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PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA VOL.16, ISSUE 64 | Friday, 5 March, 2021 | New Delhi | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00

NEW DELHI: The BJP and its two alliance part-ners in Assam — the AGP and UPPL — have finalised their seat-sharing arrangements in 86 Assembly segments where polling will be held mostly in the first and second phase, BJP state unit chief Ranjit Dass said on Thursday night.

Assam has 126 assembly constituencies where elections will be held in three phases, on March 27, April 1 and April 6.

“The BJP and its allies have finalised the seat-sharing arrangements. I am not disclosing now the number of seats each party will contest as our alliance partners have to sort out some of their internal issues,” Dass told reporters here after meetings with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), United People’s Party Liberal as well as the BJP top brass.

The BJP state unit chief said his party will announce its own candidates for the first two phases soon. However, the party has not final-ised candidates in 12 seats for the time being and has kept them pending, he said. MPOST

Assam Assembly polls: BJP, allies finalise sharing

of 86 out of 126 seats

NO HALF TRUTHS

SC expresses concern over rising pornographic content on OTT platformsMPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has expressed concern over the increasing obscen-ity on the ‘Over the top (OTT) platform’. Some OTT platforms at times show pornographic contents and there should be a mechanism to screen such pro-grammes, the Supreme Court observed on Thursday and asked the Centre to place its guidelines

on regulating social media.The apex court also fixed on

Friday the hearing on the appeal of Amazon Prime Video’s India head Aparna Purohit against the Allahabad High Court order rejecting her anticipatory bail in connection with FIRs lodged over web series ‘Tandav’.

We are of the view that some screening of OTT content should take place. A balance has to be struck as some OTT platforms

are also showing pornographic materials on their platforms, a bench comprising justices Ashok Bhushan and R S Reddy said.

During the brief hearing con-ducted through video confer-encing, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Purohit, termed the FIRs against her as shocking saying that this woman is an employee of Amazon and she is neither a producer nor an actor but still she has been made

an accused in around 10 cases relating to the web series across the country.

The bench said now, tradi-tional film viewing has become obsolete, but for those movies, there is a censor board.

Our query is whether some screening is necessary or not, because you watch anything in your home like a cinema halls, the bench observed.

Solicitor General Tushar

Mehta, appearing for the Cen-tre, said, “They are showing filthy things with abuses too”.

Mehta said he would be placing on records the Infor-mation Technology (Guidelines for intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Rohatgi on the other hand said the case against Purohit cannot be based on the regu-lation which is yet to come in force.

EC STARTS COVID-19 VACCINATION DRIVE FOR OFFICERS, STAFF

India vaccinates over 10 lakh people in one day, more than 1.77 crore vaccinated so far

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: For the first time after the vaccination drive rolled out on January 16, India vaccinated over 10 lakh peo-ple in a single day on Thurs-day. With this the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India has crossed 1.77 crore.

As per the provisional report provided by the Health Minis-try, a total of 1,77,11,287 vaccine doses have been given till the end of 48th day of the nation-wide vaccination drive.

“Of the total, there are 68,38,077 healthcare workers (HCWs) who have taken the first dose and 30,82,942 HCWs who have taken the second dose, while 60,22,136 frontline work-

ers (FLWs) have taken the first dose and 54,177 FLWs have been administered the second dose of the vaccine,” it said, add-ing that 14,95,016 beneficiaries belonging to above 60 years and 2,18,939 beneficiaries of 45 years and above with specific co-mor-bidities have been given the first

dose of the COVID-19 vaccine till date. Notably, in a single day, total 10,93,954 vaccine doses were given till 7 pm on Thursday.

In another incident, the Election Commission started a COVID-19 vaccination drive for its officers and staff working at the Nirvachan Sadan in New

Delhi with former chief election commissioner M S Gill taking the first shot. Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Election Commissioners Sushil Chandra and Rajiv Kumar will get vaccinated after all officials and staff of the commission are inoculated, a statement said.

Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was on Thursday administered the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital, where he had regis-tered to get his shot along with his parents, Govind Ram Kejri-wal and Gita Devi. In addition, Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal and his wife, Mala Bhagat also took their first doses of the vaccine at the Tirath Ram Shah hospital here.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has written a letter to the Election Com-mission of India demanding the removal of Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain, who is the in-charge of Bengal, raising questions over his credibility in view of past records. Addressing a press conference at the Trin-amool Bhavan, party MP Sau-gata Roy said: “Derek O’Brien, TMC Rajya Sabha MP has writ-ten the letter to the CEO seeking his intervention into the matter.”

In the letter, Derek alleged that before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections BJP supporters, who took part in a roadshow of Amit Shah, had vandalised the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Following the incident, Jain sub-mitted “an erroneous and biased report” to the ECI, which in its turn — in an unprecedented manner — had barred election campaigning two days prior to the polling date, though BJP was allowed to complete its election campaigning for the day before such a restriction was imposed. Roy said if such a person was allowed to continue, then it would be difficult to conduct free and fair Assembly elections in 2021.He said before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Jain had proposed to set up a Quick Response Team (QRT) com-prising state police and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to be led by an officer from the CAPF. Continued on P6

TMC seeks removal of Sudeep

Jain over ‘track record of bias’

PLURALISM

Members of the transgender community take part in a procession ahead of Kumbh 2021, in Haridwar, on Thursday PTI

SIX STATES ACCOUNT FOR OVER 85 PER CENT OF FRESH CASES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The country is wit-nessing a surge in COVID-19 case which has increased the tension for the government. The daily new cases of COVID-19 in India were recorded above 17,000 after a little over a month taking the total tally of cases to 1,11,56,923, while the recoveries surged to 1,08,26,075 on Thursday. Maharashtra, Ker-ala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka continue to report a surge in daily new COVID-19 cases, accounting for 85.51 per cent of fresh cases. On Thurs-day, 34 days later, the country has reported the highest number of 17,407 new cases.

Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 9,855. This is the highest number recorded in the state since October 18 when 10,259 new cases were reported.

It is followed by Kerala with 2,765 while Punjab reported 772 new cases. The total number of cases with UK, South Africa and Brazil variants of SARS-CoV-2

in the country as on date has reached 242, the Union Health ministry said.

The death toll increased to 1,57,435 with 89 daily new fatal-ities, the data updated at 8 am showed. On January 29, 18,855 new infections were recorded in a

span of 24 hours.The COVID-19 active caseload

has increased to 1,73,413 which which comprises 1.55 per cent of the total infections, the data stated.

The number of people who have recuperated from the dis-ease surged to 1,08,26,075 which

translates to a national COVID-19 recovery rate of 97.03 per cent, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.41 per cent.

According to the ICMR, 21,91,78,908 samples have been tested up to March 3 with 7,75,631 samples being tested on Wednesday.

The 89 new fatalities include 42 from Maharashtra, 15 from Kerala and 12 from Punjab.

A total of 1,57,435 deaths have been reported so far in the coun-try including 52,280 from Maha-rashtra followed by 12,504 from Tamil Nadu, 12,346 from Karna-taka, 10,914 from Delhi, 10,272 from West Bengal, 8,728 from Uttar Pradesh and 7,170 from Andhra Pradesh. The health min-istry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

“Our figures are being recon-ciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

India witnesses surge in Covid cases, logs 17,407 infections

Delhi HC asks Centre about rationale behind classification

for Coronavirus vaccination HC also tells Serum Institute, Bharat Biotech to disclose capacity to manufacture vaccines

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court, while hearing a peti-tion on Thursday, asked the Centre to explain the rationale behind keeping strict control over class of persons who can be vaccinated against COVID-19 currently as under the pres-ent system those above the age of 60 years or with comorbidi-ties can receive vaccination.

The high court said the two institutes which have developed the vaccines COV-ISHIELD and COVAXIN — Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech — have more capacity to provide the vac-cines but it seems that their full capacity is not being exploited.

“We are not utilising it fully. We are either donating it to foreign countries or sell-ing it to them and are not vac-cinating our own people. So there has to be that sense of responsibility and urgency,” a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi

and Rekha Palli said.The high court directed the

two institutes to file separate affidavits on their capacity to manufacture the vaccines on per day/ week/ month basis and also the current optic of the vaccines and how much unused capacity is lying.

They also have to indicate if they can scale up their pro-duction capacities, it said.

Union of India (UoI) shall file an affidavit disclosing the capacity to transport the vac-cines while maintaining the whole chain particularly to the NCT of Delhi. The Union of India shall also indicate the extent to which it is presently being used, the high court said.

The UoI shall explain the rationale behind keeping strict control over class of per-sons who can be vaccinated as noticed in our last order. Under the present system, per-sons above 60 years of age and between 45 to 60 years with co-morbidities can receive vacci-nation. Continued on P6

» Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 9,855. This is the highest number recorded in the state since October 18 when 10,259 new cases were reported

» The death toll increased to 1,57,435 with 89 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed

MYANMAR PROTESTERS, UNDAUNTED BY 38 KILLINGS, RETURN TO STREETS PG8

SC DIRECTS PVT HOSPITALS TO GIVE PRIORITY TO ELDERLY PG4

WANT OUR STUDENTS TO BE ‘JOB PROVIDERS, NOT JOB SEEKERS’: SISODIA PG3

‘I HAD THE BIGGEST SHOCK OF MY LIFE’ PG12

In today’s paper

...CITY

MAX TEMP SETTLES AT 33.9 DEG C 3

NATION

‘CURBS ON HURRIYAT LEADER LIFTED’ 6

EDIT

THE NEW FRONTIER 7

INTERNATIONAL

GERMANY EXTENDS LOCKDOWN 8

BUSINESS

FDI UP 40% TO $51.47 BN IN APR-DEC 10

SPORT

ASHWIN, AXAR BUNDLE OUT ENG 11

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In a major decision, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO) apex decision-making body Central Board of Trustees has on Thursday decided to fix rate of interest at 8.5 per cent for 2020-21 for its more than five crore active subscribers. The decision in this regard has been taken at a meeting held in Srinagar.

Besides, the Central Board has also extended its provident fund, pension and insurance ben-efits to employees of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh who are working in existing establish-ments covered under the erstwhile JK PF Act.

“The Central Board of Trustees (CBT) rec-ommended 8.50 per cent annual rate of interest to be credited on EPF accumulations in mem-bers’ accounts for the financial year 2020-21,” a labour ministry statement said.

As per the state statement, the 228th meet-ing of the CBT, EPFO was held on Thursday in Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir under the chair-manship of Union Minister of State for Labour & Employment (I/C) Santosh Kumar Gangwar.

As per the practice, the CBT decision on interest rate would be sent to the Finance Min-istry for concurrence. After getting the finance ministry’s nod, the 8.5 per cent rate of interest for this fiscal would be credited into the EPFO subscribers’ accounts. Continued on P6

EPFO retains 8.5% interest on deposits

for 2020-21

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Bengaluru was adjudged the most liveable among 111 cities in India in the govern-ment’s ‘Ease of Living Index’ on Thursday, followed by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Surat, Navi Mumbai, Coimbatore, Vadodra, Indore and Greater Mumbai.

Of the 49 cities ranked on liv-ability index in the ‘million-plus population’ category, Delhi fig-ures at the 13th spot and Srinagar at the bottom.

According to the index released by Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, Shimla topped the cat-egory of cities with ‘population less than million’.

In this category, Bhubaneshwar was ranked second, Silvassa came third, and they were followed by Kakinada, Salem, Vellore, Gandhi-

nagar, Gurgaon, Davangere and Tiruchirapalli.

Muzaffarpur was at the bot-tom of the list of 62 cities that were ranked on livability index in the ‘less than million popula-

tion’ category.Ghaziabad and Meerut figured

at the 30th and the 36th spot in the ‘million-plus population’ category respectively, while Allahabad is at the 32nd position and is fol-

lowed by Patna (33rd). Faridabad is ranked 40th in this category.

Performance of the cities have been measured on four broad parameters governance and social, physical and economic infrastructure.

The government said the ‘Ease of Living Index’ is an assessment tool that evaluates the quality of life and the impact of various ini-tiatives for urban development.

A total of 32.2 lakh people residing across 111 cities partici-pated in a ‘Citizen Perception Sur-vey’ holding a weightage of 30 per cent. “These cities have emerged as models of development who will inspire others to perform better. Further, their peers will also ben-efit from emulating their best prac-tices,” Puri said.

Indore topped the ‘Munici-pal Performance Index’, involv-ing 51 municipal corporations in

the million-plus population cat-egory, while Guwahati figured at the bottom.

In this category, Surat came second, followed by Bhopal, Pim-pri Chinchawad, Pune, Ahmed-abad, Raipur, Greater Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Vadodara.

New Delhi Municipal Coun-cil topped the ‘Municipal Per-formance Index 2020’ in the ‘less than million’ population category. It is followed by Tirupati, Gandhi-nagar, Karnal, Salem, Tiruppur, Bilaspur, Udaipur, Jhansi and Tirunelveli. Shillong is at the bot-tom of this list featuring 60 munic-ipal corporations.

The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry said that the ‘Municipal Performance Index’ is an effort to assess and analyse the performance of Indian municipal-ities based on their defined set of functions. WITH AGENCY INPUTS

Ease of Living Index: Bengaluru, Shimla ‘most liveable’ cities, Delhi at 13th spot

NEW DELHI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL RANKS NO.1 IN CENTRE’S ‘MUNICIPAL PERFORMANCE INDEX’ Renew driving licence using Aadhaar as 18

RTO services now online OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Those who want to get their driving licence renewed or want a duplicate licence don’t need to visit the RTO office anymore as the government has imple-mented online facilities for 18 services, including driving licence renewal, learner’s licence, and duplicate licence. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on Thurs-day introduced contactless services through Aadhaar verification.

The decision has been made after a gov-ernment notification that asked to link the driving license and RC to Aadhaar.

Following are the RTO services that can be availed using Aadhaar authentication: Learner’s licence, renewal of driving licence (for which test of competence to drive is not required), duplicate driving licence, change of address in driving licence and certificate of registration, issue of international driving permit, surrender of class of vehicle from licence, application for temporary registra-tion of motor vehicle, application for regis-tration of motor vehicle with fully built body, application for issue of duplicate certificate of registration, Continued on P6

CitizenPerception

Survey

India's 10 Most Liveable Cities

Bengaluru

Pune

Ahmedabad

Chennai

Surat

Navi Mumbai

Coimbatore

Vadodara

Indore

Greater Mumbai

66.70

66.27

64.87

62.61

61.73

61.60

59.72

59.24

58.58

58.23

Shimla

Bhubaneswar

Silvassa

Kakinada

Salem

Vellore

Gandhinagar

Gurugram

Davanagere

Tiruchirappalli

60.90

59.85

58.43

56.84

56.40

56.38

56.25

56.00

55.25

55.24

Based on Ease of Living Index 2020With population

over a million

With population

less than a million

KBK graphicsInfoSource: Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs

Qualityof Life

Economic AbilitySustainability

35%

15%

30%

20%

FrameworkWeightage

Score Score

PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA

Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal receive first dose of COVID-19 vaccine PTI

NEW DELHI|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpost

Although every possible care and caution has been taken to avoid errors or omissions, this publication is being sold on the condition and understanding that information given in this publication is merely for reference and must not be taken as having authority of or binding in any way on the writers, editors, publishers, and printers and sellers who do not owe any responsibility for any damage or loss to any person, a purchaser of this publication or not for the result of any action taken on the basis of this work. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent court and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only

Printed and Published by Jaiyendra Kumar Sharma on behalf of Front Row Media Pvt. Ltd. and printed at The Indian Express Pvt. Ltd., A-8, Sector-7, Noida-201 301 (U.P.) and published from First Floor, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002. Editor: Durbar Ganguly. Email: [email protected], Tel. No. 011-47777500

mp city2UNNATURAL DEATH OF FARMER IN R-DAY VIOLENCE TRACTOR PARADE VIOLENCE

THIS WOMEN'S DAY

EN ROUTE

Farmers board a train as they leave for Delhi to join the ongoing agitation in Amritsar, Thursday PIC/PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A 30-year-old civil defence volunteer acci-dentally shot himself and then cooked up a story of being shot allegedly by two bike-borne men in South Delhi's Neb Sarai area to mislead investigators, police said on Thursday.

Police said a PCR call was received on March 3 regard-ing a firing incident at Indira Enclave at Neb Sarai. On enquiry, it was discovered that the victim one Sujeet Kumar who also works as a driver, lives with his wife and a 10-year-old son at a rented

house at Indira Enclave in the Neb Sarai area told he was smoking a cigarette at the cor-ner of a park near his house when two men on a motor-cycle came there. They had an argument over a petty issue following which they fired at him and fled the spot, a senior police officer said. The vic-tim is undergoing treatment at the AIIMS Trauma Centre and is out of danger. During the investigation, police found several discrepancies in the accused's statement.

Kumar was then re-exam-ined at length during which he confessed that he had a

fight with the boys living in the neighbourhood 15 days back and identified them as Sumit, Arjun and Vicky fol-lowing which all three were examined.

During interrogation, the boys disclosed that Kumar was carrying a pistol and had shown it to them. Kumar then took it to his room and later came out of his room with a bullet injury, along with his wife. "They offered to help him but he denied and instead made a call to the police. They also saw his wife taking the pistol with her and leaving her room locked," police said.

Man accidently shoots self, cooks up story

DWARKA: ONE KILLED AND ANOTHER SERIOUSLY INJURED IN ROAD ACCIDENTNEW DELHI: A 22-year-old man was killed while another got seriously injured after a speeding car rammed into another car in Dwarka here in the early hours of Thursday, police said. The deceased was identified as Akash Rana (22), a resident of Hary-ana's Panipat. His colleague Rahul Rana (23) was seriously injured in the incident and was admitted to the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, the police said. The deceased and the injured man worked in an insurance company. They were returning from a hotel in Dwarka sector 22 after attending an office party, a senior police officer said.

ASHRAM CROSSING DIVERSIONS FOR SMOOTH TRAFFIC FLOW: DELHI POLICENEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Thursday said that due to the traffic bottleneck created at the Ashram crossing, the PWD has increased its resources and is now closing the straight and right turning traffic under Ashram flyover coming from Sarai Kale Khan. "These motorists will now take mandatory left turn onto Mathura Road and take a 'U' turn from New Friends Colony Red light to come back to Ashram Chowk for heading straight towards Nizamuddin, Mathura Road or turning left towards Moolchand Hospital, Ring Road, " traffic police said. Meanwhile, it added that there is no diversion for straight mov-ing traffic over Ashram flyover on both the carriage-ways.

NEWS AT A GLANCE

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday directed the Uttar Pradesh Police to hando-ver the original X-Ray plate and video of post-mortem of Navreet Singh, the 25-year-old farmer who died under mys-terious circumstances during the Republic Day violence near ITO here, to the Delhi Police.

This comes after the UP Police initially denied to trans-fer these documents to the Delhi Police unless ordered by a court.

While both the Delhi Police and the UP Police have said Navreet's death was a result of his rash driving leading to an accident, the victim's father has approached the Delhi High Court, with the allegation that he was first shot by the police.

When Navreet's father, Hardeep Singh, sought a copy of the X-Ray report and video of the post-mortem from the UP Police, they were told that the X-Ray report does not exist but the X-Ray plate could be accessed.

Justice Yogesh Khanna said let both the original documents be handed over to the official of Delhi Police on March 5 at 2 PM and they shall be retained by the investigating officer in

safe custody.The high court was hear-

ing a plea by deceased Navreet Singh's grandfather — Hardeep Singh — claiming that the vic-tim suffered gunshot injuries to his head. His post-mortem was conducted at Rampur dis-trict hospital in Uttar Pradesh.

However, both the Delhi and Uttar Pradesh Police claimed before the court that Navreet did not suffer any gun-shot wounds.

Advocate Garima Pra-shad, representing the Uttar Pradesh Police and the CMO

of the hospital, said they do not have X-Ray report and they only have the X-Ray plate and the post-mortem report which they are willing to handover to the Delhi Police on the date and time fixed by the court.

She said the original post-mortem and inquest reports have already been handed over to the Delhi Police.

Advocate Vrinda Grover, representing the petitioner, sought a copy of the X-Ray report and post-mortem and inquest reports.

As Mehra stated that they

have no objection in giving those documents to the peti-tioner, the high court said, let the needful be done and listed the matter for further hearing on March 17.

Grover also said once the original X-Ray plate is received from the Uttar Pradesh Police, the court can ask AIIMS or any other forensic depart-ment to prepare a report out of the X-Ray plate for their

perusal.Delhi Police had earlier said

that according to the post-mor-tem report the young farmer died due to a head injury as a result of the accident and all his injuries were possible in a road accident.

The petition, also filed through advocate Soutik Banerjee, has sought a court-monitored SIT probe into the death of the young farmer.

Handover post-mortem video, X-Ray plate to Delhi Police: HC

Farmer, retd Army man get bail, court notes service to country

The UP Police had initially denied to transfer these documents without a court order

NIKITA JAIN

NEW DELHI: Dalit Labour activist Shiv Kumar, president of Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan was released from jail on Thurs-day after he was granted bail in the third case for which he was arrested by the Haryana Police. A local court in Sonipat granted him bail in the third case, fol-lowing which he was released.

Speaking to Millennium Post, Rajbir, Shiv Kumar’s father said, “He has been advised rest as his health is not good so we

will see what to do next. I am happy that he is out. I am glad to see him as determined as before.”

Kumar was arrested by Haryana Police on January 16, along with her associate and Dalit labour rights activ-ist Nodeep Kaur, who was also granted bail by the court.

While in two cases, he was granted bail on Wednesday, in the third case, he was granted bail on Thursday.

Sonipat Sessions Judge, Yas-hvir Singh Rathor granted him

bail in the third case registered against him Under Sections 148, 149, 332, 353, 186, 384, 379-B, 307 IPC.

After briefly noting the facts of the Case, the Court granted him bail by stating, "Co-accused namely Nodeep Kaur, whose case is identi-cal to that of applicant, has been released on bail by the Hon'ble High Court vide order (Y.S. Rathor) Sessions Judge, Sonipat, 04.03.2021 -3- dated 26.02.2021 in CRM-M No.7398 of 2021. In these circumstances, applicant is thus entitled to be released on bail on the ground of parity."

The Police had named Kumar and Kaur in three FIRs filed in connection with the January 12 incident, which includes charges of attempt to murder, theft and extortion.

Advocate Jatinder Kumar appeared on behalf of Kumar who filed his bail plea in all three cases, once Nodeep Kaur was released.

Both the activists had said they were tortured in police custody, which is supported by medical examination reports but denied by the state govern-ment in Haryana.

Dalit activist Shiv Kumar walks out of jail after bail in third case

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Thursday arrested one educa-tion counsellor from Assam in a robbery case of Rs 10 lakh. Police said the accused was also involved in the murder case of his mother.

Police said on February 27, complainant Rakesh said he went to collect a payment of Rs 10 lakh from Karol Bagh follow-ing which they were returning to their shop and when they reached near 25 Block, Shakti Nagar, two people on a bike robbed the bag containing the cash and fled the spot. Dur-ing the probe, two people were nabbed. The main conspirator turns out to be one education counsellor identified as Lucky Noel.

"We first nabbed his associ-ate and the probe revealed that Noel fled to Assam to meet his wife. A team was sent and he was arrested," police said. Deputy Commissioner of Police(North) Anto Alphonse said during the interrogation, Noel disclosed that he was arrested for murder-ing his mother in a case regis-tered at Chhawla police station and remained in jail for 5 and half years.

Delhi riots: 2 get bail

Edu counsellor held for robbery

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: In a bid to recognise and celebrate the achievements of women on the occasion of International Women's Day this March 8, the Delhi Police on Thursday said that they will deploy max-imum women police staff in their respective work fields.

The Delhi Police have said that women comprise 13 per cent of their entire strength in terms of officers and other staff.

As per one official, on the upcoming International Wom-en's Day, all major traffic regu-lation duties shall be carried out by the female staff of the Traffic Unit. Male staff will only be allowed to be present in assisting roles only.

In addition to this, all the PCR vans shall have female staff either as van in-charge or assistants. "All police stations shall have female staff as duty officers. Male staff may remain in assisting roles only," the offi-cial said.

According to police, since most women colleges and girls' schools are functioning in online mode, female officers (DCPs/ACPs/inspectors) shall coordinate with respective col-lege, school managements so that they can have sessions with the students where they can

interact with them and guide them about various initiatives of Delhi Police and obtain feed-back of the expectations that the future generation has from the Delhi Police.

The female staff of Crime Against Women Cell (CAW), Special Police Unit for Women and Children (SPUWAC) cells of all districts will also be asked to visit female senior citizens registered in their respective districts along with the respec-tive beat staff to enquire about their well being and needs from the police if any.

"A vertical interaction ses-

sion cum open house for all ranks of female police officers shall also be conducted at the PHQ level. This shall be chaired by Special CP (HQ)," the police have said.

Delhi Police PRO Chin-moy Biswal said, women offi-cers, personnel are an integral part of the Delhi Police. "The women police personnel are working with the male coun-terparts shoulder to shoulder in all the spheres of policing," he said. According to the PRO, they have taken several steps to ensure women's safety in the Capital.

Delhi Police to maximise visibility of women cops on roads & in stns

Protesters on way to Gurudwara temporarily detained: Report

NOIDA starts crèche for staffers; GNIDA vacates illegal occupants; GDA holds draw for EWS homes

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Wednesday report-edly temporarily detained a group of protesters on their way to Gurudwara Rakabganj from the Singhu protest site, before releasing them at the Tilak Marg police station.

The Tribune reported that the group included 25 women and a child who were travel-ling in a tempo traveller which had Khalsa Panth and kisan morcha flags, and the author-ities allegedly flagged them down because of this near Chanakyapuri.

“They were stopped because their vehicle had Nishan Sahib and ‘kisan morcha’ flags. When they refused to remove them, an argument ensued and all women were held,” kisan mor-cha’s legal cell member Vasu Kukreja was quoted as saying in the report.

“As per the law, you can-not arrest or detain any woman after 7 pm or sunset. A two-year-old was also held. We will write to the human rights com-mission and to the Joint Com-missioner in this case and we may also file a case against them under the POCSO Act,” he was further quoted.

RAHUL SINGH

NOIDA/GHAZIABAD: In the view of addressing concerns of working parents who are forced to leave their children at home while performing their duties, NOIDA Chief Executive Officer, Ritu Maheshwari has now started a model crèche at the authority’s offices in Sector 6 of Noida. The new facility is part of the Mis-sion Shakti programme, which is focused on women empow-erment, their health, safety and self-reliance.

The model crèche has both learning as well as playing facili-ties for children and will be free for the children of authority staff-ers/officers. There will be an open area for playing, games, colouring books, crayons and many other facilities to entertain kids, said a senior officer.

“A kitchen is also being oper-ated to provide hygienic food to the children while a caretaker who can not only look after chil-dren but can also teach them has also been appointed by the authority at the model crèche” he added.

Officials said that the author-ity officials having children in the age group of six months to eight years can avail the facili-ties of the creche.

Meanwhile, the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority has freed land worth

crores which they claimed was illegally occupied by encroach-ers and construction activities. The drive was carried out ear-lier this week, in Work Circle 2 of Greater Noida.

“The authority teams have identified illegally occupied lands and issued notices to those who were doing construction on these lands. However, when several notices went unheard, orders of demolitions in order to free the land were issued and the authority teams in the presence of heavy police force performed the demolition activity on Tuesday,” said a senior authority officer.

As per Greater noida author-ity officials, over 50 thousand square meters of land has been vacated during the drive. “A total of 5.805 hectares around 58,050 square meters of land worth Rs 13.41 crore has been vacated by the authority during the drive. Similar drives will continue in the future also,” the officer added.

Furthermore, the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA), on Thursday, conducted a draw for EWS houses under various housing schemes at the Hindi Bhawan located in Lohia Nagar, through a lottery system.

Officials said that a total of 105 houses were allotted which included 64 EWS houses in the Madhuban Bapudham enclave and 41 under the Indraprastha housing scheme.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A court here on Thursday granted bail to two people accused in a north-east Delhi riots case, saying their presence was natural at the scene of the crime as they resided in the vicinity.

Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat granted bail to Mohd Shariq and Mohd Shahzad on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 15,000 with one surety of like amount each in the case of alleged murder of one Prem Singh during the riots in the Welcome area.

The court noted that both the accused were arrested in November last year, almost seven months after the FIR was registered.

It said though the witnesses were there, yet no judicial test identification parade has been conducted and the alleged identi-fication of the accused had taken place on the basis of their black and white photographs.

"As per prosecution, Imran

was identified as a person who had held Prem Singh and Asif as the one who stabbed Prem Singh. The applicant's (Shariq's) role is that of participation in the unlawful assembly also consti-tuting of accused Imran and Asif and thereby murder by way of imputation under section 149 (unlawful assembly) IPC.

"The accused (Shariq and Shahzad) resides in the vicin-ity of the scene of the crime and therefore their presence near the scene of crime was but natural," it said in its order.

The court directed them not to leave Delhi without its prior permission and not to tamper with evidence.

During the hearing, advocate Pritish Sabharwal, appearing for both the accused, claimed they have been falsely implicated in the case.

Special Public Prosecutor Anuj Handa, appearing for the police, opposed the bail pleas saying Shariq and Shahzad alleg-edly were part of the unlawful assembly that had stabbed Singh.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Thursday granted bail to a farmer and a retired Army officer in a case related to the violence on Republic Day during the farm-ers' tractor parade against the Centre's three new agri laws.

Baljeet is a farmer by pro-fession and lives in Haridwar, Uttarakhand, and Harjinder is a retired Army Officer from 9 Sikh Light Infantry Battalion of the Indian Army and served for 17 years. According to the police, Baljeet and Harjinder were detained on January 26 at Chintamani Chowk, since at around 12.50 pm, around 500 protesters on tractors and cars were coming from Apsara Bor-der flyover and they had alleg-edly broken the barricade in a violent manner.

Police further alleged that people driving tractors had tried to run over the police personnel

deployed there.While granting bail to both,

the court said even as per the prosecution both the accused were not driving the tractor nor did they attempt to kill or hurt any police personnel themselves.

"However, even as per the prosecution, the present appli-cant (Harjinder) was not driving the tractor nor did he attempt to kill or hurt any police person-nel himself. The best case of the prosecution is that he had partici-pated in the said rally/unlawful assembly on January 26, 2021, at the relevant time thereby attract-ing imputation under section 149 (unlawful assembly) IPC.

"The accused is in custody since January 26, 2021, and no purpose will be served by keep-ing him in custody any further. There is no previous record of the accused nor there are any allegations of tampering with evidence," the court said in its

similar order passed in both the cases.

Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat granted the relief to Baljeet Singh and Harjinder Singh on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 15,000 with one surety of like amount in the case of the violence in the Seemapuri area.

While granting bail to Har-jinder, the court further noted apart from clean antecedents that the accused has, he has also served the country and is a retired Army Officer.

Harjinder's counsel said he had also served in the Gender and Peacekeeping Operations abroad.

During the hearing, advo-cates Tejpartap Singh and Jas-preet Singh Rai, appearing for both the accused, claimed they have been falsely implicated in the case and were not driving any tractor in the farmers' parade nor did they break any police barricades.

'All police stations shall have female staff as duty officers. Male staff may remain in assisting roles only'

mp city 3

COURT DISCHARGES FORMER OSD OF DELHI HEALTH MIN IN GRAFT CASENEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Thursday discharged Dr Nikunj Aggarwal, the former OSD of Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain, in connection with a case related to alleged irregularities in his appointment in a state-run children hospital here. The court also dischaged Dr Anup Mohta, former director of Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, in the case. According to the prosecution, Dr. Anup Mohta, while being posted as Director, Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, approved appointment of Dr. Nikunj Aggarwal to the post of Sr. Resident (Ortho) on ad hoc basis. The prosecution had alleged that his appointment was illegal and was made in total disregard of rules and procedure and at the relevant time there was no post of Sr. Resident (Ortho) vacant in CNBC.

MAX TEMP SETTLES AT 33.9 DEGREES CNEW DELHI: It was a clear and warm day in Delhi with the maximum temperature settling at 33.9 degrees Celsius on Thursday, the India Meteorologi-cal Department said. The minimum temperature in the national capital settled at 12.2 degrees Celsius, the Met office said. Among various stations in the capital, Pitampura was the warmest with maximum tempera-ture of 34.6 degrees Celsius followed by Ridge and Pusa with 34.1 and 34 degrees Celsius, respectively. The weatherman has forecast mainly clear sky for Friday with mist in the morning.

66TH INTER DIVISIONAL FLOWER SHOW ORGANISED AT SAROJINI NAGARNEW DELHI: The 66th Inter Divisional Flower Show was organised in Railway Nursery at Sarojini Nagar. The Flower Show was inaugurated by Shikha Gan-gal, President, NRWWO. In this event, participants from Lucknow, Moradabad, Ambala, Firozpur, Delhi Divisions & Construction Department exhibited beautiful plants and flowers. Ashutosh Gangal, GM Northern Railway alongwith S. C. Jain DRM Delhi, senior officers from Northern Railway Headquarters and officers of the participating divisions were pres-ent. Beautiful flowering plants like Salvia, Clarkia, Viola, sundaria and many more were exhibited dur-ing the event. Delhi Division was declared winner by the judges.

COCHLEAR IMPLANT FACILITY FOR INFANTS INTRODUCED BY DELHI GOVTNEW DELHI: On Thursday, Health Minister of Delhi, Satyendar Jain along with S.K. Bagga, MLA of Krishna Nagar and other officials inaugurated the Cochlear Implant Facility at Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya. During the event, Jain spoke about the importance of checking for hearing disability for every newborn child before discharge. Jain further added, "Once detected and if the hearing disability is curable, the cochlear implants should be made available to all. If 500 children need Cochlear Im-plants, then not even one child should be left."

NEWS AT A GLANCE

millenniumpost|NEW DELHI|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021

TOTAL CASES6,40,182HOME ISOLATION

870ACTIVE CASES

1,701

DELHI COUNT

COVID-19

LIVE AND LET LIVE

Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal and his wife Mala Bhagat pose for photographs after receiving the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, during the second phase of a countrywide inoculation drive, at Tirath Ram Shah Hospital in New Delhi, on Thursday PTI

66,432 TESTS CONDUCTED IN A DAY | POSITIVITY RATE 0.39%

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: As COVID-19 vaccinations in the Capital see a rise after having roped in private facilities, so has the number of new Coronavirus infections with Delhi on Thurs-day reporting 261 new cases and one more death. The pre-vious day, the city had reported 240 new cases.

The total tally of cases in the city has now surpassed 6.4 lakh with the death toll from the virus at 10,915.

Meanwhile, 27,959 were administered vaccine shots on Thursday, with most of them coming from private hospitals and healthcare facilities.

According to the data shared by the Delhi govern-ment, 69 per cent (11,344) of the vaccinations were under-taken at private facilities and 31 per cent (5,159 at govern-ment facilities.

Of the total number of peo-ple vaccinated on Thursday, the Delhi government said over 23,000 people received their first dose while only about

4,809 turned up for their sec-ond dose.

Further bifurcating the data, the Delhi government said that 14,328 people above

the age of 60 were vaccinated and 2,175 people between the ages of 45 and 59 with comor-bidities got their first shot on Thursday.

Moreover, 4,413 frontline workers and 2,234 health-care workers took the jab on Thursday.

Of total vaccinations, the Delhi government went on to say that six minor cases of after-effects following immunisation were reported.

The Capital has seen a con-sistent rise in Covid-19 infec-tions since the beginning of last month. While active cases were hovering around 1,000 as of February beginning, they have now crossed 1,700, with over 800 of them recovering under home isolation.

The new cases on Thurs-day came out of the 66,432 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, leaving the daily positivity rate at 0.39 per cent. The daily posi-tivity rate has been below one per cent ever since the city overcame the third wave of infections right after the fes-tive season last year.

Capital sees 261 new Covid cases, one death; nearly 28,000 get shots OUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM/NOIDA: Guru-gram on Thursday reported 52 new COVID-19 cases, tak-ing the tally here to 59,173. 36 recoveries were also reported, taking total recoveries to 58,449. There are 366 active patients, of which 315 are under home iso-lation. A total of over 8.34 lakh samples have been collected in Gurugram to date.

Meanwhile, Gautam Bud-dh Nagar recorded 13 new COVID-19 cases on Thurs-day that pushed the district's infection tally to 25,568, official data showed. The active cases in the district remained at 69 as it was the previous day, accord-ing to data released by the Uttar Pradesh Health Department for a 24-hour period.

Another 13 patients got dis-charged during the period with the overall recoveries reaching 25,408, the fifth highest in the state. Gautam Buddh Nagar has a death toll of 91 with a mor-tality rate of 0.35 per cent. The recovery rate of patients remained 99.37 per cent.

Ggm reports 52 new cases, Noida sees 13

KRISHANGI SINHA

NEW DELHI: "There is noth-ing to fear," Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said after stepping out of the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital, where he was administered his first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. He exhorted everyone in the city to dispel fears and get vaccinated at the earliest.

The CM said, “The LNJP Hospital has made adequate arrangements for administer-ing the vaccination, and the doctors and medical staff have made all proper arrangements. Everybody should get the Covid-19 vaccine, they should resolve all the doubts they had in their minds. There is noth-ing to fear."

Kejriwal, 52, is diabetic and the inoculation was done as part of the second phase of the vaccination drive in the coun-try, which began on March 1, covering people above 60 years of age, those above 45 years with comorbidities. The vac-cine is being administered at 192 hospitals across Delhi dur-ing this phase.

The CM on Thursday also said that his government

would be expanding its vac-cine administering capabili-ties by opening as many more centres as required. "We are constantly in touch with The central government, and we are working on their directions. As and when we receive further directions, we will increase the number of vaccination centres. I and my parents have been administered the Covidshield vaccine. We have enough stock of the vaccine. All the doubts in the minds of the people have dispersed," Kejriwal said.

The CM further insisted that people come out and get the jab. He said, “I have got the vaccination done and the other cabinet ministers are doing it. Eventually, other people are also coming forward and get-ting the vaccination done."

Over 25,000 beneficiaries, including 13,794 senior citizens received shots of the COVID-19 vaccine in the national capi-tal on Wednesday, according to data shared by an official.

The CM has taken his vac-cine at a time when COVID-19 cases in the Capital are showing signs of going up again with active cases consistently rising for over one month now.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Introduction of an MBA course in 'Family Busi-ness and Entrepreneurship' at Delhi Technological University will enhance businesses not just in the city but in the entire coun-try, Deputy Chief Minister Man-ish Sisodia said on Thursday.

During his visit to DTU, he said that a course like 'Fam-ily Business and Entrepreneur-ship' would empower students to become "job providers, not job seekers", and enable them to both enhance their own family businesses or start a new busi-ness on a fresh idea.

"My dream for India is that the students who graduate from our universities should become entrepreneurs and cre-ate employment opportunities. Our universities have equipped our students in a way that they are able to get high salaries in world renowned companies.

"But, for our nation's prog-ress it's important that the uni-versities equip our students with entrepreneurial skills and help them create jobs. It's my dream to see our universities become well-spring of entrepreneurs," he said.

Sisodia added that his goal was to make this course "a global brand for entrepreneurship on the lines of the Babson College in the United States".

Noting that one of the major problems caused by the pan-demic was unemployment, Sisodia said that through the

introduction of such pro-grammes, DTU was aim-ing to mitigate problems of unemployment.

"More than 2.5 lakh stu-dents graduate from schools in Delhi, looking for jobs, but nobody thinks of becoming a job provider.

"Professional universities of developed countries are rop-ing in students from all over the world to enhance their own economies. It should be the pre-rogative of our universities to empower students to contrib-ute to our nation's economy," he said.

During his visit, Sisodia also inaugurated the Manthan Hall of University School of Manage-ment and Entrepreneurship at the east campus of DTU.

'Nothing to fear,' says CM, exhorts

all to sign up

Govt flags 'paperwork delay' in illegal liquor casesABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: The Excise Department of the Delhi gov-ernment has now shot off a let-ter to the Delhi Police, raising their grievance that paperwork in cases related to violations of the Excise Act and illegal liquor was being delayed and sought that such paperwork be completed within a dead-line for a speedy resolution of the process.

The office of Commissioner of Excise, Entertainment and Luxury taxes, Delhi Govern-ment has written to Delhi Police regarding providing pro-duction reports of case prop-

erty and compliance report of notices which were issued under Delhi Excise Act 2009.

As per sources, the Excise department informed the city police that a large number of vehicles are seized, confis-cated under section 58 of the Delhi Excise Act 2009 which are found involved in the sup-ply of illicit liquor and are lying with concerned police stations for further disposal for months on end, which was resulting in the value of the property depreciating.

"Such delays also cause the vehicles to occupy the space for a longer time in concerned police stations," the depart-

ment told city police.The department has

decided that the production report beyond one month time from the date of seizing of case property under section 33 of Delhi Excise Act 2009 shall only be accepted in the depart-ment with the approval of the DCP concerned. But an official in city police told Millennium Post that in such cases, they inform the Excise department about such vehicles within 30 days of seizure.

The department further told Delhi Police that they have also noticed that com-pliance reports of service of notices issued under section

59 of Delhi Excise Act 2009 are not received timely from con-cerned police stations despite given sufficient time to serve the notices to the owners of vehicles seized by Delhi Police under sections 33, 58 of Delhi Excise Act 2009 which cause undue delay in taking decisions in these cases. In such matters, the department has already issued letters to DCPs in 2009 and 2020.

Delhi Police registered 5,186 cases under Excise Act last year and recovered 6,33,549 bottles of country-made liquor, 62,425 bottles of IMFL and 14,176 bottles of beer along with arresting 5,660 people.

Want our students to be 'job providers, not job seekers': Sisodia

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In the Delhi government's third session under its initiative to have civil servants talk to aspiring stu-dents about the secrets to suc-cess, IAS officers Neha Bansal and Udit Prakash Rai interacted with students at the Vikaspuri Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, which was also attended by around 4,000 students through an online stream.

Both the officers shared their preparation tips and strat-egies for the coveted UPSC exam.

During the session, Bansal said that the students should choose subjects based on their interests and shared that she

herself could not complete the exam thrice, but she did not give up and this is what the students should realise before starting their preparation. Hard work and focus are the keys to success in this exam. “The most difficult moments in your life teach you the most significant life lessons,” Bansal said.

Rai, who is also a Direc-tor-level officer in the Delhi government's Education Department, said, “We were also like you and used to sit on the same chairs. If you work hard, you will also become suc-cessful and interact with stu-dents as we are interacting with you today.”

He further went on to say that if serving one’s country is

one’s purpose then the failures will not demotivate anyone. He also cleared out a major mis-conception among students about students with liberal arts backgrounds not doing well in the UPSC exams.

He told them that many of the applications that are suc-cessful in this exam are from the arts stream.

One of the main reasons for the Delhi Government to start these programs was to remove the myths associated with civil services preparation from the minds of the young students, Rai said.

IAS prelims are scheduled to happen on June 21, 2021, and the main exam on Septem-ber 17, 2021.

Pick subjects based on interests: IAS officers tell Delhi govt school students

NEW DELHI: The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has been ranked first in the ‘less than a mil-lion population’ category on the Municipal Perfor-mance Index 2020, and has received a National Award from the Ministry of Hous-ing and Urban Affairs. On Thursday, NDMC Chairman Dharmendra accepted the civic body’s ‘Best Perform-ing Municipality’ laurel from the MoHUA Minister.

“Our endeavour has been to improve and provide its citizens an outstanding quality of life", the NDMC Chairman said. MPOST

NDMC is No. 1 in Municipal Performance

Index 2020CHHAVIANSHIKA SINGH

NEW DELHI: The NDMC workers union has sent a legal notice to the civic body’s Secre-tary and Chief Vigilance Officer for not following CVC guide-lines in relation with transfers and appointments made to vari-ous positions within the organ-isation. The notice was issued on March 3.

Sudhakar Kumar, President of Nai Dilli Palika Karamchari Sangh, said, “I had filed an RTI petition because I wanted to find out if the same official can hold an important sensitive post for 10 to 15 years and avoid get-ting transferred. According to Central Vigilance Commission guidelines, and NDMC’s own DoPT (Department of Person-nel and Training) regulations, an official can hold his/her post-ing only for 3 years at a time. Hence, our union has served a legal notice”.

The notice has been issued through the Chief Commis-sioner-Central Vigilance Commission, Joint Secretary-Ministry of Home Affairs, and Director (Personnel) NDMC. The notice also states that nine letters about the same subject have been issued on behalf of the petitioner earlier, the first one dating as far back as Sep-tember 2017.

The notice states that the NDMC DoPT has not formu-

lated transfer policies, even for sensitive posts, which is in non-compliance with Supreme Court of India guidelines.

As a case in point, the legal notice states an example. “For Example Establishment Sec-tion of Personnel Department is the centre where policy is to be implemented but in NDMC Shri Satpal Singh who was ear-lier Head Assistant in Estab-lishment Branch was promoted to Section Officer and contin-ued posting in the same estab-lishment branch till date”. The Union wants that a ‘rotational transfer policy’ be framed and made available in the public domain in this regard.

NDMC Secretary Brij Mohan Mishra said that he was not yet aware about the issue and had not read the document in question yet. “I will respond to any queries once I have read through the legal notice and have been made fully aware of the issue in question”, he told Millennium Post.

NDMC union sends legal notice over 'irregular'

transfers, appointments

A medic administers the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine to Gobind Ran Kejriwal, father of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, during the second phase of a countrywide inoculation drive, at LNJP Hospital, on Thursday PTI

'My dream for India is that the students who graduate from

our universities should become

entrepreneurs and create employment

opportunities'

HC warns protesting MCD sanitation employees and union against throwing garbage on streetsNEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Thursday warned MCD's sanitation employees and unions, which are protest-ing against non-payment of sal-aries, against throwing garbage on the streets of the national capital and restraining other staff members of the corpora-tion from carrying out their duties. The high court, which assured the employees that they will get their salaries, said safai

karamcharis' of municipal cor-poration should understand that they are providing essential ser-vices and shall not indulge in any illegal activity.

The high court was informed by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) that sev-eral safai karamcharis union have called for a strike Friday and that they shall be restrained from throwing garbage on streets or hampering function-

ing of the corporation.Under no circumstances the

court will permit any act on part of the unions or its mem-bers which tantamount to tak-ing law in their hands, a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said.

The bench issued bailable warrants against the leaders of MCD Swachhata Karamchari Union, which has given a call for strike, for their non-appearance

in the matter.An office bearer of another

employees union present in the court submitted that they were aggrieved as they have not received salaries for vari-ous months.

He, however, assured the bench that the members of his union will not go on strike as the matter relating to non-payment of salaries was pend-ing in the court. AGENCIES

'I had filed an RTI petition because I

wanted to find out if the same official can hold an important

sensitive post for 10 to 15 years and avoid

getting transferred'

PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA

NEW DELHI|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpostmp nation4

SC directs pvt hospitals to give priority to elderly

Earlier, it had directed only govt hosps to give priority in admission, treatment of elderly looking at their vulnerability to pandemic

Man dies a day after taking anti-Covid jab

KOTA: A 60-year-old man died here on Thursday, a day after taking his first anti-Covid vac-cination shot at a government primary health centre with authorities saying his post mor-tem has been conducted to find out the exact cause of his death.

The autopsy was conducted by a medical board on the demand of his family members suspecting complications aris-ing out of vaccination, Deoli-Manji police station's SHO Ramavatar Sharma.

He added that following the man's death, a case has been registered under section 174 of CrPC to find out the exact cause of the unnatural death.

A resident of Garmodi vil-lage in Kota district, Bahadur Singh Rajput had got his first dose of the anti-Covid vaccina-tion at a government primary health centre in Baluheda area under the Deoli-Manji police station on Wednesday after-noon, the SHO said.

He added that the man was

sent back home after 30 minutes of observation of his condition after the vaccination at the PHC.

Singh's family members told police that Singh felt dizziness and collapsed while taking his tea on Thursday morning fol-lowing which they rushed him to the government community health centre at Kaithun town where the doctors declared him brought dead , the SHO said.

Dr Devender Jhalani, the Kota's Reproductive Child Health Officer and in-charge of the anti-Covid vaccination in the district, ruled out any com-plication out of the vaccination as the possible cause of death.

Dr Jhalani said a total of 114 people had been given the vac-cine on Wednesday in the dis-trict but no adverse reaction was reported by anyone.

The actual reason for the death can be ascertained only after the autopsy report of the medical board which conducted the postmortem is received, he added. AGENCIES

RAIPUR: Two cities of Chhat-tisgarh have successfully made their place in the top 10 cities of the country for their excellent performance under Munici-pal Performance Index. Rai-pur city has secured 7th rank in the country in the category of cities with population more than 10 lakh and Bilaspur city has secured 7th rank in the cat-egory of cities with population less than 10 lakh.

Urban administration bod-ies (government) of both the cities hold the 7th rank in the country for their excellent per-formance in providing basic civic amenities to the citizens.

Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India announced the results of Municipal Performance

Index competition on Thurs-day. Resullts were announced by Union Minister for Hous-ing and Urban Affairs, Hard-eep Singh Puri in New Delhi.

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel congratulated the citi-zens, public representatives and

urban administration depart-ment of Raipur and Bilaspur for this achievement. “It is a mat-ter of pride for us that Chhat-tisgarh is constantly being rewarded for the outstanding works done in the urban areas,” he said. It may be noted that last year, Central Government had conferred award upon Chhat-tisgarh for being the cleanest state in the country and also for better performance under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

While congratulating the city dwellers and departmental officials on this achievement, Urban Administration Minis-ter Dr. Shivkumar Dahria, has asked the officials concerned and the citizens of the state to keep up the great performance in future as well.

Two cities of Chhattisgarh secure position in top 10 cities of country

MUNICIPAL PERFORMANCE INDEX

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SHIMLA: Rejecting Congress MLAs’ plea to revoke suspen-sion of five legislators, includ-ing Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said he was ready to make CCTV footage of the assembly’s clash and manhan-dling of the Governor public.

The offer came in the morn-ing after Congress MLAs decided to absent themselves from the House, held a protest and raised slogans against the government in the state assem-bly complex.

Later all the MLAs also joined the dharna which five MLAs had started outside the assembly ever since their sus-pension from the House by the speaker Vipin Parmar for their misconduct and manhandling of the Governor Bandaru Dat-

tatreya on February 26.The opposition has rather

hardened the postures after for-mer Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh also reached the assem-bly first-time and joined the agitating members instead of attending the proceedings.

“Had I been Chief Min-ister and opposition behaved in the same manner, I would have resolved the crisis within 10 minutes. Chief Minister (Jai Ram Thakur) should have taken his advice in resolving the issue. You can’t keep the opposition out of the House indefinitely especially when the Budget was likely to be presented in next two days,” he said.

Chief Minister responded to Virbhadra Singh’s offer say-ing “I don’t want to add any-thing to what he has said. I respect him as senior politician and chief minister being such

a long time but it’s not neces-sary to follow his advice. I have my doubts how much his own party follows him.”

He recalled how the BJP MLAs, who were protesting at the Ridge when Virbhadra Singh was Chief Minister, got lathicharge. " Police action was ordered against us,” the Chief Minister said.

The conduct of the oppo-sition is unpardonable. They have exceeded the limits of decency in the democratic functioning of the legislature.Better they should all go and apologise to the Governor for their act.

He said since the opposition MLAs are not ready to believe the genuineness of the video footage of the private channels and media, the CCTV footage of the state assembly, if rules, permit can be made public or screened in the House to show.

Himachal CM offers to show footage of Assembly’s clash, Virbhadra joins protest

OUR CORRESPONDENT

CHANDIGARH: Effective steps taken by the State Gov-ernment ensuring growth of Cooperative Sugar Mills have proved beneficial as Haryana’s Cooperative Sugar Mill, Karnal has been selected for first prize for excellent development in the field of sugarcane process-ing. Besides this, the Cooper-ative Sugar Mill, Kaithal has been selected for second prize for its technical efficiency at the national level for the sea-son 2019-2020.

This was shared by the Haryana Cooperation Minister Dr. Banwari Lal here on Thurs-day. He said that these mills will be conferred with both the awards at the National Level Award Distribution Ceremony to be held in Vadodara (Guja-rat), organised by the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Mills, New Delhi on March 27 and March 28, 2021.

Expressing satisfaction over the consistent improvement in the efficiency of Cooperative Sugar Mills, Dr. Banwari Lal said that out of the 11 Coop-erative Sugar Mills of Haryana, the Cooperative Sugar Mill of Karnal has been selected at the national level for the devel-

opment of sugarcane and the Cooperative Sugar Mill of Kaithal has been selected for its technical efficiency. He informed that these two Coop-erative Sugar Mills have bagged these awards due to the reforms introduced in the Cooperative Sugar Mills and various steps taken by the present State Gov-ernment led by CM Manohar Lal. He also informed that Kai-thal's Sugar Mill has the dis-tinction of bagging this award thrice in the last four years (for crushing season 2016-17, 2018-19 and 2019-20).

Dr. Banwari Lal informed that during the current crush-ing season 2020-21, 24.56 lakh quintals of sugar has been pro-duced with an average sugar recovery of 9.48 per cent of the total crushing of 263.05 lakh quintals of sugarcane till March 2, 2021 as compared to the pre-vious crushing season 2019-20 during which 223.34 lakh quin-tal of sugarcane was crushed and 21.38 lakh quintal of sugar was produced.

He informed that by March 2, 2021, 263.20 lakh quintal of sugarcane has been purchased by all Cooperative Sugar Mills at a cost of Rs 920.80 crore, of which Rs 474.44 crore has been paid to the sugarcane farmers.

‘Haryana’s Cooperative Sugar Mills to be conferred

National Level Award’

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: In a move aimed at establishing the state-of-the-art infrastructure to promote manufacturing, foster innova-tion and create employment opportunities across sectors, the Jharkhand government has planned to organise stake-holders’ meet to seek inputs on draft Jharkhand Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy 2021 from key stakeholders comprising of experts, indus-try associations, industry lead-ers, entrepreneurs and others.

The stakeholders meeting is scheduled to be organised in the national capital on Saturday in the presence of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren. Apart from Soren, who is also state’s Industry Minister, the state’s Chief Secretary Sukhdeo Singh, Industry Secretary Puja Singhal, Industry Director Jitendra Kumar Singh and oth-ers would also be present at the stakeholders meet.

According the state gov-ernment officials, stakehold-ers from all the key industries such as food processing, tex-tiles, healthcare, pharmaceu-tics, electronic manufacturing,

electric vehicles, lighting engi-neering, etc would participate in the meeting and discuss dif-ferent aspects related to the formulation of the policy to promote industry and invest-ments in the state.

The Jharkhand government would also ink an agreement with the FICCI – a body of industrialists, the state officials said, adding that about 40 key industry leaders, experts, etc would participate in the meet-ing and share their suggestions for the proposed new industrial policy of the state.

The Jharkhand government has also proposed a 30 per cent subsidy on total capital invest-ment for developing any tour-ism facilities in its new tourism policy.

J'khand CM to meet experts for inputs on new industrial policy

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday directed that elderly people be given pri-ority in admissions at private hospitals besides at govern-ment medical institutions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A bench of justices Ashok Bhushan and R S Reddy modi-fied its earlier order of August 4, 2020, by which it had directed only government hospitals to give priority in admission and treatment of elderly people looking at their vulnerability to coronavirus.

We direct that the priority with reference to admission contemplated in order dated August 4, 2020 to the elderly people should also be given in the private hospitals. List the matter after four weeks, the bench said in its order.

During the hearing, senior advocate Ashwani Kumar, petitioner in-person, told the bench that in order dated August 4, last year this Court had directed that priority with reference to admission be given to the elderly people in the Government hospital only.

He said that priority in admission to the elderly peo-ple should be given in all pri-vate hospitals as well since it is mostly private hospitals which cater most of the population in the country.

The bench took note of sub-missions made by Kumar that except Odisha and Punjab no other state has given details about the steps taken in pur-suance of the earlier directions issued by the top court on his

plea.The top court granted three

weeks' time to all the States to respond to the fresh sugges-tions made by Kumar to pro-vide relief to the elderly people.

Kumar submitted that the states need to issue fresh Memorandum of Procedures (MoPs) in pursuance to the directions issued by the court.

He submitted that all the State Governments be directed to issue necessary procedures incorporating the directions issued by this Court regarding two Departments that is Health Department and Social Welfare Department.

He said that incorporating the directions in the MoP shall serve greater public interest and purpose.

Kumar, who is a former union minister, has sought directions with regard to elderly people saying they need

more care and protection amid the pandemic.

The top court had last year directed that all eligible old age persons should be regularly paid pension and states should provide them necessary med-icines, masks, sanitisers and other essential goods in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The apex court had said that looking at their vulnerability to coronavirus, elderly peo-ple should be given priority in admission in government hos-pitals and in the event of any complaint made by them, the hospital administration shall take immediate steps to rem-edy their grievances.

Kumar had earlier submit-ted that older people, who are living alone, are "worst suffer-ers" and they are not able to get medicines, masks, sanitis-ers and other essential goods.

While seeking direction for

timely payment of old age pen-sion to those who are receiving it, he had said that "caregivers of these people" are not equipped with personal protection equip-ment and are untrained.

The top court had said that it had already issued directions on December 13, 2018 in the matter and those directives were needed to be complied with by all concerned, includ-ing the states.

In its December 2018 ver-dict, the apex court had said that statutory rights of over 10 crore elderly persons in India must be recognised and implemented.

It had directed the Centre to obtain information from all states and Union Territories about the number of old age homes in each district and had also suggested a relook at the pension for the elderly so as to make it more realistic.

NEW DELHI: The Income Tax Department has detected financial irregularities of over Rs 650 crore after it raided two film production companies, two talent management com-panies and a leading actress, the Central Board of Direct Taxes claimed on Thursday but did not take any names.

The statement from the CBDT came as raids on the homes and offices of Bolly-wood actor Taapsee Pannu, director Anurag Kashyap and his partners who launched the now shuttered Phantom Films continued in Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad for the second day. The searches also covered some executives of celebrity and talent management com-panies KWAN and Exceed, officials said.

A day later, without nam-ing the people or companies searched, the CBDT said the entities searched were mainly engaged in the business of pro-duction of motion pictures, web series, acting, direction and talent management of celebrities and other artists.

Official sources identified the entities raided as Pannu and the four former promoters of Phantom Films -- Kashyap, director-producer Vikramad-itya Motwane, producer Vikas

Bahl and producer-distribu-tor Madhu Mantena. They also identified the celebrity and tal-ent management companies as Kwan and Exceed.

The second film pro-duction company that was raided belongs to Kashyap, the sources said. Evidence of huge suppression of income by the leading film production house compared to the actual box office collections has been unearthed," the statement from CBDT, the administrative body of the IT Department, claimed.

"The company officials have not been able to explain dis-crepancy of around Rs 300 crore," it said.

Evidence related to "manip-ulation and under-valuation" of share transactions of the production house amongst the film directors and share-holders, with a tax implication of about Rs 350 crore has also been found and is being fur-ther investigated, it alleged. "Evidence of cash receipts by the leading actress amounting to Rs 5 crore has been recov-ered and further investiga-tion is going on," the CBDT claimed.

Also, "non-genuine or bogus expenditure" to related concerns by the leading pro-ducers and directors having

tax implication of about Rs 20 crore has been detected, the statement said.

"Similar findings have been made in the case of the leading actress also," it alleged.

The statement added that "huge amount" of digital data has been seized in the form of emails, WhatsApp chats, hard disk from the offices of the two talent management companies.

A total of seven bank lock-ers were found and placed under restraint, the CBDT statement said.

The searches against Man-tena are also being carried out in context of his links with KWAN, of which he is a co-promoter, officials said. While Kwan's client list includes Deepika Padukone, Exceed manages Saif Ali Khan and Sonakshi Sinha among others.

Pannu, 33, and Kashyap, 48, both known to be outspo-ken in their views on a range of issues, were shooting in Pune on Wednesday and were understood to have been ques-tioned by the tax sleuths as part of the preliminary questioning that takes place during raids.

Kashyap and Pannu, who worked together in the 2018 film "Manmarziyaan", are now collaborating in the upcoming film "Dobaara". AGENCIES

Over Rs 650 cr discrepancies found after raids: I-T Dept

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Assembly was adjourned sine die on Thursday, a week ahead of the schedule, after the House passed the annual budget for 2021-22, the largest budget so far in the history of the state.

The government presented the last budget of its current ten-ure last week with an outlay of Rs 5,50,270.78 crore.

The first paperless budget of Uttar Pradesh, which intends to make the state "aatmanirb-har" (self-reliant) as Finance Minister Suresh Khanna put it, includes new schemes worth Rs 27,598.40 crore.

The brief session, which was to conclude on March 10, was curtailed following requests from lawmakers to wrap it up

so that they could campaign for the upcoming panchayat polls in the state.

As soon as the House met for the day, Khanna, who is also the parliamentary affairs minister, said due to the upcoming pan-chayat polls and the recurrence of COVID-19 cases in some states, the proceedings will be completed and the House will be adjourned. Leader of Oppo-sition Ram Govind Chaudhary of the Samajwadi Party (SP) termed it "murder of democ-racy" and said the Assembly members do not have to con-test in the panchayat polls and that the House should be run till March 10, as decided earlier.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Lalji Verma and Con-

gress Legislative Party leader Aradhna Mishra Mona too cited rules and said the proceedings should continue and there is no reason for curtailing the ses-sion. Khanna, however, cited examples from 2009, 2006 and 1991 and said as the number of coronavirus cases is also rising, the budget should be passed and the House adjourned sine die.

Dissatisified with the "undemocratic" move of the government, opposition SP, BSP, Congress and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) staged a walkout. Subsequently, the budget and the related appropriation bills were passed by a voice vote. Several amend-ment bills were passed before the House was adjourned.

The session commenced on February 18 with the governor's customary address to the joint sitting of the Assembly and the Legislative Council, but it was marked by opposition protests and walkouts.

Replying to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the governor for her address, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath slammed the opposition mem-bers for their "behaviour".

Later, while speaking on the budget, Adityanath flayed the SP, accusing it of presenting "directionless" state budgets in the past, unlike the budget pre-sented by Khanna, which was "lauded by various chambers of commerce and welcomed by all sections of the society". AGENCIES

Budget passed; UP Assembly adjourned sine die

MUMBAI: The Maharash-tra government on Thursday said there was no truth in the allegations that women were stripped and forced to dance by policemen at a hostel in Jal-gaon district.

Speaking in the Maha-rashtra Legislative Assem-bly, state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said a team of senior women police offi-cers had visited the hostel for an inquiry into the alleged incident.

"There are 17 women inmates. Forty one witnesses were questioned. It was found that there is no truth in the alle-gations. No male police offi-cial was present. It is a women's hostel and policemen are not allowed inside," he said.

The issue was raised in the House on Wednesday by oppo-sition members.

BJP leader Sudhir Mun-gantiwar had targeted the state government, suggesting it was not serious over the issue.

According to media reports, some women had complained about the alleged incident.

Deshmukh on Wednesday said a four-member high-level committee was formed to con-duct a probe into it.

On Thursday, the Home minister said in the House that the woman complainant was mentally unstable.

"Her husband and other family members have com-plained about her mental con-dition. On February 20, an entertainment programme was organised for the inmates in which no male police official was present," the minister said.

The programme included poetry recital, singing and dance, he said. AGENCIES

‘Allegations related to Jalgaon women's hostel false’

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a conference of the county's top military leadership in Gujarat's Kevadia on Saturday, which will also see the participation of jawans and junior commis-sioned officers (JCOs) for the first time, senior officials said.

They said the jawans and JCOs will be attending spe-cific sessions related to human resource issues during the three-day Combined Com-manders' Conference that began on Thursday.

Chief of Defence Staff Gen-eral Bipin Rawat, Army Chief General M M Naravane, Air Chief Marshal R K S Bha-dauria, Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh and senior officials of the defence minis-try and the armed forces will attend the conference.

The prime minister is expected to deliver his address on the last day of the confer-ence on Saturday, the officials said. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will also attend the con-ference, they noted. The top military meet is taking place in Kevadia at a time when India and China are engaged in talks on disengagement of troops in eastern Ladakh. MPOST

PM to address conference of top military leadership

MUMBAI: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday said a doctor who allegedly tried to molest a woman patient at a COVID-19 care centre in Aurangabad has been removed from service, and SOPs for such facilities will be issued by this month-end.

The incident took place earlier this week and the issue was raised by BJP MLA Manisha Chaudhary in the state Legislative Assembly.

She said incidents of rape ofwomen in COVID-19 care centres are not new.

"Such cases are unfortunate. People don't fear the gov-ernment. We demand immediate response from the state Home minister," the MLA said.

Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis said he had written four letters to chief minister on the rise in incidents of crime against women in COVID-19 care centres and sought standard operating procedures (SOPs) to curbthem.

"But, I haven't got any reply to my letters and SoPs have also not been published," the former chief minister said.

In response, Pawar said the SOPs for COVID-19 care centres will be published by March 31.

He said the doctor who tried to molest the woman patient at a COVID-19 care centre in Aurangabad has been removed from service after a preliminary probe into the incident.

"The woman is not ready to complain for fear of her iden-tity being revealed. The doctor and her husband are friends. Strict action will be taken after completion of the inquiry," Pawar said. MPOST

SOPs for Maharashtra Covid-19 care centres

by March 31: Ajit Pawar

ON PANNU, KASHYAP AND OTHERS

CM Baghel congratulates citizens, public representatives and departmental officers and employees for the achievement

Senior citizens wait for their turn to receive the first dose of Covid vaccine in Mumbai, on Thursday

millenniumpost|NEW DELHI|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021mp nation 5

Using Hindi idioms, Rahul targets govt for raiding ‘pro-farmer’ voices

Union minister Prakash Javadekar invoked a few sayings to hit backOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Hindi idioms took centre stage in a political slugfest between the Congress and the ruling BJP on Thurs-day as Rahul Gandhi cited them to accuse the government of using probe agencies to tar-get critical voices, prompt-ing Union minister Prakash Javadekar to invoke a few say-ings to hit back.

A day after income-tax raids at the homes and offices of Bollywood actor Taapsee Pannu, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and others, Gandhi used the hashtag 'ModiRaid-sProFarmers' with his tweet in Hindi to take a dig at the government.

Putting out three popular Hindi idioms –'Ungliyon pe nachana', 'Bheegi billi banna' and 'Khisiyani billi khamba noche' –Gandhi stated what he believes they mean in the current context.

In his three-pronged attack, he alleged that the central gov-ernment makes the income tax department dance to its tunes, friendly media gets cowed down before the Centre and the central government raids those supporting farmers.

Pannu and Kashyap are known to be outspoken in their

views on a range of issues.Hitting back, Javadekar

asked Gandhi to recall three more Hindis idioms –'Sau chuhe khakar billi chali Haj ko', 'Ungliyon per gine ja sakna' and 'ranga siyar' –to tar-get the Congress.

He used the first saying to mock the Congress for giving lesson in media freedom after stifling it during the Emer-gency, the second for the cur-rent political standing of the party and the third for a "fam-ily party" like it lecturing on democracy and "the most com-munal party" pretending to be secular.

The searches against Pannu and Kashyap as well as his part-ners who launched the now shuttered production house Phantom Films were carried out across 30 locations in Mumbai and Pune. They were part of a tax evasion probe against Phantom Films, offi-cials said.

Pannu and Kashyap were shooting in Pune and are understood to have been ques-tioned by the tax sleuths as part of the preliminary questioning that takes place during raids.

The raids also covered Reli-ance Entertainment group CEO Shibhasish Sarkar and some executives of celebrity

and talent management com-panies KWAN and Exceed.

At a press conference, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said that the Modi government has given complete freedom to probe agencies, and no one is a Bollywood star or a celebrity in their eyes.

Everybody now gets same treatment while it is the Con-gress's character to bend laws to help certain people and spare even criminals if they sing praises of the Gandhi fam-ily, he claimed.

If somebody breaks law, evade tax or conspire against the country, then probe agen-cies will do their job, he said.

The Congress destroys

institution when in power and tries to discredit them when in opposition, Bhatia alleged.

Meanwhile, the Congress also cited a media report to accuse the BJP of muzzling free press and trying to control the media narrative.

Congress spokesper-son Supriya Shrinate said, "A government communication report has revealed some very disturbing facts. There were five Union cabinet ministers and four ministers of state who were part of this."

"It is absolutely certain that at the time of coronavirus when the world was standing rock solid with the government and thinking that the prime

minister was thinking about our lives, our livelihood, tak-ing us out of this crisis, he was preparing to stab us in the back by compromising the freedom of speech and expression in the country by controlling free press," Shrinate said in a press conference.

She alleged that some of the suggestions from the report were also included in the Infor-mation Technology (Interme-diary guidelines and digital media ethics codes) Rules 2021 under the IT Act 2000.

"Some of the suggestions of the committee, were actually made into law, this is a breach of privilege, it is keeping Parlia-ment in the black and I believe that on moral ground both Information and Broadcast-ing Minister Javadekar and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad should resign," she said.

In a separate tweet, Con-gress leader Rahul Gandhi cited another media report on the government's handling of the border issue with China to attack the Centre.

"GOI believes media man-agement is a substitute for geo-political strategy. China has already made us pay a price for this. Continuing down this path will be disastrous for India," he said.

GUWAHATI: Continuing with its series of "guarantees", the Congress said on Thursday that if the opposition 'Mahajot' or Grand Alliance is voted to power in Assam, it will ensure 50 per cent reservation for women in government jobs.

Addressing a press confer-ence, All India Mahila Congress President Sushmita Dev said the Congress-led alliance will focus more on the upliftment of women and youths.

"When the Congress-headed grand alliance will form the gov-ernment, we will implement 50 per cent reservation for women. This will be our guarantee and it will be one of the first things we're going to do," she said.

The Congress has formed a broadbased alliance with AIUDF, BPF, CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML), and Anchalik Gana Morcha (AGM) to fight the upcoming assembly election against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for 126-member Assam house.

Dev asserted that the Con-gress and the grand alliance believe in accountability and guarantee of jobs.

"Youths and women of Assam don't want charity. They want job opportunities and want to contribute to the economy of the state," she said, taking a dig at the BJP-led state govern-ment's various schemes of direct benefit transfer.

Dev said the women res-ervation issue will be a part of guarantees in the manifesto for

the upcoming Assam assem-bly polls.

Women form a big chunk of the Assam voters.

Out of total over 2.31 crore voters in Assam, women elec-torate are more than 1.14 crore.

On March 2, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had announced five guarantees of the grand alliance –five lakh government jobs, monthly Rs 2,000 to every housewives, 200 units of free power to all, an act nullifying the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and hiking the minimum daily wages of tea garden workers to Rs 365.

All India Congress Commit-tee General Secretary Jitendra Singh said the party's 'Asom Bachaon Ahok Yatra' travelled over 10,000 km across the state and reached the poorest seg-ment of the society.

"While interacting with the public, the most important issue

that came out was unemploy-ment. Insufficient salary is also another crucial issue among the educated youths working in the state. "BJP did not solve any problem, but gave Citizenship (Amendment) Act to Assam," he added.

Congress Assam unit presi-dent Ripun Bora said the grand alliance, if voted to power, will create a separate department for generation of jobs.

"We have already announced to create five lakh government jobs once our government is there. The BJP promised 25 lakh jobs in five years, but actually gave employment to only 80,000 youths in five years," he added.

There are another 58,000 sanctioned posts that are vacant at present in addition to 20,000 SC and ST unfulfilled backlog posts, Bora said.

Congress Legislature Party Leader Debabrata Saikia appealed to all unemployed youths to register at a newly launched website –www.con-gressor5guarantee.in –for get-ting jobs after the grand alliance forms government. During the launch of the online registration drive, 101 unemployed youths enrolled their names for jobs on the website.

Congress Campaign Com-mittee Chairman Pradyut Bordoloi claimed Assam has a shortage of 40,000 health workers, 38,000 school teach-ers, 12,000 college teach-ers and 15,000 policemen among others. AGENCIES

Cong promises 50% quota for women in govt jobs in poll-bound Assam

Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi speaks during the launch of party election campaign website, ahead of Assam Assembly polls, at Rajiv Bhawan in Guwahati

OUR CORRESPONDENT

THIRUVALLA/KOCHI: After tweeting ‘Metroman’ E Sreedharan, who recently joined the BJP, will be its chief ministerial candidate for the Kerala assembly elections on April 6, Union Minister V Muraleedharan clarified on Thursday that the party has not made any such announcement.

Muraleedharan, who tweeted in this regard earlier, clarified, saying he wanted to inform that through media reports he learnt that the party has announced Sreedharan as the chief ministerial candidate.

But when he cross-checked with Kerala party president K Surendran, he said he has not made any such announce-ments, Muraleedharan, who is also a former BJP state presi-dent, said.

In his tweet, Muraleedharan had said..”BJP4Keralam will fight Keralapolls with E Sreed-haran Ji as its Chief Ministerial Candidate.We will defeat both CPIMKerala & INCKerala to provide a corruption-free,

development-oriented Gover-nance for the people of Kerala.”

His social media post on Sreedharan’s leadership in the Assembly polls came hours after Surendran said he has requested the party’s national leadership to announce ‘Metro-man’ as the NDA’s chief minis-terial candidate.

Referring to Muraleed-haran’s clarification tweets, Congress leader Shashi Tha-roor took a dig at the BJP, saying the saffron party was “confused”.

“Hilarious! BJP4Keralam manages to be confused about who will occupy the top floor of a building that will never be built.There will be no BJP CM in Kerala,” Tharoor tweeted.

The development comes on a day the 88-year-old tech-nocrat announced his deci-sion to end his 24-year long career with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to enter electoral politics.

Earlier, Surendran, who is leading the party’s Vijay Yatra said, if the NDA “under the

leadership of ‘Metroman’, gets an opportunity to rule the state, “we are confident we will be able to implement devel-opment works under Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a ten-fold force in Kerala.”

Addressing a party meeting in Thiruvalla, Surendran high-lighted the achievements of Sreedharan, including the com-pletion of the reconstruction of Palarivattom flyover here in five months, much ahead of the stipulated time.

“He completed the proj-ect in five months without any corruption.That is why we requested Sreedharan and our party leadership that he should be projected as the (NDA’s) Chief Minister candidate,” he said at the meeting organised as part of the “Vijay Yatra” led by him. This was the first time the party indicated that Sreedhran will be the NDA’s chief minis-terial candidate.

The party sought to project Sreedharan’s leadership in the polls amid the process of deter-mining the candidates for the assembly election.

Sreedharan BJP’s CM candidate for Kerala polls, says Union Minister but retracts later

E Sreedharan visits Palarivattom Bridge, in Kochi, on Thursday

SIMONTINI BHATTACHARJEE

NEW DELHI: After the gov-ernment introduced the new rules for digital media and OTT platforms, it emphasises the need for self-regulation for the newest form of media.

The Union Information and Broadcast Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday met representatives of various OTT platforms including Alt Balaji, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Netf-lix, Jio, Zee5, Viacom18, She-maroo, MxPlayer and clarified that in the self-regulating body, no member will be appointed by the government.

In the past, the ministry had done several rounds of consul-tation with the OTT players. "The government will create the Inter-Departmental Com-mittee to look at complaints that remain unresolved at the self-regulatory level," Javadekar informed.

"The minister had received

representations from cinema and TV industries that while there were regulations for them, none existed for OTT industry. Thus, it was decided that the Government would come out with a progressive institutional mechanism for OTT players and develop a level playing field with the idea of self-regulation," the ministry official statement added.

Further, informing the industry representatives about the provisions of the rules, Javadekar said it merely requires them to disclose infor-

mation and that there is no requirement of registration of any kind with the government.

The new rules focus on the self-classification of content instead of any form of censor-ship. Further, OTT platforms are expected to develop an effective grievance redressal mechanism, the I&B ministry added.

Social media platforms in India - Facebook, WhatsApp, Google’s YouTube, Twitter, and other OTT platforms now face a new set of rules and regula-tion set to be enforced after mid-May. The Indian gov-ernment has laid rules for a physical presence, monitor-ing of harmful content, track-ing down the first originator of mischief, and the voluntary verification of users. These reg-ulations are called the Informa-tion Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digi-tal Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (Rules).

No govt member in self-regulating body: Javadekar on meeting OTT players CHANDIGARH: Describing

the new farm laws as "uncon-stitutional and illegal", former Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Thursday said they were an attack by the Cen-tre upon the federal structure and the right of states to frame legislations.

He said the new laws will lead to auctioning of land in Punjab and leave its residents as "slaves" and asked the Con-gress government in the state

to take "bold and solid steps" to meet the "aspirations" of people protesting against the legislations.

"The new farm laws are unconstitutional and illegal. It's an attack by the Centre on the right of states to frame new laws and the federal structure," he told reporters here.

Referring to the ongoing farmer protest against the laws, he said the peasantry has never lost a battle.

The Punjab Assembly had passed Bills last year to negate the three farm laws. The bills are pending for approval of the governor.

Sidhu said, "Minimum support price must be given on pulses and oil seeds by the Punjab government. This will help in crop diversification."

He also stressed upon pro-viding bargaining power to farmers by way of giving them holding capacity of perishable

crops through storage facili-ties and infrastructure develop-ment. He sought amendment in the cooperative act to giv-ing powers to farmers to set up a cooperative body. "This will help farmers to manage crops and give them collective strength," he added.

Sidhu said that farmers will be able to fix rates of their pro-duce through cooperation and this will give them bargaining powers. AGENCIES

New agri laws unconstitutional: Sidhu

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Income Tax Department detected "unaccounted" income of Rs 175 crore after it raided two groups of civil contractors in poll-bound Tamil Nadu, the CBDT said on Thursday.

It said "unaccounted" cash of Rs 3 crore was seized after the searches were conducted on Wednesday at 18 premises in Madurai and Ramanatha-puram districts. The action was undertaken, the CBDT said, on the basis of intelligence inputs "about the existence of cash, which is likely to be distributed for election purposes."

Tamil Nadu will have a single-phase polling for its 234-member assembly on April 6.

As a result of the search, unaccounted income of Rs 175 crore has been detected, it said.

"Other findings include the identification of the fact that the assessee is booking bogus expenses under various heads to reduce the profits." "The declared profits were less than 2 per cent of the turnover, when in actual accounts the profits exceeded 20 per cent," the CBDT said in a statement.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) frames policy for the tax department.

I-T dept detects Rs 175-crore black income in raids on TN contractors

COIMBATORE: The CPI(M) will seek rescheduling of the second phase of the budget ses-sion of Parliament beginning from March 8, in view of the assembly elections in five states, party General Secretary Sita-ram Yechury said on Thursday.

Since majority of the states such as Tamil Nadu, Puduch-erry, Kerala and Assam have more opposition MPs, they may find it difficult to cam-

paign in these states, where polls are scheduled to held from March 27 to April 6.

Noting that the party will seek rescheduling of the session on the first day itself, Yechury said main policies related to the budget or economy can be passed and other topics can be taken up in the next session, so that MPs can campaign in their states.

As polls in West Bengal will

be conducted in eight phases, the leaders will have enough time for campaigning, he told reporters here.

On the election scenario, Yechury alleged that the Naren-dra Modi-led government has completely destroyed the foun-dation of Constitution and fed-eral structure and almost all the sectors like industry, education were destroyed by its wrong policies. AGENCIES

CPI(M) to seek rescheduling of Parliament session

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CORONAVIRUS

SPECIAL DRIVE: ODISHA POLICE RESCUES 160 MISSING CHILDREN IN FOUR DAYS CUTTACK: The Odisha Police on Thursday said it has rescued 160 children, including 138 girls who were reported missing, in the past four days, as part of a special drive. In the first phase of the week-long drive that will end on March 8, police personnel will attempt to trace missing children within the state and expand the exercise to beyond Odisha in the second phase, they said.

SUPPLEMENTARY DEMANDS OF ̀ 21K CR PASSED BY MAHARASHTRA LEGISLATURE MUMBAI: The two houses of the Maharashtra legis-lature on Thursday passed, after debate, supplemen-tary demands of Rs 21,076.33 crore tabled by the state. The demands had been tabled in the Legisla-tive Assembly and the Legislative Council on Monday ahead of the state Budget on March 8. Rs 2,000 cr were sought for the Mumbai-Nagpur expressway, Rs 1,149.67 cr for Metro and Rs 1,866 cr for power tariff concessions provided to agriculture pumps.

BRIEFSNATION

SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir authorities on Thursday lifted restrictions on the movement of moder-ate Hurriyat Conference chair-man Mirwaiz Umar Farooq who was placed under house arrest in August 2019 follow-ing the abrogation of Article 370 provisions.

"The police has informed the Mirwaiz that there were no restrictions on his movement anymore and that he was free to visit Jamia Masjid on Fri-day," a close aide of the Hur-riyat chairman said.

However, the admin-istration neither con-firmed nor denied the claim made by the Mirwaiz's aide.

The Mirwaiz, who is also the chief priest of Kash-mir, was among hundreds of political leaders -- both separatist and mainstream -- who were taken into cus-tody or placed under house arrest as the Centre revoked Jammu and Kashmir's spe-cial status under Article 370 of the Constitution 19 months ago. AGENCIES

RANCHI: Three security per-sonnel were killed and two injured in a Naxal-triggered IED blast in the forests of Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district on Thursday, officials said.

Three men of the spe-cial unit of the state police, Jharkhand Jaguars, were killed in the improvised explosive device (IED) blast that took place around 8:45 AM in Hoya-hatu village under Toklo police station area of the district.

A jawan of the Jharkhand Jaguars and a Central Reserve Police Force personnel from its 197th battalion were injured in the blast, they said.

The joint team of Jharkhand Jaguars and CRPF was out for an anti-Maoist operation in the area.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Cen-tre to forthwith appoint a regu-lar CBI director.

The petition, filed by NGO Common Cause, has alleged that the government has failed to appoint a regular CBI direc-tor as per section 4A of the Delhi Special Police Establish-ment (DSPE) Act, on the expiry of term of Rishi Kumar Shukla on February 2 and instead appointed Praveen Sinha as an interim director of the premier investigating agency.

The plea, filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan, has also sought a direction

to the Centre to initiate and complete the process of selec-tion of the CBI director well in advance, at least one to two months before the date on which the vacancy to the post is about to occur.

The director of the CBI is the final authority in the orga-nization. He supervises all the

work in the CBI and is respon-sible for constitution of investi-gating teams for probing cases. Hence, this court and later on Parliament have made deter-mined efforts to enhance the functional autonomy of the CBI director and limit the extent of executive discretion in the matter of appointment of this key functionary, the plea said.

It said that appointment of regular CBI director as per the statutory law is necessary for upholding the rule of law and for enforcement of the rights of citizens under articles of the Constitution dealing with equality before law and protec-tion of life and personal liberty.

The plea said the Centre has

NEW DELHI/ AGRA: The Taj Mahal complex in Agra was vacated on Thursday morning following a hoax bomb call, police said.

The caller, identified as Vimal Kumar Singh, has been detained for questioning in Firozabad, Additional Director General (ADG) of Police, Agra zone, A Satish Ganesh said

Singh called the 112 emer-gency response number of the Uttar Pradesh police at around 9 am and claimed that a bomb was kept inside the monu-

ment that is conserved by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and protected by armed personnel of the Central Indus-trial Security Force (CISF).

The police immediately informed the CISF personnel, who asked the visitors to vacate the premises of the iconic 17th-century monument and launched anti-sabotage checks around 9:15 am.

Nothing suspicious was found during the checks at the monument, a CISF officer said in Delhi.

An initial probe revealed that Singh is a resident of Patiyali in Kasganj and was presently staying in his maternal grandmother's house in Okhra village in the Narkhi area of Firozabad, the ADG said.

"Prima facie it seems that he (Singh) is mentally unstable and is probably under treat-ment. We are probing why he made such a call. The Taj Mahal was reopened for visitors after about an hour and 45 minutes," he added. MPOST

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday was told by Punjab government and gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari that Yogi Adityanath-led government has got no fundamental right to seek his transfer from Rup-nagar jail to a district jail in Banda in Uttar Pradesh.

The Uttar Pradesh gov-ernment has moved the top court seeking a direction to the Punjab government and Rupnagar jail authority to immediately hand over the custody of Ansari, an MLA from Mau constituency, to the district jail Banda. A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and R S Reddy said that it will pronounce its verdict on the plea of Uttar Pradesh govern-ment and petition of Ansari seeking transfer of the cases against him outside the State. During the hearing, Solici-tor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Uttar Pradesh government referred to the prison rules and said that

though the State does not have fundamental rights, but it can espouse the cause and the fundamental rights of the victims and it may assume the position of the victim.

He said that the submis-sion that the State does not have any fundamental right is wrong as the State can always assume the role of the vic-tim and the society at large. Mehta said that Ansari had flouted the jail manual rules and right of the victim and the State at large cannot be overlooked and the accused cannot be allowed to jettison the fair trial. He said that this court under Article 142 can order transfer of Ansari from Punjab jail to a jail in Uttar Pradesh as around 14 and 15 cases are at final stages.

If video conferencing is the most equitable medium to conduct criminal tri-als then a person can be tried while remaining in the United Kingdom , Mehta told the bench. MPOST

BENGALURU: Close on the heels of the launch of a Brazil-ian satellite by ISRO, India and Italy have decided to explore opportunities in the field of earth observation, space sci-ence and robotic and human exploration.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) held a bilateral meeting with Italian Space Agency (ASI) on virtual mode on Wednesday, as part of its strategy to strengthen inter-national partnerships.

ISRO Chairman and Sec-retary in the Department of Space (DoS) K Sivan and ASI President Giorgio Saccoccia led their respective delegations.

"Both sides reviewed the on-going cooperation and agreed to form more thematic working groups to explore cooperation opportunities in earth observation, space sci-ence, robotic exploration and human exploration", Bengal-uru- headquartered ISRO said in a statement.

On February 28, ISRO suc-cessfully launched the 637-kg Brazilian satellite Amazonia-1 on board PSLV-C51 rocket from Sriharikota spaceport.

Brazil's Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Marcos Pontes visited ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota in Andhra

Pradesh's Nellore district, about 100 kms from Chennai, and witnessed the launch.

The Minister and his dele-gation later had a meeting with an ISRO team led by Sivan, and both sides agreed to work together to enhance the bilat-eral space cooperation and take it to the higher level.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh, who heads the DoS, also had a virtual interaction with Pontes and officials of the Bra-zilian space agency.

"Brazil has requested India's support in procurement of material and systems for its launch vehicle programme," a DoS statement said. "Coop-eration possibilities in future space science missions, utilis-ing ISRO's PS4-orbital plat-form (PS4-OP), space weather studies etc. were discussed", the official statement said. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: The Delimita-tion Commission, a panel for redrawing the parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, has got a one-year extension, a move indicating that the Assembly polls in the Union Territory would not be held anytime soon.

A gazette notification issued by the government on Wednes-day night said the panel, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, will get one more year for completing its task in the Union Territory, which came into existence on October, 2019 after the Centre abrogated the special status of the erstwhile state in August that year and announced its reorganisation.

The panel was set up last year to redraw the electoral constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir and four northeast-ern states -- Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Naga-land. However, the one-year extension is only for Jammu and Kashmir.

The proceedings of the commission, which has five MPs from the erstwhile state

of Jammu and Kashmir as ex-officio members, have been boycotted by the National Conference (NC) that has three representatives in the panel.

Before Parliament passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reor-ganisation Act in August 2019, the effective strength of the Jammu and Kashmir Assem-bly was 87, including four seats from Ladakh, which is now a separate Union Territory with-out a legislature. The strength of the realigned Jammu and Kashmir Assembly is 107 now with 24 seats to continue to remain vacant as those fall in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

The NC members, while disassociating themselves with the Delimitation Commission, had said the party has chal-lenged the Jammu and Kash-mir Reorganisation Act in the Supreme Court and the matter is pending.

In a letter to the chairper-son of the commission, the NC MPs, including former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and veteran politician Farooq Abdullah, had said, "In our view, the Jammu and Kashmir

Reorganisation Act, 2019 is palpably unconstitutional and has been enacted in disregard and violation of the mandate and the spirit of the Constitu-tion of India and therefore, not to be acted upon."

"We have thrown a chal-lenge to the constitutional validity of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 exercise of powers where-under the meeting in question is proposed to be held," the let-ter, also signed by two other MPs -- HasnainMasoodi and Muhammad Akbar Lone -- had said.

According to section 60 of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019, "...the number of seats in the Leg-islative Assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kash-mir shall be increased from 107 to 114...."

With 24 seats in PoK, the effective strength will go up from 83 to 90.

The elections to the Assembly of the Union Ter-ritory of Jammu and Kash-mir will be held only after the process of delimitation is completed. AGENCIES

‘Hope membership of INSTC project will be expanded’

Curbs on Hurriyat leader lifted after 19 months: Aide

IED blast in Jharkhand

kills 3 security personnel

After enhancing ties with Brazil, Australia, ISRO eyes new opportunities with Italy

Bomb scare at Taj Mahal following hoax call; caller detained: Police

Delimitation Commission gets one more yr to conclude its task

NGO moves top court, seeks appointment of regular CBI chief

UP has got no fundamental right to seek Mukhtar Ansari’s transfer from Punjab jail: SC

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Union Educa-tion Minister Ramesh Pokhri-yal on Thursday said the reforms made by the govern-ment in higher education has improved representation of Indian institutions in globally acclaimed rankings.

This year, 12 Indian insti-tutions have made it to the top 100 of the QS World Uni-versity Rankings by Subject 2021.

These are IIT Bombay,

IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IISC Bangalore, IIT Guwahati, IIM Banga-lore, IIM Ahmedabad, Jawa-harlal Nehru University, Anna University, Univer-sity of Delhi, and O P Jindal University.

Among these, IIT Madras has been ranked 30th in the world for Petroleum Engi-neering, IIT Bombay has been ranked 41st and IIT Kharagpur 44th for Minerals and Mining Engineering, and the Univer-sity of Delhi has been ranked

50th in the world for Develop-ment Studies.

"Over the last few years, the government's continu-ous focus on improvement and reform in Indian higher education has resulted in sig-nificant improvement in the representation of Indian insti-tutions in globally acclaimed and reputed rankings like QS," the Union education minister said at the unveil-ing of the QS World Uni-versity Rankings by Subject (2021).

12 Indian institutes in top 100 of QS World University Ranking

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India has pro-posed the inclusion of Chabahar port in the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) route, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday, and expressed hope that member states involved with the INSTC will agree on expanding membership of this project.

In his address on 'Chabahar Day' at the Maritime India Sum-mit 2021, Jaishankar said the shift in the fulcrum of global economic growth towards Asia is creating unprecedented opportunities for connectivity in the region.

He asserted that the mark-ing of Chabahar Day by India reflects its strong commit-ment to enhancing regional connectivity.

Jaishankar said India has also proposed the inclusion of Chabahar in the INSTC route.

The INSTC is an important trade corridor project, wherein India is partnering with 12 countries to establish an eco-

nomic corridor, he said.The International North

South Transport Corridor is a 7,200-km-long multi-mode transport project for mov-ing freight among India, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azer-baijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe. "We also welcome the interest of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to join the multilat-eral corridor project. Establish-ing an eastern corridor through Afghanistan would maximize its potential," he said.

"I am hopeful that during the INSTC Coordination Council meeting, member states would agree to the expansion of the

INSTC route to include the Cha-bahar Port and also agree on expanding the membership of this project," he said.

Jaishankar also said that as the world goes through a fun-damental re-balancing, correct-ing many distortions of the past, it is only natural that connec-tivity should be central to that exercise.

He said the shift in the ful-crum of global economic growth towards Asia is creating unprec-edented opportunities for con-nectivity in the region.

"There is a huge infrastruc-ture deficit in the region which needs to be met to fulfil grow-

ing aspirations of our people," he asserted.

Noting that in the modern age, the correlation between connectivity and economic growth has got even more pro-nounced, Jaishankar said growth in trade, commerce, industrial development and technological advancement has gone hand in hand with ease of connecting.

Maritime connectivity, in particular, has played a signifi-cant role in creating regional corridors for trade and eco-nomic linkages, as indeed for cultural and intellectual exchanges over the centuries, he pointed out and added that they too assume a new promi-nence in contemporary times, for being more competitive, seamless and greener.

The access of land-locked economies to maritime move-ments has been a focus of recent initiatives, he said.

The government of India, recognising the importance of regional connectivity, made a landmark decision to undertake an overseas port investment in Chabahar, he said.

Consider granting 90 more days limitation period to litigants for filing appeals: SCOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Attorney Gen-eral K K Venugopal on Thurs-day urged the Supreme Court that litigants be given 90 more days as the limitation period for filing appeals as the earlier order on the issue which was passed due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation has been lifted.

The apex court had on March 23 last year invoked its plenary power under Arti-cle 142 of the Constitution to extend the limitation period of appeals from courts or tri-bunals on account of the pandemic.

A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices L Nageswara Rao and S Ravin-dra Bhat took note of the sub-mission of the top law officer and reserved its order on the suo motu case.

Venugopal suggested in computing the period of limi-tation, period from March 15, 2020 to March 14, should be excluded.

The balance period of limi-tation remaining as on March 15, 2020 shall be available with effect from March 15, 2021. All person shall have an extra period of 90 days with effect from March 15, 2021. If the balance period avail-

able is greater than 90 days, the greater period will be available for limitation with effect from March 15, 2021, the law officer said in his note.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged that the apex court's proposed order be also made applicable to property attachment proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

On Wednesday, the top court had indicated that it pro-poses to lift the extension of limitation period with effect from March 15 this year and it might give a period of 90 days thereafter for the even-tuality if restrictions may be re-imposed due to the pandemic.

In its March 23 last year order, the apex court had said, This court has taken suo motu cognizance of the situ-ation arising out of the chal-lenge faced by the country on

account of COVID-19 virus and resultant difficulties that may be faced by litigants across the country in filing their petitions/applications/suits/ appeals/all other proceedings within the period of limitation prescribed under the general law of limitation or under Spe-cial Laws (both Central and/ or State).

To obviate such difficulties and to ensure that lawyers/litigants do not have to come physically to file such pro-ceedings in respective courts/tribunals across the country including this court, it is hereby ordered that a period of limi-tation in all such proceedings, irrespective of the limitation prescribed under the general law or special laws whether condonable or not shall stand extended w.e.f. March 15, 2020 till further order/s to be passed by this court in present proceedings, it had said.

The apex court had on March 23 last year invoked its plenary power under Article 142 of the Constitution to extend the limitation period of appeals from courts or tribunals on account of the pandemic

We also welcome the interest of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to join the multilateral corridor project, says Jaishankar

From Page 1An affidavit to be filed by

the UoI disclosing the rationale for such classification, it said.

It also asked the Delhi gov-ernment to carry out inspec-tion of medical facilities available in court complexes here and to report if COVID-19 vaccination centres could be set up there and also the short comings in facilities.

The high court asked all the authorities to file their affi-davits by March 9 and listed the matter for further hearing on March 10. The high court was hearing a PIL initiated by it to examine the demand of Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) to declare all people associated with the judicial functioning, including judges, court staff and lawyers as frontline work-ers so that they could receive COVID-19 vaccination on pri-ority and without limitations of their age or physical condition.

Delhi HC asks...

From Page 1application for grant of

NOC for certificate of regis-tration, notice of transfer of ownership of motor vehicle, application for transfer of own-ership of motor vehicle, inti-mation of change of address in certificate of registration, appli-cation for registration for driver training from accredited driver training centre, application for registration of motor vehicle of diplomatic officer, applica-tion for assignment of fresh registration mark of motor vehicle of diplomatic officer, endorsement of hire-purchase agreement, termination of hire-purchase agreement.

Renew driving licence using Aadhaar as 18 RTO services...

From Page 1Such a proposal was uncon-

stitutional as the Indian Con-stitution states that such forces would be led by an official of the state police.

The CAPF cannot regis-ter any case under the Code of Criminal Procedure. Subse-quently, the ECI realised this and the decision for QRT to be

headed by a CAPF official was withdrawn.

Roy added that under such circumstances, serious doubts had been raised as to whether Jain would func-tion impartially during the elections or not. “It is being feared that Jain’s actions will be tilted towards the BJP,” the leader maintained.

ISRO Chairman and Secretary in the Department of Space (DoS) K Sivan and ASI President Giorgio Saccoccia led their respective delegations

TMC seeks removal of Sudeep Jain over ‘track record of bias’

From Page 1The interest rate would be

officially notified in the govern-ment gazette following which the EPFO would credit the rate of interest into the subscribers’ accounts, the statement said.

“For FY 2021, the EPFO decided to liquidate investment (in equity) and the interest rate recommended is a result of combined income from interest received from debt investment as well as income realised from equity investment,” it said, add-ing that it has enabled EPFO to provide higher return to its subscribers and still allowing EPFO with healthy surplus to act as a cushion for providing higher return in future also and there is no over-withdrawal on EPFO corpus due to this income distribution.

EPFO retains 8.5% interest...

It’s been a generation since global leaders met in Stockholm in 1972 to discuss environmental

challenges. Then the concerns were for the local environment; there was no talk of climate change or even the depletion of the ozone layer. All that came later. In 1972, the discussion was on the toxification of the environment as water and air were foul.

Anil Agarwal, Cen-tre for Science and Environ-ment’s founder-director, was in Stockholm for this first-ever UN Conference on the Human Environment and he spoke about how the lakes of this city were so polluted with industrial effluents that you could develop a camera film in the waters. These lakes are now pristine.

So you could argue that much has changed in the past 50 years. But it hasn’t really. The toxification of the environ-ment is still a pressing concern; countries have indeed cleaned up locally but added to the emissions in the global atmo-sphere. Now, we are out of time as climate change impacts are spiralling out of control.

This is why as we approach 50 plus years of Stockholm conference, we are looking at an increasingly inequita-ble world; where poverty and marginalisation are growing and where climate change risks are reaching not just the homes of the poor but also of the rich. We need, therefore, to change paths; to re-configure, not just our language but also our approach to, what we can call, our common future.

This is why next year when the world marks the 50th anniversary of the Stockholm Conference, it must stand dif-ferently — not to state the

problem but to show the way ahead. This is also why we need to discuss consumption and production. We cannot sidestep this anymore. This is the most inconvenient of all discussions.

The fact is when we stitched up the global ecological frame-work in terms of the many agreements — from ozone, climate and biodiversity to desertification and hazardous waste — the world realised that the actions of one coun-try exceeded its boundaries. We have to act globally and cooperatively as we live in an interdependent world.

During this time, we also signed another agreement on free trade — the economic glo-balisation agreement. But we never really understood how these two frameworks — eco-logical and economic global-

isation — would counteract each other. As a result, we have worked to build an economic model based on discounting the price of labour and of the environment.

We have pushed produc-tion where these costs are cheaper; we have built for overproduction as goods have become cheaper and more dis-posable. But we have also made sure that all countries are now vested in this model of growth.

All countries want to have global factories that produce goods as cheaply as possible. This comes then at the cost of environmental safeguards and labour conditions. The poor in the world are on the aspira-tional ladder to get richer with more goods and more con-sumption and more waste.

Today, COVID-19 has disrupted this out-of-control

journey to produce as cheaply as possible and to consume as much as possible. As the world builds back, it has the choice to do things differently. This is also because COVID-19 has taught us lessons that we must not forget.

One, we have understood the value of labour — migrant labour — that was invisible and unwanted; today it has become important for the industry. We have seen how labour returned home — not just in India but across the world. And how has this impacted production. We can see already that the industry is working hard to bring back its workers; it is offering them better pay and better working conditions. This will increase the cost of production.

Two, we understand today the value of blue skies and clear

lungs — we know that the lock-down resulted in lowered pol-lution and we value this now. This investment in the envi-ronment will increase the cost of production as well.

Three, we understand the value of investing in land-agri-culture-water systems. People who went back to their vil-lages are rebuilding their live-lihoods. It is time to secure a resilient future there with food production systems that are sustainable, nature-friendly and good for health.

Four, we are now in the era of work-from-home; even when the new normal comes, we will want to have hybrid systems that will allow us to work remotely, reduce travel stress, and also have interac-tions and collaborations that enrich our world. This will change consumption patterns as well.

And five, governments are financially strapped. So they have to spend much more and therefore, cannot waste. This is where they will want to invest in circular economies — find ways of making resources out of waste; do more with less.

All this has the potential to change the way we consume and the way we produce. So as the world meets again next year to mark 50 years of when the conversation started on human beings and their impact on the environment, we have an opportunity to do it right by nature this time.

This time, we have the exis-tential crisis of climate change staring us in the face. We can-not waste more time talking the talk anymore. It’s not an option. Not anymore. DTE

The writer is the Director-General of CSE and

editor of Down To Earth. Views expressed are personal

mp editorial 7

SHANTANU GUPTA

SUNITA NARAIN

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SAFE EARS DearEditor

World Hearing Day was observed on March 3, and sadly the day went past silently just like the way the problems of hearing go unheeded! It is really shocking to know, as per WHO, that one in four people will suffer from hearing problems by 2050. The international body has alarmed that currently one in five people has hearing problems but more often it is just ignored and uncared for. The amount of care and attention that we give to various other ailments is sadly not given to hearing problems except in case of severe pain in the ear or other serious issues. The WHO has called for global action and asked nations to take immediate measures to check this ‘silent danger ‘. Hearing problems can put thousands of people into a state of ‘complete silence’ if issues related to this health menace are not addressed properly. The theme of World Hearing Day was ‘Hearing care for all! Screen. Rehabilitate. Communicate.’ According to WHO the number of people living with unaddressed hearing loss and ear diseases is unacceptable. Timely action is needed to prevent and address hearing loss across the life course. Hearing loss can be avoided through preventative measures like detection of infantile hearing problems, vaccinations against diseases that cause hearing impairment, protection against loud sounds, good ear-care practices during and after childhood. A healthy and hygienic way of caring for ears should be developed from childhood itself. The home and the school must come together in this regard. Appropriate care and timely treatment can definitely control and check the increasing number of hearing impairment cases. Good healthcare providers, supported by government and health organisations can definitely play a significant role in making people aware of the issues related to hearing, and medical treatment can be given to those suffering from such problems. According to medical reports, almost 60 per cent of hearing loss in children is due to causes such as ear infection and birth complications. These can be prevented through public health measures. According to WHO, over one billion young adults are at risk of permanent, avoidable hearing loss due to unsafe hearing practices. This underscores the need to make people aware of this danger. Early identification of hearing loss and ear disease is the key to its effective treatment. As our lifestyle changed, our ignorance of such matters has also increased. According to WHO, hearing loss may result from genetic causes, complications at birth, certain infectious diseases, chronic ear infections, exposure to loud sounds, use of toxic medicines and ageing. Modern medicines, technology and implementation of certain safety norms can put an end to such difficulties, provided the governments, health organisations, NGOs and other agencies come forward to mitigate the problem.

Intermediate Para Tran-sit (IPT) — a system that facilitates flexible passen-ger transportation and

that does not necessarily fol-low fixed routes and sched-ules — is an integral part of the mobility ecosystem in Indian cities. The toxic emissions by the conventional internal com-bustion engine (ICE), however, are worrisome.

ICE-IPT vehicles contribute to vehicular pollution share: A conventional three-wheeler running on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) emits approximately 0.005 tonnes of Particulate Matter10 (PM10) in a year and about 3.72 tonnes of carbon dioxide in a year, according to a study conducted by The Energy Research Institute (TERI).

Alternative fuel-based mobility options are being explored to combat these prob-lems. And electric three-wheel based IPT segment, especially electric-rickshaws (e-rick-shaw), are emerging as a win-ner in this transition.

There are, however, multi-ple challenges that need to be addressed to make this transi-tion smooth.SPEEDY GROWTH

E-rickshaws currently comprise 83 per cent of the India electric vehicle market.

India currently has around 15 lakh e-rickshaws that increase with additional sales of around 11,000 new ones every month. These figures could be much higher as a large percentage is still unreg-istered. The market is expected to witness a sale of 9.25 lakh e-rickshaw by 2024.

The major growth driv-ers behind this tremendous growth are socio-economic and environmental benefits, along with the supportive gov-ernment policy landscape:

Socio-economic benefits: The upfront cost of an e-rick-shaw is quite low compared to its counterpart ICE-based auto-rickshaw. The initial cost of an e-rickshaw is Rs 0.6-1.1 lakh, whereas the cost of an ICE-based auto-rickshaw Rs 1.5-3 lakh. Similarly, the run-ning cost for an e-rickshaw is only Rs 0.4 a kilometre as com-pared to Rs 2.1-2.3 a km for

the ICE-based rickshaws. The maintenance issues related to e-rickshaws are quite less, which saves maintenance cost. E-rickshaws provide better employment opportunities to cycle-rickshaw drivers whose business is swiftly vanishing.

Environmental benefits: E-rickshaws help mitigate air and noise pollution. At least 1,036.6 tonnes of CO2 emis-sions can be mitigated a day (378,357 tonne CO2 annually) if compressed natural gas auto is replaced by e-rickshaws.

Supportive policy/mission/scheme: Continuous support has come through National Electric Mobility Mission, 2013; National Urban Liveli-hood Mission 2013, Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojna, 2015; Smart City Mission, 2015; Faster Adaptation of Manufac-turing of Electric Vehicles (FAME I and II), state’s electric vehicle policy in the form of loans, regulatory framework and direct subsidies.ISSUES WITH MASS DEPLOYMENT

Despite their mass deploy-ment, there are several issues associated with the regulation of e-rickshaws.

Their components are imported from outside but are assembled in India. These

are usually non-standardised and assembled in local work-shops without complying with standards.

Unorganised players sell 10,000 e-rickshaws a month against 1,500-2,000 a month for organised players. The e-rickshaws sold by the unor-ganised sector are of poor quality and operate on the lead-acid battery that needs to be changed after every six-eight months.

The replacement cost per battery is Rs 25,000-Rs 28,000. The lead-acid batteries usually weigh close to 80 kilograms, which reduces vehicle mileage. As the battery cannot be refur-bished, an e-rickshaw owner typically returns it to the ven-dor it has run its life.

Used batteries are often disposed of carelessly, harming the environment. The Union government discontinued sub-sidy for lead acid-based e-rick-shaws from October 2019 amid FAME I.

E-rickshaws have prolif-erated because most of them remain unregistered. India has around 15 lakh e-rickshaws in 2021; till 2019, only 1.5 lakh were registered. Delhi, for instance, has more than 1 lakh e-rickshaws; but only 5,891 are registered.

As a result, drivers do not hold valid licenses and the safety of passengers is compromised.

The lack of authorised e-rickshaw charging facilities leads to power theft. Several unorganised setups in Delhi provide bulk charging at night by doing power theft. The e-rickshaw owners pay fixed money (Rs 100-150) for park-ing and charging facilities.

For the electric rickshaw market to flourish sustainably, a combination of policy and regulatory interventions are needed as discussed below:

Need to improve product design and quality: Consider-ing the rampant growth of e-rickshaws in absence of a regulatory framework, it is important to bring the supply chain into a formal channel. While specified rules and safety standards have been laid down in recent years, cheaper e-rickshaws assembled by manufacturers with low-qual-ity parts imported from China. They, hence, ply illegally on the roads.

There are about 340 e-rick-shaw manufacturing units in Delhi alone, but very few are compliant with the ARAI / ICAT standards. The life of these electric rickshaws is barely1-1.5 years.

Manufacturers must relook and come up with a better design. As mentioned in a media report, the Union minister of road transport and highways had recently said the government is ready to fund if the e-rickshaw manufactur-ers are ready to work with any Indian Institute of Technol-ogy for improvement in qual-ity, testing, norms and design.

Track adherence to safety standards of e-rickshaws: E-rickshaw owners would be asked to show a roadworthi-ness certificate from their manufacturer or registered e-rickshaw association, along with a valid driving license to the Regional Transport Authorities (RTA).

The RTAs can then provide an approval certificate, which can be randomly checked by the traffic police as it is done in case of a Pollution under Con-

trol (PUC) certificate. Localising manufacturing

of lithium-ion battery: India heavily relies on China for the import of batteries due to which in the cost breakup of EVs, battery occupies a major chunk. The localisation of bat-tery manufacturing will help in reducing the overall cost of EV, debar the usage of cheap lead-acid battery which is majorly used in e-rickshaws, and gen-erate employment opportunities.

The whole process of local-ization will take place in sev-eral phases. The initial years shall be invested in research and development (R&D) and creating a market ecosystem.

In the intermediate phase, only the import of lithium-ion cells can be done and the bat-tery assembled in India.

In the end, the market can gradually shift to provide end-to-end service with 100 per cent manufacturing in India. For ensuring the sustainabil-ity of small manufacturers in the initial phase, they can collaborate with large man-ufacturers and as the market matures, they can gradually become independent.

The government should also soon decide on whether to standardise battery technol-ogy or not. It is critical because uncertainty in the decision will create confusion among the companies seeking to invest in it. If the government delays this decision and investors invest in non-standardized battery technology, then it will create a huge loss for the investors.

Incentivise scientific dis-posal of lead-acid battery of e-rickshaws: Localisation of the lithium-ion battery would help in encouraging people to purchase lithium-ion based e-rickshaws. The current oper-ation stock of lead-acid e-rick-shaws, however, cannot be ignored.

Therefore, e-rickshaw manufacturers should launch a buy and back scheme through which scientific disposal of lead-acid-based e-rickshaws can be linked with a discount on the purchase of new lith-ium-ion-based ones. DTE

Views expressed are personal

Unorganised players sell 10,000 e-rickshaws a month against 1,500-2,000 a month for organised players. The e-rickshaws sold by the unorganised sector are of poor quality and operate on the lead-acid battery that needs to be changed after every six-eight months

E-rickshaws have proliferated because most of them remain unregistered; there is a need to regulate their operations

Formalising the informal

A fresh outlookWhen we mark the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Stockholm conference, we need to discuss consumption and production in a globalised world

COVID-19 has disrupted the out-of-control journey of producing as cheaply as possible and consuming as much as possible. As the world builds back, it has the choice to do things differently

EDITORIAL

The new frontier

The Arctic has frequently been referred to as the final frontier on Earth. It has been a region that has famously been held as inaccessible and dangerous. But this has been changing for some time. The ice is melt-

ing and the world powers are already circling to see what part of this no man’s land they can secure for their interests. From a strategic and economic perspective, the struggle to dominate the Arctic will be a significant one. Russia has been investing in this region for quite some time. It owns the world’s largest fleet of icebreakers, some of which are even nuclear powered. It has been planting flags and spending billions in setting up the necessary equipment to exploit untapped resource nodes. By some estimates, the Arctic Ocean, a mere three per cent of the planet’s surface, holds as much as 22 per cent of the Earth’s oil and natural gas resources as well as vast quantities of other min-erals. While considerations of climate change and sustainabil-ity may give some countries a pause before the rush to exploit the region, it is unlikely to last long and not all countries will be willing to hold back urgent economic interests for the sake of the polar bears. As such, Russia has preempted much of this rush by not only investing in infrastructure that would allow it to exploit the region economically but also for military bases and now, in a dedicated climate monitoring satellite that will allow Moscow a more complete bird’s eye view of the Arctic. This launch is scheduled to be followed up by the launch of a similar satellite in 2023 which will allow 24/7 monitoring of the region. Both satellites are set to take a highly elliptical orbit that will allow more continuous coverage of the region in question as compared to the typical satellite path which travels over the equator. On the face of it, Russia doesn’t have to come out and admit any kind of obvious strategic interests in launching such satellites. Roscosmos has stated that the satellites will be able to re-transmit distress signals from ships, aircraft and people who get stranded in the remote reaches of the Arctic. But the point remains that in this new era, as was the case before, information is key for any military or economic endeavour and having 24/7 coverage of the region is an undeniable advantage. The race to Arctic domination has many potential rewards along the way that goes beyond mere resource and strategic clout. The open-ing up of various new Arctic passages will significantly alter the state of trading routes. Estimates say that the new routes could cut travel distance between Europe and Asia by as much as 40 per cent. While Russia and Canada are leading in making claims over such routes, distant powers like China are not far behind. This opening up of trade routes will also create a host of new opportunities for other sectors like fishing and tourism to expand as well. For the territory for Greenland which gains a substantial portion of its revenue through fishing and tourism, this will be particularly significant. But this new race, regard-less of how it turns out, will have significant consequences for the region as well. As the Arctic competition heats up and the area is saturated with exploitative activity, there is little doubt that the region will suffer from it. Rising water levels, native wild species going extinct, etc., are all likely near-term out-comes. And the thing is, this isn’t exactly easy to stop. Saving the Arctic will involve massive cost and coordinated interna-tional effort. Unfortunately, it may be easier, quicker and more profitable to simply straight up exploit it while ignoring climate change science.

Even after decades since the Stockholm conference, toxification of the environment is still a pressing concern

....M PRADYU, KANNUR via email

BARKHA DUTT @Bdutt

There’s something about the sight of India’s Vaccines airlifted to other countries that makes such a powerful counter colonisation statement. For all that we battle for and within and those fights and arguments will continue, this is something to feel extremely proud of

tweet OF THE DAY

millenniumpost|NEW DELHI|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021

E-rickshaws comprise 83 per cent of the India electric vehicle market

NEW DELHI|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpostmp world8

NAY PYI TAW: Demonstra-tors in Myanmar protesting last month's military coup returned to the streets Thurs-day, undaunted by the killing of at least 38 people the previous day by security forces.

New protests were held in at least three areas of Yangon, the country's largest city, that have been scenes of violence for the past few days. Police again used force to try to disperse the crowds, according to social media accounts.

Protests also continued In Mandalay, the second-big-gest city. A formation of five fighter planes flew over the city on Thursday morning in what appeared to be a threatening show of force.

The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, said 38 people were killed Wednesday, a figure con-sistent with other reports.

The death toll was the high-est since the Feb. 1 takeover, when the military ousted the elected government of leader Aung San Suu Kyi. More than 50 civilians, mostly peaceful protesters, are confirmed to have been killed by police and soldiers since then.

The U.N. Security Coun-cil has scheduled closed-door consultations on Friday on calls to reverse the coup including from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and stop the escalating military crackdown.

Any kind of coordinated action at the United Nations will be difficult since two per-manent members of the Secu-rity Council, China and Russia, are likely to veto it. Some coun-tries have already imposed or

are considering their own sanctions.

U.N. envoy Schraner Bur-gener said she warned Myan-mar's army that the world's nations and the Security Coun-cil might take huge strong measures.

And the answer was, We are used to sanctions and we survived those sanctions in the past,' she said. When she also warned the army that Myan-mar would become isolated, she said, the answer was, We have to learn to walk with only a few friends.'

The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democ-racy in Myanmar, which for five decades had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation

and sanctions. As the gener-als loosened their grip, cul-minating in Suu Kyi's rise to power after 2015 elections, the international community responded by lifting most sanc-tions and pouring investing into the country.

Schraner Burgener said the army has been taken aback by the strong opposition, which has been led by young people.

I think that the army is very surprised that it doesn't work because in the past, in 1988 and 2007 and 2008, it worked, she said, referring to previous vio-lent crackdowns on uprisings against military rule.

Demonstrators have flooded the streets of towns and cities across Myanmar since last month's coup, even

though gatherings of five or more people are banned and security forces have repeatedly fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds to disperse the crowds, and arrested protesters en masse.

Wednesday's highest death toll was in Yangon, where an estimated 18 people died. Most if not all of the deaths occurred in the eastern neighborhood of North Okkalapa.

Stark video shot Wednes-day night at the main hospital there showed grieving relatives collecting the blood-soaked bodies of family members who were shot. Some relatives sobbed uncontrollably, while others looked in shock at the scene around them.

Protesters in Mandalay

flashed a three-fingered anti-coup salute on Thursday as they rode their motorbikes to follow a funeral procession for Kyal Sin, also known by her Chinese name Deng Jia Xi, a university student who was killed as she attended a dem-onstration on Wednesday.

The black hearse that car-ried her remains had a photo of her on the windshield, and the hearse was preceded by a truck full of floral bouquets. Many thousands of people attended.

In the central city of Monywa, which has turned out huge crowds of protesters on an almost daily basis, a memo-rial service was held Thursday before a protest march began. At least eight people were reported to have been killed on Wednesday.

According to multiple posts on social media, protests were also happening Thursday in Pyinmana, a satellite town of the capital Naypyitaw; Mying-yan in central Myanmar, where there was one death Wednes-day; Pathein, west of Yangon; and Myeik, near the country's southern tip.

As part of the crackdown, security forces have arrested well over a thousand people, including journalists, accord-ing to the independent Assis-tance Association for Political Prisoners. On Saturday, at least eight journalists, including Thein Zaw of The Associated Press, were detained.

He and several other mem-bers of the media have been charged with violating a public safety law that could see them imprisoned for up to three years. AGENCIES

Medical students display flags of the National League for Democracy party during an anti-coup demonstration in Mandalay, Myanmar, Thursday PTI

UK, four nations fast-track review of modified COVID-19 vaccines

LONDON: Regulators in the UK and four other countries have announced new rules to fast-track the development of modified COVID-19 vac-cines to ensure drugmakers can move swiftly to target emerging variants of the disease.

Previously authorized vac-cines that are modified to com-bat new variants will not need a brand new approval or lengthy' clinical studies, Britain's Med-icines and Healthcare Prod-ucts Regulatory Agency said Thursday.

The clear goal is that future vaccine modifications that respond to the new variants of Coronavirus can be made available in the shortest possi-ble time to UK recipients with-out compromising at any stage on safety, quality or effective-ness, Dr. June Raine, the head of the agency, said in a briefing for reporters.

The new guidance is based on the model already used to modify the seasonal flu vac-cine to keep up with annual changes in the virus and was issued jointly by regulators in the UK, Australia, Canada, Sin-gapore and Switzerland.

The US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency have issued similar guidance.

Under the new rules,

developers will be required to provide robust evidence that modified COVID-19 vaccines produce a strong immune response to the vari-ant, as well as data showing they are safe and meet quality standards.

This means developers will be required to carry out small-scale trials on a few hundred people, rather than the trials in tens of thousands of individu-als that were required for ini-tial approval, said Dr. Christian Schneider, the MHRA's chief scientific officer.

I'd like to emphasize that to date we don't have evidence that the vaccines in use in the UK are significantly lacking in effectiveness, Raine said.

The announcement comes amid concerns that the virus

that causes COVID-19 may mutate to create new variants that are resistant to existing vaccines. The UK has banned direct flights from 33 countries in an effort to prevent variants first discovered in Brazil and South Africa from becoming established in Britain.

Vaccine makers have already been developing booster shots to target the new variants.

Moderna said February 24 that it had shipped a variant-specific vaccine candidate to the US National Institutes of Health for review.

The Coronavirus pandemic has infected over 115 mil-lion people around the world and killed at least 2.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. AGENCIES

EU, Britain clash again in latest post-Brexit spat

BRUSSELS: The European Union said Wednesday that Britain's "unilateral action" on trade rules will breach inter-national law and is threaten-ing legal action as post-Brexit tensions continue to escalate between the two sides.

Commission vice-pres-ident Maro efcovic said in a statement that UK's decision to unilaterally extend a grace period on checks for goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland amounts to "a violation" of the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol.

The Protocol was designed to ensure an open border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic after Brexit.

"This is the second time that the UK government is set

to breach international law," efcovic said.

"This also constitutes a clear departure from the con-structive approach that has prevailed up until now."

The EU's anger was sparked by the British gov-ernment's decision to extend until October a grace period for checks on agri-food enter-ing Northern Ireland that was set to expire at the end of the month.

In September last year, the UK had already upset the 27-nation bloc when it consid-ered then backpedaled legisla-tion that would have given the Boris Johnson's government the power to override part of the Brexit withdrawal agree-ment relating to Northern Ireland. AGENCIES

Germany extends lockdown but paves way to

relax more rulesBERLIN: Germany is extend-ing its Coronavirus shutdown by three weeks until March 28, but easing some restrictions to allow nonessential stores and other businesses to reopen in areas with relatively low infec-tion rates.

After about nine hours of talks, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the governors of the country's 16 states agreed Wednesday to mea-sures aimed at balancing con-cern over the impact of more contagious Coronavirus vari-ants with a growing clamour for a return to a more normal life.

The first moves have already been made: many elementary students returned to school last week. And on Monday, hairdressers opened after a 2 1/2-month break. Current lockdown rules were set to run through Sunday.

On Wednesday, Merkel and the state governors -- who in highly decentralized Ger-many have the power to impose and lift restrictions -- set out a phased plan that allows for some further relaxation of restrictions.

"These should be steps toward opening but at the same time steps that do not set us back," Merkel told reporters in Berlin. "There are a great many examples in Europe of a dra-matic third wave."

She pledged that "spring 2021 will be different from spring a year ago."

Regions where infection rates are relatively low, though not as low as previously envi-sioned, will be able to open nonessential stores, museums and other facilities on a limited basis. AGENCIES

Powerful earthquake hits off northeast coast of New ZealandWELLINGTON: A shallow, powerful earthquake struck off the northeastern coast of New Zealand on Thursday, with officials warning of a pos-

sible tsunami threat. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or casualties.

New Zealand’s National

Emergency Management Agency said it was still assess-ing whether the quake had triggered a tsunami that could affect the country.

It measured the quake at magnitude 7.3.

It advised people near the coast to immediately move to high ground if they felt strong

or long shaking.The US Geological Sur-

vey said the quake measured a preliminary 6.9 magnitude and was centered at a depth of 10 kilometers (six miles)

about 178 kilometers (111 miles) northeast of the city of Gisborne.

Residents of Gisborne reported light to moderate shaking, it said.

A magnitude 6.3 quake hit the city of Christchurch in 2011, killing 185 people and destroying much of its down-town. AGENCIES

Myanmar protesters, undaunted by 38 killings, return to streets

New protests held in at least 3 areas of Yangon that have been scenes of violence

DELHI JAL BOARD: DELHI SARKAROFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE ENGINEER (N-II)

NEAR TRANSPORT AUTHORITY MAIN BURARI ROAD DELHI-84STOP CORONA-1 WASH YOUR HAND 2 WEAR MASK MAINTAIN SOCIAL DISTANCE"

NIT.No. 44 (Item No.1) (2020-21) E.E. (North)-II

S.No.

Name of work Estimated Cost (Rs.)

Date of release of tender in e- procurement

solution

Earnest Money Tender fee (Non

- refundable

Last date/time of receipt of

tender through e-procurement

solution

1 Providing and laying 450/500 mm dia sewer line from Trenchless Technology for making separate out fall for E,F,A,B and K-Block Model Town in AC-18, Model Town under E.E(North)-II. (Re- Invite). ID 2021_ DJB_ 200695_1

27,07,704/- 01.03.2021 03 P.M. onward

Exempted vide office memorandum No: F.9/4/2020- PPD and DJB endorsement No DJB/ 2020-21/Misc-II(PT)/971 Dated: 23.12.2020

500/- Technical bid will be received 22.03.2021, 3.00 PM & opening of Financial bid after completion of technical bid & confirmation of EMD from Bank.

Further details in this regard can be seen at https://govtprocurement.deihi.gov.inIssuded By PRO (Water) Sd/- S.K. SinghAdvt. No. J.S.V./2020-21/458 Executive Engineer (N)-II

1. The Executive Engineer HP.PWD Rohru Distt. Shimla H.P on behalf of Governor of H.P invites the online bids on item rates, in electronic tendering system, in 2 cover system for the under mentioned work from the eligible and approved contractors/firms registered with HP.PWD Department.

Sr. No.

Name of work Estimated cost

Starling Date for download-ing BID

E/Money Deadline for submission of BID

1 R/R damages to Nakanda Sidpur Bagi Khadrala Sungri Rohru Road km 0/0 to 67/0 (SH:-C/O R/wall in PCC 1 :3:6 at RD 66/674.9 to 66/688)

Rs.15,24,700/- 10-03-2021 1800 HRS

Rs.30,500/- 17-03-2021 1800 HRS

2 C/O Link road From Badiyara Manghara Pali Udhaypur road km 0/0 to 1/325 (SH:- F/C 5/7 mtr wide road at RD 0/0 to 0/360)

Rs.9,96,025/- 10-03-2021 1800 HRS

Rs.79,000/- 17-03-2021 1800 HRS

3 C/O link road to police Chowki at Tikkar km 0/0 to 0/570 (SH:- P/L G-ll, G-lll tarring work & V-shape drain, Parapets in km 0/0 to 0/570 and R/wall at RD 0/500 to 0/525, C/O 900 mm HPC dia at RD 0/140, 0/120 & 0/280)

Rs.3095388/- 10-03-2021 1800 HRS

Rs.46,500/- 17-03-2021 1800 HRS

The bidders are advised to note other details of tenders from the department website www.hptenders.gov.in. And any corrigendum uploaded in website. Executive Engineer,

B&R Divn. HPPWD, No 6276/2020-2021 Rohru.

HIMACHAL PRADESH PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT E-Procurement Notice

INVITATION FOR BIDS (IFB)

COURT NOTICE(U/o 5 Rule 20 CPC)(SUCCESSION CASE)IN THE COURT OF Nisha

Additional Civil Judge(Senior Division) Hansi

Next Date, Purpose of case, Orders and Judgements as well as other case information is available on

http://ecourts.gov.inRajbir S/o Dharampal S/o Budh Singh,

R/o Koth Kalan, Sub Tehsil Kheri Jalab, Hisar

Vs. General Public/Relatives

Petition regarding obtaining Succession Certificate of deceased Dharampal son of Budh Singh, R/o Koth Kalan, Sub Tehsil Kheri Jalab, Distt. Hisar who died on 07.07.2020.

CNR No. HRHSA0-000624-2020Next Date:-19-03-2021CIS No. SUCC/10/2020

Notice to: General Public/RelativesWhereas the petitioner Rajbir has filed the above petition before this Court for the grant of Succession Certificate regarding the assets left by the deceased Dharmpal who died on 07-07-2020.Notice is issued in the name of respondent(s) that in case anybody has any objection for the grant of succession certificate, he/she can file objections to the same on or before 19-03-2021 failing which the petition shall be decided in accordance with law.Given under my hand and the seal of the Court , this 04.03.2021.

Sd/- NishaAdditional Civil Judge(Senior Division)Dated 04-03-2021 Hansi

mp business � 9JET AIRWAYS RESOLUTION PROCESS

millenniumpost|NEW DELHI|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: With retail petrol and diesel prices going through the roof, India on Thursday again urged oil pro-ducers’ group OPEC to ease production curbs to fulfill their promise of stable oil prices.

Though the average price of crude oil India imports was less than $50 per barrel between April and December 2020 and comparable to 2019-20 average rate of $60.47 in months there-after, petrol and diesel prices are at a historic high now as the government has so far not rolled back the taxes it levied when prices plummeted almost a year back.

The record taxes coupled with international rates return-ing to pre-COVID levels on res-urrecting demand have meant that petrol has crossed Rs 100 mark in some places in Raj-asthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Speaking at the CERAWeek conference by IHS Markit, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said India, where fuel demand

is recovering to pre-pandemic levels, wants reasonable and responsible oil prices.

India, the world’s third-big-gest oil importer and consumer, had supported the decision of the oil producers’ cartel OPEC and its allies to cut produc-tion last year in view of the oil demand collapsing due to the spread of COVID-19.

“At that point in time, the producers especially OPEC assured the global market, that by the beginning of the 2021 demand will be coming back

and production will be as usual. But I am sorry to say the pro-duction is yet to be normal,” he said. “If you do not supply properly, if there is a gap in demand and supply artificially (created), there is a price rise.”

Crude has rebounded this year to over $62 per barrel after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (called OPEC+) slashed output to drive a rebalancing of the market following last year’s slump. The aggressive supply management has helped to

drain inventories while world-wide demand is recovering with the rollout of vaccines.

OPEC+ are meeting this week to decide on output policy.

Pradhan said, “it may suit some of our friends (in OPEC) but in emerging countries like India (where) our fiscal scope is very challenging... we need a reasonable price of our energy, responsible price of energy.”

Excise duty was raised by Rs 13 and Rs 16 per litre on pet-rol and diesel between March 2020 and May 2020 and now accounts for more than one-third of the Rs 91.17 a litre price of petrol in Delhi and 40 per cent of Rs 81.47 per litre rate of diesel.

The basket of crude oil India imported in Febru-ary averaged $61.22 per bar-rel and $54.79 in January this year. It had fallen to $19.90 in April last year and was between $40 and $49 during June and December.

India imports about 85 per cent of its oil needs and local retail rates are benchmarked

to international prices.Pradhan said the price of

oil should be affordable and one that does not pinch the treasury.

“I never support price col-lapse (of last year) and India supported production cuts,” he said. “But today, we expect the producing countries, espe-cially OPEC and its friendly countries, should do business as usual and (do) what they had promised. And out of that, responsible, reasonable price will come, which is not today.”

He said India will be forced to look for alternative energy if it is pushed to the wall.

“So for the balanced growth, for the benefit of all the stake-holders the price should be that where we can purchase it (and it) should not affect us, it should not affect my treasury,” he said.

Last month, Pradhan had conveyed to OPEC that ris-ing international oil prices are hurting economic recovery and demand. Demand recov-ery should take “primacy” over oil prices at least for the next few months, he had said.

Fulfill promise of stable oil prices: India to OPEC+ nations

Union Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said India, where fuel demand is recovering to pre-pandemic levels, wants reasonable and responsible oil prices

MUMBAI: Petrol price can go down to Rs 75 a litre across the country if brought under the ambit of the Goods and Ser-vices Tax (GST), but there is a lack of political will, which is keeping Indian oil product prices at one of the highest in the world, economists at SBI said on Thursday.

Diesel will come at Rs 68 a litre and the revenue loss for the Centre and states will be only Rs 1 lakh crore or 0.4 per cent of GDP, according to the calculation by the economists made under the assumption of global crude prices at $60 a barrel and exchange rate at Rs 73 per dollar.

At present, every state has its own way of taxing fuels, while the Centre also collects

its own duties and cess. Petrol prices have touched Rs 100 per litre in some pockets of the country and concerns are being expressed about the high taxa-tion which is making the fuels dearer. The SBI economists said bringing petrol and diesel under the goods and services tax is an unfinished agenda of the GST framework and getting the prices under the new indirect taxes framework can help.

“Centre and states are loathe to bring crude oil prod-ucts under the GST regime as sales tax/VAT on petroleum products is a major source of own tax revenue for them. Thus, there is lack of political will to bring crude under the ambit of GST, they said.

At present, states choose to levy a combination of ad valorem tax, cess, extra VAT/surcharge based on their needs and these taxes are imposed after taking into account the crude price, the transporta-tion charge, the dealer com-mission and the flat excise duty imposed by the Centre, they explained. Assuming for the crude prices and dollar rate, transportation charges at Rs 7.25 for diesel and Rs 3.82 for petrol, dealer commission of Rs 2.53 for diesel and Rs 3.67 for petrol, cess of Rs 30 for pet-rol and Rs 20 for diesel which will be divided equally between the Centre and states, and GST rate at 28 per cent, the econo-mists came at the final price estimates. PTI

‘Petrol price can come down to ̀ 75 if brought under GST’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: The winning bid-der for the now-defunct Jet Air-ways will have to apply for slots as there cannot be any deemed approval for the slots, accord-ing to submissions by the civil aviation ministry and regula-tor DGCA.

The Ministry of Civil Avi-ation (MoCA) and DGCA mentioned their stance to the National Company Law Tribu-nal (NCLT), which had on Feb-ruary 25 sought their responses to Jet Airways’ slots issue.

NCLT is considering the resolution plan submitted by Kalrock-Jalan Consortium for the airline. The plan has already been approved by the Commit-tee of Creditors (CoC).

Jet Airways shuttered oper-ations in April 2019 after run-ning out of cash and is currently a resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

According to the replies sub-mitted by MoCA and DGCA on Wednesday, they are not in prin-ciple objecting to the resolution plan but that there cannot be any deemed approval on the slots.

The resolution applicant should apply for slots and accordingly, approvals will be

granted, they added.The representative of Jet Air-

ways insisted on the principle of historicity to be followed by DGCA while granting the slots.

NCLT’s Mumbai bench, chaired by Mohammed Ajmal and V Nallasenapathy, directed the MoCA and DGCA and to file an affidavit regarding the slots.

The matter has been adjourned for next week. MoCA has temporarily given most of the slots of Jet Airways to other domestic airlines after it ceased operations in April 2019.

Ashish Chhawchharia, the resolution professional of the grounded airline, had told the bench that “slots are a vital part of the plan, and it is important that MoCA and DGCA submit their stance on the same.

Dhir and Dhir Associates’ Associate Partner Ashish Pyasi said generally, resolution appli-cants seek various concessions and relaxations from various compliances, approvals.

“The adjudicating authority while considering the resolution plan also considers whether the plan is in compliance with the existing laws or not and whether such relaxations can be granted or not. If the law provides for certain steps to be taken, then the adjudicating authority may not give any relaxations from such steps and may direct the applicant to take steps or approvals as per law,” he noted.

In the case of Jet Airways, to make it fully operational, vari-ous approvals will be required even after the resolution plan is approved, he added.

MoCA, DGCA say winning bidder must apply for slots

BHUBANESWAR: Steel-maker ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India) on Thursday inked an agree-ment with the Odisha gov-ernment for setting up a 12 mtpa integrated steel plant in Kendrapada district with an investment of Rs 50,000 crore, officials said.

Chief Minister Naveen Pat-naik and steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal were present during the signing of the Memoran-dum of Understanding (MoU) at Lokaseva Bhavan.

Mittal met Patnaik at his

residence Naveen Niwas ear-lier in the day and discussed his company ArcelorMittal’s proj-ects in the state, an official said.

The industrialist had met Union Steel Minister Dhar-mendra Pradhan in New Delhi on Tuesday. MPOST

ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India inks pact with Odisha to set up `50K cr steel plant

Union Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan

NEW DELHI: The Alumin-ium Association of India (AAI) on Thursday urged the govern-ment to provide support by notifying at least five per cent remission rate for the sector under tax refund scheme RoD-TEP to boost exports.

Giving relief to exporters, the government has decided to extend the benefit of tax refund scheme RoDTEP to all goods with effect from January 1, 2021. In March last year, the government approved the scheme for Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Prod-ucts (RoDTEP) for reimburse-ment of taxes and duties to exporters, with a view to give a boost to the country’’s dwin-dling outbound shipments.

“The aluminium indus-try seeks immediate support for notifying at least five per cent remission rate for alumin-ium sector under Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products scheme,” Alumin-ium Assocation of India (AAI) said in a representation to the government.

However, the pendency of notifying the sector-wise remission rates under RoD-TEP scheme is creating a precarious situation and uncertainty for Indian export-ers due to ambiguity with

Aluminium industry body AAI seeks incentive under RoDTEP scheme

regard to pricing of goods and thereby impacting Indian exports, it noted.

The situation for exporters has been further aggravated due to withdrawal of Merchan-dise Export from India Scheme and till date, exporters are unable to avail the MEIS ben-efit for exports already made during FY’’20 and FY’’21 (April to December) due to blocking of online MEIS module for applying for claims.

This has resulted in block-age of significant funds for the already stressed non-fer-rous metal sector exporters, it said. PTI

DUBAI: Abu Dhabi’s national carrier Etihad on Thursday reported core operating losses of $1.7 billion in 2020, reflecting the severe toll of the coronavirus pandemic on the long-troubled airline that has lost billions in recent years.

Etihad reported revenues of 2.7 billion in 2020 compared to $5.6 billion the year before, a precipitous decline it attributed to drastically fewer people trav-eling as the surging pandemic crippled air travel.

But the airline, one of the Middle East’s top carriers, strug-gled with financial losses long before the pandemic wiped out the global aviation industry.

Since 2016, Etihad has lost a total of $5.62 billion as it has aggressively bought up stakes in airlines from Europe to Asia to compete against the region’s other leading airlines, Dubai-based Emirates and Qatar Airways. With cost-cutting measures, the company was just starting to recover from

the economic pain early last year. It announced the sale of 38 aircraft to an investment firm in an attempt to bolster profits, in a deal valued at $1 billion.

Then, the pandemic struck. Last March, the United Arab Emirates halted flights to stem the spread of the virus. Passen-ger traffic plummeted to just 4.2 million travellers from 17.5 mil-lion the year before, the airline said. Total passenger capacity on planes dropped 64 per cent. The carrier lost $758 million over the first half of 2020 alone.

The losses rippled across the company, forcing the airline to cut 33 per cent of its workforce and slash salaries by 25-50 per cent. By comparison, Etihad lost $870 million in 2019. The airline reported losses of $1.28 billion in 2018 and $1.52 bil-lion for 2017.

While rollout of coronavi-rus vaccines has stoked hopes for a global return to travel, the industry is not expected to see meaningful recovery for months, until vaccines are widely administered. AGENCIES

Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways reports $1.7 billion loss in 2020

NEW DELHI: The wearables market in India posted a 144.3 per cent year-on-year growth in 2020 with 36.4 million unit shipment, as per research firm IDC.

India was the only coun-try in the top 20 to see triple-digit growth in wearables in the year 2020 and continues to be the third-largest wearables market globally, IDC said in a statement.

“This growth was majorly driven by the increasing accep-tance of earwear devices and upgrades to watches from wrist bands, both recording their highest annual shipments in

2020,” it added.The October-December

2020 period was the biggest quarter for the wearables cat-egory in the country, maintain-ing triple-digit growth. Overall, vendors shipped 15.2 million units in the said period, growing at 198.2 per cent year-on-year.

“2020 was a year of tran-sition in the audio segment from wired to wireless devices. In 2021, this category will fur-ther migrate to more sophis-ticated devices with enhanced audio experience being the central theme for all vendors,” IDC India Associate Research Manager (Client Devices) Jai-

pal Singh said.The high cost associated

with wearable watches is not much of a challenge anymore, he added.

Also, the watch form factor is now seen as more appealing to the consumers, and vendors will leverage this shift by further expanding their watch port-folio in the coming quarters, Singh said.

Earwear device shipments grew more than three-fold in 2020 to 30.4 million units over the previous year, mainly driven by affordable launches, and expanding use cases beyond entertainment like virtual meet-

ings and e-learning require-ments, IDC said.

Truly Wireless Ste-reo (TWS) devices were the top gainer seeing a ten-fold increase with shipments total-ling 11.3 million units in 2020.

The earwear segment accounted for 83.6 per cent of the overall wearable mar-ket in 2020. Boat emerged as the biggest player in the cate-gory, accounting for one-third of the category shipments. Samsung with its portfolio - including JBL, Harman Kar-don and Infinity - finished second with a 14.5 per cent share in 2020. PTI

‘India wearables market grows 144% to 36.4 mn units in 2020; 3rd largest globally’

JGLS NOW NO. 1 LAW SCHOOL IN INDIA

The Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) of O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) is now ranked 76 out of all law schools globally in the QS World University Rankings by Subject (Law) 2021. This makes JGLS the number one law school in India once again, and the only Indian Law School to be ranked this year. MPOST

ICA- T4994(3)/2021 ICA- T4996(3)/2021

ICA- T5000(3)/2021

ICA- T5004(4)/2021

ICA- T5006(4)/2021

ICA- T5008(4)/2021

ICA- T5002(3)/2021

mp business10 NEW DELHI|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpost

SERVICES MAY GET AFFECTED LATER IN MARCH DUE TO STRIKE: CANARA BANKNEW DELHI: Public sector lender Canara Bank on Thursday said that banking services may get af-fected later this month due to the proposed strike by several bank unions. “We have been informed by the Indian Banks’ Association that the United Forum of Bank Unions has given a call for strike in the banking industry on March 15 and March 16, for issues relating to industry level and not for any bank level issues,” Canara Bank said in a regulatory filing. Canara Bank said it is taking necessary steps for smooth function-ing of bank branches and offices on the days of the proposed strike.

FOXCONN FLAGS STRONG START TO YEAR AS LOCKDOWNS SPUR DEMANDTAIPEI: Apple supplier Foxconn said it expects first-quarter revenue to rise more than 15 per cent from a year earlier, boosted by strong iPhone sales and robust demand for electronics during lockdowns worldwide to curb the pandemic. The world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer has previously forecast strong demand for the new iPhone 12, saying its business will be supported by “stronger than expected” sales for smartphones and for telecommuting devices amid a coronavirus-induced work-from-home trend. Taiwan-based Foxconn, in a short statement on Thursday, said it expects consumer electronics revenue to rise more than 15 per cent in Q4 from a year earlier.

NON-BASMATI RICE EXPORTS INCREASE TO `26,058 CR DURING APRIL-JANNEW DELHI: The country’s non-basmati rice exports have increased to Rs 26,058 crore during April-January 2020-21 as against Rs 11,543 crore in the same period last fiscal, the commerce ministry said on Thursday. Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority Chairman M Angamuthu said several measures have been taken in terms of ensuring safety and hygiene while ensuring that rice exports continue uninterrupted. “During April January 2020-21, the shipment of non-Basmati rice witnessed an impressive spike. The non-basmati rice exports were Rs 26,058 crore ($3,506 million) during April-January 2021 against Rs 11,543 crore ($1,627 million) re-ported during April-January 2020 period,” it said.

BRIEFSBUSINESS

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India grew 40 per cent to $51.47 billion during April-December 2020-21, according to government data released on Thursday.

India has attracted 22 per cent higher FDI inflow (includ-ing re-invested earnings) of $67.54 billion during the first nine months of the current fis-cal as against $55.14 billion in the same period of 2019-20.

“FDI equity inflow grew by 40 per cent in the first nine months of 2020-21 ($51.47 bil-lion) compared to the year ago period ($36.77 billion),” the commerce and industry min-istry said.

The inflows increased by 37 per cent in the third quar-ter (October-December 2020) of 2020-21 to $26.16 billion.

In December, FDI surged 24 per cent to $9.22 billion, the data showed.

The measures taken by the government on the fronts of FDI policy reforms, invest-ment facilitation and ease of doing business have resulted in increased FDI inflows into the country, according to the ministry.

The foreign inflows are a major driver of economic growth and an important source of non-debt finance for the economic development of

India.“The steps taken in this

direction during the last six and a half years have borne fruit, as is evident from the ever-increasing volumes of FDI inflows being received into the country. Continuing on the path of FDI liberalisa-tion and simplification, gov-ernment has carried out FDI reforms across various sectors,” the ministry said.

MUMBAI: Just State Bank of India, HDFC and ICICI Bank will have to offload equity worth Rs 1.21 lakh crore if the cen-tral bank goes ahead with its reported plan to make banks cap their stakes in insurance arms at 20 per cent, says a report.

Quoting unnamed RBI officials, a media report earlier this week said the monetary authority is not comfortable with banks owning controlling stake in non-core businesses like insurance ventures which are capital guzzlers and wants banks to cap ownership in insurance arms/ companies at a maximum of 20 per cent.

It was also reported that the RBI recently approved Axis Bank’s plan to buy Max Life only after it agreed to directly hold only 10 per cent and also capped

the overall holding at 20 per cent. Current regulations allow banks to own over 50 per cent stake in insurance arms.

If the RBI forces promoter banks/NBFCs to lower their stakes to 20 per cent, this can significantly increase free float in the four listed insurance arms of HDFC, ICICI Bank and SBI worth Rs 1.2 lakh crore alone, Kotak Securities said in a report on Thursday.

HDFC owns 50 per cent

in HDFC Life and bringing it down to 20 per cent would mean offloading equity worth Rs 44,100 crore at today’s mar-ket value, while in case of ICICI Prudential Life which is 51 per cent owned by the bank, it will be Rs 22,100 crore worth of shares flowing into the mar-ket, and Rs 21,700 crore worth of shares from ICICI Lombard in which the bank owns 52 per cent. SBI which owns 55 per cent in SBI Life will have to sell shares worth Rs 32,200 crore.

The total value their excess holding is worth Rs 1,20,100 crore, says the report.

Almost all state-run banks and large private sector banks also have unlisted life and non-life insurance ventures.

Calling for maintaining the status quo, the report said banks

owning insurance companies has been a win-win for all and that there are many positives in that structure such as insur-ance stake sales have supported banks’ provisioning in challeng-ing times.

Large value unlocking in insurance companies have helped banks earnings in chal-lenging quarters and provide buffer against bad loans, says the report, adding HDFC and ICICI Bank have made large gains from stake sales in their life and general insurance arms and these gains were used to cre-ate provisioning buffers.

During FY16-18, HDFC used over 40 per cent of such gains to create provisions, and for ICICI Bank such capital gains contributed around 40 per cent of annual provision. PTI

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday termed the pendency of over 35 lakhs of cheque bounce cases as gro-tesque and suggested to the Centre to come up with a law to create additional courts for a particular period of time to deal with such cases.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said that Centre has the power under Article 247 of the Constitution coupled with the duty to establish additional courts to deal with cheque dis-honour cases under provisions of Negotiable Instruments (NI) Act.

Article 247 of the Constitu-tion gives power to Parliament to establish certain additional

courts for the better administra-tion of laws made by it or of any existing laws with respect to a matter enumerated in the Union List. The bench also compris-ing Justices L Nageswara Rao, B R Gavai, AS Bopanna and S Ravindra Bhat said, The pen-dency of cases that is rising due to NI Act is grotesque. You can make a law to create additional courts for a particular period of time to deal with such cases .

The top court suggested that Centre can appoint retired judges or any experts on the subject to deal with such cases.

The bench told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appear-ing for Centre, that the NI Act contribute to about 30 per cent of pendency of cases in

the judicial system and when the law was enacted no judicial impact assessment was done as required as per the law laid down by the top court. It said that if the impact assessment was not done when the stat-ute was enacted then why can-not it be done now and Centre can exercise its power provided under the Constitution.

The bench referred to pen-dency of cases in Bihar and said that thousands of bail matters

were pending in the courts of the state after the liquor prohi-bition Act was enacted.

Mehta, in a contrary stand taken earlier by the Union Finance Ministry stated that after discussion with high level officials about the suggestions of the court it can be said, “it is a welcome move”.

He, however, said though government is open to idea but more discussions are needed on the issue and they need to sort out some of the nitty-gritties involved in the matter.

The bench said that it is post-ing the matter for hearing on March 10 and asked the Solici-tor General to make the state-ment on the proposed law as it is the duty of the government

to create additional courts. We will proceed but we would like at the first instance to come from the government, the bench said, while referring to the view of the Centre. The top court was hearing a suo motu case to work out a mechanism for expedi-tious and just adjudication of cases relating to dishonour of cheques, fulfilling the mandate of law and reduce high pen-dency. It had earlier referred to a study on the pending cases and said it reflects backlog of more than 35 lakh and noted that dis-honour of cheque was criminal-ised in 1988 and the legislative intent was to “ensure faith in the efficacy of banking operations and credibility in transacting business on cheques.”

On Wednesday, the Finance Ministry had told the top court that creation of additional courts to deal with lakhs cheque bounce cases would not solve the problem of backlog of cases in the judiciary as most of them are stuck due to accused not appearing in the matter.

It had directed the Cen-tre to suggest the names of the members, secretaries or offi-cers from various departments for constituting a committee to come out with a solution to reduce the pendency of cheque bounce cases. The top court had said that it would be nec-essary to have a former Judge who has had wide ranging expe-rience as a trial judge, on the Committee. PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: Snapping its three-session winning run, bench-mark BSE Sensex plunged by around 599 points to crack below the key 51,000-level on Thursday due to heavy sell-ing in financial, energy and IT stocks amid a meltdown in global shares.

Asian and European mar-kets tumbled as another rise in US bond yields fanned fears of higher inflation that may prompt central banks to raise interest rates.

Intra-day, the 30-share BSE barometer fell as much as 905 points before ending the session at 50,846.08, showing a decline of 598.57 points or 1.16 per cent. Of 30 Sensex shares, 25 closed with losses.

The broader NSE Nifty closed down by 164.85 points or 1.08 per cent at 15,080.75 with 38 of its constituents end-ing in the red zone.

On the Sensex chart, HDFC, L&T, SBI, Axis Bank, Bajaj Fin-Serv and HDFC Bank were major laggards.

Mortgage major HDFC fell the most by 2.62 per cent. Bajaj Finserv dropped 2.49 per cent, SBI by 2.28 per cent, Axis Bank by 2.24 per cent, HDFC Bank

by 2.1 per cent and ICICI Bank by 1.73 per cent.

Larsen & Toubro declined by 2.31 per cent, NTPC by 1.6 per cent, Bharti Airtel by 1.24 per cent and Reliance by 1.17 per cent.

IT stocks Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, and TCS also saw losses of up to 1 per cent.

Over the previous three sessions, the Sensex had risen by 2,344.66 points or 4.77 per cent, while the Nifty had added 716.45 points or 4.93 per cent.

UltraTech Cement bucked the trend and rose by 4.07 per cent to become lead gainer among Sensex stocks.

DrReddy rose by 1.63 per cent, Asian Paint by 0.65 per cent while Maruti and HUL also advanced.

BSE Midcap index also advanced 0.48 per cent while Smallcap index rose by 0.80 per cent. But largecap followed the benchmark to end lower by 0.46 per cent.

Among sectoral indices, BSE metal emerged as the top loser with 2.31 per cent drop.

BSE finance declined 1.46 per cent and bank by 1.45 per cent. Of 19 sectoral indices, 11 ended in the red.

Foreign investors had bought equities worth Rs 2,088.70 crore on a net basis in Indian capital

markets on Wednesday, accord-ing to exchange data.

Among Asian markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 2.1

per cent and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell 2.2 per cent. The Shanghai Composite index dropped 2.1 per cent.

After 3-day winning spell, stock markets tank on heavy sellingOf 30 Sensex shares, 25 close with losses, while 38 constituents of Nifty end in red

Intra-day on March 4, 2021

KBK graphicsInfo

Intra-day on March 4, 2021

9am 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4 9am 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4

Previous close:

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Previous close:

51,444.65

Close:

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50,846.08Low:

14,980.20

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15,026.75

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NSE NIFTY BSE SENSEX

Low:

50,539.92-164.85

(-1.08%)

-598.57

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51,256.55

MUMBAI: The rupee ended 11 paise lower at 72.83 (pro-visional) against the US dollar on Thursday, weighed down by a rebound in the US dollar and muted domestic equities.

At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened at 72.99 against the greenback and witnessed an intra-day high of 72.62 and a low of 72.99.

It finally ended at 72.83 against the American cur-rency, registering a fall of 11 paise over its previous clos-ing. On Wednesday, the rupee had settled at 72.72 against the American currency.

The dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, advanced 0.27 per cent to 91.19.

Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the global oil bench-

mark, fell 0.34 per cent to $63.85 per barrel.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in the capital market as they purchased shares worth Rs 2,088.70 crore on Wednes-day, according to exchange data. MPOST

Rupee falls by 11 paise to 72.83 against dollar

KBK graphicsInfo(Inverted scale)

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FDI rises 40% to $51.47 bn in Apr-Dec 2020-21: Govt data

NEW DELHI: Chabahar Port will help Afghanistan and other countries in the region to bring down their logistics costs and develop a transit hub for con-nectivity between India and Eurasia, the government said on Thursday.

Located in Sistan-Balo-chistan province on the energy-rich Iran’s southern coast, the port is being developed by India, Iran and Afghanistan to boost trade ties.

Chabahar Port lies outside the Persian Gulf and is easily accessed from India’s western coast, bypassing Pakistan.

Chabahar Port is a joint effort of India, Iran and Afghanistan to support land-locked Afghanistan by giv-ing access to the open seas, optimising logistics cost by bringing in efficiency and cre-ate a reliable and safe trans-port corridor, Minister of Ports, Shipping and Water-ways Mansukh Mandaviya said while addressing a session organised to commemorate the Chabahar Day at Maritime India Summit 2021.

Further, the project also aims to develop a transit hub for close the connectivity

between India and Eurasia, he added.

“Chabahar Port is part of our shared commitment towards peace, stability, and prosperity of the people of Afghanistan,” Mandaviya said.

“The 21st century will not belong to the land. It will be a century of the sea, skies and space. In keeping with the high priority that we attach to enhancing regional con-nectivity between India, Cen-tral Asia and beyond,” he added

Sanjeev Ranjan, Secretary, Ministry of Ports of Shipping and Waterways, said the Mari-time India Vision 2030’s empha-sis is on boosting productivity, improving performance, con-nectivity and reducing logistics cost by adopting cost reductive processes.

The operationalisation of the Chabahar Port will help bring down the logistics cost for Afghanistan and the other countries in the region.

It will enable Afghanistan to boost its trade not only with India but also with other countries and greatly promote regional cooperation, the offi-cial said. MPOST

Chabahar Port to help Afghanistan, other nations reduce logistics cost: Govt

NEW DELHI: As many as eight firms raised over Rs 9,100 crore through retail issuance of non-convertible debentures in the first ten months of the ongo-ing fiscal to meet their business needs. In comparison, firms had garnered Rs 14,161 crore through this route in the April-January period of 2019-20.

Most of the funds have been mobilised to support lend-ing activities, working capital requirements and other general corporate purposes.

Non-Convertible Deben-tures (NCDs) are loan-linked bonds that cannot be converted into stocks and usually offer higher interest rates than con-vertible debentures. Accord-ing to the latest data available with markets regulator Sebi, eight entities mopped up funds totalling Rs 9,118 crore through retail issuance of NCDs in the current fiscal till January 2021.

The eight entities that raised funds are Muthoot Finance, Sakthi Finance, Kosamattam Finance, KLM Axiva Finvest, Muthoot Fincorp, Muthoottu Mini Financiers, Edelweiss Financial Services and Power Finance Corporation. PTI

Companies garner `9,100 cr through public issuance of NCDs in Apr-Jan

MUMBAI: After a growth mod-eration in FY21, Non-Bank Finance Companies (NBFCs) are estimated to witness a 9.5 per cent jump in their assets under management in FY22, a report said on Thursday.

Housing Finance Compa-nies (HFCs) will post a higher growth at 10 per cent as home sales go up, India Ratings and Research said, maintaining its “stable” outlook on both NBFCs and HFCs for FY22.

It estimated the growth to slowdown to 4-5 per cent for NBFCs and 6.5 per cent for HFCs in FY21, driven largely by the impact of the coronavi-rus pandemic.

The system liquidity has improved considerably while the majority of large non-banks have strengthened their capi-

tal buffers and the sector has started witnessing disbursement growth, the rating agency said.

The wide differential among NBFCs’ funding costs is likely to push the sector to consoli-date, especially in the sectors with a thin margin profile and limited product differentiation, it said, adding the strong regu-latory support in FY21 ensured adequate liquidity.

From an asset quality per-spective, wholesale NBFCs will face challenges in FY22, the agency said and maintained the negative outlook on such enti-ties. Stress due to the pandemic has moderated due to govern-ment schemes which have led to lower softer delinquen-cies and moderate addition to Gross Non-Performing Assets (GNPAs), it said, pointing out

that the overall stressed assets will be higher than a recent RBI estimate of 8 per cent.

The system-level stressed assets for NBFCs stood at 8 per cent on September 30, 2020 as per the RBI report, and between 1.5 to 3 per cent of the book would get restructured and an addition of up to 1.5 per cent will happen to be the GNPA, taking the overall stressed book to between 9.5-11 per cent, it estimated.

Many large NBFCs raised capital before COVID-19 and during the pandemic, result-ing in strengthened capital buf-fers to absorb the above stress along with carrying COVID-related provision. The credit cost will normalise for non-banks in FY22 as the provision hit was taken in FY21 itself. PTI

Asset growth at NBFCs, HFCs to jump in FY22, says report

NEW DELHI: WhatsApp on Thursday said it has rolled out one-to-one voice and video calls on its desktop app, a move that will now allow users to make calls through their laptops or desktop PCs.

The Facebook-owned com-pany said voice and video calls on the platform are end-to-end encrypted, and so WhatsApp can’t hear or see them whether the call is made from phones or computers.

“We’re starting with one-to-one calls on the WhatsApp desktop app so we make sure we can give you a reliable and high-quality experience. We will be expanding this fea-ture to include group voice and video calls in the future,” it added.

WhatsApp said there has been a significant increase in people calling one another on

WhatsApp over the last year and often for long conversations.

“Last New Year’s Eve, we broke the record for the most calls ever made in a single day with 1.4 billion voice and video calls. With so many people still apart from their loved ones, and adjusting to new ways of work-ing, we want conversations on WhatsApp to feel as close to in-person as possible, regardless of where you are in the world or the tech you’re using,” What-sApp said.

It noted that to make desk-top calling more useful, the company has made sure it works seamlessly for both portrait and landscape orientation appears in a resizable standalone win-dow on computer screens and is set to be always on top so users never lose video chats in a browser tab or stack of open windows. PTI

WhatsApp expands voice, video calling to desktop PCs

Cheque bounce cases: SC suggests Centre to enact law for creation of additional courts to deal with pendency

‘ICICI, HDFC, SBI will have to offload ̀ 1.2 lakh cr if RBI caps stake in insurance arms’

BERLIN: Airbus will make no forced redundancies in France, Germany and Brit-ain, the European planemaker said on Thursday, as it reached an agreement with a German trade union to protect jobs until the end of 2023.

A spokesman for Airbus, which has been hit hard by slumping demand for aircraft in the coronavirus crisis, said other measures - such as volun-tary redundancy programmes, early retirement or internal transfers - had been agreed instead.

Negotiations started later in Spain, the spokesman said.

Airbus has been strug-gling to reach targets to cut staff as part of a restructur-ing plan affecting up to 15,000 jobs, especially at its headquar-

ters in France and in German plants, sources had earlier told Reuters.

The IG Metall union and works council representing Airbus workers in Germany said they had agreed with the aircraft manufacturer on an overall package to safeguard employment and sites in the country until the end of 2023.

About 1,300 employ-ees at Airbus Germany and 1,000 at Premium Aerotec, a subsidiary that makes large plane components, took vol-untary redundancy between November and February, Hol-ger Junge, head of the group works council, told a news con-ference. “Production figures have stabilised,” Junge said. “But we have not overcome the crisis.” AGENCIES

Airbus to avoid redundancies in Germany, France, Britain

mp sports 11millenniumpost|NEW DELHI|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021

Ashwin and Axar bundle out England for 205

4TH TEST: INDIA TAKE CONTROL ON DAY 1

AHMEDABAD: England's batsmen lost the battle of both mind and skills in yet another shoddy performance to sur-render the momentum to India with Axar Patel and Ravichan-dran Ashwin calling the shots on the opening day of the fourth and final Test here on Thursday.

After five innings, England crossed the 200-run mark but a total of 205 in 75.5 overs was certainly not what Joe Root had expected when he called it right at the toss on a day which would have ideally been best for batting.

There was turn and bounce but the pitch was far from being a minefield that some of the England batsmen save Ben Stokes (55, 121 balls) made it out to be.

For India, spinners Axar Patel (26-7-68-4), Ravichan-dran Ashwin (19.5-4-47-3) and Washington Sundar (7-1-14-1) toyed with the already messed up minds, clueless on how to deal with the conditions.

Mohammed Siraj (14-2-45-2) also played his part to per-fection with the semi-new and old ball, hurrying the batsmen with sheer pace as he did with Jonny Bairstow.

India ended the day at 24 for 1 with wily old James Ander-son (5-5-0-1) accounting for an out-of-form Shubman Gill (0). Rohit Sharma (8 batting, 34 balls) and Cheteshwar Pujara (15 batting, 36 balls) were hold-ing fort for the home side.

A cursory look at the Eng-land line-up, loaded with an extra batsman, will reveal that four -- Stokes, Bairstow (28, 67 balls), Dan Lawrence (46 off 74 balls) and Ollie Pope (29 off 87 balls) got starts but failed mis-erably on the conversion part.

The others came in and went without breaking a bead of sweat. It was as if already in

their minds, they were playing on a track they thought would turn square.

Stokes was a cut above the rest both in defence and offence before a moment's indecision cost him his wicket.

Washington angled one in and Stokes was on backfoot after initially trying to come forward preempting an off-break. The ball didn't turn and hit the back leg with clear indi-cation of crashing into the leg stump. Stokes' dismissal, after a good show, upset the team's rhythm just when it was look-ing to redeem itself after a poor first session.

Similarly for Lawrence, who was ready to play the attack-ing game, and Pope, intent on using his footwork to defend while negating the turn. There was always going to be a deliv-ery with their name written all over it.

In case of Lawrence, he was beaten by the away turn when

he danced down the track only to be stumped.

In case of Pope, the strat-egy that kept him on course brought about his downfall.

He came out when Ashwin changed the line of his delivery, dropping it a bit short and the attempted flick went between his legs and Gill had a reflex catch at forward short leg.

Patel, whose straight deliv-eries have scarred the English batsmen, was again menacing in the first session with Siraj giving him good support.

Stokes and Bairstow, during their 48-run stand, showed that if one can trust their defences, batting wasn't impossible.

Both played the spinners close to their body on most occasions and especially on the front-foot.

But on a track like this, no batsman would feel completely set and that's what happened with both Bairstow and Stokes.

The first hour of the match

showed that England's younger lot is still feeling the after-effects of the demoralising 'Pink Ball' loss.

Brought into action as early as in the sixth over, Patel bowled an arm ball which had Dom Sibley (2) leaving a huge gap between bat and pad, trying to play for the spin. The result was an inside edge onto the stumps. Zak Crawley (8) felt that the easiest way to survive was to attack Patel. He got a boundary but then jumped out and lofted the spinner without getting to the pitch of the delivery.

The result was a simple catch to Siraj stationed at mid-off, who didn't even have to move an inch from his position.

Joe Root (5), who went off the boil post his double hun-dred in the first game, got a peach of an inswinger from Siraj, which had him caught plumb in-front, leaving his team at 30 for 3 inside the first hour. AGENCIES

Patel (26-7-68-4), Ashwin (19.5-4-47-3) & Sundar (7-1-14-1) toyed with already messed up minds, clueless on how to deal with conditions

Indian spinner Axar Patel (2R) celebrates with teammates after dismissing England batsman Dominic Sibley (unseen), during first day’s play of the 4th and last test match of the series between India and England, at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Thursday PTI

Neeraj in line for bronze, 4 other Indians lose in

Rome eventROME: India's Greco Roman wrestler Neeraj kept himself in contention of a bronze medal in the 63kg but four of his com-patriots lost on the opening day of the UWW Ranking Series event here on Thursday.

Neeraj began by losing his quarterfinal 1-4 to Sultan Aseetuly but since the Kazak-shtan's wrestler reached the final, he got a repechage round.

Making the most of the chance, Neeraj defeated Rus-sia's Aleksei Tadykin 7-3 to book himself a slot in the bronze play-off, in which he will clash with America's Sam-uel lee Jones. AGENCIES

Swiss Open: Sindhu, Srikanth & 2 other Indians enter quarters, double delight for Satwik

BASEL: Olympic silver med-allist P V Sindhu and former champion Kidambi Srikanth advanced to the quarterfinals of the singles competition along with two other Indians at the Swiss Open badminton tourna-ment here on Thursday.

While Sindhu and Sri-kanth had contrasting wins, Ajay Jayaram and last edition's runners-up B Sai Praneeth too dished out superlative perfor-mances to make it to the last-eight in the Super 300 event, the first tournament in the extended Olympic qualifica-tion period.

It was double delight for young Satwiksairaj Rankireddy also as he progressed to the quarterfinals in both the mixed doubles and men's doubles competitions with respective partners Ashwini Ponnappa and Chirag Shetty.

World champion Sindhu hardly broke any sweat, beating USA's Iris Wang 21-13 21-14 in women's singles, while former world number one Srikanth notched up a 21-10 14-21 21-14 victory over world number 50 Thomas Rouxel of France in their respective men's singles

second round matches.Jayaram eked out a hard-

fought 21-18 17-21 21-13 against third seed Dane Ras-mus Gemke.

Praneeth, an Olympic hopeful, later saw off Spain's Pablo Abian 21-12 21-17 to join others in last eight.

Satwik and Ashwini, who had reached the semifinals at Toyota Thailand Open Super 1000 in January, defeated the Indonesian combination of Rinov Rivaldy and Pitha Han-ingtyas Mentari 21-18 21-16 in

a mixed doubles second-round match.

Satwik and Chirag, ranked 10th in the world, then dashed the challenge of Indonesia's Pramudya Kusumawardana and Yeremia Erich Yoche Yacob Rambitan 21-17 20-22 21-17 to also make it to the last eight.

While second seed Sindhu meets fifth seeded Thai Busanan Ongbamrungphan next, fourth seed Srikanth, who had won the title in 2015, faces sixth seeded Thai Kantaphon Wangcharoen.

Jayaram will be up against another Thai Kunlavut Vitid-sarn, seeded eighth, and Pra-neeth will cross swords with second seed Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia in the last-eight stage.

Satwik and Ashwini will meet fifth-seeded Malaysians Tan Kian Meng and Lai Pei Jing, while Satwik and Chirag will also be up against another fifth seeded Malaysian com-bination of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi.

Sourabh Verma had a rough day as he lost 17-21 14-21 to Vitidsarn to crash out of the men's singles event.

Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy too were ousted after losing 11-21 15-21 to Denmark's Amalie Magelund and Freja Ravn in the women's doubles second-round.

On Wednesday night, two-time former champion Saina Nehwal had bowed out of the tournament after a hard-fought first-round loss in the women's singles. The London Olympic bronze-medallist battled for 58 minutes before going down 16-21 21-17 21-23 to Phittayaporn Chaiwan of Thailand. AGENCIES

Dhoni in Chennai; CSK training camp for IPL-2021 likely from March 9

CHENNAI: Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has landed here to take part in the team's training camp likely to begin on March 9 in the lead-up to the upcom-ing season of the Indian Pre-mier League (IPL).

The former India captain arrived here late on Wednes-day and will serve a five-day quarantine.

CSK tweeted a picture of Dhoni at the airport and wrote: "Thalai-Vaa! Smile with the Mass(k) on! Super Night! #DenComing #WhistlePodu #Yellove."

Former India batsman Ambati Rayudu also reached Chennai on Wednesday while

the Tamil Nadu players in the squad will be joining a little later.

"First #Dencoming of the summer from across the bor-der is Manavaadu Bahubali!!! #Yellove #WhistlePodu," CSK posted with a photo of Rayudu.

The camp is likely to get underway from March 9, CSK CEO K S Viswanathan said, adding the players who are available would take part in it.

"Yeah...the camp is likely to start from March 9. Whoever is available would take part in the training sessions," he told PTI.

"The players will undergo five-day quarantine before they start training. Also, they will have to return three negative

tests...," he added.The Indian players in the

CSK will be a part of the camp, he said, adding they would be arriving in batches.

The schedule and venues for the 14th edition of IPL have not been confirmed yet.

CSK, during the recent mini auction earlier this year, picked up England all-rounder Moeen Ali for Rs 7 crore, apart from Karnataka all-rounder K Gowtham (for Rs 9.25 crore) and Chetesh-war Pujra (Rs 50 lakh). It also roped in a few others including Tamil Nadu batsman C Hari Nishaanth, Harishankar Reddy and Bhagath Varma (all for Rs 20 lakh). AGENCIES

PSL postponed after 3 more

cricketers test +ve for COVID-19

KARACHI: The Pakistan Super League was on Thurs-day postponed with immediate effect after three more cricket-ers tested positive for COVID-19, taking the total number of cases in the T20 event to seven and prompting the cricket board to announce an inquiry into the fiasco.

Out of the seven cases, six are players while one is a support staff member.

"Following a meeting with the team owners and consider-ing the health and wellbeing of all participants is paramount, the Pakistan Cricket Board has decided to postpone the HBL Pakistan Super League 6 with immediate effect," the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said in a statement.

"The decision was made after seven cases were reported in the competition, which had started on 20 February."

PCB CEO Wasim Khan said an inquiry will be con-ducted to understand what went wrong. AGENCIES

Pollard hits 6 sixes in an over as Windies beat Sri Lanka

COOLIDGE (Antigua): Sri Lanka leg-spinner Akila Dan-anjaya experienced the pre-cipitous highs and lows of Twenty20 cricket when he claimed a hat trick which included the wicket of West Indies star Chris Gayle for a first-ball duck, then was hit for six sixes in an over by Kei-ran Pollard in the first interna-tional in Antigua.

The West Indies on Wednesday won the match by four wickets with 41 balls in hand, finishing with 134-6.

Dananjaya became only the 15th player and the fourth Sri Lankan to take a T20 inter-national hat trick when he dis-missed Evin Lewis (28), Gayle

and Nicholas Pooran (0) with consecutive deliveries in the fourth over.

He had little time to reflect on his new-found fame when it turned to notoriety: in his next over he was hit to all parts of the ground by Pol-lard, who become only the

second player after Yuvraj Singh to hit six sixes in an over in a T20 international and the third player to achieve the feat in all international formats.

Yuvraj did so from Eng-land's Stuart Broad in the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007 and had to wait 14 years for company.

Pollard said he thought six sixes was a possibility "after the third one."

"I just had to come out and back myself," he said.

"It was something the team needed. I didn't see the hat trick, I only heard. But I still had to come out and do what the team required at that point in time." AGENCIES

Indian women's hockey team ends

Germany tour with 1-2 defeat

DUSSELDORF: The Indian women's hockey team ended its tour of Germany with yet another defeat, going down 1-2 in the fourth and final match here on Thursday.

Naomi Heyn (29th) Char-lotte Stapenhorst (37th) scored for the world number three side before Lalremsiami (51st) pulled one back for the visi-tors late in the game. It was India's fourth defeat in as many matches as the team stayed winless in the tour. After rain delayed the start of proceed-ings, Germany found a lively tempo to their attack and earned a penalty corner with ten minutes on clock. AGENCIES

Barcelona rally late, return to Copa del Rey finalMADRID: Two weeks ago, Gerard Piqu and Antoine Griezmann were heatedly argu-ing with each other in a big loss to Paris-Saint Germain in the Champions League that deep-ened Barcelona's crisis.

On Wednesday, the two were celebrating together after Griezmann set up Pique's stop-page-time goal that allowed Barcelona to reach the Copa del Rey final.

Pique's goal helped secure a 3-2 aggregate victory over Sevilla, easing some of the pressure on the embattled club that two days saw for-mer president Josep Maria Bartomeu get arrested by Cat-alan police investigating pos-sible irregularities during his administration.

Sevilla won the first leg 2-0 but Piqu 's header four minutes into stoppage time

forced extra time before Mar-tin Braithwaite netted the win-ner to send Barcelona into its ninth Copa del Rey final in 11 seasons.

"Piqu showed that he is one of the leaders of this team," Bar-celona coach Ronald Koeman said.

"He is good on set pieces and it was a great cross for a goal in a very important moment."

Goalkeeper Marc-Andr ter Stegen had kept Barcelona in it by saving a 73rd-minute penalty kick that would have practically ended the team's chances of advancing.

Ousmane Demb l opened the scoring early for Barcelona, which will be trying to win a record 31st Copa title.

"We believed until the end," Barcelona defender Jordi Alba said. AGENCIES

mp entertainment12 NEW DELHI|FRIDAY, 5 MARCH, 2021|millenniumpost

In an exclusive interview, dancer-actor Nora Fatehi revealed the pain behind her struggles that she had to

go through in Bollywood along with the bullying and the rejection she faced. She shared that she was too excited to make it in the entertainment industry.

“I thought it was going to be like a high-level lifestyle because I’m going to Bollywood,” she said.

She added, “It was nothing like that. I had the biggest shock of my life, the big-gest slap in the face.”

She also talked about meeting vicious people, who stole her passport, after which she was deported. She had to go back to Canada and people laughed at her and asked why she went to India in the first place. She then revealed that she went back to India and fought and learned the language.

“And you are going to meet people who are going to laugh at you on the way, whenever you try to speak. That happened to me all the time,” she said.

Fatehi further spoke about the chal-lenges she faced while learning Hindi

and how people would laugh at her. She said that she spent hours and months with her Hindi diction coach and he would uplift her, saying she was so good.

However, whenever she would go to an audition and they would know she is not Indian. They asked her whether she would be able to say the lines in Hindi. When Nora tried, they would laugh during the take and high-five each other.

“It feels like the minute the door’s opening, it is closing again. That is what I went through for five years con-stantly. If it was not the language, it was the fact that I’m not Indian,” concluded Nora. AGENCIES

MUMBAI: After the suc-cess of ‘Scam 1992: The Har-shad Mehta Story’, Production house ‘Applause Entertainment’ announced that it will be launch-ing a second season in the pop-

ular franchise, which will next feature the story of

the 2003 ‘Stamp Paper Fraud’ by Abdul

Karim Telgi.Tentatively

titled ‘Scam 2003: The Curi-

ous Case of Abdul Karim Telgi’, the show

will be adapted from the Hindi book ‘Reporter Ki Diary’, which has been authored by jour-nalist and news reporter Sanjay Singh and who is also credited with breaking the story of the scam back in the time.

Like ‘Scam 1992’, which is currently streaming on ‘SonyLIV’, the new chapter will also be released on the digital platform.

‘National Award’ winner Hansal Mehta will return to direct the second season.

The upcoming series prom-ises to be an intriguing watch as it will capture the life of Telgi, born in Khanapur in Karna-taka and his journey to becom-ing the mastermind behind one of India’s most ingenious scams spread across multiple states which shook the entire country. It is estimated that the scam value was allegedly around Rs 20,000 crores.

Kiran Yadnyopavit, known

for his work in Marathi films like ‘Natsamrat’ and ‘Hutatma’, has been tapped to write and develop the story along with the author.

“The new season of this fran-chise will focus on another rivet-ing story that shook the country a few years ago - the stamp paper scam. I am looking forward to collaborating again with teams ‘Applause’, ‘SonyLIV’ and ‘Stu-

dioNEXT’, the partners who think alike and encourage cre-ative thought,” said Hansal.

Sameer Nair, CEO, ‘Applause Entertainment’, said, “ ‘Scam 1992’ has helped to establish a solid ground for the ‘Scam’ fran-chise where we aim to tell stories about the various scams that our country has witnessed, the people behind it, their motivations and machinations.

“The success of ‘Scam 1992’ endorsed our belief about the audiences’ interest in such sto-ries. We are extremely thrilled to announce ‘The Telgi Story’ as the next season. There is some great potential we see in this story and are delighted to partner once again with ‘StudioNEXT’, ‘SonyLIV’ and Hansal Mehta in taking forward this franchise,” he added.

Shooting on the series will begin later this year. PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Reflecting on inspiring journeys and victo-rious lives of women

achievers who take on multi-ple roles with élan, ‘The Impe-rial’ will celebrate ‘Women’s Week’ from March 7 to March 14, 2021, for #IWD2021. The week will feature a small trib-ute to some of the women who have been iconic in their own right and will honour those who make a difference in our lives each day.

The chefs will curate a decadent dessert section for the ‘Sunday Brunch’ at ‘1911 Restaurant’ featuring deli-cious bakes, cupcakes and home-made desserts dedi-cated to women diners dur-ing the 7-day event.

The ‘Spice Route’ and ‘San Gimignano’ restaurants will welcome the women din-ers with complimentary mocktails from March 8 till 14. These are

named after some of the prominent women achievers of India like Suchita Salwan, Founder and CEO, ‘Little Black Book’; Vedika Bhan-darkar, Managing Director, ‘India, Water.org’; Manasi Joshi, Para badminton player and Monika Shergill, Direc-tor of International Origi-nals, ‘Netflix India’, as listed by ‘Forbes India W-Power list: Self Made Women 2020’.

‘The Imperial’ lobby will have a floral installation

‘Choose to Chal-lenge’ that will depict

women power.Vijay Wanchoo, Senior

Executive, Vice President and General Manager, ‘The Imperial’, New Delhi said, “Women are truly spectacu-lar and have been nurturing this world since time imme-morial. It is now time to hon-our their contribution and be grateful for their existence as they surmount personal and professional challenges.”

“Even at ‘The Imperial’, we have women almost in each of our departments and we are thankful for their support in making this hotel one of the top luxury hotels in Asia. This commemoration on the occasion of Women’s Day is a small token of gratitude from ‘The Imperial’ family,” he added.

The Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts is all set to welcome back the

theatre lovers as it will stage its upcoming play ‘Giraftari’ on March 5.

The play, which is an adap-tation of Franz Kafka’s popular novel ‘The Trial’, will be the first to be staged at the ‘SRC’, Mandi House since the COVID-19 induced lock-down on March 25.

“All government guidelines, including wearing of masks and spaced-seating, will be followed during the staging of the play,” stated the organiser.

The play is a debut production of ‘Rama

Theatre Natya Vidya’ (RATNAV) in collaboration with the Austrian Embassy, the Austrian Cultural Forum and the Embassy of the Czech Republic.

“Both countries have been brought together by their love and deep historical connection with Kafka’s life and legacy. This Hindi play will also have a unique online showcase as it is a treat for lovers of both Hindi literature and Kafka’s work. This endeavor also brings together the international lit-erary works and the diverse folk arts and artists of India.

Later on, ‘RAT-NAV’ aims to showcase the play in Aus-tria and The Czech Republic as well,” said Rama Pandey, director of the play and founder ‘RATNAV’.

Written during 1914-15 and originally titled ‘Der Procez’ in

German, ‘The Trial’ has been a touchstone of 20th-century critical interpretation with sub-ject experts even considering it a ‘mirror for any sectarian reading’.

Set in contemporary Delhi, the play is a story of a common man, who has been alien-ated by society. AGENCIES

‘Scam S2’ to explore 2003 Telgi stamp paper fraud

The show will be adapted from the Hindi book ‘Reporter Ki Diary’, which has been authored by journalist and news reporter Sanjay Singh

She also revealed about meeting vicious people, who stole her passport, after which she was deported

Raveena Tandon said that she is excited for her digital debut ‘Aran-yak’ due to its interesting script and

also stated her kids’ reason of joy was that their mother will be seen on streaming giant Netflix’s show.

The 46-year-old actor described ‘Aran-yak’ as an intriguing series that traces the journey of her character, cop Kas-turi Dogra.

“Kasturi Dogra has incredible strength. It is not that she is trying to level herself in a man’s world, but the way she proves herself better than anyone else, that is what attracted me to the show and the charac-ter,” she said.

“Being associated with the ‘Netflix’ family is a joy. Even my kids are excited and tell me, ‘Mom you are going to be on ‘Netflix’!’ It is a cool thing for them. I have enjoyed the experience,”

added Tandon.Produced by ‘Roy Kapur Films’

and ‘Ramesh Sippy Entertainment’, ‘ Aranyak’ features Tandon as a cop who joins hands with her city-bred replacement Angad (Parambrata Chatterjee) when a foreign teenage tourist disap-pears in a Himalayan town. The series is directed by Vinay Vyakul. AGENCIES

Raveena is excited for her ‘Netflix’ series ‘Aranyak’

The Imperial to make this women’s week special

She describes ‘Aranyak’ as an intriguing series that traces the journey of her character, cop Kasturi Dogra

The Russo Brothers are ready to team up for ‘The Gray

Man’. The new production will star actors Ryan Gos-ling, Chris Evans,

Ana De Armas, Dhanush, Wagner Moura, Jessica Henwick and Julia Butters and it is set to kick off in Los Angeles in two weeks, reported ‘Deadline’.

According to a new source, the team locked another three actors ahead of the start of the shoot - Bridgerton’s breakout star Regé-Jean Page, Billy Bob Thornton and Alfre Woodard.

While the details of their roles were under wraps, the source stated that the new project will fall under the action-thriller genre.

As per a report, ‘The Gray Man’ is based on a 2009 novel of the same name by Mark Greaney. It revolves around an assas-sin and former CIA opera-tive, which will be essayed by Ryan Gosling. He will be hunted by

Lloyd Hansen to be played by Chris Evans.

Apart from signing for ‘The Gray Man’, Page also signed Paramount’s untitled ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ movie. AGENCIES

Page comes on board for ‘The Gray Man’

Shri Ram Centre to stage ‘Giraftari’ on March 5

Being associated with the ‘Netflix’ family is a joy. Even my kids are excited. it’s a cool thing for them, she says

Nora Fatehi on her struggles in Bollywood

Nora talks about bullying and the rejection she faced in the industry

‘I had the biggest shock of my life’