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VIJAYAWADA, FRIDAY AUGUST 21, 2020; PAGES 12 `3

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RNI No. APENG/2018/764698

*Late City Vol. 2 Issue 290*Air Surcharge Extra if Applicable

Established 1864Published From

VIJAYAWADA DELHI LUCKNOW BHOPAL RAIPUR CHANDIGARH

BHUBANESWAR RANCHIDEHRADUN HYDERABAD

{

Current Weather ConditionsUpdated August 20, 2020 5:00 PM

ALMANAC

TODAY

Month & Paksham:

Bhadrapada & Shukla Paksha

Panchangam

Tithi : Tritiya: 11:02 pm

Nakshatram: Uttara Phalguni: 09:29 pm

Time to Avoid: (Bad time to start

any important work)

Rahukalam: 10:45 am – 12:19 pm

Yamagandam: 03:26 pm – 05:00 pm

Varjyam: 06:20 am – 07:46 am,

12:00 am – 06:31 am

Gulika: 07:37 am - 09:11 am

Good Time: (to start any important work)

Amritakalam: 02:59 pm – 04:26 pm

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VIJAYAWADA

WEATHERFFoorreeccaasstt:: Light drizzleTemp: 28/25Humidity: 86%Sunrise: 06.00 amSunset: 06.37 pm

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

While the exten-sion of the term ofChief SecretaryNilam Sawhneyby another threemonths has notbeen a major sur-prise, given the polit-ical equation betweenthe State and Central govern-ments, the speed with which thelatter accepted the APGovernment’s request has raisedsome eyebrows.

Also, the extension of serviceof Sawhney has upset the calcu-lations of all bureaucrats in the

State Government,many of whom

were hoping foran advancementin their owncareers.

The ChiefSecretary, when-

ever she retires,can boast of many

firsts in her career,especially in the twilight of

her service. She has the uniquedistinction of managing to gettwo extensions for a total lengthof six months, a record of sortsfor both undivided and resid-uary Andhra Pradesh.

PNS n HYDERABAD

The Apex Council, scheduledto meet on August 25 to dis-cuss the irrigation projectsproposed for constructionacross the Krishna andGodavari rivers, will in all like-lihood be postponed afterUnion Jal Shakti MinisterGajendra Singh Shekhawattested positive for Covid-19.

The Minister took to Twitterto confirm the outcome ofCovid-19 test and added that hewould be admitted to a hospi-tal for treatment on the adviceof doctors.

Shekhawattests positive,Apex Councilmeet in doubt

HC starts probe intojudges’ phone tappingPNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Taking cognisance of a PILalleging that phone calls of thejudges were being tapped bythe government, the AndhraPradesh High Court hasordered an inquiry into thecase.

A Division Bench of theHigh Court comprising ChiefJustice Jitendra KumarMaheswari and Justice DRamesh on Thursday postedthe hearing of the petition toAugust 27 after instructing thecourt registry to incorporatethe affidavit filed by petition-er NN Grace of Visakhapatnamwith the main petition.

Also, the Bench of Justices MSatyanarayana Murthy andLalitha Kanneganti passed anorder requesting retiredSupreme Court Judge, Justice(retd.) RV Raveendran to con-duct the inquiry.

The Court was presentedwith a pen drive containing therecording of a conversationstated to be between one SRamakrishna and a retiredjudge of the AP High Court.

Covid death toll breaches 3,000 mark;rate of infections hovers around 10KPNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

With another 95 people suc-cumbing to the virus in the last24 hours till 9 am on Thursday,the Covid-19 toll in AndhraPradesh crossed the 3,000-mark on Thursday, taking just11 days to add over 1,000casualties to the total.

It was on August 9 that theState had crossed the 2,000casualties mark and it breachedthe 3,000 fatalities mark onThursday.

Meanwhile, the number ofCovid-19 positive cases report-ed per day continues to be morethan 9,000.

In the last 24 hours, anoth-er 9,393 new cases were report-ed, taking the infection countin the State to 3,25,396.

According to the media bul-letin issued by the StateCommand Control Room onThursday, with the testing ofanother 55,551 samples, includ-ing 20,241 through RapidAntigen tests, a total of30,74,847 samples have beentested so far.

While Andhra Pradesh con-tinued to be among the top fiveStates in terms of the numberof tests, it is ahead of all otherStates with respect to tests permillion population (57,581).

The bulletin said that a totalof 8,846 people have recoveredfrom the virus and dischargedfrom the hospitals across thestate in the past 24 hours.

The total recoveries in theState increased to 2,35,218. Atthe time of filing of this report,the State had 87,177 activecases. East Godavari districthad registered more than1,000 Covid-19 cases in the last24 hours. East Godavari stoodfirst with 1,357 cases while WestGodavari and Visakhapatnamdistricts came second and thirdwith 995 and 985 cases, respec-tively. East Godavari districtcontinued to be on top inoverall cases with 45,356 fol-lowed by Kurnool with36,381cases. Anantapur with32,603 and Guntur with 28,808cases stood third and fourth.

Nellore and Kadapa districtsare inching closer to the 20,000Covid-19 cases mark with19,672 and 19,193 cases respec-tively. Krishna district inAndhra Pradesh remained theleast affected district with13,236 Covid-19 cases.

Among the 95 casualtiesreported in the last 24 hours,Chittoor district accounted for16 deaths, Prakasam 11, Nellorenine, Anantapur eight, EastGodavari eight, West Godavarieight, Kadapa seven, six deathseach reported from Guntur,Kurnool and Visakhapatnamdistricts, five in Srikakulam,three in Vizianagaram and twodeaths in Krishna district.

In view of the prevailingCovid-19 pandemic, the

Andhra PradeshGovernment on Thursdayissued a GO outlining theguidelines for the celebra-tion of Vinayaka Chavithi(Ganesh Chaturthi) onAugust 22.

Through the GO, the gov-ernment urged devotees toperform puja in their homesinstead of at public places.

The order also adviseddevotees that “When peoplevisit shops/market placesfor procuring certain mate-rial needed for celebrations,in all such places, the pub-lic are advised to strictly

adhere to social distancingnorms and always wear aface mask.”

The order further statedthat temples for worshipwould be allowed to remainopen keeping in mind the

Standard OperatingProcedures (SOP) in placeto control the spread ofCovid-19 such as maintain-ing social distancing andwearing of face masks.

PUNE: Doctors and clinicalinvestigators involved in treat-ing coronavirus infection haveclaimed that there was noevidence of the disease recur-ring in people who haverecovered from it.

However, Dr GiridharBabu, who is part of ICMR'sresearch task force onEpidemiology andSurveillance, said it is difficultto say confidently where ornot there is relapse in recov-ered patients as some signspost-recovery can be con-fused with COVID-19 symp-

toms.One has to establish that the

coronavirus has caused newinfection in a recovered

patient, he said."We are up against evi-

dence from all over the worldwhere we are seeing there is nore-infection so when we saythat is happening only inIndia then it maybe somethingnew," Babu said.

Dr Swapnil Kulkarni, achest specialist at the pul-monology department ofMumbai-based KEMHospital, said there is nodefinitive evidence of re-infec-tion in recovered patients.

MUMBAI: At least one in fourpeople in India may havebeen infected with the coron-avirus - a much higher num-ber than official governmentfigures suggest, the head ofleading private laboratorysays.

Dr. A. Velumani said ananalysis of 270,000 antibodytests conducted by his compa-ny Thyrocare across Indiashowed the presence of anti-bodies in an average of 26% ofthe people, indicating they hadalready been exposed to thecoronavirus.

“This is a much higher per-centage than we had expect-ed. The presence of antibod-ies is uniform across all agegroups, including children,”

Velumani told Reuters.Thyrocare’s findings are in

line with government surveysdone in Indian cities such asMumbai, which showedthat 57 per cent of thepopulation in itscrowded slumareas had beenexposed to thecoronavirus.

The Thyrocaresurvey covers paidand tested patients,covering 600 cities inIndia for the last sevenweeks, Velumani added. Ifthe current trend continues,the percentage of India’s pop-ulation having antibodies mayreach 40% before the end ofDecember.

1 in 4 Indians could have

been infected: Lab head

AP patientspick Hyd forCovid-19treatmentHYDERABAD: Private hospi-tals in Hyderabad are wit-

nessing an influx ofCovid patients from

n e i g h b o u r i n gStates particular-ly from AndhraPradesh. Due tothe lockdown,initially Telugu

States witnessedreverse migration,

now patients prefer-ring to get admitted to

corporate hospital and pri-vate hospitals in Hyderabad.Moreover, some of the hospi-tals are referring criticalpatients to Hyderabad.

Rahul Gandhi predicts dire jobcrisis, says his warning ‘mocked’NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhipredicted that India will not beable to give jobs to its youth inthe coming days as he attackedPrime Minister NarendraModi's policies at a virtualpress conference today. Thecrisis would hit home in thenext six-seven months, hesaid, reminding that "themedia had made fun" of hisprediction earlier this yearon the coronavirus.

"India will not be able toprovide employment to the

youth. This is obvious. It hasnever happened in 70 yearsthat our country is unable togive jobs to the youth," theCongress leader said.

"The media made fun of mewhen I warned the countrythat there will be heavy lossdue to COVID-19. If youdon't believe me, don't listento me. Today I am saying thatour country won't be able togive jobs. If you don't agreethen wait for six-sevenmonths," Rahul said.

The reason, he explained,was that those who wouldprovide jobs in the unorga-nized sector had been finishedby the economy.

"90% employment is in theunorganized sector. Smallindustries, farmers... PM Modidestroyed the system. Youwill see companies fall oneafter the other. Micro, Smalland Medium Enterprises(MSMEs) will be destroyedafter the moratorium period,"Rahul said.

Heavy rains raise flood flow into Godavari PNS n VIJAYAWADA

After showing signs of reced-ing, the flood flow in RiverGodavari began inching backtowards the danger mark onThursday evening, mainly atupstream Bhadrachalam, dueto heavy rains in the catchmentarea.

This could result inincreased inflows into the SirArthur Cotton Barrage atDowaleswaram in AndhraPradesh, according to sources.

On the other side, river

Krishna is also in full flow,almost filling the Srisailamreservoir to capacity.

With an inflow of 4.17 lakhcusecs, Srisailam’s storageincreased to 211.04 tmc ft, leav-ing a flood cushion of only 4.77tmc ft.

Consequently, seven crestgates of the reservoir wereopened and 3.84 lakh cusecs ofwater was being dischargeddownstream after power gen-eration in the two stations oneither banks.

Vijayawada bags fourth spotin India’s cleanest cities list

SWACHH SURVEKSHAN

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

While the State Governmenthas been moving heaven andearth to implement its plans forthree capitals, not one of thesehas bagged the top spot in thelist of India’s cleanest cities,according to the Centre’s latestannual cleanliness survey.

The survey adjudged Indoreas India's cleanest city for afourth straight year while Suratand Navi Mumbai andVijayawada grabbed the second,third and fourth positionsrespectively. Tirupati was rankedsixth in the category of citieswith population between 1 to 10lakhs and also the tag of nation-al-level best sustainable smallcity (1 to 3 Lakh population).

Vizag (GVMC) was ranked

ninth in the category of citieswith population above 10 lakh.

Among the special awards,Chirala was adjudged best sus-tainable small city (50,000 to 1lakh population), Atmakur(Nellore) was named best sus-tainable small city (25,000 to

50,000 population).Palamaneru achieved award

for South Zone cleanest city(50,000 to 1 lakh population),while Mummidivaram achievedaward for smallest fast movingcity (below 25,000 population).

‘Trump's leadershipfailure has cost livesand livelihoods’

4

Naidu bats for representation ofwomen in legislature

5

Gangwar calls for total digitalisation of Labour Bureau

8

No proof of Covid relapse, say experts

State issues guidelines forVinayaka Chavithi festival

CS tenure extensionis one of many firsts

The residents of a four-storey house in Gurgaon have been moved outafter the building tilted following heavy rain. The building in Sector 46

has been vacated, the police told news agency ANI. Gurgaon near Delhi,the Millennium City with multiple malls, high-rises and offices of multinational companies,has been severely challenged in two days ofheavy downpour. The area where the building islocated was severely flooded after yesterday'sdownpour, according to the police.EarlierThursday, a part of the major road in near thebusy IFFCO Chowk in Gurgaon caved in.

RUSSIA OPPOSITION LEADER INCOMA AFTER ‘POISONING’

GURGAON BUILDING TILTS DUE TOHEAVY RAIN, RESIDENTS FLEE

TS GOVERNOR EXPRESSES CONCERNOVER CCMB STUDY ON COVID SPREAD

The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was in intensive carein a Siberian hospital on Thursday after he fell ill in what his

spokeswoman said was a suspected poisoning. Navalny, a 44-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner who isamong President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, wasbeing treated in a hospital in the city of Omsk after helost consciousness on a flight to Moscow and hisplane made an emergency landing. His spokeswomanKira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter that Navalny had beenplaced in a coma on a ventilator and that tests werebeing carried out.

Russia is looking for a partnership with India forproducing COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V, Kirill

Dmitriev, the CEO of the Russian Direct InvestmentFund (RDIF), said on Thursday. Addressing an onlinepress briefing, Dmitriev said several nations areinterested in the production of the vaccine from countriesin Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. "The productionof the vaccine is a very important issue. Currently, we are lookingfor a partnership with India. We believe that they are capable of producing theGamaleya vaccine and it is very important to say that those partnerships toproduce the vaccine will enable us to cover the demand that we have," he said.

RUSSIA TO PARTNER WITH INDIAFOR PRODUCING COVID VACCINE

Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Thursday expressedconcern over the estimates of a new study that at least six lakh peoplein the city may have been infected by coronavirus. Concerned on thenumbers.Congratulations @ccmb_csir for your efforts tostudy the problems in depth, she tweeted, tagging areport on the findings of the study based on harvestedsewage samples in the city. Soundararajan, a medicaldoctor herself, had on Tuesday last stressed the need toconduct adequate numbers of COVID-19 tests in thestate, saying eradication of the virus would bedifficult without sufficient testing.

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l Vijayawada ranked 4th in citieswith population above 10 lakhs

l 2. Tirupati ranked 6th in cities withpopulation between 1 to 10 lakh

l 3. Vizag ranked9th in cities withpopulation above10 lakhs

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Although every possible care and caution has been taken to avoid errors or omissions, this publication is being sold on the condition and understanding that information given in this publication is merely for reference and must not be taken as having authority of or binding in any way on the writers, editors, publishers, and printers and sellers who do not owe any responsibility for any

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VIJAYAWADA | FRIDAY | AUGUST 21, 2020 vijayawada 02

TTD vigilancewing staffer’sdeath condoledPNS n TIRUMALA

TTD Trust Board ChairmanYV Subba Reddy andExecutive Officer Anil KumarSinghal expressed their condo-lences on Tuesday over thedemise of assistance vigilanceand security officer( C o m m u n i c a t i o n s )Maheshwara Rao, whobreathed his last following ill-ness recently. They recalled hisvaluable services in the vigi-lance wing of TTD and con-veyed their heartfelt condo-lences to the bereaved family.

Naidu damaging Vizag brandimage, alleges YSRCP MLAPNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

TDP chief N ChandrababuNaidu has been trying to dam-age the brand image ofVisakhapatnam though hiscontribution to the region wasa naught during his term, saidYSRCP MLA from AnakapalleGudivada Amarnath.

Speaking to media here onThursday, he alleged thatNaidu was sitting inHyderabad and holding con-ferences with his party leadersthrough Zoom app and mak-ing irresponsible statements.The MLA pointed out thatVizag has a unique place in theState as shrines of Hindus,Christians and Muslims arelocated at one place and peo-ple from all walks of life fromacross the country are living inamity. This cosmopolitan cul-ture cannot be found in anyother place in the State, he said.

Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy chose tolocate the Executive Capital inVizag to foster its growthbecause it is developed oneconomic, social and tourist

fronts, he said. Naidu is tryingto thwart the process by speak-ing against the region anddamaging its brand image. Heasked what Naidu has done forVizag during his governance.Moreover, when the State wasdivided, SivaramakrishnanCommittee was constituted,which said Vizag would be themost suitable for setting up ofthe capital of the State. ButNaidu had shunned it andchose Amaravati as the capital.

The MLA alleged thatNaidu did not pick up Namburor Mangalagiri where land wasavailable in plenty but had

chosen fertile lands ofMandadam and Thullur to setup the capital in order to doreal estate business, along withhis stooges, who have landthere.

The MLA said in the fiveyears of setting up of the cap-ital, Naidu has done nothing tobuild the capital but to showgraphics of a world-class cap-ital and it has turned out be thebiggest scam of the decade. IfNaidu thinks that he has devel-oped Amaravati as a world-class capital, why did his twoMLAs, including his sonLokesh lose their seats in theregion, asked Amarnath.

Now Naidu was claimingthat the capital was being shift-ed to Vizag and Amaravati wasbeing sidelined, the MLA said.If one goes to Guntur fromVijayawada all that one canfind is narrow roads and tem-porary buildings. While ChiefMinister YS JaganmohanReddy was striving for the all-round development of theState, Naidu was making falseallegations that the governmentwas using its intelligence wingto tap the telephones of hisparty leaders and judges, theMLA said and asked Naidu toprove the allegations that hewas making if he had guts. 36 cops back on duty soon

after defeating Covid-19PNS n VIZIANAGARAM

Many frontline workers, includ-ing cops, contracted the Covid-19 while serving people. And, torender their service again with-out making any delay, 36 policepersonnel deployed in differentpolice stations and various ranksjoined duty soon after recover-ing from Covid-19 inVizianagaram district.

As many as 185 police per-sonnel in Vizianagaram districtgot infected with the Covid-19.As many as 117 police person-nel recovered from the virus andwere discharged from the hos-pitals in the district. At present,19 police personnel were avail-ing treatment in the hospitals,while 49 police personnel wereunder home-isolation.

Superintendent of Police ofVizianagaram district B RajaKumari hailed the police per-sonnel and welcomed them. Shesaid that policemen set anexample for others by exhibit-ing courage when they wereunder treatment.

Raja Kumari said that afemale constable D Radhia,working at Two-Town policestation in Vizianagaram town,tested positive for Covid-19. Itmay be recalled that Radhika

has helped an old womanundergoing treatment in thebed beside her in the Covid hos-pital. The female constable,Radhika, helped the 86-year-oldwoman have her breakfast,lunch, and dinner as well asother needs as Radhika noticedthe woman’s struggle to chewthe food given to her in the hos-pital. The 86-year-old-womanrecovered from the virus andwas discharged from the hospi-tal. Several police officers appre-

ciated Radhika for great servicesto the woman during the pan-demic.

The police boss said that allthe policemen followed theSOP’s of Covid-19 and recov-ered. Police are in the forefrontof the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic. She advised thepolice personnel to take care ofthemselves and should takeproper meals and all precautionsto avoid contracting theCoronavirus.

IANS n BEIJING

Chinese researchers haverecently reported that flushingpublic restroom toilets, or uri-nals can spew clouds of parti-cles carrying viruses, includingCovid-19. The study, publishedin the journal 'Physics ofFluids', found that Covid-19particles from a flushing urinalcan rise to two feet in the air inless than six seconds "potential-ly infecting the unsuspectingurinal user".

The researchers' work showspublic restrooms can be dan-gerous places for potentiallybecoming infected with a virus,especially during the Covid-19pandemic. Other studies haveshown that both faeces andurine-based virus transmis-sion is possible.

"To do this, we used amethod of computational fluiddynamics to model the parti-cle movement that occurs withthe act of flushing," said studyresearcher Xiangdong Liu fromYangzhou University in China.

"The specific models are thevolume-of-fluids model andthe discrete-phase model," Liuadded.

Flushing a urinal, much likeflushing a toilet, involves aninteraction between gas and

liquid interfaces. The result ofthe flushing causes a largespread of aerosol particles to bereleased from the urinal, whichthe researchers simulated andtracked.

What the simulationsrevealed is disturbing. The tra-jectory of the tiny particlesejected by flushing a urinal"manifests an external-spreadtype, with more than 57 per

cent of the particles travellingaway from the urinal," said Liu.

But that's not all. Whenmen use urinals within a pub-lic restroom, these tiny parti-cles can reach their thigh with-in 5.5 seconds as compared tothe toilet flush, which takes 35seconds to reach slightly high-er, the researchers wrote.

"Particles from urinals, how-ever, show a more violent

climbing tendency. The climb-ing speed is much faster thantoilet flushing," Liu said.Urinals are used more fre-quently within densely popu-lated areas and the researcherspoint out that particles willtravel faster and farther, whichposes a serious public healthchallenge. This work under-scores how important it is towear a mask within publicplaces, especially restrooms.

"From our work, it can beinferred that urinal flushingpromotes the spread of bacte-ria and viruses," Liu added."Wearing a mask should bemandatory within publicrestrooms during the pandem-ic and anti-diffusion improve-ments are urgently needed toprevent the spread of Covid-19," the study author noted.

Flushing public toilets can spread Covid-19: Study

EGG

RATES

` 55,460 (10 gm)

` 130

GOLD

` 68,950 (1kg)

` 950

HYDERABAD 375

VIJAYAWADA 404

VISAKHAPATNAM 415

RREETTAAIILL PPRRIICCEE `̀44..3300

SILVER

VIJAYAWADA

BULLION RATES

`̀//110000

CHICKEN

RATES

Dressed/With Skin `158

Without Skin `180

Broiler at Farm `109

`̀//KKGG

(IN VIJAYAWADA)

Superintendent of Police of Vizianagaram

distrivt B Raja Kumari hailed the police

personnel and welcomed them. She said that

policemen set an example for others by

exhibiting courage when they were under

treatment.

l Urinals are used more frequentlywithin densely populated areas and

the researchers point out thatparticles will travel faster and farther,which poses a serious public health

challenge. This work underscoreshow important it is to wear a mask

within public places, especiallyrestrooms.

l Particles from urinals,however, show a moreviolent climbing tendency.The climbing speed ismuch faster than toiletflushing," study researcherXiangdong Liu fromYangzhou University inChina.

l Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddychose to locate theExecutive Capital in

Vizag to foster itsgrowth because it is

developed oneconomic, social and

tourist fronts, heYSRCP MLA from

Anakapalle GudivadaAmarnath

l Naidu is trying to thwart theprocess by speaking against the regionand damaging its brand image. Heasked what Naidu has done for Vizagduring his governance. Moreover,when the State was divided,Sivaramakrishnan Committee wasconstituted, which said Vizag would bethe most suitable for setting up of thecapital of the State. But Naidu hadshunned it and chose Amaravati as thecapital

Clinical trial of two Covid-19vaccine candidates at KGHPNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

The government has approvedthe conduct of two clinical tri-als in Andhra MedicalCollege/King George Hospital inVisakhapatnam. A communiquéfrom the Directorate of MedicalEducation, Vijayawada, wasreceived in this regard by thehospital.

The trail may begin in anoth-er two weeks’ time. The trials forwhich permission was grantedare Phase II clinical trial of CRONavitas Life Sciences in theacute treatment of moderate tosevere Covid-19 cases. The studyhas the support of DRDO. Dr YGyana Sundar Raju, Prof ofGeneral Medicine, has beenappointed as the principal inves-tigator for the study.

Another one is, Phase 2/3 sin-gle blind randomised control

study to determine the safety andimmunogenicity of theCoronavirus vaccine (COV-ISHIELD) of Serum Institute ofIndia. This study has the supportof ICMR. Dr B Devi Madhavi,Prof of Community Medicine,will be the principal investigatorfor the vaccine trial.

A team of experts from var-ious departments are co-inves-tigators for the studies. TheCollector and District Magistratehas congratulated the instituteand wished all the best. Earlier,

KGH was chosen by ICMR forthe Covid vaccine, Covaxinjointly being developed byICMR and Bharat BiotechInternational Limited (BBIL).However, KGH is waiting for theapproval of the same, accordingto the Andhra Medical Collegeprincipal PV Sudhakar.

KGH was the only institutefrom Andhra Pradesh to makeit to the list of 12 medical insti-tutes chosen by the ICMR as theclinical trial sites for the vaccine(Covaxin). Apart from IMS andSUM Hospital in Bhubaneswar,the other institutes selected forthe clinical trial are located inVisakhapatnam, Rohtak, NewDelhi, Patna, Belgaum(Karnataka), Nagpur,Gorakhpur, Kattankulathur(Tamil Nadu), Hyderabad, AryaNagar, Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh)and Goa.

New seniorDCM takeschargePNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Akhilesh Kumar Tripathiassumed the charge as SeniorDivisional CommercialManager of Waltair Division ofEast Coast Railway. AKTripathi is an Indian RailwayTraffic Service (IRTS) officer of2011 Indian Civil Servicebatch. Graduated in Electricalengineering, he worked withSIEMENS and Indian OilCorporation Limited (IOCL)before joining Indian Railways.The present Sr DCM G SuneelKumar has been posted asSenior Divisional OperationsManager (movement) atWaltair Division.

Beginning his career in rail-ways as an AreaManager/Vizag Steel Plant,also worked as an AssistantOperations Manager followedby Divisional OperationsManager in Waltair Division.He has vast knowledge in traf-fic commercial, operations andpublic relations, who workedin various capacities in EastCoast Railway.

His contribution in improv-ing traffic operations asDivisional OperationsManager and as SeniorDivisional CommercialManager in Khurda RoadDivision was remarkable. Priorto assuming the charge asSenior Divisional CommercialManager, Waltair, he was ChiefPublic Relations Officer ofEast Coast Railway.

Govt to charge passengers higheraviation security fee from Sept 1 PNS n NEW DELHI

The Civil Aviation Ministryhas decided to charge higheraviation security fee (ASF) fromdomestic as well as internation-al passengers from September1, senior government officialssaid on Thursday.

Making the air travel slight-ly costlier, the officials said theASF for domestic flyers will beincreased to Rs 160 from Rs 150starting next month, and inter-national passengers will pay 5.2USD instead of 4.85 USD as theASF from September 1.

Airlines collect the ASF frompassengers when they booktheir tickets and then give it tothe government. The ASF isused to fund the securityarrangement at airports acrossthe country.

The ministry had increasedthe ASF last year too.

On June 7, 2019, the ministrysaid domestic passengers wouldbe charged Rs 150 instead of Rs130 as the ASF and internation-al passengers would be charged4.85 USD instead of USD 3.25

as the ASF from July 1, 2019.The aviation sector has been

significantly impacted due tothe travel restrictions imposedin India and other countries inview of the coronavirus pan-demic.

All airlines in India have

taken cost-cutting measuressuch as pay cuts, leave-without-pay and firings of employees inorder to conserve cash.

After a gap of two monthsdue to the coronavirus-trig-gered lockdown, India resumeddomestic passenger flights onMay 25. However, the averageoccupancy rate in Indiandomestic flights has beenaround just 50-60 per centsince May 25.

Scheduled international pas-senger flights continue toremain suspended in Indiasince March 23 due to the coro-navirus pandemic.

However, special interna-tional flights have been operat-ing with the approval of avia-tion regulator DirectorateGeneral of Civil Aviation(DGCA).

PNS n VIJAYAWADA

The Vijayawada police onThursday announced a cashreward of Rs 1 lakh if anyoneprovides information aboutthe whereabouts of the peopleabsconding in the SwarnaPalace Covid Centre firemishap. The firemishap had killed10 patients andinflicted injuriesto 18 others.

VijayawadaP o l i c eCommissionerB Srinivasulusaid top executivesof the hospital wereabsconding and no oneis cooperating with the inves-tigation process. “We servednotices on the top executivesof the hospital management,including Dr RayapatiMamatha, who is daughter-in-law of TDP four time MPRayapati Sambasiva Rao,” hesaid.

Earlier, three top execu-

tives, including DrKodali RajagopalRao, chief oper-ating officer ofR a m e s hHospital, DrK u r a p a t h i

Sudershan, gen-eral manager, and

P a l l a b o t h uVenkatesh of Ramesh

Hospital, were arrested in con-nection with the fire accidentat Swarna Palace Hotel.

Eight special teams were setup to nab Dr PothineniRamesh Babu and SrinivasRao. Hospital ManagingDirector Dr Ramesh Babualso released a video messagethat the safety aspects at the

hospital were the responsibil-ity of the hotel management asper the MoU between RameshHospital and Swarna PalaceHotel.

He had also filed a petitionin the High Court seekinganticipatory bail. Tollywoodactor Ram Pothineni, who isnephew of Dr Ramesh Babu,had alleged that there is a hugeconspiracy in the investigationof the fire accident at theSwarna Palace on August 9.Ram had alleged that HotelSwarna Palace was initiallylisted as a quarantine centre bythe government, and it waslater converted into a CovidCare Centre by RameshHospitals.

SWARANA PALACE FIRE MISHAP

Rs 1L cash reward for info onwhereabouts of main accused

Eight special teams were set up to nab Dr PothineniRamesh Babu and Srinivas Rao. Hospital ManagingDirector Dr Ramesh Babu also released a videomessage stating that the safety aspects at thehospital were the responsibility of the hotelmanagement as per the MoU between RameshHospital and Swarna Palace Hotel

JNTUannouncestentative TSCET dates PNS n HYDERABAD

Jawaharlal NehruTechnological University,Hyderabad, announced thatthe Telangana StateCommon Entrance Test(TSCET) is tentativelyscheduled to be held onAugust 31. The tests will beconducted in morning andafternoon sessions andthrough online mode onbehalf of Telangana StateCouncil of Higher Education(TSCHE). The exams will beconducted with respect to allthe pandemic guidelines.

The entrance exams arescheduled in 56 test centreswith 52 test centres inTelangana and four test cen-tres Andhra Pradesh. FromTS CET 2020 training andawareness programmes willbe conducted in online modefor the rural candidatesappearing for the exams.Mock tests are made availableon the website for the candi-dates willing to practice.

UoH faculty selectedfor JC Bose fellowshipPNS n HYDERABAD

Prof Dayananda Siddavattam,senior professor at theDepartment of Animal Biology,University of Hyderabad, hasbeen selected for the highlyprestigious JC Bose fellowship byScience and EngineeringResearch Board (SERB),Department of Science andTechnology, Government ofIndia.

The JC Bose fellowship isawarded to active scientists inrecognition of their outstanding

performance. The fellowship isscientist-specific and very selec-tive. The JC Bose fellowship willreceive an amount of Rs 25,000per month and a research grantof Rs 15 lakhs per annum and isprovided initially for a period offive years. The fellowship can beextended beyond five years basedon performance during the firstfive year tenure.

Prof Dayananda’s areas ofresearch include molecularmicrobiology, environmentalmicrobiology and regulation ofgene expression.

Tamil actors,directors prayfor recoveryof singer BaluPNS n CHENNAI

Tamil movie directors andactors, who had gathered topray collectively for thespeedy recovery of notedsinger SPBalasubrahmanyam, popu-larly known as SPB, turnedemotional during a virtualmeeting on Thursday.

The popular singer, whowas admitted to a privatehospital with mildCoronavirus infection a fewdays ago is now on ventila-tor and ECMO support. Thevirtual meeting was called bydirector Bharathiraja towhich several other directors,actors and singers respond-ed.

Bharathiraja turned emo-tional and with a shaky voicewelcomed actor Sathyaraj."It is 50 years friendshipwith Balu. We all belong toone family-movie family. It isthis movie field that provid-ed food for me," Bharathirajasaid.

Actor Sathyaraj, too,turned emotional and saidthat it was SPB, who sang aduet for him after he hadacted as villain in severalmovies.

Singer Chitra, who hassung several songs with SPB,wished him a speedy recov-ery and sang a prayer seek-ing the blessings ofDhanvantri - the God ofMedicine.

VIJAYAWADA | FRIDAY | AUGUST 21, 2020 vijayawada 03

New Tourism Policy should put APon world map, CM tells officialsPNS n AMARAVATI

Chief Minister YS JaganmohanReddy on Thursday made itclear to officials that the thrustof the new Tourism Policyshould be to attract investorsand help the State to find itsdue place on the WorldTourism map.

Chairing a review meetinghere to discuss the draft of theTourism Policy, the ChiefMinister said that the aimshould be to attract investorsfor developing tourist spots andform partnerships with majorcompanies in the hospitalitysector. This, he said would helpAndhra Pradesh find its dueplace on the world Tourismmap.

The Chief Minister suggest-ed that changes should bemade to give priority to thosewho wished to invest intourism in the State. He saidAP should compete with

Rajasthan in the field oftourism and hospitality sector.

“Araku Valley, along with 14other resorts in the State, havethe potential to be developedon par with world famoustourist spots,” the ChiefMinister said. He advised offi-cials to set up a hospitalitymanagement college of global

standards. “This would ensurea promising career and stu-dents would be able to get jobsanywhere,” Jagan said.

The Chief Minister alsolaunched the AP TourismTrade online TradeRegistration portal on theoccasion. He said that themoney invested on AP TDC

properties shouldn’t be mis-used and all the projectsshould be completed withinthe stipulated time. Minister

for Tourism MutamsettiSrinivasa Rao, PrincipalChief Secretary Rajat Bhargavand others were present.

PNS n SRISAILAM

On account of heavy rains inupper reaches of Srisailamproject, there are heavy inflowsinto the project. In all, 10gates of the project were liftedto discharge 2,75,240 cusecs tothe Nagarjunasagar project.

In all, 30,400 cusecs arebeing released through rightbank canal project and 40,259cusecs through the left bankcanal power projects. Theinflows into the project aremeasured as 4.43 lakh cusecs.

The water stored in the pro-ject reads as 883.80 feet asagainst the FRL of 885 feet.The maximum storage capac-ity is put at 215 tmc feet.Currently, the water stored in208 tmc feet. The total quan-tity of water is being dis-charged through Srisailam pro-ject is put at 3,45,899 cusecs.

Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy is likely tovisit Srisailam project on Friday.

Meanwhile, the irrigationauthorities will lift the crestgates of Nagarjunasagar projectat 11 am on Friday by a heightof five feet to discharge waterfrom the project to down-stream projects.

On account of this, the policehave imposed restrictions on thevisitors to the project site.

In view of the Covid-19threat, the Nandikonda munic-ipality adopted a resolutionurging the visitors not to reach

the project site to catch glimpseof the spectacle of water flow-ing out of the project magnif-icently.

Coast Guard adds newvessel to Eastern SeaboardPNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

Coast Guard added anothership to the Eastern Seaboard,Indian Coast Guard Ship C-449, commissioning it onThursday by K Shanmugam,the Chief Secretary of TamilNadu, in Chennai. The newvessel would enhance theefforts towards coastal securi-ty, surveillance and aid to fish-ermen in distress off the EastCoast of India in general andKrishnapatnam, AndhraPradesh coast in particular.

The ship is 49th interceptorboat in the series of indige-nously designed and built byLarsen and Toubro Limited,Hazira (Surat), and is based atKrishnapatnam, AndhraPradesh. The induction of thisship is a part of ongoing effortsby the Coast Guard to strength-en maritime and coastal secu-rity along the Coast.

The ship is 27.80 metreslong, with a displacement of105 tonnes and maximumspeed of 45 knots (85 kmph).It is capable of undertakingmultifarious tasks, includingsurveillance, interdiction,search and rescue, in additionto rendering assistance to boatsand craft in distress at sea.

The vessel is provided withadvanced navigation andcommunication equipmentfor safe navigation. The quickreaction ability coupled withmodern equipment and sys-tems provides her the capa-bility to respond to any mar-itime situation at very shortnotice.

The ship is commanded byAssistant Commandant AshishSharma and post commission-

ing being based atKrishnapatnam under theadministrative and operational

control of the Commander,Coast Guard district head-quarters, Visakhapatnam.

Man beaten todeath by wifePNS n VISAKHAPATNAM

A woman hit her husband,43, to death with an iron rodat their residence at Edatamvillage under Payakaraopetapolice station limits in Vizagdistrict late Wednesday night.The man was found in a poolof blood with injuries on hishead and nose.

The deceased was identi-fied as Gampala Peda VeeraBabu, while the accused isidentified as Gampala Mariya(32). The couple has fourchildren (three sons and onedaughter). Locals are sus-pecting that Mariya hasdeveloped an illicit affairwith a man. Though VeeraBabu had warned her sever-al times, she ignored thewarnings.

On Wednesday night,there was an argumentbetween the wife and hus-band and in a fit of rage,Mariya beaten her husbandVeera Babu to death with aniron-rod. Based on a com-plaint from the deceased’sbrother, police registered acase and investigation is on.

K Shanmugam, the Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu, commissioned Indian CoastGuard Ship C-449 in Chennai on Thursday with social distancing in place amidthe Corona pandemic

n The new vessel wouldenhance the effortstowards coastalsecurity, surveillanceand aid to fishermen indistress off the EastCoast of India in generaland Krishnapatnam,Andhra Pradesh coast,in particular

n The vessel is providedwith advancednavigation andcommunicationequipment for safenavigation. The quickreaction ability coupledwith modernequipment and systemsprovides her thecapability to respond toany maritime situationat very short notice

n The ship is 49th interceptorboat in the series ofindigenously designed andbuilt by Larsen and ToubroLimited, Hazira (Surat), andis based at Krishnapatnam,Andhra Pradesh. Theinduction of this ship is apart of ongoing efforts bythe Coast Guard tostrengthen maritime andcoastal security along theCoast

n The ship is commanded byAssistant CommandantAshish Sharma and postcommissioning being basedat Krishnapatnam under theadministrative andoperational control of theCommander, Coast Guarddistrict headquarters,Visakhapatnam

n The Chief Minister said thatthe aim should be to attractinvestors for developingtourist spots and formpartnerships with majorcompanies in the hospitalitysector at a reviewingmeeting with officials todiscuss the draft of the newTourism Policy

n The Chief Minister suggestedthat changes should bemade to give priority tothose who wished to investin tourism in the State. Hesaid AP should compete withRajasthan in the field oftourism and hospitalitysector

n The Chief Ministersuggested thatchanges should bemade to give priority tothose who wished toinvest in tourism in theState. He said APshould compete withRajasthan in the fieldof tourism andhospitality sector.

n “Araku Valley, alongwith 14 other resortsin the State, have thepotential to bedeveloped on par withworld famous touristspots,” the ChiefMinister said

10 GATES OF SRISAILAM PROJECT LIFTED

Jagan to pay a visit toSrisailam project today

n On account of this, thepolice have imposedrestrictions on thevisitors to the projectsite.

n In view of the Covid-19threat, the Nandikondamunicipality adopted aresolution urging thevisitors not to reachthe project site tocatch glimpse of thespectacle of waterflowing out of theproject magnificently

n The water stored in theproject reads as 883.80feet as against the FRL of885 feet. The maximumstorage capacity is put at215 tmc feet. Currently,the water stored in 208tmc feet. The totalquantity of water is beingdischarged throughSrisailam project is put at3,45,899 cusecs

n Gates of Nagarjunasagarproject to be lifted onFriday

One in fourIndians couldhave beeninfected...

Continued from Page 1

India currently has a total of2.8 million cases, third onlybehind Brazil and the UnitedStates globally, but active patientsare less than a fourth of its totalcaseload, according to healthministry figures. On Wednes-day, the world’s second-mostpopulous country reportedmore than 64,000 new cases ofthe novel coronavirus in a sin-gle day, with more than 1,000deaths in the same period.

AP issuesguidelines forVinayaka Chavithi

Continued from Page 1

“The state government hadearlier permitted the openingof all temples (Endowmentsand Private) for worship.Wherever the temples are open,worship in such places be per-mitted as per the SOP issued bythe Government, duly follow-ing social distancing norms,etc,” the GO added. This orderalso indicates that public pan-dals may not be allowed. A fewdays ago, the AP unit of the BJPhad appealed to the govern-ment to allow public celebra-tions of Ganesh Chaturthi.

HC initiates probeinto tapping ofjudges’ phones

Continued from Page 1

Earlier, J Sravan Kumar,counsel for the petitionersubmitted the affidavit thatincludes details of the policeofficers monitoring the move-ments of judges as sought bythe Division Bench in the ear-lier hearing on Tuesday.

Advocate Sravan Kumaralleged that the ChiefSecretary, DGP and HomeSecretary had given the nodto tap the phones of thejudges in violation of severallaws.

The Judges, therefore,requested Justice (retd.)Raveendran, to makeinquiries and submit his find-ings to the Court.

The Directors of theCentral Bureau ofInvestigation and theIntelligence Bureau have beendirected to depute responsi-ble officers to collect informa-tion relating to the conversa-tion and aid JusticeRaveendran in his inquiry.

Notably, while ordering theinquiry, the Court also reliedon the Supreme Court’s suomotu decision to probewhether sexual harassmentallegations against ChiefJustice of India Ranjan Gogoiwere part of a larger conspir-acy. Justice AK Patnaik hadbeen tasked with the inquiryin that case.

Continued from Page 1

"There were reports fromChina earlier this year aboutrecurrence of the infection, butno further information wasreceived on that and other thanthat there were no reports ofrelapse," said Kulkarni, who hasbeen treating COVID-19patients in Pune.

There have been cases where-in results of RT-PCR test havecome out positive for patientswho have recovered as this testdetects remnants of the deadvirus in the body, Kulkarni said.

Dead articles or remnants ofthe virus are harmless and takeone or two months to get clearedfrom the body, Kulkarni said,

adding that there is no clarity onwhether these tests come outpositive because of re-infectionor due to presence of old rem-nants. Apart from this, percent-age of false negatives and posi-tives is quite high in RT-PCRtests, Kulkarni said.

"Several recovered patientscome for follow-up, but wehave not come across any caseof recurrence with proper symp-toms," Kulkarni said.

Babu, of the ICMR researchtask force, said, "In order toestablish that the virus hasinfected a recovered patientagain, we have to show it in theculture of the virus in the labo-ratory and it requires BSL 3 levellab facilities.”.

No proof of Covid relapse...

Continued from Page 1

While Sawhney has herdetractors — after all, whichofficer in her position doesn’t— everyone grudgingly admitsthat she is one tough cookie todeal with.

Some critics crib that sheimplements whatever therulers want, and that is the keyto her longevity.

This has been a thorn in theflesh of IAS officers, whomurmur under their breaththat they have never comeacross such a bureaucrat intheir career, and had hopedthat she would depart soonafter attainment of age ofsuperannuation.

Their hopes were belied. Infact, her three months exten-sion was about to expire at theend of August, but two monthsago, Chief Minister YSJaganmohan Reddy urged theCentre to extend her service byanother three months. TheCentre obliged, and going bythe alacrity, only too willingly.

There have been instancesof services of many an IASofficer being extended justtwo or three days prior to theirretirement. In case of Sawhney,the first extension was receivedtwo months prior to her actu-al retirement and the second50 days prior to the expiry ofher first extension.

This by itself is unique andno other IAS officer can boastof such a quick decision fromthe Centre.

Senior IAS officials, retiredbureaucrats are scratchingtheir heads unable to fathomat the speed of extension of herservice.

The Centre’s decision is allthe more intriguing toSawhney’s colleagues as NewDelhi had made it clear thatthere would be no extension ofservice for experienced, efficientand sincere IAS officials onretirement. The question thatarose is whether the Centre haschanged its policy as regards theSawhney or is it due to an invis-ible hand behind her.

Sawhney notchesmany firsts in twilight of her career

Continued from Page 1

A doctor working in a cor-porate hospital in BanjaraHills said, “A patient fromNandyal and another fromKurnool have been admittedin our hospital and since twoweeks many patients are com-ing to our hospital for thetreatment. Similarly, patientsare coming fromRajahmundry, Vijayawada andKurnool to take treatment inprivate hospitals”.

Rambabu fromRajahmundry, said, “Webrought our relative fromRajamundry to Hyderabadand got him admitted toContinental Hospital. We triedto get a bed in a couple of pri-vate hospitals in Rajahmundryand Vijayawada but in vain.Since we didn’t want to wasteroaming around there, wemoved him to Hyderabad”.

Some of the patients areeven seeking help of TRS gov-ernment and celebrities whenit comes to billing. A KhajiIshtiyaq said, “We broughtmy mother Rasheeda Begumafter the hospital in AndhraPradesh advised her to takeher to Hyderabad. She is notsuffering from Coronavirusbut she has a serious healthissue. She is in MedicoverHospital near Secretariat inHyderabad. We are seeking

financial assistance to ensureshe recovers”.

Another Vishnu Potlurifrom Andhra Pradesh, said, “Iam suffering fromCoronavirus, pneumonia andadmitted to Apollo Hospitals.Since I am the only earningperson from my family, I amseeking financial assistance ofRs 10 lakhs for treatment”.

A senior official also con-firmed that a lot of criticalpatients are being moved toHyderabad from neighbouringStates. Official said, “Moderateto critical patients fromAndhra Pradesh and a fewfrom border districts ofKarnataka and Maharashtraare coming to Hyderabad fortreatment. Typically, they arecoming through private vehi-cles and many times needingoxygen, or ventilator support.This has been the case always”.

It may be noted that sever-al politicians have also beeninfected with the Coronavirusin Andhra Pradesh, includingAzmath Khan, BalineniSrinivasa Reddy, VijaysaiReddy, Ambati Rambabuamong others took treatmentin various private hospitals inHyderabad. Despite ApolloHospitals having theirbranches in Vijayawada, Vizagand Kurnool, politicians arepicking Hyderabad for Covidtreatment.

AP patients pick Hydfor Covid-19 treatment

Vijayawada bags fourth spotin list of cleanest cities lista

Continued from Page 1

Varanasi, represented byPrime Minister Narendra Modiin Lok Sabha, was adjudged the'Best Ganga Town' in the coun-try, followed by Kanpur,Munger, Prayagraj andHaridwar.

Chhattisgarh was given the'Cleanest State' award in thecategory of states having morethan 100 urban local bodies,followed by Maharashtra andMadhya Pradesh.

The Swachh Survekshanawards 2020 — the fifth annu-al cleanliness survey of thecountry — were announced byUnion Housing and UrbanAffairs Minister Hardeep SinghPuri at a ceremony where 129awards were given in differentcategories.

The survey brochuredescribes the New DelhiMunicipal Council as India'sCleanest National Capital(National or State Capitals/UT). The NDMC comprises a largepart of Rajpath and the VIPzone of Lutyens' Delhi.

A total of 4,242 cities, 62Cantonment Boards and 97Ganga towns were surveyed,and 1.87 crore citizens partic-ipated in the exercise, accord-ing to the government.

Ambikapur in Chhattisgarhhas been ranked the cleanest

city in the category of 1-10 lakhpopulation, followed by Mysorein Karnataka and New DelhiMunicipal area.

The Jalandhar CantonmentBoard has been ranked firstwhile Delhi Cantonment Boardand Meerut CantonmentBoard have grabbed secondand third positions respective-ly.

According to the surveyresults, Jharkhand wasadjudged the 'Cleanest State' inthe category of having lessthan 100 ULBs, followed byHaryana, Uttarakhand, Sikkim,Assam and Himachal Pradesh.

Indore has topped the rank-ing in the cleanest city catego-ry (having more than one lakhpopulation), and is followed bySurat, Navi Mumbai,Vijayawada and Ahmedabad inthat order.

Nasik has been ranked 25th,while Bihar's Patna 47th, NorthDelhi and East Delhi 43rd and46th positions in the cleanestcity category.

In the category of populationof less than 1 lakh,Maharashtra's Karad baggedthe first position, followed bySaswad and Lonavala.

After announcing the results,Puri said, "Swachh Survekshan(cleanliness survey) will contin-ue to help us in sustaining thegains made under Swachh

Bharat Mission-Urban, whileproviding a comprehensiveroadmap to institutionalise theconcept of total swachhataamong all our cities."

Greater Hyderabad has beengiven the 'Best Mega City'award in the category of'Citizen Feedback'.

"Ancient holy town ofVaranasi is rightfully the clean-est town on the banks of riverGanga. Heartiest congratula-tions to PM Shri @naren-dramodi Ji, who represents thecity in Lok Sabha, for hisvisionary leadership which hasinspired the people of the townfor this achievement," Puritweeted.

Chandigarh has been award-ed as 'Best Union Territory inCitizen Feedback', whileGandhi Nagar has been rankedas 'Best State Capital inInnovation and Best Practices'.

Union Housing and UrbanAffairs Secretary DurgaShanker Mishra said thatSwachh Survekshan 2020 hadan overwhelming scale with thesurvey team visiting over58,000 residential and over20,000 commercial areas cov-ering over 64,000 wards in amere 28 days."

Jharkhand's Madhpur NagarParishad has been awarded as'Best City in Citizen Feedback- East Zone'.

Continued from Page 1

The Nagarjunasagar damdownstream was receiving aninflow of 1.69 lakh cusecs tilllate Thursday evening but thelevel may increase by Fridaymorning.

The water flow at Godavarifell to about 43 metres, belowthe warning level of 45.72 m, atBhadrachalam in neighbouringTelangana late Wednesdaynight but the floodwatersgushed in afresh on Thursday,pushing the level closer to thedanger mark at 48.24 m.

According to the Central

Water Commission forecast,the flood flow would touch thedanger level of 48.77 m late onThursday night due to heavy tovery heavy rainfall forecast inthe catchment region.

Andhra Pradesh StateDisaster ManagementAuthority (APSDMA) com-missioner K Kanna Babusounded alert since the Eastand West Godavari districts,where heavy rainfall is forecast-ed, were already impacted bythe floods.

The floodwaters wouldreach the Cotton Barrage viaPolavaram by Friday.

The second warning hasbeen continuing at the CottonBarrage as a discharge of 14lakh cusecs continued.

IMD also warned that thun-derstorms along with lightningand heavy to very heavy rain-fall is likely to occur at isolat-ed places in East and WestGodavari districts.

Tens of villages in East andWest Godavari districts stillremained marooned, thoughthere was some respite with thewater level dwindling. But theprospect of increased floodflow has once again pushedeveryone into a state of alert.

Sources in the State DisasterManagement Authority heresaid the relief camps in the twodistricts were continuing andwould remain so till the floodthreat fully subsides.

The heavy rainfall couldfurther hinder the restorationworks when the people fromthe flood affected mandalswould return back homes fromgovernment shelter houses.About 20 mandals had bornethe brunt of the flood in EGand WG.

So, far the state governmenthas not confirmed any casual-ties due to the flood.

Heavy rains increases flood flow into Godavari

Shekhawat tests positive,Apex Council meeting in doubt

Continued from Page 1

Shekhawat also asked allthose who met him over thecourse of the past one week togo for tests and opt for homeisolation. Once officially con-firmed, it would be the secondpostponement of the Apex

Council meeting, in which theChief Ministers of both theTelugu States — KChandrasekhar Rao and YSJaganmohan Reddy — wouldparticipate. The meeting wasfirst put off from August 5 toAugust 25 after KCR expressedhis inability to participate.

VIJAYAWADA | FRIDAY | AUGUST 21, 2020 04

SHORT READS

Six injured afterautorickshaw falls intoroadside ditch in UPBANDA: Six people wereseriously injured when theautorickshaw in which theywere travelling fell into aroadside ditch in UttarPradesh's Banda district onThursday, police said. Theincident took place nearDataura village in the district,they said. SHO of Baberu policestation Jaishyam Shukla saidthe autorickshaw fell into aroadside ditch while taking aturn. Six passengers sustainedserious injuries in the accident.They have been admitted to thecommunity health centre inBaberu. The condition of threepassengers is critical, he said.The damaged vehicle has beenrecovered, the police said.

Policeman, criminalinjured duringencounter in UP

5 held for kidnappingsix-year-old boyCHHATARPUR (MP): Five menwere arrested on Thursday forallegedly kidnapping a six-year-old boy from MadhyaPradesh's Chhatarpur city anddemanding a ransom of Rs 1crore from his father, policesaid. The boy was abductedfrom Choubey Colony underCivil Lines police station areaon Wednesday, said AnilSharma, inspector general ofpolice (Sagar zone). The boy'sfather Bhaskar Tiwari received aransom call at around 6 pm,during which the accuseddemanded Rs 1 crore for thechild's safe return, he added.Following a probe, the policetraced the boy to a hilly area inNiwari village under GadiMalhara police station area inthe early hours of Thursday, theIG said. The police havearrested Niraj Rai, who workedas a driver for the victim'sfamily, Mahendra Sen, HalkeKushwaha, Kishan Ahirwar andSanju Patel, he said.

SAMBHAL (UP): A policemanand a criminal were injured inan encounter here on Thursdayand a pistol, which was lootedfrom police during an anti-CAAprotest, was also recovered, anofficial said. "On Thursdaymorning, during an encounter,a police jawan and a criminalwere injured. A pistol wasrecovered from the injuredcriminal," Superintendent ofPolice (SP) Yamuna Prasadsaid. "During the probe, it wasfound that the pistol was lootedon December 20 last yearduring an anti-CAA (CitizenshipAmendment Act) protest," hesaid. The SP said that theinjured policeman, Rahul, andthe criminal, Naseem, havebeen hospitalised.

‘Man with vision, was ahead ofhis time': Cong remembers RajivPNS n NEW DELHI

The Congress on Thursday paidrich tributes to former primeminister Rajiv Gandhi on hisbirth anniversary, with RahulGandhi saying his father was aman with a tremendous visionand was far ahead of his time.

Taking to social media andusing the hashtag "Remember-ing Rajiv Gandhi", severalCongress leaders hailed RajivGandhi's contribution to nationbuilding and his leadership.

Former Congress chief RahulGandhi visited his father'smemorial, Veer Bhumi, andpaid homage on his 76th birthanniversary in the morning.

Rahul Gandhi described hisfather as a compassionate andloving human being, and aman with tremendous vision,far ahead of his time.

"Rajiv Gandhi was a manwith a tremendous vision, farahead of his times. But aboveall else, he was a compassion-

ate and loving human being. Iam incredibly lucky and proudto have him as my father. Wemiss him today and every day,"Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

Amid rainfall, Rahul Gandhireached Veer Bhumi to payrespects to his father, withparty leaders and Indian YouthCongress activists presentthere. They raised slogans hail-ing the former prime minister.

The birth anniversary of

Rajiv Gandhi on August 20 isobserved as ‘Sadbhavna Divas'(harmony day) by theCongress.

Scores of Congress leadersand party workers marked theoccasion with various eventsand took to social media to hailRajiv Gandhi's contribution tothe country. Videos of messagesby Congress leaders were alsoposted on the party's officialTwitter handle.

Congress' general secretaryin-charge, organisation K CVenugopal said Rajiv Gandhi'sleadership and dreams laid thefoundation for modern India,while Congress' chiefspokesperson RandeepSurjewala hailed the formerprime minister for ushering inthe telecom revolution.

Senior Congress leader and

n LOS ANGELES

Breast milk is not likely to trans-mit COVID-19, according to astudy which found that thenovel coronavirus was unable toreplicate and cause infection inthe breastfed infants.

The study, published onWednesday in the journal JAMA,examined 64 samples of breastmilk collected by a bioreposito-ry from 18 women across the USinfected with severe acute respi-ratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2).

Although one sample testedpositive for viral RNA, subse-quent tests found that the viruswas unable to replicate, andthus unable to cause infectionin the breastfed infants, theresearchers said.

"Detection of viral RNA doesnot equate to infection. It has togrow and multiply in order tobe infectious and we did notfind that in any of our samples,"said Christina Chambers, co-principal investigator of thestudy, and a professor at the

University of California (UC)San Diego School of Medicine.

"Our findings suggest breastmilk itself is not likely a sourceof infection for the infant,"Chambers said.

The current recommenda-tions to prevent transmissionwhile breastfeeding are handhygiene and sterilizing pump-ing equipment after each use.

"In the absence of data, somewomen infected with SARS-CoV-2 have chosen to just notbreastfeed at all," said GraceAldrovandi from UC LosAngeles.

"We hope our results and

future studies will give womenthe reassurance needed forthem to breastfeed. Humanmilk provides invaluable ben-efits to mom and baby,"Aldrovandi said.

Early breastfeeding is associ-ated with a reduced risk of sud-den infant death syndrome andobesity in children, as well asimproved immune health andperformance on intelligencetests, the researchers said.

In mothers, breastfeedinghas been associated with lowerrisks for breast and ovarian can-cer, cardiovascular disease andtype 2 diabetes, they said.

Covid may not spread to infantsthrough breast milk: Study

Punjab CMrecalls RajivGandhi’s servicesCHANDIGARH:Punjab ChiefMinisterAmarinder Singhon Thursdayremembered formerprime minister Rajiv Gandhi onhis birth anniversary, saying hisdream of a modern Indiapropelled the rising aspirationsof all Indians. "Rememberingformer Prime Minister RajivGandhi Ji on his 76th birth anni-versary. His dream of a modernIndia propelled the rising aspira-tions of all Indians. Let us reme-mber him today with the prom-ise of translating his vision into ashared reality,” Singh said in atweet. Born on this day in 1944,Gandhi served as prime ministerbetween 1984 and 1989.

Aspiring UK medical students in limbon LONDON

Chris Byrne and Khadijah EOlonade worked hard to getinto medical school, but thecomputer said no.

The teenagers are amongthousands of graduating highschool students scrambling forspots at British universitiesfollowing the government'sdisastrous decision to awardfinal grades using an algo-rithm.

The process was intended toreplace exams cancelledbecause of the coronaviruspandemic, but unfairly loweredthe marks of many students —and froze them out of theirchosen schools.

While the programme wasditched after an outcry, andaffected students had theirgrades raised, universities andfamilies are still picking up thepieces.

Many 18-year-olds don'tknow if they will be attendingcollege in the fall. Aspiringdoctors are particularly inlimbo because the hands-ontraining medical schools pro-vide means the number ofslots can't easily be expanded

to accommodate those turnedaway by the algorithm debacle.

“I'm stuck waiting,” Byrnesaid. “There has been no wordabout if there's going to beenough medicine places for meto get in this year. There's justa lot of uncertainty aboutwhat's going to happen.”

COVID-19 has upendedmany aspects of life, includingthe complex admissions systemfor higher education in Britain.Universities offer final-yearhigh school students placesbased on grades predicted by

their teachers, but admission iscontingent on the results offinal exams, known as ALevels.

This year, with schools large-ly shut since March and noexams, education authorities inEngland attempted to to stan-dardize results by running stu-dents' teacher-predicted gradesthrough an algorithm thatcompared them with theirschools' past performance.

High-achieving students atunder-performing schools,many in deprived areas, ended

up with their marks downgrad-ed, while students at above-average schools kept their pre-dicted grades.

Amid anger from students,parents and educators, andgrowing unease withinBritain's governingConservative Party, the govern-ment backed down this weekand said students who weredowngraded could get theirpredicted grades.

That brought relief but hasn'tended the uncertainty, becausesome students who now have thegrades they needed to go to theuniversities they applied to havebeen told the courses they hopedto take are full.

n WASHINGTON

Kamala Harris's sister, step-daughter and her niece onWednesday introduced her asthe Democratic vice presi-dential nominee during theparty's virtual convention.

Harris, 55, scripted histo-ry on Wednesday by becom-ing the first Black and Indiandescent individual to be nom-inated as a vice-presidentialcandidate of a major politicalparty.

A biographical montagefor Harris' family life wasjointly presented by her sis-ter, Maya Harris, her nieceMeena Harris and her step-daughter Ella Emhoff, whocalled her “Momala, theworld's greatest stepmom.”

“Growing up, heaven helpthe poor kid that picked on me,”said Maya, as the montageshowed photos of the Harrissisters as young girls raised pri-marily by their immigrantmother from India, ShyamalaGopalan Harris.

Gopalan married DonaldHarris, an economist fromJamaica. The pair separatedwhen Kamala was 5.

Meena Harris praisedKamala as a strong, “fierce”

role model for her own twodaughters.

“I love you, I admire you, Iam so proud of you, and eventhough Mommy's not here tosee her first daughter to stepinto history,” Maya Harris said.

The stage for the historicconvention night was set byformer US president BarackObama, who was the firstnon-White president of thecountry from January 2009 toJanuary 2017.

Kamala’s sister, step-daughter, deliverspeeches to nominate her as VP

PNS n MUMBAI

The Bombay High Court onThursday granted bail toDHFL promoters KapilWadhawan and DheerajWadhawan, accused of moneylaundering by the EnforcementDirectorate in the multi-croreYes Bank fraud case, sayingmandatory default bail is thesequel to non-filing of chargesheet.

The brothers, however, willremain in jail as they have alsobeen booked by the CentralBureau of Investigation (CBI)in the same case.

Justice Bharati Dangregranted them bail as theEnforcement Directorate (ED)failed to file its charge sheet inthe case within the stipulated60-day period.

The court noted that there

is a period prescribed in lawfor filing of the charge sheet,and an accused cannot bekept in custody even for a dayafter that stipulated time andthey have the right to defaultbail. "Mandatory default bail isa sequel to non-filing of thecharge sheet, Justice Dangresaid in the order, and directedthe duo to furnish a surety ofRs one lakh each and surren-der their passports.

An accused can seek defaultbail if the investigating agencyfails to file charge sheet againsthim or her in the case withinthe period prescribed undersection 167 of the CriminalProcedure Code.

Additional Solicitor GeneralAnil Singh, appearing for ED,sought the court to stay itsorder for two weeks so that theagency could appeal in theSupreme Court.

HC grants bail to Wadhawanbrothers in Yes Bank fraud case

n WASHINGTON

Blasting Donald Trump for hisfailed leadership, Indian-originDemocratic vice presidentialnominee Kamala Harris hascalled him a “President whoturns tragedies into politicalweapons”. Harris, 55, scripted his-tory on Wednesday by becom-ing the first Black and Indiandescent individual to be nomi-nated as a vice-presidential can-didate of a major political party.

“Donald Trump's failure ofleadership has cost lives andlivelihoods,” Harris said in heracceptance speech before virtu-al Democratic NationalConvention.

Last week, she was picked byJoe Biden, the presidential nom-inee of the Democratic party ashis running mate. Biden willdeliver his acceptance speechThursday night.

“We must elect a presidentwho will bring something differ-

ent, something better, and do theimportant work. A presidentwho will bring all of us togeth-er—Black, White, Latino, Asian,Indigenous—to achieve thefuture we collectively want,”Harris said, making a passionateplea before Americans to votethem to power in the Novemberpresidential elections.

“We must elect Joe Biden. Iknew Joe as Vice President. I

knew Joe on the campaign trail.But I first got to know Joe as thefather of my friend,” she said.

Alleging that right now, the UShas “a president who turns ourtragedies into political weapons,”Harris said that Biden will be apresident who turns our chal-lenges into purpose.

“Joe will bring us together tobuild an economy that doesn'tleave anyone behind. Where a

good-paying job is the floor, notthe ceiling. Joe will bring ustogether to end this pandemicand make sure that we are pre-pared for the next one,” she said.

“Joe will bring us together tosquarely face and dismantleracial injustice, furthering thework of generations. Joe and Ibelieve that we can build thatBeloved Community, one that isstrong and decent, just and kind.One in which we all can see our-selves,” Harris said.

Harris - the daughter of immi-grants from India and Jamaica -pledged that she and Bidenwould revive the country frac-tured by the coronavirus pan-demic and racial tension.

“And while this virus touchesus all, let's be honest, it is not anequal opportunity offender.Black, Latino and Indigenouspeople are suffering and dyingdisproportionately. This is not acoincidence. It is the effect ofstructural racism,” she said.

PNS n NEW DELHI

To give a boost to a global ini-tiative on clean energy innova-tions, the Department of Scienceand Technology (DST) has invit-ed proposals from Indians forresearch in the area of carboncapture, utilisation, and storage(CCUS), according to a state-ment on Thursday. CCUS is oneof the identified innovation chal-lenges in the Mission Innovation(MI) programme, a global initia-tive of 24 countries and theEuropean Union, to acceleratethe global clean energy innova-tion. The DST has already fund-ed 19 research and developmentprojects in the area of CCUSunder the MI umbrella, partner-ing with 13 MI countries.

"The DST has invited propos-

als from Indian researchers in thearea of CCUS under Accelera-ting CCUS Technologies (ACT)in collaboration with other ACTmember countries. This is an ini-tiative to facilitate the emergenceof CO2 Capture, Utilisation,and Storage (CCUS) via transla-tional funding of projects aimedat accelerating and maturingCCUS technology through tar-geted innovation and researchactivities,” the statement said.

DST invites proposals forresearch in area of carboncapture, utilisation, storage

No decision onbanning ‘certainorganisations'PNS n BENGALURU

The Karnataka government onThursday did not take anydecision to initiate a processbanning 'certain organisations'which were allegedly behindthe violence in Bengaluru onAugust 11 night."We had a detailed discussion

but we did not take any con-crete decision because till nowas of now we dont have anyreport and closed the matteronly after discussing it,"Karnataka Law andParliamentary Affairs MinisterJ C Madhuswamy told reportersafter a cabinet meeting.

Madhuswamy said the min-isters discussed the matterelaborately but there was nodecision as such on it.

He added that a final callwill be taken only after "gettingreports."

"After getting the reports,the government will certainlyinitiate action. If needed, wedont mind even amending

the existing law," the law min-ister said.

There was a growing clam-our to ban the SocialDemocratic Party of India,which the right wing groupsallege were behind the violencein Bengaluru in which threepeople were killed in police fir-ing on August 11 night.

Home Minister BasavarajBommai had said on August13 that as per the informationgathered and video footage,the role of SDPI behind themob violence had come tolight and investigation will godeep into it.

Medical officerheld for killingwoman doctorPNS n AGRA (UP)

A medical of f icer wasarrested f rom UttarPradesh's Jalaun district forallegedly killing a 26-year-old woman doctor of the SN Medical College in Agra,officials said on Thursday.

Yogita Gautam's bodywas found with injurymarks along an isolatedroad stretch in Agra'sDauki area on Wednesdaymorning and her identitywas ascertained in theevening, the officials said.

Accused Vivek Tiwari,who was a senior ofGautam at their medicalschool in Moradabad, hadbeen harassing her andallegedly putting pressureon her to marr y him,according to the officials.

‘Mizoram govtviolating MHAdirections’PNS n AIZAWL

The Assam Rif les hasaccused the Mizoram gov-ernment of violating thedirections of the Ministry ofHome Affairs (MHA) byallegedly restricting the"operational movement" ofthe paramilitary force in thestate, a statement said.

The allegation came daysafter a section of mediareported that 15 personnelof the Assam Rifles forcedtheir way through a check gate at Vairengte onthe Mizoram-Assam bor-der by allegedly refusing tocomply with the entry and screening proto-col in place to contain thespread of COVID-19 in thestate.

"Rajiv Gandhi was aman with atremendous vision, farahead of his times.But above all else, hewas a compassionateand loving humanbeing. I am incrediblylucky and proud tohave him as myfather. We miss himtoday and every day,"Rahul Gandhi tweeted

‘Trump's leadership failure has cost lives and livelihoods’

“Growing up, heaven help the poor kidthat picked on me,” said Maya, as themontage showed photos of the Harrissisters as young girls raised primarilyby their immigrant mother from India,Shyamala Gopalan Harris

Australia govtfaces publicbacklash overvirus restrictionsn MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)

Australia's coronavirus hotspot of Victoria state hasbacked down in the face of apublic backlash against adecree that barred residentsof Melbourne from taking ashort drive to get to an exer-cise place.

The Victoria governmentsaid late Wednesday that res-idents of Australia's second-largest city can now drive upto 5 kilometers (3 miles)from their homes to exercise.

Those who have been finedfor doing that since lockdownrestrictions were increasedthis month can apply topolice to have their casesreviewed.

“I'm stuck waiting,”

Byrne said. “There has

been no word about if

there's going to be

enough medicine

places for me to get in

this year. There's just

a lot of uncertainty

about what's going to

happen.”

VIJAYAWADA | FRIDAY | AUGUST 21, 2020 nation 05

SHORT READS

Bedi wants centralexperts to overseeCovid managementPUDUCHERRY: LieutenantGovernor of Puducherry KiranBedi on Thursday requested theCentre to depute an expert teamto oversee the management ofCOVID-19 in the Union Territory."The management of thepandemic situation in UnionTerritory requires expertise ofthe Centre. I appeal to theCentral government to urgentlydepute an inspection team toreview the management,includingcomprehensive andoptimum use of existingresources, as people aresuffering," she said. As to whyshe wanted a central team, theformer IPS officer said, "It is myresponsibility as an admini-strator to inform the Centre ofthe situation." Bedi said she had,on August 16, in a letter sent tothe Puducherry Chief Minister VNarayanasamy, who is alsochairman of the territorialDisaster Management Authority,that "We should follow chiefscientist of the World HealthOrganisation SoumyaSwaminathan's advice that thegovernment be advised by asenior team of medical expertsas was the case in the neigh-bouring state of TN did."

Cong councillor held inCPI-M activist murder

Many places in UPlashed by rains

LUCKNOW: Many places ineastern and western UttarPradesh were lashed by rainson Thursday, themeteorological departmentsaid. Thunderstormaccompanied with lightningoccurred at isolated places overstate, it said. Light to moderaterain or thundershowersoccurred at many places overwestern Uttar Pradesh and at afew places over eastern UttarPradesh, the department said.Moderate to severethunderstorms accompaniedwith lightning is very likely tooccur at isolated places overthe state on Friday, the MeTdepartment said. Rain orthundershower is very likely atmany places over eastern UttarPradesh and at a few placesover western Uttar Pradesh onSaturday and Sunday, it said.

KAYAMKULAM: A CongressMunicipal councillor has beenarrrested for allegedly helpingan accused, who stabbed todeath a CPI(M) activist here onAugust 18 night, to escape,police said on Thursday.Kayamkulam resident SiyadTharayil,34, a fish merchant,was attacked by motorcycle-borne assailants who hackedhim to death and injured two ofhis friends. Police said Tharayilwas returning home afterhanding over food to a localquarantine centre when primeaccused Mujeeb and Shafeeq,approached on a motorcycleand hacked him to death. "Wehave arrested a Municipalcouncillor for helping theaccused to escape after thecrime. He also failed to informthe police about the incident.The search is on for the rest ofthe accused," police said.

Space sector reforms not aimedat privatising ISRO: SivanPNS n BENGALURU

The recently announced spacesector reforms are not aimed atprivatisation of Indian SpaceResearch Organisation (ISRO),its Chairman and Secretary in theDepartment of Space, K Sivanasserted on Thursday.

The space agency also statedthat the draft on the proposedspace activity bill is almost finaland it will soon be placed beforethe Union Cabinet for approval."When space sector reforms wereannounced by the governmentthere were many misconcep-tions like it would lead to privati-sation of ISRO. It is not. Againand again I'm repeating it is notthe privatisation of ISRO," Sivansaid. Addressing a webinar on"Unlocking of India's Potential inSpace Sector," he said the wholeaim of reforms is enabling theprivate players to carry out thespace activities which is other-wise being done by ISRO.

"In fact, the activities of ISROare going to increase and ISROwill be able to better utilise itsresources in taking up develop-

mental as well as capacity build-ing activities of the government,rather than the routine produc-tion activity," he added.

The Union Cabinet on June 24approved participation of the pri-vate sector in the entire range ofspace activities, including plan-etary exploration missions.

It had said, the newly-createdIndian National SpacePromotion and AuthorisationCentre (IN-SPACe) will pro-vide a level playing field for pri-vate companies to use Indianspace infrastructure, by hand-holding industries in space activ-

ities through encouraging poli-cies and a friendly regulatoryenvironment.

Also, the New Space IndiaLimited (NSIL), a PSU under theDepartment of Space, willendeavour to re-orient spaceactivities from a "supply driven"model to a "demand driven"model, thereby ensuring opti-mum utilisation of our spaceassets, it had said.

Noting that the space sectorreform introduced by the gov-ernment is going to be a "realgame changer", Sivan said privatesector participation in the space

sector has been increasing world-wide and it is a healthy trend, asit increases diversity.

In India too space sector star-tups are taking developmentalactivities in both launch vehiclesas well as in satellites, he said.

However, there was no mech-anism available in the country toextend technology and infra-structure support to them. Alsothere was no regulatory mecha-nism to control the private sec-tor activities, so an institutionalmechanism has been created aspart of reform.

Record 9.18 lakh covid daily tests,cumulative tests reach 3.26 crPNS n NEW DELHI

With a record 9,18,470 testsbeen being done in a day, thecumulative tests conducted sofar for detection of COVID-19in India have reached 3.26crore even as the national pos-itivity rate has fallen below 8per cent, the Union HealthMinistry said.

With constantly increasingtesting numbers, there has beena commensurate fall in the pos-itivity rate, the ministry said.

"Although higher number oftests will push the positivityrate initially, but as the expe-rience from several states andUTs has amply depicted, it willeventually lower when com-bined with other measuressuch as prompt isolation, effec-tive tracking and timely clini-cal management," it stated.

India for the first time con-ducted a record number of

more than 9 lakh COVID testsin a span of 24-hours onWednesday and it is poised tosee an exponential increasetowards its resolve of testing 10lakh samples daily.

The cumulative tests con-ducted so far for detection ofcoronavirus infection in thecountry has increased to3,26,61,252. Expanded diag-nostic lab network across thecountry and effective mea-sures to facilitate easy testinghave given a substantial boostto the present numbers.

Modi govt destroyedunorganised economy: RahulPNS n RAIPUR

Congress leader Rahul Gandhion Thursday accused theNarendra Modi government ofdecimating the unorganisedeconomy, comprising farm-ers, labourers and small busi-nesses, in the last six years ofits rule, and said that thecountry will not be able to gen-erate jobs in the coming peri-od as a result of that.

Addressing via video confer-encing the foundation stone-laying ceremony of the party'soffices to be built in 22 districtsheadquarters of Chhattisgarh,he said that although the unor-ganised economy generates 90per cent of the country'semployment, the Modi gov-ernment destroyed it throughvarious moves like demoneti-sation and implementation of"wrong GST".

Gandhi stressed the need torestore the balance between theorganised and unorganisedeconomies for the welfare ofthe country.

The event was organisedon the occasion of the birthanniversary of former prime

minister Rajiv Gandhi."India has two kinds of

economies. One is an organ-ised economy, wherein thereare big companies, while theother one is unorganised econ-omy, in which there are farm-ers, labourers, small shop own-ers and millions of poor peo-ple," he said.

"Prime Minister NarendraModi has been attacking theunorganised economy for thelast six years. He did thisbecause this sector has moneyand Modi ji wanted to trans-fer it to big businessmen,"Gandhi alleged.

"Wherever there is aCongress government (in the

states), we work to balance theunorganised and organisedeconomies. The unorganisedeconomy acts as a shockabsorber in adverse situations.

"If the country's unorgan-ised economy is secured andstrong, it can absorb any kindof shock and cope with diffi-cult situations. Our motherand sister keep money at theirhome, because it works as ashock absorber," he added.

"Farmers, labourers, smalland medium business havebeen decimated as a result ofdemonetisation and extreme-ly complex GST decisions bythe Centre," the Congressleader alleged.

PNS n NEW DELHI

After BJP MP Nishikant Dubey,party member RajyavardhanSingh Rathore has shot off a let-ter to the Lok Sabha Speakeragainst Shashi Tharoor forspeaking in public about hisintention to summonFacebook officialswithout discussingthe matter first inthe parliamentarycommittee theCongress leaderheads. "Issuingstatements as to whowould be summonedand what would be theagenda of the meeting isabsolutely uncalled for and isviolative of the procedures of theLok Sabha. The proclivity of theIT committee chairman to speakto media first undermines thefunctioning of the committeemembers and the committeeitself," Rathore told reporters on

Thursday. He is also a member of the

committee which Tharoorheads. He said he has written aletter to Lok Sabha SpeakerOm Birla in this regard.

Rathore, a former Unionminister, said the IT committee

members have no issueon "summoning

whosoever the com-mittee feels needsto be summonedfor the protectionof the rights of cit-izens of our coun-

try" but added thatthe matter should be

discussed in the panelfirst. Following a report in theWall Street Journal whichclaimed that Facebook refusedto apply hate speech rules to cer-tain ruling party politicians,Tharoor had spoken about sum-ming the company's officialsbefore the committee due to the"serious nature" of allegations.

BJP's Rathore writes againstTharoor over Facebook row

Gmail services being restored,clear for all in near future: GooglePNS n NEW DELHI

Google on Thursday said itsGmail service has been restoredfor some users and the outageissue will be resolved for allaffected users "in the nearfuture", hours after the popularemailing service faced a globaldisruption since this morning.

Some users faced issues likeinability to log in, add attach-ments and receive messages,but the company is yet tospecify a reason for the outage.

On Thursday morning, GSuite status dashboard - whichprovides performance infor-mation on various Google ser-vices - said the company wasinvestigating reports of anissue with Gmail.

In its latest update at 1510hours, the company said:"Gmail service has alreadybeen restored for some users,and we expect a resolution for

all users in the near future.Please note this time frame isan estimate and may change".

The company has providedmultiple updates on the mat-ter in the past few hours stat-ing it is investigating the issueand that there is disruption insending e-mails, Meet record-ing, creating files in Drive,posting message in GoogleChat, among others.

While Google did not spec-

ify details around how manyusers were impacted and theirlocations, data fromDownDetector (which pro-vides outage updates on variousonline platforms) showed usersfrom various parts of the globe,including India, were affected.

Users, in various posts onDownDetector, said they werefacing issues around logins,adding attachments andreceiving messages.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Railways Thursday saidaround 29,000-30,000 deathsoccurred due to trespassing andother untoward incidents on itspremises in the past three years,after the Niti Aayog raised ques-tions over its zero fatality claimin the last fiscal.

Railway Board Chairman VKYadav's clarification came daysafter Niti Ayog CEO AmitabhKant took note of the Railways'claim and questioned the relia-bility of the data, pointing outthat over thousands deaths occurin Mumbai suburban sectionevery year. "I would like to drawyour attention to the fact thatmany of these deaths are causedby people falling overboard orfrom the platform on to thetracks. Hence, this should not beexcluded from the purview of

RRSK (Rashtriya RailSanrakshan Kosh). It should beideally recorded officially," thegovernment think tank CEOsaid in a letter to Yadav.

In a press briefing Thursday,Yadav said the Railways keeps arecord of all the deaths that occuron its premises under three sep-arate heads -- consequentialaccidents, trespassing and unto-ward incidents. It is true that con-sequential accidents were indeed

zero in 2019-2020 and so far thisyear as well, he said.

We keep records of deaths dueto trespassing like when peoplecome on the tracks and are runover or people standing on thefootboard of trains or hangingout of trains. In the last threeyears, around 29,000 to 30,000people have lost their lives dueto either trespassing or untowardincidents. This data will be givento Niti Aayog, he said.

PNS n MUMBAI

The Enforcement Directorate(ED) on Thursday recorded thestatement of film maker RumiJaffery in connection with amoney laundering case probelinked to the death of actorSushant Singh Rajput, officialssaid.

They said Jaffery reached thecentral probe agency's office atBallard Estate here around 11:30AM. The director's statement, asper sources, is being recordedwith regard to his reported plansof directing a movie with the lateactor and the finances involvedin this upcoming project.

Jaffery has earlier been ques-tioned by the Mumbai Policewhich is probing the death of theactor under the accidental deathreport (ADR) procedure.

Rajput (34), was found hang-

ing at his home in a Bandra local-ity here on June 14. Early thisweek, the agency had recordedthe statement of Rajput's fatherK K Singh in this case.

The father had on July 25 fileda complaint with the Bihar Policein Patna against Rajput's friendand live-in partner RheaChakraborty, her family mem-bers including mother SandhyaChakraborty and brother

Showik, Rajput's managerSamuel Miranda and ShrutiModi and unknown personsaccusing them of cheating andabetting his son's suicide.

The Bihar police had lodgeda criminal FIR based on the com-plaint. The ED case under thecriminal provisions of thePrevention of Money LaunderingAct (PMLA) has been filed onthe basis of this FIR.

India's Covidrecovery ratenears 74 pcNEW DELHI: Recoveries amongCOVID-19 patients in the coun-try surged to 20,96,664 onThursday, pushing India's reco-very rate to 73.91%, while only0.28 per cent people of 6,86,395active cases are on ventilatorsupport, the Union health mini-stry said. Of the active cases ofcoronavirus infection, 1.92 percent are in ICU and 2.62 percent on oxygen support. Thecountry's case fatality rate hasfurther declined to 1.90 per cent,it said. Recovery of 20,96,664patients has been made possiblebecause of effective implemen-tation of the policy of testingaggressively, trackingcomprehensively and treatingefficiently, the ministry said.

ED records statement of director RumiJaffery in Sushant death PMLA case

Railways says 29K-30K died due totrespassing, untoward incidents' in 3 yrs

Delhi Policehead constablearrested forkilling manPNS n NEW DELHI

A head constable of Delhipolice was arrested after he shotdead a 28-year-old man with hisservice pistol on Thursdaymorning following a quarrelbetween them, officials said.Surender (47), posted atShahbad Dairy police station,has been dismissed from servicefollowing the incident, theysaid. The incident took placenear a hotel in Budh Vihar areaon Thursday morning, whenSurender was returning homeafter finishing his night shift,police said. The head constablewas coming back in a car alongwith another man namedDeepak Gehlawat, who runs agym in southwest Delhi'sDwarka Mor, police said.

Naidu bats for representationof women in legislaturePNS n NEW DELHI

Vice President M VenkaiahNaidu on Thursday pitched foradequate reservation forwomen in Parliament andstate legislatures and urged allpolitical parties to arrive at anearly consensus on the issue.

He said the country'sprogress will be hampered ifwomen are not empoweredpolitically.

Naidu also expressed con-cern over reports of neglectand abuse of the elderly, say-ing the "completely unaccept-able trend" must be checkedand noted that it is the sacredduty of the children to takecare of the aged members oftheir families.

"We must also ensure ade-quate reservation for womenin Parliament and all state leg-islatures and I urge all politi-cal parties to arrive at a con-sensus at the earliest on this

important issue. An official statement said

the vice president observedthat it was "unfortunate" thatthe proposal was pending fora long time.

He made these remarkswhile releasing reports on'Status of Sex Ratio at Birth inIndia', and 'Elderly Populationin India: Status and SupportSystems', brought out by theIndian Association ofParliamentarians for Populationand Development.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The mutant form of the novelcoronavirus reported fromMalaysia as being “10 timesmore infectious” is not a concernfor India as it is widely prevalenthere and isn't any more virulentthan the strain originating inWuhan, say scientists.

The D614G strain of the viruswas discovered in Malaysia froma cluster, including a restaurantowner returning from India, thecountry's Director General ofHealth said in a Facebook postthis week. His assertion that itwas "found to be 10 times moreinfectious and is easily spread byan individual super spreader" cre-ated a flutter but scientists heredispelled fears and said there isnothing to worry about.

According to virologistUpasana Ray, the mutation mayhave just been reported inMalaysia but is not new for the

world. "We saw it happening inApril and it eventually dominat-ed many countries. It is new forMalaysia but is not a new muta-tion," the senior scientist atKolkata's CSIR-Indian Institute ofChemical Biology said.

While some reports claim themutation is capable of enhancingthe infectivity of the virus, this isnot well established and also doesnot necessarily indicate more vir-ulence or harmfulness of the dis-

ease. Ray said even a highly infec-tious and transmissible variant ofthe virus might actually have alesser ability to cause disease inhumans.

In July, a study in the journalCell by scientists, including BetteKorber from the Los AlamosNational Laboratory in the US,noted that a variant of the novelcoronavirus, dubbed 'D614G',can infect more lab-grown cellsthan other strains.

The study said this mutant --in which a molecule ‘asparticacid' (denoted as D) is replacedby another building block‘glycine' (G) -- had quickly takenover as the dominant strainacross the world soon after it firstappeared, and grew more rapid-ly in lab-grown cells. This muta-tion is part of the spike proteinthat the novel coronavirus usesto enter host cells.

The strain with the D614Gmutation, dubbed the 'G clade',became widely prevalent in Indiaeven as far back as April, agreedKumar Somasundaram, profes-sor of Microbiology and CellBiology at the Indian Institute ofScience (IISc) Bangalore.

The ‘G clade”, or variant, cur-rently makes up about 70-75 percent of the cases in India, he said.

In June, Somasundaram'steam published a study in thejournal Current Science,analysing hundreds of samples ofthe virus in India.

"Back in April, if 100 patientsamples were analysed in India,40-50 per cent of them had theG clade virus. If you look at thoseanalysed in June, almost 95 percent are G clade… cumulative-ly if you add up all the samplesthat have been analysed over themonths, the G clade makes up70-75 per cent of the cases inIndia," he explained.

Scientists dispel coronavirus mutation fears,say ‘Malaysia strain' no cause for concern

"We saw it happening

in April and it eventu-

ally dominated many

countries. It is new

for Malaysia but is

not a new mutation,"

the senior scientist at

Kolkata's CSIR-Indian

Institute of Chemical

Biology said

"In fact, the activitiesof ISRO are going toincrease and ISRO willbe able to betterutilise its resources intaking up develop-mental as well ascapacity building acti-vities of the govern-ment, rather than theroutine productionactivity," he added

Who wantsKhalistan? Thenative Indian Sikhcommunity inPunjab has

absolutely no interest to discuss thesubject even in routine life. The Sikhdiaspora, attached with the main-land, too, has no interest in this issue.But some disgruntled groups,prompted by foreign funding, arerunning a futile campaign to raisethe subject without any supportfrom credible places. And a misguid-ed section of the Sikh diaspora hasplanned an unofficial vote on state-hood in 2020. The Sikh communi-ty in India is the most progressiveand prosperous one in the country.Its members have proudly represent-ed high offices — that of thePresident and the Prime Minister,the Army General, top bureaucrats,technocrats and State heads.Independent India, which com-prises 80 per cent Hindus, hasshowered tremendous love andrespect to the two per cent Sikhcommunity residing here. It can bea unique case to study anywhere inthe world wherein an overwhelm-ing majority of the population hasvoluntarily offered respect and posi-tion to the almost dismal-sizedminority.

Of course, there are differencesof opinion and governance disputeswithin the family but the two com-munities have integrated wellenough to be bifurcated by vestedforeign interests. A desperatePakistan, led by the Inter-ServicesIntelligence (ISI), has put much atstake to abet the Khalistan move-ment since Operation Blue Star.There are Western interest groups,too, that are based in the US,Canada and the UK, which areputting in lopsided efforts to flamethe fire so as to keep our progressin check. At the same time, they arekeeping the Indian Government ingood humour to balance a newemerging world order.

Lately, even the once sympathet-ic countries have decided to comeup with a clear policy of not support-ing Khalistan. Canada rejected it,saying, “Canada respects the sover-eignty, unity and territorial integri-ty of India and the Government ofCanada will not recognise thePunjab 2020 Referendum.” PunjabChief Minister Captain AmarinderSingh said that the categorical standtaken by the Justin TrudeauGovernment on this issue is exem-plary. He hoped that other nationsand Governments, too, would comeout against the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ),a US-based group, which wasbanned by India as a terroristorganisation last July. It has been

involved in recent anti-Indiaprotests in the US, the UK andCanada, which have been indi-rectly sponsored by Pakistaniagencies. Singh warned that fail-ing to oppose the separatist SFJcould set a dangerous precedentfor any country; this could beseen as a covert support to anorganisation that freely propa-gates secessionist activities.

Weeks ahead of the formalopening of the KartarpurCorridor between India andPakistan in 2019, New Delhi hadshared a 23-page dossier aboutKhalistani anti-India propagan-da led by Gopal Singh Chawla.An asset of the Pakistani intelli-gence agency, Chawla is the for-mer general secretary of thePakistan Sikh GurudwaraPrabhandhak Committee andpresident of the Punjabi SikhSangat. He is a well-knownKhalistan proponent, who oftenspews venom against India in hisspeeches and supports terrorismin Punjab.

In October 2018, in a tele-phonic interview, Chawla hadconfessed to having knowledge ofthe role of the Khalistanis in thekilling of RSS leaders in Punjab.“The killing of the RSS leaderswill continue in Punjab. RSS lead-ers are our very first target. Wedon’t want any interference of theRSS in our gurdwaras or inPunjab.” On being asked aboutthe support of globally-designat-ed terrorist and chief of the ter-ror group, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba,Hafiz Saeed, Chawla said: “Ihave had relations with HafizSaeed and they continue even

now. Doesn’t mean we operatetogether. Saeed is my ideal per-son. (sic).”

While several ISI chiefs in thepast have been vocal supportersof the Khalistan movement,including former Army GeneralHamid Gul, the Pakistani deepState seems to have nowembarked on the K2 (Kashmirand Khalistan) strategy with anew-found hate and vengeance.A part of this hatred stems fromthe fact that diplomatically,Pakistan has failed to gatherglobal momentum against India.Post the abrogation of Article 370,terror groups in Kashmir havebeen at their weakest in the lastthree decades.

The SFJ argues that Punjabis “currently occupied by India”and vows to organise a non-bind-ing vote — both in Punjab and20 countries where the Sikhdiaspora exists — on an indepen-dent Khalistan. The group hasnot disclosed how it will be ableto organise the vote in India orhow it will establish its represen-tative legitimacy.

In Punjab, the StateGovernment has traditionallybeen dominated by either theCongress or the Shiromani AkaliDal — a conservative, Sikh-majority, pro-autonomy Punjabiparty that is currently not striv-ing for independence, despite thefact that in past times, some of itsleaders and factions had beensecession proponents. NowAmarinder Singh has emerged asthe tallest nationalist leader, whohas the support of the entire Stateand the Indian Sikh communi-

ty. The so-called vote by the SFJ,therefore, remains a non-starterin mainland Punjab.

Secessionists have ignoredcertain historical facts from thePartition in 1947 to 1984. Forthat, we have to revisit Punjab’shistory. In the later part of the15th century, Sikhism had beenproclaimed by Guru Nanak as anew monotheistic religion thatrejected both Hinduism andIslam and rapidly gained follow-ers. Perceiving the growth of theSikhs as a threat, Mughal author-ities began to persecute them.And in 1606 Sikh leader GuruArjan Dev was executed byMughal emperor Jahangir, appar-ently for helping prince Khusrau.

Sikhism split into two move-ments: One led by Guru ArjanDev’s son Guru Hargobind, whobegan to regard his father as amartyr. He became more politi-cal and militaristic and startedorganising armed rebellionsagainst the Mughals. The otherwas led by Guru Arjan Dev’solder brother Prithi Chand, whofocussed on peace and non-vio-lence and rejected uprisings. TheSikhs first raised their weaponsagainst the Mughal empire underGuru Hargobind. The 10th andthe last Guru, Guru GobindSingh, organised Sikhs into a mil-itary sect called the Khalsa in1699 against the Mughal emper-or Aurangzeb. Guru GobindSingh was formally installed asthe leader of the Sikhs at the ageof nine. His four sons died dur-ing his lifetime — two in battleand two executed by the MughalArmy. Unfortunately, Chawla

ignores historical facts. He hasbeen blindfolded to read thescript written by Pakistan anddestabilise India. Likewise, a tinysection of the affluent, well-accomplished but confused Sikhdiaspora leaders are distorting theimage of the community by theiractions and ignoring the historyof the great Khalsa.

The tragedy of the Sikhs isthat they have not found a leaderworthy of carrying forward thelegacy of their illustrious Gurussince Maharaja Ranjit Singh.Present-day leaders have nointellect to understand the histor-ical perspective and current geo-political games where they arebeing used as pawns. We are stilltrying to get over the fallout of themisrepresented leadership ofJarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Nowanother “visionary”, GurpatwantSingh Pannu, wishes to lead theSikhs by carrying forward thelegacy of Bhindranwale. No onehas divided the Sikhs more thanBhindranwale. He has also poi-soned the minds of our youth,who have limited understandingof our faith and history but feelangry due to the attack on theGolden Temple.

It is high time that this dis-gruntled group sheds violenceand anti-India activities. Forwhat its leaders are selling is anillusion. The glorious sacrificemade by the Sikh community fortheir motherland is unparal-leled. The contribution made bythis community towards nation-building remains second to none.

(The writer is Editor-in-Chiefof Opinion Express)

Hopefully, Sushant Singh Rajput will get all the graceand dignity he deserves following his untimelydeath beyond the ruthless politicisation and blame

games that have happened over two months now. Buta young celebrity’s mysterious death has always sparkedconspiracy theories and this one has been no excep-tion. How could a “hero” go in an “un-hero” like man-ner unless foul play was involved? So yes, he deservesa closure and his honour as an actor/social entrepre-neur restored. The Supreme Court has ended the polit-ical and jurisdictional row between the Bihar and theMaharashtra governments and police forces and paved

the way for a CBI probe to clear doubts around his death. For his sake, we need to knowif he indeed committed suicide because of depression, because he couldn’t handle themarginalisation by Bollywood’s incestuous and self-serving royalty or because he wasbattling financial problems. What was initially reported as suicide — and duly confirmedby the autopsy report given by qualified doctors, who are expected to know what they aredoing — quickly turned into a murder conspiracy involving the actor’s family, embezzledmoney, black magic, an allegedly exploitative live-in partner, a political bigwig, Bollywoodmafia and nepotism, insider-outsider debate, a media circus and what not. But above all,this tragedy was weaponised by political parties to settle scores among themselves, usinghis starry aura. What else explains the fact that a TV channel, known to speak for a nation-al party, has been running a 24X7 coverage on the conspiracy theories while blanking outother human concerns? If the “intrepid” channel wanted to expose the plight of strugglerand “outsider” actors in Bollywood, why did it not discuss other suicides by TV actorsafter Sushant’s death? Or were they not viewer-worthy?

For Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who has been roundly criticised for his han-dling of the pandemic and the floods, the case of a “son of the soil” exploited in far awayMumbai couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Since the aam Bihari considersSushant his “hero”, Sushant was iconised as “the pride of Bihar” though none of thesepoliticians are known to have had an association with him. If anyone has any illusionsabout their intent, watch them falling over each other to claim they were the first to pushfor a CBI probe. As for the BJP in Maharashtra, it spares no effort to pull down the ShivSena-led alliance Government on some pretext or the other. In Sushant’s case, its troll armyis playing up an alleged association his girlfriend had with Sena scion Aaditya Thackeray,raking up more falsities than proof. Where is the right to grieve and peace in all this?

The pandemic may have expanded the scope of dig-ital education, helping schools evolve in record time,develop modules of remote learning and keep both

students and teachers involved and invested. But it hasalso showed up flaws that have widened the digital divide,privileging students with amenities and disempoweringthose without it. This would then defeat the very pur-pose of online classrooms as a powerful tool to democ-ratise the knowledge society. A survey by the NationalCouncil of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)has shown that at least 27 per cent students do not haveaccess to smartphones or laptops to attend online class-

es. Another 28 per cent students and parents said power outages and irregular supply ofelectricity were major disruptors. Yet others pointed out significant challenges like poorknowledge in using devices and teachers not being well-versed in online methodologies.What is worrisome is that this survey doesn’t map the challenges in rural India and justincludes students, parents, teachers and principals from Kendriya Vidyalayas, NavodyayaVidyalas and CBSE-affiliated schools. In other words, it roughly covers the urban and semi-urban areas where about a third of the students are currently disadvantaged. So imaginethe fate of students in the countryside. Other findings include students preferring textbooksover e-books, the untapped potential of television and radio in broad-basing the reach ofclassrooms and the lack of enriching debates and discussions between teachers and stu-dents. The most significant finding was about the difficulty in teaching practical sciencesin the online format, those which require lab experiments, and even mathematics, the lat-ter requiring “interaction, continuous support, monitoring from the teacher.” Of course,the interactive participation in a classroom, the competitive spirit of a peer group, the play-ful robustness of physical activities and a participative group culture have been larger unlist-ed casualties. But the key takeaway is the absence of quality access to education for all.

This brings us to the need for empowering every student with affordable infrastruc-ture. Most students in lesser privileged homes or even slums rely on their parents’ devices,mostly mobile phones, for studying. An industry report estimated that 71 million children,aged between five and 11, access the internet on devices of their family members. Patchynetwork issues pose a challenge as many students in slum clusters struggle to find a sig-nal range that would allow them to log in. Even internet connectivity is erratic across thesweep of middle India, making continuous streaming a severe challenge. It is at times likethis one wishes that India had taken full advantage of its Educational Satellite (EduSat).Launched in 2004, it had a life span of seven years but it died out in 2010 before we coulduse even 10 per cent of its capacity. Similarly the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)platform of the Government, known as SWAYAM, and a bouquet of direct to home (DTH)educational channels, all of which cover content from pre-school to doctoral studies, arenot able to fill the gap they were expected to in the present crisis. Although a large num-ber of secondary students are watching Channel 27 and senior secondary students arewatching Channel 28, the viewership is minuscule in comparison to their potential. TheKerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) conducts classes for studentsup to high school, from 8.30 am to 5.30 pm on weekdays. The channel is available freeon cable networks, over the internet and DTH all across the State. And it is downloadable.So this could be a template to follow. Of course, all this would mean nothing if the teach-ers continue to be under-prepared. They are under-equipped not just in handling technol-ogy but in their communication strategies in a disembodied classroom. How do they mon-itor individual students and take care of their emotional quotient? How do they hold theattention of the class when they are muting computer microphones while talking to eachstudent and addressing his/her queries individually? How do they literally hand-hold themthrough, for example, art classes and other demonstration-based lessons? Only a fewinstitutions have the depth of resources to develop interactive apps for their students. Besides,in the absence of a school library, it is up to the teacher to pull out references, some ofwhich do not exist in a standardised format online. For parents, online classes have madean additional time demand in their busy lives, particularly among those who have theirchildren in primary schools. They have now become home facilitators, helping the childwith online processes. But there is a behavioural and social downswing to all of this. Muchof the current tech-based module, which is expected to continue even after the pandem-ic, is further strengthening the child’s dependencies on devices. Also, in the absence ofsocialisation and an organic upbringing, they are losing out on their life skills and connectwith nature. School is the child’s primary sensor of the outside world and this inward-looking, self-learning method may distance him further from his/her kind. Of course, theseisolationist boundaries can be broken when the pandemic ebbs but that doesn’t mean wecan’t make online classes a vibrant virtual reality experience going forward.

Gaps online

Real empowerment

Sir — While it is welcome thatthe Government is consideringincreasing the legal marriageableage of women, it must not be for-gotten that crimes against themhave seen a stupendous rise inrecent times. According to data,a woman was raped every 15minutes in 2018.

These numbers are alarm-ing. My parents, albeit mistaking-ly, feel that if a girl child is mar-ried as early as possible, then shewould not be vulnerable to sex-ual violence and abuse. In fact,such women are more likely toface emotional as well as physi-cal abuse given their vulnerabil-ity. In over 140 countries acrossthe world, the lower age limit forwomen to get married is 18, bywhich time they have not evencompleted their education.Unless women are empoweredand can access all opportunitiesaccorded to men, their conditionwill continue to be the same.

NR RamachandranChennai

Retrograde step

Sir — This refers to the editori-

al, “Locals first” (August 20).That identity-based politics isgaining traction is reflected in theannouncement by MadhyaPradesh Chief Minister Shivraj

Singh Chouhan that allGovernment jobs in the Statewould be given to the locals.Though Chouhan’s statement isbeing seen as a political compul-

sion in the light of the Assemblybypolls in the State, it has creat-ed a controversy and could provecounter-productive. States likeAndhra Pradesh and

Maharashtra, too, have alreadypromised policies to give jobs todomiciles. What theGovernments have to make sureis that there are enough jobsgoing around in the first place.Along with the public sector, theorganised private sector has wit-nessed job losses, pay cuts andmanpower rationalisation inpandemic-hit times. Promisingjobs to the locals is no solutionfor unemployment.

N Sadhasiva ReddyBengaluru

Sorry state of affairs

Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Locals first” (August 20). Thesons of the soil theoryannounced by the MadhyaPradesh Chief Minister will seta dangerous precedent if imple-mented. If every State adopts thiscriterion, then it will lead tosocial disharmony and nationaldisintegration. What is worse isthat the Congress party, too, sup-ports this.

ParthaVia email

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

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op nionVIJAYAWADA | FRIDAY | AUGUST 21, 2020

06

Uniting Sikhs

PRASHANT TEWARI

The tragedy of the community is that it has no leader who can carry forward the legacy of

its Gurus. Followers do not understand historical perspective or geo-political games

The Covid-19 pandemic hashighlighted the importance ofdiversification and resilienceof supply chains as well as therelevance of the concept ofstrategic autonomy.

Foreign Affairs Minister—S Jaishankar

For actors like me, the journeyhas been so miraculous thatwe ourselves can’t believe it.All the films we have been apart of, we’ve struggled veryhard to make it.

Actor—Manoj Bajpayee

He (Obama) spied on mycampaign and got caught.Why did he refuse toendorse slow Joe until it was all over, and even then was very late?

US President—Donald Trump

S O U N D B I T E

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

India will have to reorient its US policy

Senator Kamala Harris’ nomination as the vice-pres-idential candidate of the Democratic Party cameas a bolt out of the blue for US President Donald

Trump. He called her “nasty,” “the meanest” and “dis-respectful.” In a web ad, Trump campaign called her“phony.” A narrator even said, “He (Joe Biden) is hand-ing over the reins to Harris while they jointly embracethe radical Left,” an oft-repeated charge against theDemocrats, now used fiercely against Harris. However,voters are not buying into such pitches as most opin-ion polls suggest it is an uphill task for the incumbentPresident to reduce the wide trust deficit between himand the Democrats.

The ruling dispensation in India, too, is faced withchallenges that are linked to the vice-presidential nom-inee's personality, ideology and affirmations. Born toan Indian mother and a Jamaican father, Harris wasfree to identify herself with the Indian-Americans orAfrican-Americans. She chose to be known as the lat-ter and calls herself a Black woman. A commentatoradded, “In fact, even the non-Black part of her ances-try has been billed more as South Asian than Indianor Hindu.” It is also perceived — a view that is notaltogether unfounded — the “Hinduphobia” in Indiamakes her “Hindu identity a liability” in America. Onthe clampdown in Kashmir, she said, “We have to

remind Kashmiris that they are not alone in the world.We are keeping track of the situation.” This view —more importantly the emphatic assertion that “the needto intervene if the situation demands” — has rattledthe BJP-led Government. Yet, there’s no denying thatHarris will be the inspirational force on India-relatedpolicies in the Biden establishment. The US, underthem, will be quite different and India will now haveto re-orient its strategy and approach to continue tobe heard.

Haridasan RajanKozhikode

Send yyour ffeedback tto:letterstopioneer@gmail.com

For Sushant’s sakeDhoni had this speciality thathe was building the team andhis own performance wasalso world-class. You can seethe players he was creating,they are still No 1.

Pakistani cricketer—Kamran Akmal

A survey by NCERT reveals flaws in digital classrooms that couldbuild inequities in our knowledge society if not addressed now

The CBI probe is expected to end all conspiracy theoriesabout his mysterious death and its politicisation

A bamboo bridge to growth

NO ONE IS INTERESTED IN THE OPINIONS OF SOME

HALF-EDUCATED STARLET WHO DECIDES TO TAKE IT

UPON HERSELF TO GET JUSTICE FOR SUSHANT.

—ACTOR

NASEERUDDIN SHAH

THANK YOU, NASEER JI. I AM USED TO THIS BUT

WOULD YOU SAY THIS TO ME IF I WERE PARKASH

PADUKONE OR ANIL KAPOOR’S DAUGHTER?

—ACTRESS

KANGANA RANAUT

POINTCOUNTERPOINT

Melghat is a forest tract nestled in the Satpurarange in eastern Maharashtra. It is inhab-ited by indigenous people like the Korkus,

Gond and Bhilalas, who are bravely defending theirverdant world against the ravages of modern com-merce. Melghat has been in the news for severalyears for its lethal malnourishment, which had beenclaiming lives of hundreds of children year after year.The social landscape has now bloomed like the sur-rounding lush forest and tribals now enjoy bettersocial indices. The harbinger of this change is thework of an impressive range of social warriors, whohave helped build resilience of local communities.

Sobered by recurring disasters, the people, too,have honed their instincts and have taken chargeof their lives. Among the people who are leadingthis revolution is a home-grown social crusader cou-ple, Sunil and Nirupama Deshpande.

An opportunity arose in the 1990s for theDeshpandes to make social service a calling.Melghat was declared a severe malnutrition zonein 1993, following the death of 500 children, andthe region soon became a challenging arena fordevelopment workers. It was in this sombre envi-ronment that Sunil’s social chromosomes fired hisimagination to do something useful.

That vision had been years in the making. Hewas always stirred by a desire to do more with hislife and that of others. When his enterprising wifeNirupama, herself finely honed in a social mouldand an academically-trained social worker, nudgedhim to follow his heart, Sunil turned his back onhis urban upbringing and decided to pursue his pas-sion: Empowering the tribals.

“Giving up city life was inevitable…not that itwas appreciated by everyone, but my mind wasmade up,” recalls Sunil. The mission resonated withboth of them and germinated their dormant socialseed. The couple picked a remote village, Lavadain Melghat region, as their home and set upon alifelong romance with tribals. They decided to makebamboo the medium of economic regeneration oflocal tribal communities and founded SampoornaBamboo Kendra in 1996. It was followed by an arti-sans’ cooperative, Venu Shilpi Industrial CooperativeSociety, in 1998 with just 15 tribals. The society isthe marketing platform of the bamboo productioncentres, which have now increased to 37 sites acrossthe country. As many as 450 tribal families aredependent on the society for their livelihood.

When I first came in contact with Nirupama,I was heading my bank’s State operations inmicro-finance and she was a frontline campaign-er of the self-help group (SHG) movement inMaharashtra. I realised that the couple’s momentof epiphany was an inevitable milestone. Sunil wasintroduced to bamboo craft by another acclaimedbamboo enthusiast Vinu Kale. The main benefit ofbamboo is its amazing strength and enhanced aes-thetics as compared to wood, metal and steel. Thestructure of bamboo, with its long tubular fibres,densely packed and bonded with starch, gives itamazing durability.

Wherever it is available, bamboo is muchcheaper than higher-grade timber. There are a num-ber of positive attributes of this grassy material. Sinceit has a unique rhizome-dependent system, bam-boo is among the fastest growing and most adapt-able materials on the planet. It can grow up to 24inches in a day or more. Sunil decided to use it tobring prosperity to the tribals. His attempt was topush the possibilities of the material, primarily itsinherent tensile strength, and bring it out of its castof a rudimentary material, the urban conception

of which might be limited to the bambooladders used in construction. He is vig-orously promoting bamboo craftsman-ship by integrating traditional skills withmodern needs, making the craft a vehi-cle of emotional, aesthetic and econom-ic fulfilment. Sunil’s experiment mergestraditional and contemporary creativity.

Tribal areas typically face severaldevelopmental impediments: Small landholdings; low savings and capital forma-tion; limited market access; low levels ofhuman development; paucity of resourceslike skilled labour, reliable power supply,connectivity, transport and a young pop-ulation alienated from farming and otherrural occupations. They need solutionstailored to their needs and contexts. Thecauses of rural distress are manifold andthe root cause is lack of skills and econom-ic opportunity. As a consequence, theyouth is migrating to cities.

Filial piety has been a tenet of tribalvalues, helping to ensure that traditionsare passed down from one generation tothe next. While this sense of familial dutyhas ensured the survival of local tradi-tions, so far it’s not clear if it’s going to beenough. Times are changing and not allyoung people want to take over their par-ents’ old jobs, nor is it easy to attract newpeople to enter these trades. Sunil’s inter-vention has been able to reignite this bondand now the youth is enthusiastically onboard his mission.

Sunil and Nirupama understandthat interventions for regeneration of thetribal economy cannot be played out inthe same way that society perceives thepoor: Desperate citizens who need to berescued by the elite.

“We have to understand the localchallenges to improve their compositelivelihoods,” avers Sunil. According tohim, it takes local entrepreneurs, empow-ered to adapt easily to the nuances of local

culture, to create and drive change sus-tainably on the ground.

The bamboo kendra undertakestraining, research, organisation anddesign development and so far, 5,000 trib-al youth have been trained here. Awhopping 150 items are made here, themost popular being rakhis (wrist bands)and coasters. “We are unable to make fur-niture as the power supply is meagre andmeans of transportation don’t exist.” Thecouple is also focussing on agriculture andplantations. The duo has also taken up aproject for building bamboo bathroomsfor women.

They have established a villageknowledge centre where students aretaught traditional and cultural knowledgeto ensure that they live a successful prac-tical life in co-existence with the environ-ment. No student is awarded a degree ora certificate in this institution, they areonly imparted knowledge and for free.Their skill is their strongest credential forlivelihood employment. Gram Gyanpeethor ‘rural university’ has nine ‘gurukuls’where students learn art and crafts likepottery, stitching, making of bamboo,stone, metal and leather handicrafts.Later, these skills can be used to earn alivelihood.

Sunil is engaging the students at boththe craft and philosophical level. The tra-ditional spirit of creative work in tribalcommunities is rooted in bold experimen-tations, open and limitless interactions,collaborations and dialogues. Sunil hastried to retain this flavour in the knowl-edge systems at his centre.

The artisan is not only a repositoryof a knowledge system that was sustain-able but is also an active participant in itsre-creation. The artistic achievements ofthese craftsmen are contextualised withobjects and art works that encapsulatebamboo’s long-standing appeal. They

also highlight the material’s natural beau-ty and its versatility.

One of the most successful initiativesof the Deshpandes is the concept of eco-friendly bamboo rakhis. Aptly named“Shrushti Bandha” — to signify thehuman bond with nature — these rakhisuse wafer-thin bamboo shavings cutinto stars, triangles, pyramids, and so on,as a base, which is then combined withother locally-sourced decoration mater-ial.

“It is a simple technique that usesordinary tools. Five days of training canget any tribal to produce beautiful rakhis,”says Sunil. The centre has been produc-ing more than one lakh rakhis and ofthis, 50,000 have been exported to the UK,the US, Canada, Australia and Singapore.

“About 450 adivasis work for threemonths, using the simplest of tools andproduce about 50,000 rakhis. Each per-son earns between ̀ 150 and ̀ 500 per daydepending upon the number of rakhisproduced,” says Sunil.

It has been a long, arduous trek forthe Deshpandes, whose small sapling hasgrown into a banyan tree. They haveencountered several challenges but theirdetermination has sustained them and thetribals they work for. In a world wheresocial issues are proliferating and wheregovernments are looking inward insteadof outward, hope comes from social entre-preneurs whose commitment and creativ-ity are driven by a purpose far bigger thantheir own identities.

Most revolutionary solutions wereevolved by people who looked at thefamiliar landscape with fresh eyes andbelieved that expertise was sterile with-out passion. The Deshpandes saw promisewhere others saw hopelessness. That hasmade all the difference.

(The writer is a well-known development professional)

A social warrior couple picked a remote village, Lavada in Melghat, as their home and decided to makebamboo the medium of economic regeneration of local tribal communities. They have not looked back

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

Let’s reimagineurban spaces

KUMARDEEP BANERJEE

Indian cities need to get back their villagearchitecture in urban spaces, stitched togetherwith smart technology and community wisdom

MOIN QAZI

IN A WORLDWHERE SOCIAL

ISSUES AREPROLIFERATING

AND WHEREGOVERNMENTS

ARE LOOKINGINWARD

INSTEAD OFOUTWARD,

HOPE COMESFROM

SOCIALENTREPRENEURS

WHOSECOMMITMENT

AND CREATIVITYARE DRIVEN

BY A PURPOSE FAR BIGGER

THAN THEIR OWN

IDENTITIES

Do you remember the first month of the nationwide lockdown?Besides hoarding rations and essentials and in between end-less Ludo sessions, cooking, cleaning and web series, there

was a moment most families looked forward to in the evenings. Andthat was stepping out on the balcony/terrace and being under anopen sky. Meanwhile, a constant train of humanity could be seentraversing on foot by the side of the road, carrying most of their belong-ings. Starkly different though these two scenarios may be, the onefactor uniting them was the need to find comfort in a space calledhome. Remember, the migrant labourers and everyone else in thecity occupied the same commercial and public space, walked thesame neighbourhood lanes and perhaps rested a bit under the sametrees, before the lockdown. Yet, struck by a pandemic, the only pre-vention for which is social distancing, both longed for their share ofcomfortable spaces. One chose to find it under an open sky, theother by moving out of the concrete jungle to a destination that wouldoffer them their own open space. If humans love to look up (literal-ly and metaphorically) during a crisis, isn’t it time to reimagine/redesignour cities and make them more liveable?

Indian cities are home to nearly 500 million people, out of whichhalf are densely packed in unorganised, shabby, semi-permanentstructures called slums. The stories of their lives captured in filmsand documentaries reveal the unhygienic conditions of common toi-lets, bathrooms, overflowing sewage and safe drinking water issues.It is these visuals of dirty/dingy slums which prevented many of usfrom getting back our house helps, even after the lockdown waslifted. In our hearts we know that no matter how high our fences orpurified the air in our homes, a city resident’s life is hopelesslyenmeshed with that of a slum dweller living in the underbelly.

Therefore, we need to redesign cities beginning from the slums.The Narendra Modi Government has created a new Jal Shakti Ministrywith the stated aim of providing tap water to 18 lakh rural house-holds. While this is commendable and is generating employmentfor many, including many migrant labourers who returned to theirvillages, yet the urban drinking water supply remains mostly out ofthe purview of this scheme. In a city like Delhi, it is dishearteningto see thousands queue up daily on the main roads with contain-ers to collect drinking water from tankers (even though the DelhiGovernment’s tanker scheme has ensured free water for slumdwellers). A similar sight can be seen outside common taps inMumbai or Chennai slums.

Linked to water is the issue of treating urban sewage. Most esti-mates suggest that roughly 50,000 million litres per day (MLD), outof the nearly 62,000 MLD of sewage generated in urban India, landsuntreated in rivers, lakes and other water bodies. It means nearly80 per cent of sewage generated in urban India ends up without anydisinfection or filtration, polluting 75 per cent of our water bodies!Even if we forget about the pandemic and need for cleanliness andinfection-free surroundings, think about the life-threatening substanceswe have been consuming through the fish caught from these watersand the food grown in fields irrigated from these water sources.

It would be good to be reminded at this stage that theGovernment’s commendable efforts since 2014 to make India OpenDefecation Free (ODF) under the Swachh Bharat Mission have yield-ed results. An estimated 60 per cent of India’s population is nowODF and follows basic hand washing hygiene through smart cam-paigns and monetary rewards. To an extent, this has checked thespread of the pandemic. However, the challenge of untreated sewageis urgent and needs to be brought under the same umbrella schemefor clean, healthy cities.

The third aspect of urban planning, which needs to be redesigned,is that related to our work, exercise and recreational spaces. Manyof the readers (now sheltering at home for five months) are crav-ing for access to an office infrastructure, with trustworthy bars, restau-rants and gyms near their houses. Clearly, the commercial spacesor office blocks of tomorrow are unlikely to be pockets of dense ener-gy and vehicular traffic congregation. Urban India’s place to work(as also reflected in global trends of work from home approvals bymajor companies) will and should shift closer to home. This wouldbe a key to deciding which are the next smart cities as the residentswould seek world-class office spaces, healthcare facilities, reputedelementary and secondary-level educational institutions and mostof all, a healthy and clean underbelly within four kilometres of theirdwelling spaces. This is likely to have a major impact on vehicularpollution and urban mobility along with public transport and real estateprices. This shift in city spaces is also likely to be the biggest pushfor the ‘vocal for local’ campaign by Modi as people would like toemploy locals and buy many services generated from householdsin the locality. Indian cities need to get back their village architec-ture in urban spaces, stitched together with smart technology andcommunity wisdom for a new Bharat.

(The writer is a policy analyst)

The pandemic’s impact willremain etched in our collectivememory for ages as virtually all

aspects of human life and develop-ment have been affected by it,including the renewable energy sec-tor. The COVID-19 lockdowns haveensured that renewable energy pro-jects have either stopped or arebehind schedule. For a sector thatwas already fighting for viability ina fossil fuel-driven economy, thecontagion is proving to be a deathknell.

According to a recent report byconsulting firm Bridge to India(BTI), a sharp drop in demand,

accompanied by construction delays,made worse by the poor financialcondition of distribution companies(DISCOMS), has ensured that Indiais now staring at a two to threeGigawatt (GW) loss of capacityaddition this year. These conditionshave been exacerbated by constraintsin debt financing.

The import of this has not beenlost on the Government, whichannounced a `90,000 crore liquidi-ty package in May for the power sec-tor. But unfortunately, the implica-tions for the renewable energy sec-tor are now driven by waning powerdemand in the face of these difficultcircumstances. The stimulus pack-age may prove to be too little and toolate to secure the sector and safe-guard the progress made till date.

Riding on these bleak condi-tions, the BTI has revised the basecapacity addition estimates from 43GW to 35 GW for solar power andfrom 15 GW to 12 GW for windpower. The BTI has also highlight-ed the problems that are rife in the

sector, which is now plagued byshortage of funds and capital, espe-cially debt capital.

Moreover, the financial crisislooming in the distribution business,too, needs urgent addressing if fur-ther deterioration is to be avoided.The cash-strapped DISCOMS are atthe centre of the storm as they areunable to pay renewable power pro-ducers. Analysts suggest that thelosses of DISCOMS may double to$15 billion, further deepening thecash crunch.

This will increase the stress onthe entire system, which is alreadyfacing unequal competition fromfossil fuel-driven power that is eco-nomical and in surplus. As it is entre-preneurs are wary of choosingrenewable power production as asustainable business and the currentconditions are not helping in mak-ing the sector lucrative for securingfuture investments.

According to the estimates of theInternational Energy Agency (IEA),this year was expected to be a record

one for renewable energy, not just forIndia but globally, too. Riding on arather strong performance in 2019,the IEA was expecting a similar runthis year.

In the US for instance, the on-shore wind power generation wasexpected to peak this year, whileChina was poised to witness a rushin completion of solar and windpower projects as the feed-in-tariffs(FITs) were scheduled to be phasedout this year.

India, on the other hand, waspositioned to make critical progressin the process of achieving 175 GWgrowth in wind and power energy by2022. But none of this happened. Infact, the IEA estimated that 2020would witness a three per centgrowth of biofuel production, which,too, did not materialise.

Many of India’s ambitiousrenewable energy targets have asocial welfare theme to them. Theserenewable energy projects not onlymean well for the environment butalso have the potential to be the har-

bingers of good news for margin-alised communities while providinga sustainable alternative to fossilfuels. But all this now seems to be injeopardy unless urgent structuralchanges are envisaged in the renew-able energy sector. These changesmust account for the recession in theeconomy and the fact that people arenot spending money the way theyused to before the pandemic hit analready sluggish economy.

These factors will help in design-ing what could be the toughest andmost complicated chapter in India’stransition from fossil fuels to renew-able energy. Consumer response toelectric vehicles in Delhi, post the lat-est Electric Vehicle Policy, wouldprove to be a big learning curve forthe sector.

One of the major aspects that theGovernment must attend to imme-diately is the availability of labour.This has been impacted severely dueto the migration of labourers to theirhometowns and villages. This has notonly stopped various projects in their

tracks but has also adversely impact-ed the Government’s ‘Make in India’initiative.

The conditions in the renewablepower sector are still evolving andthe impacts are still being identifiedand evaluated. Therefore, it is theright time for the Government toundertake necessary diagnostics onthe sector and carry out urgentremedial measures that can help itback on its feet.

Many experts feel that therenewable energy sector needs morethan just subsidies and other promo-tional measures. The requirementnow is for deep-rooted structuralchanges in the Indian renewableenergy guidelines and strategies.The success of these changes will beevident in future when India is ableto not only put back on track itsrenewable energy targets but is ableto provide people with dependable,viable and sustainable alternative tofossil fuels, too.

(The writer is an environmentaljournalist)

Renewable energy sector powerless post pandemicA drop in demand means that India is now staring at a two to three GW loss of capacity addition

KOTA SRIRAJ

VIJAYAWADA | FRIDAY | AUGUST 21, 2020

www.dailypioneer.com

F O R E I G N E Y E

The US Senate IntelligenceCommittee’s report onRussia’s interference in the2016 election states that theDonald Trump campaign“sought to maximise” theimpact of leaks ofDemocratic documents byWikiLeaks, knowing theRussian military intelligenceagency was behind it. Putinis again seeking to aidTrump in the November polland Trump will welcome anyhelp. (The Washington Posteditorial)

PUTIN WILL HELPTRUMP AGAIN

VIJAYAWADA | FRIDAY | AUGUST 21, 2020 money 08

CAPSULE

Axis Bank launcheshiring initiative ‘Gig-a-Opportunities'NEW DELHI: Axis Bank hasplans to employ nearly 1,000people under its new hiringinitiative 'Gig-a-Opportunities',a model devised to attractskilled talent that can work withthe bank remotely, fromanywhere in the country,according to a companyofficial. This hiring modelcomprises two workingpatterns, first is full-timepermanent job and the secondis based on the duration of aproject. "Our idea is that Gigwould be large jobs. Wewanted to make it as effectiveas a normal job would havebeen for anyone both in termsof being content with the job orwhat people learn from theirjobs...over the next one year,we will add 800-1,000 peopleworking through this modeland that is the minimum I amsaying," Rajesh Dahiya said.

CMA CGM Indiaappoints AtitMahajan as MDNEW DELHI: Shipping andlogistics company CMA CGMGroup on Thursday said it hasappointed charteredaccountant Atit Mahajan as itsnew managing director forIndia operations. CMA CGMstarted its operations in Indiain 1989 and it has a networkof 27 offices. "The CMA CGMGroup, a world leader inshipping and logistics, ispleased to announce theappointment of Atit Mahajanas the new managing directorfor CMA CGM India," thecompany said in a statement.Mahajan has an extensiveindustry experience andstrong leadership abilities inIndian shipping & logisticssectors, it said. Mahajan is aqualified Chartered Accountantwith a qualitative experience of18 years in Strategy, Financeand Cost Managementfunction, the company said.

Banks sanction Rs 1L-crconcessional loans PNS n NEW DELHI

The FinanceMinistry onThursday said bankshave sanctioned overRs 1 lakh crore con-cessional loans toKisan Credit Card(KCC) holders tohelp farmers meetfinancial require-ments during theCOVID-19 crisis.

As on August17, 1.22 croreKCCs have beensanctioned withthe credit limit ofRs 1,02,065 crore,and this will go a longway in reviving the ruraleconomy and accelerating agri-cultural growth, the ministrysaid in a statement.

This reflects an increase of Rs12,255 crore, over Rs 89,810crore sanctioned to 1.1 croreKCC holders as on July 24.

In an effort to buffer the agri-

cultural sector fromthe shock ofCOVID-19, it said,a special saturationdrive is underwayto provide conces-

sional credit tofarmers through

Kisan Credit Card.As part of the Rs 20.97 lakh

crore Aatma Nirbhar BharatPackage, the government inMay had announced the provi-sion of concessional credit of Rs2 lakh crore which is likely tobenefit 2.5 crore farmers,including fishermen and dairyfarmers.

RBI suggests actionplan to promotefinancial educationPNS n NEW DELHI

The Reserve Bank of India(RBI) on Thursday came outwith a '5-Core Actions'approach for promoting finan-cial education, which amongother things include develop-ment of relevant content forschool children and adults,community participation andcollaboration among variousstakeholders.

The 'NationalStrategy forF i n a n c i a lE d u c a t i o n2020-2025'( N S F E ) ,released by theRBI, has sug-gested a multi-s t a k e h o l d e r - l e dapproach for creating a finan-cially aware and empoweredIndia.

The five Cs, outlined by thestrategy paper, are: Content,Capacity, Community,Communication andCollaboration.

Strengthening financialinclusion in the country hasbeen one of the importantdevelopmental agendas ofboth the Government of Indiaand the four financial sectorregulators (RBI, SEBI, IRDAIand PFRDA).

"Financial literacy supportsthe pursuit of financial inclu-sion by empowering the cus-tomers to make informed

choices leading to their finan-cial well-being," according toNSFE.

To achieve the vision of cre-ating a financially aware andempowered India, NSFE haslaid down strategic objectives,like inculcate financial litera-cy concepts among the varioussections of the populationthrough financial education tomake it an important life skill,

and encourage activesavings behaviour.

Among theother strategicobjectives areencouragingparticipation in

financial mar-kets to meet

financial goals andobjectives, developing

credit discipline and encour-age availing credit from formalfinancial institutions as perrequirement, and improvingusage of digital financial ser-vices in a safe and securemanner.

Managing risk at various lifestages through relevant andsuitable insurance cover andplan for old age and retirementthrough coverage of suitablepension products are the otherkey objectives laid down in thedocument.

"Update content of financialeducation in school curricu-lum for students of classes VIto X", said action plan forNSFE (2020-25).

PNS n NEW DELHI

To address the need for skilledworkforce in ports and mar-itime sector, the government isworking on effective imple-mentation of training modules,assessment and certificationprocess of candidates.

The Ministry of SkillDevelopment andEntrepreneurship and theMinistry of Shipping havesigned a Memorandum ofUnderstanding (MoU) onThursday to this effect.

"With this collaboration,ports and maritime sector willwitness the harnessing ofinnate talent imbibed with theskills which will help in deal-

ing with the rapidly changingworld and lead to port led pros-perity," a release said.

The partnership will help ineffective implementation oftraining modules, assessment

and the certification process ofcandidates, with focus onskilling and building qualitymanpower in the shipping sec-tor. The Ministry of SkillDevelopment and

Entrepreneurship will identifyexisting Qualification Packsand develop new QualificationPacks - National OccupationalStandards, aligned with theNational Skills QualificationFramework for various jobroles in the sectors as per theexisting demand of ports andmaritime unit. The collabora-tion will provide a pathway toexisting and retired employeesof institutions under Ministryof Shipping to work as assessoror trainer basis the trainingunder relevant courses.

The Ministry of SkillDevelopment andEntrepreneurship will alsoassist in mobilizing of privatesector and Corporate Social

Responsibility (CSR) fundingfor skill development efforts inthe port and maritime sector.

The MoU was signed in thepresence of Minister for SkillDevelopment andEntrepreneurship MahendraNath Pandey and Minister ofState for Shipping(Independent Charge) andChemicals & FertilizersMansukh Mandaviya.

"Maritime transport is a crit-ical segment that propels theeconomic development of ourcountry. This strategic partner-ship with the Ministry ofShipping is also derived fromthe same motto. It is aimed inthe direction in which our ini-tiatives support our workforce

by skilling them and buildstheir competencies up to glob-al standards," Pandey said.

According to Mandaviya,"the partnership will providebetter prospects to our candi-dates who are committed in thedevelopment of ports and mar-itime sector. Additionally, thiswill open opportunities with-in India and in the internation-al coastal lines for our work-force." Under the partnership,Ministry of Shipping will facil-itate implementation of activ-ities related to skill develop-ment and upgradation not onlythrough its own institutionsand autonomous bodies butalso through the involvementof the private sector.

Robust framework to address need for skilled workforce

PNS n NEW DELHI

Pharma major Cipla onThursday said it is collaborat-ing with its partnerStempeutics Research tolaunch the latter's cell therapyproduct Stempeucel for thetreatment of critical limbischemia (CLI) in India.

The company's partnerStempeutics Research hasreceived regulatory approval bythe Drug Controller General ofIndia (DCGI) for the launch ofStempeucel in India, Ciplaand Stempeutics said in a jointstatement.

The product is indicatedfor the treatment of CLI due toBuerger's disease and athero-

sclerotic peripheral arterialdisease, it added.

"Under the agreementsigned between the two com-panies, Cipla has receivedexclusive rights to market anddistribute the product in Indiaby leveraging its expansivedistribution strengths acrossthe country," the statementsaid.

Developed by Stempeutics

over a period of twelve years,breakthrough treatment isdesigned to address the rootcause of the disease at anaffordable cost, it noted.

The companies, however,did not share any detailsabout the price of the drug.

"Obtaining D CGIapproval for Stempeucel isan important and historicmilestone for Stempeutics. Itis a strong recognition forStempeutics for its sustainedexcellence of scientific andclinical work and under-scores our global leadershipin allogeneic, pooled MSCtechnology," StempeuticsMD & CEO Manohar BNsaid.

Gangwar calls fortotal digitalisationof Labour BureauPNS n NEW DELHI

Union MinisterSantosh KumarGangwar onThursday called fortotal digitalisationof the LabourBureau to expandits outreach.

The ministermade the remarkswhile launching the new logoof the Labour Bureau, a wingof the labour ministry.

Gangwar asked the Bureauto increase its outreach byway of total digitalisation of itsprocesses and use of DataAnalytics & ArtificialIntelligence in its day-to-dayoperations, a labour ministrystatement said.

He further said that toincrease the Bureau's out-reach, more regional officeswill be opened in the country.

The minister also said thecentury-old 44 Labour lawsare being subsumed in fourcodes, out of this the WageCode is already enacted andother three codes on SocialSecurity, Industrial Relations

& Occupational Safety andHealth and WorkingConditions have already beenintroduced in the Lok Sabha.

Once these Codes are enact-ed, India's ranking on 'ease ofdoing business' will go veryhigh and India will be a dreamdestination for investment, headded.

The Labour Bureau shouldcollect data in seamless way forthis necessary provisions inCodes and the rules will beprovided to give statutorypowers to the Bureau, he stat-ed.

The newly launched logorepresents that the LabourBureau is a data-based organi-zation dealing in data relatedto workers and work..

PNS n NEW DELHI

The government is planning tosell part of its stake in IndianRailway Catering and TourismCorp (IRCTC) in the currentfiscal, and has invited bidsfrom merchant bankers formanaging the sale process.

"The GoI intends to disin-vest a part of the paid up equi-ty capital of IRCTC out of itsshareholding through 'Offer forSale (OFS) method of shares bypromoters through the stockexchanges' as per Securitiesand Exchange Board of India(Sebi) Rules and Regulations,"DIPAM said while invitingRequest for Proposal (RFP).

The merchant bankers willhave to submit their bids bySeptember 10.

The government currentlyholds 87.40 per cent stake inIRCTC. To meet Sebi's publicholding norm, the govern-

ment has to lower its stake inthe company to 75 per cent.

Shares of IRCTC closed atRs 1,346.65 apiece on the BSE,down 1.20 per cent over its pre-vious close.

IRCTC, the only entityauthorised by Indian Railwaysto provide catering services torailways, online railway ticketsand packaged drinking water at

railway stations and trains inIndia, was on the stockexchanges in October 2019.The company had raised Rs645 crore through the IPO.

IRCTC OFS will help thegovernment inch forward inmeeting the Rs 2.10 lakhcrore disinvestment target.Of this, Rs 1.20 lakh crorewill come from disinvest-

ment of public sector under-takings and another Rs90,000 crore from stake salein financial institutions.

So far in the current fiscal,the Department ofInvestment and Public AssetManagement (DIPAM) hasnot been able to sell stake inany CPSE as the coronavirusoutbreak has impacted equi-ty markets. However, throughBharat Bond ETF-II, the gov-ernment has garnered sub-scription worth Rs 11,000crore for 'AAA' rated bondsof CPSEs.

DIPAM Secretary TuhinKanta Pandey had last monthsaid restrictions on interna-tional travel due to COVID-19 pandemic have put brakeson strategic disinvestmentof CPSEs, like Air India andBPCL, but completing thetransactions remains a prior-ity of the government.

Govt plans further stakesale in IRCTC, invites bids

Equities tumble amid global selloffas Fed minutes stoke recovery fearsPNS n MUMBAI

The Sensex crashed 394 pointswhile the Nifty closed belowthe 11,350-level on Thursday,in tandem with a global selloffafter the US Federal Reserve'sgloomy economic outlookspooked investors across theworld.

A sharp depreciation in therupee and profit-booking afterthe recent rally furtherweighed on domestic bourses,traders said.

The BSE Sensex, whichopened on the back foot,stayed in the negative territo-ry throughout the session,before closing at 38,220.39,down 394.40 points or 1.02 percent.

On similar lines, the broad-er NSE Nifty slumped 96.20points or 0.84 per cent to fin-ish at 11,312.20.

HDFC was the top laggardin the Sensex pack, shedding2.35 per cent, followed by AxisBank, Bharti Airtel, M&M,Titan, Reliance Industries,ICICI Bank and IndusIndBank. Only five index con-stituents finished with gains -- NTPC, ONGC, PowerGrid,Tata Steel and HCL Tech,spurting as much as 6.87 percent. Global markets reeledafter US Federal Reserves'minutes of its July meetingunderscored the dangers of theCOVID-19 pandemic to theAmerican economy. FederalOpen Market Committee mem-bers said the pandemic poses"considerable risks" to the econom-

ic outlook as well as the financialsystem. "Most sectoral indiceswere in the red, with the bankingindex leading the losses. Investorsare advised to remain cautious

and another round of losses,similar to today, can bring in neg-ativity into the markets," saidVinod Nair, Head of Research atGeojit Financial Services.

Retail inflation for farm,rural workers dropsPNS n NEW DELHI

Retail inflation for farm andrural workers eased to 6.58 percent and 6.53 per cent, respec-tively in July this year onaccount of lower prices ofcertain food items, the labourministry said on Thursday.

Inflation based on CPI-ALand CPI-RL (Consumer PriceIndex-Rural Labourers) stoodat 7.16 per cent and 7 per cent,respectively in June.

Inflation based on foodindex of CPI-AL and CPI-RLrecorded at 7.83 per cent and7.89 per cent, respectively inJuly 2020, according to alabour ministry statement.

Amongst states, the maxi-

mum increase in the con-sumer price index numbers foragricultural labourers wasexperienced by Meghalaya (15points) and for rural labour-ers, it was experienced byJammu & Kashmir andMeghalaya (14 points) main-ly due to rise in the prices ofmilk, meat goat, fish dry, bidi,vegetables and fruits and busfare etc, the statement said.

On the contrary, the maxi-mum decrease in the CPInumbers for agriculturallabourers and rural labourerswas experienced by Tripura (-8 points) and (-5 points),respectively mainly due to fallin the prices of rice, meat goat,fish fresh/dry etc.

PNS n MUMBAI

Domestic equitybenchmark Sensexplunged 394 points onThursday, tracking amassive selloff in glob-al markets after USFed's gloomy econom-ic outlook spookedinvestors across theworld.

The BSE Sensex ended394.40 points or 1.02 per centlower at 38,220.39. The broad-er NSE Nifty slumped 96.20points or 0.84 per cent to11,312.20.

HDFC was the top loser inthe Sensex pack, sheddingover 2 per cent, followed byAxis Bank, Bharti Airtel,M&M, Reliance Industries,ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bankand Titan.

On the other hand, NTPC,ONGC, PowerGrid and TataSteel were the gainers.

The Indian market openedon a negative note followingsubdued Asian markets whichwere impacted by the USFederal Reserve's cautiousview of the economy, US-China tensions and new clus-ters of coronavirus infections,said Narendra Solanki, Head-Equity Research

(Fundamental), Anand Rathi.The Fed's minutes showed

again that policymakers arefinding it difficult to forecastthe path of the economy,which will depend greatly onwhat happens with the coro-navirus.

During the afternoon ses-sion markets briefly attempt-ed to bounce back from day'slows but the strength failed tosustain as profit booking bytraders was seen, he said.

"Traders also remained con-cerned with the World Bank'sreport stating that it is likely toproject a steeper contraction inIndia's economy than the 3.2per cent it had forecast for thecurrent financial year," headded. Bourses in Shanghai,Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoulended with heavy losses.

Stock exchanges in Europealso witnessed robust selling inearly sessions.

Asian shares retreat after Fedminutes bring reality checkTOKYO: Asian sharesslipped Thursday after sobri-ety set in on Wall Street, andthe US Federal Reserve min-utes laid out challenges for theeconomy amid the coron-avirus pandemic.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei225 dropped 1.0 per cent tofinish at 22,880.62. SouthKorea's Kospi plunged 3.8 percent to 2,272.08. Australia'sS&P/ASX 200 fell 0.8 per centto 6,120.00. Hong Kong'sHang Seng lost 1.9 per cent to24,714.19, while the ShanghaiComposite fell 1.1 per cent at3,370.85.

“The latest Fed minuteshad been one to offer a real-ity check for markets, though

with the elevated prices, it hadlikely been an excuse to takesome profit off the table aswell,” said Jingyi Pan, a mar-ket strategist with IG.

“Most notably, Fed minutesfrom the July FOMC meetinghad reflected officials' viewson the pandemic weighingheavily on the economy andposing risks to the medium-term outlook,” she said.

The central bank has beenone of the main pillars prop-ping up the market after itslashed short-term interestrates to their record low andessentially promised to buy asmany bonds as it takes tokeep markets runningsmoothly.

Sensex tanks 394 pointson global selloff

INFOSYS’ SET OF SERVICES TOACCELERATE CLOUD JOURNEYPNS n BENGALURU

IT major Infosys Ltd onThursday launched InfosysCobalt, a set of services,solutions, and plat-forms that it saidacts as a force mul-tiplier for cloud-powered enter-prise transforma-tion.

Infosys Cobalthelps businessesredesign the enterprise andalso build new cloud-first capa-bilities to create seamless expe-riences in public, private andhybrid cloud across PaaS, SaaS,and IaaS landscapes, theBengaluru- headquartered ITcompany said in a statement.

"With Infosys Cobalts com-

munity leverage, enterprisescan rapidly launch solutionsand create business models tomeet changing market needs

while complying with themost stringent global,

regional and industryregulatory and secu-rity standards," itsaid.

Enterprises canleverage the full

potential of the cloudeco system and Infosys

Cobalts community of businessand technology innovators todrive increased business value,the company said.

With Infosys Cobalt, enter-prises can have ready access toa growing portfolio of over 200cloud-first solution blueprints,it said.

Cipla, Stempeutics to launchStempeucel for CLI treatment

Volvo Trucks launchestractor-trailer combinationPNS n NEW DELHI

Volvo Trucks on Thursdayannounced the introduction ofits tractor-trailer combination,specially curated for expresscargo movement in India inpartnership with logistics play-er Delhivery.

Volvo and Delhivery hadtested together to deploy VolvoFM 4x2 tractor trailer long haultruck for express operations,allowing speedy delivery andcost efficiencies of services."Turn-around and efficiency isthe focus in these trucks. TheVolvo FM420 4x2 solution has

a comfortable cabin along witha superior clutch free driveline,that enables effortlessly drivingfor about 20 hours with a set ofdrivers," VE CommercialVehicles MD & CEO VinodAggarwal said. He further saidtelematics, an integral part of thesetrucks, ensures that exhaustivedata is captured, analysed and cor-rection happens throughout thejourney. "The reduced deliverytime helps customers to fulfiltheir business goal of delivery totheir customers in the shortestpossible time, substantiallyreducing order cancellations,"Agarwal said.

n some news that’ll make usHyderabadis proud, NeelakantaBhanu Prakash emerged the fastesthuman calculator in the world! Heis the first Indian to win thecoveted title, yes,

Hyderabad’s very own ShakuntalaDevi.

Barely 20-years-old, thisHyderabad-lad, a graduate inMaths from St Stephen College,Delhi, won the first-ever goldfor India in the MentalCalculation WorldChampionship at MindSports Olympiad inLondon this week. Bhanubeat 30 participants from13 countries including UK,Germany, UAE, France,Greece, Lebanon amongothers, to reach the top inhis very first attempt.

Such a feat is not new forthe mathematical wizardwho, when he was all of 5when enrolled himself forthe SIP Abacus program.He honed his skills enoughto win several titles, breakrecords, and set his sight on

more challenging thingsin the world of

Mathematics. Hehad completed 9 levels of Abacus, a

Grand Masters program offered bySIP Academy until now, and

went on to win theInternational Abacus

Champion'13 andNational Abacus

Champion ‘11 &‘12.

B h a n usays he enjoyspublic speaking, story-telling, and cricket beside his love fornumbers and wants ‘Mathematics to bea sport’!. He loves how several coun-tries have started defining Mathematicsas an Art and not a science. Bhanu,who has 4 world records and 50Limca Book of Records to his credit,says he wants his records to be brokensoon and be challenged. Some of hisworld records include ‘PowerMultiplication Record’ and ‘The SuperSubtraction Record’.

On how he feels beings a math

prodigy, Bhanu says, “Records come and go.I do not like personal pride. I want to builda community of Mathematicians and humancalculators.”

Bhanu has already set up hisstart-up ‘Exploring Infinities (EI)’which is working with the

Government of Telangana and to bet-ter the skills of kids studying inGovernment Schools. He hasreached out and engaged over

10,000 students in the past couple ofyears. “I founded the start-up to boost up children’scognitive development andto popularise mental arith-metic with novel gamesthrough workshops andcourses in schools,” heinforms. Through EI,Bhanu and his teamreached out to differenteducational institutions,trained them in speed andcognitive ability develop-ment by harnessing infinitepotentials of the humanbrain through gamifiedlearning modules onmobile apps. Bhanu hascourses like, “MathWizard” and “Turn on thecomputer in you” whichmakes children pick up

u n i m a g i n a b l espeeds in just amatter of

months ofstructuredbrain train-ing.

Bhanu isalso a 4 times

TEDx Speakerand has been invited

by various global institu-tions in 17 countries to

share and teach “how toamplify human brain’s efficien-

cy” where he shares his secretsand tools that he developed. He reg-

ularly holds workshops, seminars, andtraining for corporates and students on par-allel thinking, partitioning thought analyti-cal and critical thinking. Bhanu says hisbiggest influence is the great Indian mathe-matician Srinivasa Ramanujan and otherancient Indian mathematical geniuses likehim.

Asked what his goals are, he says, “Myvision is to eradicate math phobia through ourschool interventions, student engagement,improve cognitive abilities in students througharithmetic learning, help students explore infi-nite capabilities of the human brain, makemath fun and promote brain games as a struc-tured sport.”

The raw & rustic trend in Tollywood

“There have been stupendous and successful rus-tic films across film industries, which made me focusmore on the realism genre. All my backdrops are asreal as they can be. My recent film that released onaha thrives on urban culture. As a new-age direc-tor, my fascination with raw films has been success-fully demonstrated through my movies. There aretoo many stories to tell about belonging to a smalltown, you just need an eye for it. Take Palasa 1978for instance, it’s a theme-driven film extensively shotin realistic locations, which is why it has beenapplauded for its authentic approach.”

Ecclesiastical responses“I had numerous scripts in my bag but I wanted

to enter the Tollywood film industry with a thrillerso I did. My debut film had a binding screenplay withstrong characterisations and meaningful songs.Despite going through unprecedented times, themovie collected terrific response from all the filmindustries. My favourite being Pa Ranjith garu’sappreciation for my film — a successful directorfamous for his Dalit-centric genres who has also man-aged to bring bold conversations onto the table, hiswords of encouragement filled me with pride.Apart from films like his, I also like how movies likeGangs of Wasseypur were filmed. They’re not weak-hearted but explosive stories in its true cinematicexperience, something that I drew some inspirationfrom.”

Skill of being a new age director“Directing a full-fledged cast is complex yet mul-

tifaceted. You are constantly observing, hinting at big-ger curiosities on set. A movie is an art form, hence,there is no particular route to become a successfulfilm director — everybody has their unique ideasalong with their struggles. I believe in focussing onmy craft, that’s all.”

Characterisation of cast

“It’s all the influence of reality. Actor’s vision, con-fidence, assertions about the art of acting, romanti-cism, etc., come from their real-life experiences andemotions perhaps. It’s commendable that theybehave realistically under imaginary circumstancesensuring consistency of their performances. I havecaptured quality actors who are great at expressing.We are fascinated by the nuances of human natureand that tends to create an artistic craft ultimately.”

Meaningful songs in films“We shot a folk song with actress Nakshatra

that encompasses the traits of accustomed cin-ematic settings to bring familiarity. The cultur-al appeal in every frame of the song gives orig-inality while watching the film on celluloid.”

Strains during ashoot

“The success of a filmproject can be tenuoussometimes, you haveto deal with somecommon on-set prob-lems that might ariseout of nowhere.From managingprops, permits,injuries, as h o r tw i n -

dow of time, inactive commitment of cast to outdoorissues, every film comes with its own uniquemoments of stress. Often, things don’t go as plannedbut as directors, we need to have the ability to impro-vise on the spot and my crew have always been sup-portive of it.”

OTT drama - Metro Kathalu

“It’s an emotional, drama piece of work with a senseof pain. An amalgamation of anthology set out to nar-rate an unpretentious look of the lives of the urbancast. I hope it acclaims a lot of positive reviews.”

OTT v/s Cinema war“OTT isn’t bad news for theatres at all. Both have

their separate privileges, OTT is indeed becominga popular platform but nothing can beat the cine-matic experience of enjoying movies in a theatre.Both mediums, for now, are holding on to their exclu-sivity and serving the same type of content with apurpose having different consumers. Humans are

social animals and they are definitelygoing to come back to hang around

in theatres with family and peers,it’s only a matter of time. OTT andfilms coexist.”

THE NEW, RAW & RUSTICDIRECTOR TO LOOK OUT FOR

Director Karuna Kumar ofPalasa 1978 fame has just

released his latest film titledMetro Kathalu, which isgarnering applause from

Tollywood superstars andfans alike. OTT has its doors

wide open with even inTollywood bringing the

magic of the big-screen ontoyour smartphones. Karuna

Kumar, with films like Palasa

1978 and Metro Kathalu tohis credit, has his fans

awaiting more such authenticfilms. In an exclusive chat

with The Pioneer's SHIKHADUGGAL, the director talks

about his latest anthologythat's based on a book by

Mohammed Khadeer Babu

I had numerous scripts inmy bag but I wanted to enterthe Tollywood film industrywith a thriller so I did. Mydebut film had a bindingscreenplay with strongcharacterisations andmeaningful songs. Despitegoing through unprece-dented times, the moviecollected terrific responsefrom all the film industries.

KARUNA KUMAR

Meena Kumari'slife to be subjectof web series

he life of late leg-endary actress MeenaKumari is set to be thesubject of a new webseries.

Based on AshwiniBhatnagar’s biography of theiconic star, “Mahjabeen As MeenaKumari”, the series is produced byPrabhleen Kaur. Details of castand crew are yet to beannounced. The makers subse-quently plan to make a featurefilm on the subject too, after theweb series.

“It is a dream comes true for me as nothing is more beautiful and larger than lifethan the name Meena Kumari.‘God resides in detailing’ is the mantra that guides us, and a subject of this magnitude warrants research. The bestnames from vintage Hindi filmjournalism have been hired toprovide authentic research. Weintend to start with a web seriesand then move onto a feature film

on the gifted actress for whomthe term ‘Tragedy Queen’ wascoined. We are not in any hurry,”said Kaur.

Meena Kumari is celebrated forher roles in many Bollywood classics including Sahib Bibi AurGhulam, Pakeezah, Mere Apne,Baiju Bawra, Dil Apna Aur PreetParai, Dil Ek Mandir and Kaajal.

Talking on the project, AshwiniBhatnagar said, “I am delightedto collaborate with a productionhouse like Prabhleen’s, which is known for creating pathbreak-ing content. The book is possiblythe first authentic portrayal of thelegendary actress from a neutralviewpoint.”

Meena Kumari died at the age of 39 on March 31, 1972.Thirty-three of those years werededicated to her eventful actingcareer. The web series willencompass all aspects of her car-eer, controversies and comple-xities that shrouded the enigmat-ic persona of the actress.

T

I

Hyderabad boy is World'sfastest human calculator

Barely 20-years-old, Hyderabad-based Bhanu Prakash won thefirst-ever gold for India in the

Mental CalculationWorld

Championshipat Mind Sports

Olympiad inLondon this

week. He tellsus about his

start-up, awards,goals and more...

Records comeand go. I do not likepersonal pride. I want tobuild a community ofMathematicians and humancalculators. I foundedExploring Infinities (EI)start-up to boost upchildren’s cognitivedevelopment and topopularise mentalarithmetic with novelgames through workshopsand courses in schools

FridayAugust 21, 2020

Follow us on

@TheDailyPioneer

facebook.com/dailypioneer

ctor Angelina Jolie hasasked for the judge oversee-ing her divorce proceed-ings with Brad Pitt to beremoved, citing a conflictof interest. The judge,

according to Jolie, has vested finan-cial interests with Pitt’s lawyer.

US Weekly quoted a source assaying that Pitt isn’t pleased withthis, especially after the couple hadbeen on their way to amicablyresolving their years-long custodybattle for their kids. “Brad saysAngelina has gone way too far thistime...He’s left with no other optionbut to dig in and fight back-hard,”the source said.

The couple, who were legallydivorced in 2019, separated in 2016

after more than a decade together.They have six kids. “The individuals

hurt most by Jolie’s transparently tac-tical gambit are the parties’ own chil-dren, who continue to be deprived ofa final resolution to these custodyissues,” Pitt’s lawyers said in a state-ment.

Jolie’s legal team responded in astatement to US, saying, “any delay inthese proceedings is due to [Pitt’steam’s] zealous attempt to create anunrecognized special exception fortheir client’s benefit.” According to aPage Six source, Jolie was “con-cerned that something untowardwas happening” with the pro-ceedingsa n d

therefore decided to look into judgeOuderkirk.

A source close to Jolie explained toVanity Fair, “Angelina’s team was keptin the dark about matters that shouldhave been disclosed. Any attempt tosuggest otherwise is only to distractfrom behaviour that violates the rulesof ethics for judges.” Jolie’s attorneySamantha Bley DeJean added in astatement, “As is set forth in the filing,all my client is asking for is a fair trialbased on facts, with no special favoursextended to either side. The only waylitigants can trust the process is foreveryone involved to ensure that thereis transparency and impartiality.”

uring promotionalactivity of their 2018film Kedarnath,Sushant Singh Rajputand Sara Ali Khanwere in love with each

other, claims Samuel Haokip, afriend of the late actor.

Samuel took to his verifiedInstagram account on Thursday toopen up on the love story betweenthe Kedarnath co-stars, a film thatmarked Sara Ali Khan’s debut inBollywood. He also speculateswhether the Bollywood Mafiaplayed a role in causing theirbreak-up after the release ofSushant’s 2019 release Sonchiriya,which failed at the box office.

“I remember the time duringKedarnath promotions... Sushantand Sara were totally in love...theywere inseparable... So pure andchildlike innocence. They bothhad tremendous respect for eachother which was so rare to seenowadays in relationships,”Samuel wrote in an Instagrampost.

Talking about how muchrespect Sara had for Sushant’s

friends, family and even his staff,Samuel added, “Sara along withSushant head genuine respect foreveryone in Sushant’s life...be itfamily, friends and even staff. Iwonder whether Sara’s decision tobreak up with Sushant right afterSonchiriya’s box office perfor-mance was due to any pressure bythe Bollywood Mafia.”

Commenting on Samuel’s post,Pavitra Rishta director KushalZaveri, who was a close friend ofthe late actor, wrote: “Someonehad to say it! More power to youbro.”

From Samuel’s post andKushal’s comment on the same, itseems the relationship betweenSushant and Sara was not a veryhushed-hushed affair as his

friends, family and staff knewabout it.

Sara had shared an Instagrampost on July 24, the daySushant’s last film DilBechara released.Sharing a photo ofSushant along withher father Saif AliKhan, who has playeda cameo role in thefilm, Sara had writ-ten: “The only twogentleman thathave spoken tome about Sartre, Van Gogh, telescopes and constellations, guitars, theN o r t h e r nlights, cricket,Pink Floyd,Nusrat Saaband actingtechniques.This is to the last thingyou two havein common-#DilBechara.”

10

A source close to Jolieexplained to Vanity Fair,“Angelina’s team was keptin the dark about mattersthat should have beendisclosed. Any attempt tosuggest otherwise is onlyto distract from behaviourthat violates the rules of

ethics for judges”

Vijayawada Friday August 21 2020

SUSHANT, SARA were ‘totally in love' during Kedarnath

promotions: Actor's friend

AD

Angelina Jolie and BradPitt's custody battleturns messy again

The actor's friend alsospeculates whether theBollywood Mafia playeda role in causing theirbreak-up after therelease of Sonchiriya

ctor AmitabhBachchan is preparingto return to work afterrecovering from thecoronavirus recently.Amitabh wrote in his

blog on Wednesday that the shootof Kaun Banega Crorepati isapproaching, and will be conduct-ed with great attention to safety.

He wrote, “Lots of prep andpresentation for the starting ofKBC promo shoots and the KBCitself .. detailed protocol of how itsall going to be done with maxi-mum safety precautions.”Amitabh had worked on KBCduring lockdown, and had dis-missed those who questioned if itwas safe to do so. "So yes Iworked .. got a problem with that.. keep it to yourself then ..damned if you pour it out herein this locked in condition ..sufficient precaution asmuch that could be takenwas taken .. and what hadbeen scheduled for 2 days, wascompleted in one day .. starting

6pm .. ending a short while NOW !!” wrote Amitabh in his blog in May.Amitabh had previously expressed concerns about being able to work in a post-Covid

world, where the government of Maharashtra (in a now overturned decision) had imposedrestrictions on actors above the age of 65 working.

The actor has a diverse slate of films lined up. He will appear in Jhund, Chehre andBrahmastra. He most recently appeared opposite Ayushmann Khurrana in Shoojit Sircar’sGulabo Sitabo, which was released directly on Amazon Prime Video.

Big B to resumeKBC shoot afterrecovering fromCovid-19

A

FUN

Rules

ARCHIE

GARFIELD

SUDOKU

REALITY CHECK SPEED BUMP CROSSWORD

GINGER MEGGS

NANCY

CALVIN AND HOBBES

l Each row and column cancontain each number (1 to 9)exactly once.

l The sum of all numbers inany row or column mustequal 45.

Yesterday’s solution

what’s brewing?

AP n LISBON

The Champions League final willfinally be a meeting of championsagain.

Bayern Munich made sure the titlematch will live up to the competition’sname by beating Lyon 3-0 on Wednesday,setting up a final against Paris Saint-Germain.

It’s the first time in 22 years that thefinal will feature two teams who qualifiedas domestic league champions.

Lyon wasted a couple of early chancesand was then overwhelmed by the clini-cal Bavarian powerhouse, the competition’shighest-scoring team which was comingoff an 8-2 win over Barcelona in the quar-terfinals.

Serge Gnabry netted twice before

Robert Lewandowski added a later head-er, giving that duo a combined 24Champions League goals this season,part of Bayern’s total haul of 42.

PSG as a team only has 25 goals in thecompetition this season.

“We will look to organize our defense,but we know our biggest strength is puttingour opponents under pressure,” Bayerncoach Hansi Flick said.

In 35 games since Flick was promot-ed to manager in November after NikoKovac’s firing, he won 32 of them to steerBayern from fourth place in theBundesliga, to German Cup glory and intoa first continental final since lifting theEuropean Cup in 2013.

Sunday’s game at Benfica’s stadiumwill be the first time since Real Madridfaced Juventus in 1998 that two domestic

champions met in the final.The loss for Lyon, in its first

Champions League semifinal in a decade,cuts out the last route back into Europeancompetitions next season.

After only finishing seventh in the cur-tailed Ligue 1 season and being beaten inthe French League Cup final by PSG, Lyonwill be out of Europe for the first time sincethe 1996-97 season.

Back on the field where it knocked outManchester City on Saturday, Lyon wasmade to pay for the squandering its oppor-tunities to take the lead after finding morespace in the Bayern defense thanBarcelona, which was thrashed 8-2 onFriday.

Memphis Depay hit the side nettingin the fifth minute with only goalkeeperManuel Neuer to beat from a tight angle

and Karl Toko Ekambi hit the right post.“I don’t think we can have any regrets

... Because we had two big chances,” Lyongoalkeeper Anthony Lopes said. “Wecould have been 2-0 up. In these top-levelmatches you pay for not taking yourchances though.”

Just a minute after the post deniedLyon the opener, Gnabry brushed asideseveral challenges as he cut in from theright and powered in a shot into the topcorner in the 18th minute.

“The first couple of minutes we strug-gled a little bit,” he said.

11VIJAYAWADA | FRIDAY | AUGUST 21, 2020

FATI, FERRAN, GARCIA LEAD SPAIN SQUAD Madrid: Barcelona's teenage forward Ansu Fati andnew Manchester City signing Ferran Torres wereamong six debutants in the Spain squad coach LuisEnrique unveiled on Thursday for next month's UEFANations League matches against Germany andUkraine. Real Sociedad midfielder Mikel Merino,Athletic Bilbao goalkeeper Unai Simon and RealMadrid forward Oscar Rodriguez, who spent lastseason on loan with relegated Leganes, were alsoincluded in the 24-man squad.

YOUSUF APPOINTED BATTING COACH FOR HPC Karchi: The Pakistan Cricket Board on Thursdayappointed former skipper Mohammad Yousuf as thebatting coach of its National High Performance Centrein Lahore. Yousuf, who has scored 7,530 Test and9,720 ODI runs in a career spanning from 1998 to2010, will head the list of coaches, which alreadyboasts of Mushtaq Ahmed as the spin bowlingconsultant and will be joined by former wicketkeeperAtiq-uz-Zaman & tear away fast bowler Mohd Zahid.

UU-1177 WWCC PPLLAAYYEERR BBOORRIISS TTEESSTTSS CCOOVVIIDD ++VVEENew Delhi: India's 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup teammember Boris Singh Thangjam on Thursday testedpositive for Covid-19 in a first such case involving anactive footballer. The 20-year-old Boris, who hadplayed as right back in two of India's three matches inthe U-17 World Cup, has been placed underquarantine in Manipur.

OLY CHAMPION AYAKA TAKAHASHI RETIRESTokyo: Japan's Olympic badminton champion AyakaTakahashi will not defend her doubles crown withMisaki Matsutomo at next year's Tokyo Games afterannouncing she will retire at the end of the month.The 30-year old cited the postponement of the TokyoOlympics as one of the reasons for her decision tostep away, saying her body might not hold up foranother year.

THAPA, 9 INDIANS RETAINED BY CHENNAIYIN Chennai: Two-time Indian Super League championsChennaiyin FC on Thursday confirmed theparticipation of star national team mid-fielder AnirudhThapa and nine other Indian players for the upcomingseason of the tournament. ISL 2017-18 winnerThapa, who joined the club as an 18-year-old in 2016,is currently on a multi-year contract and is set for hisfifth campaign in the Chennaiyin jersey.

HYDERABAD FC, BVB ANNOUNCE NEW P’SHIP Hyderabad: SL franchise Hyderabad FC on Thursdayentered into a new two-year partnership with Germanfootball giants Borussia Dortmund and at the heart ofthis association will be youth development. BorussiaDortmund will focus on building and supporting HFCon its academy structure as well as guiding the Indianclub on coach education. The partnership will alsoinclude BVB's expertise in technology to driveinnovation, enhance connectivity between the clubs,positively grow and expand its fan base. AGENCIES

SINGLES

AFP n LONDON

Leeds’ first Premier Leaguegame for 16 years will see

Marcelo Bielsa’s men trav-el to defending championsLiverpool, whileManchester City andManchester United willmiss the opening weekendto give them extra time torecover from a late end to the2019-20 season.

In what will be the mosteagerly awaiting mathes ofthe new campaign, Cityand Liverpool are sched-uled to meet on the week-ends of November 7 at theEtihad and February6 at Anfield.

Jurgen Klopp’smen do not facetraditional rivalsM a n c h e s t e r

United until 2021 with the RedDevils visiting Anfield onJanuary 16 and Liverpool head-ing to Old Trafford on May 1.

All sides were guaran-teed by the football author-ities to have at least 30 daysoff between the two seasonsafter the late finish to the2019-20 campaign.

Chelsea and Wolves willstart their seasons on Monday(September 14) after they toowere involved in European com-petition into August.

Leeds are back in the top-flight for the first time since2003-04, but could not have

asked for a tougher start, onSeptember 12 against

the champions whohave not lost a league

game at Anfield inmore than threeyears.

PTI n DUBAI

Rajasthan Royals, Kings XIPunjab and Kolkata Knight

Riders on Thursday arrived inthe UAE for the IPL beginningSeptember 19, setting the ballrolling for an event that manythought would not take placeamid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Royals and KXIP landed inDubai via a charter flight, whichwill be the norm this IPL dueto the ongoing health crisis. Alittle later in the evening,Kolkata Knight Riders arrivedin Abu Dhabi, their base for thetournament.

The players, who werealready tested multiple timesbefore departure, will nowundergo a six-day isolationperiod with testing on day 1, 3and 6. If they clear all the tests,they will be eligible to enter thetournament’s bio-bubble andstart training.

Subsequently, the players

and support staff will be testedevery fifth day of the tourney.

All three teams posted pic-tures of their players and sup-port staff before departure. TheRoyals squad was fully coveredin protective gear.

Defending championsMumbai Indians, ChennaiSuper Kings and RCB willarrive in the UAE on Fridaywhile the the other two teams,Sunrisers Hyderabad and DelhiCapitals, will land over theweekend.

BHAJJI WILL JOIN LATERChennai Super Kings on

Thursday announced that vet-eran off-spinner HarbhajanSingh will not be boarding theflight with rest of squad onFriday to UAE due to personalreasons and instead join histeam within two weeks.

“Harbhajan will not betravelling with the team toDubai due to personal rea-sons. He is expected to join thesquad in two weeks,” a CSK offi-cial said on Thursday.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Europa League trophy is the heaviest of allUEFA silverware, weighing in at a sturdy 15kg,

something Sevilla know all too well. They’ve lift-ed it five times, more than any other club in his-tory: back-to-back in 2006 and 2007 back whenthe tournament was known as the UEFA Cup, anda ‘three-peat’ in 2014, 2015 and 2016. This Fridaynight in Cologne, the Nervionenses are going allout for number six.

It won’t be easy though, going up against a tal-ented Inter Milan side featuring stars such asLautaro Martínez, Romelu Lukaku and DiegoGodín. The Italians know what it’s like to win thistitle too, having won it three times (1991, 1994 and1998). In fact, only Sevilla have won it on moreoccasions. Both sides are in excellent form, withSevilla undefeated since the coronavirus pause bywinning nine and drawing five of their 14 fixturessince action resumed and with Inter Milan hav-ing lost just once since the restart, picking up 11wins and five draws along the way.

This saw Inter Milan finish second in Serie A,while Sevilla also secured Champions League foot-ball for next year by finishing fourth in the finalLaLiga standings.

Sevilla’s defence has been key to their strongfinish to the domestic season andtheir run to the Europa Leaguefinal, conceding just oncesince the continental restart:a penalty in their 2-1 semi-final win over ManchesterUnited. Much credit shouldgo to Moroccan goalkeeperBono – Sevilla’s keeper incup competitions this sea-son – and centre-backsDiego Carlo and JulesKoundé. In addition,coach Julen Lopetegui has,since arriving last summer,installed a possession-basedsystem at the club, helping tokeep the ball away from theiropponents’ most dangerousforwards.

AP n NEW YORK

Bob and Mike Bryan were noton the entry list released

for men’s doubles at the USOpen, possibly signalingthe end of the 42-year-oldAmerican twins’ record-breaking careers.

The Bryans won five oftheir 16 Grand Slam doublestitles together in New York,most recently in 2014.

Mike also won the 2018 US

Open with Jack Sock when Bobwas recovering from hip surgery.

The US Tennis Associationannounced its women’s andmen’s doubles fields, includingwild cards.

Three-time US Open cham-pion Kim Clijsters and playingpartner Hailey Baptiste receiveda wild-card entry in doubles togo along with the one she got forsingles as she makes her Grand

Slam comeback.The tournament

begins singles competi-tion August 31, and dou-bles on September 2. The

doubles fields are being cutfrom 64 to 32 teams for womenand men this year to reduce thenumber of people on-sitebecause of the coronavirus pan-demic.

PTI n NEW DELHI

IPL-bound players from Englandand Australia will not be required

to undergo a six-day quarantine inthe UAE to enter the tournamentbubble as they will be coming froma controlled environment, RCBchairman Sanjeev Churiwala said onThursday.

Royal Challengers Bangalorehave in their ranks Aaron Finch andMoeen Ali, who will be busy in abilateral series comprising threeT20s and three ODIs, before the IPL.

The limited overs matches areslated to be held in England fromSeptember 4 to 16.

The IPL starts on September 19and, in all likelihood, all the Englishand Australian players will land inthe UAE via a charter flight onSeptember 17, making them avail-able for their respective team’s open-

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has described MS Dhoni as the embodiment of a new Indiawhere family name does not make one’s destiny in a letter to the enigmatic former captain, whoretired from international cricket last week. Dhoni shared the letter on his Twitter page onThursday thanking the PM for the appreciation which read “An AArtist, SSoldier aand SSportspersonwhat tthey ccrave ffor iis aappreciation, tthat ttheir hhard wwork aand ssacrifice iis ggetting nnoticed aandappreciated bby eeveryone.Thanks PPM @@narendramodi ffor yyour aappreciation aand ggood wwishes”

PTI n JOHANNESBURG

Two players of the South African men’s cricketteam have tested positive for Covid-19 and will

miss a specially-arranged culture camp, the coun-try’s cricket board said on Thursday.

Cricket South Africa (CSA), though, did notdisclose the names of the two players.

The board had conducted 50 tests on playersand support staff before the team’s culture camp inSkukuza from August 18 to 22. The camp,focussing on the team’s “identity, environment andperformance goals”, features 32 players.

“The testing is in line with fulfilling the organ-isation’s obligation and commitment to control thespread of the virus,” the CSA said.

“There were no replacements made for the twoplayers who tested positive. All those unable toattend the camp will join the proceedings virtual-ly.” The two players will miss the camp as they havesent into isolation as per the protocols.

AFP n SOUTHAMPTON

England captain Joe Root said onThursday he wants his players to

give it their all in the third Test withPakistan which gets underway thisweek as it could be their last for awhile.

England lead 1-0 and have toavoid defeat at the Ageas Bowl onFriday to seal what would be their firstseries win over Pakistan in 10 years.

It would make it a perfect sum-mer having beaten the West Indies 2-1 earlier in the season.

England’s next scheduled Testseries is in India in the new year butthe coronavirus pandemic may makethat impossible — playing it in theUAE could be a possibility.

However, Root says the playersshould perform as if this is the last

Test till next summer and “leave nostone unturned.”

“My message to the guys todaywas quite simple really,” he said at hiseve of match press conference.

“We don’t know when the nexttime is that we’ll play Test cricket.

“Let’s make sure we leave nostones unturned and we give every-thing to each other and the badgegoing into this last game.

“I fully expect everyone to giveeverything over the next five days andmake sure we give ourselves the bestchance of finishing the series 2-0.”Root, who missed their only Testdefeat of the summer in the first clashwith the West Indies due to becom-ing a father, said even playing with-out spectators beat what he fearedmight happen at the beginning of theseason.

“We feel extremely lucky to havegot the opportunity to play right now,”said the 29-year-old.

“At the start of the summer, wewere dreading the thought of not see-ing any international cricket.”

Root paid tribute to both theWindies and Pakistan for agreeing totour and having to live in a bubble toreduce the risk of them getting thevirus. “Credit to both touring teamsfor coming over and giving us thatopportunity to play, and to bothboards,” said Root.

“It’s been amazing to be a part ofthis experience. Hopefully we canhave a great finish to it.

“There’s been some really excit-ing games and I think it’s made forsome entertaining viewing at times.”

(3rd Test Day 1, Live from3pm onwards at Sony Six)

Great ‘Serge’ of Gnabry Europa final: ResurgentInter or Sevilla’s record

KXIP, KKR, Royals land in UAE Liverpool begin title

defence against Leeds

‘Eng, Aus players won’t require quarantine in UAE’ing match.

“It is very clear from BCCISOP that each and every playerhas to go through quarantine (inUAE). However, the players fromEngland and Australia wouldalready be in a bio-bubble as theywould be playing the series there,”said Churiwala.

“If they continue to remain inthat bio-bubble and we can senda charter plane then they are assecure as other players.

“But they will have to gothrough Covid testing proceduresafter landing. It will be morestringent in their case. There willbe no compromise on safety,”added Churiwala on the eve of histeam’s departure to the UAE.

If things go as per plan, thenthe players will be available fortheir respective team’s openinggame, which they would have oth-

erwise missed in case of a six-dayquarantine.

The eight teams had initiallypressed for a three-day quarantinefor their players to start trainingearlier, but the BCCI did not agreeto that.

As per the UAE Government,players from both countries willneed to furnish Covid-19 negativetest certificates issued no morethan 96 hours before departure.

Churiwala hinted that evenfor the South Africa players due totake part in the IPL, a charter flightwill be organised.

Updating on RCB’s foreignplayers’ arrival, he said: “SouthAfrica players will arrive onAugust 22, September 17 forEngland and Australia players, SriLanka on September 1. Therecould be slight change in thisschedule,” he said.

Bryan twins not in US Open entry list 2 SA players testvirus positive

Leave no stone unturned: Root’s message to teammates

Europa League finalLive from 12:30am ISTSONY TEN 2 & 3 NETWORK

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) oftengives the residents of Earth a peek of outer space and recently itcaptured two atmospheric phenomena, aurora and airglow,together in a stunning photograph. In a post on its official socialmedia account, NASA shared the picture on World PhotographyDay clicked by an astronaut on the International Space Station,showing the moment when aurora met airglow above the Earthbefore dawn on March 16. Captioned "Aurora, meet airglow," thepost also explained the phenomena. "Wavy green, red-toppedwisps of auroraborealis appearto intersect themuted red-yellow band ofairglow as thestation passedjust south ofthe AlaskanPeninsula. The rising Sun, behind Earth's limb at the time of thisphoto, adds a deep blue to the horizon. Light from cities inBritish Columbia and Alberta, Canada, joins starlight to dot theearly morning skyscape." NASA also explained that though theyappear similar, aurora and airglow are formed by differentprocesses. "Airglow is the emission of light from chemicalinteractions between oxygen, nitrogen, and other molecules inthe upper atmosphere. Auroras, stem from interactions betweensolar energy and Earth's magnetic field," the space agency said.

Harris’s mentions her‘Chithis’; creates buzz

NASA’s ‘Aurora meetsairglow’ over Earth image

MP man cycles 105-km for son's examI

n the absence of public transport, a 38-year-old man travelled ona bicycle for 105 kilometers, carrying his son, to ensure he does

not miss his Class 10 boards supplementary exam in MadhyaPradesh. Though Shobhram, who paddled the cycle, is himselfilliterate, he says he understands the importance of education anddid not want his son to waste one year by missing thesupplementary paper. With no public transport available due tothe COVID-19 lockdown and hardly any money, Shobhramdecided to take his son on a bicycle to Dhar town, some 105 kmaway, so that he can appear in Class 10th boards supplementaryexam conducted under the Madhya Pradesh government's "RukJana Nahin" scheme. The scheme gives an opportunity tostudents to clear those subjects which they were unable to passin the first attempt. "No means of transport, including bus, wereavailable due to the prevailing coronavirus situation. But if I hadmissed this opportunity, then my son's one year would have gonewaste. Therefore, I decided to take him for the examination on abicycle," Shobhram said.

Kamala Harris thanked her chithis (aunts in English) at theDemocratic National Convention as she accepted the

nomination for vice president. Tamilians across the globe sawthe hashtag #Chithi trend on all social media platforms andjoined the bandwagon. While people are googling what chithimeans, many Twitter users of Tamil origin shared a photo ofRadikaa Sarathkumar's Chithi, a popular Tamil serial. At theconvention, she said, "Family is my husband Doug. Family isour beautiful children, Cole and Ella, who as you just heard,call me Momala. Familyis my sister. Family is mybest friend, my niecesand my godchildren.Family is my uncles, myaunts and my chithis." ATwitter user shared aposter of Radikaa'sChithi serial and wrote,"Trending in the US of Anow! (sic)." AnotherTwitter user jokinglywrote that Raadika'schithi brought tears tohis eyes. He wrote, "There was once a famous #Chithi called#Radhika in Tamilnadu, the only Chithi that brought tears tomy eyes (sic)." Chithi is a colloquial Tamil word used to call amother's younger sister or paternal uncle's wife.

Farmer uses helicopter toairlift injured cow

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farmer in Switzerland decided to get his cow airlifted as thebovine was walking with a limp. He got the cow airlifted by a

helicopter from a mountain in Swiss Alps as he did not want torisk further injury to the animal. A video of the incident shows thecow suspended in the air as it is airlifted in the air has surfacedonline. The video has gone viral on social media, garnering over6.2 lakh views. Netizens appreciated the farmer for caring aboutthe cow. One user said, "Dang. Airlifting your cow is true love. Thatpoor cow must have been scared out of her mind.... worth it ifthey were ableto make hermorecomfortable."Another wrote,"I love peoplewho loveanimals!" Athird usercommented,"Awe that's socool andcaring.."Someone posted, "The cow looked pretty brave! That's great!" Yetanother added, "You can see it's not putting weight on it's rear leftleg. Surprised the bovine was so calm." In February, a ski resort inFrance used a helicopter to move 50 tonnes of snow downhill for itto stay open after an exceptionally mild winter left its slopes bare.

roduction house Sri Venkateswara Creationsand actor Nani on Thursday announced thattheir upcoming film, V, will stream onAmazon Prime Video from September 5.

Directed and written by Mohana KrishnaIndraganti, the film also stars Sudheer Babu,

Nivetha Thomas and Aditi Rao Hydari.“I personally enjoy watching gripping action-thrillers and V is one such title

that delivers thrills, drama and fast-paced action. The cat-and-mouse game betweenSudheer Babu’s and my character is what drew methe most to this project,” said Nani.

“I am very excited about the global premiere of V— the movie marks my 25th in the film industry, Icould not have asked for a bigger tribute to my fansand supporters, than to have V available to watch any-time, anywhere on Prime Video, across 200 countriesand territories. Interestingly, the movie marks its glob-al premiere on the same day as my debut movie (AshtaChamma) release — September 5,” he added.

V is an action thriller about a cop (played bySudheer Babu) falling in love with a crime writer.When everything is going great, his life turns upsidedown when a killer (Nani) challenges him with a puz-zle to solve.

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Vijayawada Friday August 21 2020tollywood

n an interesting development, The Pioneer haslearned that new-age directors Praveen Sattaruand Prasanth Varma are joining forces for ahigh-concept web show, which is likely to rollsoon. Scriptsville, a creative group whichPrasanth heads, has penned the story for the

show, which will be quite a departure from the shows thathave emerged out of Telugu language until now. “The showhas plenty of drama and will unfold as a thriller; it’s pep-pered with scientific fiction elements as well. It is poisedto break many clichés for a Telugu show. In terms of cre-ative ideas, scale and budget, this will be the biggest showfrom Telugu. It is being written for the past 18 months,”a source close to the development confirmed to us.

The source added that while Prasanth will serve as theshow creator, negotiations are in full-swing with PSVGaruda Vega director to man the director’s chair.“Praveen has been travelling with the show’scontent for the past couple of months and hisscript concerns have been taken into accountby Scriptsville. He liked the content andshared a similar creative vision for the showlike Prasanth but is yet to sign on the dot-ted line. The producers are hoping that theformalities with him will be wrapped up bythe end of this week,” the source noted.

Further, we’ve understood that the showwill be made for streaming giant Hotstar.“It will consist of eight-ten episodes, witheach episode running into 35-40 minutes.There will be season 2 as well. The cast-ing process has been initiated,” the sourceconcluded.

PRAVEEN SATTARU ANDPRASANTH VARMA

Scriptsville, acreative group

whichPrasanth

heads, haspenned thestory for theshow, which

will be quite adeparture fromthe shows thathave emergedout of Telugulanguage until

now, findsNAGARAJ

GOUD

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TEAM UP FOR A SHOW

fter roping inSai Pallavi,the makers ofShyam SinghaRoy, starringNani, are now

considering signingNithya Menen for a keysupporting role. BesidesPallavi, who will be thefilm’s female face, thestory has scope for twoother actresses in signif-icant roles. “DirectorRahul Sankrityan is keenon Nithya to do one role.While it may not have theduration of Pallavi’s, itdoes have its own impor-tance in the context of thenarrative. As Nithya issomeone who doesn’t dif-ferentiate between lead-ing and supporting turnsas long as the role hassomething for her anddrives the story forward,the director and his pro-ducer S Naga Vamsi areconfident of her par-ticipation in thefilm. They are plan-ning to meet hersoon with thescript,” chips in asource close to theproduction house.The source addsthat for theother role,Rahul is look-ing at a newprofile.

A ni n t e n s elove story,S h y a mS i n g h aRoy willbe filmed acrossHyderabad andKolkata predomi-nantly. It will go infront of the camerasafter Nani wraps upTuck Jagadish. AnirudhRavichander, who hascomposed music forNani’s earlier films likeJersey and GangLeader, will be thetunesmith, whilecinematographerstill needs to befinalised.

— NG

A Nithya likely to play asupporting role inShyam Singha Roy

Trinadh Rao to directRavipudi's script

ith his plans of taking F3 to floors later this year failed due to coron-avirus outbreak, AnilRavipudi, who is fresh offfrom the massive success

of Sarileru Neekevvaru, has silentlyworked on a full-length comedydrama which requires two A-listactors and actresses' to headline it.Like his earlier projects, this one toowill be produced by Dil Raju.Interestingly though, the directorwill not be calling the shots, as theresponsibility has been assigned toTrinadha Rao Nakkina.

A source says, “The untitled filmwill be on the lines of acclaimedwriter-director Jandhyala’s films likeNalugu Stambhalata and Rendu RelluAaru. Ravipudi is also penning thedialogues and screenplay for theproject. As of now, the frontrunnersto front it are Sai Tej andBellamkonda Sreenivas.”

The source adds that theproject will only rollwhen both Sai andSreenivas completetheir present andfuture projects.Nakkina too has aRavi Teja projectlined up.

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ike his earlier film Manam with Naga Chaitanya wherethe actor was seen in a role with dual shades, VikramKumar’s Thank You will see the actor experimenting withhis looks once again. According to reports doing therounds, Chay will be seen in at least three get ups at dif-ferent stages in the film. It is the reason why the actor has

decided to not do other films until he completes this one. It is a lay-ered character which will challenge the actor in Chay, it is said.

Meanwhile, shedding some light about Thank You, Vikram, speak-ing to us recently, said that it’s a story that needs to be told now. “Itwould resonate with the audience at various levels. That said it’s nota message-oriented film but has an undercurrent of something whichis wonderful. It got me connected to the story in the first place. It hasgot all mainstream elements — humour, drama, romance and a lit-tle bit of action,” the director, who is developing the story along withBVS Ravi, had said.

Dil Raju is producing Thank You under his Sri VenkateswaraCreations, while Anup Rubens is tipped to compose music.

Chay in variedget ups

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Rana takes up #GreenIndiaChallengeA

ctor RanaDaggubati whorecently tied the

knot with MiheekaBajaj accepted theGreen India challengeby Prabhas and plant-ed three saplings atRamanaiudu studio,Hyderabad onThursday.

He thanked Prabhasfor making him a partof Green IndiaChallenge initiated byRS MP JoginapallySantosh Kumar.

Rana asked all hisfans, Daggubati fami-ly fans and naturelovers to participatein Green India chal-lenge. He further stat-ed that who evertagged him with thepicture of plantingsaplings, he wouldretweet it as a part ofhis contribution incarrying forward theGeen India Challenge.

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The cat-and-mouse gamebetween mine and Sudheer'spart drove me to V: Nani

THE MOVIEMARKS ITSGLOBALPREMIERE ON THESAME DAY AS MYDEBUT MOVIE,SEPTEMBER 5,SAID NANI