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U pset by the worst-ever poll failure, the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) held a review meeting here on Thursday to find out what went wrong and why the party’s tally in the Assembly slumped to a single digit, i.e., nine. AICC general secretary and Odisha in-charge Jeetendra Singh and senior party leader from Chhattisgarh TS Singh Deo attended the meeting. PCC president Niranjan Patnaik told reporters, “In the first session, discussions took place with all the winning and losing candidates. Later, senior party leaders discussed about the steps for reviving the Congress which has lost the trust of the people in the State. I also shared my experiences of the last one year as the PCC chief.” Replying to a question on selection of his son Navajyoti as the party candidate for the Baleswar Lok Sabha seat, Patnaik said he did not visit Baleswar even once after the AICC announced his son’s nomination. “My son was made the candidate on the basis of a deci- sion of the AICC on the rec- ommendation of the Baleswar District Congress Committee. The allegation that I had rec- ommended my son’s name is completely baseless,” he said. Patnaik is in the firing line after the party’s miserable per- formance in both the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. The Congress could only win the Koraput Lok Sabha seat by a slender margin of 3,613 votes. The PCC chief has already offered to step down from his post owning moral responsi- bility for the party’s poll deba- cles. The review meeting assumes significance after AICC president Rahul Gandhi targeted senior leaders for putting their sons above the interest of the party. However, newly-elected MLA from Jatni Suresh Kumar Routray came to Patnaik’s defence stating that all the State leaders are responsible for the electoral debacle. He urged all leaders to leave Bhubaneswar and visit con- stituencies in order to build their bases at the grassroots level. BHUBANESWAR: Eight Ministers (38%) out of 21 in the newly formed State Ministry have declared criminal cases against them. Seven Ministers (33%) have serious criminal cases against them, revealed a report by Association for Democratic Watch (ADR) and the Odisha Election Watch on Thursday. The report said that out of the Ministers, 13 are crorepatis and the average assets of the 21 Ministers are 7.34 crore. The Minister with the highest assets is Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik with properties worth 63.87 crore. He is followed by Naba Kishore Das with 33. 63 crore and Pratap Jena with 9.65 crore. Four Ministers have declared their educational qualifications to be between Classes-VIII and XII while 17 have a qualification of graduation or above. Eight Ministers have declared their age to be between 31 and 50 years while 13 have stated their age between 51 and 80 years. PNS A ce sprinter from Odisha Dutee Chand, who recently hogged headlines for her confession of being in a same-sex relationship, would soon be seen in the popular comedy tele- vision programme ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’ as a guest. The shoot has already been com- pleted for the episode, which would be telecast soon. However, national tele- vision channel Sony that is telecasting the comedy show is yet to release the promo of the episode. Dutee Chand has uploaded a few pictures from the sets on her social handle. Besides Dutee, former Indian football captain Baichung Bhutia and hockey player Sandeep Singh would also be seen in the episode. Earlier this month, Dutee, the Asian Games medalist had revealed that she is in a same-sex rela- tionship with her ‘soul-mate’. She is the first athlete to acknowledge her lesbian relationship openly. Notably, Dutee is an inspiration for other female athletes. She went through severe mental trauma after she was dropped from the 2014 Commonwealth Games in India under the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) rules on the ground of hyperandrogenism. However, she had moved the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne against her ban notice. Later, the IAAF withdrew the rules allowing her to return to 100m and 200m events. C hief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday announced a host of welfare and developmental programmes, including 34,000 pucca houses and a mega water supply scheme worth 1,120 crore, for the Bijepur Assembly constituency. As many as eight lakh population of 505 vil- lages will be benefitted by the water supply pro- ject in Bargarh district. All the villages of Bijepur constituency would be provided with piped water supply with household connection in next two years. A new mega lift project under the Parbatigiri Mega Lift Scheme will be taken up in Buromunda GP of Gaisilet block for providing irrigation to 3,000 acres of agriculture land. Besides, 29 river lift projects and about 3,000 deep borewell irrigation projects will be taken up. Infrastructure works, including water supply, street lighting, roads, drainage, town hall, community centers, kalyan mandap, stadium, market complex, park, office buildings will be taken up in Bijepur and Barpalli NACs. Package for each town will cost Rs 40 crore and the works will be completed within next two years. In order to provide quality power to farmers, 60 km of 33 KV lines and 125 km of 11 KV lines will be constructed. Besides, 50 new distribution transformers will be set up. Three new Rl circles will be set up at Guderpali, Talpali and Dangabahal under Gaisilet Tahasil and a new PHC will be opened at Talpadar in Bijepur Block. Adequate number of doctors will be posted in existing health insti- tutions within a week. A Government ITI will be set up at Bijepur and two Skill Development Centres will come up at Gaisilet and Barpali. Four new road development projects cov- ering a length of about 80 km and a bridge pro- ject would be sanctioned at a cost of about 82 crores. O disha is considered to have been given much less rep- resentation than expected in the Modi Ministry although eight BJP MPs have been elect- ed from the State. Dharmendra Pradhan is the only Cabinet-rank Minister from the State though he is not elected from the State and is a Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh. In the last Cabinet, Jual Oram was anoth- er member from the State. Oram, elected from Sundargarh by a margin of over two lakh votes, was not this time included in the team. Baleswar MP Pratap Chandra Sarangi is also the only one from the State to get a berth as Minister of State in the Union Ministry. Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi was not made a member of the Ministry con- trary to speculations. Political observers expect that more Odisha BJP MPs may be inducted into the Ministry when it is expanded in future. P residing over the biggest electoral victory for the BJP since its birth in 1980, Narendra Damodardas Modi on Thursday took oath as Prime Minister for the second time in a grand ceremony at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan. Rajnath Singh was the first person after Modi to take oath as a Cabinet Minister, followed by BJP chief Amit Shah. Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, Nirmala Sitharaman and Prakash Javadekar were among the 36 Ministers who were sworn in for a second term, while 20 MPs took oath of office as Ministers for the first time. Besides the Prime Minister, 24 Cabinet Ministers were sworn in, nine took oath as Ministers of State (Independent charge) and 24 others as Ministers of State. Modi sprung a big surprise by inducting former Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in the Cabinet. Senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, who attended the glit- tering ceremony, seemed to have opted out like her party leader Arun Jaitley, on health grounds. Ram Vilas Paswan, DV Sadananda Gowda, Narendra Singh Tomar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Thaawar Chand Gehlot, Harsh Vardhan, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi were among those who got a second chance in the Modi Government. Giriraj Singh, Raj Kumar Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Sripad Yaso Naik, Jitender Singh, Kiren Rijiju, Mansukh Mandavia, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Krishan Pal Gurjar, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, Purshottam Rupala, Ramdas Athavale and Babul Supriyo were among the Ministers of State in the previ- ous Government, who have been retained in the new Government. Smiriti Irani, the giant slayer who defeated Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Amethi — pocket borough of the Gandhi family for 42 years— was greeted with loud cheer when she walked up to the dais to take oath as a Cabinet Minister. Shah’s entry to the Cabinet marked the end of his highly successful innings as the BJP president. Given his closeness to the Prime Minister, Shah is expected to be saddled with one of the most important Cabinet portfolios. Pratap Chandra Sarangi, known as the poorest MP who won his election from Odisha (Balasore) campaigning on his cycle, was made Minister of State (MOS). He was cheered by BJP leaders as he rose to take his turn at the dais. With an exception of Jaishankar, there was not any other unusual entry into the Council of Ministers. It was almost a repeat of the 2014 pro- file with six new faces in the Cabinet. In a ceremony that lasted two hours, 57 Ministers, besides the PM, took oath. Electorally most important State of UP where BJP won 64 LS seats is represented by among others by Irani and Sanjev Balyan. The Cabinet formation has taken stock of coming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand. Maharashtra has seven Ministers, while Haryana has four ministerial represen- tation. Induction of Jaishankar, a former career diplomat who served as the Foreign Secretary from January 2015 to January 2018, has caught many with surprise. Ambassador to China and the US, Jaishankar who joined Indian Foreign Service in 1977, had played a key role during Indo-US nuclear deal recently at the time of Doklam crisis vis-à-vis China. A sour note in the forma- tion of the Council of Minister was stuck by the NDA ally from Bihar JD(U) which did not join the Cabinet as the BJP did not agree to their demand for three portfolios and was willing to offer only one. While Ramvilas's LJP with six LS seat is represented with one berth, the JD(U) wanted more honours for its 17 LS seats from Bihar. Paswan representes the LJP in the Cabinet. Another NDA ally Aapna Dal and its leader Annupriya Patel did not get a place in the Government though Patel attended the swearing-in cer- emony. Former Union Minister JP Nadda, seen as a front runner for the post of BJP president replacing Shah, was apparent- ly not in the list of Ministers for the same reason. Though a large number of the Ministers in the Modi-1 were repeated in the Modi-2, the notable miss were Maneka Gandhi, Rajyavardhan Rathore, Suresh Prabhu. Maneka, an eight-time MP, however, is tipped to be interim Speaker for the 17th Lok Sabha. Radha Mohan Singh, Agriculture Minister in the previous regime, and party general sec- retary Rajiv Pratap Rudy, did not get a berth this time. Leaders of BIMSTEC countries, including Bangaldesh, Sri Lanka, Mayanmar, Thailand, Bhutan, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and host of high pro- file businessmen and artists from Mumbai film industry attended the oath ceremony. Around 8,000 invitees esti- mated to have attended the swearing-in of Modi after his resounding victory which took BJP past 300 figure with National Democratic Alliance (NDA) standing at stupendous 350 mark.

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Page 1: English News Paper | Breaking News | Latest Today News in ... · vision channel Sony that is telecasting the comedy show is yet to release the promo of the episode. Dutee Chand

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Upset by the worst-ever pollfailure, the Odisha Pradesh

Congress Committee (OPCC)held a review meeting here onThursday to find out whatwent wrong and why the party’stally in the Assembly slumpedto a single digit, i.e., nine.

AICC general secretaryand Odisha in-charge JeetendraSingh and senior party leaderfrom Chhattisgarh TS SinghDeo attended the meeting.

PCC president NiranjanPatnaik told reporters, “In thefirst session, discussions tookplace with all the winning andlosing candidates. Later, seniorparty leaders discussed aboutthe steps for reviving the

Congress which has lost thetrust of the people in the State.I also shared my experiences ofthe last one year as the PCCchief.”

Replying to a question onselection of his son Navajyoti asthe party candidate for theBaleswar Lok Sabha seat,Patnaik said he did not visitBaleswar even once after theAICC announced his son’snomination.

“My son was made thecandidate on the basis of a deci-sion of the AICC on the rec-ommendation of the BaleswarDistrict Congress Committee.The allegation that I had rec-ommended my son’s name iscompletely baseless,” he said.

Patnaik is in the firing lineafter the party’s miserable per-

formance in both the Assemblyand Lok Sabha elections. TheCongress could only win theKoraput Lok Sabha seat by aslender margin of 3,613 votes.The PCC chief has alreadyoffered to step down from hispost owning moral responsi-bility for the party’s poll deba-cles.

The review meetingassumes significance afterAICC president Rahul Gandhitargeted senior leaders forputting their sons above theinterest of the party.

However, newly-electedMLA from Jatni Suresh KumarRoutray came to Patnaik’sdefence stating that all theState leaders are responsible forthe electoral debacle. He urgedall leaders to leaveBhubaneswar and visit con-stituencies in order to buildtheir bases at the grassrootslevel.

BHUBANESWAR: Eight Ministers (38%) out of21 in the newly formed State Ministry havedeclared criminal cases against them. SevenMinisters (33%) have serious criminal casesagainst them, revealed a report by Association forDemocratic Watch (ADR) and the Odisha ElectionWatch on Thursday.

The report said that out of the Ministers, 13are crorepatis and the average assets of the 21Ministers are �7.34 crore. The Minister with thehighest assets is Chief Minister Naveen Patnaikwith properties worth �63.87 crore. He is followedby Naba Kishore Das with �33. 63 crore and PratapJena with �9.65 crore.

Four Ministers have declared their educationalqualifications to be between Classes-VIII and XIIwhile 17 have a qualification of graduation orabove.

Eight Ministers have declared their age to bebetween 31 and 50 years while 13 have stated theirage between 51 and 80 years. PNS

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Ace sprinter fromOdisha Dutee

Chand, who recentlyhogged headlines forher confession ofbeing in a same-sexrelationship, wouldsoon be seen in thepopular comedy tele-vision programme ‘The Kapil SharmaShow’ as a guest.

The shoot has already been com-pleted for the episode, which would betelecast soon. However, national tele-vision channel Sony that is telecastingthe comedy show is yet to release thepromo of the episode. Dutee Chandhas uploaded a few pictures from thesets on her social handle.

Besides Dutee, former Indianfootball captain Baichung Bhutia andhockey player Sandeep Singh wouldalso be seen in the episode.

Earlier thismonth, Dutee, theAsian Gamesmedalist hadrevealed that she isin a same-sex rela-tionship with her‘soul-mate’. She isthe first athlete toacknowledge herlesbian relationshipopenly.

Notably, Dutee is an inspirationfor other female athletes. She wentthrough severe mental trauma aftershe was dropped from the 2014Commonwealth Games in India underthe International Association ofAthletics Federations (IAAF) rules onthe ground of hyperandrogenism.

However, she had moved theCourt of Arbitration for Sport inLausanne against her ban notice.Later, the IAAF withdrew the rulesallowing her to return to 100m and200m events.

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Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursdayannounced a host of welfare and

developmental programmes, including 34,000pucca houses and a mega water supply schemeworth �1,120 crore, for the Bijepur Assemblyconstituency.

As many as eight lakh population of 505 vil-lages will be benefitted by the water supply pro-ject in Bargarh district. All the villages of Bijepurconstituency would be provided with pipedwater supply with household connection in nexttwo years. A new mega lift project under theParbatigiri Mega Lift Scheme will be taken upin Buromunda GP of Gaisilet block for providing irrigation to 3,000 acres of agriculture

land. Besides, 29 river lift projects and about3,000 deep borewell irrigation projects will betaken up.

Infrastructure works, including water supply, street lighting, roads, drainage, town hall,community centers, kalyan mandap, stadium,market complex, park, office buildings will betaken up in Bijepur and Barpalli NACs. Packagefor each town will cost Rs 40 crore and the workswill be completed within next two years.

In order to provide quality power to farmers, 60 km of 33 KV lines and 125 km of11 KV lines will be constructed. Besides, 50 newdistribution transformers will be set up.

Three new Rl circles will be set up atGuderpali, Talpali and Dangabahal underGaisilet Tahasil and a new PHC will be openedat Talpadar in Bijepur Block. Adequate numberof doctors will be posted in existing health insti-tutions within a week. A Government ITI willbe set up at Bijepur and two Skill DevelopmentCentres will come up at Gaisilet and Barpali.

Four new road development projects cov-ering a length of about 80 km and a bridge pro-ject would be sanctioned at a cost of about � 82crores. ���� ���������

Odisha is considered to havebeen given much less rep-

resentation than expected inthe Modi Ministry althougheight BJP MPs have been elect-ed from the State.

Dharmendra Pradhan isthe only Cabinet-rank Ministerfrom the State though he is notelected from the State and is aRajya Sabha member fromMadhya Pradesh. In the lastCabinet, Jual Oram was anoth-er member from the State.Oram, elected fromSundargarh by a margin of overtwo lakh votes, was not thistime included in the team.

Baleswar MP PratapChandra Sarangi is also theonly one from the State to geta berth as Minister of State inthe Union Ministry.

Bhubaneswar MPAparajita Sarangi was not madea member of the Ministry con-trary to speculations.

Political observers expectthat more Odisha BJP MPs maybe inducted into the Ministrywhen it is expanded in future.

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Presiding over the biggestelectoral victory for the BJP

since its birth in 1980,Narendra Damodardas Modion Thursday took oath asPrime Minister for the secondtime in a grand ceremony atthe forecourt of RashtrapatiBhawan.

Rajnath Singh was the firstperson after Modi to take oathas a Cabinet Minister, followedby BJP chief Amit Shah.

Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani,Nirmala Sitharaman andPrakash Javadekar were amongthe 36 Ministers who weresworn in for a second term,while 20 MPs took oath ofoffice as Ministers for the firsttime.

Besides the Prime Minister,24 Cabinet Ministers weresworn in, nine took oath asMinisters of State (Independentcharge) and 24 others asMinisters of State.

Modi sprung a big surpriseby inducting former ForeignSecretary SubrahmanyamJaishankar in the Cabinet.

Senior BJP leader SushmaSwaraj, who attended the glit-tering ceremony, seemed tohave opted out like her partyleader Arun Jaitley, on healthgrounds.

Ram Vilas Paswan, DVSadananda Gowda, NarendraSingh Tomar, Ravi ShankarPrasad, Harsimrat Kaur Badal,Thaawar Chand Gehlot, HarshVardhan, Piyush Goyal,Dharmendra Pradhan andMukhtar Abbas Naqvi wereamong those who got a secondchance in the ModiGovernment.

Giriraj Singh, Raj KumarSingh, Hardeep Singh Puri,Ashwini Kumar Choubey,Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, GajendraSingh Shekhawat, Santosh

Kumar Gangwar, Sripad YasoNaik, Jitender Singh, KirenRijiju, Mansukh Mandavia,Arjun Ram Meghwal, KrishanPal Gurjar, Sanjeev KumarBalyan, Purshottam Rupala,Ramdas Athavale and BabulSupriyo were among theMinisters of State in the previ-ous Government, who havebeen retained in the newGovernment.

Smiriti Irani, the giantslayer who defeated Congresspresident Rahul Gandhi inAmethi — pocket borough ofthe Gandhi family for 42years— was greeted with loudcheer when she walked up tothe dais to take oath as aCabinet Minister.

Shah’s entry to the Cabinetmarked the end of his highlysuccessful innings as the BJPpresident. Given his closenessto the Prime Minister, Shah isexpected to be saddled withone of the most importantCabinet portfolios.

Pratap Chandra Sarangi,known as the poorest MP whowon his election from Odisha(Balasore) campaigning on his

cycle, was made Minister ofState (MOS). He was cheeredby BJP leaders as he rose to takehis turn at the dais.

With an exception ofJaishankar, there was not anyother unusual entry into theCouncil of Ministers. It wasalmost a repeat of the 2014 pro-file with six new faces in theCabinet.

In a ceremony that lastedtwo hours, 57 Ministers,besides the PM, took oath.Electorally most importantState of UP where BJP won 64LS seats is represented byamong others by Irani andSanjev Balyan.

The Cabinet formation hastaken stock of comingAssembly elections inMaharashtra, Haryana andJharkhand. Maharashtra hasseven Ministers, while Haryanahas four ministerial represen-tation.

Induction of Jaishankar, aformer career diplomat whoserved as the Foreign Secretaryfrom January 2015 to January2018, has caught many withsurprise. Ambassador to China

and the US, Jaishankar whojoined Indian Foreign Servicein 1977, had played a key roleduring Indo-US nuclear dealrecently at the time of Doklamcrisis vis-à-vis China.

A sour note in the forma-tion of the Council of Ministerwas stuck by the NDA ally fromBihar JD(U) which did not jointhe Cabinet as the BJP did notagree to their demand for threeportfolios and was willing tooffer only one.

While Ramvilas's LJP withsix LS seat is represented withone berth, the JD(U) wantedmore honours for its 17 LS seatsfrom Bihar. Paswan representesthe LJP in the Cabinet.

Another NDA ally AapnaDal and its leader AnnupriyaPatel did not get a place in theGovernment though Patelattended the swearing-in cer-emony.

Former Union Minister JPNadda, seen as a front runnerfor the post of BJP presidentreplacing Shah, was apparent-ly not in the list of Ministers forthe same reason.

Though a large number of

the Ministers in the Modi-1were repeated in the Modi-2,the notable miss were ManekaGandhi, Rajyavardhan Rathore,Suresh Prabhu. Maneka, aneight-time MP, however, istipped to be interim Speaker forthe 17th Lok Sabha. RadhaMohan Singh, AgricultureMinister in the previousregime, and party general sec-retary Rajiv Pratap Rudy, didnot get a berth this time.

Leaders of BIMSTECcountries, includingBangaldesh, Sri Lanka,Mayanmar, Thailand, Bhutan,former Prime MinisterManmohan Singh, Congresspresident Rahul Gandhi, SoniaGandhi and host of high pro-file businessmen and artistsfrom Mumbai film industryattended the oath ceremony.

Around 8,000 invitees esti-mated to have attended theswearing-in of Modi after hisresounding victory which tookBJP past 300 figure withNational Democratic Alliance(NDA) standing at stupendous350 mark.

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Page 2: English News Paper | Breaking News | Latest Today News in ... · vision channel Sony that is telecasting the comedy show is yet to release the promo of the episode. Dutee Chand

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Seven-time MLA from here,Ranendra Pratap (Raja)

Swain got a Ministerial berth inNaveen Patnaik's fifth-timeGovernment.

The people of Athagarh areexcited and observing the occa-sion by blasting crackers andtaking out rallies. Swain hasbeen reigning supreme overhearts of the masses of Athagarhsince 1990.

He defeated stalwart likeformer Chief Minister andAthagarh MLA JB Patnaik forwhich he was able to get aMinisterial berth in NaveenGovernment in 2000. Eventhough he was elected repeat-

edly from here, he was betrayedby the ruling BJD due to hisinaccessibility with the bureau-crats. This time when he defeat-ed his nearby contestantBrajendra Ray,a BJP candidatehere in about 58,000 votes, heseemed to deserve a Ministerialberth. When he got a phone call

from CM office to take oath asa Cabinet Minister, the peopleof Athagarh were excited andthanked Naveen Patnaik forgiving proper justice toAthagarh-Tigiria Assembly con-stituency.

He is called the epochmaker as he has already com-pleted thirty years of represen-tation from here and this timeagain has been elected foranother term when he has takenoath as Minister for serving asFood Supplies and ConsumerWelfare and Co-operation.

Talking to this paper, Swainsaid he is not only the repre-sentative of the people ofAthagarh-Tigiria but he is theirpioneer servant.

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Residents of Sambalpur are unhappy in thewake of the formation of the new Ministry

led by Naveen Patnaik. They had expected that someone from the

district would be a Minister as two MLAs from the BJD have been elected this time. But nothing of that sort happened.

Naveen Patnaik has taken five Ministersfrom western Odisha with important portfolioslike Naba Kishore Das, Niranjan Pujari, SusantaSingh, Tukuni Sahu and Dibya Shankar Mishra. But exclusion of Sambalpur hassaddened people here as he has been giving importance to Sambalpur and its devel-opment.

But different comments are coming fromBJD workers to political observers particularlyon the matter of non-inclusion of Sambalpurinthe Ministry due to defeat of Dr RaseswariPanigrahi.

One Gurjinder Kaur Dingra said there aremany eye-catching development works in theSambalpur constituency including a planetari-um, second Mahanadi bridge, a ropeway inHirakud dam, IIM, Open University and somany others. Still then, voters disappointed theBJD both in the Assembly and Parliament pollsin Sambalpur.

“Whereas the years from 2000 to 2014 werea dark period with no development works, from2014 to 2019, Sambalpur saw fast developmentbut the people elected the BJP from here,” saidDingra.

She also recalled the service of RaseswariPanigrahi during the last year’s rains andfloods.

But all this couldn’t be converted to votesthat might have enraged the party supremo,assume political observers.

It is also alleged that some BJD leaders ofthe district worked against Dr Panigrahi toensure her defeat which has come to Patnaikk’sknowledge.s

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People of the Balikuda-Erasama constituency are

jubilant as their MLARaghunandan Das has beenchosen for a berth in theNaveen Patnaik Ministry.

The things happened in adramatic way in early Aprilwhen Das was a ticket seekerfrom the BJP. As if it was a coin-cidence, the BJD expelledDamodar Rout who laterjoined the BJP and wanted the

party ticket for the seat. Afterknowing that the BJP wasgoing to oblige Rout, Dasjoined the BJD and the partychose him as its candidate.

Das’ political ups anddowns show he was a stronganti-Congress leader of thearea. For the first time, he hadbeen given BJD ticket in the2000 Assembly polls but wasdefeated by a margin of 1,219votes by Congress candidateUmesh Swain, who was earli-er political mentor of Das.

While in 2004 Assemblyelections, Das was aspirant forBJD ticket, but due to the BJD-BJP seat sharing arrangements,Balikuda went to the saffron

party which nominated JyotishDas. Raghunandan Das con-tested as an Independent can-didate getting supports of localBJD leaders. He scored plentyof BJD votes resulting in JyotishDas’ defeat. Congress candidateUmesh Swain retained the seat.

For the 2009 polls, Dasagain sought BJD ticket forBalikuda-Erasama along withanother aspirant, PrasantKumar Muduli. Das was sup-ported by district party leaderBishnu Das and Muduli hadallegiance to Damodar Rout.Finally, Muduli obtained theticket. This time, Das obeyedparty decision and helpedMuduli win. Consequently, the

BJD won by a huge margin of31,485 votes against Congresscandidate Umesh Swain.

In 2014, Das repeated hisBJD ticket claim but in vain.

The party again field-ed Muduli. Das con-tested as anIndependent candi-date and bagged32,135 votes but lostto Muduli. Das wasremoved from theBJD.

Losing all hopeof returning to theBJD, Das joined theBJP aiming to conteston a BJP ticket in the2019 elections. But

Damodar Rout’s entry to saf-fron party forced him to returnto his parent party BJD. TheBJD was searching a new facefor the Balikuda-Erasama and

gladly accepted Das and award-ed him the ticket.

Das performed excellentlywell scoring 1,03,814 voteswhich was itself a record of sortas for the first time a candidatesecured above one lakh votes inan Assembly segment inJagatsinghpur district. Hedefeated his nearest Congressrival Lalatendu Mohapatra bya margin of 54,583 votes, thehighest among all the fourseats in the district.

Das has a clean politicalimage. His father late BipinBihari Das was elected to theAssembly from 1961 to 1967.He is a Commerce graduateand also has a Law degree.

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Minister of State(Independent Charge) for

Energy, Industries and Micro,Small and Medium Enterprises(MSME) Dibya ShankarMishra has been given addi-tional portfolio of Minister ofState (MoS), Home.

After swearing-in onWednesday, Cabinet MinisterPrafulla Kumar Mallik hadbeen given MoS for Homecharge in additions to his orig-inal portfolios of Steel andMines and Works.

However, the MoS, Homewas later given to DibyaShankar as a Cabinet Ministerdoesn’t serve as an MoS as pernorms.

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Congress president RahulGandhi has congratulated

Naveen Patnaik on being swornas Chief Minister for a recordfifth term, saying it is anincredible achievement.

“Congratulations toNaveen Patnaikji on beingsworn in as CM of Odisha fora record 5th term. This isindeed an incredible achieve-ment. My best wishes to himand to the people of Odisha,”Gandhi said in a Tweet.

Sir,It is deplorable that 46 per

cent of those elected to theOdisha Legislative Assemblythis time have criminal back-grounds as reported by theOdisha Election Watch andthe Association for DemocraticReforms.

Democracy, a product ofdeveloped civilisation, is basedon sacrosanct principles. Apolitician desiring to contestelection for serving peopleshould be a person of honesty,integrity and transparency,without which he is unfit to bea people’s representative.

While 67 MLAs out of 146of Odisha have declared crim-inal cases in their affidavits, itis morally inappropriate ontheir parts to contest elections.Is it not the moral responsibil-ity of the Chief Minister to

debar these criminal politi-cians from contesting elec-tions? Politics is the businessof the rich and powerful thesedays.

There is no chance of poorand lower middle class personsto compete in the electoraldemocracy.

The objective of the elect-ed representatives with crimi-nal records is to indulge in cor-rupt practices to amass wealthfor their fourteen generations.

Are not the politicians ofour State suspected of com-plicity in mining scam lootingcrores of public money? Peopleexpect Naveenbabu this time totake appropriate steps to erad-icate PC and corruption atleast at the Ministerial level.

Nimai Charan SwainBhubaneswar

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Many of newly-electedMLAs, including Chief

Minister Naveen Patnaik, tookoath as members of the 16thOdisha Legislative Assembly(OLA) on Thursday.

Amar Prasad Satpathy,who had been sworn in as Pro-

tem Speaker of the Assembly byGovernor Ganeshi Lal at theRaj Bhavan on Wednesday,administered the oath to theMLAs in the Assembly premis-es here.

Patnaik took oath as theLeader of the House. The oath-taking ceremony is scheduledto continue for two days.

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Even though theCommissionerate police

have been successful in puttinga curb on organised crimes,street crimes like loots andsnatchings continue unabatedin the State capital.

In a glaring example, abusinessman was robbed of Rs3 lakh by unidentified miscre-ants at the bustling RajmahalSquare under the Capital policestation in broad daylight onThursday.

The victim DamodarMohapatra, a native ofMuniguda in Rayagada district,had come to the city along withhis two associates to buy a car.Two of them were sitting insidea four-wheeler as the other onewent inside a car showroom.Meanwhile, the miscreantsapproached the duo sitting inthe car and foxed them by say-ing to check oil leakage fromtheir vehicle.

After the duo alighted fromthe vehicle, the miscreantssnatched the cash bag kept inthe vehicle and fled from thespot in a flash.

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The Commissionerate police arrested theowner of a coaching centre for allegedly mis-

behaving with a tribal Class-X girl student of theinstitute at Mancheswar in the city.

Narayan Khuntia (50) had allegedly bargedinto the girl’s house and misbehaved with heron Tuesday at around 9 pm. The girl’s familymembers tried to nab Khuntia, but he managed

to flee.Later in the night, neighbours of the girl

went to Khuntia’s house and thrashed him.Acting on a complaint lodged by the girl’s fam-ily, police arrested Khuntia.

On the other hand, the accused has plead-ed innocence alleging that the kin of the girlintentionally levelled the allegations against himafter he asked them to pay tuition fees of �7,000.

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The Hockey India has announced thatall profits from the sale of tickets of

the upcoming FIH Men’s Series Finals,to be played in the Kalinga Stadium herein June, will be donated to the ChiefMinister’s Relief Fund (CMRF) for util-isation in restoration works in Fani-hitareas.

Hockey India president MohdMushtaque Ahmad said, “Hockey Indiais extremely grateful to the people ofOdisha for supporting the sport ofhockey in such a difficult moment aswell.”

“We have been immensely sad-dened seeing the destruction caused byFani. To reciprocate the support showedby Odisha to hockey, we will give all theproceeds from the match ticket sales tothe CMRF,” he said.

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Balangir MLAN a r a s i n g h a

Mishra was namedas the CongressLegislature Party(CLP) Leader forthe 16th OdishaLegislative Assembly,informed party sourceson Thursday.

Mishra, who wasLeader of Opposition inthe State Assembly lasttime, cannot retain thepost as his party won onlynine Assembly seats this

time. In 2014, the Congress

had 16 MLAs.Mishra won the

Balangir Assembly seat bydefeating his BJD rivalArkesh Narayan SinghDeo by a margin of 5,341votes.

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Continuing its soaring per-formance, the National

Aluminium Company Limited(Nalco) has registered a 29%-growth in net profit in 2018-19,which stood at �1,732 croreover the previous year’s�1,342.19 crore.

The company recorded netsales turnover of �11,386 croreregistering a growth of 21%over the last year. Export earn-ing stood at �4,792.71 crore,which is a growth of 18% overlast year.

With 100%-capacity utili-sation, the Nalco’sPanchpatmali Mines hasachieved Bauxite excavationof 74.14 lakh MT, which ishighest ever since inception.Bauxite transportation hasgone up to 72.31 lakh MT,which is also highest ever sinceinception. The company’s alu-mina refinery has produced

highest-ever 21.53 lakh MT ofalumina hydrate and set a newrecord. The Steam and PowerPlant (SPP) of AluminaRefinery achieved the highest-ever net power generation.Further, the smelter achievedhighest cast metal productionof 4.40 lakh MT in last eightyears. The smelter has pro-duced highest-ever wire rod,billet, green anode, roddedanode, T-Ingot since inception.Wind power generation of 363MU is also highest ever sinceinception. In short, year 2018-19 has been a year of newrecords in production sinceinception.

In matters of profitability,the Nalco is way ahead of itsprivate sector peers by regis-tering EBIDTA margin of28%t. Industry analystsattribute the Nalco’s splendidperformance to the imple-mentation of its New BusinessModel since 2016.

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The Institute of CostAccountants of India

(ICAI), Bhubaneswarchapter conducted its elec-tions for the members tothe managing committeefor a four year-term(2019-23) here recently. Atotal of 357 CAs cast theirvotes.

The organisation’s50th annual general meet-ing was held in its premis-es where outgoing vice-chairman Saktidhar Singhand outgoing secretaryTapas Ranjan Swain presentedthe annual accounts and annu-al report.

Saktidhar Singh was elect-ed as chairman for 2019-20,

Tapas Ranjan Swain as vice-chairman, Himoj Mishra assecretary and Pranab KumarBehera as treasurer.

Other members who were

elected for 2019-23 are SantanuKumar Rout, Asutosh Debata,Mukesh Chaubey, Ajay KumarSamal and Surya NarayanTripathy. &����� �����������!�����

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Congress president RahulGandhi’s brother-in-law

Robert Vadra appeared beforethe Enforcement Directorate(ED) here on Thursday in con-nection with a money laun-dering case relating to purchaseof alleged illegal assets abroad.

Vadra was dropped by hiswife and Congress leaderPriyanka Gandhi outside theED’s office near India Gateabout 10:30 am.

The ED had summonedVadra to depose before theinvestigating officer of the casefor recording his statementunder the Prevention of MoneyLaundering Act (PMLA).

Taking to microbloggingsite Twitter and Facebook,Vadra said, “I maintain mybelief in the Indian judiciary. Ihave and will adhere to all sum-mons/norms of governmentagencies. I have deposed 11times with questioning ofapproximately 70 hours. Infuture also, I will cooperate, tillmy name is cleared of all falseallegations and accusations.”

Vadra has appeared beforethe agency multiple times inthe past in this case.

The agency has recentlysought cancellation of theanticipatory bail given to Vadraand has also opposed his for-eign travel. A local court onWednesday had reserved forJune 3 its order to allow Vadrato travel abroad.

The ED also moved a courthere last week seeking cancel-lation of the anticipatory bailgiven to him in this case andthe Delhi High Court had thenissued notice to him seeking hisresponse.

The ED had told the DelhiHC that it required Vadra’s cus-tody as he was not cooperatingin the investigation and the trialcourt had not discussed thegravity of the offence in itsorder while granting him reliefto the high-profile business-

man. The ED case against Vadra

relates to allegations of moneylaundering in the purchase ofa London-based propertylocated at 12, Bryanston Squareworth 1.9 million GBP (Britishpounds), which is allegedlyowned by him.

The agency had told aDelhi court that it has receivedinformation about various newproperties in London whichbelong to Vadra. These includetwo houses, one worth 5 mil-lion GBP and the other valuedat 4 million GBP, six other flatsand more properties.

Vadra has denied the alle-gations of possessing illegalforeign assets and termed thema political witch hunt againsthim.

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The Supreme Court onThursday asked the Assam

State coordinator for NationalRegister of Citizens to ensurethat fair procedure is adoptedin dealing with claims andobjections of persons againstexclusion or inclusion of citi-zens in the draft NRC.

A vacation Bench of ChiefJustice Ranjan Gogoi andJustice Aniruddha Bose toldState coordinator PrateekHajela that even though theJuly 31 deadline for publicationof final Assam NRC has to beadhered to, the claims andobjections must be dealt withas per the law.

“Your (Hajela) job is toensure that hearing on claimsand objections are done in a fairand proper manner. There is adeadline and a time frame. Justbecause there is a time framethat does not mean that yourofficers will cut short the processto complete it,” the Bench said.

Referring to “disturbing”media reports regarding theprocedure to deal with claimsand objections, the Bench said

although the media is notalways correct, sometimes it isright as well.

“Ask your officers to followthe proper procedure in deal-ing with the claims and objec-tions”, and give proper hearingto people on claims and objec-tions, the Bench told Hajela.

The apex court said it hasgone through the progressreport filed by the State coor-dinator in the matter and thework is going on.

The CJI told Hajela tocoordinate with district levelofficers who are involved in theprocess of dealing with claimsand objections so that a prop-er procedure is adopted.

The Bench told him that ifhe faces any difficulty or pres-sure from anybody, he canapproach the secretary gener-

al of the apex court and thematter would be taken up forhearing by the court.

In its order, the Benchnoted that all claims and objec-tions will be heard and accord-ingly disposed of well in timeto ensure the publication offinal NRC for Assam by July 31this year.

New Delhi: The SupremeCourt on Thursday told theAssam Government to includeretired bureaucrats, not belowthe rank of secretary and addi-tional secretary and havingjudicial experience, for appoint-ment as members of 200 addi-tional foreigners tribunalswhich will be set up in the State.

A vacation Bench of ChiefJustice Ranjan Gogoi andJustice Aniruddha Bose said theState will ensure that 200 addi-tional foreigners tribunals arefunctional by September 1 thisyear. The State Governmentinformed the Bench that at pre-sent, 79 such tribunals arealready functional.

Solicitor General TusharMehta, appearing for Assam, toldthe Bench that a meeting washeld on May 24 in connectionwith selection of members andstaffs for the proposed additionaltribunals. He said though thereis a need for setting up 1,000more foreigners tribunals inAssam, 200 such tribunals will beset up in the first phase.

Mehta said following theMay 24 meeting, a letter hasbeen addressed on May 29 tothe registrar judicial of theGauhati High Court withregard to the steps to be taken

for appointment of members ofthe 200 tribunals.

He said the letter also indi-cates the qualification and con-dition of service of the mem-bers to be appointed.

The Bench was informedthat retired judicial officers ofdistrict courts, advocates notabove the age of 35 years withat least seven year practice andretired IAS officers can apply forthe post of members of the tri-bunals. After conducting inter-views, the result is scheduled tobe declared by August 20.

“How a retired civil servantwill be there in a quasi judicialtribunal? How retired IAS offi-cers will do this?,” the Benchsought to know. Mehta respond-ed that retired IAS officers ofsecretary or additional secretaryrank can be appointed as mem-bers of these tribunals as theyget experience of conductingquasi judicial function.

He said they may not getrequisite numbers of retiredjudicial officers of districtcourts and advocates, below theage of 35 years and having atleast seven years practice, forappointment in the foreignerstribunals and the State hasproposed this after consultingthe High Court. PTI

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The Supreme Court onThursday said 10 per cent

EWS quota cannot be appliedto PG medical courses inMaharashtra for the academicyear 2019-20 as admissionprocess started long before theprovision came into force.

A vacation Bench of ChiefJustice Ranjan Gogoi and JusticeAniruddha Bose said 10 per centEWS quota cannot be granted atthe cost of others unless addi-tional seats are created by theMedical Council of India.

The Bench noted thatadmission process for PG med-ical courses started inNovember 2018 while the 103Constitutional amendmentgranting 10 per cent EWSquota was passed in January

this year.The Bench said the

Maharashtra Governmentenforced the 10 EWS quota forPG medical courses in March.

“Ten per cent EWS quotacannot be granted to the ongo-ing admission process. Youcannot change the rules ofgame when the game is on,” theBench said.

The court’s order came ona plea filed by a student fromGeneral Category saying thatunless additional seats are cre-ated, the ten per cent EWSquota will eat into their shareof seats. The student RajatRajendra Agrawal had chal-lenged two circulars of theMaharashtra government bywhich ten per cent EWS quotawas enforced in PG medicalcourses of the State.

New Delhi: The Supreme Courton Thursday agreed to hear aplea filed by a Chennai-basedprivate hospital challenging theMadras High Court orderdirecting the authorities todemolish top five floors of thefacility’s eight-storey block forconstruction in alleged violationof the approved building plan.

A vacation Bench com-prising Chief Justice RanjanGogoi and Justice AniruddhaBose said the plea filed byBillroth Hospitals will be heardon June 3.

Senior advocate MukulRohatgi, appearing for the hos-pital, mentioned the matter forurgent listing before the Benchand said the High Court has seta deadline to demolish the fivefloors of the block. PTI

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After launching rotavirusvaccine in 11 States in

phases in the last two years, theUnion Health Ministry is all setto extend the life saving vaccinefor small kids in 19 more Statesand seven UTs under its uni-versal immunisation pro-gramme (UIP), thus coveringthe entire country as per theWHO recommendation. Theaim is to ensure children com-plete prevention from the dead-ly virus that can cause extremediarrhoea and can even befatal in some cases.

Rotavirus accounts for 40per cent of hospitalisationsdue to diarrhea in children inIndia with nearly 78,000 deaths,32 lakh out-patient visits andnearly 9 lakh hospitalisationsevery year. Globally, Rotavirusdiarrhea causes about 4,53,000deaths in under-5 children, a

senior health official said.In India, the vaccine was first

introduced under the UIP in2016 in Odisha and subsequentlyexpanded to Haryana, HimachalPradesh, Andhra Pradesh,Assam, Rajasthan, MadhyaPradesh, Tamil Nadu, Tripura,Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

“We will soon cover theremaining States as well, thusbringing all the new-borne kidsin the entire country under theambit of the Rotavirus vaccine.Officials in all the 19 States and

UTs have been trained andthere is no shortage of vaccine,”the official said.

Diarrhoea is one of thebiggest killers in children androtavirus is one of the mostcommon causes of severe diar-rhoea in children less than 2years of age. Besides launchingrotavirus vaccines, the gov-ernment has also stressed onproper sanitation, hand wash-ing practices, ORS and zincsupplementation with an aimto cut downthe mortality and

morbidity due to diarrhoea inchildren.

According to the official,approximately 50 per cent ofRotavirus-associated deathsoccur in the first year of life andabout 75 per cent occur in thefirst two years of life.

The rotavirus infects theintestinal tract of humans andanimals. “It is highly contagiousand is usually transmitted viathe fecal-oral route. Therotavirus is easily transmittedperson to person from infect-ed stool via inanimate objects.Children can spread rotavirusboth before and after theybecome sick with diarrhea,”they said.

The rotavirus is a memberof the Reoviridae family. Thereare 7 different strains of thevirus: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G,with Rotavirus A being themost common cause of viralgastroenteritis.

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The Supreme Court onThursday granted seven-

day protection from arrest tosocial activist Anirban Dasagainst whom a case has beenlodged for publishing a socialmedia post critical of WestBengal Chief Minister MamataBanerjee.

A vacation Bench of ChiefJustice Ranjan Gogoi andJustice Aniruddha Bose, whilegranting seven-days protec-tion from arrest, said that Dascan move the concerned courtfor relief.

Advocate Dipak Jena,appearing for Das, said therewas a lawyers strike in WestBengal and he may be arrest-ed by the police for writing thepost on social media.

The Bench told him thatthere was no strike at presentin the courts in West Bengaland he can approach the appro-priate courts for the relief.

Jena said police has lodgedan FIR against him atAlipurduar police station andDas had already tendered anunconditional apology to alocal Trinmool Congressleader, who made the com-plaint against him.

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After a most successful stintas the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) president, Amit Shah,

called the “Chanakya” of modernday Indian politics, on Thursdayjoined the Cabinet of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi.

Shah is most likely to be giventhe Finance portfolio, which wasearlier with Arun Jaitley, who onWednesday urged Modi to keep him out ot the Ministry onhealth grounds.

After Modi, Shah was the manwho built the party’s campaign sys-tematically around the nationalismplank and the Prime Minister’spopularity.

Shah, who was in electionmode since becoming the partypresident in 2014, has been reward-ed by Modi after the BJP registereda spectacular win in the Lok Sabhaelections bagging 303 seats on itsown. Though Shah entered nation-al politics in 2013, his organisa-tional training and extensive trav-el across India helped him learn thefiner points of cow belt politics.

In no time in Uttar Pradesh,Shah transformed the profile of theBJP, which for a long time was seenas a party of forward castes in thestate. Both in the 2014 Lok Sabhaand 2017 Assembly elections, Shahfirst stitched together a strongintra-party caste alliance withinBJP’s broad political framework inthe State.

He also strengthened the so-called rainbow coalition by strik-ing a pre-poll alliance with small-er regional outfits. IANS

One of the top leaders of theBJP, Rajnath Singh is a manof all seasons who main-

tains cordial relations with leadersacross the political spectrum andenjoys wide acceptability.

The Home Minister in theoutgoing Government, on whomPrime Minister Narendra Modibanked on heavily in the last fiveyears whenever there was a crisis,be it farmers agitation, violence inJammu & Kashmir or Jat quotastir, has been appointed CabinetMinister again.

Many see a reflection of AtalBihari Vajpayee’s mannerism inhim and feel he has been carryingforward the party veteran’s legacyas ‘Ajatshatru, a man with noenemies. His good rapport withopposition leaders like GhulamNabi Azad, Mamata Banerjee,Mulayam Singh Yadav, and OmarAbdullah had made him govern-ment’s pointsman for any discus-sion with the Opposition.

Even during bitter politicalcampaign, Singh, who was con-testing from Lucknow Lok Sabhaseat, was never drawn into any uglywar of words with his opponents.The image of the Minister carryingon his shoulder the coffin of soldierskilled in February 14 Pulwama ter-ror attack will remain etched in theminds of the people. A former pro-fessor of physics, it was Singh, as BJPpresident in 2013, who was instru-mental in declaring Narendra Modias prime ministerial candidate,despite strong Opposition fromveterans like LK Advani. PTI

Aself-made politician-cum-businessman, Nitin JGadkari, 62, hails from

Nagpur in eastern Maharashtra andstarted his political career with theABVP and BJYM wings of the RSSand BJP respectively. An endearingand mild-mannered person adeptat winning friends and influencingpeople, Gadkari, who is a Brahminby birth, joined the BJP and laterbecame a minister in Maharashtra’sfirst opposition saffron-combineShiv Sena-BJP Government head-ed by Manohar Joshi (1995-1999).

Enjoying excellent personalrapport with leaders of all parties,and with his penchant for improv-ing the basic transport infra-structure in the state, he quicklygained prominence and was themoving spirit behind the hundredsof flyovers, roads, state and nation-al highways, including theMumbai-Pune Expressway.

He occupied several positionsin Maharashtra, including StateBJP president and Leader of theOpposition, but his big moment ofresponsibility came in 2009, whenhe was elected the BJP President,a post which he held till 2013.

In the first term of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi, Gadkarihandled crucial and high-visibil-ity infrastructure-related portfolioslike Road Transport & Highways,Shipping, etc and made his indeli-ble mark there. Given his all-roundexperience and no-nonsenseapproach to work, Gadkari may beallotted key portfolios in the sec-ond Modi Government. IANS

Former Foreign Secretary SJaishankar, a surprise pick inNarendra Modi’s Council of

Ministers, is a seasoned diplomatwho was the Indian government’spointsman for China and the US.

Jaishankar, son of late KSubrahmanyam, one of India’sleading strategic analysts, was akey member of the Indian teamwhich negotiated the landmarkIndia-US nuclear deal.

The deal, initiated in 2005,took several years to craft, and wassigned by the UPA Governmentheaded by Manmohan Singh in2007. Jaishankar’s appointmentas foreign secretary in January2015 had evoked a sharp reactionfrom various quarters over thetiming of the Government’s deci-sion to remove Sujatha Singh.

The 64-year-old had earlierserved as India’s Ambassador tothe US and before that to China.

A 1977-batch IFS officer,Jaishankar played a key role inresolving the crisis following theincursion in Ladakh’s Depsang andthe Doklam stand-off, handlingthe tough negotiations withBeijing. Among other positions,Jaishankar has been India’s HighCommissioner to Singapore andAmbassador to the CzechRepublic. Last year, Tata Groupappointed Jaishankar, who wasIndian foreign secretary fromJanuary 2015 to January 2018, asits president for global corporateaffairs, within three months of hisretirement from the Governmentservice. PTI

Smriti Irani, whose meteoricrise in the BJP saw herbecome the HRD and

Information & BroadcastingMinister, is someone who wouldnever give up. After losing toRahul Gandhi in 2014, she con-tinued to cultivate Amethi in thepast five years and this helped herreap electoral dividends — sheemerged a giant-killer of 2019 bydefeating the Congress presidentRahul Gandhi in his home turf.

Though the 43-year-old pop-ular television actor-turned-politi-cian lost in 2014, she had suc-ceeded in bringing down the vic-tory margin of Gandhi to only 1.07lakh from 3.7 lakh in the previouselection. The voters rewardedIrani for her sustained efforts in2019. Throughout her campaign-ing, Irani asserted that people ofAmethi want change and devel-opment and will vote for Modi.

“Kaun kehta hai aasmaanmein suraakh nahin ho sakta,”tweeted Irani, a line from a poemof famous Hindi poet DushyantKumar, soon after Gandhi con-ceded defeat in Amethi and con-gratulated her on May 23.

Irani had first contested a LokSabha election from ChandniChowk in Delhi in 2004, but lost toCongress heavyweight Kapil Sibal.She was elected to Rajya Sabha in2011 and re-elected in 2017 for asecond term. The firebrand actor-turned-politician held portfolios ofHRD, Textiles and Information &Broadcasting Minister during thetenure of the Narendra Modi-ledNDA Government’s maiden tenurefrom 2014-2019. PTI

Nirmala Sitharaman was thefirst woman to be appoint-ed full-time Defence

Minister of India in September2017 — and since then she hasbeen assiduously trying to adopta holistic approach in addressingthe country’s security challenges.

60-year-old Sitharaman, aRajya Sabha member, is the secondwoman to take charge of the cru-cial ministry after Indira Gandhiwho as the Prime Minister alsoheld the portfolio in the seventies.

One of BJP’s chief spokesper-sons before its ascent to power,Sitharaman is an alumnus ofJawaharlal Nehru University andLondon School of Economics. Asthe Defence Minister, Sitharamanattempted to strengthen the Army,Navy and the Air Force and wascredited for expediting the deci-sion making process relating todefence procurement. She consti-tuted a Defence PlanningCommittee to formulate an “actionplan” to effectively deal with var-ious security challenges facingthe nation.

However, her biggest momentcame when India carried out airstrikes on a terrorist trainingcamp in Pakistan’s Balakot, seen asmajor policy shift in the country’sefforts to deal with cross borderterrorism. She has also focused onboosting domestic defence pro-duction besides taking steps toimplement the ambitious “strate-gic partnership” model with sev-eral countries like the UnitedStates and Russia. PTI

Arjun Munda is a prominenttribal face not only in hishome state of Jharkhand

but also in neighbouring Bihar,Odisha and Chhattisgarh. A three-time chief minister, Munda edgedout Congress’s Kalicharan Mundaby a wafer thin margin of just 1445votes in Khunti (ST) seat besidescampaigning for the BJP in theLok Sabha elections in Odisha andChhattisgarh.

He is a passionate golf playerand loves playing the flute andspends his spare time in art andpainting. He has also promotedarchery in the tribal State. He runsan archery academy and wasinstrumental in the rise of acearcher Deepika Kumari in inter-national championships.

A witness to the rise and fall ofGovernments in Jharkhand since itsinception in 2000 to 2014, Mundawas himself a victim twice to thepolitics of musical chairs whenIndependent MLA Madhu Kodatoppled him in September, 2006and then the JMM pulled down hisGovernment in 2013.

Munda first became CM inMarch, 2003 when he replaced theState’s first Chief Minister BabulalMarandi after JDU and SamataParty MLAs had revolted against thelatter’s style of functioning. He wasthe tribal affairs minister in the firstMarandi-led NDA Government.Munda was first elected as MLA in1995 in undivided Bihar and wenton to win three consecutive termsfrom Kharsawan before losing theseat in 2014. PTI

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Telangana gets a representa-tion in Modi’s Cabinet as

BJP national leadership pickedGangapuram Kishan Reddy, adedicated partyman who rosethrough the ranks.

A first time MP fromSecunderabad, Kishan Reddyhad served as three-time MLA,was floor leader of party inboth united AP and TelanganaAssemblies. Starting as an ordi-nary worker of Janata party ata young age of seventeen in1977, Kishan Reddy sailed withBJP since its formation in 1980.Thanks to his consistent efforts,organising skills and politicalacumen, Kishan Reddy earnedrecognition in the party atState and national level, even-tually becoming BJYM'snational president and evenleading BJP in both united APand Telangana, before earning

a coveted place in Modi'sCabinet.

Being considered as smartand honest leader without anycharges of corruption or con-troversies associated with himhelped him get a place inModi's team. Unflinching loy-alty to RSS and BJP ideals andexperience on his side, ensuredthat PM and BJP presidentAmit Shah, considered KishanReddy the first choice, thoughfour MPs won from Telangaanaas BJP made big gains in thestate for the first time, riding onModi wave and people's angerover ruling TRS.

"With the blessings of peo-ple of Secunderabad and PMNarendramodi Ji, I will be tak-ing oath as Union Ministertoday. I seek your continued

support," tweeted KishanReddy after as soon as he gota call from Amit Shah, inform-ing about his inclusion inunion cabinet.

As soon as news of KishanReddy's inclusion in unioncabinet was announced, partycadres across Telangana burstinto celebrations.

With inclusion of KishanReddy, a committed party manand popular face of the party inState, BJP bosses have not justensured representation forTelangana State in UnionCabinet after two years gap, butsent clear signals to partycadres that saffron party isfocused on expanding party inTelangana and is betting onachievers to do the job. Thoughno reasons were cited, it waswidely believed that BandaruDattatreya resigned citing ageand health concerns. Now BJPhas picked Kishan Reddy, whonot just has all qualities toemerge as important leaderamong younger brigade of BJPat national level, but also steerparty to power in Telangana, asBJP is leaving no stoneunturned to make inroads intoSouth India.

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In a perfect encore of whatshe did at Midnapore on

May 6, Mamata Banerjee onceagain got off her vehicle onThursday chasing and threat-ening with dire consequencesa crowd of “Jai Shri Ram”chanters who stood by theroad to Naihati where she wasgoing to join a TrinamoolCongress sit-in demonstra-tion staged against attacks onthe Trinamool supporterspost-polls.

Naihati is in Barrackporeparliamentary constituencywhere senior TMC leaderDinesh Trivedi was trouncedby BJP nominee and localstrongman Arjun Sing, a turn-coat from Banerjee’s party.

Aware of her reportedaversion against the catch-phrase which is normally usedby the BJP supports, locals lin-ing the road in hundredsgreeted Banerjee’s convoy with“Jai Shri Ram” slogan twice atBhatpara and Jagaddal.

Even as the Chief Ministerjumped off her vehicles withthe State DGP Virendra andtop IPS officers in pursuit,Banerjee shouted “they arecalling me names which can-not be accepted in a democ-racy.”

A bid that experts prompt-ly identified as a “vicious ploy”to turn religious polarisation— that apparently earned BJPhuge mileage in Bengal earn-ing it 18 out of 42 seats — intoa linguistic divide Banerjeemarked the locals mostlyworkers of the tens of factoriessituated on both sides of theroad as “outsiders” who “livein Bengal eat our food, run azamindari and challenge theintegrity and purity of Bengaliculture.”

Subsequently referring tothe incident at Naihati she

said, “these are the people, thecriminals who have beenimported from outside Bengalby two ‘gaddars’ (traitors) —Mukul Roy and Arjun Singh— of the BJP to vitiate theState’s culture and insult thelocal Bengalis.”

Referring to the incidentsof attacks on the TMC fami-lies, particularly women whohad been forced to leave theirhomes and were currentlystaying at relief campsBanerjee tended to issue aveiled warning saying: “wewant no tension between theBengalis and non-Bengalis. Ialso don’t say that all non-Bengali people are bad. But Ifeel that some people are cre-ating trouble for political rea-sons. They should rememberthat there could be problemfor them if other people (readBengalis) take up the issuewhich I don’t want to happenin this State where we havebeen living peacefully forages.”

Incidentally, Banerjeedrew flak early this monthwhen in a similar circum-stance she got off her car andchallenged bystanders atMidnapore chanting Jai Shri

Ram. The video reportedlyearned a mileage for the BJPwith two stages of polls still togo.

TMC views “Jai Shri Ram”slogan as an import of theHindi heartland not only glo-rifying their culture but alsoearning organisational pointsfor the BJP. It prefers slogansglorifying Durga and Kali thatit feels truly represent Bengaliculture.

However, sitting in thewings the opposition partieslike the Congress and the Leftsay Chief Minister is gettingthe taste of her own medicine.Like she played minority cardto wean away the Oppositionvotes 2007 onwards the BJP isplaying the Hindu card towin elections.

Cut to Naihati: Hoursbefore Narendra Modi was totake his oath, Banerjeeattacked the Prime Minister,the Election Commission forwinning the elections “by cre-ating an emergency-like situ-ation in the State.”

The BJP had spent croresto win the election she saidtelling people how “winningone election by fraud they areattacking the opposition par-ties like this. Imagine whatthey will do later on,” adding“I warn them to desist fromattacking and molesting theBengali and minority women.”

Announcing formation ofJai Hind Vahini and BangaJanani Samiti Banerjee said “Iam for Jai Hind and not anyother slogan and so Iannounce the formation of JaiHind Vahini which will bedressed in white kurta andpyjama and carry lathis. I alsoannounce formation of BangaJanani Samiti that will work forprotection of women.Wherever the attackers comethe women wings will chasethem away.”

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Senior IPS officer and BengalAdditional Director General

of Police(ADG), (CID), RajeevKumar, being probed for hisrole in the investigation of theSharada and other chit fundcases as the head of the SITformed by Mamata Banerjee in2013, on Thursday got yetanother breather from theCalcutta High Court whichextended the shield against hisarrest by the CBI for littlemore than a month but clippedhis wings substantially.

Kumar, who is under theCBI scanner for his allegeddubious role in the multi crorechit fund probe that has founda number of crucial evidenceslike laptops, pen drives, anddairies missing from policecustody had been at large afterthe Supreme Court vacated itsorder preventing CBI from

arresting the top cop. TheApex Court had asked him totake anticipatory bail fromlower courts or Calcutta HighCourt.

The Bench of Justice PratikPrakash Banerjee on Thursdaygranted Kumar bail till July 10but said he would be requiredto appear before the CBI andreply to its questions on dailybasis. The Court also directedhim to deposit his passport andstopped him from moving outof Kolkata even for any official

work. The Court directed thecentral agency to go to RajeevKumar's residence every day at4 PM to register his attendance.

The Court also debarredKumar from taking a lawyerwith him during the interro-gation but said no coerciveaction including arrest could betaken against him till July 10.

Meanwhile, the CBI onThursday grilled another IPSofficer Arnab Ghosh for severalhours for the second consecu-tive day.

Burdwan (WB): A BJP workerwas stabbed to death in WestBengal’s West Burdwan districton Thursday, police said.

Sushil Mondal, 49, waskilled allegedly by a TrinamoolCongress activist following analtercation over putting up BJPflags at Panduk village underKetugram police station limits.

Local TMC leaders, how-ever, claimed Mondal was a vic-tim of the party's internal feud.

Police said Mondal's wifehas lodged a complaint againstthree persons who are on therun.

According to the complaintfiled with the police, Mondalwas putting up BJP flags in thevillage when three personsobjected and, during an alter-cation, one of the three stabbedMondal with a dagger in theabdomen.

When taken to a local hos-pital, the BJP activist wasdeclared dead, the complaintsaid.

The FIR named threeaccused but did not mentiontheir political affiliation.However, the three are locallyknown as TMC workers.

Local TMC MLA SheikhSahnawaz claimed that the partywas not connected to the inci-dent and the killing is a result ofthe BJP's internal bickering.

Local BJP leader Anil Duttasaid TMC killed Mondal to cre-ate terror in the area as the saf-fron party has performed wellin the Lok Sabha elections.

District Superintendent ofPolice Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay,however, said Mondal was killedfollowing a quarrel betweenthe two over grazing goats.

The incident occurredhours before Narendra Modi'sswearing-in as the prime min-ister for a second term in Delhi.

Family members of over 40BJP workers, who were killed inpolitical violence in WestBengal, have been invited for theprogramme. PTI

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New Delhi: As the sun set overthe Rashtrapati Bhavan onThursday, Narendra Modi andhis Council of Ministers weresworn in for a second successiveterm with 8,000 people packinginto the forecourt of the historicBritish-era presidential palace.

In a grand ceremony withovertones of a US presidentialinauguration, heads of Stateand Government, India Inchonchos, Opposition leaders,BJP members and showbiz starsrubbed shoulders as theywatched President Ram NathKovind administer the oath ofoffice to India’s 58 newMinisters.

The two-hour swearing-inceremony of Modi Government2.0 — which created a splash,with the Prime Minister pow-ering his party to a 303 victoryin the 543-member Lok Sabha,and also a spectacle — is thelargest event to be held inRashtrapati Bhavan, officialssaid.

It was India's Kodakmoment for the political timeswith grandeur and pomp, ritu-al and glimpses of realpolitikand some history too.

The ceremony started at 7pm, right on time, but thecrowds had started filing inmuch earlier, taking their allot-ted seats and making conversa-tion while millions watching theproceedings on TV and otherscreens speculated about whowas who, who was there andwho was not.

Soon, as Minister afterMinister took oath with thepresident sometimes the strictteacher correcting some of themwhen they slipped up, dusk slipped into night and thelights came onover thep a n o r a m i c

Lutyenscape with theRashtrapati Bhavan dome lit upin the tricolour.

Among those present wereformer Prime MinisterManmohan Singh, former pres-ident Pratibha Patil, veteranBJP leader L K Advani and evenspiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev.

Congress president RahulGandhi, who is adamant on hisdecision to quit office after hisparty's debacle in the hustingsand hasn't been seen for somedays, created a buzz when hewalked in with his mother,UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

NDA ally Janata Dal-Unitedchief Nitish Kumar was theretoo, making an entry shortlyafter his party announced itwould not be part of theGovernment. The BJP wasoffering one Cabinet berth tothe JD(U) and sources said theregional party was also unhap-py with the portfolio offered toit. Leaders of BIMSTEC (Bay ofBengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and

Economic Cooperation) coun-tries, including BangladeshPresident Abdul Hamid, SriLankan President MaithripalaSirisena, Nepal Prime MinisterK P Sharma Oli, President ofMyanmar U Win Myint andBhutanese Prime Minister LotayTshering also attended the galaevent. Kyrgyz President andcurrent chair of ShanghaiCooperation OrganisationKyrgyz President SooronbayJeenbekov, and Mauritius PMPravind Kumar Jugnauth alsoattended the event

From India Inc, RelianceIndustry's Mukesh Ambani,veteran industry leader RatanTata, steel baron L N Mittal andAdani Group head GautamAdani were among the who'swho of corporate India present.

RBI Governor ShaktikantaDas, Essar Director PrashantRuia, Tata Group Chairman NChandrasekaran, VedantaChairman Anil Aggarwal andHDFC's Deepak Parekh werethere as well. PTI

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New Delhi: Cine stars such asRajinikanth, Shahid Kapoor,Boney Kapoor and KanganaRanaut were among the guestswho attended Prime MinisterNarendra Modi's swearing-inceremony on Thursday.

Sidharth Roy Kapur,President of the Film andTelevision Producers Guild ofIndia, Vivek Oberoi, AnupamKher, Madhur Bhandarkar andproducer Boney Kapoor werealso a part of the event, held atthe Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Boney said he was hon-oured to be invited for the cer-emony.

"The kind of victory theyhave had, It is almost like a cel-ebration. It is celebration ofdemocracy. Something goodhas happened and it will con-tinue to happen," Boney toldPTI. Before she flew in fromMumbai, Ranaut told reportersshe wished Modi all the best forhis future endeavours.

"The PM has set somegoals and we all heard that inhis speech. All our best wish-es with him, that he is able to

do what is best for the countryand be able to fulfil all his goals.He is an extremely loved PrimeMinister. He is here because ofhis hard work, we all can onlyappreciate him," she said.

Oberoi, who played PMModi in a biopic and had alsoattended the swearing in cere-mony in 2014, said, "I'm watch-ing @narendramodi bhai tak-ing his oath for the 3rd time onhis journey from CM Gujaratto PM of Bharat once again!Feeling like a small part of anincredible history."

Bhandarkar wrote, "Feelinghonoured to be attending thehistoric #OathCeremony ofShri @narendramodi ji for the#ModiSarkar2. Wishing thevery best to all the newlyappointed ministers."

Director Rajkumar Hirani,Aanand L Rai, Sushant SinghRajput, Divya Khosla Kumar,Kajal Aggarwal, MangeshHadawale and AbhishekKapoor were also invited, saidMahavir Jain, one of the organ-isers behind PM's meeting withBollywood stars last year. PTI

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Aday after her family mem-bers demanded thorough

investigations into the circum-stances leading to post-graduatemedical student Payal Tadvi’salleged suicide, the Mumbaipolice brass on Thursday trans-ferred the sensational case to thecity crime branch police.

Confirming the transfer ofthe Payal Tadvi suicide case tothe city crime branch branch,Mumbai’s DeputyCommissioner of Police and

Spokesperson DCP ManjunathShinge said: “Considering theseriousness and importance ofthe Dr. Payal Tadavi’s deathcase, the investigation has beentransferred to Crime Branch”.

“We had demanded thatgiven the questionable circum-stances leading to my client’sdeath, the investigations in thecase be handed over to the theCrime Branch. We had taken upthe matter with the ruling ShivSena which in turn raised it withCM Devendra Fadnavis,” Payal’sfamily lawyer Nitin Satpute said.

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Post election drubbing thepolitical circles are busy dis-

cussing the fate of coalitionGovernment in Karnataka ledby Chief Minister HDKumaraswamy. Even after hec-tic parley and confabulations theJD(S) –Congress Government isreeling under the threat of dec-imation with many MLAs open-ly opposing the Governmentand coalition. The weakening ofCongress high command due toface loss especially in Karnatakawhere the partners have wononly two seats out of 28 has seri-ously damaged the existence ofJD(S) and the Congress inKarnataka. The undercurrent ofModi wave which has swept thecountry has made bothCongress and the JDs suffer alife loss is affecting the very exis-tence of the Kumaraswamygovernment which was thoughtas a platform for oppositionunity.

The one year old govern-ment is reeling under heavyimpact of the rejection andtrauma is taking its toll. Eventhough the leaders of theCongress and JDs putting up a

bold face by saying all is well hasnot gone well within the coali-tion. It’s not just chemistry alsoaffecting the arithmetic withlooming large operation lotus bythe BJP.

Meeting after meeting byCongress Karnataka in chargeKC Venugopal, Siddaramaiahand other leaders has so far notable to assuage the rebellionwithin the party. The conspic-uous absent of the seven legis-lators to the CongressLegislator Party on Wednesdayis clear indication of the thingsin the Congress which is facingserious problems of decimationacross the country.

Meanwhile, FormerKarnataka Chief Minister andCongress leader Siddaramaiahon Thursday asserted thatMLAs and ministers in the rul-ing JD(S)-Congress coalitiongovernment in the state are"united". Addressing a pressconference, Siddaramaiah said,"The result of this Lok Sabhaelection will not have an impacton this government. All ourMLAs and ministers are united.Ramesh Jarkiholi will not leavethe party."

The JD(S)-Congress coali-

tion, which is in power in thestate, went through a roughpatch during the campaigningof the recently concluded elec-tions. Congress has 79 MLAswhile Janata Dal-Secular (JDS)has 37 MLAs in the coalitiongovernment holding power inthe state. The BJP with 104MLAs in 224 member house iswaiting in the wings to for anorder from the high command.

Tensions between the twoparties benefitted the BJP whichwon 25 of the 28 Lok Sabha seatsin Karnataka while both JD(S)and Congress had to contentitself with just one seat each.

Kumaraswamy who is inDelhi attending PMs oath tak-ing ceremony met Congresschief Rahul Gandhi to discussthe political situation in thestate. Kumaraswamy and hisfamily party JD(S) has seen acomplete wash out in the elec-tions has been very dramaticand working out plans to savehis government. He had apolitical hotline with RahulGandhi and survived but thepolitical drubbing has cut offthe hotline and now he is fac-ing the rebellion both in hisparty and Congress.

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Thiruvananthapuram: KeralaChief Minister Pinarayi Vijayanon Thursday skipped theswearing-in ceremony of theBJP-led NDA Government cit-ing inability to attend due to hispre-occupation with partyrelated matters in State.

“Chief Minister could notparticipate in the event as thestate secretariat of the party isgoing on. The Secretariat ofCPI(M) is reviewing the pollresults.

Party general secretary

Sitaram Yechury is also attend-ing,” a source close to theCPI(M) told PTI.

Vijayan had on May 24congratulated Prime Minister

Narendra Modi and his col-leagues for the BJP-led NDA'sstellar performance in the LokSabha polls.

The state BJP unit cele-brated the oath-taking cere-mony by bursting crackers anddistributing sweets at variousplaces across the state.

Senior BJP leader and thelone MLA of the party ORajagopal inaugurated the "vic-tory day" celebrations of thesaffron party at its headquartershere. As soon as Prime

Minister Narendra Modi tookoath for the second time, BJPworkers here burst crackers.

The activists also celebrat-ed in front of the Secretariathere.

The ruling Left DemocraticFront was routed in the LokSabha election winning just oneseat out of the total 20 seats inthe state.

The Congress-led UnitedDemocratic Front bagged 19seats but the BJP again failed toopen its account in Kerala. PTI

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The new Defence Ministerwill have to hit the ground

running to sustain the pace ofmodernisation of the armedforces amidst the ever presentthreat of a two-front war withPakistan and China. The east-ern neighbour has stepped up itsefforts to modernise its forcesthereby posing a direct chal-lenge to India and it can illafford to lag behind in opera-tional readiness due to lack ofState of the art weapons andallied systems.

In this backdrop, the newMinister will have to ensure thatthe depleting fighter squadronstrength of the IAF is addressedimmediately. Even though, thefirst lot of Rafale jets will startcoming in by this year end andentire lot of 36 expected to jointhe IAF in two years, the IAFwill still fall critically short offighter jets to ward off anythreat from China. It is fastmodernising its air force and theIAF, now down to 32 squadronsthough the sanctioned strengthis 42, is faced with a real threat.Moreover, the squadronstrength is expected to falldown to 28 by end of next year.

The government issued aglobal tender for acquiring 114fighter jets last year worth overfive billion dollars to close thegap and the new minister willhave to address this issue on anurgent basis to enable the IAFto be become a modern, potentand strategic fighting force.This matter assumes greaterimportance now with Chinabacking Pakistan in its efforts tomodernize its air force and theIAF has to prepare itself forfighting a two-front war if needbe.

Besides bolstering the oper-ational capability of the IAF, the

new minister will also have topay attention to the long delayedproject to acquire six moreconventional submarines. Atpresent, the navy has 13 oddsubmarines with half of them inthe last leg of their operationallife. Even if the six Scorpenesubmarines, now under con-struction at Mazagon DocksLimited, Mumbai, join the ser-vice in the next two year, thenavy still has to have new sub-marines to replace the ageingfleet and have a fleet of 24 sub-marines.

The government earlier thisyear floated tenders under theStrategic Partnership pro-gramme to build six submarineswithin the country and thenew minister will have to pro-pel the process. Incidentally,China has 50 submarines there-by presenting a grave threat toIndia's maritime interests espe-cially in the Indian Oceanregion.

As regards the Army, thenew defence minister will haveto carry forward reforms nowunderway to make the forcemore effective to fight modernday conventional war besideshandling insurgency in Jammuand Kashmir and the North-East.

Efforts are already on tomake the Army lean and meanto meet future challenges bymerging various administrativeand operational units for effec-

tive command and controlstructure besides saving money.Moreover, plans are on to freeup mid level officers fromadministrative postings anddeploy them on operationalduties thereby making theshortfall on the one hand andensuring lesser administrativestructures which are no longerneeded. The Army also plansto cut flab by undertaking man-power reduction of 1.5 lakh per-sonnel over the next five toseven years to save Rs 6000 to7,000 crores in terms of salariesand pensions.

This apart, the new minis-ter will have to address the issueof shortage of ammunition andweapons to even fight a ten-daywar as pointed out theComptroller and AuditorGeneral(CAG) in its reportsome time back.

Moreover, the StandingCommittee on Defence, in itsreport tabled in Parliamentearly this year had flagged thebudgetary allocations wereenough for the Indian Army'smodernisation programme, toequip itself for a 'two-frontwar'. The deposition of the vicechief of Army Staff before a par-liamentary panel in March lastyear exposed the state of mod-ernisation in defence, as heclaimed that 78 per cent ofIndian Army's weaponry is vin-tage.

Given this report card aboutthe state of affairs of the threeServices, the new minister willhave to focus on the NareendraModi government's pro-grammes like 'Make in India'and bigger role for the privatesector in manufacturing big

ticket items like fighter jets, war-ships and tanks within thecountry.

The 'Make In India' projecthas to be boosted to meet thegrowing demand of the armedforces for modern weapons onthe one hand and make Indiaself-reliant in defence produc-tion and make it a industrial hubfor building weapons on theother.

Coming to budgetary allo-cations, the armed forces haveto make do with lesser capital asmajor chunk of the budgetaryprovisions are taken away bysalaries, pensions and revenueexpenditure. In fact, only 25 to28 percent budget is available formodernization and acquisitionsdue to ever increasing pensionand salary bill. The new min-ister will have to ensure that abalance is arrived at betweencapital and revenue heads in thedefence budget to ensure thatmodernization does not falterdue to want of funds.

As the nature of warfare isfast changing due to informa-tion technology, the country willhave to change its old mindsetof working in silos and thearmed forces will have to inte-grate to achieve military andpolitical objectives while fight-ing a war. This is imperative asadvanced countries includingChina are now using space alsoto advance its strategic interestsand India is now on its way tohave its own Space Commandbesides Cyber division to meetthe challenge. However, theminister will have to ensure thepace of integration does notslacken due to administrativeand financial hurdles.

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Srinagar: Two unidentifiedterrorists were killed onThursday in an encounter withsecurity forces in the Soporearea of Jammu and Kashmir'sBaramulla district, police said.

"On a credible input, acordon and search operationwas launched by the securityforces in the Dangerpora areaof Sopore. During the opera-tion, the terrorists who werehiding fired on the searchparty. The fire was retaliated,leading to an encounter," apolice spokesperson said.

In the ensuing encounter,two terrorists were killed andthe bodies retrieved from thesite, the official said.

Their identities and affili-ation are being ascertained,he said, adding that incrimi-nating materials, includingarms and ammunition, havebeen recovered from the site ofthe encounter. PTI

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Agrarian distress, doubling offarmers’ income, drought in

several parts of the country, andPM-KISAN scheme will be topmost priorities for the newAgriculture Minister. As forthe Minister for Housing andUrban Affairs (MoHUA), it willbe Housing for All by 2022,development of 100 smart citiesand the national urban rentalhousing policy among othersthat will be the main priorities..

Following a historic man-date, the Modi Government isnow expected to shift its focuson governance. "The immedi-ate reason for farm distress isfalling food prices. DespiteModi Government's imple-mentation of new MinimumSupport Price (MSP) regime,the farmers are not gettingprofitable remuneration fromtheir agriculture products.However, despite increased sup-port, prices for several cropscontinued to be below even theMSPs that had been declaredlast year. PM-AASHA too failedto have any positive impact onprocurement and prices," saidthe sources. The PrimeMinister's major promise toagriculture in its manifesto for

2019 was to doubling farmersincome by 2022 with 2015being the reference year.

Ahead of the Lok Sabhapolls, the Modi Governmenttried to lessen the burden on thefarmers with Prime Minister-Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) a scheme to providecash support of �6,000 a year inthree intalments.

According to agricultureministry, agriculture, animals,forestry, fishing — togetherclubbed under the head of agri-culture — comprised 17.89 percent of gross domestic product(GDP) in 2016-17. It hasdropped to around 13 per centin the past 15 years. But thenumber of workforce has notdropped accordingly in farms.Agriculture employs nearly 55per cent of the workforce in thecountry. An estimated 26 crorepeople are working in the sec-tor. This translates into depen-dence of about 55-57 per centpopulation on agriculture,which is in distress for far toolong to ignore for NarendraModi Government.

The Modi Governmentwill have to address biggerissue in agriculture, that is, ofshifting farm workers to otheremployment avenues. This

leads to PM Modi's anothermajor challenge - unemploy-ment before the new AgricultureMinister. Of 136 crore estimat-ed population of India, 67 percent is in 15-64 years bracket.This puts the job-seeking pop-ulation over 91 crore. Not all ofthem would actually be lookingfor job but this figure itself is achallenge to any Government.The promise of 2 crore jobsannually coupled with the slo-gan of "achhe din" (good days)had brought Modi Governmentto power in 2014. A Centre forMonitoring Indian Economy(CMIE) report, released inJanuary this year, said around 1.1crore jobs were lost in 2018 asside effects of 2016 demoneti-sation and 2017 GST rollout.

"The new Minister shouldhave as its first priority not onlythe mapping out of the vulner-abilities in the agricultural sec-tor, but also finding ways of

dealing with the structuralissues which require urgentinterventions," said the sources.Reforms in e-NAM andAgriculture Produce MarketingCommittee will be major chal-lenge before the agricultureminister.

The MoHUA, whichspearheads the maximumnumber of f lagship pro-grammes, will focus on thenational urban rental housingpolicy to promote various typesof public-private partnershipsfor promotion of rental housingin the country and makinggood the growing housingshortage. To complete anddevelop 100 smart cities will betop agenda for the new Housingand Urban Affairs minister.States have been asked to expe-dite the award of tenders andthe conversion of detailed pro-ject reports (DPRs) to tenderswith targets having been set.

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The performance of the Congressin the Lok Sabha elections wasextremely disappointing and itis important for a responsiblepolitical party like it to accept

the verdict of the people with humility. Itis also important for the party to under-stand the pulse of the nation better andshowcase itself as a more viable alterna-tive to the BJP. Perhaps most important-ly, however, it is important for the partyto highlight that the battle between theCongress and the BJP is not one of merepolitical power but one of ideology.

This ideological battle is often depict-ed as a fight on TV screens broadcast bynews channels. In the past five years, thisideological battle has been depicted as asensational fight. The sequence of eventstypically follow the described course: Anoutrageous statement by a BJP leader likeSadhvi Pragya (about Godse being adeshbhakt) followed by TV channels witha room full of pundits lending theirexpertise, either admonishing the outra-geous statement or finding some sympa-thy for it. This descends into a shoutingmatch between the two sides, furtherfuelled by TV anchors who have realisedthat this is the easy way to capture theattention of the public. I will admit, theCongress and other Opposition partieshave often fallen into this trap that onlyhelps TV channels. The reality, however,is that first, the Congress’ ideological bat-tle with the BJP cannot be won in the priv-ilege of air-conditioned TV rooms but willinstead be tested over time on the ground.Second, to reduce this ideological battleto a “debate” over statements of agentprovocateurs does India and its citizens noservice. Instead the Congress will have tonow take the values it holds dear like thoseof equality, fighting violence with reasonand scientific temper to the people of thecountry and convince them by actionrather than TV rhetoric. So what happensto these TV channels and what willbecome of these inflammatory debates?

In this backdrop, I have to say that Iam extremely pleased that the Congresshas decided that it will send no spokesper-sons for TV debates. While this positionappears to be limited to the next month,I would welcome sticking to this stand forthe next five years. This is because newschannels now resemble soap operas whereTV anchors have pre-decided the plots andsub-plots. Where if the debate appears tobe dying, some will ensure that themasala remains till the end. Of course, Idon’t mean to paint all TV news media andall anchors with the same brush. But youknow who you are and more important-ly, every reader of this article has a few ofthem who spring to mind. I am, therefore,happy that the Congress will do its partto prevent this embarrassing practicefrom continuing.

I remember there was atime when media houses andTV news channels engaged ingenuine investigative journal-ism. They would raise ques-tions and go where their inves-tigation led them. News chan-nels were led by the aim of ful-filling their role as journalistsand earned viewershipthrough dedicated researchand brave questions. Has thattime gone? An examination ofthe past few years does seemto suggest so. If not, whatexplains the unbelievable lackof focus on issues that thecountry is actually grapplingwith?

In Jharkhand, for example,why are media houses notraising questions about thehuge number of starvationdeaths and the failures of thestate government that has ledto these deaths? Why are thereno debates about how theland of tribals in Jharkhand isbeing taken away from themwithout any form of rehabili-tation? At the national stagetoo, why have our news chan-nels not raised questions aboutthe intelligence failure thatled to the death of our bravesoldiers in Pulwama? Howdid such a massive attackoccur and why haven’t webeen provided any answers by

the government? Who is supposed to ask

these questions? Yes, theOpposition must, as theCongress did over the past fewyears. But what happenedwhen these questions wereraised? Spokespersons werebrought on debates where thetopic would inevitably beframed along the followinglines: “Is the Opposition anti-national for questioning thegovernment at this time?”

Once the debate has beenframed in the manner detailedabove, the discussion on TV isno longer a discussion ordebate about how we canimprove our intelligence infra-structure or how do we pre-vent our soldiers from dying inthe future. Instead the debateis now: Is the Opposition anti-national or not? What atragedy.

It is no coincidence thenthat the only real investigativejournalism we have seen in thepast few years has beenthrough print media outlets.This is because the nature ofprint journalism restricts itfrom doing what TV channelsdo. Turning important issuesthat require examination andquestioning of authorities toshouting matches and sensa-tional headlines.

So I welcome seeing howour TV news channels willreact. As the government inpower with clear majority forwhat will be 10 years in 2024,PM Modi will have no excus-es. They will have to answerquestions about a failing econ-omy and how they plan torevive it. They will have toanswer questions about whythere are no jobs for India’syouth. They will have toanswer questions about whycertain Indians feel targeteddue to their religion and casteas the events of the past weekhave shown.

Without a shouting matchbetween the Opposition andthe government, TV anchorswill now have to face represen-tatives from the BJP govern-ment and have to look at theactual work that has beendone and what the numberson the ground are. Their TRPswill then depend on how theyquestion the government andwhether they can get the gov-ernment to answer questionsthe government may not wantto answer. Let’s see if thesenews channels are up to thetask: The nation wants toknow.

(The author is president ofJharkhand Pradesh CongressCommittee)

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Sir - Mahendra Singh Dhoni hasbeen the pillar of the Indiancricket team for years and hissplendid 113 runs off only 78 ballsin the warm-up match againstBangladesh at Cardiff shows thathe is in tremendous form. KLRahul, with his 108 runs, appearsto be the key to resolving the longrunning discourse over the fourthslot in the Indian batting order.The middle order has the poten-tial to guide the team to notewor-thy totals even if there is a chanceof the opening partnership failingto deliver in some of the WorldCup matches.

Tushar AnandPatna

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Sir - There are many who cannotforget the statement made byPrime Minister Narendra Modi inWest Bengal while campaigningof 40 Trinamool Congress (TMC)legislators being in touch withhim and ready to desert after theLok Sabha elections. Even moreshocking was BJP general secre-tary in-charge of West Bengal,Kailash Vijayvargiya’s words that

crossovers would continue inseven phases (May 29). If PrimeMinister Modi bowed before theConstitution while seeking todispel fears of majoritarianism,why should he not initiate amarch towards observing fairand decent political norms? Whyencourage defections, which areanother form of corruption? Is theBJP’s ‘takeover strategy’ of the

entire country State by Stateunderpinned by this? Is this whatwe voted for?

Bidyut Kumar ChatterjeeFaridabad

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Sir - It is heartening that in the17th Lok Sabha, the number of

female MPs has risen from 62 to78, accounting for 14.3 per cent ofthe seats, though well short of the33 per cent women’s quota beingsought. There is hope that the leg-islation for one-third representa-tion to women will be on track.But what is jarring is that as manyas 233 MPs, or 43 per cent of theLower House, have an allegedcriminal background, having been

elected by “our awakened andwise” voters. There was tall talk oftainted MLAs and MPs beingshown the door. Instead, there isan increase, of about nine per cent,in the number of such parliamen-tarians.

Meghna ANew South Wales

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Sir - The thumping majority thatthe BJP has got should also leadto a review of its economic poli-cies of the past five years whicheither failed miserably or causedhavoc to development. For exam-ple, projects found detrimental toagrarian interests should bedropped. Instead of continuing topolarise people, developmentshould be the main goal. Thoseelected must be given a workschedule to be executed within astipulated period. This is also agreat opportunity for PrimeMinister Narendra Modi to blos-som into a statesman. In the lastfive years, he was only a politician.

Tharcius S FernandoChennai

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Recently, Spencer’s Retail, the retail flagshipof the Sanjiv Goenka Group, acquiredNature’s Basket, Godrej’s premium food

retailing venture, for �300 crore in an all-cash deal,unravelling possibilities of mutual synergies.Through this acquisition, Spencer’s is planning togain access into the western India market whereit does not have any presence at present. Spencer’swill continue with the Nature’s Basket brand andmay even extend it to other markets. Worldwide,acquisition remains the quickest route companieshave to new markets and to new capabilities. Asmarkets globalise and the pace at which technolo-gies change continues to accelerate, more and morefirms are finding mergers and acquisitions to bea compelling strategy for growth. Like its globalcounterparts, Indian companies across several sec-tors are also in consolidation mode. Take the exam-ple of the renewable energy sector, Tata Poweracquired Welspun Energy’s assets in a deal valuedat over �9,000 crore; Kotak Mahindra acquiredING Vysya Bank in an all-stock deal valued at over�15,000 crore in the banking sector; the telecomsector witnessed the acquisition of MTS India fromSistema by Reliance Communications in an all-stock deal, followed by a merger of HDF Life andMax Life in the insurance sector.

As in the case of Spencer’s-Nature Basket dealof paying for an acquisition in cash, acquirers canalso pay in stock or can have a combination of cashand stock. A cash merger happens when the acquir-ing firm buys the target company’s stock with cash.Think of a cash merger as shareholders of the tar-get company being bought out. In a straight cashmerger, the acquiring firm will make a tender offerat a price that is acceptable to the shareholders ofthe target company, who must vote to approve thedeal. Often, companies offer stock rather than cashto complete a merger deal by using “conversionratio” that converts the target company’s shares intoshares in the combined firm. For example, if youown 1,000 shares in a target company thatreceived a stock merger offer with a conversionratio of 1.275, you would receive 1,275 shares inthe merged company or 1,000 times 1.275. Somemergers combine a stock-for-stock transaction witha cash portion. For example, a stock merger offer-ing you 0.5 shares plus �10 in cash for every shareyou own means you’ll have to multiply 0.5 and �10by the number of shares you hold in the target com-pany. If you owned 400 shares in the old compa-ny, you’ll own 200 shares in the merged compa-ny plus receive �2,000 in cash or �10 multipliedby 200 shares.

As with most business transactions, cash dealsare highly preferred for fairly obvious reasons.Nonetheless, plenty of mergers still happen viastock deals. Although the same thing essentiallyoccurs regardless of whether the deal is complet-ed with a cash payment or a purchase of a certainpercentage of shares, there are often differences inthe way in which the merger ultimately unfolds.Here are some of the key differences between thetwo ways to close the deal:

Cash deals show clear ownership: One of thereasons why everyone loves cash transactions isbecause of its straightforward simplicity, it is fasterand people face fewer hurdles in getting the dealclosed. While one side hands over cash, the otherside transfers its ownership interest in the com-

pany. There is rarely any question as towho owns the company and who relin-quished ownership. In an analysis forworldwide M&A deals between 1992-2017 by the University of London, it wasfound that the failure rate for cash trans-actions was only 2.9 per cent. By way ofcomparison, all other forms of transac-tions were likely to fail 4.4 per cent of thetime. Another benefit of cash transac-tions is that they are relatively simplewhen it comes to what shape the newentity will take. The roles of the two par-ties, too, are clear-cut and the exchangeof money for shares completes a simpletransfer of ownership. They go on to notethat with this kind of transaction, theroles are pretty cut and dry when it comesto who will control the new organisation,with the purchaser pretty much dictat-ing everything. On the other hand, witha stock deal, the number, type or percent-age of shares sold may make it a bit hard-er to decipher the ownership structure.

Risk allocation is greater in cashdeals: Even though cash reigns supreme,there are some potential negatives to thistype of deal. The major downside to acash transaction is that the buyers in thesituation are assuming all of the poten-tial risk associated with the merger. In astock transfer, that risk is at least allocat-ed amongst the shareholders with respectto their proportion of shares. The goalof a merger is obviously to realise anincrease in value and, thus, returns. Butthere are obviously risks to the joiningof entities that may get in the way of that,so when paying cash, buyers must be pre-pared to accept the potential conse-quences. In addition, there’s the issue ofthe financing itself. If the financing fallsapart, that would certainly doom the deal.Outside of the money risks, there areadditional issues, including taxes. One

major drawback of an all-cash deal is thatshareholders will be on the hook to paypotential capital gains taxes — which arelikely to climb from their current levels.For all-stock transactions, these taxes forshareholders would likely be deferred.

With all these positives related to acash transaction, one might wonder whyanyone would consider an alternative.But there are numerous benefits tostock-based transactions where a com-pany uses its stock as currency to pur-chase another company. Perhaps thebiggest perk of all is that the acquiringfirm is able to keep its cash reservesaround for other functions. Or if theydon’t have a significant amount of cashin the first place, they don’t need to bor-row money from outside partners tomake that deal happen. For sharehold-ers of the acquired company, the bene-fits are significant as well. As they arepaid in stock rather than cash, they canhold on to that stock and as a result, deferany capital gains implications that wouldresult from this buy out. Of course, thereis also the potential growth of the newentity and any financial rewards that mayresult. From a risk standpoint, a stocktransaction presents different issues aswell. In a stock transaction, the risk isshared proportionately between theacquiring firm and the acquired firm.And for ownership of the acquiredfirm, a stock transaction also means thatyou’re ceding control of the direction ofthe company to the buyer.

However in recent times, in grow-ing economies where access to capitalremains relatively inexpensive, stocktransactions have been on a decline. Infact, according to Thomson Reuters, 33per cent of all deals in the second half of2016 included stock in the transaction.This represents a steady decline from

over 50 per cent just two years before.According to Dealogic, 2017 was actu-ally the weakest year since 1995 for UScompanies when it came to stock-basedM&As. However, not all deals are aneither/or. Many feature a combinationof both cash and stock. There are a vari-ety of reasons for this, including accessto capital, share dilution, potential com-peting offers and payment preferences.

A recently published research byUniversity of London’s Cass BusinessSchool found that the type of consider-ation offered was a significant predictorof the probability of deal completion —for both private and public M&A targets.It was a long-term global study into aban-doned acquisitions, ie, deals that areannounced but which subsequently failto complete, by investigating more than82,500 M&A deals announced over 26years to identify the significant predic-tors of failed deals and strategies thatacquirers and targets employ to increasethe likelihood of successful deal comple-tion. In particular, deals, where cash wasthe only form of consideration, were lesslikely to fail than those involving equi-ty or cash/equity hybrids as considera-tion. Target companies value the certain-ty that a cash offer brings, both at thetime the deal is agreed upon and on com-pletion. By contrast, a deal financed byequity or partly by equity, may becomemore or less valuable depending onmovements in the acquirer’s share price.

In today’s robust M&A environment,there will be no shortage of transactionsof both types. The only question thatremains is what’s going to be the righttype for both companies involved andwhat value this delivers to their share-holders.

(The writer is Assistant Professor atAmity University)

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Amid the ruins and crumblingedifice all over the country,Punjab and Kerala are the only

two oases for Congress in 2019, giv-ing the grand old party something tocheer about—a consolation prize intimes of utter political despair andgloom.

In Punjab, the Congress won animpressive eight seats and 40 per centof the votes, which is much more thanfour seats and 33 per cent in the 2014polls, indicating that the graph of theparty is going up despite PrimeMinister Modi and BJP building up anarrative of muscular nationalismpost the Balakot air strike insidePakistan. As Punjab is a border stateand has faced the brunt of all the warswhich the country has fought withPakistan — 1948, 1965 and then 1971

— and also faced one of the worstphases in its existence in the form ofPak-sponsored terrorism for over 10years in the 1980s and early years of1990s, the narrative which Modi builtof national security had the potentialof getting more traction in this state.But this simply failed to get dividendshere because of the counter narrativebuilt by the Capt Amarinder-ledPunjab Congress which has to be dif-ferentiated from the Rahul Gandhi -led Congress.

Two seats which BJP won inPunjab were Gurdaspur, which waslargely due to the star power of SunnyDeol, and Hoshiarpur reserved seat,where the local factors went against theCongress as well as the improved per-formance of Bahujan Samaj Party,ensuring the victory of BJP candidateSom Prakash. Long-time NDAalliance partner, Shiromani Akali Dal,managed to win from Bathinda andFerozepur with the husband-wife duoof Harsimrat Kaur and Sukhbir Badalgetting the voters’ approval due to theconcentration of the entire Akalimachinery here.

For all practical purposes, inPunjab, the Congress has been more

or less converted into a regional partyfor a while now, with a strong region-al satrap in Capt Amarinder Singh.And this unit has little to do with thehigh command culture prevalent inthe national party where decisions aremade at the central level and commu-nicated to the states. In fact, to be fairto the party president Rahul Gandhi,he has left it to Capt Amarinder todecide what is good.

Just before the Lok Sabha electionswhen former Congress WorkingCommittee member Jagmeet SinghBrar approached the party high com-mand for re-entry into the Congress,possibly to contest the Lok Sabha elec-tions, the high command simplydirected him to Capt Amarinderrather than taking a decision on itsown and then imposing him on theChief Minister. The set-up is perfectin Punjab for the former ArmyCaptain. PCC president Sunil Jakharis a hardcore Amarinder loyalist andeven the AICC in-charge of the state,Asha Kumari, is hardly a politicalheavyweight. That’s the kind of respectCapt Amarinder enjoys right now withthe top leadership of the party. Ofcourse, the leaked messages of Brar to

Capt Amarinder speaks volumesabout the level of sycophancy whichthe former Congressman indulged into get back but the Chief Ministerrefused to have any truck with himgiven his limited appeal and party-hopping tendencies.

Moreover, almost all candidateswere practically hand-picked by CaptAmarinder. Manish Tewari, a formerLok Sabha MP from Ludhiana, whowanted a ticket from Chandigarh, wasgiven nomination from AnandpurSahib Constituency, an entirely newseat for him from where he had nopolitical linkage or any claim. CaptAmarinder ensured that Tewariemerged victorious and no doubtalong with Shashi Tharoor, the MPfrom Kerala, he would be the face ofthe party in the Lok Sabha after thedefeat of seasoned Congress parlia-mentarians like Mallikarjun Khargefrom Karnataka and JyotiradityaScindia from Madhya Pradesh.

Despite his success at the region-al level, it would be ridiculous to por-tray Capt Amarinder as a nationalleader and a possible replacement forRahul Gandhi. It is too far-fetched apolitical theory and even Capt

Amarinder would not agree to this ashe knows his limitations. First, henever had a national ambition nor hasit now despite an impressive show.Second, at 80, he is not getting anyyounger. Third, his inability or ratherunwillingness to communicate inHindi, the language of the cow belt,would further reduce his appeal. It issimilar to Manmohan Singh, thetwo-term Prime Minister, who was apoor communicator in all languagesand could not even highlight theachievements of his government prop-erly. In fact, he hardly campaigned forhis party anywhere else in the coun-try even in the 2019 polls.

Coming from an ex-servicemanwho takes pride in using “Captain”before his name, a person who hadseen the 1965 action from close quar-ters as an officer in uniform and is aproud military historian, Modi’s nar-rative fizzled out in the border state.Even when Capt Amarinder asked forevidence for the Balakot strike, he wasconvincing as he himself gave numer-ous examples from the 1965 war wherethe victorious Indian Army officershad brought trophies of war fromamongst the Pakistani Army as proof

of victory. The simple fact of the mat-ter is that Capt Amarinder matchedModi step by step in the aggressive nar-rative post Pulwama-Balakot episodesand did not follow the Congressparty line of being suspect and unsurehow to react to these developments.

Besides, the BJP has been ridingpiggy-back on the Akalis for severaldecades, unsure of an independentidentity. RSS, too, has been trying toexpand its influence amongst theSikhs through the Rashtriya SikhSangat for years now with limitedappeal and little scope of penetratingthe rural Sikh peasantry. Family rulehas been firmly established in theAkalis and is being resented.

In fact, Capt Amarinder alsotried to play identity politics and tosome extent appropriated the religiousissues which the Akalis had been usingfor decades. This was like hurting theopponent where it hurts the most.When police firing took place at aplace called Baragari on protestors afterseveral incidents of sacrilege of reli-gious scriptures came to notice, theAkalis were on the defensive. Like agood heavyweight wrestler, CaptAmarinder simply raised the pitch on

Baragari police firing, making oneannouncement or the other to keep theAkalis on the mat. He got the policeofficers responsible for the firingarrested, promising to reach to the topof Akali leadership which was the thenChief Minister Parkash Singh Badaland his son Sukhbir Badal. Akalis, inturn, had little or nothing to offer tothe aggression of Capt Amarinder andhis team, who was clearly enjoying thenew rules of the game which he hadjust introduced.

So in reality, Congress did becomean umbrella organisation of all groupsin Punjab — the rural Sikhs forwhom religious issues are important,the urban-centric voters for whomAkali Dal has little to offer and also thelarge section of the Dalits in the Doabaregion where Congress always hadmore traction. No wonder, the partyemerged as an oasis amid despair innorth India and also gave appropriatelessons to the central leadership howto successfully counter the narrative of“muscular nationalism” with a simi-lar one, albeit with a regional varia-tion.

(The writer is Senior ResidentEditor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)

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Sri Lankan PresidentMaithripala Sirisena on

Thursday said he was not privyto an intelligence warning onthe Easter suicide bombings,contradicting his intelligencechief ’s testimony before a par-liamentary probe panel on theterror attacks by a local Jihadigroup linked to the ISIS.

A parliamentary selectcommittee was appointed toprobe the events leading to theApril 21 attacks and any laps-es by those responsible follow-ing reports that India hadalerted the Sri Lankan defenceestablishment on the impend-ing attacks.

Testifying before the com-mittee on Wednesday, SisiraMendis, a retired senior policeofficial who is now the chief ofnational intelligence, said thatat an intelligence coordina-tion meeting on April 9 dis-cussed the information

received on the impendingattacks.

He claimed he had writtento the Inspector General ofPolice despite the meetingignoring the information. “It(the prior information on theattacks) was never a main pointfor discussion,” Mendis told thecommittee.

“On behalf of the secretaryto the ministry of defence, Isent a letter to the InspectorGeneral of Police on this threat.I marked the letter as “eyesonly” which is to indicate itsimportance,” he said, addingthe letter was dated April 9.

In a statement issued onThursday, mentioning a dif-ferent date, Sirisena said at theover two-hour-long intelligencecoordination meeting on April8 “no official ever gave anyinformation on such a terror-ist attack”.

More than 250 people werekilled in the coordinated sui-cide bomb attacks carried out

by the local Jihadi groupNational Thowheed Jammath(NTJ) linked to the ISIS.

Mendis told the committeethat the defence establishmentwas focusing on possible ISISlinks in the country since 2016.

Police chief PujithJayasundera was sent on com-pulsory leave by Sirisena foralleged responsibility to thefailure to prevent the attack.Jayasundera on Wednesdayfiled a fundamental rights peti-tion in the Supreme Court against his “unfair sacking”.

The parliamentary probewas boycotted by Sirisena’sFreedom Party members andparliamentarians of the leaderof the opposition MahindaRajapaksa.

The ruling coalition’s dom-inant partner United NationalParty of Prime Minister RanilWickremesinghe and the JVP,the Marxist opposition party,are taking part in the probe.

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In an unprecedented devel-opment, Israeli lawmakers

Thursday voted to dissolveParliament and hold a freshelections on September 17 afterPrime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu failed to form acoalition government before amidnight deadline.

In little more than six weekssince they were elected, Israelilawmakers voted 74-45 infavour of dissolving the 21stKnesset (Israeli Parliament)and hold a second general elec-tions in the same calendar year.

Netanyahu’s remarkablevictory in the April 9 pollssecuring him a record fifthterm proved temporary in theface of a logjam between poten-tial coalition partners over amilitary conscription bill gov-erning exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary stu-

dents.He clashed with former

Defence Minister AvigdorLieberman, whose support inthe talks became vital.Lieberman, from the national-ist Yisrael Beitenu party, hadmade it a condition of allyingwith ultra-Orthodox Jewishparties that they change theirmilitary draft exemptions.

Lieberman told reportersjust before the vote that Israelwas going to the polls becauseof the “complete surrender ofthe Likud (ruling party) to theharedim (ultra-orthodox)”.

Without Yisrael Beitenu,Netanyahu could muster sup-port of only 60 lawmakers inthe 120 member house, fallingshort of a majority by just one.

Netanyahu launched a dia-tribe against Lieberman whomhe blamed for “dragging thecountry to unnecessary elec-tions”.

Washington: The US blocked more than$46 million in funds of designated ter-rorist groups, including Pakistan-basedoutfits, until the last year as part of itscrackdown on foreign terrorist organi-sations and individuals, according to anannual report. The report released by theUS Department of Treasury states theUS blocked nearly $400,000 in funds ofthe Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and $1,725of the Jaish-e Mohammed.

The Department of Treasury’s Officeof Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is theleading US Government agency respon-sible for implementing sanctions againstthe assets of international terroristorganisations and terrorism-supportingcountries.

The federal body implements thesesanctions as part of its general missionto administer and enforce economic andtrade sanctions based on US foreign pol-icy and national security goals.

According to the report, till 2018,the US blocked more than $ 46.1 mil-lion in funds of designated terroristgroups and individuals, an increase ofabout $2.5 million than that of $43.6million in 2017. PTI

London: Britain has received7,50,000 applications from EUcitizens seeking to settle in theUK in the first four months of2019, with Poles leading theway, official data showedThursday.

The Government’s schemefor offering an estimated 3.8million EU nationals the rightto live permanently in Britainafter Brexit has been riddledwith controversy.

Responding to a publicoutcry, Prime Minister TheresaMay in January scrapped a 65($82, 74-euro) fee that wouldhave been imposed had a so-called “no-deal Brexit” goneinto effect.

The programme’s statushas been weighed further byuncertainties over when — oreven if — Britain pulls out ofthe EU. The UK interior min-istry said 1,03,0000 Polish cit-izens had applied for perma-nent residence in the first fourmonths of the year. AFP

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Special counsel Robert Mueller said that chargingPresident Donald Trump with a crime was “not an

option” because of federal rules, but he used his first pub-lic remarks on the Russia investigation to emphasize thathe did not exonerate the President. “If we had had con-fidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime,we would have said so,” Mueller declared.

The special counsel’s remarks on Wednesday stoodas a pointed rebuttal to Trump’s repeated claims that hewas cleared and that the two-year inquiry was merely a“witch hunt.” They also marked a counter to criticism,including by Attorney General William Barr, thatMueller should have reached a determination onwhether the president illegally tried to obstruct the probeby taking actions such as firing his FBI director.

Mueller made clear that his team never consideredindicting Trump because the Justice Department pro-hibits the prosecution of a sitting president.

“Charging the president with a crime was thereforenot an option we could consider,” Mueller said duringa televised statement .

He said he believed such an action would be uncon-stitutional. Mueller did not use the word “impeachment”but said it was the job of Congress, not the criminal jus-tice system, to hold the president accountable for anywrongdoing.

The special counsel’s statement largely echoed thecentral points of his lengthy report, which was releasedlast month with some redactions.

Peshawar: Pakistani authoritieson Thursday arrested anabsconding Pashtun lawmakerwho was allegedly involved inthe attack on a military post inwhich five soldiers wereinjured. Pashtun TahafuzMovement leader and parlia-ment member Mohsin Dawarwas arrested from NorthWaziristan, said ShaukatYousafzai, a spokesman inKhyber Pakhtunkhwa province

bordering Afghanistan.The PTM, which works for

the rights of local Pushtu-speaking people, is against,what it claims, the military’sexcessive use of force againstlocal tribesmen.

Dawar and Ali Wazir, alsoa legislator, allegedly led theattack on Sunday by protestorsin North Waziristan on a secu-rity checkpost that resulted inthe death of three activists.PTI

Budapest: Seven South Koreantourists died and 21 others weremissing after a sightseeing boatcapsized and sank on theDanube in Budapest,Hungarian and South Koreanofficials said on Thursday.

The accident happenednear the Parliament in theheart of the Hungarian Capitalafter a collision with a largerriver cruise boat during rainaround 09:15 pm (1915 GMT)on Wednesday. AFP

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US President Donald TrumpThursday asserted that

Russia did not help him getelected in the 2016 presidentialelections and alleged thatMoscow would have preferredHillary Clinton as president.

Earlier he briefly acknowl-edged in a tweet that Russiahelped him get elected. “Andnow Russia has disappearedbecause I had nothing to dowith Russia helping me to getelected,” he had said.

“No, Russia did not helpme get elected. You know whogot me elected? You know whogot me elected? I got me elect-ed? Russia didn’t help me at all.Russia, if anything, I think,helped the other side,” Trumptold reporters in the SouthLawns of the White House.

“Do you believe that Russiahelped you get elected?” he was

asked by reporters.Trump defeated Hillary

Clinton of the DemocraticParty in the 2016 presidentialelections. She was consideredto be favourites by pollsters andthe media in the 2016 elections,before Trump surprised every-one by his victory.

“What you ought to ask isthis, do you think the media

helped Hillary Clinton getelected? She didn’t make it, butyou take a look at collusionbetween Hillary Clinton andthe media. You take a look atcollusion between HillaryClinton and Russia. She hadmore to do in the campaignwith Russia than I did. I hadnothing to do,” Trump said inresponse to a question.

“And by the way, that’s oneother thing, if you look, thiswas all about Russia, Russia,Russia, they don’t talk aboutRussia anymore because itturned out to be a hoax, it wasall a hoax,” said the USPresident.

His comments came a dayafter Special Counsel RobertMueller spoke publicly for thefirst time since the release of hisreport on collusion during theelection campaign and possibleobstruction of justice after-ward.

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Shuttered formore than a

month, JetA i r w a y sThursday said itis not in a posi-tion to consideraudited financialresults for 2018-19 due to ongo-ing process form a n a g e m e n tchange and res-ignations of keymanagerial per-sonnel.

Once a sto-ried full servicecarrier, JetAirways temporarily suspend-ed operations in April afterrunning of cash.

In a filing to the stockexchanges, the airline said it isnot in a position to considerand approve the audited finan-cial results for the year endedMarch 31, 2019.

The airline cited “ongoing

bidding process undertaken bythe domestic lenders for changein management of the compa-ny, coupled with resignation bymembers of the board of direc-tors, its key managerial per-sonnel and other employeesacross functions,” as reasons fornot considering the results.

Earlier this month, Jet

Airways Chief ExecutiveOfficer Vinay Dube and hisdeputy Amit Agarwal put intheir papers.

The consortium of lenders— led by SBI — is struggling tofind a buyer for the airline.

Shares of the airline rose1.51 per cent to close at �150.85on the BSE.

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The rupee on Thursday fellmarginally by 4 paise to

close at 69.87 against the UScurrency, extending its declinefor a third straight day, due toa stronger dollar and investorsawaiting the allocation of keyportfolios in the newly electedGovernment.

Foreign fund inflows,strong gains in equities and eas-ing crude oil prices, however,helped the local currency con-tain losses.

At the Interbank ForeignExchange (forex), the domes-tic currency opened at 69.76 adollar and fell further to touchthe day’s low of 69.93. It final-ly settled at 69.87 per dollar,down 4 paise over its previousclose. The rupee Wednesdayhad settled at 69.83 to the USdollar.

“Rupee opened on strongnote but failed to hold at thehigher levels. This is going tobe the third straight session offall in the rupee,” said V K

Sharma, Head PCG & CapitalMarkets Strategy, HDFCSecurities.

The rupee has now depre-ciated by 36 paise in the threesessions to Thursday.

The dollar inched towardsone-week high levels againstmajor rivals in global marketsafter US-China trade worriesunnerved investors.

Prime Minister NarendraModi and his council of min-isters were set to take oath at1900 hours Thursday for asecond term as suspensemounted on who will get thebig four berths — Home,Finance, Defence and ExternalAffairs.

Going ahead, macro eco-nomic data like gross domes-tic product data for January-March quarter and provi-sional estimates for the whole2018/19 fiscal year ending inMarch to be released onFriday and RBI monetary pol-icy outcome would give fur-ther direction to the rupee,Sharma said.

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In a major escalation of thebruising US-China trade war,

Beijing on Thursday accusedthe US of following “nakedeconomic terrorism” andthreatened to the stop export ofrare-earth metals, a keyresource for Apple’s Iphonesand hi-tech missile guidancesystems to America.

The world’s two largesteconomies are engaged in atrade war after talks to resolve theissue between them apparentlyfailed, with US President DonaldTrump putting a ban on Huawei,the China’s biggest telecomequipment manufacturer, andthreatening to slap additional tar-iffs on the remaining $300 billionworth of Chinese exports.

In the sharpest attack yet onthe US, since the beginning ofthe trade war China’s vice foreignminister Zhang Hanhui accusedWashington of indulging in“naked economic terrorism”.

“We are against the tradewar, but we are not afraid of it,”Zhang said while briefing mediaon Chinese President Xi Jinping’strip to Russia next week.

“This premeditated insti-

gation of a trade conflict isnaked economic terrorism,economic chauvinism, andeconomic bullying,” he said.

Both the US and Chinahave already imposed tariffs onbillions of dollars of exportproducts sparking fears that theconflict between them coulddamage the global economy.

Trump, who kicked off thetrade war last year, demandedChina to reduce the massivetrade deficit which has climbedto over $539 billion last year. Heinsisted Beijing for verifiablemeasures for protection ofintellectual property rights(IPR), technology transfer andmore access to American goodsto the Chinese market.

The US has imposed a tar-iff on $200 billion Chineseproducts while hit back, Beijingincreased tariff on $60 billionUS products, which will takeeffect Saturday.

Underling that there is nowinner in a trade war, Zhangsaid, “This trade conflict will alsohave a serious negative impacton the development and revivalof the global economy”.

Meanwhile, in a separatebriefing, China’s commerce

ministry spokesperson, GaoFeng said “Beijing will notallow any countries to userare-earth materials to makeproducts that will suppressChina’s development”.

When asked if China willstop exporting rare-earth mate-rials to the US, Gao said Chinahas been the world’s largest sup-plier of rare-earth materials andalways been keen to meet thedemand of its trade partners topromote the rare-earth industry.

“While satisfying domesticdemand, China is always will-ing to fulfil other countries’rightful needs for rare earthmaterials,” he said.

“But if any country plans touse the rare-earth materials thatChina exports to make productsthat will suppress China’s devel-opment, it is not acceptable,” hewas quoted as saying by thestate-run China Daily.

Asked whether Chinawould take certain actionsagainst Apple Inc following theUS’s restrictions on Huawei’sbusiness operations, Gao saidthe legitimate rights and inter-ests of all foreign enterprises inChina will be protected by theChinese Government.

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Continuing its soaring per-formance, National

Aluminium Company Limited(NALCO), a Navratna PSUunder Ministry of Mines,Government of India, has onceagain proved its mettle by regis-tering high in terms of both phys-ical and financial performances.

According to the auditedfinancial results for 2018-19,taken on record by the Board ofDirectors in a meeting held onThursday in New Delhi, duringthe FY 2018-19, NALCO hasregistered a net profit of �1732crore, a growth of 29%, i.e. �390

crore over last year’s net profitof �1342.19 crore. In 4th quar-ter the Company has earned anet profit of �233 crore. Duringthe year, the Net sales turnoverfor the year is �11,386 crore reg-istering a growth of 21% overlast year. Export earning of�4792.71 crore also registeringa growth of 18 % over last year.

With 100% capacity uti-lization, NALCO’sPanchpatmali Mines hasachieved Bauxite excavation of74.14 lakh MT, which is high-est ever since inception. Bauxitetransportation has gone up to72.31 lakh MT, which is alsohighest ever since inception.

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Power Grid Corporation ofIndia Limited (POWER-

GRID), a ’Navratna’ Companyunder Ministry of Power,Government of India and the’Central Transmission Utility(CTU)’ of the country, crossed�10,000 crore profit for the firsttime as it posted a Profit AfterTax of �10,034 crore on con-solidated basis.

On a standalone basis, theCompany posted Profit After Taxand Total Income of �9,939 croreand �35,618 crore respectively forFY19 registering an increase of21% &16% respectively withrespect to FY 2017-18.

During the year, POWER-GRID capitalized assets worth�25,869 crore including itssub-sidiaries. The Gross Assets ofthe Company increased to�1,97,793 crore as at the end ofFY19 from �1,77,100 crore as atthe end of FY18 on standalonebasis. Capital expenditure forthe year including subsidiarieswas �25,807 crore during thefinancial year.

The Company has pro-posed a final dividend of25%(�2.50 per share on a facevalue of �10 each)in addition tointerim dividend of 58.3%(�5.83 per share on a facevalue of �10 each) already paidfor the financial year 2018-19.

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NLCIL’s revenue dipped to�1,023.78 cr in the FY

2018-19. The total revenue ofthe company for the FY 2018-19 is �8059.27 cr as against�9083.05 cr in the corre-sponding previous FY.According to a news releaseshared by Government ofIndia entreprise states that“the fall in revenue is mainlyon account of reduction of lig-nite transfer price (�420 cr),implementation of Ind As115(�658 cr) and non- applica-bility of clean energy cess(�220 cr) in the current FY

and having no impact on bot-tom line”.

The profit for the year is�1266.97 cr as against �1848.78cr in the corresponding previ-ous FY. The dip in profit ismainly on account of lowerplant availability, decrease inLignite Stock and implemen-tation of VRS.

NLCIL achieved highestever CAPEX of �7,111 Crduring the FY 2018-19. Itcommissioned 404 MW ofSolar Power Plants in TamilNadu and Andaman andincreased its renewable foot-print from 291 MW to 695MW in FY 2018-19.

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��(��' ����#�First things first. A round of

applause to Hyundai MotorIndia for having organised

the first large-scale media drivingevent in India’s North-east. Greathospitality, delicious food andyou realise that folks in Guwahatiand Shillong drive just as badly asfolks elsewhere in the country.Also, kudos to the NationalHighways Authority of India(NHAI) for building a lovely four-lane highway between the two statecapitals, the old GS road wasquite scary. The highway had abeautiful surface, light traffic andwas a great combination of twistysections and straights, whichallowed us to really get a good feelof the steering, handling as well asthe engine and gearbox perfor-mance. A couple of rough patch-es in Guwahati and the approachroad to the stunning Ri Kynjairesort on the shore of the BadaPani lake outside Shillong also gaveus a good impression of the ridequality. I won’t get into the looksdebate around this car other thansaying that it looks contemporary.

Before I start to list my impres-sions of the new Hyundai Venue,a quick caveat. I deliberately askedto drive the new one-litre GDI tur-bocharged petrol engine with thenew seven-speed Dual-Clutch

gearbox (DCT). This is an all newcombination for Hyundai and it isreally what I wanted to experience.To note, Hyundai offers the 1.2petrol with a five-speed gearbox;a six-speed manual with this GDIengine which has 120PS of poweras well as a diesel option with thetried-and-tested 1.4 litre unit.Additionally, the cars we testedwere the SX+ model which comefully loaded with a touchscreeninfotainment system andHyundai’s ‘Bluelink’ system whichmakes the Venue India’s first ‘con-nected’ SUV.

A bit more about this system,which not only pairs with yoursmartphone but also allows you touse the inbuilt e-SIM in the carfrom Vodafone-Idea which comeswith a three year subscription ifyou purchase the car. Bluelink isavailable only on the higher SXspecification models and higher.The system provides not justtelematics, which allow you to seeyour driving data, but you can usethe system to unlock the car, startand stop the engine as well as startthe air-conditioning remotely. Inaddition, you could geo-fence thevehicle, that is, say, you allow your18-year-old to borrow the car butdon’t want him or her to drive offfar, so you could put a radius of 15

kilometres from your house and ifthe vehicle crosses that lakshmanrekha you will get an alert on yourphone. Here is the cool part, youcan remotely immobilise yourvehicle, not allowing it to start.This feature might not make yourteenager son as well as potentialcar thieves happy, but it is indeedan interesting. If you are keen onthe Venue, Hyundai has trainedexecutives in every dealership toshowcase these features.

But now about the car, how is

it to drive? First things first. I per-sonally felt that the Venue was thebest-handling Hyundai vehiclethat has been built in the country.The steering felt perfectly weight-ed and body roll, even while tak-ing some of the high-speed cornerson this highway was almost non-existent. And this did not come atthe cost of the ride. On rougherstretches of road, the Venue did-n’t behave badly at all. The ride andhandling ought to be commonacross all variants.

As for the engine and gearbox,small turbocharged petrols, whileproducing a lot of power for theirsize, can be thirsty. Worse thanthat, they could have significantturbo lag, which often means thatwhen such engines are coupledwith an automatic, you can getabysmally poor performance. Thatsaid, the GDI and the DCT com-bination do not feel badly mated,sure the kick-down response whenyou floor the car immediatelyafter a corner can feel sluggish,

during regular acceleration andbraking the Venue changed gearsin good time without needlesslyhigh engine revs. But if there is onething I missed on this vehicle, itwas paddle-shifters. You can usethe gear selector to change up anddown if you’re in the mood but Iguess I have been spoiled. Butwhen you push the car, it can gopretty fast, very comfortably. Thosewho drove the GDI with the man-ual transmission had more fun, butif you live in a city, automatics arethe only way to go and this DCTis up there with the best of them.

The Venue is fairly good whenit comes to space, although I stillfeel the XUV300 is the best in seg-ment on that front. Issues? Ahigh loading lip at the rear is asstandard for vehicles in this seg-ment, which might make tyrechanging a bit difficult. But at�11.1 lakh ex-showroom for thisvariant and prices starting at �6.5lakh, the Venue is miles ahead onthe price battlefront. It is so attrac-tively priced, which when coupledwith its good ride, handling anddecent performance makes it notjust a compelling buy for thoselooking at compact SUVs but alsoat premium hatchbacks like thei20. Hyundai should have anoth-er winner on their hands.

What is common to thesongs Waka Waka, La laBrasil or De Ghuma Ke?All three are sportsanthems, the first two

were for the football world cups and thelast for the cricket one. With the Men’sCricket World Cup having kicked off in theUnited Kingdom, there is a new one espe-cially created for this edition. As part of itspartnership with the International CricketCouncil (ICC), Uber and the band hasreleased the song, Way-O, Way-O, toenergise fans.

Since music has always evoked strongemotions and helped foster a global spir-it of unity and togetherness, this rhythmicanthem is a cultural blend of harmonies.It is written by Sonal Dabral (Ogilvy) andcomposed, produced and curated byMichael (Mikey) McCleary. The makersinclude Sanam, a band known for its ren-ditions of classical Bollywood songs,alongside other globally acclaimed artistssuch as Jahmiel (Jamaica), CatherineTaylor Dawson (United Kingdom), SimbaDiallo (New Zealand) and a Choir groupcalled Khayelitsha United Mambazo(South Africa).

How did the idea come about?Sanam Puri (Lead vocalist): WhenMcCleary approached us about singing ananthem for the world cup, we werethrilled. I have been a part of several of hisjingles and I like working with him. I puthim in touch with our manager, BenThomas, who discussed it with McClearyand then briefed all the members of ourband. It took us about an hour to under-stand the song and then two to three hoursto record our vocal parts.

Sports and music help to foster a globalspirit of unity and togetherness. So howdid you blend this sensibility in theanthem?Samar Puri (Lead guitar): Cricket and

music are two vital aspects of our culture.Many have tried to encapsulate this sportin a song but none so far have been ableto strike a chord with the people. Thisanthem is an excellent piece of work andhas the potential to connect people tran-scending geographies and cultures. WithWay-O, Way-O we are confident that fansfrom across nations will come together andcheer for cricket and their favourite teams,thereby ensuring ‘every fan wins’.I used to play cricket for the under 16/19team in Oman when I was in high school.We also played cricket when we startedjamming as a band in Keshav’s (Dhanraj)garage. We still play whenever we get time.It’s always nostalgic to be associated withsomething like cricket and it’s a sport thatbinds everyone together. You’ll hear it inthe vocals where the words are — We’re onour way-O, we’re on our way; singing way-o, way-o; we’re on our way.

How is the creative process for theanthem different from that of film tracksor albums?Keshav Dhanraj (Drum kits): This songis entirely composed by McCleary. We juststepped into the studio for backing vocals.He was busy trying to get together artistsfrom across the world. I guess it was a newexperience for him too and he pulled it offvery efficiently in a short time.

Where are the global music trends head-ing?Venkat Subramaniyam (Bass guitar): Iguess hip-hop subgenres like Trap andLatin inspired music like Reggaeton arequite popular. I love how McCleary hasused a dancehall beat for the anthem. It willhelp to bring people together along withthe catchy group vocals and Indian inspiredhorn riffs.

You have remade so many old hits andpeople have cherished each of them. Doyou think remakes lessen the value of old

blockbusters?Keshav: We just focus on putting out ren-ditions of the classic tunes to the best of ourability without worrying about the criticism.Our approach has always been to maintainthe essence of the song when we render aclassic and that helps us connect with audi-ence of all ages. We even get feedback say-ing how three generations within the fam-ily can connect while watching our musicvideos and listening to our songs.

What does fusion music mean to you andhow do you plan to explore this genremore?Venkat: In India, fusion music is general-ly associated with one form of Indian clas-sical music being fused with anothergenre. The older film directors like Shankar,Jaikishan had a lot of fusion in their com-positions. Even in the 80s, jazz fusion wasvery popular. It brought out a lot of inno-vation through unique improvisationalmelodic ideas as well as the use of uniqueeffects that were new at the time. Fusionmusic can evolve with the time and I guesswe are more of a pop/rock band in our styleand don’t really play fusion music. However,we’ve got a new original music album anda lot of releases this year as well as collab-orations and some more renditions.

How do you see the evolution of Indianmusic industry and how do you think youhave changed as a singer since the timeyou started?Sanam: Today, It’s possible to co-exist withthe film industry and do your own workas a music artist. I always wanted to com-pose and make my own music. Playbacksinging was never my aim. So the freedomthat I get working with a band is somethingI cherish and it empowers me to give it myall when I am making music. I am grate-ful for the love and support from my fanswhich enables us to do what we do todayalong with the invaluable help from ourmanagement.

The Tamil Nadu Theatre andMultiplex Owners’ Associationhas announced a new revenue

sharing model based on the marketvalue of the male stars of the Tamilfilm fraternity. The unprecedentedmove, if implemented, will be both aboon and a bane, feel industryexperts.

According to the new model,theatre owners would share revenuesbased on the collections of a filmacross various centres, week by week.While superstar Rajinikanth, Ajithand Vijay constitute tier one of thegroup, Suriya, Jayam Ravi, Dhanush,Simbu, Sivakarthikeyan and VijaySethupathi form the tier two. The restof the actors, including Kamal Haasanand Vikram, fall in the tier threegroup.

Tirupur Subramaniam, presidentof Tamil Nadu Theatre OwnersAssociation, feels the model is a rec-ommendation for the benefit of the-atre owners as most of them don’t seeprofits.

“The new model is yet to beimplemented. It’s necessary becausewith growing tax rates, maintenancecost and increasing salaries of work-ers, theatre owners are not able to seeprofits nowadays. At present, there’sno fixed rate when it comes to prof-it sharing and it changes from film tofilm. If it’s a big film with a star, wepay around 65-70 per cent, which wewant to bring down to 55-60 per cent,”Subramaniam said.

With theatres already playing 18per cent GST on top of eight per centof local body tax, Subramaniam ruesthat theatre owners can’t see profitswith the current profit sharing model.The new revenue sharing model hascategorised stars into three tiersbased on their market value.Filmmaker Arun Vaidyanathan, whohas also produced Tamil comedyKalyana Samayal Saadham, asked onwhat grounds were the actors cate-gorised into these tiers.

“Karthi delivered two block-busters last year in the form ofTheeran Adhigaaram Ondru andKadaikutty Singam last year. Why isthat he is not in the second tier andwhat about Vishal? Are Karthi andVishal left out because they are mem-bers of Tamil Film Producers

Council? Also, if Kamal (Haasan) sirreturns with Indian 2, will he beincluded in tier one,” Arun ques-tioned.

He also asked how the new rev-enue sharing model will benefit film-makers and producers who makesmall films sans any stars.

“There’s already very little hopefor small films which seldom getenough screens for release. If this newrevenue model gets implemented,they would be making lesser than nowdue to the new revenue sharingmodel. Let us understand that the top10 stars of the industry togetherhave around 20-25 releases a year andover 200 other releases are films fea-turing mid-level actors and thosemade by small-time filmmakers andproducers. If the model benefits amajority of the releases, then it makessense to implement,” he said.

A leading producer, on the con-dition of anonymity, asked if the newrevenue sharing model will bringtransparency in collections of films.

“By introducing the new revenuemodel, can you monitor the multi-plexes and other theatres in cityareas. What about theatres in tier twoand tier three towns across TamilNadu? Who will know how much afilm collects in these theatres? Today,if you ask a successful producer howmuch his last hit film collected, hewouldn’t know exactly because there’sabsolutely no transparency when itcomes to box office numbers,” he said.

“When a producer doesn’t knowhow much his film exactly collects,what’s the need for introducing a newrevenue sharing model? If theatreowners alone want to benefit fromthis move, I really don’t think itshould be implemented,” he added.

The producer also pointed outthat the new model will make actorsgreedier and they will eventuallyhike their remuneration.

“If the new model gets imple-mented, the actors in the top two tiersmight demand a hike in remunerationas they would know their films willearn better share of profits for the pro-ducer. Most producers are already notable to afford paying the leading starsas their salaries run into crores,” herued.

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The two most unpre-dictable sides in thecompetition come face

to face at Nottingham’s TrentBridge. West Indies and

Pakistan can be indifferent orspectacular. But on their day,

there is no doubt that they canchallenge, and beat, theworld’s top sides.

Pakistan haven’t had themost ideal preparation forthe tournament. They lostto Afghanistan in theirfirst warm-up game, andtheir second, againstBangladesh, was washedout without a ball bowled.

More worryingly, they havelost their last ten completed

ODIs. Nevertheless, Pakistanat ICC tournaments have tradi-

tionally been a notch above what theyare at other times. Every other teamin the world found that out the hardway at the ICC Champions Trophyin 2017, and there is little reason todoubt that with a young squadbursting with talent, they can do it all

over again.Standing opposite them are West

Indies, who held the world’s No.1 ODIside to a stalemate at home earlier thisyear. They have a batting line-up that isexploding with firepower. It gave them421 runs in their last warm-up game,against New Zealand. But if you thoughttheir batting is all about the big hits,then you’re wrong: Shai Hope, who isin the form of his life, is perfectly capa-ble of staying at the crease and build-ing the innings. In his last five ODI

innings, Hope has reeled off scores of170, 109, 30, 87 and 74. He also madea century in the warm-ups to boot.

Their bowling is slightly less-herald-ed, but with a solid pool of all-rounders

to tap into, they have several options onthat front. And besides, if the batsmenshow up in the mood that they didagainst New Zealand, they’re going tohave plenty to play with.

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Pakistan seamer Hasan Alisays he is not worried aboutthe prospect of flat pitches

that are likely to favour batsmenduring the World Cup.

The 24-year-old was Pakistan'sstar performer in the ChampionsTrophy win in England two yearsago, taking 13 wickets to finish asplayer of the tournament.

But his recent form has beena worry for Pakistan. Hasan saidhe knows how to bowl on flat

pitches."The way modern cricket is

going, every bowler needs to knowthat taking wickets is the key,"Hasan said.

"You take wickets and you winmatches." Touted for taking wick-ets in the middle overs of one-daymatches, Hasan rose to the top ofthe bowler's charts in 2017, taking45 wickets — the most in the cal-endar year.

But he managed just threewickets in four matches againstEngland in a 4-0 loss earlier in

May."I know that I have not taken

many wickets since the SouthAfrica tour, but I am doing thehard work with bowling coach(Azhar Mahmood) and once I getmy rhythm I am sure wickets willcome my way," said Hasan.

"We know that our bowling,which has been our strength, is notdoing well but with the return oftwo experienced bowlers in WahabRiaz and Mohammad Amir ourbowling is now at full strength," headded.

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Pace spearheadMohammad Amir is fitand available for selection

for Pakistan's opening WorldCup match against the WestIndies on Friday, captainSarfaraz Ahmed said.

There was speculation thatthe 27-year-old, who missed thelast four matches of the one-dayinternational series againstEngland earlier this month,might not be able to make hisWorld Cup debut at TrentBridge.

"Amir is fully fit and avail-able for selection for tomorrow'sgame," Sarfaraz said in his pre-match press conference.

Amir, who missed the 2011and 2015 World Cups due to afive-year ban for spot-fixing,was seen bowling using his fullrun-up in the team's practicesession.

Sarfaraz said he hoped theteam could put behind them astreak of 10 straight ODI defeats.

"Yes, we have lost 10 match-es but we have to forget that and

start the World Cup journey," hesaid.

Asked if he was worriedabout the short boundaries anda flat pitch at Trent Bridge,Sarfaraz said: "When we camehere on the first day and askedthe groundsman what is the parscore he told us that it's 480."

Top-ranked England havescored 400-plus twice at thisground, 444-3 against Pakistanin 2016 and a world record of481-6 against Australia last year.

"Cricket has changed.People used to think that 300was a par score but it has

changed. We will have differentpitches in the World Cup so ifa team scores 300-plus then theother team will also go forthat," he said.

Sarfaraz said both Pakistanand the West Indies were unpre-dictable teams.

"It's good to be unpre-dictable so all teams are scaredof you. Yes, we are unpredictableand we will take that tag, so arethe West Indies," said the skip-per.

West Indies, who sneakedthrough last year's qualifyinground to feature in this year'sevent, piled up 421 against NewZealand in a warm-up match onTuesday.

With their powerful battingincluding Chris Gayle, EvinLewis, Shai Hope and AndreRussell, Pakistan will be hard-pressed to contain them.

But Sarfaraz said takingwickets will be the key.

"If you want to contain anyteam you have to take wicketswhoever you play, so it's impor-tant to put pressure by takingwickets."

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Pakistan bowling spearheadMohammad Amir says play-ing in the World Cup will be

a dream come true after he missedthe previous two tournaments fol-lowing a ban for spot-fixing.

The 27-year-old nearly missedout this time as he was left out ofthe preliminary World Cup squad,having taken just five wickets in the14 matches before the recent one-day international series againstEngland.

He did not get to bowl in thefirst match against England at theOval, which was ruined by theweather, and missed the last fourgames with a bout of chicken pox.The home side won the series 4-0.

But selectors decided toinclude him in the final 15 for theWorld Cup in England and Wales.

"It's a dream come true," Amirsaid ahead of Pakistan's first matchagainst West Indies at Trent Bridgeon Friday. "Every cricketer dreamsof representing his country in aWorld Cup so this is my chance.

"My target is to take wicketsand be a third-time lucky inEngland after winning the WorldTwenty20 and Champions Trophy,"said the paceman, recallingPakistan's triumphs in England in2009 and 2017.

Amir said Pakistan had posi-tive memories of playing inEngland, which they hoped to take

into the World Cup."Our triumph in the World

Twenty20 was excellent and thenthe Champions Trophy -- theimpact of those wins are with usand the amount of support we getin the UK is extraordinary, so nat-urally we will like to match those.

"People love the Pakistan teamand come in large numbers to sup-port us. I can't forget the final ofthe Champions Trophy at theOval (2017)."

Amir believes talk of flat tracksand big scores at the World Cup areexaggerated.

"People have made a mountain

out of a molehill that flat tracks willdo this and that. I agree that it's achallenge for bowlers but youneed to swing the ball and if it's nothappening then you have to rely onyour variations.

"I don't get bogged down bythe hype on flat tracks."

Amir hopes to overturn apoor run of personal form.

"I am sure things will get bet-ter," he said. "I know I have nottaken wickets but I have notbowled badly, so I am thankful tothe team, selectors and otherswho have backed me and I will domy best to fulfil their confidence."

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Failure of the England batsmen to convertstarts saw them post 311/8 againstSouth Africa in the opening game of the2019 World Cup at the Kennington Ovalon Thursday. Riding on fifties from Jason

Roy (54), Joe Root (51), Eoin Morgan (57) andBen Stokes (89), the hosts ensured that the fail-ures of Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler didn't hurtthem too much. The South African bowlersthough put on a quality show in the second halfof the innings to claw their way back into thegame.

Winning the toss, South Africa skipper Fafdu Plessis decided to bowl and leg-spinnerImran Tahir reposed the faith shown in him byhis skipper as he sent back Bairstow off the sec-ond ball of the opening over. The first spinner toopen the bowling in the history of the World Cup,Tahir used the googly to great effect as he tookthe edge of the bat and Quinton de Kock did therest.

The early dismissal of Bairstow (0) broughtRoot to the crease and with Roy for company, theEnglishmen started to stitch a partnership. Notjust focusing on the boundaries, both Roy andRoot looked to keep the scoreboard ticking as theyreached 60/1 in the first 10 overs.

Putting on a quality 100-run partnership, itlooked like the duo would run away with the gamewhen Andile Phehlukwayo dismissed Roy againstthe run of play, caught by skipper du Plessis.Walking in at number four, Morgan made hisintentions very clear as he hit the second ball thathe faced from Phehlukwayo for a boundary.

But even before the duo could strike a part-nership, Kagiso Rabada sent back Root as a casu-al sliced drive off his bat found J.P. Duminy atbackward point. While the Proteas players cele-brated the fall of the second English wicket in fourballs, it was also the start of another quality part-nership between Morgan and Stokes.

As the duo mostly looked to pick the singlesin the middle-overs, Morgan took special likingfor Lungi Ngidi in the 26th over and hit the pacerfor back-to-back sixes to bring up 7,000 runs forhimself in ODI cricket for England. Playing his200th ODI for England, the skipper couldn't have

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0�����4 South Africa's Imran Tahiron Thursday became the first spin-ner to bowl the first over in a WorldCup match during the tournament-opener against hosts England.

South Africa skipper Faf duPlessis handed the ball to Tahir afterwinning the toss and the leg-spinnerdidn't disappoint as he dismissedJonny Bairstow (0) in the second ball.

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asked for a better moment to reach the landmark.Even though Morgan looked his fluent self, it

took Stokes some time to open up and the 36th overof the innings saw him get stuck into DwainePretorius as he picked up three boundaries from thepacer's over to also bring up his own fifty. It was thefirst time that four English batsmen had scored a

fifty in a single World Cup game.But just when it looked likeEngland would run away with thegame, South Africa struck again.

With the pacers failing to cre-ate an impact, du Plessis turnedback to Tahir and the wily old foxstruck again as his flighted leg-spinner got Morgan to go for theswing and the English skipperfailed to connect well as AidenMarkram completed a brilliantcatch running in from long-on.The scoreboard read 217/4 in the37th over as Buttler walked into thecrease.

The crowd was already inanticipation for another whirl-wind finish, but it wasn't to be onThursday as Ngidi cleaned him upwith a slow bouncer that the bats-man dragged onto his stumps inthe 42nd over. Buttler (18) failed toread the pace of the ball andplayed his shot a tad bit early.

Moeen Ali (3) too departed inNgidi's next over as the batsmanfailed to connect and du Plessistook a perfect catch diving in

from long-on. With the score read-ing 260/6 after 44 overs, it wasimportant that Stokes takes it onhimself to finish well in the last sixovers as wickets kept tumbling atthe other end. But Stokes too wasdismissed in the 49th over in hiseffort to finish with a flourish.

Starting the last 10 with thescore on 235/4, England managedjust 76 runs off the last 60 balls forthe loss of four wickets. Havingstarted poorly, the South Africabowlers showed great composureto ensure that they restrictedEngland to a gettable total after thehosts looked to be dominating thegame at the halfway stage with thescore on 135/3 and Morgan andStokes in control.

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The unpredictable Englishweather and some quality

cricketers looking to showcasetheir skills on the biggest stage, the2019 edition of the World Cupcouldnt get any better. It is this veryweather though that had the much-famed Indian batting line-up on itsknees against New Zealand intheir opening warm-up game goinginto the showpiece event. Theman who had the Indian batsmendancing on his finger tips was noneother than Kiwi pace spearheadTrent Boult and this fast bowler isonly getting started.

Speaking to IANS, Boult saidthat the idea is to make maximumuse of the conditions and whoev-er be the batsman at the other end-- sticking to one's own strength isthe key. In fact, the Kiwi believes infighting fire with fire and there willbe no holding back when he gearsup to bowl to undoubtedly the bestbatsman in world cricket at themoment on June 13 in Trent Bridge-- Virat Kohli.

"Yeah, you got to remainaggressive against Virat and look toget him out because the mistake hemakes are very few and farbetween. Doesn't look to give hiswicket away. It is important to startwell and put pressure on him earlyand make sure he is under pressureand doesn't get off to an easy start,"he explained.

But this is the World Cup andapart from Kohli, there will be othertop quality batsmen like SteveSmith, David Warner and Joe Rootamongst others. They are all qual-ity players and it will be unfair forme to say who is the best, but in theODI format I feel things are placednicely in favour of the batsmen andthey have two hard new balls withthe powerplays and all. It is set upfor a lot of runs. From a bowlingpoint of view you have to remainaggressive and get these players outbecause otherwise with their qual-ity, they will look to cash in andscore runs. It will be an interestingchallenge and one that I am sure allbowlers are looking forward to," hesmiled.