 1.3 0.88INDIACEM 93.75 2 2.18INDIANB 240.5 2.4 1.01INDIGO 1060.6 1 0.09INDUSINDBK 1608 1.05 0.07INFIBEAM 46.6 -0.6 -1.27INFRATEL 251.85 2.3 0.92INFY 705.6 9.1 1.31INOXLEISUR 225.05 -1.45 -0.64INOXWIND 74.65 -0.75 -0.99INTELLECT 231.45 -1.6 -0.69IOB 14.82 0.18 1.23IOC 141.45 4.25 3.1IPCALAB 791.5 -11.8 -1.47IRB 152.15 -1.55 -1.01ISEC 270 1.2 0.45ISGEC 5142.1 -44.25 -0.85ITC 275.65 0.05 0.02ITDC 296.05 -4.15 -1.38

ITDCEM 108.85 -0.6 -0.55ITI 92.85 -0.35 -0.38J&KBANK 35.75 -0.4 -1.11JAGRAN 112.3 -0.7 -0.62JAICORPLTD 103.75 -0.45 -0.43JAMNAAUTO 63.65 -0.95 -1.47JBCHEPHARM 298.1 -0.8 -0.27JCHAC 1836 6 0.33JETAIRWAYS 259.95 8.1 3.22JINDALSAW 82.1 -0.7 -0.85JINDALSTEL 157.35 -1.85 -1.16JISLJALEQS 66.5 0.25 0.38JKCEMENT 731.3 1.55 0.21JKIL 119 -3.4 -2.78JKLAKSHMI 279.65 5.7 2.08JKTYRE 95.55 -0.05 -0.05JMFINANCIL 86.45 -1.3 -1.48JPASSOCIAT 7.03 0.1 1.44JSL 33 0.05 0.15JSLHISAR 90.2 0.65 0.73JSWENERGY 70.95 0.35 0.5JSWSTEEL 293.45 -4.6 -1.54JUBILANT 738.3 -2.3 -0.31JUBLFOOD 1246.05 -6.65 -0.53JUSTDIAL 491.7 -0.5 -0.1JYOTHYLAB 190 -3.95 -2.04KAJARIACER 444.85 -5 -1.11KALPATPOWR 390.9 5.6 1.45KANSAINER 458.05 -3.6 -0.78KEC 290.4 3.2 1.11KEI 379.65 -1 -0.26KIOCL 147.6 2.3 1.58KNRCON 189.2 -5.6 -2.87KOTAKBANK 1255.25 -6.85 -0.54KPIT 215.2 -2.45 -1.13KPRMILL 569.55 4.1 0.73KRBL 288 -4.4 -1.5KSCL 589.5 -1.8 -0.3KTKBANK 108.35 0.5 0.46KWALITY 8.81 -0.03 -0.34L&TFH 146.8 1.65 1.14LAKSHVILAS 86.6 -0.6 -0.69LALPATHLAB 958.55 -5.8 -0.6LAOPALA 223.55 -0.5 -0.22LAURUSLABS 378.35 -9.25 -2.39LAXMIMACH* 5815 3.65 0.06LICHSGFIN 461.7 0.2 0.04LINDEINDIA 681.7 0.2 0.03LT 1411.55 -13.6 -0.95LTI 1806.15 56.85 3.25LTTS 1631.95 32.75 2.05LUPIN 842.8 -3.45 -0.41LUXIND 1507.3 -17.85 -1.17M&M 755.8 -1.95 -0.26M&MFIN 454.4 1.1 0.24MAGMA 110.65 -2.35 -2.08MAHABANK 13.57 0.14 1.04MAHINDCIE 252.9 -1.35 -0.53MAHLIFE 387.25 -5 -1.27MANAPPURAM 88.35 -0.7 -0.79MANPASAND 86.8 -2.95 -3.29MARICO 372.85 -1.55 -0.41MARUTI 7654.1 -9.65 -0.13MAXINDIA 80.15 13.35 19.99MCX 724.3 -1.2 -0.17MEGH 60.6 0 0MFSL 431.6 -11.65 -2.63MGL 871.4 -2.45 -0.28MHRIL 196.85 -0.95 -0.48MINDACORP 136.1 -1.5 -1.09MINDAIND 331.2 -0.8 -0.24MINDTREE 866.55 7.55 0.88MMTC 27.7 -0.2 -0.72MOIL 172.35 -1.45 -0.83MONSANTO 2700 22 0.82MOTHERSUMI 166.45 5.1 3.16MOTILALOFS 616.4 -9.25 -1.48MPHASIS 973.15 0.25 0.03MRF 66350.35 -856.35 -1.27MRPL 73 -1.15 -1.55MUTHOOTFIN 471.95 -8.1 -1.69NATCOPHARM* 700.55 -12.65 -1.77NATIONALUM 64.1 -0.35 -0.54NAUKRI 1559.6 2 0.13NAVINFLUOR 719.95 22.6 3.24NAVKARCORP 46 -0.55 -1.18NAVNETEDUL 105.55 0.5 0.48NBCC 52.8 -0.75 -1.4NBVENTURES 120.8 1 0.83NCC 82.3 -0.4 -0.48NESTLEIND 10972.55 -17.95 -0.16NETWORK18 38.55 -0.2 -0.52NH 199.4 -6.05 -2.94NHPC 26.2 0.05 0.19NIACL 198.05 -0.65 -0.33

NIITTECH 1140.45 18.8 1.68NILKAMAL 1485.65 -4.6 -0.31NLCINDIA 68.3 -0.15 -0.22NMDC 93.9 0.7 0.75NOCIL 166.25 -0.65 -0.39NTPC 143.65 2.6 1.84OBEROIRLTY 475.7 2.9 0.61OFSS 3624.4 25.05 0.7OIL 176.45 1.15 0.66OMAXE 216.8 -0.15 -0.07ONGC 146.95 3.7 2.58ORIENTBANK 90.2 1.95 2.21ORIENTCEM 79.95 1.8 2.3PAGEIND 24080.95 -185.8 -0.77PARAGMILK 248.75 1.4 0.57PCJEWELLER 83.55 5.2 6.64PEL 2141.15 -32.75 -1.51PERSISTENT 613.5 -5.65 -0.91PETRONET 217 4.55 2.14PFC 90.45 4.3 4.99PFIZER 2844.3 17.2 0.61PFS 16.5 0.2 1.23PGHH 9711.95 4.7 0.05PHILIPCARB 204.5 1.8 0.89PHOENIXLTD 614.05 -4.35 -0.7PIDILITIND 1166.25 4.25 0.37

PIIND 836.65 -11.5 -1.36PNB 72.65 1.3 1.82PNBHOUSING 971.4 -0.7 -0.07PNCINFRA 129.8 -0.75 -0.57POWERGRID 185.5 2.55 1.39PRESTIGE 217.8 3.35 1.56PRSMJOHNSN 86.4 2.35 2.8PTC 87.15 0.3 0.35PVR 1555.75 17.1 1.11QUESS 690.4 3.7 0.54RADICO 412.05 -1.8 -0.43RAIN 139.8 -1.05 -0.75RAJESHEXPO 571.35 -0.85 -0.15RALLIS 171.85 0.25 0.15RAMCOCEM 628.8 3.8 0.61RATNAMANI 894.95 1.75 0.2RAYMOND 849.55 -14.85 -1.72RBLBANK 578.9 -1.75 -0.3RCF 61.45 -1.15 -1.84RCOM 15.77 0.31 2.01RECLTD 103.9 1.95 1.91REDINGTON 86.45 0.05 0.06RELAXO 722.8 -13.15 -1.79RELCAPITAL 219.5 2.8 1.29RELIANCE 1111.75 4.95 0.45RELINFRA 291.85 5.05 1.76REPCOHOME 350 3.75 1.08RNAM 168.6 -2.65 -1.55RNAVAL 16.59 2.33 16.34RPOWER 28.05 0 0SADBHAV 198.75 -2.95 -1.46SAIL 51.25 -0.15 -0.29SANOFI 6304.85 28.3 0.45SBILIFE 566.35 -5.05 -0.88SBIN 289.15 0.55 0.19SCHAEFFLER 5406.8 3.05 0.06SCHNEIDER 103.7 -2.9 -2.72SCI 42.45 0.05 0.12SFL 1468.7 22.65 1.57SHANKARA 520.1 15.2 3.01SHARDACROP 264.15 -8.65 -3.17SHILPAMED 382.7 -0.15 -0.04SHK 178.95 -1.35 -0.75SHOPERSTOP 509.35 1.45 0.29SHREECEM 16935.35 226.2 1.35SHRIRAMCIT 1547.6 -10.85 -0.7

SIEMENS 967.2 7.05 0.73SIS 765.05 -8.5 -1.1SJVN 25.45 0.2 0.79SKFINDIA 1906.3 -3.05 -0.16SOBHA 460.45 7.9 1.75SOLARINDS 1063.35 28.65 2.77SOMANYCERA 311.45 1 0.32SONATSOFTW 318.6 1.6 0.5SOUTHBANK 15.5 -0.6 -3.73SPARC 209.4 -1.45 -0.69SPICEJET 76.1 -0.9 -1.17SREINFRA 32.45 0.1 0.31SRF 2191.85 9.05 0.41SRTRANSFIN 1179 7.65 0.65STARCEMENT 104.5 0.6 0.58STRTECH 288.95 -3.85 -1.31SUDARSCHEM 335.35 -10.8 -3.12SUNCLAYLTD 3600 112 3.21SUNDRMFAST 533.9 2.55 0.48SUNPHARMA 419.75 -2.4 -0.57SUNTECK 354.8 4.15 1.18SUNTV 575.4 13.75 2.45SUPPETRO 211.1 -0.65 -0.31SUPRAJIT 228.25 5.6 2.52SUPREMEIND 1092.55 43.7 4.17SUVEN 233.05 -3.6 -1.52SUZLON 5.29 0.04 0.76SWANENERGY 103.75 -1 -0.95SYMPHONY 1130.25 9.55 0.85SYNDIBANK 34.5 0.45 1.32SYNGENE 574 23 4.17TAKE 132.45 -3.75 -2.75TATACHEM 689.25 -3.2 -0.46TATACOFFEE 92.4 -0.4 -0.43TATACOMM 532.65 5.45 1.03TATAELXSI 1036.3 9.8 0.95TATAGLOBAL 212.3 0.25 0.12TATAINVEST 866.1 0.6 0.07TATAMETALI 645.55 0.75 0.12TATAMOTORS 166.9 0.45 0.27TATAMTRDVR 91.65 0.8 0.88TATAPOWER 79.35 0.8 1.02TATASTEEL 513.4 1.15 0.22TCS 1989.25 5.6 0.28TEAMLEASE 2858.9 15.6 0.55TECHM 712.25 2.5 0.35TEJASNET 202.55 4.5 2.27TEXRAIL 58.2 -0.1 -0.17THERMAX 1102.65 -17.45 -1.56THOMASCOOK 235.25 0.65 0.28THYROCARE 551.45 4.05 0.74TIFHL 519.15 4.05 0.79TIMETECHNO 100.8 -1.15 -1.13TIMKEN 578.85 -3.05 -0.52TITAN 931.55 -13.3 -1.41TNPL 254.15 0.2 0.08TORNTPHARM 1780.25 -6.3 -0.35TORNTPOWER 254.15 -11.95 -4.49TRENT 350 0.7 0.2TRIDENT 64.85 -0.45 -0.69TRITURBINE 118.35 0.4 0.34TTKPRESTIG 7867.2 -70.2 -0.88TV18BRDCST 36 0.65 1.84TVSMOTOR 568.6 2.1 0.37TVSSRICHAK 2499.35 14.55 0.59TVTODAY 380.55 -3.7 -0.96UBL 1256.2 -1.35 -0.11UCOBANK 19.4 0.15 0.78UFLEX 265.1 -5.4 -2UJJIVAN 241.1 -4.75 -1.93ULTRACEMCO 3998.25 44.75 1.13UNICHEMLAB 191.45 -0.5 -0.26UNIONBANK 77.9 0.8 1.04UPL 764.75 -10.15 -1.31VBL 721.2 -12.75 -1.74VEDL 201.2 0.8 0.4VENKYS 2320.4 -8.65 -0.37VGUARD 216.45 -1.15 -0.53VIJAYABANK 44.45 0.95 2.18VINATIORGA 1674.75 123.55 7.96VIPIND 529.05 -5.25 -0.98VMART 2598.15 0.25 0.01VOLTAS 578.55 11.6 2.05VTL 1081.95 2 0.19WABAG 259.4 -1.05 -0.4WABCOINDIA 6701.95 -192.35 -2.79WELCORP 155.3 0.55 0.36WELSPUNIND 62.75 0.05 0.08WHIRLPOOL 1405.55 22.6 1.63WIPRO 333.1 -5.65 -1.67WOCKPHARMA 511.35 -0.2 -0.04YESBANK 180.35 5.65 3.23ZEEL 489.1 -4.5 -0.91ZENSARTECH 239.25 -0.8 -0.33ZYDUSWELL 1349.8 0.05 0

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SCRIP OPEN HIgh LOW LTP CHANGEBHARTIARTL 305.2 333.4 305.2 319 15.9BPCL 334.65 349.4 330.75 344.95 10.05YESBANK 172.7 181.6 168.25 179.7 5IOC 141.15 142.5 140.1 141.3 3.9COALINDIA 244.55 250.4 242 250.05 5.5ONGC 143 150.4 140.6 146.25 2.95NTPC 141 144.15 139.6 143.8 2.75GRASIM 850 852.75 835.5 844.9 15.5IBULHSGFIN 772.65 798.05 760.05 788.9 13.2EICHERMOT 23,350.00 23,800.00 23,150.70 23,700.00 394.6ASIANPAINT 1,332.80 1,351.00 1,320.00 1,339.00 18.8POWERGRID 181.5 186.25 180.5 185.1 2.55GAIL 346.95 353.2 341.5 351.3 4.85ULTRACEMCO 4,039.00 4,043.80 3,975.00 3,998.50 49.4INFRATEL 249 252.9 247.25 252.3 3.1INFY 697.45 713.7 694.4 706.15 8.4HINDPETRO 224 229.5 222.1 226.95 1.8VEDL 199 203.2 198.15 201.9 1.25ICICIBANK 349.2 354.05 349.15 351 1.45TCS 1,983.00 1,998.95 1,975.25 1,989.00 6.4RELIANCE 1,103.10 1,114.90 1,091.80 1,110.00 2.95HINDUNILVR 1,837.00 1,865.85 1,832.75 1,860.55 5TECHM 709.15 716.8 705.1 711 1.7TATASTEEL 511 517.8 506.5 513.5 1.25ITC 274.35 277.25 273.9 275.85 0.55AXISBANK 619.1 623 611.3 620.3 1.2HINDALCO 219.5 222.85 217.3 220.6 0.3TATAMOTORS 166 168.4 164.85 167 0.15MARUTI 7,684.00 7,690.00 7,545.95 7,676.00 5.5SBIN 288.5 290.8 287.05 288.7 -0.3BAJAJFINSV 6,179.90 6,208.20 6,101.30 6,153.10 -6.3HEROMOTOCO 3,302.00 3,350.80 3,266.65 3,315.00 -3.25INDUSINDBK 1,610.00 1,613.50 1,590.05 1,608.00 -2.1BAJFINANCE 2,488.25 2,512.00 2,464.25 2,485.35 -3.75M&M 753.1 764 751.6 757 -2.2DRREDDY 2,595.00 2,609.60 2,568.00 2,589.20 -7.65HDFCBANK 2,104.90 2,118.00 2,088.05 2,095.10 -6.2SUNPHARMA 421.95 426 417.1 420.45 -1.65ADANIPORTS 370 371.15 367 368.9 -2.15KOTAKBANK 1,264.40 1,271.70 1,247.10 1,256.60 -7.8CIPLA 528.35 533.8 516.65 522.05 -4.95BAJAJ-AUTO 2,836.00 2,837.35 2,785.20 2,808.50 -27.6UPL 770 777 758.85 765.9 -7.55WIPRO 339 343 332.3 335 -3.65LT 1,423.45 1,428.55 1,405.05 1,410.65 -15.8ZEEL 491 494.95 482 485.55 -8.15TITAN 943.65 951.7 928.45 928.6 -15.55HDFC 1,945.00 1,955.00 1,898.05 1,909.60 -32.45JSWSTEEL 297 300.85 291.15 292.9 -5.15HCLTECH 966 968.8 950 960.1 -17.95

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SCRIP OPEN HIgh LOW LTP CHANGEBANDHANBNK 504 541.1 503.5 533.8 29.55IDEA 35.4 37.7 35.25 36 1.1MOTHERSUMI 166.6 179.1 163.3 166.6 4.9SUNTV 558.8 578.75 554.7 575 14.3DABUR 426 446.3 426 444.55 9.85PETRONET 212.8 218.3 212.4 217.2 4.4GODREJCP 812 829.9 802 825 16.3ICICIGI 892.7 915 888 905 17.1HDFCLIFE 389 395 386.3 394 6.8L&TFH 145.05 148.4 143.6 146.8 1.65BIOCON 641 658 638.1 648.5 7.15NMDC 92.9 94.45 91.6 94 0.95OFSS 3,610.60 3,644.95 3,607.25 3,638.00 33.05DMART 1,584.00 1,600.00 1,574.00 1,597.00 14.1CONCOR 647 653.2 642.05 653 5.25HAVELLS 700.2 715.9 700 710.55 5.4SIEMENS 959 975 952.2 966.1 6.05OIL 175.1 177 174.3 176.1 1COLPAL 1,305.00 1,328.00 1,302.00 1,310.35 6.85ABCAPITAL 98.7 99.9 98.15 98.7 0.45BOSCHLTD 19,603.00 19,763.00 19,414.05 19,691.40 70.35INDIGO 1,060.80 1,069.90 1,050.20 1,063.25 3.25SRTRANSFIN 1,179.30 1,205.00 1,162.00 1,175.20 3.2SHREECEM 17,050.00 17,151.15 16,612.05 16,734.00 40.3PIDILITIND 1,155.00 1,182.00 1,155.00 1,164.95 2.75NHPC 26.15 26.25 26.05 26.2 0.05AMBUJACEM 223.6 224.85 218.2 218.95 0.25GICRE 272.15 273.95 271.5 272.05 0PGHH 9,740.05 9,783.40 9,651.00 9,726.20 -9.5BRITANNIA 3,139.70 3,171.10 3,097.45 3,139.00 -4.2MARICO 373 375.75 370.35 373.8 -0.55SAIL 51.35 52.1 50.65 51.25 -0.1LICHSGFIN 460 465.95 457.1 460.3 -1.35ASHOKLEY 103.65 105.05 103 104.05 -0.35NIACL 197.05 199 197.05 198.2 -0.7BHEL 66.5 67.9 65.8 66.5 -0.25LUPIN 850.9 857 830.5 843.85 -3.45DLF 178.1 180.55 176.25 177.95 -0.9BANKBARODA 111 113.1 110.8 111.25 -0.6ACC 1,530.50 1,541.65 1,490.00 1,490.30 -10.55ABB 1,437.50 1,444.00 1,405.05 1,428.50 -10.15SBILIFE 571 574.8 550.5 566.65 -4.35CADILAHC 347.1 351.6 344.5 346.4 -3ICICIPRULI 314 314 309.2 310.5 -4.35MRF 67,299.00 67,500.00 66,050.00 66,400.00 -1,063.55MCDOWELL-N 636.95 643.5 622.3 623 -13.5PEL 2,180.00 2,211.95 2,120.00 2,128.00 -51.45BEL 84.9 84.9 81.25 82.4 -2HINDZINC 273.5 277.8 267.2 268.75 -6.9AUROPHARMA 743.85 745.7 715.2 725.9 -24.7

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Signalling an end to the near-ly two-month power tussle

in Sri Lanka, disputed PrimeMinister Mahinda Rajapaksawill resign on Saturday, his sonsaid on Friday, soon after theSupreme Court refused to staya court order that restrained theembattled former strongmanfrom acting as the premieruntil it fully heard the case nextmonth.

Rajapaksa, 73, was appoint-ed as the prime minister onOctober 26 by PresidentMaithripala Sirisena in a con-troversial move after sackingRanil Wickremesinghe, whichplunged the island nation intoa constitutional crisis.

“To ensure stability of thenation, Former President@PresRajapaksa has decided toresign from the Premiershiptomorrow after an address tothe nation,” Rajapaksa’s sonNamal tweeted.

The Sri Lanka PodujanaPeramuna (SLPP) with for-mer president, Sri LankaFreedom Party (SLFP) andothers will “now work to forma broader political coalitionwith President Sirisena”, NamalRajapaksa, a lawmaker, added.

Wickremesinghe’s camp

was hopeful that Sirisena wouldnow reinstate him over theweekend after Rajapaksaresigns, effectively ending thepolitical stalemate that plaguedthe nation for the past sevenweeks.

There was no immediatereaction from PresidentSirisena, the architect of thecurrent crisis.ParliamentarianLakshman Yapa Abeywardenasaid Rajapaksa, who ruled SriLanka for nearly a decade,decided to step down in thebest interest of the country.

He claimed Rajapaksa canhold office without resigningbut that will only further dragthe political turmoil in thecountry. So the former presi-dent decided to step downafter the court ruling given on

Friday and on Thursday. His Cabinet will also stand

dissolved, Abeywardena wasquoted as saying by theColombo Gazette.

The apex court’s latest rul-ing came a day after it unani-mously declared that the dis-solution of Parliament byPresident Maithripala Sirisenawas “illegal”, in a body blow tothe embattled leader, whosecontroversial

decisions plunged theisland nation into an unprece-dented political turmoil.

The Supreme Court decid-ed that a Court of Appealorder issued against theappointment of Rajapaksa asPrime Minister and againsthis Cabinet from holding officewill stand.

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European Union leadersexpressed deep doubts on

Friday that British PrimeMinister Theresa May can liveup to her side of their Brexitagreement and they vowed tostep up preparations for apotentially-catastrophic “no-deal” scenario.

May cancelled a Brexit votein the UK Parliament this weekafter it became clear the assem-bly would reject the deal sheconcluded with the EU lastmonth.

She travelled to Brussels inhope of wringing some con-cessions from her Europeanpartners that would helpassuage doubts about the draftdivorce agreement back inLondon.

But EU leaders rejected anyattempt to re-negotiate theiragreement, a 585-page legaltext settling things like thedivorce bill and the rights nextyear of Europeans living inBritain or Britons living in theEU, plus a document laying outtheir hopes for future rela-tions, which isn’t legally bind-ing.

They did publish a shorttext with “assurances” abouthow the deal would work.

“Very objectively, the sig-nals that we heard yesterday arenot especially reassuring aboutthe capacity in Britain to be

able to honour the engagementthat was undertaken,” BelgianPrime Minister Charles Micheltold reporters.

Expressing a “giganticdoubt” that May can get thedeal through Parliament,Michel said: “we are going to besure to prepare for all hypothe-ses, including the hypothesis ofa no-deal.”

No country has ever leftthe 28-nation EU — the world’sbiggest trading bloc — and therules laying out that process aresketchy. Essentially, Brexit isbeing made up as the processadvances. Court challengeshave clarified some of the rules.

This week, Europe’s topcourt ruled that Britain canchange its mind about leavingshould it want to.

One thing is clear: Brexitwill happen on March 29,

although a transition periodwill help ease Britain out overalmost two, and possibly up tofour, years. The prospect of ano-deal has shaken marketsand the British pound, and cre-ated uncertainty for investorsand businesses. Brexit involvesBritain leaving around 750international treaties drawnup over 40 years of member-ship. One of them is the EU’saviation market.

Without a deal, Britishplanes won’t be able to land inEurope on March 30. Nor willEuropean planes be able to landin the UK.

May didn’t talk to reportersas she entered EU headquartersearly Friday for talks withFrench President EmmanuelMacron, after shuttling aroundEurope earlier this week seek-ing support.

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British Prime MinisterTheresa May insisted on

Friday that her Brexit deal wasstill alive and kicking, despitea stinging rebuff from theEuropean Union after sheasked for changes to make theagreement more palatable toUK lawmakers.

May came to an EU sum-mit in Brussels seeking legallybinding changes to the agree-ment, but the bloc told herbluntly that a renegotiationwas not possible. They offeredonly assurances they wouldseek to move swiftly on forginga new trade deal after Britainleaves the bloc on March 29.

Nonetheless, May toldreporters in Brussels that shewelcomed the EU’s words —and that, as formal conclusionsof an EU summit, they “havelegal status.”

“There is work still to do,and we will be holding talks incoming days about how toobtain the further assurancesthat the U.K. Parliament needsin order to be able to approvethe deal,” May said.

May’s optimism contrastedwith a pessimistic tone frommany on the EU side. EU lead-ers expressed deep doubts thatMay could live up to her side

of their Brexit agreement andvowed to step up preparationsfor a potentially-catastrophic“no-deal” scenario for Britain’sdeparture.

“Very objectively, the sig-nals that we heard yesterday arenot especially reassuring aboutthe capacity in Britain to beable to honor the engagementthat was undertaken,” BelgianPrime Minister Charles Micheltold reporters.

Expressing a “giganticdoubt” that May can get herBrexit deal through the BritishParliament, Michel said: “weare going to be sure to preparefor all hypotheses, including thehypothesis of a ‘no deal.’”

May canceled a Brexit votein the U.K. Parliament thisweek after it became clear itwould strongly vote down theBrexit deal she concluded withthe EU last month. She hopesto secure changes from the blocin order to get Parliament’sapproval in a vote next month.

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China has lodged a “stern”diplomatic protest with the

US over the Senate passing abipartisan legislation that seeksto impose a visa ban onChinese officials who denyAmerican citizens, officials andjournalists access to Tibet, evenas Bejing asked Washingtonnot to make it a law.

Reacting to the US move,Chinese foreign ministryspokesman Lu Kang said herethat the American action dis-regarded facts and amounted tointerfering in China’s internalaffairs and was a violation ofinternational rules.

“China is firmly opposed toit and lodged stern representa-tions to the US. I have to pointout that Tibet affairs comeunder China’s internal affairs

and it allows no foreign inter-ference,” he said.

‘The Reciprocal Access toTibet Act’, seeking unhinderedaccess to Tibetan areas forAmericans, something which isroutinely denied by theChinese government, waspassed by the US House ofRepresentatives in September.

The US Senate on Tuesdaypassed the crucial bipartisanlegislation that also calls for avisa ban on Chinese officialswho deny American citizens,government officials and jour-nalists access to Tibet, theremote Himalayan homelandof exiled Tibetan spiritualleader the Dalai Lama.

The legislation, passedunanimously, comes amid theTrump administration impos-ing massive trade import dutieson China that has started

impacting the Chinese econo-my.

The bill now heads to theWhite House for PresidentDonald Trump to sign into law.

Lu said foreigners enteringTibet can apply through nor-mal channels and every year alot of foreigners and localtourists visit Tibet.

He said since 2015, about40,000 Americans visited Tibetand this included US Senators,Congressmen and business-men.

“This shows the US accu-sations do not hold water at alland Chinese government andpeople cannot accept that. Weurge the US to immediatelytake effective measures to stopsigning the act into law andthus avoid harming US-Chinarelations and our cooperationin key areas,” he said.

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Israeli forces kept up a man-hunt on Friday for a

Palestinian who shot dead twosoldiers in the occupied WestBank, as Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu facedrightwing pressure for a strongresponse.

Thursday’s shooting wasthe latest incident shatteringmonths of relative calm in theWest Bank, where 4,00,000Israelis live in settlementsalongside more than 2.5 mil-lion Palestinians.

It was the third deadlyattack by Palestinian gunmenin the West Bank in twomonths and set off demon-strations by settler groupsagainst Netanyahu, whoserightwing government depends

on their support. Israeli mediaspeculated Friday about thepossibility of a new Palestinian“intifada,” or uprising, againstIsrael’s occupation of the WestBank. In Thursday’s attack, agunman got out of his car andopened fire on soldiers andothers outside a settlement inthe central West Bank, killingtwo and seriously injuringanother two Israelis beforefleeing. In response the armylocked down the city ofRamallah, home to secularPalestinian president MahmudAbbas, while calling in rein-forcements.

Clashes betweenPalestinians and Israeli forceserupted in different parts of theWest Bank, including insideRamallah during army raids.

Settlers shouting forrevenge threw stones at

Palestinian vehicles, while anArab bus driver was beaten byultra-Orthodox Jews in ModiinIllit settlement, according toIsraeli media reports.

In overnight raids, thearmy said it arrested 40Palestinians, most of themaffiliated to the Islamist move-ment Hamas which hasclaimed responsibility for tworecent shooting attacks.

It has not yet claimedThursday’s attack, thoughIsraeli officials point the fingerof blame in its direction.

The Army did not say ithad made arrests linked direct-ly to the latest attack.

At a checkpoint near theBeit El settlement on Fridaymorning, a soldier was mod-erately wounded after a man hithim with a rock before fleeing,the Army said.

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As e v e n - y e a r - o l dGuatemalan girl died in

American custody after beingdetained by US border police inNew Mexico, The WashingtonPost reported on Thursday.

The girl who illegallycrossed the border fromMexico along with her fatherand dozens of others died lastweek of “dehydration andshock,” the newspaper report-ed, citing US Customs andBorder Protection.

She had “reportedly hadnot eaten or consumed waterfor several days,” the CBP toldthe Post, who said she beganhaving seizures more than eighthours after being detained.

Emergency responders hadmeasured her body tempera-ture at 105.7 degrees (41 centi-grade), the Post said.

She died after being flownto hospital.

The name of the girl andher father have not beenreleased.

The father is in El Paso,Texas awaiting a meeting withGuatemalan consular officials,the Post said, quoting CBP,which said it is investigating theincident.

President Donald Trumphas made hard-line immigra-tion policies a central plank ofhis presidency, drawing firefrom critics who accuse him ofdemonising migrants for polit-ical gain.

Much attention has beenfocused on caravans of thou-sands of Central Americanswho have made their way toTijuana, Mexico, just southfrom San Diego, California ina challenge to Trump, who crit-icised them as posing an “inva-sion”.

But migrants fleeing pover-ty and gang violence also con-tinue to cross over in NewMexico, Texas and Arizonaafter enduring dangerous treksthrough Mexico.

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Ireland’s parliament haspassed a landmark legislation

to make abortion legal for thefirst time in the Catholic-majority country, a “historicmoment” which came after anIndian dentist died from bloodpoisoning in 2012 when thedoctors refused her repeatedrequests to abort the foetus.

Ireland voted decisively tochange the Constitution torepeal the Eighth Amendmentin May, with 66.4 per cent vot-ing in favour of new legislationto allow for the termination ofpregnancies.

“The bill that allows for theintroduction of abortion ser-vices in Ireland has passed all

stages of the Oireachtas(IrishParliament) and will now go toPresident Michael D Higgins tobe signed into law,” IrishBroadcaster RTE reported onThursday.

“Historic moment for Irishwomen. Thanks to all whosupported and well done to(Health Minister) Simon Harrisfor steering this through bothHouses,” Ireland’s Indian-originPresident Leo Varadkar said.

The new development hascome following a rising num-ber of distressing stories aboutwomen unable to get an abor-tion in Ireland.

One of the high-profilecases was that of 31-year-oldIndian dentist SavitaHalappanavar, who died in

agony from blood poisoningafter doctors refused herrepeated requests for an abor-tion while she was having amiscarriage at a Galway hos-pital in 2012. Her death helped“personalise” the debate aroundabortion, said a legal scholar atTrinity College Dublin.

“This is a genuinely historicmoment. It paves the way forthe implementation of the ser-vice for termination of preg-nancy in January 2019,” saidMinister Harris. The Regulationof Termination of PregnancyBill allows for abortion servicesto be provided “on demand” upto the 12th week of a pregnan-cy, in the case of a fatal foetalabnormality or where the phys-ical or mental health of the

mother is in danger.Since the bill’s introduction

at first stage in October, therehave been some minorchanges, including a decision to review the legisla-tion after three years, ratherthan five years as was originallyplanned. Two different doctorswill be allowed to assess awoman in early pregnancy andthe offences section has beenmoved from the front of thebill, the BBC reported.

“I want to thank the cam-paigners who fought for 35years to change a nation, tochange hearts and minds. Iwant to thank the minoritywho fought the battle in herewhen it was convenient for themajority to ignore.

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President Donald Trumpknew it was wrong to order

election-eve hush money paidto two women who claimed tohave had affairs with him, hisformer lawyer Michael Cohensaid in an interview to bebroadcast Friday.

Trump acted because he“was very concerned abouthow this would affect the elec-tion,” Cohen told ABC News ofthe women’s allegations in hisfirst comments since beingsentenced to three years inprison on Thursday.

Trump has said he neverdirected Cohen to break thelaw. But Cohen, asked if Trumpknew the payments to StormyDaniels and Karen McDougalwere wrong, said “of course.”

Cohen challenged Trump’sassertion in a tweet Thursdayafter the lawyer’s sentencingthat he never told him to breakthe law.

“I don’t think there is any-body that believes that,” Cohentold George Stephanopoulos onthe program “Good MorningAmerica.” ABC releasedexcerpts of the interview aheadof its full airing.

“First of all, nothing at theTrump Organisation was everdone unless it was run throughMr. Trump. He directed me tomake the payments, he direct-ed me to become involved inthese matters,” Cohen said.

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Atop EU court on Fridaythrew out an appeal by the

Palestinian Islamist movementHamas against its listing by thebloc as a terrorist organisation.

The General Court of theEU rejected a bid by Hamas, themilitant group which has ruledthe Gaza Strip since 2007, toend a freeze on assets held inthe bloc that was imposed in thewake of the 9/11 attacks in theUnited States.

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<���!#�$������#�� � ��!����� ���"�������)��(���"��������$�(#$Strasbourg (France): France’s interior minister on Friday dis-missed a claim by the Islamic State group that it was responsi-ble for a shooting spree at a Christmas market in Strasbourg afterthe gunman was shot dead by police, ending a 48-hour manhunt.

The city reopened the market on Friday, with officials prais-ing the massive public help and quick police reaction that ledto the death of suspected shooter Cherif Chekatt late on Thursday.

AFP

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Can you tell us James, what wasthe most important part for you to

get right in creating this worldand telling this story visually?

James Wan: Probably one ofthe biggest visuals I wanted toget right was the costume ofAquaman. That was definite-

ly something we worked hardand long on. I really want-ed to capture the vibrancyof Atlantis and all theunderwater kingdomsand do justice to thecomic book while obvi-ously, filtering itthrough my own sensi-bility.

Mera is fierce. Shegoes toe-to-toe with the

bad guy. What are youmost proud of in terms

of this character — theway she was written and the

way you portrayed her?Amber Heard: Well, I feel

really lucky to have worked withpeople who wanted to maintain

the integrity and strength of theoriginal character. Mera never was

anything other than a bad-ass superhero. She is no damsel in distress. Mera

is a kick-ass woman and doesn’t need anyhelp from anyone. It was amazing to getto play a character like her.

Orm is the villain of the film but

he also has a point about humankinddestroying the oceans. What was it likeplaying the many sides of this complexcharacter?

Patrick Wilson: Well, his fight is per-fectly understandable. There’s a long his-tory of Aquaman protecting oceans,fighting whaling, saving fishermen, allthroughout comic history. I like that theyleft the pollution up to Orm because itenables you to have a really violentresponse. And I think there’s somethingcathartic for an audience watching that.I think you’d be hard-pressed to findsomeone who didn’t think we weredestroying the oceans; of course we are.And, of course, it’s something we all needto take heed of — not that, that’s the maintheme of the story, but certainly that’sOrm’s track when he sets out to combinehis armies and take on the surface.Everybody says, ‘Yeah, I get it. So, it’s a funway in, because then you’ve got conflict.You sort of wonder, so he’s the little broth-er of an older brother he never had?’ Heknows deep down he is the firstborn, sothere are all those very Shakespeareancomplex emotions that he’s dealing with.But you start him from a very organicplace, then you can go as big as you want,which we do.

James, what was your biggest chal-lenge, and why Jason?

James Wan: Ultimately, it is justbringing his personality to this character— not bringing him to Aquaman, butbringing Aquaman to him. And what I

love most about it is I get to be the oneto showcase the other side of JasonMomoa that not many people have seen,which is the funny side of him. And afterthis movie comes out, people are going tosee what a great potential romantic leadhe is as well.

Jason Momoa: I just want to speakEnglish. I don’t want to fight anymore.

James Wan: But that’s what I loveabout Jason — he comes in and just makesa statement with this character, and that’swhat this first movie really needs.

When you first learned that you weregoing to play Aquaman, how did it makeyou feel to know you’d be taking on oneof the most iconic heroes known incomic books?

Jason Momoa: When Zack (Snyder,the director) first told me I’d be the cast…I wish I had a picture of my face because,I am the last person he should be hiring.I thought I’d be playing a villain. It was anhonour. Zack’s perspective is so radical,and what it offered to the team in JusticeLeague was something we hadn’t seen.And it’s not until the end of this movie thatwe get to him being a king.

With so many water effects in thismovie, what were some of the challengesyou ran into?

James Wan: You hear it all the timefrom filmmakers that making movies withwater is not the most pleasant thing. It’suncomfortable and slows down the speedof the film. The irony is all the sequences

that are actually fully submerged in thisunderwater world — that was actually shotdry for wet. And that’s literally what itsounds like, in these rigs that simulateswimming, floating, and how your bodymoves underwater. But we did play witha lot of water as well. I don’t think you canmake an Aquaman movie and actually nothave anyone get wet. And, again, the ironyis that when we’re actually above the water— when we’re dry — that’s when I haveto drench the actors nonstop. Whenthey’re actually out of water, that’s whenthey’re dripping wet. But when you’reunderwater, people actually look dry, sothat’s why we shot it without water.

The biggest water set that we had inthis film was the submarine sequence atthe beginning. We built the submarineover a water tank and would just submergeit again and again. As we’d play out thescene, we would submerge it, and thenbring it back out of the water tank, blowdry it down, and then do take two, andthen take three. It was quite a laboriousprocess. And, a bit of a pain.

Jason, this movie is going to meansomething to Aquamanfans, but doyou think it has something specific to sayfor people who are half-Asian or hald-native Hawaiian?

Jason Momoa: Coming from thePolynesian islands, there are so manywater gods that we have and so much folk-lore and mythology about how the islandscame about — from Kanaloa to Tomaloaand Maui. It’s the Poseidon story and I getto play that. To be the first mixed-racedSuper Hero in 2018 is a huge honour. Andalso just to play it so close to who I am,with all of Arthur’s imperfections. I don’thave to be Superman — I’m not. But I gotto play it as someone who really is splitbetween those two worlds, and I’m excit-ed for the world to see it.

What is the one thing you reallyhope people will take away from thisfilm?

James Wan: For the fans out therewho have stood by Aquaman all theseyears while people made fun of him, hiscomic book and all the characters in hisworld — I want them to see that this isfinally the opportunity to get revenge. Thismovie is made with a lot of passion. I wantpeople to know that I respected thesource material in making this film. Andthen, on the other side, I want to intro-duce all these characters to a whole newgeneration of kids that didn’t grow up withAquaman, and so I want the two separateworlds to come together.

What were called the melas,popularly known as amuse-ment fairs, have now got a

suave new avatar as theme-based festi-vals and extravaganzas, especially onesthat are centred food. In fact, the turnof the season seems to signal the startof a host of events centred aroundgourmet eating. This trend has not onlyacquired a must-do status among thedenizens of the capital but also shapesthe face for various cuisines and foodcultures in the year to come.

Ruchi Sibal, co-founder and direc-tor of the Palate Fest, says that the fes-tival was the first-of-its-kind when itwas launched five years ago. “We con-ceptualised the show keeping in minda space where there is something foreveryone including kids and adults. Ifit provides a section to particularcuisines to showcase, there is also a spe-cial section for kids as well as one forpresenting food products for adults,” shesays.

There will be gaming zones for kidsand sections that promote healthy eat-ing habits. It also gives a platform forvarious chefs and cooks to share andlearn new recipes.

With about 80 stalls, the festivaloffers piquant food options like fresh-ly-skewed fish, barbecued chicken,noodles, and various cuisines includingMexican and pan-Asian.

“Food is something that can bringeverybody together. People used to gofor picnics in the parks earlier. Now thatconcept is vanishing. However, such fes-tivals, in a way, are trying to replicatethe experience minus the preparationand time that these entailed. These aimto bring in delicacies at big venues,”

believes Ruchi.So what is the biggest element that

the festival offers? Founder AditiKapoor says that by bringing in chefsfrom many segments, they are trying topromote healthier food eating habits.She says, “We have chef Sabyasachi whopromotes ‘healthy bingeing’ of fruits anddry fruits including dehydrated man-goes without any added sugar. He alsobrings fresh eating habits by avoidingtrans-fat and including a tomato andcucumber salad.”

Ruchi lists some of the elements thathave been added for the first time in thefest. “So we have a country pavilion forMexico in a corner. It will present theirlocal cuisine and culture. We have alsoexpanded our entertainment factorwhere we’ll have the kids’ zone. Earliereverything was in one area, now thereare separate sections for everyone. Wealso have little food alleys where therewill be young and significant foodbrands. There is also more participationfrom even the general public.”

She mentions the B2B programmewhere new businesses for food can bethought about and set up. She says,“Anyone, people from the government,commercial heads from embassies,wedding planners or gifting business-es, who want to team up with like mind-ed individuals and create somethingrelated to food. The fest offers the spaceto incubate new ideas.”

Aditi believes that street food inIndia was always more popular buttoday the Indian audience is open tomore cuisines and food cultures. Shesays, “It’s not just about havingchowmein, butter chicken or chole bha-ture anymore, or going out to have one

food item. Such a festival gives a roofto all kinds of cuisines together.”

She says that this scenario hasevolved among the current populationas they are travelling a lot more. “Whenthey like something in a foreign land,they also wish for it to be present andaccessible in their own country. Nowwith growing awareness, the availabil-ity has also increased. Today there’s aplethora of things to explore,” she says.

While talking about the challenges,she agrees that there are always hurdleswhile creating something so massive.“But,” she says, “the biggest one is to notbecome stagnant and do the samething year after year. There shouldalways be certain additions that give anew vibe. This time there are food ses-sions and talks on healthy food, sectionsfor food art and organic products, enter-tainment and more.” She recalls thatwhen they implemented their idea forthe first time, half a decade ago, “therewas one challenge — understanding.We wanted people to comprehend thatit is not just a frivolous food festival thathas some drinks and music but alsoamusement related to food as well as an

opportunity to gain some knowledgearound various cuisines.”

So what have been the patterns thatshe has observed during the course offive years? “The demographic of thecountry is so wide that there are no par-ticular lines that hit the highest graph.If some follow more international dish-es, some still stick to Indian food. Thosewho have tried things before and haveliked them want to stick to them.There are variations so there can’t by justone statistic. But, the Indian audienceis indeed increasingly heading towardsglobal food movements,” says Aditi.

The three-day extravaganza willalso see Bollywood actress TaapseePannu greeting audience. There will beperformances by singers like DalerMehendi on December 16, whileJasmine Sandlas and Tulsi Kumar willbe performing today. A few names fromthe culinary space are Big Wong, JomJom Malay, Bombay Brasserie, TheGreat Kabab Factory, Orient Heritage,Wok to Walk, Olives of Spain, Kiara’sSoul Kitchen, among others.

(The festival at Nehru Park ends onSunday.)

Norwegian-Pakistani actress filmmakerIram Haq, whose film What Will PeopleSay has been selected as Norwegian entry

for the best foreign language film at the 91stAcademy Awards, says telling a compelling storyis more important for her than winning anaward because she does not believe in compe-tition when it comes to art.

How did she first react on her film beingchosen to represent Norway at the Oscars.

Haq, whose film stars Indian actors AdilHussain, Ekavali Khanna and Rohit Sarafisaid, “When I started making the film, the mostimportant thing for me was to tell a story in anutmost honest manner. And as an individual, Istrongly believe that art is never a competition.”

“Of course, it is a big honour for me that myfilm has been chosen but I want to say that it isnot possible to compete in art. Reaching out topeople with a story is important,” added Haq,whose earlier film ‘I am Yours’ was also select-ed as the official Norwegian Oscar entry for BestForeign Language Film.

This year, Rima Das’s Village Rockstar hasbeen selected as India’s official entry to Oscar.

The story of Haq’s film deals with the jour-ney of a young girl who is dealing with socio-cultural difference and a disturbed relationshipwith her parents.

According to her, understanding the gen-erational gap and expressing a critical view onthe matter through the film was very important.

Talking about projecting a balanced viewwith the story, Haq said, “It was important forme to put out both sides of the story. You see,the film is basically a love story between a fatherand his daughter and that does not really workbecause they are coming from two different gen-eration, gender and mindset.

“While the daughter understands the cul-tural values of her father and how he is strug-gling to accept the cultural difference of a worldthat is very different from a regular south Asiansociety, the girl is a Pakistani born and broughtup in Norway. It is almost impossible for her tolive her entire life to please her family.”

The film not just features Indian actors, butis also shot in various parts of India, mostly inRajasthan. In fact, Adil won the Best Actor awardat the Amanda Award or the NorwegianNational Awards.

On casting Indian talent, especially Adil,Haq said, “He is a wonderful actor and he wasthe perfect choice for playing the father. Howwonderfully he transformed the character fromscript to screen through his performance.”

Being a Pakistani girl who is born andbrought up in Norway herself, just like the pro-

tagonist Nisha — played by Maria Mozhdah —the film is quite autobiographical for the direc-tor. Reflecting upon that, she said, “When ourparents went abroad and were not well-integrat-ed, they feared to embrace the new culture. Thatis how they ended up taking wrong decisionsfor their children.”

“I had to live life like a well-mannered SouthAsian girl in my home because according to myparents, ‘log kya kahenge (what will people say)’otherwise, we will lose out on our tradition andculture. They think the new generation will losethemselves in the western culture.

“I wanted the young generation to break freeof that constant thought of log kya kahenge andassert that we are not here to live up to the expec-tation of ‘log (people)’... we are here to live ourzindagi (life). This is how I always stand by mychild as a mother,” added Haq.

She was kidnapped and taken to Pakistanand lived there for a year. She had lost connec-tion with her parents.

“I want to say that the story of the film istold with a lot of love but at the same time, it isa critical voice on how you shut down a youngvoice, or the voice of a girl, because she is a girlor because the individual is young. I am a strongbeliever of respecting young voice.”

Before making her directorial debut in 2010with the short film Little Miss Eyeflap, Haqworked as an actress, writer and theatre artistefor many years.

Is she interested in collaborating more withIndian actors? She said, “I have already workedwith Indian artistes and producers over here inIndia and of course I love India. I speak the lan-guage and it feels like they are my people. So, Iam open to the idea of collaborating with Indianartistes in the near future.”

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From fiery oranges and yellows, myriad shades ofblue, to black, green, rich hues of red and even cop-per, silver and gold, artist Vinita Karim’s canvases

are a glorious riot of colour.“I love colours. I just can’t work in black and white.

There is no fun in that,” tells Vinita.Born in Myanmar, educated in Sweden and the

Philippines, originally from India — Vinita Karim’snomadic lifestyle takes her all over the world. She chan-nels her constantly changing surroundings into her pas-sion for art and no matter where she goes, through herpaintings, sculptures and installations, Vinita carries withher the rest of the world.

Her new collection of abstract cityscapes titledMagical Musings, were created in the last five years, repli-cate fantastical cities in the artist’s mind on to the can-vas. The exhibition also showcases eight sculptures, whichshe did not sculpt but painted.

The imaginary spaces featuring clusters of housesagainst robust skies, and sometimes beautifully colouredstreams or rivers, are products of Vinita’s entire life, whichshe has, quite literally, lived out of a suitcase.

The artist is a fan of all things layered, and her paint-ings are no exception. Sometimes they are layered withdifferent painting techniques, at other times she uses dif-ferent mediums like acrylic, oil and embroidery to tierher works.

Vinita explains further that her works are literallylayered with geographies, histories and the cultures ofdifferent places while physically they are the paints, linesand embroidery.

As she travelled from one city to another, each placeleft a mark. She imbibed their spirits that got intertwinedin her head, giving birth to cities of her own.

“My father was part of the Indian Foreign Serviceand I have lived in over 10 countries. I am like a spongewho has absorbed everything around me. It was not justtravelling for me. I was living in these cities. And whenyou live in a city, you become very intimate with its cul-ture and people. The best thing is that all these differ-ent cultures also get embedded in your own psyche,” saysshe, who is inspired by Austrian landscape artistHundertwasser, “yet I consistently link back to my rootsin India.” Richly coloured canvases combine the sanddunes of Egypt with the islands of the Philippines, theghats of Varanasi with the rivers of Bangladesh. Theseare not just pretty pictures, they are “living landscapes”,she explains.

Her rendition of the holy city of Varanasi, forinstance, is overwhelmingly rich, particularly the waters.

She uses impasto, a technique where one paints witha palette knife, to render almost a three dimensional tex-ture to the Ganges river in the painting. The canvas madeusing acrylic, gold and copper on linen, is colourfullychaotic in its juxtaposition of the multi-layered blues ofthe river, with multi-coloured boats.

“Like I have a lot of different roles other than beingan artist, a mother, a wife, similarly in my painting I wantto use different mediums. I don’t want a single flat paint-ing. Instead, it needs to have depth in it. I need my worksto be layered because they represent many histories com-bined with a lot of my imagination,” says she.

Oil is her favourite medium even if it takes longerto dry out. She says that it is rich, soft and offers a dis-tinctive depth to the works.

Vinita recreates similar imaginary cities with herwork on sculptures too, at the risk of making a viewerfeel her work was repetitive, but not in a boring way,largely because of the judicious use of colours.

Vinita has painted landscapes as she stronglybelieves that it will always be an important part of anyart discourse, despite the rising trend in conceptual anddigital art.

(The exhibition is on display till January 5 atGallerie Ganesha.)

The tapping was gentle yet insis-tent and then a sudden shatter-ing sound echoed around the

studio. Two flowers broke off from agreen decorative glass piece and madea clatter triggering collective ohs andsighs from the 10 odd people that werehovering around the glass artists craft-ing the piece at Studio Glass Sutra inChattarpur.

“One has to go very slowly toremove the glasswork from the rod asthe bottom part is cold and the upperpart is soft. The upper part couldn’ttake the shock and that is the reasonit broke,” says Reshmi De, founderStudio Glass Sutra.

The piece, an exquisite green,opaque figurine, was work underprogress for quite sometime andentailed frequent trips between the fur-nace and the heating chamber wherethe flowers are kept. If the glass washeated a little less, the flowers don’tstick, if it was melted a little bit more,then there was always the danger of theflowers falling off. This meant that itwas not a simple process and neededconstant switches between the twoplaces. Brent Sheehan, a glass artistfrom California who had been hold-ing the piece at the end of a blowingrod, shrugs at the loss. Reshmi says,“This doesn’t break our heart but yes,we do feel bad.”

Reshmi, an Economics graduatefrom Assam, ventured into glassaround 1999. She made the long jour-ney from her state to Delhi in searchof doing something different where, “Icould tell a story of life, experiencesand my journey.” And that was despite

her parents opposition who wanted herto do masters in the subject or appearfor the UPSC exams. But she was yetto decide upon how she was going topursue her calling. Initially she sat forMBA exams, qualified for some insti-tutes, then attended workshops onMass Communications and butrealised that her heart was not in anyof it.

“Then I saw some coloured glasspieces with light passing through,” andit was as if her life too was illuminat-ed. She asked the person who hadbrought them questions similar to theones that she now fields often— abouthow it was made, the technique andmore. Initially she started with mar-keting them but did not want to sellsomething without understanding it.“I started studying online. I wanted togo to Firozabad but everyone object-ed. There were only two trains to theplace and that too without any reser-vation. But I stood by my decision andheaded there. I remember distinctlythat it was May 1999 and after so manyyears, I am still at it,” she says. But therewere some recurrent problems. Shestudied online but when she wantedsomething similar created, there wasa skill, understanding and aesthetic gapamong the craftspersons. So there wasalways a discrepancy between hervisualisation and the final output. “SoI decided that I should do things which

they understand.”It was as if seeing her persistence,

doors seemed to open automatically.In two months, an institute calledCentre for Development of GlassIndustry came up which was commis-sioned by Government of Indian andUnited Nations IndustrialDevelopment Organisation (UNIDO).“They invited Czech glass master PetrNovotn who is ranked as one of thethree world celebrities in the field ofglass art craft by experts. He wasaccompanied Martin Janecký, his assis-tant and after all these years we are stillin touch.

It was from them that Reshmilearnt that glass has an art side also.“Here I learnt that it was important tounderstand the material and the designafter which you think through thewhole process and create it yourself,”she recalls.

She crafted her pieces and soldthem to stores, as well as at places likethe Blind School Diwali Mela. “Theones at the latter were more like handcrafted organic tableware pieces,” shesays.

In 2007, she branched out intoinstallation art. “I started doing com-missioned pieces. My most expensivepiece was a wall installation for a cor-porate on sustainability which waspriced at �27 lakh and a chandelierwhich cost �25 lakh.”

Reshmi works with different meth-ods of glass making. Hand blown glassis where glass is melted in a furnace ata temperature of 1050-1100 degreescentigrade temp. The molten glasswhich has the viscosity of honey isblown through the end of a pipe andgiven shape. This is the most difficultof the techniques. “While most peo-ple claim that they are doing this, itlathe blowing where borosil test tubesare attached at the end of a machineand given shape as well as design iswhat they are actually doing.”

Then there is flame work which isused to create more intricate andoften smaller pieces like jewellery. “Ihave even created a 3x90 feet chande-lier with this technique. Then there isfusing or slumping which is used tomake platters and large installations.

However, while working with glassthere are somethings that need to bekept in mind. If the glass is notcooked properly, it breaks. At her stu-dio, she maintains the highest ofinternational standards. The glassesthat they wear to protect the eyes aremade of didanium and there is prop-er hand gear.

Reshmi wants to create an under-standing and an awareness about artwhere people can see the beauty ofglass and craftsmanship. “There isdesign touching the boundary of art,with an infusion of craft. I am trying

functional art as well. So there is a tran-sition from design to art to craft,” shesays.

Reshmi also points out that thereare different types of glass that areinvolved. While for the colouredpieces, she works with recycled glassfor the clear ones, it is the fresh glassthat is used. To infuse colour sheprefers the glass bars from Krugler orReichenbach which are German basedbrands to camouflage the quality of theglass. Her devotion can be measuredfrom the fact that often when the glassis being melted she shifts bag, baggageand dog to the studio where shesleeps on the first floor to keep a checkon the furnace. “Glass needs to bemelted at 1300 degrees celsius for 12-14 hours to be perfect,” she says.

She prefers to not make more thanfour to five pieces of each of her workas, “I get bored,” she says.

The pieces can start at �1,000 forthe tiniest one. The bespoke luxuryones begin at �7,000 and can go up toa few lakh while the installations startat �3 lakh upward. For the IndiaDesign Week, she is working on arange of lighting which incorporatedtextile with glass.

As for her future plans she wantsto work with women and give them thehope and skill set to improve their livesas well as try and get the study of glassincorporated in some institute.

�How does the Tasting India Symposium ini-tiate a dialogue on India’s gastronomic heritageand culinary tourism?

It’s a fantastic concept to have something likethis as it gets plenty of people from across thecountry to come and discuss various issues andthat’s what the industry needs — to reach notonly the chefs but also the suppliers. It also giveschefs exposure and enlightens them with what’son the market and to come and interact with.In the end it’s a journey in process. The sym-posium has done an amazing job in gettingeverybody under one roof to initiate the advo-cacy initiative.

�What are the ways that can promote culinarytourism potential in India?

Tourism in India is on a rise and we needa lot of support from the government. It is a landof plenty with its history and heritage and cul-ture. Food is a very important part in tourismbecause wherever we go we want to eat and enjoythe diverse cuisine of India, right from Rajasthanto Kanyakumari to Nagaland and Sikkim. If youcombine the scenic beauty with some amazingfood, there is nothing more than one needs.

�What are the challenges to a sustainable foodculture in India?

Education and awareness are very important.We talk about sustainability but we also need tohave fair trade for farmers. They have to belooked after and given exposure. Train the peo-ple at grassroot level from farmers to peopleworking at lower positions in hotels and paythem decent salary. The farmers must be edu-

cated about new methods and techniques.

�What is your idea of the Indian cuisine? Howdo you think it is being appreciated by inter-national chefs and present in the globalpalate?

India is a sleeping giant. It is just awaken-ing. There is a change for sure, we have been try-ing to push this for many many years inLondon and as chefs we do seminars and work-shops. When you are there even if you are not

an am ambassador you are still representingIndia, and we try to show it in a very humbleand approachable manner. It’s a misconceptionthat Indian food is spicy and oily as that’s notthe case at all. Nobody eats that on a daily basis.We have to learn to respect our culture first. Theexposure and awareness has been phenomenalnow with Google and the internet in place. Alsothe media has started appreciating what we have,which was not the case initially when I start-ed. Journalism is very structured and construc-tive now.

�What are some of the global food movementsand revolutions today?

It’s all going back to basics in many ways —going back to flavours, good tastes and respect-ing which part of the world you are from.Everyone wants to eat healthy and as local aspossible. We have 14 restaurants globally and wetry to incorporate ingredients from that region.You have to respect sensibilities around you. Youhave to also support the local communities andhelp them earn their bread and butter.

�What do you have to say about the currentfood culture in India?

India for the past few years has been all

about molecular which had already been passedover by Europe 20 years back. It’s a phase pass-ing by. At my restaurant a lot of dishes areinspired from home cooking and mothers’ cook-ing. They are about childhood memories, theybring nostalgia. If somebody eats something andthat touches them, they always want to go backto that place. So for us if we can send our guestswith one happy memory, our job is done. I ambiased about food. I love the food that is cookedfrom the heart.

�How has your cooking evolved over the years?

It keeps evolving, It never stops. Also fromthe business point of view, you have to have thatUSP in order to be ahead from everybody else.Why would someone want to come to my restau-rant when there are 10,000 other restaurants thatare doing the same job. A lot of chefs becomevery complacent after a while, but what we dois we step in and change the existing.

There is no new technique, but it’s theapproach towards food. Right from doing foodwhich is very singular to deconstructing it. Nowthe trend is to enjoy a variety of food. I am a bigfan of street food and we try bring that authen-tic flavours in our restaurant so that those whocan’t stand on the roadside can enjoy it too.

�What are some of the most successful foodexperiments that you have mastered ?

We always keep trying — the smoking tech-nique from Rajasthan to samosas or makingbiryanis in dum. Fortunately I have travelled alot in India because of the travel shows and Ipicked up a lot on the way. It’s a constant process,we never stand still.

�How do you think cooking food is an art?It is a big art form and it is also a science.

You have to have the basic understanding andlearn the things, and then you can learn to mod-ify it. Everybody can cook but if you can trans-form basic food into something very special, itsan art. There is a whole technique and under-standing of variety of ingredients you use. Aschefs we try to learn the food in the best way.Its not only cinematic art but it is also an art foryour palate.

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Arare history awaits two-timedefending champions Australiaas they chase a record hat-trick

of titles, taking on Netherlands in thesemi-finals at the Kalinga Stadium onSaturday.

World No 1 Australia is second onlyto four-time champions Pakistan, hav-ing won the world title thrice before,which includes back-to-back Goldmedals in the last two editions of thetournament in 2010 and 2014.

Come on Saturday, the Kookaburraswill be chasing their third consecutiveworld crown.

But it would be easier said thandone as in world No 4 Netherlands atough contest awaits Australia.

The Dutch, who have won the titlethrice before — the last time being in1998 — too would be desperate to breaktheir 20-year-old jinx.

Netherlands would be high on con-fidence especially after their hard-fought 2-1 win over home favouritesIndia in the quarterfinals on Thursday.

Going by form and world ranking,it is expected to be an edge of the seatthriller between the two teams, who

prefer to play totally contrasting styleof hockey.

While attacking hockey is the backbone of Australia, the Dutch mostly pre-fer to play waiting game with a compactdefence and relying more on countersto surprise their opponents.

There is hardly anything to differ-entiate between the two sides going byrecent head-to-head record.

Since 2013, Australia andNetherlands have played each other 11times with the Kookaburras winningfive and losing four while two ended indraws.

The Australians made a slow startbut grew in confidence as the tourna-ment progressed.

After a hard-fought 2-1 win overIreland in their opener, Australiastepped on the gas and registered con-vincing wins over England (3-0), China(11-0) and France (3-0).

The Dutch, on the other hand,started with a bang and mauledMalaysia 7-0 before losing 1-4 toGermany.

They defeated Pakistan 5-1 in theirlast pool match before beating Canada5-0 in the cross-overs and eking out aclose 2-1 win over India in the quar-

terfinals.The Australia-Netherlands match

has all the makings of a classic. In 2014at The Hague, Australia came out on topagainst Netherlands 6-1 in front ofhome crowd to lift their second con-secutive World Cup.

And Saturday's encounter will pro-vide the Dutch an opportunity toavenge their loss four years ago.

But in the last four years since theymet in the final of 2014, much haschanged.

The likes of Jamie Dwyer, Mark

Knowles and Glenn Turner have retiredbut the Kookaburras have rebuilt bril-liantly under coach Colin Batch sincethe disappointment of Rio Olympicsand have returned to the top of theworld rankings.

The Dutch, on the other hand, areunquestionably much tougher underMax Caldas now than they were fouryears ago.

Australia's Daniel Beale too agreedthat it would be a tough, exciting bat-tle on Saturday for a place in Sunday'ssummit clash.

"We are into the crucial stage of thetournament. We got to watch lastnight's match between Holland andIndia. So we have learnt a lot from that.We are expecting a very tough matchtomorrow," he said.

"We have very proud history. Thereis no special formula. We work hard, wetrain hard. We are fiercely competitive.Every tournament we go we go to win."

Beale said what happened fouryears ago will hardly have any impactin Saturday's must-win game.

"In 2014 Australia had great successin the final but that was a long time agoand this group has changed immense-ly. So we are looking to create a bit ofhistory," Beale said.

"Holland are a very tough team.They have quality players. Billy(Bakker), (Robert) Kemperman,(Valentin) Verga. We wil do our home-work and try to nullify them."

Meanwhile, Olympic Silver medal-list Belgium too would be looking tocreate history by making their maidenWorld Cup final appearance when theytake on England in the first semi-finalearlier in the day.

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Olympic Silver medallist P V Sindhucontinued her unbeaten run while

debutant Sameer Verma also qualifiedfor the knockout stage with a straight-game win in his last group B match atthe BWF World Tour Finals, here onFriday.

Playing her third successive year-ending finale, Sindhu dished out somedeceptive strokes and showed precisionduring the 35-minute contest to pre-vail over world No 12 Beiwen Zhang21-9, 21-15 in a one-sided women'ssingles contest to top Group A.

"I was down 2-6 initially but Ipicked up the lead, so after that I wasfine," Sindhu, the last edition's runner-up, said after the match.

"I have played a few matchesagainst her after the Indian Open final,so I took it as a fresh match," said the23-year-old referring to her IndianOpen final loss to Zhang at New Delhiearly this year.

"I am happy with the three wins,it is a positive thing. I hope to move for-ward with the same positivity and dowell in the semifinals," added Sindhu,who won all the three matches of hergroup and will now take on world No8 and 2013 world champion RatchanokInthanon of Thailand in the semifinals.

On the adjacent court, 24-year-oldSameer showed great athleticism andproduced a masterful performance to

demolish Thailand's KantaphonWangcharoen 21-9, 21-18 in a matchthat clocked 44 minutes.

After losing the opening match toworld No 1 and world champion

Kento Momota, Sameer, whoqualified for the tournamentafter defending his title atSyed Modi International last

month, recovered well tocome up trumps againsthis other two opponents

in Group B.He will now

face All Englandchampion andWorld champi-onship Silvermedallist Shi Yuqi

of China in the semi-finals.

"I have played himbefore at Swiss Open

so I knew how to goabout it. In the second

game I was losing so aftersome advice from my coach,

I kept my patience and nowI am ready to play the semifinals," saidSameer.

"It has been a great experienceplaying my first world tour finals."

In the women's singles, Sindhu,

who had stunned worldNo 1 Tai Tzu Ying in herprevious match, didn'tmake a good start againstZhang, conceding a 0-4lead early on.

But she clawed back at 6-6 afterproducing some angled returns, whichincluded a delightful over-the head-cross court return.

The Indian then sealed the open-ing game comfortably in 15 minuteswhen Zhang failed to reach a shot atthe fore court.

After the change of sides, Sindhucontinued to dominate the proceedingsto accumulate the first five pointsbefore hitting long.

Zhang seemed to suffer fromindecision and ended up committingtoo many unforced errors.

The Indian managed a 11-9 advan-tage at the interval after Zhang wentlong again.

The Indian committed threeunforced errors before sealing thecontest, following her opponent's mis-cued shot which went long.

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Olympiakos dumped AC Milan out of the EuropaLeague on Thursday after beating the seven-time

European champions 3-1 in a pulsating clash inGreece, while Eintracht Frankfurt fans ran riot dur-ing the German side's win at Lazio and Celticmade the knockout stages despite losing toSalzburg at Celtic Park.

Captain Kostas Fortounis' penalty nineminutes from time saw the Greeks move intosecond place in Group F ahead of GennaroGattuso's Milan, who thought theyhad squeaked through when CristianZapata had pulled a goal back lessthan two minutes after putting thehosts 2-0 up with a comical own goal.

Olympiakos finished level on 10points with Milan but qualifiedahead of the Italians thanks to theirsuperior goal difference followingMilan's 3-1 win over the Greeks inOctober, and they end the group stagetwo points behind group winnersReal Betis, who drew 0-0 atDudelange.

Eintracht had already comfort-ably taken top spot in the group thanks to winningall five of their previous games, while Lazio were alsoin the last 32 regardless of the result of the match, won2-1 by the away side as they came back from a goaldown thanks to second-half strikes from MijatGacinovic and Sebastien Haller.

Last year's runners-up Marseille finished bottomof that group after losing 3-1 at home to ApollonLimassol and ending the group stage with just a sin-gle point.

#�1��#�)���,���,����,�����)���Celtic looked to be following Old Firm rivals

Rangers out of the competition after Steven Gerrard's

side fell 1-0 at Rapid Vienna earlier on Thursday, butTore Reginiussen's equaliser four minutes from timefor Rosenborg at RB Leipzig allowed BrendanRodgers's side to qualify second from Group B, twopoints ahead of the Bundesliga outfit.

Second-half goals from Munas Dabbur andFredrik Gulbrandsen meant that Salzburgtopped the group with a 100 percent recordafter a 2-1 win, while Olivier Ntcham's stop-page-time penalty meant nothing for the resultnor the final standings.

Chelsea, who had already won Group L,looked to be on their way to a perfectsixth win from six, but could onlyscrape a point at eliminated Vidithanks to substitute Olivier Giroud'slate free-kick, after an Ethan Ampaduown goal and Loic Nego's sumptuousvolley had put the hosts a goal ahead.

BATE Borisov qualified alongsideChelsea after winning 3-1 at rock-bot-tom PAOK.

Alexandre Lacazette confirmedArsenal's dominance of Group E withthe only goal of a low-key 1-0 win overbottom side Qarabag, while second-placed Sporting Lisbon cruised past

Vorskla Poltava 3-0.Malmo are in the knockout stages after snatch-

ing a 1-0 win at Besiktas that saw the Swedes leapfrogtheir Turkish hosts in the extremely tight Group I.

All four teams in the group were in contentionfor qualification on Thursday, but Genk managed tohold on to first place after hammering Sarpsborg 4-0.

Sevilla took top spot in Group J from Krasnodarthanks to a 3-0 win, while Rennes pipped Astana tothe knockout rounds with a 2-0 victory.

Bayer Leverkusen ensured first place in Group Awith a 5-1 hammering of Larnaca, while Zurich drew1-1 at Ludogorets.

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Star Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwaland Parupalli Kashyap tied the

knots in a simple ceremony here onFriday.

"Saina got married as per courtrules today at about 11.30 (AM)," herfather Harvir Singh said.

The wedding took place atSaina's residence in Orion villas atRaidurgam in Cyberabad.

"It was a small gathering ofabout 40 guests, including relativesof the Saina and Kashyap's families.

"It was a very simple ceremonyand December 16th will be thereception," Singh said.

The guests included Governors

of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana,according to Singh.

Saina posted a photograph withKashyap on Friday, announcing hermarriage.

"Best match of my life...#just-married," she wrote in Twitter.

Kashyap said, "We are veryhappy. Today was a north style wed-ding and 16th midnight is themuhurtam for the South Indianwedding."

While Saina wore a powder bluelehenga with minimal makeup andjewellery, Kashyap was dressed in apink kurta and white pyjamas.

Saina and Kashyap, who met atPullela Gopichand's academy, werein a relationship for quite some

time now. But the couple nevercame out in the open regarding theirrelation.

Saina had confirmed the news oftheir wedding in October but the hec-tic international badminton schedulekept them busy.

Last month, they started extend-ing their wedding invitation toimportant personalties, includingTelangana MLA KT Rama Rao, filmstar Chiranjeevi, owner of HyderabadHunters (PBL franchise) VRK Rao.

Saina and Kashyap's wedding isthe latest among a string of high-pro-file weddings involving sportsper-sons. Last year, India cricket captainVirat Kohli had married Bollywoodactress Anushka Sharma in Italy.

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����� +��9�

India recovered from a patchy startto reduce Australia to 277 for six onthe opening day of the second Test

but the hosts still walked out withadvantage considering the bowler-friendly conditions, here on Friday.

A 112-run opening stand betweenMarcus Harris (70) and Aaron Finch(50) vindicated their decision to bat ongreen top before Indian bowlers madea decent recovery by taking threewickets each in the last two sessions.

With the pitch offering better assis-tance from the post lunch sessionandthe Indian bowlers managing to recti-fy their line and length, the visitorsmade inroads into the Australian bat-ting line-up.

Skipper Tim Paine (16 not out) andPat Cummins (11 not out) were unbeat-en at stumps after enduring a testingspell from Jasprit Bumrah.

Pacer Ishant Sharma (2/35) andspinner Hanuma Vihari (2/53) took twowickets apiece while Bumrah (1/41) andUmesh Yadav (1/68) accounted for onebatsman each.

Following a good start, ShaunMarsh (45) and Peter Handscomb (7)looked to extend their fourth-wicketpartnership but could only manage toadd three runs as Sharma brokethrough early in the final session.

Handscomb looked to cut away tooclose to his body, and Virat Kohli helda stunning one-handed catch at second

slip to dismiss him in the second overafter tea.

Marsh and Travis Head (58) thenadded 84 runs for the fifth wicket, andin doing so took Australia past 200 inthe 69th over. India could have brokenthrough early, but Rishabh Pant putdown a regulation catch from Marsh(on 24) off Vihari in the 67th over.

India were looking in bother againwhen Marsh fell against the run of play,trying to cut Vihari and edging to firstslip where Ajinkya Rahane made nomistake.

Head reached his third Test half-century off 70 balls but threw it all awayas he square cut a wide delivery off

Sharma six overs later and was caughtat wide third man.

Earlier, India struck thrice postlunch as Australia were reduced to 145-3 at tea.

Jasprit Bumrah (1/41) and UmeshYadav (1/68) struck during a tight spellin the second hour of play after lunch,as Australia lost three wickets for 22runs.

Post lunch, Marcus Harris hadbrought up his maiden Test half-cen-tury off 90 balls as he took his open-ing stand with Aaron Finch (50) to 112.

Their 100-stand had come up in the34th over, with India leaking another48 runs in the hour's play after the

break. Mohammed Shami (0-63) con-ceded 23 runs in his four-over second-spell after lunch.

Finch too reached his second Testhalf-century off 103 balls as Australiareached a position of strength. Butthings turned thereafter as Bumrahstruck first up in the 36th over, trappingFinch lbw with a fuller delivery.

KL Rahul dropped Harris (on 60)off Shami in the 45th over, with thefielder failing to time his jump at sec-ond slip. It didn't cost India too muchthough as four overs later, he hit a sur-prise bouncer from Vihari straight atRahane at slip.

In between, Yadav used the pressurebuilt and etched out Usman Khawaja's(5) wicket, out caught behind in the46th over as India gained the fruits oftheir hard work in this second hour ofplay.

In the morning session, Australiadefied a green-top wicket and made

steady progress to reach 66-0 at lunch.The Perth wicket at the Optus

Stadium was talked up a raging green-top wicket, but the Australian openersdefied all that speculation. For theirpart, Indian pacers chipped in with allpossible help and bowled a poor firstspell with the new ball.

Shami was India's best bowler of thefirst session as he bowled with immac-ulate control from the very beginning.He came on to bowl in the 12th overand immediately troubled the batsmen.

Finch survived an lbw shout onaccount of height as India wasted a DRSreview. They had another loud shoutturned down on the very next ball, butthis time no review was taken.

India bowled better in the secondhour of play and conceded only 19 runsin 13 overs. But the damage hadalready been done as the duo were setand the new ball had been wasted ona fresh pitch.

����� +��9�

All-rounder Hanuma Vihari says key for Indianbatsmen will be to remain disciplined on a pitch

which has got better for the fast bowlers after a goodcontest between ball and bat on the opening day ofthe second Test.

The pitch was slow in the morning, but it quick-ened up after lunch. The Indian bowlers adjustedwell to take six wickets.

"For us the important thing is to not think aboutthose aspects too much. If it is up and down, youcan't do much about it. If we can keep that out ofmind, we will be successful. As batsmen, we will tryto be as disciplined as possible, just how we did inthe second innings of the last Test," Vihari said.

"You have to play ball by ball. That's what mat-ters. If you are thinking about the previous ball, youwon't react perfectly to the next ball. Keep that ballout of your mind," he added.

Indian bowlers were "disciplined" after an ordi-nary start on the opening day of the second Test andthe target for day two is to restrict Australia to 320-odd in the first innings.

"The first hour tomorrow (on Saturday) will bevery crucial. If we get them out for below 320, weare right back in the game. If we bat well, we havea good chance. The first hour is crucial," said Vihari.

����� +��9��

Australian opener AaronFinch believes the second

Test against India is going to bea "real grind" and off-spinnerNathan Lyon will play an impor-tant role considering the amountof bounce on offer at the Perthwicket.

"It's going to be one ofthose games that'll be a realgrind for both sides. The posi-tion we're in we would havetaken at the start of the day, nodoubt, especially winning thetoss and batting," Finch toldreporters.

"I think Nathan Lyon willenjoy bowling with the amountof bounce on this track, nodoubt he will be excited to bowlhere," added the opener, whoscored 50 in Australia's firstinnings on Friday.

Asked about making theIndian bowlers work hard, Finchsaid, "Our plan was to bat on thiswicket regardless of what hap-pened in Adelaide, the heat and

getting miles into their legs."That was our plan to bat

first anyway and take that chal-lenges head on. No doubt itmight play a factor later in thisgame, or third or fourth Test, butit was always our plan to bat(after winning the toss)."

Talking about his partneryoung Harris, who scored hismaiden Test half-century at hishome ground, Finch said, "Ithink what everyone's seen fromhim so far, not a lot fazes him.He's a pretty chilled out charac-ter who just goes with the flowand that's the way he's alwaysbeen.

����� +��9��

Former skipper Allan Borderfeels the Australian pace bat-

tery will have the advantage oflearning from the mistakes ofIndian seamers, who bowled a "lit-tle bit short" on the opening dayof second Test.

"Given the amount of deliv-eries that went past the outsideedge India will feel they couldhave had a better day. Theybowled well but if I'm beingsupercritical they were a little bitshort," he wrote in a column forFoxsports.

"With so many balls passingthe outside edge you've got to erron the fuller side. You may occa-sionally get hit down the groundbut any ball that moves off theseam is good chance of catchingthe edge.

"The good news for Australiais their bowlers will have learnedfrom what worked and what did-n't, and when it is their turn tobowl they will be confident. There

were just enough balls bouncingawkwardly or moving off theseam to encourage them."

With R Ashwin injured, Indiadrafted in Umesh Yadav in theplaying XI, making it a four-menpace attack — only the thirdtime in their Test history.

Part-time spinner Hanuma

Vihari, who was included in theteam in place of the injured RohitSharma, took two wickets andBorder hinted India might havemissed a trick by not opting for aspecialist tweaker, looking at thevariable bounce.

"Moving forward in this Testwe'll see whether or not India hasmissed a trick by not picking aspecialist spinner," he wrote.

"Despite part-time off-spinnerHanuma Vihari's two bonus wick-ets, I still think this is a seamer'swicket."

The former Australia batsmansaid the hosts' first-innings runsmight prove to be gold on thispitch.

"Both teams went hard onFriday but Australia finished itwith their noses in front. On a sur-face like this runs on the board,particularly in the first innings, arelike gold.

"At the same time, we won'thave a true sense of where thisgame stands until India has alsohad the chance to bat on it."

�6��� 1<���9

Tamim Iqbal and SoumyaSarkar slammed half-cen-

turies as Bangladesh cruised toan eight-wicket win over theWest Indies in the third andfinal one-day international totake the three-match series 2-1on Friday.

Tamim hit an unbeaten 81while Soumya added 80 off 81balls to guide Bangladesh to202-2 in 38.3 overs after MehidyHasan's career best 4-29 helpedthe home side restrict the WestIndies to 198-8 in 50 overs.

Shai Hope fought a lone bat-tle for the tourists, scoring hissecond successive hundred ofthe series but it was in vain asno other batsman provided sup-port.

Fresh from an unbeaten146 off 144 balls in the previousmatch, Hope struck anotherunconquered knock of 108 off131 to prop up the visitors, tak-ing his tally in the series to 297runs.

Bangladesh made a steadyresponse, with Tamim and LitonDas hitting 45 runs for the

opening wicket before Litonoffered a catch to RovmanPowell at mid-on off KeemoPaul.

Soumya and Tamim deniedthe West Indies any momentum,putting 131 runs in their secondwicket stand, which all butsealed the contest and the series.

Mushfiqur Rahim wasunbeaten on 16 at the other end.

Earlier, skipper MashrafeMortaza and spinner Shakib AlHasan claimed two wickets eachafter man-of-the-match Mehidyrattled the West Indies' top-order.

"It was a good match —Hope played an excellentinnings," Mashrafe said after the

match."Our bowlers have been

very good. Spinners have beentight and pacers also stuck to theplans," he added.

Earlier, Hope defied thespirited Bangladesh attack, hit-ting Shakib over the long off tobring up his fourth ODI centu-ry after the ninth wicket hadfallen for 177 runs.

The opener, who wasnamed player of the series, alsohit 10 fours in his fine innings.

Bangladesh won the firstmatch by five wickets on Sundaybefore the West Indies levelledthe series with four-wicket winin the second match two dayslater.

�6��� �*�*3�*

Sri Lanka on Friday broughtback Lasith Malinga after a

long hiatus as captain of its lim-ited-over squads to lead thenational team against NewZealand.

Sri Lanka Cricket said the 35-year-old right-arm fast bowlerwas named skipper of a 17-mansquad for three one-day interna-tionals and one T20 startingJanuary 3.

Malinga led Sri Lanka to theT20 World Cup in 2014. But sincecaptaining Sri Lanka against theUAE in February 2016, he has notled the national team.

He had lost his captaincy aswell as his place in the team afterrecurring injuries which forcedhim to sit out many tourna-ments.

However, he captained anODI match against India inAugust last year.

The latest squad for the short-er forms of the game was ratifiedby President Maithripala Sirisenain the absence of a sports minis-ter, the cricket board said.

Sri Lanka is effectively with-out a government since a disput-ed cabinet appointed by Sirisena

was defeated in a no-confidencemotion last month.

Sri Lanka squad: LasithMalinga (captain), NiroshanDickwella (vice captain), AngeloMathews, Danushka Gunathilaka,Kusal Janith Perera, DineshChandimal, Asela Gunaratne,Kusal Mendis,Dhananjaya deSilva, Thisara Perera, DasunShanaka, Lakshan Sandakan,Seekkuge Prasanna, DushmanthaChameera, Kasun Rajitha, NuwanPradeep and Lahiru Kumara.

����� 373�

Shreyas Iyer slammed 11 sixes and 17fours in a blistering knock of 178 and put

on a double century stand with skipperSiddhesh Lad, who made a responsible 130,to power Mumbai to an imposingscore of 439 for 8 against Barodahere on Friday.

Iyer was in punishing form,sparing no one from the visitors'ranks to compile his 12th first classhundred in his first game of the sea-son as he rescued the hosts from 28for 2 with a stand of 283 in justover 45 overs with Lad onday one of the elite GroupA game.

Hardik Pandya,back in competitivecricket after recoveringfrom a back spasmopened the bowlingfor Baroda androcked Mumbai witha two-wicket haul for21 in his impressive come-back spell of six overs.

Iyer smacked left armspinner Bhargav Bhatt forthree sixes in four balls torace to his century in 86balls and then singledout veteran Yusuf Pathanfor similar punishment bycarting the off-breakbowler for three successivesixes. A more sedate Lad,who faced 173 balls and strucktwo sixes and 12 fours, deniedBaroda a wicket for more thanfour hours spread over the firsttwo sessions.

However, Baroda grabbed fivemore wickets before stumps withPandya snapping up one more vic-tim, in-form all rounder ShivamDube, to finish with end of dayimpressive figures of 3 for 74 in 15overs.

Bhatt picked up four wick-ets while Pathan was the othersuccessful bowler.

Meanwhile, at Surat, despiteskipper Priyank Panchal's 94,Gujarat were bowled out for 216against Karnataka. For the vis-itors, Vinay Kumar, PrateekJain, Ronit More, KrishnappaGowtham and Shreyas Gopalpicked two wickets each.

At New Delhi, Vidarbhareached 243 for 6 againstRailways with skipper Faiz Fazal top-scor-ing with 53.

And at Nashik, Saurashtra batsmenhammered a listless Maharashtra attack toend the opening day at 269/3.

,!��������!1��,�����-�����������������C�Odisha bowlers produceda spirited show as they bowled outRajasthan for a meagre 135 on the open-ing day of their Elite Group C encounter.

For Odisha, the Mohanty duo —Basant and Rajesh — both right-arm pac-

ers — did the job as theyshared nine wickets among them.

Basant returned with excep-tional figures of 6-20 and wasably supported by Rajesh (3-63)as Rajasthan batters had a hor-rid time at the Vikash cricket

ground here.For them, only skipper

Mahipal Lomror (85)played a valiant knock

to ensure that the sidecrossed the 100-runmark.

Lomror, whowas the last manto be dismissed,struck 14 fours

and a six, as he waged alone battle.

In reply, Odisha lost four wick-ets and were 78/4 at close of play,still adrift by 57 runs. DebasishSamantray (30 not out) andAbhishek Raut (22 not out) areholding the fort.

Meanwhile, in AgartalaPratyush Singh-led Tripura'sfightback as the hosts reached to247/7 at stumps on day 1. Theywere 128/6 at one stage.

At Lucknow, Ishank Jaggi (76not out) and all-rounder ShahbazNadeem (70 not out) tookJharkhand to a respectable 278/6after the side were teetering at157/6 against Uttar Pradesh.

In Goalpara, Puducherry'sFabid Ahmed hogged the lime-light with an all-round show on

a day 22 wickets tumbled in theirPlate Group match against

Arunchal Pradesh.The Kerala recruit top-scored

with an unbeaten 41 beforePuducherry were bundled out for136.

Ahmed then foxed the ArunchalPradesh batsmen with his off-spin onway to career-best figures of 6/29.

Former India pacer Pankaj Singh(3/20) also chipped in with crucial

breakthroughs as Arunchal Pradeshfolded for 82 at their adopted homevenue.

Under fading lights, ArunachalPradesh's Upadhyal Deendyal dismissedboth the openers for a total of 22 wicketson the day.

At stumps on day one, Puducherrywere 28/2, leading by 82 runs.

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