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A
record 1.5 crore bank
accounts were opened
across the country in a single
day on Thursday as Prime
Minister Narendra Modi
launched his Government’s
mega scheme ‘Pradhan Mantri
Jan Dhan Yojana’, declaring it
was aimed at eradicating financial untouchability by providing bank accounts to the poor.
The gigantic exercise was
launched simultaneously at 76
centres across the country by 20
Chief Ministers and several
Union Ministers, including
Information Minister Prakash
Javadekar at Pune, Law Minister
Ravi Shankar Prasad at
Chennai, External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj at
Bhopal, Home Minister Rajnath
Singh at Lucknow and HRD
accidental insurance cover of
C1 lakh. Later the account holders will be provided an overdraft facility of up to C5,000.
“Mahatma Gandhi worked
to remove social untouchability and if we want to get rid of
poverty, then we have to first
get rid of financial untouchability. We have to connect
?aX\T<X]XbcTa=PaT]SaP<^SXUT[XRXcPcTbPQT]TUXRXPahPccWT[Pd]RW^UcWT?aPSWP]
every person with the financial
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9PXc[Th[^^Zb^]
?C8 system. And for that, this programme has been given impeMinister Smriti Irani at Surat. In said by January 28 next year it tus. When a bank account is
all, 600 programmes and 77,852 will cover 7.5 crore people, opened, it’s a step towards
camps were organised on the who will be provided zero- joining the economic mainfirst day to open bank accounts. balance bank account with stream,” he said.
Launching the scheme at RuPay debit card, life insurance
Modi regretted that even
Vigyan Bhawan here, Modi cover of C30,000 in addition to after 68 years of Independence,
not even 68 per cent of the population was covered by the
banking system.
Describing the occasion as
a festival to celebrate the liberation of the poor from a poisonous cycle Modi said: “Those
who open accounts by January
26, 2015, they will be given life
insurance cover of C30,000
over and above the C1 lakh
accident insurance. This will
help the family.”
In the third phase, he said,
these account holders would
also be provided micro-pension facility.
Continued on Page 4
Related reports on P2,3
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Transport Minister Anjan
Dutta, former DGP Shankar
Baruah and prominent singerfilmmaker Sadananda Gogoi.
The CBI teams also raided
the office of TV channel News
Live, owned by Himanta Biswa
Sarma’s wife Riniki Bhuyan in
Guwahati, and two other
premises, including a biscuit factory, in western Assam’s Dhubri
town. Set up by Saradha in 2010,
the factory was inaugurated by
Sarma, who recently resigned
from Gogoi’s Cabinet.
While singer-turned-filmmaker Sadananda Gogoi is
known to be close to Sarma,
Dutta is a Gogoi’s loyalist and
owns an Assamese daily that
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?C8 had tied up with Saradha group
for a brief period. In Assam, the
?=BQ 6DF070C8
mer Assam Ministers, a former CBI also searched the premisDirector General of Police es of promoter of Brahmaputra
=4F34;78:>;:0C0
(DGP), and a noted singer Jungle Resort Tridib Sarma, the
he CBI on Thursday con- besides eight others.
sources said. In a coordinated
ducted searches in conSeparate CBI teams, head- action, the CBI carried out
nection with the multi-crore ed by senior officers from New searches at 14 locations in
inter-State Saradha chit fund Delhi conducted searches at the Assam, including the premisscam at 22 locations in Assam, residences of Assam’s former es of Sarma and Dutta, agency
West Bengal and Mumbai, Health and Education Minister sources said in New Delhi.
including premises of two for- Himanta Biswa Sarma, former
Continued on Page 4
BC055A4?>AC4AQ =4F34;78
W
earing helmet is now
mandatory for women
riding pillion in the Capital,
except for those belonging to
Sikh community.
A notification in this regard
was issued on Thursday after
Delhi Lieutenant-Governor
Najeeb Jung had given go-ahead
to it. Transport Department’s
move came following Delhi
High Court’s order to amend the
law making headgear mandatory for all. However, Sikh women
were exempted from the rule
after their community strongly
objected to the move on
religion ground.
The Transport Department
had cited the risk involved in
case of accident while defending the decision. It said that the
move was prompted due to
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increasing number of accidents
on city roads and helmets will
go a long way in saving lives.
The Transport Department
in the communiqué stated that
many riders die every day on
city roads and helmets will help
save lives.
Continued on Page 4
WLHVZLWK%-3
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?=BQ =4F34;78
270=3860A7
he Kuldeep Bishnoi-led
Haryana Janhit Congress
T
(HJC) on Thursday called off
its three-year-old ties with the
BJP ahead of Assembly elections and decided to join hands
with former Congress leader
Venod Sharma’s Jan Chetna
Party (JCP).
The BJP accused HJC of
playing the role of a B-team of
the Congress in utter disregard
of the people’s desire for a
change in the State.
The BJP had earlier given
enough hints of the alliance
breaking if Bishnoi did not
scale down his demand for
nearly 50 seats in the 90-member Haryana Assembly and
going alone in the State where
it won seven of the eight Lok
Sabha seats it contested. The
HJC lost both the Lok Sabha
seats it contested in Haryana.
Bishnoi charged the BJP
with betraying his party
even though he “tried” to save
the alliance.
The development in
Haryana has created a flutter in
the ranks of the Shiv Sena, a
long-standing ally of the BJP,
which has sought to get a clear
picture on seat sharing in
Maharashtra. This time round,
the BJP is insisting on contesting half of the Assembly seats,
allowing lesser numbers to its
partner in the upcoming
Assembly polls. According to
an earlier agreement, the BJP
would contest more Lok Sabha
seats and the Shiv Sena would
be the dominant partner in
Assembly polls.
Responding to the situation in Haryana, the BJP refuted the charges that it betrayed
Bishnoi. “We have never
betrayed any ally... We wanted
him (Bishnoi) to understand
ground realities... He has left us
acting like a B-team of
Congress. He had six MLAs
and all of them, except for him,
joined the Congress. He is a
general without an army,” BJP
T
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he CBI is set to file
T
chargesheet
against
Dayanidhi Maran in the AircelMaxis deal case on Friday after
the Supreme Court on
Thursday turned down a plea
by the former Telecom Minister
to restrain the agency claiming
that investigation in the case
was not complete.
Top CBI sources said a
chargesheet is ready and it will
be filed before a designated
court here on Friday.
Maran’s lawyer made a desperate attempt to thwart the filing of the chargesheet.
Mentioning the petition before
a Bench headed by Justice HL
Dattu, senior advocate CA
Sundaram said, “I have my
apprehension that the investigation by CBI is not complete.
All I am saying at this stage is
to complete the investigation.
It will otherwise have huge
ramifications. It will be the
death of my reputation.”
Continued on Page 4
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T
he CBI on Thursday registered a Regular Case
against former Disinvestment
Secretary Pradeep Baijal and
other private persons for
alleged irregularities in the
disinvestment of ITDCowned Udaipur-based heritage category Laxmi Vilas
Palace hotel at an undervalued
price causing monetary loss to
the Union Government.
Detailed report on P5
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T
hey finally did it in a typical Brangelina fashion —
understated and very much
under the radar. Hollywood’s
most celebrated couple Brad
Pitt and Angelina Jolie finally
got married in France in a
small private ceremony at
Chateau Miraval, which they
own. Jolie walked down the
aisle with her oldest sons Pax
and Maddox, while Zahara
and Vivienne threw petals
and Shiloh and Knox served as
ring bearers. A spokesperson
for the couple disclosed
the news of their ‘secret’ wedding.
The private ceremony in a
small chapel was attended by
the couple’s six children and a
few close friends. In advance of
the nondenominational civil
ceremony, Pitt and Jolie
obtained a marriage license
from a local California judge.
The judge also conducted the
ceremony in France.
The two started dating
after meeting on the set of their
2005 film, Mr and Mrs Smith.
They got engaged in April
2012. At the time, they
described it as a “promise for
the future” and said they were
very happy to be engaged. Ever
since then the speculations of
their marriage were rife. Both
were open to talk about their
relationship and even made
public appearances like a couple very much in love.
The two reportedly said
that they would not get married
until “everyone else in the
country” had the right to get
married. But seems like the
wait was getting too long for
the couple.
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spokesperson Shahnawaz
Hussain said in Delhi, soon
after HJC announced breaking
of ties in Chandigarh.
Announcing the decision
to break the alliance with the
BJP, HJC chief Bishnoi,
younger son of former Haryana
Chief Minister late Bhajan Lal,
said at a Press conference in
Chandigarh that the party
which did not care for its own
stalwarts like AB Vajpayee and
LK Advani could not be trusted anymore.
Continued on Page 4
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New Delhi: Manipur Governor
VK Duggal on Thursday tendered his resignation, becoming
the ninth Governor appointed by
the UPA to quit since NDA
Government came to power.
“I have resigned on my own
volition,” said Duggal as he
resigned from the post. On
Tuesday, former Delhi CM Sheila
Dikshit too had resigned as
Kerala Governor. K Sankaranarayanan (Maharashtra), MK
Narayanan (West Bengal),
Ashwani Kumar (Nagaland), BL
Joshi (Uttar Pradesh), BV
Wanchoo (Goa), Shekhar Dutt
(Chhattisgarh), and V Purushothaman (Mizoram) are others
Governor to resign during the
last three months.
PNS
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A
fter streamlining the foreign tours of the Union
Ministers,
the
NDA
Government has now laid
down new norms for the foreign trips of bureaucrats. Now,
every tour by the officers will
have to be first cleared by a
Screening Committee of
Secretaries and then by the
Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
But before that the officers
have to give financial implications of the tour and outcomes
expected. The officers will also
indicate clearly whether their
previous tours got any results
and helped the Government
in any way.
The new directions on foreign tour are part of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s austere approach towards unnecessarily expenses on foreign
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visits. In fact, the Prime Minister
himself takes a very “lean team”
with him while travelling
abroad. His team comprises
only a handful of officers and
one or two Ministers.
Noting that norms for foreign visits were not being followed
properly,
the
Government has said that political clearances from Ministry of
External Affairs and Foreign
Contribution Regulation Act
(FCRA) clearance from the
Home Ministry are also
mandatory before going abroad
and certificates of such clearances have to be attached
before sending it to the
Screening Committee. The
Government has directed all
Ministries that the details of all
such visits should be uploaded
on the Ministry websites.
“In the recent past, it has
been observed that the instructions/guidelines related to foreign visits are not being followed
in right earnest,” an official note
from the Cabinet Secretariat
and Finance Ministry.
The note issued last month
by the Central Secretariat and
Finance Ministry has been circulated to all bureaucrats
specifically directing them that
their foreign visit proposals
must be routed through the
Integrated Finance Division of
Finance Ministry for prior consultation and before approval
from the competent authority
in the Ministry concerned.
Continued on Page 4
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T
he Dehradun district units
of Prathmik Shikshak
Sangh (PSS) and Junior High
School Shikshak Sangh have
suspended their indefinite
strike call they had given against
the irregularities in the
inter-district transfers of the
teachers. The teaching federations decided to suspend their
agitation after written assurance
from the Primary education
director that no inter district
transfer on the promotion posts
of teachers would be done.
On Thursday large number
of teachers of Primary and
Upper Primary schools of district assembled at the education
directorate in the morning and
started their Dharna.
The senior Congress
leader and Doiwala MLA,
Hira Singh Bisht said that
teachers should not be unduly harassed in the name of
transfers. Addressing the
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teachers the district President
of PSS, VS Krishali said that
the department in the inter
district transfer of teachers do
not take care of the policy
which prohibits transfers in
the promotion posts of Head
Primary school, Assistant
teacher Upper Primary and
Head Upper Primary. He said
that such inter district transfers mar the promotional
aspects of the teachers posted
in the district. The Senior
Vice President PSS, SC Kukreti
1*7ZDQWVFLYLF
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he National Green Tribunal
has ordered the respondent
T
Municipal Council, Pauri and
others to make sure that the
concerned officers of the
Government and the Council
are present before the tribunal
during the next hearing
slated on 2 September while
dealing with a writ petition of
Ashok Thapliyal, president of
the Himalayan Environment
and Employment Cooperative
Society Ltd, Pauri on
Wednesday.
The National Green
Tribunal Principal Bench, New
Delhi had directed the respondent Municipal Council, Pauri
to submit in writing within 14
days of the last hearing that the
land meat for the disposal of
garbage and waste products
was rightly earmarked. The
councillor of Municipal
Council, Pauri had informed
that the description of land
would be submitted within the
stipulated period.
However, Himalayan
Environment and Employment
Cooperative Society Ltd, Pauri
president, Ashok Thapliyal told
The Pioneer that on 27 August,
the councilor of municipal
council had not submitted the
affidavit regarding the information of the land meant for
the disposal of garbage and
municipal waste products. “But
they gave information only
about the number of the plots,”
he added. The petitioner said
to the tribunal that the garbage
and MSW are being disposed
off in the residential areas and
panchayat forest well in the
town Pauri.
Thapliyal had filed the petition in the NGT in 2013, in
which it was stated that the people are agitated over the
Municipal Solid Waste generated in the city of Pauri being
indiscriminately disposed of
without following the Municipal
Solid Waste Rules 2000.
Mention worthy, improper
disposal of garbage is a major
problem in Pauri town. Despite
repeated claims and promises
by the Municipal Council president Yashpal Benam, nothing
has come up on the ground to
allay the fear of the common
people over the matter.
demanded that the teachers
posted in the inaccessible areas
of Chakrata and Kalsi for a
long period of time should be
transferred to the vacant positions in the accessible schools
of district. The district
President of Junior High
School Shikshak Sangh Anant
Solanki said that the hardworking and honest teachers
are feeling depressed when
those with suitable approach
get desired postings in the
accessible schools.
The Primary Education
Director DS Kunwar assured
the teachers that the department is in process of incorporating suitable amendments in
the guidelines of the transfers.
He also said that the appointment of newly recruited
teachers would be made in the
inaccessible schools of
Chakrata and Kalsi blocks and
teachers posted for a long time
there would be brought to the
accessible schools.
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C
andidates contesting the
election of Deputy Gram
Pradhan post may submit their
nomination papers to their
respective gram panchayat headquarters on Friday.
According the district
administration, Nainital, the
candidates may submit their
nomination papers between 10
am and 11 am on Friday, while
scrutiny of the nomination
papers will be done between 11
am and 12 noon the same day,
added the officials. The candidates may withdraw from the
fray between 12 pm and 12.30
pm the same day, the officials
concerned informed.
Then symbols will be allocated to the candidates from
12.30 pm to 1 pm also the same
day. After these formalities
are over polling will be held for
the deputy gram pradhan election from 1.30 pm to 3.30 pm
to be followed by counting of
votes from 4 pm onwards,
informed the officials concerned of the Nainital district
administration.
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anpower is such an
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without
its
energetic
contribution, organisations can
hardly grow, said SK Dubey,
Chairman, CII Kumaon Zone
and VP & Plant Head,
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd,
Rudrapur. He said so while presiding over the valedictory session of the Uttarakhand
Preliminaries of the 27th QC
Circle Competition 2014
organised at Rudrapur by
Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII). The preliminary
competition this year has been
extended to Rudrapur and it
will be a regular annual feature,
it was stated.
Explaining the importance
of Quality Circles, Dubey said
in today’s context of global
competition, Indian Industry
cannot help looking at delivering quality better than that of
Japanese and costs less than
that of Chinese. This is what
should be the true spirit of QC,
he said, adding that QC Circle
teams play a very important
role in involving a wide cross
%DQNVKHOSSHRSOHRSHQDFFRXQWVLQ'RRQ
?=BQ 347A03D=
nthused by the Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s
E
call to provide every household
with a bank account and insurance cover under his dream
scheme-Pradhan Mantri Jan
Dhan Yojana, several nationalised banks hosted camps on
Thursday across Dehradun to
enable the people, particularly the unprivileged ones, who
are still without bank accounts
in their names, to open special
savings accounts under the
scheme. The scheme was
launched on Thursday across
the country with Narendra
Modi leading the campaignchristened as 'Sabka Sath
Sabka Vikas'. It is touted as an
ambitious financial inclusion
scheme meant to provide every
household with a bank account
and insurance cover.
Krishana Nagar branch of
Bank of Baroda hosted such a
camp in Deep Lok Colony in
the town to ensure the participation of the neighbourhood
people in the programme.
According to the chief manager of the branch, Dinesh
Pant, over one hundred and
fifty people from the neigh-
?=BQ 347A03D=
he laxity of police in conT
trolling drunken driving
is resulting in spate in cases
<;07PaQP]b:P_^^aSXbcaXQdcTb_PbbQ^^ZbPccWT[Pd]RW^UcWT?aPSWP]<P]caX9P]3WP]H^YP]PX]3TWaPSd]^]CWdabSPh
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bouring localities like Syeed
Mohalla, Loharwala and the
like opened special savings
bank accounts under the
scheme on Thursday. “Our
target is 400 in four days,” he
said. “The response was electric. We asked them to continue transactions through
their newly opened accounts
for six months to avail of other
lucrative facilities that would
follow. We dwelt on the plan to
deposit C2,000 in each account
by way of overdraft facility if
the account holders need
money for children’s education
or similar purposes-the only
condition being that they
would have to keep their
accounts alive for six months.
After that, if the accounts
remain working the overdraft
facility amount would be
increased further. We also
enlightened them on other
features of the scheme like
routing of subsidies and other
financial benefits to the economically weaker sections of
the society through these
accounts,” he added.
One Manju Devi, a resident from Suman Nagar, said
after receiving the pass book
that she was overwhelmed.
“The passbook has given
me confidence in myself,”
she added.
Among others, the
local MLA, Harbans Kapoor
was present.
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T
he elections for the
positions of Deputy
Pradhans in the village panchayats on Friday would mark
an end to the elaborate election
process of the three tier panchayati raj system in state
which was held in all districts
of Uttarakhand barring
Haridwar.
The deputy commissioner
State Election Commission Ajit
Singh said that all the preparations for free and fair elections have been made. He
informed that the election
process would be completed in
one day only. The nomination
for deputy Pradhan would be
from 10 am to 11 am, the
scrutiny of the papers would be
from 11 am-12 noon while the
contestants can take back their
names from 12 noon to 12.30
pm and the symbols would be
allotted from 12.30 to 1 pm.
The elections if required would
take place from 1.30 pm to 3.30
pm and the counting of votes
would occur from 4 pm.
The results would be
announced on the same day
after the counting is over.
According to the information
available from the SEC the
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polling parties have reached to
all the villages where the elections would be held by
Wednesday afternoon.
The deputy Pradhans in
the 7,657 villages of 89 blocks
of 12 districts of the state
would be elected from among
the newly elected ward members of the village Panchayat,
these members would also
form the electorate for this election. Reports suggest that the
elections for almost half of the
positions of Deputy Pradhans
would be unanimous due to
consensus among the ward
members of village Panchayat.
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D
inesh Dhanai, State
Tourism Minister, held a
meeting on Thursday at the
Uttarakhand
Tourism
Development Board headquarters to discuss about how
to make the World Tourism
Day attractive. The Minister
said the theme of the World
Tourism Day would b e
‘Tourism and Community
Development’. The event
will be celebrated involving
the common people, other
stake holders of the
tourism business, hotel associations, investors, and the
Government and non-government agencies that
have interests and stakes
in tourism.
Keeping in mind the
emotional attachment of the
people with Uttarakhand
Tourism, he invited views
and suggestions from the people across the board to develop tourist places across the
state to mark the World
Tourism Day. The best view
and suggestion will be dis-
played in the upcoming oneday programme, he added.
They are trying to ensure
the presence of the Chief
Minister, Harish Rawat in the
inauguration ceremony, the
minister said.
This aside, the two- day
programme to be held on 9
and 10 October 2014 at Tehri
figured in the meeting. The
Union tourism minister,
Shripad Naik is likely to preside over as the chief guest.
Para gliding, parachute
jumping, rafting, hot air balloon ride , laser show and
water sports will be a part of
the upcoming event to be
performed by experts from
the fields and officials from
the Indian Air Force. During
the meeting Tourism secretar y Umakant Panwar,
additional secretary Tourism,
Shailesh Bagauli, additional
director Uttarakhand Tourism
Development B oard AK
Dwivedi, joint director UTDB
Ram Chander Bhardwaj and
its deputy director VS
Chauhan were also present
along with other officials.
accidents associated with
them. In two separate cases
involving drunken driving on
late Wednesday night and
Thursday 2 am, three people,
including two women, died
while a dozen sustained
injuries.
The f irst incident
occurred near Nanda Ki
Chowki area when a high
speed car stuck many vehicles
which resulted in death of a
student of polytechnic college
and injury to 10 people. In the
second incident an apparently drunk group collided their
car on an electric pole after
hitting the road divider on the
Mussoorie- Dehradun road
near the National Institute of
Visually
Handicapped
(NIVH). The collision resulted in instant death of two
women passengers while two
seriously injured men are battling for life at the Max
Hospital. According to the
district police four people
were returning f rom
Mussoorie when their car
met with an accident. The
police said that the deceased
included one Kathelina
Edward a resident of Dakra
(Dehradun) while the identity of other dead women is yet
to be established. The medical
examinations of two injured
youths have confirmed that
they were under the influence
of alcohol at the time of the
accident. The injured youths
are Aditya Choudhary resident of Chaman Vihar,
Dehradun and Akash Arora
who is a resident of Kashipur.
Two gory accidents which
happened within hours of
each other have exposed the
laxity of police to check
drunken driving. Though the
police are equipped with
devices like alcometers it
rarely uses them to apprehend
the drunken drivers. Though
the police have taken measures like formation of the
City Patrol Unit (CPU) to
improve traffic regulation,
the condition of the traffic in
Dehradun continues to deteriorate. Traffic congestion
and traffic accidents have
become common occurrences
in the State capital with the
authorities failing to take
effective measures for tackling
these problems.
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S
section of the employees in any
organisation for bettering quality. “They are a critical enabler
for sustained growth and also
to face the international competition,” he stressed while laying emphasis on quality being
seen in a holistic perspective
that involves development of
skills, productivity and quality
of four aspects- man, machine,
method and product- through
cumulative process of training,
work experience, brain storming sessions and active participation. Quality Circle has
emerged as a mechanism to
develop and utilise the tremendous potential of people for
improvement in the product
quality and the productivity,
he said.
Dubey gave away the trophies to the winning teams.
Prayas team from Maruti
Suzuki India Ltd, Gurgaon,
won the trophy for the first
position. Prarambh team from
Minda Corporation Ltd,
Pantnagar emerged as the 1st
Runner-up followed by Surya
Kiran team from Lumax DK
Auto-Industries Ltd as the 2nd
Runner-up. The top three
teams will now participate in
the Regional Final as a prerunner to the national competition.
Aura team from Bharat
Electronics Ltd, Ghaziabad,
Breakthrough Performer team
from Gabriel India Ltd and
Parwanoo and Toppers team
from Maruti Suzuki India Ltd,
Gurgaon received the
Consolation Prizes.
The panel of Judges comprised Sandeep Jain, Plant
Head, Varroc Engineering Pvt
Ltd, Rudrapur, Basabdutta Jana,
AGM Central Quality, TATA
Motors Ltd, Pantnagar and
Ashutosh Sharma, Senior
Manager, Support Services,
Bajaj Auto Ltd, Rudrapur.
The programme was
attended by delegates from
within and outside the State to
get inputs for initiating Quality
Circles in their organisations.
Over 75 participants, comprising workmen, quality, HR and
plant heads from Industry,
attended the competition.
ociety
for
Health
Education & Women
Empowerment Awareness
(SHEWA) Jakhan, Dehradun
has school stationary along
with books distributed among
around 100 children by Dr
Gaurav Sanjay.
Dr
Sujata
Sanjay,
Gynecologist at Sanjay
Or thopedic
Spine
&
Maternity Center said that the
aim of the society is to raise
awareness among women and
children over health-related
issues. Keeping this into view,
over 40 free health camps
have been hosted in the past
one year in which awareness
has been raised regarding
female health issues and distribution of free medicines for
the common ailments.
The society has also been
regularly conducting public
awareness programmers and
CME regarding female health
issues. Dr Sujata Sanjay said
a female can help in the
development of the society
only if she is healthy.
A number of pregnant
women were present in the
programme. They were also
counselled, free of cost, it is
learnt. Children were advised
to consume green leafs vegetables and milk products in
sufficient quantity. Almost
2000 patients have been benefited through these free
camps in the past hosted by
SHEWA, it was claimed.
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L
aunching a scathing attack on the State
Government for failing to control the
activities of mining mafia in Uttarakhand
the Leader of Opposition in the State
Assembly Ajay Bhatt has said that the State
is virtually being ruled by the mining, land
and liquor mafias. He said that the mining mafias in the State are emboldened as
the police are not taking any action on
them. Bhatt said that people belonging to
this mafia have become so daring that they
even attempted to run down Sub
Divisional Magistrate (SDM) in
Vikasnagar. In a statement released to the
media Bhatt stated, “The mining mafia has
become so brazen and its activities are
being carried out so blatantly but the police
is unable to keep a tab on such illegal activities. On August 27, the lackeys of the mining mafia tried to run over two youth riding a two-wheeler while a car narrowly
escaped being hit. Why are the authorities
remaining silent and inactive when it
comes to the blatant criminal activities of
the mining mafia? This proves that the
mining mafia is working in connivance
with the State Government,” he said.
The LoP said that the mining mafia
had tried to run over the sub divisional
magistrate at Vikasnagar on August 23 but
till date no action has been taken against
the culprits. The position of the common
people can only be imagined considering
the lack of official action against those trying to intimidate Government officials.
“On the one hand the State’s Chief
Minister talks for forming a team to act
against the mining mafia in Uttarakhand
while on the other hand the officials are
being stopped from taking any action
against the mining mafia. That no concrete
action has been taken so far to stop the
activities of the mining mafia proves that
illegal mining is being continued with
the support of the State Government,”
he alleged.
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U
nion Minister for Women
and Child Development
Maneka Gandhi said that the
Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan
Yojana will help in bringing residents of remote areas into the
banking system. A total of 14
crore families are being linked
with the banking system
through this scheme, she said
while launching the scheme
along the Chief Minister Harish
Rawat and others in Dehradun
on Thursday.
The Union Minister said
that the people will be able to
derive various benefits on opening their accounts in banks.
They will have access to insurance, debit card and C5,000
overdraft facility in addition to
which they will also get direct
benefit of various Government
department schemes in their
accounts through direct cash
transfer. Regarding the recurring
disasters in the State, Gandhi
said that her Ministry will accord
priority to any proposal the
State Government sends for the
welfare of the disaster affected
women and children of
Uttarakhand.
Speaking on the occasion,
the CM said that there is connectivity problem with BSNL in
Uttarakhand which needs to be
resolved in order to enable
banks to open accounts within
the stipulated time period. The
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Union Minister assured him
that she would apprise the Prime
Minister about the problem
being faced in the State. Rawat
said that the State will provide
all possible assistance for ensuring the success of the PMJDY.
Officials concerned have been
issued instructions to assist bank
officers in the identification of
target beneficiaries. Rawat said
that a financial inclusion programme had been started in
2011 for connecting all families
to the banking system. Taking
this effort ahead, the campaign
has now been launched for providing additional benefits for
opening bank accounts. As part
of the scheme at least one
account will be opened per
family across the nation. It is
good that Uttarakhand has also
been chosen for the launch of
this scheme, said Rawat. He
informed the Union minister for
Women
and
Child
Development that people in the
remote areas of the State still
have to struggle in order to meet
their fundamental needs. The
social sector has an important
role in the development here, he
said, while also expressing hope
that the Women and Child
Development minister will
accord priority to the State in its
schemes. "The PMJDY is a welcome step but in a State like
Uttarakhand with difficult
mountainous terrain, the lack of
proper connectivity is still a
major problem. Lack of mobile
phone and internet connectivity could pose a problem in the
implementation of the scheme,"
he said, while requesting the
Union Minister to direct BSNL
through the Government of
India to facilitate mobile phone
connectivity in areas where it is
not available at present. There is
need for adopting a more flexible attitude for opening bank
branches in the mountainous
regions. This will help those
without access to banking facilities benefit from this scheme
and become part of the development story. The CM
expressed happiness at the fact
that 1,500 camps were held
across the State on Thursday for
opening bank accounts of
PMJDY beneficiaries and
stressed that the State will provide its full cooperation in this
national mission.
?=BQ 347A03D=
he Rashtriya Jan Sahay Dal
(RJSD) has demanded the
T
resignation of Chief Minister
Harish Rawat on the grounds
that the affidavit he filed with
his nomination papers in the
Dharchula assembly bypolls
earlier this year was invalid as
it was verified in New Delhi but
stamped by a notary
of Pithoragarh. The
registration number
of the notary as stated on his stamp does
not tally with
Government records,
said RJSD national
head Rajiv Gupta
while addressing the media
here on Thursday.
According to Gupta, the
affidavit of the CM was verified
at New Delhi on June 30, 2014
but stamped by a notary named
DS Bisht of Pithoragarh with
registration number 9379.
“According to the Government
records the registration number 9379 is of notary Ajay
Rathor of Pithoragarh and not
of Bisht as stamped in the
CM’s affidavit. A notary named
Dhan Singh Bisht has registration number 9378 but he is
authorised to work only in
Pithoragarh. These anomalies
make the CM’s affidavit invalid
and should have been rejected
during scrutiny after his filing
the nomination papers.
The RJSD demands that
the Chief Minister
take responsibility
for submitting an
invalid document to
the returning officer
while filing nomination and resign.
We also demand that
the chief electoral
officer book a case against the
CM for submitting a false
document to a government
officer while action should
also be taken against the
returning officer concerned
for not doing his work properly,” said Gupta. RJSD organisation secretary VK Jain,
general secretar y Aseem
Kumar and others were also
present on the occasion.
Ua^\?P]c]PVPaPXa_^ac
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he State Government
which is desperately seekT
ing investment in the industry sector to boost its dwindling economy, does not seem
to be concerned about offering a level playing field in
terms of basic infrastructure
to the investors in the state.
To have regular flight from
Pantnagar airport in Udham
Singh Nagar has always been
on the top of the charter of
entrepreneurs' demands.
However, the State
Government seems to have
badly failed to run a regular air
transport service from the
Pantnagar airbase in Terai
pocket of Udham Singh Nagar.
What is worrisome is that
despite the persistent demand
from the entrepreneurs and
other sectors, including
tourism, for regular flights
from the Pantnagar airport,
no regular air service from
this airport has come up after
the private run Kingfisher air
service was suspended about
three years ago.
Mention worthy, a state
like Uttarakhand badly needs
better air connectivity. It can
come handy not only to
provide modern and fast
transport services to the people, particularly the commercial sector, but can also prove
to be useful in dealing with
disaster like situations during
the critical times.
The demand for regular
flights is being persistently
raised by the entrepreneurs of
SIIDCUL located in Udham
Singh Nagar. If the State
Government is serious to
boost the industrial sector in
the State it must put in place
the basic infrastructure facilities like better transport services, including air connectivity, said Darshan Kumar, an
entrepreneur, adding that
regrettably enough, nothing is
coming up on the matter. A
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M
ember of Parliament, Garhwal, Maj Gen
(Rtd) Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri launched
the Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana in a camp
hosted in the Srinagar municipal council premises in Pauri district on Thursday. Twenty different
banks, including HDFC, Syndicate bank, SBI, PNB,
ICICI, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Almora Urban
Bank, Uttarakhand Gramin Bank and Nainital
banks had their camps staged for opening the
accounts under the scheme. These twenty banks
had opened 12,911 saving accounts in all under
the scheme in course of these camps in Srinagar.
A large number of interested people were seen
thronging around these banks in rural areas in
Pauri district. Addressing such a camp, Khanduri
thanked all the banks for coming forward to open
accounts of thousands within a short span of time.
He hoped that with the cooperation of banks, the
number of saving accounts being opeed under the
scheme will increase in the rural areas.
nscheduled load-shedding
for nearly three to four
U
hours continues to hit normal
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aking umbrage at stateT
ments being made by exof f ice b earers of the
Uttarakhand
Pradesh
Congress Committee and
party leaders contradicting
the party line, the PCC chief
Kishore Upadhyaya has
clarified that the PCC executive was automatically
dissolved on his being made
the PCC chief. In case of any
complaints, the party leaders
should raise the issue with the
Uttarakhand PCC or the
Congress high command in
stead of making statements in
the media that stoke
controversy.
It is pertinent to mention
here that on Wednesday the
Uttarakhand Rajya Nirman
Andolankari
Samman
Parishad vice chairman and
ex-PCC
spokesman
Dhirendra Pratap had said in
the media that Uttarakhand
Governor Dr Aziz Qureshi
should resign from his post.
Earlier, Cabinet Minister
Harak Singh R awat had
opposed the cabinet decision
of putting a cap on foreign
tours by cabinet ministers
and bureaucrats while MLA
Subodh Uniyal had also made
a statement in the media that
had elicited focus on differences within the Congress in
Uttarakhand.
State Congress chief coordinator Jot Singh Bisht said
that according to the PCC
chief, statements made in the
media by various senior party
leaders and office bearers of
the previous PCC executive
are not only contradicting
each other but are also
against the approved policy of
the party.
“Taking cognisance of
this, the PCC chief has asked
all party leaders and former
office bearers to keep in mind
before making a statement in
the media whether their statement is in line with the party’s
stance and in the interests of
the party. If there is any doubt
they should discuss it with
their seniors or the party
leadership before issuing a
statement,” said Bisht. He further informed that since
Upadhyaya’s was made the
PCC chief, the new PCC
executive has not b een
formed yet. Coordinators
have been appointed as an
interim
arrangement.
Journalists have been requested to confirm whether any
party leader making statements is holding the post
concerned while television
news channels have been
requested to seek approval
from the State Congress head
office before inviting anyone
to represent the party in live
shows or debates.
F40:6?E>49>7A>2:B
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racks and dislocation of
rock pieces developing in
the founding rocks of the
historic Shri Purnagiri Temple
situated in Champawat
district in Uttarahand have
raised concern.
The cracks developing in
the founding rocks of the Shri
Purnagiri Temple are not new.
Weakening of the founding
rock came to light about eight
years ago.
Though there is no immediate danger to the temple and
its surroundings from these
developing cracks as the officials concerned of the
Champawat district administration maintained, given
Uttarakhand's fragile geographical composition, finding an early solution to the
development is a need of the
hour, as experts here believe.
They further maintained
since cracks or dislocation of
the rock pieces are being
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found on the founding rock of
the temple during the past few
years, the treatment of the
cracks is necessar y to
stabilise the temple area and
for the safety of the pilgrims
visiting the sacred place in
huge numbers.
Despite the fact that the
development is not threatening enough for the present
efforts are on to repair the
founding rock of the Shri
Purnagiri Temple, said B C
Pant, Executive Engineer,
Civil
Circle,
PWD,
Champawat, while talking to
The Pioneer.
Many agencies like IIT
Rurkee, NHPC, National
Institute of Rock Mechanics
(NIRM), Central Building
Research Institute (CBRI), to
name a few, have already visited the site to study the
cracks, added Pant.
Opinions have been
sought from some reputed
organisation for treatment of
the cracking of the founding
rocks of Shri Purnagiri
Temple, informed the officials
concerned of the civil circle,
PWD, Champawat.
Notably, Shri Purnagiri
Temple, located on top of a
hill, at an altitude of 770.00
meter, along the Sharda river
bank, is about 24 km away
from the nearest railway station Tanakpuar (i.e. about 21
km by road and about 3 km
on foot) and is one of the
famous religious places in
Uttarakhand in north India
which lakhs of devotees visit
every year.
S
Nayal,
Divisional
Commissioner (Kumaon) said
the matter regarding commencement of regular flight
from Pantnagar airport would
be taken up with the
Government, while echoing
the entrepreneurs’ demand
for the same. Since SIIDCUL
is also located in the same area
the regular flight from this airport would help the industrialists a great deal, he said.
Regular air service from
the Pantnagar airport will not
just help boost the tourism
industry but it would also provide better transport connectivity to the entrepreneurs, the
Commissioner of Kumaon
maintained.
At the same time, he also
asked the officials concerned
of the Pantnagar airport to
equip the airport with
necessary basic infrastructure
so as to entice the private
aviation to evince interests in
air ser vices from the
Pantnagar airport.
he Congress has set a tarT
get of enrolling about 7.5
lakh new members as part of
its State membership campaign 2014-17. As per the
schedule fixed by the All India
Congress Committee, the
State member campaign will
be undertaken in four stages,
said the campaign chief
coordinator Sunderlal Muyal
while addressing the media
here on Thursday.
Muyal expressed hope
that considering the results of
the recent Vidhan Sabha
bypolls and panchayat elections in Uttarakhand, the
party is confident of meeting
its membership target in the
State. In the first stage of the
membership campaign, new
members enrolled for a fee of
Rs five will be made till
December 31 this year after
which the district Congress
committee will publish the
primary list of members by
January 15, 2015. Objections
2^]VaTbbBcPcT\T\QTabWX_RP\_PXV]RWXTUR^^aSX]Pc^aBd]STa[P[<dhP[
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will be taken by the DCC
scrutiny committee by January
22 which will be addressed by
January 31 while challenging
the decision of the district
committee in the State election authority by February
10 which in turn will address
these appeals by February 20.
Decision of the State author-
ity can be challenged in the
central authority by March 2
which in turn will address
these by March 15 after which
the final list of those wanting
to stand election to the district
Congress committee will be
published by March 25. The
executive of the primary committees will be formed
between April 1 and 31, 2015
which will mark the end of the
first phase. The second phase
from May 15 to 31 will focus
on the block Congress committees, the third phase from
June 7 to 27 will consist of the
elections of the district
Congress committees’ heads,
vice chairpersons, treasurers
and executive, while the
fourth phase will be held from
July 5 to 31.
Muyal said that with
AICC vice-president Rahul
Gandhi making it mandatory
for photographs of newly
enrolled members to be
attached with the membership
form, there is less scope for
anomalies in the membership campaign. The Congress
has 18 organisational districts
and 158 organisational blocks
in the State, he added. State
membership campaign cocoordinators Tika R am
Pandey and Vipul Jain along
with PCC media coordinator
Surendra Singh Arya were
also present on the occasion.
life in different parts of the
region for the past few days.
The electricity supply that
went off around 1 pm on
Thursday could be restored
only around 4 pm in different
parts of the Haldwani city.
Some of the parts of the
Haldwani city including
Gasgodam Road, R K Tent
House Road, Kushumkhera,
Kaladhungi
Road,
Kamaluwaganja, to name a
few places, were reported to be
hit by the unscheduled power
cuts on Thursday.
With unscheduled power
cuts becoming a routine affair
here for the past few days, low
voltage damaging the electric
appliances has only added to
the woes of the citizens.
More so, delay in rectifying the fault in electricity distribution system has compounded on the plight of the
citizens.
According to the figures
provided by the Uttarakhand
Power Corporation Limited
(UPCL), whereas gross availability of power in
Uttarakhand is around 34.59
million unit (MU) per day i.e.
about 16.14 MU per day from
domestic sources, about 13.72
MU per day from Central
pool and rest about 4.73 MU
per day from other sources, the
demand for power has gone up
to 38.36 MU per day in the hill
State.
Though rainy season is
now at its fag end high atmospheric temperature coupled
with humidity has added to the
demand for electricity.
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Uttarakhand
Government is planning
T
to introduce free pathology
tests in the Government hospitals of the State soon but the
attitude of the Government
doctors suggests that scheme
is bound to meet the fate of
free medicine scheme which
was introduced last year. The
doctors of Doon Hospital and
Doon Women’s Hospital here
show
unwarranted
magnanimity on the private
pathology labs as they suggest
patients to get the tests done
from there even though the
hospital laboratories are
adequately equipped for
almost all types of tests.
The laboratories of the
Government hospitals do
pathology tests at very less
amount and Below Poverty
Line (BPL) patients are not
required to pay any charge for
these tests also. This correspondent visited many wards
of these hospitals and was surprised to see the open nexus of
the private laboratories and the
doctors. The agents of these
private labs openly roam the
wards of the hospital and col-
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lect samples. When confronted by this correspondent one
of the sample collector conceded that they take the samples and provide the report in
the ward itself. Father of an
admitted child said that the
doctors have advised the test of
malaria and suggested him to
get it done from outside. He
claimed that the phone number of the sample collector of
private lab was provided to
him by the hospital staff. One
of the doctors of the hospital
said that they suggest the tests
from outside only when they
are not available in hospital. He
claimed that many patients
do not have faith in the hospital labs and insist on tests
from outside.
The in charge of the
pathology laboratory Doon
Hospital, Dr N K Mishra told
The Pioneer that hospital lab is
very advanced and four pathologists and ten technicians are
working in it. Dr T R Joshi who
is serving the lab after his
retirement as additional
Director Health services said
that hospital lab is best among
the district hospitals of the State
and the team of Medical
Council of India (MCI) in its
recent visit appreciated the
facilities of the laboratory. The
Chief Medical Superintendent
(CMS) of Doon Women’s hospital Dr Chandra Pant told The
Pioneer that hospital laboratory is adequately equipped and
strict action would be taken
against those doctors who are
found to suggest tests available
in the hospital from outside.
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pbeat with the bye-election
results in Bihar, RJD chief
Lalu Prasad has stepped in and
put his weight to gel a similar
bloc in Jharkhand as well.
Yadav under his social engineering formula has been the
architect of the ‘grand alliance’
that brought even his
arch rival Nitish Kumar on a
single platform.
The intervention is in order
to soften the stiff Jharkhand
Mukti Morcha (JMM) a bit.
The JMM is said to be blocking all the possibilities to coming together with Babulal
Marandi-led JVM for
assembly polls.
Sources privy to the development has confirmed to The
Pioneer that Lalu before going
for his heart surgery had contacted JMM top brass and also
to the JVM leadership. “He
stressed that talks involving all
the parties-JMM, JVM and
Congress-can be and should be
done for forming a greater
alliance to counter the BJP in
Jharkhand. Though no breakthrough has been achieved yet
as he had been admitted in the
hospital in Mumbai,” said a top
leader of the JVM.
Lalu’s RJD is in alliance
with Congress and JMM and
running the Hemant Soren
Government in the State. It
thinks that all the parties in the
anti-BJP camps should come
together in order to stop the
‘secular’ votes to be divided. His
calculations based on caste
equation in Bihar can be
marked as successful as the
‘grand alliance’ bagged six out
of ten seats and reduced the
BJP-led NDA to just four. The
number has not gone down
well into the BJP camp, especially after better than spectacular show in the parliamentar y elections a few
months ago. JVM on its part is
still open to any such understanding reached but also aware
about the practical problem the
‘grand alliance’ may have in
store. “We are in fact still in
talks and open to make our
party a partner in the alliance.
Some informal discussions
with a few Congress leaders
have also taken place. But what
we perceive is that JMM has
certain problems in coming
together with us which put
Congress in a dilemma,” said
JVM legislative body leader
Pradeep Yadav.
Sources in the Congress
confirmed that the party was
burning midnight oil to bring
all anti-BJP forces on a single
platform but finding the sailing
tough with the JMM. The
Shibu Soren’s party considers
JVM as its long term rival in
the State politics and at the
same time is confident about a
good show during Assembly
polls banking on its traditional vote bank.
“We are not going to budge
under pressure from anyone
and shake hands with the JVM.
It is next to impossible. If
Congress wants to come along
it is up to them otherwise we
are ready to walk even alone,”
said Supriyo Bhattacharya,
JMM general secretary.
In all this, chances are that
the JVM may find itself lonely
as Bandhu Tirkey-led TMC
with Madhu Koda and Anosh
Ekka would chose the JMM
headed huddle in Jharkhand
over the JVM’s.
From Page 1
In Kolkata, the agency searched the
premises of one Bapi Karim, who was a
personal assistant to a Minister, industrialists Sajjan and Sandhir Agarwal, a former IPS officer Deben Biswas and one Asif
Khan.
The CBI also searched the house of
Bapi Karim a Trinamool leader and former CA of State Transport Minister
Madan Mitra and reportedly seized various incriminating documents.
Karim considered a powerful link
man in the Trinamool scheme of things
was grilled by more than 8 hours in two
phases even as a CBI official said, “His not
giving answers to some questions while
some of his statements are inconsistent.
We may call him again.”
The name of Madan Mitra who was
now admitted in a city hospital with chest
problems had repeatedly come up in the
media for his reported link with Saradha
kingpin Sudipto Sen.
According to sources, CBI had come
to know that Karim used to frequent
Saradha headquarters at Midland Park.
“He normally came after 8 pm and left
with some packets,” a sources quoting
other witnesses grilled by the CBI said,
adding Karim was on Thursday asked to
reveal whether Mitra had any dealings
with Sen and how despite being a CA he
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From Page 1
“I believe that when a person opens a bank account,
then he or she takes the first
step to get connected with the
economic system. Today 1.5
crore families got connected
with the economic system.
This will give a boost to the
economy,” he said.
Modi said six months after
opening the account the
account-holder would be able
to get a loan of C5,000 from the
bank.
The Prime Minister said
the nationwide success of the
enrolment drive would give
confidence not just to the officials of the Department of
Financial Services and banking
sectors, but also to officers
across the Union Government,
that they can successfully
achieve the goals that they set
for themselves.
“Never before has the
Government of India organised
a programme of such scale —
over 77,000 locations — with
the participation of so many
Chief Ministers, Union
Ministers, Government and
bank officials,” the Prime
Minister said.
Asserting that the scheme
would also help in fighting corruption by plugging leakages in
the Government subsidy
scheme, Modi said it was easy
for the rich to get a loan at low
interest rates but the poor were
forced to seek loans from
moneylenders at five times
the rates.
He said a breakthrough
was required to overcome the
vicious cycle of poverty and
debt, and that a breakthrough
had been achieved today.
He said there were similarities between the poor getting access to mobile telephones, and getting access to
debit cards. They both had the
effect of instilling confidence
and pride among the poor,
he added.
“Now, the poor would be
able to do normal bank transactions through non-smart
phones as well because of the
introduction of new technology by the National Payments
Corporation of India,” he said.
While the existing banking
network would be geared up to
open bank accounts of the
7T[\Tcb\dbcU^af^\T]
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From Page 1
“All agencies, including the Ministry of
Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH),
Delhi Traffic Police and Delhi Commission for
Women, have supported the move,” said a
Transport Department official.
uncovered households in both
rural and urban areas, the
banking sector would be
expanding itself to set up additional 50,000 business correspondents, more than 7,000
branches and more than 20,000
new ATMs in the first phase, he
said.
Meanwhile,
Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley said
around 58 per cent of the population of the country had
bank accounts. “In simple
words it means there are still 10
crore families that are away
from banking services as they
do not have access to banking
services, they are also deprived
of means of savings,” he said.
The ultimate motive of this
scheme is that no family should
be deprived of this service,
he added.
The Finance Minister said
mobile banking for the poor
would be available through
National Unified USSD
Platform for which all banks
and mobile companies have
come together.
Normal bank transaction
can be done through any phone
across the country, he added.
The transport department had on May 2
sought suggestions from people on the issue.
The Sikh community registered its strong
objection. Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management
Committee had written to the LieutenantGovernor to exempt Sikh women from wearing helmets as it would hurt their religious
sentiments. Some Muslim groups have also
demanded the same relief for burqa-clad
women riding pillion in the Capital.
However, the Government only granted
relief to the Sikhs.
From Page 1
The officials will also have to answer a 19point Foreign Travel Proforma (FTP) elaborating on their foreign tour. Earlier, they had to fill
a 12-point proforma that broadly touched upon
the expenses and relevance of the foreign tour and
did not seek much detail. But now, possibly to
make foreign tours more result oriented than just
a junket, the new format questions in detail the
purpose and outcome out the tour besides seeking details of sponsors, expenditure etc.
The officers will also have to give details of
the tour report of his/her last foreign visit indicating quantified outcomes, including tangible
and non-tangible benefits from the tour. An officer’s case will be forwarded to the screening committee only if he/she has replied to the proforma “satisfactorily”, failing which the proposals will
be returned unprocessed by the Department of
Expenditure, says a note by Sudha Krishnan, joint
secretary in Ministry of Finance, Department of
Expenditure.
The FTP has to be accompanied with enclo-
+-&VQDSV
From Page 1
“We tried our level best to
keep the alliance working... made
sincere efforts...They (BJP) are
not ready to stick to the agreed
alliance principles,” Bishnoi said
at the Press conference , adding
that his party would join hands
with former Union Minister
Venod Sharma’s JCP before the
State polls. JCP chief Sharma
made it clear that the HJC chief
would be the chief ministerial
candidate of the new alliance,
and if voted to power, he would
serve as Chief Minister for a full
five-year term. The formal parting came after a bitter spat
could own a fleet of cars. The numbers of
all the cars had been taken.
He has also been asked whether the
two international football matches organised by Madan Mitra who was also the
State Sports Minister had any link with
Saradha funds.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee, who was speaking at a
Trinamool Congress Chatra Parishad
rally in Kolkata, said his party and the
Government was ready to cooperate with
the CBI if they probed the scam in a proper manner. Though she would not say
what a “proper probe” meant to her, she
said, “The CBI is welcome and they will
get all cooperation but they should conduct the probe properly.”
The CBI officials as well as
the top bureaucrats in Assam, however,
remained tight-lipped over the issue
and only said that the CBI headquarters
in New Delhi will circulate a formal
Press note once they wind up the
operation.
Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister
Tarun Gogoi while reacting to the raids
conducted by the central agency, said that
it was the State Government, which had
handed over the chit fund cases to the CBI,
including that of Saradha in 2013 much
before the Supreme Court entrusted the
investigating agency to probe the scam.
sures, including invitation letter, agenda,
brief/country position duly approved by the competent authority along with clearances from MEA,
PMO, MHA, etc. Detail information relating to
support, if any, from the sponsoring organisation
to cover the cost of visit and certificate that the
composite delegation has not been split and the
nodal Ministry or its division concerned has been
consulted on the matters covered by the visit,
they add.
Besides, all proposals for foreign travel seeking approval of the Screening Committee of
Secretaries have to be forwarded by the Additional
Secretary and Finance Adviser of the Ministry to
the appropriate authority and not by any
other officer.
“The time-lines for submitting proposals to
the PMO and Screening Committee of Secretaries
are at least 10 days and 15 days respectively, before
the date of departure. In case a proposal is delayed,
condonation of delay from PMO/Cabinet
Secretary must accompany the proposal,” the
note said.
On return from the tour abroad, the leader
of the delegation/official concerned, besides
submitting the tour report, will also have to submit a separate note summarising the major
achievements of the visit, follow-up action needed and the way forward.
between the parties over seatsharing and the chief ministerial nominee.
Bishnoi said the “BJP wants
to weaken and wipe out the
regional parties. They make use
of regional parties to make
themselves strong and later
dump them”. He said there was
no longer any “Modi wave” and
things are always different during the Lok Sabha polls and in
the State polls. “We will go to the
people and let them decide what
punishment they want to give to
those who have betrayed us,”
Bishnoi said.
BJP spokesperson Hussain
mocked Bishnoi’s “delusion” of
becoming the State’s Chief
Minister, and said the HJC leader
was acting in connivance with
Haryana Chief Minister
Bhupinder Singh Hooda. He
said Bishoi would not succeed in
“dividing votes” and check the
“Modi-wave” in Haryana.
Hussain said the relations
between the two parties had
soured during the Lok Sabha
polls itself when BJP rejected
Bishnoi’s proposal to field Venod
Sharma as a candidate. At the
Press meet, also attended by JCP
chief Sharma and other HJC
leaders, 45-year-old Bishnoi said
“Haryana is the land of
Kurukshetra, the land famous for
doing justice. The very basis of
our party coming into existence
(in 2007) was that we stood up
to fight against injustice.”
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lood of leaders from various political parties and
prominent personalities across
the state has become a new
reason to worry for workers
and leaders of the BJP in
poll-bound Jharkhand.
Though the fierce contest for
seats is yet to begin in dozens
of prominent constituencies,
the long-term loyal BJP leaders are wary of the party’s
strategy for seat allocation
ahead of polls.
Right from Tamar MLA
Raja Peter to Bokaro MLA
Samresh Singh, as on date the
state BJP is full of local stalwarts, who made entry in the
party after the historic win in
the Lok Sabha elections and
there are perhaps more candidates than needed to contest
on the strongholds of the
party, feel party leaders.
Some seats including
Ranchi and Hatia of the
national capital are set to see
an intense competition among
several leaders – almost all
claiming to have strong base
in the constituencies.
If one considers four-time
MLA from Ranchi Assembly
seat CP Singh would get a
walkover one may be wrong.
There are over half a dozen
leaders eyeing the most
favourable seat of the party.
Sources revealed that a number of prominent faces associated with the party directly
or indirectly were ready to
claim their stake, though none
were ready to come out in
open.
Former Minister and exMLA from Hatia constituency Ramji Lal Sarda said that
the influx of new-faces in the
party has definitely increased
and there were strong contenders for the Hatia seat but
that would not deter him
from making a claim for the
seat.
“Hatia is my natural claim.
I was defeated by 25 votes in
the 2009 Assembly polls and
therefore I am not at all bothered about the new entrants.
The party leadership has to
take care of it. I have made the
central leadership aware about
my claim for the seat well in
advance,” Sarda said acknowledging that there were strong
contenders before him for the
Hatia seat.
Recognising intensity of
competition for seats in this
Assembly polls, senior leader
and former Speaker of
Assembly CP Singh said that
there was no ‘crowd control
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mechanism’ formed by the
party yet. However he said
that it was too early to say anything about the issue and the
party seniors were capable
enough to take “prudent decisions”. Party insiders, however, revealed that the candidates
having a blend of expertise,
youthfulness and strong base
in their respective constituencies are likely to be
favoured by the central leadership. “Just being a former
minister of MLA with a backing of someone influential
will not work out this time,”
said a leader.
Gogoi said that the State Government
had handed over the CBI to probe 15 chit
fund cases, including that of Saradha.
Gogoi said that out of the 15 cases, the CBI
took up two cases only. “Much before the
apex court asked the CBI to probe the
Saradha scam, we had entrusted the
investigating agency with the chit fund
cases, including that of Saradha,” he said.
“The State Government had handed
over the cases to the CBI so that the duped
poor investors get back their hard-earned
money and those involved in the scam
could be brought to book,” he said.
“Nobody should be spared in connection with Saradha and other chit fund
scams. The guilty must be punished,” he
said.
Sarma was once the most trusted lieutenant of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi until
he fell out with him. He had allegedly
spearheaded the campaign to dislodge
Gogoi.
“The CBI officials examined documents pertaining to ads that Saradha gave
us,” said News Live executive editor
Paragmoni Aditya.
After raiding the residence of Barua,
the CBI officials took the former DGP to
an SBI branch and examined his bank
accounts. Asked by journalists as to why
his house has been raided, Barua refused
to make any comment.
<PaP]´bQXSc^bc^_218
From Page 1
The bench, also comprising
Justices SA Bobde and Abhay
Manohar Sapre, dismissed the
petition as being “premature”. It
said, “How can you (Maran) say
that charge sheet is incomplete
and defective. You cannot ask
us to grant a negative prayer
against filing of charge sheet.”
The court was of the view
that such recourse was available
to the accused after the filing of
charge sheet. “You can come
before us later to seek quashing
of charge sheet on this ground.
But granting an injunction on
filing of charge sheet is impermissible in law,” the court said.
Sundaram accepted the
option given by the court to
withdraw the petition, but
claimed that the 2G special
court did not have the power to
hear the case relating to AircelMaxis deal as it had nothing to
do with allotment of 2G
licences issued during the peri-
od of A Raja as Telecom
Minister.
CBI had started preliminary enquiry into the AircelMaxis deal on January 4, 2011
and on October 9 registered the
FIR. CBI told the apex court in
September last year that it has
completed its probe against
Maran. It had in July, 2011,
placed a status report in the
court stating that during 200407 when Maran was Telecom
Minister, S Sivasankaran was
coerced to sell the stake in
Aircel to Maxis Group. Soon
after Maxis takeover, the licence
came through.
The CBI found evidence
against Maran on two counts.
He was found guilty of showing
“undue favour” to benefit
Malaysian firm Maxis in award
of spectrum licences during
2004-07 and also in coercing
Aircel owner Sivasankaran to
sell off the company stake to
Maxis.
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H
undreds of guardians and
social workers formed a
human chain under All India
Guardian association to register
their protest against ragging of
Adrash Singh in Scindia School.
The association demanded
cancellation of Scindia School’s
recognition by the CBSE and
arrest of principal and vice
principal. It was alleged that
police are avoiding action
against Scindia School
management.
The senior students of
Scindia School had ragged
Adrash Singh, son of Bihar’s
Cooperative Minister. Following
this, he tried to commit suicide
by hanging himself. The school
management hid the case of raging but after two days the case
came to light. The district
administration ordered action
against the guilty school management. Police took action
against the students guilty of
raging and staff for hiding the
fact. But no action was taken
against the school’s principal and
vice-principal. Leading the
human chain RTI worker
Sudhir Sapre said that the police
are trying to save the principal
and vice principal. Sapre said
that the police does not take
action the agitation would be
intensified.
In another incident with the
outset new session of AMITY
University influential students
took raging of two junior students. The case related with high
profile
persons
so
university management is tried
to suppressed it.
The Raghavan committee
had recommended that the
names of anti-ragging committee members and their
mobile numbers should be
displayed at every campus
before the session begins,
counseling of the students
should be made but no board
was displayed. An assistant
professor of university
Rajneesh Jain said that no
incident of ragging had taken
place. It is only a rumour. The
SSP Gwalior Santosh Kumar
Singh said that the case of raging is an internal matter of the
university. The university
administration has to take the
action in the matter. If we
receive any complaint we will
take necessary action.
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huge cache of explosives
and other material
A
dumped by Maoists was
recovered from the Aundhi
area of insurgenc y-hit
Rajnandgaon district on
Thursday.
The explosives and other
items was dumped in the jungles by Maoists with plans to
use them for attack on the
security personnel, police said.
The dump included 20
kg of gelatin rod kept in packets, 25 kg of Ammonium
Nitrate, 5 kg of explosives, five
detonators, 23 batteries, one
hand grenade, three binocu-
lars, three solar plates, electric
wire and Maoist literature.
The material was hidden
under ground by the Maoists
near the jungles of Amakodo,
Peetemeta and Nideli villages
under the limits of Aundhi
police station area, police said.
Acting on a tip off, a joint
team of Indo Tibetan Border
Police (ITBP) and District
Police (DF) carried out a
search operation and
unearthed the explosives.
Police said that they had
received inputs about Maoists
including the Secretary of
Rajnandgaon-Kanker Border
Division Committee Vijay
Reddy and Satish Kopa planning an attack on security
forces in Manpur, Kodka,
Sitagaon and Aundhi areas of
the district.
It was since then the ITBP
and District Police had
launched an intensive search
operation in the district.
It was during the search
operation the dump was
recovered, police said. Calling
it a major success, police said
that the seizure of dump will
be a setback for the insurgents
desperately looking for an
opportunity to carr y
out attacks.
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T
he CBI on Thursday registered a Regular Case against
former Disinvestment Secretary
Pradeep Baijal and other private
persons for alleged irregularities
in the disinvestment of ITDCowned Udaipur-based heritage
category Laxmi Vilas Palace
hotel at an undervalued price
causing monetary loss to the
Union Government.
Besides Baijal, the CBI has
named then Managing Director
Ashish Guha of Delhi-based
Lazard India Ltd and Kantilal
Karamsey Vikamsey, Proprietor
of Mumbai-based Kanti
Karamsey & Co. While Lazard
was a Financial Advisor at the
Ministry of Disinvestment,
Karamsey was an Evaluator
appointed by the ITDC. An
authorised agent of Delhi-based
Bharat Hotels Ltd, unknown
Government and private persons have also been named in
the case, CBI sources said.
The accused persons have
been booked for offences relating to criminal conspiracy and
cheating and offences under the
Prevention of Corruption Act.
“It was alleged that during
the period 2001-02, M/s Laxmi
Vilas Palace Hotel, Udaipur, a
Heritage Hotel & one of the
units of Indian Tourism
Development Corporation
(ITDC), Department of
Tourism, Govt of India, New
Delhi spread in 29 Acres of
prime location land with 54
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rooms with all accessories was
first drastically undervalued and
then sold/disinvested to a Private
Hotel situated at Barakhamba
Road, New Delhi at a price of
C7.52 crore (approx),” a CBI
spokesperson said.
“However, as per then DLC
(District Level Committee) rates
of land in which the said hotel
situated was allegedly C151
crore (approx) and in this way,
an alleged loss of C143.48 crore
(approx) was caused to the
ITDC, Department of Tourism,
Govt of India, New Delhi,” the
spokesperson added.
After registration of the
case, the agency also conducted
searches at four places in New
Delhi and Mumbai and recovered incriminating documents.
The agency sources said
the market rate of the property at that time was estimated to
be C280 crore. The hotel is
located in one of the best locations in Udaipur.
Apart from undervaluation by the Mumbai-based
company that was not an
approved valuer, the ITDC
also downgraded it by citing
decreased occupancy in 200102 when the 9/11 terror attacks
had happened in the US.
While Karamsey had valued the property at C45 per
square foot, the then prevailing
market rate was between
C1,000 and C2,000.
In 2002, the Cabinet
Committee on Disinvestment
had approved the disinvestment of this hotel and ITDC
owned other two hotels namely Qutab Hotel and Lodhi Hotel
in New Delhi. The reserve
price fixed by the Cabinet
Committee for the Laxmi Vilas
Hotel was C6.12 crore and same
was sold for C7.52 crore.
The Preliminary Enquiry
(PE) was registered in 2013
during UPA rule and there were
protests by Opposition BJP that
this was a move to target former
Disinvestment Minister Arun
Shourie. Shourie was examined
by the CBI as part of the PE.
WZHHWVLQ-DSDQHVH
?=BQ =4F34;78
development of
Varanasi on his mind and
With
his ambition to build 100 smart
cities, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi will make Kyoto his first
stopover during his tour to
Japan, starting Saturday. In
Kyoto, the PM will see how the
model of the Japanese heritage
city that also has modern amenities can be replicated back home.
Kyoto, the former Capital of
Japan, is also known as City of
Ten Thousand Shrines.
The city despite having
been destroyed several times by
wars and fire has managed to
preserve its old monuments
and shrines and yet grown to
be one of the smart cities of
Japan. “Kyoto is an example of
cultural tradition and modernity, dovetailing PM Modi’s
own vision of building 100
smart cities in the country,” said
Syed Akbaruddin, spokesperson for Ministry of External
Affairs (MEA) while explaining
why the PM chose Kyoto as his
first stopover of the Japan visit.
In Kyoto, Modi will meet the
Governor and Mayor of the city.
The Mayor of Kyoto will also
make a presentation highlighting
the city’s effort to preserve its heritage even while adopting
modernity and living with cutting edge technology. Varanasi is
Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency.
PM will also visit the famous
Togi temple, Japan's tallest pago-
New Delhi: In order to connect with the people of Japan, Prime
Minister Narendra Modi tweeted in Japanese for the first time on
Thursday. Helped by a team of Japanese volunteers with the translation, the PM in an eight-tweet series said he was excited to meet
his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe and termed Japan a timetested friend of India. “I see the Japan visit as an opportunity to
take our ties with Japan to a new level and increase cooperation
in various fields … Have very warm memories of visiting Japan
as a CM. The hospitality & the immense scope for cooperation
left a deep impression in my mind. The scale of innovation & level
of precision among the people of Japan is admirable. Both our
nations can learn a lot from each other. Am particularly excited
to meet PM Abe. I deeply respect his leadership & enjoy a warm
relationship with him from previous meetings,” Modi tweeted,
sending out his personal “konnichiwa” or greetings.
8=3807
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da, and the centre for stem cell
research in Kobe to see the coexistence of such contracts in one
city. MEA officials said the PM
plans to pick some ideas to
develop Varanasi on a somewhat
similar model.
As a special gesture,
Japanese premier Abe will fly
down to Kyoto to receive the
Indian PM who has chosen
Japan for his first bilateral visit
outside the South Asian subcontinent. PM will be in Japan
from August 30 to September
3 during which he will have an
“extremely substantive” agenda.
India has “great expectations”
that the tour will help the
strategic and global partnership
between the two nations reach
a new level during the visit.
While Modi will have wideranging talks with Abe and
meet other leaders, agreements
in the fields of infrastructure
development, civil nuclear,
defence and rare earth materials are also likely to be signed
during the PM’s tour.
8]SXPD:Y^X]WP]Sbc^X\_a^eT
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?=BQ =4F34;78
T
?aTbXST]c?aP]PQ<dZWTaYTTX]cTaPRcbfXcWbcdST]cbUa^\7^^VW[h<^WbX]2^[[TVTPcAPbWcaP_PcX1WPeP]X]=Tf3T[WX^]CWdabSPh
he vagaries of South-West
monsoon in the country
may get more predictable with
weather experts from UK and
India joining hands to improve
forecast by using atmospheric
research aircraft and ocean
gliders to gather fresh data in
the region.
According to Met scientists, the initiative will improve
understanding of the physical
processes of the South Asian
monsoon and their improved
representation in weather and
climate models. The data collected will be more detailed and
accurate than ever before. The
research will begin in 2015 and
is expected to last between
three-five years. Each project
will be led by one British and
one Indian researcher.
The British team will be
headed by Hugh Coe
(University of Manchester),
?C8 Andy Turner (University of
Reading) and Adrian Matthews
(University of East Anglia).
Their Indian counterparts are S.
Suresh Babu (Indian Space
Research Organisation), GS Bhat
and PN Vinayachandran (both
from Indian Institute of Science)
The South Asian Monsoon
research programme will
receive combined funding of
around 8 million pound from
the Natural Environment
Research Council UK,
Ministry of Earth Sciences and
the UK Met Office.
Monsoon is very important
in determining livelihood patterns in the country. It is also a
very important part of the global climate system. “This major
new UK-India research initiative
4027?A>942C
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on the monsoon is a great example of how both the countries can
work together to tackle global
challenges,” said the experts.
According to India
Meterological Department
(IMD), Northwest may get little
relief from the persisting humidity and heat following drop in
temperature by 2-3 degrees C
accompanied by stray rainfall
during the next three days.
However, heavy to very rainfall
has been forecast in the South
including coastal Andhra,
Karnataka, Konkan and Goa.
Between August 31 to September
4, heavy showers are also expected in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh,
Chattisgarh and Odisha.
*DGNDULXUJHV3DVZDQWR 4YRefcgVUZT`_eVdedGRcUYR_ddeReV^V_e
KHOSEHWWHUF\FOLVWV¶VDIHW\ S
?=BQ =4F34;78
?8>=44A=4FBB4AE824Q
=4F34;78
o improve safety and
reduce accidents of onT
road cyclists, Minister for Road
Transport and Highways Nitin
Gadkari on Thursday asked his
Consumer Affairs counterpart
Ram Vilas Paswan to update
norms pertaining to bicycles
and make application of reflective tapes mandatory.
In his letter to Paswan,
Gadkari has stressed the need for
fixing retro reflective tapes on
certain parts of the bicycles to
make them visible at night times.
“Bicycle users are among the
most vulnerable road users, susceptible to high rate of road acci-
dents,” said Gadkari in his letter.
“In the year 2012 alone,
about 6,600 cyclists were killed
in road accidents. Poor visibility of bicycle riders due to lack
of proper reflective devices
installed on bicycles, is major
reason for the high rate of accidents with motorised vehicles,” he said.
The Ministry of Road
Transport and Highways has
been working closely with
Department of Consumer affairs
and Bureau of Indian standards
to improve safety of bicycles and
ensuring its compliance in the
manufacturing of bicycles and
getting it mandated through
quality control order.
The Ministry of Roads has
also provided the quality standard for retro-reflective tapes
for use in automobiles.
“The campaign to fix
reflective tapes on bicycles free
of cost for easy spotting of
cyclists by drivers of other
vehicles at night is the joint initiative of the International Road
Federation (IRF), and Ministry
of Road Transport and
Highways
(MoRTH),
Government of India is already
on in Delhi and likely to be
taken to other major cities
including
Chandigarh,
Ludhiana, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kochi,” said KK Kapila,
Chairman, International Road
Federation (IRF), a global body
working for better roads.
anjiv Chaturvedi, who was
recently unceremoniously
removed as the Chief Vigilance
Officer (CVO) of AIIMS, has
contested Union Health
Minister Harsh Vardhan’s statement that he was not qualified
for the post. He said that the
CVC did not either reject or
oppose his appointment as the
CVO of AIIMS, as claimed by
the Union Minister.
“On the insistence of CVC,
the Union Health Ministry
had sent a panel of four people
by designation on December
24, 2012, which included my
name also, after which CVC
asked to send specific names.
‘Subsequent to this, the
Ministry again sent a panel of
three specific officers including
my name in March-April, 2013.
After that the CVC asked the
Ministry to send complete
ACR dossier and vigilance
clearance of the concerned
officers,” Chaturvedi said in his
letter to Vardhan.
“In response, the institute
had already sent vigilance clearance and other requisite information to the Ministry. Thus,
the matter is still pending with
the CVC which is yet to take a
final decision,” Chaturvedi
wrote in his letter.
He said that with a view to
influence decision making
process of the CVC, repeated
communications were being
issued to give an impression as
if his name has been rejected by
the CVC.
The Health Minister had
tweeted last week that
Chaturvedi had been twice
rejected by the CVC and that
his continuation as CVO of
AIIMS was “irregular and indefensible”. A day later, the
Minister said that Chaturvedi's
candidature was opposed by
the CVC in 2012 and 2013.
Soon after his removal
from the post on August 14,
Chaturvedi, has been contesting the move claiming that the
order bypasses the directions of
PMO and Civil Ser vices
Board's repeated commitments
to the parliamentary committee statuary approvals under
the AIIMS Act, 1956.
His current tenure was due
to last till June 2016. However,
following his transfer order
dated August 14, the Joint
Secretary and CVO of the
health ministry has been posted in place of Chaturvedi for
three months.
5hZgVUZhR_edj`f_XVcXV_VcReZ`_e`TR]]eYVdY`ed 2^P[VPcT) 218UX[TbR[^bdaT
?=BQ =4F34;78
D
ays after the BJP dropped
its tallest and veteran leaders from its Parliamentary
Board, its highest decision
making body, senior Congress
leader Janardan Dwivedi on
Thursday advocated a similar
line saying people in politics
should not continue in active
posts beyond 70 years of age.
“I am not saying that they
should retire, but the posts
which require a lot of running
around and physical capacity
should be held by people
younger. There are other responsibilities which elder leaders
can take up but they should keep
away from active posts,” he said.
The remarks of Dwivedi,
who is the general secretary in
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charge of the Organisation, come
close on the heels of the BJP
dropping Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
LK Advani and Murli Manohar
Joshi from the Parliamentary
Board and accommodated them
in the Margdarshak Mandal,
mentor’s group.
His comments have also
come at a time when there is
intense speculation about
imminent changes in the AICC
setup with the younger generation likely to call the shots and
leaders of Dwivedi's generation
likely to be replaced.
“Whatever the BJP has
done, why and with whom they
have done, it is their politics
and nobody should be com-
menting on the affairs of other
parties beyond certain limits.
Whatever has to be said on the
issue has already been said by
Congress, but I can give my
personal opinion. I have been
of this view for a long time that
there should be a timeline for
people in public life as it is in
other walks of life,” Dwivedi,
who will be 69 next month and
feels marginalised in the party
in the present scenario, said
while talking to reporters.
To a question on whether
he wants his 65 or 70 formulae
also to be applicable to 67-yearold Congress President Sonia
Gandhi, Dwivedi said, “The
post of Congress president has
been an exception in many
respects.” He pointed to
Congress Working Committee
resolution that no leader should
hold two posts but the
Congress president and Prime
Minister have been kept off it.
He, however, maintained
that posts like that of presidents
of political parties, President of
India, Vice President and Prime
Minister may be treated as
exceptions.
Dwivedi had earlier made
some controversial comments
like an economic criteria-based
reservation and Priyanka
Gandhi’s interest in politics.
Citing examples of various
other fields where elders hand
over the batons to younger team,
Dwivedi said, “Similarly, generational change is also necessary
in politics. After certain age, people should not live on active posts
in a political organisation”.
aT_^acPVPX]bc1Xa[P6a^d_
?=BQ =4F34;78
T
he CBI on Thursday filed a
closure report in the case
relating to the alleged irregularities in the award of coal blocks
to Aditya Birla
Group company
Hindalco citing lack
of evidence to prove
criminality against
the accused persons
and entities.
In its FIR, the
CBI had named
Aditya Birla Group
Chairman Kumar Mangalam
Birla, former Coal Secretary PC
Parakh, Hindalco and unknown
Government officials for alleged
criminal conspiracy and graft in
allocation of coal blocks in 2005.
According to the CBI FIR,
Birla and Parekh allegedly
hatched a conspiracy in later half
of 2005 where after Hindalco
was allocated a portion of
Talabira II coal block
in Odisha that was
reserved for PSUs and
already allocated to
Neyveli
Lignite
Corporation. About 50
per cent of the Talabira
II coal block was allocated to Hindalco on
November 10, 2005.
CBI sources said the closure report was filed as the allegations mentioned in the FIR
could not be substantiated during the probe.
With special focus of
Japanese success in education
sector, PM will visit an elementary school and deliver a
lecture in a college in Tokyo. He
will also inaugurate the
Vivekanand Cultural Centre
in Tokyo addressing the business community urging them
to invest in India.
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I
n a development which is
powerful enough to shake
the very foundations of Kerala’s
Congress-led
UDF
Government, the Special
Vigilance
Court
in
Thiruvananthapuram on
Thursday ordered a fresh probe
into the C200-crore Travancore
Titanium corruption case pertaining to the erection of a pollution-control plant.
As per the order, Chief
Minister Oommen Chandy
will have to be named as the
first accused in the case,
according to legal experts.
There are a total of 11 accused
in the case, including State
Home Minister Ramesh
Chennithala of the Congress
and Public Works Minister
VK Ibrahim Kunju of the
Muslim League.
Special Vigilance Judge
C74?A>14B7>D;31470=343
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John K Illikkadan asked the
Vigilance to start the probe
immediately and to submit the
report within four months.
The Opposition, which had
failed in forcing Chandy to
resign over the sensational
palm oil import scam and the
infamous solar scam, stepped
up its attack demanding immediate resignation of the Chief
Minister and the two Ministers.
Rejecting the Vigilance’s
earlier probe report exonerating Chandy, Chennithala and
others, the judge observed that
corruption had taken place in
the erection of the pollutioncontrol unit at the factory of the
public sector Travancore
Titanium Products Ltd at
Thiruvananthapuram eight
years back when Chandy was
heading the then UDF
Government.
The Special Vigilance
Judge, who also rejected the
Vigilance’s request to close the
case, said that the plant, for
which the then Chandy
Government had cleared a
C256.01crore draft proposal,
had been erected without the
required studies and disregarding the report of an expert
panel on the subject. “The
Titanium employees know
everything,” was Chandy’s only
comment.
The Vigilance’s earlier
probe report had said that
Chandy and others could not
be held guilty in the case, that
the maximum loss the plant’s
erection had caused was not
more than C80 crore and that
this could be recovered by selling the machinery purchased
for the purpose. The court
rejected these conclusions in
the probe report also.
As per the case based on a
petition submitted by a former
employee of Travancore
Titanium, there was corruption
to the tune of C200 crore
behind the erection of the pollution-control unit. An FIR
will have to be immediately
registered in which Chandy
may be named as the first
accused while Chennithala and
Ibrahim Kunju will be fifth and
sixth accused respectively.
The then Government
headed by Chandy had cleared
the C256.01-crore pollution
control unit scrapping a C108crore project proposed earlier.
Even before the project got
cleared, machinery worth C62
crore were purchased for the
project, which was totally wasted, according to the petitioner.
Demanding Chandy’s
immediate
resignation,
Opposition Leader VS
%-3IRUPV
KLJKSURILOH
WHDPIRU83
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money from their partners.”
BJP MP Chandan Mitra
he Bengal Opposition par- said the BJP strongly conties on Thursday went up in demned the statement wonrevolt against yet another rape dering whether the Trinamool
speech by a Trinamool leader Government would take any
this time an MLA and demand- action against him.
“Where such comments
ed his expulsion from the House.
In what could sound out- are passed off as small incirageous in a civilised world, dents can we expect action in
Dipak Halder a Trinamool this case.”
Reacting to the
MLA from Diamond
Harbour on Thursday ²A0?48B0= comments made by
Halder, BJP State prestended to pick up
064>;3
ident Rahul Sinha said
from where the party
CA038C8>=
MP Tapas Paul left a 0=3F>D;3 the “he has made a
statement befitting a
few months ago say2>=C8=D4 Trinamool leader.
ing rape was an ageC8;;C74
They have crossed all
old tradition and
would continue till F>A;3;8E43³ limits of decency and
decorum” adding it
the world lived.
Haldar told in a public was futile to call for justice from
meeting on Wednesday evening the Chief Minister who was herthat “rape was there earlier. It self a woman because she had
continues to be there today and refused to punish other party
it will remain in future as long men.
“We are into a jungle raj.
as the world lives.”
He did not stop there and Such types of comments can
went on to cast aspersions on only be made by a Trinamool
the women “who have lived leader. He should not be
with males for more than seven allowed to continue as an
years charge their partners MLA,” Sujan Chakrabarty forwith rape after they stop getting mer CPI(M) MP said.
Achuthanandan said that the
order of the Special Vigilance
Court was a big blow to
Chandy who had been trying
to somehow survive the palm
oil case. Observers said that the
court order would bring a serious crisis of credibility for the
Chandy regime.
“The probe should be
handed over to the CBI because
the Vigilance under the
Government cannot investigate the case impartially. In the
meantime, Chandy and the
other accused Ministers should
stay away from power. If he is
not doing that, the
Government will face intense
people’s agitation,” warned
Deputy Opposition Leader
Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
Ibrahim Kunju, who was
Industries Minister when the
alleged corruption took place,
said that it was not up to him
alone to decide whether he
should resign or not. “There
have been cases where people
had resigned and where there
had been no resignation,” he
said. State Congress president
VM Sudheeran said he had to
study the court order before
making any comment.
T
?=BQ ;D2:=>F
larmed by the by-election
results of Uttarakhand and
A
Bihar, the Bharatiya Janata
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Party has constituted a highprofile team to lead the party’s
campaign for the Uttar Pradesh
bypolls scheduled next month.
Yogi Adityanath, a successor of Mahant Avaidyanath
of Gorakhnath Peeth, along
with Union Minister Kalraj
Mishra and party’s State unit
president Laxmikant Bajpai
have been chosen by the party
high command to lead the
poll campaign in this politically sensitive State.
BJP State spokesperson
Vijay Bahadur Pathak said on
Thursday that a strong campaign team had been constituted by party for the bypolls.
Earlier, Kalyan Singh was
also included in the committee
but later his named was
dropped as he was made
Governor of Rajasthan.
%-36HQDWRUHYLVLWVHDWVKDULQJIRUSROOV
C=A067D=0C70Q <D<108
hough both Shiv Sena and
BJP are outwardly optiT
mistic of inking the seatsharing tie-up between them
within a week or so for the
forthcoming Maharashtra
Assembly polls, it is quite
unlikely that the two longterm saffron allies will be in
a position to do so. For, this
time around, the seat-sharing
negotiations between them
will not be as smooth as they
always used to be in the past.
For, fresh from its superlative performance in the Lok
Sabha polls which saw it win 23
of the 26 seats it contested in
Maharashtra (while Shiv Sena
won 18 out of 22 seats contested), the BJP has been hawkish in its approach in the seatsharing negotiations with the
Sena and so much so that it has
been pushing its long-term
saffron ally to dump the timetested seat-sharing Mahajan
formula evolved in the early
8=C74BC0C40BB4<1;H?>;;B
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?0AC=4AB70B0;F0HB144=) &
B78EB4=00=3 &19?
nineties for both the Lok Sabha
and Assembly polls.
As per the formula devised,
late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan
in consultations with Shiv Sena
chief Bal Thackeray, there was
a clear-cut understanding
between two saffron alliance
partners. As the per the understanding, the BJP was to be the
senior ally when it came to the
Lok Sabha polls, while the Sena
would be the senior partner in
the State Assembly polls.
As per the Mahajan formula, the BJP has over the past
several Lok Sabha elections,
contested 26 (out of 48 seats),
while the Sena has fielded candidates for the remaining 22
seats in the State. In the State
Assembly polls involving a
total of 288 seats, the seat-sharing formula between the two
saffron alliance partners has
always been: 171(Shiv Sena)
and 117 BJP.
However, in the 2009 State
Assembly polls, the Shiv Sena
made an exception and gave
two of its seats — one each at
the behest of late Gopinath
Munde and Nitin Gadkari —
to the BJP, thus making the
seat sharing formula 169
(Sena): 119 (BJP).
Ever since the Lok Sabha
poll outcome, a dominant BJP
has been pushing the Shiv
Sena to dump the old seat-sharing formula and give it more
number of seats to contest this
time around. In the beginning, the State BJP leaders
were insisting that Sena share
the total number of seats equally — 144: 144 with it. However,
it has now scaled down its
demand to 135 seats as against
the earlier claim for 144 seats.
The BJP has also been
angling for the Chief Minister’s
post — a post held by the Shiv
Sena when the two parties
ruled the State between 1995
and 1999 during which late
Gopinath Munde was the
deputy Chief Minister.
On its part, the Shiv Sena
is no mood to tie the BJP line.
It has amply clear to the BJP
that it would not spare more
number of seats than what is
due to it (117) under the timetested Mahajan formula.
While, the Shiv Sena lead-
ers have not only been vociferous in their rejection of the
BJP’s demand for a bigger seat
share but have also gone to
town saying that their party was
prepared to go it alone in the
polls, Sena president Uddhav
Thackeray has steadfastly
ignored the state BJP leaders’
clamour for bigger seat-share,
saying: “The BJP has so far not
made any formal demand for
more number of seats. Hence,
there is no question of my
reacting to their statements. If
such a situation arises, then I
will speak to the BJP’s central
leaders,” Uddhav has said.
Unlike in the past when
they would contest the polls as
a two-party alliance, the Shiv
Sena and BJP have cobbled an
alliance with four other smaller parties RPI (A), Raju Shettyled Swabhimani Paksha, the
Mahadeo Jankar-led Rashtriya
Samaj Paksha and Vinayajk
Mete-led Shiv Sangram –
which have come together as
“Maha-Yuti” (grand alliance).
PVPX]bc_a^UXcTPa]Tab)<XcaP
B0D60AB4=6D?C0Q :>;:0C0
he BJP has decided to
launch a massive moveT
ment to rejuvenate the Kolkata
and Haldia Port system and liberate it from the grip of corrupt
vested interests that had in connivance with some influential
politicians from Bengal’s ruling
Trinamool Congress been
sucking the Port’s economy
dry for the past several years.
Launching a frontal attack
against those responsible for the
gradual degradation of the
country’s only riverine port
system, BJP MP Chandan Mitra
on Thursday said, “the BJP
will launch a major movement
against the vested interest who
have been earning huge profits
at the cost of the Port’s exchequer” and “in utter violation of
the law of the land”.
In its endeavour to “rejuvenate and revive” the Kolkata and
Haldia Ports, the BJP will work
alongside all the labour unions
“because if the Port is saved, the
workers will be saved and if the
workers are protected Bengal
will be saved” Mitra added.
Coming down heavily on
the powers that be for conceiving “absurd schemes” for
the revival of the Port, he said
“instead of working on illogical and absurd schemes like
constructing harbours at the
sand-heads and then transporting the cargo to the main
port plans should be drawn up
for large-scale dredging” of
the shipping channel so that
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cargo-handling capacities of
these ports could be increased.
Speaking at a Port workers’
union meeting on Wednesday
Mitra had said how Kolkata
could cater to the large hinterland comprising Bihar,
Jharkhand, North-East, Nepal,
Bhutan etc. The Kolkata Port
system which was running on
profit till a few years ago was
currently incurring huge losses.
The sagging condition of the
twin ports had put the career of
thousands of workers and about
30,000 pensioners at stake. The
BJP is expecting to enlist the
support of this huge workforce
of the Port area in its attempt to
capture power 2016 elections.
Launching a scathing attack
0.$ODJLULERRNHGIRU
JUDEELQJWHPSOHODQG
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274==08
K Alagiri, former Union
Minister for Fertilisers
M
and Chemicals, who is also the
elder son of DMK chief M
Karunanidhi, has
been booked by the
Madurai Police in a
case of land grabbing.
According to
Madurai District
Police, an Assistant
Commissioner of the
Hindu Religious and
C h a r i t a b l e
Endowments Board has filed
a complaint with the police
alleging that Alagiri grabbed 44
cents of land belonging to
Goddess Mariamman Temple
at Sivarakottai for Dhaya
College of Engineering owned
by the family members of the
former Minister.
The police registered a case
of land grabbing against Alagiri
following the complaint. HRCE
is the Government body which
controls all the Hindu temples
in the State.
Though the Dhaya College
of Engineering was given recognition by the All India Council
of Technical Education (AICTE)
as early as 2011, it took
the college more than
three years and a
Supreme Court verdict to begin the
admission process.
The college had started its admission
process based on the
merit list of the Anna
University on August 14 this
year.
Previous attempts by the
college to get going proved futile
as the Anna University had
rejected the applications for affiliation submitted by the college.
Various farmers’ organisations in
Madurai had complained that
the college had trespassed into
water bodies in the area thus
depriving water for farm lands.
on the a “particular company”
that was looting the Port for several years in connivance with a
“particular political party” of the
State Mitra said how “some vested interests are making huge
profits in cargo handling operation” giving almost nothing to
the Government. “This will not
be allowed to go on for infinity” he said demanding “a transparent system.”
The Pioneer had earlier run
stories on how a few cargo-handling companies were minting
hundreds of crores violating the
MPTS Act with the help of
their virtual nominees in the
advisory board of the Kolkata
Port Trust. The Board had
since been dissolved by the
Shipping Ministry.
Congratulating Shipping
Minister Nitin Gadkari for
promptly taking up the issue and
ordering tendering out of the
cargo-handling operations, Mitra
said the BJP would work towards
achieving Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s dream of a corruption-free India.
Meanwhile, a number of
ex-servicemen and about 120
Trinamool workers of the
Trinamool Congress from
Jibontala in S outh 24
Parganas joined the BJP in
presence of Mitra. “We have
come to realise that the BJP is
the only party with a clear
image and true nationalistic
feelings,” Ramzan Sheikh, the
Trinamool town secretary of
Jibantala who led his 120 followers to the BJP, said.
DV_Z`c>R`Zde
]VRUVc_RSSVU
Z_<feTY
?=BQ 60=378=060A
evendra Ambikaprasad
Paswan, a high-ranked
D
Maoist leader active in parts of
Jharkhand was arrested near
Mundra town of Kutch. Paswan
had plotted killings of nearly 15
Central Reserve Police Force
(CRPF) personnel in ambush
and there have been many serious charges against him.
According to the police,
Devendra had come to Mundra
only a few days back and was
staying with his brother
Satyendra who was working
there as a labourer. Paswan had
also started working as a labourer for the last few days in the bordering district before the Maoist
finally nabbed by the police.
During interrogation,
police come to know that he
had joined the Maoist forces in
2003 and was involved in killing
of the Jharkhand police and the
CRPF jawans.
&!EP[\XZXbaTT\QaPRT7X]SdXb\
?=BQ ;D2:=>F
ension prevailed in Asroi
area of Aligarh following
T
reports of re-conversion of
some Christians to Hinduism.
Around 72 Christians were
reconverted into Valmikis even
as Christians alleged foul play
by the Hindu organisations,
which are raking up ‘Love
Jihad’ and other issues to make
the country a ‘Hindu Rashtra’.
Not just the 72 Valmikis
were reconverted into Hindus
from Christians at Asroi village, about 25 km from the
Aligarh district headquarters
but a 7th Day Adventist
Church was also converted
into a Shiv temple, where
these Valmikis used to pray,
the report said. According to
reports, these Valmikis converted to Christianity in 1995
and now they have again
embraced Hinduism. The rituals for re-conversion were
held inside the church on
Tuesday last and all the 72
people were accepted in the
Hindu community. a picture of
Lord Shiva has been installed
inside the church while the
Cross was placed outside the
boundary wall of the premises. But later as tension rose, the
Shiva portrait was removed by
the local people following
objection by the pastor.
Bajrang Dal leaders of the
district claim that this is “home
coming” of the Valmikis and
not re-conversion as claimed by
the media. “The decision to
return to their own faith wasappreciable and they were not
forced to take such decision.
But we had convinced them to
reconvert to their religion and
met the family members several times before their decision,” the leader said. Several
Valmikis also claim that they
were forced to re-convert to
their original religion, as they
were
“neglected”
by
Christianity. But Father
Jonanthan Lal, pastor at City
Methodist Church, denied such
re-conversion claims and
alleged it was a conspiracy
against the religion.
2^\X]Vb^^])CWXaScXVTaaTbTaeTX]:TaP[P 7eZQbQd=<1cWYfU
?=BQ :>278
K
erala is likely to have yet
another tiger reserve soon
in addition to the existing
reser ves, Periyar and
Parambikulam, if the steps in
this direction progress seamlessly. Reports from Delhi quoting the National Tiger
Conservation Authority said
that the Kerala Government
had given in-principle clearance for the formation of
Wayanad Tiger Reserve in
northern Kerala.
The proposed tiger reserve
will have an area of 344 square
kilometers, which is presently
known as the Wayanad
Wildlife Sanctuary, lying in
the Nilgiri biosphere and contiguous to the Bandipur Tiger
Reserve in Karnataka and
Muthumalai tiger reserve in
Tamil Nadu. However, the State
Forest Department has denied
reports on the in-principle
clearance for the reserve.
The Wayanad Tiger
Reserve will have three forest
ranges—Sulthan Batheri,
Tholpetty and Kurichyad—in
it. Though efforts to upgrade
the wildlife sanctuary into a
tiger reserve have not been successful so far, tiger census was
being conducted at the sanctuary at regular intervals and
the results had shown the need
of transforming it into a
reserve.
Experts differ on the tiger
population present in
Wayanad. They say that studies on the population of tigers
in Wayanad sanctuary cannot
be conducted without taking
into consideration the peculiarities of the adjacent
Bandipur and Muthumalai
reserves. However, they agree
that Wayanad could have a
minimum of 30 tigers though
one study had put the number
as 78.
Kerala Chief Minister
Oommen Chandy had participated in the meeting held by
the
National
Tiger
Conservation Authority over
the formation of the Wayanad
Tiger Reserve and he had
informed the authority of the
concerns of the local people
over the possibility of their
eviction from the core and
buffer areas of the reserve.
The Chief Minister has
reportedly given instructions
for conducting awareness programmes in the region on the
matter. As per rough estimates,
about 800 families will have to
be rehabilitated as the areas
including the tiger reserve are
declared a special zone. There
will be strict controls on construction and other activity
even in the buffer zone outside
the core area.
Union
Environment
Minister Prakash Javadekar
has said that the Centre will
provide all technical and financial necessary assistance if the
Kerala Government submits
to it the project for a tiger
reserve. Sources in the Kerala
Forest Department agreed that
the State would get increased
Central assistance once the
sanctuary was transformed into
a tiger reserve.
Kerala's first tiger reserve,
Periyar, with an area of 925 sq
km had come into being in
1978. The declaration of the
second tiger reserve in Kerala,
Parambikulam, having an area
of 641 sq km took place in 2010.
Meanwhile, reports on the
prospect of the Wayanad
Wildlife Sanctuary getting
declared as a tiger reserve have
heightened the anxieties of the
people living in areas that
might come within its core and
buffer areas. Settler farmers in
the region fear that the formation of the tiger reserve would
mean their eviction from their
farmlands and homes.
Several areas in Wayanad
had witnessed intense agitations in 2012 over reports of a
Kerala Government plan to
convert the Wayanad sanctuary
into a tiger reserve and incursions by two tigers into villages
adjacent to the forests had
resulted in law and order problems. The Chief Minister himself had to assure the people
that there was no such move to
pacify the protestors.
cU^T_VVd_FQZeRXQY
?=BQ 60=378=060A
his new assignment.
Leader of Opposition in
n a function organised to give the Gujarat Assembly,
farewell to Gujarat Assembly Shankersinh Vaghela felicitated him by offering
Speaker Vajubhai
a colorful shawl
Vala, who has been
to Vala.
appointed as the
W h i l e
Karnataka Governor,
addressing MLAs,
Chief
Minister
the
outgoing
Anandiben Patel
Speaker urged the
termed the veteran
legislature to give
leader as a loyal solprominence to
dier of BJP.
national interest
While congratufirst above their
lating Vala, Patel
parties’ interest.
said that he would EPYdQWPXEP[P
He also rememmake Gujarat proud
by doing good work in bered Mahatma Gandhi and
Karnataka too. She said that Swami Vivekanand for their
his rich experience of pre- selfless services for the nation.
senting Gujarat budget for 18 Vala will assume charge as
times as well as in BJP organ- Karnataka Governor on
isation would come handy in September 1.
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emporary calm on the
International Border was
T
shattered once again by the
roaring Pakistani guns barely
hours after the first round of
flag meeting ended ‘inconclusively’ without brokering ‘peace
deal’ to end the cycle of spiraling border tension in the wee
hours of Thursday.
According to ground
reports, “at least three Border
posts in Pargwal area of
Akhnoor sector, venue of the
Flag meeting, was targeted by
the Pakistan rangers twice in
brazen violation of the ceasefire agreement during the
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night”.
According to BSF sources,
“Pakistan Rangers first opened
‘unprovoked’ firing in the area
around 11.50 pm and the same
continued for some time. After
a gap of around four hours,
heavy firing from across the
border resumed around 4 am
and it continued till 6 am”.
The BSF jawans had also
noticed suspected movement of
infiltrators close to the
International Border and challenged them before opening
fire. According to BSF sources,
the infiltrators retreated
towards the Pakistan territory
when they were fired upon.
While targeting the Indian
posts and civilian areas, Pakistan
Rangers used small arms,
Medium range Machine guns
(MMG) and other sophisticated weapons to spread panic.
The BSF jawans, according
to official sources, gave a befitting response to the latest
provocation using similar calibre of weapons.
So far, 35 ceasefire violations have been reported in
the Jammu frontier since July
16, 2014.
Ironically, Pakistan Rangers
chose to target the same area
where they had attended flag
meeting with their Indian counterparts on Wednesday evening.
During the meeting Pakistan
Rangers reportedly accused BSF
of breaching the truce by resorting to indiscriminate firing on
the Pakistani posts.
In Jammu IG, BSF Jammu
frontier Rakesh Sharma told
reporters, “Pakistan Rangers
have been adopting double
standards. On Wednesday, they
requested flag meeting and we
went there with open minds as
we want to restore normalcy
along the border areas but, they
chose to hit back by targeting
the BSF posts”.
Meanwhile, as fresh tensions mounted in the area of
Indian Border, guards sent out
a strong message to the
Pakistan Rangers by canceling
flag meeting at the commandant level in Samba sector of
Jammu frontier on Thursday.
According to official sources
commandant level flag meeting
was scheduled to take place at
Ballad border post in Samba sector but the same was canceled by
the BSF after the grave provocation from the Pakistan side.
On the other hand, panicstricken residents in the forward villages of Pargwal area
demanded firm response from
the Indian troops to silence the
Pakistan guns. “We appeal to
the Government to shift us to
safer places and give a befitting
reply to the Pakistan Rangers”,
the villagers claimed.
Amid rising tensions,
politicians too have started
making a bee line in the border areas to inquire about the
well being of affected population. Indian Army has pitched
tents and are running medical
camps in the Government
school buildings to assist the
State Government machinery.
After BJP chief Amit
Shah’s visit, Leader of
Opposition in the Rajya Sabha,
Ghulam Nabi Azad and PDP
chief Mehbooba Mufti visited
the border areas in RS Pura
sector and interacted with the
local residents to understand
their sufferings.
Azad accompanied by
former MP Madan L al
Sharma visited Abdullian,
Chandu Chak and few other
border villages before interacting with the affected population in the Govt school
buildings in RS Pura.
1HZWZLVW$FFXVHGWULHGWR
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S
nake gang case, in which a
group of alleged criminals
used a snake to terrorise and
rape a teenaged girl, has taken
a serious turn following allegations that the accused tried to
bribe the local police to reach
a “compromise” with the victim.
Pahadi Shareef police
inspector, Bhaskar Reddy has
been transferred following the
allegations of bribery and alleged
disappearance of memory cards
and video CDs of alleged illegal
activities of the gang. Cyberabad
Police Commissioner CV Anand
who was personally monitoring
the case, has shifted the detective
inspector P Sreedhar to Pahadi
Shareef police station and has
ordered a probe against his predecessor Bhaskar Reddy.
Assistance Commissioner,
Shamshabad division has also
been shunted out from the
case and investigations into the
gang-rape was now taken over
by the Additional Deputy
Commissioner of Police
(Crime) Janaki Sharmila.
After the complaints that
the families of the accused
were exerting pressure on the
victim for a compromise, Janaki
Sharmila met the girl and
instilled confidence in her. She
gave her mobile number and
asked her to contact immediately in case of any harassment.
It has been alleged that the
family of the accused had
offered a bribe of C2,00,000 to
the police to influence the girl.
Pahadi Shareef police has
already booked a case under
Nirbhay Act against nine
accused, seven of whom have
already been arrested.
The allegations of mishandling against the local police
0DGUDV+&FDQFHOV
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274==08
he Madras High Court on
Thursday refused to stay
T
the order of the Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting
revoking the licences of
Sumangali Cable Vision,
owned by Kalanishi and
Dayanidhi Maran, grandnephews of M Karunanidhi,
the DMK chief.
Additional Solicitor
General informed the court
that the licence of SCV was
cancelled owing to issues of
national security. However, the
court stayed the directive of the
MIB that SCV should run a
scroll for 15 days that their
licence is being revoked. Justice
Ramasubramanian who is hearing the petition adjourned the
case to next Tuesday. Sumangali
Cable Vision is the largest
multi-system operator in Tamil
Nadu enjoying a near monopoly in the cable TV business.
The Sun Network of which
SCV is a part, is facing many
legal problems following the
change of Governments at
Chennai in 2011 and in New
Delhi in May 2014.
The group has emerged as
south India’s biggest media conglomerate with presence in all
four South Indian States in the
form of satellite TV channels,
FM radio stations, DTH services and more than a dozen
publications including newspaper, weeklies and magazines.
2^]VaTSUPRTS)<^SX
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Gandhinagar: Congress candidate for Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s prior Assembly constituency — Maninagar created embarrassment for his party’s senior leaders as he termed Modi as his
‘Guru’. After filing his nomination for Maninagar constituency
in Ahmedabad, Jatin Kella commented that the contest might
be difficult but, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is like my ‘Guru’.
“Modi is much elder than me. It was god’s wish that I have to
contest from his traditional seat,” said Kella. 38-year-old Kella
came to deputy collector’s office with large number of supporters to file nomination.
PNS
were leveled at a time when a
local court has granted police
the custody of three main
accused including a gang leader
Faisal Dayyani, Salam Hamdi
and Khadar Barakaba.
Senior police officials were
also questioning Pahadi Shareef
inspector Bhaskar Reddy about
the missing video record of the
activities of the gang. The inspector had also come under the lenses of senior officials when the
victims revealed that he had initially refused to register the
complaint of the gang-rape.
The victim alleged that the
“snake gang” had attacked a
farmhouse on city outskirts
and after overpowering her
fiancé, and terrorising her
with a snake, raped her. The
gang had also made a video of
their crime and threaten to
publish it on Facebook if she
lodged a complaint.
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?C8
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when debates are raging
Jityust
in Kerala over the practicalof the total liquor ban
announced by the Congress-led
UDF Government, the tourism
industry has expressed serious
concerns about the impact of
non-availability of liquor on the
sector even as the process for
closing down all the bars in the
State, except those in five-star
hotels, started on Thursday.
Congress’s
Tourism
Minister AP Anil Kumar, who
had earlier defended the new
liquor policy by saying that
tourists were coming to Kerala
not to get boozed, changed his
stand on Thursday with the
statement that there were concerns in tourism industry that
the business might plummet in
the absence of liquor availability and that ways should be
sought to solve this problem.
Tour and travel companies
in
Kochi
and
Thiruvananthapuram said that
tour operators in several
European countries had
informed them of their unwillingness to send travelers to
Kerala if hard liquor, beer and
wine were not available. They
said the worldwide media attention that liquor ban had got had
complicated the situation.
“Three agencies in Europe
have informed us that the trav-
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ven as members of the
Opposition BJP and
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Panther’s Party in Jammu &
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elers who had booked with
them to travel to Kerala are not
willing to undertake the trip in
the new circumstance. For many
Europeans, Kerala is a tropical
heaven. They come here mostly to relax and liquor is just one
factor in their scheme. We are
probably in for a crisis,” said a
travel agent in Kochi.
He
rejected
the
Government’s argument that
liquor would be available at
five-star hotels if foreigners
wanted it. “Not even 20 per
cent of the European tourists
coming here stay at the 20 fivestar hotels. Our mainstay is not
the affluent travelers but the
normal people. So it is going to
be a big problem,” he added.
As per the new liquor policy of the Congress-led
Government, only five-star
hotels will have bars, 418 bars
which have already been closed
will not be reopened, 312 functioning bars will be closed by
September 12 and ten per cent
of the retail liquor outlets will
be closed each year leading to
total liquor ban in ten years.
According to a leading
travel
agent
in
Thiruvananthapuram, a minimum of 30 tour operators in
Europe have sent e-mails to
their associates in Kerala
informing them of their inability to send travelers if liquor is
not available as per requirement. “They are saying that the
travelers are opting to go to
Thailand, Sri Lanka, etc in this
situation,” he said.
According to the Kerala
Tourism Department, the
State’s revenue from the sector
in 2013 was about C23,000
crore. The industry was expecting a huge increase in this revenue in the 2014-15 season but
officials now say that the expectations may prove wrong due to
the liquor ban. “It is true that
they are not coming to booze
up but booze is a vital factor,”
said an official.
The official also said that
many foreign tourists would
be happy with wine and beer
but “we don’t have many
wine-and-beer parlours at the
crucial destinations”. Though
the Government has not yet
taken a decision on what to
do with the 121 beer-andwine parlours in the State, it
would be difficult for it to
allow the opening of new
parlours in the prevailing circumstances.
Tourism Minister Anil
Kumar admitted his apprehension that the liquor ban
could seriously affect the
tourism industry. There were
tourists for whom liquor was
part of their lives and their
requirements should be taken
into consideration, he said.
“Liquor consumption is indeed
a social problem but the
tourism industry’s concerns
should not be overlooked,” he
added.
At the same time, the
Excise Department on
Thursday morning started the
process of serving notices for
closure on the 710 bars in the
State as per the decision taken
by the Cabinet the other day,
close on the heels of the new
liquor policy becoming a law
with changes being made to the
Excise rules. The bars were
being asked to close down
within two weeks of receiving
the notice.
Kashmir Assembly raised slogans against continued
shelling from Pakistan across
the Line of Control (LoC) and
International Border (IB) in
Jammu region, the Upper
House passed a resolution
stressing Government of India
to resume the “process of dialogue” with Pakistan for
ensuring peace and stability in
the sub-continent.
The members of the BJP
raised the border shelling
issue and urged the Speaker to
pass a resolution against
Pakistan. However, the
Speaker Mubarak told the
House that the issue was discussed threadbare on Tuesday
and there was no scope for
further discussions. The
House witnessed verbal duel
between BJP members and
Independent legislator Sheikh
Rashid. While, BJP members
accused Rashid of being a
“Pakistani agent”, he shot back
by describing the BJP as “the
biggest hurdle in the way of
resolving Kashmir issue”.
However, the scene was
catchy at the Upper House
where a resolution, moved by
Chairman Amrit Malhotra
himself, in order to prevent
the political parties to claim
credit, was passed urging the
Government of India to
resume dialogue process with
Pakistan in the backdrop of
recent border shelling in
Jammu region.
“The House unanimously resolves that the State
Government shall urge the
Union Government to take
effective steps for prevention
of LoC firing which has
caused huge loss of life and
property in the affected areas.
The House also resolves
that the State Government
must urge the Union
Government to resume the
process of Indo-Pak dialogue
to ensure peace and stability
in the sub-continent in general
and in J&K State particularlly. The House also recommends that the State
Government should take
immediate steps for relief and
rehabilitation of the victims of
LoC firing and shall provide
all required help and facilities
to them in this regard”, the resolution read.
The unanimously passed
resolution is first of its kind
moved by the Chairman of the
House urging the measures
for restoration of peace and
stability along the LoC.
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D
iplomatic engagement
with a neighbour having territorial ambitions and an abiding
desire to alter the balance of power has to be carefully
planned and executed. Apart from
realistically assessing the balance
of military and economic power,
one has also to carefully assess the
neighbour’s internal political equations, and whether the political and
military leadership have the inclination and the will to live at
peace, without and resort to terrorism, as an instrument of state policy. Sadly, there are vociferous sections in India that believe that dialogue with Pakistan is an end in
itself, without really studying what
the alternative options are.
Moreover, has continuing dialogue produced better results than
no dialogue at all?
Pakistan lost its eastern half
and 13,000 square kilometres of
its territory in the west, one half
of its Navy, one-fourth of its Air
Force and Army, with India holding 90,368 prisoners of war, at the
end of the 1971 Bangladesh conflict. In subsequent negotiations
in Simla with her counterpart
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, India’s most
hard-headed Prime Minister, was
persuaded by some of her key
officials that Bhutto would be
devastated politically, if he went
back empty handed from Simla.
While returning the 90,368
POWs was inevitable, what was
surprising was a decision to withdraw from 13,000 square kilometres of territory captured by our
Forces, following a mere verbal
assurance from Bhutto that he
would, in due course, settle the
Kashmir issue, on the basis of the
territorial status quo.
Bhutto had no intention of
abiding by his verbal commitment. Within a decade, Pakistan
sought to upset the territorial status quo, by promoting a communal divide in Punjab. This was followed by arming and training disaffected Kashmiri youths to promote an armed insurgency in
Jammu & Kashmir. Pakistan also
sought to exploit “fault lines” in
India’s body politic. It executed
terrorist strikes, like the Mumbai
bomb blasts in 1993, where 250
Indian nationals perished. The
perpetrator of these bomb blasts,
Dawood Ibrahim, resides comfortably in Karachi and even
ventures abroad on a Pakistani
passport. All these developments
took place amidst continuing
‘dialogue’ with Pakistan.
The continuing dialogue was
called off by Pakistani Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1994,
when she found that efforts to
coerce India on Jammu &
Kashmir had not worked.
Moreover, unlike in earlier years,
Kashmiri youths were becoming
increasingly wary of crossing the
Line of Control, to be armed and
trained for jihad. What followed
was the induction of Pakistani
nationals from ISI-backed terrorist outfits like the Jaish-eMohammed,
Harkat-ulMujahideen and Lashkar-eTayyeba. It is important to note
that this shift in Pakistani strategies from support for a ‘freedom
struggle’ of Kashmiris to a jihad
by Pakistani terrorists occurred
not because of any ‘composite dialogue’, but because of ground realities. Moreover, it was during this
period that, thanks to imaginative
political initiatives and effective
policing, Pakistan-backed militancy in Punjab ended. Terrorists
from Babbar Khalsa and the
International Sikh Youth
Federation, however, still reside in
Lahore and elsewhere in Pakistan.
Former Prime Minister Inder
Kumar Gujral initiated discussions
in 1997 with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, later
described as the Composite
Dialogue Process, in which dialogue on terrorism was not given
significant priority. Terrorism was
merely put on the same pedestal
as drug smuggling! The first
round of this dialogue was held in
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1998, after the nuclear tests.
Determined to ensure that India
was seen as sincere in its quest for
peace, then Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee visited Lahore,
only to find that rather than promoting peace, the resumption of
the dialogue was accompanied by
Pakistani intrusions across the
LoC, leading to the Kargil conflict,
amidst Pakistani threats of nuclear
escalation. Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf ’s visit to Agra
was followed by the attack on
India’s Parliament in December
2001. Structured dialogue had
only led to an escalation of terrorism and violence.
The military stand off after
the Parliament attack and the
post-9/11 American invasion of
Afghanistan forced General
Musharraf to think afresh. He
proposed a cease fire across the
LoC and assured that ‘territory
under Pakistan’s control’ will not
be used for terrorism against
India. While Gen Musharraf
abided by his commitments, the
UPA Government was, however,
horribly wrong in presuming a
weak democratic Government
led by President Asif Ali Zardari,
a well-meaning Sindhi Shia,
would be able to rein in the jihadi propensities of General Ashfaq
Parvez Kayani, a hardcore
Islamist. New Delhi also underestimated the significance of the
deadly ISI-sponsored attack on
our Embassy in Kabul on July 7,
B>D=318C4
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2008. What inevitably followed
was the terror strike of 26/11 in
Mumbai. It was the public outcry,
that followed the disastrous summit diplomacy in Sharm elSheikh, which forced the UPA
Government
to
tread
warily thereafter.
Given what followed the
2008 terrorist attack on our
Embassy in Kabul, New Delhi
should not underestimate the significance of the recent attack on
our Consulate in Herat, on the
eve of Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif ’s visit to New Delhi. The
recent demonstrations led by
Mr Imran Khan and Mr Tahir ulQadri enjoy behind-the-scenes
backing of the Pakistani military
establishment. The Army has
indicated that it will assist Mr
Sharif. But, in return, it has
demanded that Mr Sharif “must
share more space with the Army”.
To expect that in these circumstances, Mr Sharif can deliver on
India’s concerns on terrorism, or
promote trade and energy cooperation significantly, will be wishful thinking. The tough stance
that India has taken on the links
of the Pakistan establishment
with the Hurriyat conveys that it
is not going to be business as
usual with Pakistan, especially if
it continues with ceasefire violations, while abetting terrorism in
India and threatening our diplomatic missions and nationals
in Afghanistan.
In her meticulously researched
book The Pakistan Army’s Ways of
War, American academic
Christine Fair notes that in order
to deal with Pakistani Army policies which undermine US interests
and seek to destabilise India, the
US should consider means to
“contain the threats that emanate
from Pakistan, if not Pakistan
itself”. This is the first time a reputed American academic has spoken
of the need to “contain” Pakistan.
This cannot be done by merely
chanting the mantra of “uninterrupted and uninterruptable dialogue” with Pakistan”. While calibrated engagement with whosoever rules Pakistan is necessary, it has
to be complemented with measures to tighten internal security,
enhance our military capabilities
and raise the costs for Pakistan, if
it pursues its present efforts to
“weaken India from within”.
(The accompanying visual is
of former Pakistani Prime
Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto with
former Indian Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi before a summit in
Simla in India, on June 28, 1972.
AP photo)
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Sir — This refers to the report,
“Onus on PM to keep tainted
netas out of Cabinet: SC” (August
28). In a landmark judgement, the
Supreme Court has left the decision of giving ministerial positions to persons of dubious reputation to the Prime Minister and
Chief Ministers. Most political
party are reluctant to penalise
tainted persons for the fear of losing the latter’s vote-bank.
There is no political party
which has not issued tickets to
tainted persons for contesting the
Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. If the tickets are not issued
at all to tainted persons for contesting elections, in the first place,
then the Prime Minister and
Chief Ministers will not find it
difficult to prevent these people
from entering the Union and
State Council of Ministers.
Also, only those who have
been convicted in a court of law
should be considered as ‘tainted
persons’, since politically-motivated charges are often framed
against public figures. Sadly, not
all those facing serious criminal
charges are convicted in a court
of law.
KV Seetharamaiah
Hassan
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Sir — This refers to the report,
“Onus on PM to keep tainted
netas out of Cabinet: SC” (August
28). A clean and corruption-free
administration is what the people desire. But corruption in the
corridors of power and among
the political class has, of late,
become alarming. Many corrupt
persons are at the helm of affairs.
The Supreme Court has requested the Prime Minister and Chief
Ministers not to induct chargesheeted people, facing trial for
offences involving moral turpitude, as Ministers. This is a welcome move. But what will happen
when a Prime Minister or a
Chief Minister himself has a
charge-sheet against him?
The apex court should have
directed the Union Government
to amend the law to ensure that
no charge-sheeted person can
contest elections in the first place.
NR Ramachandran
Chennai
2QcU\Uccbe]_ebc
Sir — This refers to the report, “I
will quit politics if misconduct by
my family proved: Rajnath”
(August 28). After former Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
Union Minister for Home Affairs
Rajnath Singh is perhaps the
first leader in the saffron brigade
who has shown no sign of ill-temper in his behaviour on any
occasion. He maintained his cool
and civility even during political
debates on television channels.
As far as the rumour about
his family’s misconduct, allegedly stemming from the denial of a
party ticket to his son Pankaj
Singh, is concerned, the argument
does not hold water.
During the 2007 Uttar
Pradesh Assembly election, Mr
Singh had prevailed upon his son
to return the ticket for Chiraigaon
Assembly constituency in
Varanasi, in order to avoid being
targeted for nepotism by the
opposition. Incidentally, Mr
Rajnath Singh was the president
of the BJP at that time.
Hence, the allegations of misconduct by any family members
of the Home Minister falls on
stony ground. They merely give
credence to the public perception
that there is a game of political
brinkmanship being played within the party.
Azhar A Khan
Lucknow
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n August 31, Prime
Minister Narendra
Modi will begin his
four-day long tour of
Japan. Considering
the series of events that have taken
place in the bilateral relations in the
last one year or so — former Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to
Japan in May 2013, the historic visit
of Emperor Akihito and Empress
Michiko to India in November, last
year, and Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe’s visit to India in
January 2014 — Mr Modi’s present
visit will mark a significant milestone by maintaining the momentum of the bilateral partnership.
It is well-known that apart
from sharing similar visions on the
kind of roles that their countries
should play in international politics, there is a strong personal
chemistry that binds both Mr
Modi and Mr Abe. Even as Chief
Minister of Gujarat, Mr Modi
went to Japan for the first time in
2007 on an exploratory mission in
search of investment and trade
opportunities and met Mr Abe who
was the Prime Minister at that time.
Encouraged by his positive impressions, Mr Modi again went to Japan
in 2012 and met Mr Abe who was
out of power at that time. But Mr
Modi received a positive and warm
welcome from the Democratic
Party-led Government under the
leadership of Mr Yoshihiko Noda.
Japanese business leaders were
quite impressed by the remarkable
economic progress of Gujarat
under the leadership of Mr Modi.
When in December 2012 Mr
Abe returned to power following a
landslide victory in the Lower
House election, Mr Modi was
among the first to greet him, a gesture Mr Abe reciprocated to Mr
Modi following his remarkable
victory in the parliamentary election in May this year. What has distinguished Mr Modi is the fact that
even as Chief Minister of an Indian
State, he had a broad perspective to
understand the importance of
forging long-term friendly relations
not only with Japan but also with
other Asian countries like China,
South Korea and Singapore. Given
the fact that both Mr Modi and Mr
Abe enjoy commanding parliamentary strength, and that they will
stay in power for fairly long periods of time, their personal equations should enable them to work
out a roadmap for the bilateral partnership based on mutual economic and strategic interests.
Civil nuclear cooperation: There
is no doubt that Mr Modi’s visit has
already aroused great expectations
on both sides in terms of not only
settling some important pending
issues but also formulating a fresh
agenda for the future. Among the
unresolved issues, the first and foremost is how to sign a civil nuclear
agreement so that both countries
can carry on meaningful cooperation in that field. Despite the fact
that four rounds of talks have
already taken place, the prospects
of an agreement appear to be elusive. Both countries stand by their
well-stated positions: Japan insists
on stronger assurances from India
that it would not conduct any more
nuclear tests and India argues that
the assurances that it gave to the US
at the time of signing the US-India
nuclear agreement are sufficient for
the present bilateral agreement.
In addition, India believes that
it has enhanced its transparency in
its nuclear infrastructure by ratifying the additional protocol with
the International Atomic Energy
Agency in June this year.
Though Mr Abe is inclined to
bring the stalemate to an end, he
cannot totally ignore the strong
pressures coming from several
5^SXQ^df_dUbcgYdX
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J
ust a week before the Modi
Government competes its 100
days, by-election results have
come as a jolt to the BJP. The saffron
party, which witnessed a spectacular
victory in the Lok Sabha poll, has
faced a setback already. No doubt byelections are fought and won mostly on local factors, but the results have
certainly punctured the feel-good factor of the BJP and given a ray of hope
to the opposition.
The results of the recent by-election to 18 Assembly seats across four
States, including Bihar, were to say the
least disappointing for the BJP. Of the
18 seats the party won seven and its
ally Shiromani Akali Dal
one, while the Congress and
its allies bagged 10. The
Congress won the key seats
like Bellary in Karnataka
and Patiala in Punjab and
also managed to wrest one
seat from Madhya Pradesh.
The results of Bihar
could be particularly galling
for the BJP because much
had been made of the parting of ways between the
JD(U) and the BJP in the Lok
Sabha election. Mr Narendra
Modi’s two arch-rivals, Nitish
Kumar of JD(U) and Lalu
Prasad of RJD, won six out of 10
Assembly seats on their stride in
Bihar where the BJP aims to form the
Government after the next Assembly
poll. The by-election was seen as a litmus test for the BJP as well as the RJD
and JD(U), which came together
soon after the Lok Sabha result
came out in May.
The jolt is all the more severe
after the recent BJP defeat in
Uttarakhand where the Congress
won all the three seats in Assembly
by-election and also in nine of the 11
zila parishad chairman election. Is
there a pattern as the BJP failed to
hold on to the vote-share it had in the
Lok Sabha election in several of these
seats? Is the BJP complacent after its
stunning victory in the Lok Sabha
poll? The BJP has to take these as a
warning signal and pull up its socks.
The Uttar Pradesh by-election is not
far away. The State unit must work
hard to keep the momentum as the
State gave unprecedented seats to the
BJP in Lok Sabha poll.
The BJP explains that the byelection result should not be confused
with the Lok Sabha or the Assembly
polls. The BJP leaders in Karnataka
and Bihar were quick to blame the
losses on local factors and the failure
of the State party units, stressing that
the defeats were no reflection on Mr
Modi’s leadership. The party must
ensure that the State leaders are on
their toes. The results have sent some
clear signals, which should be read
by the political class. The first is that
perhaps the BJP, after its massive victory, has become complacent and had
taken the electorate for granted.
After the BJP’s spectacular show
in both Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the
frenzy created during the general
election has died down. The stark
drop in vote-share also suggests this.
This was only to be expected as the
reason for the frenzy has disappeared
from the scene. The mood of the electorate was anti-Congress, which is
defeated now.
There is a question mark about
the return of single-party domi-
anti-nuclear groups at home. In the
aftermath of the Fukushima
tragedy of 2011, public antipathy to
nuclear energy in Japan has become
too strong. All 50 nuclear reactors
in Japan are still non-functional and
though the Nuclear Regulation
Authority has recently cleared two
reactors in Kagoshima, their
resumption is being delayed due to
popular resistance. The present
Japanese Government under Mr
Abe is in favour of encouraging the
use of nuclear energy, but it is not
in a position to determine its share
in the overall electricity production.
Defence cooperation: Another
issue that remains to be resolved
relates to the supply of Japan’s
indigenously made US2 amphibious aircraft to India. Defence production is one area which holds out
great potential for a new and
mutually-beneficial partnership.
In May 2013, both countries
expressed their satisfaction at the
expanding defence relations in
areas such as naval exercises and
decided to increase their frequencies. For the first time, they also
agreed to explore the prospects of
Japan selling its indigenously made
US 2 amphibious aircraft to India.
They also set up a joint task force
to examine the modalities of cooperation on the issue.
A Japanese defence delegation
visited India subsequently and
held discussions with the Indian
defence establishment to take
defence cooperation to the next
level. Though the Abe Government
subsequently modified its policy by
removing restrictions on defence
exports, the two countries have not
come to any agreement on the
modalities determining mutual
cooperation in the case of US 2
amphibious aircraft.
Trade and investment: Another
subject that will draw the attention
of the two leaders is how to
enhance the volume of bilateral
trade and investment. To be sure,
both countries have already put into
effect a comprehensive economic
partnership agreement. But it has
not produced any tangible results
so far. On the contrary, the volume
of bilateral trade has decreased to
$16.3 billion in 2013 from $18.4 billion in 2012. Similarly, Japanese
investment to India has fallen
from $2.09 billion in 2012 to $1.3
billion in 2013. Japan has always
complained that there are still
many formidable barriers to the
flow of Japanese trade and investment. Equally important are complaints pertaining to the inordinate
delays in the implementation of the
Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.
It is high time that the new
Government makes serious efforts
to address these complaints and
creates confidence in the minds of
Japanese business people.
(The writer is a Fellow at
Observer Research Foundation)
,UDTLFULVLVPD\EULQJ
86FORVHUWR,UDQ
:0;H0=8B70=:0A
nance as the electorate has kept the
opposition alive, keeping its options
open. These by-election results may
open up new possibilities at the
national level for new permutations
and combinations. The results are
likely to provide a shot in the arm to
a largely-moribund opposition and
give confidence that it could defeat
the Modi factor by ensuring anti-BJP
votes are not split. It was purely out
of desperation that the JD(U) and the
RJD has come together to form a
viable combination — which proved
successful. The success of the secular combine shows that they can hope
to succeed in future if they manage
an effective coalition.
Moreover, the RJD and the
JD(U) have charismatic
State-level leaders while the
BJP lacks this in Bihar,
Haryana and Maharashtra.
The question is: Whether
this unity will continue until
the Assembly polls, as there
is bound to be ego clashes.
It is too early to say
whether the Modi wave is
over. The Prime Minister
normally doesn’t campaign
for the by-elections. The
Modi magic would be tested in the Assembly elections
to Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand
and Jammu & Kashmir.
BJP allies like the Shiv Sena are
flexing muscle after the setback.
The Sena mouthpiece, Saamna, in an
editorial, has said that the party cannot depend on only Modi effect any
more. The jibe is seen as a pressure
tactic to get back at the BJP, which has
been putting pressure on the ally to
part with more number of seats.
For now, the BJP should realise
that it has to bring back the feel-good
factor, which has been punctured, if
it wants to do well in the Assembly
polls. The opposition too should
understand it has a long way to go.
Mr Modi’s honeymoon continues
despite the setback.
CTWaP]WPb_^[XcXRP[R[^dcX]1PVWSPScWPcRP]QT[TeTaPVTS
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I
raq’s newly-appointed
Prime Minister-designate,
Haider al-Abadi, won the
approval of both the US and
Iran, as well as that of other
Shiite and Kurdish parties in
Iraq. As the security situation
in Iraq deteriorates, there is
increasing speculation that a
convergence of interests
might lead to US-Iran cooperation over the crisis. Iraq’s
two-time outgoing Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki,
who was formerly supported
by the US and Iran, refused
to renounce his position until
August 14. He called Mr
Abadi’s appointment a “coup
against the Constitution” and
challenged that as the leader
of the biggest political bloc in
Parliament, he should form
the new Government.
While both the US and
Iran ensured Mr Maliki’s two
terms in power, the US was
quicker to recognise the
impact of his partisan politics
on the mounting security
crisis. Even though US
President Barack Obama
maintained that the US military assistance was contingent on the formation of a
new Government in Iraq,
Mr Maliki relied on Iran’s
support to hold onto power.
Iran’s withdrawal of support
for Mr Maliki, therefore, created space for the resolution
of the crisis.
In the immediate aftermath of Iraqi President
Fouad Massoum’s nomination of Mr Abadi, the US welcomed the decision stating
that Mr Massoum had fulfilled his constitutional duties
and urged the Prime
Minister-designate to “form
a Government that is representative of the Iraqi people
and inclusive of Iraq’s religious and ethnic identities”.
The US, having ensured
Mr Maliki’s appointment as
Iraq’s premier in 2006 and
2010, signalled towards
receding support for his
administration by calling for
the formation of an inclusive
Government in light of the
current sectarian violence.
In June, White House Press
Secretary Jay Carney stated
that Mr Maliki had not done
enough to govern inclusively and thus, contributed to
the crisis in Iraq. “Maliki’s
sectarianism and exclusion of
Sunnis has led to the insurgency”, he said.
Amid a deepening political and security crisis, Iran
too withdrew support for Mr
Maliki’s bid for a third-term in
office. Iran’s official Islamic
Republic News Agency reported Tehran’s official endorsement for the selection of
Haider al-Abadi as the Prime
Minister of Iraq. Iran’s
Supreme leader Ayatollah
Khamenei also reiterated support for Mr Abadi and called
on him to form an inclusive
Government in Baghdad.
Iran exerts significant
political, economic and military influence in Baghdad
since the US-led invasion of
Iraq in 2003. A staunch ally
of Mr Maliki, Tehran reportedly provided military support to his forces as they
faced the Islamic State fighters. However, it is speculated
that Tehran was involved in
Mr Abadi’s selection.
Even though Iran has
remained muted in response
to the US airstrikes against IS
extremists, Tehran has indicated its willingness to cooperate with the US.
:0=2786D?C0
Mohammad Sadr, adviser to
Iran’s Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif, stated on August 11 that the US
and Iran can cooperate
against the IS because the
Iraq crisis is not limited to a
military aspect and the US
can seek Iran’s help in confronting ideological and cultural obstacles to a resolution. On June 14, Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani
stated that Iran will “consider” cooperating with the US
over action against terrorist
groups in Iraq.
US-Iran discussions over
the crisis in Iraq took place
alongside the nuclear negotiations in Vienna in June,
where the US officials clarified that there cannot be any
fundamental change in the
relationship with Tehran until
concerns over the nuclear
programme are resolved.
As the Islamic State’s rapid
advances intensified the possibility of Iraq’s breakup, the
US was compelled to directly intervene and bolster
Kurdish forces battling the IS,
whereas Iran negotiated with
the Government in Baghdad.
Given that Iran wields influence over Iraq’s political and
security institutions, and
American military involvement is crucial to neutralising
the extremist threat, a common stance between both
countries is essential to resolving the conflict.
However, domestic and
geo-political imperatives
necessitate that US-Iran cooperation is tacit and limited.
The US, its Sunni allies in the
Gulf, and Israel will want to
limit Iran’s clout over Baghdad
and curb the strength of the
‘Shia Crescent’.
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W
ith the Supreme Court
likely to announce its
final verdict on September 1
over the coal block allocation scam, and if in the likelihood of the blocks allotted
between 1993 and 2010 getting de-allocated, then,
a c c ord i n g t o i n du s t r y
experts, investments worth
C5 lakh crore will be in the
danger of being declared as
n on - p e r f or m i n g a s s e t s
(NPAs).
The Supreme Court on
August 25 had said that all
the (218) coal blocks issued
during the aforementioned
period, were “illegal” and it
is going to announce on
September 1 whether to cancel these reserves or not.
Majority of these coal
blocks were allocated for
end use projects in the steel,
power and cement sectors
and the investments in these
are to the tune of C4 lakh
crore till FY14. Industry
sources point out that in
case blocks get de-allocated,
banks from which private
players had taken loans to
exploit these coal reserves
for running their plants, will
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E
ven as the fate of 218 coal
blocks - whose allotment
was declared as “illegal” by
the Supreme Court earlier
this week - hangs in balance
as speculations regarding
their cancellation are rife,
t he count r y’s nor t her n
region on Thursday reported a power supply shortfall
of over 5,000 mw mainly
owing to depleting coal
stocks in power plants across
States like Punjab, Haryana,
Rajasthan and Delhi.
This happened a day
after the western region had
on August 27 faced a shortfall of around 7,000 mw of
power supply, again owing to
poor coal reserves. In fact
Adani Power had to shut
down around six of its genturn them into NPAs.
Towards the power sector alone, the total exposure
of the banking sector is to
the tune of C5 lakh crore,
erating units at its 4,620 mw
Mundra plant in Gujarat.
Power and Coal Minister
Piyush Goyal on his part
blamed “rampant corruption and lopsided policies” of
t he
pre v i ou s
U PA
Government for the coal
shortage that has impacted
power generation in the
country.
Tata Power had to close
down its two generating
u n it s at it s 4 , 0 0 0 mw
Mundra ultra mega power
plant (UMPP) due to technical issues.
National Thermal Power
Corporation Ltd (NTPC)
also had to shut down its
four units of 890 mw capacity on August 27 owing to
coal shortage.
On the same day, the
peak power shortfall - deficit
in electricity supply when
demand is at its maximum
- was 5,572 mw at 2000
hours, according to the latest report by the Northern
R e g i on L o a d D e s p atch
Centre (NRLDC). It is the
apex body to ensure integrated operation of the
power system in the northern region.
The total electricity
requirement of the region
during that time was 50,173
MW of which 4,4601 MW
was met.
The poor coal supply at
var i ous p ower st at ions
across the country is mainly due to the fact that Coal
India Ltd (CIL, which is
responsible for augmenting
80 per cent of the country’s
supplies) has failed to maintain the demand-supply
cycle of plants.
With the Supreme Court
set to announce its final
verdict on the coal blocks
a l l o c at i on
s c am
on
September 1, the entire
power as well as coal sector
would be waiting with bated
breath for its observation, as
in case the blocks (218 of
them issued between 1993
and 2010) are cancelled,
then it could lead to a full
blown power crisis.
Reacting to the situation, Goyal said, “our coal
production during the past
five years has not gone up at
all, while demand for coal
has increased by almost 50
percent. Power generation
has also increased during
this period. Thanks to rampant corruption and the lopsided policies of the past
Government, we have come
to a position which did not
allow coal mines to open and
raise production.”
Meanwhile in a separate
report dated August 26 by
t h e C e nt r a l E l e c t r i c it y
Authority (CEA), nearly
one-fourth of the country’s
100 thermal power projects
were shown to have fuel
stocks to last less than four
days.
Actual electricity withdrawal by all the north Indian
states exceeded the demand
even then these states were
unable to meet their electricity requirement during
that period.
The of f peak power
demand in the states of
Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan,
Delhi, Uttar Pradesh,
Uttarak hand, Himachal
sources pointed out. Out of
the 218 blocks which were
given away between 1993
and 2010, 119 were allotted
to private entities and 99 to
public sector undertakings.
Of these only 31 mines are
c u r re nt l y op e r at i on a l ,
sources said.
Coal is a significant raw
material for the steel, power
and cement industries and
despite the fact that there is
no dearth of the dry fuel
within the country, owing to
shortfall in its demand-supply cycle, the domestic produ c e r s h ave t o rely on
imported coal.
In 2013-14, 169 million
Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir
and Chandigarh, recorded at
0300 hours was 48,959 mw of
which 45,173 mw was met,
leaving the region with a
shortage of 3,786 mw.
According to latest
information on the website of
NRLDC, high demand is prevailing in the northern region
system due to reduced availability.
Of the 27 power projects
which have less than four days
of coal reserves, six are in the
northern region. These six
plants also include state-run
NTPC’s Indira Gandhi thermal power project at Jhajjar in
Haryana, Rihand and Singruali
plants in Uttar Pradesh, the
CEA report said. Singrauli has
two days of stock where as
Jhajjar and Rihand have only
one day of stock left.
tonnes of coal was imported
at a cost of C95,000 crore. By
2 0 1 6 - 1 7 , t h i s f i g u re i s
e x p e c t e d t o b e a rou n d
C1,44,000 crore.
Considering the fact that
owing to poor coal supplies
from Coal India Ltd (CIL),
power plants have long been
functioning at lesser plant
load factor (PLF) and this
had led to a power crisis-like
situation in 2012, in case the
Supreme Court de-allocates
these blocks, it is not only
going to affect the power
and steel sectors, but will
lead to a crisis in the overall power supply chain of the
country.
Already in the span of
last two days (starting from
August 27), the Government
has received distress signals
from western and northern
grids regarding major shortfalls in power supply owing
to fast depleting quota of
coal in plants.
Industry sources further
pointed out that in case
blocks get cancelled, then
the overall business environment within the country
will get adversely affected
and even wondered that if
the allocations were indeed
arbitrary, then why didn’t
other companies complain
about them at the time when
these were being distributed.
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?=BQ =4F34;78
iving more teeth to Sebi to
clamp down on illicit
G
money-pooling schemes and
other frauds, the Government
has notified a new law empowering the capital market regulator to pass orders for attachment of properties, arrest of
defaulters and to access call data
records.
The Securities Laws
Amendment Act, which was
cleared by Parliament earlier
this month and amends all
legislations governing capital
markets, would also facilitate
setting up of a special Sebi court
to fast-track the investigation
and prosecution process,
including by granting approval
for search and seizure operations in suspected cases of
frauds.
The Act, which has come
into force through a gazette
notification dated August 25, is
part of the government and regulators’ efforts to tighten the
noose around fraudsters in the
wake of several cases of illicit
money-pooling activities
including by ponzi operators in
various parts of the country.
The new Act has as many
as 57 clauses to amend various
sections of the Sebi Act and two
other related legislations. The
bill was passed by the Lok
Sabha on August 6 and in
1HZSRZHUVWRIDVWWUDFN
SURVHFXWLRQUHIXQGV6HELFKLHI
=4F 34;78) Armed with new powers to
clamp down on illegal money-pooling
schemes and other defaults, Sebi today said
offenders can no longer ignore its orders
and drag on the cases for years as the new
law would fast-track action against them
and ensure refund of money to investors.
These additional powers, as also setting-up of a special Sebi court, would
ensure that fraudsters do not go scot-free
and the regulator is be able to initiate recovery proceedings against them and even conduct search and seizure operations at
defaulters’ premises, Sebi chief U K Sinha
said.
There should be a sea-change from the
earlier occasions when offenders would
tend to “ignore orders from Sebi” and the
legal cases would drag on for years without recovery of any money, Sinha told the
news agency in an interview.
“The cases have gone for 10-15 years
and there no money has been recovered. So
except for a little bit of ‘naming and shaming’ for individual or a company, it did not
have much impact on them,” he said.
Rajya Sabha on August 12.
The notification comes
more than one year after the
first ordinance was promulgated in July 2013 to grant these
After clearance from Parliament earlier this month, the government has notified
the Securities Laws Amendments Act,
which empowers capital markets watchdog
Sebi to take action against all unregulated
money-pooling schemes involving Rs 100
crore or more.
The new Act gives Sebi authority to
pass orders for attachment of properties,
arrest and detaining of defaulters in prison
and for disgorgement of ill-gotten money.
It also gives Sebi access to call data
records, or any other information from any
entity during investigations, while it can
now conduct search and seizure operations
after permission from a special Sebi Court
to be set up soon.
“The new Act clearly defines what can
be a Collective Investment Scheme and
therefore falls under Sebi jurisdiction.
This would make it very difficult for operators of such schemes to circumvent the
regulations,” Sinha said.
The recovery and disgorgement powers would help in facilitating refund of
money to investors, he added.
?C8
additional powers to Sebi. The
ordinance was promulgated for
the second time in September
last year, followed by a third
ordinance in January, as a bill
could not be passed in
Parliament at that time to grant
permanent powers to Sebi.
The third ordinance also
lapsed late last month, leaving
Sebi without these extra powers which were used by the regulator in nearly 1,500 cases during their validity period.
The ordinance, which had
30 clauses, was brought in
against the backdrop of lakhs
of small investors being duped
by numerous fraudulent investment schemes across the country, like in the alleged Saradha
scam in West Bengal. With the
new powers, Sebi can now act
against all illegal money-pooling schemes involving Rs 100
crore or more, launch recovery
proceedings, pass disgorgement orders for ill-gotten
money and facilitate its return
to identifiable investors, among
others.
The market watchdog
would have powers seek call
data records and other information from any person, company, bank, authority or organisation during its probes.
However, these powers do
not include authority to tap
phones and other electronic
data directly.
Under the amended law,
there is a dilution from the
direct powers granted to Sebi
Chairman through as many as
three ordinances in the past one
year to authorise search and
seizure operations and is being
seen as a safeguard against any
possible misuse of such powers
by the regulator.
<D<108)Auto major Mahindra
& Mahindra will invest C4,000
crore over a 7-year period to
double the production capacity of its facility at Chakan in
Maharashtra to 7.5 lakh units
annually.
The company, which had
earlier put on hold the expansion at the plant and considered
other options citing lack of
support from the Maharashtra
government, said the fresh infusion would take its total investment in Chakan to C8,000 crore.
“This investment will be for
doubling our production capacity at the Chakan plant to 7.5
lakh units annually,” Mahindra
& Mahindra Executive Director
Pawan Goenka told the news
agency.
He said the investment is
part of the C10,000 crore
investment over a 3-year period that the company had
announced last year.
“We will manufacture two
out of the three new platforms
which we have also announced
at the Chakan plant,” Goenka
said.
Mahindra & Mahindra
said a total of C4,000 crore will
be utilised towards infrastructure development, product
development and capacity
expansion for vehicles to be
4OLTXLGLW\SRVLWLRQ
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rolled out from the Chakan
plant.
A joint declaration was
signed today between the company and Maharashtra
Government, in the presence of
state Chief Minister Prithviraj
Chavan.
Mahindra
Group
Chairman Anand Mahindra
said Maharashtra Government’s
visionary industrial policies and
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I
?=BQ =4F34;78
T
he liquidity position during the April-June quarter has been comfortable,
b ar r i ng t h e p e r i o d of
advance tax outflow, according to a Government report.
“The cash position of
the government during Q1
of FY15 was comfortable
and remained in surplus
mode during the quarter,
barring a few occasions,
when it took recourse to
WMA (Ways and Means
Adv an c e s ) , t h e D e bt
Man a ge m e nt re p or t of
Finance Ministry said.
Referring to the liquidity conditions, it said barring
the period during which
companies paid advance
taxes, the money supply
position as reflected by net
borrowings from RBI under
L i qu i d it y
Adju s t m e nt
Facility (LAF) remained in
comfortable zone of about
one per cent of the total
deposits of the banking system.
For fiscal year 2014-15,
gross and net market bor-
rowing of the Government
stood at C6 lakh crore and
over Rs 4.61 lakh crore,
respectively.
This shows an increase
of 6.4 per cent and 1.6 per
cent over 2013-14 levels of
over C5.63 lakh crore (gross)
and over C4.53 lakh crore
(net), respectively.
During Q1 of FY15, the
government issued dated
securities worth C1.98 lakh
crore, higher than C1.51 lakh
crore in Q1 of last fiscal.
“Net market borrowings
during the quarter at 26.6 per
cent of budget estimates were,
however, lower than 28.6 per
cent of budget estimates in the
previous year, reflecting higher repayments in the first
quarter this year,” the statement added.
Internal debt constituted
91.4 per cent of public debt as
at end-June 2014, while marketable securities accounted for
83.4 per cent of total public
debt.
The total public debt of the
Government increased by 3.7
per cent in June quarter from
the previous March quarter.
efficient governance practices
have prompted the company to
to take the decision to scale up
the Chakan plant.
Earlier, the company had
decided to put on hold all
investment at its Chakan plant
due to VAT refund issues with
Maharashtra Government.
The plant currently manufacture M&M’s entire medium
and heavy commercial vehicle
range, including the 0.75 tonne
Maxximo, Single and Double
Cab Pik-Ups and the whole new
range of Mahindra Trucks and
SUV XUV 500 besides assembling SsangYong Rexton.
Besides Chakan, the company also has manufacturing
plants at Nashik and Haridwar.
Last year, Mahindra had
announced to invest C10,000
crore in the next three years on
capex and launching new products. As part of overall capex,
the company is developing twothree new platforms for brand
new products which will hit the
market around FY 2016.
The company is also working on six new engines out of
which three will be from
Mahindra and Mahindra and
three from Sangyong. Mahindra
and Mahindra is also working
on smaller engines with higher
power.
?C8
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A0:4B71870A8970Q =>830
erman luxury carmaker
BMW on Thursday
G
launched facelift of the second
generation of the SUV X3
priced up to C49.9 lakh (exshowroom Delhi).
“In order to strengthen
our presence in the country, we
would aggressively expand our
product range in the luxury
segment,” said BMW Group
India President Philipp von
Sahr.
“We would launch the M3
sedan, M4 Coupe, M5 sedan
and hybrid car i8 in 2014 ,” he
added.
The new X3 is being locally produced at the company’s
Chennai plant and is available
only in diesel option. It goes
on sale across the country
from Thursday onwards.
The new X3 will be available in two variants priced at
C44.9 lakh and C49.9 lakh
(ex-showroom). It is equipped
with various luxury features,
including the eight-speed
automatic transmission with
cruise control.
The company had first
launched the X3 model in
2003, followed by the second
generation in 2011. The model
launched on Thursday is the
facelift of the second generation of the SUV.”
The company also plans to
expand dealer network in the
country by 2015 end by taking
the overall number to 50 from
37 currently.
BMW India, which is wholly-owned subsidiary of the
Germany’s BMW Group, currently produces various vehicles
at its Chennai facility including
the 1 Series, 3 Series, X1 and X3.
ndia’s prevailing airport regulatory model has yielded
“poor returns” for investors,
global airports body Airports
Council International (ACI)
has said and sought its review
to attract investment to develop aviation infrastructure in the
country.
Asserting that transparent
economic regulatory processes
must be put in place in India,
ACI Director General Angela
Gittens said, “The current regulatory model has yielded poor
returns for investors and this
could stifle development of
India’s airports in the long run.”
Gittens, who met top government officials including
those from the Civil Aviation
Ministry here, said India needed the “right” economic regulatory framework in place to
encourage the development of
the much-needed airport infrastructure.
The Government should
“review their approach towards
regulation....India really needs
to think about how much economic regulation is necessary,”
she told reporters.
“It is outmoded to have a
very prescriptive economic regulatory model,” she said, giving
the example of the United
Kingdom which had “stepped
away from such a system”.
The ACI chief said the private investors came in to invest
in airport infrastructure with
“one set of expectations but got
something different”.
Asked to elaborate, Gittens
gave the examples of Hyderabad
and Bangalore airports where
the investors expected ‘dual till’
to be the concept of revenue
sharing but landed up with the
‘single till’ model.
Under the single till prin-
ciple airport activities - both
aeronautical and commercial are taken together to determine
the level of airport charges. By
contrast, only aeronautical
activities are taken into consideration under the dual till
principle.
Hence, airport charges
derived using the single till
approach are generally lower
than they would under a dual
till because of the sharing of
profits generated by commercial
activities. Noting that a key
challenge for Indian aviation
was thedevelopment of airport
infrastructure, Gittens said,
“The right incentives should be
in place. All you have to do is
downsize risks. So, what is
needed is a predictable, reliable
regulatory regime to encourance investments in airports.”
In reply to questions, she
said during her discussions
with aviation and other officials
here, she had suggested the
introduction of “the best practices in other countries and
alerted them to the dangers of
repeating what they did earlier”.
She said other countries
too have faced this dilemma
and “we will provide examples
for the Government to explore”.
Aviation was a key for
socio-economic development
and “India should be one of the
three largest aviation markets in
the world. ACI wants to see
India take its rightful place in
the aviation world,” she said.
Observing that India had
full potential with a large population, a large country and a
growing middle class, she said,
“However, it still has a long way
to go in view of the fact that
other countries with similar or
lower population bases handle
relatively larger volumes of passenger traffic.”
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?=BQ =4F34;78
he Central Board of Direct
T
Taxes on Thursday set up
a high-level committee to
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scrutinise all Income Tax
cases arising out of the retrospective tax amendment.
The four-member committee will be headed by the
Joint Secretary of the Foreign
Tax and Tax Research-I unit
of the CBDT. It will decide on
such cases within of 60 days
of receiving them from the
Assessing Officer.
It will be incumbent upon
the AO to approach the committee when faced with an I-
T case that is for the period
before April, 2012.
The other members on
the panel include Joint
Secretary (Tax Planning and
Legislation-I),
the
Commissioner of Income Tax
Appeals and the Director
(Foreign Tax and Tax
Research-I), who will also be
the Secretary of the committee.
Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley had announced this
new mechanism in his Budget
2014-15 speech on July 10.
According to the terms of
reference for the new committee, it would, on receipt of
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?=BQ =4F34;78
rime Minister Narendra
P
Modi has re-nominated
Baba Kalyani, Chairman and
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fT[R^\TS2<3P[[cWT3XaTRc^ab?aTbXST]c^UBP]hdZcP<PWX[PBP\XcXBWPa\X[PA^h2W^dSWdahP]S^cWTabT]X^a
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3T[WX1^^Z5PXa3TeT]SaP:d\PaH3BWPa\PAP\TbWCPX[P]VP]S3TeT]SaP<TfPaXPaTP[b^bTT]
Managing Director of Bharat
Forge Ltd. as the Co- Chair
from the Indian side of the
India-Japan Business Leaders'
Forum (IJBLF).
Modi will be accompanied by the members of IJBLF
on his forthcoming trip to
Japan at the end of August.
Kalyani was appointed by the
Prime Minister of India to
leverage the developing trade
and investment between the
two countries for greater cooperation between their businesses
The 17-member forum
includes Mukesh Ambani,
chairman Reliance Industries,
Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman, Bharti Enterprises,
Shashi Ruia, chairman, Essar
t he reference f rom t he
Ass essing Of f icer "shall
examine the proposed action
of the Assessing Officer and
after providing an opportunity to the assessee, take a
decision on the proposed
action".
In a notification, CBDT
said: "The committee shall
convey its decision in writing
to the Assessing Officer with
copy to t he Pr incipal
C ommissioner or t he
Commissioner concerned
and the assessee."
The apex body of direct
taxes system in the country
said: "The committee shall
0LQLPXPSHQVLRQRIC.XQGHU
(3)2ZDJHFHLOLQJXSDWC.
=4F34;78)The much-awaited minimum monthly pension of C1,000
and a higher wage ceiling of C15,000 for social security schemes
run by retirement fund manager EPFO will be implemented from
September 1.
The government's decision to fix pension entitlement of C1,000
under the Employees' Pension Scheme 1995 (EPFS-95) will
immediately benefit 28 lakh pensioners who get less than this amount
at present.
The move to enhance the minimum wage ceiling for becoming a subscriber of Employees' Provident Fund Organisation to
C15,000 per month is expected to bring 50 lakh additional formal
sector workers under the ambit of the body.
"The government has notified enhancement of wage ceiling to
C15,000 per month, fixed minimum monthly pension at C1,000
under EPS-95 and enhanced the maximum sum assured.
Group, Gautam Adani, chairman, Adani Group, Azim
Premji, chairman Wipro,
Dilip Shanghvi, chairman,
Sun
Pharma,
Kiran
Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman
Biocon Limited, S Ramadorai,
vice chairman TCS and
Chanda Kochhar, CEO&MD,
ICICI Bank.
?=BQ =4F34;78
T
he markets continued their
dream run on the back of
capital inflows with the Sensex
on Thursday gaining for the sixth
day as it rose 78 points to end at
new closing peak of 26,638.11,
wrapping up the seventh straight
month of gains in August.
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Chase and at least
other US banks have
JbeenPfourMorgan
victims of a "sophisticated"
series of cyber attacks this
month, sources close to the
investigation told The New York
Times.
Hackers gained access to
large amounts of bank data,
including information from the
savings accounts of customers,
the sources said.
The FBI is investigating the
attack and seeking to determine
whether its purpose was economic or part of an international
espionage or intelligence operation.
"Companies of our size
unfortunately experience cyber
attacks nearly every day. We have
multiple layers of defence to
counteract any threats and constantly monitor fraud levels," JP
Morgan spokeswoman Patricia
Wexler said in a statement.
According to cyber security experts consulted by the
newspaper, there is no evidence
of any political motivation
behind the attacks, nor has any
connection with countries like
Russia or Iran been established.
Recently, the US banking
sector has been targeted by economically-motivated hackers.
But the fact that JP Morgan
has not detected fraud after the
latest attacks has led investigators
to be open to all possibilities.
'UHDPUXQFRQWLQXHVIRUVWRFNVPDUNHW
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endeavour to decide the reference within 60 days of its
receipt by the Secretary of the
committee. However, the
committee shall have due
regard to any limitation period involved in the proposed
action."
An AO "shall seek prior
approval" of the committee
when faced with a situation
that any income is deemed to
accrue or arise in India before
April, 2012 through transfer
of a capital asset situated in
India following the amendments introduced with retrospective effect, the notification said.
FDSR_\dgZTeZ^d
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The NSE Nifty index rose by
18 points to a fresh closing high
of 7,954.35 as stocks inched
northwards on hectic activity on
expiry day of monthly derivative
contracts, despite weak global
cues in form of rising tension in
Ukraine.Brokers said investors
continued to focus on the series
of steps taken by the Modi gov-
ernment to boost the economy
and attract FDI. Buying was
mainly seen in capital goods,
refinery and FMCG stocks while
realty, metal and IT shares fell.
The BSE 30-share index
resumed higher and moved in
a narrow range throughout
the day in positive terrain
before settling up 77.96 points
&&,H[SDQGVSUREHLQWR
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?=BQ=4F34;78
air trade watchdog CCI has
asked Sun Pharma-Ranbaxy
F
deal to make public specific
details of their proposed merger within ten days.
This is probably the first
instance
where
the
Competition Commission of
India (CCI) has ordered a public scrutiny of a proposed merger and acquisition (M&A) deal
to ensure compliance to fair
trade regulations.
Sun Pharma and Ranbaxy,
which had announced a $ 4-billion deal in April this year, were
asked late last night to make
public details of their proposed transaction in a "prescribed format" within 10
working days.
"The company has received
direction vide letter dated
August 27, 2014 under Section
29(2) of the Competition Act,
2002 from the Competition
Commission of India (CCI)
directing the company to pub-
lish the details of the proposed
combination in the prescribed
format within 10 working days
from the date of the said letter
of the CCI," Ranbaxy Labs
said in a stock exchange filing
this morning.
In a similar filing, Sun
Pharma also informed the
stock exchanges that they "are
in receipt of direction under
Section 29(2) of the
Competition Act, 2002 from
the CCI directing Sun Pharma
to publish the details of the proposed combination within 10
working days from August 27,
2014 in Form IV contained in
Schedule II to the Combination
Regulations".
Under this section, if the
CCI is "prima facie of the
opinion that the combination
has, or is likely to have, an
appreciable adverse effect on
competition, it shall... Direct
the parties to the said combination to publish details of the
combination within ten working days of such direction...".
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I
or the second time in
three days, Pakistan’s
powerful Army Chief Raheel
Sharif on Thursday met
beleaguered Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif to discuss the
over two weeks-long political turmoil in the country.
The Government did not
issue any details of the meeting but after their previous
meeting on Tuesday, the
Prime Minister’s Office had
said they agreed on the need
for a quick resolution of the
deadlock.
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and airstrikes has increased significantly in Iraq, after what
started as a limited military
mission earlier this month, the
group says Congress needs to
examine any expansion of the
operation to Syria.
The White House has
broadly suggested that the
President may not need to
seek Congressional authorisation since this is a “markedly
different” situation in which the
administration is talking about
“confronting a terrorist group
that has sought safe haven in
Syria” and “poses a threat to
Americans in the region”.
“We all share concerns
about the Islamic State’s brutal
tactics and further destabilisation of the region,” lawmakers
Barbara Lee, James McGovern
and Walter B Jones write in their
letter to the Speaker, adding:
“But current military operations
now underway in Iraq appear to
be beyond the scope of these
limited purposes, and even
greater expansion is under discussion. These are serious matters that require Congressional
debate and a vote on whether to
authorise them.”
Opinion in Congress, however, appears to be divided
broadly, regardless of political
affiliation, with some prominent Republicans, including
Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, advancing the view
that if the matter comes before
the Congress, President Obama
will “very likely” get the authorisation, since it is a question of
American national security.
In contrast, Democratic
Senator Tim Kaine, even while
admitting that ISIS represents
a significant terrorist threat to
US interests, said there needs to
be a full debate, with the
Congress then voting up or
down on it.
In the midst of the political posturing, Shirley Sotloff,
mother of the journalist taken
hostage by ISIS, came out with
her direct appeal to the militant
outfit. “My son is Steven is in
your hands. He is a journalist
who made a journey to cover
the story of Muslims suffering
at the hands of tyrants,” she
said, adding: “As a mother, I ask
your justice to be merciful and
not punish my son for matters
he has no control over.”
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n a bid to defuse Pakistan’s
p olitical crisis, Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif on
Thursday agreed to face a case
of murder of 14 supporters of
cleric Tahir-ul- Qadri who
rejected it saying terror
charges should also b e
slapped on the Premier.
Police in Lahore finally
registered the murder case
against Prime Minister Sharif,
his brother and Punjab
province Chief Minister
Shahbaz, key Cabinet ministers and senior officials for
their alleged role in the killing
of Qadri’s supporters in the
Model Town area, meeting a
major demand of the
fiery cleric.
“The FIR has been registered on the order of the
Lahore High Court (LHC),”
Punjab police spokesperson
Nabila Ghazanfar told PTI.
She said the FIR had been
registered
on
PAT ’s
application.
F
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However, the cleric was
not satisfied with the
Government’s concession,
saying “I do not accept this
FIR, until the Terrorism Act
is included in it.”
For the second time in
three days, Pakistan’s powerful Army Chief Raheel Sharif
met the Prime Minister on
Thursday to discuss the over
two weeks-long political
turmoil.
The Prime Minister and
the Chief of Army Staff
(COAS) discussed security
matters and uncertainty created by the ongoing protests
hina on Thursday asked
slamic State jehadis have exethe US to end the military Icuted more than 160 fleeing
C
surveillance off its coast, warn- Syrian soldiers, a monitor said on
ing that the frequent “close-in”
air sorties by American fighter jets have “gravely undermined” bilateral ties and could
cause “air and sea accidents”.
Chinese military would
closely monitor US flights
and adopt appropriate measures to ensure the country’s
security, Ministry of Defence
Col Yang Yujun told a news
briefing. He said it has become
a routine for the US to showup off Chinese coast.
“In particular when PLA
conducts weapon tests in maritime area, US showed up
without an invite.”
“This behaviour could
easily cause misperception
and cause air and sea accidents,” Yang said.
“As a developing country,
China values its aircraft and
pilots’ lives, certainly compared to some countries that
have their military pilots fly
close to other’s doorsteps on
a daily basis.” He said
American fighter jets have
conducted frequent reconnaissance against China for a
long time, which has “gravely undermined China’s security interests as well as ChinaUS strategic mutual trust and
bilateral ties.”
Thursday, the latest in a string of
brutal abuses alarming Western
powers who fear a global spread
of the terror.
News of the killings comes
as US President Barack Obama
is reportedly weighing air strikes
on IS positions in Syria and coming closer to greenlighting a
mission to aid Shia Turkmen
trapped in an Iraqi town by the
jehadis.
Syrian regime air strikes
killed six IS leaders on Thursday,
the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said, but
in the country, sources said.
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf
(PTI) chairman Imran Khan
and Pakistan Awami Tehreek
(PAT) chief Qadri have
snapped communications
with the official negotiators
after the fifth round of talks
failed to produce any result on
Wednesday night.
Qadri termed supporters
of PTI and his party as first
cousins. He said that he and
PTI
Chairman
Khan
were brothers. Khan continued
to demand Sharif ’s resignation,
saying “I will not leave here. I
will not accept this monarchy.
D=2>=58A<B#"
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I want real democracy.”
“It has been decided that
an FIR will be registered
against Shahbaz Sharif, but he
has decided that he will not
resign,” he said.
Amid mounting pressure
from the protesters, Sharif
chaired a high-level meeting in
the capital to discuss the current political crisis, media
reports said.
Washington has so far baulked
at cooperating with Damascus
against the jehadis. French
President Francois Hollande
added his voice to the disquiet
that has been growing since the
jehadis marauded through Iraq
and beheaded US journalist
James Foley. The latest killings
took place in the Syrian province
of Raqa, the Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights said, adding
that the victims were soldiers
fleeing towards Governmentheld territory to the west after the
jehadis overran their base at
Tabqa. The jehadis boasted on
Twitter that they had killed 200
defeated troops and posted video
of what they said was the garrison in headlong flight.
DBbPhbAdbbXP³SXaTRc[h
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05?Q 3>=4CB:D:A08=4
he United States on
Thursday accused Russia of
T
being directly involved in the
Ukraine conflict after proKremlin rebels seized swathes
of territory from Government
forces in a new southeastern
front.
“An increasing number of
Russian troops are intervening
directly in fighting on
Ukrainian territory,” the US
³!C0=:2>;D<=B5A><
ADBB804=C4AD:A08=4´
Novoazovsk (Ukraine): Two
columns of Russian tanks
and military vehicles fired
Grad missiles at a border post
in southeastern Ukraine, then
rolled into the country on
Thursday as Ukraine’s overmatched border guards fled,
a top Ukrainian official said.
AP
ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey
Pyatt wrote on Twitter.
“Russia has also sent its
newest air defence systems
including the SA-22 into eastern Ukraine and is now directly involved in the fighting,” he
said. After weeks of
Government offensives that
have seen troops push deep
into the last rebel bastions in
the industrial east of Ukraine,
the tide has turned dramatically
in the four-month conflict.
ven as President Barack
E
Obama contemplates
expanding airstrikes against
the Islamic State militants into
their strongholds in Syria, with
a report suggesting that he
wants a plan ready by this
weekend, several lawmakers
have begun to demand a
Congressional debate and vote
on the military push.
The stage for a possible
Congressional battle appeared
to be getting set even as one
more American jehadi was
reported killed in the ongoing
battle in Syria, and the mother of Steven Sotloff, the
American journalist in ISIS
custody, pleaded for her son’s
life in an emotional televised
appeal to the outfit’s leader, Abu
Omar al-Baghdadi.
A small bipartisan group of
lawmakers has written to
House Speaker John Boehner,
urging him to take up the
matter when the Congress
reconvenes in the second week
of September. Noting that the
number of American troops
0?5Q 60I028CH?0;4BC8=80=
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ital humanitarian aid was
arriving in Gaza on
V
Thursday as residents began
rebuilding their lives following a
devastating 50-day war between
Israel and Hamas that experts say
left no winners.
Millions in and around the
war-torn coastal enclave were
enjoying a second day of peace
after the guns fell silent following a permanent ceasefire agreement, allowing people to begin
putting
their
lives
back together.
The truce, which went into
force on Tuesday evening, saw
the warring sides agree to a “permanent” halt to seven weeks of
bloodshed in a move hailed by
Washington, the United Nations
and top world diplomats.
Under the deal, Israel agreed
to immediately lift restrictions on
fishing, allowing boats to work
up to six nautical miles from the
shore in a move which went into
effect early on Wednesday.
It also pledged to ease
restrictions at the two crossings
into Gaza, Erez and Kerem
Shalom, to allow the entry of
goods, humanitarian aid and
construction materials, in a
move which began on
Thursday.
Debate on crunch issues
such as Hamas’s demand for a
port and an airport, and the
release of prisoners, as well as
4aS^VP]bf^a]X]
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T
urkey’s outgoing Premier
Recep Tayyip Erdogan was
on Thursday sworn in as
Presient as opponents who
accuse him of authoritarianism after more than a decade
in power walked out of the
ceremony.
Erdogan, 60, took the oath
in Ankara to begin a five-year
mandate in which he has
vowed to build a “new Turkey”
by pushing through a new
constitution and driving on
with an ambitious development programme.
Deputies of the Opposition
Republican People’s Party, who
accuse Erdogan of violating the
constitution, noisily walked
out of parliament just before he
was sworn in.
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Erdogan has made clear he
wants to wield genuine executive power as President after
becoming the first directly
elected head of state, taking 52
per cent of the vote in the
August 10 poll.
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Jerusalem: Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim
that Israel achieved a “great
military and political” victory over Hamas in the latest
round of fighting in the
Gaza Strip has met with
scepticism from many
Israelis, according to a poll
published on Thursday. The
poll, published in the leftleaning Haaretz newspaper,
shows that 54 per cent of
those surveyed believe there
was no clear winner in the 50
days of war.
The fighting killed 2,143
Palestinians, most of them
civilians, according to
Palestinian health officials
and UN officials. On the
Israeli side, 64 soldiers, five
civilians and a Thai worker
were killed.
The poll underscores the
unease pervading Israeli society after the third round of
fighting between Israel and
Gaza-based Islamic militants
in the seven years since Hamas
took control of the densely
populated coastal strip. AP
Israel’s calls to demilitarise Gaza
have been postponed for another month until the sides resume
talks in Cairo.
3cZeZdY>fd]Z^d
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London: British Muslims have
sought actions against those
responsible for the sexual
exploitation of at least 1,400
children by gangs mainly of
Pakistani origin in the country.
A report released earlier
this week had said that at least
1,400 children were sexually
exploited from 1997-2013
mainly by gangs of Pakistani
origin in the town of
Rotherham in South Yorkshire.
Professor Alexis Jay’s report,
commissioned by Rotherham
Borough Council, said: “Several
councilors interviewed believed
that by opening up these issues
they could be ‘giving oxygen’ to
racist perspectives that might in
turn attract extremist political
groups and threaten community cohesion”.
PTI
<^abXPRRdbTS^Ub\dVV[X]V
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?C8Q 208A>
gypt’s ousted Islamist
President Mohammed
E
Morsi has been accused of
smuggling top secret documents to Qatar through Dohabased Al-Jazeera Channel
harming national security during his rule.
The toppled and jailed
President has been charged
with passing secret files to
Qatar, a close ally of his
Muslim Brotherhood group,
through Al-Jazeera hampering
national security, media
reports said.
The Egyptian prosecutor
general extended the detention
of Morsi for another 15 days,
pending investigations into the
fresh charges, according to
MENA State news agency.
The investigators of the
General Prosecution on
Wednesday moved to Tora
Prison, where Morsi has been
lodged, to question and confront him with the allegations,
the agency said.
Morsi, Egypt’s first freely
elected President who was
ousted by the Army in July
2013 amid nationwide protests
against his year-long rule, is
already facing charges of killing
peaceful protesters, espionage,
escaping from prison during
the January 25 Revolution in
2011, and insulting the
jurisdiction.
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QOriginally, why did you decide to take on the
role of Nancy Callahan in Sin City?
I wanted to do this movie because Robert
Rodriguez was directing it, first and foremost. I didn’t really know it was a comic book when I read
(something), when I saw that he was
directing something. I just tell my
agents every month, ‘What’s Robert
doing? I want to do something with
him.’ And Lee, one of my agents,
said, ‘You’ve got an opportunity.’ I
said, ‘Excellent!’ So I took that
opportunity and ran with it. I auditioned the old fashioned way. I met
with the casting director, put myself
on tape, and he had to approve.
QNancy Callahan in the comic
favourite characters I’ve ever played, and Sin City
is hands-down my favourite movie I’ve ever been
in. If I wasn’t in that movie I would’ve wanted to
be in that movie.
QHow did you prepare for the dancing in the
movie?
I trained with this woman named Jennifer
Johnson who’s done a lot of competitive dancing
— jazz, tap — and went on tour with Beyoncé. Now,
she gives lessons in LA. Basically, I’d just map out
where Nancy was emotionally, and really wanted
the dancing to portray where she was emotionally, so when you get to the last dance, it’s very vulgar, raunchy, and scary.
QHow was it working with Robert Rodriguez
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Working with Rodriguez and
within the unique world of “Sin
City” is an opportunity. He really
creates a world and a universe that’s
like nothing else. And as an actor, he
doesn’t see any limitations on your
capabilities or what you can do. He’s
constantly challenging the status quo
and pushing the limits, so it’s great
to be part of it.
QYou seem quite comfortable in
book is showing more skin and is
wilder. After seeing the comic, did
you double think about the role
and why don’t we see you in the
original comic avatar?
When I looked at the graphic
novel and I saw the picture, I then
found out that she was a stripper
and she was bottomless and topless.
You know, nudity was an option.
We could have done it if we wanted to. Nudity was definitely negotiable, if that was how Rodriguez
wanted to go. It absolutely was an
option. Robert said we could do it
if we wanted to. Obviously it would have been more
authentic. But I felt like dancing around with a lasso
and chaps was going to be sexy enough. I think
being nude for me would have been distracting. I
really couldn’t be bottomless in front of my dad.
He would really… I don’t know. He’d disown me
or something. He’d freak out.”
your own skin today, and you’re
now running a business and have
two kids. Was that self-confidence
something you were born with, or
something you had to reach?
No. It took me a long time to get
to this place, but it’s making mistakes and figuring it out and being
paralysingly insecure sometimes
and being very unsure of myself and
overthinking things constantly. I’m
just so happy I’m not in that headspace anymore because it’s pretty
much exhausting. It’s a lot to put on
a young person, where you go from
being anonymous to being completely exposed and
in a fishbowl, and everything you say comes back
to haunt you and everything you do is magnified,
it’s hard to be human, make mistakes, and figure
things out. You feel the magnitude of every little,
tiny choice. That’s why pop culture and media swallow up a lot of people while they’re young.
QDid you have any apprehension as far as play-
QWould you like to be a part of Sin City 3 also,
if ever it gets made?
Absolutely! Hopefully, it won’t be in ten years.
Hopefully, it’ll be sooner than that.
ing Nancy again?
No way! I was stoked. Nancy’s one of my
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the West, the ancient
IrolenGreeks
acknowledged the
of fate as a reality outside
the individual that shaped and
determined human life. Fate
represented a terrifying, irresistible force and was, indeed,
the will of the gods — an
invincible reality : ritually
revealed by the oracle at Delphi,
who spoke for Apollo himself in
mysterious pronouncements.
By the 5th centur y B C,
Athenians questioned the
power of the oracle to convey
the will of the divinity.
Philosophers, such as Socrates,
opened rational debate on the
role of the gods in human
affairs. But the citizens still
insisted on the propriety of tradition surrounding the gods
and fate, and the city condemned the philosopher to
death for impiety. In the same
century, the oracles in the
Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles
speak truly — although
obliquely — as an unassailable
authority. Indeed, this voice of
the gods — the expression of
their divine will — represents
a powerful, unseen force
throughout the classic Greek
drama.
In India, however, the gods
never interfered in the human
affairs. In our tradition, the
puranic gods and the holy trinity — Brahma, Vishnu and
Shiva — gave away boons and
benedictions to humans and
denizens of the nether world in
response to fervent prayers,
and clipped their wings if lust,
greed and might became overarching. But, otherwise, the
gods were men’s true friends,
coming down to earth, when
need be, and even playing with
mother’s affection, as Balgopal,
as every Indian family knows.
In our tradition in contrast, the
folk deities were remarkably
possessive — perhaps to assert
themselves against the greater
gods. The goddesses like
Santoshi Ma in the northern
belt and Ma Manasa with her
snakes in the rural east
demanded unflinching compliance of devotion: through
regular rituals and unshakable
faith: not to be interrupted, to
escape dire punishment.
Chand Baniker Pala (Ballad
of the Merchant Chand), presented by the Delhi’s ensemble
of elite artistes, organised by
Impresario India, was their
homage to
the thespian Shombhu Mitra
for his forthcoming birth centenary. Directed by Santanu
Bose, currently dean of NSD,
the play was written by Mitra
himself based on an inversion
of Manasa Mangal, the cultpoetry concerning the goddess
Manasa: as prevalent in Bengal
villages. The intrepid merchant
is single-minded in his devotion to the greater god Shiva
(who still does not come to his
rescue) and declines to worship
the folk-goddess Manasa, inviting the latter’s endless wrath.
Despite his wife Sanaka’s faith
in Manasa and constant exhortations, Chand remains steadfast in opposing Manasa’s
machinations: making him lose
all his sea-faring fleet of ships,
his six sons and eventually
both his youngest boy
Lakhinder and his new bride
Behula; but his spirit remains
unbroken.
In an action-oriented playreading, the show yet achieves
its cohesive purpose: steeling of
Chand’s mind against the
onslaught of ‘Little Tradition’;
the rising of his unequal struggle against Ma Manasa to a
crescendo; the denouement of
Chand coming out a cropper;
and especially where Mitra
departs from the traditional
folklore — Chand’e resolve to
carry on regardless.
In as much as the Pala had
never been showcased in its
entirety, Impresario India
deserves kudos for getting it
accomplished. Says B ean
Mukherjee, who heads
Impresario, “I’m pleased to see
the audience response and shall
certainly look forward to its
full-scale
performance”.
Excerpts from Interview with
the Director:
Q Does the play depict fate as
in Gre ek drama or like
Shakespearean drama?
It’s far nearer the spirit of
Greek drama where the gods
play ducks and drakes with
characters’
destiny.
A
Shakespeare tragedy like
Macbeth is much more dependent on the character’s own
action.
Q But Shiva doesn’t rise to save
his ardent devotee either…
That’s the irony to which
Mitra also points out, there’s allround despair, more on keeping with the prevailing depression and disillusionment
between 1965 and 1975 when
he wrote the play; he would
soon leave theatre altogether…
Q How have you chosen your
music?
I’ve mostly retained the
music suggested in the original
script, except, I’ve used a classic folk-song: Badar Badar…
initially and at the end: to visualise the river-journey. The
wedding music of BehulaLakhinder is also from a popular ditty.
Q Mitra has etched the death
of both Behula and Lakhinder,
unlike the popular folklore on
them: both going on a mythic journey to heaven…
I agree. The two deaths,
together, make the play look
like a Greek tragedy: with the
final catharsis.
Q How do you place the play
today?
It’s the irrepressible élan for
Chand’s journey, notwithstanding every tragedy!
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cucumber in chicken broth are also
served as accompaniments.
Satay is one of the earliest foods to
be associated with Singapore. It is a dish
of seasoned, skewered and grilled
meat, served with a sauce.
Satay may consist of diced
or sliced chicken or other
meats or even tofu.
These
are
grilled or barbecued over a
wood or charcoal fire, then
ser ved with
various spicy
seasonings.
Singaporean
street
food,
which is famous
among the food
connoisseurs from
across the globe, is all
about satay, laksa and
Hainanese chicken rice. The
flavours of these dishes are
enhanced by the generous use of
stock, whether it be chicken, pork or
any other meat. Vegetable stock also
adds rich flavour to dishes.
Singaporean dishes mostly use fresh
ingredients, be it fresh vegetables, meat,
herbs and spices. The freshness of any
ingredient automatically improves the
flavour of the dish. A bowl of fresh hot
Singaporean laksa is a treat for the
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palate. Apart from being a gastronomical delight, Singaporean cuisine is also
wholesome with a healthy mix of meat
and vegetables and a minimum use of oil.
Since most Singaporean
dishes are either braised
or steamed, they are
rich in nutrition and
less in fat. For
instance, the filling in
a poh piah is mainly
finely steamed, grated or
stir fried turnip along
with other nutritional vegetables such as bean sprouts,
lettuce, French beans. Apart
from the greens, poh piah may
also include chicken sausages,
pork, shrimp, crab meat or tofu,
carrots, eggs and peanuts. An all time
favourite is the popular stir fried vegetable cooked in less oil. A dish like the
steamed fish with soy sauce is not only
flavoursome but also nutritional. With no
oil and very less ingredients involved in the
cooking, this dish is a treat that is both tasty
and healthy.
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QTea comes from the leaves of a tree called
Camellia sinensis. The three main types of tea
are black, oolong and green. Herbal tea does
not come from the leaves of a tea plant, therefore, is not considered to be real tea. Roots,
stems, flowers and parts of plants are used to
make herbal tea.
QStudies in the Netherlands have shown that
men who drink black tea which contains catechins are 50 per cent less likely to die of
ischemic heart disease. This takes place when
our arteries become clogged and are unable to
work properly because of constriction.
QRecent studies have shown that drinking
between one and two cups of tea per day may
promote fertility by stopping abnormalities in
our chromosomes. In a recent test 250 women
drank as little as half a cup of tea per day and
their pregnancy rates were twice as high as
those who did not.
QTea can be used to soothe burns and sunburns. Put wet tea bags onto the affected areas
or keep in place with gauge. You can also put
tea into your bath water. This works for other
types of burns as well.
QIn recent Australian studies CSIRO scientists
found that the occurrence of skin cancer in laboratory mice was greatly reduced when they
were given black tea. It is thought that
polyphenols which are very strong antioxidants
and are contained in the tea are the most
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likely reason for this phenomenon.
QThe costliest teabag ever was
created for the 75th anniversary
of the PG TIPS tea company.
The bag was filled with two
hundred and eighty diamonds and expensive limit^UUPRcb ed edition tea leaves. The bag
costs 7,500 pounds.
QUntil the 19th century, nearly
all tea was grown in China and its major export
partner was Great Britain. As trade with China
became more difficult, the British began to
look for other areas to cultivate tea including
regions of India (Assam and Darjeeling) and
Africa (Kenya) and managed to begin cultivation by illegally smuggling plants out of
China. These “new” areas remain some of the
biggest producers of tea to this day.
QTea is believed to have arrived in Europe
thanks to a Portuguese Jesuit priest named
Jasper de Cruz. He visited China in 1590 when
Portugal was granted trading privileges with
the country and was allowed to bring some of
the plants he discovered with him when he
returned home.
QThough drinking all types of tea is considered to be beneficial to one’s health, it is green
tea that has the best reputation as a super food.
Various studies have shown that drinking
green tea may well be helpful in the fight
against heart disease, certain forms of cancer
and diabetes as well as a valuable tool in the
battle to lower cholesterol.
QAs per the Chinese legend, it is believed that
Emperor Shen Nong first discovered tea in
2737 BC, when leaves from the tea bushes fell
into water his servants were boiling to purify. It was at first considered a tonic, however,
and used for medicinal purposes only.
A 4 2 8 ? 4
ingaporean cuisine has been fundamentally influenced by Chinese,
Malay, Indonesian, Indian,
Peranakan and some Western traditions. The essence of Singaporean cooking technique is based on time, temperature and ingredient used. While some
dishes are slow cooked on low flame, others such as stir fried dishes are cooked
on high temperature for a short time.
Essentially slow cooking with fresh herbs
and spices make the food incredibly tender. This method also infuses the dish
with rich flavours that are quite different from the flavours obtained from any
other method. An array of fresh herbs
and spices including ginger, turmeric,
galangal, lemon grass, curry leaves, pungent belachan (shrimp paste), chillies and
coconut milk are an integral part of cooking. Singaporean cooking technique also
incorporates the use of charcoal that further enhances the
flavour of the dish.
The most popular
Singaporean dishes are
undoubtedly
the
Singaporean laksa,
Hainanese chicken rice
and chicken satay. Laksa
is made with a creamy
rich coconut milk gravy
consisting of noodles,
fishcake, prawns and
chopped bean sprouts
ser ved in a spic y
coconut based soup. In Hainanese chicken rice, the chicken is prepared in traditional Hainanese style which involves
immersing the entire chicken at sub-boiling temperature in a pork and chicken
bone stock. The rice is cooked in a fresh
chicken stock producing an oily, flavourful rice with sometimes Southeast Asian
pandan leaves added to it. They are
served in an authentic way with a hot
chilli sauce dip made up of minced red
chilli and garlic. Dark soy sauce and a
heap of freshly pounded ginger with fresh
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I
ndian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni
has showered praise on Suresh Raina
for his match-winning hundred in the
second one-dayer against England which
helped them take a 1-0 lead in the fivematch series. “It was a fantastic knock,”
said Dhoni, about Raina’s 75-ball 100.
India humbled the hosts by 133 runs
via Duckworth/Lewis method after the
visitors posted 304 for six while batting
first and Dhoni said Raina’s knock made
the difference. “By the end of the 30th
over, we had not scored too many runs.
It was important that he stayed at the
crease because he was a set batsman. And
we have realised that if we can get a partnership going and have wickets in hand,
we can score a lot of runs in the last 1012 overs. So his innings was very crucial
in that respect,” he added.
Raina and Dhoni put up 144 runs
for the fifth wicket, batting together for
16.5 overs and scoring at 8.55 runs per
over, as India plundered 147 runs in the
last 15 overs. The Indian skipper himself scored 52 runs, but the star of the
day was surely Raina, who hit 12 fours
and 3 sixes during his stay at the
crease. “Raina is someone who scores at
a very quick pace and he plays authentic cricketing shots. So I feel he played
a fantastic innings as once he got his
fifty, he continued and moved on to play
some fantastic shots and got his hundred,” said Dhoni.
With the ODI World Cup just six
months away, when asked if this innings
C1D9C6I9>71>4C@5391<*B19>1
20A3855) His match-winning century
earned India a win in the second ODI
against England and Suresh Raina said
it was a special innings as it helped the
visitors break their losing streak.
After the Lord’s Test win, India suffered embarrassing defeats in the next
three matches to lose the five-Test series
1-3, but Raina’s 75-ball 100-run knock
helped the visitors get back to winning
ways in the second ODI here on
Wednesday. “I felt really good scoring my
first ODI century in three years. I wanted to bring in fresh energy in the team,
and I’m glad I could do that,” Raina told
BCCI.TV.
“This knock is one of the most special ones for me given the circumstances
and the conditions. We hadn’t won the
game in a long time and to help the team
break that jinx with a century was very
satisfying.”
It was Raina’s first ODI century since
2010 and his first outside the subcontinent, and the left-handed batsman said
he had worked hard on his game ahead
of the ODI series. “After all the work I
had put into my game in Mumbai with
Sachin paaji and (Praveen) Amre sir, I
was determined to join the team and
bring them some happiness, whether it
is by scoring a hundred or taking a brilliant catch,” he said.
“I had to bring the smiles back on
my teammates’ faces. I am glad I could
do that today. The team’s environment
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is very good right now and I hope we
continue this performance in the remaining matches,” he added.
Despite India losing the Test, Raina
said they were a good side and praised
skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni for
motivating the team during this lean
patch. “We didn’t do well in the Test
series but that doesn’t mean we are a bad
team. We are ranked No. 2 in ODIs and
are the reigning World Cup and
Champions Trophy winners. MS did a
very good job of leading the team after
the Tests and maintain the confidence
of the young boys. We had decided that
we would run for each other and share
each other’s success. That showed in our
fielding performance.”
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confirmed Raina’s spot in the squad for
India’s title-defence, the Indian skipper
replied, “The thing is that if a batsman
plays one good innings, he is put up on
a pedestal. If he doesn’t play good cricket or indeed if Raina had not played this
innings, the questions could have been
very different.
“If Raina doesn’t score in a couple of
games against the West Indies (at home
in October), some other questions will be
asked. So let us just say that it was a very
good hundred. The World Cup is still
three-four series away. Hopefully he
won’t be injured and will be available for
selection at that time.”
Ravindra Jadeja also stood up with
his 4-28 in seven overs as England collapsed to 161 all out in 38.1 overs. It further improved Jadeja’s ODI record against
England, especially in the limited-overs
format. “If we talk about the last few series
we have played, whenever the ball has
turned slightly, we have seen that it is difficult to score against Jadeja,” said the
Indian skipper.
“He (Jadeja) bowls in the same area
and gets a bit of purchase from the wicket and that is one of the main reasons for
his success. At the same time, he has also
struggled when there is no purchase for
him and he has to improve as a bowler
and has to do things slightly differently.
“The key thing is that he keeps
improving and gets wickets for us because
he is a very useful player for us lower
down the order. He can smash a few runs
when there are few overs left,” he added.
Indeed playing Jadeja in the eleven
allows India to go in with five bowlers in
ODIs as Ravichandran Ashwin too can
bat a bit. On the day, the duo had added
a few runs in the end of the innings while
sharing 6 wickets between them.
“We have been playing in ODIs with
five bowlers for ages now,” said Dhoni.
“With Jadeja and Ashwin, both of
them can bat a bit and bowl a bit. There
is also Raina as an option because he can
bowl a bit too. If one of the bowlers has
a bad day Raina gives me 5 or 6 good
overs. Five bowlers get me out of trouble.
“Still the fast bowlers will have to
improve a bit more,” he added.
5RRQH\DSSRLQWHG(QJODQGFDSWDLQ
;>=3>=) Wayne Rooney was
named England captain on
Thursday, taking over the leadership role of an inexperienced
team in a rebuilding phase following its worst-ever World Cup.
“He certainly deserves it, his
commitment to the cause,”
England coach Roy Hodgson said
at Wembley. “He is prepared to
accept the pressures the England
captaincy brings.”
Hodgson confirmed the
Manchester United player’s
appointment — from a small
pool of potential captains —
while naming the
squad for England’s
first
European
Championship qualifier against Switzerland
on Sept. 8 and a friendly against
Norway on Wednesday.
Defenders Calum Chambers
and Danny Rose, and midfielders
Jack Colback and Fabian Delph
were called up for the first time.
Rooney has been handed the
symbolically-prestigious captaincy role following Steven Gerrard’s
international retirement despite a
rocky relationship in the past with
fans, questions about his temperament following red cards on
international duty, and facing
criticism over indiscretions in
his personal life.
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“He has that baggage with him and he
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as a further part of the 0]VT[SX<PaXPX]aTSfXcWR^PRW;^dXbeP] 6PP[^]CWdabSPh
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pressure,” Hodgson
said. “It’s wrong of me to read too nament in France shouldn’t be a attack.
much into the past and any mis- major challenge, with the tournaPSG will play Sunday against 10H4A=B4CC>B86=G018
demeanors he might have had in ment newly-expanded to 24 in the second-place Saint-Etienne, a 5A><A40;<03A83
that time,” the coach added. “In 54-nation UEFA region. The team that has caused the defend- <D=827)Bayern Munich hopes to
the two years he has been with me biggest test in Group E is first up ing French champions problems complete the transfer of Real
I have had no reason to question at Switzerland on September 8 over the past two seasons.
Madrid defender Xabi Alonso in
anything about him - his desire, after a friendly against Norway at
Ibrahimovic’s return should the next day or two, club officials
Wembley Stadium.
his commitment.”
take the pressure off Uruguay for- said Thursday.
At Euro 2016, Rooney will
ward Edinson Cavani, who is still
Bayern financial director Janhoping to become only the second I;0C0=81A078<>E82102: struggling to find his best form Christian Dreesen said Alonso
England captain to lift a major tro- 8=CA08=8=6F8C7?B6
since joining PSG last season.
and Bayern have “in principle”
phy after Booby Moore at the 1966 ?0A8B) Zlatan Ibrahimovic has
Bordeaux will be looking for agreed on a transfer and that
World Cup, but just reaching the resumed light training, and Paris a fourth straight win when it hosts Alonso was expected in Munich
later rounds would be a sign of Saint-Germain coach Laurent Bastia on Sunday.
on Thursday for his medical.
progress.
Here are some things to know
“We are in friendly and final
Blanc will be hoping that is
Qualifying for the final tour- enough to spark a lackluster about this weekend’s games.
talks with Real Madrid and hope-
FOOTBALL
ROUNDUP
fully we will reach an agreement
in a day or two,” Dreesen said at
a news conference.
Alonso’s expected transfer
was announced one day after
Bayern signed defender Mehdi
Benatia from Roma.
3>=´C4G?42C<8A02;4B
5A><38<0A80)E0=600;
<0=274BC4A) Angel Di Maria
will provide an ailing Manchester
United with plenty of missing
qualities following his big-money
move from Real Madrid — pace,
energy, incisiveness and goals.
Just don’t expect instant miracles from the Argentina midfielder. “I hope he shall give us good
results,” Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal said at Di
Maria’s official presentation on
Thursday, “but we cannot expect
after two days’ training that he is
the miracle what I already read.
“No, you have to work for the
miracle and he knows that.”
At its lowest ebb since the late
1980s, United is attempting to buy
its way out of trouble with Di
Maria’s arrival for 59.7 million
pounds ($99 million) taking the
20-time English champions’
spending to about 130 million
pounds ($215 million).
And investment is definitely
required.
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M
aria Sharapova booked her US
Open third-round berth with a gritty three-set victory over Alexandra
Dulgheru as US men produced an historic
low in their home Grand Slam.
Sharapova, who lifted her fifth Grand
Slam title at the French Open this year,
fought back from a set down to beat 95thranked Romanian Dulgheru 4-6, 6-3, 6-2
on Wednesday.
The fifth-seeded Russian was reluctant
to blame the windy conditions in the cavernous Arthur Ashe Stadium court for her
difficulties, which included 46 unforced
errors. And after two hours and 26 minutes on court — in a match that began in
hot sunshine and ended under the floodlights — she had her 17th three-set win of
the season, the most on the WTA tour.
“It was difficult,” Sharapova said.
“Obviously the conditions were tough. You
start in the sun, you finish under the lights.
Overall I felt like in the end I was in much
better shape than she was and I could have
played another few sets. Mentally that
helped me a lot.”
Sharapova was one of the day’s headliners, along with Australian Open winner
Stan Wawrinka and five-time Grand Slam
champion Venus Williams on a day that
saw two-time defending women’s champion Serena Williams along with top men
Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Andy
Murray all having a day off.
Wawrinka, the third seed from
Switzerland, faced Brazil’s Thomaz Bellucci
in one of two men’s second-round matches
on the slate. If US fans were looking for
home-grown heroes to cheer among the
men, they were in for a disappointment.
The first-round exits of Steve Johnson
and Ryan Harrison on Wednesday meant
just three American men reached the second round, the fewest in US Open history. John Isner, the 13th-seeded US number one, Sam Querrey and wildcard Tim
Smyczek all booked their second-round
berths on Tuesday.
American women were keeping the
flag flying, and Venus Williams did her
part. The two-time winner, who hadn’t
made it past the second round the past
three years, reached the third round with
a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Timea Bacsinszky.
Fourth-seeded Pole Agnieszka
Radwanska became the tournament’s biggest
upset victim, falling 6-3, 6-4 to China’s Peng
Shuai. Peng avenged a loss to Radwanska at
the 2011 Australian Open where the Chinese
player had held two match points.
Poland’s Radwanska, a former
Wimbledon finalist who counts this year’s
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Australian Open among two other Grand
Slam semi-final spots, was left to ponder
why she has never made it past the last 16
in nine US Open appearances.
“I really want to know the answer, then
maybe I will find a way to play better here
and just try another way to be in the second week,” said Radwanska who had also
lost to Peng in New York in 2010.
World number two Simona Halep,
seeded second behind world number one
Serena Williams, needed less than an hour
to book her third-round berth, with a 6-2,
6-1 victory over Slovakian Jana Cepelova.
Halep was broken early to trail 0-2, but won
12 of the next 13 games to secure the win.
Sixth-seeded German Angelique Kerber
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also advanced on cue, downing Russian Alla
Kudryavtseva 6-2, 6-4.
As the men’s first round wrapped up,
sixth-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych
brought Lleyton Hewitt’s 62nd Grand
Slam appearance to a quick end, downing
the former world number one, and 2001
champion, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3.
The 33-year-old Hewitt, who has had
five surgeries in five years to keep his career
going, had early breaks in both the second
and third sets, but couldn’t deny Berdych
a 100th career Grand Slam match win.
38<8CA>E1A40:B98=G
Seventh-seeded Bulgarian Grigor
Dimitrov finally ended his US Open jinx.
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lympic bronze medallist
Saina Nehwal fought her
way back from a game down to
register a 14-21, 21-18, 21-12
victory over Sayaka Takahashi
of Japan to enter the quarterfinals of the women’s singles
event of the World Badminton
Championships, here on
Thursday.
World No. 7 Saina, seeded
seventh in the tournament, lost
the first game, but rallied
in a fine fashion to
prevail over her
13th
seeded
Japanese rival in a
match that lasted
an hour and five
minutes at the
Ballerup Super
Arena here.
Saina will take on World
No. 1 Li Xuerui of China in the
last eight stage of the tournament.
In the opening game on
Thursday, the Indian looked
completely off colour and was
never in contention. From the
very beginning she started to
trail behind and there was not
even one instance in the game
when Saina could catch her
opponent.
The World No. 14 Japanese
straight away opened up a 4-0
lead and throughout the game,
Saina was lagging behind. The
nearest she could reach her rival
was at 5-6.
In the second game, the
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Indian got her act together
and surged ahead with a 7-3
lead, but Takahashi soon
earned four consecutive
points to make it 7-7 and then
moved swiftly to extend the gap.
At one stage the Japanese
had opened up a huge 13-8 lead
and the Indian was seen playing only the catch-up game. But
just when it was looking as if it
was all over for Saina, she
maintained her clam to brought
the gap down to 15-16 before
catching Takahashi at 17-17.
At 18-18, Saina upped the
ante and reeled off three
straight points to take the
match to the decider.
The third and final game
turned out to be a cake walk
for India’s ace shuttler, who
broke away from a tied 7-7 situation to topple her rival 2112 at the end.
ogeshwar Dutt will lead
India’s challenge at the
upcoming Asian Games is
expecting the grapplers to win
three to four freestyles medals
for the country in the megaevent known to have much
tougher competition than the
Commonwealth Games.
India won an impressive 13
medals in the Glasgow
Commonwealth Game last
month but the figure is expected to drop drastically at the
September 19-October 4 event
in Incheon, South Korea. India
could only manage three
wrestling medals in the 2010
edition. Ace wrestler Sushil
Kumar would also not be participating.
“Asian Games are much
tougher of course with
wrestlers from Iran, Japan,
North Korea, Uzbekistan and
Kazakhstan taking part. If you
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do well at Asian Games, then
you get confidence of winning
a
medal
at
World
Championships. Having said
that, the boys are working
hard. We should get around
three to four medals in
freestyle,” Yogeshwar said at the
sidelines of Samsung promotional event for the Asian
Games here on Thursday.
Yogeshwar, who won the
CWG gold last month in the
new 65kg category, is eying his
maiden Asian Games title. He
missed the 2010 edition in
Guangzhou owing to an injury
but had won bronze in the 60kg
category at Doha 2006.
“I have already won the
Asian Championships and now
the aim is to win gold at Asian
Games,” said the 31-year-old
Olympic bronze medallist, who
is giving the World
Championships a miss for success in Incheon.
“I would have competed at
worlds had it been after the
Asian Games. The continental
event comes once every four
years and it is really important
for India. Plus I am injury
prone so could pick only one
competition. Hopefully I and
the other boys make the country proud,” said Yogeshwar.
On the overall men’s squad,
he added: “Barring myself and
Narsingh Yadav (74kg), all
boys are young. They are good
and they are hungry. I am confident they will be up to the
task.”
After coming up empty in three straight
appearances, he defeated US wildcard
Ryan Harrison 6-2, 7-6 (7/4), 6-2. South
African Kevin Anderson rallied from a
break down in the final set to defeat
Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas 6-3, 6-7 (3/7), 46, 6-2, 7-6 (7/1) in just over four hours.
But three men’s matches were cut short
by injury retirements. Wimbledon quarterfinalist Marin Cilic of Croatia advanced when
a right ankle injury forced Cypriot Marcos
Baghdatis to retire while trailing 6-3, 3-1.
Spain’s Feliciano Lopez advanced
when Croatian Ivan Dodig with cramping
and muscle cramps also left American
Steve Johnson unable to continue against
Japan’s Tatsuma Ito.
3`iVc<f^Rce`SVT`_dZUVcVU
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New Delhi: The Centre on
Thursday said the case of boxer
Manoj Kumar, who challenged
the Arjuna Award committee’s
decision to not consider him
for the honour, will be placed
before the panel again and
irrespective of its decision, the
Sports Ministry will consider
his eligibility for the award.
The ministry, represented
by Additional Solicitor General
(ASG) Sanjay Jain, also
informed the Delhi High Court
that the panel would give its
decision uninhibited by the fact
that another sportsperson from
the same discipline has been
recommended for the award.
The ASG informed Justice
Vibhu Bakhru that Manoj was
not initially considered for the
award by the committee of 11
members as they mistakenly
believed that he was involved in
a doping case. He also informed
the court that thereafter, a rep-
resentation was made on the
pugilist’s behalf after which
the panel sat again, but without
giving reasons, the committee
rejected his plea.
On the basis of the ministry’s statement that Manoj’s
case would be considered
afresh by the committee and
thereafter by the government
also, the court disposed of the
interim applications seeking
stay of the Arjuna award ceremony as well as for reconsidering him for the honour.
The court, however, listed
the main petition seeking
quashing of the selection committee for the Arjuna Awards
for the year 2013-14 for further
hearing on December 17. The
petition also sought “reconstituting of the committee for the
Arjuna Award to include a
majority of sportspersons as
per the earlier scheme”.
PTI
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I
n the week that witnessed two
teenagers stealing the limelight from the likes of Roger
Federer and Serena Williams at
the US Open, it wouldn’t be apt
to doubt the chances of the 16year-old shooter Malaika Goel
at the upcoming Asian Games
in Incheon, Korea.
Even more so after her silver-medal-winning feat at the
last month’s Commonwealth
Games in Glasgow, Scotland
where she beat much more
experienced competitors,
including compatriot Heena
Sidhu, in the women’s 10m air
pistol event.
Even sponsors understand
her potential as among the 12
‘Sports Ratnas’ - Manajit Singh
Sandhu (shooting), Yogeshwar
Dutt (wrestling), Deepika
Kumari (archery), Vinesh
Phogat (wrestling), Babita
Kumari (wrestling) and L
Devendro (boxing) (only seven
were present) — unveiled by
electronics giant Samsung here
on Thursday, Malaika was the
youngest.
“Age shouldn’t be a factor,”
Maliaka said in reply to persistent questions about her being
so young and tough challenge
at the Asian Games.
She may still be in school
but her understanding of the
shooting and related aspects is
beyond her age. It’s not difficult
to see where that knowledge is
coming from. She has several
veteran shooters at a phone call’s
distance. She is an ardent fan of
Abhinav Bindra, who helped
her in Glosgow.
“I met him (Bindra) for the
first time in Glasgow. He is such
a knowledgeable person. There
is lot to learn from him. The
best part about him is that he
doesn’t only talk about shooting.
“I usually get nervous
before competition and he
helped me immensely on that
front in Glasgow,” Malaika said.
She knows the level of competition at the Asian Games will
be a couple of notches higher
than the CWG but she is con-
fident of a good show in
Incheon.
“I didn’t expect to win a
medal in Glasgow,” Malaika
said on the sidelines of
Samsung’s official send-off ceremony for the Asian Gamesbound athletes here on
Thursday.
“It (performance) is more
about your form on the given
day, along with some luck going
your way, than the form of your
opponents. I am confident that
things will fall in place in
Incheon,” she added.
More than anything, it is the
mental fatigue that bogs down
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athletes. The out-of-suitcase
life and continuous pressure to
perform wear down players
mentally. Malaika, too, is going
to face a similar scenario with
back-to-back competitions —
World Championships (from
September 6) in Granada, Spain
and Asian Games (from
September 19) - lined up for her.
“The
World
Championships is a crucial
event and I’ll try to give my best
there but focus will remain on
the Asian Games,” said Malaika,
who has not yet graduated to
the senior level at World
Championships and will be
competing in the junior category. She leaves for Spain on the
fifth of next month.
Her exploits in the shooting range has made her a star
in her school — Sacred Heart
Convent — in Ludhiana.
“(Laughs) Yes, I have started
getting special attention, especially in school. All of it can be
distracting sometimes but it is
more of a positive than negative,” she said.