PNS n AMARAVATI

Senior IAS officer Ajay Jain,kept waiting for a posting forover 100 days since the YSJaganmohan Reddy govern-ment took over, has beenmade Principal HousingSecretary in a significantbureaucratic reshuffle onFriday.

In all, 12 IAS officers weretransferred and given newpostings in the reshufflewith the 1991 batchofficer Jain gettingthe importantpost.

He replaces GAnantha Ramu,who has not beengiven any newposting, accordingto a GO issued byChief Secretary LVSubrahmanyam.

Another officer CherukuriSreedhar (2009), who wasremoved as Commissioner ofCapital Region DevelopmentAuthority, was also given post-ing as Joint Secretary in theoffice of Chief Commissionerof Land Administration.

Incidentally, three otherofficers -- Satish Chandra, GSai Prasad and A Rajamouli -- who served as secretaries to

the previous Chief Minister NChandrababu Naidu, are yet

to be given postingsthough there were

transferred out onMay 30.

Rajamouli, anIAS officer of the

Uttar Pradeshcadre, is currently on

inter-state deputation.On transfer, G Anantha

Ramu, is directed to report tothe GAD for further posting.Kantilal Dande,Commissioner, IntermediateEducation, is posted asSecretary, Industries,Infrastructure, Investment andCommerce Department.Meanwhile, Siddharth Jain,Commissioner, Industries, isposted as Commissioner &Inspector General, Stamps &Registrations.

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VIJAYAWADA, SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 2019; PAGES 12 `3

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VIJAYAWADA DELHI LUCKNOWBHOPAL RAIPUR CHANDIGARH

BHUBANESWAR RANCHI DEHRADUNHYDERABAD

*Late City Vol. 1 Issue 319*Air Surcharge Extra if Applicable

NCW takes up TadikondaMLA’s pleaNEW DELHI: Tadikondaconstituency MLAVundavalli Sridevi, who isalso a prominent gynecolo-gist has approached theNational Commission forWomen (NCW) against agroup of people for alleged-ly hurling casteist and sexistremarks at her during therecent Ganesh Chaturthi cel-ebrations. She visited theoffice of the Commissionand narrated her ordeal, theNCW said in a statement.

The NCW has shown seri-ous concern over discrimi-nation based on gender andcaste, and registered a caseagainst unidentified peoplefrom Ananthavaram village,it said.

The commission hasdecided to take up the mat-ter with police officials andsought a report in this mat-ter from the DGP.

Cases againstSCS stiraccused liftedVIJAYAWADA: The StateGovernment has withdrawncases registered against theaccused, who were involvedin the movement for SpecialCategory Status (SCS) to AP.

In a GO issued on Friday,Home Secretary KRMKishore Kumar said the DGPhad decided to withdrawprosecution pertaining to allthe cases registered in con-nection with the agitation forSCS. He directed the DGP toinstruct the PublicProsecutors (PP) and theAssistant Public Prosecutors(APPs) concerned to file apetition for withdrawal ofprosecution against all theaccused involved in the casesin connection with thedemand for SCS to AndhraPradesh expeditiously.

One killed,two injuredin blast PNS n SURYAPET

One person was killed andtwo others sustained injuriesin an explosion that rippedthrough a scrap shop near theAyyappa temple at Suryapeton Friday morning, leadingto tension for some time.

The local police identifiedthe man who died in the blastas Ramachandra Saahu, anative of Maharashtra. Thoseinjured were identified asBujjamma, native ofRamakoti thanda, andSalman, another native ofMaharashtra. Addressingmedia persons, SuryapetDeputy Superintendent ofPolice said that the blastcould have taken place as aresult of heat generated whilecrushing plastic containersand iron items. Saahu, whowas operating the crushingmachine, died on the spot.

The clues team memberscollected evidence that will besent to the forensic sciencelab for analysis.

"The blast took place whenthe labourers were trying tocrush a plastic containerusing a machine. The menwho sustained injuries wereshifted to a hospital and theircondition was stated to be outof danger," sources said.

Police searched the entirearea for any explosives, butdid not find any, the DSPsaid. The police have regis-tered a case under section304A of IPC.

Tejas passescritical testNEW DELHI: In a majormilestone in the develop-ment of a naval version ofTejas, the aircraft on Fridaysuccessfully carried out asuccessful "arrested landing",a key performance demon-strating its ability to land onboard an aircraft carrier.

Military officials involvedin the first ever "arrestedlanding" of the light combataircraft said the successfultest has put India among aselect group of nations hav-ing capability to design a jetwhich can land on an aircraftcarrier.

They said the test at ashore-based test facility inGoa demonstrated the air-craft's ability to halt at ashort distance using wiresattached to a hook mountedon its fuselage after landing.

5-8 big companies coming to TSNAVEENA GHANATE n HYDERABAD

IT and MAUD Minister K TRama Rao has declared thatseveral major companies arekeen on setting up their busi-ness centres in Telangana. Hemade this comment at a reviewhe held with HoDs of IT andIndustries Department here onFriday.

An official, speaking to ThePioneer, revealed that about 5-8 big companies would be lay-ing foundation or launchingoperations in the next 3-6months. These includeWelspun and Pepsico. The offi-cial said, "We cannot disclosethe names of the companies, asit plays around with stockprices. Some of them havetaken up office space, which areunder various stages ofapproval. Hyderabad is going todefy the gloomy corporate sec-tor, and it is going to be lone star

shining when it comes toinvestment."

At the meeting, the officialsinformed K T Rama Rao thatseveral companies which hadapproached the Telangana gov-ernment had received approvalsand they would be laying foun-dation stones in the comingmonths. "The new companiescoming into the state will gen-

erate more employment oppor-tunities for the locals," he said.

The Minister enquired aboutthe progress of work relating toIndustrial Parks coming up inTelangana. He asked the HoDsof various departments to sub-mit detailed reports on thedevelopmental works taken upand plans for the coming fouryears.

PNS n AMARAVATI

The Andhra Pradesh govern-ment on Friday constituted anexpert committee to suggestcomprehensive developmentstrategy for all-round devel-opment of the entire state,including its capital.

The panel comprisingexperts in urban planning willtake a quick review of thedevelopmental plans initiatedso far and suggest compre-hensive development strategyfor all-round development ofthe state, said an official state-ment.

Dr Mahaveer, Professor ofPlanning, Dean (Academic),School of Planning andArchitecture, New Delhi, DrAnjali Mohan, Urban andRegional Planner, ProfShivananda Swamy, CEPT,Ahmadabad, Prof KTRavindran, SPA (Retd), DelhiSchool of Architecture, Delhiand Dr KV Arunachalam, for-mer Chief Urban Planner,Chennai, were named as themembers of the panel.

According to an order issuedby the MunicipalAdministration and UrbanDevelopment Department, thecommittee shall co-opt onemember who is an expert inenvironmental issues and floodmanagement.

Retired IAS officer GN Raowill act as convenor of theexpert committee, which will

submit its report to the gov-ernment within six weeks.

The setting up of panel issignificant in view of theuncertainty over the ongoingdevelopment works in the statecapital Amaravati. All workscame in the capital came to ahalt in May after the YSRCongress Party (YSRCP)stormed to power and decid-ed to review the works inview of the allegations of cor-ruption and irregularities inawarding them by the previousTelugu Desam Party (TDP)government.

Urban DevelopmentMinister Botsa Satyanarayanaalso triggered a row with astatement that the previousgovernment headed by NChandrababu Naidu wentahead with the decision tolocate the capital in Amaravatidespite the region being flood-prone. His statement led tospeculations that the govern-ment may shift the capital outof Amaravati.

However, YSRCP leadersdenied that the government isplanning to dump Amaravatias the state capital.

CM urges NITI Aayog to release dues to State

PNS n LONDON

A novel method discoveredrecently by a group ofresearchers, including one ofIndian-origin, shows how hairloss from chemotherapy canbe prevented during cancertreatment in patients, arguablyone of the most psychologi-cally distressing side effects ofmodern cancer therapy.

The study published in thejournal EMBO MolecularMedicine.

The research team hasexploited the properties of anewer class of drugs calledCDK4/6 inhibitors, whichblock cell division and arealready medically approvedas so-called "targeted" cancertherapies.

"Although at first, thisseems counterintuitive, we

found that CDK4/6 inhibitorscan be used temporarily to haltcell division without promot-ing additional toxic effects inthe hair follicle. When webathed organ-cultured humanscalp hair follicles in CDK4/6inhibitors, the hair follicleswere much less susceptible tothe damaging effects of tax-anes," study lead authorTalveen Purba from theUniversity of Manchester said.

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Impressed by Chief MinisterYS Jaganmohan Reddy's gov-ernance aimed at inclusivegrowth balancing welfare anddevelopment, the NITI Aayoghas assured all help to AndhraPradesh.

NITI Aayog Vice-ChairmanDr Rajiv Kumar met the ChiefMinister at Amaravati onFriday. During the meeting,Jagan urged Rajiv Kumar torelease the grants that were dueto the State. The previous gov-ernment had explicitly draftedthe Vote-on-account budget ofRs 2.27 lakh crore, he recalled.

"We did not change thequantum of the budget. Ourpriority areas are education,medicare and inclusive growth.As the State revenues, Centraldevolution and fiscal deficitcannot be increased orchanged, it is only the Centralgrant that we can expect to bemore liberal," he said.

Rajiv Kumar said that hewas very much impressed withthe progress made by the State,particularly Navaratnas andthe social capital.

With the Centre aiming at afive trillion dollar economy,Andhra Pradesh too would liketo be part of the developmentprocess with all inclusivegrowth, the NITI Aayog teamwas told.

Amma Vodi is a novelscheme where every motherwould be given Rs 15,000 per

annum for sending her chil-dren to school and the schemecan be sponsored by the HRDMinistry which can be emu-lated by the entire nation. TheState is planning a revamp ofgovernment schools infra-structure facilities and cur-riculum.

The strengths and chal-lenges of the State wereexplained in detail by the offi-cials during a powerpoint pre-sentation. Human develop-ment indicators, social securi-ty network, infrastructure,industry, investment andreforms in governance werediscussed in detail. For the first

time in the country, the Statewould be completing conclu-sive land titles in three yearsand Village Secretariats willplay a vital role in it.

The assurances given in theState Reorganisation Act,including Kadapa Steel Plant,Polavaram and other issues,need to be expedited and theState plans to reduce the usageof hydrocarbons by bringing inelectrical vehicles, the Stategovernment officials told theteam.

Aspiring districts, womenand child health and malnu-trition were among the otherthings that were discussedduring the meeting.

Illiteracy in State and fall inshare of manufacturing wereamong the other issues thatwere discussed during themeeting, which was attendedby Ministers BugganaRajendernath and M GouthamReddy and Chief SecretaryLV Subrahmanyam.

PNS n JAIPUR

A terrified teenager rannaked on the street as shetried to escape three menwho had kidnapped, beatenand raped her in a Rajasthantown on Monday evening. Allthree attackers have beenarrested. The girl, her cousinand her friend in Bhilwarawere reportedly returningfrom a fair and were on theirway to a temple when threemen blocked her way. Whileher cousin managed to runaway, the girl was allegedlydragged to a deserted spot,assaulted and raped by themen. Her cousin, who hadreached a nearby market,told everyone about the teenbeing attacked and begged ashopkeeper for help.

Terrified teenran naked tillher rescue

IT Minister KT Rama Rao at a review meeting with HoDs of IT and IndustriesDepartment in Hyderabad on Friday

New cancer treatmentprevents hair loss

PNS n NEW DELHI

Commerce Minister PiyushGoyal's "gravity" gaffe refusesto die down. Former RBI gov-ernor Raghuraman Rajan onFriday launched a scathingattack on Goyal dissectingevery word of his remark andsaying that he fails to under-stand the "gravity" of eco-nomic slowdown.

"When you don't under-stand the #GRAVITY of theeconomic slowdown, thewords stumble and reasoningbecomes feeble. If someonethinks that maths doesn't helpunderstanding gravity and eco-nomics, then it's a sign that youare hiding the actual statisticaldata. Newton must be smiling,"Rajan said in tweet.

Goyal had on Thursdayinadvertently erred in attribut-ing the theory of gravity toAlbert Einstein while askingthe industry not to get intonitty gritties of calculations ofeconomic growth, whichrequires a rate of 12 per centto achieve the envisaged $5trillion economy mark.

While speaking at the Boardof Trade meeting under hisMinistry, Goyal said: "Let'swork with a new spirit of

enthusiasm believing thatnothing is impossible. Andtogether we can achieve that $1trillion target in five years.Don't get into the calculations(that to have a Rs 5 trillioneconomy, the country willhave to grow at 12 per centtoday, but it is growing at 6-7per cent. Dont get into thatmaths. Because maths neverhelped Einstein discover grav-ity.. if he had only gone bystructured formulae, and whatwas past knowledge, I don'tthink there would have beenany innovation in this world."

Albert Einstein's generaltheory of relativity is one of thetowering achievements of20th-century physics. While

Newton's law of universalgravitation states that everymass attracts every other massin the universe, and the grav-itational force between twobodies is proportional to theproduct of their masses andinversely proportional to thesquare of the distance betweenthem.

The Minister was roasted onTwitter for his erroneous link-ing, with netizens mockinglyasking, "What did Newtondiscover, if Einstein discoveredthe theory of gravity?"

Goyal later tried to wriggleout of the embarrassment."This is a very mischievous andbaseless narrative sought to bepresented at my closing com-ments at the Board of Trademeeting this morning.

Raghuraman Rajan

Raghuraman Rajan onFriday launched ascathing attack onGoyal dissecting everyword of his remarkand saying that hefails to understandthe "gravity" ofeconomic slowdown

Ajay Jain replaces G Anantha Ramu, whohas not been givenany new posting,according to a GOissued by ChiefSecretary LVSubrahmanyam

It's a sign that you're hiding real data: Rajan

Shall take up uraniumissue with CM, says KTRHYDERABAD: Telangana ITand Municipal AdministrationMinister K T Rama Rao onFriday said he would discussthe concerns being expressedover the proposed uraniumexploration in Nallamala forestin the state with Chief MinisterK Chandrasekhar Rao."I hear all of your concerns onthe issue of uranium mining inNallamala forest. Assure youall that I shall personallydiscuss the matter withHon'ble CM KCR Garu," RamaRao, son of the Chief Minister,tweeted. Rama Rao is theworking president of rulingTRS. Several Telugu filmpersonalities and others havealso expressed concern overthe proposed uraniumexploration.

According to an order issued by the MunicipalAdministration and Urban DevelopmentDepartment, the committee shall co-opt onemember who is an expert in environmentalissues and flood management

Panel to come up withblueprint for State

Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy's and NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar enjoy a lighter moment during a meeting in Vijayawada on Friday

Rajiv Kumar said thathe was very muchimpressed with theprogress made by theState, particularlyNavaratnas and thesocial capital

Major reshuffle of IAS officers

World badminton champion PV Sindhu being felicitated by Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy in Amaravati on Friday

Chief Minister fetesworld champ Sindhu PNS n AMARAVATI

World Champion PV Sindhu,on Friday, met AndhraPradesh Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy at thestate secretariat in Amaravati.

Reddy lauded Sindhu forwinning the WorldChampionship in badmintonin a dominating performancein Basel, Switzerland.

The World Champion was

accompanied by her parents,state youth affairs minister MSrinivas Rao and a couple ofof f icia ls f rom SportsAuthority of AndhraPradesh.

Sindhu had, on August 25,became the first Indian towin a World Championshipsgold medal by defeatingJapan's Nozomi Okuhara 21-7, 21-7 in the finals of thetournament held in Basel.

Current Weather ConditionsUpdated September 13, 2019 5:00 PM

ALMANACTODAY

Month & Paksham:Bhdrapada & Shukla PakshaPanchangamTithi : Purnima : 10:02 amNakshatram: Purva Bhadrapada: 10:56 pmTime to Avoid: (Bad time to start

any important work)Rahukalam: 09:09 am – 10:40 amYamagandam: 01:42 pm – 03:13 pm

Varjyam: NIL

Gulika: 06:07 am - 07:38 amGood Time: (to start any important work)

Amritakalam: 01:57 pm - 03:45 pmAbhijit Muhurtham: 11:47 am - 12:35 pm

VIJAYAWADAWEATHERForecast: Isolated ThunderstormsTemp: 34/26Humidity: 73%Sunrise: 06.03Sunset: 06.19

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CAPSULE

ENGINEERS' DAYCELEBRATED AT ALIET VIJAYAWADA: The AndhraLoyola Institute of Engineeringand Technology (ALIET)celebrated Engineers' Day hereon Friday. The working model ofa dam prepared by final yearstudents and detailing of asingle-room of an RCC modelmade by third year studentswere inaugurated on theoccasion. Rector Rev Fr BalaShowri also felicitated theuniversity topper among allbranches of engineering, VBhavya Sree, on the occasion.Principal of ALIET Dr O Maheshand HoD of Civil EngineeringDepartment Ch Nagarajucoordinated the event.

TRIAL RUN OFGARUDA SEVA TODAY Tirumala: The PournamiGaruda Seva will be conductedat Tirumala on Saturday.However, the Garuda Seva willbe treated as a trial for theoriginal event, which will beconducted on October 4 as partof annual Brahmotsavams.During the procession of theGaruda Vahanam, the entry andexit points in galleries, securityarrangements, and other issueswith respect to Garuda Sevawill be inspected, observed andmonitored by officials andvarious department HoDs.Sri Malayappa Swamy will takea ride on the Garuda Vahanamin the four Mada streetsbetween 7 pm and 9 pm.

VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 vijayawada 02

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

The Andhra Pradesh PollutionControl Board (APPCB) hasissued an order to BhagiradhaChemicals and IndustriesLimited to stop production,which was operating a pesticidemanufacturing industry atCheruvukommupalem villagein Ongole of Prakasam district.APPCB officials inspected theindustry and issued a show-cause notice on July 12 for non-compliance of CFO conditions.

The Prakasam DistrictCollector received a complaintalleging air and water pollutionin Vengamukkapalem villagedue to functioning of the pes-

ticide manufacturing unit. Heconstituted the Joint InspectionTeam consisting of RDO,Ongole, Deputy Chief Inspectorof Factories, EE, RO of APPCB,Prakasam district and the DD,Ground Water Department,for conducting a probe. Later,the committee submitted thereport to the District Collector,which was forwarded to theAPPCB on August 8.

A legal hearing was con-ducted before the ExternalAdvisory Committee (TaskForce) of APPCB on September5 and stop production orderswere issued as it was observedthat the industry had not com-plied with the CFO conditions.

APPCB's fiat topesticide unit tostop production

PNS n TIRUCHANOOR

As a part of the ongoing annu-al Pavitrotsavams at SriPadmavathi Ammavari templeat Tiruchanoor, the presidingand utsava deities wereadorned with the sacred silk-woven-thread-garlands hereon Friday.

Speaking on the occasion,TTD Executive Officer AnilKumar Singhal, who took partin the celebrations, said that

the three annualPavitrotsavams were beingcelebrated on a religious man-ner in the temple. "The fetewill conclude with Purnahution Saturday. Chakrasnanamwill be performed on the occa-sion," he added.

Temple deputy executiveofficer Jhansi Rani, AEOSubramanyam, superinten-dent Gopalakrishna Reddyand others took part on theoccasion.

Deities adorned withpavithra garlands atAmmavari temple

Priests taking part in Pavitrotsavams at Padmavathi Ammavari temple atTiruchanoor on Friday

Check uranium contamination,Pollution Control Board tells UCIL PNS n VIJAYAWADA

The Andhra Pradesh PollutionControl Board (APPCB) onFriday issued directive to theUranium Corporation of IndiaLimited (UCIL) to check foruranium contamination inKadapa district.

The APPCB's fiat came afteran Expert Committee formedby it visited Kadapa district lastweek to look into the complaintsof groundwater pollution causedby the uranium mining and pro-cessing project of the UCIL atTummalapalle.

"Based on the review andfindings of the expert commit-tee, APPCB has issued a fiat toUCIL and will review the com-pliance of the directions peri-odically," said Vivek Yadav,Member Secretary, APPCB.

APPCB's external advisorycommittee, having experts ofvarious fields, including nuclearchemistry, reviewed the damageto the bore wells and crops dueto discharge of process waste inthe tailing pond, in and aroundThummalapalli project, Velpula,Medipentla and Kottala vil-lages.

The panel was formed earlythis month to study the impactof storage of process waste slur-ry in the tailing pond on theground water quality of sur-roundings. It visited the plantand surrounding agriculture

lands on September 9 and 10and submitted its report onSeptember 11.

The board has asked theUCIL to form an EnvironmentManagement Committee head-ed by senior officials trained inenvironmental issues. It wasalso directed to provide imper-vious discharge channels or use

hose pipes to prevent erosion ofthe abutments and consequentseepage.

The UCIL was asked to sharehistorical records of ground-water levels and detailed waterquality characteristics from allmonitoring boreholes and sur-rounding villages, rise in tailingpond level since beginning of

operations and associatedincrease in surface area, inflowand outflow characteristics ofslurry to and from the tailingsponds.

The board has directed UCILto fence to secure the entire areawith adequate display of cau-tionary boards to ensure safetyof humans and livestock fromundue exposure to hazardousmaterial.

The UCIL shall completegreenbelt development of 360hectares in two years. It shalltake up avenue plantation alongboth sides of haul roads withdouble row staggered system,the APPCB said.

The UCIL was also asked todevelop rain water harvestingstructures of adequate capacityat suitable locations. The cor-poration will have to carry outhealth impact studies by der-matologist and radiologist dueto release of radionuclides if anyto the environment and takenecessary action as required fortheir health.

The UCIL asked to expeditelaying the pipelines fromChitravathi balancing reservoirto provide water to all seven vil-lages as committed during themeeting with Kadapa DistrictCollector in July.

The UCIL shall file the req-uisition for land acquisition for120 acres immediately asinstructed during the meeting.

l The panel was formed early thismonth to study the impact ofstorage of process waste slurry inthe tailing pond on the ground waterquality of surroundings

l It visited the plant andsurrounding agriculture lands onSeptember 9 and 10 and submittedits report on September 11.

l The APPCB hasdirected UCIL to fenceto secure the entirearea with adequatedisplay of cautionaryboards to ensuresafety of humans andlivestock from undueexposure tohazardous material.

The UCIL shall complete greenbelt development of360 hectares in two years. It shall take up avenueplantation along both sides of haul roads withdouble row staggered system, the APPCB said

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Appealing to potentialinvestors from AndhraPradesh, Vikram Jain, TradeCommissioner, ConsulateGeneral of Canada, showcasedthe investment potential in hiscountry and sought invest-ments from the region in sec-tors like ICT, infrastructure,education, aerospace and foodindustries.

Speaking at an interactivemeeting with members of theAP Chambers andVizagapatam Chamber ofCommerce and Industry on'Doing Business in Canada'here, Jain said that the bilater-al ties between Canada andIndia were increasing due tothe good relationship betweenthe two countries. Stating thatCanada, with its low corporatetax rate and trade agreementswith the key markets of

Europe, United States andLatin America, was well posi-tioned as a base of operationsand a target for internationalexpansion, Jain urged theinvestor community to takeadvantage of their businessfriendly policies like transpar-ent governance, liberal taxation

system, and highly educatedwork force.

Welcoming the membersfor the interactive meet, MSudhir, Vice- Chairman of APChambers, VisakhapatnamZone, said that while tradebetween India and Canada atpresent was at $ 6 billion,

technology sharing in the spe-cific sector like agriculture,affluent treatment and solarpower could prove beneficialfor both the countries. Cleantechnologies were another areaof interest for the Canadianfirms, which laid greateremphasis on innovations torealise their potential.

Participating in the interactivemeeting, KankatalaMallikharjuna Rao, Presidentof Vizagapatam Chamber ofCommerce and Industry,assured all kinds of possiblehelp to investor communitywith proper information withthe coordination of theCanadian embassy.

Opportunities galore in Canada: Envoy

Vikram Jain, Trade Commissioner, Consulate General of Canada, addressing theinteractive session with local business personnel in Visakhapatnam

n M Sudhir, Vice- Chairman of AP Chambers, VisakhapatnamZone, said that while trade between India and Canada atpresent was at $ 6 billion, technology sharing in the specificsector like agriculture, affluent treatment and solar powercould prove beneficial for both the countries

n Clean technologies were another area of interest for theCanadian firms, which laid greater emphasis on innovations torealise their potential

n Participating in the interactive meeting, KankatalaMallikharjuna Rao, President of Vizagapatam Chamber ofCommerce and Industry, assured all kinds of possible help toinvestor community with proper information with thecoordination of the Canadian embassy

Sindhu is pride of thenation, says GovernorPNS n VIJAYAWADA

"Sindhu is not only the prideof the Telugu states, but alsoof the entire nation," saidAndhra Pradesh GovernorBiswa Bhusan Harichandan.He was speaking at a func-tion organised at Raj BhavanDurbar Hall here on Fridayto felicitate the ace shuttleron the stupendous achieve-ment of winning theWomen's SinglesChampionship at theBadminton WorldFederation-2019 held atBasel, Switzerland.

The Governor said thathe had been anxiously wait-ing to meet Sindhu, thebeloved daughter of theTelugu people, after she wonthe championship. He statedthat she displayed excep-tional performance duringthe final match and that thewhole country had beenwatching with great interest.He a lso congratulatedSindhu's parents and nation-al badminton coach PullelaGopichand, stating that theirencouragement and supportenabled her to win the cham-pionship. The Governor pre-sented a shawl and a memen-to to Sindhu.

Responding to the felici-tation, Sindhu said that shefelt very happy coming to theRaj Bhavan. "It was a greathonour for me to be felici-tated by the Governor and

with everyone's blessings, Iwill continue to work hard-er and win many more lau-rels for the country," shesaid.

Speaking on the occasion,Minister for Tourism, Sportsand Culture MuthamsettiSrinivasa Rao said thatSindhu's victory was the vic-tory of all Telugu people andwished her luck in her future

endeavours . Pr incipalSecretary Sports and YouthWelfare Praveen Kumar, MDAP Sports AuthorityKatamneni Bhaskar,Secretar y to GovernorMukesh Kumar Meena, and, Joint Secretary Arjuna Raoattended the programme, aswell as several eminent per-sonalities in the field ofsports.

Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan giving a memento to PV Sindhu at Raj Bhavanon Friday for wining the World Women's Singles Championship. Minister forTourism, Sports and Culture Muthamsetti Srinivasa Rao and others are also seen

l Biswa Bhusan Harichandanstated that Sindhy displayedexceptional performance duringthe final match

l He congratulated Sindhu'sparents and national badmintoncoach Pullela Gopichand, statingthat their encouragement andsupport enabled her to win thechampionship

l The Governor presenteda shawl and a memento toSindhu

l Minister for Tourism,Sports and CultureMuthamsetti Srinivasa Raosaid that Sindhu's victory wasthe victory of all Telugupeople and wished her luckin her future endeavours.

PNS n GUNTUR

The Centre of Excellence(CoE), an Andhra PradeshGovernment and SAAP(Sports Authority of AndhraPradesh) initiative that wasstarted in July 2018 current-ly houses over 49 athletesundergoing elite athleticcoaching programmes underhighly qualified coaches fromSouth Africa and Jamaica.The SAAP has entrustedTENVIC Sports with theresponsibility of managingthe project and it is the goalof the project to produce ofathletes of internationalrepute from AP by 2028.

The CoE's comprehensivesports policy covers varioussports disciplines across theState. It features training anddevelopment of athletes and

coaches of internationalrepute. The main feature ofthe CoE involves recruitmentof international coaches, pro-viding them with best facili-ties and training with top

priority on national/interna-tional exposure and certifydomestic coaches as part ofthe 'Train the Trainer' scheme.It is a first of its kind BOT(Build Operate Transfer)

attempted in Indian sportinghistory.

CoE athletes also receiveworld class kits, individualdiet charts, and physiothera-py, among others. Their goalis to make their presence feltat the Commonwealth Games- 2022, Asian Games- 2026and Olympics-2028.

The athletes have madesignificant progress in the

past year with many exceed-ing their personal bestalready.

The crowning glory forthe CoE came at the recent-ly concluded 59th SeniorInter State Athlet icChampionship held atLucknow where Yarraji Jyothireturned with a gold medal in100m hurdles with a person-al best time of 13.91 seconds.

BLITZKRIEG-2019 IN VIJAYAWADA ON TUESDAYPNS n VIJAYAWADA

The PB Siddhartha Arts andScience College StudentsAssociation of ComputerScience will organise theBlitzkrieg- 2019 on the campuson September 17.

Speaking at a press confer-ence here on Friday, PrincipalDr Meka Ramesh said that theevent is being conducted since2006 and it has been very use-ful for the students to showcasetheir management and tech-nical skills. Convenor of theevent and Deputy Head of theComputer ScienceDepartment K Sreedhar said

that technical papers andposters would be presented bystudents. In all, nine events,including a quiz, spot photog-raphy, spot painting and cod-ing and decoding contestswould also be conducted dur-ing the programme. A posterof the programme was alsoreleased on the occasion.

l The CoE'scomprehensive sportspolicy covers varioussports disciplinesacross the State. Itfeatures training anddevelopment ofathletes and coachesof internationalrepute.

l The main feature of the CoEinvolves recruitment of internationalcoaches, providing them with bestfacilities and training with top priorityon national/ international exposureand certify domestic coaches as part ofthe 'Train the Trainer' scheme. It is afirst of its kind BOT (Build OperateTransfer) attempted in Indian sportinghistory

SAAP CoE to produce athletes of global repute from State

EGGRATES

` 37,875 (10 gm)

` 425

GOLD

` 47,200 (1kg)

` 400

HYDERABAD 332VIJAYAWADA 370VISAKHAPATNAM 380RETAIL PPRICE `3.70

SILVER

VIJAYAWADABULLION RATES

`/100

CHICKENRATES

Dressed/With Skin `136

Without Skin `155

Broiler at Farm `94

`/KG

(IN VIJAYAWADA)

Quiz, spotphotography, spotpainting and codingand decoding contestswill be conducted

HealthMinisterinspects PHCPNS n VIJAYAWADA

Deputy Chief Minister andMinister for Health Alla KaliKrishna Srinivas inspected thePrimary Health Centre inNarsapuram of East Agencyarea on Friday. Reviewing thehealth and medical serviceswith officials atRampachodavaram, he direct-ed officials to work with coor-dination to provide medical aidto tribals and questioned themon why the lab reports werebeing delayed.

Award toKhammamchemistPNS n VIJAYAWADA

The Bharateeya Sugars ofMaharashtra has selected JSChakravatry, chief chemist ofKakateeya Sugars located atKalluru in Khammam districtfor the best Chief ChemistSugar Mill Award. In a com-munication sent to theKakateeya Sugars management,the Bharateeya Sugars has stat-ed that they will present theaward to Chakravarthy onSeptember 20 at a sugar sym-posium to be held in Kolhapur.

Chief Editor and Founder-Chairman of Bharateeya SugarsVikram Singh B Shinde praisedthe efforts of Chakravarthy inbringing in the qualitativemethods in Sugar produc-tion.

VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 vijayawada 03

CAPSULE

HEAVY VEHICLES BARRED FROMVULNERABLESARDAR PATEL BRIDGEVisakhapatnam: Heavy vehicleswould not be allowed to ply onthe Sardar Vallabhai Patel near theNaval Dockyard in view of the badcondition of the bridge.Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT)had entrusted assessment andperformance evaluation of fourbridges of VPT to CSIRSERC,Chennai. The consultantconducted field investigation andload tests and informed thatSardar Vallabai Patel Bridge had avery low load rating andsuggested that the bridge oughtto be restricted to only light motorvehicles. Hence, VPT hasannounced that restrictions areimposed on the use of SardarVallabai Patel Bridge (parallelbridge) near Naval Dock Yard areawith immediate effect. Plying ofheavy vehicles like trucks, Lorries,buses on the bridge is strictlyprohibited. VPT, in view of safetyof citizens, has urged the public totake note of the same. The PatelBridge connects major industriesof the city.

LOVERS SURVIVE SUICIDE BIDSrikakulam: A couple in loveattempted suicide by consumingpoison on a hillock in Srikakulamdistrict on Friday. The familymembers rushed them to Tekkaligovernment hospital where theircondition was said to stable.Reports said a 23-year-old manfrom Vajrapukotturu mandal inSrikakulam district fell in love witha girl from Tekkali. As the girl'sparents opposed the marriage,they decided to end their lives. OnFriday morning, they went toJagathimetta hillock and atesweets mixed with poison. Theman called his uncle and told himthat they had taken poison. Thefamily members rushed them togovernment hospital. It is notknown whether the incident wasinformed to the police but thefamily members refused todisclose the names of the victims.

60-YR-OLD TRIES TO RAPE 4-YR OLD Visakhapatnam: The Arilovapolice arrested a 60-year-oldman for attempting to rape afour-year-old girl in Endada areaof the city on Friday. The accusedwas identified as T Appala Naidu.The victim and some more girlswere playing on the premises ofNukalamma temple. AppalaNaidu took the girl behind thetemple and was trying to rapeher. Some youth saw him andrescued the girl. After thrashingthe accused, the local youthinformed the police, who rushedto spot and took the man intocustody.

Catamarans sailing in sea for fishing in Bay off Visakhapatnam on Friday. Photo Tirupathirao G

CATAMARANS SSAILING

‘Rs 200 cr land grab by kin of ex-vice chief of Planning panel’PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Land grab incidents that havetaken place during the previ-ous TDP government havebeen coming to the fore grad-ually. One such incidentcame to light in the city, asrevenue authorities seized aland parcel purportedlygrabbed by the family of for-mer State PlanningCommission Vice-PresidentCherukuri Kutumba Rao atMadhuranagar on Friday.

Officials removed the boardon the gate of the land that wasillegally taken by KutumbaRao's brother and pastednotices on it in pursuance ofthe instructions issued byKrishna Distr ic t JointCollector Madhavi Latha.

It is alleged that KutumbaRao's family had grabbedlands worth Rs 200 croreduring the TDP regime. Theincident came to light duringthe Spandana programmeconducted by the govern-ment recently. The JointCollector said that land

records had been verifiedfollowing instructions to thateffect by Krishna District

Collector Md Imtiyaz and itwas confirmed that the landwas taken by violating the

Urban Land Act and by mis-leading the revenue and rail-way authorities by statingthat the said sites were pattalands.

She said that criminal caseswere registered against theaccused and warned that ifanybody tried to enter thesaid lands, stringent actionwould be taken against them.

n Revenue authoritiesseized a land parcelpurportedly grabbed bythe family of former StatePlanning CommissionVice-President CherukuriKutumba Rao atMadhuranagar on Friday

n Officials removed theboard on the gate of theland that was illegallytaken by Kutumba Rao'sbrother and pastednotices on it in pursuanceof the instructions issuedby Krishna District JointCollector Madhavi Latha

It is alleged that Kutumba Rao'sfamily had grabbed lands worth Rs 200 crore during the Telugu DesamParty’s regime

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

Taking advantage of theabsence of official clarificationover why a couple of vernac-ular TV channels have goneoff air since September 11, theTelugu Desam Party (TDP)has been using the issue towhip the Jaganmohan Reddygovernment.

Unleashing a vitriolic cam-paign on social media plat-forms against the State govern-ment, the TDP leaders, whomet at Leader of Opposition NChandrababu's residence, saidthat the government wasthrottling the freedom ofdemocratic voices. Theyalleged that the YSRCP gov-ernment had tried to snub theOpposition in the Assemblyand was now trying to con-strict the freedom of themedia, thereby preventing itfrom providing alternate ver-sions on various issues to thepeople. "It is for the people toview the channel of theirchoice. Only TRAI has thepower to block channels," theysaid.

Currently, only SitiCableand AP Fibernet have blockedthe two channels in question,

and they are still available onDTH channels. The TDPasked the public to lodge com-plaints against the MSOs ifthey fail to air the channels oftheir choice within 72 hours.They also circulated the tollfree number 18001114000 andthe number of the AppellateOfficer 19602002011 for filingthe complaints, and the e-mailIDs das@trasi.gov.in andap@trai.gov.in.

It may be recalled that theprevious TDP governmenthad banned a vernacular TVchannel owned by theJaganmohan Reddy's family,anticipating law and orderbreakdown when he wasattacked at the Vizag airport.The channel was blacked outon a few other occasions aswell.

TDP blames YSRCP govtfor channel blackout

n Unleashing a vitrioliccampaign on social mediaplatforms against theState government, theTDP leaders, who met atLeader of Opposition NChandrababu's residence,said that the governmentwas throttling the freedomof democratic voices

n They alleged that theYSRCP government hadtried to snub theOpposition in theAssembly and was nowtrying to constrict thefreedom of the media,thereby preventing it fromproviding alternateversions on various issuesto the people

Former bureaucrat BN Yugandhar passes awayPNS n HYDERABAD

Microsoft Chief ExecutiveOfficer Satya Nadella's fatherand former IAS officer BNYugandhar, a native ofAnantapur district, passedaway here on Friday after briefillness. He was 80.

Bukkapuram NadellaYugandhar, a retired IAS offi-cer, who served in the PrimeMinister's Office and thePlanning Commission,breathed his last at his resi-dence in Banjara Hills, accord-ing to family sources.

Yugandhar did not forget hisroots and worked for the devel-opment of his villageBukkapuram. It is not clear asto when Yugandhar will be cre-mated and if Satyana Nadellawill attend the last rites.

An IAS officer of the 1962batch, Yugandhar held manykey positions both in undivid-ed Andhra Pradesh and at theCentre. Known for his cleanrecord, he was instrumental inthe implementation of manyschemes designed for the poor

and marginalised sections ofsociety.

He was the top bureaucrat inthe Rural DevelopmentMinistry when PV NarasimhaRao was the Prime Minister.

Yugandar, who is remem-bered by his contemporaries as

an upright officer with stronga left leaning, was a PlanningCommission member duringthe United ProgressiveAlliance (UPA)-I government(2004-09).

The IAS official was alsocredited with pushing throughguidelines, which would insti-tutionalise money flow forwatershed development directto districts from the Centralgovernment, bypassing states.

Yugandhar also served asthe Director of Lal BahadurShastri National Academy ofAdministration from 1988 to1993.

Known for his simplicity, heperformed his son's marriagewith his IAS batchmate KRVenugopal's daughterAnupama in a simple manner.He did not even invite the thenPrime Minister NarasimhaRao for the marriage.

When his son becameMicrosoft CEO in 2014, he andhis family members sought toavoid the media attention,stating that they wished for pri-vacy.

Yugandhar did notforget his roots andworked for thedevelopment of hisvillage Bukkapuram

Condolences pour in for Tiktok sensation Sonika PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

The death of Tiktok sensation,Sonika Kethavath from Vizaghas left her followers on thesocial networking platforms ina state of shock. She had follow-ers across the country. Sonikawas undergoing treatment aftersustaining major injuries in aroad mishap a few days ago, butsuccumbed to injuries onThursday. She was riding the pil-lion.

The 20-year-old sensationwas a student and an actor bypassion. Sonika, a B Tech stu-dent from an institution inVizag, was very popular onTiktok for her lip-synching andacting skills.

Many of her pictures andvideos, she had shot for Tiktokin Rushikonda areas were post-ed on Instagram. She was anature-enthusiast and hadimmense love for travelling anda soft-spot for bike-trips. OnInstagram, Sonika has over95.2k followers with the user-name (dark_chocklate). Overthe past few days, there werecomments under her photospraying for her recovery. She alsoacted him some short films. Her

Instagram bio says 'Actor'.It is, however, yet to be con-

firmed if the incident took placewhile recording a video forTiktok or during a bike trip withher friends.

The mishap reportedlyoccurred at Korrapati Toll Gatein Ketapalli mandal of Nalgondadistrict. She was the pillion rid-ing when the mishap took place.

This incident happened a fewdays ago and it is learnt thatSonika was undergoing treat-ment.

Along with Sonika, it isreported that her friend had alsosustained injuries, but out ofdanger. Sonika was also expect-ed to recover within some days,but her injuries affected herhealth leading to her death.

AP Statewomen dentistsmeet in VizagtomorrowPNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

The Women Denta lCouncil, in associationwith Indian Denta lAsso ciat ion GreaterVisakhapatnam will beconducting 3rd womendental conference 'EXU-BERANCE 2019 ' atAMCOSA here on Sunday.

Women Denta lConference is exclusivelyfor women dentists andaround 400 women dentistsfrom entire state of AndhraPradesh will attend thisevent. This is happeningfor the f i rs t t ime inVisakhapatnam. It providesan opportunity for womendentists to express theirviews and project theircontribution towards den-tistry.

The conference theme'Redefining Destiny in den-tistry' is apt, as it is hap-pening in the City ofDest iny. VaisakhiExuberance will providean excellent platform forclinicians, academiciansand researchers to sharetheir exp er ience andknowledge through key-note presentations and E-posters. Organising suchevents hones leadershipskills of young buddingand upcoming dentists.Resource personnel fromvarious fields will enlight-en the women dentistsabout breast cancer pre-vention, medical emergen-cies management in thedenta l c l in ic , denta ljurisprudence & ethics.

Various dental materialsand products will be show-cased at the trade expo.

Outreach programme to clear pending taxesPNSn VISAKHAPATNAM

Visakhapatnam Central GSTCommissionerate conductedan outreach programme onthe newly launched scheme"Sabka Vishwas (LegacyDispute Resolution) Scheme,2019" in VisakhapatnamChamber of Commerce andIndustry premises here onFriday.

Central Board of IndirectTaxes and Customs (CBIC)launched the scheme onSeptember 1 as a one-timemeasure to liquidate all thepending litigations/arrears withrespect to Central Excise andService Tax. S NarasimhaReddy, AdditionalCommissioner of Central Tax,and Assistant CommissionersK Rajesh Jacob, MK Srivastavaand V Prakash Babu participat-

ed in the programme.J Praveen Kumar and Y

Trinadh, Superintendents ofCentral Tax, have welcomedthe gathering. The schemefacilitates voluntary disclosureand gives a tax relief to theextent of 40 to 70% with waiv-er of interest and penalty.

Officers of Central GST GSrinivas, Superintendent and KSadananda Kumar Swamy,Inspector, explained the objec-tive and salient features of thescheme through a power pointpresentation.

S.Narasimha Reddy,Additional Commissioner ofCentral Tax, along with theAssistant CommissionersK.Rajesh Jacob, M.K.Srivastavaand V.Prakash Babu, addressedthe trade and clarified theirdoubts regarding the applica-bility of the scheme.

It is, however, yet to beconfirmed if theincident took placewhile recording a videofor Tiktok or during abike trip with her pals

n The 20-year-oldsensation was astudent and anactor by passion.Sonika, a B Techstudent from aninstitution in Vizag,was very popularon Tiktok for herlip-synching andacting skills

n Many of herpictures and videos,she had shot for Tiktokand Instagram inRushikonda areas

n She was a nature-enthusiast and hadimmense love for travelling and a soft-spot for bike-trips. On Instagram, Sonikahas over 95.2k followers with theusername (dark_chocklate).

Iranian foodfestival inauguratedVijayawada: The much-await-ed month-long Iranian FoodFestival commenced at HotelPark N here on Friday. Non-vegetarian and vegetar-ian delicacies are available atthe food festival to tickle tastebuds of foodies, who can alsoorder the products online.

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Rajya Sabha member Dr TSubbarami Reddy's birthday cel-ebrations will be held on a grandnote at VMRDA Children Arenaand Port Kalavani Stadium hereon Monday and Tuesday, accord-ing to a release from TSRFoundation here on Friday.

The release added that veter-

an actor Jayasudha would behonoured with Abhinaya Mayuriaward on the last day of the cel-ebrations, in which popularactors would be present.

On day one, main priests of 16important temples in the coun-try would be felicitated. SaradaPeetham seer SwamySwaroopananendra MahaSwamy will be the chief guest

while MukkamalaMahakshetram seer SridharSwamy will grace the occasion.

Vedic scholar and SahasraAvadhani Dr MadugulaNagaphani Sarma will be felici-tated in connection with hisSatipoorti. The programme willculminate with devotional songsby popular singers.

On September 17, veteranactor Jayasudha would be hon-oured with Abhinaya Mayuriaward. The programme will be

held at Port Kalavani Stadium.Veteran actors Jamuna, play-back singer P Sushila, actorsVanisree, Sharada, Suhasini,Radhika, Sharat Kumar, AswiniDutt, Brahmanandam, Roja,Pragna Jaiswal and VKn Nareshwill be present.

Mohan Babu will present theaward while Jayaprada will hon-our her with a golden bracelet.

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

The maritime bilateral exer-cise between Sri Lanka andIndia, SLINEX-19 concludedin the Bay of Bengal on com-pletion of the Sea Phase.Personnel from the EasternFleet bid farewell to SriLanka Navy (SLN) Ships-Sindurala and Suranimilacrew with a promise to meetagain.

The bilateral exercise wasaimed at strengthening andenhancing mutual coopera-tion and interoperabilitybetween the India and Sri

Lanka providing opportuni-ties for interaction andexchange of professionalviews between the personnelof the two navies"

The sea phase of the exer-cise which commenced on

September 10 was jointlycarried out by SLNSSindurala, an advanced off-shore patrol vessel, SLNSSuranimila, INS Khukri, amissile corvette and INSSumedha, a Naval OffshorePatrol Vessel in addition tointegral helicopters andshore-based maritime patrolaircraft.

This edition of the exerciseincluded a series of coordi-nated maritime operationsincluding aircraft tracking,cross deck flying, gun firing,underway replenishment andsteam-past.

Mohan Babu will presentthe award whileJayaprada will honour herwith a golden bracelet

Jayasudha to get Abhinaya Mayuri award on Tuesday

PNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

The Rashtriya Ispat NigamLimited, the holding companyof Visakhapatnam Steel Plant,earned a net profit of Rs 96.71crore, compared to a net loss ofRs 1,369.01 crore in the previ-ous financial year.

This was announced byChairman and ManagingDirector of RINL PK Rathwhile addressing the 37th annu-al general body meeting at thecorporate office here on Friday.Neeraj Agrawal, Director,Ministry of Steel, attended themeeting.

Addressing the share holders,the CMD said that during thefinancial year 2018-19, thecompany achieved a salesturnover of Rs 20,844 crore(including sale of trial run pro-duction of Rs 506.32 crore) witha growth of 25 per cent over theprevious year and improved itsmarket share to 8.80 per cent inthe year from 8.60 per cent inthe previous year. Despite thepressure on realisations in thesecond half of the year, the netsales realisation for the year asa whole registered a growth of17 per cent over correspondingperiod last year (CPLY). With

this, the company could achievean EBITDA of Rs 1802.91 croreagainst EBITDA of Rs 346.19crore in the previous year.

The company has recordedgrowth of 11-12 per cent inmajor areas of production suchas hot metal, liquid steel andsaleable steel. The best annualperformance was achieved inimportant techno-economicparameters, labour productiv-ity, pulverised coal injection andspecific energy consumption.Initiatives were taken to max-imise production of sales ofValue Added Steel Roundsfrom new units SBM and STMand maximizing MediumCarbon (MC) & High Carbon(HC) grades. High CarbonWRC sales touched new peakwith a growth of 33 percentover the previous year.

RINL MD thanked all thestakeholders, particularly theMinistry of Steel and otherCentral Ministries of GoI, theAP Government, the suppliers(domestic and overseas), cus-tomers, ancillary units, bankers,the people's representatives,the district administration andvarious other agencies for theconfidence and trust bestowedupon the company.

RINL makes profitof Rs 96.71 crore

PK Rath, CMD of RINL, addressing the annual general body meeting inVisakhapatnam on Friday.

The bilateral exercisewas aimed atstrengthening mutualcooperation betweenthe India and S Lanka

ENC bids farewell to Lanka ships

VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 region 04

Nizamabad MP D Aravind and his family members with Telanagana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan at Raj Bhavan inHyderabad on Friday

COURTESY CCALL

Farmers stopMinisters'convoy inKarimnagarPNS n KARIMNAGAR

Ministers Errabelli DayakarRao and Koppula Eshwarfaced the ire of farmers inKodimyla Mandal of Jagtialdistrict on Friday when theywere heading towardsRamnagar village to createawareness on the GramPanchayath comprehensiveplan.

The villagers stopped theconvoy of the Ministers andquestioned why they were notprovided drinking and irri-gation water facility in theirvillage. They asked theMinisters to respond posi-tively to their demand. Theyeven tried to block the roadfor sometime before thepolice entered the scene andforcibly evicted the villagers.

The villagers alleged thatthe four villages in Kodimyalamandal were facing acuteshortage of water and theCollector and local legislatorwere showing less concerntowards resolving the matter.The villagers said the water tobe released from Potharamreservoir was not released ontime and hence they stoppedthe Ministers' convoy, theysaid. The villagers said theywould intensify the stir if theadministration fail to resolvethe matter amicably.

PNS n WANAPARTHY

Wanaparthy district adminis-tration's initiatives to get rid ofplastic are yielding results.The initiative, which may becalled wishful thinking by pes-simists, launched by the dis-trict Collector Sweta Mohantyabout a month ago is well onits way to becoming a reality inthe long-term.

After being carved as a newdistrict after the formation ofTelangana, Wanaparthy hasundergone many transforma-tions in irrigation, agricultureand other sectors. Recently, thedistrict administration has ini-tiated several steps to get therural areas free of single-useplastic, which is the mostdreaded health hazard for thepeople. The beginning of theeffort started with a seminarorganised at the district head-quarters, which was attendedby thousands. Similar aware-ness programmes were held inmandals and villages across thedistrict.

For a start, school childrenfrom 120 government institu-tions were involved in makingone lakh paper bags, out ofwhich 58,000 bags have beendistributed free of cost toshops and markets. Womenfrom self-help groups have

also been roped-in to makecloth bags from cloth materi-al costing anywhere betweenRs 1 to Rs 50, which wouldsoon find their way into mar-kets for people to buy, to avoidusing plastic bags. With thisinitiative, not only a newindustry is being created, butpeople are also beingencouraged to usea l t e r n a t i v emethod toplastic usagefor theirday-to-dayneeds. Thisis a produc-tion effortwhich is inprogress.

In additionto these efforts,the administrationhas assigned one districtofficer as the special officer for4-5 villages. These special offi-cers would visit those villagesevery Wednesday and wouldensure that no plastic waste isfound in those villages throughcleanliness drives and wouldalso create awareness amongthe people in those villagesthrough various activities byinvolving people's representa-tives. 'Telangana SamskruthikaSaradhi,' a cultural troupe, hasalso been roped-in to spread

awareness among the people invillages to shun plastic. Thisway, art is also being encour-aged to bring about a culturalrenaissance.

The collected plastic is beingsent to Hyderabad for recy-cling. In the last one month,10,200 kilo grams of plastic

waste has been col-lected, out of

which 3,000 kilograms have

been given toan organiza-tion called'Hello dust-bin' and therest has

been sent toHy d e r a b a d

for recycling, sothat income

could be generated,which could be used to

fund campaigns like this.District Collector Sweta

Mohanty has been supervisingthese efforts personally by vis-iting several villages, in addi-tion to encouraging people touse toilets which were built aspart of Swachh Bharat Mission,plant saplings as part ofHaritha Haram and to encour-age people to keep their vil-lages clean by preventing over-flowing drains and stagnationof water.

A step towards plastic-free dtWANAPARTHY DISTRICT OFFICIAL'S

INITIATIVE TO CURB USE OF PLASTIC YIELDING RESULTS

PNS n HYDERABAD

The 'Green India Challenge' ofplanting saplings has reachedthe 3 crore mark with youngMP Joginpally Santosh Kumarplanting a sapling here onFriday.

"Every person should planttrees with a missionary zeal. Notjust planting but care should betaken to protect them. Only byincreasing the greencover wecan make Telangana more liv-able and improve quality of life.I am proud to be part of GreenChallenge which led to theplanting of three crore saplingsand leading the change," saidMP Santosh Kumar after plant-ing the 30000001st saplingunder Green Challenge atNecklace Road.

"We have launched GreenChallenge initiative to support'Telanganaku Harita Haram'programme aimed at increasingthe green cover in the state.According to the challenge, a

person has to plant a sapling,take a selfie with sapling andsend it to three others, chal-lenging them to plant a sapling.So on the chain goes on, lead-ing to a huge increase in thenumber of trees planted. Tillnow we have ensured that 3crores trees are planted. MPSantosh Kumar has helped theinitiative hugely by popularising

it. Our aim is to plant 10 croresaplings in Telangana," said MKarunakar Reddy, founder ofIgniting Minds NGO, which ini-tiated Green Challenge.

GHMC Mayor BonthuRammohan, GHMCEnforcement Director ViswajithKampati, zonal commissionerMd Musharraf Ali and otherswere present on the occasion.

‘Green India Challenge'crosses three crore mark

MP Joginpally Santosh Kumar takes a selfie after planting sapling on Friday

Experts back move to ban e-cigarettes MAYANK TIWARIn HYDERABAD

As the Government deliberatesthe details of a draft ordi-nance to curb the usage of E-cigarettes, experts from variousfields have welcome the moveand urged the government topass the ordinance in the larg-er interest of public health.

According to the reports, theMinistry of Health and FamilyWelfare (MoHFW) has pro-posed making the production,manufacturing, import, export,transport, sale and distributionor advertisements of e-ciga-rettes a cognizable offence, pun-ishable with jail up to one yearor fine up to Rs 1 lakh or bothfor the first-time offenders, andjail of up to three years and fineup to Rs5 lakh for repeat offend-ers. According to a draft ordi-nance, the storage of e-cigarettesshall also be punishable withimprisonment up to six monthsor fine up to ?50,000 or both.

To prevent the initiation ofElectronic Nicotine DeliverySystems (ENDS) by non-smok-ers and youth with specialattention to vulnerable groups,

earlier issued an advisory to allStates and UT`s, to ensurethat ENDS, including e-Cigarettes, Heat-Not-Burndevices, Vape, e-Sheesha, e-Nicotine Flavoured Hookah,and the like devices that enablenicotine delivery are not sold(including online sale), manu-factured, distributed, traded,imported and advertised intheir jurisdictions.

A sub-committee group con-stituted by MoHFW, on healtheffects of ENDS, considered251 studies reports and con-

cluded that there is evidence toprove that the ENDS and itsvariants are harmful to users.

Recently, the GujaratTobacco Merchants Association(GTMA) and Gujarat TobaccoGrowers & MerchantsAssociation (GTGMA) havequestioned the need for thehaste in banning e-cigarettes, ina letter to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi. Bhikubhai NPatel, president of GTMA saidthe ban will not serve any pur-pose except to encourage theblack market and hurt the

tobacco trade. In Telangana,particularly in Hyderabad,ENDS products are virtuallysold at every suburb withoutany restriction or age limita-tion. ENDS products have beengaining alarming popularityamong the youth not just inHyderabad but across all majorcities in India.

The committee of doctorsfrom All India Institute ofMedical Sciences (AIIMS),National Centre for DiseaseInformatics and Research(NCDIR) and public healthexperts have concluded thatENDS are as harmful as anyanother tobacco product interms of causing prematuredeaths and morbidity.

Nearly 18 States and 2 UnionTerritories in India including,Gujarat, Punjab, Karnataka,Haryana, Mizoram, Kerala,Jammu & Kashmir, UttarPradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra,Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand,Himachal Pradesh,Puducherry, Rajasthan,Meghalaya, Nagaland andOdisha already banned theuse and sale of ENDS products,while in Telangana, and

Andhra Pradesh, there are norestrictions to sell or evensmoke of ENDS products inpublic.

"E-cigarettes pose signifi-cant health risks to users thatare frighteningly similar tothose of conventional ciga-rettes. E-cigarettes also risk asa gateway to smoking imitationfor young people once theyhave become addicted. Theyare being marketed as a harmreduction product which iscontrary to the truth.Youngsters are being lured asit is easily available in differentflavors", Dr A Srikanth,Secretary, Indian DentalAssociation, Deccan Branch.

As per the ICMR's recentpaper, it was noted that e-cig-arettes and other such devicescontained not only nicotinesolution, which was highlyaddictive but also harmfulingredients such as flavoringagents and vaporizers.According to government data,more than 460 e-cigarettebrands are available in India,with various configurations ofnicotine delivery and in over7,700 flavors.

n In Telangana,particularly inHyderabad, ElectronicNicotine DeliverySystems (ENDS)products are virtuallysold at every suburbwithout any restrictionor age limitation

n ENDS productsgaining popularityamong the youthacross all India

Nagar Kirtan from Pak in Hyd on Sept 16PNS n HYDERABAD

In a first after partition of thecountr y, the historicInternational Nagar Kirtanof Sri Guru Nanak PrakashYatra (Sikh religious proces-sion) taken out as part of the550th Birth anniversary cele-brations of first Sikh guru,Guru Nanak Dev ji, founderof Sikhism, from holy shrineof Nankana Sahib, Lahore inPakistan on August 1willarrive in Hyderabad onSeptember 16.

The historic InternationalNagar Kirtan is to commem-orate the 550th Prakash Purabof Guru Nanak Dev ji, whichstarted from Nankana Sahib,the birth place of Guru NanakDevji on August 1, 2019 tospread Guru Nanak Devji'steachings of eternal love,peace, equality and brother-

hood across the globe and hasentered India from Pakistan,through Wagah border inPunjab. After touring variousparts of the country, it willreach Hyderabad onSeptember 16.

The Yatra will arrive from

Nagpur via Nizamabad onSeptember 15.The yatra fromNizamabad will be received bythe Sikh community ofTelangana by thousand ofSikhs by showering petalsand flowers on the holy'saroop' from Nankana Sahib,

the birthplace of the firstSikh master on September16 at 1 pm near KandlaykoyaOxygen Park, CMR Group ofInstitutions, Kandlakoya,Medchal. Later, the yatra willpass through ORR road andwil l arrive at Pi l larNumber143 on PVNRExpressway, Attapur,Rajendranagar at 4 pm.

‘VALMIKI' ROW:CBFC, VARUN TEJGET NOTICEHYDERABAD: he Telangana HighCourt on Friday issued notices tothe state government, CentralBoard of Film Certification(CBFC) and actor Varun Tej, thelead actor in 'Valmiki', torespond to a PIL filed by 'Boyahakkula porata samithi'. TheSamithi has urged the Court togrant stay on the release of thefilm scheduled for September 20till the name was changed. Thenotices were also issued to theproducer, director of the movieand film chamber of commerce.A division bench of the HighCourt comprising of the ChiefJustice of the state Justice RSChauhan and Justice A AbhishekReddy heard the argumentsmade by the counsel forpetitioner SAV Ratnam in thecase. The petitioner's counseltold the court that the said filmwould cause an irreparabledamage to the sage 'Valmiki'belonging to Boya community asthe lead actor was a robber inthe film titled after their sage.

NATIONAL LOKADALAT TODAYHyderabad: As per thedirections of National LegalServices Authority, theMetropolitan Legal ServicesAuthority, Hyderabad willconduct National Lok Adalat forsettlement of all CompoundableCriminal Cases, NI Act Cases,Excise Cases, Labour disputes,Matrimonial Cases onSeptember 14 at MetropolitanCriminal Courts Complex,Nampally, Secunderabad andErramanzil. In this regard, theMetropolitan Legal ServicesAuthority, Hyderabadconstituted 13 Lok AdalatBenches at Nampally, 2 LokAdalat Bench at Erramanzil and 6Lok Adalat Benches atSecunderabad, and 1at Railway Court, Secunderabad.

MANUU admissions date extendedHYDERABAD : The lastdate for admission to variousprogrammes of MaulanaAzad National UrduUniversity 's (MANUU)department of distance edu-cation (DDE) for the July2019 session has beenextended till September 30.

According to DDE direc-tor Prof PF Rahman, theUGC-DEB has extended thedate of admissions for acad-emic session 2019-20 con-sidering the situation thatarose due to natural calamity in various States

across the country. The e-prospectus and

online application forms areavai lable on websitehttps://manuucoe.in/ddeon-lineadmission19.

Workshops on theatre, cal-l igraphy The MANUUCentre for Urdu CultureStudies (CUCS) is organiz-ing two separate workshopson Theatre and Calligraphy.These workshops, whichcontinue till September 28,are being attended by 85students from dif ferentdepartments of MANUU.

The Yatra will arrivefrom Nagpur viaNizamabad onSeptember 15. The yatra fromNizamabad will bereceived by the Sikhcommunity

Komatireddyslams KCRHyderabad: Lashing out atthe Chief Minister KChandrashekhar Rao overthe alleged rumblings,Congress MP from BhongirKomatireddy Venkat Reddysaid that trouble is brewing inthe TRS party and said thatthe party MLAs are opposingthe attitude of the CM KChandrashekhar Rao.

"One can understand theserious situation prevailing inthe TRS as KCR deceivedleader like former HomeMinister Naini NarsimhaReddy. He ridiculed sayingthat the TRS is asking rebelleaders, who were opposingthe leadership, to TelanganaBhavan and touching theirfeet to make them stay in theparty," he said.

Woman raped,murderedHyderabad: A woman wasallegedly raped and mur-dered at Vinay Nagar colonyin Saidabad on Friday morn-ing. According to the police,the deceased was identified asAnjamma, 45, wife ofChandraiah, a resident ofChampapet.

"The body was foundaround 11 am in a secludedpart of a residential areahere. She had injuries on herhead, mouth, left ear and alsonear the private parts.

Shah to miss BJP's Sept 17 meeting PNS n HYDERABAD

Union Home Minister andBJP president Amit Shah willskip the main HyderabadLiberation Day programmeplanned by the State unit ofBJP.

BJP leaders in Telanganahave been planning to celebrateTelangana Liberation day on amassive scale to draw politicalmileage, considering that theruling TRS has not been keenon officially celebrating theday. The saffron party hasbeen making efforts to getBJP's strongman Amit Shah toaddress a public meeting in thestate on September 17.

BJP state president KLaxman has gone on recordthat Shah would address amassive public meeting on theLiberation Day and that sev-eral "high-profile leaders fromother parties" would join BJPin Shah's presence.

BJP leaders have beenorganising several pro-grammes in the run-up to theHyderabad Liberation Day.However, due to hectic sched-ule, the Union Home Minister

will not be in a positionto visit Telangana onSeptember 17.

"We will be organising a

public meeting at Patancheruon September 17. ThoughUnion Home Minister AmitShah was expected to attendthe public meeting onLiberation Day, he is not vis-iting due to prior commit-ments and hectic schedule.BJP senior leaders will be vis-iting various historic placeswhich witnessed TelanganaLiberation movement overthe next three days," said GPremender Reddy, generalsecretary of Telangana BJP.

BJP leaders will visitBairanpally in Siddipet, VeyiUrula Marri in Nirmal,Yerrupalem in Khammam,Appampally inMahabubnagar and otherplaces that witnessed historicevents during the liberationstruggle. "We want to createawareness about the sacrificesmade by Telangana people forTelangana liberation. M KCRhas gone back on his word forcelebrating September 17 asTelangana Liberation Day offi-cially fearing AIMIM,” said NSrivardhan Reddy, TelanganaVimochana Committee chairman.

BJP leaders have beenorganising severalprogrammes in the run-up to the HyderabadLiberation Day.However, due to hecticschedule, the UnionHome Minister will notbe in a position to visitTelangana onSeptember 17

NAVEENA GHANATE n HYDERABAD

Digital door numbering projectfor houses in Greater HyderabadMunicipal Corporation(GHMC) lies in limbo. A pilotproject was initiated in Moosapetlast year and nothing progressedafter it. A Senior GHMC officialsaid, "The project which wouldcost around Rs 15crore for 22lakh households has the poten-tial to add Rs 500 crore to the rev-enue of the civic body. The pro-ject would take six months to becompleted".

This project would help inrecording all structures for prop-erty assessment and increasingthe civic body's revenue. Not onlyGHMC, even Electricity andWater Board too can benefitthrough the project by tagging allthe structures and issuing powermeters and water connectionsrespectively.

Instead of investing in DDN,it has been re-verifying proper-ties in range of Rs 3.5lakh againto achieve its ambitious target ofRs1,800 crore through propertytax. As per sources, the project

is in cold storage due to thechanges in bureaucracy. Sourcesclaimed that everything relatedto the digital door number wasput in place, but then there wasnot enough push for the project.

This project from citizenspoint of view would ease com-municating and locating addressin newer areas. It was aimed to

create a uniform addressing sys-tem for all houses acrossHyderabad, using the geo-spatialand cloud computing technolo-gies.

As per the new Municipal Act,QR code based door numberingshall be taken up in allMunicipalities in Telangana. Itwill be digitally scientific, easy to

locate and will hugely helpimprove sanitation and othercivic services. It will help get overa very complex door numberingas existing today. However, theMunicipal Act is not applicablefor GHMC and the saga of pilotprojects will continue.

As was the case in previousyears, the DDN project wasconfined to pilot projects alone.In 2016, GHMC had conducteda pilot project in Gaganmahaland Domalguda areas. The pro-ject was shelved due to alleged riftbetween private agencies. Laterin 2018, the project was pilotedagain which seems to be a mereeyewash by the civic body. Nowagain the project is put on back-burner.

It may be mentioned here thatthe pilot project last year,involved taking high-resolutionlatest satellite images, processingimages to identify unique prop-erties, field verification by teamscomprising of GIS team, taxinspectors by concerned deputycommissioners. Special mobileapplication will capture entiredata of each area, which will beautomatically updated online.

n The project is in cold storage due to change in bureaucracy, sources say

GHMC’s ‘digital doornumbering' gathers dust

Not only the civic body, even Electricity and Water Board too canbenefit through the project by tagging allthe structures and issuing power metersand water connections respectively

PNS n JAMMU

Three Jaish-e-Mohammed(JeM) militants, who werearrested in Jammu andKashmir's Kathua district,were on Friday sent to seven-day police custody, officialssaid.

Police are interrogating thethree to get more details,Kathua SSP Sridhar Patel toldPTI.

"We have got seven-dayremand of the 3 JeM terroriststoday," he said.

During checking, a truckloaded with cardboard mate-rial was intercepted at 8.00 amon Thursday on the Jammu-Pathankot Highway and thethree militants were arrestedwith arms and ammunition,Jammu Inspector General ofPolice Makesh Singh told PTI.

"We intercepted a truck JK13E-2000 on specific inputs atLakhanpur and arrested threepersons at 8 AM on Thursday,"Senior Superintendent ofPolice Kathua Sridhar Patilsaid.

The arms and ammunitionrecovered included four AK-56 rifles, two AK-47 rifles, sixmagazines and 180 rounds ofammunition, besides cash ofRs 11,000, the SSP said.

All the militants belonged tothe Kashmir Valley, he said,adding that the truck wasowned by one Suhil AhmedLatoo of Gulshanabad,Pulwama and was driven byone Javaid Ahmed Dar.

Police identified the three as-- Ubaid-ul-Islam, a residentof Aghlar Kandi, RajporaPulwama; Jehangir AhmadParray, a resident ofPakherpora Charar-e-Sharief,Budgam; and Sabeel AhmadBaba, a resident of AghlarKandi, Rajpora Pulwama.

He said they were illegallytransporting arms and ammu-nition to Kashmir fromPunjab to "disturb peace in theValley".

The SSP said the arms andammunition might weresmuggled to arm the JeMmodules in Kashmir for car-rying out terror activities.

VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 nation 05SHORT READS

HC vacates ordergranting protection fromarrest to ex-top copKOLKATA: The Calcutta HighCourt on Friday vacated itsorder granting protection fromarrest to former Kolkata Policecommissioner Rajeev Kumar inconnection with the Saradhachit fund scam. The court alsorejected Kumar's prayer forquashing of a CBI notice thatsought his appearance forquestioning in the case. Kumar,who is currently the WestBengal CID Additional DirectorGeneral, was part of a SpecialInvestigation Team set up bythe state government toinvestigate the scam before theSupreme Court handed overthe case to the CBI in 2014,along with other chit fundcases. The Saradha group ofcompanies has allegedly dupedlakhs of people to the tune ofRs 2500 crore, promisinghigher rates of returns on theirinvestments.

NCP's Supriya Sulehits out at Maha govtfor pot-holed roads

DUSU polls: ABVPbags 3 posts, NSUI 1NEW DELHI: The RSS-affiliatedABVP on Friday won threeposts, including that of thepresident, in Delhi UniversityStudents Union (DUSU) pollswhile the Congress-backedNSUI bagged the secretary'spost. Ashwit Dahiya of the AkhilBharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad(ABVP) defeated NationalStudents Union of India(NSUI)'s Chetna Tyagi for thetop post by a margin of over19,000 votes. The posts of vicepresident and joint secretarywere won by ABVP's PradeepTanwar and Shivangi Kharwalby a margin of 8,574 and 2,914votes respectively. NSUIbagged the secretary's postwith its candidate AshishLamba defeating ABVP's YogiRathee by a margin of 2,053votes. The voter turnout inDUSU polls on Thursday wasrecorded at 39.90 per cent,over four percentage pointsdown from the last year. Lastyear, the election saw a 44.46per cent voter turnout. Thepolling for four positions of theDUSU ended amid allegationsof EVM malfunctioning. Sixteencandidates, including fourwomen, were in the fray and 52polling centres were set up.

MUMBAI: NCP MP SupriyaSule on Friday renewed herattack on the Maharashtragovernment over potholedroads, and alleged it was notadhering to its promise ofgetting them cleared byDecember 15. She askedpeople to click "selfies withpotholes" and share it on socialmedia tagging the chiefminister's office. "Doubt cropsup whether pothole-freeMaharashtra is a rarity or what.The reason is the condition ofthe roads in the state due topotholes...Despite repeatedlyquestioning the government, itgives the deadline of December15 every year. The work,however, is not done," Suletweeted. The Baramati LokSabha MP further said peopleshould now remind thegovernment about whathappened to the December 15deadline it had set.

PNS n SONEBHADRA (UP)

Uttar Pradesh Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath on Fridayhanded over land documentsto 281 residents of Sonebhadra,where 11 tribals had beenkilled in a land dispute on July17.

Adityanath gave allotmentof lease of a total 852 bigha ofland to 281 beneficiaries, most-ly tribals.

He also gifted developmen-tal projects worth Rs 339.80crore to the district, laying thefoundation of 11 schemes andinaugurating 35 projects. Healso announced a residentialgirl school and a police outpostfor the village.

The chief minister said that292 families in Umbha weregiven benefit of MukhyamantriAwas Yojna. Families of 11people, who were killed in thefiring incident, were givenmonetary assistance worth Rs18.50 lakh each. Mahila pen-sion was sanctioned to theirfamilies and each injured wasgiven monetary assistance ofRs 6 lakh.

Golden cards were alsogiven to 510 residents and201 under Ayushman Bharatscheme and Mukhya MantriJan Arogya scheme, respec-tively.

The Chief Minister took adig at Congress GeneralSecretary Priyanka Gandhi

Vadra and said: "I want to ask'shahzadi' of the Congresswhether she will apologise forinjustice done to the poortribals? Will she fight to ensureaction against those involvedin land grab?"

Yogi Adityanth had earlierblamed Congress for thedeaths in Umbha village sayingthat the roots of the land dis-pute had been laid more than50 years.

"A Congress Rajya SabhaMP had registered a society in1952 and had fraudulentlygrabbed the land of poor trib-als and the land owners weremade landless by him," hesaid.

The Chief Minister said thata probe had revealed that SP,BSP and Congress in collusionwith land sharks had during

their respective regimesgrabbed more than 1 lakhbigha of the land of tribals. "Wewill spare none," he assuredwhile adding that a SIT wasprobing the issue and wouldsubmit its report within threemonths.

It may be recalled that onJuly 17, 11 tribals were killedin indiscriminate firing,allegedly by a local villagehead and his aides in a disputeover possession of farmingland.

Opposition parties attackedthe state government while theBJP blamed the opposition.

Priyanka Gandhi hadattempted to enter the villageto meet the tribals and wasdetained in Chunar town onJuly 19. She later visited the vil-lage on August 13.

PNS n NEW DELHI

A Delhi court Friday dis-missed a plea by formerfinance minister PChidambaram, lodged in Tiharjail in the INX Media corrup-tion case, seeking to surrenderin the money laundering case.

Special judge Ajay KumarKuhar junked his plea.

The EnforcementDirectorate had on Thursdaytold the court thatChidambaram's arrest wasnecessary in the INX Mediamoney laundering case and itwill do so at an appropriatetime.

Chidambaram's counsel hadcontended that the ED's sub-mission is mala fide andintended to make him suffer.

Chidambaram, 73, is alreadyin judicial custody in the INXMedia corruption case beingprobed by the CBI.

ED had told the court thatsince Chidambaram wasalready in the judicial custodyin the CBI case, he was not ina position to tamper with theevidence.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal,

appearing for Chidambaram,had said that ED had come tothe Congress leader's house toarrest him on August 20 and21 but now they do not wantto do so just to ensure that heremains in judicial custody.

Mehta had argued that cer-tain aspects were required tobe probed before his custodi-al interrogation. The agencyrequires to interrogate six per-

sons before his custodial inter-rogation and it was investigat-ing money laundering whichreaches beyond this country,he had said.

He had contended that theaccused cannot guide theprobe and the order to takehim in custody right now willcurtail the discretion of probeagency. Prior to August 21, the'reasons to believe' that hewas required to be arrestedexisted and it exists even today,Mehta had said, adding thatafter arresting Chidambaramthey would like to confronthim with the evidence whichhas been gathered.

On September 5,Chidambaram was remandedto 14-day judicial custody inthe corruption case by theCBI till September 19.

On the same day, the courthad issued notice to the ED onChidambaram's plea seeking tosurrender in the money laun-dering case lodged by theagency in which the SupremeCourt had dismissed his pleaagainst the August 20 order ofthe Delhi High Court denyinghim pre-arrest bail.

PNS n COIMBATORE

Setting an example of selflessservice-cum-low margin busi-ness model, 85-year oldKamalathal has been sellingidlis, a staple south Indianbreakfast delicacy, at Re 1 eachand her three decades of nobleeffort sans modern kitchengadgets has now received sup-port from the government andindustry leaders.

She will no longer have touse firewood for cooking andthe grinding stone to make theidli batter, her daily routine forthe past 30 years, as help ispouring in from various quar-ters.

Kamalathal, a widow and aresident of Vadivelampalayamon the city outskirts, hasrecently got a cooking gas(LPG) connection and grinderand mixer after her story wentviral on social media withMahindra group chairmanAnand Mahindra taking thelead and expressing his will-ingness to 'invest' in her busi-ness.

According to sources close toher, the woman sells around

600 idlis every day, sells it forRe 1 a piece with 'sambar' and'chutney' side dishes, all ofwhich she prepares alone, yetmanages to earn some profit.

She draws regular customersfrom different walks of life suchas students, governmentemployees and others everyday morning for the Re 1 idly,which is well below the marketrate ranging from Rs 10 insmall time eateries to Rs 50 inhigh-end restaurants.

It has been a gruelling dailyschedule for her as she gets upat 4 a.m and prepare idlis and

the side dishes at hermodesthouse, flocked by her cus-tomers.

She was initially selling idlisfor 25 paise per piece butincreased the price to Re oneover the years, due to hike incost of raw materials like rice,urad dal, coconut and vegeta-bles.

Her clientele includes stu-dents, employees of govern-ment offices and private com-panies, drivers, daily wageearners, who prefer to pick upparcels.

Known popularly as 'Re.

one idli granny', Kamalathal'stravails went viral on the socialmedia recently following whichCoimbatore District CollectorK Rajamani met her a few daysago and assured all possiblehelp, including a house underthe PM Awas Yojana.

Mahindra Group ChairmanMahindra was moved by herstory and noted she was stillusing firewood for cookingand offered to get her an LPGstove, at the intervention ofPetroleum MinisterDharmendra Pradhan, BharatGas provided her a cooking gasconnection.

Mahindra tweeted: "One ofthose humbling stories thatmake you wonder if everythingyou do is even a fraction as

impactful as the work of peo-ple like Kamalathal.

"I notice she still uses awood-burning stove. If anyoneknows her I'd be happy to'invest' in her business & buyher an LPG fueled stove," hesaid recently.

Later responding to a tweetby Bharat Gas-Coimbatore thatit had given a LPG connectionto the woman, Mahindratweeted: "This is superb. Thankyou Bharat Gas Coimbatore forgiving this gift of health toKamalathal.

"As I have already stated, Iam happy to support her con-tinuing costs of usingLPG...And thank you @dprad-hanbjp for your concern andthoughtfulness," he tweeted.

From firewood to LPG connection, thisoctogenarian idli-maker comes a long way

PNS n MUMBAI

The Bombay High Court onFriday refused to quash the caselodged against civil libertiesactivist Gautam Navlakha in theKoregaon-Bhima violence andfor having alleged Maoist links,noting that there was primafacie substance in the case.

"Considering the magnitudeof the case, we feel a thoroughinvestigation is required," adivision bench of Justices RanjitMore and Bharati Dangre said.

The case is not without basisand absence of material," itadded. The bench dismissed thepetition filed by Navlakha seek-ing to quash the FIR lodgedagainst him by the Pune policein January 2018 after the ElgarParishad held on December 31,

2017 that had allegedly trig-gered violence at KoregaonBhima in Pune district the nextday. The police had also allegedthat Navlakha and otheraccused in the case had Maoistlinks and were working towardsoverthrowing the government.

"The offence is not limited to

Koregaon-Bhima violence.There are many more facets toit. Hence, we feel investigationisrequired," the court said.

After the bench pronouncedits judgment, Navlakha's coun-sel Yug Chaudhary sought anextension of the interim pro-tection from arrest granted to

Navlakha by the high court afterhe had filed the petition.

The bench agreed andextended the protection fromarrest to Navlakha for a periodof three weeks to enable him toapproach the Supreme Court inappeal against the HC order.

Navlakha and the otheraccused were booked under theprovisions of the UnlawfulActivities Prevention Act(UAPA) and the Indian PenalCode.

Navlakha's lawyer YugChaudhary had argued thatthe activistwas an author and apeace activist and was a spe-cialist on conflict zones.

"He was in the past appoint-ed as a mediator by the gov-ernment of India when Naxalshad kidnapped six policemen.

KOREGAON-BHIMA

PNS n NEW DELHI

CPI(M) politburo memberBrinda Karat has written toEnvironment Minister PrakashJavadekar, raising questionson the absence of a senior legalrepresentative of the centralgovernment to defend theForest Rights Act in theSupreme Court.

Ever since the Februaryorders of the Supreme Courtfor eviction of lakhs of tribalfamilies, a sense of deep inse-curity and vulnerability hauntsthe tribal communities as thesubsequent stay order is tem-porary and tenuous, Karatsaid in the letter.

"It is a matter of deep con-cern and objection that on cru-cial dates of the court hearing,there is no senior legal repre-sentative of the central gov-ernment to defend the law.Yesterday, that is on September12th, while taking up the case,

the court specifically askedwhether the solicitor generalwas present but he was con-spicuous by his absence.

"There was no one to argueagainst the fresh applicationsmoved by the petitionersagainst the interests of lakhs oftribal communities who areforest dwellers," she said.

Karat said after Wednesday's

court hearing, there is a strongfeeling of unease that theabsence of top law officials isnot by coincidence but byconnivance. This feeling getsstrengthened when it is knownthat the Ministry of TribalAffairs had specifically writtento people concerned to ensurethe presence of the SG.

"In a recent response to myconcerns regarding the draftamendments to the Forest Act1927, you had said that yourMinistry is committed to pro-tect the rights of tribal com-munities. I regret to say thatthis is not seen in the role ofthe MOEFCC in most criticalissue of challenge to the ForestRights Act in the SupremeCourt case.

"The next date of hearing isfixed for November 26th. Ihope you will personally giveit some attention so as to takecorrective measures," shewrote.

Gautam Navlakha

"The offence is notlimited toKoregaon-Bhimaviolence. There aremany more facetsto it. Hence, wefeel investigationisrequired," thecourt said

Yogi Adityanath

Brinda Karat

Golden cardswere also givento 510residents and201 underAyushmanBharat schemeand MukhyaMantri JanArogyascheme,respectively

Yogi distributes land papers to Sonebhadra villagers

Kamalathal

She draws regular customers fromdifferent walks of life such as students,government employees and others everyday morning for the Re 1 idly, which iswell below the market rate ranging fromRs 10 in small time eateries to Rs 50 inhigh-end restaurants

Disturbing that no one in SC to defend Forest Rights Act: Brinda

3 JeM militants sent to7-day custody in J-K

P Chidambaram

Delhi court dismisses PC's plea to surrender

Chidambaram'scounsel hadcontended thatthe ED'ssubmission ismala fide andintended to makehim suffer

UP govt wantsto promote‘Kala Namak' PNS n GORAKHPUR

The Yogi Adityanath gov-ernment is preparing to pro-mote the cultivation of a spe-cial variety of rice called'Kala Namak'. Once known asthe 'pride of Purvanchal' , thisrare variety of rice known forits rich aroma and exotictaste, has been shunned byfarmers because of its lowyield and non-profitability.

Ministry of Micro, Small &Medium Enterprises'Principal Secretary NavneetSehgal recently visitedSiddhartha Nagar and inter-acted with officials and farm-ers.

He assured farmers thatthey would be provided goodquality seeds for the nextsowing season and informedthem about the government'sdecision to promote cultiva-tion of 'Kala Namak' rice.

Sehgal said that this vari-ety of rice contained zinc andiron in ample measure andcould be consumed by dia-betes patients too.

"If we can create awarenessof this rice variety on aninternational level, theincome of farmers can easi-ly be doubled," he said.

The state governmentplans to consult the NationalInstitute of Nutrition inHyderabad on ways to pre-serve the aroma of the 'KalaNamak' rice. Scientists havesaid that if organic fertilizeris used in rice cultivation, itsaroma can be preserved up tothree years.

Flight opsresume afterseven monthsPNS n PITHORAGARH

Flight operations betweenPithoragarh and Dehradunwere resumed on Fridayafter a gap of seven months.

The Directorate Generalof Civil Aviation (DGCA)had on February 9 this yearsuspended air ser vicesbetween the two towns afterthe door of an aircraft witheight passengers on boardallegedly opened mid air,forcing it to make an emer-gency landing at Pantnagar.

After immediate suspen-sion of the flights followingthe mid-air scare, theDGCA sent a team ofexperts to look into thematter.

Fl ight operationsresumed on Friday after theDGCA gave its clearancefollowing a detailed scruti-ny, private firm HeritageAviation's spokesman MilapSingh Dhami said.

Techie's death: HC frownson illegal hoardingsPNS n CHENNAI

Coming down heavily on theTamil Nadu government overillegal hoardings, the MadrasHigh Court on Friday won-dered how many more livesshould be lost as a result ofsuch banners, endangering thelives of people. A day after a 23-year old woman techie cameunder the wheels of a watertanker after she fell down los-ing balance when an illegalhoarding crashed on her in acity suburb, the court asked ifthe government will take a firmstand against such unautho-rised banners.

"How many more litres ofblood the state governmentneeds to paint the roads with,"a Division Bench of Justices MSathyanarayanan and NSeshasayee wondered.

The court asked whether at

least now Chief Minister KPalaniswami will be willing toissue a statement against suchunauthorised banners.

"There is zero respect forlives in this country," the courtsaid pointing to "sheer bureau-cratic apathy."

"We have lost faith in thisgovernment," the court

observed. The observationswere made came when thebench heard a plea by socialactivist 'Traffic' Ramaswamyand an urgent mentioning byadvocates V Lakshminarayananand V Kannadasan.

They brought to the court'snotice the techie's death onThursday following crash-

ing of the illegal hoarding."Just imagine the girl could

have contributed to the GDP ofthis nation. Couldn't thatpolitician have conducted thefamily marriage without ban-ners?" the court asked.

At least now the politicalparties must start a movementagainst such illegalities, thecourt said.

The bench then directedthe appearance of police offi-cers and Chennai corporationofficials in charge the areawhere the accident occurred tobe present in the court later inthe day and adjourned theplea's hearing.

The techie riding a two-wheeler lost balance and felldown after an illegal hoardingput up by an AIADMK func-tionary crashed on her and shewas run over by a water tankerthat came just behind her.

HC refuses to quash case against Navlakha

On September 7, US PresidentDonald Trump announced thecancellation of the secret sum-mit in Camp David, his privateretreat in Maryland, attributing

his decision to a terror attack in Kabul onSeptember 5, which killed 12 people, includ-ing a US soldier. At the summit, to have beenheld on September 8, President Trump wasto have had separate talks with PresidentAshraf Ghani of Afghanistan and “major lead-ers” (his words) of the Taliban. Then he toldWhite House reporters on September 9, “Asfar as I’m concerned, they [the talks] are dead.”

What happens now to the peace process,which had stretched over nine meetings,between representatives of the US and theTaliban at Doha? One which had reported-ly yielded a draft peace agreement, whichincluded the provision that the US wouldwithdraw 5,400 troops in 20 weeks while theTaliban gave the guarantee that Afghanistanwould never again be allowed to become abase for terrorism? The draft agreement,reportedly hammered out shortly before thesummit, was expected to have been adoptedat it and made public thereafter.

The prospects of the peace process goinganywhere in the near future are now dim.President Trump has said in a series of tweets,“If they cannot agree to ceasefire during thesevery important peace talks, and would evenkill 12 innocent people, then they probablydon’t have the power to negotiate a mean-ingful agreement anyway.” The Talibanhave also reacted sharply. Their spokesman,Zabiullah Mujahid, told the AFP onSeptember 10, “We had two ways to end (sic)occupation in Afghanistan, one was jihadand fighting, the other was talks and nego-tiations. If Trump wants to stop talks, we willtake the first way and they will soon regretit.” In fact, the fighting has already started— a development underlined by PresidentTrump’s statement that the US military’sonslaught on the Taliban guerrillas was at itsfiercest level in a decade.

Will this daunt the Taliban? Imtiaz Gul,author of The Al Qaeda Connection: TheTaliban and Terror in Pakistan’s Tribal Areasand The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan’sLawless Frontier, referred in an article in TheTimes of India dated February 6, 2010, to a$ 500 million fund established to woo theTaliban. He said that it would not helpbecause the majority of Taliban fighters, “arag-tag army of a few thousand, take up armsout of commitment and not for economicconsiderations.”

What goes for money, goes for militaryforce. The Taliban’s commitment to theircause, which prepares them for sacrificingtheir lives, is boosted by their conviction thatultimate victory will be theirs as sooner thanlater, the Americans will leave following anagreement carrying the stamp of a Taliban vic-tory. Releasing the Taliban’s post-talk-cancel-lation statement, Zabiullah Mujahid reiterat-ed the militia’s belief that the Americans will

come back to the discussiontable. He added, “Our fight forthe past 18 years should haveproven to the Americans that wewill not be satisfied until we wit-ness the complete end of theoccupation.”

Hence, President Trumpshould realise that the Afghanwar can end either in a completevictory for the US and destruc-tion of the Taliban or an igno-minious defeat for Washington,DC. There is no third way. Also,he must understand that themain reason for the Taliban’sgains in Afghanistan has been theextraordinary nature ofAmerican involvement, whichcan only be described as fightingthe war and yet not fighting it.This has manifested itself on theground in periodic enhance-ment of its presence in terms ofmen, armament and materialand/or unleashing of militaryoffensives and yet not pressing forconclusive victory and allowingits initiatives to lose momentum.On each occasion, this hasenabled the Taliban and AlQaeda (before its waning) tocome back fighting.

It all started with the US-ledoffensive that began inAfghanistan in October, 2001,following 9/11. By December2001, it had thrown the Talibanand Al Qaeda out of Afghanistanlock, stock and barrel.Unfortunately, the invasion ofIraq, which began on March 19,

2003, led to the shifting of a largenumber of American militarypersonnel as well as criticalweaponry and equipment fromAfghanistan to Iraq. This weak-ened the US’ presence inAfghanistan, as did the diversionof George Bush Jr’s administra-tion’s (2000-2008) attention toIraq, relegating the Afghan Warto the back burner. As a result,American commanders weredenied the manpower andresources that they badly need-ed to win in Afghanistan.Recognising its opportunity, theTaliban, which was regaining itsstrength in safe havens inPakistan, provided by the latter’sInter-Service Intelligence (ISI)Directorate, began to push backin Afghanistan from 2005.

Any argument that theTaliban cannot absorb punish-ment indefinitely and theircommitment would eventual-ly wear thin, does not wash. Itdid not weaken after they weretrounced in 2001. They have tobe defeated and not allowed tostage a comeback through con-tinued military presence. Allthis will cost continued loss ofAmerican lives and money.Can Washington, DC afford it?Can the US make the kind ofmilitary effort required todefeat the Taliban?

For an answer to the firstquestion, one must begin withanalysing the consequences ofa Taliban victory. To begin

with, what would it mean forAfghanistan? Announcing hisnew policy on Afghanistanand Pakistan on March 27,2009, the then US PresidentBarack Obama had said, “Forthe Afghan people, a return toTaliban rule would condemntheir country to brutal gover-nance, international isolation,a paralysed economy, and thedenial of basic human rights tothe Afghan people — especial-ly women and girls.” This holdstrue even now. The Talibanhave not changed their spots.

As to the consequences forthe US, one must first consid-er what would happen to thejihadi world and the Taliban.The former, in bit of a disarrayfollowing the rout of the IslamicState in West Asia and the fad-ing of the Al Qaeda, wouldreceive a massive shot in thearm from a Taliban victory.More, gaining immensely inprestige, the Taliban wouldemerge as the jihadi world’sheroes, attracting to themselvesthe remnants of jihadi groupsscattered globally — leading tothe rise of a massive, unitedjihadi movement under theirleadership and committed toenforcing Sharia rule worldwideby force. A resurgent burst ofterror attacks would then hit theUS and the West.

(The writer is ConsultantEditor, The Pioneer, and anauthor)

For victims of rape in India, the road to jus-tice is painfully slow and long. Slower andlonger if the perpetrator is a powerful man

or politician, particularly of the ruling party. Ina damning indictment of the justice system,BJP leader and former Union Minister SwamiChinmayanand has still not been charged orasked to explain himself despite being quizzedby a Special Investigation Team (SIT) more than15 days after a law student from Shahjahanpur

accused him of raping and physically exploiting her for a year. The case assumessignificance because just like the intimidation of the rape survivor in the Unnaocase, this girl, too, has alleged threats to her life and evidence going missing andis currently under the protection of the Supreme Court. An FIR was registeredagainst Chinmayanand only after the woman wrote a “heart-wrenching” letterto Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi about her plight. This is exactly similar tothe desperate act of self-immolation by the Unnao survivor in front of the UPChief Minister’s residence to draw attention. So skewed is our legal system infavour of criminal politicians and so fearful are survivors of their clout that insteadof going to the police, the student posted an SOS to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanathand Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Facebook, without naming Chinmayanand,and went underground on August 24. What worsens this case is the presumedarrogance of offender leaders, who enjoy the cover of their parent parties on thepretext of being of some use to them at management of local units. Parties, too,focus more on burying the case to avoid embarrassment. And though the BJPwas forced to act against the Unnao case violator Kuldeep Sengar after a mediaoutcry, Chinmayanand is believed to be using his proximity to Yogi Adityanathto buy some insurance. So the State Government needs to react officially, if onlyto scrub off the assumption that it can be host to tainted politicians.

Sadly, the plight of the two girls gets magnified only because of the politicalcolour associated with their complaints. For countless survivors of sexual assaultin India, the battle continues to be lonely and brutal as they have to brave insen-sitive treatment from the police, doctors and even lawyers throughout the processof holding perpetrators accountable. The big question is, till when can we ensurean actionable justice delivery mechanism? Till when will we tolerate criminal politi-cians? Nearly half of the newly-elected Lok Sabha members have criminal records,a 26 per cent increase as compared to 2014 by some estimates. If we, as anation, continue to fail our women and consistently elect sexually deviant repre-sentatives, we are condoning exploitation as a medieval tool of social control.

Do regional parties realise that theirstrengths, drawn from the grassrootsand the immediacy of local contexts, are

under threat in the centrist one-India narrativebeing peddled by the ruling BJP? For anybodywho has been following States — whereregional parties continue to have some pres-ence to challenge the replica model being prop-agated by the establishment for seamless gov-ernance — would know how the BJP is play-ing them against each other. The most recentmanifestation is the tug-of-war between

Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCongress. Naidu, a political survivor who has been changing his props through-out his career to ensure his citadel in Andhra Pradesh, had clearly misplaced hisbets on a grand Opposition alliance and a coalition government at the Centre.But post the Modi juggernaut, he is ruing his exit from the BJP-led NationalDemocratic Alliance (NDA), with some even speculating that he would not hes-itate to ingratiate himself to it yet again, provided it guarantees him some politi-cal legspace. It is because of this reason that TDP, like Jagan Mohan, support-ed the abrogation of Article 370. Now, the BJP may not want him but could effec-tively use him as a counterweight to Jagan Mohan, with whom it has a tacit under-standing but whose winning numbers are a matter of avarice and the biggestobstacle in its own growth in the State. On his part, the Chief Minister must recallwhat happened when a leadership tussle post his father YSR Reddy’s death hadled to a political morass that, in fact, accelerated the creation of Telangana. Andthat past CBI cases on disproportionate assets still hover over him to ensure hetoes the Central line. If Jagan Mohan is indeed interested in creating a legacy likehis father, or even that of Naidu, whom he may grudge but who gave a face toIndia’s IT revolution with “Cyberabad”, then he must give up avenging politicsand look to solidify his political worth, one that even the BJP would find hard totopple. Already, the preventive arrests of Naidu and his son, Nara Lokesh, aheadof a rally at Guntur, have given enough grist to the beleaguered TDP chief to retrievehis political relevance. Worse, they have allowed him to project himself as a vic-tim of egoistic personal vendetta, whose right to dissent has been throttled. Ifboth State leaders allow the BJP to play favourites, then both stand to lose.

Already the whataboutery and settling scores have cost Andhra Pradesh andits GDP quite a bit. Undoing all of Naidu’s schemes, structures and agreementsover the past 100 days has not only appeared despotic but also foolhardy, con-sidering it has badly disturbed the investment sentiment in the State.Constructions have been left half-complete and doomed to waste, big-ticket pro-jects are awaiting a re-tendering process or abandonment while Amaravati, whichwas conceived as a modernist State capital rather than Naidu’s personal fief, hasbeen needlessly stalled. With Hyderabad going to Telangana, what is to be Andhra’sface or embody its business vision? Telangana currently has the edge by virtueof Hyderabad’s vibrant economy. And with the World Bank pulling out and absurdtalk about the State having multiple capitals, nobody has any idea how to han-dle the flight of capital or losses so far after the abandonment of Amaravati. TheWorld Bank would have given $300 million, the Asian Infrastructure InvestmentBank, which was to partner with the World Bank, was to give $715 million. JaganMohan may claim he is straightening “irregularities” in past deals, and thoughsome of those charges may be genuine, the cataclysmic scale of economic over-haul is certainly not washing with the voters. The bigger question is who willfund his welfarist announcements, considering he still has not been able to wan-gle a special status tag for Andhra. Jagan Mohan should realise that a haltingeconomy can transform his image as a dream-catcher to political tyrant overnight.And chief ministership in the end is about deliveries, not activism, well-intend-ed or not. Besides, Jagan Mohan himself knows that the BJP doesn’t really needhis support and will only be too happy with disaffection breeding in his ranks. Ithas attempted to poach members of the neighbouring Telangana Rashtra Samithi(TRS) and won’t stop doing so in Andhra too. The Chief Minister needs to actwith reason, not emotion or out of hurt pride.

Grudge wars in Andhra

Anti-trust investigation

Sir — It has been reported thatFacebook and Google have beenstanding up to anti-trust investiga-tions in the US, which have toughrules and regulations. There mustbe strong support and encourage-ment for technology hubs acrossthe world. Opposition to and fre-quent lawsuits against Google arean act of harassment. In general,most millennials use technology toadvance their knowledge. Let therebe a balance of power to ensuremaximum reach of technology inthe best interests of all.

P Senthil Mumbai

NBFC crisis

Sir — The Centre has beendirecting banks not to be toughin dealing with defaulters ofbank loans of up to `2 crore.Recently, the Reserve Bank ofIndia (RBI) made it compulsoryfor banks to link the repo ratewith interest rate but it was notmade applicable for non-bankingfinancial institutions (NBFCs).Likewise, a complete waiver offoreclosure charges on prepay-

ment of bank loans was also notmade applicable to NBFCs.

Since NBFCs also act likebanks, all such guidelines shouldbe uniformly applicable to them,too. Also, as NBFCs give loans,the TDS provision on the inter-est portion of EMIs must not be

applicable for NBFCs as mostborrowers do not claim TDSfrom them, which becomes prof-it for the latter. NBFCs should bedirected to deposit unclaimedTDS in Government account.

Madhu AgrawalNew Delhi

Focus on the economy

Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “The messenger is wrong”(September 13). Before address-ing any big issue, it has to beacknowledged first. This is where

it has faltered. The Governmenthas to first admit that indeed weare witnessing an economic slow-down. Latest data point to aneconomy fast losing steam. Grossdomestic product (GDP) grew atfive per cent in the first quarter(April-June), the weakest growthin six years. Unemployment is ata 45-year high.

Nobody else but theGovernment is to be blamed forthe current scenario. There havebeen tepid interventions by theGovernment at a time when theactual need is to formulate a com-prehensive plan to revive theeconomy. Irresponsible state-ments from some Ministers haveonly added anxiety.

There are multiple reasonswhy almost every sector is in thedoldrums — there are massive jobcuts in the automobile industryand agriculture remains in per-petual distress. The Governmentwill do well to introspect and lookat each factor separately before itstarts finding a solution to reviveeconomic growth and employ-ment rates.

Bal GovindNoida

P A P E R W I T H P A S S I O N

www.dailypioneer.comfacebook.com/dailypioneer | @TheDailyPioneer | instagram.com/dailypioneer/

op nionVIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 14, 2019

06

Cancelled talks and after

HIRANMAY KARLEKAR

Trump must realise that the Afghan war can end either in a complete victory for the US anddestruction of the Taliban or an ignominious defeat for America. There is no third way

Before 1947, Pakistan was noton the world map, I believe itwill not be on it again. Today,it lies on the verge of splittinginto 5-6 pieces

RSS leader—Indresh Kumar

Democratic dissent is a right.However, while exercisingtheir rights, legislators mustnot forget democratic decency.

Odisha Chief Minister—Naveen Patnaik

We say that they (India) haveclamped curfew, that there isno medicine, but people(world) don't believe us, andrather believe India.

Pakistan's Interior Minister—Brig (Retd) Ijaz A Shah

S O U N D B I T E

L E T T E R S T O TT H E E D I T O R

Restoring normalcy in Kashmir

This refers to the editorial, “Normalising Kashmir”(September 12). While there can be no two opin-ions on the need to bring back normalcy in

Kashmir, it is the responsibility of the CentralGovernment to ensure that situation remains peace-ful and human lives are not lost. In this connection,it may be worthwhile to admit, without being hypo-critical, that things in this part of the country have neverbeen absolutely normal ever since independence. Thebaggage of Partition was always attached to it. Humanmemory is, however, short and the prisms with whichone sees vary from one person to the other.

The phrase, “Kashmir is an integral part of India”has been pronounced by successive Governments inalmost all international fora. Without being hypocrit-ical, we have to also admit that the application of Article370 to Jammu & Kashmir was not on the lines ofensuring economic prosperity or to protect the needsof States like Himachal Pradesh and the North-East.Political reasons were associated with the Partition ofIndia. The matter has been debated enough. Shouldthings just linger on or should we take the final call?Whatever be it, one thing is clear that the Kashmir prob-

lem does not belong to any one party. Both, theCongress as well as the BJP as also regional partieshave to deal with this issue. And it’s not just aboutArticle 370 but all issues related to Kashmir which needto be solved with a pragmatic approach, keepingnational interest in mind and restoring normalcy inKashmir in the real sense.

BP SrivastavaNoida

ANY ARGUMENTTHAT THE TALIBAN

CANNOT ABSORBPUNISHMENT

INDEFINITELY ANDTHEIR

COMMITMENTWOULD

EVENTUALLYWEAR THIN, DOESNOT WASH. IT DID

NOT WEAKENAFTER THEY WERE

TROUNCED IN2001. THEY HAVETO BE DEFEATED

AND NOTALLOWED TO

STAGE ACOMEBACK

Send yyour ffeedback tto:letterstopioneer@gmail.com

Girls interrupted

For taking a catch, it’s importantto keep your eyes on the ball andhave the true spirit of the game.Otherwise you will keep blaminggravity, maths, Ola-Uber.

Congress leader—Priyanka Gandhi

Yogi Govt should act as there is no proceduralaction against Swami Chinmayanand yet

Jagan Mohan is just making Naidu a crusader with hiscrackdown on TDP. Only the BJP benefits from this duel

The GDP paradox

STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THAT IT (ODD-EVEN SCHEME)COULD HELP REDUCE AIR POLLUTION BY

10-13 PER CENT IN THE NATIONAL CAPITAL.—DELHI CHIEF MINISTER

ARVIND KEJRIWAL

NOW THERE IS NO SUCH NEED BECAUSE THE NEWRING ROAD WE HAVE BUILT IS HELPING REDUCEPOLLUTION IN DELHI TO A CERTAIN EXTENT.— UNION MINISTER FOR ROAD TRANSPORT NITIN GADKARI

POINTCOUNTERPOINT

The pursuit of growth over social justice, whichhas been the defining credo of classical econ-omists, has brought prosperity to most devel-

oping societies. But it has also created hugeinequalities. The argument that economic growthis the road to social justice has been relentlessly advo-cated for a long time, with several negative conse-quences for poor societies.

In search of inclusive growth: The question thathas for long engaged development economists andproponents of social justice is, does acceleratedgrowth translate into inclusive growth? Amartya Senbelieves that to think in terms of only income ratherthan achievements of particular living conditions,like health and well-being, is to miss something crit-ical. Despite considerable economic growth andincreasing self-confidence as a major global play-er, modern India is a disaster zone in which mil-lions of lives are wrecked by hunger and by pitiableinvestment in health and education services, heargues. It is now an acknowledged reality that eco-nomic growth has failed to quell social dissatisfac-tion around the world.

India continues to systematically under-per-form on most social indicators — education, health,sanitation, life expectancy, child mortality, genderequality — for its level of income. It’s also system-atically under-performing on improvements in theseindicators for its rate of Gross Domestic Product(GDP) per capita growth over time. In other wordswe can also call this phenomena, “growth withoutdevelopment.” Large inequalities exist between menand women, between urban and rural areas andbetween regions. The donor and Government-sup-ported social assistance programmes that sought toaddress these lags have not succeeded. This followsa long history of failed Government and aid pro-grammes to address social lags.

Equity is now considered instrumental to thepursuit of long-term prosperity in aggregate termsfor society as a whole. This can ensure that econom-ic benefits of growth are broadly shared. All this callsfor research on the relationship between growth,inequality, poverty and health. We need to ask hardquestions rather than assuming the answers

GDP is a partial picture: It is now being wide-ly argued that GDP is far from a robust indicatorof social welfare. GDP simply totals up everythingmade within an economy in a year, from widgetsto whizzy financial products, at their market value.Dubbed as one of the greatest inventions of the 20thCentury, GDP has long been a closely watched met-ric for politicians, administrators, policy doctors andjournalists alike. But it is no longer lionised and ourlove affair with it may be coming to an end because,as economic historian Adam Tooze calls, it is “a nar-row and somewhat arbitrary slice of reality.”Economic indicators such as the GDP were neverdesigned to be comprehensive measures of prosper-ity and well-being. Initially used to measure the effec-tiveness of the US economy during World War II,the concept quickly became a universal measure ofeconomic health and progress. An increasingGDP is often seen as a measure of welfare and eco-nomic success. However, it fails to account for themulti-dimensional nature of development or theinherent shortcomings of capitalism, which tendsto concentrate income and, thus, power. GDP is not,on its own, an adequate gauge of a country’s devel-opment. Development is a multi-dimensional con-cept, which includes not only an economic dimen-

sion but also involves social, environmen-tal and emotional dimensions.

One of the dangers of excessive focuson GDP growth is manifested in the tun-nel vision it has created among viewers.Issues affecting the poor and the margin-alised have been sidelined and their sta-tus quo continues to persist. The rich con-tinue to accumulate wealth, both by legit-imate and illegitimate means. The resultis a no-brainer, a greater inequality. GDPgrowth does not take into account a num-ber of important things such as equity indistribution of wealth or quality of life andwell-being. GDP growth also does notconsider the extent of institutional corrup-tion, which is one of the biggest obstaclesin achieving equitable, quality growth anddistributive justice. A major example is themiserable state of the banking sectorwhich is plagued with a gigantic size ofnon-performing loans and where default-ers are enjoying near-immunity.

A multi-dimensional approach:There are several social economists whobelieve that inclusive growth has to begrounded in inclusive governance. In theabsence of inclusive governance, thepeople at the grassroots, that is, the intend-ed beneficiaries of social programmes, areleft desperately dependent on a bureau-cratic delivery mechanism over whichthey have no effective control. The alter-native system would be participatorydevelopment, where the people them-selves are enabled to build their futurethrough elected representatives responsi-ble to the local community and, therefore,responsive to their needs. Successfuldevelopment practitioners have alwaysrecognised the richness of this local wis-dom. It is in this context that real devel-opment paradigms based on participato-ry processes argue for involvement of localcommunities in all strategies andapproaches designed for their well-being.Development expert Dani Rodrik laid

major emphasis on the importance of localknowledge and argued that standardisedblueprints must not emphasise at theexpense of local learning and local exper-imentation. He believed that participato-ry and decentralised political systems arethe most effective ways for processing andaggregating local knowledge. By involv-ing local communities in development, wecan ensure more equitable and justgrowth — something which is not cap-tured by the GDP.

The GDP is a challenge for the cred-ibility of economics or that of the policy-makers who rely on it for ideation. GDPwas not meant to be an anchor metric fortargetting national economic perfor-mance or a measure of national well-being. It had several other purposes butat some stage in its journey it became auniversal indicator for all things.

There are many alternative measures,including the Human Development Index(HDI), introduced by the United Nationsin 1990, and the OECD’s (Organisationfor Economic Co-operation andDevelopment) Better Life Index, which arefar superior measures of the quality of lifeand well-being.

We need to have a broad and integrat-ed view of development. This emphasison inclusive growth should not imply thatwe should not pursue growth as a keyderiver of financial progress or thatinclusive growth is an oxymoron. Boththeoretically and empirically, growth andchanges in income distribution should gohand-in-hand in order to achieve inclu-sive growth. But this positive relationshipshould neither imply that an increase inincome inequality is inevitable, nor thatit is desirable.

Growth is actually the size of the pieincreasing. In principle, a bigger piemakes it feasible to give everyone a pieceof it and if it is growing, the size of the pieshould increase, not necessarily in the

same proportion. This is the essence of theso-called Pareto criterion invoked by econ-omists. But markets do not guarantee thatall the slices of the pie will increase — theycan also get smaller. It is here that policyplanners will have to work out a prior bal-ance so that both growth and equity geta leg-up. This tide should lift both theboats.

Why balance?: A robust inclusivegrowth strategy requires a combination ofpolicies that stimulates economic growthand fosters equality of opportunity, whileproviding a social security net to the mostvulnerable. As such, economic policiesdirected at promoting structural transfor-mation and creating productive employ-ment for poor people will have to be com-plemented by investments in human cap-ital and other interventions that advancesocial inclusion, and equal access tojobs. There is consensus also on the needfor social protection measures for the mostvulnerable groups in society. It is also beingemphasised that Governments mustwiden their tax base to meet socialspending expenditure to sustainably sup-port inclusive growth.

Our original ideas of developmentwere quite well-grounded and realistic.However, at some point along the way, wehave ended up reducing the very conceptof development to soaring GDP growthrates and lost sight of the very purpose ofdevelopment itself: Improving people’swell-being.

Growth is a necessary but not suffi-cient condition for robustly raising medi-an living standards. Accordingly, policy-makers and citizens have been asking foran alternative, or at least complementary,bottom-line metric that measures the leveland rate of improvement in shared socio-economic progress.

(The writer is Member, NITI Aayog’sNational Committee on Financial Literacyand Inclusion for Women)

The argument that economic growth is the road to social justice has beenadvocated for a long time, with many negative consequences for poor societies

analysis 07F I R S T C O L U M N

The game is notover yet

GWYNNE DYER

It’s not time to give up on survival as yet. But wedo need more time as it’s theoretically possible

to hold the global temperature down

MOIN QAZI

ONE OF THEDANGERS OF

EXCESSIVE FOCUSON GDP GROWTHIS MANIFESTED IN

THE TUNNELVISION IT HAS

CREATED AMONGVIEWERS. ISSUES

AFFECTING THEPOOR AND THEMARGINALISED

HAVE BEENSIDELINED AND

THEIR STATUSQUO CONTINUESTO PERSIST. THERICH CONTINUE

TO ACCUMULATEWEALTH, BOTH BY

LEGITIMATE ANDILLEGITIMATE

MEANS. THERESULT IS A

NO-BRAINER, AGREATER

INEQUALITY

Jonathan Franzen has finally seen the light. Unfortunately, it hasblinded him. The distinguished American novelist and essay-ist wrote a piece in the current issue of The New Yorker enti-

tled What If We Stopped Pretending? Stopped pretending that theclimate apocalypse is not going to sweep us all away, he means.As he writes: “To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t pre-vent it.”

It’s very elegant, philosophical, Marcus Aurelius-lite. Yes, wehave wasted 30 years and not cut our global emissions at all. Yes,we are heading for the ‘never exceed’ average global temperatureof +2°C. And yes, that means there will be famines, huge wavesof climate refugees, a lot of killing at borders — and then it will getreally serious. So far I’m with Franzen all the way. In fact, I knowexactly how he feels because I got there about a dozen years agoand I felt awful. I had spent a year and a half interviewing every-body you ever heard of in the climate field (and many you haven’t)for a book titled Climate Wars I was doing and at the end of it, Ihad a kind of double vision. Not a physical double vision, of course,but overlaid on current reality I could sort of, see the hell that wascoming.

That kind of thing can ruin your breakfast, so I manfully setthe visions aside and got on with my life. Maybe Franzen will getover it too, eventually, but at the moment he thinks we’re doomed,and all we can do is little things to slow the apocalypse down a bit,and relish the brief time we have left.

“It’s fine to struggle against the constraints of human nature,hoping to mitigate the worst of what’s to come, but it’s just as impor-tant to fight smaller, more local battles that you have some realis-tic hope of winning. Keep...trying to save what you love specifical-ly — a community, an institution, a wild place, a species that’s introuble — and take heart in your small successes,” he writes.

We really shouldn’t be surprised that he thinks like this. Franzen’sWikipedia entry (I take my research seriously) says that he washeavily influenced by Franz Kafka and Albert Camus, so stylish despairis his default setting. But it’s not time yet to give up on the big things,like survival.

First of all, change your perspective and stop deploring the humanrace’s failings. A million years ago, our ancestors were clever apes.Even 10,000 years ago, they were all hunter-gatherers, who hadlittle time or motive to worry about the longer term. Don’t write usoff because we’re still not very good at it.

Now we’re in really deep trouble, and our evolutionary bag-gage means that we’re still having difficulty even in acting to avoiddisasters that are only a decade or two ahead. We may be able torise above it when the crisis becomes present and palpable but theprocrastination, the disbelief and the delays were inevitable.

In fact, it’s a safe bet that if there are other intelligent specieswho have recently built high-energy civilisations — and there prob-ably are, given 400 billion stars and two or three times as manyplanets in this galaxy alone — then they will doubtless be facingsimilar planetary crises, and having to deal with evolutionary bag-gage of their own. Any intelligent species is bound to have knuck-le-dragging ancestors up its evolutionary tree.

So here we are, and it’s going to be tricky. We are almost cer-tainly going to crash through 450 parts per million of carbon diox-ide (CO2) equivalents in the atmosphere in less than 15 years, whichin the natural course of events would take us up through +2°C abouta decade later. Welcome to the climate apocalypse.

Unlike Franzen. I do talk to climate scientists and it’s hard toget them to say this on the record. They don’t want to sow panic.But if you back them up against a wall and threaten them with aknife, most will admit they think going beyond 450 Parts Per Million(PPM) is nearly inevitable now — mainly because human politicscan’t change fast enough to stop it.

But what the climate scientists all know — and some thinkmight save us — is that 450 PPM and +2°C are not indissolublylinked. What we need is more time and it is theoretically possibleto hold the global temperature down while we work frantically firstto get our emission levels down, then eliminate them entirely andfinally draw down the excess CO2 that we have already put intothe atmosphere.There are a number of potential methods for doingthis, all of them controversial. The leading proposal at the momentis injecting sulfur dioxide gas into the stratosphere. (No living thingsup there.) That would reflect a small portion of incoming sunlightand keep the planet below +2°C and its attendant calamities forthe time we need. There are no safe and painless courses left butthere are still choices to be made. The game is not over.

(Gwynne Dyer’s new book is Growing Pains: The Futureof Democracy and Work)

It was about noon whenPadmabati Naik, an AuxiliaryNurse Midwife (ANM), set off to

check on a pregnant woman. It wasa hot day and she was about to pulla water bottle out of her bag whenshe heard a noise. She quickly tookrefuge behind a tree and waited withbated breath as an elephant lumberedacross the road. Once the pachydermwas out of sight, she breathed a sighof relief and continued her journey.

This was not Naik’s firstencounter with an elephant. As anANM at a Primary Health Centre(PHC) located in Kaptipada block, apredominantly tribal area in Odisha’sMayurbhanj district, Naik has tocross a forest to reach the villages

scattered along the way. Although shehas been traversing this path for thelast 25 years, Naik still feels a bit ner-vous. However, this hasn’t stoppedher from ensuring that all the 1,000households under her charge receivetimely health care.

It’s this dedication and determi-nation that has brought down mater-nal and Infant Mortality Rates (IMR)in the areas where she works.

Over the last decade, there hasbeen no maternal and infant deathin the three villages and 33 hamletsunder her care. This is a big achieve-ment for a State where the MaternalMortality Ratio (MMR) of 180 (for100,000 live births) is way above thenational average of 130. Naik alsosteps in to conduct deliveries in theabsence of a doctor. “I have receivedtraining to do so. I have conductedabout 88 deliveries at the PHC. Thewomen also feel confident as theyknow me. Since I monitor them fromthe beginning of their pregnancy, ithelps me identify high risk mothers.When I feel these would-be mothersneed specialised care, I give them redcards and refer them to the

Government hospitalin Cuttack. So far,200 high risk moth-ers have had safedeliveries at theCuttack hospital. Infact, all deliveries inmy area have been ina health facility,” saysNaik. Odisha hasrecorded a 45 percent drop in IMRover the last 12 years.An analysis of theIMR trend over the2005-17 periodrevealed that theState has reducedIMR from 75 for 1,000 live births in2005 to 41 in 2017. However, it is stillhigher than the national IMR of 33.

In fact, the latest SampleRegistration System survey 2017data indicates that of every 1,000children born in Odisha, 33 of themdo not survive to celebrate their firstbirthday.

Sadly, Odisha has the third-highest IMR in the country behindAssam and Madhya Pradesh.

Naik is awarethat her State lagsbehind others in thecountry and hasmade special effortsto follow up on thechildren. Withimmunisation beingan important way toprotect childrenfrom preventablediseases, disabilitiesand death, Naik hasmade sure that noneof the 852 children inthe zero to three agegroup, in the areasunder her care, has

missed vaccinations. This is why thework done by frontline health work-ers like Naik is vital to improvingmaternal and child mortality andmorbidity, all key indicators of thehealth and well-being of women andchildren. Their work becomes crit-ical especially for the marginalisedcommunities living in difficult ter-rains, who often fall through thecracks.

In August 2019, Naik received

the annual Plan India Impact Awardfor her commitment and dedicationto bring down maternal and infantmortality.

“The award recognises the con-tribution of frontline health workerslike Naik as well as volunteers andyoung people who have made a dif-ference, and celebrates their roles aschange makers in their communities.We wanted to honour the last milechampions who brave several chal-lenges to bring about change. Wereceived over 190 nominations from21 States. After a rigorous evaluationprocess, nine national winners werechosen. Naik has been honoured forher tireless efforts as an ANM totransform lives in her community,”says Anuja Bansal, ExecutiveDirector Plan India.

However, the fact remains thatbefore transforming the communi-ty, Naik had to change herself. Thiscame about after she realised thatcommunicating health messages inOdia, the State language, was nothaving the desired effect. Naikrealised that she had to learn the locallanguage of the Santhal and Kolo

tribes to build a rapport with thecommunity.

“I could not expect them to learnOdia. So I learnt their language. Ittook some time but once I beganspeaking in their language, theawareness improved and changewas quicker,” recalls Naik.

The first visible change came inthe form of increased attendance atVillage Health, Sanitation andNutrition Day (VHSND). Prior to2008, VHSND sessions had notbeen held in the area. But after Naik’sintervention, these sessions werestarted and attendance steadilyincreased.

“The women had never dis-cussed reproductive and sexualhealth or menstrual hygiene before.They didn’t understand the impor-tance of exclusive breast-feedingand nutrition. Child marriage is thenorm among the community. But Iwas able to stop 15 such marriages.I am happy I could bring somechange. But I want to do more,” saysa beaming Naik.

(The writer is a senior journalist)

Odisha’s untiring Earth angelIn the last ten years, there have been no maternal and infant deaths in areas under the care of ANM Naik. This is a big

achievement for a State where the MMR of 180 for 100,000 live births is way above the national average of 130

SWAPNA MAJUMDAR

VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 14, 2019

www.dailypioneer.com

F O R E I G N E Y E

A Scottish appeal courtruling exposes quite howlittle the British PrimeMinister can be trusted withthe powers of his office. Inwell-functioningdemocracies the executivedoes not close down thelegislature just to eliminateopposition. A PM acquiresthe unusual capacity to dosuch a thing only bymisappropriating the royalprerogative. Johnson took aceremonial function of thecrown and weaponised itfor ultra-partisan ends.

(The Guardian editorial)

JOHNSON CAN’TBE TRUSTED

VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 money 08

CAPSULE

Infosys announceslaunch of the LiveEnterprise SuiteNEW DELHI: Infosys on Fridayannounced the launch of "LiveEnterprise Suite" which it saidis a comprehensive set ofplatforms, solutions and digitalservices that help incumbententerprises to accelerate theirdigital innovation journey. "TheLive Enterprise Suite enablesorganisations to drive processagility, deliver customer delightand enhance ecosystem valueall in real time," the Bengaluru-headquartered company saidin a statement. The suite helpsenterprises "reimagine"experiences for employees,customers and partnersthrough digital native mobilitysolutions and computationaldesign principles, it said.Among others, it also helpsenterprises "reimagine"business processes byapplying sentient principles tosimplify processes, userjourneys and remove latency,resulting in seamless andsuperior user experienceacross channels, thecompany said.

OkCredit raises$67 mn funding NEW DELHI: OkCredit, whichprovides mobile app forsmall merchants to keeptrack of their day-to-daypurchases and sales, onFriday said it has raised USD67 million (about Rs 476crore) from Lightspeed andTiger Global.The latest round takesOkCredit's total fundraise overthe last two months to USD83 million, a statement said.OkCredit has a registered baseof 6.5 million merchants andhas grown 100X since Januarythis year, it added. "Lightspeedhas been investing in the SMEsegment in India for yearsnow and we deeply appreciatehow complex user acquisitionis for this segment.

Gold rises Rs 70 toRs 38,695 per 10 gmNEW DELHI: Gold and silverprices on Friday witnessedrecovery, with the yellow metalrising Rs 70 to Rs 38,695 per10 gram in the national capital,according to HDFC Securities.Silver prices also witnessed again of Rs 172 to Rs 48,400per kilogram. On Thursday, itclosed at Rs 48,228 perkilogram. In the bullionmarket here, gold rose to Rs38,695 per 10 gram from itsprevious closing price of Rs38,625 per 10 gram, it said."Spot gold prices for 24 Karatin Delhi was trading up at Rs38,695 with a volatile rupeewhich witnessed correction innoon trading," said TapanPatel, senior analyst(commodities), HDFCSecurities.

RBI likely to go for furtherpolicy easing in Oct 4 meetPNS n NEW DELHI

The Reserve Bank of India isexpected to go for a further ratecut in the next month's mon-etary policy review as inflationis expected to pan out in linewith the central bank's projec-tion, experts say.

According to global as wellas domestic brokerages, mod-erating inflation and a negativeoutput gap are likely to openthe door for an accommodativemonetary policy.

According to official data,retail inflation inched up mar-ginally to 3.21 per cent inAugust from 3.15 per cent inJuly, mainly due to costlier fooditems.

India's industrial produc-tion growth slowed to 4.3 percent in July, dragged mainly bymanufacturing sector's poorshow.

"Contained inflation and alarger negative output gap setthe stage for policy easing inOctober. We expect 40 basispoints (cut) cumulatively inQ4," Japanese financial servicesmajor Nomura said in aresearch note.

It further said the RBI's

FY'20 GDP growth projectionof 6.9 per cent "appears toooptimistic" and is widelyexpected to be downgraded atthe October 4 policy meeting.

According to Bank ofAmerica Merrill Lynch, theRBI rate cuts are necessary tobring real lending rates downto incentivise investment.

"We believe there is a risingcase for a 50 basis points RBIrate cut, on October 4, withAugust inflation coming in ata lower-than-expected 3.2 percent," BofAML said in aresearch note.

Domestic brokerage KotakSecurities in a report said CPIinflation is likely to remainbenign in the near term giventhe weak growth impulses.

"We expect the MPC to cutthe repo rate by up to 75 basispoints through the rest ofFY2020—including a cut ofaround 40 basis points in theOctober policy — with focusremaining on transmission," itnoted.

The RBI, which mainly fac-tors in CPI for arriving at its bi-monthly monetary policy, hasbeen mandated by the gov-ernment to ensure inflationremains at 4 per cent, withdeviation of 2 per cent oneither side.

The central bank, whichhas already reduced the keypolicy rate four times in thecurrent calendar year, isscheduled to announce itsnext bi-monthly monetarypolicy on October 4.

"Contained inflation and a largernegative output gap set the stage forpolicy easing in October. We expect40 basis points (cut) cumulatively inQ4," Japanese financial servicesmajor Nomura said in a research note

US expresses concern overtrade deficit with IndiaPNS n NEW DELHI

The US on Friday expressedconcern over the trade deficitwith India and the challengesbeing faced by American com-panies to invest here.

Addressing the Indo-USEconomic Summit here, USMinister Counselor forCommercial Affairs AileenNandi however hoped toexplore possibilities at the US-India Business CEO Forum tostrike a trade balance betweenthe two countries.

As per the Indian govern-ment data, India's exports tothe US during 2018-19 wereworth about USD 52.4 billionwhile imports bill stood atUSD 35.55 billion.

The US trade deficit withIndia during 2018-19 stood atUSD 16.85 billion, lower thanUSD 21.26 billion in the pre-ceding year, the data showed.

"Bilateral trade relationshipwith India is broad and com-plex. The trade between thetwo countries has increasedevery year in the recent past....However, we are concernedabout the trade deficit that wehave with India," Nandi said.

The two-way trade between

the US and India stood at USD142 billion during 2018.During January-July 2019, thebilateral trade has increased10.5 per cent over the last yearperiod, she added.

Nandi also noted that theUS was aware of the challengesthat American companies con-tinue to face in India.

She however observed thatwith Indo-US Business CEOForum, having its interface reg-ularly, the issues of mutual con-cerns relating to Indo-US tradewould get resolved and invest-ments from India to the US andvice-versa would apportion.

Nandi, in a statement latersaid, since the political rela-tionship between India and theUS has begun to grow anddiversify with conciliatory modeand big ticket Indian business-men aggressively making theirinvestments in the US, the two-way trade would flourish in a

manner that would address theconcern of increasing tradedeficit of the US towards India.Asserting that there is scope tofurther boost trade with the US,Indo-American Chamber ofCommerce National President SK Sarkar said the target is toachieve a bilateral trade of USD500 billion by 2022.

Agriculture, defence, foodprocessing and host of similarsectors assume large possibil-ities through which India andthe US could come closer andcement their ties for enhancedtrade and economic coopera-tion between the two coun-tries, he said.

"We lag a little in export mar-ket as we are not part of theglobal supply chain. We need tounderstand the technologicaladvances that are taking placeall over the world and we couldeasily become economic leadersin the world," Sarkar said.

Bilateral trade relationship with India is broad andcomplex. The trade between the two countries hasincreased every year in the recent past. ...However, we

are concerned about the trade deficit that we have with India—AILEEN NANDI

US Minister Counselor for Commercial Affairs

Pakistan likely to miss IMF's tax refund conditionPNS n ISLAMABAD

Cash-strapped Pakistan is set tomiss the InternationalMonetary Fund's condition torefund Rs 75 billion to taxpay-ers in the first quarter despitean incentive by the globallender, a media report said onFriday.

The International MonetaryFund (IMF) had offered to soft-en the tough primary budgetdeficit reduction target if thecountry performs better in taxrefunds.

Under the USD 6 billionIMF loan deal, Pakistan isrequired to reduce the prima-ry budget deficit, calculated byexcluding interest payments, toRs 276 billion in the current fis-cal year 2019-20 from lastyear's level of Rs 1.350 trillion,The Express Tribune reported.

According to the IMF, the

first quarter's primary budgetdeficit target is Rs 102 billion,which can be relaxed to anextent if the government paysmore than Rs 75 billion in taxarrears.

Against the quarterly targetof reducing the tax arrears byRs 75 billion, Prime MinisterImran Khan-led governmenthas so far cleared Rs 22 billionof the arrears, which are only

30 per cent of the targetedamount, according to figuresreleased by the Federal Boardof Revenue (FBR) this week.

If the government releasedthe remaining Rs 53 billion, itwould adversely hit the chal-lenging quarterly revenue tar-get of Rs 1.071 trillion, alsogiven by the IMF. The FBR hasset Rs 1.111 trillion target forthe July-September quarter,

the report said, quotingsources.

The key reason behind thelow disbursement of taxrefunds was a highly ambitiousannual revenue collection tar-get of Rs 5.5 trillion.

Despite setting a relativelylow target of Rs 644 billion, theFBR could collect only Rs 580billion in July and August,missing the two-month goal byRs 64 billion.

Sources said the FBR's planwas to release a certain amountof refunds through promisso-ry notes that it issued at a fixed

rate of 10 per cent.They said the promissory

notes could not be issued at afaster pace due to the banks'reluctance to accept these notesas collateral.

The State Bank of Pakistan(SBP) was also unwilling totreat these notes as part of thestatutory liquidity ratio ofbanks, the report said.

The SBP's view was thatthese notes could not be treat-ed as a debt due to certain legalobstacles, according to the FBRsources.

Both the targets of enhanc-

ing revenues and clearingrefunds were contradictory innature for the FBR, which hasshown inflated collections onmany occasions by blockingrefunds.

According to the report,Adviser to Prime Minister onFinance Abdul Hafeez Shaikhheld meetings with FBR offi-cials aimed at knowing the sta-tus of tax refunds and the pos-sibility of collecting Rs 5.5 tril-lion.

The initial assessment wasthat there was no possibility ofcollecting more than Rs 4.8 tril-lion in the given economicconditions, said the sources.

FBR's Member InlandRevenue Policy Hamid AtiqSarwar told the NationalAssembly Standing Committeeon Finance last week that theFBR may collect Rs 4.8 trillionto Rs 5.2 trillion in taxes.

According to the IMF, the firstquarter's primary budget deficit targetis Rs 102 billion, which can be relaxedto an extent if the government paysmore than Rs 75 billion in tax arrears

‘Opportunitiesgalore inRussia forleather exports’

AFP n LONDON

Britain's parliamentary speak-er has warned Prime MinisterBoris Johnson not to disobeythe law by refusing to ask fora Brexit delay and vowed tothwart any attempt to circum-vent legislation.

Parliament passed a law ear-lier this month aimed at pre-venting a no-deal Brexit, butJohnson is adamant Britain willstill leave the EU on scheduleon October 31 with or withouta withdrawal agreement.

The speaker of Britain'sHouse of Commons JohnBercow said disobeying the law"would be the most terribleexample to set to the rest ofsociety", according to Britain's

Press Association news agency.In a speech in London on

Thursday, Bercow warned ifthe government comes close todoing so, parliament "wouldwant to cut off such a possi-

bility and do so forcefully"."If that demands additional

procedural creativity in orderto come to pass, it is a racingcertainty that this will happen,and that neither the limitations

of the existing rule book northe ticking of the clock willstop it doing so".

His comments came afterJohnson denied he had lied toQueen Elizabeth II whenrequesting a suspension ofparliament this month.

PNS n MUMBAI

The BSE benchmark Sensexrallied 281 points on Friday, ledby financial and IT stocks ashopes of another rate cut by RBIboosted investor sentiment.

After swinging 413 points,the 30-share index ended280.71 points, or 0.76 per cent,higher at 37,384.99. It hit anintra-day high of 37,413.50 andlow of 37,000.09.

Similarly, the broader NSENifty settled 93.10 points, or 0.85per cent, higher at 11,075.90.

Top gainers in the Sensex

pack included Vedanta, ICICIBank, ONGC, Kotak Bank,Axis Bank, SBI, M&M, Infosys,PowerGrid, HCL Tech, NTPC,Bajaj Finance and RelianceIndustries, rising up to 2.72 percent On the other hand, Sun

Pharma, Bharti Airtel, HDFCBank, Yes Bank, ITC and HULwere among the losers, shed-ding up to 1.41 per cent.

Domestic benchmarks roseamid hopes of another rate cutby the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) next month, traders said.

According to official datareleased post market hourson Thursday, retail inflationinched up marginally to 3.21per cent in August, whileindustrial production growthslowed to 4.3 per cent in July,raising chances of a rate cut bythe central bank.

Adobe ‘nearly closed’ opportunity parity gapPNS n NEW DELHI

In line with its commitmentto maintain an inclusive work-force, software giant Adobesaid it has nearly closed thegap in terms of opportunityparity globally.

The findings from itsopportunity parity initiativethat examined fairness in pro-motions across demographicgroups show that its fiscal

year-to-date promotion rateswere 13.6 per cent for womenand 13.9 per cent formen, Adobe said in astatement.

The company dis-closed that in the US,the promotion ratewas 13.5 per cent forwhite employees and13.2 per cent for non-white employees, it added.

Both comparisons show a

nominal difference of 0.3 percent.

Early this year,Adobe declared itsplan to pursue anew initiative --opportunity parity -- that examines fair-ness in promotionsacross demograph-ic groups.

"Our employees and ourcustomers care deeply about

Adobe's commitment todoing what's right. Thisincludes ensuring equal treat-ment in terms of pay, accessto new opportunities andadvancement -- and creatinga workplace in which all ofour employees can thrive,"said Donna Morris, executivevice president and chiefhuman resources officer,Employee Experience,Adobe.

Tea Board chairman batsfor domestic certificationPNS n KOLKATA

Tea Board chairman P KBezbaruah has said Indian pro-ducers should rely more onhomegrown certification of tealike `trustea' and not onoverseas agencies.

A lot of deci-sions made by theregulators in theexport marketsare not logical atall, Bezbaruahsaid at a seminarhere on Thursday.

So, homegrown certifica-tion should suffice for thedomestic market, he said.

"For example in the EU,

they got very high MRLs (max-imum residue limits) for somechemicals which should havebeen lower", he said. Bezbaruahsaid that regulators in theexporting countries are out oftouch with reality. "This also

applies to our own aswell. But at least they arewith us. We canapproach them.Approaching regula-tors in the EU is

almost impossible", heviewed. Talking about

TRA, of which he is alsothe chairman, Bezbaruah saidthat it is the largest and oldesttea research body in the worldbut is starved of funds.

PNS n HYDERABAD

Pinning hopes on the recoveryof the USA market, a top officialof the Pharmaceuticals ExportPromotion Council of India(Pharmexcil)on Friday saidIndian pharma exports maytouch USD 22 billion during thecurrent financial year againstUSD 19.14 billion in FY '19.

Speaking to reporters, director-general of Pharmexcil, a bodyunder the Ministry of Commerceand Industry, Uday Bhasker saidsome of the policy decisionsbeing taken by the Chinese gov-ernment may align favourably toIndian pharma exporters. In July2019, Indian exports recorded21.7 per cent growth to 1.72 bil-lion (total exports from April toJuly this year was at USD 6.17 bil-lion), he said.

The cumulative growth ofIndian exports for the periodApril-July was 13 per cent.

As of June 2019, Indias gener-ic pharmaceutical exports havegrown almost 2.7 to 2.8 timesfaster than the market (globalgeneric market), he said.

"Hence, we expect theexports to touch USD 22 billionin the fiscal 2019-20," Bhaskarsaid. "The prices (in USA mar-ket) are now stabilised. Evenwhen there was price erosion,our export volumes were grow-ing. That is why the US mar-

ket has revived," he said.Despite price erosion andcartelisation in the USA mar-ket, the market there startedrecovering with 13.72 per centgrowth in FY '19 against neg-ative growth of eight per centin FY '18, Bhaskar said.

Exports to North America,Africa and European Unioncontribute nearly 66 per centof the total Indian pharmaexports comprising bulkdrugs, finished dosage for-mulations, Ayush and herbalsand surgical, statistics suppliedby the Pharmexcil said.

On exports to China andJapan markets, the official saidthe Japan market was basical-ly not favourable for genericdrugs and also doctors in thatcountry were also not willingto promote generic versions.

Indian pharma exportsmay touch $22 bn inFY '20: Pharmexcil

The cumulativegrowth of Indianexports for theperiod April-Julywas 13 per cent

PNS n BENGALURU

Huge export opportunitiesare present in Russia fordomestic leather andfootwear industry, Councilfor Leather Exports said onFriday.

Russia has importedleather and footwear worthUSD 3.9 billion in 2018,and India's exports to thatcountry stood at only USD52.6 million, said PanarunaAqeel Ahmed, chairman ofCouncil for Leather Exports(CLE).

"The figures clearly reflectthe export opportunities fordomestic players in theRussian market. It will play acrucial role in achieving ourenvisaged double-digit exportgrowth levels in the comingyears," Aqeel said in a state-ment.

Russia is the 13th largestglobal importer of leather,leather products andfootwear.

To penetrate the Russianmarket, he said, the councilis not only looking at par-ticipation in fairs l ikeMosshoes, but also at col-laboration with Russiantrade and business associa-tions by inviting them toparticipate in reverse buyer-seller meets in India.

Last week, the chairmanled a delegation of 24 leadingIndian exporters of leatherproducts and footwear toRussia to participation in theMosshoes Fair in Moscow.

Mosshoes is the biggestexhibition for footwear andleather products, witnessingparticipation of over 1,000brands across the globe.

India's total exports ofleather and footwear prod-ucts was USD 5.7 billion in2018-19.

The current major exportdestinations for the sectorinclude Europe and the US.The sector employs about42 lakh people.

If that demandsadditional proceduralcreativity in order to

come to pass, it is a racingcertainty that this will happen,and that neither the limitationsof the existing rule book northe ticking of the clock will stopit doing so

—JOHN BERCOW speaker of Britain's House of Commons

Speaker vows to thwart British PM over Brexit law

Sensex rallies 281 pts

hilst it’s true thatconventional in-your-face dis-crimination andbias in literaturehas quelled down,

subtle bias between maleand female characters stilldo exist in the world of lit-erature. If we dive deeperinto the world of literaturewe see that globally, amongthe six female authors whowon a Pulitzer between 2000and 2015, 50 per cent ofthem wrote primarily fromthe perspective of malecharacters; the other halfgave voice to both male andfemale characters equally.

Jennifer Egan’s 2011award winner A Visit Fromthe Goon Squad, in whichthe author illustrates skill-fully the lives of many char-acters, some female, somemale, old, young, from thepast, and even in the future.The novel could not be saidto be primarily aboutwomen or men-whereas themale authors who wonPulitzers wrote almostexclusively from the per-spective of male characters.When Hilary Mantel wonher second Man BookerPrize, for Bring Up theBodies in 2012, her agentnoted that she began to dowell, in part, because she’dbegun to center her bookson male characters.

When it comes to thenature of the characters, in amajority of books authorsaround the world associatewomen with communaladjectives such as kind, gen-erous, warm, caring etcwhile men are more thanoften associated with agenticterms such as independent,strong, smart, dominant,ambitious etc.

To cite an example amongthe most recent books,Quichotte authored bySalman Rushdie and the lat-est in his series of books wasreleased on August 29, 2019.The book revolves aroundthe life of an old man whoafter suffering a stroke in hisold age begins to watch tele-vision obsessively and isinfatuated by a talk showhost Salma R. The story hasan interesting plot andexperiments with a newform of story telling, but thefemale lead in the story,Salma has very less depthand her role is mainly thatof the object of the protago-nist’s obsession which on afirst glance seems very nor-mal to most of the audience.In an interview withKanchana Banerjee (authorof Nobody’s Child and AForgotten Affair) about thisissue, she says, “The biaswhen it comes to readershipstill does exist which is evi-dent when they tend tocome up with rather weirdopinions about the charac-ters and how they are sup-posed to be portrayed, forexample, with regard to mylatest book Nobody’s Childwhich is a dark thrillerrevolving around the life ofa singer named Asavri whocomes from a very simple

background and one of thereaders wrote to me asking“why is Asavri such a plainand ordinary-looking per-son? Why didn’t you makeher, the protagonist of yourstory, beautiful? This per-son who asked this questionis a reader who I know to bewell-read and as we call it ‘awoman of the world’ and Iwas astonished. For me as awriter, her appearance wasnot a factor at all but I hadgiven more attention to thedepth of the character andmore importantly the devel-opment of the plot. But forreaders when it comes towomen protagonists, theirexpectations are different.”

Upon looking for furtherclarity on how such a biasfunctions, here’s what socio-logical research has to say.“This process has been fur-ther clarified by Glick andFiske, who identified twoforms of sexist prejudice:expressly hostile and subjec-tively benevolent. Hostilesexism encompasses aderogatory depiction ofwomen and negative feelingstoward them in order to jus-tify male power, traditionalgender roles, and men’s con-sideration of women as sex-ual objects. Benevolentsexisms is a more subtleform of prejudice towardwomen because it sees themas pure, kind, gentle, and inneed of men’s protection,therefore justifying maledominance and women’ssubordinate role.” states anarticle on Gender Bias andSexism in Language byMichela Menegatti andMonica Rubini published inthe Oxford ResearchEncyclopedia.

In the cases of strongfemale protagonists or sup-porting characters that are

depicted as being indepen-dent and confident there is ahigh chance that these char-acters are perceived by thereaders as being aloof and“bold” which again is cate-gorised under ‘undesirable’or ‘negative’ traits by amajority of the readership.

Even today a majority ofwomen writers are expectedto write on issues such asfamily, drama, fiction(expected to be with a femi-nine view of the world), andromance in order to getreviews. Take for instance,City of girls which wasreleased on June 4, 2019,penned by Elizabeth Gilbertauthor of Eat, Pray, Love.Gilbert like most womenauthors writes about worldthrough the eyes of awoman. The author’s officialsite calls her latest book ‘adelicious novel of glamour,sex, and adventure, about ayoung woman discoveringthat you don’t have to be agood girl to be a good per-son’. Similarly, men are alsotend to be reviewed morewhen they write non fictionand traditionally masculinetopics such as sport, war,politics and scholarly arti-cles and books on the topicsof economy or science tend

to hold more weightagewhen the document areknown to be written by men.

Silalolita is a Telanganabased writer who has beenpublishing her work inTelugu since 1993. Herworks are majorly inclinedtowards feminism andwoman empowerment. NariSaree and Gajula Nadi aresome of her most prominentworks. This is what she hasto say about the issue,“When I come to know thata certain book was writtenby women I personallyattach more importance to itbecause I know where theycome from. Most of thefemales struggle with emo-tional, familial or someother form of struggle intheir life before they canfinally publish the bookeven after which they con-tinue to face a bias by pub-lishers and even in terms ofsocial acceptance.” Today, amajority of the readershipconsists of women, whichleads to a bigger question,does the female populationaccept and support the por-trayal of women in such amanner? In answer to this VSandhya, the president ofPoW: ProgressiveOrganization of Women

tells us, “It is true thatopportunities and a hope ofliberation is slowly reachingwomen in several parts ofnot just the country but inseveral parts of the world.The changes in ideology and

lifestyle are beginning to bevisible,” she said. “But, thistype of portrayal in literarydocuments is almost a directresult of the prevailingpatriarchy ingrained in theIndian culture which has

inevitably ingrained itself inthe mindset of men andwomen alike. Which resultsin them accepting and sup-porting the ideology of thesociety’s notion of the ‘idealwoman’.”

It is important to citeissues such as these in orderto address and bring aboutchanges in discriminationthat remains hidden in plainsight to the general popula-tion.

I really feel that a majority ofthe people who read outthere, including women who form a major part of the readership, do not stillaccept reality. it really is like they want to continuewearing blinders and remainin their comfort zone.

KANCHANA BANERJEEAUTHOR

W

Youth For Seva, a nation-wide movement that inspiresyouth to volunteer, provides meaningful opportunities to

serve the community, finds V SATEESH REDDY ounded in 2007,Youth for Seva(YFS), is a nation-wide volunteeringmovement thatinspires youth to

volunteer, and provides themwith meaningful opportunitiesto serve the community.

Aditya, city coordinator forYFS, says, “The goal of YFS isto support schools, destituteshelters, government hospitalsand other organisations in thesocial sector through volun-teers who can help them miti-gate some of their shortcom-ings and challenges.Volunteering is made easy andcustomised to the individual’sinterests, time availability andskill sets.”

Every year, we have witness-ing dropouts of students

increasing mostly in economi-cally backward people. To helpthese kids back to schools andassist them with basic ameni-ties, YFS has been organisingschool kit drives all over thecountry.

He shares, “School KitDrive addresses student reten-tion at government and otherneedy schools, by providingthem school bags consisting ofnotebooks, pens, water bottle,labels etc., fulfilling their basicneed of resources for theentire year.”

About the importance of having many volunteers foran NGO, he adds, “EveryNGO would have engaged afew volunteers at one time oranother. But, very few NGOshave made it their organisa-tion culture to engage the

community and build uponthe power of volunteering.Often, it becomes easy to hirepaid staff and get the workdone rather than engage vol-unteers from the community.Engaging volunteers has itsown challenges and those wholearn the art and science ofengaging volunteers effectivelyare able to create sustainableprograms and grow with thecommunity participation.”

He added that volunteeringinstils the spirit of ‘Seva’ (self-less service) in a large numberof people and also a sense ofconnectedness and belonging-ness to the society. Whenmore people are involved,there is an opportunity to cre-ate more positive changeagents in the society whichwould strengthen the health of

society, he said. YFS is also helping students

to crack the National Means-cum-Merit ScholarshipScheme (NMMSS) launchedin May, 2008. The objective ofthe scheme is to award schol-arships to meritorious stu-dents of economically weakersections to arrest their dropout at class VIII and encour-

age them to continue thestudy at secondary stage.Through YFS, many volun-teers are working in variousissues like women empower-ment, school drop outs andmore in Hyderabad,Vijayawada and more places.One of their initiative,Chiguru identifies talentedstudents of government school

and helps them to achievetheir goals with proper guid-ing.

On a concluding note,Aditya shares, “To date, we areexpanded to more than 25cities across India. More than200 active volunteers areworking in Hyderabad forYFS. Our goal is to inspiremany volunteers to join us.”

As movements to support the cause of women empowerment spread across theworld, it is essential to shed light into the world of literature and understand the rootcause of the inherent subconscious desire to attribute certain characteristics tospecific gender in the world of literature till date, writes ANUSHKA PRADEEP

The ideal women in severalnovels, especially in theromantic genre and millsand boon books written byIndian writers even in thisday and age, is one who isunaware of her beauty andself worth. She is docile andmore often than not.

SRITAMA MOITRAPROF. ENGLISH LITERATURE AT

LOYOLA ACADEMY

A majority of men expect women look andbehave in a certain mannerand women, on the otherhand, conform to theseideals conferred on them bysociety. The changes inideology and lifestyle arebeginning to be visible.

V SANDHYAPRESIDENT OF POW

The tendency to associate lessvalue to women writers femalecharacters has been in existencesince generations but at the endof the day, the responsibility ofchanging this mindset relies onus women. Most of the femalesstruggle with emotional, familialstruggle in their life before theycan finally publish the book

SILALOLITA, AUTHOR

BACK TO SCHOOL: NGOHELPS DROPOUTS REJOIN

F

WOMEN STILL NOT POWERFUL

IN LITERATURE

SaturdaySeptember 14, 2019

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dailypioneer

t’s been six years since theFast And Furious actor PaulWalker lost his life in atragic car accident, and tilldate he is being missed byfriends and colleagues.

On the occassion of Paul’s 46thbirth anniversary on Thursday, hisFast And Furious co-actors Vin Dieseland Dwayne Johnson penned emo-tional posts on Instagram.

Johnson wrote: “I never post aboutmy friend. Personal thing, but I preferto keep our memories and bond pri-vate and quiet. But something abouttoday compelled me as a movingreminder of how fragile life is for all of

us. It’s Paul’s birthday and rightfullyso, his legacy celebrated around theworld.

“Our friendship was bonded overour daughters, Meadow and Simoneand the pride and protection we tookbeing their fathers. And recently, I gota scare when I almost lost anotherfriend on the road. All this stuff gotme thinking about how beautiful, yetwildly unpredictable life is. We neverknow what’s around the corner, so wegotta live as greatly as we can in thehonor of our loved ones and ancestorswho are no longer with us.”

Diesel said he feels blessed to callPaul his brother.

“So much to tell you... so much toshare... as you know, we have beenfilming in Scotland. We threw aparty for the crew last night inappreciation for all of their hardwork. It was one of those momentsthat so often in the past we weretogether smiling and gettingeveryone drunk, especially Justin.Haha. Who by the way wouldmake you so proud with what he isaccomplishing with this film.Nathalie was there, in her lovingspirit. Oh, and John Cena wasthere, who you would just love.”

Paul was killed in a car acci-dent in November, 2013.

I

Vijayawada Saturday September 14, 2019

10

celeb talksVIN DIESEL, DWAYNE JOHNSON REMEMBERPAUL WALKER ON BIRTH ANNIVERSARY

NEW ‘GOT’ PREQUEL TO FOCUS ON HOUSETARGARYEN

et another storyfrom the Game OfThrones universeis all set to comealive, with HBOgiving the green

signal to a prequel that willfocus on House Targaryen.

The cable network willsoon be closing the deal ona pilot order for a prequelset 300 years before theevents of the flagship series,which tracks the beginningsand the end of HouseTargaryen, reports holly-

woodreporter.com.It is also reported that

Ryan Condal, along withGame Of Thrones authorGeorge RR Martin, will penthe script for the prequel,which is based on Martin’sbook Fire & Blood.

The book narrates storiesof previous Targaryen kings,like Aegon — the first rulerof Westeros — and Aegonthe Dragonbane — theancestors of DaenerysTargaryen (essayed by EmiliaClarke) and Jon Snow (Kit

Harington) in the hit series.

The Targaryen prequel isnot one of the previouslyreported prequels that hadbeen in the works at HBOsince 2017. HBO firstannounced four prequelseries in the works andadded a fifth later on.

The other prequel, whichis moving forward, is setthousands of years beforethe original series. It starsNaomi Watts in the leadrole.

Y

ollywood actor TigerShroff will be frontingads of Japan-basedfootwear brand ASICS,which is expanding intosportstyle and athleisure

segments in India.The association will also see the

India launch of the global#IMoveMe campaign — a contem-porary expression of the company’s“founding philosophy” Anima SanaIn Corpore Sano — a sound mindin a sound body.

“ASICS has constantly been mygo-to gear — be it at the gym, dur-ing vacations or even while travel-ling — I always have my ASICS on!The brand ideology of ASICS res-onates perfectly with my fashionand fitness sensibilities. I want tomake the most of our associationwhere we inspire and motivate peo-ple to “move” and be part of the

larger global movement started byASICS,” Tiger said in a statement.

Speaking on the association,Rajat Khurana, Managing Director— ASICS India Pvt. Ltd., said, “As abrand, we are extremely delightedto bring on board India’s mostpromising and versatile actor, TigerShroff as the ASICS brand ambas-sador. Our collaboration with TigerShroff is special because apart frombeing a youth icon, he is passionateabout being fit and staying stylish.

“Our aim is to reach out andconnect with a larger audience byputting forth our consumers a dis-tinct mix of lifestyle and sportsofferings and widen the productportfolio. This association is anextension of the brand’s ‘I MoveMe’ campaign and we are confidentthat it will reinforce our brand ideology and leadership in the market.”

B

TIGER SHROFF ROPEDIN AS ‘ASICS’ INDIABRAND AMBASSADOR

nternational popstar Dua Lipa hasexpressed excite-ment over herfirst-ever live con-cert in India.

“(I am) So excited to per-form in India for the firsttime ever. I’m excited to getback on stage, (and) I feellike it’s going to be such afun night,” the one kiss hit-maker told.

In August, we had reportedthat Dua Lipa might join popstar Katy Perry as headlineacts at the OnePlus MusicFestival, set to take place onSaturday, November 16 at theDY Patil Stadium in Mumbai.

Now, the singer confirmsto us that she is indeedcoming to India for herfirst-ever performance.

A teaser announcingthe one-day musicextravaganza waslaunched in July, and itwas subsequently con-firmed that it wouldtake place at DY PatilStadium in NaviMumbai -- incidentally,the venue where popsensation Justin Bieberhad performed a whileback.

The time, the stadium isset to host Dua Lipa alongwith Katy Perry.

Speaking about the musicfestival, Carl Pei, co-founder,OnePlus said, “We are superexcited that Dua Lipa willalso be performing in thefirst-ever OnePlus MusicFestival in India! The addi-tion of Dua completes theInternational Festival musicoffering. We will be announc-ing additional music fromIndia soon. This festival willtruly be a one of a kind expe-rience for our Indian com-munity.”

The 24-year-old Englishsinger-songwriter Dua Lipamade her debut in 2015 withthe single New Love. By thetime her second hit, Be theone was released, she wasalready on way to becoming aglobal sensation. One Kiss,her 2018 single with CalvinHarris sclaed the top spot inthe UK charts. Over theyears, she has featured on theUS Billboard Hot 100 andalso topped the BillboardDance Club Songs chart, andshe has entered the the UKTop 10 several times. A win-ner of multiple awardsincluding the Grammy andthe BRIT Awards, she hascollaborated with big namesincluding Sean Paul, CalvinHarris and Diplo.

Tickets for the OnePlus giggo on sale at 12pm September17. Tickets are priced at Rs 2,000 onwards, withOnePlus users being extendedthe facility of a 10 per centcashback through theirInsider or Paytm transaction.

EXCITED TO PERFORM IN INDIA FOR THE FIRST TIME: DUA LIPA

KATE HUDSON ISN'TIN A RUSH TO MARRYDANNY FUJIKAWA

ctress Kate Hudson says she isn’t planning to get marriedto her boyfriend Danny Fujikawa anytime soon. “Ohgod! I’m not thinking about that,” etonline.com quotedHudson as saying when asked about a potential weddingto Fujikawa.

“Yeah, especially after one wedding, you’re like,‘Whew!’ It’s a lot of work but yeah, not anytime soon but I love

the man,” added the actress, while referring to the wedding ofher brother Wyatt Russell earlier this month.

Hudson and Fujikawa have been dating since 2017. Theywelcomed their first child together, daughter Rani, lastOctober.

Hudson has a busy schedule caring for Rani, as well as hertwo sons, 15-year-old Ryder and 8-year-old Bingham. Sherecently took to Instagram to post a video of the family

singing “Happy Birthday” to her brother Oliver Hudson. In thecomments, Ryder had joked that she didn’t check with him beforeshe posted it.

Asked if Ryder has a final say on what she can and cannot post,the actress said, “Actually, they’ll never get final say. It just doesn’twork that way, you know.”

IA

hen Dil Rajuannounced a filmwith Naga Chaitanyaearlier this year witha new director Sashiat the helm, one was-

n't expecting him to revive AdheNuvvu Adhe Nenu. Yes, thesame film that the Tollywoodheavyweight launched withAshok Galla, son of TDP MP JayGalla, last Dasara but called offsoon after due to reasons bestkept secret. Turns out, the pro-ducer even got a leading lady inplace. Rashmika Mandanna,who is on a roll in Telugu cine-ma with several big-ticket flicksin her kitty, has been narratedthe story and she, it seems, hasevinced interest towards tospearhead it.

A little birdie tells us thatsince the script has huge

potential to be a box-officewinner à la Fidaa and a reput-ed casting needs to shoulder it,Raju decided to shelve it withGalla. Discussions with Chayhave been going on for the pastsix months and it was a monthago, he gave his nod. The filmwill roll mostly after he com-pletes his film with SekharKammula. A prominent gener-al entertainment channelhas acquired the satel-lite rights of this filmalong with Raju'sIddari LokamOkate, featuring RajTarun and ShaliniPandey, in a pack-aged deal.However, theproducer is yetto make theproject official.

aving taken the onus ofintroducing producerBellamkonda Suresh’syounger son Ganesh intofilmdom, filmmaker PavanSadineni is leaving no

stone unturned to get the rightnames associated with the project.Set to go to floors shortly, the direc-tor has got a familiar name VivekAthreya on board to pen the film’sdialogues, The Pioneer has exclusivelylearnt. The untitled film is a hatkelove story with multiple layers to it.Vivek’s writing prowess, which is evi-dent from his two films MentalMadhilo and Brochevarevaruraa,ensured that Sadineni approachedhim for his love story, which will seeGanesh’s part age from a boy to mar-ried man. “Both the directors go along way. Vivek has been in touchwith Pawan since he made hisdirectorial debut with PremaIshq Kadhal in 2013 and theyhave great respect for eachother’s work. Sadinenilikes Vivek’s dia-logues and he feltthe latter woulddo justice to themature love thathis film his.He put for-ward aproposal

to Vivek who was more than willingto let his pen do the talking. Thetwo-film old director has almost fin-ished writing the film,” informs awell-placed source close to the unit.

The film is an important one forSadineni as it’s been more than threeyears since his last Savitri, starring

Nara Rohith, opened in cinemas. Apromising young talent, he was sup-posed to work with Kalyanram forhis third project but after investing ayear on it, the project, a fantasydrama, couldn’t go to sets due to var-ious reasons. He shifted attention tothe love story, which has been on hismind since a long time. While he gotVivek on the creative front, on thetechnical front he roped in his cam-eraman buddy KarthikGhattamaneni, who was instrumentalin giving Prema Ishq Kadhal thevibrant look for its Rs 80 lakh invest-ment. “It’s like a reunion of sorts forthem and Karthik wants to weavemagic with his work. He believes thefilm’s US backdrop will help his cause

more. Sadineni has also signed onAndala Raksashi composer

Radhan to be the tune-smith and almost all

the tunes have beenagreed upon,” addsthe source.

To be shot inUS andHyderabad, the film is a production venture ofBekkemVenugopal underhis Lucky Media.

The untitled film is a hatke love story with multiple

layers to it, finds NAGARAJ GOUD

Vijayawada Saturday September 14, 2019

11

tollywoodPAVAN SADINENI GETS VIVEKATHREYA TO PEN DIALOGUES

H

Popularvillain Satya

Prakash turnsto direction

GOPI'Sadventuredrama rolls on

week after wrapping up his long-in-the-making spy thriller Chanakya, actorGopichand has dived headlong into thefilming of BVSN Prasad’s next produc-tion on Friday in Hyderabad. The pro-ject was launched five months ago. An

adventure thriller, it is directed by BinuSubramanyam who assisted Santosh Sivan andJayam Raja in the past.

Expressing his joy over teaming up with Gopifor the second time after Sahasam, Prasad saidsince the film’s story span is huge; it will be shotacross exotic locales of Thailand, Nepal andCambodia besides India. He further informed thatMani Sharma, who has bounced back into the topleague with iSmart Shankar, has been signed on tocompose music, while Satish Kurup will crank thecamera.

Binu said he will be presenting Gopi in a com-plete new light, while assuring that the film willappeal to audience of every class.

Meanwhile, Gopi’s Chanakya is looking at aDasara release date though the makers haven’t disclosed date yet. The actor also has a film withSampath Nandi lined up.

A

Adhe Nuvvu AdheNenu revived withChay and Rashmika?

ctor Satya Prakash, who has played many anegative roles infilms like Seetharamaraju, Pellichesukundam, SamarasimhaReddy and Master among others, has turned director withUllaala Ullaala. Gururaj who released Lovers Day earlierthis Valentine’s Day is producing the movie, which featuresNataraj, Nuris and Ankitha in the lead roles.

Prakash said he has been harbouring direction dreams since along time and he is happy to have realised it finally with UllaalaUllaala. “It’s a romantic thriller and no one will be able to predictthe twists and turns the story takes as it unravels thread by thread.Making-wise, I’ve tried something different,” the actor said, gladthat he got a producer like Gururaj for his first shot at direction.

The producer, who has penned the film’s story, said he knowsSathya since a long time and he always had that fire in him as anactor. “The passion Sathya has for direction is more than what hehas for acting. I believe the film will be a turning point in his career.It is in the last leg of production and post-production works too arein full-swing,” he noted. — NG

W

A

major part of Puri Jagannadh’s films

like Iddarammayilatho, Heart Attack,

ISM and Paisa Vasool have been set in

Europe and he will be following suit

with his next, Fighter, starring Vijay

Deverakonda, as well. After finishing

the first half of the script, an action entertainer, in

Bangkok last month, the director took off to

Europe to search for an apt location to set his film.

“He is looking at countries which he hasn’t explored

till now. Although Spain is his favourite, he might

spring a surprise this time around. He has a country

on mind but might visit Europe again just to be sure,”

said a source close to the director.

The source adds Puri, who is riding from the wave of

his iSmart Shankar massive success, will jet off to

Bangkok again to complete the second half. “Since

Fighter will move to floors only early next year, Puri has

ample time to complete the script but first he wants to

fasten the production work of Romantic, which he is

producing with son Akash in the lead. The film is 60

per cent through and he wants it to be wrapped up in

the next couple of months, before he shifts complete

attention to Fighter,” the source notes.

In Fighter, a joint production venture between

Puri and Charmme under Puri Jagannadh Touring

Talkies banner and Puri Connects, Deverakonda

will be seen as a youth with stammer. He will also

be presented as a martial arts exponent. — NG

FIGHTER TO BESHOT IN EUROPE

A

Pava

n SSa

dine

ni

Vive

k AAth

reya

sport 12VIJAYAWADA | SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 14, 2019

LACAZETTE RULED OUT UNTIL OCTOBERLondon: Arsenal striker Alexandre Lacazette will besidelined until October after failing to shake off apersistent ankle injury. Lacazette had been playing withpain from the problem for several weeks and theFrance international has now been told to rest in thehope it will allow time for the problem to heal. "Afterassessments to an ongoing ankle issue, we haveadvised that Alex will need to rest and strengthen hisankle to regain full fitness," an Arsenal statement saidon Friday. "Alex has been playing through this injury forseveral weeks. He is likely to be back in action inOctober."

RUSSELL SUFFERS BRUTAL BLOW Kingston: Swashbuckling West Indies all-rounderAndre Russell suffered a serious blow on his helmetfollowing which he had to be stretchered off during theCaribbean Premier League (CPL) game betweenJamaica Tallawahs and St Lucia Zouks. The incidenthappened in the 14th over of the Jamaica Tallawahs'inning when Russell, batting on zero, failed to connectwith a pull and the ball struck his helmet near the rightear on Thursday evening at the Sabina Park. Havingfailed to pull, his head turned due to the momentum ofhis swing and that's when the impact took place. TheWest Indies all-rounder immediately fell on the groundand the Zouks fielders then removed his helmet tocheck for his injury. At first, it appeared that there wasno neck guard on Russell's helmet. He was then off theground on a stretcher and a CT scan took place later inthe evening. A medical update from the franchise laterconfirmed Russell had not suffered from any seriousinjury.

SOURABH ENTERS VIETNAM SEMISHo Chi Minh City: Indian shuttler Sourabh Vermastormed into the men's singles semifinals of theVietnam Open BWF Tour Super 100 after beating localhero Tien Minh Nguyen in straight games on Friday.Second seed Sourabh, who had won the HyderabadOpen last month, defeated Tien Minh 21-13, 21-18 in a43-minute clash. The reigning national champion willface either Japan's Minoru Koga or Thailand's sixthseed Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk next.

U-17 FIFA WOMEN’S WC FROM NOV 2 New Delhi: The FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, to behosted by India, will be held from November 2 to 21next year. The age group showpiece event of the FIFAwill be held in four cities across the country. Lastmonth, the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar has beenprovisionally confirmed as a venue, pending FIFAapproval. Kolkata, Navi Mumbai, Goa and Ahmedabadare in the running for the other three host cities. Spainare the defending champions, having won the title ofthe biennial tournament in 2018. As India has gotautomatic qualification as hosts, it is not entering theAsian qualification campaign in the AFC U-16 Women'sChampionship which will be held in Thailand fromSeptember 15 to 28.

OSAKA CHANGES COACH FOR 2ND TIME Tokyo: Japanese tennis superstar Naomi Osakaannounced on Friday she was splitting with her coach,her second break-up this year as she battles for formand slips down the world rankings. On the eve of thePan Pacific Open tournament in Osaka, western Japan,the 21-year-old announced she would no longer beworking with Jermaine Jenkins, who joined her teamafter her triumph at the Australian Open in January.“Writing this to let you guys know that me and Jaywon't be working together anymore,” Osaka tweeted.“I'm super grateful for the time we spent together andthe things I learned on and off the court but I feel likenow is a appropriate time for a change... Thank you foreverything, it was a blast,” added Osaka.

SRIKANTH OUT OF CHINA & KOREA OPEN New Delhi: Ace Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth onFriday pulled out of the upcoming tournaments inChina and Korea, owing to a knee injury that flared upafter the World Championship last month. The ChinaOpen World Tour Super 1000 is scheduled to be heldat Changzhou from September 17 to 22, followed byKorea Open World Tour Super 500 (September 24 to29) at Incheon City. “Tough times. Will not be playingin the upcoming #ChinaOpen and #KoreaOpen due toknee injury. Hope to recover quick and get back inaction soon!,” he wrote on his Twitter handle.

DURYODHAN WINS AT WORLD C'SHIPSEkaterinburg: National champion Duryodhan SinghNegi (69kg) claimed an exhausting 4-1 triumph overArmenia's Koryun Astoyan in his opening bout to enterthe second round of the World Men's BoxingChampionships here on Friday. The Indian will faceJordan's sixth seed Zeyad Eashash in the round of 32on Monday. Eashash got a bye in the opening round.Astoyan seemed intimidated by the more muscularIndian but wasn't lacking in effort. His punches were,however, not connecting as powerfully. Astoyan'sdefence was particularly weak and he tried to make upfor it by constantly being on the move. The strategywas tiring for both but Negi endured it much better.

MURRAY ACCEPTS SHANGHAI WILDCARD Shanghai: Former World No 1 Andy Murray hasaccepted a wild card into the upcoming ShanghaiMasters. The 32-year-old, who had a hip surgery inJanuary, will return to the ATP Tour in Zhuhai,beginning on September 23. Following that, he willparticipate in the Shanghai Masters scheduled to beheld from October 6-13. “I'm really looking forward tobe going back to Shanghai, a tournament I have hadsuccess at in the past — the last time I was there wasin 2016,” Murray was quoted as saying by thetournament website. “Thanks to the tournament for awild card, it's great to be able to continue mycomeback and play more tennis in China. Shanghai isa great city, I feel comfortable there and the fans arealways supportive.” Tournament director MichaelLuevano said: “He is incredibly popular with our fansand we are all thrilled to see him back on the courtsand heading to Shanghai.

RANI RAMPAL TO LEAD ON ENGLAND TOUR New Delhi: Star forward Rani Rampal was on Fridaynamed captain of the 18-member Indian women'shockey team which will take on England in a five-matchseries starting September 27 in Marlow. The series isscheduled to take place from September 27 to October4 and Rani will have goalkeepeer Savita as her deputy.Savita and Rajani Etimarpu retained their places in theside following the team's triumph in the Olympic TestEvent in Japan recently. Defenders Deep Grace Ekka,Gurjit Kaur, Reena Khokhar and Salima Tete have alsobeen named in the squad. The midfield sees the returnof the experienced Namita Toppo after a lengthy spellon the sidelines due to injury, Hockey India said in astatement. India's midfield will also consist of otherexperienced players in Sushila Chanu Pukhrambam,Nikki Pradhan, Monika, Neha Goyal and Lilima Minz.The forward-line features Rani, Vandana Katariya,Navneet Kaur, Lalremsiami, Navjot Kaur and youngsterSharmila Devi who made her international debutduring the Olympic Test Event in Tokyo. AGENCIES

SINGLES

PTI n MUMBAI

Branded a limited-overs specialist at the beginningof his career, Indian pace spearhead Jasprit

Bumrah on Friday said it was nothing short of a dreamcome true when he made the Test side as success inthe longest format is what he has always craved for.

Bumrah is just 12 Tests old and already has 62wickets to his credit.

“For me, Test cricket was very important and Ialways wanted to play Test cricket and didn’t want tobe a cricketer who has played (only) T20s and ODIs.I gave a lot of importance to Test cricket...I alwayswanted to make a mark in Test cricket,” Bumrah saidat a promotional event

“I had the belief that I have done well in first-classcricket, then I could replicate that in Test matches. Thejourney has just started, just played 12 Tests...WhenI made my Test debut in South Africa after playingtwo years of international cricket, it was a dream cometrue (moment).

“Being there playing in the white jersey was a greatfeeling and then slowly contributing to team successgave me satisfaction,” the pacer, who became the thirdIndian to pick a hat-trick in Test cricket, said.

Asked to pick his ‘making it large’ moment,Bumrah singled out his first Test five-wicket haul, thathe took against South Africa at Johannesburg in 2018.

“For me, Test matches was a big thing, so gettingmy first Test fifer (five-wicket haul), which I got inJohannesburg playing in my first series... So I washappy and then the moment I got my fifth wicket (Iwas like), now I have got a Test fifer and no one cantake it away from me and that was ‘making it large’moment.”

While Bumrah has been rested for the T20 seriesagainst South Africa, he will return for the three-Testseries against the Proteas beginning with the open-ing match at Visakhapatnam on October 2.

“Each and every experience is important to me.I have played all my life in Ranji Trophy cricket in Indiaso it is not that it is alien conditions for me. I haveplayed in India before with the red-ball, so it is anoth-er challenge and looking forward to it,” he said.

“Playing international cricket in India in Testmatches will be a different challenge and hopefully thepreparations we put in will give(desired) results.”

The pacer uses the out-swinger very well and accord-ing to him playing in Englandgave him the confidence toexecute the skill.

Asked about his awaygoing ball, Bumrah said, “Notmastering it but I always hadthe out-swinger and notused it, but playing inEngland gave me a lot ofconfidence, the duke ballswings for a long time andthat gave me a lot of confi-dence.

“I became more andmore confident as I playedmore and more Testmatches and becauseof that I was able toexecute in Testmatches.”

Bumrah alsospoke on hisequation withb o w l i n gcoach BharatArun, whohas got an extension till 2021T20 World Cup to be held inIndia.

“He (Arun) has seen myprogress as a child. So he knowswhat are my strengths and weak-nesses and slowly I made progressinto international cricket, so he hasseen that (journey of mine), he hasgiven his inputs.

“We do a lot of hard work, and youhave seen the results that have come. Hehas obviously played a role and we arehappy that he is there (for another twoyears) and hopefully from nowonwards, we will try and contributemore (to the team's success)” saidBumrah, who has also played 58ODIs and 42 T20s.

PTI n KARACHI

Wicketkeeper-batsman SarfarazAhmed was on Friday retained

as Pakistan’s ODI and T20International captain ahead of theforthcoming series against Sri Lanka.

Pakistan’s new head coach andchief selector Misbah-ul-Haq told themedia in Lahore on Friday that he washopeful of working well with Sarfarazto take the team forward.

Misbah also announced that bats-man Babar Zaman would be the vice-captain of the national team in the twoshorter formats.

Asked whether Sarfaraz had beenappointed just for the series against SriLanka or on long-term basis like in thepast, Pakistan Cricket Board ChairmanEhsan Mani said one should not readtoo much into it and speculate.

“We have a new management ofthe team and we are looking now atfinding the right balance,” Mani said.

Mani also insisted that Misbah andthe Board’s Chief Executive WasimKhan were already looking into theissue of Test captaincy.

“Since we don’t have Test match-es immediately we have announcedcaptain for white ball cricket and dueprocess will be followed for namingcaptain of red ball cricket and Misbahand Wasim will make their recommen-dations to me,” he said.

Sarfaraz has been Pakistan’s cap-tain in all three formats since last two

years and has led the team in white ballcricket since 2017, also winning theChampions Trophy.

Asked about Sarfaraz’s perfor-mances, Misbah said, “Overall if weassess Sarfaraz’s performances I stillbelieve the team has done well. He hasled the national under-19 team andnow senior team in last three years, I

think we are doing the right thing.“Our T20 performances have been

outstanding but in ODI we have beenup and down and we need to be moreconsistent. But we can’t just blame thecaptain or one individual, that iswrong. When your main players areout of form and don’t perform, theteam can’t win. In cricket 11 playershave to play and perform.”

Misbah made the point that hismain job would be to support the cap-tain in decision making and help himreduce the mistakes.

“I have been captain and some-times as a captain you need to bepushed as you tend to underestimateyourself and forget your role as a play-er in the team. That is the area I willwork with him and ensure he does notunder utilize himself and does perform.If he performs it will help the team,” hesaid. Misbah said he was not worriedabout the criticism over his appoint-ment as head coach and chief selector.

“I just think a person has to justfocus on his job because if I performwell or bad it will become clear in frontof everyone.”

PTI n NUR-SULTAN

Areality check awaits India’stop wrestlers at the World

Championships where they willchase not only glory but alsoTokyo Olympics qualification,here from today.

The run-up to the Worlds hasbeen spectacular for BajrangPunia and Vinesh Phogat whiledecent results have provided adose of confidence to a few oth-ers like Divya Kakran.

Bajrang triumphed at all fourevents he competed this season —Dan Kolov, Asian ChampionshipAli Aliev and Yasar Dogu — andwill go into the Championships asthe world number one and topseed in 65kg.

For Vinesh, the season beganin a new weight category as shemoved up to 53kg from 50kg.

She took some time to settlein her new class but still made fivefinals, winning three Golds —Yasar Dogu, Grand Prix of Spainand Poland Open.

While skill is not an issuewith Vinesh, holding off strongcandidates for six minutes is a bigchallenge, she herself had admit-ted recently.

The big-stage competition

will help her make an assessmenton this count as she eyes a maid-en Worlds medal. A last-minuteelbow injury had forced her toopt-out of the BudapestChampionships last year.

No Indian woman has everwon a Gold at the Worlds andVinesh has it in her to end India’sdrought.

Bajrang has been in the formof his life but there is a chink inhis armour — the weak legdefence — and it will surely betested.

Only Sushil Kumar has wona World title in men’s freestyle inIndia’s wrestling history andBajrang would be keen to endIndia’s wait for a second medal.

The 25-year-old himself hastwo World Championship medalsbut not a Gold. His road thoughis full of challenges with thepresence of RussianGadzhimurad Rashidov andBahrain's Haji Mohammed Ali inhis category.

Two-time Olympic medallistSushil has been struggling of lateand is returning to the Worldsafter a gap of eight years.

He will be watched keenly inthe 74kg competition as his rel-evance is being discussed for

some time now. He remains bull-ish about his chances and Worldswill provide an opportunity to testhis claims.

Like Sushil, Rio OlympicsBronze medallist Sakshi Malik hasbeen struggling on the interna-

tional circuit. She has not won atitle since her triumph at the 2017Commonwealth Championships.

This season, ending runner-up at Dan Kolov has been her bestshow. She had stunned reigningworld champion Petra Olli before

eventually settling for a Silver.Not being able to handle

pressure has been her bane forlong. Staying defensive in the finalmoments of the bout has nothelped her and she has lost a fewbouts from advantageous positionlot of time.

Divya Kakran, in contrast, isa bundle of energy and remainsrelentless throughout her bouts.She has won two Gold and asmany Bronze medals this seasonand looks hungry for more.

Pooja Dhanda, who becameonly the fourth Indian woman towin a medal at the Worlds lastyear, could not book a berth in57kg, which is an Olympic cate-gory but will fight for her secondmedal in 59kg.

It will be interesting to seehow Sarita Mor, who shockedPooja in trials, fares.

Among other men’s freestylegrapplers, Deepak Punia is capa-ble of springing a surprise. He isheading into the Championshipsafter becoming India’s first juniorWorld champion in 18 years.

He outplayed his seniors dur-ing the trials. This is a perfectopportunity for him to announcehis arrival on the senior circuit.

Gurpreet Singh (77kg) and

Harpreet Singh (82kg) will beIndia’s best bet in Greco-Romanstyle.

However, India’s nationalGreco Roman Coach HargobindSingh says a lot would depend ondraw and a bit of luck.

The championship is offeringsix Olympic quotas in six cate-gories in all three styles.

SQUAD(Men’s Freestyle): Ravi Kumar(57kg), Rahul Aware (61kg),Bajrang Punia (65kg), Karan(70kg), Sushil Kumar (74kg),Jitender (79kg), Deepak Punia(86kg), Parveen (92kg), MausamKhatri (97kg) and Sumit Malik(125kg).(Men’s Greco-Roman): Manjeet(55kg), Manish (60kg), Sagar(63kg), Manish (67kg), Yogesh(72kg), Gurpreet Singh (77kg),Harpreet Singh (82kg), SunilKumar (87kg), Ravi (97kg) andNaveen (130kg).(Women’s Freestyle): Seema(50kg), Vinesh Phogat (53kg),Lalita (55kg), Sarita (57-kg),Pooja Dhanda (59-kg), SakshiMalik (62kg), Navjot Kaur (65kg),Divya Kakran (68kg), KomalBhagwan Gole (72kg) and Kiran(76kg).

AFP n LONDON

Steve Smith again provedEngland's nemesis on

Friday, passing 700 runs in theAshes series as the touristsreached 147-4 at tea on thesecond day of the fifth Test.

The former captain hasbeen in imperious form dur-ing the tour, with a lowestscore of 82 in five completedinnings so far.

He was 59 not out at thebreak, with Mitchell Marsh on12, as Australia look to wrapup their first Test series vic-tory in England since 2001.

Smith came to the creasewith Australia in trouble at14-2 in reply to England'sfirst-innings total of 294 afterpaceman Jofra Archer hadremoved openers DavidWarner and Marcus Harris.

Smith, who only returnedto Test cricket last month fol-lowing a year-long ban for hisrole in a ball-tampering scan-dal, was watchful at the begin-ning of his innings.

But he soon found histouch at the sun-bakedground in London, bringingup his 10th consecutive Ashesfifty with a six over midwick-et off left-arm spinner JackLeach.

Earlier, Warner, who wasalso banned over the ball-tampering scandal, was againdismissed for single figures,caught behind by wicket-keeper Jonny Bairstow, as afeisty Archer made earlyinroads into Australia's bat-ting line-up.

The opener was initiallygiven not out but Englandreviewed.

Slow-motion replays sug-gested there was a gapbetween bat and ball but thetechnology picked up a snickand the umpire overturnedhis initial verdict.

WARNER STRUGGLESIt was the eighth time that

Warner had been dismissedin single figures in the series.

Archer then struck againwith a 90 miles-per-hourthunderbolt, with Ben Stokes

holding onto a sharp chancefrom Harris at second slip.

That dismissal broughtSmith to the crease and hewas immediately greeted witha sharp bouncer, much to thedelight of the packed crowd.

Smith came into thematch with 671 runs underhis belt in just five innings atan astonishing average ofmore than 134.

He did not bat in the sec-ond innings of the secondTest at Lord's and missed thethird Test after being struckby an Archer bouncer.

Smith and MarcusLabuschagne repaired theearly damage, putting on 69for the third wicket beforeArcher struck again, trap-ping Labuschagne lbw for48.

Matthew Wade was lbwto Sam Curran for 19 asAustralia slipped to 118-4but the unruffled Smith wasplaying a different game, eas-ing to his half-century in 91balls.

World Cup winnersEngland, desperate to level thefive-match series at 2-2, addedjust 23 runs to their overnightscore, with Jos Buttler out for70.

Marsh returned figures of5-46 on his return to the Testside while Pat Cummins took3-84.

Australia won at OldTrafford last week to take a 2-1 lead in the series, meaningthey will retain the Ashes urnregardless of the result at theOval.

Smith rescues Australia Bumrah alwayswanted to makea mark in Tests

All eyes on Bajrang, Vinesh at World C’ship

Vinesh Phogat in a file picture Vinesh/Twitter

Sarfaraz retained as ODI and T20 captain

Sarfaraz Ahmed celebrates with Babar Azam after Pak beat India in 2017 Champions Trophy final

Smith came tothe crease with

Australia introuble at 14-2 in

reply toEngland's 294after paceman

Jofra Archer hadremoved David

Warner andMarcus Harris