Bhubaneswar - The Pioneer

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n a daring incident in Bijnor,
I-borne
two unidentified motorcycle
assailants gunned down
an NIA officer and critically
wounded his wife in the wee
hours of Sunday. The officer, in
the rank of the deputy superintendent of Police, along with his
wife and children, was returning home from a wedding from
Bijnor.
The officer, Mohammed
Tanzil Ahmad, who was a member of team probing terror cases
related to Indian Mujahideen,
sustained as many as 24 bullet
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wounds while his wife Farzana
was shot at four times. Scared by
the showering of bullets, their
14-year old daughter and 12year old son hid themselves
under the back seat of their
Wagon-R car.
Home Minister Rajnath
Singh, who is visiting his parliamentary constituency of
Lucknow was apprised of the
incident. "Whatever is necessary
was being done. We are talking
to NIA officials," Singh said.
In a statement issued by the
hospital where Farzana was
admitted, "the officer's wife has
been brought in a critical con-
dition. Our doctors are providing the best medical treatment
to her. As a matter of patient
confidentiality, we cannot comment any further." According to
reports, around 8.00 pm on
Saturday, Tanzil along with his
family left their home for
attending his niece's marriage
function in Sohra village. When
they were returning home, the
assailants got his car stopped
when he was around 300 metres
away from his house.
Terming the incident as a
'planned attack', police officials
did not rule out the possibility
of terror angle in the shootout.
He was attacked from a close
range. The police officials said
it seemed that Tanzil Ahmad's
movement was being tracked by
assailants who used sophisticated weapons (one 9mm pistol) in the shootout. "Tanzil
Ahmad was shot dead by two
motorcycle borne persons on
his way to home," IG (Law and
Order) of UP Police Bhagwan
Swaroop said.
In Delhi, NIA IG Sanjeev
Kumar mourned the murder of
one of the brave officer of the
organisation and also termed
the attack as a "planned attack".
"A planned attack was made
on Ahmad and he was fired
upon several times at the time
of incident. In the firing, Ahmad
was killed while his wife was
injured. She has been admitted
to Fortis Hospital, Noida. He
was an assistant commandant
with BSF and was on deputation
with NIA." He said.
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ooing investors with
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promise of an easier business environment and stable
tax regime, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi on Sunday
said retrospective taxation has
been made a thing of the past
but he is “not able to do anything” on two cases inherited
from the previous Government
as they are “sub-judice”.
Modi also held wide-ranging talks with Saudi King
Salman bin Abdulaziz on ways
to expand strategic cooperation
in a range of areas including
trade, investment and counterterrorism. Besides, the two
nations on Sunday decided to
ramp up their counter-terrorism cooperation as they asked
all countries to dismantle terror infrastructures “where they
happen to exist” and reject the
use of terrorism against other
countries, seen as an oblique
reference to Pakistan.
A joint statement issued
after the talks between Modi
and King Salman, said, “They
called on all states to reject the
use of terrorism against other
countries; dismantle terrorism
infrastructures where they happen to exist and to cut off any
kind of support and financing
to the terrorists operating and
perpetrating terrorism from
their territories against other
states; and bring perpetrators of
acts of terrorism to justice.”
Inviting Saudi businesses to
come and invest in India’s
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he State Government’s inacT
tion on contractors and
engineers for poor road and
benefit department Secretary
and the contractor.
“The change in design has
cost the State Exchequer by C34
crore as the revised estimate
granted by the Works
Department rose to C128 crore
while the original cost was
C94.5 crore. But the Minister
has in his reply stated that cost
was revised at C106.99 crore,”
Majhi said and alleged that the
deviation between the
Minister’s reply and revised
estimation establishes nexus
between the agency and the
department Secretary.
He too alleged that the BJD
had taken C5 crore from the
concerned agency to hold its
anti-Polavaram Samavesh held
in New Delhi three years ego.
However,
CuttackChoudwar MLA Pravat Biswal
refuted Majhi’s charge.
“What pains us the most
is that the CM has remained
silent though crores of rupees
have been wasted due to
neglects of agencies and
department engineers and the
Secretary, He should take a cue
from the West Bengal CM and
take action against the agencies and department engineers and top officers,” Jena
demanded.
defence, energy, railway, health
and agriculture sectors, Modi
also said that a common indirect taxation regime in form of
GST (Goods and Services Tax)
was “about to happen”. He,
however, refrained from giving
any specific timeframe.
Addressing a select group of
Saudi and Indian business leaders on the last day of his two-day
visit to Saudi Arabia, Modi said
his Government has opened up
many sectors to foreign investment and India stands out as a
“beacon of hope” amidst global
economic slowdown. He further
said his Government was trying
to strengthen the banking network in India by freeing them
from non-performing assets
(NPAs) of state-run electricity
companies whose liabilities had
gone up significantly.
Modi said India has taken
major policy initiatives to create favourable environment for
investors besides removing
administrative bottlenecks. In
this regard he said the World
Bank has placed India on 12th
position in the list of countries
that had ensured ease of doing
business. “Today, the world is
facing a very deep economic crisis and in this situation, India is
a beacon of hope. Whether it is
World Bank, IMF or credit rating agencies, all of them consider India one of the fastest
growing economies,” he said.
On roll out of the muchdelayed GST, Modi said, “GST
will happen. I cannot give a
timeframe, but it will happen.
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It was our commitment, and it
is about to happen.”
To a question on retrospective tax, Modi said it will
never be brought back again.
He said two cases were “subjudice” and it would not be
proper for him to comment
further. “As far as retrospective
tax is concerned, it is a thing of
the past. We have repeatedly
said this in Parliament and I am
repeating here again today.
There were two incidents that
took place under the last
Government. These are subjudice. So, I am not being able
to do anything on them. In one
of the cases, positive outcome
has come. Retrospective tax
does not exist in India anymore. It has become a thing of
the past. It won’t come,” he said.
Although the PM did not
specifically name the pending
cases, the major retrospective
tax disputes include those
involving Vodafone and Cairn.
“I think in international relations, the taxation system
should be predictable. If somebody wants to come (to India)
after 10 years, he should know
India’s tax structure is like this.
That’s why we are working on
a long-term tax system and we
are implementing and I do not
think there will be any problem
in that,” Modi said.
A Saudi businessman had
asked Modi about retrospective
tax regime, GST, banking system and some other issues
and wondered whether Modi
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fter a modest drop in the
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day temperature prevailed ,W¶VKDQGLZRUN
for the last few days, the State
again witnessed rise in the
mercury level on Sunday.
While Titilagarh and
Bhawanipatna recorded the
day’s highest temperature at
43 degree Celsius, the mer-
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will be able to address their
concerns. Incidentally, Cairn
Energy CEO Simon Thomson
told PTI in an interview in
London today that international investors want the Modi
government to walk the talk on
resolving retrospective tax
issues and send a clear signal
that things are changing under
the new dispensation.
Cairn, which gave India its
biggest onland oil discovery
that now accounts for a fifth of
the country’s oil production,
will press ahead with the arbitration challenging use of a legislation to tax internal business
reorganisation with retrospective effect and will seek $1 billion in damages, he further
said.
Eyeing billions of dollars of
investment from Saudi Arabia,
which is setting up a USD 2
trillion public investment fund,
Modi invited top CEOs to
invest in defence, energy, railway, health and agriculture
sectors in India. Holding that
there was huge opportunity to
ramp up trade ties, he said time
has come to move from ‘buyerseller relationship’ to chart a
new path of growth and development which will benefit people of both the countries.
“We have to look beyond
the buyer-seller relationship,
because that will be an obstacle in the path of progress,” he
said at the interaction organised by the Council of Saudi
Chambers.
The two countries also
called on states to cut off any
kind of support and financing
to terrorists operating and perpetrating terrorism from their
territories against other states
and bring perpetrators of acts
of terrorism to justice.
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decide whether she is right or
wrong.
“People have already
rejected them for their corrupt
practices. People are not
accepting them. Disheartened
by this, they have gone to the
Naveen Niwas. They had told
me that they would join the
BJP. I don’t know whether
they are in BJD or BJP,”
remarked Mallick.
Meanwhile Jagatsinghpur
BJD district president Bishnu
Charan Das said the MLA has
links with persons with criminal antecedents.
“She is having links with
notorious criminal and liquor
mafia Raas Bihari Das alias
Chicken Babu. Her husband
worked for the Dhalsamanta
brothers as a tender fixer,” Das
alleged.
However, Das’ bête noire
in the district and Minister
Damodar Rout termed the
day’s development as handiwork of Das.
“Bishnu has lost political
ground in Jagatsinghpur. He
wants to defame Rajashree
and consolidate his position so
that he would get ticket from
Tirtol in the coming election,”
commented Rout.
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bridge works undertaken with
the Rural Infrastructure
Development Fund (RIDF) of
the Nabard has raised many
eyebrows regarding fair functioning of the Works
Department and its top officers.
“In the Kolkata fly-over
collapse incident, the West
Bengal Government blacklisted the agency, arrested its MD
and asked it to give adequate
compensation to families of
those who were killed and
injured within 24 hours. But it
is disappointing that the
Odisha Government is yet to
take any action against the
agency of the JatamundiaSubarnapur bridge which had
been collapsed in Agust 2014
injuring many,” alleged Odisha
Forest Wood, Agriculture and
Building
Construction
Workers’ Union president Sura
Jena.
Jena told this paper that the
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Government didn’t even conduct a proper probe into the
incident to establish how many
were injured or killed.
“The agency had engaged
labourers from outside the
State. Hence, it was not known
how many were killed under it,”
he pointed out.
Similarly, he alleged that
the Works Department has
favoured
the
HES
Infrastructure Ltd in ‘illegally’
increasing cost of the TrishuliaCuttak Kathajodi bridge.
The matter too recently
came up in the State Assembly
during a Budget discussion
where Congress MLA Bhujabal
Majhi alleged that the design of
the bridge was changed only to
?=BQ 17D10=4BF0A
fter getting written assurance from
the State Government that their
demands would be reconsider, the
traders on Sunday announced to
suspend their strike till May 26.
The Federation of All Odisha
Traders’ Associations (FAOTA) had
stopped import of essential
commodities like pulses, wheat, wheat
products and edible oils from other
States from April 1 demanding withdrawal of the five-per cent value added
tax (VAT) on these items.
FAOTA general secretary Sudhakar
Panda said that they decided to suspend
the strike after getting a written
assurance from the Chief Secretary and
also the intervention of the Chief
Minister’s Office (CMO).
“We have decided to suspend our
import ban till May 26. However, we
A
will reconsider our options if the
Government doesn’t take any action by
that time,” said Panda after a general
body meeting of the trader’s association
here.
He further said, “It will take three
to four days for the imports to be
normal. We have sufficient stock of
essential commodities and the
consumers shouldn’t worry.”
He, however, said that there had
been a minor price rise of certain commodities such as Palmolin oil, sugar,
etc., and urged the consumers to
crosscheck the price with the association’s bulletins everyday and report cases
of overpricing to the Government and
the association.
Notably, Panda after a meeting
with Finance Minister Pradeep Amat on
Saturday had hinted that the association
would call off its import ban of
essential food items.
cury breached the 40 degree
Celsius mark in as many as
seven other places. The seven
places that recorded above
40 degree mark are Sambalpur
(41.8), Hirakud (42.6),
Sundargarh (40), Balangir
(42), Bhawanipatna (43) and
Titilagarh
(43)
and
Jharsuguda (41.6).
The capital city recorded
moderately less temperature
with 37.2 degree while
Cuttack recorded 36.6 degree.
The temperature would
continue to come down from
April 5 to 9 and would again
rise after that, sources from
the local Met Department
said.
in
the
SBJDquabbles
Jagatsinghpur unit of the
came to the fore once
again as over a dozen of local
leaders met party supremo
and Chief Minister Naveen
Patnaik here with a host of
grievances against Tirtol MLA
Rajashree Mallick.
The complainants, including eight ZP Members and
three block Chairmen, alleged
before Patnaik that the MLA
has been ignoring them and
holding meetings with
Congress members.
“MLA Rajashree Mallick
has been ignoring party workers and representatives at the
grassroots level, for which a
division in the BJD is imminent. She has links with mafia
Dhalsamant brothers. Besides,
she is doing politics with the
help of a liquor mafia from
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Biridi called Chicken Babu
and a Tirtol-based mafia Litu
Mohapatra,” Raghunathpur
block Chairman Rajat Patra
alleged.
Similarly, Raghunathpur
ZP Member Sarojkant Swain
said when the mandate is in
favour of the Naveen Patnaik
Government, it is not understood why the MLA fears and
takes platoons of police force
to address meetings. “This is
unfortunate. Are all the ZP
Members and three block
Chairmen bad,” Swain wanted
to know.
On the other hand,
Mallick refuted the allegations and said people would
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espite the warning of the
D
Government, the agitating college
teachers of non-Government colleges
reiterated that they would boycott
Plus II answer sheet evaluation starting
on April 4.
“We won’t relent. Our demands are
genuine. We will boycott the evaluation
process,” said Non-Government College
Teachers’ Association president Rabi
Ray. The teachers have been demanding withdrawal of Block Grant (BG) system, salary on a par with teachers of
Government colleges and promotional benefits and increase in retirement
age to 62 from 60 years.
Meanwhile, Higher Education
Minister Pradeep Panigrahy said stringent legal action would be taken against
the teachers if they fail to join evaluation process.
“I again appeal to them to cooperate in evaluation of Plus II answer sheets
process, else the Government will take
appropriate action against them,” said
Panigrahy.
Meanwhile, Council of Higher
Secondar y Education (CHSE)
Chairman Basudev Chhatoi said retired
lecturers would be engaged for evaluation if required.
One of the agitating teachers, justifying the boycott decision, said, “After
the request of Higher Education
Minister we participated in Plus II
examination but once the examination
got over the Government ditched us.”
Notably, hundreds of teachers
belonging to 488 and 622 category colleges had held a rally last week here.
fter two successive rain
deficient years, weather
experts have predicted a "good"
monsoon this year- about 89
cms, which is 100 per cent to
102 percent of normal. This is
due to drop in El Nino pattern,
which may go below 0.5 by
May-end and gradually
become neutral.
The weakening El Nino
phenomenon is expected to
make way for its reverse counterpart La Nina, when the temperatures of the Pacific could
cool abnormally and bring
plentiful rains in various Asian
countries, including India.
The India Meteorological
Department (IMD) is expected to come out with its first
official prediction on
monsoon during the last week
of April.
During the last two successive years, monsoon was
deficient by 14 per cent and 12
per cent respectively. When
rainfall deficit in a year is 10 per
cent or more in a monsoon season, it is considered as a meteorological drought year. Over
the last two years, rains were
particularly insufficient in the
regions of northern Karnataka,
Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana,
Bihar, Jharkhand and parts of
Uttar Pradesh.
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f the total power consumed
in the State, only 1.44 per
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cent is used for agriculture and
irrigation purposes.
According to reports, while
15,439.827 million unit power
was used in the State last year,
consumption of energy for
agriculture and irrigation purposes was only 222 million
unit.
As per official data, the
highest 38.78 per cent power
consumed in 2014-15 FY was
for domestic purposes.
Commercial institutions consumed 11.03 per cent power
during the period, while the railways used 6.68 per cent power.
While 2.26 per cent power
was consumed for mining
operations, 1.51 per cent was
used for Government and private offices and 1.53 per cent
power was used for providing
drinking water to people dur-
ing the year.
Over 1,543.98 crore unit
power was consumed in the
State during 2014-15, of which
the factories consumed the
highest 598.75 crore unit, while
553.54 crore unit power was
consumed for domestic purposes, commercial institutions
used 170.30 crore unit power,
the data suggests.
During the period, while
the Railways used 103.14 crore
unit power, around 34.92 crore
unit was consumed for mining
operations, 23.25 crore unit in
offices, 23.60 crore unit for providing drinking water and only
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round 48,000 students
from the State on Sunday
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appeared at the all India Joint
Entrance Examination (Main)
conducted by the Central
Board of Secondary Education
(CBSE) for admission into
various BTech and BArch
courses.
The examination was conducted in two sittings amid
tight security at at 71 centres in
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State. Of the 71 centres, 21 were
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in Bhubaneswar. ‘The other
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centres were in Angul,
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Baleswar,
Brahmapur,
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Bhawanipatna, Cuttack,
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9PX]B^RXTch_aTbXST]c7XcTbWBTcWP]SbTRaTcPah6XaXbW2WP]SaP<^SX Sambalpur.
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ife being a doctor,
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Revenue Minister
Bijayshree Routray's med-
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minium major has registered
an all-time high production
of 63,40,142 tonnes of bauxite in 2015-16 fiscal, i.e.,
10.47 per cent higher and
19,53,000 tonnes of alumina,
i.e., 5.51 per cent higher than
held on April 9 and10.
CBSE, for the first time, has
installed mobile phone jammers at the examination centres
to prevent the use of mobile
phones as a mode of
malpractice.
Besides, candidates were
not allowed to carry pen or
pencil to the centres. The
authorities provided them pen
to write answers.
Around 13 lakh students
appeared the test across the
country through offline and
online mode.
JEE (Main) scores are
taken into account for admission to undergraduate engineering and architecture programmes at National Institutes
of Technology (NITs), Indian
Institutes of Information
Technology (IIITs), other
Centrally-funded technical
institutions, and institutions
funded by participating state
governments.
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The Navratna PSU also
produced 3,72,183 tonnes of
metal registering an increase
of 13.79 per cent compared
to the corresponding figure
of the previous fiscal, which
included the highest-ever
TI activist Jayanta Kumar
Das on Saturday sought
R
intervention of Chief Minister
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ed loss and the aluminium
industry is reeling under
heavy pressure due to sluggish international market,
Government of India PSU
Nat i on a l
A lu m i n iu m
Company Limited (Nalco)
has remained profitable all
through by successfully handling the market downturn
by focusing on its bauxite
mining and alumina refining
arm, besides effecting several cost-reduction measures,
particularly in metal production.
In the process, the alu-
or the third consecutive day
on Sunday, Congress students' wing members tried to
sneak into the Naveen Niwas to
teach Chief Minister Naveen
Patnaik the language of the State.
Like Friday and Saturday,
the activists led by the State
Congress students' wing president Itish Pradhan holding
slates, chalks and other study
materials marched towards the
Chief Minister's house but were
blocked by security personnel.
Though police had made
preventive arrests of the agitators on last two days, the
the corresponding figures of
the previous fiscal.
“These are the highestever production figures since
inception of the company,”
announced Nalco CMD Dr
TapanKumar Chand on the
occasion of celebrating the
Utkal Divas here on Friday.
Dedicating the achievement
to the people of Odisha, Dr
Chand said, “Perhaps this is
the best possible tribute to
the State, where Nalco was
born and brought up since
1981.”
hough
the
JEE
Examination was held on
Sunday morning, the 12th
Raahgiri spurred thousands to
participate in the programmes.
Health apart, nature, mental
health awareness and autism
were in focus at the event. While
the World Autism Awareness
Day was observed on April 2, the
State Government promoted
activities of autistic children to
prove that they are not different
from normal children. Experts
also explained people on autism
and how to manage an autistic
kid on the occasion.
'Dedi Luku,' a character
representing 'tree man' in Kui
language also interacted with
crowd and people took selfies
with the character to spread
awareness on trees, depleting
green cover and encourage
afforestation in the urban environment. City-based Nirmala
Kruti Bikas Trust (NKBT)
came up with Rangoli and 3-D
art forms to create better awareness on smoking and how it
affects health. They discussed
problem of cleft lip and how it
pro du c t i on of 1 , 0 1 , 3 8 0
tonnes of wire rods.
During the year, the
metal sale was higher by
14.21 per cent at 3,72,424
tonnes and power generation
was up by 13.84 per cent at
5841 million units compared
to the previous year.
Notably, the mining lease
of the South Block and the
Central& North Block at the
Panchpatmali bauxite mines
of the company has been
extended up to March 2020
by the State Government.
F
Naveen Patnaik in a case where
an appeal of a rape victim has
not been responded to by police
even after passing of six months.
“A rape victim had sent her
activists after being released
from police stations resorted to
agitation leaving security personnel in a tizzy.
Itish Pradhan, however,
said their effort to teach the
Chief Minister Odia would
not be stopped despite the
police restriction.
“The CM has to learn Odia
and speak in Odia. Being the
head of the State, it is his
morality to learn the language
of the soil,” said Pradhan.
Notably, BJD MP Baishnab
Parida and Odisha Jan Morcha
chief Pyarimohan Mohapatra
are also critical of the Chief
Minister for not learning Odia.
@bYc_^147X_\TcdQ\[cgYdXVQcdY^W1jQT
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rison ADG Arun Roy on
Sunday visited the Jharpada
P
Special Jail here and held discussions with Maoist D Keshav
Rao alias Azad, who along
with seven others, are on an
indefinite hunger strike seeking
speedy trial of the cases against
them and their recognition as
political prisoners.
The Odisha Human Rights
Commission (OHRC) on
Saturday had asked the ADG
and the State Government to
take immediate steps to restrain
the 12 Maoists from fasting in
the Jharpada jail in
Bhubaneswar and the
Bhanjanagar Sub-Jail.
It had also asked the officials to submit an action-taken
report (ATR) in this regard
can be corrected through simple surgeries. Call for social service also got primacy as blood
donation was encouraged and
last but not the least, a nice art
work on Nobel prize winner
saint Mother Teresa, epitome of
self-less service, was displayed.
Youths also took out an
educative procession mimicking a dead person due to smoking. Two city based psychiatrists Dr Pranab Mahapatra and
Dr Sudipta Das attracted people's attention towards their
activity zone by explaining
various forms of mental illness
and how to prevent them.
Citing examples from
everyday life, Dr Mahapatra
said. “Whether it is television
actresses, farmers or fans of
Indian national cricket team,
suicidal tendencies are to be
treated by psychiatrists and the
families must be aware on this.''
Singers from the Ama
Kalakara Paribara mesmerised
the audience with their performance. During the inauguration MP Prasanna Patsani,
Tourism and Culture
Minister Ashok Chandra
Panda, MLA Priyadarshi
Mishra, Mayor Ananta
Narayan
Jena,
BMC
Commissioner and BDA ViceChairman Krishan Kumar were
present.
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t a time when 70 per
cent aluminium compaA
nies world over have report-
within two weeks. The commission issued the directive
after taking note of the
demands of the jailed Maoists.
Azad has also sent a fivepoint charter of demands to the
Government.
The demands are speedy
trial, stooping of lodging of
fresh charges, commencement
of trial within three to six
months' of arrest, provision of
political prisoner status and
refraining from re-arrest
when acquitted by a court or
out on bail.
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complaint
to
DCP,
Bhubaneswar on September
23, 2015, which was received by
the latter on September 28. The
DCP sent the complaint to
Sahid Nagar police Station IIC
on the next day asking for an
inquiry. However, the said IIC
returned it to the DCP office
citing the place of incident
was not under his Jurisdiction.
Then the DCP sent the complaint to the ACP Zone-1 AK
Panda on October 8. However,
the ACP office is yet to give any
response to the victim,” Das
stated in a letter to the CM
quoting an RTI reply.
Pointing out that the police
have violated a Supreme Court
direction, Das urged the Chief
Minister to ask the DCP to register an FIR against accused
persons, who are very influential of Cuttack and
Bhubaneswar, and give justice
to the victim who belongs to the
Scheduled Caste community.
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he Mancheswar Carriage
Repair Workshop set itself
as the most productive workshop on Indian Railways by
achieving an increase of 53 per
cent Periodic Overhauling
(POH) outturn during 2015-16
which is highest over the last
three years. Apart from this, the
workshop has also achieved
37.5 per cent growth in
Intermediate Overhauling during the period.
Apart
from
this,
Mancheswar workshop has
given best ever performances in
various fields like corrosion
T
outturn, coach refurbishment,
BMBC conversion, provision of
LED based Tail Lamp in SLR
coaches, provision of laptop
and mobile charging points in
coaches and provision of LED
based emergency lights, augmentation of Bio-toilets in
coaches etc, said Chief
Workshop Manager of unit SK
Pankaj .
Informing about the
achievements, Pankaj said that
this is the only workshop to
have 5S Certification only with
ISO-9001:2008, ISO14001:2004
and
OHSAS18001:2007
Certificates.
Mancheswar Workshop
has also achieved the distinction of becoming the most
productive workshop over the
Indian Railways during 201516 because of Manpower
Productivity Ratio. The workshop has started POH and
IOH of LHB coaches in a big
way and has now become
capable to take full load of East
Coast Railway. At present,
ECoR has 187 LHB coaches
running in Bhubaneswar
Rajdhani Express, Purushottam
Express and Puri-Howrah
Shatabdi Express including
Bhubaneswar-New Delhi
Duronto Express Which has
LHB shell with air suspension
ICF Bogie. A total of 186
LHB coaches have been
already overhauled by the
Mancheswar unit.
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22.20 crore unit was consumed
for agriculture and irrigation
purposes in the State.
Notably, out of the total
crop production in the State,
only 28.3 per cent is cultivated
on irrigated land. The State lags
behind Rajasthan, Punjab,
Haryana, West Bengal, Bihar
and Tamil Nadu in terms of
irrigation.
If minimum 300 crore unit
power could be consumed for
agriculture and irrigation in the
State, at least 50 per cent agriculture land could be saved
from the drought, feel agriculture experts.
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The ECoR has augmented
1,712 Bio-toilets in 569 coaches over its jurisdiction. The
Mancheswar workshop is
developing a Bacteria
Generation Plant of capacity
27,000 ltrs per month. It is
expected that this plant will be
fully functional by December.
Now, all the coaches of
Bhubaneswar-Rameswaram,
Bhubaneswar-Puducher y,
Bhubaneswar-Tir upati,
Bhubaneswar-Pune,
V i s a k h a p a t n a m - L T T,
Visakhapatnam-Gandhidham,
Puri-Okha, VisakhapatnamAmritsar Hirakud Express and
Vi s a k h ap at n am - D u rg
Passenger are fitted with Biotoilets and these are running as
Green Train. The Mancheswar
Workshop is now also planning
to march towards the conser-
vation of energy and reducing
Green House effect by utilising
solar power system to save
electricity.
The workshop is conducting skill development courses
to local youth specially ITI and
Diploma holders from various
institutions. 1,863 ITI and
Diploma holders have already
been imparted training related
to welding, painting and operation of various machines
installed inside workshop. In
addition, 200 students from
nine Government engineering
colleges and 27 private engineering colleges are being provided 01 month Summer
Training Programme. These
students prepare projects related to Mechanical Engineering,
Electrical Engineering and
Civil Engineering.
ical sense might have
improved but his sense of
mathematics and logic
reflects poorly. He is said
to be reconstituting the
Revenue
Division
Commissions (RDC)
envisaging seven (four
new) RDCs for whole of
Odisha. Although his
statement in the Assembly
prima facie lacked clarity
of purpose, RDC headquarters are more or less finalized for
Cuttack, Puri, Sambalpur, Rourkela, Koraput, Brahmapur and
Baripada. But why Sambalpur will be laced with seven and
Cuttack with six districts is disturbing the democratic sense
of the people. The proposal needs a review and the number
should be increased to ten with three districts each for one
division. Interestingly though there is a hue and cry for a new
revenue division for Kalahandi with its headquarters at
Bhawanipatna, an ideal administrative adjustment has lost sight
of his ministry, more so, because of the silence by the local
representatives including the Urban Development Minister.
If geographical location forms the basis of bifurcation, and it
ought to be, then the Koraput division should have Malkangiri
and Rayagada in its fold. Sambalpur should be split into two
with a new division for Balangir. Similarly Cuttack central
should be bifurcated with a new division for Jagatsinghpur.
Kalahandi should come out of Brahmapur for a new division
with Nuapada and Nabarangpur. 30 districts divided by 10 is
equal to three is the simple arithmetic and laced with logic
from geographical view point.
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disha got comparatively more allotment
O
during the last three years.
The current year's Budget
placed in the Assembly is
to the tune of C94,000
crore out of which
employees' salary, pension and service of loan
and interest account for
C38,000 crore. The loan
burden
on
the
Government is C16,000
crore. 48 per cent of the
State Budget which
comes to C45,104 crore is on the head of Central tax. In the
last three years, the Odisha Government has received
C18,235 crore over and above the State's due. Still, the begging bowl remains empty and the crying baby craves for more.
The party is committed for a booth-to-booth approach to
explain this to the people as a rejoinder, a party spokesman
has said. For the Biju Pucca House Scheme the BJD
Government allotted C330 crores in 2014-15, whereas
Central assistance to this scheme alone is C1,400 crore in the
last two fiscal years. Even then it could construct only two
lakh houses against the target of 10 lakh. Besides drinking
water scarcity, the State is facing shortage of 800 megawatt
electricity every day. Against the requirement of 682 doctors,
the shortage is 1,016 and the ratio is less than 10 doctors for
1 lakh patients. 57 PHCs have no doctors at all. 667 primary schools have one teacher for 5 classrooms. The basic needs
are not made available to the people but still people voting
for the BJD is a myth that must be dispelled in the next three
months through a mass communication drive. But the question is: will there be a follow-up action?
0HULWIRU&%,SUREH
ong years of Crime Branch investigation into the paddy procurement corruption of 2008 in Balangir have astonished
L
an array of rights activists. Transportation of paddy bags into
the rice mills in Balangir by scooter, motor cycle, scooty, Indica
car and police jeep when revealed through a news paper report
dated July 19, 2008, the then Collector Kashinath Sahoo ordered
an immediate inquiry into this alleged corruption. CSO Ranjan
Seth enquired into the matter and submitted his report in two
days. Measurement slips carrying false numbers of the vehicles were alleged to be replaced by truck numbers before the
CSO's report was handed over to the Crime Branch for further investigation. Here lies the clue and the turning point of
the biggest corruption case of the State. The Crime Branch taking five long years to submit its report before the SDJM, Balangir
was a sheer wastage of time to linger the case as the truth was
nipped in the bud. The court has already heard the matter for
the fourth time in three years in its usual speed but surprisingly the CSO on whose report the Crime Branch swung into
action, is yet to receive a copy of the report. The documents
submitted before the SDJM Balangir was made available when
the rights activist Nilamani Joshi sought it through the RTI Act.
A series of questions remain unanswered and this becomes a
landmark case for Balangir widely discussed. Being a broad day
light scandal in which the State Crime Branch is allegedly
involved in destruction of the relevant documents, a CBI inquiry
will perhaps be the right step to dig out the truth.
0XVWZHDUKHOPHW
he tiny town Bhawanipatna where around 50,000 two wheelers have been registered, the riders do not use helmet as a
T
must. How can the police administration be so callous in this
town on a sensitive issue like wearing helmets? When helmet
wearing is compulsory all across the State what local conditions prevent the enforcement authorities of Bhawanipatna to
shirk their responsibility and leave the riders to die premature
accidental deaths? How can Bhawanipatna be taken as an exception when in cities like Bhubaneswar and Rourkela helmet
checking is a regular affair? By swooping down on the encroachers of Government land and mercilessly evicting them the
administration has done a yeomen service for the general public. It is time they made wearing of helmet compulsory to prevent accidental deaths. If the administration acts upon, the number of fatal accidents will come down and the helmet manufacturers will make hay.
(The writer, a public relations expert, is a functional editor of English weekly Kosal Horizon, email:[email protected] Cell: 94370 83025
Although every possible care and caution has been taken to avoid errors or omissions, this publication is being sold on the condition and understanding that information given in this publication is merely for reference and must not be taken as having authority of or binding in any way on the writers, editors, publishers, and
printers and sellers who do not owe any responsibility for any damage or loss to any person, a purchaser of this publication or not for the result of any action taken on the basis of this work. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent court and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only.
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capacity from the existing 118.50
MMTPA to 325 MMTPA by the
year ending 2025, and it would
become the country’s highestcapacity port in the country.
The port’s ongoing projects
include a multipurpose berth to
handle clean cargo including
containers on BOT basis at an
estimated cost of C430.78 crore
to be operational by March
2019 and a deep draft iron ore
berth on BOT basis at a cost of
C740.19 crore also to be operational by March 2019.
The other projects are
mechanisation of EQ-I, EQ-II
& EQ-III on BOT basis at a cost
of C1,437.67 crore to be operational by December 2019, a
deep draft coal berth on BOT
basis at a cost of C479.01 crore
and a proposal on capacity augmentation under the Sagarmala
Project to develop an outer harbour at a cost of C4,179 crore
to handle cape-size vessels up
to 2 lakh DWT with a draft of
22 metre. This was stated by
PPT Chairman Rinkesh Roy
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iolating strict directives of
the Union Ministry of
V
Environment and Forests
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he Paradip Port Trust
(PPT) has taken up various
T
projects to increase the port’s
=´_PSP\X]^a\X]TaP[b\X]X]V)Ad[TbQT]STSfXcWX\_d]Xch
while referring to the port’s
annual performance report for
2015-16.
The port achieved an alltime cargo record throughput
of 76.38 MMT during 2015-16
against the previous year’s traffic of 71.01 MMT exhibiting a
a growth of 7.57 per cent. The
PPT retained its second position in cargo throughput
among all Major Ports consecutively for the last three years.
During 2015-16, the PPT
earned C1,173.03 crore against
C1,160.46 crore during 2014-15.
The net surplus after Income Tax
stood at C309.37 crore against
C275.57 crore in previous year.
By improving the port efficiency parameters, the port
handled 1,561 ships during
2015-16 against 1,476 during
the previous year with a
reduced berth occupancy of 66
per cent from 77 per cent.
The PPT has declared a
facility to handle baby cape-size
vessels of 1,20,000 DWT by
enhancing the draft to 14.5
metre at three berths.
For environmental mea-
sures, the PPT has erected the
net barrier for a length of 3 km
alongside the perimeter wall to
arrest dust. About eight lakh
trees have been planted in and
around Paradip. Further,
25,000 saplings were planted
through the Odisha Forest
Development Corporation
during 2015-16. Various environmental measures are also in
offing during 2016-17 including procurement of mist cannons, truck tyre cleaning system at the gates, deployment of
mechanical sweepers and
installation of sewerage treatment plant and solar energy
plant.
Besides, the PPT is committed to its CSR activities as
per the Government of India
Guidelines. During 2015-16, it
spent C5.50 crore on CSR
activities like construction of
toilets in the township area
including schools and colleges, skill development to
local youths through the
CIPET for getting employment and promotion of sports
and cultural activities, etc.
(MoEF) on environmental
clearance, rampant illegal mining of minor minerals is going
on in Khariar block.
A total of 23 stone quarries
are in operation in the block out
of which 22 are running without Environment Clearance
(EC) from the State
Environment
Impact
Assessment Authority (SEIAA).
These mining leases include six
temporary permits allotted on
the basis of work orders issued
to contractors for execution of
Government construction
works, which is again a violation of environmental guidelines.
The National Green
Tribunal (NGT) in 2013, following a Supreme Court judgement (Deepak Kumar Vs State
of Haryana and others), banned
mining of minor minerals such
as sand, gravel, brick earth, mud
and other stones in less than 5
hectares of land lease without
environmental clearance from
SEIAA.
The Supreme Court judgement clearly laid down provisions for minor minerals, which
the EIA notification 2006 did
not address and, noted that
“leases of minor mineral,
including their renewal for an
area of less than five hectares,
be granted by the States/Union
Territories only after getting
environmental clearance from
the MoEF.”
This forced the MoEF to
amend the Environment
Impact Assessment notification, 2006 in the year 2013. But
the amendment has no impact
on the mining in any manner;
rather it can be said that a lot
of it is facilitated by the State
Government/district administration in the name of expediting Government works. The
local revenue authority says
that Principal Secretary to
Government of Odisha,
Revenue and Disaster
Management Dr Mona Sharma
has directed the district
Collectors vide her letter dated
December 21, 2015 to issue permits for public work on request
of the respective agencies by following Rule 30 of OMMC
Rules, 2004, which according to
them did not need environment
clearance from the SEIAA.
The temporary permit
holders in connivance with the
corrupt officials of Revenue
Department are doing more
harm to the environment than
the five-year lease holders. To
extract more materials within a
short period, they even use
machineries to go beyond the
permissible depth and width.
They also cheat the
Government in different ways.
None of them obtains EC and
secondly, the lease period is
renewed several times illegally
allowing them to continuously
expand the mining area.
Haresh Agrawal, a contractor, obtained licence for
extracting stone in two quarries
(Plot No.710 and 446 of 358 of
Khata) in Rishgaon village
under Tukla Revenue Circle on
the basis of the work execution
orders from department of RD.
It is clearly visible that the
quarry area has exceeded more
than one hectare although the
sketch map shown is for half an
acre of land in both the places,
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he Mahanadi Coalfields
Limited (MCL) has become
T
the number one coal produc-
he Sambalpur University
Nonteaching Employees’
T
Union on Saturday expressed
utter dissatisfaction over the
Higher
Education
Department’s decision to fill up
only 96 posts out of total 300
vacant posts in various
departments.
“While the total vacancy in
the non-teaching categories is
300, the Government has sanctioned for filling up of only 96
posts. It will not meet the
University’s requirement,” said
union secretary Mahendra
=^]cTPRWX]V
bcPUUbY^QbTTZTab
SXbWTPacT]TS
Mishra
Besides, the Higher
Education Department has
also abolished 154 posts without any rhyme and reason,
Mishra alleged.
Notably, union members
accompanied by Sambalpur
MLA Dr Raseswari Panigrahi
had in November 2015 met
Chancellor of the Universities
and Governor Dr SC Jamir and
department Secretary apprised
them about the problem in the
day to day activities in the university, having 236 affiliated
colleges besides PG and MPhil
courses, due to the vacancies.
“The present nonteaching
staffs are working under
tremendous work pressure.
While we were hopeful that at
least 70-80 per cent posts will
be filled up, the recent order
has disheartened us and the
youths who waited for jobs,”
said Mishra.
Mishra demanded that the
Government take immediate
action for filling up of all the
vacancies and enable the university serve the people and the
students better.
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er in the country by producing
a record 138 million tonnes of
dry fuel in the financial year
2015-16, contributing 39 per
cent to the incremental growth
of the Coal India Limited
(CIL).
The MCL, which celebrated its silver jubilee on Sunday,
has crossed several milestones
in coalmining during its journey that started in 1992 as a 23MT coal producing company
and the youngest subsidiary of
the CIL.
While the MCL produced
a record 137.9 MT at a growth
rate of 13.6 per cent, it supplied
140.22 MT to its consumers,
registering an outstanding
growth of 14 per cent compared to the same period during the previous financial year.
Congratulating the MCL
family, CMD AK Jha said the
company’s performance graph
would continue its upward
trend in production, dispatch
as well as contribution towards
development of peripheral
areas.
mer CMDs to join MCL CMD
Jha and first lady Dr Nisha
Thakur for the jubilee day cake
cutting ceremony.
Winners of the ‘Run for
Excellence’ were awarded.
A brainstorming session on
‘IT interventions for participative, transparent and responsive
governance’ was held wherein
the CMD along with the
Directors, former CMDs and
company’s trade union leaders
actively participated.
A series of programmes to
create awareness on various
Central Government programmes, performance analysis within the company, promotion of art and cultural are
part of the jubilee celebrations
in the company.
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seminar on Baleswar city
A
sanitation was organised
here by NGO Centre for Policy
nly two days after a human
O
trafficking racket was busted in Puri, the Baripada police
on Saturday night cracked yet
another such racket and rescued as many as 20 minor girls.
Acting on a tipoff, the
Baripada Town police led by
IIC Alok Ranjan Ray raided a
bus and rescued the girls while
they were being taken away to
Kolkata.
As per preliminary investigations, the girls belong to
Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur and
Puri districts, said police
sources.
The girls had been working
for a Kolkata based prawn factory earlier. Even though they
came back to work at a factory in Baleswar being dissatisfied over the remuneration,
they were moving back to West
Bengal through some agents,
the sources added.
“They were being taken to
work in a prawn factory in
West Bengal. We have detained
three women in connection
with the case and are interro-
gating them. Further investigation is on,” IIC Ray told
reporters on Sunday.
All the rescued girls were
handed over to the District
Child Welfare Committee
(CWC).
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research (CPR) in association
with the North Orissa
Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (Nocci).
Several facts and figures
were presented by the CPR
which they found during their
survey and documentation pertaining to sanitation of Baleswar
Municipality using various
tools including GIS mapping.
As per latest population
survey report the population of
Baleswar Municipality is
1,18,162 and 59 per cent of
them reside in the slum areas.
The study revealed that 42
per cent households while have
pipe water supply, 60 per cent
households have septic tank.
The open defecation per cent
is 17 against the State average
30. The defecation was
observed more in the sides of
rail lines and river side villages.
The seminar entitled
‘Sahajogita’ while was organized for building partnership
for Swachh Baleswar, several
experts participating shared
information and sough to find
solutions. MP RK Jena, CPR
senior fellow Subhagato
Dasgupta, Bill and Milinda
Gate Foundation senior programme officer Madhu
Krishna,
municipality
Chairman Alok Sahu, Nocci
president Devasis Mohanti,
besides district officials and
representative from PXE and
Pollution Board deliberated in
the seminar.
MP Jena informed that
since Baleswar city had been
included under AMRUT
scheme there would be surge
in the infrastructure and services.
Municipality Chairman
Alok Sahu said Rs 38 crore
would be spent on replacing
old water supplying pipe lines
to prevent diseases owing to
water contamination.
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he Kapilas Zoo, which was
recognized by the Zoo
T
Authority of India on April 1,
1995 as the second zoo in
Odisha, is now only surviving
on a sign board. In the last 21
years, no tangible improvement of the zoo took place.
Sources said a deer park,
inaugurated by former Forest
Minister Natabar Pradhan on
January 26, 1979 only over five
hectares of land on the foothill
of Kapilas to attract tourists,
was elevated to the status of
second zoo in Odisha 21 years
back. Expecting that the zoo
will gradually take the shape of
Nandankanan, it was extended
to 26.64 hectares by taking into
Former MCL CMDs Dr
AS Prasad, SN Sharma, SR
Upadhayay and AN Sahay,
who joined the foundation celebrations, congratulated Team
MCL for becoming the leading
coal producer of the country.
‘’The dream we had for the
MCL has come true,’’ said
Sharma while addressing a
gathering of MCL employees
and their family members after
the ‘Run for Excellence’ organised on the day.
D i r e c t o r
(Technical/Operations) AK
Tiwari,
Director
(Technical/Projects
&
Planning) JP Singh, Director
(Finance) KK Parida and
Director (Personnel) LN
Mishra accompanied the for-
its fold the reserve forest area
and devottar land with the
deer park. More than 150 spotted deer existed in the deer
park those days. The zoo was
initiated with 242 animals and
15 varieties of birds.
However, it received a
major setback during the 1999
Super Cyclone. It took at least
five years to repair the damaged
sheds of the animals and other
establishments by the authorities.
Subsequently, the zoo was
used as the Sambar breeding
centre and also as the rescue
centre for elephants. But the
zoo is now lying in a dilapidated condition with 149 spotted deer, two bears, two rescued
elephants and a few birds of dif-
ferent species. Even though
thousands of pilgrims visit to
Sri Chandra Sekhar Jew temple
every day, only two per cent
among them show interest to
visit the zoo. Paying five rupees
as entrance ticket per head is
discouraging them.
“The Government is not
taking any interest to develop
the zoo as they consider zoo is
a loss-incurring project.
Besides, tigers and lions cannot
be housed here as buffalo meet
cannot be allowed considering
the sacredness of Kapilas. So,
the zoo has been losing its
sheen,” said an official.
but the Revenue authority has
not restricted him from doing
that. The lease of the quarries
has been renewed three times
on same work orders. It is
learnt that, Haresh is a dummy
for another person who mines
and collects stone to run his
crusher near Rishigaon village.
“There are many such contractors in the block who act as
dummies for different crusher
owners, which is a violation of
Rule 33 (2) of OMMC Rules
2004,” says Chitta Ranjan Singh
Deo, one of the leading advocates of Nuapada district.
“These informal transfers of
quarries cannot be established
without a vigilance investigation,” he adds.
Dilip Behera of Bhojpur village has been granted a twomonth quarry permit under
rule 32 of Orissa Minor Mineral
Concession Rules 2003 for
extraction and removal of 300
cum of stones from Plot No
1970 of Bhojpur village. His
two month period ended on
March 31 last, but he is still
continuing with the mining
with the knowledge of the
Revenue Department. “We are
forced to pay more than the
prescribed amount to a clerk of
Khariar Tehsil Office who deals
with the mining lease section,”
says a temporary permit holder. “He takes Rs 60,000 for giving permit of 300 cum,
although the prescribed
amount is Rs 30, 300,” he adds.
“The corrupt officials find
their way to make money, even
if there are laws and rules to
check them from doing that.
Without having any concern
over the environmental impact
of the stone quarrying, these
quarry contractors extract the
minerals. Some of the quarries
are located very near Rishi
Pitha, which is one of the
important archaeological
places of Nuapada” says
Khirasindhu Sagaria, an RTI
activist and a member of
Durniti Birodhi Manch
(DBM), Khariar. Sagaria
informed that, the DBM has
drawn the attention of the
higher authorities demanding
vigilance inquiry on illegal
mining of stone and sand in
Khariar block.
There are a number of
small mining leases in and
around the Rishi Pitha hill.
Taking into consideration the
cumulative environmental
impact from small mining
leases, there is a need to develop an environmental management plan (EMP) for clusters
of small mines. But without
caring such sensitive issues
the Revenue Department is
awarding leases repeatedly.
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?=BQ 1703A0:
n the Utkal Divas, the
Biju Smruti Committee
O
reiterated its demand for conferment of Bharat Ratna on
Biju Patnaik while holding a
candlelight procession with
hundreds of men and women
throughout Bhadrak town in
the evening under the leadership of advocate Ameeta
Acharya.
A public meeting was
held in front of the district
Collectoriate with Acharya
presiding over it. Acharya
regretted that despite the
Smruti Committee’s persistent demand for Bharat Ratna
for Biju Patnaik, the Prime
Minister is not paying any
heed to Odias’ sentiment.
She reminded that one lakh
postcard letters were sent to
the PM for the purpose, but
in vain.
Achar ya,
Smr uti
Committee general secretary
Narendra Prasad Mahakul,
Rabinarayan Khilar, Iqbal
Khan, Riaz Ahmed, Anima
Panda and Rohit Kumar Roy
said Bijubabu was a statesman who is highly worthy of
being honoured with Bharat
R atna, and t he Union
Government and President
should take keen interest to
confer the country’s highest
civil award on Biju Patnaik as
a mark of respect to the
Odisha people.
Among others, advocate
Gir id har i
Nat h,
Dr
Rabibnarayan Mohapatra and
Rajendra Prasad Jena were
present at the gathering.
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he Odisha Biological
Product Institute (OBPI)
T
has created an all-time record
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alangir town water supply
distribution system will be
B
monitored through GPS network from April first week.
Movement of water tankers
will be tracked effectively by a
GPS enabled tracking system
keeping minimal scope for laxity.
This was decided at a meeting between Housing and
Urban Development Minister
Puspendra Singh Deo and
Bolangir MP Kalikesh Singh
Deo and RS MP AU Singh Deo
on March 31.
The two MPs discussed the
?=BQ 10;4BF0A
problem of water scarcity with
Minister and requested for
better water supply provision
for Bolangir town. It was
informed in the meeting that
146 PVC tanks and 41 RCC
tanks have been installed at different scarcity points of the
town. 26 water tankers are filling up these storage tanks
every day. The MPs were
assured that more number of
RCC tanks and 50 more tube
00?bTTZbSaX]ZX]VfPcTaUPRX[Xch
Bhubaneswar : The Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday
passed a political resolution at
its State-level executive meeting demanding drinking water
facility across the State within
seven days.
The political resolution
was moved by party State convenor Nishikanta Mohapatra.
The executive meeting was
attended office-bearers from
around 80 blocks. The meeting
was presided over by party
State in-charge Khemchand
Jagirdar.
PNS
wells will be installed soon. The
control rooms have been activated for effective monitoring
of water supply. Mobile teams
have been set up for immediate repairing of hand pumps.
The Tarava Water Supply
Project will be completed in a
few months and will be commissioned by September this
year, the Minister assured. This
will solve the water problem in
Balangir town to a great extent.
tripartite meeting of the
A
DGMS Dhanbad, the
Balasore Alloys Mines
Management and the Sukinda
Region Chromite Khadan
Mazdoor Sangh (SRCKMS) was
held in Bhubaneswar recently to
review the status of the recommendations of the 11th conference of Safety in Mines.
DDG
(SEZ)
P
Ranganatheeswar presided over
the meeting and stressed on
safety aspects and particularly
on DGMS approved PPE
(Personal
Protective
Equipment).
“Use of Public Grievance
(PG) system of the Union
Government for registering
the complaints, we are looking
after health of the mine workers, provision of cool drinking
water to all laboures,” he added.
Balasore Alloys HR and
CC director Ashok Pattnaik
highlighted the need of safety in
mines and its commitments as
per Statute.
BK Parida presented the
recommendations of the 11th
Safety Conference in mines
on behalf of the BAL
Management.
Addressing the gathering,
former Minister PC Ghadai
stressed upon DGMS and
mines management and particularly the environmental
pollution of Damsal Nala.
Subramanian, Nagendra
Kumar Sriram and AK Jadav
were present, among others.
1´bfPa377VTcbQPccTah^_TaPcTSbcaTcRWTab
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he Baleswar District
Headquarters Hospital
T
(DHH) is now equipped with
battery-operated stretcher vehicles with the inauguration two
such vehicles on Saturday.
The two vehicles costing
around Rs 15 lakh were procured from the out MPLAD
fund of the local MP RK Jena.
Inaugurating them, MP Jena
said, “There was a requirement
of such vehicles at the DHH.
They are procured by the
DHH authorities after tender
process and C15 lakh was
granted from the untied fund.
These facilities are for patients,
in production of quality vaccines.
Recognised for the Good
Management Practices, the
institute has produced over
2.35 crore doses Hemorrhagic
Septicemia, Black Quarter,
Anthrax, Enterotoxaemia
Vaccine and Ranikhet Disease
vaccines. Fisheries and Animal
Resources Development
Secretary Bishnupada Sethi
held discussions with concerned senior officials here on
Saturday as to how to scale up
the production and productivity of the OBPI.
Thanks to Sethi’s persuasion, the Nabard has come out
to support the OBPI;s modernisation. The OBPI increased
its vaccine production in 201516, which is 40% higher than in
2014-15. The institute ensures
regular supply of the vaccines
to the field institutions for preventive vaccination of animals
and birds owned by farmers to
prevent occurrence of conta-
who genuinely require smooth
shifting like heart patients
and pregnant women. The
service would be provided
free of coast.”
District Collector Pramod
Das, CDMO BS Pani and
Sadar MLA JP Dash were present, among others. Smooth
movement is very essential for
shifting of critical patients.
Hence, these stretchers
were required at the DHH,
said the CDMO, who also
thanked MP Jena for fulfilling
the need.
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oted Odia IT expert and
scholar Dr Subroto Bagchi
N
delivered the third lecture on
‘Platform and Purpose, of the
Odisha Knowledge Hub
(OKH) lecture series at the
State Secretariat here on
Saturday.
While Chief Minister
Naveen Patanaik participated
in the lecture from his office
through video-conferencing,
Senior Ministers, Chief
Secretary along with Principal
Secretaries and Secretaries
deliberated at the event site.
Bagchi elaborated that
leadership depends on a platform from which a person or
an institution operates and
the purpose that the person or
institution maintains. He said
the impact made by a person
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book Periodical Press and
Colonial Moder nity,
Odisha, 1866-1936 written
by Vice-Chancellor of Central
University of Orissa (CUO)
Prof Sachidananda Mohanty
was released at the Odisha
St ate Archives here on
Saturday.
Po et R amakant R at h
released the book and traced
the growth of the Odia periodical Press.
Utkal University English
Professor Jatindra K Nayak,
A
Samb ad editor S oumya
Ranjan Patnaik and writer
Gourahari Das were present
as speakers. Patnaik spoke
about the survivals of different periodicals of Odisha.
The book is an excellent
research work on the society
during the colonial period of
O disha pres ente d by
Mohanty, said Prof Nayak.
Prof
Sachidananda
Mohanty elaborated about
the research work at the time
of writing the book.
The book was released
by the Oxford University
Press.
?=BQ 17D10=4BF0A
promotion of the unique Odia
culture and tradition, said
Union Minister Dharmendra
Pradhan while addressing the
Pravasi Odia Sammilani held at
Gurgaon in Har yana on
Sunday.
Organised by the Kalinga
Bharati Foundation, the Odia
Sammilani was also attended
by Governor SC Jamir and
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Bhubaneswar: The Odisha
Small Industries Corporation
Ltd (OSIC) celebrated its 44th
foundation day here on
Sunday.
Inaugurating the event,
MSME Minister Jogendra
Behera said, “Initially we had
achieved a turnover of C107.98
crore, but the turnover of the
corporation has gone up to
C650 crore in the FY 2014-15
with a profit of C8.46 crore.”
He thanked all the entrepreneurs of the State. He also
said the educated young entrepreneurs have main role in the
development and the OSIC is
also trying to attract and
encourage the young entrepreneurs.
Initially, the role of the
OSIC was to create industrial
infrastructure by way of development of industrial estates at
various places of the State,
provide initial capital support to the entrepreneurs in
shape of seed capital loan and
hire purchase machinery loan
for setting up of units and provide scarce and control raw
materials required for production activities, he added.
PNS
Cuttack: The Cuttack district
jail committee reviewed the
functioning of Choudwar
Circle Jail here on Saturday and
took stock of the problems
faced by the jail staff as well as
of the inmates. The Committee
comprising the district session’s judge, district magistrate
and the city DCP reviewed the
functioning of the jail for nearly three hours.
“This was a routine review
of the jail by the Committee to
look into the problems of the
inmates,” informed district
Collector Nirmal Chandra
Mishra. The committee reviews
the functioning of the jail once
in every quarter of the year and
its report is submitted to the
State High Court.
Sources said the committee
also reviewed the case status of
different convicts facing death
row and life imprisonment,
including that of the under-trial
prisoners in the jail. It also took
note of the safety and security
of the jail by reviewing the
functioning of CCTVs, jammers and watchtowers.
The food and reforms measures in the jail also came
under scrutiny.
PNS
?=BQ 270<?D0
ll Odias should make
efforts to strengthen their
A
bond with their motherland for
or institution over a period of
time defines the purpose. The
platform of a person is defined
by his educational background,
experience, network and networth.
“Persons with ‘high purpose’ innovate new paths
which others follow. The
visionary leadership of persons
with ‘high purpose’ brings
about positive revolutionary
changes making the world a
better place to live. Such leaders get the spirit to work from
the universe because of the
high purpose itself,” observed
Bagchi.
Chief Secretary Aditya
Prasad Padhi felicitated Dr
Bagchi by presenting a
memento.
D e v e l o p m e n t
Commissioner R Balakrishnan
introduced Dr Bagchi in the
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Har yana Chief Minister
Manohar Lal Khattar.
Addressing the gathering
of non-resident Odias, the
Minister said, “Odisha was
formed as separate State in
1936 and will complete 100
years in 2036. The State can be
emerged as the number one
developed State in the country
and can create a special place
for itself in the entire world.”
He further said the natural resources, vast coastal area,
intellect power and hard work
can take the State on the path
of development. On behalf of
the local Odia Samaj, the
Minister later placed the
demand for allocation of land
in Gurgaon for setting up of a
Jagannath temple there along
with other assistance.
?=BQ 17D10=4BF0A
?=BQ 17D10=4BF0A
gious diseases in livestock.
The OBPI, which is manage by the Department of
Animal
Resources
Development, has been providing preventive vaccines in
time for the field staffs, whose
challenge is to restore the animal health for optimum productivity to derive substantial
income from livestock farming.
OBPI producing high quality vaccines through modern fermenting technology, and recently a new freeze-dryer has been
installed in the viral vaccine section to improve the quality and
quantity of viral vaccines.
Besides combating other
infectious diseases like foot
and mouth disease (FMD),
Peste Des Petits Ruminants
(PPR), Goat Pox, Brucella,
Theileriosis, the OBPI has
played a significant role in
procuring vaccines from reputed sources to meet the growing
demands of farmers. Over 1.38
crore doses of vaccines to control FMD, PPR and Goat Pox
were procured from reputed
sources outside the State during 2015-16, which is higher by
18% compared to 2014-15.
lecture series and gave a key
note address on the objectives
of OKH.
While replying to a media
quarry after the meeting, he
said when the State is celebrating its 80th foundation
day and birth centenary of legendary Biju Pattanaik, it is a
matter of pride that an Odia
scholar and entrepreneur
addresses
the
State
Administration in OKH lecture series.
Panchayati Raj Minister
Dr Arun Kumar Sahoo, IT
Minister Pranab Prakash Das
and Food Supplies and
Consumer Welfare Minister
Sanjaya Dasburma participated in the deliberations.
District Collectors and
officers too participated in the
programme through videoconferencing.
he vast experience of senior
citizens which they have
T
gathered in different fields is no
less than what one can achieved
by doing MBA in global universities like Haward or
Oxford. They should utilise
their talents for the task of
Nava Odisha Nirman and to
contribute to nation building,
said Sambad editor Soumya
Ranjan Patnaik during the
observance of the Utkal Divas,
organised by the Senior Citizen
Forum, Joda on Friday.
He also spoke on the faulty
he Indian Metals Public
Charitable
Trust
T
(IMPaCT), managed by the
IMFA Group, has invited nominations for the Ekalabya
Puraskar for 2016.
Ekalabya Puraskar, the
annual sports award for outstanding young sportsperson of
the State, carries a cash prize of
C5,00,000. Besides, two citation
awards are also given that carry
cash prize of C50,000, each.
Interested candidates can
send their nominations
through sports organizations,
boards, associations, universities, colleges and schools in the
State. The candidates should be
below 25 years of age as on
March 31, 2016. Application
should state clearly supported
by evidence and proof of age,
events, performance history at
State, national and international level sports competitions during the past two years
from April, 2014 to March
2016.
The nominations should
reach at the Ekalabya Puraskar,
IMFA Trust, Bomikhal here by
May 31. Besides, nominations
can be send online through
[email protected], but the supporting documents should be
sent separately to the postal
address.
education policy which fails to
equip the young mass with the
required skills to face any
adverse situation in life and
also criticized the Government
for not taking any remedial
measures in this regard.
Mohanty said all the problems can be solved if the
youths would start learning
odia language that is being
neglected.
Tata Steel GM Rakesh
Ranjan Deo said it is the duty
of every Odia to work for the
development of Odisha. Forum
President Maheswar Poddar
presided over the function.
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ad[Tb^]\P]PVT\T]c S
Z_JV^V_dRWV+DfdY^R ^UWPiPaS^dbfPbcTb
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8]SXP]baT[TPbTS
?=BQ =4F34;78
he Environment Ministry
T
released new rules for management of hazardous wastes,
?=BQ =4F34;78
ontrary to the news in foreign media that the Indian
C
priest abducted by gunmen in
Yemen last month was killed,
External Affairs Minister
Sushma Swaraj, reportedly, told
a Catholic group that Father
Tom Uzhunnalil is safe and the
Indian Government is trying to
ensure his release soon.
Father Uzhunnalil was captured from Aden in Yemen by
gunmen, believed to be from
ISIS, when they attacked a old
age home run by Missionaries
of Charity. They had killed 15
people, including one Indian
nun and taken away Father
Uzhunnalil in a car.
However, some news
reports by foreign media
claimed that Father Uzhunnalil
was possibly killed by ISIS on
Good Friday, though the Indian
Government doubted such
claims. While the foreign media
had quoted Archbishop of
Vienna, who during the Easter
Vigil Mass made the announcement, Indian officials said there
was no proof that the Indian
priest was dead or was in ISIS
custody. Officials said India
was trying to locate him and
5PcWTaC^\DiWd]]P[X[
BdbW\PBfPaPY
5PcWTaDiWd]]P[X[fPbRP_cdaTSUa^\0ST]X]HT\T]QhVd]\T]
QT[XTeTSc^QTUa^\8B8BfWT]cWThPccPRZTSP^[SPVTW^\Tad]Qh
<XbbX^]PaXTb^U2WPaXch
B^\T]TfbaT_^acbQhU^aTXV]\TSXPR[PX\TScWPc5PcWTa
DiWd]]P[X[fPb_^bbXQ[hZX[[TSQh8B8B^]6^^S5aXSPhcW^dVWcWT
8]SXP]6^eTa]\T]cS^dQcTSbdRWR[PX\b
>]Bd]SPhcWT2PcW^[XR1XbW^_b³2^]UTaT]RT^U8]SXPbPXScWTXa
ST[TVPcX^]cWPc\TcBfPaPYfPbPbbdaTSQhWTacWPccWT6^eTa]\T]c
fPbf^aZX]Vc^bTRdaTcWT_aXTbc³bbPUTaTcda]
secure his release at the earliest.
On Sunday, the Catholic
Bishops’ Conference of India
(CBCI) said their delegation
that met Swaraj was assured by
her that the Government was
working to secure the priest’s
safe return. “She has assured us
Father Tom is safe and negotiations are on for his release
which could happen very soon,”
said Father Joseph Chinnaiyan,
deputy secretary of the CBCI.
Meanwhile, four Indians
detained by Syria have been
released. These four men were
arrested in Damascus in
Januar y when they were
allegedly on their way to join
ISIS. The Syrian Deputy Prime
Minister during his recent visit
to New Delhi had informed
about the detention to Swaraj.
“We have secured the release
of four Indian nationals from
Syria,” Swaraj said in a tweet. “I
had requested (the) Deputy PM
of Syria for their release during
his visit to India in January this
year. Thank you Syria…
Welcome home Arun Kumar
Saini, Sarvjit Singh, Kuldeep
Singh and Joga Singh. I appreciate the officers who facilitated
their journey from Syria to
India,” said in another tweet.
which for the first time include
a separate category of items like
tyre, metal scrap, paper and certain electronic goods, that can
be recycled and reused. These
have been included under the
category of “other waste”.
While releasing the new
rules, Environment Minister
Prakash Javadekar on Sunday
said they are “environment
and industry friendly, in line
with this Government’s priority for ease of doing business
and Make in India, but with
responsible concerns for sustainable development.” He also
said the rules will ensure
resource recovery and disposal of hazardous waste in environmentally sound manner.
Further, import of metal
scrap, paper waste and various
categories of electrical and electronic equipments for re-use
purpose has been exempted
from the need of obtaining the
Ministry’s permission under the
Hazardous and Other Wastes
(Management & Transboundary
Movement) Rules, 2016.
They have also revised all
forms for permission, transportation, those related to import
and export amongst others. The
new rules have adopted a more
stringent approach for management of such wastes.
“Procedure has been simplified to merge all the approvals
as a single window clearance for
setting up of hazardous waste
disposal facility and import of
other wastes,” said the rules.
The rules further state that
waste management hierarchy
in the sequence of priority of
prevention, minimisation,
reuse, recycling, recovery, coprocessing and safe disposal
has been incorporated.
The rules provide for coprocessing as preferential mechanism over disposal for use of
waste as supplementary resource,
or for recovery of energy has
been provided. The approval
process for co-processing of
hazardous waste to recover energy has been streamlined and put
on emission norms basis.
It said that the basic necessity of infrastructure to safeguard
health and environment from
waste processing industry has
been prescribed as SOP, specific to waste type, which has to be
complied by stakeholders and
ensured by Pollution Control
Board/ State Pollution Control
Board while granting such
authorisation.
amajwadi Party’s popular face on television
debates and Uttar Pradesh Government’s
youngest Additional Advocate General (AAG)
Gaurav Bhatia recently circulated a message to all his media
friends that he had
quit protesting over
some malfunctioning in the State’s
Legal Department.
Upon enquiry, it surfaced
that Bhatia was sacked a day
earlier from the AAG post by a UP
Government circular dated March 22. For
Bhatia, this came as a shock, and for lawyers
a surprise. He was recently in the news after
the president of Supreme Court Bar Association
(SCBA) Dushyant Dave offered to quit over differnces with Bhatia, the SCBA Secretary. Dave
later withdrew his offer after speaking to Chief
Justice of India.
1RVLJKWVHHLQJIRU-,7
he five-member Pakistani Joint
Investigation Team that visited India to
carry forward its probe
into the Pathankot
airbase attack
case, wanted to
udnertake a
sightseeing trip
to Taj Mahal in
Agra and the
Dargah
of
Maulana Moinuddin
Chisti at Ajmer. But the
Indian authorities denied permission as the
same could have diluted the seriousness of purpose of the team’s visit here. The NDA
Government was already facing flak from the
Opposition parties over the visit of the JIT, and
the sightseeing tours by the visiting team could
have further strengthened the perception that
the visit was conducted as mere optics and
nothing substantive could be achieved.
T
4=2D96DA@DEH@C=5E#!>2E49
0DUDWKRQIRUDFDXVH
APY]PcWPbbdaTbUd[[
bTRdaXchc^BaX]PVPa
=8CbcdST]cb
ommodore Joginder Chandna, a serving
C
Naval officer and a fitness freak, has
turned his passion
into a social cause —
to feed poor children. Along with a
chartered accountant
Meenal
Kotak, Chandna ran
marathons in various
parts of the National
Capital Region for the last
nine days, culminating in the
finale last weekend. Naming their run
“Ours Miles Their Smiles”, the runners urged
spectators and fellow participants to feed at least
one hungry child each day during the event.
Chandna hosted a langar for hundreds of children on the final day.
?=BQ =4F34;78
nion Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday
assured full security to NIT students in Srinagar,
saying they should not worry about their safety in
the wake of clashes between two groups after the
India-West Indies cricket match on Thursday.
Singh called up Jammu & Kashmir Governor
NN Vohra and Director General of Police (DGP)
K Rajendra Kumar and asked them to ensure proper security to the students.
U
µ:YRgVda`\V_e`
eYV8`gVc_`cR_U
eYV58AcVXRcUZ_X
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e`dV_UReVR^`W
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“I assure the students that they should not worry
about their security. I have spoken to the Governor
and the DGP regarding the situation. I have
instructed the DGP to send a team of officers to NIT,
Srinagar to assure the students of their safety and
security,” he tweeted. Later Home Minister spoke to
media in Lucknow about the directions given by him
to the J&K administration.
The Home Minister’s statement came after clashes occurred at NIT, Srinagar following team India’s
defeat against West Indies in the World Cup T20
semi-final. Two group of students, one from
Kashmir and another from other states, fought after
some students burst crackers after India’s defeat, leading the shut down of the institute. Students from outside Kashmir alleged about the partisan attitude from
the J&K Police.
2SHQLQJXS
19?_aTbXST]c0\XcBWPWfXcWb_XaXcdP[[TPSTa
<PcP0\aXcP]P]SP\PhXSdaX]VP\TTcX]VX]
=Tf3T[WX^]Bd]SPh
?C8
anchjayana and Organiser, both considered
mouthpieces of the RSS, invited leaders of
P
as diverse political parties as Congress and
CPI(M) to write for them on Freedom of
Speech and Sedition. While Abhishek Manu
Singhvi penned a column for the two weeklies,
CPM leader Sitaram Yechury refused to take
the offer.
9DFDQWFKDLU
he process for filling up the two-year-old
T
vacant post of Chairperson for CBSE, laying vacant since
December 2014, has
run into fresh hurdle.
The HRD Ministry’s
Additional Secretary
YSK Seshu Kumar,
who has just got another six months extension
after the search committee could not find a suitable person to head the CBSE, has so far managed the organisation without any controversy. Grapevine has it that the search-committee zeroed in on a JNU academician for the
post, but for obvious reasons his name had to
be dropped.
$QJU\.HUDOD&0
erala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy lost
cool on Saturday evening when he boyK
cotted the candidate selection process for the
forthcoming Assembly elections. Chandy was
upset with the high command for directing him
to deny tickets to some Ministers. Grapevine
has learnt that Chandy bluntly told the central
leaders that he would not be a part of the selection process and left in huff for Kerala on
Sunday morning.
1HZURXWH
ith great pomp and show, the Chinese
Embassy in New Delhi last week celeW
brated the first anniversary of opening of new
pilgrimage route to Mansarovar via Nathu-La
in Sikkim. Chinese Ambassador Le Yucheng,
who was the first Chinese passport holder to
cross over from the Nathu-La border to Tibet
Autonoous Region, said he felt purified after
the visit to Mansarovar. Happy with the
response by Indian pilgrims, the Chinese are
now planning to launch souvenirs related to
Mansarovar. To begin with, the water of
Mansarovar Lake will now be available in
packed bottles.
%HDWGLDEHWHV
t a Press meet organised by the World
Health Organisation (WHO)
A
on diabetes recently, healthconscious scribes were pleasantly surprised when they
found their Press kit containing fitness goodies like skipping rope and inch tape
measurement besides
awareness material
about diabetes.
The message
was loud and
clear: Tackle
diabetes
by
adopting healthy habits. “Beat
Diabetes” is the theme of the
World Health Day this year being
observed on April 7.
3Q^i_WQS_^db_\TYQRUdUc/1IEC8Qc[c93=Bd_VY^T_ed
?=BQ =4F34;78
an yoga help prevent or
C
relieve diabetes? With diabetes emerging as a major disease
burden for India over the past
two decades, the Union AYUSH
Ministry has asked the Indian
Council of Medical Research
(ICMR), a research wing of the
Health Ministry, to conduct a
study to assess the impact of yoga
on diabetes.
A senior official from the
ICMR said, “we have been asked
to look at impact of yoga on diabetes. We will soon finalise a protocol in this direction. After
which we will rope in experts to
conduct the study.”
So far the effect of yogic
practices on the management
of diabetes has not been investigated well, though there
have been sporadic studies
here and there carried out in
our country to evaluate the
effect of yoga on diabetes. But D`WRceYVVWWVTe`W
mostly they were done on
j`XZTacRTeZTVd`_eYV
small number of patients.
This is for the first time ^R_RXV^V_e`W
that the premier health UZRSVeVdYRd_`eSVV_
research agency such as ICMR Z_gVdeZXReVUhV]]
has been involved to look into
Yoga got a major boost at the
the impact of Yoga, which is one
of the many Indian Alternate world level due to concentrated
Traditional medicine system of efforts from Prime Minister
India, on the diabetes which is Narendra Modi under whose
rapidly spreading its wings across endevaour last year UN agreed to
hold June 21 as World Yoga Day.
the country.
Since then, various schemes
and activities have been undertaken to push the Yoga which is
seen as useful system for the
treatment of certain diseases and
preservation of health in normal
individuals.
BK Sahay, former
Professor of Medicine,
Osmania Medical
College, Hyderabad
and Chief Investigator,
Diabetes and Yoga
Project, Vemana Yoga
Research Institute,
Hyderabad in a review
article in a journal
talked about the useful
role of yoga in the control of diabetes mellitus. He said their study has
shown that due to yoga fasting
and postprandial blood glucose
levels came down significantly.
“Good glycaemic status can
be maintained for long periods of
time. There was a lowering of
drug requirement and the incidence of acute complications
like infection and ketosis was significantly reduced. There were
significant changes in the insulin
kinetics and those of counter-regulatory hormones like cortisol.”
“There was a fall in free fatty
acids suggesting a better insulin
sensitivity and decrease in insulin
resistant, with a probable protective effect on beta cell function.
There is a beneficial effect on the
co-morbid conditions like hypertension and dyslipidemia. Yogic
practices are useful in all age
groups and can be performed in all
seasons and are useful for people
who travel frequently,” he added.
6WURQJHUSROLRYDFFLQHLQHIIHFWVRRQ CDD`feWZeZ_TV_eZgZdZ_X
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I
?=BQ =4F34;78
ndia is all ready with its
action plan to replace the
present polio vaccine by a
stronger version in its routine
immunisation programme.
The move is as per global
polio end-game strategy adopted by the World Health
Organisation (WHO).
At present, Trivalent Oral
Polio Vaccine (tOPV), which is
being used in routine immunisations and polio campaigns,
contains all three types of
Polioviruses — type 1, 2 and 3.
Since the polio type 2 has been
eradicated from the world,
bivalent oral polio vaccine
(bOPV) will totally replace
tOPV throughout the world.
Switch to bivalent is necessary keeping in view low immunisation coverage (just 71 per
cent kids are covered under the
programme due to various reasons), live vaccine virus used in
Oral polio vaccines (OPV) can
multiply for long and undergo
mutations to gain neuro-virulence. This can cause paralysis
and circulate in the community to cause outbreaks.
As per the WHO strategy,
polio type 3 virus would be
removed from the vaccine too
as next step because not a single case of this virus had been
reported from anywhere in the
world during the past two years.
At the third dose of bOPV,
the kids will also be administered an injection with inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), a
dead virus, which has already
been introduced in the country’s national immunisation
programme.
By 2020 all OPVs will be
completely stopped and only
Inactivated Polio Vaccine,
which is a dead virus, will be
used all over the world.
As per the Government’s
action plan, by April 25, all vaccines having tOPV will be
destroyed. Type 2 virus will also
be destroyed in all laboratories
( except Pune Virology Institute
) to eliminate the chances of its
spread again, said a senior official from the Drug Controller
General of India (DCGI).
The DCGI is already in
talks with the vaccine manufacturers and drug controllers
at Zonal and District level to
ensure availability of bOPV two
weeks prior to switch.
“It must be ensured that
secondary packaging of bOPV
is not opened before switch
date,” the drug controller has
made it clear.
The DCGI will also cancel
all licenses for manufacturing as
well as import of tOPV for use
from 25 April 2016 onwards.
It was in 2011, the last
polio case was reported in
India. India attained poliofree status on 27 March 2014,
but threat looms large due to
vaccine-derived polio and also
from two of its neighbors (
Pakistan and Afghanistan)
which remain polio-endemic.
“Post Wild Polio Virus
(WPV) eradication, Vaccine
associated paralytic polio
(VAPP) and Vaccine-derived
polio virus (VDPV) are the last
formidable opponents in India’s
war against Polio.
“The Global strategy must
be customised in line with our
local
considerations.
Administration of additional
early dose of IPV at 6 weeks of
age (other than the mandatory dose at or after 14 weeks of
age) will ensure an early,
stronger and more widespread
protection against the risks of
VAPP and VDPV,” said pediatricians Manoj Grover from
Niti Aayog and Nidhi
Bhatnagar from Army College
of Medical Sciences, New Delhi
in a journal Indian Pediatrics.
Moreover, launch of mass
IPV campaigns in states with
poor routine immunization
coverage before the tOPVbOPV switch will help preempt any emergence of VDPV
in susceptible populations. The
additional costs of an extra IPV
dose in the UIP and mass
campaigns may be justified as
it is an ethical obligation on us
to eliminate the iatrogenic risk
of VDPV, they noted.
344?0::D?A4C8Q =4F34;78
SS outfit Bharat Vikas
Parishad (BVP) is walking
R
extra mile in “incentivising” villages which have tuned into
“inter-caste
harmony”
progammes and seeking an
“integrated social and economic growth” by organising
funding of projects in these
rural areas.
RSS has been campaigning
for encouraging participation
of all communities in festivals
“where caste does not become
a barrier” and insisting that at
least one festival be celebrated
in villages by all together.
Pointing out the “connect of
RSS in rural areas”, sources
pointed out that the RSS published “Jagaran Patrikas” in local
languages are going “directly” to
over 2,30,000 villages in the
country. This is besides the regular RSS-inspired publications.
These “Jagaran Patrikas” are
running into eight to 24 pages
carrying dialogues, stories, and
articles on rural issues those
appeal to rural masses.
In Rajasthan villages, it
goes by the name of Pather kan,
in Marathi it is titled Sanskritic
Varta Patra, Telugu Vijay Vani
and Tamil Vijay Bharatas.
“These magazines are communicated by collective readings by prominent people of villages either at ‘chaupal’ or any
other community centre where
ideas on positive social changes
are also exchanged,” they said.
According to sources, the
RSS has analysed “prant-wise”
scrutiny of caste discrimination
against Dalits and other communities and sought to give a
pro-active encouragement to
‘integrated villages’ which are
adopting ‘ek mandir, ek talab,
ek shamshan’ programme initiated by the Sangh.
In return, the BVP is “helping in promotion” of water
management, agriculture and
community development programme, they said. “The precondition is establishing harmony by way of implementing
togetherness”, sources said.
By now the main work of the
BVP was on the promotion of
“the Jaipur foot” for the disabled.
Under its fresh social harmony
projects, leaders of all communities are called and ways are
gradually worked out to establish
caste harmony in villages.
“Workers of BVP have stayed in
the houses of dalit communities
and attempted to bring about
togetherness,” they said.
RSS reach in rural areas, particularly in the mandal levels,
have increased with a manifold
increase, during last one year, in
the number of their ‘Vistaraks’
(working people spending 15
days outside their regions to initiate new Sakhas) who later
assume the role of ‘Pracharaks’
in the Sangh Parivar.
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2<X]9:
he nearly three-month-long
Governor’s rule would
T
come to an end in Jammu &
Kashmir on Monday when
Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) president Mehbooba
Mufti would be sworn in as first
woman Chief Minister of the
embattled State. The 56-yearold Mufti was invited by the
Governor NN Vohra to form
the Government on Saturday,
a week after PDP and BJP leaders met him in Jammu to offer
consent to form the coalition
Government.
Mehbooba left for Jammu
on Sunday afternoon to take
oath along with her Council of
Ministers. The coalition partners have not revealed the
names of Ministers but it is
believed that a few new faces
would be introduced in the
new Council of Ministers.
Mehbooba and her top
party leaders held a meeting
with BJP’s top brass led by
Nirmal Singh late on Sunday
night at Circuit House to finalise
the list of Ministers, sources said.
The Governor’s rule was
imposed in J&K on January 8,
a day after then Chief Minister
Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s
demise. Mehbooba refused to
step into her father’s shoes, initially due to mourning, and
later citing reservations in continuing alliance with BJP. She
demanded J&K-specific
Confidence Building Measures
(CBMs) from New Delhi
before renewing alliance with
the right wing party. At one
point, it seemed that the
alliance was at the verge of collapse but on March 22, a meeting between Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and Mehbooba
Mufti in New Delhi changed
the scenario.
Mufti apparently dropped
her demand of CBMs and
vowed to remained committed
the Agenda of Alliance formulated by her late father with the
BJP leadership as a roadmap
for governance in J&K.
Politicians
from
Opposition leader Omar
Abdullah to people on the
street in Kashmir say that
Mehbooba Mufti would have to
explain as to why she wasted
three months for forming a
government when none of her
demands was accepted by the
Center.
Mehbooba on Saturday
called up Omar Abdullah to
invite him on the oath cere-
mony. Omar appreciated the
gesture. “Very gracious of
Mehbooba Mufti Sahiba to
phone & invite me to her oath
taking ceremony. I look forward to being there on the 4th,”
Abdullah tweeted shortly after
Mehbooba’s call.
Sources said that Ms Mufti
has invited 20 top women
including four women Chief
Ministers Mamta Banerjee,
Jayalalita, Anandi Ben Patel
and Vasundra Raja Scindia
besides ace tennis player Sania
Mirza.
Even as Congress president
Sonia Gandhi, JKPCC Chief
Gulam Ahmad Mir and state
legislators of the party were
invited for the ceremony, the
party announced in the
evening that it would boycott
the oath ceremony in protest
against “undemocratic” ways of
destabilising Congress governments in some states.
“BJP and its Central
Government led by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi has
used undemocratic ways to
destabilize democratically
elected Congress Governments
in Arunachal Pradesh and
Uttarakhand,” a BJP spokesman
said.
“PDP and BJP formed an
unholy alliance in the State
even though the two parties
contested Assembly elections
against each other by projecting different ideologies and
manifestos, but later entered
into an alliance,” the
spokesman said.
Meanwhile, sources said
that while PDP is likely to drop
Altaf Bukhari this time, the axe
from the BJP side has fallen on
the only Muslim face of the BJP
Abdul Gani Kohli. Former
State BJP president Ashok
Khajuria is likely to be taken in.
Meanwhile, the television
channels will not be allowed to
telecast the oath ceremony live
even as BJP general secretary
Ram Madhav had told them to
call Out Broadcasting Vans to
Jammu.
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ith a lot of heat and dust
W
generated after the
Saradha, Narada and fly-over
collapse, the month-long
Bengal Assembly polls finally
kick-start on Monday when
elections will be held for 18
seats across three districts of
Jangalmahal on the first day of
the first phase.
About 40 lakh voters will
exercise their franchise to elect
from a total 113 candidates
mostly from the TMC, Left
Front, Congress and the BJP.
There are 4203 polling stations
and 4945 booths. With 13 seats
falling under Left Wing
Extremism area, 1962 booths
have been marked as highly
sensitive. Polling will end in the
LWE areas at 4 pm, two hours
before the normal timing.
0=D?B70A<0Q 6DF070C8
he ruling Congress, the
BJP led three-party alliance
T
and the All India United
The second part of the
first phase will be held on
April 11. Subsequent days of
polling are, April 17, 21, 25, 30
and May 5.
Each polling station will be
manned by one section or 8
central forces jawans. A State
police constable will stand outside the booth overseeing the
voters’ queue, ECI officials said.
Out of 294 Assembly seats
the Trinamool which was fighting as an alliance partner of the
Congress won 184 in 2011. The
Congress won 42 while the Left
won 62 seats. Subsequently
the BJP won the lone seat of
Basirhat in a by-election.
This time round with corruption and violence becoming
the major issue the Left and the
Congress have formed an
alliance against the Trinamool
Congress.
Democratic Front (AIUDF)
are all set to engage in the battle of ballots for the first phase
of polls for 65 of the total 126
legislative Assembly constituencies tomorrow.
There are a total of 539
candidates including 43 women
are in the electoral fray this
time and a total of 95,11,732
voters are expected to cast
their votes in 12,190 polling
stations set up across the 65
constituencies.
Security has been intensified across the 65 constituencies which are going to polls
tomorrow even as the election
machinery is using 535 companies of security forces including Central Armed Police
Forces to ensure security and
smooth conduction of the
polls.
The State’s international
borders have been put under
strict vigil so that anti-socials
from other side of the border
could not sneak over to disrupt
the poll process across the
State.
The election to the first
phase of polls will assumes significance, particularly for the
BJP as the saffron party has
been eyeing to capture more
constituencies located in Upper
Assam, north bank of the
Brahmaputra river and in
Barak Valley. The 65 constituencies going to polls
tomorrow are located mostly in
Upper Assam, Barak Valley
and in north bank of
Brahmaputra river.
Most of the remaining 61
constituencies, which are going
to polls in the second phase on
April 11, are currently being
held mainly by the ruling
Congress, the AIUDF and
some smaller parties like
Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF)
and some others.
While the Congress is
fighting the polls with United
Peoples Party (UPP), the BJP,
the Asom Gana Parishad
(AGP) and the Bodoland
Peoples’ Front (BPF) is going to
the polls together.
Assam’s Chief Electoral
Officer Vijayendra said that all
the necessary steps have been
taken by the election machinery to ensure smooth polling
across the 65 constituencies.
“We are hopeful that
Assam the 65 constituencies
going to polls tomorrow will
register peaceful and good
polling percentage. The polling
parties including presiding officers, polling staffs and security personnel have already
moved to their respective
polling stations,” he said.
“Polling will start at 7 am
tomorrow and will continue till
5 pm. However, those persons, who stands in the queue
in front of the polling stations
till 5 pm must be allowed to
vote,” Vijayendra said.
He said that a total of 535
companies of security forces
including 433 companies of
Central Armed Police Force
(CAPF) and 102 companies of
State Armed Police Force
(SAPF) has been deployed as
per the necessity across the
polling stations.
The election machinery is
using 2370 heavy vehicles, 3913
medium vehicles, 7343 light
vehicles, 144 boats and 35 bullcok carts for convenience of the
polling personnel and carrying
of EVMs to respective polling
stations.
It may be mentioned here
that the election machinery
which has been strictly implementing the model code of
conduct (MCC) across the
State has so far seized over Rs.
9 crore illegal money, close to
8 lakh liters of illicit liquors and
over 5 lakh kgs of drugs meant
to be distributed among the
voters. Apart from this the
Income Tax department had
also seized over Rs. 2 crores of
illegal money since imposition of the MCC.
“Similarly, the 166 illegal
arms and 538 round of illegal
ammunition have also been
seized from different areas of
the State so far,” the CEO said.
After he complained of chest pain,
hypotension while being grilled by
cops about relations with actress
C=A067D=0C70Q <D<108
ate television actress
L
Pratyusha
Banerjee’s
boyfriend Rahul Raj Singh was
on Sunday hospitalised after he
complained of chest pain and
low blood pressure while he
was being questioned for the
second consecutive day in connection with the actress’ alleged
suicide.
Rahul, whose role in the
circumstances that led to
Pratyusha’s alleged suicide is
being investigated, complained
of uneasiness, chest pain and
low pressure while he was
being questioned in connection
with his ex-girl friend’s death.
He was immediately taken to
the Shree Sai Hospital, where
he was admitted in the
Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Two days after the “Balika
Vadhu” television serial fame
allegedly committed suicide
by hanging herself to a ceiling
fan, the investigators searched
the actress’ flat in Harmony residency building at Goregaon in
north Mumbai for clues leading to Pratyusha taking the
extreme step of ending her life.
Informed police sources
said that the investigators had
found two mobile phones from
Pratyusha’s flat. The police
have ruled out any financial
angle to the circumstances
leading to the actress’ suicide.
Rahul, whom the investigators see as a logical suspect
in the case, has come under the
intense scanner of the police for
his failed love relationship with
Pratyusha. Going by the
accounts provided by her
friends and those who had
known her, Pratyusha was
reportedly upset with Rahul for
not honouring her intense love
for him.
The investigators, who
have been mobile data of both
Pratyusha and her boyfriend,
have been questioning Rahul
about the nature of his relations
with the actress and the kind of
interactions they were having
for the past one week before her
alleged suicide.
The investigators are trying
to ascertain if there was any discord between the couple. They
have so far not found any evidence to suggest that Rahul
abetted Pratyusha’s alleged suicide.
The post-mortem, conducted on Pratyusha’s body, has
not revealed any foul play,
Denying that there were any
injury marks on any part of
Pratyusha’s body, the police
had on Saturday attributed
Pratyusha’s death to asphyxia,
caused because of hanging or
strangulation.
“Provisional cause of death
is ligature marks over neck and
asphyxia. Final cause of death
is pending and would be
known after chemical analyser’s
report. Statements of parents
and relatives are being recorded,” Zonal deputy commissioner of police Vikram
Deshmane had said on
Saturday.
Meanwhile, most of television industr y friends of
Pratyusha have blamed Rahul
for her death. Interacting with
electronic media on Saturday,
actor Ajaz Khan had gone to
the extent of claiming that
Pratyusha’s death was a premeditated murder, while TV
producer Vikas Gupta had said
that her relationship with Rahul
had soured.
However, Rahul’s father
Harshavardhan Singh told the
police that the relations
between his son and
Pratyusha were good and that
his son had sought his permission two months ago to get
married.
Pratyusha’s last status message on her Whatsapp that
read: “Marke bhi muh na tuzse
modana” (even after death
won’t be turning my face away
from you) with a smiley, gave
an inkling to her depressed
state of mind at the time of the
incident.
Meanwhile, Bollywood
actor Arbaaz Khan said that
Pratyusha Banerjee and Rahul
looked very much in love during the show “Power Couple”.
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he sweetly garnished mud
hutments and spotless interiors of an adivasi household
may often mislead you about
the State of its kitchen. This little Sabar village of Banspahari
is one example.
Mamata Banerjee had started her Jangalmahal campaign
about two decades ago from
this village telling the whole
world about the horrific conditions of the Sabars who survive on the eggs of red ants. It
was scorching Left regime then.
Many years later she came
to power in 2011. But the lives
of Suku Sabar, his relatives,
Madhu, Bangshi or for that
matter a slightly ‘richer’
Fulmoni Sabar (a part time
labourer) has not changed one
bit. The reason you ask and pat
comes the reply.
“Kings come and go but
there is no respite for us. There
is no one for the garib manush,”
says Fulmoni who apart from
being a little ‘rich’ is courageous
also. “Their mouths have been
muted in the past several years.
You do not have work, water,
food, nothing. But when TV
babus (reporters) come you are
required to paint a rosy picture
or else you are gone.”
Incidentally the Chief
Minister had repeatedly told in
her Jangalmahal meetings that
she was through with 90 percent work that she made.
And who intimidates? The
one answer is common. It is the
TMC. “They were in People’s
Committee when the Maoists
came. Then they joined the
Trinamool and now they rule
the roost minting money
through labour contracts in
highway construction,” says a
retired teacher near Belpahari.
“There is either no availability of the 100-days’ work
and even if we get some there
is no payment for them for
months. All the money is taken
by the TMC,” says a young man
from Belpahari refusing to
deliver his name. So why don’t
they vote against the rulers?
“We do not get a chance to
vote,” is the simple answer. We
could not vote after 2004. The
only time we voted after that
was in 2011. But that was the last
time. We could not vote in 2013
(panchayat polls) or 2014 elections,” says Bura Soren a local.
At Lalgarh which was the
hot bed of “revolution” and
“counter-revolution” by the
Maoists and then CPI(M)
things are better though. Ruled
now by the Trinamool workers
around no local would complain of any hardship.
“The situation is better as
there is no violence. A bridge
has been constructed across the
Kangsabati shortening the distance between Lalgarh and
Jhargram. Then the road
between Lalgarh and Netai has
been constructed” says Rabi
Mahato adding “the most
important thing is that we are
getting Rs 2-a-kg rice and cycle
to travel distance.”
Another person at Amliya
village, “the most important
thing is that violence is gone and
peace has returned” only to be
stopped by Shantanu Soren a
school teacher: “But this peace
has returned after most socalled Maoists returned to their
original party Trinamool
Congress. We lived through
those tumultuous years seeing
how TMC men tied up with the
Maoists through various committees, identified the Left leaders’ houses and got them killed
in the dead of night. Now those
men are panchayat members
and are earning in millions.”
A little bit of prodding
brings some more people
around. “True we have seen
some development as schools
and colleges have come up. But
there is no staff, no jobs.
There is water line but not a
drop in it. How can we live on
alms of Rs 2-a-kg rice and a
free cycle?” he asks a pertinent
question.
At Netai - where CPI(M)’s
harmads gunned down 9 villagers mistaking them for
Maoists - the locals are more
vocal. “You do not have water.
Though there is no water. The
power lines are there but voltage is very low so that you cannot see anything” says
Nasimuddin a local.
Will they go to vote this
time round or sit back like they
did in 2014? “Let us see how
the Central forces act. Till now
we have not seen them in the
interior areas. They are only sitting in police stations or
marching on main roads.”
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uspended Gujarat cadre IAS
officer Pradeep Sharma had
one more setback in much
talked land related case as the
Gujarat High Court issued
notice to his wife Shyamal
Sharma to appear before it on
15 June 2016.
Shyamal has been named
co-accused in a case wherein her
husband and former bureaucrat
Pradeep Sharma was alleged to
have sold Government land to
Welspun Group in an arbitrary
manner at a cheaper rate when
he was the collector of Kutch district in 2003-04. This, as per the
case, caused a loss of C1.2 crore
to the State exchequer at that
point of time.
According to the details of
the case, Welspun on getting the
requisite land made Shyamal,
S
who lives in US, a 30 per cent
partner in one of its subsidiaries
and extended benefits of C29.5
lakh to her. The Enforcement
Directorate (ED) had invoked
Prevention of
Money
Laundering Act (PMLA) in the
matter in 2012. The ED alleged
that the money was initially
deposited in Shyamal’s overseas
bank account and later transferred to her husband’s account
in India, violating PMLA.
Gujarat ACB had arrested
Pradeep Sharma in 2009 this case
but he later received bail. ACB
had filed a petition in the Bhuj
court seeking issuance of a summons to Shyamal in connection
with the investigation of the case.
But as the district court rejected
its plea, ACB moved to High
Court. The notice is now expected to be served to her in US via
Union Home ministry.
:D<0AC274;;0??0=Q
274==08
the AIADMK
leader, on Sunday blasted
JtheJayalalithaa,
BJP for its allegations that
she remained inaccessible to
the Union Ministers for discussing the development issues
of Tamil Nadu. An article in
Sunday’s Namathu MGR, the
AIADMK mouthpiece, which
could not have been published
without the approval of
Jayalalithaa, said the BJP was
upset and frustrated because of
its failure to cobble up an
alliance in poll-bound Tamil
Nadu. Though all major political parties have forged
alliances and fronts, BJP is the
only party in Tamil Nadu
which remains without any
friends or allies.
But the article in Namathu
MGR has ridiculed the newfound aggressiveness of the BJP
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which it says was in stark contrast to the stance of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi. “The
Prime Minister while launching
the BJP’s election campaign at
Coimbatore on February 2 did
not make any critical comments
either about Jayalalithaa or the
AIADMK”, said the article.
The war of words between
the BJP and Jayalalithaa began
recently with Union Minister
for power Piyush Goyal’s statement in New Delhi that he
could not meet Chief Minister
Jayalalithaa even once for discussing about the Ujjwal
Disscom Assurance Yojana, a
flagship programme of the
Centre to help the power distribution companies in the
country which were in the red.
While Jayalalithaa deputed
two of her Cabinet colleagues
to rebut the charges of Goyal,
other BJP leaders and Union
Ministers took off from where
Goyal left. Prakash Javadekar,
Union Minister for environment and forests who is also in
charge of BJP’s Tamil Nadu
unit, alleged that the AIADMK
Government was not interested in helping the poor and the
common man. He also charged
that the Tamil Nadu
Government was foisting sedition charges on those demanding total prohibition in the
State. Pon Radhakrishnan, the
lone BJP Minister from Tamil
Nadu in the Union Cabinet too
chipped in with his criticism
against Jayalalithaa, a leader
whom he fear most.
Radhakrishnan’s charge was
about the deployment of
money and muscle power by
the AIADMK.
“Radhakrishnan and
Venkiah Naidu had lauded the
AIADMK Government till yesterday for redeeming Tamil
Nadu from power crisis created by the previous DMK
Government. Their change in
stance is nothing but a sign of
frustration. Nobody in Tamil
Nadu has bothered to respond
to BJP’s invitation,” ridiculed
the article.
EA90H0A09Q :>278
he infamous solar scam on
Sunday returned to haunt
T
Kerala’s beleaguered Chief
Minister Oommen Chandy
ahead of the crucial May 16
Assembly election with a letter
written by con woman Saritha
S Nair, main accused in the
scam, accusing him of abusing
her sexually at his official residence, the Cliff House in
Thiruvananthapuram, appearing in a TV channel.
The letter, said to have
been written by Saritha on
July 19, 2013 when she was in
police custody in Perumbavoor
after her arrest in the solar
scam, also said that a former
Union Minister had raped her
at the house of a State Minister
and the personal assistant of a
key Minister in the Chandy
Cabinet had tried to “gift” her
to several former Central
Ministers.
“Baseless allegation,” was
how Chandy reacted to the
charge as television channels
continued airing reports quoting the letter allegedly written
by Saritha, on Sunday. “Clearly,
there is a conspiracy connected to the election behind this.
This will be probed and the
truth found out. I view this as
part of a bid to topple my
Government,” the Chief
Minister said in Kottayam.
“I myself had written the
letter,” Saritha told the TV
channel which had brought
her letter to the public
domain. “The handwriting in
it is mine and I own up whatever is said in that. Every word
mentioned in it is true. I don’t
deny anything. However, I
don’t want to offer further
explanations on matters mentioned in it,” she said.
Ironically, the explosive
‘disclosures’ came out on an
evening when Chandy was relishing the joy of scoring a
huge political victory over his
foes within the Congress after
the party high command
reportedly bowed to the pressures he exerted on it to let the
tainted members in his Cabinet
and his loyalists fight the election as party candidates.
Describing how close she
was to Chandy, his family and
the Cliff House, Saritha says in
her letter that she did not
expect such kind of an immoral
approach from a man - the
Chief Minister - whom she had
considered as a father figure.
She also said that she had been
an associate in several land
deals carried out by Chandy
and relatives through Benamis.
Interestingly, the charge
leveled in the letter against
Chandy is in agreement with
the allegation leveled earlier by
Saritha’s former live-in partner
and solar scam co-accused Biju
Radhakrishnan before the judicial commission probing the
scam that the Chief Minister
had sexual relationship with the
con woman.
Saritha herself had rejected Biju’s allegation then. Biju
had then claimed that he had
evidences to substantiate his
charge but the dramatic efforts
to seize these from Coimbatore
had ended in a fiasco. However,
Saritha had later accused
Chandy of taking Rs 1.90 crore
as bribe from her promising to
help her in her solar power
business.
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?C8Q A8H037
rime Minister Narendra
Modi on Sunday gifted
P
Saudi King Salman bin
Abdulaziz a gold-plated replica of Kerala’s Cheraman Juma
Masjid, believed to be the first
mosque built in India by Arab
traders around 629 AD.
“PM @narendramodi gifted
His Majesty King Salman bin
Abdulaziz Al Saud a gold-plated replica of the Cheraman
Juma Masjid in Kerala,” the
Prime Minister’s Office tweeted.
The mosque in Karala’s
Thrissur district is believed to
be the first mosque built in
India by Arab traders around
629 AD. “Cheraman Juma
Masjid is symbolic of active
trade relations between India
and Saudi Arabia since ancient
times,” it said.
According to oral tradition,
Cheraman Perumal was the
Chera King and a contemporary
of the Holy Prophet who went
to Arabia and embraced Islam
after meeting the Holy Prophet
at Mecca, the PMO said.
Before he died in Oman
due to some illness on the way
back to India, he wrote letters
asking the local rulers, to
whom he had handed over his
empire, to extend all help they
?C8Q A8H037
erming terrorism as the
enemy of humanity, Prime
Minister Narendra Modi today
said there was a need to “delink”
religion from it and asserted
that “segmented and partial”
approaches to counter the menace will not be effective.
Pressing for united global
efforts to deal with the scourge,
Modi said there can be no distinction between “good” or “bad”
terrorism and that it has “no
caste, colour, creed or religion”.
Appreciating
Saudi
Arabia’s leadership role in fighting terrorism in the Middle
East, Modi said India was committed to working with Riyadh
as well as with its partners in
the region to ensure that the
world is a better and safer
place to live in.
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The Prime Minister said
0QSd[PiXi0[BPdSPcWXb_P[PRTU^acWTRTaT\^]XP[fT[R^\TX]AXhPSW^]Bd]SPh ?C8 India has sought to challenge
and repudiate the terror narcould to Arab merchants who before the Mughals came in rative that global counter-terfrom the northwest. Modi, rorism efforts are directed
were planning to visit India.
The mosque has an ancient who is on a two-day visit to against any particular religion
oil lamp that is always kept Saudi Arabia, was today or ethnic group.
burning and believed to be over received at the Royal Court by
“In this context, we deeply
a thousand years old. People King Salman. He is the fourth appreciate the leadership role
from all religions bring oil for Indian Prime Minister to visit being played by Saudi Arabia in
Saudi Arabia after Manmohan the region to fight this menace,”
the lamp as an offering.
Many believe that the Singh in 2010, Indira Gandhi he told leading daily Arab
mosque is a testimony to in 1982 and Jawaharlal Nehru News in an interview during
Islam’s arrival to India long in 1956.
his two-day visit to the
T
Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia, a country
known as the spiritual home of
Islam, recently formed a major
coalition of 34 Muslim nations
to fight terror, particularly the
ISIS. Saudi Arabia and India
have a counter-terror mechanism as well.
“To defeat terrorism, all
those who believe in humanity have to be united. We need
to delink religion from terrorism. Terrorism should be dealt
in a comprehensive manner.
Segmented and partial
approaches have historically
proven to be at best suboptimal,” Modi said.
“There can be no distinction between ‘good’ or ‘bad’ terrorism,” he said in a veiled reference to Pakistan, a close ally
of Saudi Arabia. Modi said both
India and Saudi Arabia recognise that no cause can justify an
act of terror.
He noted that India and
Saudi Arabia have come
together to cooperate in eradicating the scourge of terrorism.
Hailing the role of King Salman
bin Abdulaziz in nurturing the
Indo-Saudi partnership, Modi
said building further on the
strategic partnership with the
powerful nation was one of the
foreign policy priorities of his
Government.
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80=BQ A8H037
rime Minister Narendra
P
Modi on Sunday described
an all-women IT centre set up
by India’s Tata Consultancy
Services (TCS) here as the
“glory of Saudi Arabia”.
“I am meeting those professionals who are now the
glory of Saudi Arabia,” said
Modi in the first engagement of
the second and last day of his
bilateral visit to Saudi Arabia.
“This atmosphere I am witnessing here today has the
potential to give a strong mes-
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?C8Q A8H037
audi King Salman bin
Abdulaziz on Sunday
briefed Prime Minister
Narendra Modi on his initiative
in bringing together 34 countries to form a powerful Islamic
military coalition to combat
terrorism, as the two leaders
agreed to strengthen cooperation in fighting the menace.
Modi, who is here on a
two-day official visit to the
Kingdom, and Salman held
wide-ranging talks and agreed
to strengthen cooperation in
combating terrorism, both at
the bilateral level and within the
multilateral system of the UN.
King Salman briefed Modi
on the Kingdom’s “initiative in
bringing together Islamic
Alliance against terrorism,”
said a joint statement issued
after their talks.
“The Prime Minister lauded Kingdom’s efforts at fighting
terrorism in all its aspects and
its active participation in international efforts towards this
end,” the statement said.
It said the two leaders
called upon the international
community to strengthen multilateral regimes to effectively
address the challenges posed by
terrorism.
The two sides also agreed
to work together towards the
adoption of India’s proposed
Comprehensive Convention
on International Terrorism in
the United Nations, it added.
In December, Saudi had
announced the formation of the
34-state Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism. The
coalition includes nations with
large and established armies
such as Pakistan, Turkey and
Egypt as well as war-torn countries with embattled militaries
such as Libya and Yemen.
Other members are Saudi
Arabia’s five partners in the Gulf
Cooperation Council, as well as
Jordan, Nigeria, Egypt, Chad,
Mali, Malaysia, Morocco,
Senegal, Somalia and Tunisia.
Saudi Arabia’s regional
rival, Iran, is not part of the
coalition. Iraq and Syria whose
forces are battling the Islamic
State terror group are also not
in the coalition.
According to Saudi officials, the members of the new
“anti-terrorism” coalition
would share intelligence, combat violent ideology and deploy
troops if necessary.
?<bTTZbBPdSXX]eTbc\T]cbX]ZTh8]SXP]bTRc^ab
?C8Q A8H037
rime Minister Narendra
P
Modi on Sunday invited oilrich Saudi Arabia’s top business
tycoons to invest in India’s key
sectors like Defence, insurance, Railway and oil as he projected his country as an attractive investment destination
even in the face of a global economic slowdown.
Saudi Arabia is planning to
set up world’s largest sovereign
wealth fund of over $2 trillion
and India was eyeing a major
investment from the country
which is India’s fourth largest
trading partner.
Listing policy initiatives
taken by his Government to
boost economic growth, Modi
said his Government was looking for major investment in
Defence production, Railways
and deep sea off-shore oil
exploration in coal gasification
to produce clean energy.
The Prime Minister made
the pitch while interacting with
a group of 30 top Saudi CEOs
and Indian business leaders at
the Council of Saudi Chambers
of Commerce here.
The Saudi business honchos, who attended the interaction, collectively account for
a major share of the Saudi
GDP. Talking about his
Government’s initiative in “high
temperature deep sea off shore
exploration”, Modi invited Saudi
investment in the sector which
has been opened up for FDI
from this month.
He said “most transparent”
policy framework has been put
in place and that market driven
revenue sharing model will be
adopted for such project. The
Prime Minister said India plans
to build a staggering 50 million
low cost housing, a mega project requiring huge investment
80=BQ A8H037
ndian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has said
Istrengthening
the strategic
partnership with Saudi Arabia
was a priority of India.
“Building further on this strategic partnership with Saudi
Arabia is one of the foreign policy priorities of our government,” Arab News quoted
Modi as saying in an interview
on Saturday.
Modi’s visit to Saudi Arabia
is a part of his three nations
tour which also include
Brussels and Washington.
Modi, who is on a two-day visit
to Saudi Arabia, has described
Custodian of the Two Holy
Mosques King Salman bin
Abdulaziz Al Saud as a visionary leader.
“King Salman has led Saudi
Arabia with great maturity and
foresightedness during one of
the most challenging times,”
Modi said.
King Salman has taken
personal interest in building the
Indo-Saudi relationship and
further strengthening bilateral
cooperation and engagements
in diverse fields, he said.
Replying to a question, Modi
termed terrorism as the enemy
of the entire humanity. “Both
India and Saudi Arabia have
been victims of the acts of terror resulting in the loss of
innocent lives. The recent cowardly acts of terror in Lahore,
Brussels, Paris, Iraq and the
continuing violence in
Afghanistan have shown that
terrorists recognise no boundaries.”
“They have no caste,
colour, creed or religion. We
need to delink religion from
terrorism.” Modi acknowledged
and appreciated Saudi Arabia’s
role in eradicating the scourge
of terrorism. “We deeply appreciate the leadership role being
played by Saudi Arabia in the
region to fight this menace,” he
said.
Modi thanked the Saudi
leadership for hosting a large
Indian community and for
ensuring their continued welfare and wellbeing.
“I have heard immense
praise of our community for
their educational and technical
achievement; for their integrity and sense of discipline; and
for their honesty and devotion
to work. Such praise fills me
with great pride,” he said.
14B7´B4G?<B44:B108;8=1DB1><18=620B4
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which will create massive economic opportunities besides
creating jobs.
“I want to give house to
every poor Indian. I think every
year a new Saudi Arabia has to
be built in my country. That is
a huge requirement,” he said.
Modi said railways and
food processing sectors have
been opened up for 100 per
cent Foreign Direct Investment
and that there is huge investment opportunity in building
cold storage network as well as
in manufacture of equipment
for generation of solar power.
Pitching for Saudi investment in the defence sector,
Modi said India’s biggest
import bill after petroleum
products is defence equipment
and asserted that the government now is focusing on
indigenous production. “We
are importing everything. Why
not we develop defence equipment in India. Your investment
can play a major role in this,”
he said.
Talking about cyber
threats, the Prime Minister
said major investments will be
required to ensure cyber security and Saudi Arabia can invest
significantly in the sector. The
Prime Minister also faced range
of questions at the interaction
relating to retrospective tax,
proposed Goods and Services
Tax, non-performing assets of
Indian banks and whether
India will allow Islamic banking.
Referring to specific sectors, Modi said India plans to
go for coal gasification in order
to be able to produce clean
energy and invited Saudi companies to invest in the sector. “I
think your companies can do
a great deal in this regard.”
Seeking investment in railways, he said, “Today, India’s
railway is world’s second
longest network and I wish to
double that. I wish to upgrade
it. We have 50 cities in the
country where we wish to
build metro network.” He said
the insurance sector has been
opened up and that there is
huge scope in it. The Prime
Minister also invited Saudi
investment in agriculture and
medical tourism sectors.
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Kathmandu: Nepal’s proHindu party, part of the ruling
coalition, on Sunday said it will
table an amendment motion in
the Parliament to reinstate
Nepal as a Hindu nation, warning of massive street protests if
the demand is not met.
Rastriya Prajatantra PartyNepal (RPP-N), the fourth
largest party in the Parliament,
took the decision during the
central committee meeting of
the party chaired by RPP-N
chairman and Deputy Prime
Minister Kamal Thapa that
concluded in Birgunj in southern Nepal today.
Party sources said RPP-N
decided to move a motion
against the provision of secular State in the Constitution
and seek returning to a Hindu
nation.
The party has been campaigning for reinstatement of a
Hindu State since the country
was converted into a secular
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nation through Parliament declaration in 2008, when monarchy was abolished from the
country following the success
of the People’s Movement.
“The party has also decided to launch street agitation for
the same purpose, if the constitution amendment process
could not reconvert the coun-
try into a Hindu State,” the proposal endorsed by the party’s
CWC meeting said.
Last year, the Constituent
Assembly had overwhelmingly rejected a proposal by proHindu RPP-N to revert Nepal
as a Hindu State, declaring that
the Hindu-majority nation will
remain secular.
Thapa had registered the
amendment proposal demanding to reinstate Nepal as a
Hindu State in Article 4 of the
revised bill of the new
Constitution.
The rejection had triggered violent protests amid an
already volatile situation over
federal structure.
Today, the RPP-N also
asked the Government to
resolve the issues relating to the
agitation launched by the
Madhesis through political
means of holding dialogue
with the agitating parties.
PTI
sage to the world.”
Modi said that in today’s
competitive world “we have to
unite our strengths, both natural and human, for optimum
progress”. He said that when
women power becomes part of
the development journey, it
gathers fresh momentum.
The Prime Minister said
that the atmosphere he witnessed at the all-women’s centre
on Sunday appeared to be a harbinger of a positive force for the
world. He invited the women IT
professionals to visit India, and
said their visit would make a
huge impact even in India.
Modi emphasised the role
of technology in governance,
and said e-governance, for
him, meant easy governance,
effective governance, and economic governance. He invited
them to see the “Narendra
Modi App” and even share
their views on women empowerment in India.
“Vande Mataram. Matri
Devo Bhavah (Salutations to
Mother. Mother be the god)”
wrote the prime minister
on the message board at the
centre.
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uch of the present
generation of
active politicians
was born after
India became
independent, following the sacrifices of many freedom-fighters. In
those early years, corruption was
a stray creature. When Jawaharlal
Nehru was Prime Minister, even
a whiff of corruption was enough
for anybody, be it a bureaucrat or
a politician, to lose his position.
After the death of Nehru and his
successor Lal Bahadur Shastri, the
governance of India passed into
the hands of lesser leaders. Such
people could not look beyond
their coterie of sycophants.
This continues to be the situation even today, especially when
it comes to cushy post-retirement
jobs, either for politicians or
bureaucrats. All that such
appointees have to do is please
their political masters or mastersto-be. They say goodbye governance and focus on pleasing the
boss. Since this writer does not
care much for any politician, the
only question he has is this: Do our
politicians stand by their convictions, or do they prefer to run with
the hare and hunt with the
hounds, or do they just toe the line
of their party bosses irrespective
national interest?
As Antonio says in William
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice,
“The devil can cite Scripture for his
M
purpose. An evil soul producing
holy witness Is like a villain with
a smiling cheek, A goodly apple
rotten at the heart. Oh, what a
goodly outside falsehood hath!”
A former Union Minister for
Home Affairs has said that it is
possible to hold an “honest opinion” that the Afzal Guru case was
“perhaps not correctly decided”
and there were “grave doubts
about the extent of his involvement” in the Parliament attack.
Afzal Guru was hanged on
February 9, 2013. The former
Home Minister is a lawyer, and if
what he says now he also felt at the
time of the trial, then he should
have issued written orders to drop
the case.
Justice PV Reddi, who headed the two-judge Bench which
upheld Afzal Guru’s conviction,
has said, “The judgement speaks
for itself. Those who celebrate
Afzal martyrdom day must pick
up the judgement and read it thoroughly before making comments
or criticism. Fair criticism of
Supreme Court judgements is the
hallmark of our democratic system
that zealously guards the right to
free speech. But to term it a judicial hanging is crossing the limit.
The criticism must be decent and
in public interest. If not, then it
could hit at the root of democracy, of which Supreme Court is an
important pillar.”
In view of the above observa-
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tion of the former judge, it appears
that India has a great numbers of
enemies, within. Indeed, the rot set
in right after Nehru — and now
a former Home Secretary has
spilled the beans on his political
master. The latter has, of course,
denied any wrongdoing.
The affidavit in the Ishrat
Jahan case was changed by the
Centre. The UPA Government
revised its position that Ishrat
Jahan was a member of a Lashkare-Tayyeba squad that was moving
around the country, and said that
there was no evidence to support
such a conclusion.
Many petty functionaries,
have criticised the retired Union
Home Secretary and wondered
why he did not say the same
things when he was in service.
Perhaps, they are not aware that
criticism of the Government by
a serving bureaucrat is against the
law. Besides, what the retired
Home Secretary has said is not
something new. I myself defied
the then Prime Minister in one
to one conversation about the
principal accused in the fodder
scam. I found myself transferred,
on my return to India from an
Interpol conference.
Many of the so-called VIPs
have feet of clay. Loyalty to the
country is far from their mind.
Once I asked a Minister, why he
visits his home State almost every
weekend? He frankly confessed
B>D=318C4
that it was because he was elected from that State. He said that his
visits to other parts of the country are few.
What I have said above is largely the position of the vast majority of leaders, irrespective of their
party. While going through some
of my old files, I was shocked to discover the number of committees
and panels that have been set up to
assist with governance.
The easiest way to pass on the
buck of poor governance is to set
up committee or a commission. I
wonder how long my countrymen
will have to suffer corruption? It
is said that that, in England,
“Everything which is not forbidden is allowed”, while, in Germany,
“Everything which is not allowed
is forbidden”. This may be extended to France where, “Everything
is allowed even if it is forbidden”
and Russia where “Everything is
forbidden, even that which is
expressly allowed”. In North Korea,
it is said that “Everything that is
not forbidden is compulsory”.
In India, even if something is
allowed, it is forbidden by the
rules of multiple Government
departments, which undo the
work of each other. The heavens
would not fall, if all the committees, except the Parliamentary
Committees, and at least half of
the bureaucratic posts are abolished. Let the Government try out
this prescription.
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Sir — This refers to the editorial,
“Criminal callousness” (April 2).
In view of the upcoming poll in
West Bengal, Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee was quick to
announce compensation to the
victims of the flyover tragedy.
Moreover, she also shifted the
blame to the previous Left Front
Government. This is not something unusual. Politicians (no
matter which party is in power),
to gain public sympathy, announce
large sums of aid to the affected.
No amount of compensation can
mitigate the grief of the affected
families. The least the Mamata
Government can do is to ensure
severe punishment for the culprits.
Gulab Shanker Singh
Lucknow
1SS_e^dQRY\Ydi]QddUbc
Sir — This refers to the editorial
“Criminal callousness” (April 2).
The editorial has rightly called for
accountability. Collapse of flyovers,
bridges, buildings, roads and canals
are common across the country,
and precious lives are lost.
Both the Trinamool Congress
and IVRCL are responsible for this
incident. They could have been vig-
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ilant, especially when the project
was located in a densely-populated area like Burrabazar.
The fact is that the TMC was
in a rush to complete the project.
Moreover, the project failed to
meet several deadlines. Why did
West Bengal Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee not take note of
the dangerous situation that was
visible even to a layman? A portion of the bridge was seen hanging perilously. This was a warning
of the impending danger in a highly vulnerable spot.
PN Saxena
Via email
@__b]Q^QWU]U^d
Sir — This refers to the editorial,
“Criminal callousness” (April 2).
The crashing of an under-construction flyover in Kolkata is unfortunate. What is all the more tragic is
that the narrow stretch of the flyover has made rescue operations all
the more difficult. On top of it, the
Hyderabad-based company,
IVRCL, has categorised this tragedy
as an ‘act of god’ to shy away from
taking ownership of the accident.
On the other hand, this tragedy
has once again highlighted the fact
that disaster management is still
very poor in our country. After each
tragedy, we talk about improving
disaster management, but we subsequently forget about it and brush
it under the carpet. The Union
Government must now ensure
strict monitoring of construction
sites and safety norms for construction workers on the site.
Bal Govind
Noida
>_dU^_eWX
Sir — This refers to the editorial, “Purging truth of Netaji”
(April 1). The fact is that no serious attempt has been made to
unearth the mystery behind the
disappearance of Netaji Subhas
Chandra Bose. The files declassified by the Modi Government
are hardly relevant as far as his
disappearance is concerned.
There are some who say that
the declassification of Netaji files
will affect India’s relations with
other countries. This shows that,
indeed something is fishy. The
Government must choose
between the two — international
relations or to get enlightened on
the fate of Netaji, who sacrificed
his life for this country.
Kajal Chatterjee
Kolkata
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here are a number of ways to
understand a peace process
which finally leads to agreements that are formal contracts, meant to end violent
conflicts. Peace agreements during a
peace process may include pre-negotiation agreements, interim agreements,
framework agreements, and implementation agreements. Each has a specific purpose. However, sometimes, one agreement
may overlap the other. Pre-negotiation
agreements are ‘talks about talks’ as they
tend to deal with issues such as who is
going to negotiate with what status and
what is the agenda of negotiations. At this
stage, negotiations discuss the pre-conditions of talks such as the release of political prisoners, or cessation of hostilities or
ceasefire during peace negotiations. But
the Afghan peace process is still stuck in
the primary stage and is yet to reach the
level of pre-negotiation deal.
The Quadrilateral Coordination
Group which includes Afghanistan,
China, Pakistan and the US, has taken a
much-needed initiative to pacify the
conflict-ridden Afghanistan. The QCG
mechanism became operational in
January when it met for the first time. And
just before the fourth round of QCG discussions in February, Pakistan Army chief
Raheel Sharif travelled to Doha to persuade the Taliban factions and groups to
return to the negotiating table. But it is not
hard to believe that any substantial breakthrough in peace negotiations is as
remote as ever.
The QCG is not a balanced and efficient mechanism to bring about lasting
peace in Afghanistan as it effectively
blocks Russia and Iran, the two most
important neighbours of Afghanistan,
from the discussion table. Most importantly, multiple rounds of talks among the
quartet have failed to convince the
Afghan Taliban to talk peace with the
Government in Kabul. Although former
Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami, formally
allied with the Afghan Taliban, has
decided to join the peace talks, it will not
have a greater impact on the peace
process because Hezb-e Islami’s capability of anti-Government insurgency has
been increasingly declining over the
years and it has virtually no or little influence over the Taliban. Why does the latest refusal by the Taliban, to join the peace
negotiations, seem so much frightening
today than it did a few years back?
There are serious concerns about the
deteriorating security situation in
Afghanistan. Terrorists are posing several challenges to the prospects of peace and
security in that volatile region. This is
borne out by the recent observations of
Nicholas Haysom, the special representative of the UN Secretary General for
Afghanistan. Haysom has painted a very
grim picture of the situation in
Afghanistan where conflict has grown in
intensity and scope, resulting in all
Afghan governmental institutions, including security forces, being critically challenged on all fronts.
The two most disturbing features of
the report are the rise in security-related
incidents in 2015 as compared to 2014,
and the deterioration of security in areas
that have not been previously the Taliban’s
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stronghold. The Taliban have undoubtedly expanded their territorial reach last
year, as reflected in the temporary capture
of about two dozen districts in almost all
parts of the country, with the temporary
seize of the Provincial capital of Kunduz
being the most notorious and audacious.
While the Taliban are fighting their
way to the negotiating table, the Afghan
National Unity Government seems to
have neither any viable peaceful conflict
settlement plan nor any overarching war
strategy. To make matters worse, the political, economic and social angst and discontent of a large section of the Afghan
people as not been properly addressed,
and has been exploited by the Taliban.
Faced with a rapidly intensifying
insurgency, the country may witness the
dangerous prospect of being carved up
into rival fiefdoms. The emergence of the
Islamic State, which is trying to recruit
from among the disgruntled Taliban
ranks and other terrorist groups, has further diminished hopes of the country
returning to a state of normalcy.
As the Taliban have again rejected the
latest peace offers from the QCG, firmly insisting on their own terms and conditions, the already fragile peace process
has entered the most crucial phase.
Under such circumstances, it will be futile
to expect the inadequately-trained Afghan
security forces with support from insufficient number of US-led North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation forces, to attain a military edge over their opponent. If the
Taliban escalates the fight in the coming
months, the country faces the prospect of
sliding down a perilous path towards turmoil and mayhem. In fact, Western military support for the Ashraf Ghani regime
is more of a background psychological fac-
tor than a physical one since the US has
almost quit Afghanistan.
The focus of attention has now again
shifted back to Pakistan’s role in contributing to the peace process. The conventional wisdom is that Pakistan has a great
influence over the Taliban. Pakistan’s
Taliban policy has shifted along with
broader geopolitical trends, with the balance sometimes swinging towards closer alignment and at other times, at permitting greater autonomy.
Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz
has admitted to Pakistan’s influence over
the Taliban when he recently said, “We
have some influence on them because
their leadership is in Pakistan, and they
get some medical facilities, their families
are here. So we can use those levers to
pressurise them to say, ‘come to the table’”.
But attitudes within Pakistan’s security elite are complex; dividing between
those who support the resolution of conflict at the earliest on the ground that continuation of conflict will further worsen
the security situation in Pakistan, and
those who insist on first protecting
Pakistan’s strategic interests, defined in
straight forwardly realist terms. Thus
there is a strong section within Pakistan’s
military establishment that defends the
notion of a tightly integrated geopolitical region on both sides of the Khyber
Pass with Pakistan’s informal control over
policies of Afghanistan. In constant
denial about the costs and tragedies perpetrated by the India-centric ‘strategic
depth’ policy, this powerful lobby argues
that Pakistan’s strategic needs stretch well
beyond the Durand Line, and it is only
pragmatic to act on those needs. Afghan
political elite’s excellent relations with
India has been a chronic irritant in
7RRPDQ\UHJXODWRUVDEDGLGHD
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he Union Government
needs to pursue policies
that can ease inflation
and reduce prices to lubricate
the economy. The trap laid by
previous Governments is
seemingly tightening.
It is not just the fuel price
that firm up prices. Though it
remains the base, there are
other factors like continuous
increase in insurance premia,
toll taxes, banking, parking, airport charges, tuition fee,
dynamic railway fare, high taxi
and bus fare apart from high
commodity prices, that lead the
country to a phenomenon of
price rise.
The flak for this is borne by
the Government as it is blamed
for not controlling the situation.
It also has to bear the cost by paying its staff more to sustain
unhindered profiteering of the
unscrupulous. The Government
has taken a view that it will not
intervene to facilitate business.
T
Business in this country
thrives on the poor man’s
money, and loans are easily
available through certain questionable bank practices. More
the inflation, higher the
charges, more the banks gobble up public funds; their coffers grow and so do their
exploitative practices. All the
same, the private reserves
either remain intact or increase.
Who suffers? The common
man and the Government of
the day.
The Government itself has
sealed itself out through a system of regulators. The latter,
whether in insurance, electricity or telecom sectors, at
times act in favour of the perpetrators and are casual in
protecting consumers. The
logic seems to be that the ‘the
consumer has to pay more
and more to keep businesses
profitable’ — or stated differently, the consumer can be
exploited at all times and if he
seeks a relief, it is to be denied,
as being ‘unsustainable’.
Should we really have such
regulators or go back to the earlier system of people’s
(Government) control? It needs
to be pondered seriously.
Regulators are primarily
responsible for higher power
bills, higher insurance premia
and most other hikes.
Just go to any city, and parents are to be found fighting
with schools who arbitrarily
raise fees, force students to buy
books and stationery, uniforms
etc. A failure to do so can cost
the students dearly, including
the school’s refusal to hand
over their results, cancellation
of admission and many other
retributive practices.
Is there a remedy? State
Governments have expressed
their inability on many counts
to help the parents or the students. Officials may say this is
not part of the economy. This
is a grave fallacy.
The high cost of education is causing severe stress
among the middle-class citizens. They have stopped going
to the market for buying anything except which is utterly
necessary. Even there, they
have been reducing necessary consumption of essential
items. This affects the Prime
Minister’s concept of Make in
India. Such reduction in
demand affects production.
The nation needs to seriously reconsider whether the cost
of education should be low or
not. The institutions at all levels have devised methods to
pay less to the teachers — they
are even asked to refund a
part of their salary credited to
their bank accounts — and
increase management profits.
The insurance companies
and the insurance regulator
have been raising premia every
year from third party motorvehicle claims to health, fire,
property etc, on unjustifiable
pretexts. The claims in this
country are at their lowest but
the regulator allows insurance
companies enormous increases, forgetting that this finally
impacts industry and individuals alike. It increases cost of
operations and leaves them
with less spare money to sustain the market. The regulator
has itself stated that “incurred
claims ratio of the motor segment came down by two percent in 2015 against 2014”.
Then why has it hiked the third
party premium? It hits the
transport sector heavily, which
then hikes its tariff.
No less illogical is the decision to disallow registration of
high-powered diesel vehicles in
Delhi. The courts are supposed to go by the provisions
of the Motor Vehicles Act, that
allows all vehicles to ply all the
Afghan-Pakistan relations, making
Rawalpindi profoundly paranoid about
collaborating in an effort that enables
India to have any meaningful say in
Afghan political affairs. This explains the
Pakistan Army’s highly selective approach
towards eliminating terrorist groups it
once created and had patronised.
The Taliban can seem very powerful now but it will wrong to think of the
outfit as invincible. There are many splits
and fissures within it. The Afghan
Taliban have been going through a turbulent leadership transition since last year
with the new leader Mullah Mansoor still
facing difficulties in consolidating his
leadership position. Those who are challenging Mansoor’s succession to Mullah
Omar are of the view that they have
acquired a decisive edge against the
Afghan security forces. In order to avoid
internal rebellion and further dissension,
Mansoor does not want to show any haste
in joining the peace talks.
If a dominant section of the Taliban
leadership is not prepared to strike a deal
with the Ghani Government on Pakistani
terms, then the very credibility of Pakistan
will be at stake. Islamabad will face
tremendous pressure from Washington
and Beijing to take action against the recalcitrant Taliban elements that are based in
Pakistan. Therefore, Pakistan seems to be
doubling its efforts, short of arm-twisting,
to bring the Taliban leadership to the
negotiation table. But the current adverse
dynamic may likely continue between the
Taliban and the Afghan Government.
(The writer is Assistant Professor,
Department of International Affairs
and Security Studies, Sardar Patel
University of Police Security and
Criminal Justice, Jodhpur)
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24 days — a provision that
helps production of new vehicles and the creation of jobs.
The National Green Tribunal is
playing havoc with the
production process.
If everything is to be
banned, then let us start with
banning the NGT. In no country are vehicles junked in the
manner that the NGT suggests. It hurts the economy
and wealth creation.
The Niti Ayog and the
Union Government have to
consider various aspects that are
hindering economic growth
and creating an inflationary
process. They also need to look
at how they can keep business
expenses low — an essential
condition for ease of doing
business. A new holistic look at
the economy and those adding
to inflation, is needed. A stable
and judicious pricing system is
required to keep the economy
on rails and cut fiscal deficit.
H
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=4F 34;78) With inflation
under check and Government
sticking to its fiscal consolidation path, market expectations are that RBI may cut
interest rate by up to 0.50 per
cent in its first bi-monthly
monetary policy review for
2016-17 on Tuesday in order
to propel growth.
The Government has also
pared the small savings interest rate by up to 1.3 per cent
providing cushion to the
Reserve Bank for cutting the
policy rate.
Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley, too, had last week
expressed desire that the RBI
should cut rate, stating "I
want what everybody wants.
At this stage if rate cuts do
take place it's certainly going
to be helpful because you
need a more efficient economy and you need a more
competitive cost of capital".
Bankers said high interest
rate could make Indian economy sluggish given that inflation is around 5 per cent.
"There is possibility of
RBI reducing rate by 0.25
per cent as inflation has
eased," Bank of Maharashtra
Chairman and Managing
Director Sushil Muhnot told
the news agency.
According to a senior
official from a state-run bank,
although a 25 basis points has
been factored in by the market there is also a high possibility of RBI going for a 50
basis points rate cut.
Citing various factors for
easing of monetary stance,
industry chambers are pitching for 0.5 per cent cut in the
key interest rate.
A 0.25 per cent cut in the
policy rate by the RBI is
almost given, but the real
impact of falling lending cost
µ8.VWHHOZRUNHUV
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?C8Q ;>=3>=
ens of thousands of steelworkers in the UK could
T
have their pensions slashed
by up to 20 per cent under
plans by Tata to wash its
hands of the 15 billion
pounds British Steel retirement scheme, media reported on Sunday.
According to a report in
the Sunday Times, the Indian
conglomerate is understood
to be in negotiations with the
government and the Pensions
Regulator over putting the
scheme, which has about
130,000 active and retired
members, into the Pension
Protec tion Fund (PPF),
which would mean workers
suffer cuts to their retirement
savings of as much as 20 per
cent.
Last week Tata said UK's
largest steelworks, at Port
Talbot in South Wales, was no
longer viable and put its
entire British steel operation
up for sale, leaving 15,000
jobs hanging in the balance.
Sources close to the
company said it does not
plan to continue supporting
the pension fund once it has
quit UK steel, according to
the report.
"There is no possibility
whatsoever [it will retain the
pension scheme]," said one
source. "Legally it can do it."
The scheme is one of
Britain's biggest — a throwback to when the industry
employed hundreds of thousands of workers.
It has a deficit of 485 million pounds, but with assets
of almost 14 billion pounds,
it is in fairly healthy shape.
Amid the pension talks,
Sanjeev Gupta, the Indian
origin steel tycoon, has made
an alternative proposal to
replace Port Talbot's blast
furnaces with more efficient
electric arc furnaces.
can be felt only if the central
bank goes in for a bold reduction of at least 0.50 per cent,
industry body Assocham said.
Retail inflation as measured by the Consumer Price
Index (CPI) eased to 5.18 per
cent in February as food
prices rose at a slower pace,
while Wholesale Price Index
stayed in the negative territory for the 16th month in a
row.
Industrial output for the
third month in a row
remained in the negative territory contracting 1.5 per
cent in January due to poor
7DWD6WHHO
V3RUW7DOERWSODQWV
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K-based Indian steel tycoon
U
Sanjeev Gupta has come to
the rescue of the troubled Tata
Steel by opening discussions with
owners of the steel giant to acquire
its plants at Port Talbot, Britain's
largest employing some 4,000
people.
The 44-year-old founder of
steel, commodities and property
group Liberty House, who has
already saved a number of UK
plants from closure, has said he is
ready to discuss with the British
Government to rescue the plants
where thousands of jobs are at
stake.
He will return here from
Dubai tomorrow to meet
Government officials and Tata to
gauge their support for a proposal to keep Britain's largest steel
plant open.
On the question of acquiring
the State Steel plants at Port
Talbot, Gupta was quoted in the
Sunday Telegraph saying: "We
would need a proper partnership
with the Government. I don't
know what that would entail at
this stage, We've started the discussions... We are in the process
of starting a discussion with Tata."
He has submitted preliminary
proposals to the Government to
replace Port Talbot's traditional
blast furnaces with modern elec-
EUHZVIUHVKIXQGLQJLQ86
?C8Q=4FH>A:
A
Illinois-based MB Financial
Bank permitting the company
to obtain loans up to $400,000.
As per the terms of the
promissory note, Mendocino
has promised to pay the principal sum of $325,000 with
accrued interest to Catamaran
within 6 months, subject to the
receipt by the company of a
bridge loan from its majority
shareholder.
This repayment is subject to
the shareholder loan amount
being sufficient either to pay the
note through 'Permitted
Payments', or to pay both the
note and certain existing obligations of the company to MB
Financial Bank.
The 'Permitted Payments'
on the note are payments made
from the portion of a
Shareholder Loan that is in
excess of $600,000, the filing further said.
If the company is not able
to satisfy its obligations on the
note within six months, the note
will get automatically extended
for additional six months terms
"until a Shareholder Loan sufficient to satisfy the note is
received or the note is otherwise
paid."
A major controversy has
broken out back in India ever
systemic liquidity.
"We expect RBI to address
the issues of systemic liquidity," Bhattacharya has said.
Currently, high volatility
in currency holdings of public (both in the form of cash
and jewellery) as well as government’s cash balances with
RBI is leading to volatility in
systemic liquidity, she had
said.
According to Citigroup
report, the RBI is expected to
cut repo rate by 0.25 percentage point given that the
budget stayed on the path of
fiscal consolidation and
progress has been made on
the reforms front.
The case for a rate cut
becomes even stronger considering the benign CPI outlook and a strengthened
transmission mechanism
(quarterly reset in small savings rate, MCLR).
?C8
*XSWDNHHQRQDFTXLULQJ
0DOO\D
VFUDIWEHHUILUP
way from the furore over
huge loan default in India
by Vijay Mallya-led UB Group,
its US-based brewery arm has
secured a complex funding that
it intends to repay later with a
'bridge loan' from its parent.
California-based
Mendocino Brewing Company,
which sells a number of beer
brands including Kingfisher in
the US, has got Mallya as its
Chairman and is owned by UB
Group through a complex
shareholding structure.
In a regulatory filing with
the US markets regulator SEC
(Securities and Exchange
Commission), Mendocino has
disclosed having issued a
'promissory note' to Delawarebased Catamaran Services, Inc,
in the principal amount of
$325,000 (over C2 crore).
It further said Mendocino
had earlier also issued four
promissory notes to Catamaran
between January 2014 and June
2015, for principal amounts of
$500,000 each.
Catamaran's sole shareholder is an entity named
Catamaran Holdings, Ltd,
which interestingly "has directors in common with
Inversiones Mirabel SA", one of
the major shareholders of
Mendocino.
The indirect beneficial
owner of Inversiones is United
Breweries Holdings Limited
(UBHL), making UBHL the
indirect majority shareholder of
Mendocino. Mallya chairs the
boards of UBHL as well as
Mendocino.
Mendocino further said it
has also received a letter from
showing of manufacturing
sector raising industry clamour for rate cut by the RBI.
RBI Governor Raghuram
Rajan on March 12 said
Government's sticking to fiscal consolidation roadmap of
reducing deficit to 3.5 per
cent of the GDP in 2016-17
was comforting, a statement
which raised hope for rate cut
in April 5 monetary policy.
Rajan, on February 2, had left
the key interest rateunchanged citing inflation risks
and growth concerns.
As for the forthcoming
policy review, Union Bank
Chairman and Managing
Director Arun Tiwari said: "I
see a 25 basis points rate cut
as inflation has come under
the Reserve Bank's target."
SBI Chairman Arundhati
Bhattacharya has said, meanwhile, that RBI should outline
steps to curb the volatility in
since Mallya left the country
amid growing clamour for
recovery of dues totalling over
C9,000 crore of the longgrounded Kingfisher Airlines in
outstanding loans and interest
amount.
Mallya and his group firms
are also being probed by multiple regulators and agencies
including Sebi, Enforcement
Directorate and SFIO (Serious
Fraud Investigations Office).
Under terms of the promissory
note, interest will accruefrom
the date of the note on the
unpaid principal at a rate equal
to the lesser of 1.5 per cent per
annum above the prime rate
offered from time to time by the
Bank of America Corporation,
or 10 per cent per annum, until
the principal is fully paid.
The note can be prepaid
without penalty at the option of
the company, but can not be
amended without the prior
written consent of MB
Financial.
In another filing with SEC,
Mendocino said it was unable to
timely file its Annual Report on
Form 10-K for the period ended
December 31, 2015 "due to
delays experienced in the collection of certain financial information about the Registrant's
UK subsidiaries required to be
included in the Annual Report".
"The Registrant intends to
file the Annual Report with the
Securities and Exchange
Commission within the 15-day
extension period..." it added.
In its last annual report for
2014, Mendocino had disclosed
having paid Mallya a total
amount of $267,700 (about C1.8
crore). This included $120,000
per year for services rendered as
Mendocino Chairman and
$147,700 by a subsidiary United
Breweries International (UK)
Ltd for promoting its "products
in the Foreign Territory outside
the United Kingdom".
The payment to him during
2015 would be known after the
latest annual report is filed later
this month.
Mallya
became
Mendocino's Chairman in
October 1997 and also served as
its CEO until January 2005.
Mendocino
Brewing
Company was founded way
back in 1983 and it caught
Mallya's interest in 1997.
Today it claims to produce
over '20 nationally recognisable
labels', including Red Tail Ale,
and the company says it has
"trekked from a 1983 production of about 400 barrels (5500
case equivalent) to the current
production of about 75,000
barrels (over one million cases)".
Its North American operations primarily consist of
brewing and marketing proprietary craft beers. Its foreign
operations are conducted
through wholly-owned subsidiary United Breweries
International (UK) Ltd and a
step-down unit Kingfisher Beer
Europe Ltd.
?C8
tric arc furnaces, used to produce
raw steel by melting scrap.
According to Gupta, the
problem with Port Talbot is its size
and the fact that it is built around
blast furnace making liquid steel
from ores. The model that Liberty
is building at Newport and elsewhere is built around melting
down scrap metal - two million
tonnes a year at Newport - using
modern electric arc furnaces.
Gupta, who is best known in
Wales for buying the former
Alphasteel works in Newport in
2013 and re-opening production
there last autumn, has recently
bought Tata's two rolling mills at
Clydebridge and Dalzell in
Scotland, facilitated by a temporary 'nationalisation' by the
Scottish Government.
Tata Steel stated yesterday that
although there was "no fixed
timeline" for the sale process, "it
;DA=]V_UVcd
Raac`gVC#&!!Tc
cVWZ_R_TZ_Xf_UVc
& #&dTYV^V
=4F 34;78) Lenders to
Jindal Steel and Power Ltd
(JSPL) have approved refinancing of loans worth
C2,500 crore, sources said.
"JSPL was talking to its
lenders (banks) for the
last two months and they
have agreed to refinance
loans worth C2,500 crore
of the company," they
added.
Talks are on to refinance more loans under
the Reserve Bank (RBI)
scheme, they said.
For 2014-15, the
Naveen Jindal-led JSPL,
with interests ranging
from power and steel to
cement, had a consolidated net debt of C42,929
crore against a net debt of
C35,419 crore in 2013-14.
When contacted, a
JSPL spokesperson said:
"JSPL has an excellent
track record of meeting
financial commitments
and has met its financial
commitments
till
November-December
2015.
"We are in discussion
with banks, in respect of
the 5/25 scheme and also
exploring various options
with all lenders to reschedule payments considering
likely short/medium term
cash flow mis-matches.
When these are completed, there will not be any
overdue situation."
As part of monetisation and debt reduction
plans already advised, we
are looking at various
options diligently to meet
our debt obligations and
strengthen our balance
sheets, the spokesperson
added.
needs to be implemented urgently as there are severe funding
requirements affecting the UK
operations.
Gupta said: "I haven't made
a proposition that I want to buy
all of (Tata Steel UK) because that's
too big an undertaking to even put
on the table at the stage. If the
company, its people, its workers
and the Government would be
willing to consider my suggestions
then I'm willing to engage in a discussion about what role we will
play in that."
Gupta, who currently lives
in the UK, was born in Punjab
where his father owned a
number of businesses including Victor cycles. Since 1992,
he has grown Liberty House
into a business with a 4.2 million dollars turnover, employing more than 2,000 around
the world.
/HWKXQGUHGIORZHUVEORRP
0912SROLF\LVDZHOFRPHVWHS
<0=>9608A>;0
Is the Idea of Mobile Virtual
Network Operators (MVNO)
too late? This question has
become relevant as the Telecom
Commission
approved
MVNOs guidelines last week,
nearly seven
years after telecom regulator
recommended
that
they
should
be
allowed to
offer services.
MVNOs are basically
mobile telephony service operators who do not own either
telecom networks or spectrum.
They lease capacities of the
existing telecom service
providers and sell them under
their own brand.
When the Telecom
Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI) first recommended it,
in 2008, there were only five
pan-India mobile operators.
Mobile penetration was comparatively low. However, mobile
telephony had become a necessity so operators did not bother about consumer satisfaction. Quality of services was bad
but the customers had no
choice as all the operators were
equally bad. The situation is
similar even today. It has only
worsened as call drop has
spread like epidemic, especially in metros and big cities.
In developed economies
such as Europe and the USA
where the mobile penetration
is very high compared to India
and quality of services is better, MVNOs are doing well.
There are more than 80
MVNOs in Germany and 60
in the UK. Similarly, the num-
ber of MVNOs in the USA is
over 80.
So there is no reason to
believe the argument that the
Indian market has matured
and there would not be many
takers for MVNO business.
MVNOs basically buy
bulk access to network services
from the existing operators at
wholesale rates. They do value
addition and then sell services
at their own retail prices under
their own brands.
For example, in the USA
one successful MVNO offers
services to Hispanic population by providing low calling
rates between the USA and
South America. In Europe,
s o m e
MVNOs target student
community.
Both the
European
and the USA
telecom markets are saturated. In Europe,
MVNO are still thriving. In
the USA, there are few success
stories. Even in the Europe
only 20 per cnt of the MVNO
start ups are successful.
So what is the message for
Indian market? Should we
agree with the cellular operators association of India
(COAI) when it says that the
operators do not have spectrum to spare and hence they
are not excited. This may be
only partially true. There will
be operators who will be willing to sell their capacities at
whole sale markets.
Relinace Jio, a new operator, will have excess capacity.
It may not be a bad idea for it
go for aggressive MVNO strategy.
There would be entrepreneurs who would come out
with innovative ideas and
become successful. It will be a
win-win situation for both as
entrepreneurs have limited
financial capacities and operators are too large to service
niche markets.
(The writer is a Senior
Journalist)
(VVDU2LOWXUQVDURXQG
ORVVPDNLQJ6WDQORZUHILQHU\
?C8QBC0=;>FD:
early five-years after
acquiring the strategic
N
Stanlow refinery from Shell,
Essar Oil UK has turned
around the loss making unit
with a record net profit of $187
million in 2015-16 as it optimised processes, diversified
crude basket and invested in
margin improvement programmes.
Essar Oil UK, controlled by
Mumbai-based Ruia family,
reported highest ever EBITDA
of $340 million in the financial
year ended March 31, 2016 as
compared to an EBITDA of
$177 million in the previous fiscal.
"EBITDA was negative $17
million in FY12 ," said Naresh
Nayyar, Executive Chairman,
Essar Oil UK. "Net profit in
FY16 is about $187 million as
compared to $70 million in the
previous fiscal."
Stanlow on Sunday produces over 16 per cent of UK's
transport fuels, serving northwest part of UK.
Essar, the only Indian firm
to own and operate a refinery
in Europe, has also entered into
auto fuel retailing in UK, opening seven petrol stations and
plans to raise the number to 400
in three years to capture 10 per
cent of market, he said.
Stanlow, which operated
at a third of its stated capacity
of 210,000 barrels per day in
July 2011 when Essar bought
the unit from Shell for $350
million, clocked near 200,000
bpd crude run in FY16.
"We have basically optimised refinery configuration to
deliver better yields," he said,
adding that higher margin
yielding petrol and diesel production has been increased.
Also, the refinery is pro-
cessing 25 new crude oils that
give price and yield advantage
instead of Shell's policy of relying only on North Sea grades
that did not offer better economics all the time.
"There has been a margin
improvement of $3 per barrel
since acquisition," Nayyar said,
adding that natural gas is being
used as fuel to run the refinery,
low margin lubes unit has been
shut, crude slate diversified
and margin improvement projects have been taken up.
Stanlow earned $8.7 on
turning every barrel of crude oil
into fuel in 2015-16, $3 more
than the North West Europe
benchmark Current Price (CP)
Gross Refining Margin (GRM).
Nayyar said a smaller crude distillation unit has been mothballed to operate Stanlow as an
optimised single train site,
adding $0.4 per barrel to margin and saving $0.10 a barrel in
operating expenses.
"The crude basket was
stretched by reducing the proportion of light crudes and
introducing medium density
crudes, while sources were
diversified by including African
and grades," he said.
"Condensates were introduced
into the diet in 2015, with all of
these moves resulting in a lowering of the crude basket cost by
about $1.4 per barrel."
Essar has invested significantly in Stanlow, with the total
equity invested at $694 million
(including acquisition) and an
additional $545 million
incurred through capital
expenditure.
Stanlow is one of the
largest refineries in the UK,
with the current optimised
configuration giving a 196,000
bpd operating capacity and
Nelson Complexity of 10.7. It
produces 33 per cent petrol, 57
per cent kerosene and diesel
and 3 per cent fuel oil
In a pioneering first crude
inventory monetisation, Essar
in July 2012 entered into a deal
with Barclays Bank, which
purchased the stocks of crude
oil and petroleum products at
Stanlow site and supplied the
refinery with crude on a daily
basis as required.
"This transaction, the first
of its kind in Europe, helped
the drive for more efficiency by
reducing costs, reducing capital employed and reducing
risk from crude price volatility," he said.
When Barclays exited the
commodity business, new long
term arrangements were signed
in July 2015 with J Aron &
Company for inventory monetisation and Lloyds Bank Plc.
Nayyar said Essar will
invest about $137 million in
project 'Tiger Cub' which will
see major improvements to key
units at Stanlow to deliver
further reduction in crude
costs and improved yields
across the product slate.
"Project Tiger Cub, and the
additional works undertaken
during the major block turnaround in 2018 will drive a further $2 per barrel in margin
improvements," he said. ?C8
\^]Th
17D10=4BF0Ak<>=30H k0?A8; #! %
4RZc_Rd\d8`gVc_^V_ee`KDQGVGRZQWRSFKRLFHIRUZHDOWK\
hR]\eYVeR]\`_cVec`eRi
$XVWUDOLDEHDWVFRPSHWLWLRQ
=4F34;78)Australia seems
?C8Q ;>=3>=
eeks after being slapped
with a C29,000 crore
W
'retrospective tax demand',
British oil explorer Cairn
Energy on Sunday said international investors want the
Modi Government to walk
the talk on resolving retrospective tax issues and send a
clear signal that things are
changing.
Cairn, which gave India its
biggest onland oil discovery
that now accounts for a fifth
of the country's oil production,
said it will continue to press
ahead with the arbitration
challenging use of a new legislation to tax internal business
reorganisation with retrospective effect and will seek $1
billion in damages to its value.
“The international investment community wishes to see
India doing as it has stated in
looking to resolve the retrospective tax issue with actions
which would send a positive
signal to global investors that
things are changing under
this current government,”
Cairn Energy CEO Simon
Thomson told the news
agency in an interview here.
The
Income
Tax
Department in Februar y
slapped on Cairn Energy a tax
demand notice of over C29,000
crore, including C18,800 crore
in back dated interest.
The Department had on
January 22, 2014, issued a
draft assessment order of
C10,247 crore on alleged capital gains the company made
in a 2006 reorganisation of its
India business. Two years later,
it issued a final assessment
order.
The actions of the Income
Tax Department have been
hugely detrimental to Cairn's
business and its UK and international
shareholders,
Thomson said.
“The issuing of a retrospective tax assessment is very
disappointing and follows a
long period of engagement
with the Government of India
which has repeatedly given
public assurances that it would
not resort to retrospective tax
measures, introduced by the
previous Government, given
the negative message it sends
to the international investment community,” he said.
Thomson said Prime
Minister Narendra Modi had
earlier this year stated that retrospective tax is a matter of the
past and he was ensuring that
this Government and future
Governments cannot open
this chapter.
Modi, he said, had stated
that “We have clearly articulated that we will not resort to
retrospective taxation and
demonstrated this position in
a number of ways.”
“However, Cairn Energy's
outstanding retrospective tax
case is yet to be resolved and
the matter has been ongoing
for more than two years and is
having a major detrimental
impact on our business and to
our UK and international
shareholders,” Thomson said.
He said the tax issue was
a very unfortunate conclusion to a 20 year investment in
India where “Cairn Energy has
been a model corporate citizen
and created a legacy asset
which is seen as an example of
what can be achieved through
India and UK cooperation”.
The Rajasthan discoveries
generates huge value for India,
with revenues of multi-billions
for the government, he said.
Asked
about
the
Government offer to waive
interest and penalty if companies facing retrospective tax
demand paid the principal
tax due, he said Cairn strongly contests the basis of the tax
assessment order supported by
detailed legal advice on the
strength of the protections
available to it under interna-
0DUXWLDLPVWRGRXEOHVDOHV
tional law.
“As such, Cairn has a high
level of confidence in its case
under
the
UK-India
Investment Treaty and is seeking to use the international
arbitration process in a nonconfrontational manner.
“We wish to resolve the
issue as swiftly and amicably
as possible following a long
period of engagement with the
government which has repeatedly given public assurances
that it would not resort to the
retrospective tax measures of
the previous Government,” he
said.
Stating that the international arbitration process has
begun with the arbitration
panel being appointed, he said
Cairn welcomes the Indian
Government's positive engagement in the process.
“We would hope that, like
us, the Government of India
wants to achieve an outcome
as soon as possible in order
that this issue is cleared up
once and for all.
“The preliminary hearings will take place shortly and
the formal process will continue from there. There is no
pre-set fixed timetable for the
arbitration process but it is
unlikely to be less than 12
months,” he said.
carmaker Maruti Suzuki India
(MSI) aims to double its sales
network to 4,000 outlets by
2020 as part of plans to sell 20
lakh units per annum by then.
The company, which ended
2014-15 fiscal at a total of
1,820 traditional dealerships
spread across 1,470 cities, plans
to add 200 outlets in the current fiscal, thereby taking the
count to over 2,000 shops by
the end of current fiscal.
“We are looking at doubling the sale outlets to 4,000 by
2020. This is in line with the
ambition to sell two million
units by 2020,” MSI Executive
Director Marketing and sales
RS Kalsi told the news agency.
The company is also planning to enhance the number of
Nexa showrooms to 250 in the
current fiscal from the current
127 outlets, he added.
In 2015-16 fiscal, ended
March 31, the company added
200 traditional dealerships,
while Nexa outlets expansion
was the fastest retail network
expansion anywhere in the
world, Kalsi said.
“Nexa outlets have been
well accepted and we aim to
close the current fiscal at 250
outlets,” he added.
As part of its plans to
achieve 20 lakh sales mark by
2020, the company also plans
to introduce a slew of models
in the country.
In the current fiscal, the
company plans to launch two
?C8Q B0=5A0=28B2>
ndia's growing and robust
start-up culture, strong
new models, Ignis and Baleno base of development partRS, towards the festive period ners and its large economy
this year.
m a ke it an “ i n c re d i b l y
The company, which post- unique and valuable” market
ed its highest-ever total sales at for Microsoft, senior execu14,29,248 units in 2015-16 at a tives at the technology giant
growth rate of 10.6 per cent, have said.
had launched three models S
“India is unique in a
Cross, Baleno and Vitara number of different ways. In
Brezza in 2015-16 fiscal.
India, (there is) such an
Suzuki Motor Corporation embrace of technology in
(SMC) has already announced development as a whole. It is
plans to launch around 15 new unbelievable the quality and
models in India in the next five diversity of development that
years to aid MSI achieve target is coming out of the counof selling two million units tr y,” S enior Director of
annually by 2020.
Windows Product Marketing
MSI's market share soared at
Mi c ro s of t
Aaron
to 7-year high at 46.8 per cent Woodman told the news
in the domestic passenger vehi- agency on the sidelines of the
cle segment during the last fis- just-concluded annual develcal.
opers' conference 'Build
The top four best-selling 2016' here.
models in India -- Alto, Dzire,
Underlining the imporSwift and WagonR, came out tance of the Indian market
from the Maruti Suzuki stable from the perspective of
for fourth year in a row. ?C8 C l ou d
c omput i ng ,
6WRFNPDUNHWORRNV
WR5%,SROLF\IRUFXHV
=4F34;78)Outcome of RBI
policy review on Tuesday,
foreign fund inflow trend
and quarterly earnings
expectation will set the tone
for the stock market this
week, say experts.
“Rate cut and earnings
expectations to dominate
trading s ent iments t his
week. The next big event for
investors is the RBI monetary policy review. RBI will
announce the first bimonthly monetary policy
for 2016-17 on Tuesday.
“Hopefully, the upcoming monetary policy will
provide the needed trigger
for next directional move,”
s a i d Vi j a y S i n g h a n i a ,
Founder-Director, Trade
Smart Online.
Ap ar t f rom r at e - c ut
expectations, investors will
now also start building up
expectation for the March
2016 earnings, he said.
BHEL is scheduled to
announce its tentative
financial result for the year
ended March 31, on
Thursday.
“The key event for the
market is monetary policy
review from Reserve Bank
of India. Outcome of RBI's
monetary policy, trend in
global markets, investment
by foreign investors, movement of crude oil prices
will dictate trend of the
Algeria and Morocco) and
Turkey.
Interestingly, in 2015,
London saw an inflow of
3 , 0 0 0 m i l l i o n a i re s , b u t
2,500 super-rich left the
city and moved to other
parts of England.
A large number also
moved overseas, mainly to
English-speaking countries
such as Australia, Canada,
New Zealand and the US.
“Most of the millionaires who left London were
UK-born whereas almost
all of the millionaires coming into the city were from
other countries,” the report
said, adding “this may be a
trend that continues in
future as several wealthy
UK-born people remain
“concerned” about the way
London and the UK in general had changed over the
past decade or so.
Paris saw the biggest
outflow, with as many as
7,000 of millionaires heading the exit door. The other
cities with large outflows of
millionaires include Rome
(5,000), Chicago (3,000)
and Athens (2,000).
The factors responsible
for millionaire migration
varied widely. For Paris, it
was rising religious tension and lack of opportunities; for Rome, economic
slump; for Chicago, rising
racial tension and rising
crime levels, and for
Athens, economic slump
and migration crisis with
Syria/Turkey.
Millionaires refer to
individuals with net assets
of $1 million or more
excluding their primar y
residences.
?C8
,QGLD LQFUHGLEO\XQLTXHYDOXDEOHPNW0LFURVRIWH[HFXWLYHV
QHWZRUNWRRXWOHWVE\ I
=4F 34;78) Country's largest
He said the company has
had robust legal advice that
the action of the Government
in seeking to apply tax retrospectively to its internal group
reorganisation in 2006 and in
freezing Cairn’s assets in the
country are a breach of the
fundamental position of the
Treaty which protects against
expropriation and ensures a
fair and equitable investment
environment for British
investors in India.
“Cairn is claiming full
compensation for the about $1
billion value of which its
shareholders have been
deprived,” he said.
He said one major US
investor in Cairn stated that
“It is now time for India to
send a message to all international investors that retrospective tax is dead and buried
once and for all. Many investments needed to finance
India's growth will not happen
if retrospective laws are possible.
“Repudiating retrospective laws and adopting international norms would allow
the international investment
community to see that the
Modi Government is delivering on its pre-election promise
to eradicate so called tax terrorism.”
to be the most preferred
destination for the global
rich, with Sydney leading
the pack with the biggest
net inflow of millionaires,
as some 4,000 of them shifted base to the city in 2015,
says a report.
Overall, the figure for
the entire continent stood
at 8,000 as Melbourne and
Perth attracted 3,000 and
1,000 high net worth individuals (HNIs) and secured
second and eighth positions, respectively, according to a report by New
World Wealth.
“Sydney, Melbourne and
Perth all benefited from
millionaire inflows from
China, Europe, the UK, the
US and South Africa. Other
Australian areas such as
the Gold Coast, Brisbane,
Noosa and the Sunshine
Coast also experienced
inflows,” the report said.
Tel Aviv drew a large
chunk of millionaires from
Europe, especially France.
The city was ranked third,
with as many as 2,000 HNIs
making this city their
domicile.
Other Israeli cities such
as Herzliya, Jerusalem and
Netanya too saw inflows.
There were large millionaire inf lows to San
F r a n c i s c o, S e a t t l e a n d
Vancouver from China and
South East Asia while
Dubai pulled in many from
No r t h A f r i c a ( E g y p t ,
Microsoft's Cloud Platform
General Manager Julia White
said that India is an “amazing and robust market”, particularly against the backdrop of the innovations coming from there and the growing start-up culture.
“That was one of the
reasons we put data centers
in India. We know that there
is so much opportunity and
so many start-ups and innovation going on in India
that there is need and comfort around having data sovereignty and having information remain lo ca l in
India,” she said.
Noting that there is significant development being
done in India on Windows,
Woodman said the country's embrace of the English
language in addition to the
native languages and dialects
has helped Microsoft a lot in
terms of its acceleration and
ability to speak to developers and have a conversation.
“It does not feel like it
-HZHOOHU\LQGXVWU\IHDUV
go e s t h rou g h a f i lte r,”
Woodman said adding that
t h e w i d e s pre a d u s e of
English is also one of the reasons that enabled Microsoft
to bring its digital personal
a s s i s t ant
pro g r am m e
Cortana to the Indian market.
“It is also one of the reasons why we have been able
to do things like bring
Cortana to India because we
can do it in English. We
could struggle with additional languages there but it
is certainly our aspiration,”
he said.
Making India even more
unique is its large economy,
which while presenting challenges around distribution,
price and accessibility, is
valuable because of the manner in which educational
institutions across the country have embraced technology.
“ T h e s e t h re e t h i ng s
m a ke In d i a i n c re d i bly
unique and valuable for us.
The incredible development
partners, the strong base of
partnerships there, the language helps enormously
from a business perspective
and the economic opportunity.
“It is not just people but
people that understand the
value that technology can
actually bring to education,
to empowerment,” he said.
Wo o dman st ress e d t hat
given the way the broad
populationin countries like
India, Israel and Brazil have
embraced technology, it will
not be a surprise that some
of the advanced technologies
like Artificial Intelligence
and Virtual Reality “will
likely have a footprint in
those places before other
places because of the cultural acceptance of the technology”.
White said Microsoft's
investment in India is “really
based on the premise that
there is opportunity not only
from the start-ups and inno-
vators perspective” but also
because a lot of mainstream
organisations in the country
are trying to be competitive
and stay ahead of the market.
“The only way to do that
and innovate quickly is to
move to a cloud model. We go
through a lot of evaluations of
where we would put data
centers and where we invest
locally and India is one of
those countries because of its
culture, the innovation coming from the country,” she
said.
Terming India as an
“incredible market” for
Microsoft, Woodman however said that distribution in
India is challenging.
He said the Indian market
is not like the US and UK
where there is a concentration
of the distribution partners.
Instead India's distribution network is massive and
diverse and while that presents a huge benefit for the
customers, it is “challenging”
for the company.
,QFRPH7D[GHSWODXQFKHVWD[
ORVLQJRXWRQIHVWLYHFKHHU FDOFXODWRUHILOLQJEHJLQVWKLVZHHN
With the onset of the added.
<D<108)
festive season, the gems and jewellery industry fears losing out on
sizeable sales, with some indusmarket in near term,” said try leaders saying continuation
Rohit Gadia, Founder & of the strike will be a “disaster”
CEO, CapitalVia Global for the business.
Research.
All India Gems and
A l s o,
P u r c h a s i n g Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF)
Managers' Index (PMI) data Director Ashok Minawala said if
for services and manufac- the jewellers continue to strike,
turing sectors are due this it's going to be “a disaster” durweek, which would have a ing Gudi Padwa in Maharashtra.
bearing on trading.
“We must understand the
Meanwhile, snapping consumer demand, retain and
the four-week gains, the maintain it.
market ended with minor
There is a need to come out
losses as the BSE bench- of the mindset and start a propm ar k S e ns e x fe l l 6 7 . 9 2 er and meaningful dialogue with
points to close at 25,269.64, the government and reach some
while the NSE Nifty ended decision.
on a flat note slipping by a
If the strike ends, the
marginal 3.45 points and demand during Gudi Padwa as
managed to hold the crucial well as the entire festival season
7,700-level.
?C8 is going to be phenomenal,” he
Waman Hari Pethe Director
Aditya Pethe rued that there is a
lot of confusion in the consumer's mind with regard to the
jewellers' strike as 80 per cent of
the shops are shut since last one
month.
“However, if the agitation is
over soon, then the offtake will
zoom as there is lot of backlog
consumer demand. We expect
minimum 30-35 per cent rise in
demand on the Gudi Padwa day.
It will be very high during the
festive season,” he added.
“The demand will be at least
three-fold during Gudi Padwa,
where people consider it auspicious to buy gold, due to a lot of
pent-up demand that was help up
following the all India strike by
jewellers across the country,”
PNG Jewellers CMD Saurabh
Gadgil told PTI here.
?C8
=4F34;78)With the new Income
Tax Return (ITR) forms notified
recently for assessment year
2016-17, filers can do an easy
check and obtain their annual tax
liability on a computer-based calculator hosted by the IT department.
The 'tax calculator' is an
online computer-based programmme hosted on the official
website of the department and is
meant to help taxpayers or filers
assess their tax liability.
The calculator works once a
filer correctly feeds his basic
details and information, as notified for the current assessment
year by the Government.
Also, the e-filing facility for
ITR-1 (for individuals having
income from salaries, single
house property and other
sources) and ITR-4 (for individ-
uals and Hindu Undivided
Families (HUFs) having income
from a proprietary business or
profession) is expected to go
online and get enabled this week,
the other ITRs will be hosted
soon after, a senior IT department officer said.
The Central Board of Direct
Taxes had notified the new forms
on March 30 and ITRs can be
filed till the stipulated deadline of
July 31.
Officials said the calculator
has been updated and calibrated
by the department as per the new
announcements made in respect
of tax rates in the latest Budget.
The facility can be used by
any taxpayer whether individual,
corporate or any other entity, to
compute their tax liability.
However, there is a word of
caution from the tax department
that filers should not solely rely
on it as complicated cases of ITR
have different requirements
which may not be addressed by
the 'calculator'.
“The calculator is only to
enable public to have a quick and
an easy access to basic tax calculation and does not purport to
give correct tax calculation in all
circumstances.
“It is advised that for filing of
returns the exact calculation
may be made as per the provisions contained in the relevant
Acts, Rules etc,” a disclaimer by
the department says.The official
said the calculator has been
hosted on the website of the
d e p a r t m e n t - www.Incometaxindia.Gov.In--,
for the ease of all who either do
an e-filing or manual filing of
ITR.
?C8
0LQLQJOHDVHVDSSURYHGIRU$GDQL
VSURMHFWLQ$XVWUDOLD
?C8Q <4;1>DA=4
ndian mining giant Adani
on Sunday moved one step
Icloser
to realising its 21.7 billion
dollars coal mine in Australia
after the local Government
granted three mining leases for
the controversy-hit project.
Queensland minister for
Natural Resources and Mines
Anthony Lynham approved the
individual lease grant for 70441
Carmichael, 70505 Carmichael
East and 70506 Carmichael
North, which are estimated to
contain 11 billion tonnes of
thermal coal, media reports
said.
According to state Premier
Annastacia Palaszczuk, the
approval had undergone “extensive Government and community scrutiny” and were a step
towards securing jobs for
region, with more than 5,000
jobs expected to be generated
during construction and more
than 4,000 during operation.
“I know the people of north
and central Queensland will
welcome this latest progress
for the potential jobs and economic development it brings
closer for their communities,”
she said.
She said “stringent conditions would continue to protect
the environment, landholders'
and traditional owners' interests
and Great Barrier Reef ”.
Lynham confirmed no
dredging at Abbot Point would
take place until Adani had
demonstrated financial closure.
Over 200 conditions apply
to the project which, if it goes
ahead, would be the largest
coal mine in Australia.
“The mine's environmental
authority had about 140 conditions to protect local flora and
fauna, groundwater and surface
water resources, as well as controls on dust and noise,”
Lynham said adding, “A further
99 stringent and wide-ranging
conditions apply to the rail and
port elements of the project.”
The project now has 19 permits and approvals at all three
levels of Government, including
nine primary approvals from
the State and Federal
Government.
“A number of other steps
have to be completed before
mine construction can start,”
Lynham said.
“They include secondary
approvals for rail, port facilities,
power, water, roadworks and the
airport and a financial assurance
with the Department of
Environment and Heritage
Protection.
“The
independent
Coordinator-General will continue to work with Adani to
progress the project,” he said.
The latest approvals have
come after Adani secured final
environmental approval and
had reached an agreement on
compensation with a landholder last month.
Adani's plan to build one of
the world's biggest coal mines in
Australia has been hampered
time and again. A federal court
in August last year had revoked
the original approval due to
environmental concerns.
In October last year, the
project got a new lease of life
after
the
Australian
Government gave its reapproval.
Welcoming the latest
approvals, Adani said, “The
granting of a mining lease helps
deliver the company certainty
with respect to timelines, while
moving to the next phase of the
project, subject to the resolution
of legal challenges by politically-motivated activists.” (“Adani
has consistently said that what
is required forits projects to proceed is certainty on approvals.
This is key approval helps provide that with respect to
Carmichael,” the company said
in a statement.
“Absent additional legal
challenges designed to delay
progress on this export-creating
mine, the next phase of the project, following this key approval,
will see a return to the pre-engineering work that had to be suspended in 2015 with the loss of
certainty on approvals timelines
that had occurred at that time,”
Adani said.
“Concurrent with that, the
company will continue to
finalise second tier approvals,
with the clear aim of commencing construction in calendar year 2017.”
“In the coming months,
Adani and its partners will provide additional detail regarding
the next steps for the logistics
and labour requirements of
the project,” it said.
“It is important to note that
successive legal challenges to
science-based approvals, which
are the strictest of their kind for
a major resources project in
this country, are designed to
deny the job creating benefits
of the company’s mine, rail and
port projects to our state.
“It is for this reason that
conclusion of second tier
approvals and resolution of
politically-motivated legal challenges is the company's principal focus, prior to a final
investment decision being
made, it said.
Having previously sought
to progress to the construction
phase in 2015, Adani is keenly aware of the risks of proceeding on major works in
advance of the conclusion of
these matters. Delivering low
ash, low sulphur, lower emitting coal to thermal generators
in India, while delivering jobs
in regions crying out for them,
and taxes and royalties to
Queensland, is paramount,”
Adani said.
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ollowing one of the worst
F
weeks of his campaign,
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was on
defence as he kicked off a
three-day
sprint
to
Wisconsin's primary.
Contenders in both parties
crisscrossed the Midwestern
state seeking an edge ahead of
Tuesday's primaries, none more
actively than Trump, who's
had a rough week and faces a
likely struggle against Texas
Senator Ted Cruz in the state,
who has passed Trump in
recent Wisconsin polls.
The Republican race is
overshadowed by a persistent
effort by Trump's rivals in the
campaign and the party to
force the nomination fight into
the July convention -- and by
his equivocations on whether
he will be loyal to the
Republican Party or bolt for an
independent candidacy if he
feels mistreated.
Trump began the afternoon with a rally in the
Milwaukee suburb of Racine
yesterday, where he defended a
series of controversial com-
ments in recent days on NATO,
abortion and his remark that
Japan and South Korea should
perhaps be allowed to acquire
nuclear weapons.
"This politics is a tough
business," said Trump.
"Because you can say things
one way and the press will criticise you horribly. You say it
another way and the press will
criticise you horribly."
Off the stage, in a more
reflective moment, Trump
expressed regret that he had
retweeted an unflattering photo
of rival Ted Cruz's wife, Heidi,
paired with a glamorous photo
of his own wife, Melania, a
former model, as part of a bitter feud between the two men.
"Yeah, it was a mistake," he
told New York Times columnist
Maureen Dowd. "If I had to do
it again, I wouldn't have sent it."
Cruz sought favour in
North Dakota, which is not
holding a primary or caucuses in the 2016 Republican
race.
He
addressed
Republicans at a state convention that is selecting delegates
who will go to the national
convention unbound to any of
the presidential candidates.
Trump and Ohio Gov John
Kasich sent supporters on their
behalf to make the case that
they should be backed by North
Dakota's delegates at the
Cleveland convention in July.
The Democratic race
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he Syrian army on Sunday
fully captured a key city in
the central province of Homs
near the ancient city of
Palmyra, following intense battles against the Islamic State
(IS) militant group.
The Syrian forces backed by
Russian warplanes stormed the
city of Qaryatain from a number of directions, a day after
Syria's boots on the ground
stormed areas in the western
parts of that key city, Xinhua
newds agency reported.
A military source said that
the army's entry into Qaryatain
came after the bomb squads
dismantled explosive devices
and other booby-traps the IS
terrorists had planted to thwart
the advance of the Syrian army.
On Saturday, the Syrian
forces unleashed a wide-scale
offensive on the city, which has
succeeded in breaking through
the IS defences in the western
part of that predominantlyChristian city.
The Russian warplanes are
playing a significant role in
helping retake Qaryatain, the
source added.
The military campaign to
reclaim Qaryatain came less
than a week after the Syrian
T
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army captured Palmyra, which
had been held by the IS for 10
months.
Meanwhile, the state news
agency SANA said the Syrian
air force struck the IS positions
in the eastern and southern
parts of the city.
Qaryatain is the last IS
stronghold near the mountainous region of Qalamoun,
north of Damascus and close to
the Lebanese borders.
The IS militants who withdrew from Palmyra have holed
up in Qaryatain, 85 km southeast of Homs.
The city is strategically
important due to its proximity to the Syrian city of Qara, a
stronghold of the Hezbollah
Shia group, which is fighting
alongside the Syrian army in
key battlefields in the country.
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between Hillary Clinton and
Bernie Sanders has grown
increasingly bitter, too, though
it has not matched the
Republican contest for raw
hostility. Their attention will
quickly turn to an even more
consequential contest, in New
York on April 19, where the
Democratic front-runner dearly hopes to avoid an upset in
the state she served as senator.
Sanders, who was born in
Brooklyn, can claim New York
as his home state.
Sanders urged rally-goers
to come out in droves on
Tuesday.
"Here is the political reality," he told a young and
rustic, three story-Arabic
bookstore in old Istanbul has
become an anchor for many
Syrians who have stayed put in
Turkey but crave a taste of home.
The founder and owner of
Pages, Samer al-Kadri, a refugee
himself, says the store strives to
be a bridge between Syrians,
Turks and the myriad of foreigners who visit the city.
Its weekly programme
includes music concerts and,
star ting soon, language
exchanges in Arabic, English
A
and Turkish. Books are available in all three languages. AlKadri is acutely aware that the
language barrier "has made it
difficult for Syrians to really
integrate into society."
Turkey is hosting 2.7 million Syrian refugees and is
due to receive many more
under a plan with the
European Union that aims to
halt the smuggling of
migrants into Europe. The
deal stipulates that for every
Syrian returned, another
Syrian in Turkey will be relocated to a European country.
pumped-up crowd of thousands on the University of
Wisconsin's Eau Claire campus.
"If there is a large voter turnout,
if working people, many of
whom have given up on the
political process, if young people come, perhaps for the first
time we will win on Tuesday."
Clinton sought to draw a
contrast with Sanders by
emphasising her Democratic
bona fides. Before hundreds
gathered in a hotel ballroom in
Eau Claire later yesterday, the
former secretary of state stressed
that she has been "a proud
Democrat all my adult life and
I think that's kind of important
if we're selecting somebody to
be a Democratic nominee of the
Democratic Party."
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ver 250 militants have
been killed in Pakistan in
army operations in the last two
months along the porous PakAfghan border, the military
said.
"The battle to clear the
last pocket close to the PakAfghan border continues," the
Inter-Services Public Relations
said, adding that all heights
over 9,000 feet have been
cleared.
"Major terrorist hubs" in
Mana, Gurbaz, Lataka, Inzarkas
and Magrotai areas have been
cleared of militants, it added.
"Terrorists' hideouts were
destroyed, a cache of arms and
ammunition recovered and
there was virtually no communications infrastructure
remaining in the Shawal area
once the operation was
launched in Feb this year,"
Dawn quoted the statement as
saying.
Hundreds of troops,
backed by fighter jets, have
been chasing the remaining
militants in Shawal Valley
where they are hiding, the
statement said.
The militants have been
The plan has drawn considerable criticism from human
rights groups, who worry that
Turkey is not a suitable haven
for asylum-seekers and fear it
could pave the way for mass
deportations.
Amnesty International
says Turkey has already scaled
down its registration of Syrian
refugees and is illegally sending back refugees to its wartorn neighbour. Turkey has
committed to giving work
permits to its Syrian "guests"
but there are signs this perk
may be riddled with caveats.
$]HUEDLMDQDQQRXQFHVµXQLODWHUDO
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zerbaijan on Sunday
announced a unilateral
A
ceasefire after the worst violence over disputed Nagorno
Karabakh in more than two
decades, but Armenian forces
said clashes were continuing
despite international appeals to
stop fighting.
"Azerbaijan, showing good
will, has decided to unilaterally cease hostilities", Azerbaijan's
defense ministry said in a statement, warning it would "liberate all (Armenian-) occupied
territories" if Armenian forces
"do not stop provocations."
Baku also pledged to "reinforce" several strategic positions
it said it had "liberated" inside
the region, which is controlled
by Armenia but internationally recognised as part of
Azerbaijan.
But spokesman for the
Armenian-backed rebel
defense ministry in Karabakh,
David Babayan, told that fighting has never been halted along
the frontline.
"Fierce fighting is under
way on southestern and northeastern sectors of the Karabakh
frontline," he said.
Earlier on Sunday,
Karabakh forces claimed they
killed under the Zarb-i-Azb
military operation which was
launched in North Waziristan
nearly two years ago after a
brazen militant attack on
Karachi's international airport
and the failure of peace talks
between the government and
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
negotiators.
The operation entered its
last phase in February this
year.
"During the last phase of
operation in Shawal, 252 terrorists have been killed, and
reportedly 160 were severely
injured. In the last two months,
valiantly fighting in Shawal,
eight soldiers of the Pakistan
Army embraced shahadat
(martyrdom) while 39 injured,"
the statement said.
"Since the launch of the last
phase in February 2016, army
troops have been fighting
valiantly and have cleared 640
square km of Shawal area," it
said.
During the last phase of
Zarb-e-Azb, return of
Temporarily Displaced Persons
was progressing according to
plan, as 37,012 families in
North Waziristan Agency -- 36
percent of such persons -have returned to their homes,
the statement added.
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took back the strategic LalaTepe height in Karabakh which
was captured by Azeri troops
on Saturday.
Baku denied the report,
saying that the height remained
under its control and that rebel
troops sustained "serious manpowewr losses."
On Saturday, fierce clashes left at least 18 Armenian and
12 Azerbaijani soldiers dead
and reportedly claimed the
lives of two civilians after both
sides accused each other of
attacking with heavy weaponry across the volatile frontline.
Both Russia and the West
appealed to all sides to show
restraint.
Ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized
control of the mountainous
8aP]]^cWP]SX]V[^eTfXcW
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akistani Interior Minister
Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan
P
reiterated that Iran was not
O
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Sydney: Australia opposes Donald Trump's suggestion
that Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons
since this would "add considerably" to the risk of regional conflict, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said today.
The Republican presidential front-runner had declared
he would withdraw US troops from both countries and allow
them to develop their own nuclear arsenals.
But Turnbull said regional power Australia, a US ally, was
"opposed to the further proliferation of nuclear weapons".
"That is absolutely not the view of Australia," the prime
minister told Sky News of Trump's nuclear policy comments.
"We would not support, in fact we would strenuously
oppose, I think, as a global community, the further proliferation of nuclear weapons.
"Clearly... It would add considerably to tensions and the
risk of conflict in the region."
South Korea and Japan last week offered muted reactions
to Trump's comments. There are nearly 30,000 US troops permanently stationed in South Korea and 47,000 in Japan, with
little appetite for nuclear weapons in either nations.
The White House on Friday said Trump's policy would
shatter doctrine held for decades with "catastrophic" consequences. Turnbull in February unveiled a major new investment in Australia's defence capabilities.
AFP
1DJRUQR.DUDEDNK&RQIOLFW
working hand in glove with
Indian intelligence agency
RAW to stoke instability in
Islamabad.
"Iran has nothing to do
with the activities of Indian
intelligence network. Kite flying regarding arrest of Indian
spy and his links with Iran must
stop now," he told reporters at
a press conference here on
Saturday.
The minister said that an
impression was being given in
a section of media that Iran was
involved in certain negative
activities against Pakistan, the
Daily Times reported.
Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan
said some elements wanted to
damage positive and historic
brotherly relations and create
misunderstandings between
the two countries.
Nisar Ali Khan said the
matter of relations between
the two countries must not be
linked with arrest of the
Indian spy.
"I appeal to media not to
create an impression as if Iran
is facilitating RAW’s activities
in Pakistan. Pakistan and Iran
are tied in decades-long religious, social, cultural and political bonds and nothing can
come in way of our relations,”
he said.
The issue of arrest of RAW
agent was taken up by Pakistan
Army chief General Raheel
Sharif with Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani.
“There is one concern that
RAW is involved in Pakistan,
especially in Balochistan, and
sometimes also uses the soil of
our brother country, Iran,”
the army chief told the visiting
dignitary.
“I request, they should be
told to stop these activities
and allow Pakistan to achieve
stability,” the army chief said,
according to a release issued by
the Inter-Services Public
Relations (ISPR) after their
meeting.
However,
President
Hassan Rouhani at a press
conference held later in the day
denied that the issue of Indian
spy agency’s involvement in
Pakistan was discussed during
his meeting with the Pakistani
Army chief.
“Whenever Iran comes
closer to Pakistan, such
rumours are spread,” he said.
µ>``_a]Rjd\Vjc`]VZ_^RZ_eRZ_Z_X6RceYd^RX_VeZTWZV]U¶
?C8Q ;>=3>=
he Moon may play a major
role in maintaining Earth's
T
magnetic field that permanently protects us from the
charged particles and radiation
that originate in the Sun,
according to a new study.
The magnetic field is produced by the geodynamo, the
rapid motion of huge quantities
of liquid iron alloy in the
Earth's outer core.
To maintain this magnetic
field until the present day, the
classical model required the
Earth's core to have cooled by
around 3,000 degrees Celsius
over the past 4.3 billion years.
Now, a team of
researchers from the National
Centre for Scientific Research
(CNRS) and Universite Blaise
Pascal in France suggests that,
on the contrary, its temperature has fallen by only 300
degrees Celsius.
The action of the Moon,
overlooked until now, is
thought to have compensated
for this difference and kept
the geodynamo active,
researchers said.
The classical model of the
formation of Earth's magnetic field raised a major paradox.
For the geodynamo to work,
Earth would have had to be
totally molten four billion
years ago, and its core would
have had to slowly cool from
around 6,800 degrees Celsius
at that time to 3,800 degrees
Celsius today.
However, recent modelling of the early evolution of the
internal temperature of the
planet, together with geochemical studies of the composition of the oldest carbonatites and basalts, do not support such cooling.
With such high tempera-
tures being ruled out, the
researchers propose another
source of energy in their study.
Earth has a slightly flattened shape and rotates about
an inclined axis that wobbles
around the poles. Its mantle
deforms elastically due to tidal
effects caused by the Moon.
The researchers show that
this effect could continuously
stimulate the motion of the liquid iron alloy making up the
outer core, and in return generate Earth's magnetic field.
The Earth continuously
receives 3,700 billion watts of
power through the transfer of
the gravitational and rotational energy of the Earth-MoonSun system, and over 1,000 billion watts is thought to be available to bring about this type of
motion in the outer core.
This energy is enough to
generate the Earth's magnetic
field, which together with the
Moon, resolves the major paradox in the classical theory,
researchers said.
Since neither the Earth's
rotation around its axis, nor the
direction of its axis, nor the
Moon's orbit are perfectly regular, their combined effect on
motion in the core is unstable
and can cause fluctuations in
the geodynamo.
This process could account
for certain heat pulses in the
outer core and at its boundary
with the Earth's mantle.
Over the course of time,
this may have led to peaks in
deep mantle melting and possibly to major volcanic events
at the Earth's surface.
This new model shows
that the Moon's effect on the
Earth goes well beyond merely causing tides.
The research was published in the journal Earth
and Planetary Science Letters.
region in a war in the early
1990s that claimed some 30,000
lives.
The foes have never signed
a peace deal despite a ceasefire
in 1994. The region is still internationally recognised as part of
Azerbaijan and the two sides
frequently exchange fire, but
the latest episode marked a
surge in violence and sparked
frantic appeals for peace from
international powers.
Energy-rich Azerbaijan,
whose military spending has in
the past exceeded Armenia's
entire state budget, has repeatedly threatened to take back the
breakaway region by force if
negotiations fail to yield results.
Moscow-backed Armenia
says it could crush any offensive.
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Brussels Airlines flight to
A
the Portuguese city of Faro
became the first plane today to
take off from Brussels Airport
since it was hit by Islamic State
attacks on March 22.
Staff and government officials at the airport marked the
departure with a minute's
silence and a round of applause.
The passengers on board were
the first to undergo the airport's
strict new security regime after
the suicide bombings.
The key travel hub has
been closed since two men
blew themselves up in the
departure hall on March 22 in
coordinated blasts that also
struck a metro station in the
Belgian capital, killing a total of
32 people.
The attacks at the heart of
Europe shocked the country
and many hope the airport's
reopening, albeit in a limited
capacity and using a tent-like
temporary check-in facility,
will help turn the page on this
month's traumatic events.
Brussels Airport chief executive Arnaud Feist yesterday
said the partial resumption of
services would start with three
"symbolic passenger flights" to
Faro, Athens and Turin.
eXePRXch "
17D10=4BF0Ak<>=30H k0?A8; #! %
emember the scene from the movie
Notting Hill where Julia Roberts’s character Anna Scott gives a description of
what it is like to be a star, with the constant
intrusion of the paparazzi. There was, in particular, one dialogue that sums best the lives
of celebrities, “And every time I get my heart
broken, the newspapers splash it about as
though it’s entertainment.”
With every passing minute, the death of
24-year-old Pratyusha Banerjee is becoming
murkier — with the father of Rahul Raj Singh
claiming that the actress was about to sever
ties with her family and his mother stating
that one who loves cannot kill. Over the
past two days, every form of social
media — Twitter, Facebook and
Instagram — has been flooded with
condolences, pouring in from every
possible member of the television
fraternity and also some from
Bollywood.
Amidst all the “RIPs”, “sad
to hear about her death” and
“strength for her family”, a few
actors have actually had the
sense to speak up about how
death is not the only solution
one could resort to when all
options in hand are exhausted.
Some celebs have the nerve to
fight through whatever is bothering them, while some succumb to
it. Case in point would be Deepika
Padukone, who sought counselling
and overcame her phase of depression.
And that is exactly one of the points that
few TV actors are trying to make.
“I worry there is something broken in
our generation; there are so many sad eyes
on happy faces. —Atticus. (sic),” said actor
Mouni Roy’s photo on photo sharing site
Instagram. Her reaction, at the news of
her friend’s death, did not look fake as
she apparently fainted at the hospital.
The actor’s opposition to the act that
Banerjee sought a solution in, found a voice
in her post which wished for the actor to shoe
some strength to “overcome her woes.”
Even her neighbour Anuj Sachdeva, in
his statement, lamented the fact that he
should have at least knocked once and asked
her about it. He mentioned that instead of
taking such drastic measures one should at
least attempt to talk to someone, “because
that helps.”
Pratyusha’s fellow contestant at Bigg Boss
and friend Kushal Tandon echoed Roy’s and
Sachdeva’s thoughts on Twitter which said,
“Suicide doesnt take away the pain, it gives
it to someone else.” And we agree. It might
be the end for the victim but it triggers a
decade of woes for family and friends.
We know what’s it like to feel depressed
and alone with no place to go but that certainly does not entitle anybody to take their
own life.
R
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ctor Kushal Tandon, who
knew Banerjee since their
A
time together in the Bigg Boss
hocked angry hurt & very disturbed with the fact that
SPratyusha
took her own life on
house, took to micro blogging site
Twitter, calling suicide a “selfish act
which needs to be addressed.”
The statement read,
“SAD...If Life is difficult...But why do
this...This is not the way
to end your life, rip
pratyusha my sweet
friend, strength to her
family sad sad sad, suicide doesnt take away
the pain, it gives it to
someone else... And
that is to family members.... Suicide is a selfish act...
Depression needs address b4
suicide remains d only destination, A girl died... let her
loved ones mourn in peace...
social media may not have
conscience... but it can have
a heart... (sic).”
account of a bad relationship or the
other hardships she was fighting in
her life. We all have several battles
to fight & darkest nights after nights
we struggle through fear and pain
and lost causes but there s always a
master there who can take us
towards light again. We need to seek
help, take that one step, ask for a
hand to hold need be, but this, this
is not right. Lets not be so unfair to
our parents, siblings, friends or
anyone who saw even a tiniest bit
of hope in us. This is really really sad and heartbreaking; I wish
she had an ounce of strength to
overcome her woes & had exercised
her ghosts and lived still. A day too
late now, I pray that her soul s peaceful and transcends to her wishful
heaven. Shall always remember you
as the emotional, lost beautiful girl.
This is really sad (sic)”
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All other needs take a backseat.
Perception and values start
changing leading to isolation
and some behaviour changes like
aggression, becoming emotionally blunt and preferring social
withdrawal. Their life starts getting more machine-like and
predictable. Along with pressure
on the body, the constant overdrive on the mind can lead to
depression and in severe cases
suicidal ideation as the only
means of rescue from the situation. Learning how to deal
with day to day stressors does
help. Meditation, yoga and relaxation exercises all play an important role along with time management and coping skills.
Sometimes an anti-depressant
pill may be prescribed by a mental health professional so that
depression is kept at bay and
work focus is not lost.
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ummer is here and what better than the pool side of the
St. Regis Mumbai to showcase a beautiful Spring
SSummer’16
collection by designer Payal Khandwala at the
4B700=890H0BF0;
engal is known for a lot of things —
theatre, food, history and yes,
B
handicrafts. And it doesn’t end there.
Just like the Banarasi silk is embedded
in the craftsmanship of that place, textiles like jamdani, dhakai and tangail are
inherent to the state, amongst others.
It was designer Chikky Goenka’s
long dream to put Bengal in the fashion map of India. And along with Pooja
Roy Yadav, founder and CEO, Nimai,
she did exactly that by hosting the first
edition of the Travelling Trunk show in
Delhi. The two day show displayed
works of designers from Kolkata.
“Both Chikky and I have been associated for the past two years where she
has hosted the store in Kolkata for various shows. She was always keen to
bring together the goodness of ‘Made
in Bengal’ label in the form of a
Travelling Trunk that went from one
city to the other to promote the rich
craftsmen of Bengal,” said Yadav.
Goenka added, “I wanted to use my
expertise and sensibilities to support
and promote designers on a larger platform. Interact with the customers and
let them experience the diversity of
Bengal fashion.”
Here’s what the designers had to
say:
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It was a great experience because
the idea was about cohesively showcasing brand Bengal to an audience outside the state. As designers working
We used the expert craftsmanship of the state in the collection that was displayed. The monochrome collection Iron Fairies was
inspired from oriental paintings.
Enlarged birds and floral appliqués
was a twist to the miniature oriental flowers and birds.
This was our first print line for
which the first process of developing screens of out artworks
needed us to work with the local
artisans.
3410B7A8B0<0=C0
from Kolkata we retail at multi designer stores across, but it is a different identity when we do this together as a complete story.
We work with weaver clusters
from all across India. This collection has
two stories. One on textured light silks
for evening wear but has very classic silhouettes like the kallidar kurta, capes
and bandhgala. We have used upcycled
patchwork details as part of another.
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We have taken inspiration
from the traditional jamdani of
Bengal and made a next-gen version of it in tussar and khadi.
The signature motifs are all
handwoven and studio engineered. We worked with our
own team of weavers in the villages of Bengal.
The collection is all about
revisiting and re-interpreting our traditions. We revive the age-old Bengali
sensibility with an urbane edge by
using studio-handwoven, new-age
jamdani motifs. The main motif used
are the houses, full meenakari trees
with their roots intact, and peacocks.
Our collection rightly compliments
this philosophy as we go back to
nature and back to basics but with
the right kind of edge and luxurious global appeal.
Lakme Fashion Week.
The geometric inspired range showcased the simplicity
and complexity of shapes with an evocative play of negative
and positive spaces. The use of minimal flat shapes transformed into a three dimensional forms. Repeats, lines,
symmetry, asymmetry and angles echoed
across the outfits, creating interesting silhouettes with hand-woven artisanal
details and tailoring focused on circles,
triangles and the often forgotten parallelogram.
The models looked fierce wearing
ensembles in a palette of whites
accentuated by shades of coral, fuschia,
citrine, chartreuse, blush, and metallic vintage gold and silver adding a
dash of playfulness and brilliance
to the ramp. Textures ranging
from cottons, linens,
permpleating, lightweight
handwoven silks and neoprene to silk organzas and
handcrafted brocades were
seen in full grandeur.
An array of handcrafted leather accessories by
the designer’s line Tachi
was showcased. A bold
new line of minimal
brass and leather
jewelry including
rings, necklaces,
earrings, nosepins,
bangles and anklets
were designed to
complement this
collection.
The motifs handwoven in metallic gold
and silver thread in
geometric patterns by
artisans from Varanasi
and Bengal gave the collection a traditional yet
contemporary appeal,
creating
versatile
outfits.
Celebrity guests
who supported the
designer
were
Konkana
S en
Sharma, Adhuna
Akhtar, Manasi
S cott,
Pernia
Q u r e s h i ,
Priyanka Bose,
Mini Mathur
and
Sayani
Gupta.
This feminine and relaxed
version of resort wear
by Payal Khandwala
can take you from a summer
vacation to a summer
wedding.
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n an era when technology dominates life,
Ioffers
health is often neglected. Here is a book that
healthy recipes straight from the Isha
Yoga Centre; another that revolves around the
cauliflour, said to be the best way to lose weight.
Then, suggestions on how to act, react and
cope when one is bored; and finally, a tale of
a boy whose life gets entangled in a protest held
in Seattle. There's much on offer on the IANS
bookshelf this weekend. Read on!
hen MC Mary Kom
returned to India after
winning the bronze
medal at the 2012 London
Olympics, there were three things
she brought home with her —
pride for her country, the medal
and a little known Anna
Sarkissian, who followed Kom for
one simple reason — to acquaint
herself with the life and daily
struggles of a woman boxer in
India. She went with Kom to her
village in Manipur and spent days
with her trying to understand her
life and how she balanced her
home and her sport.
And she did not stop there.
Sarita Devi and Chhoto Loura
were on her list, too. Along with
Toronto-based Ameesha Joshi,
Sarkissian recently released a 87minute documentary on the
women boxers in India titled
With This Ring. It can be considered as a clutter breaker in the
series of biopics Bollywood is
churning out on cricketers and
sprinters. It neither boasts of a
star, who spent a chunk of his or
W
her time in the gym trying to get
into shape, nor of a huge crew and
fancy editing. It is a simple story
of the daily struggles that these
women of steel go through to get
a decent training ground, proper guidance and the restrictions
they face from society.
It all started with a photograph exhibition that Joshi
attended in Montreal in 2015 —
displaying the works of Danish
photographer Miriam KS
Dalsgaard, capturing women
boxers at a beach in Chennai.
Growing up in Canada, Joshi
did not know that India had
female boxers to begin with.
“Not uptil that exhibition, and it
took be by surprise,” she said.
That aspect intrigued her so
much that she started digging up
information on the same but
could not find much material.
“There was very less information
on the Internet and I had no idea
where to get them from,” she
added. It was then that she got to
know about Mary Kom, already
a two time world champion by
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then. “I decided to make a film
on female boxers in India because
I wanted more information on
these women,” she shared.
Her decision brought her to
India later the same year.
Although it was a family trip but
her main motive was to find out
more female boxers in the country. “When I met a few more and
saw them practicing, despite
the hardships, I knew I had to
do it. Their practice sessions
were incredible,” Joshi said.
Together with Sarkissian,
Joshi met a few women boxers
who were in the initial stages of
their training, apart from Kom,
Sarita Devi and Chhoto Loura.
“They are really big star but still
down to earth. They are the
most hard working women I
have ever met. They are international players but when I met
them, I found them ordinary
and simple girls like us,” Joshi
recounted.
Five summers and 197
hours of footage later, Joshi and
Sarkissian were finally satisfied
,QQHUKHDOLQJ
ount your blessings, not your calories; weigh
your options, not your self-worth. Starve your
C
self hatred, not your body; hate the disorder, not
yourself
We all eat to live in order to survive, because
if we stop eating, we would die. Hence to avoid
this fate, we all eat good food and drink enough
water. However, nowadays there has been a new
prevalent fashion of ‘live to eat’ that’s getting rampant in society. This new concept has nothing to
do with our biological survival. Those who
indulge in this do it because of some other reason outside of simply staying alive. In short, eating to live is a biological understanding whereas,
living to eat is a psychological, social, and emotional disorder that needs an urgent attention
because emotional and disordered eating can
wreak havoc on our mental, emotional, and physical health if left unaddressed. And, not to mention, the massive amount of time and energy it
takes up, leaving one much less able to focus on
what really matters in a person’s life.
For most of us, emotional eating has become
a habit of comfort — in other words, it’s a behavior induced by certain cues like situations, feelings, people, commercials, et al. Scientific studies done over the years reveal that animals and
people that were more stressed ended up eating
more and getting fatter. In general, most of us consider emotional eating as a food addiction, just
like we consider shopping, gambling, and other
behaviors as addictions.
There is no doubt that these behaviors can
sometimes seem to take on a life of their own and
make you feel like you’re just going along for a
scary ride. But are they all same? Well, they do
seem like addictions on the surface, and it may
be handy to use the term as a metaphor. But there’s
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an important difference, and hence using the term
addiction to describe behavioral disorders that are
not physical addictions tends to blur that distinction.
We need to understand the difference that
emotional eating and other behaviors are compulsions, not addictions. A compulsion is
something you feel you have to do; an addiction is something you can’t live without.
Emotional eating, therefore, is a psychological compulsion to do something that would
otherwise cause emotional distress, not
physical withdrawal. The force that drives the
behavior, is the need to counteract feeling
controlled by certain external forces by acting out against those or other external forces.
The goal is to even one’s perception of the playing field
in the ongoing tension
between external
demands and internal
autonomy.
Learning to
recognise your
emotional eating
triggers is the first
step to breaking
free from food
cravings and compulsive overeating,
and changing the
habits that have sabo-
with the information they got.
The only task that loomed over
them was condensing all the
content into an hour of documentary. That was when Jackie
Dzuba came in as the editor.
“We chopped a video of 197
hours into one hour — thanks
to Dzuba. We met on Skype to
exchange ideas and we reviewed
cuts via Vimeo. It took a long
time and we faced many hurdles,
but we made it through,” Joshi
elaborated.
The process was long and
tedious and they began by taking detailed noted of the footage
collected. Joshi worked with a
huge team of volunteer translators to make subtitles for the
interviews taken in Hindi,
Manipuri and nine other regional languages. “I have never lived
in India. So while I may understand a bit of the language, I cannot speak it,” Joshi pointed out
and mentioned that she was
grateful to Tamara Taddeo, a
filmmaker friend, for helping in
giving shape to the film.
taged our diets in the past. Using food from time
to time as a reward, or to celebrate isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But, when eating becomes our primary emotional coping mechanism and when our
first impulse is to open the refrigerator whenever we get upset, angry, lonely, stressed, exhausted, or bored,we get stuck up in an unhealthy cycle
where the real feeling or problem is never
addressed. Remember, emotional hunger can
never be filled with food.
Eating may feel good in weak moments, but
the feelings that triggered the eating would be still
hiding within. So, its better to target those hidden feelings rather than turning onto un-necessary and extra eating. If you don’t know how to
manage your emotions in a way that doesn’t
involve food, you won’t be able to control your eating habits for very long.
Don’t tell yourself you can’t give in to the craving; remember, the forbidden is
extremely tempting. So just try to
put off eating for five minutes, or
maybe one minute. While
you’re waiting, check in with
yourself. How are you feeling?
What’s going on emotionally?
After this process, even if you
end up eating, you’ll have a
better understanding of why
you did it. This can help you set
yourself up for a different response
next time.
Psychologist’s who have examined
patients with eating disorders found
that those who were taught how to meditate had lower levels of relapse and more
positive outcomes after release than
those who received only conventional
diet or nutrition treatments.
Hence it would not be difficult to
recognise value of meditation for elimination of habit of stress eating and
introduce this theory and practice as a
subject in education so that the youth
and children can be saved from this fatal
disorder which is more prevalent among
them. Remember, calming the mind for a few
minutes may provide the distance needed to make
a reasonable and healthy decision about whether
to eat a chocolate cake or go in for a meditation
session. So let us all make the right choice of a
healthy future by saying no to emotional eating
and yes to meditation.
Book: A Taste of Well-Being; Author: Isha
Yoga Centre; Publisher: Harper; Pages: 200;
Price: C299
At a time when a variety of cuisines are easily available, how do we choose what to eat?
Food products labelled healthy one day are
abruptly dismissed as lethal, while crash diets
and celebrity regimens are trashed by nutritionists.
This book brings together a wealth of
recipes ranging from refreshing juices and salads to complete meals of grains, cereals and
curries to tasty desserts – all perfected in the
kitchen of the Isha Yoga Centre.
Book: The Cauliflower Diet; Author:
Radha Thomas; Publisher: Random House;
Pages: 205; Price: C299
The cauliflower is an extremely versatile
vegetable that can blend into any kind of cuisine in the world. It is one of the best kept
secrets in the dieting community. It is an almost
perfect substitute for several types of starch like
flour, pasta, rice and even potato.
The book is a guide on how the cauliflower
can be used in the preparation of all the things
one loves – rice, upma, cookies and even pizza.
Read how this vegetable even helps to shed
kilos in a short time.
Book: The Upside of Downtime; Author:
Sandi Mann; Publisher: Robinson; Pages: 319;
Price: C399
Despite being constantly connected to
technology, we hardly know what boredom
feels like. Yet, boredom appears to be on the
rise. One is loosing the ability to tolerate the
routine and repetition of everyday life.
Sandi Mann’s book is based on groundbreaking research to tell you how to act, react
and cope when you are bored. It explores the
idea that there is a positive side to boredom
that can be a catalyst for humour, fun, creativity and inspiration.
Book: Your Heart is a Muscle The Size of
a Fist; Author: Sunil Yapa; Publisher: Hachette;
Pages: 308; Price: C599
Victor, the main character of the book,
finds himself pounding the streets of Seattle
with little meaning or purpose after he turns
homeless following a family tragedy. His
estranged father is the police chief of Seattle
and is in charge of one of the largest protests.
In amongst the fray, Victor and his father
are heading for a collision course. Set amid the
backdrop of protests against the World Trade
Organisation, the book is a deeply charged one,
showcasing a distinct and exciting new literary voice.
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est Indies bowlers effected a
middle-order collapse to restrict
England to a decent 155 for 9
despite Joe Root's attractive half-century
in the final of the ICC World T20, here on
Sunday night.
It was leg-spinner Samuel Badree
(2/16 in 4 overs), who inflicted the initial
damage in a splendid opening act while
Dwayne Bravo (3/37 in 4 overs) and Carlos
Brathwaite (3/23 in 4 overs) displayed their
variations
While triggering a collapse during the
back-10. The last five overs produced a
meagre 40 runs. Just when Root (54 in 36
balls) along with Jos Buttler (36), looked
set for an imposing total, Bravo and
Brathwaite wreaked havoc.
England were cruising 84 for 3 in 11.1
overs with Root and Buttler having added
61 runs already but were soon reduced to
111 for 7, losing four wickets for 27 runs
within next three overs.
Before the collapse occured, the
boundaries were flowing at that time when
Brathwaite dismissed Buttler. The batsman
tried to pull the bowler over deep midwicket only to be holed out by Bravo.
Ben Stokes (13) and Root, who had hit
seven crisp boundaries had added 26 runs
together when Bravo bowled a sharp
boouncer to get rid of the former.
Moeen Ali (0), who has perennial
problem with short ball tried to tuck one
fired in his rib cage to Denesh Ramdin.
Root, who was getting edgy then played
an uncharacteristic lap shot to be caught
at short fine-leg as England never recovered from the blows.
England though benifitted from David
Willey's cameo of 14-ball 21 (1x4, 2x6) 4]V[P]Sb4^X]<^aVP]fPcRWTbFTbc8]SXTb2WaXb6Ph[TcPZTPRPcRWc^SXb\XbbWX\SdaX]VcWTUX]P[^UcWT822F^a[SCfT]ch!! %RaXRZTcc^da]P\T]cPc4ST]6PaST]bX]:^[ZPcP^]Bd]SPh
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which helped tjem get past 150-run mark.
West Indies had their gameplan
straight against the spin -wary Englishmen
by sticking to Badree up front and the
legspinner bowled a rare wicket maiden in
his third over by dismissing Eoin Morgan.
Continuing his lean patch with the bat,
the English skipper was deceived by a googly and England were staring at doom at
23/3 after 4.4 overs.
Thankfully for England, Root
remained a bystander and looked at ease
with three fours in the previous over by
Benn. Desperately needing a partnership,
England found Butler to repair the damage with Root.
On a track that looked batting friendly with little in it for the spinners, the duo
cleverly rotated the strikes with the odd
four or six in between to step up their runrate. Buttler was not there to be bogged
down by the Windies and exploded against
Benn in the 11th over with two clean hits
soaring into the crowd. But just as England
looked to roll on there was another breakthrough for the Windies in the form of the
big-hitting Buttler who smacked at mid0? wicket only to be caught by Bravo.
5 0 8 A B 7 0 A 4
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@D9
aving clinched their maiden
H
Women's WT20 title, West Indies
skipper Stafanie Taylor today said that
the historic triumph should act as the
stepping stone for the development of
the women's game in the Caribbeans.
"We have to move on from here not
just enjoy look at it stepping stone. We
don't want to stuck here. We definitely
need some infrastructure like in
Australia and England. We need young
guys coming up," Taylor said.
"When these core players go, it will
deteriorate. We need to start building.
We need consistency to compete teams
like England and Australia," she added.
Taylor, who hit a 57-ball 59 today,
said the mindset of targetting to bat
through instead of thinking the
England total helped to her side win
the final match.
"It's funny, we never discussed the
total. We just we wanted to bat through,
it was good to keep wickets in hand. We
could do that stay there and bat
through," Taylor said as the West Indies
chased down the target of 149 to halt a
quadruple of titles by the Australians.
n a historic first, the West Indies women's
cricket team ended three-time defending
Ichampions
Australia's domination by winning
Taylor said she and her team-mates
were still feeling "unreal" about winning
the title. "I don't think it has sunk in yet.
When we wake up in the morning it's
going to be like is it real trophy. I will
ask myself is this real. When we touch
down at the Caribbean that's when it's
going to hit you. A lot of people with
cameras you will realise that you have
won the World Cup," Taylor said.
Lanning heaped praise on Windies
batter Hayley Matthews who struck a 45ball 66 to set up her side's win.
"She's very talented, she had a good
series against us. It was not a surprise.
She played exceptionally well," Lanning
said.
the ICC World T20 title with an emphatic
eight-wicket victory in the final here on Sunday.
The foundation of the successful chase
was laid by a 120-run partnership by openers Hayley Matthews (66 off 45) and skipper
Stafanie Taylor (59 off 57), who helped the
team chase a stiff target of 149.
The moment the West Indies reached the
target courtesy an overthrow, the entire
dugout jumped in joy as the team joined the
two not out batswomen, Britney Cooper and
Deandra Dottin, in the middle.
C>?>5C74F>A;3)FTbc8]SXTb_[PhTabRT[TQaPcTPUcTafX]]X]VcWT822FC!QTPcX]V0dbcaP[XP
0?
What made the celebrations more spethe winning run from the overthrow.
cial was the men's team, led by captain Darren her sublime form with a solid knock.
Captain Meg Lanning (52) and opener
After Hayley holed out at the midwickSammy, bowling coach Curtley Ambrose and
all-rounder Andre Russell joined everyone in et in the 16th over, the West Indies need- Elyse Villani (52) scored brisk half-centuries
ed 29 from 26 balls and the equation went before the West Indies fought back at the end
congratulating the girls.
The girls, as promised to Dwayne Bravo, down to 14 from the last 2 overs but the to restrict three-time defending champions
danced to the beats of the all-rounder's lat- experienced Dottin made sure the team got Australia to 148 for five.
Villani set up the tempo with her 37-ball
home comfortably.
est rap compilation 'Champion'.
With three needed from the last over, innings and shared a 77-run partnership off
It was also the West Indies' first win over
Dottin took a single to give the strike to 60 balls with Lanning, who continued her
Australia in nine T20 Internationals.
Hayley was the star of their chase with a Cooper who ran a quick single and Aussies good run with second successive fifty.
Ellyse was looking dangerous with two
career-best innings, while Stafanie continued narrowly missed the stump as they complete
huge sixes but Dottin ensured that the
Australia did not do much damage in the last
over as they could muster only 36 runs from
the last five overs, which proved to be the difference. From being nine for no loss in the
first three overs, the West Indies were quiet
at the start with Hayley looking dormant with
two runs from eight balls.
In the next over, Hayley stepped on the
gas taking charge on Rene Farrell with two
boundaries and in the next over she smacked
Schutt over midwicket for a huge six.
But the massive turnaround came in the
last over of Powerplay when Stafanie too
joined in the act with two boundaries after
Hayely's step-out six as they raced to 45/0.
Stafanie was happy to rotate the strike
while Hayely went on the rampage as the
Southern Stars bowled too wide and full.
Hayley completed her maiden half-century in 35 balls with a six and boundary
against Jess Jonassen.
Earlier, opting to bat after winning a crucial toss in hot and sultry conditions,
Australia were off to a flying start with Villani
taking charge after her opening partner Alyssa
Healy (4) got out in a soft dismissal.
Villani raced to her second fifty and
eighth overall in T20Is in 34 balls while
Lanning was sensible at the start.
Lanning was a joy to watch as she completed her second successive half-century.
? 0 : 5 8 ; 4
16B949AE9DC1C@1;9CD1>D" 31@D19>
41D5<9>5:0A0278
@D9
acing criticism for Pakistan's
dismal show in the WT20,
Shahid Afridi on Sunday stepped
down as captain of the team but will
continue to play in the shortest format of the game.
The Afridi-led Pakistan failed
make it to the semifinals of the WT20
in India, where his comments also
drew the ire of former players.
The 36-year-old all-rounder and
the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had
hinted that World T20 could well be
be his last as skipper.
"Today, I wish to inform my fans
in Pakistan and all over the world that
I am relinquishing the captaincy of the
T20 Pakistani team of my own volition," Afridi said in a statement,
released on his twitter account.
F
"On this day, I thank Allah
(SWT) for His Kindness and Mercy
which enabled me to discharge my
leadership duties, to the best of my
abilities for the sake of honour and
prestige of my motherland. For me it
was a great honour to lead my country in all three formats of the game,"
Afridi wrote in his statement.
Afridi, however, asserted that he
will be available for selection as a player in the team even though PCB
Chairman Shaharyar Khan has made
it clear that the all-rounder is no
longer a surety in the side.
"My profound thanks to the PCB
and its Chairman Shaharyar Khan
who gave me the honour to lead the
national team. I would also like to
inform that InshaAllah I intend to
continue to play the game for my
country and league cricket etc. And
request my fans for kindly keep
praying and supporting for my best
future performances for Pakistan (as
FP`PaaTUdbTbc^V^^dcPbeX[[PX]
41D5<9>5:0A0278
@D9
akistan cricket coach Waqar
Younis on Sunday refused to step
down from his position despite
being in the line of fire for the team's
disastrous World Twenty20 campaign, saying that he will not go out
as a "villain".
"I am being portrayed as the villain. If the Board wants to remove me
they first have to inform me in writing. I have no issues but I will not go
like this," Waqar said.
Pakistan cricket has been thrown
into disarray after the team's poor
performances in the Asia Cup and
World T20 but Waqar said he did all
P
?PZXbcP]cTP\WTPSR^PRWFP`PaH^d]Xb[TUcfXcWBWPWXS0UaXSXSdaX]VFC!
a player); and in all other arenas of the
game, world over."
The mercurial cricketer played 27
Tests for Pakistan before retiring
from the format in 2010 with 1716
runs and 48 wickets.
?C8
Afridi found himself mired in
controversies during Pakistan's World
T20 campaign. First, he drew flak in
Pakistan for stating that he and his
players were loved more in India than
back home.
he could to arrest the slide.
"I didn't request for the coaching job. I applied for it with the PCB.
I was interviewed by Mr Najam Sethi
and I submitted a comprehensive
plan to him with which he concurred
and the board appointed me as
coach," Waqar said in an interview.
"Unfortunately after the World
Cup 2015 Sethi never met me and
despite me pointing out several
issues I was facing in unfolding my
plan no one in the board listened to
me," he said.
"Now they are trying to blame
me for everything. They want to sack
me. I can go tomorrow. But if things
continue this way in Pakistan cricket two years down the line some
other coach would also find himself
in a similar position," he added.
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0?Q 10A24;>=0
ristiano Ronaldo scored late for 10-man
Real Madrid to snatch a 2-1 comeback
win at Barcelona and revive its slim
hopes for the Spanish league title on Saturday.
Madrid ended Barcelona's Spanish
record unbeaten streak at 39 games across
all competitions with its first come-frombehind win at Camp Nou since 1965,
according to STATS.
In Zinedine Zidane's first clasico as a manager, Madrid avenged
a 4-0 home loss to Barcelona it
endured under Rafa Benitez in
November by dealing the
Catalan club its first defeat
since Oct. 3.
On a night that
Barcelona honored Johan
Cruyff with a moving
tribute, it was Ronaldo
and Madrid's star forwards that outperformed Lionel Messi,
Neymar, and Luis
Suarez.
"There are some
things above winning and losing,"
Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniesa
said about Cruyff. "We were all thinking about him and we weren't able to
get the victory that we wanted."
After a lackluster first half,
Barcelona's Gerard Pique opened the
scoring with a header in the 56th.
But after Karim Benzema equalized
six minutes later, instead of staying
true to the trademark ball-possession
style that Cruyff instilled at the club,
Barcelona lost its hold of the match and
went on fruitless charges forward.
The up-and-down flow played to
Madrid's favor, and Ronaldo slotted in
the winner off a counterattack in the
85th, moments after Madrid's Sergio
Ramos received a second booking.
"Even before Ramos' sending off,
there were five minutes when we didn't have control of the match," Pique
said. "I don't know if we got tired, but we
couldn't find a way to attack."
The big win kept Madrid in third place,
one point behind Atletico Madrid after its
5-1 win over Real Betis, reducing the
deficit with Barcelona to seven points with
seven rounds left.
C
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Given the considerable gap and dwindling chances to overtake both frontrunners,
Madrid's best shot at silverware still rests in
the Champions League, where it will play
German side Wolfsburg on Wednesday.
"First, we have to overtake Atletico
Madrid because we are still third, and then
we will see what happens," Zidane said.
"What I can say is that winning here is a huge
reward for our players. It's very important for
our morale, and just before we play a game
in the Champions League in Germany."
Despite the loss, Barcelona's quest to
repeat its rare treble of Liga, Copa del Rey,
and European Cup from last season remains
intact. Barcelona hosts Atletico in the
Champions League on Tuesday.
"Their first goal unnerved us and unfortunately we lost our first game at home" this
season, Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said.
"We have to shake it off and recover for the
Champions League, which will be a demanding match. We have to think that we are still
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the leaders with seven rounds left."
Before kickoff, Barcelona played a video
of many former players giving thanks to former player and manager Cruyff, who died
of lung cancer last week. The 90,000-plus
crowd responded with a long ovation, and
formed a huge mosaic with the message
"Thanks Johan" in Catalan while they sang
the club anthem before a minute of silence.
0?
The same message was also painted on the
side of the pitch and worn on the players'
shirts.
The intensity revved up after halftime,
and Keylor Navas had to dive and stretch to
turn Messi's crafty lobbed shot past his post.
From the resulting corner, there was nothing Navas could do to keep out Pique's pointblank header.
Madrid quickly leveled against the flow
of the match when Marcelo led a disorganized attack that undid Barcelona when Toni
Kroos' deflected pass fell to Benzema to
sweep in.
While Barcelona battled to regain command, Madrid mounted counterattacks.
Gareth Bale appeared to have scored but his
goal was waived off for a foul on Jordi Alba.
Moments later, Ronaldo sent a ball off the
top of the bar. Elsewhere, Valencia lost at Las
Palmas 2-1 in the debut of coach Pako
Ayestaran, while Deportivo La Coruna
drew at Celta Vigo 1-1.
)R[HVLQWRXFKLQJGLVWDQFHRIWLWOH
0?Q ;4824BC4A
eicester surged seven points
clear at the Premier League
L
summit by reeling off a fourth
successive 1-0 victory Sunday,
with Wes Morgan's first-half
bullet header seeing off
Southampton.
By netting his first goal of
the season, Morgan is a step closer to becoming the first Leicester
captain in the club's 132-year
history to lift the English
topflight trophy next month.
With another dogged defensive display and win, Claudio
Ranieri's team took full advantage of second-place Tottenham.
A year ago, Leicester was
seven points from safety stranded at the bottom of the standings
before embarking on an astonishing recovery.
Now backed by a sevenpoint lead, Leicester can afford
to lose two of its remaining six
games if it wins the other four.
There's already a celebratory
atmosphere at the modest central
England club. The late-season
recovery that saved the central
England team from relegation
improbably carried into this cam-
Leicester had a lucky escape
in the 32nd minute too when
referee Michael Oliver didn't
award a penalty to Southampton.
Sadio Mane broke through
and rounded goalkeeper Kasper
Schmeichel. His resulting shot
was blocked by Danny Simpson's
raised right arm but play was
allowed to continue. Like so
often this season, Schmeichel
rescued his team by tipping
away Jose Fonte's powerful strike
from 25 yards (meters).
Leicester's breakthrough
came in the 38th when Morgan
rose above Jordy Clasie to meet
Christian Fuchs' cross from the
left flank, sending a header
beyond goalkeeper Fraser Forster.
Forster was required to
make a fine save from his own
player to prevent Southampton
gifting Leicester another. Fonte,
;TXRTbcTa´bFTb<^aVP]!]S[TUcRT[TQaPcTbPUcTabR^aX]VPVPX]bcB^dcWP\_c^]Pc:X]V?^fTaBcPSXd\X];TXRTbcTa^]Bd]SPh 0? attempting to clear Danny
Drinkwater's deep ball, inadverSouthampton was the course with a strong work ethic tently diverted it toward the top
paign with fans already singing,
Premier League team trying to and togetherness encapsulated of the net before Forster scooped
"We're gonna win the league."
It's the fans who will be lav- break up the established order a by the word "fearless" that fea- it away. Cementing his credentials to be Joe Hart's England
ishing their owner with gifts if couple years ago. The south tures pitch-side.
Leicester was camped inside understudy, Forster thwarted
the pre-season 5,000-1 title out- coast club couldn't hold onto its
siders become one of the unlike- place in the top four though and Southampton's half for the open- Leicester again with five minutes
ing half-hour but couldn't man- to go, denying Jamie Vardy from
liest champions in English foot- cashed in on its stars.
a tight angle.
But Leicester is lasting the age a shot on target.
ball history.
2WXZZPb[X_bPcUX]XbWT]Sb"aS
?C8Q <80>;8278=4B4C08?48
back-nine meltdown saw S
Chikkarangappa miss out on a chance
to win his third Asian Development Tour
title, as he finished third here.
Chikk at one stage ran up a five-shot
lead after a stirring start of four straight
birdies on first four holes and was bogeyfree for 65 holes but dropped five shots,
including two double bogeys on 12th and
15th, to end with a round of 70 and a total
of 19-under for the week.
In
contrast,
Thai
Pavit
Tangkamolprasert birdied his last three
holes and caught up with local hero Lin
Wen-tang to get into a play-off. Pavit beat
Liun on the fourth play-off hole to claim
his fifth Asian Development Tour (ADT)
title at the $150,000 Charming Yeangder
ADT on Sunday.
Chikka settled for third place with
rounds of 68, 65, 66 and 70.
Another young Indian, Shubhankar
Sharma finished T-35th with a final
round of 74. He had rounds of 70, 68, 71
and 74.
Chikka's first error of the week, a double on 12th was followed by two birdies
right away but another double-bogey on
op Thai shuttler Ratchanok Intanon
pocketed her second Yonex-Sunrise
T
India Open Super Series title with a
15 and a bogey on 16 saw victory slip away
from his grasp as he signed for a 70 to finish one-shot back of Lin and Pavit at the
Charming Yeangder ADT, one of the richest events on the ADT this season.
Pavit, 26, signed for a five-under-par
67 after closing with three straight
birdies to force extra time with Lin, who
returned with a 69, as the duo were tied
on 20-under-par 268 total in regulation
play at the scenic National Golf and
Country Club.
only seven rounds remaining.
To add to Napoli's misery, top goalscorer Gonzalo Higuain was sent off following
two bookings. The Argentina international was visibly agitated and had to be dragged
off the pitch by fellow players.
Second spot is also in jeopardy as
third-place Roma moved to within four
points of Napoli after winning the derby
match against Lazio 4-1.
Bruno Fernandes gave Udinese the
lead from the penalty spot in the 14th
minute and although Higuain leveled with
his 30th goal in 31 matches, Fernandes
scored again on the stroke of halftime,
then Cyril Thereau sealed the result.
It could have been worse for Napoli
as goalkeeper Gabriel saved another
Fernandes penalty in the 26th minute.
Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri was sent to
the stands for his resulting protests.
Fiorentina's chances of third spot and
the final Champions League spot also
diminished as it was held to a 1-1 draw
by 10-man Sampdoria. It is seven points
behind Roma and just one above Inter
Milan, which hosts Torino later.
Milan, whose players were wearing
black armbands following the death of
former player and coach Cesare Maldini,
got off to the perfect start at Atalanta but
went on to lose 2-1, with home player
Mauricio Pinilla scoring a stunning overhead kick
Elsewhere, relegation-threatened sides
Frosinone and Palermo are further in
trouble after losing 4-0 and 3-1 at Genoa
and Chievo Verona, respectively.
It was a curious atmosphere in the
derby as fans from Roma and Lazio again
boycotted the match in protest at the security measures that split the Stadio
Olimpico "curve" — the ends of the stadium where the hardcore supporters sit.
Lazio had a number of regular players out through injury, especially at the
back and that had a part to play in Roma's
first goal as Stephan El Shaarawy was left
unmarked to head Lucas Digne's cross
into the bottom right corner.
Miralem Pjanic should have extended Roma's lead but his shot from distance
hit the right post.
Roma did double its lead shortly after
the hour when Diego Perotti's longrange strike crashed off the left upright
and substitute Edin Dzeko rushed in to
fire the rebound into the bottom right corner with his first touch, four minutes after
coming off the bench.
Lazio did get back into the match in
the 75th when Miroslav Klose headed
over the onrushing Szczesny and Parolo
tapped into the empty net. But goals from
homegrown Roma fan Alessandro
Florenzi and Perotti secured the points.
9^dQ^_^=_]_dQdbYe]`X
?C8Q =4F34;78
A
apoli's title hopes are all but over after
losing 3-1 at Udinese to leave it six
N
points behind Serie A leader Juventus with
straight-game victory over Olympic champion Li Xuerui in the the women's singles
final at the Siri Fort Sports Complex here
on Sunday.
In a clash between two former champions, it was Ratchanok who emerged victorious with a 21-17, 21-18 scoreline in a
matching lasting 42 minutes. It was her
fourth win over the former World No 1
Chinese in 11 meetings. Li had won the
India Open in 2012.
Japan's Kento Momota also won his
inaugural India Open title after seeing off
Denmark's Viktor Axelsen 21-15, 21-18
and sprawled on the court after hitting a
powerful smash which earned him the title.
It was Momota's fourth Super Series title.
Ratchanok, who lost to Saina Nehwal
in the final here last year, said: "Li has good
skills, she is a very attacking player. I had
to prepare well for this match. Idea was not
to make mistakes. The shuttle was very fast
today, so I played it like a doubles match.
My concentration was good. I was more
managed to distance herself and pocketed the opening game when Li hit long.
Things didn't change much in the second game with Ratchanok once again
zooming to a 7-1 lead. But the Thai girl
erred at the nets a few times before producing a smash from the back court to
move into the break at 11-6.
After the break, the fight continued but
Ratchanok managed to stay ahead at 1714. Li committed a lot of errors and hit
wide to allow the Thai to make it 19-15.
Another net error gave Ratchanok a
healthy four match points. The Chinese
saved two before Ratchanok closed a long
engrossing rally with a smash.
In a all-Japanese women's doubles
APcRWP]^Z8]cP]^]PRZ]^f[TSVTbcWTRa^fS
?C8 summit clash, Misaki Matsutomo and
focused. I kept telling myself that it is one Ayaka Takahashi beat Naoko Fukuman
more point and I should not commit errors.” and Kurumi Yonao 21-18, 21-18, while
Ratchanok, who had beaten Li at the Chinese pair of Lu Kai and Huang Yaqiong
Asia Championship to break her title defeated Indonesian combo of Riky
drought last year, played with soft hands and Widianto and Puspita Richi Dili 21-13, 2116 to win the mixed doubles title.
her deceptive strokes earned her points.
In the men's doubles, Indonesia's
Cheered by a packed vocal crowd, the
Thai girl opened up a big lead early on, Gideon Markus Fernaldi and Kevin
reaching 5-1 and kept her nose ahead at 11- Sanjaya Sukamuljo defeated compatriots
9 during the first interval. Li caught up with Angga Pratama and Ricky Karanda
her rival at 15-15 but Ratchanok once again Suwardi 21-17, 21-13 for the title.