U nion Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday took stock of the security situation in Jammu & Kashmir in the wake of a series of targeted killings in the valley with security and intelligence top brass. National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, Army Chief General Manoj Pande, and Lieutenant Governor of Jammu & Kashmir Manoj Sinha were among those who attended the meeting. The Home Minister also reviewed the security situation in Jammu & Kashmir and security arrangements for the upcoming Amarnath Yatra also figured in the meetings. The high-level meeting came after terrorists carried out a series of targeted killings in the Kashmir valley, mostly of Hindus, security personnel, and local civilians.Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, Director of Intelligence Bureau Arvind Kumar, Director General of Central Reserve Police Force Kuldiep Singh, Border Security Force chief Pankaj Singh, and Jammu & Kashmir Director General of Police Dilbag Singh were among other key officials who took part in the meeting. Earlier, Shah had an infor- mal meeting with LG Manoj Sinha, Arvind Kumar, Secretary of RAW Samant Goel and DGP of Jammu & Kashmir Dilbagh Singh. Two persons — a bank employee and a brick kiln labourer — were killed in Kashmir on Thursday while another labourer was injured in two separate incidents. The bank manager was the ninth and the labourer was the 10th targeted killing in Kashmir since May 1. A woman teacher hailing from the Samba district of the Jammu region was shot dead by terrorists at a school in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Tuesday. On May 18, terrorists had entered a wine shop at Baramulla in North Kashmir and threw a grenade, killing one person from the Jammu region and injuring three oth- ers. Policeman Saifullah Qadri was shot dead outside his res- idence in Srinagar on May 24 while television artiste Amreen Bhat was gunned down in Budgam two days later. Meanwhile, panic strick- en Kashmiri Pandit employ- ees on Friday shifted their families from Kashmir valley to Jammu ignoring assur- ances given by the Union Territory administration to ensure their safety after their relocation to safer places within Kashmir valley. T he Modi Government on Friday took strong excep- tion to a US State Department report that claimed there was a rise in attacks on people and places of worship in India and termed these comments as “ill- informed.” New Delhi also said “it is unfortunate (that) vote bank politics is being practiced in international politics”. The sharp reaction by the Ministry of External Affairs came a day after US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said there have been rising attacks on people and places of wor- ship in India, asserting that America will continue to stand up for religious freedom around the world. He made these observa- tions at the release of the annu- al International Religious Freedom report for the year 2021. Rebutting his remarks, the MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said on Friday, “We have noted the release of the US State Department 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom, and ill informed comments by senior US offi- cials. “It is unfortunate that vote bank politics is being practised in international relations. We would urge that assessments based on motivated inputs and biased views be avoided.” Baghci said as a naturally pluralistic society, India values religious freedom and human rights. “In our discussions with the US, we have regularly high- lighted issues of concern there, including racially and ethni- cally motivated attacks, hate crimes and gun violence,” he asserted. Blinken had also said peo- ple from the minority com- munities and women were being targeted in other Asian countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and China. “The United States will continue to stand up for reli- gious freedom around the world. We’ll keep working alongside other governments, multilateral organisations, civil society to do so, including next month at the United Kingdom’s ministerial to advance religious freedom,” Blinken told media persons. “At its core, our work is about ensuring that all people have the freedom to pursue the spiritual tradition that most has meaning to their time on earth,” he said, noting that the report documents how reli- gious freedom and the rights of religious minorities are under threat in communities around the world. “For example, in India, the world’s largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, we’ve seen rising attacks on people and places of wor- ship; in Vietnam, where authorities harassed members of unregistered religious com- munities; in Nigeria, where several state governments are using anti-defamation and blas- phemy laws to punish people for expressing their beliefs,” Blinken said. China, he said, continues to harass adherents of other reli- gions that it deems out of line with the Chinese Communist Party doctrine, including by destroying Buddhist, Christian, Islamic and Taoist houses of worship and by erecting barri- ers to employment and hous- ing for Christians, Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Gong practitioners. In Afghanistan, conditions for religious freedom have deteriorated dramatically under the Taliban, particular- ly as they crack down on the basic rights of women and girls to get an education, to work, to engage in society, often under the banner of reli- gion, he said. Meanwhile, ISIS-K is con- ducting increasingly violent attacks against religious minorities, particularly Shia Hazaras, he added. “In Pakistan, at least 16 individuals accused of blas- phemy were sentenced to death by Pakistani courts in 2021 though none of these sen- tences has yet to be carried out,” Blinken said. “Beyond these countries, the report documents how reli- gious freedom and the rights of religious minorities are under threat in communities around the world,” he said. G angster Lawrence Bishnoi, who is in Delhi Police’s Special Cell custody, has revealed that his gang’s mem- bers, including Canada-based Goldy Brar, killed 28-year-old Punjabi singer Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, alias Sidhu Moose Wala. Sources said they suspect the accused involved in Moose Wala’s murder had fled to Nepal and they are hiding there. A special cell team has gone to Nepal to trace the sus- pects. According to sources, Bishnoi has been very unco- operative during interrogation and has not disclosed the names of his gang members who were the real conspirators in the killing. “He has alleged that Moose Wala was involved in the killing of Akali Dal youth leader Vikramjit Singh, alias Vicky Middukhera, on August 7 last year which led to a rivalry between him and the Punjabi singer,” said the sources. “Bishnoi has been very uncooperative so far. But dur- ing interrogation, he accepted that he had a rivalry with Moose Wala and claimed that his gang members killed the singer,” said sources. “He has revealed that Goldy Brar was one of the gang members who hatched the conspiracy to kill Moose Wala, but he has not yet disclosed the names of other associates who were the real executioners of the plot,” a police official said. M obs hurled bombs and pelted stones at each other as violence erupted in Kanpur after groups of people tried to force shopkeepers to down shutters over an alleged insult to Prophet Mohammed on a television show. Clashes broke out in Pared, Nai Sadak and Yateemkhana areas of the city after Friday namaz, police said. The two sides hurled bombs and opened fire as members of one of the groups attempted to shut shops over alleged insulting remarks made by BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma during a tele- vision debate recently, a senior police official said. Those who allegedly forced traders to shut shops clashed with police personnel who then used batons to disperse the mob. Meanwhile, 18 people have been arrested in connec- tion with the incident. “Those involved in the violence are being identified with help of video clips of the incident. Eighteen people have been arrested,” said Additional Director General (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar. SC dismisses Puri Parikrama petitions BJD retains Brajrajnagar seat by big margin And fines each petitioner Rs 1L for wasting court’s valuable time Lord has spoken through apex court’s voice: Pinaki PNS NEW DELHI I n a major relief to the Odisha Government, the Su- preme Court on Friday dis- missed the petitions claiming illegal construction and exca- vation works under the Shreemandir Parikrama Prakalp at the Jagannath Temple in Puri. Besides, the apex court im- posed Rs 1 lakh fine on each of the petitioners for wasting its valuable time. A Vacation Bench compris- ing Justices BR Gavai and Hima Kohli criticised the PIL applicants for wasting the court’s time with frivolous pe- titions and also pointed out that in the recent past there has been a mushrooming growth in the PILs. “We deprecate the prac- tice of filing such PILs. It’s a waste of judicial time and it needs to be nipped in the bud so that development work is not stalled…,” said the Bench, add- ing that they are “personal in- terest litigations” and are “nothing but abuse of law”. During the hearing, senior advocate Mahalakshmi Pavani, representing a petitioner, sub- mitted that no construction can be carried out in the pro- hibited area at the temple and the State Government got NOC from the National Monuments Authority (NMA) and carried out the construction. She argued that only the director archaeology either at Central or State level could grant a valid certificate and not the NMA. Odisha Advocate General Ashok Kumar Parija contended that the NMA is the right au- thority under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeologi- cal Sites and Remains Act (AMASR). The State Government’s Director of Cul- ture is the competent author- ity which gave the permission and the Government plans amenities to devotees and beautification of the temple. Reacting to the judgment, Puri BJD MP Pinaki Misra said, “The Lord has spoken through the voice of the Hon’ble apex court. Naveenbabu stands vin- dicated in his earnest attempt to create world-class infrastruc- ture to make Puri a world heri- tage site.” He has always tried to make this apolitical by taking all parties along every step of the way and inviting all leaders to the foundation-stone laying ceremony till date, he said. Misra appealed to all to stop impeding this noble venture for any personal or political gain. “History will judge us in this hour of reckoning if this deci- sive legal verdict of the final court is not taken in the right spirit of Odia glory for the sake of Lord Jagannath and the people of Puri,” he added. Congress tri- umphs over BJP for second slot PNS JHARSUGUDA / BHUBANESWAR Maintaining its winning streak in by-elections, the rul- ing Biju Janata Dal (BJD) reg- istered a landslide victory in the Brajrajnagar Assembly by- poll with a margin of over 66,225 votes on Friday. Party candidate Alaka Mohanty, wife of late BJD MLA Kishore Mohanty, grabbed the seat with a total of 93,790 votes. In a significant development, for the first time since the 2019 General Elections in the State, the Congress improved its per- formance by attaining the sec- ond position as its candidate Kishore Patel secured 27,565 votes in this by-poll, pushing the BJP to the second position among opposition parties as its nominee Radharani Panda got 22,316 votes. Alaka Mohanty said, "I am very grateful to CM Naveen Patnaik for having faith on me and giving me ticket for the by- poll. I will work really hard for overall development of the con- stituency." "People of Brajrajnagar were pleased with my husband's dedication and works for the constituency dur- ing his tenure of two and a half years. The people reposed their faith in me and voted for me in large numbers" she added. The by-election had been necessitated by the demise of Kishore Mohanty in Decem- ber last year. The Assembly constituency is considered to be a stronghold of all three major parties, BJD, BJP and Congress. The seat was with the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Congress till 2009 and later went to the BJP in 2014. The BJD grabbed it in the General Elections in 2019. Under Secy held taking Rs 30K bribe PNS CUTTACK T he Vigilance police on Friday caught Purna Chandra Sahoo, Under Secretary, Planning and Convergence Department, Lokseva Bhawan in Bhubaneswar, red-handed while accept- ing a bribe of Rs 30, 000. Sahoo had demanded the bribe from the owner of computer firm as an in- stallment in lieu of releasing bills for supply of computers. The overall demand was of Rs 65,500 which included Rs 26,500 for issue of order for purchase of 55 UPS and Sahoo had threatened the complainant to keep the order on hold if the demand was not fulfilled. Following the trap, simultaneous searches were carried out on the resi- dential Government quarter of Sahoo at Bhubaneswar, house at Durgamadhab Nagar in the capital city, house at na- tive village Kurumabankatara under the Odagaon police station in Nayagarh district and office chamber at Lok Seva Bhawan. Later, Sahoo was arrested and forwarded to court. Titilagarh hottest at 45 deg PNS BHUBANESWAR The heat wave continued on Friday to scorch western Odisha as the mercury soared past 44 degree Celsius in six places in the region. Titilagarh was the hottest place in State at 45 degree. The Regional Centre of the India Me- teorological Department (IMD) here said Titilagarh was followed by Balangir at 44.9 degree, Boudh 44.5, Sambalpur 44.4, Sonepur 44.3, Jharsuguda 44.2 and Bhawanipatna 43 degree. Sonepur had remained the hottest place for the last three consecutive days with mercury shooting up to 44.8 degree on Thursday. The twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack registered maximum tempera- ture of 36.8 and 37 degree, respectively on Friday. The IMD issued yellow warn- ing forecasting thunderstorms with lightning at several places of the State in next five days.
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Union Home Minister AmitShah on Friday took stock
of the security situation inJammu & Kashmir in the wakeof a series of targeted killingsin the valley with security andintelligence top brass.
National Security Adviser(NSA) Ajit Doval, Army ChiefGeneral Manoj Pande, andLieutenant Governor of Jammu& Kashmir Manoj Sinha wereamong those who attendedthe meeting.
The Home Minister alsoreviewed the security situationin Jammu & Kashmir andsecurity arrangements for theupcoming Amarnath Yatra alsofigured in the meetings.
The high-level meetingcame after terrorists carried outa series of targeted killings inthe Kashmir valley, mostly ofHindus, security personnel,and local civilians.Union HomeSecretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla,Director of Intelligence BureauArvind Kumar, DirectorGeneral of Central ReservePolice Force Kuldiep Singh,Border Security Force chiefPankaj Singh, and Jammu &Kashmir Director General ofPolice Dilbag Singh wereamong other key officials whotook part in the meeting.
Earlier, Shah had an infor-mal meeting with LG Manoj
Sinha, Arvind Kumar,Secretary of RAW Samant Goeland DGP of Jammu & KashmirDilbagh Singh.
Two persons — a bankemployee and a brick kilnlabourer — were killed inKashmir on Thursday whileanother labourer was injured intwo separate incidents. Thebank manager was the ninthand the labourer was the 10thtargeted killing in Kashmirsince May 1.
A woman teacher hailingfrom the Samba district of theJammu region was shot dead byterrorists at a school in southKashmir’s Kulgam district onTuesday.
On May 18, terrorists hadentered a wine shop atBaramulla in North Kashmirand threw a grenade, killingone person from the Jammuregion and injuring three oth-ers. Policeman Saifullah Qadriwas shot dead outside his res-
idence in Srinagar on May 24while television artiste AmreenBhat was gunned down inBudgam two days later.
Meanwhile, panic strick-en Kashmiri Pandit employ-ees on Friday shifted theirfamilies from Kashmir valleyto Jammu ignoring assur-ances given by the UnionTerritory administration toensure their safety after theirrelocation to safer placeswithin Kashmir valley.
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The Modi Government onFriday took strong excep-
tion to a US State Departmentreport that claimed there wasa rise in attacks on people andplaces of worship in India andtermed these comments as “ill-informed.” New Delhi also said“it is unfortunate (that) votebank politics is being practicedin international politics”.
The sharp reaction by theMinistry of External Affairscame a day after US Secretaryof State Anthony Blinken saidthere have been rising attackson people and places of wor-ship in India, asserting thatAmerica will continue to standup for religious freedomaround the world.
He made these observa-tions at the release of the annu-al International ReligiousFreedom report for the year2021.
Rebutting his remarks, theMEA Spokesperson ArindamBagchi said on Friday, “Wehave noted the release of the USState Department 2021 Report
on International ReligiousFreedom, and ill informedcomments by senior US offi-cials. “It is unfortunate that votebank politics is being practisedin international relations. Wewould urge that assessmentsbased on motivated inputs andbiased views be avoided.”
Baghci said as a naturallypluralistic society, India valuesreligious freedom and humanrights. “In our discussions withthe US, we have regularly high-lighted issues of concern there,including racially and ethni-cally motivated attacks, hatecrimes and gun violence,” heasserted.
Blinken had also said peo-ple from the minority com-munities and women werebeing targeted in other Asiancountries like Pakistan,Afghanistan and China.
“The United States willcontinue to stand up for reli-gious freedom around the
world. We’ll keep workingalongside other governments,multilateral organisations, civilsociety to do so, includingnext month at the UnitedKingdom’s ministerial toadvance religious freedom,”Blinken told media persons.
“At its core, our work isabout ensuring that all peoplehave the freedom to pursue thespiritual tradition that most hasmeaning to their time onearth,” he said, noting that thereport documents how reli-gious freedom and the rights ofreligious minorities are underthreat in communities aroundthe world.
“For example, in India, theworld’s largest democracy andhome to a great diversity offaiths, we’ve seen rising attackson people and places of wor-ship; in Vietnam, whereauthorities harassed membersof unregistered religious com-munities; in Nigeria, where
several state governments areusing anti-defamation and blas-phemy laws to punish peoplefor expressing their beliefs,”Blinken said.
China, he said, continues toharass adherents of other reli-gions that it deems out of linewith the Chinese CommunistParty doctrine, including bydestroying Buddhist, Christian,Islamic and Taoist houses ofworship and by erecting barri-ers to employment and hous-ing for Christians, Muslims,Tibetan Buddhists and FalunGong practitioners.
In Afghanistan, conditionsfor religious freedom havedeteriorated dramaticallyunder the Taliban, particular-ly as they crack down on thebasic rights of women andgirls to get an education, towork, to engage in society,often under the banner of reli-gion, he said.
Meanwhile, ISIS-K is con-ducting increasingly violentattacks against religiousminorities, particularly ShiaHazaras, he added.
“In Pakistan, at least 16individuals accused of blas-phemy were sentenced to deathby Pakistani courts in 2021though none of these sen-tences has yet to be carried out,”Blinken said.
“Beyond these countries,the report documents how reli-gious freedom and the rights ofreligious minorities are underthreat in communities aroundthe world,” he said.
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Gangster Lawrence Bishnoi,who is in Delhi Police’s
Special Cell custody, hasrevealed that his gang’s mem-bers, including Canada-basedGoldy Brar, killed 28-year-oldPunjabi singer ShubhdeepSingh Sidhu, alias Sidhu MooseWala.
Sources said they suspectthe accused involved in MooseWala’s murder had fled toNepal and they are hidingthere. A special cell team hasgone to Nepal to trace the sus-pects. According to sources,Bishnoi has been very unco-operative during interrogationand has not disclosed thenames of his gang memberswho were the real conspiratorsin the killing.
“He has alleged that MooseWala was involved in thekilling of Akali Dal youthleader Vikramjit Singh, aliasVicky Middukhera, on August7 last year which led to a
rivalry between him and thePunjabi singer,” said thesources.
“Bishnoi has been veryuncooperative so far. But dur-ing interrogation, he acceptedthat he had a rivalry withMoose Wala and claimed thathis gang members killed thesinger,” said sources. “He hasrevealed that Goldy Brar wasone of the gang members whohatched the conspiracy to killMoose Wala, but he has not yetdisclosed the names of otherassociates who were the realexecutioners of the plot,” apolice official said.
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Mobs hurled bombs andpelted stones at each
other as violence erupted inKanpur after groups of peopletried to force shopkeepers todown shutters over an allegedinsult to Prophet Mohammedon a television show.
Clashes broke out inPared, Nai Sadak andYateemkhana areas of the cityafter Friday namaz, policesaid.
The two sides hurledbombs and opened fire asmembers of one of the groupsattempted to shut shops overalleged insulting remarksmade by BJP spokespersonNupur Sharma during a tele-
vision debate recently, a seniorpolice official said. Those whoallegedly forced traders toshut shops clashed with policepersonnel who then usedbatons to disperse the mob.
Meanwhile, 18 peoplehave been arrested in connec-tion with the incident.
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SC dismisses Puri Parikrama petitionsBJD retains Brajrajnagar seat by big marginAnd fines eachpetitioner Rs 1Lfor wastingcourt’s valuabletimeLord has spokenthrough apexcourt’s voice:PinakiPNS ����� NEW DELHI
In a major relief to theOdisha Government, the Su-preme Court on Friday dis-missed the petitions claimingillegal construction and exca-vation works under theShreemandir ParikramaPrakalp at the JagannathTemple in Puri.
Besides, the apex court im-
posed Rs 1 lakh fine on each ofthe petitioners for wasting itsvaluable time.
A Vacation Bench compris-ing Justices BR Gavai andHima Kohli criticised the PILapplicants for wasting thecourt’s time with frivolous pe-titions and also pointed out thatin the recent past there has beena mushrooming growth in thePILs. “We deprecate the prac-tice of filing such PILs. It’s awaste of judicial time and itneeds to be nipped in the budso that development work is notstalled…,” said the Bench, add-ing that they are “personal in-terest litigations” and are“nothing but abuse of law”.
During the hearing, senioradvocate Mahalakshmi Pavani,representing a petitioner, sub-mitted that no construction
can be carried out in the pro-hibited area at the temple andthe State Government gotNOC from the NationalMonuments Authority(NMA) and carried out theconstruction. She argued thatonly the director archaeologyeither at Central or State levelcould grant a valid certificateand not the NMA.
Odisha Advocate GeneralAshok Kumar Parija contendedthat the NMA is the right au-thority under the AncientMonuments and Archaeologi-cal Sites and Remains Act(AMASR). The StateGovernment’s Director of Cul-ture is the competent author-ity which gave the permissionand the Government plansamenities to devotees andbeautification of the temple.
Reacting to the judgment,Puri BJD MP Pinaki Misra said,“The Lord has spoken throughthe voice of the Hon’ble apexcourt. Naveenbabu stands vin-dicated in his earnest attemptto create world-class infrastruc-ture to make Puri a world heri-tage site.” He has always tried tomake this apolitical by takingall parties along every step ofthe way and inviting all leadersto the foundation-stone layingceremony till date, he said.
Misra appealed to all to stopimpeding this noble venture forany personal or political gain.“History will judge us in thishour of reckoning if this deci-sive legal verdict of the finalcourt is not taken in the rightspirit of Odia glory for the sakeof Lord Jagannath and thepeople of Puri,” he added.
Congress tri-umphs over BJPfor second slotPNS ����� JHARSUGUDA /BHUBANESWAR
Maintaining its winningstreak in by-elections, the rul-ing Biju Janata Dal (BJD) reg-istered a landslide victory inthe Brajrajnagar Assembly by-poll with a margin of over66,225 votes on Friday.
Party candidate AlakaMohanty, wife of late BJDMLA Kishore Mohanty,grabbed the seat with a totalof 93,790 votes.
In a significant development,for the first time since the 2019General Elections in the State,the Congress improved its per-formance by attaining the sec-ond position as its candidate
Kishore Patel secured 27,565votes in this by-poll, pushing theBJP to the second positionamong opposition parties as itsnominee Radharani Panda got22,316 votes.
Alaka Mohanty said, "I amvery grateful to CM NaveenPatnaik for having faith on meand giving me ticket for the by-poll. I will work really hard for
overall development of the con-stituency." "People ofBrajrajnagar were pleased withmy husband's dedication andworks for the constituency dur-ing his tenure of two and a halfyears. The people reposed theirfaith in me and voted for mein large numbers" she added.
The by-election had beennecessitated by the demise of
Kishore Mohanty in Decem-ber last year. The Assemblyconstituency is considered tobe a stronghold of all threemajor parties, BJD, BJP andCongress. The seat was with theCommunist Party of India(CPI) and the Congress till2009 and later went to the BJPin 2014. The BJD grabbed it inthe General Elections in 2019.
Under Secy heldtaking Rs 30K bribePNS ����� CUTTACK
The Vigilance police on Fridaycaught Purna Chandra Sahoo, UnderSecretary, Planning and ConvergenceDepartment, Lokseva Bhawan inBhubaneswar, red-handed while accept-ing a bribe of Rs 30, 000.
Sahoo had demanded the bribe fromthe owner of computer firm as an in-stallment in lieu of releasing bills forsupply of computers.
The overall demand was of Rs 65,500which included Rs 26,500 for issue oforder for purchase of 55 UPS and Sahoohad threatened the complainant to keepthe order on hold if the demand wasnot fulfilled.
Following the trap, simultaneoussearches were carried out on the resi-dential Government quarter of Sahooat Bhubaneswar, house at DurgamadhabNagar in the capital city, house at na-tive village Kurumabankatara under theOdagaon police station in Nayagarhdistrict and office chamber at Lok SevaBhawan. Later, Sahoo was arrested andforwarded to court.
Titilagarh hottest at 45 deg
PNS ����� BHUBANESWAR
The heat wave continued on Friday toscorch western Odisha as the mercurysoared past 44 degree Celsius in six placesin the region. Titilagarh was the hottestplace in State at 45 degree.
The Regional Centre of the India Me-teorological Department (IMD) heresaid Titilagarh was followed by Balangirat 44.9 degree, Boudh 44.5, Sambalpur44.4, Sonepur 44.3, Jharsuguda 44.2 and
Bhawanipatna 43 degree.Sonepur had remained the hottest place
for the last three consecutive days withmercury shooting up to 44.8 degree onThursday.
The twin cities of Bhubaneswar andCuttack registered maximum tempera-ture of 36.8 and 37 degree, respectivelyon Friday. The IMD issued yellow warn-ing forecasting thunderstorms withlightning at several places of the Statein next five days.
BHUBANESWAR l SATURDAY l JUNE 04, 2022 capital 02
Organisations throughoutthe world embracementoring for the
retention and development of theirhuman resources. Studies revealthat 71 pe rcent of the Fortune 500companies offer mentoringprogrammes to their employees toexploit their potentiality. Today,mentoring is gaining significancein a wide range of fields includingacademics. National EducationPolicy 2020 recommended forcreation of a system of mentorshipby experienced, distinguished andretired faculty. It also suggested forestablishment of a NationalMission for Mentoring consistingof a large pool of senior or retiredfaculties who can providementoring support to the universityand college teachers.
The concept of mentoring hasnot gained the requiredmomentum in our country ascompared with the other parts ofthe world. Especially in theacademia, hardly teachers or
Mentoring: A bond between teachers and students
students are aware of the role andresponsibility of the mentor andmentee. A teacher has to assumethe role of a mentor for the student.Similarly, a senior teacher will actas a mentor for the junior teachers.In both the cases, the mentor canbring out the potentialities of thementees and help them developtheir skills and knowledge.
A mentor can be a role model, aguide, a coach, an advisor, acounsellor and an advocate for thementee. A teacher can best fit
himself in all these roles for a studenthelps him complete the course andprepare him to become a successfulprofessional after graduation orpost graduation. The relationshipcontinues long after the studentmoves on, becomes a lifelongcounsellor and a source ofguidance. Mentorship for theteachers in the higher education isthe most required reform. Thebiggest challenge faced by theIndian higher education system isthe quality and excellence.Numerous initiatives were taken bythe Government in the last 73 yearsof Independence, but the globalrankings of our higher educationalinstitutions are discouraging. Therole of the teacher is crucial inproviding quality education whichis neglected so far. There is nosystem of guiding and motivatingthe newly-appointed teacher whocan imbibe all the required qualitiesof a professional and the ethics. TheNEP 2020 emphasises on thisaspect and suggests strategies to
create dedicated, energised andcapable faculty who can be rolemodels for the students and staffs.
The University GrantsCommission (UGC) brought apolicy document in January 2021suggesting guidelines for inductionand mentorship for the teachers ofhigher education. As per theguidelines, a newly-appointedteacher has to attend a Guru-Dakshta Faculty InductionProgramme (FIP) which may rangefrom 160 to 175 hours within oneyear of his appointment prior tohis regularisation. Various aspectsof the higher education system likecurriculum designing, teaching-learning and assessment along withthe latest technology, professionaldevelopment, academic leadership,personal and emotionalcounselling, academic integrity,constitutional values, humanrights, sustainable developmentgoals, strategic planning andmanagement, etc., which are crucialfor the development of integrity
of a teacher will be covered in theinduction programme.
The mentors will play animportant role in the inductionprogramme as envisaged by theguidelines. Senior and experiencedteachers will be roped in foreffective mentoring. This will helpa mentee receive attention, insight,advice and opportunities fordevelopment of professionalrelationship which in turn enablesthem to connect with theinstitution, industry, research andthe society as a whole. Once therelationship is established, thementor with more experience,knowledge, skills and strategies canpass them to the mentee throughpersonal interactions.
The mentorship programmeinitiated by the UGC will definitelyhelp in the empowerment ofteachers in a holistic way whichfurther helps in the creation ofquality teaching learning process.It is the quality of the teacher whichcan change the quality of the
education imparted and objectiveof NEP for creation of vibrantmulti-disciplined institutionsproviding high quality of teaching,learning, and research andcommunity engagement can beachieved. Proper mentoring willhelp a teacher realise his professionalaspirations and transform himselfas an agent of socioeconomicchange and national development.
Realising the importance ofmentoring in education, theGovernment of Odisha initiatedvarious steps at the college level forthe students' betterment. Thestudents of each class will be dividedand placed under the teachers whocan take special care of the studentsunder their supervision. They lookafter their wellbeing, theirattendance, their performance, theirproblems and counsel them properso that they will not lag behind inthe classroom. Each and everystudent can be touched and takencare of.
The mentoring system for
students proved well during theCovid period when the studentsremained out of campus and theteachers maintained their contactwith them to continue theteaching-learning activity. Thementors supported them in allangles from academic topsychological wellbeing. Theyconsoled them when they wereemotional, stressed and confused.The uncertainty of the classroomeducation, examination, resultscreated a panic situation, but thementors proved Good Samaritansfor the students. The 'Juba Sanskar'classes and the newly-introduced'ethics and values' paper brought thementors and the students closer. Foreverything, the students areaccustomed to consult the mentors,and it paved a way for the creationof a favourable academicenvironment in the institutions.
(Dr Biswal is Principal,Nowrangpur College,
Nabarangpur. Mob: [email protected])
BHASKAR NATH BISWAL
No progress sans women empowerment'
Capacity-building for teachers of Odia
Govt orders safety survey of all Ghat roads
In Nabarangpur
Youth held for objectionable messages
2 swine flu cases detected in BBSR
Ponzi scam
Ex-MLA Tripathy quizzed by ED
Ratna demand for Madhubabu
Lawyers hold signature drive in B'lore
Pradhan lays stone for Dakhinkali dev
Odisha Govt has thisas core of itsinitiatives: CMPIONEER NEWS SERVICE����� BHUBANESWAR
Speaking at a national-level con-ference here on women issues,Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik onFriday said, "My Government hasalways held that no household, nosociety, no State, no country hasever moved forward without em-powering its women. At the coreof our key initiatives is the effort tomake girls and women financiallyindependent and truly empow-ered."
The conference was hosted by theState Commission for Women. Hespoke about the Mission Shakti as
one of the flagship programmes ofthe Odisha Government. "It en-compasses in its fold 70 lakhwomen in all habitations across the
State. Mission Shakti symbolisesthe transformation that is happen-ing across the State - helpingwomen emerge as decision makers
and torch bearers of a new inclu-sive Odisha," he told.
Patnaik also talked about the rep-resentation of women issue and
how Odisha has reserved 50% seatsfor women in panchayats. "In therecently concluded local body elec-tions, more than 55 per centwomen have got elected," he told.In his party, he told 21 out of 30district presidents are women. In afirst by any political party, the BJDhad reserved one-third seats forwomen in the 2019 Lok Sabha elec-tions, he said.
"Our Mamata scheme empowerspregnant women by assuring themfinancial support at a vulnerabletime. BSKY - our health assurancescheme has Rs 10-lakh coverage forwomen. Our Sudakshya schemeseeks to provide quality technicaleducation to girls. Our land rightdocuments are issued in the nameof women. To ensure uninterruptededucation we have nearly three lakhgirls in our hostels," he told.
PNS ����� BHUBANESWAR
In the wake of the recent tragicbus mishap at Kalinga Ghat inGanjam district, Transport Princi-pal Secretary Bishnupada Sethi hasasked the National Highway Au-thority of India (NHAI) and theState Department of Works to con-duct a safety survey of all Ghat roadsin the State.
In the recent past, many fatalroad accidents have occurred in theGhats and hilly areas. The hilly/Ghat roads are generally vulnerablebecause a single accident results inmultiple fatalities.
In the late night on May 24, theaccident occurred on the KalingaGhat in which six tourists from WestBengal died on the spot and manypeople sustained grievous injuriesand are still struggling for life inhospitals.
A few days earlier, another acci-dent had occurred in the DwarsuniGhat in Mayurbhanj district. Asreported by the local RTO, the driverwas driving the vehicle at highspeed and could not negotiate atthe curve in the Ghat area and thevehicle skidded over hazardousmaterials like stone, electric poleswhich were lying on the side of
road.The RTO also reported that chev-
ron signage, road markings andstud reflectors were not found onthe spot. At many locations, crashbarriers were also damaged, he said.
"In view of the vulnerability,hilly/ Ghat roads are to be main-tained properly. The SupremeCourt Committee on Road Safety,therefore, has directed to take allpossible safety measures like put-ting crash barriers, etc., in the hillyareas," Sethi has pointed out in hisletter. He has sought a report in thisregard within one month for theperusal of the Chief Secretary.
Held at DAV,Kalinga NagarPNS ����� BHUBANESWAR
Realising the necessity of skill-based education along with the regu-lar syllabus study, a five-day work-shop was organised for the teachersof Odia at the DAV Public School,Kalinga Nagar here in which 62teachers from 35 schools across theState participated.
Principal of the host school BipinKumar Sahoo presided over theworkshop and Sanjib Kumar Sahoo,Principal of DAV, PPL, Paradeep,and Fakir Mohan Sahoo, Principal,DAV, Sabitri Jindal, Angul, coordi-nated it.
Resource person Dr SanatanPanda, Joint Director of HigherEducation Department, made acomparative study on the educa-tion of Japan and India. Story writerJhanja Das spoke on story-based
teaching, culture expert DrKrushnakeshaba Sarangi on valueeducation based on mythology andsubject experts Gopal ChandraTripathy and Narrottam Sarangi onimportance of skill-based education.
The Odia teachers were also im-parted lessons in literature reading,critical thinking, experiential learn-ing, process of education and mark-ing scheme, etc. The participantswere also taken on a field trip toKalabhumi.
PNS ����� NABARANGPUR
Police arrested a youth inUmarkote town of Nabarangpurdistrict for allegedly circulating de-rogatory messages throughWhatsApp against a particular reli-gion. The arrested youth was iden-tified as Deepak Das of Panaka Sahiin the town.
Deepak created a WhatsAppgroup in the name of Bhim Armyand was circulating objectionablemessages on Hindu deities for past
few weeks. A person lodged a com-plaint with the Umerkote policeafter he saw the messages. But be-fore the police could nab him , eheabsconded.
However, acting on a tipoff, po-lice on Thursday night raided aplace and arrested Deepak and for-warded him to court on Friday. Thecourt rejected his his bail plea andsent him to judicial custody. A casehas been registered at the Umerkotepolice station under Sections 341,294, 506 and 295(a) of the CrPC.
PNS ����� BHUBANESWAR
The All Lawyers' Forum Odishacollected signatures of Odias resid-ing in Bangalore in support forBharat Ratna to UtkalgaurabMadhusudan Das posthumously.
The members, including localOdia intellectual Nihar samantray,lawyer Jagannath Upadhaya,Aditya Kumar Padhi, TapasrajMaharana, Umasankar Sahu andLaxmikanta Tripathy, led by law-
yer Lingaraj Sahoo, collected sig-natures from Bangalore.
The signature campaign, whichstarted in Kolkata in 2018, has cov-ered Andaman, Chennai, Mumbai,Mathura, Amritsar, Haridwar andKolkata. "Many great leaders havebeen honoured with the BharatRatna since 1954. But no Odia leg-endary has been given the award.Now it is right time to amend thehistoric injustice done to Odisha,"said Sahoo.
PNS ����� BHUBANESWAR
BJD leader and former BankiMLA Pravat Tripathy appeared be-fore the Enforcement Directorate(ED) on Friday in connection withthe Artha Tatwa (AT) chit fundscam. The ED had earlier issued anotice in this connection.
Tripathy was arrested on Octo-ber 31, 2014, by the CBI for his
alleged links with the AT Group,involved in the multi-crore chitfund scam. He was charged withcriminal conspiracy.
He allegedly received a huge sumfrom the AT Group.
The Orissa High Court grantedhim conditional bail in March2015. He was suspended from theBJD following his arrest. In 2017,the BJD lifted his suspension.
PNS ����� BHUBANESWAR
Union Minister DharmendraPradhan on Friday laid foundation-stone of different beautificationprojects at the BiragovindpurDakhinkali temple premises in Puridistrict to be constructed under anIndian Oil CSR programme.
He said Biragovindpur wouldhave a special place in Odisha's ru-ral tourism landscape and there
should be collective efforts to en-sure the dream.
The Indian Oil would set up acommunity hall, a yoga centre, achildren's park, modern toilets,lighting through 50 solar lights,drinking water facilities and beau-tification of two ponds, etc.
Pradhan also suggested settingup of a library with modern com-puter lab facilities for women ofthe village.
PNS ����� BHUBANESWAR
After a gap of two years, twopersons in the State capital havetested positive for the highly-con-tagious swine flu. While one ofthem is a 38-year-old man, the otheris a 28-year woman.
Both of them are undergoingtreatment at a private hospital andtheir health condition is stable, saidthe Health Department on Friday.
But surprisingly, both the pa-tients don't have any recent travelhistory.
"Usually the State witnesses two
peaks of swine flu, one before themonsoon and another in winterseason. However, there is nothingto panic. The Government is fullyprepared to meet any kind of even-tualities arising out of the situation,"said Public Health DirectorNiranjan Mishra.
Swine flu, also known as theH1N1 virus infection, is a strain ofan influenza virus that causes symp-toms similar to the regular flu.. Likeother strains of the flu, H1N1 ishighly contagious, allowing it tospread quickly from person to per-son.
‘Awareness can reduce tobacco use’PNS ����� BHUBANESWAR
The FICCI FLO in partnershipwith Carcinova Cancer CareHospital, Awaaken Cancer CareTrust and Utkal Kanika Galleriaorganised awareness on the NoTobacco Day on May 31here.
Chairperson FLO BhubaneswarChapter Namrita Chahal saidspreading awareness is the best wayto reduce tobacco consumption.
Carcinova Cancer Care Hospitaldirector Dr Pragyan Mishraemphasized on the importance ofthe day. Awaaken Cancer CareTrust founder Sawagatika Acharyasaid, “There is a need to create massawareness about the deadly effectsof tobacco consumption on humanlife and environment becausetobacco is the sole reason behindoral cancer and many other deadlydiseases.”
capital 03BHUBANESWAR l SATURDAY l JUNE 04, 2022
SI DIES AS TRUCK RUNS OVER HIM IN BHADRAKBhadrak: An on-duty Sub-Inspector of Police was run over by aHyva truck during patrolling at Nalanga under the Rural policestation in Bhadrak district on Friday morning. Sujit Pandav(40) was on patrolling duty at Nalanga when the truck mowedhim down, leaving him critically injured. He was rushed to ahospital here and later shifted to Jajpur. However, he succumbedto his injuries while being shifted to the SCB Medical CollegeHospital in Cuttack. Meanwhile, police detained the driver ofthe truck and seized the vehicle.
1 KILLED, 1 INJURED IN ROAD ACCIDENTS IN GANJAMBrahmapur: A person died while another sustained minor injuriesin two separate road mishaps in Bhanjanagar and Brahmapur inGanjam district. While Debasish Pradhan travelling by a carfrom Bhanjanagar to Gobara on Friday was killed on the spotbecause of severe head injuries, in the other accident a Tata ACvehicle carrying Odisha Diary Milk had an accident at CourtpetaSquare on the wee hours causing injuries to one Arat Behera.
JADON TAKES OVER AS ACCOUNTANT GENERALBhubaneswar: Vishwanath Singh Jadonassumed charge as Accountant General inOffice of the Principal Accountant General(Audit-II), Odisha on May 25. Earlier, heserved as Accountant General in TamilNadu and Puducherry and Director (Audit)in the Office of Principal Director of Audit,London. He belongs to the Indian Auditand Accounts Service of 2003 batch. He isa Certified Information System Auditor (CISA) by ISACA, USA.
BOY DROWNS IN POND WHILE BATHING WITH FRIENDS IN JAJPURJajpur: A seven-year-old boy drowned while bathing in a pondwith friends at Shyamsunderpur of Angira panchayat underJajpur district's Jenapur police station on Friday. Om Prakash,after returning from school, had gone to take bath. Locals rescuedhim from the water and rushed him to the Balisahi PrimaryHealth Centre and later to the Dharamsala Community HealthCentre, where the doctor declared him dead.
BARGARH MAN GETS 5-YR RI IN ASSAULT CASEBargarh: One Raju Majhi was sentenced to five years rigorousimprisonment and was asked to pay a fine of Rs 1,000 in aneight years' old assault case by Bargarh Sessions Judge SrotaswiniKar here. Majhi would have to undergo a month's imprisonmentif he can't pay the fine. He had assaulted Seshadev Sahu with adeadly weapon and robbed him of his gold jewelleries onDecember 29, 2013 under Ambavana police station.Forprosecution, the case was handled by APP Anup Satapathy.
MILK ATM SERVICE LAUNCHED IN JSPURJagatsinghpur: A milk ATMservice was inaugurated here byState Cashew DevelopmentCorporation ChairmanAmarendra Das on Wednesday.The service aims to supplypurified milk and its products to the Jagatsinghpur town citizens.The service would be provided from wee hour till 11 am eachday with the mobile milk van going round the entire town.
POLICE-PUBLIC COORDINATION DRIVE IN BALANGABalanga: The Ama PoliceSamiti of Balanga policestation organised a meetingfor police-publiccoordination. Law and order,illegal liquor trading, policepatrolling and traffic situation of Balanga Bazar were discussed.PRI members of different GPs under the police station raisedtheir problems and demanded a ban on illegal liquor trading inrural areas. Educationalist Krushna Chandra Hota presided overthe meeting. Balanga PS OIC Rashmiranjan Prusty requestedall Samiti members to cooperate with police to maintain lawand order. Among others, Gopinathpur Sarpanch Pravat Ray,Nimapada block Vice-Chairman Anasuya Mohanty, youth leaderSukanta Baral participated in the meeting.
B'PUR CITY COLLEGE LIBRARIAN GIVEN FAREWELLBrahmapur: A farewellmeeting was organised bythe employees' association ofBrahmapur City College tobid farewell to collegeLibrarian Dipak RanjanMishra, who superannuated on May 31. The speakers recalledthe contributions of Mishra in utilising his technical knowhowand managing learning resources scientifically for disseminationof knowledge to students and faculty for more than two decades.
GOPALPUR COLLEGE HOLDS MEET ON NAAC PROGRESSIONBrahmapur: The GopalpurCollege near here organiseda seminar on the topic"NAAC progression and itschallenges" on Tuesday.Principal Dr Bipra Charan Mahankuda chaired the session. guestsKhallikote University Vice-Chancellor Prof Prafulla KumarMohanty delivered a talk focusing on the qualitative educationand its quest for excellence. College NAAC coordinator DrManoj Patnaik welcomed the guests and IQAC coordinator DrRam proposed A vote of thanks.
NTPC KANIHA CELEBRATES RAISING DAYTalcher: The NTPCTalcher Kanihacelebrated its 34thRaising Day onJune 2, 2022.Executive DirectorK Srinivasa Raounfurled the NTPCflag and outlinedv a r i o u sachievements ofthe station and underlined that the station has ranked first inAnnual PLF (93.76%) ranking among all NTPC stations in thecurrent financial year (till May-end). The event included acultural evening with scintillating musical and danceperformances. RED ER-II AK Goswami joined virtually.
INBRIEFIn Umarkote
Rs 1.22-cr assets of ganja mafia seized
Fire safety norms go for a toss in JSpur
35 docs appointed for Ganjam hospitalsB'swar-Nilgiri passenger train project moves slow
Aryabhatta holds Bicycle Day at B'pur
PNS ����� NABARANGPUR
Police on Thursday attachedproperties worth Rs 1.22 croreof three ganja smugglers of BSPadar Banuaguda villageunder the Umarkote policestation in Nabarangpurdistrict.
Subahas Bisoi and his twosons Subir and Rama Chandrahad acquired the propertiesthrough illegally ganja trading.The properties were seized onbasis of the order ofNabarangpur SP S Sushreeunder the provisions of theNDPS Act.
The attached properties
included two buildings, amotorcycle and deposits of Rs4.4olakh in the State Bank ofIndia, ICICI and Axis Bank.
A team headed byPapdahandi SDPO Aditya Senand the Additional IIC ofUmarkote confiscated theproperties and sealed thebuildings.
Police said the three accusedwere illegally supplying ganjato New Delhi, Bihar, UttarPradesh and Andhra Pradesh;Several cases under the NDPSAct were pending against thetrio in other States.
Besides, cases wereregistered against them
Kosagumuda and Kodingapolice stations inNabarangpur district.
In 2021, the thenNabarangpur SP SmithParmar had written to theKolkata office of the UnionFinance Ministry seekingpermission to attach the assetsof these ganja traders. This isnot the first instance of policeconfiscating assets of ganjatraders in the district.
On November 8, 2020,police had seized propertiesworth Rs 4. 77 crore illegallyacquired by three ganjapeddlers of Panaraguda villagein Kosagumuda.
PNS ����� KORAPUT
Police seized five quintalsof ganja from a truck andarrested three persons in thisconnection in the Lamtaputarea of Koraput district on thewee hours of Friday. Theestimated market value ofthe seized contraband was Rs5 crore.
The arrested trio wasidentified as Sudarshan Lendruof Machkund in the district,Umesh Babu and Singhpal ofUttar Pradesh.
Acting on a tipoff, a teamof Lamtapur police, intercepteda 14-wheeler truck near Tikaputvillage. During, search, thepolice team found thecontraband concealed under
salt bags. The contraband wasbeing trafficked fromTikaput to Chattisgarh.Though the police managedto nab the three accused, threeothers managed to give a slipto them taking advantage ofthe darkness. Furtherinvestigations are on and thecops are on the lookout forthe absconders.
In Koraput
Rs 5-cr ganja seizedfrom truck; 3 held
Many institutionsdon't haveadequate safetysystemKAHNU NANDA����� JAGATSINGHPUR
Last week, a fire broke outin the SVM College buildinghere due to an electric shortcircuit occurring at the mainswitch.
The fire was averted due totimely intervention of thelocal fire brigade, EnergyDepartment and collegeauthority. One fireextinguisher placed at themain switch somehowcontrolled the fire fromspreading further. In between,the fire personnel intervenedand brought the situationunder control. However, theincident has raised a question
mark on the fire safetymechanism of variousestablishments in the district.
In order to reduce and checkfire-related accidents, thereshould be strict adherence tothe fire safety measures andrules. In the wake of theUphaar cinema fire tragedythat occurred in New Delhi in1997, State DG Fire ServicesSantosh Kumar Upadhya haddirected a fire safety audit of allvital establishments, includinghospitals, Government offices,commercial places, educationalinstitutions and market placesacross the State. Ironically, theinstructions of the DG Firehave not been complied within several institutions inJagatsinghpur district.
The instructions mainlyfocus on safety audits andinspections of the DistrictHeadquarters Hospitals,
Government offices,educational institutions suchas colleges, schools, coachingcenters, high rise buildings ona priority basis by May 21, buton verification it was knownthat the district fire office hasnot completed the audits as
yet. Much less, it doesn't havecomplete informationregarding the number ofestablishments covered underthe safety audits so far. "Wehave cautioned each of ourstakeholders to carry out firesafety measures urgently,"
informed District Fire OfficerTej Kumar Ekka. Thiscorrespondent visited manyschools and college run by theGovernment and privatemanagement institutes,coaching centers, hotels, highrise buildings andGovernment offices, butcouldn't find adequate firesafety measures, except in afew banks, petrol pumpstations and CentralGovernment offices wherepartial compliances werenoticed.
Worse still is that theCollectorate building doesn'thave adequate fire safetyarrangements; no fireextinguisher is found in theground and top floor officerooms and the main gate.Only fire extinguishers werenoticed at the record room.
While the Government has
made fire safety measuresmandatory in offices, districtNizrat officer Rajesh KumarSahoo admitted a shortfall offire safety arrangements in thecollectorate but informed that17 fire extinguishers have beeninstalled at the record room onthe second floor inside theoffice. Meanwhile, the firebrigade had conducted a firesafety audit recently, theNizarat officer informed.
The NOC from the FireDepartment is issued after theyconduct fire safety auditexamining ventilation inbuilding, availability of firehydrants, accessibility of firehoses, fire extinguisherinstallation, and waterfunctioning system but noneof the provisions has beenfollowed in true letter and spiritin many establishments in thedistrict, sources said.
Even as deadlineassured by RailMin expiresUBACHAK MOHANTY����� BALESWARUBACHAK MOHANTY
A rail project for passengertrain movement betweenBaleswar and Nilgiri is movingat a snail's pace as a promisemade by the Railway Ministerof completing it within threemonths has missed thedeadline.
There is tardy progress on
the project works and theresidents of Nilgiri areapprehensive about thefulfillment of their longstanding demand.
Notably, Minister AshwiniVaishnaw during laying offoundation stone for the railproject on January 7 had toldthat he had personally spokento the Prime Minister aboutthe project which wasneglected for years and thelatter instantly approved itafter consulting with BaleswarMP Pratap Sarangi.
Vaishnaw had assured that
the project would becompleted within threemonths and further he wouldbe travelling in the train on theinaugural day. It also may benoted that presently only goodstrains are plying on the rail lineexisting between Baleswar andNilgiri. However, the passengerrail linkage would benefit thepeople, mainly the tribalpopulace of Nilgiri and Oupadaarea. It will give a boost to thetrade and commerce activitiesbesides facilitating travel formedical treatment andeducation.
Step hailed KRUSHNA CHANDRA PANDA����� BRAHMAPUR
The denizens of Brahmapurcity and the patients of southOdisha’s premier MKCGMedical College Hospital inparticular have reasons tocheer.
Though late, the HealthMinistry of the StateGovernment by itsnotification No. 1203 dated31.5.2022, has finallyappointed 35 Post-Graduatedoctors in different medicalcolleges and other peripheryhospitals of the State to cope
with the growing health careneeds of the district.
These doctors are passoutstudents of 2018 and 2019batches, sources said.
The doctors are from over13 disciplines includingAnaesthesiology, BioChemistry, CommunityMedicine, General Medicine,General Surgery, O&G,Microbiology, Orthopaedics,Opthalmology, Pathology,Pharmacology, Psychiatry,Radiology and Skin and VD.
These doctors have beenappointed for tenure of oneyear i.e. up to 30.6.2023.Sources also said that, 28 out
of 35 of these doctors havepassed from MKCG MCH,while the remaining seven arefrom VSS Medical College,SCB Medical College andRayagada Medical Collegerespectively.
Brahmapur MLA BikramPanda conveyed his gratitudeto the Chief Minister NaveenPattnaik for the steps takento meet the emerginghealthcare needs of thedistrict.
Former Deputy Speaker ofOLA and senior leader of BJDRama Chandra Panda also hasconveyed his deepappreciation for the CM.
Dr VR Raju passes away at 90PNS ����� BRAHMAPUR
Volunteers of theAryabhatta Foundation led byits founding president andenvironmentalist Sudhir KRout organised a bicycle rallyhere on Thursday on theWorld Bicycle Day 2022. Theywith placards pasted on theirbodies moved round the city.
The rally meanderedthrough lanes and bylanes ofthe city starting from the
medical college from east-endto Badabazar at the west-endand back through differentroutes.
The volunteers alsoconducted street-cornermeetings and chanted slogansto give up the habit of theexcessive use of fuel-drivenvehicles even for small distances.Use of fuel-driven vehiclescauses the accumulation ofgreenhouse gases in theatmosphere resulting in global
warming and climate change,Rout said. He further pointedout that overdependence onsuch vehicles leads to diseases likediabetes, blood pressure andlifestyle-related diseases.
The volunteers includedsome septuagenarians who areretired headmasters and havebeen riding bicycles. They havebeen keeping good health evenat this advanced age and are ableto walk or pedal their bicyclesfor kilometers.
PNS ����� BRAHMAPUR
Brahmapur's well-knowndoctor and social activist VRRaju passed away whileundergoing treatment at theMKCG Medical CollegeHospital here on Friday. Hewas 90.
Born in Digapahandi inGanjam district, Dr Raju hadserved as Medical Officer atthe Government Hospital inNuapada and later as the BloodBank Officer at the MKCGin Brahmapur. During histenure in the 1990s, he had
introduced the issue of creditcard to the blood donorsclaimed to be first time in theState.
Dr Raju was an activemember of ISBTI, AVBDWB, FBDO and ABVDOdisha till his death. Torespect his last wish, familymembers donated his bodyand eyes to the MKCGHospital. AryabhattFoundation chairman SudhirRout and the Forum forGanjam expressed deepcondolences over Dr Raju.sdemise.
Public hearing on Dalmia Cement R&R schemeIn Brahmapur
UTP dies in hosp; kin allege torturePNS ����� BRAHMAPUR
An under-trial prisoner(UTP) lodged in the BrahmapurCircle Jail following his arrest inconnection with an illicit liquortrade case died while undergoingtreatment at a hospital onFriday.
Mitu Behera, who wasarrested by the Golantharapolice on June 1, fell ill thismorning following which hewas rushed to the MKCGMedical College Hospital.However, doctors at the hospitaldeclared him dead.
Meanwhile, the family
members of Behera alleged thathe was tortured in the custodyby the police before beingshifted to the jail which resultedin his death.
However, the jail authoritiesdismissed the allegations oftorture of Behera and two othersarrested on the day.
The authorities claimedBehera, who was alcoholic,developed complications andsuffered fits in the morning.While two were shifted to a de-addiciton centre, Behera wasshifted to the MKCG Hospitalas his condition worsened.However, he died.
PNS ����� SUNDARGARH
The land acquisition processfor expansion of the DalmiaCement Bharat Ltd's (DCBL)Lanjiberna limestone mines isunderway in a phased manner.Keeping in view the interestof displaced families of twovillages Jolodihi andRengalbahal during thesecond-phase land acquisition,the Sundargarh Sub-Collector-cum-Administrator,Rehabilitation andResettlement (R&R)
Policy 2006 and also thestandard R&R schemefollowed for all displacementsin Sundargarh district till date.
The concernedGovernment officials werepresent during the publichearing. Picture leaflets,booklets and banners in Odialanguage were distributedamong the displaced families.After hearing the proposals andaccepting certain writtenopinions, the Sub-Collectorforwarded the same for furtheraction.
Abhimanyu Behera had earliersent the draft R&R scheme to
the villages. This schemeabides by the Odisha R&R
���������������������� ���� ���������������
���������������� ��������� ������� �������������������
India is not sitting on the“fence” and its foreign poli-
cy protects the country’s inter-ests, External Affairs MinisterS Jaishankar has said in thecontext of New Delhi’s positionon the ongoing Russian mili-tary action in Ukraine. He alsocalled for a shift fromEurocentric approach asEurope ignored many issuesaffecting the world.
The Minister also hit backat the unfair criticism on Indianoil purchase from Russia amidthe Ukraine war that has cre-ated a knock-off effect on theworld economy.
Defending India's oil
imports from Russia,Jaishankar said it is importantto understand how the Ukraineconflict is impacting the devel-oping countries. He also ques-tioned why only India wasbeing questioned while Europecontinues to import gas fromRussia amid the Ukraine war.
Making the country’s posi-tion clear, Jaishankar said lateThursday India is not sitting onthe fence, just because its pol-icy may not be agreeable tosome other countries. India, sofar, has abstained from votingagainst Russia in the UnitedNations regarding the Ukraineconflict.
"I am not sitting on thefence just because I don't agreewith you. It means I am sittingon my ground," he said while
speaking at GLOBESEC sem-inar on ‘Taking Friendship tothe Next Level: Allies in theIndo-Pacific.’
Jaishankar stressed thispoint when asked about thecountry’s position on theUkraine conflict and whetherIndia can afford to be sitting onthe fence as an emerging worldleader.
"This idea that I do a trans-action, that I come in one
conflict because it will help inconflict 2- that's not how theworld works. A lot of ourproblems in China have noth-ing to do with Ukraine, Russia.They are predated," Jaishankarsaid as he was asked onwhether India expects globalhelp in its situation with China.
There are a lot of issueswhere Europe did not speak, hesaid. "Europe has to get out ofthe mindset that Europe's prob-lem is the world's problem butthe world's problem is notEurope's problem," Jaishankarsaid.
“Today linkages beingmade between China and Indiaand what's happening inUkraine. Come on guys, Chinaand India happened way beforeUkraine. I do not see this as a
clever argument.” All big chal-lenges facing the world todayhave their solutions comingfrom India some way or theother, Jaishankar said.
On being asked whetherIndia buying Russian oil is notfunding the ongoing war,Jaishankar said, "Look I don'twant to sound argumentative.But then, buying Russian gas isnot funding the war? It's onlyIndian money and Russian oilcoming to India that is fundingthe war and not Russia's gascoming to Europe? Let's be alittle even-handed."
Replying to a question onIndia 'ignoring' Russia-Ukrainewar, Jaishankar said India con-demned Bucha killing andsought an investigation.
"In terms of what is hap-
pening with the Ukraine con-flict, our stand is very clear thatwe favour an immediate cessa-tion of hostilities. It's not thatwe have ignored it unless youcall phone calls to Putin andZelensky as ignoring some-thing."
India does not accept the'construct' that it has to sidewith a power axis and if it doesnot side with one camp, it willautomatically be considered asbelonging to the other camp,Jaishankar said.
"I am one-fifth of theworld's population. I am whattoday the 5th or 6th largesteconomy in the world. Forgetthe history and civilisation bit;everybody knows that. I feel Iam entitled to have my ownside," Jaishankar said.
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The EnforcementDirectorate of (ED) has
provisionally attached pro-ceeds of crime in the form ofimmovable assets valued at Rs.20.96 crore belonging to UdaiShanker Awasthi, ManagingDirector of IFFCO on moneylaundering charges in itsongoing investigation againstDirectors of IFFCO andIndian Potash Limited (IPL)as also others.
The attached propertiesinclude residential houseshere including a propertylocated at HauzKhas Enclavewhich he had transferred tohimself from IFFCO,Gurugram and HimachalPradesh.
Earlier, ED had attachedmovable assets (FDRs) valuedat Rs 27.79 crore in the nameof Amarendra Dhari Singh,USD 47,54,606 (Rs 36.55 croreas per prevailing exchangerate) lying in the Swiss BankAccounts of Atrium Holdings
Limited and Artistic HoldingsLimited (both beneficiallyowned by Pankaj Jain) besidesresidential and commercialproperties valued at Rs. 54.11lakh belonging to PankajJainin this case.
The total attachment inthis case comes to about Rs 86crore so far.
The ED had initiatedmoney laundering investiga-tion on the basis of a case reg-istered by CBI May 17, 2021against various suspectsincluding Awasthi, PankajJain, Promoter of Jyoti TradingCorporation and Rare EarthGroup, Dubai, AmarendraDhari Singh and others forcriminal conspiracy, cheatingand criminal misconduct.
The ED probe hasrevealed that Awasthi andothers in IFFCO generated‘Proceeds of Crime’ and lay-ered it through various unre-lated entities and part of crimeproceeds was then transferredto the entities controlled byAwasthi and others.
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The CBI has arrested sevenpersons, including the
Assistant General Manager ofpublic sector undertakingMishra Dhatu Nigam Ltd(MIDHANI), for allegedlydiverting valuable material toscrap dealers in Hyderabad.
Besides MIDHANI AGMS Narasing Rao, the agency hasarrested two personnel of theTelangana State SpecialProtection Force, AssistantCommandant Ravinder Reddy
and Constable Saripalli PremKumar.
It also nabbed scrap deal-ers Mohammed NayeemNayyar and MohammedWaseem Nayyar and MID-HANI casual employeesBathkola Murali and NasaDeekshith.
"It was alleged that the
accused entered into a con-spiracy...To divert valuableraw/finished/semi-finishedmaterial in a clandestine man-ner from MIDHANI,Hyderabad to the godown ofscrap dealers.
“It was further alleged thatthe said scrap merchantsagreed to pay illegal gratifica-
tion to the temporary/casualemployees and other publicservants," the CBI said in astatement.
During investigation, theCBI intercepted the vehiclewhile transferring 950 kilo-gram of precious material andcaught the two scrap mer-chants. They were stealingprecious metal scrap alongwith two temporary employeesof MIDHANI, the driver of thevehicle and other accused.
"Searches were conductedat six locations in Hyderabadat MIDHANI and otherpremises of accused which ledto the recovery of incriminat-ing documents and mobilephones containing incrimi-nating evidence as well assome details of payments madeby the scrap merchants to thetemporary employees ofMIDHANI," the agency said,adding the arrested accusedwill be produced before theCompetent Court.
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The Enforcement Directorate(ED) has issued fresh sum-
mons to Congress MP RahulGandhi, asking him to appearbefore its headquarters here onJune 13 for questioning in amoney laundering case linkedto the National Herald news-paper.
Gandhi was earlier asked bythe agency to depose on June 2but the Lok Sabha MP soughta fresh date as he was out of thecountry.
His mother and Congresspresident Sonia Gandhi, 75, hasalso been asked to deposebefore the agency on June 8.Though she tested positive forCOVID-19 on Thursday, theCongress party has said that shewas determined to appearbefore the agency on the sched-uled date. The case pertains tothe probe into the alleged finan-cial irregularities in theCongress-promoted YoungIndian that owns the National
Herald newspaper. The paper ispublished by AssociatedJournals Limited (AJL) andowned by Young Indian Pvt.Ltd.
The agency is seeking torecord the statements of RahulGandhi and Sonia Gandhiunder the Prevention of MoneyLaundering Act (PMLA).
The questioning of thesenior Congress leaders and theGandhis is part of the ED'sinvestigation to unravel theshareholding pattern, financialtransactions and role of the pro-moters of Young Indian andAJL, officials had said.
Sonia Gandhi and RahulGandhi, are among the pro-moters and shareholders ofYoung Indian. The ED had reg-istered a fresh case underPMLA after a trial court heretook cognizance of an IncomeTax Department probe againstYoung Indian Pvt Ltd on thebasis of a private criminal com-plaint filed by BJP MPSubramanian Swamy in 2013.
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Several candidates who werein the Rajya Sabha poll fray
scheduled on June 10 havebeen elected unopposed dur-ing the last two days fromStates like Tamil Nadu,Chhattisgarh, Punjab,Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh,Andhra Pradesh even as inter-esting contests await in UttarPradesh, Maharashtra,Rajasthan, Karnataka andHaryana.
All the six candidates fromTamil Nadu who had submit-ted their nominations for thebiennial elections includingthe ruling DMK's 3 nomineeswere on Friday declared elect-ed unopposed by authorities.
The ruling DMK's SKalyanasundaram, R Girirajanand KRN Rajesh Kumar,AIADMK's C Ve Shanmugam
and R Dharmar and Congress'nominee P Chidambaram weredeclared elected unopposedfollowing the expiry of dead-line (June 3) for withdrawal ofcandidature.
Election for a total of 57Rajya Sabha members from 15States including Uttar Pradeshwhose term expires duringJune-August 2022 are beingconducted by the ElectionCommission.
Noted environmentalistBalbir Singh Seechewal andentrepreneur and social activistVikramjit Singh Sahney havebeen elected unopposed asAAP candidates to the RajyaSabha from Punjab after nocandidate withdrew nomina-tion papers up till the last dayof withdrawal till 3 pm.
In Maharashtra, the ShivSena and BJP will battle it outfor the sixth seat of RajyaSabha as none of the sevencandidates in the fray - four of
the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi(MVA) and three of BJP - with-drew their nomination onFriday. BJP has fielded UnionMinister Piyush Goyal, AnilBonde and former MPDhananjay Mahadik, whileShiv Sena has put up two can-didates - Sanjay Raut andSanjay Pawar. NCP has renom-
inated Praful Patel, whileCongress has fielded ImranPratapgarhi. The fight for thesixth seat is between BJP'sMahadik and Sena's SanjayPawar.
Before the deadline ended,a three-member delegation ofMVA on Friday met senior BJPleader Devendra Fadnavis
here with a request that hisparty withdraw its third can-didate.
The MVA delegation toldFadnavis that the BJP can takeone additional seat in the bien-nial Legislative Council elec-tions to 10 seats scheduled laterthis month if it withdraws itsthird candidate for the RajyaSabha polls. But the BJPremained firm on fielding thethird candidate with Fadnavisgiving a counter-offer to thethree-party combine in thestate.
In Jharkhand, the rulinglead alliance partner JMM’sMahua Maji and BJP’s AdityaSahu were declared electedunopposed to the upper house.
Another BJP candidatefrom Uttarakhand KalpanaSaini was also elected unop-posed to the Rajya Sabha onFriday.
Saini will take over fromCongress' Pradeep Tamta
whose tenure ends next month.In Madhya Pradesh, Congressleader and senior lawyer VivekTankha and the BJP's SumitraValmiki and Kavita Patidarwere declared as elected unop-posed while the rulingCongress in neighbouringChhattisgarh sent their nom-inees Rajeev Shukla andRanjeet Ranjan unopposed tothe house of elders. Shukla, ajournalist-turned-politician,who hails from Uttar Pradesh,has served as Rajya Sabha MPthrice in the past.
Ranjan is a former LokSabha member from Bihar.
Four candidates of the rul-ing YSR Congress - V VijayasaiReddy, Beeda Masthan Rao, RKrishnaiah and S NiranjanReddy- were elected unop-posed to the Rajya Sabha fromAndhra Pradesh as they are theonly ones to file nominationswhen the process ended hereon Tuesday.
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ATraining Programme on“Techniques of Advanced
Imaging and MassSpectroscopy” was organisedby Amity University atBanaras Hindu University(BHU), Varanasi onWednesday.
The event was sponsoredby Department of Scienceand Technology (DST) underSynergistic TrainingProgramme Utilising theScientific and TechnologicalInfrastructure (STUTI).
Speaking on the occasion,Prof. Vijay Kumar Shukla,Rector, Banaras HinduUniversity, said, “It is thevision of our Prime MinisterNarendra Modi that Indiashould become a world leader,instead of following othercountries.
Most industries require
high-tech equipment as theworld is evolving, especially inthe f ield of Science &Technology, and the aim ofthis program is to make state-of the-art equipment availableto the industry.
Present on the occasionwere Prof. Anil K Tripathi,Coordinator, SATHI-BHU,Dr. A. Chakraborty, DeputyDirector General, AmityFoundation for ScienceTechnology and InnovationAlliances, Amity University,averred, amongst other acad-emicians and students.
Thirty Research Scholarshave been selected for theseven day training programduring which participants willexperience hands-on train-ing on handling of the massspectrometer, instrumentunderstanding related to cal-ibration process using com-pound discoverer 3.2 and dataanalysis.
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ADelhi court on Friday dis-missed the anticipatory
bail plea of Congress MP KartiChidambaram in a case regis-tered by the EnforcementDirectorate in the allegedChinese Visas scam. SpecialJudge MK Nagpal denied reliefto Karti, saying there was notenough ground to allow hisapplication.
After the CBI's FIR, EDrecently registered the money-laundering case against Kartiand others in the alleged scampertaining to the issuance of avisa to 263 Chinese nationals in2011 when his father PChidambaram was
the Home Minister. Thefederal agency has filed itscase under the provisions of thePrevention of MoneyLaundering Act (PMLA) tak-ing cognisance of a recent firstinformation report by the CBIin the same case.
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The Supreme Court onFriday dismissed a petition
challenging the constructionactivities carried out at ShreeJagannath temple in Puri byOdisha Government to pro-vide essential amenities liketoilets and cloak rooms.
The apex court observedthat these construction activ-ities are necessary in largerpublic interest. The benchalso took exception to the fil-ing of frivolous PILs, and saidmost of such petitions areeither publicity interest litiga-tion or personal interest liti-gation. Rs one lakh each wasput as cost on petitioners.
A vacation bench ofJustices B R Gavai and HimaKohli dismissed the PILsopposing the construction withcosts, and said the State cannotbe prevented from makingnecessary arrangements toprovide basic facilities for lakhs
of devotees visiting the temple.The top court said the con-struction activities are beingundertaken in pursuance of thedirections issued by a three-judge bench of this Court inthe case of Mrinalini Padhi.
"The construction is beingcarried out for the purpose ofproviding basic and essentialamenities like toilets for menand women, cloak rooms,electricity rooms etc. These arethe basic facilities which arenecessary for the convenienceof the devotees at large," saidthe Bench.
"In the recent past, it isnoticed that there is mush-room growth of public inter-est litigations. However, inmany of such petitions, thereis no public interest involvedat all. The petitions are eitherpublicity interest litigationsor personal interest litigation.We highly deprecate the prac-tice of filing such frivolouspetitions. They are nothing butabuse of the process of law.
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The Supreme Court onFriday directed that nation-
al parks and wildlife sanctuar-ies must have an Eco SensitiveZone (ESZ) of minimum onekm from the demarcatedboundary of a protected forest.A bench of Justices LNageswara Rao, BR Gavai andAS Bopanna said mining with-in the national parks andwildlife sanctuaries shall not bepermitted. No permanentstructure will be allowed with-in the ESZ, said the apex court.
The top court also direct-ed the Chief Conservator ofForests of all states and UTs toprepare a list of existing struc-tures within the ESZs and sub-mit a report to it within a peri-od of three months. "For thispurpose, such authorities cantake assistance fromGovernmental agencies forsatellite imaging or photogra-phy using drones," the benchsaid.
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In a sharp retort to Pakistanraising the issue of Jammu
and Kashmir in the UnitedNations Security Council,India has said its neighbourcommitted genocide in thethen East Pakistan,nowBangladesh, and has evadedaccountability for such seriouscrimes.
Presenting India’s stand inthe UN Security Council, NewDelhi also said Pakistan is a“live example” of how a nationcontinues to evade account-ability for ethnic cleansing.
Making these assertions,Kajal Bhat, Counsellor/LegalAdvisor in India’s PermanentMission in the UN also saidlate Thursday India will con-tinue to take firm and decisivesteps to respond to cross-bor-der terrorism.
The Counsellor said shewas constrained to take the
floor to respond to some of thefalsehoods and malicious pro-paganda spread by the repre-sentative of Pakistan “as theyare accustomed to do like abroken record".
"Today, we are discussinghow to strengthen account-ability and justice for seriousviolations of international law.The irony is perhaps lost on therepresentative of Pakistan,given their shameful history ofcommitting genocide in whatwas then East Pakistan, andwhat is now Bangladesh, over50 years back for which therehas not even been an acknowl-edgement, much less apology
or accountability,” Bhat said.Her response came after
the representative of Pakistanraised the issue of Jammu andKashmir at the UN SecurityCouncil open debate on“Strengthening accountabili-ty and justice for serious vio-lations of international law”chaired by Council PresidentAlbania.
Speaking in the Councildebate earlier in the day,Minister for State for ExternalAffairs Rajkumar Ranjan Singhhad said accountability andjustice cannot be linked topolitical expediencies.
“The representative of
Pakistan presents a live exam-ple to the Security Council ofhow a state continues to evadeaccountability for seriouscrimes of genocide and ethniccleansing. To ask them toreflect on this is perhaps ask-ing too much, but the least theycould do is not sully the dig-nity of this Council,” she said.
Bhat said innocent women,children, academics and intel-lectuals were treated asweapons of war in an act of"calculated genocide, carriedout by the Pakistani army” inwhat it called 'OperationSearchlight'.
“The reign of terrorunleashed by Pakistan on thepopulation of the then EastPakistan, saw hundreds ofthousands killed brutally, sev-eral thousands of women wereraped,” she said.
Bhat said the only contri-bution that Pakistan can makeis to stop its support for ter-rorism directed against Indiaand its people.
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Panic stricken Kashmiri pan-dit employees Friday shift-
ed their families from Kashmirvalley to Jammu ignoringassurances given by the UnionTerritory administration toensure their safety after theirrelocation to safer places with-in Kashmir valley.
Rough estimates suggestedmore than 100 families,themajority of whom were stayingin rented accommodation, leftthe valley early in the morning.Few families living in transitcamps also managed to reachJammu despite facing manyroadblocks.
As the day progressed thedistrict authorities inAnantnag, Baramulla, Budgamand Srinagar locked down themain gates of various transitcamps to prevent movement ofemployees. Despite these
restrictions some of theemployees, citing medicalemergencies, managed to movetowards Jammu to ensure safe-ty of their families.
Senior police and districtadministration officers havebeen regularly visiting thesecamps to motivate theseemployees to stay put and notto encourage anti-national ele-ments who are hell bent upontriggering a second round ofmigration of Kashmiri panditsfrom the Kashmir valley.
On reaching Jammu sever-al employees interacted with themedia on the road side nearJagti Migrant camp beforeheading to their homes in dif-ferent directions. A Kashmirpandit employee who reachedJammu late Friday afternoonsaid , " all eyes were set on thehigh-level meeting between theUnion Home Minister AmitShah and LG Manoj Sinha in
New Delhi.But the outcome ofthe meeting has disappointedus". "We have learnt through
media reports that the govern-ment has decided not to shiftthe employees deployed under
the PM's package to safer placesin Jammu. We are not going toaccept this diktat. We will not
go back to Kashmir valleybecause we fear for our lives".Despite assurances after thekilling of Rahul Bhat the JUTadministration has failed toprevent targeted killings.
"The administration is reg-ularly sending a team of police/civil officers to motivate us tostay back and not return toJammu. He said despite restric-tions around 70 percent ofemployees have vacated theiraccommodation in these campsand already shifted to Jammu".
A representative of theKashmiri pandit employeescamp committee claimed."When we came here to work12 years ago we consideredourselves ambassodors of thegovernment".
"We always consideredourselves an integral part ofKashmir. But a series of tar-geted killings have exposedthe ugly reality. We are not wel-
come here as employees.We arenot safe here anymore".
Another employee told themedia persons in Jammu onFriday, "There is nothing newabout this 'Naya Kashmir 'asprojected by the UT adminis-tration through full page adver-tisements".
"The Kashmiri pandits suf-fered pangs of exodus in 1990and 32 years after we are againat the receiving end".The futurelooks bleak.
"The communicationbetween the employees and thelocal administration has total-ly failed. In the last 12 yearswhenever we raised issues ofsustenance, job related griev-ances we were ill treated by thebureaucrats in the civil secre-tariat. Now if the UT admin-istration is serious on bringingreforms and addressing ourgrievances they must also shuntsuch officers from the key
positions as they had vestedinterests and instead of resolv-ing our issues they were com-pounding our miseries".
Along with KashmiriPandit migrant employees alarge number of SC/STemployees under reserved cat-egory were working in the val-ley and migrated to Jammuafter Rajni Bala was killed incold blood outside her schoolon May 31. She has been work-ing in Kashmir since June2009. Her husband Raj Kumarhas also appealed to the UTadministration to transfer himto Jammu as he cannot returnto Kulgam along with hisdaughter and survive there.
Several other womenemployees have been stagingprotest demonstrations inJammu for the last three daysin support of their demand totransfer them to their homedistricts.
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Chief Minister YogiAdityanath reiterated his
commitment to safeguardingthe interests of investors com-ing to Uttar Pradesh andassured them of all possiblehelp by his government.
Addressing the thirdgroundbreaking ceremony(GBC-3) in the presence ofPrime Minister Narendra Modiin Lucknow on Friday, thechief minister assured that notonly would the investors' inter-ests be protected in the state,but they would also get pro-tection.
He expressed his gratitudeto the investors during thefoundation stone laying andbhoomi pujan function of 1,406industrial projects worth Rs80,224 crore.
Yogi said that the NationalDemocratic Alliance govern-ment had completed eightyears in office under the lead-ership of Narendra Modi dur-ing which the country achievednew heights in every sphere of
life."In February, 2018, the
prime minister inauguratedthe first Investors' Summit ofUttar Pradesh in Lucknow andat that time investment pro-posals worth Rs 4.68 lakh crorewere received. In the last fiveyears, memorandums of under-standing (MOUs) worth Rs 3lakh crore have been translat-ed on the ground and industrialunits are in various stages ofcompletion” he said.
Yogi said that the GBC-3
included new projects worthmore than Rs 80,000 crore indata centre, agriculture andallied sector, information tech-nology and electronics, infra-structure, handloom and tex-tile, MSME etc.
"This investment will leadto creation of five lakh directand 20 lakh indirect jobs. UPis becoming the second largesteconomy of the country due tothe prime minister's mantra of'Reform, Perform, Transform',"he said.
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Under attack for failing tocontrol the unruly situa-
tion at Nazrul Manch whereBollywood singerKrishnakumar Kunnath onTuesday sung the last songs ofhis life in a concert organizedby the students’ union of SirGurudas College before suc-cumbing to a massive heartattack, the Kolkata Police onFriday announced a standardoperating procedure to be fol-lowed while organizing highvoltage college fests.
Kolkata PoliceCommissioner Vineet Goyalon Friday said that according tothe new SoP the organizerswould have “to ensure certainsteps before getting police per-missions for concerts in publicauditoriums.”
According to the new rulesin every such concert the orga-nizers would have to keep twoambulances and a doctor asstandby. Besides, “they wouldhave to make arrangementswith the nearest hospitals toprovide emergency services tothose falling sick,” the
Commissioner said addingadequate security measureswould have also to be ensured.
He also said that organiz-ers would have to print lessernumber of tickets than the fullcapacity of any auditoriumwhere such programme willtake place.
Apart from the Police,Kolkata Municipal Corporationas well as the KolkataMetropolitan DevelopmentAuthority too were preparingSoPs for such big public pro-grammes.
Kolkata Mayor FirhadHakim on Friday said that“the KMC is planning to put in
place a standard operating pro-cedure for the organizers,”adding “no team would begiven permission by the KMCor for that matter even theKMDA if these SoPs are notfollowed.”
Some of these new rulesare ensuring of proper securi-ty bandobast as also “clearancefrom the management of thecollege whose students willorganize concerts in such bigscale.”
Presently the concerts linedup in the coming weeks havebeen postponed.
In one such programmeMumbai singers ZubinNautiyal and Sunidhi Chauhanwere to sing at iconic NetajiIndoor in the annual fest ofSurendranath College.
KK who allegedly hadsome heart issues died after suf-fering a massive heart attack onTuesday evening with a goodnumber of Kolkata doctorssaying that he could have beensaved had the organsiers or hismanager taken him to the hos-pital which was barely a stone’sthrow away instead of the hotelwhere he had put up.
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Taking serious cognisance ofthe increased number of
Covid-19 positive cases duringthe week ending on June 3, theMinistry of Health and FamilyWelfare on Friday asked theMaharashtra government tomaintain strict vigil and takepre-emptive action to controlthe spread of infection.
On a day when the newCovid-19 cases crossed the1,000 mark in the state for thethird consecutive day, Secretaryof Health and Family WelfareRajesh Bhushan advised thestate government to continue toadopt a five-fold strategy forprompt and effective manage-ment of Covid-19.
The five-fold strategyinvolved aspects like Covid-19Appropriate Behaviour,Monitoring Clusters of newCovid-19 cases, adequate test-ing as per guidelines, moni-toring Influenza-like cases in allhealth facilities and genomicsequencing for prescribed sam-ples of international passengers,collection of sample from sen-tinel sites ( identified healthfacilities), and local clusters ofcases.
Among other things, the
Centre has taken serious noteof the upsurge in cases the pastone week ending on June 3.
“Maharashtra has reportedan increase in weekly newcases from 2,471 new cases inthe week ending May 27 to4,883 cases in the week endingJune 3, accounting to 23.19 percent of India’s new cases inweek ending on June 3. Thestate has also seen an increasein the positivity in the last weekfrom 1.5 per cent to 3.1 percent,” Bhushan said in his let-ter addressed to AdditionalChief Secretary (Health) DrPradeep Vyas.
“While analysing district-wide Covid-19 situation, it isobserved that six districts –Mumbai suburban, Mumbai,
Thane, Pune, Raigad and Palgharhave recorded increase in week-ly cases and positivity whichrequired focussed attention fromthe State administration,”Bhushan stated in his letter.
Meanwhile, Maharashtraon Friday recorded more than1,000 daily Covid-19 cases forthe second consecutive daysince February this year.
After it recorded 1081 casesand 1045 fresh cases onWednesday and Thursday, thestate logged 1,134 fresh Covid-19 cases on Friday, taking thetotal number of Covid-19cases from 78,89,212 to78,90,346
With three fresh Covid-19triggered deaths reported dur-ing the day, total number of
deaths registered in the statesince the outbreak of Covid-19
in the state in March 2020 rosefrom 1,47,861 to 1,47,864.
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Uttar Pradesh Congress onFriday alleged that the so
called ground breaking cere-mony in the name of bringinginvestment by the BharatiyaJanta Party government innothing but to facilitate a bigland bank of several crores totheir industrialist friends just atthe cost of pennies.
Making the above claimshere on Friday afternoon, Partyspokesperson Sanjay Singh saidthat Yogi Adityanath’s govern-ment has taken the state farfrom the path of development.He said that the state govern-ment is conducting groundbreaking ceremony `investorsummit’, with much `propa-ganda’ but the 23 crore peopleof Uttar Pradesh are unable to
understand that who is comingto invest in the State as so farall such events organised ear-lier by Yogi Adityanath turnedout to be mere `propaganda’and nothing was seen onground.
“This double engine gov-ernment has already heldinvestor summits in UttarPradesh twice, but UttarPradesh is lying at numberthree in the list of pooreststates. The government hasfailed to tell what were theresults of the previous summit,and the impact of all the agree-ments on the ground”, Singhpointed while adding that theinflation and unemploymentare at its peak at this time, butthe government is engaged inmaking the industrialist friendshappy through the summit.
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The launching of 1406 pro-jects with a total investment
of Rs 80,224 crore in UttarPradesh at the GroundBreaking Ceremony 3, alsoincludes an indication of therapid rise of eastern UP, com-monly known as thePurvanchal region, as an indus-try-friendly region.
This part of UP had beendubbed as backward fordecades and also suffered frompoor connectivity, among otherissues. But in the last 5 years,several big infrastructure pro-jects have been launched andcompleted, giving an impetusto further industrial invest-ment.
The initiative was specifi-cally driven by Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath’s vision forthis region, and after he tookover as Chief Minister in hisfirst term in 2017, he held aseries of brain-storming meet-
ings with experts and officialsto develop a long-term strate-gy for the transformation ofthis region.
As the GBC-3 indicates, byinvestment size, the largestshare of total investments at73% has gone to western UP.But there has been a steadyincrease in investments drawnby eastern UP. Purvanchal'sshare in the total investmentnow stands at 12%, followed bycentral UP at 11% andBundelkhand at 4%.
The region-wise break-upof investments shows the num-ber of projects in western up at865, with a total investment ofRs 58,671 crore. It is followedby Purvanchal with 290 pro-jects worth Rs 9617 crore, cen-tral UP with 217 projects worthRs 8997 crore, andBundelkhand having 34 pro-jects worth Rs 2938 crores.
While the completion ofthe Lucknow-GhazipurExpressway and the launching
of revived fertiliser factory inGorakhpur were among thefactors that accelerated invest-ments into Purvanchal, thecompletion of BundelkhandExpressway in Bundelkhandregion, followed by launchingof projects in the DefenceIndustrial Corridor, will lead toan exponential industrialgrowth in Bundelkhand region.
Remarkably, on the initia-tive of Chief Minister YogiAdityanath, investment pro-posals worth Rs 4,68,800 werereceived in the InvestorsSummit in 2018, indicating aheightened interest in UttarPradesh as an investment des-tination.
The state has the highestnumber of MSME units at 90lakh, which is about 14.2 per-cent of the total such units inthe country. In GBC III, pro-jects worth Rs 4459 crores ofMSMEs are being set up in thestate.
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All 11 candidates in theRajya Sabha biennial elec-
tions from Uttar Pradesh weredeclared elected unopposed tothe Upper House of Parliamentby the Election Commission ofIndia here on Friday.
Against the 11 seats, 12candidates had filed their nom-ination papers but one nomi-nation was rejected by thereturning officer.
Out of 11 candidates eightare of the Bharatiya JanataParty and one of the SamajwadiParty, independent candidate
Kapil Sibal and Rashtriya LokDal president JayantChaudhary, both supported bythe SP. The paper of 12th can-didate Mauni Falahari Babawas rejected.
The elected candidates areDarshan Singh, Babu RamNishad, Mithilesh Kumar,Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, KLakshman, Lakshmi KantBajpai, Surendra Singh Nagarand Sangita Yadav, all of BJP,Javed Ali Khan of SamajwadiParty. Kapil Sibal (indepen-dent) and Jayant Chaudhary(RLD chief), both supported bythe Samajwadi Party.
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Bahujan Samaj Party supre-mo Mayawati, on Friday,
urged the Centre to take strictaction over the recent killingsin Kashmir.
Amid recent targetedkillings in Jammu andKashmir, former chief ministerof Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati,urged the Central governmentto take strict action against theincidents and the peoplebehind such attacks.
The BSP chief noted thatthe recent attacks in Kashmirhad created an atmosphere ofpanic in the region and calledit "worrisome".
"Innocent people are beingkilled every day in Jammu andKashmir. Recently, there wasthe murder of a resident ofRajasthan and a bank manag-er; very sad and also worrying.
Due to this, there is an atmos-phere of panic. The Centralgovernment should take strictaction against such guilty ele-ments, this is the demand of theBSP," Mayawati tweeted.
In a recent terror attack, abank manager, identified as VijayKumar, was shot dead by terror-ists in Kulgam district of Jammuand Kashmir on Thursday. Hewas shot right outside his office.The incident occurred at theEllaquai Dehati Bank at ArehMohanpora in Kulgam.
The Resistance Front, ashadow outfit of the bannedLashkar-e-Taiba terror group,claimed responsibility for theattack. A couple of days ago, a36-year-old Hindu womanteacher, Rajni Bala, hailingfrom Jammu's Samba district,was shot dead by terrorists at agovernment school inGopalpora, Kulgam.
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Media reporter MukeshGupta was shot on
Thursday night in DhanipurMandi complex located inMahua Kheda police stationarea of Aligarh. Mukesh is seri-ously injured after being shot inthe stomach. He has beenadmitted to JN MedicalCollege. The origin of the inci-dent is said to be a disputebetween the two parties.
At the same time, thepolice who came into actionhave taken two suspects intocustody. On information, SSPKalanidhi Naithani reachedMedical College. At the sametime, fellow media personnelwent to Dhanipur Mandi andraised slogans demandingaction. According to the police,the incident happened around11:30 pm. Mukesh Gupta, amedia person, resident of
Naurangabad, working for aTV channel near DhanipurAnaj Mandi shop number 71,72, was sitting and talkingwith some colleagues. It hasbeen told that then some otheryouths came there and shothim.
According to the police,there was a dispute between thetwo sides over some issue. Inthe dispute, one of the partiesfired directly and a bullet wentinto the stomach of MukeshGupta. Thereafter the attackersfled. On this information, theGandhi Park police reachedfirst. The police admitted theinjured Mukesh to the medical.At the same time, SSPKalanidhi Naithani alsoreached JN Medical College.According to the SSP, theinjured Mukesh Gupta is asso-ciated with a media organiza-tion. The investigation is goingon now.
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Showering Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath with prais-
es for setting up a strong foun-dation for a trillion-dollareconomy, Adani GroupChairman Gautam Adani saidthat Uttar Pradesh of todaywould define India of tomor-row.
"The success of Indiadepends on the success of UP,and Chief Minister Yogi’s goodgovernance has laid the perfectfoundation for a trillion-dollareconomy," Adani said at thegroundbreaking ceremony 3.0in Lucknow.
He said the simple and dis-ciplined lifestyle of UttarPradesh Chief Minister YogiAdityanath and his ability tomake decisions and imple-ment them was exemplary. Hesaid the spirit of cooperationand professionalism amongthe officers was also com-
mendable.Adani assured an invest-
ment of Rs 70,000 crore in thestate which would providedirect and indirect employmentto 30,000 people. Out of this, aninvestment of Rs 35,000 croreincludes multimodal logistics,Rs 24,000 crore investment inroad and infrastructure andSouth Asia's largest ammuni-tion complex in Kanpur.
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With the number of Covid-19 cases increasing rapid-
ly in the last few days and thethreat of water-borne diseaseslooming large over Mumbaiduring Monsoon, MunicipalCommissioner Iqbal SinghChahal on Friday instructed allthe concerned departments toequip themselves for theemerging situation.
While interacting with thesenior officials of theBrihanmumbai MunicipalCorporation (BMC) across themetropolis, Dr Chahal calledfor an increase in the numberof Covid-19 testing so that theinfection could be detectedand curbed well in time.
Alluding to a predictionmade by IIT Kanpur about apossible fourth wave hitting
Mumbai in July 2022, DrChahal said the warning mustbe taken seriously since theirprevious predictions about theCovid-19 waves also stoodtrue.
“Given the recent increasein the number of patientsinfected with the Covid-19virus, the possibility of a fourthwave cannot be ruled out.Therefore, it is important to payspecial attention to Covid-19prevention measures. At thesame time, monsoon is aboutto begin and we need to bewell-equipped to deal with therainy season,” Dr Chahal said.
“Though the BMC has allthe necessary mechanisms todeal with both Covid-19 andMonsoon, it needs to be regu-larly reviewed and equipped,”he said.
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second coming, are set tounleash on Afghanistan theliving hell they did during theirfirst innings in power (1996-2001).
Will it be any different inthe case of terrorism?According to a recent report bythe Analytical Support andSanctions Monitoring Team ofthe UN Security Council, thecurrent Taliban regime pro-vides safe haven to several ter-rorist groups. The Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) runs eighttraining camps in Nangarharprovince, “three of which aredirectly under Taliban control”.The Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)was “said to maintain threecamps in Kunar andNangarhar” provinces. Bothgroups have deep links withthe ruling regime and holdmeetings with people at the top level.
The UN report furtherstates that Al-Qaeda in theIndian Subcontinent (AQIS)has between 180 and 400fighters including “nationalsfrom Bangladesh, India,Myanmar and Pakistan…located in Ghazni, Helmand,Kandahar, Nimruz, Paktikaand Zabul Provinces”. Besides,the rechristening of its maga-zine from Nawa-i-AfghanJihad to Nawa-e-Gazwah-e-Hind represents a shift infocus “from Afghanistan toKashmir”. The largest terroristgroup, however, is the Tehreek-
e-Taliban Pakistan, which hasan estimated strength of 3,000to 4,000, mainly concentratedin the country’s eastern andsouth-eastern parts border-ing Pakistan.
The UN report states thatAQIS is “unlikely to mountdirect attacks outsideAfghanistan for the next yearor two, owing to both a lack ofcapability and Talibanrestraint”. But what happensafter that? Also, what about theJeM and LeT? The argumentthat these outfits are likely toattack only India, implies theoutrageous assumption thatterrorism against India is per-missible, but not against the USand the West. Besides, giventheir fundamentalist ideolog-ical orientation, there is no rea-son for them not to strikeagainst the West, as the Al-Qaeda staged 9/11 and otherattacks against the US, includ-ing the ones on the latter’sembassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam on August 7, 1998,which killed 224 persons andinjured over 4,500.
Besides, there is theIslamic State of KhorasanProvince (ISKP), an affiliate ofthe Islamic State of Iraq andSyria (ISIS), which is bitterlyhostile to the Taliban. Contraryto the Taliban’s claims, it hasnot been crushed. A dispatchin The New York Times (date-lined May 1, 2022) titled ‘WithSpate of Attacks, ISIS Begins
Bloody New Chapter inAfghanistan’, ChristinaGoldbaum states that since theTaliban seized power, the ISKPhas grown in reach andexpanded to nearly all ofAfghanistan’s 34 provinces.She further cites Abdul Sayed,a security expert who tracksthe ISKP and other jihadigroups, as saying that theISKP carried out 119 attacks inAfghanistan in the last fourmonths of 2021 against 39 inthe corresponding period of2020.
The UN report states thatgroups like the ISKP havedeclined in strength and arebelieved to be incapable “ofmounting international attacksbefore 2023 at the earliest”. Butwhat happens after that? Also,what about the Taliban them-selves? Their soldiers regardthe western countries, theShia, Hazaras and all not prac-tising their brand of Islam asenemies, having been fightingthem continuously for years.They are bound to find peaceboring. If the Taliban’s leadersdo not sanction jihad abroad,they will gravitate to the ISKP.Indeed, one can foresee the riseof competitive militancy, withthe inevitable consequence ofattacks abroad as terroristgroups seek to retain/attractrecruits.
(The author is ConsultingEditor, The Pioneer. The viewsexpressed are personal.)
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���������������� ���������Sir — Whether Prime Minister NarendraModi’s India will become ‘AatmanirbharBharat’ (self-reliant India) or not is a mat-ter of debate. But PM Modi and HomeMinister Amit Shah’s Gujarat’s Vadodaratown’s 24-year-old Kshama Bindu creat-ed history by declaring that she would bewedding herself on June 11, completewith all rituals and ceremonies, includ-ing pheras and applying sindoor (vermil-lion). This self-marriage or ‘sologamy’ isa glaring example of one and only self-reliant to the world from India. Bindusaid: “Maybe I am the first to set an exam-ple of self-love in our country.”
After her ‘marriage’, Bindu will alsobe heading for a two-week honeymoonin Goa. Now, one wants to know: Is themarriage going to be registered? Will acertificate be issued? Agreed, everyhuman has a desire to live her/his life theway they like and not the way the soci-ety wants us to live. Also, her parentsdeserve respect for understanding herstance. But the big question is if awoman’s lifetime dream is to become amother, then how will she become amother? Here also, she can get kidsthrough self-love; no test tube, IVF or surrogacy needs to be done.
Bidyut K Chatterjee | Faridabad
�������� ������� ����������Sir —Healthcare forms the backbone ofany progressive society. Although accu-racy in reporting of births and death ina given year is a necessary prerequisite indetermining the actual state of health,ascertaining the cause of death remainsthe most important factor in framinghealth policies of any country. The situ-ation in a country which accommodatesabout 1.4 billion people but barely man-ages to certify the causes of death of only22.5 per cent of its registered deaths is cer-tainly worrisome. This was recentlyrevealed in the Medical CertificationCause of Death (MCCD) 2020 report.
But this is not a new problem and
there is hardly any significant improve-ment in this regard over the past decade.Findings reveal that most Indian Statesascertain the cause in less than 20 per centof registered deaths. Bihar is a laggard asit provides COD for only three per centregistered deaths. Inability to providerobust COD information makes it diffi-cult to establish the impact of health haz-ards such as pollution, determining thenumber of COVID deaths, and so on.Without foolproof knowledge of thecauses of fatalities, it is hard to chalk outa strategy to counter the diseases.
Vijay Singh Adhikari | Nainital
���� �������������������Sir —The spate of killings in Kashmir hasmade distressing news. The targetedattacks have accentuated the religious faultlines. Killing of any person is tragic; it doesnot matter whether the victim belongs toone religion or the other. We should beequally sad over all deaths. We are dimin-ished by all deaths. Responses cannot begraded according to religion. It would be
a betrayal of our humanity if we think thatexpendability of life depends onreligion.TV channels must take care toreport the saddest events in such a man-ner that it does not further deepen the reli-gious divide in Jammu and Kashmir.
Much of the violence in KashmirValley is a result of Hindus and Muslimsbeing cast in an adversarial relationshipdespite them following the gentler strandsof their respective religions. The loss oflife — each life, be it of a Hindu or aMuslim, is precious — underlines thefutility and pointlessness of pigeonhol-ing people as ‘us-and-them’ on the basisof religion to the extent of pitting them-selves against one another. Respect forother religions is a prerequisite forpeaceful coexistence, and preservation ofdistinct religious identities is not mutu-ally exclusive. The clash of religionsproves to be costly in terms of lives.
G David Milton | Tamil Nadu
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Will Afghanistanagain become anexporter of globalterrorism? My
answer, an emphatic “yes”, willtrigger sharp protests. Many per-haps will cite some of whatZabiullah Mujahid, DeputyMinister for Culture andInformation and official centralspokesman of the Islamic Emirateof Afghanistan (henceforthIslamic Emirate), said at theTaliban’s first official press confer-ence in Kabul on August 17, 2021.The Taliban, he said, wished tohave peaceful relations with othercountries and no group would beallowed to use Afghan territoryto attack other nations.
These were reassuring words.The Taliban, however, are not cel-ebrated for matching their pro-nouncements with action whenit does not suit them. Amongother things, Mujahid also saidat the same press conference thatthe rights of women would beprotected within the frameworkof Islam. The same day, theTaliban announced a “generalamnesty” for all officials of theousted Government. “You shouldrestart your routine life with fullconfidence,” said EnamullahSamangani, currently deputycentral spokesman of the IslamicEmirate and a member of theTaliban’s cultural commission,who announced the amnesty. Healso stated: “The Islamic Emiratedoesn’t want women to be vic-tims. They should be in theGovernment structure accordingto Shariah law.”
The reality has been very different. Many formerGovernment officials, includingthose who had surrendered, havebeen arrested/abducted, torturedand killed. Women have beeneffectively barred from educationand employment, with only thosewhose services cannot be dis-pensed with, being allowed towork. They have to cover them-selves head to foot in burqa, andbe accompanied by a close malerelative when venturing out oftheir homes. Music has effective-ly disappeared from Afghan life;the media are under increasingintimidation and pressure. By allindications, the Taliban, in their
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With this newly gain self-con-fidence, Norti Bai could muster upthe courage to fight a court battlenext year against a corruptSarpanch, who was eventually sentto jail. The women’s groups also ledan intensive campaign againstdowry and other atrocities againstwomen. Norti Bai proudly remem-bers the 1983 victory in the SupremeCourt in a case fought to secureminimum wages for women.
“Main angutha chhap thi. Pandheere dheere chah mahina kakors me kakaharo seekhyo, aksharjodbo seekhyo, maatra lagabo aayo(I was illiterate but slowly I learntmy first alphabets, how to joinwords and write the right spellingsthrough a six-month training atSWRC),” she shared in her localdialect. Norti Bai, whose leadershipqualities have been applauded onmany occasions, later learnt tooperate the computer. She was alsoinvited to speak at the UnitedNations forum on women’s empow-erment.
“In 2010, when I was elected theSarpanch of Harmara panchayat,my office bearers said they were notcomputer savvy. To their surprise,I told them, I can teach you basicskills if you want. How to work inword and excel, memorizing thekeyboard…,” she said in a witty veinat the golden jubilee functionrecently held in Jaipur, in the pres-ence of Rajasthan Chief MinisterAshok Gehlot.
She emerged as one of thestrongest community leaders andthe face of all awareness cam-paigns. She says she felt motivatedby Aruna Roy, who fought a longbattle to get the Right to InformationAct (RTI).
Lighting up lives: The SolarProgramme
The Solar Programme has beenone of the most creative and signif-icant programmes of the BarefootCollege. The first solar project wasstarted at the Tilonia campus in1996 where local stakeholdersreceived training to make solarlamps. This was well appreciated bythe local community since it servedtheir energy needs.
The larger initiative in the field,however, was the “Solar MammasProgramme” launched in the year2000 with the European Union’s col-laboration. Under the programme,semi- or even illiterate womenwere provided trainings in solarhome lighting systems.
Recalling her experience, Lilasays that she was initially hesitantand unsure if she would be able tolearn through the Solar Programmebut after a six-month training, shefound herself to be a confident per-son. Having learnt the whole processsuccessfully, she and her colleagueMagan Kanwar, have been provid-ing training to several other womenlike them. So far, over 1,700 womenfrom 96 countries, such asMyanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia,Motswana, Guatemala, Kango,Mexico have been trained.
The solar programme hashelped 75,000 households find solu-tions to their energy needs and hasprevented environment pollution bysaving 45 million litres of kerosene.“A homemaker like me who couldnever think of stepping out of thevillage boundary got the opportu-nity to visit overseas. I have visitedFiji island, Janjibar, Germany andFrance to attend conferences andfurther training,” Lila added.
Barefoot solutionsThe focus at the Barefoot
College has been on finding holis-tic solutions for the rural population,be it water conservation, improve-ment in rural health services, nightschools, encouraging children’s par-liament or promotion of handicrafts,advocacy, and skill development.The innovations and barefoot solu-tions at Tilonia have been widelyacclaimed all over the world.
Several women have receivedtraining as hand pump mechanicsas well. Lali Devi, who has a longassociation with Tilonia, says, “It’sthe women who have to bear thebrunt of water crisis the most, so ithelps if the women know abouthand pump technology.” Althoughshe has never been to school, she iswell equipped today to diagnose anon-functioning hand pump!
To keep the villagers updated onissues of concerns and developmentschemes, a community radio servicehas also been functional since 2009.RJ Aarti says that she feels empow-ered ever since she got associatedwith Tilonia Community Radio. “Asan individual and a woman, one canhardly dare to raise any concernswith the government officials, butthrough the radio I have the courageto air all the public concerns and getanswers for,” she said.
The fifty-year journey of theBarefoot College has shown the wayhow, if exposed to right opportuni-ties, the rural population, particu-larly women, can increase their eco-nomic mobility in life. They have theskills and wisdom required to be acatalyst for change, for her own self-reliance and confidence and also forthe betterment of her family andsociety.
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(The writer is an independent journalist
from Rajasthan. [email protected]
Charkha Features. The views expressed
are personal.)
The author is Professor,Department ofEconomics, P.G.D.A.V.
College (University of Delhi) Forsome time, you must have seenadvertisements of some apps inwhich sports celebrities are seenadvertising online games,although at the same time in thesame advertisement there is alsoa quick warning, ‘to play thesegames carefully, they may beaddictive.’ In fact, today ouryouth are getting trapped in theapps and games endorsed bythese celebrities. This ‘real moneygaming’ industry has expandedsignificantly due to the expan-sion of internet and mobile in thecountry for some time now. It isbelieved that by the year 2025,the business of this industry willexceed $5 billion.
Various types of online andapps-based games, including
virtual games, i.e. fantasy sports,rummy, ludo, share trading relat-ed games, and crypto-basedgames, are called real moneygames, which are played formoney and reward. These gamesare skill- as well as chance-based. But no matter whetherthey are skill based or chancebased, they are expanding fastand companies promoting theseapps and websites are makinghuge profits.
Spoiling the future of youthEver since the emergence of
these real money games, therehave been many cases of youthending their lives after gettingtrapped in debt. It happensbecause they are virtually addict-ed and the chances of ultimate-ly winning in these games arevery meagre. In some cases,even families have been ruinedafter a youth member got
trapped in huge debts due tothese addictive apps.
In 2020, an app companynamed Dream-11 bought thesponsorship rights of IPL crick-et by paying rupees Rs 222crore. After this the Dream-11app became a household name.Apps of other fantasy cricketgames also bought advertisingrights in IPL. All these apps arebeing promoted by big cricketcelebrities. The celebrities includeM.S. Dhoni, Rohit Sharma,Hardik Pandya, and RishabhPant.
Reports suggest that most ofthe youths who commit suicidedue to gambling addictionthrough these apps are in the 19-25 age group, and they includestudents, migrant laborers andbusinessmen.
Skill or chance?Most courts have validated
these fantasy games, acceptingthe argument that it is a game ofskill. Yet, understanding thegravity, six governments have sofar banned or disallowed fanta-sy cricket platforms. AndhraPradesh Chief Minister Y.S.Jagan Mohan Reddy has request-ed the Union Government, toban 132 such apps.
Although some studies holdthat the winning in this fantasycricket game is not by chanceand thus it is not gambling, somesports psychologists believe thatfantasy cricket is actually gam-
bling and may lead to patholog-ical gambling behaviour.However, the logic of the peopleassociated with this “industry” isthat there is no reason to beaddicted to fantasy sports as theaverage ticket price in this is onlyRs 35, so a person cannot losemore than 10 thousand in suchgames in their life time.
However, with the informa-tion that people committingsuicide after getting trapped intodebt of lakhs of rupees due tothese ‘games’ this argument isproved wrong. Therefore, moreinvestigation is needed in thissubject. It is worth noting that atpresent this industry is notunder any laws and is self-regu-lated. Therefore, instead of infor-mation from the industry itself,only a thorough investigation ofthese apps can only reveal thetruth.
Risk-taking is not onlysaid to be important in neolib-eral economic theories but isalso glorified. Many financialinstruments have entered in theera of neo-liberal policies andspeculation has become anintegral part of today’seconomies. Although specula-tion in the stock, commodity,and foreign exchange marketshas many side effects, they arelegally permitted. With theentry of speculation into thecommon life, the practice offantasy games has also gainedgeneral acceptance.
Players lose, not companiesIn fantasy games, some play-
ers may win and others may lose,but apps companies runningthese games earn huge profits.This profit drives them to pur-chase sponsorship rights by pay-ing huge fees to cricket organis-
ers like BCCI. It has to beunderstood that their profit is atthe cost of those poor students,labourers, farmers and com-mon people who put their sav-ings on stake in these games, oreven borrow to play these realmoney games.
We find that courts andadministrative bodies have infor-mation about these games, whichthe customers do not have. TheSupreme Court has observedthat the results of skill-basedgames can be influenced bymechanical tampering.
In such a situation, the gov-ernment of India and the con-cerned administrative ministriescannot sit idle. Apps that pushyouth into gambling need to bebanned. Till this process is com-plete, there will be a need to banadvertisements, especially bycelebrities.
���������� ���� ������������ ������������������� ����������/�#����!������������!����
(The writer is Professor,PGDAV College, University
of Delhi. The viewsexpressed are personal.)
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�*'&&+��2+ Ialways had a desire to study but mydreams were put on hold after I com-pleted Class 3. Soon, household choresand family responsibilities took prece-
dence in life and the quest of studies tooka backseat. But when way back in 2003, Igot the opportunity to revive my dreamsalbeit in a different way, I made the mostof that opportunity. It was the year I hadjoined the solar project run by Social WorkResearch Centre (SWRC) at Tilonia and mylife changed for better,” said 55-year-old LilaGurjar with a sense of great fulfillment.
For Lila, it was the newfound confi-dence and heartening realisation that if oneis endowed with wisdom and practicalknowledge, one could excel in life evenwithout a school certificate and degree. Thisis the beauty of SWRC, popularly knownas The Barefoot College, she says.
Based on Gandhian ideals and values,The Barefoot College has successfullycompleted 50 years working towards bring-ing a change at the grassroots, with bare-foot solutions in a wide range of fields—solar and other renewable energy, waterconservation, education, health, rural hand-icrafts, communication, women’s empow-erment and public movements.
HistoryIt may be a tryst with destiny that
brought Sanjit (Bunker) Roy to Rajasthan.As a young man, well qualified from areputed institution, a lucrative and success-ful professional career awaited him in 1966-67. But he decided to embark on a differ-ent path. Deeply moved by the drought sit-uation in Bihar, he was exploring solutionsto the water woes of common people. In1972, his quest brought him to Tilonia, asmall village in Ajmer district of Rajasthan.Here, along with his farmer friend, Meghraj,he started digging wells in water-starvedareas of the state. This journey laid the foun-dation of Barefoot, gradually developinginto a perspective and giving further shapeto an all-inclusive comprehensive develop-ment model.
Bunker’s dream to bring about a changein rural India attracted several likemindedpeople, which eventually led to the forma-tion of the SWRC at Tilonia. The centre wasformally registered as Barefoot College in1972. A year or two later, the centre beganworking with women, who had the natur-al ability to excel as community leaders. Thisgave impetus to women’s empowermentand soon many women, who were barelyliterate, successfully trained themselves assolar engineers, health workers, handpump mechanics, puppet makers, etc.
Empowering womenThe formation of women’s groups in 11
villages in 1981-82 was the beginning of anawareness drive about their economiccontribution and role as a daily wage labour-er. “My association with the BarefootCollege made me aware about our rightsand we could stage a protest to demandminimum wages that lasted almost sixmonths in 1981,” recalls 76-year-old Norti Bai.
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Sri Lanka President GotabayaRajapaksa has instructed
officials to stockpile adequateessentials and warned againstorganised efforts of tradersfrom creating an artificialscarcity amidst an impendingfood shortage facing the islandnation in the next threemonths, media reports saidon Friday.
Sri Lanka is going throughthe worst economic crisis sinceindependence in 1948. A crip-pling shortage of foreignreserves has led to long queuesfor fuel, cooking gas, and otheressentials while power cutsand soaring food prices heapedmisery on the people."President Rajapaksa hasinstructed relevant officials to
take measures to ensure thatthere is no shortage of goodsand prevent the organisedefforts of some businessmen toincrease prices by pretending tohave a shortage of goods,"news portal Economy Nextquoted a statement from the
Presidential Media Divisionissued on Friday.
President Rajapaksa alsoinstructed the ConsumerAffairs Authority to take legalaction against those takingadvantage of the current situ-ation and are trading at unfair
prices, according to news por-tal Colombo Page.ThePresident's request comes afterexperts have warned of a pos-sible shortage of rice and otheressential food items fromSeptember this year because oflower production due to theimpacts of Rajapaksa
regime banning chemicalfertilisers in April last yearand the inability to importamid an acute dollar shortage,the Economy Next report hassaid.
Prime Minister RanilWickremesinghe has alsowarned of an acute food short-age by September, for which theisland nation would requireUSD 600 million to import fer-tiliser amid Sri Lanka's near-zero foreign currency reserves,the report said.
Wickremesinghe who metsenior officials of the UN Foodand Agricultural Organisation(FAO) and the United NationsDevelopment Programme(UNDP) here briefed themabout the situation faced by thecountry.
Wickremesinghe said thatthe biggest issue currently fac-ing the agriculture sector is thefertiliser and fuel shortage.Prior to the fertiliser ban, SriLanka was self-sufficient inrice production.
"A portion of the agricul-tural produce distributed to thewholesale market should bemade available directly to therural market," the PMD said inthe statement.
The President said thatthis would reduce the cost oftransportation and enable rural
consumers to purchase goodsat lower prices as well as anopportunity for farmers toobtain higher prices, it said.
Soaring inflation rates havecontinued to roil the crisis-hitSri Lankan economy, with theNational Consumer PriceIndex reporting a 33.8 per centyear-on-year rise in April thisyear, more than six times the5.5 per cent reported last year.
The annual food inflationstood at a whopping 45.1 percent this month, according tothe Department of Census andStatistics, which tracks inflationrates in the country.
Last month, the Sri Lankangovernment had hiked thepetrol price by 24.3 per centand diesel by 38.4 per cent, arecord hike in fuel prices amidthe country's worst economic
crisis due to the shortage of for-eign exchange reserves.SriLanka is now negotiating a loanwith the IMF.
The country had to payUSD 106.34 million this yearbut only managed to pay USD12.4 million by April.
In March 2020, the SriLankan government imposedan import ban as the dollarinflows slowed down.
President Rajapaksa'ssweeping tax cuts in 2019, fol-lowed by the pandemic werealso instrumental in Sri Lanka'seconomy going into a tailspin.
The economic crisis hasalso triggered political unrestwith a protest occupying theentrance to the president'soffice demanding his resigna-tion has been continuing formore than 55 days.
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Sri Lanka's top politicalleaders on Friday agreed
on some of provisions of con-troversial 21st Amendment toConstitution aimed atempowering Parliament overexecutive president duringsecond round of meetingwith Prime Minister RanilWickremesinghe and hisoffice's said a general con-sensus was reached betweenparties on some of proposedprovisions.
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Enough, enough, PresidentJoe Biden exclaimed over
and over as he delivered animpassioned address to thenation imploring Congress totake action against gun violenceafter mass shootings he saidhad turned schools, super-markets and other everydayplaces into "killing fields."
If legislators fail to act, hewarned, voters should use their"outrage" to turn it into a cen-tral issue in November'smidterm elections.
Speaking at the WhiteHouse on Thursday night,Biden acknowledged the stiffpolitical headwinds as hesought to drive up pressure onCongress to pass stricter gunlimits after such efforts failedfollowing past attacks.
He repeated calls to restorea ban on the sale of assault-styleweapons and high-capacitymagazines - and said ifCongress won't embrace all ofhis proposals, it must at leastfind compromises like keepingfirearms from those with men-tal health issues or raising theage to buy assault-styleweapons from 18 to 21. "How
much more carnage are wewilling to accept?" Biden askedafter last week's shootings by an18-year-old gunman, whokilled 19 students and twoteachers at an elementaryschool in Uvalde, Texas, andanother attack Wednesday inTulsa, Oklahoma, where a gun-man shot and killed four peo-ple and himself at a medicaloffice. "Don't tell me raising theage won't make a difference," hesaid.
The most recent shootingscame close on the heels of theMay 14 assault in Buffalo, NewYork, where a white 18-year-oldwearing military gear andlivestreaming with a helmetcamera opened fire with a rifleat a supermarket in a predom-inantly Black neighbourhood,killing 10 people and wound-
ing three others in what author-ities described as "racially moti-vated violent extremism".
"This time we have to takethe time to do something,"Biden said, calling out theSenate, where 10 Republicanvotes would be needed to passlegislation. For all the passionof Biden's address, and for allhis big asks
and smaller fallback alter-natives, any major action byCongress is still a long shot. "Iknow how hard it is, but I'llnever give up, and if Congressfails, I believe this time amajority of the American peo-ple won't give up either," headded. "I believe the majorityof you will act to turn your out-rage into making this issue cen-tral to your vote."
Adding a stark perspectiveto young people's deaths, henoted that Centres for DiseaseControl data shows "guns arethe number one killer of chil-dren in the United States ofAmerica," ahead of car crash-es.
"Over the last two decades,more school-age children havedied from guns than on-dutypolice officers and active-dutymilitary - combined," he said.
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President Joe Biden's specialenvoy for North Korea said
Friday the United States is"preparing for all contingen-cies" in close coordination withits South Korean and Japaneseallies as it monitors NorthKorean arrangements for apossible nuclear test explosionthat outside officials say couldbe imminent.
South Korean and U.S.Intelligence officials have saidthey detected North Koreanefforts to prepare its north-eastern testing ground foranother nuclear test, whichwould be its seventh since2006 and the first sinceSeptember 2017, when itclaimed to have detonated athermonuclear bomb to fit onits intercontinental ballisticmissiles.
Sung Kim, the U.S. Specialrepresentative for North Korea,was in Seoul for a trilateralmeeting with his South Koreanand Japanese counterparts todiscuss the growing threatposed by North Korea's nuclearweapons and missiles pro-
grammes."The U.S. Assessesthat the DPRK is preparing atits Punggye-ri test site for whatwould be its seventh nucleartest. This assessment is consis-tent with the DPRK's ownrecent public statements," saidKim, using the initials of NorthKorea's formal name, theDemocratic People's Republicof Korea.
Aside from coordinatingwith Seoul and Tokyo over con-tingency planning, Washingtonis also prepared to make "bothshort- and longer-term adjust-ments to our military postureas appropriate and respondingto any DPRK provocation andas necessary to strengthen bothdefense and deterrence to pro-tect our allies in the region,"Kim said.
Funakoshi Takehiro,Japan's director-general forAsian and Oceanian Affairs,said the North's spate of bal-listic tests this year and possi-ble nuclear test preparationsunderscore the need for a morerobust international responseand lamented the U.N. SecurityCouncil's inaction over theNorth's recent tests.
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Afghanistan's Taliban rulersare maintaining close ties
with al-Qaida as they consoli-date control over the country,and their main military threatis coming from the IslamicState extremist group and guer-rilla-style attacks by formerAfghan government securitypersonnel, UN experts said ina new report.
The experts said in thereport to the UN SecurityCouncil that with the onset ofbetter weather, fighting mayescalate as both Islamic Stateand resistance forces undertakeoperations against Talibanforces.
But neither IS nor al-Qaida"is believed to be capable ofmounting international attacksbefore 2023 at the earliest,regardless of their intent or ofwhether the Taliban acts torestrain them," the panel ofexperts said.
Nonetheless, it said thepresence of IS, al-Qaida, and"many other terrorist groupsand fighters on Afghan soil" israising concerns in neighbor-ing countries and the widerinternational community.
Since their takeover ofAfghanistan last Aug 15 as USand NATO forces were in thefinal stages of their chaoticwithdrawal from the countryafter 20 years, the Taliban "havefavoured loyalty and seniorityover competence, and theirdecision-making has beenopaque and inconsistent," theexperts said.
In the report obtainedThursday, the panel monitor-ing sanctions against theTaliban said its leaders haveappointed 41 men on the UNsanctions blacklist to theCabinet and senior positions,and they have favoured thecountry's dominant Pashtunethnic group, alienating minor-
ity communities including eth-nic Tajiks and Uzbeks.
The Taliban's primaryconcern has been to consoli-date control "while seekinginternational recognition, to re-engage with the internationalfinancial system and to receiveaid in order to deal with thegrowing economic and human-itarian crisis in Afghanistan,"the experts said.
"Since taking power, how-ever, there have been many fac-tors creating internal tensionswithin movement, leading toperceptions that the Taliban'sgovernance has been chaotic,disjointed and prone to revers-ing policies and going back onpromises.," they said.
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Chinese banks have agreed torefinance Pakistan with
USD 2.3 billion worth of fundsin a massive relief for the cash-starved country to help it bol-ster its depleting foreignexchange reserves, the financeminister has said. Miftah Ismailsaid on Thursday that termsand conditions for refinancing
have been agreed and the inflowis expected "shortly" after someroutine approvals from bothsides. “Good News: The termsand conditions for refinancingof RMB 15 billion deposit byChinese banks (about US$ 2.3billion) have been agreed.
Inflow is expected shortlyafter some routine approvalsfrom both sides. This will helpshore up our foreign exchange
reserves,” the minister said ina tweet.
Pakistan is facing anuncertain economic situationdue to a delay in the revival ofa stalled multibillion-dollar
International Monetary Fund(IMF) programme. The devel-opment comes as a massiverelief to economic policymak-ers that saw foreign exchangereserves held by State Bank ofPakistan fall to USD 10.09 bil-lion, with level staying at lessthan 1.5 months of importcover, Geo News reported.
The agreement withChinese banks is expected tobolster reserves and enablecountry to make import pay-ments while lending some sup-port to rupee as well which haslost over 25 per cent since startof outgoing fiscal year 2021-22.
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Israeli Prime Minister NaftaliBennett accused Iran of
deceiving the internationalcommunity about its atomicactivities as he met with the vis-iting head of the UN nuclearwatchdog on Friday.
Rafael Grossi, the head ofthe International AtomicEnergy Agency, paid a briefvisit to Israel, which has longaccused Iran of pursuingnuclear weapons and isopposed to any return to the2015 nuclear agreementbetween Tehran and worldpowers.Bennett "expressed
Israel's deep concern regardingIran's continued progresstoward achieving nuclearweapons while deceiving theinternational community byusing false information andlies," his office said in a state-ment.
He "emphasised the urgentneed in mobilising the inter-national community to takeaction against Iran, using allmeans, in order to preventIran from achieving nuclearweapons."
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Dragon boat races returnedin parts of China on Friday
for first time since outbreak ofpandemic in late 2019, as restric-tions are lifted along with amajor drop in COVID cases.
The historic Lychee Bayscenic area in southern Chinesemanufacturing hub ofGuangzhou staged races andother scaled-back celebrations tomark holiday that commemo-rates death more than 2,200years ago of revered poet andgovernment minister Qu Yuan.Restrictions on length of eventsand size of crowds remained inplace but did little to dampenmood. Along with dragon boatraces, which feature teams of upto a dozen or more paddlers, the
holiday is marked by commu-nity gatherings and the enthu-siastic consumption of steamedrice dumplings cooked withmeat, peanuts and other ingre-dients and wrapped in greenleaves bound with string.
China recorded just 74 newCOVID-19 cases on Friday andrestrictions have been eased incities such as Shanghai, whichhad been under strict lock-down for more than twomonths.
While travel restrictions,testing requirements, quaran-tines and mask mandatesremain, the country is gradual-ly emerging from its hard-line"zero-COVID" policy that hasthrottled domestic economyand severely constricted globalsupply chains.
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Dubai police said Friday they arrested andplanned to extradite a British man wanted in
Denmark over a USD 1.7 billion tax fraud case.Dubai police identified the man as Sanjay Shah
and said his arrest came after Denmark signed anagreement in March allowing for extraditionbetween the United Arab Emirates and Denmark.
Shah has maintained his innocence while liv-ing in Dubai over the last few years. It wasn'timmediately clear if Shah, 52, had a local lawyerin the Emirates. A court date did not appear tohave been immediately set in Dubai, the com-mercial capital of the seven-sheikhdom federationof the UAE.
In a statement, Dubai police Brig. Gen.Jamal Al Jallaf said the emirate received an inter-national arrest warrant from Denmark for Shah.Al Jallaf said Shah was accused of a fraud that sawforeign businesses pretended to own shares inDanish companies and claim tax refunds for whichthey were not eligible.
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China's most advanced air-craft carrier to date appears
to be nearing completion, satel-
lite photos analysed by TheAssociated Press showedFriday, as experts suggested thevessel could be launched soon.The newly developed Type 003
carrier has been under con-struction at the JiangnanShipyard northeast of Shanghaisince 2018. Satellite imagestaken by Planet Labs PBC onMay 31 suggest work on thevessel is close to done.
The launch has been longanticipated, and constituteswhat the Centre for Strategicand International Studies thinktank called a "seminal momentin China's ongoing moderni-sation efforts and a symbol ofthe country's growing mili-tary might."
CSIS noted in a reportthat China often pairs militarymilestones with existing holi-
days and anniversaries. It suggested that the vessel
could be launched as soon asFriday to coincide with thenational Dragon Boat Festival,as well as the 157th anniversaryof the founding of JiangnanShipyard. In the satelliteimages, the carrier's deck canbe clearly seen.
In an image taken Tuesdaythrough wispy clouds, equip-ment behind the carrierappears to have been removed,a step toward flooding theentire drydock and floatingthe vessel. Pictures earlier thismonth showed work ongoing.
Cloud cover blocked Planet
Labs satellites from capturingimages of the shipyard fromWednesday to Friday. China'sMinistry of National Defencedid not immediately respond toa request for comment.
Though no launch wasannounced, the state-runGlobal Times newspaper onTuesday ran a story quotingreports that it "could belaunched soon."
It added that the Chinesenavy in April had released apromotional video on thecountry's carrier programme"in which it implied that thecountry's third aircraft carrierwill be officially revealed soon."
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NATO Secretary GeneralJens Stoltenberg on
Thursday sought to under-score the alliance's appreciationof Turkey as an "important ally."He offered the conciliatorywords to Ankara ahead of aplanned gathering of seniorofficials from Sweden, Finlandand Turkey in Brussels next
week to discuss Turkey's oppo-sition to Nordic countries join-ing defense alliance.
Stoltenberg made com-ments to reporters after meet-ing with President Joe Bidenand White House nationalsecurity adviser Jake Sullivan atWhite House for what wasbilled as preparatory talks forMadrid NATO Summit to beheld this month.
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On Ukraine's battlefields,the simple act of powering
up a cellphone can beckon arain of deathly skyfall. Artilleryradar and remote controls forunmanned aerial vehicles mayalso invite fiery shrapnel show-ers.
This is electronic warfare,a critical but largely invisibleaspect of Russia's war againstUkraine. Military comman-ders largely shun discussing it,fearing they'll jeopardize oper-ations by revealing secrets.
Electronic warfare tech-nology targets communica-tions, navigation and guidancesystems to locate, blind anddeceive the enemy and directlethal blows. It is used againstartillery, fighter jets, cruisemissiles, drones and more.Militaries also use it to protecttheir forces.
It's an area where Russiawas thought to have a clearadvantage going into the war.Yet, for reasons not entirelyclear, its much-touted elec-tronic warfare prowess wasbarely seen in the war's earlystages in the chaotic failure toseize the Ukrainian capital ofKyiv.
It has become far more ofa factor in fierce fighting ineastern Ukraine, where short-er, easier-to-defend supply lineslet Russia move electronic war-fare gear closer to the battle-field.
"They are jamming every-thing their systems can reach,"said an official of Aerorozvidka,a reconnaissance team ofUkrainian unmanned aerialvehicle tinkerers, who spoke onthe condition of anonymitybecause of safety concerns."We can't say they dominate,but they hinder us greatly."
A Ukrainian intelligenceofficial called the Russian threat"pretty severe" when it comesto disrupting reconnaissanceefforts and commanders' com-munications with troops.Russian jamming of GPSreceivers on drones thatUkraine uses to locate theenemy and direct artillery fireis particularly intense "on theline of contact," he said.
Ukraine has scored somesuccesses in countering Russia'selectronic warfare efforts. It hascaptured important pieces ofhardware - a significant intel-ligence coup - and destroyed atleast two multi-vehicle mobileelectronic warfare units.
Its own electronic warfarecapability is hard to assess.Analysts say it has markedlyimproved since 2014, whenRussia seized Crimea and insti-gated a separatist revolt ineastern Ukraine. But there aresetbacks.
Last week, Russia claimedit destroyed a Ukrainian elec-tronic intelligence centre in thesoutheastern town ofDniprovske. The claim couldnot be independently con-
firmed, and Ukrainian officialsdid not respond
to a request for comment.Ukraine has also made
effective use of technology andintelligence from the UnitedStates and other NATO mem-bers. Such information helpedUkraine sink the battle cruis-er Moskva. Allied satellites andsurveillance aircraft help fromnearby skies, as does billionaireElon Musk's Starlink satellitecommunications network.
Electronic war has threebasic elements: probe, attackand protect. First, intelligenceis gathered by locating enemyelectronic signals. On attack,"white noise" jamming dis-ables and degrades enemy sys-tems, including radio and cell-phone communications, airdefense and artillery radars.Then there is spoofing, whichconfuses and deceives. When itworks, munitions miss theirtargets.
"Operating on a modernbattlefield without data is real-ly hard," said retired Col LaurieBuckhout, a former US Armyelectronic warfare chief.Jamming "can blind and deaf-en an aircraft very quickly andvery dangerously, especially ifyou lose GPS and radar andyou're a jet flying at 600 milesan hour."
All of which explains thesecrecy around electronic war-fare.
"It is an incredibly classifiedfield because it is highly depen-
dent on evolving, bleeding-edge technologies where gainscan be copied and erased veryquickly," said James Stidham, acommunications securityexpert who has consulted forthe US State and HomelandSecurity departments.
Ukraine learned hardlessons about electronic warfarein 2014 and 2015, when Russiaoverwhelmed its forces with it.The Russians knocked dronesout of the sky and disabled war-heads, penetrated cellphone
networks for psychologicalops and zeroed in on Ukrainianarmor.
One Ukrainian officer toldChristian Brose, an aide to the
late US Senator John McCain,how Russian info warriorstricked a commander intoreturning a wireless call fromhis mother. When he did, theygeo-located him in mid-calland killed him with precisionrockets, Brose wrote in thebook "The Kill Chain."
The US also experiencedRussia's electronic warfare inaction in Syria, where theadversaries have backed oppos-ing sides in the civil war. In2018, US Special Operationschief Gen Raymond Thomasdescribed
how US pilots' communi-cations were regularly "knockeddown" in Syria in the "most
aggressive" electronic warfareenvironment on the planet.
Russia's advanced systemsare designed to blind USAirborne Warning and ControlSystems, or AWACS, aircraft -the eyes and ears of battlefieldcommanders - as well as cruisemissiles and spy satellites.
In the current war, elec-tronic warfare has become afurious theatre of contention.
Aerorozvidka has modifiedcamera-equipped drones topinpoint enemy positions anddrop mortars and grenades.Hacking is also used to poisonor disable enemy electronicsand collect intelligence.
Ukrainian officials say their
electronic warfare capabilitieshave improved radically since2015. They include the use ofencrypted US and Turkishcommunications gear for atactical edge. Ukraine hasadvanced so much it exportssome of its technology.
Russia has engaged in GPSjamming in areas from Finlandto the Black Sea, said Lt ColTyson Wetzel, an Air Force fel-low at the Atlantic Council.One regional Finnish carrier,Transaviabaltica, had to cancelflights on one route for a weekas a result. Russian jamminghas also disrupted Ukrainiantelevision broadcasting, saidFrank Backes, an executivewith California-based KratosDefence, which has satelliteground stations in the region.
Yet in the war's early days,Russia's use of electronic war-fare was less effective andextensive than anticipated. Thatmay have contributed to its fail-ure to destroy enough radarand anti-aircraft units to gainair superiority.
Russia's defence ministrydid not respond to a request forcomment for this article.
Some analysts believeRussian commanders held backunits fearing the units would becaptured. At least two wereseized. One was a Krasukha-4,which a US Army database saysis designed to jam satellite sig-nals as well as surveillanceradar and radar-guidedweapons from more than 100
miles (160 km) away. Theother: the more advancedBorisoglebsk-2, which can jamdrone guidance systems andradio-controlled land mines.
Russia may have also lim-ited the use of electronic war-fare early in the conflictbecause of concerns that ill-trained or poorly motivatedtechnicians might not operateit properly.
"What we're learning nowis that the Russians eventuallyturned it off because it wasinterfering with their owncommunications so much,"said retired Lt Gen BenHodges, a former US Armycommander for Europe.
The communicationsproblems were evident withmany Russian troops talking oninsecure open radio channels,easily monitored by outsiders.
It's unclear how much of anedge Russia's electronic assetsmay now offer. Ukraine's forcesare now more concentratedthan early in the war, whichcould make them easier to tar-get.
Much depends on whetherRussia's battalion tacticalgroups "are configured in real-ity as they are on paper," saidJames Rands, of the Jane's mil-itary intelligence think tank.Each group, comprised ofroughly 1,000 troops, is sup-posed to have an electronicwarfare unit. The Pentagonsays 110 such groups are inUkraine.
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When Vladimir Putin senttroops into Ukraine in
late February, the Russian pres-ident vowed his forces wouldnot occupy the neighbouringcountry. But as the invasionreached its 100th day Friday,Russia seemed increasinglyunlikely to relinquish the ter-ritory it has taken in the war.
The ruble, now an officialcurrency in the southernKherson region, is set to replacethe Ukrainian hryvnia.Residents there and in Russia-controlled parts of theZaporizhzhia region are gettingoffered Russian passports. TheKremlin-installed administra-tions in both regions havetalked about plans to becomepart of Russia.
The Moscow-backed lead-ers of separatist areas in east-ern Ukraine's Donbas region,which is mostly Russian-speak-ing, have shared similar inten-tions. Putin recognised theseparatists' self-proclaimedrepublics as independent statestwo days before launching theinvasion. Fighting has intensi-fied in Ukraine's east as Russiaseeks to "liberate" all of the
Donbas.The Kremlin has largely
kept mum about its plans forthe cities, towns and villages ithas bombarded with missiles,encircled and finally captured.Spokesman Dmitry Peskov saidit was up to people living inseized areas to decide whereand how they want to live.
Annexing more land fromUkraine was never the maingoal of the invasion, butMoscow is unlikely to let go ofits military gains, according topolitical analysts.
"Of course (Russia) intendsto stay," Andrei Kolesnikov,senior fellow at the CarnegieEndowment for InternationalPeace, said. To Russia, "it's apity to give away what has beenoccupied, even if it was not partof the original plan."
Putin has described thegoals of the invasion somewhatvaguely, saying it was aimed atthe "demilitarization" and"denazification" of Ukraine. Itwas widely believed that theKremlin intended initially toinstall a pro-Moscow govern-ment in Kyiv and to preventUkraine from joining NATOand taking other steps awayfrom Russia's sphere of influ-ence.
Russia captured much ofKherson and neighboringZaporizhzhia early in the war,gaining control over most ofUkraine's Sea of Azov coast andsecuring a partial land corridorto the Crimean Peninsula,which Russia annexed fromUkraine in 2014.
There was hardly a warmwelcome from the locals.Residents of the cities ofKherson and Melitopol took tothe streets to protest the occu-pation, facing off with Russian
soldiers in plazas. Ukrainianofficials warned that Russiamight stage a referendum inKherson to declare the regionan independent state.
No such referendum hastaken place, although theRussians appeared determinedto hold on to both regions.
They installed people withpro-Kremlin views to replacereplace mayors and other localleaders who had disappeared inwhat Ukrainian officials andmedia said were kidnappings.Russian flags were raisedRussian state broadcasts thatpromoted the Kremlin's ver-sion of the invasion supplant-ed Ukrainian TV channels.
The Russian ruble thismonth was introduced as thesecond official currency inboth the Kherson andZaporizhzhia regions - at leastin the parts under Russiancontrol - and pro-Russian
administrations started offeringa "one-time social payment" of10,000 rubles (roughly $163) tolocal residents.
Top Russian officials start-ed touring the regions, toutingthe territories' prospects forbeing integrated into Russia.Deputy Prime Minister MaratKhusnullin visited Khersonand Zaporizhzhia in mid-Mayand indicated they couldbecome part of "our Russianfamily."
A senior official in theKremlin's ruling United Russiaparty, Andrei Turchak, put iteven more bluntly in a meetingwith residents of Kherson:"Russia is here forever."
Members of the pro-Kremlin administrations inboth regions soon announcedthat the areas would seek to beincorporated into Russia.While it remains unclear whenor if it will happen, Russia is
laying the groundwork. An office of Russia's migra-
tion services opened inMelitopol, taking applicationsfor Russian citizenship in a fast-track procedure Putin expand-ed to residents of the Khersonand Zaporizhzhia regions. Therapid procedure was firstimplemented in 2019 in therebel-controlled areas of theDonbas, where more than700,000 people have receivedRussian passports.
Oleg Kryuchkov, an officialin Russia-annexed Crimea, saidthis week that the two south-ern regions have switched toRussian internet providers;state media ran footage of peo-ple lining up to get Russian SIMcards for their cellphones.Kryuchkov also said that bothregions were switching to theRussian country code, +7, fromthe Ukrainian +380.
Senior Russian lawmaker
Leonid Slutsky, a member ofthe Russian delegation installed peace talks withUkraine, said that referendumson joining Russia could takeplace in the Donbas, Khersonand Zaporizhzhia regions asearly as July.
Asked about such a sce-nario, Kremlin spokesmanPeskov reiterated Thursdaythat it was up to the Ukrainianpeople to decide their futuresbut because of the continuingfighting, the conditions werenot right for organizing annex-ation referendums.
Tatyana Stanovaya,founder and CEO of R.Politik,an independent think tank onRussian politics, thinks Putindoesn't want to rush the refer-endums and run the risk ofthem being denounced asshams. "He wants the referen-dum to be real, so that the Westcan see that, indeed, Russia wasright, the people want to livewith Russia," Stanovaya said.
Ukrainian experts say it isnot going to be easy for theKremlin to rally genuine sup-port in Ukraine's south.
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Ukrainian forces locked in agrinding battle for control
of the country's east struggledto hold off Russian troops andbuy themselves some timeThursday while they await thearrival of the advanced rocketsand anti-aircraft weaponspromised by the West.
With the arms deliveriespossibly weeks away, Ukraine
is looking at a prolonged peri-od of grueling combat, militaryanalysts said.
"There's a time lag, so thenext few weeks are going to bepretty tough for our Ukrainianfriends," said retired US Lt.Gen. Ben Hodges, former com-manding general of US Armyforces in Europe.
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New Delhi: The Governmentwill take strict action againstexporters who are trying toship or have shipped wheat bysubmitting back-dated andimproper documents followingthe ban on exports of the crop,Commerce and IndustryMinister Piyush Goyal said onFriday. On May 13, the gov-ernment banned wheat exportsto control domestic prices.However, it allowed shipmentsfor exporters who have validirrevocable letters of credit(LCs) issued on or before May13.
The commerce ministryhas tightened the norms forobtaining registration certifi-cates for wheat exports with aview to curbing fraudulentpractices such as submission ofimproper documents bytraders. Exporters have to sub-mit the message exchange datewith foreign banks along witha valid irrevocable letter ofcredit, issued on or before May13, to obtain registration ofcontracts (RC) to ship theirconsignments.
“Some people have eventried to cheat by making back-dated applications and puttingup LCs. The government willcome down strongly on any-body who has tried to back date
an LC; who has made an appli-cation to allow exports basedon documents which are irreg-ular in any form,” Goyal toldreporters here.
He added that the ministryis investigating exporters whohave received authorisation toverify if they have filed all theproper documents.
“... Strongest action will betaken on any exporter who hastried to game the system orwho has tried to create back-dated LCs, back-dated appli-cations. I want that message tobe very clear,” he added.
The Directorate General ofForeign Trade (DGFT) hasearlier stated that it has receivedinformation from sources thatfraudulent back-dated LCs,showing date of issuance priorto May 13, 2022, are being sub-mitted by some unscrupulousexporters for issue of RCs.
The minister further saidan inter-ministerial committee,comprising officials from food,agriculture and foreign affairsministries, has been set up toexamine requests for wheatfrom neighbouring and friend-ly countries. PTI
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New Delhi: Capital marketsregulator Sebi on Friday cameout with a new framework forinvestor grievance redressalmechanism as part of its effortto strengthen the process.
The new mechanism willcome into effect from July 1,the Securities and ExchangeBoard of India (Sebi) said in acircular. For any disputebetween the member and clientrelating to the transactions ina stock exchange, which is ofcivil nature, the complainant ormember is required to firstrefer the complaint to theinvestor grievance redressalmechanism (IGRC) and/or tothe arbitration mechanism pro-vided by the bourse beforeresorting to other remediesavailable under any other law,Sebi said.
For the removal of doubts,the regulator has clarified thatthe sole arbitrator or the panelof arbitrators appointed underthe stock exchange arbitrationmechanism may consider anyclaim relating to any disputebetween a stockbroker andclient, arising out of the trans-actions in a stock exchange,
and shall always be deemed tohave the competence to rule onits jurisdiction.
A complainant or member,who is not satisfied with therecommendation of the IGRCcan avail of the arbitrationmechanism of the stockexchange for settlement ofcomplaints within threemonths from the date of IGRCrecommendation. The timeperiod of three months will beapplicable only for the caseswhere the IGRC recommen-dation is being challenged.
For any arbitration appli-cation received without goingthrough the IGRC mechanism,the time period of threemonths will not apply, and forsuch cases, the limitation peri-od for filing arbitration will begoverned by the law of limita-tion. PTI
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New Delhi: The governmenthas directed state-owned CILto be prepared to import 12million tonnes (MT) of coal forpower utilities for the next 13months.
The state gencos and inde-pendent power producers havesought time till Saturday after-noon to figure out the quanti-ty of coal they require and theimport orders would be placedby Coal India very soon, asource said. It would be the firsttime since 2015 that themaharatna firm imports thedry fuel. “Government of Indiahas mandated Coal India to beready to import 12 milliontonnes of coal for July this yearto July 2023,” the source added.
A query sent to the com-pany in this regard did not elic-it any immediate response.According to industry experts,the government is making allefforts to build up stock of coalto avoid the reoccurrence ofpower outrages which hap-pened in April on account of
shortage of the fossil fuel.On May 18, the Ministry of
Power had warned that iforders for coal imports are notplaced by May 31, 2022 and theimported fuel does not startarriving at power plants by June15, the defaulter gencos willhave to increase their importsto the extent of 15 per cent.
Further, if blending with
domestic coal is not started byJune 15, then the domestic allo-cation of the concerned default-er’s thermal power plants willbe further reduced by 5 percent, the ministry had said ina letter to state governmentsand power generation compa-nies (gencos), including inde-pendent power producers(IPPs). PTI
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Mumbai: Equity indicesswooned in the last hour oftrade on Friday to close withmodest losses as risk-on senti-ment remained subdued aheadof the RBI’s policy decision nextweek.
A weak rupee and unabat-ed selling by foreign fundsfurther weighed on bourses,traders said.
After soaring over 600points in intra-day trade, the30-share BSE Sensex cameunder sudden selling pressuretowards the fag-end to close48.88 points or 0.09 per centlower at 55,769.23.
Similarly, the broader NSENifty dipped 43.70 points or0.26 per cent to finish at16,584.30.
UltraTech Cement wasthe biggest loser in the Sensexpack, shedding 5.49 per cent,followed by Maruti, NTPC,Axis Bank, Bajaj Finserv,IndusInd Bank and M&M.
On the other hand, indexheavyweight RelianceIndustries topped the winners’chart for the second straightday, climbing 2.02 per cent.
Infosys, Larsen & Toubro,Sun Pharma, TCS, Wipro andHUL were among the otherprominent gainers.
“The late sell-off indicatesthe lack of confidence in thedomestic market driven by theconcerns over central bankpolicy. While in the globalmarket, the investors werewaiting for the release of US jobdata.
“The RBI is expected tohike rates by 25 bps to 35 bpsand the Fed by 50 bps, but theoutlook and changes in the eco-nomic growth and inflation willdetermine the market trend. Ifthe central banks decide on astringent policy tightening, themarket mood can swing bear-ish,” said Vinod Nair, Head ofResearch at Geojit Financial
Services.On a weekly basis, the
Sensex advanced 884.57 pointsor 1.61 per cent, while the Niftygained 231.85 points or 1.41per cent.
“The local markets arewaiting for the outcome of theRBI monetary policy, mid-week next week, and also theFOMC meeting by mid-June.
The likelihood of rate actionas well as liquidity reductionmeasures, it is feared, mightadversely affect economicgrowth which is already slowingdown owing to high inflationand its consequences for con-sumption spending. PTI
Mumbai: The rupee pared ini-tial gains and settled 3 paiselower at 77.63 (provisional)against the US dollar on Friday,in line with a muted trend indomestic equities.
Forex traders said persis-tent foreign fund outflows andwidening trade deficit weighedon the local unit.
At the interbank foreignexchange market, the rupeeconsolidated in a narrow range.It opened at 77.47 against thegreenback and finally settled at77.63, down 3 paise over itsprevious close.
During the session, therupee touched an intra-daylow of 77.66 and a high of77.47. On Thursday, the rupeehad settled at 77.60.
“The rupee erased open-ing gains as equities turneddown while crude oil pricesremained firm. Foreign fundoutflows and widening tradebalance weighed on the local
unit,” said Dilip Parmar,Analyst, HDFC Securities.
Parmar further said, “Webelieve spot USD-INR willconsolidate in the range of77.44 to 77.74. Short-termtraders should wait for therange breakout above 77.74which can pave way for 78 and78.30 while breaking below74.44 push it towards 77.”
The dollar index, whichgauges the greenback’s strengthagainst a basket of six curren-cies, was trading 0.03 per centlower at 101.79. PTI
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New Delhi: Riding on the backof surge in global energy prices,state-owned Oil and NaturalGas Corporation (ONGC)should have a solid base toincrease investments over thenext 12-18 months on accountof healthy earnings, S&P GlobalRatings said on Friday.
“Improved cash flow con-tinues to support the rating” ofONGC, it said in a statement.
While ONGC gets priceequivalent to international oilrates for the crude oil it pro-duces from fields such asMumbai High, the govern-ment fixed price of natural gasbased on a formula that factorsin global indices.
While oil prices are hover-ing at multi-year high, gasprices for ONGC too haverisen to best ever rate of USD6.1 per million British thermalunit.
“ONGC will direct morethan 60 per cent of its improved
cash flows to capital invest-ments over the next few years.We expect the company tospend �55,000-60,000 crore infiscal 2023 (ending March 31,2023) compared with less than�45,000 crore that it has spentannually for the past two yearsin view of challenging businessconditions,” it said.
Of this, ONGC intends tospend �31,000 crore over thenext three years on explorationactivities, compared with closeto �21,000 crore for the lastthree years.
“This increase will offsetthe decline in the company’srecent production to 43.4 mil-lion tonne of oil equivalent(mmtoe) in fiscal 2022 from48.25 mmtoe in fiscal 2020. Weanticipate these investmentswill also aid earnings resilienceif prices start to decline,” S&Psaid.
ONGC is also likely tomaintain healthy dividend dis-
tribution to shareholders, itsaid.
“The company paid about�13,000 crore in dividends infiscal 2022, equivalent to about30 per cent of its free operat-ing cash flows. ONGC hasshown good flexibility in thepast when it scaled back divi-dends to about �3,000 crore infiscal 2021 due to the chal-lenging business conditions.However, given the healthyearnings outlook, we expect thecompany to maintain its stat-ed financial policy of returning40-50 per cent of net income toshareholders,” it said.
The rating agency saidfavourable crude oil prices willsupport ONGC’s earnings overthe next 12 months and under-pin the increased investments.
It revised its forecast forBrent crude oil price for the restof 2022 to USD 90 per barreland USD 75 a barrel for 2023. PTI
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Kolkata: Both internationaland domestic buyers haverejected a series of tea con-signments due to the presenceof pesticides and chemicalsbeyond permissible limits,Indian Tea ExportersAssociation (ITEA) chairmanAnshuman Kanoria said onFriday.
Filling up the vacuum cre-ated by crisis-hit Sri Lanka inthe global market, Tea Board iseyeing to ramp up exports.However, the rejection of con-signments is causing a declinein outward shipments.
All teas sold in the countrymust conform to the FoodSafety and Standards Authorityof India (FSSAI) norms.However, most of the buyersare purchasing tea that haveunusually high chemical con-tent, Kanoria told PTI.
In 2021, India exported195.90 million kg tea. Themajor buyers were
Commonwealth ofIndependent States (CIS)nations and Iran. The board isaiming to achieve 300 millionkg tea this year.
Kanoria said that manycountries are following strictentry regulations for tea. Mostof the countries follow varia-tions of the EU standards,
which are more stringent thanthe FSSAI rules.
“Instead of complying withthe law, many are urging thegovernment to make the FSSAInorms more liberal,” he said,adding that this would send awrong signal as the beverage isconsidered to be a health drink. PTI
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New Delhi: Hyundai MotorIndia on Friday said it has com-menced bookings for the newversion of its compact SUVVenue which is scheduled to hitthe market later this month.Customers can book the newmodel at the company’s deal-erships by paying Rs 21,000. Itcan also be booked online.
“Venue has had a stellarsuccess in India ever since itslaunch in 2019. Customersfrom across the country havebeen thrilled by its futuristicdesign, advanced technologyand powerful performance.With the new Venue, we willset the bar even higher,”Hyundai Motor India Director(Sales, Marketing & Service)Tarun Garg said in a statement.
The model will have manyfirsts in segment technologiesthat offer an unparalleled expe-rience, he added.
“We are confident that thenew model will build on thestrong brand legacy and ampli-
fy the Hyundai SUV Life forunmatched customer delight,”Garg said.
The new Venue will offercustomers enhanced connec-tivity and enable them to con-trol vehicle functions rightfrom the comfort of theirhomes, the automaker stated.
Customers can controlmultiple functions while alsobeing able to check vehicle sta-tus through Home-to-Car(H2C) with Alexa and GoogleVoice Assistant, it added.
The features can be con-trolled with voice support inEnglish and Hindi languages.
With H2C, customers willbe able to control functionssuch as remote climate control,remote door lock/ unlock,remote vehicle status, amongothers. The model, whichwould be available in up to fivevariants with multiple power-train options, also featuresmultiple drive modes and a twostep rear reclining seat. PTI
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New Delhi: Luxury car manu-facturer Audi India on Fridaysaid it has introduced warran-ty coverage for five years withunlimited mileage for all its carssold this year, starting June 1.
The company has launchedthe initiative to mark 15 yearsin the country.”To celebrate 15glorious years in India, we have
announced a segment first war-ranty coverage for five years withunlimited mileage for our cus-tomers this year, starting June 1,2022,” Audi India Head BalbirSingh Dhillon said in a state-ment.This is a milestone initia-tive and the company is happyto offer a complete peace ofmind package, he added. PTI
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Mumbai: Tata Group’s infra-structure and constructionarm, Tata Projects, has baggedthe contract to construct theupcoming Noida InternationalAirport at Jewar, in UttarPradesh. As part of the con-tract, Tata Projects will con-struct the terminal, runway, air-side infrastructure, roads, util-ities, landside facilities andother ancillary buildings at theairport, Yamuna InternationalAirport Private Limited(YIAPL) said in a statement onFriday.
YIAPL is a 100 per centsubsidiary of Swiss developerZurich Airport InternationalAG and has been incorporat-ed as a Special Purpose Vehicleto develop Noida InternationalAirport. In 2019, ZurichAirport International AG wonthe bid to develop the airport.The Uttar Pradesh govern-ment signed the concessionagreement with YIAPL onOctober 7, 2020, to commence
the development of the NIA.The greenfield facility,
spread in 1,334 hectares, willhave a single-runway operationin the first phase with a capac-ity to handle 12-million pas-sengers per annum at an invest-ment of Rs 5,700 crore.
“YIAPL has selected TataProjects Ltd to undertake theEngineering, procurement, andconstruction (EPC) of NoidaInternational Airport.
The company has beenselected from three shortlistedteams with demonstrated expe-rience in the design, procure-ment, and construction of largeinfrastructure projects,” thestatement said.
The new airport is expect-ed to be functional by 2024, asper the developer. With the clo-sure of the EPC contract, thefirst phase of the airport is ontrack to be delivered withinthree years of the commence-ment of the concession period,YIAPL said. PTI
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Mumbai: The upward revisionin the third-party insurancepremium for two-wheelers,which has come into forcefrom June 1, is unlikely tomaterially impact the demand,credit ratings agency ICRAsaid on Friday.
ICRA said it expects a 7-10 per cent year-on-year vol-ume growth in the two-wheel-er industry this fiscal, despiteinflationary pressures and elon-gated semiconductors shortagedue to the Russia-Ukraine war.
After a two-year moratori-um due to the Covid-19 pan-demic, third-party insurancepremium rates have been hikedbetween 15-20 per cent for thepremium category (more than150 cc category).
However, the entry-level
motorcycles and scooters (75cc-150 cc), which accounts for89 per cent in the overall two-wheeler volume, has beenspared of any hike.
The increase in third partyinsurance premiums is, there-fore, unlikely to materiallyimpact the two-wheelerdemand, ICRA said.
Moreover, given the factthat the less than 1 per centincrease in road price for thepremium segment on accountof the rate hike is also not sig-nificant, the rate hike is unlike-ly to have a major impact onconsumer sentiments andcomes as a relief for the indus-try, which has been grapplingwith muted demand, it stated.
Domestic two-wheelerindustry volumes contracted
for a third consecutive year inFY2022, with the consumersentiments remaining muted.The cost of ownership of a two-wheeler has been steadilyincreasing over the years, there-by impacting affordability, saidRohan Kanwar Gupta, VicePresident, Corporate Ratings,ICRA.
“Original equipment man-ufacturers (OEMs) have beenforced to hike prices onaccount of multiple factorssuch as raw material hardening,transition to stringent emissionnorms and changes mandatedby regulations, especially withregards to safety standards.
“In FY2022, even as therewas no impact of regulatorynotifications on prices, theOEMs had to pass on rawmaterial hardening impact
through multiple price hikes.As a result, enhanced cost ofacquisition coupled withheightened crude prices haveled to a significant increase inthe cost of the ownership,”said Gupta.
Noting that aided by arecovery in rural sentimentspost a healthy rabi harvest andpent up demand for festivalsand weddings, wholesale vol-umes of motorcycles posed arecovery in April and May;ICRA said, reopening of edu-cation institutes and reversal inwork-from-home trends incorporate India also supportedthe scooter offtake, therebyraising hopes of recovery inprospects of the two-wheelerindustry.
As demand remains frag-ile, a further increase in the cost
of acquisition could have con-strained demand recovery for2Ws in the near term, the rat-ings agency said, adding, thefact that the entry-level two-wheeler segment has been leftout of the insurance price hike,comes as a relief for the indus-try.
Even as inflationary pres-sures and elongated semicon-ductor chip shortage due to theongoing Russia-Ukraine con-flict continue to remain head-winds for the industry, a broad-er vaccination coverage,reopening of education insti-tutes and corporates; andexpectations of normal mon-soon, all coupled with a lowbase, are expected to drive a 7-10 per cent year-on-year vol-umes growth for the industryin FY2023. PTI
78�9���&���������������������� �49)��������������&�� ��������������:
New Delhi:Gold priceson Fridayincreased by�57 to �51,326 per 10 grams infutures trade as speculatorscreated fresh positions on afirm spot demand.
On the Multi CommodityExchange, gold contracts forAugust delivery traded higherby �57 or 0.11 per cent at�51,326 per 10 grams in a busi-ness turnover of 14,427 lots.
Fresh positions built up byparticipants led to the rise ingold prices, analysts said.
Globally, gold was trading0.13 per cent lower at USD1,869 per ounce in New York. PTI
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New Delhi: Leading stockexchange NSE has cautionedstock brokers against executingorders which appear to benon-genuine, leading to devi-ation in the normal price dis-covery process.
This came after theNational Stock Exchange’s(NSE) derivatives segment wit-nessed a ‘fat finger’ trade onThursday that may have causeda loss of �200-250 crore to abrokerage house. This could bethe biggest trading mistake inthe domestic market’s history.
In market parlance, a ‘fatfinger’ trade is an erroneousaction resulting from pressinga wrong key.
In a circular, NSE asked itstrading members to strictlydesist from entering or exe-cuting transactions whichprima facie appear to be non-genuine on their own accoun-tand refrain from indulging inpractices which lead to aber-rations in the order book. PTI
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Coco Gauff says she has"nothing to lose" inSaturday's French Open
final against world numberone Iga Swiatek, with heropponent on a 34-match win-ning streak and looking for asecond Roland Garros title.
Teenage star Gauff is theyoungest Grand Slam finalistsince Maria Sharapova atWimbledon 18 years ago andonly graduated from highschool while in Paris.
The 18-year-old has yet todrop a set in the tournamentand showed little signs ofnerves in her first major semi-final with a 6-3, 6-1 win overMartina Trevisan.
But she is the underdogagainst Poland's Swiatek, whowill equal Venus Williams'record for the longest women'sunbeaten run in the 21st cen-tury if she lifts the trophy.
"I think going in I havenothing to lose and she's def-initely the favourite going intothe match on paper," saidAmerican Gauff, who burstonto the scene by making theWimbledon fourth round as a15-year-old in 2019.
"I'm just going to playfree and play my best tennis.I think in a Grand Slam finalanything can happen.
"If I do lift the trophy,honestly, I don't think my lifeis going to change really. Iknow it sounds kind of bad tosay that, but the people wholove me are still going to loveme regardless if I lift the tro-phy or not."���6���������
Swiatek, who herself onlyturned 21 on Tuesday, hasenjoyed a remarkable seasonand is looking for a sixth suc-cessive title.
The 2020 French Openchampion's 6-2, 6-1 semi-final thrashing of DariaKasatkina saw her draw levelwith Serena Williams' career-best winning streak from2013.
"It's going to be tough(for her opponent)," saidRussian Kasatkina after seeingher run comprehensivelyended by the top seed.
"I think the mental part is
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Coco has ‘nothing to lose’ against Swiatekgoing to, especially at thebeginning, make a big differ-ence.
"It's difficult when theplayer is moving good andthen she can transition toattack mode. Then it makesit really, really tough."
Four of Swiatek's fivetournament victories thisyear have come at the pres-tigious WTA 1,000 events,but she says she still has tobattle nerves before bigmatches.
"I couldn't get rid of theexpectations fully (in thesemi-finals), but I tried toaccept that, that they aregoing to be there and it'sgoing to stress me a little bitmore," said Swiatek.
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Gauff wrote "peace, endgun violence" on a courtsideTV camera after her semi-final victory and has said shewants to speak out aboutissues off the court.
Swiatek, though, does
not think she is ready yet to useher profile to talk about polit-ical or social issues.
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A NOTE FROM THE RESIDENT EDITOR%���*�������!�"������������%���2�����"��� /�����BI�.��"������.7�'����J7�9<99-�������=��"��.���&�����7��������������/�/�"����������"����������������������"����"������!���8!����"�-����������"��������� ��"����!"���"���������� ������!����������������"������3�������"�3���"�.-�("�������������������"����"����������������������/�/�"����������"����"�/�"/����-��&���������//.���������7�!�������.���"������"�3����!�������������!����"�������������!�������������,���"!�"�����.���������"�.��"����/�"���"���/�����!�������"������"�BK���������������-
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Australia's cricketers hopeto bring some "joy" to Sri
Lanka, white-ball captainAaron Finch said on Friday, asthe island nation prepares fora seven-week tour whilewrestling with an unprece-dented economic crisis.
The squad arrived onWednesday for their first all-format series against Sri Lankain six years, at a time when fuelshortages, rolling blackoutsand political turmoil havemade life a misery for many.
The tour has raised secu-rity concerns in the Australiancamp after deadly unrest in SriLanka last month, but Finchsaid his team were excited tobe in the country.
"We're here to play crick-et and hopefully... we canbring some joy and someentertainment to Sri Lanka,"he told an online press con-ference.
"It's such a special place totour. The hospitality that youget here, the friendliness, andtheir love for the game isunbelievable," he said.
Australia will play threeT20Is, five ODIs and two Testmatches during the tour,which ends July 12.
The series-opening T20Iwill be played under lights onTuesday in the capitalColombo, where residentshave suffered through regularpower cuts and waited in longqueues for fuel.
Last month, CricketAustralia boss Todd Greenbergsaid players were aware of thesituation in the island nationand admitted a "level of dis-comfort around touring inconditions that contrast thosefaced by the people of SriLanka".
Australia last toured thecountry in 2016 but has regu-larly played against Sri Lankaat home, including a T20I
Finch hopes tour brings ‘joy’ to crisis-hit SLseries in February that went 4-1 to the hosts.
Finch said his team would keep their guardup during the upcoming series and expectedstrong showings from batsman Kusal Mendisand spinner Wanindu Hasaranga.
"If you just look at the top order, you've gotKusal there, who can be as damaging as any-one on his day, and obviously Hasaranga hashad an unbelievable couple of years in T20cricket," Finch said.
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