· 2019-04-07 · wanted to discuss 18 seats ... old girl, employed with call center, ... rajveer...

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I n their first joint rally, the top guns of Uttar Pradesh Opposition grand alliance on Sunday targeted both BJP and Congress and cautioned the members of the minority com- munity not to waste their votes by backing the Congress. In a massive show of strength in Saharanpur district, which goes to polls in the first phase on April 11, BSP supre- mo Mayawati, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Ajit Singh addressed the rally, and announced only their alliance can challenge the BJP. “The Congress is not strong enough to give a tough fight to the BJP. Only the grand-alliance can,” said Mayawati. “I want to tell the Muslim community to not let their votes divide. I ask you to vote together for BSP, SP and RLD. I am warning, especially peo- ple of Muslim community, that Congress isn’t in a position to fight BJP in UP. Only ‘gath- bandhan’ can fight BJP. Congress knows this but they’re going by the mantra ‘Hum jeete ya na jeete, gathbandhan nahi jeetna chahiye’. Therefore, Congress party has fielded candidates from such castes and religion which will bene- fit BJP,” she said. With a large number of people in the rally being Muslims, she asked the minori- ties to vote en bloc for the BSP- SP-RLD alliance after accusing the Congress of trying to split the anti-BJP votes. “If Muslims want BJP to lose, they have to stand firmly behind gathband- han. The alliance is winning, provided they don’t tamper with the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs),” Mayawati said, adding that the voters would end the “drama of chowkidari”. Modi, the BSP leader said, had not fulfilled even one fourth of the promises he made before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections that brought him to power. The Prime Minister had also failed to protect the borders, she added, citing increasing instances of terror- ism in Jammu & Kashmir in particular. Mayawati did not spare the Congress either, call- ing its recently released election manifesto as ‘hawa-hawai’. The BSP leader said that her party never issued election manifestos as she believed in talking less and delivering more. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav asked voters to not vote for Congress saying there is no difference between the party and BJP. “There is not much difference in Congress and BJP, if you will look at their policies. They are both same. This grand alliance is meant to bring change in the country, but Congress party doesn’t want that. Instead of defeating the BJP their priority is to revive and rebuild the party in UP,” he said. He said that the grand alliance of Opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh will ensure the removal of all ‘chowkidars’ and the country will get a new Prime Minister after the Lok Sabha polls. Taking a swipe at the ruling BJP, Akhilesh said during the holy period of Navaratri no one should lie. “In 2014, we trusted a ‘chaiwala’ (tea seller), the poll promise of crores of jobs and so many other promises. Now we are being told to trust the ‘chowkidar’. We will ensure removal of ‘chowkidars’ (watch- men) from all the ‘chowkis’ (post),” he said at the joint rally of the SP, BSP and RLD here. “We want to appeal to the BJP... during this holy period of Navratri; you should pledge not to lie. We want to make sure all our candidates win by a huge margin, so that the country can get a new Prime Minister,” he said. “These people call them- selves custodians of religion. But they don’t even know how to take a holy dip in the Kumbh. If you compare Congress and BJP they are just mirror images of each other, Akhilesh said. Hitting back at PM Modi for his criticism of the alliance, the SP leader said, “This ‘gath- bandhan’ (alliance) is not ‘milawat’ (adulterated), this is ‘mahaparivartan’ (mega change). They call us ‘milawat gathbandhan’... they are drunk on power. This is an alliance for electing a new Prime Minister.” “Our borders are still not secured... they have betrayed the country. L eaders of the two Kashmir- based regional parties, National Conference and People Democratic Party, on Sunday staged protest demon- strations against ban on move- ment of civilian vehicle on the national highway between Baramulla and Udhampur and provoked common people to defy the ban in large numbers. The Jammu & Kashmir Government had earlier announced that the national highway from Baramulla to Udhampur will be put out of bounds for civilian traffic two days in a week — every Sunday and Wednesday — till May 31 to facilitate smooth movement of security convoy. But as very few people responded to their calls, Kashmiri leaders swiftly changed gears and made fer- vent appeals to the Government of India to revoke the ban with immediate effect as it was causing lot of hard- ships to common people. Meanwhile, large number of vehicles, ferrying security personnel, travelled on the 300-km long Jammu-Srinagar National Highway smoothly amid tight security arrange- ments. To allow smooth move- ment of civilians, in special cases only, the district admin- istration in Srinagar had made elaborate arrangements and senior officers were stationed at different locations to facilitate their smooth travel. Ironically, both the region- al parties utilised the occasion to garner votes in support of their party candidates and played ‘smart’ politics. First PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti stepped out of her home and took out a rally. Second-rung leaders of PDP, accompanied by former MLA, took out a token protest march near Srinagar bypass and demanded immediate revocation of the ban order. Speaking to reporters, for- mer Chief Minister and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti pro- voked common people people to defy the ban on Srinagar- Jammu highway. “The road belongs to Kashmiri people and not the Government of India. If the Government of India thinks that they can “suppress” the people of Kashmir by such acts, they are wrong. Mehbooba said, her party will not leave a stone ‘unturned’ to revoke the ban. “We are also approaching the court in order to revoke the ban, because why would Kashmiris need permission from Government of India to use their own r o a d s ,” Mehbooba told reporters. After PDP’s demonstra- tion was over, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah arrived at Sanat Nagar Chowk in Rawalpora area of Srinagar to lead protest march by NC workers. T he Congress on Sunday set aside speculations about a Congress-AAP alliance out- side the national Capital and said candidates for Lok Sabha elections in Punjab and Haryana would be announced soon. Congress’ chief spokesper- son Randeep Surjewala said the party is yet to reach a decision on stitching an alliance with the AAP in Delhi but asserted that there will be no truck between the rivals in neighbouring States. “There’s no talk on alliance with any party, including the AAP, either in Haryana or in Punjab. We are soon going to declare our candidates (for the two States). The party is yet to reach a decision on forging an alliance with the AAP in Delhi,” Surjewala said at AICC Press conference. Congress sources said when the idea of Cong-AAP alliance was mooted, the AAP wanted to discuss 18 seats — Delhi (seven Lok Sabha), Haryana (10 Lok Sabha) and Chandigarh (one Lok Sabha). In another pre-condition for firming up an alliance, the AAP had asked the Congress to openly declare its support to full Statehood for Delhi, to which the Congress is under- stood to have agreed over it. Congress sources said if AAP would be adamant on Haryana, then the grand old party might announce its seven candidates for Delhi without wasting any further time. The names of the pro- posed candidates have already been approved by the Screening committee. P olitical parties placed as many as 51,810 advertise- ments on Facebook spending whopping 103,224,794 between February and March this year to promote their poli- cies and achievements ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The major chunk of spending came from the ruling BJP and its followers. According to the Facebook Ads Library report, the BJP and its followers cornered a bulk of advertisement spend with ‘Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat’ page continuing to be the top spender with well over 3,726 ads and pumping in more than 2.23 crore (under two categories). The BJP had about 7194 ads on ‘My First Vote for Modi’ and spent over 1. 05 crore. Similarly, the party had 2,288 ads on”Nation with Namo” in two different categories and it spent over 1.19 crore. The BJP had also about 1,101 ads and spent over 36.2 lakh, while other pages like ‘My First Vote for Modi’ and ‘Nation with NaMo’ also had large spending. “MyGov India had 131 ads and its spent 28 lakh. Talangana For Modi page spent 1 lakh on 15 ads. BJP Arunachal spent over 65,000 on 14 ads. Compared to this, the Congress page had 410 ads and its ad spend was 5.91 lakh in the February to March 30 period, as per the data. Indian Youth Congress spent 88,145 on 29 ads. Congress leader Deependra Singh Hooda spent 78,000 on 30 ads. Naveen Patnaik of Biju Janata Dal spent 28 lakh on 91 ads. In another page, Patnaik spent 11 lakh on 99 ads. Biju Janata Dal had a spending of 8.56 lakh on 29 ads, Telegu Desam Party (TDP) 1.58 lakh and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 58,355 in the said timeframe. A fter massive controversy erupted over CRPF-MP Police face-off in Indore during Income Tax raid on Chief Minister Kamal Nath OSD aide’s residence in Bhopal, the Election Commission (EC) has advised all enforcement agencies that actions should be impartial, neutral and non-discriminatory during the election period. The EC further stated that in case of use of suspected black money to woo voters, the chief electoral officers of State Government should also be kept informed during the model code of conduct period. In a letter to Secretary (Revenue) of Ministry of Finance by Vikram Batra, Director (EE), the Commission has advised that all enforcement actions dur- ing the election period even when conducted ruthlessly with a view to curb this blatant elec- toral malpractices should be absolutely neutral, impartial and non-discriminatory. “Further in case of suspect- ed use of such illicit money for electoral purposes, the chief elec- toral officer should be kept suit- ably informed during the MCC period,” the EC said. The Income Tax depart- ment on Sunday conducted raids on residences and offices of Nath’s nephew and two close aides. Those raided were CM’s nephew Ratul Puri, Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to Nath, Praveen Kakkar and a close associate RK Miglani. The raids in Madhya Pradesh that began at about 3 am on Sunday are said to be a part of IT department’s nationwide raids on 50 locations. The scuf- fle between CRPF and MP police outside the residence of Ashwin Sharma is a reminiscent of the Kolkata Police-CBI February faceoff in West Bengal. I n yet another fatal accident on DND flyway, a 25-year- old girl, employed with call center, was killed while three of her friends who were travelling in the same Honda City car were injured on Sunday. According to Inspector Rajveer Chauhan, Station Officer Noida sector-20 police station, Shweta was returning, along with her friends Garvita Shah, Navjot Prakash Verma and Nakul Prakash Verma, after attending a party in Delhi and it was then the mishap took place. It appears that the car was speeding and the man on the wheels lost control as it hit the divider. They were rushed to Kailash hospital where doctors declared Shweta brought dead while others are said to be crit- ical but stable. Police said they have sent the body for the autopsy report and investiga- tion has been launched. B haratiya Janata Party’s (BJP) one of the hit campaigns of 2014, Chai Pe Charcha, has become a thing of the past this election season. While the party’s Main Bhi Chowkidar programme has hogged the limelight prior to the 17th General Elections, no events related to Chai Pe Charcha have been slated this time around in Jharkhand. Prem Mittal, a BJP Spokesperson who was respon- sible for organising the Chai Pe Charcha events during the 2014 elections here, said on Sunday that the party high command has not issued any directives about holding simi- lar events at tea stalls this year. “We do not have any Chai Pe Charcha event this time. However, it will be unfair to say that Main Bhi Chowkidar pro- gramme has replaced it,” Mittal said. In 2014, the Modi wave swept Jharkhand and the evening assemblies at tea stalls played a crucial role in gar- nering support to the party. The initiative got such an over- whelming response that even today several restaurants across the country, including Jharkhand, are being run by the name Chai Pe Charcha. Under the campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was then the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, addressed a gathering of peo- ple over videoconferencing and answered their queries in more than 1000 locations across 300 cities. The scene at Ranchi’s Albert Ekka Chowk during these events was synonymous with Modi’s growing popular- ity in the State capital in 2014. Political analyst VP Sharan feels that Chai Pe Charcha was an effective tool of attracting the masses for the BJP. The Main Bhi Chowkidar event, on the other hand, may not have the same impact as it fails to connect with the people as strongly as the 2014’s events did, he added. “Chai Pe Charcha was a bigger success than Main Bhi Chowkidar. It attracted the masses and brought them together. Though the nature of the two events is pretty similar, the former sounded more relat- able and hence got a stronger response,” said Sharan, a former Pro Vice Chancellor of Ranchi University. However, it cannot be denied that the party’s Main Bhi Chowkidar initiative received a thunderous response on social media, clearly over- powering the Congress party’s Chowkidar Chor Hai trend. According to figures with the BJP, at least 30 lakh Twitteratis added the prefix “Chowkidar” to their Twitter handles since the initiative was launched and #MainBhiChowkidar was one of the most trending hash tags on social media. On March 31, Modi addressed his supporters through videoconferencing at 500 locations across the coun- try in his first Main Bhi Chowkidar event. In Jharkhand, the event was orga- nized at 15 locations, covering all the 14 Lok Sabha con- stituencies, and was attended by the bigwigs of BJP here. With the impetus on being the security and safety providers of the country, the BJP has transformed Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s Chowkidar Chor Hai jibes into its strength this election, say political experts.

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Page 1:  · 2019-04-07 · wanted to discuss 18 seats ... old girl, employed with call center, ... Rajveer Chauhan, Station Officer Noida sector-20 police station, Shweta was returning, along

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In their first joint rally, the topguns of Uttar Pradesh

Opposition grand alliance onSunday targeted both BJP andCongress and cautioned themembers of the minority com-munity not to waste their votesby backing the Congress.

In a massive show ofstrength in Saharanpur district,which goes to polls in the firstphase on April 11, BSP supre-mo Mayawati, SP chiefAkhilesh Yadav and RashtriyaLok Dal leader Ajit Singhaddressed the rally, andannounced only their alliancecan challenge the BJP.

“The Congress is notstrong enough to give a toughfight to the BJP. Only thegrand-alliance can,” saidMayawati.

“I want to tell the Muslimcommunity to not let theirvotes divide. I ask you to votetogether for BSP, SP and RLD.I am warning, especially peo-ple of Muslim community, thatCongress isn’t in a position tofight BJP in UP. Only ‘gath-bandhan’ can fight BJP.Congress knows this but they’regoing by the mantra ‘Humjeete ya na jeete, gathbandhannahi jeetna chahiye’. Therefore,Congress party has fieldedcandidates from such castesand religion which will bene-fit BJP,” she said.

With a large number of

people in the rally beingMuslims, she asked the minori-ties to vote en bloc for the BSP-SP-RLD alliance after accusingthe Congress of trying to splitthe anti-BJP votes. “If Muslimswant BJP to lose, they have tostand firmly behind gathband-han. The alliance is winning,provided they don’t tamperwith the Electronic VotingMachines (EVMs),” Mayawatisaid, adding that the voterswould end the “drama ofchowkidari”.

Modi, the BSP leader said,had not fulfilled even onefourth of the promises he madebefore the 2014 Lok Sabhaelections that brought him topower. The Prime Ministerhad also failed to protect theborders, she added, citingincreasing instances of terror-ism in Jammu & Kashmir inparticular. Mayawati did notspare the Congress either, call-ing its recently released electionmanifesto as ‘hawa-hawai’.

The BSP leader said that herparty never issued electionmanifestos as she believed intalking less and delivering more.

Samajwadi Party chiefAkhilesh Yadav asked voters tonot vote for Congress sayingthere is no difference betweenthe party and BJP. “There is notmuch difference in Congressand BJP, if you will look at theirpolicies. They are both same.This grand alliance is meant tobring change in the country,

but Congress party doesn’twant that. Instead of defeatingthe BJP their priority is torevive and rebuild the party inUP,” he said.

He said that the grandalliance of Opposition partiesin Uttar Pradesh will ensure theremoval of all ‘chowkidars’ andthe country will get a newPrime Minister after the LokSabha polls. Taking a swipe atthe ruling BJP, Akhilesh saidduring the holy period ofNavaratri no one should lie.

“In 2014, we trusted a

‘chaiwala’ (tea seller), the pollpromise of crores of jobs and somany other promises. Now weare being told to trust the‘chowkidar’. We will ensureremoval of ‘chowkidars’ (watch-men) from all the ‘chowkis’(post),” he said at the joint rallyof the SP, BSP and RLD here.

“We want to appeal to theBJP... during this holy period ofNavratri; you should pledge notto lie. We want to make sure allour candidates win by a hugemargin, so that the country canget a new Prime Minister,” he

said. “These people call them-

selves custodians of religion.But they don’t even know howto take a holy dip in theKumbh.

If you compare Congressand BJP they are just mirrorimages of each other, Akhileshsaid.

Hitting back at PM Modifor his criticism of the alliance,the SP leader said, “This ‘gath-bandhan’ (alliance) is not‘milawat’ (adulterated), this is‘mahaparivartan’ (megachange). They call us ‘milawatgathbandhan’... they are drunkon power. This is an alliance forelecting a new Prime Minister.”“Our borders are still notsecured... they have betrayedthe country.

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Leaders of the two Kashmir-based regional parties,

National Conference andPeople Democratic Party, onSunday staged protest demon-strations against ban on move-ment of civilian vehicle on thenational highway betweenBaramulla and Udhampur andprovoked common people todefy the ban in large numbers.

The Jammu & KashmirGovernment had earlierannounced that the nationalhighway from Baramulla toUdhampur will be put out ofbounds for civilian traffic twodays in a week — every Sundayand Wednesday — till May 31to facilitate smooth movementof security convoy.

But as very few peopleresponded to their calls,Kashmiri leaders swiftlychanged gears and made fer-vent appeals to theGovernment of India to revokethe ban with immediate effectas it was causing lot of hard-ships to common people.

Meanwhile, large numberof vehicles, ferrying securitypersonnel, travelled on the300-km long Jammu-SrinagarNational Highway smoothly

amid tight security arrange-ments. To allow smooth move-ment of civilians, in specialcases only, the district admin-istration in Srinagar had madeelaborate arrangements andsenior officers were stationed atdifferent locations to facilitatetheir smooth travel.

Ironically, both the region-al parties utilised the occasionto garner votes in support oftheir party candidates andplayed ‘smart’ politics.

First PDP chiefMehbooba Mufti stepped outof her home and took out arally. Second-rung leaders ofPDP, accompanied by formerMLA, took out a token protestmarch near Srinagar bypassand demanded immediaterevocation of the ban order.

Speaking to reporters, for-mer Chief Minister and PDPchief Mehbooba Mufti pro-voked common people people

to defy the ban on Srinagar-Jammu highway.

“The road belongs toKashmiri people and not theGovernment of India. If theGovernment of India thinksthat they can “suppress” thepeople of Kashmir by suchacts , they are wrong.Mehbooba said, her partywil l not leave a stone‘unturned’ to revoke the ban.

“We are also approachingthe court in order to revokethe ban, because why wouldKashmiris need permissionfrom Government of India touse their own roads,”Mehbooba told reporters.

After PDP’s demonstra-tion was over, NationalConference president Farooq Abdullah arrived atSanat Nagar Chowk inRawalpora area of Srinagar tolead protest march by NCworkers.

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The Congress on Sunday setaside speculations about a

Congress-AAP alliance out-side the national Capital andsaid candidates for Lok Sabhaelections in Punjab andHaryana would be announcedsoon.

Congress’ chief spokesper-son Randeep Surjewala said theparty is yet to reach a decisionon stitching an alliance with theAAP in Delhi but asserted thatthere will be no truck betweenthe rivals in neighbouringStates.

“There’s no talk on alliancewith any party, including theAAP, either in Haryana or inPunjab. We are soon going todeclare our candidates (for thetwo States). The party is yet toreach a decision on forging analliance with the AAP in Delhi,”

Surjewala said at AICC Pressconference.

Congress sources saidwhen the idea of Cong-AAPalliance was mooted, the AAPwanted to discuss 18 seats —Delhi (seven Lok Sabha),Haryana (10 Lok Sabha) andChandigarh (one Lok Sabha).In another pre-condition forfirming up an alliance, theAAP had asked the Congress toopenly declare its support tofull Statehood for Delhi, towhich the Congress is under-stood to have agreed over it.

Congress sources said ifAAP would be adamant onHaryana, then the grand oldparty might announce itsseven candidates for Delhiwithout wasting any furthertime. The names of the pro-posed candidates have alreadybeen approved by theScreening committee.

�������������� ��� �����

Political parties placed asmany as 51,810 advertise-

ments on Facebook spendingwhopping �103,224,794between February and Marchthis year to promote their poli-cies and achievements ahead ofthe Lok Sabha polls. The majorchunk of spending came fromthe ruling BJP and its followers.

According to the FacebookAds Library report, the BJP andits followers cornered a bulk ofadvertisement spend with‘Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat’ pagecontinuing to be the top spenderwith well over 3,726 ads andpumping in more than �2.23crore (under two categories).

The BJP had about 7194ads on ‘My First Vote for Modi’and spent over �1. 05 crore.Similarly, the party had 2,288ads on”Nation with Namo” intwo different categories and itspent over �1.19 crore.

The BJP had also about1,101 ads and spent over �36.2

lakh, while other pages like ‘MyFirst Vote for Modi’ and‘Nation with NaMo’ also hadlarge spending. “MyGov Indiahad 131 ads and its spent �28lakh.

Talangana For Modi pagespent �1 lakh on 15 ads. BJPArunachal spent over �65,000on 14 ads. Compared to this,the Congress page had 410 adsand its ad spend was �5.91 lakhin the February to March 30period, as per the data.

Indian Youth Congressspent �88,145 on 29 ads.Congress leader DeependraSingh Hooda spent �78,000 on30 ads. Naveen Patnaik of BijuJanata Dal spent �28 lakh on 91ads. In another page, Patnaikspent �11 lakh on 99 ads. BijuJanata Dal had a spending of�8.56 lakh on 29 ads, TeleguDesam Party (TDP) �1.58 lakhand Nationalist Congress Party(NCP) �58,355 in the saidtimeframe.

������������������ �����

After massive controversyerupted over CRPF-MP

Police face-off in Indore duringIncome Tax raid on ChiefMinister Kamal Nath OSD aide’sresidence in Bhopal, the ElectionCommission (EC) has advised allenforcement agencies that actionsshould be impartial, neutral andnon-discriminatory during theelection period.

The EC further stated that incase of use of suspected blackmoney to woo voters, the chiefelectoral officers of StateGovernment should also be keptinformed during the model codeof conduct period.

In a letter to Secretary(Revenue) of Ministry of Financeby Vikram Batra, Director (EE),the Commission has advisedthat all enforcement actions dur-ing the election period evenwhen conducted ruthlessly witha view to curb this blatant elec-

toral malpractices should beabsolutely neutral, impartial andnon-discriminatory.

“Further in case of suspect-ed use of such illicit money forelectoral purposes, the chief elec-toral officer should be kept suit-ably informed during the MCCperiod,” the EC said.

The Income Tax depart-ment on Sunday conducted raidson residences and offices ofNath’s nephew and two closeaides. Those raided were CM’snephew Ratul Puri, Officer onSpecial Duty (OSD) to Nath,Praveen Kakkar and a closeassociate RK Miglani.

The raids in MadhyaPradesh that began at about 3 amon Sunday are said to be a partof IT department’s nationwideraids on 50 locations. The scuf-fle between CRPF and MP policeoutside the residence of AshwinSharma is a reminiscent of theKolkata Police-CBI Februaryfaceoff in West Bengal.

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In yet another fatal accidenton DND flyway, a 25-year-

old girl, employed with callcenter, was killed while three ofher friends who were travellingin the same Honda City carwere injured on Sunday.

According to InspectorRajveer Chauhan, StationOfficer Noida sector-20 policestation, Shweta was returning,along with her friends GarvitaShah, Navjot Prakash Vermaand Nakul Prakash Verma,after attending a party in Delhiand it was then the mishap tookplace. It appears that the car wasspeeding and the man on thewheels lost control as it hit thedivider.

They were rushed toKailash hospital where doctorsdeclared Shweta brought deadwhile others are said to be crit-ical but stable. Police said theyhave sent the body for theautopsy report and investiga-tion has been launched.

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Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP)one of the hit campaigns of

2014, Chai Pe Charcha, hasbecome a thing of the past thiselection season. While theparty’s Main Bhi Chowkidarprogramme has hogged thelimelight prior to the 17thGeneral Elections, no eventsrelated to Chai Pe Charcha havebeen slated this time around inJharkhand.

Prem Mittal, a BJPSpokesperson who was respon-sible for organising the Chai PeCharcha events during the2014 elections here, said onSunday that the party highcommand has not issued anydirectives about holding simi-lar events at tea stalls this year.

“We do not have any ChaiPe Charcha event this time.However, it will be unfair to saythat Main Bhi Chowkidar pro-gramme has replaced it,” Mittalsaid.

In 2014, the Modi waveswept Jharkhand and theevening assemblies at tea stallsplayed a crucial role in gar-nering support to the party.The initiative got such an over-

whelming response that eventoday several restaurants acrossthe country, includingJharkhand, are being run by thename Chai Pe Charcha.

Under the campaign,Prime Minister NarendraModi, who was then the BJP’sprime ministerial candidate,addressed a gathering of peo-ple over videoconferencing andanswered their queries in morethan 1000 locations across 300

cities. The scene at Ranchi’s

Albert Ekka Chowk duringthese events was synonymouswith Modi’s growing popular-ity in the State capital in 2014.

Political analyst VP Sharanfeels that Chai Pe Charcha wasan effective tool of attractingthe masses for the BJP. TheMain Bhi Chowkidar event, onthe other hand, may not havethe same impact as it fails to

connect with the people asstrongly as the 2014’s eventsdid, he added.

“Chai Pe Charcha was abigger success than Main BhiChowkidar. It attracted themasses and brought themtogether. Though the nature ofthe two events is pretty similar,the former sounded more relat-able and hence got a strongerresponse,” said Sharan, a formerPro Vice Chancellor of Ranchi

University.However, it cannot be

denied that the party’s MainBhi Chowkidar initiativereceived a thunderous responseon social media, clearly over-powering the Congress party’sChowkidar Chor Hai trend.According to figures with theBJP, at least 30 lakh Twitteratisadded the prefix “Chowkidar”to their Twitter handles sincethe initiative was launched and#MainBhiChowkidar was oneof the most trending hash tagson social media.

On March 31, Modiaddressed his supportersthrough videoconferencing at500 locations across the coun-try in his first Main BhiChowkidar event. InJharkhand, the event was orga-nized at 15 locations, coveringall the 14 Lok Sabha con-stituencies, and was attendedby the bigwigs of BJP here.

With the impetus on beingthe security and safetyproviders of the country, theBJP has transformed CongressPresident Rahul Gandhi’sChowkidar Chor Hai jibes intoits strength this election, saypolitical experts.

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Jamshedpur parliamentaryseat is set to witness an inter-

esting fight as six parties havedeclared their candidates. Apartfrom sitting BJP MP BidyutBaran Mahto, JMM candidateChampai Soren, JharkhandPeople’s Party has declared for-mer MLA Surya Singh Besra asits candidate. On the otherhand Aam Admi Party (AAP)is trying luck on RTI activistDinesh Mahto, whileTrinamool Congress hasdeclared Anjana Mahto, wife ofSalboni, West Midnapore MLASrikant Mahto as its candidate

from Jamshedpur seat.Jharkhand Party has declaredSantosh Pandey as its candi-date.

The Jamshedpur parlia-mentary constituency has15,51,297 voters. Lok Sabhaconstituency comprises the fol-lowing six Vidhan Sabha (leg-islative assembly) segmentsBaharagora Ghatshila, Potka,Jugsalai, Jamshedpur East andJamshedpur West. Incidentally,there are nearly 1885 pollingbooths in as many as 1133polling locations across the

district which representsJamshedpur Parliamentaryconstituency. The Steel citywill go to poll on May 12.

“The fight would be inter-esting. Bidyut is a veteranleader and a sitting MP how-ever Champai Soren during asMLA Seraikela has gained con-trol over tribal voters. Besides,he is a respectable politician.However, the rising populari-ty of Bidyut will give a toughfight,” said an election analyst.

Meanwhile, the city is agogwith talks related to the elec-

tions. From tea stalls to joggers’park, elections have taken overall conversations as a favouritetopic in the city these days.

“Ever since the announce-ment of the elections, the talksdoing the round are all aboutelections. I keep hearing peo-ple debating about the candi-dates in fray. The city is wit-nessing the heat of intensecampaigning too,” notedRamshwar Prasad, a tea-stallowner at Sakchi.

Nandini Sinha a studentactivist also said that campus-es of the city are abuzz withtalks on elections. She saidthough she cannot predict thewinner but she wants that maythe best candidate wins.

In 2014, riding on a strongwave of Narendra Modi cou-pled with Kurmi vote card, theBJP candidate Vidyut BaranMahto trounced his arch rivalsitting JVM MP Dr AjoyKumar to clinch Jamshedpur

Lok Sabha seat in style. The BJPcandidate registered his debutin Parliament by defeatingKumar by a margin of 99874votes. Mahto received 464144votes while Ajoy Kumarreceived 364270 votes. JMMcandidate Niroop Mahantystood third with 13109 votes.

In the 2009 general elec-tions proving all political pun-dits wrong former ChiefMinister Arjun Munda hadbagged 3,19,630 votes whileoutgoing MP, Suman Mahtosecured 1,99,957 votes.However, JVM (D) candidateand strongman Arvind Singhalias Malkhan Singh came adistant third with 79,089 votesand Shailendra Mahto, theAJSU candidate stood fourthwith 37,400 votes.

According to a politicalanalyst of the area, this year thefight would be interesting sinceall the candidates will givechallenge to each other.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) on Sunday took a jibe

at the Grand Alliance partnersclaiming that they maintaineda fragile relationship with eachother, which may cease to sus-tain for long.

BJP Spokesperson PratulShahdeo said that overlappingof candidates fielded by theGrand Alliance partners insome seats shows the lack ofcoordination between the part-nering parties.

“The BJP wants to know ifJharkhand Mukti Morcha(JMM), Jharkhand VikasMorcha (JVM), theCommunist Party of India(CPI) and Rashtriya Janata Dal(RJD) are supporting theCongress party’s manifesto inwhich it said that it will amend

special arms rights to defenseforces in Jammu and Kashmir,”he said.

He went on to dig into theCongress party’s manifesto andquestioned if the GrandAlliance partners were in sup-port of the party’s agenda of

amend seditionlaws in the coun-try.

“The partiesof the allianceshould expresstheir opinion onwhether extrem-ists hoisting blackflags on January26 and August 15should be bookedon charges ofsedition or not.They should clar-ify if they are infavour of taking

actions against people raisingantinational slogans or not.”

The silence of the GrandAlliance partners over suchissues, he said, was an indica-tion of how they were sup-porting the ideologies of sep-aratist and extremist groups.

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Xavier School ofManagement (XLRI)

organised the 17th graduationceremony for students of itsexecutive programmes onSunday.

Delivering the GraduationAddress, Ramji Ganesh, head ofoperations, State Street SyntelServices Pvt. Ltd. (Atos Syntel),shared key leadership insightsfrom his illustrious career. Beingan alumnus of XLRI and a goldmedalist himself, he connectedinstantly with the students andprovided them with valuableadvice on how to build a suc-cessful career in the moderncorporate landscape.

On this significant day, 500students of XLRI’s VIL andvarious Executive Programmesincluding 407 students from 5batches of the Virtual InteractiveLearning (VIL) Programmes(174 students of PostgraduateCertificate in BusinessManagement – PGCBM batch-es 32 and 33, 198 students ofPostgraduate Certificate inHuman Resource Management

– PGCHRM batches 24 and 25,and 35 students of the 1st batchof Postgraduate Certificate inBusiness Analytics –PGCBAMD); 43 students ofExecutive Diploma in HumanResource ManagementProgramme (EDHRM - Batch2018-19); 30 students ofPostgraduate Certificate inHRM (PGCHRM - Batch 2017-

18) and 20 students ofPostgraduate Certificate inGeneral Management- Mumbai(PGCGM - Batch 2017-18)received their graduating cer-tificates and medals.

Like every year, top rankingstudents of the VIL Programmewere awarded XLRI Medals forAcademic Excellence sponsoredby VIL technical partner

Unified Collaboration Services(UCS).

This year, SudeshnaGanguly (PGCBM-32), MohanShanmuga Sundaram(PGCBM-33), Babita P Sangras(PGCHRM-24), S Kartik(PGCHRM-25) and RajivKumar Vishwakarma(PGCBAMD-1) received goldmedals for academic excellence

in their respective batches. Themedals were presented by Dr.Ashis K. Pani, dean – acade-mics, XLRI. Kanwar PravirSingh (EDHRM), MokshaSharma (PGCHRM) andChandan Rastogi (PGCGM -Mumbai) also received GoldMedals at the event for securingthe highest CQPI.

Fr. Jerome Cutinha, S.J.,dean – Administration &Finance, XLRI congratulatedthe graduating students andurged them to uphold the insti-tute’s values of excellence andintegrity in their professionaland personal lives. He addedthat XLRI graduates shouldaim to be model professionalswho also serve their communi-ties and society.

Other dignitaries present atthe event were Dr. Ashis K. Pani(Dean – Academics, XLRI), Dr.Santosh Sangem (AssociateDean, VIL Programmes, XLRI),Fr. Francis M Peter, S.J.(Coordinator, Centre for Res &Trg in Educational Leadership- XLRI), Dr. Manoj Thomas(Associate Dean, CorporatePrograms – XLRI) and more.

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The Ranchi DistrictAdministration has made

elaborate arrangements forpeaceful Sarhul celebration onMonday.

While drones will help thepolice maintain a vigil onimportant squares, check postsat all the entry points to Ranchiwill prevent heavy vehiclesfrom entering the urban terri-tory, a press communiqué fromthe district administration saidon Sunday.

In a bid to address medicalexigencies, the 108 ambulanceswill remain on alert. Besides,pictures of missing childrenwill be shown on LED vans thatwill move across the city on theday of the festival.

The DistrictAdministration also organiseda meeting of the peace com-mittee on Saturday to ensurepeaceful celebration of Sarhuland avert any incident ofdisharmony in the city.

The Sarhul processions,starting from various parts ofthe city, will culminate at the

Sarna Sthal (tribal holy place)at Siramtoli on Monday.Elaborate security arrange-ments have been made at theSarna Sthal to maintain law andorder, the police said.

Ranchi’s SeniorSuperintendent of Police, AnishGupta has made his personalmobile number available to allthe organisers of the processionand asked them to inform himin case of any emergency.

“We have got reinforce-ments from outside the districtto ensure foolproof securityduring Sarhul celebrations.Lost and found centres will beset up at Albert Ekka Chowkand Siramtoli Chowk to ensurethat any person who goes miss-ing from the procession can befound easily,” Gupta said.

Deputy Commissioner RaiMahimapat Ray said that somepeople had demanded to avoidpower cuts during the proces-sion, but the administrationcannot do away with the prac-tice of power cuts on Sarhulsince there was risk of death byelectrocution. Every year, thou-sands of devotees throng the

streets, carrying branches ofSakhua tree and dancing ontribal beats in tandem, to cel-ebrate the tribal festival. Sarhulmarks the beginning of springand is celebrated for threedays. On the first day peoplekeep a fast for Mother Nature,the second day is devoted tocelebrations, which primarilyincludes dancing, singing andthanking Mother Nature forproviding food to all.

The third day, most popu-larly known as Phool Khonsaiis the day when the flower ofSarai tree is kept in everyhouse, which is expected tobring peace and prosperity forthe family. Sarhul puja is alsoan occasion on which Pahans,the tribal priests assume therainfall level during the upcom-ing monsoon. A puja is done aday before Sarhul and twowater filled pots are kept at theworship spot. The rainfall ispredicted by the level of rise orfall of water in the pots. If thewater level decreases, the rain-fall is expected to be less andvice versa. The pot will beopened on Monday.

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Three-time MP and formerUnion minister Subodh

Kant Sahay, whose candidaturefor the Ranchi parliament seatwas finalized by Congress highcommand last week, todayslammed the BJP governmentin centre and state for haphaz-ard urban growth, with thepromise, vote for the Congressand get back your clean andgreen Ranchi.

Launching his electioncampaign from Vidya Nagar(the area behind State BJPheadquarter), Sahay said, “Inlast five years, neither the cen-tral nor the state governmenthad done anything concrete intown planning. Today, I visit-ed various areas and felt pitydiscovering that people are liv-ing in poor condition, manyareas don’t have roads. Wherethere are roads, there are nodrains.”

The veteran State Congressleader claimed that the vision-less government has messed upwith Capital in name of devel-opment. He said, “After going

through the various localities inRanchi, I can say that theCapital has become an urbanslum. All the national surveysin which Ranchi was rankedwith higher grade are stagemanaged to fool the people.”The Congress leader who islikely to have triangular contestwith BJP new candidate SanjaySeth and rebel BJP candidateRam Tahal Choudharyattacked the BJP governmentfor Smart City projects.

Sahay said, “The muchhyped Smart city project is a‘trick’ to fool people. Work onthe Smart City is yet to startfull-fledged and also the muchhyped Smart City is going tocater only a small percentage ofpeople in Capital.”

The Congress leaderclaimed that the people are inmood for change as the Saffronparty has broken the socialstructure in urban and ruralpockets. The economic condi-tion of people is poor due tounplanned implementation ofGoods and Service Taxes(GST) and demonetization.

Lauding Congress presi-

dent Rahul Gandhi’s big pollpromise minimum incomescheme (Nyuntam Aay Yojana)which talks about a cash trans-fer of Rs 72,000 a year in theaccount of 5 crore familieswho are poorest 20 per cent inIndia, Sahay said, “The pollpromise will be game changerfor party as it will definitelyhelp needy and poor.” TheCongress last week released itselection manifesto, stating thatif the Congress is voted topower, it will give Rs 72,000 peryear as minimum income topoor families which will ben-efits around 25 crore people, amove Rahul Gandhi hastermed a surgical strike onpoverty.

On Trinamool Congresspresident and West BengalChief Minister MamataBanerjee claims of one con-tender for PM post, theCongress leader said, “There isno harm of regional leadersprojecting as Prime Minister. Itis good that apart from Modijeethere are other leaders in coun-try who can become as PrimeMinister.”

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The Rashtriya Janata Dal(RJD) on Sunday accused

the ruling Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP) of conspiring toprevent the meeting of formerBihar Deputy CM TejashwiYadav with incarcerated RJDchief Lalu Prasad on Saturdayat the Rajendra Institute ofMedical Sciences (RIMS) inRanchi.

RJD State PresidentGautam Sagar Rana onSunday told the media thatthe party will lodge a com-plaint with the Chief ElectoralOfficer (CEO) against thealleged conspiracy by the BJP.

Rana said that the partyhad sought permission ofPalamu Sub DivisionalOfficer, Nandkishore Guptafor landing of TejashwiYadav’s helicopter near con-ference venue on Saturday.

“He (Gupta) had allotteda spot around four kilometersfrom the conference venue.The government’s chopper,however, could not land on

time due to air traffic,” hesaid. Tejashwi visited Palamuon the day to participate innomination filing of theparty’s candidate, GhuranRam from Palamu parlia-mentary constituency.

Rana al leged thatTejashwi was not provided achopper on time for flying toRanchi and was told that thepilot had to return to Ranchisince the time allotted forTejashwi’s air travel was over.Later, Tejashwi demandedanother chopper, whicharrived late, he added.

“Tejashwi could not reachRanchi on time and washence denied permission tomeet his father,” said Rana.

A delegation of RJD officebearers will meet the CEO inRanchi and highlight thealleged misconduct of theBJP. “They (BJP) are harass-ing our leaders in an effort tobreak our morale. However,the RJD will go on to win theelections this time aroundfrom Palamu and Chatraseats,” Rana said.

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Around 23 passengers trav-elling via Delhi-

Bhubaneswar Rajdhani Express(22842) fell sick after eatingmeals served by the railways.

The passengers of coachesB3, B5, B7 and B9 who wereserved rice, chicken and otheredibles by pantry staff at night,complained of vomiting, loosemotions, stomach pain anduneasiness. Later a passenger,Satya Prakash (at Gaya station)tweeted to Railway Ministerthat people in coach B3 are suf-fering from food poisoningand requested for help at theearliest. Following the tweet thematter was taken to the con-

cerned authority and medicalaid along with a doctor’s teamrushed at Gomo station toattend the sick passengers, arailway official informed.

At Bokaro Steel CityRailway station, a Passengertraveling to Bhubaneswar said,“We suspect that there might besomething wrong with thechicken dish that was pre-pared on the train.”

The Divisional RailwayManager SK Srivastava andStation Manager of BokaroGN Singh said that after gettingthe information a team of doc-tors attended people who fellsick at Gomoh station firstand later another team of doc-tors attended them at Bokaro

Steel City station.“It is a suspected case of

food poisoning. All passengersare stable now,” an officer said.

A few passengers were alsoattended by the doctors atTatanagar railway stationenroute Bhubaneshwar. Thearrival time for the New Delhi-Bhubaneswar Rajdhani Expressat Tatanagar was 10.35 am, butthe train arrived at the stationat 1.45 pm and left Tatanagarstation at 2.15 pm.

The passengers had gotextremely irritated as the trainwas running over three hourslate by the time it reachedTatanagar station, where ithalted for 30 minutes instead offive minutes.

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Page 3:  · 2019-04-07 · wanted to discuss 18 seats ... old girl, employed with call center, ... Rajveer Chauhan, Station Officer Noida sector-20 police station, Shweta was returning, along

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The Chatra Lok Sabha seat gears upfor a friendly contest between

Congress and RJD as both the grandalliance partners have announced theircandidates. The RJD has pitted politi-cal greenhorn Subhash Yadav from theseat—which has given most of timesoutsiders MPs.

Subhash enjoys the blessing of LaluRabri and this is said to be the reasonbehind RJD not leaving the seat despiterepeated pleas from Congress, JMM,JVM (P). The seat which borders Biharwill witness triangular contest betweenRJD Subhash Yadav, Congress MLA andBarhi (Hazaribagh) Manoj KumarYadav and BJP sitting MP Sunil Singh.

The RJD leadership has requestedCongress to withdraw the candidate tillApril 12—the last date for withdrawalof nominations.

The Mahagathbandhan leaders feelthat in the clash between two Yadavs,there will be split of Yadav votes whichwill benefit BJP candidate. With the fearof split of Yadav votes, RJD senior leaderand Bihar former deputy chief minis-ter Tejashwi Prasad Yadav had urged theCongress to withdraw its candidaturefrom seat.

Tejashwi on Saturday once againrequested the Congress to withdraw

their candidature from Chatra. Hesaid, “In the larger interest of GrandAlliance, I would talk to senior leadersof Congress to withdraw their candidatefrom Chatra after talking to my fatherand party chief Lalu Prasad.”

Earlier, Chatra was allotted to theRJD but when the party pressed forPalamu which was allotted and Chatrawent to the Congress as per 7-4-2-1 seat

sharing formula wherein Congress willcontest seven seats, JMM four, JVM(P)two and RJD one.

RJD State president Gautam SagarRana said, “Chatra has been tradition-al seat of RJD and based on RJD sup-port base, a year back Lalujii and RabriDevi had promised Subhash YadavChatra seat. After getting blessing ofLalu and Rabri, Subhash who has busi-

ness in Bihar and Jharkhand’s districtChatra and Palamu had started prepa-rations for Lok Sabha elections. We willwait till April 12 the last date for with-drawal of nominations. Senior RJDleaders are having discussion withsenior Congress leaders for having aconsensus over the seat.”

“For past one year Subhash Yadavhas been carrying out various philan-thropic work such as organizing med-ical camps for poor people, distributionof blankets and food to poor, meetingpeople so as to solve their problemsamong others, “ added Gautam SagarRana.

Meanwhile, after BJP backing itsincumbent Chatra parliamentarianSunil Singh in his constituency for sec-ond time, Sunil Singh has once againstarted preparations for election. OnSunday he reached the BJP state head-quarter in Ranchi he thanks BJP nation-al president Amit Shah and ChiefMinister Raghubar Das for reposingfaith on him. He said, “I am thankfulto centre and state leadership for repos-ing faith on me. I will work hard toensure BJP victory in the seat.”

Chatra will go to polls on thePhase-4 (first phase in the state) onApril 29 along with Lohardaga andPalamu. The last date of nomination isApril 9. Withdrawals are allowed tillApril 12.

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Gearing up for theParliament elections, Chief

Minister Raghubar Das onSunday held marathon meetingof the party office bearers,MLAs, Lok Sabha in-charge,district presidents and othersenior leaders to discuss prepa-rations regarding general elec-tions at party headquarter.

Das flanked by senior lead-ers of party participated atseparate meeting with partyworkers and leaders assigningthem task for general elec-tions. Das asked the partyworkers, senior leaders andMLA to make effort to win all14 seats in State so as to achieveBJP president Amit Shah ‘AbhiBaar 400 ke Paar’ slogan. TheBJP national president thistime has coined a new sloganfor 2019 elections ‘Abhi Baar400 ke Paar’. The number 400in the BJP’s slogan refers to theLok Sabha seats the party aimsto win. In the 2014 elections,the National DemocraticAlliance (NDA) had won 336

parliamentary seats out of 543and the BJP alone had won 282seats.

Deepak Prakash, State BJPgeneral secretary said, “ChiefMinister had given the task toparty workers and senior lead-ers to win all 14 seats which willhelp the party to achieve thetarget of 400 seats.”

Prakash said, “MLAs havebeen asked to ensure that NDAcandidates get maximum votesfrom their respective assem-blies.” In State NDA has 46MLAs which includes 43 BJPMLAs and four AJSU. Prakashsaid, “MLAs, district presi-

dents and Lok Sabhain-charges have beenasked to ensure coor-dination with partyworkers at booth andmandal level for pollvictory of candidates.”

Das asked theBJP cadres to givemaximum focus atbooth level the visionof BJP president AmitShah Booth Jeeto,Chunav Jeeto (win

booths, win the polls).The CM asked the BJP

cadres to go to people ondevelopment, defence and self-respect of the country the mainissues of party in general elec-tions.

Meanwhile, ChiefMinister in the afternoon par-ticipated at BJP workers meetat Dumka where he targetedJMM as biggest exploiter ofpeople in Santhal region. Dassaid, “The JMM is the biggestviolator of CNT and SPT Actin state as Soren family has ille-gally acquired tribal lands inState.”

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Grand football tournamentsat Panchayat level were

organized at all the six blocksof Koderma district on Sunday.The tournament was conduct-ed on the direction of districtelectoral officer for voter aware-ness campaign under SVEEPprogramme.

Block development offi-cer, Mithilesh KumarChaudhary, who was present ata few matches said, "village levelteams were formed and amatch was organized. The win-ning teams will now particiaptein the block level tournamentto be held on April 14."

The BDO gave detailedinformation about EVM,Election ManagementKoderma App and cVigil Appto the participants in the tour-nament.

Deputy Commissioner ofKoderma, Bhuvnesh PratapSingh said that the sport isbeing used to attract youngpeople in the district to casttheir vote. “People in Kodermalove football. This is the reasonthat we decided to reach out to

them using this sport,” he said.Apart from football, many

more initiatives are being takenby the administration toencourage people to vote in theupcoming Lok Sabha electionwhich is to be held in Kodermaon May 6.

The district administra-tion has started using stickerssporting slogans related to vot-ers’ awareness at various prod-ucts like sweet boxes, shoppingbags and also liquor bottles inthe city. Stickers have alreadybeen pasted over 25,000 liquorbottles. Also, the administra-tion has distributed these stick-ers to the courier companies for

them to post it on the variouspackages being delivered.

A jingle has also been pre-pared and given at the localrailway station to be played atregular intervals to encouragepeople to cast their vote.

Also a marathon is plannedon either April 17 or 19, for theawareness.

One of the biggest stepstaken by the administration islaunching the ElectionManagement App which hasalready been downloaded by10,000 people.

The app will help peopleget details about their boothsand cross check whether their

name is on the voters’ list ornot.

Also, a number of compe-titions like rangoli making andselfie competitions are orga-nized by the administration inwhich the participants have toupload the photos on the appand the winners are awarded.

District public relationsofficer of Koderma informedthat till date more than 1500people have already uploadedtheir selfie with voter IDs onthe app.

The app also includes thecontact number of block levelofficers if a voter needs tocontact them.

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The two day National TaxConference (NTC) on sub-

ject of ‘New Tax Laws – Impactand Promotion’, organized bythe All India Federation ofTax Practitioners (AIFTP),Eastern Zone along withJharkhand Income Tax BarAssociation and JharkhandCommercial Tax BarAssociation concluded onSunday.

Speaking at a technicalsession of the conference onProhibition of BenamiProperty Transaction Actunder Income Tax 1961,renowned CharteredAccountant from Delhi, GirishAhuja highlighted the basics ofthe law and explained the def-initions with its risk factors.

“A person has to payutmost attention while pur-chasing a property otherwiseone will have to face direresults. The agreement deed isvery important while pur-chasing any property but manypeople not understands itsvalue. A person must know thelaw of Benami Property beforepurchasing a property,” he said.

Ahuja also gave answers tomany queries in the open ses-sion. In another technical ses-sion of the conference onAudit and Annual Return andCoercive Measures in Goodsand Services Tax (GST),renowned CharteredAccountant S Venkatmaniinformed about the complica-

cies of annul return filing ofGST. “While filing the returnof GST, The CharteredAccountants must pay closeattention because a mistakewill not only cost them but alsothe clients,” he said.

The event was organisedwith an attempt to increaseawareness among common

masses and improve workingefficiency in tax practitionerson various issues of TaxationLaw in Jharkhand.

Around 700 delegates fromacross the Country partici-pated in the two day confer-ence to discuss on variousaspects of taxation laws. Otherthan Supreme Court Justice

Vinit Saran, Chief Justice ofJharkhand High Court (HC),Anirudh Bose was also presentas special guest with all judgesof the HC. The Income TaxAppellate Tribunal presidentPP Bhatt and three vice presi-dents including PM Jagtaap,Pramod Kumar and GS Pannuwere also present at the event.

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Over 40 students from var-ious colleges of Bokaro

have come together to spreadawareness regarding genderequality in rural areas of thedistrict.

Yugdeo Mahatha of ChasCollege, who leads the groupsaid, “We have identified atotal of 100 villages in the dis-trict where we are visiting oneby one, spreading the messageof gender equality, anti humantrafficking, witch hunting andother social causes.”

A team of 10 students outof the total 40, led by Mahathavisits one village on everyweekend to spread their mes-sage. “Till date we have alreadycovered eight villages,” he said.

The team of 40 includesstudents from Chas College,Guru Govind Singh TechnicalCollege and a few students ofclass 11 and 12 from differentschools in Bokaro.

The students visit thePanchayat bhavan in the vil-lages where they bring togeth-er children between the ages ofeight to 18 and teach them

about various issues, right fromsexual harassment to witchhunting, human trafficking,child marriage and other socialevils.

Mohit Kumar Singh, a partof the group said, "Many girlsface sexual harassment in thevillages but they never react asthey fear being shamed by thevillagers. We are trying toremove this social stigma

attached with the survivorsand are encouraging them toraise their voices."

The team also visits thelocal government schoolswhere they spread the word ofgender equality.

"Human trafficking is amajor concern in the area asthe innocent girls are oftenlured by the traffickers withdreams of lavish lifestyle and

end up being exploited. We tellthe students that if they comeacross such cases, they shouldimmediately contact us so wecan help out," Mahatha said.

The team also tries to reachevery household in the villagesthrough street plays and sto-rytelling. The children of vil-lages are taught to performstreet plays on these topics andone play is organized in the vil-lage every week by them.

"We are teaching the chil-dren to perform as they are thebest agents of change. Whentheir parents and other familymembers see the children per-forming they will automatical-ly be more sensitive towardsthese issues," Mahatha said.

The efforts of these collegestudents has already startedshowing results as now peoplecontact them if they see some-thing wrong happening.

“Yesterday we got a callfrom a village in sector 5 ofBokaro where a lost girl wasfound. We immediately rushedto help and with the help oflocal police, we were able torepatriate the girl,” Mahathasaid.

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Apeace committee meetingwas organised on Sunday at

Bokaro Thermal police stationunder the guidance of BermoBDO, Akhilesh Kumar andOfficer-in charge cum InspectorUmesh Kumar Thakur toensure peaceful Ramnavamicelebration in the area.

More than 100 people ofThermal city and its sur-rounding areas, Social activistJogendra Giri, Moti Mahto,Sanjay Prasad, Sarwan Singh,mukhiyas of different pan-chayat attended the meeting.

District officials asked the

members of peace committeeto remain alert during the fes-tival and keep in touch with thelocal police. They also askedlocals not to panic over rumorsand inform the police aboutany suspicious activities.

Ramnavami will be cele-brated on April 13. During theprocession a tight vigil wouldbe maintained.

At the time of procession,all Akhara members should bealert, officials said. BokaroThermal has been divided into15 zones and five Akharaswould take out procession inthe area. BokaroSuperintendent of Police P

Murgon also instructed policepersonnel to ensure that evensmall incidents are handledwith utmost seriousness. Headded that any potential lawand order crisis should be time-ly and effectively dealt with.

An oath taking ceremonywas also held in police stationpremises. BDO AkhileshKumar made the citizens takethe oath. The officials vowedsaying, “We the people of Indiatake oath on keeping firm faithin democracy and strive forindependent, impartial andpeaceful election.” All membersof peace committee repeatedthe BDO’s oath.

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BJD supremo NaveenPatnaik announced Sarojini

Hembram as the party’s its can-didate for the BaripadaAssembly constituency onSunday. The Baripada con-stituency will go to polls in thefourth phase on April 29.

Hembram, currently aRajya Sabha member, had suc-cessfully contested the 2009assembly polls from theBangriposi Assembly seat as theBJD nominee. She was aMinister from 2012 to 2014.She was later elected to theUpper House of Parliament in2014. Now, the BJD has todeclare its candidate for onemore Assembly seat only,Kendrapada.

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At least 20 passengers of theNew Delhi-Bhubaneswar

Rajdhani Express fell ill onSunday allegedly due to foodpoisoning.

The passengers com-plained of uneasiness, stom-achache, vomiting and loose

motion after consuming thefood served by the Railways onSaturday night. The passengerswere provided medical aidafter the train stopped at theBokaro station on the day.Some irate passengers also cre-ated ruckus at the station, fol-lowing which railway officialsreached the spot and pacified

them. The train resumed jour-ney after remaining stationedat Bokaro for an hour.Condition of the passengers isstated to be stable now.

“The pantry car is beingchecked and food samples werecollected to investigate thequality of food,” said a railwayspokesperson.

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State DGP Dr RPSharma’s wife

Tushar Sharmapassed away onSunday. She was 50.Dr Sharma andtheir two daugh-ters and other family memberswere at her deathbed.

She breathed her last earlythis morning while undergoingtreatment at a private hospital

in New Delhi.She was suffer-

ing from pneumo-nia and had earlierbeen admitted to aprivate hospital inB h u b a n e s w a r .Later, she was shift-ed to the Sir GangaRam Hospital in

New Delhi.Her last rites would be

performed in her native placeat Kishangarh in Rajasthan,sources said.

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The Asprusya Dalita Sanrakshyna SurakshaSamiti has requested the voters not to cast

votes in favour of candidates of Keuta, Kaibartyaand Dhibara sub-castes as they are wrongfullyenjoying Schedule Caste (SC) reservation.

The Samit urged that that in case all can-didates belong to the above sub-castes, votersshould either boycott polls or cast votes in NOTA(None of the above) button.

Addressing a Press meet here on Sunday,

Samiti working president Alekh ChandraMallick said that the Samiti had on February 17,2019 urged chiefs of all political parties not tofield candidates of Keuta, Kaibartya and Dhibarasub-castes but many such candidates havebeen given tickets.

Mallick alleged that reservation was creat-ed for development of the neglected Dalits, whohave been humiliated in the society. However,due to lack of awareness the Keuta, Kaibartyaand Dhibara people with help of false documentshave managed to grab the lion’s share of thereservation.

He also said that the Union and StateGovernments in their affidavits have admittedtheir faults and expressed their willingness toomit them from SC category list. Even, the HighCourt has taken this allegation into considera-tion and is likely to take the final decision onMay 13, 2019.

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Odisha Mulnivasi Manchaconvenor Rabi Rathan

attacked national parties, BJPand Congress, for making falsepromises and misleading vot-ers ahead of the general elec-tions while addressing an elec-tion rally here on Saturday.

During public meetingsfor Independent candidateAmson Mallick for Mohana

constituency, Rathan also crit-icised previous MLAs inGajapati district for ignoringthe Dalits, tribals and minori-ties.

A huge rally was conduct-ed in Mohana constituencywhere State level Christianleaders, social activists alongwith 5,000 supporters ofAmson Mallick joined onSaturday.

All Odisha ChristianCouncil general secretaryThomas Michel, said, “TheChurch does not have any ide-

ological leanings or associationwith any political party, front orcandidate but we are concernabout minorities’ rights andsafety.”

He added, “73 per centpopulation of Mohana con-stituency is Christians; and wedo not like to see anotherKandhamal in Gajapati.”

Among others, youthleader Manoj Paltasingh,Prakash Nayak, SimanchalParichha, Rutu Mallick, LazarMajhi and lawyer RabindraSingh were present.

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Yet another Biju Janata Dal(BJD) leader deserted the

party ahead of the electionsobviously as he was not allot-ted a ticket to contest polls.

Former MLA of PallalharaRabPani resigned from theprimary membership of theparty expressing discontentover the party affairs.

He tendered his resignationto party president NaveenPatnaik at the Naveen Niwasciting the party’s ‘negligence’ tohim.

Pani had earlier been des-ignated as the observer of BJDfor Jharsuguda and Sambalpurdistricts.

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BHUBANESWAR: TheCongress on Sunday releasedits candidates’ list for ninemore Assembly seats with mak-ing last-minute change ofcandidates for two constituen-cies.

The party fielded DebiPrasad Mallick for the TirtolAssembly seat in place of BibhuPrasad Tarai, who is now theBJP candidate for JagatsinghpurLok Sabha constituency.Besides, the party replaced

woman candidate SmrutiRekha Pahi with Kisan Pandafor the Dharmasala seat

As known earlier, PCCpresident Niranjan Patnaik,who has already filed his nom-ination papers for theGhasipura constituency, wasalso announced as the candi-date for Bhandaripokhari.

The other six candidatesare: Nalinikant Mohanty-Bhadrak, Sitakant Mohapatra-Barachana, Rabindranath Kar-Salepur, Bibhransu SekharL e n k a - M a h a k a l p a d a ,Lalatendu Mohapatra-Balikuda-Erasama andSatyabrat Patra-Nimapara. PNS

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ssHundreds of followers andsupporters of former BJP

MLA of Rourkela Dilip Rayjoined BJD on Friday extend-ing support to the BJD nomi-nee for the Rourkela Assemblyseat Sarada Nayak.

During the joining cere-mony, while welcoming thenew entrants to the party,Nayak who is an old political

rival of Ray praised the latterfrom the open dais after oneand a half decades.

In 2014, Ray as a BJP can-didate had defeated Nayak ofBJD in Rourkela and Ray toohad a crucial role in the victo-ry of the BJP in SundargarhLok Sabha seat. However, thesituation has changed now.

Ray has left the BJP over ahost of issues; while he is con-sidering the CBI probe againsthim by the BJP-led NDAGovernment at the Centre aconspiracy against him, hisattempt to expedite the twovital projects of the city i.e. con-struction of second Brahmanibridge and upgradation of IGHto a medical college and super

specialty hospital despite thedeclaration of the PrimeMinister four years back,repeatedly failed to bear fruit.He virtually lost his face beforethe electorate.

Though there were specu-lations that Ray would join theBJD, so far his political coursehas been uncertain. But fromhis address to the supporters afew days back it was clear thatRay wants to defeat the BJP inSundargarh. Ray was very opento say his followers to back BJDRaghunathpalli MLA candi-date Subrat Tarai while stayingmum on Nayak. But the latestdevelopment shows Ray toowould throw his weight behindNayak.

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The two main parties inHimachal Pradesh — the

Congress and the BJP — havenot fielded a single womancandidate for the upcomingLok Sabha polls.

The fair sex constitutes 49per cent of the electorate inHimachal. Of the 51.59 lakhvoters in the state, male votersnumber 26,45,584, while femalevoter count is 25,13,357.

No woman figures in thelist of candidates for the fourLok Sabha seats from the state- Shimla (reserved), Kangra,Mandi and Hamirpur -- wherepolling will be held on May 19.

In the Lok Sabha electionsin 2014, the Congress had field-ed a woman candidate, PratibhaSingh, from Mandi. A two-time

MP from the constituency, sheis the wife of Congress leaderand six-time chief ministerVirbhadra Singh.

Prior to this, the Congresshad fielded two women candi-dates six times since HimachalPradesh achieved statehood in1971.

They were, ChandreshKumari, twice for the Kangraseat (1984 and 1989), andPratibha Singh, four times forMandi (2014, the 2013 by-elec-tion, 2004 and 1998).

However, the BJP has neverfielded a woman candidate inthe parliamentary elections inthe state.

So far, only two woman candidates have man-aged to secure a berth in par-liament from HimachalPradesh.

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Three public meetings wereorganised in Chandigarh

by the Bharatiya Janata Partyon Sunday under the cam-paign ‘Chai pe Charcha’ tointeract with the city denizens.

The public meetings wereorganized at Sector 61, 23 andvillage Daddumajra here.

The objective of thesemeetings is to interact withthe local residents and knowtheir thoughts and sugges-tions, said Chandigarh BJPchief Sanjay Tandon.

He said that the pro-gramme has become verypopular with the residents ofChandigarh as it empowersthem to interact directly withthe party leaders and discussthe issues they face and pro-vide suggestions for improve-ment in governance. This isalso a platform where the

party makes people aware ofall the work done by the gov-ernment and presents theelected government’s reportcard, he said.

Tandon interacted withthe people and briefed themon various schemes and pro-grams started by the BJP gov-ernment for security ofnational interest and welfareof country’s citizens.

He said Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has doneexceptional work to empow-er women. BJP Government’s‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padao’ cam-paign has been revolutionaryin this direction. Earlier the

primary education for womenwas limited to class 5th. Manypeople stopped sendingwomen to school for variousreasons, one of which was lackof toilets for women. Thegovernment has changed allthis, he said.

The government hastaken up the responsibility forright to education for womenand providing toilets. Womendo not have to go to toilet inthe open. Chandigarh hasbeen the first city in the coun-try to completely get rid of thepractice of open defecation, headded.

Tandon further said,“Under the Ujwala Yojna, freegas connections have beenprovided to poor women.Sukanaya Yojna has furtherempowered the women andgirl children of the country.The rate of crime againstwomen has gone down.

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Deras, or sects, in Punjabhold a lot of importance in

the electoral season. With eachDera capable of influencingscores of voters, who are theirfollowers, political parties andleaders have no option but to

look up to these during elections.The latest visit by Punjab

Chief Minister Amarinder Singhto the Radha Soami Dera head-quarters in Beas town nearAmritsar last week is being seenas a clear attempt to woo thesect.

Amarinder, accompanied

by Punjab Congress presidentand Gurdaspur MP SunilKumar Jakhar and the party'sPunjab in-charge Asha Kumari,was closeted with the sect chief,Gurinder Singh Dhillon, at thesprawling sect campus for overtwo hours.

The Radha Soami sect,

which is well-known for its reli-gious and social activities, hasmillions of followers in Punjab,Haryana and other states.

Amarinder and Congresspresident Rahul Gandhi had metthe sect chief in December 2016,just weeks ahead of the February4, 2017, Assembly elections inPunjab. The Congress won 77seats in the 117-member stateAssembly. Amarinder's wife andformer Union Minister PreneetKaur does not find anythingwrong in approaching the Deras."Like we go to other people, wego to the Deras also. There isnothing wrong with that," shesaid. Rough estimates put thenumber of Deras in Punjab ataround 9,000, including both bigand small ones. While somehave followers from across reli-gions and communities, manyothers are related to particularcommunities.

"Punjab's social and reli-gious fabric is influenced by theDeras in several areas. Some ofthese deras are quite influential,especially in election time.Though the concept of Deras in

the region is centuries old, someof the controversial ones andtheir self-styled godmen havestarted dominating and evendictating the political scene,"Amrik Singh, a Sikh religiouspreacher in Jalandhar district,told IANS.

Some, like the Dera SachaSauda sect of Gurmeet RamRahim Singh, have run into sev-eral controversies in recent years.

Besides the Radha Soamisect, other prominent Deras inPunjab include the 'Dera SachhKhand' sect based in Ballan vil-lage near Jalandhar. Its two topleaders, including the sect head,Niranjan Dass and second-in-command Rama Nand, wereattacked in a gurdwara inAustria's capital Vienna in May2009. Rama Nand died in theattack and the incident lead toviolence and tension in theDoaba belt of Punjab in 2009.

The attack was seen as aresult of a simmering under-current between Punjab's dom-inant Sikh community and thelargely Dalit Sikh followers of thesect.

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Indian Institute of MassCommunication Alumni

Association (IIMCAA) is all setto offer scholarship to stu-dents of IIMC and also helpthem in case of medical crisis.Addressing the annual chaptermeet of Jharkhand chapter ofIIMCAA, the association’sNational President PrasadSanyal said on Saturday that thenational body has made a newinitiative to provide for medicalassistance for the students inthe crisis and will also start

scholarships for the students ofthe institute from next year.

Speaking during the pro-gramme, Sanyal said that IIM-CAA is continuously expand-ing itself and apart from vari-ous cities of India, its chaptershave started in Singapore,Nepal, Bangladesh, UAE andUzbekistan. OrganizationalSecretary Ritesh Verma saidthat IIMCAA has made a newinitiative and for the last sev-eral years and it also offersawards for alumni in 35 cate-gories every year.

The annual meeting of theJharkhand Chapter of IIM-CAA was organized with muchpomp and show here onSaturday. FormerOrganizational Secretary VijayPandey and Executive MemberAfzal Alam were also presenton the occasion. Nearly twodozen alumni of the institute,including media personnel

working in different institutesof Jharkhand, teachers of uni-versities and public relationsofficers working in severalcompanies, gathered on thisoccasion and shared their oldmemories and experiences.

On this occasion, whenasked to speak about the expe-rience of the first day of the

Indian Institute of MassCommunication, many mem-bers became emotional, reliv-ing their memories related tothe institution. But, there wasuniformity in all that the daysspent in the institute were agolden time of their life and theInstitute not only gave them abig platform but also prepared

to do something better in life.IIMCAA, Jharkhand

Chapter has been active in theState for many years and fromtime to time, they continue tomake positive contributions inmany social activities. Thisincludes distribution of books,stationery to children in needand serving them.

On this occasion, IIM-CAA, Jharkhand chapter pres-ident Manoj Kumar, VicePresident Amit Gupta, VicePresident Dr. Dev Vrat Singh,General Secretary PranavPratyush Das, Treasurer KumarRajesh, Organisation SecretaryPooja Oraon, Anupam Rana,Manisha Singh, Manish Gupta,Roshan Kumar, Santosh Oraon,Ranjit Kumar, Rajesh Kumar,Abhishek Kumar, OmkarPandey, Vivekanand Singh,Shambhunath, Anand Dutt,Manmohan Singh, ArchanaGupta were present.

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitleyon Sunday said electoral

bonds are there to check theuse of black money for fundingelections and said UPA regimealso made similar move byforming electoral trusts.

“Surprisingly the attack isagainst the bonds and not theelectoral trust because the ear-lier was brought by the NDAand the latter was by UPA. Theunderlying principle of both isthe same,” Jaitley said in his blogtitled ‘The Choice of PoliticalFunding — Cheque, ElectoralBonds or Blackmoney fromContractors and middlemen’.

Highlighting the problemof black money in elections,Jaitley said as per reports Rs1,500 crore has been seized asa result of initiatives taken bythe Election Commission andrevenue authorities. He addedin absence of the electoralbonds, the donors will have nooption but to donate only bycash after siphoning moniesfrom their businesses.

“The recent EC and ITraids have shown that it is tax-payers/Government’s money,

which, through PWD andother Departments of theGovernment, is being siphonedout and round-tripping intopolitics.

“Is that a better option orthe reformed system of all whitemoney and improved, if not aperfect transparency? NGOsand commentators must lookbeyond their nose,” he added.

The Government had in2018 brought in the electoralbond scheme as an alternativeto cash donations made to

political parties as part of itsefforts to bring transparency inpolitical funding. Under thescheme, the name of the donoris known only to banks.

Jaitley said both the elec-toral trusts, proposed by thethen Finance Minister PranabMukherjee in 2010, and elec-toral bonds assured total whitemoney and improved trans-parency but masked the iden-tity of the link between thedonor and the party. “Thisobviously has been done to

encourage donors to donatewhite money without fear ofconsequences,” he said.

The Minister said past fewdays have witnessed severalcases where the ElectionCommission and the revenueauthorities, both separately andacting jointly, were trying tocurb the use of black money inelections. “These actions havebeen particularly significantin States like Karnataka, TamilNadu, Andhra Pradesh, North-East and Madhya Pradesh. TheElection Commission and theIncome-tax authorities work inclose tandem during elections.In many cases, monies havebeen coming fromGovernment contractors andbeneficiaries,” Jaitley said.

He said in one State, con-tractors passed on monies toengineers who were to distrib-ute it to the candidates.

“In another State, whichonly four months ago elected anew Government, 50,000Government transfers becamea revenue generating exercise.Reports have also indicated thatan amount of about Rs 1,500crore has already been seized,”Jaitley added.

New Delhi: India on Sundayrejected as “irresponsible” and“preposterous” PakistanForeign Minister ShahMahmood Qureshi’s claim thatIndia was planning to carry outanother attack on Pakistan,saying his comments wereaimed at whipping up warhysteria in the region.

Qureshi told reporters inMultan that Pakistan has “reli-able intelligence” that Indiawas planning to attack Pakistanagain between April 16 and 20,adding that five permanentmembers of the UN SecurityCouncil were apprised about it.

In a strongly worded state-ment, External Affairs MinistrySpokesperson Raveesh Kumartermed Qureshi’s commentsas “public gimmick” appearingto be “a call to Pakistan-basedterrorists to undertake a terrorattack in India.”

“India rejects the irre-sponsible and preposterousstatement by the ForeignMinister of Pakistan with aclear objective of whipping upwar hysteria in the region.This public gimmick appears tobe a call to Pakistan-based ter-rorists to undertake a terrorattack in India,” Kumar said.

He said India reserves theright to respond “firmly anddecisively” to any cross-border

terrorist attack. India struck thebiggest terrorist training campof terror group Jaish-e-Muhammed deep insidePakistan on February 26, twelvedays after the dastardlyPulwama terror attack in which44 CRPF personnel were killed.The JeM had claimed respon-sibility for the attack.

On February 27, thePakistan Air Force retaliated byunsuccessfully targeting sever-al military installations inJammu and Kashmir. Kumarsaid it has been made clear toPakistan that it cannot absolveitself of responsibility of across-border terrorist attackin India. “No attempt at creat-ing an alibi for its complicity insuch attacks will succeed.Pakistan needs to take credibleand irreversible steps against

terrorism operating from allterritories under its controlrather than making hystericalstatements to obfuscate thecore issue that bedevils ourregion: cross-border terror-ism,” he said.

The MEA spokespersonsaid Pakistan has been advisedto use established diplomaticand DGMO (Director Generalof Military Operations) chan-nels to share any actionable andcredible intelligence it hasabout imminent terror attacks.

Earlier in the day, Qureshitold a press conference in hishometown of Multan that Indiawas devising a new plan toattack Pakistan. “A new mishapcould be staged... And its pur-pose will be to justify their(India’s) offensive againstPakistan and to increase diplo-matic pressure againstIslamabad,” he alleged.

“If it happens, you canimagine the impact of theoccurrence on the peace andstability of the region.According to our information,the action could be takenbetween 16-20 April,” Qureshisaid. He added, “We want theinternational community totake notice of this irresponsi-ble behaviour and reprimandthem (India) for taking thisroute.” PTI

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The process of casting votesfor the 2019 Parliamentary

polls through postal ballet fornearly three million defenceand paramilitary personnelbegan on Friday from remoteNortheastern town of Lohitpurin Arunachal Pradesh, over2,600 km away from thenational Capital.

With the ElectionCommission taking a series ofmeasures to enroll maximumnumber of service voters, thecount of such votes is expectedin large numbers. DIG ofAnimal Training School of ITBP

Sudhakar Natarajan cast thefirst vote at Lohitpur on Friday.

“This year, the ElectionCommission has taken many

steps to add more and moreservice voters in the process.Awareness campaigns throughelectronic, social, print and

other media was given dueattention for the last one year.This would probably be for thefirst time that a large numberof service voters are expectedto exercise their franchise,”ITBP spokesperson VivekPandey said in a statement.

The first vote of the coun-try of the Lok Sabha Polls2019 was casted in ArunachalPradesh by service voters. Aremote Indo-Tibetan BorderPolice (ITBP) unit located inthe eastern tip of North East,has started the service voting bysecret postal ballot on Friday atLohitpur, he said.

This is for the first vote ofIndia that service vote hasbeen cast from AnimalTraining School of ITBP atLohitpur for many constituen-cies in India. After the voting,ballot papers were dispatchedto Uttarakhand, Gujarat,

Bangalore, Bihar, Rajasthan,Haryana, Uttar Pradesh andmany other places.

Other ITBP units deployedin the Arunchal Pradesh alsocasted their votes throughpostal ballot.

The ballot paper for theservice voters only identifiesthe name of the candidatesalong with their photos and thepolitical parties they representbut do not have party symbols.It is bilingual, one languagebeing English and the other oneis the one prevalent in a par-ticular constituency. The ballotis folded and put inside anenvelope and after sealing it,the same is collected in front ofthe senior most officer of theunit and then oraganised in abag and sent to the nearest postoffice for onward transmis-sion through Speed Post,Natarajan said.

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The CBI has moved theSupreme Court seeking

recall of the court’s February 5order staying the arrest of for-mer Kolkata police commis-sioner Rajeev Kumar to let theagency put him to custodialinterrogation in the Saradha andRose Valley ponzi scam cases.

In its plea to the apexcourt, the agency said the recallof the order granting Kumar aninterim protection from thearrest was necessary “to unrav-el the entire gamut of the larg-er conspiracy in the ponziscam cases”.

The CBI also sought thecourt’s directions to the WestBengal authorities to complywith the court’s earlier orders“in letter and spirit” and not tocreate any hurdle in the CBIprobe or try to “intimidate,harass and scare the agencyofficials” probing the cases.

A Bench of Chief JusticeRanjan Gogoi is to hear theCBI’s plea on Monday.

“Recall the interim protec-tion granted to Rajeev Kumarfor no coercive steps, includingarrest, granted by this court byorder dated February 5, 2019 to

enable the CBI to subject him tointerrogation in accordancewith the law to unravel theentire gamut of larger conspir-acy in these ponzi scam casesand its subsequent investiga-tion,” the CBI’s application said.

The agency said it needs toexamine Kumar and otherpolice officials to recover thematerial evidence and to inves-tigate into the acts of omissionand commission on the part ofBidhan Nagar police commis-sionerate and SIT officials incausing concealment of theevidence collected by themduring investigation.

It said erstwhile BidhanNagar Police CommissionerKumar besides the then deputycommissioner of police (detec-tive department) and other SITofficials did not cooperate withthe CBI in investigation and didnot help in making available toit all the material evidence in thePonzi scam cases.

The CBI said there were

around 270 Ponzi firms oper-ating in West Bengal of whichSaradha and Rose Valley groupswere the most important ones.It said Saradha group collectedaround Rs 2,450 crore and evenafter the scam came to the fore,the Rose valley group managedto collect around Rs 2,536.80crore in 2013-14 from the pub-lic at large.

The CBI application saidformer Bidhan Nagar PoliceCommissioner Rajeev Kumar“by his inaction or otherwisefacilitated Saradha Group toillegally operate and furthercollect Rs 805.77 crore during2012-13 and Rose Valley Groupto illegally operate and collect Rs6,865.85 crore during 2012-14”.

On March 29, the apexcourt had agreed to hear a CBIplea against mobile serviceproviders Vodafone and Airtelthat they were not cooperatingwith the investigation inSaradha chit fund scam cases.

The CBI claimed they were

not providing it full call detailrecords (CDRs) of the scamaccused despite repeatedrequests. The agency hadrecently filed a status report onKumar’s interrogation in con-nection with the scam.

The apex court had onMarch 26 termed as “very veryserious” the revelations made bythe CBI in its status report relat-ing to Kumar’s interrogation.

The top court had said itcannot “close its eyes” if some“very very serious facts” weredisclosed to it and directed theagency to file an applicationseeking appropriate reliefagainst Kumar, who had earli-er headed the state SIT prob-ing the chit fund scam.

It had refused to drop thecontempt proceedings againstthe West Bengal DGP, the chiefsecretary and Kumar.

The apex court is hearinga CBI’s plea to initiate contemptof court proceedings againstvarious senior officials of the

West Bengal Government,accusing them of not cooper-ating in its probe and tamper-ing with the evidence, includ-ing CDRs of key accused andSardha group CMD SudiptaSen and Debjani Mukherjee.

The court, which had ear-lier asked the CBI director tofile an affidavit giving details ofthe alleged acts of contemptcommitted by the West Bengalpolice officials and others in thecase, had perused the CBIdirector’s reply and the freshstatus report, pertaining toquizzing of Kumar.

The apex court had saidthe allegations made by the CBIwere serious enough and it wasan “obligation” on the part ofthe agency to disclose fulldetails of the alleged contemptcommitted by the then policecommissioner.

It had questioned the CBIfor the delay in moving theapex court when the agencyallegedly noticed the tamperingof electronic evidence in June2018. The probe agency cameout with a contempt petitionafter the February 3 incident inwhich the CBI sleuths, who hadgone to probe Kumar at his res-idence, were taken into custodyand manhandled by the WestBengal Police.

The apex court had takennote of the February 3 incidentin which top officers of the statepolice allegedly sat with ChiefMinister Mamata Banerjee ondharna.

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Congress president RahulGandhi on Sunday again

challenged Prime MinisterNarendra Modi for a debate onthe issue of corruption. Heshared a clip of Modi’s inter-view to a TV channel onTwitter in which the PrimeMinister is seen asking thereporter if she believed theSupreme Court verdict onRafale fighter jet deal withFrance.

“You can run Mr Modi butyou can’t hide. Your karma isabout to catch up with you. Thecountry can hear it in yourvoice,” Rahul tweeted. “Truth isa powerful thing. I challengeyou to a debate on corruption,”he said.

Rahul had first challengedModi for a debate on nationalsecurity, corruption and foreignpolicy on April 2 while address-ing a gathering at Congress’smanifesto release event at theparty headquarters. The oppo-sition party has repeatedly crit-icised the new Rafale dealsigned by the Modi govern-ment, claiming it is costlierthan the one negotiated by theUPA and there is corruptioninvolved.

The Congress has alsoaccused Modi of helping busi-nessman Anil Ambani make aprofit of Rs 30,000 crore byfavouring him as the offsetpartner in the deal.

The Government hasdenied any wrongdoing in thefighter jet agreement. Ambanihas also strongly rejected allallegations.

Rahul also took to social

media to announce if voted topower, his party will introducea single-window system foreducation loans and bring a lawthat will “list the rights andduties of students”.

In a Facebook post, RahulGandhi asserted that aCongress Government willensure free education to all stu-dents from Class 1 to 12 inGovernment schools in thecountry.

He said the Congress willrestore the independence andautonomy of colleges and uni-versities and will open newState-run varsities in back-ward areas of the country toensure the expansion of theeducation sector.

“We feel that educationempowers a child and it shouldbe made available to all chil-dren. The Congress promisesto ensure free and compulso-ry education to all in govern-ment schools from Class 1 to12. We will raise the budget oneducation to 6 per cent ofGDP,” he said in another post.

Rahul also said a Congress gov-ernment will waive outstandinginterest on old education loansprior to March 31, 2019.

On the other hand,Congress General SecretaryPriyanka Gandhi Vadra tootook to twitter to express hersolidarity with the farmers ofUttar Pradesh whose crop hasbeen destroyed by hail andunseasonal rain. “Hail andunseasonal rains havedestroyed farmers crop inthousands of acres of land inUttar Pradesh. Farmers havesuffered a lot because of thisnatural calamity on the eve ofharvest. In this hour of grief, Istand with you,” she wrote onTwitter. Hundreds of acres ofcrops was destroyed by hail andunseasonal rains that swept theregion Saturday night.

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The Income Tax Departmenton Sunday conducted pre-

dawn searches on at least 50locations in Delhi and MadhyaPradesh against people linked toChief Minister Kamal Nath oncharges of alleged tax evasion,triggering allegations of politi-cal vendetta against Oppositionleaders by the Congress.

A team of about 200 I-TDepartment and police officerssimultaneously reached thesepremises around 3 am and anundisclosed amount of cashwas recovered during thesearches, officials said, addingthe raids were linked to sus-pected movement of hawalamoney in the run up to theParliamentary polls and taxevasion, they said.

Locations in Indore,Bhopal and Green Park in thenational Capital were raidedand premises searched includ-ed Nath’s former Officer onSpecial Duty (OSD) PravinKakkad, former adviserRajendra Miglani and execu-tives linked to his brother-in-law’s firm Moser Bayer and hisnephew Ratul Puri’s company,they said.

Both Kakkar and Miglaniresigned from their posts justbefore the Lok Sabha pollswere declared.

In Indore, the raids wereconducted by a team of officialsfrom Delhi at Kakkad’s resi-dence in Vijay Nagar area andother places associated withhim, sources said.

Searches were also con-ducted at Kakkad’s house inBhopal’s Nadir Colony andtwo other locations in the Statecapital. Documents seized dur-ing the searches were beingscrutinised.

The searches were alsoconducted against Kolkata-based businessman Paras MalLodha, sources said.

Kakkad, a former MadhyaPradesh police officer, wasappointed OSD to Nath after theCongress-led Government came

to power in the State in 2018. He earlier served as OSD to

former Union minister KantilalBhuria during the UPA regime.Bhuria is contesting theupcoming Lok Sabha poll fromRatlam-Jhabua seat in MP.

Kakkad’s family is associat-ed with a number of businesses,including hospitality. Ratul Puriwas last week grilled by theEnforcement Directorate in thenational capital in connectionwith the Rs 3,6000 croreAgustaWestland helicopter scam.

Reacting to the raids, MPCongress’ media cell vice pres-ident Bhupendra Gupta, also aformer OSD to Nath, said, “TheBJP Government has been tar-geting Opposition leaders acrossthe country due to politicalenmity. Due to such act ofpolitical vendetta, AndhraPradesh Chief Minister (NChandrababu Naidu) and DMKleader MK Stalin had to stageprotest against the Centre.”

However, the BJP hit back,saying thieves were

now having a complaint againstthe ‘watchman’.

“Black money worth croreswas recovered during theIncome Tax department’s raidat the house of private secretaryof Madhya Pradesh ChiefMinister Kamal Nath. This hasmade one thing clear that thosewho are thieves have a com-plaint against the watchman,”BJP’s national general secretaryKailash Vijayvargiya said.

Last month, the tax depart-ment searched premises ofaides of a JD(S) Minister inKarnataka, leading to the StateGovernment terming the raidsas politically motivated.

Likewise, searches wereconducted at the premises ofsenior DMK leaderDuraimurugan in Vellore dis-trict over suspected use ofunaccounted money for elec-tioneering and Rs 10 lakh ofalleged “excess” cash was seized.

Union Finance MinisterArun Jaitley said the past fewdays have witnessed several cases

where the Election Commissionand the revenue authorities,both separately and acting joint-ly, were trying to curb the use ofblack money in elections.

“These actions have beenparticularly significant in Stateslike Karnataka, Tamil Nadu,Andhra Pradesh, North-Eastand Madhya Pradesh. TheElection Commission and theIncome-tax authorities workin close tandem during elec-tions. In many cases, monieshave been coming fromGovernment contractors andbeneficiaries,” Jaitley said.

In one State, contractorspassed on monies to engineerswho were to distribute it to thecandidates, he said.

“In another State, whichonly four months ago elected anew Government, 50,000Government transfers becamea revenue generating exercise.Reports have also indicated thatan amount of about Rs 1,500crore has already been seized,”Jaitley added.

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Sunday attacked

“speed-breaker Chief Minister”Mamata Banerjee saying“Bengal can never develop tillthere is a Government that pro-motes goondas, mollycoddles,infiltrators and backs the per-petrators of chit fund.”

Modi who was addressinga rally at Coochbehar in NorthBengal wondered “how canyour State develop when it isruled by a speed-breaker of aDidi? How can it develop whenit is backed by goons? How canit develop when infiltratorsare welcomed” on prioritybasis?

Modi said the MamataBanerjee Government had sul-lied the name of the State byprotecting and preserving thechit fund scamsters. “You elect-ed Mamata Didi with greatexpectations. But what did shegive to you?” the PrimeMinister asked adding “sheonly brought your State to dis-repute with Sharada, RoseValley and Narada scams.”

Five years after makingthe first promise — before2014 general elections — tocatch Ponzi scamsters Modionce again offered justice say-ing, “I want to promise you allthat this chowkidar will makethem account for — eke k paisa

— every single paisa they loot-ed from you.”

Attacking the Banerjee forplaying a “narrow politics”with the progress of the StateModi said “there from Delhi werelease schemes for your devel-opment and here this speed-breaker of a Chief Ministerapplies brakes on the projectsso that the credit does not goto the Centre,” and wondered“why there should be meanpoliticking with people’s issues.”

That Mamata Banerjee’srecent diatribes on the PrimeMinister only signified the herstate of mind Modi said “thesleepless night she is spendingthese days only shows whathappens to a person when one

starts losing ground beneathonce feet.”

The Chief Minister waslosing her sleep by hearing thechants of “Modi! Modi!” fromthe people, he said.

Now when she was facingproblems in implementing herplans to manipulate the elec-tions “she is taking out theanger on the ElectionCommission,” Modi saidadding Banerjee was trying allmeans to thwart BJP’s advancein Bengal. But no amount ofunworthy amount meansadopted by her to cling on topower will help her because“people have made up theirmind to do away with yourregime.”

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Launching a frontal attack onPrime Minister Narendra

Modi for peddling lies after liesto cling on to power BengalChief Minister Mamata Banerjeeon Sunday said she had workedwith many Prime Ministers butnot a person like the present one.

“I have worked with manyPrime Ministers but I never sawan incumbent as shameless andliar as this one,” Banerjee toldfrom her twin rallies atMoynaguri and Jalpaiguri inNorth Bengal.

In her speech coming closeon the heels of the PrimeMinister’s who addressed a rallyat Coochbehar also in NorthBengal Banerjee reacted toModi’s Sharada-Rose Valley-Narada aspersions the ChiefMinister saying “those who talkabout Sharada and Narada areholding rallies with the perpe-trators of this fraud sitting bytheir sides.”

Apparently referring to for-mer Railway Minister MukulRoy who subsequently left theTMC to join the BJP Banerjeesaid “Modi Babu refers to thechit fund scams but himselfaddresses rallies with a Gaddar(traitors) who has mastermind-ed the scams sitting by his side.”

She added, the BJP wasinducting all the “rejected items(leaders)” from the TrinamoolCongress. “They are taking the

rejected leaders whom we havedriven out because of theircriminal activities,” Banerjeesaid.

Referring to the “question-able conduct” of the BJP candi-dates in North Bengal she said“those who were once involvedin rioting, smuggling and mur-der have now been given ticketby the BJP.”

Referring to the AlipurduarBJP candidate John Bulra shesaid “this man was involved intriggering riots between Bengalisand the tribal people.” AboutNisit Pramanik the CoochbeharBJP candidate she said “he wasinvolved in human traffickingand cattle smuggling.”

On the BJP’s alleged influ-ence — on the ElectionCommission — in transferringkey police officers of Bengal shesaid “they are thinking thattransferring officers will win theday for them then they are liv-ing in fool’s paradise. Even thenew officers are my officersand we will take care of that.”

Wondering as to why theCabinet Secretary of India andwhy the Prime Minister’s ownsecretary should not be trans-ferred before the electionsBanerjee said “they have trans-ferred the Chief Secretary of aState, and senior officers ofmany other States. But I want toask why the Cabinet Secretaryand Prime Minister’s Secretarywill not betransferred.”

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Hitting out at the Congressand the Left Front, Prime

Minister Narendra Modi saidon Sunday the Opposition par-ties were hell-bent on remov-ing him from power, even ifthat meant singing paeans toPakistan.

Addressing a rally inUdaipur, Modi said the peopleof Tripura has set a precedentfor the entire country by oust-ing the Left Front Governmentafter 25 years.

“Mamata Banerjee’sTrinamool Congress has beentrying its best to make inroadsinto Tripura, but people herewould not let that happen.They have tolerated the atroc-ities of the Left Front, waitingpatiently for the BJP to rise. Ithank the people of Tripura forbelieving in the BJP,” he stated.

Modi asserted that theopposition parties could stoopto any level to remove himfrom power.

“The Congress and theLeft are working together tooust Modi. They have stoopedtoo low, singing paeans toPakistan even when the NDAgovernment was taking on theterrorists on the soil of theneighbouring country.

“In Tripura, they (Left andCongress) are fighting eachother, but in Delhi they standunited, holding each other’shand. If there was no help from

the Left, or there was no gamebehind the curtains, why wouldthe namdar of the Congress goto Kerala for the contest?”

Congress chief RahulGandhi is contesting the gen-eral election from Wayanad inKerala and Amethi in UttarPradesh.

“If he (Rahul Gandhi)wanted to contest from south,he could have gone toPondicherry or Karnataka. Hecould have also gone to AndhraPradesh, where the Congresshas recently forged friendshipwith U-turn Babu, or toMadhya Pradesh, Rajasthanand Chhattisgarh.”

Modi has coined themoniker “U-turn Babu” forTelugu Desam Party (TDP)chief Chandrababu Naidu, whopulled out his party of the NDAin March 2018.

“He (Gandhi) would darenot enter Punjab as peoplethere haven’t forgotten the 1984(anti-Sikh) riots,” the primeminister added.

Taking a jibe at theCongress manifesto, Modi said,“The grand old party came outwith its 50-60 page hypocrisydocument, where there is nomention of middle-class.

“The middle-class has longsuffered under the Congressrule. Some parties, includingthe Congress, have said thatmore taxes should be levied onthe middle-class.”

Attacking the Left parties,

the prime minister said theyconsider their “party’s consti-tution bigger than that of thecountry’s”.

“The Left parties don’twant to give the country adirection. They are only keenon furthering their own inter-ests in the country,” Modi said.

Heaping praise on ChiefMinister Biplab Deb, he saidthe state government hasimproved the law and order sit-uation and developed infra-structure in just one year.

“Our Government hasstarted procuring agriculturalproduces from the farmersdirectly. The middlemen andthe moneylenders have suffereda setback,” he claimed.

Under the Saubhagyascheme, the NDA Governmenthas ensured power connec-tion in almost all homes in thestate, the prime minister noted.

“As promised before theassembly election, we haveinitiated work on broad gaugerail line, built bridges, startedtrain services, connectingAgartala with other parts of thecountry. Work is also under-way to give Maharaja BirBikram Airport an interna-tional makeover,” he said,adding that his Governmenthas taken adequate measuresto ensure safety of womenand children.

Election to two Lok Sabhaseats in Tripura will be held onApril 11 and 18.

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Jodhpur: Congress spokesper-son Abhishek Manu Singhvi onSunday challenged PrimeMinister Narendra Modi tocontest the Lok Sabha electionsfrom any southern State.

He also rubbished claimsthat Gandhi’s decision to con-test from Wayanad in Keralawas because of the large pop-ulation of minorities likeMuslim and Christians thereand told reporters that 50 percent of Wayanad’s populationwas Hindu. “Can Modi darecontest elections from any ofthe constituencies of AndhraPradesh, Telangana, Kerala orTamil Nadu like Rahul Gandhidid,” he questioned.

Singhvi also praised theCongress’s manifesto for its

practicality and verifiability.Taking a dig at the BJP over

its promises ahead of the LokSabha polls, he claimed that theCongress’s manifesto containedall issues, except “jumlebaazi”(rhetoric) and “fekubaazi”(making tall claims).

“This manifesto is unprece-dented in all respects. Such amanifesto has never been madeby any party , but it does nothave ‘jumlebazi’ and ‘fekubazi’in it,” Singhvi said.

Highlighting its three com-ponents of the NYAY scheme,Kisan budget and MNREGA,Singhvi said everything aboutthese schemes is verifiable andthe BJP has been unjustifiablyraising questions on their prac-ticality. PTI

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Slamming the recent IT raidsat the premises owned by his

son, contesting the Vellore LokSabha seat, Dravida MunnetraKazhagam (DMK) Treasurer MDuraimurugan on Sunday saidnothing incriminating could befound and it was an attempt bythe Centre and Tamil NaduGovernments to wreak per-sonal vengeance.

In a statement here, he saidwinning or losing an electionand having differences of opin-ion between political partieswere only common.

“But what stands out todayis the ruling party's attempts towreak personal vengeance inorder to bring disgrace to theopponent,” Duraimuruganalleged.

The recent searches con-

ducted by the Income Taxauthorities at the residencesand college owned by his sonKadhir Anand, the DMK can-didate in Vellore, were part ofthis trend. Though "nothingillegal" was found, they werebeing closely monitored evenafter the raids, he claimed.

In the statement,Duraimurugan alleged he hadbeen receiving informationthat attempts would be made toframe them to spoil KadirAnand's chances in the LokSabha polls.

"This is not only anti-democratic but fascist,"Duraimurugan, a veteranleader and considered close toparty President MK Stalin,said.

Income Tax sleuths had onMarch 30 conducted searchesat the premises of

Duraimurugan in Vellore dis-trict over suspected use ofunaccounted money for elec-tioneering and seized Rs 10.50lakh of alleged excess cash.

Two days later, the IncomeTax officials raided severalplaces in Vellore district andseized �11.53 crore cash froma cement godown belonging toa DMK leader's associate, trig-gering speculations that thepoll in the constituency couldbe postponed.

I-T sources had then toldthat cash stuffed in cartons andgunny bags, neatly packed forward and division-wise distri-bution, was unearthed by thedepartment's investigationwing officials on April 1.

Stalin had condemned theI-T searches and alleged it wasa misuse of powers by PrimeMinister Narendra Modi.

Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dalleader Tejashwi Yadav alleged onSunday that he was not beingallowed by the “autocratic” BJPGovernment in Jharkhand tomeet his father, Lalu PrasadYadav, who is undergoing treat-ment at a hospital here.

Lalu Prasad Yadav, who isthe RJD president and serving ajail term following his convictionin several fodder scam cases, iscurrently lodged at the RIMShospital on account of multipleailments.

“I have been waiting sinceyesterday (Saturday) evening tomeet my father who is undergo-ing treatment at a Ranchi hospi-tal but the autocratic BJPGovernment is not even allowinga son to meet his father as per therules,” Tejashwi Yadav tweeted.

“A conspiracy is beinghatched against Lalu ji. He is in

jail and undergoing treatment ina hospital under security but hisroom is being raided everyday,”the leader of Opposition in theBihar Assembly said.

Tejashwi, who is spear-heading the RJD’s poll campaignin his father’s absence, allegedthat injustice was being metedout to Lalu Prasad Yadav and hewas not being treated properlyin jail.

“Doctors had asked the jailsuperintendent two weeks agofor conducting echo (echocar-diography) and X-Ray on Laluji. But the tests are not beingdone as security is not being pro-vided to take him to anotherbuilding (for tests). This is injus-tice. Proper treatment is notbeing meted out (to Prasad).This is an absolute violation ofhuman values,” Tejashwi Yadavadded. PTI

4�!��������5��������������������� ������6�/+������7���#Yavatmal: A 24-year-old farmer

allegedly committed suicide at avillage in Maharashtra’sYavatmal district, police said onSunday.

A family member claimedthat the deceased, ShreejitVilasrao Hathe, was under stressdue to his crop failure. Hatheallegedly hanged himself to apole in front of his house atWadgaon village in Ralegaontehsil on Saturday, a police offi-cial said. A probe was on toascertain the reason behind hisextreme step, he said.

However, a relative of Hathesaid the farmer owned fouracres of agricultural land but hiscrops were failing every year,because of which he was understress. Kishore Tiwari, chairmanof the Vasantrao Naik ShetkariSwavalamban Mission, a stategovernment agency, said Hathe’sfather also committed suicidelast year by jumping into theirfarm well. PTI

Karur (TN): Tamil Nadu ChiefMinister K Palaniswami onSunday said DMK presidentMK Stalin was not qualified tospeak on the Cauvery issuesince the party had failed tonotify the final award of theCauvery Water DisputeTribunal in the gazette.

Also, he said the DMK hadnot fulfilled any of the promis-es it had made during the lastassembly elections.

Palaniswami made the alle-gations while campaigning forM Thambidurai contestingfrom Karur and alliance partycandidate PMK nominee SJothimuthu from Dindigul.

“It was only theGovernment of amma, asJayalalithaa was fondly

addressed, which solved theCauvery issue raging fordecades. The DMK does nothave the right to talk about it,”he said.

Palaniswami criticisedCongress leader and formerFinance Minister PChidambaram for not allottingsufficient funds to Tamil Nadu.Had he allotted funds, severalfarmer-friendly schemes would

have been implemented, thechief minister said.

He said the Congress andthe DMK remember the peo-ple only during elections andcondemned the latter’s mani-festo for confusing the peopleto gain votes.

Noting that farmers livingin and around Karur andDindigul were into cultivationof fruit and vegetables on alarge-scale, he said steps wouldbe taken up to set up a �70-crore mega food park on a 10-acre land at Tharangambadi inNagapattinam district to storethe farm produce.

“At this park, the producewill be sourced directly fromthe farmers who can store itfree of cost,” he added. PTI

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The Election Commissionhas banned all political

advertisements in newspaperson poll day and preceding dayof the polling unless it is pre-certified from the concernedauthorities at State or Districtlevel.

According to a pressrelease from the office of theChief Electoral Officer ofAssam on Sunday, no politicalparty or candidate shall pub-lish any advertisement in printmedia on poll day or one dayprior to the poll day in all thephases.

However, the advertise-ments can be published ifthese are are pre-certified fromthe Media Certification andMonitoring Committee(MCMC) at the state or districtlevel, it added.

“In the context of Assam,the restricted days of adver-tisement are 10th and 11thApril for Phase-I, 17th and18th April for Phase-II, 22ndand 23rd April for Phase-III,”the release said.

The ECI has directed thatin order to facilitate publica-tion of the newspaper adver-tisements, MCMC at State andDistrict level must examineand pre-certify all such adver-tisements received from thepolitical parties, candidatesand others, it added.

The three-phase voting for14 seats in Assam will takeplace on April 11, 18 and 23,while the counting of votes willbe on May 23 after completionof the entire seven-phase vot-ing across the country.

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Patna: The Lok Janshakti Party,an ally of the BJP on Sundaypromised extending job reser-vation in private sector, sternaction against those involved incow vigilantism and moblynching, if elected to power inthe coming Lok Sabha election.

Releasing the party’s man-ifesto for the Lok Sabha elec-tions LJP chief and UnionMinister Ram Vilas Paswansaid stern action would betaken against those foundguilty of mob lynching and giv-ing speeches which incite com-munal flare up in the society.

Pitching for reservation inprivate sector, Paswan said thathis party has promised toextend the benefits of reserva-tion in private sector. Besides,

it also talked about incorpo-rating right to work as funda-mental right.

The LJP has been raisingthe issue of constituting‘National Youth Commission’which would take care of all theproblems of faced by youths, hesaid.

The manifesto also talkedabout giving 12 decimal ofland to landless people irre-spective of their caste and reli-gion.

Paswan claimed that NDAis all set to win all the 40 LokSabha seats in Bihar whileNDA would win more than 350

seats in the country and wouldform the Government at theCentre under the leadership ofPrime Minister NarendraModi.

Asserting that there is nofight at all either in Bihar orelsewhere in the country, LJPchief said that “Initially, wethought thatMahagathbandhan will givesome fight in Bihar and in thecountry but it is not so. Thereis no challenge byMahagathbandhan either inBihar or in the country as theMahagathbandhan is in disar-ray and grappling with so manyproblems.”

He claimed that theNarendra Modi Governmenthas done a lot of work and has

fulfilled most the promiseswhich it made five years ago.

Paswan claimed the twomajor achievements of ModiGovernment was providingtoilets in 98 per cent house-holds and electricity to almostall the villages in the country.

The NDA Government hasprovided LPG connection topoor families, health insur-ance cover of �5 lakh to 10crore families and has fulfilledits promise of fixing MSP atcost of production plus 50 percent, annual assistance of�6,000 to farmers, the Unionminister claimed.

Paswans LJP is contestingsix seats in alliance with BJPand JD(U) in Bihar which arecontesting 17 seats each. PTI

$3��'������������'��������������"������������"����������Bengaluru: Karnataka ChiefMinister HD Kumaraswamyon Sunday said a section ofpeople wanted to “finish himoff politically” by defeating hisson Nikhil Kumaraswamy inthe Mandya Lok Sabha con-stituency.

Reflecting the wideningcracks in the ruling coalition,Kumaraswamy said he was rely-ing “only on the JD(S) MLAs,MLCs and the sitting memberof parliament LR ShivarameGowda (in Mandya).”

Speaking to reporters inUdupi, the Chief Minister saidhe did not depend on thealliance partner, Congress inMandya. “Some Congress lead-

ers are working and some arenot working (in Mandya), butI am not upset with that.

There is a section out tofinish me off by defeatingNikhil Kumaraswamy.However, they don’t have thesupport of the local peoplethere,” Kumaraswamy alleged.

He was responsing to aquery about the squabblingamong coalition partners--JDSand Congress.

“I have eight MLAs (inMandya Lok Sabha con-stituency), three MLCs andthe sitting Lok Sabha member(LR Shivarame Gowda) arethere.. They will work.. I won’tblame anybody.” PTI

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Lakhimpur Kheri (UP): Aleopard was found dead in thebuzzer zone of the DudhwaTiger Reserve in UttarPradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheridistrict on Sunday, an officialsaid.

The leopard bore canineinjuries on the head, tufts ofanother leopard’s hair in itsclaws. The presence of pugmarks of different leopards

indicated that the death couldhave been caused due toinfighting, said RameshKumar Pandey, field directorof the tiger reserve.

A team of doctors fromthe Indian VeterinaryResearch Institute and theLucknow Zoo will conduct apost-mortem to ascertain theexact cause of death, the offi-cial added. PTI

Jamui (Bihar): Riding theModi wave, young LokJanshakti Party leader ChiragPaswan made a successfuldebut five years back from thereserved parliamentary con-stituency named after this dis-trict, but the going may not bethat easy this time due tochanged caste equation.

The 36-year-old ChiragPaswan, whose political debutcame a couple of years after hisacting debut received criticalappreciation but met with com-mercial failure, had achieved acomfortable victory with a mar-gin of about 80,000 votes.

The return of Bihar ChiefMinister Nitish Kumar, whoheads the JD(U), to the NDAhas earned a following amongthe ‘mahadalits’ through tar-geted affirmative action andwould provide the ballast thatmay be crucial in this LokSabha segment which is spreadacross three districts Munger,Jamui and Shekhpura andencompasses six Assembly seats.

The poorest among thedalit groups were given thename ‘mahadalits’ by the NitishKumar government in 2007 forwhose welfare, special schemeswere started.

However, Paswan stares ata contest that could still turnout to be tight, a reason why hehas hardly stepped out of hisconstituency for past severaldays and star campaigners whohave canvassed in his favourinclude heavyweights likeKumar, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and UnionHome Minister Rajnath Singh.

The Lok Sabha seat cameinto existence in the delimitationof 2008 and Bhudeo Chaudhary,who won it in the first generalelections that followed, is nowpitted against the LJP MP.

The constituency will seevoting in the first phase onApril 11.

Chaudhary, who was theNDA candidate in 2009, foughton a JD(U) symbol and beat byabout 30,000 votes his nearestRJD rival Shyam Rajak. He isnow with the RLSP and the can-didate of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’(grand alliance).

Paswan, who has emergedas the de facto leader of theparty his father Ram VilasPaswan had founded nearlytwo decades ago, has quite afew accomplishments underhis belt which he banks uponin addition to the formidablecaste arithmetic that the BJP-JD(U)-LJP alliance brings tothe table.

Voters of the constituencyacknowledge developments likea central school, a medical col-lege, road connectivity to the vil-lage Chirag had adopted and anew railway line as his achieve-ments as a first-term MP.

Tall and handsome, theyoung MP easily strikes a chordwith the people by virtue of hishumble demeanour. The con-stituency has about 15.5 lakhvoters, 46.58 per cent of themwomen.

Nevertheless, caste oftentrumps everything else in Biharpolitics and some politicaldevelopments have made re-election for the LJP MP a tasknot easy.

Bhudeo Chaudhary as anRLSP candidate would bank onthe support of Kushwahas whohave a sizeable presence here.The party is headed by UpendraKushwaha, a former associate ofNitish Kumar, who charted hisindependent course a few yearsago with the aim of getting forhis community its due.

Kushwahas exit from theNDA a few months ago and theBJPs inability to give a ticket toits state vice-president SamratChaudhary, who belongs to thecommunity, from anywhere inBihar is said to have not gonedown well with members ofthis caste group.

Besides, denial of ticket inthe adjoining Banka to PutulKumari who has been expelledfrom the BJP for entering the frayas an independent candidate, issaid to have angered the Rajputshere since her late husbandDigvijay Singh, a several-termMP from the neighbouring con-stituency and a minister in gov-ernments headed by ChandraShekhar and Atal Bihari Vajpayeeis held in very high esteem in theentire region. PTI

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Baghpat: With just four days togo for polling, the election buzzis getting louder but it’s notenough to quell the voices of dis-content that echo through thestreets of this western UttarPradesh town.

The lack of health facilities,sanitation and electricity tellthe sorry tale of development inthe town of 50,000, which goesto polls on April 11.

The contest here is betweenBharatiya Janata Party’s Satya PalSingh, who is hoping for anoth-er term in the Lok Sabha, andJayant Chaudhary, RLD leaderAjit Singh’s son being fielded asa candidate of the SamajwadiParty-Bahujan Samaj Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance.

Both the candidates willhave to address the pressing localconcerns of the people and the

cynicism about politics andpoliticians, said several locals inthe town.

The district hospital, theonly Government hospital in thearea where patients and their rel-atives find either doctors aremissing or medicines, sums upthe state of affairs.

“If a person needs emer-gency treatment here, she or heis most likely to die rather thanget treated,” said a distraughtAamir, who had to rush out ofthe town to get his 10-year-olddaughter treated for jaundice.

“We come under the nation-al capital region but lack basicamenities. Politicians make bigpromises which they are unableto fulfil,” he said, adding therehas been zero developmentunder the current MP.

The lack of doctors and

medical facilities are a constantworry.

Rajjo’s pregnant daughter iscritical and has been admitted inthe district hospital for the lastthree days but is yet to be exam-ined by a doctor.

“They say there is no gynae-cologist to check her. They arenow asking us to go to Delhi.How will I take her in this con-dition?” the 65-year-old said,bursting into tears.

Also in the hospital is Sonu,who has been diagnosed withgallstones.

“I have been sitting here forfive hours. No one has paid meattention. Each time I ask thestaff to send me to a doctor, theyask me to wait. I am sure thereis no doctor. It is tough to keeptravelling to Meerut or Delhi fortreatment,” said the tea-stall

owner.According to general physi-

cian Dr Azad, Baghpat is themost neglected town, especial-ly when it comes to healthcare.

“We don’t have basic healthfacilities. If there is an emer-gency, the patient will surely dieas there is zero care in such cir-cumstances. We have one gov-ernment facility and two-three

private hospitals. Mostly, patientsare turned down due to lack ofmedicines and injections. Thereare many vacancies in these hos-pitals,” said the doctor, whoruns a clinic here.

The government’s NationalHealth Protection Scheme, aim-ing to provide health cover of upto Rs 5 lakh per family for sec-ondary and tertiary care hospi-

talisation under AyushmanBharat, offers hope but peoplesay they still await their healthcards.

“We filled up the formunder the government healthscheme five months ago, buthave no word on the status ofour health card,” said Hajra, aresident of Qyampur villagethat falls in the constituency.

Daily wage worker Kamla,who works in the sugarcanefields outside Qyampur, said sheapplied for benefits under thescheme three months ago but isyet to get a response from theauthorities.

“A government representa-tive came to our house and toldus about this scheme. We filledthe form as we liked the scheme.But now there has been no com-munication at all. We don’t

know who to ask,” she said.Besides lack of healthcare

facilities, the locals also complainabout sanitation issues and lackof toilets.

“There is so much filth anddirt everywhere that it is toughto breathe. There are no toilets.The current government has notdone anything for us,” said RamSingh, a sweet shop owner.

Consumed as they are bytheir everyday problems, manyresidents say they will look atthe macro picture while castingtheir votes. “I am a Modi fanand I voted for BJP in the lastelection, but no work has beendone here. The BJP candidatewho won in the name of Modifrom here is hardly seen,” saidVishal Singh, a grocery shopowner.

He said he would still vote

for the BJP in the elections as itcarried out air strikes inPakistan. “They are doing big-ger things for the country. Myvote will be for Modi,” he added.

Balbir Singh, a businessman,also backed Modi.“Development may not be muchin Baghpat but he is doing wellfor the overall growth of thecountry.” Shamim, a transportcompany employee, said he sup-ported the BSP-SP-RLD ‘gath-bandhan’ or alliance.

“We don’t want BJP butanyone fielded by Akhilesh’scoalition. There is no devel-opment and we are living inpoor conditions in terms ofhealthcare, electricity, infra-structure.” Baghpat is one ofthe eight western UP con-stituencies which go to vote onApril 11. PTI

������� ����� ���

At 88 years of age, formerSadr-e- Riyasat and vet-

eran Congress leader, DrKaran Singh, is aggressivelycampaigning in support ofhis elder son VikramadityaSingh, contesting against sit-ting Member of Parliamentand MoS PMO, Dr JitendraSingh from Udhampur- DodaParliamentary constituency.

In the last few days, DrKaran Singh has addressedmore than one dozen electionmeetings across his hilly par-liamentary constituency. Hehimself represented the sameseat for four terms stretchingfrom 1967 to 1980.

Wherever Dr Karan Singhgoes to address public meet-ings, he strikes an emotionalchord with the voters bytelling them their grand par-ents had a unique bond withthe Royal Dogra family andnow, he is introducing his sonto them to carry forward therelationship and legacy. Inhis speeches, Dr Singh is alsoraking up the issue of ‘Dogra

pride’ and warns the electoratenot to fall prey to the hands ofthose who are exploiting thesentiments of common peoplein the name of restoring prideof Dogras.

Due to his age, Dr Singhprefer addressing short meet-ings and delivering crisp mes-sages to the electorate tostrengthen the hands of thecongress party to evict sittingBJP MP.

Commenting on the per-formance of the NarendraModi government, Dr KaranSingh says, Modi made sev-eral tall promises during 2014Lok Sabha polls but he failedto deliver. He failed to creatmore jobs for the youth,penalised common masses bygoing ahead with demoneti-sation and failed to preventescape of Nirav and LalitModi after they duped sever-al banks.

Referring to ‘surgical’strike inside Pakistan in thewake of Pulwama terror attackDr Singh is repeatedly ques-tioning the failure of theGovernment as it failed to pre-

vent the attack. He is also pos-ing some tough questions forthe union government toanswer in his campaign meet-ings. “Why no inquiry hasbeen ordered till date to ascer-tain the security lapses whichled to the Pulwama attack inwhich 40 brave CRPF menhad to sacrifice their lives”.

On its part, BJP is alsocountering the campaign ofthe congress candidate andasking some ‘uncomforting’questions to the members ofthe Royal Dogra family.

BJP is making passionateappeals to the people to not tofall prey to their emotionalexploitation in the name ofDogra legacy. BJP spokesmanBrig Anil Gupta said, “theyneed to be made answerablefor their acts and omissionsleading to the near extinct ofDogra heritage in the state.

Brig Anil Gupta said, “Ifanybody is responsible forhurting Dogra pride and lega-cy, it is the last scion of Dogradynasty who is now trying togain sympathy by distortingthe historical facts”.

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The Election Commission ofIndia on Sunday gave out a

strong reply to Bengal ChiefMinister Mamata Banerjee’sstrongly-worded letter, ques-tioning the trans-fer by theE l e c t i o nCommission ofsome senior IPSofficers includingKolkata PoliceCommissioner Anuj Sharma.

Rejecting Banerjee’s alle-gation, the Commission saidthat it “does not need to proveits credibility” and that theaction taken by the ECI was inthe interest of free and fair elec-tions.”

The Chief Minister had inher letter termed the EC deci-sion to transfer four senior IPSofficers, including Sharma andhis Bidhannagar counterpartGyanwant Singh “highly arbi-trary, motivated and biasedtowards BJP.” These officialshad been debarred from elec-tion duty.

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Perambalur (TN): Senior BJPleader and Union HomeMinister Rajnath Singh onSunday slammed the DMK-Congress front in Tamil Nadu,saying it was not a progressivealliance, but a ‘corrupt’ and‘unholy’ combine which wouldend in a ‘disaster’.

Canvassing votes forPerambalur Lok Sabha con-stituency candidate Sivapathy ofAIADMK here, he said, “in theCongress-DMK alliance, manypeople are on bail or in jail. It wasnot a progressive alliance but acorrupt alliance”.

DMK is leading the SecularProgressive Alliance in the statewhich also comprises theCongress and the Left partiesamong others, while the BJP ispart of the AIADMK-led frontfor the April 18 Lok Sabha elec-tions in Tamil Nadu.

The Congress was trying toget a foothold in Tamil Naduthrough the “backdoor” bystitching alliances with theDravidian parties after beingtotally rejected by the peopleseveral decades ago, he said.

“The anti-democraticCongress has been chased out ofTamil Nadu several decadesago. And this election will seethat it is swept clean out of thestate”, he said, referring to theouster of the Congress in 1967.

Pointing to the dismissal ofDMK governments by theCongress misusing article 356 ofthe Constitution in the past,Singh said “Their alliance is notonly opportunistic but unholy.”

The BJP leader recalled thecomments made by late DMKpatriarch M Karunanidhi.

“I still remember those gold-en words spoken by DrKalaignar Dr M Karunanidhiwhen he said, “unholy allianceswill always end in disaster. TheDMK-Congress alliance willalso end in disaster”, he said.

However, on the other hand,the AIADMK-BJP combine waswell received by Tamil Nadupeople, he said. “If the BJP waselected, it would protect theTamil culture and tradition,”Singh said and assured SpecialEconomic Zones would be setup in Perambalur. PTI

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Karti Chidambaram, theCongress candidate from

Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu,sprang a surprise on Sundaywhen he assured the voters thathe would take steps to interlinkrivers to resolve the water crisisbrewing in the State. This is incontrast to the stance of party’spresident Rahul Gandhi who isagainst the project to interlinkrivers in the country.

“It would lead to ecologicaldisaster and we are against sucha project,” Rahul Gandhi hadsaid when asked about the mis-sion to interlink rivers in thecountry. Karti’s announcementis diametrically opposite to thestance of the Gandhi clan.

Farmers all over Tamil Naduhave been waiting for the Centreand State Governments toannounce the launching of theInterlinking of major IndianRivers, at least the peninsularIndian Rivers which alone could

solve the perpetual water scarci-ty haunting the State for morethan six decades.

Though the Supreme Courthad ordered the Centre to com-mence the works for Interlinkingrivers in the country, no visibleserious effort has been done bythe Centre in this regard. KSRadhakrishnan, an activist of theMDMK had approached theapex court with a plea to directthe Centre to take up the ILRand the court order was inresponse to the petition.Radhakrishnan had left theMDMK and joined the DMKbecause of differences of opin-ion with Vaiko, his mentor.

The then NDAGovernment led by Atal BihariVajpayee appointed a Task Forceheaded by Suresh Prabhu, achartered accountant-turned-politician as its head and wasgiven the mandate to prepare adetailed project report for theILR, a massive project costing �5lakh crore at the 2004 price lev-els.

But the VajpayeeGovernment was voted out in2004 and the DPR prepared byPrabhu got dusted in the PrimeMinisters’ Office. Though theDMK joined the Congress-ledGovernment in 2004 and was inpower at the Centre till 2013, theparty remained silent over theissue.

But the project is back in thenews as the DMK has declaredits mission to inter link the riversof the country. The Dravidaparty has waxed eloquence onthe project in its 2019 manifestoand has assured the people ofTamil Nadu that it would givetop priority to it. The Congressmanifesto is silent at the ILR.

Karti assured the voters inSivaganga that he would takesteps to interlink the rivers tobring water to the parchedregions. But Union MinisterNitin Gadkari had declared themission to bring surplus watersfrom Godavari in AndhraPradesh to Cauvery in TamilNadu by a network of pipelines.

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Jammu: The BJP’s Jammu andKashmir unit on Sundayaccused the Congress of beingin habit of backing anti-Indianforces, saying its promise toamend the AFSPA in militancy-hit Kashmir will only embold-en terrorists.

“The Congress has alwaysstrengthened the hands of anti-Indian forces. It is shockingthat the Congress has promisedto revoke the AFSPA. It will onlybe a morale booster to terroristsand embolden them,” seniorBJP leader Sham Lal Sharmatold a public rally in Aknoorborder belt. The Congress ispromising to dilute the ArmedForces (Special Powers) Act,when 91 security personnel and38 civilians were killed in over600 terror strikes, said Sharma,who recently quit the Congressand joined the BJP.

Thanks to the valour of

security personnel, who killed250 terrorists in anti-terror oper-ations, but the Congress is seek-ing to restrain them by dilutingthe AFSPA, he added.

“What one fails to under-stand is the Congress’ attitude,”he said.

“Is it the same Congress ofSardar Patel? Is it the sameCongress that Netaji SubhashChandra Bose was a part of?” heasked. “It’s the Congress’ attitudeof always trying to strengthenanti-Indian forces due to whichthey have gone on to questioneven the surgical strikes by theIndian forces,” he said.

“They insult the bravery ofour defence forces,” he added.

Sharma also questioned theCongress’ allies in the state,including the NationalConference and the PeoplesDemocratic Party for “support-ing” the Congress. PTI

Muzaffarnagar (UP):Supporters of the BharatiyaJanata Party and the RashtriyaLok Dal clashed in UttarPradesh’s Muzaffarnagar dis-trict on Sunday, police said.

A roadshow by the RLDreached Nona Kheri villageunder Titawi area when BJPsupporters allegedly confront-ed it. The confrontation turnedinto a violent clash in which anumber of vehicles were dam-aged, the police said.

Police rushed to the spotand brought the situationunder control. Cases have beenregistered against supporters ofboth the parties under varioussections of the Indian PenalCode, it added. RLD chief AjitSingh will contest against sit-ting BJP MP Sanjeev Balyanand eight others for theMuzaffarnagar Lok Sabha seat,where polls will be held in firstphase on Thursday. PTI

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Shillong: Former UnionMinister and Congress candi-date for the Shillong Lok Sabhaseat, Vincent Pala claimed thathe has done enough for his con-stituency in the last 10 years tobe re-elected again.

The highways were inshambles when I became MP forthe first time in 2009. I havemanaged to convince all con-cerned and successfully built andcompleted the Shillong-Guwahati four lane road, theShillong byepass, Jowai-Silcharhighway, ShillongNongstoinTurahighway, said, Pala the sittingMP from Shillong seat.

“I have done enough forShillong constituency in last 10years as an MP. I have been suc-cessful in getting infrastructur-al projects worth over �8,000crore,” the two time MP toldPTI.

“My constituency has issueswith connectivity and conges-tion and I have tried my levelbest to ensure that these are

resolved,” he said.Pala said he is very

approachable. “I have beenapproachable as ever. I meetpeople till as late as mid nightand then in the morning again.I have never denied meetinganybody who comes to me,” hesaid.

Pala said his priorities thistime will be to move to theGovernment of India to pro-mote tourism in the state byallowing Government officials toavail certain percentage of airfareif they travel to the north east.

Pala, 51, an engineer by pro-fession and a native ofLamyrsiang village in coal-richEast Jaintia Hills district, said“This election is important forthe people of this country as thiselection is about which partyrespects your sentiments andwhich leader is not.”

The former Union Ministeralleged that the BJPs politics arehurting the sentiments of peo-ple in the country. PTI

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The Bharatiya Janata Partyon Sunday drafted a team

of 52 magicians to crisscross allthe 26 Lok Sabha constituen-cies in Gujarat to campaign forthe party, backed up by anequal number of digital LEDraths (chariots) which wereset rolling with a message toelect the Narendra ModiGovernment again.

“Phir ek baar, Modi sarkar”is the theme of the campaignwhich will focus on creatingawareness about the worksundertaken by the Modi-ledCentral Government.

According to state BJPspokesperson and former leg-islator Bharat Pandya, twoteams of magicians each wouldtravel through rural areas in allthe 26 constituencies and high-light, through various ways ofentertainment, the “people-oriented works and schemes ofthe BJP Government”.

He said at least two digitalLED raths had been allocated

to every Lok Sabha con-stituency for the campaign,while more than 550 suchchariots would cover all the 543seats in the country.

Giving details, Pandya saideach chariot would carry anappeal to the voters to “pressthe lotus symbol and onceagain elect the ModiGovernment”. Each rath would

show three types of videos.“One 17-minute video will

depict the achievements of theBJP Government led byNarendra Modi, another ofseven minutes will be on thetheme ‘Mein Bhi Chowkidar’and third three-minute videowill have ‘Modi Hai ToMumkin hai (It is possible, ifthere is Modi),” he said.

According to him, the pur-pose of these chariots is toensure that the “achievementsof the government” are dis-cussed by the people as against“the failures of the Congress”,to encourage heavy turnout ofvoters and form a BJPGovernment with absolutemajority to repeat the electoralperformance of 2014.

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Sometimes it pays to look into his-tory. The same is the case with avi-ation. In 1991, a United Airlinesplane smashed into the ground inColorado. A few years later, in 1994,

another plane, this time operated by the USAirways, nose-dived near Pittsburg. Around157 people died in both the crashes butinvestigators from the United States’National Transportation Safety Board(NTSB) could not pin down the cause whilethey had their suspicions about the fact thata faulty aircraft rudder caused the problem.It was not until June 1996, when a third air-craft in Miami suffered another cata-strophic event but managed to land safely,that investigators found out the truth. It wasindeed a faulty rudder system, even thoughthe manufacturer for the longest time dis-puted this finding.

What is interesting to note here is thatthe aircraft in question was the Boeing 737.Even though there were thousands ofBoeing 737s already in service at that time,the aircraft, initially developed by Americanmanufacturer Boeing in the 1960s, wasgoing to become an integral part of globalaviation. Today, a Boeing 737 either takesoff or lands somewhere in the world everytwo seconds. Over 10,000 Boeing 737s havebeen built and while the latest iteration, theBoeing 737 Max, bears a resemblance to theoriginal aircraft, it is just cursory. What cameto be known as the “rudder hardover” issue,which might have derailed the aircraft’sfuture, is now just a footnote.

So, events in the past six months, whentwo Boeing 737 Max 8 jets crashed — onein Indonesia and another in Ethiopia,killing close to 400 people — is worryingfor the American manufacturer and theglobal aviation industry as well. And theseevents may prove to be far more damagingto Boeing than the ones in the 1990s. Thisbecause a few things have changed since. Forone, commercial aviation has becomeincredibly safe. Back in the 1990s, there werea few large air crashes every year and whiletragic, the flying public accepted the risk.But advancements in technology and theway aircraft crashes are investigated havemade commercial air travel unbelievablysafe. In 2017, there was not a single largepassenger-carrying commercial aircraftthat crashed. In addition, the aviationindustry, too, grew several times over sincethe 1990s with air travel becoming a fact oflife and not a luxury in countries like Chinaand India. This, coupled with the growthof the mass media and the internet, aircrashes, which have always been massiveheadline-grabbing incidents, have becomea global phenomenon.

So, the news of a Lion Air Boeing 737Max 8 jet crash in Indonesia last year madeglobal headlines as did the supposed causeof the crash in initial reports. The Boeing737 Max, as mentioned before, is the thirditeration of the Boeing 737 from the time

it was conceived in the 1960s.In addition to modern avionicsand on-board systems, it hasmodern fuel-efficient engines.If you look at a picture of theearly 737s, such as those oper-ated by Indian Airlines in the1980s and 1990s, you will noticethat it had small pencil-likeengines, compared to the com-paratively large engines of today.This because modern aircraftturbine engines have what iscalled a high-bypass ratio.Basically, much of the air thatis sucked into the engine isblown straight back out andonly a small bit, around 10 percent, actually goes into the coreof the engine for combustionthat drives the big fan in thefront of the engine. In fact, it isnot so much the exhaust thatprovides much of the power tomodern aircraft but the hugefan at the front of the engine.

Unfortunately, the Boeing737, having been conceived inthe 1960s, has a couple ofshortcomings that were notfound initially. One of thedemerits is that the aircraft sitsvery close to the ground. Backin the early days, many smallairports that the Boeing 737flew into, did not have spe-cialised ground equipment.Easy access to the luggageholds, engines and fuel systemsmade the plane easy to work

with at these airports. Asengines became bigger, theyposed another problem forBoeing designers and whilethey have had a myriad ofsolutions to it, they solved thisslightly by mounting theengines ahead and above thewing. This was apparent in theprevious Boeing 737NG seriesof planes. The new CFM leapengines on the 737 Max are big-ger still and are, thus, mount-ed even further forward, caus-ing major changes to the han-dling characteristics of the newNMax series from earlier ver-sions of the 737.

Airlines spend millions ofdollars to train the pilots so thatthey are able to fly a particularaircraft. One way Boeing want-ed its customers to save cost wasby keeping pilot-training sim-ilar between 737 Max and737NG generation of aircraft sothat pilots could switch betweenaircraft with comparative ease.This despite differences in char-acteristics of the two types ofplanes. Boeing claimed to havesolved this by using a softwarecalled the ManeuveringCharacteristics AugmentationSystem (MCAS), that madeboth types of planes, despitehaving different flying dynam-ics, feel very similar to fly forpilots. This saved airlines mil-lions in training costs and mak-

ing the 737 Max appealing toexisting operators of the Boeing737NG.

It seems increasingly like-ly that the fault in this softwaresystem is what might havecaused both the Indonesianand Ethiopian accidents.Boeing’s initial reticence toground the aircraft, pending theinvestigation and giving theaircraft a clean chit, impactedits reputation. Reports inAmerican newspapers, includ-ing The Seattle Times, revealedthat Boeing rushed the MCASsystem into flight and effective-ly self-certified the softwarewith a little oversight byAmerican regulators. As theUnited States’ largest exporterof goods, Boeing is an essentialpart of the American economy.It has emerged that the USGovernment gave it a wideberth.

That said, nobody is accus-ing Boeing of knowingly sellinga faulty aircraft but such are thedynamics of global commercialaviation industry, despite itbeing an effective Coke vs Pepsistyle duopoly between Boeingand European firm Airbus, it isas ferociously competitive as thewar between the sellers of fizzy,sugary drinks. When Airbusannounced the “new engineoption” (Neo) variant on its 737competitor Airbus A320 fami-

ly, Boeing was forced to respondquickly. Both companies weremodifying older designs in amoney-saving move instead ofdesigning new aircraft, giventhe huge capital costs of design-ing a new plane. Airbus had itsown issues with the A320Neoand its engines that are bestillustrated by issues suffered byIndian carriers IndiGo andGoAir. Boeing’s problem withthe 737 Max has turned out tobe far more serious.

But the aircraft manufac-turer has also suffered problemsbefore with the 737 as this col-umn has mentioned and thecompany thrived even afterthat. However, rushing an air-craft into service, as seems to bethe case here, might have beena mistake. While we all live inan increasingly software-depen-dent world, we should allremember that software is notperfect and when there arehuman lives at stake, mistakescan prove to be fatal as theyhave. Hopefully, Boeing will fixthis mess and we can go backto not worrying about theinherent dangers of travelling ina thin aluminum tube, hurtlingthrough the atmosphere atincredible speeds, truly one ofthe engineering wonders ofmodern mankind.

(The writer is ManagingDirector, The Pioneer)

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Sir — The Bengaluru civil court’sblanket order restraining 49newspapers, television channelsand other media outlets frompublishing anything “defamato-ry” about Tejasvi Surya, theBJP’s candidate for theBengaluru South Lok Sabhaconstituency, merits reflection asit goes against the law and theConstitution.

Vilification of an individualis universally barred by law,statutes and convention, as isfreedom of speech as guaranteedby the Constitution of India. Anelection should neither add orsubtract the weightage fromeither of the postulates. A sweep-ing gag order foretells a balancedapproach.

The case in point is bestadjudicated by the ElectionCommission because the Codeof Conduct is in force. Its pow-ers and ambit may need to beexpanded for speedy redressal.This will help protect the rightto freedom of speech. Gagorders run counter to the demo-cratic spirit.

R NarayananNavi Mumbai

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Sir — This refers to the article,“Hate speech vs free speech”(April 4) by Raghav Pandey andNeelabh Bist. The writers haveanalysed the problem of hatespeech in view of theConstitutional provisions. In myview, in the Indian context, oneof the biggest sources of hate

speech is the calumniation of avery large community as worship-pers of false gods by propagatorsof aggressive proselytizing reli-gions. If this is resolved andrespect for every shade of opin-ion, whether sacred or profane, ispropagated and inculcated intothe public psyche, such issues willbecome a thing of the past.

SC PandaBhubaneswar

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Sir — With elections round thecorner, the debate on Article 370and 35A has once again gainedmomentum. BJP chief AmitShah’s recent statement that“Article 35A of the Constitutionwill be abrogated by 2020” creat-ed quite a furore. People’sDemocratic Party (PDP) leader

Mehbooba Mufti lost no time tocounter him and said, “If Article370 is revoked, Jammu &Kashmir’s relation with Indiawill end”.

The two provisions give tem-porary autonomous status toJammu & Kashmir as also specialrights and privileges, includingowning immovable property, jobsand scholarships to permanentresidents of the State. It will be pru-dent for parties to exercise restraintas any escalation could furtheralienate the people of the State.

Devendra KhuranaBhopal

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Sir — Congress chief RahulGandhi’s decision to contestfrom Wayanad, Kerala, is simple:It is not to jeopardise the Left’sprospects but to ensure his ownelectoral victory since Amethi isno longer that safe a bet. This isalso a case of political oppor-tunism to build stock in theSouth.

AditiVia email

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“Feminism isn’t about making womenstronger. Women are already strong. It’s aboutchanging the way the world perceives that

strength,” says activist and writer GD Andersonof an effort that has still not taken off in manydisadvantaged countries, India included, whenwe should not be lumped in this category at all.So when BJP spokesperson Shaina NC recentlyexpressed her concern that her own party was notfielding enough women candidates for the gen-eral election, she was just a vent for the volcanicanger of women who are struggling to find polit-ical representation in the world’s biggest democ-racy despite forming half its electorate.

If a study by the Inter-Parliamentary Unionis to be believed, then India ranks 149th in a listof 193 countries in terms of women’s represen-tation in the lower or single House of Parliament(Lok Sabha) as of July 1, 2017. The average per-centage of women’s participation in politicalprocesses stands at about 22 per cent globallywhile in India it is a mere 11.8 per cent.Shockingly, lesser developed countries likeRwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Somalia,Saudi Arabia, Fiji and Ghana rank higher thanIndia. In South Asia, the reports say, we arebehind Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan andBangladesh in percentage terms. Even in theRajya Sabha, women MPs are just 11.1 per cent.

Both the national parties, the BJP and theCongress, despite their existing schemes andpromises, have fielded just 12 per cent and 13.5per cent women candidates this time. And bothare equally guilty of shying away from affirma-tive action and not pushing the Women’sReservation Bill so far. It must be rememberedthat when Parliament passed the 73rd and 74thConstitutional amendments in 1993, reservingone-third of the seats in all local bodies forwomen, it not only challenged the patriarchalclichés about their ability but empowered themenough to effect a socio-economic change in theircircumstance. Their multi-tasking, managerialabilities cascaded into practical and dynamic deci-sion-making in the constituency they served.

Some legislative bodies in Bihar and Delhihave reserved more than one-third of the totalseats for women. Meanwhile, the TrinamoolCongress, led by Mamata Banerjee, has appor-tioned 41 per cent of her party’s seats to womencandidates while the Biju Janata Dal leaderNaveen Patnaik has set aside 33 per cent. Yetwinnability is a big concern, with most unsuc-cessful women candidates losing deposits in pastelections, be they national or local.

It is rather ironic that this should happen ina country which has seen many tall women lead-ers helming parties and had a woman PrimeMinister much ahead of its time despite a patri-archal society that is but expected to not yieldspace in the one place where its power is mani-fest — in politics, and by extension the law of theland. While women have been able to swell upan emergent tide to renegotiate their space insocial, cultural and economic spheres, this is onearea where even all-women’s parties have beenseen more as an aberration than normal. This isbecause the women we have grown accustomedto in helming political leadership have almostalways assumed that role out of dynastic entitle-

ment and seen as a continuity of a maleline rather than as an independentleader. Be it Indira Gandhi, who inher-ited much of the halo of her father,Sonia and Priyanka Gandhi, to MeiraKumar, who took over the legacy ofBabu Jagjivan Ram, or even JJayalalithaa, who inherited an ideolo-gy and was hand-held in her journey byM G Ramachandran, women leadershave been legacy-keepers than forgers.This tokenism and substitution havecost us. Grassroots leaders likeMayawati and Mamata may havebucked the trend and waged their bat-tle ground up but in the process ofestablishing their credibility and accept-ability, they followed the mainstreamtemplate set by male predecessors.Given their imperatives of wooing thebackwards and minorities, they hard-ly addressed the women’s question asone meriting attention. To win a game,they played by the rules than bendingthem. Until now.

Truth is in any political discourse,women have always been looked uponas another votebank to be encashedthan empowered. Campaign after cam-paign pitch talks about how women canchange the verdict as they comprise 50per cent of voters. Survey after surveyhas shown how women, who have out-numbered men in State poll turnouts,actually vote independently of theirfamily choices and usually act practical-ly, prioritising domestic budgets and theeconomy as their key concern, going forcandidates who matter to their liveli-hood. But there is no concomitant cam-paign, not even a social service message,about fielding them as candidates.

Yet every party has schemes whichhand out benefits as patronising doles.Apart from States, even the Modi gov-

ernment has factored in women as aconstituency, be it through the Ujjwalascheme of distributing free LPG cylin-ders that revolutionised kitchens andthe Uttar Pradesh Assembly verdict of2017, the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao pro-gramme or even the toilet project as partof Swachch Bharat. In fact, this govern-ment has gone a few steps ahead of pastregimes in prioritising women’s healthand normalising taboos of menstrualhygiene in the public discourse. Butempowerment figures are nothing towrite home about. India’s female labourforce participation rate is among thelowest in the south Asian region and iflatest estimates are anything to go by,the rate is dropping, the reasons beingattributed to supplementary familyincomes and their prioritisation ofmaternal and care-giver roles. Equalopportunities for women could add asmuch as $770 billion to the country’sGDP, according to McKinsey. Butwomen are still not seen as a produc-tive human resource but an emergencyreserve force. In the labour sector, theyare seen as a floating rather than a guar-anteed presence and schemes enhancetheir traditional gender roles rather thanincentivising them in economic terms.Even “sensitive” steps like extension ofmaternity leave to 26 weeks from theprevious 12 weeks have not worked forthe women workforce, who have eitherbeen passed over for promotion, let goof projects or simply benched. Suchbenefits have deterred the new-agecompetitive sectors like start-ups andsmall businesses from hiring women.Wage and pay disparity, lack of socialsecurity of working women and theglass ceiling continue to be barriers inthe face of a more equitable social con-tract. Violence against women is an

ever-gathering brute force what withsteady increase in sex-selective abortion,infanticide, sexual harassment andabuse and honour killings. There is noconcrete plan or proposal in any man-ifesto yet to tackle widowhood, old ageand disability among the disadvantagedand marginalised classes. And withoutan increase in health budgets, Indianwomen continue to be the mostanaemic in the world and suffer severemalnutrition. The budget for middaymeal schemes and anganwadis areactually down. While India has seen asignificant reduction in maternal mor-tality in recent years, it still figures highon the global burden of maternaldeaths with women still lacking accessto quality maternity care. And thoughthe allocation for girls’ education wasannounced at �100 crore, with disparateStates expected to share the financialburden, this has clearly floundered too.

The neo-age liberalism in sloganshas only entrenched patriarchy and cir-cumscribed all remedial action to themale gaze, which is exclusivist to its con-cerns. If we do not allow half the pop-ulation the right to decide what is goodfor them or what they need, we willnever figure respectably in the globalpolity despite our space age conquests.Yes, women have punched holes inISRO, too, with their individual meritsand ability. But where are the policy-makers and legislators who can raisetheir collective lot? This selective tag-ging of “women achievers” is no longerglorious but an easy advertisement. Canany political party afford half the elec-torate not voting for any of them? Ifthere is a right to vote, give them theright to contest.

(The writer is Associate Editor, ThePioneer)

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Micro-finance continues tothrive despite being underfire. One plausible reason for

the lingering faith in it is that it pro-vides a convenient strategy to investorsto demonstrate that they are activefighters against poverty and are tryingto save the poor while at the same time,they make a substantial amount ofmoney. It is built on a false belief thatcredit is the most vital need of the mar-ginalised. It has now become a vastglobal industry and attracts the atten-tion of a large number ofGovernments, banks, non-govern-mental organisations and firms.

The sector would have closed theMarch 2019 balance sheet with a cred-it portfolio outstanding of nearly

�2,00,000 crore, serving over 50 mil-lion end clients — of which 95 per centplus are women and for whom this isthe first credit facility in their life —through over one lakh employees,including more than 60,000 outreachstaff. This financial interface translatesto over a billion transactions per yearand can be a potent platform toachieve financial inclusion in the sixkey areas as defined by the ReserveBank of India — access to a bankaccount, formal credit facility, insur-ance cover, pension, savings accountsand investment options.

Earlier, debates over the truevalue of micro-credit programmesrelied mostly on anecdotal observa-tions. But now, we have a plethora ofstudies to draw upon. For years, thedevelopment community promoted afancy narrative of micro-finance,transforming lives by millions. But thataccount has not been held up. The ver-dict is now clear: Micro-finance canat best smoothen temporary financialbumps. It has moved from being goodto bad, from being lauded as the sil-ver bullet for poverty reduction tobeing derided as the progenitor of

financial instability. The exuberancesurrounding it has now worn off.Critics argue that those who have ben-efitted from the industry overstate itsvalue in order to keep the model going.The social mission has been aban-doned and financial mission is now theprimary aim. Micro-finance is basical-ly the distribution of small loans tohelp the impoverished, who otherwisedo not have access to loans to engagein a variety of economic activities andcope with the financial shocks. Whilethe objective is laudable and has a pow-erful social and economic philosophy,the impact has been varied across dif-ferent profiles.

A growing body of research sug-gests that micro-finance doesn’t workfor all communities. It may haveworked well in Bangladesh in the 70sbut failed to keep pace with changingneeds and behaviours of the client atthe lower socio-economic pyramid.The poor take loans with cripplinginterest rates or sell their tools and pos-sessions and, hence, lose their basicmeans of sustenance.

The present second generationmicro-finance is far different from the

first generation model, which focussedon organic growth. The success of theoriginal model was largely on accountof green field methods, where micro-finance institutions (MFIs) laborious-ly promoted their own groups, nur-tured them and painstakingly createda culture of credit discipline and highrepayment based on peer respect andmutual trust. These principles werethen abandoned by many MFIsbecause of their urgency to grow fast.

There’s little doubt that thefounders of these organisations gen-uinely wanted to help the poor andlow-income people improve econom-ic and social prospects. Over time,organisational goals (growing big,making higher profits and achievinginternational fame) have displaced theoriginal mission. Micro-finance,including micro-credit, is often con-sidered to be an instrument that pro-motes empowerment. While it can sta-bilise livelihoods, broaden choices,provide start-up funds for productiveinvestment and help the poorsmoothen consumption flows, it canalso lead to indebtedness and increasedexclusion unless programmes are well

designed. One concern is that as micro-

finance becomes more commer-cialised and increasingly concernedwith the large-scale impact, profits takeprecedence over the social mission.Anything not strictly financial is cutin the name of “efficiency.” Profit-minded shareholders see training forentrepreneurs, financial literacy andcounselling, skill training, or even theextra five minutes a caring loan offi-cer might spend with a client as a costrather than as an investment. Sincemost micro-finance clients have littleor no security or collateral to pledge,providers instead turn to what is called“social collateral,” which is builtthrough groups of borrowers, whoguarantee each other’s loans.

Debt may not be the appropriatetool to alleviate financial woes of low-income communities. It is one thingthat has both the greatest promise and,perhaps, also the gravest peril. Debt orcredit, the cash that we borrow fromlending institutions, exists for a reason.Before you apply for it, you should askyourself if you have a valid reason forit, or are you taking it just because peo-

ple are lining up the way pollstersqueue up for freebies? The secondquestion one should ask is whether itis part of his/her financial plan. If it is,are you sure you are going to get areturn higher than what you will pay?This financial return should alsocover your own effort that will go intogenerating that return.

A vast majority of micro-financeclients have no prior business orbanking experience and little formaleducation. The intermittent income ofclients makes it difficult for them topay back loans. When micro-enter-prises fail to make profits, clients areforced to reduce consumption, skipmeals, sell their land, take additionaljobs, fall behind on other bills, sell valu-able assets or default their loan and gowithout household necessities.

The biggest problem is that peo-ple, who get these small loans, usual-ly start or expand a very simple busi-ness. The most common business formicro-finance is simple retail-sellinggroceries, where there exists fiercecompetition and they don’t reallyearn enough money. Not only are bor-rowers often innumerate, illiterate

and unfamiliar with interest rate cal-culations but usually, they have littleor no awareness of local demand forgoods and services. Consequently, theyoften fail to establish successfulincome-generating ventures.

There is now a growing awarenessthat credit is not always transforma-tive. Although certain people will beable to use micro-finance to transformand build their businesses, that is notthe case with a majority of the peoplewho receive a loan. Most are going touse it to smooth out their consump-tion. As micro-finance finds itself atone of the most defining intersectionsin its evolutionary history, it needs toanswer several hard questions. Cannew-age technology provide newproducts, mitigate risks and reducecosts to bring about a paradigmchange in the micro-finance sector?Will the group lending model andmono-product model continue to berelevant? Will regulations enable fur-ther growth of the sector?

(The writer is Member, NITIAayog’s National Committee onFinancial Literacy and Inclusion for Women)

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The bidding process for stakesale in the cash-starved Jet

Airways is likely to commencefrom Monday as the bid doc-ument is still to be given a finalshape, a source said.

The SBI-led consortiumof 26 lenders, which now hasthe management control ofthe full-service carrier under adebt-recast plan, last Thursdaysaid bid for the stake sale in JetAirways airline would be issuedon April 6.

“The expression of interest(EoI) for stake sale in JetAirways will now be issuedMonday (April 8),” said thesource.

Accordingly, the last datefor submission of the bids,which was April 9 earlier, is alsolikely to be extended by a dayto April 10, he said.

SBI is the lead lender to JetAirways, which has a debtburden of �8,000 crore.

Under the debt resolutionplan approved by the Jet Airways’board on March 25, lendershave taken majority stake in theairline and are set to infuse�1,500 crore funds. Besides, thecarrier’s founder and promoterNaresh Goyal as well as his wifeAnita Goyal quit the board. Theshareholding of Goyals havecome down to 25 per cent from51 per cent earlier.

Acute financial crunch hasforced the airline to ground air-craft, cancel flights and delaypayment of salaries, includingto pilots.

Amid uncertainty overfuture of Jet Airways, the con-sortium of SBI-led lenders lastThursday said bids for sellingstake would be invited on April6 and other options would be

explored in case the stake saleefforts do not result in an“acceptable outcome”.

After taking stock of thecurrent situation at the airline,which is currently operatingless than 30 planes, the lenderssaid they would pursue reso-lution plan for the carrier in atime-bound manner under thepresent legal and regulatoryframework.

“The lenders are cognisantthat the outcome of efforts ofthe lenders will depend on theinterest shown by the parties onsale of stake in the company,”the statement issued by lenderslast week said.

“Whilst all efforts will bemade for the stake sale bylenders, other options may beconsidered by the lendersshould these efforts not resultin an acceptable outcome,” itsaid.

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Top EU leaders meetChinese Premier Li

Keqiang this week at a summitin Brussels, but their hopes ofwinning solid commitmentson trade look set for disap-pointment.

Brussels is trying to beef upits approach to the Asian giantas it shows little willingness tolisten to longstanding com-plaints about industrial subsi-dies and access to its markets,and as fears grow about grow-ing Chinese involvement inEuropean infrastructure.

But the half-day summit onTuesday is on course to fizzleout with little to show in termsof agreements, with Europeansources saying it looks highlyunlikely a final joint statementwill be agreed.

EU officials say China isunwilling to give bindingcommitments on their keydemands, including the inclu-sion of industrial subsidies aspart of World TradeOrganisation reform, and theyare reluctant to agree the kindof anodyne declaration of goodintentions pushed out afterlast year’s summit in Beijing.

The EuropeanCommission last month issueda 10-point plan proposing amore assertive relationshipwith Beijing, labelling China a“systemic rival” — a move wel-comed by French PresidentEmmanuel Macron as a belat-ed awakening.

But while the EU’s 15 tril-lion euro market gives it sig-nificant economic clout, itstruggles to maintain unityamong its 28 members on

issues of foreign policy, allow-ing China to pursue one-on-one deals with individual coun-tries.

“When economic policyintersects with foreign policyand security, the EU lacks thewill and capacity to act strategi-cally,” Philippe Legrain, visitingsenior fellow at the LondonSchool of Economics’ EuropeanInstitute, wrote in an analysis forProject Syndicate magazine.

“Apart from France and theUK, which is leaving the EU,member Governments lack ageopolitical mindset.”

This most striking recentexample came last month whenItaly became the first G7 nationto sign up to China’s “Belt andRoad Initiative” (BRI), a mas-sive network of transport andtrade links stretching fromAsia to Europe.

Concerns have been raisedabout the way the BRI saddlescountries with Chinese debtand leaves key infrastructurenodes owned by a potentialstrategic rival, though Beijinginsists the initiative is a “win-win” arrangement.

Former Greek FinanceMinister and scourge of the EU,Yanis Varoufakis, said Europeonly had itself to blame ifMediterranean countriesturned to China.

“We created a vacuum andthe Chinese are filling it. TheChinese are coming in becausethere is a dearth of investment inthis continent... We are failing togenerate investment that wouldgive our business the opportunityto compete with them,” he saidin Brussels last week.

Macron’s own China ini-tiative last week — hosting

President Xi Jinping for a sum-mit with German ChancellorAngela Merkel and EuropeanCommission President Jean-Claude Juncker — may alsohave been a double-edgedsword for the EU.

The meeting in Paris gavethe EU — through its two mostpowerful members — thechance to press its concernsdirectly with the paramountChinese leader.

But analysts say it alsoseriously undercut this week’ssummit in Brussels, where Liwill hold talks not with headsof Government but withJuncker and EU CouncilPresident Donald Tusk.

“The China summit hasalready taken place. It is notEurope for China withoutFrance and Germany in thesame room,” Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of theECIPE Brussels think-tank,told AFP.

“Xi has already spoken. Xihas already shaken hands withhis counterparts so by defaultthe summit has already takenplace. In a sense, they onlybring out Li for Europe orwhen something bad is goingto happen and somebody needsto take the blame.”

At the same time, Lee-Makiyama warned, Europerisks being left playing catch-up if ongoing US-China tradetalks result in a deal betweenthe world’s two biggesteconomies.

“China is going to proba-bly offer us some watered downversion of what they gave to theAmericans, but that also meansthat we have to give some-thing,” he said.

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GST officers have started seek-ing clarification from com-

panies whose tax payments didnot match with the e-way billsgenerated, as revenue authoritiesstart matching supplies data tocheck tax evasion, sources said.

Touted as an anti-evasionmeasure, e-way bill system wasrolled out on April 1, 2018, formoving goods worth over�50,000 from one state toanother. The same for intra orwithin the State movementwas rolled out in a phased man-ner from April 15, 2018.

Following this, it has cometo the notice of tax officers thatsome transporters are doingmultiple trips by generatingonly a single e-way bill or notreflecting e-way bill invoiceswhile filing sales return. It hasalso come to the notice thatcertain businesses are not gen-erating e-way bills even as sup-plies are being made.

Goods and Services TaxNetwork (GSTN), the compa-ny which handles the technol-ogy backbone for GST, hasstarted sharing details of e-waybills vis-a-vis taxes paid tohelp tax officers identify anydiscrepancy, sources added.

In one of the letters issuedby Ghaziabad GST commis-sionerate, a taxpayer has beenasked to provide “clarification”within three days on the differ-ence between taxes paid and theliability which the tax officer hasascertained after analysing salesreturn GSTR-3B and e-way billdata for the period October2018 and January 2019.

Matching of invoices of e-way

bills with the sales shown in salesreturns helps taxmen in assessingwhether the supplies have beenaccurately shown in the returnsand GST paid on the same.

GSTN has also provided thefacility to businesses to includedetails of e-way bills generatedwhile filing the final monthlysales return under GSTR-1 toavoid double data entry.

The Government is bank-ing on anti-evasion measures tomeet its GST collection targetfor the current fiscal.

For fiscal 2019-20, theGovernment proposes to collect�6.10 lakh crore from CentralGST and �1.01 lakh crore ascompensation cess. TheIntegrated GST balance hasbeen pegged at �50,000 crore.

AMRG & AssociatesPartner Rajat Mohan said taxofficers have started using thepile of GSTN data retrievedthrough return filings and e-way bill mechanics to carve outa summary reconciliation state-ment of estimated tax liability,compelling businesses to justi-fy the outward tax liabilities ina comprehensive manner.

“Tax authorities would beat fault if they presume that rec-onciliation difference is due totax evasion only. There beother reasons for this differencelike clerical errors, cut off sup-plies and pre-delivery expiry ofe-way bills,” Mohan added.

To further streamline the e-way bill system, GSTN is plan-ning some changes, includingauto calculation of route dis-tance based on PIN code andblocking of generation of mul-tiple e-way bills on oneinvoice/document.

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Arrested former Nissan bossCarlos Ghosn is set to

name the people he believes areresponsible for his downfall inJapan, his wife said in an inter-view on Sunday as she fledTokyo out of fear she could bedetained.

Ghosn was re-arrested lastweek in the Japanese capitalover fresh allegations of finan-cial misconduct which will seehim held in custody until atleast April 14.

Speaking to the Journaldu Dimanche newspaper inFrance, his wife Carole detailedthe latest twists in the extraor-dinary saga, saying that Ghosnhad recorded a video interviewin English before his detention.

“He names the peopleresponsible for what has hap-pened to him. The lawyershave it. It will be releasedsoon,” she told the newspaper.

Carole added that she hadfled Tokyo on a flight to Paris— with support from theFrench Ambassador to Tokyo- because she “felt in danger.”Despite her Lebanese passportbeing confiscated by Japaneseauthorities, Carole said shewas able to use her Americanpassport to board a flight andwas accompanied by theAmbassador to the airport.

“He didn’t leave me untilthe plane,” she explained. “Upto the last second, I didn’tknow if they were going to letme fly. It was surreal.” The roleof the French Ambassadorcould lead to fresh frictionbetween the countries over thehighly sensitive case, whichinvolves Nissan and Frenchcar maker Renault, which wereboth previously run by Ghosn.

Japanese news channelNHK said prosecutors in Tokyowanted to question Carole ona voluntary basis.

Other reports in Japan saythat investigators are lookinginto allegations that companymoney allegedly misused byGhosn could have transitedthrough a business that was run

by his wife.Carole intends now to try

to pressure the FrenchGovernment to do more for herhusband whose 108-dayimprisonment in Japanbetween November 19 andMarch 6 had left him a “differ-ent person,” she told TheFinancial Times in a separateinterview.

France’s Foreign MinisterJean-Yves Le Drian saidSaturday he had raised thecase during talks with hisJapanese counterpart TaroKono on the sidelines of themeeting of Group of Seven(G7) foreign ministers in theFrench resort of Dinard.

Le Drian said he had“reminded him of our attach-

ment to the presumption ofinnocence and the full rights ofconsular protection.” Japaneseauthorities are looking intonew allegations that Ghosntransferred some $15 million inNissan funds between late 2015and mid-2018 to a dealershipin Oman.

They suspect around $5million of these funds weresiphoned off for Ghosn’s use,including for the purchase of aluxury yacht and financingpersonal investments.

Prosecutors say Ghosn“betrayed” his duty not tocause losses to Nissan “in orderto benefit himself.” Ghosndenies the allegations and sayshe is also innocent of the threeformal charges he faces: twocharges of deferring his salaryand concealing that in officialshareholders’ documents, anda further charge related toinvestment losses.

The man previously seen asthe most powerful figure in theglobal car industry told Frenchchannel TF1 last week that hewas “a combative man and aninnocent man” and vowed to“defend myself to the bitterend”.

And he voiced concernthat he would not be given afair hearing in Japan wherearound 99 per cent of trialsresult in a conviction.

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Indian Railways will be usingMicrosoft Kaizala to connect

its employees across the coun-try with quality healthcare facil-ities. Microsoft Kaizala app willenable serving and retired rail-way employees to avail health-care services of 125 railway and133 private recognised hospitals.The Kaizala group, managed bydoctors from South CentralRailways will be complementedwith focused groups of doctors,paramedical staff and nurses.

On registering for thehealthcare services, IndianRailway employees will be ableto search on Microsoft Kaizala,nearest hospitals and doctors,list of empaneled diagnosticcenters and health units.Employees can book doctorappointments, share diagnosticlab reports directly with theirdoctors and save digital recordsin ‘Me Chat’ of MicrosoftKaizala. They will also be ableaccess key announcements,share their feedback to improvequality of medical service withbuilt in action cards.

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Commerce and IndustryMinister Suresh Prabhu

has underlined a need todevelop a proper matrix tounderstand changes in theIndian economy and job cre-ation that is happening at arapid pace.

The minister’s commentshave come against the back-drop of former RBI GovernorRaghuram Rajan recentlyraising doubts over theIndian economy growing at 7per cent when not enoughjobs were being created.

In response, Prabhu said,“We have to have propermatrix to be developed tounderstand this changingprofile of India’s economyand in which job creation ishappening at rapid rate.”

He said that the relationbetween employment gener-at ion to GDP (GrossDomestic Product) wi l lalways undergo a changedepending upon the profile ofthe economy.

Despite the fact that only16 per cent of the GDP comesfrom agriculture, the sectorengages over 60 per cent of

the country’s population, hesaid, adding that “so, what isthe relation between GDPand job creation?”

Further, Prabhu said thatin 1960s and 1970s, the gov-ernment used to provide bulkof the jobs and then came theprivate sector.

He added that now start-ups too are providing hugejob opportunities but thechallenge is to capture thatdata.

Quest ioning growthnumbers, Rajan had said thatthe current cloud over theGDP data must be cleared byappointing an impartial bodyto look at it.

Questions have beenraised about the governmentnot making public the NSSOlabour survey that reported-ly put the unemploymentrate in 2017 at a 45-yearhigh.

Last month, a group of108 economists and socialscientists said that latelyIndian statistics and the insti-tutions associated with ithave come under a cloud forbeing influenced and indeedeven controlled by politicalconsiderations.

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The tax department hasgiven service providers

with turnover of up to �50 lakhtime till April 30 to opt for thecomposition scheme and pay 6per cent GST.

The option to pay Goodsand Services Tax (GST) atreduced rate of 6 per centwould be effective from thebeginning of the financial yearor from the date of obtainingnew registration during thefinancial year.

Service providers optingfor the composition schemecan charge a lower tax rate of6 per cent from customers, asagainst the higher rates of 12and 18 per cent for most ser-vices under GST.

In a circular, the CentralBoard of Indirect Taxes andCustoms (CBIC) said supplierswho want to opt for composi-tion scheme would have to fileForm GST CMP-02 by select-ing ‘Any other supplier eligiblefor composition levy’ latest byApril 30, 2019.

Businesses which apply fornew registration may avail thesaid benefit in Form GST REG-01 at the time of filing appli-

cation for registration.AMRG & Associates

Partner Rajat Mohan said“numerous service providerstried to file this intimationopting composition schemerecently but were denied due toa legal embargo. Now with thisclarification, GSTN would startaccepting the intimations soon”.

The GST Council, headedby Finance Minister Arun Jaitleyand comprising state minis-ters, in its meeting on January10 had permitted serviceproviders and those dealing inboth goods and services with aturnover of up to �50 lakh to optfor composition scheme witheffect from April 1.

The GST compositionscheme was so far available totraders and manufacturers ofgoods with an annual turnoverof up to �1 crore.

This threshold too hasincreased to �1.5 crore fromApril 1.

Under the scheme, tradersand manufacturers are requiredto pay only 1 per cent GST ongoods which otherwise attracta higher levy of either 5, 12 or18 per cent. Such dealers arealso not permitted to chargeGST from the purchaser.

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Dutch investigators havearrested three former

employees of a local firm sus-pected of laundering $1.2 billionthrough over-invoicing servicesand works rendered for a gaspipeline built by a unit con-trolled by billionaire MukeshAmbani, a charge vehementlydenied by Reliance Industries.

East West Pipeline Ltd(EWPL), which was previous-ly known as Reliance GasTransportation InfrastructureLtd (RGTIL), denied that anymoney was laundered at anystage during implementation ofthe project and that higher cap-ital cost of a pipeline wouldresult in higher tariff for usersfor receiving natural gasthrough the line.

Ambani’s listed firm RelianceIndustries too denied any link tothe pipeline company saying heneither set up any gas pipeline in2006 nor did it have contractswith any Netherlands companyfor any gas line.

The Fiscal Intelligence andInvestigation Service &Economic Investigation Service

(FIOD-ECD) arrested threeformer employees of Dutchpipeline firm A Hak, NL, alleg-ing that an estimated $1.2 bil-lion in profits earned by thecompany through over-invoic-ing services and works ren-dered to RGTIL were “creamedoff ” to Singapore-basedBiometrix Marketing Ltd, acompany they claim is alleged-ly linked to Reliance.

An AFP report quoting astatement issued by publicprosecutor’s office said thatthe company acted as “invoiceduplicator” to enable the Indianfirm to claim costs twice fromgas customers.

“It is suspected that theDutch company used toincrease the amounts on theinvoices for the materials andservices supplied,” it said.

“The ‘profits’ earned inthis way were subsequentlycreamed off via the Dutchcompany,” it said.

The gains were then trans-ferred via a complex web ofbusinesses based among othersin Dubai, Switzerland and theCaribbean, before eventuallyending up at a business owned

by the Indian company inSingapore, AFP said adding thesuspects allegedly received pay-ments of up to $10 million fortheir involvement.

“In this case Dutch com-panies are suspected of assist-ing an Indian client to laundersuspected illegal earnings,” AFPquoted the statement as saying.

The real losers “were prob-ably individual citizens inIndia” as the cost of productionof gas is passed onto the con-sumer, it added.

Reached for comments,EWPL said the pipeline projectwas built by a privately ownedentity, in which promoters’private funds were invested.

“No public funds wereinvested and all borrowingsfrom banks, financial institu-tions and others have been fullyrepaid by the promoters. Westrongly deny any suggestion ofany money having been laun-dered at any stage during theimplementation of the pro-ject. Suggestion of such impro-priety lacks logic and eco-nomic rationale and is emphat-ically denied,” EWPL said in astatement.

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Foreign investors are likelyto invest around �18,000

crore in the rights issue ofVodafone Idea, which includesa major chunk from promot-er Vodafone Group, sourcessaid.

The company’s �25,000crore rights issue will open onApril 10.

“Vodafone Idea hadapproached government forFDI approval. The proposalhas received clearance fromCabinet. It is expected that�18,000 crore during the rightsissue will come from foreignsources,” an official said.

Any foreign fundingabove �5,000 crore requiresCabinet approval. The Cabinethad on February 28 clearedthe company’s FDI proposal.

The promoter sharehold-ers — Vodafone Group andAditya Birla Group — havereiterated to the board thatthey intend to contribute up to�11,000 crore and up to�7,250 crore respectively,amounting to total of �18,250

crore, as part of the rightsissue.

While Vodafone Group’sentire funding will be consid-ered as foreign investment inthe rights issue, Aditya BirlaGroup may also route fundsfrom its foreign entities,sources said.

The board of directors ofVodafone Idea on March 20cleared the planned �25,000-crore rights issue at a price of�12.50 per equity share, asteep 61 per cent discount tothe prevailing market rate.

In a regulatory filing, thecompany had said the rightsentitlement ratio has beenfixed at 87 equity shares forevery 38 shares held by eligi-ble shareholders of the com-pany on the record date, thatis April 2, 2019.

According to CitiResearch, the successful com-pletion of the capital raisewould be positive for thecompany as it could strength-en the balance sheet, removegoing concern risks, and helpenhance network capacity andcoverage.

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India’s coal import increasedby 7.8 per cent to 212.11 mil-

lion tonnes in the April-February period of FY19, areport said.

This comes at a time whenthe government is looking atrelaxing the timeline for the 1billion tonne coal productiontarget it had set earlier for CoalIndia (CIL), which accounts forover 80 per cent of the domes-tic coal output.

The country produced196.59 million tonnes (MT) ofcoal in April-February periodof fiscal 2017-18, according tothe report by mjunction ser-vices.

“During April-February2018-19, coal and coke importsstood at 212.11 MT, about 7.89percent increase over 196.59MT recorded for the sameperiod last year,” it said.

Coal imports in the monthof February was at 18.31 MT(provisional) as compared to21.15 MT (revised) in January2019, it said.

Coal and coke imports inFebruary 2018 stood at 15.98MT, according to mjunction’s

compilation.“Coking coal imports saw

a marginal decline in February,primarily due to the firmprices and not so upbeat out-look for the Indian steel sec-tor. Real estate and auto sec-tor’s consumption of steel wasdown, which impacted pro-duction.

“Non-coking coal offers,however, eased during themonth in select markets, lead-ing to steady import demand,”mjunction MD and CEOVinaya Varma said.

Mjunction — a joint ven-ture between Tata Steel andSAIL — is a B2B e-commercecompany and also publishesresearch reports on coal andsteel verticals.

Of the total imports duringFebruary 2019, non-cokingcoal was at 13.86 MT, against14.59 MT imported in January2019, it said.

Coking coal imports wereat 2.93 MT in February 2019,down against 3.32 MT a monthago.

Metallurgical coke importsduring the month were at 0.26MT, while 0.34 MT wasimported in January.

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Page 11:  · 2019-04-07 · wanted to discuss 18 seats ... old girl, employed with call center, ... Rajveer Chauhan, Station Officer Noida sector-20 police station, Shweta was returning, along

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The military conflict shakingLibya escalated on Sunday

as forces of strongman KhalifaHaftar launched an air strike ona suburb of Tripoli and the UN-backed Government vowed amajor counteroffensive.

The United Nations calledfor an urgent two-hour trucefor the southern outskirts of thecapital to allow evacuations ofcivilians and the wounded.

Rivalries between the twocamps threaten to plunge thecountry into a full-blown civilwar after Haftar on Thursdaylaunched an offensive onTripoli.Oil-rich Libya has beenriven by chaos since theNATO-backed uprising in 2011that killed dictator MoamerKadhafi, with rival adminis-trations and armed groupsvying for power.

Repeated attempts to finda peaceful solution have failed.

After a pause overnight,fierce fighting flared anew onSunday morning south of thecapital between Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army(LNA) and forces backing the

internationally recognisedGovernment of NationalAccord (GNA).

As clashes raged in the

mainly farmland region ofWadi Raba and the disusedinternational airport south ofthe capital, a spokesman for

pro-GNA forces said a “coun-teroffensive” had beenlaunched to push back Haftar’sforces.

Colonel MohamedGnounou told reporters thatoperation “Volcano of Anger”was aimed at “purging allLibyan cities of aggressor andillegitimate forces”, in referenceto Haftar fighters.

The LNA meanwhileannounced it had carried outits first air raid on a Tripoli sub-urb, despite calls by the inter-national community to halthostilities. GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj warned on Saturday of a“war without a winner” andsaid that reinforcements werepouring into Tripoli from sev-eral regions.

Powerful armed groupsfrom the western city ofMisrata and fighters fromZentan and Zawiya — all bat-tle-hardened militiamen whotook part in the 2011 uprisingthat toppled Kadhafi — havejoined the battle.

At least one armed groupfrom Misrata known as Brigade166 arrived Saturday in easternTripoli with dozens of vehicles,some mounted with anti-air-craft guns, to join the counter-offensive, an AFP photograph-er said.

���� ������.�������� ����#��#���� ��Benghazi (Libya): The USsaid on Sunday it has tem-porarily withdrawn some of itsforces from Libya due to “secu-rity conditions on the ground,”as a Libyan military comman-der’s forces advanced towardthe capital, clashing with rivalmilitias. A small contingent ofAmerican troops has been inLibya in recent years helpinglocal forces combat IslamicState and al-Qaida militants, aswell as protecting diplomaticfacilities.

“The security realities onthe ground in Libya are grow-ing increasingly complex andunpredictable,” said MarineCorps General ThomasWaldhauser, the head of USAfrica Command.

“Even with an adjustmentof the force, we will continueto remain agile in support ofexisting US strategy.”

He did not provide detailson the number of US troopsthat have been withdrawn oron how many remain insidethe country. The self-styledLibyan National Army, led byField Marshal Khalifa Hifter,launched a surprise offensiveagainst the capital last week, amove that could potentiallydrag the country back into civilwar.

Libya has been gripped byunrest since the 2011 uprisingthat overthrew and killedMoammar Gadhafi, and inrecent years has been ruled byrival authorities in the east andin Tripoli, each backed byvarious armed groups.

Fighting was underwaySunday at the international air-port, some 24 kilometres (15miles) from central Tripoli,after Hifter claimed to haveseized the area. AP

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Maldives President IbrahimMohamed Solih’s party

declared a sweeping victory onSunday in the country’s par-liamentary elections that couldgive him a free hand in effortsto restore political freedomsand tackle corruption.

Local media reports saidSolih’s Maldivian DemocraticParty was leading in 60 of the87 seats in parliament follow-ing Saturday’s vote.

Official results wereexpected late Sunday, but therewas no announcement yet.

It could be the first time asingle party wins a majority inparliament since the IndianOcean archipelago nationbecame a multiparty democ-racy in 2008 after decades ofautocratic rule.

Afshan Latheef, the cam-paign spokeswoman for Solih’sparty, told The Associated Pressthat it was a “resounding vic-tory” that “undoubtedly reflect-ed the people’s desire for reformand implementation of policies

outlined in the president andgovernment’s manifesto.”

As his party began cele-brating after the vote countingstarted Saturday night, Solihsaid the people should not for-get “the immense challengesthat lie ahead of us.”

“The work to strengthenour democratic institutions, todeliver basic services for citi-zens, to our promise of bring-ing corruption, past and pre-sent to book and endingimpunity starts now,” he said ina statement Sunday.

“I look forward to workingwith all of you to realise ourpromises to the people.”

Solih’s party is seeking atleast 44 seats for a majority topass legislation needed toimplement pledges from lastyear’s presidential campaign.

His coalition currently has52, but one partner with 22seats is aligned with formerstrongman Yameen AbdulGayoom.

Solih defeated Yameen lastyear, giving new hope to theyoung democracy, which has

gone through a tumultuoustransition that threatened todrag the Maldives back to itsautocratic past. Yameen hadcurtailed freedom of speechand jailed his political rivals.

Solih was only a fallbackchoice as president for hisparty because charismatic for-mer President MohamedNasheed was sentenced toprison under Yameen and wasineligible to run.

Solih promised reforms,an end to political influenceover the courts, police and thebureaucracy, and the recoveryof money lost through corrup-tion. Opposition politicianscame together in a grandalliance to defeat Yameen, theircommon foe.

But soon the coalitioncracked and despite repeatedefforts, Solih failed to secureparliamentary approval forpromised commissions toinquire into corruption, the dis-appearance of a journalist andthe killing of a blogger duringYameen’s rule.

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Tripoli: The head of Libya’sUN-backed Government Fayezal-Sarraj on Saturday accusedhis rival Khalifa Haftar ofbetraying him over a military offensive against theCapital Tripoli which risksplunging the country into civilwar.

Forces loyal to the Libyancommander have pressed onwith their assault despite inter-national calls to halt hostilities.

In a televised address,Sarraj warned of a “war with-out a winner”.

“We have extended ourhands towards peace but afterthe aggression that has takenplace on the part of forcesbelonging to Haftar... He willfind nothing but strength andfirmness,” he said. AFP

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Two weeks after he exoner-ated President Donald

Trump in the Russia meddlinginvestigation, Attorney GeneralBill Barr faces mounting pres-sure to show the full evidencebehind his decision.

Allegations this week thatthe US Justice chief down-played serious evidence of ille-gal obstruction by Trump inSpecial Counsel RobertMueller’s final report are fuel-ing demands that he release theentire, unexpurgated docu-ment to Congress.

News reports, citingunnamed members of Mueller’sstaff, said Barr ignored thesummaries Mueller’s team pre-pared for public release, andinstead issued his own onMarch 24, in which he peremp-torily cleared the president ofany wrongdoing.

And Barr now says he willnot release key evidence givento Mueller’s grand jury, a spe-cial panel used by prosecutorsin politically-sensitive cases.

Democrats suspect the evi-dence could be damning to thepresident -- setting up a legaland political showdown.

The Democrat-led HouseJudiciary Committee this weekprepared to subpoena the fullreport, a move Barr and theWhite House will almost cer-tainly contest.

And on Thursday JerryNadler, the committee chair-man, demanded Barr turn overall communications betweenhis office and Mueller’s, fol-lowing the reports Mueller’sstaff were unhappy with theway Barr presented their con-clusions.

Barr’s distillation “appearsto minimise the implications ofthe report as to the president,”said Nadler.

“Releasing the summaries— without delay — wouldbegin to allow the Americanpeople to judge the facts forthemselves,” Nadler wrote.

At stake is the president’sability to put the Russia probebehind him and look to 2020for reelection.

Trump, who declared a“complete and total exonera-tion” when Barr announcedMueller’s conclusions, said thisweek that Democrats “are fight-ing hard to keep the WitchHunt alive.”

“This is the highest level ofPresidential Harassment in thehistory of our Country!” hetweeted.

On Tuesday, members ofCongress might get their firstchance to press Barr in publicabout the Mueller report, whenhe appears before the HouseAppropriations Committee ina hearing nominally focused onthe Justice Department Budget.

In his four-page summa-tion of the 22-month investi-gation on March 24, Barr saidthat Mueller found no evi-dence of collusion betweenTrump’s campaign and Russiain the 2016 election, and thatthere was insufficient evidenceto charge Trump with obstruc-tion.

Yet Barr also concededthat Mueller did compile evi-dence of obstruction, and quoted the special counselas saying that: “While thisreport does not conclude thatthe president committed acrime, it also does not exoner-ate him.”

Suspicions are deep amongDemocrats that Barr tookadvantage of his position toclear Trump and now wants tokeep the most damaging partsof the report secret to protectthe White House.

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Acornered Theresa Mayissued a “stark” warning to

the warring factions withinthe UK Parliament that thechoice was between agreeingon a withdrawal agreement orrisk no Brexit at all.

In her latest statement fromDowning Street on Saturdayevening, the British PrimeMinister sought to defend hermove to reach out toOpposition Labour Partyleader Jeremy Corbyn in anattempt to break the ongoingparliamentary deadlock overBritain’s impending exit fromthe European Union (EU).

“Because Parliament hasmade clear it will stop the UKleaving without a deal, we nowhave a stark choice: leave theEuropean Union with a deal ordo not leave at all,” she said.

“My answer to that is clear:we must deliver Brexit and todo so we must agree a deal. Ifwe cannot secure a majorityamong Conservative and DUPMPs we have no choice but toreach out across the House ofCommons,” she added.

Her latest intervention

comes amid a mountingmutiny within her ownConservative Party for sittingdown with Corbyn to thrashout a solution, which willinevitably take the form of a so-called soft Brexit given Labour’spreference for a commonCustoms Union with the EU aspart of any future relationshipwith the economic bloc.

However, the British PMhighlighted that it was eitherthat or not leaving the 28-member economic bloc at alland reneging on the June 2016referendum in favour of Brexit.

She said: “The longer thistakes, the greater the risk of theUK never leaving at all. It

would mean letting the Brexitthe British people voted for slipthrough our fingers.

“I will not stand for that. Itis essential we deliver what peo-ple voted for and to do that weneed to get a deal over the line.”

In a clear attempt at pla-cating her hard Brexiteer party

MPs, May insisted that thereare areas where the two mainUK parties, Conservatives andLabour, agree.

“We both want to end freemovement, we both want toleave with a good deal, and weboth want to protect jobs. Thatis the basis for a compromise

that can win a majority inParliament and winning thatmajority is the only way todeliver Brexit,” she stressed.

May is set for another tripto Brussels next week to followup on her letter to EuropeanCouncil President Donald Tuskseeking a short extension toArticle 50 until June 30.

However, it remains to beseen what the remaining EUmember countries will be will-ing to agree to, with any deci-sion on an extension to theBrexit mechanism requiringtheir unanimous backing.

The UK has already soughtone extension to the March 29Brexit deadline and is set tocrash out of the bloc on April12 unless an alternativearrangement is agreed withthe EU.

British MPs have rejectedMay’s EU divorce bill threetimes over the controversialIrish backstop clause and lastweek’s talks between the twomain parties were aimed at try-ing to find a proposal whichcould break the deadlock in theCommons before an emer-gency EU summit onWednesday.

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After Britain leaves theEuropean Union some 900

Britons serving on local coun-cils in France will also have togive up their seat at the table.

Like all EU citizens livingin another member country,Britons in France have theright to vote in local electionsand stand for election to theirlocal council.

But in leaving the blocBritain will forfeit that right,meaning that British residentswill no longer be able to represent the commu-nities some have served for

years.Sandra Sheward and her

husband moved to the westernFrench region of Brittany 13years ago.

“Our children fled the nestand we decided to drop out ofthe rat race in London,” saidSheward, 58, a former trainingspecialist for a property servicescompany.

The pair restored a farm-house on the edge of Saint-Caradec, a riverside village of1,200 people, where Shewardwas courted by the mayor to

join his slate of candidatesfor the municipal council in2014.

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Turkish President RecepTayyip Erdogan’s party said

on Sunday it will demand arecount of all ballots cast inIstanbul during last week’smayoral election won by anopposition candidate.

The Justice andDevelopment Party (AKP) willmake the demand by 5 pm(1400 GMT), its vice presidentAli Ihsan Yavuz said. A recountis already under way in sever-al of Istanbul’s 39 districts.

On Saturday, a partyspokesman said the AKPwould accept the results oflocal election recounts inIstanbul as well as Ankara, nomatter which party is declared

the winner. The AKP won most votes

nationwide in last Sunday’selection, but results showed theruling party lost Ankara andwas also narrowly defeated inIstanbul in what would be one of their worst setbacksin a decade and a half inpower.

Electoral authorities areconducting a recount in scoresof districts in Ankara and inIstanbul where tallies showedthe opposition CHP candidateEkrem Imamoglu with a veryslim lead over the AKP.

Losing Istanbul would be ablow to Erdogan, who built hispolitical career as mayor of thecity before becoming PrimeMinister and later President.

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The security and operationsof the strategic Hambantota

port are totally under the SriLankan government’s control,Prime Minister RanilWickremesinghe has said,allaying fears that the Chineseinvestment in the island nationcould cause concerns for coun-tries like India.

Sri Lanka in 2017 reacheda long-term lease agreementwith China to set up an indus-trial park at Hambantota andconvert Colombo’s high com-mercial debt with Beijing intoequity, triggering concerns inNew Delhi over Beijing’s effortsto expand influence in theregion.

Addressing the two-daylong Third Asia EuropePolitical Forum here,Wickremesinghe said that Sri

Lanka maintains friendly rela-tions with all countries and iswell aware of the current glob-al trends.

“India is our partner fromour history. We share samecivilisation with Pakistan andBangladesh.We joined Japan atthe San Francisco Conference.Despite the opposition fromthe United States, Sri Lankarecognised People’s Republic ofChina and first signed a tradeagreement. We will maintainthis situation.We do not getcaught up in someone’s com-petition,” he was quoted assaying by the Colombo Page.

“Many people consider thatthe Hambantota port as aChinese military base. I acceptthat there will be a militarycamp. But it is a Sri Lanka Navycamp. Once installed, a SriLankan Rear Admiral will be incontrol. Any ship from any

country can come there. But wecontrol the operations,” headded.

Wickremesinghe said thatit was important for the islandnation that there is no militaryconflict in the Indian Ocean.

“What is important to us isthat there is no military conflictin the Indian Ocean. There isonly one military base therethat is of the Sri Lanka Navy,”he said.

Wickremesinghe said SriLanka has control over thestrategic Hambantota port.

“Any ship can come but itis us who control entry andaccess,” he stressed.

He said that for theHambantota airport the SriLankan cabinet has approved ajoint-venture between the Sri Lanka Airport Authorityand the Indian AviationAuthority.

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Israelis vote on Tuesday in ahigh-stakes election on

whether to extend PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu’slong tenure in power despitecorruption allegations againsthim and a strong challenge byan ex-military chief.

Bolstered by his reputationas guarantor of Israel’s securi-ty and economic growth,Netanyahu has spent morethan 13 years as premier andopinion polls show that hecould well win again.

He would be on track tosurpass founding father DavidBen-Gurion as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister if hewins.

In a last-minute appeal toright-wing voters, Netanyahu

said Saturday he was planningon annexing Israeli settlementsin the occupied West Bank if hewins.

The deeply controversialmove could end hopes for atwo-state solution with the

Palestinians if done on a largescale.

Netanyahu is fighting forhis political life while facing adual threat in this year’s elec-tion.

The possibility of indict-

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Rwanda on Sunday somber-ly commemorated the start,

25 years ago, of its genocide inwhich some 8,00,000 peoplewere killed, as the countrycontinues to grapple with thelasting consequences of themass killings.

President Paul Kagame andfirst lady Jeannette Kagamelaid wreaths and lit a flame atthe mass burial ground of250,000 victims at the KigaliGenocide Memorial Center inthe capital, Kigali.

Those attending the cere-monies included the leaders ofChad, Republic of the Congo,Djibouti, Niger, Belgium,Canada, Ethiopia, as well as the

African Union and theEuropean Union.

“I am moved beyondwords at this memorial totragedy,” said Jean-ClaudeJuncker, president of theEuropean Commission.

There will be a processionthrough the capital to Kigali’sNational Stadium where aremany as 30,000 are expected toparticipate in an evening can-dlelight ceremony.

“Twenty-five years ago,Rwanda fell into a deep ditchdue to bad leadership, today, weare a country of hope and anation elevated,” AgnesMutamba, 25, a teacher whowas born during the genocidetold The Associated Press inKigali.

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After the first season of Biswa Kalyan Rath’s Laakhon MeinEk highlighted India’s problematic education system, the web

series is back with another power-packed season, this timefocussing on the dark side of Indian medical world.

Starring Shweta Tripathi as Dr Shreya Pathare, a fierce andfearless junior doctor who wages a war against the corrupt sys-tem with her courage and resilience, the show is set to releaseon Amazon Prime Video on April 12.

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On the heels of a blindsiding breakup, music journalist Jennybraces for a new beginning — and one last adventure with

her closest friends.Starring Gina Rodriguez, Brittany Snow and DeWanda Wise,

the film releases on Netflix on April 19.

In a bid to provide Internet tothe “unserved and undeservedcommunities around the

world”, Amazon is working tolaunch a constellation of 3,236satellites into low-Earth orbit.

The project “Kuiper” will con-sist of 784 satellites at an altitudeof 367 miles from the earth,1,296 satellites at 379 miles and

1,156 satellites at 391 miles -- facil-itating Internet availability to over95 per cent of the earth’s total pop-ulation. “Project ‘Kuiper’ will pro-vide low-latency, high-speedbroadband connectivity tounserved and undeserved commu-nities around the world,” TheVerge quoted an Amazonspokesperson as saying on Friday.

“This is a long-term projectthat envisions serving tens of mil-lions of people who lack basicaccess to broadband Internet.”

Moving forward with the ini-tiative, the project has alreadyfiled with the International

Telecommunication Union (ITU)— the international organisation incharge of coordinating satelliteorbits.

Even though Amazon CEO,

Jeff Bezos has his own spaceflightcompany called “Blue Origin”, thecompany is considering all otheroptions as well. Details on whetherthe company intends to build its

own satellites or buy them from athird party remain unclear as ofnow.

“There’s no time-frame forwhen Amazon’s satellites might besent into orbit, but it will need toreceive the FederalCommunications Commission’s(FCC) approval before it can doso,” the report added. Apart fromthe brand, other tech majors havealso lately been working withsatellites.

Elon Musk-owned SpaceX hasplans to launch as many as 12,000satellites as part of its “Starlink”constellation and London-basedglobal communications company“OneWeb” wants to launch 650satellites to implement new space-based Internet communicationsystems.

Social networking giantFacebook is also developing anInternet satellite of its own, thereport noted.

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Anger — it could be forsomeone whom you hateor even love, or for some-one who doesn’t holdgreat importance in your

life but has caused you inconve-nience. The emotion is a mere resultof something that affects your person-al life, wreaking havoc, leading you tohelplessness.

Manav Kaul’s forthcoming film,Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai?,a remake of the 1980’s eponymousfilm, is a take on anger and helpless-ness of the common man. WhenAlbert leaves his house one morningwithout telling anyone his where-abouts, his girlfriend Stella files a com-plaint with the police and when hedoesn’t return after days, she beginsto worry. Albert is traversing a roadjourney from Mumbai to Goa. Hisanger stems from his certain lifeexperiences. It is this anger that is tak-ing him on a journey to settle a scoreand enable him to lead a life of dig-nity and hope.

Manav explains, “Albert is fight-ing corruption, inequality and injus-tice in the society. The core emotionof the film is helplessness. The filmrepresents the common or the mid-dle class man, who is bound by theinjustice that the corrupt systems doto his everyday routine and life. Youkeep looking at things around you, feelthe anger and want to do somethingbut what can you do?” He says that thefilm is about the journey of Albert andhow he tries hard to bring about achange in the society.

And due to the changing scenarioof the Indian cinema, he says this isan absolutely right time for the filmto be released as it effectively mirrorsthe small things in today’s society. “It

is very refreshing to see somethingwhich actually deals with anger, socialissues and with the idea of how angrythe middle class is. It’s about howangry the Indians are, and how rageis not the solution to the prevailingdynamic. It brings negativity. Evenpersonally, I am not so fond of thisemotion. I don’t think anger is theanswer to anything but the idea is it’sthe core sentiment of this country. It’sa very interesting time to release thefilm because it’s an experiment differ-ent than entertainment,” explains theTumhari Sulu actor.

It was after Soumitra Ranade,whom Manav has worked with earli-er for the 2003 film, JajantaramMamantaram, read the script to himone day and he found it so “fascinat-ing and engaging” that he couldn’twait to work on it. “I messaged himthe same night to tell him that this wasthe most amazing thing I have everread. And later, everyone — NanditaDas and Saurabh Shukla — cametogether for this and we embarkedupon the project,” he narrates.

He feels that when one under-stands the writer and his/her back-ground so well, it becomes easier tounderstand the kind of emotions andhumour they want you to bring intoyour character. “I had known him formore than a decade and I very wellknew where his thoughts, anger or hishumour came from. So it was easy todecode the script. We went throughsmall workshops to know more whatSoumitra wants,” says Manav.

The 1980 film starred legendaryNaseeruddin Shah in the role ofAlbert Pinto, whose anger is againstthe rich and capitalists in Mumbai.Talking about the difference the twofilms holds even though they share the

same title and character, the Ghoulactor explains that the film is just aconceptual remake and not like thosewhich were made in the 80s and 90s.“The country has changed, timeshave evolved to a great extent. Thattime was different. Today, it’s aboutunemployment and corruption. Thespirit of the previous film is still alive,the names might be the same, how-ever the story, circumstances and eventhe script are completely different,”

says Manav.He continues to add that Ranade’s

film is absolutely a fresh one with newideas and content. He says, “Eventhough Albert Pinto remains constantin the film, the 1980 one was theirinterpretation and representation.You play a character not in the way itwas played earlier by someone else.Currently, it’s my idea, my interpre-tation. I don’t even remember the oldone. I had seen it a long time ago.”

The actor tells us that it is how-ever, an honour for him to play a rolethat was once played by NaseeruddinShah as he has been an “admirer” of himsince many years. He says, “It’s beenaround 15 to 20 years in Mumbai andI don’t miss any of his theatre plays. It’sa treat to watch him on stage and evenon screen. I am absolutely head overheels in love with him. He’s oneof the most fantastic humanbeings, and it’s these smallgestures of him likespeaking with his mindthat I adore him. Thisrole will be my tribute tohim.”

The actor feels thatdifferent roles do shapeor influence a personas it is like “livingsomeone else’s life.”Putting yourself intosomeone else’s shoesmakes you view theworld or perceivethings like them. Wellthis role, says Manav,turned out to be ther-apeutic for him.“There are a numberof things that influenceyou in your life. And itcould be anything — aparticular character in abook, your travel, orsome film. With Albert’scharacter, all my angerhas gone,” he laughs.

On the work front,Manav’s forthcomingfilm, Music Teacher isslated to release on April19 on Netflix.

(The film releaseson April 12.)

How often do you take outtime from your busy sched-ules to read a book? Or play

your old guitar? Or perhaps prac-tice a new recipe? Well, in the midstof our work pressures and strictdeadlines, we often forget to lookback and dig out time for our pas-sion and hobbies which once usedto be our favourite pass times.

A recent survey titled ‘MeetIndia’s Passionistas,’ commissionedby the Singapore Tourism Boardacross 14 cities in India, revealednew identities, activities and tradi-tions that Indian millennials are fol-lowing besides their respectiveprofessions.

The report highlighted howmillennials harbour a deep-rootedneed to follow their passion withlike-minded individuals. Whilethey form a generation that claimto dedicate at least an hour a dayon their passion, 82 per cent spenta portion of their monthly incomeon pursuing their passion, whichindicates that the younger genera-tion focusses on not only their rou-tinely 9-5 work schedules, but also

have their desired interests andgoals prioritised.

While 27 per cent millennialsclaimed that they were ready to quittheir jobs to pursue their dreams,29.7 per cent focussed on their pas-sion over the weekend. Around 24.5per cent of them find vacationsfrom work a more suitable time to

do the same.As per the survey, more than 50

per cent of the respondents claimedto have a secret passion that theirfamilies or friends may not beaware of; across demographics andboundaries, individuals are willingto invest both time and money inthings they are passionate about. It

showed that characteristics of ‘pas-sionistas’ are most evident in mil-lennials as compared to thosebetween 36 to 45 years of age andthose above 46.

Going by the respective statis-tics of different Indian Tier 1 cities,Mumbai stood out in terms of mil-lennials who followed and took outtime for activities they were pas-sionate about. New Delhi saw thatabout 33.7 per cent of its millenni-als enjoy their passions over theweekend. In Mumbai, around 76.2per cent millennials spent over amajority of their earnings on keep-ing their passion alive throughtheir working days. This putBangalore and Kolkata on thereceding end of the scale as 52.8 percent and 41.1 per cent of theirrespondents respectively deniedthe possibility of quitting theirjobs to follow their passion andadmitted that they are not able todedicate enough time to it.

On the activities front, 59 percent respondents claimed that theyare explorers and travel for outdoorexperiences. Three in every four (78per cent) millennials would chooseto spend money on a desirableexperience or adventure over amaterial purchase. On the otherhand, 72 per cent of Indians trav-el the world to pursue their inter-ests in food, historical monuments,and traversing through scenic land-scapes. Also, 86.6 per cent (18-25)and 76.4 per cent (26-35) peoplewish to spend a majority of theirearnings on their passion.

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With the world under attack by deadly creatures who huntby sound, a teen and her family seek refuge outside the

city and encounter a mysterious cult. Starring Stanley Tucci,Kiernan Shipka and Miranda Otto, the film is slated to releaseon April 10.

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The confrontation between two east Asiancountries, the unresolved conflict betweentwo gulf nations and the communal or reli-

gious disharmony in various other parts of theworld remind us that there has been a vast dis-crepancy between what religions have preachedand what most of their followers have actuallypractised. The gulf between preaching and prac-tise has steadily deepened and widened. Howeverlofty their ideals and injunctions regarding thenorms of conduct, religions in the world have beenunable to mitigate wars and other forms of con-flict throughout.

They have failed to realise the glory of Godand goodwill towards fellow beings in day-to-daylife. They have not been able to foster amity andbring peace to the world. Therefore, here arisesthe question — are religions any beneficial to themankind? Have they not caused enough confu-sion and conflicts? When we give an impartialthought to this charge against religions in gener-al, we find that, to a great extent, it is true. Well,in the first stage of their growth, followers of everyreligion had a good understanding of real religiousspirits in the form of observance of their cardi-nal principles. However, that was short-lived,because successive generations of followers learntmainly the rituals and customs. They said theirprayers, made some donations and felt elated tosee their numbers increase but dissensions, rifts,sectarianism and quarrels among themselves andwith others increased. Hence, today, no one candeny that to a great extent if not totally, religionshave failed in making their followers conform totheir prescribed ethical norms and to the goldenrule of love towards the fellow beings. However,it should also be noted that though this chargepoints to the fact that there are serious flaws, defor-mities and discrepancies in the existing religions,it does not necessarily imply that religion, evenin its real form also is unnecessary, for the truthremains that it fulfills man’s many needs.

It was not so long ago, when SwamiVivekananda reflected on the necessity of the con-cept of universal religion for the society. Herealised the nature of man, according to whichmankind in the whole world has been trying tolook beyond in the quest of his ultimate destinyor search for God. Therefore, whole of the worldcommunity is today expecting a religion, whichis acceptable to all, universal in its scope and teach-ings and which works as a unifying force.

The need of the hour is to have a religion ofspiritual love and brotherhood that could inspiremen, women and children to build up a new worldof complete peace, friendliness and brotherhood.Moreover, people now don’t want a religion whichoffers them an imaginary heaven or gives themfear of an imaginary hell. Instead, they want a reli-gion which gives them uprightness and happinessin this very life and enlightens them on how totransform this world of sufferings, that is, the hellinto paradise. It is this religion, which is univer-sal, altruistic and practicable.

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�� �������������%�����������J� �������%�9���������������$�� ����#�� &�����%�I8�" ��-���� ��

�� 1���0���# 1��0 >���% �� 07������20<&��&�� ���% � 7��@��0�� ����2��� >����2�@�0 1��# ��&&���00< ��1��� 1�������1��2 �#�2����� ��1���0 �� ���@����% ����< 0��0 �*�(� )������������ �Six-month-old Chotu was

lying comfortablyensconced in his mother’slap. He was dressed inbright clothes and his

eyes were lined with kohl. Hismother’s eyes sparkled with sheerjoy and love as she started talk-ing about all that she had learntover the 10 days of PoshanPakhwada celebrations inBhiwandi, an overcrowded, large-ly impoverished loom town, amere 20 kilometres outside ofMumbai, in Thane district.Chotu’s mother was one of themany women who attended theactivities organised as part of thefortnight long string of eventswith a firm resolve: to do her bestfor the good health and well-being of her child. She was alsoeager to know how to take careof herself so she could enjoy ahealthy and happy motherhood.

Poshan Pakhwada, a nation-wide awareness and outreach cam-paign to mark the first anniversaryof Poshan Abhiyaan, the govern-ment’s overarching scheme forholistic nourishment took placebetween March 8 and 22, andincluded events that ranged fromnutrition counselling; talks onhygiene, exclusive breastfeedingand immunisation; anaemiascreening for pregnant women;among others, in a bid to ensureadequate nutrition for pregnantwomen, mothers and children.

Providing sustained andquality healthcare services onthe ground is essential in a placelike Bhiwandi. Stepping into thistown, one simply can’t miss theshanties, with their narrow, dingy,airless lanes that double up as anoverpass for the drains. The var-ious slums, be it Shanti Nagar,Gayatri Nagar or Fatima Nagar,present a picture of squalor,chaos and destitution. Nothingreally seems to be working out forthe thousands of workers andtheir families who toil away onthe power looms, but it’s thewomen and children who bearbrunt of crushing poverty thatbrings on ill-health, illiteracy

and crime.The focussed health drive

was indeed a welcome move, asit brought home the message ofmaking available improvedanganwadi services, undertakingbetter monitoring of expectantwomen and newborns, and, ofcourse, building greater synergyamong the different governmentagencies and frontline healthworkers for the benefit of thealready struggling community,largely comprising loom workers.The sessions organised during thePakhwada were attended by chil-dren, mothers of newborn babies,expectant women as well as ado-lescent girls.

The activities included inno-vative, fun games through whichadolescent girls were sensitisedabout good and bad touch. ShujaRamja, 14, liked the session‘attending the programme wasuseful, I got to know a lot, espe-cially about good and bad touch.

She feels that this knowledge willhelp her deal with situationswhen boys tease her. Now shewill not remain quiet. She alsofeels that the other things that shelearnt at the programme abouthealth, nutrition of mothers andbabies will equip her with theknowledge that she will needwhen she gets married and havechildren. Apart from being taughtabout these, menstrual hygieneand using sanitary pads, the dire

consequences of teenage preg-nancy and the importance of abalanced diet were also addressedin the session. The idea was toprep them with information thatwould hold them in good steadin the future. They were also toldabout the importance of complet-ing their secondary educationand the right age to get married.

In addition to the immense-ly popular adolescent awarenessprogramme, there were interac-tive talks held with women tobring them up-to-date with thedifferent facets of mother andchild care. Issues like immunisa-tion, regular weight checks, hav-ing a nutritious diet, feeding ofcolostrum, exclusive breastfeed-ing and supplementary mealsonce the baby is six months oldwere keenly discussed. The ses-sion on the importance of main-taining a three-year gap betweentwo children, the need for insti-tutional delivery, the ambulance

call number were also wellreceived.

What was of particular inter-est to everyone attending theevent was the information shar-ing on the various socio-econom-ic government schemes that areavailable to the community. Thereality is that despite a plethoraof state and centre-run pro-grammes to boost the nutrition-al status of children (zero to sixyears age), pregnant women andlactating mothers, there is a dis-tinct lack of coordination inlinking the schemes and makingthem easily accessible to the peo-ple. Consequently, the state ofhealth of women and children inthe country is far from perfect.

A total crowd-pleaser wasthe cooking demonstration under-taken by the anganwadi workers.The idea was to motivate womento use their ‘Take Home Ration’ byteaching them easy recipes. ‘TakeHome Rations’ are roast-dried,packaged, ready-to-cook mealsthat are typically made of wheat,sugar and soybean, fortified withspecified quantities of micronutri-ents. Due to a lack of awarenessabout preparing meals out of the‘Take Home Ration’ ingredients,more often than not, the womenwould simply take them andeither throw them away or havethem straight from the packetwithout cooking. The anganwa-di workers, aware of this situation,took it on themselves to showthem the different delectabletreats that can be whipped upwith the free ration supply.Delicious sweetmeats like ladoosand halwa, along with crisp hotparanthas (leavened Indianbread) were prepared and distrib-uted during this session much tothe delight of the women inattendance. In the end, the pur-pose of the demonstrations wasfulfilled — the women were con-vinced that, when used in theright way, ‘Take Home Rations’can not only taste great, moreimportantly, they are beneficial totheir health.

A�������6�������

Tobacco use, particularly smoking,is widely recognised by the med-ical community as well as the

general public as a major public healthhazard. Despite the fact, unfortunatelysmoking has always received socialacceptance across the world. It is the sin-gle most important preventable risk tohuman health and an important cause ofpremature deaths. Globally it kills near-ly six million people, of which 0.6 mil-lion is due to passive smoking. By 2030,with current trend, more than eight mil-lion people will be killed every yearworldwide. Nearly 80 per cent of deathswill be in underdeveloped countries. InIndia, smoking is one of the major causeof deaths and diseases, accounting formillions of such cases daily.

Guidelines for tobacco have beenpublished by the Ministry of Health. Thisshould be known to all physicians inorder to help the patients to stop smok-ing which will further help in preventionof disease or its progression.

Cigarettes contain about 600 ingre-dients. Smoking generates more than7,000 chemicals. Many of these are poi-sonous and almost 69 of them cancause cancer.

Many of the elements are found incigars and hookah pipes. Cigars have ahigher level of carcinogens, toxins, andtar as compared to cigarettes. Whilesmoking hookah, one is likely to inhalemore smoke than a cigarette. It has manytoxic compounds and even exposes tomore toxic carbon monoxide (CO) gasthan cigarettes. Hookahs produce morepassive smoke. In India bidi consump-tion is seven to eight times more com-mon than conventional cigarettes andwhen compared them, ‘bidis produce

equal or higher levels of nicotine, tar andother toxic chemicals.’

After inhalation, these compoundsnot only reach lungs but are absorbed andcan damage almost every single organ ofthe body.

Smoking harms the overall health,increases absenteeism from work andalso extends health care utilisation. It isa burden on the country’s economic costs.

Apart from lung (deadliest), orophar-

ynx, larynx (voice box) and windpipecancer it can also cause cancer almostanywhere in our body. This includes —in bladder, food pipe, stomach, largeintestine, cervix, kidney, liver, pancreasand blood. Among asthmatics, smokingis considered as one of the major risk fac-tor for acute attacks and thereby increas-ing morbidity and mortality. Other res-piratory diseases whose incidence orseverity is increased by smoking are com-

mon cold, influenza, pneumonia, lungfibrosis, lung hemorrhages and sponta-neous development of air leak from thelung leading to lung collapse.

Smoking not only contributes tomortality from pulmonary diseases,which includes deaths from lung cancer,and chronic obstructive pulmonary dis-ease but it also contributes to cardiovas-cular diseases like heart attack andstroke. It increases the risk of type-2-dia-betes and can make sugar control diffi-cult if not stopped. If a diabetic personsmokes, they have a higher risk of seri-ous complications including heart andkidney diseases, eye problems, neuropa-thy and vascular complications.

Smoking affects nearly every organand harms a person’s overall health. Iteven makes difficult for a woman to con-ceive and can cause premature deliver-ies, still births, sudden infant death syn-drome, and ectopic pregnancy if theyconceive. In men, it worsens the spermcount, which can reduce the fertility rateand can increase the risk of birth defectsand miscarriages. In women, duringchildbearing age it can result in boneweakness and increases the risk of frac-tures. Smoking can also affect tooth andgums and can result in tooth loss. It is alsoa cause of rheumatoid arthritis, which isa crippling joint disorder.

Risk from tobacco smoke is not lim-ited to the person who smokes alone butalso to those around the smoker. This iscalled second-hand smoke or passivesmoking. The risk of lung cancer increas-es by 30 per cent due to passive smok-ing and this also contributes to workabsenteeism in non-smoking adultsbecause of respiratory illnesses.

Smoking which is a harmful socio-

economic factor, is a contributor tomorbidity and mortality of tuberculosis.In 2002, in first such review article pub-lished in the International Journal ofTuberculosis and Lung Diseases, it wasconcluded that smoking could be consid-ered as an important risk factor for thedevelopment of tuberculosis. Not onlyactive but also passive smoking wasfound to be associated with increased riskof tuberculosis. As we know that in ourcountry tuberculosis is widely prevalent,smoking can increase the risk by manyfolds.

Quitting smoking lowers the risk ofmany diseases and can add years to ourlife. It not only reduces the risk of heartattacks but also the risk of stroke, can-cers and other disorders. Quit smokingclinics, where smokers are helped in quit-ting the habit by proper counseling andrecommended pharmacotherapy are theneed of the hour. There are a few centresin our country but that too are restrict-ed to some medical colleges and hospi-tals but the requirement of such centresare in massive numbers.

There is a need of increase and muchstringent government regulation onsmoking. The addiction which is con-nected and gives only diseases and alsoincreases countries’ medical costs isrampant at the moment. The cigarettecompany’s argument that they bring rev-enues to the country is nothing else buta sheer myth being propagated as thecosts involved in treating the diseasescaused by smoking is enormous and runsin billions of rupees. Secondly the loss ofhumanity is priceless and irreversible.

(The author is the director and head,department of pulmonology and sleep dis-orders, Fortis Hospital.)

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Chinese badminton ace Lin Dan clinched theMalaysia Open on Sunday after an electric perfor-

mance against countryman Chen Long to claim his firstmajor title in two years.

The win comes after the five-time world champi-on made several early round exits since January, includ-ing at the Indonesia Masters, German Open and the All-England.

But in a nail-biting78-minute match, theworld number 16smashed his way backto victory with a finalscore that tallied 9-21,21-7, 21-11.

Speaking toreporters afterwards,Lin said his gameagainst two-time worldchampion Chen was asign that his spate ofbad luck was finallyover.

"My performancelast year was not ideal,and I was under a lotof pressure and evendoubted myself," hesaid.

"But here in Malaysia, I was determined to play welland was hungry for victory ... I think the bad times areover."

The title is Lin's first win this year, and also his firstmajor success since taking the Malaysia Open in 2017.

The two-time Olympic Gold medallist received a$49,000 cash prize presented by his long-time Malaysianrival Lee Chong Wei, who sat out the Open over his can-cer recovery.

Lin said he hoped to meet Lee on court again, asboth men prepare for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The women's singles saw top seed Tai Tzu-yingclinch her third consecutive title after a dominant 21-16, 21-19 triumph over Akane Yamaguchi.

China dominated all the other events, winning themixed doubles, women's doubles and the men's dou-bles.

Chinese duo Li Junhui and Liu Yuchen beat Japanesepair Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda 21-12, 21-17to win the men's doubles.

Zheng Siwei-Huang Yaqiong and Chen Qingchen-Jia Yifan also clinched the mixed doubles and women'sdoubles respectively.

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Luis Suarez and Lionel Messiscored twice in two minutesas Barcelona broke the resis-

tance of 10-man Atletico Madridon Saturday to go 11 points clearof their La Liga title rivals.

Diego Costa was sent off inthe 28th minute at Camp Nouafter insulting referee GilManzano but while Atletico heldon for almost another hour, Suarezand Messi struck late to seal a piv-otal 2-0 win.

The victory leavesBarca almost out of sightwith seven games left toplay and maintainsmomentum ahead ofWednesday's trip toManchester United in thefirst leg of the ChampionsLeague quarter-finals.

"It is three crucial points,"coach Ernesto Valverde said. "Weare a little closer."

"It gives us a big margin," saidSuarez. "We've taken not just one,but two steps forward."

United coach Ole GunnarSolskjaer was in the crowd alongwith his assistant Mike Phelan butthis was a familiar story ofBarcelona's deadly duo deliveringwhen it mattered most.

Costa's early and needlessdismissal left Atletico needingsnookers just to avoid defeat, letalone pull off the win that theircoach Diego Simeone had said lastweek was the only result to keeptheir challenge alive.

"I asked the referee and he toldme Costa said something to him,"Simeone said. "Other players havesaid things and not been sent offbut that does not justify whatCosta did."

Suarez intervened with asuperb long-range strike in the85th minute, before Messi addeda second in the 86th. The pair havenow scored 53 league goalsbetween them this season whilefor Messi, this was a record 335thLa Liga victory.

Only a monumental collapsecould now bring Atletico back into

contention and more likely isBarca have earned themselvesthe luxury of resting players,around an even greater focus onsuccess in Europe.

Antoine Griezmann, whodecided against joining Barcelonalast summer, was whistled as hisname was read out before kick-offand he struggled for chances inwhat quickly became, after Costadeparted, a contest of attackagainst defence.

Atletico seemed to be findingtheir way into the game whenManzano showed a red card to theSpaniard, who had pursued thereferee and seemingly insultedhim after a tangle with PhilippeCoutinho.

A fuming Costa was escortedaway by Gerard Pique and Barcatook control. Jordi Alba hadalready hit the post after defence-splitting pass by Messi andCoutinho should have scored

after a brilliant backheel by Suarez.Messi came alive at the start

of the second half as one shot wassaved by the excellent Jan Oblakand another mesmeric run endedwith a feathered pass to Suarez butagain Oblak saved, this time withhis foot.

Finally, the resistance ofAtletico and their goalkeeper wasbroken as Barca scored twice intwo minutes. The first was apeach as Suarez lined up a shotfrom 25 yards and whipped it pastthe left hand of Oblak into the bot-tom corner.

The second was a display ofMessi magic, his weaving runfrom the right leaving both JoseGimenez and Diego Godin ontheir backs. A tucked finish foundits way in to finish off the gameand, probably, Atletico too.

����� ������

Kevin De Bruyne admits the strain ofchasing the quadruple means

Manchester City are almost certain tofail in their historic bid.

Pep Guardiola's side edged closer toan unprecedented clean-sweep of allfour major trophies as they beatBrighton 1-0 in Saturday's FA Cupsemi-final at Wembley.

Having already won the LeagueCup, City are through to their seconddomestic final of the season.

They are also embroiled in thePremier League title race, trailing lead-ers Liverpool by two points with a gamein hand.

On Tuesday, they face Tottenham inthe Champions League quarter-finalfirst leg in north London.

Yet Guardiola described the quadru-ple attempt as "almost impossible" afterthe Brighton game.

City midfielder De Bruyne agreesthat the congested fixture list presentsa tough obstacle due to mounting men-tal and physical strain.

"It is nearly impossible. I don'tthink it is impossible to win every game,(looking) game by game, but if you seethe fixtures coming up — I think everygame we play now we are going to be ata disadvantage physically and mental-ly," he said.

"We will have a game before theother teams, the other teams will havea rest. The Champions League is thesame. So, it is difficult."

City are now staying in Londonahead of their next testing task atTottenham.

To underline his point,De Bruyne noted thatTottenham, who City alsoface in the Premier Leaguethis month, have had a freeweekend ahead of the clash.

"Every game is difficult. Wejust now have to prepare for Tuesday,"De Bruyne said.

"We know Tottenham played theirlast game on Wednesday so they will bemore fresh than us. We have to prepareourselves mentally and physically to beready."

The game will be Tottenham's sec-ond at their new stadium, but DeBruyne insists City won't be troubled bythe passionate atmosphere.

"The stadium doesn't matter. Theyare going to be excited because it is aChampions League quarter-final," hesaid.

"Spurs are a very good team.

Everybody knows how they play. Theywill not change.

"It is going to be exciting, itis going to be tough because weplay them three times in 10days."

While City were involved inFA Cup action over the week-

end, t it le r ivals Liverpoolreturned to the top of the table with

a win at Southampton.City are still favourites because of

their game in hand, but De Bruyne doesnot think the Reds will allow any mar-gin for error.

"Probably they will (win theirgames). We just have to look at ourselvesand try to win game by game. We willsee in the end what happens," he said.

"No matter who is champion or sec-ond, we've had a great season. What canyou say if you get 92 or 95 points andin the end you are second?

"Normally that's historic in thePremier League, to get these points.Imagine being second with it."

��� � ��� �����

Atotal of 442 players will beup for grabs at the two-

day auction, beginning onMonday inMumbai, for theseventh edition ofthe cash-rich ProKabaddi League(PKL), starting onJuly 19.

Of this, 53 players arefrom 13 nations, and 72 comefrom the league's New YoungPlayers Programme (NYP), anationwide talent scoutingprogramme organised in 12cities, which received an over-whelming response with 2,991participants.

Like the previous year,the concept of "Final BidMatch" (FBM) will continuethis year too. As per the FBMprocess, the franchises will be

entitled to matchthe final bid madeby another fran-chise, for one or atmost two playersfrom its previous

season squad.For the upcoming sea-

son, 29 players have beenkept in the Elite RetainedPlayers category. These play-ers will continue their associ-ation with their respectivefranchises.

However, unlike last sea-son when each team was

allowed to retain only fourmembers from their previoussquad, the number of ElitePlayers that can be retained bya franchise has been increasedto six across categories A, B,C with a maximum of twoeach from Category A andCategory B.

For auction, players havebeen split into five categories(A, B, C, D and NYP).

The base price of each cat-egory has also been raised thisyear. Players in the A, B, C,and D categories have been seta base price of � 30 lakh, 20lakh, 10 lakh and 6 lakh,respectively, while NYP willgo with fixed a price of � 7.26lakh.

����� ������

Borussia Dortmund CEOHans-Joachim Watzke has

said that his team are still hop-ing to win the Bundesliga titleafter their 5-0 humiliation at thehands of Bayern Munich onSaturday.

Bayern reclaimed top spotwith their emphaticvictory on Saturday,but they remain only apoint ahead ofDortmund with sixgames to go.

"Of course wewant to win the league," saidWatzke during a Sky Sports chatshow appearance with his Bayerncounterpart Karl-HeinzRummenigge.

"In a few days, Bayern willnotice that they only got threepoints for their win, and we willrealise that we are only a pointbehind them."

Watzke admitted Dortmundwere now underdogs, but insist-

ed that his team could bounceback and keep the pressure onthe Bavarians.

"Bayern are obviouslyfavourites, but I don't think that

both teams are going to win allof their last six games," he said.

"Our team has enormouspotential, and it will be part ofthe learning curve to put this vic-

tory behind us.""The players need to enjoy

playing again and have fun,because yesterday was not fun."

Watzke said that the fact thathis team were still in the race atall at this stage was "a great suc-cess".

"This is only the third time ina decade that we have a title racein the Bundesliga," he said.

"If we have to congratulateBayern on the last day of the sea-son, then we will do so."

Bayern chief executiveRummenigge, meanwhile, saidhe was now confident that histeam would claim a seventh suc-cessive Bundesliga title.

"We will win the league," hedeclared.

"We have big goals, and we arein a promising position in bothdomestic competitions, so our aimis to win the double," he said.

"There were definitely weekswhich didn't go so well for us thisseason. In the last six games, weneed to play as we did yesterday."

���.�H� HaryanaSteelers on Sundayannounced RakeshKumar, as the fran-chise's head coachahead of the upcom-ing season 7 of thePro Kabaddi League.

Kumar replacesRambir SinghKhokhar, who waswith the team sinceits entry into theleague two seasons ago, a media release said.

Kumar brings a wealth of experience in PKLand was the most expensive player in the inau-gural season in which he was picked by the PatnaPirates as the team's captain.

He has played 55 matches in the PKL, earn-ing 260 points through the first five seasons ofthe league and this will be Kumar's first coach-ing stint.

"I am excited about returning to the PKL matas coach of the Haryana Steelers and am thank-ful to the franchise for giving me this opportu-nity," Kumar said on the eve of the 2019 auction.

"It is my first time as head coach of a teamand I intend to lead this team after the auctionthrough hard work and discipline to ensure wecan take the team to the top of the league," headded. PTI

��� *�����

India's G Sathiyan booked aberth at the World Cup

after finishing sixth in theITTF-ATTU Asian Cup inpositions 5-8 match here onSunday.

Sathiyan, who hadstunned World No 14 ChunTing Wong of Hong Kong onSaturday, couldn't producehis best against 17-year-oldLin Yun-Ju of Chinese Taipei,who notched up a 11-4, 11-8, 11-8, 14-12 win to finishfifth.

Despite the defeat in thepositions match, Sathiyansealed a spot at the WorldCup, to be held in Chengdu,China from October 18 to 20.

Fresh from his recenttitle win at the Challenge PlusOman Open, the world no 21Lin seemed far superior thanthe 26-year-old Indian.

The left-hander was athis usual best and quicklytook the first game. Sathiyanmanaged a few more pointsin the next two games butLin, exploiting the angleswell, mounted the attack toput pressure on the Indian.

The world No 28 Indiancould have taken a gamefrom the Taipei's No 2 pad-dler as he had two gamepoints in the fourth set, butthe wily teenager pocketed itto push Sathiyan, who iscompeting in his first AsianCup, to the sixth spot.

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Mohammad Amir's World Cupselection was throw into uncer-

tainty after captain Sarfaraz Ahmedexpressed concerns over the experi-enced left-arm pacer's inability totake wickets in One-dayInternationals.

"When your main strike bowleris not taking wickets regularly obvi-ously it causes concern to the cap-tain," Sarfaraz said.

Since the Champions Trophyfinal at the Oval in 2017 when heproduced a match-winning spell of3 for 16, Amir, 26, has not takenmore than a wicket in 14 ODIs andhas also gone without a wicket innine of these matches.

Even he has hit an average ofaround 85 per wicket in these 14games and even his pace and strikerate has gone down in Test match-es.

The selectors are due toannounce the Pakistan World Cupsquad on April 18 and sources saythat they are likely to announce 17to 18 players to go to England onApril 23.

"Pakistan is due to play a five-

match ODI series against Englandbesides some matches against Englishcounties in May and since everycountry has to give final shape to its15-member World Cup squad by23rd May, the selectors might wantto have a final look at Amir beforedeciding on whether he plays in themega-event or not," a source said.

Sarfaraz agreed that there hadnot only been a drastic cut in thestrike rate for Amir but his pace hadalso come down.

"I can't say whether he (Amir)will be in the World Cup squad ornot but our minds are clear about ourplans and when the squad isannounce everyone will know," thePakistan skipper added.

The source confirmed thatAmir's selection is dicey since eventhe head coach Mickey Arthur andbowling coach Azhar Mahmoodseem to have lost faith in him mak-ing a comeback.

��������

Atop-heavy Sunrisers Hyderabadare seeking to sort their middle-

order woes against Kings XI Punjab asthe two teams eye a return to winningways in the Indian Premier League hereon Monday.

Both Sunrsiers and Kings XI havegarnered six points after three winsfrom five games but the Hyderabad out-fit is placed second in the eight-teamstandings on account of a better runrate.

Kings XI, meanwhile, are lying fifthin the points table.

But, having suffered defeats intheir previous games, both Sunrisersand Kings XI would be desperate to getback to winning ways.

While Sunrisers lost by 40 runsagainst Mumbai Indians in Hyderabadon Saturday while chasing a below-par136, Kings XI were beaten by 22 runsby Chennai Super Kings.

Sunrisers have been threatening intheir first three games when DavidWarner and Jonny Bairstow stitchedcentury-plus stands but once the duogot out cheaply, the Hyderabad team'smiddle-order looked in complete dis-array.

Sunrsiers' middle-order has hard-ly been tested and when the opportu-nity came against Mumbai Indians, thelikes of Vijay Shankar, Manish Pandey,Deepak Hooda and Yusuf Pathan fellflat.

On the bowling front, the pace trioof Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sandeep

Sharma and Siddharth Kaul have beendescent so far while the Afghan spinduo of Rashid Khan and MohammadNabi have been more than impressivein the middle overs.

Kings XI, on the other hand, lostthe plot despite half-centuries from KL Rahul (55) and Sarfaraz Khan (67)while chasing 161 as they were restrict-ed to 138 for five by CSK.

Kings XI batsmen were choked forruns by the CSK spinners and withRashid and Nabi in Sunrsiers' rank, itis going to be another difficult outingfor the home team batsmen.

Kings XI would be hoping for ChrisGayle to be back among runs at the top,while the likes of Mayank Agarwal,Mandeep Singh, David Miller need totake more responsibility in the middleovers.

While pacer Mohammed Shamihad had an erratic tournament, skip-per Ravichandran Ashwin has beenleading Kings XI from the front in thecompany of Sam Curran, MuruganAshwin and Andrew Tye.

��� �*���)�

Young West Indian pacerAlzarri Joseph described his

record-breaking bowling efforton his IPL debut as "unbelievable",saying he will cherish the momentfor a long time to come.

The soft-spoken Joseph (6/12)claimed the best bowling figures inIPL's history, bettering SohailTanvir's 6/14 registered in theinaugural edition in 2008. The pre-vious best figures on IPL debut wasAndrew Tye's 5/17, in 2017.

"Unbelievable. It's a great start.I dont' think I could have asked foranything better. So I will reallycherish this moment," said Josephat the post-match press conferenceafter helping Mumbai Indianssecure a 40-run win over SunrisersHyderabad here on Saturday night.

Defending a modest 136 forseven, Joseph wreaked havoc withthe ball to bundle out SRH for 96.

Joseph claimed the wickets ofdangerman David Warner, VijayShankar, Deepak Hooda, RashidKhan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar andSiddharth Kaul to hand MumbaiIndians their third win from five

games.Asked what was going on his

mind before his debut match, hesaid: "It was my first game. So I justwanted to go out and put all myeffort into this team.

"The score doesn't really mat-ter. I just go out and put my bestfoot forward. You get the informa-tion from the first ball so you knowwhat variations you need to use."

Joseph said the Wankhedepitch was not the best one for shot-making and they believed indefending the modest total at thebreak.

"The pitch wasn't the easiest to

play on, so 136 from 120 balls weknew we were in for a game if wetake some early wickets," he said.

Stating that his sole aim is tohelp his side win the IPL crown,Joseph said he was happy to fin-ish off things for Mumbai byclaiming the last wicket of Kaul.

"It's not something I play for.I play for wins. It's a good feelingbut I want to win this tournament,"he said.

"The last wicket because thatgave us the win. My aim is to domy best to win games for my team.Just put my whole effort into theteam."

����� '*���*

Shamed former Australia captain SteveSmith has backed fellow ball-tamper-

er Cameron Bancroft as an astute choiceto skipper English county side Durhamafter his appointment raised eyebrows.

Smith, Bancroft and David Warnerwere all banned over the scandal involv-ing sandpaper to alter the ball in SouthAfrica last year, but are now back play-ing.

While Warner was also barred fromever holding a leadership role again andSmith prevented from doing so for 12months after his one-year suspensionexpired, Bancroft was free to assume acaptaincy.

Durham appointed him last month,insisting he was "the best availableoption" despite criticism from some quar-ters, including former English bowlerDarren Gough who slammed it as "dis-graceful".

But Smith said Bancroft had shown"great character" in the way he handled

his ban and return to cricket."Cam is a good choice for captain,"

Smith told ESPNcricinfo."He's got a good head on his shoul-

ders and has shown great character in theway he has come back after his time out.

"It has been a tough time for him nodoubt, but he's a good guy who will dohis best for Durham and will lead themwell.

"He gets the game pretty well and hasa good understanding of strategy andplayers," he added.

"He's found a bit of form with the batand will be able to use his experience ina positive way."

��� )��(����

There was no end to RoyalChallengers Bangalore's woe-ful run this IPL as the Virat

Kohli-led side suffered its sixthstraight defeat while Delhi Capitalsplayed like a unit to win by fourwickets, here on Sunday.

RCB batsmen found the goingtough on a tough wicket after beinginvited to bat first and could onlymanage 149 for 8 in the stipulated20 overs.

With the ball not coming on tothe bat, Kohli scored almost a-run-a-ball before hitting two sixes late inhis innings, consuming 33 balls forhis 41.

Had it not been for Kohli andMoeen Ali's contributions, RCBwould have been in deep trouble. Alihits a 18-ball 32.

South Africa paceman KagisoRabada (4/21) accounted for fourRCB batsmen to lead Delhi's bowl-ing attack, which also comprisedChris Morris (2/28), Axar Patel(1/22) and Sandeep Lamichhane(1/46).

Shreyas Iyer then played a cap-tain's knock, making a 50-ball 67 toguide Delhi Capitals to a comfort-able win, bringing their IPL cam-paign back on track.

Iyer anchored the chase withsome crucial partnerships as Delhioverhauled the target with sevenballs to spare.

Iyer smashed eight fours andtwo sixes in his 50-ball innings

which helped Delhi grab the fifthplace in the points table, snappinga two-match losing streak wherethey lost to Kings XI Punjab andSunrisers Hyderabad in the last two

games.Chasing 150 to win, Iyer forged

a 68-run partnership with openerPrithvi Shaw (28) after ShikharDhawan was dismissed by TimSouthee in the third ball of theinnings.

In the 9th over, Pawan Negiremoved Shaw after the batsmantop-edged a delivery and was caughtat deep square leg by AkshdeepNath.

Iyer then shared 39 runs withColin Ingram (22), who blasted twofours and a six in his 21-ball staybefore being trapped by Moeen Aliin the 14th over while trying to playa shot over the leg side.

Rishabh Pant came out withintent, blasting a couple of fours,while Iyer too smashed a six offYuzvendra Chahal in the 17th overbut the skipper miscued a pull offNavdeep Saini and was caught atshort cover by Chahal.

With just five runs needed,Delhi survived some anxiousmoment after losing Chris Morris(0) and Pant -- both trying to clearthe in-field and perishing in theprocess.

Axar Patel then smashed a fourto take Delhi home.

Earlier, Rabada was introducedto bowl the last over in Powerpayand he got his national teammate ABde Villiers (17).

And then in his third over hedismissed the rival captain,Akshdeep Nath and Pawan Negi totrigger massive collapse.

��� ����

Australian batsman SteveSmith scored 73 not out to

anchor Rajasthan Royals to 139for 3 in their IPL match againstKolkata Knight Riders here onSunday.

Smith struck his first half cen-tury of this IPL season as heremained not out on 73 off 59deliveries after the home side wasinvited to bat on a tricky track.

The former Australia captain,who returned to competitivecricket last month after servingone-year ban for his involve-ment in the infamous ball-tam-pering scandal in South Africa, hitseven fours and one six in hisunbeaten knock.

He shared 72 runs in 10.4overs with opener Jos Buttler (37off 34 balls) for the second wick-et after captain Ajinkya Rahanewas out cheaply for 5 in the sec-ond over.

On a slow track at the SawaiMan Singh stadium, the runs werea premium as the ball did notcome on to the bat easily. The sta-dium was also engulfed by a sand-storm before the tie but the matchstarted on time.

The home side were 56 for 1at halfway stage but increased thescoring rate at the back end of theinnings to add 83 runs from thenext 10 overs with Smith scoringthe bulk of the runs.

Rajasthan Royals were imme-diately at the backfoot as soon asthe match started as Rahane wastrapped LBW by Prasidh Krishna

when the scoreboard read just 5.Buttler hit a couple of fours in

the fourth over bowled by Krishnaand after that runs were hard tocome by before one-down Smithhit another couple of boundariesin the ninth over off chinamanKuldeep Yadav.

Buttler hit the first six of thematch in the fourth delivery of the12th over bowled by debutantpacer Harry Gurney (2/25) but hewas out the next ball while goingfor another big shot withSubhman Gill taking a fine catchnear the boundary ropes.

Smith reached to his 50 off 44deliveries in the 15th over andafter that he opened up his armsin search of runs. He hit a mas-sive six off Sunil Narine in the18th over and a couple of bound-aries in the next two overs to takeRajasthan Royals to a respectabletotal.

Ben Stokes remained not outon 7 off 14 balls and shared 34runs with Smith from 4.2 overs forthe unconquered fourth wicket.

��� �*���)�

Traditionally a slow starter, MumbaiIndians skipper Rohit Sharma says he

wants his team to win most of its initialmatches this IPL season, as some of hisplayers will leave for World Cup prepara-tions at the back-end.

"We want to win as many games as pos-sible at the start because we know how hec-tic it gets in the end. A few of the guys leav-ing for the World Cup doesn't help either,"Rohit said after his team's victory overSunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday night.

"We don't want to be a team who startsoff poorly."

The win was made possible by AlzarriJoseph's dream IPL debut, returning withfigures of 6/12, which is the best in theleague's history.

Rohit was in awe of the young pacerfrom the West Indies.

"It was a sensational bowling effortfrom Alzarri, to bowl like this in first game.He's come in with a lot of confidence fromthe CPL and he's carrying it here," Rohitsaid.

Earlier, a brisk 46 from Kieron Pollardhelped Mumbai Indians finish on a decent

note."We didn't bat well to start with, kept

losing wickets and we knew after a fewovers that it wasn't a 170-180 pitch. Thepitch was under covers for a day, it was rain-ing as well and the wicket was a bit sticky,"Rohit said.

"So we knew that 140 would be a goodscore to defend because we've got the qual-ity in our bowling and we back them todefend whatever we get.

"We knew that once we got an earlywicket we were in the game and with thespin and the seamers we have, we knew wecould knock them out in the middle," theMI captain added.

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Helplessness was palpable whenVirat Kohli spoke after his

side's sixth straight defeat this IPLseason as he defended his atypicalslow knock against Delhi Capitals.

"We thought 160 would be com-petitive, but we kept losing wicketsat regular intervals, so I wanted totake the game deep. Even 150, hadwe held on to our chances, would'vebeen difficult for them. We need tograb those chances, can't give excus-es every day," said Kohli at the post-

match presentation ceremony."We just weren't good on the

given day. That's the whole story ofRCB this season," he said in dejec-tion.

Kohli, who took 33 balls for his41 runs after largely going a-run-a-ball, said he had no option to playin that fashion.

"The wicket was tough. WhenAB got out, I had to anchor theinnings. Stoinis was good, Akshdeepwas good too. When one seniorbatsman gets out, it's important forthe other senior to anchor. I wasn't

happy getting out at the stage,could've made 25-30 more for theteam if I was still there till the end,but felt 160 was a good score."

Talking about poor fielding ofhis side which has now dropped 15catch chances, Kohli hinted pressureis playing in players' mind.

"When the mind is cluttered,you wouldn't be able to focus on thechances that come your way. Whenyou have clarity, you can take yourchances better. Shreyas made 65, hewas dropped on eight. You neverknow, could've come into the game

that time."Looking forward, Kohli said

his side needs to needs relax andaccept whatever comes "in front ofus".

"There's nothing more you cantell the team. We've asked the boysto take responsibility. It hasn't hap-pened so far, and that's the reality.Need to play expressive cricket.Personally, not trying to control any-thing. After a while, it's about theskill. We want to enjoy as a team,otherwise we won't be able to playany good cricket," he said.

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Left frustrated after their sixth successivedefeat, Royal Challengers Bangalore all-

rounder Moeen Ali blamed the poor shotselection of the batsmen for their four-wick-et loss.

"I think they (Delhi Capitals) bowled well.Our shot selections wasn't good," he toldreporters in the post-match press conference.

"Obviously we needed a good partnership.I think, we started off well, but could not cap-italise on it. Also we gave away wickets at theend and probably it wasn't smart enough," hesaid.

The English off-spinner said his team isrepeating the same mistakes of droppingcatches and giving away wickets.

"Obviously it is very frustrating as play-ers. We are training hard. We are doing rightthings in the training, but not delivering onthe field. We are making same mistakes -dropping catches and giving away wickets."

After this loss, it will take a herculean taskfor RCB to win all the remaining eight match-es to qualify for the knockout stage.

"You can't afford to do that in IPL. We gotto improve and we have to win remaininggames. We know that," he said.

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