ˆ*& ˛ +˙€¦ · slogan of “over 75 this time ... world bank’s ease of doing business...

16
A major power tussle broke out between the ruling saf- fron alliance partners within hours of their retaining power in Maharashtra on Thursday evening after the Shiv Sena staked claim to the Chief Minister’s post under the guise of 50:50 power-sharing formula “agreed upon” between it and the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. In swift developments that followed, the Opposition Congress and NCP added fuel to the fire. While former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan of the Congress said he antici- pated some “interesting possi- bilities” on the BJP-Sena front in the coming 15 days, senior NCP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal said, “Anything can happen in politics. The Shiv Sena can get the Chief Minister’s post.” Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray set the ball rolling by reiterating the 50:50 formula of seat and power- sharing decided between the Sena and the BJP at a meeting he held with BJP president Amit Shah and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in February this year (ahead of the Lok Sabha polls) as the basis for power-sharing in the new Government. Responding to a query as to which of the two saffron alliance partners would get the Chief Minister’s post, Uddhav said at a news conference he addressed at his “Matoshree” residence, “Who will become the Chief Minister is an impor- tant question. Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, we (Sena and BJP) had arrived at 50:50 seat and power sharing formula. At the time of seat-sharing, BJP Minister Chandrakant Patil had told us that his party had some difficulties. We under- stood them then.” “We cannot understand the difficulties of everyone. After all I have to run my party and widen its base. Now let us discuss everything in a trans- parent manner with Delhi leaders. Let Amit Shah come from Delhi. Let’s discuss the issues with him,” Uddhav said, as he insisted on the BJP imple- menting the 50:50 formula of power sharing in the new Government. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis — who addressed the media minutes after Uddhav did — said that he had seen and heard what the Sena president had said. He sought to buy time by saying, “What Uddhavji has said is correct. We had decided on the formula. We would go by that...there is no ambiguity”. Fadnavis, how- ever, chose not to elaborate on the matter. On his part, Prithviraj Chavan set the cat among the pigeons by saying, “The BJP has got lesser number of seats than it had expected. They were say- ing all things that they would get more than 220/250 seats, etc. They (BJP leaders) were even talking about forming the Government on their own strength. If they want to form a Government now, they will have to give the Shiv Sena its pound of flesh. After the last elections, the NCP had offered unconditional support from the outside. As result, the Shiv Sena had no bargaining power at that time. That won’t happen now.” “I do not rule out some interesting possibilities. Wait for 15 days. You will get now,” he said. “We are talking to our allies. We know what are the possibilities before us. We all will sit across whether to pro- ceed in the matter or not,” Chavan said, indirectly hinting at the exploring the possibili- ty of extending support to the Shiv Sena from outside. Earlier, when he was asked about the Opposition com- bine supporting the Shiv Sena, NCP president Sharad Pawar said, “People have asked us to sit in the Opposition. The thought of trying to get into power doesn’t even cross our minds. We will work to expand our base”. To another query, Pawar said, “We will not go with Shiv Sena. NCP-Congress and other allies will decide together, the future course of action.” Continued on Page 4 I t is not the kind of Diwali which the BJP wanted in Haryana. Riding high on the slogan of “over 75 this time” and abrogation of Article 370, the saffron party was reduced to 40 seats — 7 less than it won in the last Assembly polls — with a resurgent Opposition gaining strength due to agrar- ian crisis and growing unem- ployment. In a hung verdict, which has opened the doors for back- door negotiations and new political realignments, several new political possibilities of Government formation emerged and the BJP clearly has the advantage with the numbers. In the new Assembly, the BJP remains the single largest party and would stake its claim to form a Government. However, the biggest riddle for the party would be to get the requisite numbers to get a majority in the 90-member House. In such a scenario, the fledgling Jananayak Janata Party (JJP) holds the key. The JJP — the surprise package this election and the true inheritors of the legacy of Jat leader Chaudhary Devi Lal — would take a call on extend- ing support on Friday. Government sources indi- cated that Governor Satyadev Narayan Arya would invite the single largest party BJP to form the Government and the frac- tured mandate notwithstand- ing, the party’s Chief Minister would be sworn in. It will be only after being sworn in that the backstage managers of the BJP would become active to get support from the JJP, smaller parties and the Independents to prove majority on the floor of the House. Given the fractured verdict, a section of the BJP is con- templating whether Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar is the best bet at this point of time to lead the party. His rain- bow coalition of non-Jat castes following the violent Jat protests of 2016 lies shattered to an extent this time around. Continued on Page 4 I n a bid to increase voter turnout, the Government has decided to allow senior cit- izens (80 years and above) and person with disability to cast their vote through postal bal- lot. The Ministry of Law and Justice has amended the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, allowing senior citizens and person with disabilities in the absentee voter list. The absentee voter refers to a vote cast by someone who is unable to go to the polling sta- tion. Presently a postal ballot is available to Armed forces and those assigned to poll duties. The poll officer will attest the absentee voter in the case of senior citizens and person with disability in the form 13A. “The system is designed to increase voter turnout. In some countries, the voter is required to give a reason for not going to the polling station, before participating in an absentee ballot’, said EC officials. The Lok Sabha recently passed a Bill to allow proxy vot- ing for NRIs. However, domes- tic migrants and absentee vot- ers in India cannot cast postal votes. Postal voting is done only through the “Electronically Transmitted postal ballot Papers (ETPB)” system, where ballot papers are distributed to the registered eligible voters and they return the votes by post. Continued on Page 4 I ndia climbed 14 rungs in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking to stand at the 63rd position and figured among the world’s top 10 most improved countries for the third consecutive time on the back of faster bankruptcy res- olution and issuance of con- struction permits. The rise, which comes on the back of a 23-spot jump last year, underscored the reformist credentials of the Modi gov- ernment that is hard pitching India as an alternative invest- ment destination to China. “India put in place four new business reforms during the past year and earned a place in among the world’s top ten improvers,” World Bank said. Detailed report on P10 T he Supreme Court Thursday ruled in favour of the government on recovering adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of about 92,000 crore from telecom service providers including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications and state- owned MTNL and BSNL. The setback to the telecos came as the apex court upheld the AGR definition formulat- ed by the Department of Telecom (DoT) and termed as “frivolous” the nature of objec- tions raised by them. “The definition of gross revenue is crystal clear in the agreement. How the adjusted gross revenue to be arrived at is also evident. It cannot be submitted that the revenue has not been defined in the con- tract. Once the gross revenue is defined, one cannot depart from it and the very meaning is to be given to the revenue for the agreement,” said a Bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra. The top court said that overall revenue has to be taken into account for determination of licence fees without “set off”, as provided in the agree- ment. “The same was defined to simplify it to rule out the liti- gation, disputes, and account- ing myriads. The submission raised that the term revenue has to be interpreted as the consideration payable in keep- ing with commercial and finan- cial parlance is what is intend- ed to be avoided. Raising of such submission is a futile attempt that has been made to wriggle out of definition of gross revenue,” said the Bench, also comprising Justices SA Nazeer and MR Shah. Reading out the crux of 153-page verdict, Justice Mishra, said: “We have held the definition of AGR will prevail” and allowed the DoT appeal and “dismissed that of licensees (telcos)”. All other submissions of the telecom companies are rejected and they have to pay penalties and interests to DoT, the judges said. An advocate, party to the litigation, said the government in July had told the apex court that telecom firms have pend- ing licence fee outstanding of over 92,641.61 crore till date. In an affidavit filed in the top court, DoT said that as per calculations, Airtel owes 21,682.13 crore as licence fee to the Government and dues from Vodafone totalled 19,823.71 crore, while Reliance Communications owed a total of 16,456.47 crore. BSNL owed 2,098.72 crore and MTNL, 2,537.48 crore. Continued on Page 4 O ut of the three sporting stars fielded by the BJP in the polls, only one managed to secure a victory for the party. The BJP had fielded Commonwealth wrestling champion Babita Phogat from Dadri, Olympic wrestling medallist Yogeshwar Dutt from Baroda and former national hockey team captain Sandeep Singh from Pehowa. All three were first-time can- didates. Sandeep recorded his maiden election victory from Pehowa seat in Kurukshetra district and defeated Congress candidate Mandeep Singh Chathha by a margin of 5,314 votes. In Dadri, Babita could secure only third place as an Independent Sombir won the seat. Sombir polled 43,849 votes followed by 29,319 of JJP’s Satpal Sangwan and 24,502 of Babita Phogat. Olympic medallist Yogeshwar failed to impress the voters as he was defeated by Congress’ Krishan Hooda by 4,840 votes. Dutt was polled 37,530 votes and Krishan Hooda secured 42,379 votes. The most “famous” celebrity candidate of the BJP — Sonali Phogat — who was contesting from Adampur against Congress’ Kuldeep Bishnoi also lost the election. Continued on Page 4 T he result of the bypolls for the 51 Assembly seats in 11 States, including politically important Gujarat, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, came as wake- up call for the BJP-led NDA on Monday. The BJP conceded ground to the Opposition in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, while its ally Janata Dal(U) suf- fered a bloody nose in Bihar. The BJP lost the prestigious Satara Lok Sabha bypoll in Maharashtra. However, the NDA ally LJP retained the Samastipur (SC) Lok Sabha constituency. In Gujarat, influential OBC leader Alpesh Thakor, who recently joined the saffron party, lost to the Congress can- didate. The Congress and the BJP shared three seats each in the stronghold of the Prime Minister and the BJP president. The BJP also presented a dismal show in Bihar bypolls, where four of the five Assembly seats went to the Opposition, but the saffron outfit did com- paratively better in Uttar Pradesh, where it managed to retain seven out of 11 seats. In Madhya Pradesh, Congress wrested its tradi- tional Jhabua Assembly seat from the BJP. In Rajasthan also, the Congress increased its tally in the State legislature by one after winning the Assembly bypolls to Mandawa, while MP Hanuman Beniwal’s Rashtriya Loktantrik Party retained the Khinwsar seat. The BJP and its allies had held nearly 30 of the 51 Assembly seats, while the Congress had won 12 and the rest were with regional parties. Among the States ruled by the BJP and its allies, elections were held for 11 seats in UP, followed by six in Gujarat, five in Bihar, four in Assam and two each in Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. SP candidate from Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, Tazeen Fatima, who is a Rajya Sabha member and also wife of con- troversial SP leader and MP from the constituency Azam Khan, has scored victory over the BJP candidate. The BJP has won seven Assembly seats in UP with one going to party of Apana Dal (Sone Lal) and three seats cornered by the SP. The BSP which contested separately from the SP (unlike 2019 Lok Sabha alliance), scored a duck. The NDA in Bihar pre- sented very poor show in by- elections to five Assembly seg- ments of the State, seen by some as the “semi-final” ahead of the Vidhan Sabha polls scheduled next year. While the RJD won two seats, one each seat went to All India Majlis-e- Itehadil Muslimmeen of Asaduddin Owaisi, the JD(U), and an Independent. But, in Samastipur Lok Sabha seat, NDA constituent LJP com- fortably retained seat. Continued on Page 4

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Page 1: ˆ*& ˛ +˙€¦ · slogan of “over 75 this time ... World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking to stand at the 63rd position and figured ... — Sonali Phogat — who was

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Amajor power tussle brokeout between the ruling saf-

fron alliance partners withinhours of their retaining powerin Maharashtra on Thursdayevening after the Shiv Senastaked claim to the ChiefMinister’s post under the guiseof 50:50 power-sharing formula“agreed upon” between it andthe BJP ahead of the Lok Sabhaelections.

In swift developments thatfollowed, the OppositionCongress and NCP added fuelto the fire. While former ChiefMinister Prithviraj Chavan ofthe Congress said he antici-pated some “interesting possi-bilities” on the BJP-Sena frontin the coming 15 days, seniorNCP leader and former DeputyChief Minister ChhaganBhujbal said, “Anything canhappen in politics. The ShivSena can get the ChiefMinister’s post.”

Shiv Sena presidentUddhav Thackeray set the ballrolling by reiterating the 50:50formula of seat and power-sharing decided between theSena and the BJP at a meetinghe held with BJP presidentAmit Shah and Chief MinisterDevendra Fadnavis in Februarythis year (ahead of the LokSabha polls) as the basis forpower-sharing in the newGovernment.

Responding to a query asto which of the two saffronalliance partners would get theChief Minister’s post, Uddhavsaid at a news conference headdressed at his “Matoshree”residence, “Who will becomethe Chief Minister is an impor-tant question. Ahead of the LokSabha polls, we (Sena and BJP)had arrived at 50:50 seat andpower sharing formula. At the

time of seat-sharing, BJPMinister Chandrakant Patilhad told us that his party hadsome difficulties. We under-stood them then.”

“We cannot understandthe difficulties of everyone.After all I have to run my partyand widen its base. Now let usdiscuss everything in a trans-parent manner with Delhileaders. Let Amit Shah comefrom Delhi. Let’s discuss theissues with him,” Uddhav said,as he insisted on the BJP imple-menting the 50:50 formula of

power sharing in the newGovernment.

Chief Minister DevendraFadnavis — who addressedthe media minutes afterUddhav did — said that he hadseen and heard what the Senapresident had said. He soughtto buy time by saying, “WhatUddhavji has said is correct. Wehad decided on the formula.We would go by that...there isno ambiguity”. Fadnavis, how-ever, chose not to elaborate onthe matter.

On his part, Prithviraj

Chavan set the cat among thepigeons by saying, “The BJP hasgot lesser number of seats thanit had expected. They were say-ing all things that they would getmore than 220/250 seats, etc.They (BJP leaders) were eventalking about forming theGovernment on their ownstrength. If they want to form aGovernment now, they willhave to give the Shiv Sena itspound of flesh. After the lastelections, the NCP had offeredunconditional support from theoutside. As result, the Shiv Sena

had no bargaining power at thattime. That won’t happen now.”

“I do not rule out someinteresting possibilities. Waitfor 15 days. You will get now,”he said.

“We are talking to ourallies. We know what are thepossibilities before us. We allwill sit across whether to pro-ceed in the matter or not,”Chavan said, indirectly hintingat the exploring the possibili-ty of extending support to theShiv Sena from outside.

Earlier, when he was askedabout the Opposition com-bine supporting the Shiv Sena,NCP president Sharad Pawarsaid, “People have asked us tosit in the Opposition. Thethought of trying to get intopower doesn’t even cross ourminds. We will work to expandour base”.

To another query, Pawarsaid, “We will not go with ShivSena. NCP-Congress and otherallies will decide together, thefuture course of action.”

Continued on Page 4

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It is not the kind of Diwaliwhich the BJP wanted in

Haryana. Riding high on theslogan of “over 75 this time”and abrogation of Article 370,the saffron party was reducedto 40 seats — 7 less than it wonin the last Assembly polls —with a resurgent Oppositiongaining strength due to agrar-ian crisis and growing unem-ployment.

In a hung verdict, whichhas opened the doors for back-door negotiations and newpolitical realignments, severalnew political possibilities ofGovernment formationemerged and the BJP clearlyhas the advantage with thenumbers.

In the new Assembly, theBJP remains the single largestparty and would stake its claimto form a Government.However, the biggest riddlefor the party would be to getthe requisite numbers to get amajority in the 90-memberHouse. In such a scenario, thefledgling Jananayak JanataParty (JJP) holds the key.

The JJP — the surprisepackage this election and thetrue inheritors of the legacy ofJat leader Chaudhary Devi Lal— would take a call on extend-ing support on Friday.

Government sources indi-cated that Governor SatyadevNarayan Arya would invite the

single largest party BJP to formthe Government and the frac-tured mandate notwithstand-ing, the party’s Chief Ministerwould be sworn in. It will beonly after being sworn in thatthe backstage managers of theBJP would become active to getsupport from the JJP, smallerparties and the Independents toprove majority on the floor ofthe House.

Given the fractured verdict,a section of the BJP is con-templating whether ChiefMinister Manohar Lal Khattaris the best bet at this point oftime to lead the party. His rain-

bow coalition of non-Jat castesfollowing the violent Jatprotests of 2016 lies shatteredto an extent this time around.

Continued on Page 4

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In a bid to increase voterturnout, the Government

has decided to allow senior cit-izens (80 years and above) andperson with disability to casttheir vote through postal bal-lot. The Ministry of Law andJustice has amended theConduct of Election Rules,1961, allowing senior citizensand person with disabilities inthe absentee voter list.

The absentee voter refers toa vote cast by someone who isunable to go to the polling sta-tion. Presently a postal ballot isavailable to Armed forces andthose assigned to poll duties.

The poll officer will attestthe absentee voter in the caseof senior citizens and personwith disability in the form13A. “The system is designedto increase voter turnout. In

some countries, the voter isrequired to give a reason for notgoing to the polling station,before participating in anabsentee ballot’, said EC officials.

The Lok Sabha recentlypassed a Bill to allow proxy vot-ing for NRIs. However, domes-tic migrants and absentee vot-

ers in India cannot cast postalvotes.

Postal voting is done onlythrough the “ElectronicallyTransmitted postal ballotPapers (ETPB)” system, whereballot papers are distributed tothe registered eligible voters andthey return the votes by post.

Continued on Page 4

����� 63�".,1�8,9,56�$57".

India climbed 14 rungs in theWorld Bank’s Ease of Doing

Business ranking to stand at the63rd position and figuredamong the world’s top 10 mostimproved countries for thethird consecutive time on theback of faster bankruptcy res-olution and issuance of con-struction permits.

The rise, which comes onthe back of a 23-spot jump lastyear, underscored the reformistcredentials of the Modi gov-ernment that is hard pitchingIndia as an alternative invest-ment destination to China.

“India put in place fournew business reforms duringthe past year and earned a placein among the world’s top tenimprovers,” World Bank said.

Detailed report on P10

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The Supreme CourtThursday ruled in favour of

the government on recoveringadjusted gross revenue (AGR)of about �92,000 crore fromtelecom service providersincluding Bharti Airtel,Vodafone, RelianceCommunications and state-owned MTNL and BSNL.

The setback to the telecoscame as the apex court upheldthe AGR definition formulat-ed by the Department ofTelecom (DoT) and termed as“frivolous” the nature of objec-tions raised by them.

“The definition of grossrevenue is crystal clear in theagreement. How the adjustedgross revenue to be arrived atis also evident. It cannot besubmitted that the revenue hasnot been defined in the con-tract. Once the gross revenue isdefined, one cannot departfrom it and the very meaningis to be given to the revenue forthe agreement,” said a Bench

headed by Justice Arun Mishra.The top court said that

overall revenue has to be takeninto account for determinationof licence fees without “setoff ”, as provided in the agree-ment.

“The same was defined tosimplify it to rule out the liti-gation, disputes, and account-ing myriads. The submissionraised that the term revenuehas to be interpreted as theconsideration payable in keep-ing with commercial and finan-cial parlance is what is intend-ed to be avoided. Raising ofsuch submission is a futile

attempt that has been made towriggle out of definition ofgross revenue,” said the Bench,also comprising Justices SANazeer and MR Shah.

Reading out the crux of153-page verdict, JusticeMishra, said: “We have held thedefinition of AGR will prevail”and allowed the

DoT appeal and “dismissedthat of licensees (telcos)”.

All other submissions ofthe telecom companies arerejected and they have to paypenalties and interests to DoT,the judges said.

An advocate, party to the

litigation, said the governmentin July had told the apex courtthat telecom firms have pend-ing licence fee outstanding ofover �92,641.61 crore till date.

In an affidavit filed in thetop court, DoT said that as percalculations,

Airtel owes �21,682.13crore as licence fee to theGovernment and dues fromVodafone totalled �19,823.71crore, while RelianceCommunications owed a totalof �16,456.47 crore. BSNLowed �2,098.72 crore andMTNL, �2,537.48 crore.

Continued on Page 4

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Out of the three sportingstars fielded by the BJP in

the polls, only one managed tosecure a victory for the party.

The BJP had fieldedCommonwealth wrestlingchampion Babita Phogat fromDadri, Olympic wrestlingmedallist Yogeshwar Duttfrom Baroda and formernational hockey team captainSandeep Singh from Pehowa.All three were first-time can-didates.

Sandeep recorded hismaiden election victory fromPehowa seat in Kurukshetradistrict and defeated Congresscandidate Mandeep SinghChathha by a margin of 5,314votes.

In Dadri, Babita couldsecure only third place as anIndependent Sombir won theseat. Sombir polled 43,849votes followed by 29,319 ofJJP’s Satpal Sangwan and24,502 of Babita Phogat.

Olympic medallistYogeshwar failed to impressthe voters as he was defeatedby Congress’ Krishan Hoodaby 4,840 votes. Dutt was polled

37,530 votes and KrishanHooda secured 42,379 votes.

The most “famous”celebrity candidate of the BJP— Sonali Phogat — who wascontesting from Adampuragainst Congress’ KuldeepBishnoi also lost the election.

Continued on Page 4

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The result of the bypolls forthe 51 Assembly seats in 11

States, including politicallyimportant Gujarat, Bihar andUttar Pradesh, came as wake-up call for the BJP-led NDA onMonday. The BJP concededground to the Opposition inGujarat and Uttar Pradesh,while its ally Janata Dal(U) suf-fered a bloody nose in Bihar.

The BJP lost the prestigiousSatara Lok Sabha bypoll inMaharashtra. However, theNDA ally LJP retained theSamastipur (SC) Lok Sabhaconstituency.

In Gujarat, influential OBCleader Alpesh Thakor, whorecently joined the saffronparty, lost to the Congress can-didate. The Congress and theBJP shared three seats each inthe stronghold of the PrimeMinister and the BJP president.

The BJP also presented adismal show in Bihar bypolls,where four of the five Assembly

seats went to the Opposition,but the saffron outfit did com-paratively better in UttarPradesh, where it managed toretain seven out of 11 seats.

In Madhya Pradesh,Congress wrested its tradi-tional Jhabua Assembly seatfrom the BJP. In Rajasthanalso, the Congress increased itstally in the State legislature byone after winning the Assemblybypolls to Mandawa, while MPHanuman Beniwal’s RashtriyaLoktantrik Party retained theKhinwsar seat.

The BJP and its allies hadheld nearly 30 of the 51Assembly seats, while theCongress had won 12 and therest were with regional parties.Among the States ruled by theBJP and its allies, electionswere held for 11 seats in UP,followed by six in Gujarat, fivein Bihar, four in Assam and twoeach in Himachal Pradesh andTamil Nadu.

SP candidate fromRampur, Uttar Pradesh, Tazeen

Fatima, who is a Rajya Sabhamember and also wife of con-troversial SP leader and MPfrom the constituency AzamKhan, has scored victory overthe BJP candidate.

The BJP has won sevenAssembly seats in UP withone going to party of ApanaDal (Sone Lal) and three seats

cornered by the SP. The BSPwhich contested separatelyfrom the SP (unlike 2019 LokSabha alliance), scored a duck.

The NDA in Bihar pre-sented very poor show in by-elections to five Assembly seg-ments of the State, seen bysome as the “semi-final” aheadof the Vidhan Sabha polls

scheduled next year. While theRJD won two seats, one eachseat went to All India Majlis-e-Itehadil Muslimmeen ofAsaduddin Owaisi, the JD(U),and an Independent. But, inSamastipur Lok Sabha seat,NDA constituent LJP com-fortably retained seat.

Continued on Page 4

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Page 2: ˆ*& ˛ +˙€¦ · slogan of “over 75 this time ... World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking to stand at the 63rd position and figured ... — Sonali Phogat — who was

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The South Delhi MunicipalCorporation (SDMC) was

ranked 27 by the 'World Bank'this year in the 'ease of 'doingbusiness' in respect to buildingconstruction permits onThursday. The civic body whichis the nodal agency for the threemunicipal corporations(North,South and East), stated that ear-lier it was ranked 52nd.

A senior SDMC official saidthe ranking has brought a senseof satisfaction as it strived hardto carry forward the process ofreforms throughout the year.

"The civic bodies haveearned a better ranking com-

pared to last year and shown"remarkable improvement from52 to 27 in the ranking this year,"he said.

It further said that suchimprovement has been possibledue to concerted efforts duringlast three year which helped inreduction in the number ofprocesses, simplification in theapplication form and prepara-tion of an online common appli-cation form, minimisation ofrequired number of documents,minimisation of the cost, dras-tic reduction in sanction time,online submission of limiteddocuments and fee, self online

status monitoring by the appli-cants, downloading facility of thesanction copy etc.

SDMC CommissionerGyanesh Bharti said that incontinuation of its efforts toimprove transparency andadministrative efficiency, cor-porations further reduced pro-cedures in getting constructionpermits from 16 to 11. The costof construction permit has alsobeen reduced from 4.2 per centto 2.8 per cent, he said, addingthat the civic bodies also scoredfull marks in quality controlindex.

Bharti congratulated the

building department over thiswonderful and pleasing achieve-ment and has also lauded theircommitted concerted efforts.

"The SDMC has once again demonstrated its compe-tence, capabilities and devotionin turning impossible in to possible,” he said. He further said that the civic body will strivehard to find place in the first tenranking in the next year.

The World Bank has been finalising the rankings onthe basis of around 200 para-meters, regular visits in thebuilding department and takingminute feed- back from theapplicants and the stakeholdersinvolved.

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In two separate incidents ofsnatching, two senior jour-

nalists working with ThePioneer newspaper wererobbed of their mobile phonesin central Delhi and Noida.

In first incident, seniorjournalist, Saimi Sattar’s phonewas snatched by a man inCentral Delhi’s Dariyaganj area.The incident took place just100 metres from the office ofdistrict's DeputyCommissioner of Police(DCP).

"I was sitting in an auto onThursday morning and wasgoing towards ConnaughtPlace from Daryaganj for somework. I never take out myphone while I am in auto-rick-shaw or e-rickshaw, but thismorning, it was an importantmessage which I had replied,"said Sattar.

"Meanwhile, a person camethere around 10.15 am andsnatched my Samsung A-50phone. I left my bag in the auto

and started chasing him. Theaccused manage to flee and dis-appeared near Daryaganj policestation," she said.

In her complaint, Sattaralso mentioned about thesnatcher’s appearance.

She said the height ofsnatcher was around 5.4, bleachbrown hair, wearing lightbrown T-shirt and a darkbrown trouser.

"After the incident, when Itried to call on my number, thephone kept on ringing butthere was no response.

Subsequently, using Googledashboard, I tracked my phoneand last location was seen inDaryaganj around 10:18 amand later the phone wentswitched off," she said.

Sattar also said in April thisyear, two persons snatched herphone from Daryaganj areawhen she was hardly a metreaway from her house.

"A case under relevant sec-tion of Indian Penal Code(IPC) has been registered atDariyaganj police station.Police teams are scanning

CCTV footages in the area toidentify and nab the culprit,"said a police official.

In another incident report-ed from Noida, senior jour-nalist, Rakesh Singh's mobilephone was snatched by twounidentified men in Noida'ssector-5 area. Police said theyhave registered a complaint atsector-20 police station and arescanning CCTV footage of thenearby areas.

According Rakesh, theincident took place at 5:15 pmon Thursday. “I was barely100 meters from my office atNoida sector 6 when two menon a scooter snatched mymobile phone and fled away.They were on the wrong side,”he said.

This is not the first time ajournalist was targeted bysnatchers in the nationalCapital. Last week, ShekharSingh another journalist work-ing with The Pioneer wasrobbed of his mobile phone byan unidentified man in eastDelhi's New Ashok Nagar.

New Delhi: Women membersof the Innerwheel District301, an arm of internationalwomen organisation, InnerWheel Club working in over104 countries, recently orag-nised a Mela at Vasant Kunj tobring joy to orphan kids

adopted by its different clubsacross the city.

Inaugurated by DistrictChairman Madhu Nagpal andPast International Innerwheelpresident Kapila Gupta - thefest 'Mamta' had special attrac-tion such as games, nuukad

nataks about the environment,magic show, kathputali show, said CommitteeChairperson PDC GitaDhawan along with her teamand co-committee chairper-sons Sarita Bhutani andMonica Sachdeva. PNS

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Page 3: ˆ*& ˛ +˙€¦ · slogan of “over 75 this time ... World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking to stand at the 63rd position and figured ... — Sonali Phogat — who was

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Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal and Health

Minister Satyendra Jain onThursday inaugurated the facil-ity for open-heart surgeryamong others at Rajiv GandhiSuper-Specialty Hospital inTahirpur area of East Delhi.

The Chief Minister said, "Iam happy that so many facilitiesare coming up in the RajivGandhi Super SpecialtyHospital. I want to congratulateall the people who have sup-ported us in initiating thesefacilities for the people of Delhi."

Kejriwal also said that backin 2010, GTB hospital was theonly hospital with adequateinfrastructure and healthcare

facilities for the poor. "The hos-pitals were crowded withpatients, and I used to appre-ciate the patience of those doc-tors who used to deal with somany patients at a single pointof time," he said.

Talking about expansion ofhealth services in the city, hesaid "Delhi has witnessed anexpansion in health servicesand many new facilities havebeen increased at each level. Weare expanding primary health-

care facilities in the state, hesaid, adding that 300 mohallaclinics have already been con-structed in Delhi.

The construction of poly-clinics in large numbers hasalso expanded healthcare facil-ities on the secondary level, hesaid, adding that in the tertiarylevel, several multi-specialtyand super-specialty hospitalshave been constructed to pro-vide adequate healthcare facil-ities in the city.

The chief minister furthersaid that a huge inflow ofpatients is a big challenge forthe government as people areshifting from private hospitalsto government hospitals fortreatments after services haveimproved.

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Four students of DelhiUniversity’s Law Faculty

were allegedly beaten up bybouncers at a cafe over loudmusic in Northwest Delhi’sMukherjee Nagar area.

The injured have been iden-tified as Samar, Mukul,Abhigyaann and Mayank, allhails from Purvanchal area.Police said that Samar and hisfriends had gone to a cafe inHudson Lane on Wednesdayevening to celebrate his birthday.

According to a VijayantaArya, the DeputyCommissioner of Police (DCP),

North West district, onWednesday night during thecelebration, a scuffle broke outbetween the victims and bounc-ers of the cafe for raising music,following which the accusedstarted beating them.

"On the basis of the com-plaint given by Samar, a caseunder sections 323 (punishmentfor voluntarily causing hurt),341 (punishment for wrongfulrestraint) and 34 (acts done byseveral persons in furtheranceof common intention) regis-tered at Mukherjee Nagar policestations. The accused have beenidentified and they will bearrested soon," said the DCP.

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Just two days before Diwali,air quality in the national

Capital has deteriorated alarm-ingly. While the overall Airquality Index (AQI) wasrecorded at 318 micro gramper cubic (μgm-3), Mundkaand Dwarka Sector 8 surpassedthe danger mark as the harm-ful pollutants were recorded at576 and 420 respectively.

Citing meteorological fac-tors as the main reasons behindthe slow dispersion ofSuspended Particulate Matters(SPMs), pollution monitoringagencies clearly mentioned thatstubble burning factors was lowon Thursday for the steep esca-lations in pollutant values.

City's Alipur and RKPuram areas also recorded val-ues of Particulate Matters (PM10-2.5) abnormally higher thanprescribed standards with val-ues 410 and 388 μgm-3 respec-tively.

It is pertinent to mentionhere that not just SPM valuessurpassed alarming levels, the'0Sox, Nox and Ozone' levelswere also recorded higher onthe AQI.

System of Air QualityWeather Forecasting &Research (SAFAR)'s weekly airquality forecast stated that pol-lutants values are expected toshoot up after three days,though Friday's air qualityindex may show slightimprovement.

Situations in nearby placesof Delhi, instance - Faridabad,Noida, Greater Noida andGhaziabad was also in thedangerous level.

SAFAR issued a healthadvisory and advised people tostay indoors and stop all activ-ities outdoors at early morningand after sunset times. "Avoidprolonged or heavy exertion, gofor a short walk instead of a jogand take more breaks. Stop anyactivity level if you experience

any unusual coughing, chestdiscomfort, wheezing, breath-ing difficulty, or fatigue. Keepthe windows close." "If the airconditioner provides a fresh airintake option, keep that closed.Avoid burning of wood, can-dles or incense. Keep the roomclean - dont vacuum. Do wetmopping to reduce dust. Masksknown as N-95 or P-100 res-pirators may only help if you goout," it said.

Quoting its MeT observa-tions about air quality, SAFARsaid that the decrease in wind

started to negatively influenceDelhi's air quality by drastical-ly decreasing ventilation coef-ficients and thereby effectingdispersion.

"The stubble burning activ-ity in Haryana, Panjab is mod-erate and the surface, as well asboundary layer winds, are notquite favorable for biomasstransport. The main impactfactor could be slow windspeed and pollutant accumu-lation. As the winds are fore-casted to be slow and variablefor the next two days conse-

quently the AQI is forecasted tooscillate between high andmiddle range of very poor cat-egory," it said.

Importantly, as per theSAFAR extended outlook , fur-ther prolonged deterioration inAQI of Delhi only expecting bythe first week of Novembernow.

"The current Western dis-turbance is feeble and precip-itation is not excepting north-west India, another Westerndisturbance is likely to affectthe western Himalayan regionby 28th October,"

As per the widespread sit-uation, "The calm wind condi-tion and associated very stableatmosphere can lead to theaccumulation of pollutants,and these conditions favorrapid fine particulate matterformation. In a landlocked citylike Delhi, it may lead to rapidaccumulation and may triggerhigh pollution events," SAFARsaid.

Punjabi Bagh, Wazirpuralso recorded pollutants valueshigh.

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The ruling BJP-led byManohar Lal Khattar on

Thursday won 3 seats inGurugram, Pataudi and Sohnaconstituencies but lost theState’s biggest Badshahpur con-stituency.

Meanwhile, independentcandidate Rakesh Daultabadwon the Badshahpur seat.

The winning candidatesfrom all four constituencies inGurugram district are BJP can-didate Sudhir Singla fromGurugram constituency,Independent candidate RakeshDaulatabad from Badshahpurconstituency, BJP candidateSanjay Singh from Sohna con-stituency and BJP candidateSatya Prakash Jarawata fromPataudi constituency.

BJP candidate SudhirSingla, who won fromGurugram constituency,

received 81,953 votes.Independent candidate MohitGrover, who finished second,received 48,638 votes.

Congress candidateSukhbir Kataria, who was atnumber three, received 23,126votes. Singla maintained a leadin all the rounds and defeatedhis nearest rival by a 33,315margin vote.

Similarly, RakeshDaulatabad, an independentcandidate from Badshahpurconstituency, also maintaineda lead in all the rounds andreceived 1,06,798 votes.

BJP candidate ManishYadav, who came in secondplace, got 96, 641 votes and in

third place, Congress candidateRao Kamalbir Singh got 10, 610votes.

Rakesh defeated his near-est rival Manish by 10,157votes.

Likewise, BJP candidateSanjay Singh, who won fromSohna constituency, received 59,117 votes. Second-ranked Jan Nayak Janata Party (JJP) candidate Rohtash Singh received 46,664votes and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate JavedAhmed, who finished third, received 39, 868 votes.BJP candidate Sanjay defeatsRohtash Singh by 12,453 mar-gin vote.

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Annoyed at debris of con-struction and demolition

waste in and aroundKarkardooma Metro Station,Delhi Environment MinisterKailash Gehlot has asked theDelhi Pollution ControlCommittee (DPCC) to initiateprosecution against DDA's vice-chairman Tarun Kapoor, if theurban body failed to removeconstruction and demolitionwaste from a 10-acre land nearKarkardooma metro station byOctober 25.

Gahlot conducted aninspection of the site onThursday and was reportedlylivid as he found debris oppo-site G D Goenka Public School.Plumes of dust billowed in the

air as construction and demo-lition debris lay strewn around.The site is close to AnandVihar, one of the 14 pollutionhot spots in the national Capital.

The Minister said DPCCofficials inspected the site onOctober 16 and issued a noticeto the Delhi DevelopmentAuthority (DDA) on October22, asking it to remove thedebris within 72 hours. "Theland-owning agency is yet to ini-tiate any action."

"I have directed the DPCCto immediately issue prosecu-tion notice to head of thedepartment, DDA (vice-chair-man). At a time when pollutionlevels are rising due to stubbleburning in neighbouring states,we cannot tolerate such things."

However, there was no

immediate reaction availablefrom the DDA. A DPCC officialwho accompanied the ministerduring the inspection said,"Trucks carrying constructionand demolition waste fromnearby construction sites dumpthe debris here. A penalty of Rs1 crore has already beenimposed on the DDA for failingto check dumping of suchwaste."

The minister also askedenvironment department offi-cials to ask the district magis-trate to increase vigilance andban the entry of trucks in thearea. The Minister said theGovernments of Punjab andHaryana need to provide financial incentives to dissuadefarmers from burning paddystubble.

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The “overconfident” and“o v e r e n t h u s i a s t i c ”

Bharatiya Janata Party, whichhad set a target of winning “75plus” seats in 90-memberHaryana Assembly, failed toeven secure a clear majority asthe poll results on Thursdayyielded a hung House.

While most of the exitpolls had predicted a comfort-able victory for the saffronparty, the actual poll resultsstood in stark contrast, and isseen possibly one of the mosttelling political embarrassments suffered bythe BJP in the recent past.

As the electors in Jatland-Haryana voted for a hungassembly, the BJP failed tomaintain its winning momen-tum in the state while its arch-rival-Congress, apparently pro-duced a resilient comebackeven after struggling due to fac-tionalism and infighting in theparty.

While both national partiesended short of securing amajority in the 90-memberHaryana Assembly, the fledg-ling party-Jannayak Janta Partyled by former MemberParliament Dushyant Chautalaemerged as a key player in the

poll results.The BJP secured 40 seats,

Congress won on 31, JJP managed to grab 10 seats,Indian National Lok Dal andHaryana Lokhit Party won oneseat each and seven indepen-dents were elected to theHouse.

Even as the BJP has failedto emerge as a single largestparty, the saffron party is set toform the Government for thesecond consecutive term inHaryana, the political observerssay.

They say that the JJP with10 seats in its kitty and sevenindependents will now play akey role in the formation ofnext government inHaryana.

The BJP and Congresshave already reached out to theindependents and the JJP,which came into existence afterthe split in Indian National LokDal last year.

The ballot battle inHaryana was multi-cornered this time withthe BJP, the Congress,the Indian NationalLok Dal-ShiromaniAkali Dal alliance,Jannayak Janta Party,Aam Aadmi Party,Bahujan Samaj Party,Loktantra Suraksha

Party and Swaraj India in thefray.

From 47 seats in 2014 StateAssembly, the BJP was restrict-ed to 40 seats this time. TheCongress recorded increase inits previous election tally of 15to 31 in the poll results declaredon Thursday.

The INLD which hadmanaged to win 19 seats in2014 could register victory ononly one seat. SAD, which hadcontested on two seats failed toopen its account.

Former Minister GopalKanda’s Lokhit Haryana Partywon one seat while sevenindependents won the polls.

Even as BJP’s vote shareincreased to 36.47 percent thistime from 33.20 in 2014, theBJP failed to repeat its 2014performance when it had won47 seats on its own and wentonto to form its maidenGovernment in Haryana.

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Haryana’s regional outfit,Indian National Lok Dal

(INLD), which won 19 seats inthe 2014 assembly elections,has been virtually wiped out inthis election.

However, less than 12-month-old Jannayak JanataParty (JJP) emerged as a keyplayer by winning 10 seats in a90-member assembly. JJP’sparty symbol incidentally is the‘Key’.

Interestingly, the originalparty INLD almost dimin-ished, but the third and fourthgenerations of its founder andDevi Lal survived by winning their respectiveseats.

“I believe the keys are inthe hands of the JJP,” DushyantChautala said earlier onThursday as counting trendsclearly showed the BJP was setto win less than half the 90 seatsand the Congress making rapidgains.”

Dushyant Chautala, thegreat grandson of the formerdeputy Prime Minister lateDevi Lal and grandson of jailedINLD leader OP Chautala,who led the newly formed JJP in 2018 won fromUchana Kalan in Jind districtby defeating sitting legislatorPrem Lata, 59, wife of former

Union Minister BirenderSingh. JJP contested all 90Assembly seats.

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The vote share of the rulingBharatiya Janata Party

(BJP) fell by a massive 22 percent in the Haryana Assemblypolls, the results of which weredeclared on Thursday.

The party secured over 58per cent votes in the state in theLok Sabha polls held fivemonths ago in May and won all the 10 seats. In thisAssembly polls, it got 36 percent.

Several Ministers in theManohar Lal Khattar-led gov-ernment lost in the elections.While the BJP managed to get40 seats this time, it had won47 in the 2014 HaryanaAssembly polls.

The vote share of theCongress, which has emergedstronger than the last pollsbut is behind the BJP, is almostthe same as it was in the Lok

Sabha polls. The party got28.42 per cent of the totalvotes polled in the Lok Sabhaelection.

Haryana BJP PresidentSubhash Barala and StateMinisters, except two, lost thepolls.

Khattar retained his Karnalseat with a comfortable margin,winning by 45,188 votes overhis nearest rival TarlochanSingh of the Congress. BJP’soutgoing Ministers CaptAbhimanyu, OP Dhankar, RamBilas Sharma, Kavita Jain,Krishan Lal Panwar, ManishGrover, and Krishan KumarBedi, all ended up with humil-iating defeats.

But BJP candidate andPublic Health and EngineeringMinister Banwari Lal won theBawal seat.

Also Health Minister AnilVij retained his seat fromAmbala Cantonment.

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The Congress may be faraway from the halfway

mark in Haryana, but theparty’s performance in theState polls has made formerCM Bhupinder Singh Hoodaemerge stronger. In 2014Congress had won 15 seats butthis time it has won 31 seatsunder Hooda’s leadership.

After his party lost powerin Haryana in the 2014 polls,the 72-year-old satrap hadnothing going in his favour.The ruling BJP at the Centrehad made alleged irregularitiesin the land deals during histenure a major issue and theCongress veteran was

grappling with the casesagainst him.

He remained at logger-heads with the party’s state unitchief Ashok Tanwar, who quitdays after he was replaced byKumari Selja, weeks ahead ofthe polls.

Hooda, who had virtuallythreatened to snap ties with theCongress, too was accommo-dated and made state legislatureparty leader, weeks before theelections, which some state lead-ers admit to be a delayed move.

“However, both Hooda andSelja aggressively picked up onthe issues like unemployment,law and order, agrarian crisis,

those relating to economy,employees issues which res-onated with the people. Thenthe party came out with a man-ifesto, which promised loanwaiver to farmers and hadsomething for other sections as well and this helpedthe party,” a state unit leader said.

“Had the party high com-mand given charge to Hoodaand Selja a few months beforethe polls, Congress’s perfor-mance would have been evenbetter,” he said.

Notably, Hoodaretained his stronghold GarhiSampla-Kiloi in Rohtak with acomfortable margin. With thiswin, Hooda now has nine vic-tories under his belt, includingone against former deputyprime minister Devi Lal in theLok Sabha polls.

Hooda has been CM twiceand an MP four times.

This time, the BJP fieldedagainst him Satish Nandal, aformer Rohtak district unitpresident of the INLD, whoswitched sides earlier this year.

Hooda had defeatedNandal twice, in 2009 and 2014from the constituency, and nowhe inflicted a third shot.

Garhi Sampla-Kiloi cameinto being 10 years ago after adelimitation exercise. Beforethat the constituency wasknown as Kiloi.

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From Page 1Samastipur seat fell vacant

upon the death of party’s sittingMP Ram Chandra Paswan(brother of Union Ministerand LJP leader Ram VilasPaswan).

BJP candidate UdaynrajeBhosale, however, lost the sec-ond Lok Sabha bypoll fromSatara in Maharashtra to theNationalist Congress Party(NCP) candidate. The by-elec-tion in Satara Lok Sabha wasnecessitated after sitting MPBhosale, a scion of ChhatrapatiShivaji, quit the NCP anddefected to the BJP. The NCPhad fielded Shriniwas Patil, along-time friend of party patri-arch Sharad Pawar and a pop-ular orator in the region.

In Gujarat, the home Stateof Prime Minister NarendraModi and BJP president AmitShah, BJP and Congress sharedthree seats each in theAssembly bypolls. OBC leaderand BJP candidate AlpeshThakor lost the by-election toRadhanpur Assembly seat inGujarat. Congress’ RaghubhaiDesai defeated Thakor by over3,500 votes. Thakor, whoemerged as an OBC leader dur-ing the Patel quota agitationand won the Radhanpur seat inthe 2017 polls on Congress’ticket, later quit after differ-ences with the State party lead-ership. Ruling BJP performedbetter than its rivals in Assamwhere it won three Assemblyseats of four with one going toAIUDF. In Himachal Pradeshalso, BJP retained both theAssembly seats. In MadhyaPradesh, Congress wrested itstraditional Jhabua Assemblyseat from the BJP in the bypollfor the constituency. Congress

candidate and former UnionMinister Kantilal Bhuria wonby margin of over 27,804 votes,defeating BJP’s Bhanu Bhuria.

The Congress had lost theseat to BJP in last year’sAssembly polls when BJP’s GSDamor defeated KantilalBhuria’s son Vikrant Bhuria by10,437 votes. In Punjab, theruling Congress emerged vic-torious in the bypolls to thePhagwara and JalalabadAssembly segments onMonday while Siromani AkaliDal won Dakha seat by defeat-ing Congress candidate. (TheDakha seat fell vacant follow-ing the resignation of formerAAP leader and noted SupremeCourt lawyer HS Phoolka fromthe State Assembly.)

The ruling CPI(M)-ledLDF registered impressive winsat Vattiyoorkavu and Konni,the two strongholds of theCongress headed UDF, whilethe Opposition front retainedthe Ernakulam seat of the fiveAssembly seats in Kerala.Thiruvananthapuram MayorPrasanth, who contested atVattiyoorkavu constituencywon with a margin of 14,465votes against his nearest rival,Congress party’s KMohankumar, while KU JineshKumar won from Konni by amargin of 9,953 votes.

TRS won Huzurnagarbypoll in Telangana againstthe Opposition Congress. TheAIADMK won both TamilNadu seats against DMK inTamil Nadu.

Ruling United DemocraticParty candidate Balajied KuparSynrem won the bypoll toShella Assembly constituencyin Meghalaya by over 6000votes.

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The ETPBS has recorded a 60.14 per cent votingin the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, high-er than that recorded in 2014 which was only 4 per-cent.

Out of the total number of service voters in 2019,10,16,245 were from Ministry of Defence; 7,82,595from Ministry of Home Affairs (Central Armed PoliceForces); 3539 of Ministry of External Affairs and StatePolice 267.

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From Page 1Adampur has been the fiefdom of the family of

former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal and his sonKuldeep Bishnoi was re-elected by a margin of 29,471votes.

Even the prominent turncoat candidates failed tohelp the BJP to reach the majority mark. Ex-INLD leg-islators, who had joined the BJP before elections,including Parminder Singh Dhull (Julana)Ramchander Kamboj (Rania), Naseem Ahmad(Ferozepur Zhirka), Zakir Hussain (Nuh) andNagendra Bhadana (Faridabad NIT) failed to win theirseats.

Another turncoat, Ranbir Gangwa won hisNalwa seat for the saffron patry. SAD MLA BalkaurSingh, who had switched sides to BJP before polls, fin-ished at poor third in Kalanwali (SC) Assembly seg-ment, where Shishpal Singh of Congress registered victory by a margin of 19,243against his close rival SAD’s Rajinder Singh Desujodha.

Congress defectors and BJP candidate VinodBhayana won from Hansi while another defectorBachan Singh Arya, fielded from Safidon lost the polls.

Former INLD Rajya Sabha MP Ram KumarKashyap fielded by the BJP from Indri too recordeda victory.

Satish Nandal, who was the district president ofINLD, and was fielded from Garhi Sampla Kiloi bythe BJP against former Congress Chief MinisterBhupinder Singh Hooda also lost the polls.

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From Page 1Barely five months ago in the

Lok Sabha election, the BJP hadswept Haryana winning all 10seats. Now its vote share hasdipped by over 20 per cent.

Political observers here feltthat after playing the non-Jat cardconsistently over a period of fiveyears and consolidating other castes, the dominant castevoted “strategically” in this electiongiving the Congress and the JJPsignificant seats in the Jatbelt of the State at the cost of theBJP.

How angry the Jat voters werefor their perceived marginalisationin BJP regime can be gauged thatall the three prominent Jat leadersof BJP — Ministers CaptAbhimanyu and Om PrakashDhankar, along with State BJPpresident Subhash Barala, lost thepolls.

In such a scenario, politicalobservers said there could bethinking about a leadershipreshuffle in the BJP with a Jatleader replacing the PunjabiKhattar to change the political andcaste dynamics of the State. Ofcourse, the riddle would be to finda tall Jat leader and presently theBJP has none with three of theonly popular faces of the party fac-ing defeat in the elections. Butdespite the mild shock, it wouldnot be feasible for the BJP tochange its non-Jat centric socialequations overnight and formnew caste coalition.

Upsetting the settled casteequations and tweaking it to itsown advantage has been the USPof BJP for a while in several States

and it would not like to change itafter one result which is not as per itsexpectations.

Besides the Jats, the othercaste which got alienated from theBJP in the election were the Dalits,having significant presence in theKalka, Panchkula, Yamunanagarbelt where the saffron party per-formed below par as compared tothe 2014 polls.

While Congress appointingSelja as the State party presidentfrom this belt could be a factor,this alone cannot explain it inentirety.

The BJP would be intro-specting what went wrong here,perhaps a combination of eco-nomic factors, failure to addressthe concerns of the Dalit com-munity, or identifying itself withthe causes of the communitythrough a network of its own lead-ers.

What became clear in theelections was the fact that votersin the State clearly differentiatedbetween a national or Lok Sabhaelection held five months ago andthe Assembly polls and

had different voting preferences.

The BJP steadfastly madeabrogation of Article 370 a pollissue in a State where the numbersof ex-servicemen and serving per-sonnel in Army and paramilitaryforces is quite high. But the issuefailed to enthuse the voters as theparty had expected with localissues like caste consolidation,high unemployment rate and bet-ter remuneration for crops dom-inating the political discourse of

the Opposition. “Who is opposingabrogation of Article 370? It’snow the law of the land. Why areyou (BJP) raising it” We are in sup-port of it,” Congress leaderBhupinder Singh Hooda kept saying in one meet-ing after the other, blunting thesingle most important issue of theBJP in the elections.

As the number of religiousminorities in terms of percentageis not that significant in the State,emotional and religious issueswhich BJP calls as “nationalisticissues” like verbal bashing ofPakistan, triple talaq, building ofRam temple in Ayodhya etc werenot raised much in the campaign in the run-up to thepolls.

Despite the Prime Ministerand BJP president Amit Shahhailing the performance of Khattarand describing the fractured man-date as a victory, what is clear isthat Haryana result is a wake-upcall for the BJP if it wants to con-solidate its position in the Statewhere it came to power on its ownfor the first time in 2014 in thebackdrop of Modi wave sweepingthe entire country.

Of course, the Modi waveagain swept the country as well asHaryana in May 2019 but in theinterregnum of five years in theState, factors like Governmentperformance, economic crisis,caste consolidation, unemploy-ment, arrogant approach - allcombined to bring down the con-fidence of the BJP. “It’s time torebuild…after Government for-mation,” summed up a seniorparty leader.

From Page 1Holding that interest and

penalty have rightly been leviedon the telecom companies, thebench made it clear that therewould no further litigation onthe issue and it would fix a timeframe for calculation and pay-ment of dues by the telecomcompanies.

“Once an amount of short-fall has not been paid, it has tocarry 50 per cent of the penal-ty on defaulted amount, asagreed. Thus, we find no sub-stance in the submission thatinterest, penalty, and interest onpenalty cannot be realised. It isas per the agreement. In thefacts and circumstances, wefind no ground to reduce thesame, considering the nature ofuntenable objections raised onbehalf of the licensees,” thebench said.

It said that no litigant canbe permitted to “reap fruits” oninconsistent and untenablestands and litigate for decadesin several rounds which is notso uncommon but is disturb-ing scenario projected in verymany cases.

“We have examined the

matter upon merits and thenaforesaid conclusion indicatesfrivolous nature of objections,”the bench said.

As per the New TelecomPolicy 1999, telecom licenseesare required to share a per-centage of their AGR with thegovernment as annual licencefee (LF).

The 1999 policy came afteroperators made a representa-tion to Centre for relief againststeep licence fee which theyhad consistently defaulted since1994 and an option to licenseesto migrate from fixed licencefee to revenue sharing fee wasmade applicable in the year1999. In addition, mobile tele-phone operators were alsorequired to pay spectrum usagecharges (SUC) for use of radiofrequency spectrum allottedto them.

Telecos had moved the topcourt against the TelecomDisputes Settlement andAppellate Tribunal’s (TDSAT)order which ruled that certainnon-telecom revenues like rent,profit on sale of fixed assets,dividend and treasury incomewould not (rpt) not be count-

ed as AGR on which licence feewould have to be paid to gov-ernment.

The TDSAT exempted alarge number of streams fromthe definition of AGR, like cap-ital receipts, bad debt, distrib-ution margins to dealers, forexfluctuations, sale of scrap andwaiver of late fee. It also saidrevenue from non-core sourcessuch as rent, profit on sale offixed assets, dividend, interestand miscellaneous incomemust be included while com-puting a carrier’s AGR, deal-ing a setback to telecos whowould have to shell out moretowards licence and spec-trum usage fees.

The court had formulat-ed 19 questions for consider-ation -- Definition of grossrevenue, Discount and com-missions, Gains arising out offoreign exchange fluctuations,Monetary gains on sale ofshares, Insurance claim inrespect of capital assets,Amount of negative balanceof pre-paid customer,Reimbursement of infra-structure operating expenses,Waiver of late fee, Gains from

roaming charges and PSTNpass- through charges.

Other questions were,“Non--refundable deposits,Licence fee demand wherespectrum is not granted,Income from interest & divi-dend, Bad- debts written off,Liability written off, Inter--corporate loan, Revenue underIP-1 Registration, Income frommanagement consultancy ser-vices, Res Judicata, Levy ofinterest, penalty and interest onpenalty”.

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In a significant statement Congress Lok Sabha LeaderAdhir Chowdhury on Thursday said that

“Haryana Spirit” will form the basis of a Congress revivalin India.

Chowdhury’s statement came hours after Haryanaassembly pole results poured in showing improved per-formance of the tri-colour party.

The Behrampore Congress MP who also congratulatedhis party colleagues in Maharashtra—where the party inalliance with the NCP has done better than expected win-ning 99 seats--- said the BJP will now start horse-tradingand muscle-flexing using the ED and CBI.

“There in Haryana special dhanteras (a shopping fes-tival ahead of Diwali) will start in the form of purchasingMLAs so that BJP can form the Government” in that statehe said adding those who will not fall in line will be arm-twisted by the central agencies.

Irrespective of all this “Haryana Spirit” will form thebasis of Congress’s revival in future.

“Congress will definitely come back to power andHaryana Spirit will form it’s basis. The party workersthrough out the country will be enthused and descend onthe streets with new inspiration,” he said.

From Page 1Given the nature of power

struggle between the BJP andShiv Sena, it will take some moredays before the leaders of the twoparties sit across and decide on thepower-sharing arrangementbetween them.

While the BJP has gone totown saying that Fadnavis wouldbe the next Chief Minister of theState, Fadnavis himself has repeat-edly said that he would come backas the Chief Minister. Right fromthe day one of this election, theShiv Sena has been projectingAditya Thackeray as its chief min-isterial candidate.

Sena leaders, includingUddhav, have repeatedly said thatpower sharing arrangement wouldbe decided as per the formulaarrived at a joint meeting held atMatroshri between the Sena pres-ident, Amit Shah and Fadnavis onFebruary 18 this year when thetwo parties formalised the sseat-sharing pact for the Lok Sabhapolls.

Later on June 2, senior BJPleader and now State party presi-dent Chandrakant Patil had soughtclarity to the seat-sharing deal bysaying that the BJP and Shiv Senawould contest 135 seats each in the

State Assembly polls, setting asidethe remaining 18 seats for theirallies.However, upon a request bythe BJP leadership, the Sena agreedto contest less number of seats(124) in the State Assembly pollsas against 164 seats contests. Nowthat the elections are over, the Senais harping on the 50:50 powersharing arrangement.The ChiefMinister’s post has been a bone ofcontention between the BJP andthe Sena.

Fadnavis has made it clear tothe Sena that the top post, whichhe occupies, would remain withthe BJP, but has offered to give theDeputy Chief Minister’s post to theShiv Sena (read Aditya Thackeray).Such is the BJP’s stand that it doesnot want to share the ChiefMinister’s post even on rotation-al basis.

The rotational basis proposedby the Shiv Sena is the post willremain with one party for the firsttwo and a half years, while it willbe with another party for thenext two and a half years.

Sources in the Shiv Sena thatUddhav would root for rotation-al chief ministership when hemeets Amit Shah and Fadnavis todiscuss the power sharing arrange-ment in the new Government inMaharashtra. The talks may takeplace only after Diwali.

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New Delhi: Voicing concern over illegal construc-tions, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed allthe cities in Maharashtra with population of 50 lakhor more to get geomapping done of the municipalareas in the city.

Geomapping, or surveying of land and sub sur-face using GPS, presents a detailed view of a site andthe surrounding area including roads, buildings,mountains, rivers, estuaries and pipelines.

The top court held that Geomapping can be doneby satellite, drones or vehicles and once it is doneit would be easy to control illegal constructions.

A bench of Justices Deepak Gupta andAniruddha Bose further directed the Maharashtragovernment to ensure that sufficient funds are madeavailable to the municipal corporations concernedand the exercise be completed within a year fromthe date of this order.

It will be obligatory for all municipal corpora-tions in the State of Maharashtra where the popu-lation is 50 lakhs or more to get geomapping andgeo-photography of the areas under their jurisdic-tion done within a period of one year. PTI

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With the objective of giv-ing a boost to defence

exports and enhance ease ofdoing business, DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh onThursday approved issuanceof two Open General ExportLicences (OGELs) for exportof certain parts and compo-nents and intra-companytransfer of technology toselect countries.

Giving details of theclearance, officials said theapplication for grant of OGELwill be considered byDepartment of DefenceProduction (DPP) on a case-to-case basis. The OGEL is aone-time export licence to begranted to a company for aspecific period (two yearsinitially).

The countries allowedunder the OGELs areBelgium, France, Germany,Japan, South Africa, Spain,Sweden, UK, USA, Canada,Italy, Poland and Mexico.However, export of items to a‘Special Economic Zone’ isnot permitted.

For acquiring the licences,the applicant is mandatory to

have Import-Export certifi-cate, the Defence Ministrysaid adding “the quarterlyand end of the year reportson all the transactions doneunder OGELs should be sub-mitted to DPP for examina-tion and post-export verifi-cation.”

The items permittedunder OGEL includes com-ponents of ammunition andfuse setting device withoutenergetic and explosive mate-rial; firing control and relat-ed alerting and warningequipment and related sys-tem; and body protectiveitems. Complete aircraft orcomplete unmanned aerialvehicles (UAVs) and any components speciallydesigned or modified forUAVs are excluded underthis licence.

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Earth scientists from IndianInstitute of Technology

(IIT), Roorkee have raised a redflag over the ModiGovernment’s �12,000- crorepet project Char DhamMahamarg Vikas Pari Yojana(Char Dham HighwayDevelopment Project) thataims to connect the four pilgrimage in the Uttarakhand’sfragile mountainous eco-system.

In their study published inthe latest issue of CurrentScience, the scientists said thatthe 900-kilometer long all-weather road project whichenvisages widening of NationalHighway-58, is being executedin complete violation of envi-ronmental norms with severalirregularities.

Adoption of unscientificmethods, inappropriate dump-ing of tones of mud and debris,excavation at steep angles,allowing wrongful collection ofwater percolated from the slopeto the roadsides were some of

them. The project is alreadydrawing flak from environ-mentalists, NGOs like Citizenfor Green Doon and locals whotoo have alleged serious viola-tion of green norms as well asrampant cutting of hills mak-ing the area prone to landslides.

T Siddique and SP Pradhanfrom the Department of EarthSciences, IIT, Roorkee tooechoed similar views warningthat inadequately performedexcavation without proper con-sideration of eco sensitive ter-rain may lead to catastrophicevents as witnessed during theKedarnath disaster in 2013.

Launched by the PrimeMinister Narendra Modi inDecember 2016, the CharDham Mahamarg Vikas Pari

Yojana (Char DhamHighway DevelopmentProject) is being exe-cuted by the UnionMinistry of RoadTransport andHighways (MoRTH). Itaims to connect fourholy towns inU t t a r a k h a n d

—Badrinath, Kedarnath,Yamunotri and Gangotri.

The scientists came toknow about the violations afterevaluating various stretchesalong NH-58, from Rishikeshto Devprayag and took excep-tion that in order to completethe project, the scientific stud-ies/reports which ought to begiven topmost priority werebeing ignored. Observing thatthe excavated materials, includ-ing massive rock blocks, soiland debris have been dumpedin hairpin bends along theroad, the report cautioned that“these dumps are interruptingthe natural channel of manyephemeral streams and maygive rise to an alarming situa-tion in subsequent monsoon

seasons. Besides ephemeralstreams, the major perennialstream, including river Gangamay witness such critical issues.Such adverse practices areunendurable and violation ofrules and regulations of theriver ecosystem needs to beassessed.”

Similar activities in theupper reaches of Uttarakhandwill cause siltation problem inmajor hydroelectric projects, itsaid. According to the scien-tists, no preventive and stabi-lization measures were under-taken after excavation.However, in a few road-cut sec-tions, gabion walls have beenconstructed for stabilization;but these walls are deformeddue to inadequate stabilizationmeasures and maintenance.

The scientists alsoexpressed concern at authori-ties ignoring scientific norms inhandling percolation of waterwhich was allowed to be col-lected in a roadside ditch.“Such careless practices arecontinuously hampering andendangering the health of

slopes and may give rise tolarge-scale landslides,” said thescientists as they called for itsproper channelization to avoidthe build-up of pore pressure.

The report has recom-mended setting up a panelcomprising of locals andexperts to monitor the projectfor sustainable development inthe region.

To attain safer design dur-ing pre- and post-constructionstages, efforts should be under-taken for better prediction ofextreme rainfall events andaccordingly planning needs tobe done, said the report addingthat the real-time monitoringof slope movements should bedone along highly vulnerableand risk sections.

Also, in rockfall-prone sec-tions, rock shed may bedesigned to overcome acci-dents and frequent blockage ofthe highway and implementingpreventive measures like steelmesh to retain potential fallingblocks along with flexible bar-riers to reduce kinetic energyof these blocks.

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Taking exception to someUS lawmakers raising

doubts about measures to pro-tect people of Jammu &Kashmir after abrogation ofArticle 370 giving special sta-tus to the State in August,India on Thursday said ques-tioning by the US was a reflec-tion of lack of understandingabout robust functioning ofdemocratic institutions inIndia.

India said it was regrettablethat a few US lawmakers useda Congressional hearing toquestion measures to protectlives of people in Jammu &Kashmir.

Ministry of ExternalAffairs SpokespersonRaveesh Kumar said herethe US Congressional hear-ing on Kashmir was areflection of lack of understanding about

robust functioning ofdemocratic institutions inIndia.

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In a bid to give a fillip to pro-mote defence manufacturing

in India through joint ventures,the US and India on Thursdayheld a review meeting here. Itwas held under the aegis of theDefence Trade and TechnologyInitiative(DTTI)and theDefence Ministry said the twocountries are poised to achievetangible results.

Giving details of the ninthround of DTTI, set up someyears back to foster trade indefence, officials said here a sig-nificant achievement of themeeting was the signing of‘Statement of Intent’ withrespect to key deliverables inthe near, medium and longterms. This will assist in bring-ing sustained focus on some ofthe projects and signal com-mitment of both sides towardscontinued collaboration onmutually beneficial issues.

The DTTI is part of theIndia-US Bilateral DefenceCooperation and the meetingon Thursday was held betweenSecretary (Defence

Production) Subhash Chandraand Under Secretary ofDefense for Acquisition andSustainment of the UnitedStates Ellen M Lord.

Speaking on the occasion,Subhash Chandra said thatwhile DTTI has been an ongo-ing process, both sides werenow poised to actually achievetangible outcomes. The sharedvalues that form the bedrock ofstable relations between the twosides have led to deepening ofdefence ties. The IndianGovernment remains commit-ted to continually engage withthe US Government and facil-itate cooperation between thedefence industries of bothnations. Ellen Lord said, “theUS National Defence Strategyenvisages strengtheningdefence alliances and partner-ships. The DTTI has nowmatured enough where its var-ied activities could be translat-ed into accomplishments.”

She added that the inter-face of the industry with DTTIwould provide necessary fillipto various projects under con-sideration.

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Gearing up to deal with encroachers of CentralGovernment land, the Central Public Works

Department (CPWD) has directed its officials to comeup with a list of unauthorised occupants and the quan-tum of land grabbed by them. The CPWD has asked offi-cials to submit details by the end of this month. The movecomes close on the heels of Union Housing and UrbanAffairs Ministry deciding to hire a private agency to protect Government land, bungalows and flats fromencroachment.

According to the official, once the list is prepared,a drive will be launched to free the CPWD land fromencroachment. “All additional director generals and othertop officers have been asked to gather details about unau-thorised occupants and quantum of land grabbed bythem. Officials have been directed to submit the sameby October 31,” official also said. The CPWD also soughtto know what action has been taken to free land fromencroachment, official added. Earlier this month, theMinistry had directed CPWD to deploy private securi-ty guards, preferably ex-serviceman in Delhi. As per theplan, the security agency will have to get their guards ver-ified from the Delhi Police before their deployment atvacant Government bungalows, land and flats.

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Paving the way for Indian pil-grims to undertake visit to

the shrine of the Sikh religion’sfounder Guru Nanak Dev inPakistan, the two countries onThursday signed a historicagreement on the Kartarpurcorridor. The online registra-tion for the pilgrimage on por-tal prakashpurb550.mha.gov.instarted soon after agreementwas signed.

The corridor will connectthe Dera Baba Nanak shrine inIndia’s Punjab with DarbarSahib at Kartarpur, just 4 kilo-metres from the InternationalBorder, located at Narowal dis-trict of Pakistan’s Punjab

province.SCL Das, Joint Secretary in

the Union Home Ministry, andMohammad Faisal, PakistanForeign Office spokespersonand director general (SouthAsia and SAARC), signed theagreement at the KartarpurZero Point at the InternationalBorder, fulfilling a long-pend-ing demand of the Sikh com-munity.

The agreement will allowIndian pilgrims access toGurdwara Darbar Sahib inPakistan where Guru NanakDev spent last 18 years of hislife.

The agreement was signedafter three rounds of toughnegotiations despite bilateralrelationship witnessing a chillrecent years. The ties touched

a new low when India revokedthe special status of Jammu &Kashmir in August followingwhich Pakistan downgradeddiplomatic ties and expelled theIndian envoy.

Indian pilgrims of all faithsand persons of Indian origincan use the corridor and thetravel will be visa-free. Pilgrimsneed to carry only a validpassport while persons ofIndian origin need to carry

Overseas Citizen of India(OCI) card along with thepassport of their country,according to a statement issuedby the Home Ministry in NewDelhi. Speaking to the mediaafter the signing of the agree-ment, Faisal said PrimeMinister Imran Khan had ful-filled his promise and com-pleted the corridor in a year.

“It was never simple toreach an agreement on the

Kartarpur corridor. Ratherthese were very difficult andtough negotiations (with India)keeping in view our hostilerelations with it,” Faisal said.

He said that Pakistan hasstuck to the points it proposedin the start of the talks on thecorridor. “Under the agree-ment, the corridor will remainopen seven days a week fromdawn to dusk. A total of 5,000or so Indian Sikhs will arriveevery day and leave the sameday. They (pilgrims) will haveto only bring their passport fortheir identity and it will not bestamped. India will share thelist of those visiting theGurdwara (Darbar SahibKartatpur) 10 days before theirtravel plan,” he said.

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WiFi and broadbanddevices, flags and ban-

ners challenging territorialintegrity of India or Pakistan,liquor and a host of otheritems have been put in the pro-hibited list for pilgrims visitingGurdwara Darbar Sahib inKartarpur across the border.Except traditional kirpans, allsort of knives are in the bannedlist. The pilgrims will not beallowed to carry items in thenegative list put on the newlylaunched portal prakashpurb550.Mha.Gov.In, where pil-grims will have to registeronline.

Maps and literature withincorrect depiction of external

boundaries of India or Pakistan(physical and digital forms), lit-erature, media items andobjects including flags andbanners challenging the terri-torial integrity of India orPakistan or potentially dam-aging to communal harmonyin the two countries (both inphysical and digital forms) arealso banned for the pilgrims.

Any goods for commercialpurpose for profit gain or com-mercial usage, as per applica-ble laws, radio transmittersnot approved for normal usage,satellite phone, objects made ofgold and silver, other thanornaments for personal use orfor religious purposes, as perapplicable laws, are also pro-hibited for the pilgrimage.

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The Centre on Thursday moved theSupreme Court seeking extension

of time for completing formalities totransfer Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC)Coordinator Prateek Hajela to MadhyaPradesh.

The apex court on October 18 hadordered the Centre and the AssamGovernment to transfer Hajela to hisnative State Madhya Pradesh withinseven days.

The counsel for the Centre onThursday told the bench headed byChief Justice Ranjan Gogoi thatthough the government has taken stepsto transfer the 1995 batch IAS officerof Assam-Meghalaya cadre but pro-cedural formalities will take somemore time.

“You file the application,” thebench, which also comprised JusticesSA Bobde and S A Nazeer, said.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursdayasked the Jammu & Kashmir administrationas to how long they intend to continue therestrictions, including internet blockade,imposed in the Valley following the abroga-tion of provision of Article 370.

The Apex Court, which was hearing abatch of petitions challenging the restrictionson movement and communication blockadeimposed in the Valley, said the authoritiesmay impose restrictions for national interestbut they have to be reviewed from time totime. A bench headed by Justice N V Ramanatold Attorney General K K Venugopal andSolicitor General Tushar Mehta, who wereappearing for the Centre and the J&K admin-istration respectively, to come out with“clear” reply and find out other methods todeal with the issue. Mehta told the bench, alsocomprising justices R Subhash Reddy and BR Gavai, that “the restrictions are beingreviewed daily. In around 99 per cent area, norestrictions are there”. PTI

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Failing to live up to the hypeand hoopla created by it in

the run-up to the election thatit would post a thumping elec-toral victory, the BJP-Shiv Senaalliance on Thursday man-aged to retain power inMaharashtra by either winningor leading in 160 seats out ofthe total 288 seats in the StateAssembly polls.

From a combined tally of185 seats that the BJP and ShivSena had won when they con-tested the 2014 polls separate-ly, the ruling saffron alliancepartners were to set end upwith a winning tally of a max-imum of 160 seats, which is 25seats fewer than the two partieshad won in the previousAssembly polls.

On its own, the ruling BJPwas poised to win a maximumof 104 seats out of the total 164seats it had contested, while theShiv Sena was expected a max-imum of 56 seats out of thetotal 124 seats it had contestedin the polls.

From the Opposition, theNCP — which fared relativelybetter than it was expectedthanks to mainly to the exten-sive campaigning done by itsfounder-president Sharad Pawar— had either won or was lead-ing in 54 seats out of the 121seats it contested in the polls,while its senior ally Congresswas set to end up with a win-ning tally 45 seats in the polls.

Among the smaller partiesand independents, the BahujanVikash Aghadi (BVA) had wonone seat and was leading in twoseats, while the All IndiaMajlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeenbagged two seats.

The Prahar Janshakti Partywon 2 seats, while KrantikariShetkari Party, Samajwadi Partyand Swabhimani Shetkari Partybagged one seat each. Amongthe independents five emergedvictorious, while at least eightindependents were heading to

victory.As was expected, the rebels

belonging to both the rulingBJP and Shiv Sena played aspoilsport for the two parties inthe polls. Admitting that thepresence of rebels in the frayhad affected both the saffronalliance partners, a senior BJPleader said in the evening thathe was in touch with at least 15winning rebels.

On his part, Chief MinisterDevendra Fadnavis sought toplay down relatively unimpres-sive performance of the BJP inthe polls. “On the contrary tothe perception sought to be cre-ated, our strike rate is much bet-ter what it was in the 2014Assembly. At that time, BJP hadcontested 260 seats and won122 seats which was 47 per centstrike rate. In this election, wecontested 164 seats and won103 seats which is 70 per centstrike rate,” Fadnavis said.

The strike rate projected byFadnavis notwithstanding, theBJP leaders, including BJPnational president Amit Shahand the chief minister himself,had gone to town saying thatthe BJP-Shiv Sena alliancewould win more 220 seats inthe State Assembly. Thepremise was based on the factthat the saffron alliance part-ners had established leads in227 Assembly segments in the

Lok Sabha polls, which saw theBJP, Shiv Sena and their allywin 42 out of 48 seats.

Interestingly, in the currentAssembly polls, the BJP secured25.69 per cent of total votespolled, while the Shiv Senamustered 16.50 per cent votes.The younger Opposition partyNCP polled higher percentage(16.72 per cent votes), while theSonai Gandhi-led party secured15.76 per cent votes.

In what came as embar-rassment for the ruling saffronalliance, at least eight BJP-Sena Ministers in the DevendraFadnavis Government bit elec-toral dust.

The biggest jolt that theBJP-led Government sufferedwas the defeat of late senior BJPleader Gopinath Munde’sdaughter and State MinisterPankaja Munde who wastrounced by her estrangedcousin and NCP’s Leader ofOpposition in LegislativeCouncil Dhananjay Munde inParli constituency of Beed dis-trict in Marathwada.

The BJP’s other losingministers include: Anil Bondefrom Morshi (Amravati), RamShinde who was defeated byNCP President Sharad Pawar’sgrandnephew Rohit Pawar inhis maiden election fromK a r j a t - J a m k h e d(Ahmednagar), Sanjay ‘Bala’

Bhegade from Maval (Pune),and Parinay Fuke from Sakoli(Nagpur) who was trounced byCongress leader from easternMaharashtra Nana Patole.

The Shiv Sena ministerswho were defeated in the pollsare: Vijaybapu Shivtare fromPurandar (Pune) and ArjunKhotkar from Jalna andJaydatta Kshirsagar from Beed.

Most of these ministers,including Pankaja, had facedallegations of involvement inscams made by the Oppositionparties in the past five years.

The major victors in theAssembly polls were: DevendraFadnavis (BJP, Nagpur SouthWest), Aditya Thackeray (ShivSena, Worli), Ajit Pawar (NCP,Baramati), Prithviraj Chavan(Congress Karad South), andAshok Chavan (Congress,Bhokar), Santosh RaosahebDanve (BJP, Bhokardan),Ganesh Naik (BJP, Airoli),Dilip Walse Patil (NCP,Ambegaon) and ChandrakantPatil (BJP, Kothurd).

Amit Deshmukh andDhiraj Deshmukh, sons of lateChief Minister VilarasraoDeshmukh, were elected on aCongress ticket from Laturcity and Latur rural con-stituencies respectively.

While Amit was elected forthe third time from Latur cityconstituency, Dhiraj — makinghis debut — won the polls fromLatur rural by a margin of1,18,000 voters – that too overan interesting rival 'None OfThe Above' option.

Dhiraj Deshmukh securedaround 1,31,000 votes, while26,800 votes were cast forNOTA. Shiv Sena’s SachinDeshmukh, MaharashtraNavnirman Sena’s ArjunWaghamare, and 12 other can-didates forfeited their electiondeposits.

Interestingly, 18 of the 35sitting MLAs and Congress-NCP leaders who had switchedover either the BJP or the ShivSena were defeated in the polls.

Mumbai: Shiv Sena leaderAaditya Thackeray, who madehistory by becoming the firstmember of his family to takepoll plunge, has marked hisarrival in Maharashtra politicswith a bang and is likely toplay a key role in the next StateGovernment and help expandhis party.

The 29-year-old next-genThackeray, whom his partywants to be the Deputy ChiefMinister in the BJP-Senaalliance Government, wonwith a thumping majorityfrom Mumbai's Worli con-stituency.

The Yuva Sena leader isnow likely to make his party,which was rooted in the 'sonsof the soil' agenda and laterembraced the Hindutva ide-ology, more inclusive andbroad-based.

In run up to the polls, heconducted several roadshows,foot marches and raised issueslike cutting of trees in AareyColony and Mumbai'snightlife and said he wants tomake the constituency a"model of development".

He also reached out tonon-Marathi voters in theconstituency to romp home a

big win.A pass out of the Bombay

Scottish School in suburbanMahim, Aaditya is a graduatein English Literature from StXavier's College and has alaw degree from KC College.

He has always managed tokeep himself abreast of civicissues and concerns of youthin the State. The MaharashtraGovernment's decision to banplastic is partly credited to hiscampaign against the wide-spread use of the material.

In a bid to attract youngfollowers, he also proposed therevival of Mumbai's nightlife

by allowing malls and restau-rants to be open all night. TheShiv Sena-ruledBrihanmumbai MunicipalCorporation has approved theproposal, which is now pend-ing with the Chief Minister forclearance.

The young politician alsosports a creative side like hisgrandfather, father and uncle.

His grandfather, the lateBal Thackeray, who foundedthe Shiv Sena in 1966, was acartoonist, an art shared by hisestranged uncle Raj Thackeray,the chief of MaharashtraNavnirman Sena (MNS). PTI

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Mumbai: Former Maharashtradeputy Chief Minister and NCPleader Ajit Pawar on Thursdaywon from the BaramatiAssembly constituency bydefeating his nearest rival byover 1.65 lakh votes — thehighest victory margin record-ed by a candidate in this election.

On the other hand, ShivSena candidate Dilip BhausahebLande won from the Chandivaliconstituency in north Mumbaiby just 409 votes — the lowestvictory margin posted by a

nominee inthe electionsheld onOctober 21.

A j i tPawar wonthe seat inPune districtfor a sixthconsecutive term.

According to the ElectionCommission (EC) data, AjitPawar defeated the BJP'sGopichand Padalkar by a mar-gin of 1,65,265 votes.

Ajit Pawar, nephew of NCPpresident Sharad Pawar, polled1,95,641 votes, while his nearestrival, Padalkar, bagged just30,376 votes.

The 60-year-old NCP leaderwas followed by VishwajitKadam, who is the StateCongress working president, interms of victory gap.

Kadam defeated his nearestShiv Sena rival Sanjay Vibhuteby a margin of 1,62,521 votes inPalus Kadegaon in Sangli districtof western Maharashtra. PTI

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Mumbai: NCP leaderDhananjay Munde onThursday said he was both"joyous and pained", as hetook an unassailable lead overhis cousin and MaharashtraBJP Minister Pankaja Munde inParli Assembly seat, which sawthe two engage in recrimina-tion in a high-voltage contest.

He also thanked the peoplefor his "unprecedented victory".

On the other hand, PankajaMunde dubbed her defeat was"unexpected and inscrutable",but said she accepted the peo-ple's mandate humbly.

According to the trendsmade available by ElectionCommission so far, the NCPleader secured 1.22 lakh votesas against 91,413 votes baggedby his BJP opponent.

"The people of Parli havegiven me an unprecedentedvictory. I thank them. HeavenlyAnna (referring to his father)wanted to see me winning.How do I tell him that his sonhas won and that too in Parli?"an emotionally-chargedDhananjay Munde said.

The Leader of Opposition

in the State Legislative Councilsaid he contested the electionon the issue of development,but, without naming anyoneone, he added that "dirty poli-tics" was played by the rulingparty.

He also observed that peo-ple of Parli backed him despitePrime Minister NarendraModi, BJP chief Amit Shah andChhatrapati Shivaji's descen-dant Udayanraje Bhosale cam-paigning against him.

"I am happy. But I am alsosad somewhere, being the elderin the family. Whether theyconsider me as part of the fam-ily or not, the blood relationnever breaks. I am pained that

someone in the family hasbeen defeated," he said.

The NCP leader also saidhe will fulfil all the develop-ment-related promises made topeople in the next five years.

Meanwhile, reacting to herdefeat, Pankaja Munde said, "Iaccept the mandate humbly.This is an inscrutable result. Idid not expect the result, giventhe developmental works car-ried out during the past fiveyears and the response Ireceived from people."

The BJP leader, who was aMinister in the first DevendraFadnavis Government, said shewill analyse reasons behindher defeat. PTI

Mumbai: In the newly-elected288-member MaharashtraLegislative Assembly, therewould be only 23 women,eleven of them sitting legislators.It is still an improvement overthe previous Assembly whichhad 22 women legislators.

The sitting legislators whowere elected on Thursday wereManda Mhatre (from Belapur),Manisha Chaudhari (Dahisar),Vidya Thakur (Goregaon),Devyani Farande (NashikCentral), Seema Hiray (NashikWest), Madhuri Misal (Parvati),Monica Rajale (Shevgaon) andBharati Lavhekar (Versova).

All eight MLAs are fromthe BJP.

Congress MLAs PranitiShinde (Solapur City Central),Yashomati Thakur (Teosa) and

Varsha Gaikwad (Dharavi-Mumbai) also retained theirseats.

NCP MLA Suman Patiltoo retained her Tasgaon-Kavathe Mahankal seat.

The newcomer women leg-islators are Saroj Ahire (Devlali)of the NCP, Lata Sonavane(Chopda) and Yamini Jadhav(Byculla) of the Shiv Sena;Shweta Mahale (Chikli),Meghana Bordikar (Jintur),Namita Mundada (Kaij), MuktaTilak (Kasba Peth); andCongress' Pratibha Dhanorkar(Warora) and Sulbha Khodke(Amravati).

Two independents — GeetaJain (Mira Bhayander) andManjula Gavit (Sakri) have alsowon. Among 3,237 candidates,there were 235 women. PTI

Nagpur: Maharashtra ChiefMinister Devendra Fadnavisdefeated his nearest rival,Congress' Ashish Deshmukhby a margin of 49,344 votesfrom the Nagpur South Westconstituency, election officialssaid on Thursday.

Fadnavis won from thisconstituency for the third time,but with a reduced margin.

He had won from the seatby 58,942 votes in 2014.

Fadnavis secured 1,09,237votes while Ashish Deshmukhgot 59,893 votes.

Vanchit Bahujan Aghadicandidate Ravi Shende bagged8,821 votes and BSP candidateVivek Handle secured 7,646votes. As many as 3,064 votes

went to None Of The Above(NOTA) option.

Fadnavis had won twicefrom Nagpur-West seat in 1999and 2004. Following delimita-tion in 2009, he contested andwon from Nagpur South-Westin 2009 and 2014.

Ashish Deshmukh hadfought the 2014 Assembly elec-tions on BJP ticket from Katoland defeated his uncle, NCPleader Anil Deshmukh. Helater quit the BJP. PTI

Latur: The NOTA option hassecured second slot in theLatur rural Assembly segment,from where late MaharashtraChief Minister VilasraoDeshmukh's son Dhiraj is set toregister a handsome victory inhis maiden poll outing.

According to the trendsavailable till late Thursdayevening, Dhiraj Deshmukh,the Congress candidate, hassecured 1,35,006 votes (67.64per cent).

The 'None of the Above'(NOTA) has clinched 27,500votes (13.78 per cent), rele-gating other candidates infray from the seat to inferiorpositions. PTI

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Mumbai: Some prominentOpposition leaders who hadjoined the ruling BJP or ShivSena, including CabinetMinister Jaydutt Kshirsagar,have bitten the dust as theMaharashtra Assembly pollresults came in on Thursday.

Kshirsagar, fighting on ShivSena ticket, was defeated by hisnephew and NCP candidateSandip Kshirsagar.

Vaibhav Pichad, son of for-mer NCP Minister Madhukar

Pichad had joined the BJP fewdays before the election. He lostto Dr Kiran Lahamate of theNCP by 57,689 votes fromAkole seat.

Interestingly, Lahamatewas a BJP worker for manyyears and had been in thecamp opposed to the Pichadfamily. Irked with State BJP'sdecision to induct Vaibhav,Lahamate joined the NCP andwon the election.

Two MLAs who had joined

the Shiv Sena before the polls,namely, Pandurang Barora andNirmala Gavit, also lost theelections from Shahapur andIgatpuri, respectively.

Barora was an NCP MLAand Gavit a Congress legislator.

Former MinisterHarshvardhan Patil, whoswitched sides from theCongress to the BJP so that hecould contest from his hometurf, Indapur, lost to the NCP'sDuttatray Bharane. PTI

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Despite the BJP's showingnot upto the expectations

in Maharashtra and HaryanaAssembly polls, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and BJP pres-ident Amit Shah on Thursdaysought to outline the key pos-itives even while asserting toform the Governments in boththe States despite Haryanathrowing up a fractured man-date.

Addressing BJP workersat the party headquarters in theevening, Modi pointed outhow the party scripted historyin Maharashtra, where "for thefirst time in 50 years, a ChiefMinister completed his fullfive-year term" and the returnof the party to power showspeople reposed faith in theDevendra Fadnavis-led StateGovernment. "Political stabil-ity is a must for a state likeMaharashtra," he added.

"Even before Diwali, theway people of Haryana andMaharashtra have put theirfaith in BJP, I want to thankthem from the core of myheart," he maintained.

Modi said the people havereposed faith in leadership ofFadnavis and Haryana chiefminister Manohar Lal Khattar.

"Devendra Fadnavis ji andManohar Lal ji both were firsttime chief ministers, they didnot even have the experience asministers. And for 5 years theykept working for people's wel-fare and as a result people haveagain put their faith in them,"Modi said.

"The political pundits whoare analysing today's electionresults, Haryana in itself is anexceptional win since thesedays there have been lessinstances of winning againafter completing a 5-year term..Moreover, BJP's vote share inHaryana went up to 36 per centfrom 33 per cent; it shows peo-ple's endorsement of Govt'swork," Modi said.

Earlier, Modi tweeted: "Ithank the people of Haryanafor blessing us. We will con-tinue to work with the samezeal and dedication for thestate's progress. I laud theefforts of hardworking@BJP4Haryana Karyakartaswho toiled extensively andwent among the people toelaborate on our developmentagenda.".

BJP president Amit Shahsaid the BJP has won the firsttwo elections in Prime MinisterNarendra Modi's second term.Addressing the party workers,

Shah said "I want to congratu-late party workers across thecountry as in Modi-2, the firsttwo elections have been won bythe BJP. The BJP-Sena yuti(alliance) has full majority inMaharashtra and we won 3 percent more votes and emergedas the biggest party inHaryana." Shah also referred tovarious decisions of the centralgovernment like ending specialstatus to Jammu and Kashmir,criminalizing instant TripleTalaq and giving rights to 40lakh residents of unauthorizedcolonies in Delhi, indicatingthat the BJP's latest wins werean endorsement of these steps.

Earlier, in his tweet, Shahsaid the (Manohar Lal) Khattargovernment in Haryana hasmade every effort for people'swelfare under the central lead-ership of (Narendra) Modi. "Ithank people for making theBJP the single-largest partyand giving it another opportu-nity to serve them," Shah tweet-ed. He congratulated ChiefMinister Khattar and stateparty chief Subhash Barala.

Shah said: In Maharashtra,BJP-Shiv Sena is going to formthe govt once again with major-ity. We'll work even harder inboth states for the welfare of thepeople.

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The Congress-NCP alliance put upa good show in Maharashtra while

the grand old party surprised the rul-ing side in Haryana by giving it a toughfight and coming up with an increasedtally. As trends started pouring in,Congress leaders started discussingthat had the party not given up mid-way apprehending the loss to yetanother apparent 'Modi wave', it wouldhave made a comeback in Haryana andtogether with regional parties wrestedpower in Maharashtra.

In the first Assembly elections afterthe BJP's triumph in the Lok Sabhapolls in May, the ruling party's electoraljuggernaut met with some resistancein Maharashtra and Haryana with aresurgent Congress performing cred-itably in the northern State.

"It is for the first time in five yearsthat people have voted against BJP inAssembly relying more on local issuesconcerning them. BJP tried to mis-guide the voters in local elections bypitching national issues like Article 370and triple talaq. But onions selling at�70-80 per kg weighed more on theelectorates' minds than Article 370,"quipped a senior Congress leader.

The party said the poll verdict inHaryana and Maharashtra is a moraldefeat of the BJP and what it stands for.

Congress' senior spokespersonAnand Sharma said that BJP chief AmitShah's claim of victory in Haryana doesnot hold as the party is short of major-

ity and there is a significant drop in itsvote percentage. Claiming that the ver-dict of Haryana is against the BJP, healso said all parties opposing the BJPmust come together.

In Haryana, the Congress, whichfailed to bag even one seat in the LokSabha polls, won or was ahead in 31of the 90 seats at stake compared to itsprevious tally of 15. The BJP, which had47 seats in the outgoing 90-memberhouse, won or was ahead in 40 seats.The half-way mark is 46.

In Maharashtra, the BJP-Shiv Senacoalition was on course to retainpower albeit with a reduced majoritywith the opposition Congress-NCPalliance putting up a good show.

Haryana Congress chief KumariSelja said people has rejected the rul-ing BJP and was ready to "embrace anew dawn of justice". Selja wasappointed couple of months before theassembly elections when former ChiefMinister Bhupinder Singh Hooda hadthreatened to quit the party if Selja'spredecessor Ashok Tanwar is not axedas party chief.

A confident Hooda said he willsoon meet Congress president SoniaGandhi and top party leaders to strate-gise on forming the Government in thestate. Sonia already spoke to Hoodaand given him the go-ahead to worktowards forming the Government,they said.

"Former Haryana CM Hooda isalready in touch with JJP andIndependents," a source close to him

said. Sonia had appointed Hooda theCongress Legislative Party (CLP)leader which proved to be a gamechanger for the party in Haryanawhich was struggling to maintain theparty's ground which ruled for maxi-mum number of years in the Jat dom-inant state.

While former Congress chiefRahul Gandhi campaigned in both theStates, leaders lost hope after the onlyrally scheduled for Sonia to addresswas cancelled on the penultimate dayof elections early this week.

Following the impressive results,senior Congress leader PChidambaram said party workersmust believe that the BJP can bedefeated in elections as calm andquiet patriotism can defeat muscularnationalism. Taking a swipe at the BJP,Chidambaram, who is in ED custodyin a corruption case, said that miraclescan happen if people shed their fear.

"Congress workers must believethat the BJP can be defeated in an elec-tion. Calm and quiet patriotism candefeat muscular nationalism," he said onTwitter. He said he had asked his fam-ily to tweet on his behalf.

Elated over the party's perfor-mance in the assembly polls inMaharastra and Haryana, the leader ofCongress in Lok Sabha, Adhir RanjanChowdhury Thursday said the socalled "Modi magic" is fast waning. Theresult of the assembly polls in the twostates will help to rejuvenate Congressin the days to come, he said.

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Lucknow: Samajwadi Party on Thursdayretained its Rampur assembly seat, whichfell vacant after Azam Khan successfullyfought the Lok Sabha polls with his wifeemerging victorious by a margin of over7,000 votes.

Khan's wife and SP candidate TazeenFatma won by defeating her nearest rivalBJP candidate Bharat Bhushan.

While Tazeen secured 79,043 votes,Bhushan got 71,327 votes.

Congress candidate Arshad Ali Khangot 4,182 votes while BSP's Zubair MasoodKhan secured 3,441 votes.

In Gangoh, the BJP retained the seatwith its candidate Kirat Singh defeating hisnearest rival Congress candidate NoomanMasud.

While the BJP candidate secured68,300 votes, Masud got 62,881 votes.

Samajwadi Party candidate Inder Saingot 57,374 votes while BSP candidate MohdIrshad got 32,276 votes. PTI

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Ahmedabad: The OppositionCongress and ruling BJP wonthree seats each in the bypolls tosix assembly constituencies inGujarat, the results of whichwere declared on Thursday.

The Congress managed towrest one seat away from theBJP.

Congress turncoat MLAsAlpesh Thakor and DhavalsinhZala, who contested on BJPticket, lost.

The results take theCongress' tally in the 182- mem-ber House to 72, and that of theBJP to 103. Congress's JashuPatel defeated Zala from Bayadseat in Arvalli district by a mar-gin of over 700 votes.

Before the results weredeclared, Zala had accepted hisdefeat and left the countingcentre.

In Tharad seat ofBanaskantha, Congress candi-date Gulabsinh Rajput made a

comeback after trailing in initialrounds, and defeated the BJP'sJivraj Patel by over 6,400 votes.

In Kheralu seat in Mehsana,the BJP's Ajmalji Thakor defeat-ed the Congress' Babuji Thakorby 29,000 votes.

In Radhanpur seat, the BJP'sAlpesh Thakor was defeated bythe Congress' Raghu Desai byover 3,800 votes.

In Lunawada, BJP candidateJignesh Sevak won against theCongress' Gulabsinh Chauhanby over 11,000 votes.

In Amraiwadi, the BJP'sJagdish Patel, who was trailingbehind Congress' DharmendraPatel initially, managed to comeback and won by over 5,500votes.

Prior to the by-elections, theCongress held Radhanpur andBayad seats while the otherfour were with the BJP.

Congress snatched Tharadseat from the ruling party. PTI

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Completing the second tier of elec-tions of Panchayati Raj

Institutions in Jammu & Kashmir,more than 26,000 electors onThursday elected over 200 indepen-dent candidates while 81 candidatesbelonging to BJP were elected to thepost of Chairperson in the first everBlock Development council polls.

After the successful completion ofpolls, which witnessed record 98.3 percent voting, Chief Electoral OfficerShailendra Kumar told reporters inSrinagar, "elections were held in 280blocks on Thursday as twenty-sevencandidates were elected unopposed".

“In total, 217 Independents won.The BJP won in 81 blocks,” he said,adding that a 98.3 per cent polling was

recorded in the polls.Kumar said, in the Kashmir divi-

sion, 128 blocks went to polls. The BJPwon in 18, Independents in 109 andCongress on one.

He said, Srinagar district wit-nessed the highest poll percentage of100 per cent while southern districtsof Shopian and Pulwama recordedlowest 85.3 and 86.2 per cents respec-tively in Kashmir Division.

In the Jammu region, 151 blockswent to polls, with the BJP winningin 52 blocks, JKNPP in eight andIndependents in 88. Results of threeblocks are awaited, he said.

There are thirty-one blocks in theLadakh region, and the BJP won 11and Independents in 20, he said.

The Congress, the NationalConference and the PDP stayed away

from the elections, the first afterabrogation of the state’s special status,because of continued detention oftheir leaders.

The Jammu and KashmirNational Panthers Party (JKNPP)won in eight blocks and the Congressin one, CEO said.

The Congress candidate had filednomination papers before the partyannounced it would boycott the elec-tions, sources said.

Out of 316 blocks, the electionsfor chairmanship of BDCs were con-ducted on 280 blocks while 27 blockcouncils were elected unopposed, hetold the press conference. The poll per-centage for the 10 districts in theKashmir region was 93.65 per cent and99.4 per cent for the 10 districts in theJammu region, he said. PTI

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The Maratha trump cardplayed by the BJP in Satara

Lok Sabha constituency failedmiserably on Thursday, as theNCP candidate Shrinivas Patiltrounced the principal rulingparty’s nominee and 13thdescendent of Maratha warriorUdyanraje Bhosale inMonday’s bypoll by a com-fortable margin.

Though the results hadnot been formally declared,Patil was leading by 85,689votes over Udyanraje. Thedeclaration of Patil’s was a

mere formality.A two-time MP and for-

mer Governor of Sikkim, 78-year-old Patil had polled6,31,205 votes as against5,45,516 votes secured byBhosale in a stiff electoralbattle witnessed between theprominent candidates of theNCP and BJP respectively

Once a close associate ofNCP chief Sharad Pawar,Udyanraje had quit the Pawar— led party, resigned fromLok Sabha and joined the BJPon September 14.

The Satara Lok Sabha by-election had been necessitat-

ed by Udyanraje’s resignationfrom membership of LokSabha.

Udayan’s defeat came as ahuge setback for the BJP whichhad not only roped him intothe BJP ahead of the Assemblypolls and sought to usurpMaratha card from the NCPby using him like a trophy inits campaign.

The BJP had made it pres-tige issue to ensure the victo-ry of Udyanraje. So much sothat both Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and BJP pres-ident Amit had campaignedfor Udayanraje.

Patna: Ram Vilas Paswans LokJanshakti Party on Thursdayretained the Samastipurreserved Lok Sabha seat fromwhere his nephew Prince Rajmade a successful debut in theby-election necessitated by the

death of his father.Raj, whose father Ram

Chandra Paswan had wonthe seat in the general elec-tions for a second consecutiveterm, defeated Ashok Kumarof the Congress by over 1.02

lakh votes.The debutant polled

3,90,276 votes as against2,88,186 secured by hisCongress rival who had fin-ished second in both 2014 and2019 Lok Sabha polls. PTI

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The ruling AIADMK in Tami Nadu got enoughreasons to celebrate 2019 Diwali with gaiety as

it wrested two Assembly constituencies from itsrivals in the bypolls held on October 21.

The AIADMK candidates Muthamilselvan andV Narayanan registered impressive wins from theirrivals, the DMK and the Congress candidates byimpressive margins. The bypolls were necessitat-ed by the death of the DMK legislator Radhamani(Vikravandi) and the resignation of HVasanthkumar (Nanguneri) who was elected to theLok Sabha in the May 2019 general election. TheAIADMK was literally decimated by the DMK-ledOpposition Front in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.The party could win just one out of the 39 seatsin stake from the State. The AIADMK had lost 13out of the 20 seats it had held in the assembly whereby-polls were held along with the Lok Sabha elec-tion. While the AIADMK candidateMuthamilselvan defeated his DMK rivalPugazhendhi by a margin of 44, 782 votes, theparty’s V Narayanan defeated his Congress oppo-nent R Manoharan by 32, 312 votes.

,* ������0'�* C�D��� ��$����'�!"�"���������#��� �����Bihar: AsaduddinOwaisi's AIMIM onThursday tasted its maid-en electoral success inBihar. The ruling JD(U)suffered a setback in Biharmanaging to win onlyone of the four seats itcontested. Bypolls were held in five seats ofwhich RJD won two and AIMIM one. Theremaining seat was won by an Independent.

The results gave the once mighty RJD areason to smile, while Hyderabad MP Owaisi'sAIMIM gained a toehold in the state clinch-ing Kishanganj, a Muslim-dominated con-stituency. BJP rebel candidate Karnjeet Singhwon the Dharaunda seat as an Independent.

The JD(U) could win only Nathnagarwhere its candidate Laxmi Kant Mandal beat Rabia Khatun of the RJD by little over5,000 votes. PTI

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Page 8: ˆ*& ˛ +˙€¦ · slogan of “over 75 this time ... World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking to stand at the 63rd position and figured ... — Sonali Phogat — who was

The concept of critical thinking is notsomething entirely new. It has beenenshrined in our ancient heritage

and has made significant contributions tothe development of Indian philosophy. Forany concept to be accepted, its refutationand evaluation were taken into account.Reason used to be the sole means of know-ing truth and falsity. Sutarka and kutarkawere encouraged and debated. This madeour ancient seats of learning intellectual-ly far more advanced in their approach.Such critical thinking, along with itsunique ecosystem, was a fascinating expe-rience for scholars, who were attracted fromall over the world.

It is a well-known historical fact thatwhen the foreigners invaded India, one oftheir main targets were our great institu-tions, in addition to those at Takshila andNalanda. Besides impacting us political-ly, socially, culturally and economically,they left a critical void of centuries in ourintellectual thought. Later, our education-al system became a victim of the coloniallegacy of the British. Encouraging andinculcating creativity, logical thinking, rea-soning and a sense of inquisitiveness weremore or less alien to the system we inher-ited from them. The entire emphasis wason rote learning. Despite the realisationof the deficiencies in the system and mea-sures suggested by various experts andeducation commissions over the decades,change has been very slow. Even the per-centage of gross domestic product (GDP)invested in the education sector hasbeen abysmally low.

Nevertheless, change was inevitableand it became more than visible during thefirst two decades of this millennium.Today, we can compete with the bestnations in the world in areas of electron-ics, space technology, atomic energy, com-munication and digital technology — inits reach as well as penetration — besidessuch like other indicators of development.There are, however, areas of serious con-cern as these positive developments can beattributed to the success of a handful ofinstitutions while a majority of them con-tinue to lag behind.

With more than 50 per cent of India’spopulation being in the younger agegroup, we can be termed as the world’smost youthful nation. As we talk of demo-graphic dividend, we should also assess theextent we are equipping the youth to facethe world and adding to the strength of thecountry rather than converting them intoa burden. For some reason, education atall levels could not be given the priority itdeserved. It is good to see that it is nowbeing realised and rectified. Our youth haveto be strong personalities backed and devel-oped by a holistic educational system,which is capable of giving them sufficientconfidence and making them comfortablewith latest and futuristic technologies.

But universities and institutions ofhigher education being the very last rung

in the career of an individual, a suddenchange and a different pattern of educa-tion at that level may become difficult forabsorption. It is, therefore, essential that oureducation system be integrated from thefoundation stage onwards, in certain spe-cific core areas, which would encouragethinking and inculcate a sense of enquiryand inquisitiveness.

Scientific evidence shows that 80 percent of the brain is fully developed by theage of six, which indicates importance ofchild care in an appropriate environmentwith stimulus to the brain. Here lies theimportance of school as well as pre-school education. Emphasis on foundation-al literacy and numeracy at the school aswell as pre-school levels is known to aidhealthy growth of the cerebral cortex, anarea associated with such skills within thebrain. In this context, the most importantfactor is the teacher, who has to be ade-quately equipped with the latest pedagog-ical techniques so as to ensure appropri-ate development of the cognitive skillsamong youngsters in a sensitive manner.Accordingly, text books and exercises,which encourage correlation of conceptsbesides thinking and questioning, will haveto be designed.

A report published by the InternationalLabour Organisation (ILO) recently foundthat India had a disproportionately lownumber of teachers for school-going chil-dren. While we do need quantity, the qual-ity of teachers is perhaps even moreimportant. The ILO report also revealedthat elementary school teachers have a crit-ical impact on the earning capacity of stu-dents and, hence, the economy. Recent pro-nouncements, that we have a large num-ber of educated unemployables, may be aresult of poor quality of teachers and ped-

agogy. Hence, the need is for a new looktowards training of teachers.

Simultaneously, it has been observedthat at higher levels, following an approachwhich integrates arts, linguistics, andhumanities besides mathematics along withscience and technology, leads to a deeperlearning. This promotes critical thinkingand one of higher order. Besides, it alsoleads to the development of problem-solv-ing and communication skills. Such a holis-tic approach for acquisition of knowledgewould be relevant in present-day contextas well as future.

Work being done at the PMF for theacquisition of knowledge shows that mem-orising is like carrying the burden of books;it does not have much meaning and doesnot even add to one’s knowledge unless onecomprehends the content. In today’s class-rooms, so much of information is alreadyavailable with the students that they do notexpect it from the teachers. Instead of“what”, they need to be explained “why”and “how”, which can satisfy curiosity ofstudents and stimulate critical thinking.

The link between critical thinking andeducation is obvious as one cannot learnwithout thinking well. For comprehensionof content and clarity of concepts, it is,therefore, important that students ask ques-tions. This is where lies the importance ofcritical thinking. It consists of techniquesof sound and systematic reasoning as wellas arguments and counter arguments,besides elements of deductive logic. Workbooks are now available, which help pro-mote critical thinking skills. Irrespective ofthe subject, the usefulness of such tech-niques has been tried and tested byexperts in the stimulation of the brain.

In the contemporary scenario, theimportance of critical thinking in view of

the draft National Educational Policy(NEP) has also drawn inspiration.Appropriate modifications to the curricu-lum have been suggested. According toresearch findings of a US-based partner-ship for 21st century, communication, col-laboration, creativity and critical thinking,known as the 4Cs, will be the core skillsrequired for 21st century education. It hasbeen established that at the college and uni-versity levels, habits of mind, such as analy-sis, interpretation, precision and accuracy,problem-solving and logical reasoning canbe as important as content knowledge itself.

At the same time, the question beforeus is that with the advent of the fourthindustrial revolution and the arrival of theInternet of Things and ArtificialIntelligence (AI), what would be thefuture of critical thinking? In fact, arestructured curriculum with focus on 21stcentury skills would be even more impor-tant for a comfortable interface with thefourth industrial revolution technologies.Emphasis on collaboration and team workwould still be essential so that in the hi-techfuture, one can think critically as well asindependently and not become entirelysubservient to AI. The draft NEP, with ref-erence to school education, has made nomention either of a reduction in the weightof school bags or any happiness classes. Onthe positive side, it has alluded to the use-fulness and introduced the concept of crit-ical thinking in higher education. It is tobe hoped that the final NEP will take intoaccount and focus on some of the issuesmentioned here so as to improve the lot ofour youth, so that they can significantlycontribute towards nation building.

(The writer is a former Governor anda Senior advisor at the Pranab MukherjeeFoundation)

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Sir — Former Indian cricketcaptain Saurav Ganguly isamong the highly successfulcricketers India has had. He hasplayed in different forms, for-mats and positions. Dada’spresence on the field used togive cricket lovers the maxi-mum opportunity to not justenjoy the game but also behopeful of a possible victory ofthe Indian side. His boundarieswere a treat to the eyes as heplayed with charm and verve.

Now, his journey as theBoard of Control for Cricket inIndia (BCCI) chief is set to takea different turn altogether.Helming the cricket body’saffairs, it is to be hoped thatGanguly will provide a greatleadership to the gentleman’sgame, find the best talent fromacross the country and make theIndian cricket team the best inthe world. He is, in fact, the per-son Indian cricket administra-tion needs now. He has rightlysaid that he is in a positionwhere he can make a change.Our best wishes to him.

Manzar ImamNew Delhi

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Sir — It is heartening to knowthat villagers of Sivaganga dis-trict , Tamil Nadu, haveabstained themselves frombursting firecrackers duringDeepavali for several decades

now. For over half a century,the inhabitants have not fireda single cracker because oftheir love for the birds in theVettangudi bird sanctuary.

Deafening sounds, daz-zling lights and fireworks mayenthrall people but they are noless than a nightmare for birds.

At a time when more andmore people are advocating aban on crackers, we mustappreciate the consistentefforts of the people ofSivaganga for celebrating asoundless Diwali.

Tushar AnandPatna

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Sir — After 61 days in jail, theSupreme Court’s Bench saidthat the findings of the DelhiHigh Court, which had deniedformer Finance Minister PChidambaram bail on theground that the likelihood ofhim influencing witnesses can-not be ruled out, were not sub-stantiated by any material evi-dence and they were just a gen-eralised apprehension. The UNInternational Covenant on Civiland Political Rights clearly statesone is innocent until provenguilty. India is not an exception.One wonders why the CentralBureau of Investigation (CBI) isunable to produce a charge-sheet even after three years.How can one forget the way inwhich Chidambaram was arrest-ed by the CBI? Why then is theinvestigating authority unable toproduce a proper chargesheet inthe case even after two months?Why does it have to bow downto the political bosses?

Bidyut Chatterjee Faridabad

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The goal of crafting a $5 trillion economyby 2025 is only achievable if rural Indiagrows by 12 per cent per annum. In spite

of increasing urbanisation in the last decade, therural economy still contributes about 46 per centto the national income. Once a predominantlyagrarian economy, now rural India is more diver-sified, with the non-agricultural sector contribut-ing to about two-thirds of household incomes.

More than half of the manufacturing and amajority of micro, small and medium enterpris-es (MSMEs) are also operating from rural India.The reports of farmers’ distress, slow growth inrural wage rates and high unemployment fig-ures indicate that the recent economic slowdownhas affected rural parts of the country more thanurban areas. However, the recent heavy-liftingon providing fiscal stimulus with corporate taxcuts, repo rate slashes and cheaper loans to facil-itate recovery in the beleaguered propertymarket and automobile sector, mainly benefiturban India, rather than rural India, as the econ-omy there is mainly informal and transmissionis not direct.

India’s economic recovery depends ontranslating fiscal stimulus measures to enhancedconsumption; investment; employment; outputand exports in the rural areas. A good recov-ery strategy is identification of growth enginesand concentration on a few actionable points tofuel them. The four engines of rural economicgrowth are consumption, investment, employ-ment and exports.

Consumption growth at the bottom of thepyramid: The Indian economy is consumer-dri-ven, with consumption contributing about 60per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).As per a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reporttitled Going for Gold, that was released inFebruary, the consumer market in the countrywas estimated at �110 lakh crore in 2018.

Domestic consumption has grown at the rateof 13 per cent in the last decade and althoughit slowed recently due to the deceleration in theeconomy, it is expected to grow much faster inthe near future, given the bottom of the pyra-mid population transition from the low-incometo the middle-income class.

Putting cash into the hands of these lowerand middle-income families, together compris-ing 76 per cent of the households in the coun-try, is one of the surest ways to pump-prime theeconomy, with large multiplier effects spread-ing across all sectors.

As a quick solution, priority must be givento removing implementation bottlenecks ofdirect money transfer schemes. For instance, thePrime Minister Kisan scheme, which aimed totransfer �6,000 each to 14.6 crore farmers (whoare mainly lower-middle income households)has been able to reach just 7.35 crore farmersas of now. The low-income households can betargetted through more emphasis on MGNRE-GA (Mahatma Gandhi National RuralEmployment Guarantee Act), as about 7.7crore households are actively seeking employ-ment under this, as per the latest figures of theWorld Economic Forum, 2019 India report.

Investment: Pumping money into invest-ments in rural infrastructure not only createsdurable assets in the long run to make the econ-

omy efficient, it also creates consumptiondemand in the short run, by putting money inthe hands of construction workers, painters, elec-tricians, masons and so on. As the private sec-tor is reluctant to invest in rural areas due to lowprofitability, it should come directly fromGovernment investments in construction ofrural roads and housing in terms of the viabil-ity gap in funding and housing subsidies.

Public investment in rural infrastructure willin turn attract private investment with theexpected increased profitability being a majorincentive. Budget announcements like theplanned �100 lakh crore investment in infra-structure need to be placed on the fast track, withspecial geographical targets within rural areas.A big push in investment in rural infrastructure,even at the cost of a higher fiscal deficit, is worthtaking to thwart the negative sentiment in theprivate sector. This investment as a share of theGDP has reduced to 29 per cent now from about40 per cent in 2008. In addition to public financ-ing, the Government has to provide a congenialatmosphere and tax holidays in rural areas toattract private investment.

Employment intensive sectors: The ruraleconomy is facing a serious structural problem.Although the rural non-farm sector’s contribu-tion to the rural NDP (Net Domestic Product)increased over the last two decades, its contri-bution to employment creation is slow. The shareof the non-farm sector in rural NDP was 61 percent, but its share in the rural workforce was just36 per cent, as per the latest Central StatisticalOrganisation (CSO) data. This resulted inincreased unemployment among the youth. Thisstructural problem has to be addressed with taxsops for employment-intensive industries inrural areas. The Government should identify andpromote at least one employment-intensive sec-tor like textiles, leather, jewellery and food prod-ucts in each of the 731 districts in cluster modeto provide necessary land, infrastructure andlogistics to attract the private sector to come andinvest and create employment.

Apart from the large quantum of jobs thatneed to be created (eight million per year,

(according to the World Bank), another impor-tant aspect is the quality of jobs. A majority ofthe people working in agriculture have low pro-ductivity, resulting in low incomes compared tonon-farm incomes. There is an urgent need tocreate more productive jobs and ensure skilldevelopment to truly benefit from India’sdemographic dividend.

Export push: Most of the SMEs, livestockand horticulture sectors have a huge exportgrowth potential, which also provides high pro-ductive employment for the rural youth and gen-erates more profits for the private sector. Thesesectors also provide quality employment andabsorb educated youth with higher labour pro-ductivity in the post-harvest units, food process-ing industry and export sectors.

There is a need for identification of bottle-necks in the export of these products — with afocus on logistics, food safety, global standardsand quality issues — on a war footing to takeadvantage of the vacuum created in the globalsupply chain by the trade war between Americaand China. India needs to achieve 19-20 per centexport growth to be able to achieve its $5 tril-lion economy dream.

This means the country has to export a tril-lion dollar worth of goods and services in thenext five years. Although it is a big goal, but thisis doable if consistent efforts are made to makethe economy competitive.

India contributes to less than 2 per cent ofthe world’s exports despite its 18 per cent sharein the global population and the added advan-tage of the largest youth population in the world.India has to use this population dividend toincrease its economic power and to make itexport-competitive through the use of technol-ogy, enhanced productivity and upgraded valuechains.

Overall, the Government and the privatesector have to re-focus on rural areas to get outof the current economic slowdown and push thenext decade of growth.

(The writer is agricultural economist, ICAR-Central Research Institute for DrylandAgriculture)

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To make a country of 130 billionpeople a happy and healthynation is a mammoth task that

requires access to a robust healthcaresystem, education, employment andindustrial infrastructure. The otherelement which is very vital in today’sscenario is the state of our environ-ment and the stability of naturalresources like water, air and soil.

A few of the NDA Government’spro-poor initiatives like the PradhanMantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY),better known as Ayushman Bharat(AB), the Ujjwala Yojana for provid-ing LPG connections and the SwachhBharat Mission (SBM) under whichindividual toilets were built, made a

lasting pro-Government impressionon the minds of poor families in bothurban and rural areas before the 2019general elections. The result was thatthe NDA Government returned topower at the Centre with a thumpingmajority.

While speaking on the firstanniversary of the AB-PMJAY onOctober 1, the Prime Minister flaggedit as an employment generation toolfor the next five years as it is expect-ed to create around 11 lakh jobs forthe youth. The Government’s endeav-our is to make AB-PMJAY the besthealthcare scheme in the world withthe registration of 46 lakh people. Outof this number, around 50,000 peo-ple have availed of the benefits of thescheme outside their home districts.

There are two facets to thescheme. The first is to bring morethan 10 crore poor and vulnerablefamilies within its ambit by providinga cover of �5 lakh per family per yearfor secondary and tertiary hospitali-sation. Second, the Government isgoing to upgrade 1.5 lakh primaryhealth centers by 2022 so that theneedy can get comprehensive and

quality healthcare. Though, the Government’s

endeavours to provide affordablehealthcare to the needy are laudable,the success of any welfare programmedepends largely on the role played bythe bureaucracy and in this case, thehonesty of private hospitals and ben-efit seekers.

In the past, many such welfareschemes were ruined by graft and thebest example of this is the deep-root-ed corruption that unfolded in almostall States in the National HealthMission. A huge amount of moneywas looted by the medical fraternityand the bureaucracy all over the coun-try.

Another case in point is thecomplete collapse of the health andsanitary infrastructure in Uttarakhanddue to the arrogance and lackadaisi-cal attitude of Government officersand public representatives. The prob-lem there is of systemic failure. Firstbureaucratic guidelines run counterto the objectives of the scheme andbury the patient in mounds of redtape. Second, is the insensitivity andlack of integrity among the doctors,

senior Government officers andMinisters sitting in the State capital.

For instance, recently, a tubercu-losis patient from Uttarkashi districtbecame critical and started vomitingblood. He was rushed to a hospital inVikas Nagar but it did not have theinfrastructure to handle the case. Hewas then taken to the Doon Hospital,which is part of the GovernmentDoon Medical College. Unfortunately,he could not be admitted there as theEmergency as well as Intensive CareUnit (ICU) were both overflowingwith dengue patients.

He was then rushed to theIndresh Hospital and Medical College,which is a private hospital but wasturned away due to the crowd ofdengue patients at the facility. At thisjuncture, his hapless family informedme and I contacted the AgricultureMinister of Uttarakhand SubodhUniyal, who arranged the man’sadmission to the Doon Hospital’semergency section late in the night.As he continued vomiting blood, thehospital staff told his family that heneeded intensive care as he was crit-ical.

He was taken to Max Hospitalwhere some preliminary treatmentwas done.

But when the family was toldabout the cost of the treatment, theyapproached me for advice. I contact-ed Vijay Dhasmana, Vice Chancellorof Jolly Grant Medical College, andapprised him of the situation.Consequently, the patient was admit-ted to a special room in the Jolly GrantHospital, despite it being full ofdengue patients also.

Shockingly, the AB-PMJAY cardwas not accepted by any of the privatehospitals in Dehradun, including theJolly Grant Medical College. Thehospital staff told me that as per theUttarakhand Government’s guide-lines (this is a BJP-ruled State), theyare not authorised to accept the cardunless the patient was referred by aGovernment hospital.

My question is, why the redtapism in emergency cases? Allempanelled hospitals should be freeto admit patients because it is onlythen that the objectives of the AB-PMJAY scheme will be achieved.

The Government could better use

the medical bureaucracy to monitorthe effectiveness of the scheme.

Also, this incident happenedbecause the health and sanitary infra-structure of the State has collapsedresulting in a dengue epidemic. Thehospitals are full of dengue patientsand many people have died. This hashappened due to the negligence of allagencies concerned and the chief cul-prit is the Dehradun MunicipalCorporation.

Its sanitation employees don’tcollect garbage on a regular basis, thestaff remains on strike on one pretextor the other and senior officers do notbother.

Hopefully, the Central and Stateauthorities concerned will take noteof this and revamp the healthcare sys-tem so that the beneficiaries of AB-PMJAY do not have to rush from pil-lar to post to get treatment. There isalso a crucial need to control the bur-geoning population of the country asno amount of welfare schemes andfacilities will be sufficient unless thenumbers are effectively controlled.

(The writer is a retired civil servant)

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Page 10: ˆ*& ˛ +˙€¦ · slogan of “over 75 this time ... World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking to stand at the 63rd position and figured ... — Sonali Phogat — who was

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India climbed 14 rungs in theWorld Bank’s Ease of Doing

Business ranking to stand at the63rd position and figuredamong the world’s top 10 mostimproved countries for thethird consecutive time on theback of faster bankruptcy res-olution and issuance of con-struction permits.

The rise, which comes onthe back of a 23-spot jump lastyear, underscored the reformistcredentials of the Modi gov-ernment that is hard pitchingIndia as an alternative invest-ment destination to China.

“India put in place fournew business reforms duringthe past year and earned a placein among the world’s top tenimprovers for the third con-secutive year,” the World Banksaid in its ‘Doing Business2020’ report released onThursday.

The improvement in rank-

ings is a shot in the arm for thegovernment that is battling toengineer a quick turnaround inthe economy buffeted by weakconsumer demand and mutedinvestment activity. GDPgrowth had slumped to a six-year low of 5 per cent in theApril-June quarter.

In five years of the Modigovernment, India’s rankinghas improved 79 places —from 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2019,which is a record for a majoreconomy. It has improved itsrank by 67 positions in the lastthree years.

Prime Minister NarendraModi had last year set a targetto break into top-50 countriesby 2020.

The ranking is topped byNew Zealand. India’s rankingwas behind Asian peersSingapore (2nd ranked), HongKong (3rd), Korea (5th),Malaysia (12th) and China(31st). The US was placed 6thon the list.

India figured among thetop 10 performers on the list forthe third time in a row. Indiais the only large country thisyear to have achieved such asignificant shift.

The economies thatshowed the most notableimprovement were SaudiArabia, Jordan, Togo, Bahrain,Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait,China, India and Nigeria,according to the World Bank.

World Bank said India stilllagged in areas such as enforc-ing contracts where it wasranked 163rd and registering

property where it was 154th.Meanwhile, Finance

Minister Nirmala Sitharamansaid some categories such asresolving insolvency, con-struction permits and tradingacross borders, have shown alot of improvement.

She, however, said theranking based on a survey oftwo cities (Delhi and Mumbai)in such a vast and diversenation may not be adequatelyrepresentative and so in thecoming year Kolkata andBengaluru will be added to thelist of surveyed cities.

“In starting business, Indiahas improved just one rank(from 137 to 136) and startingbusiness is very critical in acycle of an industry. I willmake sure that the (finance)ministry and other govern-ment departments will makeenough effort to improve onthat scale as much as we havedone on insolvency,” she toldreporters in New Delhi.

India saw the biggest jumpin ‘resolving insolvency’ cate-gory, to 52nd rank from 108th,on the back of implementationof the Insolvency andBankruptcy Code, while itsranking improved substantial-ly in ‘construction permits’ (to27th from 52nd) and ‘tradingacross corders’ (to 68th from80th).

On registering propertyand paying taxes, India wasranked a lowly 154th and 115threspectively, though these wereimprovements over the previ-ous year’s ranks of 166 and 121.

The finance minister saidthere can be an improvementin registering property andgetting electricity connectionswhich are done at the statelevel.

Promising to remove anyhitches, she also said the gov-ernment is working on improv-ing the GST regime.

Compared with last year,India’s ranking deteriorated on

two parameters — protectingminority investors (from 7th to13th position) and getting elec-tricity (from 22nd to 25th) —and remained unchanged in‘enforcing contracts’ at 163rd.

“Despite some challengesin the implementation of thereform - particularly regardingcourt operations and the appli-cation of the law by multiplestakeholders - the number ofreorganizations in India hasbeen gradually increasing. As a

result, reorganization hasbecome the most likely proce-dure for viable companies asmeasured by Doing Business,increasing the overall recoveryrate from 27 to 72 cents on the dollar,” the World Banksaid.

Prime Minister NarendraModi’s ‘Make in India’ cam-paign focused on attractingforeign investment, boostingthe private sector, manufac-turing in particular, and

enhancing the country’s over-all competitiveness, the WorldBank said in its report.

While the competition tomove up the ladder wouldincrease and become muchtougher, India is on the track tobe within top 50 of the Ease ofDoing business in the next yearor two, Simeon Djankov,Director of DevelopmentEconomics at the World Bank,told PTI in an interview inWashington.

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Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman on Thursday

said efforts will be made to fur-ther simplify Goods andServices Tax, and expressedhope that it will help in furtherimproving India’s ranking inthe World Bank’s ease of doingbusiness index.

India has jumped 14 placesto rank 63rd out of 190 coun-tries in the World Bank’s DoingBusiness 2020 report onaccount of significant improve-ment in resolving insolvencyand obtaining constructionpermits.

The other parameterswhere the country has donewell include trading acrossborders, registering property,paying taxes, getting electric-ity connections and starting abusiness.

However, the improve-ment in the remaining threeparameters — getting credit,protecting minority investors,enforcing contracts — are notimpressive. Sitharaman saidthat the effort will be now toachieve the target to reachingwithin top 50 rank.

She added that as there isjust one rank improvement inthe parameter of starting a

business, enough effort will bemade to improve on this scale,as it is a “very critical” in acycle of an industry.

“In GST, it is an ongoingprocess to understand wherethe difficulties are...We arealso looking at what were theglitches in using online filingof returns. So, GST is an ongo-ing process in improving. Evennow for the next meeting, asand when it happens, we wantto make sure that several stepsare taken to simplify compli-ance,” she said.

On income tax front, shesaid: “At this stage, there maynot be much to say”.

Washington: India needs afresh set of “bold reforms” inthe next three to four years ifit wants to be among the top50 countries with ease ofdoing business, a top WorldBank official said.

The official’s remarkscame as India jumped 14places to take the 63rd posi-tion on the World Bank’s easeof doing business ranking.

With the current reformagenda that the bank is watch-ing like Insolvency andBanking Code, enforcing con-tracts, tax reforms being com-pleted next year or the yearafter, India can get within thetop 50, Simeon Djankov said.

PTI

New Delhi: India’s jump to the63rd position on the WorldBank’s ease of doing businessranking is a testimony to theremarkable improvement in thecountry’s business climate owingto the series of reforms under-taken by the Narendra Modi-ledgovernment, industry bodiesand experts said on Thursday.

Enthused by India’s 14-notch jump on the WorldBank’s ‘Doing Business’ report,industry leaders as well as star-tups said it will prove to be ashot in the arm for the coun-try by attracting foreign invest-ments, augmenting businessopportunities. PTI

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German luxury carmakerAudi today took the wraps

off the eight generation of itsexecutive sedan, the A6 inIndia. The carmaker whichhas suffered from the negativefallout of the “Dieselgate” scamthat engulfed its parentVolkswagen has only launchedthe vehicle in a 250hp petrolvariant featuring a ‘mildhybrid’s that improves fueleconomy. Speaking at thelaunch alongside Virat Kohli,Indian cricket team captainand Audi India brand ambas-sador, Balbir Dhillon, AudiIndia’s new Head, said that carpenetration is still very low inIndia at just 22 cars per 1000and thus he expected demandto pick up in the next fewmonths even for the luxurysince there was still a lot ofpent-up demand.

The new A6 goes up

against the Mercedes Benz E-Class and BMW 5 series whichwere both launched last year,and the range for the newvehicle starts at �54.2 lakhs. Itfeatures several new digitaltechnologies including touch-screen controls, a new Audi

telematics app and new lughttechnology both at the frontand behind. Speaking at thelaunch, Virat Kohli describedhimself as an Audi fanboy andsaid that it was great to be asso-ciated with a brand that he loved.

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Industry body COAI onThursday expressed deep

disappointment over SC rulingon telecom revenue definition,and termed it the last straw incontributing to the sector’sfinancial distress.

The Cellular Operators’Association of India (COAI)said in a statement that itremains to be seen whether theindustry — which is reelingunder a daunting debt of about�4 lakh crore and is in dire financial straits — willbe able to recover from this setback.

“The Supreme Court’sjudgment is the last straw incontributing to financial dis-tress and it remains to be seenwhether the industry will beable to recover from this set-back.

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Troubles continue to mountfor Infosys as US market

regulator SEC has initiated aprobe on whistleblower com-plaints that alleged “unethicalpractices” by top managementof the Bengaluru-based ITmajor.

Back home, the Securitiesand Exchange Board of India(Sebi) has also sought addi-tional information from thecompany, while the NationalFinancial Reporting Authority

(NFRA) — which is part of theCorporate Affairs Ministry —has been asked to look into thematter. Leading exchange BSEon Wednesday also askedInfosys to explain why it didnot make a disclosure about thewhistleblower complaint.

“The company has been intouch with the Securities andExchange Commission (SEC)regarding the anonymouswhistleblower complaints(anonymous complaints) andhas learnt that the SEC has ini-tiated an investigation into this

matter. The company willcooperate with the SEC’s inves-tigation,” Infosys said.

Also, Sebi has requestedadditional information fromthe company concerning theanonymous complaints, andInfosys will provide the infor-mation as per its request, itadded.

Infosys said it is also “awareof a securities class action law-suit” that has been filed againstthe company in federal court inthe US, based on the gener-alised allegations in the anony-

mous complaints. “The com-pany intends to defend itselfvigorously in such a lawsuit,” itadded.

US-based Rosen Law Firmhad previously said it waspreparing a class action lawsuitto recover losses suffered byInfosys investors in the US.

Following reports ofwhistleblower allegations onMonday, Infosys had informedstock exchanges of havingreceived anonymous whistle-blower complaints alleging cer-tain unethical practices.

New Delhi: After a day of nochange, the prices of petrol anddiesel fell again on Thursday, anIndian Oil Corporation (IOC)data revealed. The oil market-ing companies reported nochange in the price of petroland diesel on Wednesday.

According to the IOC web-site, the price of petrol fell on

Thursday in Delhi, Kolkata,Mumbai and Chennai to �73.17 per litre,�75.82, � 78.78, and �75.99,respectively. The diesel pricesalso fell in the four major met-ropolitan cities. It fell to �66.06per litre in Delhi, �68.42 inKolkata, �69.24 in Mumbai,and �69.77 in Chennai. IANS

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Driven by rising spend onGoogle, Facebook and

Amazon, global ad investmentwill grow six per cent to $656billion in 2020, according to aforecast by market researchfirm WARC.

The report, however, alsowarns of the possibility of aglobal recession next year.

“Weak macroeconomicindices, waning business con-fidence and rising geopoliticaltensions have increased thepossibility of a recession in2020,” James McDonald,Managing Editor, WARC Data,said in a statement.

“Within this climate, ourforecast of six percent growthin global advertising invest-ment may seem optimistic,but these projections are in linewith those from the IMF (InternationalMonetary Fund) andEuromonitor for GDP andconsumer spend, respectively,”McDonald added.

With global growth of sixper cent, 2020 is expected to seea marked uptick from the 2.5per cent growth in 2019 but isdown on the 7.3 per cent riserecorded last year, according to the report titled“WARC’s Global AdvertisingTrends”.

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ITC on Thursday reported a37.06 per cent rise in con-

solidated net profit at �4,173.72crore for the second quarterended September 30, drivenmainly by paperboards, hotels and FMCG-others business.

The company had posted anet profit of �3,045.07 crore inJuly-September quarter a yearago, the FMCG major said ina regulatory filing.

Its net sales rose 6.16 percent to �12,759.44 crore duringthe quarter under review from�12,018.61 crore in the corre-

sponding quarter a year ago.“Gross revenue for the

quarter stood at �11,750.16crore, representing a growth of6 per cent, driven mainly bypaperboards, hotels andFMCG-others (excluding thelifestyle retailing business),” ITC said in a statement.

Total expenses for thequarter under review rose 4 percent to �8,455.16 crore from�8,129.19 crore a year ago.

Revenue from FMCG busi-ness grew 5.78 per cent to�9,138.13 crore from �8,638.60crore in the September quartera year ago.

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Benchmark indices endedmarginally lower after achoppy session on

Thursday, dragged by IT andbank counters, amid mixedresults for the ruling BJP instate polls. Lacklustre macro-economic cues and an adversejudicial ruling against the tele-com sector also sapped riskappetite, brokers said.

After gyrating over 486points, the 30-share BSE Sensexsettled 38.44 points, or 0.10 percent, lower at 39,020.39. Thebroader NSE Nifty slipped 21.50points, or 0.19 per cent, to11,582.60. Telecom and bankstocks came under selling pres-sure after the Supreme Courtallowed the Centre to recoverdues of about �92,000 crorefrom telcos, increasing thefinancial burden on them andtheir lenders. Interestingly,Bharti Airtel emerged as the topgainer in the Sensex pack, spurt-ing 3.31 per cent.

Other winners were RIL,HCL Tech, Asian Paints, TataSteel and Tata Motors, whichrose up to 3.12 per cent.

Top losers included YesBank, SBI and IndusInd Bankthat cracked up to 5.76 per cent.

Shares of Infosys also ended2.36 per cent lower after Sebiand the US Securities and

Exchange Commission initiat-ed probe against the firm fol-lowing whistleblower com-plaints.

Meanwhile, India jumped14 places to the 63rd position onthe World Bank’s ease of doingbusiness rankings, riding high

on the government’s flagship‘Make in India’ scheme andother reforms attracting foreigninvestment.

However, Fitch Ratingsslashed India’s GDP growthforecast in the current fiscal to5.5 per cent, saying a largecredit squeeze emanating fromshadow banks has pushed eco-nomic growth to a six-year low.

“Looking at the stress in thebalance sheets of telecom play-ers, it seems that governmentwould likely step in and comeout with a practical solutioneither by waiving the penaltyand interest or else extendingpayment over a period of time.If not, then banks will be star-ing at more incremental stressin their loan books from the sec-tor,” said Paras Bothra, presidentof Equity Research, AshikaStock Broking.

Sectorally, BSE bankex,finance and telecom indicesfell up to 1.16 per cent. Energy,realty, consumer durables andhealhcare indices gained up to1.57 per cent. Broader BSEmidcap and smallcap indices fellup to 0.39 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, boursesin Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoulended on a positive note, whilethose in Shanghai settled in thered. Equites in Europe weretrading higher in their respec-tive early deals.

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Fitch Ratings on Thursdayslashed India’s GDP growth

forecast in the current fiscal to5.5 per cent saying a largecredit squeeze emanating fromshadow banks has pushed eco-nomic growth to a six year low.Fitch, which had in June thisyear put India’s GDP growth at6.6 per cent for the fiscal yearthat began in April 2019, saidthe recent government mea-sures to boost economy includ-ing a cut in corporate tax rateswill gradually nudge growth.

The projection is lowerthan 6.1 per cent that theReserve Bank of India (RBI) hadforecast in early October. GDPexpansion will pick up to 6.2 percent in the next financial year(2020-21) and to 6.7 per cent inthe year after, Fitch said.

The Indian economy decel-erated for the fifth consecutivequarter in April-June, withGDP expanding by a meagre 5per cent, down from 8 per centrecorded a year earlier. This isthe lowest growth outturn since2013.

“Weakness has been fairlybroad-based, with both domes-tic spending and externaldemand losing momentum,”Fitch said. “The Indian econ-omy is being held back by alarge squeeze in credit avail-ability emanating from non-bank financial companies

(NBFCs).”Earlier this month,

Moody’s Investors Serviceslashed its 2019-20 GDPgrowth forecast for India to 5.8per cent from 6.2 per cent ear-lier, saying the economy wasexperiencing a pronouncedslowdown which is partly relat-ed to long-lasting factors.

Moody’s had attributed thedeceleration to an investment-led slowdown that has broad-ened into consumption, drivenby financial stress among ruralhouseholds and weak job cre-ation and said the growth willpick up to 6.6 per cent in 2020-21 and to around 7 per centover the medium term.

Last month, the AsianDevelopment Bank and theOrganisation of EconomicCooperation and Developmentlowered 2019-20 growth fore-cast for India by 50 basis pointsand 1.3 percentage points to 6.5per cent and 5.9 per cent,respectively. Rating agencyStandard & Poor’s has also low-ered its India growth forecast to6.3 per cent from 7.1 per cent.

On October 15, theInternational Monetary Fund(IMF) slashed India’s GDPgrowth rate projections to 6.1per cent from the 7 per cent inJuly, while World Bank had itsestimate for India’s GDPgrowth for 2019-20 to 6 percent.

Fitch in a note on Indian

economy said that assumingthe sluggish pace of lending ismaintained throughout theyear, total new lending willamount to only 6.6 per cent ofGDP in the fiscal year 2019-2020, down from 9.5 per centin the previous fiscal year.

While an array of factorshave contributed to the Indianslowdown - including a down-turn in world trade, Fitchbelieves that the severe creditsqueeze has taken a heavy toll.

“NBFCs have faced asevere tightening of fundingconditions over the past yearand a half. They have in turnsharply reduced the supply ofcredit to the commercial sector.The auto and real estate sectorshave been particularly hit byNBFC credit rationing,” it said.

Data from the RBI showthat the flow of new lendingfrom non-bank sources wasdown 60 per cent year-on-yearbetween April and September.In contrast, banks’ lending hasheld up well in recent months,mitigating some of the overallcredit supply shortfall.However, bank lending couldnot prevent a sizeable creditcrunch in the first half of 2019.

Fitch said the success of theinflation-targeting frameworkadopted by the RBI in 2016 inreducing inflation has beenassociated with sharply risingreal lending interest rates sincemid-2018.

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���� ������ ��� �����=>?4�� %�����������&#���� ��� �� � ��@>4;1��New Delhi (PTI): The mutual fund industry has added 3.45 lakhinvestor accounts in September, taking the total tally to 8.56 crore,amid volatile market conditions. In comparison, the industry hadadded 4.8 lakh new folios in August and more than 10 lakh foliosin July. Folios are numbers designated to individual investoraccounts. An investor can have multiple folios.

According to data from Association of Mutual Funds in India,the number of folios with 44 fund houses rose to 8,56,26,244 atthe end of September, from 8,52,81,222 at the end of August, reg-istering a gain of 3.45 lakh folios. The total folio count stood at 8.48crore in July, 8.38 crore in June, 8.32 crore in May and 8.27 crorein April. Market experts said the addition of folios suggested thatinvestors were undeterred by the market volatility. Besides, it indi-cated their understanding of the market risks associated in the mutu-al fund schemes.

The number of folios under the equity and equity-linked sav-ing schemes rose by 2 lakh to 6.18 crore at September-end as com-pared to 6.16 crore at the end of the preceding month. The debtoriented schemes folios count went up by more than 92,000 to 67.67lakh. Within the debt category, liquid funds continued to top thechart in terms of number of folios at 17 lakh, followed by low dura-tion fund at 9.25 lakh.

Overall, mutual fund schemes witnessed a redemption of �1.52lakh crore last month as compared to an inflow of �1.02 lakh crorein August. The massive redemptions could be attributed to debt-oriented schemes, which saw an outflow of �1.58 lakh crore. Besides,equity mutual funds witnessed a net inflow of around �6,489 crorein September, the lowest in the last four months, due to profit-book-ing by investors after a rally in markets following a reduction incorporate tax.

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The country’s largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India

on Thursday reported 38.99per cent decline in consolidat-ed net profit at �1,391.1 crorein the second quarter endedSeptember 30.

The company had posted aconsolidated net profit of�2,280.2 crore in the sameperiod a year ago.

Revenue from operationsin the second quarter stood at�16,123.2 crore as against�21,553.7 crore in the year-agoperiod, down 25.19 per cent,MSI said in a regulatory filing.

Sales volume during thequarter under review stood at3,38,317 units, down 30.2 percent as compared with sameperiod last fiscal.

Net profit for the first halfof the fiscal ended Septemberwas at �2,767.9 crore as against�4,295.3 crore, down 35.55 percent.

Revenue from operationsin the first half stood at �34,862crore as compared to �43,367.5crore in the correspondingperiod last fiscal.

Sales volume in April-September period stood at7,40,911 units, down 24 percent as against same period of2018-19.

Script Open High Low LTPAUBANK 695.95 697.75 661.00 679.85BHARTIARTL 355.05 376.25 325.60 372.45INFY 650.70 653.10 632.05 635.40YESBANK 51.20 52.60 47.45 48.30SBIN 277.00 277.65 248.80 262.70IBULHSGFIN 210.00 218.75 196.15 200.00MARUTI 7450.00 7480.00 7275.00 7390.40RELIANCE 1400.05 1441.00 1386.75 1436.25ICICIBANK 456.50 458.80 451.05 455.10INFRATEL 257.15 258.00 234.55 237.45BPCL 526.15 526.50 501.00 513.95RBLBANK 264.40 266.70 246.80 251.90IDEA 5.61 5.67 4.10 4.33RNAM 343.90 354.90 304.35 318.90TCS 2075.10 2099.00 2062.00 2082.20HDFCBANK 1248.00 1254.55 1227.50 1235.95BIOCON 249.90 250.40 241.35 244.95TATAMOTORS 133.50 135.10 130.70 133.45INDUSINDBK 1332.15 1346.70 1272.25 1282.20LT 1459.00 1466.00 1426.80 1431.90TATASTEEL 356.00 362.05 353.85 359.85AXISBANK 717.60 722.80 702.20 707.45GRASIM 743.10 743.10 668.15 706.55HCLTECH 1160.00 1160.00 1111.90 1118.55JSWSTEEL 214.70 224.85 214.70 223.05AUROPHARMA 478.00 483.20 466.70 469.15JINDALSTEL 101.55 103.90 99.05 102.85NCC 56.30 56.70 53.25 53.55UJJIVAN 300.65 303.75 288.30 289.00BANKBARODA 92.95 93.55 88.00 89.90TATAELXSI 720.00 761.95 718.05 756.45PEL 1755.50 1759.00 1670.00 1723.70ASHOKLEY 75.50 77.20 74.80 75.85ADANIPORTS 399.95 401.35 393.65 399.35TV18BRDCST 23.55 24.25 22.50 22.85HDFC 2146.00 2174.00 2141.10 2143.00BAJFINANCE 4050.05 4081.45 4014.10 4024.25ITC 252.80 253.95 248.05 248.95HDFCAMC 3118.20 3140.00 2981.05 3000.65PIIND 1375.00 1448.80 1375.00 1425.90ZENSARTECH 186.35 191.05 185.20 188.55BHEL 54.00 54.30 50.50 51.25EICHERMOT 20555.00 21188.00 20518.15 21080.95SANOFI 6119.00 6219.00 6119.00 6180.00VEDL 148.00 148.55 145.10 145.65DLF 175.25 180.45 174.75 176.50ESCORTS 656.30 667.30 643.00 648.90RAJESHEXPO 683.00 683.00 671.50 674.35JUBLFOOD 1521.00 1553.85 1521.00 1541.95ADANIENT 175.50 180.00 173.95 179.05SAIL 35.40 35.75 34.20 34.35NBCC 36.05 36.25 34.25 34.45HEROMOTOCO 2725.00 2746.80 2652.00 2696.50TORNTPHARM 1685.05 1797.00 1685.05 1766.95ZEEL 244.00 245.60 236.15 237.45SUNPHARMA 404.30 407.60 398.65 406.00DIVISLAB 1737.00 1769.65 1737.00 1767.00HDFCLIFE 610.00 619.10 608.20 615.75POLYCAB 803.25 837.00 795.00 823.00BAJAJ-AUTO 3185.00 3200.95 3145.90 3169.00COALINDIA 208.00 209.80 204.45 205.20KOTAKBANK 1616.00 1629.50 1598.00 1613.40BANDHANBNK 558.40 586.00 558.40 570.45NIITTECH 1495.00 1529.95 1426.00 1491.85INDIGO 1632.00 1690.80 1632.00 1668.00TITAN 1362.00 1379.00 1351.00 1378.00STAR 342.20 359.00 342.20 344.45BAJAJFINSV 8128.30 8200.00 8045.00 8090.00HINDUNILVR 2137.35 2149.60 2118.65 2144.50TECHM 730.10 744.80 724.90 726.10HINDPETRO 306.30 309.00 298.10 299.80ULTRACEMCO 4251.00 4329.15 4248.05 4314.55MANAPPURAM 158.70 169.40 157.30 165.05FEDERALBNK 84.00 84.00 80.40 81.00MCX 1176.00 1184.95 1123.50 1127.55UPL 600.30 606.00 595.05 598.05BEL 114.95 116.25 112.70 116.00ASIANPAINT 1777.00 1794.80 1753.90 1790.75MOTHERSUMI 109.50 111.80 107.85 111.45VOLTAS 710.40 721.00 696.15 706.70CUMMINSIND 579.50 590.20 538.75 546.25ATUL 4225.00 4320.00 4188.40 4310.35PNB 61.50 61.85 59.20 59.75CASTROLIND 135.40 145.45 135.35 144.55NTPC 121.80 121.80 119.30 120.05L&TFH 88.10 90.10 87.50 88.40CANBK 194.70 194.70 184.30 187.60ICICIGI 1323.45 1350.00 1321.65 1349.90BANKINDIA 67.10 67.20 63.10 64.20M&MFIN 336.50 341.55 325.30 331.40WIPRO 254.35 254.35 249.05 249.55TATAMTRDVR 59.50 60.50 58.60 59.75HEG 1026.00 1049.00 991.05 997.40HAVELLS 664.00 678.15 655.10 670.00PAGEIND 22550.00 23030.10 22550.00 22900.00SPICEJET 117.45 118.00 114.00 114.55INDIANB 142.00 142.00 121.00 123.70TVSMOTOR 462.95 467.40 450.65 460.20GRAPHITE 295.50 302.50 285.10 286.55SCI 55.75 56.00 52.40 52.95GRANULES 117.50 125.80 117.00 124.35HEXAWARE 368.00 368.00 342.05 346.25ONGC 140.10 142.10 139.05 140.70COLPAL 1560.35 1568.90 1542.00 1564.80TATAPOWER 61.90 61.90 58.55 59.10MRF 64463.50 64660.00 63162.05 63275.00INDIACEM 83.05 83.25 80.75 81.95BHARATFORG 455.40 470.55 450.00 451.10IDFCFIRSTB 39.80 40.25 38.25 38.85

CEATLTD 973.75 990.00 926.00 945.20IOC 144.95 144.95 141.00 141.35ISEC 310.50 351.50 310.50 335.10LTTS 1509.85 1511.00 1442.00 1451.75M&M 591.90 595.00 579.00 582.50LICHSGFIN 378.45 378.45 366.25 370.75MPHASIS 925.10 962.00 830.00 932.90BRITANNIA 3307.90 3340.60 3261.10 3298.70JUSTDIAL 647.40 660.65 640.00 642.50GODREJPROP 950.85 992.50 942.60 988.60UNIONBANK 54.10 54.40 50.50 51.45PVR 1800.00 1854.95 1790.80 1798.80ADANIPOWER 62.45 64.50 62.40 63.40PFC 105.00 105.30 103.20 104.35DRREDDY 2828.00 2850.00 2770.20 2825.60SBILIFE 989.10 992.60 955.00 969.30HINDALCO 186.00 186.45 180.65 181.30GAIL 128.80 129.20 123.30 123.90NESTLEIND 15022.00 15022.00 14626.00 14677.20HONAUT 28964.30 29000.00 28828.40 29000.00CONCOR 612.00 613.30 582.85 586.45NAVINFLUOR 789.80 833.00 783.95 826.60ABBOTINDIA 10906.35 11200.00 10906.05 11169.00BALKRISIND 838.00 853.00 831.90 835.35AMBUJACEM 198.45 199.05 194.50 197.40JUBILANT 573.75 578.20 545.40 569.60GLENMARK 302.50 314.60 300.95 302.95DMART 1905.00 1917.70 1878.30 1892.00LTI 1644.95 1669.30 1642.70 1659.25DISHTV 13.00 13.30 10.75 11.10ACC 1526.00 1539.90 1504.50 1520.00SRTRANSFIN 1084.30 1092.25 1062.00 1069.70SIEMENS 1651.10 1678.65 1624.00 1634.70COROMANDEL 453.90 472.20 453.90 466.00SUNTV 519.40 523.50 514.00 520.30PIDILITIND 1347.70 1367.00 1332.85 1363.05DELTACORP 197.90 198.95 192.50 196.35GMRINFRA 19.95 20.45 19.60 19.90POWERGRID 206.80 207.05 203.55 203.55TATAGLOBAL 278.05 284.90 278.05 280.70IRB 84.90 84.90 78.25 82.35STRTECH 149.00 149.20 143.20 145.30ORIENTELEC 184.45 190.30 178.50 185.50INOXLEISUR 359.00 386.45 357.65 365.30REDINGTON 119.90 122.15 112.20 113.35PNBHOUSING 459.85 470.00 440.50 446.70BATAINDIA 1784.00 1792.20 1771.50 1786.00GODREJCP 718.00 725.00 707.60 714.00

VIPIND 486.00 494.15 482.20 492.95BBTC 1217.45 1235.75 1178.60 1185.45CIPLA 457.00 457.00 444.00 447.65RCF 52.50 55.25 50.55 54.60PCJEWELLER 35.65 35.75 33.80 34.40IGL 366.85 377.35 366.30 374.35RECLTD 138.00 138.10 133.25 134.15RAMCOCEM 753.60 759.75 740.00 759.25IBREALEST 50.95 51.75 49.45 49.85DABUR 473.45 478.75 464.55 469.15MGL 952.20 959.85 940.70 947.00VENKYS 1820.00 1824.65 1747.00 1753.65PETRONET 269.20 270.70 266.00 269.05BOMDYEING 79.50 81.20 77.55 78.50MARICO 394.85 398.00 387.45 394.65INFIBEAM 43.50 46.75 43.50 45.70BERGEPAINT 493.60 494.40 486.35 487.55MINDTREE 721.50 723.25 704.05 715.10GNFC 200.65 210.00 199.50 209.10ADANIGREEN 87.90 87.90 85.20 86.10CRISIL 1378.00 1403.00 1345.00 1351.10LUPIN 736.50 741.30 723.80 729.25OMAXE 197.95 197.95 185.65 185.80MUTHOOTFIN 687.15 687.15 667.00 669.75SUVEN 288.05 298.90 283.65 293.70ABCAPITAL 83.20 84.00 79.60 80.90ADANITRANS 264.00 279.50 260.00 265.35AVANTI 455.00 460.10 436.70 445.95ICICIPRULI 487.00 487.00 477.30 479.80

BEML 959.35 961.80 931.95 942.85DEEPAKNI 344.80 347.80 336.10 342.90FORTIS 137.55 140.65 136.00 138.70EQUITAS 101.10 101.20 97.00 97.65SUNTECK 415.00 415.00 397.25 409.80JAICORPLTD 85.25 86.00 82.00 83.90BAJAJCON 247.00 250.00 233.75 238.20RITES 290.05 291.80 274.50 276.35SRF 2895.00 2895.00 2835.85 2846.70CADILAHC 246.30 250.35 243.70 243.90APOLLOHOSP 1513.00 1540.80 1513.00 1535.00NMDC 108.00 108.20 105.05 105.35NATIONALUM 43.80 44.00 42.50 43.15FORCEMOT 1052.30 1087.80 1050.00 1062.90RELINFRA 27.70 27.70 27.70 27.70SHREECEM 19900.00 20443.95 19872.00 20310.95TATACHEM 618.00 621.00 607.70 612.65PFIZER 3270.00 3421.00 3266.90 3393.30BALRAMCHIN 160.05 161.70 155.70 158.10TORNTPOWER 280.70 281.80 274.25 278.40ITDC 350.00 355.20 339.05 341.00EDELWEISS 94.45 94.45 87.15 87.15RAYMOND 599.00 612.25 594.10 600.50WOCKPHARMA 269.95 276.00 264.00 268.60TRENT 527.00 549.00 513.00 538.15EXIDEIND 183.70 183.70 175.20 176.20UBL 1351.00 1355.30 1326.00 1352.65COCHINSHIP 343.45 360.00 341.40 357.40ADANIGAS 147.00 148.45 145.15 145.60RVNL 24.25 24.25 23.40 23.60SPARC 130.25 130.40 125.20 127.50KANSAINER 537.00 539.80 520.00 538.70GICRE 250.00 255.05 242.75 248.45BOSCHLTD 14650.00 14822.10 14486.80 14500.00CHOLAFIN 290.00 297.50 286.35 291.00KAJARIACER 563.00 563.00 543.00 547.95DBL 405.55 419.75 402.00 406.30GPPL 79.50 82.00 78.55 80.00NOCIL 116.75 116.90 109.95 110.30ASTRAZEN 2542.90 2573.20 2434.00 2454.60IPCALAB 945.25 983.30 944.55 969.55APOLLOTYRE 184.15 184.40 180.85 181.85ORIENTBANK 51.80 52.00 50.10 50.25HIMATSEIDE 158.55 166.00 155.00 157.00IBVENTURES 96.90 99.40 93.60 94.65GSFC 79.50 80.60 77.40 78.35GHCL 223.00 224.50 212.00 213.05DCMSHRIRAM 399.45 411.15 387.70 394.45GLAXO 1500.00 1512.85 1459.80 1472.10NAUKRI 2371.25 2371.25 2300.40 2313.55PRESTIGE 311.40 319.40 301.50 304.25PARAGMILK 157.50 157.65 145.60 148.60AIAENG 1762.90 1762.90 1644.00 1647.65OBEROIRLTY 496.00 502.60 487.05 499.453MINDIA 21500.00 21887.45 21214.00 21214.00MFSL 433.00 433.00 414.35 415.85HFCL 17.05 17.35 16.95 17.05ABFRL 209.45 209.45 202.00 202.85HINDZINC 210.05 214.55 210.05 211.45GILLETTE 7888.35 8060.00 7808.95 7810.00DCBBANK 181.05 181.95 175.05 176.50SWANENERGY 106.10 106.90 104.00 104.10THYROCARE 520.45 585.70 517.35 557.00LALPATHLAB 1461.10 1500.00 1460.00 1490.00HINDCOPPER 39.45 39.70 37.10 38.00WELCORP 145.45 146.85 143.20 143.70AMARAJABAT 662.10 668.00 653.15 656.10IDFC 32.80 32.80 32.00 32.35RCOM 0.67 0.70 0.67 0.68PHILIPCARB 123.75 125.00 119.95 120.35RPOWER 3.66 3.66 3.66 3.66NIACL 136.05 137.20 128.00 128.60SUZLON 2.71 2.79 2.58 2.60BAJAJHLDNG 3680.00 3734.00 3657.85 3658.00OIL 169.60 169.60 163.40 167.50ENGINERSIN 108.95 110.60 108.75 109.70MOTILALOFS 620.00 623.00 601.00 615.50FSL 51.50 51.50 49.40 50.25HUDCO 35.60 35.90 34.85 35.40LEMONTREE 56.35 61.05 55.95 58.45DCAL 141.20 145.75 127.55 131.05TIMKEN 790.00 794.15 767.55 767.55CANFINHOME 390.25 393.00 385.10 385.50CROMPTON 264.70 265.20 251.10 254.50GAYAPROJ 123.05 129.00 123.05 129.00JISLJALEQS 11.95 11.95 11.60 11.95GODREJIND 405.00 407.95 400.00 402.95AAVAS 1665.00 1670.90 1621.90 1625.00DEEPAKFERT 98.45 104.00 98.45 100.60ITI 83.35 83.75 80.65 81.15JBCHEPHARM 358.40 358.80 321.70 331.40JAMNAAUTO 42.75 44.00 41.90 42.40BLUESTARCO 872.00 872.20 821.00 832.25DALBHARAT 815.00 842.40 806.10 809.75PGHL 4355.00 4438.00 4355.00 4416.35ASTRAL 1140.00 1145.65 1130.00 1130.00ABB 1547.70 1547.70 1507.65 1517.70GALAXYSURF 1515.15 1549.00 1513.05 1535.85THOMASCOOK 116.50 119.15 115.05 116.00CYIENT 425.95 425.95 400.00 406.10IDBI 31.00 31.00 30.30 30.45IRCON 410.90 417.10 400.00 404.30COFFEEDAY 31.00 31.00 29.00 29.00PTC 56.65 56.70 55.45 55.85WELSPUNIND 53.55 54.35 52.50 53.05GICHSGFIN 164.05 168.00 160.00 160.00SOUTHBANK 10.40 10.46 10.21 10.25EMAMILTD 336.20 338.40 331.00 336.00AJANTPHARM 1009.10 1012.70 987.30 993.75RAIN 94.80 94.80 92.10 92.70

KTKBANK 72.00 73.40 71.40 73.15VGUARD 242.55 246.50 238.70 240.00MASFIN 742.75 764.00 715.00 725.00MOIL 144.00 145.85 141.10 142.35INDHOTEL 151.00 152.00 149.80 151.75IEX 146.30 146.30 136.95 143.00MMTC 18.10 18.70 17.60 17.70RADICO 314.95 317.25 309.45 311.50JSWENERGY 68.00 68.20 66.70 68.00METROPOLIS 1350.00 1370.00 1328.15 1341.55GODFRYPHLP 1087.15 1090.00 1062.00 1072.30GESHIP* 309.70 316.85 303.30 315.10WESTLIFE 341.00 351.40 341.00 346.00SHANKARA 331.40 331.45 331.00 331.45CCL 217.00 219.75 196.95 199.20GUJGAS 184.00 184.00 176.70 179.70SUDARSCHEM 388.00 388.00 375.00 376.80MAHLIFE 400.90 412.60 400.90 410.45GSKCONS 9087.05 9087.05 8978.00 9062.00GODREJAGRO 504.00 514.10 498.50 504.90RALLIS 165.00 166.90 161.00 162.95ENDURANCE 1004.40 1025.75 989.50 1002.65WHIRLPOOL 2158.35 2181.00 2154.70 2155.00ZYDUSWELL 1701.00 1755.00 1676.80 1694.00LAXMIMACH 3718.95 3783.45 3615.00 3633.00ADVENZYMES 159.45 161.85 159.10 160.10JSLHISAR 64.80 64.90 63.10 63.10KPRMILL 617.20 632.20 606.85 628.30UFLEX 196.30 201.20 193.45 195.30CHAMBLFERT 160.20 160.50 156.35 158.80CUB 210.00 210.20 207.65 207.65TATACOFFEE 77.40 79.10 76.95 77.40NILKAMAL 1245.00 1245.00 1194.00 1198.85MAHINDCIE 145.20 151.00 142.40 148.70GSPL 215.00 215.00 208.00 208.70LINDEINDIA 534.90 546.95 534.20 539.40SHK 147.95 147.95 136.35 138.85FINEORG 1929.35 1950.00 1901.00 1910.00SUNDRMFAST 463.75 475.00 460.00 472.90ASHOKA 108.35 108.70 103.50 103.50WABAG 196.20 198.45 193.35 195.55IBULISL 61.50 63.60 60.90 60.90SYNGENE 334.45 334.45 326.35 330.00PERSISTENT 610.00 621.80 603.30 614.50JKTYRE 66.30 67.50 65.55 66.10MINDAIND 356.00 372.00 353.95 371.40TVTODAY 323.45 324.90 313.25 321.15HATHWAY 20.15 21.15 19.20 21.10FINOLEXIND 609.70 614.95 599.00 602.25VBL 626.70 643.00 623.70 628.60JINDALSAW 86.15 88.25 85.40 85.60BALMLAWRIE 182.10 184.05 181.90 183.00BAJAJELEC 401.95 401.95 381.00 382.30NHPC 23.60 23.95 23.30 23.35NESCO 560.00 571.65 558.00 561.00GREAVESCOT 133.05 133.85 131.05 133.55TEJASNET 73.90 76.20 69.00 73.55KEI 540.95 542.00 535.45 538.30ESSELPRO 117.35 117.35 107.40 109.80J&KBANK 32.40 32.40 30.75 30.95SOBHA 436.55 447.60 430.25 432.00NATCOPHARM 576.25 586.90 575.05 583.00TIINDIA 370.00 373.00 369.15 370.00JMFINANCIL 74.65 74.65 73.05 74.25JPASSOCIAT 2.50 2.50 2.25 2.28INTELLECT 186.20 186.55 179.80 181.25MRPL 50.50 50.65 49.10 49.20IFCI 7.34 7.34 6.76 7.17CARERATING 543.00 560.00 540.00 544.55MEGH 51.40 51.40 49.75 50.00DHFL 18.50 18.60 18.45 18.45TRIDENT 59.00 59.70 58.75 59.05SONATSOFTW 310.10 315.70 309.00 310.85RELCAPITAL 15.50 15.50 15.50 15.50SJVN 24.90 25.05 24.65 24.90HSCL 75.00 75.95 74.00 74.15FRETAIL 386.45 391.10 380.15 380.50KEC 272.05 273.90 270.40 270.45RELAXO 529.20 541.85 529.00 541.85SHRIRAMCIT 1338.00 1338.00 1322.65 1322.65AKZOINDIA 2000.00 2042.90 1991.00 2000.00FLFL 403.00 410.00 392.70 405.70NLCINDIA 57.40 57.45 56.00 57.15SUPREMEIND 1204.95 1220.50 1204.95 1211.05PGHH 11975.00 12025.45 11909.00 11958.75TTKPRESTIG 6139.90 6262.00 6051.75 6128.95PHOENIXLTD 730.00 735.55 728.00 733.35CREDITACC 631.40 634.00 622.40 624.75TEAMLEASE 3009.20 3063.65 2964.70 3011.30BIRLACORPN 570.70 593.00 570.70 574.00VINATIORGA 2151.00 2153.85 2105.20 2115.90SADBHAV 140.00 140.00 134.70 136.45HEIDELBERG 188.05 189.60 186.50 189.40CAPPL 379.05 383.00 375.70 379.10FCONSUMER 24.25 24.30 23.30 23.45GUJALKALI 456.25 457.90 444.00 444.00ALKEM 1967.30 1975.00 1960.00 1975.00VARROC 489.75 490.00 455.00 457.15TNPL 188.15 190.80 185.70 185.70OFSS 3047.25 3073.20 3040.20 3073.20ALBK 26.30 26.40 25.55 25.90TATAINVEST 810.00 819.50 803.35 815.00SCHAEFFLER 4034.75 4034.75 3969.00 4000.00SYNDIBANK 25.35 25.35 24.65 24.70VMART 2000.00 2006.10 1930.25 1932.25MINDACORP 82.00 85.75 82.00 83.55PRSMJOHNSN 77.75 77.80 74.50 74.75NH 241.10 246.00 241.00 246.00THERMAX 1149.65 1150.00 1102.00 1105.35BASF 973.40 975.60 958.95 959.50

SCHNEIDER 71.40 72.50 70.35 70.75JCHAC 2090.00 2090.00 1950.35 1966.55JYOTHYLAB 177.35 177.65 172.00 174.30IFBIND 702.95 720.35 677.25 699.10FINCABLES 376.00 383.25 374.50 376.75EIDPARRY 167.35 169.40 165.05 167.65ALLCARGO 101.00 101.85 99.00 99.00KRBL 230.50 230.85 226.75 230.50CHENNPETRO 155.75 160.10 155.75 156.40MAHLOG 362.00 363.80 355.00 361.45DHANUKA 291.10 294.95 290.80 290.80MAHABANK 11.55 11.55 10.60 10.72MAHSCOOTER 4472.00 4611.00 4470.00 4589.50BLISSGVS 140.00 140.00 137.10 138.60ITDCEM 40.95 43.60 40.95 42.60

STARCEMENT 94.25 95.00 93.55 94.95ASTERDM 125.00 125.45 124.10 125.10ORIENTCEM 81.25 81.25 76.00 78.00UCOBANK 11.98 12.00 11.61 11.72HAL 712.05 721.40 712.00 717.90DBCORP 157.95 157.95 155.25 156.95INOXWIND 36.20 36.90 34.50 34.85AEGISLOG 176.20 177.65 169.00 170.45SHOPERSTOP 386.00 389.70 375.50 375.50SHILPAMED 269.00 280.90 269.00 277.00HERITGFOOD 319.15 321.05 310.00 312.10CENTRUM 23.00 23.05 22.50 22.95NETWORK18 22.90 22.90 21.45 21.65TATAMETALI 591.00 591.00 564.90 572.20BAYERCROP 3375.00 3421.70 3327.55 3340.00APLLTD 545.00 551.00 531.45 546.95NBVENTURES 74.65 75.60 72.75 74.40CENTRALBK 17.00 17.55 16.95 17.10TAKE 112.65 112.85 110.10 110.80RATNAMANI 915.00 915.20 908.65 910.00APLAPOLLO 1415.00 1415.00 1393.05 1393.90CENTURYPLY 165.00 166.00 161.30 161.45VSTIND 3925.00 3957.00 3888.55 3888.55JSL 34.65 34.65 33.65 33.90BDL 294.00 297.90 290.10 290.10TIMETECHNO 60.00 60.50 58.20 58.30UNITEDBNK 7.43 7.46 7.00 7.10CGPOWER 14.80 14.80 14.50 14.72CORPBANK 15.00 15.00 14.40 14.40ERIS 420.00 434.95 418.00 429.55INDOSTAR 183.25 192.00 181.15 182.00SREINFRA 7.61 8.30 7.61 8.09SKFINDIA 2157.60 2162.10 2139.65 2140.75JKLAKSHMI 288.45 289.75 281.00 282.80IOB 9.80 9.85 9.69 9.70TCNSBRANDS 728.70 741.35 714.30 741.35GEPIL 702.50 713.30 695.20 705.75APARINDS 509.00 529.15 501.00 523.00KALPATPOWR 452.75 452.75 445.00 446.90ANDHRABANK 16.45 16.55 16.05 16.20QUESS 466.00 473.60 461.00 461.00REPCOHOME 285.50 288.50 276.05 276.05LAURUSLABS 352.65 352.65 344.65 344.65SYMPHONY 1231.85 1240.50 1215.45 1221.70MAXINDIA 66.35 66.55 65.75 66.05BLUEDART 2361.20 2366.35 2288.00 2296.00JKCEMENT 1113.75 1118.10 1113.05 1113.10TVSSRICHAK 1798.00 1823.50 1771.80 1784.00WABCOINDIA 6127.15 6140.00 6085.00 6140.00SOLARINDS 1050.15 1080.00 1050.15 1060.00CERA 2576.25 2583.60 2525.25 2535.65GMDCLTD 58.85 58.85 57.55 58.00FDC 158.05 161.55 158.05 159.75MAGMA 52.45 53.00 50.90 51.10CHOLAHLDNG 460.00 460.00 451.00 452.00SUPRAJIT 182.00 186.30 180.40 180.75GET&D 186.80 186.80 182.25 182.50CARBORUNIV 307.85 307.85 299.15 299.60SIS 930.00 948.50 924.20 940.10LAKSHVILAS 16.30 16.30 16.30 16.30SOMANYCERA 192.25 194.75 188.10 189.50EIHOTEL 175.15 179.00 174.35 174.35GDL 94.15 94.15 93.00 93.25JSWHL 2762.00 2781.75 2750.00 2774.15GRINDWELL 602.30 605.40 600.00 605.30JAGRAN 58.00 58.20 55.25 56.70ECLERX 424.20 431.90 424.20 424.25GULFOILLUB 875.45 875.45 851.00 851.00MHRIL 220.00 220.00 214.40 215.50LAOPALA 174.60 176.25 173.85 174.45VTL 918.00 918.00 903.00 903.00KNRCON 228.00 228.00 223.20 224.60CHALET 339.05 339.05 339.00 339.00MAHSEAMLES 353.65 358.15 353.45 353.45PNCINFRA 172.15 175.25 170.90 174.75LUXIND 1234.00 1234.00 1198.55 1210.00EVEREADY 45.60 45.60 45.60 45.60IIFL 117.65 120.90 117.00 117.70

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SCRIP OPEN HIgh LOW LTP CHANGENIFTY 50 11661.65 11679.60 11534.65 11582.60 -21.50BHARTIARTL 353.95 376.35 325.50 372.00 11.65RELIANCE 1401.00 1441.40 1386.55 1434.60 42.20EICHERMOT 20640.00 21188.55 20521.15 21129.00 607.80HCLTECH 1155.10 1159.00 1110.50 1118.90 23.75TITAN 1364.00 1379.00 1350.65 1377.00 28.35ASIANPAINT 1778.00 1794.95 1753.05 1792.25 24.85TATAMOTORS 133.00 135.15 130.50 134.15 1.50ULTRACEMCO 4265.00 4330.00 4243.75 4292.95 41.65TATASTEEL 356.05 362.00 353.80 359.65 3.45JSWSTEEL 215.20 225.10 215.20 224.05 1.35ADANIPORTS 399.00 401.45 393.35 398.30 2.20HINDUNILVR 2141.00 2150.00 2118.05 2143.90 10.65UPL 600.00 606.50 595.10 599.95 2.95TCS 2084.00 2099.00 2061.30 2078.35 8.25LT 1460.00 1467.00 1426.35 1435.95 4.15BAJAJ-AUTO 3165.00 3201.00 3143.45 3171.40 8.75BAJAJFINSV 8129.95 8200.00 8035.00 8089.00 18.05SUNPHARMA 405.00 407.75 398.70 406.10 0.90HDFC 2150.00 2174.20 2141.35 2146.00 3.05KOTAKBANK 1619.90 1629.90 1597.55 1614.00 0.35DRREDDY 2839.75 2849.95 2770.00 2825.20 -1.50TECHM 730.00 745.00 724.40 725.55 -1.05VEDL 147.00 148.60 145.00 146.00 -0.25BAJFINANCE 4062.00 4080.00 4012.55 4029.80 -8.55ICICIBANK 457.40 459.00 451.00 453.85 -1.25BRITANNIA 3312.00 3342.00 3260.25 3285.55 -9.15MARUTI 7460.00 7475.00 7271.00 7399.40 -40.85ONGC 141.90 142.20 139.05 140.95 -0.95HDFCBANK 1248.00 1254.15 1226.35 1233.05 -8.55NTPC 122.00 122.00 119.20 120.20 -0.85HEROMOTOCO2730.00 2749.75 2650.00 2691.50 -21.40ITC 252.60 254.00 247.95 249.05 -2.00AXISBANK 719.95 723.00 701.55 708.85 -6.00POWERGRID 206.40 207.25 203.60 204.20 -2.05CIPLA 455.00 456.00 443.55 447.95 -6.30M&M 592.00 595.50 578.60 582.00 -9.85ZEEL 245.00 245.50 236.30 237.95 -4.15WIPRO 253.90 254.20 249.20 249.75 -4.60COALINDIA 210.00 210.00 204.40 205.00 -3.80NESTLEIND 15019.00 15048.00 14625.85 14665.00 -318.00IOC 144.65 144.95 141.00 141.35 -3.15HINDALCO 186.25 186.65 180.70 181.00 -4.10INFY 650.00 653.20 632.00 635.00 -15.60BPCL 525.90 525.90 500.65 512.90 -14.20INDUSINDBK 1340.20 1347.85 1272.00 1285.00 -47.60GAIL 129.10 129.10 123.35 123.85 -4.80SBIN 276.00 277.65 248.65 263.15 -12.30YESBANK 51.20 52.55 47.45 48.45 -2.75GRASIM 743.00 743.00 663.45 695.85 -47.30INFRATEL 255.00 258.30 234.40 238.65 -20.70

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SCRIP OPEN HIgh LOW LTP CHANGENIFTY NEXT 50 28220.75 28291.60 27932.95 28045.25 -95.20MOTHERSUMI 109.15 111.80 107.85 111.30 3.70PIDILITIND 1335.00 1367.95 1331.50 1365.80 40.55SHREECEM 19888.50 20449.00 19791.90 20370.00 605.05ICICIGI 1322.90 1350.00 1319.45 1349.60 37.80BANDHANBNK 561.00 585.80 559.50 571.00 15.30DIVISLAB 1736.00 1779.05 1735.35 1766.80 31.45PAGEIND 22530.00 23098.95 22522.90 22914.50 391.60UBL 1338.50 1356.70 1324.00 1352.35 19.35L&TFH 88.00 90.15 87.50 88.85 1.20HDFCLIFE 609.90 618.90 607.60 615.65 7.80DLF 176.05 180.45 174.70 176.55 1.60PGHH 11905.00 12000.00 11850.00 11989.20 84.05HINDZINC 210.00 214.90 210.00 211.40 1.40ASHOKLEY 75.40 77.25 74.75 75.70 0.40GICRE 250.00 255.20 242.55 248.35 1.30INDIGO 1658.70 1692.35 1637.45 1661.65 7.10MARICO 395.80 398.75 387.15 395.35 1.60OFSS 3069.70 3080.00 3040.00 3065.65 10.35COLPAL 1565.00 1569.65 1540.95 1564.05 3.85PETRONET 270.00 270.95 266.05 269.75 0.55PFC 105.00 105.40 103.15 104.60 0.15BAJAJHLDNG 3662.00 3734.00 3650.00 3666.65 4.10BERGEPAINT 491.35 494.60 486.25 488.90 0.55AMBUJACEM 198.00 199.45 194.50 196.85 0.05PEL 1755.00 1759.80 1668.55 1720.90 0.15DMART 1911.10 1918.90 1878.20 1899.00 -1.75HAVELLS 660.00 678.65 655.00 671.05 -2.10GODREJCP 718.00 725.80 707.55 712.70 -2.70DABUR 472.05 479.00 464.30 469.75 -2.00ACC 1536.00 1539.85 1504.30 1519.35 -6.85BOSCHLTD 14620.05 14900.00 14500.00 14519.55 -81.60LUPIN 736.50 741.70 723.65 730.65 -5.50NHPC 23.60 23.95 23.25 23.40 -0.20SRTRANSFIN 1086.00 1093.75 1060.00 1067.60 -9.95ICICIPRULI 486.00 488.80 477.00 479.90 -5.30AUROPHARMA 479.05 483.00 466.45 470.05 -6.00CADILAHC 245.90 250.35 243.50 244.70 -3.15NMDC 107.85 108.00 105.00 105.50 -1.70MCDOWELL-N 621.50 624.80 606.20 609.70 -10.35SBILIFE 991.40 993.95 954.65 967.60 -18.35IBULHSGFIN 210.00 219.00 196.05 201.70 -4.45SIEMENS 1673.50 1680.95 1623.00 1633.00 -40.20PNB 61.60 61.85 59.15 59.80 -1.50BANKBARODA 92.70 93.60 87.95 90.00 -2.45HDFCAMC 3130.00 3139.00 2985.00 2997.80 -88.25HINDPETRO 306.00 309.50 298.15 299.25 -9.45CONCOR 609.00 613.80 582.85 585.20 -27.85NIACL 136.65 138.00 128.00 128.30 -6.25BIOCON 249.60 250.90 241.20 244.75 -13.55IDEA 5.60 5.65 4.10 4.20 -1.45

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London: The 39 people founddead in a truck in Britain wereChinese nationals, Britishmedia outlets reported onThursday, citing sources.

The victims were discov-ered in a container on theback of a truck in Grays, eastof London, on Wednesday,shortly after arriving by ferryfrom Belgium.

The local Essex Policeforce, which is working withimmigration officials, said their initial priority was to try to identify the vic-tims, thought to be 38 adults and one teenager.

The truck was movedWednesday to a more securelocation at the nearby Tilbury docks so thebodies could be removed.

Essex Police and theChinese embassy in Londondid not respond to requests forcomment.

In 2000, the bodies of 58clandestine Chinese immi-grants were discovered in aDutch truck at the southeastern English port ofDover. Two people survived. AFP

Qamishli (Syria): Kurdishforces in northeastern Syria leftseveral positions along thelong border with TurkeyThursday, complying with adeal that sees Damascus,Ankara and Moscow carve uptheir now-defunct autonomousregion.

Russian forces have startedpatrols along the flashpointborder, filling the vacuum leftby a US troop withdrawal thateffectively handed back a thirdof the country to the Moscow-backed regime ofPresident Bashar al-Assad.

US President DonaldTrump has praised the agree-ment reached in Sochi byTurkey and Russia and rejoicedthat US personnel were leaving the “long blood-stained sand” of Syria,leaving just a residual contin-gent behind “where they havethe oil”.

The deal signed in theBlack Sea resort by Syria’s twomain foreign brokers givesKurdish forces until Tuesday towithdraw to a line 30 kilometres (19 miles) from theborder. AFP

Helsinki:The likelihood of the EUextending the UK’s Brexit deadline“looks good”, after which Britainshould put forward a candidate for theEuropean Commission, its incomingpresident said on Thursday.

“The question of granting anextension, that looks very good,” EUpresident-elect Ursula von der Leyen

told reporters during a visit toHelsinki.

EU member states on Wednesdaybacked a plan to postpone Brexitbeyond October 31, after Britishprime minister Boris Johnson wascompelled to send an extensionrequest under a law passed by rebelMPs. AFP

Washington: Republicansbriefly brought the Democrat-led impeachment investigationto a halt when around twodozen GOP House membersstormed into a closed-doordeposition with a DefenseDepartment official.

Democrats said the movecompromised national securi-ty because some of theRepublicans took electronicdevices into a secure room.

The protest by Republicanlawmakers on Wednesday cap-tured national attention, draw-ing the focus away from the tes-timony of a top U.S. Diplomatwho told lawmakers just a dayearlier that he was toldPresident Donald Trump waswithholding military aid fromUkraine unless the country’spresident pledged to investigateDemocrats.

The maneuver delayed adeposition with Laura Cooper,a senior Defense Departmentofficial who oversees Ukrainepolicy, until mid afternoon.

The interview beganroughly five hours behindschedule, after a security checkby Capitol officials, and ended

after roughly four hours.As a series of diplomats

have been interviewed in theimpeachment probe, manyRepublicans have been silenton the president’s conduct. Butthey have been outspokenabout their disdain forDemocrats and the impeach-ment process, saying it is unfairto them even though they havebeen in the room questioningwitnesses and hearing the tes-timony.

“The members have justhad it, and they want to be ableto see and represent their con-stituents and find out what’sgoing on,” said Ohio Rep. JimJordan, the top Republican onthe House Oversight andReform panel.

That committee is one ofthree leading the investiga-tion, and its members areallowed into the closed-doorhearings.Lawmakers describeda chaotic scene. Rep. DebbieWasserman Schultz, D-Fla.,said she had just walked intothe room when the Republicanlawmakers blew past Capitolpolice officers and Democraticstaffers. AP

Brussels: Turkey is “heading inthe wrong direction” with itsincursion into Syria and its dealwith Russia to jointly patrol a“safe zone” there, US DefenseSecretary Mark Esper warnedThursday.

“Turkey put us all in a veryterrible situation” by sweepinginto northern Syria this monthto fight Kurdish militia allied

with the US in the fight againstthe Islamic State group, Espertold a conference in Brusselsahead of a NATO DefenceMinisters’ meeting. “I think theincursion’s unwarranted,” Espersaid.

The onus was on Turkey’sNATO allies to now “worktogether to strengthen our part-nership with them, and get them

on the trend back to being thestrong reliable ally of the past,” hesaid.

The issue of Turkey’s mili-tary offensive in Syria is set todominate the two-day NATOmeeting, with diplomats in theorganisation saying “frank” dis-cussions with Ankara’s repre-sentatives have already takenplace.A subsequent arrangementwith Russia to clear Kurdish mili-tia that Turkey regards as “ter-rorists” linked to the outlawedPKK group on its soil has alsoraised hackles.

Yet, while isolated in NATO,Turkey’s strategic positionbetween Europe and the MiddleEast is seen as too important tojeopardise, so the other alliancemembers have limited them-selves to criticism only.Esperdefended the US decision to pullUS forces out of northern Syria,effectively opening the path tothe Turkish operation.

“The US decision to with-draw less than 50 soldiers fromthe zone of attack was made afterit was made very clear to us thatPresident (Recep Tayyip)Erdogan made the decision tocome across the border,” he said.

US President DonaldTrump has lifted all sanctions onTurkey after Ankara agreed to apermanent ceasefire in Syria asthe American troops left the“blood stained sand”, allowingthe Russian and Turkish forcesto take over the territory con-trolled by America and theKurdish military. AFP

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Brussels: Turkey’s militaryoperation in Syria will provoke“forceful” discussion at aNATO defence ministers’meeting Thursday and Fridaybut Ankara risks little from itsallies because of its strategicposition, diplomats said.

The issue looks certain toovershadow the meeting inBrussels, with Turkey isolatedamong the 29 member statesbecause of its incursion thismonth against Kurdish fight-ers, considered “terrorists” byAnkara but which were key inthe fight against the IslamicState group in Syria.

NATO Secretary GeneralJens Stoltenberg has refused to

condemn Turkey, saying it has“legitimate security concerns”along its border with Syria.

On arrival Thursday, heconfirmed the meeting “willaddress the situation in northeast Syria” where he saida Turkey-US “ceasefire” accordstruck last week had reduced fighting.Diplomats, however, describedexchanges with Ankara’s representatives as “frank”.

But they admitted thatTurkey’s location at the gates ofthe Middle East and next toRussia gave it a strategic valueweightier than the objections. AFP

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London: A march planned bypro-Pakistani separatistgroups on Kashmir to coin-cide with Diwali on Sundayhas been denied permissionby the UK authorities toassemble outside the IndianHigh Commission here.

A day after PrimeMinister Boris Johnson toldMPs in the House ofCommons that any kind ofviolence during such demon-strations was “wholly unac-ceptable”, it emerged onThursday that the groupsbehind the protest will have tosteer clear of the Indian mis-sion area of Aldwych in cen-tral London.

“They will not be allowedto assemble outside the HighCommission,” a missionspokesperson confirmed.

The route of the marchwill now reportedly end up atTrafalgar Square instead, arequirement imposed due toconcerns of violence in thewake of clashes at a previousdemonstration by similargroups on August 15.

The Metropolitan Policeis yet to confirm the details ofthe restrictions, but it followedvarious interventions over thelast few days, including adiplomatic “note verbale”from the Indian HighCommission expressing safe-ty concerns.

On Wednesday,Conservative Party MP BobBlackman had raised his fearsof violence during the weekly Prime Minister’sQuestions session inParliament. PTI

Dhaka:Sixteen people includ-ing the head of a madrasawere sentenced to death by aBangladeshi court on Thursdayfor burning alive a teenagegirl student for refusing towithdraw a sexual harassmentcomplaint against him.

The gruesome murdertook place in April when a gangof killers poured kerosene over18-year-old Nusrat Jahan Rafiand set her on fire on the roofof the madrasa in the south-eastern Feni, some 162 kmsoutside the capital Dhaka.

“They (convicts) will behanged by neck until theirdeath,” Women and ChildrenRepression Prevention TribunalJudge Mamunur Rashid pro-nounced the judgement. PTI

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Gujarat is hardly the first state in Indiayou think of when you consider his-tory, culture and tourism. Sure, it

runs an impressive advertising campaignwith no less than Amitabh Bachchan pro-moting the Rann of Kutchh. It indeed grabseyeballs but it is only while driving throughthe state that you recognise its historical andcultural significance. So when Hyundaiinvited The Pioneer to participate in theGreat India Drive, the area that we weregiven to explore — Ahmedabad — was a bitpuzzling. I was disappointed since we werebeing flagged off from the Statue of Unity,which is a two-hour drive from Vadodara,hardly an ‘epic’ route.

How wrong I was! During this drive, Idiscovered so much about the state. Thistour reaffirmed the fact that driving isn’t justabout the journey, it is a voyage of discov-ery. And the Great India Drive opened myeyes to a lot about Gujarat. I hope that myjourney of discovery lives up to its name andreaches the readers.

Joined by lawyer and amateur histori-an, Talish Ray, our route discovered histo-ry, food and craftsmanship. It is wonderfulto see the way that history and modernitycan exist next to each other in India. Wewere flagged off from the Statue of Unity,the giant monolith of Sardar Vallabhbhai

Patel, India’s first Home Minister and theman who effectively formed the Union bybringing in the 500-plus princely states intothe nation. This 182-meter tall statue over-looks another engineering marvel of mod-ern India, the Sardar Sarovar Dam and it’sreservoir.

The first thing you have to understandabout Gujarat is that it has always played apivotal role in the history of the subconti-nent. The Indus Valley Civilisation existedhere and evidence of that is found in theruins of Lothal, a port city in the Gulf ofKhambhat. Goods from India were tradedto European civilisations such as the Grecianstates, Egypt, Rome and crucially thePhoenicians, the major traders of theMediterranean. The very existence of Lothalis proof that the people of Gujarat havealways been traders, thanks to the state’s vastshoreline and sheltered ports. It is by nomeans a recent occurrence. We discoveredlater that the great wealth of the Solankiempire and the Gujarat Sultanate came fromtrading. It led to the stunning architecturein the classical and medieval era.

The state got its name and identity fromthe Gurjar tribe. There is genealogical evi-dence that they moved in from Central Asiaor present-day Iran. Of course, genealogyis a very controversial path to take in today’shypersensitive times but the Gurjars did givethe state its name. The great wealth of theregion attracted immigrants and invaders formillennia, not just Turkic and Europeanones in the medieval and pre-moderntimes but also several kingdoms under theGupta clan. Although the first major‘Gujarati’ state was that of the KhichiRajputs but historians doubt that the Rajputclans were identified as such back then.

This brings us to the sites we visited,starting with Champaner. The majorremains come from pre-Mughal times,making them younger than some of theother sites. But the location, particularly thePavagadh hill, is important as it is the onlymountain for miles around, giving com-manding views all the way into the fertileplains of the Malwa region. This makes itan obvious site to build a city and garrison.The hill has had a Kali temple that has beenaround in one form or another since evenbefore recorded history. The site was firstdeveloped by the Chavda dynasty and it’sking, Vanaraj Chavda. He apparently namedthe fort after his general Champaraj,although there are sources that say that thearea got its name from the champa flowerendemic to the region. The site, as we seeit today, is from the Gujarat Sultanate andthen known as Mohammedabad. It was thecapital of the region though it was movedback to Ahmedabad before MughalEmperor Humayun sacked the city (after hisdefeat by Sher Shah Suri and the loss ofDelhi). The attack meant that the city wasabandoned and today remains as the onlyexample of a standing pre-Mughal Islamiccity in India. This allows us to see how theIslamic rulers of Gujarat incorporated theskills of the state’s master craftsmen, show-ing a continuity to sites of the SolankiEmpire three-four centuries older as well asdisplaying how grand Mughal architecture

was inspired from Gujarat which was final-ly conquered by Akbar and effectivelybecame part of India thereafter.

After visiting a strangely emptyChampaner, strange since the site is aUNESCO recognised World Heritage Site,we drove to Ahmedabad past Vadodara.Avoiding the new Expressway connectingGujarat’s two largest cities and sticking to theold highway, which is as fast and an equal-ly smooth road, the Venue’s great ride anda good music system made the three-hourdrive quite comfortable. That said, I havecome to believe that poor driving habits arewhat unify Indians, and with Gujaratbizarrely not notifying the new MotorVehicles Act, helmet compliance by twowheeler drivers was abysmal. While therewere a disconcertingly large number ofCCTV cameras across the state, both in

towns and in villages, it doesn’t seem to deterrulebreakers. Reaching late in the evening,we checked into our hotel, as the next daywas going to be a busy one.

Our second day was to take us toModhera and Patan, sites around the indus-trial city of Mehsana. Several years ago, whileworking for another publication, I had vis-ited the McCain foods factory where theCanandian company processes potatoesgrown in the region into the french fries youlove to eat at fast-food restaurants. Again,the fact that spectacular historical sites andhigh-tech factories can exist a few kilome-tres apart is something that really makesIndia unique, much more so than any othercountry in the world. Both the sites we vis-ited — Modhera Surya Mandir and the jaw-droppingly spectacular Rani Ki Vav — werebuilt during the reign of Bhimdeva, the greatSolanki king, the latter for his queenUdaymati.

While Bhimdeva was to become a greatconquering king later in his reign and theSolanki empire was to rule a swathe of west-ern India comprising parts of modernGujarat, Sindh, Maharashtra and MadhyaPradesh, his reign had an inauspicious startwith the first raid of the notorious Mahmudof Ghazni and the destruction of the firstSomnath Temple. On a side note, the colo-nial British believed that the doors of theSomnath Temple adorned Ghazni’s graveand to curry favour with Gujarati merchantsthey went to Ghazni’s gravesite, stripped thedoors and brought them back to India onlyto discover that the wood on the doors was-n’t the sandalwood that they expected butteak. These doors apparently still lie in theAgra Armoury. The entire story of that andhow Sardar Patel ordered the rebuilding ofthe Somnath Temple can be the topic ofanother story. But maybe as penance for thedestruction of the temple or simply as a showof might, Bhimdeva constructed some of themost spectacular Hindu monuments in theeleventh century C.E which have survived

The intricately constructed sites, thestepwell outside the Modhera temple with

its 108 little shrines and the stunning albeitflorid Rani Ki Vav with images of the avatarsof Vishnu are not just impressive because ofthe stonework but also because they sur-vived. The irony was that many of themasons were from lower castes and couldnot visit the temples to admire their ownwork.

Not just time but keeping in mindhuman destruction, one cannot help butpraise the Archeological Survey of India fordoing such a great job. The Rani Ki Vav inparticular, which is also a UNESCO WorldHeritage site, has been extensively andpainstakingly cleaned although maybe pro-tection for all the sites we visited from mod-ern-day humans can be improved.

In addition, while the ASI has done agreat job restoring the sites, it is extremelydifficult for visitors to find information abouttheir different aspects, particularly thoserelated to ornate ones. The technology existstoday for the ASI to make apps that canexplain individual parts of monuments tovisitors whether they are the intricate jalison the windows at Champaner’s JamiMasjid or the depictions of the avatars ofVishnu at Rani Ki Vav. Also, it might not bea bad idea to have proper cafes where visi-tors could grab a tea or a cold-drink as wellas a snack. Earlier this year, I had travelledto the Alhambra in Spain, the grand fort atGranada, the capital of Andalus the onceIslamic part of the Spanish peninsula andwhile it is impressive, coming from India,you know that there are equally good sitesin our country. In just two days I saw threeamazing sites but clearly, also, pathetic mar-keting. Putting the Rani Ki Vav on our new�100 note might make some more peoplefamiliar with it, despite the awful lilac tingeof the note but nothing prepares you for thethree-dimensional brilliance of the siteitself. But even Ahmedabad residents I met,who had travelled the world on holidays andtalked about visiting the (quite lovely)temples of Angkor, hadn’t bothered to takea two-hour drive down to see what sur-rounds them.

Day three would be Talish’s last day withus. Until now we hadn’t found a greatGujarati food place as most highway restau-rants served Punjabi food and at Patan wehad tried a quite hideous Cheese ki sabzi,with actual chunks of Amul Cheese, I kidyou not. But those who know Ahmedabadwill tell you that if you want Gujarati foodyou go to Swati Snacks. And while this chainbegan in Mumbai 60 years ago, it hasbecome a staple of Amdabadi life in the 15years it has been around in the city. ShaanJhaveri who runs the restaurant in the citytold me that the restaurant is a place wheremultiple generations can sit and enjoyfood together. After all, it is an importantpart of culture. Sure, Gujarati food as weknow it is primarily vegetarian but there isalso a vibrant eating culture in the city. Andthere is some very good ice-cream too par-ticularly at Shankar’s Ice Cream Librarywhich in the humble opinion of a sweet-toothed Bengali makes possibly the best ofthis cold dessert in the country.

Before that we had gone to the PatangVali Gali in Ahmedabad’s Jamalpur districtin the old city. This area which was devas-tated in 2002 still houses some of India’sfinest craftsmen, in this case kite makers.Unfortunately in this lane, like so many othersuch places across the country, the trade isdying out. Disinterest by the next genera-tion and being swamped by Chinese importsis killing the profession. Watching a masterkitemaker make a kite is amazing and whilethat narrow lane is not somewhere even anurban warrior like the Hyundai Venue canenter, it is a place that you must visit inAhmedabad, just like Rani Ni Hajiro near-by where you find merchants selling hand-made cloth and trinkets from all over thestate.

On the last day, I decided to bookendthe trip by visiting the site of another famousGujarati, but one who belongs to everyIndian. So much so that we all know himas the ‘Father’ of the modern nation state ofIndia. Once on the outskirts of the city, theSabarmati Ashram is now surrounded by thecity. Yet it remains an island of peace andserenity in the midst of urban chaos. It is theplace where Mahatma Gandhi spent amajority of his time from its inception in1917 and also the location from where hebegan the famous Dandi March to protestthe Salt Tax the British had imposed. Thisprotest began the steady decline of the BritishRaj. It is a place, that I believe, every Indianshould make a pilgrimage to once in theirlives. It was a great site to end the Great IndiaDrive at the home of the Greatest Indian.

Work on the SardarSarovar Dam was

begun in 1961 and the dam’sreservoir that fills in a vastarea between the Vindhyachaland Satpura ranges onlytopped out in 2017. The damis the worlds third-largestconcrete dam and the waterfrom the reservoir providesirrigation to vast swathes ofGujarat, Rajasthan andMadhya Pradesh. The Statue

of Unity of Sardar VallabhbhaiPatel was announced byNarendra Modi as ChiefMinister of Gujarat inOctober 2013. It took fiveyears to complete and wasinaugurated on October 31,2018. It is covered by 6,500unpolished bronze plates thatare expected to oxidise overtime to give it a ‘green’ looklike the Statue of Liberty inNew York harbour. The stat-

ue at a height of 182 metres(240 meters including plinth)is the tallest in the world andlikeness was designed by RamSutar. Visitors can travel inhigh-speed elevators to aheight of 135 metres andhave commanding views ofthe dam and reservoir. Anestimated 25,000-35,000 vis-itors visit the statue daily, eventhough it is two hours drivefrom Vadodara.

Both these sites were built bythe Emperor Bhimdeva, a

ruler of the Solanki empire andconsidered examples of theGolden Age of Gujarati rule in themiddle of the 11th century C.E.Even though some historiansspeculate that both sites were builtas penance for the destruction ofthe Somnath Temple by Mahmudof Ghazni early in Bhimdeva’srule. The Modhera site also has anarchaelogical museum that main-tains several of the fallen sculp-tures of gods from the pantheonas well as other carvings. The sig-nature of the site is it’s unique

stepwell with 108 shrines. TheRani Ki Vav as the name suggestswas built for (and according tolegend, by) the royal consort,Udaymati. It is one of the mostspectacular archaeological sites inIndia and by far, the most stun-ning example of a stepwell in thecountry. The walls are adornedwith sculptures of the avatars ofVishnu and other Hindu Godsand Goddesses. The site wasremarkably preser ved andremained untouched by any ofthe armies that raided the landsover the next 800 years becausethe Vav was covered by mud and

sand in what many believe wasa deliberate act. This meant thatthe site was only discoveredafter independence and fullyexcavated only in 1958. Muchrestoration work is still ongoing

and visitors do not have accessto the full site. It was declared aUNESCO World Heritage site in2014 and an image of the Vavfeatures on the reverse of thenew �100 note.

The Vintage Auto Museum located in a farmhouseon the Ahmedabad ring road is a fascinating col-

lection built up by an avid car collector and clothmerchant Pranlal Bhogilal. He acquired many vehi-cles from India’s erstwhile princely states after theolder Rajas died or when they fell on hard times fol-lowing the abolition of the privy purses. Even thoughmost of the vehicles might seem in decent condi-tion, but after Bhogilal’s demise, a few years ago,many of the cars are not in a working condition.However it is an amazing collection that any car buffwill like and includes some very rare Rolls Royce,including one in the ‘boat tail’ shape, a Hispano-Suiza extended wheelbase hunting vehicle thatbelonged to the Alwar royal family, several vintageMercedes and some stunning American vehiclesfrom the 1950’s and 1960’s that Bhogilal personal-ly used and drove.

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The only extant example ofa pre-Mughal Islamic city

that survives in India,Champaner was founded inthe 10th century by VanarajChavda. But it was only afterthe capture of Champaner byMahmud Begada in the1420’s that the city, as weknow it today, came intobeing. Mahmud renamed thecity Mohammadabad andwent on a construction spreebuilding several mosques,the four most notable onesthat survive to this day are theSheher Ki Masjid, KevadaMasjid, Nagina Masjid andthe Jami Masjid. The last isone of the most spectacularold mosques surviving in the

subcontinent. Begadaused local Hindu

and Jain artisansto build the

mos ques .The lattice

work

on the windows, the columnstructure in the prayer hallsand arches give a great ideaof how Islamic architecture inIndia evolved. The NaginaMosque on the edge of thesite with its open toppedcenotaph is particularly bril-liant. When Mughal EmperorHumayun sacked the city,several concepts were notedby his advisors. Aspects likethe lattices became centralconcepts of Mughal architec-ture as evidenced in sites likeFatehpur Sikri. Champaner-Pavagadh has several otherinteresting sites and local vil-lagers still call it home. TheSat Kaman fortification onthe Pavagadh hillside offers agreat overview of the site andalso great views of the plainsof Malwa beyond. The sitewas declared a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 2004.

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, ? ( ' � ? �Be it baking donuts, clemen-tine and almond cake or

making fennel, grapefruit andfeta salad or coastal cooking,for Irish chef Rachel Allencooking and baking are equal-ly important. Brought up inDublin, at the age of 18, Rachelleft to study at the BallymaloeCookery School. After gradu-ating she worked in thekitchens at Ballymaloe Houseand then returned to work atthe cookery school where shefound her passion in teachingand where she continues toteach each week.

Rachel recalled that themost memorable part of herjourney was meeting theQueen of England atBuckingham Palace. “Apartfrom this, the extraordinaryplaces that I have travelled forwork are also special. I love thecontribution I make towardsfood,” she added.

Rachel, celebrity chef andan author is the show presen-ter at the BBC Natural Unitand has appeared on manycookery shows. Talking abouther remarkable findings andexperiences she said, “I lovedall the different kinds of foodand producers. The varietythey offered was tremendous.Not only the food but even thescenery was breathtaking allthe way up the coast. I adoredflying over the cliffs of Moher.It was my favourite one.”

Though an Irish, Rachel isfamiliar with Indian dishestoo. In fact, she adores Indianfood. She loves making curries,

kulfi, naan, poori and chapat-tis. She explains that in kulfiyou have to boil the milk withthe cardamom and sugar forhours. Rachel agrees to the factthat India adds a lot of colour

and flavour to the global foodmap. She expresses her fascina-tion for the strong food cultureand history which our countryhas.

Despite her fascination

with the food, the chef has vis-ited India only once. Whenasked about her experience shesaid, “I went to Kolkata, NewDelhi and Mumbai five yearsago. I’m longing to go back. I

loved the place, the people, thefood and the colours. I’d alsolove to make the parathabreads like they do in NewDelhi. They were delicious. Ihope to go back soon.”

Talking about herfavourite destinations interms of the food preferencesshe said, “I love Italy for thepasta, Middle East for theirmezze, Paris for the pastries,Japan for the rice, fish, sushiand sake and Sri Lanka andIndia for their divine curries.”

Though every professioncarries its own risks but cook-ing involves a higher possibil-ity of mishaps. Talking abouther most stressful situationRachel said, “I’ve set fire topans a couple of times. Iremember once I was doingmy cooking show live onstage and the pan caught fire.There were 300 people watch-ing me and I was helpless. Iwas not able to put it out.Then, someone came to helpme and we eventually laughedabout it.”

The chef feels that theinclusion and knowledge ofvegan and keto diets in achef ’s life is very important asit’s interesting to learn aboutdifferent foods with differenthealth properties.

Do you believe in the sci-ence behind food or shouldone just follow passion andwork around the taste factor?“Well, when it comes to bak-ing one has to believe in thescience because a lot of it isscientific, but once you under-stand that, then it’s fun to fol-low passion,” she said.

(Rachel’s Coastal Cookingwas aired on Sony BBC Earth.)

The festivities might be around but theworld still remains a dark place forsome. Economic disparity, gender

inequality, food shortage, hunger, unem-ployment, illiteracy, pollution, climatechange and numerous other problems aresome issues that the world is confrontedwith each day. And the worst affected arethe ones who have to bear the brunt ratherthan the ones who observe or talk aboutthese issues. So how can more people bemade aware and empathetic to theseproblems? It is not for nothing that causemarketing has become the trend of thedecade as several brands are creating spacefor inclusivity in the society through theirad campaigns.

Be it the advertisement of SaregamaCaravan music player aimed at avoidingnoisy crackers that adversely affect seniorcitizens and animals during Diwali; theSnapdeal #CelebrateTheHeroes festivecollection that focussed on commemorat-ing the efforts of army officers and police-men which guard the nation while weengage in making merry; or the#SaareMaelDhoDaalo campaign by GhadiDetergent, aiming at cleaning one’s own

mind before the Diwali safai — many ofthem have hit just the right chord with theirhighly emotional appeal. We analyse thetrend this Diwali.

The Delhi Government, through theircommunity laser light show, has urged thecitizens to visit Connaught Place duringDiwali and enjoy the show with an aim ofmoving beyond bursting crackers and inturn, reducing pollution. The hour-longshows will be staged between October 26and 29. Special parking arrangements andbattery-operated vehicles will also bepressed into service.

Some campaigns also focus on pro-moting the idea that Diwali is special foreveryone — Diwali toh sabki hoti hai!Much like the#TuJashnBanKisiKiZindagiKa, Umeed KaDiya campaign by HP that surfaced on theIndian internet last year, breaking recordswith its simple message and a great exe-cution of an important idea.

‘Yeh Diwali sabke saath manatey hain.Khaali haath kisi ko wapas nahi bhejtehain!’ campaign by Swiggy has again wonmany hearts as it promotes the idea of justgiving and catering to every person who

knocks at your doorstep.Indiabulls home loans unveiled their

campaign #SwatchDiwali, wherein the peo-ple of a housing society, after enjoying thefestival and feeding on multiple delicacies,clean up all the mess on their ramp. Thenext morning, when the society sweeperarrives with his broomstick, he looks at thearea, which doesn’t have even a hint ofgarbage. It aims to make Diwali special for

even the ragpickers, who, during the fes-tival, are busy sweeping up the streets andpicking the refuse outside people’s homes,instead of celebrating.

Ironically, #MyAsliConnection cam-paign by Reliance Digital, conceptualisedby 21N78E Creative Labs, nudges peopleto spend quality time with their loved onesduring Diwali rather than spending end-less hours on social media or binge-watch-ing web-series.

There are also some campaigns that arenot just promoting an idea to initiate itamong people but are acting upon themtoo. A social campaign by 93.5 RED FMin collaboration with Feeding India, adevelopment organisation that works onissues like hunger, malnutrition and foodwastage in the country, is making effortsto curb hunger during this festive season.Under their #IssDiwaliNoPaetKhaali cam-paign, RED FM will ask its listeners tonominate their localities to host ‘happyfridges’ which will be installed by FeedingIndia free of cost.

Nisha Narayanan, COO and director,RED FM and Magic FM, says, “Our coun-try is dealing with serious issues of foodwastage and hunger. With festivitiesaround the corner, it’s an opportunity torealise that there are many among us whoare deprived of one of the basic necessi-ties. We are proud to announce our cam-paign, where we will create awarenessabout this community refrigerators pro-gramme and help them with leads to installfridges across India.”

Srishti Jain, co-founder, Feeding India,says, “We have set up free fridges in resi-dential and commercial complexes tofacilitate communities in providing imme-diate, anonymous and dignified access tofood, to those in desperate need. Eachfridge serves between 1,500 to 2,000meals a month. Anyone who is hungry cantake food from the fridges.”

The campaign is on across 21 cities —Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Chandigarh,Amritsar, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Lucknow,Kanpur, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Siliguri,Jamshedpur, Patna, Dehradun,Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Nasik, Aurangabad,Bhopal and Indore.

#BurnTheBhedhBhaav (instead ofburning crackers), a campaign by&Pictures is inspired by the film and Article15 of the Indian Constitution that prohibitsdiscrimination on the grounds of religion,race, caste, sex or place of birth. It reflectson how in our day-to-day lives, we comeacross instances where discriminationtakes place in which either we are the onesinitiating it or we may be unknowingly apart of it.

So this year make sure that the wish‘Happy Diwali’ is not just confined to yourimmediate surroundings as you spread thecheer far and wide beyond even perhapsyour pale of influence.

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of Inter Milan andBorussia Dortmundafter the Italians gotthe better of theirGerman visitors 2-0 atthe San Siro withLautaro Martinez andAntonio Candrevascoring.

Marcel Sabitzer setup a goal and scored aspectacular winner asRB Leipzig came frombehind to beat Zenit StPetersburg 2-1 to take atwo-point lead inGroup G.

Portuguese cham-pions Benfica, withouta point after their first

two games in the group,defeated strugglingLyon 2-1.

Rafa Silva was onhand to make the mostof a Lyon defensivemix-up to find the tar-get, compounding themisery for a Frenchside who are only out ofthe relegation zone inthe league courtesy ofgoal difference.

Memphis Depaylevelled for the Frenchvisitors on 70 minutesbut Benfica clinchedtheir first win whensubstitute Pizzi scoredin the dying moments.

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Liverpool and Chelseaclinched impressive victorieson the road in the

Champions League onWednesday as Lionel Messi, DriesMertens and teenage sensationErling Braut Haaland claimedimpressive goal-scoring land-marks.

Defending championsLiverpool defeated Genk 4-1which saw Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain score twice whileMichy Batshuayi gave Chelsea a 1-0 win at Ajax.

Elsewhere, Messi became thefirst player to score at least oncein 15 successive ChampionsLeague seasons as Barcelona beatSlavia Prague 2-1.

Napoli defeated Salzburg 3-2in a game which saw Mertens gopast Diego Maradona’s 115-goalstally for the Italian club whileHaaland’s two strikes for theAustrians in the same game madehim the first player to score sixtimes in his first three ChampionsLeague games.

England internationalOxlade-Chamberlain, who missedalmost all of last season due toinjury, opened the scoring in thesecond minute at the LuminusArena and scored Liverpool’s sec-ond just before the hour mark.

Sadio Mane and MohamedSalah then set up each other forlate goals to wrap up the victorybefore substitute Stephen Odeypulled one back for Genk.

Liverpool remain a pointbehind Napoli in Group E.

“It’s a special tournament toplay in. It was great to see the boysdo so well last year, being on thebench at the end and watching theboys bring it home,” Oxlade-Chamberlain, an unused substi-tute in last year’s final win, told BTSport.

Haaland, 19, and widelytipped for a big-money move toEngland or Spain, had the ball inthe Napoli net after just 10 min-utes in Austria. However, a VARreview scrubbed off the goal foroffside.

The Italians made the most oftheir reprieve when veteran for-ward Mertens converted a cross

from captain Jose Callejon toscore. It was the Belgian’s 115thgoal for Napoli and took him levelwith Maradona.

Haaland levelled from thepenalty spot in the dyingmoments of the first half.

Mertens, however, grabbedhis second on 64 minutes, againwith Callejon the provider to gopast Maradona’s record setbetween 1984-1991 and close inon Marek Hamsik’s all-time clubhigh of 121.

Haaland equalised again butjust a minute later, Napoli restoredtheir lead through LorenzoInsigne in a breathless second half.

Haaland at least had the con-solation of becoming the first play-er to score six goals in his firstthree Champions League games.

“It’s a great night for Mertens.Napoli are back to winning aChampions League away fixture

after three years and we hope tokeep that going now,” said Napolicoach Carlo Ancelotti.

‘HUGE’ WIN FOR CHELSEAChelsea showed that their

young side is ready for theEuropean stage after Batshuayi’slate winner fired them to a 1-0 winat Ajax.

Substitute Batshuayi struck inthe 86th minute and put Chelsealevel on six points with last year’ssemi-finalists at the top of GroupH.

Jonathan Ikone’s stoppage-time goal gave Lille a 1-1 draw athome to Valencia for whom DenisCheryshev had opened the scor-ing just after the hour mark.Valencia are third in the table, twopoints behind Ajax and Chelsea.

Barcelona stay top of GroupF after a 2-1 win at Slavia Prague.

Messi opened the scoring

after three minutes, beating Slaviagoalkeeper Ondrej Kolar with alow left-foot shot to become thefirst player to score in 15 consec-utive Champions League cam-paigns.

Barca grabbed a second on 57minutes when Slavia winger PeterOlayinka deflected a Luis Suarezclose-range shot into his own net.Left-back Jan Boril scored forSlavia five minutes after half-time.

Barca are three points ahead

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The Indian men’s doubles pair ofSatwiksairaj Rankireddy and

Chirag Shetty shocked reigning worldchampions Mohammad Ahsan andHendra Setiawan to join P V Sindhuand Saina Nehwal in the quarterfinalsof the $ 750,000 French Open here onThursday.

Satwik and Chirag, who hadclaimed their maiden Super 500 titleat Thailand Open in August, notchedup a stunning 21-18, 18-21, 21-13 winover the world No 2 pair, a winner ofthe 2013, 2015 and 2019 WorldChampionships.

The world No 11 pair will nextface Denmark’s Kim Astrup andAnders Skaarup Rasmussen.

World champion Sindhu, whomade early exits in the last three tour-naments at China, Korea andDenmark, beat Singapore’s Yeo Jia Min

21-10, 21-13 in 34 minutes to snap herrecent run of early exits and enter thequarterfinals.

The world No 6 Indian is expect-ed to meet world No 1 Tai Tzu Yingof Chinese Taipei next.

The eighth-seeded LondonOlympics Bronze medallist Saina,who had won the Indonesia Mastersearly in the year before going througha rough patch, dispatched Denmark’sLine Højmark Kjaersfeldt 21-10, 21-11 in 27 minutes to make it to the lasteight.

The reigning CommonwealthGames champion, who had lost in thefirst round in last three successiveevents, will next take on Korea’s An SeYoung, who had last week knockedout India’s P V Sindhu in the open-ing round of Denmark Open.

Saina had defeated Hong Kong’sCheung Ngan Yi 23-21, 21-17 in theopening round on Wednesday night.

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Roger Federer crushed Radu Albot 6-0, 6-3on Wednesday to win his 22nd match in a

row at the Swiss Indoors and earn a quarter-finalplace at his home event for the 17th time.

The nine-time champion was ruthless in a22-minute opening set, finishing the entire jobin 63 minutes in front of 9,000 fans.

He will today face the winner from StanWawrinka and Frances Tiafoe, who bothearned straight-set wins.

“It’s a super feeling to know exactly wherethe ball is going, what the other guy is doing,”said top seed Federer.

“I was hitting a lot of winners, those kindof moments are really rare.”

Federer, who is playing in Basel for the 19thtime, won his first set to love at the tournamentsince 2006.

His loss of just three games on Wednesdaywas his most powerful showing on the ATPsince beating Andreas Seppi at the ParisMasters 6-1, 6-1 four years ago.

“I’m very happy, it was important to start

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“Even though I was playingwell, I was not over-confident, Iwas always worried that he mightmake a comeback.”

Federer dominated 49th-ranked Albot, sweeping the firsteight games before the Moldovangot on the scoreboard.

The top seed finished on afirst match point after five acesand five service breaks.

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India captain Virat Kohliwas on Thursday rested

from the upcoming three-match T20 series againstBangladesh while Mumbaiall-rounder Shivam Dubewas rewarded with a maid-en call-up for his “phenom-enal” exploits with the IndiaA team.

The prolific SanjuSamson and leg-spinnerYuzvendra Chahal returnedto the side for the T20Internationals.

The 24-year-old Samsonfrom Kerala has played hisonly T20I, againstZimbabwe in 2015. A regu-lar in the India A set up,Samson has been rewardedfor a good Vijay HazareTrophy season, havingamassed 410 runs in eightinnings, including a double-century.

All-rounder HardikPandya was not discussed inthe selection meeting as heunderwent a surgery for aback injury, paving the wayfor the 26-year-old rookieDube’s inclusion in theshortest format.

Dube pipped VijayShankar as the secondchoice all-rounder, primar-ily based on his big-hittingprowess.

Chairman of selectioncommittee MSK Prasad said,“You can see, earlier we hadHardik Pandya, then we alsotried Vijay Shankar. All of usagreed in unison that therole we have, he (Dube) fitsin very well.

“He bats aggressively,his performances in theIndia A Series in West Indiesand also against SouthAfrica in the ODIs (for IndiaA) was phenomenal. He hasgone up by leaps andbounds, a notch higher andwe are convinced about it.”

As has been the case in

the past, Rohit Sharma willlead the squad in Kohli’sabsence.

Apart from the three-match T20 series whichstarts in New Delhi onNovember 3, followed bymatches at Rajkot andNagpur on November 7 and10 respectively, Bangladeshwill also play two Tests aspart of the WorldChampionship, in Indoreand Kolkata, fromNovember 14-18 andNovember 22-26 respective-ly. The squad for the Testseries against the neighbours

remained unchanged afterIndia’s 3-0 whitewash ofSouth Africa recently. Left-arm spinner ShahbazNadeem, who picked upfour wickets on his Testdebut against South Africa,was not considered for selec-tion.

Shahbaz, though, wasnot part of the original squadagainst the Proteas, comingin as replacement for theinjured Kuldeep Yadav aheadof the Ranchi Test.

Also finding a place inthe T20 squad was Mumbaiseamer Shardul Thakurwhile all-rounder RavindraJadeja was rested.

Rishabh Pant has beenthe natural heir to MahendraSingh Dhoni, but Samsoncould now push him for aslot in the XI.

Delhi pacer NavdeepSaini was omitted on fitnessgrounds, paving the way forShardul, who has played thelast of his T20Is in March2018.

“Experienced pacerBhuvneshwar Kumar couldmake a comeback frominjury in the next series(against the West Indies),”chairman of selectors MSKPrasad said.

“Navdeep Saini was notavailable, that is the reasonwe picked up ShardulThakur,” he added.

When asked aboutChahal, he said, “Withregards to him, we wanted totry out Chahal and that’s thereason we are giving him somany opportunities.”T20 squad: Rohit Sharma(capt), Shikhar Dhawan, KLRahul, Sanju Samson,Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey,Rishabh Pant(wk),Washington Sundar, KrunalPandya, Yuzvendra Chahal,Rahul Chahar, DeepakChahar, Khaleel Ahmed,Shivam Dube, ShardulThakur

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Bangladesh cricketers, led bystar all-rounder Shakib Al

Hasan, have called off their strikeover pay and benefits after get-ting assurance from the country’sboard that all their demands willbe met, putting their tour of Indiaback on track.

The deadlock between theplayers and Bangladesh CricketBoard (BCB) ended after a two-hour long meeting which wenton close to midnight onWednesday.

The truce means that theteam’s T20 and Test tour ofIndia, beginning November 3,will go on as per schedule andplayers will be joining thepreparatory camp today.

“As Papon bhai (BCB bossNazmul Hassan) said, it was a

fruitful discussion. He and therest of the directors assured usthat our demands will be met assoon as possible. Based on theirassurance, we will start playingthe NCL and attend the trainingcamp,” Shakib was quoted as say-ing by ESPNCricinfo.

Shakib attended the meetingalongside other senior playersincluding Mushfiqur Rahim,Mahmudullah and Tamim Iqbal.

The players added two moredemands to the 11 made onMonday, asking for a percentageof BCB revenues and equal payfor women cricketers.

BCB president Hassan didnot commit anything on thetwo latest demands but said theoriginal 11 will be fulfilled.Players had also demanded freshelections in the players’ body andBCB agreed to that.

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Selection committee chairman MSKPrasad on Thursday said they are

“moving on”, clearly indicating that veter-an Mahendra Singh Dhoni is not in theirscheme of things anymore.

His committee will instead focus onRishabh Pant, Dhoni’s natural heir, he said.

“This is our clear thought process thatpost World Cup we are focusing onRishabh Pant only,” he said.

When the question on Dhoni’s futurein international cricket was repeated, thechief selector added, “I made it very clearpost the World Cup that we are movingon. We are giving opportunities to young-sters and see that they establish themselvesin the side.

“With Rishabh Pant doing so well andeven Sanju Samson coming into the side,I am sure you must be understanding ourthought process.”

Putting his weight firmly behindPant, Prasad said, “I have been very clearon this, that after World Cup we have start-ed backing Rishabh Pant. So we will stillback him (Pant) and see that he progress-es well.

“Of course, he might not have the bestof the matches, the way we expect of him,but we can still only make a player by back-ing somebody. So we are confident that hewill come out successful and that’s been thethought process post World Cup and weare focusing on Rishabh Pant.”

On Dhoni’s future, the former crick-eter said that is purely his personal call.

“Going into domestic cricket, gettinghis touch back or thoughts about retire-ment, everything is purely his personaldecision. We’ve already laid the roadmapfor future, I’m sure you can see in the waywe are selecting the teams.”

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Test team: Virat Kohli (capt), RohitSharma, Mayank Agarwal, CheteshwarPujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari,Saha (wk), R Jadeja, R Ashwin, KuldeepYadav, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav,Ishant Sharma, Shubman Gill, RishabhPant.

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