ˆ...2021/07/02 · run xinhua news agency quot-ed 68-year-old xi as saying. detailed report on p8...

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In a major diplomatic victo-ry for India, nine countries

— Austria, Germany, Slovenia,Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Spain,Estonia, and Switzerland —have cleared Serum Institute ofIndia’s Covishield jab for GreenPass.

This means those inocu-lated with the Covishield vac-cine will be exempted fromtravel curbs in these coun-tries. However, fate of BharatBiotech’s Covaxin is yet to bedecided.

The Green Pass is animmunity document meant toease travel within and to theEuropean Union (EU) fromJuly 1.

However, this did not comeeasy for India. After EU coun-tries put condition of makingit mandatory for a quarantineperiod for Indians arriving intheir regions despite being vac-cinated with Covishield, Indiatoo decided on adopting a rec-iprocal policy.

On Wednesday, India hadsaid it would recognise EU’sdigital Covid certificate on areciprocal basis and would notaccept it until the EU does thesame for Indian vaccines —Covishield and Covaxin.

India, which had raised theissue with the EuropeanMedicines Agency (EMA) andFrance, had also asked EUmember states to individuallyconsider extending a similar

exemption to those who havehad Covishield and Covaxinjabs.

Currently, the EMA, theEU’s top medical body hadapproved only four vaccines sofar — Pfizer-BioNTech’sComirnaty, US pharma giantModerna’s Covid vaccine, theAstraZeneca shot manufac-tured and sold in Europe asVaxzervria, and Johnson &Johnson’s Janssen. Only those

who have been given theseshots were granted vaccinationpassports and allowed to trav-el hassle-free amid the pan-demic.

Besides Covishield, BharatBiotech’s Covaxin was also noton the EMA list. The EU does,however, also said that “mem-ber states may decide to extendthis (the certificate) also to EUtravellers that received anoth-er vaccine”.

Under these rules, Indians— vaccinated with Covishieldor Covaxin — were to be sub-jected to a mandatory quaran-tine if they travel to the EUnations, unless these vaccinesare cleared by the respectivecountries.

Foreign Minister SJaishankar on Tuesday hadalso brought the issue when hemet Josep Borrell Fontelles, atop EU official.

+�� 89�.83�

As north and northwest partof the country reels under

a heatwave and dry humidweather conditions due tomonsoon’s delay, the IndiaMeteorological Department(IMD) on Thursday said mon-soon rain in July is likely to be“normal” between 94 and 106per cent of long-period average.It added that rains in the north,northwest India will reviveonly during the second week.

Dry and strong westerlywinds blowing from Pakistanand West Asia have brought theheatwaves and dry humid con-ditions across northern andcentral India which is likely tocontinue till the second week.

Temperatures in severalplaces in central and westernIndia crossed 45 degreesCelsius on Thursday. In normalweather conditions, this regionsees heatwave conditions in lateApril, May or early June.

IMD director generalMrutunjay Mohapatra in itsforecast for July said rainfall isnot expected to be good in thefirst week, but it is likely to pickup in the second half of the sec-ond week of July. According toMohapatra, the advancementof the monsoon is unlikely tohappen before July 7.

Farmers are worried as the

delay in the arrival of the windsystem is likely to impact agri-cultural operations such assowing and transplantation ofcrops, irrigation schedulingand power requirements inthe northwest region.According to IMD data, despite10 per cent excess rainfall inJune, at least 202 districts arefaced large deficient monsoonand 183 deficient rainfall so far.

On the southwest mon-soon, Dr Mohapatra said“below normal” to “normal”rainfall is likely over manyareas of northwest India; partsof the south peninsula, central,east and northeast India while“normal” to “above normal”rainfall is likely over parts ofcentral India and adjacent areasof peninsular India andGangetic plains in July.

Mohapatra said monsooncovered most parts of the coun-try except northwest India, byJune 19. He said southwestmonsoon does take a break andit is normal. But it is not usualfor the break to stretch somuch.

Continued on Page 2

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The Supreme Court onThursday issued notices to

the West Bengal Government,the Centre and the ElectionCommission over a plea seek-ing an SIT probe into the post-poll violence in the State.

The court was hearing aplea seeking direction to theCentre to impose President’sRule in West Bengal in view ofdeteriorating law and ordersituation due to the post-pollviolence which started on May2, the day of Assembly electionresults.

The plea also sought direc-tion to the Centre to deployarmed/paramilitary forces inthe aid of the administrativeauthorities to bring normalcy

in the State and to save it frominternal disturbances.

A bench of Justices VineetSaran and Dinesh Maheshwariissued notice to the Centre,West Bengal and the EC on theplea, which also sought Centraland State Governments toaward compensation to thevictims and their family mem-bers after ascertaining thenature of loss sustained bythem in post-poll violence inthe State.

Advocate Hari ShankarJain — appearing for petition-ers Ranjana Agnihotri, a UttarPradesh-based practicinglawyer and social workerJitender Singh — said that theplea is against post-poll vio-lence in West Bengal.

The bench said, “We areissuing notice to respondent

number 1, (Union of India),respondent number-2 (WestBengal Government) andrespondent number 3 (ElectionCommission of India).”

The bench, however, didnot issue notice to respondentnumber 4 — Mamata Banerjeeas the president of TrinamoolCongress Party (TMC).

The plea filed throughadvocate Vishnu Shankar Jainsaid that the PIL has been filedin extraordinary circumstancesas thousands of residents ofWest Bengal are being ter-rorised, penalised and torturedby the workers of TMC for sup-porting the OppositionBhartiya Janta Party (BJP) dur-ing the Assembly polls.

The petitioners are espous-ing the cause of thousands ofpeople, mostly Hindus, who arebeing targeted by Muslims totake revenge for supporting theBJP as they want to crushHindus so that for years tocome the power may remainwith the party of their choice,the plea said.

Continued on Page 2

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Adefiant President XiJinping on Thursday

asserted that the Chinese peo-ple will not allow any “foreignforce” to “bully, oppress orsubjugate” China and spoke ofits military might to defend itssovereignty, as the rulingCommunist Party celebrated itscentenary with a massivecolourful show at the historicTiananmen Square here.

Addressing a highly-chore-ographed ceremony from thebalcony of Tiananmen Gate,which also adorns a giant sizephoto of ‘Chairman’ MaoZedong, the founding father ofthe People’s Republic of China,Xi also said integrating Taiwanwith the Chinese mainland isa historic mission of the party.

Xi warned that any “foreignforce” will be allowed to bullyChina, an apparent reference tothe US.

Both former US PresidentDonald Trump and his suc-cessor Joe Biden have pursued

a hardline policy towardsChina, targeting it on severalfronts including trade, humanrights and the origins of theCovid-19, which first emergedin the central Chinese city ofWuhan before becoming apandemic.

“Chinese people will neverallow any foreign force to bully,oppress, or subjugate us,” state-run Xinhua news agency quot-ed 68-year-old Xi as saying.

Detailed report on P8+�� 89�.83�

Aspecial NationalInvestigation Agency

(NIA) court in Guwahati onThursday discharged AkhilGogoi, Raijor Dal president andMLA from Sibsagar, Assam ina case related to anti-Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) protests, and ruled thatblockades unaccompanied byincitement to violence wouldnot constitute terrorist act.

“Ordinary bandhs, block-ades, shutdowns as part ofsome protests, unaccompaniedby incitement to violencewould not come under theambit of the expression ‘threat-ening the economic security ofIndia’ under section 15(1) ofUnlawful Activities(Prevention) Act,” the courtruled.

“Protests in a democracyare sometimes seen to take theform of blockades also, evencausing inconvenience to citi-zens. However, it is doubtfulwhether such blockades fortemporary periods, if unac-companied by any incitementto violence, would constitute aterrorist act within the mean-ing of section 15 of UA(P) Act,”it further elaborated.

Gogoi was arrested inDecember 2019 on terrorcharges under the Unlawful

Activities (Prevention) Act.Last year, he was admitted toGuwahati Medical CollegeHospital (GMCH) for treat-ment of various ailments.

Following the court orderon Thursday, Gogoi walked outof hospital. Last week, he wasdischarged in the other casefiled against him by the NIA.

Continued on Page 2

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Twitter suffered an outage onThursday as thousands of

threads and profiles failed toload up, even though timelinesremained accessible. AlthoughTwitter was not completelydown, some users also report-ed that while their home pageshowed tweets, the error wasfaced upon clicking them, orthe profiles. Several users tookto their personal handles tocomplain of Twitter beingdown.

According to users, themicroblogging site remainedinaccessible for many on theirpersonal computers while someusers said the social media plat-form was “mostly functional”on mobile devices. Twitter hadfaced a similar “brief ” outagein April this year.

Continued on Page 2

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Fugitive diamantaire NiravModi’s sister Purvi Modi,

alias Purvi Mehta, who hadearlier been allowed to turnapprover in the money laun-dering case relating to the PNBcredit fraud case, has remittedan amount of USD23,16,889.03 from her UKBank account to the bankaccount of the EnforcementDirectorate.

“With the cooperation ofPurvi Modi, the ED was able torecover approximately �17.25crore (USD 2316889.03) fromthe ‘proceeds of crime’,” theagency said on Thursday.

Earlier, Purvi Modi and herhusband Maiank Mehta werecited as accused in two cases.

Continued on Page 2

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If an abducted person is notassaulted or threatened to be

killed and treated well, then thekidnapper cannot be sentencedto life imprisonment underSection 364A of Indian PenalCode, the Supreme Court hassaid.

A bench of Justices AshokBhushan and R Subhash Reddymade the observation whilesetting aside the conviction ofan auto driver in Telanganawho had kidnapped a minorand demanded a ransom of �2lakh from his father.

The top court said thatthere are three essential ingre-dients to convict an accusedunder Section 364A (kidnap-ping for ransom) which need tobe proved by prosecution.

Continued on Page 2

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In a setback for the SerumInstitute of India (SII), a

panel of experts of the country’stop drug regulator has recom-mended against granting per-mission to the Pune-based vac-cine major to conduct thephase 2/3 trial of Covid vaccineCovovax on children aged twoto 17 years. Instead, it hasasked SII to conduct the trialon the adults first.

Sources said that the SIIhad applied to the DrugsController General of India(DCGI) on June 28 seekingpermission for conducting afull trial of Covovax on 920children, 460 of them being inthe 12-17 and 2-11 age groups,at 10 sites.

“The Subject ExpertCommittee (SEC) on Covid-19of the Central Drugs StandardControl Organisation(CDSCO), which deliberatedon the application, noted that

the vaccine has not beenapproved in any country,” saidsources in the Union HealthMinistry.

“It also recommended thatthe Pune-based companyshould submit the safety andimmunogenicity data (ofCovovax) from the ongoingclinical trial in adults for con-sidering the conduct of a clin-ical trial in children,” the sourcesaid.

The recommendations arelearnt to have been approved bythe DCGI.

In August 2020, US-basedvaccine maker Novavax Inc.had announced a licence agree-ment with the SII for the devel-opment and commercialisa-tion of NVX-CoV2373, itsCovid-19 vaccine candidate, inlow and middle-income coun-tries and India.

Continued on Page 2

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The Congress is working outa strategy to suitably

accommodate its firebrandleader Navjot Singh Sidhu inthe party. His induction as the“one of the two party presi-dents” is one of the proposalsunder consideration of theparty high command.

Sources said the party highcommand is ready with the“formula” to end the stalematebetween the State’s seniorleader and the issue could beresolved within week.

While Sidhu may beappointed as one of the twoPPCC chiefs, Chief MinisterAmrinder Singh is likely to pro-pose the name of his loyalistand State Education MinisterVijay Inder Singla or SriAnandpur Sahib MP Manish

Tewari for the second post.The names of Singla and

Tewari were discussed in themeeting between the ChiefMinister and senior party lead-ers from urban areas of thestate over lunch at his officialresidence in Chandigarh’sSector 2.

Notably, with the ChiefMinister being a Jat Sikh,appointing another Jat Sikh,Sidhu, as Punjab party presi-dent did not suit the Congressparty.

Continued on Page 2

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Uttarakhand Chief Minister TirathSingh Rawat who has rushed to

Delhi held consultations with top BJPleaders and party's lawyers onThursday to discuss the legal hurdles inhis election to the State Assemblybefore September 10.

Rawat who replaced TrivendraSingh Rawat as Chief Minister inMarch, this year, need to get elected insix-month time to retain CM post.

However, prevailing Covid-19 con-ditions have impeded holding of a bye-election. More than this, holding of abye-election when a State assembly pollis less than year away and against thebook ,has put a question mark on hiselection to the state assembly. Rawatis presently an MP from Pauri GarhwalLok Sabha seat.

The Election Commission has yetnot decided any date for the bye-elec-tion , given the possibility of a thirdCovid19 wave riding the country.

+�� 89�.83�

India on Thursday asked Pakistan torelease and repatriate Indian civilian

prisoners and missing defence person-nel lodged in Pakistani jails on human-itarian grounds. The two countries alsoexchanged lists of civilian prisoners andfishermen as per a 2008 agreement.

Giving details here, the Ministry ofexternal affairs said India handed overa list of 271 Pakistani civilian prisonersand 74 fishermen who are in Indian cus-tody. Similarly, Pakistan shared a listof 51 civilian prisoners and 558 fisher-men in its custody, who are Indians orare believed-to-be Indians, the ministrysaid.

Its statement said the two countriesas per the agreement exchange the listtwice a year on January one and Julyone. “The Government has called forearly release and repatriation of civil-ian prisoners, missing Indian defencepersonnel and fishermen along with their boats, from Pakistan's custody,” itsaid.

“In this context, Pakistan was askedto expedite the release and repatriationof 1 Indian civilian prisoner and 295Indian fishermen to India whosenationality has been confirmed andconveyed to Pakistan,” the statementsaid.

In addition, Pakistan has been

asked to provide immediate consularaccess to 194 fishermen and 17 civilianprisoners who are in Pakistan's custodyand are believed to be Indians, itadded.

The government also requestedPakistan to expedite the grant of visasto the members of the medical experts'team and facilitate their visit toPakistan to assess the mental conditionof believed-to-be

Indian prisoners of unsound mind,lodged in different jails of Pakistan, theministry said. “It was also proposed toorganise an early visit of the JointJudicial Committee to Pakistan,” itsaid.

India remains committed toaddressing, on priority, all humanitar-ian matters, including those pertainingto prisoners and fishermen in eachother's custody.

In this context, India has alsourged Pakistan to expedite necessaryaction at its end to confirm the nation-ality status of 78 Pakistani prisoners,including fishermen, whose repatriationis pending for want of confirmation ofnationality by Islamabad.

Also, New Delhi asked Islamabadthat in view of the Covid-19 pandem-ic, Pakistan should ensure the safety,security and welfare of all Indian andbelieved-to-be Indian civil prisonersand fishermen.

��**��+�� 89�.83�

Delhi Government on Thursdayissued an order to private schools

to charge fees on monthly basis, underapproved heads only but with a 15%deduction in the fees for academic year2020-21.

To explain it further for parents andteachers, Delhi Government gave anexample illustrating if the monthly feeof the school in FY 2020-21 is �3,000, the schools are entitled to col-lect the school fee per month @ � 2,550/per month after deduction of 15%. Ifthe school has collected the fee in excessto the direction referred above, thesame shall be refunded to the parentsor adjusted in the subsequent month offee to the parents.

As per the order, the school man-agement shall not prevent the childfrom any ongoing activities of theschool or strike off the nanecif the par-ents are unable to pay the fee due tocurrent hardship.

The order to deduct the fees by 15%as directed by the Delhi High Court ofDelhi has been carried out to preventprofiteering and commercialisation intimes of Covid-19.

This order directed by DelhiGovernment is applicable on all the 460schools who petitioned the High Court.

The reduction of fees will be arespite for all the students and parentsduring the time of Covid-19.

��**��+�� 89�.83�

The Delhi Government has waived two months oflicence fee of bars in hotels and restaurants that were

closed due to lockdown during the second wave of Covid-19 infection in the city.

The move will help hotels, restaurants, guest hous-es, motels and clubs in the city that serve liquor in sav-ing money ranging from a few thousand to lakhs ofrupees.

Delhi went into a lockdown when it was hit by a sec-ond wave of Covid-19 infections. All bars in the hotelsand restaurants were closed from April 16 to June 20 fol-lowing an order from the Delhi Disaster ManagementAuthority (DDMA).

The Excise Department had last month directed thelicence holders to pay the fee for extension of their exciselicence from July 1 to September 30.

“Considering the impact of Covid-19 and lockdownon hotels and restaurants in Delhi, the competent author-ity in view of the provision of Rule 49 of Delhi ExciseRules 2010, has decided that the lockdown period (April16 to June 20) may be treated as deemed cancellation oflicences,” said an order of the Excise Department onWednesday.

Accordingly, the licence fee paid by the licensees forthe first quarter of 2021-22 may be adjusted towards thesecond quarter (July 1 to September 30), it said.

The department has also extended the last date of pay-ment of the licence fee for the second quarter from June30 to July 31. The order will benefit licence holders ofL-15/L-15 F, L-16/L-16F, L-17/L-17F, L-18/L-18F, L-19/L-19F, L-20/L-20F, L-28/L-28F, L-29/L-29 F. The depart-ment directed the licensees to pay the remaining balanceamount of the licence fee of the second quarter (afteradjustment) by July 31, failing which double the amountof the quarterly fee will be charged.

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From Page 1It said the three essential

ingredients are — kidnapping orabduction of any person orkeeping him in detention;threatening to cause death orhurt to such person, or the kid-napper’s conduct gives rise to areasonable apprehension thatvictim may be put to death orhurt in order to compel theGovernment, foreign State orany Governmental organiza-tion or any other person to paya ransom.

Referring to the punish-ment of life or death sentenceprovided for convictions underSection 364A, the top courtsaid, “In addition to the first con-dition either condition (ii) or (iii)has to be proved, failing whichconviction under Section 364Acannot be sustained.”

The top court was hearingan appeal filed by Telangana res-ident Shaik Ahmed challenginga high court order.

The high court had dis-

missed his plea against convic-tion and sentence of life impris-onment under section 364 A ofthe IPC.Ahmed, an auto driverhad kidnapped a Class 6 studentof St Mary’s High School on thepretext of dropping himhome.The child was rescued bypolice when the child’s fatherwent to pay the ransom. Thechild, who was 13 years old atthe time of incident in 2011, andhis father had told the lowercourt that Ahmed never threat-ened to kill or harm the boy.

The top court set aside theconviction under section 364 Aof the IPC.

“From the evidence onrecord regarding kidnapping, itis proved that accused had kid-napped the victim for ransom,demand of ransom was alsoproved. Even though offenceunder Section 364A has notbeen proved beyond reasonabledoubt but the offence of kid-napping has been fully estab-lished to which effect the learnedSessions Judge has recorded acategorical finding.

From Page 1The clinical trials of

Covovax began in India inMarch and the SII hopes tolaunch it by September foradults.

Earlier, the Centre had saidthat recently declared NovavaxCovid vaccine efficacy data ina large trial are promising andthat clinical trials are being con-ducted and are in an advancedstage of completion in India.

“What we’re learning fromdata available in the publicdomain that this vaccine isvery safe and highly effective.It’ll be produced in India,” DrVK Paul, Member-Health, NitiAayog had said a few days agoin a routine briefing by theUnion Health Ministry on theCovid-19 situation in India.

In January, the SII hadrolled out the Covishield vac-cine in the country. It hadentered into a collaborationwith the University of Oxfordand AstraZeneca to manufac-ture the vaccine.

From Page 1This case against Gogoi and three others,

Dhajya Konwar, Manas Konwar and Bitu Sonowal,was registered in December 2019 at Chandmaripolice station in Guwahati and was subsequent-ly transferred to the NIA. Apart from Gogoi, allthree other accused were out on bail. The NIA hadfiled two cases against Gogoi under various sec-tions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the UA(P) A. The cases were registered for charges likecriminal conspiracy, sedition, promoting enmi-ty between groups on grounds of religion, race,place of birth, residence, language among others,assertions against national integrity and supportto terrorist organisations.

In the cases, Gogoi was alleged to have secret-ly merged his organization, Krishak MuktiSangram Samiti (KMSS), a farmers’ rights body,with the Revolutionary Communist Centre,which in turn was later amalgamated with thebanned terror outfit Communist Party of India(Maoist). Gogoi and the other accused allegedlyconspired to incite hatred and disaffectiontowards the government established by law,using the passage of the Citizenship AmendmentAct (CAA) as a pretext and also promote enmi-ty between different groups of people.

The court order discharging Gogoi and oth-ers came when the case was at the the stage offraming of charges. “On the basis of materialsbefore this court and in view of the narration anddiscussion in preceding paragraphs and findingsthereon, all the four accused persons are herebydischarged,” ordered the court.

It further said, “There are no prima faciematerials to frame charges against the accused per-son. There is no case of framing charge and allthe four accused persons are liable to be dis-charged.” The court also noted that the conductand approach of the NIA and the prosecution inthe presented case was “discouraging” to say theleast. “Considering the nature of UA(P) Act, whileenforcing this law on the ground, the law enforc-ing agencies have to take care to see that theenforcement remains within the strict parametersof the law and doesn’t get stretched beyond per-missible limits imposed by the statute itself,” theorder underscored.

The court further observed if precaution is nottaken by the enforcement agencies, people whoare not guilty of terrorism or might be guilty ofother penal offences might get unnecessarily ropedwithin the ambit of the stringent anti-terrorismlaw.

After being discharged from the case, Gogoisaid, “It was unimaginable that the court woulddeliver such a free and fair verdict under such pres-sure from the government. It shows that the judi-ciary is still independent and the public can havefaith in it.”

From Page 1“Since June 19, no progress

has been observed in theadvancement of the monsoonbut it started weakening fromJune 26 onwards. June record-ed 10 percent more rainfallthan normal. A large part of itwas received between June 3 and19m,” he said.

Mohapatra said the latestglobal model forecasts indicatethat the prevailing neutral ElNino-Southern Oscillation(ENSO) conditions are likely tocontinue over the equatorialPacific Ocean. Mohapatra saidthe latest global model forecastsindicate that the prevailing neu-tral El Nino-SouthernOscillation (ENSO) conditionsare likely to continue over theequatorial Pacific Ocean. Thereis an enhanced possibility of thedevelopment of negative IndianOcean Dipole (IOD) condi-tions over the Indian Oceanfrom July to September, hepointed out.

From Page 1In the Nirav Modi money

laundering case, the ED hadfiled two ProsecutionComplaints (charge-sheets) --May 24, 2018 and February 28,2019-- before the Special PMLACourt. On January 4 this year,the Special PMLA court passedorders on the Application Nos.1056/2020 and 1054/2020 filedby Purvi Modi and MaiankMehta, allowing them pardonunder Sections 306 and 307 ofCrPC on the condition of mak-ing full and true disclosure andfurther allowed that the accusedshall be marked as approver inthis case.

“On 24.06.2021, Purvi Modiinformed the Directorate ofEnforcement that she hadreceived the knowledge of onebank account in London, theUnited Kingdom, in her name,which was opened at the behestof her brother, Nirav Modi andthat the funds did not belong toher. As Purvi Modi was alloweda tender of pardon on condi-tions of making full and truedisclosure, Purvi Modi remittedan amount of USD 23,16,889.03from her UK bank account tothe bank account ofGovernment of India,Directorate of Enforcement, theagency added

From Page 1According to Downdetector, a website

that keeps track of outages, Twitter faced prob-lems since 9:33 pm EDT or 7:03 am IST.Twitter outages peaked at 7 am IST. While theusers reported issues with tweet loading, otherfeatures like timeline content, Twitter trends,and follow buttons seem to be working fine.

More than 6,000 user reports indicatedissues with Twitter as of 0140 GMT, about 93per cent of those being related to its website,according to Downdetector. That numbercame down to more than 2,600 user reportswithin an hour. About 78 per cent of users arefacing issues on the desktop website, whilesome 19 per cent on Android app and fewerthan 3 per cent on iOS app. Until now itremains unclear what the cause of the outageis or how long it will last.

Netizens reacted to the news of the out-age and began trending “Twitter Down” toshare details of the problems that they werefacing. Most users were being hit with a sim-ilar message — “Something went wrong, butdon’t fret: It’s not your fault” — which Twitterhas displayed for accounts facing the prob-lem.

Taking note of the issues, Twitter did notspecify what had caused the outage butacknowledged that profile tweets were notloading for some web users and that theyworked on a fix. “Tweets should now be vis-ible on profiles, but other parts of Twitter forweb may not be loading for you. We’re con-tinuing to work on getting things back to nor-mal,” the social media site said in a tweet. Inanother tweet shared after nearly an hour, itsaid that the services are back.

From Page 1�� (�� @�� ,��)� ��6CC��)� ��6CD��(��,� �� (�� + �� *�� *�,�� :<��+�� #C��:<�,��=�� =�� (�� (�� ,��E��+

From Page 1Also so becasuse the other sec-

tions, including Dalits and OBCs,have been complaining of not giv-ing them their due representation inthe state party unit or in the gov-ernment.

The development came a dayafter Sidhu had a meeting with theCongress vice-president RahulGandhi with party general secretaryPriyanka Gandhi Vadra playing acrucial role of the crisis manager byconvincing her brother for the meet-ing. Notably, Rahul Gandhi hadtaken a strong exception to Sidhu’srecent remarks against the Chief

Minister, and had virtually snubbedthe former Minister when hereached the national capital to meethim.

It has been learnt that no meet-ing was scheduled between Sidhuand Rahul Gandhi till PriyankaGandhi intervened. After hecticparleys, Sidhu met Rahul Gandhi formoiré than 45 minutes.

Sources informed The Pioneerthat Sidhu had reportedly agreed tothigh command’s proposal, but itwas still unclear what was in the pro-posal, and whether it would beacceptable to the Chief Minister.

As per available information,deliberations were held on givingSidhu the post of Deputy ChiefMinister and campaign committee

in-charge, besides appointing him asthe state party unit chief. WhileSidhu expressed his keenness to leadthe state party unit, he reportedlywas not happy to be second-in-com-mand to his bête noire CaptAmarinder.

At the same time, CaptAmarinder has also opposed toappoint Sidhu as Punjab PradeshCongress Committee (PPCC) pres-ident, contending that running agovernment would be difficult forhim with the former cricketer lead-ing at the helm of state party unit.

Another proposal — to have twodeputy Chief Ministers — was alsodiscussed, but was reportedly reject-ed by Sidhu, who was pressing forthe post of party chief.

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Alarge number of peopleseeking jobs have regis-

tered themselves on the RojgarBazaar, a portal launched byDelhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal last year to connectjob-seekers and employersimpacted by the Covid-19 pan-demic.

According to data sharedby the Government, around1,000 new job seekers have reg-istered and 300 new jobs wereposted on Rojgar Bazaar everyday in June.

“A total of 34,212 job seek-ers were registered and 9,522new vacancies were postedbetween June 1 and 30 this year.Moreover, 2500 connectionsare made every day betweenjob seekers and employers –through WhatsApp, phone callsand direct application to theemployers. In total, 75,000connections were madebetween job-seekers andemployers in June, the DeputyChief Minister’s office said ina statement issued onThursday.

Whereas during the lock-down, the Rojgar Bazaar por-tal helped businesses hire fordelivery and customer sup-port, the unlocking processhas displayed a surge in salesand office jobs again, it said.

“The Rojgar Bazaar hasproved to be a one-stop portalfor all segments - employersranging from micro enterpris-es, street vendors looking for

cooks, tailors, technicians,Micro, Small and MediumEnterprises looking for accoun-tants/web designers/sales andmarketing personals to hospi-tals looking for staff, the jobportal is trusted by all,” it said.

According to the state-ment, the top three sectors hav-ing maximum available vacan-cies currently are customersupport, delivery executivesand sales and business devel-opment.

“Starting from full time,part time and work from home,many different job options arealso available on Rojgar Bazaar.Roughly about half the vacan-cies (45 per cent) are availablefor freshers. In terms of thegender distribution, nearly41per cent jobs are available forall, 36 per cent for men onlyand 23 per cent for womenonly,” it added.

Deputy Chief MinisterManish Sisodia said that theKejriwal Government is mostconcerned about the econom-ic impact of the pandemic andhad, therefore, launched theRojgar Bazaar portal last yearto provide job opportunities tounemployed youth.

“Lakhs of youth had regis-tered and found jobs last year.It is a matter of their faith andtrust in CM Arvind Kejriwalthat even now, thousands ofjob-seekers and employers areregistering every day in RojgarBazaar. We will do everythingpossible to help youth find jobsat this time of crisis,” he added.

��**��+�� 89�.83�

In view of a possible thirdwave of Covid-19, all three

Municipal Corporations ofDelhi have decided to set updedicated Covid-care facilitiesfor children.

The North Corporationhas decided to convert itsGirdhari Lal MaternityHospital into a dedicated childCovid-care facility while theSouth Corporation is exploringthe possibilities of setting upspecial child care wards at itsTilak Nagar Hospital.

The East Corporation willcreate two dedicated child carewards at its Swami DayanandHospital in Dilshad Garden.

A senior NMC official saidthat these facilities will be setup as part of preparations todeal with a possible third wave.“It is being anticipated that thethird wave of the coronaviruspandemic will majorly affectchildren, so arrangements arebeing made to avoid any crisis-like situation and provide bet-ter care to kids,” he said.

“We have decided to con-vert Girdhari Lal MaternityHospital into a dedicated

Covid-19 facility for children.Initially we will dedicate 70beds to Covid care of children.All these beds will be equippedwith oxygen support. Out ofthese 70 beds, 10 will bereserved as NICU beds forinfants and another 10 willhave ICU facilities,” an officialof the NMC said.

The Girdhari Lal MaternityHospital is a 200-bed facilitylocated near Ajmeri Gate inOld Delhi. It is likely to take amonth to make the hospital adedicated child Covid carefacility and regular meetingsare being held for the purpose,the official said.

“We will also set up anoxygen plant there which willcater to the needs of the hos-pital. Other maternity serviceswhich are currently beingoffered at the hospital will beshifted to the Kasturba Hospitalnear Jama Masjid,” he said.

A senior official of theEast Delhi MunicipalCorporation (EDMC) said thecivic body would allot twowards at the Swami DayanandHospital for child Covid care.

“We are planning to dedi-cate two wards with a capaci-ty of 30-40 beds for child care.All these beds will have pipedoxygen supply. These two

wards will come up in therecently-renovated building ofthe hospital,” the official said.

A senior SDMC officialsaid that though it is antici-pated that the third wave willhit the city after September,preparations have been startedin advance to avoid any crisis-like situation.

“To bolster our healthinfrastructure, we are plan-ning to create dedicate childCovid care facility at our TilakNagar Hospital. It will haveoxygen-supported beds andNICU beds.... We are yet todecide on the number of bedsto be kept for children,” he said.

��**��+�� 89�.83�

Delhi’s peak power demandtouched the season’s high-

est of 7,026 MW on Thursdayafternoon at 3:30 pm.

A senior BSES official saidthat this is only the third yearin Delhi’s history that the peakpower demand has crossed7,000 MW. “In 2018, the peakpower demand had crossed the7,000-MW for the first time,clocking 7,016 MW. In 2019, itpeaked at 7,409 MW,” he said.

In fact this year, Delhi’speak power demand hasalready crossed last year’s peakof 6,314 MW on six occasions,he said, adding that properplanning and a robust distrib-ution network enabled BSESdiscoms to successfully meetthe load in their area.

The official said that BSESdiscoms are geared-up tosource adequate electricity tomeet the power demand ofover 4.5 million consumersand 18 million residents inSouth, West, East and CentralDelhi, including essential ser-vices such as hospitals, labs,quarantine centres, vaccina-tion centres etc, without com-promising the safety of theemployees.

��**��+�� 89�.83�

ADelhi court on Thursdayremanded Boota Singh in

five day police custody forinterrogation in connectionwith his alleged involvement inthe Red Fort violence and van-dalism case during the ‘TractorRally’ by farmers on January 26.

The 26 yer-old protestor,Singh, allegedly played anactive role in the farmers’ agi-tation, was arrested fromPunjab’s Tarn Taran region onWednesday. He had a reward of�50,000 on his head and wasabsconding for over fivemonths.

Delhi Police toldMetropolitan Magistrate ShivliTalwar that the accused will betaken to Tarn Taran, about 500km from Delhi, for investiga-tion during the remand peri-od.

The police said it will alsoascertain the source of fundingof the alleged conspiracy,money f low to his bankaccounts, probe social mediaaccounts, recover mobile, andseize clothes he was wearing atthe time of the incident.

Besides, it said it will con-front him with video clips andCCTV footage in order to

identify co-accused whoaccompanied him from SinghuBorder to the Red Fort to cre-ate mayhem and ransack themonument.

“Considering the groundand fact that accused has to betaken to Tarn Taran for thepurpose of investigation,accused be remanded to PC forfive days,” the judge said in anorder passed on June 30.

Investigating officerInspector Pankaj Aroraapprised the court that Singhwas part of the riotous mobwhich “attacked the police per-sonnel, ransacked, sabotaged,and robbed the governmentand public property and alsothe Red Fort.”

He stated that in one of thevideos, the accused was seenwith co accused - Gurjot Singhand Gurjant Singh in which theduo was giving interview to themedia after they hoistedNishan Sahib at the Flag Guardarea.

“During further investiga-tion, it has also come on recordthat he, along with his otherassociate, was in touch with co-accused Iqbal Singh who is stat-ed to be one of the main con-spirators and instigators,”Inspector Arora submitted.

��**��+�� 89�.83�

Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwaland Health Minister, Satyendar Jain

thanked doctors, nurses and paramedicstaff on the ocassion of National DoctorsDay, for their exceptional service duringthe second wave of Covid-19.

“There is a need to work together tocombat Coronavirus,” Kejriwal said. “Onbehalf of the Delhi Government and thepeople of Delhi, I thank every doctor, nurseand paramedic staff for working selfless-ly during this pandemic.”

“We are dealing with the Coronaviruspandemic for more than one year now. Wehave faced two waves of it. The secondwave was more brutal. Every family wasaffected by the second wave. A lot of peo-ple also lost their lives during this time. TheDelhi Government with doctors, nursesand paramedic staff tried their best to com-bat the virus,” Kejriwal added.

“Coronavirus is such a large problemand no Government or institution can deal

with it individually. We need to worktogether to combat the Coronavirus. Wewould not have succeeded if we had notgot cooperation from society.

“We are thankful to the charitabletrusts, non-profit organisations, and cor-porate sector that stepped up during thistough time and lent a helping hand,” hesaid. “On behalf of the Delhi Government,I thank them for their support. The Delhi

Government is trying to ensure that theproblems we faced during the second wave,especially with regard to oxygen, don’toccur during the third wave,” he added.

Jain who also thanked doctors andnurses for their selfless services said,“Delhi Government is ready for third waveas Indira Gandhi Hospital’s 1,243 beds areready for patients in all respects.”

He also inaugurated a new dialysis andpaediatric ICU ward at the Indira GandhiHospital.

Jain also thanked the Indian Societyof the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-DaySaints and said, “Despite the huge short-age of medical supplies in the market, thetrust provided us with 1,200 high-qualityparameter patient monitors. This was thetime when we were facing a shortage ofmonitors and the Indian Society of theChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-DaySaints provided us great relief. Not onlythis, they generously donated 500 high-quality oxygen concentrators each of 10litres.”

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��**��+�� 89�.83�

The Delhi Metro RailCorporation (DMRC) is

building its first-ever under-ground integrated parkingfacility at an upcoming metrostation on the Grey Line, whichwill allow commuters to parktheir vehicles and then proceedto the concourse of the stationdirectly using lifts and escala-tors.

The Dhansa Bus Standmetro station, being built onthe extension of the Grey Line,is expected to open in July, asenior DMRC official said.

“The station has beendesigned as a four-level under-ground structure where therewill be the platform at the bot-tom followed by the concourseand then an entire floor forparking above it,” he said.

The official further saidthat the parking lot is equippedwith facilities such as the entryand exit ramps, lifts, staircases,escalators etc.

“The facility will have aparking space for about 110cars and 185 two-wheelers.There will be two staircases andtwo escalators each which willconnect the facility directlywith the unpaid area of theconcourse below,” the DMRCsaid in a statement.

“The parking facility willbe of great benefit to the localresidents as the adjoining areasare extremely congested withvery limited space for parkingof vehicles. The parking spacewill have ramps on two sidesfor entry and exit of vehicles.The Delhi Metro currentlyoperates parking lots in about

100 Metro stations across thenetwork,” it said.

The work on the 1.8 kilo-metre-long Najafgarh–DhansaBus Stand section is nowalmost complete. With thecompletion of this section, theDwarka-Dhansa Bus StandGrey Line corridor will become6.1 kilometres-long with fourstations.

This extension of the GreyLine will immensely benefit theresidents of the interior areasaround Najafgarh. All effortsare being made to open theNajafgarh-Dhansa Bus Standsection sometime later thismonth after complying with allstatutory requirements, theofficials said.

The DMRC has 10 linesspanning 242 stations, and 264stations including the RapidMetro in Gurugram.

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Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal reviewed the

progress of the ambitiousHealth InformationManagement System (HIMS)on Thursday and directed theofficials to ensure the imple-mentation of the project with-in the stipulated deadline.

The Chief Minister saidthat there have been some sig-nificant delays due to the pan-demic and the project is expect-ed to be fully implemented byMarch 2022.

Along with the project, aspecial survey will be con-ducted for issuing e-healthcards, he said. The NodalMinister for Corona manage-ment Manish Sisodia andHealth Minister Satyendar Jainwere also present in the meet-

ing.Kejriwal tweeted,

“Reviewed the progress ofHealth InformationManagement System (HIMS).We are creating the most mod-ern health information sys-tem in Delhi. Due to Corona,there are some delays.Hopefully, it should start byMarch.”

The health cards will beissued in the names of all theresidents of Delhi under theprojects for which special sur-veys will be conducted by theGovernment. This will ensureavailability of the benefits of theGovernment healthcare ser-vices to all. “The e-health cardwill be integrated with theHealth InformationManagement System. The sys-tem seeks to target the health-care delivery process. All the

patient care services, hospitaladministration, budgeting andplanning, supply chain man-agement, and backend servicesand processes will be broughtunder the system,” theGovernment said in a state-ment.

“As far as the deploymentmodel is concerned, the entiresystem will be on the cloud anddigitised. This will enable thecitizens to avail themselves ofinformation on a single plat-form, which will help them inemergency cases,” it added.

The hospitals will be able toaccess all of the patients’ health-related information and pastregistry with the help of theirregistered card number enteredin the system.

The system is also sup-posed to include a 24x7 callcentre to help patients withhealth-related information,seeking consultation, and otherassistance. The centralised callcentre will provide two levels ofhelp — first where an operatorwill receive people’s calls andmessages and provide themwith requisite information andsecond where doctors andexperts will provide appoint-ments based on the problem orimmediately provide solutionsfor emergency cases.

With this, Delhi willbecome the only State to havea cloud-based health manage-ment system. This facility willalso be extended to privatehospitals in the future.

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��**��+�� 89�.83�

Deputy Chief Minister andEducation Minister

Manish Sisodia laid the foun-dation stone for construction ofa new school in NasirpurVillage, situated in the south-west part of Delhi. The landowning agency, DelhiDevelopment Authority (DDA)has given this land to the edu-cation department to constructa school however it was unlaw-fully captured by the landmafia.

A new school is finallybeing constructed on this landwhich will accommodate 2,500students. The construction willbe completed within ninemonths.

The Delhi Governmentrecently reclaimed the landfrom the land mafia. Uponreclamation of land, Sisodiastated that a school is finallybeing constructed on this landwhich will accommodate 2500students and provide worldclass facilities.

“Delhi Government willcomplete the construction ofthis school within 9 monthsand establish a state-of-the-artschooling facility. Along withproviding excellent education,the school will also set-up out-standing sports-related facilitiesincluding a swimming pool.

��**��+�� 89�.83�

In a gut-wrenching incident,a 20-year-old man was

stabbed to death in front of hisfather during a scuffle in north-west Delhi’s Azadpur onThursday.

The deceased has beenidentified as Dev Priya, a resi-dent of Burari. Police said theyhave arrested six people inconnection with the incident.The accused have been identi-fied as Sahil (25), Annu Kumar

(21), Devender (18), SatyaveerSharma (18), Aakash (18) andAnurag (19), all residents ofAzadpur.

According to UshaRangnani, DeputyCommissioner of Police(DCP), Northwest district, apolice control room (PCR) callregarding the incident nearKewal Park, Azadpur wasreceived at the Adarsh NagarPolice Station at 12.20 AM.

“It was found that the vic-tim was allegedly stabbed dur-

ing a quarrel with the accusedpersons. He was rushed toBabu Jagjivan Ram MemorialHospital and later shifted toFortis Hospital where he suc-cumbed to his injuries,” said theDCP.

“Thereafter, a case underSection 302 (murder) of theIndian Penal Code was regis-tered at the Adarsh NagarPolice Station. During investi-gation, it was revealed thatJaipal (45), father of the victim,was coming home on his bike

when it brushed passed anoth-er vehicle, following which anargument ensued between himand the other vehicle’s rider,”said the DCP.

“Jaipal, who was under theinfluence of alcohol, called hisson. However, the scuffle waslater ended. There were somepersons, who were also drunk,sitting nearby who came to thespot. An argument followedbetween them and Jaipal. Oneof them stabbed his son andfled the spot,” said the DCP.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Thursday heaped

praise on the doctors’ commu-nity and acknowledged theirbig contribution in the ongoingbattle against Covid-19.

Describing doctors as beinglike “God”, Modi paid tributes toall who lost their lives whiletreating coronavirus patients.

“Despite the limitations oflong-neglected medical infra-structure and pressure of pop-ulation, India’s per lakh popu-lation rate of infection anddeath rate is still manageablecompared to even developed

countries. “Loss of lives is always

painful but many lives havebeen saved too. Credit goes tohard-working doctors, health-care workers, frontline workersfor saving many lives,” the primeminister said on the ‘ NationalDoctors’ Day’.

Drawing attention torenewed focus on the healthsector, Modi said that his gov-ernment has allocated morethan two lakh crore for thehealth sector in the ongoingfinancial year. “We have comeup with a Credit GuaranteeScheme of Rs 50,000 crores tostrengthen the health infra-

structure in such areas, wherethere is a lack of health facilities,”said the Prime Minister.

“After decades since inde-pendence, we all know howmedical infrastructure wasneglected... and what state it wasin. During the first wave, thegovernment had allocated15,000 crores as a special fundto increase the health infra-structure in the nation,” saidModi. Pointing to incidents ofattacks on doctors on Covid19duty by the relatives of patients,Prime Minister said the gov-ernment is committed for thesafety of doctors.

He mentioned stringentlaws that have been brought infor preventing violence againstdoctors. Along with this, a freeinsurance cover scheme has

been brought for the Covid war-riors, according to a statementfrom the Prime Minister’s Office

The PM praised the med-ical fraternity for raising aware-ness about the COVID-19 vac-cination drive. He also com-

mended the medical fraternityfor spreading awareness aboutYoga.

“Work for propagatingYoga, that should have beendone in the last century afterIndependence, is being done

now, said the Prime Minister.He praised the doctors for giv-ing their time to the evidence-based studies on the benefits ofyoga for dealing with post-Covid complications,” said thestatement.

�� 89�.83�

In a rare order for award ofdismissal from service and

rigorous imprisonment to aserving officer, the GeneralForce Court of the SashastraSeema Bal (SSB) has dis-missed a Deputy InspectorGeneral (DIG) from serviceand ordered him to undergoa rigorous imprisonment of18 months on charges of cor-ruption in a dozen cases.

The order against DIGUP Balodi was passed byJudge Attorney, GFC, Campat 25th Battalion of SSB,GHitorni, Sudhanshu Kumaron Wednesday.

The order titled “GFCTrial of UP Balodi, DIG”read, “The court re-assembledon 30.06.2021 pursuant toadjournment of 29th June,2021. The Court finds theaccused guilty to all the 12charges and awarded sen-tence ‘To Suffer RigourousImprisonment for 18 monthsalong with dismissal fromservice’.”

“ The sentence isannounced as being subject toconfirmation,” added theorder, a copy of which hasbeen circulated to theInspectors GeneralAdministration and Personnelof the Forces headquartershere.

The order has also beensent to IG Training, frontier

headquarters sector head-quarters across the country asalso Recruit Training Centreat Alwar.

Officials said it is one ofthe rare cases when suchpunishment has been award-ed by the General Force Court(GFC) of any Central para-military force or CentralArmed Police Force (CAPF).

All the Central paramili-tary forces have their respec-tive Act and Rules to deal withdisciplinary proceedingswithin their respective organ-isations.

These Acts, passed by theParliament, are mostly copiesof the Armed Forces Acts.

However, the Acts andcorresponding rules varyfrom organisation to organi-zation in keeping with theirrespective requirements.

The GFC consists of offi-cers within the organisationswho preside over the disci-plinary proceedings.

The SSB is the designatedCentral paramilitary force tosecure friendly borders withNepal and Bhutan and is alsothe Lead Intelligence Agencyon these two frontiers.

Officials confirmed thedevelopment and recalled that the last such instance wasreported two-three years backwhen a Commandant wasdismissed from ser vice but he was spared rigorousimprisonment.

+�� 89�.83�

Even as stand-offs continue atsome friction points in

Ladakh for the last one year, sus-tained dialogue between Indiaand China on the issues per-taining to the Line of ActualControl(LAC) have helped“build trust,” Army Chief

General M MNaravane saidhere on

Thursday.Making this observation, he

also said the situation in theregion is normal since the firstround of disengagement fromthe southern and northernbanks of the PangongTso(lake)in later February thisyear.

Incidentally, the face-offsstarted with the confrontation atthe Pangong in May last yearwhen the Chinese stopped an

Indian army patrol. It led to a scuffle between

the soldiers of the two armiesand several personnel fromboth the sides sustained injuries.

Soon, trouble erupted atseveral other places includingthe Hot Springs, Gogra and theDepsang valley.

At present, eyeball to eyeballsituation persists at these threefriction points despite severalrounds of talks at the military

and diplomatic levels.In a virtual interactive ses-

sion at a think-tank, the Armychief said the militaries of thetwo countries have beenengaged in dialogue at variouslevels.

“The situation along theLine of Actual Control (LAC) isnormal ever since the disengagement took place inFebruary this year from thenorthern and southern banks of

Pangong lakeas well as theK a i l a s hranges,” hesaid.

“ S i n c ethen bothsides haves t r i c t l yadhered to inthe letter andsprit of thed i s e n g a g e -ment that wasagreed upon.We are engag-ing theChinese atvarious levelsat the politicallevel, at thed i p l o m a t i cl e v e land of courseat the militaryl e v e l , ”N a r a v a n eadded.

+�� 89�.83�

When it comes to health,nobody knows better

than doctors about what isright or wrong. However, asurvey has found that thegatekeepers of our healthare at high risk themselves.

The survey on healthand wellness of 1,000 doctorsby digital therapeutics com-pany, Fitterfly, has foundthat over 60 per cent had aBMI in the overweight andobese category, 6 per centhad diabetes, 10 per cent hadhypertension, and 5 per centhad diabetes and hyperten-sion. Other common healthcondit ions as obser vedincluded dyslipidemia, GIdysfunction, asthma, PCOS(Polycystic Ovar ySyndrome), ar thrit is ,migraine and hypothy-roidism.

The survey conductedwith doctors in the agegroups of 25- 60, of 868 maleand 132 female doctors usinganthropometr y (humanbody measurements), med-ical history, BMI category,levels of physical activities,took into account their calo-ries , carbohydrate, fat ,micronutrients and proteinconsumption.

All these doctors enteredtheir meals and activity datain the Fitterfly Wellness App.Fitterfly wellness app hasIndia’s largest database ofrecipes and micronutrientcalculations for various agegroups and health condi-tions.

Further, it was recordedthat only 22 per cent of thedoctors were physicallyactive; A majority of thedoctors also had an imbal-ance of macronutrients -protein, carbs and fats con-sumed. At least 67% of thedoctors were consumingreally low protein as evi-denced by less than 10% oftheir daily calories from pro-tein; An alarmingly highpercentage of doctors ie 77%were consuming more thanthe recommended amountsof fat;

The micronutrientanalysis findings showed lessthan 10% of the doctors sur-veyed met 75% of the rec-ommended value of various vitamins and min-erals like zinc, omega 3 andiron.

The survey also indicat-ed that one of the mostimportant factors contribut-ing to their health index hasbeen faulty dietary habits

and exercise regime. Erratic working hours

and long daily scheduleshave resulted in the medicalprofessionals not focusing ontheir health.

Dr Arbinder Singal, co-founder and CEO of Fitterflysaid “Doctors are the torch-bearers of a nations’ health,playing a vital role in keep-ing the population free ofdiseases. But, their hecticwork schedules do not allowthem to practice what theypreach to their patients.

On National DoctorsDay we wanted to drawattention to the health quo-tient of our medical frater-nity and urge them to carefor themselves whileaddressing the health of theirpatients.”

Ringing alarm bel l ,Dr.Kishore Kumar, FounderChairman & Neonatologist,Cloudnine Group ofHospitals, Bangalore calledfor a national study on themental state of healthcare workers especial-ly during the present pan-demic which, he said, “willbe a proof that our health-care workers are overworkedand those who took Covidduty also found themselveswithout enough sleep.”

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The Supreme Court onThursday issued notice

on a petition filed by 13 con-victs who were declared juve-niles at the time of commis-sion of the offences, and arecurrently lodged in AgraCentral Jail. The petitionerssaid they are lodged in the jailfor past 13 to 22 years andsought an immediate releaseas they had been lodged in“hardcore jails with hardcorecriminals.” The Bench ofJustices Indira Banerjee and VRamasubramanian issuednotice and listed the matterfor July 8, 2021.

The plea filed throughAdvocate Rishi Malhotra stat-ed that after a public interestlitigation was filed in theAllahabad High Court in2012, directions were issuedto the Juvenile Justice Boardto dispose of applications regarding juve-nility of prisoners.

Pursuant to that, all 13petitioners were declaredjuveniles at the time of com-mission of their respectiveoffences.

Despite clear and unchal-lenged rulings from theJuvenile Justice Board declar-ing the petitioners as juve-niles, no steps have beentaken to release them, the pleasaid.

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+�� 89�.83�

Gujarat based ZydusCadila has applied for

emergency use authoriza-tion of ZyCoV-D, plasmidDNA-based vaccine which itsaid is “world’s first PlasmidDNA vaccine,” “needle-free”and “safe for children ‘’. Thecompany plans to manufac-ture up to 120 million dosesof the shot annual ly.However, it has no humansafety and immunogenicitydata in public, sources said.

If approved, the ZyCoV-D would make it the fifthvaccine cleared for use inIndia after Serum Institute ofIndia’s Covishield, Bharat

Biotech’s Covaxin, Russia’sSputnik V and the US-madeModerna.

Zydus has claimed thatits vaccine is 66.6 per centeffective against sympto-matic Covid cases and 100per cent for moderate dis-ease. It also said that the vac-cine is safe for childrenbetween 12 and 18 years. Butits trial data is not peer-reviewed yet.

ZyCoV-D showed safetyand efficacy in a late-stagetrial with more than 28,000volunteers across the coun-try, including about 1,000subjects in the 12-18 year agegroup, Zydus said in a state-ment here.

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Amid complaints of shortageof Covid-19 vaccines,

Union Health Minister HarshVardhan on Thursday allegedthat various leaders were mak-ing “irresponsible statements”about the Covid-19 vaccinationdrive and requested them todesist from the “shameless urgeto play politics” in the midst ofa pandemic.

He said more than 1.24crore balance and unutilisedCovid-19 vaccine doses arestill available with the states andUTs and over 94,66,420 dosesare in the pipeline and will bereceived by them within thenext three days.

Union Health MinisterHarsh Vardhan took to Twitter, urging “these leaders tospend more energy in planningand not in creating panic”.

“I’m seeing irresponsiblestatements from

various leaders regarding thelargest vaccination drive.

Stating facts so that peoplecan judge the intentions ofthese leaders.

“After GoI (Governmentof India) provided 75 per centof vaccines available for free,vaccination speed picked upand 11.50 crore doses weregiven in June,” Vardhan said ina tweet.

He said if there are issuesin States, it shows that theyneed to plan their vaccinationdrives better. “Intra-state plan-ning and logistics are theresponsibility of the states.”

“If these leaders are awareof these facts and are still mak-ing such statements, I consid-er it most unfortunate. If theydon’t know, they need to focuson governance. Will againrequest state leaders to spendmore energy in planning andnot in creating panic,” he saidin another tweet.

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+�� 89�.83�

The Supreme Court has dis-missed the Centre’s plea

seeking review of the May 5majority verdict which heldthat 102nd Constitutionamendment took away States’power to declare Socially andEducationally BackwardClasses (SEBC) for grant ofquota in jobs and admissions.

The 102nd Constitutionamendment Act of 2018 insert-ed Articles 338B, which dealswith the structure, duties andpowers of the NCBC, while342A deals with power of thePresident to notify a particularcaste as SEBC and power ofParliament to change the list.

A five-judge bench headedby Justice Ashok Bhushan said,“We have gone through thereview petition filed against thejudgment dated May 5, in WritPetition... The grounds taken inthe review petition do not fallwithin the limited ground onwhich review petition can beconsidered”.

The bench, also compris-ing Justices L Nageswara Rao,S Abdul Nazeer, Hemant Guptaand S Ravindra Bhat, said thatthe various grounds taken inthe review petition have alreadybeen dealt with in the mainjudgment.

“We do not find any suf-

ficient grounds to entertainthis review petition.

The review petition isdismissed,” the bench said inits order uploaded on

Thursday.The top court also reject-

ed the Centre’s application foropen court hearing in thematter.

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The Supreme Court onThursday rejected the

appeal of the Delhi Policeagainst the Delhi High Courtorder directing it to providewitness statement copy toaccused Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal and Deputy CMManish Sisodia in the case ofassault on then Chief SecretaryAnshu Prakash.

“It is the basic principle ofnatural justice. It is commonsense that the accused musthave the copy. It might be apolitical hot potato, but legal-ly, it is nothing. It is not worthlingering on this matter,” saidthe apex Court ratifying theHigh Court order.

“Once a statement isrecorded, what is about notgiving copy of the statement,”

asked Justice DYChandrachud, rejecting Delhi’sPolice appeal, noting that thestatement was not oral butrecorded in the case diary.

Justice Chandrachud reit-erated to ASG Aman Lekhithat the accused have all theright to get the statement ofwitness. “The purpose of crim-inal justice administration isnot to convict the people butto allow criminal justice to runa fair course. Leave it there,there is nothing in the matter,”Justice Chandchud observedwhile rejecting the Delhi Policeappeal not to grant witnessesstatement to the Delhi ChiefMinister and Deputy ChiefMinister, who are charged asaccused for assaulting the thenChief Secretary at the ChiefMinister’s residence in thenight of February 19,2018.

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Close on the heels of theannouncement by the

State’s leading business housethat it was pulling out of the Memorandum ofUnderstanding signed with theGovernment of Kerala to set upindustrial units which wouldhave created more than 35,000jobs, a more shocking disclo-sure has been made by thedepartment in charge of expa-triates.

More than 1.5 millionKeralaites have returned totheir home state from WestAsian countries followingCovid-19 and large scaleretrenchment and localizationsince March 2020, according toSalin Mankuzhi, spokesmanof Non Resident KeralitesAssociation, a joint ventureservice by Government ofKerala and major entrepre-neurs from the State who havemade it in West Asia. TheNORKA is also into manpow-er placement services in vari-ous countries abroad.

The army of unemployedpeople in the State has shot pastthe 6 million mark with theinflux of people from Gulfcountries who lost their liveli-hoods. “Kerala is in for majorcrisis and the State and CentralGovernments should initiate

moves to address this burningissue,” said AttakkoyaPallikkandi, one of the earlyKeralites who settled in Dubaiand returned to his roots afternearly five decades.

He said the budget pro-posals by the State Governmentfor the year 2021 to 2022 issilent about any moves to reha-bilitate and resettle the Gulfreturnees whose remittanceshad sustained the develop-ment process of Kerala.

Attakkoya had reachedDubai in early 1970 andworked there for more thanfour decades as a journalist.“When I reached Dubai for thefirst time, a four storied build-ing was the tallest structure inthat Kingdom. There were nostate-of-the-art roads in the oilkingdom. Though Dubai andother emirates made giantstrides in the succeeding years,all has come to a stop and jobopportunities have dried up,”he told The Pioneer.

The post-retirement daysof Attakkoya are busy helpinghundreds of Gulf returneesfrom Kozhikode, Kannur andKasaragod districts to relauncha new life in Kerala. “Thesereturnees sent all their incometo their houses and now theyare left in the lurch without anysource of income,” saidAttakoya.

KOCHI: Kerala continues to bein a grave state as there hasbeen no let up in the enormi-ty of the transmission of Covid-19. The State diagnosed 12,868new cases of Covid-19 onThursday while the averageTest Positivity Rate was 10.3 percent. But there were nearly 100regions in the State which areunder triple lock down becauseof high TPR.

Kerala leads the table of theStates that diagnose high dailypositive cases. A release issuedby the health department saidthe State recorded 124 deathson Thursday due to Covid.

The day began with a con-troversy over the exclusion ofthousands from the list of ben-eficiaries who are eligible forcompensation declared by the

Centre for Covid-19 patientswho succumbed to the pan-demic. Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan alleged that theKerala Government was open-ly violating the norms pre-scribed by the Indian Councilof Medical Research for con-sidering the Covid-19 victimsfor cash compensation to beawarded by the Centre.

The State’s death toll, as perGovernment figures, was 13,359. “But this is a fake figure asthousands of patients have suc-cumbed to the pandemic. TheLDF Government is trying tocover up and suppress thenumber of casualties to deceivethe people about the poormedical facilities in the State,”said Satheeshan while speakingto reporters. PNS

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Days after Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee accused

Bengal Governor JagdeepDhankhar to Jain Hawala scan-dal, the Trinamool Congress onThursday brought additionalcharges against him saying hisname had also figured inPunjab land scam which madeit mandatory for the Centre toremove him from the top con-stitutional post that he was inat present.

Continuing its all-outoffensive against Dhankhar theTMC leadership said that theparty would soon prepare a listof charges against him andmove the presidential officeseeking his removal fromBengal.

“The name of theGovernor is now not only lim-ited to Jain Hawala diary inwhich there is the mention ofone Dhankhar … but alsothere are reports of the samename being involved in thePunjab land scam,” TMC MPSukhendu Shekhar Roy saidasking “why the Governor whohas been so vocal about con-

cocted stories is currentlysilently on these issues.”

The TMC MP said that theparty would soon take theissue up with the President ofIndia. “We will approach thePresident of India with the caseand seek his removal … Bengaldoes not want a taintedGovernor,” Roy said addingthat the party would alsoexplore other parliamentaryoptions to seek his removal ifbringing up the matter to thenotice of the President did notyield results.

“If a representation to thePresident fails then we will takeup appropriate proceduralmeasures in Lok Sabha andRajya Sabha to get his removal,”the TMC leader said allegingthe Governor had always triedto harass the State Government

and refused to cooperate withit saying “he tries to stall all thedecisions taken by the Cabinet… he always tries to block theBills passed by a democraticallyelected House … He does sobecause he has no regards fordemocracy.”

Roy also referred toDhanklhar’s family pho-tographs featuring one of thesecurity personnel of DebanjanDeb the arrested fake vaccinekingpin asking “what is thisman doing in the Governor’sfamily circles … has this manbeen the mediator betweenvaccine scamster and the RajBhavan?”

Deb was arrested a fewdays ago for running a fake vac-cine racket through which hehad managed to “vaccinate”about 2,000 people at variousfake camps. In most of the caseshe used antibiotics in the nameof corona vaccine.

The BJP promptly hit backsaying the same fake vaccinekingpin had been pho-tographed with a number ofTMC top bosses includingministers and KolkataCorporation administrators.

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Agirl from Andal in WestBurdwan district of Bengal

who was working at Dehradunwas allegedly pushed to deathfrom the mountains by her live-in partner, her family memberscomplained.

Seeking justice for the girlNandita Mukherjee (namechanged) her sister Antara saidthat her sister was living in witha man called A Chowdhurywho belonged to Sahranpur inUttar Pradesh.

Chowdhury who was sub-sequently arrested by theUttarakhand Police allegedlypushed his partner from thehills and then burnt her bodybefore faking a story for hersudden disappearance. He toldher mother at Andal that shehad left him in a huff and wasnot traceable.

The family was kept in amist of concocted stories formore than month before final-ly he conceded over telephonethat the victim had leapt to herdeath from the roof of herbuilding. The man had beenarrested, the family memberssaid.

“We have no wherewithalto regularly go to Uttarakhandto fight the case … but we wantjustice for our sister … we wantthis man to be hanged,” the vic-tim’s sister said.

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Union Home Minister AmitShah on Thursday urged

the new batch of IPS officers tobe vigil and always be action ori-ented rather than inaction orextreme action. Addressingyoung IPS officers of 72ndbatch, the Home Minister saiddialogue and sensitivity are nec-essary to improve the image ofpolice and every police person-al has to sensitized and thereshould be increased communi-cation and public contact.

He advised that young SPsshould go to Tehsils and villagesto meet people and stayovernight to understand theproblems of common man ingeneral. He also advised theyoung officers to stay awayfrom publicity and make upmind to overcome fear of trans-fers.

Interacting with the youngpolice officers, Shah said that asystem is very important for anyorganization. He said that anyorganization runs successfullyonly when those who run itbecome a part of the system andwork to strengthen it. Byimproving the system of theorganization, the organizationautomatically improves andgives better results.

The Home Minister alsosaid that making the organiza-tion system-centred is the key tosuccess. Shah said that the seedshould be planted in trainingitself to remove the problems, sothat a person can be made moreand more responsible and duti-ful. He said that training worksto mold the personality, way ofworking and the whole person-ality and if training is done prop-erly, then it brings good resultsthroughout life.

Union Minister of State forHome Nityanand Rai, UnionHome Secretary AK Bhalla,were also present on the virtu-al interaction with young IPSofficers. Shah said there areallegations of no action andextreme action against thepolice. He said the police shouldavoid these and move towardsjust action. He said just actionmeans natural action and policeshould understand the law anddo the right thing.

On improving the image ofthe police, Shah said only police-men will have to work forimproving their image. TheHome Minister said "commu-nication and sensitivity" is nec-essary to improve the image ofthe police that is why there is aneed to sensitize all policeper-sons as well as increase com-munication and public contact.

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The Bombay High Court onThursday upheld the life

imprisonment awarded toAbdul Rauf Merchant, an aideof gangster Dawood Ibrahim,by a lower court for the sensa-tional murder of music baronand T-Series owner GulshanKumar, while it dismissed anappeal challenging the acquit-tal of TIPS company co-founder Ramesh Taurani inthe same case.

Allowing partly the appealchallenging Rauf Merchant’sappeal, a HC division benchcomprising Justices SadhanaJadhav and N. R. Borkar saidthat Merchant was convicted foroffences committed under sec-tion 302 (murder) read withsection 34 and 120 B (conspir-

acy) of the IPC and section 27of the Indian Arms Act, whilehe was acquitted of the offencespunishable under 307 (attemptto murder), 397 and 398 (rob-bery or dacoity with attempt tocause death or grievous hurt).

Holding that he was enti-tled to the set off for the peri-od already undergone duringthe pendency of the trial, theHC bench ordered the can-celled Rauf Merchant’s bailbonds.

The judges ordered RaufMerchant to surrender forth-with before the Sessions Courtor before D.N. Nagar PoliceStation and also surrender hispassport to the police. They saidthat if he did not surrenderwithin a week, the sessionscourt would issue a non-bail-able warrant against him and

take him into custody.Apart from confirming the

conviction of Rauf Merchant forGulhshan Kumar's murder, theHC confirmed punishment foroffence under section 120 B(conspiracy) of the IPC. “Theassailants had no personal ani-mosity or grudge against thedeceased Gulshan Kumar. Theyhad committed the ghastly actas they were hired by NadeemSaifee and Abu Salem whowanted to satisfy their person-al vendetta against the deceased.Unwarranted acquittals wouldnot only give wrong signals tothe society but would pose athreat to law and order.

Therefore, the Accused no16/ Respondent No. 2 (RaufMerchant) also deserves to beconvicted for the offence pun-ishable under section 120B of

the IPC,” the HC benchobserved in its ruling.

In the case of RameshTurani, the HC bench ruled:“The Appeal challenging theacquittal of the RespondentNo.1 Ramesh SadhuramTaurani vide Judgment andOrder dated April 29, 2002 bythe Additional Sessions Judge,Gr. Mumbai in Sessions is here-by dismissed”.

Holding that the acquittalof Taurani in the lower courtcalled for no interference, theHC bench observed: “In thepresent case, there are seriouslapses in the investigation andthere is no cogent and con-vincing evidence to hold thatRespondent No. 1 (Taurani)had spoken to Abu Salem inDubai. There is no investigationto verify as to whether that

phone number was used byAbu Salem at that time. AbuSalem was an abscondingAccused since 1993 serial bombblast. The HC bench noted that“The only witness who hasdeposed about the involvementof Taurani was prosecutionwitness Arif Lakadawala. Theevidence of Ladkdawala wouldshow that he was also presentwhen Respondent No. 1 hadcontacted Abu Salem whenthey met at Juhu. The applica-tion seeking arraignment ofLakdawala as an accused hadbeen rejected with the aid ofsection 132 of the IndianEvidence Act. The said order ofrejection was not challengedand has attained finality.

In view of this, the acquit-tal of the Taurani calls for nointerference”.

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Acting on a tip-off about children being traf-ficked from West Bengal on a Punjab-bound

train, officers and personnel of the GovernmentRailway Police (GRP) raided a compartment ofKarmabhoomi Express train and rescued 40 chil-dren in Moradabad railway station on Thursdaymorning.

All children were below 15 years of age andwere deboarded from the train which originatesfrom Jalpaiguri in West Bengal.

While it was suspected that the children werebeing trafficked, GRP Inspector Sudheer Kumar said that the children were trav-elling with relatives but investigations wereunderway to establish the human trafficking anglewith complicity of the relatives for to any reason.

The GRP officers also contacted their coun-terparts in West Bengal to verify the antecedentof the relatives as well as of the children and con-firm whether they were being taken to far offPunjab, as claimed by the kin, to work in hotels,restaurants, shops, dhabas etc or for some otherillegal work.

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The number of daily Covid-19 deaths climbed to 252

and the infections dipped mar-ginally to 9,195 in Maharashtraon Thursday, even as 8.694patients were discharged afterfully recovery from varioushospitals in the State.

A day after the state logged141 deaths and 9,771 infec-tions, the daily deaths went upby 111, while the infectionsdropped by 576.

Significantly enough, forthe first time in two months, no“old and unaccounted” deathsare not being reported for thepast three days. As a result,there was no reconciliation ofthe death figures.

With 141 deaths, theCovid-19 toll in the Statejumped from 1,21,804 to1,21,945. Similarly, with 9,771fresh infections, the total infec-tions in the state climbed from60,51,633 to 60,61,404.

As 8634 patients were dis-charged from the hospitalsacross the state after full recov-ery, the total number of peopledischarged from the hospitalssince the second week of Marchlast year increased from58,19901 to 58,28,535. The

recovery rate in the statedropped from 96.02 per cent to96.01 per cent.

The total “active cases” inthe state rose 1,16,364 to1,16,667. The fatality rate in theState stood static at 2.01 percent.

Mumbai recorded 21`deaths and 656 infections. Asa result, the Covid-19 toll in themetropolis increased from15,451 to 15,472, while theinfected cases in Mumbai went up from 7,22,222 to7,22,878.

Pune with 17,086 activecases emerged as the first in thestate in terms of maximumnumber of “active cases” in thestate, while Thane with 16,105stood second, followed byMumbai (12,605), Kolhapur(12,495), Sangli (10,382),Satara (7,650), Ratnagiri(5,478), Raigad (5,191) andSindhudurg (4,457).

Of the 4,18,75,217 samplessent to various laboratoriesacross the state so far, 60,70,599have tested positive (14.5 percent) for Covid-19 untilThursday.

Currently, 6,15,285 peo-ple are in home quarantinewhile 4,339 people are in insti-tutional quarantine.

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In a major farmer outreach,the Government on Thursday

launched a special drive toenrol more cultivators under thePradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojana (PMFBY). A week-longdrive, starting July 1, will coverall notified areas under thekharif 2021 season with specialfocus on 75 aspirational districtswhere crop insurance penetra-tion is low.

PMFBY, launched onJanuary 13, 2016, aims to pro-vide a comprehensive risk solu-tion to farmers at the lowest uni-form premium across the coun-try. Launching the specialdrive, Agriculture MinisterNarendra Singh Tomar said sofar 29.16 crore farmers haveinsured their crops under thePMFBY.

More than �95,000 croreworth of claims have been pro-

vided to farmers since thelaunch of the scheme, againstthe total premium of �17,000crore paid by them, he said.However, there is a need toexpand the scheme in the coun-try so that the crop insurancecoverage can be increased andmore farmers get benefits, anofficial statement quoted theminister as saying.

Tomar also urged state gov-ernments and other stakehold-ers such as banks and insurancecompanies to work togetherand reach out to the farmers inthese identified 75 aspirationaldistricts. He also urged thefarmers to come forward andenjoy the benefits of crop insur-ance and become self-sufficientin times of crisis. The ministerflagged off InformationEducation Communication(IEC) mobile vans to engagewith farmers on PMFBY duringthe week-long drive.

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Koo has proactively moder-ated 54,235 content pieces

even as 5,502 posts werereported by its users duringJune.

In its monthly compliancereport, Koo said its report forJune 2021 shows that of the5,502 Koos (posts) reported byits user community, 22.7 percent (1,253) were removed,while 'other action' was takenagainst the rest (4,249 Koos).Similarly, Koo took steps toproactively moderate 54,235Koos, of which 2.2 per cent(1,996) were removed, while'other action' was taken againstthe rest (52,239). 'Other action'includes overlay, blur, ignore,warning etc on Koos that donot comply with the guidelines.

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It makes a very comprehensive,dynamic and encouragingassertion: “The teacher must beat the centre of fundamentalreforms in the education sys-tem. The new education poli-cy must help re-establish teach-ers, at all levels, as the mostrespected and essential mem-bers of our society, because theytruly shape our next generationof citizens. The new policymust help recruit the very bestand brightest to enter the teach-ing profession by ensuringlivelihood, respect, dignity andautonomy, while also instillingin the system basic methods ofquality control and accountabil-ity.” This statement of intentpractically covers all therequirements which, if attend-ed to substantially in the imple-mentation phase, could trans-form Indian education in itsmost vital and significant com-ponents: quality, creativity,character-building and per-sonality development. As Indiaenters the ICT-dominatedphase in which blended learn-ing is to be universally accept-ed and upgraded, the chal-lenges before the teacher andthe system responsible forpreparing them are numerous.

The sincerity of purposebecomes clear when a refer-ence is made at the policy levelto the Justice JS VermaCommittee report, constitutedby the Supreme Court to lookinto various aspects of teacher

education, including the func-tioning of the statutory bodysupposed to take all necessarysteps to prevent commerciali-sation of teacher education(NCTE). Everyone associatedwith Indian education systemwas already familiar with theNCTE’s failure in preventinguncalled-for expansion andcorruption in teacher educa-tion institutions (TEIs). TheVerma Committee coura-geously brought it on recordand it has been reproduced inNEP-2020: “A majority ofstandalone TEIs — over 10,000in number — are not evenattempting serious teachereducation but are essentiallyselling degrees for a price.”

When this observationby a former Chief Justice ofIndia made in 2012 is repro-duced in 2020, one would liketo mention it from personalawareness that all of these“more than 10,000 TEIs” havecontinued their activitieswithout any hitch or hesita-tion. A total transformation inapproach, work culture andethical stringency is the primerequirement of the regulato-ry mechanism, and it has tobe brought about at the ear-liest. On the professional side,the acceptance at policy levelof preparing future teachersonly through the four-yearintegrated courses by 2030 isone of major transformativeindication.

India has several seriousissues and concerns in educa-tion that require immediateattention. Vaccination of alllearners before school openingmust get priority. Over the lasttwo-three decades, the schoolsystem has suffered greatlybecause of inordinate delays inteacher recruitment which isthe responsibility of StateGovernments. It would be atough job to set things on theright track in a short span butthere is no alternative than togive every child professionallyequipped teachers, in the pre-scribed teacher-taught ratio,and a congenial environment inwhich basic facilities are avail-able. Some of the decision-makers may be more familiarwith prestigious high-fee charg-ing, astonishingly referred to as“public schools”, and may notthink beyond them.

The use of ICT is welcome,necessary and, without doubt,very fruitful. Everyone wouldbe happy when each child getsuninterrupted access to it.Knowledge and skills are nec-essary but these alone are notsufficient. Teachers have also toaccept their role as the torch-bearers of morality, empathy,compassion and character for-mation. One hopes the nationtrusts them and finds that“trust begets trust”.

(The author works in edu-cation and social cohesion. Theviews expressed are personal.)

�� Sir — It is worthwhile to analyse the salientpoints Chief Justice of India NV Ramanamade while delivering the 17th Justice PDDesai Memorial Lecture. His cautionarystatement that “elections are no guaranteeagainst the tyranny of the elected” is preg-nant with unease about the way things are,and is food for thought. It is a sad truth thatmany elected leaders are prone to deludethemselves into thinking that they are vest-ed with absolute and sweeping powers. Itbecomes a travesty of democracy when theyarrogate to themselves the right to dictateto their electors.

It is axiomatic that elected representa-tives are surrogates supposed to governaccording to the will of the people. The CJI’sallusion to the “elected leaders” as “rulers”is suggestive of their self-regarding ways andstyle of functioning. He has pointed out thatthe exercise of franchise “once every fewyears” is just one aspect of democracy. Ina true democracy, the public or the citizen-ry plays multifarious roles like doing pub-lic service independent of support from theGovernment and dissenting and protesting.It is very much needed to ensure that theGovernment is really “of the people, for thepeople and by the people”.

The CJI’s remark that the “amplifiednoise” produced on social media platformsis “not necessarily reflective of what is rightand what majority believes in” sets us think-ing. He has laid great stress on a “reasonedand reasonable” public discourse, an essen-tial component of a properly-functioningdemocracy. We couldn’t agree more with theCJI’s views.

G David Milton | Tamil Nadu

��Sir — In the absence of transparency andpresence of a lackadaisical attitude towardscreating the National Database forUnorganised Workers, the CentralGovernment has been caught napping,which also puts into question the recentannouncement that the Government wouldspend �93,869 crore this year to provide fivekg of food grain per person to over 89 crorepeople till November under the Prime

Minister Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana.What is most alarming is that in such

distressing times of the COVID-19 pandem-ic, the unorganised sector, which is no lessthan one-fourth of the population, contin-ues to remain in dire straits even though itmakes a significant contribution to thenation’s GDP. Most of them are bearing thebrunt of the pandemic.

The Centre and the States need to puttheir act together in order to ensure thatthose who are really eligible for the bene-fits get their due in time and also issue rationcards till July 31, as directed by the apexcourt, in a transparent manner to the intend-ed beneficiaries.

Vijay Singh Adhikari | Nainital

��Sir — This has reference to the Pew Center’sreport on religious attitudes in India. It islaudable that Indians enjoy religious free-dom, value religious tolerance and consid-

er respect to all religions as the unifying cat-alyst of India as a nation. For centuriestogether, the people of India proved to bea very tolerant society, accepting people fol-lowing different faiths as their own andshowing no disparity in the name of religionuntil some disgruntled elements started rear-ing their ugly heads to divide the nation inthe name of religion.

It is unfortunate that a sizeable numberof people belonging to the majority religion,particularly in North India, have fallen preyto the evil designs of such religious fanat-ics who are trying to create a divide with the“one nation, one religion” mantra. Somepolitical outfits are also using this canard togarner the votes of gullible people. However,it is great that the southern people have notfallen into this trap.

Tharcius S Fernando | Chennai

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Policies are presumed to bethe outcome of compre-hensive incisive analysisof the situation, expecta-

tions and aspirations of the gen-erations ahead, and a realisticevaluation of the competence,commitment and capacity ofthose likely to be entrusted withits implementation. As Indiacompletes a year of the NationalEducation Policy (NEP-2020), itrealises how practically every sec-tor had its priorities severelyshaken during the COVID-19pandemic, and education is noexception. As the tensions andpressures of institutional clo-sures, home confinement anduncertainty about examinationsand evaluation increase, the edu-cation systems both at the Centreand State level rose to the occa-sion. Teachers took to onlineteaching and learning, revivingtheir self-learning initiatives,shaking off reservations towardsthe virtual mode of learningand preparing new-age educa-tion materials. In the use ofemerging communication tech-nologies, India must have movedin last one year what usually itwould have attained in not lessthan five years. Teacher — at thepersonal as well as collective level— showed considerable connectand empathy with learners whowere not fortunate enough tohave access to required gadgets.It also must not be forgotten thata huge number of teachers weredrafted to perform — as is theusual pattern — other duties likedoor-to-door Corona survey,besides elections to Assembliesand panchayats. Thousands ofthem lost their lives on duty! Atevery level, India lost its teach-ers, intellectuals and academicsto the pandemic. This loss isirreparable, but attempts must bemade to repair the damage.

The NEP-2020 contains a rayof hope as it makes some boldstatements on teachers, acknowl-edging that their education isvital in “creating a pool of schoolteachers that will shape the nextgeneration”. Teacher preparationmust be reshaped to a basket ofactivities that require “multidisci-plinary perspectives and knowl-edge, formation of dispositionand values, and development ofpractice under the best mentors”.

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While the Galwan valley clash-es demonstrated the realintent of China, Pakistan'stendencies to hold India

responsible for regional instability point tothe collusive Sino-Pak threat that builds onthe Indian borders. Any future Indo-Pakor an Indo-China conflict might requireIndia to be militarily prepared on twofronts.

Both have a common pattern of hos-tility followed against New Delhi. Borderincursions are met with a befitting responsethat leads to negotiations and withdrawalafter a spree of high-level diplomatic andmilitary meetings. Against this backdrop,it becomes very pertinent to gain anunderstanding of the overall Chinesethreat to appreciate India's rapidly shiftingstrategy from defensive posturing to anoffensive one.

The Chinese leadership since the verybeginning had formed strong narrativesbetween the behaviour of the Western pow-ers and its humiliation that framed its for-eign, security, and its economic policies.One of the most important aspects whichhave been underemphasized has beenBeijing’s Civil-Military Integration (CMI)which is now transformed into a Military-Civil Fusion.

Begun in 1956 under Chairman Mao,it received a thrust in 1982 from DengXiaoping, in the process ensuring the inte-gration of its defence and commercial tech-nology.

Each successive leader carried on thelegacy of this policy in different aspects.Jiang Zemin. for instance. emphasized onincreasing the ability of PLA to “win localwars under high-tech conditions”. HuJintao directed the military to build an“informatized” forcefor Beijing’s “new his-toric missions” which would be comingunder “military operations other thanwarfare”. Gradually, China outlined thehorizons of its “core interests” under Xi thatincluded the South China Sea and else-where. All these aspects have been widelycovered in China’s strategic guidelineswhich have been diversely incorporated inits national military strategies from time totime. These initiatives direct its ‘activedefence policy’.

On the home front, Beijing has madesure that its citizens cooperate with the lead-ership in its ‘China Dream’. For instance,in the 1990s, Jiang Zemin's ambitious pro-gram of “locating military with the civil-ians” envisioned the role of the military inthe civilian sectors such as education andinfrastructure. The Science of MilitaryStrategy (2001) put forward the rationaleof the “masses” to be used as militia toadvance the Chinese interests. The docu-ment was revised in 2013 to integrate the“non-military organizations” with its mil-itary objectives. Consequently, Xi Jinpingin 2016 elaborated upon the need for a“deep fusion”. Its various legislations suchas its Law on Counter Espionage (2014),Law on National Security (2015), NationalIntelligence Law (2017), and the most

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The recent twin droneattacks on the IndianAir Force station inJammu and the erup-

tion of skirmishes created byinsurgents once again exposethe trend of ongoing low inten-sity militancy from across theborder and reaffirms the con-spiracy to hit India by trying todraw it into a socio-religiousand security quagmire.

The easy availability oflow-cost weaponscarried bydrones and misuse of socialmedia sites and communica-tion networks calls for animmediate upgrading of ourstrategy. The role of Lashkar-e-Taiba is sinister. It has useddrones quite frequently in thepast to carry out its missions.Analysts say the latest attacksare attention-seeking, to sendout a message that the terror-

ists can carry out their terrortactics despite the COVID-19pandemic.

Hamas uses such low-risedrone attacks against Israeland so does the Islamic State inIraq. Apart from being effec-tive, the attacks also hold anelement of surprise. In theJammu case, it also points to ahigh level of coordination bythe terrorists. Such attacks caninstill fear among the peopleand disorganise the securityapparatus.

This is a game that cannotbe carried out by individualswithout organized outside sup-port. The existence of such sup-port groups in terror trainingcamps in PoK and their role infighting a proxy war againstIndia by inciting communalpassions is well known.

The question now is

whether the latest attack is thehandiwork of a special forcetrained for counter-terroristactivities. West German,France, and Italy have con-fronted and combated suchgroups.

India has a highly devel-oped intelligence network that-can anticipate such threats.They need to calibrate theirstrategies to the new threat andthe possibility of a new group

in action. It also requires thepeople's participation in termsof alertness and aiding thepolice and the general securi-ty environment. There is alsoa need for sophisticated secu-rity procedures including air-port screening, border securi-ty,and coast-line monitoring.

India has to update itscounter-terror strategies aswell. Legislation like Tada andPota was implemented but notextended because of internalopposition for their anti-demo-cratic nature. However, stateslike Maharashtra and Gujarathave enacted stringent laws.The NIA is a formidable addi-tion to the counter-terrorarmour.

In addition to strict anti-terrorist laws, India also needssome kind of parallel strategiesto complement the actions of

the security agencies.These areto do with international diplo-macy. India has been trying itsbest to promote open dia-logues and encourage amica-ble conflict resolution process-es. Recently, the Governmenthas made all-round efforts tosensitise people who are vic-tims of ideological and politi-cal brainwashing.

Many efforts have beenmade by many nations to dis-courage state-sponsored terror-ism but so far they have notmet with much success. Duringthe last two decades, the nexusbetween drug smugglers andterrorists have posed a seriousproblem to domestic security.

However, mere implemen-tation of vigorous drug lawscannot become effective unlessthe judicial procedure is mod-ified for ensuring speedy tri-

als.The concept that one man'sterrorist can be another man'sfreedom fighter must be doneaway with; local populaceshould cooperate with lawenforcement machinery evenat the cost of personal misery;prompt and strict decisionsshould be undertaken by var-ious nations for controlling ter-rorists psychologically.

In a fast-changing environ-ment, the security apparatusand police need to diversifytheir activities by bringingtogether technical and profes-sional expertise based on manydecades of experience in main-taining internal security. In thisregard, the most crucial thingis to develop a capability toanticipate security needs. Thisis possible by conducting spe-cialized courses for monitoringsecurity situations.

One word of caution: Thesudden influx of social medianarratives needs to be kept atan arm's distance. Debates ontv news channels have sprungseveral experts on pluralism,secularism, and even national-ism apart from political jingo-ism. It is time to realise thatconcepts such as nationalismand patriotism are lofty andcannot be treated as mundanesubjects. So is national securi-ty a serious issue that cannot betrifled with on public fora.

One rarely comes across abalanced and dispassionateassessment of national securi-ty. The latest challenges oftransnational terrorism can bedeceptive, changing tactics atwill. They require a resilientsecurity system that can with-stand pressures while neutral-izing the sponsors of terror.

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recent Anti-Espionage Regulation(2021) entails the individual and col-lective responsibility of the peopleto commit themselves to its militarycause at home and abroad.

These regulations also give itsnational security agencies access tothe electronic and infrastructuralfacilities of not only its civiliansthroughout the world but also of theforeign firms and agencies workingin China. It raises questions on therole of the Chinese citizens work-ing abroad or studying on multiplefronts. The absence of sweepingpowers to the security agencies inother countries such as India andthe US potentially makes China veryinvasive and threatening.

By 2049, Beijing aims to achievea “great rejuvenation of the Chinesenation” and given its strained rela-tionship with the west, the develop-ment of critical military infrastruc-ture holds the key. Concerning itsmilitary projection capabilities,ithas gone much beyond the theatreof its A2/AD (Anti-Access/AreaDenial — an attempt to deny anadversary's freedom of movementon the battlefield).Recent instancesof the coupling of artificial intelli-gence in its technologicallyadvanced weaponry such as drones(WJ-700), robots, and vehicles(Desert Wolf series) make China apotential aggressor especially inthe South China Sea region and inthe Indo-Pacific region.

All these advancements werethe outcomes of its dedicated effortsto bypass the technological marginof superiority that the US hadalways had. Today, its advanced con-ventional weaponry has long sur-passed the US in the domain ofshipbuilding; conventional ballisticand cruise missiles that can belaunched from the ground andintegrated surface to air defence sys-

tems. China continues to technolog-ically upgrade its precision strikeweaponry. As the above develop-ments sharpen the already existinggeopolitical divisions, two importantdevelopments have been again over-looked amidst the pandemic. Tocounter the increasing cooperationbetween the Quad countries, Chinahas first shifted from Civil-MilitaryIntegration (CMI) to a Military-Civil Fusion (MCF), andsecond, ithas adopted a Dual CirculationPolicy.

The MCF can turn the interna-tional law regime upside downwhich will have consequences forboth war and peacetime. It aims tofuse the dimensions of its multi-lay-ered growth to support its rejuve-nation and the China dream. Thefusion encompasses a complexintermix of China’s defence basewith civilian and its industrial base.This directly means using the civil-ian assets for its military purposeswhich in the near and the long runis a clear violation of the interna-tional rules of warfare which oblig-ates the states for a bifurcationbetween the civilian and the mili-tary facilities, to restrict the num-ber of casualties in a future conflict.

Second, the building of dual-purpose infrastructure will jeopar-dize the security of the Indo-Pacific region. With its ‘two oceans’strategy unveiled in 2017, China hastaken a leapfrog approach toexpand its military and strategicfootprints. A military base inDjibouti and other infrastructureports that are a part of its OBOR(One Belt One Road) would beintegrated with a probable ‘foreigncommand’ that China could unveilin the coming future. The 1.5 warscenario that it has visualized in asituation of conflict with the U.S.and India might necessitate for it to

have naval as well as air deploymentin these bases. One shouldnot besurprised to find the announce-ments of the underground navalsubmarine bases in its ports that itwill acquire, especially Gwadarand elsewhere.

The Dual Circulation Policy isimportant incorporation in its 14thFive Year Plan (2021-25) which isan attempt to reinvigorate its econ-omy through an internal element(domestic consumption) and exter-nally (increasing its internationaltrade and economic linkages). Asthe pandemic and its increased hos-tilities have increased, it aims tosafeguard its finances by increasingits domestic consumption andmaking itself less dependent onimports so that the trade wars donot disrupt its supply chain, espe-cially in the manufacturing sector.

The last decade has seen Chinacoming out with its narratives of a‘peaceful rise’. It shifted from ‘keep-ing a low profile’ tactically to belit-tling its neighbours on multiplefronts leading the experts to con-firm its hegemonic ambitions overits regional space and beyond.With proactive cooperation from itsexisting and new allies such asRussia, Pakistan, Myanmar, andIran, it aims to rebuild the interna-tional order as per its ‘principles’.India’s offensive policy towardsboth China and Pakistan and thestrategic tilt towards Quad arehence appreciable. The G7 initiativeto “Build Back Better World” is alsoa step in the direction to gear upagainst China as a collective force.Today, the situation demands thatIndian youth accepts China as ageopolitical competitor and staysunited against this threat to supportthe liberal world order, failingwhich would be detrimental toIndia's core interests.

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Any “foreign force” trying to“bully” China will

encounter a “great wall of steel”erected by over 1.4 billionChinese people and its power-ful military, President XiJinping warned on Thursday, asthe ruling Communist Partycelebrated its centenary with amassive show of strength at thehistoric Tiananmen Squarehere.

In his keynote address at ahighly-choreographed cere-mony from the balcony ofTiananmen Gate, which alsoadorns a giant size photo of‘Chairman’ Mao Zedong, thefounding father of the People’sRepublic of China, Xi alsounderlined that the “reunifica-tion” of Taiwan with theChinese mainland is a “historicmission” and an “unshakable

commitment” of theCommunist Party of China(CPC).

Xi, who is also the GeneralSecretary of the CPC andChairman of the CentralMilitary Commission, warnedthat any “foreign force” will beallowed to bully China, anapparent reference to the US.

China has repeatedlyaccused the US of trying tocurb its “peaceful rise”, amidstconcern in the neighbourhoodabout the growing assertivenessof the Chinese military in thestrategic Indo-Pacific regionand elsewhere.

Both former US presidentDonald Trump and his suc-cessor Joe Biden have pursueda hardline policy towardsChina, targeting it on severalfronts including trade, humanrights and the origins of theCOVID-19, which first

emerged in the central Chinesecity of Wuhan before becominga pandemic.

“We Chinese are a peoplewho uphold justice and are notintimidated by threats offorce…We have never bullied,oppressed, or subjugated thepeople of any other country, and we never will,” Xisaid.

“By the same token, we willnever allow any foreign force tobully, oppress, or subjugateus,” the 68-year old leader said.

“Anyone who wouldattempt to do so will findthemselves on a collisioncourse with a great wall of steelforged by over 1.4 billionChinese people,” he said.

Over 70,000 carefully vet-ted party workers and school-children who took part in theevent cheered Xi’s over anhour-long speech which was

telecast live.About 71 aircraft partici-

pated in the flypast which alsoincluded China’s mostadvanced J-20 stealth fighterjets, helicopters, fighter jettrainers and others.

In a show of unity, some ofthe top party leaders of the pastand present including Xi’s pre-decessor Hu Jintao and formerpremier Wen Jiabao attendedthe celebration.

Designated as the “core”leader of the CPC, Xi, who isregarded as the most powerfulleader after Mao with life longtenure at the helm appeared ina grey Mao suit synonymouswith the attire sported by the party founder 100 yearsago.

In his speech, Xi alsowarned against underestimat-ing China’s resolve to integratethe self-administered island of

Taiwan with the Chinese main-land stating that it is a historicmission of the ruling party.

No one should underesti-mate the great resolve, thestrong will, and the extraordi-nary ability of the Chinesepeople to defend their nation-al sovereignty and territorialintegrity, he said.

The issue of Taiwan is alsoa major source of tensionbetween Beijing andWashington. While democra-tic Taiwan sees itself as a sov-ereign state, China views theisland as a breakaway province.

The US, under its ownlaws, is required to provideTaiwan with the means todefend itself should China usemilitary force to take the islandback. Of late, Beijing has beenconducting intrusive militaryexercises over Taiwan’s air-space.

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As the Biden administration accel-erates the pace of complete with-

drawal of its troops from Afghanistan,Pakistan seems to have stepped up itslobbying and public relations effortshere to redefine its ties with the US.

A former congressional liaison forformer president Donald Trump’s 2016campaign who later lobbied the admin-istration on behalf of then-CongolesePresident Joseph Kabila is now repre-senting Pakistani interests in the US.

Adnan Jalil has registered hisfirm Alpha Strategies as a lobbyist forthe Council on Pakistan Relations, anonprofit started by Michigan-basedPakistani-American healthcare entre-preneurs Mohammad Ashraf Qazi,Adil Jamal Akhtar and Iqbal AbdulNasir.

Jalil is lobbying for the passage ofthe Pakistan-Afghanistan EconomicDevelopment Act, a bipartisan billfrom Senators Chris Van Hollen,Todd Young and Maria Cantwell.

The bill calls for the establishmentof Reconstruction Opportunity Zones(ROZs) in Afghanistan and Pakistan’sborder regions to allow textile and

apparel goods from these areas to enterthe United States duty-free.

“As American troops leaveAfghanistan, we have a strong inter-est in encouraging all parties toachieve a peaceful settlement andpolitical reconciliation that can bringstability to this war-torn and war-weary area,” Van Hollen said in a state-ment.

The US and the Taliban havesigned a landmark deal in Doha on 29February, 2020 following multiplerounds of negotiations to bring last-ing peace in Afghanistan and allow UStroops to return home, effectivelydrawing curtains on America’s longestwar.

As a member of the House ofRepresentatives, Hollen authored sim-ilar legislation that passed in 2009.

Earlier this month, Washington-based public relations firmFenton/Arlook registered for the coun-cil under the Foreign AgentsRegistration Act (FARA) to “informAmerican and international mediaabout the council’s desire for produc-tive diplomatic and economic relationsbetween Pakistan and the UnitedStates.”

Dubai: Iran’s supreme leaderon Thursday appointed a hard-line cleric sanctioned by theWest as the country’s new judi-ciary chief, state media report-ed, replacing the president-elect who previously held thepowerful post.

The new chief,Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi,64, takes the reins fromEbrahim Raisi, who will ascendto the country’s highest civilianposition after his election vic-tory earlier this month.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,who has the final say on all statematters in Iran, announcedEjehi’s appointment, urginghim to advocate for justiceand fight corruption. In adecree, he praised Ejehi’s “valu-able experience, shiningrecords and legal competence.”

Ejehi takes over a judicia-ry widely criticized by inter-national rights groups for beingone of the world’s top execu-tioners, as well as conductingclosed-door trials of dualnationals and individuals withWestern ties.

Raisi, the previous judicia-ry chief and a protege ofKhamenei, was sanctioned bythe United States in part overhis involvement in the massexecution of thousands of polit-ical prisoners in 1988, as well asover his tenure at the judiciary.Thursday’s announcement waswidely expected as Ejehi, con-sidered close to Khamenei, hadserved as deputy judiciary chiefafter a long history in thebranch, including as prosecutorgeneral.

In that post, from 2009-2014, he pushed to furtherlimit access to the internet andpopular social media apps,sparking worries among hisopponents over the increase ofsocial oppression.

From 2005-2009, duringthe first term of hard-line pop-ulist former PresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ejehiserved as intelligence minister,following decades of deepinvolvement in the servicesdating back to his role as headof the ministry’s recruitingoffice in the 1980s. AP

Washington: DonaldRumsfeld, the two-time defensesecretary and one-time presi-dential candidate whose repu-tation as a skilled bureaucratand visionary of a modernU.S. Military was unravelled bythe long and costly Iraq war,died Tuesday. He was 88.

In a statement Wednesday,Rumsfeld’s family said he “wassurrounded by family in hisbeloved Taos, New Mexico.”

President George W. Bush,under whom Rumsfeld servedas Pentagon chief, hailed his“steady service as a wartimesecretary of defense — a dutyhe carried out with strength,skill, and honour.” Regarded byformer colleagues as equallysmart and combative, patriot-ic and politically cunning,Rumsfeld had a storied careerin government under four pres-idents and nearly a quarter cen-tury in corporate America. AP

Washington: President Joe Biden signedthree separate laws Wednesday that disman-tle part of the Trump era, blocking paydaylenders from avoiding caps on interest rates,restricting climate-warming greenhouse gasemissions from oil and gas drilling and end-ing rules on how the Equal EmploymentOpportunity Commission settles claims.

“Each of these rules reflects a return tocommon sense and a commitment to thecommon good,” Biden said before the signing,surrounded by congressional leaders whojoined him as he turned each resolution intolaw. Under former President Donald Trump,the Office of the Comptroller of the Currencyhad enabled payday lenders to charge inter-est rates in excess of what was allowed by thestate. Payday lenders were able to partner witha nationally chartered bank to make high-costloans and avoid state usury laws.

The Trump administration also loos-ened rules on methane emissions from leaksand flares in oil and gas wells.

The Biden administration said in a state-ment that the EEOC claims process hadincreased “the risk of retaliation by making iteasier for employers to demand the identitiesof those with information about unlawful dis-crimination.” AP

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The Pakistan Army has for-mally inducted the first

batch of the China-made VT-4 battle tanks into its armoury.

Produced by Chinese state-owned armoured vehicle man-ufacturer, Norinco, the deliveryof VT-4 tanks from the man-ufacturer began in April lastyear. Pakistan is the third coun-try to have bought these tanksfrom China after Thailand andNigeria.

The Army’s media affairswing in a statement said thatCommander Mangla Corps,Lieutenant General ShaheenMehmood, on Wednesday vis-ited the Armoured Divisionand inspected the first batch ofVT-4 tanks.

Major General RashidMahmood briefed the com-

mander about ongoing postshipment inspections of thefirst batch of tanks, the state-ment said.

General Mehmood alsowitnessed the mobility andmaneuverability test of thetanks.

Earlier, the Army after itson field tests in Septemberlast year had said the tankswould be employed in an offen-sive role by strike formationsafter induction. “The VT-4 iscompatible with any moderntank in the world integratingadvanced armour protection,maneuverability, fire powercapabilities and state-of-the-arttechnology,” the Army hadsaid.

Pakistan has been buyingvarious weapons from Chinawhich has become its reliablepartner in the defence field.

London: Voicing concern over many countriesfailing to vaccinate their people, WHO chiefDr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus onThursday called for vaccinating at least 10 percent of the population of every country bySeptember as he emphasised that vaccinationis the best way to control the pandemic andreboot the global economy.

“Vast inequities in the access to vaccines arefuelling a two-track pandemic. While some coun-tries have reached a high level of coverage, manyothers don’t have enough to vaccinate healthworkers, older people & other at-risk groups,” theWorld Health Organisation Director General saidin a virtual address to India Global Forum.

Asserting that when some countries can-not vaccinate, it’s a threat to all countries,Ghebreyesus called for a global effort to vac-cinate at least 10 per cent of the population ofevery country by September, at least 40 per centby the end of the year, and at least 70 per centby the middle of next year. PTI

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Union Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman on

Thursday said a special sessionof the GST Council will be heldsoon to discuss all compensa-tion-related issues.

She also said that the flowof Covid-19 vaccination acrossthe country will be well man-

aged and all states will betaken care of.

“...I have promised to holda special session, in which wewill discuss about, all GSTcompensation related issues,”Sitharaman said.

Speaking to reporters, inresponse to a question on GSTcompensation to Karnataka,she said, every state’s compen-sation will be worked out.

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Gross non-performing assets(GNPAs) of banks may

rise to 9.8 per cent by March2022 under a baseline sce-nario, from 7.48 per cent inMarch 2021, according to theFinancial Stability Report (FSR)released by the Reserve Bank ofIndia.

Under a severe stress sce-nario, GNPA of banks mayincrease to 11.22 per cent, itadded.

“Macro stress tests indicatethat the gross non-performingasset (GNPA) ratio of banksmay increase from 7.48 percent in March 2021 to 9.80 percent by March 2022 under the

baseline scenario,” the FSRreleased on Thursday showed.

The FSR published inJanuary this year had saidbanks’ GNPAs may rise to 13.5per cent by September 2021,under the baseline scenario.

The latest FSR, however,said banks have sufficient cap-ital, both at the aggregate andindividual level, even understress. Within the bankgroups, public sector banks’(PSBs) GNPA ratio of 9.54 percent in March 2021 edging upto 12.52 per cent by March2022 under the baseline sce-nario is an improvement overearlier expectations and indica-tive of pandemic proofing byregulatory support, it added.

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The Reserve Bank onThursday said a scheme

providing interest subsidy forpost and pre-shipment exportcredit has been extended bythree months till September, amove that will provide relief toexporters.

Exporters get the subsidyunder the ‘Interest EqualisationScheme for pre and post-ship-ment Rupee Export Credit’.Earlier in April, the scheme wasextended till June 30.

“Government of India hasapproved the extension ofInterest Equalization Schemefor Pre and Post Shipment

Rupee Export Credit, with thesame scope and coverage, fora further period of threemonths, i.E., up to September30, 2021,” the RBI said in a cir-cular.

The extension takes effectfrom July 1, 2021, and ends onSeptember 30, 2021, coveringthree months. Consequently,the extant operational instruc-tions issued by the ReserveBank of India will continue toremain in force up toSeptember 30, 2021.

In November 2018, theinterest subsidy was increasedto 5 per cent from 3 per cent toboost MSME sector exports.Later, the government includ-

ed other merchant exporterstoo under the scheme andallowed them interest equali-sation at the rate of 3 per centon credit for the export of cer-tain products.

Commenting on the exten-sion of the scheme, theFederation of Indian ExportOrganisations (FIEO)President A Sakthivel said thetimely extension will providecompetitive rates for exportsand bring it near internation-al benchmarks particularly forMSMEs.

FIEO also requested thegovernment to provide stabil-ity of the scheme by extendingit for 3 years.

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Noida: Noida schoolboySatyam Mehta (16) has earnedaccolades for India by gettingthe coveted Diana Award for hispositive social change initiativesand humanitarian efforts inempowering rural investment,sustainable management of e-waste, and promoting bettermenstrual health. Satyam, astudent of Class 12th at AmityInternational School, Noida,said, “I strongly feel that life isnot worth living if one does notlive for others”Tessy Ojo, CEOof The Diana Award, congrat-ulate award recipients forbecoming change-makers fortheir generation.

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Hon. Minister ofAgriculture Sh.

Narendra Singh Tomarperformed Bhoomi Pujanand laid the foundationstone of NAFED's HoneyProcessing & QualityControl Plant at DevriVillage Morena MadhyaPradesh in the Honey Corridorbeing set up with support ofNational Bee Board Also pre-sent on occasion were Sh.RajbirSingh. Jt. Secretary & MDNHB, Sh Sanjeev.K ChadhaMD NAFED and Sh. PankajPrasad AMD NAFED. Sh.Sanjay Agrawal Secretary

(Agriculture) along with SeniorOfficials of the Ministry ofAgriculture attended the inau-guration virtually. Hon'bleMinister lauded the efforts ofNAFED in providing market-ing support to honey produc-ers and farmers of the nation.: PMO India and 4 others

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An interesting issue was posed byan automotive journalism col-

league recently. It posited that manyin the automotive media can changetheir minds about a vehicle from thetime they first drive it to when theprice is announced and then com-pletely switch their opinion sixmonths after the vehicle has been onthe road. Now, many of us are guiltyof that, and let me explain why.These days, carmakers are often let-ting automotive journalists driveprototype versions of their vehicles.We recently drove the HyundaiAlcazar’s prototype, which featuredamong other things a digital instru-ment cluster similar to the Creta,which isn’t what the vehicle finallyreceived. The prototypes give you agood idea of the exteriors of thevehicle, as stamped panels are rarely,if ever, changed but mechanicals canbe dramatically altered and interi-ors worked on.

Then you have what I call ‘firstdrive impressions’, this is what pass-es off as a ‘review’ of a vehicle. Atthis stage, we can evaluate the per-formance, the exterior look, interi-ors and even how a vehicle stacks upagainst the competition. Often wedo these without knowing the finalprice of the vehicle. This is why onecan change one’s mind after theprice announcement. And then sixmonths later, when it comes to eval-uating vehicles for the awards sea-son, the sales and service experiencedoes factor in as well. For example,the extremely poor service experi-ence a friend had with his early-build Tata Harrier did become a fac-tor in the way I saw the vehicle. ToTata Motors’ credit, things haveimproved with the Harrier and, now,with the Safari. Also, six monthsafter the launch, there could beother entrants into the same seg-ment, which might change youropinion about the vehicle in ques-tion. These are some notable factorswhich contribute to automotivejournalists such as myself evolvingour views on vehicles as time goeson.

This brings me to the SkodaKushaq, the first vehicle from Skoda

Auto-Volkswagen India’s (as thecompany is now called) ‘India 2.0’strategy based on the group’s MQB-A0 IN (India) platform. I had achance to drive the Kushaq aroundNavi Mumbai and the NorthKonkan coast recently. There wasquite a bit of urban driving, thensome time on the highway followedby some bits through the twisty ghatsections on the way to Alibaug andbeyond. I drove the top-end ‘Style’trim, which comes with all the toys(such a sunroof, wireless chargingand smartphone connectivity aswell as ventilated seats) and theKushaq, I drove, had the 1.5 TSI(Turbocharged Stratified Injection)engine with 150PS of powermated to a 6-speed man-ual gearbox.

And well, my firstimpression of the carwas that it was a blastto drive, really goodfun with thatengine and despitebeing a SportsUtility Vehicleshape, theKushaq was sur-prisingly agilearound the cor-ners. No twoways about that,it was great funto drive and beingalone in the car Ididn’t have to worryabout other passengers. That said,the platform was so incredibly sta-

ble even around the corners that itis unlikely that the Kushaq willmake anyone car sick. The engine,while tuned a bit for fuel economy,responded quickly anytime youneeded it to perform, and even ifyou found yourself in a high gear,low-speed situation, it could reason-ably pull itself out, something I hadto experience a few times given thatI’ve become accustomed to auto-matics. This engine choice on theKushaq will also come with a seven-

speed dual-clutch

DSG option, however, Skoda’s mainengine option on the Kushaq will bethe 1.0 TSI with 115PS of powerwith a six-speed manual and atorque converter automatic. In fact,the base ‘Active’ and the mid‘Ambition’ trims will only be avail-able with this smaller engine, one Ihope to drive soon. Coupled with allthat, the Kushaq is also a very smart-looking car from all angles, its sideprofile is particularly appealing,especially with the very smart alloyson the ‘Style’ trim and it sparkles inthe signature ‘honey orange’ paintjob. It also feels very nice to sitinside, despite the occasional hint ofcost-cutting, the overall feel of thecar inside is one of European chic,and the two-spoke steering wheellooks cool.

But while the Kushaq’s top trimis fairly well-loaded, one has to

keep in mind a couple ofthings. The MQB-A0 INplatform, which will alsoform the basis of the

u p c o m i n gVo l k s w a g e nTaigun, isslightly smaller

than the platformthe primary com-petitors of thesetwo vehicles are upagainst, vehicles Icall the ‘K-Poptwins’, theHyundai Cretaand Kia Seltos.Sure, deliveryissues are hamper-ing the Korean carsand the Kushaq. I’mfairly sure theTaigun, is a superiordriving machineeven though largefamilies with a lot of

luggage for long journeys might notbe its forte. There is also the fact thatthe European carmaker has decid-ed to eschew diesel as BS6 normscame into play in the aftermath ofthe damaging ‘Dieselgate’ scandal.Moreover, according to the carmak-er, cosntructing diesel engines com-pliant with the upcoming BS6Bnorms will make its vehicles far tooexpensive. There may be an elementof truth there, but according toHyundai, over 60 per cent of allbookings for the Creta to date havebeen diesel variants.

And then there is the price.Now, while this hasn’t changed mymind about the Skoda Kushaq as adriving vehicle, when the Czechbrand announced the prices of theKushaq, I was not the only one sur-prised. With prices starting at �10.5lakh for the base ‘Active’ trim withthe 1.0TSI manual going up to �17.6lakh for the top-end ‘Style’ with thebigger engine and dual-clutch gear-box, the prices are pegged directlyagainst the Creta and Seltos. Theversion I drove, the 1.5TSI Style’manual, will have an ex-showroomprice of �16.2 lakh incidentally. Yes,while cars have become moreexpensive over the years, the sur-prise here was that one expected theKushaq to be a bit cheaper given thatthe ‘India 2.0’ strategy meant fight-ing for market share. the HyundaiMotor Group, hands down, rulesthis segment and while the Kushaqand the Taigun in the future willlikely make inroads, maybe a moreaggressive price positioning ini-tially might have helped get morecars on the road quickly.

Again, a good product will selleven if it is slightly expensivebecause buyers will find value at thatprice point as well. But, when you’refighting the market leaders, under-cutting might have helped particu-larly without the diesel variants aswell as removing the negativityaround the sales and service net-work. This is a good vehicle though,and while everyone reserves theright to re-evaluate it after a fewmonths, for now, I think Skoda’sKing should rule the road.

Having touched highs like mak-ing it to an enviable fourth rankon IMDB’s list of most popular

shows in the world, attracting a mas-sive global viewership since its premiereand winning widespread criticalacclaim, The Family Man: Season 2 hasbecome one of the biggest Indian hitsreleased on the OTT platform. And forthe makers of the web series the bestway to celebrate this success is by get-ting back to work, for success shouldbe enjoyed in a way that drives andempowers, says Suparn Varma, co-director and co-writer of the secondseason of the edgy action-drama star-ring Manoj Bajpayee.

When we ask him whether themakers expected the phenomenalresponse to the show, Suparn shares,“While filming the second season wewere hoping that the audience wouldlike it and that we were doing justiceto the first season. We focussed on howwe could take the second season to thenext level. Honestly, the audience’s reac-tion to the second season has beenoverwhelming from day one. Viewershave loved The Family Man: S2 somuch that the show now belongs to theaudience, they own it. Like the way thegovernment used memes of ChellamSir, it is a testament to the far-reachingpopularity of the show.”

For Suparn, personally, more thananything else it has been about the senseof responsibility that he has felt towards

the creators of the show, Raj Nirimoruand Krishna DK. As a new member ofthe team, he wanted to do justice totheir baby and that pressure was greaterthan that of the audience itself, as theduo happen to be his close friends. Andeverything turned out well, as it hasbeen one of the most creatively satis-fying experiences of his life so far, headmits. “It was a great collaboration. Rajand DK are the two most brilliantminds. We love the same kind of cin-ema, we come from the same school ofthought and I think our collaborationhad been in the offing for a long timeso, when it happened, it was magical.In the writer’s room, there would be nospace for ego, it was all about the bestidea possible and about pushing eachother to bring out our best. Everyonein the crew bonded so strongly. InFamily Man: S2 we had a dream teamcoming together and that is also a bigreason for its success,” Suparn says.

As fans wait eagerly for the nextseason, Suparn hints at what seasonthree of The Family Man could havewhile avoiding any spoilers and leav-ing many cliffhangers, “The last sceneof the second season sets the tone thatit has caught up with the Covid world.India has been impacted by two wavesof COVID-19. Simultaneously, some-thing is happening in Kolkata. We haveindicated that there is a Chinese threat.Then there is the question of what isgoing to happen between Shuchi and

Srikant. Dhriti, as Srikant Tiwari’sdaughter, has been through a darkphase and done something that is goingto impact her in a big way and perhapschange her as a person. Zoya, hopeful-ly will heal and come back. What willAtharva grow up to be like? Will JK findlove? There are so many things that areup in the air.”

Suparn views the emergence ofOTT platforms as the golden age of sto-rytelling, where it is all about beingpushed to tell the best tales in the best

way possible and competing with thefinest in the world. “There is suchamazing talent coming from all over thecountry, not just metros like Delhi orMumbai. It is giving rise to so manyvoices. Our language, culture, talent andstories from the true heartland ofIndia are being adapted beautifully.When I started working as ascriptwriter, I was often told that, mystyle was ‘too Hollywood’ and myscripts were ‘dry’ meaning that they didnot have masala. Displeased, I would

sometimes reply ‘paani daal doon?’But in the last few years with the evo-lution of OTT platforms, story-telling has caught up where now weare making stories for a worldwideaudience. And even in India, theaudience has been exposed to nar-ratives from around the world dueto which there is now an evolvingappetite for content that is a lot morecontemporary and international. Iam very glad that I am reaching mypeak as a filmmaker at a time whenwe are living in the golden age of sto-rytelling,” he adds thoughtfully

And what is the one learningthat Suparn has got working with theiconic Bollywood actor, Manoj?“The one thing I learnt from Manojis to never become complacent.Even if you have achieved success,try to push yourself further to be bet-ter. Despite the high level of successthat he has reached already, Manojwould immerse himself completelyin thinking about how to give hisbest in every scene. There is no ego.There is just this quest for self-improvement and that makes Manojnot just an amazing actor but a won-derful human being. He is very hum-ble and not influenced by celebrity-hood in any way. He has seen so muchduring his journey that he knows fameis transient but what will alwaysremain are his performances. And hisfocus is on giving his best to every lit-tle detail. When we start applying thisto everything we do in our life, we arechasing excellence,” he shares.

We wrap up the interview withone last question and as Suparnexpresses that success to him is thepower to say no, his eyes emanatethe intensity of a man who hasweathered many a storm to steer hisown course, navigating the shores ofhis heart.

Documentary feature films arenot just powerful sources of

knowledge and information thathelp sharpen our brains and bringconversation fodder to the tablewith family and friends, but arealso creative tools that help intro-duce us to new worlds andlifestyles which otherwise we’dprobably have limited exposure to,hence enriching us with a greaterperspective outside of our person-al experiences.

The path-breaking docu-film,W.O.M.B is officially set to lead atthe 12th edition of the Indian FilmFestival Of Melbourne (IFFM),being chosen as the opening nightfilm this year and will be screenedon August 12. Following theincredible success of last year’s vir-tual film festival, IFFM this yearwill take place both physicallyand virtually with the physical fes-tival running from August 12-20while its digital edition will bescreened from August 15-30.

W.O.M.B will screen physical-ly from the premiere night of theIFFM on August 12. The docu-mentary has been the toast of theinternational film festival circuit,being the opening night film at theLondon Indian Film Festival lastmonth.

The documentary feature filmis an extraordinary real-life storytailored by director AjiteshSharma. It documents the monu-mental journey of a young womannamed Srishti Bakshi who walksalmost 4,000 km over 240 days,from Kanyakumari to Kashmir,along the way meeting and learn-ing first hand about the experi-ences of many women from all cor-ners of India. It is a poignant andheartwarming documentary

exploring the social and politicalissues faced by women of today’sIndia. It is a unique testament toseemingly insurmountable chal-lenges in these unprecedentedtimes and the everyday sheroeswho are battling to overcome.

“Violence against women andgirls is a human rights violation.Since the outbreak of Covid-19 andthe world locking down to livewithin four walls, emerging dataand reports from those on thefrontlines have shown that alltypes of violence against womenand girls, particularly domesticviolence, have only intensified. Inthis documentary, we have cele-brated ordinary women who’veshown extraordinary courage torise above their limitations andchallenge deeply entrenched gen-der norms. We did this to unite themajority because what we discov-ered was that gender-based vio-lence is a crime perpetrated by theminority but perpetuated by thesilence of the majority,” sharesSrishti

IFFM, being the largest filmfestival of its kind in the Southernhemisphere that celebrates Indiancinema in all its forms, provides anexcellent opportunity for film-makers to showcase their films onan international platform.

Zee TV’s Hamariwali GoodNews is a primetime drama

that has kept the audience onthe edge of its seat since itsinception. After the recent seg-ment showcasing Meera’s (JuhiParmar) marriage to Mukund(Shakti Anand), the show hastaken several twists and turnswhich has kept the viewersglued to their TV sets. Whileseasoned actor Shakti has beenimpressing one and all with hisstellar acting on the show asMukund Tiwari, little doesanyone about how he overcamehis fears to make the hobby ofacting into his full-time career.

Talking about his struggle,Shakti Anand revealed, “Inthe initial years of mycareer, when I had juststarted working for a pri-vate organisation in Delhi,I joined a theatre group,which played a vital role inshaping my whole life.I had joined the-atre as a hobby asI liked acting. Iwanted to dos o m e t h i n gconstructiveapart fromjust doing myjob and mylove for thecraft continued togrow through the-atre and I contin-ued being a part ofit for more thanthree years. That'swhen I felt I couldswitch to acting as afull-time profession.Coming from amiddle-class fami-ly, I did not haveanyone in the enter-tainment industryto guide me at all.

So, I started from scratch andunderstood what acting was allabout.”

He further added, “Whiletheatre had taught me differentnuances of scriptwriting, dia-logue narration, performance,among other things; learningsomething new on set everyday was fascinating. I had a fearof public speaking and takinga step towards overcoming itwith acting is one of my biggestachievements to date. I guessthat is when my hobby turnedinto my profession. To be hon-est, I gave so many auditionsfor my debut show and aftermultiple attempts, my journeyin the television industry start-

ed. It was a struggle, but Iam really happy I choseacting as it has given mea lot of love, affection andjoy.”

While Shakti’s lovefor his profession

increases daily, inthe recentepisodes, hiso n - s c r e e nc h a r a c t e r ,Mukund hasbeen seentaking care ofMeera as he

helps herrecover after shewas mysteriouslyshot by someone. Isthis the start ofMukund andMeera’s love story?Or will Devika be

successful in sepa-rating them onceand for all?

(Tune intoHamariwali GoodNews on Zee TV,every Monday toSaturday at 7:30 PM.)

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/ � � $ � � �If you are cold, tea will warmyou;

if you are too heated, it willcool you;

if you are depressed, it willcheer you;

if you are excited, it willcalm you.

—William EwartGladstone

After water, tea is the sec-ond most consumed beverageon earth, and for good reason.Not only is it available in differ-ent types, something to suiteveryone’s preference, but it isalso chock full of health bene-fits. You can sip on a bold blacktea or a mercurial muscatelDarjeeling tea to start your day,or you could take the edge offafter a long day with a sooth-ing cup of herbal tea that willhelp you sleep better. There’salways something for everyone.

Now summers are upon usand the trend of cold teas oriced teas is back. We all crave anice tall, chilled glass of iced teawith our favourite infusions tobeat the sweltering heat. Ofcourse, some of us worry aboutthe sugar intake the comeswith it, but there are somebrands that have also come outwith low-calorie, instant pre-mixes with a healthy green teabase.

But have you wonderedwhich is better: Hot tea or cold?Which of the two are healthi-er or what are the differences?Let’s dive deep and find out.

DIFFERENCERegardless of tea being a

healthy beverage, there aresome differences in the nutri-tional content and the health

benefits that hot and cold teahave to offer. Here are somethings that you might want toconsider before raising yourcuppa:

ANTIOXIDANT CONTENTAlthough a cup of steaming

hot tea might be soothing toyour senses, when it comes tothe beneficial antioxidants pre-sent in tea, it seems like cold teaor iced teas win. The researchfound that cold water brewingmaximises the antioxidantactivity and phenolic contentwhen brewed for a long time.

WEIGHT LOSSAlthough there is truth in

the fact that drinking hot teacan help further weight lossefforts by facilitating efficient

detox, hot tea by itself cannotlead to weight loss. Again, coldteas here work their magic,especially for obese people.Drinking unsweetened andproperly brewed cold tea canlead to more stimulation ofthermogenesis and the oxida-tion of fat.

HEART HEALTHResearch also found that

drinking unsweetened coldbrew can help overweight peo-ple with cardiovascular issues.Drinking unsweetened and longbrewed cold tea can help allevi-

ate hypertension and other car-diac risks. There are some ben-efits to drinking hot tea as well;it helps reduce levels of bad orLDL cholesterol and contributesto heart health.

CAFFEINE CONTENTBlack tea, among all other

tea types, carries the highest con-tent of caffeine which is close to25 to 40 mg of caffeine per 230to 250 ml serving of tea. Butaccording to a study that waspublished in the Journal of FoodScience Technology, it was foundthat even when both hot tea and

cold tea are brewed the sameway, using the same methods,cold or iced tea contains less caf-feine than its hot counterpart. Sofor those who are trying to cutdown on their caffeine con-sumption, we recommend goingfor iced or cold tea.

CONCLUSIONOf course, there are more

added benefits while drinkinglong-brewed cold tea than overa hot tea, but more or less, onecan reap the same benefitsfrom both variants. Like, whenwe are down with a bout of coldor flu, there’s nothing like a cupof hot tea that can sootheheadaches, sore throat and alle-viate symptoms of a cold.Drinking hot tea can also leadto better digestion and efficientdetox. But all in all, drinkingany of these variants can helpyou extract a plethora of nutri-ents and an abundance of goodantioxidants.

(The writer is the founderand CEO of VAHDAM India,

a tea brand.)

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Roger Federer became theoldest man in 46 years to

reach the Wimbledon thirdround on Thursday with astraight sets win over RichardGasquet.

Federer, 39, defeated hisFrench rival 7-6 (7/1), 6-1, 6-4 to make the last 32 for the18th time.

Australia’s Ken Rosewallwas 40 when he made thethird round at the All EnglandClub in 1975.

Federer, the eight-timechampion, beat Gasquet for the19th time in 21 meetings andwill take on Cameron Norrie ofBritain for a place in the last 16.

Second-seeded DaniilMedvedev saw off promisingSpanish teenager CarlosAlcaraz in straight sets to reachthe third round.

Medvedev beat the 18-year-old Alcaraz 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 andthen predicted his opponent willsoon be a top-10 player.

Alcaraz has drawn similarpraise from countryman RafaelNadal and made the third

round at the French Open thisyear. He was playingWimbledon for the first timeafter being given a wild card.

Medvedev is a two-timeGrand Slam finalist but hasnever made it past the thirdround at Wimbledon.

Former US Open runner-up Kei Nishikori lost 7-5, 6-4,5-7, 6-3 to Jordan Thompsonof Australia.

Back on Centre Court,Coco Gauff beat an opponenttwice her age to reach the thirdround at Wimbledon.

The 17-year-old Americandefeated 34-year-old Russianveteran Elena Vesnina 6-4, 6-3 to keep her on track for mak-ing another run into the sec-ond week at the All EnglandClub.

Elsewhere, formerWimbledon championAngelique Kerber needed 3hours, 19 minutes to get pastunseeded Sara Sorribes Tormo7-5, 5-7, 6-4 in the secondround.

The two players tradedblows in a match that saw15 breaks of serve,including seven in thefinal set.

Kerber finishedwith 47 winners andjust as many unforcederrors.

Top-ranked Ash Barty

overcame nine double-faultsand a bad line call onmatch point to advancefurther with a 6-4, 6-3win over Anna Blinkova.

No 3 Elina Svitolinabecame the sixth top-10 seed-

ed woman to be eliminated in

the first two rounds.The 2019 Wimbledon

semifinalist lost to MagdaLinette of Poland 6-3, 6-4 afterhitting only eight winners inthe match, compared to 28 forher opponent. Svitolina hit 34winners in her first-round

match against Alison VanUytvanck.

She joins No 4 Sofia Kenin,No 5 Bianca Andreescu, No 6Serena Williams, No 9 BelindaBencic and No 10 Petra Kvitovain making an early exit at the AllEngland Club.

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India opener batsmanShubman Gill has sustained a

serious shin injury which couldkeep him out of action for atleast two months, a BCCI sourcesaid on Thursday.

It is all but certain that Gillis unlikely to feature in theupcoming five-Test seriesagainst England starting inNottingham from August 4.

“Shubman has sustained ashin stress fracture, which willkeep him out of action for min-imum two months, which effec-

tively rules him out of the firstthree Tests against England inAugust,” the source said. “It willbe a race against time to get himfit for the final two Test match-es in September after complet-ing rehabilitation,” he added.

It is understood that theshin injury got aggravated dur-ing the recently-concludedWorld Test Championship finalagainst New Zealand.

“Stress fractures in shin arenot very threatening but timeconsuming in terms of rest andrehabilitation,” a former Indiapacer said.

“If it would have been shinfracture, then it could havetaken more than three monthsbut shin stress fracture injurynormally takes anythingbetween 8 to 10 weeks to heal.

“If Gill’s replacement,whether it’s Mayank (Agarwal)or (KL) Rahul, does well, hemight have to sit out and Ibelieve the team managementalso won’t show a lot of desper-ation in getting him fit for say,the fifth Test,” the bowler said.

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Belgium are anxiously waiting on the fit-ness of stars Kevin De Bruyne andEden Hazard for their Euro 2020 quar-

ter-final showdown against Italy on Friday.Thorgan Hazard fired Belgium into the

last eight with the goal that knocked outholders Portugal, but the fitness of his broth-er Eden and De Bruyne is Belgium’s mainconcern before facing the Azzurri in Munich.

De Bruyne came off early in the secondhalf against Portugal with an ankle knock,while Belgian captain Hazard injured a ham-string late in the game.

Neither trained on Wednesday as wellas on Thursday morning with Belgium’smedical staff working around the clock toget them fit to face Italy.

Coach Roberto Martinez admits neitherplayer will probably be 100 percent inMunich, “but we will use every day to getthem as fit as possible”.

Manchester City midfielder De Bruyneis central to Belgium’s hopes of reaching thesemi-finals, where Spain or Switzerlandwould await next Tuesday.

Martinez is assessing his alternativeoptions in attacking midfield.

Atletico Madrid’s Yannick Carrascocould replace Hazard, while Napoli forwardDries Mertens may step in for De Bruyne.

Martinez expects Italy to “attack from thevery first second, they will be very struc-tured”, underlining the need for De Bruyne’spresence to guide Belgium’s counter-attacks.

Chelsea midfielder Jorginho, who facedDe Bruyne’s City in last month’s ChampionsLeague final, has warned his Italy team-mates. “De Bruyne is a player who makes thedifference. We have to stop him because healways finds space. He can be really danger-ous,” said Jorginho.

With four wins and three clean sheets sofar at Euro 2020, the Belgians are living upto their billing as the world’s top-ranked team.

RECORD RUNHowever, Italy are on a national record

run of 31 games unbeaten after digging deepto seal a 2-1 victory over Austria followingextra time in the last 16.

“Italy will be the toughest opponentwe’ve met so far,” said Belgium forward

Thorgan Hazard.“They’ve had a good run of wins and it

will be a nice challenge for us to end thatsequence.”

Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku, theSerie A player of the season as Inter Milanended an 11-year title drought, has scoredthree goals at the tournament.

Italy midfielder Pessina says the Inter staris a handful who “can take on three defend-ers by himself”.

Meanwhile forward Ciro Immobile hasanswered critics’ claims he only scores in theblue of Lazio, not the national team, with

goals against Switzerland and Turkey in thegroup stage.

After 25 goals in 41 games last seasonfor Lazio, Immobile has the confidence ofItaly coach Roberto Mancini, but had a frus-trating night against Austria, hitting the postwith half an hour gone.

The striker says the Azzurri have a pointto make to Italian fans at Euro 2020.

Failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cupwas “a lesson for us that will hopefully helpus to go far in this European Championshipand write over the ugly memories,” saidImmobile.

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Sania Mirza and herAmerican partner Bethanie

Mattek-Sands stunned sixthseeds Desirae Krawczyk andAlexa Guarachi to make thesecond round of the women’sdoubles event at theWimbledon here on Thursday.

Mirza and Mattek-Sandswere a bit rusty at the start butonce they got their rhythm,they dominated the match andwon 7-5, 6-3 against theAmerican-Chilean combina-tion in one hour and 27 min-utes.

However, Rohan Bopannaand Divij Sharan made anearly exit after losing theirmen’s doubles first round 6-7,(6) 4-6 to Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Henri Kontinen.

The Indians had paired up

to prepare for the Tokyo Gamesbut could not make the cut.

Also, Ankita Raina and herAmerican partner LaurenDavis also lose 3-6, 2-6in theopening round to crash out.

But there was a bit of his-tory for Indian tennis at theChampionships as for the firsttime, two women players from

the country are competing inthe main draw of a Grand Slam.

For Ankita, it was her thirdsuccessive appearance at a ten-nis major, having made herdebut at the Australian Openthis year.

Mirza has been the loneIndian competing at the biggeststage of the game since 2005.

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Defending champion Braziland Chile will have their

star players back in action whenthey meet in the Copa Americaquarterfinals on Friday.

Neymar will return forBrazil and Alexis Sánchez hasrecovered from a calf muscleinjury ahead of the encounter atthe Nilton Santos Stadium inRio de Janeiro.

The Seleçao spared a groupof regular starters in the 1-1draw with Ecuador on Sunday,resting Neymar, defenderThiago Silva and striker GabrielJesus. Others, includingCasemiro, entered as substitutesin that game.

Brazil, with three wins infour Copa America matches, isthe clear favourite to win. Chile’sonly win in the group stage wasagainst Bolivia and they arelacking the kind of form thatinspired its back-to-back cham-pionship wins in 2015 and 16.

The last memorable matchbetween Brazil and Chile was inthe Round of 16 at the 2014World Cup. Regular time ended1-1, with goals by David Luiz

and Sánchez. But Brazil won onpenalties, 3-2.

Sánchez missed Chile’sgroup-stage matches and hisabsence affected the team’s pro-duction; La Roja only talliedthree goals, with EduardoVargas scoring twice and BenBrereton once.

Coach Martín Lasarte willdecide after Thursday’s practicewhether 32-year-old Sánchezwill start against Brazil or comeoff the bench.

“To play against the host isalways difficult, but Brazil is also

the team that is possibly in bestshape,” Lasarte said.

“We have to play our bestmatch so far. That is always pos-sible. We will try to annul theirvirtues and explore their flaws.”

Also on Friday, 2019 CopaAmerica runner-up Peru willtake on Paraguay at theOlimpico Stadium in Goiania.The winner will face Brazil orChile in the semifinals in Rio.

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Skipper Mithali Raj’s secondsuccessive fifty went in vain

as Sophie Dunkley produced afighting half-century after KateCross’ five-wicket haul to helpEngland Women register a five-wicket win over India Womenand grab an unassailable 2-0 leadin the three-match series here onWednesday night.

Invited to bat, India couldmanage a below-par 221 in thestipulated 50 overs, build large-ly around Raj’s 92-ball 59 andopener Shafali Verma’s 55-ball44.

Chasing 222 for a win,England batswomen couldn’tcapitalise on their starts to losefive wickets for 133 in 28.5 oversbut Dunkley (73 not out) andKatherine Brunt (33 not out)produced a 92-run partnershipfor the unconquered sixth wick-et to take the team home with15 balls to spare.

Lauren Winfield Hill (42)and Amy Ellen Jones (28) were

the other notable contributorsfor England in the run chase.

Raj did not take the fieldduring the England run chase asshe developed pain in her neckand her deputy HarmanpreetKaur led the visiting team.

Earlier, the 38-year-old Raj,who had scored a fighting 72 inthe first ODI, once again stoodout in her 92-ball innings, butshe didn’t get any support fromthe other end.

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Bundesliga side BorussiaDortmund on Thursday

confirmed that they havereached a deal to transferEngland winger Jadon Sanchoto Manchester United for a feeof 85 million euros ($100 mil-lion, £73 million).

In a statement, Dortmundsaid it had reached an agree-ment for the English club topay a “fixed transfer fee of 85million euros” for the 21-year-old.

“The contractual detailsnow have to be coordinatedand completed,” saidDortmund in their statement.

“Moreover, the formalprocessing of the transfer isstill subject to the successfulcompletion of all necessarymedical tests and examina-tions.”

Dortmund did not givedetails on the length of thecontract, but reports have saidit would last five years.

Sancho will become thesecond most expensive Englishfootballer when he joins

United, who signed HarryMaguire two years ago fromLeicester for £80 million.

United have been keen tobring Sancho

to OldTr a f f o r d

since lasty e a r .

After failing to meetDortmund’s £100 million ask-ing price last year, the PremierLeague club have been inprotracted negotiations sincethe end of the season in a bidto tie up the transfer.

United’s initial £67 millionoffer was rejected but theyimproved the bid sufficientlyto convince Dortmund to sell,albeit at a lower price thanthey wanted 12 months agodue to the financial fall-out

from the coronavirus pan-demic.

Sancho’s transfer isone of the most expensivein Bundesliga history.

The 100-million-euromark had been smashed bythe 2017 transfer of French

forward Ousmane Dembelefrom Dortmund to Barcelonafor 105 million euros.

Attacking midfielder KaiHavertz was transferred lastsummer for 80 million eurosfrom Bayer Leverkusen toChelsea.

Sancho’s contract withDortmund had been due torun to June 30, 2023.

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Switzerland will try tofollow up their shockelimination of world

champions France at Euro2020 against Spain onFriday after reaching thequarter-finals of a majortournament for the firsttime in 67 years.

Vladimir Petkovic’sside recovered from twogoals down to force extratime against much-fanciedFrance and prevailed onpenalties as 2018 WorldCup hero Kylian Mbappemissed the decisive spot-kick. Now the Swiss hope tospring another surpriseagainst a Spain team thathas scored 10 times in twogames after a slow start tothe group stage.

Alvaro Morata’sredemptive strike helpedsecure a 5-3 extra-time winover Croatia, but Spain willneed to cut out the errors ifthey are to contend for arecord fourth EuropeanChampionship.

History is on Spain’sside against Switzerland,having lost just once in 22meetings, a 1-0 defeat inSouth Africa that sparkedtheir run to the 2010 WorldCup title. Sergio Busquets,the Spain captain, is the

lone survivor from thatteam, while the Barcelonamidfielder and Jordi Albaare the only two players inthe squad left from theirEuro 2012 triumph.

The win over Croatiawas Spain’s first in a knock-out fixture since they beatItaly 4-0 to claim the secondof back-to-back Europeancrowns.

A LONG TIME COMINGSwitzerland celebrated

what striker Haris Seferoviccalled ‘the most beautiful ofnights’ as they dumped outFrance to win their firstEuropean Championshipknockout tie.

The last time the Swissreached a major quarter-final they lost 7-5 to Austriaas hosts of the 1954 WorldCup, the highest scoringgame in the tournament’s

history.Fast-forward more

than half a century and afirst semi-final is withinreach for Switzerland,whose Sarajevo-born coachis symbolic of the squad’smulti-cultural composition.

However he will haveto do without captainGranit Xhaka, whose book-ing against France meansthe combative Arsenal mid-fielder is suspended for thenext game.

The tie will go ahead inSaint Petersburg as planned,despite the city this weekposting a new pandemichigh for daily virus deaths.

Saint Petersburg,Russia’s second city andone of the country’s mainvirus hotspots, has seen asurging outbreak due to thehighly transmissible Deltavariant.

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