mpost bureau missing in ap boat mishap · 2020-05-30 · bhai dekh, fauji, malgudi days, among...
TRANSCRIPT
millenniumpost.in RNI NO.: DELENG/2005/15351REGD. NO.: DL(S)-01/3420/2018-20
PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA VOL. 14, ISSUE 257 | Monday, 16 September 2019 | New Delhi | Pages 16 | Rs 3.00
SHOWING THE WAY
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal inspects his home for stagnant water PTI
NO HALF TRUTHS
NEW DELHI: Doordarshan turned 60 on Sunday bringing back memories of a golden period when entertainment in the coun-try revolved around serials such as Mahabharata, Fauji and Mal-gudi Days.
People turned nostalgic on Twitter to mark the public ser-vice broadcaster of India’s 60 years with several of them asking on social media “which is your favou-rite DD shows”.
Some posted its iconic logo that used to appear before the start of programmes with its character-istic tune. Many shared their fond memories associated with Door-darshan and remembered iconic shows that made their childhood days memorable.
Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati said, “It’s a moment to recognise that it’s
not that Doordarshan has gotten older, but it is getting newer for digital audiences.”
“It is not only that Doordar-shan has turned 60, but the history of television broadcasting in India now spans 6 decades - a milestone for all of the TV industry in India,” he said.
Doordarshan Director Gen-eral Supriya Sahu said, “Door-darshan is in the DNA of India. Happy Birthday, Doordarshan. 60 Glorious Years of DD. May you continue to enthral generations of Indians.”
“Starting off as an experi-ment in 1959, Doordarshan can take pride in the fact that it has emerged as one of the leading broadcasters in the world,” Sahu said in a video message.
From the days of Ramayana, Hum Log, Buniyaad, Surabhi, till
today Doordarshan gives high-tech coverage of national and international events, she said, add-ing that Doordarshan has been a “trailblazer”.
Doordarshan, which began as an experiment on September 15, 1959, became a service in 1965 when it started beaming signals
to reach television sets in living rooms in and around the national capital.
By 1972, services were extended to Mumbai and Amrit-sar and then to seven other cities by 1975.
All this time, it was part of the national broadcaster, All
India Radio. On April 1, 1976, it transited to become a separate department in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Over the years, Doordarshan has grown into a network operat-ing 34 satellite channels, besides providing free-to-air DTH service having 104 in its bookings.
Many a career were launched on this platform, including that of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan who became a household name after his serial Fauji, and many shows went on to become classics.
Entertainment shows like Chitrahaar, Mahabharat, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Fauji, Malgudi Days, among others, captured the imagi-nation of the Indian public in the late 80s and early 90s and remains etched in people’s minds as pure entertainment that brought people together. PTI
Doordarshan turns 60, people become nostalgicVIEWERS REMEMBER GOLDEN PERIODGujarat: 4 lions rescued
from 100-foot deep dry well in Gir forestMPOST BUREAU
AHMEDABAD: Three lions and a lioness were rescued from an open well in Sarasiya range of Gir East forest division in the early hours of Sunday, an official said.
The unused well was about 100 feet deep and was situated on a farm in Manavav, and the four big cats, in the 2-3 year age group, fell into it on Sat-urday evening, Sarasiya Range Forest Officer M R Odedra said.
“The farm owner alerted us. A for-est department team managed to res-cue the lions and lioness after working through the night. The well was dry, and the four had to be dragged out with the help of residents and equip-ment we had carried for the purpose,” Odedra said.
The incident comes within a month of the state government telling the Gujarat High Court that it had, so far, constructed 37,201 parapets on open wells in forests to prevent lions from falling into them.
According to officials, there are over 50,000 such wells that pose a dan-ger to wild animals.
PAK FLOUTS 2003 CEASEFIRE UNDERSTANDING
21 Indians killed in 2,050 ceasefire violations by Pak this year: MEA
MPOST BUREAU
NEW DELHI: The Pakistani Army has resorted to more than 2,050 unprovoked ceasefire violations this year in which 21 Indi-ans have been killed, the Ministry of External Affairs said Sunday.
“We have highlighted our concerns at unprovoked ceasefire violations by Pakistan forces, including in support of cross border terrorist infiltration, and targeting of Indian civilians and border posts by them,” Minis-try of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.
“This year they have resorted to more than 2,050 unprovoked ceasefire violations in which 21 Indians died,” he said.
India has repeatedly called upon Pakistan to ask its forces to adhere to 2003 ceasefire understanding and maintain peace and tran-quillity along the Line of Control and Inter-national Border, Kumar said. Indian forces exercise maximum restraint and respond to unprovoked violations and attempts at cross border terrorist infiltration, he said.
1023 special fast-track courts to come up
MPOST BUREAU
NEW DELHI: The Union government has proposed to set up a total of 1,023 special fast-track courts for expeditious trial of over 1.66 lakh pending cases of crime against women and children across the country.
Each of these special courts is expected to dispose of at least 165 such cases per year, said a proposal by the Department of Justice under Union Law Ministry.
A total of 1,023 FTSCs will be set up, out of which 389 courts, as per a Supreme Court direction, will exclu-sively handle cases registered under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, it said.
The remaining 634 FTSCs will deal with either rape cases or both rape and POCSO Act cases depending upon the pendency and requirement.
“Each FTSC is expected to dispose of 41-42 cases each quarter and at least 165 cases in a year,” the proposal added.
According to the Department’s pro-posal note, a total of 1,66,882 cases of rape and those under POCSO Act are pending trial in various courts across the country.
There are 389 districts in the coun-try where the number of pending cases under the POCSO Act exceeds 100. Therefore, as per the apex court direc-tives, each of such districts will have one exclusive POCSO court, which
will try no other cases, the note said.The process of setting up of these
FTSCs is likely to begin on October 2; the Law Ministry had earlier said.
The Department of Justice had pro-posed to set up 1,023 fast-track courts at a total budget of Rs 767.25 crore. The Central support of Rs 474 crore for one year will be funded from the Nirbhaya Fund.The Centre created the fund in 2013 after December 16, 2012, gang-rape and murder of a student in Delhi. It was created to support the initiatives of governments and NGOs working towards the safety of women.
In a letter to the Cabinet Secretariat on August 8, the Department of Justice had said after the recommendation of the expenditure finance committee on July 11 and approval of the law minis-ter; the proposal has been forwarded to the Finance Minister for approval.
Simultaneously, other connected actions are being taken as setting up of FTSCs is planned to start from October 2 2019,” the Department wrote. WITH PTI INPUTS
FOR ADVERTISING kindly contact at 9810195709
FOR SUBSCRIPTION kindly contact at 8800854665
In today’s paper
...
I never expected to get more than 4-5 opportunities
VIRAT KOHLI
CITY
MAN HELD FOR KILLING WIFE 4
NATION
ART 370: SC TO HEAR PLEAS TODAY 6
EDIT
SONIA’S SIGNIFICANCE 8
INTERNATIONAL
INDIAN COUPLE, CHILD KILLED IN OMAN 10
BUSINESS
AIR INDIA POSTS `4,600 CR LOSS 12
SPORT
PONTING EYES BATTING SHAKE-UP 14
THE BOAT WAS CARRYING AROUND 60 PEOPLE
MPOST BUREAU
AMARAVATI: At least 12 people drowned and about 30 were miss-ing after a boat carrying them to a tourist spot capsized in the swollen river Godavari in Andhra Pradesh on Sunday, police said.
The boat was carrying around 60 people, including nine-mem-ber crew, and the locals rescued 17 of them while a search was on for others.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed anguish over the tragedy.
“Extremely pained by the cap-sizing of a boat in Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari. My thoughts are with the bereaved families,” the prime minister wrote on Twitter.
He said rescue operations are currently underway at the site of the tragedy.
Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed shock over the mishap and announced an ex-gratia relief of Rs 10 lakh each to the kin of the deceased.
The boat, belonging to a private
operator, was on its way to the pic-turesque Papikondalu tourist spot in the middle of the river when it met with the accident, apparently on colliding with a large rock for-mation, at Kachchuluru in East Godavari District, about 200 km from here, they said.
Twelves bodies have been retrieved so far while the locals rescued 17 people, police said add-ing two teams of National Disaster Response Force and State Disas-ter Response Force, with a total of 140 personnel, have been sent to the accident spot for rescue opera-
tions. A special helicopter has been pressed into service from Raja-mahendravaram for the rescue operation.
Two drivers of the boat named “Royal Vasishta” were among those killed.
Though the boat has a license, it was not yet clear whether it had the required permission to ferry tourists since all boat operations in the river have been prohibited because of the flood.
River Godavari has been in spate for the past few days, and over 5.13 lakh cusecs of floodwater
was flowing on Sunday when the mishap occurred.
The Chief Minister directed the East Godavari district Collec-tor Muralidhar Reddy to conduct a probe into the tragedy.
He also directed that all boat operations be suspended immedi-ately, official sources said.
Most of the tourists in the boat were from Hyderabad and Waran-gal in neighbouring Telangana.
Five of the tourists from Warangal were among the 17 pas-sengers saved by villagers of Tutu-gunta, police said. WITH PTI INPUTS
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Union home minister and BJP national president Amit Shah’s asser-tion that Hindi can “unite the country” on Saturday received severe criticism from Oppo-sition parties, who asked him to reconsider his appeal of Hindi becoming a “common language” of the country and “India’s identity globally.”
Trinamool Congress supremo and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee described Shah’s comments as an attempt to divert public attention from the failure of their government at the Centre.
Kerala Chief Minister Pina-rayi Vijayan on Sunday said it was a “planned attempt” to stir up controversy and divert atten-tion from pressing problems in the country.
He termed it as a ‘war cry’ against the mother tongue of non-Hindi speaking people.
The DMK president M K Stalin on Sunday accused the Centre of “autocratic imposi-tion of Hindi” and underscored the need for unity in opposi-tion ranks to take forward pro-test against the government on
such issues.Puducherry Chief Minister
V Narayanasamy on Sunday registered a strong protest and claimed it was a “clear exposure of the hidden agenda” of the Centre to impose the language on non-Hindi speaking states.
Amid a raging debate over Hindi as a common language for the country, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said it would never be a reality.
Any attempt to impose one language will lead to disrup-tion of the country’s unity, the CPI(M) said on Sunday criticis-ing Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s comments on Hindi.
DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched drone attacks on the world’s largest oil processing facil-ity in Saudi Arabia and a major oil field Saturday, sparking huge fires and halting about half of the supplies from the world’s largest exporter of oil.
The attacks were the latest of many drone assaults on the kingdom’s oil infrastructure in recent weeks, but easily the most damaging.
They raise concerns about the global oil supply and likely will further increase tensions across the Persian Gulf amid an escalating cri-sis between the U.S. and Iran over its unravel-ling nuclear deal with world powers. The attacks resulted in “the temporary suspension of pro-duction operations” at the Abqaiq oil processing facility and the Khurais oil field, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. P13
MPOST BUREAU
CHANDIGARH: After Assam, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday announced that the National Register of Citi-zens would be implemented in the state.
“We will implement NRC in Haryana,” Khat-tar told reporters in Panchkula after meeting Justice H S Bhalla (retd) and former Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba at their residences here.
Khattar met them under his party’s “Maha Sampark Abhiyan” ahead of state polls in Octo-ber. He had previously too supported NRC implementation across the country.
Saudi Arabia: Drone attacks knocked out
half its oil supply
Will implement NRC in Haryana, says Khattar
KOLKATA: A Kolkata-Agar-tala Air India flight was delayed for around two hours on Sun-day after a swarm of bees was noticed in front of the aircraft while it was taxiing towards the main runway here, an airlines official said.
The plane with 136 pas-sengers and crew members on board the AI 743 flight was scheduled to depart at 9.40 am.
The bees were noticed by the pilots when the Airbus A319 was moving towards the runway for the take-off.
The pilots brought the air-craft to a standstill as further movement could have dam-aged the plane and harmed the passengers if the bees entered it through the engines, the Air India spokesperson said.
Fire services personnel were called to tackle the problem.
It was found that the bees did not enter the airctraft nor any damage was caused to the plane.
Before this incident, the flight had been delayed for some time due to a technical snag.
The plane finally embarked for the Tripura capital at 12.45 pm. MPOST
Bees delay Kolkata-Agartala
flight by 2 hrs
Highlights » Jagan Mohan Reddy announced an ex-gratia relief of Rs 10 lakh each to the kin of the deceased
» Two teams of National Disaster Response Force and State Disas-ter Response Force, with a total of 140 personnel, have been sent to the accident spot for rescue operations
For speedy trial of 1.66 L rape, POCSO cases
At least 12 drown, around 30 missing in AP boat mishap
Oppn parties attack Shah on Hindi pitch
PM’S GIFTS ON AUCTION
PROMOTING BANGLA CINEMA
Bengal Association, New Delhi organised ‘12th Bangla Cine Utsab 2019’ from September 13-15, 2019 at Muktadhara Auditorium. National Award Winner and Renowned Bangla actor Rituparna Sengupta was invited as Chief Guest of the inaugural ceremony. Various full-length feature films and short films by renowned as well as budding Bangla cine directors and producers were showcased during the three-day festival. PICS/NAVEEN SHARMA
Prahlad Singh Patel, Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (IC) inaugurates exhibition cum e-auction of gifts presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
mp around town2MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 2019
Although every possible care and caution has been taken to avoid errors or omissions, this publication is being sold on the condition and understanding that information given in this publication is merely for reference and must not be taken as having authority of or binding in any way on the writers, editors, publishers, and printers and sellers who do not owe any responsibility for any damage or loss to any person, a purchaser of this publication or not for the result of any action taken on the basis of this work. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent court and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only
Printed and Published by Jaiyendra Kumar Sharma on behalf of Front Row Media Pvt. Ltd. and printed at The Indian Express Pvt. Ltd., A-8, Sector-7, Noida-201 301 (U.P.) and published from First Floor, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002. Editor: Durbar Ganguly, Executive Editor: Arya Rudra. Email: [email protected], Tel. No. 011-47777500
OUR CORRESPONDENT
With an aim to give stu-dents a wide platform and exposure, National
Institute of Fine Arts (NIFA) has organised their 14th Annual Art Exhibition ‘Urge’ to showcase approximately 120 works by the 55 Diploma students. The aim of the exhibition is to give students a wide platform and exposure.
The word ‘Urge’ basically stands for desire. Urge of expression com-pels an artist to create anything and everything which is a tangible manifestation of his insides – his thoughts, his feelings.
It’s making himself seen, known, and open to critique and condem-nation as much as to appreciation and recognition.
The exhibition was inaugurated on September 13 in the presence of Padmashree Biman B Das (Emi-nent Sculptor/ Painter), Niladri Paul (Eminent Contemporary Art-ist), Renu Khera (Curator & MD,
NIFA), artists and other eminent guests.
The artworks displayed in the exhibition are inspired by students'
thoughts, feelings and life. They serve their ideas on the front by placing them on the canvas. This time, the artifacts that have been
given place are inspired from vari-ous things ranging from our ancient and spiritual stories to culture, life and nature.
Speaking about the art show, Renu Khera, curator of the exhibi-tion and director of NIFA, said that this exhibition will recognise many new talents. The inspiration and encouragement will inspire them to do better. Biman B Das and Niladri Paul also praised the artifacts.
In the exhibition, artworks of about 56 students from all six cen-ters of NIFA have been accommo-dated. One of the unique features of this exhibition is that it has partici-pation by talented artists between the age of 10 to 70 years.
NIFA is a unit of the Sanyam Educational and Social Welfare Society established in 2005 by Renu Khera. The goal of this society is to teach art to people of all ages.
The art show will go on until September 19, 2019, 11 am – 7 pm at All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, Rafi Marg, New Delhi.
Artworks by young artists GET RECOGNITION
The art exhibition showcasing 120 works by 55 Diploma students will go on until September 19, 2019, at All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, New Delhi
The exhibition was inaugurated on September 13 in the presence of Padmashree Biman B Das, Eminent Sculptor and Painter
OUR CORRESPONDENT
The 10th national marketing conclave of KIIT School of Management (KSOM) held
on September 14. The day long deliberation was held on the theme ‘Delivering Customer Value Propo-sition through Marketing Analytics’.
In his welcome address Profes-sor Anil Bajpai, Director, KSOM spoke about how marketing analyt-ics is fundamentally changing both business and consumer marketing across the customer life cycle.
He was of the strong opinion that analytics is going to form the backbone of new age marketing strategy and is going to result in better cash-flow.
The event had three panels – the first panel comprised of Navoch
Mohanayak, Strategy Consulting Leader, Frost and Sullivan; Pal-lavi Palkar, National head – Tier 2 business, Bigbasket; Rajni Ranjan, Co-founder, Kraftbuy.com and Siju Narayan, GM – APAC, Loyalty Jug-gernaut Inc. discussed on ‘Mapping Customer DNA’.
The key insight from discussion was that with a proper understand-ing of customer DNA, organisations will be able to bring customers to the center of the business equation.
In the second panel, Lalatendu Panda, Sr VP and CMO –Value For-mat, Reliance Retail; Parthasarathy Vallabhajosyula, Co-founder – Analytics Quotient; Rahul Sarangi, Global Head – Content and Busi-ness, The Viral Fever and Vinamra Pandiya, Founder and CEO –Qtrove discussed on ‘Marketing
Analytics will replace Marketers with Machine’, and Banoja Acha-rya, Sr VP – Nielsen moderated the discussion.
The panel agreed that in future we can expect more localised, per-sonalised value offerings setting a globalised context for customer expectations.
Ending the conclave, panellists including Chiradeep Samal, Prod-uct Manager, Global Marketing Effectiveness – Nielsen; Vikas Lach-hwani, Director and Co-Founder – Mcaffeine and Yuvraj Mehta, Head – Corporate Brand Management and Communications – Larsen and Toubro discussed ‘Is Conventional Marketing getting Disrupted?’
The conclave was received enthusiastically by industry pro-fessionals, academia and students.
One-day marketing conclave at KIITOUR CORRESPONDENT
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, is celebrat-ing the newly renovated
Jaipur House with the unveiling of a historic exhibition of more than 1000 works of art, design, and woven objects of art by Chitracha-rya Upendra Maharathi. Known as an artist, architect designer and weaver par excellence, the show puts the spotlight on his prowess as a rare and unique genius.
The show of paintings, drawings, murals sculptures, woven cloths and chairs all point to the zenith of his creativity. His interest in Buddhism brought forth many designs that were inspired by Buddhist ideology. The installations in the retrospective have been designed by DG, NGMA Adwaita Gadanayak. The Exhibi-tion has been curated by Adwaita Gadanayak and his team.
Maharathi was author of many books too, The Book on bamboo
art, ‘Venushilpa’ was among his best works.
Following the tradition of ancient art of sculpture, he designed many noted buildings : Venuban Viharin Rajagriha, Sandarbh Vihar, Ananda Stupa, Prakrit and Jainology Institute at Vaishali, Nava Nalanda Maha Vihar at Nalanda.
Born in Narendrapur village of Puri district in Orissa, in May 1908, Maharathi studied from the
Government College of Art, Kol-kata, and came out as an artist cum architect.
In later years he came to Patna, Bihar. From 1933 to 1942 he advo-cated a literary-cultural revival as he worked in the publishing house ‘Pustak Bhandar’, in Laharyasari, Darbhanga.
In 1942, he was appointed a spe-cial designer in the Department of Industry, Government of Bihar. In
1954, he visited Japan to attend the UNESCO International conference as representative of India.
The upcoming exhibition will be inaugurated by Prahlad Singh Patel, Union minister of State for Culture and Tourism( IC) on September 17, 6.00 pm, at National Gallery of Modern art New Delhi.
NGMA to unveil art show by Upendra Maharathi
The exhibition will be inaugurated by Prahlad Singh Patel, Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism
OUR CORRESPONDENT
After drawing a large crowd of bibliophiles, the 25th edition of the Delhi Book Fair along with 21st Statio-
nery Fair, 5th Office Automation Fair and Corporate Gifts Fair concluded successfully at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, on September 15.
Awards were presented by Ashutosh Varma General Manager ITPO, along with R K Mittal, Presi-dent, FIP, Naveen Gupta, Treasurer, FIP, participants and media persons. The Delhi Book Fair was organised by ITPO in collaboration with the Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP).
In the category of best display in Hindi language, the Publication Division (Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India) won the Gold trophy, Samyak Prakashan received the Silver while, Govind Bha-wan Karyalaya, Geeta Press was con-ferred the Browns trophy. Takshila Educational Society received the spe-cial commendation.
APC Books, Jaico Publishing House and Oswal Books were hon-oured with the Gold, Silver and Bronze
trophies respectively in the best dis-play in English language category.
The West Bengal Mayellyang Lep-cha Development Board which was
participating for the first time in the fair was conferred with the Gold, Urdu
Academy won the Silver trophy while Sahitya Academy, New Delhi was hon-oured with the Bronze trophy under the best display in regional language category.
For excellence in display in Statio-nery, Office Automation & Corporate Gift Fair, Trison International Pvt. Ltd. won the Gold, Colop India received the Silver and Impressive Craft was presented the Bronze Trophy.
Complimenting the award win-ners, Ashutosh Varma, GM, ITPO pointed out that these events remained successful in terms of footfall. He hoped for the next edition to be organ-ised with an enhanced scale after com-pletion of the iconic International Exhibition cum Convention Centre (IECC) at Pragati Maidan. Highlight-ing the importance of books, he said that even in this digital age, books are relevant to ignite human minds and explore wisdom for a meaningful life.
RK Mittal, President, FIP, appreci-ated ITPO for holding the events regu-larly on a successful note. He said that the next edition of the fair would be organised with improved quality in participation so that the Indian pub-lishing industry could be benefited.
Curtains down on DELHI BOOK FAIR
West Bengal Mayelllyang Lepcha Development Board receiving the Gold trophy in the regional language category
Concluding ceremony of 25th Delhi Book Fair was attended by eminent guests including Ashutosh Varma General Manager ITPO; R K Mittal, President, FIP; Naveen Gupta, Treasurer, FIP; and participants
Chitracharya Upendra Maharathi
MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 20193mp city
Kejriwal asks people to check mosquito breeding
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Several AAP MLAs toured residential colo-nies in their assemblies here on Sunday to spread aware-ness about dengue and urged people to participate in the '10 Hafte 10 Baje 10 Minute' campaign.
The MLAs urged residents to participate in the campaign, launched by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Septem-ber 1, and save the city from dengue outbreak.
More than 200 events were held across the city by MLAs, councillors and party leaders, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said in a statement.
Patparganj MLA and Dep-uty Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also visited his con-stituency to raise awareness about dengue.
MLA Parmila Tokas posted on Twitter pictures of her vis-iting the Raipur Colony, Mohammadpur village, R K Puram Sector 3, 12, in her R K Puram Assembly. Tokas said she met residents and encour-aged them to check mosquito breeding in their surroundings.
MLA Girish Soni also shared pictures of him inspect-ing his home and his MLA office, apart from his visit to Madipur Assembly.
Wazirpur MLA Rajesh Gupta, along with Neemdi Colony ward councillor Neetu Azad, visited different parts of the constituency.
Kalyanpuri ward council-lor and president of the AAP's SC-ST Wing Kuldeep Kumar also shared pictures of him checking mosquito breeding at his home.
Under the '10 Hafte 10 Baje
10 Minute' campaign, people have been requested to devote 10 minutes at 10 am every Sun-day for draining stagnant water that could lead to breeding of mosquitoes. The campaign will conclude in mid November.
The number of dengue cases recorded till September 7 stood at 122, with 30 of these reported in the current month and 52 in August.
Last year, 2,798 dengue cases and four deaths due to the disease were recorded by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), which tabulates data on vector-borne diseases in the city.
Both the Delhi government and the local bodies have been making efforts to raise aware-ness among the people on pre-cautions to ensure that there is no breeding of mosquito larvae in and around their houses.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Intensifying Delhi gov-ernment's '10 Hafte 10 Baje 10 Min-ute' campaign, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his cabinet colleagues on Sunday visited some parts of the city, urging people to check mosquito breed-ing in their surroundings. After a visit to West Delhi's Tri Nagar area, Kejriwal claimed that data showed the campaign was "successful" so far and cases of den-gue were on the decline.
Under the campaign launched on September 1, people are expected to devote 10 minutes at 10 AM every Sun-day for draining stagnant water that could lead to breeding of mosquitoes. The campaign will conclude in mid November.
"I am very happy that this campaign has been successful so far and dengue has been controlled for the time being. There were many cases of dengue 3-4 years ago. As per cycle of the disease it was expected to recur on big scale this year but data show dengue has signifi-cantly declined in Delhi," Kejriwal said.
The dengue mosquito has a range of 200 metres so if people check their houses and encourage their neighbours
to do it, Delhi will be saved from the dis-ease, he said in Tri Nagar.
The chief minister also visited resi-dents in the Gole Market area of his con-stituency –Kohat Enclave and Burari.
“All of Delhi is like my family. Like we care for our own family, I am con-cerned about the health and well-being of the people of Delhi. This is why we are running this mega drive to protect peo-ple from dengue,” said the chief minis-
ter, at Gole Market.Commenting on why his govern-
ment launched this campaign this year, Kejriwal said, “In 2015, 15,000 people had contracted dengue and 60 people had lost their lives. In 2018, Delhi had just 2,700 cases. We were warned by doctors that this year there is likely to be a sudden spike in cases because the dengue outbreak follows a cycle of 3-4 years. We didn’t want Delhi to suffer
from an epidemic. This is why we have started this mega drive against dengue.”
On the impact of the campaign, CM Kejriwal said, “I am very happy to report that this year there is a steep reduction in the number of cases of dengue.”
After inspecting his own residence at 10 AM on Sunday morning, Dep-uty chief minister Manish Sisodia met with small groups of residents in Manas Apartment, Acharya Niketan of Mayur Vihar Phase 1 and Pandav Nagar. He was assured by residents that they had become alert about stagnant water after Delhi government’s mega drive began on 1st September.
Health Minister Satyendar Jain vis-ited Paschim Vihar area of his constitu-ency Shakurbasti to spread awareness.
In Ballimaran, Food and Civil Sup-plies Minister Imran Hussain, along with a group of local residents over-saw the distribution of pamphlets with information about dengue mosquito and the precautions residents must take to prevent dengue.
He was seen handing informational material to people in the neighbour-hood, apart from checking whether residents had conducted their weekly inspection.
AAP MLAs tour residential colonies of their assemblies to raise awareness
Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues visited some parts of the city
ANTI-DENGUE CAMPAIGN
After a visit to West Delhi’s Tri Nagar area, Kejriwal claimed that data showed the campaign was ‘successful’ so far and cases of dengue were on the decline
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The New Delhi Municipal Council's Suvidha Camps have resolved up to 89 percent of public grievances they have received since its inception in December 2018, a new data released by the Council on Sunday showed. The NDMC also said that it has registered as many as 960 public grievance cases as of the 13th Suvidha Camp, which was conducted at the NDMC Convention Centre here on Saturday.
The NDMC had initiated this move last year to estab-lish a system for addressing public grievances of residents living in the New Delhi area, with services pertaining to information, facilitation and redressal of these public griev-ances. Most of the cases these camps have received relate to personnel, estate, public health, civil engineering and tax departments.
NDMC Secretary Rashmi Singh said that 26 teams from
various departments of the Council were present at the Suvidha Camp along with their respective Heads of Depart-ment to address grievances of residents.
The NDMC Secretary said that the Council had directed all Heads of Departments to be available during the Pub-lic Hearing Hours between 12-1 pm every day to address problems of the residents and also asked them to pre-pare an Action Taken Report with respect to Public Hearing
Hours every Friday.This recent camp saw
NDMC employees and repre-sentatives of Resident Welfare Associations and Market Trad-ers Associations take a pledge to stop plastic usage. Moreover, a Women Help Desk was also set up to facilitate addressing problems faced by women in the community.
The NDMC's Suvidha Camp is organised on the sec-ond Saturday of every month with the aim to redress public grievances.
NDMC’s Suvidha Camps resolved 89 percent of public grievances
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The railway police in Delhi is having a tough time as a bulk of phone calls about 80 per cent on its helpline per day is related to requests for pizza delivery, mobile recharges or other such trivial matters.
The Delhi Railway Police Con-trol Room receives 200 phone calls on an average on its 1512 helpline daily, and during 80 per cent of such calls, passengers either request the staff to get eatables such as pizzas and burg-ers delivered to them or enquire about railway jobs, police said on Sunday.
"Get my phone recharged, get pizza delivered, I want two burgers, tea, juices, cold water are some of the demands the passengers make," a senior police officer said.
There are also passengers who seek police assistance in getting their elec-tricity bill paid or train tickets booked.
The 1512 helpline, set up to help passengers register their complaints with police when travelling in train or to report incidents of crime at railway stations, was launched in 2015.
The railway police helpline is a
nationwide number. But most of the time, instead of treating it as a helpline for police assistance, it is considered as railway enquiry, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Railways) Dinesh Kumar Gupta said.
However, through booklets and pamphlets, the Delhi Railway Police is creating awareness among passengers to seek police assistance in case of any dif-ficulty or emergency, they can dial 1512 to report any crime, the officer said.
According to police, people are not really aware about the purpose of the helpline and make unnecessary requests. It's the staff deployed at rail-way police control room who are hav-ing a tough time in dealing with such callers round the clock.
Passengers also place requests to get their train stopped in case they get late in reaching their station.
Even though the number of produc-tive calls are less, the staff deployed at
the railway police control room attend every call and provide assistance to pas-sengers in case of any emergency.
It is said that the Railway PCR hardly gets productive calls and most of the calls attended are to seek assistance for phone-recharge, to get the SIM card unlocked, get net pack recharged round the clock.
"We also receive such junk calls from Gurgaon and Ghaziabad. If the call is worthy and genuine, we direct the call to the concerned control rooms of the nearest railway police station or police teams on-board the trains for action on complaints", a senior police officer said.
The officer added that even if they find it difficult to deal it with such junk calls, they answer every single call politely.
However, the staff deals with such calls politely and tell them the pur-pose of the helpline and guide them to seek police assistance if they want to report any theft, quarrel, fight, crime or difficulty.
However, some people express anguish and even abuse the staff. Call-ers also get annoyed if their demands are not catered too, police said.
Delhi railway police helpline flooded with requests to get pizzas, burgers delivered
The 1512 helpline, set up to help passengers register their complaints with police when travelling in train or to report incidents of crime at railway stations, was launched in 2015
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The South Delhi Municipal Corpora-tion's South Zone is leading the charge to stop the usage of single-use plastic in the municipality, which critically endangers not just humans but other species as well, officials of the SDMC said on Sunday.
In fact, New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi attended a programme in Greater Kai-lash-I, where she urged Resi-dent Welfare Associations and market associations to take a lead in putting a "full stop to the use of any kind of plastic, especially single-use plastic".
Lekhi said that this move
expresses the commitment of the community towards nature and protecting the environment.
The New Delhi MP said that indiscriminate use of plas-tic, single-use drinking water bottles, thermocol plates and glasses and other plastic items for events like Bhandaras and Langars is very concerning and that all residents should join the fight to stop plastic usage.
SDMC Deputy Commis-sioner Vishvender was also at the event, where he brought to notice the harmful effects of excessive plastic usage and urged community members to move beyond plastic and
use environment-friendly alternatives.
Lekhi appreciated the SDMC's effort to erect a stage for the programme without using flex, thermocol or plastic materials and asked represen-tatives of market associations to stop using polythene bags for packaging items but instead rely on paper or jute-based options. She also asked Resident Welfare Associations to help with plastic waste col-lection so that SDMC staff can send it for proper disposal.
The New Delhi MP also raised a voice to stop using micro-plastic in sanitary pads and requested manufacturers to use cloth-alternatives.
SDMC’s south zone leads fight against single-use plastic
THE FIGHT AGAINST PLASTIC
New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi on Sunday attended the Waste Segregation Programme at Sangli Apartment near Mandi House in New Delhi area where she along with several residents pledged to keep their environment cleaner and eradicate the use of plastic from their lives
OUR CORRESPONDENT
GREATER NOIDA: The Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) has issued a notice to Supertech builder after the residents of Supertech Ecovil-lage-II project in Greater Noida West staged protests over shortage of water from past one week which was caused by the failure of water pumps. The authority has asked the builder to immediately act on the com-plaint of the residents or they have to face actions.
As per a senior GNIDA official, the notice was issued after a team visited the site and found malfunctioning in the boost pumps which were meant to supply water to the flats.
“The authority had carried out an inspection at the society and found that out of the three
booster pumps installed at the society, two were in the mal-functioned state. Only a single booster pump was working due to which, the required amount of water did not reach the tanks which led to water crisis,” said a senior officer of Greater Noida.
The authority has asked the builder to address the matter at the earliest and also warned of action if he fails to improve the situation.
The issue started last Mon-day following the malfunction-ing of one of the water pump which supplies water to flats. By the time the pump was repaired, water tanks of the 20 towers of society had run dry, which resulted in the severe water crisis. However, the man-agement had arranged water tankers and bottles to compen-sate for the shortage of water but that didn’t bring any relief to the residents.
NEW DELHI: Delhi Mahila Congress celebrated its 36th Foundation Day at the Delhi Pradesh Congress Commit-tee office, Rajiv Bhawan, on Sunday. On the occasion, Delhi Pradesh Mahila Con-gress (DPMC) organized a flag-hoisting programme at the DPCC office, under the leadership of DPMC presi-dent Sharmistha Mukherjee. The flag hoisting was done by Mukherjee, along with DPCC Working Presidents Rajesh Lilothia and Devender Yadav.
Mukherjee said that the All India Mahila Congress started functioning as an independent Frontal Organization within the AICC with the approval of the President, AICC from 15th
September, 1983. She said that the Mahila Congress started off as an outreach frontal organi-zation of the Indian National Congress and was involved mainly in social work.
She said that the Congress party, right from its inception, has worked tirelessly for the better condition of women in India. Mukherjee said that the Congress party, time and again, reviewed the condition of women in India and made suitable policies and rules for the betterment of women, like the Dowry Prohibition Act (1961), the Maternity Benefit Act 1961, the Sexual Harass-ment of Women at Workplace (Prevention and Protection Act 2013) etc. MPOST
Delhi Mahila Cong celebrates its 36th Foundation Day
PIYUSH OHRIE
GURUGRAM: The Aam Aadmi Party has also begun preparations for the com-ing state assembly elections, the dates of which can be announced anytime by the Election Commission.
On Sunday, it held a meet-ing with its party workers and supporters in Sukhrali. One of the big announcements that came out of the meeting was the declaration of RS Rathee as its candidate from Gurugram Vidhan sabha seat.
The statement was made by Sushil Gupta, the AAP Haray-ana state-in-charge in the pres-ence of Naveen Jaihind, AAP’s Haryana chief. However some party members said that they will still follow the due proce-dure to get the formal approval on the candidature of Rathee. RS Rathee who is also a coun-
selor from Municipal Corpo-ration of Gurugam (MCG) wards number 34 said that he will strive to make sure that he strengthens the party at the grassroots.
“I have been associated with politics and social wel-fare activities for more than 30 years. As I have worked on the ground, I know the prob-lem of the people and the ways to solve them. Having been associated with the AAP ever since India against Corruption movement, I will tell people that this is the party that is a
viable alternative to those par-ties that have only disappointed the citizens,” said Rathee.
Being a civil construction engineer, Rathee was employed with a private builder that is credited for building residen-tial townships and commercial establishments in Gururgam. He then opened his own social welfare organization wherein he tried to solve the issues of residents in the township. He is also one of the activists towards saving of Aravalli for-ests. Gradually with the forma-tion of MCG and its gradual elections, Rathee was able to get the goodwill of the people with his wife first becoming the MCG councilor in 2009 and him winning from the same ward in 2017.
Being a prominent AAP face for long, Rathee is credited for successfully organising the rallies for AAP in Gurugram.
Haryana polls: RS Rathee to be AAP candidate from Gurugram
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NOIDA: The Noida Author-ity on Sunday carried out an anti-encroachment drive in vil-lage Sarfabad and reclaimed nearly 18,570 square meters of commercial land worth Rs 295 crores. As per Noida author-ity officials, the anti-encroach-ment drive was carried out in work circle 6 near sector 72 of Noida.
“Seven local persons have allegedly acquired the land owned by Noida authority and did illegal construction over there. Nearly 150 shanties, one nursery, four furniture show-rooms and other commercial activities were done on the land. The authority had already issued several notices to them in past while an FIR was also registered against these per-sons. When they didn’t pay any heed to the notices, the
authority carried out a demo-lition drive and razed out all the illegal constructions in pres-ence of police force and senior officials of Noida authority,” the officer said. “Under the drive, the Authority reclaimed around 18570 square meters of land worth Rs 295 crores thus enhancing the land bank of the authority,” the officer added.
Meanwhile, continuing the fourth phase of their intensi-fied cleanliness drive known as ‘Safaigiri’, the Authority officials
along with the residents carried out cleanliness drive at various sectors of Noida on Sunday.
The drive was carried out in sectors 26, 34, 35, 63,135 ans village Chhijarsi of Noida on Sunday. Senior author-ity officials including Noida authority’s officer on special duty Avinash Kumar Tripa-thi, senior project engineer SC Mishra and other officials wore gloves and collected garbage from the streets of these sectors and green belt.
Noida Authority carries out cleanliness and anti-encroachment drive
GNIDA issues notice to Supertech builder
mp city4MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 2019
Delhi Police booked over 38K anti-social elements this year
ABHAY SINGH
NEW DELHI: In a bid to make the city a better place to live in, the Delhi Police have taken action against more than 38,000 anti-social elements.
The law enforcement agency has booked them under various sections of the Delhi Police (DP) act, Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Anti social elements includes stalkers, eve teas-ers and other people who are involved in disturbing peace in the city.
Police sources told Mil-lennium Post that as many as 21, 740 persons were booked under DP act.
As many as 9,057 people were booked under various
sections of the CrPC. While nearly 7,913 people were booked under the IPC sections after they were caught in illegal activities.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (central) Mandeep Singh Randhawa said that patrolling
are being done regularly near educational institutions for the safety of students.
"Under our Shishtachar drive, we conduct surprise checks to catch anti-social ele-ments. Suitable legal action is taken if we receive any com-
plaint, " said DCP Central.The latest data of Delhi
Police revealed that the north-east district booked more than 4000 people under IPC. South district, as a preventive mea-sure, booked 1,044 people under CrPC.
As many as 15,899 people were booked under the DP act in Dwarka district for their anti-social activities.
Police sources said that over 35,000 anti-social ele-ments have been identified. During the recent Lok Sabha election, preventive measures were taken against people with shady backgrounds in the city.
DCP Central further added that staff are also deployed in plain clothes in the area fre-quently accessed by girls and women.
Sources said that the Com-missioner of Delhi Police, in a meeting, directed DCsP that Shishtachar drive should be started in each district against the anti-social elements, who are found loitering near the schools, colleges and the parks with intent to commit any offence.
Recently, it was found that families started avoiding public spaces due to the presence of anti-social elements fostered by illegal activities like gambling and drinking liquor.
"We have also installed Nirbheek boxes inside schools where girls have the option of sharing their problems by writ-ing letters that can be dropped off in the boxes. Our staff pro-actively interact with minor girls and women," police said.
Thieves break into ATM with gas cutter in South Delhi
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: A gang of unidentified thieves cleared an unguarded ATM in South Del-hi's Maidan Garhi area and fled away with the money.
The robbers cut open the machine with a gas cutter before fleeing with the cash. Police have registered a case in this regard and investigation is going on.
According to police, the incident came to light on 7.30 am on Sunday when they were alerted by a person regarding the robbery at the ATM.
The police team reached the spot which was in Asola area of South Delhi. They found that ATM was opened and the CCTV was painted black.
"The accused spray painted the CCTV camera to blind it and then using a gas cutter broke open the machine and removed the cash," police said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (south) Atul Thakur, elaborating more about the incident, stated that at the time of the incident, there was no guard present at the ATM. They have registered a case in this regard.
Reports were coming that the accused fled with more than three lakh rupees.
"We are yet to ascertain about the robbed money as the company has not informed us," added DCP Thakur.
Adding further, DCP South Delhi stated that they are scan-ning the CCTV cameras of the area to get clues regarding the incident. It seems that the gang may have performed a recce of the area around the machine before targeting it.
It is being suspected that no customer came to withdraw money at the time, especially because it was late in the night and the shutter might have been downed by the gang.
"The investigation is going from several angles," said an officer, privy to the investigation.
Senior officials inspected the spot and a team has been formed to nab the accused.
"We have questioned a few people. Soon the case will be cracked," police said.
Anti social elements include stalkers, eve teasers and other people who disturbs peace
Gangster involved in more than half dozen cases held from Vasant Vihar
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Sunday said that they have arrested a gangster who was involved in more than half a dozen criminal cases.
The investigating agency said that the accused was also involved in a case of assault on Police Personnel at Patiala House court during custody.
Police identified the accused as Ajay Danial, a native of Tamilnadu.
He is an associate of gang-ster Gourav Jharera. Dep-uty Commissioner of Police (south-west) Devender Arya said that he was arrested from Vasant Vihar area by AATS team.
DCP Arya added that in the year 2013, he along with his associates had committed armed robbery in the area of Vasant Vihar in which he has
gone to jail.During this time, he met
Gourav Jharera and became his associate and started extortion.
"In the year 2014, he opened fire in Vasant Gaon, in this case, he again went to jail and during the jail custody, he has assaulted a policeman in Patiala House Court who was on duty," police said.
In the year 2017, he had returned to Vasant village and
assaulted a lawyer and went to jail in the case.
In April this year, he along with his associates namely Harsh, Prakash, Ashok have beaten up a person in Vasant village, who was residing in Dwarka in road rage and he was absconding in this case.
A team of AATS led by Inspector Rajesh Malik com-prising of SI Mahesh made the arrest.
Man stabbed to death after heated argument with relatives in Ggn
OUR CORRESPONDENT
GURURGAM: A 26-year-old man was allegedly stabbed to death after an argument with his relatives in Jatauli village, Haley Mandi, near Pataudi.
The police said he was stabbed at least four times in the chest and rushed to a hospital, where he died dur-ing treatment. The police have booked two men on the charge of murder.
The deceased has been identified by his first name as Hetram, who worked at the warehouse of a footwear company.
Suresh Kumar, station house officer (SHO), Pataudi police station, said “The vic-tim had met his relative’s sons on Friday night for drinks
and when they were inebri-ated, an argument had ensued, which was sorted out at the time. The victim went to the dairy and confronted them. The argument escalated and he was stabbed by the two men with a knife. The suspects are on the run and are yet to be arrested.”
A police officer privy to the investigation, requesting ano-nymity, said that the alleged argument was over a pick-up car.
“One of the two parties had taken the pick-up car, creating a rift between them. The vic-tim was stabbed four times in the chest. The suspects fled, while Hetram was found lying outside the dairy. A passerby took him to Civil Hospital in Pataudi,” the police officer said.
In the police complaint, the victim’s brother, Sunil Kumar, alleged that their rel-atives, Aniket, alias Gullu, and Mayank had murdered him.
“They held a grudge against him and had fought with him earlier as well. The area where the incident took place has CCTV cameras. The police should arrest them,” Sunil stated in the FIR.
The police said they were checking the CCTV camera footage in the area for possi-ble leads.
A case was registered against the suspects under sections 302 (murder) and 34 (acts done by several per-sons in furtherance of com-mon intention) of the Indian Penal Code at Pataudi police station.
Robber wanted in half dozen cases in Delhi and UP, heldOUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: A team of Spe-cial Cell has apprehended one robber identified as Mohit, age 24 years, resident of District Baghpat (UP).
He was wanted in Delhi and UP in half a dozen cases. A loaded .32 bore pistol has also been recovered from his possession.
On July 26, Mohit along with his 3 associates entered a godown of Pan Masala for looting cash from the godown and one of his associates remained outside the godown. Seven employees including godown owner were present at that time.
In a bid to scare the vic-tims and force them to hand over the cash, these criminals opened fire.
However, one fired bullet got ricocheted from the Iron
Gate and hurt the shooter Mohit.
Due to injury to one of their associate, all the crimi-nals panicked and retreated in a hurry after assaulting and hurting two persons.
Four accused persons namely Aakash, Pankaj, Sumit and Monu were arrested in this case. Despite best efforts accused Mohit could not be arrested as he shifted his base from his village and remained evasive.
“The team started search-ing accused Mohit, a police team spotted him at Indra-prastha Park, near Sarai Kale Khan, Delhi The team acted swiftly and apprehended accused Mohit. On his search, one .32 bore loaded pistol with two live cartridges was found from his possession,” said DCP Special Cell PS Kushwah.
Eight-month-old falls to death from staircaseOUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: An eight months old child fell to death from a staircase of a building in NSIT campus in Dwarka, police said on Sunday.
According to police on Sep-tember 13 at 11:45 AM, they received a PCR call from the hospital in sector-18, Dwarka that patient aged eight months fell from the height and one R K Gupta has come to the hospi-tal with the kid who was dead.
The investigating officer (IO) reached the hospital and collected the MLC.
The deceased's mother told IO that his child fell from the height at around 9:30 am near NSIT college canteen. The minor was declared brought dead. "The eight months old fell from the staircase and later died," police said.
The IO recorded the state-ments of the father and other relatives of the deceased and got the post-mortem con-ducted at hospital on the same day. The post-mortem report is awaited.
The city police also denied the report that the boy was mowed by a car.
"As far as allegations of death of a child due to an accident with a vehicle of the employee of NSIT univer-sity is concerned, till the time no complaint or allegation is received in Dwarka North police statement," reads the Delhi Police press statement.
The statement further reads that on September 15, after getting information about the circulation of news of said car accident, I.O was again sent to record the statement of deceased parents. How-ever, they denied the present allegation.
"Moreover, the PM report is awaited and after receiving of PM report necessary legal action will be taken," police said.
With the help of CCTV live spotting, RPF held man for stealing retired flight lieutenant’s bag
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: As soon as a thief stole a bag of a retired flight lieutenant, he lands in the net of Railway Protection Force (RPF) in New Delhi railway station.
RPF was live-tracking the accused, identified as Abdul Kalam, on the CCTV cam-eras installed across the rail-way station.
According to RPF on Sep-tember 13, on duty CCTV staff noticed the suspicious move-ment of a person in the plat-form area of New Delhi Railway station.
He immediately informed senior official and continued to monitor the suspicious person through CCTV while simulta-neously alerting the RPF staff on platforms.
When the suspect restricted his movement on platform number 14-15 where passengers were a boarding train (Jammu Rajdhani).
A team under Assistant Security Commissioner (NDLS) Harish Singh Papola led by Bhu-pender Singh, Inspector (RPF/NDLS) laid down a trap to
apprehend him red-handed. "When Jammu Rajdhani
started leaving for the destina-tion, suspect with a stolen bag deboarded from B1 coach of the moving train and walked pre-tending as a genuine passenger to board another train. As soon as he boarded the train he was apprehended with the stolen
bag," said RPF official. The accused is a habitual
criminal and has already been convicted in six theft cases. A.N. Jha, Senior.
Divisional Security Com-missioner (RPF) from his pos-session a bag was recovered containing laptop, retired flight lieutenant identity card, credit and debit cards and few thou-sands of cash.
S C Jain, Divisional Rail-way Manager (Delhi) said that till August 2019, Delhi divi-sion has approx. 500 CCTV cameras which have enhanced passengers’ security in railway premises and it will be increased with time & requirement. San-jay Sankrityayan, IG (RPF/NR) congratulated the RPF team for showing excellent professional approach in crime control.
In less than 2 months, cracks reappear on Rampura Flyover
OUR CORRESPONDENT
GURUGRAM: The Rampura flyover was damaged yet again. It is the third instance of damage within nine months on the same spot, 11 km from Rajiv Chowk on the Delhi-Jaipur expressway.
The damage has again brought the construction qual-ity and strength of the flyover under the scanner.
The flyover was opened in 2016 and forms a part of the 195-kilometer-long Delhi-Jai-pur Expressway, between Kherki Daula toll and Jaipur.
Around 35,000-40,000 vehi-cles use the carriageway on a daily basis to head from Jai-pur towards Delhi, NHAI offi-cials said.
Officials of the Pink City Expressway Private Limited (PCEPL), the concessionaire for NHAI between Jaipur and Manesar, did not respond to requests for comment.
The incident caused con-cerns among commuters and officials, as similar incidents were reported at the same spot last December and July.
Taking the same stance as earlier, officials blamed the movement of “overloaded vehi-cles” on the stretch for the “con-crete fracture”.
“A lot of overloaded vehi-cles use this flyover and sev-eral times they break down. For hours, they are on the lane until repaired. This puts undue pres-sure on the flyover,” an official from the highway concession-aire, Pink City Expressway Pri-vate Limited, said.
The official added that two months ago, they had repaired the damage and put chemicals to
boost the strength of the struc-ture. “This time we’ll deliberate on how to fix it in a way that it isn’t repeated,” he said.
According to the investi-gation officer, they have been following up with NHAI and the concessionaire, but haven’t received any reports.
“We can’t take any step unless the reports come to us,” the officer claimed.
The traffic around the area was affected but being a week-end the adverse impact of it was not felt that much by the commuters.
Man arrested for killing wife in Khyala
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Sunday said that they have arrested a man who killed his wife by burning her with ker-osene in West Delhi's Khyala area.
According to police, on September 9, a 24-year-old woman, a resident of Raghu-bir Nagar was admitted by her husband at the hospital. She was burnt on Monday by her husband who "doused her with kerosene.
Later on, she was referred to another hospital. SDM Patel Nagar has recorded the statement of the victim at the hospital.
On the direction of SDM Patel Nagar, on the said state-ment a case under sections 307, 498A and 34 of IPC was regis-tered at Khyala police station. During treatment, the victim
was succumbed to her injury and declared dead on Septem-ber 13 at 11:30 pm.
Additional Deputy Com-missioner of Police (west) Sameer Sharma said that there was a fight between the couple after which the accused burnt his wife. Investigators claimed that they are probing the case from different angles includ-ing dowry.
MAN HELD FOR SHOOTING WOMAN
Delhi Police on Sunday arrested a person who shot a woman in Outer North district.
According to the police, the incident took place at around 10.05 pm on Friday when Rachna (the victim) tried to stop the quarrel between Javed and his wife in Narela's Sec-tor B2.
The accused shot her and fled. He was nabbed from Narela area.
Due to expiry of licence, Gurugram’s govt de-addiction center shuts down
OUR CORRESPONDENT
GURUGRAM: The de-addic-tion center at the Civil Hospi-tal in Sector 10, which hadn’t been admitting patients for the last two months due to lack of space for beds, has been closed after its license expired. As of now, the license has not been renewed.
The center, Gurugram gov-ernment’s first de-addiction center in a government-run hospital, is mandated to have 10 beds for patients dealing with substance abuse, among other facilities such as space for cooking and ventilation.
However, according to officials of the health depart-ment, for the last two months, patients were forced to share one bed, and after that bed was moved, it had no beds at all
“For some time, the cen-ter had only one bed and two patients were occupying it. Recently, the sole bed was also moved to another department, because of which we couldn’t admit patients,” said an offi-cial who wished to remain
anonymous.The outpatient department
of the Civil Hospital in Sec-tor 10 sees around 20 patients who need de-addiction treat-ment for alcohol, substance, tobacco and behavioral addic-tions, according to hospital staff.
Of these, at least a couple require admission and fre-quent care, hospital psycholo-gists said.
However, these patients are being sent home due to lack of beds, officials said.
In July, the center was shifted from the Civil Lines
building to Sector 10 to make way for renovation of the for-mer. The center was function-ing with 10 beds when it was in Civil Lines.
“The center at the Sector 10 hospital was only a tempo-rary arrangement as it didn’t have space for it to run. The health department is looking for another space for the cen-ter,” said a senior official from the health department
In 2017, 460 patients were treated at the center for alco-hol, tobacco, and drug addic-tion, while in 2016, the number of patients had crossed 1,000.
After chase, police nab two criminals in S Delhi
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Sunday claimed to have arrested two men from Defence Colony area of South Delhi. The accused had fired on patrolling team and after a brief chase, they were nabbed.
According to police, dur-ing the intervening night of September 13- 14, a patrolling team in Defence Colony area received a call around 12:49 am that the occupants of a black car have illegal weapons and can be apprehended.
"The police personnel immediately called the high-way patrolling staff and started checking of vehicles near BRT petrol pump with the help of picket staff," police said.
After a few minutes, a black Chevrolet Cruise car with three occupants came towards the police picket and efforts were made to stop the car but the driver of the car did not stop his vehicle and instead, fired at the picket staff. He drove the car away at high speed.
Staff followed the offend-
ing vehicle. The police party managed to block the offend-ing vehicle near bus depot by sandwiching it.
The driver of the car even-tually came out of the car and fired at the cops and simultane-ously, started running towards the boundary wall of the bus depot.
Meanwhile, a constable tried to catch the accused when he was trying to flee away and managed to take the pistol from the criminal.
During the scuffle, one of the accused persons snatched the service revolver of a consta-ble and managed to run away.
"During the whole incident, two rounds were fired by the police team. We were able to catch two criminals," said Dep-uty Commissioner of Police (south) Atul Kumar Thakur.
Police identified the accused as Anuj Rawat and his associate and Yamin.
"Yamin was admitted in the hospital as bullet brushed him from the backside," police said adding that one of the accused fled from the spot.
MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 20195mp nation
OUR CORRESPONDENT
PUNE: Maharashtra Chief Min-ister Devendra Fadnavis on Sun-day expressed confidence that the BJP will come back to power in the state with an "unprecedented" mandate after the upcoming Assembly polls.
Fadnavis said his ongoing 'Mahajanadesh Yatra' has so far covered over 3,000 km and reached out to over 100 constit-uencies (out of the total 288) in the state.
"Wherever we go, the yatra is being welcomed by people and getting a huge response. Look-ing at the people's support, we are sure that we will get an unprec-edented victory in the Assembly polls," he told reporters here.
Fadnavis on Saturday visited some tehsils in Pune as part of the third leg of his mass outreach campaign.
Taking a swipe at NCP work-ers' protest in Baramati town here against his yatra, Fadnavis won-dered if Article 370 (that earlier granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir but was recently abrogated) was imposed in Sha-rad Pawar's bastion so as to not
allow any other party to hold a rally there. His remarks came when reporters asked him about some NCP workers' allegation that police used lathi-charge when they shouted slogans dur-ing Fadnavis' mass outreach cam-paign in Baramati on Saturday.
The police earlier denied that lathi-charge was used.
"My first question about the protest was how many people (NCP workers) were there...there were only seven people, and is there any need for police to resort to lathi- charge for seven people?" Fadnavis asked.
When the police chased them, they ran away, he said.
"I would like to ask them, will it be okay if our party workers create ruckus in public meetings held by Sharad Pawar...is it the way?" he said.
He asked if there was a rule that nobody from other par-ties should hold a public rally in Baramati. "Is there an Article 370 imposed in Baramati or is Bara-mati separate from Maharash-tra?" he quipped.
Fadnavis said if the opposi-tion parties come to BJP's strong-holds for public meetings, his
party would help them."What is the problem...ulti-
mately we live in a democracy, and in a democratic system, everybody has the right to hold
public meeting, but what kind of a way it is that the chief minis-ter should not enter their (NCP) town and hold a meeting?" he asked.
Asked about the alleged multi-crore irrigation in which NCP leader and former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar's name has cropped up, he said the case was in the last phase as its final hearing was underway in the Bombay High Court.
"Whatever proofs and reports we have, we are submitting them in the court in the form of affida-vits...all the things before the high court are crystal clear," he said.
On some NCP leaders saying that Sharad Pawar had to face problems because of Udayan-raje Bhosale, the party MP who joined the BJP on Saturday, Fad-navis said it now appears to be a case of "sour grapes".
"When Bhosale was in the party, the NCP projected him and sought votes. When their 'Shiv Swarajya' yatra (a pre-poll mass contact programme) was announced, the NCP wanted that he should lead it and an announcement was made about it,"he said.
"Now (that) he has left, he has become bad...I think people of Maharashtra will give a reply to the NCP in the elections," the chief minister said.
Will get ‘unprecedented’ victory in Maharashtra polls: Fadnavis
The Chief Minister says his ongoing 'Mahajanadesh Yatra' has so far covered over 3,000 km and reached out to over 100 constituencies (out of the total 288) in the state
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis waves at his supporters during the 'Maha Janadesh Yatra' ahead of the upcoming state Assembly elections, in satara district of Maharashtra, Sunday PTI
OUR CORRESPONDENT
LUCKNOW: Union labour minister San-tosh Kumar Gangwar has said there was no dearth of employment opportunities in the country, but recruiters visiting north India complain of lack of "quality people" to fill vacancies, drawing flak from opposi-tion leaders who accused him of insulting people of the region.
The comments came amid criticism of the government over India's unemploy-ment rate rising to a 45-year high of 6.1 per cent in 2017-18, data of which was released in May.
"The issue of employment keep figuring in newspapers these days. I am handling the same ministry for labour and employ-ment and examine the issue daily. I have understood the problem," Gangwar told reporters on Saturday in Bareilly, his Lok Sabha constituency.
"Recruiters who visit north India com-plain of facing dearth of quality people for the posts they need to fill," he added.
The minister's comments drew sharp reactions from opposition with Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra saying the government was trying to escape blame for the job losses due to economic slowdown by such "insulting" comments.
"Mr Minister, it has been more than five years for your government. There is no job creation. Whatever jobs were there, they have been snatched due to the economic slowdown brought by the government. You want to escape by insulting North Indi-ans," she said.
"Youths are looking towards the gov-
ernment hoping that it will do something good for them," the Congress general sec-retary said.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati said such comments are laughable.
"After the different laughable state-ments by different Union ministers on the serious issue of economic slowdown, instead of removing unemployment in the country now it is being said that there is no shortage of jobs, but of competence, espe-cially amongst north Indians.
"This is extremely shameful and an apology should be tendered to the nation," she tweeted.
Dearth of quality people in north India, says GangwarCong accuses Min of insulting north Indians
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati said such comments are laughable
ASIM KAMAL
NEW DELHI: Days after announcing its split with Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen on Sunday said a rethink on the alliance ahead of the Maha-rashtra Assembly polls was possible provided VBA chief Prakash Ambedkar reaches out to its president Asaduddin Owaisi and shows flexibility on seat sharing.
AIMIM Maharashtra unit chief Imtiaz Jaleel, however, also said his party was as of now preparing to go it alone and looking to contest a maxi-mum of 60 seats, being very selective by prioritising the winnable ones. He said the AIMIM tried its best "till the last moment" to keep the alli-ance with VBA going.
"We reduced our figures, had meetings between both the party leaders -- Mr Owaisi and Mr Ambedkar -- but it did not work out. When Mr Ambed-kar made a firm decision that he will give only eight seats that was the final nail in the coffin and Mr Owaisi said let us go alone," Jaleel told PTI.
Asked if there could be a rethink and the door was still open for an AIMIM-VBA tie-up, he said: "I don't think it is that difficult that it couldn't be resolved. If Mr Ambedkar, being the elder brother, takes a resolve that 'I want to continue, let's restart again'. If he reaches out to Mr Owaisi and asks to come back to the table, we will agree." The VBA could not pro-vide any convincing reason as to why it offered just eight seats to the AIMIM, the MP from Aurangabad said.
On why does AIMIM want Ambedkar to make the move for reconciliation, Jaleel said when the VBA chief informed Owaisi about offering only eight seats through an email, the AIMIM chief was very
upset."Mr Owaisi said that he had
given so much respect to Bala-saheb (Prakash Ambedkar), 'he could have just called me and then we could have nego-tiated'. The very fact that the message was conveyed through an email, came as a shocker," he told PTI over phone.
On whether there was hope for AIMIM-VBA tie-up, Jaleel answered in the affirmative.
"The Congress and NCP are in tatters. People do not have an alternative, so the only alterna-tive they were looking at was VBA and AIMIM," he said.
Interestingly, even after the announcement of the split, Ambedkar has been insisting that the alliance is intact.
Jaleel said since the announcement of the split between AIMIM and VBA, the number of people who want to contest on AIMIM ticket has gone up. "We are not sure how many seats we will eventually contest (going alone), but one thing is very clear that it won't cross 60 seats, that is the maximum," he said. "The final decision (on seats) will be taken by Mr Owaisi. We will also have to work out cam-paign details and feasi-bility as he is the only star campaigner for us and he has to campaign in maximum places," he said. PTI
Door on alliance with VBA not shut, Ambedkar must
reach out to Owaisi: AIMIM OUR CORRESPONDENT
LEH: Jamyang Tsering Nam-gyal, the BJP MP representing Ladakh Lok Sabha constitu-ency, has welcomed the Rs 50,000-crore mega solar power project in the region, but made it clear that it can go ahead if jobs are reserved for the locals and can work on a land lease model.
Protecting the fragile ecol-ogy of Ladakh is of paramount importance, Namgyal said, adding the investor should also devote a part of the earnings as royalty for the locals.
Following the Centre's moves to abrogate Article 370 and create a separate Union Territory of Ladakh, there has been media report of a Rs 50,000-crore solar power proj-ect coming up in the region.
"Investments are essential to come from outside, I wel-come those. But there are a few
conditions - we can't give the land in your name, you will have to take it on lease and a portion of the jobs will have to be reserved for the local youth.
"And whatever you earn from here, a part of it will have to be given to the council fund as royalty for ground develop-ment," he said.
The developmental model should be keeping in mind the fragile ecology of the region. We are not going to allow you otherwise, he made it clear.
The need is to tread on a "middle path" between the
development and the local interests, such that both the Ladakhis as well as rest of India benefit, he said.
"It's not that we are clos-ing ourselves, nor do we want anybody to exploit Ladakh," he stressed.
Namgyal said Ladakh always possessed huge poten-tial to develop solar energy and credited the Narendra Modi government for trying to tap the potential.
The young lawmaker said Ladakh should not be looked at as an infertile piece of land alone, pointing to the region being an important tourist des-tination, rich in rare medicinal plants and also a repository of glaciers.
The Rs 50,000-crore proj-ect is touted as the single big-gest investment in the space. A recent media report said sites have been identified for the grid-connected project.
BJP’s Ladakh MP puts conditions before mega solar power project
LONDON: Nobel Peace Prize winner and Pakistani edu-cation rights activist Malala Yousafzai has urged the UN to work towards peace in Kashmir and help children in the Valley to go back to school.
Taking to Twitter, Malala, 22, said she was deeply con-cerned about reports that Kashmiri students "have not been able to attend schools for more than 40 days", and "about girls who are afraid to leave their homes".
"I am asking leaders, at UNGA and beyond, to work towards peace in Kashmir, lis-ten to Kashmiri voices and help children go safely back to school," the youngest-ever Nobel Laureate tweeted on Sat-urday. Malala's remarks drew sharp criticism from Indian members of the Twitterati who questioned her silence on the plight of the girls belonging to the minority community in Pakistan.
"Pakistan doesn't react to how it's perceived in the world, carries forward their agenda and how Malala is helping run that agenda on Kashmir in the garb of her 'concern' for Kash-miri girls but am loving the meltdown Indians are having on behalf of Malala. So touch-ing," said Shiv Sena leader Pri-yanka Chaturvedi in a tweet.
"Sincere request to the
Nobel winner, to spend some time speaking with the minor-ities of Pakistan. To speak against the forceful conversa-tion & persecution taking place on the minority girls in her own country!Developmental agendas got extended to Kash-mir, nothing suppressed!" tweed BJP leader Shobha Karandlaje.
Normal life has remained affected in Kashmir since August 5 when India abro-gated Article 370 of the Consti-tution, ending the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. Most shops and schools remain shut and public transport has gone off the roads in the Valley.
The efforts of the state gov-ernment to reopen schools have not borne any fruit as par-ents continue to keep the kids at home due to apprehensions about their safety.
Posters have appeared in
Srinagar warning people to keep their children away from schools after the Centre abro-gated Jammu and Kashmir's special status last month.
"The terrorists want the public to remain illiterate so that they can control their mind," said Farooq Khan, the advisor to Governor Satya Pal Malik. Malala, the famed human rights activist, was shot by the Taliban gunman in December 2012 for her cam-paign on girls' education in the Swat Valley in northeast-ern Pakistan.
The Taliban, who are opposed to the education of girls, have destroyed hundreds of schools in Pakistan.
At age 17, Malala became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 when she shared the coveted honour with India's social activist Kailash Satyarthi. PTI
Indians react sharply against Malala’s appeal to UN on J&K
LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sun-day said by joining hands with IIM-Lucknow, the state government will deliver good governance and achieve the goal of becoming a USD 1 trillion economy.
Adityanath was speak-ing at the second edition of 'Manthan'-- a leadership development programme conducted by senior fac-ulty of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) here
for the chief minister and his ministerial colleagues.
As part of the pro-gramme, Adityanath and his colleagues will attend one more session.
"I am confident that when institutions like the IIM join hands with the government and take for-ward the programmes, we will be able to deliver good results," Adityanath said at the programme which was attended by his ministerial colleagues and state gov-ernment officials. MPOST
Association with IIM will help UP become $1 trillion economy, says Adityanath
OUR CORRESPONDENT
CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government on Sunday urged farmers to shun the unhealthy practice of stubble burning in line with upholding Guru Nanak Dev's ideology to pro-
tect natural resources.Highlighting serious ill-
effects of stubble burning, Agri-culture Secretary K S Pannu said several useful micro-bial organisms perish in fire, besides polluting environment.
He said the resolution
passed by the Punjab cabinet in its meeting last week unani-mously appealed farmers to do away with the unhealthy prac-tice of stubble burning in line with upholding Guru Nanak Dev's ideology to protect natu-ral resources.
Farmers urged to shun stubble burning practice
STUDENTS PROTEST AT BHUVARANASI: Scores of students of the Banaras Hindu University staged an overnight protest outside the campus gate after a professor accused of sexu-ally harassing women students was reinstated and allowed to take classes. The students have been pro-testing since Saturday evening, demanding that the professor be punished. Professor S K Chaubey of the Zoology department was suspended in October last year on the charges of sexual misconduct levelled by some students of his department.
MAN DIES IN POLICE CUSTODY IN JAMMUJAMMU: A 32-year-old suspected drug peddler died in police custody here shortly after his arrest, a police officer said on Sunday. Ikhlaq Ahmad Khan, a resident of Kotli village in Rajouri, was arrested from Janipur area on Saturday and complained of uneas-iness while he was being taken to Miran Sahib Police Station for questioning, the police said. He was taken to a hospital where doctors declared him brought dead, they added. Magisterial and departmental inquiries have been initiated into the incident.
DEF MIN CONDOLES DEATH OF ‘DUTCH’NEW DELHI: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sun-day condoled the death of Army’s “canine soldier” Dutch, credited with successfully sniffing out explo-sives during several military operations. The Raksha Mantri has expressed his condolences at the death of ‘Dutch’ a ‘Canine Soldier’ who recently died after serving the Army and the nation for years,” tweeted the Office of Defence Minister.“Dutch was a decorated dog of #EasternCommand who was instrumental in identifying IEDs in various CI/CT Ops (sic), it added.
AUSTRALIAN MAN FOUND DEADJAIPUR: A 45-year-old Australian citizen was found dead at a guest house in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district, police said on Sunday. The guest house staff found Nocolas’s body on Saturday and informed police. The body was then taken to a hospital, said Kiran Kang, Jaisalmer’s Superintendent of Police.
NATION BRIEFS
mp nation6MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 2019
ABHINAY LAKSHMAN
NEW DELHI: The ED's probe in the money-laundering case against senior Income Tax Commissioner Neeraj Singh, which involves links to chit fund group Rose Valley, is expanding after the ED has conducted several searches and collected various docu-ments that point towards a web of shell companies, that could have been used to laun-der alleged ill-gotten wealth of Singh and other senior public officials.
Meanwhile, the CBI, which also probing the Rs 15,000 crore Rose Valley case, has remained inconspicuously silent in pur-suing this line of enquiry with respect to its investigation in the chit fund case.
Earlier, the probe by local police and ED had pointed to the links between Rose Valley Chairman Gautam Kundu and
Singh.The financial probe agency
had in July this year initiated a money-laundering probe against Singh based on a Kol-kata Police FIR that accused him of using a Kolkata-based accountant named Govind Agarwal to launder large sums of seemingly tainted earnings.
From Agarwal's prem-ises, police had found docu-ments that purportedly showed Singh travelling to Port Blair with Kundu and his wife Shub-hra Kundu to strike a land deal with the group there, accord-ing to one of Agarwal's earlier statements to the police.
According to the anti-fraud section of the city police, some of Singh's ill-gotten wealth was allegedly pumped into the chit fund company, in addition to a slew of shell companies.
While sources in the know have told the Millennium Post that the CBI is looking into
the role of some IRS officers in the Rose Valley case, it is yet to confirm whether Neeraj Singh is under their scanner.
Police also conducted searches at Agarwal's prem-ises in 2017, resulting in the seizure of 11 Aadhar Cards, 18 Drivers' Licenses and 186 PAN Cards along with 98 rub-ber stamps - all with different company names. Other than these, city cops also recov-ered special USB Trust Keys which have encryption that can be decoded by only one per-son. One of these Trust Keys bore the name Bina Agarwal, a director in a company called Tobu Engineering.
And according to the sei-zure list from Agarwal's offices in Kolkata, police had also found receipts of gold pur-chased by Tobu Engineering from one HM Diwan Jewellers.
Interestingly, in an investi-gation into some alleged spuri-
ous commission payments to this company, an Income Tax Inspector had in 2007, essen-tially concluded that the Kol-kata-based Tobu Engineering was, in fact, a paper company.
The Assessing Officer in the case had visited the registered office of Tobu Engineering at Mangoe Lane in Kolkata and found no physical signs of the
company ever having existed at that location. He had prepared a report which said that no one in the building, including its owner or caretaker, recog-nised “any such party as Tobu Engineering”.
The ED had also a few weeks ago raided premises of Govind Agarwal in Kolk-ata from where officials seized
documents pointing towards at least 40 companies that were suspected to be shell compa-nies, being used to launder money, according to a source in the know.
The recoveries included unexplained property papers, some of which were regis-tered to the above-mentioned companies. Papers relating to share investments made under different people's names and a horde of other documents were recovered from the raids, including evidence of regular contact with several senior gov-ernment officials.
The ED had confronted Agarwal with documents found at his premises and he has confirmed having paid for travel and other expenses of Singh – the nephew of a Union Minister in the current govern-ment - and several other senior public officials, including the likes of a former Central Vigi-
lance Commissioner, a highly placed source said.
After the raids at Agarw-al's premises, the ED recently also raided premises belonging to one Anup Killa along with simultaneous search operations at the residential addresses of Neeraj Singh across the country.
A senior official in the know said that raids were con-ducted at Killa's official prem-ises in Kolkata, where several shell companies linked to Singh and Agarwal had reg-istered addresses. ED sleuths had raided the first and sec-ond floors of 20A British India Street, the address where both Lilac Suppliers Pvt Ltd and Transways Wine Pvt Ltd are registered.
Interestingly, Killa is a director in both the compa-nies, along with Essencia Bev-erages Pvt Ltd - a company also registered at the same address.
In fact, records list Killa and his associate Sunil Kumar Agar-walla as common directors in at least four Kolkata-based com-panies, of which two are regis-tered in the same building.
In fact, local police had booked Lilac Suppliers Pvt Ltd, the company raided by ED offi-cials recently, for propping up shell/paper companies to laun-der illegally acquired wealth. According to police, no one in the building could recognise a company called Lilac Suppli-ers, identify the directors of the concern or describe what the company did.
According to a senior ED official, Agarwal had purport-edly revealed that this network of shell companies was used to launder allegedly tainted earn-ings of Singh and other senior public officials and benefitted the likes of a former CBI Joint Director, who was in charge of the chit fund probe at the time.
As ED probe against Neeraj Singh expands, CBI remains inconspicuously silent
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday pleas challeng-ing abrogation of provisions of Article 370 -- which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, validity of imposi-tion of President's rule and the related restrictions imposed in the state. A bench of Chief Jus-tice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S A Bobde and S Abdul Nazeer will be also hearing a bunch fresh petitions, including the one filed by former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad seeking permission to visit his family members and relatives.
Azad, who had tried to visit the state twice after the abroga-tion of Article 370 provisions in Jammu and Kashmir but was sent back from the airport by the authorities, has sought a nod from the top court to visit
his family members.Jammu and Kashmir Peo-
ple's Conference party led by Sajjad Lone has also challenged the abrogation of provisions of Article 370 and the validity of the state Re-organization Bill.
Child right activists
Enakshi Ganguly and Profes-sor Shanta Sinha have also filed a plea against the alleged illegal detention of children in Jammu and Kashmir since the revoca-tion of special status.
A plea of Rajya Sabha MP and MDMK founder Vaiko is
also listed for hearing, in which he has sought a direction to the Centre and Jammu and Kash-mir to produce former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, allegedly under detention fol-lowing abrogation of Article 370, before the court.
In his plea, Vaiko has said that authorities should allow Abdullah to attend a "peace-ful and democratic" annual conference, being organised in Chennai on September 15, on the occasion of birthday of for-mer Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C N Annadurai.
The plea of CPI(M) Sitaram Yechury who had moved the apex court seeking to see his ailing party colleague Moham-med Yousuf Tarigami is also among the batch of petitions listed for hearing.
The top court had allowed him to pay a visit to Tarigami but with certain conditions and had granted him liberty to file a report on his return.
The plea of Kashmir Times editor Anuradha Bhasin seek-ing removal of media restric-tions imposed in the valley after the abrogation of Article 370 will also be taken up along with some other petitions.
Art 370: SC to hear pleas todayA bench of CJI Rajan Gogoi and Justices Bobde and Nazeer will also be hearing a bunch
of fresh petitions, including the one filed by former J&K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad
A rag-picker collects bottles at a deserted 'Fruit Mandi' during restrictions after the abrogration of Article 370 and bifurcation of State, in Srinagar, Saturday PTI
SUMIR KAUL
SRINAGAR: Nearly two dozen terrorists are present in the city and its periphery and even openly threatening shop-keepers in some areas, raising serious concern in the secu-rity establishment, according to officials.
However, security forces are taking all precautions to ensure that the terrorists do not use the situation to cause any flare-up as in the past incidents of stone pelting by youths have occurred during anti-militancy operations, they said.
There have been only stray protests since the government imposed severe restrictions on communication channels and movement of people after it announced its decisions to abrogate the special status accorded to Jammu and Kash-mir and split the state into two Union territories on August 5.
Restrictions have subse-quently been eased, but the situation in Kashmir Valley seems "far from normal", par-ticularly with a high presence of terrorists, they said. At many places in Downtown Srinagar, the terrorists have been seen roaming freely and even warn-ing shopkeepers to keep their shops shut and adhere to their diktats, the officials said.
Jammu and Kashmir Police chief Dilbag Singh did not rule out the possibility of presence of terrorists but said to claim that they are roaming freely "is an exaggeration".
From interactions with
several officials of the state as well as the Centre, it is esti-mated that around two dozen terrorists are well-entrenched within the city limits, while their movement and visibility in rural areas have become a routine. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said counter-militancy operations have taken a severe hit ever since August 5 when the gov-ernment announced its deci-sions on Jammu and Kashmir.
Only two operations have taken place since August 5 -- one in Baramulla on August 20 and another chance encounter in Sopore on September 9.
The terrorists have erected blockades in certain parts of the city, including in areas adjoin-ing Anchar Lake and Soura.
The officials said that the administration has ensured that there is no civilian death till now and apprehends that any strong action may provide a trigger for violent protests.
Search-and-cordon opera-tions and imposition of night restrictions in the city area had ended in early 2000s and it had been declared as militancy free in 2012, they said.
The officials believe the terrorists have "a deeper game plan" as the violence level has come down despite their "heavy presence".
At many places in the city, including the highly secured Civil Lines areas of Raj Bagh, Jawhar Nagar and Lal Chowk, shopkeepers were threatened at gunpoint to keep their shops shut and ensure a complete hartal.
The shopkeepers and some media outlets have also been asked to keep their peripheral CCTV cameras off, the offi-cials said.
In the militancy-hit areas of Shopian, terrorists burnt down an automobile workshop as it was repairing vehicles on Sat-urday, they said. PTI
‘Nearly two dozen terrorists present in Valley, threatening shopkeepers’
Security personnel stand guard during restrictions in Downtown, Srinagar, last Friday PTI
SHEIKH SUHAIL
SRINAGAR: With no internet and mobile services in Kash-mir for over 40 days now, jour-nalists in the Valley have been hard-pressed as a make-shift media centre set up here by the government continues to be the only connection for many with the rest of the world.
The restrictions were imposed across Kashmir on the evening of August 4 a day before the Centre announced the abrogation of Article 370 provisions and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories.
Even though landline phones have been restored early this month, mobile ser-vices and internet - on any platform - remain snapped. Harried journalists are now demanding that the govern-ment should at least restore broadband connections of media houses.
We have minimal contact with our head office. We are often outside our offices here for assignments or something else and it is difficult for the head office or even our family to reach us in the absence of mobile phone services, Irfan Ahmad, a senior photojour-nalist, said. Another local jour-nalist, Mudasir, who works for a daily newspaper, said infor-mation gathering has suffered due to the communication restrictions.
We often do not know what is happening in the city and information from other dis-tricts is hard to come by. We have to rely on official versions of the events or incidents. Reaching officials or sources
especially in the other districts is very difficult, he said.
During the first few days after the restrictions were imposed, the journalists could not file any stories except for the TV reports using the chan-nels' outdoor broadcast vans here.
In the absence of any medium to send the news-reports across the country or outside, some journalists would send their reports on pen drives through flyers at the airport. The flyers would then contact the offices of the media houses which would collect the drives from him.
Most media organisations, especially TV channels, sent journalists from Delhi to the Valley as their reporters were incommunicado.
Around a week later, the state government's Depart-ment of Information and Pub-lic Relations set up a 'Media Facilitation Centre' at a confer-ence hall of a local hotel here.
Four computers and a lone cell phone were available to cater to hundreds of journal-ists both local as well as from outside the state. "One often had to wait for more than half-an-hour to get a (computer) system. Then the speed was so irritating that the email would take ages to open, Firdous Ahmad, a local journalist, told PTI. Journalists have to regis-ter themselves before making a call from the cell phone and more often than not, the wait-ing period would stretch for hours because of the rush. We have to write down our names on a register before making a call and then wait for our turn, Ahmad said. PTI
Journalists in Kashmir hard-pressed due to restrictions on internet, mobile services
OUR CORRESPONDENT
MUMBAI: A 43-year-old man working as a gold valuer at a public sector bank here has been arrested for allegedly dup-ing it of Rs 3.77 crore on the pretext of inspecting the pre-cious metal received from cus-tomers, a police official said on Sunday.
The accused, Ramaswamy Nadar, a resident of Antop Hill area here, was working in the gold loan department of the Indian Bank's Dharavi branch for past two years, besides run-ning his own jewellery shop, he said.
When the bank recently
decided to liquidate some of its assets and opened lock-ers holding gold items in 77 packets, they found the yellow metal to be fake. The bank then immediately lodged a com-plaint with Dharavi police sta-tion, he said.
"During the probe, the police zeroed-in on Nadar, who, after initially denying any role in the scam, con-fessed that he had purchased fake jewellery from Dadar and set up 12 dummy customers to cheat the bank. He was subse-quently arrested on Wednes-day," senior police inspector Suresh Patil said.
"Nadar's job was to issue
value certificates to those opt-ing for gold loan. He used doc-uments like PAN and Aadhaar cards to show 12 of his accom-plices as customers. These cus-tomers then deposited fake gold at the bank and Nadar fraudulently gave them value certificates," Patil said.
An amount of Rs 3.77 crore was given as loan against gold to these customers, another police official said.
"This money was siphoned-off by Nadar after giving the dummy customers a small sum," he said.
Nadar purchased some property, cars and motorcy-cles with the amount, he said.
"Efforts were under way to recover the money from him.
He has been charged under Indian Penal Code Sections 420 (cheating) and 34 (common intention), and a hunt is on for the 12 people who helped him in the scam," he said.
Since Nadar also worked as a valuer with the bank's branch in Sion area, the police are try-ing to find out if he conducted a similar fraud there also, the official said.
Following his arrest, the accused was produced before a local court which remanded him in police custody till Sep-tember 17, he added.
Man dupes bank of `3.77 cr with fake gold & dummy customers
JABALPUR: Around 45,000 cases, including those pending and in the pre-litigation stage, were disposed of in the national Lok Adalat held in Madhya Pradesh whose proceedings were affected in many districts due to rains and inundation, a senior state government official said on Sunday.
The cases pertained to power and water dues, acqui-sition of land, matrimonial dis-putes and others. "Proceedings of the National Lok Adalat were affected due to heavy rains and flooding on Saturday in Man-dsaur, Dhar, Badwani, Ujjain and Vidisha districts," D K Singh, deputy secretary, MP State Legal Services Authority, said. While proceedings could not be held in Mandsaur due to water-logging of the areas around the district court cam-pus, he said, adding that the work was partially affected in Dhar, Ujjain, Vidisha and Bad-wani due to heavy rains and flooding.
More than 44,970 cases, including those pending and in the pre-litigation stage, were disposed of, he added. MPOST
Around 45,000 cases disposed
of in national Lok Adalat in MP
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: India will con-duct a two-week special train-ing programme for Maldivian civil servants from Monday in Delhi and Mussoorie.
The training is part of a bilateral MoU on Training and Capacity Building Programme between the National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG) and the Maldives Civil Service Commission (CSC), according to an official statement.
A 32-member delegation from Maldives has arrived at the NCGG campus in the hill station of Mussoorie.
The inaugural session of the programme would be chaired by K V Eapen, the secretary of the Department of Admin-istrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG); Fati-math Amira, member Civil Services Commission; and V Srinivas, additional secretary DARPG, it said.
This would be followed by sessions on public policy and governance, ethics and accountability and redressal of public grievances, motiva-
tion, innovation, sustainable development goals, promoting tourism, regional cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region, India-Maldives relations along with visits to the Unique Iden-tification Authority, Passport Sewa Kendra and Election Commission of India, it said.
Senior policy mak-ers, including Director Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administra-tion Sanjeev Chopra, would address the participants in the training programme, the state-ment said.
Chairman of the Civil Ser-vices Commission of Mal-dives Dr Aly Shameem would address the valedictory session on September 28, it said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to the Maldives in June, had empha-sised India's 'Neighbourhood First' policy and assured India's full support to the Indian Ocean archipelago in realis-ing its aspirations for broad based socio-economic devel-opment and strengthening of democratic and independent institutions.
India to run special training programme for Maldivian civil servants from today
NAGPUR: Two Naxals, each carrying a reward of Rs 4 lakh, were killed and at least five others injured in an encoun-ter with police on Sunday in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli dis-trict, an official said.
The gun-battle took place in Narkasa forest area, located around 170 km from here in east Maharashtra, when C-60 commandos, a specialised anti-Naxal unit of state police, were combing the area, he said.
On a specific information received by district SP Shailesh Balkawde about a naxal build-up in Gyarapatti area the secu-rity personnel rushed to the spot when they came under heavy fire from a group of 20-25 ultras..., police said. MPOPST
2 ultras killed in Maha encounter
MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 20197mp nation
OUR CORRESPONDENT
BHOPAL: Over 16,000 people from Madhya Pradesh's Mand-saur and Neemuch districts were shifted to safer places on Sunday after heavy rainfall caused water-logging in several areas, an offi-cial said, adding Manasa town in Neemuch received 243 mm rains in the 24 hours ending this morning.
Heavy showers have been lashing the two neighbouring dis-tricts in western Madhya Pradesh since the last few days, crippling normal life there.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted extremely heavy rainfall till Mon-day morning in the two districts.
"Around 13,000 to 14,000 people have been rescued from about 100 to 125 villages in Man-dsaur. Some of these villages have been fully vacated while there has been partial evacuation in oth-ers," Superintendent of Police Hitesh Choudhary told PTI over phone. Rescue operations are on in full swing, he said. "We are keeping a close watch on the sit-uation," he added.
Besides, nearly 2,300 people were evacuated from the flooded Rampura town in Neemuch after an alarming rise in the backwa-ter level of Gandhi Sagar Dam in Mandsaur, an official at Neemuch collectorate said.
Rescuers kept a vigil during the night before bringing the flood-hit people to relief camps on Sunday, he said.
Mandsaur received 218 mm rain while Manasa town in
Neemuch got 243 mm rain in the 24 hours ending Sunday morn-ing, as per the IMD office here.
Mandsaur has received 1,927.8 mm rain from June 1 till date, against the normal quota of 742.1 mm, the IMD said.
Similarly, Neemuch got 1,569.7 mm rain so far this mon-soon against 706.9 mm of normal quota, it said.
After heavy rains, 19 sluice gates of Gandhi Sagar Dam were opened and 4.93 lakh cusec water was being discharged, the dam project's sub-divisional officer N P Dev said.
The released water was gush-
ing downstream and entering parts of Rajasthan bordering Neemuch, he said.
Meanwhile, intermittent showers on Sunday lashed sev-eral parts of Madhya Pradesh, which has so far received 33 per cent more rain than the season's average, the IMD said.
The monsoon has weakened a bit in eastern Madhya Pradesh but is active in western parts of the state, IMD Bhopal office's senior meteorologist G D Mishra said. Extremely heavy rainfall is likely in Mandsaur, Neemuch, Agra Malwa and Alirajpur dis-tricts till Monday morning,
besides heavy rains in 10 districts including Indore, the IMD said.
Rain or thundershowers might occur in 32 districts of the state including capital Bhopal, it added.
Meanwhile, former chief min-ister and senior BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan said his party would launch an agitation from September 22 if compensation is not paid to farmers who have lost their crops due to the downpour.
He also announced that he would be donate his MLA salary for the month for people affected by floods in the state.
MP: Over 16K shifted after heavy rain in Mandsaur and Neemuch
Officials say heavy showers have been lashing the two neighbouring districts in western Madhya Pradesh since the last few days, crippling normal life there
NEW DELHI: The National Crisis Management Commit-tee (NCMC), headed by Cabi-net Secretary Rajiv Gauba, on Sunday reviewed the prevail-ing flood situation in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and directed that immediate assis-tance be provided to meet the crisis. The NCMC has been informed that action to evacu-ate and rescue people and live-stock has been taken by the states and no loss of life has been reported, a Home Minis-try statement said.
Adequate teams of the National Disaster Response Force and the Army have also been deployed in rescue work, it said.
The Cabinet Secretary took stock of the situation, pre-paredness, rescue and relief operations and directed that immediate assistance, as sought by the states, be provided to meet the crisis, the statement said. It was informed by both the states that due to extremely heavy rainfall and the conse-quent discharge of water from the Gandhi Sagar Dam in MP and other reservoirs in the two states, there has been flooding in the downstream as well as upstream areas. MPOST
NCMC reviews flood situation in MP & Rajasthan
A view of buildings submerged in flood waters following heavy monsoon rainfall, in Neemuch district of MP, Sunday PTI
ASHWANI SHARMA
SHIMLA: Almost a year after its restoration, the British-era Town Hall, one of Shim-la's monumental buildings, will finally go back to Shimla Municipal Corporation — its legitimate owner though will locate the only office of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor, a condition imposed by the Him-achal Pradesh High Court.
Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, flanked by Chief Secretary Srikant Baldi and Shimla Mayor Kusum Sadret on Sunday visited the Town Hall and inspected room-by-room space. More than a cen-tury-old Gothic-style building is a favourite haunt for the tourists. But this has remained unoccupied due to High Court orders.
“The building has gone complete restoration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) funding to the tune of
Rs 8 crore. We don’t want the landmark building to suffer ruins and thus need to be used for the benefit of the citizens, tourists and stake-holders. I am happy the High Court has allowed it to be handed back to the Shimla MC though only Mayor and Deputy Mayor will be able to get offices here,” he told the Millennium Post, after spending 45 minutes at
the complex.Principal Secretary to
Chief Minister Sanjay Kundu and Commissioner Pankaj Rai briefed the Chief Minis-ter about orders of the High Court and made suggestions as to how the ground floor and top floor can best be used for the tourists and citizens.
“If the National Green Tri-bunal (NGT) and the High
Court gives us some conces-sions, we will like to install a lift for the top storey for its use as city museum while the lower storey will remain as an activity area, besides having commer-cial use of the space,” he said.
Town Hall is a grand old legacy. Its condition had turned very bad thus the state gov-ernment got ADB funding for major restoration works
from floor to the ground, besides re-creating an old charm of architectural impor-tance and woodwork inside the building.
But lobbying has begun within the Municipal Corpora-tion as Councillors, more than 40 in number, also want space in the building while the Com-missioner also has taken up the issue to set-up a camp office.
“We may have to approach the High Court afresh and inform about we practical difficulties. I am, however, in any case, will move to the building on September 29 along with Deputy Mayor,” said Sadret.
There are possibilities for the building having a high-end cafe shop, information centre and a boutique of traditional crafts and arts for tourists.
Terming the Town Hall as "priceless architectural marvel", the High Court has reminded the government of its respon-sibility to maintain the historic landmark building, located on the Mall road as also being a major tourists’ attraction.
Earlier in 2017, the High Court had opined that the important heritage building could be used either as a city museum or a library rather than leaving it at the mercy of the 'babus' by allowing a public office to run from there.
British-era Town Hall returns to MC; City museum proposed
OUR CORRESPONDENT
BHUBANESWAR: Two years after the conjoined twins were separated at the heads, one will have to undergo a procedure to reconstruct his skull as he does not have a proper one, Odisha minister Pratap Jena said on Sunday.
Following the surgery to separate Jaga and Kalia, Jaga's condition improved rapidly but Kalia is suffering from certain deficiencies and is under obser-vation, doctors said.
"But Jaga has no proper skull. He will have to undergo a surgery for which bone will be procured from a bone bank," Jena, the panchayati raj and law minister, told reporters after visiting the twins at the hospi-tal. Jaga, who is around 4-and-a-half-years now, wears a small
helmet for protecting his head, Jena said.
The minister said the state government will provide all assistance for carrying out the skull reconstruction procedure and probably Jaga can go to school after the surgery.
Jaga and Kalia who were separated at their heads in the AIIMS, New Delhi in 2017, were admitted to SCB Med-ical College and Hospital (SCBMCH) in Cuttack after their return to Odisha on Sep-tember 7.
One of separated conjoined twins lacks proper skull, needs
reconstruction procedure
OUR CORRESPONDENT
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Ker-ala government on Sunday called for an all-party meeting on September 17 to dis-cuss the plight of owners of around 350 flats in Maradu in Kochi, facing demoli-tion for violating Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms.
The meeting will be held here on Tues-day at 3.30 PM, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's office said.
The 1,200 owners in four apartment complexes near the backwaters of Kochi have been opposing the move to demol-ish the flats as ordered by the Supreme Court for violation of Coastal Regulation Zone rules.
Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan had also expressed concern over the plight of the owners.
Political parties, including the ruling CPI(M) and the opposition congress have come out in support of the flat owners.
CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Bal-akrishnan and Opposition leader in the assembly Ramesh Chennithala had on Sat-urday visited Marudu, spoken to the resi-
dents and assured them of all help.The owners have made it clear that they
will not leave their residences and are also observing a relay satyagraha.
The municipal authorities, who had issued notices asking the residents to move out, have stated that they would take the next step based on directions from the state government.
The notices to the flat owners asked them to vacate their residences to imple-ment the apex court order, directing demolition of the structures constructed in violation of CRZ notifications.
After the owners refused to accept the notices, the authorities had affixed them on the walls of the building.
The state government had on Mon-day initiated steps to implement the SC order and directed the municipality to take immediate action to evacuate the residents and rehabilitate them in coordination with the Ernakulam District Collector.
The top court had on May 8 directed the removal of the buildings within a month as they were constructed in a noti-fied CRZ, which was part of a water body known to be hit by tides.
Flats demolition: Kerala CM calls for all party meeting tomorrow
A view of flats to be demolished as per the order of Supreme Court at Maradu in Kochi, Sunday PTI
ALLAHABAD: With the Cen-tre deciding to establish a bench of Railway Claims Tribunal (RCT) in Allahabad, passen-gers injured in train accidents wouldn’t have to travel to Luc-know, Gorakhpur or Ghazi-abad to settle their claims.
This would be the 20th bench of the tribunal in the country. Till now, there were three NCR claims tribunal benches in the state at Lucknow, Gorakhpur and Ghaziabad.
The notification was issued in the Gazette of the Govern-ment of India was issued on Thursday. “The new bench will cater to Banda, Bhadohi (Sant Ravidas Nagar), Chandauli, Chitrakoot, Fatehpur, Jalaun, Jaunpur, Jhansi, Kannauj, Kaushambi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Mirzapur, Pratapgarh, Alla-habad, Sonbhadra (Roberts-ganj) and Varanasi districts,” said NCR chief public relations officer Ajit Kumar Singh.
Despite being the head-quarters of NCR, Allahabad did not have a claims tribunal. Citizens involved in train acci-dents and officials had to go to the any of three others benches of RCT in the state. Apart from this, the administrative head of North Zone will also be the vice chairman (technical), Alla-habad which will have under its jurisdiction the railway claims tribunal benches of Allahabad, Chandigarh, Delhi, Gorakhpur and Lucknow. MPOST
Prayagraj to get new Rly Claims Tribunal bench
OUR CORRESPONDENT
BENGALURU: Arrested Con-gress leader DK Shivakumar has appealed to his supporters not to come to New Delhi to express solidarity with him, in the backdrop of a large number of them barging into a court there on Friday,when he was produced in connection with a money laundering case.
Conveying this in a press release, his brother D K Suresh said Shivakumar has asked his supporters not to come to Delhi on Tuesday when he is likely to be procuded in the Special Court dealing with cases relating to ED.
A Delhi court on Friday had extended the custodial inter-rogation of Shivakumar by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) by four days till September 17 in the case. "I request all party workers, supporters and well wishers of Shri D K Shivaku-mar to not to come to New Delhi on Tuesday (17.09.2019).
This request is on behalf of my brother D K Shivaku-mar too," Suresh said in a press release.
He said, "We request every-one to be in their respective places in the state and arrival of more people in Delhi will cause inconvenience to the adminis-tration and judiciary."
"As law abiding citizen, its our responsibility to maintain smooth functioning of admin-
istrative and judicial systems.Therefore we request and
expect everyone's cooperation and support in this regard," he added. Shivakumar, 57, sitting Congress MLA from Kanaka-pura assembly segment, is in the ED custody since his arrest on September 3.
On Friday, when Shivaku-mar was produced before the court on the expiry of his 9-day custodial interrogation by the agency, additional forces from Delhi police and CRPF were deployed inside and outside the courtroom to control the large number of supporters who had gathered. But even the heavy deployment of security per-sonnel could not stop the sup-porters from barging inside the courtroom.
Before being escorted out of the court on Friday, Shivaku-mar had reportedly asked his
supporters present at the prem-ises, to go back home.
The ED had in September last year registered the money laundering case against Shi-vakumar, Haumanthaiah, an employee at the Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi, and others.
The ED had filed the PMLA case against him and others based on a charge sheet (pros-ecution complaint) filed by the Income Tax Department against them last year before a special court in Bengaluru on charges of alleged tax eva-sion and hawala transactions worth crores. Thousands of members of the dominant Vok-kaliga community, in a show of strength had recently held a protest rally here against the arrest of one of their senior leader Shivakumar and expressed solidarity with him.
D K Shivakumar appeals to supporters not to visit Delhi
AMARAVATI (AP): Justice P Lakshmana Reddy, a retired judge of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh High Court, was on Sunday sworn-in as the first Lokayukta of the state after its bifurcation in 2014.
Governor Biswabhusan Hairchandan administered the oath of office to Justice Reddy at a function in Vijayawada.
Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, judges of the High Court and senior state government officials attended the event. Justice Lakshmana Reddy will be in office for five years. The YSR Congress gov-ernment amended the Loka-yukta Act in the recent budget
session, enabling appoint-ment of a retired judge as Lokayukta, paving the way for constituting the corruption-probing body. MPOST
Justice Reddy appointed as first Lokayukta of Andhra Pradesh
NEW DELHI: In a major boost for India's aerial firepower, the Indian Air Force has started receiving the 'building blaster' version of the Balakot air strike-fame Spice-2000 bombs at the Gwalior airbase.
An Israeli firm has started the delivery of the Spice-2000 bombs to India and the first batch of these bombs was received recently, top IAF sources told a news agency.
The weapons have been delivered to Gwalior as it is the home base of the Indian Air Force's Mirage 2000 fighter air-craft fleet and they are the only fleet which can fire the Israeli bombs.
The Indian Air Force has signed an over Rs 250 crore contract with Israel for Mark 84 warhead and bombs which can destroy buildings completely.
The IAF had signed a con-tract with Israel in June this year for acquiring more than 100 Spice-2000 bombs under the emergency procure-ment powers of the services given by the Narendra Modi government.
The contract was signed as the Air Force wanted to acquire the bombs after their successful usage in the Balakot airstrikes against a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist camp in Paki-stan. AGENCIES
IAF receives Spice-2000 ‘building blaster’ bombs
RAIPUR: Indian Institute of Management (IIM Raipur) observed “Hindi Week” from September 9-14 in an effort to propagate the use of Hindi language.
The celebrations concluded with the event 'Hindi Diwas’ on September 13, which was graced by Dr. Sanjeev Prashar, Dean Academics, Dr. PRS Sarma, Chairman, Student Affairs Committee, Prof. Arch-ana Parashar, Chairperson, Media and Public Relations Committee, Cmdr. Pankaj Kumar Jha, Chief Administra-tive Officer at its campus.
Commemorating the Hindi
Diwas 2019, Cmdr Jha deliv-ered the welcome address for the event, which was followed by an address by the special guest, Prof. Archana Parashar in which she provided insights on history and origin of Hindi, Indian mythology, culture and
history.This was followed by the
address of Dr Sarma, who emphasised the significance of Devanagari script and expressed the importance of knowledge.
Continuing the celebra-
tion of the Hindi language, a poetry competition alongside a speech competition were organized providing a great opportunity to some poets and orators from the IIM Rai-pur fraternity. The event also saw participation from the col-lege staff besides students, with recitation of famous as well as self-written poems. The first prize was awarded to Gayatri Kindo of batch 2019-21 for her beautiful poem titled “Tu Hi Jane”. On the occasion of Hindi Diwas, Stu-dent Affairs Committee of IIM Raipur conducted a speech competition. MPOST
IIM Raipur observes ‘Hindi Week’
Log on to write letters to the editor or send them to
[email protected] You can also send your
comments to The Editor,Millennium Post,
Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002
millenniumpost.inCALL FOR CLARITYDear
EditorThe sabbatical taken by former captain Mahindra Singh Dhoni has confused many fans who are speculating all the time whether Dhoni has retired from all the formats or he is just unavailable for these recent series in order to groom the youngsters before he bequeaths his mantle to others. Virat Kohli’s recent has also complicated matters in which he has spoken many things about Dhoni but without mentioning whether he's going to be in the scheme of things for the Indian Cricket in future or not. The selectors including the Indian Captain will have to clarify the doubts of every Indian fan. Whatever the decision is taken by them regarding Dhoni, everybody will accept it wholeheartedly without undermining the services of this great Cricketer. IFTEKHAR AHMED Via email
We lost because we told ourselves we lost
Quote martial
LEO TOLSTOY
Good food is First Food — not junk food. It is the food that connects
nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it gives employment to people and most importantly, cooking and eating it gives us pleasure and good health.
In 2013, the Centre for Sci-ence and Environment pub-lished the first edition of the First Food series — First Food: A Taste of India’s Biodiversity. I wrote then that food is about culture and most importantly about biodiversity.
We often do not think that food diversity, indeed cultural diversity, is linked to the diver-sity in the biological world. We argued then that we must cel-ebrate the knowledge of plants and their properties and how best to cook them to bring out the flavours and the aroma. We will be able to protect the biodiversity of the wild only when we value the biodiversity on our plate.
In 2017, First Food: Culture of Taste was published. In this book, like the first, we sourced recipes that brought to us the knowledge of plant diversity. We did this because by then, it was clear that the world was (and it still is) facing an obe-sity pandemic. It is clear that the food we are eating is bad for our health; it has no nutri-tion and no goodness.
More importantly, it is now
clear that this change of our diet — moving away from home-cooked nutritious food, borne out of the culinary tradition and age-old knowledge — is not incidental or accidental.
We are children of the age of processed and factory-grown food, who have been trans-muted through deliberate and subliminal marketing that has changed our habits; indeed our culture of food.
But the question always is how will we change this culture of bad food? Is it even possible? The power of the processed food industry is massive; their ability to reach people, par-ticularly the young, with their food propaganda is pervasive; they have perfected the art of seduction through colour, fla-
vour and fragrance. They know how to get us to snacking temp-tation — even when we know it is bad for us.
More importantly, the pro-cessed food industry has now found a niche of fitting into our busy lifestyles — it is con-venient because it is there and it is easy to make. No muss and no fuss.
But most importantly, their world of food is about their business. It works because they need the profit and so compa-nies build the supply chain to get the food to us. The question then is how can good food be supplied? Can this business of livelihoods be part of the main-stream food industry, or does it need a parallel market to sur-vive? What will work?
So, this time, our 2019 edi-tion First Food: Business of Taste brings you the knowledge of livelihoods that connect to First Food. It is about the busi-ness that is invisible and the business that is nascent. But it is also about the business that must grow and take over our lives. We know this is possible.
Teff, a millet from Ethiopia which has tiny seeds (much like sikiya that we have talked about in the book), is gluten-free and has cashed in on this attribute. In Ethiopia, teff is grown by an estimated 6.3 million farmers and is grown over 20 per cent of all cultivated land. This seed is being called Ethiopia’s “sec-ond gift to the world”, after cof-fee. In London, 1 kg of teff flour is available for as much as £7.
In Ethiopia, it is less than half a pound for the same weight.
There are examples within India too. Millets like ragi and brown top millet are showing up on our food market shelves. We are now consuming these because they are available. But this growth of good food has to be nurtured so that it becomes the flavour of our life.
We have also explored the business of this food – ways in which the tea industry is link-ing with small farmers to col-lect roselle flowers (Hibiscus sabdariffa); or how jackfruit business is now growing so that it is available through the year. These stories are important. They may not be enough to change today’s pernicious hab-its of bad food but they tell us the ways of the future.
The changemakers in this new business of food are chefs. They bring us delights and lead the way for society on what is good food. This is why they are the ones who must help shape this new connection between food, nutrition, nature and livelihoods.
It is for this reason, in this very special edition of First Food we have invited these men and women of culinary fame to share their recipes with us. This fashion of food will be good for us. DOWN TO EARTH
(The author is Director General of Centre for Science
and Environment and the Editor of Down To Earth
magazine. The views expressed are strictly personal)
We are children of the age of processed and factory-grown food, who have been transmuted through deliberate and subliminal marketing that has changed our habits; indeed our culture of food
The 2019 edition of First Food: Business of Taste brings you the knowledge of livelihoods that connect to First Food – the good food
The good food business
SUNITA NARAIN
PANKAJ SHARMA If reports of Sonia Gan-dhi’s refusal to accept the proposal to appoint Pre-rak (motivator) for con-
ducting Congress’s outreach activities across the country, on the ground that the word has a glaring similarity to the Pracharak of Rashtriya Sway-amsevak Sangh (RSS), are true, there lies an enormous hope of speedy revival of 134 year old organisation from the situation it is facing for last five-six years.
As media reports suggest, a proposal to have Preraks as a bridge between Congress and its grassroots was submitted by party’s training department in a recently held meeting of chief ministers of Congress-ruled states, leaders of legislature par-ties in different states, party presidents of state units and national general secretaries/in-charges of states. The pro-posal reportedly suggested that Preraks be appointed at vari-ous levels across the country to impart training and organise workshops for workers.
The proposal could not gather support from the partici-pants of the meeting who found that the word sounded too simi-lar to the nomenclature RSS has for its operatives. Movers of the proposal tried to convince the meeting to adopt the concept of Preraks by arguing that it was Rajiv Gandhi who had written a paper titled ‘Abhi Prerak’ in 1987. But interim Congress’s interim president reportedly rejected the idea by saying that this was ‘New India’ and the messaging has to be clear and bold. She said that Congress cannot be seen towing it’s rival’s line. She also stressed that pub-lic memory is very short and one cannot expect people to have such recall value that the word Prerak was used by us as early as 32 years back.
Prerak, perhaps, would be changed to Samnvayak, San-yojak or Sahyogi (coordina-tor, convenor or consociate). If happened, it was a very meagre part of the entire proceedings
of the meeting. But the incident has its substantial importance because it shows how meticu-lous Sonia is in giving green signal to any program her party wants to undertake and how she has an eye for details which can ensure that Congress moves in the right direction in coming months. Had there been any-one else at the helm of the party affairs following Rahul Gan-dhi’s exit, Preraks would have found their way in a slumber-ing atmosphere.
Only Sonia in her party has a ubiquitous moral authority with which she can handle things differently. Therefore, she could warn her chief min-isters that they have a special responsibility in states and must stand out as examples of sensi-tive and responsive governance with accountable and transpar-ent administration. “We must be seen to be fulfilling our man-ifesto commitments. If not, we will lose people’s support with obvious consequences”, she cautioned them. By this, she made it clear that the reports she is getting about the per-formance in various states are less than satisfactory. Imagine if any of the names that were taking rounds after Rahul’s res-
ignation were leading the party provisionally today, would lead-ers such as Kamal Nath, Ashok Gehlot and Capt. Amrinder Singh taken this caution with required seriousness?
It also requires spunk to tell a self-obsessed lot to have a concrete agitational agenda on issues of pressing concern to the people and that ‘it is not enough to be active and aggressive on the social media’. Sonia told the ‘hip-hip hurray brigade’ that far more important is to go to the people directly because ‘peo-ple expect Congress to stand up fearlessly to fight on the streets, fight in villages, towns and cities’. Sonia is well aware of the fact that at the time of preparing for 2019 general elections RSS-BJP launched a huge social media campaign but they kept their ground activities imperforate whereas, under the influence of alien teenage man-agers, even the seasoned leaders began fighting their electoral battles on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram only ignoring hard realities that need personal touch with the ground.
This is the time when Con-gress can bombard against a sit-uation that has taken its ugliest shape because of a prolonged
economic slump, job losses and shakier confidence of investors. This is the time when Modi government appears more and more clueless and insensitive, when vendetta politics is at its peak, when people are feeling threatened and intimidating and when each and every insti-tution is being diabolically sub-verted. If not now, when will the time of resurgence come for Congress?
Realising this, Sonia said in the meeting, “democracy has never been at greater peril than it is now, the mandate of 2019 is now being misused and abused in a most dangerous fashion’. She also made it clear that during these testing times it will become clear that who are those steadfastly devoted to Congress as an ideology and those who look to Con-gress only as an opportunity for self-advancement. The recent upheavals within her party must have made Sonia much more observant in choosing the future fellows, not only for her but for Rahul and Priyanka too.
States ruled by Congress are generally seen as the standing safe sanctuaries of democracy. People-centric governance, economic remonetisation, and
the strongest bulwark against BJP would add to the credibil-ity of Congress. There is a need to put in place an effective sys-tem for monitoring and imple-mentation of the key manifesto commitments that the Con-gress had made in the run-up to the Assembly Elections. Effective coordination between the party organisations and the governments in Congress-ruled states is also necessary. Congress has to counter con-stant diabolic game destabili-sation that the BJP plays.
Congress has to re-launch its narrative strongly. It must have a strong and compact team of dedicated, well-stud-ied and sober word-soldiers that can take on loudmouths of RSS-BJP spokespersons on various media forums. Per-sonal likes and dislikes of middle-level schemers have brought Congress to this dis-graceful footing. Getting rid of this lot by sidelining them ferociously must be a top pri-ority for the party leadership. Without this, all the sweat will go waste, as in the past. If it is against the elegance to drive them out, those who want to slush everything, those who want to hush power and those whose job has been nothing than milking, let at least let them go.
Observing Sonia Gandhi’s two decades in politics, I can say that she believes in being heart-to-heart with her col-leagues. Her frankness is the child of her honesty and cour-age. She understands that poli-tics is a common calling and that it is something to be dis-cussed with absolute sincerity. Sonia has spoken the truth. Others must learn to hear it. Turning deaf ears to her advise will block opportunities for revival. Congress cannot afford to miss the train this time.
(The author is Editor and CEO of News Views India
and a national office bearer of the Congress party. The views
expressed are strictly personal)
Sonia’s significanceExercising her ubiquitous moral authority to handle things differently, Sonia Gandhi
remains the sole catalyst to Congress’s revival amidst prolonged bleakness
Sonia’s frankness is the child of her honesty and courage. She understands that politics is a common calling and that it is something to be discussed with absolute sincerity. Turning deaf ears to her advise will block opportunities for revival. Congress cannot afford to miss the train this time
Millets like ragi are showing up on our food market shelves
If not under Sonia, when will the time for resurgence come for Congress?
EDITORIAL
Going steadily towards stability
Allaying the critical state of the slumping Indian economy, the impact of which has been coming to light from different sectors, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s announcement of
a third set of decisions pertaining to the export and housing sectors will likely revive the economy and take it closer to a place of stability. With a Rs 50,000 crore export incentive scheme and a Rs 10,000 crore special window to provide last mile funding for unfinished housing projects, targeting these crucial sectors are especially vital as they are drivers of several other associated economic activities. This fresh set of announcements seek to boost exports which had contracted 6.05 per cent in August, and ease the plight of home buy-ers. These large scale corrective steps came following the big announcements to first, to encourage private sector invest-ment, and then try and bring about stability in the crucial banking system by means of a merger of select public sector banks. With respect to the housing sector, instating a special provision, a fund to provide last-mile funding for housing projects that are not categorised as non-performing assets (NPAs) and are not undergoing National Company Law Tri-bunal (NCLT) proceedings is particularly a striking move as it focuses on the construction and completion of unfin-ished units. There are several projects that are stalled due to funding issues should now get moving with this new norm. Along the lines of the National Investment and Infrastruc-ture Fund, the government intends to contribute to the fund while other investors would be LIC and some other institu-tions and private capital from the likes of banks and sover-eign funds. Close to 3.5 lakh dwelling units (non NPA and non NCLT) in the country are plagued with last mile fund-ing problem. The government’s contribution to this fund, which is to be professionally run with experts from housing and banking sectors, is said to be Rs 10,000 crore and the other investors are expected to contribute a comparable same amount. In a step to increase bank credit for home buyers, the guidelines for external commercial borrowing will be relaxed to facilitate financing for home buyers who are eli-gible under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and this is in addition to the existing norms for ECB for afford-able housing; the interest rate on house building advances will be also lowered and linked with the 10 Year Govern-ment Security yields. Not only is this a welcome change for the common buyer seeking a home, a specific point of gov-ernment servants was also considered as they form a major chunk of demand for houses. This move is directed towards the purchase of freshly constructed houses, most of which are built away from the heart of the main city. Encouraging settlements in new areas and developing them in the process is quantitatively a marker of economic growth and qualita-tively, a sign of prosperity as human settlement brings with it the scope of all the necessary changes that turn a place from a piece of land to centre of peaceful living complete with all the basic essentials from food to convenient services, to institutions for healthcare, education, recreation, etc. and generating just about as much employment. As the seed of economic growth is allowed to germinate, the development form these efforts approach fruitition, another class of com-ponents will be readied to drive the economy towards greater achievements and sustained prosperity.
With the other major announcement on the export front, instating the Scheme for Remission of Duties or Taxes on Export Product (RoDTEP) to replace the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) is the highlight. The new set of measures for exports sector came include steps that would comprehensively address tax and duties refunds for exporters, improve credit flow to the export sector, and launch of a special free trade agreement (FTA) utilisation mission. Both MEIS and the new RoDTEP are designed to incentivise exports by giving them rewards to offset the duties they pay to export their products. The rate of reward under MEIS varies between 2 per cent and 7 per cent of the free-on-board (FOB) value, depending on the item and the country it is being exported to. The new scheme will be a greater incentive to exporters but details are not specified as the rewards will be calculated on the basis of the actual duty paid. Textiles and all other sectors which currently have incen-tives up to 2 per cent over MEIS will transit into RoDTEP from January 1, 2020. The Finance Minister has announces that in effect, RoDTEP will more than adequately incentivise exporters than the existing schemes put together. The rev-enue foregone is projected at up to Rs 50,000 crore per year. Another measure to free up working capital of exporters has been the announcement of a fully electronic refund mod-ule for the quick and automated refund of input tax credits which will become operational by the end of this month. In order to increase bank credit to exporters, Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) will expand the scope of its Export Credit Insurance Scheme to provide a higher insurance cover to banks that are lending working capital for exports. The situation at present is that banks are covered for 60 per cent of what they lend to exporters for working capital. An increase in this to 90 per cent is the new norm. Credit flow to exporters has come down by 35 per cent but this move should increase export credit by about Rs 4,000 crore in the first year and Rs 5,000 crore in the second year. This initia-tive will come at a cost of about Rs 1,700 crore per year to the exchequer and would enable a reduction in the overall cost of export credit inclusive of interest rates, especially to MSMEs. In tandem with, the Reserve Bank of India is also looking into modifying the priority sector lending norms for the export sector to release an additional sum of Rs 36,000 crore to Rs 68,000 crore as export credit. Along with giving credit and incentives to exporters, the reforms package also comes with ways to make the export sector more efficient and globally competitive. The entire process of export clear-ances will be digitised and all offline or manual processes will be eliminated to reduce the time to export. An action plan to reduce the time to export and turn-around time in airports and ports benchmarked to international standards is said to be implemented by December 2019. With a view of making exports more competitive, steps include work-ing with exporters to help them best exploit the advantages of the various free trade agreements India has signed with other countries, increasing the testing and certification infra-structure in India, and enforcing the time-bound adoption by industry of all necessary mandatory technical standards. In order to bring the dividends from pushed-up exports to people in general, India will also now host annual mega shopping festivals in four places.
The newly announced package of measures for boost-ing exports and lending a much-needed helping hand to the housing sector will steadily not only revive the economy but also bring it at a pedestal where prosperity from funda-mental economic development will set in motion necessary development in various other sectors directly influencing the common man. Duly directing attention to the stressed sectors, a fillip to the housing sector, in particular, is one to ensure this elevated level basics. Having witnessed the dip in growth and a general situation of recession, the priority of reviving the economy is very correctly in place as a healthy economy is a most primary component of a thriving nation and its people.
mp editorial8MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 2019
RAHUL GANDHI @RahulGandhi
What India needs isn’t propaganda, manipulated news cycles & foolish theories about millennials, but a concrete plan to #FixTheEconomy that we can all get behind. Acknowledging that we have a problem is a good place to start.
NARENDRA MODI @narendramodi
There would also be an e-auction of the gifts and mementos. The proceeds from the auction will be devoted towards the Namami Gange Mission. It would contribute to a cleaner Ganga. Do visit this site and take part in the auction.
PAUL KRUGMAN @paulkrugman
Trump thinks he has China on the ropes. But "the entire contractionary shock from the trade wars up to August 2019 has been comfortably offset by policy interventions in China."
MALALA @Malala
I am asking leaders, at #UNGA and beyond, to work towards peace in Kashmir, listen to Kashmiri voices and help children go safely back to school.
tweetRETWEET
SANJEEV CHOPRA
Israel goes for snap legislative elections on Tuesday to elect the 120 members of the 22nd Knes-set after the incumbent Prime
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, failed to form a governing coalition follow-ing the polls held last April, the first such failure in the country’s history.
In a highly controversial statement ahead of the polls ostensibly aimed at shoring up support of hardline nation-alist voters, Netanyahu, 69, declared that he would move to annex the Jor-dan Valley in the occupied West Bank if he returns to power, a move that could kill any remaining hopes for a two-state solution to the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict, long the focus of international diplomacy.
“If I receive from you, citizens of Israel, a clear mandate to do so… today I announce my intention to apply with the formation of the next government Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea,” Netanyahu, who is seeking a fifth term as prime minister, said last week in a televised speech.
The Israeli leader, who is fighting for his political survival in a closely contested election, however, made it clear that his plan would not be imple-mented before the publication of a long-awaited US peace plan for the Middle East and consultations with President Donald Trump.
The Jordan Valley and the north-ern Dead Sea constitute almost 30 per cent of the West Bank. Some 65,000 Palestinians and about 11,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in the area, most of which is under the Israeli mili-tary control in what is referred to as Area C. Israeli right-wing politicians have long viewed the strategic area as part of the territory they would never retreat from.
West Asian countries, including Saudi Arabia, have understandably criticised the announcement while the UN warned Netanyahu that his plan would have no “international legal effect.”
“The Secretary General’s posi-tion has always been clear: unilateral actions are not helpful in the peace
process,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
“Any Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdictions and administra-tion in occupied West Bank is with-out any international legal effect,” the spokesman said.
The US, which intends to unveil a Middle East peace plan after the Israeli elections, said its policy towards Israeli and the Palestinian territories remains unchanged.
“There is no change in the US poli-cies at this time…We will release our ‘Vision for Peace’ after the Israeli elec-tion and work to determine the best path forward to bring long-sought security, opportunity and stability to the region,” a US official was quoted as saying when asked whether the White House supported Netanyahu’s move.
Palestinian leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, accuse the Israeli leader of destroy-
ing the peace process and asserted that all signed agreements with Israel and obligations resulting from them would end.
Condemning Netanyahu’s plan, Arab League foreign ministers said it would undermine any chance of progress towards Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Saudi Arabia said it con-sidered the declaration a “violation of the international law and a very dangerous escalation against the Palestinians.”
The international community as a whole should take serious note of Netanyahu’s statement and unequivo-cally condemn it. Their failure to do so will send a wrong message to all parties involved, especially the Pales-tinians, who have been paying a heavy price because of the Israeli occupation.
As far as the snap poll is con-cerned, Netanyahu, who leads the right-wing Likud party, is facing Benny Gantz, a former military chief
of staff, as his main rival. Gantz leads the centrist Blue and White alliance with the former finance minister and TV personality, Yair Lapid.
On April 9, Netanyahu’s party won 36 out of 120 seats, just one more than Gantz’ Blue and White.
The Israeli parliament voted to dissolve itself in May after coalition talks hit a wall despite Netanyahu winning the mandate to form the next government.
Israel is witnessing two general elections in one year for the first time since its inception in 1947 and, latest surveys and opinion polls predict vir-tually the same outcome as that of April election. According to two polls published recently by local media, the Likud is projected to win 32 seats, one more than Blue and White.
Coalition governments are the norm in Israel as no single party has ever won a majority of seats in the Knesset so far. The leader of the party
that wins the most seats is usually invited by the Israeli President to form the new government.
If the leader is unable to bring together enough parties to control at least 61 seats in the Knesset, the Pres-ident may give the task to someone else. This is why the leader of the party that wins the election does not nec-essarily become the prime minister.
To win another term in office, Netanyahu needs the support of right-wing factions he has previously relied on to clear the 61-seat threshold. Gantz needs the backing of centre-left blocs and the Arab Joint List to garner a majority.
According to latest polls by the Israeli media, a right-wing bloc led by Netanyahu is likely to have 56 seats while Gantz’ bloc is expected to muster 55 seats.
In the event of such a scenario, observers say there is a possibility of a unity government bringing together
the Likud and the Blue and White.If that fails, they say the only other
option will be to hold a third elec-tion, something the Israeli public would not like.
According to a pre-poll survey by the Israeli Democracy Institute, the highest rate of Jewish Israeli vot-ers are in favour of a unity govern-ment headed by either Netanyahu or Gantz. The second preference is for a right-wing government headed by Netanyahu.
Palestinian citizens in Israel that include Muslims, Christians and Druze make up one-fifth of the elec-torate. They form part of the Arab Joint List—an electoral alliance of four Arab parties, which split into two groups before the April vote. They have joined hands for this election.
They could become game chang-ers if they vote in large number. As they tend to vote as a unified bloc, several Jewish political parties are try-ing to win their votes. They could well determine Netanyahu’s fate. A heavy turnout by them could deprive him a majority in Parliament.
Significantly, the Israel-Palestine peace process has not featured prom-inently in the electoral debates this time. It featured only lightly among political parties and their campaign messaging. Netanyahu’s ad-campaign focused on his relationship with US President Donald Trump, a close ally of Israel.
Trump’s policies towards Israel include the recognition of Jerusa-lem as Israel’s capital and the transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He also recognised Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, seized from Syria during the 1967 war.
Arab observers say no matter who is voted to power, the outcome for Palestinians will be the same as both Nethanyahu and Gantz share the same ideology vis-à-vis Palestinians.
(The author is a former Editor of PTI and served as West Asia cor-
respondent for PTI, based in Bah-rain from 1988 to 1995. The views
expressed are strictly personal)
M SHAKEEL AHMED
Together with my colleagues Monica Dhami and Gauri P Joshi, we had the challenge of devising a new pedagogy to
understand the why and what of his-tory of the Independence Movement. We had to go beyond the standard text which is common to the syllabi of both the UPSC and the Foundation course, give them a critical understanding of the what and why of history, includ-ing the long view of history which this column had discussed a few weeks ago. It’s easy to discuss the various schools of history – from Carlyle to Arnold Toyn-bee and the Marxist, Nationalist and the Imperialist versions of history. How do we call an event as salient August 15, 1947? Do we call it Independence (the official narrative), or Partition (the lived experience of people in Punjab and Bengal) or Transfer of Power (in the case of a majority of princely states), and which is also the way the British would like the event to be remembered, for this term gives retrospective legiti-macy to their rule!
We thought that we would have a quiz in the class and ask names of authors of some of the leading titles written on August 15. These included Freedom at Midnight, Train to Paki-stan, Indian Wins Freedom, Integration of states, Transfer of Power, Pakistan and the partition of India, Divide and Quit, Jhootha Sach, et al. After this, we would ask them to names some indi-viduals, institutions, or events which they felt were critical in leading the country to Independence, and we chose the period 1900-1947 for the sake of convenience. These were all written on the Board. The immediate recall of names included Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad, Bhagat Singh, Jinnah, Iqbal, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Tagore, Subrama-nia Bharti, Annie Beasant, Lajpat Rai, Subhash Bose, Sri Aurobindo and so on. We then constituted thirty-odd groups of 10 to 12 officers and asked each group to identify one individual, institution, incident or event (whose name had not been, mentioned on the board) who/which in their view spurred the march to Independence. Each group will be making a presenta-tion/preparing a poster series/perform-ing a skit/reciting a poem or a ballad/reading extracts from archival sources to buttress their point for eight to ten minutes, which would then be docu-mented as the Towards Freedom proj-ect of the 94th FC. The themes chosen
are reflective of the very wide spec-trum which they felt have contributed to India’s freedom and whose names did not feature in the first 30 names. The icons/individuals include women like Muthulkashmi Reddy, Durgab-hai Deshmukh, Pritilata Waddedar, Kasturba Gandhi, Kamaladevi Chat-topadhaya, Matangini Hazra, Kanak-lata Barua and Tarabai Shinde besides leaders and freedom fighters repre-senting many different regions and ideological dispensations like Vinoba Bhave, Gopi Nath Bardoloi, Chidam-baram Pillai, Jatindra Nath Das, Udham Singh, Babu Jagjivan Ram, Pherozeshah Mehta, Dadbhai Naroji, Alluri Sitaram Raju and AK Goplalan. Besides, the above incidents and events which had a lasting impact include the formation of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, Ghadr party, INA, farmers’ movements, Ben-gal famine, the revolt by the Naval rat-ings, the Tripuri and Lahore Sessions of the Congress, and last but not the least, the role of industrialists like Jamna Lal Bajaj in organising financial support and muscle to the Congress party.
Another highlight of the week that went by was the celebration of the Tamil Nadu state day on Friday, September 13 at the Academy with the support from the Resident Commissioner’s office at New Delhi. In addition to the excel-lent rendition of Bharat Natyam by the troupe of Sudhana Sankar, we had some of the most breath-taking per-formances of Kaaliaatam and Kavadi-attam – the folk dances of Tamil Nadu,
and this ensemble was led by Dr Soma Sundaram. All performances received a standing ovation and the sumptuous meal after the performances was truly an offering to the gods. The food was catered by a team of TN House com-prising P Thinesh Kannan, S Kumar, Hari and Mahesh. Stalls were set up by TN departments of Tourism, Co-optex and Poompuhar. Handloom and handicrafts corporations and Tourism department received many footfalls, and there was complete attention to detail in the organisation of everything connected to the State Day, including the placement of shoes in proper order. This was easily one of the best organised events in recent times at the Academy. Kudos to those who were part of the core organising committee.
The culmination of the Hindi week at the Academy was marked with a Keynote address by Tej Pratap Nara-yan from the Railway Board organ-ised by the Rahul Sankritayan Manch for Hindi and Indian languages. Nara-yan stressed the point that in order to be an inclusive and all-encompass-ing language, as well as the preferred link language of the country, it ought to freely incorporate words from all Indian languages as well as English. He said that while the first dictionary of English had only ten thousand words, contemporary editions of popular dic-tionaries had close to a million words from all the languages of the world, and every year, English added another five hundred to a thousand words. The
first Hindi dictionary commissioned after Independence had twenty thou-sand words, and now has close to three hundred thousand words – but in the first few decades, the stress on ‘purity’ led to the exclusion of words which were in usage in the common parlance. Now there is increasing recognition of the fact that a language grows by incorporating words which emanate from their particular contexts. Thus, words like computer, email, TV, radio, neck-tie, rail, rocket and acronyms like ONGC, for example, are best left as they are, and it does not make Hindi any poorer. On the contrary, if Hindi is written as she is spoken in her sev-eral dialects, it would grow richer and more intense. This was followed by a very well-argued debate on whether Hindi cinema has improved the stat-ure of Hindi – and much was said on both sides. Another highlight of the evening was the commitment of Aalind Maheshwari of Rajkamal Prakashan (one of the leading publishing houses in Hindi) to bring a volume of poetry written by the officer trainees of this batch!
Hats-off to faculty colleagues Kum-dini Nautiyal, Bhawana and Officer Trainee, Suraj Patel and his team for the successful organisation of an inclusive Hindi Divas at the Academy!
(Dr. Sanjeev Chopra is Director, LBSNAA, Mussoorie, and Honorary Curator, Valley of Words: Literature
and Arts Festival, Dehradun. The views expressed are strictly personal)
In addition to the excellent rendition of Bharat Natyam by the troupe of Sudhana Sankar, we had some of the most breath-taking performances of Kaaliaatam and Kavadiattam – the folk dances of Tamil Nadu, and this ensemble was led by Dr Soma Sundaram
International community as a whole should take serious note of Netanyahu’s statement and unequivocally condemn it. Their failure to do so will send a wrong message to all parties involved, especially the Palestinians, who have been paying a heavy price because of the Israeli occupation
For the sake of powerIncumbent PM Netanyahu’s tall poll prospect to annex Jordan Valley if voted to
power does not augur well for the Israel-Palestine peace process
Celebrating India’s diversityThe Tamil Nadu state day on September 13 stood as one of the best
organised events held in recent times at the Academy
Fighting for political survival, Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking a fifth term as prime minister of Israel
mp in focus 9MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 2019
mp world10MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 2019
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said there was no question of talking to New Delhi after it revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, as he warned about the possibility of a conventional war with India which could go beyond the subcontinent.
“So that’s why we have approached the United Nations, we are approaching every international forum, that they must act right now,” he said.
Khan said he “absolutely” believes war with India could be a possibility.
“This is a potential disas-ter that would go way beyond the Indian subcontinent,” Khan said.
He said that Pakistan would never start a war.
“I am a pacifist, I am anti-war, I believe that wars do not solve any problems,” he told Al Jazeera.
“When two nuclear-armed countries fight, if they fight a conventional war, there is every possibility that it is going to end up into nuclear war. The unthinkable,” he said.
“If say Pakistan, God for-bid, we are fighting a conven-tional war, we are losing, and if a country is stuck between the choice: either you surren-der or you fight ‘till death for your freedom, I know Pak-istanis will fight to death for their freedom,” he said.
Tensions between India and Pakistan spiked after New Delhi abrogated provisions of Article 370 of the Constitu-tion to withdraw Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcated it into two Union Territories.
Pakistan downgraded its diplomatic relations with India and expelled the Indian high commissioner following the revocation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir on August 5.
Khan claimed that Pakistan till recently had made attempts
to open dialogue with India “to live as civilised neighbours, to resolve our difference [over Kashmir] ... through a politi-cal settlement”.
He alleged that India tried to blacklist in FATF (Financial Action Task Force).
“If Pakistan is pushed into the blacklist of FATF that means there will be sanctions on Pakistan. So they were try-ing to bankrupt us economi-cally, so that’s when we pulled back. And that’s when we realised that this government is on an agenda ... to push Pak-
istan to disaster,” says Khan.“There is no question of
talking to the Indian govern-ment right now after they revoked this article 370 of their own constitution and they annexed Kashmir illegally against the UN Security Coun-cil resolution,” Khan said.
Asserting that abroga-tion of Article 370 was its internal matter, India has strongly criticised Pakistan for making “irresponsible statements” and provocative anti-India rhetoric over issues internal to it. AGENCIES
Pak PM warns of possibility of conventional war with India
Imran Khan says Pakistan would never start a war. I am a pacifist, I am anti-war
ISLAMABAD: A planned march by some political and religious parties in Pakistan towards the Line of Control with India has been post-poned after Prime Minister Imran Khan asked them to postpone it till his address at the UN General Assembly on September 27 during which he is expected to raise the Kash-mir issue.
Dawn reported that that the decision was taken by a com-mittee comprising heads of political and religious parties of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Tensions between India and Pakistan spiked after New Delhi abrogated provisions of Article 370 of the Constitu-tion to withdraw Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcated it into two Union Territories.
Pakistan downgraded its diplomatic relations with India and expelled the Indian high commissioner following the revocation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir on August 5. AGENCIES
Pak LoC march delayed till
Imran Khan’s speech at UNGA
TEHRAN: Iran on Sunday dis-missed US accusations it was behind drone attacks on Saudi oil installations, suggesting the United States was seeking a pretext to retaliate against the Islamic republic.
“Such fruitless and blind accusations and remarks are incomprehensible and mean-ingless,” foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi was quoted as saying in a statement.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned Iran after Saturday’s attacks, which knocked out half of Saudi Ara-bia’s oil production.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Shiite Huthi rebels claimed responsi-bility for the drone strikes, but Pompeo said “there is no evi-dence the attacks came from Yemen”.
“The United States will work with our partners and allies to ensure that energy mar-kets remain well supplied and Iran is held accountable for its aggression,” the top US diplo-mat tweeted.
Mousavi said the US allega-tions over the pre-dawn strikes on Abqaiq and Khurais in East-ern Province were meant to jus-tify actions against Iran.
“Such remarks... are more like plotting by intelligence and secret organisations to damage the reputation of a country and create a framework for future actions,” he said.
Tehran and Washington have been at loggerheads since May last year when President Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 deal that promised Iran relief from sanctions in
return for curbs on its nuclear programme.
Since the withdrawal, the United States has slapped crip-pling sanctions on Iran as part of a campaign of “maximum pressure” and the Islamic repub-lic has responded by reducing its commitments to the nuclear accord.
“The Americans have taken the policy of ‘maximum pres-sure’ which has apparently turned into ‘maximum lying’ due to their failures,” said Mousavi.
The arch-foes were on the cusp of confrontation in June when Iran downed a US drone and Trump ordered retaliatory strikes before cancelling them at the last minute.
In remarks published Sun-
day, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ aerospace arm said Iran’s missiles could hit US bases and ships within a range of 2,000 kilometres (about 1,240 miles).
“Neither us nor the Amer-icans want a war,” Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh said, quoted by Tasnim news agency, which is considered close to the Guards. “Of course, some forces facing each other in the field could do something, by which a war could start,” the commander said.
“We have always prepared ourselves for a full-fledged war... everyone should know that all American bases and their ves-sels in a 2,000-kilometre range can be targeted by our missiles,” he added. AGENCIES
Iran refutes US allegations of its role in Saudi attacks
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi
‘Such remarks are more like plotting by intelligence & secret organisations to damage the reputation of a country and create a framework for future actions,’ Mousavi said
DUBAI: An Indian couple and their eight-month-old baby were killed while another child was injured when their car crashed into another vehi-cle in Oman, officials said on Sunday.
The family suffered severe head injuries in the road acci-dent that took place while they were on way back to Dubai from Salalah, the Indian Con-sulate in Dubai said.
Ghousulla Azmathulla Khan, 30, his 29-year-old wife, Ayesha Siddiqua, and their eight-month-old son Hamza Khan died on the spot in the accident while their three-year-old baby Haniya Siddi-qua is fighting for her life in the hospital.
The bodies of the deceased Indians were sent to their hometown in Hyderabad from Muscat this morning, the Indian Consulate in Dubai said.
We have been in touch with the company where Ghousulla was employed as well as the relatives of the family and our mission, the Indian Embassy in Muscat, Consul General of India in Dubai Vipul told Gulf News. AGENCIES
Indian couple, child killed in road accident in Oman
HONG KONG: Hundreds of demonstrators rallied Sun-day outside the British Con-sulate in Hong Kong, stepping up calls for international sup-port in their months-long cam-paign for democratic reforms in the semi-autonomous Chi-nese territory.
Those gathered waved Brit-ish flags, sang “God save the Queen” and chanted “UK save Hong Kong.”
With banners declar-ing “one country, two sys-tems is dead,” they repeated calls for Hong Kong’s for-mer colonial ruler to ensure the city’s autonomy is upheld under agreements made when it ceded power to China in 1997.
Demonstrators held similar rallies Sept.1 at the British facil-ity and last weekend at the US Consulate.
The protests were trig-gered in June by an extra-dition bill that many saw as an example of China’s increasing intrusion and a chipping away at Hong Kong’s freedoms and rights, many of which are not accorded to
mainland China.The government prom-
ised this month to withdraw the bill, which would have allowed some criminal sus-pects to be sent to mainland China for trial, but protesters have widened their demands to include direct elections for the city’s leaders and police accountability.
The summer of protest has seen clashes between protesters and Hong Kong’s police, who demonstrators have accused
of abuses. More than 1,300 people have been arrested since June.
The unrest has further battered Hong Kong’s econ-omy, which was already reel-ing from the US-China trade war. It is also seen as an embar-rassment to China’s ruling Communist Party ahead of October 1 National Day celebrations.
There were plans to con-verge later Sunday at the Causeway Bay shopping dis-
trict in defiance of a police ban of a rally by the Civil Human Rights Front.
Police also banned the group’s August 31 march but protesters turned up anyway. Clashes erupted that night, with police storming a subway car and hitting passengers with batons and pepper spray.
Pro-democracy protest-ers and supporters of the cen-tral government in Beijing clashed Saturday at a shop-ping mall and several public places. Police arrested more than a dozen people and hos-pital authorities said 25 were injured.
The violence amid the mid-autumn festival holiday came after several nights of peace-ful rallies that featured protest-ers belting out a new protest song in mass singing at shop-ping malls.
Thousands of people also carried lanterns with pro-democracy messages in public areas and formed illuminated human chains on two of the city’s peaks on Friday night to mark the major Chinese festival. AGENCIES
Hong Kong protesters rally for support at British Consulate
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has assured Turkmenistan that rising tensions with India will have no effect on TAPI gas pipeline project, a media report said on Sunday after doubts were raised over the future of the USD 10 billion trans-national project in the wake of fresh tension between New Delhi and Islamabad over Kashmir.
Some Pakistani experts raised doubts about the future of the the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) and other offshore gas pipeline projects follow-ing tensions between India and Pakistan after India scrapped Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.
“However, Pakistan has assured Turkmenistan that rising tensions with India will have no effect on the mega project, a government official was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune.
The TAPI pipeline project seeks to build connectivity in the South and Central Asian regions through gas pipelines and will help ease energy short-ages in South Asia.
The TAPI will pass through war-torn Afghanistan and Pak-istan to India to boost eco-nomic activity and to ensure peace and stability in the region.
This project would also help connect two regions through road, rail and fiber cable network.
The construction work has already started in Turkmeni-stan and is expected to start soon from Turkmen-Afghan border to Herat section, the official said, adding that con-struction activities in Pakistan are set to kick off during the first quarter of 2020.
There has been tension between Pakistan and India over Kashmir.
However, this will not affect TAPI pipeline project, the offi-cial was quoted as saying.
Tapi Company is respon-sible for the execution of this project.
However, Pakistani com-panies are assured to get maximum share in the work within Pakistan, said Mobin Saulat, Managing Direc-tor of Interstate Gas Systems (ISGS), which is working on
Pakistan’s some big pipeline projects.
He said a delegation of Tapi Company would visit next month to review the progress of the project and finalise the plan for construction. Each Paki-stan and India would receive 1.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) gas.
Tensions between India and Pakistan spiked after New Delhi abrogated provisions of Article 370 of the Constitu-tion to withdraw Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcated it into two Union Territories.
Pakistan downgraded its diplomatic relations with India and expelled the Indian high commissioner following the revocation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir on August 5.
Asserting that the abro-gation of Article 370 was its “internal matter”, India has defended imposition of restrictions in the Kashmir Valley on the grounds that they were put to prevent Paki-stan from creating more mis-chief through proxies and terrorists. AGENCIES
Tension over Kashmir not to affect TAPI: Pak assures Turkmenistan
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya-hu’s government approved a new settlement in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, his office said, just two days ahead of closely fought general elections.
Netanyahu’s cabinet agreed to turn the wildcat settlement of Mevoot Yericho in the Jor-dan Valley into an official set-tlement, the premier’s office said.
All settlements are viewed as illegal under international law, but Israel distinguishes between those it has approved and those it has not.
Sunday’s approval follows Netanyahu’s pledge last week to annex the Jordan Valley, which amounts to one-third of the West Bank, if he wins Tuesday’s elections.
“The government passed the PM’s motion to build Mev-oot Yericho,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said as the weekly cabinet meeting was convened ceremoniously in the Jordan Valley.
Netanyahu has also said he intends to annex settlements in the wider West Bank, but in coordination with US Pres-
ident Donald Trump, whose long-awaited peace plan is expected to be released after the election.
The prime minister’s annex-ation plans could effectively destroy any remaining hopes for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinians, the Euro-pean Union and the United Nations condemned Netanya-hu’s Jordan Valley announce-ment last week.
Netanyahu said the Jordan Valley annexation would not include Palestinian cities such as Jericho, but it would effec-tively be encircled by Israeli territory.
Netanyahu is locked in a tough re-election battle with ex-military chief Benny Gantz and his Blue and White cen-trist alliance, and right-wing nationalist votes are key for his Likud. AGENCIES
Israel approves new settlement in West Bank
two days before polls KABUL: Afghan forces backed by U.S. forces killed two senior Taliban leaders and at least 38 fighters of the hardline insur-gent group in joint air strikes conducted in northern and western regions of Afghani-stan, officials said on Sunday.
The operations, launched on Saturday night, were aimed at foiling attacks planned by the Taliban on Afghan forces, said a senior security official in capital Kabul, adding that clashes have escalated follow-ing the collapse of diplomatic talks between the U.S. and the Taliban.
The defence ministry in a statement said that the Tali-ban’s designate governor for northern Samangan province, Mawlavi Nooruddin, was killed along with four fighters in an air strike in Dara-e-Soof Payeen district.
But the Taliban denied the governor had been killed.
“He (Nooruddin) is alive,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman said in a statement.
In a separate incident, Mul-lah Sayed Azim, a Taliban des-ignate governor for Anar Dara district in western Farah was killed in a joint Afghan and for-eign force raid. AGENCIES
US lead Afghan forces kill Taliban
governors, fighters
JERUSALEM: A visibly fran-tic Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the fight of his political life as the country heads to national elections for the second time this year.
With Netanyahu locked in a razor tight race and facing the likelihood of criminal corrup-tion charges, a decisive victory in Tuesday’s vote may be the only thing to keep him out of the courtroom. A repeat of the deadlock in April’s election, or a victory by challenger Benny Gantz, could spell the end of the career of the man who has led the country for the past decade.
Netanyahu’s daily campaign stunts have helped him set the national agenda a tactic the media-savvy Israeli leader has perfected throughout his three decades in national politics. But it may well be the things he can’t control including a for-mer political ally turned rival and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip that bring him down.
Throughout the abbrevi-ated campaign, Netanyahu has seemed to create new headlines at will.
One day he is jetting off for meetings with world leaders. The next, he claims to unveil a
previously undisclosed Iranian nuclear site.
Then he vows to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. Nearly every day, he issues unfounded warnings about the country’s Arab minority “stealing” the election, draw-ing accusations of incitement and racism.
“Netanyahu is always wor-ried. That’s why he has survived this long,” said Anshel Pfeffer, a columnist at the Haaretz news-paper and author of a recent biography of Netanyahu. “Every election campaign he enters convinced that he can lose, and that’s how he fights it, with his back to the wall,” he said.
By many counts, the strat-egy has worked. Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, has dominated the political discourse during a campaign that is seen as a refer-endum on his rule. His oppo-nents, meanwhile, have been forced to react to his ever-shift-ing tactics.
Netanyahu has turned to a familiar playbook presenting himself as a global statesman who is uniquely qualified to lead the country while also por-traying himself as the under-dog, lashing out at perceived
domestic enemies who he claims are conspiring against him.
During a Channel 12 TV interview late Saturday, Netan-yahu appeared distressed and combative. He smirked, shook his head and raised his voice as he accused the media of “inciting” against him, angrily rejected the legal case against him and issued dire warnings that his Likud party will lose. “Victory is not in our pocket,” he said.
At the same time, he claimed the country under-stands that only he can lead.
His campaign ads por-tray him as being in a “dif-ferent league” and show him embracing his friend, Presi-dent Donald Trump, as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin, India’s Narendra Modi and other world leaders. Last week, Netanyahu rushed to Sochi, Russia, for talks with Putin about Iran.
“The public is saying, ‘We understand that you are a world-class leader,’” he told Channel 12. Echoing Trump, Netanyahu routinely lashes out at the media, the judiciary, prosecutors and other alleged foes. AGENCIES
BEIRUT: Syrian troops shelled the south of Idlib on Sunday, according to rescuers and resi-dents in the rebel stronghold where a ceasefire had halted a fierce army offensive two weeks ago.
Artillery fire battered Maarat al-Numan town and nearby vil-lages in the south Idlib coun-tryside over the past two days, after warplanes struck there on Thursday.
A rebel official said fighters were on high alert and had rein-forced the frontlines. “We are responding directly by target-ing the positions from where the shells are fired,” said Naji Mus-tafa of the National Liberation Front insurgent force.
Syria’s northwest corner, including the Idlib region, is the last major chunk of terri-tory still in rebel hands after more than eight years of war.
The ceasefire Damascus declared on Aug. 31 brought a lull in air strikes, after a five-month offensive which the United Nations says killed hun-dreds of people.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and his key ally Moscow have said they were responding to attacks by militants formerly linked to al-Qaeda.
Turkish President Tayyib Erdogan will host the presidents of Russia and Iran on Monday. Talks will focus on securing an Idlib truce, asserting control over jihadists there, and pre-venting a fresh refugee wave into Turkey.
In early August, another ceasefire had collapsed within three days, after which the army pressed its offensive and advanced along a main highway.
A senior Assad adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, described the ceasefire this month as a temporary means to serve the strategy of “liberating every inch” of the country.
Syrian state TV said on Sun-day that troops had opened a corridor for residents who want to cross out of insurgent terri-tory in Idlib towards army lines. It accused miiltants of prevent-ing people from leaving.
The Civil Defence, rescue workers operating in opposition territory, said artillery shelling on Idlib villages killed seven people since Friday.
Ankara, which backs some rebel factions in northwest Syria, brokered a “de-escala-tion” deal with Russia in 2017 that sought to curb fighting in Idlib. It does not cover jihadist militants. AGENCIES
Syrian govt artillery pounds south Idlib
Embattled Israeli PM fights for survival in do-over election
mp world 11MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 2019
LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted Sun-day that “huge” progress was being made in Brexit talks and declared Britain would break out of the European Union just like the comicbook hero Hulk.
The Conservative leader made the comments ahead of meetings with European Com-mission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and EU negotiator Michel Barnier in Luxembourg on Monday.
In an interview with the Mail on Sunday newspaper, Johnson said he was “very con-fident” of getting a divorce deal at an EU summit on October 17, in time for Brexit on Octo-ber 31.
In an odd analogy, he com-pared Britain to the comic book character Hulk.
“The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets and he always escaped, no matter how tightly bound in he seemed to be — and that is the case for this country,” he said.
But Johnson is facing oppo-sition in parliament to his threat to leave the EU without a deal next month if his nego-tiations fail.
On Saturday night, one of his Conservative MPs defected to the pro-European Liberal Democrats. Former universi-
ties minister Sam Gyimah, who has called for a re-run of the 2016 Brexit referendum, con-demned Johnson for “veering towards populism”.
Meanwhile former prime minister David Cameron, who led the failed campaign to stay in the EU in 2016, accused Johnson in his memoirs of only pursuing Brexit out of political ambition.
The turmoil comes ahead of another crucial week, as the Supreme Court considers the legality of Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament earlier this month until October 14.
Johnson was a leading “Leave” campaigner in the ref-erendum, and took office in
July promising to deliver Brexit no matter what.
He wants to renegotiate the terms struck by his predecessor Theresa May, which MPs have rejected, but EU leaders have so far refused.
He told the Mail there was a “very good conversation” going on about the key sticking point, the issue of the Irish border.
“A huge amount of progress is being made,” he said.
Much of the opposition in London to the current Brexit deal is focused on the so-called backstop plan to keep open the Irish border.
It could keep Britain indefi-nitely tied to EU trade rules to avoid frontier checks between
British Northern and EU mem-ber Ireland.
Brexit minister Steve Bar-clay insisted “the backstop needs to go”, but fuelled specu-lation that an alternative might be taking shape. “We can see a landing zone in terms of a future deal but there is signifi-cant work still to do,” he told Sky News television on Sunday.
“The talks tomorrow will be an important step forward as part of that and they build on significant discussions that have been happening at a tech-nical level.”
Johnson repeated that “under no circumstances” would he delay Brexit.
However, he may have no choice after MPs last week passed a law to postpone until January if he does not get a divorce deal by the EU summit.
Twenty-one Conserva-tives rebelled to back the law and were expelled from the party, leaving Johnson with-out a majority in the House of Commons. One of the rebels was Gyimah, who becomes the Lib Dems’ 18th MP in the 650-seat chamber.
The 43-year-old was once viewed as a rising star in the Conservatives and briefly ran against Johnson for the party leadership.
But he said Johnson had left moderates like him with a “stark choice... to accept a no deal Brexit or walk away from public life”.
He told The Observer news-paper: “It is beyond Brexit -- how you conduct politics and the veering towards populism and English nationalism.”
Johnson also suffered fresh criticism from his predecessor, Cameron, whose memoir “For The Record”, was serialised in the Sunday Times ahead of its publication on Thursday.
Cameron said Johnson only backed Brexit because he believed it would make him the “darling” of the Tory party, thus positioning him for power. He said he “risked an outcome he didn’t believe in because it would help his political career”.
Cameron also accused Johnson and fellow Brexit cam-paigner Michael Gove, now a top minister, of “becoming ambassadors for the expert-trashing, truth-twisting age of populism”.
He condemned claims they made about the savings Brit-ain would make by ending its EU membership, and of the likelihood of Turkey joining the bloc. “Leave was lying,” he wrote. AGENCIES
Under fire UK PM calls up Hulk, claims ‘huge’ Brexit progress
Johnson leader made the comments ahead of meetings with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker & EU negotiator Michel Barnier in Luxembourg on Monday
LONDON: One of Britain’s most outspoken MPs on the Kashmir issue Bob Black-man has called on Pakistan to leave Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, asserting that India has a sovereign right over the entire region.
Addressing a UK-based Kashmiri Pandit gathering organised here on Saturday, the Conservative Party MP countered the Pakistani gov-ernment’s plan to move a United Nations resolution in the wake of India’s August 5 decision to revoke Article 370 of its Consti-tution and end the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
“The entirety of the state of Jammu and Kashmir is part of sovereign India, and people that ask for UN resolution to be implemented ignore the first resolution, which is that Paki-stani military forces should leave Kashmir to re-unite the state,” Blackman said at the “Balidan Divas” or Day of Sacrifice event held in London.
Organised by the Kashmiri Pandits Cultural Society and All India Kashmiri Samaj (AIKS), the event involved a theatre production titled ‘We Remem-ber: The Journey of Kashmiri Pandits’. It was put together by children and friends of Brit-ain’s Kashmiri Pandit commu-nity to capture the sentiment behind the lost homes of many Kashmiris.
“A powerful performance by all the children in the play and the Bharatanatyam dance. Appreciate your commitment and support Bob Blackman,”
Indian High Commissioner to the UK Ruchi Ghanashyam said in a tweet. Blackman has been speaking out in favour of India since the decision to revoke Article 370 found echoes among Britain’s MPs.
The north London MP, who is also chair of the All Party Par-liamentary Group (APPG) on British Hindus, has been a long-time supporter of Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi.
He had also written to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson accusing Opposition Labour Party MPs of making provocative claims against India.
“I strongly support the revo-cation of Article 370 Narendra Modi has again shown proper
and strong leadership in hon-ouring the manifesto of the BJP now is the time to properly inte-grate Jammu and Kashmir into the Indian Constitution,” he said.
Tensions between India and Pakistan spiked after New Delhi ended Jammu and Kashmir’s special status on August 5 and bifurcated it into two Union Ter-ritories. Pakistan downgraded its diplomatic relations with India and expelled the Indian high commissioner following the revocation.
Asserting that the abro-gation of Article 370 was its “internal matter”, India has asked Pakistan to accept the reality. AGENCIES
J&K part of sovereign India, Pak should leave PoK: UK MP
Conservative Party UK MP Bob Blackman
Blackman has been speaking out in favour of India since the decision to revoke Article 370 found echoes among Britain’s MPs
JOLIET (Illinois, US): More than 2,000 medically preserved fetal remains have been found at the Illinois home of a former Indiana abortion clinic doctor who died last week, authori-ties said.
The Will County Sheriff ’s Office said in a news release late Friday that an attorney for Dr Ulrich Klopfer’s family con-tacted the coroner’s office Thurs-day about possible fetal remains being found at the home in an unincorporated part of Will County in northeastern Illinois.
The sheriff ’s office said authorities found 2,246 pre-served fetal remains but there’s no evidence medical procedures were performed at the home.
The coroner’s office took possession of the remains. An investigation is underway.
A message left Satur-day seeking additional com-ment on the discovery was not returned by the Will County Sheriff ’s Office investigations department.
Klopfer, who died Septem-ber 3, was a longtime doctor at an abortion clinic in South
Bend, Indiana. It closed after the state revoked the clinic’s license in 2015.
The Indiana State Depart-ment of Health had previously issued complaints against the clinic, accusing it of lacking a registry of patients, policies regarding medical abortion, and a governing body to deter-mine policies.
The state agency also accused the clinic of failing to document that patients get state-mandated education at least 18 hours before an abortion.
Klopfer was believed to be Indiana’s most prolific abortion doctor, with thousands of pro-cedures performed in multiple Indiana counties over several decades, the South Bend Tri-bune reported.
Mike Fichter, the president of Indiana Right to Life, said in a statement sent Friday night that “we are horrified” by the discovery of the fetal remains at Klopfer’s Illinois residence.
He called for Indiana authorities to help determine whether those remains have any connection to abortion opera-
tions in Indiana.“These sickening reports
underscore why the abortion industry must be held to the highest scrutiny,” Fichter said in the statement.
A message left Saturday by The Associated Press for a spokesman for Gov. Eric Hol-comb asking if Indiana offi-cials would investigate was not immediately returned.
Klopfer’s license was sus-pended by Indiana’s Medical Licensing Board in November 2016 after the panel found a number of violations, including a failure to ensure that quali-fied staff was present when patients received or recovered from medications given before and during abortion procedures.
Klopfer was no longer prac-ticing by that time, but he told the panel he had never lost a patient in 43 years of doing abortions and that he hoped to eventually re-open his clinics.
In June 2014, Klopfer was charged in St. Joseph County, Indiana, with a misdemeanor for failure to file a timely pub-lic report. AGENCIES
Over 2,000 fetal remains found at ex-abortion doctor’s home
TUNIS: Rarely has the outcome of an election been so uncertain in Tunisia, the cradle and par-tial success story of the Arab Spring, as some seven million voters head to the polls Sunday to choose from a crowded field.
Key players include media mogul Nabil Karoui, behind bars due to an ongoing money laundering probe, Abdelfattah Mourou, who heads a first-time bid for Islamist-inspired party Ennahdha, and Prime Minister Youssef Chahed.
The premier’s popularity has been tarnished by a slug-gish economy and a high cost of living, and he has found him-self having to vehemently deny accusations that Karoui’s deten-tion since late August is politi-cally inspired.
Some 13,000 polling booths opened across Tunisia at 8:00 am (0700 GMT) on Sunday, with two dozen candidates vying for a five-year mandate.
The election follows an intense campaign character-ised more by personality clashes than political differences.
It had been brought forward by the death in July of 92-year-old president Beji Caid Essebsi, whose widow also passed away on Sunday morning.
Essebsi had been elected in the wake of the 2011 revolt that overthrew former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Publication of opinion polls
has officially been banned since July, but one thing appears cer-tain: many voters remain unde-cided, due to the difficulty of reading a shifting political landscape.
“I am undecided between two candidates -- I will decide in the polling booth,” smiled one voter, Sofiene, who added: “honest candidates don’t have much chance of winning.” Prime Minister Chahed, after casting his vote, said he was “proud of this great event”.
“The world is watching. By tonight or tomorrow, Tunisia will be in good hands,” he added.
Some hopefuls have tried to burnish anti-establishment cre-dentials to distance themselves from a political elite discredited by personal quarrels.
One key newcomer is Kais Saied, a 61-year-old law profes-sor and expert on constitutional affairs, who has avoided attach-ing his bid to a political party.
Instead, he has gone door-to-door to drum up support for his conservative platform.
Another independent can-didate is Defence Minister Abdelkarim Zbidi, a technocrat who is running for the first time.
However, he has the backing of Essebsi’s Nidaa Tounes party.
The long list of candidates was cut slightly by the last-min-ute withdrawal of two candi-dates in favour of Zbidi: former political adviser Mohsen Mar-zouk and businessman Slim Riahi.
But Karoui’s detention, just 10 days ahead of the start of
campaigning, has been the top story of the election.
Studies suggest his arrest boosted his popularity.
A controversial business-man, Karoui built his appeal by using his Nessma television channel to launch charity cam-paigns, handing out food aid to some of the country’s poorest.
But his detractors portray him as a would-be Silvio Berlus-coni, the former Italian premier who they allege partly owns his channel.
On Friday, an appeal for the Tunisian mogul’s release from prison ahead of the election was rejected, his party and lawyers said, two days after his defence team announced he was on a hunger strike. The polarisation risks derailing the electoral pro-cess, according to Michael Ayari, an analyst for the International Crisis Group.
Isabelle Werenfels, a researcher at the German Insti-tute for International and Secu-rity Affairs, has called the vote a democratic “test” because “it may require accepting the vic-tory of a polarising candidate” such as Karoui.
Distrust of the political elite has been deepened by an unem-ployment rate of 15 percent and a rise in the cost of living by close to a third since 2016.
Jihadist attacks have exacted a heavy toll on the key tourism sector. AGENCIES
Tunisia heads to polls for tightly fought presidential contest
Current Tunisian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Youssef Chahed prepares to cast his ballot during the first round of the presidential election, in La Marsa, outside Tunis, Tunisia, Sunday PTI
KINSHASA: Thirty-six people are missing after a boat sank in the Congo river on the out-skirts of Kinshasa, DR Congo police said on Sunday.
The vessel, which was trav-elling to the capital, went down overnight in Maluku com-mune, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the centre of the city.
Seventy-six people sur-vived, police wrote on Twitter.
“The cause of the accident is not yet known,” police spokes-person Colonel Pierrot-Rom-baut Mwanamputu said.
Lake and river transport is widely used in Democratic Republic of Congo as the highway system is poor, but accidents are common, often caused by overloading and the unsafe state of vessels.
The boat involved was called a “baleiniere” or “whaler” — a commonly-used flat-bot-tomed vessel between 15 to 30 metres (50 to 100 feet) long by two to six metres wide.
In the vast majority of accidents, passengers are not equipped with life jackets and many cannot swim. AGENCIES
36 people missing after boat sinks in Congo river
WASHINGTON: US Presi-dent Donald Trump mounted an angry defense of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Sunday as the controversial judge faced calls for an investi-gation over fresh allegations of sexual misconduct.
Trump blasted the media and “Radical Left Democrats” after a former Yale classmate of Kavanaugh alleged that the jurist - one of the most senior judges in the land - exposed himself at a freshman year party before other students pushed his genitals into the hand of a female student.
The latest allegation in The New York Times came after Kavanaugh denied sexual mis-conduct accusations levelled against him by two women during his confirmation to the Supreme Court last October.
“Now the Radical Left Democrats and their Partner, the LameStream Media, are after Brett Kavanaugh again, talking loudly of their favourite word, impeachment,” Trump tweeted.
“He is an innocent man who has been treated HORRI-BLY. Such lies about him. They want to scare him into turning Liberal!” The new allegations came from Max Stier, who runs a non-profit in Washington.
His concerns were reported to the FBI during Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation process but not investigated, according to
the Times.Stier said he saw his former
classmate “with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”
Stier has not spoken pub-licly about the incident but his story was corroborated by two officials, the Times said.
It is the latest in a string of accusations of unwanted sexual contact or assault against Kava-naugh since Trump nominated him to the Supreme Court.
Christine Blasey Ford tes-tified before Congress that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the 1980s, while Deb-orah Ramirez told The New Yorker Kavanaugh had waved his penis in front of her face at a 1980s dormitory party.
The latest allegation sur-faced during a 10-month inves-tigation by Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly,
and features in their upcoming book, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.”
Trump called on Kavana-ugh to take legal action over the claims, suggesting also that the Department of Justice should intervene on the judge’s behalf and “come to his rescue.”
But Democrats seeking to be Trump’s opponent in the 2020 election called for the judge to be investigated.
“Brett Kavanaugh’s con-firmation is a shame to the Supreme Court. This latest allegation of assault must be investigated,” former housing secretary and Democratic pres-idential candidate Julian Castro tweeted.
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobouchar, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who was involved in a heated exchange with Kavanaugh dur-ing his confirmation, described the process as a “sham.” AGENCIES
HARARE: A group of Zimba-bwean doctors marched at the country’s biggest hospital Sun-day, demanding the release of one of their leaders who they say was abducted after calling for a pay strike.
Several government crit-ics, including a comedian and a teachers’ union leader, have in recent weeks been abducted from their homes, tortured and warned by suspected state secu-rity agents to back off from anti-government actions.
The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association said its president Peter Magombeyi was abducted Saturday, days after receiving threats on his phone.
It was reported as the world’s attention is on the southern African nation and the upcom-ing burial of former leader Rob-ert Mugabe.
Magombeyi sent a message Saturday night alerting col-leagues that three unidentified men were forcibly taking him away, said Masimba Ndoro, vice president of the association,
which represents hundreds of newly qualified doctors who are doing their residencies.
“Efforts to locate him have been unsuccessful since then. We demand to know his where-abouts, we demand his release,” Ndoro said. Police spokesman Paul Nyathi said he was yet to receive details of the case.
Magombeyi had complained of the poor state of Zimbabwe’s hospitals and staffers’ low sala-ries in interviews with several foreign journalists. The doctors, who earn less than USD 40 a month, are demanding a review of their salaries and allowances.
About two dozen doctors gathered at Parirenyatwa Hospi-tal in the capital, Harare, where they sang and chanted slogans denouncing Magombeyi’s abduction and demanding his release.
“Abductions will not work,” read one placard. “Free Dr Magombeyi unharmed now,” demanded another and a third said “No Peter, No Negotiation.” AGENCIES
Trump defends SC justice over fresh misconduct claim
Zimbabwe: Doctors protest against union
leader’s abduction PALANGKA RAYA: Schools in two cities in the Indonesian part of Borneo island will be closed for a week after smoke from for-est fires caused air quality to hit “dangerous” levels, a local gov-ernment official said on Sunday.
Indonesia and neighbor-ing countries in Southeast Asia are regularly hit by smoke from slash-and-burn clearances of forests for farms and palm oil plantations, but conditions this year have been the worst since 2015 due to an El Nino weather pattern causing an extended dry spell.
The air pollution index in Palangka Raya, the capital of Borneo’s Central Kalimantan province, hit 500, or “danger-ous”, on Sunday, data from Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Ministry showed. Any reading above 100 is considered “unhealthy”. An official said on Sunday that schools in Palangka Raya and another city, Sampit, would be shut next week, in line with instructions circulated by Central Kalimantan’s governor on Friday.
“From our observation, the
smoke is very thick in Palangka Raya and Sampit,” Slamet Winaryo, the head of Central Kalimantan’s education agency, said by telephone.
“We have decided to give one week off from Monday to Saturday for the students in both locations,” he said. He did not say how many pupils or schools would be affected. Winaryo said other schools in Central Kali-mantan would start half an hour later, at 0730 local time. Schools have also been advised to cut the duration for each class into 30-minute periods.
Indonesia’s environment minister said on Friday some
forest fires in its territory had started on land used by subsid-iaries of Malaysian companies, as the neighbors traded blame for blazes that have spread haze across the region.
A Reuters photographer in Palangka Raya said visibility was down to around 50 meters.
Air Visual - an independent online air quality index (AQI) monitor - showed the city’s air quality has been “hazardous” since Friday.
Indonesian authorities have urged Central Kalimantan res-idents to refrain from outdoor activities or to wear a mask due to the severe pollution. AGENCIES
Indonesia:‘Dangerous’ air pollution in Borneo leads to school closures
mp businessMILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 2019
12
NEW DELHI: Air India posted an operating loss of around Rs 4,600 crore in the last financial year mainly due to higher oil prices and foreign exchange losses but the debt-laden car-rier expects to turn opera-tionally profitable in 2019-20, according to senior officials.
Reflecting tough business conditions, the airline's net loss stood at about Rs 8,400 crore while total revenues touched around Rs 26,400 crore in 2018-19, one of the senior offi-cials said.
Another senior official said the airline is projected to post an operating profit of Rs 700 to 800 crore in 2019-20, provided oil prices do not shoot up sig-nificantly and there is no steep fluctuation in foreign exchange rates.
However, the airline incurred an operating loss of Rs 175 to 200 crore in the three months ended June as closure of Pakistan airspace for Indian carriers resulted in higher costs and caused a daily loss of Rs 3 to 4 crore when the restric-tions were in place, the official said.
Air India had a loss of Rs 430 crore in the four-month
period when Pakistan closed its airspace after the Balakot air strikes.
The official noted that load factor and yields are improv-ing for Air India, which cur-rently flies to 41 international and 72 domestic destinations. Load factor is a measure of seat occupancy and yield refers to average fare paid per passenger.
The situation is anticipated to improve further as more wide-body planes would be available for operations in the coming months, the official added. Air India had grounded several of its wide-body aircraft for maintenance and most of them are in the process of being re-inducted into the fleet.
Air India is to start flying
to Toronto from September 27 and to Nairobi in November.
The airline has a debt bur-den of more than Rs 58,000 crore and servicing the loans is a major challenge as the annual outgo is more than Rs 4,000 crore.
The official who was quoted first said the carrier is facing a financial crisis and disinvest-
ment is the option.Aviation consultancy CAPA
South Asia CEO and Direc-tor Kapil Kaul said Air India's financial position is likely to "significantly improve" in the current financial year.
"CAPA expects a closer to break-even in FY 20 excluding increased costs incurred due to closure of Pakistan airspace. With oil prices expected to stay below $60, expect a closer to break-even for Air India in FY 20, he said.
Noting that improved financial performance would be a positive for divestment, Kaul said a fully divested Air India that is well capitalised and with improved governance and management would ensure that the airline has a relevant future.
India needs a stronger Air India which is viable without taxpayers' support, he added.
The government has decided on disinvestment of Air India as part of efforts to revive its fortunes. Air India, which has been in the red for long, was sanctioned a nearly Rs 30,000 crore bailout pack-age for a 10-year period by the UPA regime in 2012. PTI
NEW DELHI: With an aim to unearth financial irregularities and other fraudulent transac-tions at listed companies, cap-ital market regulator Sebi is planning to set up a new whis-tle-blower mechanism for audi-tors and other 'gate-keepers' to report such cases.
The proposed move assumes significance in the wake of several auditors in the recent past decided to exit from their audit mandate after certain listed companies failed to take remedial actions despite finan-cial wrongdoings having been flagged in their auditors' obser-vations. Officials said most of these auditor exits have taken place at a much later stage, but a 'confidentiality mechanism' can help in cases of financial frauds being reported at an early stage by auditors, independent direc-tors and others considered to be 'gate-keepers' or 'conscience keepers'.
Regulators and enforcement agencies have often stressed that auditors, independent directors, investment bankers, valuers and other such entities have a greater responsibility to ensure compli-ance to regulations and safe-guard the interest by minority shareholders. While Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has announced a new mechanism to reward infor-mants with up to Rs 1 crore cash for any credible inside infor-mation for providing informa-tion on insider trading at listed companies, this is not appli-cable to corporate entities and
professionals such as auditors and lawyers. While there were suggestions from some quar-ters that auditors, lawyers and consultants on behalf of their firms should also be allowed to avail the 'informant mecha-nism', Sebi was of the view that corporate entities were as such under a duty to report.
Besides, lawyers are bound of confidentiality and it would considered unethical for them to complain against their clients.
"However, as far as gate-keepers such as auditors are considered, a separate confi-dentiality mechanism is being proposed," a top official said.
The proposal is in early stages as of now and a final deci-sion would be taken only after a detailed consultation process with all the concerned stake-holders, the official added.
The proposed mechanism may cover all kinds of financial irregularities and fraudulent activities, unlike the 'informant mechanism' which is limited to the cases of insider trading.
During the earlier consul-
tation process for the 'infor-mant mechanism', it was also proposed that disgruntled employees and those facing complaints from the concerned entities should not be allowed to become an informant.
However, Sebi rejected the suggestion while observing that such people could be actually best possible sources for pro-viding an evidence which was otherwise difficult to obtain.
However, Sebi has put in place sufficient safeguard to weed out unwanted tip-offs and frivolous information.
Officials said it is imperative for Sebi to employ all legitimate means to detect any wrongdoing and initiate action at the earli-est to instill confidence among investors and ensure integrity of the market. But, Sebi faces sev-eral challenges in establishing links and procuring proof while probing cases like insider trad-ing and other fraudulent activi-ties, due to which investigation into such cases takes much lon-ger time than in other cases of market manipulation. PTI
NEW DELHI: With just over three months to go for the year-end, only 11 companies have hit the capital markets so far in 2019 garnering over Rs 10,000 crore through initial share sales, much lower than 24 firms rais-ing Rs 30,959 crore in entire 2018.
The initial public offering (IPO) market is expected to remain challenging for the next few months as well due to vola-tility in markets on account of global and domestic factors, marketmen said.
"The IPO market will con-tinue to remain tough during the year. There has been steep correction in valuation of mid and small cap stocks, which deters the primary market," Reliance Securities Head of Research Naveen Kulkarni said.
So far this year, 11 firms have gone public collecting a total of Rs 10,300 crore through
IPOs, as compared to 24 com-panies that raised Rs 30,959 crore in entire 2018, data avail-able with the stock exchanges showed.
In 2017, as many as 36 firms mopped-up a record amount of over Rs 68,000 crore through initial share-sales.
The funds have been raised for business expansion plans, loan repayments and working capital, while a large amount raised from IPOs also went to the promoters, private equity firms and other existing share-holders for part or full sale of their stakes.
Market experts attributed the lower fund raising through IPOs to several factors, includ-ing trade war between the US and China, poor market senti-ments and depreciating Indian currency.
"As compared to a high point reached in 2017, the
number of IPOs has been on a decline in 2018 and in 2019. This is a consequence of sev-eral factors that have dampened investor interest in the primary capital markets over the last 12-18 months," said Mukund Rangnathan, Executive Direc-tor- Motilal Oswal Investment Banking.
"Given that out of 90 com-panies that filed DRHP (Draft
Red Herring Prospectus) in the past year, only a very small number have been able to suc-cessfully complete their IPO, naturally companies are look-ing at alternatives other than IPO market to meet their requirements. Hence, we are not seeing as many DRHP fil-ings as one would expect when the markets are more condu-cive for IPOs," he added.
Rangnathan further said," We are almost half way through the second half of the year and based on the current environ-ment, we are not seeing a sig-nificant uptick in IPO activity in the current year. Sentiment amongst investors and recep-tivity to new issues will have to materially improve before we start seeing activity volumes in the IPO market."
Companies that came out with their IPOs in 2019 included Sterling & Wilson Solar, Spandana Sphoorty Financial, Affle India, Cha-let Hotels, Rail Vikas Nigam, Metropolis Healthcare and Polycab India.
Interestingly, shares of most companies that got listed in 2019 are trading above their issue prices and experts said gains could be because of "ade-quate pricing".
A total of 23 companies
have approached capital mar-kets regulator Sebi for raising funds through IPOs in this year so far. In comparison, a stagger-ing 90 firms filed draft papers with the regulator in all of 2018, according to Sebi data.
Besides, there are dozens of firms that have already secured Sebi's go ahead to launch IPOs but they are not keen to go pub-lic this year. In fact, the regula-tor's approval for some of them may expire in the next couple of months.
Lack of investors' appetite for IPOs and volatile equity market conditions are forcing companies to postpone their plans. As per Sebi's regulations, a firm gets one year to hit the primary market after receiving approval from the markets reg-ulator. In case a firm fails to do so during this period, it has to refile the prospectus with Sebi seeking fresh clearance. PTI
Air India posts ̀ 4,600 cr operating loss in 2018-19The airline is projected to post an operating profit of up to Rs 800 crore in 2019-20, provided oil prices do not shoot up significantly and there is no steep change in foreign exchange rates
Sebi mulls new whistle-blower mechanism to stem auditor exits
Dry spell in IPO market: Only 11 cos hit bourses this year
NEW DELHI: The govern-ment is considering measures to improve the financial health of State Trading Corporation (STC), a public sector unit under the commerce ministry, according to sources.
The measures, which are under consideration, include provision of adequate time for STC to repay bank loans and sale of immovable assets.
"The steps have been dis-cussed among commerce minis-try, finance ministry and banks," the sources said. As per the pro-posal, STC could be given a five-year time for repayment of Rs 500 crore. Besides, banks would be asked to withdraw cases filed by them in the National Com-pany Law Tribunal (NCLT) to recover their dues. Accord-ing to STC's annual report for 2018-19, the company is facing "severe liquidity crisis" as all the lender banks have reported STC's account as NPA due to non-payment of interest on the banking limits availed by the company".
Therefore, at present, the company has no banking limits, funded or non-funded, avail-able with it. The company has reported a net loss (after tax) of Rs 881 crore during 2018-19 as compared to net profit (after tax) of about Rs 38 crore in 2017-18. The net loss reported in 018-19 was mainly due to write-offs amounting to about Rs 626 crore made in the books of accounts. "Out of the total dues of about Rs 1,906 crore (as on 31.12.2018) crystallized with the lender banks, an amount of Rs 1,100 crore has already been paid by STC to the lender banks," as per the report. PTI
Govt mulls measures to
improve financial health of STC
NEW DELHI: Auto-makers Maruti Suzuki India and Tata Motors' domestic passenger vehicle market share declined in April-August this year, while Hyundai and M&M witnessed gain in the same period, as per data compiled by industry body SIAM.
The country's largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) saw its market share dip by over 2 percentage points dur-ing the period under review and slip below 50 per cent in the domestic passenger vehicle segment in April-August.
The company sold 5,55,064 units this fiscal as compared with 7,57,289 units during April-August previous year. Its market share has come down from 52.16 per cent last year to 49.83 per cent in the April-August this fiscal.
Overall PV sales during the April-August of the current fis-cal stands at 11,09,930 units as compared to 14,51,647 units.
When contacted MSI exec-utive director (marketing and sales) Shashank Srivastava said that while cars and vans (A and C segment) have per-formed well, there has been a drop in sales of utility vehicles (B segment).
"This is because of constraint in supply of Ertiga having a large waiting period," he added.
Besides, there is a shift in consumer preference in SUV segment towards petrol where currently the company does not have a variant, Srivastava said adding that MSI plans to introduce petrol variants of Vitara Brezza and S-Cross BS-VI later this fiscal. Similarly, Tata Motors has reported sales of 60,093 units this fiscal so far
as against 98,702 units last year. Its market share has fallen by 1.39 percentage points to 5.41 per cent in the current fiscal as against 6.79 per cent last year.
On the other hand, Hyun-dai Motor India saw its market share go up by 2.77 percentage points in the April-August this year. The company sold a total of 2,03,729 units this fiscal as com-pared to 2,26,396 units.
Despite selling less this fis-cal, the company's market share has risen from 15.59 per cent last fiscal to 18.36 per cent.
"2019 is a milestone year for Hyundai Motor India as we launched three products in three different segments...the new launches have led to increase in customer traction, footfalls in showrooms and mar-ket share," Hyundai Motor India Ltd National Sales Head Vikas Jain said.
Similarly, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) sold 89,733 units this fiscal so far as com-pared with 1,00,015 units in April-August last financial year, still its market share has risen by 1.19 percentage points this fis-cal to 8.08 per cent from 6.89 per cent. Likewise, Toyota Kir-loskar Motor sold 53,977 units this fiscal so far as against 67,051
unitsin the same period previ-ous year. Its market share rose to 4.86 per cent from 4.62 per cent earlier.
Other players like Renault India, Skoda Auto, Volkswagen India saw their market shares increase marginally during April-August this year. Honda Cars sold 51,569 units as com-pared to 79,599 units last year, shrinking its market share mar-ginally to 4.64 per cent this fiscal as against 5.48 per cent in the same period last fiscal.
Similarly, Ford India saw its market share go down margin-ally to 2.7 per cent from 2.81 per cent in April-August last year. It sold 30,010 units this year as against 40,799 units.
Nissan Motor India saw its market share dip to 0.73 per cent this fiscal as against 1.14 per cent in the year-ago period. The com-pany sold a total of 8,070 units so far this fiscal as compared to 16,515 units.
Newcomers Kia Motors and MG Motor India saw their mar-ket share in the PV segment at 0.56 per cent and 0.32 per cent, respectively, this fiscal so far. Kia Motors overall wholesales stood at 6,236 units during the April-August period as compared with MG Motor's 3,526 units. PTI
MSI's PV market share shrinks in Apr-Aug; Hyundai, Mahindra gain
LEH: The largest lender State Bank of India will be seeking clarifications from the Reserve Bank whether it can offer long-term home loans with fixed rates in the beginning and convert the same into float-ing rates later, chairman Rajnish Kumar has said.
The move comes after the Reserve Bank has mandated banks to shift all retail lend-ing to floating rates that will be determined by external benchmarks like the repo rate.
Kumar said there is a lack of clarity on how it can go ahead with the fixed rate products, after the RBI's new regulations on floating rates.
Hinting at the volatility in the repo rate, he said some home buyers may want their loan rates to be fixed.
For such buyers, it can offer a 'fixed-floating' product, wherein the rates are locked in for an initial period of say five to ten years, and then turns floating.
The need for making the product float-ing in the latter part arises out of the bank's inability to project the liability movements in the future, he said, adding typically, home loans are for about 30 years.
It can be noted that the repo rate at which the central bank lends to the sys-tem is at a nine-year low of 5.40 per cent.
Speaking to reporters here over the
weekend, Kumar said the central bank's recent guidelines on floating rate products for the retail segment has necessitated the need for the clarity.
Kumar has clarified that from an asset liability management perspective, it is dif-ficult to have a fixed rate product for a long term like 30 years, the maximum tenor of a home loan now from the bank now. Some private sector peers offer up to 35 years of home loans depending on in the age of the borrower, though.
At present, SBI has a floating rate home loan product linked to its marginal cost of funds-based lending rate and it recently withdrew one linked to the repo rate. It does not have a fixed rate home loan prod-uct at present.
As of now, under the marginal cost of funds based lending, floating rate loans
are re-set as when the interest rates fall or rise, but fixed rate loans are reset in 9-12 months. But when the loans are linked to the repo rate, the rates can change sharply, depending on how RBI acts on the rate front.
Many mortgage borrowers normally choose fixed rates, as that helps them bet-ter manage their finances because of the certainty about the EMI outgoes.
Kumar said the bank does not have adequate liabilities linked to the floating rate which makes such a floating prod-uct difficult.
Speaking on the RBI-mandated sys-temic shift to external benchmarked lend-ing rates, he said SBI will have minimal issues with the same.
He said the industry leader was the first to move on to the repo-linked loans and deposits since May, and has many of its products aligned to the external bench-marks now.
However, he said such shifts make asset liability management "challenging" as there lack of floating rate liabilities now.
About the impact of the mega bank mergers on SBI, he said it will not impact the nation's largest bank as SBI has speci-fied business model and target segments, and will continue with the same. PTI
SBI to move RBI to offer fixed-floating rate home-loans: Chairman R Kumar
SBI shelves IPO plans for general insurance armLEH: The largest lender State Bank has dropped its plan to take its general insurance arm public as there is no need for additional capital now, chairman Rajnish Kumar has said. Investor in-terest for its cards business is very high, and SBI Card listing will happen in the March quarter, he said. The bank was earlier looking for an IPO for SBI General Insurance in FY21. When asked if the IPO for general insurance will happen next fiscal, Kumar replied in the negative, saying there is no need for capital. PTI
NEW DELHI: Incentives announced by the government will help in boosting the coun-try's exports at a time when there are signs of worsening global economic conditions and it will help in boosting out-bound shipments, according to exporters.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said the new measures announced for the sector in form of incentives and refund of taxes will not only go a long way in enhancing the growth prospects in the short-term but will also give it a much needed boost in the medium-term and long-term.
FIEO President Sharad Kumar Saraf said the new scheme of Remission of Duties or Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP) with revenue burden of up to Rs 50,000 crore for the government, looks attractive as it will neutralise all duties and levies suffered by the export products.
Giving three months lead time till 31st December to the existing incentive scheme MEIS (Exports from India Scheme) will remove the uncertainty creeping in the minds of the exporters and will greatly help to finalise their export orders, Saraf said.
Sharing similar views, world trade information pro-vider Connect2India founder and CEO Pawan Gupta said there are two big roadblocks to
expansion of global trade today, one is lack of easy availability of working capital and the other is inefficiencies and delay.
"Its good to see that govern-ment is focusing to provide solu-tion for both these issues. The usage of technology to reduce the time to export and make export more seamless is a good initiative that would help make our exports more competitive," he said.
Expanding the scope of Export Credit Insurance Scheme (ECIS) by Export Credit Guarantee commission (ECGC) to offer higher insurance cover to banks lending working capital for exports, is a step that should help MSMEs facing liquidity issues for exports, he added.
"The announcement regard-ing introduction of RoDTEP from January 1, 2020, with allo-cation of Rs 50,000 crore, will help alleviate these concerns and would help MSMEs to remain in a competitive market. The new scheme will benefit the export-ers, especially MSME export-ers as well as encourage first time exporters to explore global opportunities," he added. PTI
‘Incentives for exports to boost shipments’
MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 201913mp business
NEW DELHI: The outstand-ing dues of distribution utili-ties from power producers have risen by more than 57 per cent to Rs 73,748 crore in July 2019 compared to the same month last year, showing stress in the sector.
According to PRAAPTI portal, distribution companies owed a total of Rs 46,779 crore to power generation companies in July 2018.
The portal was launched in May 2018 to bring transparency in power purchase transactions between generators and dis-coms (distribution companies).
In July this year, total over-due amount, which was not cleared even after 60 days of grace period offered by gener-ators, stood at Rs 54,342 crore as against Rs 30,331 crore in the same month in 2018.
Power producers give 60 days time to discoms for paying bills for the supply of electric-ity. After that, the outstanding becomes overdue and genera-tors charge penal interest on that in most of the cases.
In order to give relief to power generation companies, the Centre has enforced a pay-ment security mechanism from August 1. Under this mecha-nism, discoms are required to open letters of credit for getting power supply.
The data on the portal indi-cates that the outstanding as well as overdue amount have increased over the preceding month. In June 2019, the total outstanding on discoms was Rs 69,905 crore, while the total overdue amount was Rs 51,748
crore.The June 2019 figures of
dues and overdues have been revised upwards from Rs 46,412 crore and Rs 30,552 crore pro-visional numbers released last month on the portal.
Discoms in Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Telan-gana, Andhra Pradesh and Kar-nataka account for the major portion of dues to power gen-erating companies, taking a lon-ger duration of up to 820 days to make payments, the portal showed.
Rajasthan and Bihar top the list with 820 days to make pay-ments, followed by Haryana (818 days), Andhra Pradesh (818 days), Madhya Pradesh (805 days), Telangana (798 days), Karnataka (792 days) and Tamil Nadu (791 days) in that order.
Overdues of independent power producers amount to over 23.57 per cent of the total overdue of Rs 54,342 crore on discoms.
Among the central public sector power generators, NTPC alone has an overdue amount of Rs 7,778.38 crore on discoms, followed by NLC India at Rs 4,693.48 crore, THDC India at Rs 1,954.24 crore, NHPC at Rs 1,613.84 crore and Damo-dar Valley Corporation at Rs 786.69 crore.
Among private genera-tors, discoms owe the highest overdue of Rs 3,201.68 crore to Adani Power, followed by Bajaj Group-owned Lalitpur Power Generation Company Ltd at Rs 2,212.66 crore and GMR at Rs 1,733.18 crore. PTI
RIYADH: Saudi energy giant Aramco is battling to reas-sure markets after devastat-ing attacks on two oil plants, where a prolonged shutdown risks roiling investor confi-dence ahead of the state-owned giant's mega stock listing, ana-lysts say.
A wave of drones struck Abqaiq — the world's largest oil processing facility — and the Khurais oil field in eastern Saudi Arabia, knocking out nearly half of the kingdom's crude production and exposing the vulnerability of its energy infrastructure.
While Tehran-backed Yemeni rebels claimed respon-sibility for the pre-dawn strike on Saturday, Washington blamed Iran for what it called an "unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply".
It is a major test for the king-dom's newly appointed energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman — a half-brother to the crown prince — as the attacks could dampen investor confi-dence in Aramco's upcoming two-stage stock market debut.
The attacks have effectively turned off six percent of the global oil supply, raising the possibility of a spike in prices when markets re-open on Mon-
day — even as Aramco said it will tap into its reserve stock-piles to offset the disruption.
"The worst case scenario (for pushing oil prices higher) is an incident that takes a large amount of oil production offline in Saudi Arabia," said energy expert Robert Rapier.
"If they can get production back online pretty quickly — or at least assure the markets they can — you might not see an enormous price spike," Rapier wrote for Forbes online.
But the full extent of the damage at the plants and how long it will take to repair is unclear, with analysts warning that an absence of information could fuel trader speculation.
Saudi authorities, known for their penchant for secrecy, have not allowed reporters near the plants where security has been tightened since the attacks.
Saudi shares dropped 3 per cent at the start of trading Sun-day, the first session after drone attacks on two major oil facili-ties knocked out more than half the kingdom's production.
The Arab world's largest capital market shed some 200 points in the first few minutes after the opening bell, before regaining some of the losses.
The key energy sector plunged 4.7 per cent, while the telecom and banking sectors each slid three per cent.
Seeking to soothe market jitters, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser has said "work is under-way to regain the (lost) produc-tion quantities".
Bloomberg News reported that Aramco expects to restart most of the operations "within days". "Saudi Arabia has plenty of oil stored to fulfil customer
demands and don't think Aramco will lose money over this," said Ellen Wald, author of the book "Saudi Inc.".
"This isn't a company that has to pump and sell to make payroll like a tiny fracking outfit."
Saudi Arabia is known to have vast underground storage facilities with a capacity of tens of millions of barrels of vari-ous refined petroleum prod-ucts that can be tapped during
times of crisis."All key facilities in the
world are exposed to terror-ism, so the point here for inves-tors will be to judge Aramco on the speed of recovery from such attacks," said Ali Shihabi, founder of the now-shuttered pro-Saudi think-tank Arabia Foundation.
"They have certainly been planning for such eventualities for decades."
The strikes are unlikely to derail the much-touted initial public offering (IPO), but it could undermine investor con-fidence in the mammoth listing that the government hopes will raise up to $100 billion. It could also impact its valuation.
The IPO, earlier scheduled for 2018, has already been mired in delays as it report-edly struggled to reach a $2 trillion valuation desired by Saudi rulers.
"Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman will push the com-pany to demonstrate that it can effectively tackle terrorism or war challenges," said Eurasia Group analyst Ayham Kamel.
"(But) the attacks could complicate Aramco's IPO plans given rising security risks and potential impact on its valu-ation." For many traders, the
temporary loss of production is secondary.
The use of seemingly low-grade drones to strike the world's most profitable com-pany highlights the easy vul-nerability of oil infrastructure in the kingdom, which has splurged billions on sophisti-cated defence equipment.
Unlike other major sup-pliers like the US and Russia, which rely on numerous pro-ducers spread out over large geographical areas, Saudi Ara-bia's production is reliant on a single entity — Aramco.
This leaves the world's top oil exporter comparably more vulnerable to a crippling pro-duction shutdown in the event of an attack, experts say.
The Abqaiq plant — seen as the crown jewel of the king-dom's oil infrastructure with a capacity of more than seven million barrels per day — is the "most vulnerable" among Saudi sites, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report.
"Abqaiq is the heart of the system and they just had a heart attack," said Roger Diwan, an energy expert at consultant IHS Markit was quoted as saying by Bloomberg News. PTI
Saudi Arabia battles market jitters after oil plant attacks
The attacks have effectively turned off six percent of the global oil supply, raising the possibility of a spike in prices when markets re-open today
Saudi shares dropped 3% at the start of trading Sunday. It shed some 200 points in the first few minutes after the opening bell, before regaining some of the losses
Power gencos dues on discoms up 57% to ̀ 73K cr in July
NEW DELHI: The latest measures announced by the Finance Minister in the field of real estate and exports would help provide stimulus to the slowing economy, industry FICCI President Sandip Somany said on Sunday.
The industry body welcomed the government's move a day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced steps to help the nearly stalled real estate sector and increase India's exports. Sitharaman on Satur-day announced a fresh set of measures worth around Rs 60,000 crore to boost exports and the housing sector.
"These new measures will provide much-needed stimulus to boost the Indian economy that is now facing the slowdown," Somany said.
In a statement, Somany also said that the relaxation of external com-mercial borrowing (ECB) guidelines for affordable housing and reduc-tion in interest on 'Housing Building
Allowance' in line with the 10-year Government-Securities yield is a major step towards achieving the target of the 'Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana' (PMAY).
"Provision of Rs 10,000 crore to provide last-mile funding for comple-tion of the ongoing housing projects (which are not NPAs or facing bank-ruptcy proceedings under NCLT) is certainly a major push to resolve the problem of stalled projects in the country," he said.
Sitharaman on Saturday announced that there would be a special window for affordable and middle-income housing to provide last-mile funding for housing projects which are not under the insolvency process in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), and not declared non-performing assets (NPAs or bad loans) to complete unfinished projects.
For this, a fund of Rs 10,000 crore
would be contributed by the gov-ernment and "roughly the same size by outside investors", the minister announced.
The key measures for exports include extending the scheme of reimbursement of taxes and duties for export promotion, fully automated electronic refund for input tax credits (ITC) in GST, revised priority sec-tor lending norms for exports and expanding the scope of Export Credit Insurance Scheme (ECIS).
Somany also expressed confidence that the initiatives of export-related incentives, finance, credit and facili-
tation will help in achieving a turn-around in India's exports which have declined by 6 per cent in August.
"The new scheme for Remission of Duties or Taxes on Export Product (RoDTEP) that will be effective from January 1, 2020, will go a long way in addressing the problem of non-compliance of our export promotion scheme," the FICCI President said.
"Fully automated electronic refund module for Input Tax Credits (ITC) in GST will speed up the ITC refund and ease the problem of working capital for exporters. Expanding the scope of Export Credit Insurance Scheme, moderation in premium incidence for MSME, and revised Priority Sec-tor Lending (PSL) norms for export credit are also encouraging features of the new package," he said.
Additional funding of Rs 36,000 crore to Rs 68,000 crore as export credit under the priority sector is also encouraging in the backdrop of recent
decline in export credits, he added.Somany also praised the idea of
annual mega shopping festivals for promoting exports of gems and jewel-lery, handicrafts, textiles, leather, yoga and tourism.
"In view of the critical importance of technical standards, the plan for expanding and developing afford-able testing and certification facilities under PPP (Public Private Partner-ship) mode will equip our engineer-ing goods exporters to align with the globally accepted tests and certifica-tion processes," he added.
He also welcomed the measures related to Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), in particular setting up of 'FTA Ultilisation Mission' as well as setting the goals for FTA ultilisation by Indian business.
"This is extremely crucial because so far Indian exporters have not uti-lised the existing FTAs in a major way," he said. IANS
NEW DELHI: In a setback for the mining industry, the gov-ernment is set to reject a pro-posal to extend non-captive mining leases of companies that are expiring after complet-ing 50 year period in March, 2020.
The move will impact about 334 mines belonging to compa-nies such as Tata Steel, Vedanta Limited, Essel Mining, V.M. Salgaocar and Rungta Mines in 10 states that are facing expiry of lease and closure by March next year under current regu-lations. Of these 46 working mining leases have a significant contribution to the production of iron ore, manganese ore and chromite ore in the country.
Sources said a high level committee (HLC) set upon by Niti Aayog to identify key chal-lenges of the sector and negate their impact has recommended that all existing mining lease of companies that have com-pleted 50 years of operation will expire on March 31, 2020 and these would then be allocated through an auction process to be conducted in the January-March. Government is set to implement these recommen-dations, sources said.
"The committee took note of the fact that these mines have known reserves and their
period of lease will come to an end on 31-03-2020 as per MMDR (Amendment) Act, 2015 was also known. The leg-islature had already given a time of 5 years to ward off any situation causing disruption in supplies to local industry. Therefore, extension of time for continued operation of these mines is not desirable," the committee has said in its report.
The mining industry had sought extension of leases of all operational non-captive mines for a period of of 10 years beyond 2020 with another 20 years extension to be consid-ered beyond this period. This, they felt, was necessary to pre-vent disruption in production while allowing full exploitation of resource available in a mine.
"Non-extension of lease of non-captive mines is a setback for the industry that is already facing a slowdown in demand and lower prices. This would also disrupt existing mining operations and put jobs of lakhs of workers under risk," said an executive of a private sector miner asking not to be named.
While disallowing exten-sion of mining leases, the HLC has said that post auction new leaseholders could continue operating on approved min-ing plan of previous leasehold-ers and environment clearance (EC) for an initial period of 2 years.
This will help in prevent-ing disruption in mineral pro-duction during the period of transition from one leaseholder
to other. Moreover, this would provide time to new lease-holder to apply for fresh envi-ronment and forestry clearance without facing delays.
The government is study-ing the recommendations of the HLC and will soon come up with an action plan includ-ing further amendments to the Mines and Minerals (Develop-ment and Regulation) Act. The HLC is chaired by Niti Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar and consists of the cabinet secre-tary and secretaries of mines, steel, coal, revenue and finance. The committee was set up in April on mines, minerals and coal sectors to identify key challenges and negate their impact. It has given its report to the Centre. IANS
BHUBANESWAR: Employ-ees of crisis-ridden Neelachal Ispat Nigam Limited (NINL) in Odisha on Sunday urged the Centre to immediately ask psu steel major like Steel Authority of India (SAIL) to run the plant.
Lack of working capital has led to shut down of major units like Steel Melting Shop (SMS) and blast furnace of the plant at Kalinga Nagar steel hub, Neelachal Executive Associa-tion (NEA) president Subash Chandra Sahoo said.
"Immediate steps must be taken for the resumption of nor-mal operations at the plant and we urge the Central government to direct psu steel major like SAIL to run the plant during the transition period," Sahoo said.
The NEA president in a statement said "Severe liquidity crunch has forced the authori-ties to suspend production at the plant though coke oven is operating with 40 to 43 per cent capacity as it has to run contin-uously to prevent permanent damage."
He said NINL plunged into crisis as MMTC, which holds the majority stake of 49.6 per cent in the company, has decided to divest its share and allegedly stopped infusion of working capital for running of the plant since last June.
As a result, equipment condition is fast deteriorat-ing because of the shutdown and reduced capacity utilisa-tion, while interest burden to the company is more than 1 crore per day and its net worth is going down, Sahoo said.
"Now that the main pro-moter MMTC has decided to quit NINL, it will be prudent to review the proposal to merge it with steel behemoth SAIL," he said. PTI
NEW DELHI: Reliance Indus-tries and UK's BP plc have taken over the 10 per cent shareholding of their partner Niko Resources in the eastern offshore KG-D6 block after the Canadian firm defaulted on paying for its share of gas field development cost.
Sources with knowledge of the development said the oil minister has given 'uncondi-tional' nod to Reliance and BP for taking over 10 per cent interest of Niko in KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block in the Bay of Bengal.
Reliance and BP split Niko's
share in proportion to their existing shareholding in the block.
Subsequent to this, Reli-ance's stake in KG-D6 has gone up to 66.67 per cent from previ-ous 60 per cent and that of BP to 33.33 per cent from 30 per cent, the sources said.
E-mails sent to Reliance and BP for comments remained unanswered.
Niko, which defaulted on payment of loans to its lend-ers, has been unsuccessful in seeking a possible buyer for its 10 per cent stake in Bay of Ben-gal block KG-D6 or securing
financing for its share of the $5 billion R-Cluster, Satellite Clus-ter and MJ development proj-ects in the block.
This led to the company defaulting in making pay-ments for its share of devel-opment cost in early October 2018. PTI
Reliance, BP take over Niko's 10% stake in KG-D6 blockNINL staff urges Centre to ask SAIL
to run the plant
Tata, Vedanta mining leases end in March; Govt for fresh auctions
Govt's steps for housing, exports to support economy: Ficci
NEW DELHI: Facebook global executive Nick Clegg has pro-posed a "prospective" mecha-nism for WhatsApp to act on cases flagged by law enforce-ment agencies, but the govern-ment has refused to budge on its demand for traceability of messages.
The issue of traceability has been a flashpoint between the government and WhatsApp, and the Facebook-owned messaging platform has so far resisted India's demand for identification of message originators, arguing that doing so would undermine its pol-icy on privacy and end-to-end encryption.
A senior government offi-cial said that Facebook Vice-President, Global Affairs and Communications, Nick Clegg, during his meeting with IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad last week mooted alternatives to absolute traceability of mes-sages, including use of 'meta data' and machine intelligence for dealing with the issue, even offering to harness WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook link-ages to provide assistance to law enforcement agencies.
When contacted, a Face-book spokesperson said: "Face-book cares deeply about the safety of people in India and
Nick's meetings this week pro-vided opportunities to discuss our commitment to supporting privacy and security in every app we provide and how we can continue to work productively with the Government of India towards these shared goals."
A person aware of What-sApps's position on the mat-ter emphasised that the platform cannot read mes-sages exchanged as they are encrypted.
It is learnt that Clegg in meetings with top authori-ties, including Home Minister Amit Shah, National Secu-rity Advisor Ajit Doval as well as IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on September 12, reiter-ated the US tech giant's stance that it will abide by any lawful request for information by the
Indian government, but it can-not read messages exchanged on its platforms.
Clegg told the officials that the company can provide 'sig-nals' and meta data such as who calls were made to and dura-tion, among others, of lawfully identified users, a source said.
The US social media giant has agreed to provide India with 'meta data' of any user of its platforms, including WhatsApp, that the govern-ment lawfully identifies but has insisted it cannot look into messages exchanged as they are encrypted.
India is home to 400 million WhatsApp users and more than 328 million Facebook users.
Social media companies in India have drawn flak from the government in recent past over instances of circulation of fake news, breach of user confiden-tiality, unauthorised data shar-ing by the apps and concerns over privacy and data security.
WhatsApp in particular has been under fire over users mis-using the platform for circu-lation of fake news that have incited mob fury. The Indian government has made it clear that it intends to strengthen the legal framework and make social media platforms more accountable under law. PTI
Centre stands firm on WhatsApp monitoring
NEW DELHI: India's apex realtors group said it is disap-pointed with the government's measures to support the sec-tor, as it did not address the key demands such as tax rebate and lower interest rate for home buyers and developers.
CREDAI's National Chair-man Jaxay Shah said the fund created for completing the stalled real estate projects will have limited impact as it excludes those projects which are either facing insolvency proceedings or become non-performing assets (NPAs).
"Last month, we had met the finance minister and made several demands to improve liquidity and boost demand
in the real estate sector. But, unfortunately our demands have not been met," Shah said on Sunday.
Reiterating the demand of the association that has about 12,000 members, Shah said the government should withdraw its decision to ban subvention scheme as it was for the bene-fit of home buyers and helped generate demand.
In July, the National Hous-ing Bank (NHB) asked hous-ing finance companies (HFCs) to "desist" from offering loans under subvention scheme, wherein real estate develop-ers pay home loan interest on behalf of home buyers till pos-session of flats. PTI
Disappointed with govt's measures to boost real estate sector: CREDAI
mp sport14MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 2019
SYDNEY: Only three Austra-lian batsmen are certain to start the summer Test series against Pakistan, according to former skipper Ricky Ponting, with David Warner among them.
Ponting, who has been a sounding board for coach Jus-tin Langer in recent months, unsurprisingly nominated the in-form Steve Smith and Mar-nus Labuschagne as the other two.
That leaves holes to fill and Australia’s greatest run scorer said he would like to see young prospect Will Pucovski, who has battled mental health issues, given a debut in the first Test at the Gabba on Novem-ber 12.
“Warner’s going to be a lock,” Ponting told cricket.com.au, despite the opener having a miserable Ashes tour where he has struggled to get into dou-ble digits.
“I don’t care if he gets another duck in the second innings of this Test match (at the Oval), he’s going to be a lock for the Australian sum-mer. Marnus is an absolute lock. Smith’s a lock.
“(There are) still question marks around the guys in the middle, (Matthew) Wade and (Travis) Head,” he added.
“(Opener Marcus) Har-ris has looked tested against good quality fast bowling in
this series.”Australia have chopped and
changed their top and middle order against England, with Usman Khawaja and Cameron Bancroft among those dropped after failing to fire.
Their lack of form could open the door to Joe Burns and Kurtis Patterson, who were controversially left out of the squad for England despite making centuries in their last home Test against Sri Lanka.
Wicketkeeper-batsman Alex Carey could also get a look in, although Ponting said Tim Paine should continue as captain during the summer Tests against Pakistan and New Zealand.
“With so many gaps like that, I’d like to see somebody
like Pucovski get an opportu-nity,” he added.
“Everyone’s talked about him for a long time. A couple of years before the next Ashes series you want to try and blood someone in that No.6 role and he’d be the obvious candidate.”
The 21-year-old smashed a superb 243 for Victoria against Western Australia last season, which saw him parachuted into the national setup for two Tests against Sri Lanka.
He was overlooked for the first one in Brisbane and again missed out on selection for the second in Canberra before being released to deal with mental health issues.
He had suffered similar problems in the past. AGENCIES
LONDON: England ended their memorable summer by earning a 2-2 draw in the Ashes with a 135-run defeat of Austra-lia in the fifth Test.
On a beautifully sunny day at The Oval, England set Aus-tralia 399 to win and bowled them out for 263 to square the contest with their oldest ene-mies in a year when they lifted the World Cup for the first time.
Australia retain the urn they won in 2017-18 but miss out on a first series win in England since 2001, while an Ashes series is drawn for the first time in 47 years.
From 313-8 overnight, Eng-land added 16 to be all out for 329 and leave Australia in need of pulling off the highest run-chase in an Ashes Test since 1948.
Stuart Broad quickly claimed the wickets of Mar-cus Harris and David Warner, before Jonny Bairstow stumped Marnus Labuschagne off the bowling of Jack Leach to leave Australia on 68-3 at lunch.
The key wicket of Steve Smith came soon after the resumption, with Stokes tak-
ing a fine catch at leg slip off Broad to remove the pivotal batsman. The England captain, Joe Root, dismissed Mitchell Marsh before tea, with Jack
Leach dismissing Tim Paine early in the evening session.
Matthew Wade offered resistance, compiling an excep-tional century as Australia
threatened to force a final day. His stumping by Bairstow on 117 brought the finish line in sight for England, with the final two wickets falling soon after. It
means they end coach Trevor Bayliss' reign with a win, while both sides have 56 points and sit joint-fourth in the World Test Championship. AGENCIES
Ponting eyes batting shake-up for Australia summer Tests
PARIS: Neymar shrugged off a hostile reception as he marked his return to action for Paris Saint-Germain with a stunning injury-time winner, and then insisted it was time to move on from the saga of his aborted return to Barcelona.
The world’s most expensive player was booed and insulted by sections of the PSG support in the Ligue 1 match against Strasbourg at the Parc des Princes.
That seemed set to be the only story of the afternoon until the second minute of added time when, with the game still goalless, the Brazilian met Abdou Diallo’s cross with an acrobatic effort that sent the ball arcing back over his own head and in off the post, seal-ing a 1-0 win.
It was a remarkable goal and a reminder of why PSG paid a world record 222 million euros ( 264 million at the time) to sign Neymar in 2017. It also leaves them two points clear of Rennes at the top of Ligue 1.
“I made it clear that I have nothing against the fans, noth-ing against Paris Saint-Ger-main as a club. Everyone knows I wanted to leave. I am not going to get into the details of what happened,” he said after the game.
“It is time to turn the page. Today I am a Paris Saint-Ger-main player and I am going to give everything on the field.”
He had not played for his club since May and had been left on the sidelines in their first four league games of the cam-paign because of the uncertainty surrounding his future.
However, having been resigned to a third season in
France, he was handed a start by coach Thomas Tuchel here, and loud jeers greeted his name as the teams were read out. He was also regularly whistled by fans when he touched the ball.
“It is not the first time I have been booed by everyone,” Ney-mar admitted.
“I played in Brazil away from home, I was widely booed. I have played in finals and been booed, I have played here in France, away from home, and also been booed.
“It is sad but I know that, from now on, every game I play will be an away game.”
One banner unfurled in Portuguese, aimed at Neymar’s father who is also his agent, read: “Neymar Senior, sell your son in the Vila Mimosa”.
Vila Mimosa is a district of Rio de Janeiro notorious for prostitution.
Another banner mockingly called Neymar “Calimero”, a ref-
erence to the always unlucky Italian cartoon character.
Certainly not much was going right on the field for the 27-year-old or for his team, who had been held by Strasbourg twice in the league last season.
Neymar hit the post direct from a corner late on but ended up getting his revenge -- it was against Strasbourg that he suf-fered a broken foot back in January.
“It was not easy because he is a very sensitive kid,” Tuchel said.
“It wasn’t easy for the sup-porters either during the trans-fer window, so we have to accept their reaction. He can play better but he needs several matches to get his rhythm back.”
As brilliant as the goal was, it was not met with unanimous approval by supporters, but Ney-mar will clearly be missed when he sits out Wednesday’s Cham-pions League opener against Real Madrid due to suspension.
PSG were still without the injured Kylian Mbappe and Edinson Cavani here, but Mauro Icardi appeared as a substitute after arriving on loan from Inter Milan just before the transfer deadline.
New goalkeeper Keylor Navas started in goal follow-ing his arrival from Real and excelled himself with one early save from Ludovic Ajorque.
Lamine Kone headed over for the visitors late in the first half, and it was not until the lat-ter stages that the hosts began to apply concerted pressure.
Neymar burst through in the 76th minute only to be denied by Matz Sels, and Strasbourg’s Belgian goalkeeper then made a stunning save to tip Ander Herrera’s deflected effort around the post.
There was nothing Sels could do, however, when Neymar pro-duced his moment of magic at the death. AGENCIES
‘Time to turn the page’: Neymar scores stunning winner for PSG
MILAN: Inter Milan reclaimed top spot in Serie A after a 1-0 win over 10-man Udinese on Saturday as Juventus lost three players to injury in a painful goalless draw at Fiorentina to complicate preparations for next week’s Champions League opener.
Stefano Sensi’s diving header was enough to seal a maximum nine points for Antonio Conte’s Inter ahead of their European opener against Slavia Prague in the San Siro next Tuesday.
But as Maurizio Sarri made his debut on the Juventus bench after recovering from pneu-monia, the Italian champions showed signs of weakness four days before their trip to Atlet-ico Madrid.
Juventus are trailing two points behind Inter Milan after three games and could be overtaken by city rivals Torino who host promoted Lecce on Monday.
Napoli meanwhile warmed up for European holders Liver-pool on Tuesday with a Dries Mertens double sealing a 2-0 win over crisis club Sampdoria, to move up to fourth in the table.
“We wouldn’t have deserved to win this game,” said Sarri as Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo and his teammates lacked inspiration and strug-gled physically.
The reigning eight-time Serie A champions are already missing injured captain Giorgio Chiellini, Mattia De Sciglio and Marko Pjaca.
And Brazilian Douglas Costa pulled up with a ham-string problem minutes into the game in Florence, followed by Miralem Pjanic with a muscular issue with Danilo later suffering cramps in the heat.
They nevertheless held on despite pressure with former French international Franck Ribery impressive on his first start for the hosts.
“It was a very complicated situation as we used all our sub-stitutions for injuries, and had no fresh players to introduce at key moments,” said Sarri.
team with less charac-ter would lose such a game.” Midfielder Rodrigo Bentan-cur added: “We got an impor-tant point, today we saw a bad Juventus.
“We suffered on the wings, they were very good. We still have to get used to Sarri’s game, but we are on the right track. Now we want to win in Madrid.”
Ribery, 36, went off to a standing ovation from the crowd at the Artemio Franchi Stadium after an hour as his team earned their first point this season.
Ribery “played better than Ronaldo,” insisted Fiorentina’s new owner Rocco Commisso, as the former Bayern Munich midfielder did well to neutralise Ronaldo, who had scored four goals for Portugal in European
qualifiers this week.Ronaldo failed to add to his
tally with an acrobatic bicycle kick in the 85th minute flying over the bar.
In the San Siro, Udinese played an hour a man down after Rodrigo de Paul saw red for slapping Antonio Candreva.
Sensi broke through just before the break getting his head to a cross from fellow newcomer Diego Godin.
Former Manchester United forward Alexis Sanchez came on for the final ten minutes, and was denied his first goal by Udinese goalkeeper Juan Musso.
Napoli played their first home game after renovations carried out to their San Paolo Stadium.
Giovanni Di Lorenzo pro-vided the cross for Mertens to tap in after 13 minutes.
New signing Fernando Llor-ente made his debut and the former Tottenham player had an immediate impact, sending the ball back to Mertens who finished off for a 67th-minute goal which took a slight deflec-tion off Sampdoria defender Alex Ferrari. AGENCIES
Inter Milan top Serie A as Juventus held in Fiorentina
France battle back to deny Australia World Cup bronzeSAN MARINO: Spaniard
Marc Marquez screamed with joy as he snatched victory on the final lap at the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday to close in on a sixth MotoGP world title.
The 26-year-old Spaniard said his motivation had been high after his spat with local hero Valentino Rossi in quali-fying on Saturday.
“I knew there was no need to win because (Andrea) Dovizioso was far behind but what happened yesterday (Sat-urday) in qualifying gave me extra motivation and win-ning today was the best way to answer,” said Marquez.
Marquez and Rossi both insisted the other had deliber-ately ruined his chance to start on pole position as they pushed for the best time on the final lap in qualifying.
Honda rider Marquez, starting on the second row, matched Rossi with a third MotoGP win in Misano, fin-ishing ahead of France’s Fabio Quartararo, on a Yamaha-SRT, who had the lead for most of
the race.Pole sitter Maverick Vina-
les completed the podium for Yamaha.
Marquez now has a 93-point lead on Italian Ducati rider Dovizioso with six races left this season. Dovizioso fin-ished sixth on Sunday in front
of his home crowd.Seven-time MotoGP world
champion Rossi -- who last won in Misano in 2014 -- fin-ished fourth 12.660sec behind Marquez after starting from the third row.
“At the end I just decided to go for it,” said Marquez, after
his seventh win this season after being pipped on the line in the last two races at Silver-stone and the Dutch GP.
“Having lost two races on the last corner burned a bit,” said Marquez.
“Fabio, however, is ready to win a race and, starting next
year, fight for the champion-ship. now I can say that it is very nice to win in Italy.”
Marquez has now won 77 Grand Prix races in all catego-ries to overtake British legend Mike Hailwood, who competed in the 1960s.
The Spaniard has won 51 MotoGP races, 16 Moto2 and 10 Moto3 -- and is fourth over-all behind Giacomo Agostini (122), Rossi (115) and Angel Nieto (90).
“It was a very tough race,” said Quartararo, 20, who has now achieved four podium fin-ishes in his first season.
“It was the first time that I battled like that with Marquez.”
Marquez claims a sixth win in Misano and third in the MotoGP category after 2015 and 2017. He matches Rossi’s record of three wins at the San Marino MotoGP.
Suzuki’s Alex Rins, win-ner in Silverstone, lost his third place in the champion-ship standings after crashing out of the race, with the next round at home in Valencia next weekend. AGENCIES
Marquez steals Rossi thunder in San Marino MotoGP
DHARAMSALA: The first T20 international between India and South Africa was abandoned on Sunday, with-out a ball being bowled due to heavy downpour that left a near capacity crowd disappointed.
While there was predic-tion of a sharp drizzle in the afternoon, the weather forecast was all clear for the evening but heavens opened up multiple times, putting paid to hopes of even having a five-over per side encounter.
A spell of thunder show-ers happened in the afternoon and by 5:30 pm it seemed that the rain had subsided with the spectators thronging into the stadium.
Just when the ground staff at the HPCA Stadium were working in full force, a sec-ond spell completely spoilt the evening as it was clear that even the shortest possi-ble game cannot be conducted in such circumstances with multiple puddles created at the outfield.
The worst sufferer was cer-tainly the common fans, who had come from all the nearby districts as well as from Chan-digarh and Delhi to watch the match.
With most of the stands not having any overhead cover, the spectators were seen pulling off the in-stadia hoardings which worked as temporary “umbrellas” to save themselves from getting drenched. Now-adays, all the matches under the aegis of BCCI are cov-ered under insurance policy and HPCA will not stand to lose any money. Since the toss was also not held, the viewing public will get a refund of their tickets. AGENCIES
India and SA T20 match abandoned
due to rain
BEIJING: France roared back after half-time to defeat Austra-lia 67-59 and claim a successive World Cup bronze on Sunday -- and extend the Boomers’ long wait for a major medal.
Turkish-based guard Nando De Colo led all scorers with 19 points for France and Nicolas Batum had nine points, six assists, three rebounds and three steals.
The French, one of the tall-est teams at the tournament, defeated reigning two-time holders the United States in the quarter-finals, but then lost heavily to Argentina.
French coach Vincent Col-let paid tribute to his team’s bat-tling qualities.
“For us it’s something very, very special and important we did it after a very difficult first half,” he said.
“Many teams could have given up, even easy shots we were missing in the first half.
“We started to move the ball better in the second half and
that’s why we won this game.”It was hard on Australia,
who similarly led for long peri-ods in their semi-final against Spain before being hauled back in a double-overtime defeat.
It is still a best finish for the Boomers, who had never gone beyond the quarter-finals at 11 previous World Cups, but they are yet to claim a medal at the worlds or Olympics.
At the Rio 2016 Olympics they were similarly squeezed
out by Spain in the bronze-medal match.
They led 30-21 at half-time in Beijing against France with the Utah Jazz forward Joe Ingles playing a starring role. He was to finish with 17 points.
But Orlando Magic’s Evan Fournier spearheaded a third-quarter French revival, reduc-ing Australia’s lead to just two points with 1:31 left in the quarter. AGENCIES
Australia retain the Ashes but England square series
England beat Australia by 135 runs to level series 2-2
MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 201915mp sport
MANDALAY (Myanmar): One of India's most consistent sportspersons, Pankaj Advani, on Sunday increased his tally of world titles to 22 by winning a fourth straight final in the 150-up format at the IBSF World Billiards Championship here.
The 34-year-old has brought home a world trophy every year ever since returning from a professional stint in the UK in 2014.
In the short format of bil-liards, this is Advani's fifth title in the last six years.
"It's such a touch-and-go format and so unpredictable that winning this four years on the trot and five out of the last six is extremely special," said the champion athlete.
In a repeat of last year's final against local favourite Nay Thway Oo, Advani re-enacted the one-sided match with the same eventual outcome as well as identical scorelines of 6-2.
"This is the 150 points for-mat in Billiards which is a shorter format and it is unpre-dictable because anybody can win on that particular day and to maintain consistency in this short format is an incredible feeling (after winning title) for last four years," he told PTI.
From the word go, Advani was in full flow. The gifted Indian was leading 3-0 at the halfway mark with the help of fluent breaks comprising of 145, 89 and 127, while Nay Thway Oo was yet to open his account.
After pulling one back with
breaks of 63 and 62, Oo was forced to watch Advani con-tinue to extend the lead. He executed with flair as his sheer brilliance was on display, wow-ing the Myanmar crowd as they couldn't help but appreciate his brilliant billiards.
Advani secured the next two frames which included a 150 unfinished break. He scored a 74 break and shortly after that closed out the match.
Oo was completely subdued by his accomplished opponent and had to settle for a silver medal for the second time in a row.
With another trophy in the bag, Advani extends his remarkable run of winning a global crown since 2003. The Bengaluru-based cueist has won more world titles in his sport than anyone else.
Advani said winning tro-phies early in his career did wonders for his mindset.
"Sport is psychological in nature and it helped that
I started winning at an early age, and that instilled tremen-dous amount of self belief in me and I guess that is the rea-son why I have been able to win that much.
"I feel the opposition has been great and will be bet-ter in years to come with a lot more younger players com-ing, so to be able to maintain this position and repeat this feats is going to be a but then that's what excites me and that is what the sport is all about," he said.
On winning a staggering 22nd world title, Advani added, "Every time I participate in a world championship, one thing is clear - my motivation to excel has not diminished. This win a testament to the fact that my hunger and fire are both well and truly alive." Advani have to adjust to snooker in less than 24 hours as he competes in the IBSF World Six-Red Snooker and the World Team Snooker Championships. AGENCIES
DHARAMSALA: India cap-tain Virat Kohli has made it amply clear that the youngsters drafted into the squad ahead of the T20 World Cup next year will have to prove themselves in the "four or five" opportuni-ties they get.
Giving his own example, Kohli, who made his India debut in 2008, said he never expected to get a bagful of opportunities in his early days as an international cricketer.
"We have 30 odd games (before T20 World Cup). From team's point of view, it is very clear. Even when I got into the team it is not like I was expect-ing 15 opportunities. You get four to five opportunities and you have to make the most of it. That is the level we are play-ing at," Kohli told Star Sports.
"I think individuals coming in need to have the mindset (of limited opportunities) because team definitely has that mind-set. Guys who grab the oppor-tunity quickly, they grab the opportunity. It is a delicate bal-ance to strike but it is impor-tant because you only have 30 games (to figure it out)."
Besides the T20 World Cup in Australia next year, the team is also focussing on the World Test Championship.
For the last two T20 Inter-national series, including against the West Indies and the ongoing one against South Africa, India have left out spinners Kuldeep Chahal and Yuzvendra Chahal who have made way for Rahul Chahar and Washington Sundar. The selectors have also brought in batsmen Shreyas Iyer and Man-ish Pandey.
"Before we reach the World Cup, focus is on T20s and Tests. Youngsters are being pushed in from time to time. It is very important to settle the team combination and you will have to figure out the players who will take the team forward," added Kohli. AGENCIES
PARIS: Kenya's Geoffrey Kamworor sliced 17 sec-onds off the world record at the Copenhagen Half Mara-thon on Sunday as he won in 58min 01sec.
Kamworor improved on the 58:18 set in Valencia last year by his compatriot Abra-ham Kiptum.
The 26-year-old Kenyan clearly likes the Danish capi-tal as it was the scene of the first of his three world half-marathon titles.
Kamworor broke away from the pack and raced alone for the final 11 kilome-tres, defying the heavy rain that fell briefly with 37 min-utes on the clock.
He covered the next five kilometres segment in a swift 13:31, reaching 15 kilometres in 41:03, 11 seconds inside sub-58-minute pace.
Although he slowed slightly in the final quarter, he was still well inside world record pace but the clock ago-nisingly ticked over 58 min-
utes as he crossed the line.Birhane Dibaba Adugna
of Ethiopia won the women's race in 1:05:57, taking almost two minutes off her lifetime best. AGENCIES
EKATERINBURG (Russia): Asian silver-medallist Kavinder Singh Bisht (57kg) advanced to the pre-quarterfinals with a hard-fought win over Chi-na’s Chena Zhihao in the World Men’s Boxing Championships here on Sunday.
The fifth seeded Indian left his rival with a bloodied face before the judges ruled 3-2 in his favour after an exhausting bout during which both the boxers managed to connect very few impactful punches.
Bisht will square off against Finland’s Arslan Khataev in the round of 16.
However, there was a dis-appointment for India in the evening session with Brijesh Yadav (81kg) bowing out in a split 1-4 verdict against Tur-key’s Bayram Malkan. The lack of aggressive intent in the first two rounds cost Yadav as his fine comeback in the final round proved too little too late.
Bisht, a 26-year-old Indian Air Force man was a quarter-finalist in 2017 Hamburg edi-tion. However, he has entered the ongoing edition as one of the strongest contenders for a
medal. On Sunday, he stood out for his pace and endurance indicating a strong run in the marquee event.
Earlier, second seed and Asian champion Amit Pang-hal (52kg) and Commonwealth Games silver-medallist Manish Kaushik (63kg) advanced to the pre-quarterfinals after claim-ing dominating wins in their respective second-round bouts.
The World Championship was meant to be an Olym-pic qualifier and features the revised eight weight categories
(52kg, 57kg, 63kg, 69kg, 75kg, 81kg, 91kg, +91kg) earmarked for Tokyo 2020, instead of the traditional 10 divisions.
However, the event was stripped of that status after the International Olympic Com-mittee (IOC) lost patience with the long-standing administra-tive mess in the International Boxing Association (AIBA).
The IOC took control of the Olympics qualification process, which will now start next year with the Asian qualifiers in February. AGENCIES
HO CHI MINH CITY: India's Sourabh Verma registered a thrilling three-game win over China's Sun Fei Xiang to claim the men's singles title at the USD 75,000 Vietnam Open BWF Tour Super 100 bad-minton tournament here on Sunday.
Second seed Sourabh, who has won the Hyderabad Open and Slovenian International earlier this year, recovered from a mid-game slump to beat Sun 21-12 17-21 21-14 in the sum-mit clash which lasted an hour and 12 minutes.
"I am very happy with the way, I played this week. I played three Japanese and these play-ers have similar kind of style. Most like to attack and the lit-tle differences in their style is something you have to figure out on the court. So it was nice to beat them," Sourabh told PTI.
He beat three Japanese shuttlers -- Kodai Naraoka, Yu Igarashi and Minoru Koga -- on way to his title win.
"The final was a tough match but I am happy I could play my game and come out victories. This title will give a boost to my confidence," the Indian said.
It was a third career meet-ing between Sourabh and Sun. The duo has faced off twice this year at Canada and Hyderabad with the Indian coming up trumps on both the occasions.
Talking about the final match, the world no 38 Indian said: "In the first game, I waited
for his weak returns. I realised his defence was a little weak, so I looked to exploit that. He committed too many unforced errors and it helped me.
"In the second game, I was troubled by the drift from one side and he jumped into a huge lead. But after the change of side in the decider, I went back to the strategy that worked for me and I am happy I could win," added the National champion.
Asked if he will play the
USD 400,000 Korea Open World Tour Super 500 event to be held from September 24 to 29, Sourabh said: "I will head back home now and depend-ing on the condition of my body and the time required to recover, I will take a call if I want to go to Korea or not."
In the finals, Sourabh domi-nated the proceedings in the opening game as he jumped to a 4-0 lead early on and kept moving ahead. He enjoyed a 11-4 cushion at the break and
surged to a 15-4 advantage after the breather.
Sun tried to recover but the gap was too wide to be bridged as Sourabh pocketed the first game comfortably.
The Chinese came out all guns blazing in the second game, zooming to a 8-0 lead. He lead 11-5 at the interval and even though the Indian tried to make a comeback, it proved an uphill task as Sun roared back into the contest.
In the decider, Sun had a
slender 4-2 lead initially but Sourabh ensured he enjoyed 11-7 advantage at the breather. The Indian then maintained his lead, despite the Chinese snap-ping at his heels.
Leading 17-14, Sourabh blasted off the next four points to shut the door on his oppo-nent and win his third title of the year.
The 26-year-old from Madhya Pradesh had won the Dutch Open and Korea Open last year. AGENCIES
Sourabh wins Vietnam OpenSecond seed Sourabh recovered from a mid-game slump to beat China’s Sun Fei
Xiang 21-12 17-21 21-14 in the summit clash which lasted an hour and 12 minutes
World title no 22 for Pankaj Advani
Kenya's Kamworor smashes men's world half marathon record
Kavinder Bisht moves ahead with tough win, Brijesh Yadav ousted
I never expected to get more than 4-5 opportunities, expect same mindset from youngsters: Kohli
BHUBANESWAR: Odi-sha FC, the franchise which replaces Delhi Dynamos in the upcoming edition of the Indian Super League (ISL), on Sunday tweeted a video to unveil its official logo.
The club came into existence after the signing of a memo-randum of understanding last month between Delhi Soccer Private Ltd and the Odisha government.
The logo of Odisha FC embodies the heritage and the culture of the state and the vision and the ideology of its parent company, GMS.
"Delighted to share the logo of the state's #HeroISL club @Odisha_FC which pays a heart-felt tribute to #Odisha's rich cul-tural heritage. The club motto of #AmaTeamAmaGame is again a proud reminder of the state's rich sporting culture. Wish the team all success," tweeted Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
The chakra in the logo origi-nates from the famous Konark Temple in the state. The tem-ple is designed in the form of a chariot and these 24 chakras are its wheels, a release said. AGENCIES
ISL newbies Odisha FC unveil
official logo
Jordan free-kick fires Sevilla to top of La LigaMADRID (spain): Sevilla moved to the top of the early La Liga table on Sunday as Joan Jordan's brilliant free-kick helped them seal a 1-0 win at Alaves.
Julen Lopetegui's side con-tinued their excellent start to the campaign, remaining unbeaten and moving a point clear of Atletico Madrid, who lost 2-0 at Real Sociedad on Saturday, at the summit.
Sevilla host Real Madrid next Sunday in a meeting of two sides yet to taste defeat.
“That means nothing (being top),” said Sevilla coach Lopetegui, whose team next face a marathon trip to Baku to play Qarabag in their Europa League opener on Thursday.
“The only thing that (being top) tells me is that the team is doing things well. We have to keep improving before going to Baku, where they will make it very difficult for us.”
It was a first defeat of the season for Alaves, who slipped to 11th in the standings.
Lopetegui, who joined Sevilla for his first job since being sacked in quick succes-sion by both Spain and Real Madrid, saw one of his close-season signings produce the
game’s defining moment.Midfielder Jordan, who
arrived at Sevilla from Eibar for a reported 14 million euros ($15.62 million), curled home a wonderful free-kick in the 37th minute which flew into the top corner to give him his second goal of the season. The visitors comfortably saw out the match
to claim their third league win this term, as Alaves failed to muster a shot on target. Real claimed a 3-2 win over Levante at the Santiago Bernabeu on Saturday, when reigning cham-pions Barcelona eased to a 5-2 victory against Valencia, with 16-year-old Ansu Fati scoring inside two minutes. AGENCIES
Europe beat USA to regain Solheim Cup
GLENEAGLES: Europe regained the Solheim Cup with a thrilling 14.5-13.5 victory over the United States on Sunday at Gleneagles.
Norwegian wildcard Suzann Pettersen holed the winning putt in the last match on the course, making a birdie on the 18th to defeat Marina Alex one-up in a dramatic finale in the event's closest ever finish.
It was a first defeat for US Captain Juli Inkster - and it makes it three wins out of three in Scotland for Europe following on from Dalmahoy (1992) and Loch Lomond (2000). “This is fantastic,” said Europe’s Scottish captain, Catriona Matthew after Europe’s first victory since 2013.
“I knew the last few matches would be crucial.”
Pettersen, a new mum who had hardly played in two years, was a controversial wild card selection. “But I always had faith,” added Matthew.
“It is all still a blur,” said Pet-tersen. “I knew it was close. But Catriona came up to me at the last and I said ‘is this why you picked me?’.
“This is just so fantastic for Europe.”
It was Europe’s sixth Sol-heim Cup win - with the USA 10-time champions. AGENCIES
Wilson hands Everton more
away day blues at BournemouthLONDON: Callum Wilson scored twice as Bournemouth curbed early season optimism over Everton's prospects with a 3-1 win on Sunday.
The England international took advantage of some sloppy defending from the visitors to head home the opener from close range, but Everton lev-elled before half-time through Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
The Toffees have spent big again this summer in a bid to challenge the established 'top six' for a European place, but will need to improve on the road to do so.
Ryan Fraser's driven free-kick restored Bournemouth's lead 23 minutes from time via a deflection off Fabian Delph before Wilson's cool finish to lob international teammate Jor-dan Pickford made the game safe.
Everton have now picked up just one point from three away games this season after also failing to win at Crystal Palace and Aston Villa.
Victory takes Bournemouth above their opponents on goal difference with both sides on seven points from their open-ing five games. AGENCIES
DHAKA: Mohammad Nabi and Mujeeb Ur Rahman starred respectively with bat and ball as Afghanistan thrashed Bangla-desh by 25 runs in their sec-ond match of the tri-nation Twenty20 international tour-nament in Dhaka on Sunday.
Nabi hit an unbeaten 84 off 54 balls under pressure to guide Afghanistan to 164-6 before Mujeeb claimed a career best 4-15 to help his side dismiss Bangladesh for 139 in 19.5 overs for their world record 12 successive Twenty20 interna-tional win.
Mujeeb took three wickets in his opening spell to reduce the home side to 32 for four before Mahmudullah and Sab-bir Rahman put a little resis-tance with 58 runs for the fifth wicket.
Gulbadin Naib broke the partnership by removing Mahmudullah, who made 44 off 39 balls for Bangladesh before Mujeeb ended Sabbir's innings at 24 in his final over to surpass his previous best of 3-17 against Ireland.
Naib claimed 2-27 while skipper Rashid Khan and left-arm pacer Fareed Malik also took two wickets each.
Nabi earlier helped Afghan-
istan recover from 40-4 with his fourth Twenty20 inter-national fifty, which featured three fours and seven sixes.
He received great support from former skipper Asghar Afghan as the duo shared 79 runs in the fifth wicket stand.
Asghar made 40 off 37 balls after he was reprieved on 31 when Sabbir took a catch at the deep only for the reply to show that bowler Taijul Islam had overstepped.
Nabi and Asghar overshad-owed the bowling heroics of Mohammad Saifuddin, who claimed a career best 4-33.
"It's a team effort. Bangla-desh bowled brilliantly in the
powerplay and that put the pressure on us. Me and Asghar planned well and in the last five overs the plan worked," said man of the match Nabi.
Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan also did well with the ball to claim two wickets for just 18 runs.
"I thought we were bril-liant in the first 10 overs. They scored more than 100 runs in the last 10 overs, that cost us the game. We didn't play well with the bat to chase those runs," Shakib said after the match. Both Bangladesh and Afghani-stan won their respective open-ing match of the tournament against Zimbabwe. AGENCIES
Nabi, Mujeeb shine in record Afghanistan win
PRIYANKA TO SHONALI BOSE
mp Entertainment16 MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Monday, 16 September, 2019
TORONTO: Indian actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas has tagged her director Shonali Bose as the true star of their film The Sky Is Pink in a heartfelt note.
After the film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)
recently, Priyanka took to Instagram to pen the emotional note. She shared several stills from the
film fest and captioned it: “A special night with spe-cial people, sharing this labour of love which took us
over a year to bring to life. It was an unforgettable expe-rience... Thank you Aditi and Niren for trusting us with your story and for
joining us at The Sky Is Pink world premiere. Shonali Bose, you are the true star of this film!
“Ronnie Screwvala, Siddharth Roy Kapur, as always, it’s been amazing col-laborating with you. We’ve done some great films together and this one defi-nitely is up there with the rest of them for me.”
The Sky Is Pink is a romantic drama about a couple, played by Priyanka and Farhan Akhtar, who lose their daughter (Zaira Wasim) to pulmonary fibrosis.
Bose then replied to Priyanka on the comments section: “Priyanka Darling. It was beyond fantastic directing you and collaborating with you.” IANS
MUMBAI: Alia Bhatt and Karan Johar spent their weekend discussing their upcoming much-anticipated collaboration, Takht.
The actor on September 14 took to Ins-tagram to share a glimpse of her talks with Karan.
The upcoming film, which has a screen-play by Sumit Roy and dialogues penned by Hussain Haidry, will be directed by Karan.
Set in the Mughal era, the film also stars Vicky Kaushal, Ranveer Singh, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Anil Kapoor, Bhumi Pednekar and Jahnvi Kapoor.
Alia shared an Instagram Story which fea-tured the director sitting in a chair in what appeared to be an office cabin.
The Raazi star wasn’t visible in the post but shared a sneak peek of a red mug with writ-ten Takht on it.
It appears that the film’s preparation have begun as both Alia and Ranveer were spotted outside Dharma Productions office recently.
Takht marks Karan’s return to direction three years after the release of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. PTI
LOS ANGELES: Model Hailey Bieber and singer Justin Bieber are celebrating their one-year anniversary as Mr and Mrs, but they continue to deal with critics and haters who question their marriage.
On September 13, 2018, the couple shocked many when they walked down the aisle in a seemingly impromptu courthouse ceremony in New York.
The surprise move came just two months after they got engaged amid a whirlwind romance they had rekindled not long after Jus-tin and his longtime on-again, off-again Selena Gomez parted ways, reports eonline.com.
“Nobody from the outside really knows what’s going on between us. I wake up every morning with this person. I’m the only per-son that has direct dialogue with this person. This is my relationship. What’s so tricky about mental health is that it can be easy to let people convince you of something that’s not real,” Hai-
ley said in an interview with Vogue Australia.“When I had hundreds of thousands of
comments bombarding me with: ‘He’s never going to this’, ‘You’re never going to that’, ‘You’ll be divorced by then’, you can’t help but won-der: ‘Does someone see something that I don’t see?’” added the 22-year-old.
“It starts to mess with your mind. But the only two people in a relationship are the two people in it.” IANS
MUMBAI: Acclaimed Holly-wood filmmaker Christopher Nolan, along with actor Robert Pattinson, is in the city to shoot for their upcoming action epic Tenet.
The director-actor duo arrived in Mumbai on Sep-tember 14. According to pho-tographs surfaced on social media, Nolan was spotted at the airport.
Pattinson also obliged a fan with a selfie on his arrival.
Though the shooting sched-ule of the project has been kept
under wraps, Nolan will report-edly film Tenet for around 10 days in the Maharashtrian capital. Tenet also stars Dimple Kapadia and will be Nolan’s fol-low-up to his Oscar-nominated war drama Dunkirk (2017).
The film will be shot seven countries. PTI
‘You’re true star of The Sky Is Pink’
Bose directorial is a romantic drama which
stars Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar in lead roles
After the film had
its world premiere at the TIFF recently,
Priyanka took to Instagram to pen the
emotional note
Hailey defends her one-year marriage with Justin Bieber
On September 13, 2018, the couple shocked many when they walked down the aisle in a seemingly impromptu courthouse ceremony in New York
Takht marks Karan’s return to direction in Bollywood three years after the release of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil
Nolan will reportedly film Tenet for around 10 days in the city
Alia Bhatt talks Takht with Karan Johar, shares on Instagram
Christopher, Robert in Mumbai to shoot for action filmTenet
MUMBAI: Celebrated author Paulo Coelho has recommended ‘Sacred Games’ to his Twitter fol-lowers and lauded actor Nawa-zuddin Siddqui’s work in the Netflix India Original series.
Coelho on September 14 took to the microblogging site
where he shared the link to the show, which also stars
Saif Ali Khan.“One of the best
series on Netflix, with the great actor @Nawazuddin_S,” the bestselling
writer said.Nawazud-
din wrote back to
Coelho, saying he read his book ‘The Alchemist’ and also watched the film Veronika Decides to Die based on the writer’s novel of the
same name.“I have always been an ardent
fan of your writing and it’s an honour to be noticed and men-
tioned by someone like you. I don’t have words to describe the feeling. Thank you,” the actor, who plays gangster Ganesh Gai-tonde in the show, tweeted.
Based on Vikram Chan-dra’s award-winning book of the same name, the sec-ond season of ‘Sacred Games’ started streaming August 15. PTI
Coelho praises Nawaz in ‘Sacred Games’, actor has a fan moment
In a recent tweet, the writer also suggested his readers to watch the show