Chandigarh - The Pioneer

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nion Environment Minister
Prakash Javadekar on
Thursday faced the wrath of his
Cabinet colleague Maneka
Gandhi after his Ministry
declared the Nilgai as vermin in
Bihar, leading to the culling of
300 such animals. Maneka is also
furious over the recent declaration of common Rhesus monkey
a vermin in Himachal Pradesh
and wild boar in Uttarakhand
paving the way their culling. She
accused the green Ministry of
showing a “lust for killing animals”.Last week professional
shooters were brought from
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Hyderabad to cleanse the Tal area
in Mokama in Bihar from the
menace of Nilgai. Local MLC
from JD(U) Neeraj Kumar, at
whose behest the culling operation was launched, defended
his actions saying lakhs of
hectares of standing crops are
flattened every year, for which
there is no compensation from
the Government.
Kumar’s explanation, however, made little impact on
Maneka, who termed the operation as the “biggest-ever massacre”. The Environment
Ministry, on the other hand, clarified that the steps have been
taken under the provision of
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Wildlife Protection Act.
Accordingly, any animal listed in
Schedule I-IV can be put in
Schedule V for a specific period,
declared as vermin and killed.
Schedule V includes animals
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like the common crow, fruit bats,
mice and rats.Responding to
Maneka”s charges, Javadekar
said, “Scientific management of
animal population and the permissions for killing animals des-
ignated as vermin were restricted to particular areas and time
period. It is being done as per the
provisions of law and is not a
Central Government programme.”
“When State Governments
write to us about farmers and the
common man suffering due to
crop damage by such animals,
only then such permissions are
given, on the basis of recommendation of the State
Governments,” said Javadekar.
Maneka retorted saying that
the Environment Ministry “is
writing to every State
Government, allowing them to
provide a list of animals that can
be killed so that the Centre can
give permission. This is happening for the first time…”
According to her, the Centre
has allowed killing of nilgai
(blue bull) in Bihar, elephants in
West Bengal, monkeys in
Himachal Pradesh,peacocks in
Goa and wild boars in
Chandrapur even when the
Wildlife Departments of the
States say that they do not wish
to kill animals.
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he Central Board of Film
Certification (CBFC)
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found itself on the back foot
on Thursday, as the Bombay
High Court demanded to
know from it if the drug menace had never been portrayed
on Indian celluloid in the past
and why it was insisting on
deletion of the word Punjab
from the title of the film Udta
Punjab.
On a day when renowned
filmmaker Shyam Benegal
heaped praise on Udta Punjab
for projecting the drug problem in Punjab effectively and
said the film had not portrayed
the northern State in a bad
light as was being made out in
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certain quarters, the CBFC’s
Revising Committee insisted
that the changes proposed by
it in the controversial film
were “justified” and “proper”.
Hearing a petition filed by
Phantom Films, producer of
Udta Punjab, challenging the
changes proposed in the film,
a HC Bench headed by Justice
Dharmadhikari observed it
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fter successfully bringing
A
State-run Bharat Sanchar
Nigam Limited (BSNL) into the
profit zone, revival of public
sector telecom firm Mahanagar
Telephone Nigam Limited
(MTNL) is on Government
agenda. The Government has
prepared a clear roadmap for
the revival of the loss-making
State-owned MTNL in the
competitive telecom sector in
the countr y. As per the
roadmap, Department of
Telecommunications (DoT)
under the Telecom Ministry
will set a tripartite committee
consisting of members from
both MTNL and BSNL. The
proposed panel will look into
all details regarding financial
and network businesses of the
two state-run telecom firms.
The mega plan of revival mechanism is scheduled to kick off
from April 1, 2017.
The proposal comes at a
time when both the financially-struggling public sector telecom companies need deeper
synergies
in
revenue
sharing and financial management, especially to help
MTNL.
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was not satisfied with the first
two of the 13 changes proposed by the Revising
Committee about deleting the
word Punjab from the title of
the film and all references to
Jalandhar,
Punjab,
Chandigarh,
Amritsar,
Tarantaran, Jashanpura,
Ambesar, Ludhiana and Molga
in the movie.
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he imbroglio over the film
T
Udta Punjab is gaining
ground in Punjab too with
State Congress president
Captain
Amarinder
Singh
threatening to release
the “uncensored” copies
of the movie in Majitha
and the SAD-BJP led
State Government coming out in the open to
clear the air on the issue on
Thursday.
Commenting for the first
time on the flaming row
between the Central Board of
Film Certification (CBFC) and
the makers of Udta Punjab,
Chief Minister Parkash Singh
Badal and his deputy Sukhbir
Badal categorically maintained
that their Government had
“nothing to do” with the clipping of the wings of
the multi-starrer flick
depicting the drug
menace in Punjab.
On the other hand,
taking the controversy
to another level,
Amarinder Singh
declared he would
release the uncut copies of the
movie in Revenue Minister
Bikram Singh Majithia”s
Assembly segment, Majitha, on
June 17, the scheduled release
date of the controversial
movie.
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attled by the growing support for India”s bid for
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Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG)
membership as Pakistan
reached out to the international
community, Mexico backed
India”s entry into the 48member block whose members are allowed to trade in and
export nuclear technology.
While few countries have
extended support to Pakistan,
its ally China toughened stand
on Thursday on allowing India
to join the elite group even.
Mexican President Enrique
Pena Nieto announced his
country”s support to India”s bid
for membership of the elite
NSG after holding wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister
Narendra Modi here on a range
of bilateral and global issues.
“Mexico supports positively and constructively
India”s membership of the
NSG,” the Mexican President
said at a joint media interaction
with Modi. On his part, the
Prime Minister thanked
Mexico for its support and
called the country an important
partner for India”s energy security.
“We are looking to move
beyond buyer-seller relationship and into a long-term
partnership... We have agreed
to develop a roadmap of concrete outcomes to upgrade
our ties to a Strategic
Partnership,” said the Prime
Minister who arrived here
earlier in the day from
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Washington on the last leg of
his five-nation tour.
In their talks, Modi and
Nieto explored ways to deepen bilateral cooperation in a
number of key areas including
in trade and investment, information technology, climate
change and energy. Mexico is
a key member of the NSG and
its support to India”s bid for
entry into NSG is seen as
important. Modi had visited
Switzerland, another key
member of the NSG, before
travelling to the US, and the
European countr y —
known to have strong proliferation concerns — had
announced its support to
India”s candidature for the
atomic trading club.
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H
imachal Pradesh Chief
Minister Virbhadra Singh
was on Thursday questioned by
the CBI here for acquiring
wealth disproportionate to his
known sources of income, officials said.
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Virbhadra Singh, a senior
Congress leader, reached here
at the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) headquarters around 11 a.m. His questioning lasted till 2 p.m.
The probe against the chief
minister and his family members was initiated after graft
allegations were made against
him during his tenure as the
union steel minister from 2009
to 2011.
The octogenarian chief
minister, who was questioned
for the first time, reached the
national capital on Wednesday
and will return to Shimla late
Friday.
The Delhi High Court on
April 5 asked Singh why he did
not join the investigation in a
disproportionate assets case
registered against him by the
CBI.
“You have been named in
the FIR. Why don't you join the
investigation and finish it.
Ultimately, you have to join
it,”Justice Pratibha Rani told
Virbhadra Singh, who is protected from arrest or interrogation by an order of the
Himachal Pradesh High Court.
In an oral observation,
Justice Pratibha Rani said: “If
you have intention to join the
investigation, join it.”
But the court did not pass
any order to ask Singh to join
the probe by the CBI.
The court was hearing his
plea for quashing the first
information report lodged
against him by the central
agency.
Additional Solicitor
General P.S. Patwalia told the
court that the investigation in
the case was "seriously held up",
and added that the central
agency completed a dossier in
the case and the “facts which
have come up are very, very
seriousa”.
The Himachal Pradesh
High Court had, through an
interim order on October 1,
2015, restrained the CBI from
arresting or interrogating
Virbhadra Singh or filing a
chargesheet against him in the
C6 crore disproportionate assets
case.
The CBI has urged the
Delhi High Court to vacate the
Himachal Pradesh High Court
order, contending that the
order was hampering investi-
gation.
In November 2015, the
Supreme Court transferred the
disproportionate assets case
against the chief minister to the
Delhi High Court from the
Himachal Pradesh High Court,
saying the transfer was necessary “to protect the institution
from embarrassment” and to
"avoid further controversy".
The apex court, however,
did not pass any order to modify the Himachal Pradesh High
Court order that restrained
the CBI from arresting Singh.
The CBI has challenged the
order.
Virbhadra Singh moved
the Himachal Pradesh High
Court following CBI searches
at his residences in Delhi and
Shimla on September 26 last
year.
The case was registered
on September 23 last year
under the Prevention of
Corruption Act against the
chief minister, his wife Pratibha
Singh, Life Insurance
Corporation agent Anand
Chauhan and associate Chunni
Lal.
The case was registered
after a preliminary inquiry
allegedly found that Virbhadra
Singh, as union minister during 2009-2012, accumulated
assets worth Rs 6.03 crore in his
name and in the name of his
family members, which were
disproportionate to his known
sources of income.
"The FIR was the outcome
of a preliminary inquiry which
revealed that Virbhadra Singh,
while serving (as union minister) during 2009-2012, had
allegedly accumulated assets
worth Rs 6.03 crore in his
name and in the name of his
family members which were
found to be disproportionate to
his known sources of income,"
a CBI official had said.
"The other FIR named
people who had allegedly abetted the then union minister in
committing the offence," he
had said.
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three-year-old girl travelling with her
A
mother and other family members on
Jaipur-Bandra Express to Mumbai was attended promptly by doctors after her cousin sought
help through a tweet to Railway Minister
Suresh Prabhu.
It is understood that during the journey
at Vadodra Junction, victim Nishtha received
burn injuries from a tea that fell on her hand.
The incident happened in the morning
when Nishtha insisted her mother Lalita to get
her tea.
Unable to see his sister in pain, Kunal
sought help from the Railway Minister by
tweeting him the detail. And as the train
reached the next station Surat, several doctors arrived to treat Nishtha. The family said
they were thankful to the Railway Minister for
providing them help immediately.
oro, the white and brown Siberian
Husky who was dognapped by
five car-borne men from the posh
Vasant Kunj Enclave area of South
Delhi last week was found in the wee
hours of Thursday.
Zoro was reunited with his elated owner Aftab Khan after some
neighbours spotted the dog tied to an
electricity pole at the same place from
where he was picked up at the ridge
and informed Aftab, police said.
When Aftab reached the spot he
was in for a shock as Zoro’s abductors had shaved his beautiful thick fur
to mask the dog’s identity. However,
there was no doubt that the dog was
Zoro as the Husky immediately
leaped up and gave his relieved master a heartwarming welcome.
“We are happy and relieved that
Zoro is back with us. This past week
was emotionally draining for the fam-
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ily. Now our focus is on his wellbeing” said a beaming Aftab.
Now, even though Zoro is back
home where he belongs, he is a little
subdued after the shocking incident
and has not been eating properly. He
also has some minor injuries on his
body.
According to Aftab, the mainstream and social media played a
major role in Zoro’s return as it highlighted the case making it impossible for the dognappers to keep the
Husky for long and they freed the dog
in the end.
Aftab said, “I am grateful to the
efforts of the media and society without which Zoro would not have been
found”.
However, no headway has been
made in the case by the police as they
have not been able to find the getaway
vehicle or identity the five car-borne
men who dognapped the Husky
when Aftab was giving him a morning walk last Friday. A shocked Aftab
watched haplessly as Zoro who was
not on the leash at that time and was
walking a few feet ahead of his master was picked up and taken away in
a golden coloured Innova.
A Delhi Police officer told The
Pioneer that an FIR was registered
under Section 379 (for theft) of the
Indian Penal Code. “We scanned the
CCTV footage of the adjoining areas
to locate the missing pet and those
behind the disappearance of Zoro,
but the culprits have not been identified as yet. However, despite the fact
that the dog has been restored to its
owner, the effort to trace the five men
is going on.”
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he Himachal Pradesh
Capital, a popular tourist
destination, on Thursday finally got wings after a gap of nearly four years with a private airline starting regular flights.
State Urban Development
Minister Sudhir Sharma
flagged off the first flight from
Shimla to Gaggal near
Dharamsala, the abode of
Tibetan spiritual leader the
Dalai Lama. He also boarded
the flight to mark the commencement of the service.
Air Himalayas started this
flight along with air service
between Chandigarh-Shimla
and Chandigarh-Kullu.
Shimla's airport at
Jubbarhatti, located 2,196
metres above sea-level, was
shut for scheduled flights since
September 6, 2012, affecting
tourists and business travellers
to the state. But airports at
Kullu and Dharamsala in the
state were functioning.
The nine-seater nonscheduled aircraft would operate a minimum of six flights per
day on the ShimlaDharamsala-Shimla,
Dharamsala-ShimlaChandigarh and ChandigarhKullu routes, a state government statement said. The
Urban Development Minister
said that this would provide
good air connectivity in the
State besides boosting tourism
activities especially high-end
tourists. He said that efforts
were afoot to start scheduled
flights in near future in the state
and added that Government
was pursuing this matter continuously to facilitate tourists.
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U
nder Atal Mission for
Rejuvenation and Urban
Transformation (AMRUT),
Haryana’s State Level Annual
Action Plan (SAAP) of C
4745.27 crore for a period of
2016-2021 has been approved
by the Central Government.
18 urban local bodies
(ULBs) would be covered
under AMRUT in the State.
This was informed during the
review meeting of implementation of Smart City project,
AMRUT and Swachh Bharat
Mission held under Secretary,
Union Ministry of Urban
Development, Rajiv Gauba on
Thursday.
Haryana Chief Secretary
DS Dhesi and other senior
7PahP]PX]eXcTb
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H
aryana Sports and Youth
Affairs Department has
invited applications to confer the
prestigious Bhim Award carrying C5 lakh in cash, a statue of
Bhim, a scroll of honour, a
blazer, tie or scarf.
An official spokesman of the
Department on Thursday said
that the Haryana State Sports
Award is conferred in recognition of achievements of
sportspersons who have brought
laurels to the state in the recognised international championship or cup or games and
senior national championship or
cup or games.
Eminent sportspersons
belonging to Haryana may apply
through concerned District
Sports and Youth Affairs Officer
by July 10.He said that out of a
total eleven Bhim Awards, three
awards would be for sportspersons in team games, five for
sportspersons in individual
games, two for sportspersons in
paralympics and one award for
sportsperson of Special
Olympics.
While giving details about
eligibility criteria for Bhim
Awards, he said that award
would not be given to more than
one sportsperson in the same
game category except in case of
selected person being a woman.
Sports achievements in all the
games and sports and their
championship incorporated in
Sports Policy would be evaluated for sportspersons at Senior
International and Senior
Federation Cup or Senior
National Championship and
National Games of the last four
years.
Only those sportspersons
will be considered for Bhim
Award who have represented
Haryana in the recognised
Federation’s National or
Federation Cup and National
Games at least once in the period of consideration.
officials of Haryana were present during the meeting.
The Central Government
has appreciated the progress
made by Haryana in implementation of three national
programmes including Smart
City project, Atal Mission for
Rejuvenation and Urban
Transformation and Swachh
Bharat Mission.
During the meeting,
Haryana Principal Secretary,
Urban Local Bodies, Anil
Kumar informed that in phaseI of implementation of
AMRUT, the work for preparation of detailed project
reports for nine towns namely, Faridabad, Karnal, Gurgaon,
Sonepat, Panchkula, Ambala,
Yamunanagar, Panipat and
Thanesar has been assigned to
WAPCOS a public sector
undertaking.
Under AMRUT scheme,
the State Level Technical
Committee has already recommended nine projects of C
962.04 crore of five towns of
Karnal, Gurgaon, Sonepat,
Ambala and Panipat for the
approval of State Level High
Powered Committee, the meeting of which is likely to be held
shortly.
He said that State has taken
various initiatives for the
implementation of Swachh
Bharat Mission (SBM). The
State Government has decided
to contribute C10,000 per
Individual Household Latrine
(IHL) as state share whereas the
Central Government is providing Central assistance of C
4,000 per IHL only.
Till date, about one lakh
applications for the construction
of IHL have been received . A
target has been fixed to construct 86000 IHL by October 2,
2016 and the state would
achieve it, he informed.
As many as 14,800 IHL
have already been constructed.
The work for 56,526 IHL has
already commenced. Efforts
will be made to complete these
latrines at the earliest, he added.
The State Government is
making efforts to declare all the
cities Open Defecation Free by
December 2017. Similarly, all
cities would be declared Open
Urination Free (ODF) in
Haryana.
It was informed that the
state has divided all the 80
urban local bodies (ULBs) in
15 clusters for setting up of
Solid Waste Management
Plants. The Request for
Proposal (RFP) for Waste-toEnergy has also been invited
for Faridabad-Gurgaon Cluster
and the department is in
process of inviting RFP for
another two towns of Karnal
and Sonepat shortly.
The Secretar y, Union
Ministr y
of
Urban
Development assured the Chief
Secretary to provide all kind of
assistance like Central funds,
technical assistance, model
RFP to the state in future for
better and effective implementation of Swachh Bharat
Mission (SBM), AMRUT and
Smart Cities Mission.
Rajiv Gauba said that all
the projects under AMRUT
would be approved by the State
level High Powered Committee
instead of seeking approval of
Government of India.
He also stressed the need
for doing credit rating of
municipalities and also highlighted the urgency of resource
mobilization of municipalities.
He suggested to implement Pan-City Solutions
through integrated tendering
process. It was stressed by
Central Government that the
proposals be implemented for
Smart City Faridabad on priority such as establishment of
Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV),
Project Management Cell
(PMC), holding of open design
competitions for Area Based
Development Projects.
7PahP]Pc^caPX]!RPaTVXeTabU^aT[STa[hSXbPQ[TS
?=BQ270=3860A7
aryana Government has
H
decided to train 2,000
care-givers to provide home
based care to the elderly and
disabled persons in rural and
urban areas in the state.
S ocial Justice and
Empowerment Minister,
Kavita Jain said that the ambitious project aimed at giving
a golden sunset to the elderly while passing on the good
values to the next generation
and generate employment
opportunities.
She said that a proposal to
this effect has been approved by
Chief Minister Manohar Lal.
Initially, 1000 care-givers
each for the elderly and the disabled persons would be imparted training in geriatric care. A
sum of C31 crore has been earmarked to train and give
employment to 10,000 persons in care-giving sector during the current financial year.
Jain said that the elderly
who have accomplished in
their lives often want to share
their time, resource, knowledge and skills with the society. However, they are unable
to do so because of lack of
physical mobility at the right
time. With a little bit of assistance they may be able to
deliver their skills to others
and it may give them a sense
of fulfilment, dignity and
7PahP]Pc^PS^_cVdXST[X]Tb
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aryana Government has
decided to adopt in princiH
ple the guidelines of mental illness issued by Union Ministry of
Social Justice and Empowerment
for evaluation and assessment of
mental illness and procedure for
its certification.
However, the cut off for
welfare measures will remain 70
per cent i.e. persons with severe
and profound disability would be
covered, said a spokesperson of
Social Justice and Empowerment
Department.
Chief Minister Manohar Lal
has approved a proposal to this
effect.As per guidelines, certificate of disability under the provisions of Persons with
Disabilities Act will be issued by
a Medical Board headed by
Medical Superintendent or
Principal or Director or Head of
the Institution or his nominee.
A Psychiatrist and a
Physician would serve as members of the Board.
He said that atleast two of
the members including
Chairperson of the Board must
be present and sign the disability certificate. The medical board
may initially give a certificate of
suspected disability of mental illness in the first and second year
of cognisance having been taken
of the illness so that person may
avail facility like assistance or
extra time for writing examination. Even 50 per cent pension
for initial two years can be
allowed if the percentage of disability is above 70, said the
spokeman.He said that disability certificate would be valid for
a period of five years for those
whose disability is temporary
and is below the age of 18 years.
For those who acquire permanent disability, the validity can
be shown as permanent in the
certificate. The Director General
Health Services, Ministry of
Health and Family Welfare
would be the final authority for
any controversy or doubt regarding the interpretation of the
definitions or classifications or
evaluation test.
completeness, he added.
The course for the caregivers has been designed by
District Rehabilitation Centre
at Bhiwani, which was set up
with UN aid and approved for
certification by the State
Institute of Health and Family
Welfare, Panchkula. The
course would be partly residential with about 720 hours
of course work, theory and
practical included.
She said that, the course
would cover various general
and specific aspects like Youth
Sewa Training Programme,
Basic Biology like Anatomy
and Physiology, Basic English
including Written and Spoken
English, Basic Communication
Skills, Communicative Tasks
like Health Terminology
among others.
Jain said that the other
courses for Caregivers for the
Person with Disabilities (
), for palliative care, for those
suffering from incurable disease, and drug addicts would
be designed and got approved
for certification.
The State Institute of
Research and Training (SIRTAR), Rohtak would be the
nodal office for this purpose.
Placement would be, for those
who can af ford to pay,
through agencies and it is
hoped that the care-givers
would easily get upto C800010000 per month.
The National Backward
Classes
Finance
and
Development Corporation
(NBCFDC) has shown its willingness to give or get a sum of
C1.5 crore under Corporate
Social Responsibility funds and
would itself directly fund the
training of the candidates
belonging to Backward Classes.
The amount will be for financing the training for 600 candidates, said the Minister.
Similarly, under the Special
Central Assistance of the State
Government, the unspent balance of about C26 crore could
be used for launching the caregiving training albeit for
Scheduled Castes candidates
from the State, she added.
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?=BQ A>?0A270=3860A7
T
o include people from
every category in the Skill
Development Programme, the
Punjab Government has made
efforts to impart training to
the prisoners in the jails across
the state and opened Skill
Development Centres in all
jails across the State.
In line with the same, the
State Industry and Commerce
Minister Madan Mohan Mittal
on Wednesday inaugurated
Skill Development Centre in
Roopnagar Jail where a sewing
and embroidery centre, a computer centre and a hair dressing centre have been set up
with the support of Siddhi
Vinayak Welfare Society.
Mittal, talking to the
media before the commencement of the function, said
that with the aim of changing
criminal mind-set and developing creativity in the minds
of all criminals and making
them skilled, the Punjab
Government is setting up skill
development centres in all the
jails in the state.
“Government has made a
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provision of C 46 crores during the current fiscal and in
the first phase, skill development centres are being opened
in five jails of the state,” he
said.
He added, “Prisoners can
undertake any course out of
the array of courses being
made available in the prisons.
By undertaking these courses,
the prisoners will pass their
time fruitfully, will become
skilled and after completing
his prison term, will be able to
rehabilitate with their skills.”
Under this programme,
1000 prisoners would be
trained each year in 20 prisons
across the state. The daily
wages of a prisoner in jail has
been increased from C50 to
C150.
Mittal said that any prisoner can undertake training in
any of these courses. The qualifying exam for them will be
conducted by Punjab State
B oard of Technical and
Industrial Training but the
certificates would be issued by
the National Council for
Vocational Training, and
would be valid throughout
India.
After clearing the course,
they would also be assisted in
availing loans from the banks,
for self-employment, he said,
while exhorting the prisoners
to avail maximum from this
opportunity.
6^ecc^bTcd_ "]Tf
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?=BQ 270=3860A7
O
pening a new chapter of
development in State higher
education,
Punjab
Government will set up 13 new
Government Colleges.Out of
these, two would be professional, two Model Degree and nine
would be Degree colleges. These
colleges would impart quality
education to the students of
rural and border area, said the
State Higher Education and
Language Minister Surjit Singh
Rakhra on Thursday.
He said that one professional, two model degree and
nine other colleges would be
started from the current session
2016-17. “The two professional
and two model degree colleges
would start in collaboration with
Rashtriya Uchttam Siksha
Abhiyan (RUSA),” he added.
It was informed that the two
professional Government colleges, Punjab Arts and Sports
College, Jalandhar, and Punjab
Aeronautical College of
Engineering, Patiala, would be
opened with the investment of
C26 crore each.
“Punjab has contributed
excess share of C6.47 crore
besides contributing its share in
proportion to the ratio of 60:40
as the Centre and state share,” he
said. He added that the 70 per
cent construction work of
Punjab Arts and Sports College,
Jalandhar, has been completed
and the academia session would
start from the current session.
Although the construction of
Punjab Aeronautical College of
Engineering, Patiala, would be
completed this year, the academia would start from the next
session, said Rakhra.
The Minister informed that
two model degree colleges are
opened in Pathankot and
Ferozepur with investment of
C12 crore each with the collaboration of RUSA.
“Besides these four colleges,
the State Government would
open nine more Government
colleges to impart higher quality education to the rural students.
The Government has demarcated rural areas and towns to
open these new government
colleges that will be set up in
Dharamkot (Moga), Sujanpur
(Pathankot), Dhuri (Sangrur),
Kishankot
(Gurdaspur),
Bahadarpur (Mansa), Barnala,
Phillaur (Jalandhar), Nakodar
(Jalandhar), Moonak (Sangrur),”
he said.
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T
he national level row,
between the Central Board
of Film Certification (CBFC)
and the film-makers, over
movie Udta Punjab is also
gaining intensity in Punjab
too with the SAD-BJP led State
Government coming out in
open, for the first time, to
clear the big picture.
Chief Minister Parkash
Singh Badal and his deputy son
Sukhbir Badal on Thursday
categorically maintained that
their Government has “nothing
to do” with the clipping of
wings of the multi-starrer flick
depicting drug problem in
Punjab.
The CBFC had raised
objections with the movie and
have suggested 89 cuts besides
demanding doing away with
the references to Punjab,
including the name. Claiming
that it has given the film an ACertificate, the Board has asked
for the deletion of the signboard of Punjab at the beginning of the film, besides
removal of all visuals and dialogue references to Punjab,
Jalandhar,
Chandigarh,
Amritsar, Taran Taran,
Jashanpur, Ambesar and Moga.
According to the Censor
Board, the words ‘election’,
‘MP’ and ‘MLA’ should also be
removed along with the closeup shots of drugs being injected. The board also want the
dog in the film to be renamed.
CBFC chairman Pahlaj
Nihalani had also raised another controversy after alleging
that he had heard that the film
was funded by the Aam Aadmi
Party (AAP).
‘PUNJAB GOVT HAS
NOTHING TO DO WITH
IT’
Going defensive over the
objections raised by the CBFC
on Udta Punjab, Badal said:
“How the State Government
could be held responsible for it
when the CBFC is exclusively
under the control of the
Government of India?”
“For us, the film in question is one of the countless such
films produced for commercial
reasons in the countr y.
Whether to allow its release or
not is an issue between the
producers and the CBFC. The
government has nothing to do
with it,” said the state Deputy
Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal.
Also the Shiromani Akali
Dal president, Sukhbir said: “It
is for the censors to see whether
the film meets or violates the
fundamental principles of balance between freedom of
expression on one hand, and
deliberately or inadvertently
blackening the face of a State,
a community or a faith on the
other.”
Maintaining that he would
not pre-judge the issue before
the film’s release, Sukhbir said:
“We are in favour of anything
that lends social, psychological
or thematic support to our allout war against drugs.”
“For all I know, the film in
question may even be an
attempt to correct the distorted picture of Punjab as drug
haven painted by some opportunistic non-Punjabi persons,
political parties and leaders
who are using abusive language against the bravest and
the most competent and patriotic people of Punjab,” he said,
adding that in that case, “we
will welcome the movie and
even support it and similar
films aimed at image correction
of Punjabis”.
Sukhbir added that it was
absurd even to suggest a governmental intervention at this
stage. “Neither the Chief
Minister nor I nor anyone else
at political or administrative
level in the Government or the
party has seen the film so far.
So how can we take a call on
whether or not the film would
affect the peaceful atmosphere
in the state by hurting the sentiments of Punjabis through a
vulgar and humiliating presentation of the present day
Punjab and Punjabis,” he said.
Asking the opponents to
stop spreading canards about a
government ban on the release
of a film which allegedly, categorically and specifically
describes Punjabis as “kanjar”
and its land as “banjar”, Sukhbir
rubbished the propaganda
against Punjab as land of terrorists and druggies saying
that those who indulge in this
propaganda need to educate
themselves.
“Punjabis are leading the
rest of the country in every
sphere, occupying top positions
in various fields. Punjabis dominate social and political life all
across the world. Naturally,
they react strongly against any
demonization of their character, such as by calling them terrorists, rapists , druggies etc,” he
said.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP),
which has emerged as a major
player in Punjab, too had
maintained that the Akali Dal
and BJP are to blame for the
problems Udta Punjab is facing.
Radical Sikh organisation
Dal Khalsa has also slammed
the Censor Board for its objec-
tions to Udta Punjab. “The film
was about rising drug problem
that Punjab was facing...It's a
harsh reality,” said its leader
Kanwar Pal Singh while blaming the Akalis and the BJP for
the controversy.
The opposition in Punjab
has all along been targeting the
SAD, which has been in power
in Punjab since 2007 in alliance
with the BJP, for patronising
the multi-million dollar drugs
mafia in the state.
AAP leaders Sanjay Singh
and Bhagwant Mann have
openly accused the state
Revenue Minister Bikram
Singh Majithia, the younger
brother of union Food
Processing Minister Harsimrat
Kaur Badal and brother-in-law
of Sukhbir Badal, for promoting those behind the drugs
racket in Punjab.
Though Majithia has filed
defamation cases against them
in courts in Ludhiana and
Amritsar, they are repeating
the accusations almost daily
and are even taunting Majithia
to get them arrested.
Akali Dal leaders said that
the party leadership was “feeling uncomfortable” with the
way the drugs abuse of Punjab
was being projected and this
could harm the party in assembly polls next year.
B[P_VPcTbRP]SP[Tg_^bTbSXRcPc^aXP[UTdSP[
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?=BQ 270=3860A7
am Aadmi Party leader
Sukhpal Khaira on
A
Thursday maintained that the
‘slapgate scandal’ of Congress
MLA Sukhjinder Randhawa
exposed the “autocratic, feudal
and coterie culture being promoted by Punjab Congress
president Capt Amarinder
Singh”.
He said that the incident of
slapping Sewa Dal chief IS
Gulati by Randhawa in full
public view at Dinanagar, has
completely exposed the dictatorial, autocratic and feudal
culture being promoted by
Capt Amarinder.
“The slapgate scandal also
brings to fore humiliation
being meted out to party
workers by arrogant Congress
leaders, considered to be
henchmen
of
Capt
Amarinder,” he said.
“ The Sewa Dal chief
Gulati was not only slapped
publically but later the goons
of Congress MLA even
removed his turban, besides
thrashing him. If the attitude
of Capt Amarinder’s coterie is
so ruthless, barbaric and atrocious towards their own party
colleagues, what would be the
plight of aam aadmi or ordinary citizens, once such tyrannical leaders are voted to
power?” said Khaira.
He said that it was also
very saddening to note that
Capt Amarinder, instead of
taking stringent action against
the Congress MLA, is pushing
the matter under the carpet by
taking the inquiry route,
despite the fact that the slapgate went viral on electronic
media.
“The country is also anxiously and curiously watching
as to what action Sonia
Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi
would take to reign in its
“goonda” MLA and restore
the honor of its Sewa Dal
chief,” said AAP leader, adding
that the AAP urged Randhawa
to tender a public apology for
his uncouth and inhuman
behaviour, that has belittled
the image of elected representatives.
“In the same breath, AAP
dares Capt Amarinder to clarify why he doesn’t hold a
dharna outside the sugar mill
of his MLA Rana Gurjit Singh,
as he owes huge arrears to sugarcane growers too?”
he said.
.HMULZDOZDQWVWRKHOSQDWLYH 3XQMDEWRLPSOHPHQW 3ROLFHDSSHDOWRWKH-DW
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?=BQ 6DA30B?DA
P
unjab Chief Minister
Parkash Singh Badal on
Thursday attacked Arvind
Kejriwal claiming that the Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP) chief has
“no affection” for Punjab as he
is from Haryana and his “sole”
intention was to wrest power in
Punjab to benefit “his native
State”.
“Since Kejriwal hails from
Haryana, he was naturally
inclined towards safeguarding
the interests of his State,” Badal
told a gathering during his
Sangat Darshan programme in
Fatehgarh Churian Assembly
in Bhagowal.
He cited the Delhi Chief
Minister’s stand on SatlujYamuna Link (SYL) canal issue
saying that it will “deprive”
Punjab of its water.
Earlier, while in Punjab,
Kejriwal had said that the State
does not have a single drop of
water to spare (for Haryana), but
later, in an affidavit in the Apex
Court on April 4, his
Government
supported
Haryana’s stand on completing
the SYL canal.
“All Punjabis would have to
struggle to save every single drop
of water because if AAP and
Congress succeed in their
designs, none could save Punjab
from becoming a desert,” he said.
Badal’s offensive came as
AAP has stepped up its campaign, targeting the SAD-BJP
government over drug issue
and agricultural distress, for the
Assembly polls in the state due
next year.
Badal alleged that while
Congress signed various agreements to “deprive” Punjab of its
waters, AAP is now “trying its
level best” to ensure they are
implemented at the earliest.
Targeting Congress, he
alleged that it has never missed
an opportunity to meddle in the
religious affairs of the Sikhs.
“The younger generation should
not forget the action on the
Golden Temple in 1984,” he said.
Badal said that the 1984
Sikh “genocide” after the death
of the then Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi badly “tormented” the community’s psyche
and it’s “our duty” to sensitize the
younger generation on this issue.
“I am just refreshing the memories of our youth who were not
even born at that time,” he said.
He added, “The youth
should act prudently to differentiate who is their friend or
foe.”
Listing out major initiatives
taken by his government, the
Chief Minister claimed that due
to “concerted efforts” of the
SAD-BJP alliance government,
Punjab was today “only power
surplus” state in the country.
He said that the alliance
government has decided to double the pensions given to people
under the social security
schemes besides hiking the honorarium of nambardars.
Badal, earlier interacting
with the media persons, termed
the state-wide dharnas by
Congress as a ‘political gimmick’.
“The state Congress leadership
is hell bent upon wasting its
energy by politicizing these
issues and the state government is already proactively probing all cases related to recruitments and law and order,” he
said.
He advised Punjab
Congress president Capt
Amarinder Singh to play a constructive role for the development of state and betterment of
its people rather blowing these
issues out of proportion.
1030;D=F4;;
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?=BQ 270=3860A7
aking serious note of the
T
harassment caused to the
people of the State during
checking by the District
Transport Officers or the
Police,
the
Punjab
Government has decided to
implement the ‘ Traffic
Marshal’ scheme on the
Chandigarh pattern.
maintenance and able staff or
officers, he said.
“Online website has been
created by Punjab Roads and
Bridges Development Board
(PRBDB) in order to mark
accident prone areas as 'black
spots' besides training the
police officials about the website,” he said.
He said that 400 GPS system machines have been pro-
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“Initially, this scheme
would be implemented in
Amritsar, Bathinda, Jalandhar,
Ludhiana, Mohali and Patiala,”
said the state Transport
Minister Ajit Singh Kohar on
Thursday while presiding over
the Punjab State Road Safety
Council meeting.
Kohar said that the Road
Safety Council has, in principle, agreed to the constitution
of ‘Road Safety S cheme
Division’ to reduce the accidental deaths and injuries on
roads. The division would
include enforcement, education, healthcare, accident
investigation, data collection
vided to the police department.
Kohar also appealed to
traffic police officials to go
strict against overloaded tractors and trolley’s vehicles apart
from stopping the commercial
use of tractor- trolley.
The Minister further said
that the representatives
of
Director
Health
S er vices, Nodal Officer
PWD
(B&R)
and
Additional Director General
of
Police
(Traffic) Punjab would
be
included
in
the
Road
Safety Council.
?=BQ 270=3860A7
H
aryana Police on Thursday
appealed to Jat protesters
to end their agitation, saying it
will only cause inconvenience
to the public and lead to confrontations.
Har yana
Additional
Director General of Police,
Law and Order, Muhammad
Akil said efforts were being
made to convince Jat community members not to participate
in the sit-ins as “it will cause
inconvenience to the public
and lead to confrontations”.
While talking to the mediapersons, he said that we appeal
to the protesters to maintain
peace and end their agitation.
The Jat protesters are
demanding reservation in government jobs and education
institutions under the OBC
category.
“At present, Jats are staging
sit-ins during the daytime in 12
districts. However, their num-
ber has reduced since the start
of the second leg of the quota
agitation on June 5,” said the
ADGP.
“Similarly, the number of
sit-ins during night has come
down to seven and their
strength has also reduced significantly,” he said.
No incident of violence,
road or rail blockade has been
reported from anywhere in
the state so far. The law and
order situation is “proper”, he
said.
With regard to the
restoration of internet facilities in some districts, he said
that police is assessing the situation and would decide
accordingly.
When asked about preparedness of the Police
administration in view of
National Yoga Day programme at Chandigarh where
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi would be chief guest, he
said that police is fully geared
up and foolproof arrangements for maximum security
would be made for the same.
Besides heavy deployment
of state police, paramilitary
personnel drawn from CRPF,
ITBP and BSF have been
mobilised in sensitive districts of the state following a
call given for holding protests
for Jat reser vation from
June 5.
A close vigil is being
maintained across the state,
including on national highways and railway tracks which
the protesters had blocked
for several days during the
previous phase of Jat quota
agitation in February.
The Jat protesters are
demanding quota under OBC
category, withdrawal of cases
registered against community members during the previous stir, status of martyrs for
those killed and jobs for their
next of kin, besides compensation for the injured.
After the Jat agitation in
February, which led to 30
deaths and caused destruction
in Har yana, the State
Government had brought law
to provide 10 per cent reservation for Jats and five other
communities under a newly
carved Backward Classes (C)
category.
However, the High Court
stayed it, acting on a public
interest litigation, after which
some Jat groups had
announced the fresh stir.
?^[XRTPaaTbcUPa\TaU^aPRRXST]cP[[hRPdbX]VQ[Pbc
?=BQ 270=3860A7
aryana Police has arrested a farmer for carrying
H
chemical powder in a bottle
which exploded inside a private bus on Tuesday at Bhuna
in Fatehabad district, leaving
a couple injured.
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P
unjab Tourism Minister
Sohan Singh Thandal on
Thursday claimed that the
Government is making special
efforts to preserve the heritage
and history of the State.
After reviewing the arrangements of state-level function to
be organised in the memory of
Baba Banda Singh Bahadur,
Thandal said that on one hand,
the state government is celebrating centenaries of martyrs at
a large-scale and on the other
hand, monuments pertaining to
history and religion of different
communities are being set up.
“Under the guidance of
Chief Minister Parkash Singh
Badal, the state government is
organising a state-level function
on June 26 at Chappar Chiri, to
mark the 300th martyrdom day
of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur,”
he said.
Thandal said that besides
the residents of Hoshiarpur,
people from across the globe are
expected to participate in the
event.
“To mark the event, country's leading event management
will organize a laser show at the
historic Aam Khas Bagh in
Sirhind wherein the life and philosophy of Baba Banda Singh
Bahadur will be highlighted. The
event will go a long way in creating awareness in the minds of
younger generation, about the
great contribution of Baba
Banda Singh Bahadur,” he said.
The Minister said that it is
little known to the modern day
youngsters that Baba Banda
Singh Bahadur brought the feu-
dal structure under the Mughal
rule to an end and issued coins
and stamps in the name of
Guru Nanak Dev and Guru
Gobind Singh.
He said that it is pertinent
to recall that Baba Banda Singh
Bahadur first established Khalsa
Raj in 1710.
In Khuralgarh village of the
district, a memorial of Guru
Ravi Dass is being set up to perpetuate his teachings, he said
adding that the construction
work of the memorial is in full
swing.
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Police have ruled out any
foul play or terror angle in the
incident, saying the 37-yearold farmer Mukesh Kumar
was carrying the chemical
powder, which is generally
used to scare away birds and
stray animals from fields by
causing an explosion.
Talking to the mediapersons here, Haryana Additional
Director General of Police,
Law and Order, Muhammad
Akil said that the recent explosion in a private bus in Bhuna
in district Fatehabad was an
accidental and the case has
been successfully solved by the
police.
He said that a team headed by Assistant Superintendent
of Police Fatehabad Ganga
Ram was constituted to crack
this case.
Akil informed that it was
revealed in investigation that
Mukesh Kumar of village
Jandali had purchased sulphur and potash and kept
their mixture in a plastic bottle. The material was meant to
be used to scare birds and animals from the fields by way of
blast. This practice is not only
followed in Haryana, but also
in other states. A hole was also
made in the plastic bottle by
Mukesh so as to prevent accumulation of gas.
But after boarding the bus,
Mukesh Kumar felt that the
gas was emanating from the
bottle and he opened it to
examine the same and thereafter again kept it under his
seat. There is possibility that
the hole of plastic bottle might
got blocked accidently which
resulted in accumulation of gas
and the explosion occurred.
However, the exact cause of
the blast is still being investigated, he informed.
Akil said that Mukesh
Kumar has been arrested and
would be produced in the
court.
To prevent the re-occur-
rence of such incidents, he said
that detailed instructions have
been issued to all police stations in the state. It has been
directed to maintain complete
record of all those involved in
the sale of potash and sulphur.
Apart from this, regular
inspection should be carried
out to see the quantity of
stock sold by the shopkeepers,
he added.
He said that in addition,
they have been asked to install
CCTV cameras in their shops
and maintain complete record
of those who purchase such
chemicals from them.
He said that police would
also impress upon the private
bus operators to install CCTV
cameras.
When asked to comment
whether there was any similarity between this blast and
those occurred in Kurukshetra
and Panipat, he said that the
blast in Bhuna was merely an
accidental whereas incidents of
Kurukshetra and Panipat were
criminal offences.
Akil described the blasts
that occurred at Pipli and
Panipat as crimes which were
different from the recent blast
of Bhuna as that was accidental.
The ADGP added that a
review meeting regarding
these blasts has been held
under the chairmanship of
Director General of Police
and the police would also
solve these cases shortly.
Two weeks back, a lowintensity blast had taken place
in a state-run bus near Pipli in
Kurukshetra, leaving eight
passengers injured. The State
Government had announced a
reward of Rs 10 lakh for any
credible information about
those involved in the blast in
the Haryana roadways bus.
A Special Investigation
Team (SIT) was also constituted by the State Government
under Haryana Additional
Director General of Police
(Crime) S S Kapoor to investigate the three cases of explosion that had occurred in
Kurukshetra on May 26 and
previous explosions happened
in Panipat on January 16 and
May 13.
On May 13, a blast had
taken place in a bogie of a
Delhi-Panipat passenger train
causing minor injuries to a
15-year-old boy.
The blast took place when
the train was parked in the
yard in Panipat. The earlier
blast
had
happened in January in the
Panipat-Ambala (64543)
passenger train stationed on
the platform.
The central agencies—IB
and NIA—are working in close
coordination with Haryana
police's SIT to investigate the
explosion incidents.
]Tfb#
270=3860A7k5A830H k9D=4 ! %
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BC055A4?>AC4AQ =4F
34;78
A
man arrested in a theft
case on Thursday
escaped
f rom
p olice
custody
at
a
hospital where he was
taken
for
medical
examination in Uttam
Nagar area of west Delhi.
Amit
Kumar
was
arrested in connection
with a case of theft
registered at Vikaspuri police
station.
He was taken to a hospital for medical examination
f rom where he escaped
around 2.30 am while going
to bathroom, said a police
officer.
Constable Bhoop Singh
accompanied him to the bath-
room and waited outside.
Kumar escape while the constable and his colleague were
waiting outside, he said.
A case has been registered
in this connection and efforts
are being made to catch the
escaped accused.
4U\XY@_\YSU
TU]Q^Tc
ZQY\dY\\TUQdX
BC055A4?>AC4AQ =4F34;78
A
Delhi court on Thursday
reserved the order on
quantum of sentence in the
Danish woman gangrape case
for Friday. While the arguments continued, the Delhi
Police sought maximum punishment for the five convicts.
The prosecutor argued that
the offence was committed with
the foreigner in a “barbaric and
inhuman manner” and “these
convicts have caused a dent to
the reputation of the country”.
The five men had rape a 52-yearold Danish tourist at knife point
near New Delhi Railway Station.
“The way the crime has
been committed, it demands
maximum punishment of
imprisonment till remainder of
life prescribed under the new law
for the offence of gangrape. The
crime was committed with a foreigner and a message should be
sent to the society that rule of law
prevails in India and wrongdoers would be dealt with an iron
?^[XRT_a^SdRTcWaTT^UcWTPRRdbTSX]cWT3P]XbWf^\P]VP]VaP_TRPbTPccWTCXb7PiPaXR^dacb^]CWdabSPh
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RUV_ee`eYVcVafeReZ`_`WeYVT`f_ecj¶
hand,” said Special Public
Prosecutor Atul Shrivastava.
Legal aid counsel Dinesh
Sharma, who represented the
convicts, sought leniency for
them on the ground that they
were aged in 20s and belonged
to poor background, adding
minimum sentence of 20 years
would be enough for them.
Additional Sessions Judge
Ramesh Kumar II, after hearing arguments on the quantum
of sentence, reserved the order
for Friday.
During the hearing, the
five convicts were also present
in the court.
The court, on June 6, had
convicted Mahender alias Ganja
/DPED6KDUPDIDLOWR
VHWWOHURZLQ'HOKL+&
BC055A4?>AC4AQ =4F34;78
AP MLA Alka Lamba and
A
BJP MLA OP Sharma could
not reach to any amicable resolution regarding a dispute
between the two at Delhi High
Court on Friday.
After around two hours of
in-chamber proceedings before
Justice Manmohan Singh, the
two could not arrive to any settlement, senior advocate Aman
Lekhi, representing Sharma told
the media.
OP Sharma was suspended
from the Delhi Legislative
Assembly for next two sessions
for allegedly making derogatory
remarks against Lamba.
The matter will now be
taken up for hearing on Friday
by the court.The court had on
Wednesday asked both Lamba
and Sharma to appear before it
on Thursday “with an open
mind” to resolve the issue. The
direction had come when the
court was hearing a petition filed
by Sharma against his suspension
from the House on March 31 for
next two sessions.
Speaking to the media outside the court, advocate Lekhi
said it was originally agreed by
both sides to withdraw the statements made against each other
in a verbal exchange, but later
Lamba did not agree to it.
He also said that a draft of a
unilateral apology to be tendered
by Sharma was brought by the
other side, but the BJP legislator
refused to accept that. Lekhi further said that the decision of the
Delhi Legislative Assembly to
suspend Sharma was “illegal,
arbitrary and malafide”.
Sharma had moved the
court now as a two-day special
session of the Delhi Legislative
Assembly has commenced on
Thursday.
The
Delhi
Government had on Wednesday
told the court that Sharma has
not “regretted” on what he had
said about Lamba.
Referring to a report of an
Ethics Committee of the Delhi
Assembly on the issue, the
Government had said that
Sharma was given chances to
express regret on his remarks but
he had refused.
The Ethics Committee had
earlier “unanimously” recommended stripping Sharma of
his membership for his remarks
against Lamba and being “unrepentant” about it.
?C8
(25), Mohd Raja (25), Raju (23),
Arjun (21) and Raju Chakka
(30) for the offences under
Sections 376 (D) (gang rape),
395 (dacoity), 366(kidnapping),
342 (wrongful confinement),
506 (criminal intimidation) and
34 (common intention) of IPC.
The sixth accused, 56-yearold Shyam Lal, died in February
this year and proceedings
against him were abated.
Three other accused in the
case are juveniles and probe
against them is in progress
before the Juvenile Justice Board.
FD`cXR_ZdVd
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BC055A4?>AC4AQ =4F34;78
o boost higher education
ties between India and the
T
United States, the US Embassy
organised the second annual
Student Visa Day in the national Capital on Thursday. The US
Embassy also organised these
events across major cities in the
country, where 4,000 youths
applied for visas.
“When students from different countries and cultural
backgrounds study together,
they exchange new ideas, break
down stereotypes and gain
knowledge of different cultures,” Chargé D’Affaires
Michael Pelletier said.
The event in the various
cities was attended by more
than 4,000 Indian students who
applied for visas to pursue
higher education in the United
States.
At present, 1,32,000 Indian
students are enrolled in institutions of higher education in
the United States, making them
the second largest group of foreign students in the country
only behind China.
]PcX^]$
270=3860A7k5A830H k9D=4 ! %
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?8>=44A=4FBB4AE824Q
=4F34;78
nion Road Transport
Minister Nitin Gadkari on
U
Thursday regretted the fact
that 400 people on an average
die every day in road accidents
in India due to “faulty engineering” in construction of
roads and highways.
Releasing a report on road
accidents in India in 2015,
Gadkari said he is “deeply
pained” at the findings that
show 17 deaths in 57 crashes
per hour and over 54 per cent
of those getting killed being in
the age group of 15-34 years.
“Let people criticise us but
I want to make the report
public. Our two years of dedicated work and sincere efforts
has resulted in not much
change but we are committed
to changing the scenario as I
cannot allow this. My heart fills
with immense pain. This magnitude was not killed in wars,
epidemic and militancy,”
Gadkari said on the occasion.
The road transport minister also said that with overspeeding accounting for over
62 per cent road accident
deaths, cameras will be
installed on National Highways
to check errant drivers who
would face stricter penalties.
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CaP]b_^acATbTPaRWFX]V^]A^PS0RRXST]cbX]8]SXP! $
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He said though the reports
lists driver’s fault for 77.1 per
cent of the road accidents in
2015, “faulty road engineering”
is one of the major causes.
“Human sacrifices cannot be
allowed. We have taken a slew
of steps in the last two years to
minimise this including launch
of Pradahan Mantri Sadak
Suraksha Yojana and earmark-
ing 1 per cent of the project cost
for road safety that translates to
C 5,000 crore on it,” he added.
Gadkari also sought to
blame the previous government, saying that the steps
taken by the “UPA regime to
economise construction cost
has done away with several
overbridges and underpasses
on many crucial roads leading
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over the Finance and
Telecom Ministries’ slow pace,
Itherked
Public Accounts Committee
(PAC) has summoned the
Telecom and Revenue Secretaries, and the TRAI Chairman
on June 13 over the ‘inaction’ on
the CAG report exposing the C
46,000-crore under-invoicing
by private telecom operators.
The decision was taken by
PAC in its meeting on Monday
after several MPs cutting across
party lines expressed unhappiness over the inaction by the
Government to recover the
huge amount belonging to the
public exchequer.
The CAG had submitted the
report in Parliament in March
and the DoT instead of acting
directly, ordered for a Special
Audit. According to the CAG
report, in between 2006 and
2010, the six telecom companies
had under-invoiced more than
C 46,000 crore in their revenue
figures, resulting a tax loss of
around C 12,500 crore. The six
companies indicted by CAG
for under invoicing and tax
evasion are Airtel, Vodafone,
Idea, Reliance Communications,
Tata and Aircel.
The Parliament panel took
action after hearing the presentation of the CAG officials.
CAG’s tax loss figure C12,500
crore was based on the past
dates and did not include the
penalty for not paying and
hushing up the tax. According
to the presentation given by
auditors, the current tax liability of the six telecom operators
would reach around C 30,000
crore, considering the penalty
and fine for delay in paying tax
and concealing it. Several MP’s
of the PAC opined that the
DoT’s move to appoint a Special
Audit is “just a farce” and the
government would straightway
impose fine notice on the tele-
com operators.
According to PAC members, the process of Special
Audit would take another one
or two years and this move
would provide the telecom
operators to approach courts
again. The MPs also criticised
the lethargy of Finance Ministry
over such an expose of CAG on
“huge tax evasion.” The MPs
urged the PAC Chairman KV
Thomas to summon Telecom
Secretary JS Deepak and
Hasmukh Adihia on June 13 to
explain the “inaction.”
For the past five years all the
telecom operators were challenging CAG’s move to audit the
revenue of telecom companies.
The CAG sensed under-invoicing during their audit in 2G
scam and then CAG Vinod Rai
ordered audit in 2010. At last in
April 2014, Supreme Court
rejected the objections of telecom operators, ratifying the
Delhi High Court verdict.
to high number of accidents at
several places including on
Delhi-Gurgaon stretch”.
Gadkari said apart from
correcting engineering flaws,
one major decision the government had taken two years
ago was to more than double
the length of National
Highways from 96,000 kms to
2 lakh km. It was a historical
a significant development,
CBI on Thursday formed
Ia ntheSpecial
Investigation Team
(SIT) headed by Additional
Director Rakesh Asthana to
exclusively investigate important cases like VVIP chopper
scam and loan fraud by beleaguered businessman Vijay
Mallaya. It is learned that the
PMO was totally unhappy with
the snail pace of investigation
by CBI in several key cases and
working style of CBI Director
Anil Sinha.
Asthana, a 1984-batch IPS
officer belonging to the
Gujarat cadre, was recently
posted in CBI as Additional
Director. He was the head of
the state SIT that went probed
the burning of Sabarmati
Express Train at Godhra in
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February 2002. He was also
associated with the Fodder
Scam probe.
According to sources, the
SIT will initially look into the
cases like the VVIP chopper
scam and bank loan fraud by
Mallya. The probe into the
chopper scam after conviction
of
former
heads
of
Finmeccanica
and
AgustaWestland by an Italian
?8>=44A=4FBB4AE824Q
=4F34;78
he Urban Development
Ministr y has set up
T
‘SmartNet’, a platform to support the development of smart
cities across India aiming to
share and disseminate information among stake holders
including city managers, academia, researchers and technologists for better urban
development.
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi is likely to launch the
SmartNet on the first anniversary of the Smart City Mission
on June 24, said a senior official from the UD Ministry.
SmartNet will be a userfriendly and immersive platform. Users will record their
preferences at the time of registration and the content that is
seen by each user will be driven by their preferences and
needs. The demand-driven
content will be enabled through
an intelligent query based system for retrieval of information, he added.
“The practitioners would
also be able to form smaller
communities of practice on specific subjects or common inter-
ests, such that SmartNet eventually becomes the primary and
preferred mechanism for knowledge sharing between the smart
cities,the AMRUT cities, the
HRIDAY cities and the cities
implementing Swacch Bharat
Abhiyan and the Housing for All
mission,” the official said.
AMRUT( Atal Mission for
Rejuvenation and Urban
Transformation) and HRIDAY
(Heritage
City
Development
and
Augmentation Yojana are the
Governments flagship scheme
aiming to ensure better urban
facilities in the cities selected
under the schemes.
The platform is intended to
become the primary portal for
government to government
(G-to-G) and government to
business (G-to-B) and business
to government (B-to-G) linkages for the urban sector in the
country.
It will encourage more
transparent and structured
interactions between cities,
businesses and institutions by
providing smart city analytics,
geo-tagging of projects and
sharing city level information
about key indicators and spatial data.
43:XcZ]]dGZcSYRUcRW`c(Y`fcdZ_52TRdV
?=BQ =4F34;78
H
imachal Pradesh Chief
Minister Virbhadra Singh
was questioned by CBI on
Thursday for over seven hours in
connection with a case of disproportionate assets allegedly
amassed during his stint as
Union Minister. CBI sources
claimed that he failed to offer any
explanation when confronted
with evidence against him.
However, when asked what kind
of evidence was being referred to,
they declined to elaborate.
“CBI has a fool proof case
against him, his associates and
partners in criminal conspiracy regarding the assets acquired
in the name of his children and
wife,” an official said. They
claimed during questioning
Singh put the onus of explaining the assets of wife and children on them. The sources said
that his son Vikramaditya had
claimed during CBI preliminary enquiry that some of his
assets were from money provided by his father.
CBI sources said the 81year old Chief Minister arrived
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?=BQ =4F34;78
decision, he said, adding that it
has succeeded in taking the
number to 1.55 lakh km.
He added that a letter is also
being issued to state governments form committees at districts, headed by MPs and comprising local DM, SSP and others to recommend actionable
points to curb accidents locally. A three-member committee
has been asked to come out
with a report on crash barriers
to prevent accidents on hilly terrains like Himachal Pradesh.
“We are hopeful that the
new Motor Vehicle Act is
passed in the upcoming session
of Parliament as a Group of
Ministers, headed by Transport
Minister of Rajasthan is likely
to submit its report on stricter
penalties and after the Cabinet
nod the same would be introduced in Parliament,” Gadkari
said addressing the media here.
The Road Transport and
Highways Minister, who has
been vocal that 30 per cent of
licences in India were “bogus”,
said a study of 2015 accidents
showed that “owners of regular licences were involved in
79 per cent of about 5 lakh
road accidents in which 1.46
lakh people died.” Drivers’
fault accounted for 77 per cent
of total road accidents,
Gadkari said.
³B\Pac=Tc´bTcd_c^bd__^ac
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court changed “the understanding” of the investigating
agency regarding the C 3,600
crore deal which was allegedly clinched after bribing some
Indians, the sources said.
The sources said the
judgement by the Milan Court
of Appeals has “made it clear”
that bribes were paid by UKbased AgustaWestland, a sister concern of Italy’s
Finmeccanica. The SIT will
now probe who were the beneficiaries of the kickbacks and
ascertain the chain of fund
flow. Responses to Letters
Rogatory sent in this regard
are awaited.
Another case the SIT
would probe relates to diversion of loans of thousands of
crores of rupees taken by
Kingfisher Airlines to their
foreign accounts.
7X\P]RWP[?aPSTbW2WXTU<X]XbcTaEXaQWPSaPBX]VW[TPeTbPUcTaP__TPaX]VQTU^aTcWT218X]R^]]TRcX^]fXcWPSXb_a^_^acX^]PcT
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at the agency headquarters in
his black Skoda with tinted
glasses to avoid media glare at
around 10 am and was questioned till 5.30 pm. The agency
had initiated an inquiry which
had allegedly showed that
Singh, while serving as Union
Minister during 2009-2012
(UPA rule), had allegedly accumulated assets worth C 6.03
crore (approx) in his name and
in the name of his family members which were found to be
disproportionate to his known
sources of income, CBI has said.
The FIR filed with a designated court in Delhi under the
Prevention of Corruption Act,
named Singh, his wife Pratibha
Singh, LIC agent Anand
Chauhan and owner of
Universal Apple Associates
Limited Chunni
Lal Chauhan. In a statement, CBI spokesperson had
alleged that Singh had invested his unaccounted income in
LIC policies in his name and in
the name of his wife and other
family members through a private person by showing the
same as agricultural income.
8CbTXiTbPa\STP[Ta³b_Pbb_^ac
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=4F34;78
he Income Tax department
on Thursday impounded
T
the passport of the controversial
arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari,
allegedly holding a ‘benami’
property in London for Robert
Vadra. Official sources said the
travel document of Bhandari
has been impounded by the
investigating officer of the case
under relevant sections of the
Passport Act.
They said the action was
taken by tax sleuths as they
“apprehended” he may leave
the country to impede investigation in the case. The department has also summoned
Bhandari for a fresh round of
questioning in the wake of
further leads in the case, they
said. The department is also
mulling booking him under the
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stringent anti-blackmoney law.
The
Enforcement
Directorate also initiated action
against Bhandari under prevention of money laundering
and foreign exchange violations. The IT department,
which conducted searches on
his premises in April, is also
awaiting replies to some of its
queries in this case from overseas locations and a case under
the new law could only be
made post success in this
endeavour, they said.
The IT department has
already approached British
Virgin Islands (BVI), the UK,
UAE, Switzerland and a few
other countries in order to
take its probe forward and
obtain further details about the
transactions and investments
made by Bhandari and some
companies he purportedly
owned and operated.
The tax sleuths claimed to
have recovered certain emails
that talk about renovation of a
costly apartment in London in
2010 which was allegedly
owned by Vadra, son-in-law of
Congress President Sonia
Gandhi. In a related development, Income Tax department
has approached the Defence
Ministry for certain documents
pertaining to the Rs 2,800
crore deal for Pilatus trainer jets
and some other deals in which
Bhandari’s companies were
allegedly involved.
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?8>=44A=4FBB4AE824Q
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?=BQ =4F34;78
A
s the BJP gears up for
politically crucial poll battle in Uttar Pradesh and seeks
to expand and charge-up its
campaign in all six zones
using its influential leaders in
the State from the coming
month, BJP MP Varun
Gandhi on Thursday categorically denied a report that
claimed that he had been
asked by the party “to restrict
his activities to his Sultanpur
constituency”.
A report in a section of
Press claimed that MP’s visit to
Allahabad where the party is to
hold its National Executive
meet on June 12 and June 13,
“did not go down well with the
top party leadership” which
allegedly asked the former “ to
inform before leaving his con-
stituency”.
In a tweet, Varun
denounced the report saying
“What a laughably fictitious
story. Please don’t invent your
own narrative,” the MP added.
While Central leadership
did not make any comment on
the issue, the State BJP president reportedly maintained
that “ there is nothing like that”.
However, some in the BJP
do foresee that there could be
a possible move” to clip MP’s
wings” when the poll campaign in the State goes full
steam. It is known that the
Sultanpur MP has been systematically touring different
constituencies for some time
as also pro-actively interacting
with farmers and the youth,
particularly students , and
evoking positive response
from the pollsters.
His presence in the party’s
officials rallies and functions
has come down to a minimum
in last one year.
Interestingly, the surveys
carried out by different agencies in recent months seem to
be backing up the young MP.
An ETV poll had Varun ahead
vis-à-vis other candidates for
CM face with 51 per cent and
another survey for India Today
reportedly showed him with 45
per cent against others.
Varun who is not known
to be in the best of terms with
BJP president Amit Shah, has
been increasingly touring the
State on his own independent
of party’s programmes “and
connecting with people”.
Appointed general secretary
during Rajnath Singh’s tenure,
he was moved out of the post
after the ascendency of Shah.
ndia, US and Japan on
Thursday began a nine-day
long Malabar series of annual
joint naval exercises off Japan.
The exercise will enable the
navies of three countries to
familiarise themselves with the
operating ethos of respective
forces and enhance interoperatbility. They will practice surface and anti-submarine warfare, maritime patrol, helicopter
operations and visit, board,
search and seizure operations.
Termed as one of the
biggest naval exercises from
India’s point view in recent
years, the harbour phase of the
drill started on Thursday at
Sasebo in Japan. The off shore
exercises will begin off
Okinawa Island in western
Pacific from June 14 to 17.
Incidentally, the off-shore exercise setting is close to a group
of uninhabited islands in East
China Sea called Senkakau by
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Japan. However, China also aircraft carrier USS John C.
lays claim on these islands and Stennis, guided-missile cruiser
USS Mobile Bay, guided-missile
call them Diaoyu Islands.
India has deployed three destroyers USS Stockdal, USS
warships and one tanker for the William P. Lawrence and USS
20th edition of Malabar series Chung-Hoon, a P-8A Poseidon
of exercises. The Indian fleet aircraft and a Los Angelesled by Eastern Fleet comman- class fast-attack submarine.
The Japanese contingent
der Rear Admiral S V Bokare
includes two new multi-role comprises destroyer -cum-helistealth frigates INS Sahyadri copter carrier JS Hyuga besides
and INS Satpura, missile P-3C Orion anti-submarine aircorvette INS Kirch and tanker craft and the US-21 ShinMaywa
INS Shakti. These ships are amphibious aircraft. Japan and
also euipped with Sea King- India have held talks for the
42B and Chetak helicopters as amphibious aircraft for the
well as marine commandos Indian Navy. However, no
and explosives disposal teams, decision has been taken so far
officials said here on Thursday. to ink the deal. Officais also said
Participants from the U.S. nine more Japanese warships
Navy include the Nimitz-class will join the exercise towards the
fag end of the exercise for practising tactical move.
The off-shore exercises will
see the three navies engaging in
submarine familiarization,
high-value unit defense, air
defense exercises, medical evacuation drills, surface warfare
exercises, communications
exercises, search and rescue
exercises, helicopter cross-deck
evolutions, underway replenishments, gunnery exercises
and anti-submarine warfare.
Malabar series of exercises
are held annually and to begin
with it was a bilateral event
involving the navies of US and
India. These exercises are held
off India followed by exercises in
US the next year. Australia and
Japan used to take part in these
exercises as guests and Japan was
part of these exercises last year in
the Bay of Bengal. The NDA
government gave the go-ahead to
include Japan as the third country in the Malabar series and that
country for the first time is
involved as a permanent partner.
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?=BQ =4F34;78
JP president Amit Shah on
B
Thursday asserted that
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s five-nation tour together with other diplomatic breakthroughs abroad in last two
years has earned the country
“unprecedented” strategic and
diplomatic achievements which
had not come to the country in
decades of previous regimes.
He said it is the outcome of
Modi’s diplomacy that nuclear
countries like USA, Mexico and
Switzerland “are openly supporting” Indian on its entry to
the exclusive club of Nuclear
Supply Group (NSG).
On the US’ support to
India’s bid to enter Missile
Technology Control Regime
and Nuclear Suppliers Group,
Shah said it will pave way to for
the country to become an
important arms exporter.
“It is a result of the Modiled BJP Government’s diplomatic success that what could
not be done for many decades
has been done in two years...
Unprecedented strategic and
diplomatic successes have been
achieved during Modi’s fivenation tour.
“It is due to the Prime
Minister’s diplomatic skills that
countries like the US, Mexico
and Switzerland are supporting
India’s bid to enter the NSG,”
Shah said in a statement.
The US support to India
underlines a new chapter in the
friendship between the two
countries, he said.
He also referred to the
highest civilian honour
bestowed on Modi by the
Afghanistan Government and
said it showed the stronger ties
between the two countries.
Modi’s call to isolate the
countries sponsoring terrorism
is also receiving support across
the world, Shah said.
The investment commitment made by the US companies will help generate jobs and
boost projects like ‘Make in
India’ once these promises are
realised, he said.
Lauding Modi’s leadership,
he said the “despondency” prevalent two years ago, a reference to
the UPA Government, has been
replaced by “enthusiasm”. “Even
in troubled times India has left
imprint of its strong leadership
and carved an amazing place
for itself in the world,” he said.
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O
lympian and Arjuna
awardee Anju Bobby
George on Thursday accused
Kerala’s Marxist Sports Minister
EP Jayarajan, who had last
week described boxing legend
Muhammad Ali as a sportsman
from the State during his obituary reference, of allegedly
insulting her and others in the
Kerala State Sports Council by
calling them corrupt.
Anju, president of the
Sports Council, lodged a complaint with CPI(M) Chief
Minister Pinarayi Vijayan but
he opted to defend his colleague
in the Cabinet and party. Anju
was appointed Sports Council
president by the previous
Congress-led
UDF
Government and this is thought
to be the reason why Jayarajan
had allegedly turned against her
and others of the council.
According to Anju, who
had made history when she
won a medal in the World
Championships in Athletics in
2003, the incident took place
on Tuesday when she, along
with the council vice-president, went to meet Minister
Jayarajan, who is also a member of the CPI(M) central committee, after the new LDF
Government came to power.
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“We thought he would ask
us about the status of sports in
the State. Though this was the
first meeting between the
Minister and the council, he
said, “You were all nominated
by the previous Government.
So you all are other party’s
members.” He also said that all
appointments and transfers we
were making were illegal,” Anju
told the media.
According to her, Jayarajan
objected to her availing airfare
from Bangalore, where she was
based, to Thiruvananthapuram
for attending council meetings and other official purposes. “This is all illegal. This is all
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middle aged woman married a young man; nothing
A
unusual. What goes unusual is
the fact that the young man is
woman’s son-in-law. This bizarre
relationship was formalized in
Purnia where the two lovebirds
got their matrimony registered
in a court on Wednesday.
Asha Devi had got her
daughter Lalita married to
Suraj Mahto some two and half
years ago. But now they are living like husband and wife with
Asha even asking Lalita to
come and live with them;
though not sure in what capacity – daughter or sautan (husband’s other wife).
While people in Dhamdaha
are surprised over this relationship and stormed the court
premises to see the couple
dressed in red attire and a thick
lair of sindoor in her hair partings, Asha’s husband, whose
name could not be ascertained,
was in a state of shock. When
his daughter send an SOS to
him after coming to know about
the affairs between her mother
and husband, the man who
works in some factory in Delhi
rushed back and tried to reason
with his wife but to no avail
Everything was going
smooth between newly wed
Suraj and Lalita, who gave
birth to a son, living in Puraini
village in Madhepura district.
Suddenly Suraj fell ill and this
made the entry of his motherin-law in his life. Asha came to
see her indisposed son-in-law
and possibly that was the time
when they started loving each
other. After sometime though
she went back to her home in
Dhamdaha but love between
them continued blossoming.
They continued in touch on
phone and chatted for hours.
One day, Suraj left his wife
Lalita and son in his home in
Purani village and went to his
sasural to live there permanently
with his mother-in-law-turnedlover. Lalita cried and tried
hard to bring him back but met
no success. Then she informed
her father in Delhi who came
but too failed to separate them.
Last week on June 1, Suraj
and Asha went to some temple
in Madhepura and formalized
their marriage. Then the couple went to Tarauni village in
Dhamdaha and stayed there at
the home of one of his relatives.
His relatives also tried to reason with them but failed. On
Wednesday both went to
Dhamdaha civil court and
legally married each other .
corruption. I can stop this,” she
quoted the Minister as saying,
adding that he had accused all
the council members of
corruption.
The long-jumper clarified
that she had given a representation to the previous
Government for permitting
her to avail air fare for her travels between Bangalore and
Thiruvananthapuram for the
purposes of the Sports Council
and that this had been accepted. This had been sanctioned
by an order of the Ministry of
Finance, she added.
Stating that Preeja
Sreedharan, PR Sreejesh and
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Kerala Cricket Association
president TC Mathew were
the other members of the council, Anju said, “We don’t belong
to any party. Sports is our
party. We are just doing our
duty. If the Government can’t
accept that, it can ask us to
leave. But calling us corrupt is
unacceptable.”
Asked if she was planning
to quit from the council, she
told the media that no decision
had yet been taken. “We are just
sportspersons. It was my duty
to inform the Chief Minister
about the Sports Minister’s
behavior. Just because we were
nominated by the previous
Government, they can’t call us
corrupt and remove us on that
excuse,” Anju said.
Jayarajan had reportedly
ordered dismissal of all transfers in the council. When she
described to him the practical
difficulties of such a move and
how it could affect the lives and
careers of many persons, the
Minister threatened her, Anju
said. “When someone heads a
department as Minister, he
should have some understanding of how it works,” she said.
However, Jayarajan denied
the allegation and said that the
athlete was very happy when
she left the meeting and he had
no idea why she had made such
a charge against him. “No,
never… I haven’t behaved
rudely with her,” the Minister
said, adding that he did not
know that Anju had lodged a
complaint with the Chief
Minister.
Defending Jayarajan, Chief
Minister Pinarayi said he had
not insulted the athlete. “As far
as I know, the Minister had
asked her about her air travels
and told her that this was not
proper practice. How can that
be an insult? Anju had met me
and I told her that I haven’t
seen her as a politician,”
Pinarayi said.
Meanwhile,
the
Opposition attacked Jayarajan
for the insult he allegedly
meted out to the athlete. State
Congress president VM
Sudheeran wanted the Chief
Minister to control Jayarajan
while Congress’s former Sports
minister Thiruvanchoor
Radhakrishnan said, “One
shouldn’t say that all sportspersons of the State should be
loyal to a single party.”
Jayarajan had made himself
a laughing stock last week
when he described boxing legend Muhammad Ali as a Kerala
sportsman who had won many
medals for the State during his
obituary reference.
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?C8
<>78C:0=370A8Q 90<<D
irst time BJP MLA from
Chhamb Assembly conF
stituency in Akhnoor Krishan
Lal Bhagat’s name has surfaced
in the list of BPL beneficiaries
in J&K.
The list was prepared by
the officials of the Revenue
department on behalf of the
Consumer Affairs and Public
Distribution department.
After the discrepancy was
brought to light by the MLA
himself and the State
Government went ahead and
ordered suspension of
Tehsildar Khour and other
employees for wrongly incorporating name of the BJP
MLA.
Minister for Revenue and
Rehabilitation Basharat
Bukhari on Thursday said
Deputy Commissioner Jammu
has been directed to enquire
the negligence and prepare a
report within 7 days in this
regard.
On the instructions of
Minister for Revenue, Relief
and Rehabilitation Basharat
Hussain Bukhari, and Minister
for Consumer Affairs, Public
Distribution Department
Zulfkar Ali Divisional
Commissioner Jammu Pawan
Kotwal issued orders suspending Tehsildar Khour,
Block Development Officer
Khour and Tehsil Supply
Officer of CAPD Department
Khour in response to complaints of lapses in framing lists
of beneficiaries under NFSA.
The
Divisional
Commissioner also ordered
an inquir y with Deputy
Commissioner, Jammu as
Chairman into the incident of
wrong inclusion of the name of
:4BCDAE0BD:8Q 14=60;DAD
ontroversial Deputy
C
Superintendent of Police
(DSP), Kudligi Sub-Division in
Ballari district, Anupama
Shenoy who had taken head on
Karnataka Labour Minister PT
Parameshwar Naik, also the
district in-charge, had resurfaced several days after being
incommunicado and said her
decision to quit was final. Her
alleged Facebook posts had
sent jitters to the ruling
Government
and
the
Government was working hard
to put an end to this episode.
However in a great relief to the
Government she had denied
her Facebook posts and said it
must have been hacked.
The saga of Anupama
Shenoy an upright officer who
has been allegedly tortured by
the close aid of Chief Minister
Siddaramaiah’s
Labour
Minister PT Parameshwar Naik
has dented the image of ruling
Congress in Karnataka.
Anupama Shenoy had tendered her resignation on 4
June and since then her whereabouts were not known. She
resurfaced on Thursday at
Kudligi and said she was firm
in her decision to quit.
Addressing a Press conference
in Kudligi she said, “I stand by
my decision to resign.” Asked
about her Facebook posts, she
said “I don’t know about
Facebook; someone might be
doing it in my name, it might
have been hacked also.”
Karnataka police had
formed a special team to trace
her as her alleged posts on
Facebook levelling accusations
against Labour Minister PT
Parameshwar Naik, also the
district in-charge, had created
a flutter in political circles.
In January, Shenoy was
transferred allegedly at the
behest of Naik for putting his
call on hold, with the incident
triggering a storm. A video
footage purportedly showing
Naik making a boastful claim
about shunting out Shenoy
had also gone viral later.
Chief
Minister
Siddaramaiah has said the
Government would not take
any hasty decision and would
want her to continue in the
force, but also pointed out that
she was bound by rules.
Her Facebook posts, eventually she has denied, have
sent the Congress leaders in a
tizzy while the police still are
trying to verify whether the
account is being actually handled by her or someone else.
Meanwhile, Minister Naik,
who is at the receiving end, trying to put up a brave front on
the issue and said, “How can I
comment on what she is posting on Facebook? We are not
even sure if the Facebook
account belongs to her.”
Following protests by a
group of people against her for
taking three persons into preventive detention, Shenoy left
the office on 4 June after handing over her resignation letter
to subordinate officers,
instructing them to hand it
over to the Superintendent of
Police. Officials said Shenoy
was acting on a complaint by
Dalit activists against the extension of a liquor shop that was
blocking the way to Ambedkar
Bhavan nearby.
2WeVca`]]dE?acVaRcVdW`c`h_AcV^ZVc=VRXfV
:D<0A274;;0??0=Q
274==08
s the heat and dust of the
Assembly election has setA
tled, Tamil Nadu is getting
ready to witness another exciting and entertaining festival, a
festival of cricket. Come
August, the State will see eight
professional teams vying for a
prize money of C1 crore in the
Tamil Nadu Premier Cricket
League, which has been titled
TN Premier League.
N Srinivasan, former chairman of International Cricket
Conference who is also a leading industrialist in the country
is the master brain behind the
2:@=<1697EB5C9>2@<<9CD
State Govt orders suspension of Tehsildar
for wrongly incorporating MLA’s name
:Pa]PcPZP3B?BWT]^h
bdaUPRTbP]SbPhbWTa
STRXbX^]c^`dXcXbUX]P[
sitting
MLA
Chamb
Constituency in the beneficiary list under Priority Category.
The DC has been ordered to
furnish his report within a
period of three days.
CAPD Minister said that
Government will not tolerate
any lapses in the list of beneficiaries as transparency is the
top
priority
of
the
Government. He said that the
Government would ensure that
only deserving people are in
the lists.
Meanwhile, the State
Government has decided to
start the process of issuance of
new Ration Cards to consumers from 19 of this month.
D]X^]7^\T<X]XbcTaAPY]PcWBX]VWSdaX]V19?´b9P]bP\fPSUd]RcX^]^]R^\_[TcX^]^Ucf^hTPabQhcWTD]X^]6^eTa]\T]cX];dRZ]^f^]CWdabSPh
new venture. Addressing
reporters at Chennai on
Thursday, Srinivasan said the
TN Premier League has been
conceived in such a way that it
would bring out the best talents
from all over the State to
national mainstream. “Cricket
and Tamil Nadu are synonymous with each other. But the
sport has been hitherto confined to cities like Chennai. We
are taking the game to the nook
and corner of the State,” said
Srinivasan.
For the first time in the history of Tamil Nadu cricket,
eight cities/towns in the State
would have their own teams
locking horns in the League.
CVdYfWW]VZ_
:ADTRUcVZ_
HVde3V_XR]
Kolkata: In a major reshuffle in
the IPS cadre, ten senior police
officers were on Thursday
transferred to different positions in West Bengal.
Four officers, who were on
Compulsory Waiting, have
been given postings, officials in
the state secretariat Nabanna
said.
Rajeev Mishra, Additional
Commissioner of Police-III in
the Kolkata Police, has been
transferred as Inspector
General of Police (IGP),
Western Zone.
Sujoy Kumar Chanda, DC
Wireless, Kolkata, has been
asked to take over as Joint CP
(Establishment) in the Kolkata
Police.
Kalyan Mukhopadhyay,
Special Superintendent IB, has
been transferred as DC Traffic
(South), Kolkata replacing
Niladri Chakraborty, who has
been asked to take over as
Commandant, State Armed
Police, 3rd Battalion.
Debabrata Das, DC North
Howrah
Police
Commissionerate, has been
asked to take over as DC
Headquarters, Howrah Police
Commissionerate replacing
Ramendra Nath Banerjee, who
has been transferred as DC
Zone-II Howrah Police
Commissionerate.
Among the four officers,
who were on Compulsory
Waiting, Dhrubajyoti De has
been asked to take over as DC
Zone-II, Barrackpore Police
?C8 Commissionerate.
PTI
Srinivasan, an expert in integrating cricket and business is
out to make TNPL a part of the
day-today life of an average
Tamilian and hence the teams
have been classified based on
cities/towns. Names like
Karaikudy and Dindigul are
being featured in the cricketing
map of the country for the first
time.
He said the TNPL matches (T20) featuring eight teams
would be played at Chennai,
Tirunelveli and Natham in
Dindigul district. “This is an
opportunity for players from
the districts of Tamil Nadu to
showcase their talents. By staging the TNPL matches we hope
to develop cricket in the districts and also to take the game
to all nook and corner of the
State,” said Srinivasan.
The TNPL will get going by
the end of August and run into
September, said the TNPL boss.
The winner will take home a
prize money of C1 crore while
the runner-up will get C60
lakh. The losing finalists will
get C40 lakh each, according to
Srinivasan. Players participating in the three-week long
TNPL stand to get a take home
pay of C60 lakh.
The TNPL teams are
owned by eight business groups
based in Tamil Nadu.
Thoothukudi Sports Club,
Metro Nation, South Chennai,
Leika Sports Club, Coimbatore,
Kothari Madras, Madurai,
Ruby Builders, Kancheepuram,
VV Cricket, Thiruvallur, Tec
Solutions, Dindigul, and
Chettinadu
Apparels,
Karaikudy are the challengers
in the TNPL.
Srinivasan disclosed that
Star TV is the media partner
and all matches would be telecast live. According to R Mohan,
veteran cricket writer, the TNPL
could be the game changer
which the cricket lovers in the
State was waiting for. “Cricket is
the State game of Tamil Nadu.
TNPL will further revolutionise
the game,” said Mohan.
6D;14A6E4A382C
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?=BQ 60=378=060A
he pronouncement of the
quantum of punishment
T
to 24 convicts in the sensational
Gulberg society massacre was
once again deffered by a special
trial court in Ahmedabad on
Thursday.
It is expected that the court
would pronounce the much
awaited verdict on Friday. In
the 2002 Gulberg Society massacre 69 people including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri
dead a day after the infamous
Godhara train burning incident
in February 2002. Out of 66
accused in the case, the trial
court had found 24 persons
guilty on June 2. It had also
dropped the conspiracy charge
under section 120 (B) of IPC
against the accused in the case
on the same day.
The court acquitted 36 and
during the legal procedure six
accused died. Of 24 convicts, 11
persons were found guilty of
murder while remaining 13
were convicted for different
charges including arson, rioting and unlawful assembly.
The court had kept final verdict
on quantum of punishment to
24 convicts on Monday but due
to arguments from both the
sides, it was kept on Thursday
but Judge PB Desai differed
judgement one more time.
Arguing in favour of capital punishment to all convicts,
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the special public prosecutor of
SIT, RC Kodekar said that the
incident was the rarest of rare
as the victims belonged to
minority community were
charred. Earlier the victims’
lawyer SM Vora argued in
favour of maximum punishment to all the convicts as
according to him it was a case
of cold blooded mass murder.
He also said that immediate
family members of the victims
should be given compensation.
Advocate of the convicts
Abhay Bhardwaj argued that the
punishment should be according to the various sections of the
Indian Penal Code invoked on
the accused. Countering the
blame of cold blooded mass
murder, Bhardwaj said that it
couldn’t be considered as cold
blooded as the crowd provoked
only after Ehsan Jafri opened
fire. According to him the situation was tense outside Gulbarg
society due to the tragic incident
of Sabarmati Express near
Godhra Railway Station.
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ahujan Samaj Party chief
Mayawati maintained suspense over transferring her
party’s surplus votes in the
Rajya Sabha biennial polls
scheduled on Saturday.
“Two more days are left for
the election. You should wait
for the outcome to know who
got my party’s support in the
election for the RS,” asserted
Mayawati when askd whether
the BSP would support the
Congress candidate in UP as it
had done in Madhya Pradesh.
Mayawati was speaking to
media persons at her Mall
Avenue residence in Lucknow
on Thursday afternoon.
The stand taken by the BSP
has kept the political circles on
ternterhooks. Congress candidate for Rajya Sabha Kapil
Sibal is heavily banking on the
additional votes of the BSP
even as the SP has announced
to support his candidature.
The BSP has 80 MLAs in
the 403-member Assembly and
with 34 first preference votes
aturday’s Rajya Sabha polls
from Karnataka is crucial for
both the Congress and BJP to
maintain its tally in the Upper
House to add fire power to
counter one another. In the
number game it is sure for the
Congress to win two seats and
BJP one but the third seat is
crucial for the Congress which
has bet everything on it.
Undeterred by sting operations by channels and subsequent herding of independent
MLAs to resort, Chief Minister
Siddaramaiah is confidant of
the victory of its third candidate former top cop KC
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?C8 Bengaluru is witnessing hectic
parleys ahead of polls.
needed for victory of a candi- ed three candidates and is
Even though Election
date, the party can ensure the short of seven votes for the suc- Commission has not taken any
success of its two nominees cess of its third nominee.
decision so far on counterUncertainty prevails over manding the elections to Rajya
with 12 votes to spare.
For Rajya Sabha, the BSP the outcome of the polling as
has fielded Satish Chandra apprehension of cross-voting
Mishra and Ashok Sidharth, by almost all parties are rife.
while for the Legislative Since the Council polling witCouncil its candidates are Atar nesses secret voting, it would
Singh Rao, Dinesh Chandra be hard to assess who voted for
whom. But for the Rajya
and Suresh Kashyap.
In the Council, where 29 Sabha, the voting is open and
votes are needed for victory of the members have to show
a candidate, the BSP has field- their preference to the agents.
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PATNA: Hundreds of Nilgai or
blue bull were killed last week
in the Tal area of Mokama
which scared out the groups of
Asian antelope from the area.
This gave much respite to the
farmers whose standing crops
were being badly destroyed by
the animals. In an operation to
cleanse the area from Nilgai at
least 300 were killed by professional shooters brought from
Hyderabad. The farmers over
the flattening of their crops were
so worried and angry that they
actively helped the shooters
and even participated in killing
and driving out the Nilgai, the
main source of the destruction
of their crops. The killings of
Nilgai took a political turn with
Union Minister and animal
lover Menaka Gandhi raising
serious objection. Senior JD(U)
leader Neeraj Kumar MLC, at
whose behest the Nilgai killing
operation in Mokama Tal area
was launched, defended the
killings and said it has been
done under legal permission.
“How it is illegal in Bihar if it is
legal in Rajasthan and
Maharashtra.
PNS
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could further reinclaims of large-scale
Idrugnforcewhat
cultivation in Malda a
border district of Bengal the
anti-narcotic bureau on
Thursday apprehended a
truck and seized 5,000 kgs of
opium and dried poppy plants
from Dankuni toll plaza off
Howrah.
The officials said the three
persons along with the driver
of the vehicle who were arrested had named a Trinamool
Congress politician on whose
orders the truck-load of
opium was being transported.
Malda is one of the three
Bengal districts reporting
large-scale illegal poppy cultivation. The other two districts are Bibrhum and
Murshidabad. Malda in particular has of late earned the
reputation of opium and fake
currency capital of eastern
India.
The district had hit
national headlines last year
after thousands of people
from Kaliachak had torched
BSF vehicles and a local police
station, attacked members of
other communities and blockaded the NH-34.
Subsequent investigations
revealed that the incident had
taken place in retaliation to
massive crackdown on the
local poppy cultivators many
of who conceded that they
were fast switching to poppy
trade mango and paddy cultivation as it fetched bigger
dividend.
It was also revealed that
the trans-border agents were
involved in the clandestine
poppy cultivation along with
the multi-crore fake-currency
and cattle-smuggling racket. It
was also found that a good
amount of the money was
used by the terror moles.
The NCB sleuths acted on
a tip-off and apprehended the
truck loaded with opium and
dried poppy flowers and
plants, sources said adding the
drugs were to be ferried to
Kharagpur from where it
would be taken to Odisha
and South India.
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I
ndia’s first private sector port
Gujarat Pipavav Port Ltd
(GPPL) is eying at becoming
the ‘Port of choice’ for container, bulk, liquid and RoRo
cargo in Western India following plethora of opportunities as
a result of Modi Government’s
initiatives like “Make in India”
and “Sagarmala”.
Managing Director of APL
Terminal’s Keld Pedersen said
that with Government of India’s
initiatives such as “Make in
India”, “Sagarmala” coupled
with expanded coastal shipping, the see many new opportunities to accomplish its vision
of being the ‘Port of choice’ for
container, bulk, liquid and
RoRo cargo in Western India.
According to Pedersen the
larger capacity of Pipavav Port
would contribute in expand the
company’s services and flexibility towards the customers
and help India to meet its
tremendous economic potential through seamless logistic
solution.
He said that modal shift
incentives currently under evaluation by the Government of
India would further encourage
shifting of domestic cargo from
road to sea. Coastal shipping is
an environmentally-friendly
alternative to land transportation, reducing diesel fuel consumption and emissions, as
well as Indian roadway congestion, he said, adding that
the expansion project would
help the company to be future
ready.
APM Terminals Pipavav
(Gujarat Pipavav Port Ltd) has
recently successfully completed its capacity expansion project which would increase its
annual container throughput
handling capacity from 850,000
TEUs (Total Equivalent Units)
to 1.35 million TEUs.
As part of the expansion
plan, APM Terminals invested
around C400 crore. The investment included buying new
STS cranes, strengthening the
existing berth, dredging, and
the improvement of the container yard and internal roads
at the port. This investment
will increase efficiency and
productivity in the port operations.
For the bulk cargo handling business segment, the
company has a current capacity of 4-5 million MTs of dry
bulk cargo, 2 million MTs of
liquid bulk cargo and approximately 250,000 passenger cars
per year. Additional marine
side and land side areas available at port for future development
It is worth mentioning that
PM Terminals Pipavav [Gujarat
Pipavav Port Ltd.] is a part of
the $4.24 APM Terminals
Global Terminal Network of 72
operating ports, terminal facilities and 135 Inland services,
employing 20,600 professionals
across 69 countries around the
world.
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Sabha based on sting operations
where independent MLAs from
Karnataka allegedly seen talking about money in exchange of
votes, Chief Minister
Siddaramaiah expressed confidence that with the help of associate members and some independents party’s third candidate could easily win.
He said “Our party’s third
candidate KC Rama Murthy
would get elected with the help
of 33 excess votes of the
Congress and five associate
members of the party along with
some independents who had
identified with the congress”.
In another development
former Prime Minister and
JDs chief HD Deve Gowda
directly accused of Congress of
horse-trading and poaching
JDs MLAs. Five of JDs MLAs
have defied the party and openly declared that they would
support the third candidate
3UDEKXIRU5DLOZD\
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put up by the Congress. He said
“Congress is insisting that the
elections go ahead as scheduled. The third Rajya Sabha
candidate will be able to get
only 33 votes, but still they are
insisting that the elections be
held on June 11. Is this horse
trading or donkey trading?”.
As per the numbers
Congress candidates senior party
leaders Jairam Ramesh and Oscar
Fernandes and BJP’s Union
Minister Nirmala Sitharaman
are sure to get elected. But the
third candidate of the Congress
KC Ramamurthy and JDs candidate industrialist BA Farooq are
fighting it out for the fourth seat.
Five JD(S) MLAs Zameer
Ahmed
Khan,
Cheluvarayaswamy, Akhanda
Srinivas, Iqbal Ansari and
Balakrishna have said they will
be voting for the Congress in
the Rajya Sabha and Legislative
Council elections.
Meanwhile, for the first
time in Rajya Sabha election
NOTA as an option has been
introduced along with the photographs of the candidates.
The returning officer and
Assembly Secretary S Murthy
said he has not received any
direction from the Election
Commission about the postponing or countermanding of
the polls due to the recent sting
operations carried out by some
private news channels. He said
was going ahead with the
preparation for holding election as per schedule.
According to Assembly
secretariat the number of votes
required to win is 45 in the 225
member Karnataka Assembly
(with no vote to the nominated Anglo-Indian member).
The ruling party has the
strength of 123 MLAs (excluding
Speaker
Kagodu
Thimmappa), while the
Bharatiya Janata Party has 44
and the Janata Dal (Secular)
has the strength of 40 MLAs.
The ruling party can easily
ensure victory of two candidates, and will be left with surplus 33 votes. It will be short of
12 votes to get the third seat.
The Congress is banking on
cross voting from disgruntled
JDs MLAs to snatch the third
seat. As JDs is facing internal
rebellion, feuds, the Congress
will certainty try to lure the disgruntled JDs MLAs to get 12 as
part of its strategy.
It is crucial for the Congress
to win third seat and the party
might also look at Independents
(9) and members of the
Badavara Shramikara Raithara
Congress Party (3 MLAs),
Karnataka Janata Paskha (2),
and Sarvodaya Karnataka
Paksha and Karnataka Makkala
Paksha (one MLA each) to lend
their support.
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Lucknow: A PIL was on
Thursday filed in the Lucknow
Bench of the Allahabad High
Court, seeking a CBI enquiry
into the Mathura violence.
It is likely to come up for
hearing on June 13.
The Public Interest
Litigation, filed by IP Singh of
Azamgarh district, seeks a
direction to dismiss the judicial commission constituted by
the Uttar Pradesh government
D]X^]APX[fPh<X]XbcTaBdaTbW?aPQWdfXcWFTbc1T]VP[2WXTU<X]XbcTa<P\PcP
to probe the incident where
1P]TaYTTPcP\TTcX]VPc=PQP]]PX]:^[ZPcP^]CWdabSPh
?C8 clashes between the police and
encroachers left 29 people
B0D60AB4=6D?C0Q :>;:0C0 Nabanna the State secretariat dead last week.
said. The East-West metro proPetitioner’s counsel Ashok
eeping with Prime Minister ject linking Rajarhat in the Pandey said his client has alsoNarendra Modi’s slogan of north-eastern fringes of prayed for a probe by CBI or
according priority to develop- Kolkata to Howrah would a Special Investigation Team
ment over politics the Indian entail digging of tunnel beneath (SIT).
On June 7, the Supreme
Railways is planning to go full the Hooghly River.
Banerjee had cleared these Court had refused to order a
throttle insofar as increasing
Railway infrastructure in projects during her tenure as CBI probe into the incident.
the Railway Minister in the secA vacation bench of
Bengal is concerned.
This was made clear by ond UPA Government. The Justices PC Ghose and
Railway Minister Suresh State was also likely to get a Amitava Roy had said it was
Prabhu in Kolkata. The wagon manufacturing unit, it not inclined to pass any order
in the matter and asked the
Minister who met Chief was said.
Keeping aside political dif- petitioner to approach the
Minister Mamata Banerjee for
PTI
the first time after her massive ferences and praising the Chief High Court.
electoral victory in the State Minister, Prabhu said “she
elections said he had a detailed (Banerjee) herself was a very
and comprehensive discussion successful Railway Minister
with Banerjee regarding the and I had detailed discussion
improvement of infrastructure with her” on various issues.
“The State Government
projects and the Railways had
already started taking mea- has extended all cooperation.
The idea is how to redevelop
sures towards that.
In the discussions the the existing infrastructure and
Railways particularly showed increase it in the State” he
interest in early completion of maintained and added “we
mass transport projects like the have already increased the
East-West and Joka-BBD Bag share of investment in the
metro lines. The Railways had State.”
The idea behind the
also agreed to work alongside
the State Government to reha- Railway’s increased attention in
bilitate the residents displaced Bengal is to “create an inteon account of the East-West grated transport system in
metro project, sources at Kolkata,” he said.
K
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H
illary Clinton’s victory
as the Democratic
presidential candidate
is huge — and not just
for the reasons you
think. For the first time in history,
America could have a male First
Lady. Just picture it: While the
leader of the free world is navigating international politics, her husband could be throwing banquets,
choosing crockery and measuring
curtains for the White House.
He could be the best flotus the
US has ever seen. Forget Michelle
Obama’s flawless rapping, vegetable
growing and passion about women’s
education — as America’s first ever
‘husband of the President’, Bill
Clinton would be next level. Can’t
you just imagine him standing by
Hill’s side with an impeccable manicure, blowing kisses to the people
of the US and never wearing the
same suit twice?
After all, as a former President
himself, he knows exactly what is
expected of the First Lady — from
unconditional support (even at
times when most spouses would be
filing for divorce) to putting their
own career on hold, and overseeing the domestic side of the
presidential home.
No wonder people on Twitter
are already getting ready to have a
new favourite flotus — they can’t
wait for his inaugural gown (‘it’s
gonna be fire’), his baking recipes
and the inevitable trademark fashion item (can he be the one to finally trump Jackie O’s sunglasses?)
The only problem is that
Clinton hasn’t fully thrown himself
into his prospective new role yet.
Unlike previous potential First
Ladies, he hasn’t started upping his
fashion game or putting his life on
hold to become a permanent
unpaid plus one. He’s still running
his foundation out of New York —
as in, a city that is not Washington,
DC where he should be — and raising billions. It’s all very worthy, but
is he really First Lady material?
Hillary was slammed for her
work — as one of the 100 most
influential lawyers in America and
the first female member on WalMart’s board — when Bill was running for President in 1992. When
she pointed out that her career success was due to her working and not
‘staying home and baking cookies’,
she faced such a backlash that
immediate action had to be taken.
Cue the 1992 Family Circle
First Lady bake-off where Hillary’s
chocolate chip cookies beat Barbara
Bush’s and arguably propelled the
Clintons to victory.
As much as we’d like to image
Bill doing the same, later this year,
no one can seriously expect him to
participate in this traditional bakeoff (which, depressingly, was still
going in 2012 when Michelle
Obama’s white and dark chocolate
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chip cookies beat Ann Romney’s
M&M cookies).
And that’s exactly the point.
While all previous First Ladies
have had to go through the 1950s
rigmarole of being perfect suburban wives, Bill will not face those
same pressures.
Not even because he is a former
President, but because he is a man.
This mere fact of biology means he
is not expected to have cookie
recipes up his sleeve, understand
what décor would work best in the
Oval Office, or wear the latest fashions, albeit demurely. He will not be
trolled for his looks, or told to ‘drop
a few pounds’ like Michelle Obama.
Even Hillary, who has gone through
all of this herself, doesn’t expect any
of it from her husband. Last year she
said it had ‘crossed her mind’ to
appoint him as Vice President.
When told it wouldn’t work constitutionally, she said later that he
would be one of her key advisers.
“I’m going to ask for his ideas,
I’m going ask for his advice, and I’m
going to use him as a goodwill emissary to go around the country to
find the best ideas we’ve got,
because I do believe, as he said,
everything that’s wrong with
America has been solved somewhere in America,” she said during
a debate in January. Hillary Clinton
declares victory in Democratic
race, hails a milestone Play! 01:02
Bill could carry on working in
B>D=318C4
his own right, and even join
Hillary’s team. It’s a similar pattern
across the world: Angela Merkel’s
husband Joachim Sauer has been
left alone to carry on his work as a
chemistry professor, while Stephen
Kinnock worked as a managing
director while his wife Helle
Thorning-Schmidt was Prime
Minister of Denmark, before eventually becoming a British MP.
Their careers flourished while
their wives led their countries. It
would be churlish to say that they
should have given that up so they
could see the reality of life as a 21st
century wife, but it just goes to
show how much First Ladies have
sacrificed over the years — and
that it doesn’t have to be this way.
If men can lead full lives whilst
being married to a world leader,
then so can women.
So hopefully Bill will have his
moment in the shadows as First
Lady, and carry on his life in exactly the same way he always has. And
with no cookie bake-offs in sight,
perhaps he’ll set a precedent for all
future First Ladies. Because no matter how much he’d rather be called
‘First Dude’, ‘First Mate’ or ‘First
Gentleman’, if Hillary does become
President? To me he'll be Bill
Clinton, First Lady of the United
States — and first to break the outdated mould political wives have
been forced to fit for far too long.
(Courtesy: The Daily Telegraph)
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Sir — This refers to the article,
“Tough questions for Mehbooba”
(June 9) by KN Pandit. Problems
that have piled up in Jammu &
Kashmir during the past seven
decades cannot be solved in one
year. It should be done in a phased
manner. To begin, our leaders must
focus on the problems faced by the
people in the valley.
Anil Gupta
Via web
@bUcUbfY^WfQ\eUc
Sir — This refers to the article,
“Modi and Indian exceptionalism”
(June 8) by Anirban Ganguly.
Values have to be transmitted by
immersion — generation after generation. Only when the harmonious
worldview of sarve bhavantu sukhinah is embedded in a continuous
culturally spontaneous behaviour,
it sustains as it is expected to.
Seshadri
Via web
<UddY^WT_g^
Sir — This refers to the editorial, “Looking beyond Delhi” (June
8). Delhi Chief Minister Arvind
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Kejriwal has been a disappointment for the people who voted
him to power with a huge mandate. He came on the political
horizon on the pretext of his anticorruption crusade at a time
when the country was reeling
under corruption.
However, in his bid for power,
he forgot about fighting corruption, and started blazing all his
guns at Prime Minister Narendra
Modi. He is now seen siding with
those who have plans to form a
third front. His second agenda is
to have continuous confrontation
with the Centre on one pretext or
the other, unmindful of the effect
it may have on the development
of the State.
BP Srivastava
Noida
Cd_`TbUQ]Y^W
Sir — This refers to the editorial, “Looking beyond Delhi” (June
8). Delhi Chief Minister Arvind
Kejriwal, the former Indian
Revenue Service officer is daydreaming of occupying the office
of the Prime Minister. He presumably feels that the Chief
Minister’s chair is too small for his
great abilities. The way he mocks
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
so often, it seems that he wants to
convey to his supporters that he
can become a better Prime
Minister than Modi. The editorial has rightly diagnosed
Kejriwal’s disease of making “tall”
and “false” claims and promises
with no or little delivery.
M Ratan
Via email
4_eR\Uc`UQ[
Sir — This refers to the article,
“Sen Corker and his glass house”
(June 7) by Deepak Sinha. The US
is known for its double-speak. Its
policies have always been guided
by its own national and economic interests and not by moral scruples or ethical values.
It is the same US Congress
which had earlier denied a visa
to Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, when he was the Chief
Minister of Gujarat, that is now
applauding him.
Therefore, we must not
expect any drastic change in its
policy towards Pakistan or China.
Russia (or the erstwhile Soviet
Union) has been more reliable in
its support to India.
Arun
Via web
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ause, pause and effect holds
good for contemporary
India Inc. After years of furious expansion, including mergers
and acquisitions of cheaper global assets, it was time to pause as
corporates slowed down to examine their over leveraged balance
sheets. The 2008 worldwide meltdown took a heavy toll on companies small and big. This was a
tipping point between order and
chaos. In parallel, it became for one
and all the difference between what
one wanted and what one feared.
The width of an eyelash becoming
the determinant.
I remember Hindustan Lever
chairman Susim Datta telling me
years ago that M&A is one of the
sexiest things in business, but it
has a soft underbelly which is
always fraught with risk — with
cultural and human resource
issues dominant.
Tata Steel is the latest instance
of failing in its endeavour to
absorb a bigger company. I also
remembered now discredited
industrialist Vijay Mallya’s words
reverberating — “I am not a corporate museum, I will get out of
businesses which don’t have a
strategic fit with my core competence of liquor and beverages”. This
was almost 20 years ago when
Mallya began consolidating his
liquor business and jettisoning all
that did not fit.
A whole catalogue of reasons
has played havoc with corporate
blueprints: Business and commodity cycle downturn, prolonged
up cycle in interest rates, export
markets drying up, expansion
plans derailed due to environmental and forest clearances, consumption slowdown, judicial
activism, witch hunt by the 5Cs —
CVC, CAG, CBI, CIC and courts,
policy paralysis et al.
Corporates themselves began
to look into their mirrors finding
mountains of debt impinging on
their business performance. ‘Sexy’
leveraged buyouts of cheap international assets contributed in
some cases, while other factors
debilitated others.
Take Tata Steel — rising
costs, weak demand, over supply,
cheap imports and currency
volatility brought the company to
its knees. Tata Steel India, the
parent company, was keeling
over with C71,798 crore consolidated debt while its standalone
debt was C25,332 crore. When it
acquired Anglo Dutch steelmaker Corus in 2007, the $12.1
billion buyout was touted as the
arrival of the Indian transnational
corporation seeking a global
footprint, reminding me of
Datta’s ‘sexy’ nomenclature.
Even after exiting its assets in
UK and Europe, Tata Steel may
continue to be saddled with a
humungous 1,30,000 member
pension scheme, a liability no one
is willing to take over. In a late
April report by IIFL, this imponderable has been shown for what
it actually is — this could leave
Tata Steel in UK with no assets but
pension funds.
Gains from the asset sale
depend critically on how the
pension funds are dealt with.
Pension fund deficit has increased
to 485 million pounds sterling at
the end of FY 2015. Exit from the
pension fund might not be easy
since: One, Tatas might have to
contribute about GBP 3.5 billion
to sell the fund to professional
managers; two, The fund might
not meet the criteria for takeover
by the Pension Protection Fund;
and three, since July 2014, Tata
Steel has refinanced debt worth
$8.5 billion, of which $1.5 billion
was refinanced in December
2015. This included debt (borrowing of six billion dollars)
originally incurred in relation
with the $12.1 billion acquisition
of Corus Group Plc in 2007.
As bank debt became hot button, it was imperative for corporate India also to introspect on the
way forward. Self realisation is the
best whetstone, and as more and
more industrialists felt that there
was a quantum surge in threat
analysis to their own books and
businesses, they decided to shake
the tree and become debt free.
Deals Concluded:
Jindal Steel & Power: Sajjan
Jindal’s JSW Energy will buy 100
per cent of brother Naveen Jindal’s
Jindal Steel and Power 1,000 MW
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S
hould the Congress be worried
about the continuing erosion of
its workers and leaders? Are the
rats leaving a sinking ship? There is
no doubt that the party is losing its
organisational depth, moreso since
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
came to power. There is rebellion
brewing in various States. This week
saw the exit of two senior Congress
leaders — Ajit Jogi in Chhattisgarh
and Gurudas Kamat in Maharashtra.
While Jogi, a former Chhattisgarh
Chief Minister, has launched his own
outfit, Kamat wants to quit politics
altogether. To add to the confusion,
seven Congress MLAs have
also left the party in Tripura.
The erosion began before
the 2014 Lok Sabha poll when
leaders like Birender Singh,
GK Vasan, Jayanthi Natarajan,
KS Rao, R Sambasiva Rao,
Kiran Reddy, Jagan Reddy,
Jagadambika Pal and Satpal
Maharaj quit the Congress. NT
Rama Rao’s daughter ditched
the Congress for the BJP.
Others like Krishna Tirath,
Avtar Singh Bhadana and
Mangat ram Sharma also quit.
The leadership refused to
recognise the brewing storm,
fooling itself into believing
that everything was alright.
Jogi’s rebellion follows
revolts in Assam and Uttarakhand
where rebels left the Congress, blaming the leadership for not addressing their grievances. While rebel
Congress leader Himanta Biswa
Sarma played a crucial role for the
BJP’s win in Assam, former Chief
Minister Vijay Bahuguna almost
brought down the Rawat
Government in Uttarakhand.
Though Kamat’s decision to
retire from active politics came as a
bolt from the blue, he represents the
wounded sentiment of many loyalists. His exit will be a big blow for the
party ahead of the civic poll next year.
What should be worrying for the
Congress is that most of the leaders
have been Pradesh Congress
Committee presidents or general secretaries at one time or the other.
It is baffling that even now the
leadership has failed to grasp the
seriousness of the situation despite
rebels flexing their muscles in different parts of the country. First, the
grand old party must address the
leadership crisis. The party is confused about the role of Congress
vice president Rahul Gandhi. Will
Rahul Gandhi ever take over as the
heir of the party, and if so, when?
What will happen of Congress
president Sonia Gandhi then? A
organisational reshuffle is expected,
but there are apprehensions that
Rahul Gandhi might ease out the
old guard. In short, Rahul Gandhi
can’t inspire confidence.
Second, the Congress leadership
failed to see the brewing storm in
most Congress-ruled States like
Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur,
Meghalaya and Uttarakhand. Even
Karnataka is not quite stable. The
leadership had not detected the
undercurrent even as the rebels were
directly pointing fingers at them.
Third, the party is nearing a situation like it had faced in the 1990s.
thermal power plant in
Chhattisgarh at an enterprise
value of C4,000 crore.
Jaypee Group: Jaiprakash
Power Ventures sold two of its
hydro plants of 1391 MW capacities for C9,200 crore to JSW
Energy in September 2015.
Jaiprakash Power Ventures is now
left with three thermal power
plants and one hydro power plant,
which are also reeling under pressure led by fuel supply constraints
and weak demand.
Jaiprakash Associates has
agreed to sell its cement business,
except its Karnataka cement
assets, to UltraTech Cement, for
C15,900 crore. In FY16, the group
managed to pare down debt by
C25,100 crore. Jaiprakash
Associates sold the Jaypee Group
headquarters, commercial space
and 250 acres of land in its Noida
township project for C2,700 crore
to Axis Bank.
GMR: The group has sold 30
per cent stake in its energy arm
to Malaysian energy firm Tenaga
Nasional Berhad for C2,000 crore.
In March, the company sold 51
per cent stake in its 99km highway project in Karnataka to its
joint venture partners in C1,078
crore deal. Prior to this, GMR
sold 74 per cent stake in Jadcherla
Expressway to SBI Macquarie in
February 2013 and 74 per cent in
GMR Ulundurpet Expressways
to India Infrastructure Fund in
September 13. Both these stake
sales together fetched GMR
C428 crore.
The GMR group also
offloaded its stake in its foreign
ventures. It sold its 70 per cent
stake in Singapore-based Island
Power for C2,600 crore and two
coal blocks in its Canadian subsidiary for C201 crore in March
2013. The group also gave up its
40 per cent stake in Istanbul
international airport to Malaysian
Airports Holding Berhard for
C1,740 crore in April 2014.
Lanco Infratech: In August
2014, Lanco sold its Udupi power
plant to Adani Power for C6,000
crore. As part of the deal, Adani
took over the plant’s C4,000 crore
worth of debt and Lanco got
C2,000 crore in cash, which it used
for lowering its debt.
Suzlon Energy: In January
2015, Suzlon sold its German
subsidiary Senvion to private
equity company Centerbridge
Partners for C7,200 crore.
Bharti Airtel: In a deal worth
C1,925 crore, Airtel sold 2.91per
cent equity in Infratel through a
secondary market deal in February
2015. Then in October 2015,
Bharti sold about 8,300 mobile
towers in Africa for approximately C11,000 crore.
SREI Infrastructure Finance:
The company sold its entire 18 per
cent stake in telecom tower company, Viom Networks to
American Tower Corporation for
C2,931 crore.
Essar Group: In March 16,
Equinox Realty, the real estate arm
of Essar Group, sold its under-construction residential project,
Water’s Edge, in Bangalore to
developer SNN Builders for C300
crore. In February 2016, Essar
entered into a pact to sell its 1.25million-sq-ft commercial project,
Equinox Business Park, in
Mumbai to RMZ Corp for around
C2,400 crore.
6ORJDQVPXVWQ¶WFORXG
GHYHORSPHQWKRUL]RQ
:0;H0=8B70=:0A
Just before Sonia Gandhi decided to
take charge in 1998, several leaders
like KC Pant, Aslam Sher khan,
Dileep Singh Bhuria left the
Congress. Around the same time,
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee floated the Trinamool
Congress. Sonia Gandhi’s entry
arrested the erosion, and she not only
unified the party but also brought the
Congress-led UPA to power — not
once but twice, from 2004 to 2014.
However, after Modi’s entry, neither
she nor her son have been able to
provide confidence to the party.
Fourth, the high command has
not done much to nurture
second-rung leaders. For
months, Congress leaders
from Punjab, Rajashtan,
Madhya Pradesh, Kerala,
Haryana and Chhattisgarh
have been complaining
against the Pradesh
Congress Committee chiefs.
In Punjab, the leadership
was forced to choose Capt
Amarinder Singh as the
chief ministerial face for the
2017 poll. Even the induction of leaders like Kapil
Sibal, P Chidambaram and
Ambika Soni into the current Rajya Sabha nomination list shows that the old
guard is not out. Many
senior Congressmen are worried that
the party may sink further if corrective measures are not taken.
As a corrective measure, the
Congress must first put the right
man in the right place and restructure the organisation. Second, it must
change its style of functioning.
Third, it must enthuse the party
workers with prgorammes and
schemes at the ground level. Fourth,
it should end confusion by making
Rahul Gandhi the president. It must
not allow this existential crisis to continue. Living in the past is not the
answer, and working for the future
is the way to go forward.
<TaTb[^VT]TTaX]VfX[[]^cS^C^b^[eTcWTR^d]cah³b
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loudy vision can take
place due to a number
of reasons. It can take
place through faulty/dusty
lenses, it can happen through
cataract, through fog, bad
windows. And the list is long.
But perhaps the worst type of
clouding takes place through
empty/incomplete slogans.
They cloud the horizon.
However, there are some
all-time favorites. Popular
ones include ‘removal of
poverty’ or ‘protect secularism’. Mercifully, ever since the
NDA Government came to
power, these slogans have
been somewhat muted as
popular psyche is registering
new messages. Not that
poverty or secularism is no
more an issue, but its just that
people are realising about
new elements, while others
remain to be recognised.
There is a realisation
about climate change, but
there is not sufficient realisation that climate change
impacts wheat production
and the quality of wheat. As
it were, with a rise in temperature, food prices too go
high. As some people rise
above poverty level, the availability/price balance shifts.
Worse, there is an
increase in the population
level, below the poverty level,
(if not more) than the numbers that rise above poverty.
It is strange but true that
there is a thundering silence
among the political class —
across various segments —
on population control.
Be that as it may, it is
important to realise that slogans too have their life. A
good second line in the hierarchy of the over-used slogan
includes the word ‘inclusion’.
This confounds even more
than it confuses.
The truth is that the
process of financial inclusion
began in 1955 when the
Imperial Bank of India
became the State Bank of
India. The next landmark
was in 1969. This was followed in 1980. There was talk
of priority sector lending;
kisan credit cards and it still
continues.
Many
Governments claim originality in repeating the past.
However, the truth is that
in real world, some numbers
do change, but percentages do
not. New phraseology is not
necessarily a revolution.
Take the case of Pradhan
Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana
(PMJDY) which talks of
universal banking services.
There is nothing wrong with
it. Claims have been made
about containing leakages
through this instrumentality. There is truth in the
claim, but one has to stretch
a definition to see how it is
‘inclusion’, the way it should
be, if those covered by it
have not entered the main
economic stream.
The life of a common
man remains in a tizzy.
Opening accounts is helpful,
but it does not cause economic progress. Perhaps the
process is being confused
for objective.
The answer lies in
encouraging demand-oriented savings. The number of
accounts opened under
PMJDY is large. Several of
them have no significant
deposits. Credit and remittances need to be customised
to lifestyle patterns. Income
streams of an average Indian
cannot be just a matter of
E8=0HB78;60DC0<
finding employment. There is
merit in the talk of servicing,
through the business
correspondent model.
As of now, there is much
heat over how to deepen the
penetration of financial services into the rural areas. No
prizes for guessing — the
post office system remains
the favourite.
It is a well-known fact
that India accounts for 16 per
cent of the world’s population
and only four per cent of the
global water resources.
Whether it be the venerable
wise ones of the Planning
Commission or the NitiAyog,
both miss a point. Water
shortage effects production of
rice and higher food prices
absorb the rise of purchasing
power. Little is left for pushing industrial growth. The
Reserve Bank of India continues to talk of interest rates.
Obviously, multinationals are also looking for their
own kill, big four consultancy organisations remain the
favourite of the institutions of
the present Government, as
they were of the preceding
one. Financial multinationals
including banks have their
own take. They will come
nowhere near the PMJDY. It
falls in the lot of the public
sector banks to keep pushing
for financial inclusion while
the cream of their assets
stand hugely monopolised
by the socially savvy and
politically influential.
Some names of the leading luminaries are too wellknown to be repeated.
Putting it simply, a desi model
is needed to solve the desi
problem. The present
Government cannot afford to
lose the opportunity.
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=4F34;78)Air India's “books
are so bad” that nobody will
buy it even if the Government
wanted to sell off the national
carrier, Civil Aviation Minister
Ashok Gajapathi Raju said on
Thursday.
Ruling out disinvestment
in the carrier that has a debt of
some C50,000 crore, Raju at the
same time made it plain that
the taxpayers' money cannot be
committed “for eternity”.
“Its (Air India) books are
so bad. I don't think that even
if it is offered, anybody would
come for it,” he said.
Grappling with mounting
debts and tough business conditions, Air India has been in
the red since the merger of then
Air India and Indian Airlines
in 2007 and is staying afloat on
a C30,000-crore bailout package
extended by the erstwhile UPA
regime.
Asserting that unlike others, he would not like to get into
“Air India bashing”, the
Minister also said that the carrier needs to function in a more
cohesive manner to deliver on
its turnaround goals.
“It is a nice airline. I like Air
India but I can't commit taxpayers' money for eternity.
That is not done,” Raju told the
news agency in an interview.
Buoyed by improving
financial situation and high
growth potential of the domestic aviation market, Air India is
putting in plans to expand its
fleet by another 100 aircraft in
the next four years.
“My feeling is that the
cohesiveness of the team has to
increase and where they have
worked as a team, they have
delivered, and where they have
not worked as a team, they have
pulled in different sides.
Nobody can put the clock
back. The quicker they realise
it the better,” he noted.
While there has been no
official announcement so far,
the airline has managed to eke
out an operational profit of
around C6-8 crore in the previous financial year. “The fact
that they have not made an
operating loss speaks volumes,”
Raju said.
8`gecf]Vd`feTRaaZ_X`WRZcWRcVd
=4F34;78)Capping of airfares in the back-
drop of passenger complaints of arbitrary
tariff hikes was today ruled out by the government which said that competition
among the airlines will take care of the
problem.
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok
Gajapathi Raju said restricting the airfares
will not make good business sense as it
could also jeopardise the Government's
regional connectivity plan as such a move
may discourage airlines to fly on non-profitable routes.
He, however, said a slew of passengercentric measures including “time-bound”
grievance redressal mechanism would be
unveiled very soon, emphasising that
India's civil aviation market was the fastest
growing in domestic passenger travel
demand.
It is expected that the Government was
going to announce steps to rationalise the
ticket cancellation charges and they are
likely to be capped around the base fare,
as against current exorbitant fees, as part
of passenger-friendly initiatives.
The Minister said at least 32 airports
built by Airport Authority of India at a cost
of at least C3,000 crore over the years were
lying “unconnected” and putting any
restriction on market-driven fares may
jeopardize government's plan to start
flight services to those airports.
Holding that putting a cap on airfares
may have an adverse impact on growth of
aviation sector, Raju said his Ministry keeps
a “continuous tab” on price movements to
ensure that the rates are under check.
His comments come at a time when
the government is discussing ways to
address issues related to steep fluctuations
in airfares, especially during peak seasons
and natural calamities. Minister of State for
Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma last month
had announced that capping of fares will
be announced soon.
“These (capping airfares) are complicated problems. They don't have simplistic solutions.... Competition has by and
large taken care of the (ticket) rates,” Raju
HVViaVTee`dVVd`^V
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=4F34;78)Challenges in retail,
energy and insurance sectors
could results in “quarterly
bumps” for India's secondlargest software services firm
Infosys, its chief operating officer has said. Speaking at the Citi
India Investor Conference,
Infosys COO UB Pravin Rao
said the company would face
volatility over the next few
quarters, due to weaker spending from these sectors.
However, the Bengalurubased company was still on
track to meet its full-year constant currency revenue guidance of 11.5-13.5 per cent.
“We still remain confident
of (our guidance of) 11.5-13.5
per cent. But at the same time,
given the volatile nature of our
business, given the propensity
of our clients to react immediately to some of the volatility, we
will expect some short-term or
quarterly bumps and ups and
downs, but for the year, we
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remain confident,” he said.
He added the guidance was
based on factors like large deal
wins, growth in top 10 accounts
and good momentum in the
fourth quarter that has usually
been challenging for Infosys in
the previous years.
“In the last couple of weeks,
we have seen results from retail
&DLUQQRQH[HFXWLYHGLUHFWRUV
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=4F34;78)Vedanta Group's Cairn
India will pay one per cent of net
profit as commission to its nonexecutive directors, including mining baron Anil Agarwal's daughter
Priya and brother Navin, over and
above their sitting fees.
The Board of Cairn India,
which operates the nation's biggest
onland oilfield in Rajasthan, comprises eight directors, seven of
whom are non-executive. Of these,
four are independent directors.
The company has moved a
special resolution for approval by
its shareholders at its annual general meeting on July 21 for payment
of “a sum not exceeding 1 per cent
(or such other percentage, as may
be permissible under law) of the net
profits of the company per annum”
as commission to non-executive
directors.
The Companies Act of 2013
provides for a company paying
remuneration to its non-executive
directors by way of commission if
it is approved by the company at the
general meeting.
Cairn's shareholders at the
AGM held on August 18, 2011, had
approved the remuneration payable
to non-executive directors by way
of commission not exceeding 1 per
cent of net profits for 5 years commencing from April 1, 2011. ?C8
in both the US and Europe have
not been good — it's been
probably the poorest that we've
seen in recent times. At this
stage we don't know how retailers will react. At the beginning
of the year... We were optimistic
— now we're a little bit watchful on the retail space,” Rao said.
He added the company
continues to see challenges in
the short-term in the insurance
space.
“We have a good pipeline in
financial services. Last year,
barring insurance, financial services grew about 15 per cent and
we expect that momentum to
continue... Manufacturing we
continue to see good traction...
Energy continues to be a challenge, we don't expect recovery
to have much impact on the
spends,” he said.Rao said a surprise has come from the healthcare vertical.
“We are slowly starting
seeing some headwinds
because there is suddenly a
great deal of pressure on cutting costs primarily because of
patent expir y and deal
pipeline and in addition, we
are seeing some M&A action
which is leading to deferment. (This is) probably
something we didn't anticipate
in the starting,” he said. ?C8
told the news agency in an interview.
“Floors and caps go together. If you just
say I will only cap (air ticket prices) then
you won't have any airline. Anyone doing
business doesn't want to make loss,” he
said.
India's domestic aviation market has
clocked a growth rate of 22 per cent in the
last one year, the highest for any country.
Raju said his Ministry has taken up the
issue of high tax levied on jet fuel by most
of the state governments with the chief
ministers concerned.
“Prices of ATF is higher than in most
countries due to high tax,” he said making a case that lower levy on ATF can help
in harnessing the passenger growth potential.
“We need to bring down taxation. It
is no longer a sector that is serving the rich.
There was a psychology that it is for rich
and so it should be taxed high. From that
psychology activities have moved. Now
you are in line with the world and would
like to serve the common man,” he said.?C8
AfchRcSRT\Rd
>E?=4>5hZeY
RUUZeZ`_R]TYRcXV
=4F 34;78) PK Purwar has
been given back the additional
charge of Chairman and
Managing Director of MTNL
after Narendra Kumar Yadav
reliquished the top post on
completion of his tenure.
Purwar, the Director
(Finance) of MTNL, had earlier held the additional charge
between June 2014 and June
2015.
“Narendra Kumar Yadav
has relinquished the charge of
CMD of the company w.E.F.
June 8, 2016. P K Purwar,
Director (Finance), MTNL,
has been entrusted with the
additional charge of the post
of CMD,” MTNL said in a filing to the BSE.
Yadav, a Member
(Services) Department of
Telecom, had been given the
additional charge of CMD on
June 8, 2015.
The telecom PSU has
been without a full-time
CMD since May 30, 2014
when A K Garg retired from
the post. Purwar was given
additional charge after Garg's
retirement.
?C8
Confident that the national airline has the capability of
flying high, the Minister said it
is working in that direction and
in a veiled reference to criticisms, emphasised that he does
not like the idea of Air India
“bashing”.
As per latest DGCA data,
Air India ferried a total of 11.98
lakh passengers on its domestic
network in April, cornering a
market share of 15.1 per cent
during this period. “Let's wish
and hope that it (Air India) flies
high. I am not against the public sector and I am not for only
public sector at all costs. Public
sector has a role and private sector has a role. Let them work in
competition,” Raju said.
Civil Aviation Secretary RN
Choubey said, “Air India plans
to expand its fleet from 130 aircraft to 230 aircraft in the next
four years.... The airline now
expects to see net profit in
2018-19 financial year, two
years ahead of the timeline
fixed in the turnaround plan.”
The carrier is surviving on
a C30,000-crore bailout package,
spread across ten years,
announced by the UPA
Government in 2012 and the
funds are being provided subject to the airline achieving
certain operational parameters.
So far, more than C22,000 crore
has been provided under the
turnaround plan.
This equity infusion
includes the financial support
towards repayment of principal
as well as interest on government-guaranteed loans taken
for aircraft acquisition and the
annual interest outgo against
these loans itself stands at a
whopping C4,000 crore.
Government has allocated
C1,713 crore to the airline as part
of this bailout package for the
current fiscal against the carrier's request for C3,901.49 crore.
Apart from an estimated
operational profit of C6-8
crore, the Government-run
carrier's total loss is projected
to have gone down by almost
60 per cent to C2,636 crore in
the fiscal ended March 2016.
In 2014-15, it had a loss of
C5,859.91 crore.
?C8
2PabP[TbSTR[X]T\PaVX]P[[hX]<Ph
?=BQ =4F34;78
assenger car sales in India
declined marginally in May
P
even as some of the demand
shifted from sedans to the
newly launched utility vehicles
(UVs).
As per the data released by
the Society of Indian
Automobile Manufacturers
(SIAM) today, domestic passenger car sales stood at
1,58,996 units in May as
against 1,60,371 units in the
same month last year.
“Car sales were slightly
negative last month as some of
the sedan sales are getting
transfered to the utility vehicle
segment which saw launches of
various new compact SUVs,”
SIAM Director General Vishnu
Mathur told reporters here.
Moreover, the continued
slowdown in rural market have
impacted small car sales.
Passenger car segment has
also been impacted by shift
from diesel to petrol cars, he
added.
During last month, total
passenger vehicle sales rose by
6.26 per cent to 2,31,640 units
as against 2,17,984 units in the
year ago period.
“The utility vehicles led by
Hyundai Creta and other models like Maruti Vitara Brezza
and Mahindra TUV300 and
KUV100 have fuelled the
growth in the overall passenger vehicle segment,” Mathur
said.
Utility vehicles grew by
35.88 per cent to 58,793 units
in May as against 43,269 units
in the same month of the previous year.
During May, Maruti
Suzuki's domestic car sales
were up 2.59 per cent at 87,402
units as against 85,190 units in
the same month last year.
Rival Hyundai Motor saw
a decline of 8.21 per cent at
34,262 units as against 37,328
units.
Honda Cars India's sales
also declined 38.89 per cent to
7,415 units as against 12,134
last year. Tata Motors' car sales
were at 7,787 units in May this
year compared with 9,176 units
in the year-ago month, down
15.13 per cent. Renault India's
car sales zoomed to 5,849 units
during the month as against
just 224 units last year.
Maruti Suzuki's passenger
vehicle sales in May were up
10.55 per cent at 1,13,162 units,
while that of rival Hyundai
Motor India were up by 10.42
per cent to 41,351 units.
Homegrown utility vehicles major Mahindra &
Mahindra's passenger vehicles
sales were up 8.27 per cent at
19,635 units while Honda Cars
India saw a decline of 25.89 per
cent decline in passenger vehicles sales during the month at
9,954 units.
Tata Motors saw 26.74 per
cent dip in sales of passenger
vehicles at 9,456 units. Renault
India saw a massive 131.69 per
cent jump in passenger vehicle
sales at 8,343 units.
Total two-wheeler sales in
May rose 9.75 per cent
to15,15,556 units.
Motorcycle sales rose 3.34
per cent to 9,85,158 units from
9,53,311 units a year earlier.
“Growth continues to be
impacted by slowdown in the
rural sales. From a growth of
16.24 per cent in April, it has
come down to 3.34 per cent in
May,” Mathur said.
,QYHVWPHQWQRUPVIRU1,,)PD\EHWZHDNHG'DV
<D<108)Government is looking to tweak the investment
norms for NIIF (National
Investment and Infrastructure
Fund) to allow investors to coinvest in this sovereign wealth
fund as also in the individual
projects.
The norms would be
tweaked within the broad
framework of the investment to
take into account suggestions
from the domestic and overseas
investors, Economic Affairs
Secretary Shaktikanta Das said
on Thursday.
Das also expressed hope
that the retail inflation would
remain at 5 per cent this fiscal,
in line with the RBI's projection, and help India develop
into a low-cost economy in
terms of lower interest rates,
transaction costs and logistics
costs.
Speaking to reporters at an
event here, Das further said
India's economy is likely to
grow at 8 per cent this year on
account of good monsoon,
passage of the GST Bill in
Parliament and a slew of
reforms being undertaken by
the government.
“With a good monsoon
which we expect this year,
with the passage of GST, which
also the government is very
confident that it will happen in
the monsoon session of the
Parliament and the cumulative
result of all reform measures
being taken, this year we are
looking at 8 per cent growth,”
Das said.
In the fiscal year ended
March 31, 2016, the country's
GDP grew at 7.6 per cent. In
the fourth quarter of last fiscal,
the economy grew at 7.9 per
cent.
Das said the growth in
manufacturing, services and
agriculture sectors during the
last fiscal suggest that there has
been an improvement in all
these segments and will con-
tribute to the overall growth in
2016-17 fiscal.
He said a good monsoon
will add to a good agriculture
and will also create a lot of rural
demand.
The Secretary said reform
processes and the policy initiatives, that have been taken in
the last few months, will continue.
“We will see greater action
with regards to various policy
initiatives and with regard to
reform measures going ahead,”
he said.
On NIIF, Das said: “Earlier
we were considering NIIF to be
the mother fund under which
there would be several subfunds. Now after interaction
with investors from within and
abroad we realised that there is
equal amount of interest, perhaps greater interest to coinvest in individual projects.”
A panel headed by Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley reviewed
the progress of NIIF yesterday.
While co-investment in individual projects is important,it
is also important that the
investors come into the mother fund because there government equity will be only 49 per
cent, Das said.
“Therefore, we are now in
discussion with various
investors and they will co invest
in individual infrastructure
projects and also invest in the
mother fund,” the Secretary
said.
He said the Government is
also in talks with many domestic investors as well as multilateral institutions to invest in
NIIF.
“Some of the multilateral
institution have shown interest
to invest in NIIF and we are in
discussion,” he added.
He said a few projects have
been received for investment
under NIIF and the
Government has shared the list
with potential investors. ?C8
=]`jUdVjVd)"!
R__fR]Xc`heYZ_
:_UZRSfdZ_Vdd
<D<108)UK-based reinsurer
Lloyd's of London is looking
at 8-10 per cent annual
growth in its India business,
a senior executive said on
Thursday.
At present, the Lloyd's
annual premium income from
within the country stands at
$200 million (around C1,334
crore).
Lloyd's currently underwrites business in the country
on an off-shore basis. It has
applied for licence before the
insurance regulator Irdai and
the company is likely to kick
off its operations in the country by early next year.
?C8
\^]Th
270=3860A7k5A830H k9D=4 ! %
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?C8Q <D<108
enders’ hopes of recovering
L
money from assets qualified
as ‘bad’ recently will come true
in the latter half of the next fiscal, once changes in redressal
mechanisms are introduced,
BofA-ML on Thursday said.
The American brokerage
said the banks will keep recognising more stress for up to a year
more, but once all the necessary
changes including the stressed
asset fund become a reality, the
recovery process should start.
“We think October 2017March 2018 could end up surprising us by way of stronger
recoveries, especially if get some
uptick in the macroeconomy,” it
said in a note.
Lenders who have posted
huge reverses in profitability
due to an RBI-mandated
increase in stress asset recognition, have been saying that they
will work on accounts individu-
CWT=?0bPaTPcXcb_TPZP]ScWTU^Rdb
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bcPacTSfXcWcWTA18´bPbbTc`dP[Xch
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ally and try to reverse the provisions made for bad assets. The
deeper recognition has led to
many banks posting record losses due to the high provisions for
bad assets.
In the note, BofAML said
the NPAs are at its peak and the
focus is shifting to recovery of
bad assets after the clean-up
exercise, which started with the
RBI's asset quality review in late
2015. The RBI had given banks
a list of 130 accounts, asked them
to classify those as non performing and take the hit in the
quarters ended December 2015
and March 2016.
The RBI is targeting to clean
up the bank balance sheets by
March 2017. The brokerage said
interventions like ensuring that
the project gets right capital, a
deeper restructuring under the
strategic debt restructuring route
and also the stressed asset fund
which is talked about the most
will help in the recovery process.
µ1RVHUYLFHWD[RQSXUFKDVHRIXQGHUFRQVWUXFWLRQIODWV¶
?C8Q =4F34;78
elhi High Court has ruled that no service
tax can be levied in respect of the agreeD
ments entered into between buyers and builders
for flats in an under-construction building in a
housing project. A bench of Justices S Muralidhar
and Vibhu Bakhru however noted that service
tax could be levied on amount charged by the
builders for preferential location of the flat, saying it was based on the preferences of customers
and amounted to value addition.
The order came on petitions filed by several persons who had entered into separate agreements with
M/s Sethi Buildwell Pvt Ltd to buy flats in a multistoreyed group housing project developed by the
builder in sector 76 in Noida in Uttar Pradesh. The
petitioners had moved the court against the levy of
service tax on services in relation to construction
of the complex as defined under the Finance Act
1994 as well as the levy of service tax on preferential location charges. The bench said the Government
shall examine whether the builder in this case has
collected any service tax from the petitioners andif
such amount has been deposited with it, the money
shall be refunded to them with 6 per cent interest.
“We accept the petitioners contention that no
service tax under section 66 of the Act read with
section 65 (105)(zzzh) of the Act could be
charged in respect of composite contracts, such
as the ones entered into by the petitioners with
the builder,” the bench said. “The impugned explanation (inserted by virtue of Finance Act 2010)
to the extent that it seeks to include composite contracts for purchaseof units in a complex within the
scope of taxable service, is set aside,” it said.
jca^l
“While these measures are at
an early stage, we think they may
significantly aid the process of
stress resolution currently underway amongst banks,” it said,
adding that they will act as an
‘extra fillip’ to recoveries.
Once they get done with
recognising the stress, the banks
will also get more aggressive in
stress resolution and will force
the borrowers to cooperate, it
said. It added that measures like
the recently passed Bankruptcy
Code will also help in stress resolution.
The brokerage said private
sector banks and country's
largest lender State Bank of
India will be the biggest beneficiaries of this exercise, adding
that except SBI all the state-run
banks do not have comfortable
capital levels. Nearly 11 per
cent of the overall assets in the
system are classified either
NPA or restructured, following the AQR exercise.
BPWPaP_a^_TacXTb
c^QTPdRcX^]TSPc
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?C8Q =4F34;78
aking forward its task of
recovering dues from Sahara,
T
markets regulator Sebi will sell a
total of 16 land parcels of the
beleaguered group, through eauction next month, at a reserve
price of about C1,900 crore.
The auction would be conducted by SBI Capital Markets
and HDFC Realty, which have
been tasked to auction a total
of 61 land parcels, on July 13
and July 15 respectively.
Besides, the two are already
scheduled to e-auction five
properties each on July 7 and
July 4 respectively at a reserve
price of nearly C1,200 crore.
At the reserve price, these
auctions will take the total
fund raising to at least C3,100
crore. The Securities and
Exchange Board of India (Sebi)
roped in HDFC Realty and SBI
Cap after being asked by the
Supreme Court to initiate the
process of selling Sahara properties whose titles have been
deposited with it by the group.
'R7VD\VDOOH[LVWLQJ 2LOSULFHVKLW
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SKRQHVWRKDYHSDQLF RQ86GDWD
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?C8Q =4F34;78
obile manufacturers have
M
been asked to install a
software in all existing phones
to provide for a panic button
like ‘feature’ at the press of one
single number to help users in
case of emergency. The latest
direction from the DoT follows
an earlier order requiring handset makers to install panic button in all new phones to be sold
January 1, 2017 onwards.
For existing phones, the
handset makers will also have
to arrange for installation of
new software patch at retail
outlets, DoT said in a recent
order without specifying any
timeline for the compliance.
The software patch will
provide facility similar to panic
button which at the press of '9'
or '5' will generate a call to single emergency telephone number '112', the order said The 112
number facility will be active
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BTRc^a A^WX]X3T[WXCWTRT]caTfPbY^X]c[hX]PdVdaPcTSQhEXRT2WPXa\P]3T_dch<332<BWaXaP\
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X]SXRPcX]VX]RaTPbX]VPfPaT]TbbP]SR^\\Xc\T]cc^fPaSbT]eXa^]\T]c<3=PaT]SaP:ETa\PcWa^dVWWXb\TbbPVTc^T\_[^hTTb
PbZTScWTXaX]SXeXSdP[R^\\Xc\T]c]^c^][hc^RWP]VTcWT\bT[eTbQdcP[b^c^T]R^daPVT^cWTa_T^_[Tc^RWP]VTcWTXaWPQXcbP]S
QTWPeX^da>da4?PRcXeXcXTbbW^d[SQTSP\PVT]TdcaP[c^fX[S[XUTP]S_a^\^cTQX^SXeTabXchcWa^dVWbdbcPX]TSTUU^acbWTbPXS
CWTUXabcR^aTVa^d_\TTcX]V^U?Tca^cTRW! %QTX]VW^bcTSQh8]SXP]>X[d]STacWTPTVXb^U<^?=6P]S?Tca^cTRW
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E??;;*=PaT]SaP:d\Pa432?P]SAPYTbW0WdYP2^]eT]^a?Tca^cTRW
NEW YORK: Oil prices climbed
to fresh peaks for 2016 for the
third day in a row on Thursday
due to supply disruptions in
Nigeria and data showing lower
US petroleum inventories. The
Niger Delta Avengers, a rebel
group that has attacked numerous oil facilities in Nigeria, rejected a truce offer with officials and
claimed they hit a new target.
The disruptions have slashed
output in OPEC member Nigeria
from 2.2 million barrels a day to
1.6 million barrels a day. US
benchmark West Texas
Intermediate for July delivery
advanced 87 cents to $ 51.23 a
barrel on the New York
Mercantile Exchange.
Brent North Sea oil for
August delivery gained $1.07 to
$52.51 a barrel in London. US
inventory data confirmed a tightening market picture, with US
commercial stocks dropping by
3.2 million barrels for the week
ending June 3, according to the
Department of Energy. AFP
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?=BQ =4F34;78
tate-run Food Corporation of
India (FCI) has entered into an
Sagreement
with Adani group for
construction of two silos to store
wheat, at an estimated cost of
about C80 crore. The two silos
would have a combined storage
capacity of 75,000 tonnes. As part
of the agreement, Adani Agri
Logistics will construct silos at
Kotkapura in Punjab and Katihar
in Bihar in the next two years, a
senior Government official said.
The silos will be designed,
built, financed and operated by
the private partner while it will be
owned by the FCI. FCI, the
Government’s nodal agency for
procurement and distribution of
foodgrains, would provide guarantee of rentals for 30 years, the
official added.
The silo at Kotkapura would
be of 25,000 tonne capacity and
will require an investment of
about C35 crore, while the other
silo at Katihar would have a
capacity of 50,000 tonnes to be
built at a cost of about C45 crore,
a source said.
A silo is a steel structure,
comprising large size cylindrical
shape bins normally each with a
capacity of about 12,500 tonnes,
where grains can be stored without jute bags for longer duration.
FCI will provide the rent assurance for 30 years. For the first year
the rate is fixed at C97 per tonne
per month.
The rates will keep on revising based on the predecided formula, the source added. At present the total storage capacity
under silos is about 10 lakh
tonnes. Out of which 5.5 lakh
tonnes is with FCI and remaining is with state-agencies.
APYhPePaSWP]
MIRJAPUR (UP): RBI Governor
Raghuram Rajan on Thursday
came in for praise from Union
Minister Rajyavardhan Singh
Rathore, who said Rajan is doing a
‘good job’ and has controlled inflation. “Raghuram Rajan is doing a
good job. The way in which he had
controlled inflation keeping in mind
the world economy is appreciable,”
Rathore told reporters here. He also
hailed Rajan’s decision not to cut repo
rate saying ‘it’s a good decision’.
Rajan’s remarks come
against the backdrop of BJP MP
Subramanian Swamy’s two letters to Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, urging that Rajan should
not be given a second term
because of his ‘willful’ moves to
‘wreck the Indian economy’
and because he is ‘mentally not
fully Indian’.
PTI
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d]STacWT2dbc^\TaUd]SX]V\^ST[^U<X]Xbcah^UAPX[fPhb?^[XRh^U_PacXRX_PcXeT\^ST[U^aaPX[R^]]TRcXeXch=C?2
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^]QTWP[U^U=C?2:dSVXX]cWT_aTbT]RT^U6<BFA?:BPgT]PBT]X^a^UUXRXP[b^U=C?2P]SBFAfTaT_aTbT]c
from January 1. It will gradually replace all existing emergency numbers like 100 for
police, 102 for ambulance, 108
for fire service, railway crime
prevention number 1512,
police headquarter helpline –
1090 (Uttar Pradesh) etc.
“It is requested to install the
software patch (es) in existingmobile phone handsets in the
country for implementation of
feature/facilities of panic button,” the DoT order said.
“Further facility for
uploading the developed patch
may be created at outlets by
the manufacturers/ distributors/ retailers of mobile handset,” the order said.
The Government in April
mandated that all mobile
phones in the country from
January 1, 2017 will be sold
with panic button feature. As
per the order, pressing panic
button will make a call to single emergency number 112.
NEW DELHI: Chennai-based
TVS Motor on Thursday
launched a special edition of its
scooter model Jupiter priced at
C53,034 (ex-showroom Delhi)
to mark crossing of 1 million
units sales milestone.
The new product TVS Jupiter
MillionR special edition is
equipped with 10 additional
features, including a front disc
brake and a provision for
mobile charger installation, the
company said in a statement.
“Today, there are over one
million TVS Jupiters on the
Indian roads and this milestone has been achieved in a
mere 30 months,” it said. TVS
Motor
Co
Vice
President–Marketing
Aniruddha Haldar said the
Jupiter reached the 1 million
milestone in “such a short
time” and the Jupiter MillionR
edition, with 10 new features,
is “a tribute to each of our 10
lakh happy customers.” PTI
NEW DELHI: The
BSE Sensex came off
seven-month highs ton
Thursday after logging
its biggest single-day
fall in three weeks, mirroring global caution
ahead of the US Fed
meet and hit by an IT
sell-off after Infosys
flagged volatility issues
for the next few quarters. The index plunged
257.20 points or 0.95
per cent to crack below
the 27,000-mark.
There were also
concerns that the recent
gains in crude oil prices
could adversely impact
India's fiscal deficit situation and increase fuel
price inflation.
“The
market
tanked as weak
European cues and
surge in oil price have
turned investors risk
averse,” said Vinod Nair
Head of Research
Geojit BNP Paribas
Financial Services.
India’s secondlargest software services firm Infosys was
the worst performer
with a plunge of 4.27
per cent at C1,185.45
after the company said
challenges in retail,
energy and insurance
sectors could result in
‘quarterly bumps’. TCS
followed suit and
slumped 1.27 per cent
to C2,577.50.
NEW YORK: A 30-year-old
Indian entrepreneur has been
named by Time magazine to
its 2016 list of ‘10 millennials who are changing the
world’ for building a phone
which can help people to
interact and access critical
services by communicating in
their native languages.
Umesh Sachdev has been
named by Time to its 2016 list
of ‘10 millennials who are
changing the world’ for his
work on ‘building a phone
that can understand almost
any language’. Sachdev, along
with his college friend Ravi
Saraogi, founded Uniphore
Software Systems.
The Chennai-based startup produces software allows
people to interact with their
phones and access services
such as online banking by
communicating in their native
languages, Time said in its profile on Sachdev. Uniphore’s
products, which include a virtual assistant that is able to
process more than 25 global
languages and 150 dialects, are
being used by over five million
people, mostly in India.
“Phones can help increase
financial inclusion or help a
farmer get weather information,” Sachdev said in the Time
profile. “But you need a way for
people to interact with the
technology out there,” he said.
Time said through the
software, Sachdev is building
bridges and helping ‘hundreds
of millions of people cross the
divide between the digital and
the real world by harnessing
the power of speech’. It said
Sachdev found solution to a
problem that phones didn’t
carry the language of villagers in rural India. AFP
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rime Minister Narendra
Modi during his over fourhour visit to the US Capitol
established personal rapport
with top lawmakers and seems
to have won over his critics.
“With your sense of
humour and the way you delivered that speech, I think really identifies why we have such
close ties,” Senator Bob Corker,
Chairman of the powerful
Senate Foreign Relations committee said as he welcomed
Modi during a congressional
reception hosted in his honour.
“The fact is that our political, strategic and economic ties
is better than they have ever
been. We know that these are
going to be even greater. While
our ties are with the people of
India, we know that with you
as their leader the possibilities
are an all-time high,”
Corker said.
Less than a month ago,
Corker during a Congressional
hearing was highly critical over
the pace of economic reforms,
human rights situation and
religious freedom, and slamming Obama Administration
of not being “brutally honest”
in its conversation with his
Government.
Senator Ben Cardin,
Ranking Member of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee,
who for the past two weeks
have been raising the issue of
human rights and slavery in
India, said that Modi on
Wednesday “gained a lot of
friends” in the Congress.
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thiopia has said that its
soldiers deployed in
Somalia killed 101 Shabaab
fighters who on Thursday
attacked an Army base used by
the African Union force fighting the al-Qaeda linked group.
The Shabaab movement
earlier announced a major
assault on the base in Halgan
in the central Hiran region of
the arid Horn of Africa nation,
via its Telegram messaging
platform.
Ethiopian Government
spokesman Getachew Reda
dismissed a claim by the
Shabaab that they had killed
dozens of soldiers, while losing
just 16 of their own fighters.
“There was an attempt by
al-Shabaab to attack our forces
in central Somalia but... Our
forces killed 101 militants and
destroyed heavy weaponry,”
Getachew said.
“We are still assessing how
many people got hurt on our
side but their claim that they
have killed 43 Ethiopian soldiers is an absolute lie. This is
a figment of their imagination,”
he added.
“The Mujahideen fighters
stormed the base and massacred many of the Ethiopians,”
the Shabaab claimed on
Telegram, putting the death toll
among the troops at 60.
Casualty figures from this
type of attack are impossible to
verify independently. The
Shabaab generally exaggerates,
while the African Union
Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) usually gives no details
of losses among its ranks.
On its Twitter account,
AMISOM - comprising troops
from Burundi, Djibouti,
Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda confirmed “an attempted
Shabaab attack” but gave
no figures.
“The enemy was successfully repulsed,” AMISOM said,
claiming also to be “in pursuit”
of the attackers.
Referring to Modi’s call
for India and the US working
together for the benefit of the
world, Cardin said this was a
very powerful message.
“His presence, the amount of
time he spent and his own personality is very helpful in getting friends here in America,”
he told PTI.
Modi on Wednesday spent
more than four hours at the
Hill. The Speaker of the US
House of Representative Paul
Ryan and several top
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ver 150 members of a
splinter Maoists group
O
were arrested on Thursday in
Nepal after they vandalised
vehicles and hurled patrol
bombs while trying to enforce
a strike to press for the release
of their cadres arrested during
previous protests, paralysing
normal life.
The CPN-Maoist faction
led by Netra Bikram Chand
enforced the strike.
The protesters vandalised
nine public buses and taxis in
different parts of the capital for
defying their call for the strike.
A truck driver was injured
when Maoist cadres hurled a
petrol bomb on moving vehicle in Rautahat district.
There was very thin movement of public and private
transport services. Schools and
colleges were closed due to the
strike.
However,
markets
remained open in most of the
places in the capital despite the
strike.
The police arrested 62 protesters from Kathmandu,
Bhaktapur and Lalitpur,
according to the Kathmandu
Metropolitan Police Circle.
Nearly 90 agitators were
arrested from Sarlahi, Kaski,
Kalikot, Sunsari, Banke and
Chitawan districts as they were
trying to enforce the shut
down. A large number of security personnel have been
deployed on the streets of the
capital to prevent any untoward
incident.
CPN-Maoist, which is a
splinter group of the main
Maoist party, that is part of the
Government.
Washington: The two years of
Modi Government have
resulted in deterioration in
human rights and religious
freedom in India, according
to rights activists, who called
for making the issue as part of
the US’ regular dialogue
with India.
“Progress on human rights
in India will continue to falter
unless the Modi administration
takes better steps to ensure justice and accountability for all
citizens, protect vulnerable
communities, and protect the
free exchange of ideas and dissent,” said John Sifton, Asia
Advocacy Director, Human
Rights Watch.
PTI
Congressional
leaders
received him.
He received standing ovations as many as nine times according to unofficial count and was applauded by scores of
times by the members of the
Congress.
“He (Modi) spoke eloquently about the importance
of a strong US-India relationship to promoting peace and
freedom around the globe,”
Ryan said in a statement.
“We understand that India
is in a tough neighbourhood,
but we also understand that
with your words here today,
that you have, with that symphony that you spoke of, set a
new note,” said Congressman
Ed Royce, Chairman of the
House Foreign Affairs
Committee. “The IndianAmerican community has
brought such incredible energy to this relationship. It’s the
secret weapon for both countries, driving stronger
engagement and helping keep
things on track during challenging times.
Washington: Two top US lawmakers have introduced a legislation in the House of
Representatives to designate
India as a Special Global Partner
of America and take steps to
ramp up engagement and deepen bilateral collaboration on a
host of issues including Defence.
Introduced
by
Congressman Eliot Engel,
Ranking Member of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, and
Vice Chair of the House
Democratic Caucus Joe
Crowley, the “Special Global
Partnership with India Act
2016” aims to enhance ties
between India and the US by elevating bilateral relationship.
The Special Global
Partnership with India Act of
2016 calls for Congress to elevate
the US-India relationship by
designating India as a Special
Global Partner of the US, lead-
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srael on Thursday suspended entry permits for 83,000
Palestinians granted during
Ramzan following a major terror attack at an upscale market
in Tel Aviv, the deadliest in the
recent spate of violence that
killed four Israelis and injured
16 others.
The decision to suspend
the entry permits, most of
them for Palestinians to visit
their family in Israel, was taken
overnight during a meeting of
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, Defence Minister
Avigdor Lieberman and Israel
Defence Forces (IDF) Chief of
Staff Lt Gen Gadi Eisenkot
soon after the attack.
Permits for Gaza residents
to pray at the Temple Mount in
Jerusalem, described by
Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif
(the Noble Sanctuary) that
houses the al-Aqsa mosque,
have also been suspended.
Netanyahu, who visited
the scene of the terror attack
late last night, called the attack
“a savage crime of murder and
terrorism” and convened a
meeting of the security-diplomatic cabinet at the defence
headquarters to discuss possible further steps in response to
the terror attack.
“There was a very difficult
event here, of cold-blooded
murder by heinous terrorists,”
the Israeli Prime Minister said
adding, “We held a discussion
on a string of offensive and
defensive measures that we
will take to act against this phenomenon, the grave phenom-
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Washington: Barack Obama
expressed hope that Bernie
Sanders in “the next couple of
weeks” will finally concede
having lost the Democratic
presidential nomination to
Hillary Clinton, despite having
vowed to fight on through the
party’s convention next month.
Speaking to late night talk
show host Jimmy Fallon,
Obama said that on balance,
Sanders’s candidacy in the
hardfought Democratic campaign was a positive.
“It was a healthy thing for
the Democratic Party to have
a contested primary,” Obama
told Fallon during recording of
an episode of The Tonight
Show.
“I thought that Bernie
Sanders brought enormous
energy and new ideas. And he
pushed the party and challenged them. I thought it made
Hillary a better candidate.”
He added: “My hope is, is
that over the next couple of
weeks, we’re able to pull things
together.”
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London: A new restaurant
offering customers the promise
of a ‘completely natural’ dining
experience is all set to open as
‘The Buniyadi’.
Based on the Hindi word
meaning fundamental, the
restaurant will operate on a
clothing-optional basis.
“We believe people should
get the chance to enjoy and
experience a night out without
any impurities: no chemicals,
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no artificial colours, no electricity, no gas, no phone and
even no clothes if they wish to.
The idea is to experience true
liberation,” said Seb Lyall,
founder of Lollipop, the company behind the restaurant.
“We have worked hard to
design a space where everything patrons interact with is
bare and naked. The use of natural bamboo partitions and candlelight has enabled to us to
make restaurant discreet,” he
said. The food will be served on
clay plates with edible cutlery
and diners would have to leave
phones and other gadgets at the
door and will be given to the
option to even take off their
gowns provided on arrival.
The restaurant, which will
open on Saturday, does have a
“clothes” section for those who
wish to remain dressed
while dining.
PTI
ing to cooperation across sectors
ranging from Defense and space
to entrepreneurship.
It (HR. 5387) would also
amend the Arms Export Control
Act, allowing the President to
include India among our closest
allies. This bill would also authorise the US President to give
India an exception to allow for
strategic trade authority, and
codify assistance in all areas that
would support key priorities,
such as education, growth in the
digital sector, and environmental protection.
“This bill would give our
relationship the status it deserves
by naming India a Special Global
Partner and ensuring that our
close collaboration continues
for years to come,” Engel said
after he introduced the Act after
listening to the PM addressing
the joint session of the US
Congress.
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enon of shooting. It is definitely
challenging us and we will
respond to it.”
“There will be firm action
by other security elements, not
only to locate anyone who
cooperated with this murder,
but also to prevent further
actions. We will act firmly and
intelligently,” he stressed.
Major General Yoav
Mordechai, the coordinator of
Government activities in the
territories ordered overnight to
also suspend 204 entry permits
given to the families of the perpetrators of Wednesday’s
terror attack.
According to Palestinian
reports, the IDF surrounded
the South Hebron Hills town of
Yatta, the hometown of the
assailants, and has declared
the area a closed military zone.
urkey’s Prime Minister has
ruled out talks with the
banned Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) after a spate of
attacks blamed on the militants
killed at least 17 people this week.
Prime Minister Binali
Yildirim said the outlawed
group had made a bid for dialogue after almost a year of
renewed violence that ended a
two-and-a-half year truce,
adding that the Government
had no interest in responding.
“These days news comes,
directly or indirectly, from the
terrorist organisation saying
‘we can negotiate, we can lay
down arms, we should talk’,”
Yildirim said.
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Tokyo: A Chinese naval ship
sailed into waters surrounding
disputed East China Sea islands
for the first time early on
Thursday, prompting Tokyo
to summon the Chinese
ambassador to protest, the
Japanese Government said.
Russian naval ships were
also seen in the area around the
same time, according to local
media. “Around 00:50 am (local
time), a Chinese naval vessel
entered our nation’s contiguous
waters surrounding the
Senkaku Islands,” the Japanese
foreign ministry said in a statement. Japan administers the
uninhabited isles under that
name while China also claims
them and calls them the
Diaoyu islands.
AFP
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hina has asked the
Philippine President-elect
Rodrigo Duterte to withdraw
the arbitration at a UN tribunal
and return to bilateral dialogue to settle the territorial
disputes over the strategic
South China Sea.
The Philippines should
stop its arbitral proceedings
and return to the right track of
settling relevant disputes in
the South China Sea (SCS)
through bilateral negotiation
with China, Foreign Ministry
spokesman Hong Lei said yesterday.
The Ministry also issued a
statement saying the dispute
over the SCS should be settled
through negotiations.
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The door is always open to
bilateral negotiation, the statement said and asked Manila to
stop turning its back on its
agreement to settle disputes
through negotiation and end
the arbitral proceedings it had
initiated against China.
The Chinese comments
came as the Philippines has
brought a case at an international tribunal constituted
under the UN Convention on
Law of Seas (UNCLOS) at The
Hague contesting China’s
claims over almost all of the
South China Sea.
China boycotted the tribunal, likely to deliver verdict
this month, saying it will not
recognise the judgement.
Beijing expects the verdict to go
against it.
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W
hen Alisha Chinay released the video to her
track Made in India, it made news for two
reasons — the song and a ‘oh-so-hot’
Milind Soman. From being one of India’s biggest supermodel to a fitness enthusiast and from acting to being
the ambassador of the Pinkathon to raise awareness
about breast cancer, the man has come a long way. And
time has treated him well, too. Like old wine, he just
keeps getting better and better.
He flagged off the fourth year of the Pinkathon,
to be held on September 4 at JLN Stadium, at an event
hosted by The Claridges Hotel and over a cup of tea
we got talking.
Excerpts from the interview:
QTell us about the evolution of Pinkathon over
the past four years.
It has been great. The evolution has obviously been more of the women who have participated and we monitor the 10-kilometer space and
it (the figures) has really jumped a lot. In the first
Pinkathon in Mumbai we had 230 participants in
the 10 km and about a 1,000 participants in the
30km. So it just shows that mentally woman are
becoming more comfortable in believing that they
can do it. Because there are many things that are
stopping them but society is the one making them
believe that they are not cut out for certain things.
We just want to say that all those restrictions
should not be the end of the line and that you
should devote some time to yourself. Because you
want to be there for your family and manage
your job and you want to give your 100 per cent
and in order to be a 100 per cent you have to give
time to yourself. And that is more important. It
is not about money but devoting some time for
yourself. So Pinkathon is more of a celebration
because there is nobody judging you or watching
you, you are dancing there and cheering there with
thousands of other women and then you run and
have a jolly good time. And in the midst of all, you
celebrate your health and you know that you want
to be like this, fit, for the rest of your life. But you
need to make the effort.
QDo you conduct special training sessions for
women who like to participate?
Not specifically. Most of them start with the five
kilometers run because they feel that that distance can
be covered. If you walk for an hour, you cover five kilometres. What is interesting is that when you go to a
mall and take a round, you most often end up walking almost five kilometres. Everyone is capable of
it physically but they doubt, mentally. So the first
step in being fit and healthy is mental discipline
and awareness and then to develop the belief that
you can do it.
But now we have training programmes every
Saturday in every city. So here in Gurgaon
every Saturday, there is a training where
women can meet and
it is not a hard
workout training
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or anything but a comfortable space where they come
and discuss issues that they have, exchange ideas and
engage on light Zumba or pilates.
QHow far and wide is the influence of the
Pinkathon?
We have women from slums who come up and
participate in the run and that is truly inspiring. We
have women from NGOs who take care of specially
abled women and we give a real deal of importance
to that. We see them as a community because in society they are treated like that and we also label them
as acid attack victims or visually or speech impaired.
Its like we do not know anything about them. So we
want to include all sections of society. Right from the
poorest to the poor and also the affluent. So most of
the women who run are corporate and housewives
— those are who we look for. As for special communities we go to them because they are not normally
made part of such events. We have to make them see
that the Pinkathon is for them and that we want them
to be there and that we would do workshops for you
and train you. We also give them partners because if
a girl is blind, she cannot navigate herself.
QHave you special provisions for the specially abled?
We find them partners. In other marathons, the
organisers allow visually challenged participants but
do very little to offer help from their part. But here,
we find them partners. We reach out to running
communities and tell them that there are 50
women who cannot see but want to run
the marathon and ask them to
become their partners. From registering them to training them —
we do everything ourselves. We
do not want to leave out anybody and we encourage cancer survivors more.
QIs there any reason why
you feel so strongly about
this cause?
No, not exactly. It is
the first issue that I
picked up. It was not
that I have any special
affiliation with it.
Everything that takes
away from you being
able to live your life to
the fullest is important. You need to be
aware of it and how
to avoid it and if you
can’t avoid it then
how to deal with it. So
whether it is cancer,
heart disease diabetes
or issues like dowry or
acid attack or whatever it might be, we want
to talk about these
things — things that
are stopping you living
your life.
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QTill today, women are
apprehensive of speaking
up about breast cancer.
How do we deal with
emember Yogi from TVF Pitchers?
One of the four friends who quit their
R
jobs to develop their own start-up? Yes,
that’s him. Yogendra Kumar Pandey, aka
Yogi, is none other than Qtiyapa Guy himself – Arunabh Kumar, an alumnus of IIT
Kharagpur who went on to start a popular online entertainment network, The
Viral Fever. Acting in TVF Pitchers as brilliantly as co-writing the series, Arunabh,
founder and creative experiment officer
of The Viral Fever Media Labs, has created a new favourite hangout for young
Indians on the internet. Kumar was in
town for the ‘Signature Masterclass’ series
of talks on the theme ‘Passion to Paycheck’
and we got a chance to talk to him about
his pre-TVF days, web programming, censorship and much more.
If there’s someone who can take a masterclass on this subject, it is him. When
asked how he got to be involved with the
Masterclass series, Kumar said, “I had seen
the Masterclass with Cyrus Sahukar and
Anurag Kashyap and I thought I would
love to be a part of it. It was honour for
me to share the same platform as some of
my own personal inspirations.”
That Kumar is an engineer by profession and was working with the US Air
Force before he gave it all up to follow his
passion is known to all us. But what we
wanted to know was about his days before
he became the successful entrepreneur
that he is today. “In 2009, I had won a
short film competition and had a feature
film contract. It was called Padhoge
Likhoge Banoge Nawab and had won a lot
of awards and a production company told
me they’ll make the film so I started
working on it. That’s the time I met
Anurag Kashyap and showed him what
I had written and told him about the film.
He’s a really nice guy and would talk to
anyone who showed up at his door. So he
that kind of a situation?
We have to talk about. If they have people
around them talking about they might just muster
the courage to talk about it. They have to be made
comfortable. We tend to be more conscious of it
because of the word breast but it is the same for all
diseases. The problem is that even to admit to any
kind of sickness women believe that it reflects on
the family. It is a notion that if I am sick then it will
be difficult to get a prospective match for their children. They feel that they will bring a bad name to
the family, they are still stuck in that era. We are still
trying to convince them that all this doesn’t matter
anymore and that women should talk about it. We
don’t want to lose you and you do not need people
in your family who feel any different.
On the bright side, it acts as a good filter because
it segregates people who actually care from the rest.
QThere was a time when you smoked almost 30
cigarettes a day. How tough was it for you to quit?
It was really difficult because tobacco and nicotine are drugs. It is more difficult because firstly it is
addictive, and secondly it is accessible. Every streetside corner has a cigarette shop. The third, and probably the worst, thing is that it is acceptable. Society
accepts it, they do not shun it as a drug. If society had
not accepted it things might have been different.
I did not start smoking till I was 30. I started
doing TV and when you are acting you are sitting
around most of the time. All my life till then, I hadn’t smoked and I caught on to it from the TV sets.
At first, I could not take it but then I started to enjoy
it and I could not stop. I smoked for about seven to
eight years, 30 cigarettes a day but it took me more
than a year. People say that it takes 21 days to break
a habit but that is not true for many people.
QThe era of the supermodel was over with your
batch. Tell us a bit about the fashion industry in
the 80s.
The whole concept of the supermodel was the
demand of the industry. If you see closely, internationally, too, there are no supermodels. The last one
was Kate Moss, that, too, 15 years ago. But there was
an ear when the industry demanded these kind of
personalities and faces. Now they do not need it. in
India, the fashion industry started somewhere in
1985 and the first boutique was Ensemble, co-founded by Tarun Tahiliani in Mumbai. Those were the
times of Tahiliani and Rohit Khosla — they started the industry.
More than the designers, the media aped models. The moment they came to know of an emerging fashion industry they looked to the West and
found that there were supermodels there. In fact,
there were no male supermodels in America.
Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Linda
Evangelista were all women supermodels. There was
Marcus Schenkenberg but even though he was so
famous not everyone knows him because he never
matched up to that ‘super model’ tag like the women
had. But here, we had male supermodels. We just
models but we were called supermodels. And not
there is no need for that kind of a tag. May be the
media still wants it but the industry does not.
And it is happening in other industries, too. Take
the music industry for example. You will never have
another Michael jackson, another Price or David
Bowie or Madonna in the next generation. There
is Rihanna and Justin Bieber and I wonder how many
of them people will remember after a few years
because they are not classics and there are slim
chances that they will last. Same for the film industry. There is no Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, Paul
Newnam or Al Pacino in this generation. You will
remember them even after 10 years in comparison
to the new bunch of actors because they will be so
superfluous. Even in India, after the four Khans who’s
there? The Ranvirs and the Ranveers are the everyday people.
Films, too, have changed. There is no hero anymore. Mostly they are about an everyday person with
regular problems and how they solve it and that’s
it. Because that is the way the industry is today. There
will never be another Amitabh Bachchan.
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explained the business to me and gave me
the harsh truth, which was really good and
I appreciated it,” he recalled. The film
however, did not happen and Kumar
eventually moved on to create more short
length content. “Once the film did not
happen, I said to myself, just chuck it and
I went on to make corporate films and
branded content,” he added.
Like any other successful entrepreneur, Kumar too faced his fair share of
failures and rejections. Not many people
know that Kumar was once turned down
by MTV when he took his show
Engineer’s Diary to the channel. “At the
time when I pitched the show to MTV,
I was not quite on the right path. 200910 was pretty tough for me. Like they say,
when you look back on the past, you have
a good 20-20 vision, and that makes the
future clearer,” he revealed. “I had some
money with me then and I decided to
start my own production company and
came up with the name Viral Fever,” he
added. Kumar shared an interesting
anecdote behind the name of the company and its origin. “I was looking for a
name that was suited for web-based content and I thought of Viral Fever. But
when I was searching for a domain name
for the website, it turned out there was
already a viralfever.com. I was so disappointed that I even asked the guys who
owned the website if I could use the
name. But then after a few days, an idea
struck me and I added ‘the’ to it and that’s
how we became The Viral Fever. TVF has
a distinct sound to it. Sirf VF me maza
nahi aata fir,” he added.
When asked if he still fancies the idea
of venturing into feature films, he
answered enthusiastically, “Yes, of course.
TVF is a media production company and
we are working on developing stories for
the feature format. We definitely want to
explore that area too.” With their online
series like TVF Pitchers, Permanent
Roommates and Chai-Sutta Chronicles,
The Viral Fever has pushed the envelope
in digital content and have gone on to cre-
ate a niche for themselves in the domain
of web-based programming. These shows
are not only some of the most watched
shows online in India, but have gained
popularity among Indians residing in
other parts of the world too.
On the recent controversy over Udta
Punjab and the Censor Board's attempts
at heavily censoring the film, we asked
him where he stands on the issue. "From
a storyteller's point of view, a certain
degree of censorship should be allowed.
But I think if you're trying to challenge
and suggest 90 cuts in a film, they don't
realise that the story is instrumental to
what they are trying to say. And this
kind of stupidity is what makes this
country full of retards. Some of these
leaders need special care," Kumar
remarked.
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T
he hot summer sun has a major hand in
depleting our energy reserves and we
decide to take a much deserved break
from work at any one of the eateries here at
Khan Market. Though we are spoilt for
choice, a cosy little eatery, The Artful Baker
catches our fancy. As we step inside and our
pupils adjust to the soft, mellow lighting of the
eatery, we discover that we are just in time for
the breakfast menu — their speciality.
Soon after we’ve settled down, Jeneva
Talwar, the brand chef, welcomes us and our
eyes wander around the peculiar yet somehow
familiarly European decor of the place reminding of small Parisian cafes. The quaint restaurant has minimal furniture with people standing around, leaning on the planks attached to
the walls which hold their cups of espresso
while munching on some paneer focaccio.
“Artful Bakers commenced operations in
September 2015. And though the one at
Khan Market is the flagship outlet, there is
another one at the Mall of India which is under
maintenance,” Talwar told us, while we sipped
on some cold pressed orange juice which offers
some much needed respite from the heat. The
practice of serving cold pressed juices is catching up in India, though it is fairly new. “We
open at 8:30 in the morning and we have loads
of people coming in after their customary
morning walk at Lodhi Garden for our cold
pressed juices. While orange is my favourite,
as I find it very refreshing, the melon cold
pressed juice is more popular,” she revealed.
Talwar, who has a film making degree from
NID told us that her penchant for food led her
to go Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Patisserie
at France to train as a pastry chef. Now after
a year long stint as a chef at ITC Maurya, she
is now committed to the restaurant. “Apart
from the cold pressed juices, our itinerary of
beverages also includes personalised shakes
and smoothies. We recommend the banana
shake with caramel syrup,” she added .
We were tempted to try one of the good
looking pastries but then we decided that it
won’t be wise to move onto dessert without trying the sandwiches and quiches that were
awaiting our consideration.
On seeing our eyes lingering on the
chocolate croissant, she mentioned that the
ham and cheese croissant was her personal
favourite. The salty crisp layer of bread went
really well with the slices of ham and cheese
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erving kachi ambi chicken tikka on a seekh in a handi
because normal plates are too mainstream and serving
Sdrinks
in balls decorated with dry ice to give a smoky and
attractive touch gave the impression that OMG had put quite
some effort on how to attract diners. Along with the tasty and
quality food, the most important factor which takes a restaurant forward is the presentation. With a good presentation,
even an average tasting dishes seem delectable. And that is
what we observed on our visit to the restaurant. Having the
same menu as any other CP
restaurant, OMG stands out
because of its presentation. Going with the
chef ’s choice, we were
served dishes from
every cuisine which
they have to offer.
Starting with the
baked
nachos
served with cheese,
olives and jalapeños
with side sauces
including salsa, sweet
and sour and avocado.
The combination was
fair enough and the
nachos were crunchy enough
but nothing out of the box as such. As we progressed to the chicken tikka served on a seekh
in the handi. The presentation took us by surprise and as mentioned above, it tasted
exceptionally good
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enfolded within the croissant. Though it was
a bit on the dry side, we found that a glass of
sparkling cold pressed orange juice went
really well with the croissant.
We discovered that the diminutive, fist
sized chicken quiche, which looked appealing
was surprisingly filling, as it buttered its way
down our gullet. And unlike what we had
thought, it was not at all soggy on the inside.
Loaded with an overwhelming amount of
cheese, it had a creamy texture. Talwar told us
that the secret to bake a good quiche is to use
an adequate amount of parmesan cheese. The
vegetarian quiche was loaded with copious
amounts of cream, cooked spinach and eggplant and it was as sumptuous as the chicken
quiche, if not more.
We confess that we were partial to the blueberry and oat muffin, as it was our all-time
favourite. And to be honest, the muffin
seemed heavenly until we tasted the monte
cristo (on the recommendation of the in-house
staff) which made us feel guilty for we then
knew that we had conferred the title of ‘heavenly’ on the wrong pudding.
It was an overwhelmingly sweet chocolate
mousse, garnished with white chocolate.
When we took a bite off it, we were pleasantly surprised at the crisp and crunchy hazelnut
base which lent the dessert a distinct buttery
after taste. It was an apt way to end our break
and really was the cherry on the cake.
But on our way out Talwar told us that the
raspberry mélange was her personal favourite
amongst the offerings at the restaurant.
Though we were guilty in the beginning we
decided not to halt the foodgasm we were
experiencing.
Turns out that the monte cristo has a much
worthy opponent in the raspberry melange. A
sweet and sour dessert lent prominently by
raspberries, the melange had a great texture
to it, too.
And there seemed to be no shortage of surprises as we discover that it had a base of
chocolate. The unusually good taste however,
was a good way to conclude the meal with as
it cleansed our palates.
and the presentation was definitely a contributing factor. The
flavour of the kachi ambi was a delightful fusion with the juicy
chicken pieces which made the starter our favourite. This was
followed by the oriental style tofu with bell peppers. The deep
fried, crispy outer cover of the tofu cubes complimented the
inner soft core. The taste was enhanced by the bell peppers
which was a treat to our taste buds.
The main course did not really rise up to our expectations. The first dish served, stacked bell pepper and cottage
cheese with pesto rice, did not have any distinct flavour to
it. We could not exactly understand the combination of the
dish. The second in line, murg methi malai served with butter naan seemed fine enough.
The chicken was cooked to the core with the malai seeped
in deep. The naan was crisp and fresh, dipped in butter.
However, the lachcha paratha was dry and we can definitely say we have had better. The saving grace of the entire meal
was the was pomfret fillet in laksa with sticky rice which had
a very tangy flavour due to lemon grass along with the right
amount of cooked fillet. The gravy was not too thick either.
The dessert was the freshly baked molten chocolava cake
served with blueberry sauce and vanilla ice cream. Our spirits were raised by the dessert which sent us home all hale and
hearty with smiles on our faces and very satisfied taste buds.
Even though the ambience and the service was good and the
presentation was impressive, OMG has a long walk ahead to
make its mark in the long like of restaurants found in the city.
ith a name like Talli Singh, you don’t expect much out of
W
a pub lounge. Easy music, some drinks and munch-alongs
pretty much fit the bill. With a food menu that comprises Indian,
Chinese and Italian cuisines, you might wonder what’s new considering how these have already been done plenty of times. We
did, too. But to our pleasant surprise, the dishes maintain their
originality and authentic flavour without much tampering.
The joint's décor is one of those modern ambles with a basement bar that has a 1920s speakeasy feel to it. The two concepts do not gel but so long as space is not a constraint, people do not seem to bother too much.
To accompany the food was a Cointreaupolitan, a drink
made of Cointreau, a brand of triple sec liqueur, cranberry juice
and lemon, made it an excellent
variation of the popular
Cosmopolitan. The pomegranate
and basil martini with a hint of
cucumber juice was a great palate
cleanser to prepare for the main
course and made for a great summer
drink. They have other innovative
cocktails that are meant for the discerning drinker and may surprise
you once in a while.
We started our meal with a
round of crispy fried prawn tempura and a vegetarian pizza. Prepared
in original Mandarin style, the prawns with a special Mandarin
sauce made of soya and chilli gave it a tangy and spicy mix of
flavours which we definitely loved. The pizza, although made
in authentic Italian style with an assortment of perfect vegetable
toppings, seemed to be a misfit with the Chinese dish. Next up
was the prawn crystal dim sum that provided a subtle taste to
our palate before the assortment of flavours that were to follow. The dim sums made in a shiny crystal like dough and filled
with juicy minced prawn tasted even better with the chilly soya
sauce. After the dim sums, we had the sticky chicken fingers
which were a riot of flavours. The baked chicken fingers, covered in a mixture of soya sauce and honey and sprinkled with
sesame and chilli, made for the usual accompaniment to your
cocktail.
For main course, we had the desi Lucy burger, a vegetarian variant which had a patty made of minced spinach and potato with a side of classic French fries. The cheesy burger, a pub
favourite, made for an interesting
choice after the delectable Chinese
fare that was largely a combination
of spicy and tangy. The final dishes in the main course included
very regular and predictable
Indian selections like dahi aloo
tikka, a potato patty stuffed with
hung curd and cottage cheese and
murg malai tikka with naan. For
dessert, we had the chocolate
lava cake, giving the meal a
sweet and chocolaty finish.
All in all,too much of mismatch happening here.
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t will come as no surprise that the number of
patients suffering from kidney disease is
Igrowing
unprecedently. The cause of this surge
is attributed to the the fast paced unhealthy
lifestyle adopted by the population consisting of
huge amounts of stress , consumption of Junk
food, smoking, packed food, pain killer medicines et al.
After years of trying to find a solution, Dr
Vachaspati Tripathi, the managing director of
Surya Pharmaceuticals, in a recently held press
release announced the discovery of Ayurvedic
Nephromed tablets and syrup.
The products were developed as an outcome
of firm clinical experiences and experimental
done by professor (Lt) SN Tripathi, former dean
faculty of ayurveda, head department of
Kayachiktsa Institute of medical science,
0]PhdaeTSXRcfXbc
Banaras Hindu University. The tablet, however
new to India, has been used extensively in abroad
and is also recommended by renowned kidney
physicians.
A whooping number of 25,000 patient have
been yet treated by this medicine. This ayurvedic
medicine has also been used by various apex government institutions such as C entral
Government Health Scheme, NDMC, ESI and
various ayurvedic colleges and hospital for
treating the kidney disease.
Tripathi also claimed with confidence that
many dignified Ayurvedic Vaidyas use it to treat
chronic renal disease including ESRD end stage
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kidney disorder.
Tripathi has immense faith in the safety, purity and efficacy of the tablets. He wrote a petition and appealed to the Government of India
including the President and the healthy ministry
to investigate the tablets whilst telling them the
limitations of the currently used allopathic
treatment as opposed to the ayurvedic tablets
In status quo, only dialysis and kidney transplant are effective in treatment of CRD and
ESRD. However, not only are these aforementioned treatments costly, painful, stressful and
time consuming but also family damaging and
beyond the reach of lower classes. Due to rea-
sons such as this, The Scientific Advisory Board
Of the Central Council for Research In Ayurvedic
Science have approved to carry clinical investigation on large basis.
Tripathi also added that kidney disorder is
always associated with liver disorder hence it is
always useful to take safe food supplements for
Hepatic system such as hepatomed tab.
He claims the ayur vedic medicine
Nephromed and Hepatomed are pure, poly
herbal patent formulation produced without any
contamination. He advised three doses of
Nephromed, in a day and for Hepatomed two
tablets three times a day.
As an end note, Tripathi, having had a personal experience with such diseases, appealed to
all patients to use the medicine and hoped for
their early recovery.
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ix new Test centres, including
Dharamsala and Ranchi, will
host five-day matches for the
first time during a packed home season for the Indian cricket team
beginning with the New Zealand
series in September.
A busy international schedule
awaits the Indian team in the coming home season with 13 Test matches, eight One-Day Internationals
and three T20 Internationals pencilled in by the BCCI.
Rajkot,
Vizag,
Pune,
Dharamsala, Ranchi and Indore,
upgraded as Test centres in
November last year, will host five-day
matches for the first time, BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke said in a statement.
The new centres would also
host Tests this season against the visiting New Zealand, England,
Australia and Bangladesh, the BCCI
announced after the meeting of its
Tour Programmes and Fixtures
Committee here on Thursday.
The home season will start with
three Test matches and five ODIs
against New Zealand followed by five
Test matches, three ODIs and as
many T20Is against England.
Australia are to visit India in
February-March, 2017 to play four
Test matches while Bangladesh is
slated to play a one-off Test match in
India for the first time since the
country got Test status.
The three Tests against New
Zealand would be played at Indore,
Kanpur and Kolkata while
Dharamsala, Delhi, Mohali, Ranchi
and Vizag are to host the five ODIs
against the Kiwis.
Five Test matches against
England would be held at Mohali,
Rajkot, Mumbai, Vizag and Chennai,
with the ODIs to be held at Pune,
Cuttack and Kolkata and the three
T20 games scheduled at Bengaluru,
Nagpur and Kanpur.
Australia are to tour India in
February, 2017 to play 4 Test matches to be played at Bengaluru,
Dharamsala, Ranchi and Pune while
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Hyderabad would be the venue for the
stand-alone Test against Bangladesh.
All these venues will get matches subject to the condition that they
have numbered the seats in the stadiums and fulfil all the guidelines laid
down by the BCCI, said Shirke.
The domestic cricket season will
singles
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16-member Indian cricket
A
team, led by captain
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, has
arrived here for a short limitedovers series beginning on
Saturday. The team arrived
here after a long flight after
leaving Mumbai on Tuesday.
The BCCI tweeted to
inform the arrival of the players at the Harare International
Airport with pictures of Dhoni
and some of his teammates
completing the formalities at
the airport.
The team will be playing
three ODIs and as many T20
Internationals
against
Zimbabwe between June 11
and 22. All the matches are
scheduled to be played at the
Harare Sports Club here.
The ODIs will be played on
June 11, 13 and 15 while the
T20 Internationals are scheduled for June 18, 20 and 22.
The new look Indian team
has come here without senior
players like Virat Kohli, Rohit
Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and
Ravichandran Ashwin.
e`Y`deYZde`cZT5 ?EVde
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ricket Australia chief executive
James Sutherland wants players to
C
remain open-minded about day-night
6UTUbUbRUQdc6bYdjQd=UbSUTUc3e`
test matches during the 2017-18
Ashes series in Australia.
Sutherland said he respected the
concern of Australia captain Steve
Smith and others, but reiterated that
a pink-ball Ashes test would be a "natural progression."
Australia hosted the first daynight test at the Adelaide Oval last
year, beating New Zealand in a lowscoring match. The venue will host
another day-night test in November,
after South African players ended
weeks of debate by agreeing
Wednesday to be involved.
On Thursday, Sutherland said
day-night tests will allow for bigger
audiences at the matches and on television and predicted there'd be "somewhere between zero and two" day-night
tests during the next Ashes series.
He spoke after Smith, playing in
the West Indies in a limited-overs triseries, said the Ashes "works pretty
well with the red (regular) ball ...
Playing against England, we always get
the viewers and the crowds out, so I
don't think there is any issue there."
England captain Alastair Cook
has also indicated he'd like the 201718 Ashes series to be all traditional day
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kick off in September with the
Duleep Trophy, which was not held
in 2015-16 season. The tournament
is set to be played under lights with
pink ball for the first time.
This is being done to help Indian
cricketers, all of whom are expected
to take part, become familiar with
playing under lights with the pink
coloured ball, ahead of playing Test
cricket in these conditions at home
during the packed season.
During the season, 918 matches are to be organised by the Board,
including Ranji Trophy, Duleep
Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy,
Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Deodhar
Trophy, Irani Trophy, women's cricket and all other age group cricket.
Chhattisgarh has been added to
the Ranji Trophy schedule for the
first time. "This translates into 1,882
playing days between September
2016 to March 2017," Shirke said.
"I welcome the new Test venues
hosting this prestigious format of
cricket and their arrival will take Test
match cricket, to every corner of the
country," said BCCI President Thakur.
"We are equally excited about the
domestic season as we will be playing
the Duleep trophy with the pink ball
under lights and take this opportunity to welcome Chhattisgarh, who will
play Ranji trophy for the first time."
"A combined team of Affiliate
and Associate states will participate
in the junior age group tournaments, which will provide the much
needed opportunity to the emerging
players from these areas. This further
reaffirms our commitment to spread
the game by providing the appropriate platforms to our next generation
cricketer," he added.
BCCI secretary Shirke noted
that the advance announcement of
international match staging centres
for the coming season will give
them enough time to buckle up for
the task ahead.
"Some of the best teams of world
cricket are coming to play in India
this season and we are excited to
announce the schedule well ahead of
time. This gives the staging associations and the BCCI sufficient time
to prepare and present one of the
most memorable cricketing seasons
for our fans. I have full faith in our
team at BCCI to deliver international and domestic cricket simultaneously and engage the ardent fans on
all fronts," said Shirke.
?C8Q :>;:0C0
he iconic Eden Gardens has
emerged as the frontrunner to
T
host the first ever Day/Night Test
matches. Dates haven't been
announced for that series.
The Adelaide day-night test last
year was completed in three days, but
drew 124,000 spectators and television
ratings were also favorable.
"I think there's a natural progression for us to get to a stage where
Ashes test matches are played as daynight games," Sutherland said. "The
players are clearly an important stakeholder and I respect the views of
Steven and Alastair in saying that. The
Ashes is a great contest, and (it) will
no doubt attract huge audiences both
at the ground and on television.
"But I think the facts of the matter
are that by playing a day-night test match
you're actually going to get bigger audiences at the game and on television. It
even time-shifts games into a more
appealing time of day in the UK That's
another factor we need to consider."
Australia will host three tests
against South Africa in November, with
the series concluding in Adelaide from
Nov. 24, and will kick off a three-test
series against Pakistan with a Day/Night
match in Brisbane starting Dec. 15.
SA players had been reluctant to
play the Adelaide test after informal
feedback from Australian players who
had issues with pink ball's visibility
and durability in Adelaide test.
match in the country against the visiting New Zealand side even though
CAB president Sourav Ganguly said
it will depend on their upcoming
"pink ball experiment" from June 18.
"Nothing is confirmed yet.
Nothing has been confirmed yet.
Hosting a day night Test will depend
on the success of the Duleep Trophy.
We are also organising the country's
first day night four-day CAB Super
League final with pink Kookaburra
balls from June 18-21 on an experimental basis. We will see how it goes,"
Ganguly said.
An influential BCCI official,
though, said that if the Day/Night
Test match is held against New
Zealand, it will come to Eden
Gardens in all likelihood.
"The decision will be taken during the BCCI working committee
meeting on June 24th. We are hopeful that Eden will be allotted the
match. Also we will get a feedback
from CAB on their D/N experiment,"
the source said.
Eden's chances are bright since
the other two Test venues for the New
Zealand leg are Indore and Kanpur.
Kanpur's floodlights have been
a problem while Indore, for a match
of this magnitude, may not be the
best venue.
The Cricket Association of Bengal
has procured a dozen pink kookaburra balls for the super league final next
week which will be telecast live.
CAB secretary Avishek Dalmiya
said: "We will keep more grass for visibility. Kookabura world and subcontinent head are expected for the match.
We don't want to make a fool of ourselves. It depends on how the BCCI
takes it, how successful it is. That's the
way forward. We are trying something
for first time. The legacy will be with
us. We will give two balls each to the
finalists who will practice two days
ahead of the final," Dalmiya said.
;P]ZPUXVWcQPRZeb4]V[P]S ,QGLDQKRFNH\VHHNV
05?Q ;>=3>=
N
uwan Pradeep captured the prize
wicket of England captain Alastair
Cook as Sri Lanka reduced the hosts to
165 for five at tea on the first day of the
third Test at Lord's on Thursday.
Left-handed opener Cook was closing in on his 29th Test century when he
played round his front pad to the paceman, bowling from around the wicket,
and was was plumb lbw for 85.
Cook's exit ended a 173-ball innings
including nine fours. It also halted a fifthwicket stand of 80 with Jonny Bairstow,
44 not out at tea, that had helped
England recover from 84 for four.
Cook's wicket was no more than
Pradeep deserved after having Bairstow
dropped when on 11.
Moeen Ali, fresh from his Test-best
155 not out in the second Test at the
Riverside, was one not out.
But Cook insisted in the build-up
to this match that England were determined to correct their habit of losing
'dead' Tests in series they'd already won
following heavy defeats at the end of victorious campaigns at home to Australia
in 2015 and away to South Africa earlier this year.
Fielding an unchanged side, England
made a serene start after Cook won the
toss in ideal sunny batting conditions on
a placid Lord's pitch, albeit one offering
a touch of seam movement.
Sri Lanka made little impression as
Cook, presented with a commemorative bat before play to mark his achievement in becoming the first England
batsman to score 10,000 Test runs, a
landmark he reached at the Riverside,
and Alex Hales compiled a fifty stand
in 74 balls.
But Rangana Herath succeeded
where the pacemen had failed when, with
just his fourth ball, the left-arm spinner
had Hales (18), slogging across the line
of a ball that turned, caught by Sri Lanka
captain Angelo Mathews at slip.
By his own admission, Nick
Compton was playing for his Test
place. But England's number three, on
his Middlesex home ground, fell when
he was caught behind after failing to get
to the pitch of a gentle Suranga Lakmal
away-swinger.
Lakmal then made it two wickets
for two runs in five balls when he had
Joe Root (three) lbw, hitting across the
line, although Sri Lanka needed to
review Australian umpire Rod Tucker's
original not out decision.
At lunch, England were 71 for three.
Cook was 48 not out, with James Vince
unbeaten on three.
Vince has yet to make a major score
in his three-Test career and he fell for
10 on Thursday when Pradeep bowled
him with a delivery that trimmed the
top of off stump.
England were now 84/4— the fifth
time in their last seven Test innings they
had lost 4 wickets before reaching 100.
Bairstow revived England from the
depths of 83 for five in the first Test with
a superb 140 on his Headingley home
ground in a match that England eventually won by an innings and 88 runs.
The Yorkshireman should have
been out cheaply Thursday when he
clipped Pradeep firmly off his pads
straight to mid-wicket.
But Shaminda Eranga — included
despite being reported for a suspect
action at the Riverside — dropped the
catch and the quick-scoring Bairstow
cashed in with a boundary next ball.
&7ERRVWDKHDGRI2O\
?C8Q ;>=3>=
iming to gain in confidence before the Olympic
A
Games, the Indian hockey team
will be eyeing a podium finish
in the Champions Trophy,
beginning with a clash against
Olympic gold-medallists
Germany here on Friday.
On seven occasions thereafter, India have been edged
away from the podium as they
lost crucial bronze-medal
encounters. The last two
Champions Trophy events in
2012 (Melbourne)and 2014
(Bhubaneswar) feature among
the seven fourth-place finishes
that left Indian fans dejected.
"A podium finish is a realistic target we're chasing here
at this Champions Trophy,"
said coach Roelant Oltmans as
the Indian team went through
its training regimen ahead of
the German encounter.
Returning to the Olympic
Park in London also provides
India a chance to erase the
unhappy memories of the lastplace finish in the 2012
Olympics. Before that Indian
hockey used to romance the
1948 Olympic gold medal they
had won in London.
"We like a challenge, but we
have to execute our tactics in
match situations and keep
evolving," said Oltmans, who
has continued his rotational
policy to provide exposure to
all players ahead of picking the
squad for Rio de Janeiro.
Custodian PR Sreejesh,
who will captain the squad at
the Champions Trophy, and
penalty corner shooter VR
Raghunath are back in the
squad after missing the Sultan
Azlan Shah Cup, while Sardar
Singh and Rupinder Pal Singh
have been rested.
Young penalty corner shooter Harmanpreet Singh's fine
show in Sultan Azlan Shah Cup
secured his selection for CT,
where he will share the duties
with Raghunath.
For goalkeeper Vikas
Dahiya and colleague Pradeep
Mor this is the biggest stage of
their short playing career.
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tortuous build-up dominated by off-field
controversy and untimely injuries comes
A
to an end for hosts France when they finally
0?Q ;>=3>=
T
he European Championship enters
a new era with Spain seeking to
reassert its old supremacy.
Invincible between 2008 and 2012
while claiming back-to-back European
titles and finally tasting World Cup
glory , the Spanish halo slipped two years
ago with a humiliating blowout in Brazil.
How better to show that the firstround elimination in 2014 was just a blip
than by completing a hat trick of
European titles in Paris on July 10. It will
be a tougher challenge than before, with
the Euros growing by eight teams to 24
in France.
Although Spain's national team has
not collected a trophy since Euro 2012,
domestic clubs have swept up continental trophies for the three seasons. The
Champions League has been won by Real
Madrid (twice) and Barcelona while
Sevilla completed a hat trick of Europa
League titles in May.
The sternest challenges in France for
Vicente del Bosque's team are likely to come
from World Cup holder Germany and the
host nation, boasting a talented young
squad but whose plans have been derailed
— as so often — by off-field controversy.
Then there is the next rung of contenders yet to conquer the continent, just
the type of teams Del Bosque fears.
A golden generation of Belgium
players, embodied by Kevin De Bruyne
and Eden Hazard, has to live up to their
promise and start delivering on the
international stage for the world's secondranked team. England is defensively susceptible but has a plethora of fresh
attacking options, including Harry Kane
and Marcus Rashford, capable of challenging if not emerging with winners' medals.
Unlike at the World Cup, Spain's title
defense can surely not end at the first hurdle in France this month. Croatia, the
Czech Republic and Turkey await in
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Group D and even a third-place finish
could be sufficient to advance in the reconfigured tournament's new round of 16.
Germany is more anxious than Spain
about the group stage following setbacks
in qualifying and friendlies since lifting the
World Cup and veterans like former captain Philipp Lahm retiring. After games
against Poland and Ukraine, Germany
faces Northern Ireland, a first-time finalist which qualified as group winners.
And underdogs can thrive at the
Euros. Just look at Denmark winning in
1992 and Greece lifting the trophy 12 year
later. Neither nation made it to France.
What chance another surprise champion 12 years on? Albania, Iceland,
Slovakia and Wales joined Northern
Ireland in qualifying for the first time.
Only Wales boasts a true world-beater in its ranks. It's more than Gareth Bale's
goals that have powered the Welsh to
their first tournament since the 1958
World Cup. It's the dedication of the
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fter a gruelling qualifying
campaign, Euro 2016 gets
A
underway today with Cristiano
Ronaldo and the rest of the continent's biggest stars descending
on France having to fend off minnows aiming to make their presence felt.
This will be the first 24-team
European Championship, a
month-long marathon a far cry
from the eight-nation event when
France with Michel Platini were
last hosts in 1984.
France launch the tournament with a Group A game
against Romania on Friday. Les
Bleus remain the last host country to lift the trophy — named
after a Frenchman, Henri
Delaunay — and also won the
World Cup as hosts in 1998,
when Didier Deschamps was the
captain.
Now he is the coach of a side
looking to lift the spirits of a nation
beset by social unrest and fears of
a repeat of the Paris attacks last
November. The tension has made
some players nervous however.
"I would like to concentrate
fully on football during the Euro,
and I would feel much better if my
family is not sitting in the stadium," said Germany's Jerome
Boateng, who has told his wife and
children to stay away from the
country in case of an attack.
He was in Germany team that
was playing France when suicide
bombers blew themselves up outside the Stade de France on the
night of the November 13 attacks
that killed 130 people.
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world's most expensive player to commit
to the national cause when Real Madrid
provides the status, silverware and salary.
Just as Madrid teammate Cristiano
Ronaldo does for Portugal. For the 31-yearold Ballon D'Or holder who has won every
significant club and individual honor, a title
with Portugal is all that is missing.
The French are seeking the support of
a nation still reeling from a 2015 scarred
by attacks on Paris where the Stade de
France was targeted by suicide bombers
as France played Germany in November.
France's World Cup hopes were only
ended by eventual champion Germany in
the quarterfinals two years ago. Like
Spain, Italy and England couldn't even
make it out of their groups in Brazil.
Italy has a challenging first round,
with Belgium and Zlatan Ibrahimovic's
Sweden in Group E alongside Ireland.
Few of the 552 players and 24 head
coaches won't be feeling the pressure in
the 51 games across 31 days in France.
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on the streets of Paris. Strikes on
trains that go to the national stadium, and on planes that should
be carrying fans. With the eyes
of Europe and the world turning to France for the European
Championship, the host nation
isn't putting on its best face.
A tug of war between the
Socialist government and labor
leaders over changes to French
workplace practices is ensnaring
fans hoping for a month of fine
football and a great time.
Already Thursday, strikes
threw train services to the
national stadium into disarray
before the opening game it hosts
on Friday night.
Strikes are also planned
from Saturday on the national air carrier, Air France. In
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swanky Paris neighborhoods,
overflowing garbage containers spewed stinking bags of
trash onto the streets, uncollected by strikers.
With kick-off just a day
away, both the government
and labor leaders warned fans
to brace for hardship.
AP
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get Euro 2016 underway against Romania in
Group A at the Stade de France today.
Les Bleus' preparations on the field have
been distracted by claims from Real Madrid
striker Karim Benzema that his exclusion from
the squad was racially motivated.
Benzema hasn't played for Les Bleus
since October last year after becoming
embroiled in a sex-tape blackmail scandal that
targeted then international teammate Mathieu
Valbuena.
France's highest active goalscorer,
Benzema — who is of Algerian descent —
claimed coach Didier Deschamps had "bowed
to pressure from a racist part of France."
In addition, Benzema's Madrid team-mate
Raphael Varane will miss the tournament due
to a hamstring injury.
Coach Didier Deschamps' defensive
options are severely depleted as Barcelona's
Jeremy Mathieu also had to withdraw from the
squad, while Liverpool's Mamadou Sakho wasn't included as he was serving a provisional ban
from UEFA for doping.
Lassana Diarra, Kurt Zouma and Mathieu
Debuchy are also sidelined, and Deschamps
has acknowledged he never imagined being hit
with such headaches even just a few weeks ago.
"Everything that has happened to us
since the squad was announced on May 12,
honestly, even in my worst nightmares I don't
think I could have imagined it," Deschamps
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told sports daily L'Equipe on Wednesday.
Yet, expectations are still high that a team
boasting the precocious young talents of the likes
of Paul Pogba, Anthony Martial and Antoine
Griezmann can repeat the feats of the French
sides of 1998 and 1984 in winning the World
Cup and Euros respectively on home soil.
"We have the chance to play at home, there
will be pressure, but it will be positive," said
goalkeeper Steve Mandanda.
"We have the obligation to have a good
tournament and the objective is to win it."
Deschamps' men have been in fine form,
winning nine of their last 10 matches over the
past year with their only defeat coming to
England when minds were focused elsewhere just days after the November Paris terror attacks.
While France's forward line will be blessed
with pace and youth, there will be plenty of
experience at the back with all of the expected back four of Sagna, Laurent Koscielny, Adil
Rami and Patrick Evra in their thirties.
Romania's hopes of springing a huge surprise will be based around a solid defence as
they reached a first major tournament in eight
years with the best defensive record in qualifying.
Anghel Iordanescu's men conceded just
twice in 10 matches in qualifying behind
Northern Ireland in Group F and also held
European champions Spain to a 0-0 draw in
March.
However, without the star quality of a
Gheorge Hagi or Adrian Mutu as in years gone
by, Romania also struggled mightily for goals
in qualifying, scoring just 11 times.
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05?Q ;>B0=64;4B
P
hilippe Coutinho completed a
hat-trick as Brazil routed Haiti
7-1 at Copa America Centenario
while Ecuador produced a gutsy
fightback to thwart Peru's push for
a quarter-final berth.
Coutinho conjured up the sort
of form which made him one of
Liverpool's most potent attackers in
the Premier League last season as
the Brazilians outclassed Haiti in
the first ever competitive meeting
of the two nations.
The 23-year-old attacking midfielder grabbed his first two goals
inside the first half hour of a onesided Group B game at Orlando's
Citrus Bowl in Florida.
Coutinho then grabbed his
third in the dying seconds of injury
time, curling in a spectacular shot
to complete a fine night's work.
Brazil, who had drawn 0-0 with
Ecuador in a lackustre opening
game last weekend, now lead Group
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B on goal difference, level on four
points with Peru, who were held 22 by the Ecuadorans elsewhere on
Wednesday.
Brazil manager Dunga was
left purring with pleasure at the per-
formance of Coutinho, who scored
12 goals in all competitions for
Liverpool this season.
Brazil's other goals came from
Renato Augusto (2), teenage star
Gabriel Barbosa and Lucas Lima.
Defender Filipe Luis however cautioned that Brazil would
face a sterner challenge against
Peru in their final Group B game
at Foxborough's Gillette Stadium
on Sunday.
Elsewhere, Ecuador frustrated
Peru's hopes of sealing their quarter-final berth, fighting back from
two goals down to snatch a 2-2
draw in Glendale, Arizona.
A superb individual
strike from West Ham's
Enner Valencia and a second half effort from Brazilbased midfielder Miller
Bolanos completed
Ecuador's comeback.
The Ecuadorans
had earlier been left reeling after falling 2-0 down
inside the first 13 minutes.
Peru, who had beaten Haiti in
their opening game on Saturday,
appeared to be cruising into the last
eight after the early efforts from
Christian Cueva and Edison Flores.
0?Q ;>D8BE8;;4
uslims have traveled from all
over the world to stand shoulderM
to-shoulder in a Kentucky arena for a
final tribute to Muhammad Ali.
A fellow Muslim who shares the
boxing great's name traveled from
Bangladesh. Mohammad Ali arrived
with no hotel reservation, just a belief
that this pilgrimage was important
to honor the global icon in a traditional Islamic service.
The Ali from Bangladesh
said he met the boxer in the
early 1970s and they struck up
a friendship based on their
shared name. The Champ
visited his home in 1978
and always joked he was his
twin brother, he said.
He will join more than 14,000 people who have tickets to the service
Thursday in Louisville, which will be
broadcast worldwide and streamed
online, offering a window into a religion
many outsiders know little about, but
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have come to scorn.
Organizers say the service, or
Jenazah prayer, is open to all, but meant
especially as a chance for Muslims to say
goodbye to a man considered a hero of
the faith. U.S. Muslims hope the service
for the Kentucky native will help underscore that Islam, so much under attack
in recent months, is fully part of
American life.
"Muhammad planned all of this,"
said Imam Zaid Shakir, a prominent
U.S. Muslim scholar who will lead
Thursday's prayers. "And he planned for
it to be a teaching moment."
"One reason Muhammad Ali
touched so many hearts, he was willing
to sacrifice the fame, the lights, the
money, the glamour, all of that, for his
beliefs and his principles," Shakir said.
"That's moving and that touches people."
Timothy Gianotti, an Islamic scholar at the University of Waterloo, Canada,
who has worked for years with the Ali
family to plan the remembrances said
the service will consist of short, standing prayers said over the body, which in
this case will be in a coffin facing Mecca.
The Jenazah service lasts only a few
minutes, with people customarily standing in lines, divided by gender, as they
recite the prayers. At Ali's service,
Muslims lining up to join the recitation
will be separated by gender, but the
wider audience will not, Gianotti said.
Tickets are still available for Friday
service. But all 15,500 tickets for Friday's
memorial at KFC Yum! Center in
Louisville were claimed within an hour.