Amid opposition protests, Parliament okays two Agriculture Bills

THE SOUTH INDIA TIMESENGLISH DAILYENGLISH DAILY

VOL NO. XII ISSUE NO. 29 PAGES. 8+8 VOL NO. XII ISSUE NO. 29 PAGES. 8+8 /- 4/- 4`

PUBLISHED FROM: HYDERABAD, CHENNAI & BANGALORE EDITOR IN CHIEF: BUCHI BABU VUPPALA21 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER, 2020www.thesouthindiatimes.com /facebook/thesouthindiatimes.yahoo.in / thesouthindiatimes.yahoo.in /////////////////

Telangana on alert after heavy

rainfall warning

Hyderabad, Sep 20 (UNI) Telangana on Sunday sounded an alert follow-ing a warning by the India Meteorological Depart-ment that there might be heavy to very heavy rainfall in some parts of the state. Chief Minister K. Chan-drasekhar Rao reviewed the situation with Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar. The Chief Secretary has directed all the district Su-perintendents of Police and District Collectors to be alert and to watch the situ-ation. All the officers were directed to be available in the headquarters and take all measures to prevent loss of life and property. The met office has forecast heavy to very heavy rainfall in Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Warangal and Khammam districts. Thunderstorms accompa-nied with lightning are very likely to occur at isolated places over Telangana, the IMD said. Massive flood-ing and water-logging are likely to occur in low-lying areas. Trees and electric poles may fall, leading to disruption of normal ac-tivities. Reservoirs, tanks and streams may overflow causing inundation of low-lying areas and lead to low bridges and cause-ways overflowing, posing a threat to traffic and people.

Woman alleges gang-rape in

Delhi 5-star hotel, one held

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) A woman, working as a tourist guide-cum-ticket booking agent, alleged that she was gang-raped in a five-star hotel in Delhi’s Connaught Place after be-ing enticed there on the pretext of providing her a loan at subsidised rates. According to the the vic-tim, the incident happened on Friday night. In her complaint, the woman told the Delhi Police that she was in dire need of money and the accused offered her loan at attractive rates. Lured to their hotel room for the money, she was in-stead assaulted and raped. According to police, the woman has named six per-sons, including a woman, in her complaint and a case under various sections, including rape, of the In-dian Penal Code has been registered. “The room was booked under the name of two business persons. One main accused Manoj Shar-ma, a resident of Sheikh Sarai, Malviya Nagar, has been arrested. Further in-vestigation and search for other accused is going on,” said a senior police officer.

SHORT TAKES

‘FARMERS AWARE OF CONG’S DUPLICITY’: NADDA

LAUNCHES OFFENSIVE

US UNILATERALLY CLAIMS RESTORATION OF UN

SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN

NARAYANSAMY’S FIGHT AGAINST NEET SHOWS HIS POLITICAL

FAILURE: RAMADASS

New Delhi,Sep 20 (UNI)The Rajya Sabha on Sunday passed two farm sector’s Bill -- Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 and Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020-- amid massive uproar by the Oppo-sition. Lok Sabha has already passed these two Bills on September 17.

Relying the debate on these two Bills, the Agricul-

ture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that soon after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over in 2014, de-cided to double the income of the farmers and initiated slew of measures in the this direction.

Mr Tomar assured all Members that system to fix Minimum Support Price (MSP) for food grain will not be abolished through these Bill for which the Opposition was protesting. He further said that the UPA Govern-

ment could not implement the recommendations of Dr

MS Swaminathan Commit-tee’s report which had rec-

ommended to fix MSP on the basis of the 50 percent add up to the cost of the cultivation. It was the Modi Government who implemented the new MSP on the Swaminathan committee report, he added. Mr Tomar categorically as-sured the House that through these Bills, the MSP will never be affected in any manner and even the Prime Minister Modi has also assured the na-tions that the system of the MSP will be not be affected in any manner. During the reply

of the Minister in the House, the Deputy Chairman Har-ivansh reminded him of the time duration of the House and asked him to get this Bill passed within the 1300 hrs upon which the Parliamen-tary Affairs Minister Parhlad Joshi said that the timing of the House to be extended till these two legislation were passed. The Opposi-tion Members lodged strong protest over the Government approach to extension the duration of the time and de-

manded that the passing of these Bills should be done on Monday. Despite the objec-tion raised by the Leader of Opposition Gulam Nabi Azad that duration of the House is always extended by the con-sensus of the House, not by the numbers of the treasury bench, the Chair allowed the Minister to continue his reply. This agitated the Op-position Members and some Members of TMC, AAP came in to well and created ruckus. During uproar,.

Amid opposition protests, Parliament okays two Agriculture Bills

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday described as “painful and shameful” the Opposi-tion ruckus during the passage of two farm Bills, saying he had never seen such misconduct in Par-liament.

Addressing a press con-ference here this evening, Mr Singh lashed out at the Opposition, saying “What happened in Rajya Sabha today was saddening, un-fortunate and shameful. It is the responsibility of the

ruling side to enable discussions in the House but it is also the duty of the Opposition to main-tain decorum.”

He regretted the un-ruly scenes that were witnessed in the House, saying “everyone saw mis-behaviour with the Chair, members tore the Rule Book, climbed podium. I have never seen such mis-conduct in Parliament.”

The Defence Minister reiterated that Minimum Support Price (MSP) and APMC would continue. The Bills passed in the Rajya Sabha today “will empower farmers to sell their produce any where in the country where they get better price.”

Taking the Opposition head-on for their behav-iour in obstructing pas-sage of the controversial Bills -- Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilita-tion) Bill, 2020, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agree-ment of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, he asked “even if Opposition was not con-vinced, does it allow them

to be violent, attack the Chair?”

Besides the Defence Minister, also present at the hurriedly-convened press conference were five Cabinet colleagues Piyush Goyal, Prakash Ja-vadekar, Prahalad Joshi, Thawar Chand Gehlot, and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. The agenda of the interaction was to answer questions related to the Centre’s farm-related Bills and the ruckus in Rajya Sabha earlier in the day.

On the no-confidence motion initiated by the Opposiion against Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh, he merely said notice had been given to Chairman Venkaiah Naidu. “A decision will be taken by him. I don’t want to say anything politically. This is the prerogative of the Chairman.” Referring to the resignation sub-mitted by Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

Rajnath says never seen such misconduct in Parliament

Mamata postpones north Bengal visit as heavy rain forecast

Kolkata, Sep 20 (UNI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday postponed her scheduled review meetings in north Bengal, following pre-dictions of heavy rains in several parts of the state over the next few days. Slated to leave for Sili-guri on Monday to chair a series of administrative review meet-ings of five northern districts at Uttarkanya, the branch secre-tariat located in Siliguri, Banerjee will now undertake her journey eight days later, on September 29, a government notification said. This would be her first visit to the northern districts since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in March this year.

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday congratu-lated the farmers on the pas-sage of two Bills related to agricultural reforms by Par-liament, and reiterated that the minimum support price (MSP) and Government pro-curement will continue.

“I have said it earlier and I say it once again: System of MSP will remain. Govern-ment procurement will con-tinue,” he assured farmers who have been opposing the passage of the Bills. “We are here to serve our farmers. We will do everything pos-sible to support them and ensure a better life for their coming generations.” He was tweeting after the passage in the Rajya Sabha of two bills -- ‘Farmer Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Simplification) Bill 2020’ and ‘Farmers (Empower-ment and Protection) Price Assurance and Agricultural Services Agreement Bill 2020’ despite hectic attempts by many Opposition parties to

block the two Bills.The PM termed it as a “wa-

tershed moment in the his-tory of Indian agriculture” and said it would ensure a complete transformation of the agriculture sector as well as empower crores of farm-ers. In a series of tweets, the Prime Minister said “We will make every effort to help the grain givers and ensure a better life for their future generations.”

Stating that the agriculture sector was in desperate need of latest technology that as-sists the industrious farmers,

he hoped that with the pas-sage of the Bills, “our farm-ers will have easier access to futuristic technology that will boost production and yield better results. This is a welcome step.” He said for decades, the Indian farmer was bound by various con-straints and bullied by mid-dlemen. The Bills, passed by Parliament, he said, “liber-ate the farmers from such adversities. These Bills will add impetus to the efforts to double income of farmers and ensure greater prosper-ity for them.

PM assures farmers MSP, Govt procurement of farm produce to continue

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) As the country clocked in 92,605 fresh cases of Novel Coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the total num-ber to 54,00,619, the Centre on Sunday set up expert committees to inspect gov-ernment and other hospi-tals, dedicated to the deadly contagion. The move came, following the directions of the Supreme Court, which took cognisance of the shortcomings in the care of COVID patients in different hospitals across the country.

The expert committees constituted by the Ministry of Health have been tasked to inspect, supervise and guide government and other hospitals dedicated to CO-VID-19, MoS Health Ash-wini Choubey told the Rajya Sabha on Sunday. The Min-istry of Health has written to all the states and Union Territories, with regard to prescribing reasonable rates for testing and treatment of COVID-19, Mr Choubey said

in a written reply.As many as 92,605 cases

were recorded across the country in the last 24 hrs that has brought the overall in-fection tally to 54,00,619. On a brighter note, the country reported over 94,000 recov-eries for the second consec-utive day, pushing the total number of cured/discharged patients to 43,03,043. In-dia’s recovery rate currently stands at 78.68 per cent, the Union Health Ministry said in it’s daily update.

The Health and Family Welfare Ministry also high-lighted that about 60 per cent of the new recover-ies were reported from five

states -- Maharashtra, Kar-nataka, Andhra Pradesh, Ut-tar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu -- which also accounted for 52 per cent of the new cas-es. Meanwhile, with 1,133 more deaths linked to the virus since Saturday, the to-tal number of fatalities has mounted to 86,752, which is estimated to be at 1.6 per cent. On the other hand, there are currently 10,10,824 active cases in the country. The Ministry also underlined the challenge posed due to disposal of biomedical waste, including the PPE kits worn by healthcare workers and professionals, owing to the pandemic.

Centre sets up expert committees to inspect COVID facilities, cases reach 54 lakh

Naidu goes into Naidu goes into huddle after huddle after

unprecedented unprecedented Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha

ruckusruckusNew Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI)

Soon after an unprecedented ruckus broke out in the Rajya Sabha with some House members squatting in the premises that forced the Lok Sabha to be delayed, a high-level meeting was convened at the residence of Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah

Naidu. The meeting at the Rajya Sabha Chairman’s house was believed to be over the ruckus created by

MPs of certain opposition parties in the upper house earlier on Sunday where some members like TMC’s Derek O’Brien went aggres-sive and tore up documents. The intimidation of the Chair was not taken lightly by the Chairman, say sources. The meeting was attended by Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narain Singh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi and Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal. Meanwhile, further complicating the matter, the Congress party

moved a no-confidence motion against Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narain Singh for not enter-taining opposition’s demand of a division of votes on the passage of the two agri Bills. Congress leader Ahmed Patel while speaking to the media said, “Our demands for division were not met and the conduct of the Deputy Chairman was not accord-ing to democratic norms.” However, it is uncertain whether it came up during the high-level meet.

How will the govt ensure farmers get MSP, asks Chidambaram

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) Soon after an unprecedented ruckus broke out in the Ra-jya Sabha with some House members squatting in the premises that forced the Lok Sabha to be delayed, a high-level meeting was convened at the residence of Rajya Sab-ha Chairman Venkaiah Nai-du. The meeting at the Rajya Sabha Chairman’s house was believed to be over the ruckus

created by MPs of certain opposition parties in the up-per house earlier on Sunday where some members like TMC’s Derek O’Brien went aggressive and tore up docu-ments. The intimidation of the Chair was not taken lightly by the Chairman, say sources. The meeting was attended by Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narain Singh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi

and Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal. Meanwhile, further complicating the mat-ter, the Congress party moved a no-confidence motion against Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narain Singh for not entertaining op-position’s demand of a divi-sion of votes on the passage of the two agri Bills. Congress leader Ahmed Patel while speaking to the media said,

“Our demands for division were not met and the conduct of the Deputy Chairman was not according to democratic norms.” However, it is uncer-tain whether it came up dur-ing the high-level meet.

2EDIT21 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER, 2020

Email : [email protected] / (H.O) HyderabadTHE SOUTH INDIA TIMES

Printed, Published and Owned by Buchi Babu. Vuppala, Printed at. Meera Offset Printers. No. 104. V.R. Pallai Street. Triplicane, Chennai- 5, Published from: No. 31 (Old) No. 58 (New) Nagappa Mudali Street. Pudupet, Chennai-2.

Editor. Buchi Babu Vuppala.RNI.No.TNENG/26176/2008.Administration Office : No.18 B, Alikulam Shopping Complex, More Market, Chennai - 600 003.

Registered Office : No. 31 (Old) No. 58 (New) Nagappa Mudali Street. Pudupet, Chennai-600 002.

Hyderabad : 17-1-469/A/42/23,Adarsh Nagar, near Unique Grammar school, Saidabad, Hyderabad -500059, Telangana.Rni no. Teleng/2009/29225

Bangalore : 3rd Main Road- 4, L.N. Pura,bangalore- 560 021, karnataka.Rni no. Kareng/2012/43253

THE SOUTH INDIA TIMES21 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER, 2020

The week gone by had plenty of action and was volatile. While the benchmark indices were just about flat, BSEHEALTHCARE and BSEIT gained significant ground and helped the benchmark indices. Similarly post the SEBI announcement on multi-cap funds being directed to match the allocation of stocks based on their definition of large cap, midcap and Smallcap at 25 per cent each as a threshold level, we saw BSEMIDCAP and BSESMALLCAP indices gain substantially. BSESESEX lost 8.73 points or 0.02 per cent to close at 38,845.82 points while NIFTY gained 40.50 points or 0.35 per cent to close at 11,504.95 points. The broader market saw BSE100, BSE200 and BSE500 gain 0.67 per cent, 0.92 per cent and 1.22 per cent respectively. BSEMIDCAP gained 2.65 per cent while BSESMALLCAP was up 5.09 per cent. Clearly market breadth gained while the benchmark indices were flat. BSEHEALTHCARE had a huge gain of 9.14 per cent lead by Dr Reddy which was up 21.04 per cent and supported by Lupin 12.31 per cent and Cipla 11.16 per cent. Even BSEIT gained 6.19 per cent. The laggard was BSEBANKEX which was down 1.84 per cent with the banking pack losing for the third consecutive week. SBI was down 4.98 per cent for the week. The Indian Rupee gained Rs 0.10 or 0.14 per cent to close at Rs 73.44. Dow Jones too ended flat for the week losing 8.22 points or 0.03 per cent to close at 27,657.42 points. From the above movement one can infer that there is some fatigue factor setting in among the benchmark indices stocks. The rally which was earlier led buy one single stock Reliance has now shifted to a handful of pharma and IT stocks. With their weightage being significantly lower, the net effect is not here to be seen. The gains are offset by losses in the BFSI space. In the broader markets there is a wider participation in small and midcap stocks and people seem to be mis-reading the SEBI circular. How long this optimism remains is anybody’s guess. There is plenty of action in the primary markets. Shares of Happiest Mind Technologies listed on Thursday and had a dream debut with the stock price gaining a massive 123.49 per cent to close at Rs 371, against the issue price of Rs 166. Considering the non-anchor portion which has a lock-in of 30 days, delivery on day one was to the extent of 92.99 per cent of the IPO size. This indicates that almost all except 7 per cent of the investors whether they be QIB, HNI or Retail sold on day one. The share closed at Rs 358.45 for the week, a gain of 115.93 per cent. Effectively we have new investors in Happiest Mind who have invested at Rs 370 instead of Rs 166. Shares of Route Mobile Limited would list on Monday, September 21. The week ahead sees two primary market issues open on Monday and one open on Tuesday, making a total of three issues for the week. It seems September has suddenly brought the primary markets alive and there is a strong possibility that the last week of September may see a couple of more issues opening. The first issue opening on Monday and closing on Wednesday, September 23 is from Computer Age Management Services Limited (better known as CAMS). The issue is an offer for sale from NSE Investment for 1.82 crore shares in a price band of Rs 1,229-1,230. The company’s primary business is being an RTA (Registrar and Transfer Agent) for mutual funds. The EPS for the year ended March 2020 is Rs 35.54 and the price earning multiple at which shares are being issued is 34.58-34.61. The asking price is rich in valuation and may not offer much scope for appreciation after listing. The expected listing price is likely to be in the region of Rs 1,560-1,600. The second issue is from Chemcon Speciality Chemicals Limited which is into the business of speciality chemicals in the pharmaceutical and completion fluids for the oil well industry. One of the raw materials for the company is the bromide family which is a hazardous chemical and a difficult material and chemistry to handle. One of the recently listed peers in the similar field in Neogen Chemicals which also processes Bromide for different application. The issue opens on Monday, September 21 and closes on Wednesday, September 23. The price band is Rs 338-340. The EPS for the year ended March 2020 is Rs 15.37 and the PE multiple is between 21.99-22.12 times. The issue consists of a fresh issue of Rs 165 crore and an offer for sale of 45 lakh shares.

Focus to shift to Primary market

Dalitality will be incomplete if it doesn’t honour my predecessor, Chan-dra Bhan Prasad, a shining thought leader and India’s leading public in-tellectual. At a time when Dalits were barely noticed, CBP was our eyes and ears. He was our man, dressed in a soi-gné suit, sharp black tie and handsome-ly combed hair. Sitting in the studios or penning his philosophy, CBP gave us reasons to be proud and assured. CBP is known to the world for his stellar work as a columnist in The Pioneer. He was the fi rst Dalit in independent India to have a dedicated column space in the English press. His popular column, Dalit Diary, came at a time when newer interventions in India’s changing geog-raphy were desperately needed.

Born in 1958 in Bhadwan village in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, CBP began writing as the last decade of the 20th

century dawned. His life at Jawaharlal Nehru University was shaped by the radical uptightness of Dalit exploitation. He found a pathway to articulate the simmering anger through the CPI (M-L) outpost. After paying closer attention to this politics, and the politics of the lib-eral and progressive, CBP chose to ex-pose their hypocrisies through honesty. He took upon the liberals and progres-sives both in the urban and rural scape. His targets were the infl uential class who were articulating public opinion — professors, editors, columnists and Leftist feudalists. In many ways, Dalit Diary was a vicissitude for these people, who talked about Dalit liberation but also held on to beliefs of their varna privileges. CBP’s openness to limited private capital came from his reading

of Ambedkar and that of Mao, wherein nationalist bourgeoisie were given ad-equate space in China after the 1949 revolution till 1956. The much-hyped Bhopal Declaration which brought to-gether Dalit academics, thinkers and babus to frame a policy of diversity had token success. It created a buzz but the results are still to be seen across a wide spectrum. However, the credit to articu-late that idea and bring about new per-spectives can be attributed to CBP. He is the father of India’s diversity movement who argued for an increase in colours to the monochrome of what he called “varna viciousness”. CBP utilised his glamour and name to advance the Dalit cause. He toyed with new ventures and this is what brought him to propose Dalit Capitalism — a radical imagina-tion fi nding avenues at the centres of liberal structures. He was a pragmatic uncle who advised Dalit movements to “seek share in globalisation” instead of “wasting resources, time and talent in trying to stop the unstoppable”.

Chandra Bhan Prasad utilised his glamour and name to advance the Dalit cause

Gandhis’ domination steeped in Cong DNABY ARATI R JERATH

It is ironic that Rahul Gandhi has cho-sen to divest himself of the respon-sibility of running the Congress in

the 50th anniversary year of his grand-mother Indira Gandhi’s bold move to take control of the grand old party and eventually turn it over to her family.

Not only has he walked away, he has also made it clear that he does not want another Gandhi to succeed him. This effectively rules out his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, although there are mur-murs and muted demands for her to take over.

For Congress workers at large, Rahul’s decision amounts to heresy. Most of them cannot envisage a Congress with-out a Nehru-Gandhi scion at the helm. Rahul may deem it otherwise, but the party has run on dynastic levers for far too long to function without them.

To understand when and how the DNA of the Congress changed as it morphed from a party that led the free-dom struggle into a family-run concern, it is necessary to go back to the tumul-tuous events of 50 years ago and the af-termath. The year 1969 was a watershed year.

It was the year Indira Gandhi split the Congress to lead away a majority faction that called itself Congress (Requisition-ists) but was more popularly known as the New Congress. Over a period of time, she not only crafted it into a party that bore little resemblance to the one she had cast aside, but she also funda-mentally altered the nature of Indian politics, as evident in the manner in which Narendra Modi has used and per-fected her tools of personality-driven populism to dominate public imagina-tion as she once did.

There was no 24x7 news television in 1969. Had it been there, channels would have gone into a frenzy to capture every

dramatic detail leading up to the split and after.The death of Jawaharlal Ne-hru in May 1964, followed in less than two years by the untimely demise of his successor Lal Bahadur Shastri in Janu-ary 1966, left a huge leadership vacuum. Congress heavyweights were agreed on one thing: none wanted Morarji Desai to take Shastri’s place.

It was Tamil stalwart K Kamaraj who suggested Indira Gandhi’s name and convinced the heavies to come around. Dubbed ‘goongi gudiya’, she seemed pliable enough. Plus, she had the right pedigree as Nehru’s daughter. Interest-ingly, when Kamaraj approached her, he is reported to have told Indira Gan-dhi that her father’s shoes were too big to be fi lled by one person. Decision-making would be a collective responsi-bility, he said.

As events proved later, Kamaraj and the old guard had completely misread and underestimated the ‘goongi gudi-ya’. Indira Gandhi soon showed that she was made of sterner stuff. Collective re-sponsibility was not her style. She would settle for nothing less than complete power. Tensions escalated rapidly as In-dira Gandhi sought to assert herself. On one side was the old guard of the Con-gress, also known as the Syndicate. It in-

cluded big leaders like Kamaraj, S Nijal-ingappa, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, Atulya Ghosh, Morarji Desai, SK Patil, Asoka Mehta and a host of others who wanted to control not just the party but also the government.Pitted against them was a crop of radical Left-leaning thinkers and activists, dubbed the Young Turks, who were nurtured and promoted by Indira Gandhi. Prominent among them were Chandra Shekhar, Mohan Dharia, Krishna Kant, C Subramaniam, Chandrajeet Yadav and Mohan Kuma-ramangalam. She fought the Syndicate through them.

As often happens, battle lines were drawn on ideological differences. The Syndicate favoured right wing econom-ic policies. The Young Turks pushed for a more progressive socialist agenda which they forced the Congress to adopt at the All-India Congress Committee session in June 1967 following a poor showing in the General Election that year. The 10-point programme included the abolition of princely privy purses and nationalisation of various sectors. However, it stopped short of endorsing the most controversial proposal from the Young Turks — bank nationalisa-tion. That would come later, in 1969, when Indira Gandhi was ready to take

matters to a head.But behind the right versus left clash

was a fi erce struggle for power. Indira Gandhi was not ready to be a puppet and she moved craftily to outwit and outmanouvre the Syndicate and get the old guard off her back.The turning point was the presidential contest in 1969 when Indira Gandhi pulled the rug from under the feet of the offi cial Con-gress candidate Sanjiva Reddy by put-ting up VV Giri as an Independent and calling for a ‘conscience vote’. Giri won, but before that, Indira Gandhi had set the stage for a stormy confrontation by forcing the All-India Congress Commit-tee to adopt a resolution calling for the nationalisation of all banks.

The resolution in hand, she sacked Morarji Desai from the post of Finance Minister and promulgated an ordinance nationalising banks. Giri’s victory was the sweetener as she showed who’s the boss. In November 1969, then Congress president Nijalingappa expelled her. She retaliated by splitting the party, taking with her 220 Congress MPs and 446 of the 705 AICC members. The fi nal and fatal blow to the Syndicate came in the 1971 General Election. As her oppo-nents ganged up against her using ‘Indi-ra hatao’ as their war cry, she retaliated with the populist ‘garibi hatao’ slogan, projected herself as the messiah of the poor and made her party irrelevant by framing the campaign around her per-sonality. She took the nation by storm, returning to power with 44 per cent of the popular vote and 352 seats in the Lok Sabha. From then on, she proceed-ed to systematically cut down any leader she perceived as a threat. She sidelined the Young Turks, marginalised powerful chief ministers and surrounded herself with loyalists. It was but a small step to-wards centralising power in her hands and later, her family’s.

BY SUYASH CHAUDHARY

What went by: Bonds contin-ued their positive run with the 10-year bond yield falling

by 51 basis points (bps) while the 10-year ‘AAA’ and 10-year SDL eased by 33 bps on the decision of the government to stick to fi scal consolidation in their FY20 budget, announcement of sover-eign bond (which could help balance domestic demand/supply gap) and positive global cues.

The curve bull fl attened with the 10-year to 5-year G-Sec spread reduced to 6.5 bps from 15 bps on an average in June as market participants started pric-ing in more easing.

The FY20 Budget surprised the mar-ket by lowering the fi scal defi cit target to 3.3 per cent of GDP vis-a-vis the in-dicated level of 3.4 per cent presented earlier in the interim budget in February 2019. In the fi nal budget, FY20 estimates (versus the interim budget) were cut by Rs 51,000 crore for income tax and Rs 98,000 crore for total GST collections. However, no overall expenditure cuts or higher borrowing is planned.This re-duction in revenue estimates is planned to be met by higher customs (Rs 11,000

crore), excise duties (Rs 40,000 crore), non-tax revenues (Rs 41,000 crore from higher RBI and nationalised bank dividends, possible spectrum auctions, among others) and higher non-debt capital receipts (Rs 17,000 crore from disinvestments, among others).

Furthermore, the government an-nounced its decision to start raising a part of its gross borrowing programme in external markets in external curren-cies. The Finance Secretary has said fi rst bond may take 3-5 months and that they will target borrowing 10-15 per cent of gross borrowing offshore. India’s mer-chandise trade defi cit was broadly fl at month-on-month (m/m) at $15.3 bil-lion in June (May was at $15.4 billion). Exports fell 9.7 per cent year-on-year (y/y) in June, the weakest print since January 2016 (May was at +3.9 per cent), and imports declined 9.1 per cent (May was at +4.3 per cent), a 31-month low. Industrial production growth for May 2019 saw a moderation in growth to 3.1 per cent from 4.3 per cent a month back and 3.8 per cent, a year ago. Economic activity-wise classifi cation show that this moderation was largely due to the manufacturing sec-tor which grew by 2.5 per cent. On the user

based classifi cation, strong performance came from consumer non-durables at 7.7 per cent and infra and construction at 5.5 per cent. Growth for capital and interme-diate goods remained weak at 0.8 per cent and 0.6 per cent, respectively. The dura-bles segment has remained fl at y/y. June wholesale, or WPI, infl ation further mod-erated sharply to 2.02 per cent (consensus: 2.25 per cent) as against 2.45 per cent in May owing to favourable base effects and moderation in manufacturing, fuel and power infl ation. In a widely expected move, the US Federal Reserve cut in-terest rates by 25 bps to a new range of 2.00-2.25 per cent. The Fed also an-nounced plans to end the reduction of its $3.8 trillion asset portfolio, effective August 1, two months earlier than previ-ously expected. In the press conference post the meet, the Fed chair described the cut as a mid-cycle “insurance” cut in order to make sure that the recovery prolongs in the face of global and trade related headwinds and also to give sup-port to infl ation. In particular, he was focused on the cumulative change in fi nancial conditions since early in the year during which the Fed has turned from being on a hiking cycle, to being

on a patient hold, to fi nally cutting rates by 25 bps. The RBI’s MPC in its August policy cut the repo rate by 35 bps to 5.40 per cent, while maintaining the policy stance as accommodative. The move to cut was decided with the 35 bps to 25 bps vote counting as 4:2. It may be recalled that RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had earlier fl oated the idea of chal-lenging the conventional 25 bps moves, with unconventional steps like this one possibly reaffi rming the signalling effect of policy direction as well. The policy is largely in line with the dovish end of expectations. There is no decision with respect to the working group on liquid-ity management framework. However, the Governor did note the very large surpluses in the system today and re-affi rmed the commitment to provide abundant liquidity. Thus, the imple-mentation basis to the recommenda-tions of the framework is very likely to be consistent with the current market view that the RBI has already moved to targeting surplus liquidity. With this clear stance of the current policy ob-jective, alongside weak infl ation pres-sures and a probable overestimation of growth, we reiterate our previously.

Debt Market Outlook: Term spreads remain attractive

3NATION21 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER, 2020

Email : [email protected] / (H.O) HyderabadTHE SOUTH INDIA TIMESBihar BJP launches

toll-free number for manifesto suggestions

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) The opposition may be mounting an all-out attack on the Centre over the passage of the two agri Bills, but the treasury benches are not sitting idle either.

After Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi on Sunday again sought to assure the opposi-tion on minimum support price (MSP) and categorically stated, “We are here to serve our farmers”, BJP President J.P. Nadda too came out strongly in support of the legislation and attacked the Congress for its stance. Nadda said that the Congress is misleading the farmers. An aggressive Nadda

alleged, “Congress party never undertook any reforms for empowerment of farmers. It neither had the time nor the will to help farmers. Misleading the farmers and the poor is the age-old habit of the Congress. Farmers are aware of its duplic-ity and will not be swayed by its fake propaganda.”

Highlighting the double-speak of the Congress, Nadda stated that in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress party had announced it would end APMC market system. He went on to state that even after these leg-islations, APMC market yards and MSP will continue. “Why

do Rahul Gandhi and Congress have a grudge on farmers being empowered?” he asked.

“Now, the farmer will be his own boss. He can make his own decisions. The new legislation empowers farmers and gives alternative marketing chan-nels including e-marketing platform. Farmers can get bet-ter remunerative prices. Farm-related problems can now be resolved at his doorstep,” he added. Earlier, the Prime Min-ister posted a series of tweets in Punjabi to reach out to the farmers of Punjab who seem to be unhappy with the legisla-tion. In one of those tweets in Punjabi, Modi reasoned, “Our agriculture sector urgently needs the latest technology as it will help the hardwork-ing farmers. With the passage of these Bills now, our farmers will have easier access to future technology.” Amid the din and an animated opposition, the Upper House gave the nod to the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Ser-vices Bill, 2020. Both the Bills were already passed.

‘Farmers aware of Cong’s duplicity’: Nadda launches offensive

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) The Indian Council of Medical Re-search (ICMR) has completed the second round of the coun-trywide serological survey (se-rosurvey) to detect the preva-lence of the COVID-19 disease and its analysis is underway in the fi nal stage, the ICMR in-formed on Sunday.

The apex body of medical research in the country added that the ongoing study of the second serosurvey would offer a comparison with the results of the fi rst survey that ICMR published a week ago.

The ICMR also said that it has been continuously sharing the fi ndings of dynamic con-tainment zones from the pre-

vious survey to the respective state authorities. “The fi ndings of the previous survey from the dynamic containment zones were communicated to the states for further action,” it in-formed.

Meanwhile, the ICMR also stated that the states have also conducted their zone and city-specifi c surveys along with ICMR’s. “To further aid in developing state interven-tion plans following the ICMR survey, states have also con-ducted their zone/city-specifi c surveys,” the ICMR stated.

On Tuesday, Dr Balram Bhargava, director-general, ICMR had told during a press briefi ng that the results of the

second serosurvey would be made public by the end of Sep-tember. “The second national serosurvey is almost done. We have completed the exercise in 68 out of 70 districts, and the analysis is in progress. We should have the results by the end of September,” he had in-formed.

The fi rst national serosurvey was a randomly sampled, com-munity-based survey conduct-ed from May 11 to June 4. The samples were collected from 700 villages and wards, which were selected from 70 districts in 21 states of the country.

The previous survey revealed that India had 6.4 million coro-navirus disease (Covid-19) pa-tients by early May.

In percentage, the national prevalence was found to be 0.73 per cent. The worst-affected were those between the age group of 18 and 45 years, as 43.3 per cent had developed antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, which causes the Covid-19 disease. While Covid-19 patients in the age group between 46 and 60 years accounted for 39.5 per cent of the sampled individu-als. The ICMR published the fi ndings of the fi rst survey on September 11.

ICMR completes second serosurvey, analysis underway in fi nal stage

Patna, Sep 20 (UNI) In the run-up to the Bihar Assembly elections, the BJP’s state unit launched a toll-free number on Sunday for receiving sug-gestions from the public for its election manifesto.

State BJP chief Sanjay Jaiswal said that the toll-free number 6357171717 has been launched for the common people, with a particular focus on farmers, where they can can now give a missed call and a dedicated call centre will send them a message alongwith a form.

“The netizens can fi ll up the form and send it back to the centre. A separate provision has also been made for drop-ping the form in a suggestion box set up in each of 38 dis-tricts of the state. “Feedback of the common people from dif-ferent backgrounds will help us to understand their griev-ances. The suggestions will be endorsed during preparation of the election manifesto for the Assembly election in Bihar. Our election manifesto will be based on job creations, eco-nomic development of youths and others,” Jaiswal said.

FCRA Bill introduced in LS to make Aadhaar mandatory for foreign contributionNew Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI)

The Centre on Sunday intro-duced the Foreign Contribu-tion (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2020 in the Lok Sabha to make the earlier law more stringent and make Aadhaar mandatory for registration and to give the government powers to stop utilisation of foreign funds by an organisa-tion through a “summary en-quiry”.

The Bill, which seeks amendment to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, proposes to include “public servants” in the pro-hibited category and decrease administrative expenses through foreign funds by an organisation to 20 per cent from 50 per cent earlier.

Moving the Bill on behalf of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, his junior and Minister of State of Home Nityanand Rai said this law does not breach the right of any or-ganisation if they follow the law and do not get distracted from their purpose. “We only take action against any organ-isation under the rule when they do not follow the law. Where is the breach of their rights in it?.”

Citing former Finance Min-

ister P. Chidambaram’s state-ment which he made at a time while bringing FCRA law on August 19, 2010, Rai said: “Mr Chidambaram had men-tioned in his statement that there are now around 40,000 working organisations. My biggest problem is that half of the organisations do not give details of their foreign contri-bution.”

Based on the Supreme Court’s judgment on Aad-haar, the minister said “we are making it mandatory for the directors of those organisa-tions so that the government could know their identity and address. There is no discrimi-nation in the law. All religions are being given equal rights to receive foreign donations in religious activities as per the provisions in earlier law.”

“The law does not discrimi-nate in any religion. Our aim is to ensure that the organisa-tions receiving foreign con-tribution should not distract from their purpose and their activities do not affect the country’s internal security. The money should be used for the same purpose for which it is donated,” the minister said. Now there is a provision to open accounts in State Bank

of India (SBI), said Rai, along with arrangement that the organisation can open these bank accounts from their place and they do not need to come to Delhi. Oppos-ing the Bill, Congress leader Manish Tewari said the situ-ation was different when the law was made in 1976 but it has changed since then. This law has been used for the last six years against those who go against the government.” TMC’s Saugata Roy said this is another example of “big brother watching”.

“The purpose of FCRA law was to keep control on foreign contribution, not to stop the contribution. Now, the free-dom of people who are doing good work in rural and tribal

areas is being hampered. Why did the government not arrest people if such kind of illegal activities were being noticed. Not a single conviction under this law has been made so far,” the MP said.

Congress’ Leader of the House Adhir Ranjan Chow-dhury also raised objection against the Bill pointing to the Aadhaar issue and said the current amendment will give unnecessary power to the government. The Bill was to be introduced by Union Home Minister Amit Shah to strengthen the earlier Act as it was noticed that several organisations “misutilised” or “misappropriated” those funds received from foreign countries leading to the gov-

ernment cancelling 19,000 such registrations in the past few years.

“The annual infl ow of for-eign contribution has almost doubled between the years 2010 and 2019, but many recipients of foreign con-tribution have not utilised the same for the purpose for which they were registered or granted prior permission under the said Act,” the Bill’s statement of objects and rea-sons says.

“Many of them were also found wanting in ensuring basic statutory compliances such as submission of annual returns and maintenance of proper accounts. This has led to a situation where the Cen-tral Government had to can-cel certifi cates of registration of more than 19,000 recipient organisations, including non-governmental organisations, during the period between 2011 and 2019.”

It further mentions that criminal investigation also had to be initiated against dozens of such non-govern-mental organisations which indulged in outright misap-propriation or misutilisation of foreign contribution.

Seeking to amend clause

(c) of sub-section (1) of sec-tion 3 of the Act, the govern-ment has proposed to in-clude “public servants” also within its ambit, to provide that no foreign contribution shall be accepted by them. Earlier, it was restricted to legislators, election candi-dates, journalists, print and broadcast media, judges, government servants or em-ployees of any corporation or any other body controlled or owned by the govern-ment.

It has also sought to pro-hibit any transfer of for-eign contribution to any other association or person. Amendment of section 17 of the Act has sought to pro-vide that every person who has been granted certifi cate or prior permission under section 12 shall receive for-eign contribution only in an account designated as ‘FCRA Account’ which shall be opened by him in such branch of the State Bank of India at New Delhi, as the Central Government may, by notifi cation, specify. It has, however, allowed the or-ganisation to transfer these funds to another account for utilisation.

Panaji, Sep 20 (UNI) The National Organisation for To-bacco Eradication on Sunday welcomed the direction of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to the Central Po llu-tion Control Board (CPCB) to lay down guidelines for disposal of cigarette and bidi butts within three months. In a statement issued on Sun-day, Secretary of the anti-tobacco organisation, Goa-based oncologist Shekhar Salkar said that the step taken by the NGT was “pathbreak-ing” and in sync with healthy and sustainable environment practices.

“It’s one of the path-break-ing steps taken by the NGT to have a healthy and sustain-able environment for pos-terity. It has also been seen, how these tobacco in take is not only affecting the health of millions across the world, but also the cigarette and bidi butts making our forests and water-bodies polluted,” Salkar said.

Last week, after a report was compiled by the CPCB related to pollution caused by unsci-entifi c disposal of cigarette and bidi ends, the Tribunal had directed the Board to for-mulate guidelines for scien-tifi c disposal of cigarette and bidi ends within a period of three months. Cigarette and bidi butts are known to con-tain cellulose acetate, a form of plastic in the fi lter which is used to fi lter toxins before the smoke hits the lungs. “We feel government should also take cognizance of the various to-bacco companies and impose Cess on them to reimburse the expense of disposing off these hazardous cigarette and bidi butts,” Salkar also said.

Anti-tobacco body welcomes NGT’s

move on disposal of cigarette,bidi butts

Cong to move no-confi dence motion against RS Deputy Chairman

Delhi Police on toes as farmers chant ‘Dilli Chalo’ with tractors, grievances

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) The Congress has alleged that the conduct of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narain Singh was “undemocratic” and the party will bring a no-confi dence motion on the issue.

Congress leader Ahmed Patel while speaking to the media said, “Our de-mands for division were not met and the conduct of the Deputy Chair-man was not according to democratic norms.” “This is a black day as it is against farmers and the state government and fa-vours corporate,” added

Patel.Congress leader Partap

Singh Banda termed the agri Bills as “death war-rants” for farmers.

After the passing of agri Bills, opposition mem-bers alleging bias sat in the House and later pro-

tested at the Parliament premises.

The opposition alleged that after the house’s time was over the Chair did not take consent of the house and demands of taking the Bills on Monday was denied as the chair went for a voice vote and de-mand for the division of votes was not allowed. Earlier, the Rajya Sabha saw a massive ruckus on Sunday as the govern-ment sought to clear the farm Bills amid an unre-lenting opposition deter-mined to block them as TMC MP Derek O’Brien tore up the documents.

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) As farmers march towards the na-tional capital to voice their discon-tent over the contentious agri Bills, two of the Bills have already been passed by both Houses of Parlia-ment - the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020 and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordi-nance, 2020.

Despite police ‘bandobast’ in place on both sides of the borders, the farmers are eager to be heard. In Haryana, farmers blocked roads to protest the new agri Bills. Wearing Kurtas, many farmers tried to block roads in Ambala. National High-way 344 which is better known as

Ambala-Roorkee national highway is blocked. In Kaithal too, farmers blocked the Ambala-Hisar high-way. The story is not very different in Kurukshetra where local farmers blocked key roads to Kurukshetra and Shahabad.

With the matter being politi-cally sensitive, most political par-ties sided with the farmers. Af-ter SAD leader Harsimrat Kaur resigned from the Union Cabinet, Ram Karan Kala, Shahabad MLA of Jannayak Janta Party, an ally of the BJP in Haryana was spotted at a protest site. Inside Parliament, the opposition created a ruckus as the two Bills were being passed. As organisations like Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) are already threaten-ing to march to the capital where

the Parliament is in session, Delhi Police has been put on alert mode. The police has increased its patrol and barricades in border areas with Haryana as well as in Ghazipur.

With Punjab Youth Congress along with farmers hitting the Del-hi-Chandigarh national highway to take part in a tractor rally headed to Delhi, the police have been asked to be on their toes. The bone of contention has been the two Bills as well as the Essential Commodi-ties (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020. Though Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi and BJP President J.P. Nadda both have clarifi ed that the MSP is not going anywhere, farm-ers’ unions believe the Bills will phase out the MSP and the tradi-tional grain market system.

4SOUTH21 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER, 2020

Email : [email protected] / (H.O) HyderabadTHE SOUTH INDIA TIMES

Bengaluru, Sep 20 (UNI) Six drug peddlers, including two Niger , have been arrested in separate cases and different types of drugs/banned substances seized from them, Bengaluru police said on Sunday.

“City Crime Branch offi cials arrested the two Nigerian peddlers from Ramamurthy Nagar in the eastern suburb and seized 134 Ecstacy tablets and LSD slips valued at Rs 10 lakh from their premises,” Bengaluru Joint Police Commissioner Sandeep Patil told reporters here.

In another raid, peddlers Mukesh Singh and Chandan Kumar were arrested for allegedly selling marijuana at Badarahalli in the city’s northwest suburb.

“The CCB team seized 5kg marijuana from the duo

after raiding their place at Badarahalli. One motorcycle, a cell phone, a measuring machine, and Rs 1,260 were confi scated,” said Patil.

In the third raid, police said, peddler Srinivas Subramanian alias Sri, 40, was nabbed from his fl at in the city’s northwest suburb and 13 Ecstasy tablets, 100 gm ganja, 1.1 gm MDMA and 0.5 gm hashish was seized.

“One of the two Kannada

fi lm actresses arrested in a drugs racket had visited Subramanian’s fl at four times to collect drugs from him,” CCB Deputy Commissioner of Police Ravi Kumar told here. Sandalwood actresses Ragini Dwivedi and Sanjana Galrani were arrested and currently are in 14-day judicial custody for their alleged involvement in the consumption, sale and supply of narcotic drugs.

“Subramanian’s name was revealed by drug peddlers Ravi Shankar and Rahul Shetty, who are also in judicial custody after their arrest on the charge of supplying drugs to high-profi le customers, including cine stars, actors and music in the Sandalwood industry,” Kumar said,

In the fourth raid, peddler Vijay was arrested for allegedly selling marijuana and 1.5 kg contraband seized from him.

“We have also seized an auto-rickshaw the accused was using to transport the banned drug,” Patil added.

All the accused were booked under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and the Indian Penal Code. All the accused were booked under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and the Indian Penal Code.

6 drug peddlers held in Bengaluru

Warangal Urban, Sept 20: Deputy Direc-tor of the Information and Public Relations (I&PR), Warangal, Mohammed Ali Mur-thuza has stressed on the need for protec-tion of the consumers’ rights. Addressing the members of the newly formed National Con-sumer Rights Com-mission at KSR Gar-den in Hanamkonda on Sunday, Murthuza said that the Consum-er Protection Act, 2019 had come into effect from July 20. “Through the new act, consum-ers will become more powerful. However,

there is a need to make the consumers aware of the new act. But due to pandemic COVID-19, there is a need to probe alterna-tive platforms to make the people aware,” he added. National Con-

sumer Rights Com-mission district presi-dent Nanduri Sharath Babu said that they would strive to pro-tect the rights of the consumers and added that the new act would give priority to re-

solve the disputes of the consumers in an easy way. Commis-sion Vice-Chairman G Prabhakar, Secre-tary Katanguri Jaipal Reddy, members and others attended the meeting.

Let the consumers be aware of their rights: I&PR DD Murth

Panaji, Sep 20 (UNI) The Goa Governor on Sunday gave approval to the state govern-ment’s decision to end a house building allowance scheme for

government servants and law-makers, drawing criticism from the opposition Congress. The BJP-led coalition government’s decision also disallows any re-

course to persons, who have al-ready availed of the scheme, to appeal against the government order. “With Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari approving the government’s decision with a diktat to ban any challenging in any court of law is against the democratic rights of the citi-zens and a complete injustice to hardworking employees,” Leader of Opposition Digam-bar Kamat said in a statement.

In June, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, as part of an austerity drive, had announced that the scheme would no lon-

ger offer loan subsidy compo-nent to government servants and MLAs, which sparked an-ger among government em-ployees who subsequently ap-pealed to then Governor Satya Pal Malik for relief.

Under the scheme, the ben-eficiaries could avail of loans up to Rs 36 lakh towards con-struction of houses at subsi-dised rate of interest. Around 5,000 government servants had availed of the scheme, for which they would now have to pay interest on home loans at regular bank rates.

Bengaluru, Sep 20 (UNI) With 10,815 patients discharged, recoveries were more than 8,364 new Covid cases, while 114 succumbed to the virus across Karnataka.

“Of the 5,11,346 positive cases till date, 98,564 are active, as 4,04,841 were discharged after treatment since March 8, when the pandemic broke, while the death toll rose to 7,922 across the southern state,” said health bulletin. Among the districts which reported

higher number of cases, Mysuru had 626, followed by Dakshina Kannada 432, Gadag 391 and Ballari 310. Of the discharged patients in the districts, Mysuru reported 1,018, Hassan 599, Mandya 412, Uttara Kannada 407, Dakshina Kannada 404 and Kalaburagi 352. In Bengaluru Urban, recoveries were also more as 4,180 got discharged than 3,733 fresh cases registered, while 33 died of the infection during the day.

“Of the 1,91,438 positive cases across the city so far, 41,434 are active after 1,47,378 were discharged, while death toll rose to 2,625 till date,” said the bulletin.

Of the 822 patients in the intensive care units (ICUs) across the state, 255 are in Bengaluru hospitals, followed by Dharwad 91, Ballari 70 and Hassan 62.

Among the districts which reported higher number of cases, Mysuru had 626, followed by Dakshina Kannada 432, Gadag 391 and Ballari 310. Of the discharged patients in the districts, Mysuru reported 1,018, Hassan 599, Mandya 412, Uttara Kannada 407, Dakshina Kannada 404 and Kalaburagi 352.

Goa Guv’s nod to end allowance scheme, Cong fl ays govt

Recoveries exceed new Covid cases in

Karnataka

Puducherry, Sep 20 (UNI) Chief Minister V Narayanasamy’s appeal to the people to fi ght against the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) after 95 per cent of the students ap-peared to take the test in Union Territory shows his ‘political fail-ure”, former Lok Sabha member Prof M Ramadass said on Sunday and urged the CM to take steps to address the problems faced by government school students instead of indulging into ‘mean-ingless’ politics.

In a statement here, Ramadass said NEET will affect social justice and when there is no equality in society, economy and education, medical admission based on a competitive examination will only help the rich and students of the government schools will be affected adversely, he said, add-ing that when they compete with students of private schools they could not secure medical seats.

In Tamil Nadu 34 government

school students got medical ad-mission in 2016 but it shrank to 2 in 2019 and any government hav-ing faith in social justice will not be a mere spectator to this, he said, adding that the same situa-tion prevails in Puducherry.

He urged the chief minister to take immediate steps to enact legislation providing reservation for Government schools students in medical education here before the result of NEET is published. Ramadass demanded that a committee under the develop-ment commissioner be set up to go into this issue The committee should decide the quantum of the reservation to be provided to the government school students and also whether it be derived from other quotas or whether it be inner allocation. Meanwhile, AIADMK legislature party leader A Anbazhagan in a statement today charged that the chief minister is trying to achieve po-litical gains by creating confusion among the students in the NEET issue. He said in 2010 Naray-ansamy who was the minister of state for Prime minister’s Offi ce welcomed the NEET bill and now he is trying to create violence by exhorting people to fi ght against NEET. He said in 2013.

Narayansamy’s fi ght against NEET shows his political

failure: Ramadass

Bhubaneswar, Sep 20 (UNI) Odisha has reported 4,330 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day spike so far taking the state’s total tally to 1,79,880, said a state health offi cial on Sunday.

The Covid-19 death toll increased to 701 in the state with

10 new fatalities in the last 24 hours. While Cuttack and Puri districts reported two deaths each, one each died in Balangir, Ganjam, Kalahandi, Khordha, Mayurbhanj and Sambalpur districts, the offi cial said. Of the total fresh cases, 2,556 have been reported.

Odisha records highest 1-day spike of 4,330 Covid cases

Bengaluru, Sep 20 (UNI) With 10,815 patients discharged, recoveries were more than 8,364 new Covid cases, while 114 succumbed to the virus across Karnataka.

“Of the 5,11,346 positive cases till date, 98,564 are active, as 4,04,841 were discharged after treatment since March 8, when the pandemic broke, while the death toll rose to 7,922 across the southern state,” said health bulletin. In Bengaluru Urban, recoveries were also more

as 4,180 got discharged than 3,733 fresh cases registered, while 33 died of the infection during the day. “Of the 1,91,438 positive cases across the city so far, 41,434 are active after 1,47,378 were discharged, while death toll rose to 2,625 till date,” said the bulletin.

Of the 822 patients in the intensive care units (ICUs) across the state, 255 are in Bengaluru hospitals, followed by Dharwad 91, Ballari 70 and Hassan 62. Among the districts which

reported higher number of cases, Mysuru had 626, followed by Dakshina Kannada 432, Gadag 391 and Ballari 310.

Of the discharged patients in the districts, Mysuru reported 1,018, Hassan 599, Mandya 412, Uttara Kannada 407, Dakshina Kannada 404 and Kalaburagi 352. Of the discharged patients in the districts, Mysuru reported 1,018, Hassan 599, Mandya 412, Uttara Kannada 407, Dakshina Kannada 404 and Kalaburagi 352.

Recoveries exceed new Covid cases in Karnataka

Thane, Sep 20 (UNI) A 106-year-old woman from Maharashtra’s Thane district defeated COVID-19 and was discharged from hospital on Sunday with doctors and nurses giving her a warm farewell. happiness writ large on her face, the woman proudly displayed her discharge certifi cate to the media before walking out of the hospital after a 10-day stay. After the Dombivli-based centenarian contracted the disease, no hospital was initially ready to admit her due to her age, said her daughter-in-law, who were happy to see her mother-in-law discharged from the hospital after recovering from the disease. She was fi nally admitted 10 days back to the COVID-19 treatment facility set up by the Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) at Savlaram Krida Sankul (sports complex) and doctors and

medical teams there took proper care of her, the daughter-in-law said.

“We are really thankful to the hospital’s medical team who took proper care of her and helped her in defeating the coronavirus,” she said.

Dr Rahul Ghule, managing director of ‘One Rupee Clinic’ which is managing this COVID-19 treatment facility, appreciated his team for taking care of the elderly woman. “We are happy that she successfully responded to the treatment,” he said, adding that the hospital was opened on July 27, and so far it has treated 1,100 COVID-19 patients. ‘One Rupee Clinics’, which charge Re 1 per patient for their services, have been set up at select stations on the Central Railway’s suburban section to provide emergency help to rail accident victims and give medical treatment.

Maharashtra: 106-year-old woman wins battle

against COVID-19

Kochi, Sep 20 (UNI) After the enquiry by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Customs, it is now the turn of the In-come Tax (I-T) Department to probe the diplomatic channel gold smuggling case. I-T Department has approached the Economic Offences Court here, seek-ing permission to probe the suspected income tax eva-sion and benami purchase of holdings by the accused in the smuggling case. The department has sought permission to interrogate Swapna Suresh, P S Sarith,

Sandeep Nair, Hamjad Ali, A M Jalal, P Mohammad Shafi , T M Mohammad An-war, E Said Alavi and K T Rameez.

The investigation has so far yielded over Rs one crore from the safe deposit lock-ers of Swapna, besides 982.5 gram of gold ornaments. The source of cash and valuables was unclear. Gold smuggling and subsequent activities had generated un-accounted income for vari-ous persons, attracting pro-visions of the I-T Act, 1961. Some of the unaccounted income generated through the gold smuggling could be

invested in properties in be-nami names, attracting the provisions of Prohibition of Benami Property Transac-tions Act, 1988.

According to IT sources, the smuggling case had to be investigated in depth to identify those in the total value chain, look into the unaccounted income gen-erated and recover the le-gitimate taxes.

The nine persons could have concealed their in-come and assets which had to be examined under oath and asked to produce docu-ments. The court posted the case for September 22.

Gold smuggling case: I-T department to

interrogate accused

Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 20 (UNI) Kerala reported 16 deaths due to COVID-19 on Sunday whereas 4,696 people tested positive to the virus, 2,751 patients have recovered from the same and 39,415 patients are under treatment, Health Minister KK Shailaja said. “Currently, 2,22,179 people are under observation in the State -- 1,96,261 are under home or institutional

quarantine and 25,918 in hospitals. Total 3,154 people were admitted to the hospitals today. So far, 95,702 persons have recovered from Covid in the State,” the Minister said in a press release here this evening. Of the newly reported positive cases today, 4,425 cases were of local transmission and the contact source of 459 have not been traceable.

Kerala reports 16 COVID deaths, 4,696 new +ve cases:

Health Minister

5OP-ED21 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER, 2020

Email : [email protected] / (H.O) HyderabadTHE SOUTH INDIA TIMES

Cases of political activists who commit no overt act, fire no gun, throw no bomb and whose only weapon is their fierce oratory and belief in the transition from capitalism to socialism, must be separated from terrorist cases. There are undoubt-edly many cases of terrorism, but they are easy to identify by the prominence of an overt act and the immediate devastation caused. In the political cases of the Delhi riots kind where young persons are be-ing thrown into COVID-infested jails, one would need super magnifying glasses to identify the overt act, weaponry used and the devastation caused. In such cases, the normal language of a chargesheet under UAPA is replaced by storytelling, innuen-do, presumption, extrapolation, stretching of the narrative and downright lying.

Criminal law judges of the post-inde-pendence period had a finely-tuned un-derstanding and instincts of criminal law jurisprudence. The most important attri-bute that a criminal law expert possessed was a fundamental distrust of the police, the desire to question, the intention to look at documents closely, the sceptical scru-tiny of statements made and an intense commitment not to allow the general gup-shup of the police replace clear-cut admis-sible evidence against the accused. As the recently declared Watali judgment of the Supreme Court would show, all this has disintegrated into telling a fine fairytale and covering that absence of a core with 17,000 pages (as in the Delhi riots case) of

pure drivel in order to deter a judge from looking at the evidence at the stage of bail. The inevitable result would be that these modern-day second national movement heroes would rot in jail and perhaps die there while their trials ran for a decade.

Had the police tried these tricks on the earlier generation of criminal court judges such as, for example, Vivian Bose, I can imagine the judge leaning back in his chair looking down scornfully at the masses of paper constituting the chargesheet and

asking the investigation officer to pro-duce one sheet of paper, just one from the 17,000 pages which would show him unambiguously that the accused had com-mitted a heinous offence. The moment the police do drama of producing super vo-luminous chargesheets, a criminal judge should know that there is hanky-panky go-ing on. The decline began in the Supreme Court over a decade ago when a particular judge who had a background in income tax law was assigned criminal matters for

many years. He incorporated civil proce-dure and civil law principles into criminal jurisprudence, undermining the latter’s purity so that we can now have judgments like the Watali case, delivered recently in the Supreme Court, laying down the pre-posterous proposition that while denying bail, the court may rely on evidence that is not admissible under the Evidence Act during the trial.

The story I am going to tell you is a true story of an alleged Maoist. It is alleged that he made a confession to a police officer to the effect that he was a member of the Maoist party and was responsible for ter-rorist offences. This statement was made to a police officer and so was inadmissible in evidence, unlike a confession made to the magistrate which is admissible. On this sole piece of evidence, the police in-volved him in 16 criminal cases in Maha-rashtra, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh even though in 12 of those cases his name did not appear in the FIRs. In the remain-ing cases, there was no overt act attributed to him. All that was said was that he was a member of the Central Committee of the party and the brains behind the ter-rorist offences. He was arrested in 2009. Four chargesheets were filed. All were dropped. His trial proceeded on the fifth chargesheet, and he was acquitted in 2016 of all terrorist charges. By then, in his 70s, he had spent seven years in jail battling a prostate infection, irritable bowel syn-drome, ophthalmic ailments, heart prob-

lems, high blood pressure, arthritis, slip disc and spondylitis.

The Andhra Pradesh High Court grant-ed bail and trenchantly dealt with the objection of the public prosecutor to the grant of bail when she said that 20 cases were pending against the accused: “It is not as if any of the petitioners partici-pated in those offences at the field level. They were included in the cases on the basis of certain broad resolutions passed at a meeting of Maoist party. It is nobody’s case that the petitioner hatched any plan. This is a fit case for granting bail”. The Su-preme Court dismissed the state appeal. Similarly, the Delhi trial court acquitted the accused in the following manner: “… no evidence relied upon by the prosecu-tion has been found to be admissible…the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses suffer from infirmities… the recoveries have not been proved… the (confession) made by the accused (to a police officer) cannot be read in evidence. The material relied upon by the prosecution is not re-liable and admissible.” Similarly, the Pa-tiala District Court acquitted the accused, “no recovery was effected… prosecution failed to prove that the accused was a member of a militant group…there was no evidence to show accused had any link with terrorist activities or had any link with any enemy country.” By the time he was acquitted in all the cases, he had spent a decade of the most productive pe-riod of his life in jail.

Chargesheets & fairy tales: When police produce voluminous chargesheets, a judge should be suspicious

The year is 1946. South Africa has adopted a legislation, “The Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act” (also known by those opposed to it as the Ghetto Act) that legalised the discrimination faced by Indi-ans in South Africa through the restriction of their rights to purchase land. Jawaharlal Nehru had just become the Vice-President of the Interim Government of India.

In consultation and at the behest of Ma-hatma Gandhi, he decided to internation-alise the issue of the racist law in South Africa by approaching the UN General As-sembly (UNGA). In a series of events that then unfolded, including a memorable first session of the UNGA (1946), India suc-ceeded in challenging the “domestic juris-diction” and “sovereignty” clause of the UN Charter (Article 2(7)) under which South Africa could justify its racist treatment of Indians living in South Africa.

As we mark, in 2020, the 75th anniversary of the founding document of the United Nations, the UN Charter, we are justifiably recalling its main strengths including the call on all states to demonstrate “univer-sal respect for, and observance of human rights” and the call for justice and solidarity such that states must take “joint and sepa-rate actions” towards respect for human rights. At the same time, we need to reflect on the remarkable achievement of India in confronting a major weakness of the UN Charter – the clause that permitted coun-tries to hide human rights violations under the cloak of “national sovereignty”.

In the nascent years of the UN, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru requested Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to head the Indian delegation to the first session of the UNGA, with the express instructions to raise the issue of racial practices against the Indian

minority in South Africa. In face of fierce opposition from the Allied countries, India succeeded in challenging Article 2(7)) of the UN Charter by having a resolution passed that sought to censure South Africa for its racist treatment of Indians living in South Africa. Prior to her departure from India, Gandhiji asked to see Pandit and explained (as related in her autobiography) the im-portance of India raising the discrimination issue at the UNGA. He insisted, moreover, that the conduct of the Indian delegation be based solely on the understanding that he envisaged the UN as a place in which friendships between nations were cement-ed, where discussion and debate were kept on the highest level, and truth and ethics were the guidelines. For Gandhiji, these principles were to be adhered to even in the dealings with the South African delega-tions especially their Prime Minister and leader of their delegation, Field Marshal

Jan Smuts. In his brief to Pandit, Nehru re-minded her “that we were inheritors of the high traditions of Mahatma Gandhi, and that this tradition was an ethical and moral one. Gandhiji had placed before us a tech-nique of action unique in the world, com-bining political activity, political conflict, and a struggle for freedom based on certain principles…. He reminded us of India’s total acceptance of the UN Charter whose preamble was almost our personal pledge to the world: “to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger free-dom”. As stated by Pandit in her autobiog-raphy reflecting on the UNGA session: “My formidable adversary in the debate was the late Field Marshal Smuts, who raised the plea of domestic jurisdiction under Article 2(7) of the Charter. In reply to this I said in part ‘For us this is not the mere assertion of certain rights and privileges. We look upon it primarily as a challenge to our dignity

and self-respect… What the world needs is not more charters, not more committees to define and courts of justice to interpret, but a more willing implementation of the prin-ciples of the Charter by all governments.”’

Those familiar with Mahatma Gandhi’s life and work during his years in South Af-rica will recall Smuts as the same man with whom he had a chequered history. In his fi-nal years in South Africa, however, Gandhiji had worked with Smuts to reach an agree-ment regarding voluntary registration, poll tax, recognition of Indian marriages and other matters. This agreement led to the adoption of the Indian Relief Act on 26 June 1914, abolishing the £3 poll tax, recognising marriages contracted in terms of traditional Indian rites and facilitating the entry into the Union of the wives of Indians already settled locally. The passage of the resolu-tion at the UNGA was not easy for India. There was fierce opposition from Britain, the United States and South Africa, sev-eral late night sessions, eloquent speeches by Smuts each one countered brilliantly by Pandit. Following one such exchange Pandit sought out Smuts and told him that “My instructions from Gandhiji before I left home were that I should shake your hand and ask your blessing for my cause.” The debate continued for many days but the fi-nal intervention by Pandit won the day. She stated that: “I ask no favours for India…no concession for the Indian population of South Africa. I ask for the verdict of this As-sembly on a proven violation of the Charter, on an issue which has led to acute dispute between two member states; on an issue which is not confined to India or South Africa, and finally on an issue the decision of which must make or mar the loyalty and confidence which the common people of

the world have placed on us. Mine if an ap-peal to a conscience, the conscience of the world, which this Assembly is.”

The resolution was adopted by the re-quired two thirds majority and stated that “treatment of Indians in the Union should be in conformity with the international agreements concluded between the two governments and the provisions of the UN Charter.” Pandit claimed it as an “Asian vic-tory”. Immediately Pandit also sent a mes-sage to Mahatma Gandhi on the accom-plishment of the mission he had assigned to her. The mission was, of course, not only the substance of the resolution, the calling out of South Africa for its racist policies and the legitimisation of the UN General Assembly as a forum for all nations large and small, it also had an important personal dimension. Pandit, soon after the resolution passed, sought out Smuts and asked him if in the debates she had said anything that was not “up to the high standard Gandhiji had im-posed on me, I ask your pardon… I hope I have not said anything of a personal nature to hurt you.” The victory India gained at the GA in 1946 opened up completely new horizons through which countries could no longer hide behind their nations boundar-ies and continue to violate human rights without facing a global challenge at the United Nations. The resolution that India succeeded in having adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1946, paved the way for the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and subsequent international human rights instruments, unencumbered by the limitations of the UN Charter provision on “National Sovereign-ty”. Just prior to his departure from South Africa in 1914, Gandhiji gifted Smuts with a pair of sandals that he had made.

When India challenged the UN Charter

To expect that a social media company will help societies to deal with the public expression of hate is remarkable for two reasons. First, the expectation outsources the responsibility of controlling the out-break of a destructive emotion like hatred. It suggests nothing less than the abdica-tion of a role social institutions, including the ones run by the state, ought to play. Second, the idea of letting a social media company deal with the problem implies an enhanced sphere of its operations. Al-ready, that sphere is believed to include canvassing for elections. To assign the re-duction or removal of hateful expression to the owners of digital platforms implies let-ting them figure out, through digital tools, who harbours what emotions and values.

This is, of course, not the first time that mature liberal democracies are pos-ing a readiness to compromise with their commitment to privacy. Erosion of the citizen’s right to privacy is no longer news-worthy. In societies like America, and not just China, the citizenry has comfortably

bargained several of its older freedoms for cheap conveniences. As a nation, we have been ahead of many others in establishing the right to freedom of all kinds of expres-sion, irrespective of the medium used. In that sense, we have been more tolerant, and after each attempt to suppress free-dom, there has been an adequate expres-sion of outrage. But things are changing. The temptation to let technology monitor unacceptable speech or writing has been growing as part of the general dependence on digital devices.

Let us take an example from higher edu-cation. Education of the young is believed to be a relevant sphere for the growth of moral awareness. Institutional ethos and considerate pedagogic practices are known to nurture the kind of tempera-ment and values that civic life demands. In higher education, an important value everyone is supposed to learn is that the knowledge one has derived from the writ-ings of someone else needs to be acknowl-edged. When students write a thesis based

on their own research, you expect that they have not stolen — that is, used without ac-knowledgement — ideas or text from an existing source. Until a few years ago, that trust was cultivated and exercised by the teacher under whose guidance the thesis was written. A software has now replaced the teacher. Under the rules in place now in all universities, all dissertations must submit to this software and get a clearance before the university will accept them for further examination. This requirement is an affront not merely to the student but also to the supervisor. Among the 46 des-ignated spaces where a supervisor is now required to put his signature when a thesis is about to be submitted, there already was one where the originality of the student’s effort was certified. That declaration by the teacher will now be confirmed by the me-chanical plagiary check.

The message is clear: The university does not trust the teacher any more. When exactly did this accident occur is not a rel-evant question. It is not as if there was a

sudden flood of plagiarised dissertations at some point, which forced the Univer-sity Grants Commission to institute the system of plagiary check before submis-sion. What seems to have happened is that this tool became available in the market and it created the need it could fulfil. The implications of using the tool were never contemplated. Turning to a mechanical device which promised to do a function that teachers were supposed to perform seemed like a good idea. Prevailing ste-reotypes of teachers must have helped to rationalise the switch over. As one might expect, the transfer of a moral function to technology marginalised the teacher’s human agency further. Something similar happened in schools, but there one can date the beginning. It was sometime dur-ing Sheila Dikshit’s first term as Delhi’s chief minister that an experimental pro-gramme to install CCTV cameras in a few schools started. By then, many private schools were already using them. It is not as if these private schools had any doubts

about their teachers’ devotion to work. The principals justified the cameras in the name of pedagogic quality. I remember a principal joyfully claiming that he can see what teachers are writing on the black-board. By the time private schools started making their classrooms “smart” with a range of equipment, government schools started to install more CCTV cameras on a large scale. Transparency was the buzz-word. It was supposed to deliver the moral value called accountability. Easy demoni-sation of the school teacher paved the way for surveillance technology to enter every classroom. It has now entered a new stage where parents can check a few times how things are going for their child at school.

This story is just one among a hundred wherein social spaces and functions are handed over to technology. In day-to-day general governance, transparency tools have acquired routine roles. In academic institutions, public disclosure of decisions and plans, faculty profiles, financial de-tails, etc.

The role of technology in education speaks of a transfer of a moral function, and an abdication

Washington, Sep 20 (UNI) US President Donald Trump has urged Repub-licans to confi rm “without delay” a replacement for late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the iconic champion of wom-en’s rights who passed away due to panreatic cancer at the age of 87.

“We were put in this po-sition of power and impor-tance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most im-portant of which has long been considered to be the selection of US Supreme Court Justices. We have this obligation, without delay,” Trump tweeted on Satur-day. US media cited presi-dential aides and advisers as saying that Trump was considering a woman for his latest Supreme Court nominee, who would also

be the third appointee dur-ing his presidency. Assess-ment of possible options began on Saturday, reports Xinhua news agency.

Ginsburg died on Fri-day of complications from metastatic pancreatic can-cer, the Supreme Court said in a statement, adding that a private interment will be held at the Arlington Na-tional Cemetery, without revealing the specifi c date for the ceremony.

The second female Su-preme Court justice in US history and a champion for equal protection under law for women, Ginsburg was nominated to the bench by then President Bill Clinton in 1993 and over the years became the most senior lib-eral justice on the nation’s highest court.

The death of Ginsburg has set up a fi erce partisan fi ght

on Capitol Hill over whether to confi rm a nominee less than 50 days away from the presidential election.

Democratic lawmak-ers led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as well as former President Barack Obama, all maintained that Ginsburg’s replacement should be nominated by the next president to be chosen by voters in the November 3 election. “The voters should pick the president, and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider,” Biden said on Friday night. Such a posi-tion echoed Ginsburg’s dy-ing wish. “My most fervent wish is that I will not be re-placed until a new President is installed,” she said in a statement dictated to her grand-daughter.

6INTERNATIONAL21 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER, 2020

Email : [email protected] / (H.O) HyderabadTHE SOUTH INDIA TIMES

OWNER PUBLISHER PRINTED BY BUCHI BABU, VUPPALA, PRINTED BY. THANMAYEE PRINTERS #17-1-469/A/42/23, ADARSH NAGAR, SAIDABAD, HYDERABAD-59, PUBLISHED FROM: #17-1-469/A/42/23,OWNER PUBLISHER PRINTED BY BUCHI BABU, VUPPALA, PRINTED BY. THANMAYEE PRINTERS #17-1-469/A/42/23, ADARSH NAGAR, SAIDABAD, HYDERABAD-59, PUBLISHED FROM: #17-1-469/A/42/23,ADARSH NAGAR, NEAR UNIQUE GRAMMER SCHOOL, SAIDABAD, HYDERABAD-59, T.S.EDITOR. BUCHI BABU VUPPALA. RNI.NO.APENG/29225/2009. E-MAIL: [email protected] NAGAR, NEAR UNIQUE GRAMMER SCHOOL, SAIDABAD, HYDERABAD-59, T.S.EDITOR. BUCHI BABU VUPPALA. RNI.NO.APENG/29225/2009. E-MAIL: [email protected]

London, Sep 20 (UNI) British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is spending the weekend consider-ing whether to tighten Covid-19 measures in England, after saying the UK was “now seeing a second wave”. The government is under-stood to be looking at a ban on households mixing, and reducing opening hours for pubs, the BBC reported on Saturday.

At least 13.5 million people, roughly one in fi ve of the UK population, are already facing local restrictions. Former govern-ment adviser Prof Neil Ferguson said new measures were needed

“sooner rather than later”. The scientist, whose advice was cru-cial to the decision to go into lockdown in March, said: “If we leave it another two to four weeks, we will be back at (infec-tion) levels we were seeing more like mid-March.

“That’s clearly going to cause deaths because people will be hospitalised,” he told the BBC.

Johnson only has direct power over restrictions in England. The devolved governments in Scot-land, Wales and Northern Ireland can set their own rules. Wide-spread growth of the virus has

been recorded across the coun-try, with cases doubling every seven to eight days.

There were a further 4,422 con-fi rmed UK cases on Saturday and 27 deaths. Friday was the fi rst time the daily total of positive tests had exceeded 4,000 since May 8. A further 350 cases were reported on Saturday in Scotland, the highest daily increase since May, 212 new cases in Wales, and 222 in Northern Ireland. In Bolton, one returning holiday-maker, who did not self-isolate and instead went on a pub crawl, is being partly blamed for the

town’s spike in cases. Meanwhile, governments across Europe have announced new restrictions to tackle the surge in infections.

Speaking on Friday, Johnson said he did not “want to go into bigger lockdown measures” but that tighter social distancing rules might be necessary.

He added: “Clearly when you look at what is happening, you have got to wonder whether we need to go further than the rule of six that we brought in on Monday.” The government is understood to be consider-ing a short period of tighter rules across England - “a circuit break” - which could involve closing hospitality venues. However, schools and work-places would stay open.

Washington, Sep 20 (UNI) The US claimed that all pre-2015 UN sanctions against Iran had been restored, a unilateral effort ig-nored by the international com-munity.

In a statement on Saturday night, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the sanctions were being re-imposed accord-ing to the “snapback” mechanism under UN Security Council Reso-lution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, reports

Xinhua news agency.The US had unilaterally in-

voked the “snapback” on August 20 after its failed and isolated at-tempt in the Security Council to

extend the arms embargo against Tehran that expires on October 18. However, the overwhelm-ing majority of Security Council members asserted that the US has no right to invoke the “snap-back” mechanism as the country is no longer a participant follow-ing its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018. In Sat-urday’s statement, Pompeo also threatened consequences if other countries fail to implement the sanctions.

US unilaterally claims restoration of UN sanctions against Iran

Johnson considering new restrictions amid 2nd Covid wave

London, Sep 20 (UNI) UK Health Secretary Matt Han-cock on Sunday warned that Covid-19 restrictions in England will get tougher if rules were not followed, as the government has in-troduced 10,000 pound fi nes for people who fail to self-isolate. Speaking to the BBC, Hancock said the country was facing a “tip-ping point and we have a choice”.

“If everybody follows the rules then we can avoid fur-ther national lockdown,” he added. According to the government, people in Eng-land who refuse an order to self-isolate could be fi ned

up to 10,000 pounds from September 28.

The new legal duty re-quires people to self-isolate if they test positive for coro-navirus, or are traced as a close contact.

New measures also in-clude a one-off 500 pounds support payment for those on lower incomes, and a penalty for employers who punish those told to self-isolate. Fines will initially

start at 1,000 pounds rising to 10,000 pounds for repeat offenders, and for “the most egregious breaches”.

Up until now, advice to self-isolate has been guid-ance only.

Last week, the Attorney General had said that over 19,000 fi nes have been is-sued in England and Wales for alleged breaches of coronavirus laws, but more than half have.

Follow Covid-19 rules or they will get tougher: Hancock

New York, Sep 20 (UNI) Two former Amazon em-ployee in Hyderabad and four others have been charged in a US federal court in an alleged bribery scheme that gave some third-party merchants on the platform competitive benefi ts worth $100 mil-lion, according to the De-partment of Justice.

Nishad Kunju and Ro-hit Kadimisetty, former seller-support associates with Amazon in Hyder-abad, and four others are

charged in a Seattle fed-eral court with conspira-cy to “commit commer-cial bribery” and to hack computer systems, the department announced on Friday. In court docu-ments, Kunju is accused of accepting bribes from the others before leaving the company to become an outside consultant who recruited and alleg-edly paid bribes to his former colleagues.

At least nine other Amazon employees be-

sides Kunju, allegedly received the bribes, but they were not named in the court papers. Kunju, Kadimisetty and the four others, who provide con-sultancy services to third-party sellers on the Ama-zon platform, directed over $100,000 in bribes to get directly help their clients or to harm rival sellers, the court docu-ments said. One of the alleged activities by ring involved in the case was to “adulterate” or illegally modify the postings of ri-val sellers by introducing “lewd and offensive con-tent and images designed to drive away consumers.

and intimidate the vic-

2 Hyderabad Amazon ex-workers charged in

US bribery case

Ex-Canadian PM John Turner passes away at 91

CANAD URGED TO TAKE ACTION AGAINST COVID 19

AS CASES SPIKE Ottawa, Sep 20 (UNI) For-mer Canadian Prime Minis-ter John Turner has passed away at the age of 91 at his residence in Toronto.

He died on Friday night, the BBC quoted Marc Ke-aley, a former aide speaking on behalf of his relatives, as saying to the Montreal Gazette. He is survived by his wife Geills and four children. In a statement confi rming his passing, the Department of Canadian Heritage on Saturday called Turner “an accomplished lawyer and politician, (who)

was recognized for his per-sonal integrity and commit-ment to democracy, reports CBC News Canada.

“Through three decades of public service as a cabi-net minister, Leader of the Opposition, and 17th Prime Minister of Canada, he was

tirelessly devoted to up-holding Canadian values and principles.” The state-ment said funeral informa-tion would follow. Turner, who spent decades in feder-al politics as a cabinet min-ister and Liberal Party lead-er during some of the most turbulent moments, led Canada for 79 days in 1984 — the second-shortest time in offi ce of any Prime Minis-ter. Born in 1929 in England, Turner moved to Canada as a young child and grew up mostly in Ottawa, reports Xinhua news agency.

Ramallah, Sep 20 (UNI) The Palestinian leadership is act-ing to “prevent more Arab countries from normalising relations with Israel”, a senior official said here.

“The normalisation agree-ments that both the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain signed with Israel are based on the principle of peace for protection,” Xinhua news agency quoted Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of Palestine Liberation Organization Exec-utive Committee, as saying in an interview on Saturday.

It is a responsibility of the Arab states and the Organisa-tion of Islamic Cooperation to preserve their decisions on committing to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, he noted.

According to the Arab Peace Initiative, the Arab states can only normalize relations with

Israel after Israel ends its mili-tary occupation of the Arab territories.

Erekat revealed that the Pal-estinian leadership will pres-ent 19 resolutions to the UN General Assembly at its up-coming session, including “the confirmation of the two-state solution and the previous res-olutions of the international

legitimacy related to the Pales-tinian cause”.

The Palestinian leadership “is expecting large interna-tional support for the Palestin-ian resolutions”, he added.

The remarks came after Is-rael signed agreements to nor-malise diplomatic ties with the UAE and Bahrain at the White House on September 15.

Trump urges confi rmation of new SC nominee ‘without delay’Palestine vows prevention of

more Arab-Israel normalisations

Ottawa, Sep 20 (UNI) Canadian citizens have been urged to take action against the spread of the novel coronavirus, as the overall nationwide caseload has increased to 141,911 with 9,205 deaths, ac-cording to the country’s Public Health Agency.

In an average, 849 cases have been reported daily across Canada in the last seven days, reports Xin-hua news agency. “As I discussed in my remarks on Friday, the ongo-ing increase in Canada’s daily case count is an indicator of accelerated epidemic growth,” Canada’s Chief

Public Health Offi cer Theresa Tam said in a statement on Saturday. Tam said that accelerated growth increases the risk of the virus spreading beyond manageable levels.

As Canad were shifting more of their activities indoors, the risk of spreading was increasing. Tam urged all Canad to take action now to slow the spread of the virus. “In addition to strict adherence to personal protective measures, we must all reduce our number of contacts to a minimum. Most im-portantly, stay home and isolate

yourself from others if you are experiencing any symptoms.”

On Friday, two political party leaders tested positive for Co-vid-19. Bloc Quebecois’ leader Yves-Francois Blanchet and his wife were both tested posi-tive for the virus and are cur-rently in isolation until the end of September, according to a statement of the party. On Fri-day night, the Canadian Con-servative Party announced that its newly-elected leader Erin O’Toole tested positive and was isolating.

Letter containing poison addressed to Trump at WH

Washington, Sep 20 (UNI) A package containing ricin poison that was addressed to US President Donald Trump has been intercepted before it reached the White House, of-fi cials told American media outlets. The letter was discov-ered at a screening facility for White House mail earlier this week, the BBC quoted the of-fi cials as saying to the outlets on Saturday. They said a sub-stance found inside the enve-lope was identifi ed as ricin, a poison found naturally in cas-tor beans.

The Federal Bureau of Inves-tigation (FBI) and the Secret Service are investigating where the package came from and whether others have been sent through the US postal system.

“At this time, there is no known threat to public safety,” the FBI told CNN in a state-ment on Saturday. One offi -cial told the New York Times that investigators believe the package was sent from Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said on Saturday it was working with the FBI to investigate the “suspicious letter sent to the White House”. Ricin is pro-duced by processing castor beans. It is a lethal substance that, if swallowed, inhaled or injected, can cause nausea, vomiting, internal bleeding and ultimately organ failure, the BBC reported.

DEFECTOR CAUGHT TRYING TO CROSS BACK INTO N.KOREASeoul, Sep 20 (UNI) Police in

South Korea said on Sunday that they have taken into custody a North Korean defector for at-tempting to cross into his coun-

try through a military unit in an eastern border town. The man in his 30s was caught entering a military unit in Chorwon, Gang-won province, at around 9 a.m.

on September 17 in an attempt to cross into the North, reports Yonhap News Agency citing the police as saying. He was found to have four mobile phones and

a cutting machine. The police said that the man defected to the South in 2018 and had stayed in Seoul, though they did not pro-vide more details on his identity.

Investigation is underway to determine why and how he was trying to return to the North. It is against the national security law to enter the North without state

approval. Defectors returning to North Korea have drawn media attention after Pyongyang re-cently claimed that a defector suspected of having coronavirus

symptoms crossed the inter-Korean border and returned to his hometown. The Unifi cation Ministry handling inter-Korean affairs earlier said.

7SPORTS21 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER, 2020

Email : [email protected] / (H.O) HyderabadTHE SOUTH INDIA TIMESWe practiced in Chennai also which really helped: Rayudu

Abu Dhabi, Sep 20 (UNI) Ambati Rayudu’s 48-ball 72 helped Chennai Super Kings (CSK) beat Mumbai Ind (MI) by five wickets in the Indian Premier League (IPL) season opener on Saturday at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in

Abu Dhabi. Rayudu came in when CSK were 6/2 at the start of the third over while chasing a target of 163.

He went on to post a 115-run stand for the third wicket with Faf du Plessis (58 not out). Rayudu was declared

man of the match for his innings. “We were training and it was stop start. We were also training in the summer before it got postponed,” said Rayudu in the post-match presentation ceremony. “The pitch was doing a bit with

the new ball but it came a bit easier once the dew came on. We just wanted to get stuck in there and get through. We practiced in Chennai, that really helped and then in Dubai as well so, very happy,” he said. This is the

first time after five attempts that CSK have managed to beat MI and it also makes eight consecutive defeats in the opening match of an IPL season for the latter. They next face Delhi Capitals in Dubai on September 24.

Delhi Capitals pacer Ishant sustains back injury: Report

Barca starlet Puig to be loaned out, says coach Koeman

Dubai, Sep 20 (UNI) Delhi Capitals fast bowler Ishant Sharma has reportedly sustained a back injury during a practice session in Dubai and looks doubtful for Sunday’s IPL game against Kings XI Punjab.

Ishant has had a spate of injuries in the recent past and that prevented him from taking full part during India’s Test series in New Zealand earlier in the year.

According to Cricbuzz, the 32-year-old pacer sustained the injury

during one of the training sessions. The severity of the injury and to what extent it affects his participation in the IPL

this season is yet to be known.

In January, Ishant had sustained an ankle injury while playing for Delhi in

a Ranji Trophy match. He was then picked for the Indian team that played New Zealand in the first of their three-match Test series. But the same injury recurred again and he was ruled out for the rest of the series. DC’s first match against KXIP will be played at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday. This is the second game of the 2020 edition of the IPL which is being played across three bio-secure venues in the United Arab Emirates.

Madrid, Sep 20 (UNI) FC Barcelona’s talented young midfielder Riqui Puig looks as if he is going to be spending the season on loan elsewhere, local media reported on Sunday.

Puig, whose performances were one of the few positives in Barca’s disappointing end to last season and who looked as if he was going to play a major role in the new season, was left in the stands for the club’s traditional pre-season Joan Gamper friendly against Elche on Saturday night. Coach Ronald Koeman had told the player, who turned 21 a month ago, that he didn’t want him this season, Xinhua news agency reported. Speaking after the game, which Barca won thanks to a solitary Antoine Griezmann goal, Koeman

implied that the youngster would indeed be on his way out for the time being. “I spoke to him yesterday (Friday) before training; I think that the young players have to play regularly and that is what I told him,” Koeman commented, adding that the same went for Carles Alena and new signing Pedri.

“Players like Riqui have something special, but it is going to be very complicated for him here as there is a lot of competition. I have told him that he has a future here, and we will think about what is the best way to succeed at Barca,” he added. “It’s not true that I’m not counting on him,” insisted Koeman, who believes a loan move is likely. “It is a possibility and it could be for other players as well.

Abu Dhabi, Sep 20 (UNI) Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) may consider pushing Andre Russell up the batting order strategically in some matches, head coach Brendon McCullum said on Saturday. The former New Zealand captain said he is happy with the flexibility the squad has got. “The thing we want to pride ourselves is being a really smart team and utilising resources based on the match-ups. Andre Russell hit 54 sixes [52], I think, last year,” said McCullum in a pre-season press conference.

“His game is suited to last 10 overs of a T20 game where he can really control. But there may be times when the match-ups are right, we can get Andre come in up the order. But that will be a horses for courses type of approach. The good thing is we have a lot

of resources to choose from,” he said. McCullum said the addition of England’s World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan gives them a strong middle order this season. “We wanted to provide some resource around Russell’s six-hitting ability. We also wanted to find some more leadership around skipper Dinesh Karthik and Morgan obviously won the World Cup with England and he has been the standout leader in World Cup. He was a guy we were desperate to get. Him batting in around Russell and Karthik provides us with a strong middle order.”

KKR may push Russell up the batting order, says McCullum

Emilia Romagna MotoGP: 2nd consecutive Misano pole for Vinales

Kings XI Punjab choose to bowl first

against Delhi Capitals

Dubai, Sep 20 (UNI) Kings XI Punjab chose to bowl first against Delhi Capitals at the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday. Both sides are playing their first matches of the Indian Premier League (IPL) season. Veteran West Indies batsman Chris Gayle won’t be playing for KXIP and captain KL Rahul said that they have gone for Glenn Maxwell, Nicholas Pooran, Sheldon Cottrell and Chris Jordan as their overseas players. Meanwhile, DC captain Shreyas Iyer said that Shimron Hetmyer, Kagiso Rabada, Marcus Stoinis and Anrich Nortje are the overseas players included in their playing XI. Delhi Capitals: Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Rishabh Pant (wicketkeeper), Shimron Hetmyer, Marcus Stoinis, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohit Sharma, Anrich Nortje, Kagiso Rabada Kings XI Punjab: KL Rahul(captain, wicketkeeper), Mayank Agarwal, Karun Nair, Sarfaraz Khan, Glenn Maxwell, Nicholas Pooran, Krishnappa Gowtham, Chris Jordan, Sheldon Cottrell, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Shami.

Misano Adriatico (Italy), Sep 20(UNI) Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales got to a second consecutive pole at Misano after Francesco Bagnaia’s last lap was cancelled for exceeding track limits ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Bagnaia smashed the lap record that Vinales had set when he took pole last week when he went around the track in 1:30.973 -- the first sub-1:30 lap of Misano. He however ran off the tract after exiting the final corner and was sent back to fifth place. Vinales set a time of 1:31.077 and it was

enough to beat Q1 graduate Jack Miller by 0.076. Fabio Quartararo completes the front row. Pol Espargaro grabbed P4 above Bagnaia while his KTM team mate Brad Binder took P6, the rookie’s best Saturday afternoon result of 2020. Rossi spearheads the third row in P7, The Doctor just three tenths away from Vinales’ time as the nine-time World Champion sits ahead of close friend and San Marino GP winner Franco Morbidelli -- P8 for Morbidelli, who is nursing an illness this weekend.

New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) The Golden Baby Leagues, a unique ini-tiative for kids between six and 13 years, has helped fight the men-ace of drug trafficking in Pulwama, Kashmir, a statement from the All India Football Fed-eration (AIFF) said on Sunday.

The effect of illicit drug trafficking has al-ways made the parents think twice before let-ting their children go out and freely mingle with others. “Earlier, parents used to be ap-prehensive about allow-ing their kids to hang out with others because you could not antici-pate how and when the youngster would fall in the trap. But Golden Baby Leagues has been a real game-changer in Pulwama,” said League operator Zahid Shafi Mir. Since the introduction of Baby leagues, which got re-christened as Golden Baby Leagues later, has helped the par-ents trust their wards,” added Mir. “Now when they lace their football boots, parents feel a solace at the back of their mind. As they kick the football, their par-

ents kick the fear out of their mind,” Mir added.

According to a recent report by the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), more than 2,50,000 Kashmiri youngsters, comprising a fair share of 19 per cent girls be-tween the age group of 17-30 are involved in drug addiction. Even an under-construction school building in the Mugalpora area of Pul-wama has turned into a hub of drug abuse.

Pampore in the district of Pulwama, which is renowned for saffron cultivation has also been in the news for drug traffick-ing but Golden Baby Leagues have brought in a breath of fresh air amongst the young-sters. “There are dozens of villages in Pulwama where the youth are ad-dicted to drugs. These drug addicts resort to thefts and are sources of menace. Football has helped us find a posi-tive solution to address this issue. Since the introduction of Baby leagues, which got re-christened as Golden Baby Leagues later, has helped the parents trust their wards.

Baby Leagues football tackles drug trafficking

menace in Pulwama

Dubai, Sep 20 (UNI) Australian batting great Ricky Ponting feels there should be conversation about taking a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“We should certainly be talking about it,” said Ponting, head coach of Indian Premier League (IPL) side Delhi Capitals.

Australia’s current limited overs skipper Aaron Finch and his side did not take a knee during their series in England. Asked about

the remarks that did not go down well with West Indian pace legend Michael Holding, Ponting said, “I think what Finch was trying to

say (is) that people need more education on the issue before taking a proper stance on it or putting across a protest.” Speaking during InsideSport’s ‘Amstrad Face 2 Face Cricket Series’, Ponting added on the issue, “It’s not just about the Australian cricket team; it’s about Australian cricket and it’s about the world game. “It’s a huge issue in world society at this point and as cricketers we should do what we can to help the cause.

We should certainly be talking about it: Ponting on taking a knee

Kohli’s RCB to face Warner’s SunRisers Dubai, Sep 20 ( /GloFans)

After finishing fourth in the 2019 Indian Premier League (IPL), SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) will start their present campaign with a game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), who are looking for their maiden title, at the iconic Dubai International Cricket stadium here on Monday.

While SRH have clinched the trophy once in 2016, besides the 2009 triumph in their earlier avatar as Deccan Chargers, the Virat Kohli-led RCB are yet to lay their hands on the coveted trophy.

For this year’s edition of the lucrative league, the David Warner-led SRH have made a few changes

in their squad. The ‘Orange Army’ will miss the services of ace all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, who was released by the franchise after being banned by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for failing to report the approach of bookies elsewhere.

With skipper Warner and Jonny Bairstow, the SRH are considered to have one of the best opening pairs and if the duo gets going, the Hyderabad franchise will pose a big threat for their opponents. Warner is also the leading run scorer for SRH after accumulating 3,271 runs from 71 games, averaging 55.44. Bairstow, who joined SRH last year, also impressed everyone after

gathering 445 runs from 10 games at a decent average of 55.62.

The pace attack will be led by Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who hasn’t played any professional game since December 2019. The 30-year-old has 109 wickets from 86 games and is the leading wicket-taker for SRH. Bhuvneshwar, however, will need support from Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Basil Thampi and Siddarth Kaul. If SRH want to replicate their 2016 show, a lot will depend on how their spinners perform in the low and slow tracks in the UAE.

The spin attack will be led by Afghanistan leggie Rashid Khan and will be supported by his

compatriot Mohammad Nabi, who had a decent outing in he just concluded Caribbean Premier League. Nabi picked 12 wickets from as many games with an economy rate of 5.10.

Other than these two, SRH also have left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem in their ranks and the Jharkhand spinner is known to be very accurate with his line and length. Warner’s side also

has spin-bowling all-rounders in Fabian Allen, Sanjay Yadav, Abdul Samad, and Abhishek Sharma. On the other hand, RCB is one of the three teams in the league who are yet to win the trophy.

Kohli-led RCB’s biggest strength has been their batting and the skipper is undoubtedly, one of the best in business when it comes to white-ball cricket. The team management along with Kohli will hope that he replicates the form he had shown in the 2016 edition where he had scored four centuries. Alongside Kohli, the RCB also have one of the best explosive T20 batsmen in AB de Villiers. The RCB’s batting mostly.

8ENTERTAINMENRT21 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER, 2020

Email : [email protected] / (H.O) HyderabadTHE SOUTH INDIA TIMES

Hollywood star Scarlett Jo-hansson says working with children is easy because

they are receptive, playful and soul-ful, Jiohansson was recently child actors in the Oscar-nominated film "Jojo Rabbit". In the film, she is seen as Rosie Betzler, mother

of a German boy named Jojo (es-sayed by Roman Griffin Davis)."I was really fortunate that I had two wonderful actors to work opposite in 'Jojo Rabbit', you know, sometimes you for to coax stuff out of people, you know ac-tors that are, maybe not have as

much experience but these were just so pure and open and recep-tive and playful and soulful and natural, it made my job so easy," Johansson said."This character is just so vivacious, shes just in the middle of her life and you know, I wanted her to feel like a fully

realised woman who was just caught in the middle of her life by these horrific circumstances and I think that's actually what bring the audience you know, how this movie feels so fresh and modern and what audiences can relate to is all these characters feel very

SCARLETT JOHANSSON SAYS ACTING WITH KIDS IS EASY

Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare is well-intentioned ( Review; Rating: * * *

Dolly and Kitty could be any smalltown cousins. In the

world of Alankrita Shrivas-tava, they become fi ctional case studies of real desires that the Indian woman of today might harbour, even as she grapples with an in-nate conservative mindset and a society that is still too infl exible while accepting her sexual mores.In a way, Shrivastava was setting up

a desi Fleabag of sorts, nar-rating the story of Radha, or Dolly (Konkona Senshar-ma), and her cousin sister Kajal (Bhumi Pednekar), or Kitty from Darbhanga, Bihar. Dolly (Sen Sharma) is married and a mother of two. Along with her hus-band Amit (Aamir Bashir), she is trying to close instal-ments for their dream home in an under-construction Greater Noida highrise. Ka-

jal arrives from Bihar and puts up with Dolly and fam-ily, in search of a job and life in the big city.

The fact that Dolly's world is far from idyllic is made clear in the opening minutes, as she, along with Amit, the kids and Kajal visit an amusement park. As they pose for a family photo-op, Amit inappropriate-ly brushes a hand across Kitty when Dolly isn't noticing. For Kitty, the more disturbing fact

is Dolly won't believe her when she mentions the incident.The entire amusement park sequence is perhaps meant to be represent their worlds. To begin with, we fi nd the sisters in the House of Mirrors, lost and confused and yet happy. Minutes after the incident with Amit, as Kitty tries telling Dolly about it, they are on a boat ride in the House of Horrors.Dolly's marriage is a sham of sorts, sexless and bereft of pas-

sion. She fi nds an ‘escape' in the young home delivery boy Osmaan (Amol Parashar). Kitty, who eventually moves out from Dolly's house, lands a job as a ‘voice operator' at a call center that is basically all about phone sex. She draws the interest of a hospital worker, Pradeep (Vikrant Massey).Shrivastava could (and perhaps should) have kept her focus on this lin-ear plot while exploring themes around female sexuality.

Instead, she tries fi tting in too many extra subtexts.

Perhaps the director is not at fault. A story that sets out to un-derstand female sexuality in the Indian context would invariably involves too many aspect. Dolly's

much like people that we interact with you know, it doesn't feel stayed and old fashioned," she added.Jo-hansson has earned two Oscar nods this year -- Best Actress for "Mar-riage Story" and Best Supporting Actress for "Jojo Rabbit". The Oscar ceremony will be held on February 9 here, and will air in India on Febru-ary 10 on Star Movies.Talking about both the movies, the 35-year-old said.

Television actress Divyanka Tripathi's tweet amid the COVID-19 pandemic has

come under flak on social media.Divyanka, who is known for her

role in "Yeh Hai Mohabbatein", had tweeted: "With such less traffic in Mumbai, it seems like an opportunity to quickly com-plete Metro, bridges and smooth roads." Third user said: “Please delete this tweet. It looks insen-sitive. Metro workers labour-ers are also human beings.”One more called the tweet “Insensi-tive” and asked her to “Delete this tweet”.

The actress also shared a video showing how she found no traffic and hopes by the time the coro-navirus threat is gone, the metro and road work will be completed as workers can now function with-out hassles, reports timesofindia.indiatimes.com.

The contention, however, did not go down well with social media users.They found her tweet to be "insensitive" and asked her to de-lete the tweet.

One said: "Those labourers are also human beings. It is an emer-gency and safety is for everyone."

"As if the engineers & construc-tion worker life r not important .. such an vague & unrequired tweet at this moment," wrote another.

Third user said: "Please delete this tweet. It looks insensitive. Metro workers labourers are also human beings."One more called the tweet "Insensitive" and asked her to "Delete this tweet".

SRK goes gaga over Shakira, his 'all time favourite'

Divyanka Tripathi's

COVID 19 tweet

'insensitive', feel netizens

Superstar Shah Rukh Khan is all praises for 'Whenever' singer

Shakira after her power-packed performance at the Super Bowl event.SRK on Wednesday took to Twit-ter and heaped praises for the "Hips don't lie" fame

artiste for her recent per-formance at the Super Bowl 2020 on Tuesday."So wonderful, so hard work-ing so absolutely entertain-ing. My all-time favourite," Shah Rukh tweeted.

He also shared a picture in which Shakira is seen clad in a red dress, shaking a leg on the stage.

Shakira also admires SRK a lot. In the past, she had mentioned that she's a big fan of the King Khan."@iamsrk I've always been a huge fan... would love to do something together some day! Big kiss, Shak," she

Ishita Dutta

blossoms like a rose

in pink

Actress Ishita Dutta is a true fashionista. Be it casual western

or a ethnic look, she never fails to leave an impression on fans. Her recent pho-toshoot in a pink saree is a proof of the fact. : “Love your sarees.”On the work front, Ishita is currently seen on the Colors show “Bepa-nah Pyaar”, co-starring Pearl V. Puri. In the images, she strikes a glam pose in a light pink saree. She completes the look with a collar-neck pink blouse and hoops.Reacting to her pictures, a user com-mented: "beautiful."Another one wrote: "Love your sarees."On the work front, Ishita is currently seen on the Colors show "Bepanah Py-aar", co-starring Pearl V. Puri.

When Kartik Aaryan introduced his girlfriend as 'cousin'

Ahead of Valentine's Day, actor Kartik Aaryan went down

memory lane and recounted a few mushy moments from his days as a teenager.

"I remember when I was 16 years old, my girlfriend and I used to sit on the same bench in school and we would share homework and assignments.

Back then, we were re-ally scared of getting caught when we were on a date. Hence, we used to try our best to hide (our relation-ship) when we went to public places in Gwalior,"

recalled Kartik.He shared how he would introduce his girlfriend as his "cousin" when they got caught getting caught."Once on Valentine's Day, I went to meet my girl-friend at a restaurant. I was scraed of getting caught by a family member or a relative. We used to roam around a lot but we were always scared of getting caught.

A lot of times, I would ad-dress my then girlfriend as my cousin on getting caught!" Kartik revealed, on Sony TV's "The Kapil Sharma

JACQUELINE FERNANDEZ was recently awarded

the title of 'The Rulebreaker' at an awards function!

Jacqueline Fernandez is one of the most infl uential ce-lebrities in Bollywood and

in the international circuit as well. The actress recently at-tended the 'GQ Restless For To-

morrow' awards. At the event, Jacqueline was

awarded the title of 'The Ru-lebreaker' for her contribu-tions as a leading actress and a social infl uencer. Jacqueline was dressed to kill as she re-ceived the award in a black dress that made sure all the attention was on her. Hailed as an infl uential public fi gure in India, Jacqueline Fernan-dez turned host for interna-tional pop sensation Katy Perry and Amanda Cerny and

also Olympic athlete Yohan Blake on their recent visits to India, the actress shares a great equation with global in-fl uencers like Lilly Singh and Huda Kattan. The actress is

one of the most followed ac-tresses from Bollywood on In-stagram, with over 36 million followers.

Since she started her you-tube channel, her fans can't get enough of her uploads as she shares insights from her life and travels. On the work front, Jacqueline will next be seen in the Netflix Original, titled Mrs. Serial Killer, fol-lowing which she will also be seen in Attack with John Abraham.

Shades of red and pink for the season, Deepika Padukone's 'closet for a cause' Valentine’s

Day Edit is out now!

With the season of love in the air, ac-tress Deepika Padu-

kone totally has given us a rea-son to love and share as she has launched the latest edi-tion of her Closet which is out now! The valentine's Day col-lection which is straight out of her closet, has tonnes of love in the shades of red and pink, something that is already ex-citing us all!Deepika took to her Instagram and shared, "Sending tonnes of love your way with the 'Valentine's Edit' in shades of red and pink! And don't forget to tag your

photos with your purchases using #TheDeepikaPadu-koneCloset !I look forward to seeing you share my closet for a cause! @tlllfoundation."The Deepika Padukone's closet has all those dreamy and classy clothes, accessories and what not from the actresses' closet, handpicked by the ac-tress herself. Earlier as well, there were two edits launched namely by the global icon who is hailed for her fashion sense and talent- Festive edit, on the occasion of Diwali and the Winter Edit. All it took was a few hours and everything was

sold off instead, taken by the fans who are already on the website, surfi ng.The earlier editions of Deepika's closet were all sold out in record time which is no surprise giv-en that the actress is consid-ered by many across the globe to be a fashion icon. The collections from the Closet support 'The Live Love Laugh Foundation' that works towards creating awareness for depression and the pro-ceedings also go to the foun-dation as it aims at giving hope to those experiencing stress, anxiety, and depression.

THE SOUTH INDIA TIMESGreater Hyderabad

21 Monday, SepteMber, 2020 pageS-8

Exemplary services by doctors entail low mortality rate in the country: Governor

Hyderabad, Sept 20: De-spite many challenges, Indian doctors are offering exempla-ry services thus ensuring the low Case Fatality Rate (CFR) among the COVID-19 cases in our country, said the Gov-ernor Dr Tamilisai Sounda-rarajan. She also added that the country’s CFR was much lower than many advanced countries and this was made possible by the adherence to protocols, commitment and dedication being shown by the doctors across the country in these pandemic times. Par-ticipating as the chief guest at the Indian Medical Asso-ciation’s Academy of Medical Specialties Convocation (IMA AMC Con-2020) through the virtual mode, the Governor exhorted the doctors to main-tain high morale so as to serve the people and the nation though there were challenges and difficulties. Expressing concern over the high mortal-

ity rate of around 15 per cent among the COVID-19 infected doctors and other medical professionals, she called for special care to ensure their safety and improvement in infrastructure and other fa-cilities in the healthcare sec-tor. Referring to the physical attacks on the doctors by the

relatives of the patients and others, the Governor pointed out that the Central govern-ment had enacted a stringent law to deal with such cases to protect the doctors. “The peoples’ mindset towards the doctors’ fraternity should also change and they should adopt a more positive approach to-

wards those in the medical profession by understanding their difficulties, hard work and service,” she added. The Governor appreciated the initiatives of the Central Gov-ernment in establishing 75 new medical colleges with an objective of producing at least one lakh allopathic medical graduates every year to meet the growing demand. The spe-cial COVID-19 insurance to doctors and Ayushman Bharath schemes were proving to be of great use during the pandemic, she added. IMA National Presi-dent Rajan Sharma, Secretary General Asokan, IMA AMS chairman Ashraf, Telangana State Medical Council chairman Ravinder Reddy, Medical Edu-cation director K. Ramesh Red-dy, IMA TS President Vijender Reddy, secretary SS Yadav and Convocation Organizing Secre-tary Mohan Gupta also spoke. Convocation certificates were presented in a virtual mode.

Two Maoists killed in Telangana encounterHyderabad, Sep 20 (UNI) Two

Maoists were killed in an exchange of fire with police in Telangana’s Ko-maram Bheem Asifabad district, po-lice said on Sunday. The encounter happened late on Saturday night.

The incident occurred in the Kadamba forest area in Kagaznagar mandal of the district when police personnel were conducting search operations following information about the presence of Maoists.

In-charge district superinten-dent of police, V. Satyanarayana said Maoists opened fire on police-men and two of them were killed

when the police returned fire. There were no casual-ties on the police side.The slain Maoists were yet to be identified but a top Mao-ist of the region M. Adellu alias Bhaskar is suspected to have escaped. He again visited Asifabad district early this month and reviewed the situation with top officials. Police launched a comb-ing operation in the area following a tip-off that Bhaskar, who is the division committee secretary of the CPI (Maoist) for Mancherial and Asi-

fabad districts was moving in Chil-etiguda near Asifabad town. About 400 policemen are taking part in the combing operations in the forests.

This is the third exchange of fire incident in north-ern Telangana in less than a month. A Maoist was killed in an exchange of fire with the police in Gundala mandal of Bhadradri Kothagudem on September 3. Two Maoists were killed in an exchange of fire with the police near Char-la mandal in the same district. An exchange of fire between

two sides had taken place in July in the same district. According to police some top Maoists had escaped after the incident. In another incident,

police defused three landmines laid by Maoists in Bhadradri Kothagu-dem district on Saturday. The ex-tremists had laid the landmines on Bhadrachalam-Charla road between Kaliveru and Tegada villages. Maoists have stepped up their activities in re-cent weeks to regroup themselves in Telangana. Police have heightened the vigil in the districts bordering Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. Di-rector General of Police M. Mahender Reddy visited these districts in July. He again visited Asifabad district early this month and reviewed the situa-tion with top officials.

Hyderabad, Sept.20 (UNI): Telangana Animal Husband-

ry Minister, T Srinivas Yadav today hit out that Modi govern-ment in the centre is acting like Tuglaq for passing bills of farm-ers amid protest and chaos in parliament. The BJP Govern-ment in the Centre has passed draconian bills against the farm-ers amid opposition parties pro-test in the parliament, Srinivas Yadav alleged. He criticised that the BJP Telangana president and MP from Karim Nagar B Sanjay for making false charges against the state government. Sanjay failed to do anything as he uses talk like a mad person by sitting in Hyderabad he charged. In-stead he can go to Delhi to talk fir Telangana and its people he fumed. Though Modi govern-ment promised to release Rs 20 lakh cr to tackle financial situa-tion in the country amid corona pandemic, nothing has come out so far he alleged. The minister

accused the Modi government of indulging in anti- farmers poli-cies. The farmers bills passed in Rajya Sabha will hamper farmers interests, he charged.

The minister said that the TRS will go with other political parties to protest the anti farmers bills. The Modi government has failed to understand farmers issues, he said. Hd hit out at the congress leaders for bad comments on two bedrooms schemes. I asked them to leave midway during a visit to the housing sites in the city. We send details of one lakh houses and the Congress leaders can see them he added.

Modi offers Tuglaq rule : Talasani opposes

farmers bills

THE SOUTH INDIA TIMES 25 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST, 2020 221 Monday, SepteMber, 2020

Cycling contributes to environmental protection: Chief Whip Vinay Bhaskar

Warangal (ANS) September 20: “Cycling contributes a lot to the environmental protection,” said the Chief Whip and Warangal West MLA Dasyam Vinay Bhas-kar. Participating as the chief guest along with the city mayor Prakash Rao, Warangal Urban district collector and Red Cross Society President Rajeevgandhi Hanumanthu, KUDA chairman Marri Yadava Reddy, Warangal Municipal Commissioner Pamela Sathpathy, Vinay Bhaskar flagged off the bicycle rally here on Sun-day organized under the aupices of the Indian Red Cross Society and Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation. The rally marched from Subedari to Fatima Nagar Wow Junction via NIT, chant-

ing slogans about the benefits of cycling and returning to the Red Cross. Speaking on the occasion, Chief Whip Vinay Bhaskar said that the program was aimed not only at creating awareness among the people but also at providing a pollution-free, plastic-free so-ciety for future generations and further to shaping a healthy city. On the occasion of World Bicycle Day on the third of June, he said that he had taken a vow to ride a bicycle a day each month to par-ticipate in the official programme. He advised the municipal staff and corporators to come on bi-cycles to council meetings and stand ideal to the people. Stating that cycling is environmental-friendly as well as healthy, Wa-

rangal Mayor, Prakash Rao said that bicycle tracks would be set up along the road in view of the selection of Warangal city as one of the smart cities. He further said that in the wake of the joint venture between the central and state governments, geo-tagging of bicycles would also be set up to increase the interest in cycling among the people by purchasing bicycles through the Municipal Corporation and setting them up at selected centers in the city so that cyclists could reach their des-tinations. on the occasion, district collector Rajeevgandhi Hanu-manthu said that the main objec-tive of the Smart City Scheme was to organize a cycle rally as part of the drive to achieve the goal of re-

ducing environmental pollution and added that such rallies would save the cost of petrol and diesel will be reduced and money will be saved, he said. Warangal Munici-pal Corporation Commissioner Pamela Satpathy said the cycle rally was organized on behalf of the Warangal Corporation to cre-ate awareness about the respon-sibility of the people for environ-mental protection. Adding that the main purpose of this bicycle rally is to promote non-motorized vehicles, to reduce pollution to live a sustainable life, She said that everyone from all walks of life can use their bicycle at least a day a week. The Commissioner thanked the Youth Red Cross So-ciety volunteers for participating.

Hyderabad, September 20: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) TPCC Secretary Bandulal Jamal-pur has alleged that the State Government was totally ne-glecting the frontline warriors in the battle against Covid. Bandulal, in a media statement on Sunday, said that the front-line warriors including doc-tors, para-medical staff, police personnel, sanitation workers, journalists and others were not receiving required help from the State Government. He said these frontline warriors have been risking their lives every day to protect the people’s lives from the deadly Coronavirus. However, they were not getting

the required medical attention after they get infected with Co-vid-19. He alleged that the po-lice personnel were not getting free treatment under ‘Aarogya Bhadra scheme’ due to the non-payment of dues by the State Government to private hospitals. “It is highly unfortunate that

Chief Minister K. Chandrashek-har Rao did not hold a single meeting to check the facilities being provided to frontline war-riors.The State Government is not maintaining any data of frontline warriors who are getting infected with Covid-19 and even those who succumbed due to the disease.This is nothing, but an utter form of showing disrespect to people who are risking their lives to save others,” he alleged. Bandulal said that both the Cen-tral and State Governments were calling the frontline workers as warriors against Covid-19, but not willing to recognise them as martyrs in case they die do-ing their job. “The Central Govt went on record in the Parlia-

ment admitting that it was not having the data of doctors who died due to Covid-19. It simply shifted the blame on State Gov-ernments saying that it was their duty to maintain the data as Health was a State-subject. This is completely inhumane. Unfor-tunately, the situation is much worse in Telangana where TRS Govt is not maintaining any data of frontline workers,” he said. “TRS Govt has been tampering or manipulating data of Covid cases and deaths in Telangana State. Therefore, we cannot ex-pect this government to main-tain authentic data of deaths of Covid warriors,” he alleged while demanding that CM KCR change his approach immediately.

Adherence to hygiene - a social responsibility:

Collecor Dr MV Reddy

Kothagudem, September 20: (ANS) “Season-al diseases can be prevented with cleanliness of the surroundings,” said the district collector Dr MV Reddy. He cleaned the surroundings of his camp office on Sunday morning at 10 am as per the government directives observing Dry Day. He inspected the entire camp office with the staff. Speaking on the occasion, he said that people should clean the surround-ings and devote 10 minutes every Friday and Sunday to clean the surroundings. He said ev-eryone should abide by the call given by the state government to carry out sanitation pro-grams to prevent mosquito menace. “Adher-ence to hygiene in the present circumstances is a social responsibility of the people,” Dr MV Reddy said.

Covid warriors, were not receiving required help from the State Government. Bandulal

Heavy to very heavy rainfall predicted

Hyderabad, September 20: The Meteoro-logical Department has issued a warning on Sunday evening that there might be heavy to very heavy rainfall over isolated parts of the State, especially in the erstwhile com-bined districts of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Warangal and Khammam. Massive flooding and water-logging are likely to occur in low lying areas. Falling of trees and electric poles can happen lead-ing to disruption of normal activities. Res-ervoirs, tanks and streams may overflow causing inundation of low-lying areas and cause low bridges and causeways to over-flow, posing threat to traffic and people. The Collectors are requested to put the entire district administration on alert and strictly follow the flood protocol commu-nicated earlier, according to the press note. Chief Minister K.Chandrashekhar Rao has reviewed the matter with Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar. The Chief Secretary has di-rected all the SPs and District Collectors to be alert and to watch the situation. All the Officers have been directed to be available in the Headquarters and take all the mea-sures to ensure that no loss of life and prop-erties occur.

Warangal (ANS) Septem-ber 20: The Task Force police have seized the banned to-bacco products (Ambar pack-ets) worth Rs five lakh near Nirup Nagar thanda near here on Sunday. They have also seized a car. It is said that the police had visited the place after receiving specific in-formation about banned to-bacco products and searched the car parked in front of the house of one Chintakindi Lakshminarayana and found 10 bags of Ambar packets. When questioned, Lakshmi- narayana said that he along

with Munavath Raju of the same village had gone to Bi-dar of Karnataka State and brought the banned tobacco products. He added that they had purchased Ambar and Gutkha in the past too. They used to supply the Ambar packets to several kirana and other shops. Task Force po-lice said that they had handed over the bags to the KUC po-lice for further investigation. Task Force Inspectors Nandi-ram and Madhu have led the search.

TASK FORCE POLICE SEIzE AMBAR WORTH RS 5 LAKH, ARREST TWO

THE SOUTH INDIA TIMES 25 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST, 2020 321 Monday, SepteMber, 2020

TSIT BUREAUHyderabad, Sep 20::A statement is-sued by Sri Bandi Sanjay BJP state unit president on Sunday condemning the language of the Chief Minister of Telangana and histrionics of the op-position parties over the Famers bills The Government of India as part of Atmanirbarbarat stimuli has lifted all restrictions over agri-product trans-portation to empower farmers to sell their product at their price and their choice of location. The Government introduced a bill in the parliament in the name and style ‘Farmers produce Trade and Commerce ( promotion and facilitation ) Bill’ and the Farmers’( em-powerment and protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill 2020, which both the houses of Parliament passed today.Today will be scripted in golden letters in the history of India, as it ensured the redemption of farmers from the rigid regulations As everyone knows, farmers of the nation have been facing insurmount-able problems in terms of getting a fair price for their produce owing to fluctuating weather conditions, un-predictable markets, and bureau-

cratic regulations. The result is, they are not able to get a suitable price that matches their produce and toil. Since each state has its own set of regu-lations over the farm produce and mar-keting, farmers are not able to take their produce to the locations in the coun-try where they get profitable prices. Appreciating the imperative of bring-ing about a law that will free farmers to form the clutches of regulations and thereby giving farmers necessary freedom over their produce, Hon’ble

Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi thought of this bill. As a consequence, the new law ensures free interstate trade and transportation of farm pro-duce which will prove profitable for farmers. It is indeed a historic law as it is set to redeem farmers and farm produce from rigid regulations of the market and whims of traders. As the Hon’ble Prime Minister re-iterated, the new law will not come in the way of the support that the farmers have been getting ei-

ther concerning Minimum Sup-port Price or Market Yard Support On the other hand, the Bill Price As-surance and Farmers Services Bill will boost Agri trade and commerce and gives fillip to Food processing indus-tries, wholesale traders, etc. in a man-ner to ensure maximum benefit to the farmers. There are robust provisions in the bill that will protect and safeguard all farm-related agreements. Farmers now will take an active part in selling their produce. The bill will completely decimate middlemen and ensure max-imum benefit to the farmers. The bill also prohibits the occupation of farm-lands by agreement holders citing pri-or agreements and thus complete pro-tection to farmers and their lands. The agreements will be limited to the farm produce and not to the land. Farmers will have insurance protection. And to resolve all the disputes, a neces-sary mechanism will be put in place for quick and just grievance redressal. While the bill is set to bring about a transformative change in the lives of farmers, it is unfortunate that a few op-position parties are trying to mislead the farmers by spreading blatant lies.

I strongly condemn the language used by Sri K Chandrashekhar Rao Hon’ble Chief Minister of Telangana against the bill. His language exposes his culture and is meant to divert the attention of the people from his misrule. The Chief Minister of Telangana cheated the farmers of Telangana promising to buy all the crops during the last season but he failed. In a majority of the IKP centers in Telangana farm produce especially paddy got damaged due to hailstorm but the Chief Minister didn’t bother rescue farmers. Due to lock-down, vegetable and fruit farmers in-curred heavy loss and the government of Telangana hasn’t helped them at all. As part of Atmanirbarbarath over 1000 new market yards are going to be established in Telangana and it ap-pears the CM Telangana is against it. The present law will remain in history as one most radical law which aimed to reap maximum benefit to farmers. The farming fraternity feels indebted to Sri Narendra Modi for the revolu-tionary initiative. The farmers of the nation are with Sri Modi, for he has freed them clutches of regulations. Farmers of Telangana.

Bandi Sanjay condemning the language of the CM of T’gana over the Famers bills

AMARAVATI Sep 20: TDP Na-tional General Secretary Nara Lokesh on Sunday held the rul-ing YSRCP sand and liquor ma-fia responsible for the harass-ment, victimisation and eventual death of SI late Allu Durga Rao. Mr. Lokesh said that the YCP Gov-ernment’s negligence and cor-ruption were giving a hard time for honest officers like Durga Rao. A TDP delegation led by former Finance Minister Yanamala Ra-makrishnudu and TDP Spokes-person Kommareddy Pattabhi called on the family members of late SI Allu Durga Rao belong-ing to West Godavari district. The TDP MLC accused the Ja-gan Reddy regime of following anti-farmer policies without any commitment to solve their problems in the field level. It would not be correct to fix me-ters when the farmers were strongly opposing them. The at-tempts to fix meters in Ananta-pur district met with severe op-position from the farmers there. Mr. Lokesh decried the attitude of the Government and deplored that the farmers were getting a raw deal since the present re-

gime came to power in the State. Even during the Coronavirus pandemic period, the Govern-ment failed to ensure remunera-tive prices to the farmers while horticulture farmers had lost heavily due to lack of market-ing support during lockdown periods. They expressed their condolences to the bereaved family members and assured all support from their party. Mr. Nara Lokesh telephoned the family members of the SI and promised to provide educational facilities to the daughters of late Durga Rao. Mr. Lokesh said that Durga Rao’s honesty and integrity became curses for himself in his police career. For rendering honest services for over 18 years, the Jaganmohan Reddy government harassed him with repeated memos. It would not be correct to fix meters when the farmers were strongly opposing them. The at-tempts to fix meters in Ananta-pur district met with severe op-position from the farmers there. Mr. Lokesh decried the attitude of the Government and deplored that the farmers were getting a

raw deal since the present regime came to power in the State. Even during the Coronavirus pandem-ic period, the Government failed to ensure remunerative prices to the farmers while horticulture farmers had lost heavily due to lack of marketing support during lockdown periods. The ill fated SI fell victim to the manipulations of the sand and liquor mafia. Mr. Lokesh Durgapur Rao be-

longed to a BC family in Tuni in East Godavari district and worked in West Godavari. He came from a humble family living in a tiled house. The YCP lead-ers victimized and targeted him just for not supporting their il-legal mafia activities. They made sure that the higher officials give continuous memos eventually leading to his transfers, ill health, Covid infection and death.

Mr. Lokesh strongly objected to the YSRCP Government trying to forcibly fix current meters on the agricultural pumpsets in Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Lokesh condemned the manner in which the Govern-ment was ignoring the demands of the farmers who had their own concerns on the meters issue. The TDP MLC accused the Ja-gan Reddy regime of following anti-farmer policies without any commitment to solve their problems in the field level. It would not be correct to fix me-ters when the farmers were strongly opposing them. The at-tempts to fix meters in Ananta-pur district met with severe op-position from the farmers there. Mr. Lokesh decried the attitude of the Government and deplored that the farmers were getting a raw deal since the present regime came to power in the State. Even during the Coronavirus pandem-ic period, the Government failed to ensure remunerative prices to the farmers while horticulture farmers had lost heavily due to lack of marketing support during lockdown periods.

Lokesh blames YCP for death of SI Durga Rao

THE SOUTH INDIA TIMES 25 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST, 2020 421 Monday, SepteMber, 2020

BLOOD DONATION CAMP BY BJYM SANATHNAGAR DIVISION

BJP is celebrating “Seva Saptah”, a week long pro-gramme as a part of 70th Birthday of Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi. In response to the call given by Ms Poonam Mahajan, Member of Parliament, a “Blood Donation” Camp was organized on Sun-day, 20th September 2020, by BJYM leaders P Sunil Kumar, Akula Pratap, Dasharath Goud, Prashant, Shashank, Midhul Raj, Chandu, Phanimala, Durga Prasad, Arun Goud, Pavan Patel, Kalyan, Rakesh, Kar-tik Manikonda at the prem-ise of “Late Shri Pramod

Mahajan, Former Union Minister & Late Shri Nan-daraj Goud, Former Corpo-rator” in Adityanagar Com-munity Call, Near Kanjarla Laxminarayan Yada Park, Sanathnagar Hyderabad. Bhanu Prakash, President, BJYM, Telangana was the Chief Guest, Shri Bhawar Lal Varma, Joint Trea-surer, BJP Hyderabad was the Distinguished Guest and Rajashekhar Reddy, T Charan Singh and B Shyam Sunder Goud were Guests of Honour. All the guests applauded the ini-tiative taken by the BJYM Leaders and wished that

the leaders may organize many such useful pro-grammes for the society. State Officebearer Talla Ra-vinder Goud, State Council Member Jaihind Goud, for-mer State Council Mem-ber Achen Suresh, Official Spokesperson Dayanand, Senior leader Akuri Srini-vas Rao, Uttam Purohit, Karre Bhaskar, K Kran-thi Kumar, Dalit Morcha Leader Polimera Santosh Kumar, Srinivas Yadav, G V Suman, Dharmendra, Sanathnagar Dalit Morcha President Ailaiah, Sai, etc., participated in the pro-gramme.

TSIT BUREAU

Hyderabad 20 September. TPCC delegation led by Da-soju Shravan visits Sumedha’s family, Demands Rs One Crore ex-gratia for Sumedha’s family Dasoju Shravan lambasts Tala-sani Srinivas Yadav for insen-sitive comments Hyderabad, September 20: Congress senior leader, AICC spokesperson Dasoju Shravan fired on Mu-nicipal Administration Minis-ter KT Rama Rao saying that the death of twelve-year-old Sumedha is not an accident but a murder by incompetent TRS government. Stressing that it was GHMC’s utter negli-gence which took away the life of a young girl, Dasoju Shravan demanded for booking murder case against Municipal Admin-istration and Urban Develop-ment Minister KT Rama Rao, GHMC Mayor Bonthu Ram-mohan and local Minister Ta-lasani Srinivas Yadav. TPCC delegation led by Dr Dasoju Shravan visited Sumed-ha’s family at Deendayal Nagar in Malkajgiri on Sunday. After offering condolences to the bereaved parents Sukanya and Abhijeet, Congress lead-ers toured in the area, took stock of the open nalas and inquired about the events leading to Sumedha’s death. “It is extremely sad to know that a young girl with a bright future lost her life by falling into an open nala due to the negligence of Greater Hyder-abad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). Is it not the minimum duty of GHMC to cover nalas or place fencing around open na-las? What is the GHMC Mayor doing? Where is the GHMC Commissioner? Isn’t this vis-ible to Municipal Administra-tion Minister KTR, who boasts that the TRS government has spent Rs 60,000 Crore for Hyderabad’s development? Where did all that money go? The death of Sumedha is not an accident but murder by reckless TRS Government and GHMC. Case should be booked on Municipal Minister KT Rama Rao, GHMC Mayor Bon-thu Rammohan, local Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav,” fired Dasoju Shravan, speaking after meeting Sumedha’s parents.

Speaking on the occasion, Da-soju Shravan lambasted Ani-mal Husbandry Minister, hail-ing from Greater Hyderabad region, Talasani Srinivas Yadav for making insensitive com-ments. “Speaking after Sumed-ha’s death Talasani Srinivas Ya-dav commented ‘will not water overflow if rain comes?’ Even a small kid knows that water overflows during the rainy sea-son. We do not need a Minister to say this. This is nothing but arrogance of power. Talasani has lost his mind. Instead of making insensitive comments and causing further pain to be-reaved parents, he should fo-cus on improving basic ameni-ties in the Greater Hyderabad area as a local minister,” said Dasoju Shravan.

“Hyderabad is turning into a lake even after ten minutes of rain. People are unable to come out in the rainy season. People are losing lives by fall-ing in open nalas, manholes. Overflowing nalas, flooding of residential areas and roads, traffic congestion have be-come regular features. More-over the property tax and other charges collected in GHMC are higher than other cities. Where is all this money going? Is it spent on developing Hyder-abad or being usurped by TRS

leaders?” questioned Dasoju Shravan.

Making the TRS Govern-ment and GHMC responsible for Sumedha’s death, Dr Daso-ju Shravan demanded Rs one crore ex-gratia for her family. “TRS Government should pay Rs One Crore ex-gratia to Sumedha’s family. Not just Sumedha’s family but many households in the GHMC area have suffered property dam-ages due to recent rains.

GHMC officials should vis-it all the affected areas and pay compensation to the af-fected people. Congress party will soon take up a citywide survey to assess the dam-age due to rains and launch a mass agitation against the reckless TRS Government,” stressed Dasoju Shravan. Dasoju Shravan said that Sumedha’s parents have ex-pressed willingness to take up a legal battle against the govern-ment, to avoid such unfortu-nate incidents in the future and assured the Congress party’s support to them. TPCC leader and Hyderabad parliament segment in-charge Feroz Khan, Youth Congress President Anil Yadav, Malkajgiri Congress in-charge N Sridhar and others accompanied Dr Dasoju Shra-van on the occasion.

SuMEDHA’S DEATH IS NOT AN ACCIDENT BuT MuRDER BY RECkLESS TRS GOVERNMENT, CASE SHOuLD BE BOOkED ON MuNICIPAL

ADMINISTRATION MINISTER kTR : DASOJu SHRAVAN

Where is the unemployment gratuity Ask your KCR at once

AICC secretary Sampath

(Tsit bureau)Hyderabad, September 20:Sampath Kumar former MLA and AICC secretary.asked in the context Of loksabha questioning hour Nagarkurnool MP Ramulu yesterday demanded Rs 5,000 per month compensation for SC, ST and unemployed in Par-liament. And what if the TRS had promised to pay Rs 3,000 a month to the unem-ployed in the state in the last elections where is that unemployment gratuity Ask your KCR at once,He added AICC secretary pointed out that Another MP, Keshav Rao, said in the Rajya Sabha that he had seen a mound of corpses in a hospital in the state in the wake of the coronation. Congress does the same. The government counts all the thieves in the case of Covid 19. Yet the government must keep its eyes open On Wealth samapath Kumar suggested to the keshav Rao

THE SOUTH INDIA TIMES 25 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST, 2020 521 Monday, SepteMber, 2020

“RAABTAA FOUNDATION” Today in Classic Function Quilla Road Nizamabad A Free Medical Camp was Organised . In the above programme

A.R.Multispeciality Chairman Md.Shakeel Ahmed , TRS State Secretary Tareq Ansari , Dr. Bapu Reddy , Jamat - e - Islami Hind Nizamabad Shaik Hussain , Nisar Ahmed and others

were participated .

Nizamabad Sep 20 ; zilla Parishad Plena-ry Session was chaired by z P Chairman. Speaking on the occasion, the JD (U) chairman said that the Nizam-abad zilla Parishad had been selected as the best zilla Parishad under the Central Gov-ernment’s Deendayal Shakti Karan Award. It was received by zilla Parishad President Vittal Rao by the hands of State Road Build-ings Minister Vemula Prashant Reddy. The Center has decided to withdraw the Electricity Amendment Bill, which was passed by Parliament, as it would cause severe damage to the farmers. He said the zilla Parishad building was old and a resolution was sent to the government as a new building was needed.

Manala Mohan Reddy Chairman Dis-trict Congress Committee Nizamabad. Speaking on the occasion, he said that the TRS government was not even ready to listen to the problems of the people and addressed the functionar-ies and leaders present at the Congress Bhavan. Minister Prashant Reddy, with

the encouragement of the district MLA, said that the police had arrested hun-dreds of Congress workers who were just coming to the district party meeting. Manala Mohan Reddy criticized the district public representatives and MLAs for looking at Nissiggu as a farmer buying sorghum at a support price of Rs 1,850 per

head, while brokers buy it for only Rs 1,000. * Major Demands * * The government should imme-diately set up corn buying centers * Soybean crop should be pur-chased by the government. * Compensation should be paid to the affected farmer for non-ger-

mination of fake soybean seeds by the government administration.

Police arrested the Congress leaders who were going to the Chalo zilla Parishad event demanding. On this occasion, Mohan Reddy said that the police were acting as a TRS agent and infuriated the police. Manala Mohan Reddy joked that arrests and detentions would not stop the people’s movement and that the struggle would continue till the necks of the cen-tral and state governments.

PANGA YADAGIRI REDDY GREETS TTD ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBER , YSRCP STATE YOuTH WING PRESIDENT RAMMOHAN ON HIS BIRTHDAY

TSIT BUREAU

TIRUMALA TIRUPATI DEVASTHANAM ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBER , TELAN-GANA YSRCP STATE YOUTH WING PRESIDENT RAMMOHAN was felicitated on his birthday by YSRCP State youth leader PANGA YADAGIRI REDDY On Sunday. He pre-sented flower bouquet to RAMMOHAN. he praised RAMMOHAN for his services for YSRCP Party and for welfare of poor people , he wished RAMMOHAN live a healthy happy, peaceful and long life in public service, he wish him to continue his help and services PANGA YADAGIRI REDDY Wished RAMMOHAN to be blessed with good health peace happiness and a long life. YSRCP YOUTH WING leaders SURENDER REDDY, NAVEEN, TEJA, SRINATH , RAVI TEJA, RAM also present to greet.

"GIFT A SMILE " PROGRAMME LAUNCHED ON OCCASION OF THE

BIRTHDAY OF STATE IT MINISTER Nizamabad Sep 20 ; An ambulance provided by Balkonda legislators, Telangana State Roads and Buildings, Legisla-tive Affairs and Hous-ing Minister Vemula Prashant Reddy for the people of Balkonda constituency as part of the "Gift a Smile" pro-gram launched on the occasion of the birthday of State Municipal and IT Minister K.T . Rama Rao was made avail-able to the public from today. Came. Minister Vemula Prashant Reddy flagged off the ambulance at a function in Velpur. Afterwards, the Minister said that the ambulance was provided to the people of Balkonda constituency today at its own cost, all the facilities in the ambu-lance worth Rs 20 lakh 50 thousand, oxygen monitor system, equipment were

handed over to 108 GVK, DMHO for the mainte-nance of the ambulance, 24/7 to the people of Bal-konda constituency. He said that if anyone was in critical condition and needed to be shifted to a bigger hospital, he would call 108 or the Vellore minister's office immedi-

ately. He said he was very satisfied to be given the responsibility of providing on a permanent basis. For the last five years, Swarga Dhama Ratham has been purchasing 4 freezers at its own cost and sending free diesel to Swarga Dhama Ratham. The services will continue as before.

ZILLA PARISHAD PLENARY SESSION CHAIRED BY Z.P CHAIRMAN WITH MINISTER PRASHANT REDDY

ARRESTS FOR SETTING UP MAIZE BUYING CENTERS

THE SOUTH INDIA TIMES 25 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST, 2020 621 Monday, SepteMber, 2020

(TSIT bureau)Nizamabad Sep 20 ; Minister of State for Roads, Buildings, Legis-lative Affairs and Hous-ing Vemula Prashant Reddy held a review meeting with the Col-lector C Narayana Reddy at the zilla Pari-shad Conference Hall on Urban Progress, Rural Progress, Green-ery, Grain Purchases, Covid, NREGS works. Speaking at a meeting held at the zilla Pari-shad Conference Hall on Sunday (20-9-2020), the Minister said that the ambitious urban prog-ress and rural develop-ment programs under-taken by the Telangana State Government un-der the auspices of the Hon’ble Chief Minister KCR Gary are being car-ried out in Nizamabad district in such a way that the minimum facili-ties are being provided to the people in such a way as to indicate the transformation of vil-lages and towns. Collec-tor, officials, legislators Sarpanches in villages, people’s representa-tives, MPTCs, zPTCs, corporators and coun-cilors in towns are work-ing tirelessly and enthu-siastically. Nizamabad district is second only to

urban progress and rural progress in the whole of Telangana state, Vaikun-tha Damalu, Damping , That we are reaching the target of compost sheds, Nizamabad Municipal-ity Corporation, Bod-han, Armoor, Bheemgal Municipalities are do-ing well in all aspects of toilets, Avenue Planta-tion, Urban Park, Open Gym, Colony Park in the progress of the town, he said, adding that Avenue Plantation is doing great in terms of greenery and Village Park works are progressing fast. Advised to do maintenance. Sri-ramsagar blamed Gutpa, Alisagar, SRSP, Lakshmi Canal for relying on the Chautaupal Hanumant Reddy Kakatiya Canal for providing water to all of them, 5 TMC of water in

Nizamsagar The people of Nizamabad district have nothing to fear that paddy is coming, orders have been given to buy it, the whole author-ity is ready, Covid rapid tests are being done in all the PHCs, govern-ment general hospital and Bodhan govern-ment hospitals are also getting good treatment, all the necessary medi-cines are ready for in-jections. But be careful, He said the decision was taken to clear the PR roads and R&B road by increasing the labour component as much as possible in NREGS. The meeting was at-tended by Additional Collector Lata, Munici-pal Commissioner Jitesh V Patil, RDO’s, district officials and others.

MINISTER PRASHANTH REDDY HELD A REVIEW MEETING WITH DIST COLLECTOR Z.P

CHAIRMAN AND OTHERS OFFICIALS

Rural Telangana bearing brunt of COVID-19

Hyderabad, Sep 20 (UNI) The rural areas in Telangana are bear-ing the brunt of COVID-19 even as the number of cases has consider-ably dropped in the state capital. Districts outside Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits account for 80-85 per cent of the 2,200-2,300 new cases added to the state tally every day.

Till the first half of July, it was the state capital which was at the receiving end. With 700-800 cases every day, GHMC was accounting for 80-85 per cent of the daily infec-tions at one point in time. Thirty-two districts, excluding Hyderabad, accounted for 137 cases or 13.45 per cent of the 1,018 cases reported on July 1. The ratio of the districts jumped to 50.15 per cent on July 15 (801 out of total 1,597 cases).

The districts reported 1,364 or 72.65 per cent of the 1,891 cases on August 1. The case load in rural ar-eas rose to 78.76 per cent on August 15 (868 out of 1,102 cases)

As many as 2,415 cases of the 2,892 (83.50 per cent) reported on September 1 were from these districts. A week later, the ratio climbed to 87.29 per cent (2,088 out of 2,392 cases). It slightly came down to 86.54 per cent (1,781 out of 2,058) on September 14 and further dropped to 85.6 per cent (1,818 out of 2,123 cases) on September 19 as authorities also reduced the num-ber of daily tests by a few thousand. An analysis of the current situation shows that the daily jump in cases has come down over the last two-three weeks but the numbers are dropping to below 2,000 only on

weekends when fewer tests are con-ducted. While there is definitely an improvement in the overall situa-tion compared with last month, the spike in cases continues in Tier-II towns and rural areas, where the health infrastructure is still inad-equate. Considering the fact that Telangana is still adding 2,200-2,400 cases every day and 4-6 districts reporting a daily jump of over 100 cases, the health authorities meet-ing their ambitious goal of control-ling the situation by the month-end appears doubtful.

Districts like Rangareddy, Med-chal Malkajgiri, Karimnagar, Wa-rangal Urban, Nizamabad, Kham-mam, Nalgonda, Suryapet, and Sangareddy are mostly reporting over 100 cases each every day. Re-ports from these districts show that even small villages have over 100 positive cases. For instance, in Govindapur village of Karimnagar, 73 out of 90 families were affected. Buoyed by the improvement in the situation in Hyderabad, Director of Public Health G Srinivas Rao exud-ed confidence on August 25 that the situation will be under control in the remaining districts by September-end. He was confident that the cases will be brought down to minimum.

Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar told Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba during a videoconference on Saturday that the number of posi-tive cases has started declining in Telangana.

“The government is keeping a close watch on the situation and fully geared up to handle the pan-demic,” he said.

Explaining various measures tak-en by the state, the Chief Secretary said that testing has been ramped up. RT-PCR testing is being done on every person found symptom-atic person detected through rapid antigen test. The government has formulated a strategy to make all hospital beds equipped with oxygen facilities. He also said that special focus is laid on managing the situa-tion in the districts.

On August 25, the state report-ed a jump of 2,579 cases, taking Telangana’s total tally to 1,08,760. Nine deaths had pushed the cu-mulative death toll to 770. Since then, the state added over 60,409 cases till September 19 at an av-erage of 2,400 cases per day. The state also witnessed 255 deaths during the period.

Officials said by ramping up testing and health infrastruc-ture, they brought down the COVID-19 fatality rate and im-proved the recovery rate as well as tests per million population ratio. The fatality rate came down from 0.69 per cent on Au-gust 25 to 0.60 per cent on Sep-tember 19. The recovery rate improved from 75.27 per cent to 81.28 per cent during the same period. Samples tested per mil-lion population have gone up from 27,502 to 64,104.

Facing flak from all sides for low testing, the state government has ramped up the testing over the last two months. Currently, 50,000 to 60,000 tests are conducted every day in Telangana. The number of labo-ratories conducting tests.

Hyderabad Airport gets AIC’s health accreditation for safe travel

Hyderabad, Sep 20 (UNI) Hyderabad Inter-national Airport on Sun-day said it has achieved the Airport Council Inter-national’s Airport Health Accreditation for safe travel. Airport operator GMR said this recogni-tion comes when passen-ger safety is the topmost priority of airport opera-tors due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hyderabad is among

the first airports in the Asia Pacific region to have received this cov-eted accreditation.

The Airport Health Ac-creditation (AHA) pro-gramme was launched by the ACI in July to as-sess the new health mea-sures and procedures adopted by airports as a result of the pandemic. In accordance with the recommendations of the International Civil Avia-

tion Organisation (ICAO) Council’s Aviation Re-covery Task Force, the programme assesses pro-cedures like cleaning and disinfection, physical dis-tancing, staff protection, physical layout, passen-ger communications and passenger facilities.

The ACI assessment covered the health and safety measures under-taken by the Hyderabad International Airport for

passengers and staff in all the terminal areas in-cluding departures, arriv-als and transfers, trans-portation services, food and beverage services, escalators and elevators, lounges, facilities, bag-gage claim area etc. The assessment also captured the initiatives that the air-port took for safety and well-being of employees and stakeholders.

According to the air-

port operator, with the growing passenger con-fidence, the airport is steadily seeing an increase in passenger traffic. The airport handles an average 16,000 domestic passen-gers and over 170 domes-tic air traffic movements daily. The airport also regained its 50 domestic destinations till August 31 out of 55 pre-Covid desti-nations. The top five des-tinations in terms of pas-senger footfall are Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Benga-luru and Mumbai.

“ACI Airport Health Ac-creditation emboldens our

commitment and consis-tent drive towards the safe-ty of passengers and the entire airport community. This has been a collabora-tive effort and we thank ev-eryone at the airport who have put in their heart and soul throughout this pe-riod of global pandemic,” GHIAL CEO Pradeep Pan-icker said. He said during the extraordinary times, Hyderabad Airport has been agile and adaptive to the latest government regulations and norms to ensure airport operations are running even during the lockdown, keeping es-

sential services active with utmost level of health and hygiene for everyone with consistency and quality as-surance. “We congratulate the Rajiv Gandhi Interna-tional Airport for being accredited through ACI’s Airport Health Accredita-tion programme which demonstrates that they are focused on the health and welfare of travellers, staff, and the public. Public con-fidence in air travel will be crucial as our industry pre-pares to sustain continuing operations, and the Rajiv Gandhi International Air-port is leading.

THE SOUTH INDIA TIMES 25 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST, 2020 721 Monday, SepteMber, 2020

Telangana: All irrigation Projects including KLIS receiving heavy inflows

Hyderabad Sep 20: With the three main barrages of Kalesh-waram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) receiving heavy inflows from the catchment areas and al-most reaching the Full Reservoir Level (FRL), project engineers have lifted gates and are dis-charging water down the stream. Similar situation is prevailing at all major reservoirs elsewhere in the State.

At Lakshmi (Medigadda) bar-rage, the inflow is 2,60,000 cu-secs and the same quantity has been discharged by lifting 46 gates out of 85 gates. The quan-tum of water available in the barrage is 3.3 tmc and the proj-ect has 94 meters of water out of an FRL of 100 meters. At Saras-wathi (Annaram) barrage the in-flow and outflows were 1,60,000 cusecs and 30 gates out of 66 gates have been lifted to let the

flood water out. The quantum of water available is 7.6 tmc and the water level is 117.5 meters against an FRL of 119 meters. At Parvathi (Sundilla) the inflow and outflows were 2,00,000 cu-

secs , the number of gates lifted were 60 out of 74. Quantum of water in store was 6.8 tmc and level of water was 128.5 ,meters out of an FRL of 130 meters. On other projects on Godavari and

its tributaries, Sri Ram Sagar Project was receiving 1,46,874 cusecs and discharging 1,25,000 cusecs. Sripada Yellampally was receiving 2,04,400 cusecs, and the same quantity has been re-

leased. Lower Manair Dam was receiving 55,377 cusecs and the same amount has been dis-charged. Inflow into Singur was 23,974 and out flow was only 123 cusecs. On river Krishna, Pri-yadarshini Jurala continued to receive huge inflows of 2,01,800 cusecs, and outflow was 1,95,539 cusecs. Over 21,000 cusecs has been utilized by the hydroelec-tric power generation station. Inflows into Srisailam were 2,60,365 cusecs and outflows were 4,13,017 cusecs. The Quan-tity of water in the reservoir was 215.08 against its maximum ca-pacity of 215.81 tmc. At Nagarju-na Sagar the inflow and out was 1,50,331 cusecs and the quan-tum of water available was 309.65 tmc against reservoir capacity of 312.05 tmc. At Pulichintala the inflow was 1,50,615 cusecs and out flow was 1,36,365 cusecs.

Hyderabad, Sept.20 (UNI): The AICC incharge of the state Manickam Tagore today held a video conference the DCC presidents of all the districts of the state, former MLAs and MLCs. During the video conference, He made it clear that the congress party would form the next government in the state. He asked the party leaders to fight at their level. He said that the chief minister of the state Kalvakuntla family benefited from the formation of Telangana state although it was formed by the party. He made it clear that the party would never think of power and added that the party has the support of the people of the state. He called upon the party leaders to work hard and ensure the victory of the party in the next assembly elections. He asked them to fight against the anti people activities of

the ruling TRS government . TPCC president introduced the party leaders to the incharge before the Beginning of the meeting. Some of the party leaders have made suggestions for the development of the party. They urged the incharge to give freedom to the party’s assembly seat aspirants to prepare the elections from now. They also urged the incharge to give the freedom to the DCC presidents to run the affairs of the party in their limits. They also urged Tagore to be strict in the issue of discoome and self promotion of the leaders in Social media. They said that the ruling TRS party had failed miserably to fulfil its promises during its last six year’s rule. They urged the incharge to hold agitations at field level. They also Tagore to give freedom to local leadership.

Hyderabad, Sept.20 (UNI): Of six months later the city buses in Hyderabad many hit the roads in the last week of this month amid corona scare.

The authorities of the TSRTC are getting ready for plying the city buses which have been off the roads since March 22. The of-fice going people, small businesses men, government, private employees, traders, workers, students are awaiting the RTC city buses. They are put to hardships and mis-ery of deprivation of the city buses as they cannot afford for autos, private vehicles who used to loot them. Low payments, half salaries for six months of Corona adverse effect, the common people were put to dif-ficult times as there are no buses for long time which was not the case before.

As unlock 4.0 by the centre has pushed some states to restart services in May third week, district buses started in Telangana, also in AP and other states have started the same. Though they are ready to offer the services, the government is yet to take call on whether they can run the buses now or not. The RTC officials have conducted a study reportedly in other states which be-gan city bus services recently in spite of co-rona pandemic by taking measures as per protocols.

The states began the city bus services

are Maharashtra as Mumbai city started its local buses as also Karnatakaa and Tamil Nadu respectively. The TSRTC officials have got reports and a picture on restarting the city bus services in Hyderabad by tak-ing corona protocol steps. After a review by Transport Minister Dr P Ajay Kumar the RTC officials have offered to restarting the bus services in the city. On getting a nod from Chief Minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao, the authorities are to start the same accord-ing to information. It is planned by the RTC officials to run only about 50 percent of the buses in seven.

usy routes. These routes will connect metro rail stations in main thoroughfares.

The government is considered for open-ing of the buses in the last week according to sources. It is being said that the city buses will be extended to other routes on seeing the first phase of the buses and public re-sponse. There is also a talk that the RTC officials may collect double charges as oc-cupancy is being reduced to almost half. Since the Corona protocol insists there is a need for distance among the bus users oc-cupying the seats, by wearing masks and sanitising the hands.

AICC incharge holds video conference with

DCC presidents

City Buses to hit roads in last week as officials await KCR nod

THE SOUTH INDIA TIMES 25 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST, 2020 821 Monday, SepteMber, 2020

Hyderabad: 2000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes sequenced by CCMBHyderabad: Geneti-

cists from Hyderabad-based Centre for Cel-lular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) have completed analysis of more than 2,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from India available in the public domain, which has the potential to throw light on why Co-vid-19 infectivity in the country was on the higher side.

In June, the CCMB team revealed the pres-ence of a distinct virus population among Ind , which was named the clade I/A3i. At that time, 41 per cent of all Indian SARS-CoV-2 ge-nomes belonged to this clade, which according

to current analysis, had dropped to 18 percent.

The findings of the study, which is a collab-oration between CCMB and CSIR-Institute of Integrative Biology, was published in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases of the Oxford University Press.

The findings made

it clear that no clade at present has been con-clusively shown to be associated with a more severe form of Covid-19, or an increased risk of death.

“We expected A3i clade to slowly disap-pear with time, and other clades without this variation to prevail

and this is what we see now”, said Dr Divya Tej Sowpati, Scientist at CCMB, who is leading this study, said.

The decrease in the proportion of A3i clade is accompanied by an increase of the A2a clade, which is shown to be associated with an increased infectivity. At

present 70 per cent of all Ind as well as global SARS-CoV-2 genomes fall into this clade.

“As expected for a strain which is more infectious, A2a clade quickly became the dominant clade in In-dia just like everywhere else. There is no evi-dence to state that this mutation is clinically a more difficult one. The similarity in viral ge-nome globally should be considered a positive news, because a vaccine or a drug targeting this mutation will work with the same effectiveness all over the world,” said Dr Rakesh K Mishra, Di-rector, CCMB and a co-author of the study.

Hyderabad, Sept.20 (UNI): The Joint Ac-tion Committee of Telangana Auto Rik-shaw drivers today demanded the state government to imple-ment the Vahana Mitra scheme being implemented in the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in the state and give Rs.10,000 fi-nancial assistance to all the auto rikshaw drivers. Addressing media persons at city the Convenor of the JAC Amanulla Khan alleged that the state government was re-luctant to implement the scheme. He said that they would hold a state wide bandh program on Octo-ber 1,2020 protesting against the attitude of the state government . He urged the chief

minister of the state to stop the construction of the new secretariat for some time for the fulfilment of their le-gitimate demands. Re-ferring to the suicide attempt of auto Rik-shaw driver Chander at Pragathi Bhavan, he wished that Chander recovered from his in-jury. He called upon all the auto rikshaw driv-ers of the state to not commit suicide and added that they would anti-suicides day on October 2, and offer chocolates to each other as part of their program. He warned the state government that they would teach a befitting lesson to the state government in the upcoming ghmc elections if it didn’t implement the vahana Mitra scheme.

Auto Rikshaw drivers JAC demand govt to implement AP’s vahana Mitra scheme

AICC incharge holds video conference with DCC presidents

Hyderabad, Sept.20 (UNI): The AICC incharge of the state Manickam Tagore to-day held a video conference the DCC presidents of all the districts of the state, former MLAs and MLCs. During the video conference, He made it clear that the congress party would form the next government in the state. He asked the party leaders to

fight at their level. He said that the chief minister of the state Kalvakuntla family ben-efited from the formation of Telangana state although it was formed by the party. He made it clear that the party would never think of power and added that the party has the support of the people of the state.

He called upon the party

leaders to work hard and en-sure the victory of the party in the next assembly elec-tions. He asked them to fight against the anti people ac-tivities of the ruling TRS gov-ernment . TPCC president introduced the party leaders to the incharge before the Beginning of the meeting. Some of the party leaders have made suggestions for

the development of the party. They urged the incharge to give freedom to the party’s assem-bly seat aspirants to prepare the elections from now.

They also urged the incharge to give the freedom to the DCC presidents to run the affairs of the party in their limits. They also urged Tagore to be strict in the issue of discoome and self pro-motion of the leaders in Social media. They said that the ruling TRS party had failed miserably to fulfil its promises during its last six year’s rule. They urged the incharge to hold agitations at field level. They also Tagore to give freedom to local leadership for the formation of poll based alliances .

They alleged the ruling TRS party was inducing grassroot caders of the party by offering money to them.

Responding to their sugges-tions, Tagore said that there would be a lot of anti-incumben-cy against the TRS party before the next assembly elections as it would complete 10 years by then. He said that the anti-incumbency against the TRS would help the congress party to win the elec-tions and asked the party cadres to not worry about the money power of the ruling party.

Dissidence in TRS: SCB Vice President resigns

from his party postHyderabad, Sept.20 (UNI): Political problems

have begun to haunt the ruling TRS party ahead of GHMC elections. The party leader from Secunder-abad and the Vice President of Secunderaad Can-tonment Board (SCB) Ramakrishna today resigned from his party post. He announced that he was resigning from the party post due to the problems he faced from the own party leaders. He said that he was sending his resignation papers to the party president and CM KCR and working president KTR. Ramakrishna however made it clear that he would continue to work as the Vice President of the Can-tonment board. He also made it clear that all his focus was on the development of the Cantonment area. He thanked th le state ministers Talasani Srini-vas Yadav, CH .Malla Reddy, Party MLA Sayannna and deputy speaker Padma Rao Goud.