RNI NO.: WBENG/2015/65962

VOL. 7, ISSUE 321 | Saturday, 27 November 2021 | Kolkata | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI | KOLKATA

MILLENNIUMPOST.IN

No Half Truths

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Thirty-nine councillors of the outgoing board of Kolkata Municipal Corporation were dropped from the list of candidates which was announced by Tri-namool Congress on Friday evening.

Six MLAs — Firhad Hakim, Debashis Kumar, Debabrata Mazumdar, Atin Ghosh, Ratna Chatterjee and Paresh Pal were given nomi-nations. Mala Roy, party MP was given a ticket while Dr Santanu Sen, Rajya Sabha MP, has been dropped. TMC nominated 64 women candi-dates, which is 45 percent of the total number of candidates and is far ahead of the stipu-lated 33 percent seats which are reserved for women. Nine-teen candidates from the SC community have been nom-inated along with 23 people from the minority commu-nity, including two Christians.

In the outgoing board, TMC has 126 councillors out of a total of 144.

Eighty-seven councillors of the outgoing board have got tickets. Of these candi-dates, 78 candidates will con-

test from their existing wards while six of them will contest from other wards. A high-level meeting, which lasted for more than three hours, was chaired by TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee.

Abhishek Banerjee, the party’s national general sec-retary, Partha Chatterjee, sec-retary general of the party, Subrata Bakshi, state presi-dent and Sudip Bandyopad-hyay attended the meeting.

Continued on P4

TMC releases candidate list for KMC polls, drops

39 sitting councillors

Party fields 64 female candidates & 23 are from the minority community

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Extending her greetings on Constitution Day, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged all to strive to protect its sanctity and not to “fal-ter in their efforts to uphold its val-ues and principles”.

“Heartiest greetings to all on Constitution Day! As a nation, we must strive to protect its sanctity. We must never falter in our efforts towards upholding its values and principles. Remembering the great leaders who framed our Constitu-tion, on this special day,” Banerjee tweeted on Friday.

National General Secretary of Trinamool Congress Abhishek Banerjee also urged people “to promise to never allow any force to destroy or disrespect the values and principles that are embedded in our Constitution”.

“Greetings to all on Constitu-tion Day! This is a sacrosanct day for the entire nation. On this day, let us promise to never allow any force to destroy or disrespect the values and principles that are embedded in our

Constitution. Jai Hind,” he tweeted.It was on November 1, 2021, on

the foundation day of Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the Chief Minister had attacked without nam-ing BJP for its attempt to destroy the federal structure of the country and stated that Continued on P4

People should strive to protect sanctity of

Constitution: Mamata Let us promise to never allow any force to destroy

or disrespect the values & principles that are embedded in our Constitution, tweets Abhishek

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India (CJI) N V Ramana on Friday asked lawyers to assist judges and protect the judicial institution from motivated and targeted attacks besides lending a helping hand to those in need for becom-ing worthy of the confidence reposed in them by the citi-zens. I want to tell all of you, that you must assist judges and the institution. We are all ultimately part of one large family. Protect the institution from motivated and targeted attacks. Do not shy away from standing up for what is right, and against what is wrong, said the CJI who was speak-ing at the Constitution Day celebration organised by the Supreme Court Bar Asso-ciation (SCBA) in the apex court’s lawns here.

The SCBA’s event is one of the functions which will be held on Friday and Satur-day to celebrate Constitution Day, also known as National Law Day. On the same day in 1949, the Constituent Assem-bly of India had adopted the Constitution which came into effect on January 26, 1950. Jus-tice Ramana stressed upon the importance of debate and discussion and said that the Constitution is richer and a more complex document in comparison to when it was adopted because of the dia-logue which took place inside and outside the courtroom.

Protect Judiciary from targeted

attacks: CJI to lawyers

Takeaways » Eighty-seven councillors of the outgoing board have got tickets. Of these candidates, 78 candidates will contest from their existing wards while six of them will contest from other wards

» Abhishek Banerjee, the party’s national general secretary, Partha Chatterjee, secretary general of the party, Subrata Bakshi, state president and Sudip Bandyopadhyay attended the meeting

PRIVATE BANK OWNERSHIP: RBI ACCEPTS 21 OF 33 RECOMMENDATIONS

MPOST BUREAU

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank on Friday accepted most of the recommenda-tions of its working group on corporate ownership of pri-vate sector banks, by allow-ing unrestrained promoter shareholding in the first five years of operations and hik-ing the same to 26 per cent after 15 years from the extant 15 per cent and also the new capital requirements.

The move will ben-efit leading banks like

Kotak Mahindra Bank and IndusInd Bank, among oth-ers, which have been seeking more time from the regula-tor to divest their stakes for

many years now.Accepting 21 of the 33

recommendations of the internal working group, the central bank said the remain-

ing suggestions are under its consideration.

The RBI constituted the working group on June 12, 2020, and the panel submit-

ted the report on November 20, 2020, inviting comments of stakeholders and mem-bers of the public by January 15, 2021.

The RBI accepted the recommendation that no changes be made to the extant instructions related to the ini-tial lock-in requirements of holding a minimum 40 per cent of the paid-up voting equity share capital of the bank for the first five years but said no cap on the pro-moters holding during the same period. Continued on P4

No cap on promoters’ stake in private banks for 1st 5 years, 26% after 15 yearsPromoters will have to bring in more money to establish a private bank MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: India cannot forget the wounds of the Mumbai terror attacks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday on the 13th anniversary of the carnage even as a senior diplomat of the Paki-stani High Commission was sum-moned and told that Islamabad must ensure expeditious trial in the case.

In a short video released by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on the 26/11 attacks, Modi also said that today’s India is com-bating terrorism with a “new policy and new ways” as he paid tributes to the victims of the strikes.

The MEA said a note verbale

was handed over to the Pakistani diplomat, reiterating New Delhi’s demand for an expeditious trial in the Mumbai attacks case and asking that country to abide by its commitment to not allow territo-ries under its control for terrorism against India.

“I pay homage to all those who died in the Mumbai attack. Many brave police personnel were also martyred in the strike. I also pay homage to them,” Modi said in Hindi in the video posted by the MEA on Twitter.

“India cannot forget the wounds of the Mumbai attack. Today’s India is combating terror-ism with a new policy and new ways,” he said. Continued on P4

India asks Pak to expedite trial in Mumbai terror case PM says country cannot forget wounds

The initial paid-up voting equity share capital/ networth required for a new bank may be increased to Rs 1,000 crore from present Rs 500 crore; for SFBs to Rs 300 crore from Rs 200 crore and for UCBs transiting to SFBs to Rs 150 crore from Rs 100 crore

26/11 ANNIVERSARY

CityDEADLY TRUCK ACCIDENT KILLS 4 3

NationKHATTAR MEETS PM MODI 5

Edit

LOSS AND GAIN! 7

InternationalFRANCE LASHES OUT AT UK 8

BusinessRBI IMPOSES `1 CR FINE ON SBI 10

SportSINDHU ENTERS INDONESIA OPEN SEMIS 11

In today’s paper

...

GUWAHATI/KOLKATA: A 6.1 magnitude earthquake rocked the northeast region, includ-ing Assam and Mizoram, in the early hours of Friday, the National Seismology Department said.

The tremors were also felt in many parts of West Bengal, officials said, adding, there has been no report of loss of life or damage to prop-erty so far.

The quake was epicentered near the bound-ary with Myanmar near Mizoram, as per data shared by the department.

It was recorded at 5.15 am, at a depth of 35 km, the data showed. Continued on P4

Magnitude 6.1 quake jolts northeast, parts of Bengal

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit India on December 6 to hold annual sum-mit with Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi during which they will review the status of bilateral ties and discuss regional, multi-lateral and international issues of mutual interest, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Friday.

The MEA also announced that the first ‘2+2’ foreign and defence ministerial dialogue between India and Russia will be held in here on December 6 as well.

It is learnt that the two sides are going to firm up a number of agreements in the areas of defence, trade and investment, and science and technology at the summit.

It will be the first in-person meeting between the two leaders after their talks on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Brasilia in November 2019. See P6

Russian President

Putin to visit India on Dec 6

STEEL-WILLED

Farmers from Punjab and Haryana gather at Singhu border to mark the one year anniversary of farmers’ agitation, in New Delhi, on Friday See P6

BRUSSELS: An advisory panel of the World Health Organisation classified a new COVID-19 vari-ant first detected in South Africa as a highly transmis-sible virus of concern and named it omicron under its Greek-letter system. The announcement Friday from the United Nations health agency marks the first time in months that WHO has classified a COVID-19 vari-ant as such. The delta vari-ant, which has become the world’s most prevalent, is in the same category. AGENCIES

Omicron: WHO classifies new

variant as ‘highly transmissible’

India to resume scheduled int’l flights from December 15 OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Civil Avi-ation Ministry said on Friday that scheduled international flights to and from India will be resumed from December 15 after 20 months of Coro-navirus-induced suspension and noted that the “matter has been reviewed and the compe-tent authority” had decided to resume such flights.

However, the countries deemed ‘at risk’ of COVID-19 by the Union Health Ministry will be allowed to operate only a certain percentage of their pre-Covid scheduled flights, the Aviation Ministry clarified.

The Health Ministry on Friday said the countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, and South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zea-

land, Zimbabwe, Singa-pore, Hong Kong and Israel have been put in the ‘at-risk’ category.

India’s decision to resume scheduled international pas-senger flights has come at a time when various countries

such as Britain, Germany, Sin-gapore, Israel, France and Italy have restricted air travel from southern Africa where a new Coronavirus variant of seri-ous health implications has been reported. The Centre on Thursday asked all states and

union territories to conduct rigorous screening and test-ing of all international travel-lers coming from or transiting through South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana, where a new Coronavirus variant has been detected. Continued on P4

LOGS 10,549 NEW CORONAVIRUS INFECTIONS, 488 FRESH FATALITIES

Highlights » Countries designated as ‘at-risk’ but without ‘air bubble’ agreements would be allowed to resume 50 per cent of bilateral capacity entitlements » The countries that are not in the ‘at-risk’ category will get “full capacity entitlements »Over 120.96 crore Covid vaccine doses administered in India so far

Countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, and South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel have been put in the ‘at-risk’ category

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Trin-amool Congress moved the Supreme Court on Friday seek-ing a probe by a court-mon-itored panel into the alleged large-scale violence during the municipal polls in Tripura.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna was told by senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who sought urgent

listing of two applications filed by the party, that despite the court’s order of Thursday for providing unhindered access to the media to the election pro-cess, nothing was done.

He said that there was abso-lute mayhem. Even candidates were not allowed to vote. There were violent incidents. Even media reports said that there was violation of Supreme Court orders. Continued on P4

TMC moves SC alleging violation of court orders

TRIPURA MUNICIPAL POLLS

Bengal logs 710 cases; at least 721 recovered in past 24 hours

Private hosp asked to pay Rs 2L for death of newborn

SOUMITRA NANDI

KOLKATA: Concerned over delay in reporting of incidents like chunks or flakes falling from overhead ceiling areas in old buildings, Jadavpur Univer-sity has floated a mobile num-ber so that such matters can be immediately brought before the notice of the Civil Maintenance section of the university.

“We want to ensure that such loose chunks are removed and repair work is taken up as soon as possible at such places so that we can avoid any sort of accident or injury to any person. If anybody notices such loose chunks, he or she has been asked to sim-ply call or send an message to 9046069970, which will alert the Civil Maintenance sec-tion,” a senior official of Jadav-

pur University said.A circular in this matter

has been brought out by JU authorities where it has been made clear that no further false ceiling should be allowed in old buildings and endeavours should be made to remove the existing ones.

It has been found that in most of the old buildings, there is seepage problem in top floor and so it is desirable to remove these false ceilings. In such cir-cumstances, all concerned peo-

ple have been asked to contact office of the university engineer for removal of the false ceiling.

It has been directed to remove junk materials from the roof of all buildings to provide clear passage for rainwater to ensure long lasting of the roofs.

“The general maintenance section is seeking report from the various departments where such problem exists and then they are physically surveying the particular place and accord-ingly taking up repair. We are also making estimates in some cases where there is need for smarter and thorough repair so that it can be forwarded to Public Works Department for necessary action,” JU reg-istrar Snehamanju Basu said. The Salt Lake campus of the university hardly has similar problems to address.

JU helpline launched to report old buildings in need of repairCivil Maintenance dept to take up revamp work

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The West Ben-gal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission (WBCERC) has asked Nil-kantha Diagnostic Centre in Hooghly’s Tarakeswar to pay a compensation of Rs 2 lakh to the family members of a woman whose newborn baby died at the health establishment a day after birth. The patient, Nabanita Sadhuka, was admit-ted to the hospital on October 5 and gave birth to the child on October 6.

According to the WBCERC, the family members saw that the woman was sleeping in the morning with the infant lying alongside.

But, the infant was still. Later, the infant was found dead.

The Commission assumed that the woman might have fallen asleep while feeding and the infant died due to cutting off air supply during feeding. The Commission said there was negligence by the nursing

staff members of the health centre.

The Commission has asked Medica Superspecialty Hospital to seek apology from an elderly patient who was wrongly given thyroid medicine.

The weight of the patient was wrongly mentioned as the health worker did not put the patient on the weighing machine. The patient’s weight was mentioned as around 54 kg. In reality, the patient weighs around 75 kg.

The WBCERC asked Lal Path Lab to refund the cost it

had taken for chromosome analysis as they failed to pro-vide a report after a long time. The patient submitted the sam-ple with a franchise of the Lal Path lab.

The franchise said they had sent the sample to Lal Path but the latter said they did not receive the sample.

In another incident, the Commission asked Medview nursing home to refund Rs 22,897 for over billing. Health Point Nursing Home has been asked to refund Rs 12,320 and Kothari hospital Rs 25,000.

PINAK PANI CHOWDHURY

BALURGHAT: Traditional Bolla Kali Puja commenced on Friday.

Owing to COVID-19 pan-demic restrictions, no fair has been organised like the last year as per the decision of South Dinajpur district administra-tion. The Puja will be continue till Sunday.

Bolla Kali Puja is cele-brated at Bolla, which is located in the outskirts of Balurghat, with pomp and grandeur. “Due to a surge in Covid cases in the region, no fair is being organised this year except the Puja with all customary ritu-als, including the immersion,” said an administrative official.

“Devotees will not be entertained inside the temple. A total ban on animal sacri-fice has been imposed. How-ever, Kali Thakur Manat can be allowed for the devotees,” he said.

Apart from this, proper security arrangements, includ-ing two-tier barricading and deployment of adequate police forces, have been made.

“As many as16 CCTV cam-eras have been installed in and around the temple. More than 1200 cops have been deployed to curb any untoward incident. Plain-cloth policemen along with the state recruited civic volunteers have been instructed to keep vigil in the area,” said DSP (Balurghat headquarter) Somnath Jha.

Around 5 lakh devotees from various places of Ben-gal, Bihar and Jharkhand visit the temple every year during the four Puja days with offer-ings. The Puja dates back to 10th Century.

WATER SUPPLY TO GET DISRUPTED FOR NINE HOURS TODAY IN BMC AREAS KOLKATA: Water supply in areas under Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will not be available from 9 pm on Saturday 9 to 6 am on Sunday due to some urgent technical work which will contribute in augmenting the supply in different wards under the civic body. “We have recently installed two big high power pumps for better flow of water. Now, we need to take up technical work like proper fitting of the valves for smooth supply to households. So we have decided to stop supply for a period of nine hours from 9 pm Saturday till 6 am Sunday,” Krishna Chakraborty, chairman Board of Administra-tors, BMC said. The BMC has recently installed two new pumps at the Central Park pumping station so that the residents of the civic body receive an additional 2 million gallon water from the New Town plant.

ONE HURT BY STRAY STRING ON FLYOVERKOLKATA: A scooter rider suffered injury on her chin after a stray kite string got entangled on Maa flyover. The woman was moving along the flyover towards Park Circus seven point crossing.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Bengal gov-ernment has taken a signifi-cant move to hire talents from the corporate sector as senior consultants or consultants for better governance and promoting all round devel-opment of the state in inno-vative ways keeping the pace with time.

As per the notification issued by the state Personnel and Administrative Reforms (PAR) department, the hir-ings will be done for 50 posts, who will be posted in different departments.

According to a senior state government officer, the wel-fare oriented governance has been gradually becoming more challenging and holding out better promises because of the rapid technological advances with the passage

of time. As a result there has been a paramount need for permanent bureaucracy. But because of the unprece-dented technological advances in different areas having strong bearing on socio-economic welfare of the people, the need for specialists and experts in domain knowledge has been felt.

The state PAR department is the appointing authority for the sanctioned 50 posts. An applicant has to be of mini-mum 35 years and maximum 70 years. An individual work-ing at ‘comparable levels’ in PSUs, autonomous bodies, statutory organisations, uni-versities, recognised research institutes, private sectors, consultancy organisations, international or multina-tional organisations, retired employees of government, PSUs, autonomous bodies and

universities can apply for the posts. Central or state gov-ernment officers, however, cannot apply for the same. The remuneration of senior consultants will be Rs 2 lakh per month while it would be Rs 1.50 lakh per month for consultants.

Selection committee will consider the level of qualifi-cation and past experience for determining the suitabil-ity of candidates. A candidate can apply for a maximum of two posts. They will be posted in 23 departments includ-ing Panchayat and Rural Development, Public Health Engineering, Urban Develop-ment and Municipal Affairs, Finance, Public Works Depart-ment, Animal Resources Development, Power, Food Processing Industries and Hor-ticulture and Industry Com-merce and Enterprises.

For better governance: State to hire 50 consultants from corporate sector

Balurghat: Bola Kali

Puja begins sans any fair

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Mystery shrouds the death of a woman inside a cab on Friday morning.

According to police, on Fri-day morning Swati Das (55) of Nagerbazar in Dum Dum booked an app cab.

Around 11 am, she boarded the cab to reach her office in Esplanade area.

When the cab reached HUDCO crossing, Das fell sick inside the cab.

Immediately, the cab driver rushed Das to a private hos-pital in Kadapara area on Eastern Metropolitan (EM)

Bypass, where she was declared brought dead.

After the hospital author-ity informed police, the body was sent for autopsy examina-tion. It is being suspected that Das may have suffered a severe cardiac arrest and died.

However, cause of death can be ascertained after the autopsy report comes. Police are also questioning Das’s family mem-bers to find out whether she was suffering from any illness.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Bengal has seen a slight drop in Covid infection on Friday with 710 new cases being reported while on Thurs-day the daily infection stood at 758. The figure remained at 615 on Monday.

Bengal on Friday admin-istered around 6,61,790 doses and the cumulative doses administered so far in the state reached 9,07,28,531. Around 6,26,00,752 first doses have been administered in state and 2,81,27,779 doses.

Active Covid cases in the state have further gone down to 7,847 on Friday from 7,867 on Thursday. The figure remained at 7,894 on Wednesday. As many as 721 Covid recovered patients have been released from different hospitals in the past 24 hours. The Covid recov-ery rate stood at 98.31 percent

on Friday. The percentage of occupancy of Covid beds in the State went up to 2.60 percent from 2.59 percent Thursday. The total number of infected cases in Bengal has so far gone up to 16,13,451 on Friday out of which 15,86,165 patients have been released from hos-pitals after being recovered.

Covid positivity rate in

Bengal dropped at 1.87 on Friday from what remained at 2.05 percent on Thursday. Around 37,917 samples were tested across the state on Fri-day. State has so far carried out 2,01,85,564 sample tests. The RTPCR and Antigen test ratio remained at 50:50 on Fri-day. Single day Covid fatali-ties dropped to 9 on Friday

from 11 on Thursday. The fig-ure remained at 7 on Sunday and 12 on Saturday. As many as 19,439 people died of Covid across the state so far in Ben-gal till Friday. Kolkata has reg-istered 3 Covid deaths, North 24 Parganas 4, Hooghly 1, West Midnapore 1.

The number of single-day infections in Kolkata has gone down to 183 on Friday from 215 on Thursday. Around 142 cases were found in North

24-Parganas on Friday. A total 3,28,162 infected cases have so far been found in Kolkata so far out of which around 3,20,754 people were already discharged from the hospitals. North 24-Parganas has so far seen a total 3,32,906 infected cases till date out of which 3,26,583 patients have been released. South 24-Parganas has seen 60 new cases on Friday, Hooghly 52, Howrah 67, Darjeeling 17, Nadia 23.

OVER 9.07 CR DOSES OF COVID VACCINE CUMULATIVELY GIVEN SO FAR

News at a Glance

2 millenniumpostCitympSTAURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021 | KOLKATA

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Key Points » The Commission has asked Medica Superspecialty Hos-pital to seek apology from an elderly patient who was wrongly given thyroid medicine » The WBCERC asked Lal Path Lab to refund the cost it had taken for chromosome analysis as they failed to provide a report after a long time » In another incident, the Commission asked Medview nurs-ing home to refund Rs 22,897 for over billing. Health Point Nursing Home has been asked to refund Rs 12,320 and Kothari hospital Rs 25,000

Covid-19 Stats » Number of deaths in past 24 hours 9 » Total death toll so far 19,439 » Tested COVID positive in the past 24 hours 710 » Total COVID positive cases so far 16,13,451 » Total patients recovered from COVID so far 15,86,165 » Discharged from hospitals in a day 721 » Total sample tested so far 2,01,85,564

KMC polls: Left to contest in 120 wards; leaves 16 seats for allies

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Announcing the candidate list for 120 wards, Left Front on Friday said it would leave 16 seats for its allies—Congress and ISF—in the forthcoming civic election in Kolkata. Left Front leaders made it clear that their prime rivals are BJP and Trinamool Congress.

Adhir Chowdhury, PCC president, said the leaders of both Left Front and Congress would sit to prepare a roadmap for the elec-tion. Though Congress and Left Front had fielded separate candidates in the by-elec-tions, Chowdhury said Congress would forge electoral alliance with the Left Front for all round development of Kolkata and set up democracy.

CPI(M) has introduced several new faces for the civic election. In ward 41 Nehal Ahmed Kaizer is the CPI(M) candidate. The Left Front will not field candidates in wards 43 and 45 which are situated in the core area of Burrabazar and in wards 47,

49, 50, 51, 53— the areas surrounding Seal-dah and Entally, where Congress had once a stronghold.

The LF candidates will start campaign-ing from Saturday. Meanwhile, Meena Devi Purohit, BJP leader and former dep-uty mayor, and Vijay Ojha, veteran party leader, began writing the walls. Purohit said: “Though the party is yet to name the can-didates, we are drawing the lotus and once the candidates are announced we will write the names and start campaigning for them.”

All India Majlis- e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) will release the candidate list for the civic polls on November 28. “I have talked to AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi over the phone. As per our latest conversa-tion, we will release the AIMIM candidate list on Sunday,” said Imran Solanki, state member of AIMIM on Friday. He reiterated that AIMIM will field 30 to 32 candidates for the upcoming KMC elections. The State Election Commission (SEC) announced that KMC polls will be held on December 19.

New Town gets two women-run workpods

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: West Bengal Housing Development Corpo-ration (WBHIDCO) unveiled two workpods in New Town, which will be manned by women.

The workpods will be run by Banani under the super-vision of Kolkata Society for Cultural Heritage. These are located at two different loca-tions near Eco Park Gate No 4 and near Sankalpa 2. The workpods will cater to stu-dents, start-ups and other pro-fessionals, who need office on the roads.

Debashis Sen (IAS), man-aging director of WBHIDCO, inaugurated the workpods. Sourav Mukherjee, founder president of Kolkata Society for Cultural Heritage (KSCH) was present on the occasion along with other members of KSCH and self help group members.

Each workpod will consist

of 20 seats fitted with electric connections. Professionals can hire the place for their presen-tations and client meeting at a very reasonable cost. KSCH is providing hospitality training to the women of SHG group staying in the remote corners of Bengal. People can work here paying a fixed rate of Rs 30 including GST for a mini-mum period of 90 minutes and for additional period at Rs 20 per hour. There will be monthly passes to work for Rs 4999, excluding GST for 30 days.

11-days Durga Puja holiday for state govt staff in 2022

KOLKATA: There will be holidays for less number of days at a stretch dur-ing Durga Puja in 2022 compared to that of 2021 for the state government employees.

The state government employees will be getting holidays for 11 days at a stretch as per the calendar released by Finance department on Friday.

The state government employ-ees will be getting the holidays from the day of Panchami, that is on Sep-tember 30, 2022. The same will con-tinue till the day next of Lakshmi Puja, which falls on October 10, 2022. In 2021, there was holiday for 16 days at a stretch, including Saturdays and Sundays.

There will be holidays for three days during Kali Puja till Bhatri Dwitiya. There will be an additional holiday during Holi and Saraswati Puja. There will also be holidays on the birthday of Ravidas, Easter Saturday, Hool Diwas and Karam Puja. MPOST

Drive against illegal hoarders: State seeks list of trade licences of jute balers

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The state govern-ment has sought the final list of trade licences held by the jute balers from the Jute Commis-sioner as early as possible so that the government can seize jute illegally stocked up by the hoarders.

Jute commissioner has been asked to seek assistance from the Labour department, if necessary, to finalise the list as soon as possible. This will help the Jute Corporation of

India (JCI) in procuring jute smoothly and supplying it to the mills. State chief secretary H K Dwivedi held a high-level meeting with senior officials of the Labour department, Jute Corporation of India, repre-sentatives from Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA), state Enforcement Branch and other concerned officials to address the issue of the cri-sis of raw material supply in the jute industry. State Labour minister Becharam Manna and state Public Works Depart-

ment minister Moloy Ghatak, who had held the charge of the Labour department before Manna, were also present. “As per feedback received from Enforcement Branch, only 2 per cent of the jute is with the farmers. So, it is implied that the rest is with the balers. Maximum 300 quintal can be stocked. The list will help us to strengthen our drive against illegal hoarding,” Manna said.The IJMA has been asked to fix the price of jute bags. They have called an emergency meeting to

discuss the same on Saturday. They will inform the principal secretary of the Labour depart-ment after fixing the price. Sources said the chief secretary has asked all stakeholders to devise a mechanism so that jute can be procured in the same method as paddy from next year. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who held a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi two days back, raised the issue of alleged non-cooperation from JCI in sup-porting farmers in selling jute.

Woman falls sick in app cab, succumbs

Body of missing cop

found in morgue

KOLKATA: Body of a police officer, who had been missing since October 11, was found at Howrah police morgue on Friday. The body, which was recovered near Bally Bridge on October 20, was identified to be of Partha Chowdhury, a sub-inspector of Rajarhat police station. However, his mobile phone is still missing.

Chowdhury lived at Belur with his family. On October 11, he had left his house but did not return. After his fam-ily members failed to trace him, a missing diary was registered at the Belur police station. But, cops reportedly failed to find Chowdhury.

On October 20, Chowd-hury’s body was found by the cops of Bally police station as unidentified. Police recovered the body and sent it for autopsy to the Howrah morgue. Sources informed that the information of the body recovery was not circulated, which is a manda-tory practice. When Chow-dhury was still missing even after a month, a special team was formed on behalf of the Rajarhat police station to find him.

On Friday, the police team reached the Belur police sta-tion and talked with the inves-tigating officer. Later, they went to Bally police station as well. While checking the details of the unidentified bodies since October 11, they found Chow-dhury’s garments. Later, the police team went to the morgue and found the police officer’s body. His family members were informed. They also identified the body officially. MPOST

AIMIM will release candidate list on November 28

Cause of death yet to be ascertained

‘If anybody notices such loose chunks, he or she has been asked to simply call or send an message to 9046069970...’

People can work paying a fixed rate of Rs 30 per 90 minutes

As per the norms, maximum 300 quintal of jute can be stocked: Minister

Representative Image

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The State Elec-tion Commission (SEC) has increased the timing of cam-paigning for Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections by four hours, allowing the same from 8 am to 9 pm. The Commis-sion, at the same time, has also brought down the timing of implementation of silent zone from 72 hours to 48 hours. The move comes in the wake of a number of political parties urg-ing the SEC to increase the tim-ing of the election campaign.

The Commission had ear-lier declared that the guidelines of campaigning of the recent by-elections will be followed, which meant that there would have been restrictions on elec-tion campaigns from 7 pm till 10 am. Similarly, the silent zone (no campaign period) would have been 72 hours.

The SEC has also decided to depute an Observer in each of the 16 boroughs under the Kolkata Municipal Corpora-tion from next Tuesday. The

Observers will have to submit a daily report regarding their respective boroughs by 4 pm every day.

P Ulaganathan, District

Magistrate South 24-Parganas, who happens to be the District Municipal Election Officer held a detailed meeting with nine Deputy Commissioners of Kol-kata Police on smooth conduct of the KMC elections.

“Issues relating to security and coordination for the con-duct of polls were discussed. Special security arrangements will be made by the police for the EVM movement, political campaigns, polling stations, counting venues etc. Covid protocols which need to be followed strictly were also dis-cussed. The police administra-tion has been asked to ensure peace and law and order dur-ing the nomination and entire conduct of the polls,” a senior SEC official said.

The Commission has asked all concerned to address griev-ances received through the web-based Election Griev-ance Management System (EGMS) preferably within an hour of receipt of the complaint and provide feedback to the complainants.

3millenniumpost City mpKOLKATA | SATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The School Service Commission on Friday approached the Calcutta High Court divi-sion bench challenging the order of the single bench to stop giving salary to 542 Group D staff if their appointment was made after May 4, 2019. The matter is expected to be heard in the division bench, com-prising Justices Harish Tandon and Rabindranath Samanta, on Monday.

On Thursday, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay had directed that the list of 542 candidates submitted by the Commission should be scrutinised. The court had observed that if it was found that the appoint-ments were made after May 4, 2019, SSC would have to stop their salaries considering the hirings as ‘fake’.

Earlier, Justice Gangopadhyay had ordered a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in non-teaching staff appointments. On Monday, a division bench, comprising Justices Tandon and Samanta, stayed the single bench’s order on CBI probe into irregularities in non-teaching staff appointments for three weeks.

In 2016, the state recommended the recruitment of about 13, 000 candidates as Group D workers. The Central School Service Commission conducted examinations and interviews periodically. Then a panel was created. The term of that panel ended in 2019. Allegedly, even after the expiration of the term of the panel, the Commission made appointments.

Salary scrapping order: SSC moves

HC’s division bench

‘State clearing Swasthya Sathi related dues within 30-day billing cycle’

5.30L concrete roads in rural areas constructed in past 10 yrs

PRADIP CHATTERJEE

KOLKATA: Despite the finan-cial crunch, the state gov-ernment has been clearing Swasthya Sathi related dues to all private hospitals within the 30-day billing cycle and in case of failure, the hospitals have been paid interest at the rate of 1.5 percent beyond the stipu-lated time, said a senior health official.

The payment process gets delayed only in those cases where the Health department is not convinced with the bill-ing done by the hospitals. The government pays over Rs 200 crore every month to private hospitals for the smooth run-ning of the Swasthya Sathi scheme, a brainchild of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The state has allotted over Rs 2,300 crore when the Swasthya Sathi scheme was expanded to cover the entire population in Decem-ber last year. Therefore, there is no question of Swasthya Sathi

dues, added the official.“After the bills are raised by

private hospitals on the Health department portal, the depart-ment examines them and the process is delayed when fur-ther investigation takes place. The payment is done within 30

days from the day on which the claim was registered. In case of unjustified bills, the pay-ments are delayed. The status of every claim is uploaded on the government portal. Even the accumulated interest is shown in case of delayed pay-

ment by the government. Ini-tially, the billing cycle was 15 days but following a huge rise in the number of beneficia-ries, the billing cycle has been extended up to 30 days,” a top Health department added.

Around nine crore people in Bengal have already been included under the Swasthya Sathi scheme out of which around 6-7 percent raise claims every year. As per mass insur-ance statistics, at most, around 6-7 percent of claims are made out of the total number of peo-ple enrolled under that particu-lar health scheme. In case of the Swasthya Sathi scheme, around 2.5 lakh claims are raised every month on an average basis and the total claims in a year may go up to nearly 27-30 lakh, highly placed sources in the Health department said.

“The state government sanctioned over Rs 2,300 crore when the scheme was expanded to the entire population and the expenditure of the Swasthya

Sathi remains under the allo-cated budget. If the total costs go up to Rs 2,600 crore, it can be assumed that some incidents of pilferage are happening. It is difficult to check when the pil-ferage is less than 10 percent. It is also difficult to identify such cases when private hospitals run a nexus with patients and submit fudged bills,” the offi-cial added.

More than 2.30 crore fami-lies have been covered under the scheme and 2,290 hospi-tals have been empanelled. The scheme was announced on February 25 in 2016 and officially launched by the Chief Minister on December 30 in 2016.

Basic health cover for sec-ondary and tertiary care is up to Rs 5 lakh per annum per family. There is no cap on the family size and all pre-existing diseases are covered. Unlike the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat, the Swasthya Sathi is totally funded by the state government.

In case of failure, pvt hosps are paid interest at the rate of 1.5% OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Mamata Banerjee government has set a milestone by constructing 5.30 lakh concrete roads in rural parts of the state in the past 10 years.

The roads constructed were done under the ISGP pro-gramme by the state Panchay-ats and Rural Development department.

The Chief Minister had directed a special drive soon after coming to power in 2011 to ensure the construction of rural roads. It was the first time when narrow roads, even in interior parts of any village, have been concretised.

It had improved the last mile connectivity in the state’s rural areas that resulted in the improvement of economic activities in and around the region.

The Bengal government has constructed more than 10 lakh km roads while only around 3,000 km of roads were constructed till 2011 since Independence.

This comes when all ini-

tiatives have been taken for the third phase of the Ban-glar Gramin Sadak Yojana. The Chief Minister had also

launched the Pathashree Avi-jyan in Jalpaiguri with an initial target of reconstructing 12,000 km of stretches. Later, more roads were added to the list and the target went up to more than 20,000 km and the work was being executed on a mission mode basis.

Besides the concrete roads, the state Panchayats and Rural Development department had also constructed around 3,000 km using jute and 5,000 km roads using bitumen cold mix. More roads have been taken up for construction with jute and bitumen cold mix.

State Election Commission increases campaign timing for KMC polls

AMITAVA BANERJEE

DARJEELING: A deadly truck acci-dent left four dead and six injured in the Jaleshwari Bazar area under the Siliguri Municipal Corporation and the Bhaktinagar police station in the Jalpaiguri district. The day saw local residents setting up roadblocks in pro-test along with demanding that a traffic police booth be set up in the locality.

According to local residents, a truck carrying boulders lost con-trol and hit the street divider follow-ing which it rammed into a shop and tilted. The boulders emptied on road-side stalls and customers. The incident occurred at Jaleshwari Bazar around 8.20 pm on Thursday when the truck was going to Ambari from Asigarh More.

The injured were rushed to the North Bengal Medical College where four of the persons were declared brought dead. The others injured are

under treatment at the Siliguri District Hospital. The deceased include Ranjan Singha, Bapi Sarkar, Jagadish Debnath and Bijoy Pal. On Friday evening, as per the announcement made by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, cheques of Rs 2,50,000 each were handed over to the next of kin of the deceased. The cheques were handed over by Bulu Chik Baraik, Minister of State (Inde-pendent charge) of Backward Classes Welfare and Tribal Development Department in the presence of Sabina Yeasmin, Minister of State, North Ben-gal Development Department.

“As soon as she got the news of the incident, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee inquired about the situation and directed to hand over ex-gratia to the next of kin of the deceased and the injured. Five persons severely injured have received cheques of Rs 50,000 each and one person with injuries has received Rs 25,000. The state govern-ment will also take care of their treat-

ment,” stated Baraik.The day saw widespread protests

by local residents and the Jaleshwar Marker Committee. Complaining of high speeding vehicles along with East-ern Bypass, they demanded that traffic police be posted in the area. Road-blocks were put up and the Jaleshwar market remained closed.

A large police contingent along with Rapid Action Force was posted to ward off any untoward incident. Gaurav Sharma, Commissioner of Police, Siliguri Metropolitan Police vis-ited the spot and assured the residents of taking all necessary steps including a traffic police booth.

“We are in the process of collect-ing CCTV footage for investigation purposes. I have spoken to represen-tatives of the market committee. All issues, including road engineering, proper lighting, CCTV interventions will be addressed. We will give prior-ity to Eastern Bypass,” assured Sharma.

Siliguri: Deadly truck accident kills 4, several others injured

THE ETERNAL FLAME

An Army person carries a torch during an event to mark Swarnim Vijay Varsh, at Eco Park in Kolkata, on Friday. Enthralling presentations by young boys and girls, a military band display and a film, ‘1971 War of Liberation’, were part of the function at Eco Park. Several officers of the three services — the Army, Navy and Air Force — were present at the function, apart from retired officers, including former Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha. “The Victory Flame will be stationed at Kolkata till December 4,” a Defence official said PIC/PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: In a unique ini-tiative, the Calcutta Medi-cal College and Hospital (CMCH) is going to set up a geriatric unit for providing specialised treatment to the elderly who have been suffer-ing from various ailments.

No government hospitals in the state have so far come up with such an idea. The state Health department has been carrying out a survey in various hospitals exploring possibilities of setting up dedicated facility for the treatment of the elderly.

The CMCH will have ade-quate advanced equipment at the geriatric unit so that var-ious tests can be performed within short span of time. Chief Minister Mamata Baner-jee had laid emphasis on geri-atric treatment.

A specialised geriat-ric care centre would be set up where geriatricians and allied medical professionals will provide a comprehensive geriatric assessment to address all-round needs of a patient and recommend the best treatment for them. Accord-ing to sources, the main focus

areas of the proposed hospi-tal would be preventing and managing fractures, dizziness, memory loss, depression, psy-chological revitalisation, vac-cinations, fatigue, unsteadiness or weakness, physiotherapy, diet counselling and medicine

management.“The unit will be started

with around 20 beds. At least five doctors will be dedicated to the treatment. The Bengal government is contemplating to set up more dedicated units to provide comprehensive care exclusively for the elderly and also to understand their medical background and offer them customised care. There is a demand for dedicated units for geriatric patients,” a senior Health department offi-cial said.

There is also a plan to set up a geriatric hospital in the city

where the elderly from across the state can get special care. The patients would be able to avail of personal attention. There are not enough doctors who are willing to visit these patients at home. It has been found that many elderly people have been living in residential apartments alone in the city. They often become too feeble to visit a doctors’ chamber in the locality. Many of them are found to have been deserted by their sons or daughters who are settled outside the state or abroad, with no one to look after their parents.

Calcutta Medical College & Hospital to come up with geriatric unit for elderly

Main focus areas include preventing & managing fractures, dizziness, memory loss, depression among others

The Commission has also brought down the timing of implementation of silent zone from 72 hours to 48 hours. The move comes in the wake of a number of political parties urging the SEC to increase the timing of the election campaign

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Three youths, riding on a motorcycle, died in a road accident at Dholahat in South 24-Parganas on Thurs-day night.

Around 7:45 pm on Thursday, three youths riding a motorcycle were moving towards Kakdwip from the Jumainashkaar area. While taking a sharp turn near the Bhoberthek area, the rider lost control and the motorcycle skidded off the main car-riageway, colliding with a tree.

The trio, identified as Selim Mollah, Sakil Naskar and Hashibul Mir of 12, Lashkar Chak in Harwood Point died on the spot. Locals rushed to the spot and informed the police. After a preliminary investigation, cops came to know that the motorcycle rider was riding at a high speed and lost control at the turn. Local people also told the cops that none of them was wearing helmets.

3 bike-borne youths dead in

Dholahat accident

GOING THE EXTRA MILE

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee FILE PHOTO

The Bengal government has constructed more than 10 lakh km roads while only around 3,000 km of roads were constructed till 2011 since Independence

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INSACOG closely tracking new Covid variant: Officials

Tripura civic poll: Oppn alleges political violence

‘PRESENCE NOT YET DETECTED IN INDIA’

4 millenniumpostNationmpSATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021 | KOLKATA

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday said it cannot just cast doubt on the COVID-19 vaccination programme in the country at this crucial stage and cannot afford the price of laxity of not vaccinating people.

The top court said lakhs and crores of people have taken their vaccines and even the World Health Organiza-tion (WHO) has approved it and the whole world is getting vaccinated.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna asked the petitioners Ajay Kumar Gupta and others to serve the copy of the petition to the solicitor general and sought his response. During the hear-ing, the bench said, We do have a system, guidelines in place for monitoring any adverse event following immunization. There will always be dissenters, but policy cannot be fashioned as per them."

"We have to see the good of the nation as a whole. The world has witnessed an unprec-edented pandemic, like of which we have not seen in our lifetime. We cannot just cast doubt on the vaccination pro-gramme at this crucial stage. It is of the highest national importance that people get vac-cinated. We cannot afford the price of laxity of not vaccinat-ing the people, the bench said.

The plea filed by Gupta and

others alleged that thousands of deaths have taken place due to Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI) and sought direction to Centre to make administration of vac-cine purely voluntary, prior informed consent of person going for immunization and direction to Centre for seeking a report from European coun-tries where Covishield was dis-continued or use restricted.

The bench said that there

will always be studies 5-10 years down the line about the vaccination programme but all that it wants is that people remain safe and fatalities are reduced.

Senior advocate Colin Gon-salves, appearing for petition-ers, said that there have been thousands of cases of deaths and serious adverse events fol-lowing vaccination which have been reported in various news-papers of the country. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Con-sortium (INSACOG) is closely tracking the new variant of COVID-19 called B.1.1.529 and its presence has not been detected in the country yet, officials said on Friday.

The new variant, feared to have a high amount of spike mutations, has been detected in South Africa, with the authori-ties there confirming 22 posi-tive cases associated with it on Thursday. Commenting on the development, a senior scien-tist with INSACOG said the consortium is closely tracking the new variant of COVID-19 called B.1.1.529 and its pres-ence has not been detected yet in the country.

Health Ministry sources said INSACOG is "very closely monitoring" the situation to check for the presence of this variant and expedite the results of genomic analysis of posi-tive samples of international travellers.

A review meeting on the matter was also learnt to have been held.

There has been no isolation

of the variant so far, a source said. Samples of all interna-tional passengers are being collected as usual and positive

samples will be specifically looked for B1.1.529 on prior-ity. The Ministry of Health and the Department of Biotechnol-

ogy have already reviewed the situation, the source said.

The Centre on Thursday asked all states and union ter-ritories to conduct rigorous screening and testing of all international travellers com-ing from or transiting through South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana where the new COVID-19 variant of serious public health implications has been reported.

In a letter addressed to addi-tional chief secretary/principal secretary/secretary (Health) of all states and union territo-ries, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan asked them to ensure that samples of travel-lers turning positive are sent to designated genome sequencing laboratories promptly.

It has now been reported by National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) that multiple cases of a COVID-19 variant B.1.1529 have been reported in Botswana (three cases), South Africa (six cases) and Honk Kong (one case), Bhushan said in the letter.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A day after Tri-pura's civic body elections held on November 25, the opposi-tion parties demanded 'coun-termanding' of the polls across major municipal corporations.

The erstwhile ruling party of the state Communist Party of India (Marxist) expressed grief over the reported vio-lent incidents during the local body elections on Fri-day and the Polit Bureau said that it was "converted into an outright farce by the rul-ing BJP". The party demanded countermanding to Agartala municipal corporation, Dhar-managar municipal council, Khowai municipal council, Belonia municipal council and Melaghar municipal council. In an official statement, the high-est body of the Left party men-tioned, "The Left Front has also demanded re-polling in several wards in other nagar panchay-ats like Panisagar, Subroom, Sonamura, Kumarghat, Ama-rpur and other urban bodies."

The party also alleged that before the polling day, in Agar-tala and other towns, gangs of

BJP men began visiting houses and threatening CPI(M) candi-dates, polling agents and local leaders warning them not to go out on polling day. Threats of physical violence and driv-ing their families out of their houses were issued. On polling day, in Agartala, Dharmanagar, Khowai, Belonia and Melaghar, there was extensive booth cap-turing by BJP goons and phys-ical prevention of voters in many places. In Agartala town, polling agents of Left parties were beaten up and driven out of many booths. Most of the booths were captured at the start of the polling itself and people were prevented from voting. Earlier, in seven munic-ipalities, opposition candidates were prevented from filing nominations. As a result, after withdrawals, BJP candidates were elected unopposed, the Polit Bureau affirmed.

"All these brazen attacks on the electoral system, democ-racy and the right to vote have taken place despite the Supreme Court passing orders to ensure adequate deploy-ment of Central police forces to secure the electoral process.

The BJP state government has blatantly flouted all the direc-tions issued by the Supreme Court. The police and Cen-tral police forces were made to be mute spectators to the rigging of the election," the official statement of CPI-M mentioned.

The party also claimed that since the apex court had inter-vened to try and ensure a free and fair poll, both the state gov-ernment and the state police should act now to safeguard democracy and the citizens' right to vote in Tripura.

On the other hand, Trin-amool Congress spokesper-son Saket Gokhale met NHRC officials over violence against TMC members in Tripura dur-ing polls, in Delhi. He urged the officials to constitute a 'facts-finding team' over Tri-pura violence like it was done for West Bengal. Earlier this week, a delegation of 16 TMC MPs met Union Home Minis-ter Amit Shah and submitted a memorandum.

Elections were held for 222 seats as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already won 112 seats uncontested.

A health worker collects a swab sample of a passenger for the COVID-19 test, at Kalupur Railway station in Ahmedabad, Gujarat

Demands ‘countermanding’ and ‘fresh elections’

India to resume... According to the Centre’s decision on Friday,

airlines will be allowed to operate 50 per cent of their pre-COVID scheduled passenger flights between India and South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana from December 15.

India does not have an air bubble arrange-ment, which allowed special passenger flights between two countries amid COVID-related restrictions, with South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana. Also, these three countries are clas-sified in the ‘at-risk’ category by the Health Ministry.

In its letter to aviation regulator DGCA on Friday, the Aviation Ministry said that if a coun-try has been identified in the ‘at-risk’ category and does not have an air bubble agreement with India, then a maximum “50 per cent of bilat-eral capacity entitlements or 50 per cent of pre-COVID operations of Indian or foreign carrier, whichever is higher”, will be permitted.

If a country wants to operate scheduled pas-senger flights to another nation, a bilateral air services agreement has to be negotiated to decide how many airlines, ports of entries and total flights (or seats) weekly can be allowed between the two.

The Aviation Ministry said if a country has been identified to be ‘at risk’ of COVID-19 but has an air bubble agreement with India, then “75 per cent of pre-COVID scheduled interna-tional flight operations of Indian or foreign car-rier, whichever is higher, or a minimum of seven frequencies per week subject to availability of entitlements under bilateral agreements will be permitted”.

The countries that are not in the ‘at-risk’ cate-gory will get “full capacity entitlements according to the bilateral air service agreements”, the Avia-tion Ministry noted.

“Resumption of commercial international passenger services would imply reversion to bilaterally agreed capacity entitlements and ter-mination of air bubble arrangements,” it said.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, sched-uled international flights have been suspended in India since March 23 last year. However, special passenger flights have been operating since July last year under air bubble arrangements with 31 countries.

Under an air bubble agreement between the two nations, airlines of both countries can oper-ate special flights between their territories with certain restrictions.

India has air bubbles with Afghanistan, Bah-rain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Canada, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Iraq, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Maldives, Mauritius, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Sey-chelles, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Ukraine, the UAE, the UK, the USA and Uzbekistan.

Meanwhile, India logged 10,549 new Corona-virus infections taking the country’s total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,45,55,431, while the active cases rose to 1,10,133.

The death toll climbed to 4,67,468 with 488 fresh fatalities, including 384 in Kerala, accord-ing to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.89 per cent. It has been less than two per cent for the last 53 days. The weekly positivity rate was also recorded at 0.89 per cent. It has been below two per cent for the last 63 days, according to the ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 33977830, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.35 per cent.

The cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the county have crossed 120.96 crore. On Friday, more than 65 lakh (65,23,396) vaccine doses have been administered till 7 pm.

TMC releases... Ratan Dey, who was the Member, Mayor

in Council (Road) has been dropped along with Smita Bakshi, Susmita Dam, Sudarshana Mukhopadhyay.

Former CAB chief Biswarup Dey will contest in the election along with Ananya Chattopadhyay.

Saurab Basu, son of Chandrima Bhattacha-rya, and Puja Panja, daughter of Shashi Panja, have been nominated. Tarak Singh, his son and daughter Amit and Krishna will fight in the elec-tion. Ratna Chatterjee and Paresh Pal have been given the nomination. Bappaditya Dasgupta and Kakoli Sen, wife of Shantanu Sen, have been nominated. Anindya Routh will contest in the civic elections as well. Tanima Chatterjee, sister of Subrata Mukherjee, has been nominated.

Mala Roy, who was nominated for the fifth consecutive time, said: “I have tried to develop my ward. Streetlights have been a major focus in my ward. The Keoratala crematorium, which falls under my ward, has been beautified and both the electric crematorium and the wooden pyre have been upgraded and the level of environmental pollution has been minimised.”

Atin Ghosh, who became a councillor way back in 1985 when the civic board with the Member, Mayor-in-Council system was held for the first time, said: “I have worked with sincerity to keep my ward clean. People are getting all the amenities.”

Kajari Banerjee is a TMC candidate from ward number 73 in Bhowanipore. The party’s candidates from ward 36 at Beliaghata and ward 119 at Behala West will be announced later.

Magnitude 6.1 quake The jolts were experienced in several places in

Assam, Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura, as well as in West Bengal, including Kolkata, Alipurduar, Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts, officials said. “The quake could be felt almost everywhere in West Bengal,” a senior official of the state’s disas-ter management department said. MPOST

TMC moves SC The bench said the court had passed a spe-

cific and detailed order on Thursday dealing with the issue.

Sibal said, I know but two battalions of CAPF were not provided. Two constables were also not provided to the contesting candidates. We have

electronic media evidence with us. Kindly list these applications urgently.

The bench said the court is sitting in a differ-ent combination of judges on Friday.

Let’s see what can be done, Justice Chandra-chud said, adding that judges are busy with offi-cial functions on the occasion of Constitution Day.

Sibal said that despite tomorrow being Satur-day, the court can take up the matter.

Justice Chandrachud said there is an official function on Saturday but he will talk to brother (Justice Bopanna) during lunch time and discuss what could be done.

Advocate on Record Rajat Sehgal said that TMC has filed two applications seeking post-ponement of counting of votes and results and investigation by a court-monitored panel into the violent incidents.

He said that in another application, the party has sought impleadment of the State Election Commissioner in the matter.

The top court had on Thursday directed the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to provide two additional companies of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to secure the polling booths during the Tripura municipal polls after the TMC and CPI (M) alleged that their can-didates and supporters have not been allegedly allowed to cast their votes and that there is a seri-ous breach of law and order.

No cap on...The report favours continuation of the 40 per

cent minimum holding for the first five years to ensure that promoters maintain their skin in the game and also to ensure credibility of the con-trol of the promoter group till the business is properly established and stabilised. It will also ensure that the promoter remain committed to the bank in the formative years, providing it necessary strategic direction.

There is no need to fix any cap on the pro-moters’ holding in the initial five years as the existing licensing guidelines have not mandated any cap on promoter’s shareholding in the first five years as initially it may be challenging for a new bank to raise capital from external sources or investors. So allowing them to hold higher stake will enable the promoter to infuse addi-tional capital, as and when required, the RBI said, accepting the report.

More importantly, the RBI also accepted sug-gestion to increase the cap on the promoters’ stake in long run of 15 years may be raised from the current levels of 15 per cent to 26 per cent of the paid-up voting equity share capital of the bank.

Another key change is promoters will have to bring in more money to begin a bank as the RBI has accepted all the recommendations on the minimum initial capital requirement for licensing new banks, saying for universal banks the initial paid-up voting equity share capi-tal/ networth required for a new bank, may be increased to Rs 1,000 crore from present Rs 500 crore; for SFBs to Rs 300 crore from Rs 200 crore and for UCBs transiting to SFBs to Rs 150 crore from Rs 100 crore and the same has to be upped to Rs 300 crore in five years from Rs 200 crore.

However, the RBI said this stipulation should be uniform for all types of promoters and would not mean that promoters, who have already

diluted their holdings to below 26 per cent, will not be permitted to raise it to 26 per cent of the paid-up voting equity share capital of the bank. The promoter if desires, can choose to bring down holding to even below 26 per cent, any time after the lock-in of five years.

Though the report favoured that there is no need to set any intermediate sub-targets between 5 and 15 years on bringing down the promoter holding the central bank said at the time of issue of licences, the promoters will have to submit a dilution schedule to it and that the progress in achieving these agreed milestones must be peri-odically reported and shall be monitored by the central bank.

It also accepted the recommendation that non-promoter shareholding, current long-run shareholding guidelines should be replaced by a simple cap of 15 per cent of the paid-up voting equity share capital of the bank for all types of non-promoter shareholders.

While accepting this, the RBI clarified that non-promoter shareholding will be capped at 10 per cent of the paid-up voting equity share capital in case of natural persons and non-finan-cial institutions/entities and at 15 per cent of the paid-up voting equity share capital of the bank in case of all categories of financial institutions/entities, supranational institutions, public sector undertaking or government.

The RBI also maintained that any stake hold-ing or voting rights of 5 per cent or more of the paid-up share capital/ total voting rights of the concerned bank will require its prior nod.

On not allowing share pledge by promot-ers during the lock-in period, which amounts to bringing the unencumbered promoters’ shares below the prescribed minimum threshold, the central bank said in case the invoking the pledge results in purchase/transfer of shares beyond 5 per cent of total shareholding without prior RBI approval may restrict the voting rights of such pledgee till the pledgee get the RBI nod.

On recommendation for converting a large NBFC or SFB or PB into a commercial bank, the central bank said the minimum require-ment on track record of experience of promot-ing entity, including for a converting NBFC, may continue to be 10 years for banks and five years for small finance banks. However, for pay-ments banks intending to convert into an SFB, the requirement of five years of experience as PB will continue.

For existing banks and the banks to be set up under the existing on-tap licensing guidelines, a road map for adherence with the new norms will be announced separately in due course.

The RBI also accepted recommendation of continuing with the NOFHCs (non-operating financial holding company) structure for all new bank licences.

India asks Pak to expedite trial...

In a statement titled ‘Thirteen years of seek-ing justice for the victims of 26/11 Mumbai ter-ror attacks, the MEA asserted that the terror attack was “planned, executed and launched” from Pakistani territory.

“It is a matter of deep anguish that even after 13 years of this heinous terror attack, the families of 166 victims from 15 countries across the globe

still await closure, with Pakistan showing little sincerity in bringing the perpetrators to justice,” it said in a statement.

The MEA said India will continue to make every effort to seek justice for the families of the “victims and the martyrs” of the attacks.

“The former Prime Minister of Pakistan had gone on record and admitted that the terrorists were sent from Pakistan’s soil,” the MEA said, in a reference to comments made by former pre-mier Nawaz Sharif.

“We once again call on the government of Pakistan to give up double standards and to expeditiously bring the perpetrators of the hor-rific attack to justice,” it said.

The MEA said it is not just a matter of Paki-stan’s accountability to the families of the inno-cent victims who fell to terrorists, but also an international obligation.

“On the 13th anniversary of the 26/11 Mum-bai terrorist attacks, the government and people of India somberly remember the victims of this dastardly attack and the valiant security person-nel who laid down their lives to protect ours,” the MEA said.

“The President, the Prime Minister and the External Affairs Minister, in separate messages, have expressed their firm solidarity with the fam-ilies of the victims,” it said.

On November 26, 2008, a group of 10 Paki-stani terrorists went into a rampage, carrying out a coordinated attack on a railway station, two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre, after they sneaked into India’s financial capital using the sea route in the Arabian sea.

As many as 166 people were killed in the nearly 60-hour assault that sent shockwaves across the country and even brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war. India and 14 other countries lost their nationals in the attack.

In November 2012, Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving gunman among the Pakistani group, was hanged to death in Yerawada Jail in Pune.

People should strive to protect sanctity of Constitution: Mamata

“Article 1 of Constitution states that India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. Let us strengthen our federal structure. Jai Hind. Jai Bangla.” She had also urged people, in several meetings, not to rely on BJP accusing it of doing divisive politics.

In a programme held a few years ago at Netaji Indoor Stadium, she had stated: “Our Constitu-tion is the heart and soul of our Democracy!” and read out the Preamble along with all MPs, MLAs, leaders and workers of her party.

The Chief Minister had said in the meeting that “state governments have been bulldozed by the Centre in the name of cooperative federalism and we are fighting the battle against the same”.

She had repeatedly attacked the Centre for its various moves that adversely affected the fed-eral structure of the country and also accused it of “saffronising” most institutions. She had also raised her voice whenever a unilateral deci-sion was taken by the Centre negating the state governments.

From Page 1

DHARWAD (Karnataka): As many as 116 more people, mostly students, from SDM College of Medical Sciences and Hospital here, have tested positive for COVID-19, taking the total number of infections there to 182, official sources said on Friday.

Two hostels of the institu-tion were sealed on Thursday,

after 66 medical students had tested positive.

According to official sources, 690 people includ-ing students, staff and pri-mary contacts have been tested so far.

Dharwad Deputy Commis-sioner Nitesh Patil on Thurs-day had said, a students' event almost a week ago, might

have resulted in the spread of infection.

In another case of cluster infection in Dehradun, 11 of the 48 Indian Forest Service officers, who had gone for a training programme to Luc-know from Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy here, tested COVID positive on their return. MPOST

116 more test Covid positive at Karnataka’s medical college

Can’t just cast doubt on Covid vaccination programme: SC

ICA-1808(7)/2021

5millenniumpost Nation mpKOLKATA | SATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021

SC: It’s high time for taking initiative to have time frame

Oppn skips Constitution Day event HEARING OF CASES

NEW DELHI: Hitting back at Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi for slamming the Opposition parties for boy-cotting the Constitution day event, the Congress on Fri-day alleged that the govern-ment is “insulting” the “spirit” of the Constitution by disre-specting the Opposition.

While addressing a press conference, Congress Deputy Leader in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma said, “It is important to remind the government today that merely observ-ing the day as a government function and disrespecting the spirit and essence of the Constitution of India is a very poor reflection of the state of affairs.”

The Congress leader fur-ther said that the Opposition did not have any role but to sit in the audience. “Two years ago, the Congress had demanded that the Opposi-tion be given a role on the day but the government did

not heed to the advice. Since the country has a multi-party system, all the public repre-sentatives should have been given due importance in the function,” he said.

“We had protested to the event being reduced to a mere government func-tion and hoped that in future the government will respect Parliamentary democracy,” Sharma said.

“Our protest today is based on fundamental prin-ciples to remind our coun-try that the Constitution is being undermined and not respected. Parliamentary democracy is being threat-ened by passing laws without any Parliamentary scrutiny”, he added.

He further said that the Congress has strengthened the democracy that is why the Prime Minister got elected in 2014, so Modi’s criticism of the Opposition is “unwar-ranted”. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Expressing displeasure over Opposition leaders skipping the Constitu-tion Day function, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Friday said that the opposition parties should have participated in the function as it was a function of Parliament and not of the gov-ernment. “Constitution Day function was of Parliament and not of government. I am upset by the boycott of opposition parties. It is my endeavour that there should be no tradition of a boycott during the address of the President, vice-president, and the governor,” Birla told reporters after the celebration.

Notably, several opposi-tion parties, including Con-gress, Left parties, All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Shiv Sena, Nationalist Con-gress Party (NCP), Samajwadi Party (SP) boycotted the Con-stitution Day celebrations that was organised at Central Hall of Parliament on Friday.

The Lok Sabha Speaker added that he had also said this in the presiding officers’ con-ference that if anyone has any complaint or issue, then he can talk to me. “There may be dis-

agreement. But, let us carry on the good tradition,” Birla said.

“There were arrangements made for both Leader of Oppo-sition in Rajya Sabha, Mallikar-jun Kharge and Leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to sit on the dais. They were informed about the same by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister and my office. Still, they did not come and said that there were no seating arrangements for them on the dais, which is totally wrong,” Birla said.

The celebration of Consti-tution Day at the Central Hall of the Parliament was led by President Ram Nath Kovind.

It’s worth mentioning that the prior to Opposition leaders skipping a function in Parlia-ment, Lok Sabha Speaker, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and senior government ministers had skipped the event to offer floral tributes to coun-try’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru in Parliament on the occasion of the late leader’s birth anni-versary on November 14.

The nation celebrates Con-stitution Day on November 26 to commemorate the adoption of the Constitution of India by the Constituent Assembly in 1949.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday said it was high time to take initiative for having a time frame for hear-ing of cases as very limited time space" is available and same points are being sought to be argued by lawyers in one matter. The apex court said that when Justice M N Ven-katachaliah was the Chief Jus-tice of India (in 1993-1994), it was suggested that there would be a time frame for hearing of matters.

We need to now think about it. Seriously think about it. That thinking has been going on since long but we have not implemented it. Dr Singhvi (senior advocate A M Singhvi) may recall that during Chief Justice Venkatachaliah, it was suggested that we will have time frame for hearing, a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and C T Ravikumar said.

The top court observed this while hearing the Centre's plea challenging the Calcutta High Court order which had set

aside an order of the principal bench of the CAT to transfer an application by former West Bengal chief secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay, challenging the proceedings initiated against him by the Centre, from Kol-kata to New Delhi.

The bench told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was appearing for the Centre in the matter, that initiative be taken in this regard.

Please take initiative. This is time, high time now, the bench said, adding, There is very lim-ited time space available and many counsels want to argue the same point in one matter. This is what is happening. That is the experience now.

Mehta said, Your lordships can take initiative. We can only support. At the outset, Mehta requested the bench if the mat-ter can be taken up for hearing on November 29 as they will have to attend the function of Constitution Day being orga-nized by the Supreme Court Bar Association during the day and it the matter might take a little longer.

Singhvi, who was appear-ing for Bandopadhyay, told the bench that the respondent has filed his written submissions in the matter.

The bench told Singhvi that it would like to hear him after Mehta has argued.

Certainly. My written sub-missions are never a substitute. In fact, it will be very danger-ous if your lordships are to start considering written submis-sions as substitute for oral argu-ments, Singhvi said.

Actually, we should start doing that, the bench said.

The apex court told Mehta that this issue can be today's theme if he is going to address the function. I am not going to address, I am going to remain present there, Mehta said in a lighter vein, adding, It is a bar association function we are bound to be there.

The bench posted the Cen-tre's plea challenging the Octo-ber 29 order of the high court for hearing on November 29.

On November 15, the Cen-tre had told the apex court that the high court had passed a disturbing order while setting aside the order of the principal bench of the Central Adminis-trative Tribunal (CAT).

The solicitor general had told the bench that the high court order was disturbing , both on the question of territo-rial jurisdiction as well as some observations made in the order.

The top court was hearing a plea filed by the Centre against the high court order, which had also directed the Kolkata bench of CAT to expedite the hearing of Bandopadhyay's application and dispose it at the earliest.

Om Birla says function was of Parliament, not govt

Govt insulting spirit of Constitution: Cong

NEW DELHI: The CBI has got the sanction to prosecute retired Allahabad High Court Judge Justice S N Shukla in a corruption case for allegedly favouring a private medical col-lege in his orders, officials said.

The CBI had applied for a go ahead from the Central government to prosecute the retired judge on April 16 this year, in accordance with the Prevention of Corruption Act, they said. With the government now giving its nod, the CBI can proceed with a chargesheet against the retired judge.

Besides Justice Shukla of the Lucknow bench of the Alla-habad High Court, the agency had also named retired Chhat-tisgarh High Court judge I M Quddusi, Bhagwan Prasad Yadav and Palash Yadav of the Prasad Education Trust, the trust itself and private persons Bhavna Pandey and Sudhir Giri in the FIR, they said.

The CBI does not need sanction to prosecute Qud-dusi as he was a retired judge at the time of the alleged offence and acting in the capacity of a private person. Shukla joined the Allahabad High Court on October 5, 2005 and retired on

July 17, 2020, according to the High Court website.

Justice Shukla, who was heading a division bench in the high court, had allegedly defied the categorical restraint orders passed by an apex court bench led by the chief justice of India to permit private colleges to admit students for the 2017-18 academic session. Then CJI Dipak Misra had taken note and constituted a three-mem-ber in-house committee to look into the allegations.

The committee, compris-ing Madras High Court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee, Sik-kim High Court Chief Justice S K Agnihotri and Madhya Pradesh High Court judge Jus-tice P K Jaiswal, had concluded there was sufficient substance in the allegations contained in the complaint against Justice Shukla and that the aberrations were serious enough to call for initiation of proceedings for his removal.

After getting the report, Jus-tice Misra in 2018 had asked Justice Shukla to resign or seek voluntary retirement but he refused to do so following which judicial work was taken away from him. AGENCIES

CBI gets sanction to prosecute retired Allahabad HC judge

CORRUPTION CASE

MPOST BUREAU

CHANDIGARH: Hary-ana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday paid a courtesy call on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at his residence in New Delhi. During this, he apprised the Prime Minister about the wel-fare schemes being run by the Haryana Government.

Interacting with the media persons after the meeting, the Chief Minister said that he expressed his gratitude to the Prime Minister for recently appreciating the wel-fare schemes launched by the Haryana Government. He said that Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi has been invited for the International Gita Jay-anti Mahotsav and possibly the Prime Minister can pro-

vide guidance through online medium.

He informed that the Prime Minister was also apprised about the ambitious Mukhya-mantri Antyodaya Parivar Utthan Yojana launched by the State Government. Antyo-daya Gram Uday Melas will be organized in Haryana from

November 29 to December 16, in which very poor fami-lies verified under the Parivar Pehchan Patra will be called and will be given detailed information about the scheme so a frame work for upliftment of 1 lakh families whose family income is less than Rs. 1.8 lakh can be made.

Khattar meets PM Modi, invites him for Gita Jayanti Mahotsav

MUMBAI: Union minis-ter Narayan Rane on Friday claimed that the BJP will form government in Maharashtra in March.

Rane's statement came on a day when state BJP leaders Devendra Fadnavis and Chan-drakant Patil as well as NCP chief Sharad Pawar and his party colleague Praful Patel were in the national capital, sparking speculation.

Incidentally, the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government will complete two years on Saturday.

Fadnavis met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi, sources said.

Speaking to reporters in Jai-pur, Rane said, "BJP will form government in Maharashtra in March." Asked to elaborate, he said toppling and forming governments is done in secrecy and it can not be discussed in public. ''State (BJP) president Chandrakant Patil has spoken about this and I hope it comes true,'' Rane said.

Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole told reporters in Nagpur that the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government will complete its full term. AGENCIES

BJP to form govt in Maha

in March, says Rane

Chhattisgarh CM slams Centre for withdrawing PMAY-G allocation

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SHIMLA: Putting all specula-tions to rest on possible lead-ership change, national BJP president J P Nadda said the BJP will fight the next assembly polls under leadership of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur. “The BJP will fight the next assem-

bly polls in 2022 on the basis of development done in the state under CM Jai Ram Thakur and form the next government,” Nadda declared while address-ing the end-session of the BJP state executive here in Shimla.

Nadda was connected to Shimla via video conferencing from Manipur.

For past three days, the BJP‘s core committee, extended core group, state executive and office-bearers were holding a marathon meeting to analyse party’s poor show in the four bypolls and find the reasons for not winning a single seat and rather losing Mandi parlia-mentary seat to Pratibha Singh,

former Chief Minister Virb-hadra Singh’s wife. Mandi being Chief Minister’s home district brought greater humiliation to the party, which has to face the next assembly poll by the year end in 2022.

There have been strong rumours about sweeping changes in the party set up

and also the government in the wake of the defeat of the bypolls.

On Friday, Nadda gave a new energy to the party cadres and leaders asking them not to bother about the bypoll or social media speculations just focus on the next target – Mis-sion Repeat 2022.

No leadership change in Himachal, says Nadda

RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Friday hit out at the Centre for withdrawing the allocation made to the state under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) for the financial year 2021-22.

Speaking to reporters, Baghel claimed that the cen-tral government has not been releasing the state's pending funds and was instead blam-ing the state for not complet-ing the target.

The chief minister was responding to a question about the Union government's move to withdraw its allocation for the PMAY-G citing Chhattis-garh's poor performance.

"We have been raising the issue of the Centre not releas-ing the pending share of the Central Excise and continu-ously making reductions in the GST (compensation given to state). These pending amounts are around Rs 21,000 crore to Rs 22,000 crore. It (Centre) is yet to give penalty of Rs 4,140 crore collected from coal min-ers (who were allotted mines in Chhattisgarh)," Baghel said.

On the one hand, the Cen-tre has not been releasing

pending funds with it, while on the other hand, it is accus-ing the state of not completing (the target), he said.

Speaking about the PMAY-G, the chief minister further said that if the scheme is named after the prime minister, then why was the fund allocation ratio between the Centre and the state 60:40.

"The entire fund for the scheme should be given by the Centre. When did we say that we will not make (houses under the scheme)? As soon as we have the funds, we will deposit it (for the scheme) again and build houses for the poor," Baghel said.

In a letter dated November 17, the Union Ministry of Rural

Development to Chhattisgarh, had stated the target of 7,81,999 houses in rural areas allocated to the state for the financial year 2021-22 was withdrawn with immediate effect.

The letter stated that Chhat-tisgarh had not shown any sat-isfactory results on parameters such as registrations of new houses, sanctioning of new houses to PMAY-G beneficia-ries, completion of previously allocated houses etc. Besides release of long pending state's shares since 2019 till date under the PMAY-G till date.

The above factors have resulted in poor performance of the state under the scheme and the state had failed to uti-lise the targeted allocations, it said.

State BJP leaders, including former Chief Minister Raman Singh, had posted the copy of the letter on social media, accusing the state government of being "incompetent".

State Congress spokesper-son Dhananjay Singh Thakur accused the Centre of meting out "step-motherly treatment" to the Congress government in the state in terms of fund allo-cation. MPOST

AGRA: The Mughal Road in Agra city has been renamed as 'Maharaja Agrasen Road', Agra Mayor Naveen Jain said on Friday. The road has been renamed on demand of the fol-lowers of Maharaja Agrasen who live nearby the road in Kamla Nagar locality here, said Jain.

On Thursday, the name of the Sultanganj Ki Pulia' was also changed to 'Vikal Chok', he said. The Mughal Road name change was announced in pres-ence of Maharaja Agrasen fol-lowers and locals, the Mayor said. "There was a request to change the name of Mughal Road to Maharaja Agrasen by the followers of Maha-raja Agrasen. A majority of

these followers live nearby the road in the Kamla Nagar area through which the road passes," Jain said.

"After a demand to rename the road came, a proposal was passed by the executive committee of the Agra Nagar Nigam on September 27. After that the members of the house passed the proposal," he said.

"We have no idea how a road that goes from Vikal Chok to Kamla Nagar was named Mughal Road. But future gen-erations will be inspired now that it is associated with Maha-raja Agrasen," Jain added.

Sushma Jain, a corporator from Ward 75, said it was an honour for all the followers of Maharaja Agrasen. AGENCIES

Mughal Road in Agra is now ‘Maharaja

Agrasen Road’

‘Central govt not releasing the state’s pending funds and instead blaming the state for not completing the target’

Bhupesh Baghel

KURUKSHETRA UNIVERSITY

6 millenniumpostNationmpSATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021 | KOLKATA

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In a significant move, India, Russia and China on Friday called for ensuring that the territory of Afghani-stan is not used to attack any country, pitched for the for-mation of a “truly inclusive” government and pressed for immediate and unhindered humanitarian assistance to the war-torn country.

The foreign ministers of the three countries, at a virtual meeting held under the Rus-sia-India-China (RIC) frame-work, also reaffirmed their support for the basic principle of an “Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process.

The ministers stressed the necessity of “urgent elimina-tion” of UN Security Coun-cil proscribed terrorist groups such as al Qaeda, ISIL and oth-ers for lasting peace in Afghan-istan and the region, the joint communique said.

The meeting was chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jais-hankar and was attended by his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The communique issued after the talks said the minis-ters called for the formation of a truly inclusive government that represents all the major ethnic and political groups of the country and emphasised on the central role of the UN in that country. “They stressed the necessity of urgent elimination of UN Security Council pro-scribed terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIL and others for lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region,” it said.

The ministers acknowl-edged the widespread and sin-cere demand of the Afghan people for lasting peace.

“They reaffirmed the importance of ensuring that

the territory of Afghanistan should not be used to threaten or attack any other country and that no Afghan group or indi-vidual should support terror-ists operating on the territory of any other country,” it added.

Expressing concerns regarding dramatic change of the situation in Afghani-stan, the ministers advocated a peaceful, secure, united, sovereign, stable and pros-perous inclusive Afghanistan that exists in harmony with its neighbours. “They called on the Taliban to take actions in accordance with the results of all the recently held interna-tional and regional formats of interaction on Afghanistan, including the UN Resolutions on Afghanistan,” the commu-nique said.

“Expressing concern over the deteriorating humanitar-ian situation in Afghanistan, the Ministers called for imme-diate and unhindered humani-tarian assistance to be provided to Afghanistan. The Ministers also emphasised the central role of UN in Afghanistan,” it said.

The communique said the foreign ministers of China and Russia reiterated the impor-tance they attached to the status of India in international affairs and supported its aspiration to

play a greater role in the United Nations.

The foreign ministers of Russia and China congratu-lated India for its success-ful Presidency of the UNSC in August. The three coun-tries also decided to step up efforts in jointly countering terrorism, illicit drug traffick-ing and trans-border organised crime under the framework of SCO-Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure.

Jaishankar, Wang and Lav-rov also condemned terrorism in all its manifestations and said that it must be compre-hensively countered to achieve a world free of terrorism.

They called on the inter-national community to strengthen UN-led global counter-terrorism coopera-tion by fully implementing the relevant UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

In this context, they called for the early adoption of the UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

“The ministers stressed that those committing, orchestrat-ing, inciting or supporting, financing terrorist acts must be held accountable and brought to justice in accordance with existing international commit-ments on countering terror-ism,” the communique said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu will visit India to hold the inaugural '2+2' ministerial dialogue between the two countries on December 6, the Russian embassy has said.

Lavrov and Shoigu will hold the talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is also likely to visit India around December 6 to hold summit talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"On December 6, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov together with Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu will hold talks in New Delhi with their Indian counterparts

S Jaishankar and Rajnath Singh," a spokesperson of the embassy said.

He said it is expected that the ministers will have in-depth discussions of the key regional and international issues including the situation in the Asia-Pacific region and developments in Afghanistan and Syria. Russia refers to the Indo-Pacific as Asia-Pacific.

The spokesperson

said the two sides are also expected to exchange views on interaction within the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral.

"In future, consultations in this format are intended to be organised on a regular basis, alternately in Russia and India," the spokesperson said. India has the '2+2'

ministerial format of dialogue with very few countries including the US, Japan and Australia.

The Modi-Putin summit is expected to produce specific outcomes in further expanding ties in areas of defence, trade and energy.

It is learnt that the two sides are going to firm up a number of agreements in the areas of defence, trade and investment, and science and technology at the summit.

A framework for military-technical cooperation is set to be renewed for the next decade at the summit besides announcing a joint commission on technology and science.

India and Russia have also reached the final phase of negotiation for a logistics support agreement and it is likely to be signed either

during the two-plus-two talks or at the summit.

The pact will allow militaries of the two countries to use each other's bases for repair and replenishment of supplies, besides facilitating scaling up of overall defence cooperation.

The summit was postponed last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both the countries have a mechanism under which India's prime minister and the Russian president hold a summit meeting annually to review the entire gamut of ties.

So far 20 Annual Summit meetings have taken place alternatively in India and Russia.

Russia has been a time-tested partner for India and the country has been a key pillar of New Delhi's foreign policy.

KURUKSHETRA: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has enrolled himself for a three-month online basic certificate course in Japanese culture and language started by Kurukshetra University here.

A KU release said on Friday that Khattar has become the first student to recently enrol for this course. The release quoting Khattar said that there is no age limit to get an edu-cation and learn. "One should keep on improving one's skills and knowledge," said the 67-year-old BJP leader.

Khattar said he had a pas-sion for learning foreign languages from the very begin-ning, so he has enrolled in the Japanese language course started by Kurukshetra Uni-versity (KU).

Vice-Chancellor of Kuruk-shetra University, Prof Som-NathSachdeva, congratulated

the chief minister on becoming the first student of the Japanese language course.

"It is a matter of pride for Kurukshetra University," he said.

"His presence as a student will be a great motivation to the entire teaching and student fraternity of Kurukshetra Uni-versity. Along with the chief minister, higher officials of the Haryana government and autonomous institutions have also enrolled in this course," Sachdeva said.

Dean Faculty of Arts and Languages and Chairperson, Department of Foreign Lan-guages, BrajeshSawhney said that this basic certificate course will cover Japanese history and life-values, basics of Japanese writing and pronunciation, vocabulary, basic greetings used in daily life and business meetings. AGENCIES

RIC calls for formation of truly inclusive govt in Af

Khattar enrols for Japanese language

SUSHIL MANAV

CHANDIGARH: With a view to ensure overall development of the Kharar area, the Pun-jab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Friday laid the foundation Stones of a slew of projects at a cost of Rs. 127.54 crore. In a landmark initia-tive, he announced upgrada-tion of status of Gharuan from Panchayat to Nagar Panchayat and revealed that a Sub Tehsil would also come up at Kharar near here.

The projects whose foun-dation stones were laid by the Chief Minister comprised sew-erage treatment plant ( Rs. 59.06 crore), Water Treatment plant at Kajauli (Rs. 47.06 crore), Beautification of Ajj sarovar (Rs. 4.83 crore), Government Model Senior Secondary School at Village Badali (Rs. 13.47

crore) and Pandusar Sarovar (Rs. 3.14 crore).

Earlier in his address at the office of Municipal Coun-cil, Kharar, the Chief Minister described his visit as a home-coming for him and said that Kharar has given him every-thing and made him what he is today. "I started my politi-cal journey from here itself. I know every nook and corner of the city. The people of Kharar have showered immense love upon me as my voting percent-age increased everytime dur-ing the three times when I got elected from here as Munici-pal Councillor and also served as its President", said Channi adding he would forever remain indebted to the people here. He also exhorted the Council-lors to work diligently and go strict especially on the illegal encroachments.

Channi launches projects worth ̀ 127 cr at Kharar

The ministers acknowledged the widespread and sincere demand of the Afghan people for lasting peace

India, Russia inaugural ‘2+2’ dialogue on December 6: Russian embassy

Highlights » Russian President Vladimir Putin is also likely to visit India around December 6 to hold summit talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi » ‘On December 6, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov together with Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu will hold talks in New Delhi with their Indian counterparts S Jaishankar and Rajnath Singh’ » The Modi-Putin summit is expected to produce specific outcomes in further expanding ties in areas of defence, trade and energy

The global disruption in economic activi-ties due to the Covid-19  pandemic had

resulted in an extraordinary decrease in carbon dioxide emissions last year. Carbon emissions from fossil fuels fell by 5.4% in 2020, as gov-ernment-mandated pandemic restrictions shut down restau-rants and factories, closed bor-ders, and grounded planes.

The Global Carbon Proj-ect (GCP), an international research outfit, presented this data pertaining to latest trends on carbon dioxide emission during the Glasgow climate summit. The project esti-mates that the CO2 emissions fell from 36.7 billion tonnes to 34.8 billion tonnes in 2020 alone – an absolute reduction of 1.9 billion tonnes. The group also noted that carbon emis-sions from burning fossil fuels increased by 4.9%, to about 36.4 billion tonnes this year. While this has been a marginal increase, this quick rebound has caused concerns owing to government efforts to open up their battered economies and the huge demand for coal in China and India.

While this is bad news vis-à-vis carbon emissions, the lockdown has helped peo-ple become more conscious towards the long-term impact of their choices on the planet. Thanks to the ubiquitous phe-nomenon of ‘stay at home’ and ‘work from home’ experienced by people in 2020 and 2021. Whether it is fashion, tech-nology, or mobility, consum-ers have seen a positive visible impact of their decisions to choose sustainable living in the interest of improving the environmental health.

While there is a semblance of new-found awareness and sensitivity among global con-sumers towards sustainable liv-ing and renewable energy, it does not provide a long-term solution. At best, this is a short-term disruption, which gives the global governments an elbow room to secure public buy-in to transition from tra-ditional to renewable sources of energy. If we move quickly in this direction, then we can hope that our next generations may enjoy a world completely powered by renewable energy sources, in the next four to five decades.

In the Indian context, GCP has projected that India’s CO2 emissions would rise 12.6% compared to 2020, contributing to 7% of global CO2 emissions. Hence, we need to rapidly tran-sition to renewable sources, especially to solar, which will also play a key role in achiev-ing our commitment to becom-ing net-zero by 2070. The state government must play a semi-nal role in this journey to green energy by creating a grassroots movement, driven by people.

This is akin to the massive grassroots drive, which resulted in the successful implemen-tation of the Swachh Bharat Mission. The grassroots peo-ple movement was driven by a massive public literacy cam-

paign, which ensured that India achieved the goal of becoming Open Defecation Free (ODF) ahead of the stated deadline of 2019. In the same direc-tion, the state governments of the leading renewable energy producing states like Rajast-han, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh should come up with massive public awareness campaigns that can create widespread awareness and move the people to adopt solar energy.

Madhya Pradesh, which is one of the top ten producers of solar energy in India, has been an early mover in this area. It has taken its commitment of transitioning to solar energy to the next level. The state

government has announced the implementation of a peo-ple-centric movement called the ‘Urja Saksharta Abhi-yan’ (USHA). Reportedly, this ambitious effort is the world’s largest energy literacy program to build an energy-conscious society. Through this massive exercise, the MP government aims to reach out to more than seven crore citizens of the state through various channels. This movement would reach out to students, housewives, business-men, and others at the cross-section of the society. The state government aims to inculcate the habit of energy saving, making it a part of one’s behav-ior. It will focus on educating the citizens about the bene-fits of adopting solar energy, as well.

Reinforcing its commit-ment to solar energy, the MP government has also focused on educating the farmers to extend the reach of this energy literacy exercise. The land-owning farmers will be encour-aged to adopt solar energy and will be supported, under the PM-KUSUM scheme, to set-up solar power generation units on their lands. Besides, helping

reinstate their understanding of the benefits of solar energy, it will also accomplish a dou-ble benefit of providing cheap power for irrigation and addi-tional incomes to the farmers.

If all the renewable energy producing states make energy literacy a focus in the next five to seven years, then India will be in a comfortable position to achieve the commitments made by PM Modi at COP26 summit, ahead of time. We will be able to meet 50 percent of our energy requirements from renewable energy and achieve a reduction in the total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes from now till 2030.

As we prepare to achieve our renewable energy goals, we must negotiate our way with an understanding that clean energy is the defining challenge of our time. The challenge is to produce more energy in a sustainable manner, while continuing to reduce carbon emissions until we become net zero. The opportunity lies in addressing this challenge col-lectively, and transitioning to renewable energy as a nation, undergirded by a grassroots energy literacy movement. MPOST

Energy literacy key in transitioning to solar energyMP govt has announced implementation of a people-centric movement ‘Urja Saksharta Abhiyan’

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar digitally chairs the 18th Russia-India-China (RIC) Foreign Ministers' Meeting PIC/PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: What does it feel like when you are able to come together and stand your ground against the State? The Capital’s borders this Friday answered this question as tens of thousands of farmers - mostly from Punjab, Hary-ana and Western UP descended upon the protest sites at Sin-ghu, Tikri and Ghazipur - but this time with a sparkle in their eyes and the joy of finally reap-ing the benefits of a movement - that had taken away so much from so many of them.

Tractors bedecked with lights and posters rolled through the Singhu border protest site and loud Pun-jabi and Haryanvi celebra-tory music filled in the air, as many protesters at the Tikri border site arrived wearing “The Country Won” hoodies and the Ghazipur protest site saw tractors, trolleys and cars trickling in throughout the day. All three protest sites had special langar sewa to mark one year of the protests at the Capital’s gates.

Farmers flaunting colour-ful turbans, sunshades, long beards and twirling mous-taches danced on the roofs of tractors, distributed sweets and hugged each other to mark the occasion that seemed like a fes-tival. Children and elderly, men and women, carried flags of their farmer unions and raised slogans of victory "Inquilab Zindabad" and "Majdoor Kisan Ekta Zindabad" amid passion-ate non-stop beating of drums.

At Ghazipur, a man with a large conch kept playing at reg-

ular intervals as those around him kept saying, “The sound from your conch has now reached Delhi, has it not?”

The assembly area near the centrestage at the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur sites saw a large gathering like the early days of the protest with farm-ers for as far as the eye could see. The attendees included businessmen, professionals, lawyers, teachers, among oth-ers, belonging to families of farmers.

On Friday morning, farm-ers held special prayers to pay tributes to those who died dur-ing the course of the protest. A notice board outside a tent at Singhu reminded grimly, "732 people have died in the last one year,” as the outpour-ing of emotions at the border sites took over almost everyone present there.

Lakhan Singh, 45, from Barnala in Punjab was protest-ing at the Delhi-Haryana bor-der when he lost his father early this year. "It would have been better had he been here today. But I know his soul will be at peace now," he said. Bhagwan Singh, 43, from Mavi village in Patiala lost his friend Najar Singh, 35, in the seventh month of the protest and burst into tears remembering him. "My friend, the sole breadwinner of his family, left behind three small daughters and elderly parents. We miss him," he said as many others recalled what they had to face on their way to Delhi - some showing scars - courtesy of police lathis and tear gas guns.

"Batons, barricades, treats, nails ... nothing could stop us,

we won!" said Kripal Singh, 57, who had braved several bouts of lathicharging to reach Sin-ghu in December last year.

At Ghazipur, many of the farmers brought along vege-tables, sacks of flour and len-tils, spices and cooking oil on their tractor-trollies, saying they have come prepared for a long haul even as Bharatiya Kisan Union chief Rakesh Tikati urged them from the stage to not let up until all their demands were met. But even as farmers revelled in their vic-tory, several police battalions were seen guarding the protest site with tear gas munitions and automatic weapons

At Ghazipur, A BKU spokesperson said, “We have planned a march towards Delhi on November 29, but SKM will take a call about it on Satur-day,” adding that farmers are arriving in large numbers for the march - estimating a crowd of at least 50,000 at Ghazipur along by then.

Hundreds of farmers have been encamped at Delhi's Ghazipur, Tikri and Singhu borders since November 26, 2020, with a demand that the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, Farm-ers' (Empowerment and Pro-tection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 be rolled back and a new law made to guarantee MSP for crops.

PM Modi had last week announced his government's decision to withdraw the con-tentious laws.

Farmers celebrate victory at Delhi’s borders after year-long

struggle, to stay put for now

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Friday advanced to December 10 the hearing on pleas to declare the PM CARES Fund a 'State' under the Constitution and a 'public authority' under the RTI Act to ensure transparency in its functioning.

A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh allowed the applications for early hearing by the petitioner SamyakGangwal and said,

Looking into the facts of the case, we allow the applications and prepone the date of hear-ing to December 10 .

The matter was last listed on November 18 when it was adjourned till December 20 after the bench did not assem-ble. The petitioner has filed two petitioners seeking a direction to declare the PM CARES Fund a 'State' under the Constitution to ensure transparency in its functioning

and also to declare it a 'pub-lic authority' under the RTI Act. The pleas are being heard together.

The petitioner has said that the PM CARES Fund is a 'State' as it was formed by the Prime Minister on March 27, 2020, to extend assistance to the citizens of India in the wake of the public health emergency -- the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic.

His counsel had told the

court that if it is found that the PM CARES Fund is not 'State' under the Constitution, usage of the domain name 'gov', the Prime Minister's photograph, state emblem, etc has to be stopped.

However, an affidavit filed by an Under-Secretary at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) who is discharging his func-tions in the PM Cares Trust on an honorary basis, had said the PM CARES Fund is not a

government fund as donations to it do not go to the Consoli-dated Fund of India and no third party information can be parted with irrespective of its status under the Constitution and the RTI Act. It had said the trust functions with transpar-ency and its funds are audited by an auditor -- a chartered accountant drawn from the panel prepared by the Comp-troller and Auditor General of India. AGENCIES

HC to hear on Dec 10 pleas to declare PM CARES Fund ‘State’, public authority under RTI Act

Fear gripped Indian cryptocurrency inves-tors as news did the rounds that the Indian

government was all set to introduce the Cryptocurrency Bill in Parliament next week. The buzz has been that the Indian government will ban private cryptocurrencies with few exceptions. Even while some indulged in panic sell-ing, there are several reasons to believe that the scaremon-gering may be ill-conceived.

For starters, the hard stance taken initially by the govern-ment earlier this year, has since softened. First, there was talk of a complete blanket ban on cryptocurrency, which shifted to a call to regulate the sector instead. As is with Parliamen-tary matters, the final bill may very well be completely dif-ferent from the proposed one which currently calls for a ban on private cryptocurrencies. As experts say, there is also lack of clarity on the definition of private cryptocurrencies. There is also confirmation now that India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has its own digital currency in the works. This is the great-est affirmation for the world of digital currencies. And if the government decides to ban biggie cryptos such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, it would surely raise a global stink.

Sector watchers expect greater clarity to emerge in the next few weeks, with many confessing that a ban on all pri-vate cryptocurrencies would come as a shock. The indus-try has been open to compli-

ances such as linking wallets to bank accounts. Earlier in June, when certain banks cau-tioned customers against deal-ing with virtual currencies, the RBI issued a prompt clarifica-tion that its own 2018 direc-tive can’t be cited by banks since the Supreme Court had crushed the order in 2020.

The tabling of the bill, and if Parliamentary discussions happen effectively, can make way for greater transparency and accountability for the sector. Ahead of the tabling of the Bill, there was a Par-liamentary panel meeting on cryptocurrency chaired by BJP MP and former Union Minis-

ter, Jayant Sinha, which was attended by various stakehold-ers of the Indian cryptocur-rency ecosystem. The meeting was also necessitated to dis-cuss the numerous cautionary advice issued by the RBI in the recent past. News reports quoting sources suggest that the discussions hinged towards increased regulation rather than a ban.

India has moved slowly on putting its cards on the table. In UK for instance, cryptos are not regulated but trading in it requires authorisation. US has been largely supportive of these digital assets while the European Union and France

regulate as per their own norms. Cryptocurrency are not considered legal tender in Canada. For the crypto world, China has been most severe with its September announce-ment that such businesses are criminally prosecuted, and El Salvador the most welcoming as the first country to recog-nise Bitcoin as legal tender. India has hemmed and hawed but again has not said or done much. This leads me to believe that the beginning of Parlia-mentary discussions would bring much-needed respite to crypto aficionados who have been stuck in the elusive ‘will they, won’t they (ban)’ stance

of the government. Industry players say that demands for KYC (know your customer) compliance and taxability can be fully met that would placate the watchdogs. Crypto body, IndiaTech, for instance has urged exchanges to share data and ensure stringent adher-ence to KYC norms. The times are changing, and given the popularity of the digital cur-rencies, the Indian administra-tion would do well to imbibe new trends while putting in place adequate checks and balances.

The writer is an author and media entrepreneur. Views

expressed are personal

The Prime Minis-ter surprised every-one by his recent announcement

of repealing the three laws related to structural reforms in the agriculture sector. This announcement came after more than a year-long agita-tion by the farmers. While it is being perceived by some as a victory of democracy, oth-ers see it as a failure of agricul-tural reforms, which is likely to impact reforms in other sectors like labour and privatisation as well. Only the future will decide the impact of this decision but it would be unfortunate if this leads to postponement of reforms in the agriculture sector. The 1991 economic reforms were all about open-ing up the industrial and for-eign trade sectors — leaving agriculture untouched. This sector is in urgent need of economic reforms to alleviate the distress of farmers and to ensure that farming in India becomes a viable occupation. Poverty and hunger cannot be eradicated by 2030, as visual-ised in the sustainable devel-opment goals, without tangible and structural reforms in the agricultural sector. For years, in agriculture, we have been focusing on management of inputs like seeds and fertilis-ers, but now, major reforms will have to be undertaken in post-harvest management and agriculture marketing. Unless we can have people moving from disguised unemployment in the farm sector to employ-ment in the non-farm occu-pations, we would not get the desired improvement in per capita income. Very often, pol-icy issues are caught between what constitutes good eco-nomics and whether it cor-responds with good politics. Agriculture sector requires policies which not only repre-sent good economics but are also politically acceptable. This is akin to walking on a razor’s edge and highlights the travails of policymaking.

In a remarkable book on economic policymaking, titled ‘In Service of the Repub-lic’, Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah have brought out the nuances of economic policymaking. Tak-ing a metaphor from cricket,

the authors equate policymak-ing with a five-day test match, and caution that it should never be taken as a T20 match. This highlights the point that a good policy, which can be imple-mented successfully, requires detailed deliberations and con-sideration of the views of all stakeholders. The authors say that there are three steps in policymaking, and a policy-maker must ask himself three questions — whether there is a need for a policy to avoid mar-ket failure, does the proposed intervention address market failure and finally, whether the state has the ability to effectively implement the proposed inter-vention. Instances of policy failure are not new to our econ-omy. Kelkar and Shah are of the opinion that policy failures are born out of information con-straint, knowledge constraint, resource constraint, adminis-trative constraint and finally, the voter rationality constraint. I believe that the failure of the farm laws could be attributed to the last of these constraints, as it was opposed by the very group for whose benefit the laws had been formulated. The reality is that public policymaking is a

far more complex process than the strategies made by the pri-vate sector. Numerous stake-holders have to be satisfied, and a multiplicity of objectives have to be attained, which makes the whole process complicated and cumbersome.

A public policy has to go into the root cause of the prob-lem it seeks to resolve. It should aim at treating the disease and not the symptoms. Policymak-ers must ask the right questions because only then is it possible to get a complete perspective of the problem. Constant engage-ment with all stakeholders is essential, and diverse opinions have to be synergised. A poli-cymaker must not shy away from his critics, and the whole exercise has to be dynamic. It is also important to build capac-ity before undertaking any major structural reform.

The above discussion may indicate that policymaking is an arduous task but it is also true that efficient policymak-ing is directly linked to faster economic growth. Studies show that at the times of pol-icy paralysis, the growth rate of the economy declines. It is, thus, incumbent upon the gov-

ernment to keep responding with policies to address vari-ous issues and problems that are thrown up. In the light of this, one would feel that even though the farm laws have been repealed, the process of reforming the farm sector should keep getting the high-est priority. Of course, it is important that the policies are properly communicated to the people so that they realise that it is in their own best interest. The best way of doing this is through widespread participa-tion of all concerned stakehold-ers rather than using a coercive and top-down approach.

One often hears that the policies are good but the implementation has been poor. Having been involved in the implementation of several pol-icies, I have some disagreement with this. I feel very often that policymakers do not take into account the realities of imple-mentation, and that is why many policies fail at the execu-tion stage. A good policy must be accompanied by a realistic implementation action plan, without which it is not possi-ble to ensure that the benefits of the policy would reach those

for whom it has been intended.In the case of the farm sec-

tor, I feel there is an utmost need for reforms. Farmers are not getting a remunera-tive price for their produce, agriculture market system is not working efficiently, cost of cultivation is continuously going up, soil fertility is being adversely affected by exces-sive use of chemical fertilisers, water is being used indiscrim-inately and landholdings are fragmented to the extent of being unviable. These are some of the major problems which have been causing farmer dis-tress in the country. We need to set up a process of detailed deliberations between admin-istrators, political executives, agricultural experts and farm-ers to come out with a com-prehensive policy package to address the woes of the sec-tor. Unless productivity and returns in the agriculture sec-tor improve significantly, labor would not move from farm to non-farm occupation, which is essential to bring about faster economic development.

The writer is an ex-Chief Sec-retary, Govt of Uttar Pradesh. Views expressed are personal

7millenniumpost EditorialKOLKATA | SATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021

ALOK RANJAN

Log on to write letters to the editor or send them to letter2editor.mp@gmail.com. You can also send your comments to The Editor,

Millennium Post, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002

DearEditor

Smoking is a global health hazard, as it is rapidly making inroads into the health of youngsters. The recent revelations in a report by the International Commission to Reignite the Fight Against Smoking raise certain critical questions. India has the lowest rate amongst countries in terms of quitting smoking. It is distressing to note that China and India have a dubious distinction of having 500 million tobacco consumers between the age of 16 and 64, which is three times higher among men than women. About 1.35 million people lose their lives on account of oral lung cancer and other tobacco-related ailments. The problem is rooted in not enforcing the prohibitions strictly in poor and middle-income countries despite the fact that nearly all countries have put a ban on marketing and direct sale of tobacco products to children. A study of areas around 243 schools in India has revealed that despite prohibition, vendors display tobacco products in such a manner that children get lured into smoking. Misinformation and misunderstanding are the biggest obstacles, as there is a misconception that e-cigarettes are equally or more harmful than combustible tobacco. The study shows that e-cigarettes are 95 per cent less harmful than combustibles. This must be overcome through disseminating correct and scientific information among the masses. The report recommends adopting best practices to combat misinformation. Leveraging multi-national and multi-disciplinary studies and raising awareness will make it easier for smokers to switch from combustible to e-cigarette and then quit altogether. The entire gamut of socio-economic factors like peer pressure, emulating friends, films, etc., that leads to tobacco addiction must be given adequate attention by framing appropriate policies.

Shifting the management focus from inputs to post-harvest activities like marketing has become imperative

— VIJAY SINGH ADHIKARI, NAINITAL via email

The government has softened its stance from proposing a blanket ban on cryptocurrency to regulation

EDITORIALLoss and gain!

Going forward with its expansion spree, the TMC secured major gain in the Northeast-ern state of Meghalaya — with 12 out of the 17 Congress MLAs in the 60-member assembly

crossing over to the TMC ship. The party now claims to be the principal Opposition in the state. This gain comes at the cost of the loss of the principal national Opposi-tion party — the Congress. But the more critical thing to look forward to is how the equation involving loss and gain of the two parties will shape the larger picture of power in the state which will go to polls in 2023. Formed in 2012, the Meghalaya Pradesh Trinamool Congress has come a long way in the state to becoming the principal Opposition party. Riding on the massive victory in the West Bengal assembly elections, and then in the recent bye-elections, the TMC is showing no signs of stopping. It has proven its mettle in making a dent in the BJP’s strong electoral presence across the country — some-thing that the Congress has been persistently failing to do. For the TMC, Meghalaya may be just another state, where it eyes to make its mark. The party has attracted crucial defectors from the Congress in Tripura, Goa and Haryana. It can be said that the larger objective of TMC is to counter the growing influence of the BJP at a pan-India level. Having defeated the BJP in her stronghold Bengal, the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC appears to hunt for political space in the BJP-ruled states. In doing so, as some fear, it is only diluting the fight against the BJP by dividing the anti-BJP votes. In states like Tripura, which is predominantly Bengali speaking, Mamata’s politi-cal venture still holds some water, but how far is that applicable to the other regions, is a debatable question. Whatever may be the case, the party certainly is within its right to expand its base, and so is Mamata Banerjee to aspire to be leading at the national level. It would be a concrete strategy, however, to chalk out a well-defined plan with specific goals, rather than just being driven by personal and political vendetta. Another pertinent ques-tion is how big the loss is for the Congress? To see it in a larger perspective, the dilution of Congress in the entire Northeast region is as big a problem as it would have been in some of the western and southern states. The party appears to lose in Meghalaya yet another bastion, and the reasons are more internal than external. The Grand Old Party is letting itself be subdued in one after another instances. Defection by Mukul Sangma, along with some of his family members, is a serious develop-ment. Sangma is associated with the Garo tribes, one of the influential factions in Meghalaya, apart from Khasi and Jaintia. Losing a foothold among the tribal popu-lation could become a hard thing to be restored for the Congress. The Meghalaya setback is an utter leadership failure for the Congress, as in the first place, the party, despite emerging as the single largest party after the 2018 assembly polls, failed to form the government. And now it faces a downgrade from being the principal Opposi-tion. This story is not strange for the party. The Congress has stumbled on similar lines in the past in states like Manipur where it had failed to form government for just being a couple of seats short from the majority mark. It only reflects the failure of the leadership at Central level which, despite its effort to strike a cordial note with the rebel factions, could not prove effective. Mukul Sangma has perhaps alleged that he could not elicit desired response despite his repeated outreach to the leadership in Delhi. Such a laxative approach by the principal oppo-sition Party will not just weaken the party, but democ-racy as well. It should come as no surprise then, that regional parties are taking the charge of affairs in their own hands. In Meghalaya, amid the transaction between the Congress and the TMC, it is the silent observer, the BJP, which must be sensing better prospects for itself. It is part of the ruling NDA coalition in the state, and the divided opposition could somewhat favor it. The moot question remains whether the TMC, as a replacement of Congress, could stand as fierce against the BJP as it did in Bengal? Furthermore, if the TMC is to make its mark on national politics, how long will it take, and at what cost will it come? The answers to these questions will depend upon how meticulous or bizarre the planning is. For the case of the Congress, it needs to be admitted that to retain its influence, the party will have to come out sharper and bolder. It cannot rest its stakes at the deci-sions and actions of other parties.

Agriculture sector requires policies that not only represent good economics but are also politically acceptable

If the government decides to ban biggie cryptos such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, it would surely raise a global stink

millenniumpost.in

SHUTAPA PAULTHREATENING REVELATIONS

Greater synergy neededThe policy failure in sustaining the farm laws should not deter policymakers from

chalking out more inclusive reforms with well-defined implementation plan

Cryptic cryptoThe upcoming tabling of the Cryptocurrency Bill has engulfed

the ecosystem in fear, but this anxiety may be premature

8 millenniumpostWorldmpSATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021 | KOLKATA

World takes action as new variant emerges in southern Africa

BRUSSELS: A slew of nations moved to stop air travel from southern Africa on Friday, and stocks plunged in Asia and Europe in reaction to news of a new, potentially more trans-missible COVID-19 variant.

The last thing we need is to bring in a new variant that will cause even more problems, said German Health Minister Jens Spahn, amid a massive spike in cases in the 27-nation Euro-pean Union, which is recom-mending a ban on flights from southern African nations.

Within a few days of the discovery of the new variant, it has already impacted on a jittery world that is sensitive to bad COVID-19 news, with deaths around the globe stand-ing at well over 5 million.

Medical experts, including the World Health Organiza-tion, warned against any over-reaction before all elements were clear but nations who acted said their concerns were justified.

Early indications show this variant may be more trans-missable than the delta vari-ant and current vaccines may be less effective against it, British Health Secretary Sajid Javid told lawmakers. "We must move quickly and at the earli-est possible moment, he said.

Belgium became the first European Union country to announce a case of the variant.

We have one case of this variant that is confirmed. It's someone who came from abroad, said Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke. It's a suspicious variant. We don't know if it's a very dangerous variant.

Israel, one of the world's most vaccinated countries, announced Friday that it has also detected the country's first case of the new variant, in a traveler who returned from

Malawi. The traveler and two other suspected cases have been placed in isolation. It said all three are vaccinated but that it is currently looking into their exact vaccination status.

The WHO cautioned not to jump to conclusions too fast.

Speaking before the EU announcement, Dr. Michael Ryan, the head of emergen-cies at the WHO said that it's really important that there are no knee-jerk responses."

We've seen in the past, the minute there's any kind of mention of any kind of varia-tion and everyone is closing borders and restricting travel. It's really important that we remain open, and stay focused, Ryan said.

The Africa Centers for Dis-ease Control and Prevention agreed and it strongly discour-ages the imposition of travel ban for people originating from countries that have reported this variant, it said in a state-ment. It added that over the duration of this pandemic, we have observed that imposing

bans on travelers from coun-tries where a new variant is reported has not yielded a meaningful outcome.

Those urgings quickly fell on deaf ears.

The U.K. announced that it was banning flights from South Africa and five other southern African countries effective at noon on Friday, and that any-one who had recently arrived from those countries would be asked to take a Coronavi-rus test.

Germany said its flight ban could be enacted as soon as Fri-day night. Spahn said airlines coming back from South Africa will only be able to transport German citizens home, and travelers will need to go into quarantine for 14 days whether they are vaccinated or not.

Germany has seen new record daily case numbers in recent days and passed the mark of 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 on Thursday.

Italy's health ministry also announced measures to ban entry into Italy of anyone who

has been in seven southern African nations South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and Eswatini in the past 14 days due to the new variant. The Nether-lands and the Czech Republic are planning similar measures.

The Japanese government announced that from Friday, Japanese nationals traveling from Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Lesotho will have to quarantine at government-dedicated accommodation for 10 days and do a COVID test on Day 3, Day 6 and Day 10. Japan has not yet opened up to foreign nationals.

The actions had a quick effect in the world of sports. A batch of British and Irish golf-ers withdrew from the Joburg Open before Friday's second round after the U.K. govern-ment announced it was ban-ning flights from South Africa.

The South African govern-ment said in a statement that the U.K.'s decision to tempo-rarily ban South Africans from

entering the U.K. seems to have been rushed as even the World Health Organization is yet to advise on the next steps.

The Coronavirus evolves as it spreads and many new variants, including those with worrying mutations, often just die out. Scientists monitor for possible changes that could be more transmissible or deadly, but sorting out whether new variants will have a public health impact can take time.

Currently identified as B.1.1.529, the new variant has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong in travelers from South Africa, he said.

Meanwhile, advisers to the World Health Organization are holding a special session Friday to flesh out information about a worrying new variant of the Coronavirus that has emerged in South Africa, though a top expert says its impact on COVID-19 vaccines may not be known for weeks.

The technical advisory group on the evolution of COVID-19 was meeting vir-tually to discuss the so-called B.1.1.529 variant that has caused stock markets to swoon and led the European Union to recommend a pause in flights to southern Africa.

The group could decide if it’s a variant of concern the most worrying type, like the well-known delta vari-ant or a variant of interest,” and whether to use a Greek letter to classify it. We don’t know very much about this, yet. What we do know is that this variant has a large num-ber of mutations, and the con-cern is that when you have so many mutations it can have an impact on how the virus behaves, said Maria Van Kerk-hove, WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, in a social-media chat Thursday. AGENCIES

WHO hosts special meeting on worrying new COVID-19 variant

France lashes out at Britain's latest proposal on migrants

CALAIS (France): France reacted with fury on Friday to Britain's latest proposals for dealing with the deadly flow of migrants between their shores as the war of words between the two countries over the danger-ous crossings across the English Channel ramped up further.

In a public letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson laid out a series of pro-posals of how the two coun-tries can deal with the crisis, following the sinking of a boat on Wednesday that saw 27 peo-ple die. The letter, which was made public on social media, was deemed unacceptable by French government spokesman Gabriel Attal. As a result, he said Britain's Home Secretary Priti Patel was no longer welcome at a European meeting on Sunday to discuss the problem.

We are sick of double-speak, Attal said.

Among his recommenda-tions, Johnson asked that France take back all migrants who cross illegally from its shores to Brit-ain. Attal dismissed the idea as clearly not what we need to solve this problem." He said the letter doesn't correspond at all with discussions that Johnson and Macron had Wednesday after the tragedy.

Johnson also set out propos-

als for British border officials to begin patrols on the beaches of northern France as early as next week something Paris has long resisted.

He also recommended joint or reciprocal maritime patrols in each other's territorial waters and airborne surveillance by manned flights and drones.

British Transport Secretary

Grant Shapps said Johnson had made the proposals in good faith and urged the French to reconsider their decision.

I don't think there is any-thing inflammatory to ask for close co-operation with our nearest neighbours, he told BBC radio.

The proposal was made in good faith. I can assure our French friends of that and I hope that they will reconsider meeting up to discuss it.

The French move marks a sharp deterioration in rela-tions between the two countries which have for weeks become increasingly strained by the migrant crisis in the Channel.

UK officials have criticised France for rejecting their offer of British police and border offi-cers to conduct joint patrols along the channel coast with French police. AGENCIES

US lawmakers meet with Taiwan president in surprise visit

TAIPEI: Five US lawmakers met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday in a surprise one-day visit intended to reaffirm the United States' rock solid support for the self-governing island.

The bipartisan group of lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives arrived in Taiwan on Thursday night and planned to meet with senior leaders including Tsai, said the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. embassy. No further details were provided about their itinerary.

The visit comes as tensions between Taiwan and China have risen to their highest level in decades. Taiwan has been self-ruled since the two sides split during a civil war in 1949, but China considers the island part of its own territory.

When news of our trip broke yesterday, my office received a blunt message from the Chinese Embassy, telling me to call off the trip, Rep-resentative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat who is part of the delegation, wrote on Twitter.

Representatives Mark Takano, D-Calif., Colin Allred, D-Texas., Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C., are

also part of the delegation.We are here in Taiwan this

week to remind our partners and allies, after two trying years that we've endured, that our commitment and shared responsibility for a free and secure Indo-Pacific region remain stronger than ever," Takano said.

Takano added that the U.S. relationship with Taiwan is rock solid and has remained steadfast as the ties between us have deepened.

Tsai, who welcomed the lawmakers at the Presiden-tial Office in Taipei, noted the two sides' cooperation in vet-erans' affairs, economic issues and trade while reiterating the island's close alignment with the U.S.

Taiwan will continue to step up cooperation with the United States in order to uphold our shared values of freedom and democracy and to ensure peace and stability in the region, Tsai said.

The visit is the third by U.S. lawmakers to Taiwan this year and comes just a few weeks after a group of six Republi-can members of Congress visited the island. That del-egation met with President Tsai, National Security Secre-tary General Wellington Koo and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, among others. In June, three members of Congress flew to Taiwan to donate badly needed vaccines at a time when the island was struggling to get enough. AGENCIES

TOKYO: Japan's Cabinet on Friday approved a 770 bil-lion yen ( 6.8 billion) request for an extra defence bud-get through March to expe-dite the purchase of missiles, anti-submarine rockets and other weapons amid ris-ing concern over the esca-lation of military activities by China, Russia and North Korea.

The request, still pend-

ing parliamentary approval, brings Japan's military spending for the current year to a new high of more than 6.1 trillion yen (53.2 billion), up 15% from 5.31 trillion yen in 2020.

The Defence Ministry says its defence power rein-forcement and acceleration package is designed to speed up deployment of some of the key equipment from the

2022 budget request. The goal is to beef up Japan's defences against North Korea's missile threat and China's increas-ingly assertive maritime activity around remote Jap-anese southwestern islands, officials said.

Japan has also raised con-cerns over recent joint mili-tary activities by China and Russia near its waters and airspace. AGENCIES

Britain plows on with its new normal due to CovidLONDON: The bars are shut in Vienna, and the Christmas market is empty in Munich, as several European nations tighten up or even lock down to combat a spike in Corona-virus infections.

Meanwhile in London, couples sip mulled wine at a seasonal market near the River Thames, full-capacity audiences fill the seats at the nearby National Theatre, and friends huddle over pints in pubs throughout the city.

Not for the first time in the pandemic, Britain is out of step with many of its neigh-bors. But this time, it's happy to be different.

The U.K. has endured three

nationwide lockdowns and recorded nearly 145,000 deaths from the Coronavirus, the high-est toll in Europe after Russia. Now, it is watching as hospitals struggle with surging cases in countries including the Nether-lands, Belgium, Germany, Aus-tria and the Czech Republic, bringing lockdowns and restric-tions. But while Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that a blizzard from the east could still ruin Britain's Christmas, many scientists say the wind is now blowing the other way.

We are not behind Europe in this wave. They are behind us, said Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia.

The surge that is now hitting mainland Europe, driven by the highly transmissible delta strain of the virus, walloped Britain in the summer, just as the govern-ment removed all remaining legal restrictions on the econ-omy and daily life.

Because Britain got delta in the summer, when respira-tory viruses are transmitted less readily, it wasn't so explo-sive as we would expect it to be in the winter, and as we're now seeing in in some European countries, Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease modelling at the University of Edinburgh, said.

I think the U.K. got its delta wave at a fortuitous time,

whereas Austria, for example, it's the exact opposite, he said. Austria, where average daily deaths have almost doubled in the past two weeks, has gone into lockdown, and authorities there plan to mandate vaccina-tions beginning Feb. 1.

The World Health Orga-nization said this week that Europe is the only region of the world where Coronavirus cases are rising, and the conti-nent could see another 700,000 deaths by the spring unless urgent measures are taken soon.

But Britain stands some-what apart.

Many scientists predicted the country would see a spike in cases after July 19 dubbed

Freedom Day by the media when almost all restrictions were lifted. It didn't happen.

Infection rates that were then among the highest in Europe, drifted up and down but never soared again as feared, though they remain stubbornly high.

Britain is recording more than 40,000 new cases a day, a level last seen during the past winter's surge. But a relatively high vaccination rate particu-larly among the elderly means hospitalizations and deaths are far lower than in previous waves.

Still, 130 people a day died in the past week after testing positive for COVID-19. AGENCIES

Concerns rise over Indonesia's sputtering

Covid vaccinationsJAKARTA: Indonesia has sig-nificantly recovered from a mid-year spike in Coronavirus cases and deaths that was one of the worst in the region, but with its vaccination drive stall-ing due to logistical challenges and other issues, and with holi-days approaching, experts and officials warn the island nation could soon face another surge.

Indonesia started its vacci-nation rollout earlier than any other country in Southeast Asia on Jan. 13, and as infection and death rates soared in July and August, ramped up its pro-gramme to more than 1 mil-lion shots per day.

But as the world's fourth most populous nation it had a lot more work to do than most, and today is only 33% fully vac-cinated and 16% partially, far behind its smaller neighbour Malaysia, which boasts 76% fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data.

Most vaccinations have

been distributed in the more urban areas on the archipel-ago nation's biggest islands of Java and Bali, while many on smaller, more rural islands where health care systems are often rudimentary and the population tends to be older have not been reached, said Dicky Budiman, an Indonesian epidemiologist and academic adviser to the government.

As more people travel back to these areas over the holidays, there is a greater risk the virus will spread to those popula-tions, some of which have been partially protected by their iso-lation, he said. It will not be as bad as what we saw in July and August, but if we maybe look at the first wave, in January 2020, maybe it will be similar due to their vulnerability, he said.

Because Indonesia started early with its vaccination pro-gramme, there's also more like-lihood that the effectiveness is now waning, he said. AGENCIES

Putin to host leaders of Armenia,

AzerbaijanMOSCOW: Russian Presi-dent Vladimir Putin is host-ing the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks on Friday, during which the three are expected to dis-cuss ways to resolve the tensions over the sepa-ratist region of Nagorno- Karabakh.

In the southern city of Sochi, Putin held a bilat-eral meeting with Azerbai-jan's President Ilham Aliyev, Kremlin spokesman Dmi-try Peskov told reporters on Friday.

After that, the Russian president is to sit down with Aliyev and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan together, and then have a sep-arate bilateral meeting with Pashinyan.

Armenia and Azerbai-jan have been locked in a decades-old dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. AGENCIES

AS EUROPE VIRUS CASES SURGE

Ukraine leader Zelenskyy alleges Russia-backed

coup planned next weekKYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Fri-day alleged that his country's intelligence service has uncov-ered plans for a Russia-backed coup d'etat in Ukraine next week, something which the Russian government denied.

At a news conference in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capi-tal, Zelenskyy said he had received information that a coup was being planned for next Wednesday or Thursday.

He did not give many details to back up his allegation, but pointed to a suspected role of Ukraine's richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov.

The president said that Ukrainian intelligence has audio recordings of an alleged meeting between Russian and Ukrainian officials discuss-ing a plan for a coup allegedly funded by Akhmetov, whose fortune is estimated at 7.5 billion.

He is being drawn into this war. I believe he has begun it and I believe that this is a big mistake, Ukraine's president said.

Zelenskyy refused to dis-close further details about the alleged coup, saying only that he doesn't plan to flee from the

country.Kremlin spokesman Dmi-

try Peskov rejected the alle-gations in comments to journalists in Moscow on Friday.

Russia had no plans to get involved," Peskov said. "Russia never does such things at all.

In recent weeks, Ukrai-nian and Western officials have expressed concern that a Russian military buildup near Ukraine could signal plans by Moscow to invade its ex-Soviet neighbour. The Kremlin insists it has no such intention and has accused Ukraine and its Western backers of making the claims to cover up their own allegedly aggressive designs.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine has full control of its borders and is ready for any escalation of the conflict with Russia, not-ing, however, that the media are engaged in fearmongering over the possibility of such a conflict.

He also said that the head of his office, Andriy Yermak, will soon be in contact with the Russian authorities at the request of the European Coun-cil President Charles Michel and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. AGENCIES

Japan seeks extra defence budget amid China, North Korea concern

Johnson also set out proposals for British border officials to begin patrols on the beaches of northern France as early as next week something Paris has long resisted

millenniumpost NO H ALF TR U THS

millenniumpost.in

CHANGE OF NAMEI, Mariyam Bibi, W/o Abdur Rahaman D/o Anowar Hossain R/o Vill+ Po. Itinda, P.S Basirhat Dist North 24 Parganas . W.B do hereby declare that my name and fathers Name is recorded in my Passport (vide no -S1926559) as Mariyam Bibi Mondal D/o Anowar Gazi shall henceforth be know that Mariyam Bibi D/o Anowar Hossain and Mariyam Bibi Mondal D/o Anowar Gazi is the same and identical person vide affidavit sworn before the 1st class Judicial Magistrate basirhat Court on 24-11-2021

NIeT-40/ 21-22 Dated 26.11.2021

e-Tenders are invited by the Executive Engineer on behalf of West Bengal Agro Industries Corpn. Ltd, 23B, Netaji Subhas Road, 3rd Floor , Kolkata-700001 from bonafide and resourceful Agencies for completion of civil & Electrical works for Darjeeling District. Tender document may be downloaded from http://wbtenders.gov.in. Bid submission start date 27.11.2021 after 3.00 AM. Bid submission end date 28.12.2021 before 6.00 PM as per respective NIeT. Date: 26.11.2021 sd/-Executive Engineer

ICA- T14887(3)/2021

ICA- T14890(3)/2021

ICA- T14898(3)/2021

ICA-T14882 (3)/2021

ICA- T14907(3)/2021ICA- T14862 (3)/2021

ICA- T14911(4)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL OFFICE OF THE PINGLA PANCHAYAT SAMITI PINGLA : PASCHIM MEDINIPUR

E-mail: pinglablock@gmail.com, Ph & Fax: 03222-238542 Pingla ,

Paschim Medinipur e-Tender

Medinipur e-Tender Tender for Sup-ply of approved quality materi-als for 01 Nos. Cement Concrete Road under MGNREGA for the year 2021-22 in respect of Pingla Pan-chayat Samity. NOTICE INVITING E- TENDER NO. WB/PMZP/PINGLA/NIET/45/2021-22Bid submission closing date (Online):3rd December, 2021 up to 17:30 hrs.Details of the Tender notice is available in https://wbtenders.gov.in

Sd/- Executive Officer Pingla Panchayet Samity.

Memo No.1542(2)/Advt./ICA/Paschim Medinipur Dated.26.11.2021

ICA- T14870 (3)/2021ICA- T14927(3)/2021

ICA- T14873 (3)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWest Bengal State Rural Development Agency (WBSRDA)

Purulia Division Notice inviting Tender is hereby called from resourceful & eligible contractor for Post 5 years Maintenance work of PMGSY Roads under Purulia Division through NIT No N-18 & 39/WBSRDA-PUR/2021-22 having Tender ID-2021_PRD_352650_1 & . 2021_PRD_352650_2 respectively. Time of submission of bid from 26.11.2021(Friday) at 16:00 hrs. to 10.12.2021(Friday) upto16:00 hrs. as per server clock . Only online submission will be accepted. For details visit https://pmgsytenderswb.gov.in Memo no 1635/ICA/PURU Sd/-dated: 26/11/2021 E.E./WBSRDA, Purulia Div

Press NoticeE-Tenders are hereby invited from bonafide Electrical Contractors having requisite license & creden-tials and machineries for the following works up to 3.00 P.M of 13/12/2021 Sl No. NIT No Name of the work Location Tender Cost

(Rs. in Lakh)Earnest money

1 NIT13 of 2021-22 (sl No 2,3,5,6)

Maintenance of 4 nos BT roads Purulia-I, Manba-zarl, Balarampur, Kashipur

i) 10.24 lakh (ii) 36.45 lakh iii) 50.21 lakh (iv) 12.80 lakh

2%

Details of timings, eligibility criteria etc. pl visit www.wbtenders.gov.in. Memo no 1637/ICA/puru Sd/-

District Engineerdated: 26/11/2021 Purulia Zilla Parishad

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL

ICA- T14929(3)/2021

ICA- T14931(3)/2021

ICA- T14933(3)/2021

ICA- T14935(3)/2021

ICA- T14879 (3)/2021 GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

e-N.I.T No.24 of G.M. (Elect) of 2021-22 Sealed Single Part tenders on Rate Quoted are invited for

the work of “Providing IT infrastructure along with CCTV sur-veillance system inside Alipore Correctional Home at Kolkata under WBHIDCO” from the agencies having ability in execu-tion for similar nature of work. Last date of receiving appli-cation 08-12-2021 upto 4.00 P.M. Detailed may be seen in our website at www.wbhidcoltd.com.

ICA- T14940(3)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL AbridgeTender Notice

Assistant Engineer (A-I), Coochbehar (A-I) Sub-Division, Coochbehar invites Tender vide N.I.T. No. 10 of 2021-22 for repairing of PVC pipe line & pump house of DTW in the district of Coochbehar. Last date of Application for purchase of Tender documents: 02.12.2021 upto 16.00 Hours. Details will be available from the office on all working days from 11.30 Hours to 16.00 Hours

9millenniumpost

CORPORATE KALEIDOSCOPE

HPCL is conferred with ‘Oil Marketing Company of the Year’ award 2021 by Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry (FIPI), recognising HPCL’s excellence in Oil and Gas Marketing. This is the third time in the last four years that HPCL has been conferred with this coveted award. Award was received by C&MD – HPCL, Mukesh Kumar Surana and Director Marketing- HPCL, Rakesh Misri at the hands of Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri in the presence of Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas and Labor & Employment, Rameshwar Teli and Secretary Petroleum and Natural Gas, Tarun Kapoor during the award function held in New Delhi on Friday. PTI

Business mpKOLKATA | SATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021

ONGC SNUBS MAKE IN INDIA

NEW DELHI: Two months after Cabinet Secretary exhorted government agencies to purchase more indigenous products to boost Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, state-run ONGC amended a project ten-der to restrict domestic buying to mere 20 per cent, allowing the rest to be bought abroad.

Rajiv Gauba in August wrote to central departments that “PPP-MII (Public Pro-curement - Preference to Make in India) Order is not being implemented in letter and spirit by some of the organisations”.

The PPP-MII Order was issued to encourage production of goods, services, and works within the country to enhance income and employment.

Despite that, small and medium sized companies complain that they are kept out of large contracts where foreign vendors are given priority.

On October 22, ONGC tweaked tender conditions for $500-million Pipeline Replace-ment Project-VII to advance the project award date to 20 January, 2022 from scheduled 3 February, 2022.

This was done, said sources, as the two-year freedom to ONGC in sourcing from abroad ends on 29 January 2022, five days before 3 Febru-ary when the contract was to be awarded.

If ONGC had not advanced the award date, the project executor could have only pur-chased pipelines domestically as per the Domestically Man-ufactured Iron & Steel Prod-ucts (DMI&SP) Policy of 29th May 2019.

To support Indian firms, the DMI&SP Policy lists iron and steel pipelines as products “to be exclusively domestically manufactured and cannot be imported without the approval of the Ministry of Steel”.

However, ONGC sought an exemption from the policy for PRP-VII that involves replac-ing 317 kms of pipelines cit-ing engineering necessity and interface hardship that delayed projects.

The Steel Ministry’s Stand-ing Committee on 29 January,

2020 granted the exemption – but only for seamless pipes — to ONGC for two years until 29 January, 2022 with a caveat that they test domestic producers by placing a development order within two months.

“If development order fails, then balance 20 per cent may be procured from foreign man-ufacturers. ONGC should place developmental order within two months i.e. by 31 March, 2020,” it added.

It advised ONGC to delink development order from the tender and submit the test results for its review by June 2020.

Despite the Committee’s instruction, ONGC did not place the development order.

Later, for fear of being chided by Steel Ministry for ignoring its directions, as well as the likelihood of fall-ing into legal wrangles when the waiver ends on 29 Janu-ary, 2022, ONGC amended the PRP-VII tender on October 22 to address both issues.

“ONGC has been granted waiver for all its offshore con-structions and submarine pipe-lines (seamless line pipes for size 16” and below) projects for two years (i.e. 30 January, 2020 to 29 January, 2022) for 80 per cent of the net procurable quantity of Iron and Steel prod-ucts and balance 20 per cent of the quantity of Iron and Steel products are to be exclusively procured by the contractor from domestic manufactur-ers/suppliers meeting/exceed-ing the domestic value addition targets as development order,” says the ONGC amendment.

Evident from the amend-ment is that the development order was not placed by 31 March, 2020 as directed and that it is worded such that in case the test case development order fails, the contractor would be free to place purchase order abroad for balance 20 per cent of line pipes as well.

If that were to happen, Indian firms would be excluded from supplying nearly Rs 400 crore worth of line pipes, thereby berefting the nation of a significant boost to the economy and contradictory to PM’s push for Make in India

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: All India aver-age retail tomato price, which has shot up by 63 per cent to Rs 67 per kg over the last year due to unseasonal rains, are likely to soften from December with the arrival of fresh crop from northern states, the government said on Friday.

In the case of onions, retail prices have substantially sub-sided below to the level that prevailed in 2020 and also 2019, it said.

“Tomato arrivals from north Indian states will start from the beginning of December itself, which will add to availability and lead to fall in prices. In December, arrival is expected to be at par with last year,” the Food and Consumer Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

Arrivals in November this year were only 19.62 lakh tonne compared to 21.32 lakh tonne in the year-ago period, it said.

Explaining the reasons for the spike in tomato prices, the ministry said retail tomato prices have risen from Sep-tember-end due to unseasonal rains in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh

which led to crop damage and delay in arrival from these states.

Delayed arrivals from north Indian states was followed by heavy rains in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, which disrupted the supply and also resulted in crop damage, it said in a statement.

Stating that tomato price is highly volatile, the ministry said any slight disruptions in supply chain or damage due to heavy rains results in spurt in prices.

Conversely, bulk arrival and logistics problems have the potential of creating a situation of glut in the market and resul-tant dip in retail prices, it said.

As on November 25, the all-India average price of tomato was Rs 67 per kg which is 63 per

cent higher than that of last year.As per the Agriculture Min-

istry, kharif (summer) produc-tion of tomato in the current year is at 69.52 lakh tonne as against 70.12 lakh tonne pro-duced last year, it added.

However, in case of onions, the ministry said prices have substantially subsided and the level is below that of the retail prices in 2020 and also 2019.

On November 25, all-India average retail price of onion was Rs 39 per kg which is 32 per cent lower than that of the last year.

The ministry said it released buffer onion stock of 2.08 lakh tonne built under the Price Sta-bilisation Fund (PSF) in a cali-brated and targeted manner to states and cities where prices

were increasing over the pre-vious month and also to such markets like Lasalgaon and Pimpalgaon to augment the availability.

Further, states have been offered onion at Rs 21 per kg ex-storage locations. Nagaland and Andhra Pradesh have taken onion from the buffer.

The government’s Mother Dairy Safal units have also been supplied onion at Rs 26 per kg inclusive of transportation cost.

“The aggressive releases of onion from the buffer have con-tributed to stability in prices,” the ministry said. The kharif and late kharif production of onion is estimated at a robust 69 lakh tonne. Kharif onion has already started arriving in the market.

Retail tomato price on Fri-day shot up to Rs 75 per kilo-gram in the national capital while the rates in some parts of South India softened but were still high, according to govern-ment data.

In Chennai, retail tomato price declined to Rs 63 per kg on Friday from the peak of Rs 100 per kg on November 22. Similarly, in Thiruvanantha-puram, the price dropped to Rs 80 per kg from Rs 103 per

kg in the same period, the data maintained by the Consumer Affairs Ministry showed.

On Friday, in Puducherry, tomato price declined to Rs 45 per kg from Rs 100 per kg on November 22. However, in Hyderabad, the price softened to Rs 72 per kg from Rs 90 per kg that prevailed during two days.

In Bengaluru, tomato price in retail markets continued to rule high at Rs 88 per kg. At Port Blair, the price jumped to Rs 143 per kg on Friday from Rs 113 per kg on November 22.

According to the data, the retail tomato price in the national capital increased to Rs 75 per kg on Friday from Rs 63 per kg on November 22.

However, retail prices of onion and potato in Delhi showed signs of softening. Retail onion prices were ruling at Rs 35 per kg and potato at Rs 20 per kg.

The average all India maxi-mum retail price of tomato rose to Rs 143 per kg on Friday from Rs 113 per kg on November 22 while all India modal price was ruling at Rs 60 per kg as against Rs 67.5 per kg in the same period, as per the govern-ment data.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The government is preparing to come out with a cross-border insolvency reso-lution framework based on the UNCITRAL model law and is proposed to be made applicable for both corporate debtors as well as personal guarantors to such debtors.

The corporate affairs min-istry, which is implementing the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), has sought com-ments on the draft framework till December 15. Broadly, cross-border insolvency process per-tains to those debtors having assets and creditors overseas.

According to the ministry, the need for having robust insti-tutional arrangements to deal with cross-border insolvency issues has gained momentum in various jurisdictions, particu-larly under the aegis of UNCIT-RAL Model Law, during the last few decades.

The UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insol-vency, 1997, is the most widely accepted legal framework to deal with cross-border insol-vency issues. The law provides a legislative framework that can be adopted by countries with modifications to suit the domestic context of the enact-ing jurisdiction.

It has been adopted by nearly

50 countries, including Singa-pore, the UK, the US and South Africa.

The ministry has proposed that the immediate application of the cross-border law for cor-porate debtors and personal guarantors to corporate debtors.

In a notice dated November 24, the ministry said that cross-border issues may sparingly arise in the pre-pack process as it applies to small businesses.

“Further, since it has been introduced recently, jurispru-dence and practice under the pre-pack mechanism are at a nascent stage. Given this, apply-ing cross-border insolvency pro-visions to the pre-pack process may not be suitable at this stage,” it noted. The pre-pack process

is a simpler resolution process for MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises).

Another proposal is to exclude financial service pro-viders from the applicability of cross-border insolvency pro-visions. “Such exclusion is in line with the design of the Code as financial service providers are subject to a special insol-vency process that has been notified under Section 227,” it added.

Section 227 of the Code enables the Central govern-ment to notify, in consultation with the financial sector regula-tors, Financial Service Providers (FSPs) or categories of FSPs for the purpose of insolvency and liquidation proceedings.

‘Tomato prices may fall from Dec with arrival of fresh crop’‘Tomato arrivals from north Indian states will start from beginning of December itself, which will add to availability and lead to fall in prices’

Govt proposes cross-border insolvency resolution framework

Broadly, cross-border insolvency process pertains to those debtors having assets and creditors overseas

as there is sufficient capacity in the country to manufacture these pipes.

A better option would have been what Indian Oil Corp followed for Vadinar Pipeline Project: Buy pipes from domes-tic producers and free issue them to the project executor for laying them – as was done by ONGC in Hazira-Uran and ICP-Heera pipelines.

This would have achieved the government’s objective of providing Purchase Prefer-ence to Local Content (PP-LC), DMI&SP Policy and encourage small and medium domestic enterprises. MPOST

Oil & Gas PSU tweaks tender to limit domestic pipeline purchase

NEW DELHI: Union Steel Minister Ram Chan-dra Prasad Singh on Friday directed PSUs under his min-istry to start mining activity at their non-operational mines.

According to a steel min-istry statement, the minis-ter made these remarks at a meeting with CMDs of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), NMDC and Man-ganese Ore India Limited (MOIL).

“Steel Minister has expressed his concern over the non-operationalisation of certain mines...and directed the concerned CPSEs to final-ise the roadmap for starting

the mining operations in these non-working leases/mines,” the ministry statement said.

During the meeting, in which senior officials of the Ministry of Mines were also present, Singh directed the steel PSUs to expedite regu-latory compliances to avoid lapsing of the leases of the mines.

The CPSEs have been directed to submit a status report at the earliest to Min-ister, it said.

While SAIL is an inte-grated steel making company under the Ministry of Steel, NMDC and MOIL are into mining of various types of minerals mainly iron ore and manganese ore. PTI

Steel Min directs PSUs to start mining at non-operational mines

‘The CPSEs have been directed to submit a status report at the earliest to Minister’

Corporate affairs ministry, which is implementing IBC, has sought comments on draft till December 15

10 millenniumpostBusinessmpSATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021 | KOLKATA

MUMBAI: India’s forex exchange reserves increased by $289 million to $640.401 billion for the week ended November 19, the Reserve Bank said on Friday.

The overall reserves had declined by $763 million to $640.112 billion in the pre-vious reporting week. They had touched a life time high of $642.453 billion in the week ended September 3, 2021.

Foreign Currency Assets (FCA), a major component of the overall reserves, increased by $225 million to $575.712 billion, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) weekly data.

Expressed in dollar terms, the FCAs include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US units like the euro, pound and yen held in the for-eign exchange reserves.

The value of the gold reserves continued their jour-ney north, increasing by $152 million to $40.391 billion in the reporting week, the data

showed.The Special Drawing Rights

(SDRs) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) dipped by $74 million to $19.11 billion.

The country’s reserve posi-tion with the IMF was down by $13 million to $5.188 bil-lion in the reporting week. PTI

MUMBAI: The issue price for Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme 2021-22, which will open for subscription for five days from November 29, has been fixed at Rs 4,791 per gram of gold, the Reserve Bank of India said on Friday.

The Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme 2021-22 - Series VIII will be open for subscription from November 29 December 03, 2021. “The nominal value of the bond...works out to Rs 4,791 per gram of gold,” the RBI said.

Government of India, in consultation with the RBI, has also decided to offer a discount of Rs 50 per gram on the nom-inal value to those investors applying online and the pay-

ment against the application is made through digital mode.

“For such investors, the issue price of Gold Bond will be Rs 4,741 per gram of gold,” it added. The issue price of Series VII was Rs 4,761 per gram of gold. The RBI will issue the bonds on behalf of the Gov-ernment of India.

The bonds will be sold through banks (except Small Finance Banks and Payment

Banks), Stock Holding Corpora-tion of India Limited (SHCIL), designated post offices, and rec-ognised stock exchanges viz., National Stock Exchange of India Limited and Bombay Stock Exchange Limited.

The Scheme was launched in November 2015 with an objec-tive to reduce the demand for physical gold and shift a part of the domestic savings -- used for the purchase of gold -- into financial savings.

Price of bond is fixed in Indian Rupees on the basis of simple average of closing price of gold of 999 purity, published by the India Bullion and Jew-ellers Association Limited for the last 3 working days of the

week preceding the subscrip-tion period.

The bonds will be denomi-nated in multiples of gram (s) of gold with a basic unit of 1 gram. The tenor of the bond will be for a period of eight years with exit option after 5th year to be exercised on the next interest payment dates.

Minimum permissible investment is 01 gram of gold. The maximum limit of subscrip-tion is 4 KG for individual, 4 kg for HUF and 20 kg for trusts and similar entities per fiscal (April-March).

The Know-your-customer (KYC) norms will be the same as that for purchase of physical gold. PTI

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Thursday invited leading indus-trialists to attend the upcom-ing ‘Vibrant Gujarat Summit’, a biennial event aimed at attract-ing investments in the state, cit-ing robust infrastructure and ease-of-doing-business.

Patel was in New Delhi to take part in the ‘Curtain Raiser’ event for the 10th edition of the summit, to be held between January 10 and 12, 2022, at Gandhinagar, said a release by the Gujarat government here.

Speaking at the event held at a five-star hotel, Patel said the three-day investor summit will be inaugurated by Prime

Minister Narendra Modi on January 10.

“The theme of this year’s summit is `Aatmanirb-har Gujarat Se Aatmanirb-

har Bharat’ (from self-reliant Gujarat to self-reliant India). Gujarat has become a preferred investment destination for the entrepreneurs world over.

“In 2021, Gujarat has man-aged to attract Foreign Direct Investment worth USD 21.9 billion,” said Patel in his address at the event attended by busi-ness leaders.

The CM apprised the audi-ence about some big ticket infrastructure projects cur-rently underway in Guja-rat such as Dholera Special Investment Region, Dedicated Freight Corridor, DMIC (Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor), GIFT City and DREAM City, among others, said the release.

While extending an invi-tation to business tycoons for the summit, Patel said robust infrastructure, proactive poli-

cies and ease-of-doing-busi-ness along with a mixture of talent, technology and trans-parency make Gujarat the most preferred investment destina-tion in the country.

Some of the leading indus-trialists who attended the event included Managing Director and CEO of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Kenichi Ayukawa, and Managing Director and CEO of JCB India, Deepak Shetty, said the release.

After this pre-summit event, Patel called on the Prime Minister and apprised him about the ongoing prep-arations for the business con-clave, said the release. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: The Sensex nose-dived 1,688 points while the Nifty slumped below the 17,100-level on Friday as a new and potentially vaccine-resis-tant Coronavirus variant sent shockwaves through global markets.

The variant, detected in South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong so far, has an unusual combination of muta-tions, as per initial reports.

Countries like Britain and Japan have already imposed travel restrictions, raising the spectre of a fresh wave of lockdowns.

The 30-share BSE Sensex plummeted 1,687.94 points or 2.87 per cent to close at 57,107.15 following an across-the-board selloff.

Similarly, the NSE Nifty plunged 509.80 points or 2.91 per cent to 17,026.45.

IndusInd Bank was the top loser in the Sensex pack, tank-ing 6.01 per cent, followed by Maruti, Tata Steel, NTPC, Bajaj Finance, HDFC and Titan.

Only four counters man-aged to close in the green -- Dr Reddy’s, Nestle India, Asian Paints and TCS, spurting up to 3.32 per cent.

Investors lost a whopping Rs 7.35 lakh crore in Friday’s

session, with the market valua-tion of all BSE-listed companies standing at Rs 2,58,31,172.25 crore.

“Triggered by the new COVID variant in South Africa, domestic markets plummeted into negative ter-ritory following weak global peers. Existing inflation fears coupled with worries of an aggressive policy tightening by

the US Fed Reserve also added to today’s catastrophic session.

“On the domestic front, broad-based sell off was wit-nessed as investors dumped COVID-sensitive stocks while focus was shifted towards the pharma sector amid growing concerns over the new variant with higher mutations,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

During the week, the Sensex plunged 2,528.86 points or 4.24 per cent and the Nifty shed 738.35 points or 4.15 per cent.

Sectorally, BSE realty, metal, auto, basic materials and industrials indices fell as much as 6.42 per cent on Fri-day, while healthcare ended with gains.

Broader BSE midcap and

smallcap indices tumbled up to 3.23 per cent.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude tanked 5.62 per cent to $77.60 per barrel.

Foreign institutional inves-tors remained net sellers in the capital market on Thurs-day as they offloaded shares worth Rs 2,300.65 crore, as per exchange data.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The government is willing to look at extending a phased manufacturing plan (PMP) for the AC industry to check imports and increase local value addition and employment, a top official has said.

Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Anurag Jain said this while responding to suggestions made by some of the CEOs present in a roundta-ble to come out with a PMP for the AC industry on November 25. The government is willing to look at the PMP for the AC industry to check the imports and increase local value addition and employment,’’ the Com-merce and Industry Ministry said, quoting the secretary.

Jain also mentioned that DPIIT will now ensure that all the investments coming up under the production-linked incentive (PLI) for white goods get approvals from the central and state government authori-ties on fast track basis so that targets set under the PLI are achieved timely.

He also said that the gov-ernment is fast tracking foreign direct investment (FDI) applica-tions under Press note 3.

Under that press note, the government had made its prior approval mandatory for foreign investments from countries that share land border with India to curb opportunistic takeovers of

domestic firms following the COVID-19 pandemic. Coun-tries which share land borders with India are China, Bangla-desh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar and Afghanistan. As per that decision, FDI propos-als from these countries need government approval for invest-ments in India in any sector.

Speaking at the function, Anil Agrawal, Additional Sec-retary, DPIIT said that the department has ensured that the scheme was designed and implemented based on the industry feedback and con-sensus across the value chain.

In the DPIIT-FICCI Inves-

tor Roundtable over 150 CEOs/CXOs of the white goods indus-try participated.

He further said that the impact of the scheme has been tremendous as manufactur-ing units in over 50 locations across India are coming up or will benefit from the PLI scheme of white goods in the compo-nent chain of AC and LED.

Agrawal said that these units were located in States like Guja-rat, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Him-achal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maha-rashtra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Haryana Rajasthan and West Bengal.

Markets nosedive as new Covid variant triggers rout globally

Investors lost a whopping Rs 7.35 lakh crore in Friday’s session, with market valuation of all BSE-listed cos standing at Rs 2,58,31,172.25 crore

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MUMBAI: The rupee on Friday plunged by 37 paise against the US dollar as inves-tors turned cautious in view of massive selloffs in domes-tic equities and worries over a new variant of COVID-19.

At the interbank foreign exchange market, the local currency opened at 74.60 and witnessed an intra-day high of 74.58 and a low of 74.92 against the US dollar in day trade. The local unit settled at 74.89 a dollar, down 37 paise over its previous close of 74.52.

The dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s

strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.34 per cent down at 96.44.

“Rupee erased all the gains of the month follow-ing risk-off moods after wor-ries over a new variant of COVID-19 surges. Month-end dollar demand and unwinding of carry trade in global forex markets also weighed on rupee,” Dilip Parmar, Research Analyst, HDFC Securities.

The rupee registered its biggest weekly fall after Octo-ber 8, and closed at its weak-est level since November 2, Parmar said. MPOST

Rupee plunges by 37 paise against dollar

NEW DELHI: BRICS nations need to strengthen coopera-tion among themselves to sup-port economic recovery, ensure financial stability and guard against future uncertainties, Chief Economic Adviser K V Subramanian said on Friday.

He also underlined the need for strengthening international cooperation and establishing a cross border regulatory mecha-nism for further improving the investment environment and enhancing capital flows.

“The need of the hour is to work towards strengthening intra-BRICS cooperation in sup-porting the recovery of BRICS economies and maintaining macro economic and financial stability while protecting against future uncertainties and risks,”

he said. He was participating in BRICS Virtual Economic Con-clave organised by Research and Information System for Devel-oping Countries.

BRICS is a grouping of five developing economies — Bra-zil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Subramanian said the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrange-

ment have marked significant progress in expanding the tan-gible financial cooperation among among BRICS nations. The BRICS bond fund, which has been a long standing issue is now close to completion and would help local bond markets in the member countries.

“We’ve also seen that most BRICS countries want to take measures to improve market making and participation of institutional investors such as insurance companies, pension funds, and other long long run investors like that,” he said.

The Chief Economic Advi-sor said the COVID 19 pan-demic has clearly demonstrated the importance of affordable and resilient social infra-structure alongside economic

infrastructure.Therefore, there exists posi-

tive role of digital technologies such as telemedicine, eHealth initiatives, and online educa-tion in ensuring inclusive access and affordability of social ser-vices, he said. India, he added has taken some very impor-tant steps which would provide important learnings for not only for BRICS nations, but also for the rest of the world.

Subramanian highlighted that India is running one of the largest renewable capac-ity expansion programmes in the world and is deter-mined to achieve the target of 500 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030. He also talked about the ambitious hydrogen mission. PTI

‘Govt can consider phased mfg plan for AC industry’

Speaking at the DPIIT-FICCI Investor Roundtable, Anil Agrawal, Additional Secretary, DPIIT said that the department has ensured that the scheme was designed and implemented based on industry feedback & consensus across value chain

‘Govt is willing to look at PMP for AC industry to check imports, increase local value addition & employment’

India’s forex kitty increases by $289 million to $640.40 billion

Value of gold reserves continued their journey north, increasing by $152 mn to $40.391 bn in reporting week

MUMBAI: Reserve Bank on Friday said it has imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore on State Bank of India (SBI) for deficiencies in regulatory compliance.

The penalty has been imposed by an order dated November 16, 2021, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in a statement.

According to the central bank, Statutory Inspections for Supervisory Evaluation (ISE) of State Bank of India was conducted with refer-ence to its financial positions as on March 31, 2018 and March 31, 2019.

The examination of the risk assessment reports, inspection report and all-related corre-spondence pertaining to the same revealed contravention of a provision of Banking Reg-ulation Act “to the extent the bank held shares in borrower companies, as pledgee, of an amount exceeding thirty per cent of paid-up share capital of those companies”.

A show cause notice was issued to the bank.

After considering the bank’s reply to the notice, oral sub-missions, and additional sub-missions made by the bank, RBI said it came to the con-clusion that the charge of con-travention of the provisions of the Act was substantiated and warranted imposition of mon-etary penalty.

RBI said the penalty is based on deficiencies in regu-latory compliance and was not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by SBI with its customers. PTI

BRICS nations need to strengthen cooperation to support economic recovery: K V Subramanian

CEA K V Subramanian

RBI imposes `1 cr penalty

on SBI

Issue price for Sovereign Gold Bond fixed at `4,791/gm, subscription opens MondayJAMMU: Petroleum and Nat-

ural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) successfully organ-ised Investor’s meet in Jammu on Friday at Radisson Blu Hotel for promoting 11th City Gas Distribution (CGD) bidding round.

PNGRB is the nodal agency for facilitating economic activi-ties in natural gas distribution to promote competitive mar-kets, create infrastructure and increase share of natural gas in country’s energy mix.

Ranjan Prakash Thakur, Principle Secretary, Industries and Commerce Government of J&K was the Chief Guest for the event.

In the 11th CGD bidding round, 1 GA covering 5 dis-tricts from Jammu & Kashmir namely, Jammu, Udhampur,

Samba, Reasi and Kathua is being offered by PNGRB. After the Authorizations under 11th round, 27 per cent of the popu-lation of J&K would be covered under CGD network.

In the presentation on the 11th CGD bidding round, PNGRB highlighted the oppor-tunities in the CGD Sector in Jammu & Kashmir and India, upcoming Gas Infrastructure in Jammu & Kashmir and India along with key policy enablers that will provide boost to the domestic gas market.

Ranjan Prakash Thakur, Principle Secretary, Industries and Commerce congratulated PNGRB on this initiative and sought active participation of investors in the 11th CGD bid-ding round for providing clean energy to the people of Jammu

& Kashmir and generation of employment.

Lt. Colonel Pawan Kumar Uniyal, Joint Adviser, PNGRB spoke about the importance of the meet and work done by PNGRB. He spoke to investors and said that this is a big ini-tiative towards providing clean energy to the users in Jammu & Kashmir.

In the Investor’s Meet, Vandana Sharma, Secretary, PNGRB shared how City Gas Distribution (CGD) network business holds ample pros-pects and opportunities for the investors.

The event was followed by the experience sharing ses-sions from GAIL and HPCL. The vote of thanks was given by Rakesh Shahi, Asst. Adviser, PNGRB. MPOST

PNGRB holds 11th CGD bidding round

Guj CM invites industrialists for investor summitThe theme of this year’s summit is ‘Aatmanirbhar Gujarat Se Aatmanirbhar Bharat’

NEW DELHI: Conglomerate ITC on Friday said it will acquire a 16 per cent stake in Mother Sparsh, a D2C Ayurvedic and natural personal care brand, for Rs 20 crore through a share subscription agreement.

Mother Sparsh is a premium Ayurvedic and natural personal care start-up in the D2C space, focusing on mother and baby care segments.

“The said acquisition will, inter alia, enable access to the fast-growing direct to consumer (D2C) space in the ‘personal care’ category, which has been identified by the company as an area of interest,” ITC said in a regulatory filing.

This share acquisition is expected to be completed, in two tranches, within eight months from the date of execu-tion of the Agreements. It will also be subject to completion of conditions and a sharehold-ers’ agreement in connection with the proposed acquisition, it added. Mother Sparsh, which was incorporated on February

5, 2016 had reported a turnover of Rs 15.44 crore in FY 2020-21.

Commenting on the devel-opment ITC Chief Executive, Personal Care Products Busi-ness Sameer Satpathy said, “We believe that this investment pro-vides an exciting opportunity which is in alignment with our aspiration to have a significant play both in the naturals and Ayurvedic segment as well as in the D2C channel.”

ITC has been focussing on the non-cigarette FMCG busi-ness over the past few years. In 2020, it acquired spice-manu-facturer Sunrise Foods Private Ltd at an upfront cash deal price of Rs 2,150 crore. MPOST

ITC to acquire 16% stake in D2C Ayurvedic brand Mother Sparsh

11millenniumpost Sport mpKOLKATA | SATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021

Day 2: Southee, openers bring New Zealand back in game

VISITORS REACH 129 FOR NO LOSS

KANPUR: Tim Southee bowled an incisive morning spell to take five wickets which was then brilliantly comple-mented by openers Will Young and Tom Latham as New Zea-land dominated India to reach 129 for no loss on the second day of the opening Test here on Friday.

The only highlight for India in an otherwise disappointing day was Shreyas Iyer's (105 off 171 balls) debut hundred.

Playing his 80th Test match, Southee (5/69) took his 13th five-wicket haul on an unre-sponsive track to send India packing for 345 after they started the day at 258 for 4.

Young then held centre-stage in his fourth Test appear-ance as he looked composed and unperturbed during his unbeaten knock of 75 off 180 balls.

Latham (50 batting off 165 balls), the seasoned cam-paigner, survived three on-field decisions (two leg before and one caught behind), negated by DRS, and decided to frustrate the two Indian spinners with a gritty defensive game.

The Green Park track became better for batting on the second day and the turn

that was on offer was minimal. The variable bounce wasn't also there for the better part of the 57 overs that they batted.

Since it was slow turn, the Black Caps duo mostly plonked their front-foot and neutral-ised the turn. And when they played on the back-foot, there was enough time to manoeu-vre on both sides of the wicket.

Both were able to adjust on the back-foot against Ravindra Jadeja (14-4-28-0) and Rav-ichandran Ashwin (17-5-38-

0), both of whom didn't look threatening on the day.

Also what made it worse for India was that hardly any delivery kept dangerously low, which could have brought the leg-before into the equation.

The most disappointing of all was Axar Patel (10-1-26-0), whose accuracy on the leg stump line was of little or no value and it was once again proved that without assistance from the track, he is not even half the bowler that he is with

some help from surface.Young, in particular, got as

many as 12 boundaries while Latham helped himself to four hits to the fence.

While Indian spinners can come back on the third day if the pitch considerably deterio-rates but New Zealand would like to take the game deep by getting somewhere close to India's first innings total and take it from there.

In the morning, Iyer became the 16th Indian cricketer to

score a hundred on Test debut but the home side's lower-mid-dle order caved in meekly save Ashwin (38 off 56 balls), whose counter-attacking effort took them close to 350.

The credit for that went primarily to Southee (27.4-6-69-5), who was tirelessly bowl-ing an extended spell of more than 10 overs from one end, causing extensive damage. The seasoned campaigner's 13th five-wicket haul came in his 80th Test.

Resuming on his overnight score of 75, Iyer followed the great Gundappa Vishwanath in reaching the milestone at this ground.

Ashwin did the bulk of scor-ing in the morning session as India added only 87 runs, los-ing six wickets in the process.

Southee was on target with the second new ball first up as he sent back Ravindra Jadeja (50) on his overnight score.

He used the width of the crease cleverly to trouble Jadeja and got the ball to move from length which was too much for the lower-order players to negotiate. Wriddhiman Saha and Axar Patel nicked at those deliveries that moved away at drivable lengths. AGENCIES

Playing his 80th Test match, Southee (5/69) took his 13th five-wicket haul on an unresponsive track to send India packing for 345

PV Sindhu fights her way into Indonesia Open semi-finals

SATWIK-CHIRAG ALSO THROUGH

BALI: India's two-time Olym-pic medal-winning shuttler P V Sindhu came back from a game down to beat South Korea's Sim Yujin and enter the semifinals of the Indonesia Open Super 1000 tournament here on Friday.

The men's doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty later beat Malaysia's Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin 21-19, 21-19 in straight games to also make the semifinals.

However, the other Indian in fray, B Sai Praneeth, lost 12-21, 8-21 in straight games to Olympic champion and for-mer world No.1 Viktor Axelsen of Denmark in the men's sin-gles quarterfinals.

Praneeth, world no.16, had staved off a spirited fight from France's world no.70 Christo Popov, claiming a 21-17, 14-21, 21-19 win in a gruelling second round match on Thursday.

Third seed Sindhu, the reigning world champion, had to toil hard to get the better of Yujin 14-21, 21-19, 21-14 in the quarterfinal that lasted an

hour and six minutes.The Indian will play sec-

ond seed Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand, who got the bet-ter of Japan's Asuka Taka-hashi 21-17, 21-12 in another women's singles quarterfinal match, in her last four clash of the USD 850,000 event.

It was not smooth sailing from Sindhu against Yujin. The Indian started confidently racing to a 7-1 lead before the Japanese pocketed six straight points to draw the first game level. But once Yujin took a slender 11-10 lead at the break, she didn't look back and won the game comfortably to grab the early momentum.

The Japanese continued in the same vein in the second game and matched Sindhu stroke for stroke till the first seven points before the Indian upped her game.

Sindhu displayed better control and authority over her strokes and engaged her rival in long rallies to surge ahead 14-8 before Yujin fought back.

Sindhu used her vast expe-rience and held her nerves to draw the contest level.

In the decider, Sindhu enjoyed the early exchanges to race to a comfortable 11-4 lead but the Japanese secured seven consecutive points to make it 11-11. AGENCIES

Junior Hockey World Cup: India face Poland

in must-win matchBHUBANESWAR: Their cam-paign might be back on track following a massive win over lowly Canada, but defending champions India are still not out of the woods and would need to beat Poland in their final Pool B match to qualify for the quarterfinals of the FIH Men's Junior Hockey World Cup here on Saturday.

The Indians, one of the pre-tournament favourites, were given a rude shock in their opener when France stunned them 5-4. The defeat dealt a massive blow to India's cam-paign and put paid to their hopes of topping their pool.

With one win and a defeat, India are currently placed sec-ond in Pool B ahead of Poland on goal difference. France, who have a perfect record till now, are set to top the pool.

This means that in the quar-terfinals, India face the pros-pect of running into European giants and top seed Belgium, who are likely top Pool A. Given the scenario, complacency has no place in the Indian scheme of things if they wish to defend their title. The Indians were slow

to get off the blocks in the tour-nament and lacked intent and purpose against France, leading to their loss.

But against Canada on Thursday, the hosts roared back and looked more organised.

From here on, India will need to win every match to reclaim the title, a fact which chief coach Graham Reid is well aware of. "...But we can't do anything about that now (loss against France). If we have to win back-to-back titles, we will have to beat every team hence-forth," Reid had said. "We will not like to think ahead of us, we have a match against Poland before that and that's what we will be thinking about. We have to win that before we think about the next stage." AGENCIES

Fast bowler Pat Cummins is new Australia captain

MELBOURNE: Pat Cummins has been named the first fast bowler to captain Australia's Test cricket team on a full-time basis and former skipper Steve Smith returns from leadership wilder-ness to become the team's vice captain.

Cricket Australia made both announcements on Friday. Cummins, who had been vice captain, replaces Tim Paine, who resigned last week over a sex-texting scandal four years ago.

The last fast bowler to lead Australia at test level was Ray Lindwall for a sin-

gle match in 1956, and only as a stand-in. Cummins is Australia's 47th Test captain. Smith was fired from the cap-taincy after the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa in 2018. As well as los-ing the captaincy, he was banned from any leadership roles for two years.

"I am honoured to accept this role ahead of what will be a massive Ashes summer," Cummins said in a statement.

"I hope I can provide the same lead-ership Tim (Paine) has given the group in the past few years." AGENCIES

Cummins replaces Tim Paine, who resigned last week over a sex-texting scandal four years ago

Valskis shines with a double as Jamshedpur sink Goa

BAMBOLIM: Coming on the back of a draw against SC East Bengal, Jamshedpur FC took the early initiative of jumping on top of the table after domi-nating FC Goa for a 3-1 win in an Indian Super League (ISL) match here on Saturday.

Nerijus Valskis (51', 61') was the hero of the match as he remained one shy of a per-fect hat-trick, managing to first drive the ball with his left foot and then score via a header.

Jordan Murray (80') piled the third right after coming off the bench. Airan Cabrera though denied the Men of Steel a clean sheet with a neat finish to register a goal in the 86th minute.

Juan Ferrando rung in the changes after a heavy opening weekend defeat. Jorge Ortiz was brought in as Deven-dra Murgaonkar led the line. Airam Cabrera was relegated to the bench.

Reliance Foundation Young Champs Academy gradu-ate Muhammed Nemil, who had recovered from his injury, was included in the matchday squad for the very first time.

Fresh from winning the Scottish Premiership with Rangers under Steven Ger-rard, Greg Stewart made his first start on Indian soil. Komal Thatal found a place on the wing as Eli Sabia was dropped.

Thatal was rather brilliant after kick-off. The Sikkim-born first found Jitendra inside the box with some help from Stewart.

While Goa enjoyed ball possession, Jamshedpur had

the better chances through set pieces. Playing in a flat 4-4-2, Jamshedpur ensured that Goa could not find empty spaces to launch pressing attacks.

With five minutes to go in the first half, Len Doungel failed to punish his former side. The winger was played through after a mispass. He first shot onto Dheeraj and subsequently skied the rebound.

Valskis too tried his luck but Dheeraj caught the ball after Glan Martins lost posses-sion of the ball in midfield.

Right after the break, FC Goa threatened Jamshedpur with a freekick but Rehenesh kept it at bay as Alberto Noguera was denied.

At the other end, Valskis made his long-ranger count and snapped his 10-game goalless run with a delectable left-footed strike to break the

deadlock.With the monkey off the

back, Valskis doubled his tally in under ten minutes. Greg Stewart's curling freekick was met by the Lithuanian, who rose the highest inside the box and nodded home.

Jordan Murray barely was on the pitch when he added the third for the Red Miners, with his first touch in the game.

Stewart proved to be a men-ace with his quality humbling the FC Goa midfield.

While Ferrando kept on refreshing the legs on the pitch, there was no real attempt at finding a breakthrough as the Gaurs reeled off early season blues.

While they did score a solitary goal, the match was nothing but a complete dom-inance by Jamshedpur over FC Goa. AGENCIES

New Zealand's Tom Latham plays a shot during second day of the first test cricket match between India and New Zealand, at Green Park stadium in Kanpur, Friday PTI

Devendra Murgaonkar and Len Doungel of Jamshedpur FC in action during match 8 of season 8 of Indian Super League played between FC Goa and Jamshedpur FC, at the GMC Bambolim stadium in Goa, Friday

With one win and a defeat, India are currently placed second in Pool B ahead of Poland on goal difference

2 Indian mixed doubles pairing reach round of 16 at World C’shipsHOUSTON: Two Indian pairings -- Manika Batra-G Sathiyan and Sharath Kamal-Archana Kamath -- have done well to the reach the mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals at the World Table Tennis Cham-pionships here.

Manika and Sathiyan got past Puerto Rico's Adri-ana Diaz and Brian Afana-

dor 3-1 while Sharath and Archana got the better of Egypt's Omar Assar and Dina Meshref 3-2.

However, Sathiyan lost his men's singles round of 32 after stretching world num-ber 17 Aruna Quadri to seven games.

In the women's dou-bles, Manika and Archana

reached the round of 16 with a 3-0 win over Belgium's Margo Degraef and Nathali Marchetti.

In the men's doubles, Sharath and Sathiyan went down against Sweden's Anton Kallberg and Truls Moregard in their opening round fix-ture. The Indians had got a first round bye. AGENCIES

Abhishek talks about the mistakes he feels he has made in his career

12 millenniumpostLeisure

Entertainmentmp

SATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER, 2021 | KOLKATA

ALEN PAUL

Punches, bloody spits, lifting heavy things like a mighty superhero and moments that evoke patriotic emo-

tions - filmmaker Milap Zaveri, in his latest directorial ‘Satyameva Jayate 2’, has blended in every element that completes an action film.

Starring John Abraham and Divya Khosla Kumar in lead roles, the action-thriller is about a vigilante’s battle against corruption, injustice and misuse of power. Also, this film presents John in not double but triple roles!

Though the effort was honest, tak-ing the film into a preachy zone flopped Zaveri’s aim of providing the audience with a believable form of entertainment.

John’s fighter persona, as he saves the innocents and battles evil for the bet-terment of society, might evoke feelings of truth, justice and patriotism among his fans. But realistically speaking, such superhumans do not exist. At one point, things don’t even look heroic but comical.

But we cannot really blame any par-ticular actor or film when it comes to showing the hero as the ‘man of steel’. That has been the problem with Bolly-wood since always.

And let us not forget the dialogues - it is a true reminder of our school days when we used to read out rhyming poems. Though such lines would evoke the brave soul in us, experimenting with rhyming dialogues that are not applicable in real life was a flop idea.

In the acting department, John deliv-ers the best action performance, making viewers swoon at him once more. The same cannot be said for Divya Khosla Kumar, who appeared as if she was play-ing the role of a robot with dialogues spoken mechanically without any expressions.

The supporting cast -

Harsh Chhaya, Anup Soni, Gautami Kapoor, Zakir Hussain and others - play out their roles effectively well.

As for the film’s direction, there is not much space for anything else apart from John’s characters eliminating corrupted villains as if it is his routine job. Even the minor plot twist before the interval could not save the direction part from sinking in vain. The sequences are way too unre-alistic as one can only dream about such heroism and bravery.

Cinematography, however, is on point for providing the best action scenes a John Abraham fan can ask for, except for the bombardment of loud punch-ing sounds enough to give you pound-ing headaches.

Music lovers can laud the film for its background score and the groovy numbers like ‘Kusu Kusu’ starring Nora Fatehi as Dilruba and ‘Tenu Lehanga’ by Jass Manak. ‘Jann Gann Mann’ by B Praak gives you patriotic feels and the urge to take the Tiranga and sway it proudly.

Overall, ‘Satyameva Jayate 2’ gives desi Avenger vibes with a preachy rule: follow the path of truth and jus-tice and one can easily defeat the evils of the society. Perhaps the director needs

to be reminded that reality is harsher than the too-good-

to-be-true victory against the villains.

Abhishek Bachchan has played diverse characters in his career spanning almost two decades. While some por-

trayals received praise, others did not go down so well with the audience.

The Bollywood actor, who was already struggling under the pressures of being

Amitabh Bachchan’s son, made his debut with ‘Refugee’, a project that he now feels that he was rather unprepared for.

Asked about the mistakes he feels he has made in his career, Abhishek told RJ Sid-dharth Kanan, “One of the very few regrets that I have is that when I made my debut, I felt that I was not prepared to work with the great JP Dutta. You get to work with such an honoured director on your first film, you need to be prepared for that challenge and that honour. I should have been more prepared for him. I could have been better. I felt I was very underprepared as an actor for JP Saab. He is family and I love him.”

“But this was also learning. If I had been so prepared at that time, I would have never learned anything as an actor. It is not how you start, but how you end. But your start deter-mines a large part of how you are going to end. Because my start was so shaky from the preparation perspective, it pushed me to pull up my socks,” he added.

Abhishek Bachchan will next be seen in the ‘ZEE5’ film ‘Bob Biswas’. AGENCIES

Varun Dhawan gave a sur-prise to his fans as he shared the first look poster

of his forthcoming film titled ‘Bhediya’. The thriller drama was in the news ever since the lead actors started

shooting in Arunachal Pradesh. Kriti Sanon, who is the lead actress of the film, had shared a lot of pictures and videos from the scenic destination.

Coming back to the first look, Varun recently gave a glimpse of his character in the film and it will surely keep one glued to the screen.

As soon as he shared the look on his ‘Instagram’ handle, Alia Bhatt, Akshay Kumar, Abhishek Bachchan and many more dropped fire emojis in the com-ment section. They just cannot stop praising the actor.

Huma Qureshi wrote, “Wolf whistle.”

Mouni Roy also dropped fire and heart emojis. For now, only Varun’s first look is revealed. Kriti Sanon’s look is yet to be unveiled. Shar-ing the first official poster, Varun and Kriti captioned it, “ ‘Bhediya’ to be in cinemas on November 25, 2022.”

Backed by ‘Maddock Films’ and ‘Jio Studios’, the film is helmed by Amar Kaushik and was set to release in the first half of 2022. But it was pushed to November 2022.

It is worth mentioning that ‘Bhediya’ revolves around the theme of ‘Save the forests’. It is part of Vijan’s horror-comedy uni-verse, which also includes ‘Stree’ and ‘Roohi’. AGENCIES

Bollywood star John Abraham has expressed his desire to work on

the third part of ‘Force’ and develop it as ‘the biggest action franchise’ in the country.

The 48-year-old actor returned in an action avatar with his latest film ‘Satyameva Jayate 2’, which hits cinema halls on November 25. He has a lineup of hard-hitting films in the same genre including ‘Attack’, ‘Ek Villain Returns’ and YRF’s movie reportedly titled ‘Pathan’ also starring Shah Rukh Khan.

While he may have been part of successful entertain-ers like ‘Garam Masala’ and ‘Dostana’, movies like ‘Dhoom’, ‘Madras Café’, ‘Force’, ‘Par-manu’ and ‘Satyameva Jayate’ cemented his position as an action hero.

“I want to do bigger and better actions. I want to mount it in a big way. I want to make summer blockbuster films. The film that I own in terms

of franchise is ‘Force’ as it was probably the first action franchise that existed,” shared John.

He added, “I want to do ‘Force 3’ and make it the big-gest action franchise this country has seen. I enjoy this space completely. I also have ‘Attack’, which is ready and even that film has the best action.”

With stunts come injuries,

something the actor said are part and parcel of the genre, but that does not deter him from making more such movies.

“I feel stronger, fitter and better. I now have a grasp of how to make action big-ger and I want to entertain the audience with that big fun action film. I want to create my own universe,” he added.

Asked about his film on motorcycle racing, Abraham said the project is still under development.

“We want to make that happen. We could not do it because of the pandemic. My next year is packed. So, in 2023. it will definitely hap-pen,” he added.

The actor will next be seen in the action-thriller ‘Attack’. Abraham also informed he has completed the shooting of Mohit Suri-helmed ‘Ek Villain Returns’ and work on ‘Pathan’ is yet to be finished. PTI

‘I want to make Force the biggest action franchise’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

November, 2021: Krish-namurti Foundation India (KFI) has published The Book of Life: Daily Medi-tation with J.Krishnamurti, a book of specially cho-sen quotations from over three decades of public

talks, writings and dis-cussions of J. Krish-namurti. Krishnamurti was one of the great-est religious teachers of all time.

More than 50 years ago, J. Krish-namurti, pointed out the looming crisis fac-ing humanity in a way that resonates with our modern age sensibility. Speaking to an audi-ence four decades ago, he said: “The world is always close to catastro-phe. But it seems to be

closer now. Seeing this approaching catastrophe, most of us take shelter in idea. We think that this catastrophe, this crisis, can be solved by an ideology.”

The Book of Life is a finely tuned, unique com-pilation of quotations built around themes of daily liv-

ing that any human being can relate to. Themes such as relationship, love, desire, fear, learning, authority, sex, feelings, energy, atten-tion, marriage, passion, truth, reality, time, knowl-edge, God and meditation. There are a total of 48 such themes with four themes explored each month. The easy-to-read design, where each page has one quote for one day, allows the reader to open any page and get illumination on a particu-lar theme for that day.

Speaking on the launch of the book, Vishwanath Alluri, Secretary of KFI, said: “The Book of Life was released in 1995 in the West, but it is for the first time KFI is publishing the book for the young Indian reader who has not been exposed to Krish-namurti and the teachings. What Krishnamurti taught and explored for more than sixty years from 1925 to 1986 is extremely rel-evant to our crisis-ridden times”.

On November 26, Bollywood star Ranveer Singh unveiled the first teaser of his much-awaited film

‘83’.Directed by filmmaker Kabir Khan,

‘83’ chronicles India’s win under Kapil Dev’s captainship, when the team defeated West Indies in the final to clinch their first-ever World Cup tro-phy in 1983.

Singh shared the 59-second-long clip on his social media handle that recreated the iconic dismissal of West Indies legend Vivian Richards from the match.

“The greatest story. The greatest glory. ‘83’ is releasing in cinemas on December 24, 2021, in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kan-nada and Malayalam. The teaser is out now. Trailer to be out on November 30,” he wrote.

The teaser opens with a packed Lord’s cricket stadium where the crowd is root-ing for the Indian team and then shows Madan Lal bowling to Richards.

After the West Indies batsman played a pull shot, Singh’s Kapil Dev runs and

takes the catch. Rich-ard’s dismissal was one of the pivotal moments that

had shifted the match in India’s favour.

The trailer of the cricket drama, which also features Deepika Padu-kone as Romi, Kapil Dev’s wife, will be released on November 30.

Actors Pankaj Tripathi, Tahir Raj Bha-sin, Jiiva, Saqib Saleem, Jatin Sarna, Chi-rag Patil, Dinker Sharma, Nishant Dahiya, Harrdy Sandhu, Sahil Khattar, Ammy Virk, Addinath Kothare, Dhairya Karwa and R Badree round out the cast of the film. PTI

I want to do bigger and better actions. I want to mount it in a big way, he added

‘Satyameva Jayate 2’ is a lot of entertainment for ac-tion film-lovers but preachy dialogues kill the mood

SATYAMEVA JAYATE 2 (FILM)

Cast: John Abraham, Divya Khosla Kumar, Harsh Chhaya, Gautami KapoorDirection: Milap ZaveriRating:

John’s fighter persona, as he saves the innocents and battles the evil, might evoke feelings of justice and patriotism among his fans. But realistically speaking, such superhumans do not exist

‘Felt underprepared for my debut film Refugee’

Varun surprises his fans with the first look of ‘Bhediya’

Ranveer Singh unveils teaser of his cricket drama ‘83’

KFI releases ‘The Book of Life’ by J. Krishnamurti

‘Bhediya’ revolves around the theme of ‘Save the forests’. It is part of Vijan’s horror-comedy universe

The book is a compilation of quotations built around themes of daily living that any human can relate to

A face-off between desi avengers and the

evils of society