pg4 pg8 pg12 mamata to declare tmc’s list of candidates
TRANSCRIPT
SC DIRECTS PVT HOSPITALS TO GIVE PRIORITY TO ELDERLY PG4
millenniumpost.in RNI NO.: WBENG/2015/65962
VOL. 7, ISSUE 63 | Friday, 5 March 2021 | Kolkata | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA NO HALF TRUTHS
HC asks Centre about rationale behind classification for Covid vaccination
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court, while hearing a petition on Thursday, asked the Centre to explain the rationale behind keep-ing strict control over class of per-sons who can be vaccinated against COVID-19 currently as under the present system those above the age of 60 years or with comorbidities
can receive vaccination.The high court said the two
institutes which have developed the vaccines COVISHIELD and COVAXIN — Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech — have more capacity to provide the vac-cines but it seems that their full capacity is not being exploited.
“We are not utilising it fully. We are either donating it to foreign
countries or selling it to them and are not vaccinating our own peo-ple. So there has to be that sense of responsibility and urgency,” a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said.
The high court directed the two institutes to file separate affi-davits on their capacity to manu-facture the vaccines on per day/ week/ month basis and also the
current optic of the vaccines and how much unused capacity is lying. They also have to indicate if they can scale up their produc-tion capacities, it said.
Union of India (UoI) shall file an affidavit disclosing the capac-ity to transport the vaccines while maintaining the whole chain par-ticularly to the NCT of Delhi. The Union of India shall also indicate
the extent to which it is presently being used, the high court said.
The UoI shall explain the ratio-nale behind keeping strict control over class of persons who can be vaccinated as noticed in our last order. Under the present system, persons above 60 years of age and between 45 to 60 years with co-morbidities can receive vaccina-tion. Continued on P6
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Bengaluru was adjudged the most liveable among 111 cities in India in the govern-ment’s ‘Ease of Living Index’ on Thursday, followed by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Surat, Navi Mumbai, Coimbatore, Vadodra, Indore and Greater Mumbai.
Of the 49 cities ranked on liv-ability index in the ‘million-plus population’ category, Delhi fig-ures at the 13th spot and Srinagar at the bottom.
According to the index released by Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, Shimla topped the cat-egory of cities with ‘population less than million’.
In this category, Bhubaneshwar was ranked second, Silvassa came third, and they were followed by Kakinada, Salem, Vellore, Gandhi-
nagar, Gurgaon, Davangere and Tiruchirapalli.
Muzaffarpur was at the bot-tom of the list of 62 cities that were ranked on livability index in the ‘less than million popula-
tion’ category.Ghaziabad and Meerut figured
at the 30th and the 36th spot in the ‘million-plus population’ category respectively, while Allahabad is at the 32nd position and is fol-
lowed by Patna (33rd). Faridabad is ranked 40th in this category.
Performance of the cities have been measured on four broad parameters governance and social, physical and economic infrastructure.
The government said the ‘Ease of Living Index’ is an assessment tool that evaluates the quality of life and the impact of various ini-tiatives for urban development.
A total of 32.2 lakh people residing across 111 cities partici-pated in a ‘Citizen Perception Sur-vey’ holding a weightage of 30 per cent. “These cities have emerged as models of development who will inspire others to perform better. Further, their peers will also ben-efit from emulating their best prac-tices,” Puri said.
Indore topped the ‘Munici-pal Performance Index’, involv-ing 51 municipal corporations in
the million-plus population cat-egory, while Guwahati figured at the bottom.
In this category, Surat came second, followed by Bhopal, Pim-pri Chinchawad, Pune, Ahmed-abad, Raipur, Greater Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Vadodara.
New Delhi Municipal Coun-cil topped the ‘Municipal Per-formance Index 2020’ in the ‘less than million’ population category. It is followed by Tirupati, Gandhi-nagar, Karnal, Salem, Tiruppur, Bilaspur, Udaipur, Jhansi and Tirunelveli. Shillong is at the bot-tom of this list featuring 60 munic-ipal corporations.
The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry said that the ‘Municipal Performance Index’ is an effort to assess and analyse the performance of Indian municipal-ities based on their defined set of functions. WITH AGENCY INPUTS
Ease of Living Index: Bengaluru, Shimla ‘most liveable’ cities, Delhi at 13th spot
NEW DELHI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL RANKS NO.1 IN CENTRE’S ‘MUNICIPAL PERFORMANCE INDEX’ Renew driving licence using Aadhaar as 18
RTO services now online OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Those who want to get their driving licence renewed or want a duplicate licence don’t need to visit the RTO office anymore as the government has imple-mented online facilities for 18 services, including driving licence renewal, learner’s licence, and duplicate licence. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on Thurs-day introduced contactless services through Aadhaar verification.
The decision has been made after a gov-ernment notification that asked to link the driving license and RC to Aadhaar.
Following are the RTO services that can be availed using Aadhaar authentication: Learner’s licence, renewal of driving licence (for which test of competence to drive is not required), duplicate driving licence, change of address in driving licence and certificate of registration, issue of international driving permit, surrender of class of vehicle from licence, application for temporary registra-tion of motor vehicle, application for regis-tration of motor vehicle with fully built body, application for issue of duplicate certificate of registration, Continued on P6
India vaccinates over 10 lakh people in one day, more than 1.77 crore vaccinated so far India witnesses surge in new COVID-19 cases, logs 17,407 infections
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: For the first time after the vaccination drive rolled out on January 16, India vacci-nated over 10 lakh people in a sin-gle day on Thursday. With this the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India has crossed 1.77 crore.
As per the provisional report provided by the Health Minis-try, a total of 1,77,11,287 vaccine doses have been given till the end of 48th day of the nationwide vac-cination drive.
“Of the total, there are 68,38,077 healthcare workers (HCWs) who have taken the first dose and 30,82,942 HCWs who have taken the second dose, while 60,22,136 frontline work-
ers (FLWs) have taken the first dose and 54,177 FLWs have been administered the second dose of the vaccine,” it said, add-ing that 14,95,016 beneficiaries belonging to above 60 years and 2,18,939 beneficiaries of 45 years and above with specific co-mor-bidities have been given the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine till date. Notably, in a single day,
total 10,93,954 vaccine doses were given till 7 pm on Thursday.
In another incident on Thurs-day, the Election Commission started a COVID-19 vaccina-tion drive for its officers and staff working at the Nirvachan Sadan in New Delhi with former chief election commissioner M S Gill taking the first shot. Chief Elec-tion Commissioner Sunil Arora and Election Commissioners Sushil Chandra and Rajiv Kumar will get vaccinated after all offi-cials and staff of the commission are inoculated, an official state-ment said.
Meanwhile, the country is witnessing a surge in COVID-19 case which has increased the ten-sion for the government. Continued on P6
In today’s paper
...
COVID-19 pandemic impacted health, psychosocial well-being of children in India
UNICEF
CITY
FIRE AT DARJEELING HOTEL 3
NATION
‘CURBS ON HURRIYAT LEADER LIFTED’ 6
EDIT
THE NEW FRONTIER 7
INTERNATIONAL
GERMANY EXTENDS LOCKDOWN 8
BUSINESS
FDI UP 40% TO $51.47 BN IN APR-DEC 10
SPORT
ASHWIN, AXAR BUNDLE OUT ENG 11
MPOST BUREAU
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has expressed concern over the increasing obscenity on the ‘Over the top (OTT) plat-form’. Some OTT platforms at times show pornographic con-tents and there should be a mechanism to screen such pro-grammes, the Supreme Court observed on Thursday and asked the Centre to place its guidelines on regulating social media.
The apex court also fixed on Friday the hearing on the appeal of Amazon Prime Video’s India head Aparna Purohit against the Allahabad High Court order rejecting her anticipatory bail in connection with FIRs lodged over web series ‘Tandav’.
We are of the view that some screening of OTT content should take place. A balance has to be struck as some OTT platforms are also showing pornographic materials on their platforms, a bench comprising justices Ashok Bhushan and R S Reddy said.
During the brief hearing con-ducted through video confer-encing, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Purohit, termed the FIRs against her as shocking saying that this woman is an employee of Amazon and she is neither a producer nor an actor but still she has been made an accused in around 10 cases relating to the web series across the country. Continued on P6
SC worried over rising
pornographic content on
OTT platforms
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee will announce the list of candidates for all the 294 constituencies on Friday.
It has been learnt that she would contest from Nandigram only and party veteran Sobhandeb Chatto-padhyay is likely to contest from Bhowanipore, her constituency.
Banerjee will release the elec-tion Manifesto based on the works carried out since 2011. Already, the party has released the report card of the projects taken by the state government since 2011.
Debashis Kumar, coordinator, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is likely to contest from the Rashbehari Assembly seat and Purnendu Bose from Uttarpara. It was learnt that former Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha would contest from Barrackpore while Debangshu Bhattacharya is likely to stand from Bally. Trinamool is
likely to field some people from the cultural world as well.
The TMC is likely to field 25 new faces after 15 of its party MLAs joined BJP; while three sit-ting MLAs, namely, Tamonash Ghosh, Mrigen Maity and Suku-mar Hansda died. The party has decided not to field leaders who are more than 80 years old. Rabiranjan Chatterjee, Brajamohan Majum-
der, Jatu Lahiri and Rabindranath Bhattacharya are more than 80 years old while actor turned poli-tician Chiranjit has expressed his unwillingness to contest the elec-tion. It was learnt that many non-performing MLAs will be dropped this time.
Meanwhile, Partha Chatter-jee, Trinamool secretary general, Firhad Hakim, Subrata Bakshi, par-
ty’s state president and Abhishek Banerjee, the party’s youth wing president met the councillors of the Kolkata Municipal Corpora-tion. It was decided that the party would put up large-size cut-outs of Banerjee in all the 144 wards under the KMC. The flags and cut-outs will be put up before March 7 when Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend the BJP meeting at the Brigade Parade ground.
It has also been learnt that the leaders had told the councillors that the party would not tolerate any resentment after the names of the candidates are announced. “It is immaterial who is contest-ing as it is a fight between Mamata Banerjee and the Opposition par-ties. She is the candidate in all the 294 seats and keeping this in mind, the councillors will have to pump in maximum effort to ensure the smooth victory of the candidates who will be fighting in their respec-tive areas,” the leaders maintained.
Mamata to declare TMC’s list of candidates today
Sources say she will be contesting from Nandigram while Sobhandeb will stand from Bhowanipore
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: In a major decision, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO) apex decision-making body Central Board of Trustees has on Thursday decided to fix rate of interest at 8.5 per cent for 2020-21 for its more than five crore active subscribers. The decision in this regard has been taken at a meeting held in Srinagar.
Besides, the Central Board has also extended its provident fund, pension and insurance benefits to employees of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh who are working in existing establishments covered under the erstwhile JK PF Act.
“The Central Board of Trustees (CBT) recommended 8.50 per cent annual rate of interest to be credited on EPF accumulations in members’ accounts for the financial year 2020-21,” a labour ministry statement said.
As per the state statement, the 228th meet-ing of the CBT, EPFO was held on Thursday in Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir under the chairmanship of Union Minister of State for Labour & Employment (I/C) Santosh Kumar Gangwar.
As per the practice, the CBT decision on interest rate would be sent to the Finance Min-istry for concurrence. After getting the finance ministry’s nod, the 8.5 per cent rate of interest for this fiscal would be credited into the EPFO subscribers’ accounts.
The interest rate would be officially notified in the government gazette following which the EPFO would credit the rate of interest into the subscribers’ accounts, the statement said.
“For FY 2021, the EPFO decided to liqui-date investment (in equity) and the interest rate recommended is a result of combined income from interest received from debt investment as well as income realised from equity investment,” it said, adding that it has enabled EPFO to provide higher return to its subscribers and still allowing EPFO with healthy surplus to act as a cushion for provid-ing higher return in future also and there is no over-withdrawal on EPFO corpus due to this income distribution.
TMC seeks removal of Sudeep Jain over
‘track record of bias’OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has written a letter to the Election Commis-sion of India demanding the removal of Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain, who is the in-charge of Bengal, raising questions over his cred-ibility in view of past records.
Addressing a press confer-ence at the Trinamool Bhavan, party MP Saugata Roy said: “Derek O’Brien, TMC Rajya Sabha MP has written the let-ter to the CEO seeking his intervention into the matter.”
In the letter, Derek alleged that before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections BJP supporters, who took part in a roadshow of Amit Shah, had vandalised the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Following the inci-dent, Jain submitted “an erro-neous and biased report” to the ECI, which in its turn — in an unprecedented manner — had barred election cam-paigning two days prior to the polling date, though BJP was allowed to complete its elec-tion campaigning for the day
before such a restriction was imposed. Roy said if such a person was allowed to con-tinue, then it would be diffi-cult to conduct free and fair Assembly elections in 2021.
He said before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Jain had proposed to set up a Quick Response Team (QRT) com-prising state police and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to be led by an officer from the CAPF.
Such a proposal was unconstitutional as the Indian Constitution states that such forces would be led by an offi-cial of the state police. The CAPF cannot register any case under the Code of Criminal Procedure. Subsequently, the ECI realised this and the deci-sion for QRT to be headed by a CAPF official was withdrawn.
Roy added that under such circumstances, serious doubts had been raised as to whether Jain would function impartially during the elec-tions or not. “It is being feared that Jain’s actions will be tilted towards the BJP,” the leader maintained.
MYANMAR PROTESTERS, UNDAUNTED BY 38 KILLINGS, RETURN TO STREETS PG8
QUEUES ARE PASSÉ: SHOW ID CARDS & GET VACCINATED, SAYS HAKIM PG2
‘I HAD THE BIGGEST SHOCK OF MY LIFE’ PG12
Shiv Sena not to contest polls in Bengal, wishes Mamata ‘roaring success’
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: After Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena extends moral support to Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Baner-jee. Calling her the ‘real Bengal tigress’, the ruling party of Maha-rashtra announced on Thursday that it would not contest the polls in Bengal to ‘stand in solidarity with her (Mamata).’
Making the party’s stand clear, senior leader of Shiv Sena and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut tweeted: “A lot of people are curi-ous to know whether Shivsena is contesting West Bengal polls or not? So, here’s the update after discussions with Party President Uddhav ji Thackeray. Looking at the present scenario, it appears like a ‘Didi Vs All’ fight. All ‘M’s-
Money, Muscle and Media are being used against ‘M’amata Didi. Hence, Shivsena has decided not to contest West Bengal polls and stand in solidarity with her. We wish Mamata Didi a roaring suc-cess, ‘cos we believe She is the real Bengal Tigress!!”
The Shiv Sena — the oldest ally of the BJP — severed its ties with the saffron party in 2019 to form the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government in alliance with the Congress and the NCP.
Welcoming the move of Shiv Sena, TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien retweeted Raut’s post on social media. According to politi-cal analysts, Shiv Sena’s u-turn will surely be a major setback for the BJP ahead of filing of nominations for the 30 Assembly seats that will go to polls in the first phase on March 27.
On January 17, Raut had tweeted: “So, here is the much awaited update. After discussions with Party Chief Shri Uddhav Thackeray, Shivsena has decided to contest the West Bengal Assem-bly Elections. We are reaching Kol-kata soon...!! Jai Hind, Joy Bangla!”
Earlier on Monday, RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav called on Banerjee at Nabanna. During a joint Press conference, Yadav had said: “It is our priority and duty to sup-port Mamata Banerjee with all strength and stop the commu-nal forces. Today’s fight is against values and for our fundamental rights. We consider her fight to be ours and vice-versa.” On the same day, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had also extended moral support to Banerjee for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.
CitizenPerception
Survey
India's 10 Most Liveable Cities
Bengaluru
Pune
Ahmedabad
Chennai
Surat
Navi Mumbai
Coimbatore
Vadodara
Indore
Greater Mumbai
66.70
66.27
64.87
62.61
61.73
61.60
59.72
59.24
58.58
58.23
Shimla
Bhubaneswar
Silvassa
Kakinada
Salem
Vellore
Gandhinagar
Gurugram
Davanagere
Tiruchirappalli
60.90
59.85
58.43
56.84
56.40
56.38
56.25
56.00
55.25
55.24
Based on Ease of Living Index 2020With population
over a million
With population
less than a million
KBK graphicsInfoSource: Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs
Qualityof Life
Economic AbilitySustainability
35%
15%
30%
20%
FrameworkWeightage
Score Score
EPFO retains 8.5% interest on deposits
for 2020-21
Delhi HC also tells Serum Institute, Bharat Biotech to disclose capacity to manufacture vaccines
PINAK PANI CHOWDHURY
BALURGHAT: South Dinaj-pur district health department started vaccinating people aged 60 or above and those aged between 45 and 59 with comor-bidities in the second phase of community vaccination drive from 35 centres on Thursday, said Chief Medical Officer Dr Sukumar Dey.
“In the district, we have around 3.5 lakh comorbid patients who would be vacci-nated. We want to complete the process as early as possi-ble,” Dr Dey added. According to him, out of 35 centres, there are 19 primary health centres, four urban primary health cen-tres, eight block health centres, one sub-divisional hospital, one district hospital and two other state-run facilities. In the first phase, 20,500 doses of vaccine were administered to healthcare and frontline workers. Since Wednesday evening, 52 comor-bid people between 45 and 59, have taken the shots. As many as 237 people aged 60 or above have got the same. The second phase of vaccination comes at a time when the district’s active cases are under control.
S Dinajpur: 2nd phase of
inoculation starts in 35 centres
KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpostmp city2
SPRING TIME
A parakeet tries to sit on a branch of a blooming cotton tree, in Kolkata, on Thursday PTI
STATE SEES ONLY 1 COVID-RELATED DEATH IN PAST 24 HOURS
SHAHERYAR HOSSAIN
KOLKATA: Muslim cler-ics have launched campaign to urge people not to vote for BJP in the upcoming Bengal Assembly elections.
“We want to give only one message to the people i.e. pro-tect Bengal from caste-based politics (played by the Saffron party). Protect our Constitu-tion,” said Ahmed Ali Warsi, president of All Bengal District Imams Association (ABDIA).
The campaign had started in February. Imams and muezzins are visiting different districts and conducting con-ferences to urge people to vote
for the Trinamool Congress (TMC). By the end of March, ABDIA will complete conduct-
ing conferences in 23 districts of the state.
Warsi pointed out that
TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, after swearing in as the Chief Minister, has main-tained communal harmony in the state.
“She (Mamata Banerjee) treats Imams and purohits equally,” said the cleric.
When asked about the possibility of diversion in the Muslim vote bank towards Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Mus-limeen (AIMIM), Warsi said: “We have already visited six districts and people there are praying that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee should again come to power.” Bengal goes to polls from March 27.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: Taldangra MLA Samir Chakraborty has written to Trinamool Congress (TMC) Chairperson Mamata Baner-jee on Thursday stating that he is not willing to contest the Assembly polls this time as he wants to devote more time in campaigning for the party.
This comes at a time when Banerjee is scheduled to announce names of the can-didates of her party for all the 294 Assembly seats on Friday.
Chakraborty had won from Taldangra Assembly constitu-
ency in Bankura district in 2016 Assembly polls by 60,791 votes, though TMC trailed in the con-stituency by 17,268 votes in 2019 Parliamentary elections.
“So many leaders are com-ing to Bengal from Delhi and other states to campaign for BJP. I felt there is a need to give more time to campaign for my party. I wrote the letter to the party chairperson on Thursday only explaining that I want to give more time to work for the party. I am ready to go any-where my party sends me for campaigning,” Chakraborty said.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: CPI(M) leader Susanta Ghosh has threatened supporters of other political parties of facing dire conse-quences if anyone dares to dis-turb Left workers ahead of the elections.
“If anyone dares to touch Left workers, the person will be picked up from his house. His hands and legs will be broken and then I will take them for treatment,” Ghosh said at Sal-boni in West Midnapore.
A video showing Ghosh saying the same in a soft tone has gone viral on social media. The CPI(M) leader has returned to his home-
town in December after nine long years. Ghosh was earlier arrested in connection with the Benachapra skeleton recovery case. Seven Trinamool Con-gress workers were abducted, killed and buried in a pond in 2002 and skeletons were recov-ered from Ghosh’s ancestral house at Benachapra near Gar-beta in June, 2011.
Taking a dig at Ghosh, Birbhum TMC district presi-dent Anubrata Mondal said: “He may be considering it to be a Left Front regime of 2008-2009. That time they had bro-ken the hands and legs of many people. Now, it would not be possible for them to do the same in the state.” SOUMITRA NANDI
KOLKATA: The Bankura district administration has released its mascot for the upcoming Assembly polls pay-ing a tribute to tribal and folk music culture on Thursday. The mascot titled “Voter Saje Madol Baje’ depicts an Adi-vasi youth dancing while play-ing ‘madol’, a popular musical instrument of the tribals. The District Magistrate, who hap-pens to be District Electoral Officer (DEO), also released a calendar that highlights a series of events that will be under-taken in the next few days for spreading awareness among voters.
“Election Commission gives top priority to activities spreading awareness among the voters to ensure maximum voting. We are undertaking a series of events on a regular basis to encourage voters to cast their franchise,” K Rad-hika Aiyar, DEO Bankura said.
The 12 Assembly Constit-uencies (ACs) in the district will go to polls in the first and second phase on March 27 and April 1 respectively. Saltora (SC), Chhatna, Ranibandh (ST) and Raipur (ST) will have voting in the first phase while Taldangra, Bankura, Bar-jora, Onda, Bishnupur, Kat-ulpur (SC), Indus (SC) and Sonamukhi (SC) will witness polls in the second phase.
Among the total elector-ate of 2897111, 90982 voters that accounts for 3.14 per cent are the first time voters in the age of 18 to 19. “We will hold a session ‘Coffee with DEO,” at Bishnupur, where a discussion on Future of Elections will be held involving the young vot-ers. The inputs received from them will be sent to the state CEO (Chief Electoral Officer) office for necessary action,” a
senior district official said.There will be activities for
encouraging persons with dis-abilities (PWD) to cast their franchise. For the first time this year, they will be pro-vided postal ballot facilities. Persons above 80 years of age and COVID patients will also get the same facility. The num-ber of octogenarian voters in the state is 48166 while that of PWD is 20641. The district administration will also have a special event on the occasion of Women’s Day for increas-ing women participation in the polling process. The number of female voters in the district is 1425308, slightly less than male voters, which is 1471793.
Clerics urge people to vote for TMC TMC MLA from Taldangra wants to campaign, not contest polls
Don’t dare to touch Left workers: Ghosh
Poll mascot of tribal youth with ‘madol’
launched for Bankura OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: Sleuths of the Detective Department, includ-ing two women officers, visited the house of Kushal Agarwal in Alipore for investigating the mysterious death of his wife, Rashika Jain Agarwal. Sources said police have questioned some people in the house to learn about the cause of the altercation between Rashika and her husband that broke out two days before her death.
The police are trying to ascertain the exact reason behind the altercation. The cause of the altercation will help police in its investiga-tion. While she died on Feb-
ruary 16, the argument broke out between the two on Febru-ary 14 (Valentine’s Day.) It has been alleged that she died after falling from the third floor of her posh Alipore apartment.
Victim’s father Mahendra Kumar Jain alleged: “During lockdown, his daughter came to know about her husband’s habit of taking alcohol, drugs and addiction to smoking. He
even used to torture her men-tally and physically. Rashika even had to take money from us saying that she needs it for her own expense. But, it was actually for Kushal.”
He further said his daugh-ter was also badly hit on her eyes and had to be taken to doctor for treatment after receiving the wound. “They also went to a marriage coun-selor to settle all their differ-ences,” he said.
Rashika had even booked dinner to be delivered on Feb-ruary 17 at Iron Side Road Officers Enclave. But on Feb-ruary 16, her family mem-bers were informed about the incident.
Cops quiz people in house of Rashika’s in-laws
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: As Bengal wit-nessed 209 fresh Covid cases across the state in the past 24 hours, taking the total tally of infected people to 5,75,921 so far, there seems to be some good news for those waiting to get vaccinated.
People above 60 years will now receive Covid vaccine from various health centres run by the Kolkata Municipal Corporations (KMC) without waiting.
Firhad Hakim, Chairman of KMC’s Board of Adminis-trator, said: “All those above 60 and those aged between 45 and 59 years with comorbid-ity can now receive vaccines at
the KMC’s health centres with-out having to wait. The bene-ficiaries simply need to carry an Aadhar card or Voter ID card or similar identity proofs to receive the jab. The health personnel will help them in uploading their names on the Co-WIN portal at the health centres itself.”
Vaccines are being admin-istered free of cost. Comorbid patients will have to fill up a form. The health centres situ-ated at Ward 11, 31, 57, 111 and Mayor’s Clinic at Chetla have been earmarked for administering Covid vaccine.
Persons with comorbidities will have to bring Aadhar card or any similar identity proof and documents related to their
comorbid condition for avail-ing the vaccine.
The Health department has been conducting vaccina-tion among the elderly peo-ple along with the frontline workers. The poll personnel are also getting inoculated at various centres. As many as
5,62,412 patients have already been released from the hospi-tals so far. Around 217 patients have been discharged in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, the Covid recovery rate remained at 97.65 percent on Thursday. The percentage of positive
cases out of the sample tested dropped to 6.67. Bengal has so far carried out 86,38,078 Covid sample tests till Thursday out of which 19,491 samples were tested in the past 24 hours.
The state has seen one death in the past 24 hours. No death was reported in any dis-trict except Nadia where one person died in the past 24 hours. Around 3,102 people died of Covid in Kolkata so far whereas North 24-Parganas has lost 2,509 people till date.
Kolkata has seen 75 fresh cases in the past 24 hours tak-ing the total tally to 1,29,699 while North 24-Parganas has so far seen a total 1,23,356 out of which 45 were found posi-tive in the past 24 hours.
Queues are passé: Show ID cards & get vaccinated, says Hakim
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: An app-cab was vandalised by some youth following an altercation with the passenger at Shakespeare Sarani.
According to sources, the incident took place on Wednesday night. A girl, who was in an inebriated state, had hired the cab from EM Bypass. She requested change of desti-
nation more than once in the middle of the journey, but the driver denied.
Immediately, the girl informed her male partner about the matter over the phone.
Within a few minutes, the girl’s boyfriend and his friends blocked the cab with another vehicle near Ho Chi Minh Sarani.
They started abusing the
driver and smashed the rear and front windows and head-lights of the cab.
After vandalising the cab, the girl ran away with her boyfriend.
The cab driver lodged a complaint with Shakespeare Sarani police station.
Police investigation has started a probe in the mat-ter and are looking for CCTV footage.
Youths vandalise cab after abusing driver
Irked over Jitendra’s joining, BJP workers warn of fielding
Independent candidateOUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: The dramatic entry of former Asansol Mayor and two-time Trinamool Con-gress (TMC) MLA, Jitendra Tiwari, into the BJP has not gone down well with a section of the saffron party’s workers. Irked over Tiwari’s joining, the workers have threatened to field Independent candidates from Pandabeshwar in West Burdwan.
The BJP workers made graffiti, citing that they would field Independent candidates. In a video message that has gone viral, the BJP work-ers made it clear that Tiwari should not be fielded from Pandabeshwar seat.
“While he (Tiwari) was in the TMC, he had tortured our workers. So, we will field a can-didate of our choice who will be contesting as an Indepen-dent and we will vote for him,” said a local BJP worker. Most of the protesting workers are old timers in the party.
Tiwari, who had rebelled against the TMC earlier, made a U-turn in December last year and returned to the party. However, two months later he finally joined the BJP ahead of the polls.
Union Minister Babul Supriyo, who is also a BJP MP from Asansol, had earlier opposed Tiwari’s entry into the party. He had said Tiwari’s induction would upset BJP workers. However, Supriyo
welcomed his joining this time.Meanwhile, BJP district
president Sridip Chakraborty appealed to the party work-ers not to feel dejected with Tiwari’s joining.
TMC block president Nar-endranath Chakraborty said: “We are ready to welcome these aggrieved BJP work-ers to our party. The rivalry among the old and new in the party has again come to the forefront.”
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OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: Claiming that Abbas Siddiqui’s Indian Secular Front (ISF) was doing politics in the name of religion, Idris Ali, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and Chairman of All India Minority Forum, on Thursday came down heavily on the Furfura Sharif cleric for misleading Muslims ahead of Ben-gal Assembly polls.
“People do not like Abbas. Just giving a name tag ‘Secular’ does not mean the party is secular. He is doing politics in the name of religion,” said Ali, who claimed that IFS had earlier approached TMC for alli-ance but the latter refused. Then, ISF had approached Left Front. On Tuesday, Congress and the Left Front agreed to give 37 seats to ISF. Before the launch of ISF, Asaduddin Owaisi supremo All India Majlis-e-Itte-hadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) had met Abbas in Fur-fura Sharif. Referring to the ISF that will not oppose the AIMIM in the upcoming polls, Ali said: “ISF and AIMIM have no place in Bengal. People of Bengal do not support these divisive politics.”
In a video message that has gone viral, the BJP workers made it clear that Tiwari should not be fielded from Pandabeshwar
‘In the district, we have around 3.5 lakh comorbid patients who would be vaccinated’
‘ISF doing politics in name of religion’
KOLKATA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday interrogated three Railway officials in connection with the coal scam case.
Sources said all three were from the Eastern Railway’s Asansol Division, including the station manager of Bara-bani. The division’s chief con-troller and senior divisional operations manager were also questioned. The officers were questioned at CBI’s Nizam Pal-ace office. The anti-corruption branch of the central investigat-ing agency is probing the inci-dent and sources added that the officers were asked to explain certain facts related to coal at railway sliding areas under their jurisdiction. MPOST
Coal scam: 3 Rlys officers questioned
A shopkeeper sells TMC flags at a shop, in Kolkata, on Wednesday PTI
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: Eastern Railway’s Howrah and Sealdah Divisions have earned Rs 1.8 crore from UTS on Mobile during the last two months.
The UTS Mobile App ticketing system was started for suburban train passen-gers on January 6 to main-tain physical distance in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic and avoid rush at ticket counters.
The system enables the passengers to purchase tickets through digital transactions.
“As many as 45 lakh passengers availed ‘UTS on MOBILE’ app for suburban services in January and Febru-ary,” said an official of Eastern Railway.
ER earns Rs 1.8 cr from UTS in 2 months
COVID-19 STATS » Number of deaths in past 24 hours 1 » Total death toll so far 10,273 » Tested COVID positive in the past 24 hours 209 » Total COVID positive cases so far 5,75,921 » Total patients recovered from COVID so far 5,62,412 » Patients discharged from hospitals in past 24 hours 217 » Total samples tested so far 86,38,078
Tea stall owner and son attackedKOLKATA: A tea stall owner and his son were injured after being stabbed by a customer following an argument in Chetla area, a Kolkata Police officer said Thursday. The father-son duo was at the tea stall when the accused came and asked for tea on Wednesday but was told to wait for a while as there were several customers. The customer then alleg-edly hit the tea stall owner, identified as Rabi Moth, and his son Rahul with a brick and attacked them with a knife all of a sudden. While 45-year-old Moth received a deep penetrating stab injury, his teen-aged son suffered gashes on his left shoulder and head. Both have been admitted to SSKM Hospital. Bubai Dev, the customer, has been arrested. MPOST
The 12 Assembly Constituencies (ACs) in the district will go to polls in the first and second phase on March 27 and April 1 respectively
millenniumpost|KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021mp city 3
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: Besides “Bangla Nijer Meyekei Chaye” slogan of the TMC, the party workers are depicting Mamata Banerjee as the lone fighter — like Devi Durga — against BJP heavy-weights, including Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, in poll graffiti.
The graffiti presents how
Banerjee is more acceptable to the people of Bengal compared to the Modi-Shah duo.
Soon after the poll dates were announced, TMC work-ers swung into action across the state to campaign for the party. The age-old tradition of drawing election graffiti in the state is attracting a lot of atten-tion of passers-by.
This year, most of the TMC
graffiti are based on the slogan “Bangla Nijer Meye Kei Chaye.” At the same time, the workers are also highlighting Banerjee’s struggle to ensure overall devel-opment in the state.
Another slogan that finds mention in the graffiti is “Tomar Doley Amit-Modi, Netae Netae Bhari. Amar Doley Ekla Durga, Poinshattir Nari (There are sev-eral heavyweights in your party
(BJP) including Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi and Union Home minister Amit Shah. But, we (Trinamool Congress) have only Durga, in the form of a 65-year-old woman).” Such graffiti were found in differ-ent parts of Howrah, Hooghly, North and South 24-Parganas.
TMC believes that peo-ple in Bengal have full faith in 65-year-old Mamata Baner-jee because of her pro-people schemes and efforts to save the tradition and culture of the state from getting adversely affected by the “outsiders.”
“Mamata Banerjee sin-gle-handedly ensured women empowerment, employment generation and GDP growth in the state. She implemented Swasthya Sathi, Kanyashree and Rupashree and foiled all attempts of disrupting the state’s communal harmony,” said a Trinamool Congress worker from Serampore in Hooghly district.
Mamata takes on BJP heavyweights as ‘Durga’As graffiti war erupts, displays depict how Banerjee is more acceptable
to the masses of Bengal compared to the Modi-Shah duo
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: Noted kirtan singer Aditi Munshi joined the Trinamool Congress on Thursday.
Veteran party leader and MP Saugata Roy handed over the flag to her and welcomed her during a function at the Tri-namool Bhavan.
After joining, Munshi said: “My father-in-law Tarun Chakraborty who died some time ago was a Trinamool leader and my husband Debraj is an active party leader. I have seen them working. I am grate-ful that Didi felt I am worthy. I don’t think anyone else thinks about musicians like she does. It is our moral duty to support her during the elections.”
Eminent Bhojpuri actor Dhiraj Pandit also joined the Trinamool Congress along with Subhadra Mukherjee and Usha Chowdhury, former vice-chairman of BJP-led Garulia municipality. Shashi Panja handed over the party flag to them.
After joining, Pandit said: “We should fight against the divisive politics of BJP. We will have to work together to ensure that the saffron party does not come to Bengal and destroys its culture and tradition.”
Mukherjee, who was active member of the BJP, said: “It is not possible for any sensible person to work in the saffron party. I had joined the BJP after being influenced by the slogan ‘Sabka saath, sabka vikas’. But later I found it to be a big hoax.”
Chowdhury maintained: “Under the BJP, no develop-ment is possible as it works only for the development of a small group.” She said she would work with Mamata Banerjee to strengthen her hand.”
Very recently, a host of Tollywood personali-ties, including filmmaker Raj Chakraborty, actors June Malia, Sayantika Banerjee, Kanchan Mullick, Saayoni Ghosh joined the TMC ahead of the elections.
Aditi Munshi joins TMC, says ‘grateful that Didi felt I’m worthy’
AMITAVA BANERJEE
DARJEELING: Lopsang Lama (Yolmo,) the working president of the Gorkha Janmukti Mor-cha (Bimal) was sent to judicial custody by a district sessions court of Sikkim. Owing to ill-health he has been admitted at a Sikkim government hos-pital. Lama was arrested and charged under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act on Wednesday by the Sikkim police based on a complaint by a student.
The GJM (Bimal) had plans to field Lama from Kalimpong in the forthcoming Bengal Assembly elections. Lama was presently serving in the capac-ity of the principal of a private school in Sikkim.
“Lama was arrested from Namchi on Wednesday based on a complaint against him. He has been charged under POCSO Act and has been admitted to a hospital,” stated Pravin Gurung, Deputy Inspector General of the Sik-kim Police. “I cannot comment on the case without knowing the details,” stated Roshan Giri, general secretary, GJM (Bimal.)
A close aide of Bimal Gurung, Lama was elected as GTA member from Rongo and had served as the Deputy Chairman of the GTA. With Gurung on the run since the Gorkhaland agitation in 2017, Lama was looking after the party activities in the Hills.
Earlier on January 18, 2018 he had been arrested from Kharibari on the Bengal-Bihar border, implicated in cases per-taining to the attack on Jald-haka police station on June 17, 2017 along with torching of two police vehicles. Later he was out on bail.
AMITAVA BANERJEE
DARJEELING: Fire broke out at the landmark Hotel Shan-grila in Darjeeling on Thurs-day. Three fire engines battled the flames that was brought under control at around 2:30 pm. However, no casualties were reported.
The two-storeyed heritage building located on Nehru Road, at a stone’s throw dis-tance from the Mall, was ear-lier known as the Park and was owned by a Chinese fam-ily called Wong. Later in the 1970s, the ownership changed and it came to be known as Shangrila. It is owned by Ran-jan Lama.
According to Jit Gazmer, a kitchen staff, the fire broke out at around 11:45 am from the kitchen. The fire started from the gas connection pipe and caught onto the grease and grime that had collected on it. The fire brigade was immedi-ately called in.
“We received the call around noon and rushed to the spot. Three fire engines
and 10 fire fighting personnel managed to control the fire. The cause of the fire can only
be ascertained after thorough investigation,” stated Bharat Chettri, a fire personnel.
Luckily, the four rooms of the hotel were empty as the tourists had checked out on Wednesday.
The restaurant was empty as it opens at around 1 pm.
A dog that was trapped in the fire was rescued by the fire brigade.
The interior of the hotel was mainly damaged along with the roof. “Post Independence, in the 1950s, the Park restaurant used to host live bands dur-ing weekends and also boasted a dance floor. It was very popular among the youth. A part of the rich history of the town has been gutted,” stated Sashi Gongba, a Darjeeling resident.
POCSO case: Gurung aide
sent to judicial custody
Fire breaks out in Darjeeling’s iconic heritage hotel
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court division bench on Thursday lifted the interim stay on the recruitment process of 2014 TET candidates.
“A Division Bench, com-prising Justices Soumen Sen and Saugata Bhattacharyya, has lifted the stay and directed the West Bengal Board of Pri-mary Education to publish the merit list in the District Pri-mary School Council, District Inspector of School Office and West Bengal Board of Primary
Education,” said Advocate Bikram Chatterjee.
On Wednesday, the West Bengal Board of Primary Edu-cation had moved the Division bench challenging the single bench’s order that stayed the appointment process.
“The Primary Board will take necessary measures to conduct the recruitment process in a transparent man-ner and in strict adherence to the merit list,” said state Edu-cation minister Partha Chat-terjee said.
All candidates will be
able to see the merit list and appointments given to those candidates shall abide by the writ petitions. Over 800 seats will be kept for petitioners.
In February, writ petitions were filed at the Calcutta High Court alleging irregularity in the preparation of the merit list published by the state Primary Education Board for recruit-ment against 16,500 vacant teaching posts in the primary level.
On February 22, a single bench of Justice Rajarshi Bha-radwaj stayed the appointment.
As many as 15,284 posts of pri-mary teachers are to be filled up on the basis of the merit list that has been prepared against 16,500 vacancies.
The remaining 1,216 vacan-cies will be filled up from out of the remaining candidates who had submitted online applications but are not included in the merit list on the basis of their respective merit as well as from those candidates who had submitted their application offline pur-suant to the orders of the High Court.
Calcutta HC lifts stay on hiring process of primary teachers
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: In a year likely to see a bumper har-vest, the state government saves lakhs of potato cultivators in the state from facing distress sale by allowing each cold storage to procure 10 lakh MT potatoes at Rs 6 per kg.
Though the harvest is ongoing at present, as per estimates, around 120 to 130 lakh MT pota-toes will be produced this year.
But at the initial stage of this season, farmers were getting below Rs 4 for a kg of potato. As a result, they were incurring huge losses. But not letting the situation to turn worse, the state gov-ernment allowed procurement at Rs 6 per kg.
Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay
along with Chief Minister’s advisor on Agricul-ture Pradip Majumdar and Secretary of Agricul-ture Marketing department Rajesh Sinha held a Press conference at Nabanna on February 22 in this regard. It came as a boon for farmers as they did not bow down before “corrupt traders” who were aiming to procure huge quantities of pota-toes at a minimum price for hoarding the yield.
Now, the farmers are getting something between Rs 6.50 to Rs 7 per kg.
When contacted, Majumdar said: “The state government always took proactive steps and intervened to help farmers in such a situation. It helps in two ways. First of all, farmers get the right price for their produce and intervention of traders with wrong intention is also checked.”
The state has an annual requirement of 65 lakh MT potatoes. In 2018, the state had a pro-duction of around 85 lakh MT while in 2019 it went up to 110 lakh MT.
State allows cold storage to procure 10L MT potatoes at Rs 6/kg
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will issue a duplicate Swasthya Sathi card in case a beneficiary loses the same or it gets dam-aged against payment of only Rs 25.
“If a person loses his/her card, he or she will have to apply at the borough office in his or her area with a copy of a missing diary lodged at a police station and pay Rs 25. The borough office will do the needful and issue a duplicate card,” said a senior official of KMC.
With the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) coming into effect, the KMC has given directions not to host camps in the wards for handing over Swasthya Sathi cards.
The civic body will not accept any new application for the card but the process of issu-ing cards, to those who have already applied, will continue from all the 16 borough offices
in the city.Meanwhile, more than 85
per cent of people in Kolkata
— who have applied for the scheme — have received their cards.
Now, get duplicate Swasthya Sathi cards for Rs 25 if original is lost
No new applications are being accepted as of now
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: Trinamool Con-gress Chairperson Mamata Banerjee will lead a rally to be organised by party’s women cell in Siliguri on March 7, on the eve of the International Women’s Day, Chandrima Bhattacharya, president of Tri-namool Mahila Congress, said on Thursday.
The rally will start from Darjeeling More and end at Venus More. Banerjee will take part in another procession on March 8 to celebrate Interna-tional Women’s Day in Kolkata. The rally will start from College Square and end at the Dorina Crossing.
Bhattacharya said Baner-jee — the only woman Chief Minister in the country — had taken a slew of measures to empower women in the state.
Swasthya Sathi card, the most successful project of the state government, is issued in the name of the woman head of the family.
“Nowhere in the country, one can find a card under the social benefit scheme which is being issued in the name of a woman,” she added. She said Kanyashree, which received the UN award, had so far benefit-ted 68 lakh girls and a sum of Rs 6,720 crore had been spent for implementation of the scheme.
Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, party’s MP, said the scheme had very successfully brought down the number of school drop-outs.
Bhattacharya said out of the proposed 65 all women police stations, 48 had been set up so far. She said while quot-ing the report of the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) as per which the number of crimes against women was least in Kolkata among all the met-ropolitan cities.
Dr Ghosh Dastidar said in BJP-ruled states atrocities on women were on the rise. Recently, in Uttar Pradesh the father of a moles-tation victim was gunned down allegedly by the accused, she added. She maintained that the people in Bengal wanted their own daughter to become the Chief Minister for the third consecutive time.
Mamata to lead party’s women
cell rally in Siliguri on Mar 7
With the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) coming into effect, the KMC has given directions not to host camps in the wards for handing over Swasthya Sathi cards
According to Jit Gazmer, a kitchen staff, the fire broke out at around 11:45 am from the kitchen
It came as a boon for farmers as they did not bow down before ‘corrupt traders’ who were aiming to procure huge quantities of potatoes at a minimum price for hoarding the yield
This year, most of the TMC graffiti are based on the slogan ‘Bangla Nijer Meye Kei Chaye’
Bhattacharya said Banerjee — the only woman CM in the country — had taken a slew of measures to empower women in the state
OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOLKATA: Special Observer Ajay Nayak and Special Police Observer Vivek Dubey are com-ing to the state on Friday to take stock of the poll preparedness and law and order situation.
The Election Commission on the very day of its announce-ment of the poll schedule had declared the name of former Bihar Chief Electoral Officer Ajay Nayak as a Special Observer and Vivek Dubey and M K Das as two Special Police Observers for the Bengal Assembly polls.
Nayak and Dubey are expected to take the final call on the deployment pattern of
the Central forces in coordina-tion with senior officials of the Commission and the state CEO office for conducting free and fair elections in the state.
Nayak was brought in as a Special Observer for the state soon after the first phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Dubey, a 1981-batch retired IPS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre, had also been appointed as a Spe-cial Officer in the 2019 general
elections. A senior official in the state CEO office informed that the Election Commission has approved lunch for the polling officials who are undergoing training in different districts, including Kolkata, regarding various election aspects.
The officials had demanded that they should be offered lunch during the day-long training.
“Those who have already undergone training will have Rs 170 credited into their respective accounts as allowance for lunch. We have informed all the DEOs to take necessary action in this regard,” said Sanjay Basu, state Additional CEO (Chief Elec-toral Officer).
Ajay Nayak, Vivek Dubey to visit state todayBoth are expected to take the final call on the deployment pattern of the Central forces
KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpostmp nation4
SC directs pvt hospitals to give priority to elderly
Earlier, it had directed only govt hosps to give priority in admission, treatment of elderly looking at their vulnerability to pandemic
Man dies a day after taking anti-Covid jab
KOTA: A 60-year-old man died here on Thursday, a day after taking his first anti-Covid vac-cination shot at a government primary health centre with authorities saying his post mor-tem has been conducted to find out the exact cause of his death.
The autopsy was conducted by a medical board on the demand of his family members suspecting complications aris-ing out of vaccination, Deoli-Manji police station's SHO Ramavatar Sharma.
He added that following the man's death, a case has been registered under section 174 of CrPC to find out the exact cause of the unnatural death.
A resident of Garmodi vil-lage in Kota district, Bahadur Singh Rajput had got his first dose of the anti-Covid vaccina-tion at a government primary health centre in Baluheda area under the Deoli-Manji police station on Wednesday after-noon, the SHO said.
He added that the man was
sent back home after 30 minutes of observation of his condition after the vaccination at the PHC.
Singh's family members told police that Singh felt dizziness and collapsed while taking his tea on Thursday morning fol-lowing which they rushed him to the government community health centre at Kaithun town where the doctors declared him brought dead , the SHO said.
Dr Devender Jhalani, the Kota's Reproductive Child Health Officer and in-charge of the anti-Covid vaccination in the district, ruled out any com-plication out of the vaccination as the possible cause of death.
Dr Jhalani said a total of 114 people had been given the vac-cine on Wednesday in the dis-trict but no adverse reaction was reported by anyone.
The actual reason for the death can be ascertained only after the autopsy report of the medical board which conducted the postmortem is received, he added. AGENCIES
RAIPUR: Two cities of Chhat-tisgarh have successfully made their place in the top 10 cities of the country for their excellent performance under Munici-pal Performance Index. Rai-pur city has secured 7th rank in the country in the category of cities with population more than 10 lakh and Bilaspur city has secured 7th rank in the cat-egory of cities with population less than 10 lakh.
Urban administration bod-ies (government) of both the cities hold the 7th rank in the country for their excellent per-formance in providing basic civic amenities to the citizens.
Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India announced the results of Municipal Performance
Index competition on Thurs-day. Resullts were announced by Union Minister for Hous-ing and Urban Affairs, Hard-eep Singh Puri in New Delhi.
Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel congratulated the citi-zens, public representatives and
urban administration depart-ment of Raipur and Bilaspur for this achievement. “It is a mat-ter of pride for us that Chhat-tisgarh is constantly being rewarded for the outstanding works done in the urban areas,” he said. It may be noted that last year, Central Government had conferred award upon Chhat-tisgarh for being the cleanest state in the country and also for better performance under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
While congratulating the city dwellers and departmental officials on this achievement, Urban Administration Minis-ter Dr. Shivkumar Dahria, has asked the officials concerned and the citizens of the state to keep up the great performance in future as well.
Two cities of Chhattisgarh secure position in top 10 cities of country
MUNICIPAL PERFORMANCE INDEX
OUR CORRESPONDENT
SHIMLA: Rejecting Congress MLAs’ plea to revoke suspen-sion of five legislators, includ-ing Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said he was ready to make CCTV footage of the assembly’s clash and manhan-dling of the Governor public.
The offer came in the morn-ing after Congress MLAs decided to absent themselves from the House, held a protest and raised slogans against the government in the state assem-bly complex.
Later all the MLAs also joined the dharna which five MLAs had started outside the assembly ever since their sus-pension from the House by the speaker Vipin Parmar for their misconduct and manhandling of the Governor Bandaru Dat-
tatreya on February 26.The opposition has rather
hardened the postures after for-mer Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh also reached the assem-bly first-time and joined the agitating members instead of attending the proceedings.
“Had I been Chief Min-ister and opposition behaved in the same manner, I would have resolved the crisis within 10 minutes. Chief Minister (Jai Ram Thakur) should have taken his advice in resolving the issue. You can’t keep the opposition out of the House indefinitely especially when the Budget was likely to be presented in next two days,” he said.
Chief Minister responded to Virbhadra Singh’s offer say-ing “I don’t want to add any-thing to what he has said. I respect him as senior politician and chief minister being such
a long time but it’s not neces-sary to follow his advice. I have my doubts how much his own party follows him.”
He recalled how the BJP MLAs, who were protesting at the Ridge when Virbhadra Singh was Chief Minister, got lathicharge. " Police action was ordered against us,” the Chief Minister said.
The conduct of the oppo-sition is unpardonable. They have exceeded the limits of decency in the democratic functioning of the legislature.Better they should all go and apologise to the Governor for their act.
He said since the opposition MLAs are not ready to believe the genuineness of the video footage of the private channels and media, the CCTV footage of the state assembly, if rules, permit can be made public or screened in the House to show.
Himachal CM offers to show footage of Assembly’s clash, Virbhadra joins protest
OUR CORRESPONDENT
CHANDIGARH: Effective steps taken by the State Gov-ernment ensuring growth of Cooperative Sugar Mills have proved beneficial as Haryana’s Cooperative Sugar Mill, Karnal has been selected for first prize for excellent development in the field of sugarcane process-ing. Besides this, the Cooper-ative Sugar Mill, Kaithal has been selected for second prize for its technical efficiency at the national level for the sea-son 2019-2020.
This was shared by the Haryana Cooperation Minister Dr. Banwari Lal here on Thurs-day. He said that these mills will be conferred with both the awards at the National Level Award Distribution Ceremony to be held in Vadodara (Guja-rat), organised by the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Mills, New Delhi on March 27 and March 28, 2021.
Expressing satisfaction over the consistent improvement in the efficiency of Cooperative Sugar Mills, Dr. Banwari Lal said that out of the 11 Coop-erative Sugar Mills of Haryana, the Cooperative Sugar Mill of Karnal has been selected at the national level for the devel-
opment of sugarcane and the Cooperative Sugar Mill of Kaithal has been selected for its technical efficiency. He informed that these two Coop-erative Sugar Mills have bagged these awards due to the reforms introduced in the Cooperative Sugar Mills and various steps taken by the present State Gov-ernment led by CM Manohar Lal. He also informed that Kai-thal's Sugar Mill has the dis-tinction of bagging this award thrice in the last four years (for crushing season 2016-17, 2018-19 and 2019-20).
Dr. Banwari Lal informed that during the current crush-ing season 2020-21, 24.56 lakh quintals of sugar has been pro-duced with an average sugar recovery of 9.48 per cent of the total crushing of 263.05 lakh quintals of sugarcane till March 2, 2021 as compared to the pre-vious crushing season 2019-20 during which 223.34 lakh quin-tal of sugarcane was crushed and 21.38 lakh quintal of sugar was produced.
He informed that by March 2, 2021, 263.20 lakh quintal of sugarcane has been purchased by all Cooperative Sugar Mills at a cost of Rs 920.80 crore, of which Rs 474.44 crore has been paid to the sugarcane farmers.
‘Haryana’s Cooperative Sugar Mills to be conferred
National Level Award’
DHIRENDRA KUMAR
NEW DELHI: In a move aimed at establishing the state-of-the-art infrastructure to promote manufacturing, foster innova-tion and create employment opportunities across sectors, the Jharkhand government has planned to organise stake-holders’ meet to seek inputs on draft Jharkhand Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy 2021 from key stakeholders comprising of experts, indus-try associations, industry lead-ers, entrepreneurs and others.
The stakeholders meeting is scheduled to be organised in the national capital on Saturday in the presence of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren. Apart from Soren, who is also state’s Industry Minister, the state’s Chief Secretary Sukhdeo Singh, Industry Secretary Puja Singhal, Industry Director Jitendra Kumar Singh and oth-ers would also be present at the stakeholders meet.
According the state gov-ernment officials, stakehold-ers from all the key industries such as food processing, tex-tiles, healthcare, pharmaceu-tics, electronic manufacturing,
electric vehicles, lighting engi-neering, etc would participate in the meeting and discuss dif-ferent aspects related to the formulation of the policy to promote industry and invest-ments in the state.
The Jharkhand government would also ink an agreement with the FICCI – a body of industrialists, the state officials said, adding that about 40 key industry leaders, experts, etc would participate in the meet-ing and share their suggestions for the proposed new industrial policy of the state.
The Jharkhand government has also proposed a 30 per cent subsidy on total capital invest-ment for developing any tour-ism facilities in its new tourism policy.
J'khand CM to meet experts for inputs on new industrial policy
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday directed that elderly people be given pri-ority in admissions at private hospitals besides at govern-ment medical institutions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
A bench of justices Ashok Bhushan and R S Reddy modi-fied its earlier order of August 4, 2020, by which it had directed only government hospitals to give priority in admission and treatment of elderly people looking at their vulnerability to coronavirus.
We direct that the priority with reference to admission contemplated in order dated August 4, 2020 to the elderly people should also be given in the private hospitals. List the matter after four weeks, the bench said in its order.
During the hearing, senior advocate Ashwani Kumar, petitioner in-person, told the bench that in order dated August 4, last year this Court had directed that priority with reference to admission be given to the elderly people in the Government hospital only.
He said that priority in admission to the elderly peo-ple should be given in all pri-vate hospitals as well since it is mostly private hospitals which cater most of the population in the country.
The bench took note of sub-missions made by Kumar that except Odisha and Punjab no other state has given details about the steps taken in pur-suance of the earlier directions issued by the top court on his
plea.The top court granted three
weeks' time to all the States to respond to the fresh sugges-tions made by Kumar to pro-vide relief to the elderly people.
Kumar submitted that the states need to issue fresh Memorandum of Procedures (MoPs) in pursuance to the directions issued by the court.
He submitted that all the State Governments be directed to issue necessary procedures incorporating the directions issued by this Court regarding two Departments that is Health Department and Social Welfare Department.
He said that incorporating the directions in the MoP shall serve greater public interest and purpose.
Kumar, who is a former union minister, has sought directions with regard to elderly people saying they need
more care and protection amid the pandemic.
The top court had last year directed that all eligible old age persons should be regularly paid pension and states should provide them necessary med-icines, masks, sanitisers and other essential goods in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The apex court had said that looking at their vulnerability to coronavirus, elderly peo-ple should be given priority in admission in government hos-pitals and in the event of any complaint made by them, the hospital administration shall take immediate steps to rem-edy their grievances.
Kumar had earlier submit-ted that older people, who are living alone, are "worst suffer-ers" and they are not able to get medicines, masks, sanitis-ers and other essential goods.
While seeking direction for
timely payment of old age pen-sion to those who are receiving it, he had said that "caregivers of these people" are not equipped with personal protection equip-ment and are untrained.
The top court had said that it had already issued directions on December 13, 2018 in the matter and those directives were needed to be complied with by all concerned, includ-ing the states.
In its December 2018 ver-dict, the apex court had said that statutory rights of over 10 crore elderly persons in India must be recognised and implemented.
It had directed the Centre to obtain information from all states and Union Territories about the number of old age homes in each district and had also suggested a relook at the pension for the elderly so as to make it more realistic.
NEW DELHI: The Income Tax Department has detected financial irregularities of over Rs 650 crore after it raided two film production companies, two talent management com-panies and a leading actress, the Central Board of Direct Taxes claimed on Thursday but did not take any names.
The statement from the CBDT came as raids on the homes and offices of Bolly-wood actor Taapsee Pannu, director Anurag Kashyap and his partners who launched the now shuttered Phantom Films continued in Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad for the second day. The searches also covered some executives of celebrity and talent management com-panies KWAN and Exceed, officials said.
A day later, without nam-ing the people or companies searched, the CBDT said the entities searched were mainly engaged in the business of pro-duction of motion pictures, web series, acting, direction and talent management of celebrities and other artists.
Official sources identified the entities raided as Pannu and the four former promoters of Phantom Films -- Kashyap, director-producer Vikramad-itya Motwane, producer Vikas
Bahl and producer-distribu-tor Madhu Mantena. They also identified the celebrity and tal-ent management companies as Kwan and Exceed.
The second film pro-duction company that was raided belongs to Kashyap, the sources said. Evidence of huge suppression of income by the leading film production house compared to the actual box office collections has been unearthed," the statement from CBDT, the administrative body of the IT Department, claimed.
"The company officials have not been able to explain dis-crepancy of around Rs 300 crore," it said.
Evidence related to "manip-ulation and under-valuation" of share transactions of the production house amongst the film directors and share-holders, with a tax implication of about Rs 350 crore has also been found and is being fur-ther investigated, it alleged. "Evidence of cash receipts by the leading actress amounting to Rs 5 crore has been recov-ered and further investiga-tion is going on," the CBDT claimed.
Also, "non-genuine or bogus expenditure" to related concerns by the leading pro-ducers and directors having
tax implication of about Rs 20 crore has been detected, the statement said.
"Similar findings have been made in the case of the leading actress also," it alleged.
The statement added that "huge amount" of digital data has been seized in the form of emails, WhatsApp chats, hard disk from the offices of the two talent management companies.
A total of seven bank lock-ers were found and placed under restraint, the CBDT statement said.
The searches against Man-tena are also being carried out in context of his links with KWAN, of which he is a co-promoter, officials said. While Kwan's client list includes Deepika Padukone, Exceed manages Saif Ali Khan and Sonakshi Sinha among others.
Pannu, 33, and Kashyap, 48, both known to be outspo-ken in their views on a range of issues, were shooting in Pune on Wednesday and were understood to have been ques-tioned by the tax sleuths as part of the preliminary questioning that takes place during raids.
Kashyap and Pannu, who worked together in the 2018 film "Manmarziyaan", are now collaborating in the upcoming film "Dobaara". AGENCIES
Over Rs 650 cr discrepancies found after raids: I-T Dept
LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Assembly was adjourned sine die on Thursday, a week ahead of the schedule, after the House passed the annual budget for 2021-22, the largest budget so far in the history of the state.
The government presented the last budget of its current ten-ure last week with an outlay of Rs 5,50,270.78 crore.
The first paperless budget of Uttar Pradesh, which intends to make the state "aatmanirb-har" (self-reliant) as Finance Minister Suresh Khanna put it, includes new schemes worth Rs 27,598.40 crore.
The brief session, which was to conclude on March 10, was curtailed following requests from lawmakers to wrap it up
so that they could campaign for the upcoming panchayat polls in the state.
As soon as the House met for the day, Khanna, who is also the parliamentary affairs minister, said due to the upcoming pan-chayat polls and the recurrence of COVID-19 cases in some states, the proceedings will be completed and the House will be adjourned. Leader of Oppo-sition Ram Govind Chaudhary of the Samajwadi Party (SP) termed it "murder of democ-racy" and said the Assembly members do not have to con-test in the panchayat polls and that the House should be run till March 10, as decided earlier.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Lalji Verma and Con-
gress Legislative Party leader Aradhna Mishra Mona too cited rules and said the proceedings should continue and there is no reason for curtailing the ses-sion. Khanna, however, cited examples from 2009, 2006 and 1991 and said as the number of coronavirus cases is also rising, the budget should be passed and the House adjourned sine die.
Dissatisified with the "undemocratic" move of the government, opposition SP, BSP, Congress and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) staged a walkout. Subsequently, the budget and the related appropriation bills were passed by a voice vote. Several amend-ment bills were passed before the House was adjourned.
The session commenced on February 18 with the governor's customary address to the joint sitting of the Assembly and the Legislative Council, but it was marked by opposition protests and walkouts.
Replying to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the governor for her address, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath slammed the opposition mem-bers for their "behaviour".
Later, while speaking on the budget, Adityanath flayed the SP, accusing it of presenting "directionless" state budgets in the past, unlike the budget pre-sented by Khanna, which was "lauded by various chambers of commerce and welcomed by all sections of the society". AGENCIES
Budget passed; UP Assembly adjourned sine die
MUMBAI: The Maharash-tra government on Thursday said there was no truth in the allegations that women were stripped and forced to dance by policemen at a hostel in Jal-gaon district.
Speaking in the Maha-rashtra Legislative Assem-bly, state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said a team of senior women police offi-cers had visited the hostel for an inquiry into the alleged incident.
"There are 17 women inmates. Forty one witnesses were questioned. It was found that there is no truth in the alle-gations. No male police offi-cial was present. It is a women's hostel and policemen are not allowed inside," he said.
The issue was raised in the House on Wednesday by oppo-sition members.
BJP leader Sudhir Mun-gantiwar had targeted the state government, suggesting it was not serious over the issue.
According to media reports, some women had complained about the alleged incident.
Deshmukh on Wednesday said a four-member high-level committee was formed to con-duct a probe into it.
On Thursday, the Home minister said in the House that the woman complainant was mentally unstable.
"Her husband and other family members have com-plained about her mental con-dition. On February 20, an entertainment programme was organised for the inmates in which no male police official was present," the minister said.
The programme included poetry recital, singing and dance, he said. AGENCIES
‘Allegations related to Jalgaon women's hostel false’
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a conference of the county's top military leadership in Gujarat's Kevadia on Saturday, which will also see the participation of jawans and junior commis-sioned officers (JCOs) for the first time, senior officials said.
They said the jawans and JCOs will be attending spe-cific sessions related to human resource issues during the three-day Combined Com-manders' Conference that began on Thursday.
Chief of Defence Staff Gen-eral Bipin Rawat, Army Chief General M M Naravane, Air Chief Marshal R K S Bha-dauria, Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh and senior officials of the defence minis-try and the armed forces will attend the conference.
The prime minister is expected to deliver his address on the last day of the confer-ence on Saturday, the officials said. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will also attend the con-ference, they noted. The top military meet is taking place in Kevadia at a time when India and China are engaged in talks on disengagement of troops in eastern Ladakh. MPOST
PM to address conference of top military leadership
MUMBAI: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday said a doctor who allegedly tried to molest a woman patient at a COVID-19 care centre in Aurangabad has been removed from service, and SOPs for such facilities will be issued by this month-end.
The incident took place earlier this week and the issue was raised by BJP MLA Manisha Chaudhary in the state Legislative Assembly.
She said incidents of rape ofwomen in COVID-19 care centres are not new.
"Such cases are unfortunate. People don't fear the gov-ernment. We demand immediate response from the state Home minister," the MLA said.
Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis said he had written four letters to chief minister on the rise in incidents of crime against women in COVID-19 care centres and sought standard operating procedures (SOPs) to curbthem.
"But, I haven't got any reply to my letters and SoPs have also not been published," the former chief minister said.
In response, Pawar said the SOPs for COVID-19 care centres will be published by March 31.
He said the doctor who tried to molest the woman patient at a COVID-19 care centre in Aurangabad has been removed from service after a preliminary probe into the incident.
"The woman is not ready to complain for fear of her iden-tity being revealed. The doctor and her husband are friends. Strict action will be taken after completion of the inquiry," Pawar said. MPOST
SOPs for Maharashtra Covid-19 care centres
by March 31: Ajit Pawar
ON PANNU, KASHYAP AND OTHERS
CM Baghel congratulates citizens, public representatives and departmental officers and employees for the achievement
Senior citizens wait for their turn to receive the first dose of Covid vaccine in Mumbai, on Thursday
millenniumpost|KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021mp nation 5
SUB-INSPECTOR SHOOTS HIMSELF DEAD NEAR UP ASSEMBLY COMPLEX LUCKNOW: An on-duty Uttar Pradesh police sub-inspector allegedly shot himself dead at the parking lot located across the state Assembly complex on Thursday, officials said. In the suicide note left behind addressed to the Chief Minister, sub-inspector Nirmal Kumar Choubey said that “he is going” and asked the CM to take care of his children. He has also stated that he was ill, Commissioner of Police D K Thakur said. Choubey (53), a native of Varanasi district, was posted at Banthra police station in the city as a sub-inspector.
HC ASKS CENTRE, STATE NOT TO SET UP GST TRIBUNAL IN UP WITHOUT ITS NOD LUCKNOW: The Allahabad High Court Thursday asked the central and state governments not to es-tablish the GST Appellate Tribunal in Uttar Pradesh without its permission. A bench of Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice R R Awasthi gave the direction here in Lucknow on a public interest lawsuit by Awadh Bar Association and posted the matter for the next hearing on March 15.
GOA POLL BODY ANNOUNCES ELECTIONS TO FIVE MUNICIPAL COUNCILS PANAJI: Within hours of the Supreme Courtstaying the Bombay High Court’s order on reservation of wards, the Goa State Election Commission (SEC) on Thursday announced elections for five municipal coun-cils, to be held on March 21. The Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court on March 1 had set aside a noti-fication by the Directorate of Municipal Administration on reservation of wards, after which the elections to Mormugao, Margao, Mapusa, Quepem and Sanguem municipal councils were rescheduled.
BRIEFSNATION
Using Hindi idioms, Rahul targets govt for raiding ‘pro-farmer’ voices
Union minister Prakash Javadekar invoked a few sayings to hit backOUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Hindi idioms took centre stage in a political slugfest between the Congress and the ruling BJP on Thurs-day as Rahul Gandhi cited them to accuse the government of using probe agencies to tar-get critical voices, prompt-ing Union minister Prakash Javadekar to invoke a few say-ings to hit back.
A day after income-tax raids at the homes and offices of Bollywood actor Taapsee Pannu, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and others, Gandhi used the hashtag 'ModiRaid-sProFarmers' with his tweet in Hindi to take a dig at the government.
Putting out three popular Hindi idioms –'Ungliyon pe nachana', 'Bheegi billi banna' and 'Khisiyani billi khamba noche' –Gandhi stated what he believes they mean in the current context.
In his three-pronged attack, he alleged that the central gov-ernment makes the income tax department dance to its tunes, friendly media gets cowed down before the Centre and the central government raids those supporting farmers.
Pannu and Kashyap are known to be outspoken in their
views on a range of issues.Hitting back, Javadekar
asked Gandhi to recall three more Hindis idioms –'Sau chuhe khakar billi chali Haj ko', 'Ungliyon per gine ja sakna' and 'ranga siyar' –to tar-get the Congress.
He used the first saying to mock the Congress for giving lesson in media freedom after stifling it during the Emer-gency, the second for the cur-rent political standing of the party and the third for a "fam-ily party" like it lecturing on democracy and "the most com-munal party" pretending to be secular.
The searches against Pannu and Kashyap as well as his part-ners who launched the now shuttered production house Phantom Films were carried out across 30 locations in Mumbai and Pune. They were part of a tax evasion probe against Phantom Films, offi-cials said.
Pannu and Kashyap were shooting in Pune and are understood to have been ques-tioned by the tax sleuths as part of the preliminary questioning that takes place during raids.
The raids also covered Reli-ance Entertainment group CEO Shibhasish Sarkar and some executives of celebrity
and talent management com-panies KWAN and Exceed.
At a press conference, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said that the Modi government has given complete freedom to probe agencies, and no one is a Bollywood star or a celebrity in their eyes.
Everybody now gets same treatment while it is the Con-gress's character to bend laws to help certain people and spare even criminals if they sing praises of the Gandhi fam-ily, he claimed.
If somebody breaks law, evade tax or conspire against the country, then probe agen-cies will do their job, he said.
The Congress destroys
institution when in power and tries to discredit them when in opposition, Bhatia alleged.
Meanwhile, the Congress also cited a media report to accuse the BJP of muzzling free press and trying to control the media narrative.
Congress spokesper-son Supriya Shrinate said, "A government communication report has revealed some very disturbing facts. There were five Union cabinet ministers and four ministers of state who were part of this."
"It is absolutely certain that at the time of coronavirus when the world was standing rock solid with the government and thinking that the prime
minister was thinking about our lives, our livelihood, tak-ing us out of this crisis, he was preparing to stab us in the back by compromising the freedom of speech and expression in the country by controlling free press," Shrinate said in a press conference.
She alleged that some of the suggestions from the report were also included in the Infor-mation Technology (Interme-diary guidelines and digital media ethics codes) Rules 2021 under the IT Act 2000.
"Some of the suggestions of the committee, were actually made into law, this is a breach of privilege, it is keeping Parlia-ment in the black and I believe that on moral ground both Information and Broadcast-ing Minister Javadekar and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad should resign," she said.
In a separate tweet, Con-gress leader Rahul Gandhi cited another media report on the government's handling of the border issue with China to attack the Centre.
"GOI believes media man-agement is a substitute for geo-political strategy. China has already made us pay a price for this. Continuing down this path will be disastrous for India," he said.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
THIRUVALLA/KOCHI: After tweeting ‘Metroman’ E Sreedharan, who recently joined the BJP, will be its chief ministerial candidate for the Kerala assembly elections on April 6, Union Minister V Muraleedharan clarified on Thursday that the party has not made any such announcement.
Muraleedharan, who tweeted in this regard earlier, clarified, saying he wanted to inform that through media reports he learnt that the party has announced Sreedharan as the chief ministerial candidate.
But when he cross-checked with Kerala party president K Surendran, he said he has not made any such announce-ments, Muraleedharan, who is also a former BJP state presi-dent, said.
In his tweet, Muraleedharan had said..”BJP4Keralam will fight Keralapolls with E Sreed-haran Ji as its Chief Ministerial Candidate.We will defeat both CPIMKerala & INCKerala to provide a corruption-free,
development-oriented Gover-nance for the people of Kerala.”
His social media post on Sreedharan’s leadership in the Assembly polls came hours after Surendran said he has requested the party’s national leadership to announce ‘Metro-man’ as the NDA’s chief minis-terial candidate.
Referring to Muraleed-haran’s clarification tweets, Congress leader Shashi Tha-roor took a dig at the BJP, saying the saffron party was “confused”.
“Hilarious! BJP4Keralam manages to be confused about who will occupy the top floor of a building that will never be built.There will be no BJP CM in Kerala,” Tharoor tweeted.
The development comes on a day the 88-year-old tech-nocrat announced his deci-sion to end his 24-year long career with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to enter electoral politics.
Earlier, Surendran, who is leading the party’s Vijay Yatra said, if the NDA “under the
leadership of ‘Metroman’, gets an opportunity to rule the state, “we are confident we will be able to implement devel-opment works under Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a ten-fold force in Kerala.”
Addressing a party meeting in Thiruvalla, Surendran high-lighted the achievements of Sreedharan, including the com-pletion of the reconstruction of Palarivattom flyover here in five months, much ahead of the stipulated time.
“He completed the proj-ect in five months without any corruption.That is why we requested Sreedharan and our party leadership that he should be projected as the (NDA’s) Chief Minister candidate,” he said at the meeting organised as part of the “Vijay Yatra” led by him. This was the first time the party indicated that Sreedhran will be the NDA’s chief minis-terial candidate.
The party sought to project Sreedharan’s leadership in the polls amid the process of deter-mining the candidates for the assembly election.
NEW DELHI: The Income Tax Department detected "unaccounted" income of Rs 175 crore after it raided two groups of civil contractors in poll-bound Tamil Nadu, the CBDT said on Thursday.
It said "unaccounted" cash of Rs 3 crore was seized after the searches were conducted on Wednesday at 18 premises in Madurai and Ramanatha-puram districts. The action was undertaken, the CBDT said, on the basis of intelligence inputs "about the existence of cash, which is likely to be distributed for election purposes."
Tamil Nadu will have a single-phase polling for its 234-member assembly on April 6.
As a result of the search, unaccounted income of Rs 175 crore has been detected, it said.
"Other findings include the identification of the fact that the assessee is booking bogus expenses under various heads to reduce the profits."
"The declared profits were less than 2 per cent of the turn-over, when in actual accounts the profits exceeded 20 per cent," the CBDT said in a statement. AGENCIES
GUWAHATI: Continuing with its series of "guarantees", the Congress said on Thursday that if the opposition 'Mahajot' or Grand Alliance is voted to power in Assam, it will ensure 50 per cent reservation for women in government jobs.
Addressing a press confer-ence, All India Mahila Congress President Sushmita Dev said the Congress-led alliance will focus more on the upliftment of women and youths.
"When the Congress-headed grand alliance will form the gov-ernment, we will implement 50 per cent reservation for women. This will be our guarantee and it will be one of the first things we're going to do," she said.
The Congress has formed a broadbased alliance with AIUDF, BPF, CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML), and Anchalik Gana Morcha (AGM) to fight the upcoming assembly election against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for 126-member Assam house.
Dev asserted that the Con-gress and the grand alliance believe in accountability and guarantee of jobs.
"Youths and women of Assam don't want charity. They want job opportunities and want to contribute to the economy of the state," she said, taking a dig at the BJP-led state govern-ment's various schemes of direct benefit transfer.
Dev said the women res-ervation issue will be a part of guarantees in the manifesto for
the upcoming Assam assem-bly polls.
Women form a big chunk of the Assam voters.
Out of total over 2.31 crore voters in Assam, women elec-torate are more than 1.14 crore.
On March 2, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had announced five guarantees of the grand alliance –five lakh government jobs, monthly Rs 2,000 to every housewives, 200 units of free power to all, an act nullifying the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and hiking the minimum daily wages of tea garden workers to Rs 365.
All India Congress Commit-tee General Secretary Jitendra Singh said the party's 'Asom Bachaon Ahok Yatra' travelled over 10,000 km across the state and reached the poorest seg-ment of the society.
"While interacting with the public, the most important issue
that came out was unemploy-ment. Insufficient salary is also another crucial issue among the educated youths working in the state. "BJP did not solve any problem, but gave Citizenship (Amendment) Act to Assam," he added.
Congress Assam unit presi-dent Ripun Bora said the grand alliance, if voted to power, will create a separate department for generation of jobs.
"We have already announced to create five lakh government jobs once our government is there. The BJP promised 25 lakh jobs in five years, but actually gave employment to only 80,000 youths in five years," he added.
There are another 58,000 sanctioned posts that are vacant at present in addition to 20,000 SC and ST unfulfilled backlog posts, Bora said.
Congress Legislature Party Leader Debabrata Saikia appealed to all unemployed youths to register at a newly launched website –www.con-gressor5guarantee.in –for get-ting jobs after the grand alliance forms government. During the launch of the online registration drive, 101 unemployed youths enrolled their names for jobs on the website.
Congress Campaign Com-mittee Chairman Pradyut Bordoloi claimed Assam has a shortage of 40,000 health workers, 38,000 school teach-ers, 12,000 college teach-ers and 15,000 policemen among others. AGENCIES
THIRUVANANTHA-PURAM: A Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) leader on Thursday lodged a complaint with the Election Commission demanding the removal of the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the COVID-19 vaccination certificate, issued to people in poll-bound Kerala.
In the brief letter, Midhun Shah, who is also the state co-coordinator of the Kerala State Youth Commission, pointed out that the model code of con-duct was already in force in the southern state, where Assem-bly election is scheduled on April 6.
"The certificate, issued for receiving the free COVID-19 vaccine in the state, carries photo of Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi and excerptsof his speech.
As it may influence the elec-tion procedure, I request you to take necessary steps to remove it," he said. AGENCIES
CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday urged the Election Commission to restrain Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from campaigning in Tamil Nadu for the April 6 Assembly election, for alleg-edly violating the model code of conduct. It also wanted the EC to direct the police to reg-ister an FIR against him for "inciting the youth to another freedom struggle."
BJP state in-charge, election liaison committee, V Balachan-dran, alleged that Gandhi's campaign in St.Joseph's Mat-ric Higher Secondary School in Mulagumoodu in Kanya-kumari district on March 1 was akin to an election campaign in school premises.
In a memorandum sub-mitted to chief electoral offi-cer (CEO) Satyabrata Sahoo on Thursday, he said Gandhi's political campaign in the edu-cational institution violated provisions of the model code of conduct for which strict action including "prohibitory orders for his poll campaign in Tamil Nadu is required." AGENCIES
COIMBATORE: The CPI(M) will seek rescheduling of the second phase of the budget ses-sion of Parliament beginning from March 8, in view of the assembly elections in five states, party General Secretary Sita-ram Yechury said on Thursday.
Since majority of the states such as Tamil Nadu, Puduch-erry, Kerala and Assam have more opposition MPs, they may find it difficult to cam-paign in these states, where polls are scheduled to held from March 27 to April 6.
Noting that the party will seek rescheduling of the session on the first day itself, Yechury said main policies related to the budget or economy can be passed and other topics can be taken up in the next session, so that MPs can campaign in their states.
As polls in West Bengal will be conducted in eight phases,
the leaders will have enough time for campaigning, he told reporters here.
On the election scenario, Yechury alleged that the Naren-dra Modi-led government has completely destroyed the foun-dation of Constitution and fed-eral structure and almost all the sectors like industry, education were destroyed by its wrong policies.
Accusing the Centre of formulating policies to further 'enrich' the cronies and friends of the PM, the left party leader said even the MSME sector, generating largest employment next to agriculture, was totally neglected.
Alleging that the govern-ment was targetting voices of dissent by booking them under UAPA and filing sedition cases, he said the Supreme Court has finally ruled that dissenting was not sedition. MPOST
CHANDIGARH: Describing the new farm laws as "uncon-stitutional and illegal", former Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Thursday said they were an attack by the Cen-tre upon the federal structure and the right of states to frame legislations.
He said the new laws will lead to auctioning of land in Punjab and leave its residents as "slaves" and asked the Con-gress government in the state to take "bold and solid steps" to meet the "aspirations" of people protesting against the legislations.
"The new farm laws are unconstitutional and illegal. It's an attack by the Centre on the right of states to frame new laws and the federal structure," he told reporters here.
Referring to the ongoing farmer protest against the laws, he said the peasantry has never lost a battle.
The Punjab Assembly had passed Bills last year to negate the three farm laws. The bills are pending for approval of the governor.
Sidhu said, "Minimum support price must be given on pulses and oil seeds by the
Punjab government. This will help in crop diversification."
He also stressed upon providing bargaining power to farmers by way of giving them holding capacity of per-ishable crops through storage facilities and infrastructure development.
He sought amendment in the cooperative act to giv-ing powers to farmers to set up a cooperative body. "This will help farmers to manage crops and give them collective strength," he added.
Sidhu said that farmers will be able to fix rates of their pro-duce through cooperation and this will give them bargaining powers.
He also demanded wage income on the pattern of MGNREGA to farmers.
Rejecting the three new agri laws, he cautioned that what the Centre is doing is "incor-rect" not only for farmers but for the entire country as well.
Farmers are staging protests on the Delhi borders since late last year after the promulga-tion of the three new agri laws even as the Centre claimed that these would be beneficial for the peasants. AGENCIES
Cong promises 50% quota for women in govt jobs in poll-bound Assam
SIMONTINI BHATTACHARJEE
NEW DELHI: After the gov-ernment introduced the new rules for digital media and OTT platforms, it emphasises the need for self-regulation for the newest form of media.
The Union Information and Broadcast Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday met representatives of various OTT platforms including Alt Balaji, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Netf-lix, Jio, Zee5, Viacom18, She-maroo, MxPlayer and clarified that in the self-regulating body, no member will be appointed by the government.
In the past, the ministry had done several rounds of consul-tation with the OTT players. "The government will create the Inter-Departmental Com-mittee to look at complaints that remain unresolved at the self-regulatory level," Javadekar informed.
"The minister had received
representations from cinema and TV industries that while there were regulations for them, none existed for OTT industry. Thus, it was decided that the Government would come out with a progressive institutional mechanism for OTT players and develop a level playing field with the idea of self-regulation," the ministry official statement added.
Further, informing the industry representatives about the provisions of the rules, Javadekar said it merely requires them to disclose infor-
mation and that there is no requirement of registration of any kind with the government.
The new rules focus on the self-classification of content instead of any form of censor-ship. Further, OTT platforms are expected to develop an effective grievance redressal mechanism, the I&B ministry added.
Social media platforms in India - Facebook, WhatsApp, Google’s YouTube, Twitter, and other OTT platforms now face a new set of rules and regula-tion set to be enforced after mid-May. The Indian gov-ernment has laid rules for a physical presence, monitor-ing of harmful content, track-ing down the first originator of mischief, and the voluntary verification of users. These reg-ulations are called the Informa-tion Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digi-tal Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (Rules).
No govt member in self-regulating body: Javadekar on meeting OTT players
Sidhu: New agri laws unconstitutional
Sreedharan BJP’s CM candidate for Kerala polls, says Union Minister but retracts later
E Sreedharan visits Palarivattom Bridge, in Kochi, on Thursday
THIRUVANANTHA-PURAM: Days after the ED summoned top officials of the Kerala Infrastructure Invest-ment Fund Board,Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday claimed the agency made attempts to threaten the state government officials and lashed out at the Centre.
Continuing his attack on Union Finance Minister Nir-
mala Sitharaman, Vijayan accused her of trying to "destroy" the KIIFB by raising "baseless allegations" against it and "misusing" the Enforce-ment Directorate (ED) under her ministry for political purposes.
The ED, probing the state-owned agency's external bor-rowings through 'Masala Bonds', made attempts to
threaten state government offi-cials after summoning them into their office, he alleged.
He said legal action would be initiated against such cen-tral agency officials.
"Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is also a senior leader of the BJP, is raising baseless allegations against KIIFB which ushers in unprecedented develop-
ment in the state", Vijayan told reporters here and referred to her allegations against KIIFB at a recent poll rally in Tri-punithura. Vijayan alleged that as the people dismissed her charges, "she began her effort to destroy it misusing the Enforcement Directorate under her ministry."
"Some investigators of the central agency were now show-
ing undue hastiness to imple-ment their political bosses' orders," he claimed.
Vijayan lashed out at the Centre over the issue after the Enforcement Directorate sum-moned top officials of KIIFB.
The chief minister claimed that the ED had no interest in collecting information from the KIIFB officials for the probe. AGENCIES
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi speaks during the launch of party election campaign website, ahead of Assam Assembly polls, at Rajiv Bhawan in Guwahati
Restrain Rahul from campaigning
in TN: BJP plea to ECI
EC petitioned to remove PM's
photo from Covid vaccine certificate
I-T dept detects Rs 175-crore black income in raids on TN contractors
Assembly polls: CPI(M) to seek rescheduling of
Parliament session
ED trying to threaten KIIFB officials: Kerala CM
mp nation6 KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpost
CORONAVIRUS
SPECIAL DRIVE: ODISHA POLICE RESCUES 160 MISSING CHILDREN IN FOUR DAYS CUTTACK: The Odisha Police on Thursday said it has rescued 160 children, including 138 girls who were reported missing, in the past four days, as part of a special drive. In the first phase of the week-long drive that will end on March 8, police personnel will attempt to trace missing children within state, expand exercise to beyond Odisha in 2nd phase, they said.
SUPPLEMENTARY DEMANDS OF ̀ 21K CR PASSED BY MAHARASHTRA LEGISLATURE MUMBAI: The two houses of the Maharashtra legis-lature on Thursday passed, after debate, supplemen-tary demands of Rs 21,076.33 crore tabled by the state. The demands had been tabled in the Legisla-tive Assembly and the Legislative Council on Monday ahead of the state Budget on March 8. Rs 2,000 cr were sought for the Mumbai-Nagpur expressway, Rs 1,149.67 cr for Metro and Rs 1,866 cr for power tariff concessions provided to agriculture pumps.
BRIEFSNATION
SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir authorities on Thursday lifted restrictions on the movement of moder-ate Hurriyat Conference chair-man Mirwaiz Umar Farooq who was placed under house arrest in August 2019 follow-ing the abrogation of Article 370 provisions. "The police has informed the Mirwaiz that there were no restrictions on his movement anymore and that he was free to visit Jamia Masjid on Friday," a close aide of the Hurriyat chairman said.
However, the admin-istration neither con-firmed nor denied the claim made by the Mirwaiz's aide. The Mirwaiz, who is also the chief priest of Kash-mir, was among hundreds of political leaders -- both separatist and mainstream -- who were taken into cus-tody or placed under house arrest as the Centre revoked Jammu and Kashmir's spe-cial status under Article 370 of the Constitution 19 months ago. AGENCIES
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Cen-tre to forthwith appoint a regu-lar CBI director.
The petition, filed by NGO Common Cause, has alleged that the government has failed to appoint a regular CBI direc-tor as per section 4A of the Delhi Special Police Establish-ment (DSPE) Act, on the expiry of term of Rishi Kumar Shukla on February 2 and instead appointed Praveen Sinha as an interim director of the premier investigating agency.
The plea, filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan, has also sought a direction
to the Centre to initiate and complete the process of selec-tion of the CBI director well in advance, at least one to two months before the date on which the vacancy to the post is about to occur.
The director of the CBI is the final authority in the orga-nization. He supervises all the
work in the CBI and is respon-sible for constitution of investi-gating teams for probing cases. Hence, this court and later on Parliament have made deter-mined efforts to enhance the functional autonomy of the CBI director and limit the extent of executive discretion in the matter of appointment of this key functionary, the plea said.
It said that appointment of regular CBI director as per the statutory law is necessary for upholding the rule of law and for enforcement of the rights of citizens under articles of the Constitution dealing with equality before law and protec-tion of life and personal liberty.
The plea said the Centre has
appointed Sinha as an interim/acting CBI director till the appointment of a new director or until further orders.
It said that appointment of CBI director has to be made on the recommendation of a com-mittee consisting of the prime minister, leader of the single largest opposition party and the Chief Justice of India or any judge of Supreme Court nomi-nated by the CJI.
Referring to an earlier judgement of the apex court, the plea said the top court had directed that Director Generals of Police (DGP) in the states should have a min-imum tenure of at least two years irrespective of his date of superannuation.
NEW DELHI/ AGRA: The Taj Mahal complex in Agra was vacated on Thursday morn-ing following a hoax bomb call, police said.
The caller, identified as Vimal Kumar Singh, has been detained for questioning in Firozabad, Additional Director General (ADG) of Police, Agra zone, A Satish Ganesh said
Singh called the 112 emer-gency response number of the Uttar Pradesh police at around 9 am and claimed that a bomb was kept inside the monu-ment that is conserved by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and protected by armed personnel of the Central Indus-trial Security Force (CISF).MPOST
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday was told by Punjab government and gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari that Yogi Adityanath-led government has got no fundamental right to seek his transfer from Rup-nagar jail to a district jail in Banda in Uttar Pradesh.
The Uttar Pradesh gov-ernment has moved the top court seeking a direction to the Punjab government and Rupnagar jail authority to immediately hand over the custody of Ansari, an MLA from Mau constituency, to the district jail Banda.
A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and R S Reddy said that it will pronounce its verdict on the plea of Uttar Pradesh government and petition of Ansari seeking transfer of the cases against him outside the State. During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Uttar Pradesh government referred to the prison rules and said that though the State does not have fundamental rights, but it can espouse the cause and the fundamental rights of the victims and it may assume the position of the victim.
He said that the submis-sion that the State does not have any fundamental right is wrong as the State can always assume the role of the vic-tim and the society at large. Mehta said that Ansari had flouted the jail manual rules and right of the victim and the State at large cannot be overlooked and the accused cannot be allowed to jettison the fair trial. He said that this court under Article 142 can order transfer of Ansari from Punjab jail to a jail in Uttar Pradesh as around 14 and 15
cases are at final stages.If video conferenc-
ing is the most equitable medium to conduct crimi-nal trials then a person can be tried while remaining in the United Kingdom , Mehta told the bench. Senior advo-cate Mukul Rohatgi, appear-ing for Ansari, submitted that because of his political affilia-tion to a party in opposition, he is being targeted.
My co-accused in a case was encountered. Uttar Pradesh has an axe to grind against Punjab and the Court should not allow its shoul-ders to be used to fire a gun. This should not be allowed , Rohatgi said. He said that Ansari has been appearing in all courts through Video Conferencing and bogus arguments have been used that trials are being stalled.
I am seeking transfer of cases outside Uttar Pradesh. They may be transferred to Delhi because of the fear of political vendetta in the state , he said, adding that How can the state be seek-ing my transfer and in any case it should be the judiciary which should be seeking my custody. Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for Punjab government said that the criminal proceedings against Ansari has been going on in Uttar Pradesh for past 14/15 years and the present writ petition of Uttar Pradesh is not maintainable and it be dismissed. MPOST
BENGALURU: Close on the heels of the launch of a Brazil-ian satellite by ISRO, India and Italy have decided to explore opportunities in the field of earth observation, space sci-ence and robotic and human exploration.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) held a bilateral meeting with Italian Space Agency (ASI) on virtual mode on Wednesday, as part of its strategy to strengthen inter-national partnerships.
ISRO Chairman and Sec-retary in the Department of Space (DoS) K Sivan and ASI President Giorgio Saccoccia led their respective delegations.
"Both sides reviewed the on-going cooperation and agreed to form more thematic working groups to explore cooperation opportunities in earth observation, space sci-ence, robotic exploration and human exploration", Bengal-uru- headquartered ISRO said in a statement.
On February 28, ISRO suc-cessfully launched the 637-kg Brazilian satellite Amazonia-1
on board PSLV-C51 rocket from Sriharikota spaceport.
Brazil's Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Marcos Pontes visited ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore district, about 100 kms from Chennai, and witnessed the launch.
The Minister and his dele-gation later had a meeting with an ISRO team led by Sivan, and both sides agreed to work together to enhance the bilat-eral space cooperation and take it to the higher level.
Union Minister Jitendra Singh, who heads the DoS, also had a virtual interaction with Pontes and officials of the Bra-zilian space agency.
"Brazil has requested India's support in procurement of material and systems for its launch vehicle programme," a DoS statement said. "Coop-eration possibilities in future space science missions, utilis-ing ISRO's PS4-orbital plat-form (PS4-OP), space weather studies etc. were discussed", the official statement said. AGENCIES
NEW DELHI: The Delimita-tion Commission, a panel for redrawing the parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, has got a one-year extension, a move indicating that the Assembly polls in the Union Territory would not be held anytime soon.
A gazette notification issued by the government on Wednes-day night said the panel, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, will get one more year for completing its task in the Union Territory, which came into existence on October, 2019 after the Centre abrogated the special status of the erstwhile state in August that year and announced its reorganisation.
The panel was set up last year to redraw the electoral constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir and four northeast-ern states -- Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Naga-land. However, the one-year extension is only for Jammu and Kashmir.
The proceedings of the commission, which has five MPs from the erstwhile state
of Jammu and Kashmir as ex-officio members, have been boycotted by the National Conference (NC) that has three representatives in the panel.
Before Parliament passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reor-ganisation Act in August 2019, the effective strength of the Jammu and Kashmir Assem-bly was 87, including four seats from Ladakh, which is now a separate Union Territory with-out a legislature. The strength of the realigned Jammu and Kashmir Assembly is 107 now with 24 seats to continue to remain vacant as those fall in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
The NC members, while disassociating themselves with the Delimitation Commission, had said the party has chal-lenged the Jammu and Kash-mir Reorganisation Act in the Supreme Court and the matter is pending.
In a letter to the chairper-son of the commission, the NC MPs, including former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and veteran politician Farooq Abdullah, had said, "In our view, the Jammu and Kashmir
Reorganisation Act, 2019 is palpably unconstitutional and has been enacted in disregard and violation of the mandate and the spirit of the Constitu-tion of India and therefore, not to be acted upon."
"We have thrown a chal-lenge to the constitutional validity of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 exercise of powers where-under the meeting in question is proposed to be held," the let-ter, also signed by two other MPs -- HasnainMasoodi and Muhammad Akbar Lone -- had said.
According to section 60 of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019, "...the number of seats in the Leg-islative Assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kash-mir shall be increased from 107 to 114...."
With 24 seats in PoK, the effective strength will go up from 83 to 90.
The elections to the Assembly of the Union Ter-ritory of Jammu and Kash-mir will be held only after the process of delimitation is completed. AGENCIES
‘Hope membership of INSTC project will be expanded’
Curbs on Hurriyat leader lifted after 19 months: Aide
After enhancing ties with Brazil, Australia, ISRO eyes new opportunities with Italy
Bomb scare at Taj Mahal following hoax call; caller detained: Police
Delimitation Commission gets one more yr to conclude its task
NGO moves top court, seeks appointment of regular CBI chief
UP has got no fundamental right to seek Mukhtar Ansari’s transfer from Punjab jail: SC
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: India has pro-posed the inclusion of Chabahar port in the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) route, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday, and expressed hope that member states involved with the INSTC will agree on expanding membership of this project.
In his address on 'Chabahar Day' at the Maritime India Sum-mit 2021, Jaishankar said the shift in the fulcrum of global economic growth towards Asia is creating unprecedented opportunities for connectivity in the region.
He asserted that the mark-ing of Chabahar Day by India reflects its strong commit-ment to enhancing regional connectivity.
Jaishankar said India has also proposed the inclusion of Chabahar in the INSTC route.
The INSTC is an important trade corridor project, wherein India is partnering with 12 countries to establish an eco-
nomic corridor, he said.The International North
South Transport Corridor is a 7,200-km-long multi-mode transport project for mov-ing freight among India, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azer-baijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe. "We also welcome the interest of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to join the multilat-eral corridor project. Establish-ing an eastern corridor through Afghanistan would maximize its potential," he said.
"I am hopeful that during the INSTC Coordination Council meeting, member states would agree to the expansion of the
INSTC route to include the Cha-bahar Port and also agree on expanding the membership of this project," he said.
Jaishankar also said that as the world goes through a fun-damental re-balancing, correct-ing many distortions of the past, it is only natural that connec-tivity should be central to that exercise.
He said the shift in the ful-crum of global economic growth towards Asia is creating unprec-edented opportunities for con-nectivity in the region.
"There is a huge infrastruc-ture deficit in the region which needs to be met to fulfil grow-
ing aspirations of our people," he asserted.
Noting that in the modern age, the correlation between connectivity and economic growth has got even more pro-nounced, Jaishankar said growth in trade, commerce, industrial development and technological advancement has gone hand in hand with ease of connecting.
Maritime connectivity, in particular, has played a signifi-cant role in creating regional corridors for trade and eco-nomic linkages, as indeed for cultural and intellectual exchanges over the centuries, he pointed out and added that they too assume a new promi-nence in contemporary times, for being more competitive, seamless and greener.
The access of land-locked economies to maritime move-ments has been a focus of recent initiatives, he said.
The government of India, recognising the importance of regional connectivity, made a landmark decision to undertake an overseas port investment in Chabahar, he said.
Consider granting 90 more days limitation period to litigants for filing appeals: SCOUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Attorney Gen-eral K K Venugopal on Thurs-day urged the Supreme Court that litigants be given 90 more days as the limitation period for filing appeals as the earlier order on the issue which was passed due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation has been lifted.
The apex court had on March 23 last year invoked its plenary power under Arti-cle 142 of the Constitution to extend the limitation period of appeals from courts or tri-bunals on account of the pandemic.
A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices L Nageswara Rao and S Ravin-dra Bhat took note of the sub-mission of the top law officer and reserved its order on the suo motu case.
Venugopal suggested in computing the period of limi-tation, period from March 15, 2020 to March 14, should be excluded.
The balance period of limi-tation remaining as on March 15, 2020 shall be available with effect from March 15, 2021. All person shall have an extra period of 90 days with effect from March 15, 2021. If the balance period avail-
able is greater than 90 days, the greater period will be available for limitation with effect from March 15, 2021, the law officer said in his note.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged that the apex court's proposed order be also made applicable to property attachment proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
On Wednesday, the top court had indicated that it pro-poses to lift the extension of limitation period with effect from March 15 this year and it might give a period of 90 days thereafter for the even-tuality if restrictions may be re-imposed due to the pandemic.
In its March 23 last year order, the apex court had said, This court has taken suo motu cognizance of the situ-ation arising out of the chal-lenge faced by the country on
account of COVID-19 virus and resultant difficulties that may be faced by litigants across the country in filing their petitions/applications/suits/ appeals/all other proceedings within the period of limitation prescribed under the general law of limitation or under Spe-cial Laws (both Central and/ or State).
To obviate such difficulties and to ensure that lawyers/litigants do not have to come physically to file such pro-ceedings in respective courts/tribunals across the country including this court, it is hereby ordered that a period of limi-tation in all such proceedings, irrespective of the limitation prescribed under the general law or special laws whether condonable or not shall stand extended w.e.f. March 15, 2020 till further order/s to be passed by this court in present proceedings, it had said.
The apex court had on March 23 last year invoked its plenary power under Article 142 of the Constitution to extend the limitation period of appeals from courts or tribunals on account of the pandemic
We also welcome the interest of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to join the multilateral corridor project, says Jaishankar
From Page 1The daily new cases of
COVID-19 in India were recorded above 17,000 after a little over a month tak-ing the total tally of cases to 1,11,56,923, while the recov-eries surged to 1,08,26,075 on Thursday. Maharashtra, Ker-ala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Guja-rat and Karnataka continue to report a surge in daily new COVID-19 cases, account-ing for 85.51 per cent of fresh cases. On Thursday, 34 days later, the country has reported the highest number of 17,407 new cases.
Maharashtra has reported
the highest daily new cases at 9,855. This is the highest num-ber recorded in the state since October 18 when 10,259 new cases were reported.
It is followed by Ker-ala with 2,765 while Punjab reported 772 new cases. The total number of cases with UK, South Africa and Bra-zil variants of SARS-CoV-2 in the country as on date has reached 242, the Union Health ministry said.
The death toll increased to 1,57,435 with 89 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed. On January 29, 18,855 new infections were
recorded in a span of 24 hours. The COVID-19 active casel-oad has increased to 1,73,413 which which comprises 1.55 per cent of the total infections, the data stated.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,08,26,075 which translates to a national COVID-19 recovery rate of 97.03 per cent, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.41 per cent.
According to the ICMR, 21,91,78,908 samples have been tested up to March 3 with 7,75,631 samples being tested on Wednesday.
India vaccinates over 10...
From Page 1An affidavit to be filed by
the UoI disclosing the rationale for such classification, it said.
It also asked the Delhi gov-ernment to carry out inspec-tion of medical facilities available in court complexes here and to report if COVID-19 vaccination centres could be set up there and also the short comings in facilities. The high court asked all the authorities to file their affidavits by March
9 and listed the matter for fur-ther hearing on March 10.
The high court was hearing a PIL initiated by it to examine the demand of Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) to declare all peo-ple associated with the judicial functioning, including judges, court staff and lawyers as front-line workers so that they could receive COVID-19 vaccination on priority and without limi-tations of their age or physical condition.
From Page 1The bench said now, tradi-
tional film viewing has become obsolete, but for those movies, there is a censor board.
Our query is whether some screening is necessary or not, because you watch anything in your home like a cinema halls, the bench observed. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appear-ing for the Centre, said, “They are showing filthy things with abuses too”. Mehta said he would be placing on records the Infor-mation Technology (Guidelines for intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Rohatgi on the other hand said the case against Purohit cannot be based on the regu-lation which is yet to come in force.
SC worried over...HC asks Center about rationale
behind classification for Covid vaccination
From Page 1application for grant of
NOC for certificate of regis-tration, notice of transfer of ownership of motor vehicle, application for transfer of own-ership of motor vehicle, inti-mation of change of address in certificate of registration, appli-cation for registration for driver training from accredited driver training centre, application for registration of motor vehicle of diplomatic officer, applica-tion for assignment of fresh registration mark of motor vehicle of diplomatic officer, endorsement of hire-purchase agreement, termination of hire-purchase agreement.
Renew driving licence using Aadhaar as 18 RTO services...
RANCHI: Three security per-sonnel were killed and two injured in a Naxal-triggered IED blast in the forests of Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district on Thursday, officials said.
Three men of the spe-cial unit of the state police, Jharkhand Jaguars, were killed in the improvised explosive device (IED) blast that took place around 8:45 AM in Hoya-hatu village under Toklo police station area of the district.
A jawan of the Jharkhand Jaguars and a Central Reserve Police Force personnel from its 197th battalion were injured in the blast, they said.
The joint team of Jharkhand Jaguars and CRPF was out for an anti-Maoist operation in the area.
IED blast in Jharkhand
kills 3 security personnel
It’s been a generation since global leaders met in Stockholm in 1972 to discuss environmental
challenges. Then the concerns were for the local environment; there was no talk of climate change or even the depletion of the ozone layer. All that came later. In 1972, the discussion was on the toxification of the environment as water and air were foul.
Anil Agarwal, Cen-tre for Science and Environ-ment’s founder-director, was in Stockholm for this first-ever UN Conference on the Human Environment and he spoke about how the lakes of this city were so polluted with industrial effluents that you could develop a camera film in the waters. These lakes are now pristine.
So you could argue that much has changed in the past 50 years. But it hasn’t really. The toxification of the environ-ment is still a pressing concern; countries have indeed cleaned up locally but added to the emissions in the global atmo-sphere. Now, we are out of time as climate change impacts are spiralling out of control.
This is why as we approach 50 plus years of Stockholm conference, we are looking at an increasingly inequita-ble world; where poverty and marginalisation are growing and where climate change risks are reaching not just the homes of the poor but also of the rich. We need, therefore, to change paths; to re-configure, not just our language but also our approach to, what we can call, our common future.
This is why next year when the world marks the 50th anniversary of the Stockholm Conference, it must stand dif-ferently — not to state the
problem but to show the way ahead. This is also why we need to discuss consumption and production. We cannot sidestep this anymore. This is the most inconvenient of all discussions.
The fact is when we stitched up the global ecological frame-work in terms of the many agreements — from ozone, climate and biodiversity to desertification and hazardous waste — the world realised that the actions of one coun-try exceeded its boundaries. We have to act globally and cooperatively as we live in an interdependent world.
During this time, we also signed another agreement on free trade — the economic glo-balisation agreement. But we never really understood how these two frameworks — eco-logical and economic global-
isation — would counteract each other. As a result, we have worked to build an economic model based on discounting the price of labour and of the environment.
We have pushed produc-tion where these costs are cheaper; we have built for overproduction as goods have become cheaper and more dis-posable. But we have also made sure that all countries are now vested in this model of growth.
All countries want to have global factories that produce goods as cheaply as possible. This comes then at the cost of environmental safeguards and labour conditions. The poor in the world are on the aspira-tional ladder to get richer with more goods and more con-sumption and more waste.
Today, COVID-19 has disrupted this out-of-control
journey to produce as cheaply as possible and to consume as much as possible. As the world builds back, it has the choice to do things differently. This is also because COVID-19 has taught us lessons that we must not forget.
One, we have understood the value of labour — migrant labour — that was invisible and unwanted; today it has become important for the industry. We have seen how labour returned home — not just in India but across the world. And how has this impacted production. We can see already that the industry is working hard to bring back its workers; it is offering them better pay and better working conditions. This will increase the cost of production.
Two, we understand today the value of blue skies and clear
lungs — we know that the lock-down resulted in lowered pol-lution and we value this now. This investment in the envi-ronment will increase the cost of production as well.
Three, we understand the value of investing in land-agri-culture-water systems. People who went back to their vil-lages are rebuilding their live-lihoods. It is time to secure a resilient future there with food production systems that are sustainable, nature-friendly and good for health.
Four, we are now in the era of work-from-home; even when the new normal comes, we will want to have hybrid systems that will allow us to work remotely, reduce travel stress, and also have interac-tions and collaborations that enrich our world. This will change consumption patterns as well.
And five, governments are financially strapped. So they have to spend much more and therefore, cannot waste. This is where they will want to invest in circular economies — find ways of making resources out of waste; do more with less.
All this has the potential to change the way we consume and the way we produce. So as the world meets again next year to mark 50 years of when the conversation started on human beings and their impact on the environment, we have an opportunity to do it right by nature this time.
This time, we have the exis-tential crisis of climate change staring us in the face. We can-not waste more time talking the talk anymore. It’s not an option. Not anymore. DTE
The writer is the Director-General of CSE and
editor of Down To Earth. Views expressed are personal
mp editorial 7
SHANTANU GUPTA
SUNITA NARAIN
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SAFE EARS DearEditor
World Hearing Day was observed on March 3, and sadly the day went past silently just like the way the problems of hearing go unheeded! It is really shocking to know, as per WHO, that one in four people will suffer from hearing problems by 2050. The international body has alarmed that currently one in five people has hearing problems but more often it is just ignored and uncared for. The amount of care and attention that we give to various other ailments is sadly not given to hearing problems except in case of severe pain in the ear or other serious issues. The WHO has called for global action and asked nations to take immediate measures to check this ‘silent danger ‘. Hearing problems can put thousands of people into a state of ‘complete silence’ if issues related to this health menace are not addressed properly. The theme of World Hearing Day was ‘Hearing care for all! Screen. Rehabilitate. Communicate.’ According to WHO the number of people living with unaddressed hearing loss and ear diseases is unacceptable. Timely action is needed to prevent and address hearing loss across the life course. Hearing loss can be avoided through preventative measures like detection of infantile hearing problems, vaccinations against diseases that cause hearing impairment, protection against loud sounds, good ear-care practices during and after childhood. A healthy and hygienic way of caring for ears should be developed from childhood itself. The home and the school must come together in this regard. Appropriate care and timely treatment can definitely control and check the increasing number of hearing impairment cases. Good healthcare providers, supported by government and health organisations can definitely play a significant role in making people aware of the issues related to hearing, and medical treatment can be given to those suffering from such problems. According to medical reports, almost 60 per cent of hearing loss in children is due to causes such as ear infection and birth complications. These can be prevented through public health measures. According to WHO, over one billion young adults are at risk of permanent, avoidable hearing loss due to unsafe hearing practices. This underscores the need to make people aware of this danger. Early identification of hearing loss and ear disease is the key to its effective treatment. As our lifestyle changed, our ignorance of such matters has also increased. According to WHO, hearing loss may result from genetic causes, complications at birth, certain infectious diseases, chronic ear infections, exposure to loud sounds, use of toxic medicines and ageing. Modern medicines, technology and implementation of certain safety norms can put an end to such difficulties, provided the governments, health organisations, NGOs and other agencies come forward to mitigate the problem.
Intermediate Para Tran-sit (IPT) — a system that facilitates flexible passen-ger transportation and
that does not necessarily fol-low fixed routes and sched-ules — is an integral part of the mobility ecosystem in Indian cities. The toxic emissions by the conventional internal com-bustion engine (ICE), however, are worrisome.
ICE-IPT vehicles contribute to vehicular pollution share: A conventional three-wheeler running on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) emits approximately 0.005 tonnes of Particulate Matter10 (PM10) in a year and about 3.72 tonnes of carbon dioxide in a year, according to a study conducted by The Energy Research Institute (TERI).
Alternative fuel-based mobility options are being explored to combat these prob-lems. And electric three-wheel based IPT segment, especially electric-rickshaws (e-rick-shaw), are emerging as a win-ner in this transition.
There are, however, multi-ple challenges that need to be addressed to make this transi-tion smooth.SPEEDY GROWTH
E-rickshaws currently comprise 83 per cent of the India electric vehicle market.
India currently has around 15 lakh e-rickshaws that increase with additional sales of around 11,000 new ones every month. These figures could be much higher as a large percentage is still unreg-istered. The market is expected to witness a sale of 9.25 lakh e-rickshaw by 2024.
The major growth driv-ers behind this tremendous growth are socio-economic and environmental benefits, along with the supportive gov-ernment policy landscape:
Socio-economic benefits: The upfront cost of an e-rick-shaw is quite low compared to its counterpart ICE-based auto-rickshaw. The initial cost of an e-rickshaw is Rs 0.6-1.1 lakh, whereas the cost of an ICE-based auto-rickshaw Rs 1.5-3 lakh. Similarly, the run-ning cost for an e-rickshaw is only Rs 0.4 a kilometre as com-pared to Rs 2.1-2.3 a km for
the ICE-based rickshaws. The maintenance issues related to e-rickshaws are quite less, which saves maintenance cost. E-rickshaws provide better employment opportunities to cycle-rickshaw drivers whose business is swiftly vanishing.
Environmental benefits: E-rickshaws help mitigate air and noise pollution. At least 1,036.6 tonnes of CO2 emis-sions can be mitigated a day (378,357 tonne CO2 annually) if compressed natural gas auto is replaced by e-rickshaws.
Supportive policy/mission/scheme: Continuous support has come through National Electric Mobility Mission, 2013; National Urban Liveli-hood Mission 2013, Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojna, 2015; Smart City Mission, 2015; Faster Adaptation of Manufac-turing of Electric Vehicles (FAME I and II), state’s electric vehicle policy in the form of loans, regulatory framework and direct subsidies.ISSUES WITH MASS DEPLOYMENT
Despite their mass deploy-ment, there are several issues associated with the regulation of e-rickshaws.
Their components are imported from outside but are assembled in India. These
are usually non-standardised and assembled in local work-shops without complying with standards.
Unorganised players sell 10,000 e-rickshaws a month against 1,500-2,000 a month for organised players. The e-rickshaws sold by the unor-ganised sector are of poor quality and operate on the lead-acid battery that needs to be changed after every six-eight months.
The replacement cost per battery is Rs 25,000-Rs 28,000. The lead-acid batteries usually weigh close to 80 kilograms, which reduces vehicle mileage. As the battery cannot be refur-bished, an e-rickshaw owner typically returns it to the ven-dor it has run its life.
Used batteries are often disposed of carelessly, harming the environment. The Union government discontinued sub-sidy for lead acid-based e-rick-shaws from October 2019 amid FAME I.
E-rickshaws have prolif-erated because most of them remain unregistered. India has around 15 lakh e-rickshaws in 2021; till 2019, only 1.5 lakh were registered. Delhi, for instance, has more than 1 lakh e-rickshaws; but only 5,891 are registered.
As a result, drivers do not hold valid licenses and the safety of passengers is compromised.
The lack of authorised e-rickshaw charging facilities leads to power theft. Several unorganised setups in Delhi provide bulk charging at night by doing power theft. The e-rickshaw owners pay fixed money (Rs 100-150) for park-ing and charging facilities.
For the electric rickshaw market to flourish sustainably, a combination of policy and regulatory interventions are needed as discussed below:
Need to improve product design and quality: Consider-ing the rampant growth of e-rickshaws in absence of a regulatory framework, it is important to bring the supply chain into a formal channel. While specified rules and safety standards have been laid down in recent years, cheaper e-rickshaws assembled by manufacturers with low-qual-ity parts imported from China. They, hence, ply illegally on the roads.
There are about 340 e-rick-shaw manufacturing units in Delhi alone, but very few are compliant with the ARAI / ICAT standards. The life of these electric rickshaws is barely1-1.5 years.
Manufacturers must relook and come up with a better design. As mentioned in a media report, the Union minister of road transport and highways had recently said the government is ready to fund if the e-rickshaw manufactur-ers are ready to work with any Indian Institute of Technol-ogy for improvement in qual-ity, testing, norms and design.
Track adherence to safety standards of e-rickshaws: E-rickshaw owners would be asked to show a roadworthi-ness certificate from their manufacturer or registered e-rickshaw association, along with a valid driving license to the Regional Transport Authorities (RTA).
The RTAs can then provide an approval certificate, which can be randomly checked by the traffic police as it is done in case of a Pollution under Con-
trol (PUC) certificate. Localising manufacturing
of lithium-ion battery: India heavily relies on China for the import of batteries due to which in the cost breakup of EVs, battery occupies a major chunk. The localisation of bat-tery manufacturing will help in reducing the overall cost of EV, debar the usage of cheap lead-acid battery which is majorly used in e-rickshaws, and gen-erate employment opportunities.
The whole process of local-ization will take place in sev-eral phases. The initial years shall be invested in research and development (R&D) and creating a market ecosystem.
In the intermediate phase, only the import of lithium-ion cells can be done and the bat-tery assembled in India.
In the end, the market can gradually shift to provide end-to-end service with 100 per cent manufacturing in India. For ensuring the sustainabil-ity of small manufacturers in the initial phase, they can collaborate with large man-ufacturers and as the market matures, they can gradually become independent.
The government should also soon decide on whether to standardise battery technol-ogy or not. It is critical because uncertainty in the decision will create confusion among the companies seeking to invest in it. If the government delays this decision and investors invest in non-standardized battery technology, then it will create a huge loss for the investors.
Incentivise scientific dis-posal of lead-acid battery of e-rickshaws: Localisation of the lithium-ion battery would help in encouraging people to purchase lithium-ion based e-rickshaws. The current oper-ation stock of lead-acid e-rick-shaws, however, cannot be ignored.
Therefore, e-rickshaw manufacturers should launch a buy and back scheme through which scientific disposal of lead-acid-based e-rickshaws can be linked with a discount on the purchase of new lith-ium-ion-based ones. DTE
Views expressed are personal
Unorganised players sell 10,000 e-rickshaws a month against 1,500-2,000 a month for organised players. The e-rickshaws sold by the unorganised sector are of poor quality and operate on the lead-acid battery that needs to be changed after every six-eight months
E-rickshaws have proliferated because most of them remain unregistered; there is a need to regulate their operations
Formalising the informal
A fresh outlookWhen we mark the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Stockholm conference, we need to discuss consumption and production in a globalised world
COVID-19 has disrupted the out-of-control journey of producing as cheaply as possible and consuming as much as possible. As the world builds back, it has the choice to do things differently
EDITORIAL
The new frontier
The Arctic has frequently been referred to as the final frontier on Earth. It has been a region that has famously been held as inaccessible and dangerous. But this has been changing for some time. The ice is melt-
ing and the world powers are already circling to see what part of this no man’s land they can secure for their interests. From a strategic and economic perspective, the struggle to dominate the Arctic will be a significant one. Russia has been investing in this region for quite some time. It owns the world’s largest fleet of icebreakers, some of which are even nuclear powered. It has been planting flags and spending billions in setting up the necessary equipment to exploit untapped resource nodes. By some estimates, the Arctic Ocean, a mere three per cent of the planet’s surface, holds as much as 22 per cent of the Earth’s oil and natural gas resources as well as vast quantities of other min-erals. While considerations of climate change and sustainabil-ity may give some countries a pause before the rush to exploit the region, it is unlikely to last long and not all countries will be willing to hold back urgent economic interests for the sake of the polar bears. As such, Russia has preempted much of this rush by not only investing in infrastructure that would allow it to exploit the region economically but also for military bases and now, in a dedicated climate monitoring satellite that will allow Moscow a more complete bird’s eye view of the Arctic. This launch is scheduled to be followed up by the launch of a similar satellite in 2023 which will allow 24/7 monitoring of the region. Both satellites are set to take a highly elliptical orbit that will allow more continuous coverage of the region in question as compared to the typical satellite path which travels over the equator. On the face of it, Russia doesn’t have to come out and admit any kind of obvious strategic interests in launching such satellites. Roscosmos has stated that the satellites will be able to re-transmit distress signals from ships, aircraft and people who get stranded in the remote reaches of the Arctic. But the point remains that in this new era, as was the case before, information is key for any military or economic endeavour and having 24/7 coverage of the region is an undeniable advantage. The race to Arctic domination has many potential rewards along the way that goes beyond mere resource and strategic clout. The open-ing up of various new Arctic passages will significantly alter the state of trading routes. Estimates say that the new routes could cut travel distance between Europe and Asia by as much as 40 per cent. While Russia and Canada are leading in making claims over such routes, distant powers like China are not far behind. This opening up of trade routes will also create a host of new opportunities for other sectors like fishing and tourism to expand as well. For the territory for Greenland which gains a substantial portion of its revenue through fishing and tourism, this will be particularly significant. But this new race, regard-less of how it turns out, will have significant consequences for the region as well. As the Arctic competition heats up and the area is saturated with exploitative activity, there is little doubt that the region will suffer from it. Rising water levels, native wild species going extinct, etc., are all likely near-term out-comes. And the thing is, this isn’t exactly easy to stop. Saving the Arctic will involve massive cost and coordinated interna-tional effort. Unfortunately, it may be easier, quicker and more profitable to simply straight up exploit it while ignoring climate change science.
Even after decades since the Stockholm conference, toxification of the environment is still a pressing concern
....M PRADYU, KANNUR via email
BARKHA DUTT @Bdutt
There’s something about the sight of India’s Vaccines airlifted to other countries that makes such a powerful counter colonisation statement. For all that we battle for and within and those fights and arguments will continue, this is something to feel extremely proud of
tweet OF THE DAY
millenniumpost|KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021
E-rickshaws comprise 83 per cent of the India electric vehicle market
KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpostmp world8
Myanmar protesters, undaunted by 38 killings, return to streets
NAY PYI TAW: Demonstra-tors in Myanmar protesting last month's military coup returned to the streets Thurs-day, undaunted by the killing of at least 38 people the previous day by security forces.
New protests were held in at least three areas of Yangon, the country's largest city, that have been scenes of violence for the past few days. Police again used force to try to disperse the crowds, according to social media accounts.
Protests also continued In Mandalay, the second-big-gest city. A formation of five fighter planes flew over the city on Thursday morning in what appeared to be a threatening show of force.
The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, said 38 people were killed Wednesday, a figure con-sistent with other reports.
The death toll was the high-est since the Feb. 1 takeover, when the military ousted the elected government of leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
More than 50 civilians, mostly peaceful protesters, are confirmed to have been killed by police and soldiers since then.
The U.N. Security Coun-cil has scheduled closed-door consultations on Friday on calls to reverse the coup including from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and stop the escalating military crackdown.
Any kind of coordinated action at the United Nations will be difficult since two per-manent members of the Secu-
rity Council, China and Russia, are likely to veto it. Some coun-tries have already imposed or are considering their own sanctions.
U.N. envoy Schraner Bur-gener said she warned Myan-mar's army that the world's nations and the Security Coun-cil might take huge strong measures.
And the answer was, We are used to sanctions and we survived those sanctions in the past,' she said.
When she also warned the army that Myanmar would become isolated, she said, the answer was, We have to learn to walk with only a few friends.'
The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democ-
racy in Myanmar, which for five decades had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions.
As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Suu Kyi's rise to power after 2015 elections, the international community responded by lift-ing most sanctions and pour-ing investing into the country.
Schraner Burgener said the army has been taken aback by the strong opposition, which has been led by young people.
I think that the army is very surprised that it doesn't work because in the past, in 1988 and 2007 and 2008, it worked, she said, referring to previous vio-lent crackdowns on uprisings
against military rule.Demonstrators have
flooded the streets of towns and cities across Myanmar since last month's coup, even though gatherings of five or more people are banned and security forces have repeatedly fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds to disperse the crowds, and arrested protesters en masse.
Wednesday's highest death toll was in Yangon, where an estimated 18 people died. Most if not all of the deaths occurred in the eastern neighborhood of North Okkalapa.
Stark video shot Wednes-day night at the main hospital there showed grieving relatives collecting the blood-soaked
bodies of family members who were shot. Some relatives sobbed uncontrollably, while others looked in shock at the scene around them.
Protesters in Mandalay flashed a three-fingered anti-coup salute on Thursday as they rode their motorbikes to follow a funeral procession for Kyal Sin, also known by her Chinese name Deng Jia Xi, a university student who was killed as she attended a dem-onstration on Wednesday. The black hearse that carried her remains had a photo of her on the windshield, and the hearse was preceded by a truck full of floral bouquets.
Many thousands of people attended.
In the central city of Monywa, which has turned out huge crowds of protesters on an almost daily basis, a memo-rial service was held Thursday before a protest march began. At least eight people were reported to have been killed on Wednesday.
According to multiple posts on social media, protests were also happening Thursday in Pyinmana, a satellite town of the capital Naypyitaw; Mying-yan in central Myanmar, where there was one death Wednes-day; Pathein, west of Yangon; and Myeik, near the country's southern tip.
As part of the crackdown, security forces have arrested well over a thousand people, including journalists, accord-ing to the independent Assis-tance Association for Political Prisoners. AGENCIES
New protests held in at least 3 areas of Yangon that have been scenes of violence
UK, four nations fast-track review of modified COVID-19 vaccines
LONDON: Regulators in the UK and four other countries have announced new rules to fast-track the development of modified COVID-19 vaccines to ensure drugmakers can move swiftly to target emerg-ing variants of the disease.
Previously authorized vaccines that are modified to combat new variants will not need a brand new approval or lengthy' clinical studies, Brit-ain's Medicines and Health-care Products Regulatory Agency said Thursday.
The clear goal is that future vaccine modifications that respond to the new variants of Coronavirus can be made available in the shortest possi-ble time to UK recipients with-out compromising at any stage on safety, quality or effective-ness, Dr. June Raine, the head of the agency, said in a briefing for reporters.
The new guidance is based on the model already used to modify the seasonal flu vac-cine to keep up with annual changes in the virus and was issued jointly by regulators in the UK, Australia, Canada, Singapore and Switzerland.
The US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency have issued similar guidance.
Under the new rules,
developers will be required to provide robust evidence that modified COVID-19 vaccines produce a strong immune response to the variant, as well as data showing they are safe and meet quality standards.
This means developers will be required to carry out small-scale trials on a few hundred people, rather than the trials in tens of thousands of individuals that were required for initial approval, said Dr. Christian Schneider, the MHRA's chief scientific officer.
I'd like to emphasize that to date we don't have evidence that the vaccines in use in the UK are significantly lacking in effectiveness, Raine said.
The announcement comes amid concerns that the virus
that causes COVID-19 may mutate to create new variants that are resistant to existing vaccines. The UK has banned direct flights from 33 countries in an effort to prevent variants first discovered in Brazil and South Africa from becoming established in Britain.
Vaccine makers have already been developing booster shots to target the new variants.
Moderna said February 24 that it had shipped a variant-specific vaccine candidate to the US National Institutes of Health for review.
The Coronavirus pandemic has infected over 115 million people around the world and killed at least 2.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. AGENCIES
Germany extends lockdown but paves way to relax more rules
BERLIN: Germany is extend-ing its Coronavirus shutdown by three weeks until March 28, but easing some restrictions to allow nonessential stores and other businesses to reopen in areas with relatively low infec-tion rates.
After about nine hours of talks, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the governors of the country's 16 states agreed Wednesday to measures aimed at balancing concern over the impact of more contagious Coronavirus variants with a growing clamour for a return to a more normal life.
The first moves have already been made: many ele-mentary students returned to school last week. And on Mon-day, hairdressers opened after a 2 1/2-month break. Current lockdown rules were set to run
through Sunday.On Wednesday, Merkel
and the state governors -- who in highly decentralized Ger-many have the power to impose and lift restrictions -- set out a phased plan that allows for some further relaxation of restrictions.
"These should be steps toward opening but at the same time steps that do not set us back," Merkel told reporters in Berlin. "There are a great many examples in Europe of a dra-matic third wave."
She pledged that "spring
2021 will be different from spring a year ago." Regions where infection rates are rela-tively low, though not as low as previously envisioned, will be able to open nonessential stores, museums and other facilities on a limited basis.
Most stores have been closed nationwide since December 16. Restaurants, bars, sports and leisure facilities have been closed since Novem-ber 2 and hotels are allowed only to accommodate business travellers.
When they last conferred on February 10, Merkel and the governors set a target of 35 weekly new cases per 100,000 inhabitants before letting small stores, museums and other businesses reopen. The aim is to enable reliable contact- tracing. AGENCIES
EU, Britain clash again in latest post-Brexit spat
BRUSSELS: The European Union said Wednesday that Britain's "unilateral action" on trade rules will breach inter-national law and is threaten-ing legal action as post-Brexit tensions continue to escalate between the two sides.
Commission vice-pres-ident Maro efcovic said in a statement that UK's decision to unilaterally extend a grace period on checks for goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland amounts to "a violation" of the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Protocol was designed to ensure an open border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic after Brexit.
"This is the second time that the UK government is set to breach international law," efcovic said. "This also consti-tutes a clear departure from the constructive approach that has prevailed up until now."
The EU's anger was sparked by the British gov-ernment's decision to extend until October a grace period for checks on agri-food enter-ing Northern Ireland that was set to expire at the end of the month.
In September last year, the UK had already upset the 27-nation bloc when it con-
sidered then backpedaled leg-islation that would have given the Boris Johnson's govern-ment the power to override part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement relating to North-ern Ireland.
The sensitivity of North-ern Ireland's status was under-scored earlier this year when the EU threatened to ban ship-ments of Coronavirus vaccines to Northern Ireland as part of moves to shore up the bloc's supply. That would have drawn a hard border on the island of Ireland - exactly the scenario the Brexit deal was crafted to avoid.
efcovic held discussions Wednesday with cabinet min-ister David Frost, the former chief Brexit negotiator now responsible for EU relations.
"Lord Frost explained that the measures announced today, following official-level notification to the Commis-sion earlier this week, were temporary technical steps, which largely continued mea-sures already in place, to pro-vide more time for businesses such as supermarkets and par-cel operators to adapt to and implement the new require-ments in the Protocol," a UK government spokesperson said. AGENCIES
UN: 20 migrants die after tossed overboard
en route to YemenNAIROBI: The International Organisation for Migration says at least 20 migrants are dead after smugglers threw 80 overboard during a voyage from Djibouti in East Africa to Yemen.
A statement says smugglers started shouting there were too many on board after the boat with 200 migrants, including children under 18, set off on Wednesday.
The IOM says five bod-ies have been recovered, and survivors are being treated in Djibouti.
This has happened before as thousands of migrants con-tinue to try to make their way from the Horn of Africa to Yemen and then on to rich Gulf countries. The Corona-
virus pandemic and the result-ing closed borders have slowed but not stopped the flow of migrants.
It is not immediately clear what countries the migrants in this latest journey were from, but many make the voyage from Ethiopia and Somalia.
In October, at least eight migrants drowned after smug-glers forced them off a boat near Djibouti.
In 2017, up to 50 migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia were deliberately drowned when a smuggler forced them into the sea off Yemen's coast. And in 2018, at least 30 migrants and refugees died when a boat capsized off Yemen, with survivors report-ing gunfire. AGENCIES
States rapidly expanding vaccine access as supplies surgeWASHINGTON DC: Buoyed by a surge in vaccine ship-ments, states and cities are rap-idly expanding eligibility for COVID-19 shots to teachers, Americans 50 and over and oth-ers as the US races to beat back the virus and reopen businesses and schools.
Indiana and Michigan will begin vaccinating those 50 and over, while Arizona and Con-necticut have thrown open the line to those who are at least 55. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are reserving the first doses of
the new one-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson for teachers. And in Detroit, factory workers can get vaccinated starting this week, regardless of age.
Giving the vaccine to teach-ers and other school staff will help protect our communi-ties," Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said.
It's going to take burdens off our parents and families. It's going to make our schools get back to the business of teach-ing our kids.
Until now, the vaccination
campaign against the outbreak that's killed over a half-million Americans has concentrated mostly on health workers and senior citizens.
Around the US, politicians and school administrators have been pushing hard in recent weeks to reopen classrooms to stop students from falling behind and enable more parents to go back to work. But teachers have resisted returning without getting vaccinated.
The Department of Health and Human Services has
ordered all states to make teachers, school staff, bus driv-ers and child care workers eli-gible for shots. That's a major shift for the Biden administra-tion, which controls access to COVID-19 vaccines but previ-ously allowed states to set their own guidelines.
Jody Mackey, 46, a middle-school digital media and his-tory teacher in Traverse City, Michigan where students have attended mostly in-person since September received her second dose nearly two weeks ago after
teachers in her district were des-ignated essential workers.
Before that, she kept her classroom windows open and used space heaters.
If you want schools to be successful and safe and you want your teachers to have their heads in the game, get them the vacci-nation, she said. Putting teach-ers in a situation where they feel scared all the time, where they're going to want to avoid their kids, how is that good for kids or teachers?
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey
on Wednesday ordered students and teachers to return to school this month, saying many teach-ers have already received their second dose.
The science is clear: It's time all kids have the option to return to school so they can get back on track and we can close the achievement gap, Ducey said in a statement. The US has admin-istered nearly 80 million shots in a vaccination drive now hit-ting its stride, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. AGENCIES
Medical students display flags of the National League for Democracy party during an anti-coup demonstration in Mandalay, Myanmar, Thursday PTI
New photos: N Korea may be trying to extract plutoniumSEOUL: North Korea may be trying to extract plutonium to make more nuclear weapons at its main atomic complex, recent satellite photos indi-cated, weeks after leader Kim Jong Un vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal.
The 38 North website, which specializes in North Korea studies, cited the imag-ery as indicating that a coal-fired steam plant at the North's Yongbyon nuclear complex is in operation after about a two-year hiatus. Smoke was observed emanating from the plant's smokestack at various times from late February and early March.
This suggests preparations for spent fuel reprocessing could be underway to extract plutonium needed for North Korea's nuclear weapon, the website said Wednesday. But it
added that this could also mean simply the facility is being prepped to handle radioactive waste.
Earlier this week, Interna-tional Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mari-ano Grossi said some nuclear facilities in North Korea con-
tinued to operate, citing the operation of the steam plant that serves the radiochemical laboratory at Yongbyon. The laboratory is a facility where plutonium is extracted by reprocessing spent fuel rods removed from reactors.
The DPRK's nuclear activi-
ties remain a cause for serious concern. The continuation of the DPRK's nuclear program is a clear violation of relevant U.N. Security Council reso-lutions and is deeply regret-table, Grossi told the IAEA's board of governors, accord-ing to IAEA's website. DPRK refers to North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Plutonium is one of the two key ingredients to build nuclear weapons along with highly enriched uranium.
The Yongbyon complex, north of the capital city of Pyongyang, has facilities to produce both ingredients. It's not clear exactly how much weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium has been produced at Yon-byong and where North Korea stores it. AGENCIES
A satellite image shows a steam plant, left, and North Korea’s main atomic complex, right, in Yongbyon, North Korea PTI
House passes sweeping voting rights Bill
over GOP oppositionWASHINGTON DC: House Democrats passed sweep-ing voting and ethics leg-islation Wednesday over unanimous Republican oppo-sition, advancing to the Senate what would be the largest over-haul of the US election law in at least a generation.
House Resolution 1, which touches on virtually every aspect of the electoral process, was approved on a near party-line 220-210 vote. It would restrict partisan gerrymander-ing of congressional districts, strike down hurdles to voting and bring transparency to a murky campaign finance sys-tem that allows wealthy donors to anonymously bankroll polit-ical causes. The bill is a pow-erful counterweight to voting rights restrictions advancing in Republican-controlled state-houses across the country in the wake of Donald Trump's repeated false claims of a sto-len 2020 election. Yet it faces an uncertain fate in the Demo-cratic-controlled Senate, where it has little chance of passing without changes to proce-dural rules that currently allow Republicans to block it.
The stakes in the outcome are monumental, cutting to the foundational idea that one per-son equals one vote, and car-rying with it the potential to shape election outcomes for
years to come. It also offers a test of how hard President Joe Biden and his party are will-ing to fight for their priorities, as well as those of their voters.
This bill will put a stop at the voter suppression that we're seeing debated right now, said Rep Nikema Williams, a new congresswoman who repre-sents the Georgia district that deceased voting rights cham-pion John Lewis held for years.
This bill is the Good Trou-ble' he fought for his entire life.
To Republicans, however, it would give license to unwanted federal interference in states' authority to conduct their own elections ultimately benefiting Democrats through higher turnout, most notably among minorities. Democrats want to use their razor-thin majority not to pass bills to earn voters' trust, but to ensure they don't lose more seats in the next elec-tion, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said from the House floor Tuesday. The measure has been a priority for Democrats since they won their House majority in 2018. AGENCIES
Bangladesh PM Hasina gets first dose of COVID-19 vaccine
DHAKA: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday received her first dose of the Oxford/Astra-Zeneca Coronavirus vaccine, nearly a month after the coun-try launched the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive with the jab, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.
Hasina, 73, received her first shot of COVID-19 vac-cine at her official residence, Ganabhaban, in Dhaka, said a spokesperson of the Prime Minister's Office.
An official photograph released after she was inocu-lated showed a military nurse administering the vaccine on her left arm while her younger
sister Sheikh Rehana stood beside the premier. Rehana received the shot a few days ago.
Hasina earlier said she would receive the vaccine once the vaccination process was rolled out across the country.
The vaccination drive began in Bangladesh with a nurse given the first shot at Kurmitola General Hospital in Dhaka on January 27. The prime minister had inaugu-rated the programme.
The government launched the mass vaccination campaign on February 7 after a dry run. More than 518,000 people have taken their first doses of the vaccine. AGENCIES
Powerful quake hits off
northeast coast of New ZealandWELLINGTON: A shallow, powerful earthquake struck off the northeastern coast of New Zealand on Thursday, with officials warning of a possible tsunami threat. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or casualties.
New Zealand's National Emergency Management Agency said it was still assess-ing whether the quake had triggered a tsunami that could affect the country. It measured the quake at magnitude 7.3.
It advised people near the coast to immediately move to high ground if they felt strong or long shaking.
The US Geological Sur-vey said the quake measured a preliminary 6.9 magnitude and was centered at a depth of 10 kilometers (six miles) about 178 kilometers (111 miles) northeast of the city of Gisborne.
Residents of Gisborne reported light to moderate shaking, it said.
A magnitude 6.3 quake hit the city of Christchurch in 2011, killing 185 people and destroying much of its down-town. AGENCIES
mp business � 9JET AIRWAYS RESOLUTION PROCESS
millenniumpost|KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: With retail petrol and diesel prices going through the roof, India on Thursday again urged oil pro-ducers’ group OPEC to ease production curbs to fulfill their promise of stable oil prices.
Though the average price of crude oil India imports was less than $50 per barrel between April and December 2020 and comparable to 2019-20 average rate of $60.47 in months there-after, petrol and diesel prices are at a historic high now as the government has so far not rolled back the taxes it levied when prices plummeted almost a year back.
The record taxes coupled with international rates return-ing to pre-COVID levels on res-urrecting demand have meant that petrol has crossed Rs 100 mark in some places in Raj-asthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Speaking at the CERAWeek conference by IHS Markit, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said India, where fuel demand
is recovering to pre-pandemic levels, wants reasonable and responsible oil prices.
India, the world’s third-big-gest oil importer and consumer, had supported the decision of the oil producers’ cartel OPEC and its allies to cut produc-tion last year in view of the oil demand collapsing due to the spread of COVID-19.
“At that point in time, the producers especially OPEC assured the global market, that by the beginning of the 2021 demand will be coming back
and production will be as usual. But I am sorry to say the pro-duction is yet to be normal,” he said. “If you do not supply properly, if there is a gap in demand and supply artificially (created), there is a price rise.”
Crude has rebounded this year to over $62 per barrel after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (called OPEC+) slashed output to drive a rebalancing of the market following last year’s slump. The aggressive supply management has helped to
drain inventories while world-wide demand is recovering with the rollout of vaccines.
OPEC+ are meeting this week to decide on output policy.
Pradhan said, “it may suit some of our friends (in OPEC) but in emerging countries like India (where) our fiscal scope is very challenging... we need a reasonable price of our energy, responsible price of energy.”
Excise duty was raised by Rs 13 and Rs 16 per litre on pet-rol and diesel between March 2020 and May 2020 and now accounts for more than one-third of the Rs 91.17 a litre price of petrol in Delhi and 40 per cent of Rs 81.47 per litre rate of diesel.
The basket of crude oil India imported in Febru-ary averaged $61.22 per bar-rel and $54.79 in January this year. It had fallen to $19.90 in April last year and was between $40 and $49 during June and December.
India imports about 85 per cent of its oil needs and local retail rates are benchmarked
to international prices.Pradhan said the price of
oil should be affordable and one that does not pinch the treasury.
“I never support price col-lapse (of last year) and India supported production cuts,” he said. “But today, we expect the producing countries, espe-cially OPEC and its friendly countries, should do business as usual and (do) what they had promised. And out of that, responsible, reasonable price will come, which is not today.”
He said India will be forced to look for alternative energy if it is pushed to the wall.
“So for the balanced growth, for the benefit of all the stake-holders the price should be that where we can purchase it (and it) should not affect us, it should not affect my treasury,” he said.
Last month, Pradhan had conveyed to OPEC that ris-ing international oil prices are hurting economic recovery and demand. Demand recov-ery should take “primacy” over oil prices at least for the next few months, he had said.
Fulfill promise of stable oil prices: India to OPEC+ nations
Union Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said India, where fuel demand is recovering to pre-pandemic levels, wants reasonable and responsible oil prices
MUMBAI: Petrol price can go down to Rs 75 a litre across the country if brought under the ambit of the Goods and Ser-vices Tax (GST), but there is a lack of political will, which is keeping Indian oil product prices at one of the highest in the world, economists at SBI said on Thursday.
Diesel will come at Rs 68 a litre and the revenue loss for the Centre and states will be only Rs 1 lakh crore or 0.4 per cent of GDP, according to the calculation by the economists made under the assumption of global crude prices at $60 a barrel and exchange rate at Rs 73 per dollar.
At present, every state has its own way of taxing fuels, while the Centre also collects
its own duties and cess. Petrol prices have touched Rs 100 per litre in some pockets of the country and concerns are being expressed about the high taxa-tion which is making the fuels dearer. The SBI economists said bringing petrol and diesel under the goods and services tax is an unfinished agenda of the GST framework and getting the prices under the new indirect taxes framework can help.
“Centre and states are loathe to bring crude oil prod-ucts under the GST regime as sales tax/VAT on petroleum products is a major source of own tax revenue for them. Thus, there is lack of political will to bring crude under the ambit of GST, they said.
At present, states choose to levy a combination of ad valorem tax, cess, extra VAT/surcharge based on their needs and these taxes are imposed after taking into account the crude price, the transporta-tion charge, the dealer com-mission and the flat excise duty imposed by the Centre, they explained. Assuming for the crude prices and dollar rate, transportation charges at Rs 7.25 for diesel and Rs 3.82 for petrol, dealer commission of Rs 2.53 for diesel and Rs 3.67 for petrol, cess of Rs 30 for pet-rol and Rs 20 for diesel which will be divided equally between the Centre and states, and GST rate at 28 per cent, the econo-mists came at the final price estimates. PTI
‘Petrol price can come down to ̀ 75 if brought under GST’
OUR CORRESPONDENT
MUMBAI: The winning bid-der for the now-defunct Jet Air-ways will have to apply for slots as there cannot be any deemed approval for the slots, accord-ing to submissions by the civil aviation ministry and regula-tor DGCA.
The Ministry of Civil Avi-ation (MoCA) and DGCA mentioned their stance to the National Company Law Tribu-nal (NCLT), which had on Feb-ruary 25 sought their responses to Jet Airways’ slots issue.
NCLT is considering the resolution plan submitted by Kalrock-Jalan Consortium for the airline. The plan has already been approved by the Commit-tee of Creditors (CoC).
Jet Airways shuttered oper-ations in April 2019 after run-ning out of cash and is currently a resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).
According to the replies sub-mitted by MoCA and DGCA on Wednesday, they are not in prin-ciple objecting to the resolution plan but that there cannot be any deemed approval on the slots.
The resolution applicant should apply for slots and accordingly, approvals will be
granted, they added.The representative of Jet Air-
ways insisted on the principle of historicity to be followed by DGCA while granting the slots.
NCLT’s Mumbai bench, chaired by Mohammed Ajmal and V Nallasenapathy, directed the MoCA and DGCA and to file an affidavit regarding the slots.
The matter has been adjourned for next week. MoCA has temporarily given most of the slots of Jet Airways to other domestic airlines after it ceased operations in April 2019.
Ashish Chhawchharia, the resolution professional of the grounded airline, had told the bench that “slots are a vital part of the plan, and it is important that MoCA and DGCA submit their stance on the same.
Dhir and Dhir Associates’ Associate Partner Ashish Pyasi said generally, resolution appli-cants seek various concessions and relaxations from various compliances, approvals.
“The adjudicating authority while considering the resolution plan also considers whether the plan is in compliance with the existing laws or not and whether such relaxations can be granted or not. If the law provides for certain steps to be taken, then the adjudicating authority may not give any relaxations from such steps and may direct the applicant to take steps or approvals as per law,” he noted.
In the case of Jet Airways, to make it fully operational, vari-ous approvals will be required even after the resolution plan is approved, he added.
MoCA, DGCA say winning bidder must apply for slots
BHUBANESWAR: Steel-maker ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India) on Thursday inked an agree-ment with the Odisha gov-ernment for setting up a 12 mtpa integrated steel plant in Kendrapada district with an investment of Rs 50,000 crore, officials said.
Chief Minister Naveen Pat-naik and steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal were present during the signing of the Memoran-dum of Understanding (MoU) at Lokaseva Bhavan.
Mittal met Patnaik at his
residence Naveen Niwas ear-lier in the day and discussed his company ArcelorMittal’s proj-ects in the state, an official said.
The industrialist had met Union Steel Minister Dhar-mendra Pradhan in New Delhi on Tuesday. MPOST
ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India inks pact with Odisha to set up `50K cr steel plant
Union Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan
NEW DELHI: The Alumin-ium Association of India (AAI) on Thursday urged the govern-ment to provide support by notifying at least five per cent remission rate for the sector under tax refund scheme RoD-TEP to boost exports.
Giving relief to exporters, the government has decided to extend the benefit of tax refund scheme RoDTEP to all goods with effect from January 1, 2021. In March last year, the government approved the scheme for Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Prod-ucts (RoDTEP) for reimburse-ment of taxes and duties to exporters, with a view to give a boost to the country’’s dwin-dling outbound shipments.
“The aluminium indus-try seeks immediate support for notifying at least five per cent remission rate for alumin-ium sector under Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products scheme,” Alumin-ium Assocation of India (AAI) said in a representation to the government.
However, the pendency of notifying the sector-wise remission rates under RoD-TEP scheme is creating a precarious situation and uncertainty for Indian export-ers due to ambiguity with
Aluminium industry body AAI seeks incentive under RoDTEP scheme
regard to pricing of goods and thereby impacting Indian exports, it noted.
The situation for exporters has been further aggravated due to withdrawal of Merchan-dise Export from India Scheme and till date, exporters are unable to avail the MEIS ben-efit for exports already made during FY’’20 and FY’’21 (April to December) due to blocking of online MEIS module for applying for claims.
This has resulted in block-age of significant funds for the already stressed non-fer-rous metal sector exporters, it said. PTI
DUBAI: Abu Dhabi’s national carrier Etihad on Thursday reported core operating losses of $1.7 billion in 2020, reflecting the severe toll of the coronavirus pandemic on the long-troubled airline that has lost billions in recent years.
Etihad reported revenues of 2.7 billion in 2020 compared to $5.6 billion the year before, a precipitous decline it attributed to drastically fewer people trav-eling as the surging pandemic crippled air travel.
But the airline, one of the Middle East’s top carriers, strug-gled with financial losses long before the pandemic wiped out the global aviation industry.
Since 2016, Etihad has lost a total of $5.62 billion as it has aggressively bought up stakes in airlines from Europe to Asia to compete against the region’s other leading airlines, Dubai-based Emirates and Qatar Airways. With cost-cutting measures, the company was just starting to recover from
the economic pain early last year. It announced the sale of 38 aircraft to an investment firm in an attempt to bolster profits, in a deal valued at $1 billion.
Then, the pandemic struck. Last March, the United Arab Emirates halted flights to stem the spread of the virus. Passen-ger traffic plummeted to just 4.2 million travellers from 17.5 mil-lion the year before, the airline said. Total passenger capacity on planes dropped 64 per cent. The carrier lost $758 million over the first half of 2020 alone.
The losses rippled across the company, forcing the airline to cut 33 per cent of its workforce and slash salaries by 25-50 per cent. By comparison, Etihad lost $870 million in 2019. The airline reported losses of $1.28 billion in 2018 and $1.52 bil-lion for 2017.
While rollout of coronavi-rus vaccines has stoked hopes for a global return to travel, the industry is not expected to see meaningful recovery for months, until vaccines are widely administered. AGENCIES
Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways reports $1.7 billion loss in 2020
NEW DELHI: The wearables market in India posted a 144.3 per cent year-on-year growth in 2020 with 36.4 million unit shipment, as per research firm IDC.
India was the only coun-try in the top 20 to see triple-digit growth in wearables in the year 2020 and continues to be the third-largest wearables market globally, IDC said in a statement.
“This growth was majorly driven by the increasing accep-tance of earwear devices and upgrades to watches from wrist bands, both recording their highest annual shipments in
2020,” it added.The October-December
2020 period was the biggest quarter for the wearables cat-egory in the country, maintain-ing triple-digit growth. Overall, vendors shipped 15.2 million units in the said period, growing at 198.2 per cent year-on-year.
“2020 was a year of tran-sition in the audio segment from wired to wireless devices. In 2021, this category will fur-ther migrate to more sophis-ticated devices with enhanced audio experience being the central theme for all vendors,” IDC India Associate Research Manager (Client Devices) Jai-
pal Singh said.The high cost associated
with wearable watches is not much of a challenge anymore, he added.
Also, the watch form factor is now seen as more appealing to the consumers, and vendors will leverage this shift by further expanding their watch port-folio in the coming quarters, Singh said.
Earwear device shipments grew more than three-fold in 2020 to 30.4 million units over the previous year, mainly driven by affordable launches, and expanding use cases beyond entertainment like virtual meet-
ings and e-learning require-ments, IDC said.
Truly Wireless Ste-reo (TWS) devices were the top gainer seeing a ten-fold increase with shipments total-ling 11.3 million units in 2020.
The earwear segment accounted for 83.6 per cent of the overall wearable mar-ket in 2020. Boat emerged as the biggest player in the cate-gory, accounting for one-third of the category shipments. Samsung with its portfolio - including JBL, Harman Kar-don and Infinity - finished second with a 14.5 per cent share in 2020. PTI
‘India wearables market grows 144% to 36.4 mn units in 2020; 3rd largest globally’
JGLS NOW NO. 1 LAW SCHOOL IN INDIA
The Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) of O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) is now ranked 76 out of all law schools globally in the QS World University Rankings by Subject (Law) 2021. This makes JGLS the number one law school in India once again, and the only Indian Law School to be ranked this year. MPOST
ICA- T4994(3)/2021 ICA- T4996(3)/2021
ICA- T5000(3)/2021
ICA- T5004(4)/2021
ICA- T5006(4)/2021
ICA- T5008(4)/2021
ICA- T5002(3)/2021
mp business10 KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpost
SERVICES MAY GET AFFECTED LATER IN MARCH DUE TO STRIKE: CANARA BANKNEW DELHI: Public sector lender Canara Bank on Thursday said that banking services may get af-fected later this month due to the proposed strike by several bank unions. “We have been informed by the Indian Banks’ Association that the United Forum of Bank Unions has given a call for strike in the banking industry on March 15 and March 16, for issues relating to industry level and not for any bank level issues,” Canara Bank said in a regulatory filing. Canara Bank said it is taking necessary steps for smooth function-ing of bank branches and offices on the days of the proposed strike.
FOXCONN FLAGS STRONG START TO YEAR AS LOCKDOWNS SPUR DEMANDTAIPEI: Apple supplier Foxconn said it expects first-quarter revenue to rise more than 15 per cent from a year earlier, boosted by strong iPhone sales and robust demand for electronics during lockdowns worldwide to curb the pandemic. The world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer has previously forecast strong demand for the new iPhone 12, saying its business will be supported by “stronger than expected” sales for smartphones and for telecommuting devices amid a coronavirus-induced work-from-home trend. Taiwan-based Foxconn, in a short statement on Thursday, said it expects consumer electronics revenue to rise more than 15 per cent in Q4 from a year earlier.
NON-BASMATI RICE EXPORTS INCREASE TO `26,058 CR DURING APRIL-JANNEW DELHI: The country’s non-basmati rice exports have increased to Rs 26,058 crore during April-January 2020-21 as against Rs 11,543 crore in the same period last fiscal, the commerce ministry said on Thursday. Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority Chairman M Angamuthu said several measures have been taken in terms of ensuring safety and hygiene while ensuring that rice exports continue uninterrupted. “During April January 2020-21, the shipment of non-Basmati rice witnessed an impressive spike. The non-basmati rice exports were Rs 26,058 crore ($3,506 million) during April-January 2021 against Rs 11,543 crore ($1,627 million) re-ported during April-January 2020 period,” it said.
BRIEFSBUSINESS
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India grew 40 per cent to $51.47 billion during April-December 2020-21, according to government data released on Thursday.
India has attracted 22 per cent higher FDI inflow (includ-ing re-invested earnings) of $67.54 billion during the first nine months of the current fis-cal as against $55.14 billion in the same period of 2019-20.
“FDI equity inflow grew by 40 per cent in the first nine months of 2020-21 ($51.47 bil-lion) compared to the year ago period ($36.77 billion),” the commerce and industry min-istry said.
The inflows increased by 37 per cent in the third quar-ter (October-December 2020) of 2020-21 to $26.16 billion.
In December, FDI surged 24 per cent to $9.22 billion, the data showed.
The measures taken by the government on the fronts of FDI policy reforms, invest-ment facilitation and ease of doing business have resulted in increased FDI inflows into the country, according to the ministry.
The foreign inflows are a major driver of economic growth and an important source of non-debt finance for the economic development of
India.“The steps taken in this
direction during the last six and a half years have borne fruit, as is evident from the ever-increasing volumes of FDI inflows being received into the country. Continuing on the path of FDI liberalisa-tion and simplification, gov-ernment has carried out FDI reforms across various sectors,” the ministry said.
MUMBAI: Just State Bank of India, HDFC and ICICI Bank will have to offload equity worth Rs 1.21 lakh crore if the cen-tral bank goes ahead with its reported plan to make banks cap their stakes in insurance arms at 20 per cent, says a report.
Quoting unnamed RBI officials, a media report earlier this week said the monetary authority is not comfortable with banks owning controlling stake in non-core businesses like insurance ventures which are capital guzzlers and wants banks to cap ownership in insurance arms/ companies at a maximum of 20 per cent.
It was also reported that the RBI recently approved Axis Bank’s plan to buy Max Life only after it agreed to directly hold only 10 per cent and also capped
the overall holding at 20 per cent. Current regulations allow banks to own over 50 per cent stake in insurance arms.
If the RBI forces promoter banks/NBFCs to lower their stakes to 20 per cent, this can significantly increase free float in the four listed insurance arms of HDFC, ICICI Bank and SBI worth Rs 1.2 lakh crore alone, Kotak Securities said in a report on Thursday.
HDFC owns 50 per cent
in HDFC Life and bringing it down to 20 per cent would mean offloading equity worth Rs 44,100 crore at today’s mar-ket value, while in case of ICICI Prudential Life which is 51 per cent owned by the bank, it will be Rs 22,100 crore worth of shares flowing into the mar-ket, and Rs 21,700 crore worth of shares from ICICI Lombard in which the bank owns 52 per cent. SBI which owns 55 per cent in SBI Life will have to sell shares worth Rs 32,200 crore.
The total value their excess holding is worth Rs 1,20,100 crore, says the report.
Almost all state-run banks and large private sector banks also have unlisted life and non-life insurance ventures.
Calling for maintaining the status quo, the report said banks
owning insurance companies has been a win-win for all and that there are many positives in that structure such as insur-ance stake sales have supported banks’ provisioning in challeng-ing times.
Large value unlocking in insurance companies have helped banks earnings in chal-lenging quarters and provide buffer against bad loans, says the report, adding HDFC and ICICI Bank have made large gains from stake sales in their life and general insurance arms and these gains were used to cre-ate provisioning buffers.
During FY16-18, HDFC used over 40 per cent of such gains to create provisions, and for ICICI Bank such capital gains contributed around 40 per cent of annual provision. PTI
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday termed the pendency of over 35 lakhs of cheque bounce cases as gro-tesque and suggested to the Centre to come up with a law to create additional courts for a particular period of time to deal with such cases.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said that Centre has the power under Article 247 of the Constitution coupled with the duty to establish additional courts to deal with cheque dis-honour cases under provisions of Negotiable Instruments (NI) Act.
Article 247 of the Constitu-tion gives power to Parliament to establish certain additional
courts for the better administra-tion of laws made by it or of any existing laws with respect to a matter enumerated in the Union List. The bench also compris-ing Justices L Nageswara Rao, B R Gavai, AS Bopanna and S Ravindra Bhat said, The pen-dency of cases that is rising due to NI Act is grotesque. You can make a law to create additional courts for a particular period of time to deal with such cases .
The top court suggested that Centre can appoint retired judges or any experts on the subject to deal with such cases.
The bench told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appear-ing for Centre, that the NI Act contribute to about 30 per cent of pendency of cases in
the judicial system and when the law was enacted no judicial impact assessment was done as required as per the law laid down by the top court. It said that if the impact assessment was not done when the stat-ute was enacted then why can-not it be done now and Centre can exercise its power provided under the Constitution.
The bench referred to pen-dency of cases in Bihar and said that thousands of bail matters
were pending in the courts of the state after the liquor prohi-bition Act was enacted.
Mehta, in a contrary stand taken earlier by the Union Finance Ministry stated that after discussion with high level officials about the suggestions of the court it can be said, “it is a welcome move”.
He, however, said though government is open to idea but more discussions are needed on the issue and they need to sort out some of the nitty-gritties involved in the matter.
The bench said that it is post-ing the matter for hearing on March 10 and asked the Solici-tor General to make the state-ment on the proposed law as it is the duty of the government
to create additional courts. We will proceed but we would like at the first instance to come from the government, the bench said, while referring to the view of the Centre. The top court was hearing a suo motu case to work out a mechanism for expedi-tious and just adjudication of cases relating to dishonour of cheques, fulfilling the mandate of law and reduce high pen-dency. It had earlier referred to a study on the pending cases and said it reflects backlog of more than 35 lakh and noted that dis-honour of cheque was criminal-ised in 1988 and the legislative intent was to “ensure faith in the efficacy of banking operations and credibility in transacting business on cheques.”
On Wednesday, the Finance Ministry had told the top court that creation of additional courts to deal with lakhs cheque bounce cases would not solve the problem of backlog of cases in the judiciary as most of them are stuck due to accused not appearing in the matter.
It had directed the Cen-tre to suggest the names of the members, secretaries or offi-cers from various departments for constituting a committee to come out with a solution to reduce the pendency of cheque bounce cases. The top court had said that it would be nec-essary to have a former Judge who has had wide ranging expe-rience as a trial judge, on the Committee. PTI
OUR CORRESPONDENT
MUMBAI: Snapping its three-session winning run, bench-mark BSE Sensex plunged by around 599 points to crack below the key 51,000-level on Thursday due to heavy sell-ing in financial, energy and IT stocks amid a meltdown in global shares.
Asian and European mar-kets tumbled as another rise in US bond yields fanned fears of higher inflation that may prompt central banks to raise interest rates.
Intra-day, the 30-share BSE barometer fell as much as 905 points before ending the session at 50,846.08, showing a decline of 598.57 points or 1.16 per cent. Of 30 Sensex shares, 25 closed with losses.
The broader NSE Nifty closed down by 164.85 points or 1.08 per cent at 15,080.75 with 38 of its constituents end-ing in the red zone.
On the Sensex chart, HDFC, L&T, SBI, Axis Bank, Bajaj Fin-Serv and HDFC Bank were major laggards.
Mortgage major HDFC fell the most by 2.62 per cent. Bajaj Finserv dropped 2.49 per cent, SBI by 2.28 per cent, Axis Bank by 2.24 per cent, HDFC Bank
by 2.1 per cent and ICICI Bank by 1.73 per cent.
Larsen & Toubro declined by 2.31 per cent, NTPC by 1.6 per cent, Bharti Airtel by 1.24 per cent and Reliance by 1.17 per cent.
IT stocks Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, and TCS also saw losses of up to 1 per cent.
Over the previous three sessions, the Sensex had risen by 2,344.66 points or 4.77 per cent, while the Nifty had added 716.45 points or 4.93 per cent.
UltraTech Cement bucked the trend and rose by 4.07 per cent to become lead gainer among Sensex stocks.
DrReddy rose by 1.63 per cent, Asian Paint by 0.65 per cent while Maruti and HUL also advanced.
BSE Midcap index also advanced 0.48 per cent while Smallcap index rose by 0.80 per cent. But largecap followed the benchmark to end lower by 0.46 per cent.
Among sectoral indices, BSE metal emerged as the top loser with 2.31 per cent drop.
BSE finance declined 1.46 per cent and bank by 1.45 per cent. Of 19 sectoral indices, 11 ended in the red.
Foreign investors had bought equities worth Rs 2,088.70 crore on a net basis in Indian capital
markets on Wednesday, accord-ing to exchange data.
Among Asian markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 2.1
per cent and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell 2.2 per cent. The Shanghai Composite index dropped 2.1 per cent.
After 3-day winning spell, stock markets tank on heavy sellingOf 30 Sensex shares, 25 close with losses, while 38 constituents of Nifty end in red
Intra-day on March 4, 2021
KBK graphicsInfo
Intra-day on March 4, 2021
9am 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4 9am 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4
Previous close:
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Previous close:
51,444.65
Close:
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50,846.08Low:
14,980.20
Open:
15,026.75
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NSE NIFTY BSE SENSEX
Low:
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(-1.08%)
-598.57
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MUMBAI: The rupee ended 11 paise lower at 72.83 (pro-visional) against the US dollar on Thursday, weighed down by a rebound in the US dollar and muted domestic equities.
At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened at 72.99 against the greenback and witnessed an intra-day high of 72.62 and a low of 72.99.
It finally ended at 72.83 against the American cur-rency, registering a fall of 11 paise over its previous clos-ing. On Wednesday, the rupee had settled at 72.72 against the American currency.
The dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, advanced 0.27 per cent to 91.19.
Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the global oil bench-
mark, fell 0.34 per cent to $63.85 per barrel.
Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in the capital market as they purchased shares worth Rs 2,088.70 crore on Wednes-day, according to exchange data. MPOST
Rupee falls by 11 paise to 72.83 against dollar
KBK graphicsInfo(Inverted scale)
Rupee Dollarvs
25 26 1 2 3 4
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FDI rises 40% to $51.47 bn in Apr-Dec 2020-21: Govt data
NEW DELHI: Chabahar Port will help Afghanistan and other countries in the region to bring down their logistics costs and develop a transit hub for con-nectivity between India and Eurasia, the government said on Thursday.
Located in Sistan-Balo-chistan province on the energy-rich Iran’s southern coast, the port is being developed by India, Iran and Afghanistan to boost trade ties.
Chabahar Port lies outside the Persian Gulf and is easily accessed from India’s western coast, bypassing Pakistan.
Chabahar Port is a joint effort of India, Iran and Afghanistan to support land-locked Afghanistan by giv-ing access to the open seas, optimising logistics cost by bringing in efficiency and cre-ate a reliable and safe trans-port corridor, Minister of Ports, Shipping and Water-ways Mansukh Mandaviya said while addressing a session organised to commemorate the Chabahar Day at Maritime India Summit 2021.
Further, the project also aims to develop a transit hub for close the connectivity
between India and Eurasia, he added.
“Chabahar Port is part of our shared commitment towards peace, stability, and prosperity of the people of Afghanistan,” Mandaviya said.
“The 21st century will not belong to the land. It will be a century of the sea, skies and space. In keeping with the high priority that we attach to enhancing regional con-nectivity between India, Cen-tral Asia and beyond,” he added
Sanjeev Ranjan, Secretary, Ministry of Ports of Shipping and Waterways, said the Mari-time India Vision 2030’s empha-sis is on boosting productivity, improving performance, con-nectivity and reducing logistics cost by adopting cost reductive processes.
The operationalisation of the Chabahar Port will help bring down the logistics cost for Afghanistan and the other countries in the region.
It will enable Afghanistan to boost its trade not only with India but also with other countries and greatly promote regional cooperation, the offi-cial said. MPOST
Chabahar Port to help Afghanistan, other nations reduce logistics cost: Govt
NEW DELHI: As many as eight firms raised over Rs 9,100 crore through retail issuance of non-convertible debentures in the first ten months of the ongo-ing fiscal to meet their business needs. In comparison, firms had garnered Rs 14,161 crore through this route in the April-January period of 2019-20.
Most of the funds have been mobilised to support lend-ing activities, working capital requirements and other general corporate purposes.
Non-Convertible Deben-tures (NCDs) are loan-linked bonds that cannot be converted into stocks and usually offer higher interest rates than con-vertible debentures. Accord-ing to the latest data available with markets regulator Sebi, eight entities mopped up funds totalling Rs 9,118 crore through retail issuance of NCDs in the current fiscal till January 2021.
The eight entities that raised funds are Muthoot Finance, Sakthi Finance, Kosamattam Finance, KLM Axiva Finvest, Muthoot Fincorp, Muthoottu Mini Financiers, Edelweiss Financial Services and Power Finance Corporation. PTI
Companies garner `9,100 cr through public issuance of NCDs in Apr-Jan
MUMBAI: After a growth mod-eration in FY21, Non-Bank Finance Companies (NBFCs) are estimated to witness a 9.5 per cent jump in their assets under management in FY22, a report said on Thursday.
Housing Finance Compa-nies (HFCs) will post a higher growth at 10 per cent as home sales go up, India Ratings and Research said, maintaining its “stable” outlook on both NBFCs and HFCs for FY22.
It estimated the growth to slowdown to 4-5 per cent for NBFCs and 6.5 per cent for HFCs in FY21, driven largely by the impact of the coronavi-rus pandemic.
The system liquidity has improved considerably while the majority of large non-banks have strengthened their capi-
tal buffers and the sector has started witnessing disbursement growth, the rating agency said.
The wide differential among NBFCs’ funding costs is likely to push the sector to consoli-date, especially in the sectors with a thin margin profile and limited product differentiation, it said, adding the strong regu-latory support in FY21 ensured adequate liquidity.
From an asset quality per-spective, wholesale NBFCs will face challenges in FY22, the agency said and maintained the negative outlook on such enti-ties. Stress due to the pandemic has moderated due to govern-ment schemes which have led to lower softer delinquen-cies and moderate addition to Gross Non-Performing Assets (GNPAs), it said, pointing out
that the overall stressed assets will be higher than a recent RBI estimate of 8 per cent.
The system-level stressed assets for NBFCs stood at 8 per cent on September 30, 2020 as per the RBI report, and between 1.5 to 3 per cent of the book would get restructured and an addition of up to 1.5 per cent will happen to be the GNPA, taking the overall stressed book to between 9.5-11 per cent, it estimated.
Many large NBFCs raised capital before COVID-19 and during the pandemic, result-ing in strengthened capital buf-fers to absorb the above stress along with carrying COVID-related provision. The credit cost will normalise for non-banks in FY22 as the provision hit was taken in FY21 itself. PTI
Asset growth at NBFCs, HFCs to jump in FY22, says report
NEW DELHI: WhatsApp on Thursday said it has rolled out one-to-one voice and video calls on its desktop app, a move that will now allow users to make calls through their laptops or desktop PCs.
The Facebook-owned com-pany said voice and video calls on the platform are end-to-end encrypted, and so WhatsApp can’t hear or see them whether the call is made from phones or computers.
“We’re starting with one-to-one calls on the WhatsApp desktop app so we make sure we can give you a reliable and high-quality experience. We will be expanding this fea-ture to include group voice and video calls in the future,” it added.
WhatsApp said there has been a significant increase in people calling one another on
WhatsApp over the last year and often for long conversations.
“Last New Year’s Eve, we broke the record for the most calls ever made in a single day with 1.4 billion voice and video calls. With so many people still apart from their loved ones, and adjusting to new ways of work-ing, we want conversations on WhatsApp to feel as close to in-person as possible, regardless of where you are in the world or the tech you’re using,” What-sApp said.
It noted that to make desk-top calling more useful, the company has made sure it works seamlessly for both portrait and landscape orientation appears in a resizable standalone win-dow on computer screens and is set to be always on top so users never lose video chats in a browser tab or stack of open windows. PTI
WhatsApp expands voice, video calling to desktop PCs
Cheque bounce cases: SC suggests Centre to enact law for creation of additional courts to deal with pendency
‘ICICI, HDFC, SBI will have to offload ̀ 1.2 lakh cr if RBI caps stake in insurance arms’
BERLIN: Airbus will make no forced redundancies in France, Germany and Brit-ain, the European planemaker said on Thursday, as it reached an agreement with a German trade union to protect jobs until the end of 2023.
A spokesman for Airbus, which has been hit hard by slumping demand for aircraft in the coronavirus crisis, said other measures - such as volun-tary redundancy programmes, early retirement or internal transfers - had been agreed instead.
Negotiations started later in Spain, the spokesman said.
Airbus has been strug-gling to reach targets to cut staff as part of a restructur-ing plan affecting up to 15,000 jobs, especially at its headquar-
ters in France and in German plants, sources had earlier told Reuters.
The IG Metall union and works council representing Airbus workers in Germany said they had agreed with the aircraft manufacturer on an overall package to safeguard employment and sites in the country until the end of 2023.
About 1,300 employ-ees at Airbus Germany and 1,000 at Premium Aerotec, a subsidiary that makes large plane components, took vol-untary redundancy between November and February, Hol-ger Junge, head of the group works council, told a news con-ference. “Production figures have stabilised,” Junge said. “But we have not overcome the crisis.” AGENCIES
Airbus to avoid redundancies in Germany, France, Britain
mp sports 11millenniumpost|KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021
millenniumpost NO H ALF TR U THS
millenniumpost.in
I, Anita Dutta alias Anita Roy is the one and same identical person vide affidavit no. 14320 under 1st Class Judicial Magistrate at Alipore dated 01/03/2021
CHANGE OF NAME
Ashwin and Axar bundle out England for 205
4TH TEST: INDIA TAKE CONTROL ON DAY 1 Swiss Open: Sindhu, Srikanth & 2 other Indians enter quarters, double delight for Satwik
Pollard hits 6 sixes in an over as Windies beat Sri Lanka
COOLIDGE (Antigua): Sri Lanka leg-spinner Akila Dan-anjaya experienced the pre-cipitous highs and lows of Twenty20 cricket when he claimed a hat trick which included the wicket of West Indies star Chris Gayle for a first-ball duck, then was hit for six sixes in an over by Keiran Pollard in the first international in Antigua.
The West Indies on Wednesday won the match by four wickets with 41 balls in hand, finishing with 134-6.
Dananjaya became only the 15th player and the fourth Sri Lankan to take a T20 interna-tional hat trick when he dis-missed Evin Lewis (28), Gayle and Nicholas Pooran (0) with consecutive deliveries in the fourth over.
He had little time to reflect on his new-found fame when it turned to notoriety: in his next over he was hit to all parts of the ground by Pollard, who
become only the second player after Yuvraj Singh to hit six sixes in an over in a T20 inter-national and the third player to achieve the feat in all interna-tional formats.
Yuvraj did so from Eng-land's Stuart Broad in the inau-gural T20 World Cup in 2007 and had to wait 14 years for company.
Pollard said he thought six sixes was a possibility "after the third one."
"I just had to come out and back myself," he said.
"It was something the team needed. I didn't see the hat trick, I only heard. But I still had to come out and do what the team required at that point in time."
Dananjaya's see-sawing fortunes he was hit for a sev-enth consecutive six by Jason Holder in his next over and had two catches dropped from his bowling turned the West Indies'' seemingly easy chase for 132 to take a 1-0 lead in the series into a thrilling spectacle.
Sri Lanka managed only 131-9 in its 20 overs after being sent in to bat. It had been 86-3 but fell apart after a short rain break and lost six wickets for 45 runs. Captain Angelo Mathews (5) fell in the first over after play resumed and Dinesh Chandi-mal (11) was out three balls later. Thisara Perera (1) fell in the 17th over and Sri Lanka slumped further to 106-6, then 111-7 when Hasaranga de Silva was out for 12. AGENCIES
Neeraj in line for bronze, 4 other Indians lose in
Rome eventROME: India's Greco Roman wrestler Neeraj kept himself in contention of a bronze medal in the 63kg but four of his com-patriots lost on the opening day of the UWW Ranking Series event here on Thursday.
Neeraj began by losing his quarterfinal 1-4 to Sultan Aseetuly but since the Kazak-shtan's wrestler reached the final, he got a repechage round.
Making the most of the chance, Neeraj defeated Rus-sia's Aleksei Tadykin 7-3 to book himself a slot in the bronze play-off, in which he will clash with America's Sam-uel lee Jones. AGENCIES
PSL postponed after 3 more
cricketers test +ve for COVID-19
KARACHI: The Pakistan Super League was on Thurs-day postponed with immediate effect after three more cricket-ers tested positive for COVID-19, taking the total number of cases in the T20 event to seven and prompting the cricket board to announce an inquiry into the fiasco.
Out of the seven cases, six are players while one is a support staff member.
"Following a meeting with the team owners and consider-ing the health and wellbeing of all participants is paramount, the Pakistan Cricket Board has decided to postpone the HBL Pakistan Super League 6 with immediate effect," the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said in a statement.
"The decision was made after seven cases were reported in the competi-tion, which had started on 20 February."
PCB CEO Wasim Khan said an inquiry will be con-ducted to understand what went wrong.
"It is a great disappointment for us and we find ourselves in a situation where we question whether we can provide full protection for players as their health and well being comes above everything else," Wasim Khan told a press conference here.
"We looked at the option of halting proceedings for a few days but in the last few days there was huge concern even among the franchises and players.” AGENCIES
Indian women's hockey team ends Germany tour with 1-2 defeat
DUSSELDORF: The Indian women's hockey team ended its tour of Germany with yet another defeat, going down 1-2 in the fourth and final match here on Thursday.
Naomi Heyn (29th) Char-lotte Stapenhorst (37th) scored for the world number three side before Lalremsiami (51st) pulled one back for the visitors late in the game.
It was India's fourth defeat in as many matches as the team stayed winless in the tour.
After rain delayed the start of proceedings, Germany found a lively tempo to their attack and earned a penalty corner with just ten minutes on the clock.
Savita and her defence stood firm to see off the threat. India, too, were awarded a PC just minutes later. But Ger-many's defensive line ensured that the score remained goal-
less after the first quarter.With barely a minute left
before the end of the second quarter, Heyn put the hosts in the lead with a brilliant field goal.
Germany continued to push forward after the inter-val and got their second PC. India once again showed good composure in defence but the German side steadily started to build a series of attacks.
The hosts took a 2-0 lead after Stapenhorst found the back of the net in the 37th minute.
The Indian side fought hard in the fourth quarter and put extensive pressure on the Ger-man defense line.
Lalremsiami found the back of the net in the 51st minute, but Germany protected their lead well in the closing stages to pick up their fourth succes-sive win of the tour. AGENCIES
Dhoni in Chennai; CSK training camp for IPL-2021 likely from March 9
CHENNAI: Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has landed here to take part in the team's training camp likely to begin on March 9 in the lead-up to the upcom-ing season of the Indian Pre-mier League (IPL).
The former India captain arrived here late on Wednes-day and will serve a five-day quarantine.
CSK tweeted a picture of Dhoni at the airport and wrote: "Thalai-Vaa! Smile with the Mass(k) on! Super Night! #DenComing #WhistlePodu #Yellove."
Former India batsman Ambati Rayudu also reached Chennai on Wednesday while
the Tamil Nadu players in the squad will be joining a little later.
"First #Dencoming of the summer from across the bor-der is Manavaadu Bahubali!!! #Yellove #WhistlePodu," CSK posted with a photo of Rayudu.
The camp is likely to get underway from March 9, CSK CEO K S Viswanathan said, adding the players who are available would take part in it.
"Yeah...the camp is likely to start from March 9. Whoever is available would take part in the training sessions," he told PTI.
"The players will undergo five-day quarantine before they start training. Also, they will have to return three negative
tests...," he added.The Indian players in the
CSK will be a part of the camp, he said, adding they would be arriving in batches.
The schedule and venues for the 14th edition of IPL have not been confirmed yet.
CSK, during the recent mini auction earlier this year, picked up England all-rounder Moeen Ali for Rs 7 crore, apart from Karnataka all-rounder K Gowtham (for Rs 9.25 crore) and Chetesh-war Pujra (Rs 50 lakh). It also roped in a few others including Tamil Nadu batsman C Hari Nishaanth, Harishankar Reddy and Bhagath Varma (all for Rs 20 lakh). AGENCIES
Barcelona rally late, return to Copa del Rey finalMADRID: Two weeks ago, Gerard Piqu and Antoine Griezmann were heatedly arguing with each other in a big loss to Paris-Saint Germain in the Champions League that deepened Barcelona's crisis.
On Wednesday, the two were celebrating together after Griezmann set up Pique's stop-page-time goal that allowed Barcelona to reach the Copa del Rey final.
Pique's goal helped secure a 3-2 aggregate victory over Sevilla, easing some of the pressure on the embattled club that t wo days saw for-mer president Josep Maria Bartomeu get arrested by Cat-alan police investigating pos-sible irregularities during his administration.
Sevilla won the first leg 2-0 but Piqu 's header four minutes into stoppage time forced extra time before Mar-tin Braithwaite netted the win-ner to send Barcelona into its ninth Copa del Rey final in 11
seasons."Piqu showed that he is one
of the leaders of this team," Barcelona coach Ronald Koe-man said.
"He is good on set pieces and it was a great cross for a goal in a very important moment."
Goalkeeper Marc-Andr ter Stegen had kept Barcelona in it by saving a 73rd-minute penalty kick that would have practically ended the team's
chances of advancing.Ousmane Demb l opened
the scoring early for Barcelona, which will be trying to win a record 31st Copa title.
"We believed until the end," Barcelona defender Jordi Alba said.
"This gives us a huge morale boost."
The victory comes four days before the club holds its presidential elections to try to move on from one of its worst
crises ever.Sevilla was trying to return
to the Copa final for the first time since 2018, when it lost to Barcelona. The five-time Copa winner also lost to the Catalan club in the 2016 final.
This season's final will be on April 17 at the La Cartuja Stadium in Seville.
Levante hosts Athletic Bil-bao in the other semifinal on Thursday. The teams drew 1-1 in the first leg in Bilbao.
Barcelona made it to the Copa final for sixth straight seasons before being elimi-nated by Athletic in last year's quarterfinals.
Barcelona got off to a fast start and Demb l scored with a superb shot into the top cor-ner from outside the area in the 12th minute.
Sevilla was awarded a pen-alty aftera foul by scar Min-gueza on Lucas Ocampos in the 73rd, but the forward's shot from the spot was stopped by Ter Stegen. AGENCIES
Man United, Leicester stumble to draws in Premier League
LONDON: As a grueling and intense Premier League sea-son heads toward its conclu-sion, Manchester United and Leicester are stumbling their way toward Champions League qualification.
United has completely lost its attacking spark, with a 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace on Wednesday at a fog-shrouded Selhurst Park making it three straight goalless stalemates in all competitions for Ole Gun-nar Solskjaer's team.
Leicester also had to make do with a point, drawing 1-1 at Burnley, though manager Brendan Rodgers wasn't too unhappy considering his grow-ing injury list.
United and Leicester remain second and third, respectively, but have won just five of their last 16 league games combined.
They are giving their top-four rivals a big opportunity to reel them in, with West Ham,
Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton all within eight points of United and having games in hand.
Sheffield United's play-ers aren't leaving the Premier League without a fight.
Chris Wilder's last-place team held on after a 57th-min-ute red card to veteran center back Phil Jagielka to beat Aston Villa 1-0. With 11 games left, Sheffield United is 12 points
from safety so securing a third straight season in the top flight remains highly unlikely.
The players aren't giving up, though. "We're all still fighting for our future and for this club," said striker David McGoldrick, who scored the winner from close range in the 30th minute.
"The saying is, It's not over till the fat lady sings.' We're all fighting to the end." AGENCIES
Bavuma made limited overs captain, Elgar to lead S Africa in Tests
JOHANNESBURG: Cricket South Africa on Thursday appointed Temba Bavuma, who is rather inexperienced for the role, and Dean Elgar as the national team captains for limited overs and Tests respectively.
In a CSA statement, Direc-tor of Cricket Graeme Smith thanked Quinton de Kock for leading the side in what are tumultuous times for South African cricket.
Both Bavuma and Elgar take over from de Kock, who led the team temporarily.
"We are grateful to Quin-ton for the work he has put in as captain of the team in the limited overs formats and are indebted to him for step-ping up while the National Selection Panel continued its search for the Test captain," said the former South Africa captain.
"We expect him to still play
an integral role in the team's leadership group."
Bavuma has played 44 Tests, six ODIs and 8 T20s for South Africa while opening batsman Elgar has played 67 Tests and eight ODIs.
Bavuma will lead the Pro-teas in the 2021 and 2022 T20 World Cups as well as the World Cup in 2023. Elgar will take the reins into the next cycle of the World Test Championship.
"Temba has been a strong and influential voice in the team in recent times and has shown consistency on the field in all formats, solidifying his place as a leader. He also has the trust and backing of the players and coaches around him.
"He will also be the Test team's vice-captain, working closely with Dean to ensure continuity and stability in the squad," said Smith. AGENCIES
AHMEDABAD: England's batsmen lost the battle of both mind and skills in yet another shoddy performance to sur-render the momentum to India with Axar Patel and Ravichan-dran Ashwin calling the shots on the opening day of the fourth and final Test here on Thursday.
After five innings, England crossed the 200-run mark but a total of 205 in 75.5 overs was certainly not what Joe Root had expected when he called it right at the toss on a day which would have ideally been best for batting.
There was turn and bounce but the pitch was far from being a minefield that some of the England batsmen save Ben Stokes (55, 121 balls) made it out to be.
For India, spinners Axar Patel (26-7-68-4), Ravichan-dran Ashwin (19.5-4-47-3) and Washington Sundar (7-1-14-1) toyed with the already messed up minds, clueless on how to deal with the conditions.
Mohammed Siraj (14-2-45-2) also played his part to per-fection with the semi-new and old ball, hurrying the batsmen with sheer pace as he did with Jonny Bairstow.
India ended the day at 24 for 1 with wily old James Ander-son (5-5-0-1) accounting for an out-of-form Shubman Gill (0). Rohit Sharma (8 batting, 34 balls) and Cheteshwar Pujara (15 batting, 36 balls) were hold-ing fort for the home side.
A cursory look at the Eng-land line-up, loaded with an extra batsman, will reveal that four -- Stokes, Bairstow (28, 67 balls), Dan Lawrence (46 off 74 balls) and Ollie Pope (29 off 87 balls) got starts but failed mis-erably on the conversion part.
The others came in and went without breaking a bead of sweat. It was as if already in
their minds, they were playing on a track they thought would turn square.
Stokes was a cut above the rest both in defence and offence before a moment's indecision cost him his wicket.
Washington angled one in and Stokes was on backfoot after initially trying to come forward preempting an off-break. The ball didn't turn and hit the back leg with clear indi-cation of crashing into the leg stump. Stokes' dismissal, after a good show, upset the team's rhythm just when it was look-ing to redeem itself after a poor first session.
Similarly for Lawrence, who was ready to play the attack-ing game, and Pope, intent on using his footwork to defend while negating the turn. There was always going to be a deliv-ery with their name written all over it.
In case of Lawrence, he was beaten by the away turn when
he danced down the track only to be stumped.
In case of Pope, the strat-egy that kept him on course brought about his downfall.
He came out when Ashwin changed the line of his delivery, dropping it a bit short and the attempted flick went between his legs and Gill had a reflex catch at forward short leg.
Patel, whose straight deliv-eries have scarred the English batsmen, was again menacing in the first session with Siraj giving him good support.
Stokes and Bairstow, during their 48-run stand, showed that if one can trust their defences, batting wasn't impossible.
Both played the spinners close to their body on most occasions and especially on the front-foot.
But on a track like this, no batsman would feel completely set and that's what happened with both Bairstow and Stokes.
The first hour of the match
showed that England's younger lot is still feeling the after-effects of the demoralising 'Pink Ball' loss.
Brought into action as early as in the sixth over, Patel bowled an arm ball which had Dom Sibley (2) leaving a huge gap between bat and pad, trying to play for the spin. The result was an inside edge onto the stumps. Zak Crawley (8) felt that the easiest way to survive was to attack Patel. He got a boundary but then jumped out and lofted the spinner without getting to the pitch of the delivery.
The result was a simple catch to Siraj stationed at mid-off, who didn't even have to move an inch from his position.
Joe Root (5), who went off the boil post his double hun-dred in the first game, got a peach of an inswinger from Siraj, which had him caught plumb in-front, leaving his team at 30 for 3 inside the first hour. AGENCIES
Patel (26-7-68-4), Ashwin (19.5-4-47-3) & Sundar (7-1-14-1) toyed with already messed up minds, clueless on how to deal with conditions
Indian spinner Axar Patel (2R) celebrates with teammates after dismissing England batsman Dominic Sibley (unseen), during first day’s play of the 4th and last test match of the series between India and England, at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Thursday PTI
BASEL: Olympic silver med-allist P V Sindhu and former champion Kidambi Srikanth advanced to the quarterfinals of the singles competition along with two other Indians at the Swiss Open badminton tourna-ment here on Thursday.
While Sindhu and Sri-kanth had contrasting wins, Ajay Jayaram and last edition's runners-up B Sai Praneeth too dished out superlative perfor-mances to make it to the last-eight in the Super 300 event, the first tournament in the extended Olympic qualifica-tion period.
It was double delight for young Satwiksairaj Rankireddy also as he progressed to the quarterfinals in both the mixed doubles and men's doubles competitions with respective partners Ashwini Ponnappa and Chirag Shetty.
World champion Sindhu hardly broke any sweat, beating USA's Iris Wang 21-13 21-14 in women's singles, while former world number one Srikanth notched up a 21-10 14-21 21-14 victory over world number 50 Thomas Rouxel of France in their respective men's singles
second round matches.Jayaram eked out a hard-
fought 21-18 17-21 21-13 against third seed Dane Ras-mus Gemke.
Praneeth, an Olympic hopeful, later saw off Spain's Pablo Abian 21-12 21-17 to join others in last eight.
Satwik and Ashwini, who had reached the semifinals at Toyota Thailand Open Super 1000 in January, defeated the Indonesian combination of Rinov Rivaldy and Pitha Han-ingtyas Mentari 21-18 21-16 in
a mixed doubles second-round match.
Satwik and Chirag, ranked 10th in the world, then dashed the challenge of Indonesia's Pramudya Kusumawardana and Yeremia Erich Yoche Yacob Rambitan 21-17 20-22 21-17 to also make it to the last eight.
While second seed Sindhu meets fifth seeded Thai Busanan Ongbamrungphan next, fourth seed Srikanth, who had won the title in 2015, faces sixth seeded Thai Kantaphon Wangcharoen.
Jayaram will be up against another Thai Kunlavut Vitid-sarn, seeded eighth, and Pra-neeth will cross swords with second seed Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia in the last-eight stage.
Satwik and Ashwini will meet fifth-seeded Malaysians Tan Kian Meng and Lai Pei Jing, while Satwik and Chirag will also be up against another fifth seeded Malaysian com-bination of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi.
Sourabh Verma had a rough day as he lost 17-21 14-21 to Vitidsarn to crash out of the men's singles event.
Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy too were ousted after losing 11-21 15-21 to Denmark's Amalie Magelund and Freja Ravn in the women's doubles second-round.
On Wednesday night, two-time former champion Saina Nehwal had bowed out of the tournament after a hard-fought first-round loss in the women's singles. The London Olympic bronze-medallist battled for 58 minutes before going down 16-21 21-17 21-23 to Phittayaporn Chaiwan of Thailand. AGENCIES
mp entertainment12
‘SAINA’ TEASER
Nora Fatehi on her struggles in Bollywood
KOLKATA|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpost
In an exclusive interview, dancer-actor Nora Fatehi revealed the pain behind her struggles that she had to
go through in Bollywood along with the bullying and the rejection she faced. She shared that she was too excited to make it in the entertainment industry.
“I thought it was going to be like a high-level lifestyle because I’m going to Bollywood,” she said.
She added, “It was nothing like that. I had the biggest shock of my life, the big-gest slap in the face.”
She also talked about meeting vicious people, who stole her passport, after which she was deported. She had to go back to Canada and people laughed at her and asked why she went to India in the first place. She then revealed that she went back to India and fought and learned the language.
“And you are going to meet people who are going to laugh at you on the way, whenever you try to speak. That happened to me all the time,” she said.
Fatehi further spoke about the chal-lenges she faced while learning Hindi
and how people would laugh at her. She said that she spent hours and months with her Hindi diction coach and he would uplift her, saying she was so good.
However, whenever she would go to an audition and they would know she is not Indian. They asked her whether she would be able to say the lines in Hindi. When Nora tried, they would laugh during the take and high-five each other.
“It feels like the minute the door’s opening, it is closing again. That is what I went through for five years con-stantly. If it was not the language, it was the fact that I’m not Indian,” concluded Nora. AGENCIES
Bollywood actor Yami Gautam shared that during her initial days,
she had gone to audition for a really big production house, where a top casting director had made unfavorable com-ments about her dressing style. The casting director had asked her to ‘dress her age’ and ‘aim at looking younger’.
“I remember I gave an audition for a really big pro-duction house and the per-son is one of the most popular casting directors. And I had already shot ‘Vicky Donor’, but it had not been released. So he told me ‘you know, your audition was really good’, so I was very happy! He was like ‘you know you have been shortlisted, but the problem is you should dress your age.
Why do you dress like that?’ I said ‘I do not know what it means, I mean I wore jeans and a top. What is wrong with that?’ And he was like ‘you should always aim at looking younger. You are a young girl so why not dress your age?’ I was like what does it mean,” revealed the actor.
She added that there were many things she wanted to tell the cast-ing director, that if she suited the role, it is the hairdresser and stylist’s job to make her look like the char-
acter. Her job would be to simply act the part.
“Why can I not walk into a meeting in a kurti and jeans or a dress, if I want to,” asked
Yami. AGENCIES
The teaser of Parineeti Cho-pra-starrer ‘Saina’ came out recently and it would
be safe to say that the Bolly-wood actor’s appearance as the badminton champion looks impressive - complete with the mole on her cheek and the shots on the badminton court
that made the world wake up to her talent.
The short video begins with Parineeti, who talks about how half of the Indian population comprises of
females who are married off at the age of 18 with noth-ing left to their life story.
She continues, “But this did not happen with me as I picked the sword in place of a pan and ladle.”
The video moves forward to show how her parents and coach encouraged her and worked hard with her to make her the first Indian badminton player to win an Olympic medal, five medals in Commonwealth Games and become the only Indian woman badminton player to become world number one.
The film has been directed by Amol Gupte, who has helmed acclaimed movies such w ‘Stanley Ka Dabba’. ‘Saina’ is scheduled for a theatrical release on March 26. AGENCIES
The badminton champion who picked the sword
Yami was once asked to ‘aim at looking younger’Yami had gone to a audition, where a top casting director had made unfavorable comments about her dressing style
Nora talks about bullying and the rejection she faced in the industry
She also revealed about meeting vicious people, who stole her passport, after which she was deported
MUMBAI: After the suc-cess of ‘Scam 1992: The Har-shad Mehta Story’, Production house ‘Applause Entertainment’ announced that it will be launch-ing a second season in the pop-
ular franchise, which will next feature the story of
the 2003 ‘Stamp Paper Fraud’ by Abdul
Karim Telgi.Tentatively
titled ‘Scam 2003: The Curi-
ous Case of Abdul Karim Telgi’, the show
will be adapted from the Hindi book ‘Reporter Ki Diary’, which has been authored by jour-nalist and news reporter Sanjay Singh and who is also credited with breaking the story of the scam back in the time.
Like ‘Scam 1992’, which is currently streaming on ‘SonyLIV’, the new chapter will also be released on the digital platform.
‘National Award’ winner Hansal Mehta will return to direct the second season.
The upcoming series prom-ises to be an intriguing watch as it will capture the life of Telgi, born in Khanapur in Karna-taka and his journey to becom-ing the mastermind behind one of India’s most ingenious scams spread across multiple states which shook the entire country. It is estimated that the scam value was allegedly around Rs 20,000 crores.
Kiran Yadnyopavit, known
for his work in Marathi films like ‘Natsamrat’ and ‘Hutatma’, has been tapped to write and develop the story along with the author.
“The new season of this fran-chise will focus on another rivet-ing story that shook the country a few years ago - the stamp paper scam. I am looking forward to collaborating again with teams ‘Applause’, ‘SonyLIV’ and ‘Stu-
dioNEXT’, the partners who think alike and encourage cre-ative thought,” said Hansal.
Sameer Nair, CEO, ‘Applause Entertainment’, said, “ ‘Scam 1992’ has helped to establish a solid ground for the ‘Scam’ fran-chise where we aim to tell stories about the various scams that our country has witnessed, the people behind it, their motivations and machinations.
“The success of ‘Scam 1992’ endorsed our belief about the audiences’ interest in such sto-ries. We are extremely thrilled to announce ‘The Telgi Story’ as the next season. There is some great potential we see in this story and are delighted to partner once again with ‘StudioNEXT’, ‘SonyLIV’ and Hansal Mehta in taking forward this franchise,” he added.
Shooting on the series will begin later this year. PTI
‘Scam S2’ to explore 2003 Telgi stamp paper fraud
The show will be adapted from the Hindi book ‘Reporter Ki Diary’, which has been authored by journalist and news reporter Sanjay Singh
Raveena Tandon said that she is excited for her digital debut ‘Aran-yak’ due to its interesting script
and also stated her kids’ reason of joy was that their mother will be seen on stream-ing giant Netflix’s show.
The 46-year-old actor described ‘Aran-yak’ as an intriguing series that traces the journey of her character, cop Kas-turi Dogra.
“Kasturi Dogra has incredible strength. It is not that she is trying to level herself in a man’s world, but the way she proves herself better than anyone else, that is what attracted me to the show and the charac-ter,” she said.
“Being associated with the ‘Netflix’ family is a joy. Even my kids are excited and tell me, ‘Mom you are going to be on ‘Netflix’!’ It is a cool thing for them. I have enjoyed the experience,”
added Tandon.Produced by ‘Roy Kapur Films’
and ‘Ramesh Sippy Entertainment’, ‘ Aranyak’ features Tandon as a cop who joins hands with her city-bred replacement Angad (Parambrata Chatterjee) when a foreign teenage tourist disap-pears in a Himalayan town. The series is directed by Vinay Vyakul. AGENCIES
Raveena is excited for her ‘Netflix’ series ‘Aranyak’She describes ‘Aranyak’ as an intriguing series that traces the journey of her character, cop Kasturi Dogra
The Russo Brothers are ready to team up for ‘The Gray
Man’. The new production will star actors Ryan Gos-ling, Chris Evans,
Ana De Armas, Dhanush, Wagner Moura, Jessica Henwick and Julia Butters and it is set to kick off in Los Angeles in two weeks, reported ‘Deadline’.
According to a new source, the team locked another three actors ahead of the start of the shoot - Bridgerton’s breakout star Regé-Jean Page, Billy Bob Thornton and Alfre Woodard.
While the details of their roles were under wraps, the source stated that the new project will fall under the action-thriller genre.
As per a report, ‘The Gray Man’ is based on a 2009 novel of the same name by Mark Greaney. It revolves around an assas-sin and former CIA opera-tive, which will be essayed by Ryan Gosling. He will be hunted by
Lloyd Hansen to be played by Chris Evans.
Apart from signing for ‘The Gray Man’, Page also signed Paramount’s untitled ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ movie. AGENCIES
Page comes on board for ‘The Gray Man’
Being associated with the ‘Netflix’ family is a joy. Even my kids are excited. it’s a cool thing for them, she says
‘I had the biggest shock of my life’