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05?0?Q 0=:0A0
T
urkish authorities on
Saturday said forces and
civilians loyal to Erdogan
quashed a coup attempt by discontented soldiers in a night of
explosions, air battles and gunfire that took more than 265
lives, including 104 rebel soldiers. Authorities arrested at
least 2,839 soldiers as
President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan vowed that those
responsible “will pay a heavy
price for their treason.”
After the bloodiest challenge to his 13-year autocratic
rule, Erdogan urged his backers
to stay on the streets to prevent
a possible “flare-up” of Friday’s
chaos in the strategic NATO
member of 80 million people.
The chaos came amid a period
of political turmoil in Turkey
that critics blame on Erdogan’s
increasingly authoritarian rule.
Staying in power by switching
from being Prime Minister to
President, Erdogan has shaken
up the Government, cracked
down on dissidents, restricted
the news media and renewed
fighting with Kurdish rebels.
The uprising appears not to
have been backed by the most
senior ranks of the military, and
Turkey’s main Opposition parties quickly condemned the
attempted overthrow of the
Government. General Umit
Dundar said the plotters were
mainly officers from the Air
Force, the military police and
the armored units.
With at least 2,839 soldiers
already detained in a relentless
round-up over the coup plot,
the authorities blamed the conspiracy on Erdogan’s arch
enemy, the US-based moderate
cleric Fethullah Gulen. Erdogan
has often accused the cleric and
his supporters of attempting to
overthrow the Government.
Gulen lives in exile in
Pennsylvania and promotes a
philosophy that blends a mystical form of Islam with staunch
advocacy of democracy, education, science and interfaith
dialogue. Gulen, however, said
A0:4B7:B8=67Q =4F34;78
n a day of dramatic developith Uttarakhand Chief
ISaturday
ments, the Congress on WMinister Harish Rawat
turned the tables on allegedly remaining “evasive”
the BJP by finally replacing its
Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, a
move that led to the return of
its rebels back to its fold and
paved the way for a Congress
Government in Arunachal
Pradesh with a brute majority.
Interestingly, it was the
Congress leadership’s refusal to
remove Tuki as the Chief
Minister in the first place that
had led to a revolt in the party
and its subsequent loss of
power in the State.
Pema Khandu, the son of
former Arunachal Pradesh
Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu,
who lost his life in a plane crash
in 2011, is the Congress’
Chief Ministerial designate
now. Claiming the support
of 46 MLAs, including
two Independents, Khandu
staked claim to form the
Government.
during two rounds of questioning in connection with a
Preliminary Enquiry (PE) relating to a sting video case involving alleged bribery, the CBI is
planning to convert it into a
regular case for seeking his
“custodial interrogation”.
The sting case relates to
alleged bribery and bribe proposal through purported negotiation with middlemen to
strike a deal with the dissident
Congress MLAs and a Minister
to seek favourable voting in the
State Assembly in March 2016.
According to internal
agency documents accessed by
The Pioneer, Rawat, prime
accused in the case, was evasive
during questioning on May 24
and June 7 and custodial interrogation is required to proceed
further in the prosecution.
Turn to Page 4
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0=D?B70A<0?=BQ
6DF070C8=4F34;78
he condemned “in the strongest
terms, the attempted military
coup in Turkey” and sharply
rejected any responsibility for
the
attempted
coup.
“Government should be won
through a process of free and
fair elections, not force… As
someone who suffered under
multiple military coups during
the past five decades, it is especially insulting to be accused of
having any link to such an
attempt. I categorically deny
such accusations,” he added.
Turks woke up early on
Saturday to television pictures
showing dozens of soldiers
surrendering after the apparent
failure of the coup, some with
their hands above their head,
others forced to the ground in
the streets. “The situation is
completely under control,”
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim
said outside his Ankara offices,
flanked by Turkey’s top general who had himself been taken
hostage by the plotters.
Turn to Page 4
Related reports on P7
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?=BQ =4F34;78
rime Minister Narendra
P
Modi
on
Saturday
sought the cooperation and
consensus of all Chief Ministers
for the overall development of
the country, delivery in governance to the common man
and better Centre-State
relations. Addressing the
Inter-State Council meeting,
convened after a gap of 10
years, the Prime Minister also
sought the Chief Ministers’ collective cooperation in
Intelligence sharing and action
to counter the challenges to
internal security.
Modi said internal
security cannot be strengthened until and unless States and
the Centre focus on sharing
Intelligence. “We have to
remain alert and updated
always,” he said while stressing
for “stern actions” on issues
related to internal security.
Chief Ministers of all
States, Lieutenant Governors of
Union Territories and 17 Union
Ministers are members of the
Inter-State Council.
Modi highlighted the
increase in State’s share of
central taxes with the acceptance of the 14th Finance
Commission’s recommendations and more revenue
to States through coal block
auctions even as he pointed
out that States could have an
additional C1,600 crore for
themselves this year if they
reduced consumption of
kerosene by 25 per cent. He
also talked about efforts to
ensure release C40,000-crore
CAMPA funds for States.
8]SXP]bcdST]cbUX[\
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?=BQ =4F34;78
bout 148 Indian school
A
students and 38 officials
left stranded in Turkey found
help coming their way after the
Ministry of External Affairs
(MEA) responded to a video
message posted by one of the
athletes from Tamil Nadu and
ensured they are kept safe. A
Bengali film crew present on a
shooting assignment in Turkey
:D:DT]RZ^d?ZTV 20?BD;4
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:8;;435>A³7>=>DA´
Nice: The ISIS on Saturday
claimed that Mohamed
Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who barreled his truck into a crowd in
the French resort city of Nice
killing over 84 on July 14, was
a “soldier” of the group. The
French police have arrested
five people, including Bouhlel’s
estranged wife, in the case.
The claim, circulated on
social media by a news outlet
affiliated with the ISIS,
didn’t name the 31-year-old
Tunisian, but the statement
quoting an ISIS security member said the man was following
calls from the group to target
citizens of countries fighting it.
The veracity of the group’s
claim couldn’t be determined,
but French officials didn’t dispute it.
AP
@aacf]VUDeReVdUV^R_U
e`T]Za8`gVc_`cd¶hZ_Xd
?=BQ =4F34;78
he Chief Ministers of
T
Opposition-ruled States on
Saturday took on the Centre on
issues ranging from political to
financial at the Inter-State
Council meeting chaired by
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi. But then, successive
Governments at the Centre
pulling the strings through the
Governors came in for special
criticism by them.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish
Kumar criticised the Centre for
too is reported to be safe. The
crew of 30-35 Indians comprises West Bengal IT Minister
Bratya Basu, who is a theatre
and film personality also.
Fresh from the successful
evacuation of 149 Indian
nationals from the war-torn
South Sudan, MEA officials
were quickly alerted about the
presence of Indian school students and officials in Turkey.
Turn to Page 4
the non-transparency in
appointment of Governors and
called for the abolition of the
gubernatorial post itself. Kumar
said the existing federal democratic structure does not warrant continuance of post of
Governor.
If it is not possible to do
away with the constitutional
post, the discretionary powers
that go with it be curtailed,
Nitish said, adding the Chief
Minister of a state should have
a role in the appointment and
removal of the Governor.
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or those without the fantastic means or
professional requirements that sustain gloF
betrotters, interest in keeping abreast of the
global scenario can be quenched enough by
national and international media and occasional interaction with foreign nationals.
Considering aspects like philosophy, politics and commerce, one may form a less
erroneous picture of what’s abuzz and what’s
not by scanning the mainstream media along
with the alternative media and the openly
anti-establishment bodies- many of whom
appear to be intent on floating ‘conspiracy
theories’ or whatever that is required to
counter the general view of the ‘establishment’ just for the heck of it or as part of a
planned market strategy.
In some time an observer might comprehend how capitalism directs communist
governance, how totalitarianism is at times
disguised as democracy and how the profit motive fantastically unites even mutually
opposed ideologies.
The current global scenario in general
appears to be in a state of flux with the actions
of natural and human-made forces presenting an image akin to the stereotypical ‘good
against evil’ tale. The global media speaks of
battles killing multitudes including non-combatants, attempts to influence or erase cultures, communities and environment, religious and other fanatics with blood lust, progressive developments with responsible citizens ensuring elected or appointed public
servants do the needful, communities and
nations rising above tragedies coming to
terms with their past and present.
Armed attacks by individuals and organisations differentiated by packaging and jargon have for some time now been part of routine life in parts of the globe though recent
years have seen a surge in armed attacks
apparently
motivated
by
religious and cultural factors even in the
developed nations considered to be
secure and better equipped to tackle such
threats.
The outrage expressed and demands
made by opposing sides often reveal obstinate inability to actually learn from past experiences and take proper action. Regarding the
recent terror attacks, it may seem like a disproportionate generalisation to call it comeuppance for the now developed societies
which have a history of perpetuating
unimaginably worse killings, torture, crimes
and unethical practices in diplomacy and
business affairs compared to current scenario.
Not that people should face vengeance
for the crimes of those ancestors who were
often marauding invaders colonizing nativeinhabited lands gradually through the business of warfare and aggressive marketing.
However, rest assured that we in Uttarakhand
and beyond too will soon face consequences of the persistent follies that are either
ignored or exacerbated especially in ‘developmental’ activities affecting the environment, culture and composition of society.
The advent of rainfall in Uttarakhand has
already killed dozens of people and hundreds
of domesticated animals in landslides, flash
floods and varied accidents. In many such
cases, it is starkly evident that little if any has
been learnt by the authorities and society in
general from the June 2013 disaster which
had claimed the lives of thousands of visitors from across the nation and abroad in
addition to the locals. This year while villagers died in floods in the mountains, others continued encroaching along the banks
of Rispana and Bindal rivers in Dehradun.
Some cite disasters this season in
Pithoragarh, Chamoli and Uttarkashi, stating that the establishment, not learning from
past errors, has continued - even stepped up
unscientific and unnecessary construction
and schemes as if to prod Nature saying
“…remember the place where raging flood
waters had swept away heavy vehicles like
paper boats? Well, we have laid foundation
for a multi-storeyed parking at a spot not far
from that site - let’s see what Nature does
now. Oh and yes, in the area sanctified by
proximity to the Kedarnath shrine where
calamity had killed multitudes, we have
arranged for thousands of people to stay
overnight also laying foundation for a meditation and discourse centre in a place where
the ‘unenthusiastic’ prefer the serenity and
majesty of Shiva amidst the Himalayas and
simplicity of the native culture.”
Whatever such compulsive skeptics
state, the politicians, officials and dealers
–depending on political and personal status—hone their skills, extol or lambast
developmental claims and go about their
business as if nothing has changed. Some
consider this a progressive attitude while others identify it as the tendency to ignore or
exacerbate follies till the preventable becomes
unavoidable.
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t is an insult to the reviewer to actually waste newsprint and words on
this limp, below the belt blow from
the ‘Masti’ franchise. For, it is neither
great, nor grand nor masti in any sense
of the term.
In fact, it is so amoebic that it defies
any kind of structure whatsoever. Add
to that, an over two-hour rising of the
male parts wrestling with tables, cushions and cold pads to come out of
bondage. But then, the effort is so limp
that it does not even qualify as porn. The
makers could be booked for sexual retardation of the most offensive kind had
there been a law to catch such misadventures.
Just to let you know that it is a Balaji
film, there is what one of the OTT char-
I
acters says “a lot of bhootyapa”, what with
a boobs-popping virgin aatmaa dying
to, well, just do it! And the three sexually muscled buffoons, or so we thought,
are always there to oblige.
Masti to Grand Masti to Great
Grand Masti is a perfect example of bad
to worse to worst. There is no other
explanation to this wannabe romp in the
bed by three married men unable to do
it with their wives but wanting to do it
all the time.
A depraved, uncooked and
humourless take on infidelity (attempted) with such forced double entendres
that you feel sex is a game played in a
mental asylum.
For those who want to see steel
glasses expanding on viagra, tables rising on male parts, friends sucking butts
and women turning into beasts of burden, with their chests falling out of their
bodies, you are most welcome to buy the
tickets for this misguided missile.
´DXUcX_gXQcWYfU^
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hey sing like rockstars, know their
music and bring a twist to the performance when on stage. The top five
singers of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa have won the
hearts of the viewers, hence each is a winner. Ahead of its finale at 7pm tonight on
ZEE TV, the five finalists will rock the stage
by singing duets with their favourite
singers.
While Kushal Paul will be seen performing on badtameez dil and bang bang with
Benny Dayal, Jugpreet Bajwa and Rupali
Jagga will perform on main tera hero and
wajah tum hi ho with Armaan Malik.
Kailash Kher fan Sachin Kumar will impress
everyone by singing mangal mangal and teri
deewani with Kher and Jyotica Tangri will sizzle on stage with Sukhwinder Singh, singing
babydoll, ghani baawri and saiyyan saiyyan.
The show has been a stepping stone for
many into Bollywood. Looking back on the
Sa Re Ga Ma Pa journey, Sachin says: “From
meeting veteran singers and learning from
the jury, it has been a great learning experience. I will take back a lot of memories
from this show like the time when I sang ;A)BPRWX]:d\Pa9h^cXZPCP]VaX9PV_aTTc1PYfPAd_P[X9PVVPP]S:dbWP[?Pd[
arziya and Pritamda hugged me. Asha
Bhosle complimented me by saying ‘apko
aise logon ko gawana chaiye’ when I sang songs. In fact, she taught Asha Bhosle pursue music was to spread love and peace.
dance steps when the singer had come on Any illness can be cured with music,” the 21tujhse naraaz nahi zindagi.”
year-old says, adding that his dream is to
The 23-year-old has reached where he the show.
Rupali Jagga has been learning singing open a music therapy school.
is today due to sheer determination and hard
For 17-year-old Kushal Paul, one of the
work and now dreams to sing in Bollywood from age 7 and used to sing bhajans in temples with her mother. Before coming to the strongest claimants to the title, coming to Sa
and gift a house to his parents.
Jyotica Tangri (23), who won the max- show, she used to perform at corporate Re Ga Ma Pa was his mother’s dream. He
started learning singing at age 3 and has won
imum chartbuster titles on the show, start- events.
For Rupali, the best moment was when two reality shows earlier.
ed her music journey at age 6 and was a
“I was preparing to realise my mother’s
struggling singer in Mumbai before getting Neha Kakkar gifted her a diamond ring as
selected for the show. She got an opportu- a good luck charm. “We performed a duet and my dream for a long time. At 13, I had
nity to sing for a Punjabi film Vaishakhi, star- on sunny sunny and ladki beautiful. It won the reality show Star of Bengal and startring Jimmy Shergill. She sees the show as a turned special when Neha took out her ring ed performing at events and concerts. At 16,
and gave it to me,” Rupali says. She bagged I won Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Bangla and got my
platform to realise her dream.
first playback song for the Bengali movie The
“One of my best performances was when an offer from Mika to go on a world tour.
For Jagpreet Bajwa, the moment Salman Play. When this show came, I was confident
I dedicated the song chitthi na koi sandesh
to my late father. My mom also came to the Khan came to the sets to see his rehearsal I would get selected. Through the show, I
show that day and it turned out to be an his life changed for good. “He told me that learnt vocal grooming, the right way to do
emotional moment for everyone. That per- ‘my mother and I are a big fan of yours and riyaz and perform on stage. It has been a
formance is close to my heart,” says Tangri we look forward to your performance.’ I great learning experience,” Kushal
whose forte lies in singing Asha Bhosle learnt a lot from the contestants. My aim to tells you.
C4;;HC0;4
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Q Tell us about your new show
Man vs Job.
The show is about one man
taking up extremely difficult and
odd jobs that people from our
country staying in far flung areas
do on a daily basis. It’s about my
entire journey with them, living
like them and with them and
doing the work they do. For
instance, you’ll see me doing
crocodile farming. Then I also
learnt how people in Sunderbans
collect honey in extremely risky
conditions but staying with them
and going out to collect it. I
stayed in their huts and even got
a special permission to go into the
restricted areas.
Q What part of it are you looking forward to the most?
I’ll get to visit all these places
in the rural hinterland that I
would normally miss out on. Like
when we went to the Sunderbans,
we didn’t go to Kolkata, which is
usually the limit of our travels.
Q After your first-hand experience with these people and their
jobs, what are your thoughts?
These are very important jobs
but they are not appreciated
enough. While in Sunderbans, I
found out that these honey collectors literally fight for their
lives so that people like us can
have one bottle of honey. Not only
do they bear the bee sting, but
having the Royal Bengal Tiger is
a very real danger. In the jungle,
you are nothing more than food
for these animals.
Q Do you have a new perspective
on life now?
Definitely! We take our lives
for granted and keep cribbing
about tiny things. But when you
see these people, you start respecting your own life and thank God
for it.
Q You’ve been more into hosting
and less into acting….
I will definitely be back in acting when I find a good script. It
doesn’t matter to me if it is TV,
films or even web.
Q You’ve also appeared in a short
film...
Ya, that was years back. The
film did very well in the film festival circuit and went to Cannes,
etc. I wouldn’t mind doing a
short film again.
Q What are your thoughts on the
current content on TV?
I believe, to each their own.
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QYou’re back on the show.
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People complain about the content being regressive, etc but it’s
still working and getting what the
makers want. I am not someone
who can comment or judge if the
content is good or bad. As long as
the content is entertaining, it
doesn’t matter if it’s regressive,
aggressive or anything else.
Q You’re the heartthrob of TV.
How do you handle the attention?
I am, obviously, very happy
about it. This is a part and parcel
of being in this line of work and
it’s something I’ve always craved
for.
Q Have you had any memorable
fan experiences?
Sometimes fans go over the
top. Once I was performing in
South Africa. After the performance, there was this girl who
wanted to talk to me and she got
really aggressive and pulled me
into the crowd. That was a surreal, movie-like experience. But
some fans have also done awfully sweet things like naming a star
after me, sending me a guitar, etc.
Q In school, you were overweight. Ever feel afraid of going
back to that size, now that you
are so fit and on TV?
I weighed 113 kg in school. I
hope I don’t slip back into it. So I
keep a check on what I eat and
exercise. I train in acrobatics,
kickboxing, dancing (of course),
etc apart from the regular gym.
How does it feel?
It’s very exciting. I am a big
fan of the show since the first
season, so I knew that there
will be a second chance. I was
determined to make the most
of it. That’s why, after elimination, I didn’t go back home
to Vancouver, Canada but
stayed in Sydney and honed
my skills.
QWhom did you train with-
in the hiatus?
There was Reynold from
last season. I spent a couple of
days with him. Then there was
Ava from one of the previous
seasons. I also approached
a few restaurants and they
let me learn things in their
kitchen.
er is there in the kitchen with
you and he is someone who
understands you so well.
QYou’ve been on TV before,
as a soap actress in the 90s.
How is it different this time?
The two experiences are
different from each other,
there is absolutely no comparison. As an actor, you are
pretending to be someone
else. On Masterchef, you can’t
be anyone other than yourself.
There is so much pressure in
the competition and what you
see on the screen is totally raw.
QAny plans of going back to
Theory and actually
working under a chef are
two completely different
things. Doing work handson with them is a great
confidence booster. You
get to learn so many techniques.
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to cook for a legend, who
would that be?
Heston Blumenthal has
always been my favourite guest
on the show. I know it’s impossible to decide beforehand
what I would like to cook for
him as there are always a lot of
rules when he comes in. But I
would definitely go for something fun, whimsical and
colourful. Heston is iconic for
playing with his food.
QYou spent time away from
your family. How did you
manage to keep going?
I was away for almost six
months. But I told myself that
I must make the most of my
sacrifice. I didn’t want to waste
the time spent away from my
family. It helped that they supported me and encouraged
me to keep going.
QWas there any change
the second time around in
the kitchen?
For sure. When I was
gone, the others were still
learning so much. So I
had to work that much
harder while on the outside. I am more confident
now. Initially, I was too
emotional about it. Now, I
am having fun.
QWhy didn’t you opt for
Masterchef Canada?
Australia has been my
home. I lived here for 31 years
before I got married and
moved away. Plus, for me,
Masterchef Australia will
always remain the original
version of the show.
Q You were competing
against your brother
Jimmy…
Jimmy and I have been
apart for long since he stays in
Singapore now. So, it’s great
that we got to spend so much
time together. Also, it was
great knowing that your broth-
QIf you had the opportunity
QDesserts or savouries —
what’s your strength?
Right now, it’s desserts.
They usually have so many elements and I feel I have a good
hold of the kind of flavours that
go together.
QWhat all did you learn?
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comments that have been the
most supportive and uplifting.
He is quite understanding as
well.
Q Why
acting?
I have actually always kept
my acting options open. Even
in Vancouver, I keep doing a
little bit on and off.
QWhom do you consider as
your biggest competitor in
Masterchef?
I always felt Matt Sinclair
is someone to watch out for.
He is such a great cook and
capable of doing great things.
QYour favourite judge.
That’s a hard one as they’re
all so great. But I would say
Matt Preston. For me, it’s his
do you think
Masterchef Australia is more
popular than the other versions?
It is because of relationships. People are not pushing
to compete in a hateful way.
Rather we try to help each
other grow and strengthen
each other. The show also
shows the food in a way that
you can understand the recipes.
The recipes are also on the
website for other home cooks
to try.
QDo the judges also con-
tribute to the popularity of the
show?
Matt Preston, Gary
Mehigan and George
Colambaris are the perfect trio
for judging a show like this.
They are fun, wise, talented and
endearing.
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hief Minister Harish Rawat
C
reiterated that over 400
villages situated in disasterprone areas need to be relocated immediately as the rains
are going to make them more
and more vulnerable. He asked
the Union Government to support the rehabilitation process.
He raised the issue while
addressing 11th meeting of
the Inter-State Council in
Rashtrapati Bhawan on
Saturday. He also appealed to
the Centre to help Doppler
radar being installed at the earliest.
“In recent heavy rain and
cloud burst State has received
huge loss in terms of human
and animal lives and properties.
Heavy rains are continuing in
the State and will continue
further. As per the estimation,
the State has incurred loss to
the tune of C2,000 crore. To get
financial relief, the state government has submitted a proposal to the Centre as well,” CM
said.
Invoking the Planning
Commission’s recommendation for a unified institution to
address the problem of the
north-eastern States, CM said
there is a need to create institutional framework for the
betterment of Himalayan states
too.
He demanded the Centre’s
financial support for the establishment of quality upgradation
and training centre in higher
education. Mentioning the recommendation of Punchhi
Commission, Rawat said that
constitution’s
tri-level
Panchayat system is fulfilling
the people’s expectation and
regional development as well.
For the village and the district
Panchayat, a dual system had
been amended, he said.
Claiming
that
Uttarakhand’s literacy rate is
higher, he said that the
Panchayat's five- year term to
understand the work and execute it by the elected representatives is enough. This is why
the State Government is not in
favour of reservation for the
posts, he said. and place is for
two terms.
“In Uttarkahand, district
magistrate is member of district
planning committee. As the
size of the districts here is small
the DMs have been executing
their DPC work efficiently.
Under this circumstances,
there is no need to create separate administrative structure,
he said.
He said that the deployment of Central forces without
taking the states into confidence is against the basic concept of the Constitution. “If this
happens there are chances of
their misuse. We thus think
that the existing system should
be maintained,” he said. He also
opined against Environment,
Ecology and Climate change,
now on concurrent list, being
merged in the Union list. The
status quo should be maintained, he stressed.
“Planning Commission has
recommended that backward
states should be given more
Central assistance. We need it
badly. All the hilly, border and
newly born states need the
Central assistance for physical
and
human
resource
development. Stressing on
planned expenditure, he suggested that there is need to give
flexibility in planned estimation. As estimation is
being made at least six months
ahead of the new financial
year the execution cost tends to
increase aside from affecting
time.
Invoking the Gadgil formula, CM said that the States’
shares should be increased by
phases. Mentioning that the
state having huge forested area,
he said Uttarakhand is making
immense contribution in maintaining national eco system.
He said that the State-a vulnerable one because of the
vagaries of nature-has formed
State Disaster Response Force
(SDRF) on the pattern of
National Disaster Response
Force (NDRF). They have also
constituted State Disaster
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Management
Authority
(SDMA), CM said. To get more
appropriate weather forecast,
the State Government has provided land for the establishment of Doppler radar, he said,
while adding that the Centre
should expedite the execution
of the much-needed project.
“Natural calamity intensi-
ty is year after year due to climate change and State
Government has identified 400
such villages, which are situation in disater prone areas, and
State has made plan for its rehabilitation and we can execute
on ground with the financial
help of union Government.
Uttarakhand is sensitive in
terms of minor crime and
human trafficking as it shares
international and inter-state
boundaries,” CM said.
In view of tough geographical condition of the State,
it should be given relief on
standard norms along with
additional budget, he further
said. For the creation of infra-
structure for the rehabilitation
of the poor and the destitute
,the Centre should give special
assistance to the State.
Informing about the
progress of the Aadhar Card,
CM said that Uttarakhand has
been providing grant and direct
benefit electronically.
State Government is providing e-life certificates and
seven lakh pensioners are being
benefitted. Under Right to
Service Act-2011 public service
is being provided online in a
time bound manner. “We are
providing public ser vice
through Deobhoomi Jan Seva
at Nyay Panchayat level,” he
said.
To
impart
quality
education, the state had developed a system for regular evaluation. “We have established
parent teacher association at
each school and even parents
are being given representation
in school management committees. Children’s health club
are being established at the
schools so that the students’
health can be monitored.
To ensure overall development,
we have been including yoga
education
in
school
curriculum. There is need to
establish Skill promotion and
training centre so that the
youth can be given training as
per the State’s requirement.
This would help them to make
contribution in nation devel-
opment,” he said.
“Aware as we are of the
importance of Uttarakhand
sharing
international
boundaries, we have established Subsidiary Multi Agency
Centre (SMAC) control room
which have been exchanging
information between union
and states as well. To deal with
terrorist activity, the state has
established 15 Anti-Terrorist
Cell (ATC) and one Anti
terrorist squad (ATS) commando company. To deal with
internal security, we have established special operation task
force in seven places of six districts.
For the police modernisation, the Centre has reduced its
contribution and it has affected in the creation of infrastructure for police. Although
this year 90:10 pattern is being
followed the Centre should
allocate more and more budget
given the State’s resource
crunch, CM said.
Regarding the operation of
CCTNS, CM said that
Uttarakhand stands in the front
runner state category. Besides,
the state adopted police reform
by following the Supreme
Court’s order.
“Now police establishment
committee, state and district
police complaint authority,
police welfare bureau and state
police board have been constituted,” CM said.
FXST]TS2WPa3WP\a^PSbcda]X]VPRRXST]c_a^]Ti^]Tb 2^]cX]d^dbThT^]6P]VP´bfPcTa[TeT[
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?=BQ 347A03D=
?8>=44A=4FBB4AE824Q
347A03D=
he Ganga’s level in
is learnt that over 150 Kanwarias have been stranded between THaridwar is 95 centimetres
and Gangotri because two bridges were damaged below the warning level, and
IduetGomukh
to heavy rain on Friday in which 80 of them have been the State Government is keepbrought safely to Gangotri. Rescue operation is on to bring them
back. Although district administration claimed that they are
safe. However, a rescue team has been sent to evacuate them.
Notably, the distance between Gangotri and Gomukh is
18 kms. They were reportedly stuck at Chidbasa which is
nine kms from Gangotri. Meanwhile a temporary bridge is
being put into place by the rescue team to evacuate the trapped
pilgrims. As per reports received, the process of putting the
bridge into use would be completed by Sunday. However, things
depend on the intensity of the rains, said those engaged in the
work. They said they could not assure whether the road would
open during the ongoing season.
Meanwhile, to rescue the stranded, NDRF, Revenue and
Forest teams have been rushed.
?=BQ 347A03D=
C
har Dham roads, which are
being widened, have
become more accident-prone
as incessant rains continuing
since Friday are bringing down
huge debris on to the National
Highway. As the weather
department said that there
would be no let-up in rains till
Monday the officials have been
put on high alert.
Badrinath and Kedarnath
routes have been closed at
Chopta due to landslide on
Saturday. Chamoli district
administration said that as a
precautionary measure they
had stopped the traffic some at
safer places so as to ensure that
the pilgrims could be safe.
In Uttarakashi, the Pilot
Baba Ashram was reportedly
washed away in rain on
Saturday. On way to Kedarnath
shrine, vehicular movement
has remained stalled between
Sonprayag and Gaurikund for
the past four days while Kailash
EYZd¶deYVeZ^V :e¶deYV
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A0378:0=06A0C7Q
70A83F0A
L
ove is in the air these days.
With the mango season at
its peak, songs of Koel (cuckoo bird) fill the air. The shy
nature of Koel and its secretive
behaviour has kept this bird
away from eyes of researchers.
It often led to the myth that it
is the female Koel whose songs
lure us. If you thought ‘koel
gaati hai’, give it a rethink as
actually it is ‘koel gaata hai.’
Scientists say that during the
breeding season which lasts
from April to September, the
male bird sings to woo the
female bird.
Professor Dinesh Bhatt, a
noted bird scientist of Gurukul
Kangri University of Haridwar,
who is Asia representative in
bird communication research,
says, “Koel is very vocal during
the breeding season and more
often it is heard by its calls
rather than being seen. Female
Koel merely produces shrill
kik-kik-kik, a call which is
neither melodious nor continuous. It is the male that sings
the familiar song kooo-ooo.”
Heading a team of
researchers, Bhatt has been
engaged in studying the vocalisation behaviour of Asian Koel
for the past six years. Bhatt told
The Pioneer, “It is strange that
people usually think of the Koel
as a melodious and complex
singer. There are many other
avian species such as magpie
robin, brahmini myna, pied
bush whose voice is much
more melodious that koel and
produce a large variety of
acoustic signals. This has been
revealed by spectrographic
analysis in laboratory.”
It is worth mentioning here
that the avian diversity and
bioacoustics laboratory developed by Dinesh Bhatt at
Gurukul is the one and only
laboratory in India that is dedicated to the bird communication research.
After monitoring 126 nests
of the house crow, scientists
observed that the breeding
period of the Koel strictly
depends on the breeding cycle
of its host- the house crow. It
has only a single breeding season of about four months from
late April to early August.
It forms the pair during
third or fourth week of April
and pair once formed remains
together for the duration of
breeding season. The pair of
Koel performs secret courtship
behaviour mostly inside the
dense bushes.
Bhatt who has taken several video shots of this remarkably
¯B0=C>B7103>=834?DCH
B42A4C0AH38B0BC4A<0=064<4=C
said that 151 roads under
PMGSY were affected till July
15.
“We have re-opened 57
out of 143 roads closed on
Friday. The process of reopening the rest of the roads is in
progress. In all, 237 roads were
blocked out of which 205 roads
are in the rural areas. State’s
national highway and char
dham routes are open,” he said.
Information about roads
are available in pwd.uk.gov.in.
Badoni further said that to
assess the damage caused by
incessant rains, they were collecting information from all the
districts. “PWD has reopened
1,004 out of 1,155 affected
roads and the work of reopening the rest is continuing.
PWD has submitted estimate of
C105.72 crore to the State
Government,” he added.
It is learnt that in 1,185 villages, electricity lines were
affected due to landslides and
except Lathi village all villages
electricity lines have been
restored. UPCL has spent C1.67
crore in the restoration of the
lines, Badoni informed.
In Pithoragarh and other
districts, 87 potable water
pipelines were damaged.
However, all of them have been
repaired.
Jal Sansthan has restored
555 out of 559 temporarily,
Badoni said, adding that
C12.89 crore estimate for its
permanent restoration has
been submitted before his
office. For temporary resumption department has submitted
estimate of C2.06 crore to the
State Government, he added.
Mansarovar Yatra remained
stalled for the past six days.
As the weather department is not in a position to
assure that the rain would stop
the district administrations are
most unlikely to take chances
as far as reopening of the
stalled roads is concerned.
In
Rudraprayag,
Alaknanda and Mandakini
rivers are flowing in full spate,
it is learnt. Subsequently, the
footfall of pilgrims has been
coming down. The number of
pilgrims presently stands at
1400 in Badrinath, Kedarnath,
Gangotri and Yamunotri taken
together.
In Kumaon region too,
things are grim. Roads have
been closed due to landslide at
three places between Tanakpur
and Tawaghat. Munsyari-madkot-Jauljivi road in Pithoragarh
district was also closed.
Besides, a wooden bridge,
which was connecting 13 villages, has been washed away in
Munsyari region, deepening
the rain-induced transport crisis.
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secret moments, reveals that the
courtship in Koel consists of the
male chasing the female and the
chase often ends up in the
ing close tabs on the developments. The District Emergency
Operation Centre (DEOC) and
State Emergency Operation
Centre (SEOC) Dehradun have
been getting reports on an
hourly basis while flood posts
have been made active.
Patrolling has been intensified
on the low catchment areas too.
To meet any exigency, six water
police teams and five motor
boat/Rafts have been kept on
stand-by mode
Meanwhile, in Bastadi of
Pithoragarh district, where villages were submerged under
debris following cloud burst,
SDM Didihaat has been doing
survey to assess the quantum of
loss. Arrangements of relief
assistance are being made in
the relief camps. Two medical
team led by chief medical officer is treating the disaster
affected people. Besides, vaccination is being administered
on the animals at temporary
hospital.
Deputy Secretary Disaster
Management Santosh Badoni
FTWPeTaT^_T]TS$&^dc^U #"a^PSb
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female surrendering to him in
the branch of a tree. Thereafter
she is fed with the fruit by the
male before the act of copulation.
U
ttarakhand
Vidhan
Sabha Speaker
Govind Singh
Kunjwal and his
counterpart in
Delhi Goyal
jointly inaugurated the camp set
up at Delhi-UP
border by Shiv
Kanwar Samiti
here in SIDCUL
bypass, Transport
association
Bahadarabad on
Saturday.
District
administration is
expecting more
than 3.5 crore
Kanwarias this year. Keeping this
in view, they have made foolproof arrangement to take the
challenge facing them.
Kunjwal
said
that
Kanwarias’ number has been
increasing year after year and
organising such camp is a pious
work. He appealed to them to
maintain communal harmony
and cooperate with the administration. “All the arrangements
have been made for your convenience. They travel on foot at
least 200 kms. Such camps
would therefore provide space
for short stay and snacks will re-
energise them so that they can
complete their journey within
the time frame. Welcoming the
guest is long tradition of
Uttarkahand and we should
maintain such tradition. Our
effort is to provide more and
more comfort to them during
their short stay in the State,” the
Speaker of Uttarakhand said.
Delhi Assembly Speaker
Goyal said that helping
Kanwarias are obligation of the
society. They travel a fairly long
distance along with the holy
Ganga water and in course of
this, they come across a lot of
problems. Providing them with
short stay and snacks to freshen them would go a long way by
way of a noble gesture, Goyal
said.
He asked Kunjwal to make
arrangement of Ambulance and
doctors here so that the sick
Kanwarias are given prompt
medical treatment during their
journey.
In response, Kunjwal
assured that he would do everything to ensure that the pilgrims
are provided with medical facility while they are in
Uttarakhand.
]PcX^]#
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?=BQ =4F34;78
270=3860A7
and malpractices that are generally associated, we are trying to make provisions for
winding up of societies as a
part of this portal”, the Chief
Minister added.
A
adhaar-linked Direct
Benefit Transfer route for
the disbursal of various social
welfare benefits and subsidies
has resulted in net saving of
about C445 crore to the
Haryana Government and succeeded in weeding out more
than 9.7 lakh fake and ineligible beneficiaries under various
schemes in the State.
This came out in the meeting of the inter-State Council
in New Delhi on Saturday
which was convened after a gap
of 10 years. The meeting was
presided over by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi.
The State Government is
estimated to have saved about
C133 crore in terms of kerosene
subsidy with six lakh fake and
ineligible beneficiaries being
deleted under the Aadhaarbased Direct Benefits Transfer
scheme. As many as 2.2 lakh
duplicate ration cards were
also identified and cancelled
through this process. Similarly,
the Government saved C201
crore in terms of disbursal of
various social security pensions with the deletion of
names of 1.5 lakh ineligible
beneficiaries. The number of
applications for post-matric
scholarships has seen a decline
of 40 per cent due to strict
investigation after joining with
B:8;;8=6C74H>DC7
7PahP]PdaVTb2T]caTc^bP]RcX^]
8]SXPATbTaeT<PWX[P1PccP[X^]
?=BQ 270=3860A7
Mahila Battalion for dealing
with female agitators and has
also sought financial and technical support for modernisation of the police force.
The demands were made
by Chief Minister, Manohar
Lal Khattar at the meeting of
the Inter-State Council in
New Delhi.
The Chief Minister said
that the Government has adopted a transparent policy for
recruitment of constables to
inspectors. The process is on for
recruitment of 5,000 General
Duty male constables, 1,000
constables under ex-service-
men category and 1,000 women
constables. As a result of this
recruitment, the percentage of
women in police would
increase from six to eight and
thereafter, within a year, we shall
increase this percentage to ten.
He said most of the agitators include large number of
women, make it difficult for the
male police to handle them.
“The Central Government may
consider sanctioning India
Reserve Mahila Battalion for law
and order duties in Haryana”,
the Chief Minister demanded.
Referring to cyber crime,
he said the State was in the
process of establishing a State
Level Cyber Crime Branch in
Gurgaon which would have
specially trained experts to
crack such cases.
competencies at primary level.
Teachers have been equipped
with grade level pedagogy
techniques and we have also
developed new text books for
classes I-V in all subjects”,
Khattar said.
“We have drawn up State
higher education plan to identify challenges and making
strategies to address one core
issue. To improve the quality
of teaching in colleges, faculty development programmes
are being organised regularly.
While Science, Engineering
and Technology education
will push the frontiers of cutting edge research in Haryana,
it is also envisaged that
Haryana would emerge as the
hub of liberal arts and humanities education”, the Chief
Minister added.
hattar said the Haryana
aryana has urged the
Government is committed HCentral Government to
K
to skilling the youth to make sanction one India Reserve
Aadhaar. This led to savings of
C110 crore.
“The State Government
started implementation of various schemes through DBT
last year, and now we plan to
bring as many as 73 schemes
worth C5,916.07 crore in 15
departments under DBT”,
Chief Minister Manohar Lal
Khattar said in the meeting.
He said, “Haryana is one
of the top ranking States in the
country with Aadhaar enrolment of 109 per cent in the
above 18 years category. This
provides a robust platform to
meaningfully use Aadhaar as
an identifier for benefits management and delivery of citizen services”.
The Chief MInister said
that Haryana had pioneered
Aadhaar integrated birth
enrolment adopted by the
Registrar General of India as a
part of the civil registration system. The outcome is that
Aadhaar appears on the birth
certificate of children. “We
have launched a focused drive
to get the children in the 0-5
age group enrolled under
Aadhaar within the next 3
months”, the Chief Minister.
Khattar said that to
enhance investor-friendliness
of the State, a single window
portal has been launched. It is
now possible for business entities and body corporates to
leverage the same. One of the
significant outcomes of this
initiative is online registration of societies.
“Besides ease in the registration process, matters related to compliance have also
been duly addressed. With a
view to mitigating the misuse
them employable, producing
industry-specific manpower,
bringing about overall change
in the education system while
focusing on vocationalisation
and universalisation of education at elementary level,
and improving higher education.
“We promote vocational
training, skill-based education and entrepreneurship
through increase in public
spending, innovative private
financing and promoting relevant and broad-based skill as
per the requirement of our
growing economy”, the Chief
Minister said.
The Chief Minister said
that dedicated post-graduate
and research centres and new
courses were being introduced
to fulfil district-specific
knowledge and human capital
requirement of industries as
well as the society.
“We have further started
Learning Enhancement
Programme for classes I-V
targeting improved grade level
Q^]dbU^aWX[[BcPcTb
?=BQ =4F34;78B78<;0
imachal Chief Minister
H
Virbhadra Singh on
Saturday urged the Central
Government to grant green
bonus to the hill States in lieu
of environmental services provided by them.
Speaking at a meeting of
the Inter-State Council (ISC)
here, he said green bonus
should be provided regularly to
the hill States as an opportunity
cost in terms of the area.
“It will be a big incentive to
the hill States as well as a right
step towards environment protection and sustainable development,” he added.
He also asked the Central
Government to consider the
request to provide subsided
helicopter services in the State
so that all parts of the State
remain connected throughout the year.
The Chief Minister also
batted to utilise wasteland for
creating infrastructure for
essential economic activities
like road infrastructure and
power projects.
“There has been inordinate
delay in granting permissions for
critical infrastructure projects
under the Forest Conservation
Act. The relaxation should be
given to the States to grant
approvals,” he said.
Virbhadra Singh also said
the State is facing a serious
challenge and future possibility of spillover of terrorism
from the adjoining districts of
Jammu & Kashmir to the
Chamba and Lahaul-Spiti
districts.
“We request the Centre to
support us in containing the
terror activities by giving more
grants,” he added.
Himachal Pradesh’s economy is highly dependent on
tourism, besides hydroelectric
power and horticulture.
BdZWQXadaVTb2T]caTc^VXeT\^aT_^fTac^BcPcTb
?=BQ =4F34;78
270=3860A7
unjab Deputy Chief
Minister Sukhbir Singh
P
Badal on Saturday stressed on
the devolution of more powers
to States even as he maintained
the Centre was usurping the
rights and authority of the
States in violation of the spirit and even the specific provisions of the Constitution and
reducing them to the status of
mere beggars.
Touching the important
aspects of Center-State relations at the 11th Inter State
Council meeting held in New
Delhi, the Deputy Chief
Minister said cutting across
party lines there was a wide-
Efc\VjW`Z]
From Page 1
During a night where
power was in the balance, large
crowds of flag-waving supporters of Erdogan’s ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP)
defied orders of a curfew and
marching out onto the streets to
block the attempt to overthrow
the regime. In images broadcast
on CNN-Turk, dozens of soldiers walked among tanks with
their hands held up, surrendering to Government forces.
Discarded gear was strewn on
the ground. Some flag-waving
people climbed onto the tanks.
And Erdogan used his
Twitter feed to urge people
onto the streets to ensure no further challenges to his power.
“We should keep on owning the
streets tonight no matter at
what stage (the coup attempt is)
because a new flare-up could
take place at any moment,” he
said.
As the dust settled on a dramatic and chaotic night, TV pictures today showed extensive
damage to the parliament building in Ankara that was bombed
by rebel jets. Yesterday’s putsch
bid began with rebel F-16 jets
screaming low over rooftops in
Ankara, soldiers and tanks taking to the streets and multiple
explosions throughout the night
in the capital as well as the
biggest city Istanbul.
Rebel troops also moved to
block the two bridges across the
Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul,
culminating in a stand-off with
an angry crowd. As protesters
poured onto the streets, an
AFP photographer saw troops
open fire on people gathered
near one of the bridges, leaving
dozens wounded.
spread consensus that the
trend towards centralisation of
authority was still continuing.
He emphasised that States
should be given much greater
operational freedom to choose
and finance development priSoldiers also shot at protesters angrily denouncing the
coup bid at Istanbul’s Taksim
Square, injuring several. There
was chaos in Istanbul as angry
crowds jeered the passing tanks,
with smaller numbers welcoming the troops. “The people are
afraid of a military
Government,” a 38-year-old
man who gave his name as
Dogan told AFP. “Most of them
have been in military service,
they know what a military government would mean.”
Turkish army F-16s
launched air strikes against
tanks stationed by coup backers
outside the presidential palace
in Ankara. Regular explosions
could be heard from the AFP
office situated near the complex.
Erdogan, who flew back
from the holiday resort of
Marmaris to a triumphant welcome from supporters at
Ataturk Airport, denounced
the coup attempt as “treachery”.
“They will pay a heavy price for
this act of treason,” Erdogan
said. “We will not leave our
country to occupiers.”
Turkey’s once-powerful
military has long considered
itself the guardian of the secular state founded by Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk in 1923. It has
staged three coups since 1960
and forced out an Islamic government in 1997.
Turkey detained a member
of the country’s top court, local
media reported. Alparslan
Altan, one of 17 judges on the
constitutional court, was taken
into custody, the private NTV
television reported, without
specifying what he was accused
of. Earlier, the judicial authorities said that some 2,745 judges
across the country would be dismissed in the wake of the coup.
orities of their people.
“The most dangerous exhibition of this tendency is seen
in how the centre has been quietly shifting subjects from the
State List to the Concurrent
List and from the Concurrent
to the Union List which
amounts to constitutional
rampage”, he added.
Deputy CM suggested
that for matters in ‘concurrent
lists’, due weightage should be
given to the opinion of the
State Government and on
‘Central list’ matters, consultation of effected States should
be taken. He suggested that
the post of Governor should
not be kept vacant for more
than a month at a time.
On the crucial river waters
issue, Badal said the Punjab
had already suffered gross
injustice in the matter of allocation of Ravi-Beas waters as
the purposes of Beas Project
were not kept in view while
deciding the allocations.
He said there has been
tremendous decline in the
ground water level in
Punjab which was a direct
consequence of inter-basin
transfer of water to nonriparian States.
Citing another glaring
example of injustice with
Punjab in the meeting he
elaborated that while reorganising Punjab not only large
Punjabi speaking area was
given to Haryana, but also its
capital city was not made part
of the State. He said Punjab
would be the only State in the
world whose capital city is not
part of the State.
Badal said “We have been
consistently demanding the
inclusion of Chandigarh and
other Punjabi speaking areas in
Punjab which have been kept
out of the State. The injustice
does not end here, even the
decision of maintaining of
60:40 ratio in posting of officers to Chandigarh from
Punjab and Haryana is being
violated continuously”. He
emphasised
that
till
Chandigarh to be transferred
to Punjab, at least the sanctity
of already decide ratio should
be maintained in all departments/categories of employees.
He argued that the formula and yardstick adopted
for allocation of share in
Central funds collected from
a particular State should be
recast in a manner that
encourages growth, development, performance and efficiency. He emphasised that
Punjab needs special assistance for diversification of
crops since the existing pattern
has reached stagnation.
The Deputy CM stressed
that the State Government has
adopted a zero tolerance policy to curb the menace of drugs
and three-pronged policy for
combating drug trafficking has
been implemented whereas the
anti-national and anti-Punjab
forces to gain political mileage
were trying to label every
Punjabi as a drug addict.
Badal pleaded that
deployment of BSF in border
districts should be brought on
par with the deployment of
force in J&K sector atleast till
State assembly elections
scheduled for Februar yMarch 2017.
Besides this, Punjab may
be included as a category-A
STATE for financial assistance
at 90:10 Centre-State sharing
basis on the pattern of J&K and
eight North-Eastern States
under the Modernisation of
State Police Forces Scheme.
Batting for the royalty on
river waters and foodgrains he
demanded
that
State
Government should be com-
pensated for the loss due to
introduction of GST as the
Punjab would be in a loss of
approximately C2000 crore on
account of subsumation of
purchase tax. Besides this,
centrally sponsored schemes
should not be ‘one size fits all’
but should be State specific
and be 100% funded by the
Central Government.
Thanking Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley for effecting recent increase in the devolution of funds from the Center
to the States from 32 per cent
to 42 per cent, Badal demanded that this share should be
atleast 50 per cent to enable the
States to achieve more economic prosperity.
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From Page 1
From Page 1
The video message by one
of the athletes, Tamil Selvi,
said, “There are no problems
where we are which is
Trabzon. We have to go to
Ankara on July 18 and then to
Istanbul to board the flight to
Delhi. We appeal to the
Indian Government to help us
return safe.” Trabzon is over
700 km far from capital
Ankara.
This apart, the agency is
planning Rawat’s custodial
interrogation based on the
“forensic evidence clearly
pointing to his involvement in
the sting video”. Since Rawat is
a sitting Chief Minister,
intervention from the PMO
and Union Home Ministry too
has been sought, top sources
said.
Apart from the forensic
evidence, the CBI has also
recorded the statements of four
witnesses in the case, including
that of principal witness Umesh
Kumar, CEO of Samachar Plus
television channel and it’s
Managing Director Amitabh
Agnihotry. The two other witnesses are Sumit Saxena and
Deepak Rana. The sting was
conducted by Samachar Plus
and the CD was released on
March 26 this year.
Sources said Rawat has
been summoned for question-
F^\T]SP]RX]V^]cWT^RRPbX^]^U7PaT[PUTbcXeP[X]cWT\^]cW^UBWaPeP]X]3TWaPSd]^]BPcdaSPh
ing again on Tuesday.
The CBI had registered
the PE on April 20, 2016 following request from the State
Government under the
President’s rule. When the
Harish Rawat Government was
restored following an order
from the Supreme Court, the
State Government sought to
scrap the PE registered by the
CBI. However, the Uttarakhand
High Court rejected the request
for quashing the PE.
Officials said a serving CM
can be arrested in a corruption
case without prior sanction
from the Governor.
Two days before Rawat
was to face the vote of confidence on March 28, rebel
Congress MLAs led by former
Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna
alleged that they were offered
bribe by Rawat for support
during the floor test in the
Assembly and released a video
of a “sting” operation purportedly showing Rawat negotiating with middlemen.
?aPbWP]c1PS^]X8?X^]TTa
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?=BQ 270=3860A7
am Aadmi Party (AAP)
national converner Arvind
A
Kejriwal will do whatever it
takes to gratify the Sikh sangat,
aggrieved with the party for its
manifesto fiasco. Kejriwal may be
seen serving langar and even polishing shoes at the Joda Ghar,
during his visit to Darbar Sahib
on July 18. Asserting that the
party was ready to seek apology
a hundred times for its fault,
Aam Aadmi Party State convener Suchha Singh Chhotepur
on Saturday said that it will be up
to Kejriwal, how would he like to
seek apology from the Guru.”
Accusing the SAD-BJP
alliance of infringing the rights
of Panchayati Raj system, AAP
said the Badal Government was
forcing its dictates on panchayats on the issue of development.
Addressing a Press conference in Chandigarh, AAP State
Convenor Sucha Singh
Chhotepur and Spokesman
Sukhpal Singh Khaira said that
Akalis have ruined the basic
Panchayati Raj System, which
was one of the basic strength of
Indian democracy.
“Panchayats are being forced
to work like ‘Puppets’ on the
instructions of Akali Jathedars”,
said Chhotepur adding that
Panchayats were left with virtually zero percent role in the rural
development as every decision
was being taken by the ‘Political
Bosses” and funds were also
being distributed according to
their wish. Chhotepur said that
it is ‘murder’ of democracy, as
funds allocated for rural development were being spent in a
way that some particular persons
were benefited and supporters of
opposition parties were being
denied any development.
Terming the arrests of Sant
Samaj leaders to be a violation of
human rights, Chhotepur said
that Badals were behaving like
“Dictators” to snub the democratic voice of People.
Showing documents pertaining to 39 Panchayats of
Dhilwan block, Khaira claimed
that grants of C25 crore were
being distributed and 50 percent
of such funds were embezzled by
the Akali Jathedars. Khaira said
that the party was taking legal
opinion on the issue and he
would soon file a writ petition in
Punjab & Haryana High Court.
[P]S\PaZ$
347A03D=kBD=30H k9D;H &! %
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=4F34;78
uoyed by the restoration of
its State Governments in
B
Arunachal Pradesh and
Uttarakhand by the Supreme
Court, the Congress is all set
to corner the Government
and the BJP in particular in
both the houses of Parliament
on the issue. Top Congress
leaders met party chief Sonia
Gandhi and her deputy Rahul
Gandhi on Saturday to chalk
out their strategy on crucial
issues, including the GST bill
for the upcoming Monsoon
Session.
To break the ice over the
crucial GST Bill, the
Government has reached out to
Congress to seek its support for
the passage of GST bill pending for a long time and has
sought the principal opposition
party's support on the issue.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra
Mahajan too has also convened an all-party meeting on
Sunday evening for support of
all parties for smooth functioning of Parliament.
The meeting held at the
residence of Sonia Gandhi was
attended among others by former
Prime
Minister
Manmohan Singh, Leader of
Opposition in Rajya Sabha
Ghulam Nabi Azad, party's
deputy leader in upper house
Anand Sharma and chief whip
in Lok Sabha Jyotiraditya
Scindia. Leader of Congress in
Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge
and chief whip in Rajya Sabha
Satyavrat Chaturvedi are also
likely to be present at the
meeting.
The top party leaders are
learnt to have discussed the
party's stand on various issues
. On the latest stand of
Congress following Centre's
peace leaf to the Opposition
+&DOORZV6ZDP\WR
VXEPLWIUHVKSOHDIRU
+HUDOGGRFXPHQWV
?8>=44A=4FBB4AE824Q
=4F34;78
he trial court on Saturday
T
permitted BJP leader
Subramanian Swamy to file
fresh application seeking
Government documents and
accounts of Congress in the
National Herald case.
Congress leaders argued that
as the Delhi High Court had
quashed the order of the trial
court summoning the documents, it should return.
Magistrate Lovleen ordered to
return the documents, posting
the next hearing of the case on
August 20.
Swamy contended that
there was no such direction in
the order from High Court to
return the documents.
Congress leader's advocates RS
Cheema, Ramesh Gupta and
Rebeca John argued that as the
earlier order was set aside by
High Court the documents
kept in trial court should be
returned.
"There is no way I can be
restricted from getting these
copies of document again. I will
file a complete application for
summoning of documents. The
order of high court does not say
that these documents should be
returned. The high court says
I can move fresh application. I
will move application for summoning of documents as permitted by high court," he said,
asking the lawyers to move to
Supreme Court, if not satisfied
with the High Court order.
Cheema said that in pursuance to the trial court's order,
some documents were summoned and they were taken on
record but now after the High
Court's order, these documents
cannot be kept on record.
Intervening on the cross
arguments between Swamy
and Congress lawyers, the
Magistrate posted the case to
August 20. Swamy was represented by advocates Ishkaran
Bhandari, Yatinder Chaudhary
and Dilip Kumar.
On July 12, the High Court
had set aside the trial court's
orders holding that they were
passed without hearing the
opposite side and it violated the
"principle of natural justice".
Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi,
party leaders Motilal Vora,
Oscar Fernandez, Suman
Dubey, Sam Pitroda and Young
Indian Pvt Ltd (YI) are accused
in the case filed by Swamy.
with regard to the GST Bill,
leaders stuck to three important issues due to which the
deadlocked has arisen. Party
leaders also discussed the meetings of senior Cabinet
Ministers with Congress leaders and anticipated that Centre
will relent on the issue of cap
of final limit of 18 percent
paving the passage of the Bill.
"We have explained the
logic of our reasoning to BJP.
We have also said that these are
not non solvable issue. There
are six or seven other issues, we
will highlight to the government to consider which important issues for people of India
and they should be considered
with an open mind and not
with a closed one. We hope better sense will prevail and they
will come back with a solution
that is acceptable to all of us,"
AICC chief spokesman
Randeep Surjewala said in a
Press statement later.
he Patidar Anamat
Andolan Samiti (PASS)
T
convener Hardik Patel on
Saturday filed undertaking
before a local court in
Ahmedabad that he would
not indulge in any activity
which disturb law and order
situation in the State.
The 23-year-old Patidar
leader walked out of Lajpore
jail in Surat on Friday evening
after he was granted conditional bail by Gujarat High
Court. As per the high court
order Hardik will have to stay
out of Gujarat for next six
month and another three
months from his home town
Viramgam. The HC however,
allowed him to visit Viramgam
to collect his belonging on
Saturday.
In his undertaking he
admitted that during his exile,
he would stay at Udaipur in
neighbouring Rajasthan. He
however clarified that the proquota agitation would continue in peacefully.
Meanwhile
Hardik
received hero’s welcome by his
family members and supporters in his hometown
Viramgam. Riding atop of an
SUV vehicle, he marched to
his home with thousands of
supporters. His close associate
said that Hardik returned to
his home after 13 long months
and of these he spent nine
months in jail. Viramgam
MLA Tejashree Patel
(Congress) was among those
who received the PAAS convener.
Sources in PAAS said that
on Sunday Hardik would visit
his
native
village
Chandranagar near Viramgam
and also attend several roadshows in North Gujarat on his
way to Udaipur where he
would stay for next six months.
?=BQ =4F34;78
A
fter shunting her out of the
HRD Ministry, Smriti Irani
was on Saturday dropped as a
special invitee from crucial
Cabinet Committee on
Parliamentary Affairs (CCPA)
too. Irani's successor in the
Human
Resources
Development Ministry Prakash
Javadekar was elevated as a
member from special invitee.
In the recent Cabinet
reshuffle, Irani was shifted
from the HRD Ministry to
Textiles.
Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who
has been divested of his
Minister of State for
Parliamentary Affairs portfolio,
too has been dropped as a special invitee and replaced by S S
Ahluwalia who is now the
junior minister in the Ministry.
Newly-inducted Minister of
State in the Law Ministry P P
T
he dance of death continued in Kashmir Valley on
the eighth consecutive day as
another protester was shot
dead by security forces in
north Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Saturday afternoon.
The Valley continued to
remain under strict curfew but
protesters violated the restrictions at several places leading
to clashes and use of force to
quell demonstrations.
The authorities seized
local newspapers in the morning before distribution compelling the newspaper editors and owners to stop the
publication for the next three
days. Some newspapers have
decided to run online editions
even as the authorities have
imposed curbs on mobile telephony and internet.
Sources said that Showkat
Ahmed Malik, 25, was killed
and two others were injured
when intense clashes erupted
at Hutmulla village in north
Kashmir’s Kupwara. “While
dealing with the situation
three people were injured.
One of them later on succumbed to his injuries,” a
police spokesman said.
Reports of clashes
between the protesters and
security forces poured in from
other parts of the valley. The
authorities had announced to
continue imposition of curfew
in the valley for the second
consecutive day. The restrictions are likely to continue for
three more days. The separatists have called for shutdown till June 18 evening fol-
?=BQ =4F34;78
I
n a major seizure, the CBI on
Saturday claimed to have
recovered about C 1 cr in cash
from the residence of the then
Development Commissioner,
Special Economic Zone, Surat
during searches conducted
after registering a disproportionate assets case against him.
CBI sources said a case
under the Prevention of
Corruption Act had been registered against Vijay Kumar
Narayan Shewale, now posted
as
Development
Commissioner, Mangalore
SEZ, and his wife for allegedly
possessing assets disproportionate to their known sources
of income.
"It was alleged that the
public servant had acquired
disproportionate assets to the
tune of C 5.26 crore (approx) in
his own name as well as in the
name of his family members,
including his wife, daughter
and son. The alleged assets
i n c l u d e
residential/business/agricultural premises," a CBI
spokesperson said.
Searches were conducted at
seven premises in Mangalore,
Mumbai, Malegaon and Nashik
which led to the recovery of
several documents relating to
the acquisition of properties
and cash to the tune of C99.60
lakh from the residence of the
public servant, besides C94.99
lakh from the office of a private
firm at Andheri, Mumbai, the
agency said.
"300 gms (approx) of gold
jewellery and 900 gms (approx)
of silver coins were recovered
from a bank locker in the
name of his wife," it added.
C=A067D=0C70Q <D<108
New Delhi: The Ministry of
External Affairs on Saturday
said the two Indians abducted
last month from Benue State of
Nigeria have been released and
will be shortly brought to the
country.
"Mangapudi Srinivas and
Kaushal Anish Sharma, who
were kidnapped in the morning of June 29 from an area
called Boko, near Makurdi in
Benue state of Nigeria, were
released on Saturday morning
at 1030 hrs IST," said MEA
spokesperson Vikas Swarup.
"Both have spoken to their
families. Sharma's wife profusely thanked the External
Affairs Minister for ensuring
safe release. She also thanked
the Ministry and the Mission
for keeping the family informed
of developments almost on
daily basis," Swarup added.
Srinivas hails from Andhra
Pradesh and his colleague
Sharma is from Karnataka.
Both had started from their residential quarters in a car to
Dangote Cement Plc Plant.
On reaching a traffic signal, a
group of armed men barged
into the car and abducted them
at gun point.
PNS
Even at his hometown
Hardik reiterated to continue
pro-quota Patidar agitation in
peaceful manner. The young
Patidar leader only spent 20odd minutes with his parents
and sister. He prayed at a
shrine in his house and headed to next leg of his series in
Saurashtra.
In 48-hours after his
release from jail, Hardik is
expected to travel 2100 km
within Gujarat and attend road
shows in Saurashtra and North
Gujarat to meet maximum
number of his supporters.
As for Hardik, he continued to maintain that the stir
would now continue with new
rigour and would remain apolitical. On being asked whether
he would join Aam Aadmi
Party, whose leader Ashutosh
was in Ahmedabad on late
Friday night but could not
meet, Hardik said “it is a
rumour”.
in a case of cheque bouncing
filed against him by the
Airports Authority of India
(AAI).
The 63rd metropolitan
magistrate AA Laulkar issued
an NBW against Mallya, after
the latter failed to appear before
the court despite the court
having issued final summons
against him on May 7.
The Magistrate was hearing two applications filed by
AAI against M/s Kingfisher
Airlines (KFA) and six others,
including Mallya, in connection with the bouncing of two
cheques collectively worth Rs
107 crore. The Mallya-headed
now-defunct KFA had issued
cheques of Rs 50 crore and Rs
57 crore to AAI some time in
2012. However, both the
cheques had bounced.
Saturday’s was the third
NBW issued against Mallya by
an Indian Court in recent
months. Earlier on March 13,
a Hyderabad court had issued
an NBW against Mallya in
connection with alleged dishonour of a cheque of Rs 50
lakh to GMR Hyderabad
International Airport Ltd.
Subsequently, a PMLA court in
lowed by observance of “black
day” on Tuesday in accordance to a call from Pakistan
government.
Police said during intervening night mob equipped
with iron rods, stones, bricks
attacked and torched the
guard residential shed at
Wullar Vintage Park in north
Kashmir’s Bandipore district.
The authorities also
clamped on the media and
stopped publication and distribution of local newspapers.
During the midnight raids
on various printing presses,
the Police seized master copies
and platesof all the local Urdu
and English dailies published
from here. The newspapers
that had been printed were
seized. Later local journalists
held a protest demonstration
condemning the official curbs.
Mumbai issued an NBW
against Mallya on April 18 in
the IDBI loan fraud-cummoney laundering case.
Earlier this year, Mallya
had sought and obtained permanent exemption from
appearing in the cheque bouncing case filed in Mumbai court.
However, after Mallya quietly
left the country on March 2
amid reports about his airline
having defaulted on repayment of over Rs 9,000 crore to
the banks, the AAI moved the
metropolitan court in suburban
Andheri, challenging the permanent exemption granted to
him by the court and sought
issuance of an NBW against
him.
Mallya has been evading
summons by courts ever since
he clandestinely left the country on March 2 for the United
Kingdom, where he is currently
fWXRW\PZTbXc
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based.
The first of the three
NBWs issued against Mallya by
a Hyderabad on March 13 did
not produce desired results.
Following up on an NBW
issued by it against Mallya in
the IDBI loan fraud-cummoney laundering case earlier
on April 18, the Mumbai-based
PMLA declared the debttrapped businessman a “proclaimed offender” on June 14.
The court declared Mallya
a “proclaimed offender” under
section 82 of the Criminal
Procedure Code (CrPC), which
makes it mandatory on the
offender to appear before the
Court within 30 days of the
publication of proclamation.
On June 29, the PMLA
court directed Mallya to appear
before it on July 29 on the
ground that he had “absconded” and was “concealing” him-
PMLA court in the court room
no. 16 at 11 am on July 29.
Meanwhile, given that
Britain has declined to deport
Mallya to India, the
Enforcement Directorate (ED)
is planning to invoke the IndiaUnited Kingdom Mutual Legal
Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to
extradite Mallya from Britain.
The ED is investigating
the overall financial structure
of the now-defunct Kingfisher
Airlines and is also looking into
any payment of kickbacks to
secure 950 crore loan from the
IDBI Bank.
The ED’s contention is that
the latter had “siphoned off ” Rs
430 crore from the loan taken
by now defunct-Kingfisher
Airline to purchase properties
abroad.
The ED is looking into the
“proceeds of crime” that would
have been generated using the
slush funds of the alleged loan
fraud. The agency is also investigating if some of this amount
was sent abroad illegally. It is also
looking for details of overseas
and domestic assets of Mallya
and his company officials, in
coordination with central security agencies and the CBI.
2:@\UQTUbcTYcSecc;QcX]YbfY_\U^SU
<>78C:0=370A8Q 90<<D
olatile situation across different parts of Kashmir
V
valley Saturday brought core
group of the state BJP leadership under one roof where
they stock of the current situation in the State and chalked
out its strategy as PDP leadership has already started raising voices while questioning
the 'surgical operation' in
which Hizbul Mujahideen
Commander Burhan Wani
was killed in Kokernag area of
Anantnag on July 8.
Two senior PDP leaders
including Member Parliament
Muzaffar Hussain Beg and
state Education Minister
Naeem Akhtar had earlier
raised doubts over the manner
in which the entire operation
was conducted apparently
without the knowledge of Chief
Minister, Mehbooba Mufti who
is also holding charge of the
<RdY^ZccV^RZ_deV_dV"ac`eVdeVc\Z]]VU
:7DAB7443F0=8Q
BA8=060A
Chaudhary has also been made
a special invitee.
Najma Heptulla, the
Minority Affairs Minister who
had resigned from the Union
Cabinet earlier this week, is no
more a member of the panel.
Ravi Shankar Prasad, the
new Law Minister, replaces his
predecessor D V Sadananda
Gowda in the panel.
The CCPA, headed by
Home Minister Rajnath Singh,
is mandated to recommend the
dates of Parliament sessions. It
has 11 members, including
three special invitees.
Other members are Union
ministers Sushma Swaraj, Arun
Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu,
Ram Vilas Paswan and Ananth
Kumar.
Minister of State for
Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar
Abbas Naqvi is another special
invitee, a fresh list issued by the
Cabinet Secretariat said.
Cf^8]SXP]b ?3HZddfVURXRZ_deGZ[Rj>R]]jR
PQSdRcTSX]
CWTR^dacSTR[PaTS self to avoid arrest.
In a proclamation pub<P[[hPP±_a^R[PX\TS
=XVTaXP
lished through a newspaper
Mumbai metropolitan
^UUT]STa²d]STabTRcX^] advertisement, Special Judge P
court on Saturday issued
A
'!^UcWT2aX\X]P[ R Bhavake had directed Mallya
non-bailable warrant
aT[TPbTS)<40 a(NBW)
against Vijay Mallya,
?a^RTSdaT2^ST2a?2 to remain present before the
7PaSXZUX[Tbd]STacPZX]VX]R^dacU^[[^fX]VWXbaT[TPbT
?=BQ 60=378=060A
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The authorities have asked the
newspaper owners to stop
publication for three days.
The internet and mobile
networks continues to remain
suspended for the seventh
straight day. The authorities
also halted cable television
operation but it resumed later
in the evening.
The situation worsened
in Kashmir valley on July 9, a
day after security forces shot
dead Hizbul Mujahideen
commander Burhan Wani in
south Kashmir’s Kokernag
pocket. As many as 43 civilians and a policeman have
died in the flare-up over 3,100
persons, including 1,500 security force personnel have been
injured in these clashes. Many
people with grievous pellet
injuries are at the verge of losing eyesight.
Home Department.
MoS PMO Dr Jitendra
Singh, Deputy Chief Minister
Prof Nirmal Singh, BJP
National Vice President
Avinash Rai Khanna, state BJP
Chief Sat Paul Sharma, MPs
Jugal Kishore and Shamsher
SIngh Manhas and organisation
secretary Ashok Kaul attended
the meeting here in Jammu.
Section of PDP leaders in
Kashmir valley have been busy
spreading the word that different parts of kashmir valley
witnessing heavy stone pelting
because people are angry with
PDP's opportunistic alliance
with BJP and blaming BJP led
central govt for using excessive
force against the protesters.
During the meeting the
BJP leaders also took stock of
the propaganda unleashed by
the establishment in Pak by rallying behind protestors in
Kashmir valley and announcing
their emotional support to the
ongoing 'freedom' movement.
Later talking to the media
persons Dr Jitendra Singh also
adopted a tough posture while
snubbing Pakistan in clear words.
"There is no Kashmir problem. It has been made clear on
all the fronts. There is no issue
of Kashmir between Indian
and Pakistan and we are not
ready to accept it.
"...It was way back in 1994
that Indian Parliament passed
an unanimous resolution stating that if at all there is any outstanding issue, it is how to
retrieve part of J&K which
remains under illegal occupation of Pakistan," the Minister
of State in the PMO told
reporters here.
Reacting to Pakistan's
statement describing slain terrorist Wani as "martyr", Singh
said, "Regardless of how anyone
describes anybody, as far as
India is concerned it has reiterated more than once that
5aT]RWf^\P]ZX[[b\X]^aSPdVWcTa
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Panaji: In a gruesome incident,
a French woman killed her
adopted minor daughter and
then committed suicide by slitting her throat, allegedly due to
stress, in the coastal village of
Anjuna in North Goa, which is
known for its rave parties and
nightlife.
According to the police,
who discovered the bodies of
45-year-old Sevorine Martin
Dumand Figerre and her
seven-year-old minor daughter
on Saturday morning, a suicide
note allegedly left behind by the
deceased suggested being
under tremendous stress,
which couldbjave led to the
fatal act.
"We were called by her husband from France who had
complained that his wife was
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picking his calls. When we
opened the door using force we
found the two bodies," Police
Sub Inspector Vijaynath
Kavlekar told The Pioneer.
The official also said that
bodies had been sent to a government hospital for post
mortem, which he said, would
be conducted after the husband arrives from France next
week. PNS
there is an approach of zero tolerance towards terrorism."
"Pakistan has always been
fishing in the troubled waters
of Jehlum," he added.
He hit out at Pakistan for
raking up the Kashmir issue
and said there is no room for
any foreign interference from
Pakistan or any other country
in the internal affairs of India.
"Pakistan, which is raking
up the Kashmir issue and
human rights issues, should
care about human rights violations taking place in
Balochistan, Baltistan and
PoK," he said.
"I think Indian society and
the people of Jammu and
Kashmir are now awakened
enough to understand the
designs and therefore, there is
nothing that can derail the
development journey which has
been started by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi across the country, including J&K," Singh said.
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ecretary of State John Kerry
said on Saturday that the
SUnited
States will assist Turkey RP[\X]R^d]cah
in the investigation of a failed
coup and invited Ankara to
share any evidence it has
against a US-based opposition
figure Fethullah Gulen.
Speaking in Luxembourg,
Kerry said Washington had not
yet received a formal extradition
bid for the expatriate cleric, but
added: “We fully anticipate that
there will be questions raised
about Mr Gulen.”
Gulen, a reclusive Islamic
preacher with a worldwide following who is regularly accused
of a behind the scenes role in
Turkish politics, lives in a tiny
town in the Pocono Mountains
of the US State of Pennsylvania.
He has been accused by
Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan of being behind the
Thursday’s boody coup
attempt, although he has
denied any role and condemned the miliary uprising
“in the strongest terms.”
Kerry who spoke late yesterday to his Turkish opposite
number Mevlut Cavusoglu by
telephone, said, “We haven’t
received any request with
respect to Mr Gulen.
Washington: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton on Saturday expressed
concern over the coup attempt
in Turkey and called for calm
in the country.
“I am following the fastmoving developments in
Turkey tonight with great concern,” Clinton said in a statement. “We should all urge
calm and respect for laws,
institutions, and basic human
rights and freedoms — and
support for the democratically elected civilian Government,”
she said.
PTI
“And obviously we invited
the Government of Turkey as
we always do to present us with
any legitimate evidence that
withstands scrutiny and the
United States will accept that
and look at it and make judgments about it appropriately.”
And, standing alongside
Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister
Jean Asselborn outside the
country’s Foreign Ministry, he
added, “I’m confident that
there will be some discussion
about that.”
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London: British nationals in
Turkey are being “strongly”
advised to stay indoors after 161
people died in a failed military
coup in the country, the UK
Foreign Office said on Saturday.
UK foreign secretary Boris
Johnson tweeted that he was
“very concerned” by the events
in Turkey and said the British
Embassy was “monitoring the
situation closely”.
AR\d`TZR]^VUZRTV]VScZej 2WX]PQTVX]b
3R]`TY\Z]]VUW`cµY`_`fc¶ \X[XcPahTgTaRXbTb
Islamabad: Pakistan’s social media celebrity
Qandeel Baloch was killed allegedly by her broth- P\XSB2BcT]bX^]b
er in Multan in Punjab
province, becoming the latest
victim of “honour killings”
that plague the country.
The 26-year-old actorcum-model was killed in
central district of Multan on
Friday night, police said on
Saturday.
Police said apparently
she was killed by her brother named Wasim, who has fled after the incident.
“She was suffocated to death by strangulation. It
seems to be a case of honour killing but we are probing it,” district police chief Azhar Akram said.
Her real name was Fouzia Azeem but she
chose Qandeel Baloch as her pseudonym after
stepping into modelling. She had received
threats from her family to quit modeling and her
provocative appearances on social media. Her
brother had been threatening her over her
Facebook posts and videos, said police.
PTI
Doha: Turkey’s regional allies
on Saturday condemned a
deadly but foiled coup attempt
by a faction of the army against
President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s rule.
Key regional powers Iran
and Israel, which have both had
strained relationships with
Erdogan’s Government, condemned the putsch that began
late last night.
Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke
with his Turkish counterpart
three times since the crisis began.
On Twitter, he hailed the
Turkish people’s “defence of
democracy & their elected
Government” which he said
“proves that coups have no
place in our region and are
doomed to fail.”
“Deeply concerned about
the crisis in Turkey,” Zarif
tweeted late Friday.
“Stability, democracy &
safety of Turkish people are
paramount. Unity & prudence
are imperative.”
AFP
Beijing: Amid the South China
Sea tensions, Chinese military
on Saturday kicked off large
scale military exercises pressing
troops from the five theatre
commands of the People’s
Liberation
A r m y
(PLA) simulating real
battle conditions.
The military drills which
began yesterday will last will
last until September and aimed
to boost the military’s “transregional” capabilities, state run
Xinhua news agency reported.
A report on July 14 said the exercises will be held at Zhurihe
training base in Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region.
PTI
More than 2.5 million
Britons visit Turkey every year.
“The situation now appears
quieter in Istanbul, and the
bridges across the Bosphorus
are re-opening. But there are
reports of tank fire and small
arms fire in Ankara. Some
flights to airports in Turkey are
being diverted or cancelled,”
the latest advice from the
Foreign Office reads.
PTI
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif on Saturday condemned a botched coup
bid by Turkish army and expressed Pakistan’s
‘abiding interest’ in a democratic, peaceful and
stable Turkey.
“I strongly condemn the attempt to undermine democracy by a failed coup in the brotherly country of Turkey. We deeply admire the
resolve of the brave and resilient Turkish people,
who stood up against the forces of darkness and
anarchy to express their support and commitment
to democracy,” he said in a statement.
PTI
X]6aTTRT'aT`dTbcPbh[d\³
Alexandroupoli (Greece): A Turkish military
helicopter landed in Greece on Saturday carrying eight men seeking asylum after a coup bid,
Greek police said.
The Black Hawk helicopter landed after
sending a distress signal to authorities at the airport in Alexandroupolis in the country’s north.
Seven of those on board were in military uniform and all are believed to have been involved
in the attempted putsch, ERT TV said.
AFP
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Paris: UNESCO suspended its
world heritage meeting in
Istanbul on Saturday in the
wake of Turkey’s attempted military coup, the organisation said.
“The 40th session of the
World Heritage Committee is
suspended until further notice,”
the Paris-based body said in a
statement on its website.
Soldiers and tanks took to
the streets late on Friday and
multiple explosions rang out
throughout the night in Ankara
and Istanbul, the two biggest
cities of the strategic NATO
member of 80 million people.
The meeting, which began
last Sunday, was deciding
whether to give world heritage
protection to 29 sites across the
world.
The most headline-grabbing of its discussions centred
on whether it would list some
of the Swiss-born architect Le
Corbusier’s most iconic modernist buildings.
A decision had been
expected tomorrow.
UNESCO has twice rejected previous bids to give its protection to Le Corbusier’s utilitarian concrete buildings, which
had a huge impact on urban
planning across the planet.
Seventeen of his projects,
stretching from La Cite
Radieuse housing project in
Marseille, France, to the city of
Chandigarh in northern India,
which he laid out, were being
considered.
AFP
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05?Q =824
he Islamic State (ISIS)
group claimed responsiT
bility on Saturday for an attack
BA0906>?0;0=Q F0B78=6C>=
I
f you had any doubts about (Donald)
Trump sticking with his dangerous
plan for America, say hello to his VP
pick,” remarked presumptive
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton,
soon after her Republican rival
announced that Indiana Governor
Mike Pence will be his running mate.
In a series of tweets, Clinton
attacked Pence, calling him a “Donald
Trump with a different haircut” and
someone who would be a “potential disaster for America”.
In sharp contrast, Republicans
hailed Pence as a “proven conservative”.
Saying Pence comes from the “heart of
the conservative movement”, House
Speaker Paul Ryan declared: “I can
think of no better choice for our vicepresidential candidate”. Trump’s former
rival Senator Marco Rubio called Pence
a “great pick”.
Clinton put out a campaign video
that branded Pence as someone “bad for
immigrants” and included a clip of his
arguing that “Americans don’t want
comprehensive immigration reform”.
Pence himself said in an interview
to Fox News that he is “very supportive of Donald Trump’s call to temporarily suspend immigration from
countries where terrorists represent a
threat to the United States”. He had earlier disapproved of Trump’s call for a
temporary ban on Muslims entering the
US, even calling it an “offensive and
unconstitutional” proposal.
in which a Tunisian drove a
truck through a crowd in Nice,
killing 84, prompting hard
questions in France over security failures.
In a statement via its Amaq
news service, ISIS said one of
its “soldiers” carried out the
attack on Thursday night “in
response to calls to target
nations of coalition states that
are fighting (ISIS)”.
Tunisian
Mohamed
Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, smashed
a 19-tonne truck into crowd of
people in the Riviera city who
were celebrating Bastille Day —
France’s national day. Police said
he had no known connection to
jehadist groups.
French President Francois
Hollande met with his defence
and security chiefs and cabinet
ministers as criticism from the
opposition and media mounted over security failings after
the third major attack in France
in 18 months.
“If we are at war, as the
Government tells us, then the
currency of war is intelligence,
learning from experience,
analysing failures and victories,”
wrote Yann Marec in an editorial for the southern region’s
Midi Libre newspaper.
He was one of several call-
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ing for action, and not merely
“the same old solemn declara-
tions” from the Government, as
Le Figaro daily said.
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Washington: Happier cows may
give more calcium-rich milk,
according to a new study which
could lead to a better understanding of how to improve the
health of dairy animals, and
keep the milk flowing.
Daily infusions with a
chemical commonly associated
with feelings of happiness were
shown to increase calcium levels in the blood of Holstein
cows and the milk of Jersey
cows that had just given birth.
Demand is high for milk
rich in calcium: there is more
calcium in the human body
than any other mineral, and
dairy products such as milk,
cheese and yoghurt are primary sources of calcium.
Hypocalcaemia is considered a major health event in the
life of a cow. The risk of this
disease is particularly high
immediately before and after
cows give birth.
It is associated with
immunological and digestive
problems, decreased pregnancy rates and longer intervals
between pregnancies.
PTI
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I
n a setback to Vijay Mallya,
the Debt Recovery Tribunal
(DRT) on Saturday allowed
consortium of bankers’ interlocutory application on lifting
of corporate veil to pierce the
protection against personal liability enjoyed by individuals
controlling Kingfisher Finvest,
a holding company of the
beleaguered liquor baron.
It also directed spirit maker
Diageo Plc to deposit with the
tribunal the remaining $35
million of the $75-million
'sweetheart deal’ with Mallya.
DRT also dismissed the
interlocutory application (IA)
filed by Dutch beer major
Heineken, seeking impleadment in the Mallya case to
enjoy Right of First Refusal
(ROFR) over UBL shares.
Bankers had filed the IA seek-
ing lifting of corporate veil to
pierce the protection against
personal liablity enjoyed by
individuals
controlling
Kingfisher Finvest.
The doctrine of Lifting of
Corporate Veil means disregarding the corporate personality and looking behind the
persons controlling the company. Heineken had filed an
application seeking to be
impleaded in the case to enjoy
ROFR over UBL shares.
Heineken has some presumptive rights on UBL shares held
and owned by Mallya.
ROFR is a contractual term
between shareholders, usually
included in Articles of
Association. If a shareholder
wishes to dispose shares that
are subject to ROFR, it must
first be offered to those other
shareholders who have its benefit. Passing orders on yet
another IA by Diageo Plc, DRT
Presiding Officer CR
Benakanahalli directed the
company to ‘attach’ the
remaining $35 million of the
$75 million sweatheart deal
amount with it, in case any
transaction takes place as per
the agreement between Mallya
and Diageo Plc and its two
other subsidiaries.
Diageo Plc had filed an
Interlocutory Application
seeking vacating of the DRT’s
March 7 order. DRT had barred
Mallya from withdrawing $75
million exit payment from
Diageo till disposal of the case
over the loan default by
Kingfisher Airlines.
It had restrained Diageo
and
United
Spirits
Limited,owned by the UKbased firm, from temporarily
disbursing the amount to
Mallya, who worked out the
deal under a severance package. But $40 million of the $75
million package deal had
already been disbursed, following which the bankers consortium had sought directions
from DRT to attach the
amount before it.
On a DRT directive,
Diageo Plc and its two subsidiaries submitted details of
the deal, in which bankers figured out that $40 million of the
$75 million was parked in an
account by Mallya in New
York-based JP Morgan Bank.
On May 17, DRT had
directed the bank not to disburse to Mallya $40 million
and asked it to ‘attach’ (submit) before it, statements of
accounts held by Mallya in
the bank. Diageo Holdings
Netherlands had also filed
an IA, seeking vacating of
DRTs March 7 order.
*DGNDULYLVLWV7HVOD
0RWRUVLQYLWHVSODQ
IRUHQWU\LQWR,QGLD
?C8 Q B0=5A0=28B2>
T
esla Motors on Saturday said
that India will ‘definitely’ be
a market for their next generation
low-cost sustainable model-3,
with the Union Road and
Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari
asking the iconic company to
outline their proposals for entry
into the Indian market.
During a visit to the Tesla factory here, Gadkari offered to promote joint ventures between the
global leaders in electric car manufacturing and the Indian automobile companies with a view to
introducing pollution-free road
transport in India, especially commercial and public motor vehicles.
In his interaction with
senior company officials,
Gadkari proposed to the Tesla
senior executives to make India
their Asia manufacturing hub
and offered land near major
Indian ports to facilitate export
of their vehicles to South and
South East Asian countries.
2Q^[e^Y_^dXbUQdU^cd_]Q[U
' TUVQe\dUbcµ^Q]U`eR\YS
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ll-India Bank Employees
Association (AIBEA) on
A
Saturday threatened to make
public the names of top 7,000
wilful corporate loan defaulters
who have defrauded around
C70,000 crore. The union also
demanded filing criminal cases
against these defaulters.
AIBEA General Secretary
CH Venkatachalam also said
around 10 lakh employees and
officials would go on a one-day
strike, called by nine unions on
July 29 to oppose what he calls
the ‘anti-people banking reforms
being pushed by the
Government’. “Wilful defaulters
have taken loans for some purpose but have diverted and misused the money. There are
around 7,000 big companies
who are wilful defaulters and
they owe C70,000 crore to the
system. We will reveal their
names in a few days,”
Venkatachalam said here.
He accused the Government
of going soft on these big defaulters saying, “We believe the
Government is soft on wilful
defaulters. We want to know why
no criminal action is taken
against them, but only civil suits
are being filed against them?” He
called upon the Government to
declare wilful defaults as criminal offence and take criminal
action and recover the money by
confiscating their properties.
“Because the money
belongs to the public and not
the Government or the banks,”
he said. Venkatachalam also
called for setting up fast-track
debt recovery tribunals to
resolve the big loan defaults so
that the money is recovered fast.
“Restructuring a default loan
instead of categorising it as a
bad loan is a fraud and cheating the public,” he added.
jca^l
94=EVTYRaa`Z_ed_Vh4@@ X?W^]TbP[Tbc^Sa^_PbBP\bd]VSXVbWTT[b
NEW DELHI: IT services com- to accelerate growth in the core
pany HCL Technologies on
Saturday said its President,
Infrastructure Services, C Vijay
Kumar will take on additional
responsibility as Chief Operating
Officer. “A role of Chief Operating
Officer (COO) has been established
business. C Vijay Kumar, currently President, Infrastructure Services
will take on this additional responsibility and continue to report to
Anant Gupta, President & CEO,”
HCL Tech said in a statement. PTI
NEW YORK: Soon after technology giant Apple reported its
first-ever quarterly drop in
iPhone sales in April, a new
report has found that ‘the outlook
for iPhone demand keeps getting
murkier’ as other leading smartphone brands like Samsung
make inroads in the market.
The number of iPhone
units sold would tumble 12 per
cent from 2015 and the upcoming iPhone 7 would be ‘a marginal cycle at best’, New York
Post reported, quoting a Wall
Street analyst on Friday.
Recently, retail data insights
and consulting business Kantar
Retail reported that Samsung's
Galaxy 7 line of smartphones
grabbed 16 per cent of total sales
in the US during the three months
ended May 31, exceeding the 14.6
per cent of sales for the iPhone 6s.
As the momentum of the 6s has
slowed down, investors are worried about iPhone 7 that the
device might not be a significant
upgrade. Mark Moskowitz of
Barclays forecast that this
year's iPhone unit sales would
total 203.7 million down from
231.5 million last year. IANS
FXcWV^[SbWX]X]V]TgcQ^]S
XbbdTf^acWfWX[TbPhb3Pb
◆
&+$1*(2)1$0(
◆
I, Bodh Kumari D/o Sh.
Vasudev Sharma R/o RZ/E50, New Roshanpura,
Najafgarh, New Delhi110043 have changed the
name of my son from Suzain
Alam to Saurav Sharma for all
purposes.
PD(7276)A
NEW DELHI: The Finance
Ministry has said following
t he upt a ke for gol d i n
recent months the upcoming issue of Gold Bond
Scheme from Monday will
prove to be a worthy investment for resident Indians.
“Next tranche of Sovereign
Gold Bond Scheme to open
from July 18-22. Excellent
opportunity to invest and benefit from gold price appreciation,” Economic Affairs
Secretary Shaktikanta Das
tweeted on Saturday.
“Gold Bond Scheme:
Innovative savings instrument
for all sections. Attractive substitute for purchase of physical
gold as a mode of savings,” the
secretary added. In recent
months, gold prices have surged
from C30,000 per 10 grams (24
carat) to C31,500 per 10 grams
now. It was around C33,000 a
DEPARTMENT OF FOOD SAFETY
GOVERNMENT OF NCT OF DELHI
8th Floor, Mayur Bhawan, Shanker Market, Connaught Place, New Delhi - 110 001
www.foodsafety.delhigovt.nic.in
Toll Free No. 1800113921
PUBLIC NOTICE # 1
Food Safety and Standard Act 2006 read with Food Safety and Standard (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Regulations 2011
prohibits the use of Carbide Gas in ripening of fruits. If any person sells or has in his premises for sale, fruits which have been
artificially ripened by use of Carbide Gas is punishable with:
(i) In case of no injury, imprisonment up to 6 months and also fine up to Rupees One Lakh .
(ii) In case of non grievous injury, imprisonment up to 1 year and also fine up to Rupees Three Lakh .
(iii) In case of grievous injury, imprisonment up to 6 years and also fine up to Rupees Five Lakh .
(iv) In case of death, life imprisonment and also fine up to Rupees Ten Lakh .
PUBLIC NOTICE # 2
Food Safety and Standard Act 2006 read with Food Safety and Standard (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sale) Regulations 2011
prohibits the use of common salt (unless iodized) for direct human consumption. If any person sells or have in his premises for sale,
the common salt (unless iodized) for direct human consumption, the same is punishable with a penalty up to Rupees five lakh.
Swachh Khana Sehat Ka Khajana
Wash fruits and vegetables before eating them
PUBLIC NOTICE # 3
Fruits and vegetables used for eating-cooking in everyday life may have Pesticide Residue hidden on their surface, which are not
visible from the naked eye. The toxic chemicals present in these pesticides may cause harm to your health.
Ways and means to minimize pesticide residue from fruits and vegetables before eating-cooking:General Methods
Specialized methods
Q Wash in clean running or drinking water and dry with
Q Soak fruits and vegetables for 5 to 10 minutes in
a clean cloth or paper towel
water diluted with vinegar followed by thorough rinsing.
Q Scrub carrots, potatoes, turnips, etc. with a soft brush or
Q Wash vegetables like cauliflower, spinach, broccoli,
cloth towel for 5 to 10 seconds and rinse with slightly
cabbage etc. with hot water containing 2% common salt.
warm water.
Q Discard outer layer of leafy vegetables like cabbage etc.
Q Wash vegetables like carrot, brinjal etc. with 1% tamarind solution
before washing
Q Peel fruits like mangoes, pears, kiwis and vegetables like
Q Dipping in ozonated water helps in reduction of pesticide residues.
gourds, loofah and cucumber before chopping them.
Q Vegetables and some fruits which are consumed along
Q Prepare any one of the following solutions and spray on
with peel should be soaked in water for ½ hour to 1 hour
fruit and vegetables leave it for 5 to 10 minutes and then
and rinsed thoroughly before use.
wash well with fresh water.
Q Boiled the vegetables for One minute. then wash in
(i) 1 Tbsp. lemon juice, 2 Tbsp. baking soda, 1 cup of water
clean running water.
(ii) 1 Tbsp. lemon juice, 2 Tbps. white vinegar, 1 cup of water
(iii) 1/4th cup vinegar, 2 Tbps. Salt,
Q Soak vegetables and fruits for 30 minutes in a large bowl of
water with any one of above solutions and then wash in fresh
water.
Q For particularly waxy fruits and vegetables spray a mixture of
1 cup water, ½ cup vinegar, 1Tbps. baking soda and a dash
of grapefruit seed extract and leave for an hour, rinse them,
then consume them.
Make it a Habit
Wash fruits-vegetables before use
Mail your complaints at
www.foodsafety.delhigovt.nic.in
Issued in Public Interest
DEPARTMENT OF FOOD SAFETY
Government of NCT of Delhi
8th Floor, Mayur Bhawan, Connaught Place,
New Delhi - 110 001
Toll Free No.
1800113921
DIP/Shabdarth/1143/16-17
fortnight back. As regards
the price, the Reserve Bank of
India has already notified the
same. “The issue price of the
Sovereign Gold Bond has
been fixed at C3,119 per gram
of gold. The rate has been
fixed on the basis of simple
average of closing price of
gold of 999 purity for the
week July 11-15, 2016 as published by the India Bullion
and Jewellers Association,”
the Central Bank said.
“Applications for the bond
will be accepted from July 18,
2016 to July 22, 2016. The
bonds will be issued on August
5, 2016,” the Finance Ministry
statement said recently. Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley had in
last year’s Union Budget
announced developing the
Sovereign Gold Bond, as a measure to contain demand for the
metal in physical form. IANS
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?C8Q =4F34;78
griculture Minister Radha
Mohan Singh on Saturday
A
called upon farm scientists to
speed up efforts to transfer technologies from the lab to the grassroots level in an effort to double
farmers’ income in the next five
years. Addressing the 88th
Foundation Day of the Indian
Council of Agricultural Research
(ICAR) here, Singh said, “Our
Government has targeted doubling
farmers’ income by 2022. We will
focus on not only agriculture but
allied sectors to achieve this goal.”
Stating that integrated farming
is solution for raising farmers’
income, the minister said the government will promote this in 101
ICAR institutes spread across the
country and showcase farmers its
benefits. “A family can save up to
C3 lakh a year by doing integrated
farming,” he said.
Emphasising on the role of
technology in raising the farm output, the minister said, “We have to
speed up efforts to transfer the
technology from lab to land. I urge
all scientists and institutes to focus
on this and ensure marketing of
new products in a big way.”
He also said allied activities
like poultry, fishery and dairy will
be the focus area for supplementing the farm income. Three
Ministers of state for agriculture
Parshottam Rupala, SS Ahluwalia
and Sudarshan Bhagat, and ICAR
Director General Trilochan
Mohapatra were present. These
Ministers also gave away 2016
ICAR awards in 19 categories to
119 scientists, farmers and journalists. It may be noted that the
award ceremony saw some lack
of staff coordination and preparedness, with officials scrambling to find the recipients concerned for their awards.
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L
eander Paes and Rohan Bopanna
outclassed the Korean pair of
Seong Chan Hong and Hong
Chung in straight sets to guide India to
the Davis World Group Play-offs as the
hosts took an unassailable 3-0 lead in
the Asia|Oceania Group I tie here on
Saturday.
The Indian pair did not even need
its A game in trouncing the visitors 63 6-4-6-4 in just one hour and 41 minutes at the grass courts of Chandigarh
Club.
Saketh Myneni and Ramkumar
Ramanathan had won their respective
singles yesterday to hand India a 2-0
cushion.
The reluctant partners for the Rio
Olympics did not face any competition
from the Koreans in what is their only
competitive match together before the
Games.
Even as the Koreans managed to
break Paes in the third set, they did not
present any challenge to the Indians.
But it was a treat for the fans, little more
than a thousand, to watch the Indian
pair cruise to the win under overcast
and friendly conditions.
Teaming up for the fifth time at the
Davis Cup, it was their third win. Before
this they had won against Serbia (2014)
and Kazakhstan (2007) and lost to
Uzbekistan (2012) and Czech Republic
(2015).
Captain Anand Amritraj would be
delighted to see that his idea of playing on the grass worked for his side.
In the inconsequential reverse singles, Myneni will face Seong Chan
Hong and Ramkumar will take on
Yong-Kyu Lim on Sunday.
India's rivals in the World Group
Play-offs in September will be either
China or Uzbekistan, who led 2-1 at the
end of day two of their tie.
Since the rain stayed away yesterday and this morning, the court played
much better on Saturday, offering good
bounce.
Sending down two double faults in
the opening game was the only blem-
?C8Q 270=3860A7
eander Paes is not exactly his close friend by any
stretch of imagination but Rohan Bopanna insists
L
that they have a "great on-court chemistry", which
ish for Bopanna, who kept tormenting
Chung and Hong with his booming
serves in the range of 200kms\hour
throughout the match. He fired nine
out of the 12 aces that India hit today.
The vintage deft touch of Paes too
was on display as the veteran hit many
unreachable drop shots. Age might have
slowed him down a bit but he still has
the best hands in the country. And the
Koreans got a taste of Paes' master class.
Such was the domination of Indians
that together they lost only 17 points
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to his left and made return and the
Koreans failed to pick up the low volley on the court.
That mini lead stayed with the
Indians and Bopanna again served out
the set.
They broke left-handed Chung in
the first game of the third set to set the
tone. Bopanna saved a break chance in
the fourth before Paes dropped serve
in the sixth. But the home players
immediately broke back and sealed the
tie in the 10th game.
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?C8Q =4F34;78
0?Q CA8=42
U
imbledon doubles champions Nicolas Mahut and
W
Pierre-Hugues Herbert had to
nceremoniously dumped from the Rio
Olympics squad last week, a crestfallen Ritu Rani has hit back at Hockey India
selectors and dismissed the allegations of
poor attitude and performance levelled
against her as false and baseless.
"The news came as a shock to me. I had
no issues of fitness or attitude at all. No explanation was given to me properly as to why
I have been dropped," said Rani, who who
was instrumental in guiding the Indian
women's team to seal an Olympic berth after
a 36-year hiatus.
"I didn't leave any training or camps, I
got engaged when the camp was on a break."
The 24-year-old Rani pointed out that
although Sardar Singh is also facing issues
off the field he has received better support
from Hockey India. Sardar Singh lost his captaincy to PR Sreejesh as a result of his dip
in form in recent times.
"It's wrong to make false allegations. I
don't think I will be able to watch the
Olympic matches on TV," Ritu added,
while breaking down on live television.
W
imbledon runner-up Milos
Raonic and women's world
number five Simona Halep dealt
the Olympics tennis tournament
a double body blow when they
pulled out of Rio, citing health
fears over the Zika virus.
Raonic, the world number
seven from Canada who was
defeated by Andy Murray in
Sunday's Wimbledon final, said
he had taken the decision "with
a heavy heart".
Halep, the 2014 French Open
runner-up, said she too was concerned over the Zika virus and
did not want to damage her
hopes of having a family when she
retires from playing.
"It is with a heavy heart that
I am announcing my withdrawal from participation in the Rio
2016 Olympic Games," the 25year-old Raonic announced on
his Facebook page.
"After much deliberation
with my family and coaches, I am
making this decision for a variety
of health concerns including the
uncertainty around Zika virus.
"This was a difficult, personal choice and I do not wish for it
to impact the decision of any
other athlete heading to the
Games."
Halep, 24, also took to
Facebook to announce her withdrawal, just hours after the
International Tennis Federation
(ITF) had published its final list
of confirmed entries for the
Olympics which get underway in
Rio on August 5.
"I regret to announce that I
have decided I will not compete
in the Olympic Games. The rea-
on their serve. Out of 17, 10 they lost
only in the third set, maybe because
they got a little complacent.
In the first set the Indians took lead
when they broke Hong in the eighth
game. Leander Paes found a volley winner to earn two chances for the side and
Rohan Bopanna finished it with another winner.
Bopanna served out the set in the
next, finishing it with an ace, his
sixth. They broke Hong in the third
game of the second set when Paes ran
enabled them to make a short work of Koreans Hong
Chung and Seong Chan Hong, here on Saturday.
Bopanna and Paes overwhelmed the Korean
pair of Hong Chung and Seong Chan Hong 6-3,
6-4 ,6-4 in the doubles encounter to seal the tie
for India.
"Chemistry was great. If it wasn't good, we
could not have got such convincing win. We did
not push much and just made sure that we come
out strong," Bopanna said at the post-match media
conference.
Veteran Paes, however did not take any questions on Olympics saying
they should not be asked
about the Games always.
"We have won in
three sets. We are playing
well. It has been a great
season for us. We are
sharp. Even if the competition was tough, we
could have raised the
level of our game," the
43-year-old winner of 18
Grand Slam titles, said.
Asked about the easy
win, Paes said even if they had better rivals, they
were well-equipped to shift gears.
"The left-right combination is always tricky.
The lefty (Chung) was very crafty. He got some
good angles. The righty (Hong) was a bit slow. He
played a tough match yesterday. We had more gears
to go up (if required)," he said.
Paes was all praise for Ramkumar Ramanathan
and Saketh Myneni, who overcame tough conditions to give India a 2-0 lead on Friday.
"Ram came out and handled the pressure well.
They did an excellent job under the conditions.
The court was damp, soggy. It became a dog-fight,
it was about fitness and mind. Lim is an Army man
and we knew he's not going to stop until he falls
down and that is exactly what happened."
fight hard to defeat Lukas Rosol
and Radek Stepanek 6-1, 3-6, 63, 4-6, 6-4 to give France a 2-1
lead over the Czech Republic in
the Davis Cup quarterfinals on
Saturday.
A week after beating Julien
Benneteau and Edouard RogerVasselin in straight sets to clinch
the their first Wimbledon title,
Mahut and Herbert needed five
sets on the indoor hard court for
a victory that puts France one
win away from a Davis Cup SF.
Amid increased security following the deadly attack in the
French city of Nice, Mahut closed
it out with an overhead volley on
the first match point in the eastern Czech city of Trinec.
In Sunday's first reverse singles, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga can
0?Q CA>>=
he way Rory McIlroy is hitting the ball,
he doesn't feel as though he should be
T
eight shots behind 36-hole leader Phil
clinch the best-of-five series with
a victory over Jiri Vesely. If he
fails, the tie will be decided in the
final reverse singles with Rosol
facing Lucas Pouille.
On Friday, Rosol prevailed
after almost four hours over
Tsonga 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (8), 64 to put the Czechs 1-0 ahead
before Pouille made a victorious
Davis Cup debut for France by
beating Vesely 7-6 (2), 6-4, 7-5 to
level the tie at 1-1. On the Czech
pair, Rosol replaced originally
named Adam Pavlasek who had
a back problem, and struggled
with his serve.
HYV_7VUVcVcdXVdefcVe`fTYVU>ZckRdYVRce
=4F34;78)He is inarguably the great-
son for my decision is the concern
regarding the danger posed by the
Zika virus," wrote Halep.
"After several talks with doctors and my family, I concluded
that the risks are too high for my
career and for my health, especially as a woman.
"Family is much too important for me and I can't risk not
being able to have one of my own
after my career in tennis is over."
John Isner of the United
States, Austria's Dominic Thiem,
Australian duo Bernard Tomic
ome people run only when they are in
a rush. Some run for weight loss and
Sfitness.
But for some, running is recreation, a way to forget their problems and
enjoy a good dash. In the last category
comes ARUN BHARDWAJ for whom
running is life. The 47-year-old runner
is one of the first internationally
acclaimed endurance racers from India.
In 2009, he won the 567 km George
Archer 6-day race in South Africa. In
2012, he set a new record as India's only
ultra-marathoner to complete a run
from Kargil to Kanyakumari. In 2011, he
became the only Indian finisher at the
‘Badwater ultra-marathon’, dubbed as the
toughest race in the world. The Delhiite
shares his experiences on the road with
SUNDAY PIONEER
QHow did running happen to you?
I started running when I was 30 years
old. Before that I was just like any other
ordinary man. I used to be sick all the
time when I was in school. I never played
any sport in my school and never thought
would become India’s sole ultra-
and Nick Kyrgios as well as
Spanish veteran Feliciano Lopez
have all opted, for various reasons,
not to take part in the Olympics.
Italy's former French Open
champion Francesca Schiavone
has turned down the opportunity while Maria Sharapova
and Victoria Azarenka will also
be missing.
Eccentric Latvian player
Ernests Gulbis described the Rio
event as "tennis tourism" as the
Olympics do not offer either
prize money or ranking points.
est tennis player of all time but what
makes Roger Federer, a reverred
sportsperson, a legend is his "warmth
and care" for colleagues, which even
touched Indian tennis ace Sania
Mirza's life on a couple of occasions.
In her autobiography 'Ace against
Odds', Mirza mentions about two separate incidents when the 17-time
Grand Slam singles champion
inquired about her well-being after she
was dragged into unnecessary controversies, and a hilarious episode involving her best friend and the Swiss.
In 2008, a case was registered
against Sania for allegedly disre-
specting Indian national flag with her
feet up in the players' box while
watching teammate Bopanna play.
Sania recalls in her book: "When
the case was filed against me for
alleged disrespect to the national flag,
Roger Federer was among first to
inquire about the situation and wel-
fare when I reached Melbourne for
the Australian Open."
That was not the only time
Federer inquired about Sania's wellbeing, as he did the same after the
26/11 terror attack in Mumbai.
Sania writes: "He (Federer) also
surprised me many months later with
a message of concern when Mumbai
was tragically struck by terrorist
attacks on Nov 26, 2008. I think this
is what makes Roger very special
because apart from being a legend, a
genius and the greatest ever exponent
of his craft, he remains warm, caring,
accessible, untouched by fame, and a
thorough gentleman."
PTI
Mickelson in the British Open. Blame that
on the weather. McIlroy's side of the draw
got the worst of it over the opening two
rounds at Royal Troon.
Two years ago at Royal Liverpool, he
was on the good side of the draw. McIlroy
had a four-shot lead after two rounds and
sailed to victory. So after coming in from
the rain and wind — particularly one 90minute stretch on the
back nine — he was
not surprised at how
the leaderboard
looked.
Nor was he about
to complain. Not too
loudly, anyway.
"It's The Open
C hampionship,"
McIlroy said. "Some
draws go your way
and some draws
don't. The last Open
I played, I got the
good end of the draw
and good things happened that week.
Then this year, it's not
so much. But I'm not going to let being on
the wrong side ruin my mood or ruin my
week. I feel like I've played very well and that
gives me optimism going into the weekend."
The nature of links golf, and this
championship, is getting the good side of
the tee times. Mickelson was soaked when
he walked off the course, though he managed to get in eight holes Friday morning
before the rain arrived. He had three
birdies by then, didn't make his first bogey
until the 30th hole of this championship and
shot a 2-under 69.
µ,UXQNPIURPKRPHWRRIILFHGDLO\
marathoner. I remember from class 2 to
B.Com, every year I used to get Malaria.
My bodyweight in Class 12 was 37 kg. At
28, I got married. The following year, At
29, I became a father. When my daughter. was 1.5 years old, I started running.
I started questioning my life.
I tried my hand at chess and power
lifting before considering a career in running. I then decided to run a stretch from
Haridwar to Baghpat, which measured a
staggering 180km, within 24 hours.
That instant, I knew I had found the
sport I wanted to commit myself entirely to. I completed the run in 23.25 hours.
QWord about ‘The Great India Run’?
This event will help people test their
endurance and understand that nothing
is impossible if you have the will. The
event will help them take inspiration from
ultra runners. They will know how if one
has the will, even a 1480 km journey feels
short. Roads will be a challenge as smoke
and noise on highways will make the race
difficult. Moreover, monsoon has made
the race tougher as there is a rise in
humidity and it's difficult to control the
body temperature in such weather.
QWhy do you run?
I want to show my fellow Indians,
mainly youth, how an ordinary man can
conquer pain, ignore the intolerable
screaming of muscles and nerves from the
body being pushed to the limits and controlling it through his mind. Running is not
expensive and anyone can do it anywhere.
It requires less inputs for great output.
QWhat does success mean to you?
For me, success means to be able to
inspire someone. You should be satisfied.
Success doesn’t mean that you live in a
fancy house, have variety of sports and
luxury cars in your garage. Successful
people will always compete with other
successful people.
QWhere do you work, designation and
reside?
I work in Ministry of defence in the
administrator department. Currently, I
reside in Dwarka sector 19 and distance
to my office from my home is 25kms.
QTell us about your diet and training
schedule.
The diet is not as critical as we make
it to be, especially for events like An ultra
marathon. Being a vegetarian, I've never
had any issues about not having any meat
protein in my diet. I don’t eat eggs or
bread as they contain fat and carbohydrates. I don’t touch aerated drinks, tea
or coffee. I remember when I was in
Africa for a marathon, the food in the
canteen was non-vegetarian and I had to
find sources of rice, beans, vegetables and
fruits from outside to compensate my
diet. Supplements are overrated. I've
never needed them to up the ante during a race. A well rounded homemade
diet is enough to supply you with sufficient energy for your run. I train mostly at night between 2am and 5am.
Everyday I run to my office which is
nearly 25 km from where I reside.
'The Great India Run' will be flagged
off by Sports Minister Vijay Goel and former World Championship bronze medallist Anju Bobby George at the India Gate
here on Sunday. The race will finish on 6th
August in Mumbai.
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I
A098E=
=0H0=
n recent weeks, India’s
engagement with the
nuclear world grabbed the
limelight because of its
campaign for membership
of the Nuclear Suppliers Group
(NSG). The media was in action,
and so were the decision-makers.
Though the intensity of discussions has toned down now, the
issues relating to India’s NSG
membership in particular and the
Indian nuclear policy in general
keep surfacing now and then.
These discussions and the
position of the current
Government remind us that
though a country cannot keep its
policy static, it also has to keep
the basic policy moorings intact.
Like any Government committed to pushing a vibrant and
effective policy, the current one
has been walking a tight nuclear
rope. It has been adopting a policy to balance its national and
international interests from the
very beginning. It has also been
pursuing a policy of balancing
continuity and change. This balanced strand runs through the
Indian nuclear policy.
D859>9D91<I51BC
When India became independent
in 1947, the shadow of the
nuclear bombings of two
Japanese cities — Hiroshima and
Nagasaki — loomed large. All
tall leaders of the Indian freedom movement had already condemned the incident. The challenge for the new Government
of independent India was to
an imaginative nuclear
8=38070B0 chart
course for the nation. It had to
=>58ABCDB4 balance promotion of peaceful
of nuclear science and advo=5DAD;4* use
cacy for nuclear disarmament.
India championed a pragmat8CF8;;>=;H
concept of nuclear disarmaA4C0;80C48C icment.
Independent India continF8;;0;B>=>C ued the 1946 policy of the British
opposition to all kinds of
DB4=D2;40A India’s
weapons of mass destruction.
F40?>=B Indian Government officials conto make statements in
0608=BC=>= tinued
favour of nuclear disarmament.
=D2;40A India also realised the need for
interim measures before
F40?>=B some
nuclear disarmament, better
2>D=CA84B known as nuclear non-proliferathe contemporary world.
C74=D2;40A tionInin1951,
the then Prime
1DCC>=F8;; Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru,
his policy of Standstill
148=C74 announced
agreement. This idea is consid70=3B>5C74 ered the predecessor of the
?>;8C820; Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
which concluded in
;4034AB78? (CTBT),
1996, but has not yet become
operational because of its nonratification by a few key countries, such as the US and China.
This treaty bans nuclear tests.
For a predominant section of
the world, the backbone of nonproliferation is provided by the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
India was quite active for the conclusion of the treaty in the 1960s,
and had, in fact, even given a proposal for it.
However, instead of the Indian
proposal, the then dominant powers chose to work on the Irish resolution for negotiations of the
NPT. India found problems with
the treaty and never joined it.
CWTfaXcTaXbPBT]X^aATbTPaRW India’s balanced approach is always
0bb^RXPcTPc83B0=Tf3T[WX visible in dealing with this treaty. It
P]Sb_TRXP[XbTbX]]dR[TPa did not join because the terms of
XbbdTbP]STg_^acR^]ca^[b the treaty did not suit its national
interests, but it never tried to
wreck it. Indian officials have reiterated this on several occasions.
!)'$@51356E<5H@<?C9?>
In May 1974, the then Prime
Minister, Indira Gandhi, decided to
conduct a Peaceful Nuclear
Explosion (PNE). This was an
established global practice of the
nuclear age for undertaking a range
of peaceful nuclear programmes.
Like other countries, India
also conducted the explosion for
mining and earth-moving operations. However, the advent of the
NPT created some conceptual
problems. Some countries said
there was no difference between
PNE and “other types of explosions”. This position implied that
the country that conducted a
PNE automatically became a
nuclear weapon country. So, the
Indian PNE was considered a de
facto nuclear weapon test.
The Indian Government
resented this changed interpretation of the PNE. It reminded the
world of India’s consistent affirmation that such experimentation
was “its inherent right to use
nuclear explosion technology for
peaceful purposes”.
The then foreign minister,
Sardar Swaran Singh, stated: “The
present experiment is important
because it represents our resolve
to develop our indigenous
resources for energy for the benefit of our people through own
efforts.” He also asserted that “in
performing this scientific test,
India has not violated any of her
international obligations”.
Actually, that PNE took place
more than 100 metres underground. India is an initial signatory of the Treaty Banning
Nuclear Weapon Tests in the
Atmosphere, in Outer Space and
Under Water, also known as
Partial Test Ban Treaty or Limited
Test Ban Treaty. The treaty was
opened for signature in August
1963. India not only signed it but
also ratified the treaty in 1963.
The treaty does not ban underground test, so the Indian test
was not illegal.
A large number of developing countries supported the
Indian effort. However, India
tried to prevent it from becoming an issue between the developed and developing countries.
It despatched its envoys to the
US, Canada, and many other
countries of the then existing
capitalist and socialist blocs. The
countries seemed to have appreciated the Indian position.
6?B=1D9?>?6>C7
Even if the world appreciated the
Indian position on the PNE, a
few countries decided to establish a group of suppliers, seemingly to curb countries like
Pakistan, which had signed
nuclear cooperation agreements
with countries like France, which
were outside the NPT.
Established in 1975, this
group was called the London
Suppliers Group or London Club.
Later, it was renamed as the NSG.
The NSG came to complement another group called the
Zangger Committee, which
derived its mandate from Article
III.2 of the NPT. The Zangger
Committee is a faithful inter-
preter of the ambiguous language
of the treaty. The NPT prohibited
development of nuclear weapons
by non-nuclear weapons states,
but permitted them nuclear commerce for peaceful programmes.
As is well known, the NPT
recognises only those countries as
nuclear states which had developed nuclear weapons before
January 1, 1967. Any other country, despite possession of nuclear
weapons, is treated as a nonnuclear weapons state.
The treaty imposes differential obligations for non-nuclear
weapons states. A non-nuclear
weapons state is supposed to sign
a comprehensive safeguards
agreement with the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
for verification. The safeguard
system is supposed to prevent
diversion of an item supplied for
peaceful use to military purpose,
or more specifically, nuclear
weapons development.
As some countries like France
were outside the NPT, the NSG was
designed as an alternative control
framework. This body was essentially to engage non-NPT states.
The National Security
Decision Memorandum 255
signed by the then US Secretary of
State, Henry Kissinger, on June 3,
1974, advised: “(1) Establishing
agreed international guidelines,
preferably based on US practice, to
ensure the physical security of
weapons useable and highly toxic
materials whether internationally
transferred or indigenously produced; (2) reaching some common
principles regarding the supply of
sensitive enrichment technology
or equipment; (3) avoiding or
applying stricter terms for supply
in situations where special hazards
could be present; and (4) encouraging, where appropriate, multinational enrichment, fuel fabrication
and reprocessing facilities.”
However, these were preliminary points for discussion with
like-minded countries, and the
memorandum clearly indicated
that changes may occur in due
course. Although efforts of select
countries resulted in the formation
of the NSG, it remained dormant
throughout the Cold War.
Interestingly, even when it was dormant, its members kept increasing.
After the end of the Cold
War, the NSG became more comprehensive as it put stringent
inspection as a condition for supply of a nuclear item, and adopted
two lists, including a dual use list.
The NSG dual use list means an
item may be used for both purposes: Nuclear and non-nuclear.
Otherwise, a dual use item refers
to useful for both military and
non-military purposes.
In the 1990s, the NSG, which
was created to include non-NPT
countries into the control framework, added adherence of the
NPT as one of the factors for its
membership. This led to a lot of
confusion. This was quite evident
when India’s case for NSG membership was being discussed in
June 2016. Anti-Indian forces
tried to twist this, with some
countries like China projecting as
if adherence of the NPT was an
essential condition.
//a#
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I
n 1902, Lala Hansraj Kalra, a liquor
baron with ventures in Sialkot,
Lahore and Delhi, established retail
wine shop and bars at the time of the
World War II for American soldiers.
He perceived Delhi’s Connaught Place as
a fashionable avenue for prosperous business. Back then, there were a few English
companies selling high-end bakery items,
accessories, draperies, licensed guns,
photo studios etc. Kalra visualised CP as
the place that could bring people from
diverse backgrounds — politicians, artists,
families, writers — together. And thus he
set up the historical, cosmopolitan restaurant United Coffee House (UCH) in
1942; in the colonial era.
In the 1970s — in the postcolonial era
— Deepak Roy and Ashok Dhobra met at
UCH for the first time and started a casual conversation. Today, in 2016 too, they have
kept the tradition alive for 40 years and still
catch up over coffee almost every day! “I live
alone and feel out of place at other eateries.
I assume people would just be astonished
to see a fragile, old man in a corner all alone.
Here, the staff refers to me as dada; they are
warm and welcoming. All of us are fond of
the food and ambience here,” says Dhobra.
While Dhobra comes all the way
from Gurgaon to CP (a distance of over
30 kilometres), Roy comes from Jangpura.
Both recollect how they had met at the
restaurant, they had found a third person
who was sitting there all alone. They asked
him to join them, which he did, and soon
after a few more men from their age group
followed suit. Thus, gradually, they came
to form their informal club of sorts,
meeting at UCH almost every day; otherwise, at least five days a week.
Dhobra jokes how his ‘club members’
have started to joke that if he is an animal
lover — he feeds street dogs every day —
he should resist non-vegetarian food. All
of them assemble to discuss everything
under the sun over the seamless cups of tea
and coffee that the restaurant is popular for.
What it is also known for are these little
anecdotes that have shaped so many personal histories in Delhi. Much beyond
being an upscale restaurant, UCH for most
is a harbour of memories filtering the nos-
talgia of the contemplative past.
Today in the post-modern era, the
restaurant also bears testimony to contemporary concerns and celebrations. Visitors
share their feedback with the servers about
how they proposed to their spouses there, got
their family there to celebrate their first salary,
and so much more. Prithviraj and Raj
Kapoor were said to be much fond of it as well.
Server Sandeep Singh has been working at the restaurant for two and a half years.
He works for eight hours every day and says,
“I notice that Indians mostly like to order
multi-cuisines and most of them come with
their families. The foreigners, on the other
hand, like continental. But yes, most foreigners surprise us when they already seem convinced about what they want to have without a thorough scrutiny of the menu. They
know the popular dishes and come solely
to test UCH for themselves.”
Almost 75 years ago when UCH was
incepted, it was a savoury shop. Today it has
a global menu with over 400 dishes including a repertoire of diverse cuisines — regional Indian, Mediterranean, Asian,
Continental, European and Western.
Akash Kalra, Lala Hansraj Kalra’s
grandson and the current Managing
Director of UCH, says: “It was actually set
up to provide space for intimate rendezvous
in a relaxed ambience. This could be made
palpable by way of oriental designing and
décor. Hence, we have a Victorian décor.
The restaurant was designed by a US architect, who had spent his life in England and
understood the times of Renaissance,
Rembrandt and the Victorian period.
Some of the logos which are on the tapestries and the emblems were designed and
patented for UCH by him.”
UCH has also been exclusive over the
years. After decades of being a solo outlet, another branch was launched in
Punjabi Bagh only in 1999. Kalra states,
“What we have at CP cannot be replicated. It’s a landmark in itself and has continued to be so all these years. Although
now, we are venturing into a new mall
module for UCH as soon we will have an
outlet at an upcoming mall in Noida. Also,
now the plans for UCH is to go pan-India
and begin with cities like Mumbai and
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Kolkata, which too have a colonial past, as
they would identify with the UCH story.”
With its aesthetic tapestries, antique
clock, and a grand, extremely beautiful chandelier at the centre, the restaurant looks ravishing as it welcomes its diverse customers —
Indians, Mongolians, Caucasians, and so on.
Puneet Kukreja has been its operations
manager for the past one and a half year. He
recalls, “Often we have British tourists who
come here to revisit memories of UCH that
their grandparents, who lived in India during the colonial times, shared with them.”
At the same time, what the restaurant
cannot escape is that its chic reputation and
upscale prices, which the elite fancy, could
also discourage the layman. The middle class
and student population, for instance, might
have to reconsider their decision of feasting at the restaurant. Kalra disagrees, “UCH
has a balanced menu pricing and engineering which suits every pocket and offers economic options too. It is an experiential destination for all age groups and classes. We
also have a feedback form filled by them to
analyse what visitors like. That also helps us
build their memories like a first date, first
anniversary, mother and daughter after
shopping, business meetings, family dinners,
etc. We’ve been witness to three generations
of families that have been visiting us since
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our inception. Our service has been specially designed to let our customers experience
the food, ambience and music and take back
memories or relive their time spent at UCH.”
UCH also claims to have breakfast
options which fit every pocket; like, the meal
in a bowl and combos apt for students. The
menu has been specially curated Kalra and
his staffers seem to be enamoured by his culinary knowledge and inclinations. Kukreja
:P[P9PP\ adds, “All our departments — purchase,
finance, HR — undergo regular, thorough
checks as well. We also make sure our staffers
receive adequate food and bar training.”
However, another very noticeable aspect
about the restaurant is that there is no woman
staff member there. Kalra clarifies, “Actually,
we do keep employing part time female
employees but not for permanent employment as we close post midnight and it’s not
quite suitable for women in many situations.”
Head Chef Manish Dutt Sharma, who
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has a stellar background in the field, says
every day he makes a variety of cuisines
because the place is almost always filled with
customers. The tomato fish, cheese balls, and
chicken a’la kiev are some of the most popular items on the menu. The restaurant’s a’la
kiev precedes its reputation and is an
instant recommendation from any regular
visitor you would ask. Although, ask chef
Sharma about the recipe and he will only
smile politely, shunning all requests to reveal
his special ingredients!
Prod a bit further and he offers a sneak
peek, “We try experimenting during the offseason period. That’s May-June because of
the heat. Say, we try the tomato fish with
basil or garlic instead. We regularly check
online for reviews. It’s overwhelming when
customers come to us and click selfies with
us. I work for around 15 hours every day and
it is overwhelming to see the tremendous
response we get.” The chefs are also sent for
training to learn new concepts and techniques and implement it at UCH.
Unfortunately, we live in turbulent times
filled with cynicism, loathing and violence.
A series of attacks on civilians all across the
world recently — Orlando, Dhaka, Dallas,
Istanbul and so on. However discomforting
it sounds, UCH being a historical marker and
such a favourite among Delhiites, more so
since it’s located in CP — the centre of the
Capital — it also makes UCH a considerable
target for such unsettling and barbaric acts.
So what kind of security measures does the
restaurant have to face such situations? Kalra
says, “We take such concerns seriously and
the team remains absolutely alert and conscious of the surroundings. There are closely monitored CCTV cameras and we have a
staff of over 100 efficient people working at
the restaurant.” Kukreja adds, “Right from
the moment visitors enter the restaurant, we
also maintain eye contact with all of them.
We are always vigilant.”
The team says it has developed functional training and development process in
place to maintain the affection they receive
from their visitors. They unanimously
agree that their aspiration is to carry the
ethos of this historical and socio-cultural
landmark with pride.
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hina is a late entrant, so it
may be unaware of the
contexts of many decisions
taken earlier. Old export control
countries, especially original or
founding members, reject that
NPT adherence is a strict criteria
for NSG membership.
>E3<51B9>491
In the 1990s, India struggled with
the non-proliferation regimes and
their champions. The CTBT was
also concluded and opened for
signature. The NPT countries,
which had given commitment to
nuclear disarmament under
Article VI of the treaty, were
refusing to disarm. The treaty got
an indefinite extension, thus,
some countries acquired the right
to possess nuclear weapon as long
as they wanted.
Worse, a non-NPT country
like Pakistan was receiving support from NPT members. The
clandestine proliferation network
had its tentacles all over. Faced
with the difficult situation, the
Indian strategic community
debated the changed security
environment in the country.
The Indian Government was
caught in a peculiar dilemma; it
had to reorient its principles.
Now India had to balance
between its national and international security approaches. It
conducted a test of its nuclear
device in May 1998. After that,
India made efforts to clarify that
the change in its policy did not
mean the end of old goals and
principles; it continued to sup-
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port nuclear disarmament.
That India’s nuclear weapons
policy is not offensive or aggressive
was demonstrated through its
nuclear doctrine. First, it has a No
First Use (NFU) rule, which means
if any other country uses nuclear
weapons against it, only then it will
retaliate. Second, it will not use
nuclear weapons against nonnuclear weapons countries. Third,
it will have a policy of credible
minimum nuclear deterrence. This
means it will rely on deterrence for
its security, and the nuclear force
structure of the country will be
just enough. It will not unnecessarily accumulate nuclear weapons.
Fourth, it will have a robust command and control system. The
nuclear button will be in the hands
of the political leadership.
Now, the debate is whether
India should review and restructure its nuclear doctrine. The
debate is valid. Although the
Indian nuclear doctrine is not
Pakistan-specific or South Asiacentric, deterring nuclear
Pakistan is one of the components of its strategy.
The Indian nuclear signalling
is feeble, which is making it difficult to tackle Pakistani
onslaughts. The Atal Bihari
Vajpayee Government had categorically supported the need for
review of the nuclear doctrine.
A section of the retired diplomatic community is apparently
hindering restructuring of the doctrine. This section took advantage
of the confusion in the present
political and ideological set-up and
infiltrated into various influential
think-tanks, also misleading the
Government and the people. These
elements need to be identified and
isolated if the country and its people are to be secured.
9>4919>17<?21<>?B45B
Even if sanctions were imposed
on it, India adopted a policy of
engagement, not confrontation.
There were several rounds of
talks between Jaswant Singh and
Strobe Talbott. These talks made
India adopt a positive outlook
towards non-proliferation and
export controls.
Interestingly, the poorly
drafted press release of India’s
nuclear doctrine released in 2003
mentions export control as a part
of its nuclear doctrine. True, it
was ridiculous, yet export control
has become a part of India’s
nuclear policy. Because of its
impeccable credentials supported
by its robust export control policy, India got exemptions in the
NSG guidelines in 2008. This
enabled India to enter global
nuclear commerce.
India’s membership of the
NSG will facilitate its entry into a
body which was created because
of its PNE, though other countries were the targets of the
regime. India, a victim of the
NSG, may become its partner if
the membership issue is resolved.
India is fully eligible to become a
member of the NSG. It has an
effervescent nuclear industrial
base, robust legal and regulatory
system for export control, commitment to non-proliferation,
and the willingness to work with
the international community to
fight proliferation.
So far, it has only duties as it
adopted the guidelines and the
lists of the NSG for the 2008
exemptions, but has no role in
the decision-making process, for
which the time has come.
The Indian diplomacy may
have to reformulate its strategy. It
is wrong to state that the
Disarmament and International
Security Affairs (DISA) division
of the Ministry of External
Affairs has not performed well.
The division has a great team
consisting of a career diplomat
like Amandeep Singh Gill; a customs official, Arvind Madhavan,
who has won accolades all over
the world for his methodical
approach to strategic trade control, and as someone from the
Secretariat services with command over India’s export control
rules and regulations.
In the past, too, the team had
a highly credible leader in D Bala
Venkatesh Varma. The team
worked hard; possibly strategising at the top went wrong. Now,
it may be rectified, and the membership drive may get a new
vigour. Of course, it may have to
shed the image of ignoring forces
other than the American.
Quite evidently, India is
incrementally evolving its
nuclear policy to adjust to the
changing security environment
and nuclear dynamics. It needs to
continue on this vigilant path.
The question is whether
India’s balanced policy follows an
automatic course? The answer is
complex. After the Pokhran test,
the Vajpayee Government submitted a document chronicling
India’s nuclear policy. It had a
shloka from the Gita that means:
“Action is a process to reach a
goal; action may reflect tumult
but when measured and
focussed, will yield its objective
of stability and peace.”
Soon, India’s policy will usher
the world into an era of peace,
prosperity and stability. The
ongoing furore will also hopefully settle for good.
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S
hort story, in whichever language it may be, is the most
popular literary medium in
the world. The story could be
told with the help of small
canvas and minimum number of
words, characters and events. The
reader gets to know details of the culture, tradition, and kind of people
belonging to an alien land if he continues to read short stories from that
particular country. Events, whether
they be big or small, could be told as a
short story. No wonder, some of the
best short stories in world literature
are more interesting than some of the
best novels ever written.
I do remember how one of my Tamil
friends burst out weeping when I read
out the Malayalam short story Veedu
Nashtappetta Kutti (The child who lost his
home) authored by T Padmanabhan.
That’s the power of a short story! It is
capable of transcending the barriers of
language provided the subject and characters have a commonality.
The Tamil Story: Through The Times,
Through The Tides (Edited by Dilip
Kumar and Translated by Subashree
Krishnaswamy) is trying to present the
non-Tamil readers an anthology of some
of the best short stories written in Tamil
since the last century. It has 88 beautiful
stories authored by some of the all time
greats in Tamil languages.
One need not be a novelist or poet to
create a classical work. There are so many
short story writers whose works continue
to entertain and enthrall readers decades
after the authors bade farewell to this
world. The likes of Somerset Maugham,
O Henry, Maupassant, Roald Dahl stay
fresh and ever green in our hearts thanks
to the scintillating short stories born out
of their pens.
Way back in the 1980s, Doordarshan,
the country’s public broadcaster, had aired
a series named Darpan, telefilms made
out of short stories published in different
languages in the country. The series, I
remember, was widely watched like the
epics Ramayana and Mahabharata.
Some of the short stories were made
into successful feature films. Appunni, a
Malayalam movie directed by Sathyan
Anthikkadu, was based on a short story
with the same title authored by VKN,
Kerala’s master story-teller. It turned out
to be a big hit thanks to the content and
presentation.
In this collection, a story authored by
Tiruchi-born Va Ve Su Iyer, described as
a revolutionary nationalist and close associate of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, sets
the tone of the collection of stories.
Peepul Tree by the Tank written by Iyer in
1915 tells the readers about influence of
wealth in human relations. The theme of
the story remains fresh even today.
There are stories by Kalki, CN
Annadurai (former Chief Minister of
Tamil Nadu), Subramania Bharati,
Ashokamithran, Jayakanthan, Neela
Padmanabhan, Sivasankari, Vasanthi,
Jeyamohan, and of course Perumal
Murugan. These stories are the readers’
window to Tamil Nadu.
Taking a digression from the book, I
would like to lead the readers to an incident which happened in Kollam recently.
There was a Puttingal fire mishap in
Kerala in April 2016 which saw 111 people getting charred to death during a
competitive fireworks display. The
charred body of one of the victims was
handed over to his relations who performed the last rites as per the Hindu
custom. After four or five days, the
grieving relations of the victim were
summoned to the police station where
they were shocked to see the live person
whom they had cremated the other day.
It turned out to be a case of mistaken
identity. Now it is for the readers to read
Subbayyar, the 1921 short story authored
by Selvakesavarayar! The characters and
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Y
ogesh?’ His voice was as
soothing as his fear and the
crouching figure in the corner
was as bare as clarity. Before he
could say anything else, it began to
crawl away with its creepiness in tow.
Sami did not move until the dark
chimera had withdrawn completely
into another room. The kitchen was
a refuge into which Sami disappeared with his fear, fatigue and famishment. The soothing blue flame of
the gas chulha warmed him and the
untouched food. He laid the table for
himself, encouraged by the aroma,
dispelling the dismal air.
Life is livable with or without disaster was his motto and he zoomed
in on his food with this thought
when he was accosted by Yogesh,
appearing out of nowhere like an
annotation of the next episode.
Apprehension has a taste. Its bulky
morsel refused to go down Sami’s
badly cramped throat when he was
greeted in the most normal of manners. ‘Hello Mr. Shaun!’ Melodrama
can never be a remedy. Sami attempted adding to it by answering the
greeting. ‘Hello.’ Yogesh’s articulate
shadow crept up on the opposite
chair. ‘Would you like to eat?’ A thin
echo of his voice returned to him,
sucking all other sounds of the room.
‘I’ll get you a plate.’
And seeking tenuous diversion
in that, he jumped out of his seat
and brought him a plate. The globe
lifted itself on its keel as Yogesh sat
down at the other end of the table
and pulled the plate in front of him.
He would prevail over the soup. He
would subjugate the stew. He would
sustain what Sami prayed to dispel.
He looked almost enlightened, possessed with a completely new idea.
‘How are you feeling Mr. Samuel
Shaun?’ He served himself, almost
abetting the food to come to him.
‘I am fine. How are you today?’
Sami studied the conflict of expressions on Yogesh’s face. ‘I am very
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pleased.’ He sensed a touch of trouble. ‘With what?’ Yogesh answered
that with only a smile which nurtured further worries. ‘So, how come
you decide to have dinner with me
tonight?’ He felt like a captive before
his question was answered. ‘Who
knows, maybe, it is your last
night….’ Yogesh’s smile widened
with his words. Sami would have
squealed at this but for the food in
his mouth. The brothers-in-law
blocked each other’s thoughts with a
stare. One blank with the amount of
shock in it. The other, fresh. Fresh
with new insight. Yogesh completed
his statement. ‘….with me.’ ‘Oh!’
And Sami swallowed the already
long lost morsel in his mouth and
became meditatively clumsy for the
rest of the dinner and considered
clearing the table as quickly as possible while Yogesh sat, watching Sami
sweat it out. Yogesh continued to sit
at the dining table, sharpening the
spotlight on himself while Sami
made preparations for another night
of, hopefully, uneventful sleep. He
was already behind his schedule of
remote dreams and rusty snores and
told Yogesh, the facilitator of darkness, to switch off the lights when he
went to bed. ‘The lights are already
off.’ Yogesh nodded at the good deal
of black ink now queued up in the
wings. And so the history of that
house in Lal Kothi began to blend
with the fiction of Yogesh that night.
Sami would be unfit to forget it
as long as he would live in it. Sleep
flattened him immediately on his
bed and the mind’s spotlights were lit
and the curtain lifted on the stage of
the final drama even as an incognito
band of several creatures began to
play their muses’ vessels. Nimble
shades of no acclamation appeared
and pretended a resemblance to
something else. The dysphoria of
woes was their tale. Their songs
interfaced with the sounds of bleakness. And they were arrayed in the
vintage costumes of long neglected
learning. Like that of death. Dust to
dust. Ashes to ashes. The implications thawed the deep sleep into thin
substance. When the last act unfolded, wits turned to witlessness with
insinuations of petrification, delivered in gibberish idioms and
metaphors. Night divided itself. The
hour struck like conditioned enlightenment. Sami’s eyes opened and a
long scream froze in his throat.
Hovering over him was a polished countenance, carved out of
rubbery night. A pair of soapy eyes,
shone in their center like shots of
melting wax. ‘Yogesh!’ Sami’s clammy whisper was like a cue because
the very picture of adverse fate, vanished immediately like a swindler’s
trick. He swung out of the bed and
switched on the light and went to
the little room. Yogesh was fast
asleep. ‘Yogesh! Yogesh!!’ He called
out softly. There was no response.
He returned to his bedroom and sat
down on the edge of the bed. His
body craved more sleep but the eyes
would not close.
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locations may differ. But what was written in 1921 has come true in 2016. A
mind-boggling coincidence.
As far as this book is concerned, it
would have emerged as a ‘Festival of
Short Stories’. However, one could argue
that the translation could have been better to justify the project. Had the translator been more incisive about the authors
and their works, the output would have
been different. Though I am not competent to tell about the quality of the translation, please go through the passages of
Subbayyar, one of the stories:
“To take you to the flower pots and
beds, small pathways two to three spans
wide lead from the main paths. For the
morning and evening visitors to sit on so
that they can enjoy the breeze and the
scenery are benches and planks here and
there under the shade of the trees…
“Within shouting distance of that
place is the bandstand on a platform.
Around the platform is a pathway, one
foot in height. Surrounding the pathway,
an iron fence. To enter, on four sides are
six-feet-wide gates with iron railings.
On which grow creepers of Rangoon
jasmine, champaka flowers and
kaakkanam, forming a canopy. Around
them, a big pathway.
“In the year of Dhathu (1876) and
before, how the people in the province of
Chennai suffered without rains, many
don’t know today.
“People from out of town could only
visit the zoo during the day with their
families. Because other than that nothing
special would happen in the northern
half… Plenty came to admire the natural
good looks of many.”
The same is the case with Police Feast
by Kalki: “Kandasami was usually never
in such dire straits. His smart brain
always looked for other ways to earn
money if something failed. How our
finance ministers get into a tizzy, worrying about how they will balance the
accounts if the remove the taxes.
“If you asked for his advice after he
downed a cup of coffee, his brain could
solve any fiscal problem, however tricky it
might be. But if there was no cup of coffee, his brain would go on strike.”
What has happened is that, amidst
the carefully selected stories, an amateurish translation has affected the
coherence of some of the great literary
treasures in Tamil literature. In spite of
Shashi Tharoor describing in his blurb
that the book is a meticulously crafted,
skillfully translated collection, one may
still not be sure of whether it can live
up to expectations.
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M
andira Ghosh’s Benares
The Sacred City In Verses
and Hymns creates
images of Kashi, the oldest and
holiest city of the Hindus.
Numerous books have been written about Benares but Ghosh’s
book projects her personal take
on this ancient city; a city which
is an important part of the historic and religious subconscious
of all Indians. She juxtaposes the
traditional with the grim reality
of the present. But at the end
transcends all as she combines
the earthly with spirituality,
death with dignity, and every
other thing that she observes is
translated into images and verses.
Her love for Lord Shiva and
the city is profound. It is illustrated in poems like Shiva Linga,
Durga in the Cosmos and Shiva,
but she is also acutely aware of
human failings and unhesitatingly describes the filth and suffering she observes. The book is
fascinating as it covers many
hues of the city. As she steps out
from the airport, she looks for
the cornfields but instead comes
across constructions. In the
midst of a modern and a traditional city she looks for parikrama and writes Cosmic Walk.
Readers familiar with her
earlier works will understand
how deep-rooted Shaivism is in
her psyche. Standing on the river
bank and contemplating on the
creative, preservative and
destructive aspects of Lord Shiva
and Shaivism, her mind gets
filled with profound metaphysical thoughts. Hindus want to
have moksha or liberation from
suffering and from the material
world and they believe that by
going to Benares, they will get it.
In the poem Steps, she says:
‘Once a transparent body/Now
maligned by sin/Of sinners, who
refuse to learn/But take comfortable dips/To wash dirt of all previous births.’ Also, in another
poem, she says: ‘The City of
Shiva turns into a conflict
zone/When luminous Linga loses
light/When he turns into
stone/Not only a piece of stone.’
The river plays a dominant
role in the book. So do women.
Women according to the poet,
“are instruments of creation,
water is the elixir of life, that
flows into the rivers, fire burns
all and again water extinguishes
fire. Women at the ghats watch
both processes of creation and
destruction as the dual
faces/forces of energy.” But she
also sometimes gets critical as
she observes that the river and
ghats reveal filth and grime:
‘Half-burnt bodies on the
pyre/Speak of inhuman torture
and/Smell of ordinary incense
along with odour/Wash the body
of the river once crystal clear.’
But then there are poems
such as River of Sorrow and
That of Joy. Images of the city
proliferate: ‘An immortal
city/Never dies/The streets are
revered/As the river/Lanes and by
lanes/Supposed to be divine/Halfburnt bodies, pathetic sight/Death
came in plastic sheets/Quacks
had earlier tried/To save his life.’
Ghosh talks about the
women she observes. Widows
come to Kashi to seek deliverance and their silent suffering is
portrayed in the poem Still. The
poet is extremely sensitive to
condition of women, especially
the widows; she says: ‘Still
tears/Of widowed women/Her
reflective grey hair/Shaken by
wind and attitude/Broken by
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sand/Still their voices are still.’
In Death at the Ghats, she
says: ‘Why calm wind suddenly
decides to lash/On a candid afternoon, going slow/Death was distant/Demure appearance of
a/Dying widow/Deep breath
stopped in death/Leaves
sway/Discuss death.’
However,the book is not
entirely sorrowful. There are
subtle nuances that highlight the
vibrant life of the city. Referring
to the syncretic culture of
Benares, she says in Thatheri
Bazaar: Muslim weavers weave
zari/As the Hindu brides smile.
Or, in Gyan Bapi: Near the Kashi
Viswanath temple/Near present sanctum sanctorum/Shiva’s ride Nandi
facing the Masjid/Is it possible?’
Shiva reigns supreme in
Benares. But in a lighter vein,
she writes about the Benares
Hindu University in BHU: ‘Girls
cycle giggling through campus/On
the coffee table fumes froze/Boys
and girls discuss Ritusambhara’
This book is a rare combination of spiritual and scientific
thoughts, material and metaphysical, ancient and contemporary, religion and sometimes
denial of it. The poet’s language
is modern and full of allusions.
There are references to Shiva,
the Kashi Visvanath temple,
Dashashwamedh Ghat,
Manmandir Ghat and the observatory on the same ghat, the
Sankat Mochan Hanuman temple and other well-known landmarks of Benares. To bring
together facts and imagination is
a daunting task and Mandira
Ghosh has successfully and ably
done a very complicated task.
Poetic insights and nuances
are brought out very well:
‘Windows are today closed/Roads
and alleys wait for monsoon/Mud
mingled in the water azure/Angry
Ganges may submerge her banks
Production of the book is
delightful with pictures of various
sites in Benares, the river and the
ghats. The author has a wide
range of interests — history,
archaeology and science and these
enter in her poems (Excavations
at Akatha, Civilisation,
Manmandir Ghat) too.
Ghosh, a post-graduate in
English Literature is presently
the treasurer of the Poetry
Society (India). Her work has
reached a point where science
meets philosophy, literature and
all arts. A multi-dimensional
personality and an extremely
disciplined writer, she is also a
novelist, researcher, critic,
thinker and philosopher.
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M
y grandfather, the grandson
of Babu Durga Prasad
Gupta, Dewan of Tripura
State, died at a young age. He was an
investor of sorts and by all accounts
an amiable man with no vices. The
only occasion he made a fuss, according to family lore recounted by my
grandmother’s elder sister, was when
he was served tea in a chipped cup at
a relative’s house.
Apparently, he was fond of the
fine things in life, including fine
China, something that was rarely
heard of, and less seen, in
Mymensingh households in what was
then referred to as ‘East Bengal’. He
died, possibly of heart ailment, even
before he entered his forties, leaving
behind a widow and five children of
whom my father, barely into his teens,
was the eldest.
Decades later, all that remained of
my grandfather was a framed faded
sepia photograph on a wall in my
grandmother’s room. Twice a year, on
his birth and death anniversaries, the
glass would be wiped clean, the frame
dusted. A tuberose garland would
adorn the photograph which would
have made an excellent visual for the
cover of Rabindranath Tagore’s celebrated novel Gora.
An extended family ensured my
grandmother and her children lived
in comfort. If they grieved, it was for
a man who had left far too soon than
he should have. My grandmother’s
father, Shirish Kabiraj, still fondly
remembered by the thinning generation of Bengalis born in the 1930s
and 1940s who grew up in Dhaka,
was a wealthy and well-known practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine who
lavished both money and affection
on his children.
Before long, another event was to
turn their lives upside down and leave
them at the not-so-tender mercies of
fate. Mohammed Ali Jinnah kept his
word and extracted a terrible price for
the follies of the Congress leadership.
India’s independence and the creation
of Pakistan fetched neither joy nor
hope for Bengali Hindus on the other
side of Padma.
Overnight they became
strangers in their own land, unwanted and undesired by both Bengali
Muslims and the Bihari Muslims
who came pouring in to populate
the eastern part of Jinnah’s motheaten Pakistan. Fleeing murderous
hordes screaming Allah-o-Akbar
was no doubt a memorable but an
extremely frightening experience.
My grandmother sought and
found shelter in a ramshackle family
house near Kolkata; the protective
umbrella of her large extended family
was gone, swept away by the hurricane of partition. Circumstances
forced the kind-hearted to look away
— nobody had enough for themselves, leave alone to share with others. The refugee was an object of pity
at best and ridicule at worst.
Those who came in from the west
were fortunate — they received large
doses of resettlement assistance. Proximity with Delhi helped. But those
who came in from the east were left
to fester in refugee camps that later
became refugee colonies and are now
known as Kolkata’s southern suburbs.
A cousin of my grandfather,
employed with what was then a
British-owned boxwallah firm in
Kolkata, stepped forward to stand by
my grandmother and her children.
He helped her deal with financial
issues, oversaw the education — such
as it was for refugees barely able to
keep body and soul together — of my
father and his siblings.
Later, he found them, and the
man their sister was to marry, appropriate jobs in the firm where he
worked. And so it was that three
brothers and their brother-in-law
found themselves working in the
same company. For my father and his
brothers and sister, he was “Khoka
Kaku”; for us, the children of the family, he was simply “Dadu”, the grandfather we never had. He was loved
and revered by all.
A staunch Brahmo Samaji, he
retired to Santiniketan where he built
a house that was christened ‘Krishnakali’. In those days, that was enough
for an address. If you wrote a letter,
you had to simply write ‘Krishnakali,
Purva Palli, Santiniketan, Bolpur,
West Bengal’ on the envelope.
His sister, Nilima Sen, the accomplished Rabindra Sangeet singer, lived
in house called ‘Sonajhuri’, named
after a flower that grows abundantly
in Bolpur. A Sonajhuri creeper
draped the entrance; when in full
bloom it was an amazing sight. The
other thing I remember of that shaded house was the small lotus pond
where hundreds of butterflies and
dragonflies would hover over the
mauve flowers of the Bengal water
lilly, shanpla, during the monsoon
and autumn months.
‘Krishnakali’ had a sprawling garden with scores of mango, guava and
jackfruit trees. Across the road lay
paddy fields beyond which ran
metre-gauge railway tracks. Every few
hours a train would chug by, its steam
engine belching smoke. Watching
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Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali while in
high school I was reminded of those
trains framed by lush green paddy.
Amartya Sen, who, I am told, is
related to the Gupta clan in some
manner (all Badyis are, my editor at
The Statesman, Sunanda K Datta-Ray,
would say half-jokingly) would occasionally drop in for tea, invariably
served on the red cement floored
verandah, and regale us with stories.
The famous (those who faced his
wrath would disagree) DM Sen was a
frequent visitor. Unsmilingly stern
with elders, he was rather nice with
us children. His wife, my father’s
prim and proper aunt in starched
handloom cotton saree, wore socks
with slippers in summer. In
Jamshedpur, where the blue collared
working class thought dimly of the
white collared, there would have
been hoots of laughter.
Everybody was extremely polite,
spoke softly in chaste Bangla or BBC
accented English, smiled at each
other. Nobody (except Dadu) ever
laughed, no jokes were cracked, frivolities were abhorred. The wondrous
curing powers of homoeopathy were
discussed, as were the many interpretations of the Upanishads, after
exchanging the latest news about
offspring studying or teaching in
foreign universities.
Snobbery, often inverted, came
effortlessly to them. It was all very
Tagorean. Very Brahmo. Very exclusive in a certain way.
Many years later I discovered
that some of my relatives had written wills endowing handsome
amounts of money for those of my
generation who would pursue a
career in academics, remain a true
Brahmo, and not marry outside the
faith. I think every potential beneficiary found himself or herself dis-
qualified. Quite a bit of money lies
forgotten somewhere, as do houses
that have been long abandoned.
Sitting in a cane chair on the
verandah of ‘Krishnakali’ you could
see the monsoon clouds gathering in
the late afternoon sky. First they
would lazily roll in, turning the pale
blue sky grey. Then they would suddenly begin to rush in; large inky
blue-black clouds would darken the
sky within minutes.
At that magical moment
between the gathering of the clouds
and their bursting into rain the
egrets in the paddy fields would take
flight, presenting a fascinating study
of white birds against a black backdrop, captured in many Bengal water
colours. Soon it would begin to rain,
first large drops then a fine, sharp,
seemingly incessant downpour. The
red earth of Birbhum would turn
into a rust-coloured mush.
Dragonflies would take cover
beneath shimmering leaves and
drenched birds would shuffle on
the branches of the trees, looking
miserably pitiful. From somewhere would waft in the lines of
Tagore’s song, “Bahu juger opar
hotey Ashaadh elo…” The gathering gloom of a wet evening, the
moist air laden with the smell of
rajanigandha, firangipani, hasnuhana and kadam blossoms,
would fetch with itself a strange,
haunting melancholy.
Every time it rains in the hinterland of western Uttar Pradesh,
where I now live, virtually on the
edge of urban civilisation, I am
reminded of monsoon in Santiniketan. Memories come flooding in,
along with the melancholy.
(The writer is a current affairs
analyst based in NCR)
Photo courtesy: Subhrajit Bhattacharya
5 4 4 3 1 0 2 :
3ebY_ecdgYcdd_
ZUXQTY^4XQ[Q
Reader response to
Swapan Dasgupta’s column,
Usual Suspects, published on
July 10:
Stand united: The deadly
attack on a Dhaka cafe is
shocking. As per reports,
militants killed those who
could not recite verses from
the Quran. This proves the
fact that terror is directly
linked with religion. No religion is bad, but using it for
propaganda is wrong.
Terrorists’ activities are
spreading all over the world.
They are calling themselves
jihadis and are killing innocent people. The true concept of jihad in Islam is not
to be against other communities, groups or religions but
against ones own selfish
nature, vices and shortcomings in order to fight evil,
injustice inequality, illiteracy
and ignorance.
Nowhere does the
Quran allow killing of
human beings. It is for the
Muslims to come forward,
along with others, and fight
terrorism. The only solution
to end terrorism is to
destroy all terrorist
camps and kill terrorist
instantly whatsoever
religion they belong to.
M Kumar
Islamist power: There is one
school of thought that says
that Islam is all about power,
and not salvation. The
Quran, in numerous verses,
preaches to achieve that
power (convert or kill). And
so some Muslims vie among
themselves to fulfil the
Quran’s mandate which they
view as having sanctioned
the killing of non-believers.
Bharati
JQ[Yb>QY[`bUQSXUcXQdU
9^TYQ^cdQdUSQ`Yde\QdUc
Reader response to
Kanchan Gupta’s column,
Coffee Break, published on
July 10:
Upholding rationality: A
meaningful Government
cannot be run by religious
tenets. One religious group
cannot and should not force
a Government to run according to its religious beliefs.
Rationality must have its
rightful place.
Venkataraman
Fight terrorism: Universal
terrorism has a religion —
Islam. It covers most countries
and continents except South
America. Why do we shy
from calling a spade a spade.
We should fight terrorism
once and for all. A uniform
civil code is the need of hour.
Ashok Mehta
Zakir Naik is a scholar
and is also a qualified medical
doctor who talks with facts.
Misguided people are a result
of the failings of our
Government, not of his sermons. The tradegy is that
people like Zakir Nair are
leading to a lot of people from
all religions embracing Islam.
JDS
Expose Zakir: Hindus must
be blamed for capitulating
what the likes of Zakir Naik
preach. We seem to live in
stupor and blindly vote for
parties who created votebanks. Even worse is that we
seem to mix our faith with
others and know very little
about our own faith, culture
and real history. We need an
awakening. Zakirs only
objective is to mislead people
and convert them to Islam by
any means. He needs to be
exposed for what he really is.
Sunil
Misguided people: I am a
Sikh and I am unbiased
towards any religion. I am
very sure that all those who
spew venom have neither
read the Old Testiment, or
the Quran, or the Vedas, or
the Mahabharata.
State capitulation: When
the state capitulates and such
festering sores surface,
shouldn’t one wonder that
perhaps we have been too
tolerant in overlooking at
the Uniform Civil Code in
our appeasement of minorities on the basis of their personal laws that as artifacts
from history, allows one
community to govern themselves withing the dominion
of a nation? If there is a need
to act, it is now.
Ashish Rai
ce^TQi
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I
n Uttar Pradesh, hopes of the
Congress are rising with the increasing problems of Mayawati. Many
BSP leaders are leaving the party and,
sources say, if this makes Mayawati
weak, she will easily become ready to
tie up with the Congress.
For the past many years, Congress
leaders have been trying to forge an
alliance with the BSP. Some say the
Congress has given two proposals to the
BSP: One is to go into a pre-poll alliance
in UP and Punjab, and the other is for
seat adjustments, like in West Bengal.
However, BSP leaders are not ready
for either. They are apprehensive that if
they go with the Congress, they might
face a situation like the Left did in West
Bengal. That is why BSP leaders are
opposing any alliance with the Congress.
At the same time, there is chaos within
the party; many OBC, Dalit and
Brahmin leaders have left the BSP, and
this is worrying Mayawati.
The BJP’s aggressive politics for
Dalit votes is also said to have rattled
Maya. That is why the Congress is of the
view that at last Mayawati might be
ready for seat adjustment. But if she
doesn’t extend her hand for an alliance,
the Congress will have the sole option
to go with the JDU, and Apna Dal’s
Krishna Patel faction.
F7>´B8=A07D;´BC40<.
ongress Vice-President Rahul
C
Gandhi is finally forming his own
team. Sources say that for the past few
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I
n The Gene (Penguin
Random House), you have
written about your family’s
association with psychological
challenges, which surely must
have been difficult for you to
write about. Did you find something new and unsettling about
yourself while chronicling your
family history; like, say, a psychological genetic test?
Unfortunately, there is no such
thing as a psychological genetic
test. With schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, there is no single
gene. There are multiple genes,
and they all interact with chance
and environmental triggers, which
ultimately cause the disorder.
It has been six years since The
Emperor of All Maladies
released. How has the general
understanding of cancer
changed since then? How has
oncology progressed over the
years as well?
These last six years have seen
enormous progress in the field of
oncology. Every day there are
promising breakthroughs. We
now have completely new drugs,
new treatment regimens and a
new genetic understanding of
cancer. For example,
immunotherapy — the ability to
use the immune system against
cancer — has been a particularly
important breakthrough.
Can we look forward to an
effective elimination of cancer
in the near future?
We certainly will be able to prevent many cancers, learn to treat
weeks, he has been meeting party leaders in a bid to judge their capabilities
and organisational skills. It is said that
Rahul will give more than 50 per cent
representation to backwards, Dalits, tribals, and minorities. Women, too, will get
more representation.
There were many senior women
leaders in Sonia’s team, such as Ambika
Soni, Mohsina Kidwai, Renuka
Chaudhary, and Sheila Dikshit. While
none of them might find a place in
Rahul’s team, filmstars Khushboo and
Nagma are apparently on his list.
Apart from them, Meenakshi
Natarajan; MP from Bihar, Ranjeet
Ranjan; MP from Assam, Sushmita Deb;
party spokesperson from Mumbai,
Priyanka Chaturvedi; Delhi’s Ragini
Naik; and MP from West Bengal,
Mausam Noor, are also on Rahul’s list.
Rahul has already met leaders from
several States. On one hand, he is working for the solution to end infighting in
the State units of the party, and on the
other, he is discussing names from the
States that will be included in the central
organisation. As per the party tradition,
these names are decided from Delhi, but
Rahul is trying to change that.
270=64B8=2>=6A4BB
here are speculations that changes
T
would be made in the Congress
Parliamentary leadership as well as its
organisation. These changes could be
implemented as early as in the Monsoon
Session, which starts from July 18.
It is being said that there are very
few members of the party in the Lok
Sabha and the leadership is also not very
aggressive. The general perception is
that when either Sonia or Rahul are present in the House, the MPs are aggressive, but in their absence, leaders either
sit mum or simply leave.
The party’s leader in the Lok Sabha,
Mallikarjun Kharge, is usually busy with
Karnataka politics. Capt Amarinder
Singh, his deputy, concentrates on
Punjab politics. In the last session, he
was hardly seen once or twice. So, maximum responsibilities are with the party’s
chief whip, Jyotiraditya Scindia. He
alone takes care of the House. The
young MPs of the party, such as Gaurav
Gogoi, Ranjeet Ranjan and Sushmita
Deb, actively support him.
So, Scindia could be given a promotion and may be made the deputy leader
in the Lok Sabha. But some say he can
be made party President in MP. If that
happens, Kantilal Bhuria, who has come
to the Lok Sabha after wining MP
byelections, might be made the deputy
leader. MP from Haryana, Deepender
Singh Hooda, could be made the chief
whip in the Lok Sabha.
=4F<8=8BCA84B8=BC0C4B
T
here was a time when there were
around 100 ministers in UP. Even
Lalu Prasad Yadav had extended his
council of ministers to 90. At that time,
many new and bizarre ministries were
created to accommodate more and more
people. Later, a cap was put on the
number of ministers; in the case of unicameral legislature, the number of ministers should be 15 per cent of the total
number, and in case of bi-cameral legislature, the number should be 10 per
cent of the total strength of both
Houses. That’s when the number of
ministers became limited everywhere.
So, no bizarre ministries were created.
But now at least in two States, new
ministries are being formed — in MP
and Telangana. CM of MP, Shivraj
Singh Chouhan, has announced a
Happiness Ministry, which will work to
lessen the tension of people and make
them happy by including them in social
and cultural activities.
On the other hand, CM of
Telangana, K Chandrashekar Rao, has
created the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
giving his son KT Rama Rao its charge.
Normally, external affairs, telecommunication, defence, and Railway are ministries of the Central Government. There
is no use of these ministries in States. But
a large number of people from
Telangana, especially from Hyderabad,
stay abroad and that’s why the CM has
taken this initiative.
As per data, almost 50,000 professionals from Hyderabad are green card
holders in the US. One of the objectives
of this ministry is to ease the process of
foreign investment for Telangana.
7>?45>A6BC18;;
his time managers of the BJP and
Central Government are hopeful
T
that the Congress will support the GST
Bill. The Congress has given a signal
that it will not be adamant on its
impractical proposal that insists on
including the GST rate in the
Constitution amendment. Congress
leaders are aware that if they stick to
this demand, then every time there is an
increase or decrease in the GST rate,
they will have to go for an amendment
in Constitution with 2/3rd majority.
However, the party might not compromise on the issue of increase in
rights of States. The BJP sources say that
if the Congress agrees to take one step
back, the Central Government will also
try to compromise, so that the GST Bill
can be passed in the Monsoon Session.
If the Government gets the Bill passed
without putting GST rate into the
Constitution Amendment Bill, it will be
a great achievement.
But getting the Bill passed largely
depends on the Congress and Left parties, the CPM and CPI. The Government
is not giving much importance to the
Left, but is majorly focussing on
Congress leaders. If the Congress agrees,
then its leaders will automatically persuade the Left. That’s because right now
there is a perfect relationship between
the Congress and CPM General
Secretary Sitaram Yechury.
:49A8F0;´B?0C4;?>;8C82B
ardik Patel has got relief from the
Gujarat High Court in the Visnagar
H
rioting case, but has to leave the State for
the next six months. Now everybody is
waiting for his next political move.
Arvind Kejriwal, who is an expert in
cashing in on every opportunity, is now
eyeing Hardik for political gains.
Recently, during his Gujarat visit,
Kejriwal was all praise for him. But
Hardik is of no use to him right now.
Next year, Assembly Elections are
scheduled in Gujarat and then Hardik
will be of use for the AAP chief. Sources
in the party say Kejriwal wants a CM
candidate from Hardik, so AAP can
fight on his/her name.
But before that, UP elections will be
held and the fight has started over 7-8
per cent Kurmi votes. People are saying
that UP can be the first destination for
Hardik outside Gujarat. Sources say that
in UP, he could extend support to the
JDU. Some JDU leaders are in close contact with Hardik and might join hands
soon. Nitish Kumar had also once supported Hardik. One of the close Patel
leaders of Nitish says that in 2019, the
CM of Bihar will use Hardik’s clout, and
it will start right from UP elections.
F74=F8;;9E<93D<4A64.
VM, the party of Jharkhand’s former
Jmerged
CM Babulal Marandi, has still not
with the JDU. For the past few
months, leaders of both parties have
been singing the tune of a merger. But
for one or the other reason, it is being
deferred. It was being said before the
Rajya Sabha elections that Marandi was
demanding a seat in the Upper House.
Probably, this could have been the reason
for deferring the merger.
It has been almost a month since
then, but the tie-up is yet to happen.
Though this is also true that there is a
cordial relationship between Marandi
and Nitish, and the former might participate in Bihar CM’s rally whenever it is
organised in Jharkhand.
Many leaders of the JDU are apprehensive that just like the RJD,
Samajwadi Party, RLD and INLD, the
merger with JVM might not take place
at all. Even Kamal Morarka’s Samajwadi
Janata Party has not been merged with
the JDU. In the past one and a half year,
Nitish has worked on more than half a
dozen probable alliances, but not even a
single one has reached finality.
Nevertheless, leaders of the JDU and
JVM are hopeful. There are still three
years to go for elections in Jharkhand
and there is no hurry after all.
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some cancers, and hopefully
even cure some cancers. It’s
going to be a battle fought on all
and many fronts. I’m not sure
we can completely eliminate
cancer from human history
since cancer exploits normal
processes in the body. However,
I am sure we can drastically
reduce the burden of cancer.
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If the theory of human evolution from ape to Neanderthals
to man is a fallacy, what in
your opinion sustained this
theory for so long?
It’s tempting to think of evolution as a linear diagram, and so
it’s tempting to try to rank all
apes and humans along a lineage.
Actually evolution is more complex. Apes, Neanderthals and
humans share common ancestors. It’s more like branches of a
tree. Some humans — especially
Europeans — contain some
Neanderthal DNA because their
ancestors cross-bred with
Neanderthals centuries ago.
we trace back our lineages in
time, we arrive at a female from
whom all our lineages arose.
She is not the ‘first woman’, or
the only woman who lived in
her time. But she is a person
that all our lineages happen to
trace back to.
Who was Mitochondrial Eve?
Thank you for asking about her.
It’s really an astonishing idea. If
How can our understanding of
race misguide us?
The old categories of race tend to
underestimate the level of genetic diversity that exists within a
particular race. There’s more
intra-racial diversity than interracial diversity for most humans.
‘Race’ as a concept is flawed.
Is there a homosexual gene?
No, there is no such single
homosexual gene. However, we
know from many studies that
genes can have a powerful influence on sexual orientation.
How much do our genes
impact our political and
religious inclinations?
We do not know the answer to
this, but identical twins that have
been separated at birth often
tend to share political and religious inclinations. It’s likely that
there is some influence of genes
on these factors although chance,
environment and upbringing
also clearly play a role.
The gene is the core of all
existence. Has it influenced
history, science and technology,
or have they influenced it?
Actually, I would say it works both
ways and they have played integral roles in shaping each other.
What about chronicling —
cancer, gene — fascinates you?
What will your next subject be?
I am not sure what it is that drew
me to chronicle these subjects.
For now, I am thinking about
writing science fiction since I
have always been attracted to
writing about the future.
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J
ustin Timberlake is the latest major
addition to the growing cast of
Woody Allen’s next film, which
Kate Winslet will star in. It was
announced recently that they’ll be
joined by James Belushi and Juno
Temple. As with all of Allen’s recent
films, plot details on his 48th feature
are being kept largely under wraps. All
that’s known is that it takes place in
1950s’ New York and that shooting is
due to begin this fall.
Allen’s last film, Cafe Society, premiered to mostly favourable reviews
on the opening night of Cannes. The
Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called
Allen’s tribute to golden-age
Hollywood “amiable, if insubstantial”.
Additionally, Allen is almost near
completing his first-ever television
show: An untitled six-episode series he
wrote and directed for Amazon starring himself, Miley Cyrus and Elaine
May. It will premiere exclusively on
Amazon Prime Video later this year.
The 80-year-old filmmaker found
himself once again at the centre of
controversy at the Cannes film festival
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I
t is, say experts, the hardest thing
Nasa has ever attempted. Little
wonder, then, that the cheers of its
jubilant scientists reverberated
around the world recently as spacecraft Juno arrived in the Jovian system
after an epic five year, 1.8 billion mile,
journey. ‘Welcome to Jupiter,’ said mission control commentator Jennifer
Delavan as, in the background,
researchers jumped up and down, hugging and clapping.
It was a scene that made me smile.
Back in November 2014, I experienced the
same feeling of elation after robot probe
Philae — a project I had worked with colleagues on for almost 20 years — finally
landed on a comet, after detaching from
the Rosetta satellite. I was overcome with
emotion, and footage of my excitement
went viral online (I said the word ‘fantastic’ about 50 times). I’m not embarrassed
to say that it was one of the best days of
my life — on par with having my son.
Juno is a space suicide mission like
no other. Indeed, it sounds like the plot
of a Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster — the
craft even had the courtesy to arrive at
Jupiter on Independence Day. It’s mission? To solve the mystery of what lies
beneath the planet’s swirling storm
clouds. We might be able to see it from
Earth with the naked eye, but scientists
know relatively little about this vast gas
giant, which produces the most spectacular aurora in the solar system.
We know that 1,000 Earths could fit
across its equator and that it takes 12
years to go round the sun. We know that
the main bulk of the planet is composed
of hydrogen and helium. Everything else
is pretty much up for grabs. Once it
arrived at the Jovian system on July 4,
Juno — the first craft to travel this deep
into space using only solar power — had
to carry out several complex manoeuvres.
Not only did it have to withstand the
planet’s intense radiation field, the £890million probe also needed to survive
intense turbulence and dodge space
debris. Like its neighbour Saturn, Jupiter
is surrounded by a ring of dust and rock.
As Juno’s chief scientist said: “It’s a monster, it’s unforgiving, it’s relentless. It’s
spinning around so fast. Its gravity is like
a giant sling shot, slinging rocks, dust,
electrons, whole comets. Anything that
gets close to it becomes its weapon.”
No wonder then that others simply
describe it as the “biggest, baddest planet
in the solar system”. But the plucky little
Juno probe, which launched from Cape
Canaveral on August 5, 2011, survived
and plunged into an orbit that circles
Jupiter pole-to-pole. Its mission is
designed to last at least 20 months and
during that time, Juno — named after
the Roman goddess and wife of Jupiter
— will circle the planet 37 times.
Beneath its titanium outer shell, lie
nine sensitive instruments, designed to
do what no craft has achieved before:
Peer into the Jupiter’s heart. It will fly
2,600 miles above the cloud tops — 3,000
miles closer to the surface than any other
mission has ever achieved.
Of course, this isn’t the first time scientists have tried to get close to our
largest planet. Just over 40 years ago,
Nasa’s Pioneer 10 flew past Jupiter at a
distance of 81,000 miles, and took the
first close-up images. They showed us
that the planet’s striped appearance —
visible from the ground through telescopes — is probably caused by weather
systems. It also recorded Jupiter’s great
red spot, an enormous vortex of high
pressure that appears like a storm and
spreads out to three-and-a-half times the
Earth’s diameter.
Most importantly, that mission hinted at the strength of Jupiter’s invisible
magnetosphere — the vast magnetic field
that surrounds it, full of charged particles
from the sun, nearby planets and cosmic
radiation. Researchers have since theorised that there must be a solid body
beneath Jupiter’s storm clouds in order to
create this magnetosphere — so big that,
if visible, it would appear the size of two
full moons in the sky from Earth.
Six years after Pioneer 10 came,
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, which recorded active volcanism on the planet’s innermost moon, Io, and took pictures of its
smallest moon, Europa, that suggested it
has an icy surface with an ocean beneath.
Then, between 1995 and 2003, the
Galileo orbiter mapped the planet. Then
the probe, designed to enter Jupiter’s
atmosphere, burned up within an hour
of release — as the temperature and
pressure grew too great. And so now our
hopes rest on Juno.
The craft will go closer, for longer,
than any other of Jupiter’s visitors and its
colour camera, nicknamed the JunoCam,
will snap close-ups of clouds and polar
regions. While the on-board instruments
will refine what little we know about its
composition, which has higher amounts
of sulphur, nitrogen and noble gases than
expected from a planet basically formed
from gases left over after the sun’s cre-
in May, following repeated allegations
from his son Ronan Farrow — which
were firmly denied by the filmmaker
— that he abused his daughter Dylan.
Timberlake next appears on the big
screen in DreamWork’s Trolls, while
Juno Temple just recently concluded
her run on HBO’s Vinyl, which was
cancelled. Belushi heads the upcoming
thriller The Whole Truth, co-starring
Renee Zellweger and Keanu Reeves.
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ation. Which will bring us closer to
answering the question: How and where
was Jupiter formed? Current theories
suggest it started closer to the sun, moving outwards to its current position over
a period of a few million years. All may
soon be revealed.
Juno will also investigate Jupiter’s
weather systems, with a view to applying
what we learn to our understanding of
the Earth’s own weather. However, Juno’s
most important observations will be
focussed on the magnetosphere. Since
the Voyager missions, it has been known
that the Saturn-like ring around Jupiter is
formed by sulphur dioxide released by
volcanism on the moon Io. The planet’s
magnetic field traps dust from Io and
accelerates it, producing the intense radiation for which Jupiter is notorious.
Thanks to the improved data from
Juno, this simplified picture will now be
redrawn, allowing us to understand more
completely the formation and behaviour
of Jupiter’s shimmering aurorae — it frequently puts on a display of fireworks
that crowns the poles of the planet.
Of course, nothing is certain and
Juno still faces huge challenges. The
Jovian system is one of the harshest environments in space and threats from radiation and high-velocity debris are constant. What’s more, in August, the Nasa
team will endeavour to perform another
tricky manoeuvre to place the craft even
closer to the planet’s surface. And all this
before, eventually, the craft succumbs to
Jupiter’s intense radiation and plunges
deep into the atmosphere to avoid colliding with its moons.
But, should all go according to
plan, this could finally be the mission
that provides the insights we scientists
crave — a new discovery about the origins of the solar system. It may not be
as sexy as putting a man on the moon,
but it’s something I believe we should
care as deeply about.
At a time when the country is critically short of engineers, especially female
ones, it’s heartening to see so many
opportunities to inspire students with a
love of science. And it’s vital we continue
to see those pictures of overexcited
researchers jumping up and down,
cheering and crying at the culmination
of their hard work. If that doesn’t entice
the next generation of space boffins, I
don’t know what will.
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ctor Matt Damon has declared
himself unconcerned about
the prospect of being replaced
in the action franchise with which
he’s become synonymous.
Speaking in South Korea ahead of
the premiere of the fifth Jason
Bourne film, Damon declared himself “totally fine” with someone new
taking over the role. “I’m definitely
going to be replaced some day by
some new young Jason Bourne,” he
said. “That happens to everybody
and they reboot these things, and
that’s totally fine.”
Damon, now 45, said he found
the action sequences more taxing
than he had at 29, when shooting the
first Bourne film.
“It’s difficult when you’re 45 compared to when you’re 29, but you still
have to run as fast as you can. That
part was a challenge, but to get to
revisit the people was wonderful. But
I said, let’s smell the roses and appreciate that we get to be here together,
and make sure we have fun.”
In 2012, an attempt was made to
continue the franchise with Jeremy
Renner and Tony Gilroy replacing
Damon and Greengrass. But The
Bourne Legacy only made marginally
more than the 2002 original, and
about half the total of 2007’s The
Bourne Ultimatum.
Damon’s remarks come as debate
still rages over casting for the next
James Bond, despite Daniel Craig not
having officially thrown in the towel.
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T
he reviews for Paul Feig’s
female-fronted reboot of
Ghostbusters were broadly positive, with UK critics cheerleading
slightly harder for the film than their
peers across the pond. Not that these
— nor even the box office — look
likely to affect the chances of the
remake spawning a series.
At the premiere in Los Angeles,
producer Amy Pascal, former CEO of
Sony Pictures, told the Hollywood
Reporter: “It’s going to be endless.
People are going to love this movie so
much that they’re going to demand
more and more.”
Current Sony head Tom Rothman
was similarly robust about the film’s
prospects, saying the flood of negativity around its production acted as
good publicity. “All that stuff has been
great. The movie is a comedy, an
entertaining comedy, but it is also
now a real important part of the social
conversation and you don’t usually get
to do both of those things.”
The depths of the film’s engagement
with the debate it triggered was revealed
after stars Kristen Wiig and Melissa
McCarthy confirmed a scene in the film
was tweaked to directly address the
online backlash to the project.
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A
busty mermaid sculpted from
sand and placed outside a
popular Cape Cod restaurant is
raising eyebrows and triggering
complaints. The town of
Yarmouth, Massachusetts,
and the local Chamber of
Commerce say they fielded
complaints from locals
about the exaggerated proportions of the mermaid’s
chest. Yarmouth’s police
department took down
photos of the sculpture
from its Facebook page
after residents said they found
the work of art offensive.
The mermaid clad in a
clamshell bikini is one of 41 sand
sculptures placed around town as
part of the annual Yarmouth
Summer Celebration. Salty’s restaurant owner Raymond Roy told
the Cape Cod Times he’s surprised at the fuss. Roy says
the mermaid isn’t nude and
shouldn’t be censored.
0?
>D27 20=0380=<0=DB4B
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Quebec man found a way to work
his aerial drone into his grooming
routine by using the device to wax his
leg hair. David Freiheit recorded himself applying a Nair wax strip to his leg
after fitting the strip with some wire.
Freiheit then launched his drone,
which was connected to the wire in
the wax strip with some rope. The
drone gets a good headstart from the
slack on the rope before successfully
yanking the wax strip — and
Freiheit’s leg hair. “For the first
time in the history of humankind,
someone has used a drone to wax
their legs” he wrote. “I only did one strip,
but the venture was a smashing success.”
Guardian. “We will
display them at our
store before giving our
customers a sample
taste,” auction-winner
Takamaru Konishi told the BBC.
The grapes were grown in Ishikawa
prefecture and confirmed to meet the
qualifications necessary to be classified
as a Ruby Roman, weighing .7 ounces
and containing a sugar content of at
least 18 per cent. “I am so happy and I
am honoured,” Konishi said. “These are
truly Ruby Roman gems.”
Fruit often sell at high prices in Japan
and are considered high-ranking gifts
similar to vintage wine. Melons can be
particularly expensive, as a pair was sold
for more than $12,000 at auction in 2015.
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bunch of grapes sold for a record
dentical twin sisters have given birth
Ationprice
of nearly $11,000 at an auc- Ion the same day, at the same time, in
in Japan. The 30 Ruby Roman their respective time zones. Today.com
grapes sold for 1.1m yen
($10,938) or about $350 for
each ping pong ball sized
grape, according to The
reports Sarah Mariuz and Leah Rodgers
delivered their babies at 1.18 am. last
Thursday. Rodgers’ son, Reid Joseph,
was born first, on Mountain time in
Denver. An hour later,
Mariuz delivered her
daughter, Samantha Lynne,
on Pacific time in La Jolla,
California. The 35-year-old sisters
hadn’t planned to be pregnant at the
same time but ended up with due dates
just four days apart. The sisters and
their babies are doing well. Today.com
reports that the families are trying to
work out a time to visit each other.
HPW^^
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nearly 6-foot tall man was caught on
a surveillance camera emerging from
A
a suitcase at a train station in
Switzerland. Video shot by a Swiss border guard and shared by AllNews247
shows the man’s hand sticking out from
the suitcase before officers arrive to fully
unzip the bag. CNN reports that the man
was from Eritrea and had packed himself
into the suitcase to cross the border from
Italy into Switzerland. The man, who was
one of about 3,400 migrants attempting
to enter Switzerland’s Ticino region, was
ultimately sent back to Italy.
D?8
A42>A35>A<>BC;0BB>
C4G0BB:8?B8=0<8=DC4
A
rodeo performer claimed
the Guinness World
Record for most lasso Texas
skips in a minute. Javier
Escamilla completed the feat by
performing the difficult lasso
technique, which involves jumping through a swinging lasso
multiple times while keeping
the rope in motion, 100
times in one minute
while appearing on
NBC’s Today show.
“The record right
now is 80, and I want to
do 100 if I can,” he said
during the show’s Supreme
Summer Week segment. “The
Texas Skip is the hardest part of
trick roping in Mexico.”
Escamilla began performing
when he was four years old and
has toured Mexico and Europe
with his Trick Rope Show,
Hermanos Escamilla. Based
in Wisconsin, his fantastic
rope skills have allowed
him to participate in the
Antonio Aguilar Equestrian Show,
an NBA half-time show for the
Timberwolves, as well as perform workshops for students
eager to learn his talent.
D?8
<0H>AB7DCB>55824B
05C4A<0BB0AA4BCB
he Mayor of a small town
outside Naples had to shut
Tdown
most municipal offices
after police arrested 23 of his
staff in the latest revelations
of absenteeism in Italy’s public sector. Police arrested
around half of the employees
in the town hall offices of
Boscotrecase following weekslong investigation which they
said revealed 200 cases of absenteeism involving 30 people.
Staff were filmed clocking in
and then leaving to go about their
personal business or using multiple
swipe cards to register absent colleagues, in scenes which have
become familiar after numerous
similar scandals.
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A
s I always say, we
all are divine
beings going
through our individual journeys in
the manifested creation, some
of us choose the path of
sadhna and make an effort to
rise or evolve from one
dimension to the other. The
process requires continuous
and dedicated practice, which
culminates in yog. As yog
starts and ends at the Guru’s
feet, in this article I will
emphasise upon the energy,
which we call the ‘Guru’. After
that I will explain the significance of discipline in the
process of awakening.
Be it yog sadhna or tantra
sadhna, the Guru is considered supreme; his glory is
anant (unending), akhand
(expansive). Guru is the ultimate, for it is said that no shastra, no tapasaya, no mantra,
no form or appearance, no
God or japa is superior to the
Guru. By performance of
sadhna of the Guru alone can
one become siddha in all the
other modes of sadhna.
As the path of yog is one
of experience and not of the
intellect, it requires a force —
a guiding light to take you
through those experiences. No
book, no lecture, or discourse
or any other means can give
you those experiences; only a
Guru can, because a Guru is
not a physical being.
One should not make the
mistake of identifying the
Guru with a physical form.
When one looks at the different images of mother
Goddess, however different in
appearance each image looks,
T
it is the same force that is
embodied in those images.
Similarly, the Guru, although
for each one of us appears in
different physical forms, is the
embodiment of the one,
supreme Guru.
When you embark on the
path of sadhna, it is like venturing into an all-new territory, something similar to entering an expansive jungle, (as
the path of sadhna is a path of
austerities). The jungle is
dense and full of fierce animals; it is deep and dark and
there is no path carved out to
walk upon. And if that doesn’t
deter you from moving ahead,
the need of a guide arises.
Once you have made up
your mind to move further,
you have taken your first step.
As you go ahead, you find a
stream flowing in front of you
and you need to cross the
stream. As you are wondering
what to do, how to do it, you
see a boatman bring his boat
through the mighty current of
the river. You feel the boatman
can take you across, so you get
into the boat and request the
boatman to carry you across
to the other bank. The boatman takes you through and
you reach your first camp, the
other shore.
Now you wonder what to
do. There are many paths in
front of you, each one seems
good, but you don’t know
where it will take you. You
have two choices now — either
you make your own choice
based on your limited intellect,
or you ask the boatman, who,
of course knows the jungle and
the various paths where each
one goes, and he knows you,
he natural question which arises
from the title is: Why should we try
to be peaceful? Because being
peaceful has many advantages, and this is
an understatement. If one is not peaceful,
he has real trouble in store for him. But
for that we must learn to enjoy peace.
Everyone is trying to enjoy in his own
ways. We look for the tastiest food but if
we are not careful in what we eat, we end
up with health problems, not enjoyment.
What about drinking merrily in search of
happiness? Not only is this route very
expensive but one ends up with many
problems, and some of them can be quite
serious. People spend a good percentage
of their savings in travelling for fun. It is
nice but how long does it last?
One will not easily get agitated. What
do we see every day? Violence is becoming a norm, not an exception. Never mind
terrorists, who are wrecking havoc; even a
common man loses temper quite easily.
One will not get depressed easily. WHO is
predicting a 60 per cent rate of depression
by 2050. Is that not a scary prospect? One
will enjoy health benefits by being peaceful rather than get suffering trying to
enjoy life in the wrong ways.
The quality of life will be high.
Ultimately, our success should be judged
by this factor alone. Poor quality of life
means that we have failed. A peaceful
person is well placed to do quality work,
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what are your capacities and
limitations. Based on this, he
can guide you in a better way.
Blinded by your ego, you
may think you have come this
far yourself and you can go
further also. This is where you
make a mistake. This story
portrays the journey of a sadhak when he takes on to the
path of sadhna and the role of
the Guru. The boatman is his
first Guru because he aids his
first step, he knows the
sadhak’s limitations and capabilities. He knows his background and the path that is
most suitable for him and he
takes him through.
It is the result of the good
karmas of all previous lifetimes that the gate of the
being’s good fortune opens
and he meets his Guru, who is
the Guru of all, none other
than Lord Shiva, the ultimate
Guru, appears in front of his
eyes. As a rule, that fortune
doesn’t arise unless preceded
by the germ of intense sadhna,
performed in previous births.
And very often it happens that
even if a great saint, the very
incarnation of Lord Shiva,
appears in front of an unfortunate being, he is so completely
blinded by ignorance or ego
that he takes him to be an
ordinary man and looks for
only faults in him.
Whereas, if a being has
acquired a store of religious
merits in the form of positive
karmas generated in the previous births, love as singleminded devotion at the feet of
the Guru are his natural qualities. He would never lose the
chance of meeting and recognising that it is the same Lord,
the Guru of the world who has
appeared in front of him.
Nowadays people debate
about the concept of the
Guru. There are people who
start judging the Guru by his
physical appearance; they dislike accepting a man who in
the literal sense is not a brahman. As in their opinion,
mantra is mere alphabets, so
in their judgment the Guru is
a mere man. In Yogini Tantra
it is said, “It is because the
supreme Guru appears in the
body of the human Guru that
shastras relate the greatness
of the latter.”
If it were only the physical body of a Guru that is
taken into account as ‘Guru’,
the formula and the aim of
sadhna for every Guru would
differ according to the
appearance of the individual
Guru. For this reason, shastras clearly state that for those
who think of the Guru as
mere man and identify him
with his physical attributes,
they can never be liberated.
Therefore, one must be
careful when one decides to
embark on the journey of
sadhna. It is advised to take
time to decide whom you are
calling your Guru because
once you do that even the
slightest disregard results in
losing the fortune collected
over all the previous lifetimes.
Guru mahima is anant,
akhand — it is not possible to
sum up even a fraction of it in
limited time and space. In the
next issue I will attempt to
explain deeper and subtler layers of this great force.
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A
senior Indian executive and CEO of a big MNC
died after a massive cardiac arrest in Mumbai
recently. He was only 42 and a regular gym buff.
In fact, he died after a gym workout. What killed this
young and healthy executive is a question that begs an
answer. The executive was active in sports, a fitness
freak and a long-distance runner also. It so happened
that after his workout, he collapsed and was taken to
the hospital where he was declared brought dead. The
cause of the sudden death was a massive heart attack.
This incident once again is a grim reminder to the
corporate India to mend its ways or rather mind its
ways. Of late, a new fashion is catching up with Indian
executives — overdoing. Overdoing almost everything.
Overdoing work. Overdoing workouts. Overdoing parties. Overdoing entertainment. Just everything except
one. And that one thing is vital — sleep. But the point is
that if you overdo so many things, how can you sleep?
Exactly and this is what is happening. The results
are disastrous. But people don’t realise this. Rather, they
do not get time to realise because by the time you
realise, you are dead. These days people very proudly
proclaim to be workaholics, which means they are
obsessed with work. Rather, inebriated with work. This
condition is given a name ‘Karoshi’ in Japanese management literature, that means death due to over work.
Interestingly, these days Karoshi is also the name of
a series of puzzle platformer games in which the goal is
to die. The term ‘Karoshi’ was coined in the late
Seventies to refer to a large number of Japanese people
who got strokes and heart attacks due to overwork. It is
time the menace is recognised in India because the
social costs of family disruption that these young
deaths may carry are far more than the economic gains
that accumulate to the corporations and individuals.
What to do? Going back to the case of the young
executive mentioned above; it is important to note that
all his activities forced him to cut short on sleep. Sleep
is crucial and has significant impact on human physiology. Sleeping for less than the required seven to eight
hours has serious health implications. It increases the
risk for high blood pressure. Not getting proper sleep
increases flow of toxic secretions in the body, damaging many vital organs.
The greatest advantage of sleep is that it keeps
stress away for all those hours you sleep, providing
resilience to the body to cope with future stress that is
inevitable. Senior cardiologists advise sleep for a variety of reasons; the most vital one being giving your
heart a time to have peace. Not just the heart, sleep
gives peace to the mind also.
Without doubt, then, sleep strengthens the two
most vital organs of human beings — the heart and the
mind. It is important for the executive to understand
this and take a call. Sleep well. Sleep is precious and
even the best of the salaries cannot buy it.
Perhaps it is precisely for this reason that conventional wisdom suggests that a good sleep is a very dear
thing and those who get it are fortunate. Wake up, Mr
Executive, and start sleeping well before it is too late.
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which helps one advance in life.
Peacefulness rubs on others as misery
affects those near. One is unlikely to make
costly mistakes. And one is in a good
position to connect with God, which
guarantees God’s help in whatever we
need and what we need to protect.
Now let us see how people in different
walks of life are seeking enjoyment
besides what has been mentioned earlier.
I will take the first example of a businessman. He is seeking profit in order to
enjoy life. Does it pan out like this? No, to
begin with making profit is not that easy,
and even if one manages it, this only
whets one’s appetite for more profit in a
never-ending search. In both cases, ie in
case of making loss and diversifying the
business, there is no peace.
The next example is of a careerist. Like
the businessman, he is focused on advancing his career. Now a good percentage in
the private industry are job-hopping like in
the West. And every new job has its own
challenges. Where does peace get a chance?
The third example is of a sportsperson,
who like the careerist sees nothing except
excelling in his chosen field. His mind is
forever seeking ideas which could make
him better. And sky is the limit as far as
ambition goes. Very few wish to retire even
after they have gone past their prime. Why?
They cannot imagine that life can be enjoyable outside sports.
The fourth example is that of a politician. This one has no place for peace in
his life. Till death, most politicians are
trying to advance themselves. Yes, a few
retire gracefully and enjoy life. Doctors
are no better. They are wedded to practising till death, if health permits.
I could go on but I am sure readers
have grasped what I am trying to convey.
By the way, becoming peaceful is not such
an impossibility. Just sit in a park and
soak in the scenery. Nature is beautiful if
one cares to look at it. Lie in the bed and
think of all the pleasant things which
have happened in your life, especially
those which you did not expect. Sit in a
train and marvel at the varieties nature
has in store. Dream of a nice future,
which of course should be based on real
possibilities rather than on fantasy. Think
how you can help someone in need. And
put some food in a designated place for
birds and peacefully enjoy their chirping.
I enjoy peace by looking at a photo of
God surrounded by flowers.
Remember, for a peaceful person
being alone is pleasurable while a disturbed person feels lonely in a similar situation. What will you want to be? Aren’t
we all forced into situations where we
have to spend time alone, and sometime
quite long hours? Why condemn yourself
by not trying to enjoy peace?
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0BCA>BC@4
170A0C17DB70=?03<034>
I
n the Indian religious tradition, we
have a date dedicated in the annular
calendar for all that is worth venerable. On these occasions, we religiously
dwell upon and seek grace in a prayer
mode of such virtues as would be identified with the symbolism referred to. For,
it prepares you to conduct intelligently.
But human memory is short. Engaged in
the usual mill of life, we often lose track
of the fundamentals of life, as if one
would have outgrown their limits. So has
such a provision been made in our annular calendar to refresh our memories at
regular periodic interval.
In the above spirit, full moon day of
Hindu month Ashada is marked as
Guru Purnima, which falls this year on
August 19. On this solemn occasion,
the disciples reaffirm their faith in guru
and pay gratitude seeking his grace.
Reposing faith in guru does not mean
submitting to his body-mind organism,
rather the virtues he epitomises. Here
again, seeking guru’s grace does not
mean that he would play a magical
wand to enlighten his disciples. Guru
first shows the way. He then leads the
disciples to work upon their limitations
of mind themselves, and helps unfold
full human potential, most part of
*XUXVHUYHVDVWRUFKEHDUHURIOLIH
which is otherwise lying dormant.
Mind it, human potential is immense,
which if fully unfolded, will know no
limits. But to be beneficiary of guru’s
grace, the disciple has to be receptive
enough to fully absorb the lessons
imparted, and pursue them in right
earnest with full faith.
Why so much of importance to
guru? Be it known that the word
‘guru’ is made out of two root syllables ‘gu’ and ‘ru’, respectively meaning
darkness and light. It implies that the
one who could shed light (wisdom) to
dispel darkness (ignorance) would
qualify to become a guru. Seen in
practical terms, the one having himself realised and become conversant
with the truth underlying the existential dynamics of the manifest world,
would fit into that role.
This, however, would be possible
only when he gets well tuned to the
cosmic intelligence and transcended
the sense of relative perception. In the
process, guru becomes conversant with
the dynamics of life in holistic terms –
operative both at gross and subtle levels. He then puts them into practice
himself in real terms, thus presenting
himself as a living example. Only such
persons are worth motivating people
imbibe his virtues, and hence the
importance of a Guru.
The question now is: Why man, the
most empowered creature in this universe can’t unfold his full potential in
his own right? Why does he need guidance of a guru?
The problem arises because man is a
thinking being. And mind has a fertile
ground which remains active even if
one would be apparently idling. It keeps
breeding thoughts unabated out of one’s
own imagination, and keeps mulling
over them. This is over and above those
excited by the seed-thoughts inlaid with
mind, as well as those under influence
of the outer world.
This way, mind remains loaded with
a massive motley crowd of thoughts and
feelings, ordinarily difficult to contend
with ease. Some of the thoughts out of
that very massive crowd, as well as feelings in response to external stimuli,
translate into action. Not all thoughts
translate into action. But every action
on the part of a being is necessarily preceded by a thought. Ostensibly then,
thinking and feeling would hold the key
to all actions on our part. Evidently, the
character, content, and intent of the
thought and feeling will define the qual-
ity of our efforts and thereby fruits
thereof, we become due for.
What if the thought-crowd occupying the mind becomes unruly, which
invariably remains the case with most of
us? Consequently, mind becomes
restive. It then begins aimlessly wandering and usually gets lost in the unwieldy
thought crowd, as it loses its sense of
direction and thereby control. In the
melee, mind loses the alert necessary to
invoke one’s faculty of discrimination
on account of attention deficiency, and
with obvious consequences.
It, therefore, becomes incumbent
upon us to reign in our unruly mind,
but for which it would not be possible
to excite such well meaning thoughts as
could us lead us towards the right
course due. The irony, however, is that a
disorderly mind caught up in a dense
jungle of thoughts, by itself cannot find
a way out. Here comes the role of a
guru, who helps you restore orderliness
of mind. With these words I pay my
gratitude to my revered guru.
CWTf
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